The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

Burning the Candle

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How.       .       .

H   O   W           D   O           Y   O   U           D   O           I   T ? 

How   do   you

B U R N      Y O U R      C A N D L E ?

Some do it in the most unconventional way.       .       .

t  h  e  y

actually light their candle

by putting a little dancing flame

on the tip of a small wick

that accepts it gratefully

and in return for the gift,

sputters out some warmth and light.       .      .

But how do you burn your candle?

One  End?

Both  Ends?

In   the   Middle?

You don’t burn your Candle at all.       .       .

you use it as a Decoration?

There have been countless studies on how to avoid burn out.         .         .

maybe the greatest way to avoid  Burn-Out

is simply never to Light the Candle at all

.           .          .but who wants to live in that

c o l d    d a r k n e s s ?

Apparently.        .        .

a whole host of folks.        .        .

Y     O     U ?

The only true way to

Burn    Your    Candle

i s

Both   Ends   and   in   the   Middle

AS     LONG     AS     YOU     KNOW    

WHERE     TO     GET     THE     WAX     AND     THE     WICK

Pssssssssst:  We all know where  OUR  wax and wick are.        .        .

we just don’t take the time to go and get it!

In fact,

most have the audacity to actually think

it should be delivered to them on time,

without even ordering

or slowing down long enough

to receive the special shipment.

So the next time someone prescribes the ultimate antidote for Burn Out by

FINDING   TIME   TO   DECOMPRESS

TAKING   FREQUENT   BREAKS   THROUGH  OUT   THE   DAY

WATCHING   WHAT   YOU   EAT   AND   DRINK

EXERCISING.      .      .EVEN   MODERATELY 

GETTING   PLENTY   OF   REST   AND   SLEEP

INVESTING   SIGNIFICANTLY   IN   RELATIONSHIPS

SETTING   LIMITS   AND   NOT   CHOOSING   TO   DIE   ON   EVERY   HILL

PAYING   ATTENTION   TO   HOW   YOU   REALLY   FEEL   AND    W H Y

Part of not only  b e i n g

 but by maintaining

the honorable status of a Caring Catalyst

is not just recognizing,

but actually taking just a few mere seconds to

burn a little bit brighter

burn a little bit warmer

by going to get

YOUR WAX

YOUR WICK

to burn the Candle at both ends and in the Middle

W   H   E   R   E  ?

Simply to  that  place

that makes your Heart beat differently

that makes your Soul glow

that makes your Spirt soar

Shhhhhhhhhhhh.     .     .

How long has it been?

Has it even been with what you are currently doing?

Is  it  just  your  hobby?

.          .          .and you want to know the truest reason for Burn-Out?

Ask the Composer

who never put never fingers to keyboard

Ask the Artist

who never dabbed brush to canvas

Ask the Writer

who never put pen to paper

Ask the Sculptor

who never put chisel to marble or hand to clay

.        .      .the   flame   never   brought   to   wick.       .       .       

Want to end Burn Out ?

FIND   YOURSELF   AND

D O

B E

Y O U R

T R U E S T

I  T

and  experience  

a  light  and a  warmth

unrivaled but  n o n e:

Y          O          U          R      ‘     S

Be more of

 Y  O  U  R      S  T  O  R  Y 

and less of

T  H  E  I  R     S  T  U  F  F .       .       .  

Ain’t it grand

Ain’t it majestic

Ain’t it glorious

Ain’t it perpetual ?

Pssssssssst: This is one thing you can bet your life on.     .     .

or

burn out!

Why be a

G    L    I    M    M    E   R

when  you  can  be  a

G           L           O           W

.        .       .        ?

Sharing Your Best Medicine

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When’s the last time you’ve had a good laugh?

When’s the last time you’ve caused one?

One of the highlights of 2016 for me so far happened in February

I became a Certified Laughter Leader

by attending the World Laughter Tour Workshop

under the direction of the fantastic funny man

Steve Wilson

You want to know what I noticed

but haven’t always recognized:

L A U G H T E R      I S     R E A L L Y     G O O D     F O R     Y O U

Really, Really good!

(EVEN    IF    YOU    FAKE    IT)

Hey.     .     .

Don’t believe me?

G       O       O       G       L       E  :

WHAT   HAPPENS   PHYSIOLOGICALLY   WHEN   YOU   LAUGH

You’ll activate an Amusement Park inside your body

From your Brain

to your Muscles

to your lungs

to your heart

to your tear ducts

to your endorphin explosion release

to your reduction of pain center activation

You’ll make any local Pharmacy

more jealous than a Sea Shore without an Ocean

I’ve always believed the cliche:

L A U G H T E R    I S    T H E    B E S T    M E D I C I N E

but the best antidote for the

blues

sadness

blahs

cloudy days

senses of impending doom 

or just all out 

y u c k   days

is  not  just  laughing

but laughing with someone else

(go ahead–try to hate someone you laugh with)

or

better still—

making someone else laugh

Hey.      .      .

Did you hear the one 

a b o u t.       .       .       .

Excuse me.     .     .

THE   THREE   STOOGES  are  on

“Niagara Falls.     .     .Slowly I turn.     .     .Step by Step.     .     .     .”

The Candle Maker’s Pledge

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Unknown

Barely 50+ hours into the New Year. How’s it going?

Wait. . .Did you expect Resolutions Made = Resolutions Accomplished? It’ll take just a little bit more time, commitment and persistence.

Would it be alright if we took a Lesson from my book, The Candle Maker? For the next 28 days in the morning, afternoon and evening would you recite, out loud the Candle Maker’s Pledge?

Give this a try. You only need 95 seconds, three times a day; 4 minutes and five seconds total.

REPEAT:

With unlimited wick and wax, burnout is burnt out. . .so I will remain perpetual. I am not tired or tiring. I am potent and energizing. YES! I am extremely happy and joyous.

My face only know the contentment of a smile. My lips only know how to curve upwards. My nose only smells the fragrance of sweet success. My eyes only search out and expect to see good things.

I cannot be defeated today. I cannot be be let down or disappointed. It is utterly impossible for me to be all used up in this day no matter what happens to me or how often it happens. I am a cup that cannot be emptied, only over and ever flowing!

I intimately know the Candle Maker. I am privileged enough to be always where he stores wax and wick.

I can forever this day, burn profusely at both ends and especially in the middle of the candle without interruption or sputter because I am never without perpetual amounts of wax and wick.

Though others around me will tire and grow weary, I will only get stronger, brighter, more steady and intense as the day lightens into dusk, then a darkness for me to illuminate.

This day, I can neither be snuffed out or burnt up. I am already eternal. I will insure my immortality this day, and all others I am gifted to receive by glowing, guiding, and giving endlessly.

I will burn. YES! Give Light. YES! Provide warmth and all through the day and long into the darkening night. I will leave nothing that the day or night can offer. I have been supplied mightily. My wax and wick have no end. Because the source is so close, so all giving, and in so many locations, I am no match to any darkness this day or ever.

YES! My wax and wick are ceaseless and darkness knows me not!

Don’t Resolve. . .C O M M I T to the Candle Maker’s pledge for the next 28 days, 4 minutes a day.

You just may get a little bit brighter, warmer, illuminated and enlightened. . .and definitely not dimmer!

WHOLE BROKENNESS

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Unknown

Have you heard the story? Ok, maybe it’s more of a legend…but it’s really a timeless legend, now of OUR Time.

It was Christmas Eve 1818 and a small church in Austria had gathered together for their Candle light services. Tragedy struck. The organ was broken. It was discovered that, Church mice, literally had eaten through the bellows the organ and it was rendered useless.

No Music on Christmas Eve Candle light services?

[Read more…]

L I G H T: Is Always In Season

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Menorah

The Season of Lights. . .does it ever end?

Maybe the real question is: DO YOU LET IT?

Light is always in Season…no Season exists without it.

Let’s prove it. Do YOU a favor. For the next 30 days, three times a day, once in the morning, afternoon and then before bed, repeat the following from, The Candle Maker.

WHEN THE FLAME IS GONE, I AM NOT EXTINGUISHED. . .

I will never cease to be since I am being unceasingly created. I have not been a goal fulfilled. I am a Purpose constantly unfolding and on-going. My flame, flickered and small as it might become, is only promised and portrayed to become a part of an even greater illumination. When the Candle Maker began this good work, this momentous beam in me, it was under the conditions that he would be faithful to complete it. It matters, not how, why, where or when but THAT it’s completed in me! I AM NOW, at this very moment, a part of that Light that is in this World and which makes the one I am ever being melted.

My reward for blazing is only to burnish brighter and without end. I don’t have to wait for some darkened, engulfed ending. I Kindle forever. Once lit–always–eternally glowing. Today I will glow brightest.

This is the last Today I have to live and I will gleam radiantly in it, through it, and just for it. I am grateful for this day; for this darkness entrusted to me to light; for the warm glowing shimmer emanating deathlessly in me.

Nothing can take place on this last Today that will cause me to be extinguished.

My pulse will dance excitedly like a jubilant flame reaching out to the darkness. I will be the last brilliant gleam the long night can ever know, and assuredly, the very first ray the sunshine has to offer in the morning of that day which has no end.

If delegated, I will burn old with an eternally young, exuberant fire.

I will not be extinguished this day because out of all the possibilities,this is the one great impossibility: I know no real endings. . .just endless beginnings. . .starting NOW! Forever!

Hmmmmmm, just about a minute and a half, three times a day.

LIGHT: Is Always in Season. . .No Season exists without it!

Unless. . . .

Your Garbage

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Everyone has it: GARBAGE!

Garbage day is never missed is it? We all have THAT day, and we, in a strange sort of way SAVE up for it all week, don’t we? All week long, we bag, pack, haul our garbage to place where it finally can get picked up and shipped away for good. . .or, or does it?

Imagine taking piles of garbage to the curb and as the Garbage truck comes down the street and is just about ready to pull up and haul your garbage away, you frantically run out, STOP, prevent them from doing their job and in fact, bring all of your garbage back into the house again—the whole week’s worth! Plus, you have the truck back up to your front door and have them dump all they’ve collected from their daily pick up right there in your LIVING ROOM!

Absurd? Unheard of? Ludicrous?

It is, isn’t it. . . until we bring back all that garbage we’ve allegedly long discarded to find out we’re worse than Hoarders keeping out of date fliers and junk mail piled to the ceiling.

It’s THIS simple: When you throw out YOUR Garbage, KEEP IT OUT. There’s a reason it’s garbage and IT STINKS! Why keep it or worse, Still Carry It Around?

To the Curb!

Leave IT!

Don’t Bring IT back in again.

Carry Yourself. . .and NOT IT!

What’s Your STARING Frog?

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allaboutfrogtoad

Everyone has one…some may even have a whole herd or a farm of them! What Frog stares you down everyday? What’s the ONE thing you put off or maybe just postpone, ok, PROCRASTINATE!

Procrastination is the one WTF Wrestler we all tangle…some more than others, but all of us, just the same. We all seem to run from or at least put off things we see as painful or difficult. The Catch: We often bring more pain on ourselves. The Bigger Catch: Even though we know the consequences of procrastination can be severe, oh yeah…WE STILL DO IT!

There’s a very old saying that spouts, “If the first thing you do in the morning is to eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day.” What’s YOUR STARING FROG? What’s the worst thing you look forward to as you wake up? Exercising? A meeting? Paperwork? Obligations that aren’t all that pleasing?

But once…only ONCE: Eat THAT Frog! Get rid, right up front, of the one thing that Stares you down and taunts you with every second you try to avoid IT. Just ONCE, eat THAT Frog and see the energy it gives you…Makes an Extreme 5-Hour Energy drink, blush. But. . .but, you let him stare you down and it’ll put a huge straw right in your heart and suck the Life and Essence right out of it without so much as a satisfying belch.

Here’s the Deal that only you can make for yourself: JUST ONCE! Do it once and never again unless
the Frog, totally intimidated, looks down and has not the guts or the energy to even think about Staring back!

Just Once. . . .

Filling IT up!

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BP

Get this Image…you are traveling down the highway at least 10 miles OVER the speed limit not so much because you’re in a hurry, but because you are in a hurry to DO GOOD!

All of a sudden you hear a distinct little PING from your Dashboard that alerts shouts to you, “GET FUEL NOW!”  But you’re in a hurry to DO GOOD and you have no time to spare.  You pass one exit, two exits, three exits that are begging you to get off and FILL UP!

At first you see it out of the corner of your eye on the driver’s side mirror and then, well then it’s unmistakeable…it’s a BP truck, just in the nick of time and it’s amazingly pulling right up beside you.  You make eye contact with the expert driver and he winks back at you and it is instantly known exactly what’s to be done next.

You hit the button and your gas tank pops open and the truck’s magical fill-up-your-tank-without-spilling-a-drop-mechanical arm extends and begins to give you exactly what you need without pulling off the road or even slowing down.

In a matter of moments, the task is completed. The Mechanical arm is detached from your car and your gas tank is not only filled to capacity, but it shuts your little gas tank door and your continue on–smiling and feeling extremely satisfied.

When’s the last time that happened to you?  What?  Never?  Let me get this straight. We, who DO GOOD, actually have to take time to go get FILLED UP?  Unbelievable!

Eating an apple a day doesn’t really count if you eat 7 of them on Saturday night!  If we truly want to be Filled up–We actually have to do it–daily.

You can burn the candle at both ends and in the middle as long as you know where to get the wax and the wick.  Psssst…we all know where to get that wax and wick, and though it may be different for each of us, we still actually have to go GET IT!

The fantasy is a great one–a BP truck pulling up beside us and filling us up without slowing down or even slowing down–but it’s a fantasy.

STOP.  Pause.  Go get your wax and wick and not only insure that you’ll burn unceasingly Bright, but you’ll go a very long way in your DO GOOD efforts in warming and lighting another’s Way, too!

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man