The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

A Sewing of Special Oats

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https://youtu.be/eoyq9pcp4Cg

 

What a Grrrreat Video, huh?

W H A T    I F

.      .      .what if you got the chance to do something you’ve always wanted to do.      .      .

but.      .      .

B      U      T,

You had to start  

T             O             D             A             Y–

B E G I N     R I G H T      N O W ?

I love my children intensely.

Most parents do,

no matter what their ages,

conditions,

situations

or willingness to return the same kind of love.

As School has already begun and Summer vacation has come to an abrupt end

My mind has wandered back to

T       H       O       S       E              D       A       Y       S

when we had all five of of our kids under roof at one time during the Summer.

Best Memory:

I would take each one,

by themselves,

out to the Breakfast stop of their choosing.

Not only would they get whatever they wanted for breakfast,

we’d usually hit the Dollar Store

or Thrift Shop

before returning home to the others.

There were no times in my life,

more sacred and precious.

We’d laugh,

joke,

pull stuff on the others at home that they were never suspecting.     .     .

TALK   ABOUT   ALL   OF   THE   OTHERS   AT   HOME,

scheme,

dream,

talk about

‘once upon a time’s

and time’s to come;

they’d listen to their favorite music or radio station during that time;

we’d just be together.      .      .

we would love.

I remember when I was a little kid,

I’d be just a tad jealous when Mother’s and Father’s Day would come around.

Seriously.      .      .

PARENTS    GET    A    DAY,

I’d think. . .?

One time I even asked,

“HOW COME KIDS DON’T GET A DAY?”

.       .       .and I loved the answer:

“BECAUSE    EVERY    DAY    IS    CHILDREN’S    DAY!”

.        .        .these are the things that I initially thought about when I first saw this video.        .        .

B     U     T.        .        .  

the Question:

“WHAT    IF    YOU    GOT    THE    CHANCE    TO    DO    SOMETHING    YOU    ALWAYS    WANTED    TO DO    BUT    YOU    HAD    TO    START    TODAY ?”

Cranked me right between the eyes and thankfully,

sank in much deeper than the outer eye could see

and the inner eye had to examine.

Well.       .       .

what if you got    that    chance?

What if.        .        .

you never got THAT Chance.      .      .

but    manufactured      it      anyway?

Would your life be different,

T    O    M    O    R    R    O    W ?

Hmmmmmm.       .       .

that’s enough to Roll your Oats,

isn’t   it?

Forget letting  THAT  stir something up in you.        .        .

let it be your Life-Long meal

that sustains you again and again and again.          .          .

and.          .          .

feeds others in a way,

they too,

never hunger again!

A   Sewing   of   a   Special   Kind   of   Oats

Bon  appetit!

Your Graduation Speech

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https://youtu.be/yupEq8Slb3s

The News isn’t good,

Class of 2016

The Word is

You won’t have five jobs.     .     .

You’ll have  S I X   Careers;

The Word is

Only 27% of you will actually get a job related to your major;

The Word is

You will greatly enhance and most likely increase very quickly the 43% of Americans who have significant debt due to your student loans and quickly adding up credit cards;

The Word is

n     o     t          g     o     o     d

Well.   .   .

Speaking of

 W  O  R  D  S

Do  you  remember?

Do you remember the any single word or cleverly arranged phrases at your Graduation?

What’s the most memorable graduation speech you’ve ever heard?

One that happened whenever you graduated?

One from when one of your children or grandchildren graduated?

From a Movie?

One you’ve given yourself for any one of the ga-zillion

G    R    A    D    U    A    T    I    O    N    S

you’ve experienced in your personal life

from job to job

relationship to relationship

health to illness

year to year

life phase to life phase

life lesson to life lesson

life to life’s many different slow deaths

You’ve given the greatest Graduation Speeches the World has ever known

most of all without speaking one audible word.

S     E     L     F  —  T     A     L     K

will do that for you

without a syllable ever being uttered.

Do they match Robin Williams

from his movie
J     A     C     K  ?

No

They far exceed it

The most powerful words you’ve ever heard

aren’t those spoken to you during any Graduation Ceremony

but the ones you continually speak to yourself

because they’ll either have you

settling

or

exceeding

not the world’s expectations

or predictions

but the only ones that truly ever

c     o     u     n     t  :

Y          O          U          R            S

Congratulations

Class of 2016

Go out and conquer the World :

Y          O          U          R          S

Make your Life

S          P          E          C          T          A          C          U          L          A          R

Make   T  H  A  T

Your Life’s Work

and the World will never be the Same

Y          O          U          R        S

.         .          . O            U             R            S 

CLEAN SLATED

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https://youtu.be/R45HcYA8uRA

Forgive me. . .

I’ve  got

R          E          G          R          E          T          S

and   u n l i k e

Frank Sinatra’s  MY WAY.   .   .

They are way too  m a n y  to Mention

I,  on purpose,  D I D    N O T  post this on

New Year’s Day

Because that’s always a Universal

C  L  E  A  N     S  L  A  T  E     D  A  Y

B          U          T

The most needed   C L E A N    S L A T E    D A Y

IS  TODAY

or whenever the  REGRET   weighs the heaviest.

.    .   .or turns the  r e a r v i e w   m i r r o r   into a   w i n d s h i e l d

Psssssssst of the Day:

THE  PROBLEM  ISN’T  THAT  WE  DON’T  HAVE  AN  ERASER.     .     .

IT’S  THAT  WE  DON’T  USE  IT !

Every day is a  CLEAN SLATE

.      .      .DO  THE  THINGS  YOU  REGRET

N      O      T          d o i n g

o                    f                   t                    e                    n

It may be tough living with your regrets. . .

but not as rough as  n o t  having the opportunity to make a few more in your life

or harder still.     .     .

 g e t t i n g    c l e a n   s l a t e d

all over again

because our only  p e r f e c t i o n s

are our  i m p e r f e c t i o n s .   .   .   .

BULLY

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Sometimes. . .

The Bully gets

B     U     L     L     I     E     D

Most of the time, we’d stand up and cheer when we actually see or hear of this happening.

It is, actually, what makes this video so viral. . .

WE   LOVE    CHEERING     FOR    THE    BULLIED. . .

The Underdog.

Here might be the question of the year. . .maybe even the decade. . .maybe this Century and

CENTURIES PAST:

What if the BULLY  and the BULLIED

are one and the same. . .

What if

The Bully and the Bullied are actually

Y          O          U   ?

The worst Bully you might ever encounter is the one that stares you down in the mirror

. . .there just might not be any more of a Brutal Bully.

I’m Fat. . .

I’m a Loser. . .

I’m Lazy. . .

I suck. . .

I’ll never get this right. . .

I’m not meant to be in a relationship. . .

I’ll never kick this habit. . .

I_________________________________. . . .

Whatever you believe about negative Self-Talk

YOU  BETTER  NOT  BELIEVE  THAT  IT’s  JUST  IN  YOUR  HEAD !

The Research shows that  HAPPY  people have a way. . .a habit. . .of putting bad days behind them and LEAVING them there. . .

or

Head-butting the over matched, huge, big, bad Bully and not only standing up against that Bully

but actually

BACKING IT DOWN

Knock  THAT  TRAIN  off it’s tracks.

We all do Self-Talk

We all do  NEGATIVE  Self -Talk

We all have the capability of doing  POSITIVE  Self-Talk

HOW?

Three Words:

C     O     N     F     I     D     A     N     T

S     M     A     R     T

E     F     F     E     C     T     I     V     E

Go ahead, Bullied,

Test it out. . .

The next time the Bully starts the trashing of  YOU

Get  YOUR BULLY  on

See YOURSELF as Bullying the bully by being

Confident. . .Smart. . .Effective.

Hmmmmmmm of the The Day:

I bet that’ll get your Goat!

BOOKED

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IMG_1587

Is it really that unusual?

What is really unusual is that I buy books ONLY at a book store.

I buy them usually everywhere but a conventional Book Store–

DO THEY EXIST ANYMORE?

I recently bought BAGS of books at a Library Book sale and I was cataloging them

(just like I have about 6500 before them)

and I was looking through them one by one as I took them from the papered sack the above note fell out of one from a novel from Eli Wiesel,

THE OATH

THE NOTE on onion skin paper:

10/2001

PRAY FOR THE PFISTER FAMILY
ESPECIALLY ALICE WHO LOST
HER HUSBAND IN THE EXPLOSION AND FIRE
THIS PAST WEEK THAT CONSUMED THEIR HOUSE
LAST WEEK
ALICE HAS BEEN A PART OF THE BIBLE STUDY
I’VE BEEN A PART OF FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS. . . .

Coincidence?

Words have Power.
Written;
Spoken;
Prayed;
LIVED!

I don’t know Alice
I don’t know Benny
I don’t know about the explosion or the fire
I don’t know about the Bible study of 30 years
I don’t know the writer

But I know. . .
WE KNOW. . .
The power of such a request.

I didn’t unpack the rest of the books that day.

I unpacked some contents of my heart. . .

Before you do another thing, do what I did after I first read the scribbled note

P A U S E

R E F L E C T

H O N O R the note;

do what it asks

in your own way:

P R A Y

and Wonder. . .mull over just what would happen if someone actually unpacked the book of your life, from some sale, no less?

What would Slip from out of your pages?

What Message would be scribbled for someone to discover, to undertake?

Would it be a personal request–just for you. . .

or a Plea, a most sincere petition–a prayer for Another?

The Pages of your Book will undoubtedly

be turned
dog eared
overly thumbed through
perused. . . .

What Message will they hold. . .share?

Careful…even now, your blank pages are being written upon.

Seed (y)

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Unknown

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Could easily be NOW as THEN or WHEN.

The story goes that a thief was sentenced to death in this ONCE UPON A TIME mode for stealing some bread. Before he he was taken to the gallows he was allowed to make a statement to the King.

“Your Majesty,” the thief summoned humbly, “I am the only man living who knows how to plant apple seeds that will grow and bear fruit over night. To atone for my crime, I would merely like to teach you and your court the secret. I’ll just need a shovel, these hand full of seeds I carry around, and a young maiden who has not tasted love’s first kiss.”

Well, the King was a little intrigued and so he took the thief to a nearby field to learn this most awesome secret.

The thief knelt down and quickly dug a small hole.

“Now,” the thief said, “the water must be poured in the hole by a young maiden.”

The King’s own daughter stepped forward and poured the water in the freshly dug hole.

“We are now ready for the actual planting of the magical seeds,” the thief said addressing the King and his honored Court.

“The seed can only be placed in the earth by someone who has never taken a single item that didn’t belong to them, no matter how small or how long ago.”

[Read more…]

The Never Failing Experiment

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Unknown

It is absolutely Flawless.

The Experiment never fails–Ever.

Dare to not only change your life, but your work, your leisure, your lifestyle, your relationships, your all encompassing E V E R Y T H I N G!

But, don’t let me tell you about The Experiment. Let me Show you…better still, YOU TRY IT!

Here’s how it works:

EVERYTHING YOU DO, DO AS AN EXPERIMENT!

Really, IT is THAT simple. There’s no special formula’s; no 1-2-3 steps to take, no special maps to follow, no A-B-C special procedural directions, no embarrassment, no, “I-told-you-so’s,” no hassle and no worry. . .Really!

This will work just as brilliantly at work as it will personally or at home.

Pick a problem to be solved. Go ahead, if you want, do what you use to do. Pro and Con it, list all the reasons For and Against, think In and Out and Around the Box; do what you do to come up with a most likely, probable, consensus decision and then apply it this way: AS AN EXPERIMENT.

By the very nature of any Experiment, it naturally calls for Trial and Error. It Expects to Fail as a means to Succeeding. Ask Mr. Edison how many successful ways he determined NOT to Invent a Light Bulb!

When you Experiment things, there’s no pressure, no winning or losing–just a faster track to Success or WHAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU OR THE SITUATION!

Under this guise, you can Experiment with an Exercise Program, a new Diet, a Short cut to work or another destination, a way to resolve a conflict at work, in a relationship, or between business partners or neighbors.

It’s NEVER FAILED.

Don’t believe me, though. Try it yourself. Mix a little of THIS will a little of THAT, shake gently and pour a drop at a time or as quickly as you dare in full measure…it won’t matter because IT IS AN EXPERIMENT.

The best part?

If IT doesn’t work, you can triumphantly shout, “N E X T”
and begin yet another Experiment again and again and again. . . .

One of my favorite Experiments is to have an Experiment inside of an Experiment–Try IT–There’s nothing more FREEING and NON-THREATENING and best of all:

E F F E C T I V E.

Falling UP

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images

Oh yeah, it’s happened several times. At least a dozen times. But not as many times as it has happened WHEN I HAVE NOT BEEN RUNNING!

F A L L I N G

Ouch. We’ve all done it haven’t we.

I usually run/jog early in the morning, mostly even before the sun comes up. IF I fall…no one is usually up to see it.

Whenever I FALL by not keeping a promise, not caring more, being a huge jerk, having a short fuse, being hypocritical, missing a goal–badly, totally living a different scenario than ever dreamed, not just fighting but actually fighting dirty, seeing how I make a difference and absolutely-on-purpose-DON’T, I, I utterly, undeniably, unequivocally, overwhelmingly, uhhh. . .

[Read more…]

President of the Impostor’s Syndrome International Club

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670px-Detect-Counterfeit-US-Money-Step-6

I pinned it on Pinterest!

IT received to date: 2858 REPINS, 844 LIKES and five comments.

IT is one of my most biggest fears (after Snakes and the Dentists)

MY BIGGEST FEAR
IS THAT EVENTUALLY
YOU WILL SEE ME
THE WAY
I SEE
MYSELF. . . .

…And alas, I’ll unanimously be voted as the President of the Impostor’s Syndrome International Club–Forever!

Anything FAKE about you…anything genuinely Imitation?

WHY?

When was the last time you were actually all YOU?

What brought it out? What made IT feel so authentic? So REAL?

[Read more…]

Just Who Do You Think You Are?

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Just who do you think you are?

It’s a question that was usually asked in anger, almost disbelief when I did something wrong as a kid.

Maybe I talked back to my parents (BIG MISTAKE)!

Maybe I talked back to my teachers (BIG MISTAKE–they were friends with my parents)!

Maybe I threw bubble gum out of the balcony at Church and it hit Peggy Young in the back of the head and stuck in her long hair (before they knew how to take it out with Peanut Butter) and she had to get a hair cut and Mr. Young called the house on a Sunday afternoon that quickly became BLACK SUNDAY before there ever was a Black Sunday.

Maybe it’a been asked of you?

Maybe it needs to be!

[Read more…]

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man