The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

The Candle Maker’s Pledge

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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!

Resolve NOT to Resolve

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Well, do you or don’t you?

I don’t!

I’m not a list maker to begin with. . .my sticky notes never stay stuck, and if they do, it’s usually something I didn’t intend them to get stuck to and they end up getting lost, forgotten, well–you get the picture.

I adamantly Resolve N O T to Resolve!

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Your Bestest Gift Ever

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Guess what? It’s only 363 days away. Are you excited? What’s your plans? Where are you going to meet with family and friends? Are there any White Elephant Gift Collections, office parties, get-togethers? Have the requests been made, the shopping lists compiled? Come on. . .it’s going to be here before we know it!

Can you remember?

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F L A S H I N G

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Seriously. . .Whatever it is that causes you to break out, to Flash Mob in Song, may it happen unexpectedly and repeatedly and more, May you BE the Cause of IT to happen Unexpectedly and Repeatedly (For) to Others.

Discover your very best is so much more than a Season or an event, or an occurrence–a Happening!

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The Greatest Gift

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Wouldn’t it be great?

You think you’re home for the evening; you have no plans or DO YOU?

Your doorbell rings. You contemplate even answering it, but you do. There’s a man in an elegant tuxedo, top hat, white gloves and a cane. You see over his shoulder that there’s a luxurious limo and he tells you he’s here to escort you to a very special place where “NO” doesn’t exist. You throw on a pair of jeans that don’t have last night’s dinner remains on it and a shirt that doesn’t have the powder sugar your donut snowed all over it just before the doorbell rang.

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Love’s NOT the Greatest Thing

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First time for me in 33 years of Ministry. A double-wedding ceremony.

It took place at the David Simpson Hospice House in Cleveland around 10:15 a.m. on 12/11/13.

Their mother is very sick and is declining rather quickly. “THEY” wanted to do something about as special as a son and a daughter can do for an ailing mother. Take her to a wedding: THEIR’S!

With a small amount of family and friends gathered into The Mediation Room that overlooked an angry Lake Erie on a dishwater gray Winter morning, they wheeled the bed of their mother into that small gathering.

I told them as we began the service, that no matter what Cathedral or highly adorned Sanctuary they’d ever find themselves, it would never be any more sacred than the walls of family and friends that surrounded them right then.

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The UN-Imprisoned Prisoner

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Prisoner No. 46664. Hardly a lucky number, especially since it brought not luck, but lots of hardship and heartache for the 27 years Nelson Mandela wore it as his identity.

Maybe his greatest lesson then, now, and for all of history, is that he indeed was in prison but never imprisoned. Can we truly say that of us?

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Feeder Goldfish ‘DO IT’

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It was purely a chance meeting–If there truly is such a thing.

Michelle Brown is a Team-Leader at Hospice of the Western Reserve. We ran into each other and after asking how we were doing and the recent Thanksgiving Holiday, she paused and then with a tear in her eye that was half-twinkle she told me about feeder goldfish. Hmmmmm…where can this possible go, right?

How about a Direct Hit to the Heart!

She told me that she and her husband didn’t go out and buy expensive, exotic fish, but ‘RESCUED’ feeder goldfish, who in this case weren’t in the greatest shape. They had somehow caught some kind of disease, that not only seemed to be killing them, one by one, but actually with fish parts falling off, were seemingly dying painfully.

In fact, just when she thought she was exceedingly adding to their suffering and was about to euthanize them she noticed something. . .something quite remarkable. The goldfish that were in the worst shape were actually being nurtured, by those who were in less bad shape. She stated that she saw how they would take turns, literally siding up besides the sickest and showing an overwhelming amount of compassion as they provided, dare I state it: PRESENCE!

Absurd?

I once saw two squirrels chasing one another and one inadvertently had run onto the street and got hit by a car even though it swerved to miss it. The car didn’t stop. I did. I actually saw the squirrel that was chasing the one now hit and killed, ran into the street and pull it off the road. I was paralyzed.

I’m sure there’s some YouTube/Google-ifric posts that would verify even much greater ANIMAL acts of Compassion.

Michelle wondered out loud about the WHY of it all…was she doing more harm than good, even though her intention was quite the opposite?

We then both wondered, maybe IT was to Teach. . .Teach her The Lesson, to Teach me the Lesson, to Teach You The Lesson, for you to Teach others The Lesson. . .I mean, isn’t that Life at it’s best and how it’s been handed down, benefited and handed down again?

It’s all about this Compassionate Presence isn’t it?

Maybe what SHOUTED OUT to me the Loudest is, if a Feeder Goldfish can show that kind of compassionate presence to one of it’s own, suffering and dying, then. . .then what about Me–You–Others?

Hmmmmmm for $10,000.00, Alex

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WARNING: G R A T I T U D E ALERT!

IF Thanksgiving is all about family gathers and feasts upon feasts that last entire weekends. . .

IF Thanksgiving is all about huge football rivalries that have you sitting on the edge of your chairs…

IF Thanksgiving is all about Pilgrims and Indians re-enactment of cute plays with moral meanings…

IF Thanksgiving is all about Gray Thursdays, Black Friday’s Pewter Saturdays, Cyber Mondays. . .

IF Thanksgiving is all about short vacations and getting out of work and school. . .

IF Thanksgiving is all about fine wine, cocktails, the first of holiday parties. . .

IF Thanksgiving is all about leftovers. . .

THEN IT IS O V E R!

But. . .

IF Thanksgiving is all about Gratitude. . .

Then it hasn’t begun. . .

Then it hasn’t concluded. . .

Then it HAS only C O N T I N U E D!

Pass me a Slice of Sincerity and a Cup of Compassion and let us proceed on the Gratitude Trail picking up others along The Way. . . .

http://thecaringcatalyst.com/224/

The Two Most Under-Heard-Words

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I get a Standing Ovation after every talk I give!

Maybe you’d never know unless you were actually There!

Many times near the end of a presentation, as a way of THANKING folks for their attendance and their attention I usually have them stand up all together. I tell them that there are two words they never hear ever enough:

THANK YOU!

And then, because none seldom do, and THEY never would, standing there, I tell them to give themselves a long over due, sincere, well-deserved Standing Ovation. And they do! Loudly! Exuberantly! With Smiles, Whistling, Yaaaaaaaa-hooooooing included…and, and exactly to the penny, what did it cost? What did it deposit in their respective emotional 401k’s?

You can Suppose about it all you want, but it’s more than mere theory or hunch now. Studies have been done and documented with not so surprising results: IT WORKS! IT’S LIFE-CHANGING!

These studies have actually concluded that the expression of sincere gratitude can have some fairly profound and positive effects on our health, our mood and most definitely our relationships. Shocker, huh?

Ok, don’t believe the Studies from the University of Texas Health Science Center or the University of California at Davis or the University of Miami or the University of Washington…use yourself as your own laboratory.

Keep a daily journal of just three things you are thankful for and why.

Make it a practice to tell someone that’s significant to you something you appreciate about them every day.

Look in the mirror when your combing your hair or brushing your teeth and think about something you have done well recently or something you like about yourself.

Maybe it’s true: If you’ve forgotten the language of gratitude, you’ll never be on speaking terms with happiness.

The world doesn’t always have to have a reason to kick you in the teeth every time you smile, but it does. Still, walk in your field and cultivate this attitude of gratitude, and PRESTO: things don’t just look better–THEY ACTUALLY GET BETTER!

Thankfulness feels good, it’s good for you and it’s a blessing for the people around you. It’s such a win-win-win that I’d say we have a cause for gratitude…even without a day just for THAT.

Please, Stand, Give yourself a Standing Ovation! And. . .

Thank You!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man