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  Volume 15, # 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January, 2000

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Plant these "seeds" well and water often. Enjoy!

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Power of Persuasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sydney J. Harris

    "Thomas Aquinas, who knew more about education and persuasion than almost anybody who ever lived, once said that when you want to convert someone to your view, you go over to where he is standing, take him (mentally speaking), and guide him. You don’t stand across the room and shout at him; you don’t call him a dummy; you don’t order him to come over to where you are. You start where he is, and work from that position. That’s the only way to get him to budge."


Reinvent Oneself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wang Yang-Ming, Motivational-Messages

    "Those who are wise don’t consider it a blessing to make no mistakes. They believe instead that the great virtue is the ability to correct mistakes and to continually reinvent oneself."


Parents…Children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous

"By the time children realize their parents may have been right,
they usually have children of their own who think they are wrong."


Great Things. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vincent van Gogh, via INSPIRE

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."


Drive and Ambition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Merton Solow, PowerQuotes Vol. 3, # 237

    "It is a good idea to be ambitious, to have goals, to want to be good at what you do, but it is a terrible mistake to let drive and ambition get in the way of treating people with kindness and decency."


A Positive Vision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLKING2.GIF (3367 bytes)     "If you want to move people, it has to be toward a vision that’s positive for them, that taps important values, that gets them something they desire, and it has to be presented in a compelling way that they feel inspired to follow."

Self-Talk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rob Bremer, PowerQuotes, Vol. 3, # 225

    "If you had a friend who talked to you, like you sometimes talk to yourself, would you continue to hang around with that person?"


No-Nonsense Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Sloma

    "The best way you can provide appropriate motivational leadership is to push the limits of your own imagination and innovation so that you generate a stream of ever-expanding challenges for others. As they move from one achievement to another, they will realize that they are growing and developing."


A Prayer for the New Year

Come, Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Risen Christ,
be with us today and always.
Be our Light, our Guide, and our Comforter.
Be our Strength, our Courage, and our Sanctifier.

May this new year be a time of deep spiritual growth for us,
a time of welcoming your graces and gifts,
a time for forgiving freely and unconditionally,
a time for growing in virtue and goodness.

Come, Holy Spirit,
Be with us today and always. Amen.

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On Becoming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Shakespeare, Hamlet, IV

"Lord, we know what we are,
but know not what we may be."


All Good Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Soundings, Vol. C, # 4A

    "In writing of any kind the important thing is to plant an idea in the reader’s mind or to stimulate one’s feelings or emotions. In all good writing, one person and only one person is important—the reader. Yet what happens when the average person sits down to write a letter or report? Somewhere in one’s conscious or unconscious mind an insidious thought raises its head: ‘What will the reader think of me?’ The more that thought interferes with concentrating on the reader, the poorer his or her writing becomes."


A New Year Pledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shakti Gawain

    "The most powerful thing you can do to change the world, is to change your own beliefs about the nature of life, people, reality to something more positive…and begin to act accordingly."


How to Create Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gerhard Gschwadtner, Personal Selling Power, Vol. 12, # 8, p.21

    "8. Motivation: The Action That Precedes Success—Mary Kay Ash once said, ‘Motivation is the ability to inspire a person, to reach down within himself or herself, to bring to fruition those wonderful seeds of greatness that God planted in each of us.’
    Superachievers look for challenges that are just slightly above their reach so that they can grow in the process."


Fools are Known. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arabic proverb

"A fool may be known by six things:
  • Anger, without cause;
  • Speech, without profit;
  • Change, without progress;
  • Inquiry, without object;
  • Putting trust in a stranger, and
  • Mistaking foes for friends."
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Faith…Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin Luther

    "Faith is a living, busy active powerful thing; it is impossible for it not to do us good continually. It never asks whether good works are to be done, but has done them before there is time to ask the question, and is always doing them."


The Miracle Starts Within. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Stanley Jones, Sunbeams: A Book of Quotations

    "Don’t wait for some miracle to be performed on you from without, lifting you above fears and doubts and self-centeredness. You help God from within by turning in outgoing love to others, and miraculously your fears and doubts and self-centeredness will vanish. The miracle starts within, not from without."


Charity in the Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher Notes, # 282

    "We say, ‘I love you,’ of course, not only with words but through service lovingly performed. And we say, ‘I love you,’ by…
    Forgiving those who hurt us and asking for forgiveness when we need it.
    Listening to the thoughts others wish to share with us and to the feelings they are trying to express.
    Being courteous and patient, even when that’s difficult.

    While charity might begin at home it rarely ends there. Loving ways learned at home touch the lives of people we meet in school, in the community, at work and at play, all throughout our lives."


The Golden Rule Stores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous

    The entrepreneur J. C. Penney, starting with a small general merchandise store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, in 1902, built a multi-billion-dollar business empire on one simple principle: the golden rule.

    For years the Penney stores were called The Golden Rule Stores. And it was Mr. Penney’s faith in that principle of ethics—always treat a customer as he himself would want to be treated—that he made them grow and prosper.

    But perhaps even more important was Mr. Penney’s attitude toward his employees. In the first place he did not like the word employee, preferring to treat everyone as a partner—associates he called them. And he devoted himself to treating them as he would want to be treated were the situations reversed. Most of all he knew that by helping them make money, his own success would be assured.


 A Millennium Recipe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contemporary Sermon Illustrations, # 557

Try this recipe for a Happy New Year.

    "Take twelve full-grown months, free from old memories of bitterness, hate and jealousy. Cleanse them completely from every clinging spite. Pick off the little specks of pettiness. See that these months are free and clean as when they came from the storehouse of time. Cut these months into thirty or thirty-one equal parts; the whole batch equals one year. If you try to make up the whole batch at once you may spoil the whole lot.

    Prepare one day at a time according to this pattern: into each day put 12 parts of faith, 11 parts of hope, 10 parts of prayer, 9 parts of kindness, 8 parts of patience, 7 parts of work, 6 parts of fidelity, 5 parts of courage, 4 parts of generosity, 3 parts of quiet meditation, 2 parts of good humor, and a dash or two or three of fun and play. Put love into the whole batch and mix with enthusiasm. Garnish with smiles and a sprig of cheer.

    Follow these directions and a happy new year is guaranteed!"

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