Wise Word Wednesday: Seth Godin

     "Icarus.  The original myth had two parts.  Daedalus said to his son, 'I fashioned these wings for you.  Two rules.  Don't fly too high, or the sun will melt the wax.  But, more important, son, don't fly too low.  Because if you fly too low, the water and the waves will surely weigh down the wings, and you will die.'  We've left out the second part of the myth.  We don't say to people anymore, "Don't fly too low."  All we do from the time they are 4 years old is warn them against hubris.  We have created this industrially led structure that says:  How dare you."
~Seth Godin, quoted in the current issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

    A little bit about Seth:  "An original and helpful voice on this landscape of digital connection for which there are no maps.  Seth Godin is a singular thought leader and innovator in what he describes as our post-industrial, post-geography "connection economy."  Rather than merely tolerate change, he says, we are all called now to rise to it.  We are invited and stretched in whatever we do to be artists - to create in ways that matter to other people."
~Quote sourced from onbeing.org.

      I was first introduced to Seth Godin while listening to a Dan Miller podcast.  He was promoted as being an innovative thinker with exceptional observations.  His book "Tribes" was one that encouraged people to recognize who their "group" was, and rather than creating a generic product for everyone, to recognize that people were better served by doing something really well, for a group of people who appreciate that specificity.  What you make doesn't have to be for everyone, but there are those out there who will love what you do, so do what you do with excellence.
     The Icarus quote resonated with me as I sometimes struggle with a mindset of "no one really is interested in what you're doing with your art, no need to grow as an artist, or promote yourself."  Whoa Nelly!  Why on earth would that be the case?!  So if your wings are weighed down from the waves, maybe think about flying above them...

Wise Word Wednesday: Cavett Robert

"Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed." -- Cavett Robert

     I recently read this quote by Mr Robert (the man who founded the National Speaker's Association) on Success Magazine's facebook page.  I think the main reason this spoke to me was because we're now mid-way through January.  New Year's resolutions aren't at the forefront of our mind any longer, but they are still kind of fresh.  The joy that comes with anticipating a fresh start, or making a positive change, is one that may have diminished, but it doesn't have to fizzle out.  So while this last week may have been a bust, it doesn't mean you've blown it.  It just means you have a new opportunity to get up and start again.  Have character.  Keep going.  

     I've got some specific things in mind as I write this.  Some more significant than others, but all that have meaning for me in some way, big or small.  What about you?

http://www.cavettrobert.com/about_cavett.htm

Wise Word Wednesday: Ann Voskamp

"You’re the one in dire need of time, that thing we can’t buy, what we sell of ourselves to get more of what we think we want, what we sacrifice to seemingly gain.  They say time is money, but that’s not true.  Time is life.  And if I want the fullest life, I need to find fullest time….

God gives us time.  And who has time for God?

Which makes no sense.

In Christ, don’t we have everlasting existence?  Don’t Christians have all the time in eternity, life everlasting?  If Christians run out of time—wouldn’t we lose our very own existence?  If anyone should have time, isn’t it the Christ-followers? 

“We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing end in nothing” (Psalm 39:6).

~

In a world addicted to speed, I blur the moments into one unholy smear.

The hurry makes us hurt.

And maybe it is the hurt that drives us on?  For all our frenzied running seemingly toward something, could it be that we are in fact fleeing—desperate to escape pain that pursues?

I speak it to God:  I don’t really want more time; I just want enough time. 

I just want time to do my one life well."

~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p. 64-68

Wise Word Wednesday

     Today I'm posting three different quotes that have given me something to mull this week.  (Christmas is less than a week away, three wise men, three quotes...somehow it ties together!)  These quotes have spoken to the part of me that likes to be "safe".  The part of me that wants to have a ruler to measure my works by so I can tell if I've made it, or still need to work--meaning my goal is isn't necessarily to be my best.  One thing I notice about these quotes is the underlying message that your life is intended to be shared with others: to impact, to touch, to engage and interact with.
     What do these quotes inspire you to think?



"The purpose of life is not to be happy.  It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."  ~Einstein

"Without action, without decision, you remain in possibility, which is safe and beautiful but eventually enervating and boring."  ~Jennifer Louden

Wise Word Wednesday--Niequist

(Photo is from Etsy seller Dreamy Photo--visit her shop here.)

“The discipline of celebration is changing my life, and it is because of the profound discoveries that this way of living affords me that I invite you into the same practice.  This is a tap dance on the fresh graves of apathy and cynicism, the creeping belief that this is all there is, and that God is no match for the wreckage of the world we live in.  What God does in the tiny corners of our day-to-day lives is stunning and gorgeous and headline-making, but we have a bad habit of saving the headlines for the grotesque and scary.

To choose to celebrate in the world we live in right now might seem irresponsible.  It might seem frivolous, like cotton candy and charm bracelets.  But I believe it is a serious undertaking, and one that has the potential to return us to our best selves, to deliver us back to the men and women God created us to be, people who choose to see the best, believe the best, yearn for the best.  Through that longing to be our best selves, we are changed and inspired and ennobled, able to see the handwriting of a holy God where another person just sees the same old tired streets and sidewalks.

The world is alive, blinking and clicking, winking at us slyly, inviting us to get up and dance to the music that’s been playing since the beginning of time, if you bend all the way down and put your ear to the ground to listen for it.”

-Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

Wise Word Wednesday: Disney

"Somehow I can't believe there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C's. They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy and the greatest of these is Confidence. When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably."

~Walt Disney

Wise Word Wednesday!

      Quite often I find myself coming across words that reach into my heart and speak.  They are eloquent in a way that I am not gifted to express myself.  They cause me to ponder things deeply for a bit, interrupting the hustle and bustle of my day and my thoughts.
      This particular quote is something I came across in one of my journals, something I copied down over a year ago.  Mmmmm, it's good!

“When any man holds ‘twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, he will be glad Stradivari lived, made violins and made them of the best. If my hand slacked I should rob God, since he is the fullest good, but he could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins without Antonio.” – Antonio Stradivari