I Am In Love With Myself

I have come to learn that there is a difference between loving and being in love. There are a lot of people in this world that I love but I am only in love with two people. I love my children, my grandson, family, and friends. I am in love with my wife and myself. Ok, so that probably sounded conceited, but we all know that importance of loving yourself.

I believe that we can also love and be in love with some of the things in our lives. We can love material things because they bring a certain amount of happiness. The things and people that we are in live with bring us the most happiness. I think that it’s important that we add more things to our lives that we love and are in love with.

Sometimes, we can convince ourselves that we are in love with certain aspects of our lives. Many times we have accepted these aspects due to necessity or because we have settled for less than we are truly capable of doing. I know that I am guilty of this very kind of acceptance. Where I allow mediocrity into my life, I have stifled happiness from entering my life. There are things in my life that I am in the process of changing in order to bring me more happiness. I know that happiness breeds happiness. The same is true for mediocrity. I feel that it’s important to find out what in our lives we only like and find more of what we love.

Believe that you deserve to be happy. Find out what you love and are in love with in life. Be daring enough to pursue those thing. Commit yourself to achieving your greatness.

Thank You Kelly

In 1998 I had an opportunity to meet a man that made a big impact in my life. His name, Kelly and we lived in the same apartment complex. He was a well built man, who had made a very good life for him and his family from his own construction company. What made Kelly different was that he had Multiple-sclerosis. Now I don’t know a whole lot about the disease but from what I was told, this was the worse case his doctors had ever seen. By the time that I had me Kelly, the MS had already ravaged most of his body.  He was a man that could barely walk. Most of the time he needed help to get into a wheelchair just to get from the car to the front door of his apartment. Many of his movements were jerky at best. His speech was very hard to understand. Kelly was only in my life for about a year before my job moved me to Omaha, NE but the lesson that I learned from Kelly was invaluable. It didn’t matter to him what condition the MS was leaving his body in on any particular day, Kelly always had a smile on his face. Many times, to show his approval, a thumbs up was all he could muster. Every time that I saw Kelly, he knew that he had what a lot of people were missing in life, perspective. You see, when he found out what was going to happen to his body because of the MS, he sold his business, and divorced his wife. Now you might ask, why a divorce? He believed that his wife deserved to move on with her life. From my understanding, his now ex-wife, stayed in his life and saw him on a regular basis. I could tell that Kelly was a proud man and asking for help humbled him greatly. But he also knew that he couldn’t do it alone. I remember a couple of times, I had to pick him up off the ground because the woman that took care of him couldn’t do it on her own. The first time that I came to help they both looked at me funny and wondered how a 5 foot 6 inch person was going to pick up a man of just over 6 foot that had over 50 lbs on him off the ground. I showed them that it was the will to help and not the circumstances that would make it happen. Kelly and I became pretty good friends after that. I learned from Kelly that it’s not our situations in life that controls us. Oh sure, his body wasn’t was it used to be, but his mind was still in tact. You see, he taught me that no matter what is happening around me or to me, it’s all about my attitude towards it that makes all the difference. I have read in books about the importance of our attitude in life, but seeing it in action, is a whole different thing. A few years later, I had heard that Kelly had passed away. I was saddened by the news. I knew that in his parting from this world, he left with a smile on his face and a thumb in the air. Thank you Kelly for teaching me that it’s not about the struggle but about the perspective that we choose to have about it that makes all the difference in the world.

How big is it?

I try to keep things simple, so there are three of the things that really encourage:

Dream Big: I’ve heard it said that if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count. What is it, that’s in you that you can’t live without? There isn’t anything wrong with wanting the simple things in life, but will those things be enough to change your current state of being? Will they be enough to motivate you to go after them? The other thing is, a dream should make us stretch beyond what we are currently are capable of doing. Sometimes we lower our goals because when we start working toward our big dream, things get tough.

Pursue Big: Now that you are dreaming big, you have to go after that dream. You can sit around all day dreaming, but it’s wasted time if you don’t take action. Things will happen in your life and try to steal that dream from you. People will tell you that you can’t do it. You will have things happen that will set you back and try to knock you off course. If you don’t pursue your dreams who will? Why would you allow yourself to give less than 100%. You have to get the mentality that you will achieve your dreams no matter what. You have to become unstoppable. I believe that if your dreams doesn’t motive you, if you don’t have a desire for it,  there can only be two problems. One, your dreams really isn’t big enough, or you don’t REALLY want it. After all, a big dream demands big pursuit.

Live Big: When you have taken the time to dream big and then matched it by big pursuit, then you can live big. Living big is about being happy. Not just with material possessions, but with the things that you do and the people whom you share it with. Life is a collection of experiences, what kind of experiences are you collecting? If they were to write a movie about your life, are you creating the experiences in your life that you would want to see on the big screen. Would it be a box office smash or a flop? I also believe that a part of living big is giving back to people. Along your journey to living your dream, you will need some help, help someone else in the pursuit of their dreams.

If you are not willing to risk you cannot grow and if you cannot grow you cannot become your best. And if you cannot become your best, you can’t be happy, and if you can’t be happy, then what else is there?

When was the last time that you ate?

 I love food as you can probably see. There are not to many foods that I have tried that I don't like. Just think of all your favorite foods: Fish, chicken, pork, beef, pizza, pasta, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, and of course desserts. The list can go on and on. Now imagine all of your favorite foods on an all you can eat buffet. They even have the foods that only family can make best, just the way they make it. There is no limit on the amount of food you can consume and limit on the time you can spend there and it's FREE!!! The buffet is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Would you starve yourself or ever go hungry? What if I told you that this place existed? This place exists but instead of feeding your body, you are feeding your dreams. I believe that one of the biggest reasons we stop dreaming is because we starve that desire for so long that we end up all but killing it. As we grow up and the struggles in life get harder, we just start to see dreaming as an option and not a necessity. Dreaming is a part of who we are, it's a natural desire, and we need to feed that desire daily. Only feed your dreams the best and stop allowing the negative stuff to stifle your dreams. You get to control how much you feed your dreams. You wouldn’t settle for the crumbs that would fall on the floor or for the old leftovers, so why feed your dreams with anything less than the best? It might be in the form of a motivational books, doing a study on what it is we want to accomplish, taking a class, or finding a mentor(I strongly suggest this one). Maybe it's going out and looking at that house, car, boat, or piece of land that you want to own. The dream buffet is only limited by your desire. If you want it, it's there for the taking. Stop allowing yourself to starve your dreams. So take the time to start feeding those dreams again. Figure out what it is you want, get hungry for it, and go out and get it.

What is AIAO Life Coaching?

AIAO Life Coaching is something that I am very passionate about, probably it is a part of my dream. AIAO stands for, Adapt, Improvise, And Overcome, more on that later. I am currently working toward getting my Life Coaching Certification. For those of you who aren't completely sure what Life Coaching is, here is what it means to me. My passion is to help people get from where they are in life right now to where they want to be in the future. I cannot make your decisions for you, but I can help you find your drive and passion for what it is you want to accomplish. I can help you find your way through this tangled web that we call life. My success will be based on the success of others. I believe that in order to make it in this life we have to learn how to adapt, improvise, and overcome (AIAO).
The first time that I remember hearing the term AIAO, was when I watched the movie Heartbreak Ridge as a kid. If you haven't seen the movie, what are you waiting for? I have done a little research where this philosophy comes from and I have found out that it is a motto of the Marines. The Marines were once the "red-headed step children" of the military. They got all the hand me downs from the other branches which was usually less than what they needed. They learned to adapt, improvise, and overcome with what they had. It's been said, "It's not what you don't have but what you think you need that keeps you from being successful in life." When I have hit rough times in my life, I knew that I always had two choices. Choice #1: Give up...that's rarely been my style. Choice #2: Adapt to what was happening, improvise(from what I have learned in life), and overcome the situation.
Adapting is about doing what needs to be done now to lessen the effects of whatever is going on in your life that you want to change. It's more about  an immediate physical response to your situation. Improvising is about using what you have to start turning that bad situation into a positive one for your self. Improvising is more of the mental aspect if turning your life around. Once you have done these two things, you can now start the process of overcoming whatever it is in your life that you need to change.
In closing I want to take a minute to thank you for taking the time to read my first blog. I am also planning on launching an AIAO Life Coaching page on Facebook for those of you interesting in learning more about what it is that I am and will be doing with my new venture.