Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging, Book

Believe, the Final Combination

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Teenagers Practise Rock-Climbing In Beijing

After rereading Combinations by Ed Gerety this past week I ended up totally energized and motivated. One thing that I have been noticing so much more is the negativity all around. It is something that, I think is a plague on the Internet (among other places). I don’t know if it is a way of trying to appear smarter or something, but I see so many people putting things down for no reason.

However, the ones that don’t, those people who stay positive they are the ones that I want to surround myself with. I noticed so much negativity yesterday as I stayed on twitter through the Superbowl. Tweets of that ad sucked, that movie is going to suck and on and on. Such quick rushes to judgment, to be the first to get in that negative jab. There is just so much of it that it all becomes noise after a while. What I should have done is weed out those negatives as I watched the twitter feed and thin out the people I am following to those who motivate instead of stagnate.

The last combination of Ed’s book Combinations is Believe. I was going to post this yesterday but spent the day making food for the game.

Rock Climbers Play Deep Water Solo In Hong Kong

Ed tells of a story of kids challenging themselves in a retreat where they go rock climbing. I went rock climbing the first couple of weekends of my Freshman year of college. I am not a fan of heights and had such a fear of falling that I clung to the rock and refused to lean back and let my partner help me and lower me back down. I hung back on the rock and climbed back down eyes shut tightly and always looking up. I didn’t trust or beleive in the people around me or in myself. I had missed the point. However out of one failure there was learning and growth.

A few years later I had the opportunity to go to an indoor Rock Climbing gym with a group of people, this time I let myself beleive in myself and trust in the people with me. Leaning back letting go of the security in front of me was scary as hell but exhilarating at the same time. So often we need to just let go and believe in the strength within us in order to achieve great things.

One of my heroes has always been Walt Disney and I see that he was one of Ed’s too because Ed included my favorite Disney Quote. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Disney didn’t just utter those words, he lived them. A man who had many failures, bankrupt multiple times and many many ventures. However, he never stopped believing in himself and he never stopped trying. It is a good thing that he did beleive in himself because his legacy has given joy to so many around the world.

The power of bloggers in action.

A couple of years ago I worked on my High School Reunion. I had planned the 10 year and was pretty much burnt out from the work involved. I didn’t want to do the 15 year reunion. However, one of my classmates convinced me to help. She recruited me because she needed help to make this reunion also one where my classmates could come together to help raise money for the family of another one of my classmates. We worked very hard getting donated items for a silent auction and we raised over $1600.00 to help with cancer treatments.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the family online and saw that they were selected as part of Oprah’s Big Give. They were given a day to remember in New York, a new truck and some financial help. It was what happened after that is sad. After all of this their town pretty much turned against them. Here was a guy fighting a very aggressive Cancer, worrying as a father does about what he can do to help his family when he physically cannot work. He and his family did not need that negativity in their lives.

I was contacted by a woman who runs a campground, she had befriended the family and wanted to do something special for them. Somehow she found my posts and asked me for help. She was going to host the family for a weekend and wanted to give them something special to motivate them and let them know that people did care and were praying for them to persevere and continue to hope and beleive.

I remembered my High School retreat called Echo. During Echo the retreat participants receive palanka. Palanka was notes, small gifts and general good wishes People wrote some of the most amazing and revealing things to others to help them have a great inspirational weekend. So I wanted to gather palanka for the family. But gather it from whom?

The power of bloggers (finally to my point)

I contacted many bloggers and put out the call to everyone I could find to help me by sending me a photo of inspiration plus inspirational quotes. I even set up a Spark on SocialSpark to get people to help. What I wanted was positive energy only. The theme was Hold on to Hope. I wanted the family to have the most positive experience possible while watching the video during their camping weekend. I had an amazing response by some incredible bloggers and through this I was introduced to Endure.Online.

Chad from Endure.Online made a contribution of a photo from when he launched Endure.Online. Chad was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2006 and he is now clear. He has a pretty amazing philosophy to Above All Endure, what an amazing belief in himself and his purpose driven life. To have that belief in oneself and drive to overcome his disease, that was the exact energy that I wanted to harness in the video for the family.

So many people came together to help me with this video. I see so much negativity online but am always energized to see the positive side as well. Without believing in the good you miss it amidst the negative. So when you find it, cultivate it and shine a light on it.

Action Plan

Find an inspirational story about someone who overcame the odds, someone who had deep belief in themselves and blog about it. Share that inspirational story with your readers. Spread a little positivity today.

Remember If you Believe it, You can Achieve it!

Blogging, Book

Tales of Childhood Mistakes

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Lions Eating in Savannah

Yesterday when I read about respect in Ed Gerety’s book Combinations I immediately thought of 5th grade. I even wrote out the story a few times and debated posting it. I debated posting it because I am not proud of what I did as a 5th grader. As you will read below those days affected me deeply. Today I read about kindness and realized that the combination of kindness was also appropriate to the story. In fact, had I the courage to be kinder then maybe things would have been nicer for all involved.

Had we but shown some kindness.

There are many ways that you can disrespect yourself because you disrespected someone else. Ed tells a tale of something hurtful he did in 4th grade. For me, it was 5th grade. I went to a small tight knit catholic school where the students had been together since kindergarten. But in 5th grade two new students joined our class. Right away these kids had strikes against them. They were new and they were different sorts of kids, in our eyes at least.

The boy was odd and he said some of the strangest things. He just didn’t quite fit in, in our eyes. If you asked me why he stood out or was different, I wouldn’t be able to tell you today. We picked on him a lot. I picked on him too because I finally had someone to pick on and I wasn’t being picked on when he was. Was this right, of course not. Could I have befriended this kid, probably. Should I have done that instead of been mean, absolutely. Was I afraid of being picked on more, yes.

The other student was a girl and she really didn’t do anything except be herself. Unfortunately for her she looked funny. And kids are cruel. If you have a big nose you get the nickname honker or something like that. Kids can find you biggest foibles and rip you apart based on them. She had a long neck, giant glasses and a smallish head. She would occasionally let out a whooping crane like cough that she couldn’t control. Each of those differences just served to fuel the fire of childhood bullying.

Because we didn’t get to know these kids who were different they were singled out and picked on. Because we saw them as different they were not treated with respect or kindness. Because I didn’t have the respect in myself I didn’t stand up for them but went along with the teasing.

Consequences of unkindness

One day we came to school to find that they were both gone, they both left school. Jokes were made that they left together and got married because their were both so weird. We were cruel, kids can be that way. I’ll never forget what my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Burke did that day. She let us have it! For all our self satisfaction at emotionally torturing two kids to the point where they left school wasn’t something to joke about, it was something to be ashamed of.

Those two kids will always remember that terrible part of their lives and it was because of us and our actions. We had the choice to be welcoming and kind and respectful but we chose to be mean and prejudiced because these kids were different, in our eyes. We made the choice to be mean and so we should be ashamed of our actions. These kids did nothing to deserve the torment and we all had a role in it. Of all my teachers from grade school I will never forget Mrs. Burke for teaching us an important lesson about respect and kindness. I carried that with me for many years.

So when I was faced with decisions later in life as to whether to tease someone or not I remembered what we did in 5th grade. More than once or twice I’ve wanted to go back and shake my 5th grade self and tell him that he was stronger than that and could have done something to be more kind. To let my 5th grade self know that I was a leader and I’d better start showing it.

You have a choice every day to make a difference with your actions.

It is no secret that life in America and worldwide is getting tougher and tougher. Massive layoffs, scams, murders, the list goes on. Each day I read about something more horrific than the next. People are becoming so depressed and desperate that the littlest thing sets off catastrophic events. Can we turn this around with kindness? I think so.

An unkind word can stay with you and infect you like a cancer. It fouls your mood and in turn that foul mood feeds those around you. It begins to fuel foulness around you. But, the same can be said for a kind word or gesture. You have the power in every word you speak and action you perform to either energize someone with your kindness or make them sink deeper into a foul mood. A put-down is just that you are actually putting someone down below you and deeper into a dark place. Stop the put-downs and pick people up instead. It can be as simple as saying hello to the front desk clerk as you walk by, but this time actually turn, look at the person and smile. Let the smile reach your eyes. Really mean the hello, the good morning.

How can we be more kind as bloggers?

Stop the negativity, don’t buy into or propagate the gossip. Just be above it all and end the cycle.

Call to Action

Take a moment to visit 3-5 random blogs this week. Take a look around the place and perform an act of kindness. Give the owner a genuine compliment on the work that they do on their blog. Actually read their posts and add a relevant comment on how well the post was written. Search the archives tweet, stumble, share one of their old posts that you really like. Spend some time on those blogs and find out what that blogger is about. Blog about that blogger for no other reason than to be kind. If you want to tell them fine, if not fine. Just do something kind for another blogger for no other reason than it makes their day better.

Who knows, you might make a friend, you might inspire that person to spread the kindness to other bloggers. Your actions might just be the pick me up that that person needed that day.