Sand and Stone

Two friends were walking through the desert. At one point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE."

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After the friend recovered from the near drowning, he carved into a stone: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE."

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?"

The other friend replied: "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND, AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.

Jake Hammer by Eric Shackle

Today’s hammer was probably invented by a clever Barney Flintstone long before the year dot. The basic design remained unchanged for thousands of years. Then, 13 years ago, Jake Tyson, an 18-year-old apprentice carpenter in Sydney, Australia, found that his hammer didn’t hit nails very effectively (yet they say a good workman never blames his tools) and the reverberations sent uncomfortable shocks up his arm. So he set out to design a better hammer. For the next three years, working in his father’s shed, he tried out different designs. He decided not to change the metal head of the conventional hammer, but to give it a radically different handle, with an arc in the neck.

After much trial and error, he invented a tool he called the Maxistrike, and patented it worldwide. Then he offered his former boss a partnership, and they formed a company, Redback Tools, to manufacture the new hammer. “Due to the arc shaft it has transferred the energy, so instead of when you’re hitting the object the energy coming back up your arm, it’s transferred directly into the hammerhead through the balance of the arc shaft and into the object you’re hitting,” he told Rebecca Martin in an ABC Catapult interview early this year. In a later interview , he said “The design is innovative with the balance the hammer has, and the way it hits the object is about 50% harder than a standard hammer will.” Ten years after Jake first thought of the idea, he persuaded a few hardware stores to sell it.

The Maxistrike took off like a space rocket. Carpenters acclaimed it as the best hammer they had ever used. Its fame spread overseas. Last year Jake’s hammer gained the award for the best new item at the National Hardware Conference. “We’re the first non-US company ever to win this Dealers’ Pick award, and for the Americans to admit that anyone does something better than them you know it has to be innovative” said Jake when he returned to Sydney. “The design is innovative with the balance the hammer has and the way it hits the object is about 50% harder than a standard hammer will.”

Radio Australia’s science and technology specialist Desley Blanch asked him how multi-national tool manufacturers had reacted when he approached them. He replied “The big guys –basically these are multi-billion dollar companies — [first say] ‘Come see us, let’s have a look at your product.’ “[They try to] dishearten you because they know it’s going to cost a lot of money, so they’ll say ‘Move on’ or ‘We’ll give you x per cent for your idea’, so if nothing’s hurting them in their sales, they’ll just put it in a bottom drawer and they don’t have to worry about it.“So they’re in their cushy jobs making their hundred thousand dollars or whatever and they don’t want to put their necks on the line in case it fails, so that’s why you’ve really got to do it yourself.”

Inner Strength

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles, If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him, If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend, If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
...Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!

Less can mean more:

Don’t assume that putting in fewer hours will cause your work to suffer. In fact, time and energy spent off-the-job can enhance your productivity and your capacity to better deal with daily work challenges. If you are working 14 hours days, day in, day out, you are tricked into that your efficiency is being maximised by your intense work efforts. In fact, leaving early a few afternoons each week will be a better solution. By setting limits, you are better able to distinguish when you really do need to push hard and when to step back and regroup.

Smile. If we all had 96 hours in every day it would still not be enough time for us to do everything we want to. The most important thing we can do is smile and make each person think we have all the time in the world.

Check that you day’s schedule of activities is firmly in your mind when you arrive at work each day.

Define the responsibility: Helping others constitutes much of our role, but sometimes helping someone can transfer all the responsibility from them to you, and that is not what we intend to do at all.

Go ahead….. take that risk

Sometimes we really want to make a change in our schools or even our own personal lives, but we are afraid to take the next step because it feels too risky. Daring to change might involve the possible risks of:
Failing
Being rejected
Being laughed at
People not liking you any more

Ask yourself if these things really matter to you. If you never take a risk you will never achieve what you want to. Make something happen this week, however small….take the risk and feel your confidence soar.

The biggest risk in life is not taking any risks at all!!

Random quotes

No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure- Emma Goldman

A female kinda thing

(DON'T SKIP THE PRAYER AT THE END. )

A woman was leaving a convenience store with her morning coffee when she noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.

A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one. Behind the second hearse was a solitary woman walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind her, a short distance back, were about 200 women walking single file.

The woman was so curious that she respectfully approached the woman walking the dog and said, "I am so sorry for your loss, and I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I have never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?"

"My husband's."
"What happened to him?"
The woman replied, "My dog attacked and killed him."
She inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"
The woman answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her."
A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two women.
"Can I borrow the dog?"
"Get in line."

Bill Gates High School Address

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair . . . get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping . . . they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

How do you apologise?

As leaders, we need to be apologists in chief!

Don’t wait to be asked to apologise.
Make the apology unconditional- "I’m sorry" and not "I’m sorry, but….."
Don’t delay- apologise straight after the event.
Make your apology meaningful eg ‘I am sorry I rescheduled the staff meeting without consulting you. I will make sure I will not do it again."
Apologise once and leave it at that.

Strength in vulnerability:

Recognise that you can’t do everything and learn to ask for help. Leaders who successfully balance competing demands in all aspects of their lives freely admit their vulnerabilities and frequently are admired and respected for doing so. It makes them more human and more approachable.

Excuses

The following is a collection of 'actual excuse notes from parents (including spelling)' from the Office of Educational Assessment at the University of Washington.

My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.
Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.
Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan. 28.29,30,31,32, and also 33.
Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating.
Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.
John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.
Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.
Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins
Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.
Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.
Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust
Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.
Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.
Sally won't we in school for a week from Friday. He have to attend to her funeral.
My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the Marines.
Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.
Please excuse Mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
Please excuse Burma, she has been sick and under the doctor.
Maryann was absent December 11-16, because she had a fever, sore throat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.

Paper

We all know that paper mismanagement can cripple our ability to function effectively as school leaders. We all know we should not handle a piece of paper twice, but we do.

So, do you need every piece of paper on your desk?
Do you have trouble finding a particular item you frequently need?
Do you feel you could be more organized if you had more space?
Are there papers on your desk that have been there for more than a week?
Do you read every piece of junk mail that crosses your desk?

Maybe try one or two of these-
Setting a quiet time every afternoon of about 30 minutes often assists in preventing that in tray from overflowing.
Use the phone or email- it is faster and cheaper
Request teachers who might be preparing a report to include a summary page on the front- for you and for other staff
Don’t put that piece of paper down- put it away

Learn the art of wastepaper-basketry- every day!

MAKE THE MOST OF TODAY

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course!!!!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow".

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today. As time waits for no one. .

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR REDUCED STRESS

THOU SHALT LEARN TO SAY NO.
THOU SHALT NOT EVEN FEEL GUILTY
THOU SHALT NOT BE PERFECT OR TRY TO BE.
THOU SHALT NOT SPREAD THYSELF TOO THIN.
THOU SHALT SWITCH OFF AND DO NOTHING REGULARLY.
THOU SHALL NOT TRY TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE.
THOU SHALT LEAVE THINGS UNDONE THAT OUGHT TO BE DONE.
THOU SHALT BE BORING, UNTIDY, INELEGANT AND UNATTRACTIVE AT TIMES.
THOU SHALT SCHEDULE TIME FOR THYSELF AND FOR THY SUPPORTIVE NETWORK.
ESPECIALLY THOU SHALT NOT BE THINE OWN WORST ENEMY, BUT BE THINE BEST FRIEND.

Rules for a Happy Life

Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.

Life is simpler when you plough around the stumps.

The trouble with a milk cow is she won't stay milked.

Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads. (This is a modern adaptation of the original quote by Oscar Wilde: "Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more."

Don't corner something meaner than you.

Don't wrestle with pigs: you'll get all muddy and the pigs will love it.

Most of the stuff people worry about never happens. (Probably based on an original quote attributed to Leo Buscaglia: Ninety per-cent of what we worry about never happens, yet we worry and worry). What a horrible way to go through life! What a horrible thing to do to your colon!"

Grammar

Just thought I'd share an incident that occurred in my SEU group last year when the children (two of my better spellers) were leaning about past tense.

The activity required the children to write the word for if something happened 'yesterday'. One student worked very capably until the third example. Today I bring. Yesterday I brought. Today I think. Yesterday I thought. Today I blink. Yesterday I blought. I sat down to explain to him that our words can be funny things and the same spelling pattern doesn't hold true for every example. I then told him that 'blought' wasn't a real word. The boy at the next desk spoke up very proudly and said, "I got it right. I wrote blunk."

Teaching at the crossroads

I was standing at the crossroads when I heard a familiar sound.
The drumming of a heart beat, the chanting of a crowd.
Enter in and be amazed or stand back and drift away.
Find your passion- is it real?
Test your strength; is it something you can feel?
Say words that make little sense, cry for thoughts that are nonsense.
Love someone who has not been taught how to love back.
Only to learn his love is the best you have ever known.
Pure and easy it flows from within- it matches the love you have inside.
Sit and wonder what makes you try so hard.
Never give up, don't give in- over and over love that child again.
Everyday the sun comes up and shines on that crossroads in my mind.
I choose to enter and silence the crowd.
He drowns out the shouts with every hug he gives; he beats the drum louder with every success he finds.
When the sun goes back down and its dark in my soul, I think of the one left at the crossroads.
Will there be another to take my place?
To enter into such a strange place.
Where love is tested, trust is denied?
A little boy who can convince himself with one simple lie.
Who will stand at the crossroads when I am gone.
Who will teach him that he is that strong?
Who will ignore the chants of the crowd, chanting he can't, he will fail.
Who will listen closely as he calls?
Who will protect this poor boy from his falls?
Soon my turn to be there will be over.
Maybe I did enough in the time I had, to protect him from a future that could be bad.
I will hear in every child's sigh- his lonesome and desperate cry.
Will he hear me in his teacher's sigh- chanting above the crowd "you can do it, if you only try."
Anonymous

Stephen shares a very special email from his very impressive 26 year old son, of whom he should be very proud.

Subject: The Emperor's Club

Dad I saw a movie that I thought you might like to see..... It’s very good, and the end is just beautiful. It’s called the Emperor's Club.....it’s a weekly so it won't be much to hire. I wrote down a speech that was said that I thought was great.

A GREAT TEACHER HAS LITTLE EXTERNAL HISTORY TO RECORD
HIS LIFE GOES OVER INTO OTHER LIVES
THESE MEN ARE PILLARS IN THE INTIMATE STRUCTURE OF OUR SCHOOLS
THEY ARE MORE ESSENTIAL THAN ITS STONES OR BEAMS AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO BE A KINDLING FORCE AND A REVEALING POWER IN OUR LIVES.

(I don't agree with the little external history part)
Check it out next time u wanna watch something.
Talk soon..............oh but hey its all good.
luv u dad
Jami

The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz's Code for Life

agreement 1
Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and honesty.

agreement 2
Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

agreement 3
Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

agreement 4
Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Initiation

Al Kelly in "What to do and what not to do to make life easier for yourself at work:" Initiate something every day. What else are you there for? By initiate, I mean start something which will result in improvement and work it out to a useful stage. No management job should contain less than 25% initiation and instigation – and the more senior the post, the higher should be the percentage."

Try to look critically at everything you do for a week through the eye of an initiator- you will discover some small improvements to your old routines- how you run your meetings, how you organise your day, how our schools are organised.

Random quotes

Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come, and the notion that the public schools in our democracy should be redesigned to assure learning for all, is such an idea. (Lezette 1994)

Two angels

Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it.

When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied, "Things aren't always what they seem."

The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears.

Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel how could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him, she accused. The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let the cow die. "Things aren't always what they seem," the older angel replied.

"When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn't find it. Then last night as we slept in the farmer’s bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem."

Sometimes that is exactly what happens when things don't turn out the way they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every outcome is always to your advantage. You just might not know it until some time later.

Developing leadership communities

Leadership communities are groups of practitioners who support and encourage one another to expand their individual and joint leadership capacity. The rationale is that:

Developing leadership throughout an organisation is about fostering new ways of thinking, relating and acting in the context of focusing on actual and emerging issues for the organisation;

Leadership is best developed by managers (and others) practising it together, over an extended period, in a context in which they are supported and encouraged to stretch themselves.

In any group of managers, there is likely to be a diversity of experience, and perspectives, which if better tapped, can be a powerful source of learning for individuals and the group (this is so even where top management regard middle and front-line managers as largely homogenous groups, perhaps too technically-focused); and

When managers, through their participation in the community, undertake joint leadership-related work, they not only contribute to the organisation but they discover new ways of working. The result is improved individual and collective self-confidence in their leadership abilities – and more positive perceptions among top executives.

The potential payoffs of a community-based approach are huge, including:
Greater utilisation of talent and development of potential;
Increased individual and organisational capacity to deal with difficult and emerging issues;
Ripple effects, with leadership-mode behaviour fostered beyond the community;
Innovative work and new solutions for the organisation as a result of community projects; and
Improvement in the organisation’s ability to ‘live’ the values it espouses (since leadership includes focusing on the emotional realities of the organisation).
Organisations can foster a leadership community approach by:
Offering at least introductory training about contemporary concepts of leadership and communities of practice;
Encouraging managers to think about the meaning of community for them;
Assisting them to contribute on higher-level organisational issues;
Encouraging community self-organisation, for example, by the group nominating a convenor; and
Making available resources (time, funding, expertise) to support community initiated projects and activities, within agreed parameters.

Let go of the past

Often in institutions we have "the way we’ve always done it".

I don’t like hearing it, but I assume people who use the age-old chestnut don’t like hearing "let’s do something different".
I think that one of the most passively-aggressive response to doing something a different way is to be involved in the new model, but then change one thing at a time so it overcomes all of the advantages of the new model, which serves to make it a shiny new version of the old model.

Then, you can proclaim proudly, "See, I told you it didn’t work." Then, you can go back to doing it the old way.

Winners and losers

In every country there is sport at elite levels and where there is sport there is competition, winners and losers.

One such sport in Oz is rugby league. Teams do battle for 26 weeks, gaining points for wins and draws. The top eight at the end of the regular season then progress into the finals and over the course of the next four weeks end up in the Grand Final – the last two teams.

The first and second placed teams at the end of the regular season did not make the last game – they had been eliminated. So, it was Cinderella vs Cinderella.

Both teams could be proud of what they had done. They were not rated as chances to be in the Grand Final. They knocked off more fancied teams. They had self-belief and seemed to bring a spark and enjoyment to their games, entertaining all those who watched them.

But there could only be one winner – and the other team looked gutted at the end of the game. No amount of "you’ve done so well to get this far" could lift them from their current disappointed state of being. I’m sure they will be able to rationalize their season at a later date, but being rational is impossible when in such a turmoil of emotions.

Thanks to both teams for their entertainment and for their reinforcement of the belief that anything is possible.

Take time out…

To smell the koalas
.
Getting ready in the morning with a young family can seem like an exercise in reconciling a number of neighbouring nations. Everything is a flurry of activity and there seems to be no end to the desperate solutions needed to last-minute problems.
This morning was no exception, until a koalas was spotted in the back yard. Another koala (I don’t know whether the male or the female makes the noise) was calling and we think that the one that we saw was responding to the call of the first one. When we went out to have a look it retreated to the safety of a tree.

The one it selected was not a large one, so we were treated to a great view of the koala. Suddenly, the noise and commotion of a few minutes ago were replaced with "ooohs’ and "aaahs" as we stood there together enjoying our brush with one of our non-human neighbours.

It’s food for the soul.

Failure

I have something puzzling -

1. Go to www.google.com.au
2. In the box, type in the word "failure".
3. Click on the "I am feeling lucky" button.

Official Euro language

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded the English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f" This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

SAEED AL SAHAF - Iraqi Head of Information: The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. In fact, we do not even have a chicken.

HANS BLIX: We have reason to believe there may be potential for this chicken's capability, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

COLIN POWELL Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

GEORGE W BUSH We don't care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either for us or against us. There is no middle ground.

TONY BLAIR I agree with George.

JOHN HOWARD I agree with George and Tony.


KIM BEAZLEY There is no challenge to the chicken at this stage, but if I were crossing the road ....

SIMON CREAN @#@#!!@ Chicken. No one crosses the @#@#!!@ road without my @#@#!!@ say so. It's time for the chicken to put up or shut up.

PETER HOLLINGWORTH (Governor-General) I am not aware of any impropriety in the chicken crossing the road. In fact I am led to believe that it was the other way around and the chicken asked for it

DR SEUSS Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

GRANDPA In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

OPRAH Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it felt accomplishing its lifelong dream of crossing the road.
JOHN LENNON Imagine all the chickens, crossing all the roads.
You may say I'm a dreamer - but its not the only hen.

MICHAEL JACKSON There's nothing more wonderful than sharing your life with a chicken.

ARISTOTLE It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

KARL MARX It was an historic inevitability.

BILL GATES eChicken2003 version 1.0 will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your cheque book - and internet explorer is an integral part of eChicken.

ALBERT EINSTEIN Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

THE BIBLE And God came down from heaven, and he said unto the chicken THOU SHALT CROSS THE ROAD. And the chicken didst cross the road, and there was much rejoicing.

COLONEL SANDERS Did I miss one?

HOMER SIMPSON Mmmmmmmmm . . . . c h i c k e n

Definitions

1. ARBITRATOR: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonalds.
2. AVOIDABLE: What a bullfighter tried to do.
3. BERNADETTE: The act of torching a mortgage.
4. BURGLARIZE: What a crook sees with.
5. CONTROL: A short, ugly inmate.
6. COUNTERFEITERS: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.
7. ECLIPSE: What an English barber does for a living.
8. EYEDROPPER: A clumsy ophthalmologist.
9. HEROES: What a guy in a boat does.
10. LEFTBANK: What the robber did when his bag was full of money.
11. MISTY: How golfers create divots.
12. PARADOX: Two physicians.
13. PARASITES: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
14. PHARMACIST: A helper on the farm.
15. POLARIZE: What penguins see with.
16. PRIMATE: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV.
17. RELIEF: What trees do in the Spring.
18. RUBBERNECK: What you do to relax your wife.
19. SELFISH: What the owner of a seafood store does.20. SUDAFED: Brought litigation against a government official.

Cold iron

" A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron." - Horace Mann (1796-1859)

Generous

"Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find it out."

the wrod as a wlohe

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Txes M&A Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe." (Anonymous)

'if' by rudyard kipling

Kipling is said to have written the poem 'If' with Dr Leander Starr Jameson in mind, who led about five-hundred of his countrymen in a failed raid against the Boers, in southern Africa. The 'Jameson Raid' was later considered a major factor in starting the Boer War (1899-1902).

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Multitasking

Sometimes we can do two things at once. Like read a report, while waiting for an appointment. Sign letters during a meeting. Exercise while watching the news on TV at night. Listen to a tape on leadership while driving. Do knee bends while brushing your teeth. Plan weekly staff notices or that difficult parent interview in the shower. Be a little creative with your time. Remember that any activity you can double up on saves you time.

" TENJEWBERRYMUDS "

To get the full effect, this should be read aloud. You will understand what 'tenjewberrymuds' means by the end of the conversation. This has been nominated for the best email of 2005. The following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and room-service, at a hotel in Asia, which was recorded and published in the Far East Economic Review:

Room Service (RS): "Morrin. Roon sirbees."

Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service."

RS: "Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??"
G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs."

RS: "Ow July den?"
G: "What??"
RS: "Ow July den?...pryed, boyud, poochd?"
G : "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please."
RS: "Ow July dee baykem? Crease?"
G: "Crisp will be fine."
RS : "Hokay. An Sahn toes?"
G: "What?"
RS:"An toes. July Sahn toes?"
G: "I don't think so."
RS: "No? Judo wan sahn toes??"
G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn toes' means."
RS: "Toes! toes!...Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?"
G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."
RS: "We bodder?"
G: "No...just put the bodder on the side."
RS: "Wad?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side."
RS: "Copy?"
G: "Excuse me?"
RS: "Copy...tea...meel?"
G: "Yes. Coffee, please, and that's all."
RS: "One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy....rye??"
G: "Whatever you say."
RS: "Tenjewberrymuds."G : "You're very welcome."

Winston

A Melbourne doctor in the 1950s was chatting to a telegram boy.

‘What’s your name?" the doctor asked.
"Winston Churchill" the boy replied, with his chest proudly out and his chin up.
The doctor said, with a twinkle in his eye, "Well now, is that so? That’s a pretty famous name"
"Sure," said the telegram boy. "It ought to be. After all I have been delivering telegrams around this suburb for nearly three years now."

Receiving feedback

Do we ever tell our staff how to give us feedback when they think something might be improved?

These guidelines may be a starting point for us:
. Report the problem immediately. Tell me right away will often assist us in solving a problem before it becomes any worse.
. Give me only the necessary facts. Overstating the problem could make it look worse than it is. Think it through before you report and be ready to explain exactly and objectively what happened.
. Use tact. Don’t say "We’ve got a terrible problem in our school." Say something like "Here’s something I thought you should know about."
. Offer a solution. Don’t just tell me we have a problem. Think of possible solutions. Recommend a way to correct a mistake or an error and provide solutions on how you think it might be prevented from happening again.
. Don’t deliver only bad news. Pass along the good news that happens in our schools every day.

One hundred years from now

One hundred years from now,
It will not matter what kind of car I drove,
What kind of house I lived in
Or how much money I had in the bank,
But the world may be a better place
Because I made a difference in a child's life."

I cannot give you the formula for success, but

I can give you the formula for failure –

Which is: try to please everybody

How do we learn to say "No" better?

How many of us every week or even every day as we are driving home think "Why didn’t I just say NO." It is certainly not because we like the accompanying awkward and probably uncomfortable feelings of obligation, confrontation, threat, guilt, disappointment, embarrassment or even lack of confidence.

Maybe we need to practice responses like "I know you might be disappointed but I can’t do this before next Tuesday because I have ---- and ---- deadlines to meet before then. I know this is important and it needs time; I would not like to compromise the quality of the work by giving it insufficient time."

Yes, it does mean a little bravery, but you will feel better about your self, staff or parents will understand your work more and the fear will be gone.

And as Eleanor Roosevelt said:

"Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world."

People you Meet

Many people walk in and out of your life,
But only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.
To handle yourself, use your head;
To handle others, use your heart.
Anger is only one letter short of danger.
Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.
God gives every bird its food,
But He does not throw it into its nest.
He who loses money, loses much;
He who loses a friend loses more;
He who loses faith, loses all.
Beautiful young people are acts of nature,
But beautiful old people are works of art.
Learn form the mistakes of others.
You cannot live long enough to make them all yourself.
The tongue weighs practically nothing,
But few people can hold it.
Friends, you and me……….

Friends

Once upon a time there was a little boy with a very difficult character. His father gave him a bag full of nails and told him to drive one nail into the garden fence every time he loses his patience and/or has an argument with someone.

The first day the boy drove 37 nails into the fence. In the following weeks, the boy learns to control himself and the number of nails driven into the fence gets lower every day. The boy discovers it is easier to learn to control himself than to hammer nails in the fence.

At last, the day comes when the boy does not drive any nails into the garden fence. Then he goes to his father and tells him that today he did not need to hammer any nails. His father then tells the boy to take one nail out from the fence for every day he succeeds in controlling his temper and not losing his patience. Many days pass and finally the boy can tell his father that he has taken all the nails out of the fence.

The father talks to his son in front of the fence and tells him ‘My son, you have behaved well, but look how many holes you have left in the fence."

It will never be the same. When you have an argument with someone and abuse them, you leave them the wounds like these ones in the fence. You can stab a man and then take the knife out, but you will always leave a wound. It does not matter how many times you say sorry, the scars will stay. A wound caused by words hurts just as bad as a physical wound.

Friends are rare jewels; they make you smile and support you. They are ready to listen to you whenever you need it; they support you and they open their heart to you. Show to your friends how much you love them.

A thought for all those meetings we attend each week:

UCLA’s Albert Mehrabian has studied the impact of speakers on audiences, finding that a speaker’s impact – favourable or not- is determined by three factors:

Verbal impressions (the words spoken) account for only 7% of the impact.
Vocal impressions (tone, range, appeal and "credibility" of the voice) account for 38% of impact
Visual impressions (our physical appearance, clothing, gestures, stance, eye contact etc) account for a huge 55% of impact.

Time

As School Leaders we spend so much time taking care of others that we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves.

As successful individuals we need to:
Make time for ourselves and time to exercise every day, and keep this going for the whole year;
Feel we are doing our very best every day
Eat right – being busy is no excuse
Turn our daily routines into healthy habits

Our challenge is in determining how we devote more time to those pursuits that hold value for us and less time and energy to those that might be less important. This does not mean doing less work, but it may mean enhancing our goal setting and time management skills. How also do we find support for making this deliberate choice from our families, friends and colleagues.

The choice is always ours to make – what are we going to do with our own precious resources- our time, money, energy and passion. What do we have to do to ensure our own health in our creative, relational and physical worlds. How do we re-energise and inspire ourselves? How do we identify what is important each day and do our actions and decisions regarding how we spend our time, reflect this? How do we model this at our schools to our staff, students and parents?

Give yourself a gift of time – to do that exercise, read to your children, take up that hobby, talk with that colleague.

Be careful

Be careful of your thoughts
For your thoughts become your words.

Be careful of your words
For your words become your actions.

Be careful of your actions
For your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits

For your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character

For your character becomes your destiny.

Dealing with our daily "busyness."

Reducing interruptions is a very productive means of creating a team environment that is efficient, effective and productive for all.
As S
chool Leaders we find our days invaded, seemingly irresistibly by telephones, interruptions of staff, faxes, PDAs, laptops and of course the very demanding emergency of emails. We even bluff ourselves by thinking we are so efficient with our time and energy, that our "to do" list is being achieved each day. However, when we are so busy being busy we are often missing and not responding to moments of excitement, delights and play that happen every hour in our schools. Our challenge is then ensuring how we become more "present" spontaneous, relaxed and receptive in our schools?

Did you know that 80% of our interruptions will be generated repetitively from only 20% of the people we work with. Become consciously aware of those who do not continually come to your door.

A definite possibility: Intervene for a fellow staff member who may need some "quiet time." Take their calls and messages for one hour to avoid interruptions for them. Reciprocate for each other on an "as needed" basis.

The decisive element

"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily
mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated
or de-escalated and a child humanised or dehumanised."

Haim Ginott

Very interesting.......

Year 1981
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died

Year 2005
1. Prince Charles got married (again)
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe (again)
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died

In future, if Prince Charles decides to re-marry and Liverpool wins another European crown.... please warn the Pope :-) ...

The real experts on children

It's readily apparent who the real experts are. Listen to this wisdom…… Children will tell us how to raise them well. If only we'd listen….

Children want and need to know about your childhood: Tell me a story about when you were a child. –Stephanie Take me to where you grew up. –Rob Tell me stories about my ancestors. --Bobby

Quality time is a myth. Kids need you to spend different kinds of time with them: Talk to me about your day. –Alison Eat dinner with me. –Walter Take me somewhere special once in a while, by myself, without my sister. –Vivi Sometimes can you play with me instead of saying no? –Fran Read to me (even though I can read). --Amanda

Parents need to model the family's values: If you get mad at me remember to forgive me. –Suzanne Treat me like you treat your customers. --Karen Respect my stuff. –Elyse

Encourage your child's spontaneity and your own: Let me get wet in the rain. –Jessica I love it when you give me presents that are not expected. –Michael Let me go on the escalator that goes up when I'm going down. --Eric

Don't 'over plan' your kid's childhood: More FREE TIME!!! Don't fill up every minute of the day. –Christine I like piano, but I would like to stop, life is good when you're a kid so you should have some fun. (accompanied by a drawing of a kid diving into the water) –Alex Let me get into the sports I want to get into. --Ben

Help a child find her own voice: Let me make a mess when I'm doing art. –Addison Raise me right because I want to be someone in life. --Renadeau

Appreciate your child's efforts rather than focusing on his accomplishments: Be proud of my best. –Jessica Be proud of me even if I didn't get all the answers right. –Sach Tell me what I did right. --Amanda

Kids need to have a say in the family: Let me have a vote in the things we do together. –Kate If you have a problem, listen to me. Maybe I can help. –Dylan Let me make decisions that I think would be good and maybe they would be as good as the decisions you made for me. --Caleb

Kids need to hear the words "I love you" often. They also need love shown: Say "I love you," once in a while, not just when I'm leaving for school. –Amber Write notes to me on my lunch box napkin. – Jenny When I'm down, raise me up. –Eric

personal overload :

a perception by a person (or observer) that the information associated with work tasks is greater than can be managed effectively, and a perception that such overload creates a degree of stress for which the coping strategies are ineffective.

The impact of overload:
time is wasted
delayed decision-making
distraction from main task
stress – tension, loss of job satisfaction, ill-health, reduced social activity, tiredness

Vision of science:

http://tinyurl.com/7oczh

The Law of Growth

(extracted from "You can have an amazing life in just 60 days "by Dr Demartini

I think of life as a tree: as a tree grows, its little sprigs reach out to get as much of the sun as they can, to acquire greater respiration and life. The branches that don’t aggressively push themselves towards the sun become shaded over and they eventually die and fall off.

As you grow, you may shed "leaves" as well; friends, acquaintances and colleagues. And you build new friendships as you drop the old ones along your journey of life. Yet you may be afraid to discard your past and instead hold on to those around you when you really need to let them go and move on.

Those who start out "in sync" – sharing the same level of ambition and having common goals and interests – may find they’ve diverged sometime later. We all have plateaus in life when it’s best to stay put, just as we all have periods of intense drive and focus. It’s important to recognise when you have fallen out of sync with someone. If you want to expand and go further in life, you may have to leave behind some of those less ambitious people who aren’t willing to continue to grow – at least not in the direction that you desire to. It’s wise to associate with individuals you resonate with, those who are where you’d love to be.

Sometimes people let their fears block progress and imagine they are going to lose their best friends. If you have difficulty letting go of a relationship, remember that you may greatly honour yourself and the other person by allowing you both to evolve. You don’t serve the world by shrinking, but by shining and allowing others to have the freedom – as you let yourself free by developing and becoming the person you are truly capable of being. Let yourself shed your leaves and sprout new ones. You may have to rake occasionally, but with every spring comes a new surge of glorious growth.

Don't do everything

Michael Fullen in What’s Worth Fighting for in the Principalship says for us as school leaders, :……., not one "old" responsibility goes away.

When asked, "Do you think the principal can effectively fulfill all the responsibilities assigned to him/her?" 91% of principals responded, "No." Why are we not surprised? But that dark point is exactly where hope begins to shine, Fullen argues. "There is no point in lamenting the fact that the system is unreasonable, and no percentage in waiting around for it to become more reasonable. It won’t."

Fullen’s thesis is this: To do everything is impossible. True school leaders, he asserts, will reframe their role to design continuous learning for everyone in the school organization.

Looking Forward Part 2

Have you ever looked forward to something that you felt was rather special? Then, when you arrive at the destination, you get the feeling that the event will work out better than you’d hoped? Only to have it crash down around you, seemingly magnifying the disappointment?

I’ll volunteer that this has also happened to me recently. It’s bitter and its nasty, but I hope it serves a purpose – to be a little bit more restrained, to learn from what happened to minimise the emotional damage next time, to be incorporated into “experience” to make a better person.

I’m not enthusiastic enough to wish that it happens to all of us more often. Rather, may it be more palatable when it does.

The Artform of Leading People

Join Mark McKeon (MC) as we explore "A Juggling Act: The Artform of Leading People":

People Leadership
Keeping your eye on the ball or focussing your vision
Sharing the passion to re-ignite the flame

People Welfare
The problem is worth solving, valuing others, perspectives and decisions
The health benefits of a balanced act
Building trust, taking risks with relationships

People Management
Forums for voice, not another committee
Managing staff in small schools
The team approach in the mature workforce

A Simpler Way

by Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers

There is a simpler way to organise human endeavour.
It requires a new way of being in the world.
It requires being in the world without fear.
Being in the world with play and creativity.
Seeking after what's possible.
Being willing to learn and be surprised.
This simpler way to organise human endeavour
requires a belief that the world is inherently orderly.
The world seeks organisation.
It does not need us humans to organise it.
This simpler way summons forth what is best about us.
It asks us to understand human nature differently,
more optimistically.
It identifies us as creative.
It acknowledges that we seek after meaning.
It asks us to be less serious, yet more purposeful,
about our work and our lives.
It does not separate play from the nature of being.
The world of a simpler way is a world we already know.
We may not have seen it clearly,
but we have been living in it all our lives.
It is a world that is more welcoming,
more hospitable to our humanness.
Who we are and what is best about us can more easily flourish.
The world of a simpler way has a natural and spontaneous tendency toward organisation.
It seeks order.
Whatever chaos is present at the start,
when elements combine, systems of organisation appear.
Life is attracted to order --
order gained through wandering explorations
into new relationships and new possibilities.

Looking Forward Part 1

Have you ever lost something that you valued? A person, an item, an event – whatever? For s number of years you do without the thing in question, looking back on it fondly. Then, when for no discernable reason, it re-appears, better than you ever remember it.

I’d have to say that such an event is nothing short of remarkable. I’ll volunteer that this happened to me recently. The actual event is immaterial. That it happened is the point.

May it happen to all of us more often.

Fundamentals

Author Michael Fullen outlines four fundamentals of our jobs: curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional culture.
We’re talking a far cry from the old "buildings, beans, and busses" fundamentals of principal-as-manager. But if you haven’t delegated some managerial tasks, delegate already, and do your real job as designer and role model for maximum teaching and learning.

That, according to Fullen, is what’s worth fighting for: "not system change, not change in others around us, but change in ourselves." Ten guidelines—all working together—are Fullen’s prescription for individual action:

Avoid "if only" statements, externalizing the blame and other forms of wishful thinking.
Start small, think big. Don’t overplan or overmanage.
Focus on fundamentals: curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional culture.
Practice fearlessness and other forms of risk taking.
Embrace diversity and resistance while empowering others.
Build a vision in relation to both goals and change processes.
Decide what you are not going to do.
Build allies.
Know when to be cautious.
Give up the search for the "silver bullet."

Old friends

Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades.

Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.

One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, "Now don't get mad at me .. I know we've been friends for a long time....but I just can't think of your name! I've thought and thought, but I can't remember it. Please tell me what your name is."

Her friend glared at her. For at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said, "How soon do you need to know?"

BBQ and man

BBQ, a real man's cooking...It's the only type of cooking a real man will do.

When a man volunteersto do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion:

(1) The woman buys the food.
(2) The woman makes the salad, vegetables, and dessert.
(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray alongwith the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the manwho is lounging beside the grill - beer in hand.Here comes the important part:
(4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.More routine....
(5) The woman goes inside to organise the plates and cutlery.
(6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. Hethanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals withthe situation.Important again:
(7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.More routine.....
(8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins,sauces, and brings them to the table.
(9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.And most important of all:
(10) Everyone PRAISES the MAN and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
(11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed "her night off." And, uponseeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there's just no pleasing some women....

Random quotes

Michael Fullen says: "Believe me, there’s no "vision-building" process on the planet equal to the principal who models, in every decision and action, a firm commitment to maximum teaching and learning."

"If a child lives with approval, he learns to live with himself." Dorothy Law Nolte

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Wiliam Butler Yeats

Exercise Programme

Exercise routine if you're over 25.

You might want to take it easy at first, then do it faster as you become more proficient.

It may be too strenuous for some. Please, always consult your doctor before starting any exercise program.
SCROLL DOWN …………………………


















NOW SCROLL UP.

That's enough for the first day. Have some chocolate.

Things to think about

1. You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.
2. Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.
3. Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young.
4. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.
5. The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.
6. We childproofed our homes, but they are still getting in.

Children

GOD CREATED CHILDREN (AND IN THE PROCESS GRANDCHILDREN)

To those of us who have children in our lives, whether they are our own, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or students...here is something to make you chuckle. Whenever your children are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to His own children.

After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing he said was "DON'T!"
"Don't what?" Adam replied.
"Don't eat the forbidden fruit." God said.
"Forbidden fruit? We have forbidden fruit? Hey Eve... we have forbidden fruit!!!!!"
"No Way!"
"Yes way!"
"Do NOT eat the fruit!" said God.
"Why"
"Because I am your Father and I said so!" God replied, wondering why He hadn't stopped creation after making the elephants.

A few minutes later, God saw His children having an apple break and He was angry! "Didn't I tell you not to eat the fruit?" God asked.
"Uh huh," Adam replied.
"Then why did you?" said the Father.
"I don't know," said Eve.
"She started it!" Adam said.
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"DID NOT!"

Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own. Thus the pattern was set and it has never changed.


BUT THERE IS REASSURANCE IN THE STORY! If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give children wisdom and they haven't taken it, don't be hard on yourself. If God had trouble raising children, what makes you think it would be a piece of cake for you?

The A to Z of Achieving and Being

Dare to...

Ask For What You Want.
Believe in Yourself.
Change Your Mind.
Do What You Love.
Enjoy Each And Every Day.
Follow Your Heart's Desire.
Give More Than You Receive.
Have a Sense of Humour.
Insist On Being Yourself.
Join In More.
Kiss and Make up.
Love and Be Loved.
Make New Friends.
Nurture Your Spirit.
Overcome Adversity.
Play More.
Question Conformity.
Reach for the Stars.
Speak Your Truth.
Take Personal Responsibility.
Understand More, Judge Less.
Volunteer Your Time.
Walk Through Fear.
X-perience The Moment.
Yearn for Grace.
be Zany.
-
Written by Meiji Stewart

Negative People ...

To get what they want, Dr. Mike Weber says negative people depend on the following:

* Attention -- Even negative attention is better than no attention.

* Fear -- The angrier and more negative a person is, the more fearful we are of confronting them; thus, we avoid disagreements with them. The negative person wins by not being called on their actions or attitude.

* Guilt -- Negative people try to raise the level of guilt by making you feel bad about not seeing the world as they do or not having done something they think you should have.

* Intimidation -- Negative people use their attitudes to intimidate and manipulate. You don't want them to talk negatively about you.

* Sense of power -- There are people who love to criticize others. It makes them feel good and gives them a sense of power. The more negatively people react to their criticism, the more powerful they feel.

* Elicit sympathy to add drama to their lives -- Most negative people are craving affection and comfort. Many times, their lives lack the excitement they want; negativity brings drama to their existence.

* Response -- Sometimes negative people say and do things just to "get your goat." If they elicit a negative response, it brings them pleasure and reinforces their notion that the world is negative.

Random quotes

"Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs." Malcom Stevenson Forbes


"Wise people learn when they can, fools learn when they must".


"Don't be afraid to fail. If you don't fail, that means you aren't trying new ideas, new lessons, new approaches, strategies, and techniques."


"Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all you were intended to be." Charlie "Tremendous" Jones

Humility

(Taken from Inner Beauty A Book of Virtues by Anthea Church)

Humility dismisses nothing, but takes even small things seriously. It is the recognition that whatever is in life and is in front of you is to be respected as something that will take you forward; that inside big things there is sometimes little, but inside little there is often enormity. Humility puts a hand out to nothing extra, but simply takes what's there. Whether that be food or clothing or understanding. ….sometimes there is a lot available and sometimes only little. It doesn't matter. Even when you understand nothing, there is no worry, for in humility there is trust, everything will come anyway, at the right time. And knowledge mistimed is as dangerous as ignorance.

Humility is also a basis on which things happen: a carefulness and simple being to create from. For in it there is no expectation of brilliance and therefore accomplishment comes more naturally, unthreatened by what will be said or thought by others. A humble person is lovely to be with, for beside them one is at one's best. Yet, because they respect themselves, nothing done belittles them, but further speaks of their beauty because the achievement is half theirs already. Every creative task needs humility behind it, for humility is plainness and on plainness the colours and shape of the work are clear to see and mould. If a new world to come, it would need this quiet basis to form itself on that could stay the same whilst things were changing. Humility is special, therefore, and yet, at times, its disguise is so ordinary. For when something valuable is forming, ordinariness and noise are sometimes needed to distract attention as it grows. The humility in a person, carefree of reputation, can wear the disguise easily so that nothing of the real work is seen.

Humility is the willingness to be used in any way that's necessary, however out of character it may seem; for, in humility, individuality has been exchanged for the task it is involved in. Quietness in this case, is an unquestioning acceptance of whatever has to be done. Humility is rare because to have it, you have to want nothing. If you do have it, you get everything.