Jon Fisher - I Took the Only Path To See You

Don't be a kid in a candy store.

You have to make a decision right now that will affect the rest of your life. The longer you procrastinate, the harder your decision will get. You also can't let someone else make this decision for you. It's all on you, yet many people go through their entire lives without making it.

No matter how old you may be, where you live, or what you're currently doing, this decision is vitally important because your life depends on it.

This decision is simple. When will you decide to take charge of your own life?

As straightforward as this question might seem, it's still deceptively difficult. That's why most people avoid answering this question or refuse to acknowledge that it even exists. Yet whether you answer this question or not, your reaction will reveal two important truths.

First, are you willing to take responsibility for your life right now? Once you take responsibility for your life, guess what? You now hold the key to the greatest force in the world, which is nothing more than the power of choice.

You have shaped your life up until this point, which means you also have the power to shape your life differently now and in the future. Sure, what others do in your life matters, but if you're the only one who can control your life, then you can change your life for the better, no matter who may get in your way or what anyone else might say.

Taking responsibility for your life and acknowledging that you're in control automatically removes all excuses. That can be scary but also empowering because that means you can change your life for the better at a moment's notice.

That's true power that no amount of money can buy.

Just as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz finally learned that she had the power to go home at any time, you always have the power to improve your life at any time. Once you acknowledge that you alone hold this power, you'll possess the greatest force in the world, which is the ability to shape the future of your life at any time.

If you don't think you have any control over your life, ask yourself what you could do right now that would make your life infinitely worse. Most likely, you can come up with dozens of ways you can make your life worse than it is right now, but if you can make your life worse, that also means you can also choose ways to make your life better.

Before you can make your life better, you need to believe that's even an option.

Once you know you hold the power to choose between making your life better or making your life worse, you must choose to make your life better. Then you must take action to make your life better. It's that simple.

Remember the three Cs of life: Choices, Chances, and Changes. Until you make a choice to take a chance, your life will never change. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” Author and motivational speaker Wayne Dyer said, “When you abandon making choices, you enter the vast world of excuses.”

Don't make excuses. Start changing your life for the better today. Once you know what you want to change in your life, you can then make a choice. If a choice doesn't quite work out the way you want, you can always make another choice. The power of choice makes you capable of doing anything you want. The most important decision you can ever make is deciding that only you can change your life and you can keep making new choices at any time until your life turns out the way you like.

Will you make mistakes? Of course. Will you run into problems? Yes. Can your choices make your life worse off than if you had done nothing at all? Possibly.

However, if you let these fears stop you from trying, you'll never know what you may be missing. There's a whole new life waiting for you but you need to take that first step based on nothing more than faith that a better world is out there.

That's the power of choice. You must recognize that you, and nobody else, holds this power that can literally control your life. Commit to that one decision now and your life will never be the same again.

I guarantee it.

Takeaway: Acknowledge that you have the power to change your life by making decisions. No matter what your situation may be, you always have the choice to make your life better (or worse) at each moment in time. The more positive choices you make in your life, the greater impact you'll have on your life in the long run.

By Gerald Fisher

Kindness has been around for my entire life. I just wasn't aware of it until I started doing some research about kindness. I found some colleagues were kind while others were not so kind. That's when I noticed that kindness was an admirable attribute because we all appreciate people who are kind.

Clearly kindness affects us, but I didn't see the bigger picture that kindness could also be contagious and be a major factor in the conduct of business. Not only is it true that you don't have to be a bastard to succeed, but it's also true that if you have a certain kindness in your life and in your spirit, it will affect the people around you and be contagious. Then you'll be even more successful than if you were calculating, nasty, and unkind to others.

The example that pops into my mind is a major quarterback for an NFL team who was well known to everyone. During training camp, there was a rookie trying to make the team's center. So he snapped the ball to the star quarterback, but the ball hit his fingers at an awkward angle and the quarterback winced in pain as the ball flew high in the air.

At this point, the whole coaching staff ran out on the field. Half went to see if their star quarterback was seriously injured, and the other half went to berate the rookie center. They were yelling at him, saying, “How can you think of making the team if you snap a football like that? What kind of a player are you? If you hurt our quarterback, you will never see the field and you'll be gone by tomorrow morning.”

At this point, the quarterback came over and said, “No, you're getting it wrong. His was a perfect snap. The fault was mine. I was ill positioned.”

The rookie center, as you might guess, was so overwhelmed by what the quarterback did that he said to himself, “I'm gonna play for that guy and I'm going to play my heart out,” which is what he did.

That was expected from the rookie center, but the additional factor that I hadn't focused on after all these years is that a lot of players witnessed that event. There was a lot of discussion in the clubhouse, a lot of talk amongst the linemen as the people who support the quarterback, and they all were taken aback at how kind and considerate and generous this guy was, and the whole team just reacted with euphoria.

They gave their all for that quarterback. They did things they didn't think they could do. Although it wasn't all entirely due to the generosity of a quarterback, it played a large role in defining that quarterback's position as a leader for the team.

Many people have contributed major inventions or founded organizations that have literally changed the world and society for the better. While some of these people have been kind and generous to others, others were not. Ultimately, what matters isn't any admiration or accolades someone receives for their actions but how those actions affect other people both individually and collectively throughout an entire organization.

Back when I was a graduate student, another graduate student named Dick had the idea that our little physics department athletic team could win the all University Intramural Athletic Championship. Now the idea that a bunch of physics graduate students could win a sporting competition sounded like mental illness because the intramural championship had always been won by a fraternity or a club, not by a bunch of graduate students in a physics department.