In 1993, Jim Valvano received the Arthur Ashe Award at the ESPY's. This award is given to a person who represents, "strength in the face of adversity." He died of cancer 2 months after receiving the award. Without fail, I cry every year when his speech is rerun on TV. He ended his speech with this closing remark. "Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever."
Jimmy V's Vision for his life was so clear. He realized that his time on Earth is precious and finite. His speech still impacts people today and is the foundation of my blogs. "Experts" have said, "that vision leaks from organizations every 21 days." I'm not exactly sure how they put a number on that but I believe the idea to be very true. If you don't cast a vision for what you want, someone else will cast a vision for you. From the beginning, the vision for this blog was to connect with people, be personally reflective, and to think, laugh, and cry each day. This vision came from another piece of Jimmy's famous speech in which he stated: "To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special." So as you continue to follow this blog, I hope I am able to cast a clear vision and deliver to you what Jimmy V. did for me in his 1993 speech. Make it your goal this week to intentionally try to think, laugh, and have your emotions brought to tears. If you want the tears part covered, just click this link to check out his entire speech.
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"If you want to run fast, run alone. If you want to run far, run together!"The past 3 weeks I've been able to post some amazing photos and adventures from around the world. It's easy to be positive, excited, and to be the best version of yourself when you're on vacation. The challenge is how do we make our everyday lives extraordinary and what should we be living for?
At church this week, our pastor stated, "most people still live for themselves". Talk about a gut check. It reminded me of a post on social media I read recently written by Steve Jobs. He died a billionaire at 56 yrs. of Pancreatic Cancer and here are his last words on his sick bed: "I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others' eyes my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy." He goes on to mention, “material things lost can always be found again and whether the house we live in is 300 or 3,000 square ft. - loneliness is the same.” STEVE JOBS had LITTLE JOY aside from work! My recent vacation and Steve Jobs words have helped me see what truly is important. Relationships. Let's be honest, I would have never left the state of Ohio in my life if it wasn't for my wife. We have traveled the world together and she makes me better every day. Whether she puts a sign on our toilet that says, "out of service" because the handle has broken and it causes me to learn how to fix a toilet or if she cuts my birthday wishlist of material things down because a grown man doesn't realistically need 20 pairs of basketball shoes...or a birthday wishlist for that matter. She makes me better. She encourages me when I need it and pushes me when I need a kick in the butt. I'm grateful for her! You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Are you making them better? Are they making you better? Whether it's your significant other, friend, coworker, or family member, don't run alone, run together! |