Most Important Skills Ability

"One of your most important skills is your ability to identify what really matters to you, and how the opportunities you see in life fit those concerns. Investing in Your Life gives you tools to help you do this better and more efficiently."

-- Ian Pollard


"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-- George Bernard Shaw


"The mother's battle for her child with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival."

-- Adrienne Rich


"There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-- Lewis Carroll

Common Quality Who Overcome Setbacks

"There is one common quality in those who overcome setbacks: resilience. It's the ability to bounce back, to learn from, see past and move on from immediate problems rather than dwell on or be overwhelmed by them."

-- Ian Pollard


"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

-- Maria Robinson


"The journey is the reward."

-- Chinese Proverb


"As we live our truths, we will communicate across all barriers, speaking for the sources of peace. Peace that is not lack of war, but fierce and positive."

-- Muriel Rukeyser

Minimize Negative Impacts

"Your life, like mine, will inevitably include mistakes, bad luck and setbacks along the way. The challenge is to minimize their negative impacts, and through learning, to maximize the positive benefits we take from them."

-- Ian Pollard


"It's a rare fish that knows it swims in water."

-- Old Adage


"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

-- Robert Browning


"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment."

-- Henry David Thoreau

Four Times Faster Experience

"Simply put, if you have twice as many new experiences as others who are less comfortable with failure or disappointment, and you learn twice as much as them from each experience, your learning from experience will be four times faster than theirs."

-- Ian Pollard


"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche


"The innate ability of the body to have life is a miracle - and it is impossible without the soul. Nourish the soul and it will nourish the body."

-- Jake Hays


"The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy."

-- Dean Koontz

Success Have Many Fathers

"Success is said to have many fathers, while failure is an orphan. One of the most important fathers of success is failure."

-- Ian Pollard


"Spread love everywhere you go: First of all in your own house ... kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness."

-- Mother Teresa


"The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves."

-- Steven Covey


"Things that I will do my best to carry on in your honor: I will order salad with french fries on the side, with a straight face. I will drink my tea with too much milk. I will carry cookies in my coat pocket for all the dogs. I will love unconditionally."

-- Eulogy for Shelagh Gordon, Feb 2012

Take Care of Thinking

"We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far."

-- Swami Vivekananda


"This mind-and-body is the vessel of my life. I want to know it with the same organic immersion that sets a snow goose flying ten thousand miles every winter and spring."

-- Paul R. Fleischman


"To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking."

-- Goethe


"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

-- Oscar Wilde

Experience is Not What Happens

"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."

-- Aldous Huxley


"Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive it isn't."

-- Richard Bach (illusions)


"Human life runs its course in the metamorphosis between receiving and giving."

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Important Life Assets

"If your health fails, everything else stops in its track. Your physical and mental health are your most important life assets, and you should treat them as such."

-- Ian Pollard


"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there."

-- Will Rogers


"For peace of mind, we need to resign as general manager of the universe."

-- Larry Eisenberg


"Half the spiritual life consists of remembering what we are up against and where we are going."

-- Ayya Khema

Try Something New

"Trying something new: any new challenge builds your thinking and feelings in ways that make you more effective in other contexts."

-- Ian Pollard


"Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I'll give you a stock clerk."

-- J.C. Penney


"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room."

-- Anita Roddick


"Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see."

-- C.S. Lewis

When Sad, Learn Something

"The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails, the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tormented by, never fear of distrust or never dream of regretting."

-- Merlin


"Begin doing what you want to do now. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake."

-- Marie Ray


"You had better live your best and act your best and think your best today; for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow."

-- Harriet Martineau


"It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts."

-- K.T. Jong

You Can Learn Anything

"The lesson I learned from the study of people who creates something in their lives out of nothing...alchemists...[is] that you can learn anything if you really want to. Passion was what drove these people...If you care enough you will find out what you need to know and chase the source of the knowledge or the skill. The alchemists never spoke of failures or mistakes but only of learning experiences. Passion as the secret of learning is an odd solution to propose but I believe that it works at all levels and all ages."

-- Charles Handy


"If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive."

-- Barry Lopez


"Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought."

-- Henri L. Bergson


"It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving."

-- Mother Teresa

Lessons In Every Situation

"Optimists seek benefit and lessons in every situation, especially from setbacks or problems. They don't let negative emotions distract them from the task at hand, continuing to focus on the big picture and communication the confidence that they can make it."

-- Ian Pollard


"This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke


"No amount of good deeds can make us good persons. We must be good before we can do good."

-- Chester A. Pennington


"Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains."

-- Helen Douglas

Spark Action

"In some respects it is the quest for a comfort zone or an opportunity to relax that drives you on. But if you always stay well within your comfort zone, you will have little exposure to negative feelings like fear, pain, frustration or boredom, which can spark ACTION."

-- Ian Pollard


"Don't believe everything you read, see or hear and you'll probably be closer to truth."

-- Dean Wiebe


"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"One cannot make a slave of a free person, for a free person is free even in a prison."

-- Plato

Most Important Determinants

"One of the most important determinants of your career luck, opportunity and satisfaction and also of your self-awareness is the people you choose to surround yourself with and they way you engage with them."

-- Ian Pollard


"He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past."

-- George Orwell


"A different language is a different vision of life."

-- Federico Fellini


"If we deny love this is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater."

-- Motivationstuff.com

Pattern Of Life

"If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces the golden eggs."

-- Stephen Covey


"He who learns teaches, he who teaches learns."

-- African proverb


"If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it.

If you don't ask, the answer is always no.

If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place."

-- Nora Roberts


"Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition."

-- Alexander Smith

Major Contributor To Performance

"Understanding your strengths and weakness can be a major contributor to your performance on the day, and can also help you identify areas for improvement in the long term."

-- Ian Pollard


"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

-- Charles Caleb Colton


"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."

-- George Jackson


"You may think the grass is greener on the other side, but if you take the time to water your own grass it would be just as green."

-- Motivationstuff.com

Focused On Process

"If you have focused on process, you are also better placed after the event to deconstruct your successes and failures, thereby learning and building more effectively."

-- Ian Pollard


"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'"

-- Sydney Harris


"Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light."

-- Norman B. Rice


"It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions."

-- Charles F. Kettering

NOW is The Time

"Everyone know that one day we must leave this earth as it is the supreme order of nature and no higher power can overrule it. But, very few seen to know, that 'NOW' is their time and 'NOW' is the only time they get to be alive."

-- Dharma Dev


"Those at the top of the mountain didn't fall there."

-- Marcus Washling


"Your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don't think that you've lost time. There is no short-cutting to life. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is right on time."

-- Asha Tyson


"No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals."

-- Brian Tracy

Complete The Task

"Once you have set out to accomplish something, you go all out and you do everything in your capacity to complete the task."

-- Dharma Dev


"The realities of the world seldom measure up to the sublime designs of human imagination."

-- Bryant McGill


"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

-- Albert Camus


"Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny."

-- Kim Hubbard

Pleasing Our Own Heart

"It is important to remember in this life that we do not live to please others but we live to please our very own heart."

-- Dharma Dev


"What can you do to promote world peace?
Go home and love your family."

-- Mother Teresa


"If you want the truth, I'll tell you the truth: Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you."

-- Kabir


"People need love, especially when they don't deserve it."

-- Motivationstuff.com

Not Luck or Fate

"We must realise relying on luck and fate to progress in life is not going to help your progress. You must take the initiative to carve success out of your life. Remembering these points will gun down any doubt and stimulate confidence within you and eventually reach the point of true success."

-- Dharma Dev


"Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides.

Following them, you reach your destiny."

-- Carl Schurz


"In our culture, snails are not considered valiant animals -- we are constantly exhorting people to "come out of their shells" -- but there's a lot to be said for taking your home with you wherever you go."

-- Susan Cain


"Adventure is not outside man; it is within."

-- David Grayson

When Time Is Great Friend

"Time is our great friend if we use it wisely to plan our life. If we plan our life, then we can achieve great deal of things."

-- Dharma Dev


"We have no need to teach pure motives to the mind. All that is necessary to make the mind pure is to undo the negative conditioning to which it has been subjected; then we will be left with pure, unconditioned awareness."

-- Eknath Easwaran


"Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners."

-- William Shakespeare


"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose–a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."

-- Mary Shelley

One's True Inner Self

"Life is about understanding one's true inner self and progressing as the second passes by."

-- Dharma Dev


"Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile give him yours."

-- Zig Ziglar


"The person susceptible to "wanderlust" is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation."

-- Pico Iyer


"You have to understand that the world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.

The hand is more important than the eye... The hand is the cutting edge of the mind."

-- Jacob Bronowski

Get Out of Any Dark Patches

"It is important for people to not be brought down by disappointment or be demoralised by defeat. They should continue to strive to get out of any dark patches they face and to come up stronger each time."

-- Victor Lim


"Self-contempt never inspires lasting change."

-- Jane R. Hirschmann


"Who you really are is enough."

-- Oriah Mountain Dreamer


"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

-- Dale Carnegie

Unique Will Power

"Will power, the unique yet tremendous power, we possess is an invaluable gift presented to us. If exercising that power becomes a strong habit of yours, success will be easily grasped and you will become an unstoppable warrior who continues to win."

-- Dharma Dev


"You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you.

If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle."

-- George Lucas

Truly Strong

"He who knows man is clever. He who knows himself has insight. He who conquers men has force. He who conquers himself is truly strong."

-- Lao Tzu


"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

-- Vince Lombardi


"Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form."

-- Stephen Nachmanovitch


"An expert is a person who has few new ideas; a beginner is a person with many."

-- Albert Einstein

Your Purpose Is Unique

"Your purpose is as unique as you are. When you get touch with a purpose, you will experience a greater sense of control in your life."

-- Dr. Beverly Potter


"Health is not valued till sickness comes."

-- Khalil Gibran


"When you start loving what you are learning, it will no longer look like work. Everything will fall in place after that. Just fall in love."

-- A. K. Raha


"In seeking happiness for others, you find it for yourself."

-- Motivationstuff.com

Backbone of Success

"Preparation and planning form the backbone of success. If you do not check your car before you start your journey and expect to reach your destination with ease, it is extremely unwise."

-- Dharma Dev


"Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that."

-- Norman Vincent Peale


"When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere."

-- Francois De La Rochefoucauld


"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude."

-- Denis Waitley

Have a Clear Purpose

"Having a clear purpose helps you to overcome fears: fear of failure, fear of success, fear of physical harm, fear of psychological pain, fear of the unknown."

-- Dr. Beverly Potter


"There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing."

-- Khalil Gibran


"Sometimes you just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you."

-- Dr Phil


"Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn't know it was missing."

-- Paola Antonelli

Path of Your Heart

"Pursue that which promises you joy and love and do not compromise with anything else and be assured you are in the path of your heart."

-- Dharma Dev


"Being busy does not always mean real work.

The object of all work is production or accomplishment and both of these require forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration.

Seeming to do is not doing."

-- Thomas A. Edison


"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."

-- T.S. Eliot


"You are the sky. Everything else - it's just the weather."

-- Pema Chodron

The World Steps Aside

"The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going."

-- President Clinton


"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age."

-- Jeanne Moreau


"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."

-- Bill Cosby


"I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become."

-- Oprah Winfrey