Accomplishment/success
“When you truly want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
— Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist. (1993).
“The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life. ”
― Tony Dungy
“What would someone like Donald Trump do if he suddenly woke up in the body of someone very poor? He would make immediate changes and get himself back to being rich asap. What would Martha Stewart do if she woke up inside the body of someone who had a messy house and couldn’t throw a dinner party? She’d get herself to Kmart right away and stock up on some new dishes. ”
— Erin Pavlina (from a private conversation with Alan)
“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”
― Fred Rogers
“If people don’t buy drills because they need drills, but rather because they need holes, then people don’t establish relationships with you to enrich you, but because there’s something about you that enriches them.”
– Alan Weiss
“Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”
– Napoleon Hill
“If you don’t have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?”
– Jiminy Cricket
“You can set yourself free by how you talk to yourself about your capabilities. The greatness you see in others is in you. I promise you that you can find it inside you, no matter who you are.”
– Steve Chandler
“When you define success for yourself, life becomes very, very simple.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“Our culture teaches us that making significant changes takes a long time and is difficult to do. This is simply NOT true. Change happens in an instant. It is not a process – it is something you do in an instant by simply making a decision.”
– Tony Robbins
“Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Aliveness
“A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is so alive.”
– Pearl Bailey
“The winding path I’ve followed since childhood remains mysterious, more improvisational than strategic – for example, as improbable as it may seem, i made up my world championship trampoline routine in the moment and on the fly, one move at a time, up in the wire while upside down.”
– Dan Millman
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
“You’ve got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you’re not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.”
– Steven D. Woodhull
“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.”
― Muhammad Ali
“We want you to lighten up and stop asking yourself to be on the cusp of perfection at all times. It’s not logical in this contrasting world in which you live. We just want you to take what’s happening lighter. We want you to release the tension within you, And stop holding yourself to perfect standards. And instead accept that magnificent life you are living is always working to accommodate you. ALWAYS working to accommodate you, no matter how it looks. NO MATTER HOW IT LOOKS!”
– Esther Hicks
“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”
– Pope Paul VI
“As a stand-up comic, I believe it is my duty to be funny from the moment I wake up, to the moment I fall asleep. And even then, I fart all night. Because that’s how funny I am!”
– Jenny Eclair (Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala)
“Be easy about this. Be playful about it. Don’t work so hard at it. Let your dominant intent to be to feel good”
– Esther Hicks
“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.”
― Thomas Merton
“I have an almost religious zeal… not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up.”
– Dan Millman
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open….”
– Martha Graham
“The only two things in our lives are aliveness and patterns that block our aliveness. As patterns are experienced out, our lives become clearer. Things begin to make more sense. What we do makes more sense.
It’s funny, but when the alive you emerges from behind the smokescreen of all those patterns and begins to participate in life directly, life really does have purpose. It all somehow makes sense, in a fantastic way.
When you get rid of the blocks, what you have is aliveness, and when the blocks are gone, purpose emerges. There is no use searching externally for purpose, or trying to “pull it in.” It is already there. Just focus on clearing out what is between you and aliveness, so every time we create greater aliveness, the purpose is being served.”
– Werner Erhard
“Aliveness and purpose are practically the same thing. The purpose is greater aliveness, so every time we create greater aliveness, the purpose is being served.”
– Werner Erhard
“As more and more of us get to see that the purpose is greater aliveness, it happens that all of us start to do the same thing – we start serving the purpose. Life comes on to us in our own terms, and so does the opportunity to serve.
”
– Werner Erhard
“That everyone is serving the purpose in a different way does not mean that everyone is doing something different. That’s the illusion. We do the same thing in different ways. As each of us makes our part of the whole really work, the purpose is being served.
”
– Werner Erhard
“The purpose is life and that it be, completely.
The commitment is: aliveness.”
– Werner Erhard
Children
“Golfers, baseball players, lawyers, musicians, and so on all learn their crafts. And yet somehow we believe that when two people bring a child into the world, they are magically given the ability to love and teach that child. We prove our belief in this “parental magic” with the amount of attention we put into parental education. More training is required to get a fishing license than to be a parent. In high school and college, we teach algebra, history, and economics, but parenting is all but ignored. Then when we do a lousy job of loving our children, we’re surprised. We shouldn’t be. Loving children doesn’t come automatically; it’s something we learn to do, just as we learn anything else: we need to be taught, we make mistakes, and with instruction and practice we get better at it. Delightfully, loving our children is something we can all learn to do.”
— Dr Greg Baer. Real Love in Parenting – Nine Simple and Powerfully Effective Principles for Raising Happy and Responsible Children. (2005).
You want the first elements?
The infant has them.
Free from care, unaware of self,
He acts without reflection,
Stays where he is put,
Does not know why,
Does not figure things out,
Just goes along with them,
is part of the current.
These are the first elements!
— Chinese philosopher Chuan Tzu
“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.”
– Mark Twain
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
– Pablo Picasso
Commitment
“If you’re not totally committed this ship is sinking, it’s just a matter of when.”
— Steve Hardison
“A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.”
– Carlos Castaneda
“Until that’s in place, they won’t go very far because there isn’t that underlying determination or
pleasure or commitment, whatever word you want to use, to being responsible. I can go out to the store and
feed my stomach, but to ensure that I get fed every day, that requires a bit more planning – having revenue
streams and time to go shopping, and so on. I don’t hear that the client has done that yet.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“When I’m immediately confronted with surly service, for example in a restaurant or in a club, I’m apt to say, “Okay, you’re not happy for some reason, so we have three options: We can start again, you can get someone else to help me, or I can leave. Which do you prefer?” I usually get an apology and a restart, but I’ve left my share of places. (It doesn’t work on an airplane, of course.)”
– Alan Weiss
Creating
“In improvisational acting, there’s this great rule that I’ve used in my life which is “act as if”. Act as if this is completely normal.. of course i’m supposed to be interviewing Barack Obama, or of course i’m supposed to be playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen. And of course, there’s a big part of me inside saying “what are you talking about?”. This doesn’t feel completely real.”
— Conan O’Brien
“The thinking of a genius [or that of a creator, one who creates] does not proceed logically. It leaps with great ellipses. It pulls knowledge from God knows where.”
— Dorothy Thompson, American journalist (1893-1961)
“A rather magnificent part of the statement made by The Secret is that people of all walks of life, from those who have used these techniques to improve their lives to those who’ve denied the power of and connection between belief and reality, can co-exist together. The question is: with whom does the conflict truly lay?”
— Anonymous commenter!
“Until what is significant is created by you, you aren’t living your life, you are living some inherited life.”
– Werner Erhard
“Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs.”
– Vaclav Havel
“There is no way you can’t have the best business on this planet. No one stops you but you… that’s the only possibility.”
— Byron Katie
“Not a single person is born in the world who has not a certain capacity which will make him proud, who is not pregnant with something to produce, to give birth to something new and beautiful, to make the existence richer. There is not a single person who has come into the world empty.”
— Chandra Mohan Jain
“The trick is in what one emphasises. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”
― Carlos Castaneda
“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune in to.”
– Wayne Dyer
“Why always “not yet”? Do flowers in spring say “not yet”?”
― Norman Douglas
“Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.”
– Chinese Proverb
“Satisfying needs is a skill, which, when learned, will free up about 50% of your waking hours to devote elsewhere.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“Many coaches and clients become experts at completing things and even have high scores on the Clean Sweep
Program (a 100-point checklist to get your life cleaned up, available from Coach U). And, I’ve seen very, very,
skilled visualizers who manifest a future and even a present. But the problem is, these folks MUST do this in
order to be with themselves. In other words, their present is conditional on working on the past or the future.
For some reason, there is not enough of a present for them to have their present be a gift — again, they are
DRIVEN to have a future or to overcome the past; there is NO freedom in exactly how things are”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“Next toss out the needs and shoulds from your list. If you need it to be happy, it’s a need, not a value. If
you’re doing it in order to get something else, it is not a value. If you want it, but it doesn’t come easily, it’s
probably a should. If you did it when you were five, it’s probably a value. If it’s really exciting and you’re
afraid of it, it may be a value. Please add more, or prune, to bring your true value list to a total of seven.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“I am convinced that one of the most helpful things we can do for people is to refuse to buy into their inappropriately restricted views of their limitations.”
– Nathaniel Branden (and one of Steve Hardison’s favourite quotes)
“Be imaginative in your choices. You can create anything you wish within the normal range of human experiences and available in the culture in which you live in. Don’t get stuck repeating a pattern of the past that you haven’t enjoyed. If you don’t change these patterns, no one will and therefore you will continue to live them out.”
– Michael Domeyko Rowland
“The basic Universal Law is one of Abundance in everything. Look how a single seed of corn can grow into a bush that throws off hundreds of corn cobs, each filled with seeds. Look to the heavens and see the stars in the sky, to the sea teeming with fish. Life doesn’t hold back, it expresses its abundance constantly and continually. How much of that abundance you take up is entirely up to you. You may restrict yourself to very little, or you may choose a generous experience of life.”
– Michael Domeyko Rowland
Loyalty
“I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can’t get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That’s in friendship, that’s a deal, that’s a commitment. Don’t give me paper – I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that’s for life.”
— Jerry Lewis
Money
“The purpose of making money is to be a bigger blessing to more people. The way you use money describes your true value system”
— B Klemmer
Music
“When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition.
If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best.
When we dance, the journey itself is the point. When we play music the playing itself is the point.”
– Alan Watts
Passion/Enthusiasm
“What would happen if we did everything that we did with energy, enthusiasm, and as if it were the most important job in the world?”
— Bill Cumming
“Go with the flow of your higher self’s goal. There is nothing more wonderful than living in alignment with your intention. It’s like swimming in bubbles. You’ll get giddy and excited. And then you’ll be flying!”
— Erin Pavlina
“Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility,
like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.”
― Amiel
“Walk hand in hand with Joy. When you lose Joy, stop for a moment, look around until you find Joy again, and ask her to hold your hand and walk with you some more. Joy is never lost, and she will always come to you when you call her. Stick with Joy, and she will stick with you.”
— Erin Pavlina
“Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.”
– Tim Ferriss
Play
“Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play. This turns possible underachievers into happy warriors.”
– Dr Paul Samelson
“If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently.”
– Bill Watterson
Recognition
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics’ being “transferred” to you. So, say positive and pleasant things about friends and colleagues, and you are seen as a nice person. In contrast, constantly complain about their failings, and people will unconsciously apply the negative traits and incompetence to you.”
– Richard Wiseman. 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute.
“A person can have the greatest idea in the world – completely different and novel – but if that person cannot convince enough other people, it does not matter.”
– Gregory Burns (Executive Speech Coaching)
“People are only interested in one thing: getting results.”
– Sandy Vilas
“If I don’t like what the critics write,
I get into my Ferrari and I drive away.”
– Miles Davis
“We can make our minds so like still water
That beings gather about us,
That they may see, it may be,
Their own images,
And so live for a moment,
With a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life,
Because of our quiet.”
– W.B. Yeats
“There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal individuals.”
– Thomas Jefferson
If you have enough spiritual strength, you will give birth to a spiritual child, and
through your life and practice, you continue giving birth, even after you die.
– Don Miguel Ruiz.
“Whatever you are yearning to gain, be sure to start giving.”
– Unknown
Relationships
“Anyone that’s been in a relationship for more than two years is undergoing voluntary adversity”
— Dan Millman. Conquer the odds: pursuing your passion.
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
― Fred Rogers
“To get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with”
– Mark Twain
“[on the benefits of over-communicating] It’s odd because we’re not trained to over-communicate in that way, but after you do that for a while and your clients are used to it, it becomes a natural part of the communication process and then there’s not this floundering process or mis-communication. You’re just constantly communicating about how you’re communicating, not just communicating and it adds a – it increases the quality of coaching as well as reducing the number of disconnects.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.”
– Michael Strassfeld
“Love is an act of self-assertion, self-expression and a celebration of being alive.”
– Nathaniel Branden
“1. Most of us have a boundary we’ve set called “no hitting.” Regardless of the provocation or the “weakness”
of the other person, hitting us is just not okay. No matter what. (And as you know, some people have not yet
established this boundary.)
2. The next “upgrade” of this boundary is “no screaming or yelling at me, regardless.” Do you have this one
yet? If so, congratulations. If not, you should, for your integrity’s sake.
3. Next is the “no digs or cracks” boundary. This means that the other person cannot belittle, criticize, make
fun of or make cracks or jokes about you or what you’re doing. Period. That’s period. (Cracks and digs are
not humor; they are always a form of “acceptable” anger. No more!)
4. Next is the “no upset” rule. This gets a little tougher because you’re now letting the other person know that
they can’t be upset with you. Wow. Isn’t that controlling? you might ask. It could be, but not in this context.
What you’re doing here is letting people know that you are not the kind of person who will knowingly or
deliberately harm another. And given this, it’s simply not okay for the other person to assume that you did
something hurtful, thus allowing them to feel justified in being upset with you. (Now, if you did do
something hurtful, and it was deliberate, this does not apply.)
5. Finally, welcome to the “unconditionally constructive” boundary. This means that you expect those in your
life to always be honest, yet supportive and to cast what they say in a positive light. That is, to use language
that forwards you always, vs tripping you. This level takes practice, so work with your family and friends
until you are both satisfied.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“What I try to do – in a earlier work that I published – if there are 25 needs to be met, everything from acceptance to love to romance to security to listening; the 25 roles or needs that a couple could provide for each other, my rule is just to have 5 of those get met by the spouse and that takes the pressure off the relationship and it forces the person to develop their own support system.”
– Thomas J. Leonard
“If you are playing tennis, you have a partner, you are a team, and you never go
against each other – never. Even if you both play tennis differently, you have the
same goal: to have fun together, to play together, to be playmates.
If you see your partnership, your romantic relationship, as a team, everything will
start to improve.
In the track of love, you are giving much more than taking. And of course, you
love yourself so much that you don’t allow selfish people to take advantage of you. ”
– Don Miguel Ruiz. The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship.
“This is the only way to begin a great relationship. First you have to know what
you want, how you want it, when you want it. You have to know exactly what the
needs of your body are, what the needs of your mind are, and what fits well with
you.
You can love everyone: but to deal with a person on an everyday basis, you will
need someone more closely aligned to you.
You need to be honest with yourself, and honest with everyone else. Project what
you feel you really are, and don’t pretend to be what you are not. It’s as if you are
in a market.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz. The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship.
“In the absence of Real Love, sex can become a powerful and dangerous source of Imitation Love, and many of us will do almost anything to get it.”
– Dr Greg Baer.
“When people feel unconditionally loved, most sexual dysfunction disappears.”
– Dr Greg Baer.
“There is a way of relating
to others such that one deliberately listens for the hidden beauty in them. The place
of their beauty is often the place of their greatest integrity. When you listen, the
integrity and wholeness in others moves closer. Your attention strengthens it and
makes it easier for them to hear it in themselves. In your presence, they can more
easily inhabit that in them which is beyond their limitations, a place of greater
freedom and sanctuary. Eventually they may be able to live there.”
– Rachel Remen
“There is in life suffering so unspeakable, a vulnerability so extreme that it goes far
beyond words, beyond explanation and even beyond healing. In the face of such
suffering all we can do is bear witness so no one need suffer alone.”
– Rachel Remen
“I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn’t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.”
– Hugh Elliott
“The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.”
– Pearl S. Buck
“I’m not saying that there’s anything better than mated bliss at its best, but I’m saying that living alone is as good in its own way. But we haven’t quite given ourselves permission to recognize that.”
– Barbara Feldon
“Language does have the power to change reality. Therefore, treat your words as the mighty instruments they are – to heal, to bring into being, to remove, as if by magic, the terrible violations of childhood, to nurture, to cherish, to bless, to forgive – to create from the whole cloth of your soul, true love.”
– Daphne Rose Kingma
“If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”
– Khalil Gibran
“There is no greater barrier to romantic happiness than the fear that you are undeserving of love and destined to be hurt.”
– Nathaniel Branden
Self/You
“The experience of being yourself is innately satisfying. If who you really are does not give you the experience of health, happiness, love and full self-expression – or ‘aliveness’ – then that is not who you really are. When you experience yourself as yourself, that experience is innately satisfying. The experience of the self as the self is the experience of satisfaction.
Satisfaction is not ‘out there’. It cannot be brought in. You will never get satisfied. It cannot be done. When you want more and different or better, that is gratification, and while that is gratifying, we always want even more or even better. Satisfaction is completion, being complete – what has been called ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’. It is a condition of well-being – a sense of wholeness and of being complete right now – a context of certainty that right now is completely all right as right now and that the next moment will similarly be, fully itself. Not a judgment of good or bad, right or wrong, just what is.”
– Werner Erhard
“You do not have to get there. You cannot get there. You have only to ‘realize’ your self, and, as you do, you are satisfied. Then it is natural and spontaneous to express that in life and share that opportunity with others.”
– Werner Erhard
“For self is a sea boundless and measureless. Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.” Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.” For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
– Kahlil Gibran. The Prophet. (1923).
“Light up the fire of love inside, and blaze the thoughts away.”
– Rumi
“Just as there is no one meaning for all, neither is there a best teacher, book, religion or martial art, or best music or work of art or path or exercise or dietary system — only the best one for each of us at a given time.”
– Dan millman
“The past is over. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we came from, what
Mommy said, what Daddy did, what mistakes we made, what diseases we have, or
how depressed we feel. The future can be reprogrammed in this moment.”
– Marianne Williamson
“There is something about you brighter than the sun and more mysterious than the night sky.”
– Adyashanti
“You’re the same today as you’ll be in five years except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
― Charlie “Tremendous” Jones
“I want to have time for myself, my family, and my friends. It’s important because in order to sing well, you must have inspiration, and inspiration comes from life, from living.”
– Andrea Bocelli
“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”
― Muhammad Ali
“You’ve got to start telling the it doesn’t matter to whom I was born story because I am a pure positive energy being who always finds my way story.”
– Esther Hicks
“Perhaps losing integrity with yourself is the greatest stress of all, far more hurtful to us than competition, time pressure, or lack of respect.”
– Rachel Remen
“…. and the secret to happiness in this world is not only to be useful, but to be forever elevating one’s uses.”
– Sarah Orne Jewett
“There is very little that any philosophy, psychology, or self-help book can teach us that is new about attaining the ultimate currency. The most a book or a teacher can do is to help raise our awareness, to help us become more fully in touch with what we already know. Ultimately, our progress, our growth, and our happiness come from our ability to look within ourselves and ask the important questions.”
– Tal Ben-Shahar. Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment.
“Feel the chair hold you. It’s there for you to notice. And the ground – we have gravity here; this is amazing! It will hold you. And your mind will do this, and air will support you. It’s not unfamiliar ground, and you’re not alone.”
– Byron Katie
“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
– Kahlil Gibran