Free Burma

Free Burma

Failing Your Way to Success

Billionaire Sir James Dyson on failing your way to success, at Fast Company.

Today, Dyson makes the best-selling vacuum cleaner by revenue in the United States and is one of the richest blokes in Britain. But it took him 15 years and nearly his entire savings to develop his bagless, transparent creation. His latest innovation, a hand dryer that uses neither heat nor evaporation, took only three years, but Dyson says his grinding, error-filled approach hasn't changed.

"We're taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven't, you need to do things the wrong way."

Sir James Dyson audio interview

green revolution

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter writes, "Only five people in history have ever won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal: Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel ... and Norman Borlaug."

Unfortunately, these days we all know more than we ever needed to know about Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, and the man who saved a billion people gets minimal coverage.

Dr. Borlaug was honored in Washington DC last week, but, Alter laments, "For Borlaug, still vital at 93, to win more notice, he would have to make his next trip to Africa in the company of Angelina Jolie."

need inspiration?

Having a bad day?

Need a little boost?

Just watch the video linked below!


I just received this email -- what a story -- "without hope we have nothing"

LHSF is continuing to bring cancer support and awareness to new heights by hosting dynamic concert and climbs around the globe. Our biggest event to date will take place this October, Everest Rocks!

We are honored to announce that Sean Swarner, the first cancer survivor to summit Everest and ascend all 7 of the highest summits on each continent will be joining our trek to Everest. Yesterday, Sean’s incredible story was featured on ESPN’s SportCenter. Please take a moment to check it out at Swarner Video[hopefully that link works, or try here]


Thanks to everyone for your amazing support!

SHANNON FOLEY
Executive Director
LOVE HOPE STRENGTH FOUNDATION
PO Box 13290
Denver, CO 80201
303.518.8938 Tel
303.648.5609 Fax
shannon@lovehopestrength.com

the end of marketing as we know it?

Angels in Action

Daryn Kagan provides an inspiring story and a wonderful website.

Career Opportunities

Be careful about turning down opportunities -- your next big break or contact may be about to fall in your lap.

In 1968 David Steinberg was having a difficult time with his stand-up act in Greenwich Village. He wanted to blow off his last night and an audience of six, but, went on with the show. Fortuitously, a New York Times reviewer was in the audience and published a glowing review in the next day's paper. David was summoned to The Tonight Show and his career took off.

Check out David's appearance on last night's Charlie Rose show (below) and also hear about his lunches with the "Mount Rushmore of Comedy" -- Jack Benny, George Burns and Groucho Marx (fast forward if you don't want to watch Jack Lang).

A Hypnosis Session with Pete Siegel

Are you holding yourself back? Does performance anxiety sabotage your efforts? Could hypnosis help you achieve peak performance?

Hypnotherapist Pete Siegel believes it can, and who am I to argue. Hell, the guy helped the Mets win the 1986 World Series.

Check out a podcast (including a hypno session) or read about Pete at Men's Health.

Tony Robbins: Decisions Shape Destiny

live and uncensored (and highly caffeinated?)

Creativity: Seeker or Finder?

Are you more of a conceptual innovator like Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Paul Samuelson, or more of an experimental innovator like Paul Cézanne, Charles Dickens and Robert Frost?

David W. Galenson, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, produced a fascinating analysis of human creativity suggesting that artists and other innovators are typically seekers or finders.

Last week at the HSM World Innovation Forum [see Fast Company] Malcolm Gladwell gave a presentation based on Galenson's work, and recommended that businesses would be wise to seek a combination of the two styles.

imagine what the world could be

a music video with a message

Happiness and Hobbies

Psychology Today explains why hobbies and some activities make you happier:

You may wonder why it's so important to loosen your creative juices, but diving into innovative pursuits can be your ticket to a healthier, more joyful life. When a painter paints, for example, he becomes utterly immersed in what he is doing. This focused engagement takes deep involvement where time seems to move effortlessly. . .

Psychiatrist Gregory Berns of Emory University takes the idea of engagement even further. He has found that experiencing discomfort is necessary to get you to contentment, arguing that satisfaction is to some extent generated by the stress hormone cortisol's effects on the dopamine system. That's why some people derive joy from extreme challenges. . .

Is the American Dream Dying?

From a press release dated May 24, 2007:

(WASHINGTON) – American men have less income than their fathers’ generation did at the same age, according to a new analysis released today by the Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Comprised of a Principals’ Group of experts from The American Enterprise Institute, The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation, and The Urban Institute, the project seeks to investigate the health and status of economic mobility in America.

The analysis, though apparently limited to income, is thought-provoking: "The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in median household income growth compared to earlier generations."

The report explained, ". . . upward absolute mobility occurs because of economic growth, which normally ensures that each generation is better off, or has a higher standard of living, on average, than the one before. . . Using new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the Economic Mobility Project has found that absolute mobility is declining for a significant group of Americans."

Of course, some people are thriving in our brave new world: "Between 1978 and 2005, CEO pay increased from 35 times to nearly 262 times the average worker’s pay."

This may be a wake up call for some folks -- relying too much on standard income growth could be hazardous to your wealth.

Quotations

some quotations collected along the way; hopefully the attributions are accurate

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles Du Bos

Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn’t the dream destroy reality? - George Moore

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome. - Samuel Johnson

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live a life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. - Henry David Thoreau

What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does. - Confucius

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. - Chinese proverb

The greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fall. - Confucius

Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well. - Danish proverb

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner. - English proverb

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable. - Mark Twain

If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance. - Orville Wright

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan

The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind. - William James

The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others. - Tyron Edwards

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, "This is the real me," and when you have found that attitude, follow it. - William James

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it. - Alistair Cooke

One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful. - Sigmund Freud

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. - James Buckham

To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory. - Pierre Corneille