Thank Goodness It's Monday #454

WHAT’S WRITTEN ON YOUR HEART?

 

It’s been a lot of Mondays (454 divided by 52 = a bit short of a decade) since these weekly messages began their routine appearance as part of a multi-platform program created with my buddy Eric Taylor and The EmpowermentGroup.

Our first connection had been at a public event perhaps a year or two prior.

After that we spent some time assessing each other, trying to figure out just what the connection was between an older, words-on-paper, pass-along business soft-skills, jacket & tie guy (that was me at the time) and, dare I say, a brash, young, great-on-the-platform, hyper-energized, fit and trim people-motivator like Eric (often decked out in preferred-at-the-time Tony Robbins look).

To cut to the chase: In those ancient days of business “courting” we discovered much in common and that our complementary talents played nicely and well together. A mutual acquaintance noted once we were like Lennon and McCartney, which I always took as a compliment (although I’ve never been sure who’s who in that equation).

The grandest production of those days became, as I have suggested above, a multi-media program conceived as and modestly tagged, How to Have Your Best Year Ever. 

The BYE elements consisted of ballroom-filling half-day presentations, CDs and DVDs, ring binders filled with stuff from all the productions and more, e-delivery of content (before the idea of an “e-book” had seriously entered the equation), and weekly outreach, free of charge and low on promo, to anyone who would have us in their e-mail box.

 

Fast forward to 2014: The world has spun on its axis and made its circuit around the sun many, many times since TGIM #1. The road has been winding and sometimes challenging. Other paths have crossed ours and we’ve investigated them in our own way. And through it all –

 

The journey has been interesting, enlightening, rewarding. We’ve met good and stimulating people who challenged us. And, I like to believe, on all sides of those “meetings” we’ve all come away better for the experience.

 

So that gets us to today’s TGIM headline.

It’s a reference to a source, mentor, guru – you pick the description -- and a touch point that Eric and I, as Best Year Ever kind of guys, found we had in common in the early going.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

It’s been my custom in over two score-and-then-some years of writing for a business audience to pepper my editorial input with what I deem worthwhile and actionable quotations from noteworthy individuals. When I did this in an early exchange with Eric, his response (as I recall it) was the equivalent of –

 

“I love Ralph Waldo Emerson!”

 

OK, maybe not literally that. But close enough to win me over inasmuch as I, too, “love” the eminently sensible and quotable RWE.

I have little doubt this moment was influential in cementing our “You know, I think I can work with this guy” decision and has informed our relationship in the years since.

 

So … In its way this TGIM #454 post brings things full circle.

Visually it’s from the Volume of Contentment we’ve been sharing much of this month.

 

TGIM Takeaway: Thoughtfully, philosophical and realistically it’s precisely the kind of “How to have your Best Year Ever” guidance guys who “love Ralph Waldo Emerson” can heartily endorse:

 

 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Write it on your heart this Monday.

 

And Tuesday … 

 

And Wednesday …

 

And …

Every Day of this, Your Best Year Ever.    

 

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S.  "I am going into an unknown future, but I'm still all here, and still while there's life, there's hope." John Lennon (October 9, 1940- December 8, 1980) said that, prophetically in December of 1980.