Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Ray Johnston (2014-05-13) from his book, The Hope Quotient:  Measure It. Raise It. You'll Never Be the Same. (p.139). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) This is such a good principle.   It has held me steady all through my life.   Oh, I whine around for a moment but not for very long.   What about you? Ray says, “If you do that, you’ll have a future. If you do that, your family will have a future. If you do that, your kids will have a future. If you do that, your church will have a future. If enough people do that, their country could have a brighter future. No one is going to do well over a decade if they don’t respond to bad news in great ways.” Ray goes on, “The great American inventor Thomas Edison started more than one hundred companies before the age of forty and held more than one thousand patents that changed the way the world works. His inventions of the incandescent lightbulb, the phonograp

A thought by Ray Johnston (2014-05-13) from his book, The Hope Quotient:  Measure It. Raise It. You'll Never Be the Same. (p.136). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is just the beginning of the thought.   The whole thought by Ray is, “The team that makes the most mistakes is usually the one that wins, because their mistakes mean they’re trying something. ” He goes on, “John Wooden, the famous UCLA college basketball coach with the most men’s championship banners in history, never let failure keep him from reaching toward success. ‘If you’re not making mistakes,” he said, “then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.’” Here is another good quote, “Johnny Cash, the famous singer who battled serious drug and alcohol abuse, said, ‘You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’

A thought by Ray Johnston (2014-05-13) from his book, The Hope Quotient:  Measure It. Raise It. You'll Never Be the Same. (p.133). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I know, there are a lot of stuff that does that but worry is one of the worst ones. Ray quotes Warren Wiersbe, the prolific Christian author and leader, who declared, “Most Christians are being crucified on a cross between two thieves: yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s worries.” Ray goes on, “Worry is utterly worthless. It can’t change the past. It can’t control the future. All it does is make you miserable today. Worrying has been connected to high blood pressure, heart trouble, blindness, migraines, thyroid malfunctions, and a host of stomach disorders. Dr. Alexis Carrel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in medicine said, ‘People who don’t know how to fight worry die young!’   It’s like the hypochondriac who put on his tombstone, ‘I told you I was

A thought by Ray Johnston (2014-05-13) from his book, The Hope Quotient: Measure It. Raise It. You'll Never Be the Same. (p.122). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Now you might ask what does Ray mean when he says that?   Good question. He goes on and explains, “There are seasons when waves of opportunity come in and you just have to catch them while the surf’s up. But then you have to ensure you take equal time off when the ocean is flat.”   And that is so true. He then says, “I want the people I work with to be happy and healthy. So, to make sure our team actually has a life, we train our staff to do three things: 1. Divert daily. 2. Withdraw weekly. 3. Abandon annually.” First of all, he says, “ Divert daily means to divide each day into three sections— morning to noon, noon to five, five and beyond. Most days, they don’t work all three. Sounds simple, but when put into practice, it changes everything. A