It’s not real complicated. To Give is to receive. Not in a linear sort of way, but in every other. To Give of your time is a gift of your most precious commodities. To Give patience to someone is to call upon your highest self to stay calm and grounded. To give empathy to others is to put yourself in that person’s shoes and feel what they are feeling. Even if it’s momentarily.

What you receive back over time when you Give to others – no matter what it is, as long as your intention is based in Love – is no comparison. And the effects are longer lasting as well.

Always seek to Give. Because if you do, you will never go dissappointed in a day.

There is no reward without risk. Period. All of the best things in my life: my relationship with my wife, my children, any accomplishment I have ever done or anything else I value in my life came with risk. Some more than others.

We cannot avoid risk in our lives. We may think sitting at home watching TV on the couch we are not risking anything. I’m not so sure. That doesn’t interest me anyway.

What does interest me is putting down some kind of metaphorical “skin” in the game. To take a chance. To risk. This is where the treasures lie.

We may believe living a “safe” life is the best way to go.

On the contrary. You are risking you’re precious life on this earth you will be happy going down the middle of the path on a road well traveled.

That’s the biggest risk of all.

If I get in a rut of doing the same things day after day I will eventually come to the realization that there is an absence of discovery in my life. Often times I get so caught up in the repetitveness day after day – it’s like slipping into a warm bath and before you know it, weeks pass and I haven’t experienced any true discovery.

What I consider to be a moment of discovery is any new information I didn’t know before. Often times when I’m being extremely creative, I will have a dozen moments of discovery or more in a day. Talking with someone about a trip they made in a certain part of the world, or about the kind of work they do and some crazy experience they had or some piece of history in the city I grew up in. I get so excited about these things, but the reality is: going to work day after day and then coming home doing your same routine, you can miss these opportunities.

Well, I’m telling you right now that I don’t want to miss any more discoveries. If that means I need to go out of my way on a Wednesday night to do it, then so be it.

I get such a thrill learning, growing and evolving and I need to remind myself of it so I don’t forget.

That gets me excited.

It’s pretty simple: Failure is when you have quit, left this earth or didn’t even try. Actually, even if you haven’t tried there is always the chance you may at some point in the future. So, you haven’t failed. But, I’m going to call that failure.

Okay, so you didn’t get the result you wanted. That’s all it is – a result. Then do it again. And again. And again. Man, I wish I would have known that when I was younger. And remember, the past does not equal the future. So, just because you didn’t get the outcome the previous 47 times, it has absolutely no connection to the next result. That is huge! Remember that.

It sounds like motivational speaking 101, but it is a learned skill – like a lot of things in life. Learn to assess the results and if you’re not where you want to be then make an adjustment or two and try it again. That is learning. There is fortitude in that effort. There is risk. There is power. There is self-trust.

Go. Do. Assess. Repeat.

When I was around 7 or 8 years old my family went to the zoo. We are a total of 7, in addition I think we had other family with us at the time. Needless to say, we were a good size group of people. We stopped at one of the exhibits, I think it was the camel’s, but I’m not sure, and I got mesmerized by their behavior and watched them eat, drink and interact. When I turned around my entire family was gone.

We had just arrived not too long before and I remember looking down in the lower parking lot and seeing our car. I didn’t go down there as I knew it would be quite some time before everyone would be back there. I remember being pretty scared. I went and told a lady who was selling tickets in a booth. She brought me in and I sat me on a chair inside the small shack. I don’t remember how much time passed, but eventually my Mom found me. She got pretty upset with the lady as hiding me inside a ticket booth where no one could see me was probably not the smartest of ideas on her part.

I learned a few things after that day: pay attention to your surroundings, don’t panic and even though you may be temporarily lost if you keep your head, you will most likely be found.

Maybe it’s not so bad being temporarily lost. Lost in work, lost in relationships, lost in your direction in life. Because maybe you find out a little more about yourself in the process. And what is important to you. Maybe you appreciate where you are. Maybe you grow a little stronger – more independent.

If you don’t get a little lost every once in a while, how do you know what your limits are?