Jut for fun - Bob Hope

Bob Hope’s self-deprecating humour was one of his most endearing qualities and one of the basics of his success. Here is a little of it, just to make you smile ...

ON TURNING 70: 'You still chase women, but only downhill.'
ON TURNING 80: 'That's the time of your life when even your birthday suit needs pressing.'
ON TURNING 90: 'You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.'
ON TURNING 100: 'I don't feel old. In fact I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.'
ON HIS EARLY CAREER, BOXING: 'I ruined my hands in the ring...the referee kept stepping on them.'
ON SAILORS: 'They spend the first six days of each week sowing their wild oats, then they go to church on Sunday and pray for crop failure.'
ON NEVER WINNING AN OSCAR: 'Welcome to the Academy Awards or, as it's called at my home, 'Passover'.'
ON GOLF: 'Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees.'
ON PRESIDENTS: 'I have performed for 12 presidents and entertained six.'
ON RECEIVING THE CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL: 'I feel very humble, but I think I have the strength of character to fight it.'
ON HIS FAMILY'S EARLY POVERTY: 'Four of us slept in the one bed. When it got cold, mother threw on another brother.'
ON HIS SIX BROTHERS: 'That's how I learned to dance. Waiting for the bathroom.'
ON HIS EARLY FAILURES: ' I wouldn't have had anything to eat if it wasn't for the stuff the audience threw at me.'
ON GOING TO HEAVEN: 'I've done benefits for ALL the religions. I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.'

This item comes from the Pivotal Just for Fun Pages

Change or die

What if you were given that choice? For real. What if it weren't just the hyperbolic rhetoric that conflates corporate performance with life and death? Not the overblown exhortations of a rabid boss, or a slick motivational speaker, or a self-dramatizing CEO. We're talking actual life or death now. Your own life or death. What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act? If you didn't, your time would end soon -- a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?

Read on ...

Using the Greiner Curve - Surviving the crises that come with growth

Fast growing companies can often be chaotic places to work.
As workloads increase exponentially, approaches which have worked well in the past start failing. Teams and people get overwhelmed with work. Previously-effective managers start making mistakes as their span of control expands. And systems start to buckle under increased load.

While growth is fun when things are going well, when things go wrong, this chaos can be intensely stressful. More than this, these problems can be damaging (or even fatal) to the organization.
The "Greiner Curve" is a useful way of thinking about the crises that organizations experience as they grow.

Read on ...

More on change

Blogs for idea mining

From Dorai's Learnlog

Blogs are a great source of ideas. Some of the bloggers are the smartest people I know. They comment about products. They track trends. They predict future products. They compare and categorize. And they share it all free.

So how about mining ideas from blogs? And using them to improve your products, projects. For example if you look at a list of mashups, you will certainly get ideas for other mashups. If you enjoy using Web 2.0 products, you already know a specific user interface you like. By tracking the most popular Web 2.0 products, you are getting some free market research.

All these are talked about in the blogosphere.

blogging, creativity, innovation, self improvement

Change Equals Stress: Adjusting to your New Job

Preparing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for new job can limit the stress that is associated with the
change.

Change, even positive, exciting, beneficial, seizing-a-great-opportunity change creates and environment of stress.

And, if there were storm clouds brewing, alligator-filled swamps boiling, backstabbing cutthroats plotting, or don't get it bosses at the old site; the "nervousness" might be stronger than if the last job experience had been happy.

Making Change Profitable

Read on >>>

Change Begins with Choice

by Jim Rohn

Any day we wish; we can discipline ourselves to change it all.

Any day we wish; we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge.

Any day we wish; we can start a new activity.

Any day we wish; we can start the process of life change.

We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.

We can also do nothing.

We can pretend rather than perform.

And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are.

We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause.

As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today. Those who are in search of the good life do not need more answers or more time to think things over to reach better conclusions. They need the truth. They need the whole truth.

And they need nothing but the truth.

We cannot allow our errors in judgment, repeated every day, to lead us down the wrong path. We must keep coming back to those basics that make the biggest difference in how our life works out. And then we must make the very choices that will bring life, happiness and joy into our daily lives.

And if I may be so bold to offer my last piece of advice for someone seeking and needing to make changes in their life - If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree. You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life - and it all begins with your very own power of choice.

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn

This article is excerpted from Jim Rohn's best-selling book, The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle.

To learn more go to http://books.jimrohn.com or call 800-929-0434.