Title: Founder and Chairman of Microsoft
Commencement Address: Harvard (2007)
Hightlight: “Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.”
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/
Title: CEO of Hewlett-Packard (1999 to 2005)
Commencement Address: California Institute of Technology (2004)
Highlight: “What will define greatness for your generation? I believe it is to use the knowledge that you have earned here to find ways, not only to connect to computers, but to connect people; not only to bridge gaps in science, but to bridge gaps between cultures; not only to use numbers and formulas to create, but to use words to lead, and in the process, to close that canyon between ignorance and understanding.”
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/
OK, now that I have a child, I remember wondering about things I haven’t thought about in a long time. My son Tyler likes to draw, well, scribble for now, and the other day he was drawing, and he pulled out the white crayon. He scribbled with the white crayon and looked perplexed why it wasn’t producing color on the paper. This leads me to ask: why do we have a white crayon in the crayon box of life, does anyone actually use it, and if so for what purpose? According to the Urban Dictionary, if someone is a “white crayon” it means they are utterly useless.
In 1903, when the Crayola crayons were first introduced, the white crayon was not one of the first original colors. It was added in 1949 following the aftermath of WWII. Someone asked what the white crayon is used for on Yahoo Answers (glad I’m not the only one) and below is the community’s best answer: “They are best used for adding glare and highlights to your colored drawings. They provide more depth and interest than just flat color because they make objects have a reflectance value and your drawings will pop.” OK, that sounds nice in theory but common who uses that crayon?
If something is white, it means it is the presence of the combination of all colors in the visible spectrum, which is really powerful if you think about it. I mean, if a color has all colors in it, and the result is no color at all, maybe God is trying to tell us something. Perhaps our world focuses too much on color, and we need to see life as the white crayon (with no color at all).
There was a blind woman who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, ‘If I could only see the world, I will marry you.’ One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.
He asked her, ‘Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?’ The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn’t expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.
Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: ‘Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.’ This is how the human brain often works when our status changes. Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations. Life is a gift today, so before you say an unkind word, think of someone who can’t speak.
Before you complain about the taste of your food, think of someone who has nothing to eat. Before you complain about your husband or wife, think of someone who’s crying out to God for a companion. Today, before you complain about life, think of someone who went too early to Heaven. Before whining about the distance you drive, think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet. And when you are tired and complain about your job, think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job. And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down, put a smile on your face and think: you’re alive and still around.
I was walking yesterday with someone who had twisted their ankle a few days prior which led to a conversation about shoes. I said I had seen Tim Ferris wearing glove like shoes for your feet and had heard even before seeing them that running barefoot was actually better for you than wearing tennis shoes. Ironically I saw an article today about Vibram’s FiveFingers “shoes” which basically let you go barefoot without tearing up your feet so I decided to blog about it. The premise is going shoeless allows the foot to flex and better absorb shock. When people wear shoes they tend to land on their heels. Wired has a great article about it if you want to read more. I think if you were to wear them you would probably get some strange looks but has anyone tried them yet?
VisuaEconomics has a nice visualization showing how the average U.S. consumer spends their paycheck.
Nikola Tesla was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On his birthday last week, Google dedicated a logo to honor his contribution to the world of science. In reading through the article, I liked a quote from Tesla about Thomas Edison: “If Edison had to find a needle in a haystack, he would proceed with the diligence of a bee to examine straw after straw until he found [it]. I was a sorry witness to such doings…a little theory… would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.”
Believe it or not I’m behind on my blogging. Last week I was watching Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel because they were playing every episode in the series which allowed me a chance to watch all of them (filled up my DVR). It is a great show and I really like Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan who constantly argue like school kids and even though Billy isn’t with us any longer due to his recent death it was obvious they cared for one another.
In one of the last shows of the season Anthony Sullivan had a great quote which I wrote down: “If you want to be in front you have to act like you are behind”. That quote from Anthony Sullivan really rung true to me because I think we need to constantly remind ourselves to keep loving, keep fighting, keep working, keep living, but at the end of the day be content with what we have. Sometimes when we are financially secure, our jobs and relationships are going well, our bodies aren’t ailing us, we stop trying as hard as we should.
Mays was wildly successful being the #1 pitchmen in the world which afforded him a Bentley and a mansion. We all know money doesn’t buy happiness but my point is God gave him a talent and he wasn’t using that talent to its fullest extent. In that episode Anthony noticed Mays lost his focus or hunger for achieving as much as his talent allowed (selling the Zorbees) and allowed Vince (who famously pitched the Shamwow) to steal some significant sales away from their product. As Tony Robbins said in another more famous quote: “It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.”
Probably the most famous example of this is Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky movies. Read the summary below from Rocky II from IMDB: “Rocky Balboa is enjoying life. He’s got a lovely wife, Adrian, had a successful fight with Apollo Creed and is able to enjoy the wealth coming off the draw. Unfortunately, Rocky becomes embarrassed when failing to complete and advert and ends up working in a meat packing company. He believe that he will no longer have a career as a boxer. Apollo wants to rematch with Rocky to prove all his critics wrong that he can beat Rocky. Can Rocky once again have a successful fight?” In the video below you see what happens when he once again rededicates himself to his passion and what talents he has been blessed with.
I could write about winning for a really long time, I love motivational books and quotes. Below are some other quotes to wrap things up but always remember to give life your all but be content with what life has afforded you.
Gary and Charisse invited us to join them at the Brentwood Cornfest last night in Brentwood, CA. Charisse works for the High School so she was able to get us into where they shoot off the fireworks from the school football field. Being so close to the fireworks was great because they were really LOUD (the first few were really loud) and really BRIGHT. To give you an idea of how close we were, I kept having to shift the video because my camera was zoomed all of the way out. The weather was fantastic last night too, not too hot and not too cold which made for a great evening.
Laura is in town this week so “we” (OK I) wanted to take a group picture so here you are. The first one is funny because it looks like we work for JCPenny. We are missing Joel and Jill but some day we’ll get you to California again.
