A society grows great when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.
Trees that live long do not grow quickly.
It requires patience to grow a tree that will endure.
The root word of patience is the Latin verb “pati.” It means “to suffer” or “to endure.”
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.
The second-best time is today.
A person with a purpose is a person on a mission.
A person on a mission is a person with a passion.
Passion is another strange word. It does not mean what you think it does.
The English word “passion” comes directly from the Latin noun “passio” which means “suffering.” If you have “compassion” for someone, it means that you are “suffering with them.” Every Easter we hear about “The Passion of the Christ.”
Patience and passion share the same Latin root. Pati is the noun. Passio is the verb. And they both mean suffering.
A person with a passion has a vision of the future for which they are willing to suffer.
The builder of a brand is the planter of a tree: a visionary missionary.
And their principal tool is storytelling.
Stories build personalities.
Stories build people.
Storytelling is world-building.
Stories build cultures.
Stories build brands that endure.
Be careful what you say.
A word of affirmation is a spark that can become a flame that will illuminate a person’s path into the future. A word of discord, disdain, or disharmony can quench that vital spark.
We carry the power of light and darkness in our tongues.
Be careful what you say.
You can build a brand with your stories.
You can build people, too.
Say the right things and you can build a life.
You can speak happiness.
You can build happiness.
Say the right things and you can live happiness.
Speak it. Build it.
Say it. Live it.
Roy H. Williams
PS “It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.”
– John Steinbeck
Eveline Shen is an operating-systems programmer — not for computers, but for people.
Eveline helps leaders rewire the limiting patterns that hold them back — including perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-sacrifice — and replace them with what she calls “courageous” actions. Her clients are primarily organizations advocating for social change, many of whom instinctively view business leaders and entrepreneurs not as partners, but as adversaries. But as Eveline explains to roving reporter Rotbart, everyone wins when they make a more deliberate effort to communicate with, understand, and learn from one another. It’s MondayMorningRadio.com
Tom-Tom the Tribal Canadian (also known as Tom the Water Boy of Amarillo) wrote a song about hospitals and Thanksgiving. It’s a fun 2 and 1/2 minutes. Tom’s typing of the song below was triggered by a comment by J’Free the Wise Ass: “Hospitals feel like a joint venture between the DMV and the Department of Corrections.” – Indy Beagle