I was fascinated the first time I heard that from the moment they’re born, sharks never stop swimming, even when they are asleep.

What a great metaphor for life: always keep moving… forward. And how similar to my personal philosophy of AGAI: if you want to get the most juice out of it, Always Grow and Improve in all 7 areas of life. Because let’s face it, when we aren’t moving forward, what are we doing?

Benjamin Franklin also observed that continuous growth and learning is a requisite for fulfillment when he said “some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.” Does that seem harsh?

When you stop growing, you stay rooted in the past, the present passes you by, and the future becomes more threatening.

By the way, even if you are moving slowly, it’s okay… so long as you are moving forward.

Always Grow and Improve.

So which of the 7 areas of your life are you focusing on today?

Ciao!

Taylor

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Hi,

I was looking out one of our windows this morning and was reminded again of how badly we need to clean our gutters.

And just at that moment it hit me it’s probably a great analogy for our own personal development and well-being…

Gutters serve a purpose. See, they’re conduits… clean gutters channel water from your roof into the down spout and away from your home. In other words, they keep you protected, clean, dry and secure. And if you think about it, these conduits are actually pretty important for keeping your nest, your castle, your home, from rotting away.

If you let them go uncleared for a little while is okay – you know how we all get busy with other things. But let them go for a long time, and that’s how you spell trouble. The gutters get all clogged up, mosquitoes lay their eggs which then become squirming larvae, leaves and other debris start to rot and get really nasty and stinky… and eventually there is nowhere for the water to go but into your roof (and maybe even into your living room).

And ignore them for a while and you also start to do that other thing…

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Hi,

It’s amazing how small an agent of change can be…

For me, it recently was a tiny fruit fly that motivated me to make a change in my life.

I’ve talked about motivation in earlier posts; and what really gets you up and moving. This time for me-of all things-it was bugs near my fruit bowl.

Picture this… It’s summertime, and fruit flies are multiplying all over the joint! Naturally we’re to blame because we see so many delicious fruits and can’t resist piling it up in the kitchen…

…And wouldn’t you know these eager little critters can’t resist helping us eat it.

See, the “fruit fly situation” in my house just got unbearable. Actually, out of control. They gravitate towards anything that has even a hint of sweetness or sugar to it.

They converge onto a spoon.

If you leave a bottle of wine open, they swarm to the rim or just plunge right in.

I forgot how quickly these suckers can procreate and multiply.

…It kind of makes me want to brush up on my biology 101 to see how long it actually takes them to create more offspring. I’d say it’s about fifteen seconds? And BAM!, a thousand more pesky Drosophila Melanogasters now fluffing around my fruit bowl.

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Hi,

You have probably already realized we are more than half-way through the year. And whether or not you make formal new years resolutions or set goals for the new year, we all have at least a few things we hope to achieve before the year draws to a close, right?

So I wonder …what’s cooking with you? And it’s perfectly OK to share what’s not cooking or what you’d like to change.

Ciao!

Taylor

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I welcome your comments.

Ciao!

Taylor

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Hi…

It’s time for the answer to this week’s quiz…

Judging by the response, I’d say most didn’t have time to comment, which is a bit in keeping with the quiz and could be good or bad news depending on how you look at it.

Now, for the answer…

Or at least let’s head in that direction…

The answer to the question I posed (“What’s the key intrinsic reason why we do what we do instead of what we know we should do in support of our goals?”) also has a lot to do with why we do something vs. why we don’t.

Ask yourself why you do something to inch closer to a goal.

Maybe you want something. Maybe it’s material. Perhaps it’s a state. Maybe you desire it so badly you can taste it. Or maybe you don’t.

That’s a clue.

Here’s another one…

All across town, crowds of customers lined up hoping to get their hands on the new iPhone 3GS.

Which reminds me of a chilly night back in college. It was the first time I’d ever camped out to get concert tickets. Darn cold actually. But we were a big group of friends, we came prepared, we had a tent, food, beverages-you know how it is in college-and we stuck it out together… because it was worth it.

But you want to know the big reason why? Because my girlfriend wanted tickets.

Same with the iPhone fans. See, even though some stores wouldn’t open till 10 AM, Apple devotees were willing to get in line at the crack of dawn.

… Because they wanted to be one of the first to have the latest and greatest. Or maybe their reason why is because they wanted to get it as a gift for someone else.

Okay, so back to my example of the two random people who both have a goal of losing the same amount of weight.

One goes to the gym three times a week. And through persistent action and consistent effort, ultimately loses the weight. The other complains about not having enough time and remains overweight.

Here’s the reason why the second person doesn’t pull the trigger on losing weight…

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