Guide to a Better Life

This is amazing, Randy died of pancreatic cancer in 2008, but wrote a book

"The last lecture” before then, one of the bestsellers in 2007. What a

legacy to leave behind…

In a letter to his wife Jai and his children, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe, he wrote this beautiful "guide to a better life" for his wife and children to

follow. May you be blessed by his insight.





POINTS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE



Personality:

1. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey

is all about.

2. Don't have negative thoughts of things you cannot control. Instead

invest your energy in the positive present moment

3. Don't overdo; keep your limits

4. Don't take yourself so seriously; no one else does

5. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip

6. Dream more while you are awake

7. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need..

8. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner of his/her

mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.

9. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.

10. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present

11. No one is in charge of your happiness except you

12. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.

Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like

algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

13. Smile and laugh more

14. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.



Community:

15. Call your family often

16. Each day give something good to others

17. Forgive everyone for everything

18. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6

19. Try to make at least three people smile each day

20. What other people think of you is none of your business

21. Your job will not take care of you when you are sick. Your family and

friends will. Stay in touch.



Life:

22. Put GOD first in anything and everything that you think, say and do.

23. GOD heals everything

24. Do the right things

25. However good or bad a situation is, it will change

26. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up

27. The best is yet to come

28. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful

29. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it

30. If you know GOD you will always be happy. So, be happy.



While you practice all of the above, share this knowledge with the people

you love, people you school with,

people you play with, people you work with and people you live with.

Not only will it enrich YOUR life, but also that of those around you.

Follow our dream.

I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in San Ysidro. He has let me use his house to put on fund-raising events to raise money for youth at risk programs. The last time I was there he introduced me by saying, “I want to tell you why I let Jack use my house. It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.

“That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.

“He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back.

On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, ‘See me after class.’ “The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, ‘Why did I receive an F?’ “The teacher said, ‘This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an intinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees. There’s no way you could ever do it.’ Then the teacher added, ‘If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.’ “

The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, ‘Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.’ “Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all.

 He stated, ‘You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.’” Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, “I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.” He added, “The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week.” When the teacher was leaving, he said, ‘Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dreamstealer. During those years I stole a lot of kid’s dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on your.’” Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no matter wha

A peaceful mind

There once was a farmer who discovered that he had lost his watch in the barn. It was no ordinary watch because it had sentimental value for him. After searching high and low among the hay for a long while; he gave up and enlisted the help of a group of children playing outside the barn.




He promised them that the person who found it would be rewarded.



Hearing this, the children hurried inside the barn, went through and around the entire stack of hay but still could not find the watch. Just when the farmer was about to give up looking for his watch, a little boy went up to him and asked to be given another chance.



The farmer looked at him and thought, "Why not? After all, this kid looks sincere enough."



So the farmer sent the little boy back in the barn. After a while the little boy came out with the watch in his hand! The farmer was both happy and surprised and so he asked the boy how he succeeded where the rest had failed.



The boy replied, "I did nothing but sit on the ground and listen. In the silence, I heard the ticking of the watch and just looked for it in that direction."





Moral:A peaceful mind can think better than a worked up mind. Allow a few minutes of silence to your mind every day, and see, how sharply it helps you to set your life the way you expect it to be...!

Determination

In 1938, Karoly Takacs of the Hungarian Army was the top pistol shooter in the world. He was expected to win the gold in the 1940 Olympic Games scheduled for Tokyo.



Those expectations vanished just months before the Olympics. While training with his army squad, a hand grenade exploded in Takacs’ right hand and his shooting hand was blown off.



Takacs spent a month in the hospital, depressed at both the loss of his hand and the end to his Olympic dream. At that point most people would have quit and they would have probably spent the rest of their life feeling sorry for themselves. Most people would have quit, but not Takacs. Takacs was a winner. Winners know that they can’t let circumstances keep them down. They understand that life can be hard. Winners know in their hearts that quitting is not an option.

 

So Takacs picked himself up, dusted himself off, and decided to learn how to shoot with his left hand! His reasoning was simple. He simply asked himself, “Why not?”



Instead of focusing on what he didn’t have – he decided to focus on what he did have: incredible mental toughness, and a healthy left hand, and a will to win.



For months, Takacs practiced by himself. No one knew what he was doing. Maybe he didn’t want to subject himself to people who most certainly would have discouraged him from his rekindled dream.



In the spring of 1939, he showed up at the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship. Other shooters approached Takacs to give him their condolences and to congratulate him on having the strength to come watch them shoot. They were surprised when he said, “I didn’t come to watch. I came to compete.” They were even more surprised when he won!



Because of World War II, the 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled and hence it looked like Takacs’ Olympic dream would never come true. But Takacs kept on training, and in 1948 he qualified for the London Olympics. In London, having reached the age of 38, Takacs won the Gold Medal and set a new world record in pistol shooting. Four years later, Takacs won the Gold Medal again at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

Is your ship safe?

What happened to the 8 wealthiest people in the world ?



In 1923, eight of the wealthiest people in the world met. Their combined wealth, estimated, exceeded the wealth of the government of the United States. These men knew how to make a living and accumulate wealth.

25 years later:



1. President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, died bankrupt.



2. President of the largest gas company, Howard Hubson, went insane.



3. One of the greatest commodity traders, Arthur Cutton, died insolvent.



4. President of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, was sent to jail.



5. A member of the President's Cabinet, Albert Fall, was pardoned from jail.



6. The greatest "bear" on Wall Street, Jessie Livermore, committed suicide.



7. President of the world's greatest monopoly, Ivar Krueger, committed suicide.



8. President, Bank of International Settlement, Leon Fraser, committed suicide.



They forgot to make a life! Just made Money! Money provides food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, clothes for the needy, but is only a medium of exchange. We need two kinds of education. One that teaches us how to make a living and one that teaches us how to live. People are engrossed in their professional life and neglect their family, health and social responsibilities.



Our kids are sleeping when we leave home. They are sleeping when we come home. Twenty years later, we'll turn back, and they'll all be gone.



Without water, a ship cannot move. The ship needs water, but if the water gets into the ship, the ship will face problems and sink. Similarly we live in a time where earning is a necessity but let not the earning enter our hearts, for what was once a means of living will be become a means of destruction.



So take a moment and ask yourself..has the water entered my ship?"



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The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything;

 

they just make the best of everything they have

The Empty Soap Box

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case  of the  empty  soap  box,  which  happened  in  one  of  Japan's  biggest cosmetics companies.  The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty.
 
Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty.
   
Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked  hard  to  devise  an  X-ray  machine  with  high- resolution monitors  manned  by two  people  to  watch  all  the  soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty.
   
No  doubt,  they  worked  hard  and  they  worked  fast  but  they  spent whoopee amount to do so. But when a workman was posed with the same problem, did not get into complications of  X-rays,  etc  but  instead came  out with  another solution.
 
He  bought  a  strong  industrial  electric  fan  and  pointed  it  at  the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.
   
Moral of the story: Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems. "If you look at what you do not have in life, you don't have anything; if you look at what you have in life, you have everything."