Did you know!

Did you know.

This video points out that we have actually no idea what will happen in the next hundred years. Everything will be possible. And again this video points out that the change is the most powerful force in the existence of homo sapiens.

Did you know - watch it!

Your Mindset Determines Your Life by Sopan Greene, M.A.

To keep at the top of your game you have to keep a clear head.
You can't afford to fill up on news and negativity. The world's overflowin' with it and the only way to be a winner is to be in control of your thoughts.
Your thoughts become words, your words become actions and your actions become your destiny. Someone else came up with that, but I've always remembered it because it's true. Our actions show who we truly are and how shallow or deep our character is.
Where you are today is a direct reflection of the words, thoughts and actions you took days, months and years ago. No matter how much some people blame their parents, teachers, where they grew up, television, the government or anything else, the truth is that nobody got them where they are today but themselves. The longer we choose to not take responsibility for our lives, the longer we'll living uninspired lives that we don't love.
I've heard 40 year old adults who complain about their lives and take no responsibility for what they've created. Give me a break. If you think you're on the receiving end of life you're mistaken and too lazy to do anything about it.
Simply think about the pictures you've seen on TV of people in third world countries. When I start to get mad about having to stand behind two people in a line at the grocery store I remind myself that a lot of people don't even know where their food will come from tonight. This shifts me from anger to gratitude.
The next time you notice yourself getting frustrated or angry about something in your life I invite you to shift your focus onto what's great in your life. It doesn't matter if you think you don't have enough money or you're mad at your dog for chewing up a shoe. Remember how much love you get from having your dog in the first place and how your weekly earnings are more than some people make in a month or year.
Keep your focus on what is working - for you and for others. We are bombarded with negative input all day long. We need to watch what goes in because our livelihoods depend on what we creatively crank out. Our heads need to be full of positive inspiration or free space where we can dream.
A recent study revealed that the people who watch the most television news are the most fearful in our society. Crime has been going down in America for over a decade, but since the news focuses on it and repeats it over and over, a lot of people are receiving multiple messages that the world isn't safe. These people end up being less confident and less successful as a result of being emotionally paralyzed to a degree by their fears.
Remember the old phrase "garbage in, garbage out"? If you Were asked to be on television based on the person you are today would be on Jerry Springer or Oprah?
Yeah, I know. You're probably laughing or snickering right now.
I can practically see that questioning look of disbelief on your face.
You may even think that you wouldn't be on either one. Just imagine that there's a guy at your door and he's going to put you in a limo right now and you have to pick one show or the other to be a guest on or you'll be locked in your house for a month. (It's silly, but you get the point, I want you to get into it).
There's a definite difference between Oprah guests and Jerry's guests. Oprah's guests radiate confidence and have taken responsibility for their lives and have created lemonade out of lemons. Jerry's guests radiate low self esteem and think they're victims of life. Even worse, they think they have a right to inflict their negative self-defeating attitude on others.
Oprah people know that they're on the creative end of life.
Jerry people choose to think they're on the receiving end of life. And the truth is that if that's what they believe then that's what they get. It's an easy cop out to settle in life and a lot of folks do it.
It's important to keep a positive mental attitude no matter what your life is like because nothing is more important than your thoughts. They determine how you'll experience the next minute, hour, day, week, year, decade and century. Rid your life of people and circumstances that don't inspire and enliven you.
Life's simply too short to put up distracting drama and complainers who never change anything.
We all throw around phrases about how life is too short, but we don't live that way. Take at least one action today to reaffirm that you're creating a life you love.
Fire a friend who drains your energy. Read from an autobiography of a person who inspires you. Turn off the TV and write your goals and values. Take a walk in nature or with a friend who supports the best in you. Write a note to someone who has impacted your life in a positive way to let them know you're grateful for having them in your life. Rub your dog's belly and watch a doggy smile of ecstasy come out to greet you.
You're building a powerful future. Study successful people and you'll notice they all surround themselves with other inspired and successful people. Your life is your show, choose to be an Oprah person and avoid the Jerry people who show up in your life. Or better yet, treat the Jerry people you meet like they are the Oprah person buried inside them so we can all shine together.
Let your positive mental attitude infect everyone you meet and we'll all enjoy better lives.

Richard Dawkins Reads The God Delusion

More Dawkins for Jim.....xoxoox

Richard Dawkins stumped by creationists' question (RAW FTGE)

Richard Dawkins/ interview about creation

It is a great story

A Lifetime of Planning Pays Off

"You gotta be crazy!" That's what Lee Dunham's friends told him back in 1971 when he gave up a secure job as a police officer and invested his life savings in the notoriously risky restaurant business. This particular restaurant was more than just risky, it was downright dangerous. It was the first McDonald's franchise in the city of New York - smack in the middle of crime-ridden Harlem.

Lee had always had plans. When other kids were playing ball in the empty lots of Brooklyn, Lee was playing entrepreneur, collecting milk bottles and returning them to grocery stores for the deposits. He had his own shoeshine stand and worked delivering newspapers and groceries. Early on, he promised his mother that one day she would never again have to wash other people's clothes for a living. He was going to start his own business and support her. "Hush your mouth and do your homework," she told him. She knew that no member of the Dunham family had ever risen above the level of laborer, let alone owned a business. "There's no way you're going to open your own business," his mother told him repeatedly.

Years passed, but Lee's penchant for dreaming and planning did not. After high school, he joined the Air Force, where his goal of one day owning a family restaurant began to take shape. He enrolled in the Air Force food service school and became such an accomplished cook he was promoted to the officers' dining hall.

When he left the Air Force, he worked for four years in several restaurants, including one in the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Lee longed to start his own restaurant but felt he lacked the business skills to be successful. He signed up for business school and took classes at night while he applied and was hired to be a police officer.

For fifteen years he worked full-time as a police officer. In his off-hours, he worked part-time as a carpenter and continued to attend business school. "I saved every penny I earned as a police officer," he recalled. "For ten years, I didn't spend one dime - there were no movies, no vacations, no trips to the ballpark. There were only work and study and my lifelong dream of owning my own business." By 1971, Lee had saved $42,000, and it was time for him to make his vision a reality.

Lee wanted to open an upscale restaurant in Brooklyn. With a business plan in hand, he set out to seek financing. The banks refused him. Unable to get funding to open an independent restaurant, lee turned to franchising and filled out numerous applications. McDonald's offered him a franchise, with one stipulation: Lee had to set up a McDonald's in the inner-city, the first to be located there. McDonald's wanted to find out if its type of fast-food restaurant could be successful in the inner city. It seemed that Lee might be the right person to operate that first restaurant.

To get the franchise, Lee would have to invest his life savings and borrow $150,000 more. Everything for which he'd worked and sacrificed all those years would be on the line - a very thin line if he believed his friends. Lee spent many sleepless nights before making his decision. In the end, he put his faith in the years of preparation he'd invested - the dreaming, planning, studying and saving - and signed on the dotted line to operate the first inner-city McDonald's in the United States.

The first few months were a disaster. Gang fights, gunfire, and other violent incidents plagued his restaurant and scared customers away. Inside, employees stole his food and cash, and his safe was broken into routinely. To make matters worse, Lee couldn't get any help from McDonald's headquarters; the company's representatives were too afraid to venture into the ghetto. Lee was on his own.

Although he had been robbed of his merchandise, his profits, and his confidence, Lee was not going to be robbed of his dream. Lee fell back on what he had always believed in - preparation and planning.

Lee put together a strategy. First, he sent a strong message to the neighborhood thugs that McDonald's wasn't going to be their turf. To make his ultimatum stick, he needed to offer an alternative to crime and violence. In the eyes of those kids, Lee saw the same look of helplessness he had seen in his own family. He knew that there was hope and opportunity in that neighborhood and he was going to prove it to the kids. He decided to serve more than meals to his community - he would serve solutions.

Lee spoke openly with gang members, challenging them to rebuild their lives. Then he did what some might say was unthinkable: he hired gang members and put them to work. He tightened up his operation and conducted spot checks on cashiers to weed out thieves. Lee improved working conditions and once a week he offered his employees classes in customer service and management. He encouraged them to develop personal and professional goals. He always stressed two things: his restaurant offered a way out of a dead-end life and the faster and more efficiently the employees served the customers, the more lucrative that way would be.

In the community, Lee sponsored athletic teams and scholarships to get kids off the streets and into community centers and schools. The New York inner-city restaurant became McDonald's most profitable franchise worldwide, earning more than $1.5 million a year. Company representatives who wouldn't set foot in Harlem months earlier now flocked to Lee's doors, eager to learn how he did it. To Lee, the answer was simple: "Serve the customers, the employees, and the community."

Today, Lee Dunham owns nine restaurants, employs 435 people, and serves thousands of meals every day. It's been many years since his mother had to take in wash to pay the bills. More importantly, Lee paved the way for thousands of African-American entrepreneurs who are working to make their dreams a reality, helping their communities, and serving up hope.

All this was possible because a little boy understood the need to dream, to plan, and to prepare for the future. In doing so, he changed his life and the lives of others.

by Cynthia Kersey (thank you Cynthia I love this story!)

I have created my own reality. Without me, without my brains, without my conscious I will not exist, the world will not exist, my past, my present, my future will not exist.
Everything I am&love&have&make&create&created&made&had&loved&was/ is /has been/will be, is a result of what I thought,think,believe, believed and did&do&will do.

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