Your good name is the most important credential you’ll ever have.
Act with integrity in all things, that ben if it means short-term pain.
Build a reputation for honesty, dependability and trustworthiness.
Happiness: Someone (or some creature) to love, something to do and something to hope for. Don’t get too caught up in the rat race, money doesn’t mean you’ve arrived.
Watch awards shows (Oscars, Grammy's, Tony's, ESPY's, Image Awards and CNN Heroes awards.) Be a part of your times, appreciate others' accomplishments. Be inspired.
What I most want to teach you this year is that you can always trust me. I will always love you, take care of you and never harm you. You may not always like me, but you can always trust me.
My dad was a Marine. He enlisted at 18 with his buddies during he Korean War. He was never a "typical" Marine, always a gentle spirit and rarely spoke about his days in Korea.
One carry-over was kind of a little inside joke he had with his buddies in the war: They used the expression "Semper Fi" sarcastically, in the opposite way it's meant. When they said it to each other it meant "I got mine, you're on your own. Fend for yourself." We always used to joke about it too when little things happened like there was no more milk for the cereal, "Semper Fi." Of course the irony is that my dad and his Marine buddies were the very definition of faithful when it came to the big stuff. They just liked to joke about the little stuff.
Still use it jokingly that way to this day.
Super good-looking people often don’t develop good people skills because they’ve been able to get by on their looks. Listen! Beauty fades. Get curious about people who don’t necessarily catch your eye right away.
Key to a happy marriage: each of you must love and support the person in front of them. Not the person you married or the person you hope they will grow into. We all change and grow. Not all of it is for the better, especially our looks ha ha. We shouldn’t make our spouse feel obligated to stay the same person they were when we fell in love with them. In marriage as in business as in life: If you’re not growing you’re dying.
That little space between stimulus and response...that’s all the control we get. That space is ours to do with. That space is fertile ground for addiction, for faith, for peace or pain. When the sh*t hits the fan, resist the urge to run away from the pain. Trying to dull it will only make it grow deeper roots.
Grandpa always said everything boils down to how you treat people.
Always treating people with kindness and respect is the most important lesson he wanted to get across to us.
A lesson from author Tom Zumba. I hope you’ll never need it:
“There is nothing
nothing
easy about this thing called grief.
Nothing.
But I ask you to please
please
please
say yes
more often than you say no.
Say yes to you.
To possibility.
To hope.
To love.
To life.
To healing.
Please choose the light
more often than you choose the darkness.
Not that there aren't gifts in the darkness.
There are.
But it's often so much easier to find them
the gifts
in the light.
Do all you can to stay in the light.
Please remember that the person you love
so
so
so dearly
lived.
Don't forget that.
He lived.
She lived.
Here with you.
And your relationship continues.
Always.
Don't be so overwhelmed
and paralyzed
and pissed off
that he died
that she died
that you spend most of your time
focusing on their death.
Focus on your life.
Together.
Say yes as often as you can.
Choose light as often as you can.
Remember that he lived as often as you can.
Don't lose her in the details of her death.
This thing called grief is hard
hard
hard work.
But you are stronger than you think.
His book is called Permission to Mourn
Gambling is a very tricky thing. It can get out of hand easily because of how the brain works. That initial “rush” of excitement starts to burn pathways, and causes chemical reactions that need to be fed more and more. Before you know it you’re gambling more often and with more money, trying to achieve that rush. Be very, very careful with gambling.
Gambling casinos and online gaming know this and they exploit it to make TONS of money. It’s a scam. Avoid gambling all together or step away very early.