Life Lesson: You Can Change the Spots on a Leopard!

I had an interesting experience the other day and I thought I would share something with you. Yes, this is yet another life lesson. My life seems filled with life lessons, many I’ve learned the hard way.

Other life lessons have come back at me at the strangest times and in the most unexpected ways. I suppose it’s a consequence of aging, at least in the sense that I am a bit more introspective and a lot more observant.

I have become a student of people, the people around me, how they behave, and how they interact. It is always interesting and a continuous source of knowledge and entertainment.

Who’d a thunk?

People watching leading to incredibly instructive Life Lessons? But it happens every day. You simply have to be open and receptive to Life, capital L, going on all around you!

Connie, my wife, is always smiling when we are out and about because: 1) She is a very happy person; and, 2) because she knows what I am doing most of the time and is amused by it.

Yes, I watch people! All kinds of people doing all sorts of things. I watch everything from the incredibly boring to the absolutely ridiculous and on to the really awesome…and I love it.

I take it all in, every Life Lesson, every morsel.

You see, for the majority of my life I kept people at arm’s length. I was likable but not really liked, I was successful without feeling like a success, and I was utterly and completely mystified by peoples’ reactions to me. Not the people who interacted with me for a moment, not the people I worked for and who signed my paychecks, not the people I was selling something to, they all liked me. I am talking about the people I worked with day in and day out, they are the ones I kept at arm’s length.

I never really connnected with them…nor did I want to.

I just didn’t have time for them and I certainly didn’t have the time to nurture friendships or relationships. I had a lot of acquaintances and virtually no friends. That may sound callous, and even a bit sad, and I suppose it was. It was the nature of the business or businesses I was in and how I was brought up.

I invested heavily in my family but beyond that I built a wall.

Life Lesson and Advice (good and bad)

My grandfather, a self-made multi-millionaire who started out as an elevator boy in the GM building, in Detroit, and went on to sit on the board of directors once said this to me:

“Don’t trust anything unless you see it in writing…and then doubt it. Don’t trust anyone, not even me!”

“Not even me!”

That was my grandfather who I worshipped and who I respected. That blew back my hair a bit. But he had made it! What was good for Gramps was certainly good enough for me. So became that person, a Type A Driver.

Never trust anyone?

“OK Gramps!”

Gramps’ Advice and Success In Business

From that point forward, in all and anything I did, I was the guy. And, if I wasn’t, I was busting my tail to get there. I was the top guy in the company or I tortured myself and everyone else until I got there.

I was making 5 figures a month and 6 figures a year by the time I was 23 years of age. I had a nice home and a 25′ Ericson sailboat. I bought the sailboat even though I had never been on a sailboat in my life. I had a Honda 1000 Goldwing motorcycle before I had a license to ride on it. I always had 2 new cars in the driveway, in addition to the one I got free from the company.

It was all paid for, cash!

Success!

Yes, I was a success, at least my parents thought so.

My Mom loved the local press I received and my Dad actually said he was proud of me for the first time in my life. That, in spite of being an Eagle Scout, junior class president in high school, a 3-letter winner in sports, student council representative, first chair in the symphonic band, the Top Teen named by the local, weekly Cleveland newspaper, a US Army veteran, a Life Member of the Disabled American Veterans, and a whole lot more.

None of that mattered!

It was the sailboat, the house, the motorcycle, the cars and all that defined success in my world, and that of my parents and grandparents…so I pursued the trappings of success.

And I hated every minute of it!

I hated working for someone else. I would eventually strike out on my own.

I hated sales. Swore I would never sell again in my life. Little did I know!

I hated the fact that I hadn’t finished college after discharge. So I went back.

And, I hated that I felt doomed to do what I hated for the rest of my life! Every day, each and every day I loathed the position I was in and felt helpless to do anything about it…so I worked harder, pressed harder, drove harder!

Was I a success?

Sure, just ask anyone!

Was I a success?

Not if you asked me, not if I was honest with you…but that was a stretch, at least back then. But deep down I was in pain, as much as any physical pain I had ever suffered.

The Good, The Bad, and The Driver

So, let’s stay in the mid-to-late ’70s. The economy was booming. The Jimmy Carter recession hadn’t taken hold yet, devastating much of the country and forever transforming the Midwest.

Life was good in the USA…for most anyway.

I was out of the US Army, a disabled veteran, young, married, cocky with a great job (public perception) and a rosy future.

And I was a Driver!

Meaning, I was not only a Type A personality. I was driven!

While the theory of the Type A and B personality has come under scrutiny over the years (its inception in the 1950s), most people still know what you mean when you refer to someone as a Type A personality.

Well, I was Type A on steroids! As stated, what I and many of my friends and associates called a Driver!

Forget about the controversy since its inception, if I walked up to you as a twenty-something young man, you would immediately know several things about me:

1) I exuded a sense of urgency, even impatience when it came to time…particularly wasted time. I got right to the point and immediately down to business. While this caused irritation and even exasperation in others, I also felt those emotions myself…constantly! Time was money and money was time. There was time for one thing…making more money!

2) There was a kind of hostility just beneath the surface, what some have referred to as free floating hostility. But it was more irritation triggered by a sense of urgency and the need to get everything done…yesterday.

3) I was super competitive and this made me goal-oriented to the point of obsession. Achievement, and being recognized by others for that achievement, was an integral part of my personality. I loved the accolades and placed undue stress upon myself; and, that stress carried over into everything I did because regardless of what it was, I had to be the best at it. Period!

Remarkably, there are still employers today who would read that and say, “So? What’s the problem?”

Well, this was great for my employers. I was driven and I worked 80 hours a week on straight commission.

Loved the money, hated the pressure, never told a soul.

As stated, it was great for my employers and it was also fantastic for my clients. I was always working without a net, early on for someone else; and, later for myself. I was motivated to deliver nothing but the best service, to be the best producer, the top salesman in the company, in the country, or the world.

As a marketing consultant? There was only outbound marketing at that time…although it was not called outbound marketing. I was the guy who brought in the biggest clients, kept them the longest, generated new revenue streams and referrals, wrapped everything up quickly so we could move on.

And then:

Close! Close! Close!

And so on, day after day, week after week, etc, etc, etc….

I can hear Yul Brenner in The King and I when I write that:

“etc…etc…etc…”

If you’ve seen the movie Instinct with Donald Sutherland and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (good movie BTW, especially for a physical anthropologist with an interest in primatology) this will sound familiar:

I worked very hard to make sure all the right people liked me and that I was always at the top of the heap. Mattered to whom? To me and to those who could impact my future, my upward mobility…and my bank balance.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

Yet this type of person, particularly in sales, marketing, certain aspects of the law, some brokerage firms, and in some sports, was not only valued, they (we) were all but deified. Amazingly, in some of life’s arenas they still are!

OK! Getting back to the Life Lesson and the reason for this post.

I ran into myself the other morning, that other self, that self from years ago…and it was interesting.

I have a friend whose husband is me, at least me 30 years ago, and it took me back in an instant.

Interestingly, I have recently come to know several Type A businessmen, some as friends, most as acquaintances (their choice), many now retired. These retired, Type A businessmen seem to be forever stuck in that mode, that miserable, self-loathing, Type A Driver mode…and it is very sad!

You know something, the guy I’m talking about? I did not like him, not at all.

The saddest part?

He is probably right where I was way back then…self-loathing, feeling trapped. Or, it may be too soon, he may still be in love with the power and the idea of becoming a “Success!”

One thing is certain, he is me and I was him.

Scary!

Life Lesson: Breaking Free

What did it take for me to break the mold?

Was I doomed to this sort of driven behavior?

Was it part of my makeup, my personality, as so many would argue…hardwired from inception?

From birth?

“You can’t change the spots on a leopard”…or so they say.

Hence the Life Lesson!

I almost lost my life and in almost losing my life, in brushing with the ultimate reality, I discovered myself, my true self…and saved my life.

I am talking about my real life, the only life worth saving…because that other person had died inside a very long time ago.

I had actually started down the path to self-awareness in the mid-80s.

I had a brush with a very serious, often life-threatening illness and spend 12 weeks in one of the best hospitals in the Midwest. I was transferred there after a few weeks at a local hospital, the local hospital totally inept and unable to diagnose the illness. Interestingly, it took the “better” hospital just 48 hours to diagnose the illness and then a few more weeks to beat it.

Like anything, there are good and bad providers, there are experts and then there are experts.

I was lucky…I would be lucky again a decade later.

Interestingly, that second brush with death (the first was in 1972, the third in 1998-2008) put me on the road I am on now. That experience, facing my own mortality, allowed me enough time to disengage and to realize I was not doomed.

I discovered that my life had not been set on an unalterable course, and that what I had been told from the very beginning of my life, from its inception, was wrong!

I should and in fact had to change the course of my life…or I wouldn’t make it.

I almost didn’t!

So, I went back to school. I graduated summa cum laude, went on to study for my doctorate, and the competitive spirit lead me to immerse myself in something I loved. I found out that it was OK to be driven, as long as whatever was driving you was something you loved, something you had a passion for, something you actually could take control of and ultimately become part of and contribute to.

I guess I became a different sort of driver, one in control of my life and how it unfolded…instead of being someone else’s trained seal, performing to someone else’s tune, and living some else’s definition of success.

How awful!

Yes, I agree with the 12 Steppers of AA, NA, and CA…control is an illusion. But there are degrees of control. Ultimate control is beyond our grasp, there are too many variables to control.

However, if you love your life, what you are doing and who you are sharing it with…the rest seems to flow.

Life Lesson: Are there bumps?

Certainly!

Ultimately, the new life is a cakewalk compared to the old life, the life of a Type A driver, the life of a success, particularly someone else’s idea of success.

Life Lesson: You do have choices to make and regardless of how deeeep you are in it, (the ending of and the variation of a four letter word) you can always extricate yourself from misery and from a life that has gotten away from you.

You get a do-over !

Life Lesson: In my case, it took a Higher Power, a Supreme Being, God, Infinite Intelligence, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, or whatever you believe in, to take their fist and slap me up side the head and clear my thinking and my vision long enough to see the person looking back at me in the mirror.

The person I saw looking back at me the other day was not in the mirror, it was a real person, and he was an early 3o-something high powered, Type A Driver…and I didn’t like him…because I didn’t like me at that stage in my life.

How could I?

Success and Life Lessons: If you look in the mirror and the person looking back at you is someone you don’t recognize, or someone you simply cannot face, then you have failed.

Get busy!

Recreate your Self and your Life before you are on your death bed, as Sam Walton was, uttering those sadly tragic words:

“I blew it!“

If that isn’t the ultimate Life Lesson…I don’t know what is?

If people don’t look forward to your company, if you are annoyed in and by the presence of others, impatient and controlling? Rethink the direction of your life before it is too late, before you are gone. Because, there is indeed one instance when you can’t change the spots of a leopard (or your stars)…and that is in the last moments of life.

Do you want to remember an amazing life and be remembered as someone who was empathetic, compassionate, caring, loving, and giving?

Or do you want to be thought of as a Driver?

Life Lesson? I am glad I ran into that young man and I am sorry for him. He has a long journey ahead and, unfortunately, it will take an incredibly powerful force, event, or series of events to change the trajectory of his life!

Life Lesson: It can be done! I did it. He can do it. So can you!

The payoff is incredible!

I love my life now…and to think I almost didn’t make it!

You can too! But it is up to you and it takes desire, self-awareness, honesty…and a mirror!

Good luck to you!

John

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• 

Where Do We Fail? The Death of Dreams

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we end up, where we end up. It may be a consequence of my getting older, notice I didn’t say “old,” but I believe there is more to life. How do we define success and what defines a failure?

Perhaps it has grown out of my own life experiences, combined with my experiences, hopes, desires, and even frustrations as a parent. I don’t know, perhaps it is just one of those things we begin to think about as we age? But for whatever reason, I think it is a subject worth writing about…so here goes!

Question:

Have you ever wondered what happened to the little boy or girl you used to be? You know the one I am talking about, don’t you?

The dreamer, the little kid who wanted to be a fireman or a doctor or an astronaut or even the President of the United States! We have all been there, or almost all of us…haven’t we?

Yes, some of us are those things but, unfortunately, most of us have settled for less, much less than we once dreamed of becoming. At some point on our journey through life, we threw in the towel!

So, what happened to that person?

I know, I know!

We grew up, right? Life intrudes. We got older and more responsible.

Wrong, that’s a cop out!

Or, more plainly…horse manure!

The fact is, we get beat up…at least the majority of us anyway. Now, I’m not talking about a physical beating, although that is certainly part of it for some, unfortunately, I am talking about the way the system (i.e., schools, friends, and even well-meaning family members) systematically teach us to be “realistic” and “practical” over a lifetime until we finally settle for less than we had once envisioned.

The dreams of our childhood become the flights of fancy, youthful exuberance, not to be taken seriously. We are taught to fit in, to be good team members, to tow the line. Our creativity and imagination are sytematically attacked and ultimately dismantled, until the dreams and visions of childhood are a fleeting memory.

Sad but true!

How many grow up saying:

“I want to be a middle manager at a downtown warehouse!”

Or:

“I really want to be a short-order cook for the greasy spoon down by the highway!”

Right, me too!

NOT!

Now, imagine being in your 40s or 50s and looking back, wondering what happened. Interestingly, while many of us have had these moments, not many talk about them. Heck, no one will even admit to having these thoughts!

Why?

Because to do so is an admission, we are saying that somewhere along the line something went wrong, terribly wrong, we settled, we allowed others to derail our grand designs for an exciting life…we allowed life to define us instead defining our lives!

So, you are 40 or 60 or 70 and you look back at your life and you don’t like what you see.

Welcome to the club!

Are you too late? Is it too late?

Many would believe it is, many would have you believe it is, and many would tell you it is. Significantly, those closest to you will argue it is; and, that you need to be “practical” and “realistic!”

Remember those well-meaning friends and relatives?

Yup!

They are also the same ones who have shot down every new idea you have had over the span of a lifetime.

Why?

Not for you!

For them!

Because, after all, what if you do succeed? What if you do something amazing? What will that say about them and their lives?

Do not kid yourself, most people at a very primitive level, do not want you to succeed because that would make them feel bad!

Interestingly, it is not too late, that there is plenty of time. You can, and should, step back and reassess the tragectory of you life, beginning anew. To do otherwise is a waste of life!

Let me ask you this?

Let’s say you are 40 years old. And, let’s say you are miserable, that you dread waking up in the morning and facing another day of your life as it is, that you can’t understand where you went wrong but you are ceratin of one thing…it is all wrong!

If you do nothing, how old will you be in 20 years? 30 years?

Yup!

You will be 60 or 70 years old!

Right?

Now, you have a choice, you can be 60 or 70 years of age and have enjoyed the past 20 or 30 years, doing what you want, what excites you, and what makes you happy. Or, you can be 60 or 70 years of age and have lived, if you actually survive another two or three decades doing something you dread each and every day, facing even more of what you have dreaded for decades, the life you despise.

What life-trajectory would you choose?

Now, let’s say you are 30 or 40?

You have at the very least 4 decades of your life ahead of you!

Do you wake up every day glad to be alive? Are you doing something that excites and fulfills you?

If not, bail!

Do it yesterday!

I know, I know!

Here’s the party-line, what the majority will think and respond with:

“But I have a family, I have obligations, I can’t just walk away from my responsibilities!”

Poppycock!

Your family will be there for you, if they truly love you and want the best for you, they will support you. If your family is so caught up in their life own lives that they cannot see you are suffering, that you are in terrible pain (the cave you are in), then it is time to look hard at your relationship.

Do you honestly believe anyone who truly loves you will have you live another 30 or 40 years doing something you detest each and every day?

That, in and of itself, is a death sentence!

Somewhere along the line, some of us, many of us, have allowed someone, or more likely a series of someones, to derail our hopes and dreams for an amazing life. We went along with what they were selling and, when we woke up half of our life was gone.

I am telling you today you can still have it, you can have it all! It is not too late!

We have all heard the Colonel Saunders story. Broke and on Social Security he carved out a new life selling his chicken recipe.

Limiting beliefs?

You can do it again and you can do it all over, beginning today!

Just like when we were kids, you get a do-over each and every day. It is up to you how you use it. You can never go back but the wealth of knowledge you have collected over a lifetime makes you a better person, more likely to succeed at whatever it is you want to accomplish.

Again, it is up to you.

I call do-over!

From this moment forward you can cave in and forever resign yourself to an existence as a resident of Plato’s cave…or you can step out into the light of life and do something amazing. True, you might not qualify for astronaurt training but I understand Richard Branson is taking reservations for Virgin Galactic!

Do-over!

Call it out…begin anew…begin today!

Contact me anytime!

John Zajaros

216-712-6526 (home)
440-821-7018 (cell)
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com (personal email)

PS, If you have children, guard their dreams carefully and nurture their imagination and their creativity. The people who can truly think creatively and imaginatively will be in demand throughout their lives. Heck, they are already! Seth Godin calls them Linchpins, I call them indispensable!

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• 

The Groundhog Day Lesson: A Lesson for Business Success…Life Success!

I love the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched it over the years. Bill Murray is something of an enigma, sometimes absolutely brilliant and other times he is just plain awful…or the parts he plays are anyway. Perhaps he tries to stretch himself, do the unconventional, accept the risky, non traditional roles in order to pursue his craft, his art. For whatever reason, he can absolutely leave me in stitches or make me want to bolt for the door.

However, because he has the ability to captivate and entertain, I take a chance with his movies time and again. Groundhog Day and What About Bob? are two of his bests!

Another Murray role, The Razor’s Edge, is a bit gritty but tells a tale, a 1984 Hollywood remake of a 1946 Tyrone Power film of the 1944 bestseller by W. Somerset Maugham, of a disenchanted and disillusioned WWI veteran seeking to find himself in India after The Great War. Murray pulls off the part of Larry Darrell in a way that touches the heart and reminds us that Vietnam veterans were not the only ones affected by what is now called PTSD, that there was in fact an entire generation that was lost: The Lost Generation.

Indeed, nothing is new!

What does any of this have to do with the title of this article? What does Bill Murray’s selection of movie roles, and in particular his performance in the movie Groundhog Day, have to do with marketing and brick and mortar business success?

It’s really pretty obvious if you stop and think about it; and, if you have seen the movie. The movie is about living the same day over and over again until you get it right. But more that that, it is about mindset and the realization that each day can be a learning experience, one that will ultimately get you to your goal…regardless of how elusive that goal may initially seem to be.

The magic of the story is in the progression of Bill Murray‘s character, Phil Connors, a Pittsburg weatherman trapped day after day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. At first, Connors (Murray) does the same thing over and over again, doomed to repeat the same mundane exercises day in and day out, always on Groundhog Day.

Phil, yes, the same name as the Groundhog, eventually tires of the experience and attempts to put an end to the torture by, among other things, driving off a cliff, along with Punxsutawney Phil himself (the groundhog) seated at the steering wheel with him. And yes, only to awaken again the next morning to the same some on the clock radio, the same music blaring I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher, and the same cornball radio announcer reading the same corny script!

Same radio announcer, same morning routine, same Phil. Day in, day out, misery every step of the way!

After days of repetition, boredom, and failing in every attempt to end it all, realizing that he was never going to escape, a light bulb goes off and Phil Connors hatches a plan.

In Hollywood it’s always about “the girl!” But in life it could be anything…but it is still, usually, about “the girl!”

So, falling for his producer, the beautiful Rita played by the indeed stunning Andie MacDowell, Murray has incentive to change, to rethink his life and, in setting his sights on Rita, Connors has a goal, a reason to live…and to learn!

This is a key component of the story line, and this is Hollywood, so everything revolves around this infatuation, an infatuation that ultimately leads to much more.

But you have to see the movie for that!

Anyway, Connors sees an opening and begins to treat every new day as a learning experience, a learning experience that will ultimately lead to a relationship with the object of his desire, Rita!

Instead of simply going through each and every day as he had the one before, dreading the routine he had been sentenced to, Murray’s character begins to study, learn, and finally…grow!

OK! I have said enough about Groundhog Day. But I hope you can see where I am going with this?

As business owners this lesson is particularly applicable. For that matter, the lesson applies to anyone who wakes up day after day to the same old, same old. You see, we go through the same routine, we apply the same strategies, and we hope for the same outcome, day in and day out.

Every day the alarm clock goes off at the same time, we get up to the same radio station, we drink the same coffee, we run the same distance or do the same workout (maybe!), drive the same car, open the same door to the same business at the same time, and we apply the same strategies to our running of the business in the same way with the same effect…day in and day out!

…because it is what we know…because it is safe!

Not only is this tragic, it is a waste of life!

It is a death sentence!

Personally, spiritually, financially, and emotionally…you are walking around day after day and it is always….

GROUNDHOG’S DAY!

It doesn’t have to be that way!

In the movie, Phil Connors discovers, after being repeatedly brutalized by the mundane, stagnant life he has come to accept as his ultimate reality, that each day is another opportunity to do it better, to get it right, and to grow in the process.

Triumph!

Phil Connors begins to live each day, building upon the one before, a progression towards a goal. Yes, Rita in the movie…
…but we all have our own “Rita,” don’t we?

How sad it is, how unfortunate that, as stated above, most of us get up in the morning, go through our morning rituals, get to work, go through another set of rituals, and before we know it is time to go home, another ritual.

We get home, go through another set of routines, part of which is usually telling whoever asks that nothing much happened, just another day at the office, and then we retire, another ritual….only to do it again…tomorrow…

Groundhog Day!

Over and over again! Nothing new, nothing learned, just repetition and a sick feeling that our lives are not our own, that they are certainly not what we had envisioned so very long ago.

We do the same things hoping that it will be enough and by the time the light bulb does go off…it is often too late! No time for a do-over, no time for anything new because we didn’t snap out of it in time.

Twilight Zone?

“Picture this, a life, a business, a person going nowhere. See the man on an endless treadmill, one he does not see, cannot see, will not see…until it is too late.

“And then?

“Well, then it is over…until tomorrow…when he will once again mount the treadmill and once again……Groundhog Day……”

It is NOT too late! There is indeed time!

We all get do-overs throughout our lives…we just have to be smart enough to recognize them as opportunities for growth, opportunities to learn, to something greater than our present selves!

Life is not a death sentence, the same old, same old!

Groundhog Day can mean the beginning of a new day, a day to learn, to grow, to become something more!

It is up to you!

John

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• 

Or: Persistence, Determination, Honesty, Integrity, and a Bucket of Oysters

Whenever I think about positive mental attitude statements and affirmations, my mind always comes back to Erma Bombeck’s classic title:

If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?

Talk about effective marketing!

Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to Eben Pagan interview Joe Sugarman, one of the greatest copywriters and direct marketers of our era, the founder of BluBlocker Sun Glasses. Joe Sugarman sold millions of BluBlockers and made millions of dollars in the process. The story is an interesting one, one for another day.

In the interview, Eben and Joe discussed many topics, topics related to marketing, success, and life. I recommend it if you can find a copy, it is well worth the time.

Of all the topics discussed, the topic of persistence piqued my interest. Persistence and determination are among of my favorite topics, along with desire, perception, perspective, and assumption…as you well know, particularly if you have visited any of my blogs.

You see, I believe the most crucial ingredient, the characteristic that defines us and determines our success, is persistence.

In my opinion, and in the opinion of many men and women smarter than I, persistence, and its partner determination, are central and recurring themes in almost every success story I have ever listened to, read, witnessed or been a part of…including my own.

Persistence, when combined with determination and honesty, almost always assures one’s success long term.

If integrity and honesty are not part of your makeup, all of your effort will be for naught.

No one can sustain success long term without integrity and honesty!

Getting back to the teleseminar with Joe Sugarman and Eben Pagan, Joe Sugarman made an interesting comparison, one worth sharing:

Life is like a bucket of oysters. In life, we are guaranteed

success if we persist. In the bucket, we know there is at

least one pearl. Opening the oysters is hard work and quite

often we end up cutting our hands, getting discouraged,

and wondering if it is all worth it when we are only half

way through. However, we know there is a pearl in the

bucket…if we just keep digging for it!

That is exactly like life!

The sad thing about it?

Many people end up losing sight of the reward, giving in and giving up as difficulties ensue. I have known so many men and women who, on the very brink of success, have thrown in the towel, unable to continue, unable to complete the task that would surely yield the pearl they had been striving for.

Like shucking oysters in search of a pearl, success in life demands a combination of skills.

The skills, when combined with a certain finesse, and finally brought to fruition through persistence and determination, often yield rewards impossible to imagine as we hover over the bucket, intent upon the task at hand, opening the oysters.

If we get bogged down in the task, complete with the difficulties, forgetting to focus on the pearl, we may not see it through.

Failure along the way is a certainty. Failure, when viewed as a setback, as a learning experience, can be a valuable lesson, another on the way to acquiring the pearl. Persistence in spite of the failure, and even because of it, will take us one step closer to discovery…and success.

Ultimately, if we keep the pearl in focus, remembering to apply both finesse and persistence, remembering that life will yield a pearl the magnificence of which we can’t possibly imagine, we will succeed.

Interestingly, as we progress through life we will find not one pearl but a succession of pearls, life’s reward for persistence, determination, honesty, and integrity…all along the way to an empty bucket and whatever awaits us in the hereafter.

Another, larger bucket…or perhaps a string of pearls?

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home)
216-539-7412 (office)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com (personal email)

PS, If you want to read a little bit about Joe Sugarman’s latest venture, something I immediately got involved with because it promises to help so many of my readers with various health issues and challenges…from pain to energy and illness to aging! It is truly an amazing product and the best I have come across, anywhere! If Joe Sugarman is on board you can be certain it is the very best available or he simply wouldn’t offer it!

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