"What one can be, one must be" - Abraham Maslow

My hope for you is that these final few days before us in 2009, find you with your eyes wide open.  I am happy to report over the course of the long weekend I got my long winter's nap in and slept 12 glorious hours!  Sleep can be a really wonderful thing when done in bulk - especially when there is a busy season that precedes it!  It has left my previously drooping eyes ready to see what is possible still in the next few days of 2009 that will lead 2010 in with a bang!

One of the things I love to do the day after Christmas is to go calendar shopping when they are marked at ½ off.  It seems like you are getting a great deal on the year ahead.  It always prompts me to buy more than I probably need but I love looking at the possibilities in the year ahead in each new calendar.  This year I will be gazing at the beautiful Country of Italy (in my dream forecast) as well as getting daily doses of the 7 Habits of Highly effective people.

Something I read over the last few days that I loved and want to share with you is from Jim Rohn who passed away earlier this month.  As you may know, Jim Rohn was a very inspirational man.  He will be missed, and we are fortunate to have his writings and recordings that will carry his messages into the future.

I was walking past my husband's desk, here at home, on Christmas Eve and saw a copy of Jim's book, The Seasons of Life, sitting there.  I picked up this well-worn book that Ed got directly from Jim about 20 years ago.  Jim had inscribed in the front cover to Ed "Let's be the Best!", inspiring words in themselves.

Anyway, I flipped lightly through the book and went to the season of winter chapter - as we are in the thick of it now.  After reading it and rereading it several times I thought it might be a point of inspiration to share with you several paragraphs a week at a time, over the course of the next 7 or so weeks.  By that time we will be through the thick of winter and looking towards the spring that will come.

The paragraphs that begin this section of The Seasons of Life delve into the aspect of life and winter that comes to each of us at expected and also unexpected times.  Here are the wonderful words of Jim Rohn, named as America's Foremost Business Philosopher:

Winter, like spring, is a season which can make its brief appearance during any season, as a brief reminder of its ultimate power.  In mid-summer while we consciously tend our carefully planted crops, winter can momentarily descend upon us as if threatening to take away the fruits of our efforts.  Winter can make it threatening appearance during the season of opportunity - the spring - and if we do not quickly respond to cancel it's potentially devastating effect, the season of opportunity will be taken from us by one of the storms of life, leaving us with yet another full year of waiting.  Winter can prematurely appear during the season of harvest - the fall - just as we are about to reap the rewards of expended human effort, and leave us with crops - or results - which are of little value.

The first great lesson of life to learn is that winter will always come; not only in the winter of cold, and wind, and ice, and snow, but in the human winters of despair and loneliness, or disappointment, or tragedy.  It is winter when prayers go unanswered, or when the acts of our children leave us shaken and stunned.  It is winter when the economy turns against us, or when creditors come after us.  It is winter when competition threatens, or when a friend takes advantage.  Winter comes in many forms, and at any time, both to the planter of crops as well as to the person in business, or even to our personal lives.

More on this next week - In the meantime, I wish you peace as you make the leap from this year into next.  Get those hopes and dreams into your atmosphere.  Write down what you want - and for my entrepreneurial friends get your business strategies written down and ready to work!  There is no better time than right now!