Listen to this inspiring talk by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen about the importance of adoration.
Imagine you’re 20 years old and you recently had to drop out of college because you ran out of money. Until a couple of months ago, your parents were providing you with financial assistance, but that ended when the company your dad was working for closed down and laid off all of its employees.
During the 1980s and 1990s, I had the great fortune of working with Herman Heilman, a commercial and industrial real estate appraiser. I was introduced to Herman by my Uncle Tony Couri. Herman and Uncle Tony were good friends who went back a long way – Herman was born in 1904, and Uncle Tony was born in 1912.
In last week’s article, Habit Gravity & Escape Velocity, I told you about a New Year’s resolution I imposed upon one of my teenage daughters last year. The resolution was for her to make her bed every morning immediately after waking up. In the article, I provided one of the primary reasons most people don’t keep their resolutions – they fail to develop the new habits that are necessary to follow through on the resolutions. I also provided a formula that can be used to help facilitate the development of new habits.
Georgette and I still have three daughters living at home with us – Mary (20), Christine (17), and Teresa (15). Although Georgette has asked all three of the girls to make their beds every morning, only one has consistently complied with her request. The other two daughters have expressed various reasons (excuses) as to why they can’t seem get the job done every day, such as, “I don’t have the time” or “I keep forgetting.”
I grew up in the country in a family neighborhood that included seven families. My grandparents lived next door to my parents, and all of the other families in the neighborhood were made up of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. One of the uncles was my dad’s brother, Bill Williams. His house was located next to a wooded area where he would sometimes hunt for rabbits and quail. Uncle Bill loved hunting so much, he set up a little “gun shop” in his basement where he could re-fill his own shotgun shells.
Two weeks ago in my article, The Wrong Way To Apologize, I gave you four examples of apologies that, in my opinion, were not genuine apologies. In last week’s article, A Genuine Apology, I told you about a recent experience I had where I ended up apologizing to a hotel clerk for the way I treated her after she was not able to fulfill a commitment that was made to me by another employee of the hotel.
Last Month I went to Atlanta, Georgia, for a four day conference. I took a direct flight from the airport in Bloomington (Central Illinois Regional Airport) to the airport in Atlanta (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport). The flight was scheduled to depart at 6:40 p.m., but was delayed for over ninety minutes. In addition to the long delay, when I arrived in Atlanta, I had to set my watch ahead an hour because of the time change.
If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you may have noticed that I have a little bit of an anger problem. Although I’m optimistic by nature and work hard at staying positive, there are certain situations that irritate me and cause me to automatically respond in a hostile way. Two such situations are: (1) when a person who should be listening to me doesn’t listen; and (2) when a person doesn’t do what he (or she) promised to do.
About ten years ago, my wife and I attended a marketing conference featuring Mike Vance as one of the speakers. When Vance was a young man, he was a personal friend and associate of Walt Disney. Vance, who is now in his eighties, was the founder of the Creative Thinking Association of America.
As you may know, Georgette and I have seven children – one boy and six girls. Our son, Harry, was born in 1981, ten months after we were married. Anna was born twenty-two months later, and Maria was born on Harry’s third birthday. We had an instant family – three babies in three years.