I recently read Jon Gordon’s “The Positive Dog: A Story About the Power of Positivity” and wanted to share my notes from his quick read.
Enjoy these book notes (The Positive Dog – Jon Gordon – Book Notes) and I encourage you to check out Jon Gordon’s website at www.jongordon.com and sign up for his free newsletter.
As always I appreciate your comments and would be interested to find others ways in which you practice the power of positive thinking.
I recently received, and then cooperated, in a collective exchange (i.e. chain letter) where coaches shared inspirational quotes, poems or messages to each other.
Here are some of the responses I received from coaches from around the country:
1. “Do right and fear nobody!”
2. “No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Let your enemies be your footsool”
3. “I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken for he is right beside me” – Psalm 16
4. “Appreciation is the currency of success … No matter how tough things are, be appreciative … Many would love to be where you are”
5. “God is good all the time….All the time God is good…Enjoy the moments…they last forever in your mind and heart”
6. “Give me the strength to accept the Thing I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference!”
7. “We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
8. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” –John Lennon
9. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” –Arthur Ashe
10. “The best way out is always through.” -Robert Frost
11. “We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” – Ronald Regan
12. “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), which I added “You do not lack…ever” from Jay Bilas’s book “Toughness”
13. “When nothing seems to help, I go to look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before it.” -Jacob Riis
14. “Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it. (It’s all about attitude)”
15. “When we are doing what we love, we don’t care about time. For at least at that moment, time doesn’t exist and we are truly free” -Wieder Marcia
16. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
17. “Our Greatest Fear”- by Nelson Mandella
Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine,
we consciously give other people permission
to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”
18. The Serenity Prayer
Grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Expressions from the Hardwood 