I loved this post from Seth Godin!  I think you will as well.

Just about all sabotage is self-sabotage.

We don’t get forced to eat that cookie, we choose to. And so the diet is ended.

Marketing self-sabotage is fascinating to watch and understand. Consider the college application: it’s primarily an opportunity for teenagers who aren’t sure of where they want to go to undercut their chances by exposing their uncertainty. The lizard brain, the voice in the back of the head that wants security and safety–it’s not eager to go to a college that might be ‘too hard’ or ‘too good’. The easy thing to do is to scale back the effort, not do what works, but do what feels right instead.

Or consider the way we resist opportunities to lead, to connect, to do work that matters. We don’t resist because we’re not capable of it… we resist because if our marketing fails, if we don’t get the job or earn the trust, then we’re off the hook. No promises made, which means no promises to keep.

We know more than enough about marketing now. We know how to craft a story that will spread, we know how to find and lead tribes. The thing we have trouble with is making the commitment to do it even when it’s frightening and difficult.

Here is a great quote from a book I am reading entitled Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance by Tony Dungy..

The above sentence is a little misleading as the quote is actually from Mark Twain but nonetheless:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover.

I know so many people that are contemplating their next move in life.  Don’t sit back and see what life throws you.  God created you for so much more than that!  Follow hard after the heart of God and He will lead you on the greatest and most exciting journey of your life!

I read an interesting blog post that I thought was encouraging on one hand and an indictment on the other.

America’s poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What’s more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does. “The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity,” said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. “The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give.”

Since giving is an issue of trust – I wonder how trustful and trustworthy you and I really are?