Tag Archives: Gratitude

November 20, 2022 · 3:00 am

Sharing Motivational Thoughts, I’m Grateful For

With Thanksgiving approaching this Thursday, I thought it appropriate to share the wisdom I’ve collected over the years from some incredible folks.

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“Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

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“Our lives improve only when we take chances – and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.”

-Walter Anderson

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“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

-Winston S. Churchill

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“We all become the stories we tell ourselves.”

-Tom Asacker

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“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”

-Mister Rogers

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“Eighty percent of success in life is showing up.”

-Woody Allen

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“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”

-John Wooden

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“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”

– Will Rogers

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“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”

– Dalai Lama

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“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

– George Eliot

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“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

-Zig Ziglar

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“The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.”

– Mark Twain

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You’ll never get bored when you try something new. There’s really no limit to what you can do.” – Dr. Seuss

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“NOTICE

If you want to sell your product to our company,

be sure your product is accompanied by a plan,

which will so help our business that we will be more anxious to buy

than you are to sell.”

-Don Beveridge

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“I choose to make the rest of my life the best of my life.”

-Louise Hay

Today, we live a world consumed by measurement. The internet, along with social media, has put data tracking front and center. To people selling traditional media, where user estimates are still the currency, it might be good to keep this wisdom from Albert Einstein in mind. Einstein’s fame was based on numeric calculations that helped us to understand the universe, so it might surprise you that he had these words printed on a sign that hung over his desk at Princeton.

“Not everything that counts can be counted,

and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Have a

Happy Thanksgiving

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April 17, 2022 · 3:00 am

Happy Glorious and Radiant Easter Morning

Dick has again asked me to share with you the beauty of this day through my word, and the spoken word.

My offering to you this day is definitely not radio, but more of a fire side reality chat of the heart.

“We have been created for greater things, to love and be loved”

– Mother Teresa

PASSION

Each and every one of us has a passion, a desire, a love.  This is something that you are born with, and if pursued- develops and grows with you in life.   It begins with a “word”- a spirited desire- It is the offing of many children’s books- “you can be anything or anyone that you want to be”. Starting with -“I want to be a fireman, policeman, garbage man, fisherman, teacher, president, doctor, lawyer, nurse, musician, or mom, the possibilities are endless.  If this path is followed, an energetic zeal develops into another category, something that ultimately joins forces with a degree, a certification or powerful idea.  These can then be put into action and move toward what and who you were born to be. With this sticktoitiveness the outcome always, always equals – “the want to care for someone other than yourself.” But whenever or wherever it is found, it is the influential entity of who you are, where your thoughts live, what you think and also the people you associate with that now is leading you to fulfilling – who you were meant to be. 

“If you can’t figure out your Purpose, figure out your passion.

For your Passion will lead you right into your Purpose.”

-T.D. Jakes

You most assuredly will find confusion in your own wants and thoughts, as the people around you try to direct and steer you toward “their” path of what’s best for you, where you should live, and what you should do in this life. But…

Do not abandon yourselves to despair.

You have been selected by a force greater than yourself

to step into your God given calling, listen and hear the conversation of your silent heart –

and then proceed.

IMAGINE

Now, take another “word” out of your pocket and put it in front of or behind your quiet inner passion-“Imagine.”                 

This is where “Passion” grows.

The following are just a few names of individuals who have walked thru many centuries of God’s time portal with a passion and a purpose to helping others and making a difference.  They took their “Imagine” and wrapped it in a “Passion.”

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Alexander Graham Bell, Grace Hopper (Pioneer of Computer Programming), Larry Page (co-founder of Google), Albert Einstein(Quantum Theory of Light), Thomas Edison (sound recordings, mass communication, motion pictures), Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla(1st alternating current-AC motor, AC generation and transmission technology), Gutenberg (printing press), Henry Ford (auto manufacturer also developing the assembly line), Leonardo da Vinci (inventor), Robert Fulton (Steamboat Inventor), Samuel Morse (Inventor of telegraph and Morse Code), the Lumiere Brothers (devised early motion picture camera and projector- known as the Cinématographe), George Washington Carver (known for inventing crop rotation), Marie Curie(discovery of Radium and Polonium), Louis Pasteur (Pasteurization), Oskar Schindler (credited with saving  the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust), Tom Jennings (first black man to receive a patent – Dry Scouring or Dry Cleaning), The Wright Brothers (aviation pioneers), Mother Teresa (dedicated her life to caring for the less fortunate), Jonas Salk (developed the polio vaccine), Tsukamoto (inventor and stem cell researcher) and Peter Tsai (inventor of N95 Mask).

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with Great Love.”

-Mother Teresa

Gratitude

This past year, we as God’s children, have been wrapped deep in the reality of a global pandemic, on the East coast the release of a 17 year cicada & lantern fly bug infestation, a drought in the West, environmental devastation by climate change, food insecurities, political unrest and now a senseless war in the Ukraine. If we are not actually living and experiencing these things, we are witnessing our fallen world through the news.

In spite of all these negatives, we should be so grateful for the other side of the coin, those that have come forward with their positive “Imagine” word. These people have put their “Passions” to work finding solutions and cures, bringing food and shelter to the homeless, defending and standing up for the weak and meek. These are God’s children in action. People with great passion can make the impossible happen. They choose not to yell, as yelling silences the message, they speak and move quietly so that one hears God’s voice.

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not promised. We have only Today. Let us Begin”

-Mother Teresa

Imagine Your Passion

People of the world engaged in social media tend to post lovely quotes that sometimes make your heart sing with emotion. But why can’t we take God’s Hand and step into a different journey, by getting out there and actually trying to imagine a passion of serving, and stirring the pot of change. What is stopping us?

Do it quietly, be that walking sermon; one thing, each day, just one. Our time on this planet is getting shorter and shorter, and even though we are one person, we have been given this gift to change one life. Do this not for the benefit of your ego, but for walking the path that we have actually been directed to follow. Ask yourself, why not, and DO IT.  Find and discover the person you were created to be – If you can find the God inside yourself, you will be able to find the God inside every living creature.

“Spread Love Everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”

-Mother Teresa

Reach for the Hand of God, see His beauty, develop your Imagined Passion to soar and reverberate throughout the ages.

“WE are all the Easter People and Hallelujah is OUR Song”

-Pope John Paul 11

Susan Towley is a graduate of Concordia University with a degree in Family Life Education, is a Certified Grief Counselor and Guided Imagery Therapist. God joined us together in 2018.

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November 28, 2021 · 3:00 am

What are You Grateful For?

I hope you enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with family and/or friends that are special to you. In our case, our children and grandchildren are literally spread out from east coast to west coast, so it’s impossible for us to be with all of them. Fortunately, we do have children and grandchildren living close to us here in Virginia and we celebrated Thanksgiving with them in our home.

Gratitude Thought Starters

In the devotion before our meal, my wife prayed:

“Heavenly Father, when I have food, help me to remember the hungry; when I have work, help me to remember the jobless;  when I have a home, help me to remember those who have no home at all;          when I am without pain, help me to remember those who suffer. And in remembering, help me to destroy my complacency; bestir my compassion, and be concerned enough to help; by word and deed, those who cry out for what we take for granted. Amen”

She then asked everyone to lift their dinner plate to reveal a different “Gratitude Thought Starter” that she had written especially for each one of us to think about and share with everyone. They were things like:

  • Name something you smiled or laughed at recently.
  • What is something you learned this year and are thankful for?
  • What is a song you’re grateful for?
  • What is a memory you are thankful for?
  • Name someone you’re grateful for.

And when I looked down at what was under my dinner place, I read:

  • What blessing in disguise are you grateful for?

I was seated at the other end of the dinner table from my wife, about half-way around, and when it was my turn to share, I said, “I don’t understand mine. I will pass and you can come back to me.” My wife said to me, “Think of it beyond the box of traditional Thanksgiving things.”

My Blessing in Disguise

After my wife shared her blessing, all eyes turned to me and I said:

“I’m grateful for all the times I’ve been fired.”

Which left everyone dumbfounded.

I realized that every time I had been fired from a job in my life, what always came next was better than what I had left behind.

The First Time I Was Fired

I was half-way through my undergraduate degree program at college when I was told by my radio station general manager that if I didn’t work the insane hours he wanted me to work, then I would be fired. I handed him my key and walked out the door.

I placed a higher value on doing my best in school and earning my college degree, than I did working in the career that I loved, radio.

Before the week was out, the other radio station in town called me and hired me to work for them. The hours were better (fit with my school schedule), the pay was better and I got to play the music of my generation that appealed to people my age.

The Second Time I Was Fired

For the next two decades I would enjoy being promoted and hired away for better and better jobs.

In 1997, the stations I had been the general manager of for 13 years were sold to new owners. I was called to a 3pm lunch by one of the partners of the new ownership group. He explained that one of the partners was to be the “managing partner,” and that my job would end with that lunch.

But, what came next in my life were two new general manager jobs that took me to Delaware/Maryland and Iowa, that provided me with new professional growth and a renewed enthusiasm for the radio business.

The Third Time I Was Fired

While I was managing in Iowa, the phone rang one day with the owner of radio and TV stations back in New Jersey asking me “What can I do to get Dick Taylor to come back and work for me?” As the station group I was working for was in the process of selling the group to Cumulus Broadcasting, I was anxious to return to New Jersey and be close to my two sons. I also was thrilled to once again be able to rejoin the New Jersey Broadcasters Association (which made me a Life Member in 2010).

However, that job would end in three short years, when the owner who hired me unexpectedly passed away while on a cruise. The stations were put up for sale and the number of managers were reduced from three to two, with the board deciding the last hired should be the first fired.

That’s when I was recruited by Clear Channel to manage their Lancaster, Pennsylvania properties. It would also be the second time I got a change to move radio stations into a completely new facility, while growing ratings and revenues.

Clear Channel would promote me to a station group back in New Jersey and all went well until the Great Recession of 2008, when the world would see the company doing massive RIFs (Reduction In Force).

After completing all of my property’s mandated RIFs (none of which I agreed with and fought hard to prevent) my regional manager came into the radio station unannounced, proceeded to my office and fired me.

Ironically, the day that it happened, the latest edition of Radio Ink magazine came out naming me one of the best general managers in radio.

In that same magazine, would be a classified ad for a radio broadcasting professor position at Western Kentucky University. I applied for the position and was hired by the School of Journalism and Broadcasting. Teaching at a university had always been my next career goal after working in radio. I wanted to “pay forward” what I knew to the next generation of broadcasters.

Always Be Grateful

The lesson in life that I want to share with you is, we can’t see how the twists and turns of one’s life will play out in the moment they occur, but if we choose to look for the positive in each event, we will find it.

Henry Ford put it this way:

Whether you think you can or think you can’t,

you’re right.

The simile to those words I would contend are:

Whether you think what happens to you in life is good or is bad,

you’re right.

Pick the positive, what have you got to lose?

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November 18, 2018 · 3:00 am

Gratitude

Gratitude AttitudeOn this Sunday before Thanksgiving, I’d like to take a time-out from my normal blogging topics and reflect on all of the things in my life I have to be grateful for. Hopefully, it will bring to mind similar thoughts about your life this past year and those things you have to be grateful for too.

First and foremost, I’m grateful for Sue Flynn Towley, the love of my life, who will become my life partner this coming Saturday.

I’m grateful for our thirteen wonderful grandchildren. Each one of them special, healthy, happy, and loved.

I’m grateful for our two sons and four daughters who’ve welcomed each of us into the family.

I’m grateful for my two older brothers and Sue’s older sister that have known each of us individually, since birth, and have been our support system in good times and bad.

I’m grateful for accepting myself for exactly who I am, and how I’m changing with age.

I’m grateful for still having a boundless curiosity and desire to never stop learning and growing.

I’m grateful that I’ve learned how to slow down and savor each morsel of daily life. Life is not about getting to the finish line first, but about enjoying the journey.

I’m grateful that through sharing, I can add value to others’ lives.

I’m grateful for knowing, at an early age, the two career paths I wanted to travel – radio for over four decades and college teaching for nearly a decade – and being able to do both.

I’m grateful for a successful media mentorship blog that has reached over 118,000 people from all over the world, continues to grow, and allows me to pay-it-forward to the next generation of broadcasters.

I’m grateful for all the wonderful people I’ve met on this journey called life, people who were only strangers until we said “hello,” and then became friends for life.

I’m grateful for having enough.

I’m grateful for God’s love.

I’m grateful for YOU.

 

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November 22, 2015 · 7:50 am

Being Grateful

15There are times when the stresses that are part of everyday life can occupy a place way beyond their level of importance in the grand scheme of things. Its times like those that you need to take a time-out and remember all the things in your life you have to be grateful about.

 

This year, I’m grateful for three wonderful grand children that are all happy, healthy and developing into unique individuals.

 

I’m grateful for their parents who make their children their first priority and love them with all their heart and soul.

 

I’m grateful that my two sons have set exciting and meaningful goals for their lives and in so doing are working hard to make our world a safer and better place for all of us.

 

I’m thankful for my two older brothers that always have been there for me through ups and downs, thick and thin.

 

I’m grateful that I’ve come to accept myself for exactly who I am, while still having boundless curiosity and a desire to never stop learning and growing.

 

I’m grateful that I’ve learned how to slow down. Life is meant to be savored. It’s not getting to the finish line first but about enjoying the journey.

 

I’m grateful for having enough. Less is more. Too much of anything is usually toxic.

 

I’m grateful for each day when I can add more value to the world than I consume.

 

I’m grateful for learning that every situation provides an opportunity to learn something; even the difficult ones, life goes by so fast.

 

I’m grateful that a career in radio that I started in the 10th grade in high school would allow me to pay for my college education, graduate school and raise a family. It’s a career that was all I ever wanted to do besides one day paying-it-forward through teaching the next generation of broadcasters.

 

I’m grateful that I finally started a blog this past year. It’s been one of the most personally rewarding and enriching things I’ve undertaken this past year.

 

I’m grateful for all the wonderful people I’ve met on this journey called life, people who were only strangers until we said “hello,” and then became friends for life.

 

One of my mentors, Zig Ziglar said: “You can get anything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” I’ve tried to live those words every day.

 

I have so many things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving 2015. I’m sure you do too.

 

Remember you may make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.

 

Today, I’m grateful for YOU.

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