Ralf Weiser's Blog – Shake Up Your Snow Globe! ©

Stop doing, shake your globe, ponder, dream, start reaching your full potential – live on purpose and do it with a smile!

Archive for the category “love”

15 Oct 2017

1 important life tip for young folks


1 important life tip for young folks 

Photo credit: Pablo by Buffer.com

Please ponder the following request that is actually important for everyone: Make sure to enjoy life while it still is in a giving mode. First life gives, later it starts taking things away from you. When we are young there are so many gifts that are available to us. Skills, friends, education, career, health, etc., in fact there are countless examples of it. Then there is a time when life seems to start taking things away from us.

In the last couple of years quite a few great people were taken away from me due to cancer. Sure, there are still many new gifts that keep coming our way, but there are equally more people and other things important to us that are whisked away. Take health for instance (I need reading glasses now, how did this happen?) and it will not take all that long, at the rate of speed we are going, that the kids will eventually move on.

How about you? Where are you in this cycle? Is life giving you more than it takes? Hopefully so. Be really thankful if it does and do not waste any time making the best of the gifts presented to you. Also, growing older lets us take fewer risks – it’s the tool helping avoid things taking things away from you. Point of today’s post is to appreciate life to its fullest and to fill it with meaning. You never know if your life is the next thing that is about to disappear.

Ralf

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29 Aug 2017

Find out who is making a greater difference in your life


Find out who is making a greater difference in your life 

What is more important: success or significance? Most societies put a lot of peer pressure on people when it comes to careers, education, and personal / societal status. The pressure is on all of us to succeed. Succeed in what though? What does success look like? How does significance fit into this scenario? Feeling a little confused yourself?

The following 2 different mental approaches may help guide you towards more clarity where you want to draw the fine thin line. It also helps finding out who is having the greatest positive impact on your life.

Let’s take a quick look at 5 brief questions/ scenarios that will get us started pondering “success”:

  1. Who were the last 5 recipients of a Nobel prize (name any that come to mind)?
  2. Who were last year’s 5 top earners in the United States?
  3. Name 5 Emmy winners from last year?
  4. How about 5 Oscar winners for the same time period (your choice of any category)?
  5. Name the last 5 Heisman trophy winners?

These individuals truly embody success. How many did you remember? In pondering all 5 categories myself, I had some significant issues coming up with even a few names.

Now reflect upon the next list of scenarios and take some time to write the results down. By the end of the exercise you will know why.

  1. Name 5 people that you really enjoy spending time with.
  2. List 3 to 5 teachers that have impacted your life the most.
  3. Think of at least 3 friends who have helped you through tough times.
  4. How many people can you think of that changed your life forever?
  5. Name 3 folks for whom you would give your life, because they are so special to you.

Which list affected you the most? The former list certainly is in a league of its own and no one will argue that any of the people you came up with are extremely successful. One thing that probably struck you is how fast the world of the successful passes us right by: Isn’t it amazing how few of them we remember even though their achievements have been very recent.

Wouldn’t you agree that the second list of people is the one that captures significance best? Take a good hard look at the people whose names you wrote on a piece of paper. Some of them will be in your thoughts (and prayers) for as long as you live.

There are two things I would like for you to do. How many of these folks are alive today? If they are alive, do they know how much they mean to you? Please go out of your way telling them this right away. Secondly, ponder what kind of a legacy you want to be known for. Here is an exercise you can use to get there.

How did this mental jogging work for you? Remember that you hold your own life’s snow globe in your hands. Give it a good shake. Do not hold back and start becoming your better self today.

Ralf

Posted in balanced life, inspiration, leadership, love, servant leadership and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
10 Aug 2017

Which person impacted and changed your life forever?


Which person impacted and changed your life forever? 

Photo credit: Pablo by Buffer

Think of a person that has changed or impacted your life the most. This person saw something in you that he or she believed in you more than you did. His/ her encouragement led to a much enriched life journey for you.

Does this person know what kind of impact their belief had in you? My call to action is to get in touch with this person immediately. Let her/ him know how you feel and appreciate what he/she did.

Next, follow this train of thought and create a ripple effect. Give of yourself. Help out a person who struggles through life. If you want to read up on what that could look like, Jeff Goins’ book “Wrecked” could help set the stage for you.

My person is my best friend Holger who helped me through some great difficulty when I was 17 and enduring the hardship of apprenticeship. My mom and dad did not have problems with alcohol – they had problems without alcohol. They were alcoholics. The home life was a royal mess, and we did not even have money to buy heating oil for about two winters.

Girl friend? Hah, did not have the guts and the heart much less the energy getting entangled with more issues. I was bullied extensively during the first year of my job apprenticeship. Whenever I could I would drink heavily. Shame galore – living in a small village in Germany was not a walk in the park when you are being put into the same category as your dad. Dad is an idiot = son must be an idiot also. That was a simple equation that came with some “interesting” ramifications. Life was miserable.

One particularly bad night I had come back from a party with co-workers, drunk and depressed. I bumped into Holger at a block party and he saw the heap of a mess that was me. He listened and helped me get my bearing again. Day by day and thought-by-thought. We became lifelong friends, but as of late we can no longer stay in contact all that much as we live in totally different places. Thanks for all you did my friend during the darkest time of my life! Life improved soon thereafter once I realized that I was still in control of my thoughts. Thoughts are just thoughts – they are not me! Once I stopped my own pity party life improved beyond measure.

Do you know someone who picked you up from the floor and put you back on your feet? How about a teacher or coach? This special person may not even remember you. It does not matter. Make sure you tell him that you love him and that you appreciate everything that he did for you. Do it fast, because life can change with an blink of an eye*.

Ralf

*Thanks, Tom!

Posted in balanced life, communication, faith, humor, information sharing, inspiration, leadership, love, self improvement, self-confidence, servant leadership and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
23 Jul 2017

Think twice about holding a grudge


Think twice about holding a grudge 

When someone irks you bad enough that it starts to affect your behavior, then you may just have to make the effort to forgive this person either in person, or you do this quietly in your head. Back in the fall of 1995 I woke up bathed in sweat and in horror realized who I had become: The exact opposite of my dad, just worse. How on Earth could I have allowed a person whom I had not seen in six years at that time, who also did not live on the same continent as me to direct my thinking and feelings? It was mind boggling to me and right there and then at the edge of the bed I reflected upon how this could have happened.

It dawned on me quickly that the underlying motivator was for me not to be like my dad. That had always been very tough as him and I look like twins to start with. Mannerisms and even speech pattern were very similar too. The bigger irk factor was however that he had been a long time alcoholic and growing up together with my sister in a household of him and mom being alcoholics had not been a walk in the park. Dad’s psych terror that got physical on a few occasions was as unpredictable as was the intensity. It got so bad that I helped my Mom with the divorce and later packing up Dad who left us with a bit of debt and later claimed personal bankruptcy such that he did not have to pay support to Mom. Topping this off was living in a small German community where we kids were labeled losers just because our dad had made some really bad choices. That is enough to make one bitter, right?

Well, that is where I went wrong. From the day Dad left our house to the above mentioned event, my primary thinking pattern was guided by the thought not to become like my father. What ended up happening was me doing things 180 degrees opposite of what I thought my dad would have done, but would this have been my own natural, sincere and genuine choice? I wanted my life back – as soon as possible. I sat up folded my hands, said a prayer and forgave my father for all the nonsense that had happened. A sense of relief flowed through me and the very next day I started to feel better about myself and the choices I made.

My case was probably a more severe case of this, but I implore you to think about the people that have hurt you in any way and how your thinking and actions may be altered forever in a non-sustainable way if you do not forgive them. That does not mean that you will turn out to be great friends again, but at least you can stay true to yourself and the folks that mean a lot to you get to experience a genuine you and not some other person.

Ralf

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