Joyful Jubilant Learning

May the Spirit of November Never End

This is always a slightly sad day for me: I am quite sure I have never had a November I was anxious to have reach an end. Yet I do say “slightly” for November is such a great teacher, and I know that not ending the spirit of November is completely up to me. November teaches us how to focus on appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness so that we keep those blessings of a grateful heart in our lives the whole year through.

MAHALO NUI LOA: Thank you to our Contributing Authors this month:

• DAVID ZINGER taught us the Gratitude Dance (David, will we see you doing it soon on one of your new You tube videos?) and about Signature Stories: More than Once Upon A Time - a big hit both here and elsewhere throughout our community. Third, David brought us the story of the Marlboro Marine and the photographer who took his picture in Remembering.

• JOANNA YOUNG taught us about Guy Fawkes Night traditions. I so love what we learn about the big BIG world of our Ho‘ohana Community!

• STEVE SHERLOCK stretched our learning vocabulary with Heutagogy - Word for the day.

• DEAN BOYER found that November helped him remember when he lived in Taiwan, and he wrote about the Chinese characters for gratitude for us in Gratitude: an opening of the heart. Second, in setting a great example for us as he so often does, Dean checked back on his own Joyful Jubilant Learning journey here, speaking of his appreciation in I am thankful for April 8, 2007.

• ARIANE BENEFIT wrote a very personal story for us with Two Things It's NOT Easy to be Grateful For - But I have learned to be! and we are so honored that she chose JJL to share it.

• TERRY STARBUCKER gave us the privilege of celebrating his 17th wedding anniversary with him! His sharing of (An Appreciation of) The Wonder of Love and Learning was such a beautiful, loving tribute.

• TIM MILBURN was our host this month for Rapid Fire Learning, and he inspired Steve Sherlock, Joanna Young, David Zinger, Susan and I to jump in!

• MONIQUE HOWAT was a Guest Author for us, answering my shout-out for your Wild and Wacky Traditions by writing a story for us on how her daughter Shanna inspired the whole family (we are inspired too Shanna!) Get ready for December, with Christmas Olympics! Let the games begin!

• Several of our authors collaborated on our group posting for the American celebration of Thanksgiving, in Thankful for Learning; Thanksgiving 2007. Read what was shared there by Dwayne Melancon, Terry Starbucker, Chris Owen, David Zinger, Joanna Young, Jen Chan, April Groves, Phil Gerbyshak, John Richardson, Steve Sherlock, Tim Milburn, Dean Boyer, and me. 

See what I mean? We cannot let the spirit of November end when it fills our hearts with so much joy!

I would also like to send a special mahalo to PHIL GERBYSHAK, for sharing our November theme with the blogging community of 100 Bloggers ~ thank you Phil!

For more on how you can keep November with you, I invite you to visit me on Managing with Aloha Coaching today for Mahalo in a 5-Beat Rhythm. Then, check back here tomorrow for where we will aim our joyful writing targets in December.

~ Rosa Say, JJL Contributor, and author of Managing with Aloha Coaching.

Remember November: 5 Learnings

Here are my 5 learnings for November:

1. Creating good You Tube videos are more challenging than it looks but I vow to learn to get better at it.
2. What you gamble in Las Vegas - stays in Las Vegas - they don't build those ostentatious replica buildings for free.
3. You can teach a course 1000 times and never stop learning from the very material you are teaching.
4. I am learning that 2 big trends in 2008 will be story and leadership/living and bloggers joining and creating more specific and defined networks.
5. Being a parent of 3 children (ages 18, 16, and 16) is rewarding, disconcerting, challenging, loving, educational, spiritual, physical, costly, exhausting, and uplifting. In a word, being a parent IS. Everything else is......extra.

David Zinger

Learn to Build Your Personal Brand

“Most of all, I don’t want to be defined by anything not of my choosing.”
~ Phil Gerbyshak

I consider myself a newbie as far as being an entrepreneur. For the first three decades of my working life, I was Mz. Corporate America, and for most of those thirty years I didn’t think like Phil did, mostly because I didn’t really think about it at all.

For most of those thirty years there was also no such thing as the internet, and building my own brand meant the hard road of building my own business, something I wasn’t ready to take on. During my time in retail in particular, my customers and suppliers regularly asked me, “Rosa, you’re good at this; why don’t you open your own shops?” and my reply would be, “I have a great employer who I like working for, and who willingly takes all the financial risks for what I do; this is perfect for me just as it is.”

Today, that is a sentence I would never say. I have no regrets about my corporate time, it was pretty great, but knowing what I know now, I’m not going back. Reading back on it, I could say that sentence again, but the ‘employer’ I’d be talking about would be me myself, and I.
[See From Corporate Life to Self-Employment at Talking Story.]

As I got older, and better at what I did, financial risk became a minimal concern for me. Not because I had a lot to cushion any deficits, but because I had learned how to make money and spend it wisely to curb those deficits; cash flow is important, but it became just another “tool of the trade.” I had developed that entrepreneurial mindset needed to succeed on my own because my financial literacy had grown with me.

A bigger concern reared its head and became more and more intrusive every day, and that was this: I paid a high price for the comfort of staying with my employer –––as great as that employer was. The price was the loss of substantial intellectual property; while I was on their dime they considered my brain something they owned, especially because I’d become an executive. Once you get that corner office, there is no such thing as personal time off the clock; that bigger paycheck you get means your ‘boss’ is now also your owner. Whatever you might create doesn’t belong to you, even at midnight sitting at your own kitchen table.

The day came that I no longer felt comfortable with “having it good” as Mz. veteran executive. I wanted my creative discomfort to pay off for me and my family personally.

When I walked away from the corporate world in 2003, I had a terrific reputation, but I did not yet have a personal brand. Big difference. Your personal brand is about your own message, your own mission, and your own vision, and your reputation. Entrepreneurship is about keeping control of all those things in your own good hands.

“My message is consistently spread because I took the time to build my brand. If you don’t take the time to build your brand, you run the risk that someone else will. And I don’t want someone else to say who I am, I want to be part of that story!”
~ Phil Gerbyshak

When you have crafted a personal brand, you have crafted a significant driver in your reputation; for remember, a reputation is something you are awarded by others. Think of brand as cause (will it be yours, or your employer’s?) and reputation as effect.

The good news is that today, you can do what I couldn’t do in my yesterday: You still need to steer clear of the executive suite to pull it off, however you can reap the benefits of working in the corporate world and create your personal brand at the same time.

Phil Gerbyshak is one of the best examples I know of, and we can all learn from him. The quotes I’ve shared here come from an interview he’s given to Ron “Buzzoodle” McDaniel of Buzz Marketing Personal Brand as lead up to a presentation Phil is doing in Las Vegas in January. I encourage you to read through Phil’s interview with Ron, for you too can begin to build your personal brand today.

~ Rosa Say, JJL Contributor, and author of Managing with Aloha Coaching. A related posting made back in June on Talking Story, is the Not-so-Secret Weapon of the Self-Employed.

~ Read more about Phil in his index here at Joyful Jubilant Learning, and at his blog, Make It Great!

~ As JJL Contributor Greg Balanko-Dickson would say, “Live Large!” Grab more inspiration for building your personal brand from these JJL categories:

• BHAGs and Bigger Dreams
• Connecting and Relationships
• JJL Forum 2007: Make A Difference

A five course feast of learning

Tim's Rapid Fire Learning piece inspired me to think about November's learning highlights as a five course meal:

Appetizer: Curiosity about our different cultural traditions really whetted my learning appetite this month.  I loved explaining about what Guy Fawkes means to me, and learning more about what Thanksgiving means to folk in the US

Starter: I'm still in the starting phase of my writing coach business.  It's a steep learning curve, and I'm discovering new delights every day.  What's hard is getting my focus right - acknowledging small steps forward, keeping an eye on the long term goal (without getting disheartened), capturing positive feedback to boost my gratitude levels and keep me motivated, learning new ways to market and promote my business without getting overwhelmed at the amount still left to do...

Main course: I tend to be more of a starter and pudding girl myself, and often find main courses the hardest part to work through.  Yet that's where the substance and the nutrition lies - and maybe this is where we work through our real, as opposed to ideal, values.  My schedules have been thrown in the last couple of weeks by the arrival on my doorstep of a friend in great need - reminding me that this is one of the challenges of a home based business, but also of what's important to me - friendship over business any day.  And as Liz Strauss reminded me (in a most well-timed post - how did she know?) gratitude and generosity go hand in hand, inseparable, like lifelong friends.

Pudding: Hmm, the delights of the sweet course.  Blogging for me is sweet delight, the pleasure of meeting new people, of connecting conversations, of learning joyfully and jubilantly.  Writing every day (through multiple blogs!) helps to keep me feeling sunny and sweet - when I don't find the time for it, I get cranky.

Post dinner drink: Sit back, stretch out, look back at the period of time gone by.  Whether that's a day, a month or a year, making the time for reflection is a fabulous way to build up your gratitude muscles.  And like Tim, I feel better about life when I'm grateful for it.

Thanks to everyone at JJL for making November another five course feast of learning.

Christmas Olympics! Let the games begin!

Preface: We had asked you to Teach us your Wild and Wacky Traditions! and reader Monique Howat of www.confidentgirlsguys.com rose to the challenge with this wonderful story. Thank you Monique!

Our daughter Shanna believed in Santa until she was 9.  He seemed to represent all things Christmas yet Shanna felt sorry for him. She was sure that a jolly old fella like himself would feel sad that mail only arrived in December so until she turned 9, she began corresponding with Santa starting in January for 11 months, purposely excluding December and asking only for his friendship.

I was inspired by her.  After years of trying to figure out a way to change our superficial model of Christmas to one with more meaning, surely I could follow the lead of my young daughter to create a Christmas tradition that would take the main focus off gifts.

My criterion was uncomplicated but needed to cover the things that were important to our family:

1. Make it more about family and togetherness than gifts.

2. Include every one of all ages.

3. Fun

4. Memorable!

Our family has come to know this unpretentious event as Christmas Olympics.

It begins right after lunch on December 25 with the gong of a bell which prompts last years Olympian to run though the house proudly wearing the cheap plastic olive leaf wreath on their head while carrying the makeshift torch (a wooden stick with a hand drawn flame)….happily donated when our three kids were still toting crayons.

Christmas Olympics is a great way to make sure that the very young and elderly stay as involved in the occasion as everyone else because they also choose a game they’re good at.

While many people spend the 5 days before Christmas on shopping, my family are extra  busy gathering “things” for their game or researching “party games” on the internet and that’s half the fun!

The game each person chooses remains top secret right up until the moment they are designated to start their game. Each person’s game time is indicated simply by where their name happens to be on the paper that tracks the game points. Christmas Olympics after all is meant to be fun with few rules!

If you have 5 family members, each game earns a player a point score from 1-5, depending on the position they ranked in a game.

The following is a small sampler of some of our Christmas Olympic games;

• Poop the Potatoe which really means hop around a table with a potato between your legs and while facing everyone, plop it into a bowl on the floor.
• Orange peeling contests. The longest unbroken rind wins and everyone gets treated to a fibre break from candy and chocolate.
• Snow golf…one or two holes on a short course (use food colouring around the hole)
• Staring contests
• Memory games. Read a meaningful or funny short story and ask questions later. It’s really astounding how well adults DON’T listen!
• Guess how many jelly beans, loonies or quarters. Winner gets points and the jar!
• Spin the coin. The longest spin wins.
• Card or dice games of chance.
• Find the Apple Pot. Blind folded, crawl along the floor smacking a wooden spoon to find a pot filled with water and an apple. Retrieve the apple with your mouth. This is timed. You can get creative by using a soft tomato or marshmallows (if someone has bad knees or back, place it somewhere on the counter)
• Guess what’s in the sock? Each sock holds an item of a family member. Contestants get a single 10 second feel, 1 hint and only 2 guesses.

At the end of the day we’ve laughed, created memories and crowned the Olympian with the coveted but tacky plastic head wreath and surprisingly, everyone is always proud to wear it.

We all thank Shanna for seeing things differently from the rest of us and having the courage to act on it.

Our kids, though now young adults are just as excited about the afternoon of December 25.

Let the games begin…

Rapid Fire Learning - Five for November

November has been a terrific month of learning. Thanks for taking a moment and letting me share my journey with you. With only five days left in this month, here is the five-course meal of learning I feasted on.

1. Gratitude changes everything.
I feel better about life when I'm thankful for it. Being grateful is a tremendous gift to both give and receive. People are appreciative when I recognize their contribution through my gratitude. I feel like giving even more when someone expresses their thanks to me. Gratitude is the best thing to combat a prideful attitude. A handwritten thank you note is a special gift.

2. I'm more productive when I clear the clutter.
This month, I completely cleared off my workspace of everything except my computer and phone. I had to remove file holders, stacks of papers, office supplies (stapler, tape, pens, etc), random sticky notes, and other items that had found a home on my desk. When I was done, I had a completely clean work area. I've spent the last few weeks managing my clean sweep. I try to go paperless whenever possible. I clean off any clutter each night. I have found that I am much better at working on one thing at a time this way. It's less distracting.

3. Hulu is pretty good.
I must say that I was bitter (I realize this conflicts with #1) when I found out that NBC had pulled it's TV show The Office off of iTunes and was now running it on Amazon. For one thing, I can no longer watch this season's episodes on my iPod. But NBC's release of Hulu is fairly decent. I had to wait to get an invitation for the beta. Not sure when they'll fully open it to the public. I like Hulu for a couple of reasons: 1) I tend to watch more and more of my favorite shows online, 2) The video player is so much better than the one they have up on NBC.com. Check it out here.

4. There's a very REAL difference between ideal values and real values.
Ideal values are those things that you want or hope to value. Real values are the values you actually live out through your actions and behaviors. You may communicate to others your ideal values, trying to encourage them that they're you're real values, but your behavior will prove what is really true. Thus, it's important to know what your values really are. If you only communicate your ideal values, you'll confuse everyone in your life when you start acting in contradictory ways.

5. Christmas lights are easier to put up the second time around.
Last year was the first year I put lights up on the house we currently live in. It took me quite a while to figure out what to connect everything to and where to run all of the extension cords. This year, I already knew the plan. I strung the lights in less than half the time, only having to change a few broken bulbs. Now I can focus on enhancing the presention (we might add a few candy canes and light-up reindeer). Familiarity helps speed things up. But it only comes when I'm willing to dive in and try something for the first time. Experience enhances my execution. Evaluated experience helps me to improve and not repeat the same mistakes I made before.
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Author: Tim Milburn
Tim currently trains, equips, and develops student leaders on a daily basis. You can view more of his writing and resources at www.studentlinc.net.

Thankful for Learning; Thanksgiving 2007

On this Thanksgiving Day, we are thankful we have come together to learn! A Joyful and Jubilant Thanksgiving to all of you, for we so appreciate the aloha you share.

I have learned the joy of making new friends by bravely asking questions -- rather than timidly saying nothing or pompously saying too much. By the way - I have also learned that this is difficult for me, but it gives me an awesome feeling when I get it right.
~ Dwayne Melancon

This year, learning how to practice Yoga has brought me joy, for three reasons: one, for the all around workout it provides me, two, for the greater focus on the inner self it promotes, and three, for the opportunity to practice with my yoga teaching wife (who is so very happy that I'm doing it with her).  Namaste!
All my best to the JJL family,
~ Terry Starbucker

While our American friends are enjoying their Thanksgiving, my family will be celebrating the culmination of a year's planning as our youngest son gets married. We will be outside in a pretty spring garden with rhododendrons and other spring flowers blooming everywhere. We'll watch our son stand on the steps of a gazebo and wait for his bride to walk through the gardens towards him.  We'll watch them exchange vows that are similar to our own of 33 years ago but are very much theirs as they have prepared them to suit the two of them.
We'll share a meal with family and friends and new relatives.
We'll toast them in wonderful Aussie sparkling wines to the backdrop of the fairlylights in the mountain ferns outside the window.
Our world will be different and new and exciting (and no doubt teary for the mother of the groom who always cries at emotional times - I'm already practicing as I type!)
So what am I grateful for in 2007? I'm grateful for: the serendipity that brought a hippy university student into my world in 1973 the ex-hippy now-scientist who discovered his own inner beauty and shared it with me warts and all and somehow got me to believe that I had an inner beauty of my own. The man who has been my rock through 33 years of marriage and 31 of parenting the three amazing men we have nurtured and loved (and cursed and sighed over) and have now shared with a world that will be brighter for their existence and hopefully the little bits of us in them. The women who love these beautiful men and we hope will love them as tenderly and protect them as fiercely as we have the world in which we can look forward to our sons being free to make decisions and mistakes and share their inner beauty because it's safe to do so we'll raise our glass of yummy sparkling to you over in the US as we remember how grateful and lucky we are over here too!
~ Chris Owen

Earn, Learn, and Turkey
I believe Marshall McLuhan in the late 1960’s said in the future we will not earn a living, we will learn a living. That future is certainly upon us. I am thankful to be a learner. What this means is not so much someone who takes courses but someone who takes all experiences and opens to the learning bundled with the experience. Each year I feel less and less threatened by feedback from others and more and more open to learning and growth. I can unbundled learning even from the tough experiences. In essence, to me, learning = living. So on this Thanksgiving I hope we can all gobble up more learning for the remainder of 2007 and learn even more in 2008. The more we learn the less we are likely to be confused with turkeys by other people!
~ David Zinger

I have learned the joy of blogging!  Until last year I was stuck behind a firewall (of the technical sort, but perhaps in other ways too...) Now I am joyfully learning the power of blogging - to write, learn, express, share and most of all to connect.  I have 'met' so many amazing, interesting people over the last 9 months - which in turn has expanded my awareness of just how amazing, interesting and full of possibility the universe is.
~ Joanna Young

I'm most thankful for being able to overcome trials and receiving so many blessings this past year. So much has happened and I didn't really know how to go about things but just the idea moving forward helped me a lot. While I didn't have the time nor the opportunity to reflect on those challenges, I certainly can now.
~ Jen Chan

I have never won as Oscar, but if I did, I would think it would feel a lot like every Thanksgiving when I am asked, "What are you thankful for?"  I am truly blessed.  A fortunate woman indeed.  If I had to list all the things I am thankful for, I would surely forget, omit, overlook, and pass by someone, something, very important.
But, I will do the best I can and hope that those who know me, know.
I am so very thankful for my family.  A husband that supports and children that inspire.  Parents that give strength and sisters that understand. Friends that know they all they lack is DNA...other than that, we are family.
How blessed...how fortunate, Happy Thanksgiving indeed.
~ April Groves

I am thankful for friends that I can learn with, through and from. It makes the learning all the more rich knowing I have a community behind me, helping me get up when I fall down.
Thank you to everyone who's touched my life through JJL. You've made this a year to remember!
~ Phil Gerbyshak

Thank you for this forum. I am indeed thankful for many things this year. I have met many new friends through blogging and through our local Toastmaster clubs. I have to agree with Dwayne that I've learned to bravely go up to strangers and ask questions. This has opened up many new friendships and opportunities. One of the most amazing people that I met this year was Kathy Gaulton. Kathy is the president of Heavenly Treasures, which is a non-profit company that goes throughout the world and starts up micro-enterprises to help impoverished communities.
Her organization came to our church with hand-made treasures from Africa, Asia, and other far off lands. There were hand carved wooden spoons from Kenya, necklaces from Sudan, and hand sewn purses from the Philippines. The neat thing is one hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of these items goes directly back to the communities where they were made. As cool as the items were, the stories behind them were even greater.
She tells the story of Li, a young girl from a very poor Provence in China. Due to the one child restriction in China at the time she was born, her father tried to kill her in a vat of boiling water so they could have a boy child. She was left for dead outside the city dump. Some good Samaritans came along and found her. They took her to the local mental hospital, where another good Samaritan took her in. She lived there growing up through adolescence, paralyzed from the waist down from the severe burns.
When Kathy found her she was able to get around fine in a wheel chair, but unable to make a living in the local area since she was unable to walk. Through Kathy's organization, Li was able to learn how to sew. She now makes wonderful oven-mits and unique purses from her wheel chair. She is able to support herself and her goal is to be the best seamstress she can be.
I am so thankful for people like Kathy, who find practical solutions to help hurting people. (You can learn more about her organization at www.heavenlytreasures.org)
I am also thankful to be a part of this great learning community.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
~ John Richardson

Sherku: Joyful Jubilant Learning

books, wonders, dialog
so much to be thankful
joyful jubilant learning

I wish you all the best, have a great week!
~ Steve Sherlock

Aloha to all!
What has brought great joy to me this past year is the relationship with you all; from your many posts and insights, I have a renewed desire to write, which went dormant for about fifteen years. So, to all of you, and especially Rosa, thank you so very much!
~ Dean Boyer

I have found that I'm most fully alive when I'm learning and growing and becoming more of the person I was created to be. It is a blessing to be surrounded by others who share this passion and who strive to live each day with this sense of being fully alive. This year I have encountered books I might never have read, lessons I might never have learned, and thoughts/ideas I might never have considered. I'm grateful for the opportunity to partner with my friends and co-sojourners in the Joyful Jubilant Learning community.
~ Tim Milburn

When I sat to reflect on the learning which gave me joy and profound gratitude this past year, two words dominated my thoughts; strength and simplicity. We had embarked on our strengths journey here on JJL this past April, and though familiar to me, it was a re-learning that would bring me the joy of truly feeling strong for me, and being strong for others. Perfect timing, for a year that would test me in a few ways.
We human beings are such a marvel; we come in such a perfect package upon our birth, with so much potential to be groomed and polished as time goes by. We really don’t need that much more than what we start with; it is that simplicity I am so grateful I came to better appreciated this year. My paring down to a few focused essentials has helped me realize how very little I need to live a blessed life. I have my family, I have my friends, I have our community, I have my aloha spirit and my life's work; everything else falls in place.
To everyone who reads these words, thank you for being part of our Joyful jubilant Learning community. On this Thanksgiving Day, I wish you strength. I wish you simplicity. I wish you joy.
~ Rosa Say

Teach us your Wild and Wacky Traditions!

As the winter holidays draw near, I invariably find I begin to think about tradition, both old and time-honored, and new ones not yet thought of which may lie in wait for us to celebrate them. Traditions are like family-spun yarns that get knitted together into the most fabulous multi-colored bulky cables; be they for scarves, shawls or sweaters, it’s the cable knit that matters most for the warmth.

Cable sweaters also hide a lot of mischievousness...

I saw these two tradition lists in a magazine called Family Fun as I sat in an office waiting room before an appointment; they were culled from the mag’s readership:

Your top Thanksgiving traditions:

1. Cook a beloved family recipe for the feast
2. Make a gratitude list to display and save
3. Call faraway relatives
4. Add leaf rubbings, handprints or notes to a keepsake tablecloth
5. Play a family touch football game
6. Start decorating for Christmas the day after

Your top Christmas traditions:

1. Set aside a day just for cookie baking, and for decorating a gingerbread house
2. Plan a get-in-the-spirit activity or outing for each day of Advent
3. Buy and hang an ornament for each child that commemorates a special interest or event in the year
4. Drive around and look at the holiday lights
5. Leave snacks for Santa (and often for the reindeer too)
6. Get new pajamas (or lingerie!) on Christmas eve

Now those things are nice, they really are, but am I the only one who thought these lists were pretty blah and way too normal?

Come on JJLers – weigh in and tell us about the weird and wacky traditions you have in your family! If given the choice, and a magic wand that could zap me into your house, why would I choose you and your family if I were looking for the most Joyful-Wacky! and Jubilant-Wild! holiday traditions for my 2007 photo album?

If you have a long story and want to post instead of comment, email me and I’ll publish it for you!

[Flickr photos by Leo Reynolds.]

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Post author Rosa Say writes for Managing with Aloha Coaching, Value your Month, Value your Life. Visit her there, pick up a feed for your reader, and let her know what you think.

Are you brave (or wild, wacky and weird)? Take her up on this challenge!

(An Appreciation of) The Wonder of Love and Learning

Yesterday I celebrated my 17th wedding anniversary. Aside from the usual thinking of how time can pass by so quickly, I also took a bit of time to give thanks to the wonder of the love and learning that I had experienced for all those years. 

And since this is a month of thanks for me and my fellow JJLers, I wanted to put this appreciation on "virtual" paper.

I use the word "wonder" for a very good reason - I look at love with a sense of awe, because I see it as a precious gift that provides me with essential "fuel" for my "half-full" existence.

In other words, if it wasn't for the consistent, never wavering love of my wife, I really don't think I'd be quite the person I am today. To always know that you are loved is one of the strongest possible foundations for positivity and joyfulness.

This wonder extends to learning as well, in that my wife has taught me many valuable life lessons that I have drawn upon frequently over the years. Having a soul mate like her has given me a sounding board for all my (sometimes) crazy ideas and philosophies, and her honesty without judgment has been invaluable to me as I've progressed as a business person (and a human).

So as I sit here at my computer on this chilly Sunday in November, I sit in great appreciation of the wonder of love and learning, and the person who has embodied them fully in my eyes for 17 years - my wife, who I love so dearly.

Happy anniversary sweetheart, and much love and learning to all of you, fellow JJLers, readers, and bloggers!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west, and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full. 

I am thankful for April 8, 2007

The challenge is to share how my appreciation for learning has transformed me over the past year. Simply, I am thankful for April 8, 2007 which started my relationship with the Joyful Jubilant Learning family. That first article was entitled On the Learning Curve. I reflect back to these words:

So, the challenge before me is to:

• recognize and celebrate my differentiating giftedness
• create a personal mission statement that is aligned with my passions and abilities
• analyze the opportunities associated to my work by asking the same three questions above
  • What am I most passionate about?
  • What can I do far better than others?
  • What can bring me the highest rewards?

Now, a little transparency...I am having trouble answering the last two questions.

I am still challenged with this simple list and find myself a perpetual student.

Many thanks to all of you who have responded and challenged me with your comments and thoughts. Many thanks as well to Rosa who lives with such joy and anticipation. I have had the opportunity to spend a few days with her this past year; that experience still warms my heart. I am a very thankful man, still on the learning curve.