Monday Motivator 11/26/07

Happy last Monday of November!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Dave and I did something different this year, and I think we will stick with it. We did not celebrate with everyone else on Thursday. Instead, we slept in, scoured the adds, cleaned the house, went to a movie, and had Jack-in-the-Box for dinner. I know it sounds crazy, but it was so nice to be able to have two full days getting ready for our celebration on Saturday. It was wonderful!

We had five of our friends over for Thanksgiving Saturday. Dave christened our new grill with the best turkey any of us have ever had. He used a recipe from Alton Brown, from the Food Network. Wow! It really was the best any of us have ever eaten. After dinner, we sat out by the fire, enjoyed the hot tub, and finally wound up the night playing Taboo around the coffee table while the crantinis flowed! So, so much to be thankful for.

Now it is back to work, and almost itme to welcome December. Today I pledge to enjoy this holiday season. I intend to make it stress free, and to only do the things that will be memorable and uplifting. I will do less shopping and practice more family traditions. What about you? What do you want your holday season to be? Have a wonderful week, and let me be the first to wish you happy holidays!

Enjoy this quote from Nelson Mandela. It moves me everytime I read it. I hope it moves you, too.

Love Kathy

"The first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself. … Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility."


— Nelson Mandela

Monday Motivator

Crabby Monday!

Not what you expected? Me neither, and just why is it that Monday is equated with a bad thing? I know the standard answer about just coming off a weekend, and now we all have to go back to work. It seems to me that the problem is not with Monday, but with where you have to go every Monday, and in the big picture, don't you have a choice? I say you do. Some will disagree, like Dave, saying that he can't just quit his job because we have a mortgage to pay. To that, I say, he is right however, he could lay some solid plans for a new career path, and start working in that direction. There's a choice.

I find that even if I can't be doing exactly what I feel I would love to be doing right now, if I am doing something that is moving me in that direction, I feel better about all of my circumstances. When I wanted to be an actor, I signed up for workshops, that lead to classes, that lead to doing commercials. The funny thing is, I felt successful just having signed up for the class! The same holds true for my new career as an author and motivational speaker. I made the choice, smiled, made it known I was available to speak, smiled some more, and viola, I have my first speaking gig tomorrow night in Walnut Creek. Ironically, I have a radio interview today about my participation in the Chicken Soup series. Two gigs in one week, how is that for intention?

Today, I have to go to work, doing the job that makes me dread Monday, but after sharing all this with you, I am going to smile all day, as I head to the radio station and after that, prepare to speak tomorrow night. Happy Monday I say!

If you find your Mondays to be less than welcome, ask yourself what you would rather be doing. If you can't just do it, find a way to start doing it, and follow through. It will make you feel better than you can imagine, even though you still have to do the other stuff, too!


Take a minute and post in the comments what you will do to move you in the direction you want to go. Let's see how many of us will take at least that much action.

Monday Motivator

Happy Monday!

Dave and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary with friends in Nevada City. We took a mini road trip to Nevada City. First, we went almost to Reno, and then back to Truckee taking highway 89 through Downieville to Nevada City. It was pretty, but the best part was the kind of conversation you have on long drives. For me, it was a good time to take stock of our marriage and see if Dave is as happy as I am.

We talked about our individual expectations, the ones that have been met, one that has not, and most of them have been far exceeded. I hear people everyday talk about how much work marriage is, how "hard" it is to make it work, and I don't find that to be true. From the day we got engaged, to the day Dave moved into the house in Alameda, all the way through money struggles, and military deployments, we have worked together, finding solutions that make both of us mostly happy. For us, the keys are respect, communication, and laughter.

Our celebration with our friends made us realize yet again, how lucky we are to be surrounded by such phenomenal people. The few people that made the trip this weekend barely scratch the surface of the real numbers of great people we have in our life. It would appear that success is imminent when you have such wonderful love and support. Thank you to all of you that make our marriage so much more wonderful than it already is!

Todays motivaotr is a definition. Read it a couple of times so it stays with you. As you go through your week, see how many times you recall this moment and how much respect plays a part in everyday of your life.

Respect is an assumption of good faith and competence in another person, or in the whole of oneself. Depth of integrity, trust, complementary moral values, and skill are necessary components.

Respect adds general reliability to social interactions. It enables people to work together in a complimentary fashion, instead of each person having to understand or even agree with everyone, respect is very important to the community because people must have respect to get along with other people

Monday Motivator

Welcome to the first Monday in November.

There are only nine more Mondays this year including this one, and can you believe that we only have 50 more shopping days until Christmas?

Thank you to those of you who looked at my blog and gave me your input. It was all positive, and the free editing was much appreciated. It still amazes me that you can write something, read it, read it again, and again, and even one more time, and still have misspelled words. Several of you asked me why I created the blog so let me share with you my vision.

I have been working all year on a book with my friend Dahlynn. Originally, the book was to be titled "Intentional Winning on the Radio and in Life" and it was to show how I have manifested the power of intention, winning on the radio, over the last twenty-five years. After getting it written, Dahlynn and I decided to rethink the radio concept, and introduce Intentional Winning in a more basic format that would be applicable to so many other subjects. The radio book is still written, I just don't know how we will produce/distribute it.

Intentional Winning: Victory by design. Creating the journey, and the outcome for every aspect of your life by participating in the process.

Our vision is to get the first book, "Intentional Winning, a handbook for life" published, and then model a company much like the Chicken Soup for the Soul company. I see books being co-authored with titles like "Intentional Winning in Marriage," "Intentional Winning in Parenting," and "Intentional Winning in Wine Making." You name it, and we can plug it in. Intentional Winning is a cross between a how-to like the Dummies series, and a more spiritual slant on life much like The Secret.

I plan to move into a career as a motivational speaker with Intentional Winning being my subject. We have the web address reserved and hope to make it a resource for all the books, journals, IW products, booking motivational speakers, and hiring success coaches. This blog is my way of communicating with all of you, and branching out beyond just an e-mail list in my address book. It may be a little less personal, but it may not. I have not yet decided how I will proceed in that respect.

So there it is. It is a work in process and will likely be ever evolving. I hope that makes this whole book idea and business plan a little more clear. Like so many successful concepts, I realize that my information is not new, or revolutionary. What I do think, is that my perception and delivery of good information will reach some that would otherwise not have been hooked. I also know that I am an average Joe, no MBA, I'm not a CEO of a million dollar company (yet!), and that in and of itself will be appealing to many.

This will also be the new format for my Monday Motivator. What do you think? I hope you like it, and will continue to enjoy this journey with me. Have a great week and next week, I will have a more MM format.