Catalyst Quotes

“That Moment Exists”

“We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property.  But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”    (Paulo Coelho)

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“If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another.

The universe has no fixed agenda.  Once you make any decision, it works around that decision.  There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.

If this sounds too mystical, refer again to the body.  Every significant vital sign- body temperature, heart rate, oxygen consumption, hormone level, brain activity, and so on – alters the moment you decide to do anything.  Decisions are signals telling your body, mind, and environment to move in a certain direction.”     (Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets:  Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life)

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“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.”  (Edwin Louis Cole)     

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“You have to take risks, he said.  We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.  Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy.  Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist — that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow.  But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment.  It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us.  But that moment exists — a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”   (Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)

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“It always seems impossible, until it is done.”    (Nelson Mandela)

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“Discover Our True Selves”

“I don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor.  If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.  Simple as that.”     – Eminem

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“How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”    – George Washington Carver

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“Each of us is here to discover our true selves; that essentially we are spiritual beings who have taken manifestation in physical form; that we’re not human beings that have occasional spiritual experiences, that we’re spiritual beings that have occasional human experiences.”  – Deepak Chopra

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“’I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason,’ the yogi Krishnan told him. ‘Every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson.  Never regret your past.  Accept it as the teacher that it is.’”   – Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

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“The most incredible architecture is the architecture of Self, which is ever changing, evolving, revolving and has unlimited beauty and light inside which radiates outwards for everyone to see and feel.

With every in breathe you are adding to your life and every out breathe you are releasing what is not contributing to your life.  Every breathe is a re-birth.”   – Allan Rufus, The Master’s Sacred Knowledge

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“Learn From Your Mistakes”

“Fearlessness is not the same as the absence of fear.

The fearless person is well aware of the fear (he)/she faces.  The fear, though, becomes a compass, not a barrier.  It becomes a way to know what to do next, not an evil demon to be extinguished.

When we deny our fear, we make it stronger.

When we reassure the voice in our head by rationally reminding it of everything that will go right, we actually reinforce it.

Pushing back on fear doesn’t make us brave and it doesn’t make us fearless.  Acknowledging fear and moving on is a very different approach, one that permits it to exist without strengthening it.

Life without fear doesn’t last very long — you’ll be run over by a bus (or a boss) before you know it.  The fearless person, on the other hand, sees the world as it is (fear included) and then makes smart (and brave) decisions.”   – Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog 6.23.13

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“What is the single force that shapes the quality of our lives?  What power do we have that can change everything? … the answer is the power of choice.  It is our decisions, not our conditions that determine the quality of our lives.   Before we go any further, we need to understand that we are where we are today because of the decisions we’ve made —decisions about what to focus on, decisions about where to place our priorities, decisions about what things mean and decisions about what to do.

Success is a result of good judgment; good judgment is a result of experience, in most cases.  And what about experience?  Yes, experience is most often a result of bad judgment.

So here’s the good news:  The experience gained from bad judgment and bad decisions is unbelievably valuable — it’s priceless!  So don’t waste time beating yourself up over poor decisions you’ve made; learn from the experiences.  When people succeed, they celebrate. When they fail, they ponder.  They stop and think, ‘What happened here?’  What could I have done differently?  It’s only through self-evaluation that we learn how to make better decisions.

So, when you make mistakes, learn from them; use your experience to improve your judgment and make better decisions.    – Anthony Robbins, “It Is Your Choice”, Seeds of Success

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“I’ve learned so much from my mistakes …

I’m thinking of making a few more.”   – Unknown Author

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“There are no mistakes, no coincidences.  All events are blessings given to us to learn from.”   – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

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“Life Isn’t About Keeping Score”

“Difficulties in your life do not come to destroy you, but to help you realize your hidden potential and power.  Let difficulties know that you too are difficult.”   – Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

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“Your honesty,

Your love,

Your compassion

Should come from your inner being,

Not from teachings and scriptures.”     – Osho

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“Life isn’t about keeping score.  It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating or haven’t dated at all.  It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which girl or guy likes you.  It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school.  In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you.  Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are.  Life just isn’t about that.

But life is about who you love and who you hurt.  It’s about how you feel about yourself.  It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion.  It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love.  Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence.  It’s about what you say and what you mean.  It’s about seeing people for who they are and not what they have.  Most of all, it’s about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never have been achieved otherwise.  These choices are what life’s about.”   – Nike

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“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”   – Kurt Vonnegut

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“Some Rules of Life”

“Don’t let other people tell you what you want.” (Pat Riley)

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“My mother taught me a lot of things. The first thing that comes to mind is: ‘Don’t take any s#!% off anyone, ever. When I was a little kid, we moved constantly. Bully picks on you in the new place? Don’t ever take any s#!% off anyone, ever. Eloquent and right.” (Johnny Depp)

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“Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.” (Roberto Clemente)

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“About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.” (Rita Mae Brown)

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“The first rule of life is to have a good time. The second rule of life is to hurt as few people as possible. There is no third rule.” (Brendan Gill)

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“Adversity – A Kick in the Teeth May Be the Best Thing”

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me.  You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.   (Walt Disney Company)

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“When you face adversity, you need to remind yourself that whatever is trying to defeat you could very well be what God will use to promote you.”    (Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now:  7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)

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“It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.”    (Dalai Lama XIV)

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“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back.  That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.”    (Vince Lombardi Jr.)

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“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over.  But one thing is certain.  When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”    (Haruki Murakami)

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“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”   (Napoleon Hill)

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“A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes.  It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.”    (Wade Boggs)

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“Take a Step Into the Unknown”

“We all have so much to go through in order to become ourselves.  We have to understand our histories and childhoods; to rage in our hearts at our parents and then forgive them; to heal our emotional wounds, honor our talents, acknowledge our feelings and give voice to them; explore and succeed at relationships; discover our work, accept our finitude, and do what we came here to do. 

In a sense we never completely ‘become ourselves.’  We are always in the process of becoming.  But in order to have a sense of the beauty of the process, invite yourself today to consider exactly where you are in your journey.  What have you already accomplished?  Where are you headed?  What are you still waiting for?  Look at your path with compassion for the process of becoming yourself is a lifelong enterprise.”    (365 Days of Love, Daphne Rose Kingma, Conari Press)

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“Nobody can say anything about you.  Whatsoever people say is about themselves.  But you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center.  That false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you.  And you are always following other people; you are always trying to satisfy them.  You are always trying to be respectable; you are always trying to decorate your ego.  

Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inside yourself.  One has to be daring, courageous.  One has to take a step into the unknown.”    (Osho)

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“Things are only impossible until somebody does what another believes can’t be done.”    (Anthony Robbins)

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“Let’s make a dent in the universe.”    (Steve Jobs)

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“20 Seconds of Courage”

“Courage is overrated. 

At least, overestimated.

You don’t have to live courageously.

In fact, you can be a coward 99.9305556% of the time (to be exact).

You only need to be courageous for 20 seconds at a time.

Those 20 seconds when…

    …you pick up the phone to call that “big kahuna” prospect.

    …you see your dream client enter the networking meeting.

    …you walk up to a circle of strangers and introduce yourself.

    …you volunteer to come up on stage.

    …you contemplate jumping into the icy cold water.

    …you are arguing with your spouse and choose to relent.

    …you are slighted and decide to let it go and forgive.

    …you know you need to have a tough conversation with a friend.

    …you know it’s time to let someone go.

    …you need to say “no” even though it will make you unpopular.

Each one of those defining moments only requires 20 seconds of real courage at the most.  Once the 20 seconds are over, it’s easy breezy from there.

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” — C.S. Lewis

Fear is an illusion.
An illusion can only exist in the absence of reality.
Once reality takes over the illusion dissipates.
Fear mostly comes in anticipation of an experience, not in the experience itself.

So what do you do when you hit the wall of fear?

You do this:  You shut off your brain, close your eyes, hold your breath (if you need to) and do what every corpuscle of your body insists you don’t—RUN RIGHT AT IT!  You’ll break through the wall of fear in less than 20 seconds.

What if you did something you fear three times a day, every day?
Imagine how doing so would multiply your success, lifestyle and prominence in the marketplace.
Think of the breakthroughs you could create.
You could still be a coward 99.9305556% of the time—a really rich and successful coward!

The math: 20 seconds of courage X 3 times a day = 60 seconds. 60 seconds divided by 86,400 seconds in a day = 99.9305556%.

 What will you do with your 20 seconds of courage today?”    (Darren Hardy, Seeds of Success Weekly Newsletter, June 11, 2013 – Vol. 6 Issue 13)

“Live Your Life”

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”    (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.”    (St. Augustine)

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“Keep these concepts in mind:  You’ve failed many times, although you don’t remember.  You fell down the first time you tried to walk.  You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim.  Don’t worry about failure.  My suggestion to each of you:  Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.”  (Sherman Finesilver)

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“Obstacles don’t have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”      (Michael Jordon)

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“If I can dream, I can act.  And if I can act, I can become”    (Poh Yu Khing)

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“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.

Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.”    (Cherokee Expression)

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“Be Better Than Yourself”

“One of the commonest mistakes and one of the costliest is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic — something or other which we do not possess.  Success is generally due to holding on, and failure to letting go.  You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course of reading, train yourself physically.  Will it be success or failure?  It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word ‘decide’ contains.  The decision that nothing can overrule, the grip that nothing can detach will bring success.  Remember the Chinese proverb, ‘With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes satin.’”    (Maltbie Davenport Babcock)

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“All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up.  Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up; that growing is an ever ongoing process.”  (M. Scott Peck)

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“Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.”    (Chinese inscription cited by Thoreau in Walden)  

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“Whatever task you undertake, do it with all your heart and soul.  Always be courteous, never be discouraged. Beware of him who promises something for nothing.  Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures. Do not look for approval except the consciousness of doing your best.”   (Bernard Baruch)

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“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.”    (William Faulkner)

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“Why settle for being effective when you could be insanely awesome?”    (Zenith Data Systems)

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