Watty Piper’s The Little Engine That Could, left a permanent impression on me as a child with its simple depiction of the value and power of perseverance. Often during life’s many tests of endurance, my memory of this potent story acts as my own personal coxswain, chanting in my mind’s ear, “I think I can, [...]
Guiding the perpetual rennovation project that is my character, is a set of heavily-edited and dog-eared blueprints. Like many a budding architect, I move from one building site to another, garnering ideas for alterations to my own master plan. When introduced to Rudyard (RK) Kipling’s poem, ‘If’, I knew I had hit the proverbial mother-lode. While studying [...]
The next four lines of Rudyard Kipling’s (RK’s) poem, ‘If’, are my personal favorites…
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
Though I had heard the twin admonitions; believe [...]
I can think of no better introduction to the next lines of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, ‘If‘, than those of author, public speaker and advisor to world leaders, Anthony Robbins. Mr. Robbins’ counsel, “Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives,” soundly echos what I believe Rudyard Kipling (RK) meant when he [...]
One of life’s most character revealing gaps, that brief moment between provocation and reaction, is solemnly illustrated by Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Frankl was a psychiatrist, a Holocaust survivor, and author of the book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning.’ In September of 1942, Dr. Frankl, his wife, and parents were imprisoned in the Theresienstadt [...]
You are bigger than life’s ifs.
When turning the poem If into a word cloud, I was pleased to see that the word You is just as big as the word If.
I created the word cloud using Wordle. I first processed the poem with a script I wrote. Then I fed the output into Wordle’s Advanced [...]
While researching part 2 of The Power of If, I came across this brilliant animation of Rudyard Kipling’s, ‘If’. Enjoy:
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpcNFll5yOM creator: hyperbolelad@hotmail.com)
:: Read on
Once during a brainstorming session, Dan Uslan, a good friend and former colleague asked our team, “What are your superpowers?” His question served as a great ice breaker and a most effective jumpstart to our meeting. I don’t remember what my answer was, but I know how I would like be able to respond in [...]
On December 30, 1865, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, novelist and author of the world famous poem, If, was born in Bombay, India. Though he wrote literally hundreds of poems, none have captured the public’s attention quite like If. A few minutes on the internet yields countless references and scores of interpretations of the poem. In 1995, [...]
Steven R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, often speaks on leadership and teamwork. Once when responding to the question, “what makes a great leader?,” he stated, “Great leaders involve their people in the communication process to create the goals to be achieved. If people are involved in the process, they psychologically [...]
