Brucisms - Thoughts on Life, Leadership, and The Pursuit of Happiness » Odds & Ends http://brucisms.com Thoughts on life, leadership and The Pursuit of Happiness Thu, 15 May 2008 13:24:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en Best of The 5 Little Things Challenge; 04-13-2008 http://brucisms.com/2008/04/14/best-of-5-little-things-04-13-2008/ http://brucisms.com/2008/04/14/best-of-5-little-things-04-13-2008/#comments Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:23:35 +0000 Bruce http://brucisms.com/?p=101 Here are this weeks best comments in The 5 Little Things Challenge:

Evelyn Lim from Attraction Mindmap says:

It’s amazing that you can cope with 5. I have 2 young kids, whom I spent half of my waking hours with.

I like to encourage creativity. Here are some ideas, to add to your list:

1. Stage plays together. Great for dressing up for role playing and building confidence.

2. Paint together. They learn much faster when they can see their parent paint as well.

3. Tell a story together. I will start a story which I will make up on the spur of the moment and my daugther will continue with the remainder.

I cannot resist sharing about my all time favorite activity: snuggling up with them in bed every once in a while. I guess you can’t do this if they are all grown up. Best is to do this while they are still young and cuddly!!

Tim Brownson from A Daring Adventure says:

No matter how tired you are or what went wrong at work make sure that you leave that in the car when you get home from work. That first 4 or 5 minutes is crucial. If your kids ever start to link you getting home from work and being in bad mood, to seeing them, you’re in trouble. Of course after the 5 minutes are up all bets are off and you can be as miserable as sin. :)

And The 5 Little Things has been showcased in The Carnival of Positive Thinking!

Many thanks to all the great people who are participating! And if you haven’t tried doing a little thing yet, join the fun by participating in The 5 Little Things Challenge.

If you’ve liked The 5 Little Things articles, then make sure you don’t miss any updates on The 5 Little Things Challenge by subscribing to Brucisms now!

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]]> http://brucisms.com/2008/04/14/best-of-5-little-things-04-13-2008/feed/ The 5 Little Things Challenge; 04-06-2008 http://brucisms.com/2008/04/06/the-5-little-things-challenge-04-06-2008/ http://brucisms.com/2008/04/06/the-5-little-things-challenge-04-06-2008/#comments Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:52:34 +0000 Bruce http://brucisms.com/?p=95 Here are our first results from The 5 Little Things Challenge!

Diane Drinkwater from FreeLittlePigs wrote:

When I was about 16 a friend and I were given a huge amount of flowers by a florist. They were not good enough to be sold, but were still perfectly good flowers. After taking some for my friend’s mum we stood on the high street and handed out free flowers for a couple of hours. People asked how much. People refused. People accepted. People smiled. It was really amazing to do something so spontaneous and fun.

Chris Cade from Spiritual Short Stories wrote:

The story caught my attention - if it’s okay, I’d love to share it with the readers on my site as well.

As for the 5 little things challenge, indeed I’ve been doing these “little” things for a couple of years now and can personally attest to the powerful changes within me. People who knew me even a couple of years ago hardly recognize me in some cases… not because I was “bad” or mean, but just with regards to the depth I now engage the world and the increased sense of peace and compassion I embody.

Here’s a few of the “little” things that I started doing here and there, but I did them enough that now they’ve become a part of the way I live my life (so yes, I’ve done them this week)…

- I always give homeless people at the corners either money or food, without regard to who they are, how they look, or what they do with what I give them. I used to only give food to homeless people because once, I gave a homeless man some money and I watched him go buy alcohol with it.

I’ve since come to realize that I don’t feel it’s my place to judge what others do with my gifts. I give for the sake of giving without any attachment to the outcome.

Last time I did this was a couple of hours ago. I think the guy might have even been a college kid moonlighting on the corner, but either way he thanked me with a smile and appeared genuinely grateful.

- I eat extremely slowly, and by doing so, thoroughly taste and enjoy my food. A few weeks ago, it took me almost an hour to finish a single large muffin.

- Each morning I wake up without an alarm clock. This alone has had profound impacts on my state of being.

- When others ask for my time, I make it a point to stop whatever I’m doing and make time. Occasionally, I may ask for a few minutes to tie up a loose end to what I’m working on, but about 99% of the time I turn my full attention to the person who is before me.

- I ask strangers “How are you?” with genuine caringness and listen for their response. People at the checkout stands seem to enjoy this immensely, because even though I ask them the same question as the person before me asked them, they can feel the difference.

I think the list could go on and on… but it all starts with doing 1 little thing 1 time. Once we feel the impact that it has on us and those around us, that 1 little thing snowballs into 5… and 10… until eventually it’s not a little thing nor a big thing, it’s just a way of being.

And that, I believe, is what you mean when you talk about the outcome of this exercise being change.

Shilpan from Successful Soul wrote:

Bruce,

You are awesome. You won’t believe this but I realized that I had a chance to make a difference yesterday. I was at the check-out counter at the local grocery store. Couple behind me was talking about damage to their home during recent storms. I did not know how much was their grocery bill but I paid $50 to the cashier and ask him to credit to their bill and walked away. After reading your article, I am feeling great about making difference for one starfish.

I have a blog and I will add your story and request stories from others.

Thanks again from the bottom of my heart,
Shilpan

Thanks to everyone who has participated so far - and keep them coming! Together we can make a difference one little thing at a time!

Join The 5 Little Things Challenge and subscribe to Brucisms now!

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]]> http://brucisms.com/2008/04/06/the-5-little-things-challenge-04-06-2008/feed/ Tina Su, Where Are You? http://brucisms.com/2008/03/21/tina-su-where-are-you/ http://brucisms.com/2008/03/21/tina-su-where-are-you/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:58:25 +0000 Bruce http://brucisms.com/2008/03/21/tina-su-where-are-you/ Ok, so I took some liberty with this title. It just sounded too much like a simpler time from my youth. (”Scooby, doobie, doo, Where are you?”)

Recommended Blogs:

Think Simple Now: It seemed fitting though, because that is exactly the simplicity and exuberance that springs from Tina’s writing on her blog Think Simple Now. As her readers know, she is traveling - and I know she is having a great time. But I miss her. My day is always a little richer when I have a new insight from her blog.

Pick The Brain & I Will Change Your Life: Peter from iwillhangeyourlife.com is also the editor of Pick The Brain. His articles are always insightful and well worth reading daily.

Zen Habits: Leo really sets the bar for all personal development / self improvement blogs. Read his story, it really is an inspiration to anyone who wants to live their dream, but just hasn’t “gone for it”.

Skelliewag.org: Skellie is a regular contributer for ProBlogger and also is the founder of Anywired. Her writing is conversational and informative. Quite frankly, you probably wouldn’t be reading this if it weren’t for the excellent advice that I’ve gleaned from her.

Recommended Articles:

Life Lessons from a Cranky Old Man - These days, popular wisdom says to write articles for the “scanners”. But John from John Place Online is a master storyteller. He has a creative way of expressing a personal story from his life, and articulating valuable lessons to take from them. I really think there is a place for this type of artistic storytelling on the internet. We really don’t need to can everything as if it were news.

What Would You Do? - Jason from A Miracle A Day asks an important question. “If you had no responsibilities, no pressures, no need to worry about making money, paying bills, doing chores, or taking care of anyone… what would you do?”

Chasing the Pursuit of Happiness - Tim Brownson has released an excerpt from his new book Don’t Ask Stupid Questions - There Are No Stupid Questions on The Next 45 Years. While I disagree with his underlying analogy (see the comments on the article), he makes the very valid point that sometimes we get too caught up in the stress of pursuing our goals rather than being at peace with the journey.

Playing a Round; Life Lessons from 18 Holes of Golf - Ok, so this one is a self promoting recommendation. But, it is a really good article, and has received a lot of buzz on Stumbleupon.

Enjoy - and Happy Friday!

- Bruce

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]]> http://brucisms.com/2008/03/21/tina-su-where-are-you/feed/ Firefox, Graph Paper Press, and Goals http://brucisms.com/2008/02/28/firefox-graph-paper-press-and-goals/ http://brucisms.com/2008/02/28/firefox-graph-paper-press-and-goals/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:23:39 +0000 Bruce http://brucisms.com/2008/02/28/firefox-graph-paper-press-and-goals/ I’ve been tinkering with the site a bit. Adding a little here, taking away a little there. Playing with some widgets and plugins. I thought I’d take a moment to share some of my “tinkerings”.

Firefox

I’ve joined the “Spread Firefox” community. After using Firefox on my Mac for about a year, I’ve been impressed with it’s ease of use. So I’ve added a link in the sidebar to spread the word about this great browser. You can download it yourself from there. While Mozilla does have an affiliate program, I’ve decided that they wouldn’t be an appropriate sponsor for this site - but wanted to share my opinion of this great product with my readers, and provide an easy way to download it.

Graph Paper Press

I recently changed the theme of this site to Monochrome by Graph Paper Press. They have an outstanding selection of themes - and what I believe is the best deal for professional Wordpress themes anywhere. For $99.99 you can have all the themes that they have - and any premium themes that they release for the rest of the year! While these themes are great “out of the box” - I wanted to make modifications to the theme. Thad always responded to every question quickly (usually within minutes), and never made me feel that I was intruding on him in any way. (Again - Graph Paper Press does have an affiliate program - but I have decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate for brucisms.) I highly recommend Thad and Graph Paper Press.

Goals

I’ve also decided to make some goals for the site. To make them real - I’ll share them here.

By 3/31/2008; My goal is:

  • 1000 unique visitor/month
  • 2500 pageviews/ month
  • 100 subscribers

I would really appreciate everyone’s help in reaching these goals - and if you run your own blog - check out Thad’s themes. I know you’ll be in good hands.

And as always - if there is anything I can do to help, just ask!

Please help me reach 100 subscribers by subscribing to Brucisms!

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