Favorite Quotes from one of my Favorite Movies: The Big Kahuna

from The Big Kahuna:

Phil: The question is, do you have any character at all? And if you want my honest opinion, Bob, you do not. For the simple reason that you don’t regret anything yet.

Bob: Are you saying I won’t have any character unless I do something I regret?

Phil: No, Bob. I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret. You just don’t know what they are. It’s when you discover them. When you see the folly in something you’ve done. And you wish you had to do over. But you know you can’t because it’s too late. So you pick that thing up and you carry it with you. To remind you that life goes on. The world will spin without you. You really don’t matter in the end. Then will you attain character. Because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself all across your face.

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Phil: It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or ‘How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.’ That doesn’t make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are – just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore; it’s a pitch. And you’re not a human being; you’re a marketing rep.

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Larry: Phil… man, we’re in Wichita, Kansas. What does it matter whether we’re on the 1st floor or the 500th floor? It all looks the same!

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Larry: Did you mention perhaps what line of industrial lubricants Jesus would have endorsed?

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Larry: Here’s to the profound religious experience that comes from doing a job well and being grossly underpaid.

Instructions For Having a Bad Day?

Awesome poem from Shane Koyczan:

There will be bad days.
Be calm.
Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now.
Let go.
Be confident.
Know that now is only a moment,
and that if today is as bad as it gets,
understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended.
Be gracious.
Accept each extended hand offered,
to pull you back from the somewhere
you cannot escape.
Be diligent.
Scrape the gray sky clean.
Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen
meant to blind us from the truth,
and the truth is,
whether we see them or not,
the sun and moon are still there
and always there is light.
Be forthright.
Despite your instinct to say,
“it’s alright, I’m okay”,
be honest.
Say how you feel without fear or guilt,
without remorse or complexity.
Be lucid in your explanation,
be sterling in your oppose.
If you think for one second no one knows
what you’ve been going through;
be accepting of the fact that you are wrong,
that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair
have at times been felt by everyone –
that pain is part of the human condition
and that alone makes you a legion.
We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn,
we dissmisser’s of odds, we blessers of on –
we will station ourselves to the calm.
We will hold ourselves to the steady,
be ready player one.
Life is going to come at you
armed with hard times and tough choices,
your voice is your weapon,
your thoughts ammunition –
there are no free extra men,
be aware that as the instant now passes,
it exists now as then.
So be a mirror reflecting yourself back,
and remembering the times when you thought
all of this was too hard and you’d never make it through.
Remember the times you could have pressed quit –
but you hit continue.
Be forgiving.
Living with the burden of anger, is not living.
Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self
absent of what you need.
Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows
is the one you feed.
Be persistent.
Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement,
beautiful – because it doesn’t know
it’s not supposed to grow there.
Be resolute.
Declare what you accept as true in a way that
envisions the resolve with which you accept it.
If you are having a good day, be considerate.
A simple smile could be the first-aid kit
that someone has been looking for.
If you believe with absolute honesty
that you are doing everything you can –
do more.
There will be bad days,
times when the world weighs on you for so long
it leaves you looking for an easy way out.
There will be moments when
the drought of joy seems unending,
instances spent pretending that everything is alright
when it clearly is not;
check your blind spot.
See that love is still there, be patient.
Every nightmare has a beginning,
but every bad day has an end.
Ignore what others have called you;
I am calling you friend.
Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis.
Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence —
so speak and be heard.
One word after the next,
express yourself and put your life in the context –
if you find that no one is listening, be loud.
Make noise.
Stand in poise and be open.
Hope in these situations is not enough
and you wil need someone to lean on.
In the unlikely event that you have no one,
look again.
Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen:
the deaf will hear you with their eyes;
the blind will see you with their hands.
Let your heart fill their news-stands;
let them read all about it.
Admit to the bad days,
the impossible nights.
Listen to the insights of those who have been there,
but have come back.
They will tell you;
you can stack misery,
you can pack despair,
you can even wear your sorrow –
but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.
Everyone knows pain.
We are not meant to carry it forever.
We were never meant to hold it so closely,
so be certain in the belief that
what pain belongs to now
will belong soon to then.
That when someone asks you how was your day,
realize that for some of us –
it’s the only way we know how to say,
Be calm.
Loosen your grip,
opening each palm, slowly now –
let go.

— by Shane Koyczan

Blog author’s note:  I transcribed the text from the video, so any errors in spelling or punctuation belong to me and not the author.

 

 

Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich (full text available for free download)

cover by D. Keesler

A few days ago I was looking for a Kindle version of the 1938 public domain version of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and was disappointed in my search. I found a couple of versions on Amazon but they weren’t free and weren’t properly formatted for Kindle with free-flowing text (they still had original hard-hyphens and paper copy pagination breaks, etc.).   I found the plain-text form on a couple of other websites (archive.org is one), but all the plain text versions are also not free-flowing.  They still have hard-line breaks, hard-hyphens, and original paper pagination as well (they still have scanning errors where characters didn’t translate correctly in OCR as well).

So I downloaded the plain text version from archives.org and converted it to free-flowing text — removing all hard-line returns, removing hard hyphenations, corrected obvious OCR errors, etc.  I also added page breaks at each chapter and a link-able table of contents.  It hasn’t been painstakingly proofread, so I won’t promise there isn’t one or two overlooked errors, and the author’s original ALL CAPS throughout the document remains untouched. However, it does flow and read naturally and uniformly in my Kindle Reader now, and on the PC reader as well.

For those who are interested in this book I am temporarily making it available for download in the following formats:

Microsoft Word '13 (.docx) - Download
New Kindle Format  (.azw3) - Download
Nook/Sony/Generic  (.epub) - Download

Living Like Ulysses

In the 19th century Alfred Lord Tennyson penned my favorite poem of all time. He teaches us the only way to live life through his main character, Ulysses, an aging king who refuses to spend his waning days idly — rather leaves his throne to his son so he can live the remainder of his days full speed ahead, until his dying breath.

The lesson here is that fame, status, power — even kingship — is too high a price to pay if it costs you one day of experiencing life to its fullest. One senses that this former king likely took his last breath aboard a ship sailing toward some new undiscovered land. I first read this poem as a child of about 12 on a ten-cent poster in a drug store. It brought tears to my eyes then, and it still gives me chills some 40 years later. God help me, this is how I want to live my life — living to the fullest right to the very end.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Full text of poem: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659

The Mysterious Opportunity

Opportunity never knocks twice. Often it never knocks at all, rather, hiding in the shrubs watching shyly from across the street as you sit on your porch sipping your glass of iced tea. It often wears disguise — lost in the shuffle of a large crowd, wearing a long trench coat with collar turned up and hat pulled over the eyes, catching glimpses of you from a distance. Sometimes opportunity stays out of the public eye altogether, sitting lonely and forlorn in some dark corner of the world thinking of you and wondering if you will ever come knocking at its door.

If you are waiting for opportunity to knock at your door, you may be waiting on a sheep caught in the thicket, a ship marooned on an island, or a car stranded in a ditch. You must go out and find it. Search for it like you are searching for a missing child. It’s waiting on you. It can be hard to find because like a timid child it dares not come out of the shadows — but it waits longingly on you just the same.

You must believe and you must refuse to be denied. Self-doubt is the greatest enemy of mankind — the only enemy, in truth. All other virtues — dedication, hard work, persistence — stand or fall on the strength of your belief in yourself. If you do not believe in yourself, no one else can believe enough or care enough for you to sustain that crumbling foundation.

Know that you are not alone. Every human being in the universe struggles with self-doubt at some point in their life — often more than once. Spend some quality time with yourself.  Look yourself in the mirror and ask, “Who am I?” “What was I born to do?” Too many people waste time searching magazines and the internet for business opportunities, entrepreneurial ideas, and the like. Your opportunity is not there. It may be, but if you find it there it’s by pure chance that you pricked your foot on the needle in the haystack. The key that unlocks opportunity’s door lies buried within you. Find out who you are, what tools you have, what your passion is, and then find a way to put those talents and passions together in a way that makes a difference in the world around you. This presents an irresistible appeal to opportunity. The attraction is greater than the fear. It draws it out of the shadows. It comes to watch — maybe from distance still, but close enough that often you can spot it, make eye contact, maybe even make your first introduction.

If you are a bird, fly. If you are a fish, swim. If you are a deer, run. Find out who you are and what you do well, and do it with all your heart and passion. Never stop doing it. If it’s truly who you are, it will be as natural as breathing. You will probably get so caught up in living as you were meant to live that you will find yourself face to face with opportunity without even realizing that all this time you were knocking on its door.

As Tennyson said:

How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me

Live large, my friends — opportunity awaits.