November 11th is US holiday dedicated to honoring military veterans and celebrating their service. And I believe its also a day we should honor and celebrate the families of the veterans who are as much the heroes as those who serve. I am so grateful to veterans and their families for affording me a great nation of freedom […]
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again… So why bother in the first place? Just this: what is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above… One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is […]
Twice a year, every year, over the course of a weekend, there is a conference held in which around 35 amazingly inspiring speakers give talks on everything from integrity, to attitude, to finding balance, enduring trials, education, forgiving, service, gratitude, family, hope, happiness, and a myriad of other important and inspiring topics. I get so […]
“One of the great innovators of our time, Steve Jobs of Apple, had this insight: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward,” he said. “You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” What did he mean by that? Perhaps an illustration will […]
Each of us have been born with special talents that God gave us so we might use them to benefit the lives of others. As we do, our own lives will be blessed as well. I love the following poem because its a great reminder to stay humble and recognize that our gifts are just […]
“Don’t downgrade your dream just to fit your reality. Upgrade your conviction to match your destiny.” What is your dream? What is it you want to do with your life? What would you do if you were not afraid? If there were no limits or pressures or responsibility that were influencing to shy away from […]
When my twitter feed revealed #TheMeaningOfLifeIn4Words as the top trend hashtag of the moment it totally killed my focus tonight. The truth is I don’t usually pay attention to things that are trending but for some reason this one caught my eye. Perhaps that’s because I’ve spent days on end doing nothing but writing word […]
I love Sunday because it’s always my day I get to refuel my spirituality tank. I’m really grateful I am able to attend church each Sunday as it give me the chance to hear inspiring messages and helps me put everything in my life in perspective by reminding me of my core values and priorities. […]
A few weeks ago, actor Chris Pratt gave an acceptance speech at the MTV Movie & TV Awards in which he shared “9 rules from Chris Pratt, Generation Award Winner. When I heard his speech I was so impressed with how he stood up and openly shared his beliefs. This video contains a few snippets […]
“If you want to be happy, you have to be happy on purpose. When you wake up, you can’t just wait to see what kind of day you’ll have. You have to decide what kind of day you will have.” –Joel Osteen I’ve learned a lot about this concept of being happy on purpose over […]
I was thinking today about the different words of advice that were given by people in the toasts they did (mind you the toasts were done with sparkling cider since we don’t drink alcohol…) during my daughter Ashley’s wedding dinner last week. One toast in particular that stood out to me was given by my […]
Last week I shared that my father celebrated his 80th birthday. As I was reading different bits of advice offered by people who had turned 80 years old and I came across this article titled: What Advice Would A 80 Year Old Person Give About The Way Life Should Be Lived? The article was written […]
The greatest superheroes keep their identity a secret. Wonder Woman (my personal favorite!) is Diana Prince, Superman is Clark Kent, Spiderman is Peter Parker, and so on. Here they are, saving the world day after day, yet they choose to walk around as normal, everyday people, taking no credit at all for the great work […]
“We can’t control the filters that others choose when they look at us.” –Rachel Wolchin In the teenage years we tend to put tremendous focus on what others think of us and we often allow our self-worth to become dictated by what others think of us. Whether it’s having the person you like like you […]
Can you imagine what it would be like to go back in time and be there when the Founding Fathers were developing the U.S. Constitution? How amazing would that be! Unfortunately, Elon Musk hasn’t yet tackled time travel (although if anyone had the brain power to figure that out it would probably be him!). But […]
“Don’t lose faith. Promise yourself that you will be a success story, and I promise you that all the forces of the universe will unite to come to your aid; you might not feel today or for a while, but the longer you wait the bigger the prize.” – George Bernard Shaw I love that […]
I will keep my words short today because I want you all to watch this video. I know it’s five minutes but I promise you it is worth the time to watch this entire video – don’t fast forward any of it – I promise…you’ll be glad you watched it. When things get tough, remember […]
Tomorrow morning is the funeral of one of my heroes. My first interactions with Thomas S. Monson (whom I will refer to from now on as President Monson out of respect as at the time of his passing he was serving in the positon of the President and Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ […]
Too often in life we allow ourselves to believe what I refer to as “the monsters in our head” -those negative thoughts that too quickly jump to judgement of ourselves or other people. It’s those thoughts about ourselves where we think we aren’t liked, or we don’t fit in, or that we aren’t good enough, […]
Even a perfect plan can go awry. Take it from the girl who thought she had a perfect plan in place for her life at 18 only to find that nothing in my life those next ten years went according to my perfect plan. Years later I came to realize that rather than trying to […]
The last several months life has thrown me some major curveballs that I frankly never saw coming, and those curveballs have caused me to have to deal with things I never expected to go through. As each of them hit I felt completely unprepared to deal with the mix of emotions hitting me all at […]
How often do you find yourself thinking about something bad that happened yesterday and it ends up ruining the way you feel today? I have to admit I have let myself do that at times, but I can also say that doing it has never once helped me nor made me feel better about anything…it’s […]
“Don’t touch that, it’s hot” my mom said as she pulled out a fresh tray of cookies from the oven – yet immediately I started thinking “I wonder how hot it really is? It’s probably not that hot. I think I’ll just see for myself just how hot it is.” You would think that nursing […]
“Never let what you feel make you forget what’s real. Facts over feelings. Don’t let your emotions overpower your intelligence.” -unknown Learning the lesson shared in that quote is something that took me making a few really bad personal life choices in my early adult life and going through the horrible pain that resulted from […]
“Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how great it has been!” Today I had to pull a bunch of old photos from years past together for a project and as I was sorting through years and years worth of photos I couldn’t help but be pulled into a walk down memory […]
I shared in my Friday blog how this past weekend was one of my favorite times of year because I get to hear incredible speakers share amazingly inspiring messages in a streaming broadcast that goes worldwide. If you didn’t have the chance to watch the live broadcast you can still access each talk in video […]
Last Saturday would have been my Grandma Pearson’s birthday if she were still alive and I have been thinking much about her. She was one of the most beautiful people that I have ever known. Not so much because of her external appearance, although she was a very pretty lady, but because of the woman […]
Today I was honored to introduce one of my personal heroes, Alan Hall, for a speech he gave at Utah Valley University’s Executive Lecture Series. Alan Hall is someone I have had the honor of knowing for many years and he has been a significant influence in my life and is an incredible example to […]
These last few months have been a roller coaster for me. Between my family and both our extended families we have experienced some of life’s highest highs and some of its lowest lows all within a matter of just a few months. In those months there have been days of being happier than I could […]
Do you ever have times where you feel you have already been through so many hard trials in your life, and you’ve already overcome so many hard things, and worked to improve yourself in so many ways that surely you deserve to have a reprieve from life’s difficulties because you feel you’ve fought through hard […]
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