Blog
“Forget the Forecast, Live Like’s It’s Spring.”
80 degrees last week, snow today…?! What the heck?! Since when does it snow on spring break? Yikes! I love springtime and I have been so looking forward to sunshine, flowers, blossoms…did I say sunshine? All I know it that sunshine makes me so happy! I agree with Robin Williams quote: “Spring is nature’s way […]
Tagged adversity, attitude, blessings, blossoms, boating, choice, choose, confidence, control, faith, flowers, happiness, happy, joy, lake, lake powell, motivation, mud puddles, negative, outcome, peace, perspective, positive, rain, robin williams, see the good, service, smile, snow, snowman, spring, success, summer, sunshine, surprise, thoughts, trials, winter
Set Boundaries: You can’t respect yourself if you don’t know or stand for what is good for you
Setting boundaries is an important skill to learn in life. Boundaries are all about respect. The best way to think about boundaries is to use the example of having a fence that goes around your yard. There is a gate to the fence and you decide who gets to enter your gate to come into […]
Tagged advice, anger, angry, attitude, boundaries, bullies, bully, choice, coerce, consequence, consequences, crazy, cue, disrespect, dr. henry cloud, dr. john townsend, explain, explanation, family, fence, friends, guilty, happiness, healthy, help, ignore, impact, in-law, justify, law enforcement, Lawyer, legal, maintaining boundaries, manipulative, outlook, over-reacting, police, professionals, react, reaction, respect, retreat, right, safety, self worth, self-esteem, setting boundaries, tornado, toxic, toxic people, toxic relationship, yard
“When something goes wrong in your life, just yell “Plot Twist” and move on.”
“When something goes wrong in your life, just yell “Plot Twist” and move on.” We’ve all experienced times when our best laid plans are interrupted with some unexpected twist that completely changes everything. It can happen with major life situations like losing a job or having a relationship unexpectedly end, or it can happen with […]
Tagged acknowledge, adversity, anxiety, appreciation, ashley, attitude, backward, bad, blessings, burden, change, changes, comfort zone, confidence, courage, course, culture, deal with, expectations, expected, face reality, faith, forward, guidelines, hug, humor, improve, laugh, lesson, look back, moment, new reality, Optimism, optimistic, options, overwhelmed, perspective, plans, plot twist, positive, recognize, self-confidence, self-improvement, smile, spin, success, time, unexpected
Focus On The Lovable Moments
“A single misunderstanding is so poisonous, that it makes us forget the hundred lovable moments spent together within a minute.” Years ago I had a best friend who taught me a great life lesson. Whenever there was a situation where hurt feelings occurred and I got angry with someone he would stop me and point […]
Tagged appreciate, appreciation, attitude, bad, Belief, believe, benefit of the doubt, best friend, blessings, commit, courage, courtesy, culture, Danny, experience, faith, family, forgiving, friend, friendship, genuine, good, grateful, gratitude, hurt feelings, intentionally, kind, lesson, lovable, love, loved one, loving, misunderstand, misunderstanding, moments, outweigh, poison, relation, relationship, self-improvement, span of time, treasure, understand, unintentionally
It’s Funny How Sometimes The People You’d Take A Bullet For Are The Ones Behind The Trigger (Forbes Article)
Actually it’s not really that funny at all…it’s really sad when it happens to be true. It’s unbelievably hard when someone you love and respect and consider a friend does something to hurt you deeply. It’s downright brutal. I’m sure many of us have been through times where this has happened. We are betrayed by […]
Tagged adversity, amazing, Amy Rees Anderson, Belief, believe, betray, betrayal, brutal, business partner, character, confidence, control, courage, culture, defame, divorce, ex, faith, family, follow, forbes, friend, God, gossip, happiness, hate, hateful, hatred, heartbreaking, higher power, hurt, inspiration, inspire, integrity, joy, judge, judging, judgment, lawsuit, Lawyer, lawyers, lies, lying, miserable, misery, motivate, motivation, move forward, news, opinion, peace, politics, react, rumors, slander, spouse, spreading lies, stories, story, trials, trust, trustworthy, twitter, unfollow, universe
“Resentment Is Like Taking Poison And Waiting For The Other Person To Die.” (Forbes Article)
A boss or a manager ticks you off, an employee makes you angry, or a friend or family member upsets you. Holding a grudge and harboring resentment are about as beneficial as…well…nothing. As Malachy McCourt once said, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Grudges do no good whatsoever […]
Tagged aggression, Amy Rees Anderson, anger, associate, behavior, bitterness, boss, cognitive, cycle, employee, family, feelings, fire, fired, forbes, forgive, forgiveness, forgiving, friend, grudge, grudge-holder, harboring, hostility, hurt, let it go, letting go, manager, manipulative, move forward, negative, negativity, passive aggressive, peace, positive, positivity, quit, relationships, resentment, resolve issues, vicious cycle
Someday We’ll All Have Perfect Wings
I would guess most of us have either heard of or seen the bumper stickers which read, “Mean People Suck”. I happen to agree with that sentiment. When someone treats another person mean I really struggle with it. When I hear stories of bullying in our young people, or see people taking pot shots, or […]
Tagged adults, anger, anti-bullying, attitude, beautiful, beggar, blame, blessings, bully, child, children, confidence, cripple, cry, culture, depression, disappointed, disapprove, don't laugh at me, father, forgiving, frustrated, geek, God, happiness, hatred, homeless, justification, kind, kindness, laugh, love, loving, lyric, lyrics, make fun of, making fun, mark wills, mean, mean people suck, mental illness, mother, pain, perfect wings, pleasure, sarcasm, self-improvement, single mother, slandering, smile, song, tearing down, tease, teenager, tragedy, unproductive, wings
Happy Easter Everyone: He Is Here
Let me start by wishing all of you a Happy Easter! I love Easter weekend and being able to spend time with family and loved ones. I especially loved this Easter weekend because it happened to fall on the same weekend that the semi-annual General Conference falls, which is a weekend of inspirational and motivational […]
Tagged balance, because he lived, Boyd Packer, church of jesus christ of latter-day saint, compete, complete, conference weekend, dieter uchtdorf, easter, erivigorated, eternal family, eternal happiness, faith, families are forever, family, friends, general conference, God, happy easter, he lives, holiday, hope, husband, inspiration, inspired, jose teixeira, L. Tom Perry, lds, life, Linda Burton, loved ones, marriage, meditate, message, motivate, motivation, nelson mandela, quotes, saint, sinner, trials, video
Life is short, Live it well
Today we got word that a friend of ours, who we love and admire greatly, has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer which has spread throughout her body. It came as such a shock to hear the news about her because we ran into her and her husband just a few weeks ago and […]
Tagged accomplishment, appreciation, attitude, blessings, cancer, conduct, dance, dancing, deadly, death, earth, family, friend, friends, gift, God, gratitude, happiness, happy, healthy, heartbreaking, Heavenly Father, husband, illness, improve, jitterbug, joy, kind, laughs, life, life is short, live it well, lives touched, love, loved one, lung cancer, mortality, priorities, prioritize, proud, self-improvement, shock, short, sickness, smile, stage four, success, sweetheart, sweethearts, talents, time, together, wife, worry
Positive, Optimistic, and Determined
“I am too positive to be doubtful, too optimistic to be fearful, and too determined to be defeated.” I love that quote because it provides a stark comparison to two ways we can choose to live our lives. We can either be doubtful, fearful, and defeated….or we can be positive, optimistic, and determined….which sounds better […]
Tagged adversity, anxiety, appreciation, attitude, benefits, defeated, determination, determind, determined, doubtful, encourage, entrepreneur, fearful, feel good, happiness, hard nose, health, influence, joy, joyce mayer, love, mayo clinic, motivate, motivated, motivation, Optimism, optimistic, positive, positive thinking, self-confidence, self-improvement
You Never Know How Strong You Are…
“You never know how strong you are…until being strong is the only choice you have.” Some days you come to the end of your day feeling like you have taken all you can take…you have given all you have to give…dealt with all you can possibly deal with…you literally feel like you are at the […]
Tagged alone, angel, angels, ask, betrayal, betrayed, career, carry your burdens, circumstances, confidence, courage, death, depressed, determination, difficult, discouraged, dream, emotional exhaustion, endurance, endure, experience, failure, faith, find love, God, handle it, heart, heavy, help, henry b. eyring, hope, humble, infertility, injury, kneel, lds.org, lord, loss, love, loved one, not alone, overwhelmed, persevere, pray, prayer, quote, sickness, stand by, strength, struggle, support, trigger, unfulfilled
True Friends
“Good friends care for each other…close friends understand each other, but TRUE FRIENDS stay forever…beyond words, beyond distance, beyond time…!” Many of us have friends in our lives over the years. Some friends we make as children and then lose contact as we grow older. Other friends we make as adults and stay in touch […]
Tagged alone, appreciate, balance, bonds, challenges, change, cheering us on, cherish, children, conversation, death, endure, eternal, expectations, forever, forgive, friends, friendship, grateful, gratitude, grow, have your back, heart, know, life, love, never part, patience, proximity, relationships, shortcomings, single mother, single parent, spirit, support, time, time apart, tough times, treasure, true friends, understand, understanding, value, wishing us the best
Don’t Lose Hope. You Never Know What Tomorrow May Bring. (Forbes Article)
“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” –Martin Luther King Jr. History is full of stories about people who came into hard times, lost hope, and gave up. We rarely come to learn what would have happened with these individuals if they had given up. We are left to wonder […]
Tagged accomplish, actress, Amy Rees Anderson, bad days, Belief, best days, best is yet to come, bill gates, creativity, difficult times, disney, failure, fight, forbes, Ford Motor Company, future, give up, hard times, Henry Ford, Honda, hope, I Love Lucy, imagination, lesson, life, lose hope, Lucille Ball, Martin Luther King Jr., microsoft, move forward, park city, reality, resolve, Silver Mine, Soichiro Honda, Solon Spiro, success, tomorrow, Toyota, Traf-O-Data, Utah, victoria secret, walt disney, work
Be A Force For Good
“We can all be a force for good if we have the desire.” – Gail Miller Tonight I attended the Giant in Our City Awards dinner where the award was giving to an amazing woman, Gail Miller. Gail is someone who has spent her life doing good things for others. She has truly made a […]
Tagged achieve, act of caring, act of kindness, appreciation, award, choice, community, compliments, contribute, culture, deserved, encourage, example, force for good, gail miller, giant in our city, God, heartfelt, honest, inspiration, inspire, integrity, kind, larry h miller, listen, motivation, offering, optimist, optimistic, position, power, privilege, purpose, requirement, respect, self-improvement, smile, specific, status, stranger, superhero, trust, turn a life around, value, wealth
A Laugh A Day Keeps the Doctor Away
We’ve all heard the saying that Laughter is the Best Medicine, so when I came home from work tonight feeling a cold starting to come on I decided I needed to do two things: 1. Drink some Nyquil, and 2. find some funny quotes to make me laugh. I don’t think anyone who has ever […]
Tagged a laugh a day, alert, antidote, awesome, balance, big mac, body, boss, cold, conflict, diet coke, doctor, doctor away, emotional health, experts, facebook, funnier, funny, grounded, happiness, hope, humor, humorous, hysterical, illness, inspires, internet, joke, jokes, joy, large fries, laugh, laugh out loud, laughter, laughter is the best medicine, mind, nap, nyquil, pain, physical health, problems, quotes, renew, resource, self-improvement, sickness, side effects, stress, stupid, superman, taco bell
The Four C’s: Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy
“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you […]
Tagged ability, accomplish, appreciate, appreciating, appreciation, Belief, believe, blessings, capable, confidence, Constancy, courage, culture, dare, daring, disney, disneyland, dreams come true, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, experience, failure, fairy tales, faith, future, get up, gift, goal, goals, God, gratitude, happily ever after, happiness, happy, help, imagination, imagine, knowing, knowledge, magic, magical kingdom, move forward, once upon a time, secrets, self-assurance, self-improvement, success, talent, testimony, trust, walt disney
See How Far You’ve Come
It was exactly three years ago today that I signed the final papers to sell my company. As I look back over the last three years I am blown away at how much has happened since then. I transitioned out of my old company, I launched REES Capital (my angel investment firm), got our charity […]
Tagged accomplishment, anniversary, appreciate, appreciation, ashley, attitude, boards, capable, Dalton, empty nester, end, enjoy, faith, farthest point, forbes, future, goals, government, home, houseboat, Huffington Post, husband, IPOP Foundation, ipop.org, lds, lds church, lds mission, lecture, look ahead, look back, marriage, mission, missionary, move ahead, non-compete, productive, public speaking, REES Capital, reescapital.com, Rollin, still much to do, the end, the future, the past, the present, three years, universities, write it down
Have Courage and Be Kind
That phrase, “Have Courage and Be Kind” is repeated multiple times throughout the new movie Cinderella (the real life remake of the cartoon classic). It was advice given to Cinderella as a small child by her real mother before her real mother passed away. Today in a meeting someone reminded me again of the phrase […]
Tagged adversity, advice, appreciation, attitude, balance, beautiful, beliefs, brave, bravery, charity, child, choice, choose, cinderella, considerate, courage, culture, daughter, definition, disney, dying, dying wish, entrepreneur, fear, friendly, generous, happy, have courage and be kind, joy, kind, kindness, live, love, mother, motivation, movie, peace, self-improvement, selfless, spirit, strong, success, sympathy, understanding, unselfish, valor, walt disney, without fear
Find something you’re passionate about
“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” We can all find something we are passionate about in life. And hopefully we have many things we are passionate about. The key is to figure out what they are. Some we come to […]
Tagged advice, attempt, attitude, career, confidence, courage, Dalton, dating, depressed, design, designing, discouraged, discover, drawing, enjoy, enjoyment, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, excitement, exhilirating, experience, food, get moving, graph paper, guess, happiness, happy, just do it, key, laugh, leadership, marriage, motivation, passion, passionate, recognize, self-confidence, self-improvement, Software, software development, software systems, success, surprise, try, try new things, work
An optimist’s way of viewing one step forward and one step back
“Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s more like a cha-cha.” That may just be one of my favorite quotes I have heard in a while. Maybe because it incorporates being optimistic and dancing, and everyone who knows me knows how much my […]
Tagged achieve, actions, agency, anger, best, cha-cha, change, change your thoughts, choice, cognitive therapy, concentrate, creed, dance, deeds, emotions, enthusiasm, fear happy, feeling, focus, friends, future, goals, good, mistakes, negative, one step back, one step forward, optimist, optimist creed, outlook, past, peace of mind, positive, possibility, possible, stress, success, sunny side, thoughts, trouble, view, worry
The Do’s And Don’ts of Creativity (Forbes Article)
“Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein Creativity is one of the most intrinsically rewarding endeavors we engage in. Creativity requires a combination of innovation, inspiration, and a tremendous amount of hard work. It allows us to explore both the wondrous potential and […]
Tagged advice, Albert Einstein, Amy Rees Anderson, apple, beginning, brain, change, compromise, contagious, course correct, creative, creative juices, creativity, criticize, decisions, details, dime a dozen, don’ts, dopamine, do’s, end, enjoyable, exciting, fear, forbes, fun, humble, idea, imagination, implementation, impossible, inner voice, inspiration, inspire, integrity, integrity is forever, intelligence, joseph pearce, modify, motivation, opinions, persevere, possibility, possible, research, Rewarding, right, start, steve jobs, success, success will come and go, teachable, vision, wrong
Go To Bed and Get A Good Night’s Sleep, Tomorrow Will Be Better
Today was a long, busy, stressful day, and it was a Monday which always feels a little more stressful than the rest of the days of the week for some reason…perhaps that’s because we put everything out of our minds in order to enjoy our weekends and then Monday morning we are forced to deal […]
Tagged advice, anxiety, ashley, be okay, busy tired, companion, confidences, dad, deal, depressed, email, experience, father, fear, gerald rees, go to bed, good night's sleep, happiness, happy, heaven, lds mission, long, love, message, million, missionary, Monday, mother, optimistic, phone call, positive, sad, safe, secure, self talk, self-improvement, service, serving, stress, stressful, tasks, things to get done, to do, tomorrow, tomorrow will be better, weekend, worn out, worries, worry
Getting Your Life Affairs in Order
So often in life we get incredibly busy to the point that we are literally only able to handle the new things coming at us each day, with time sensitive items getting first priority, rarely even getting to the list of items in second priority, and just forget about anything down in the third priority […]
Tagged affairs, boxes, busy, children, closet, courage, documents, efficient, family, first step, for sale, future, get done, getting things done, goal, goal setting, hard, hoarder, impossible, insurance, intimidating, kick it down the road, leadership, life affairs, love, loved ones, motivation, no chance, organize, organized, peace, priorities, priority, procrastinate, procrastination, records, self-improvement, success, tasks, time sensitive, to do, today, tomorrow, unpack
WE Determine Our Future
I have been writing daily blogs five days a week for over 4 ½ years without missing a single day. There have been times when I was really sick but I still wrote my blogs because I had promised I wouldn’t miss a single day. Back in 2011, my daughter Ashley, who was 15 at […]
Tagged ACL, actions, ashley, basketball, become, blog, challenging, choice, choose, christmas, control, daughter, decide, decisions, desire, determination, don't take, future, get back up, glory road, good enough, heart, keep moving forward, knock down, life, michael jordan, move forward, outcome, present, quote, recovery, rehab, shots, sick, situations, strength, succeed, surgery, talents, tore her ACL, trials, wayne gretzky, world, worth it, writing
What Will We Wish We Had Done?
On our deathbed when we look back at our life, what will we wish we had done? It’s a questions we have all probably heard being posed before but when is the last time you actually stopped and tried to think about what your own answer would be. Will we wish we had worked more […]
Tagged answer, anxietys, appreciation, attempt, attitude, balance, change, commit, culture, deathbed, entrepreneur, evaluate, exercise, family, fear, friends, hours, improve, inspire, look back, monitor, motivation, office, question, regret, regrets, revisit, risk, self-improvement, stress, success, support, time, try, venture, wish, work, worked, working, worry, worrying
When You Go Into The World Hold Hands and Stick Together
Sometimes advice is so great you just have to share it with everyone. Robert Fulghum wrote the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten (Villard Books: New York, 1990). The following excerpts are from pages 6-7 and they contain the most simple, yet powerful advice. I love that this advice applies to all of […]
Tagged advice, all i really need to know i learned in kindergarten, apologize, attitude, awesome, balance, clean, cookies, dance, die, don't hit, flush, golden rule, hold hands, kindergarten, kindness, learn, lessons, life lessons, live, love, mess, nap, play, play fair, poem, robert fulghum, self-improvement, share, sorry, steal, stick together, traffic, wonder, work, world
People Who Do Bad Things
There are people in this world who do bad things. Many, if not all of us, have been on the receiving end or dealt with people who have done bad things that have hurt us. The hope is that over time, as we get older and wiser, that we are far more careful in our […]
Tagged accountability, accountable, anger, apologize, attitude, bad, bad choices, bad things, cheat, conscious choice, courage, crazy, culture, deserve, ego, evil, fear, forgive, forgiveness, forgiving, future, God, good, good choice, happiness, hurt, immoral, judgment, let go, lie, love, mental illness, money, moral, moral compass, move on, pay the price, personal gain, power, right, sadness, self-improvement, status, stay away, steal, unethical, wrong
It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving
Every Sunday when we sit down for our family dinner we have a tradition where we go around the dinner table and as we are eating each person in the family shares with the rest of us what they learned that day or week. We have done this since the time my children were little […]
Tagged act of kindness, act of service, adversity, appreciation, attitude, begging, capacity, care, caring, charity, child, Christlike, dinner, encourage, faith, family, fear, food, freezing, freezing child experiment, happy, heart, help, homeless, hope, hug, hungry, ignorant, ignore, kindness, love, make a difference, malcom bane, message, money, new york city, ocktv, sad, self-improvement, service, shelter, sick, smile, social, social experiment, streets, sunday dinner, tradition, wakeup call, you tube
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
“If at first you don’t succeed, do it like your mother told you.” We all remember the famous mom advice we got as kids: Wear a coat, brush your teeth, look both ways before you cross the street, put on sunscreen, don’t take candy from strangers….. We would roll our eyes and grumble under our […]
Tagged adult, advice, board meeting, brush your teeth, burned, candy from strangers, cavities, child, college, Dalton, deer valley, disneyland, do it, doctor, grown up, grumble, hospital, jenney craig, kids, listen, look both ways, mother, mothers, parent, parenthood, remember, roll our eyes, sick, son, succeed, surgery, university of utah, warm, wear a coat, wear sunscreen, weight, weightloss, worry
One of the greatest things about being an adult…
“One of the greatest things about being an adult is the feeling of euphoria when you get to change into pajamas.” SO TRUE!!!! Today was possibly one of the longest days I have had in a very, very long time. It actually started just after midnight last night when I found myself still awake, working […]
Tagged adult, bed, BYU, BYU Founders Board, byu hawaii, comfy, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, exhausted, hard day, Hawaii, heaven, honolulu, hug, husband, jet lag, jumpin jammerz, long day, love, pajamas, pjs, pray, prayer, presentation, public speaking, sexy, sleep, sleepy, tired, true, wisdom, words of wisdom, worn out, youth group
