QUOTE & POSTER: TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. William Shakespeare Don’t waste time living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. — Steve Jobs

Five Things to Teach your Children

Five things to teach your children 1. Be a good friend. 2. Be kind even to those who don’t deserve it. 3. Learn from every experience. 4. Do your share even when others aren’t doing theirs. 5. Start and finish a job even when you don’t feel like it.

QUOTE & POSTER: Four Rules of Living Greatly – Face: 1. Trouble with courage 2. Disappointment with cheerfulness 3. Difficulties with determination 4. Success with humility

QUOTE & POSTER: The Viability of Love. When you love someone intensely, you are vulnerable to intense emotions. Pride and pleasure are amplified, but so is disappointment and anger.

A test of the viability and durability of your love is when you have a disagreement or fight (and you will) how long you hold on to your anger about what you fought about and how soon the anger is replaced

QUOTE: Trust is a coin with two sides. One is the willingness to trust another; the second side is the commitment to be worthy of another’s trust. Michael Josephson.

QUOTE: It’s very hard to accept and cope with the reality that everything broken cannot be fixed and that every problem cannot be solved. All you can do is accept and adapt, making the best out of the best you can do. -Michael Josephson

QUOTE & POSTER: Walk the talk

QUOTE & POSTER: Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

QUOTE: Most of us will misplace our trust and experience the pain of disappoinment and betrayal. At these times we must have the courage and confidence to find someone else and trust again because without trust there is no intimacy and without intimacy there is only loneliness. Don’t let bad experiences cause you to stop searching for and having good ones. Someone who says, “Ill never trust again” may as well be saying “I will never love again.” And if you are unwilling to love, you lose one of the main reasons to live. Michael Josephson

QUOTES & POSTERS: Don’t let the opinions of others define you. Don’t let the doubts of others confine you. You can be so much more than even you suppose. – Michael Josephson

QUOTE & POSTER: Okay, you got your degrees. It’s a good time to set goals and devise a plan. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail. You need a roadmap, but be prepared for unintended detours, confusing signs and closed roads. Don’t be afraid of change or unwilling to change. Enjoy the journey, wherever it takes you, because that’s your life.

QUOTE & POSTER: IF YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. -Charles Dickens

QUOTE & POSTER: The surest way to escape anxiety and defeat despair is action. Do, don’t dwell. – Michael Josephson

Don’t Let Evil Win

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. -Albert Einstein

QUOTE & POSTER: I complained about my job and the fact and the bland food I had to eat And I was ashamed when I met a man with no job or food.

QUOTE & POSTER: In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer. Albert Careb

QUOTE & POSTER: The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs. -Vance Havner

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: Denzel Washington Commencement Speech, University of Pennsylvania

Read the complete transcript.

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: Oprah Winfrey Commencement Speech, Spellman College

Read the complete transcript.

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: Conan O’Brien Commencement Speech, Dartmouth College

Read the complete transcript.

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: Ellen DeGeneres Commencement Speech, Tulane University

Read the complete transcript.

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: J.K. Rowling Commencement Speech, Harvard University

Read the complete transcript.

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: John F. Kennedy Commencement Speech, American University

Read the complete transcript.

WORTH WATCHING AND READING: Steve Jobs Commencement Speech, Stanford University

Read the complete transcript.

He Who Has a Right to Criticize

He who has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help. –Abraham Lincoln

Memo From Michael: Thoughts on School Graduations

This is a week dominated by thoughts and preparations for my daughter Abrielle’s graduation from high school and a post-ceremony party I’m hosting at our home. As has been the case with the brother and sister that preceded her, and as it will be with the two sisters who will follow her, this occasion – the graduation from high school, …

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QUOTE & POSTER: FAILURES AND MISTAKES ARE LIKE KNIVES. Whether they cut us or serve us depends on whether we grasp them by the blade or the handle. Success is not prevented by failure it is the result of learning from failure and grabbing every misfortune by the handle. – Michael Josephson (adapted from a quote from James Russell Lowell).

QUOTE & POSTER: Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. – W. Clement Stone

QUOTE & POSTER: Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now. –Mister Rogers

QUOTE & POSTER: No opportunity worth seizing is going to come knocking on you door. Opportunities are like hidden treasures. They are everywhere but you have to find them. – Michael Josephson