Former President Bush welcomes soldiers home in surprise visit to airport
President Bush at DFW - click to watch video
On August 11, 2010, in a show of true humility and leadership Former President Bush made a surprise visit to the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) airport to welcome home soldier returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Bush was joined by his wife Laura and the Welcome Home Project. This project and its volunteers, who show up at the airport almost daily, have welcomed home more than 750,000 service members.
Click the picture above to watch the inspirational video. And the next time you see a current or veteran service member, remember to thank them for their service to our country.
Jared Featured on Grand Canyon University’s Facebook Page
My alma mater, Grand Canyon University, asked me to talk about my experience during the Executive MBA program and featured it on their Facebook Page, the result is the first video below. The second video talks more about the program - and I have a non-speaking role in that video. The Executive MBA prorgam is a great program that I highly recommend. Find out more here: http://emba.gcu.edu/.
Success (re)Defined (once and for all)
If you ask people what success is, you will without a doubt get a lot of different answers. We all define success differently and often we define it differently at different points in our life.
So what is success? What does it mean to be successful? Is it enough for us to just think we are successful or do we need others to view us as successful too?
Struggling with Success
Like most of us, I have a great desire to achieve significance in life. I want to get to the end of life and feel that I made an important contribution, that the world around me and to a greater extent those under my influence were changed and impacted for the good. And like most of you I work hard to be "successful" in life. The problem is at times I am not sure what that means, or where that is at.
At various points in my adult life I have stopped and asked myself, "Is this working out the way I hoped, expected, or imagined it would?" And after agonizing over not reaching certain goals or not being as far along in life or business as I would have hoped to be, I had to stop. I had to stop and ask myself, "What is this imaginary goal in life or business that I am trying to achieve?" Because I found that it wasn't really a goal at all, it was a constantly moving measurement of success.
Okay, I am not stupid... if I am trying to achieve something that is constantly moving or being redefined then I will never achieve it, I will never arrive, and I will never be satisfied. Is life some kind of ridiculous cat and mouse game? Why am I chasing something that I will never catch?
Do you know people with this problem? Nothing is ever good enough for them, no car nice enough, no amount of salary enough, no position high enough. We look at these people and wonder at what point in life they will be satisfied, at what point in life will they believe they have achieved success? I don't want to be like this... and I am sure most of these people are not consciously trying to be like this either.
The real problem with this "problem" is not so much the impact it has on us (as bad as it is), but the impact this unending race for success has on the people around us. Marriages are ruined, children are neglected, and people are run over.
Success (re)Defined
I found, I realized, that if my measurement of success was constantly moving - I would never achieve it - or I would die trying. I needed a definition of success that I could work towards that wouldn't kill me or the relationships around me. I prayed about this and here are the conclusions I came to.
- If you live by faith (in God), then you have to judge your life by faith. It will drive you bonkers to live by faith and then try to judge your life by the world's standards. Here is an example: God may direct you to give a large sum of money or time to someone in need. If you judge that by the world's standards, it may result in you feeling like it was a waste of money or time. If you judge that action by faith, you will always conclude that you did what you believed was best at the time, and the rest is up to God.
- Success is plainly defined as this: did I listen to God and do what He directed me to do. End of story, not how much money do I have, not what position I have achieved, and not even did I achieve what others expect of me.
Whats does this mean in real life?
It means that you can stop kicking yourself for missing the boat here or there. It means that you should set reasonable goals in life, work towards them, but not beat yourself up if you don't achieve them the first, or the second, or the third... or the twenty-third time. It means that you should keep trying, never give up and keep moving forward. Success in life is not about how much money we have or how big our house is, success in life should be measured by whether or not we listened to God and did what he directed us to do, whether or not we did the right thing and tried our best in the process.
And if you do screw up, don't worry, you're in good company, the world is full of screw-ups, under achievers and failures (that's all of us). Pick yourself up and try again. The best among us have usually screwed up more than the rest.
References: Matthew 6 (Holy Bible)