Life & The Sunday Series

Find your why and find your way. Become more.

Why Not?: It’s Just About… Life.

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why not

Great question. Needs a good answer.

We are working in reverse order this week, going from “Why Not You?” to “Why Not?”, down to a single word by next week, (you can probably guess what that is), which serves as the heart of this blog and will be evident when I, (with the talented assistance of the learntoblog crew, (http://learntoblog.com/), launch the complete redesign of this blog next Tuesday, May 20th. I’ve seen the prototype, it is powerful.

But there’s work to do here. Can you answer the question in the title of this post? Are you going for what you want and handling the rollercoaster ride, the ups and downs of life? Because life is not a straight line, or on an even keel, that’s an illusion. When you flatline at the end of your life, that’s a straight line, but when your heart is beating, it’s up and down, up and down on the EKG monitor… that means you are living. Life is much the same and if you don’t ride the waves you can’t reach the shore.

In the last blog post I posed the question, “Why Not You?”, and gave examples of how it has been asked and answered. So now, Why Not? If you are satisfied with life, that’s fine, though I would ask you to stop and make sure that satisfaction means you are doing what you were meant to do, living the life of your dreams and using your talents in service to others, to be not just successful, but significant. If not, then why not? You’ve got it, it’s inside you, you just need to bring it out. The best comes from within, from your hidden treasures and radiates outward. It doesn’t come from you grabbing all you can and pulling it toward you. Greatness begins from within. Light emanates from the center of the bulb. The earth revolves around the light of the sun. A moth is attracted to the light of the flame. Shine brightly, then you attract and you don’t have to pursue.

Ever watch a flower bloom? If you have, then you have seen the miracle of what can grow from just one seed. Start small, dream big. Watch a miracle happen. Why not?

From where this blog originates just outside Baltimore, Maryland, the question, “Why Not?”, is part of history. About a quarter-century ago, the words were the battle cry for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team. The O’s played a miracle season, going from the laughing stock of the baseball word in 1988, when they started the season 0-21, to a magical contender during the 1989 season, with dramatic victories all season long… all the way until the final games of September. The slogan was “Why Not?”, there was even a song, still available on YouTube, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcqm3MGQ_hU). The point is, no matter how far down you are, or think you are, you can turn it around and go from worst to first. It’s a change of mindset, it’s a fresh start, it’s you creating your own destiny because it’s what YOU deserve. It’s doing the little things consistently that matter the most. Why not?

You possess the ability, talent, drive and passion to make the impossible, possible, to go from ordinary to extraordinary. Yes, you. But first you have to ask yourself, then believe, “Why Not?”. If you need help, stick around and follow the blog, we are going on the journey together.

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Mark

Mark Brodinsky, Author, Blogger, Financial Services
The #1 Best-Seller on Amazon: It Takes 2. Surviving Breast Cancer: A Spouse’s Story
www.spouses-story.com, www.amazon.com/author/markbrodinsky
markbrodinsky@gmail.com

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Why Not You?: It’s Just About… Life.

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why not you

The question might speak to you. It should. It might be one of life’s most important questions, if you want to live and not simply survive.

Jack Welch, the legendary business executive who served as CEO of General Electric for twenty-one years and over his tenure helped the company to grow 4000%, (yes that’s three zeros after the 4), knows something about making things happen. I just listened to an interview with Welch and he said it was that question, that one question, posed to him by his mother, that changed his life, “why not you?”

It’s certainly something to think about, if you choose to think that is. If you believe we are all equal and just born with different “stuff”, then ask yourself the question, why not me? After all, you’ve got to stay here until you go, so why not you?

Some people have done the most incredible things with limited beginnings. Why not you doing something to change the world? Why not you affecting the world? Why not you creating the invention that changes life for all of us? Or start even more simply, why not you changing just one life by the way you live yours. Have a mission, create your purpose, use your passion and utilize the unique talent you have to impact the lives of others. It’s there, you just need to tap in.

A few weeks ago I heard the following statement which has inspired me: that today it’s possible to do something which can affect the lives of a billion people. That’s one billion, with a “b”. It is possible. We are all that connected. So what might that be? What can I do to positively affect that many lives? I’m thinking, I’m writing, I’m reading, I’m doing the little things every day, I’m tracking my activities and the disciplines to achieve a goal just that big. Start with a dream, make it a reality. This blog, about to undergo a dramatic re-design, centered around an even bigger purpose, is just one step. So I ask myself, Why not me?

Why not you? Your idea, your purpose, big, little, or in-between, to help, to inspire, to affect someone else’s life, whether it be one or many. Your idea might be the same as someone else, but the way you do it will be different, because we are all unique. We are born with the same “stuff”, but able to interpret and use that “stuff” differently.

So why not you? And just as importantly… why not now?

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Mark

Mark Brodinsky, Author, Blogger, Financial Services
#1 Amazon Best-Seller, It Takes 2. Surviving Breast Cancer: A Spouse’s Story
www.spouses-story.com, www.amazon.com/author/markbrodinsky
markbrodinsky@gmail.com
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The (Mother’s Day) Sunday Series (26), with Mark Brodinsky

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A special video, created for a special lady.

This is always a special day, perhaps Hallmark’s crowning achievement in creating a day, which could easily be a national holiday, to honor the important women in your life. And if this Sunday Series is all about courage, hope and inspiration (and it is), you’d be hard pressed to find someone who exhibits more of all three than the lady who is my wife.

Actually, for the past week I’ve presented several posts about moms, one post centered around what it’s like to take on the role and another blog post with some of the best quotes regarding life’s most important “job”. Today is a great day to recognize your own and the one who is your bride, the mother of your children. Today, among the billions of women out there, it’s time to celebrate my own, my wife Debbie.

A few months back I found this song. And if you don’t want to read, I’m not going to bury the lead, you can skip to the montage I asked my oldest daughter Sophie to create for me and for which we posted a link, (down below), on You Tube. I think this song, more than any other, sums up the way I and my girls feel about Debbie.

The song is called, Close Your Eyes, from Michael Buble’. I’ve done blog posts about songs and music before, even breaking down the meaning of the lyrics. For today’s Sunday Series, it’s worth taking a brief look at the words and why I decided to ask Sophie to create the music video.

Close your eyes
Let me tell you all the reasons why
think you’re one of a kind.

It goes without saying Debbie, to know you is to love you, as so many do and to be part of your life every day is to understand truly how special you are, one of a kind.

Here’s to you
The one that always pulls us through
Always do what you’ve gotta do
You’re one of a kind
Thank G-d you’re mine.

There’s no one in my life who does more. It is you who always “pulls us through” no matter what, your conviction, devotion and attention to the details of life for the girls and myself is a wonder to behold.

You’re an angel dressed in armor
You’re the fair in every fight
You’re my life and my safe harbor
Where the sun sets every night
And if my love is blind
I don’t want to see the light.

My safe harbor… there’s never a time during the rollercoaster of any day that I don’t think about how great it will be to go home… and be with you and the girls. It’s the light at the end of every tunnel.

It’s your beauty that betrays you
Your smile gives you away.
Cause you’re made of strength and mercy
And my soul is yours to save
I know this much is true
When my world was dark and blue
I know the only one who rescued me was you.

This weekend, yesterday, May 10th to be exact, marks one more milestone, your comeback from breast cancer, 2-years cancer-free. It was you, all you, who got us through it. When I felt low, I need only look to you, to know in the end it would all be OK. Because of you there’s now a book and a blog and you helped to re-awaken the dormant behemoth of creativity, love and inspiration inside of me I want to share with the world. Because of you I have launched on a journey of personal growth so powerful I am only scratching the surface of what is possible for me, for you, for our family, for so many others. You rescued me.

Close your eyes
Let me tell you all the reasons why
You’re never gonna have to cry
Because you’re one of a kind.
Yeah, here’s to you
The one that always pulls us through
You always do what you gotta do babe
Because you’re one of a kind.

When your love pours down on me
I know I’m finally free
So I tell you gratefully
Every single beat in my heart is yours to keep.

Grateful is right. Too much gratitude to fit on this blog…

So close your eyes
Let me tell you all the reasons why
You’re never gonna have to cry babe
Because you’re one of a kind
Yeah, here’s to you
You’re the one that always pulls us through
You always do what you got to do babe

You’re the reason why I’m breathing
with a little look my way
You’re the reason why I’m feeling
it’s finally safe to stay.

Breath, heart and soul. That is what you are to me, to Sophie, to Emily. Happy Mother’s Day, today and every day.

Here now is the Mother’s Day gift on this blog from your girls.
Mommy’s Video, by Sophie Brodinsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlYxFu4sGgU

We love you.
Mark

Mark Brodinsky, Author, Blogger, Financial Services
The Amazon #1 Best-Seller: It Takes 2. Surviving Breast Cancer: A Spouse’s Story
www.amazon.com/author/markbrodinsky
markbrodinsky@gmail.com

For ideas for the Sunday Series, or feedback, send an e-mail to markbrodinsky@gmail.com
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Motherhood: It’s Just About… Life.

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The best way to figure out what it’s like to be a Mom, is, well, to be one I suppose. Not all of us are so chosen, or created this way, so as we make our way toward Mother’s Day this week, this second blog in the trilogy is devoted to some of the best quotes I could find about Motherhood and words from the ones who live it, or have lived it, because to appreciate it through their eyes, we can all comprehend.

“Mother is a verb. It’s something you do, not just who you are.”
– Cheryl Lacey Donovan

“There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”
-Jill Churchill

“Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There’s no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving.”
-Gail Tsukiyama

“The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children.”
– Jessica Lange

“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”
– W. R. Wallace

“Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark…to have been loved so deeply will give us some protection forever.”
– J.K. Rowling

“Those helpless bundles of promise and power that come into our world show us our true selves – who we are, who we are not, who we wish we could be.”
– Hillary Rodham Clinton

“More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsible and responsive.”
– Tillie Olson

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”
-Honoré de Balzac

“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”
-Sophia Loren

“All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my mother.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs… since the payment is pure love.”
-Mildred B. Vermont

“A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”
-Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.”
– Victor Hugo

“There is an instinct in a woman to love most her own child — and an instinct to make any child who needs her love, her own.”
– Robert Brault

“My mother is a poem I’ll never be able to write, though everything I write is a poem to my mother.”
– Sharon Doubiago

“What is a mom but the sunshine of our days and the north star of our nights.”
– Robert Brault

“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.”
– Linda Wooten

“A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”
– Irish Proverb

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, that is his.”
– Oscar Wilde

Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Mark

Mark Brodinsky, Author, Blogger, Financial Services
#1 Amazon Best-Seller: It Takes 2. Surviving Breast Cancer: A Spouse’s Story
www.spouses-story.com, www.amazon.com/author/markbrodinsky
markbrodinsky@gmail.com

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