Anyone can learn to scramble and fry rice on a 3×6 steaming griddle.
Anyone can slice an onion, stack it into a volcano, and light the canola lava.
Anyone can become a master shrimp tail slapper.
Sure, the hibachi experience is quite entertaining, but we really sat down for the chef’s secret sauce.
Create and refine your sauce. Our mouths are watering.
Sayonara.
The minute we are born our fingers are rolled in ink.
In a moment our uniqueness is filed and recorded…vault locked.
This uniqueness was not meant to be stored in a database.
Through you, God has art, song, and understanding He wants communicated to the world.
It appears that our thumbprints hold the color, music, and font to transfer these messages.
Daily re-roll your fingers in ink then reach out and touch somebody, something, some place, or some idea.
We follow those with stained fingers.
We think we’re after making a living, but our soul is really after the production and exchange of art.
We think retirement sounds nice, but our hands were meant to create.
We think we want to be settled, but our feet are wrapped in Nikes and hate being idle.
Converse with your soul,
then allow your hands to respond with creation,
then move your art to the marketplace.
When is the last time you contacted a friend, family member, or customer and simply asked – how are you?
Not an email, not a direct message, not an @ mention, not a poke, and not a text – but a human to human pulse check.
When is the last time you picked up a pen and paper, addressed an envelope, licked the seal, added postage, and dropped a note in the mail, simply to offer an “I’m thinking of you and I hope you are well.”?
When is the last time you picked up the phone Stevie Wonder style and said “I just called to say I……..“?
Not sure who said this, but I’ve heard it said before that “no one cares what you know until they know how much you care.”
The cultivating of relationships is the drum beat of our music we make with our lives, families, and businesses.
Dont’ forget, Stevie also says that when we call or write we must mean this from the bottom of our hearts.
The easy thing to do this week is to put a fork in this year and call it done.
So we have one of two choices to make:
1) Prop our feet up, watch football, and sip eggnog.
Or…
2) Chug a Gatorade, sprint to the finish, and stay in shape.
I think how we finish 2011 will predetermine how we start 2012.
Whichever way you choose – cheers.
Ashton.Gustafson 