Start the New Year With Gratitude

Gratitude: While studying the new "Teachings of Presidents of the Church " manual on Joseph Smith and some of his journal entries, I noted an entry on January 1st where he expressed gratitude for having been permitted to live yet another year.

In October General Conference, President Eyring counseled us to write something every day for which we are grateful that the Lord has blessed our lives.

The December 22, 2007 Church News had a fascinating editorial on gratitude of particular interest to this mission:

"While preparing a (Church) lesson on gratitude, I experienced Doctrine and Covenants 78:19:

"And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more."

My heart pounded and my blood rushed. Where had this scripture been hiding? I understand math. Added one hundred fold at least; from simple gratitude. Plus it said "this earth." Sometimes blessings feel so far in the future. One hundred are available here and now.

Jubilantly I shared this with my visiting teaching message. Those I visited wanted the reference. My family memorized it before they could have the home evening treat. My son serving a mission enjoying few baptisms needed this scripture. Be thankful to have the gospel to share, even if it isn't accepted. Keep loving the people and it will come back to you one hundred fold. Be obedient and you will be blessed with what you need. I wrote my missionary I wasn't sure what the "glorious" entailed but it had to be good it it was coming from Heavenly Father.

A month later this scripture again came to mind and enveloped my soul when our son and his companion serving on the French Caribbean island of Martinique spent three days missing on Mount Pelee. They share a love of nature, and the earth gave them enough water and food to survive. The people they love were searching for them and many more cam. They prayed for deliverance. Prayers multiplied from homes and temple altars in many nations. Fasting increased. These young men asked for the companionship of the Holy Ghost and it never left the.

With honor, through obedience, they used priesthood power to bless one another. The powers of heaven and the things of this earth were "added unto them."

Upon hearing they were found and unharmed, my spirit, heart, mind and body came together in an uncontainable burst of loving gratitude to our Father in Heaven. I will share with my son that I have now been blessed to understand, at least in small part, what "thankfulness shall be made glorious" entails. And yes, it is good. Very good. --Donna Gray, Taylorsville Utah (mother of Elder Tyson Gray)

Family Home Evening Activity:

1) Resolve to write down something every day for which you are grateful.
2) Recognize Heavenly Father's blessings and express gratitude to Him.
3) Review your daily journal often.

Heber J. Grant - 7th President of the Church - Set Goals

FHE Lesson - Achieving Goals - (How Heber J. Grant Did It)

Every year when I get ready to make New Year's Resolutions, I can't help but remember the living and past prophets and the influence they have had on my life. One of the past prophets, Heber J. Grant, was especially known for his ability to set goals and achieve them.

For a Family Home Evening lesson with the grandchildren, it would be worthwhile to tell a few of the stories of Heber J. Grant and his accomplishments. This is not only motivational, but helps us learn a little more about this prophet. President Heber J. Grant often quoted the following statement, which is sometimes attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do. Not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our ability to do has increased”.

The following stories that President Heber J. Grant or others have recorded about his youth illustrates his determination to overcome obstacles:

Learning to Pitch A Baseball

“Being an only child, my mother reared me very carefully. Indeed, I grew more or less on the principle of a hothouse plant, the growth of which is ‘long and lanky’ but not substantial. I learned to sweep, and to wash and wipe dishes, but did little stone throwing and little indulging in those sports which are interesting and attractive to boys, and which develop their physical frames. Therefore, when I joined a baseball club, the boys of my own age and a little older played in the first nine; those younger than I played in the second, and those still younger in the third, and I played with them.

“One of the reasons for this was that I could not throw the ball from one base to the other. Another reason was that I lacked physical strength to run or bat well. When I picked up a ball, the boys would generally shout:

“‘Throw it here, sissy!’

“So much fun was engendered on my account by my youthful companions that I solemnly vowed that I would play baseball in the nine that would win the championship of the Territory of Utah.

“My mother was keeping boarders at the time for a living, and I shined their boots until I saved a dollar which I invested in a baseball. I spent hours and hours throwing the ball at Bishop Edwin D. Woolley’s barn, which caused him to refer to me as the laziest boy in the Thirteenth Ward. Often my arm would ache so that I could scarcely go to sleep at night. But I kept on practicing and finally succeeded in getting into the second nine of our club. Subsequently I joined a better club, and eventually played in the nine that won the championship of the territory and beat the nine that had won the championship for California, Colorado, and Wyoming. Having thus made good my promise to myself, I retired from the baseball arena” (Gospel Standards, comp. G. Homer Durham [1969], 342–43).

Reading the Book of Mormon

President Heber J. Grant wrote about his experience in first reading the Book of Mormon:

“I can remember very distinctly when Uncle Anthony Ivins . . . said to me and to his son, Anthony C. Ivins:

“‘Heber, Anthony, have you read the Book of Mormon?’

“We answered, ‘No.’

“He said, ‘I want you to read it. I want you to pledge to me that you will not skip a word, and to the one who reads it first, I will give a pair of ten dollar buckskin gloves with beaver tops.’

“Any boy of fourteen who had a pair of those gloves thought he was ‘it.’ I remember that my mother had urged me to read systematically the Book of Mormon, but I had not done it. I determined to read the book, say, twenty-five pages a day and get the benefit of its contents. I believed its contents were true because my mother and many others had told me so; and because of the testimony of the teacher of the class that Richard W. Young and I attended, I thought that to win the gloves I would have to read the book so rapidly that I would get no benefit; and therefore decided to let Anthony win the gloves.

“I met my cousin, Anthony C., the next morning, and he asked, ‘How many pages have you read?’

“I said: ‘I have read twenty-five pages.’

“He said: ‘I have read over one hundred and fifty. I sat up until after midnight.’

“I said: ‘Good-bye gloves.’

“I went on reading twenty-five pages a day and occasionally I got so interested that I read fifty or seventy-five pages, and, lo and behold, I got through first and got the gloves. He got such a good start he did not bother to read any more until after I got through with the book” (Gospel Standards, 350–51).

Learning How To Be A Fine Penman

“One day Heber was playing marbles with some other boys when the bookkeeper from the Wells Fargo Company Bank was walking down the other side of the street. One of the boys remarked, ‘That man gets $150.00 a month.’ Heber figured to himself that not counting Sundays, that man made $6.00 a day and that at five cents a pair, he would have to black 120 pairs of boots to make $6.00. He there and then resolved that some day he would be a bookkeeper in the Wells Fargo and Company’s bank. In those days all the records and accounts of the bank were written with a pen, and one of the requisites of a good bookkeeper was the ability to write well. To learn to write well was his first approach to securing this job and the fulfilment of his resolve; so he set to work to become a penman.

“At the beginning his penmanship was so poor that when two of his chums were looking at it one said to the other, ‘That writing looks like hen tracks.’ ‘No,’ said the other, ‘it looks as if lightning had struck an ink bottle.’ This touched Heber’s pride and, bringing his fist down on his desk, he said, ‘I’ll some day be able to give you fellows lessons in penmanship.’ . . .

“He secured a position as bookkeeper and policy clerk in an insurance office at fifteen. About this he said: ‘I wrote a very nice hand, and that was all that was needed to satisfactorily fill the position which I then had. Yet I was not fully satisfied but continued to dream and scribble when not otherwise occupied. . . . I learned to write well, so well, that I often made more before and after office hours by writing cards, invitations, and making maps than the amount of my regular salary. At nineteen I was keeping books and acting as policy clerk for Henry Wadsworth, the agent of Wells Fargo and Company. My time was not fully employed, and I was not working for the company but for the agent personally. I did the same as I had done in Mr. White’s bank, volunteered to file a lot of bank letters, etc., and kept a set of books for the Sandy Smelting Company, which Mr. Wadsworth was doing personally. My actions so pleased Mr. Wadsworth that he employed me to do the collecting for Wells Fargo and Company and paid me $20.00 a month for this work in addition to my regular compensation of $75.00 from the insurance business. Thus I was in the employ of Wells Fargo and Company and one of my day-dreams had become a reality’” (Bryant S. Hinckley, Heber J. Grant: Highlights in the Life of a Great Leader [1951], 39–42).

“When Heber, still in his teens, was working as a policy clerk in the office of H. R. Mann and Co., he was offered three times his salary to go to San Francisco as a penman. He later became teacher of penmanship and bookkeeping at the University of Deseret (University of Utah). . . .

“At one of the territorial fairs in which he had not competed, he noticed the exhibits of four professional penmen. He remarked to the man in charge of the art department that he could write better than that before he was seventeen years of age. The man in charge laughed and said that nobody but a cheeky insurance agent would make such a remark. He handed the gentleman three dollars which was the fee necessary to compete for a diploma and sent for the specimen which he had written before he was seventeen and hung it up with the remark, ‘If you judges know good penmanship, when you see it, I will get the diploma.’ He walked away with a diploma for the best penmanship in the territory. He encouraged the art of good penmanship among the youth of Zion and offered many prizes for the best specimens” (Hinckley, Heber J. Grant, 40–41).

Teaching Himself How to Sing

As with baseball and penmanship, Heber J. Grant was determined to learn to sing, despite the negative opinions of others. Years of practicing brought moderate success. He wrote:

“My mother tried to teach me when I was a small child to sing but failed because of my inability to carry a tune.

“Upon joining a singing class taught by Professor Charles J. Thomas, he tried and tried in vain to teach me when ten years of age to run the scale or carry a simple tune and finally gave up in despair. He said that I could never, in this world, learn to sing. Perhaps he thought I might learn the divine art in another world. Ever since this attempt, I have frequently tried to sing when riding alone many miles from anyone who might hear me, but on such occasions could never succeed in carrying the tune of one of our familiar hymns for a single verse, and quite frequently not for a single line.

“When I was about twenty-five years of age, Professor Sims informed me that I could sing, but added, ‘I would like to be at least forty miles away while you are doing it.’ . . .

“Upon my recent trip to Arizona, I asked Elders Rudger Clawson and J. Golden Kimball if they had any objections to my singing one hundred hymns that day. They took it as a joke and assured me that they would be delighted. We were on the way from Holbrook to St. Johns, a distance of about sixty miles. After I had sung about forty tunes, they assured me that if I sang the remaining sixty they would be sure to have nervous prostration. I paid no attention whatever to their appeal, but held them to their bargain and sang the full one hundred. One hundred and fifteen songs in one day, and four hundred in four days, is the largest amount of practicing I ever did.

“Today [1900] my musical deafness is disappearing, and by sitting down to a piano and playing the lead notes, I can learn a song in less than one-tenth the time required when I first commenced to practice” (Gospel Standards, 351–52, 354).

Gaining A Burning Testimony

“Before I was twenty-four I was made the president of the Tooele Stake of Zion. I announced in a speech that lasted seven and a half minutes that I would ask no man in Tooele to be a more honest tithe payer than I would be; that I would ask no man to give more of his means in proportion to what he had than I would give; I would ask no man to live the Word of Wisdom better than I would live it, and I would give the best that was in me for the benefit of the people in that stake of Zion.

“That night I heard in the dark a man say in a contemptuous way: ‘It is a pity if the General Authorities have to send a man out here to preside, . . . that they could not have sent one with sense enough to talk at least ten minutes; and that they had to send a boy to preside over us.’

“When I heard this, I remember thinking: ‘The boy is the only one who has any right to complain.’ . . . However, I was not able during the next three or four Sundays to talk as long as I did the first one. I ran out of ideas in five, six, and six and a half minutes.

“At the lunch table after my first short speech which lasted seven and a half minutes, President Smith said: ‘Heber, you said you believe the gospel with all your heart, and propose to live it, but you did not bear your testimony that you know it is true. Don’t you know absolutely that this gospel is true?’

“I answered: ‘I do not.’

“‘What, you! a president of a stake?’ said President Joseph F. Smith.

“‘That is what I said.’

“‘President [John] Taylor, I am in favor of undoing this afternoon what we did this morning. I do not think any man should preside over a stake who has not a perfect and abiding knowledge of the divinity of this work.’

“I said: ‘I am not going to complain.’

“Brother Taylor had a habit, when something pleased him excessively, of shaking his body and laughing. He said, ‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, he knows it just as well as you do. The only thing that he does not know is that he does know it. It will be but a short time until he does know it. He leans over backwards. You do not need to worry.’

“I went to the little town of Vernon in Tooele County, took two others with me to do the preaching, and I got up to say a few words and spoke for forty-five minutes with perfect ease under the inspiration of the Lord. That night I shed tears of gratitude to the Lord for the abiding, perfect, and absolute testimony that came into my life of the divinity of this work.

“The next Sunday after speaking at Vernon, I was at Grantsville. I told the Lord I would like to talk forty-five minutes. I got up to speak and ran out of ideas in five minutes, and I was sweating.

“After the meeting I walked out past the farthest house in the west part of Grantsville, I am sure nearly three miles, and I got down behind a haystack and I shed some more tears. But they were tears of humiliation. I made a pledge to God there upon that occasion that never again in my life would I stand up before an audience with the feeling that all I needed to do was just stand up and talk; but that I would get up upon all occasions with a desire to say something that might be of benefit to the people to whom I spoke, and not with the spirit of pride, such as I had that day when I stood up in Grantsville. And I have never failed from that day until now—fifty-odd years ago—to have any desire in my heart when speaking except that I might say or read something that would be of lasting benefit to those who listened to my voice” (Gospel Standards, 191–93).

Activity:

1. Have each child tell one of the Heber J. Grant stories.

2. Play the name game of the Latter Day Prophets:

(Draw A Line Between the First Name and the Last Name of Each of the 15 Prophets of this Dispensation.)

John Brigham Howard W Lorenzo Harold B Joseph Fielding George Albert Gordon B Joseph F Spencer W Ezra Taft Heber J David O Joseph Wilford			Smith Grant Kimball Woodruff Mckay Snow Smith Taylor Smith Lee Young Hinckley Smith Hunter Benson

Abraham Lincoln Set Goals

FHE Lesson for the Grandchildren: What Can We Learn about Abraham Lincoln?

(Why have a lesson about Abe Lincoln at this time of year? Think about what he accomplished. Note how he did not succeed in every one of his goals.)

Background: Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809 in Kentucky into extreme poverty but eventually became President of America. During the American Civil War Lincoln gave the now famous Gettysburg Address and his decision to appoint General Ulysses S. Grant as Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Armies was probably one of the significant turning points of the war. Although it cost him his life, he was fanatical that slavery should be abolished in his country. Lincoln was assassinated In Washington on 14^th April 1865.

When I was in grade school in Billings, Montana as a little boy, I heard an inspiring story about "Honest Abe" ” that to this day I still remember.

The story took place during Abraham Lincoln’s early-teenage years while he was working as a store clerk. It is said that he accidentally overcharged a customer a few extra cents because the scale was not working properly. When he realized the mistake, it was too late, and the customer had already left. He knew the right thing was to return the cents to the customer, so he decided to close the store and go find the customer.

At that time, he couldn’t just jump into a car and drive over there like are able to do today. Instead, it is said that Abraham Lincoln walked several miles to the customer’s house and returned those cents.

Though the story of Abraham Lincoln, the honest shop clerk, is memorable, the less familiar story of Abraham Lincoln, the honest shop owner, is even more impressive. While living in New Salem, Lincoln and a partner bought a general store and attempted to run it as a profitable business. But owing to unwise investments and general mismanagement, the store finally "winked out," to use Lincoln's own phrase.

Not long thereafter his partner died, leaving the unfortunate Lincoln with what he called the "National Debt." But unlike many others who went bankrupt in frontier ventures and skipped town to escape their creditors, Lincoln promised to repay every cent he owed. He fulfilled this promise even though it took him more than fifteen years to retire the debt. When Abraham Lincoln made a commitment, his word was good as gold. No matter what those around him were doing, his life and his words were filled with honesty. (Dare to Be True, pp. 57-58)

Throughout his life, his most striking characteristic was his determination to succeed in the face of continuing failure. He did have successes intermingled with his list of failures, but it is helpful to compile the list of failures.

Consider the following:

Lincoln "Failures" List

• Lost job in 1832
• Defeated for state legislature in 1832.
• Failed in business in 1833.
• Elected to state legislature in 1834.
• Sweetheart died in 1835.
• Had nervous breakdown in 1836.
• Defeated for Speaker in 1838.
• Defeated for nomination for Congress in 1843.
• Elected to Congress in 1846.
• Lost renomination in 1848.
• Rejected for land officer in 1849.
• Defeated for U.S. Senate in 1854.
• Defeated for nomination for Vice President in 1856.
• Again defeated for U.S. Senate in 1858.
• Elected President in 1860.

Quotes from Abraham Lincoln about Goals:

• A goal properly set is halfway reached -
• Things may come to those who wait, but only left by those who hustle.
• Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.
• To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all; but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.
• Be sure your feet are in the right place. Then stand firm.
• My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

Family Activity:

1. Make a log cabin out of "lincoln logs" and use it on the table as a center piece (best on President's Day in February).
2. Color a picture of Abraham Lincoln
3. Make a list of the accomplishments Abraham Lincoln had in his life
4. Tell the story of the shop clerk in your own words and then share an experience you have had when someone undercharged you at the grocery store. What did you do?

5 Tips To Setting New Year's Resolutions

Family Home Evening Lesson on Tips to Seting Goals

"I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life." (Elder Ballard, page 146 Preach My Gospel)

Goal Setting Tip 1 - Follow the Spirit

Goal setting and planning are acts of faith. Prayerfully set goals that are in harmony with the Savior's commands for us. (page 146, PMG)

Goal Setting Tip 2 - 7 is the magic number

George Miller, a 1950's psychologist, suggested that we can only deal with 7 pieces of information at any one time. If you need to remember any more information, you need to group things into more memorable, manageable chunks. So when you make your New Year's Resolutions, keep goals down to a manageable number and group similar areas.

Goal Setting Tip Number 3 - Be Specific

A common mistake when setting goals, is not enough detail. This could raise concern when you need to spell out the goals to family members, friends, people at work or even to ourselves. As an example of why this is important when goal setting, think of renovating your kitchen.

I have a particular kitchen in mind, which is probably entirely different to the kitchen you're picturing. Does your kitchen have tile or hard wood floor? Are the appliances white or have steel-covered fronts. How large is your kitchen? Is your kitchen full of people or are you the only one that will use it? Imagine the differences of opinions if we had the joint goal of renovating a kitchen together!

Keep New Years resolutions by writing your goals in enough detail for everyone to clearly understand and agree what's meant. So if your goal is to renovate your kitchen, put some flesh on the bones by saying your goal is to renovate your kitchen with putting down hardwood floor, with an island, with big windows, for no more than $20,000.

Goal Setting Tip 4 - Keep it real!

You are more likely to achieve realistic goals. That's not to say you can't shoot for the stars and dream big; break up your mega goal into smaller, more manageable mini goals, and you're more likely to achieve your dream. (Remember Abraham Lincoln lost in everything he tried for until the biggest of goals to be president of the United States. - Don't set that as a goal, by the way. (grin)

Goal Setting Tip 5 - Fantastic Exagerations - The Pretend Game

Here's an unusual game to play. Start a conversation with a family member or a friend. Tell them they are going to help achieve your new year's goals and all they have to do is ask a few key questions.

Start by telling them the story of, for example, your New Years resolution to find and start your dream job. Tell them what it's like in that company, the people you work with and meet as part of your job, what your daily schedule looks like. Get them to ask you questions about how you got there e.g. how did you get the interview, who spotted your business card, how you got the loan to create the company, how you got into that graduate school, etc.

Now this is the test for you to be put on the spot and come up with real answers. Aim to "keep it real" with your answers, e.g. don't rely on a sudden "financial gift" to fund your plans! Try to keep this conversation going as long as you can, with as much detail as you can give.

This might sound insane, to exaggerate or dream like this in telling how you achieved your New Years resolution. The fact is is that the questions people ask will create links in your mind, forging a map that make it easier for you to attain your long term goal. Just make sure you write down specific action steps you took to achieve your goal! (As a side note, when you publicly express a goal to a close friend or family member, you have a greater chance of achieving that goal. It becomes affixed in your mind as something you think about to "save face.")

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Remember: Set weekly action step goals to achieve your New Year's Resolution.
Ask: Are the goals specific?
Ask: Are the goals realistic?
Ask: Will the goals make me stretch?
Ask: Are you committed to the goal?

"When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates." (President Monson, p 150 PMG)

Family Home Activity:

1. Have every member of the family write a list of New Year's resolutions.
2. Record your resolutions in your journal.
3. Post your resolutions on the mirror.
4. Play the imagination game (Tip 5)
5. Talk about how you are doing with your goals and write the detailed action steps in your calendar.
6. Dream big!
7. Take your goals to Heavenly Father for confirmation. If you get a stupor of thought, stop. If not, continue.

Stop Doing List (New Year's Resolution Time)

Best New Year's resolution? A 'stop doing' list
By Jim Collins

Each time the New Year rolls around and I sit down to do my annual resolutions, I reflect back to a lesson taught me by a remarkable teacher. In my mid-20s, I took a course on creativity and innovation from Rochelle Myers and Michael Ray at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and I kept in touch with them after I graduated.

One day, Rochelle pointed to my ferocious work pace and said, "I notice, Jim, that you are a rather undisciplined person."

I was stunned and confused. After all, I was the type of person who carefully laid out my BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), top three objectives and priority activities at the start of each New Year. I prided myself on the ability to work relentlessly toward those objectives, applying the energy I'd inherited from my prairie-stock grandmother.

"Your genetic energy level enables your lack of discipline," Rochelle continued. "Instead of leading a disciplined life, you lead a busy life."

She then gave me what I came to call the 20-10 assignment. It goes like this: Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than 10 years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular, what would you stop doing?

That assignment became a turning point in my life, and the "stop doing" list became an enduring cornerstone of my annual New Year resolutions — a mechanism for disciplined thought about how to allocate the most precious of all resources: time.

Rochelle's challenge forced me to see that I'd been plenty energetic, but on the wrong things. Indeed, I was on entirely the wrong path. After graduate school, I'd taken a job at Hewlett-Packard. I loved the company, but hated the job. Rochelle's assignment helped me to see I was cut out to be a professor, a researcher, a teacher — not a businessman — and I needed to make a right-angle turn. I had to stop doing my career, so that I could find my real work. I quit HP, migrated to the Stanford Business School faculty and eventually became — with some remarkable good luck along the way — a self-employed professor, happily toiling away on my research and writing.

Rochelle's lesson came back to me a number of years later while puzzling over the research data on 11 companies that turned themselves from mediocrity to excellence, from good to great. In cataloguing the key steps that ignited the transformations, my research team and I were struck by how many of the big decisions were not what to do, but what to stop doing.

In perhaps the most famous case, Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark — a man who had prevailed over throat cancer — said one day to his wife: "I learned something from my cancer. If you have a cancer in your arm, you've got to have the guts to cut off your own arm. I've made a decision: We're going to sell the mills."

At the time, Kimberly-Clark had the bulk of its revenues in the traditional paper business. But Smith began asking three important questions: Are we passionate about the paper business? Can we be the best in the world at it? Does the paper business best drive our economic engine?

The answers came up: no, no and no.

And so, Smith made the decision to stop doing the paper business — to sell off 100 years of corporate history — and throw all the resulting resources into the consumer business (building brands such as Kleenex), which came up yes, yes and yes to the same questions.

The start of the New Year is a perfect time to start a stop doing list and to make this the cornerstone of your New Year resolutions, be it for your company, your family or yourself. It also is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions asked by Smith:

1) What are you deeply passionate about?

2) What are you are genetically encoded for — what activities do you feel just "made to do"?

3) What makes economic sense — what can you make a living at?

Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life.

Think of the three circles as a personal guidance mechanism. As you navigate the twists and turns of a chaotic world, it acts like a compass. Am I on target? Do I need to adjust left, up, down, right? If you make an inventory of your activities today, what percentage of your time falls outside the three circles?

If it is more than 50%, then the stop doing list might be your most important tool. The question is: Will you accept good as good enough, or do you have the courage to sell the mills?

Looking back, I now see Rochelle Myers as one of the few people I've known to lead a great life, while doing truly great work. This stemmed largely from her remarkable simplicity. A simple home. A simple schedule. A simple frame for her work.

Rochelle spoke to me repeatedly about the idea of "making your life a creative work of art." A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally important, what is not. It is the discipline to discard what does not fit — to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort — that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company or, most important of all, a life.

Jim Collins is author of Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last.

Nativity 2006

Robison Annual Nativity Production - 2007