Archive | February, 2008

He or She Who Dies With The Most Toys…

25 Feb

What you have no doubt already gathered if you are a regular on this blog, is that this blog is not about making more money or people who have great financial richness. It’s about being RICH ( I will write about the difference in being rich and being RICH in a future blog). Know this for now: my definition of RICH is not how the world defines it. It’s not about investments, or how to retire early or anything like you see in on the cover of Money, Fortune, or Forbes magazine. The realty is, as you no doubt have already heard, he (or she) who dies with the most money, still dies. When I die, I hope to be darn near broke. I hope to give away a lot of money and have a lot of fun while doing it. I hope to have visited every continent on the globe, to have had RICH conversations in remote areas of the world including some with indigenous people who haven’t experience the “RICH” experiences I haven’t had. I hope to have left a legacy of love, adventure and caring to my five children. I hope that the love I feel for my wife will be ten times stronger than it was the beautiful June day we were married at the oldest church in St. Augustine, FL in 1992. I hope that I will have richer and deeper relationship with God and that at the end, someone will say, “WOW, that guy sure was RICH!”

Of course, I hope the same for you. But I know none of that will happen for you the reader or me the writer without being intentional about it. Without creating the picture of the kind of RICHness that you want and then working at it tirelessly, Living RICH won’t happen. I am convinced that you have to create it in your mind first. So what does it mean to really be RICH vs. rich, to be wealthy beyond measure, to live like there’s no tomorrow?

Care to chime in on the conversation? I’d love to hear what you think. I’ll tell you what I think (if you don’t already know!)

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

Questions, Questions, Questions….

19 Feb

Over twenty years ago, before I was married, I was attending a wedding in Colorado. The day after the wedding, I stayed to do some hiking though not sure if I were going to go solo or have a hiking buddy. At the wedding, I had gotten to know one of the bride maids and the two us ended up spending the day hiking together. In her car, she had a book called the Book of Questions which we took with us on the way to the hike. Both on the way there and even while on the hike we read the questions from the book and took turns answering them. Some questions were very easy to answer quickly while others took some time to think about. By the end of our day, I felt like we knew each other pretty well.

I think questions are wonderful. They make you think. They make you work. They make you search. As much as I would love to have all the answers, it simply isn’t true. I do have life as a teacher and I know for me the questions are almost more important than the answers. I think the answer to a lot of questions are:”it depends”. Life is not like the questions we had on test in high school and college – tests where you picked the best answer from four or five choices. One of my favorite childhood philosophers from TV show Kung Fu said “The answer is in the question, grasshopper”.

So fresh back from my National Speakers Association meeting in San Francisco, I am armed with questions. Questions I’ll be thinking about as wrap my arms around my year and a big agenda. I’ll share some of my questions this week as well as a recap of one of the most amazing weekend learning experiences I have ever had. It’s totally rocked. Questions and all.

What questions have rocked you?

What or who has really made you think?

What did you think of this post?

What’s the best question you have ever been
asked and the answer you gave?

What’s the best question you have ever asked
and what response did you hear?

Bring it on…

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

Seize the Day! Have a RICH Valentine’s Day!

14 Feb

If you are wondering where I have been, I have been writing – LOTS. Some in Ormond By-The-Sea, FL some in a little town called Pomona Park, FL – where time stands still. It’s been wonderful but it’s also good to be back. Back home, back blogging. SO …

Happy Valentine’s Day. Hold your valentine tight. Tell her you love her. Buy him a massage. Better yet give him one. Take a couples massage class. Write her a poem. Cherish this day and EVERY one after. There are NO guarantees. By my mid thirties, I lost a childhood and life long best friend to tragic deaths. My first best friend to die was a guy named Hal Bates. Hal lived across the street from us when I lived in Northwest Florida in the early to mid 1970′s. We played almost every day after school. When my family and I moved to Daytona Beach, Hal and I lost touch but I was still very saddened to hear several years later that he was tragically killed while drinking and driving. In a twist of fate, his younger brother was killed on the same stretch of highway almost a year later – also while drinking and driving. My best friend throughout high school and until my middle 30’s life was also cut short. Bill Walter developed stage five of melanoma which took his life at the age of thirty-six in 1998. College friend Vicki was killed in an automobile accident at age 29, a church friend Michael, died of cancer before he turned forty. My new AWESOME coworker, Kathy, lost her husband when he was hit by a motorist while cycling at age 46.

Having been close to these experiences, I have a great appreciation for life and the precious nature of it. I am richer because of these experiences that for the most part, were painful and difficult.

Though I may say I have had lots of tragedy, I have also had lots of good fortunate. I had the great pleasure of knowing and learning from both set of my grandparents well into my adult life. All of my immediate family or cousins or relatives by marriage are all in good health. Between my wife and me and our large extended families, there have been no unexpected family deaths or divorces (one day I added up that just among our parents and four sibling each were almost 300 years of marriage). I have known both the good about life and the bad. And I am better for experiencing both.

The reality is, that some of you reading this no doubt know, life can be tough but it can also be rich. We all get thrown unexpected curve balls for which we can never be prepared. We also get blessings we sometimes don’t recognize. We only have a guarantee for today:  Tomorrow is uncertain.

We have to live today and every day like there is no tomorrow. Valentine’s Day just might the day to do that!

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, and national conventions. He is the founder of the The Worlds Biggest Blog Party an event which will connect bloggers from all over the world to raise money for charity. He is also founder and president of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund and co-founder of the Jeffrey Roth Cycling Foundation. Click here for more information on professional speaker Tim Richardson.

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