What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.

What will you do today?

“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.”

– Wes Jackson

I knew a man who used to say, “I don’t ever get my hopes up. That way, I’m never disappointed.”

If I had been the executor of his estate, his gravestone would say: “He had potential.”

I often write about Identity, Purpose, and Adventure:

Identity: Who am I?

Purpose: Why am I here?

Adventure: What must I overcome?

Without trouble, there is no adventure.

That being said, children and grandchildren are the most wonderful adventure.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries: avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, non-redeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell.” – C. S. Lewis

My friend J.P. Engelbrecht sent me a text last week,

“Finally read A Gentleman in Moscow. What a lovely book! Thank you for the recommendation.”

For those who have not read it, A Gentleman in Moscow is about an older man who becomes, through no choice of his own, the protector and caregiver of a little girl. It is truly a remarkable book.

Now that I think about it, Little Orphan Annie is essentially that same story.

Many years ago, Pennie and I loved watching Anne of Green Gables (1985) when it was available on TV. Right now we’re watching the updated version, Anne With an E. Basically, it’s about an elderly brother and sister who become, through no choice of their own, the protectors and caregivers of…

Oh, I guess it’s the same story as the other two.

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

– Albert Schweitzer

To protect and equip and encourage others is what each of us was born to do.

Who are you protecting?

If you are a not a protector, you need one.

What are you equipped to do?

If you are not doing it, now would be a great time to start.

Who do you encourage?

Let that be the person

who decides what to carve

on your tombstone.

Roy H. Williams

A Young Brian Scudamore had a series of private chats with a man who took $1,000 and turned it into a personal net worth of $3.5 billion. Simon Sinek told Brian his deepest insights the night he slept on Brian’s sofa. In Brian’s new book, you’ll meet an NBA superstar, a past president of Starbucks, a British advertising tycoon, and a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics as they wander on and off the pages like movie stars on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Wait! I just saw Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Dr. Seuss, and Charles Schwab. Roving reporter Rotbart talks to mega-famous Brian Scudamore, a longtime client of the wizard, on today’s happy and hilarious episode of MondayMorningRadio.com!