Dear Timothy,

On March 5, 2003 I turned on Good Morning America while eating breakfast.

Charlie Gibson was interviewing General Earl Hailston, the commanding general of Marine Forces Central Command.

The general was waiting with his troops just a few miles off the border of Iraq...waiting to go to war.

Toward the end of the interview, Charlie asked him if he had any hobbies.

The general said, "Yes, I love photography, especially taking photos of my men." He shared that while he had been waiting for the past few days he took photos of his men, and at night he would email the photos with a brief note to their mothers back in the USA.

Charlie asked if he could see a sample of a letter, and the general walked into his tent, turned on his computer, and read the last letter he had sent. It said:

Wow! I had goose bumps as I watched Charlie randomly interview a few of General Hailston's men, and without exception, you could feel the genuine love and respect that every one of them had for their leader.

You may have heard the quote..."They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

Well, here's a man who truly understood what caring, kindness and leadership is all about.

Today for the first time, all copies of The Essence of Leadership that are purchased will be autographed. (Limited to 10 copies per customer.)

For more information, just Click here.

Live with Passion,

Mac Anderson
Founder, Simple Truths

 It happened every Friday evening, almost
 without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was
 starting to dip into the blue ocean.
 
 Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his
 favorite pier.  Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket
 of shrimp.  Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where
 it seems he almost has the world to himself.  The glow
 of the sun is a golden bronze now.

 Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the
 beach.  Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is
 alone with his thoughts...and his bucket of shrimp.
 
 Before long, however, he is no longer alone.  Up in
 the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking,
 winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on
 the end of the pier.
 
 Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their
 wings fluttering and flapping wildly.  Ed stands there
 tossing shrimp to the hungry birds.  As he does, if you
 listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile,
 'Thank you.  Thank you..'
 
 In a few short minutes the bucket is empty.  But Ed
 doesn't leave.

 He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to
 another time and place.  Invariably, one of the gulls
 lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old
 military hat he's been wearing for years.
 
 When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward
 the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him
 until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly
 away.  And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end
 of the beach and on home.

 If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing
 line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old
 duck,' as my dad used to say.  Or, 'a guy
 that's a sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might
 say.   To onlookers, he's just another old codger,
 lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a
 bucket full of shrimp.
 
 To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or
 very empty.  They can seem altogether unimportant
 ....maybe even a lot of nonsense.

 Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of
 Boomers and Busters.

 Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in
 Florida . That's too bad. They'd do well to know him
 better.

 His full name:  Eddie Rickenbacker.  He was a famous hero back in World
 War II.  On one of his flying missions across the
 Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down.
 Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their
 plane, and climbed into a life raft.

 Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the
 rough waters of the Pacific.  They fought the
 sun.  They fought sharks.  Most of all, they
 fought hunger.  By the eighth day their rations ran
 out. No food.  No water.  They were hundreds of
 miles from land and no one knew where they were.
 
 They needed a miracle.  That afternoon they had a
 simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle.
  They tried to nap.  Eddie leaned back and pulled
 his military cap over his nose.  Time dragged.
 All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the
 raft.
 
 Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his
 cap.  It was a seagull!
 
 Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still,
 planning his next move.  With a flash of his hand and a
 squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its
 neck.  He tore the feathers off, and he and his
 starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men
 - of it.  Then they used the intestines for bait.
 With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more
 bait......and the cycle continued.  With that simple
 survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of
 the sea until they were found and rescued (after 24 days at
 sea...). 

 Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond
 that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first
 lifesaving seagull.  And he never stopped saying,
 'Thank you.'  That's why almost every
 Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a
 bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

Reference: (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221,
 225-226)

 PS:  Eddie was also an Ace in WW I and started Eastern
 Airlines.


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Everything that happens to us happens in purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self improvement and success.

I remember watching Patch Adams – it's one of my favorite movies, actually. Its one great film that will help you improve yourself. Hunter “patch” Adams is a medical student who failed to make it through the board exams. After months of suffering in melancholy, depression and suicidal attempts – he decided to seek for medical attention and voluntarily admitted himself in a psychiatric ward.  His months of stay in the hospital led him to meeting different kinds of people. Sick people in that matter. He met a catatonic, a mentally retarded, a schizophrenic and so on. Patch found ways of treating his own ailment and finally realized he has to get back on track. He woke up one morning realizing that after all the failure and pains he has gone through, he still wants to become a doctor. He carries with himself a positive attitude that brought him self improvement and success. He didn’t only improved himself, but also the life of the people around him and the quality of life. Did he succeed? Needless to say, he became the best damn doctor this country has ever known.

So, when does self improvement become synonymous with success? Where do we start? Take these tips, friends…

*Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure, because you’re not. How can others accept you if YOU can’t accept YOU?

*When you see hunks and models on TV, think more on self improvement, not self pitying. Self acceptance is not just about having nice slender legs, or great abs. Concentrate on inner beauty.

*When people feel so down and low about themselves, help them move up. Don’t go down with them. They’ll pull you down further and both of you will end up feeling inferior.

*The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed on a science quiz. There’s always a next time. Make rooms for self improvement.

*Take things one at a time. You don’t  expect black sheep’s to be goody-two-shoes in just a snap of a finger(although it is possible). Self improvement is a one day at a time process.

*Self improvement results to inner stability, personality development and dig this …. SUCCESS. It comes from self confidence, self appreciation and self esteem.

* Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of Cameron Diaz or Ralph Fiennes. It hopes and aims to result to an improved and better YOU.

*Little things mean BIG to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, saying “hi” or “hello”, greeting someone “good day” or telling Mr. Smith something like “hey, I love your tie!” are simple things that mean so much to other people. When we’re being appreciative about beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.

*When you’re willing to accept change and go through the process of self improvement, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people of different values and attitudes hang out. Sometimes, even if you think you and your best friend always like to do the same thing together at the same time, she would most likely decline an invitation for self improvement.

We should always remember that there’s no such thing as ‘over night success’. Its always a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you already have now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for. A very nice quote says that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”  We are all here to learn our lessons. Our parents, school teachers, friends, colleagues, office mates, neighbors… they are our teachers. When we open our doors for self improvement, we increase our chances to head to the road of success.

Not everyone believes this but the emotional and mental aspects of a person, when combined, leads to better self improvement.

Emotions love to dominate our actions and reactions, even though we do not want it to happen sometimes. The society often see emotions as a sign of weakness, so people are used to putting them aside and focusing on the rational aspects more and more.

No matter how strict and logical you may be, you will always feel. One way or another, someone or something will get through you.

Positive emotions are a lifelong goal for many of us concerned about emotional health and self improvement. What is more important; the amount of money you made during your life or the times you laughed out of sheer joy?

People tend to put their positive emotions behind their negative feelings. This is one of the biggest problems that people come across during their lives.

There is no clear way to ignore a negative experience and try to replace it with a positive one. Life just does not work that way.

For example, when you were a child, if your goldfish dies, you would be heartbroken. Your parents will probably buy you another goldfish but the sorrow is still there.

Things get even more complex when you become an adult. A fight with your spouse the night before will affect your entire day. You will go to work angry, tired, and your mind will wander. On the way home from work you will not notice the sun shining and you would not be tempted to stop at a roadside stand to pick up some fresh fruits and vegetables.

All this because that one negative thought has contaminated the way you perceive the reality around you.

In this moment you will realize finding a safe place to relax your mind will do wonders for your emotional and mental improvement.

That place is relatively easy to find. It can be an actual place or an imaginary location. The best idea is to totally lose yourself in it.

Let us say you have a problem on your mind and it just would not go away. Go bowling. Do not know how? Just give it a shot.

Get caught up in the game. Your mind will drift away from the negative thoughts that dominated your last hours or days and start processing a whole new kind of information.

A safe haven can take many forms. It can be a song, a movie, even a person or animal. The main thing is allow yourself to get completely involved with this new activity.

You might still get flashes of the problem every now and then. Ignore it and get even more absorbed in what you are doing.

When the bowling game, the song, or the movie ends you will abruptly return to reality. You will probably want to retreat back to the safe place. Do not do it.

The safe place exists only as a helping hand, not as a solution to your life's problems, big or small. It serves only as an escape route.

You will return from your safe zone with an increased energy level. You will feel better about yourself and gain more confidence. You will see that any issue can be resolved.

This is how a small escape from a harsh reality can increase your emotional and mental health. Try to do this often and you are on your way to better self improvement.

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