RESOLVE to Live Forward

By now, you know that my PowerWord is RESOLVE. It is defined as "one who has a definite, firm plan of action." The first letter, "R", is for Resilience. We are in a new year. Having a definite, firm plan of action is not about resolutions. It's about a clear process that leads to a definite end result. The tools, or personal best practices, for successful daily living are...

Growth is the only evidence of life, therefore in order to experience positive growth in 2026, we must take charge of our lives and do what helps us grow in every aspect of our life on a day-by-day basis. It doesn't matter whether we use resolutions, powerwords, year-long themes, etc. It only matters that we are intentional in choosing to live forward each day. 

Yes, 2026 has arrived. The more things "seem" to change the more they remain unchanged, but that doesn't have to mean that we stay the same. A New Year is a New Opportunity. Today we talk of things already shared. We also talk of things added to what we've already shared. Let's begin with a fresh and meaningful outlook for 2026.

I have learned that grief and sorrow are not exclusive to the death of a cherished loved one. Throughout our lives we are impacted by grief events that cover a multitude of painful, heartbreaking results. The issue we must confront is finding a way to LIVE FORWARD with the loss and avoid the tendency to simply give up and quit. Remember, I said Living Forward is a choice. I hope you'l join me...

The 5000 foot view of the lives around us reveals a surprising fact. There are 1000's of people who have experienced sorrow, pain, anguish, and more. They are just like us. It's not just about what happens to all of us. It's about what we do with what happends to us, and that process takes some very harsh and painful work. Even more important, we can't do it entirely on our own...

Random events are as varied as people. Random events are everything from a delightful surprise to a life-changing devastation. At it's most simple level, when a traumatic event plunges us into the depths of sorrow, we have only two choices. We either find a way to move forward with the sorrow, or that sorrow will make the choice for us. Lets share our stories of the amazing and the devastatin...

I recently heard it said that if you don't choose to move forward with your grief and sorrow, that grief and sorrow will make the choice for you. That's my 5000 foot view. Everyone has or will experience deep, heartbreaking sorrow. Today we talk about choices and consequences. Living Forward is a CHOICE. Staying stuck in your sorrow will allow that pain to makee the choice for you. It&ap...

For me, the longer I live, the more I realize that grief touches so much more than just when someone or something (living) dies. Death takes the form of so many things. I don't want to get you in a sad, dark place, but we all have experienced many very painful and heartbreaking situations for which we still feel a deep sadness. That sorrow is grief. We will experience more griefs moments as w...

To begin the process of living forward after a devestating loss is realize that we can't leave the loss behind. You don't move on past it, you move forward with it. However, it's even more important to understand that grief is so much more than just about a "death" event. Yes, the death of someone or something (pet) we love unconditionally is TRAUMA! But grief is not just...

Today we start unpacking the struggle of dealing with the "What Now" question after having suffered a devastating and tragic loss. There are a miriad of problems that bring us to a grinding halt after these losses. Finding the means to live forward and do so with meaningful purpose is hard work. One podcast episode will not address these heartbreaking situations, but we can talk about ho...

As we enter the last two months of 2025, I am reminded of November 2017 when I decided to stop failing at New Years resolutions and found success with a PowerWord for Living. Perhaps this might be the new path to you living forward with success. Let's talk about the potential power in your PowerWord. 

It's easy to tell you what can work for you. It's an entirely different thing for any of us to actually do it. As we wrap up this deep-dive into the PowerWord "RESOLVE" and the seven personal, behavioral best praactices embodied in the letters of "RESOLVE", I hope to help us all understand that we will not always feel like being enthusiastic about each day of our live...

If you look up the definition of "Enthusiasm" you may question how much it plays out in the RESOLVE mindset. Today we'll take a closer look at how we can intentionally practice an enthusiastic mindset on the toughest of days. 

FINALLY we have arrived at the last letter of RESOLVE, and it's E for ENTHUSIASM. This is a great word in meaning, but a sometimes tough word in practice. We will talk about the enthusiastic mindset and the practice of intentional enthusiasm over the next few weeks, but today we need to begin to understand what enthusiasm is and realize we have to work at it. 

The principle of having personal vision is not making a WISH. It's about conceiving a great expectation, surrendering fully to the belief in its possibility, and doing the hard work to achive that visionary goal. Today's episode is about a the cultivation of the visionary mindset through the RESOLVE PowerWord formula for personal success. 

Vision is not just about our eyes. In this episode, John fleshes out the power in our minds to see a goal so clearly that we set out to do the WORK necessary to make that vision a reality. The key is "THE WORK" of putting that mental vision into practice.

We'll talk today about Visionary Mindset as a choice. There's nothing random abour it. Consider your vision of what could be based on a belief that you can create the best outcomes. TWO CHOICES: Either you see and expect the best or you see and wait for the worst. 

Before we move forward with the personal best practice of visionary mindsets, I wanted to revisit the concepts of a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. They are not mutually exclusive, nor is one better than the other. Balance is the way to allow for solid core values while engaging in a learning attitude that grows every aspect of our lives. I hope you'll join me in a little mental prep as w...

We've been talking in previous episodes about Lifelong Learning. Today we examine the  learning laboratory that is life. The lessons we learn from our choices can be painful or transformative. Remember the definition of insanity?  If we don't learn and experience change, we will be doomed to make the same mistakes repeatedly. Learning is the most valuable gift this life can give us, if w...

So much is said about our mental, cognative, and physical health as it relates to lifestyle, diet, exercise, etc, etc ... so-forth-and-so-on. You get it, I am sure. There is a passion that I have that any of you can have, and we don't realize just how theraputic it can be. LEARNING simply for the Love of Learning. Let's start a conversation of the incredible healing power of LEARNING.

In my twilight years, especially after my amazing wife passed away in 2019, I have come to love the experience of learning. It's not just a handful of specialties, but so much of everything. It's 2025, I am 75 years old, and learning is giving me new-found life and meaningful purpose. To love learning is to choose learning and committ to it. Today is the first of a handful of podcasts fo...

It was totally unplanned that the center letter of our PowerWord would be the letter "O". When Donna and I chose RESOLVE as that PowerWord, we had not yet started our "drill down" to find a personal best practice for each letter of RESOLVE. We decided on ORGANIZATION as the most desired behavior in our everyday lives. It never occurred to us that organization is the anchor or h...

Service is an important word. Service is many things. Service is needed more now than ever. The letter "S" in my power word, RESOLVE, is for service, but not just any kind of service. Are you willing to sacrifice self for service? 

For those of us who have been around for a while on this conversational podcast, we are familiar with the power of the word RESOLVE, and we are acquainted with the seven letters that spell RESOLVE. Those seven letters represent seven active, intentional, and daily personal behaviors. These BEST PRACTICES are transformative. We're going to do another examination of the first letter "E&quo...

Resilience can determine whether we get up and get going or whether we avoid any effort to move in a forward direction. Most of you know that my power word, RESOLVE, is about having a definite, firm plan of action. It's a choice. The letter "R" in RESOLVE is the behavior of a resilient mindset. There are only two choices. Either we get up and get going, or we stay down and avoid any...