Bits of Wisdom with Terry Weaver

“Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books - especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.” The man who left us this tightly wrapped gift of advice is John Wooden. He’s one of the most revered coaches in all of sports history and still the mo...

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.” Henry David Thoreau Do you know what you want and are you moving toward it? This is the question of conscious endeavor. Put another way, a conscious endeavor is simply a decision followed by action. This may sound like an oversimplification, but it’s not. Many successful individua...

“A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.” Gustave Flaubert For every artist, there are a thousand critics lining up to cast judgment, and for every warrior, there are ten thousand commentators. Since Da Vinci and the gladiators, it has always been this way. Why? Because it’s easy to be an onlooker, an armchair criti...

“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.” Glenn Clark Imagine how free we would be if we laid down envy, jealousy, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fear. Each of these is a self-imposed affliction that wounds us and those we come in contact with. When we carry them around, we poison ourselves, becoming a little s...

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw Have you ever felt stuck? Have you ever looked at your situation and wondered why your job, relationship, or finances aren’t progressing? Doing the same things usually bears the same results. A farmer who plants corn can expect the same crop, year after year, until there’s a...

“Superheroes and saints never make art. Only imperfect beings can make art because art begins in what is broken.” Kevin Kelly Have you noticed that when you share about something that’s broken in your life, it removes barriers and helps others relate to you? What a liberating idea that our brokenness can be used to create something beautiful. Every life, and every story, at least the good ones, ha...

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.” Eleanor Roosevelt How many times have you stopped yourself from doing something because you were afraid of what someone might think? No matter what we do, say, or think, there will always be critics. Why? Because it’s easier to be a critic than to be a person of action...

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.” Ernest Hemingway The most unique, creative, divine act one can perform is to become superior to the person she was yesterday. This in itself is an act of creation and beauty. Your essence, your very nature, was beautifully designed to be you and you alone. We often go wrong by l...

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” Earl Nightingale There is something inside of you that’s knocking, calling, asking to be revealed to the world. It’s a dream that’s been in your heart for quite some time. How did it get there? Where did it come from? Who knows and none of that really matters. All that matters is you know...

“The frontier of actual meeting between what we call a self and what we call the world is the only place, actually, where things are real.” David Whyte  All of our experiences and genetics and training and desires explode onto the frontier of today, the present, the only reality there is. The words from poet David Whyte remind us that the now, an ongoing meeting between the self and the world, is...

“Our existence is a constant flow of the impossible, the implausible, the coincidental. And what we see on television and in films must always be diluted to make it believable. We are trained to live in constant denial of the miraculous. And it’s only by telling our stories that we get any sense of how extraordinary human existence actually can be.” Chuck Palahniuk All great fictional tales have a...

“One today is worth two tomorrows; what I am to be, I am now becoming.” Benjamin Franklin Most of us have dreams of becoming more, ideas of a better life. We can see a brighter future in our mind’s eye. This could be more money, sending kids to college, buying a plot of premium land, or just having more freedom. To attain any goal, we must trade something in. The longer we put that ‘something’ off...

“The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears.” David Whyte Here’s a definition of vitality: vitality is the peculiarity distinguishing the living from the nonliving. According to the poet David Whyte, the price we must pay for being fully alive is the sum of all our fears. As we get older, we collect fears. Most are irrational—a narrative we’ve seen or heard that has nothing to do with u...

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible. Then they seem improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” Christopher Reeve Have you ever said, ‘Oh I could never do that.’ It’s a very common phrase in the human vernacular. We say it, hear it, we feel it. When we see someone doing a thing that seems impossible, we assume they’ve got a knack for it, or some special...

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” Anna Quindlen I was astonished to discover a quick Google search using the question ‘who am I’ yielded more than twenty-four billion results in less than a half a second. Why does Google conjure up that many results for that specific query? Because there are a lot of peop...

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” Albert Schweitzer Since first discovering this quote, it has stayed vivid in my mind. I can picture it, like a graveyard of dead dreams that have been laid away in the hearts of people who once aspired to make them a reality. I imagine laying our dreams down hurts us in some way psychically but also emotionally because when we experie...

“All of us are born unique, but most of us die copies.” Anonymous Imagine this picture in your mind with me for a moment. A vast sea of black umbrellas extended covering the surface of a courtyard. All of the umbrellas are extended with the same shape, size, and color. Just to the right of center is one yellow umbrella amongst the sea of black. Maybe you’ve seen this picture before, but either way...

“For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.” Robert McKee This arrangement of thoughts and words speaks deeply to me. It’s so importan...

“Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Jeff Bezos Phrased another way that’s equally true is: The quality of our thoughts will determine the quality of our lives . If we find our lives in a state we’re not happy with, the first place we need to take inventory is in our mind. We should take a good hard look at our thoughts. How do you think? What self-talk is going on in your head? What me...

“I will prepare and someday my chance will come.” Abraham Lincoln This is a wonderful idea and its importance is paramount for those of us who desire to be more. Abraham Lincoln constantly prepared his character and mind for an opportunity that might come. He was a soldier with no military, an athlete without a league, a student who sought out new teachers. It behooves the future leader to follow...

Read the transcript here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit terryweaver.substack.com/subscribe

Read the transcript here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit terryweaver.substack.com/subscribe

Read the transcript here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit terryweaver.substack.com/subscribe

Read the transcript here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit terryweaver.substack.com/subscribe