InspirEmail

InspirEmail No 255 - April 15th, 2013 - Just keep on knocking
'Inspirational messages to refresh the spirit and boost the emotional bank account'

Just keep on knocking

In the summer of my junior year in college I took a job as a door-to-door salesman for the Fuller Brush Company. My mother had just lost a long battle with cancer, and I wanted to earn enough money to have a photo of her turned into a painted portrait to give to my dad.

What I earned depended entirely on what I sold; there were no guarantees. Things went well at first, but then I hit a long bad streak. Hardly anyone was home and those who were just weren't buying. What's worse, some people were outright rude and literally slammed their doors in my face.

I was on the verge of quitting, but something my father used to tell me over and over stopped me . . . 'Where there's a will, there's a way; where there's not, there's an alibi.' I had always resented this simplistic mantra, but suddenly I got it.

I realized that every meaningful opportunity in life would stay behind closed doors that would never open unless I knocked on them. Beneath this simple insight was another: If I couldn't muster the confidence and courage to knock on more doors despite the certainty of frustrating and unpleasant experiences, I would never make it.

I earned enough to buy the portrait, and it now hangs next to another one of my dad in the lobby of the Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonprofit organization I founded in their honour.

I'm so glad my dad taught me to persist and grateful I learned that an important part of character is to just keep on knocking.

Written by Michael Josephson


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What Am I

I am seldom considered, though I do more to influence everything about you than virtually any one thing in your life. I often control the time you get up in the morning, the time you go to sleep, what you eat and drink and the very thought that runs through your head. I can make you either happy or sad, loving or hateful, cheerful or remorseful, congenial or spiteful and in doing so, control the very capacity that you have for success.

No, you don't often think of me instead you blame the problem I create on the shortcoming of others, or the state of the economy, or your family or a million other reasons.  Often at times unable to find anyone else to balme you look for shortcomings within yourself on which to lay the blame.

When my impact on your life fully is considered in your every thought and action, when you are mindful of my awesome power, when you nurture and groom me for positive use in your life, I can become more contagious than the most prolific disease ever witnessed by man.  My influence will spread to every person you come in contact with.

Groomed and nurtured in a positive manner there will be no person or obstacle that can stand in the way of my success or fail to be impacted for the better.

'I Am Your Attitude'

Author Unknown

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The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender
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InspirEmail

A monthly positive inspirational story and quote to refresh your spirit and boost the emotional bank account. InspirEmail was first published in November 2005 and each issue can be viewed in the Archived InspirEmail Directory located below the latest issue of InspirEmail


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