New Website!

Hey everyone,

I'm really excited to announce that Ro's Words of Encouragement has moved to a new website, rowaldron.com. 

We're going to keep this Blogger site up for the near future, but all our new posts will appear only at rowaldron.com.

Check it out!


-Ro

Weekend Words: Living Life on the Contingency Plan

       Why is it that often times in our lives we find ourselves living with our happiness and well-being contingent upon accomplishing certain milestones? 

"Yes, when we reach the station, that will be it!" we promise ourselves. "When we're   eighteen. . . win that promotion. . . put the last kid through college. . . buy that 450SL   Mercedes-Benz. . . have a nest egg for retirement!"

    From that day on we will all live happily ever after.

       We live life like we’re on a treadmill, forever chasing that elusive next goal that will bring us happiness. 

       One thing I can tell you for sure is that if you make your happiness contingent on a specific event or achievement, you will find it very difficult to achieve true happiness. The goals you work toward may make you happy for awhile, but what happens when the glow of achieving them fades? There will always be another goal to chase, which means that eventually, you will fall short. As I learned the hard way while coaching and playing college football, there is always going to be someone better than you, no matter how good you may be. 

       The same is true if we make our happiness contingent on another person. We will always be let down, eventually. Even if that person is wonderful, how many people can really live up to being the primary source of another’s happiness?     

   

       Truthfully, we are the ones who determine our own happiness. We cannot always change our circumstances, or make events happen the way we want them to. But we can always change our attitudes. We can choose to have a positive or negative attitude towards our lives. The choice is a powerful one, but it is ultimately up to each of us individually to make it. 

       I’ve been trying to live this way lately, and I have been amazed at the results. Sometimes I just make a conscious choice to have a positive attitude about my life. There’s no specific reason for the attitude adjustment; I just do it. Interestingly enough, the more positive my outlook, the happier and more productive I become in my everyday life. And with a positive attitude, I have found that more people want to be around me and work with me. People are drawn to positive attitudes.

       When I consciously alter my attitude, I don’t change my current circumstances. The things I struggle with are still there; the things I worry about still concern me. But a positive attitude helps me deal with all of those things in a much healthier way. 

       The best way I’ve found to achieve happiness is to live in the moment and stop living life on the contingency plan. Don’t waste a second – life is too short. Choose to be happy now.

Sooner or later, however, we must realize there is no station in this life, no one earthly place to arrive at once and for all. The journey is the joy. The station is an illusion--it constantly outdistances us. Yesterday's a memory, tomorrow's a dream. Yesterday belongs to a history, tomorrow belongs to God. Yesterday's a fading sunset, tomorrow's a faint sunrise. Only today is there light enough to love and live.

-excerpted from “The Station” by Robert Hastings

Have a great weekend,

Ro

Weekend Words - It Don't Cost Nuthin' to Be Nice

       The story for this week’s Words was sent to me by Ron Mentzer, the CFO at NEA’s Member Benefits Corp. In it, Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant outlines a very important life lesson that is applicable to both business and personal situations. 

       I had the honor to be recruited by Coach Bryant when I was preparing to play college football. He is a legendary football coach, and when he retired he held the record for the most wins in college football history. When I visited Alabama during my recruiting trip, the best-selling sports poster from the university was a poster of Bear Bryant looking like he was “walking on water”. To say he was highly regarded would be a huge understatement. 

       The following story shows that, in spite of all the fame and attention he received, he still learned and lived an important lesson: it doesn’t cost anything to be nice. 

       At a Touchdown Club meeting many years ago, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant told the following story:    

       I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player, and I was having trouble finding the place.

      Getting hungry, I spied an old cinderblock building with a small sign out front that simply said "Restaurant." I pull up, go in, and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I'm the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good, so I skipped a table and go up to a concrete bar and sit.

 

       A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, "What do you need?" I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today.

       He says, "You probably won't like it here. Today we're having chitlins, collard greens and black-eyed peas with cornbread. I'll bet you don't even know what chitlins are, do you?"(They’re small hogs’ intestines prepared as food in the deep South).

       I looked him square in the eye and said, "I'm from Arkansas, and I've probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I'm in the right place."  They all smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate.

       When he comes back he says, "You ain't from around here”, and then I explain I'm the new football coach up in Tuscaloosa at the University and I'm here to find whatever that boy's name was, and he says, "Yeah I've heard of him, he's supposed to be pretty good." And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach.

       As I'm paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too big to be flashy, but a good one. He told me lunch was on him, but I told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay. The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show I'd been there.

       I was so new that I didn't have any yet. It really wasn't that big a thing back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his  name and address on it and told him I'd get him one. I met the kid I was looking for later that afternoon and I don't remember his name, but do remember I didn't think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.

       When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took that napkin from my shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn't forget it. Back then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me.  The next day we found a picture and I wrote on it, "Thanks for the best lunch I've ever had."

       Now let's go a whole buncha years down the road. Now we have black players at Alabama and I'm back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed. Y'all remember, (and I  forget the name, but it's not important to the story), well anyway,  he's got two friends going to Auburn and he tells me he's got his heart set on Auburn too, so I leave empty handed and go on to see some  others while I'm down there.

       Two days later, I'm in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and  it's this kid who just turned me down, and he says, "Coach, do you  still want me at Alabama?” And I said, "Yes I sure do." And he says OK,  he'll come, and I ask, "Well son, what changed your mind?" He said, "When my  grandpa found out that I had a chance to play for you and said no, he  pitched a fit and told me I wasn't going nowhere but Alabama, and  wasn't playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since y'all met."

       Well, I didn't know his granddad from Adam's housecat so I asked him who his granddaddy was and he said, "You probably don't remember him, but you ate in his restaurant your first year at Alabama and you sent him a picture that he's had hung in that place ever since. That picture's his pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him..."

      "My grandpa said that when you left there, he never expected you to remember him or to send him that picture, but you kept your word to him and to Grandpa, that's everything. He said you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you, so I guess I'm going to".

       I was floored. But I learned that the lessons my mama taught me were always right. It don't cost nuthin' to be nice. It don't cost nuthin' to do the right thing most of the time, and it costs a lot to lose your good name by breaking your word to someone.

       When I went back to sign that boy, I looked up his Grandpa and he's still running that place, but it looks a lot better now. And he didn't have chitlins that day, but he had some ribs that would make Dreamland proud. I made sure I posed for a lot of pictures; and don't think I didn't leave some new ones for him, too, along with a signed football.

       I made it clear to all my assistants to keep this story and these lessons in mind when they're out on the road. If you remember anything else from me, remember this. It really doesn't cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be unimaginable.

Have a great weekend, 

Ro

Special thanks again to Ron Mentzer for sharing this story with me.

The Butler Way - Part 2

      Since I'm posting this on Monday at 6 PM, we don't yet know which team is this year's NCAA Men's Basketball National Champion. But we do know that, once again, Butler has defied the odds and made it all the way to the final game. Will it be another heartbreaking, 2-point loss for the Bulldogs, or will they win it all this year? Tune in tonight to find out.

      In the meantime, though, check out this article by Liz Clarke from Sunday's Washington Post. My Weekend Words from last Friday referenced the "Butler Way". Now that Butler is in the NCAA finals for the second consecutive year, the Post has published another article outlining what the Butler Way is and what it means to the players. Here's an excerpt:

HOUSTON — The Connecticut Huskies will take the court at Reliant Stadium for Monday’s NCAA championship game with a Hall of Fame coach in Jim Calhoun, a surefire first-round NBA draft pick in Kemba Walker and two national titles.

    The Butler Bulldogs, champion of underdogs everywhere, will counter with something more abstract: a defining principle.

    It’s called “the Butler Way,” and it has served as the mission statement for the basketball team that has been the pride of the small university in Indianapolis for decades — informing the type of players Butler recruits, the way the Bulldogs practice and interact on and off the court and, ultimately, the way they play the game.

    Monday, that guiding principle may prove as valuable against the favored Huskies as any single player on Butler’s roster.

-Ro