Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise continuation of good today!

Last week, Congressman, Freedom Rider and tireless advocate for others, John Lewis was laid to rest. Raised on a plantation, he, his parents and sibling lived long days, picking other people’s cotton.

At a young age, John, who didn’t take to farming, would hide under the front porch and beeline for the school bus when it made its stop. His mom, Willie Mae, supporting his intellectual curiosity told him, Once you get something in your head no one can take it away from you. So, learn he did.

Before passing, he wrote an article that was published the day of his funeral, entitled Together You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation. In it he wrote:

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21^st century, let them say it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression over war.

Calling us to action in his eulogy, former President Barack Obama spoke:

Our country is a constant work in progress, to create a more perfect union . . . take up the unfinished work of the past.

Justice, inclusion, equity . . . It’s now our turn.

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise re-thinking today!

I don’t know who wrote this or I would give credit for words well written about a thought worth thinking:

Nothing should go back to normal.  Normal wasn’t working.

If we go back to the way things were, we will have lost the lesson.

May we rise up and do better

Collectively rise up . . . It’s time.

 

                                                                   

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

 Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise re-thinking today!

Arundhati Roy writes:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.

We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or, we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And, ready to fight for it.

It’s time.

                                                                   

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise beauty-seeking today!

I wince as I read some of young Anne Frank’s words:

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Words written by a teenage girl who kept a diary while she and seven others hid from Nazis in confined spaces for 2 years before being discovered and sent to concentration camps. Yet today, some complain about physical distancing and wearing a mask to protect others – shame on us.

And, in the midst of anguish, fear and real danger, she wrote:

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

While remaining intentional to contribute what I can to address the current realities of a pandemic, bias, discrimination, and injustice . . .  I breathe in that advice.

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

 Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise perspective today!

July third, with great anticipation, we streamed the stage play Hamilton. Days later songs still hang in my head.

George Washington, who is portrayed as an older, more experienced statesman and soldier offers Hamilton morsels of perspective throughout the play. To an eager Alexander Hamilton, anxious to lead troops into battle and freedom, Washington reminds:

Dying is easy, young man. Living is hard.

Experiencing 2020 many can appreciate that notion.

Addressing Hamilton’s excitement following the Battle of Yorktown that translated into independence from British rule, Washington responds:

Winning is easy.  Governing is hard.

Experiencing 2020 many can appreciate that notion as well.

                                                                  

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise history-making today!

In high school in the 1960s, I had a role in the musical South Pacific. I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair and Happy Talk still echo in my head every now and then. However, recently, the words to another song have been resonating in my soul:

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

 You’ve got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You’ve got to be taught

From year to year,

It’s got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

 

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

 

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You’ve got to be carefully taught!

What we call history – the agreed upon story of those in power – is being displayed in our collective mirror. Our chronicled past has left out major events, contributions, pain, anguish and suffering of those not in power. Let the reflections remind us of our selectively documented past and the power of the history we are creating today. Future generations are observing, experiencing, and learning from our words, intentions, and actions.

Let’s not waste this healing moment.

 

 

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

 Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise living today!

In a couple days we’ll celebrate the end of another glorious journey around the sun and the beginning of the next for my husband, Curt.

Milestones, like birthdays, are landmarks that demarcate meaningful intersections in time. A birthday delineates our past and present self, pondering the future that’s within our reach. Being present to such benchmarks offers us the opportunity to reflect upon the life we’ve experienced, to recalibrate, and to continue on the path of writing the story we desire. On our journey, several have reminded us that:

There are 2 significant days in a person’s life: The day we are born and the day we discover why.

Is the world that immediately surrounds you truly a better place because you were born? Are others’ lives enriched because they have you in theirs?  Do you make enough of a positive impact with the people surrounding you that they want to celebrate the fact that you’ve been on the earth for another year? For you, Curt, the answer to all of the above is a resounding “absolutely!”

Happy, Happy Birthday to a man who intentionally continues to be kind, compassionate, decent, supportive, respectful, and noble.  A significant influence. A rare example of how a principled, honorable gentleman behaves.

                                                                 

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise cultural change today!

Since my semi-retirement, the majority of my work has been assisting organizations and municipalities to build and sustain high functioning teams though intentionally created, productive cultures. Alexander Den Heijer expresses it well:

When the flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it glows, not the flower.

Parents, as in every other culture, know this to be true. As leaders are we intentionally creating an environment within which our children feel supported, honored and inspired to learn and grow?

In your workplace are people respected, valued, supported and heard? Do all understand and live the established and agreed upon behavioral norms expected by all? Or, are they guarded, constantly comparing, competing, and criticizing? Is there consistent tension, power struggles and/or an inability or unwillingness for people to work together productively? Are people able to take the required risks to produce results?  Look inside.  That’s where the answers typically breathe.

Collectively, justice within the American environment is being called into question. After centuries of inequity and injustice, citizens are pleading for a deep look into our collective mirror, with brutal honesty, and a just beginning to the process of integral change. That process that will take relearning, listening for understanding, an awareness of socialized unconscious bias, and plenty of compassion. If we meet this moment with an empathic heart and an open, respectful mind there’s a chance we’ll live with the results of increased integrity, humanity, justice, and unity.

If not now, when?  If not you, who?

                                                                 

 Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise connections today!

Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.                                                                                                               ~ Dr. Maya Angelou

What trigger hate varies for individuals; however, there are some common causes of pent-up, repressed, contained anger, such as feeling unheard or unappreciated, lack of acceptance of a situation, or unmet needs. Often, without realizing it, some also experience anger when they’re hurt.

Today, while walls/barriers are being built between anger on opposite “sides” of so many issues. It seems, to survive, we need to become competent at building bridges/connections. We can each become conduits for humane change. Listen for understanding rather than response, listen with compassion rather than justification and ammunition, learn about our own socialized biases and ignorance, look deeply into our own mirrors with brutal honestly, acknowledge the pain and anguish of others, act with an intolerance for injustice, and stand up for justice . . . just the beginning of a list of things we can do.

There is a way up toward the better world we have seen in our dreams, but these stairs won’t build themselves.     ~ Wisdom from StoryPeople

                                                                   

 

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise change today!

Although it was not ratified until August of 1920, one hundred years ago, June 4, 1919, Congress passed the 19^th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. As much as celebrating would be wonderful, the fact that our nation is experiencing protests to continued injustice disturbs our minds and devastates hearts.

In the midst of chaos earlier this week, I listened to Bishop Michael Curry attempting to calm and comfort:

According to Hebrew scripture, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is selfishness.

Justice requires a step out of our own convenient world with a sincere desire to understand the world of the oppressed. The cry for systemic change is soulfully deafening and needs to be addressed as rapidly as possible. However, hearts and minds cannot be legislated. If both do not change, legislation will be mute.

Last night, in a conversation about the frustration of being beyond angry, but to no end, our first born asked the question, “How do you want to show up in the world?” Today is a day to make a significant decision. My prayer is for a choice of compassion, a desire for equity, and a search for effective action toward justice.

 

                                                                   

 

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

 

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com