DustinGTaylor.com

I don’t know how many times I’ve said this on this blog, but I’m getting ready to start this up again and be consistent all the way through now.

I recently read Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It! and (a book review will be coming soon) and absolutely loved it.  If you are wondering how to get started blogging and living your passion in a way so that you can connect to those around you, this is a must read.  He starts out the book with three (3) easy rules to follow.  These are the three rules I would like to follow from here on out.

1. Love your family.
2. Work superhard.
3. Live your passion.

I expect them to come through in that order as well!

Here are a few things that I expect to do on my new blog: interviews with other entrepreneurs, others who are doing what they love, book reviews (personal goal is to read at least one non-fiction book a month), and begin to create a community where those who are looking to find what they love can find inspiration and motivation to continue down the path they’ve started on.  I also hope to share my experiences, successes, failures and struggles going down the same path as you.

I hope you’re following me on this journey.  I hope to talk about businesses that I’m involved in.  The good and the bad.  The struggles and triumphs.  Interview those who I see as already living their passions and how they got there.  I’m VERY excited about the new direction this is going.  I think I’m finally choosing to do what I want to do instead of what I thought I should do with this blog.

What’s holding you back from starting your dreams?

WELCOME TO THE NEW DUSTINGTAYLOR.COM – New re-design, new blog, new future.

I recently heard an interesting quote…so simple, yet struck a chord near to my heart.  It went something like this:

“Whether you realize it or not, you’re self-employed.”

Isn’t it true?  Aren’t we all self-employed?  Aren’t we all interested in ourselves?  We may think that our employer will actually look out for us when the hard times come.  They probably won’t.  In the roller-coaster like economy of today, you don’t know where you will be in a year, in a month, or even in a day.  So why put your entire life in the hands of others, continuously believing that somebody else will do what you can’t seem to do for yourself?

Why not jump ship from those around you telling you that you can’t do any better.  That you must wait until the economy gets better because “it’s just hard right now,” and “when the economy returns back to normal, I’ll be ok?”  Why not choose for yourself TODAY that you will stop waiting to be acted on, and act for yourself?

That’s the question I keep asking myself.  We are all self-employed, whether we realize it or not.  We are self-employed in developing the skills, talents, relationships, connections, and rights that will put us in a position to succeed no matter what happens around us.  Most people would call this freedom.  A freedom for which they deeply yearn.  At the same time, a freedom they think is impossible to achieve.

This is a freedom, like any other thing of worth in this life, that takes work to obtain.  This is a freedom that requires effort, stability of mind, and a determination from the heart, coupled with a motivation with roots that go beyond the surface.  This is a freedom that for some could be a free weekend every seven days.  For others, it could mean being wealthy enough to travel.  Still, for others, it could mean being able to just get rid of the stresses of trying to please someone else every day of their lives for something of little worth in the long-run: money.  The opposite of freedom is fear!

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”  – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

This is a freedom that must be renewed every single day.  Don’t let another day pass you by without finding what makes you free.  Finding what sets you apart from everybody else.  Finding what makes you happy.  That, in turn, will make those around you increase their freedom.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

What are you afraid of?  You truly are self-employed in your own future.  Step up to the plate today!

Cool little story…take a look and let me know what you think in your comments!

Life isn’t about keeping score.  It’s not about how many people call you and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all.  It isn’t about who you’ve kissed, what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you.  It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school.  In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you or not.  Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are.  Life just isn’t about that.

BUT life is about who you love and who you hurt.  It’s about how you feel about yourself.  It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion.  It’s about sticking up for your friends and replacing inner hate with love.  Life is about avoiding jealousy, overcoming ignorance, and building confidence.  It’s about what you say and what you mean.  It’s about seeing people for who they are and not for what they have.  Most of all, it is about choosing to use your life to touch someone else’s in a way that could never been achieved otherwise.  These choices are what life is about!!

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just
because they haven’t thought about it, don’t have it
on their schedule, didn’t know it was coming or are too
rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the
Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night
in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be
a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their
husband didn’t suggest going out to dinner until after
something had been thawed? Does the word
‘refrigeration’ mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in
silence while you watched ‘Jeopardy’ on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said,
‘How about going to lunch in a half hour? She would gas
up and stammer, ‘I can’t. I have clothes on the
line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had
a late breakfast, It looks like rain.’ And my personal
favorite: ‘It’s Monday.’ She died a few years
ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to
schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises
we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get
Steve toilet-trained. We’ll entertain when we replace
the living-room carpet… We’ll go on a second honeymoon
when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days
get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets
longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for
our lives is a litany of ‘I’m going to,’ ‘I
plan on,’ and ‘Someday, when things are settled down
a bit.’

W hen anyone calls my ’seize the moment’ friend,
she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps
an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is
contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and
you’re ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller
blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord..

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice
cream. It’s just that I might as well apply it directly
to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive e
process The other day, I stopped the car and bought a
triple-Decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home,
I would have died happy.

Now….go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT
to……not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were
going to die soon and had only one phone call you could
make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are
you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or
listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a
butter fly’s erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the
fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When
you ask ‘ How are you?’ Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next
hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your
child, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ And in your
haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good
friendship die? Just call to say ‘Hi?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an
unopened gift……Thrown away….. Life is not a race Take
it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

‘Life may not be the party we hoped for… but while we
are here we might as well dance!

I’m a little behind on this considering my birthday was last month (January 14th), but I wanted to just have some fun with a little list of 23 things that I’ve learned and grown to love in my 23 years.  As you’ll be able to tell, I’ve still got lots to learn!  Considering my love for quotes in general, I have attached a quote that I’ve happened upon recently to each item.  Here we go…

• Love life and life will love you back – AKA – what goes around, comes around.  –

“Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.” – Arthur Rubinstein

• If there are two ways to take something that a peer says or does, always choose the best one. –

“Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it.” – Anonymous

• Do what you really love, not what you’re supposed to love.  –

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  -e.e. cummings, 1955

• Dream.  Don’t let others limitations reflect where your dreams start and stop. –

“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers.  But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, 1996

• Dreaming and wishful thinking is only the beginning, action is where dreams become reality. –

“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” – Henry Ford

• The day is simply better when you take time to put the Lord first.  Reading the scriptures and praying in the morning starts the day off right. –

“At … moments of crisis and challenge, some choose to abandon faith just at the time when it most needs to be embraced.  Prayer is ignored at the very hour when it needs to be intensified.  Virtue is carelessly tossed aside when it needs to be cherished.  God is forsaken in the all-too-human yet mistaken fear that He has forsaken us.” – David S. Baxter, “Faith, Service, Constancy,” October General Conference 2006

• School and work should teach you to think, not tell you what to think.  Be careful which you choose. –

“An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history. He is one who can accomplish things. A man who cannot think is not an educated man, however many college degrees he may have acquired. Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do, which is probably the reason we have so few thinkers.” – Henry Ford

• Exercise, but do it in a way you love. –

“An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes.  An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school.” – David Walters

• Stressing over inevitable things will NOT make them go away.  Simply take them as they come, one-by-one. –

“The field of consciousness is tiny.  It accepts only one problem at a time.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• First impressions are important. –

“Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few know what you are.” – Machiavelli, The Prince

• Faith is a principle of action – nothing gets done, no matter how much you believe it, until you punch your time card and put in the work necessary. –

“Action alone is not faith in the Savior, but acting in accordance with correct principles is a central component of faith. Thus, ‘faith without works is dead’ (James 2:20).” – David A Bednar, “Ask in Faith”

• It’s easier to think, focus, and feel the Spirit when your home, car, clothes, etc. are clean. –

“Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.” – Christopher Morley

• Always serve for no other reason than because you love and want to help others. –

“You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” – John Wooden

• Plan. –

“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” – Tom Landry

• When all of your plans fall through, laugh. –

“Laughter gives us distance.  It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.” – Bob Newhart

• Money is a means to an end.  There’s a difference in having money and counting your money.  Money is the means, NOT the point. –

“Men for the sake of getting a living, forget to live.” – Margaret Fuller

• Know your priorities, set specific goals to help with your highest priorities.  Achieving those goals bring joy and a sense of success no matter the size of the goal. –

“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.” – Greg Anderson

• Always do what you say, when you say you will do it.  No exceptions. (See next point) –

“Promise only what you can deliver.  Then deliver more than you promise.” – Anonymous

• Legitimate excuses are few and far between.  Just do your best. –

“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  And this is all life really means.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

• Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart and your best self. –

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

• (Almost) Every bad thing starts with an attitude of laziness or desire to get something for nothing. –

“In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.” – Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

• Say it how it is in the most loving, honest way possible. –

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain

• If you don’t love life, you’re doing something wrong. –

“Life is good, if we live in such a way to make it so. [...] A ‘good life’ comes as a result of the way we do things, of the words we choose to say, and even of the kind of thoughts we choose to have. [...] ‘Wanting to’ is the determining factor which leads us to lay hold upon the word of God and be happy.  Perseverance in making correct decisions is what leads us to happiness.” – Benjamin de la Hoyas, “True Happiness: A Conscious Decision,” October 2005 General Conference, Saturday Afternoon Session