make 2008 MY year of victory !

One of the hardest challenges for me is to realize that everything does not have to be one hundred percet for it to become a part of my victorious year.

Too many times, in every part of my life, I find myself seeking for something to become a defining part of my life. That’s impossible, and rubbish!

Life just isn’t like that, for anyone. After all that creating, even God in His infinite wisdom, took a break from creating things and rested. Not everything was done at once, there are still Hawaiian islands forming deep beneath the surface of the ocean. So why must I think that everything has to be everything, right now?

Life is a process. It takes time, changes need to be made along the journey. Some things need to settle and find their place.

Victory is a process.

I found Bananagrams at the Toy Fair in New York a few months ago and actually spent a little too much time playing the game there. A few weeks later I got my first shipment, and continued my addiction. Apparently people really like this game when they play it, because I have had to reorder (again) as sales in my eBay store are quite good, AND, after doing a quick review of the datebase I discovered that some of my customers have come back to order second game. WOO HOO!

Bananagrams is an anagram game in which players use letter tiles to spell intersecting word. Since the object of the game is to use all your tiles (as opposed to get high letter scores) children and adults can play together.

Confession : It was the packaging that first caught my eye on this product, and man oh man, am I glad it did.

Shamelss promotion : Bananagrams are in my eBay store at TuesdaysAndThursdays

There is a brilliant article in today’s New York Times regarding the business strategy of Southwest airlines.

In a nutshell, the plan is to take full advantage of circumstances that may lead to growth – whether they are the result of the eliminations of redundancies from the Delta/Northwest merger or the financial difficulties of Frontier airlines.

In addition to have a fantastic cash position to finance growth, the airline is also holding onto some aircraft that it was considering retiring. Using an older, less fuel efficient aircraft on a new route is still cheaper than buying a new one for that route.

An interesting paragraph in the article mentions some of the routes that Southwest abandoned because they were underperforming. The airline does not consider those moves failures.

Sometimes the most inspiring people in our lives are not people at all, but companies. There are some great personal lessons that I need to learn from Southwest.

One of my major suppliers will not be selling Christmas items anymore – yes – those cool Where The Wild Things Are, Grinch, Curious George, and Olivia The Pig Christmas Cards that a few people on 43T bought from me last year will not be available this year …

BUT ….

they just made me an offer to purchase a nice chunk of their remaining stock now as long as it ships asap. Well I did it, I looked at what I did last year, and ordered the merchandise.

So why is this a Victory since I haven’t sold any of it yet? Because the Victory lies in the confidence to dive in and commit to something that won’t pay off for quite a long time.

(( and come Christmas season, perhaps I will proclaim a victory once again! ))

something really good happened business-wise and, as has been the case too many times, I underestimated what was going to happen and whoosh, I have a good problem

so you all will have to wait for my shameless plug about Magnetic Poetry when I get more in … I bet the anticipation is killing you !

Where is it written that our lives are not full and complete unless we are attached to someone else ?

I have a very strange feeling that once people become really comfortable with themselves, enough that they don’t even think about wanting to fill some space in their life with another person, is when that other person comes along not to fill a space in your life, but to share the life you already have.

Too many of us look to others around us to fix us, to fill needs, to patch those rough spots, but the truth of the matter is that we are the only ones who can do that for ourselves. Sure, people can cheer us on when challenged, but our happiness is determined by ourselves, not those around us.

Only when we are whole, can we truly give of ourselves to others.

I received a request from NowPublic to use some of my photos from Super Tuesday for their coverage of the election in the United States!

NowPublic is a participatory news network which mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world. In twelve short months, the company has become one of the fastest growing news organizations with thousands of reporters in over 140 countries. During Hurricane Katrina, NowPublic had more reporters in the affected area than most news organizations have on their entire staff.

I have been overwhelmed by the number of cheers and comments I received for an entry in which I wrote about Robert Kennedy’s quote Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly

I included the entry both on 43T on the new and fulfilling goal and on my blog – and wow – I am overwhelmed by the response I have received.

Makes me feel just a little victorious, okay, alot.

I think Yolanda Adams may have given me my theme song for this goal – The Victory

... we gotta get ready to make 2008 even better than 2007

so the planning is going on !