I just received an e mail from a dear personal friend that “hits the mail on the head” so well that I simply must share with all of you. I am here at my home sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop armed and ready to record any good and valuable thoughts that may pop into my mind. I am just enjoying the wonderful life God has given me. It is starting to snow. Big white multi-faceted snowflakes are drifting quietly down from the sky. Life is good and God is great!

While counting the many blessings that God has permitted me to have and enjoy, my thoughts drifted slowly back over the almost four decades of my business career focusing on the really great and important contacts, events, people, and conversations I have had the privilege to be blessed by as I daily close in on yet another birthday and decade date change. I think back to when I was under ten years old and can remember listening to my parents and their friends talk about the good old days and how certain events or activities that effected their lives had happened over forty years ago or over fifty years ago…..Those huge numbers of years seemed, at least to me, to be almost unimaginable. To a ten year old,…who lives beyond 30 or 35? “Almost fifty years ago,” seemed like an eternity when I was ten.

Time always has and always will march on. Years roll by and fade away only to be replaced 365 days later with an entirely new year. In the span of time that takes no longer than the second it takes to snap one’s fingers, or clap one’s hands together, 365 full 24 hour days have passed by us on their way into eternity. The value of those accumulated years-gone-by grows and gets bigger with each new passing year. Even though the memory of my youthful pre-teen days and years is available to me through my thoughts and mind,…I can never physically go back there at least while I am on this side of heaven.

What are the real “Markers” in the course of your own life that stand out as real turning points. What are the “monuments” or “magic moments” that stand out in your own thoughts as things, events, or people who directly impacted you and played a major role in the changing of your life and its course?

I have many of such “monument” experiences in my life, and I suspect you do too. One such “marker” in my life happened over thirty years ago on the island of Maui, Hawaii. I had a “happen-stance” unplanned conversation with Reverend and author Robert H. Schuller of the Chrystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. We sat on the beach alone while we were taking a break and some personal prayer time from a business meeting we had both attended earlier that morning. For almost a full hour we chatted and shared one with another,…me as a student, and Dr. Schuller as a mentor. The real life marker or monument that came out of this conversation was the reply he gave me to my question. I asked him, was there one single common character trait that all of the greatest and most successful people that he had known or worked with possessed or had in common? His response was immediate. He said, “Of course there is,…the one shared personal trait of all the greatest successful people I have ever known or worked with is that they all possess and live their lives with complete and total “Emotional Stability.” Patience and calmness are the foundational building blocks of emotional stability, announced Dr. Schuller. At that time I thought “oh my” I am very short of that commodity in my own life. How about you?

Dr. Schuller went on to say that controlling one’s emotions on a daily basis allows two very important things to happen in a person’s life: (1) It prevents one from emotionally losing control and saying or doing something that will negatively impact another person and/or the relationship you may have with them,…or (2) It empowers one who stays in control of their emotions thereby enabling them to be more effective in dealing with other people or events. Either way, emotional stability always empowers those people who possess it and employ it.

Dr. Schuller went on to say that, loving and forgiving other people for their transgressions against us,…accepting and giving God’s grace to the people with whom you are living or dealing,…and reading Holy Scripture on a daily basis are the best and most effective ways to acquire and maintain emotional stability within your own life.

This was information that resonated with me and provided the catalyst causing me to immediately begin to make some serious changes in my life. As I made these changes it was absolutely amazing at how much better the things in my life began to get. Since that time on that Hawaiian beach, everything has changed in my life…regardless of whether it was good or bad, it was all for the overall betterment of my life…it was all for the reason and purpose that God wanted me to experience,…not for me to try to be in control of all events and circumstances that were going on in my life.

Emotional Stability is the very basis of achieving and allowing peace of mind and long-term happiness to occur in your life.

I received an E mail today from my dear and special friend of 53 years that included a short story of truth penned by an Unknown Author. It provides a life lesson from which I personally believe all of us can benefit.

A story please………………..

The Fence

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the wooden fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily, gradually dwindled down. He began to discover that it was easier to hold his temper than it was to drive those nails into the fence .

Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.” You can thrust a knife into a man and then draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.

Make sure you control your temper the next time you are tempted to say something you will regret later.

And so Dr. Robert H. Schuller was right as usual. Emotional self control produces Emotional Stability which is indeed the common personal character trait of all highly successful people.

Peace And Love to All of You………………….Poppa Bear