What I Learned In A Sandbox of Angels: Fortune Cookies over the Main Course

You wake up, then choose not to. You hit the snooze button again, like the Pringles slogan goes you can't stop yourself from doing it just once, you mutter to yourself slow "I don't want to get up...". The brutal cold seeps thru the window sill much like heat resonates from a stove top burner leaving you to retreat back to your covers, back over your head they go. It's too cold out you tell yourself. And a long day. Here you are working 9-5 or doubles, graveyard shifts, school and raising a child maybe, all simultaneously. Life is hard. Much harder when you start out the first minutes of your day telling yourself you don't want to get up, it's cold and "it's gunna be a long day". Thats not the way the cookie crumbles.

Your mind is a powerful thing and a good portion of your days happiness, success and fortune is determined by what you believe and tell yourself. Nothing wrong with a morning like that, but do you then overcome your own objections by responding to them as opposed to reacting to your intial thoughts and letting them influence your behavior subconscious or not.  Start over. A little something like this..."I'm tired but I'll be good. It's cold out but I've seen colder. It will be a long day but I'm going to make today great. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder but I'll take attitude number two. What if you figuratively speaking read your fortune cookie before you consumed the day of experience that lied ahead of you which ill call the main course. You have the choice to even influence how that message reads based on what you tell yourself.  No ifs, ands, or doubts about it. Make the beginning of your day, what you often tell yourself you could or should have done at the end of it. Seizing moments often starts with awareness as much as effort. Often one moment has the potential to capture your imagination if you pay attention, make you think, look in the mirror, around you, scratch your head and say "Huh, that was interesting?!" Not really sure what to make of it at the time so you put it on the back burner. My moment similar to this happened over some Chinese. The thought just never left. I don't know what a true artist is, but imagine there genius blossoms thru moments like this. The unexpected that became a perspective.

It was a Sunday evening,  there I sat across from one of the most beautiful women I had ever met. She was tall, gorgeous and had a dynamic personality to match her stunning beauty. She turned heads left and right in the same capacity that a bobblehead does up and down. All my friends more or less considered her "out of my league" and I gave them more crazy looks then a a Kevin Hart standup when the conversation was approached. The most cliché statement I've ever heard of to this day. Should be on a list of things to never believe. As the story would go, I warmed up to this girl enough to be sitting there eating Chinese with her as well as her daughters. As the meal ended, I started to eat my fortune cookie and she says something along the lines of, since I was so positive I would appreciate this game they play called highlight & lowlight to end there day. Goal was to end your night on a positive. I played along but even as a positive person quite frankly I found myself more humored by it then anything, telling myself "that was silly". The next morning when I worked out, it stuck in my head tho. Just that moment.

Two months later I was honored enough to give an upbeat, hopefully motivational presentation to a room of Managers, Senior Store Managers, friends and people that helped make me who writes this. In my hand was a clicker for my power point and as I looked over my left shoulder there sat a box with 400 plus fortune cookies in it. 15-25 minutes later I don't really recall, the message was well received and it was based around the concept of making your life a fortune cookie figuratively speaking, where you fill it with the message you want to give off from the second you wake up. As I threw fortune cookies to people around the room I thought "how did that chinese meal turn into this?!" That's for someone far beyond by line of thinking to comprehend. But it gave me perspective. I gained something beyond what money can buy that night in hindsight. The fortune cookie is your mind and what you tell it and read into life. The main course is the constant. As my boss calls it, that's a circumstance. Your thoughts are not. The main course of life is your 9-5 job, doubles, graveyard shifts, work, school, raising a family and whatever your life entails. Your fortune cookie is not a circumstance, it is an attitude. A choice. What you believe. What you tell yourself. Anything that drives you. Symbols are only as strong as the message you tie to them. I tie my positivity to fortune cookies that I create the message in. There is no wrong form of good or striving to be a better you. That moment helped create perspective and opportunity for me.

Definitely takes an imagination and if you read the last post you know I'm channeling my inner 5 year old to create forward motion. That five year old I said was a fascinating thing, passion poured out of your soul with the unpredictability that only mother nature could emulate. Let that five year olds resiliency and passion also set the stage for the attitude your going to have today. Now is always the most important moment of your life. Tommorrow isn't promised as the saying goes so go own the only Monday, February 23rd, 2015 your ever going to have in your life.

Today is about you and what you choose to make it, I really believe that. It in itself doesn't always ensure success but it does ensure more opportunity. Don't let the circumstances of life discount the power of what today can be. We accept more then we change. Change how today reads, by what you tell yourself. Do circumstances often run your life? Time to play with the equalizer and balance that out with choosing to impose change into your circumstance.

When you wake up simply start by  planting as much positive ammunition into your life as possible. Today is yours, start telling yourself your own fortune not the main course dictating that to you. Your still on, don't go thru the motions. Go shine.

Years later this girl still has no idea the "fortune cookie" logic was born at her kitchen table over some Chinese and a game of highlight/lowlight that reinforces positive thinking and ive molded into mine over time. It took time to mold and take shape but here it is again a fortune cookie stuffed with a positive, go get it type of attitude.  She was there for the speech. She even heard parts of it as I asked her for opinions. This past week I saw her at random, oddly enough at the same time I started this blog of uncertainty, hope and telling myself "I can" do this and make an impact, if even to only one person or moment at a time then I stuffed a fortune cookie for the better.

She told me that day after not seeing me for probably at least a year or two that she credits me for teaching her to be so positive more then anyone else. I blushed, flattered and humbled by such a strong statement. As she talked about her new business and slogan she wanted I spoke of this "fortune cookie" logic and how it would apply to her business. She paused and said "wish I had thought of that". Truth is she did. I just squeezed this thought process out of that chinese dinner like orange juice coming from an orange. Never short circuit the power of a moment whether waking up in the morning or a something that captures your imagination and comes to life years later. Always be developing the message inside your fortune cookie.
Then when you achieve something, do something great, or are proud you can say "you did that". Because you chose to. You create more then you can ever imagine just by changing your perspective. Perception is reality,  what are you telling yourself today?
Be a message of good fortune.

God Bless & Stay Cool Good People :)
Joe