Leave things better than you found them
A couple of things took place recently that after reflecting on them, I came to the same conclusion. And that conclusion is this….I do my best to live by the matra of “Leave things better than I found them” in all areas of my life. It came from one of my good friends, Scott, who is an outdoorsman and has taken me on Fly Fishing trips….and it’s always stuck with me.
So during a recent Leadership from the Heart training I was facilitating, we were discussing the challenges of being around negative and pessimistic people and how to “handle” those situations. We talked about making the tough choices for yourself and family and to choose to spend your time and energy elsewhere and not waste it on things or people that do not deserve your time and energy – it’s way too valuable. A follow up to this would be to embrace this mantra for yourself….in all areas of your life – relationships, finances, work, friends, environment, etc. Every situation, every choice, every move you make is simply to leave things better than when you found them – don’t make them worse.
At times in our life we will face tough challenges, yet if you stick to the mantra and do your very best in that situation to move things forward you will find yourself feeling much better long-term on that situation. In the short-term it may not feel great or there may be some pain, yet I encourage you to “trust the process” and stay focused on leaving it better….that’s all you can control.
Emma, my 6 year old daughter, and I have this thing for picking up garbage….as she says, “We do this Daddy to make the World a cleaner, better place.” And we do. Every chance we get we’ll go out of our way to clean up things left behind by others…..it’s our way of living the mantra….and as we apply that mantra to every other area of our lives we’ll do our part in helping the World become better socially, physically, mentally, politically, environmentally, etc.
Test it out my friends…..leave things better than you found them today and see what happens.
In Your Service
Brandon Johnson
“Positive Energy Guy”
