Posts Tagged relationships
Words From Afar Are Not Enough
Posted by David Gittlin in Essays, inspiration, issues, life, Making Changes, motivation, positive thinking, profiles, Success on November 13, 2019
Why One-On-One “You Specific” Mentoring Is Essential for Your Fulfillment and Success
I enjoy reading words of inspiration as much as you probably do. I believe in the power of positive thinking. I love practicing the art of creative visualization as much as the next guy or gal. It’s all wonderful and good, but it takes more than arms-length words and solitary mental constructs to effect positive change and consistent success in any endeavor. I’m a golf enthusiast, so I’ll use an example from the ranks of professional golf to make a few points.
Jason Day, a professional golfer from Australia, walked a crooked path to success. Jason, unlike his super-successful contemporary, Jordan Spieth, did not have a strong connection with his parents while growing up. He had a troubled youth before meeting Colin Swatton at Kooralbyn, a golf-centric boarding school in southeast Queensland. Jason’s mother had to borrow money to send her son to Kooralbyn in a desperate attempt to do something about his delinquent behavior after his father died of stomach cancer when Jason was 12.
Colin Swatton was a golf instructor at Kooralbyn when he first met the head-strong, rebellious Day. Swatton’s non-confrontational style won Jason over. When Swatton moved on to teach at Hills International College, Day followed him. From there, Swatton became Day’s golf coach, mentor, close friend, and full-time professional caddie. In Jason Day, Swatton saw a diamond in the rough. He gave his protégé the advice and encouragement needed to overcome the inner demons and soaring outer obstacles blocking Day’s path. Swatton filled in the holes in Jason’s psyche and the gaps in his emotional development. Jason Day possessed rare talent, but, by his own admission, he never would have become the man he is today without a whisperer like Colin Swatton in his life. Despite the challenge of a bulging disc in his lower back, Jason is now one of the top-ranked golfers in the world. He is a devoted father and husband, and he has earned the admiration and affection of his peers.
Enough of the super heroes of the world. Let’s talk about you and me. After I’ve read a self-help book, the inspiration and advice usually fade within forty-eight hours. Formulaic self-help exercises quickly become dry practices that yield little or lasting benefits. I picked up a self-help book by a famous author recently. Two things became immediately clear: (1) the author had a lot of nice things to say, and (2) his precepts were so far over my head that I couldn’t practice them if I tried for a million years.
So, what does it take to move forward, achieve, and grow?
To amplify what I said earlier, it takes a special personal relationship. It is a relationship that always accepts and honors who you are and where you are. It can be a parental, mentoring, teaching, romantic, or friend-to-friend relationship. In the case of the first three, the relationship begins with the child or student receiving more at first. I’ve learned that, over time, the best of these relationships blossom into mutuality where both parties reap significant rewards. There’s an energy and information exchange in these relationships; call it love, call it caring and concern, call it chemistry. Whatever it is, it’s a radiant, magic elixir. It produces extraordinary human beings, some famous and others who live and work quietly outside of the limelight.
David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels. Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.
The Importance of Self-Confidence
Posted by David Gittlin in Essays, inspiration, life, motivation, musings, Success on December 20, 2018
Where does self-confidence come from? Where does it go when we need it most?
How does an energetic child with a mountainous capacity for curiosity grow into a narrow-minded, emotionally constricted adult full of hopelessness and suffering?
The answer is simple. We lose the key to the door that opens to a satisfying existence; belief in ourselves and the faith that every day can be sculpted into a masterpiece of joy.
Self-confidence is an elusive commodity that fluctuates with life’s events including, but not limited to; our mood, brain chemistry, the weather, acceptance or rejection. It is a fragile, unpredictable elixir; here today, gone tomorrow. Yet for a fortunate few, it is a constant, a second nature, a faithful servant and friend.
With self-confidence, we can create the next, great wonder of the world. Without it, we walk bent over through life, a mere shadow on the wall, a faint reflection of our glorious and noble human potential.
If your self-confidence is at a low ebb, you can take the first step towards a more joyful and productive life by LOVING YOURSELF. Forgive yourself for past transgressions, whether real or imagined. Start each day with a clean slate. The past is dead. The future is a possibility based on how you think and what you chose to do in this very moment.
Think with hope in your heart. Hopeful thoughts are positive, creative, loving thoughts. Hopeful thoughts will fill you with possibilities. They will fill you with confidence in yourself because they come from your true self, the real you.
There are always two roads stretching before us. One road leads to freedom and joy. The other one leads to misery and limitation. Take the time, right now, to cast away doubt and fear. Listen to your inner voice, the one that wants to set you free.
Self-confidence comes from being the person you truly are; your best self. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Let the flame of love grow in your heart. Seek the sources that support and nurture your truest and best self. Self-confidence will bloom automatically, along with passion and a free enjoyment of life.
Quality of Connectivity
Posted by David Gittlin in Essays, humor, inspiration, issues, life, musings, reflections on August 14, 2012
I don’t understand the popularity of Words with Friends. I’m at a loss to explain the obsessive compulsive urge to connect on Facebook. I am computer literate, yet I feel no desire to own an I Phone. In fact, I am constantly amazed that people wander around all day staring into their smart phones, as if these devices somehow magically fulfill all of their needs except possibly eating and reproducing.
Before we continue, let me assure you of a few things, gentle reader. I am fairly certain that I am not an alien. I do not live in an ashram. I have not recently arrived here from the year 1910 by means of a time machine. I live a conventional life blessed with wonderful people around me including an extraordinary wife and daughter. I even like my mother-in-law, which may be the one thing about me that is weird.
Like most people, I want to connect. As far as I can tell, I seem to be content with fewer connections than the average person makes. I am fond of solitude, yet I am not an island. I admire people who connect extensively with others while managing to live constructive lives centered on a positive purpose.
I suspect, however, a great deal of “over-connecting” is going on these days in a frantic effort to fill a space in the makeup of a human being that was designed to be filled from within.
Studies have shown that the generations born after the Internet boom have difficulty concentrating on a single task for extended time-periods. For example, today’s student typically has trouble writing papers and reading course materials with a high degree of comprehension. The studies attribute the difficulty young people have concentrating to the habit of constant multi-tasking encouraged by the endless flow of entertainment and information available on the Internet and social media interaction.
Where does all of this “outer-connecting” and constant external focus leave us? Unfortunately, it seems to me, a little empty inside.
That’s why I’m so glad to have the option of going within to experience a feeling of fulfillment and contentment. Prem Rawat often talks about “feeling complete.” Thanks to the method of going within that I’ve learned from him, I’m able to balance my active outer life with a serene, fulfilling inner life. This balance has helped me to be a happier, more productive, and positive person. You might say what I do on the outside has garnered more meaning and is more effective because of the richness I have found within.
I am more focused in my daily life. No Zen Master has to stand over me with a stick to keep my mind from wandering. The concentration is spontaneous and natural courtesy of the river of contentment I have discovered inside.
“We are biased towards happiness,” Prem Rawat says.The big question for most people is where to find it. Prem Rawat says “look within.” He offers to help people connect with an experience of joy and satisfaction that dwells inside the heart of every human being.I have been connecting with that experience for almost thirty years. I can testify that the quality of that connection leads to an exquisite experience that surpasses anything coming from the outside—a bold statement, yet surprisingly true.
Zen master photo by loathing 69
Morton and the Horses
I remember the day my father asked me to become a partner in the stable. He was sitting behind his desk in the temporary office space we rented then, dressed in a camel colored sport coat and checkered cotton sport shirt. He looked straight at me with his bright, keen eyes and proceeded to make an offer that took me back to my secret weekend excursions in high school with my best friend, Danny. We were seventeen, a year too young to pass through the gates of any gambling establishment. That didn’t stop us. Danny and I were tall enough to look the part. On Saturdays, we drove to the “flats” at Monmouth Park on the Jersey shore and the “trotters” at Roosevelt Field in Long Island at night. We would bet two dollars a race and have the time of our lives.
My father, B. Morton Gittlin, was an unpredictable genius. At sixty-one, after selling a wallpaper manufacturing and distribution business he had built from a small company into a national market leader, he began purchasing thoroughbred horses. Completely in character, he shocked me with his offer to become a partner in a racing partnership he intended to name “Three G Stable,” assuming I agreed to become the third “G.”
I never suspected my father had an interest in thoroughbred racing. We used to play a lot of golf together on the weekends when I was growing up. I cannot fathom how or when he found the time to sneak away to the track with my mother. He certainly would never have gone to the racetrack during the week. He was too disciplined and focused on building businesses into powerhouse companies to fritter away time during working hours. I imagine he didn’t share his secret passion for the horses with me when I was a minor because it involved gambling.
My own secret interest in the horses took a long break after high school. Danny, my dear friend and co-conspirator, attended a different college than I and we grew apart. I was eager to move on with my life and put childish interests behind me. Thirty years flew by filled with adult activities—marriage, a family, and a career in marketing next to my father in the family business.
I accepted Morton’s offer to join Three G Stable as a full partner. It was an entity created out of my father’s love for us as well as his love for the sport of kings. The stable gave us something to keep us together and have fun with after we sold the wallpaper business.
There is nothing more exciting than seeing a horse you own pounding down the stretch in the lead. My parents and I were fortunate to experience the exhilarating feeling of victory often in the twenty years the Three G Stable was in operation. We owned and enjoyed a number of remarkable, stakes-winning horses. One of them reminded me of my father. His name was “Storm Predictions.”
We acquired Storm Predictions by claiming him out of a race as a two-year old. Many of the more experienced owners and trainers at Calder Race Course laughed behind my father’s back for claiming Storm Predictions. Although the young horse was winning races, it was common knowledge he had some problems. The breeder couldn’t sell “Stormy” at the two-year-old-in training auctions because he had what the veterinarians called “sawdust,” or bone particles in one knee. This is an ominous condition for most horses, indicating a tendency towards bone and joint injuries. My father didn’t care. He saw in Storm Predictions the rare courage and talent of a potential champion. The other owners and trainers saw a horse with a limited future.
As a three-year old, Storm Predictions won the Palm Beach Stakes on the grass at Gulfstream Park competing against the best horses on the East Coast. Then, our gutsy gelding won the Inaugural Stakes and the Tampa Bay Derby, a race for three-year olds on the Kentucky Derby trail. Ridden by an unheralded journeyman jockey, Storm Predictions won with a flourish of speed at the top of the stretch, upsetting the heavy favorite in the race.
As a four-year old, “Stormy” won the Americana Handicap on the turf at Calder, as well as a number of “overnight” stakes and allowance races. The gelding banked close to $400,000 in purse money during his racing career. The horse cracked bones in his shins and suffered from joint aches and muscle pains of all sorts. Nothing stopped him. We just gave him long rests when necessary. Storm Predictions always came back running hard and winning. We gave Storm Predictions away to a caring farm owner when his racing days were over. The gelding lived a long and useful life after his years at the track as a pleasure riding horse.
My father, like Storm Predictions, was no stranger to adversity. After clearing the inevitable hurdles of a successful business career, he endured many physical setbacks in retirement, including a hip replacement, throat cancer, and emphysema. Nothing stopped him. He just kept enthusiastically pursuing his interests and enjoying life to the fullest, until the effects of exposure to asbestos as a boy caught up with him at age eighty-three. Even then, he didn’t want to give up. On the last day of his life, lying in a hospital bed, his body whittled down to skin and bone by Mesothelioma, my father threw off his covers and announced he intended to walk to the bathroom unattended. We practically had to hold Morton down to spare him further pain and embarrassment.
I still dream of my father and the horses. We call him “Morton” now, instead of Dad, or Pop, or my husband, or my father-in-law. We call him by name because he was such a unique individual. Anyone who knew my father well knows what I’m talking about. Morton has been gone five years now, and I miss him terribly. We sold all of our horses and disbanded the stable shortly before my father’s death. The world of thoroughbred racing, like my father, has moved on. Hialeah Park, once a haven for fabulous Flamingos and the finest thoroughbred racing in the East during the winter, is now a relic that hosts a brief quarter horse meeting. Gulfstream Park, another south Florida track, was razed and rebuilt into an enormous shopping center and gambling parlor. Gone are the fan friendly grounds where patrons spent the day with family members in a country fair atmosphere.
I remember taking my five-year old daughter to the petting zoo and putting her on the backs of Shetland ponies for rides at the old park. The spacious, open-air grandstands and box seats where fans used to bet, eat, drink, and watch the races all day long, are now an unfriendly complex of cramped, concrete buildings.
Thankfully, I still have my memories. I remember Morton and the horses. I remember the chain of love known as Three G Stable that linked me together with my parents, wife, and young daughter, in those glorious, fun-filled days gone by.