People will race to beat the red light with every ounce of strength they can muster. They will do so with little regard for the safety of others. It’s almost as though the instant they shut themselves off in their car or minivan, everyone else outside of that little met

If today is the last day on Earth, what would you do? Apply this train of thought to your day-to-day activities and see what happens. As I’ve drilled into your head by now, you are the only you that will ever exist. There may be people with your same name, there may be people who could be your twin, but your capabilities, interests, and choices will always set you apart from anyone and everyone else. That makes you unique.

Fortune is defined by a culmination of wealth and resources or simply luck influenced by external sources. Well, it doesn’t take fortune to make a fortune. It takes hard work, so when I tell you to make your own fortune, I’m telling you to make your own luck--that’s what will bring you success.

Life beats you down, you need to dust yourself off, shine your shoes, and get back out there. You take enough punishment from others and life itself, so even if you distance yourself from your naysayers, you can never outrun yourself. Take a moment each morning to look in the mirror and realize that you make a difference.

It’s important to give yourself the same respect you need to be giving others. It’s also crucial that you remember that while you’re not perfect, your value comes in the fact that you will be the only you to ever exist. That alone makes you unique, filled with unlimited potential. Respect your boundaries, respect your goals, and respect your integrity.

Suffice it to say, to be a man is almost to endure a shame so great that it eclipses any feeling of achievement or accomplishment. The merit of the self is lost in a sea of collected ire towards a faceless patriarchy. With the blame allotted, there’s no need to take personal responsibility when you can blame the nearest man for your latest misfortune.

As you get older, you start being able to look back through time. Back in Texas, I had the chance to pass by our old house and places we remember very well. It’s amazing how much water has gone under the bridge.

Without making decisions and choices that actively support our pursuits and help further our achievements, we face the treadmill effect--where we can make efforts, but ultimately we get nowhere as we set ourselves back.

You, like most people, probably plan out your day, your week, looking as far as five to ten years ahead. As much as you may invest in those plans, what are the chances they’ll come to fruition? Remember, you are one phone call away from being on your knees. Tragedy can strike in an instant, rendering everything you have in life meaningless.

Each witness has a different story; a different perspective. Some will say it was the truck’s fault, some will say that it was the car’s fault, and you may have one or two who give you a completely different story. You’ll find that most things in life fall somewhere in the middle.

We are all subject to the same seeds of worry that take root deep in our minds and hearts. At some point in our lives we have all had the pleasurable task of feeling the weight and discomfort of worry pushing down on us at our most vulnerable moments. We can best understand worry as a feeling of apprehension that arrests the entire conscious mind in waves of concern over anything and everything that can go wrong.

The barest definition of insanity is the doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. God has had to beat it into me that no matter how many times I try to do something my way, it’ll amount to nothing be it the first or the eighth time if it’s not something that lines up with His plan.