Don’t Go Through Life With a Catcher’s Mitt in Both Hands

June 26, 2009

I’ve never failed to be touched by the many wise sayings sprinkled through the writings of the poet and writer Maya Angelou. The beauty of her words and lyrics always inspire.   I’ll begin with my favorite quote because it is a constant reminder of how important in life and business it is to extend a helping hand – to a friend, someone in need, a young person just beginning the journey of a career.

From Maya Angelou:
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
“I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way s/he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”
“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!”
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”

Words to live by.

Related posts:

1. What I Learned From My Husband About Having a Passion for Life
2. How I Overcame Writer’s Block

Comments

• Try Different — Seth Godin

  The usual mantra is to 'try harder'. Trying harder is impossible when you're already trying as hard as you can.

  But you can always try different.

  Years ago, I was creating trivia questions for a product we built for Prodigy. We had a 99% accuracy rate in doing the questions. Which was great, except there were 1800 questions in a batch, which meant 18 wrong each time, which was totally and completely unacceptable. These were honest mistakes, made by smart people working as hard as they could.

  No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't do better than 99%. So we switched our system completely and did it in a totally different way. Same number of people, same number of hours, 100% accuracy.

  If it's not working, harder might not be the answer.

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