This One Thing. Create.

Make this world a better place. Make this industry a better place. Make your home a better place. You can do it. Starting with you.

A few years ago, I lived in downtown Chicago and joined Michigan Avenue Toastmasters. This was a diverse group of interesting people all dedicated to becoming better speakers and helping each other elevate their skills. I took the No. 3 Bus up to the Magnificent Mile and cut through Water Tower Place to the Hotel Seneca every Tuesday evening. It was exciting, inspiring and motivating.  When I moved to Grand Rapids, I joined a Tuesday night Toastmasters Club that met at the same time but in a retirement home and with a handful of people and very little of the energy or excitement to which I was accustomed. When I whined about this to one of my Chicago friends, he replied, “Well, it sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

What incredible advice! It echoed the sentiment of Mahatma Gandhi who said, “You must be the change that you want to see in the world.” We spend so much time fretting, worrying, complaining about things we don’t like. Instead, do the one or two small things that you can that will make a difference.

We have unlimited power to allow ourselves to create beauty, love and art in the way that we live. You can be that creative force by doing one thing—BE YOU NOW.

Your gift is to be yourself—fully, fantastically and consciously—in this moment. Of course, you must love yourself to share yourself.

You have everything that you need in this moment. So why should you worry? Worry is a fantasyland that you’ve made up and are suffering in even though it does not exist. If you believe that you know the future, life has not yet taught you just how quickly your life can change. You can believe in now. Indeed, it is the reality that there is and it is perfect.