What’s Your Personal Motto?

A few months ago I wrote about my wife, Hillory, and her work she’s doing to lift and build others. I loved her newsletter this week, so I asked if she would let me share it with you. It was such a great reminder of the simple choices we can make each day to live the kind of life we desire. I hope you enjoy her thoughts and check out her website!

Nate

I spent this past weekend on the charming Island of Catalina off the coast of California. Walking around the tiny town of Avalon was so refreshingly restorative, but one of my favorite parts of that trip was my visit to the town’s museum🤓.

I learned that the island had been bought and sold a handful of times by ambitious men wanting to turn the island into a resort destination.The first few buyers didn’t have any success with the pursuit, but in 1919, William Wrigley, Jr. purchased the island and succeeded where others had failed.

It really piqued my curiosity as to why some people succeed with the same idea where others have tried and failed.

Now, his success with Catalina Island could be because of the extensive botanical gardens his wife planted or the amazing public casino he built boasting the world’s largest round ballroom. It might have been influenced by the birds he imported from all over the world to showcase on the island or the public utilities he had installed.

He made the island available and appealing to everyone, wealthy or poor.

And while I’m certain that all of these reasons helped sell the island’s desirability to the average American tourist, I think he was successful where others had failed in large part because of his motto:

“To be always pleasant, always patient, always on time, and never to argue.”

Pleasant. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as follows, “of a person or their manner, friendly and considerate; likable.”

Put simply: he was kind. 

Did you know that the first person to own the island was the wealthiest man in California at that time named James Lick.

What’s interesting to note is that James Lick was an equally ambitious, hard-working man, however, he was often described “in his later years [as being a person] of an irritable and thoroughly disagreeable temperament.”

James Lick spent his whole life alone and in pursuit of growing his fortune.

His last years were dedicated to thoughts of building a pyramid larger than the Pyramid of Giza to honor his own memory…

Do you see the difference?

Kindness is king.

Thinking of others, giving our best gifts to lift each other is what makes life meaningful and purposeful.

And it begs us to ask ourselves: how do we treat the people in our family? How do we talk to our spouse? What do we say, if anything, to the cashier at the grocery store? How would people in our community describe our demeanor?

Rabbi Harold Kushner beautifully said, “When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.”

What we want is to feel loved and accepted, and we feel those feelings most when we love and accept each other.

So?!! How can you love someone else better? What kind thing can you do for another today?

You and I were meant for more, and I can’t wait to see who we become.

XO,

Hill