Make the Most of What You Have

Recently, I attended a book signing event at Indigo Books and Music where Walter Isaacson talked about his biography of Steve Jobs. Indigo’s CEO Heather Reisman did an excellent job interviewing Isaacson, and the audience got some deep insights into why Jobs was the way he was.

Isaacson remarked that kindness was not among Jobs’ top 100 traits – words he used to describe him include: Petulant, artistic, emotional, genius, mean, dual-personality, intuitive, control freak, liked to have his own way, had the ability to engender loyalty. If someone were eulogizing you, what would your top 100 traits be?

I’ve been thinking that I’m not always as grateful as I could be because there are times when I take things for granted. I also asked myself if I make the most of what I already have. Each of us is unique in our own way. We have talents that others don’t have, but are we using them well? Are we using them to serve others? When someone offers us their talents, are we gracious in accepting them, or are we dismissive? I am writing this post for you and for me.

Since attending the Isaacson event, I have been thinking how I can be of better service, and be gracious (gracious is one word that Isaacson used to describe Bill Gates) in the process. On The Invisible Mentor blog, I have added a page called The Mentors. On that page, I have placed all the Interviews and Profiles in Wisdom in one place where they can be easily accessed. The intent of The Invisible Mentor blog is to provide mentoring in a non-traditional way. I feature interviews I personally conducted, and profiles of wise people who have died, and that’s my unique way of connecting modern and ancient wisdom.

If there are blogs and other websites that you frequent and print their content, to strip away all that extraneous stuff so you don’t waste paper, download the Readability tool bar extension and click on it before you print. You’ll also notice that if you go directly to The Invisible Mentor blog, you’ll find a Print Friendly button at the end of each post. After you have used Readability to strip away whatever I have in the two outside columns you can print a clean copy of any post. In the mean time, I’ll research to see if there is a way to do that in one step.

Are you making the most of what you have, and how are you using it to serve the world?

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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