Sitting to the left of my computer screen is a book entitled “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino. It was given to me as a graduation gift from Dr. Rob Tate, a professor at Florida Southern College where I earned my undergraduate degree. In the front of the book, Rob wrote the following:

Tim,

Please accept this book as a token of my appreciation for the friendship you have shown me. Thanks for providing a listening ear, a strong shoulder and an occasionally needed kick in the seat.  Maybe someday I can repay the favor.

He did…many times.

After I graduated college, I started working with IBM in a marketing branch office. It wasn’t a good job fit and over time I became less and less motivated about my career there. One day, after being put on a 60 day performance improvement plan, I picked up the book Rob had given me. I devoured it and read it exactly as Og suggested (reading the scrolls three times per day). I am convinced that the book not only helped me turn around a very difficult work situation, it also helped inspire me to start my career as a professional speaker.

Though I never actually had Rob as a professor, his simple gift had a profound affect on me and my life. Rob was a great and well liked teacher and influenced many young people including me. As you think about gifts this holiday season, think about giving something that will have impact and lasting influence and take time to thank people for both the tangible and intangible gifts you have been given.

Having just celebrated a birthday, I have been thinking about milestones. Though it wasn’t a milestone birthday, for some reason this birthday got me thinking - thinking about getting older, thinking about the past, and just generally contemplating the stage of life I am in.  It seems the mirror isn’t as kind as it used to be. I see things in the mirror that I didn’t see in recent years. Until recently, I thought of myself as “young and hip” (though I am quite sure that the true young and hip wouldn’t think of me as either young or hip!).  In the weeks leading up to my birthday, I began to wonder about milestones and thinking a little about the aging process than I usually do.

To celebrate my birthday (and to prove my youth and hip-ness), I went camping and mountain biking with my son. After a few rainy days, I was excited to get on the trails when the sun broke through late Friday afternoon. In my haste to get biking, we took off on the longest trail possible. For some reason, I had thought the ride we were taking was the shortest and I had told my son that.  At every half mile, there was a mile marker indicating the distance we had ridden. After a few rigorous uphill sections, he began asking me to let him know when we got to a mile marker. The further we rode, the more frequently he asked about the mile markers. Finally, I told him that he would enjoy the ride so much more if he worried less about the mile markers. I think that is true about life too.  I think I’ll stop thinking about milestones and start enjoying the journey more.

I am not sure where I would be today if it weren’t for mothers. There are many women who played a role and are playing a role in my life. I’m so grateful for them all:

For my Mother -  who gave birth to me, raised me, taught me right from wrong, showed me God’s love, who helped me launch my career when, in 8th grade, I had to memorize a speech for which I was petrified (little did she know then that she also helped plant the seed for my career  as a professional speaker). I’ll forever be indebted to you, mom. 

For my grandmothers for whom I still think of fondly. They were as different as night and day and I so appreciated the contrast. My mothers mother was quiet but caring. She made blackberry cobbler every time I came to visit and she turned down the sheets on my bed - sheets that were crisp from drying in the sun. Love was the common ingredient in every meal she cooked. She was dependable, steady, predictable, cautious and despite what I thought when I was a young child, she was not only the meanest grandmother ever but the kindest. 

My fathers mother was rambunctious and outspoken. I can still hear her voice as she read to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. As an adult, I still loved to hear her to read. She loved to entertain with dialects and accents as she read classic old books and tales. She also loved to tell stories of her childhood. There was always something interesting to do at her house and she made sure to be in the thick of it. She modeling giving unlike anyone I have ever known and gave freely and regularly to many causes in her life. It was ingrained into her character and her generosity is still evident several years after her death.  

My best friends mother who took me under her wing for a year of my life when my parents moved before my senior year in high school. She made me eat vegees that I now love, laughed at my jokes, nursed me when I was sick and put up with my many teen allergies. She treated me like I was her own and asked questions when I didn’t want to give answers. 

My mother-in-law who raised my wife to be the loving and caring person she is and who loves me unconditionally despite my many faults. She never forgets a birthday or special occasion and makes me feel almost as comfortable in her home as I am in my own.

My wife who is my best friend, my confidant, my idea sounding board, and an incredible mother of our five children. She is witty, loving, caring, and is modeling so many positive character to young minds who watch her daily. She has a long memory of the good things I do and is quick to forget when I mess up. I hope my son is as fortunate as I when he finds his life long mate someday.

Thank-you mom. Thank you mothers. I love you all. Happy Mother’s Day!

Inspirational speaker Tim Richardson speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, healthcare, and financial services. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

Twitter with Tim or get LinkedIn

With the inaguaration of Barack Obama today, history was made. While I haven’t been glued to a TV today and pretty much had a business as usual approach to my day, I have still been impacted by the fact that there’s new leadership, new excitement, and new hope for millions of people all over the globe. I can’t remember an election in my lifetime that has produced as much attention as this one and perhaps one with the biggest potential for change (some good and some not so good). There was quite a bit of conversation from my speaker colleagues today on President Obama and his speech (which isn’t a surprise since we call ourselves professional speakers). It’s likely that there are many organizations that will change leaders this year. While the reach isn’t as great, there will also be opportunities to others to make history too.  What kind of history are you committing to making? What changes are you inspiring in organizations for which you belong? What kind of hope are you rekindling in your family, your career, your business or your life.?  Perhaps it’s time to challenge yourself. Challenge the way you do business. Challenge traditions in organizations for which you serve. Mix it up, mess it up, and most importantly make history.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, healthcare, and financial services. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

Most every year in this decade, I begin each year with a theme. I like to use that theme to guide the entire year rather than make a list of impossible resolutions that sometimes actually backfire (too many resolutions, too unrealistic, and TOO varied). After much contemplation, I have decided that my theme for my 2009 is LEARN. I have been causally twirling it around in my head since the last few weeks and more intently this weekend. Using the word LEARN as an acrostic, I’d like to invite you to resolve to learn along with me this year: 1) Love - Be more loving with family, friends and in your faith life. Exploring the depths of each of these relationships areas more fully will be the highest form of learning. Love life, love living, love fully. 2) Experience - This year, create new experiences that stretch your thinking, expand your horizons and cause you to look at the world with new lens. Attend more lectures, listen to pod casts that are intellectually stimulating, and do things that create lasting memories and impressions. 3) Alter - Doing things differently will help shape a new perspective. Read magazine and journal articles that you have never read. Follow a popular blog for a few weeks that has diametrical views to your own. Read a book or listen to music or go a performance that is completely outside your interest. 4) Renew - Commit to a hobby, interest, or activity that you once found enjoyable and learn something new about it. Take piano lessons, write poetry, learn to snowboard, visit a long lost friend. Start writing letters to elderly relatives. Ask them questions about life, happiness, faith, family, the future, their past, their heros… 5) Navigate - Commit to using one new technology productively this year that will help you in your business or personal life. Start a blog. Upload videos to Youtube. Take a computer class. I invite you to make 2009 a year to really learn. If you commit to learn more in 2009, as I hope to, do it with vigor. John Wesley, the founder of the United Methodist Church was a noted speaker in his day. He would amass large audiences of people because of the enthusiasm in his preaching. He once said, “I go out and set my self on fire and people come out to watch me burn.” Burn, baby, burn… and it will be a year worth watching. Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, healthcare, and financial services. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

Last week, one of my National Speakers Association colleagues, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones passed away. Charlie wasn’t a close friend but yet I was impacted by his life. I rememeber the first time I met Charlie at an NSA meeting. He was over the top excited and gave me a giant hug. I remember thinking, “What is this guy on!”. It turns out he was on “life” and that’s the way he treated everyone. Charlie paved the way for so many speakers as he was a pioneer in the speaking profession and he was so RICH. He gave away thousands of books as he believed in the power they had to change lives. As recently as a few weeks before his death, he was still impacting other people. Take a moment to view this interview with a legend in motivational speaking, Charles “Tremendous” Jones.

Note: This was recorded less than two weeks before his death.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

As a young boy, I remember my grandmother always had a “Christmas in July” Bazaar. She would take a few small tables and place them outside the Hazelwood Pharmacy near her Waynesville, NC home or set up at a church rummage sale or potluck dinner where she would proudly display her “treasures”. They were simple things made from discarded items she had collected, things donated, or items she had “rescued” from the side of the road. She always seemed to be one step ahead of the garbage truck. As one of eleven children and a depression survivor, thriftiness and resourcefulness defined my grandmother. With her creativity, an empty spool became a Christmas decoration, milk caps were transformed into pieces on a checkerboard, and an empty dish soap container became a doll.

My grandmother weighed about 100 pounds and stood about 4′10″ tall, but she was as feisty as she was frugal. She would take an empty Tupperware to covered dish dinners to bring home “leftovers”. My grandpa would always tell her, “You are the only person that takes home more food from a church dinner than you bring”. Then he would add, “but I still love you” and he’d kiss her on the cheek. I can’t remember a time when after the blessing at a meal that he would not lean over and kiss her before they ate. He loved her, idiosyncrasies and all.

While Grandma was a little different and marched to the beat of a different drummer, she made her mark in the world. She’d write the President if she didn’t like something he was doing. She was proud of the many presidents who wrote her over the years. She gave away a lot of money and sponsored many families to the United States by paying for college, graduate school and even medical school and a PhD for some. She made thousands of school bags for an organization called Church World Service for children in developing countries. Grandma and her sewing group would work each week to fill semi-truck trailers which would ship their contributions all over the world. As recently as a few weeks before her death in 2003, my grandmother, though not speaking, was doing things for others. As I reflect back on it, she as much as any other single person, she may be responsible for my speaking focus “Living Rich: How to Get Rich by Giving”.

This month commemorates the 5^th anniversary of my grandmother’s death. Every day was like Christmas to grandma as she was always thinking of others and worked year round on gifts for those in need. A few years ago, I decided that Christmas time should be about spending time with family and focusing on doing things for others NOT burning the midnight oil just to mail out cards. Don’t get me wrong, I still like getting cards at Christmas, I have just decided for the short term, I am not going to send them (at least not in December) as I have done in the past.

So in memory of my grandmother and her annual summer Christmas celebration, I am offering my Christmas greeting (or Holiday if you’d like) early. Merry Christmas!

I knew I would post about today being 08-08-08. A few years ago, my birthday fell on 06-06-06. While I don’t buy into numerology (it was a normal birthday without incident), I think it’s kind of cool, perhaps more than coincidental that today is considered a lucky day for the Chinese. According to a post I read this morning from my professional speaker friend Terry Brock, the Chinese consider the number 8 to be a number associated with prosperity and abundance. Of course today also marks the beginning of the Olympic Games. As you’ll read in Terry’s post, it’s also his fathers 80th birthday. Terry wrote a thoughtful post on his father who has Alzheimer’s. 

Earlier this week at my National Speakers Association convention, I heard author and Fast Company columnist Marshall Goldsmith speak. Interestingly much of his presentation was geared toward quality relationships. He told a touching story of how one of his children called him a promise he had made but didn’t keep. He challenged us all to reach out to those who make the biggest difference in our lives and ask the questions, “What can I do to be a better father, son, brother, friend, etc?”  In honor of my friend Terry, I am going to reach out today and do just that. I’d like to invite you to do the same. If we listen and act on the answer we are given, it could lead to gold medals that matter and more prosperity and abundance than you or I deserve.

**************************************************************************************************************

Book recommendation of the week: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshal Goldsmith.