I love what Mondays have to bring. It’s a new start to get things right.
Mondays are awesome
Archive of ‘Motivation Monday’ category
Motivation Monday: Just Start
Stuck on start? Get your engines going and just begin. Know this: It will be a beautiful journey because you are in the driver’s seat.
By Chanda Temple
I ran into a friend at a coffee shop this morning and she said something that got me to thinking.
She talked about life and then expressed how she really wanted to write. She said she liked to write poetry and maybe write even a book. I had no idea she loved to write, so her words intrigued me.
When I asked her why she had not started, she said, “It’s not that I’m scared. I’m just worried no one will like it.”
Motivation Monday: Bike to work and inspire others
Burgess “BJ” Jeffries. Photo by J.C. Bravo.
By Chanda Temple
Huffman High School math teacher Burgess “BJ” Jeffries is used to dealing in matters that add up.
So when he researched the benefits of how riding a bicycle to work would increase his fitness levels and decrease his carbon foot print, he knew there was only one thing to do. He bought a bicycle in February 2014 and started riding it to work in March 2014. He’s maintained the routine every week, when weather permits.
Does he have a car? Sure. But he says that riding his bicycle increased his energy levels and allows him to help the environment. His ride to work is 3.2 miles, one way, on Roebuck Parkway in eastern Birmingham. He hopes his efforts will encourage others to ride work.
Condoleezza Rice: Find something you are passionate about
Dr. Condoleeza Rice speaks to students in Birmingham, Ala. at Regions bank. Photo by Chanda Temple.
By Chanda Temple
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice always thought she’d be a concert pianist.
She could play the piano and read music before she could read. But by the end of her sophomore year in college, she attended a prestigious music festival and school where music prodigies at the age of 12 had put her piano playing skills to shame.
Hmm, she thought, maybe piano is not for me.
#MakeMovesInMay means cleaning out the clutter
On this Motivation Monday, take time to clear out the clutter. (Image via Flickr by Sean MacEntee.)
By Chanda Temple
In sticking with my challenge to #MakeMovesInMay toward better living, I finally tackled the stacks of papers piled up in my home office because clutter can stunt creativity.
Scribbled on notepads were quotes I’d collected from interviews, TV programs or social media. As I started to read them, I thought they’d be perfect to share today for Motivation Monday. May they help you on your journey of self improvement.
A comeback is not a go back
Once you make it, don’t try to go back and show others what you have done to prove you are worthy, says life coach Tim Storey on Oprah Winfrey’s “Super Soul Sunday.” Stay focused on the present and not the past.
Motivation Monday: Will you accept the 42 acts of kindness challenge?
Birmingham School Board member Sherman Collins Jr. challenges citizens to do 42 acts of kindness in memory of late wife
By Chanda Temple
“Clink! Clink! Clink” go the quarters as Sherman Collins Jr. drops them into an expired parking meter next to a stranger’s car.
“That should help somebody,” he says as he buys $2 worth of time and moves to the next meter in downtown Birmingham.
His actions today come with a special meaning. He’s doing them in honor of his late wife, Katrina Bethune Collins, who was always helping strangers in the smallest of ways.
“She wanted to bless people,” Collins says. “She’d buy people lunch. Feed expired meters. It didn’t have to be someone’s birthday. She would buy flowers and take them to (people’s) grandmothers.”
Birmingham School Board member Sherman Collins Jr. with his wife and their children. Photo credit: Special
Noah Galloway left me in tears on ‘Dancing with the Stars’
By Chanda Temple
Is there crying in ballroom dancing? There is if it involves Noah Galloway.
The veteran combat soldier and double amputee from Birmingham, Ala. had me in tears after I watched him dance his heart out on ABC’s 20th season opener of “Dancing with the Stars” tonight.
Motivation Monday: Picking up the pieces of the past
Randall Jimerson, far left with siblings Ann, center, baby Mark, Sue and Paul, rear, in early 1963. Photo credit: Special
By Chanda Temple
Imagine you’re the son of a white pastor who’s moved his family from Virginia to Alabama in 1961 to work in Birmingham’s civil rights movement.
You support your father’s cause and his push for equality. But some of those determined to keep things the way they’ve always been in segregated Birmingham, don’t like change. And they tell you so.
“As a young teenager, I’d answer the phone (at the house). …there would be either silence or heavy breathing or ‘Your daddy is gonna be six feet under,’ ” recalled Randall Jimerson.
Such words were hard for Jimerson to hear. But he knew his father, the Rev. Norman C. “Jim” Jimerson, was on the right course, a course to help others and to bring about change for the better in Birmingham.
Motivation Monday: University of Alabama graduate and designer Smith Sinrod talks fashion, rejection and Southern grits
Inspired by architecture and art deco, designer Smith Sinrod, 28, likes to work with Thai silk, vibrant colors and bold patterns to give a spin on classic looks. Photo by: Chanda Temple.
By Chanda Temple
When starting your own business, you can’t be afraid to hear the negative feedback because it’s bound to come.
It happened early in the career of clothing designer Smith Sinrod. She was at her first trade show when a woman walked by and said, “Eeew, look at that.” The woman didn’t know Sinrod was the designer.
The comment hurt so much that Sinrod wondered, “Gosh, should I be doing this?” But Sinrod recovered, telling herself that for every 10 nos the one yes she gets will make it all worth it.
“People are very opinionated. I’ve heard it all,” she says. “I think it’s important to have a little criticism. That’s the only way to evolve.”
Motivation Monday: What would you do if you lost an eye?
Kenisha Shamburger Photo by Handy Photo Media
By Chanda Temple
Picture this: You’ve just pulled out of your driveway and you’re headed to work. On the way, you hit a patch of black ice and your car goes zooming into a ravine. You hit a tree, head on.
The airbag deploys and you walk away – without a drop of blood on you. Minus a swollen right eye, you think things are good.
But future doctor examinations will reveal something else: You have high pressure in your eye, which threatens the life of your right eye. Your vision is touch and go. You develop glaucoma and later have a cornea transplant and then an eye transplant. Two years after all of that, your eyelid begins to droop. What would you do?
For Kenisha Shamburger, all she could do was lean on her faith.
“For a long time, I couldn’t read or watch TV. Things were blurred and I couldn’t see,” she said of what she experienced before the eye transplant. “I would literally have to sit in bed and talk to myself, saying, ‘You will not die. You will not quit.’ ’’