Coach Wooden’s approach to creating success was grounded in practical wisdom and spiritual awareness.
Curated
Powerful Affirmations
I am attuned to my higher purpose and my life reflects this refinement.
All that I need for my happiness and fulfillment comes to me.
I am in alignment with the source of all creation. I am fully supported, protected and loved.
I open up and allow an infinite stream of well being to flow freely through me and into my life.
I embrace the magic of life. Each day is filled with miracles.
My life is beautiful. And more beauty is revealed to me each day.
Everything I need is here for me right now.
My life is perfectly synchronized. I am in tune with my higher self and with the world around me.
There is an ease and flow to my life that fills my heart with joy.
The Universal Mind is taking care of everything I need.
I invite synchronicity to grace my life with ease, flow and good fortune.
Divine love brings me everything I need to grow, prosper and experience in this moment.
As I open my heart and mind to all that is good I attract great and wonderful experiences to me.
Do you want to pursue a career in the Arts?
ASK YOURSELF
Do you dream of becoming a successful artist, performer, filmmaker, musician, composer or writer?
Do you think you’re not good enough to realize your artistic vision?
Do you believe in your artistic ability but don’t know how to sell yourself?
Do you want to build a profitable livelihood from your art?
Do you let day-to-day responsibilities interfere with your art?
Do you begin projects but don’t finish them?
Do you want to wake up every morning excited about your art and life?
Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the business side of a creative career?
Do you want to overcome distractions and procrastination?
Do you feel stuck and unable to move forward?
Do you dream of giving up your nine-to-five job to pursue your your art?
There is a solution…
Creating unity and shared responsibility for success at the workplace
The most powerful tool I’ve seen that offers any promise of change and dealing with questions of fear, trust, and control in business in a healthy constructive way starts with awareness and acceptance that personal and shared responsibility are needed to create a successful enterprise.
When we feel one of our essential biological needs are threatened, security and survival, power and affection, and esteem, we revert to ineffective and negative patterns of thought and behavior.
Positive change becomes possible by noticing what’s happening inside ourselves and how we are interacting with others? When we start noticing these things, the possibility opens for admitting and expressing truth. We can then learn to deal directly with how these patterns are affecting our work relationships and performance and learn to modify them.
This is the personal foundation and catalyst for continued growth, high performance and success for an individual, team or an organization.
A cup of tea
A Japanese Zen master during the Meiji era received a visitor who came to inquire about Zen. The Zen master served his guest tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, but then kept on pouring. His visitor watched the overflow with alarm until he could no longer control himself.
“The cup is overfull. No more can go in it!” he cried out.
“Like this cup,” the Zen master replied, “you are full of your own opinions, beliefs and assumptions. How can I teach you anything unless you first empty your cup?”
Wisdom Prayers from Emmet Fox
Now I speak the word
(paraphrased)
God is Infinite Life. God is Boundless Love. God is Infinite Intelligence.
God is Unfathomable Wisdom. God is Unspeakable Beauty.
God is Unchanging Principle of Perfect Good. God is the Soul of man.
I am the image and likeness of God, and I have the power of the Word.
When I speak the Word, it goes forth and cannot return void.
It accomplishes the thing whereunto I send it.
That word goes forth charged with the power of God.
Now I speak the Word. I invoke the power of the Healing God,
and I say that the full power of God is now awakened in me,
filling my soul with peace and life and joy.
God is Light, and that Light fills my soul.
Now is the accepted time
God’s time for my demonstration is NOW
The time God wants me to be healed is NOW
The time God wants me to be prosperous is NOW
The time God wants love in my life is NOW
The time God wants me to raise my consciousness is NOW
The time God wants me to be in my True Place is NOW
There is nothing to wait for except the change of my own consciousness
Gandhi’s Views on Truth & Beauty
Inwardness of Art
There are two aspects of things-the outward and the inward. The outward has no meaning except in so far as it helps the inward. All true art is thus an expression of the soul. The outward forms have value only in so far as they are the expression of the inner spirit of man. I know that many call themselves artists, and are recognized as such, and yet in their works there is absolutely no trace of the soul’s upward urge and unrest. All true Art must help the soul to realize its inner self. In my own case, I find that I can do entirely without external forms in my soul’s realization. I can claim, therefore, that there is truly efficient Art in my life, though you might not see what you call works of Art about me. My room may have blank walls; and I may even dispense with the roof, so that I may gaze out at the starry heavens overhead that stretch in an unending expanse. What conscious Art of man can give me the panoramic scenes that open out before me, when I look up to the sky above with all its shining stars? This, however, does not mean that I refuse to accept the value of productions of Art, generally accepted as such, but only that I personally feel how inadequate these are compared with the eternal symbols of beauty in Nature. These productions of man’s Art have their value only in so far as they help the soul onward towards self-realization.
Truth First
Truth is the first thing to be sought for, and Beauty and Goodness will then be added unto you. Jesus was, to my mind, a supreme artist because he saw and expressed Truth; and so was Muhammad, the Koran being, the most perfect composition in all Arabic literature–at any rate, that is what scholars say. It is because both of them strove first for Truth that the grace of expression naturally came in and yet neither Jesus not Muhammad wrote on Art. That is the Truth and Beauty I crave for, live for, and would die for.
Art for the Millions
Here too, just as elsewhere, I must think in terms of the millions. And to the millions we cannot give that training to acquire a perception of Beauty in such a way as to see Truth in it. Show them Truth first and they will see Beauty afterwards. Whatever can be useful to those starving millions in beautiful to my mind. Let us give today first the vital things of life and all the graces and ornaments of life will follow.
I want art and literature that can speak to the millions. Art to be art must soothe. After all, Art can only be expressed not through inanimate power-driven machinery designed for mass-production, but only through the delicate living touch of the hands of men and women.
Inner Purity
True art takes note not merely of form but also of what lies behind. There is an art that kills and an art that gives life… True art must be evidence of happiness, contentment and purity of its authors. True beauty after all consists in purity of heart. I love music and all the other arts, but I do not attach such value to them as is generally done. I cannot, for example, recognize the value of those activities that require technical knowledge for their understanding. Life is greater than all art. I would go even further and declare that the man whose life comes nearest to perfection is the greatest artist; for what is art without the sure foundation and framework of a noble life? We have somehow accustomed ourselves to the belief that art is independent of the purity of private life. I can say with all the experience at my command that nothing could be more untrue. As I am nearing the end of my earthly life, I can say that purity of life, is the highest and truest art. The art of producing good music from a cultivated voice can be achieved by many, but the art of producing that music from the harmony of a pure life is achieved very rarely.
Beauty in Truth
I see and find Beauty in Truth or through Truth. All Truths, not merely true ideas, but truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs are highly beautiful. People generally fail to see Beauty in Truth, the ordinary man runs away from it and becomes blind to the beauty in it. Whenever men begin to see Beauty in Truth, then true Art will arise.
To a true artist only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its exterior, shines with the Truth within the soul. There is… no Beauty apart from Truth. On the other hand, Truth may manifest itself in forms, which may not be outwardly beautiful at all. Socrates, we are told, was the most truthful man of his time, and yet his features are said to have been the ugliest in Greece. To my mind he was beautiful, because all his life was a striving after Truth, and you may remember that his outward form did not prevent Phidias from appreciating the beauty of Truth in him, though as an artist he was accustomed to see Beauty in outward forms also.
Truth and Untruth often co-exist; good and evil are often found together. In an artist also not seldom [do] the right perception of things and the wrong co-exist. Truly beautiful creations come when right perception is at work. If these monuments are rare in life, they are also rare in Art. These beauties are sunset or a crescent moon that shines amid the stars at night’] are truthful, inasmuch as they make me think of the Creator at the back of them. How else could these be beautiful, but for the Truth that is in the center of creation? When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator. I try to see Him and His mercies in all these creations. But even the sunsets and sunrises would be mere hindrances if they did not help me to think of the soul is a delusion and a snare; even like the body, which often does hinder you in the path of salvation. Why can’t you see the beauty of color in vegetables? And then, there is beauty in the speckless sky. But no, you want the colors of the rainbow, which is a mere optical illusion. We have been taught to believe that what is beautiful need not be useful and what is useful cannot be beautiful. I want to show that what is useful can also be beautiful
12 Questions to Determine Whether Your Passion Matches Your Aspirations
1. Do I feel strongly about the need for this?
2. Does the idea fit my long-held beliefs, values, and convictions?
3. Have I dreamed about something like this for a long time?
4. Do I think that this is vital for the future of people I care about?
5. Do I get excited when I think about it, and convey excitement when I talk about it?
6. Am I convinced that this can be accomplished?
7. Am I willing to put my credibility on the line to promise action on it?
8. Am I willing to spend time to sell it to others who might not understand or support it?
9. Can I make this the major focus of my activities?
10. Am I willing to devote personal time, above and beyond organizational time, to see that this happens?
11. Do I feel strongly enough to ignore negativity and fight for this?
12. Am I committed to seeing this through, over the long haul?
Passing the passion test is doesn’t guarantee success, but without it, the journey can’t even begin.