“Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker!” … Charlie Brown  

Several weeks ago during one of our church services, a tidbit of wisdom struck my thoughts. OK, maybe I wasn’t paying attention as I should have been.  But it occurred to me that if we were to slow down our lives, we would be able see Heavenly Father’s purpose for our life more clearly. I don’t know about you, but many time I find myself speeding through life only trying to “eat, drink and be merry”! My true belief is that the purpose of my life is not just to be happy (which sometimes can in itself be hard)  … life is to be useful, to be compassionate, to be honorable and to be of service to other. The scriptures tell me and my Savior instructs me to strive for a life that makes a difference in not only my life but others as well … that I lived and lived well according to his words!

My post today comes from the daily comic strip ‘Peanuts’ … which if we pay attention to, can often teach us. Every day, the whole Charlie Brown gang provides laugh-out-loud moments while at the same time offering daily inspiration and lessons on life. Let me share today with you two of the leadership lessons I have found from Good Ole Charlie.

1. Persistence wins out. Charlie Brown often loses … he fails at much, but he never gives up. For instances, even though he knew Lucy was going to pull the football away before he could kick it…. Even though he knew the tree was going to eat his kite… Even though he knew his team would lose the ball game … he always kept on trying. I know it’s hard to be rejected … it’s hard to feel you don’t matter. We MUST keep knocking on doors of opportunity no matter how many are slammed shut.

I love this photo.  Even though the tree had fallen … it persisted and continued to thrive!  We too can do this!

I know that I have mentioned this several times over the years, but Jeffrey R. Holland’s short video gives me more hope on NOT giving up.  Here’s part of his words.  “Don’t give up … Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”  When I feeling a bit down or out of sorts, I always go to this video … it gives me hope and peace.  In case you want to watch it, you can find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nczw6xHJ0I   It’s worth the 4 plus minutes of your time.

I can’t leave my persistence part without mentioning past N.C. State Coach Jim Valvano! That’s me standing by his statue on NC State’s Campus.  I will never forget the speech he gave at the ESPY awards ceremony when he was honored by being awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award on March 4, 1993.  Quoting Coach Valvano:  “There are 86,400 seconds in a day. It’s up to you to decide what to do with them. Don’t give up, don’t ever give up. Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding.”

If you give up on your hopes and dreams, you will not live the unique life you were meant to live … a life that Heavenly Father created you for. If you believe that you can succeed, and do not listen to those who says otherwise, with persistence, discipline and faith in yourself you will reach and travel far in this life. Quoting Dr. Seuss: “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”  Let try to be more like Charlie Brown!

2. It’s what you think of yourself that matters most. You know that Linus has carried a security blanket for years and his friends laugh at him. They also laugh at him because he believed in the ‘Great Pumpkin.’ Pigpen was a walking cloud of dust and dirt and was often regarded as unkindly. Both characters, however, were always proud of themselves and believed they were as good as anybody else — and they were right.

Lucille Ball said it best:  “Love yourself and everything falls in line.”  So how do we accomplish this?  The first thing we need to do is let go of what we can’t control.  That’s a mouthful and is really hard to do.  Everyone wants everyone to like us.  Too many times we fall into the trap of believing that if I could just do and say all the right things, then people would like me.  Why do we put this pressure on ourselves?  The thing is, we can’t control what others think of us or how they experience life.  We … I repeat … we are responsible for our own actions and intentions.  I myself am trying really hard to focus more of my time and energy on living in a way that reflects my own personal values instead of trying to control what other people think of me.  The only person we really should be trying to impress is our Heavenly Father and he has given us plenty of instructions on how to live!

Quoting Diane Von Furstenberg:  “You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”  Loving our self and taking care of our self, can bring miracles into our lives!  Let’s learn to love our self. Let’s think of our self enough to take the actions required for our happiness. Who in the world needs our drama-filled past? Let’s love our self enough to move on, remember that we too matter, and be happy. Have an unshakable faith in yourself to become everything you want to be.”  In other words:  Stand tall, walk tall … you are a child of a loving Heavenly Father! You are meant to be right where you are at this moment in time!

I follow the blog of Greg Trimble, from California … he is one of my favorite bloggers.  In his latest blog posting he said: “The only thing we can do is try to be our best selves and let others think what they may. But… when we’re being our best self, we need to be our best self for ourselves and not because we want others to be impressed by our best self.”  Very profound statement!

I have a wonderful idea … Let’s be more like Charlie Brown …being persistent and loving our self!

Just saying ….