DO MORE

Do more than hear. Listen Do more than agree. Cooperate Do more than grow. Bloom Do more than talk. Communicate Do more than spend. Invest Do more than think. Create Do more than work. Excel Do more than help. Serve Do more than share. Give Do more than change. Improve Do more than speak. Impart Do more than choose. Focus Do more than read. Apply Do more than think. Apply Do more than add. Multiply Do more than receive. Reciprocate Do more than see. Perceive Do more than ponder. Pray Do more than just live. Live for God

DO MORE

Do more than hear. Listen Do more than agree. Cooperate Do more than grow. Bloom Do more than talk. Communicate Do more than spend. Invest Do more than think. Create Do more than work. Excel Do more than help. Serve Do more than share. Give Do more than change. Improve Do more than speak. Impart Do more than choose. Focus Do more than read. Apply Do more than think. Apply Do more than add. Multiply Do more than receive. Reciprocate Do more than see. Perceive Do more than ponder. Pray Do more than just live. Live for God

DENZEL WASHINGTON: From a Red Raiders wannabe to Hollywood icon

In an industry where fame is hard to come by and rarely lasts long Denzel has certainly made an indelible mark, working his way from zero to hero, with three Golden Globe and two Academy awards as worthy feathers for his legendary cap. Notable as the second African American to win an Oscar, for best actor, his works have earned him critical acclaim especially his portrayal of a variety of real life figures including South African freedom fighter Steve Biko, Malcolm X, boxer Robin “Hurricane” Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas, Hernan Boone and himself in the Lorreta Clairborne story movie. Born Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. to Lennis “Lyne”, a beauty parlor owner and Rev. Denzel Washington Sr. a Pentecostal minister who also worked for the local Water Department and a local department store “S. Klein” Denzel is quoted to have said “I grew up the Boys Club in Mt. Vernon & we were the Red Raiders. So when I was in high school, I wanted to go to Texas Tech just because they were called the Red Raiders and their uniforms looked like ours”. Nonetheless Denzel completed a B.a. in Drama and Journalism from Fordham university, where he played basketball as a freshman guard, after a turbulent period of bouncing from major to major and dropping out of school for a semester. It was while working as a counselor at an overnight summer camp and participating in a staff talent show, that a friend suggested that he try acting: A star was born. Returning to Fordhham that fall, with a renewed vision, he enrolled at the Lincoln Center campus to study acting. He earned rave reviews for his role as title character in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones and Shakespeare’s Othello. Upon graduation, he attended graduate school, on scholarship, at the American Conservative Theater in San Francisco. He stayed in San Francisco for a year, before returning to New York to begin a pro career that has seen him grow into one of Hollywood’s true legends, featuring in several Box Office hits along the line. A devout Christian, Denzel is one of a few Hollywood stars to stay married to a single spouse for over two decades. He married actress Pamela Washington (Nee Pearson) in 1983, whom he met on the set of his first screen role, Wilma. The couple renewed their marriage vows in South Africa in 1995, with the Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu officiating. Recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Morehouse college in 2007, Denzel has won a number of awards including Academy Awards for best supporting actor in 1990 and best actor in 2000, BET Awards for best actor in 2001 & 2004, best actor in Berlin International Film Festival 1993 & 2000, Golden Globe awards for best actor in a drama motion picture 1990 &2000 amongst countless other nominations for different prestigious awards. He was also voted the people’s sexiest man alive in 1996, succeeding Brad Pitt and succeeded by George Clooney. Aside from discovering his talent Denzel has also strived to make a difference in society. He made a sizeable donation to the Fisher Houses, small hotels that provide rooms for soldiers families while the soldiers are hospitalized. He also wrote a bestseller, entitled A Hand to Guide Me, for The Boys and Girls Club of America’s centennial anniversary. The book featured a number of public figures recalling their childhood mentors. A testimonial of his broad acceptance was his being named as one of the three people, by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia whom they were willing to negotiate with for the release of three US defense contractors held captive since 2003.

LENNOX LEWIS ON

Goals:
  “During the past 23 years, I have set a number of goals, for myself and am proud to say that these goals have been achieved. Now I am ready to set new goals and start a new career for myself outside of the ring.” Improvement:
  “I understand that to be a god actor, I have to become somebody else……….I am taking acting lessons from several coaches. Whatever I do I always want to get better.”
Defeat:
  “One thing I learned in boxing is that defeat properly handled makes a person stronger. You cant walk in the rain without getting wet and you cant be in a boxing ring without getting hit………….Winning and losing for me are on the same page. In my book you have to accept them both.”

SAMUEL ETO’O ON:

Work “I’ve always scored goals, but I’ve worked on timing. Work, work, work. You get results if you work………….out of every hundred stones you throw you never know which one will kill the bird. ” Training “A player doesn’t try anything in a match that he hasn’t tried a thousand times in training, the only difference is that you are doing it in front of one hundred thousand people. Nothing in a match [as in life] is by chance. Everything is done in training, then your talent and the gift you have helps you succeed in what you’ve on.” Focus “I don’t go out often I devour football. I ask my brother to prepare hundreds of Barca’s attacking game, because I want to know everything my teammates are thinking. Its my unseen training. Off the pitch I digest information. I anticipate I don’t guess.” Discipline “My strength is to keep my position. I always try to play for the team, whichever team it is. I am disciplined and I get upset when others aren’t.” Concentration “Its fundamental to be able to shove out of your mind the thousands of things that can pollute your spirit in that moment.” Mentorship “The chats I had with Henrik at Barca were very precious…………… he allowed me to excel. Henrik taught me how to become invisible, how to make others forget about me.” Roots “The continent is a mental state. I live in Europe but I sleep in Africa. Every goal of mine is a celebration of there. Hopefully I’ll have time to do more things for people in Africa.”

I STOOD YESTERDAY I CAN STAND TODAY (BY DOROTHY DIX)

I have known want and struggle and anxiety and despair. I have always had to work beyond the limit of my strength. As I look back upon my life I see it as a battle field strewn with the wrecks of dead dreams and broken hopes and shattered illusions – a battle in which I always fought against odds tremendously against me and which had me bruise and scared and maimed and old before my time. Yet I have no pity for myself; no tears to shed over the past and gone sorrows; no envy for the women who have been spared all I have gone through. For I have lived, they only existed. I have drunk the cup of life down to its very dregs. They have only sipped the bubbles on top of it. I know things they will never know. I see things to which they are blind. It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world. I have learned in the great University of Hard Knocks a philosophy that no woman who has had an easy life ever acquires. I have learned to live each day as it comes and not to borrow trouble by dreading the morrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes coward of us. I put that dread from me because experience has taught me that when the time comes that I so fear, the strength and wisdom to meet it will be given me. Little annoyances no longer have the power to affect me. After you have seen your life whole edifice of happiness topple and crash in ruins about you, it never matters to you again that a servant forgets to put the doylies under finger bowls, or the cook spills the soup. I have learned not to expect too much of people, & so I can still get happiness out of the friend who isn’t quite true to me or the acquaintance who gossips. Above all, I have either to laugh or cry and when a woman can joke over her troubles instead of having hysterics, nothing can ever hurt much again. I do not regret the hardships I have known because through them I have touched life at every point I have lived and it was worth the price I had to pay. When people ask me what has kept me going through the troubles that come to all of us, I always reply: “I stood yesterday I can stand today. And I will not permit myself to think about what might happen tomorrow.”

TUMI MAKGABO ON

Upbringing “my parents worked hard and had tenacity.” Learning A self-confessed bookwormwho reads up to ten books at a time she says “It has been a huge learning curve for me and there is still a lot to learn. The challenges are without doubt numerous but again they have forced me to push myself harder to learn more.” Practice According to this broadcasting icon, for whom presenting programs has become second nature, there was a time when this wasn’t so “The more you do something, the more comfortable you feel doing it………that naturally leads to an improvement in how you perform your duties” Maturing “Getting older in my mind means that you have experienced the things of life and you can reflect a little on what you have done right and what some of the things are that you may not be so pleased about.” Honours Roll: At 30 she had interviewed Mandela, Bush, Kofi Anan and the Dalai Lama among other world leaders. Received in 2004, in London, Eagle award alongside George Weah and Mae Jamison(the first black woman in space)

MY CREED (BY DEAN ALFANGE)

I don’t choose to be a common man – it is my right to be uncommon if I can. I seek opportunity not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I prefer to take risk, to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence. The thrill of fulfillment to the calm state of Utopia. I will not trade my freedom for beneficence, nor my dignity for a handout. I’ll never lower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid. To think and to act for myself, enjoy the benefits of my creations and face the world and say ‘this I have done’

ARSENE WENGER ON

Winning Mentality “The mentality of a winner: to produce when it is [most] needed, no more than that.” Competitiveness “I read an interesting article talking about what is common among winners in every sport. Both men and women, and it said it was competitiveness and composure at the right moment.” Determination “that common denominator [among winners] of refusing to not win and mixing that with composure. That means not being terrified when you have a chance and I think that makes a winner.” Procrastination “I’ve seen many fail because they have inhibitions, and in top competition [as in life & business] you cant have inhibitions when you are under pressure.”

12 STEPS TO CREATIVITY (GARY FELLERS)

1. Believe that you can become more creative and you will. 2. Accept the existence of the mysterious subconscious that incubates all previous experience into facts and creative ideas. 3. With the goal of having more fun create a life plan to “enrich” the subconscious. 4. Patiently trust that answers will come. 5. Trigger the subconscious by “visualizing” the desired outcome in general terms. 6. Surrender to your sage and ask to be led to the correct experiences to achieve your life purposes. 7. Write a life’s purpose and prioritize around what’s important. 8. Make a game of saving time: your most precious resource deserves constant attention. 9. Become a fanatic of present-mindedness; attending to the work at hand, put appointments on your calendar to deal with distractions later. 10. Leave no stress unattended. Eliminate the situation or temporarily trick the brain’s biochemical processes especially with humor. 11. To advance your interests be ordinary. 12. Stamp out all judgmental behavior and thoughts.