Now I know why Eat, Pray, Love is New York Times' "1 Best Seller. This is an excellent read. It is written by Elizabeth Gilbert and she writes about her spiritual search while traveling across Italy, India and Indonesia. In Italy she pursues Pleasure, in India she pursues Devotion and in Indonesia she pursues Balance. These are such wonderful attributes that we should always pursue enjoy and seek. Have you ever asked yourself, what really gives you pleasure? What are you totally devoted to? and Is your life balanced?
She reveals in her book the power of meditation, which is so important to spend just 10 min daily taking deep breathes to regain focus and to stay in the present. It is very important to take care of ourselves physically but it is just as important to spiritually take care of ourselves. When was the last time you actually sat in stillness to ask yourself, What is it that you really want out of this life? Do you explore and listen to your internal voice of wisdom that only truly appears in the stillness of the moment. Are you pleasing others and living up to their expectations or do you do the things that make you happy? Pretty deep! Asking yourself "What do I want?" is the first step to defining and setting goals.
Her story telling techniques and humor makes this book an enjoyable read.
Get The Book!
Please post your comments, especially if you have already enjoyed reading the book. I would love to hear from you.
Always Soaring,
Bridgette
www.yourtime2soar.com
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Left To Tell
I just finished reading: Left To Tell by Immacule'e Ilibagiza for the second time. I recommend this book for all to read. This book is a life changer. The book outlines how Immaculee discovers God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. Immaculee and six other women hide silently for 91 days in a cramped 4 ft. x 3 ft. bathroom of a local pastor, escaping the terrors of the Hutus during the Rwandan genocide. That is 91 days without showering, eating scraps from the pastor occasionally and in silence!
During her captivity, Immaculee used her "TIME" to pray, discover God and increase her faith and learn the English language from books she requested from the pastor.
This book changed my life, increased my faith, discover true forgiveness and reinforced my belief of using time wisely to accomplish dreams, and to prepare now for future miraculous days.
What do you do with your time? Are you wasting time complaining about unfortunate events, procrastinating, dreaming without actions? Stop, read this book. Remember time is our most valuable resouce. How do you spend your time?
This is a great read! Go out and get this book. If you already read it, I would love to hear your comments.
Always soaring,
Bridgette
During her captivity, Immaculee used her "TIME" to pray, discover God and increase her faith and learn the English language from books she requested from the pastor.
This book changed my life, increased my faith, discover true forgiveness and reinforced my belief of using time wisely to accomplish dreams, and to prepare now for future miraculous days.
What do you do with your time? Are you wasting time complaining about unfortunate events, procrastinating, dreaming without actions? Stop, read this book. Remember time is our most valuable resouce. How do you spend your time?
This is a great read! Go out and get this book. If you already read it, I would love to hear your comments.
Always soaring,
Bridgette
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Me & Blair!
This is Awesome! I had the opportunity to meet Blair Underwood, here in New Orleans, LA at the Essence Fest. For years I've followed Blair's career and for a moment in time I was at his side! Needless to say, this picture of us is one of my most prized possessions.
This picture will always remind me that Dreams & Opportunity do meet, so always be prepared! What are your dreams, goals, wishes? Are you getting prepared to meet it's opportunity?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The 3 P's of Successful Performance
The 3 P’s of Successful Performance
By: Bridgette Boudreaux
Here’s a quick formula to maximize your performance:
Pressure
We all experience having an enormous amount of obligations, responsibilities & tasks on a daily basis with little time to accomplish them all. Do you ever feel like you are an octopus with skates on, constantly moving but not going anywhere? If that’s the case, use pressure to your advantage. Think about it, I bet at some point in your business or career you had a deadline or an unexpected project that needed to be completed yesterday and somehow with all your other obligations you pulled it off! It was completed and you wondered, how did I do it? Have you ever realized that a project can be completed in the time allowed?
For example, it’s a given that you typically have 12 months to prepare for your taxes and you just have not found time to accumulate, print, file receipts, track mileage or document business expenses in an orderly fashion for your accountant in 12 months; now it is 3 days before “the big tax day” & miraculously you have prepared & sent all documents required to your accountant in just two days to meet the three day deadline. Remember this is a task that had been on your “to-do” list for 12 months!
Why? How?
Because when we are pressured to complete a task, project, or meet a deadline, we become focused, avoid interruptions, use our time wisely, have a clear vision on what needs to be accomplished and prioritize tasks. We kick up our success performance about 10 notches!
Don’t feel overwhelmed or stressed out when pressured, welcome the opportunity to operate from your highest performance level and adopt those traits to your daily routine.
Prioritize
Among the life of numerous tasks, projects, to-do list, family responsibilities & other obligations, take a step out of overwhelm by simply setting priorities. You will never be able to do everything at once, so quit trying! You must decide which task, project or responsibility needs your immediate attention or has the soonest deadline and that is the task that gets worked on first, put the others in a tickler file according to priority.
But what if there are projects that share the same deadlines?
Get started with the most difficult ones first. For example: a business owner needs to prepare for an upcoming federal contract audit, a speaking engagement and an advisory board meeting: all scheduled for the same day.
Which is priority?
The audit will require the gathering of specific information from the past year, a financial fiscal report with supporting documents and the audit will determine if the business owner will receive additional funding. The speaking engagement speech will be 20 min. in length and can be recycled from a previous speaking engagement or article, just a little rehearsal is needed. The advisory board meeting will require an agenda, previous meeting minutes, and a meeting place to hold a meeting of 10 members.
The audit is the most difficult and will require a little more time than the others, so the business owner should start with the audit and give it the most blocked time during the day, the other projects can be worked on throughout the day as well, but priority is the audit.
Prioritizing brings clarity, gives direction and streamlines your process for completing tasks and projects. When you are juggling multiple tasks, prioritize them from most to least difficult and get the difficult out of the way. Establish a hierarchy for completing tasks and take action.
Stay tune to next “Time 2 Get It Done” newsletter to find out the third and finale P of successful performance.
By: Bridgette Boudreaux
Here’s a quick formula to maximize your performance:
Pressure
We all experience having an enormous amount of obligations, responsibilities & tasks on a daily basis with little time to accomplish them all. Do you ever feel like you are an octopus with skates on, constantly moving but not going anywhere? If that’s the case, use pressure to your advantage. Think about it, I bet at some point in your business or career you had a deadline or an unexpected project that needed to be completed yesterday and somehow with all your other obligations you pulled it off! It was completed and you wondered, how did I do it? Have you ever realized that a project can be completed in the time allowed?
For example, it’s a given that you typically have 12 months to prepare for your taxes and you just have not found time to accumulate, print, file receipts, track mileage or document business expenses in an orderly fashion for your accountant in 12 months; now it is 3 days before “the big tax day” & miraculously you have prepared & sent all documents required to your accountant in just two days to meet the three day deadline. Remember this is a task that had been on your “to-do” list for 12 months!
Why? How?
Because when we are pressured to complete a task, project, or meet a deadline, we become focused, avoid interruptions, use our time wisely, have a clear vision on what needs to be accomplished and prioritize tasks. We kick up our success performance about 10 notches!
Don’t feel overwhelmed or stressed out when pressured, welcome the opportunity to operate from your highest performance level and adopt those traits to your daily routine.
Prioritize
Among the life of numerous tasks, projects, to-do list, family responsibilities & other obligations, take a step out of overwhelm by simply setting priorities. You will never be able to do everything at once, so quit trying! You must decide which task, project or responsibility needs your immediate attention or has the soonest deadline and that is the task that gets worked on first, put the others in a tickler file according to priority.
But what if there are projects that share the same deadlines?
Get started with the most difficult ones first. For example: a business owner needs to prepare for an upcoming federal contract audit, a speaking engagement and an advisory board meeting: all scheduled for the same day.
Which is priority?
The audit will require the gathering of specific information from the past year, a financial fiscal report with supporting documents and the audit will determine if the business owner will receive additional funding. The speaking engagement speech will be 20 min. in length and can be recycled from a previous speaking engagement or article, just a little rehearsal is needed. The advisory board meeting will require an agenda, previous meeting minutes, and a meeting place to hold a meeting of 10 members.
The audit is the most difficult and will require a little more time than the others, so the business owner should start with the audit and give it the most blocked time during the day, the other projects can be worked on throughout the day as well, but priority is the audit.
Prioritizing brings clarity, gives direction and streamlines your process for completing tasks and projects. When you are juggling multiple tasks, prioritize them from most to least difficult and get the difficult out of the way. Establish a hierarchy for completing tasks and take action.
Stay tune to next “Time 2 Get It Done” newsletter to find out the third and finale P of successful performance.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
My New Orleans Home
I have a KITCHEN!!!!! I know you are wondering, what on earth am I talking about, everyone has a kitchen. However, not in New Orleans! I returned to New Orleans, LA from Austin, Texas (Cedar Park, TX to be exact) to continue the rebuilding process.
I added a second story, (see the picture above, side view of the house). The entire home will be painted within a couple of weeks (I found great colors). We have just completed the kitchen, and the appliances are working perfectly, especially the stove. I cooked my first meal on yesterday: Pork Chops, Macaroni & Cheese, Yams(New Orleans style) and corn bread. Today it will be Shrimp & Crawfish Pasta, Roast and Garlic Bread.
The family and I have been eating out since January. I thought I would love the opportunity to not cook, but there is nothing like home cooked food. Eating out got old, quick! The smell of the food cooking in the house is wonderful.
Do not take for granted anything that you own, because you will realize how much you need & miss it if it is unexpectedly gone. In honor of me, go and cook a fancy meal for the family, cheers to you. Back to the kitchen for me. YEAHHHHHHH!
Stay Tuned, I will be updating with pictures of the paint job, the new kitchen and the progress as it continues. I will also include some pics of the progression and lack of progression of the City of New Orleans.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Introducing a "Sweet Sixteen Diva", my daughter. She made sixteen on May 17, 2007.
This is a picture of her a few minutes before leaving for her sweet sixteen bash.
Making a birthday is a reminder of how quickly time moves. It seems like yesterday when I held her in my arms and rocked her to sleep, now she will be attending driving class and continues to hint about a car. Wow! She is such a blessing in my life (my son also), we share so much, she loves the Lord, respects herself and others, excels in Arts: dance, karate, ballet, drama & academically and she has a smile that lights up the room every time!
What more can I ask for? Honestly, I think Mothers should receive a little recognition on their kids' birthdays. Why? Because I went through 9 months of carrying her, eating heathly, being uncomfortable and 8 hours of pain and then 30 min. of serious labor to get her out of the birthing canal! Push, PUSH, PUSH!! Well, you get the point. How soon we forget. I know we get Mother's Day, but we should also have Birthing Day. Hmmmmm, something to think about.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Lessons From A Checker Game
This is one of my most favorite articles: Everyday through our experiences (good or bad) a lesson is learned. I love to review my day and journal about my day's lesson.
What was your lesson on today?
Lessons From A Checker Game
My 9 year old son loves to play the board game Checkers. At one time playing against him was a snap, because he didn’t really understand the concept of the game, he only enjoyed the family time together sharing an activity. However, after much practice and a graduate student of “Checker Camp” directed by his father, he became an expert player. The once short checker game became a long competitive checker tournament. One evening as I was losing horribly, my son asked me why I had not been focusing on the game. I replied that I didn’t feel the need to do such strategic thinking and planning. His response became my mantra: “It is a waste of time to make a move without a plan or strategy because the consequence will almost always = loser. Always play to win”!
Do you play to win or are you satisfied with the results from minimal effort and persistence? Do you plan your day? Is there blocked time on your daily schedule for action items? Do you have a big picture goal with small reachable daily tasks that will lead you to the bigger picture? Are you spending your days confused about what to do next? Do you operate from a strategic action plan?
If you responded NO to any of the above questions, stop wasting time and play to win.
Incorporate these strategies in you routine to win:
► Always Plan Your Day, Preferably The Night Before
► Develop A Strategy To Get The Results Want
► Visualize The Big Picture
► Complete Daily Bite Size Tasks
► Stay In The Present, Focus Only On The Work At Hand
► Rejoice In The Small Accomplishments
► Create A Successful Environment
Winners do what those who lose do not want to do!
What was your lesson on today?
Lessons From A Checker Game
My 9 year old son loves to play the board game Checkers. At one time playing against him was a snap, because he didn’t really understand the concept of the game, he only enjoyed the family time together sharing an activity. However, after much practice and a graduate student of “Checker Camp” directed by his father, he became an expert player. The once short checker game became a long competitive checker tournament. One evening as I was losing horribly, my son asked me why I had not been focusing on the game. I replied that I didn’t feel the need to do such strategic thinking and planning. His response became my mantra: “It is a waste of time to make a move without a plan or strategy because the consequence will almost always = loser. Always play to win”!
Do you play to win or are you satisfied with the results from minimal effort and persistence? Do you plan your day? Is there blocked time on your daily schedule for action items? Do you have a big picture goal with small reachable daily tasks that will lead you to the bigger picture? Are you spending your days confused about what to do next? Do you operate from a strategic action plan?
If you responded NO to any of the above questions, stop wasting time and play to win.
Incorporate these strategies in you routine to win:
► Always Plan Your Day, Preferably The Night Before
► Develop A Strategy To Get The Results Want
► Visualize The Big Picture
► Complete Daily Bite Size Tasks
► Stay In The Present, Focus Only On The Work At Hand
► Rejoice In The Small Accomplishments
► Create A Successful Environment
Winners do what those who lose do not want to do!
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