I believe a family can be like that sports team. A successful family wins as a team. But if its members are intent upon winning their own individual battles with one another, the team loses. A winning solution is to work out the differences and, when it's over, let it be over. Then they can get back in the game as a team.

To say, “I've been converted and that's that,” is to say you have decided to quit growing. If life is about anything, it is about growing. The day I quit changing and learning is the day I die.

Confidence is a life ingredient that is essential to success and wholeness. It is perhaps the single most important trait that enables seemingly average people to do and become all that they can. And the good news is - it can be learned. No one has to suffer a lifetime of low confidence.

We don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. Only notes that are different can harmonize. The same is true with people.

An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters.

Broken by hardships, disappointments and tragedy, people can become discouraged and cynical. But lives can also be mended. Put back together well, they won't be just like they were before. Damaged pieces reassembled with a golden bonding of patience and love will help form a person into an exquisite masterpiece. It is as if people have to be broken before they can become whole and complete.

Who doesn't want to know that we notice them and value them? And who might respond to us better when they feel that they matter? It probably cannot be overstated - it matters...that people matter.