Brian Said...

Welcome to my new blog at the online home of Brian Hicks, The Tinderbox Tapes, and the "Astound Yourself Today™" Nation! I'm glad you stopped by.

My plan is to make this a weekly endeavor, so be sure to sign up for the mailing list & we'll shoot you a quick note when the blog is updated. You'll also be in the loop for books, audio programs & upcoming events.

TODAY'S TOPIC: Astound Yourself Today™

"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

Thomas Edison spoke those words. And as profound as they are when you HEAR them, imagine how much MORE profound they are when you LIVE them.

My AYT keynote (Yes. I just created my own acronym. It's a WHOLE lot easier to type "AYT" than "Astound Yourself Today™," right?) has taken on a life of it's own and is quickly becoming a pop culture phenomenon!

Yeah, you're right... That's only true in my head.

But still, I'm excited about the response I've been getting around the country. People are waking up to the fact that you really CAN dream of creating a new world and then GO DO IT! And the best part is, you don't have to do anything over-the-top, out-of-this-world extraordinary. You simply do what you're capable of doing.
If it worked for Thomas Edison, it will surely work for you, right?

In his book, Innovate Like Edison, Michael Gelb points out that:

"The horse was still the fastest means of transportation when Edison was a child, growing up in Ohio, but in the course of his life railways were introduced, then automobiles, submarines, airplanes, helicopters & rockets. Edison witnessed the introduction of blue jeans, Coca Cola, jazz, Corn Flakes, the pop-up toaster & Mickey Mouse. While he was developing world-changing inventions, other innovators brought forth the typewriter, telephone, radio, x-rays & penicillin.

Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Mohandas Gandhi, Marie Curie & Albert Einstein were among his most extraordinary contemporaries.

Of course, when Edison was born, candles, torches & gas lamps were the only sources of light for homes, public buildings & streets. If you wanted to hear a speech or musical performance, you had to be present when it was delivered. And the only “moving pictures” were the ones people conjured up in their heads.

But Thomas Edison’s imagination changed all that.
 
He dreamed of a new world, and then he created it."

I contend that we all dream of creating a new world - some on par with Edison or Gandhi or Lincoln or Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King, Jr.; but most of us simply dream of creating a new world for ourselves and our family. That's what America is all about.