The Best of Jack’s Winning Words – Originally sent April 30, 2021
“You’ll never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks at you.” (Winston Churchill) There’s lots of “barking” going on these days. It reminds me of the carnival pitchmen (barkers) who’d try to get our attention. A friend of mine would say, “Jack, remember to make the main thing the main thing.” In other words, keep your focus on the important events, not the sideshow. I try to keep that in mind as I watch the news and read the ads. Churchill was a great leader, because he was able to focus. It makes for a more peaceful life too. 😉 Jack
As always, Jack’s words are resonant today as they were back in 2021. There may be different dogs barking today, but they are still only the sideshow. One of the traits of great leaders that Jack pointed out is the ability to identify and focus on the things that are really important in our lives.
For leaders of people or nations, the things that are important tend to have wide-ranging consequences that impact all, whether they be wars or economic trends or climate change. For us as individuals the important things most often involve interpersonal relationships – things that impact our wives, our children, our family or our friends.
We focus on providing for those that we love, so we work at jobs to earn the money to provide. For some the focus shifts from the reason that we work to the work itself, and career advancement becomes the most important thing for them. Becoming too focused upon one’s career is one of the main reasons that marriages fail, and families break up. There is a saying in business that “it’s lonely at the top”. Perhaps that is because so many interpersonal relationships were sacrificed to get there.
Another thing that sometimes get shoved down (sometimes completely off) the list of important things in our lives is our faith. Through much of the last half of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the 21st century church attendance has been declining. There are many reasons, but one cannot help but see the shift of attention away from this important matter and onto things that are just sideshows – the so-called “blue laws” that kept most stores closed on Sundays gave way to 24 hours a day seven days of the week sales and shopping, sports events or practices for children and adults became the focus for Sunday mornings, and we became more used to thinking of Sunday as a day to have fun than a day to worship.
So, maybe it is time to step back and re-look at what you have been focusing upon. What is really important in your life? Maybe you’ll discover that it is not what but who is important in your life. You will probably be able to come up with a short list of people whom you consider to be important. The longer you think about that and the more you re-arrange the list in order of importance the more God will advance up the list, until He takes His place at the top of the list.
Focus on the important things. If you make it back to that place where God is the most important thing in your life a strange thing happens – you stop hearing the barking dogs of life’s distractions. The fears and anxieties about things over which you have no real control anyway will melt away. As Jack puts it at the end of his remarks, it makes for a peaceful life.
Focus upon the important things!
Posted by Norm Werner 
because we believe that it shows us what the world sees when they see us. Wrong. The mirror provides a mere glimpse of what the world sees when it encounters us. We do not come into focus in the eyes of others until they get to know the parts of us that the mirror cannot reflect. We look and we see “I’m too fat or my ears are too big or my hair is terrible today or my clothes aren’t the latest style or I’m ugly or I’m not this or I’m not that.” Why do we do that to ourselves? Because we lack the self-confidence to just say, “this is me, take me as I am and get to know me”.
is the most undemanding and appreciative companion that you could ever have. Dogs love their owners and that love expresses itself in happy tail wagging and licking and jumping and excitement at their every return after being way. They are genuinely happy to see you. Dogs don’t judge you on your looks or your clothes; they judge you on the affection that you share with them and they reward you with unconditional love in return.
you really are will be revealed in ways that the mirror could never show them. They will begin to see the real you. The mirror doesn’t lie, it just doesn’t show the whole truth about you.
act in ways that also makes you feel good. You may lose a few pounds, not because you thought you were fat, but because it makes you feel better. You may try a new hair style, not because you’ve seen it on some model in a magazine somewhere; but, because the new style is more about the “you” that you want to be. People will notice, too, that you carry yourself differently – confidently and with more pose. Why? Because you feel good about yourself and you want to share that good feeling with others.
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