K The Ken Bradbury Foundation

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Effingham Farm Bureau

March 2011

Communicating: David. .basketti Beginning a speech: Bummy Teen Prostitution..selling yourself.

I grew up on a farm…Pike County. Dad still goes to the farm every day…still has a 4020 to play around on… John Deere dealer…my after school hours putting together cultavators

If you’re like me, you’re a bit bothered by how fast the world is changing… Our place in the world…our customs…what’s accepted and what’s not… Tonight: just from friendly advice from a former farm boy from north of here on how to keep your sanity…

First, a warning…people are watching you.

My teachers: Piano…Mildred, finger Trumpet: Jimmy Zimmerman You’re being watched every moment.

This is a smorgasbord … take what you like and leave the rest.

  1. Thou Shalt Not Rehash the Negative

Our teacher’s lounge For once, don’t get if off your chest Teacher I know..kids drive her crazy.. ..meet her in IGA...guess what she talks about...

Corrie Ten Boom “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorry, It empties today of its strength.” To lose weight, skip your morning calisthenics. Every morning I do calisthenics...

  1. Realize that no matter what happens to you today, YOU are still the one who determines how the day will go. Mom: Alcatraz … boats in harbor My last senior class who had been the terror of our school ever since Jr High. I saw the list and it looked like a prison break. I never dreamed they’d make it this far alive. And when class begins, I was still the main determining factor of how that class goes.

In spite of any governmental plans, you’re still in charge of American agriculture. And you’re still in charge of how you react to whatever happens to you tomorrow.

Plane trip …London..Atlanta…black guy in airport. “Man, I am blessed!”

  1. If life’s bumming you out, chances are you aren’t giving enough of yourself. This is the opposite of what the self-help books preach. “Take care of your inner child.” …Whiney brat

Self-centeredness : depression. Becky...funeral... Carl Menninger JHS girl: CFS

A. Sweitzer: “The only ones among you who will be truly happy as those who will have sought and found out how to serve.” If life is bumming you out because you’re asked to give so much, give more.

  1. Collect Interesting and enthusiastic people

Marie...salt and pepper shakers.

Friendships don’t have to simply be things that happen...They can be created... Not alphabetical. I hope you have a support group among your colleagues.

Nuture friends who encourage you. Who take joy in your joy.

Tony Compello “Five years from now you’ll be pretty much the same as you are now except for two things: The books you’ve read and the people you’ve met.

And the best way to do this is to become an encourager yourself. My schedule… Teach at Lincoln Land, currently have three plays in production at once, closed one last weekend, open another Friday night. I write for 14 Midwest newspapers.. 4 summer camps to plan, taking a group to Alaska and I’m going to be gone once a week May-October on a paddlewheeler.

What do I need? Encouragers! People who tell me how we CAN get a job accomplished, not those who tell me why it won’t work.

architect Johnstone: (Charlie Rose show) 90 years old. Hottest place in hell for whiners and complainers ..... “If life were 100 times longer, there would still excuse for every getting bored by it.” Cultivate friends who are not bored by life.

  1. Don’t get so busy with the important things in your life that you forget the important things in your life. James Dobson..monopoly Dad...hay ...rain....
  1. Choose carefully whom you try to please. Quest...Inner-Outer Self

HINEY THE MULE

  1. Lighten up.... Jim Kern...MRS. BROWN Matt…baritone

LIGHTEN UP.... ....go barefoot more often ....turn off the TV some night and pull taffy. ...eat nothing but ice cream for a whole day. ...wear underwear backwards...will break into uncontrollable giggles for no reason every time you think about it. ....walk up to biggest grouch you know and say “I just want you to know that I feel great!” It’ll throw them off all day. ...do some serious coloring ...break the dress code occasionally. My dad..banker: Christmas ties .....McDonnald’s “Have a nice Day” Why? … plan an all-out attack on the person who gives you the most problems in your life…even if you’re married to them. (Kidnapping kids at camp)

3 things in life are real...WHEN YOU’RE BORN, WHEN YOU DIE WHEN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE in everything else...LIGHTEN UP.

  1. Don’t take yourself too seriously.. chances are, no one else does.

Chillochothe...”probably dead” Lincoln Museum…piano..wax figures Church lady...music at her funeral. Jeff W...Free Spirit..Robbed and tied. Travel LIghter...Your anxieties? Look in your purse or pocket or billfold...ME: comb. Roger Ebert.

  1. Start living in the present. ---Even as stimulating as your speaker has been tonight, some of you… ---Show at New Salem one night.. turn out the lights and look at the moon. ---As Americans, our live is so filled with “things” that we seldom leave time to enjoy where we are and what we’re doing.

  2. If you have faith, use it. And if you have no faith, hire some nice Baptist widow to pray for you.

You are not in charge of the national economy. You are not in charge of gas prices, the Chinese economy, the earthquakes and psunamis, or what Fox News and CNN put on the air tomorrow. But you are in charge of how you look at these things….Your only job is to bring some peace to your little corner of the world, to help out those around you who need help, to make your corner of Teutopolis or Effingham or Montrose or Altmont better. We can. We really can.

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