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Originally Posted 02/13/2021

If you read this intro before…skip to the blue below.

I had this idea in my head. Maybe put three pictures up in my office, each representing something important about what I do. Counseling reminder. A touchstone for the eye of sorts. Well, like I said, it was in my head and as I realized one of the three pictures I wasn’t going to be able to get, and the others were certainly copyrighted, the three sort of evolved as I looked for alternatives. So in looking for a different way to go, in my head, we went from three reminders to 96 reminders. It’s why my wife refers to what comes out of my noggin as ‘cumbersome’ on occasion.

So. I am mostly a counselor, but I have also studied and practiced a bunch of other things including cuisine and photography. I always wanted to have an idea why some folks in every field are wildly successful compared to many of their contemporaries, so I always checked a bunch of them out. So, here come 96 people and quotes attributed to them, if there are any – 24 chefs, 24 photographers, 20 people associated with psychology directly, and then 28 none of the above people whose lives or words remind me what to strive towards as a counselor, a counseling business owner, and a general human being. The only problem was stopping. There have been a lot of people who for one reason or another inspire me, lots more names on the potential list but it had to at least pause somewhere, so here we are.

I don’t rightly know if writing these out and posting them will be of any use to anyone else but I’m reasonably sure codifying the whole thing will drive it home for me and hopefully offer some encouragement and centering for our folks. Hope you get something out of one or two of them too.

Talked quite a bit about Viktor in a podcast (you can find it here). I’m certain his person and perspective aren’t perfect by any standard but what they have always been to me is useful. Particularly useful at times in life during which things couldn’t seem to get any worse.

I will remain awed by his brilliance and humbled by his ability to survive something I can’t even begin to comprehend. To put those things together in a manner that has allowed me to be helpful to people who are working to endure other things I can’t begin to imagine, earns him a spot, for sure.

I’m never going to improve on them, so, let’s just go to his words.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
-Viktor E. Frankl

“If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load that is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So, if therapists wish to foster their patients’ mental health, they should not be afraid to increase that load through a reorientation toward the meaning of one’s life.”
-Victor Frankl

“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”
-Viktor E. Frankl

“Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.”
-Viktor E. Frankl

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. “
-Viktor E. Frankl

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.””
Victor Frankl

“What is to give light must endure burning.”
-Viktor Frankl

“I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.”
-Viktor E. Frankl

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
-Viktor Frankl

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way.”
-Victor Frankl

Learn more about Viktor here:

Here’s A Ted Talk option – click here

Of if you want a deep dive option and want some challenging reading here’s a link to books on amazon – click here

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