Be bold! In order to receive much you must risk much. Do not worry about what your critics say. Most of them wish they were you anyway. Think “bigger.” Be unreasonable! Abandon logic. Forget about being rational! If your dream is unrealistic, go for it! We all know today, anything is possible.

Success is a journey of the bold and courageous! You deserve to be successful. You work hard and you know that a big dream requires a big sacrifice. Finish what you start. Completion is success.

Confront your doubts as they arise! Doubts are limiting decisions and unconscious beliefs that you formed long ago. Your unconscious mind uses them to keep you safe, but those thoughts no longer serve you. What is your truth today? You have more skill, you have more experience and you have more guts than ever before. That is your truth today. Toss those doubts in the air and smash ‘em over the net! Game. Set. Match.

- - Les Brown

"The person who is a master in the art of living makes little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which. They simply pursue their vision of excellence and grace in whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing. To them, they are always doing both."

- - Zen Buddhist text

The U.S. Postal Service just unveiled the Maya Angelou Forever Stamp image. Along with the preview image comes the announcement that the First-Day-of-Issue stamp dedication ceremony, which will be free and open to the public, with limited seating, will take place on April 7th at 11:00 a.m. in Washington, D.C., at the Warner Theater.

The imagery on the stamp comes from Atlanta-based artist Ross Rossin’s 2013 48” x 48” oil-on-canvas portrait of Angelou. Rossin says of his work, “I was compelled by the challenge to portray her forgiving smile and her aura of unconditional love and understanding that comes across when having a conversation with her.”

“Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. . . Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”
- -  Maya Angelou

Grammy award-winning musician Pharrell Williams will soon be known as an Author. 

Putnam Books for young readers have announced that Pharrell Williams has signed up for four picture books, starting with a celebration of childhood inspired by his hit song Happy.

The publisher has planned a first print run of 250,000 copies of Happy, which will be published on 22 September, and will feature photographs of children from around the world “celebrating what it means to be happy”.

For the last couple of weeks I have been hearing these interesting lyrics in a song that is being used to promote the upcoming season of "Being Mary Jane" on the BET Network. Finally, I located the song and lyrics and decided to share it with our readers.

Flawed Beautiful Creatures by Stacy Barthe

Sometimes we're insecure, we're fragile
Sometimes we laugh at each other to make ourselves feel better
Sometimes we lie, sometimes we say things
That we really don't mean
But in the moment, seem like the thing to do

[Chorus:]
We're all flawed beautiful people
We're all flawed beautiful creatures
We're all flawed beautiful people
We're all flawed beautiful creatures

Is it a crime if a man kills to protect his own from harm's way?
Who will be the judge anyway?
What would you have done if the gun was in your hands
Feet were in his shoes?
Guess you'll never know what you won't do
'Cause in the moment might seem like the thing to do

[Chorus:]
We're all flawed beautiful people
We're all flawed beautiful creatures
We're all flawed beautiful people
We're all flawed beautiful creatures

Sometimes we gotta lose it to find it
We gotta lose
Sometimes we win, we live a while then gotta die
Why? Why?

[Chorus:]
We're all flawed beautiful people
We're all flawed beautiful creatures
We're all flawed beautiful people
We're all flawed beautiful creatures.

View the music video for Flawed Beautiful Creatures here.