Do you want to know how pet fish beg for food and try to get your attention? When they hear you moving around (they have great hearing by the way), they periodically come up to the surface and smack/suck up an obnoxious amount of water at the surface trying to make as much noise as possible to get your attention (which is not very much noise and easy to miss). You might not even notice it if you don’t give it some thought. There is always something our animals are trying to communicate with us if we are just willing to listen, and believe that the actions they do are communicating with us. I am so grateful I have my little koi fish home who smack at me in the early morning begging for attention.

This morning I got up early and worked in my planner which is something I have not been doing since I started this new habit of writing so much in each of my video descriptions. I have kept a daily written planner for years, but this year, I doubled down and started a new commitment to actually filling out everything in the particular planner I use, which is not easy to do. It took me over 4 hours at the beginning of the year, just to read all of the instructions and fill out all of the basics it asks you to do. Such as lifetime goals, yearly goals, hopes, dreams, timelines, it is a huge commitment if you actually follow the directions the way this planner advises you to spend your time. The first few months of the year it would easily take me an hour or more, every single day, to go through all of the steps in the planner just for that day. Reviewing all goals, and what I wanted to get done that day, week, month, etc. I have suddenly altered course and started spending more time on writing this sort of public gratitude journal. As an entrepreneur you are always struggling trying to figure out the best way to spend pretty much every second of every day for maximum productivity. You have to. Families are counting on you to make good decisions, their paychecks and livelihood and quality of life depend on the choices I make every day. And I don’t want to let anyone down. And, I want to make their lives better if I can. It is a constant internal struggle. I just have to commit to not getting down about it, but keep on keeping on the best way I can, and strive to be the best vet, boss, mentor, mother, leader, and community member that I can be, today. Because today is all I have. It’s all any of us have, and we have to make the most of right now.

So today I am grateful I woke up today and I get to try again to be the best person I can be (no matter how exhausting that can get), I am grateful I got to ride Natalia yesterday although it didn’t go as well as I had hoped, I am grateful I learned that just because a volunteer can take my Masterclass and really deeply understand how to use Positive Reinforcement to train horses, they still might not know anything about simply haltering and leading a horse around and something I need to address more clearly in my program (and the reason we did not have as much success with Natalia yesterday), I am grateful for the theatre department and that I can help make the production a little better for the kids and the staff, and that I have friends who are mom’s of other theater kids that I can spend time with, I am grateful for my early morning in the dark rituals that help me start each day with laser focus and guide my decisions throughout each day and help me be the best person I can be.

​What about you? Do you wake up and go through each day just responding to what happens to you? Or do you spend a few minutes focusing on what is ahead of you, so that you can bring your best self forward? Because if you take a moment to focus on the day, you are more prepared for whatever comes, and will have less stress, and more laughter and fun, because you have the energy for that, and don’t burn yourself out just trying to survive the day. And besides, it’s the weekend! Most of you should have the whole next 2 days ahead of you to sort of do whatever YOU want. Even more reason to give it some serious thought so you can make the most of every precious second. Because there is no guarantee you will wake up tomorrow, or even live through this day, so might as well make the most of it while you can. I encourage you to take just a minute to think about your entire day, from what you will eat, to who to spend time with, to what will bring you the most joy if you could have anything you want, so that when you go to sleep tonight, you will feel satisfied at how you spent your day. That is a life well lived. And pet, hugs and kiss on a cute animal today! Thanks for being here you Animal Loving Angel! Have a great weekend!

​Check out my YouTube channel for a daily "Good Morning!" from the rescues and lots of free tips and training resources. https://www.youtube.com/@the1drq​