Nine eye-opening questions

Here are nine questions for you 13 days before 9-11:
• Where was God during the 9-11 terror attacks?
• Where was He when thousands of innocents were dying?
• How could He allow this to happen to His children?

Here are three more questions for you:
• Was this a classic struggle between good and evil?
• Between man and man or our God and theirs?
• Between forces of hate and forces of love?

Three final questions for you:
• Was God in the hearts of the first responders?
• Was God with the brave people on United 93?
• Were they carrying out his plan to save others?

Your answers and mine may be different.
What’s important is that we think about them.
That we open our hearts and minds to the answers.
That we draw what lessons we can from them.
Because answers will come to us in the coming days.

I invite you to share your thoughts on 9-11’s lessons.
We will publish them in our 9-11 commemorative.
Email them to JerryBellune@yahoo.com
Keep the dialogue going. It’s how we learn.

Risk and reward

How much of a risk taker are you?
How is this reflected in your organization?
Do others follow your risk-taking example?
It’s no secret that CEOs set company tones.
And they attract risk takers like themselves.
New research shows this is a healthy sign.
Risk-takers are more aggressive about success.
They tend to run more profitable organizations.
They create higher value and greater esprit.
Cautious CEOs create cautious organizations.
Less successful, less profitable ones, too.
First responders are risk takers, too.
They have to be. It’s the nature of the work.
That does not mean they take foolish chances.
When buildings are ablaze, they run forward, not away.
All of us saw this on the 9-11 newscasts in 2001.
Email me your feelings about these brave individuals.
What do you think we have learned from 9-11?
How do you feel we have handled our security risks.
We will include this in our 9-11 Commemorative.
Email your thoughts to JerryBellune@yahoo.com
Our deadline is Friday, August 26

The spirit of America

One of the inspiring stories of 9-11-01 was United 93.
This was the flight that did not reach its target.
We don’t know if it was the Capitol or the White House.
But we do know brave Americans on board prevented it.



United 93 was flying from Newark to San Francisco.
Four hijackers stormed the cockpit and took control.
They commanded passengers to remain calm.
With a bomb on board, they were returning to Newark.
Passengers began calling home on their cell phones.
Their loved ones told them about the World Trade Center.
Passengers quickly concluded this was a suicide mission.



Todd Beamer and others decided to retake control.
They stormed the cockpit, forcing the hijackers’ hands.
The Boeing 757 flipped over and crashed.
It landed in a reclaimed Pennsylvania strip mine.
All on board lost their lives in the battle for control.
But they undoubtedly prevented many more deaths.



What makes this special is the spirit they showed.
The hijackers were not to complete their deadly mission.
I like to think of this as the “spirit of America”.
We are a free people and we want all people to be free.
We willingly shoulder many others’ burdens.
To those whom much is given, much is expected.



There are thousands of such 9-11 stories of bravery.
You undoubtedly know many of them yourself.
I invite you to share at least one of them with us.
We will publish a commemorative edition September 8.
We will publish your story in it and email you a copy
Email your story to chronicleads@windstream.net
Attach your photo if you want us to publish it, too.



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Remembering 9-11

Do you remember where you were Sept. 11, 2001?
Most of us will never forget those awful moments.

I had been at our newspaper office early that morning.
I had gone home to write for the week's edition
At 8:47 a.m. our editor Mark Bellune called me.
“Turn on the TV,” he commanded. I did - just in time.
American Airlines Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center.
The North Tower was in flames.

Thousands were trapped.
Like millions of Americans I watched in horror.

At 9:09 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower.
Hijackers had picked long West Coat flights.

They were heavily loaded with fuel.
At 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
None of us knew what was happening on a fourth jet.
United Airlines Flight 93 passengers suspected something.
Many had received frantic calls from loved ones.
These brave Americans fought for control of the flight.
Their plane went down in Pennsylvania. None survived.

That’s the Cliff Notes account of what happened first.
The rest of the story played out over the ensuing years.
The story is not finished yet. Historians will deal with it.

We are 10 years into our greatest test as free people.
We invite you to share your 9-11 memories with us.
We will publish them in a special commemorative edition.
Share your memories with us in 250 words or less.
You can email them to me at JerryBellune@yahoo.com
We need them no later than Friday, August 26.
If you have photos to share, please email them, too.

Want an autographed copy of one of my books?
I’ll send copies to the first three to submit memories.
I’ll also email you our Sept. 8 commemorative edition.

Mark Twain’s secret

Mark Twain was an amazingly prolific writer and speaker.
The ex-journalist did not have the aid of a laptop.
He didn’t have email and text message distractions.
People still wrote each other letters - with a pen.

Mark’s secret was to avoid busy work.
You know what that is. The stuff in your in box.
Mark swallowed the big frog first each morning.
That’s a figurative frog, not a literal one.
By that, Mark meant the #1 project on your list.
The biggie. The most important. The high payoff one.
Don’t scramble for the loose change.
Go after the million dollar stuff.
That’s how he wrote all those wonderful books.
Tom and Huck and Jim on the Mississippi.
That’s how he found time for lucrative lecture tours.

What if you dumped everything in your in box right now?
Just dump it all in your waste basket.
Horrors, you say. Well, what about it?
Most of it is busy work. It’s dictated by others.
Are you going to let them set your agenda?

Don’t be enslaved by your in box and email.
Ignore those text messages.
Let voicemail take care of incoming calls.
If it’s a genuine emergency, someone will yell at you.
If the building’s on fire, you’ll smell the smoke.
Otherwise, take care of that big frog.
Make it Numero Uno. Projecto #1.

Mark joked that we should swallow the big frog first.
Then we know that’s the worst that will happen all day.
Not all big frogs are fun to swallow. But they’re critical.
What Mark didn’t say: The frog won’t like it much either.

Ignore those calls, emails and text messages.
Get down to work right now. Yes. Right now.
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