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HUMP DAY REMINDER 🐫

This is an important and much needed reminder. There are so many of us that work so hard to make the world a better place and bring joy to others. Those same people are often the hardest on themselves. Check your inner conversation. Is it motivating? Recently, I noticed that my inner conversation started to lean a little more to the negative than I would care for. I mentioned to Margie, “I need to work on being more positive.” She gave me a look that showed her shock with my statement. I should have been a little more specific. My outer conversation was still very positive. However, my inner conversation was not. Allow me to give you an example. Winter is always difficult for me. The cold, the lack of life, it all has me feeling down. I decided to add a way to help with this. I decided to appreciate the effort and beauty behind the decorations people put up for the holidays.

On the outside I did pretty good. Whether I was with others, or by myself. I would remark, “Wow! That one looks nice.” or “That must have taken a long time.” I did feel better. That was until my inner voice started talking. I am not sure who that person is, but he didn’t have many nice things to say. I heard the voice in my head say, “That one is sloppy.” and “Why did they even bother to put up decorations if they were not going to take their time?” Here I was trying to find beauty and the holiday spirit and my inner dialogue turned into a holiday decoration critic. Then, I started getting down on myself for being negative.

We must remember that we are human. We must be forgiving and compassionate with ourselves. Especially during this busy season. As a solution to combat my newly negative self-talk, I have begun to listen to positive affirmations on the way to work in the morning. It places positive thoughts in my head before my head can come up with negative ones. Remember to be kind to ourselves the rest of the week. In what ways are you kind to yourself?

1 SENTENCE ON LIVING LIFE

It is with a great sense of compassion that I write this. It is true that a lot of people are victims of not knowing what they do not know. In today’s world, unless you live in a dictatorship, you have access to more information that the richest and most powerful had just a few years ago. If you think in any way this sounds condescending, let me assure you that I can use myself as an example.

Before the year 2000, my life was a mess. My relationships, my career and my health. There was no direction to my life. Self-improvement? That was something I heard about in passing. My childhood consisted more of a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” sort of thing. Studying the power of the subconscious mind or the importance of taking care of your mental health? Never was a topic discussed. Let us face it, the public education system when I grew up was worried more about you finding the surface area of an ellipse than how to manage your stress and find direction in your life.

The point was that I was ignorant. How do we go from there to someone who teaches seminars on self-improvement, has a daily blog and three published books on the subject? It all began with a Tony Robbins infomerical. Yes, it was 3am and I was getting ready for work and you could get a ‘free trail’ if you called now. So, half asleep, I did call. It was so long ago that I was sent a tape cassette. I listened to that thing over and over again. I have come across many great sources sense that day, but Tony had, and still does, a great talent for speaking directly to the person listening.

The whole story is chronicled in my first book, A Happy Life for Busy People. After much hard work and the influence of my beautiful lady, Margie, my life is one I am happy and proud to live. Is there work to do? Of course. David Goggins (I told you there were more influences) puts it best, “There is no finish line.” Becoming the best version of yourself is a life-long journey. Matthew McConaughey says his hero is him 10 years from now. Meaning the more enlightened and knowledgeable version of himself.

The key thing to getting started is knowing that nobody is coming to save you. You have to put in the effort. If you do not know what to do, go to the library, go online and get the information. Take the actions and get started. Where you started from does not matter. What you do about it is what counts!

YOUR BIGGEST COMEBACK!

In life, so many people do their best to put us down and keep us down. It can be for our race, our beliefs or just because they are not so pleasant people. It can be quite dispiriting. What can you do in those situations?

One solution that works in every case is to work on being the healthiest version of ourself. This is multifaceted and gives us plenty to work on while we deal with our challenges. Our health consists of physical, mental and spiritual or emotional health. When we have these in order, we are poised for success. The more we work on them, the better our potential.

There are so many ways to work on our health. It can be our diet and eating better. It can be engaging in physical fitness. It can be meditation to heal from trauma. It can be learning to change our mindset to better reflect the life we wish to live.

Do not let the world get you down. When it is doing its best to try, work hard on yourself and your health. That is both your physical, mental and emotional or spiritual health. You will come out stronger no matter what challenge you are facing.

MAKE IT A HABIT

When you converse with others, how does the conversation usually go? Do you recite complaints of the day? Do you discuss others and their behavior? Maybe world news and all of the crazy politics of the day? How about the mistakes your sports team made?

If you are anything like most people, that is the majority of your conversation. Have you ever paid attention to your daily verbal output? Most of us don’t we just start talking.

Starting today, why not make an effort to inject some positive and inspiring words into the mix? It is so rare,people may even look at you funny. What they will also do is want to be around you. People like hearing good news. It might be awkward at first, but once they get used to it, they will want to hear more.

Let us talk about how it affects you, the speaker. In order to both start and maintain a conversation, we have to think about the topics which we are discussing. Despite how some people may seem, it is impossible to speak without thinking about it first. If you’re speech is mostly negative, guess what your thoughts will be? If it is positive, guess what your thoughts will be? Your thoughts dictate your feelings. Would you rather feel positive or negative? Watch what you think and say. Talk about something inspiring for a change!

DO NOT PREPARE TOO MUCH FOR THE FUTURE?

This may seem a little contrary, but stick with us. There are so many people that spend their entire life in the planning phase that life passes them by. When they are ready to put their plans in action they are too old or life has provided a reason not to do it. It could be a health challenge or a situational change.

Life should be a balance of planning and action. Do not let life pass you by while you are planning to start it.

DON’T FORGET THIS ON MONDAY

Monday can be tough for all of us. It can start Sunday night. A tightening on the stomach knowing the work week is one alarm clock away. It is important to remember that picturing the best can help eliminate a lot of that anxiety.

It doesn’t have to be limited to Monday or work for that matter. In any situation, imagine the best case scenario. It did not cost anything and can reduce stress and increase joy.

THE REAL POWER OF A MAN

This picture and quote is obviously meant for a romantic relationship. It also could work both ways, for a man or a woman. A true measure of success is the joy your life brings to those around you and the world at large. In my humble opinion, this also holds true of the planet as well. An animal you helped may not be able to smile, but knowing that you could positively affect the life of another living creature means that you are a success. Picking up litter and helping the planet, also a success.

In a world where we all too often measure success in material means, we may forget what true success looks like. It looks like the smile on the person next to you. What good would it do if your business is booming, you drive the latest car and live in the biggest house if your family is suffering? What good does it do you to be a public success and a private failure? That is why we see so many celebrities that we feel have it all going in and out of rehab or worse. They may have bought the big house, but they never took care of what was in that house.

The same can be said of judging success by looks. Yes, it is important to be healthy. What good would an amazing body and dazzling looks do if you have a heart full of anger and jealousy? Again, you took care of the body, but forgot about what is inside the body. By developing inner peace and compassion, you will treat others with the same. That will make people smile for sure. In a world that is filled with chaos and people looking for their 15 minutes of fame, true success would be putting smiles on the faces of others.

HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR SUFFERING?

Most of you reading this will be tempted to say, “I would not like suffering at all.” That would be an ideal life. It is also quite unrealistic. In everyone’s life, there is suffering. We do not get to choose when, or what kind we get.

What we do have a choice of is what we do with that suffering. We can grow from suffering. Like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes. The other option is to let it destroy us. Shatter our hopes and dreams.

Suffering gives us few options. The one that we do have is a powerful one. That is what we decide the meaning of that suffering will be.

25 YEARS AND NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED

As most of you know, today marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attack here in the United States. When looking at the event, I thought it was important to look at motives. Why would a group of people want to kill so many innocent people?

I’m not going into the political aspect of everything. That is not what we do here. What I can say is that it is long past due for people to hold their government accountable for the actions they take. It is also time for people to learn that innocent lives should not pay for injustice, whether real or perceived.

The lessons that could have been learned from 9/11 sadly have faded with time. There seems to be more division and hate than we have seen in a long time. There seems to be less meaningful communication. This is the kindling that starts the fire of hate burning.

We need to open our hearts and our minds now more than ever. Punishing each other over and over again will only continue the loss of innocent lives. Let us to better for future generations.

WHEREVER I MAY ROAM

Take a look around you. Wherever you happen to be reading this. It could be while getting your morning coffee. It could be in break at work or right before you go to bed. Feel free to share when you usually read this website.

Even if you happen to be reading this while waiting for the dentist, this holds true. If you look around there will be something you are grateful for. It could be that morning coffee you are making. It could be the coworker you get along with. If it is at night, your soft pillow is something worth gratitude. Even at the dentist, you could be grateful for the exit door!

I would recommend doing this several times a day. It not only increases gratitude, but gives a feeling of peace and tranquility in a often hectic world. I would love to hear both what time of day you read this site as well as what you are grateful for around you right now!

JUST A LITTLE TO THE LEFT….

Last post we discussed how small actions and habits can have disastrous results. That was a little negative. Although still very true. Today, we are going to look at the opposite. We are going to look at good habits and how, given time, they can transform our life positively.

To do this, let us look at a metaphor that might help put it in perspective. I do not play golf. I’m not sure if you do or not. We can all appreciate the basics. You got a ball and try to get it into a hole several hundred yards away.

At the point of contact, a slight change in the direction you hit the ball, even millimeters, can have a huge impact as to where the ball lands. Think of it. If you change the angle 2 millimeters and follow the ball several hundred yards, it will be in a dramatically different spot.

That’s often how positive actions and habits work in our life. We take one small action. Perhaps it is cutting out drinking our daily Coca-Cola. Nothing much happens right away. We follow that change for several months, or a year, and we discover our pants fit better and we have less inflammation.

Think of these examples when you make a small change. You might have to stick with it a while. After which, it may lead to a huge impact. Just like the millimeter and the golf ball.