Month: April 2016

WHERE YOUR ENERGY GOES

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I heard a saying the other day,  “energy flows where focus goes”. This is so true. What we focus on will be what we see. Try this if you don’t believe me. Wherever you are right now try to find everything that is colored red, count how many things you find. Now close your eyes and take a deep breath. Let it out, and relax. Now think of how many things in the room that were brown. If you are like most of us this will be very tricky. Why? You just spent all of your energy and focus on finding things that were the color of red. Same thing goes with finding either the good and the bad in life.

Now by focusing on the good we are not denying that there is things in life that are not so good, no more than focusing on the red things we were not saying the brown didn’t exist. What did happen in the color example is it was hard to recall and focus on the brown things. They became less a part of our life as we were busy focusing on the red items. The big difference here is whether we focus on the good or the bad has a great deal to do with how we feel and what state we find ourselves in. What difference does that make? When you are feeling good about life and yourself you are more willing to try new things, you are less stressed, you treat others better, In other words, it makes a big difference.

So do yourself a favor and begin to focus on the good things in your life. As I tell people in my seminars, one of the best ways to reduce the negative in our lives is to increase the positive. If a certain problem is really bothering you, do your best to think of something that is either going quite well or that you can be thankful for. Try to notice all of the good things going on around you, even if they don’t directly affect you. Just like in our color example the not so good things will begin to fade.

100% OF THE TIME

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In this blog we always examine ways to do things better with less stress and more joy. To start the week we are going to do things a little different.  No matter how hard we try to always do what we think is right, to always live up to our own standards and to not make mistakes sometimes we fail at that. It is not being bad, it is called being human.

Let me provide you a few examples from my own life. Yes,  I said a few. Mistakes have a way of coming in bunches even for those of us dedicated to living a life of self-improvement. Lately though mistakes and failures don’t have me cringing or hanging my head, they actually excite me. I’ll get to why after my examples.

First example, I wrote a book called A Happy Life for Busy People great read, check it out by clicking on the title. It is a book about reducing stress and increasing joy. Still sometimes I have a very stressful day and people in public can see the man who wrote the book about happiness is well, unhappy. My relationship is amazing and I am blessed to have a lady who works as hard as I do to keep it that way. On occasion we have our disagreements. It leaves me feeling like I am doing something wrong (which often can be the case).

So why am I not upset and hanging my head about these? There are two very good reasons and if you use them you will never fear making another mistake.  You will never be bothered by trying something and it doesn’t work out. You will be, as a lot of successful people say, failing forward.

Ok so what are the two things that can turn these into events to be excited about? First reason can be explained in the words of  napoleon hill. He said,  “every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of equal or greater benefit” when you make a mistake or fail as it may seem you are provided with an opportunity to learn. You also are shown an area you have yet to work on.

The second great thing about mistakes? This one I am just learning. Mistakes can be especially painful when you are in the public eye.  Believe me being an author, speaker, bartender and DJ puts you in front of a lot of people. Those very people see you stumble and see you make a mistake. This provides you with a very unique opportunity. To show them two things, how you handle your mistakes and how committed you are to your cause. This is a very important lesson in interpersonal relationships. Show them you will own your mistake, you will apologize and you will take actions to correct it.  You will earn far more respect than if you were “perfect”.

Feel free to share this post and share your ways of handling your mistakes in the comments below.

RISE FROM THE ASHES!

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This is a picture of the Phoenix the mythical bird that dies by bursting into flames, but then rises from it’s own ashes to be born again.

This is an important symbol to those of us who have had our lives figuratively burst into flames. Perhaps we have worked a good portion of our lives at a job only to watch the company, and our retirement burst into flames and disappear. Then finding ourselves to old to begin a new career our life feels like we are standing in a pile of the ashes of the hopes and dreams we once had.

Much like the Phoenix we must use those Ashes to rise again! So this weekend if you find yourself at some point in your life where you feel like you are standing in the ashes of your hopes and dreams and everything you wanted to accomplish rise again like the mythical Phoenix and Chase those dreams harder than ever feel free to even print out this blog post and this picture to inspire you and feel free to share this blog post to inspire others as well as to leave your story about how you Rose From the Ashes

TAKE IT WITH YOU

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This is my coffee mug this morning, and my hand holding said mug. Notice the fun state fair logo? When I took this picture it was early in the morning, about 37 degrees, snowing and I was on my way to work. Most importantly, I was happy. Why, when I am not a fan of winter, or snow was I so sunny on the inside? There are several reasons, the people I surround myself with, my belief system which has taken years to come to fruition and little reminders and symbols I bring with me. I am a huge fan of the state fair here in Wisconsin. It is during the warm summer months, there is generally no snow in August here. For some reasons I also enjoy balloons. They tend to make me happy. This coffee mug has the state fair logo, a balloon and even a pig, which although this one looks slightly guilty of something, they are an animal I enjoy seeing at the state fair.

So what difference does this coffee mug make in the overall course of my day? It does two things, it holds my coffee, which is a very important job and it also serves as a small reminder of all these little things that make me smile. Why is that so important? If you are going to have a travel mug full of coffee to take with you anyway, why not have one that makes you smile? There are plenty of little things we come across throughout our day that can challenge our inner sunshine, so fill your day with as many symbols and reminders of joy as you can. You can put a smiley face on your dashboard, or picture of your loved one in your visor. Little flower on your desk at work? Whatever symbols mean joy and happiness to you. So take them with you. Leave them all over. Remind yourself of everything that makes you happy and everything you have to be grateful for in as many ways as you can.

Feel free to share this blog post with others and please feel free to share your symbols of happiness with us in the comments below.

TAKE THE LESSON

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Often in times we can feel defeated. This is a natural and not to thrilling part of life. There will always be pain. Pretty inspirational so far huh? This blog, and my work is not about denying reality, but rather learning to thrive in any circumstances. So what do you do when pain strikes? Sometimes a moment to yourself of quiet reflection is needed, as long as it does not turn into hiding from the world for days on end living in the pain. Sometimes it shows us that we may need to distance or eliminate certain people in our lives, but we must be careful not to start losing our faith and trust in everyone. Sometimes pain will have us evaluate situations we are in and determine if they are still in our best interests such as relationships, jobs and friendships. We must just guard against becoming bitter and resentful towards the world. In all of these we must remember to take the lesson. If it is a person causing us pain, we must decide if it is worth keeping them in our lives. If not, and we still do we will still have the pain. If it is a job that does not fulfill us we are quite literally committing spiritual suicide. If we go to the opposite side of the spectrum and decide because one relationship left us hurt that all relationships are hurtful we will be denying ourselves the love we deserve.

This reminds me a lot of working out. When you first start working out, or any new physical exercise the following day can leave you feeling like you played a game of chicken with a semi…and lost. If you stay too long in trying to wait until you feel back to normal to try again you will just get pain and have to start the cycle all over. That being said, if you just decide “this hurts and working out is painful and bad” you will never get healthy and shape the body you want. We must grow from the pain and not let it destroy us.

Please share this post with everyone you might know suffering from pain. thank you for helping me help others.

ALL ENCOMPASSING P WORD

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Today’s P word as you may have figured out by the picture is perspective. This word, as we are going to use it, is close to attitude. It is, however, a little more. Perspective is how we view the world. What many fail to understand is how vital it is to have a healthy perspective on life.

So let’s ask ourselves what perspective is healthy? The first word that comes to mind is grateful. Having a grateful perspective can change the way life appears to you. In my own life i have constant reminders of this. When my hours at my job were cut from 45 a week to ten it seemed I had been left up a creek without a paddle. Then I went down to help at a homeless shelter.  Not only did these people not have jobs, many did not have homes.  Today as I write this i strained a muscle in my arm at work. The man who served me my coffee had only one arm.

I was explaining this to a man I work with at the post office and his response was “so what it doesn’t change anything”. After inquiring what he meant he explained my arm still hurt and my hours were still cut even if others had it worse. He was right of course, the reality of my situation did not change. What did change was how I felt about it
How important is that? As we discussed earlier in this blog feeling good about our life is one of the major indicators of a successful life.

Another conversation I had with this gentleman explains it perfectly. He had informed me we are all like the lemmings who eventually jump off a cliff to their death. We are all just slowly marching towards that cliff. Shocking him, I agreed. While he saw this as a ‘why bother’ I saw it as the importance of making every moment count.  We never know where the edge of our cliff is. He further informed me whether the “lemming” was focused on all he had to be grateful for in his life or just thinking about the fall, he is going to die. Again, I agreed, but added “which one do you think will have more fun on the way down?”

It was the famous speaker Les Brown who said “you can’t get out of life alive, so you might as well have fun while you’re here”. Isn’t that the whole reason we are here? If you are not enjoying your life, you are wasting the life that has been given to you.  So do yourself a favor and develop a positive, healthy and grateful perspective. It may or may not change your reality, but it is certain to change how you feel.

Feel free to not only share this post, but share your ideas for keeping a healthy perspective in the comments below.