With all of the negative news on television, it is easy to get trapped and bogged down with feelings of negativity, overwhelm, and hopelessness. Ask yourself this very important question – what has watching, reading or listening to something negative and fear mongering ever got you? Chances are it was the three emotions mentioned earlier.
These negative stories come to us everywhere! On our television sets, on our computer screens, theyeven go with us courtesy of news alerts on our cell phone! My suggestion? Turn them all off! Replace them with something positive and motivational.
You may say, “but Neil, I need to know what is going on in the world!” Two things of note here. If it is important enough, it will make its way to you anyway. Also, it is more important to focus on what is going on in YOUR WORLD. You can always get a weather app to know if it is going to rain. Why let others decide what you are going to focus on? Especially, if it doesn’t bring you joy? Just turn it off!
A little mid-week motivation for us this morning. In today’s society, it is always tempting to compare our life for those of others. We see people’s best lives on social media. We see the success of our friends and family. Although happy for them, we often look at our own life and wonder where our success is.
Today’s photo serves as a great reminder that we all have our own time to shine. One of the best ways to set ourselves up for the greatest moment to shine, is to celebrate the shine of others. While you are waiting for your moment to shine, look around you and seewho is having their moment in the spotlight, and celebrate with them!
We do this for many reasons. One, we should be happy for the success of those in our lives. In law of attraction terms, if we focus on celebrating success, the universe will ultimately give us more success in life to celebrate. It is only a matter of time before it is ours. Also, it helps us feel good. Celebrating the success of those you care about should make you happy. It will also deepen the relationship you have with this person. Lastly, you will have a lot more people willing and eager to celebrate with you when it is your turn to shine!🌞
This post could have been titled many different things. “My secret to happiness” and “23 years of training” were other considerations. Let’s talk about the title i did choose. “Everyone should do this once in their life. ” What should everyone do once in their life? I think everyone should work a job in retail at least once in their life. You should do this for several reasons.
The first reason is that you will have a lot more compassion for people who work in retail. When you may feel tempted to yell at a store clerk during the holidays or demand the coffee shop employee creates your beverage with a certain amount of ice cubes or anything that involves fractions, you will reconsider. You will personally know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that.
The other reason to work a job in retail is to expose yourself to as many different people and ideas as you can. Like anything in life, this can either drive you crazy or make you more open-minded and compassionate. It may be one of the best ways that I know to meet people in many different fields and with many different beliefs. You may discover things that you never knew you enjoyed about some of your fellow human beings. It is good training on managing your emotions when it comes to these same fellow human beings. It will also train you, if you use it for this purpose, on managing your own emotional well-being.
I was a bartender for 23 years. My next book will be my journey from that profession to self-improvement author, speaker and blog writer. In this profession, and just in life in general, one of the questions I get a lot is, “How can you be happy all of the time.” The short answer is that I am not. Margie can certainly attest to that. It also would make life pretty boring. We learn most when we go through challenges. That is where the growth comes from. The goal in life should not be to be happy 100% of the time. You will never achieve that and it may even increase the feelings of failure you have. The goal should be to reduce the frequency and intensity of the times you are not. You should also endeavor to learn from every situation you experience in life.
Learning from everything in life is what I do my best to do. I am always trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. When I think about what allows me to feel upbeat most of the time, a lot of things come to mind. First is gratitude. Developing a attitude of gratitude is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. Surrounding yourself with what Les Brown calls OQP, or only quality people. These are the ones who will both encourage you and hold you accountable. Developing a routine of self-care is another thing that will pay dividends in the long run. I recommend all of these steps to each and every one of you reading this, but it was something I learned on my first day of bartending that made a huge difference.
Jimmy G was the man who trained me. He was one of the most respected bartenders in the city and taught me many things that I will never forget. I had the good fortune to work with and under several amazing men. One of the things Jimmy told me was “Nobody cares about your problems.” He went on to explain that you never want to walk into a bar with a depressed or even indifferent bartender. Whatever is happening in your life, for the time you are behind the bar you must put it behind you. “When you are done working you can go back to being sad, mad or whatever else you are dealing with. When you are behind the bar, you must act as if it is the greatest day of your life.” I used this same manner of thinking when it came to working the window area of the post office. Even if people dealt with me for a mere 60 seconds, I wanted it to be the best 60 seconds of their day.
What I learned by being ‘happy’ for an eight hour bartending shift, is that you can emotionally compartmentalize many emotions. I was forced to learn many methods and find the ones that worked for me. Doing this for the time I was working taught me that I could still have things crumbling down in my life and manage a positive outlook. In doing so, it allowed me to see opportunities and solutions I may have missed if I was in the whirlwind of negative emotion focused on what is wrong. This is a skill that has stuck with me. I am grateful for the chance to learn it. Having a positive outlook, even one that may be just ‘show’ for the public, can help us see ways in which to do so authentically.
When was the last time you asked yourself the very important question, “how can I enjoy life?” I mean actually sat down and mapped out a plan to enjoy life more. It has been quite a while for me. Considering the extent our emotional well-being affects our quality of life, you would think it would be something we ask ourselves often. Yet, it is a question we not only rarely map out an answer to, but hardly ever ask.
I believe the reason we do not place more of our focus on what brings our hearts joy, is because we have been trained to focus on getting things done. Especially in Western society, the focus has been more material. Get that good job. Get that promotion. Get that new car. I’m not here to tell you that having a goal you are working on is a bad thing, quite the opposite. I just believe you should also focus on enjoying the process.
Would you feel that you were a success if you had a great job, a great car, a fancy house and all that money could buy but were miserable? I’m guessing the answer would be no. Material gains are of little value if we are bankrupt emotionally and spiritually. One of the secrets of being happy is being grateful for what you have. Combine this ‘attitude of gratitude’ with the desire to have something better and you have a successful formula for most areas of your life.
Take your relationships for example. If your sole focus is “This relationship should be better.” You are going to feel miserable. Conversely, if your thought is “I am so grateful to be in this relationship. I wonder how I can make it even better?” That will give you an entirely different feeling!
Same holds true for your job. If your thought everyday is “This job sucks!” I can tell the morning commute will not be that much fun. If,however, you say yourself, “I am grateful to have a job. I wonder how I could enjoy it more?” Even if you really want a different job, you can still say to yourself, “I am grateful to have a job while I am pursuing a vocation that speaks to my soul”
In all areas of your life,please remember to include enjoying the process. We spent 80% of our life in the process. If we can find a way to enjoy that, we quite possibly come close to enjoying 100% of life. Try asking yourself today, “what can I do to enjoy my life more?” I would love to hear some of your answers in the comments below!
Delusions are usually something that is frowned upon. People who see things that “are not there” or see them differently than our reality deems them to be are often looked upon as if they are crazy. In fact, the word delusional is often used as an insult. People who live in a world of their own are often looked at as ‘mad’ such as the character in Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter. Which was attributed to the use of mercury in the making of hats back in the day. Mercury poison aside, there are many reasons people suffer delusions. Not all people suffer delusions. Some rather enjoy them. I recall another roll played by Johnny Depp, that in Don Juan DeMarco. It is one of my favorite movies. I will not ruin it for you, but in the movie Mr. Depp thinks he is the legendary Don Juan and is placed under the care of a psychiatrist, played by Marlon Brando. When asked why he thinks he is at a villa instead of a mental hospital, he responds by informing Mr. Brando that it is because he can see beyond what is.
For a more personal and helpful example, I am going to reference someone who has been called delusional and crazy quite often – me! At my day job this week, I have been wearing some fun and colorful shirts that Margie bought for me. Everyone complimented me and told me it had them feeling like they were on vacation. That is the secret we are going to look at today. One of the great laws that we can used to beat stress is to remember that there is no law of biology or physics that says your mind and body have to be in the same place at the same time. We often use this in a negative way. When we should be enjoying the time we are spending with our family around the dinner table, our minds are preoccupied with some stress that happened at the office. We spend a good amount of our vacation worrying about our upcoming dentist appointment. We all too often take ourselves out of enjoyable situations and transport, at least our mental faculties, into one that is more stressful.
My suggestion, and one I use personally, is to flip this formula on its head. When you find yourself in a unpleasant situation, take your mind on a mental vacation! Like I told my coworkers who complimented my shirts, “Physically, I am here talking to you, but mentally I am on a beach drinking out of a coconut.” This is rather true. One of the ways that I am able to accomplish this is to utilize different items that remind me of vacation. I have pictures of Margie and I on vacation in my phone. I wore the tropical shirts I had. Even use a coconut air-freshener. I even have a ‘tropical playlist’ of music and ocean waves saved on my phone. Using these items allow me to escape mentally to the tropics any time that I want. This allows me to live on vacation!
Employing this formula for good can transform your life to one of being right where you want to be. Mentally, you can hang up a sign that says “Gone to the beach” (or mountains, or shopping or wherever else you would like to go) That way when you finally do make it there physically, your mind will be prepared and you can make the most of it. Think of escaping to Fiji while you are in the dentist chair or the sunny sands of Jamaica while in line at the grocery store. This may sound crazy, but the more you practice it, the more you will immerse yourself in a world of your own creation. Go ahead and create your own delusions! Go ahead and be crazy. Go ahead and be mad. Sometimes a delusion is just the prescription we need!
A few posts ago we looked at a quote from Albert Einstein. It highlighted the choice between living life as though nothing was a miracle, or living life as though everything was a miracle. Can you really live life as though everything was a miracle? You can and it can be easier than you think!
I believe there are two keys to living your life as though everything was a miracle. The first is to begin to look for them. There are two examples in the pictures above. The first is how the scoop came out of my protein powder. I was on the way to the gym and not really feeling my workout and there appears a smiley face on my scoop from my protein powder! The second was a majestic sunrise on my way to work. Seldom am I feeling it on the way to work. Seeing this wonderful example of natures beauty does give a lift to the spirit!
The second key to living life as though everything was a miracle is to ask yourself “what is the miracle in this?” Again, we get an example of some majestic natural beauty. That would be the love of my life, Margie. When I think of our love and ask myself, “What is the miracle in our love?” There are many answers to choose from. It is a miracle that we found each other. It is a miracle that we made it through many difficult challenges early on before our love even had a chance to grow. It seems like a miracle how we find new ways to make our love grow. Imagine how your view of your relationship might change if you asked yourself, “What is the miracle in my relationship?”
Try doing those two things this month. Look for the Miracles around you. Then pick situations and ask yourself “What is the miracle in this?” You will be surprised how that will change your view of your relationship, your job, and even your time in line at the grocery store. Walking through the park, I saw the miracle of life with this baby duck and its mother. You can live life as though everything was a miracle by doing these two things. Soon you will discover that, indeed, everything is a miracle.
This is something most of us, myself included, do without even thinking about it. We speak to ourselves negatively. You call a female “sir” or say “thank you” to the proctologist. Then you curse yourself out for being so absent-minded with your speaking. “How could I call that lady sir? I’m so stupid!” Or “Only an idiot thanks someone for exploring places of your bodythat should be left alone!”
Examples don’t have to be so extreme. There are a million “How could I?” and “I can’t believe I” Often, we say these things so frequently, we might not even be aware we are doing it. Ask yourself, do you honestly pay close attention to your self-talk or does it seem to take on a life of its own? Is it like a computer program that is constantly running in the background? Maybe you check in every now and again, or maybe you are do busy focused on all you have to get accomplished that day?
The truth is we are always talking to ourselves. Imagine someone following you around 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and giving opinions and passing judgment on our activities. What if 80% of the things this person said were negative? How long before you would tell that person to sit down and shut up? According to the National Science Foundation, that is exactly the percentage of our daily thoughts that are negative. If that isn’t bad enough, 95% of our thoughts are the same thoughts we had the day before. If you are keeping score at home, that means there is a 95% chance that 80% of your self-talk is negative.
Does this mean we are resigned to a life of doom and gloom? Not hardly. What can the average person do to change their inner dialog to one that is more positive? As we have said countless times on this site, the key to success is not fighting against the negative, but adding the positive. This is where all of those smiling at yourself in the mirror saying “I love you” people come in. Although this is very beneficial, initially it may be a bit hard to accept.
I suggest writing yourself a positive motivational affirmation that includes your name and try saying that to yourself first thing every morning. An example might be something like “You are going to kick some butt today Neil, and no challenge will be able to bring you down.” Another option could be “Neil, you are too strong to let the negative in the world bring you down.” Even these may seem a little hokey at first, but they are true. Are you doing your best to improve your life? Are you working your butt off to accomplish your dreams? I bet you are and you deserve to hear that! Especially from yourself!
This week try looking in your eyes in the mirror and saying one positive affirmation twice a day. First thing in the morning and last thing at night. Notice how your conversation improves and how much better you start to feel. Don’t worry if you still catch yourself still talking negative to yourself once in a while. Just focus on that affirmation. Maybe even repeat it to yourself when you do Notice negative inner dialog.
Only seconds ago, I just completed my third book. My hope us to have it edited and in your hands by my birthday on July 29th. We will do our best to make sure that happens.
In the closing chapter, I came across this quote from Albert Einstein. Nothing could be more true. It is a shame most of us never realize this until we are facing a severe health challenge, or worse yet, facing the end of our life. We do not have to let it come to that. There are so many Miracles that come into our lives we have become desensitized to them. Merely breathing and how our bodies transform the air we breathe into a source to keep us alive. Don’t even get me started on changing food to energy and raw material. As an author, my body can change caffeine into words on paper or a keyboard! Trust me when I tell you that is a miracle.
Many people journal. I think it is one of the most powerful tools to positively transform your life. People do everything from gratitude journals, to just keeping a diary. What if we kept a miracle journal? Just record everything we considered a miracle in our lives? It would not only help us better notice the Miracles, but be able to feel the joy in realizing they are there.
I would LOVE to hear what miracle you have experienced or noticed today? Feel free to share with everyone in the comments below. My miracle is that I can turn my recent open heart surgery into a book that will hopefully positively impact the lives of countless people!
Today will be a quick, yet important blog. I want to remind everyone how vital our simple acts of kindness can be. A few posts ago, I did this by sharing stories of some nice notes left to me from a coworker and barista. Today’s example was far more striking.
This example came in one line that was uttered to me. Margie told me it was common courtesy. I’m telling you it really saved me from a bad situation. I was at the gym working out some stress as I do 4 to 5 days a week. Before I left there was an urgent matter I had to attend to on the men’s room. As I walked past the first stall, I noticed the door was closed and it was occupied. I hurried to the next one and was just about to take my place upon the porcelain throne, when a voice from the stall next to me rang out. Taking to a stranger while sitting in what is perhaps the most vulnerable position takes some courage. For men, even more so. What important words of wisdom did this gent feel so eager to share with me? That would be the title of this blog. The man shouted “Hey buddy! There is no toilet paper!”
He did not have to do this. I was sure glad he did. In my excitement at the prospect of handling my business, I had failed to check the toilet paper supply situation. This gentleman saved what could have been a quite embarrassing moment for me. Having to yell out, get someone’s attention to let them know there was no toilet paper,wait for that person to tell the appropriate party, and then wait for them to get the paper and hand it to me in the stall. Yes, that might have cast a long shadow on the day.
That man in the other stall, never did see who he was, saved me from a bad day by simply displaying a common courtesy. Not a big deal for him, but certainly one for me. Remember this comical story as you go about your day and make sure to go the extra mile for the people in your life.
This is a subject that I feel has been written about at great length. There is great scientific evidence that having a purpose does great things for your life. It can reduce stress. It can help guide you as to what actions you should take. It can also help sustain you when things are not going so well. In my own life, I have even felt a sense of energy and resilience when keeping my purpose in mind. This is why you owe it to yourself to spend some time on finding your true purpose. What we are going to look at today can take anywhere from a few seconds, to a few minutes. Nothing more than that. It will be easy and it will be fun. It will also give you a taste of all the wonderful benefits we mentioned above.
As we can see in the picture of the baby swan above, it is walking with a sense of purpose. One of the most difficult things about finding your purpose, is that people look at it as this larger-than-life activity. It doesn’t have to be. There are two important things to consider when finding your purpose. One, your purpose can change. You don’t have to worry about choosing the wrong purpose or making a mistake. You can always decide to tweak your purpose as you, and your life change. You can even decide to scrap it and choose a new one. You will still move further and faster than going through life without one. There is a fun little exercise you can do while you are pondering what your life purpose may be. It takes no time at all and will add a great deal of positive things to your life.
The secret to helping your mind get used to living with purpose is to start out small. Pick a daily purpose. It could be to clean a section of the house. A good purpose could be to reach out to someone you know is hurting just to offer them support. Hopefully, everyone in your life is happy and not hurting. If this is the case, you could even send a card, or even an email or message, just to say you were thinking of them and appreciate them. Your purpose may be to bring more joy into a friendship or relationship. Perhaps today’s purpose is to give 110% on the job site. There are more spiritual/emotional ways to go about it. Your purpose could be to just spend quality time with friends and be fully present, like these ducks and birds were doing when I happened upon them. Devoting time to self-care can be a great purpose. Spending 30 minutes with a good cup of tea or coffee and a great book can do wonders for the spirit. The more you practice these ‘daily purposes’ the easier it is to live a life that is both rewarding as well as fulfilling.
I would love to hear more about what activities you decide to choose as your daily purpose. Are you a parent that decides to impart one item of life knowledge with your child? Was your purpose to do one thing to improve your relationship with your boss? Maybe you would like to take a step to help local wildlife? I would love to hear what you decide. Your ideas could help spark an idea in someone else. Who knows what that might lead to? As a bonus, when you do these ‘little’ life purposes, you will not only see one aspect of your life improve daily, you will also have a daily sense of accomplishment.
