ANOTHER MILESTONE!!!

Five years of writing this blog? Where does the time go? It was thanksgiving day 2012 I wrote my first post. That post, fittingly enough, was about gratitude. It is a subject often revisited throughout the years and hundreds of posts I have had the honor of sharing with all of you.

Why is gratitude such a hot subject? Why do I not only chose to revisit it so often, but it seems to be the buzz word on the lips of celebrities such as Oprah, Jim Carrey and others. It was one of the main pillars of the blockbuster movie the secret. This is why – very little, if anything, can change your life as much, or as quickly as gratitude. This may sound new-age or esoteric, but there I scientific reasons behind this. First, your mind can only focus on one thought at a time. You cannot feel stressed out, overwhelmed, angry and grateful all at the same time. Do not believe me? Try thinking of your favorite animal and the statue of liberty at the same time. Go ahead, I will wait. You will find your mind can bounce back and forth between the two, but cannot hold two different thoughts at the very same moment.

Another reason is it helps activate a super-power you have in your brain. Yes, you, the one reading this right now, you have this power. Like all powers, it can be used for good or for evil. This power is called the reticular activating system. For the reason it is hard to remember three such scientific sounding words and because super-powers need cool names, we will now refer to this as the RAS. In a nutshell what the RAS does is eliminate anything your brain says is not important and makes things you consider a priority stand out. The amazing thing is your mind does all of this without you having to do anything. It is like a computer program that runs in the background.

This still sounds like we are either in biology or a computer programing class. Let me give you an example of how this happens in your own life. You buy a new outfit or car. Suddenly, you see that outfit or car everywhere! Let me ask you, did the rest of the world see how cool you were, run out and buy the very same thing so they could be just like you? As awesome as all of my secret2anamazinglife readers are, unless you are Kim Kardasian, who may or may not read my blog, chances are the answer is no. So why do you suddenly see that everywhere? Once you purchased those items your brain said “Hey, we like this car/outfit let us find more!” or whatever language your brain uses to talk to you.

Most of us either are not aware we can control this power, or we do so for negative reasons. Such as “See, I told you I have bad luck.” or “I told you the world is getting worse!” Listen, whatever you focus on becomes your reality. If you focus on how much your life sucks right now, your brain will help you find examples of how much that is true. If you want to focus on how terrible the world is, it will help you find examples of that too. Sounds like our brain is out to get us? Not so fast!

We can use our powers for good! This is where gratitude comes in. Begin to foster an attitude of gratitude say through a daily gratitude journal or one of the many other ideas featured in my book A Happy Life for Busy People and your brain will begin to find examples of why you should feel grateful. Don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself!

Back to the milestone we are celebrating here today. When I began this website I was just looking for a way to capture the best secrets in self-improvement I came across, which is still what we are all about, but never would I dream I would have gotten so much out of it. I began being followed by a few friends and family. Now I am followed in over 100 countries, with thousands of people who have read what I have shared here. I have had the great honor of connecting with people across this great planet of ours. To celebrate our 5th year at secret2anamazinglife.com I invite you to share who you are, where you are from and your favorite thing about this website in the comments below. It will not only help me know what you enjoy, but we all just might make some new inspiring friends!

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for allowing me to share my motivation and inspiration with you these last five years. I look forward to the next five!

MY APPEARANCE ON THE ‘BOLD MOVES’ PODCAST!!

I had the great fortune to appear on the ‘Bold Moves’ podcast. We discussed a wide range of topics from my personal story, my upcoming books to secrets that can turn your life around. Click on the link below, but only if you are prepared to be positively inspired!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS AMAZING PODCAST

DEATH MAKES YOU YOUNG

This title may have you scratching your head and wondering if I have returned to drinking large amounts of rum. I can certainly understand if you were thinking both, but the reality is far more inspiring.

How can death make you younger? Truly, that sounds close to insanity. This touching and inspiring story is not mine, but was emotionally relayed to me by a gentleman at a show that my lovely lady and I were DJing this past Sunday. This man came in with a group of people and signed up to sing a song. Fairly straight forward at this point. In this group there was a gentleman who was a little older than the average person that comes to our shows. When he stepped up to the microphone he seemed to just exude not just happiness, but a true passion for simply being there. No matter what seemed to be going on around him, the smile never left his face.

A while later the younger gentleman came up to sign him up to sing again and what he told us was such an inspiring tale I implored him to let me share it with all of you. He was kind enough to agree, so for that I am grateful. The older man was his father. He had been in the hospital fighting some serious issues. A formerly healthy man had found himself down to 150 pounds and fighting for his life. In two separate instances, his wife, the young man’s mother, was asked if she wanted to ‘pull the plug’ and end his misery. She replied defiantly, explaining her husband was a fighter and she was sure he was not giving up so neither was she. The doctors were not as hopeful as she was and tried to ease her into accepting the inevitable. She knew the man she loved better than them and was having none of it. Sure enough with the love of his wife and son, as well as others this gentleman continued to fight and pulled through.

This truly was a great story, but what does it have to do with growing younger? Recall the way I described how the gentleman had approached singing that night. He never lost his smile and seemed to just radiate passion for simply being alive. After hearing his story it is easy to understand why that might be. As beautiful as his state of being was, it had an even greater aspect, it was contagious! As his son told his story, tears filled his eyes. “Look at him.” he said as he pointed to his father. “He is just so happy to be alive.” You could tell his son treasured each day with his father as what it was, a gift that almost taken away by illness.

It was not just this man and his son that was affected by his ordeal. Him and his wife were like teenage lovers. The whole evening they looked at each other with love in their eyes and joy in their hearts. You could tell this woman who made the ever so difficult choice of not pulling the plug when her husband was suffering so greatly, was truly living the dream. She now had more time with the man she loved and almost lost. I do not know what their relationship was prior to this, but I imagine like many others it might have fallen victim to the law of familiarity. There is a lot of love, but even subconsciously, we begin to take the person and even the love a little for granted. We assume they will be there tomorrow and the next week and next year. It seems only an experience such as the one this couple went through can move us out of this rut.

The takeaway today is this – let us not wait for a tragedy, or near tragedy of our own to begin to fall in love with our life and those inside of it. Hopefully, this story will do for you what it did for me, that is realize how quickly something, and someone can leave us. This year I have lost 3 people very close to me. One was in his 80’s, one was only in her 40’s and one was in between. As truly heartbreaking as these loses were, the end result was the same; I had the great urge to run home and wrap my arms around my lovely Margie and remind her how beautiful and loved she is. It inspired me to laugh more, to love deeper and to not take anything or anyone for granted.

It is often through our greatest loss, that our appreciation for what remains can be rekindled. Life has a way of blinding us to the beauty that surrounds us everyday. You could certainly think of those who have already crossed over and what we wish we could have shared with them, but let us not forget all those who are still in our lives and mean so much to us. Take a few moments and ponder how much your life would be turned upside down if you lost that job you always tread going to. Look into the eyes of those you love and ask yourself what if you lost them today? What would you most regret not telling them. Most importantly, tell them now. Realize it is never too early to let someone know how much you love them and never too late to fall in love with your own life.

On a side note, the young man told me something else that really touched me. His father read one book before he went into the hospital and again while he was recovering, my book. A Happy Life for Busy People To be a part of such a heart-warming story means more to me than I can explain.

Watch “THE ANSWER TO IS THE GLASS HALF-FULL OR HALF-EMPTY?” on YouTube

Click below to view my latest YouTube video!

THE ESSENTIAL CHANGE

My second book opens with the statement –

unless you change yourself, nothing will change; once you change yourself, everything else will change

This is a very important thought for several reasons. First, saying, or even thinking things like “I’ll be happy when…” hands over control of your life to other people and situations. Why would you let others decide whether or not you can enjoy your own life?

Another reason to realize you are the only person responsible for the quality of your own life are problems. When I hear people who consistently blame others for the situations they find themselves in, I know these people will never live a happy and successful life.

Let us be honest here, people can be jerks. They can say rude and hurtful things to us. They can put us in uncomfortable situations. What control do we have over that? A great deal. We can take a hard look in the mirror and see if there may be any truth to the things they are saying. If so, we can use it as constructive criticism.

What if there is no truth to what they say and it is just mean? Then we can raise our standards as to who we have in our lives. What if this person is our boss or some other person not so easy to dismiss? We can use that person for our own development. Practice our patience, controlling our anger, or having compassion for those who don’t deserve it. We can do all this while working to improve our situation.

Sometimes they are there to teach us a lesson. Such as no amount of money or job is worth our dignity. No amount off affection is worth any amount of abuse. These are all very difficult situations, but waiting and relying on the other person to change will most often result in no change.

Working on myself has lead me to my greatest improvements and my greatest joy. When I became a better man, my job became better, my relationships improved. I noticed when I treated others better and gave more to them, I received more in return.

To this day, I spend the most time and effort working on myself. Every improvement in myself touches and improves every area of my life.

YOUR PROMOTION

THE ESSENTIAL KEYS TO SUCCESS KEY #3

One of the things I am asked the most is “How can I quickly change my life?” Such a tricky question because your life up to this point has taken years to develop. Still, I understand we live in that nanosecond world where we expect change instantly. It is with this understanding that I have distilled my essential keys to success. These represent the pillars that most of my teachings are based on. Each one is a powerful belief that you can adapt into your life that will have a profound effect.

This is a way to not only leave yourself feeling good, but to affect a great deal of change. This essential key to success is as follows promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate This does a few things for you. One, it has you feeling good because you are focused on what it is you love. How many times have we been victim of listening to someone tell us all about what they are upset about or what they dislike? This seems to happen a lot in politics. There is an axiom that where focus goes energy flows. Therefore, if you are focused on what you dislike you are actually giving it your energy. Have you every heard a celebrity say “Any press is good press.”? That is true, because by focusing on who they had an affair with, or how many times they have overdosed it keeps them foremost in our thoughts.

How much sweeter would life be if we focused on what it is we loved and promoted that? Do not like rude customer service? Make sure to mention and thank the person when you receive good service. This simple change will turn your frustration into gratitude and your frown into a smile. As an added bonus, you will begin to promote what you love and you will find those very things multiplying in your life.

THE EASIEST WAY TO DECREASE NEGATIVITY IS INCREASE POSITIVITY

THE ESSENTIAL KEYS TO SUCCESS KEY #2

Trying to eliminate negative things from our life can be so difficult. Getting rid of that extra weight, getting rid of that addiction, and of course removing negative people from our lives. The problem is with the act of getting rid of something. Our brains are hard-wired against depriving ourselves. It is actually a survival mechanism. Consider it like an anti-starvation method.

This information makes for good trivia, but amounts to little unless we can find a way to use it. That brings us to the second key to success, the easiest way to decrease the negativity in our lives is to increase the positivity. In short, add something positive. One of the areas this is most useful, but certainly not the only one, is our social media. We all have that one person who sent us a friend request and we accepted with complete ignorance to the amount of drama or negativity that they bring with them. Sure, we could eliminate them, but that may only bring more drama especially if it is someone we see on a regular basis. I am specifically thinking of family and coworkers. There is usually an option to ‘hide’ the information we are exposed to from them. If we do this you know aunt Betty will ask if we have seen pictures of her latest medical procedure. It would seem this is a lose/lose situation, but there is a solution!

Increase your positivity. While you are on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media site you use, search words like motivation, inspiration, happiness or even any subject you are interested in from fly fishing to makeup. Then, in addition to the usual political bickering and personal drama your page will be filled with inspiring quotes, subjects (or people) you are interested in and a host of other fabulous things. It will not only make dealing with the negative a lot easier, but also bring some joy to your day as well.

This works in many other fields as well. Trying to eat healthier? Try adding one healthy meal or snack a day. Notice the difference in how you feel. It will also fill you up so you may be less likely to have another tasty doughnut from Meijer. It works fairly well for that last one, trust me. Trying to get more physically fit? Try going for a walk after dinner. Maybe add a weekly bike ride. This will not only get the muscles stimulated you may find you enjoy it so much you will want to build upon it.

The takeaway is to add instead of fight against. It makes it easier to succeed and requires a lot less will.

KNOWLEDGE IS POTENTIAL POWER

THE ESSENTIAL KEYS TO SUCCESS KEY #1

The first key is that of action. We have all heard the axiom that ‘knowledge is power’. That is simply not true. Anyone who knows me may find it odd that I am the one bringing you this message. I love learning, quite often for the sake of learning itself. Knowledge, however, is only worth anything if it leads to a specific action. Without action, the knowledge is completely useless. Allow me to explain.

Let us use the analogy of getting in shape. There are plenty of people who spend weeks and months finding the perfect trainer and perfect gym. The watch every video on the perfect exercise for their abs, their butt and whatever other body part they hope to transform. If they were to spend years acquiring this knowledge, yet never so much as picked up a weight or got on a treadmill, would they find themselves in any better shape? A few of you may argue that you want to find the activity that will give you the maximum effectiveness. That is all well and good, but while you are looking you are not taking any steps to getting closer to that beach worthy body.

Now let us look at the opposite side of the spectrum. Consider the person who has no idea what they are doing in the gym. They really want to get in shape so they start taking a walk every morning before work. Gradually they take longer and longer walks, maybe even jogging a little here and there. Even if they never read a book, watch a video or try any other workout they are still going to be getting in shape. Simply by taking action and learning as they go they are able to pick up a few things here and there.

The perfect mix is a blend of the two. If the person going for a walk spent a few minutes learning about nutrition or different resistance workouts as they continued to walk they would find themselves in shape in a surprisingly little amount of time.

The same holds true for those of us working to improve our lives. Millions of dollars are spent on countless self-improvement products every year. At this rate we should all be fit, happy and successful. So, how come we are not? Here is a shocking statistic, only 10% of that material is ever consumed. Most of it is purchased, maybe perused, used to gain the feeling of improving one’s life and then cast aside. Some of it, a small percentage, is even consumed and then not acted upon. Does that sound a bit extreme? Ask yourself this question, is there anything in your own life you know would improve your life, but you have yet to do it? I think we all do.

Today, take action and begin to do the little things. Continue to learn along the way. You will make mistakes, learn from them they are part of the lesson too. Before long you will gain momentum and you will begin to see progress. That will keep you motivated to continue to push forward.

BECOME A PART OF MY SUCCESS

If you recall, a few weeks ago I was skeptical that my writing was having the desired effect. It is my wish that I reach people and help them see the beauty in themselves, others and a the world around them. What seemed to be a lack of engagement had me pondering whether my efforts would be better suited elsewhere. After all, this month we will be celebrating 5 years of this website and 4 years since my first book was published.

When I voiced my concerns I was greeted with what was the greatest gift I could ask for. About a hundred people reached out to let me know that my writing had touched their lives in some way. Each story was unique, but each person was touched and their life was a little brighter thanks to the ideas and words we share here. For someone like myself who would just like to leave the world a little better than he found it, there is very little that could have made me happier.

The good fortune and reassurance that I am indeed living my life purpose continues. I was recently nominated for ‘Best Milwaukee author’ in Shepherd Express magazine. I am hoping this will help me reach and inspire even more individuals. You can certainly help me reach that goal. A win would go a long way to bringing these words of positivity and hope to those who need it most. If this is something you would like to be a part of, I humbly ask you click the link at the bottom of this post and go to the ‘Arts and Entertainment’ category and vote ‘Neil Panosian’. The beauty of this being an online affair is that you can vote from wherever you may be. Whether it is West Allis Wisconsin where I live, or even in India, Jamaica or wherever these words inspire you.

Working together we can certainly bring this message of inspiration and positivity to those who are hurting or who have given up hope and find themselves in a dark place. I will certainly use my title as ‘Best Milwaukee Author’ to help as many people as I can. This can only happen with your help. Together we will make the world a better place for everyone.

P.S. – While you are on the voting site, if you would also go to the ‘Milwaukee made food and beverages’ and vote for my lovely lady Margie Story for best cupcakes I would be most grateful. Her delicious treats bring smiles to the faces of so many, and she puts her heart and soul into each of her creations.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE AND HELP ME TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE FOR ALL

ALL IN ONE DAY

“Life is full of peaks and valleys, learn to find the beauty in both.” What a great thought. Let us take a literal look at both and then I will share a moment I just had that illustrates the point perfectly.

Let’s take peaks first. When you are on top of a peak, the world is great. You can see for miles. You can seem to look down on just about everything. You are, literally and figuratively on top of the world. Valleys, when you are in a valley you cannot see very far. To go anywhere you must go up. You are below anything you wish to look at.

Seems pretty cut and dry right? Peaks rock, valleys suck, end of story. Hold on one second. When you are on a peak, you have reached the pinnacle. Whatever is next will be downhill from there. Peaks are usually barren and battered by the wind. Valleys are usually lush as water flows downhill. There is usually more plant life. There is nowhere to go but up. You usually have a lot of company.

These analogies not only work for topography, but for life as well. Sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down. This holds true for everyone at some point in their lives. For me, it happened all in one day! I had just been informed I was a finalist for ‘Best author in Milwaukee 2017’ In case you would like to vote for me, the link will be at the bottom of this post. I was leaving the gym, feeling good physically. I was excited about being nominated when a man rolls up next to me at a stoplight and honks. I smile and wave at him in a fashion that probably resembled Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills cop. This kind gentleman informed me that my tire was flat.

My enthusiasm deflated just like my tire. Luckily, I was close to home and made it ok. As I was preparing to leave early for work it occurred to me that even though my tire was flat, I still was nominated for best author, I still have made it to the gym, and even made it home ok without any major damage.

I stopped by the local automotive store and purchased one of those ‘fix-a-flat’ products. Somehow it did not even go into the tire. After refilling the tire with air, I was off to work again.

The rest of the day followed suit. Some up, some down. What this made apparent was that valleys do not take away peaks, and that I learned that even the valleys have taught me a lot.

Remember this when life throws you a curve ball. Enjoy the beauty of both the peaks and valleys!

If you would like to vote for me click the link below and look for best author under the ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT catagory.

CLICK HERE TO HELP ME BECOME ‘BEST MILWAUKEE AUTHOR’

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