A video i filmed during the summer, a great idea anytime of year
“A blog about happiness? that is just stupid!” “writing a book is more complicated than you know, it will take to long and cost too much” “Ok, so you wrote a book, don’t expect to sell too many copies” “My friend wrote a book and all he sold was a few dozen copies so don’t expect too much” These were actually all quotes I have been told. Some by very well-meaning people who I believe just didn’t want to get my hopes dashed. Do you have people in your life like this? They seem to find the thorn in every rose. Like I said earlier, some even mean well. They don’t want to see your dreams get crushed, but little do they realize that by doing so they are contributing to the crushing. I am here to tell you that I believe in you. I have seen people with every disadvantage succeed. For my own story and the quotes above I did manage to launch a blog, the very one you are reading presently. 3 years and getting bigger every day. I also managed to complete my book A Happy Life for Busy People and learned some great things along the way. I have sold about 500 copies to date and look to get it in the hands of more people. If you would like a copy just click on the title above and it will take you to a place where you can order it.
Does my own story not inspire you enough? Still finding it hard to listen to people saying no to you time after time? Trust me, I can understand. Promoting my books, website and seminars has taught me you have to go through many ‘nos’ to get a ‘yes’. So how do I keep going? Well, in addition to the tips I mentioned in yesterdays post on determination I have one more for you. Keep a record of, and read about people who have overcome challenges to achieve their dream. Here is one to get you started. There was a gentleman who was creative and determined to achieve his dream. Sadly, the one thing he was missing was capital. So this man went to the bank to try to find funding for his dream. They said no. He did not give up, he went to the next bank, they also said no. Imagine how that must have felt. Being rejected personally twice? Here is the amazing thing. It took over 300 banks to get a ‘yes’. I don’t know about you, but I am not sure my self-doubt would not kick in before bank 300. Still this man succeeding beyond his wildest dreams. For us, these days there are things like the internet, crowd funding and virtual banks to assist us.
Oh, and who was this man? Walt Disney when he was trying to get funding for Disneyland. Imagine the loss to millions of adults, not to mention children if Mr. Disney had not been so passionate about his dream. So believe in yours, find people who also believe. read and discover stories about others who have succeeded and remember often the people putting down your dream may just be hurting because they have not achieved theirs.
I speak with people often on a variety of subjects. Sometimes people ask me about living a more positive and rewarding life. On occasion people ask me about my relationship and how they can also have a fabulous one. I also hear from people after my seminars and people who have read my book A Happy Life for Busy People here is something I hear a lot, “Neil I have tried to achieve this goal, but it didn’t work” I then asked them how many different things they have tried. Usually they look at me slightly confused and give me an answer ranging from one to three. I then share with them a fact I find truly amazing. Edison had tried over 10,000 different items to make a filament for a light bulb. When asked if he was upset by failing so many times he replied “I just learned 10,000 ways to not make a light bulb” I am not sure to many of us would try 10,000 times to make the perfect cake or a tasty dinner.
When trying to promote my book or seminars I often think of this story. How much further would we be set back if Edison had given up? How much longer would we be without the light bulb? You may say “well that’s not me, I couldn’t do that”. I am hear to tell you that you used to do it. What do I mean by that? Let me ask you this, how may times as a baby did you fall before you learned to walk? Did you give up and say “this walking thing might not be for me” You see all of us begin life with a determination to succeed at our goals. If we didn’t there would be a lot of adults out there crawling around.
So how do we develop a determination to match Edison? I believe the answer is two-fold. First, develop a strong enough why. If the reason to succeed is important enough to you the how will be found. Second, remember if you as a baby didn’t give up, why would the adult. Is it because we have learned to accept failure? Is it because it is easier to give up? Perhaps we are just not as focused on what we stand to gain by our success or lose by our giving up.
I am going to leave you with one thought and a quote to take away from this. The biggest area I hear this in is relationships. People tell me they tried to make their partners happy or bring the passion back to their relationship, but it just ‘didn’t work’. I always ask, how many things did they try? Think of how important your goal is, what you stand to gain and what you stand to lose. Think of all you didn’t give up on when you were young. Reading, writing, learning your language. How would your life be different if you had just tried once we these things? Remember if you find yourself giving up, even determination is something you have to be determined to succeed at.
Here is the quote I promised you. It comes from the famous baseball player Babe Ruth
“You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up”
A lot of what I write on here is about feeling grateful and how it can change your life. Tonight I have A LOT to be grateful for. I gave my second seminar based on my book A Happy Life for Busy People and the support could not have been better! From my good friend Christie who hosted it, my friend Travis who introduced me, my amazing friend Cari who always supports me and my lovely lady and her daughter who helped every where they could. Life really blesses us with some great evenings and some great people to share it with. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
This is something to think about. It is always important to find and have something in your life that can make you laugh. It is even better if you have people in your life that can assist you with this. Life is truly a never-ending source of comedy once you are determined to find it. How hard can that be? Let me share a recent example in my own life with you. Because we are a bartender/dj couple on most nights, my lady and I have to grocery shop at some odd hours. Last night, or should I say at four o’clock this morning we found ourselves picking dish soap and things for dinner for the week. In the middle of all the food some previous shopper had left a toy pig that grunted when you squeezed it. My lovely lady found this quite amusing and proceeded to carry it with us as we shopped finding different noises she could create. It had us laughing as we went through the aisles and even startled a few other shoppers. the point is that is was just a random thing we had found in the grocery store and used it to create a evening of laughter. Now besides the benefits listed above, we also created a great memory to share between us. As mentioned in yesterdays post, it is very important to stock pile fun, loving and silly moments with those you care about in your life, both friends and spouses. So do yourself a favor and pick up that movie that makes you laugh, grab a joke book from the library or whatever else brings a smile to your face. The benefits will amaze you. Not to mention it feels amazing.
Do you see the smiles in this picture? This is my beautiful love and I. This is pretty much how we are most of the time. Sure we both have our days. Neither one of us is perfect, but our love is close enough to perfect for me. I would love to tell you those smiles come free, but they don’t. Some rare days they don’t even come easy, although as time goes on I find myself grinning from ear to ear from the time I wake up until the time I fall asleep. The truth is both of these smiles are earned. Behind the scenes there is hard work put in by both parties. What do I mean hard work? Let me first add a caveat to that, it is also extremely fun work. Having a successful relationship involves a great deal of things and could easily fill and book and one may very well be on the way co-authored by this lovely lady. Yet one of the most important things is commitment. Not only to each other, but to your relationship. What do I mean by that? Look into ways of keeping your love fresh. Look for ways to stay in that “honeymoon period” I can safely say my love and I not only still are, but it seems to be growing everyday. Find new ways to make your love feel special and appreciated. Every person is different and different things have different meanings to people. Do not assume your lover views things the exact same way you do. Which brings us to our next point, get to know your love. Sit them down and ask the big questions, what are their dreams? What are they afraid of? How do they experience love? In our case my lady loves soft touches and physical connection the most, where I am more of a verbal person. Learning this one small thing about each other has made it possible for us to help each other feel so much more loved. Again, I could fill a book with all we have learned and how it has helped, but I can tell you everything I have learned has been useful and brought us closer together.
Another important factor couples can forget after a while, have fun together. Do things you both enjoy. Act silly. Create as many happy memories as you can. These are building blocks and can help you both make it through the tougher times. Take time to celebrate your love. My lovely Margie and I have made it a happen to never share a drink together whether it is water, coffee or wine without toasting to some aspect of our love. To learn more about this please read my post “I propose a toast” (August 24/2015). Reason for doing this? Realize all you both have come through to reach the point where you are at, and realize no matter where you are the is still more joy and love to be had.
Another suggestion, when you see a couple enjoying their love, celebrate for them as well. We have a few couples that make us happy to see their love and noticing it only serves to make us happier and more loving. Never be jealous of another relationship. Frist of all you never know what you are not seeing and second if what you are seeing seems better than what you have, use that to motivate yourself to improve your own lot. Don’t be afraid to ask a successful loving couple what they do to achieve great love. If they are anything like Margie and I, they will be more than happy to tell you.
People always are asking me, “what can I do to become happy right now? What is the single quickest way to turn my life around completely?” I must confess I cringe at this question. Let’s be real the passion and joy did not get sucked out of your life overnight and it probably will not come back overnight. Still, I understand we live in a nanosecond world where everything is expected yesterday. So I am going to share a simple thing you can do that will turn your life around like magic. Yes, I said like magic. If you do what I am going to suggest In a mere few days your life will not be close to the same. Before I share this, however, I have a word of caution. Do not overlook what I am about to tell you. It is so simple you may be tempted to not see the immense transformative power in what I am about to tell you. Do us both a favor and prove me wrong. How? Try the secret power I am about to let you in on for a month. You can even take off on the weekends. Just put this into practice Monday through Friday for a month. If it doesn’t change your life for the better in major ways feel free to let me know.
So what is this crazy magic spell you can put on yourself? What magical items will you need? Ok all you will need is a pen and a piece of paper. Not to magical right? Wrong. These items will change your life if used properly. So what to do with them? Simple, every day write between 5 and 10 things you are grateful for that day. Sounds easy right? To be honest it really is. So many things happen each day that we can tend to overlook given our focus on things that may not have gone the way we planned. Doing this simple list will do two very important things for you. First, it will help you to focus and remember things that have gone well in your day and serve to balance out the scale a bit. Second, and here is where the magic begins, it will begin to have your mind on the lookout for things to be grateful for that you can write down.
Ok, one more magical step. As you are laying down to sleep look over your list of things you were grateful for that day and pick the best one. whether it be the one you are most grateful for, the one you liked the best. It doesn’t really matter, just pick the one you like the best. Then recall that event, say the words “Thank you” to yourself, or even out loud is better and feel the gratitude for that event. repeat this at least Monday through Friday. You can do all seven days of the week if you would like, but if you would like the weekends off go right ahead. Here is a secret, the more items you write and the more days you do it the more powerful the change in life will be. Do this for a month and I promise you a new life, and a new person will greet you in the mirror.
My personal story. Check out all my videos on YouTube under my name, Neil Panosian
My most popular video on YouTube. I encourage you to watch it and check out all my videos under “Neil Panosian” on YouTube.
One of the most frequent questions I am asked about positivity is this; “isn’t there more important things than being happy?” or “what is so important about being happy?” Often people see focusing on themselves as being selfish. After all what good can I do by being happy? What difference does it make if I am happy around others or not? Here is a very emotional answer to that question.
Less than a year ago a high school classmate and friend of mine, David, killed himself. This morning his mother invited my lady and I to an suicide awareness walk. What I learned there will forever change me. I want to share a good deal of that with you here today and it is my sincerest wish that you share it with everyone you know. In fact, I challenge you to do so. The main point they kept repeating was removing the stigma of suicide. Which had me asking myself my own thoughts on suicide and what I knew. Here is some of what I learned.
Myth: suicide has warning signs. Usually the people are depressed or talk about it. I would know if anyone I knew was thinking about it.
fact: The people who led today’s walk were parents of a 13 year old girl who was a straight A student. She killed herself about 2 years ago. She was always happy, a musician, into sports and had a lot of friends. The fact is you never know what people are dealing with on the inside. You never know when your joking sarcastic comment could really hurt. You also never know how important a kind word and a smile might be.
myth: Suicide is an extreme and rare situation I will never have to deal with it.
fact: according to the American federation of suicide prevention(afsp) One person commits suicide every 13 minutes. that is over 110 people a day. When this walk began there was 100 people there. Today there was over 1000. There were people who lost children, parents, siblings, friends and classmates. suicide touches a lot more people than a lot of us realize.
myth: people who commit suicide are “crazy” or “weak” or just plain “selfish”
fact: Of the 110 people we lose to suicide a day 22 of them are veterans. These are brave men and women who sacrifice the safety of their own lives to defend ours. They leave the love of their family knowing full well they may never return. When they do they are never the same. They see things most of us will never know. When they return they need our love and support more than ever. They also need our understanding.
Those of you who know me well know the question that is foremost in my mind. What can we do to help this growing problem. an easy step is to go to American federation of suicide prevention and become a field advocate. Let your voice be heard. One of the greatest issues facing those who need help is the ideas we have about people who have mental issues such as depression, and social anxiety. The truth is one in four of us has some form of mental illness. Remember to treat others with compassion and understanding. Signs of their struggle may not always be visible on the outside. Understand the truth about suicide and inform others. You would be amazed what I learned merely attending this walk. Please click on the link above to learn more. Also know the suicide prevention hotline which is 1-800-273-8255. Never be afraid to ask someone if they need help. It is not offensive, it is a sign you care.
Finally, work on yourself. Try to limit the stress and negativity in your own life. Find ways to grow your bliss and joy. Bring that joy to others. Limit your use of sarcasm and ‘joking insults’ you never know what someone may be dealing with. Also do your best not to judge others. My lady was saying how quick some of us are to assume the person who is out of shape is lazy, when it could be a genetic issue or perhaps stress from losing a loved one. The person dressed poorly could be going through a hard economic time and not have many options in what to where. Share a smile and a kind word wherever and whenever you can. It is free and can change a life or even save a life. Share this website http://www.secret2anamazinglife.com with anyone you can. I will promise you to do my part with bringing as much joy and positivity as you can. Let us all be a light to those in darkness.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 