Apologies for no post today. I’m busy wrapping up some other projects today. We will return to your regular inspiration on Monday morning. In the meantime, feel free to comment some of the subjects you would like us to discuss.
IN THE MEANTIME
AN AUSTRALIAN, A SPY AND A COWBOY
The title of this post may sound like the beginning of bad joke, but it is a focus on another thing we have to be thankful for – childhood heroes. When I was growing up, I admired many people for many different reasons. This is natural as you are growing and looking to establish your own identity. One of the first people I can recall thinking was ‘cool’ was Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of the Australian band INXS. He was the singer of a popular band, he was kind of dark and mysterious, dated models and appreciated good food and wine. Then I remember seeing a James Bond movie. Other than wondering why a British spy would have a Scottish accent (Sean Connery) I admired the cool that dripped off him. Always dressed to the nines, enjoying a martini, “Shaken, not stirred.” He stopped the bad guy, got the girl and never seemed to get his suit dirty. Lastly, there was John Wayne. What young boy back in the day didn’t play cowboys? It wasn’t the shooting and horse riding that I admired about this cowboy. No, I admired that even in the stickiest of situations, he managed to stick to his principles and always do the right thing, even if it wasn’t the easiest thing.
As I grew older I appreciated my heroes for an entirely different reason, their faults. I could learn from their mistakes. The Aussie fell victim to many of the excesses he enjoyed. As well as a fateful argument with a taxi cab driver while intoxicated. This lead to bouts of depression and ended with his assumed suicide. I learned there are limits to even the finest things in life. It may have taken me a while to learn this lesson, but I got there. I also learned that physical altercations while intoxicated never have good outcomes. Still, I enjoy good food and wine. On a side note, I am also dating a lady that should be a model, but chose baker instead. The spy certainly had his faults as well. Too many martinis does not help you catch the bad guy, it usually turns you in to the bad guy. Seldom, if you are doing any kind of work, you will get your suit dirty. I don’t wear a suit, but I have plenty of adventures and did end up with my very own Bond girl. Lastly, John Wayne. I do my best to always do the right thing especially in tough situations. If I don’t, it isn’t because of my intentions but my lack of knowledge. I don’t settle things through physical means as The Duke was sometimes known to do. One thing I did get from John Wayne, as well as my favorite book How to Win Friends and Influence People, is to always afford the other party a chance to save face. Especially if you are right or have come out ahead in a particular situation. Embarrassing or humiliating the other party only makes your ego happy. The side-effect is you come out looking like the jerk. Not to mention you create an enemy. This isn’t the wild west, but you never know when the two of you may cross paths again. If they remember the respect you showed them when you were on top, that can go a long way. This lesson has paid off several times in my own life.
Think of your own childhood heroes. Why did you admire them? What positive qualities did you strive to emulate? Do you have them currently or are you working towards developing them? What can you learn from their faults? Heroes or not, nobody is perfect. We can learn from their faults just as we can learn from our own. Life is too short for any of us to make all the mistakes and learn all of the lessons we need to. If you do all of this, you will find your life not only begins to resemble the life of your heroes, but you will look in the mirror one morning to discover you have become your own hero.
PUT YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND!
People use the phrase “They have their head in the sand.” to describe people who are willfully ignorant to problems around them. I think we all know people whose life could be going straight down the commode and they would be the last one to admit there was anything wrong. Something a little less severe would be those souls who act as if ignoring the problems in their lives will make them go away. Not so I am afraid. It was described wonderfully by Tony Robbins as someone who sits in their garden, closes their eyes and chants “There are no weeds. There are no weeds.” While they may believe that to some degree, and it even may help them feel a little better about their current situation, the problem is when they open their eyes, they will be looking straight at a garden full of weeds!
I find it amusing that people think that is what I do personally and even worse, that is what I teach others to do. In no uncertain terms do I tell people to ignore their problems or the sometimes ugly truth of life. If you have read either of my books, that is abundantly clear. How do people come to this conclusion and why I am telling you to bury your head in the sand in the title of this post? There is a big difference between ignoring challenges and things that are negative in our lives and not dwelling on them. In fact, noting what is not working in our lives or what we find unpleasant can be a great tool to help us discover what we would like. Spoiler alert – it is usually the opposite of what sucks.
When people tell me that I have my head in the sand I reply, “You are damn right I do. I also have my toes, my butt and everything else.” Other than the joy of seeing a confused look on the face of someone who has thrown some shade either directly or indirectly at you, there is a point I am making hear. I realize things are not all sunshine and rainbows in my life. Here is the secret, I focus on what is working and the solutions that I am working towards. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of focusing on negative things in your life? Focusing on a problem does not solve it. As Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” Not only that, focusing on what sucks in your life…well…sucks. It makes you feel lousy.
You may be thinking, “That’s all well and great Neil, but what I am supposed to do, just ignore what is going on?” Not at all, then we are back to being the people in the first picture. We want to be more like the baby in the second picture. When you focus on what is not working in your life, you feel miserable. While you are walking around feeling miserable, what kind of people, events and circumstances do you seem to find yourself in? 9 times our of 10, it would be miserable people events and circumstances. Here is what we should do instead. Take a second and become crystal clear as to what the challenge or negative event you are facing is. Then decide if there is actions you can take to correct or deal with the situation. If there is, focus on those and the solution you are working towards. If there is nothing you can do about the situation, turn your focus on something that is working in your life.
Here is a personal example from my own life that may make everything a lot more clear. All of my regular readers know of my affection to warm weather and sunshine. Most of you also know of my aversion to the cold and dreary weather we experience this time of year where I live. Can I do anything to change the weather? Not at all. I am good, but not good enough to change mother nature. There are two aspects I can use that we talked about. Begin saving for a vacation to a sunny destination (already in the works) or choose not to focus on the fact it is so cold some days that animals choose to stay home. Am I burying my head in the sand to the fact that the temperature is below freezing out? No I am imagining burying my entire body in the sand of a nice tropical beach. I have said this a million times, but it is a very important truth – there is no law of physics or biology that states your mind and body must be in the same place at the same time. When you choose to focus on the positive in your life instead of dwelling on the negative, it puts you in a positive emotional state. Like our example above, when you are walking around in a positive happy state of mind, what situations will you find yourself in? What kind of people will you surround yourself with? Chances are they will be positive as well.
Next time life throws a lot at you, and don’t worry it happens to all of us, don’t bury just your head in the sand, bury your whole body! Take yourself on a mental vacation. Maybe even throw on some tropical music and dance around. Change that state while you work on solving your challenges in life. Ponder them if you must, but do not dwell on the problem, always focus on the solution!
10 PHRASES TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
Continuing our theme on gratitude, I want to offer this little gem. A collection of sayings to get your day started right. I suggest printing out this picture to start. Then, coming up with a more personalized list of 10 affirmations for your own life. The more personal and emotional the affirmations, the quicker and greater your life will transform for the better. If you feel comfortable, share some of your affirmations in the comments below!
REFOCUS THIS NOVEMBER
Let us begin our focus on gratitude this month. Thanksgiving can be a great celebration at the end of the month. How will you begin your month of gratitude.
HEY YOU! TAKE A WALK!
This was a picture I took on a recent trip to the park with my mother. We enjoy going through walks in nature whenever we can. This picture is of a great blue heron, my favorite bird. Usually, they are rather skittish and fly away before you can get very close. This one, turned around and walked right up to me. It was a rather magical experience. One of those things that may not happen again for the rest of my life. We have seen deer jump off an island, swim across a lagoon, jump on shore and run past us. Most days do not include such exciting events, but we always manage to see some great wildlife. Sometimes it is deer, sometimes racoons. We have seen migrating birds, red squirrels and a host of other animals. Sometimes it is just the beauty of nature itself that we appreciate. Right now, the leaves are changing colors and it is fun to see as we walk.
Walking in nature has many benefits. The most obvious is that you are getting some exercise while breathing in some fresh air. There are, in my mind, more important scientific benefits to going for a stroll in your local park or forest. Walking in nature reduces stress, helps improve our cognition and even help us foster and grow our feelings of mindfulness and gratitude. You can both meet neighbors or choose to be left alone to your thoughts. Usually, you have the choice of a nice flat path, or for a little extra workout, try walking on grass or the forest floor. If you are careful not to step in a hole or twist an ankle, you can find yourself using muscles you didn’t even know you had! It will also have you practicing a little mind control. There is the great plus that the animals do not judge you or gossip…as far as we know. There is even a study that states looking at the horizon will help you sap your stress and put your emotions in perspective.
On this site we are usually focused on constructive actions that will lead to a more fulfilling and rewarding life. This action is no exception. Sometime this weekend, take yourself for a walk. Whether you prefer the solitude of walking deep in the woods, or a sun-dappled concrete path in the park where you can meet some neighbors and an occasional friendly dog, get out in nature! It will improve your physical health, but it will also do a great deal to drain your stress and fill you with a greater sense of inner peace. You may also get some great pictures like the ones I captured in this blog. I am going to leave you with a Zen quote to ponder as well as the video I captured of the Heron walking up to me. I hope you enjoy them and I would love to see your pictures from walking in nature!
WHY AM I NOT A DARTED ANIMAL TODAY?
A great secret to an amazing life is the power of observation. It helps to play a little bit of detective when it comes to your own life. Examining why you do the things you do and more to the point how they impact you life can go a long way towards taking control of that very same life. Let me give you a personal example to help explain this point a little better. When I was a young child I used to watch this nature show. The opening scene involved these men flying over a group of animals in Africa and one would lean out and shoot a tranquilizer dart into the herd. The animal would continue to run for a few seconds before stumbling around as if it drank too much rum and then just fall over. This scene is very close to how I am when I wake up for work at 4:30 in the morning. Before the coffee kicks in, I am that animal that got the dart. I stumble around the house, tempted to fall back into bed.
This morning was different. Although as I rose out of bed after about 5 hours of sleep, I felt that I might have escaped the dart. Maybe the man circling above my house missed? As I continued to get ready I only felt more alive. After the coffee was brewed and I had packed my lunch, and kissed Margie goodbye, I was off for the 30 minute drive. I listened to the band Tito and Tarantula and sipped my coffee as I drove along. Just a little bit before 6am, I arrived at work and felt better than I can remember feeling in a long time! As I began my daily labors I began to ask myself some questions, “Why was I feeling so good?” I did not sleep a very long time. I actually ate a frozen pizza for dinner. Not a healthy energy giving meal. I took my usual vitamins, the coffee wasn’t that strong and nothing else seemed to be out of the ordinary. So why did I not feel like the lion in the picture above?
Why had I seemed to escape that feeling of walking in quicksand that envelops me every other morning? I began to recall everything I had done both the night before and that morning. Was there anything new and different? Obviously there was. Instead of sleeping away the first few hours of my day as I usually did, here I was feeling…well…almost human. I made notes of the songs I listened to on the way to work. I made note of what I ate for dinner, what Margie and I had done the evening prior. Nothing seemed to different. Tomorrow I am going to try a few of these activities again and monitor the results. I’ll keep you posted as to what seems to work for me. It may or may not work for you. As I write this, I feel like I should adopt the habit of Voltaire who drank 40 cups of coffee a day. I am sure my cardiologist wouldn’t like that and I might have to move my laptop to the men’s room, but I digress. What gave me so much energy this morning and why do I feel like I could fall asleep somewhere between the D and K keys on my computer?
This is what I mean by becoming your own detective investigating your life. If you have a day (or even a particular situation) that seems to work out quite well, ask yourself the elements that played into the situation. If you a day where it feels like you were flushed down the commode of life, investigate that too. What caused that situation to go south? Then, do more of the former things and less of the latter. Continually perform what David Goggins calls a living autopsy. Examine what things in your life give you good results and which hold you back.
TELEVISION SET OR MINDSET?
This morning as I was busy working on different errands that were productive, I was also listening to some great motivational/inspirational videos. Not only do they offer encouragement to accomplish the mundane tasks in which I was employed, but they can bring to light new ideas, or old ideas in a new light. This often gets the brain up and working and fosters some of the very posts you read here. This morning I heard a man observe that in today’s world, more people spend time worrying about their television set than their mindset. I do suppose you can replace television set with tablet, cell phone or computer and the fact remains the same, it just doesn’t sound as catchy.
This got me thinking about several facts. Are you aware there was a recent study to determine the average time a person in the US spends on their cell phone in a day? Can you guess what that number may be? 3 hours and 43 minutes! That means the average person spends 1/6 of their day staring at their cell phone. Much of this is geared towards social media and entertainment. If we add that to the time spent watching television, playing video games and a host of other sources of recreation, we would be well over the 4 hour mark. Let us just keep it at 4 hours for simple math. Can you imagine if you spent that same amount of time concerned with improving your mindset? Reading, meditating or practicing different mind-enhancing activities? How about half of that time? Say you split the difference and spent 2 hours on your phone and 2 hours reading for example. Do you think that could have a big impact on your life? What could giving up 2 hours of time spent in front of the television or cell phone or playing video games and using it to enhance the gray matter between your ears? You could learn another language. Maybe work on starting your own business? Learn the embalming secrets of the Ancient Egyptians or whatever else would make you smile and put you on the path of success.
Today, ask yourself if you are spending more time in front of the television set (or phone or computer) verses working on your mindset. Is there some time you could allocate to mind-enhancing activities? Just for an hour, put down the phone and pick up a book, meditate or just sit and enjoy some nature. Make sure you are getting valuable ROI (return on investment) from your daily activities. Certainly, spend some time on enjoyable activities, but not to the detriment of accomplishing anything.
THIS IS SO SIMPLE, IT IS ALMOST STUPID
At secret2anamazinglife.com we are all about breaking down the secrets of self-improvement into fun, bite-sized pieces. In the big picture, what determines the quality of one’s life is the degree to which they are, or are not, happy. If you think of anything you want in life, and you ask yourself long enough why you want that thing, it will usually come back to a positive feeling. If we are speaking in broad examples, one great secret to living an amazing life is finding more things you enjoy, and doing them more often. This post is about one specific examples and all of the people who make it possible.
Two of my great enjoyments in life are writing and drinking coffee. As you can see, I am currently writing at the Starbucks close to my house. You may also notice that I brought along another great joy of my life, my lovely lady on my screensaver. On occasion, I drive a little bit further to a location that is further from my house and much closer to my work. Why would I drive an extra half hour for the same experience? The answer is, although it involves writing at a Starbucks, it is far from the same experience. Early this year, many of you may have remembered me sharing the story of Deb, who works at this location. She is always friendly and gave me the line, “Living the dream one drink at a time.” This was in reference to sharing smiles and joys with each customer she serves. The good news is, Deb is still there and still serving up joy with each cup.
Recently, they did me the honor of naming me ‘customer of the week’ which comes with a few free coffees. As you can see, I brought Margie along in person this time to share the fun of this. What I want to say is that the reason I choose to drive a little further is because they go the extra mile to make you feel special. I am not just talking about this week, but every day. We have already discussed Deb and the joy she brings to customers, but they have a whole team of all-stars. Not to long ago, this place went through a managerial change and I was a little concerned they might lose some of the great customer service. A few faces did leave, but let me tell you the amazing folks that are there and make this particular location so special.
KEEP YOUR HEAD UP!
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 