Every Friday I try to leave you all with something to ponder. This came to me ironically while pulling out of my parking space leaving our fine state fair. I was backing up and looking in the rear view mirror. The I shifted into drive, but before I could start to pull away some people were yelling right outside my window and took my attention away for a second. When I saw that it was nothing serious I went back to focusing on leaving my parking space. Forgetting I had already put it in drive, I looked in the rear view mirror and took my foot off the accelerator. Imagine my surprise when the car began to move forward! I immediately applied the brake and thought “That could have been bad” Mind you all this took a second, but as I did pull out of my parking thought I was struck with what a powerful metaphor this is for life. Can you imagine trying to drive forward to work, while only looking in your rear view mirror? First it would take forever and second you would be extremely lucky if you arrived at all. Now what does this have to do with living an amazing life? What struck me, which was luckily not another car, was how many of us do this on a daily basis over and over again? I am not saying the road is filled with crazy drivers, although some days that is debatable. What I am saying is this, how many of us are striving toward a new future while focused on the past? It just doesn’t work. How many times have we heard friends, or even ourselves say “The last person I dated was dishonest so I am going to have a hard time trusting in my new relationship” You are staring in the rear view mirror focusing on your past hurts until BAM! your current relationship crashes due to your ‘trust issues’. How many future ideas and adventures have you passed on because you were focused on past failures? I’m not saying we shouldn’t learn from our past and adjust for the future or even just look back to admire where we were and how far we have come. Just like in driving where you are supposed to ‘glance in the rear view mirror every eight seconds’ I suggest that is what you do with life. You’ll have a lot better results when focused on what is around you and what is coming at you. Remember you can never drive into the future looking into the review mirror. Oh, and as a side note, please use your turn signal.
It makes scents
In two other posts we shared how to use two of the senses to infuse joy into your life. We used hearing in the post titled ‘Happy CD’ and we used vision in the post titled ‘Vision Board’. If you are not familiar with those I would suggest going back in the archives and rereading them. Well we are now moving on to our third sense, smell. How powerful is the sense of smell. Some say it is one of the most powerful senses for bringing up memories. Realtors use the scent of baking chocolate chip cookies to try to sell homes. Here is a more powerful example I heard of recently. A medical university studied the power of smell on a group of rats. Now I know what your thinking, rats are not people. In which case I encourage you to come check out the bar I work at. In all seriousness, here is how the experiment went. The had two groups of rats, one the injected with a chemical that causes cancer. Just enough where it would begin to tear down the rats cells, but not enough to cause the cancer to grow. In the second group they gave a super vitamin shot to. After doing both they filled the rat’s tank with the smell of camphor. They did this over and over. Finally all they did was release the scent of camphor with no chemicals. What do you think happened? The one group of rats continued to progress towards developing cancer while the other group continued their upward healthy spiral.
So how can we apply this to you and me? Well if we are trying to sell our homes, bake cookies and stay away from rats that smell like camphor. Seriously, think of a fragrance that you enjoy. I rather like the scent of coconut because it reminds me of vacation and lovely ladies covered in tanning oil. I also like the scent of spiced rum, but if you were to go around smelling rum, you may be tempted to drink said rum and that may not always be appropriate. Back to our post today. I suggest figuring out what scent inspires you. Does the scent of pine make you think of the woods and adventure? Vanilla give you a warm and fuzzy feeling? Whatever it is, get yourself a nice bottle of essential oils. I know a lot of people like ‘Young Living’ oils, but any quality essential oil will do. A lot of homeopathic stores, or organic grocery stores will have them. Keep it in your car, at the office, or wherever you may need it. I have a bottle of peppermint at the office that gives me a quick pick me up with I need it. Just one more quick tool to change your state when you need it
ASK A BETTER QUESTION
Evaluations, we all do them every day. What is an evaluation? It is really a question. Was that concert good last night? How good was the concert last night? What does all this have to do with you and living an amazing life? Another good question. Here is what I hope you will find to be a good answer. Asking yourself the proper questions can make all the difference between success and failure. It is another way to take advantage of the way the brain works. Let me give you an example. I have a friend who constantly dates men who are not right for her. After the relationship fails she always asks the same question, “how could I be so stupid?” When your brain hears this it subconsciously goes to work on finding out why you could be so stupid and usually supplies the conscious mind with several answers. Normally when you receive answers to questions you ask it should make you happy? If you are always asking disempowering question like the one above, or see if you can ever remember asking yourself questions like these. “Why does this always happen to me?” ” How come I can never get this right?” “How come I can never get ahead?” These are all perfect examples of questions that will lead you nowhere. Start asking yourself empowering questions. If you find yourself always dating the wrong person, ask yourself “What can I learn from this?” or one of my favorites is “What do I have to be grateful for in this situation?”. Sometimes the little devil on your shoulder will scream “Nothing you idiot, this situation sucks!” Even if it does, there is always something to be grateful for. So how do we get past that little negative voice in your ear? This is where fun things like tricking your own mind comes into play. Ok, so I don’t feel like being grateful for anything, but if I did want to find something to be grateful/happy/optimistic about what would that be. That way you are giving that voice room to do its thing while still focusing on the positive. So pay attention to the questions you ask yourself. They can literally empower or disempower you. So do yourself a favor and ask the right question.
THE TALLEST BUILDING IN TOWN
I was listening to a cd the other day. I want to say it was one by Tony Robbins. It reminded me of a situation that often gets under my skin. Now I try not to let too many things get to me, but here is something that does. Perhaps you know someone who does this. Perhaps you, yourself are guilty of it as I think we all are at some point in our lives. The question is simple, How do you get to have the tallest building in town. There are two answers. Which one you choose goes to show a lot about the kind of life you are living at the time and the kind you are going to live in the future. The two choices are simple. If you want the tallest building in town you can either knock everyone else’s down or you can work on your own. Now I think the answer as to which is better is fairly obvious. Still, how many of us hear people, or ourselves put people down, or minimize their accomplishments because we don’t feel strongly about our own? This causes us three kinds of problems. First, when people hear you belittling someone else’s life, they think, even subconsciously, “how are they talking about me when I am not around?” This may lead to mistrust on the part of your friends, or at the very least, a lack of desire to share details of their life with you. What that gets you is relationships that are not as close and beneficial as they could be. Second, when we put down someone else, it is because we feel inferior to them in some fashion. By putting them down, instead of forcing ourselves to work harder we provide ourselves an excuse not to improve our lives. In other words work on our own building. Lastly, when it comes to the law of attraction, when we celebrate our friends, and even our enemies victories no matter how hard that may be, it draws the same thing to us. In simple terms, when you finally achieve a goal do you want everyone putting you down? Saying you succeeded just because “you were lucky” or “got all the breaks” I would guess the answer would be no. So next time you hear of someone’s success. Cheer them on. Celebrate as if the success was your own. You will make them feel better and life will work better for you. If we all just worked on own buildings we would build a far better city, and a far better planet. We can’t control what other’s do anyway, so let us just focus on us. Start the positive revolution one person at a time.
YOU ARE ALREADY A CHAMPION
If you are reading this blog when it is first published, chances are it is Monday. The day most of us start the weekly struggle. Sometimes by the end of the day we feel defeated. I know there are days when working with the public, or even just our bosses can make us feel like we took a real beating. You can feel worthless, insignificant, and lonely. At times like these it is important to remember you have already won! What on earth am I talking about? Have I lost my mind so early in the week? We will answer the first question as the second one is still open for debate. Have you ever stopped and thought about all that had to happen just for you to be here? Out of all the millions of sperm cells fighting to give you those chromosomes, and finding that one egg to pair with. Then all the medical challenges faced for you to develop healthy and whole. Were you born with a physical or other medical challenge? Pat yourself on the back even more. You see all of us have survived to see this day. You have made it to read this. We have made it through childhood, through sicknesses, through various dangers on the street. Some of us have made it through wars, or are police making it through dangers every day. Each day we come home to fall asleep and wake to start again we have conquered another day. Sure we may not have had our bosses reports done on time, we may have been late to work, not been the perfect parent or spouse, but we made it. We are undefeated! Each and every day things challenge us. From sickness, financial strain and even loved ones passing away. Each day we make it through we should tell ourselves how proud we are. For countless others who didn’t, we did. We made it through. So when you feel like you may have failed in some capacity, remember even before we tried we were already champions!
PICK A HERO..
I was reading a very interesting book entitled “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude” by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone. In it they give a great idea for staying motivated and providing us an extra tool in living an amazing life. Pick a hero, someone you aspire to. If your goal is to give of yourself to those less fortunate, perhaps a picture of Mother Theresa would be good. If you wish to be a fine leader of men, maybe George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Even a picture of your father or mother if they represent the person you wish to become. Then when challenges arise, as they must in order for us to grow, pull out your picture. If you have it hanging on the wall so you can see it every day, so much the better. I might suggest hanging it next to your Vision Board. That way you can have a double dose of inspiration right away. If you are not sure what a vision board is I welcome you to read that blog post from earlier. If you need a picture of me, feel free to use the one from my profile page on this site. In all seriousness, when you are troubled, look at your picture and picture what the person you have chosen would do. Of course you may need a few of these ‘heroes’ depending on what advice you are seeking. You may even ask, the picture “Mr. Lincoln (or whoever you have chosen) what would you do?” Now obviously the picture will not answer and if it does, come back when you have had less to drink, or seek professional help. What this does do, however, is get our minds both conscious and subconscious focused on the person, who really just represents a set of ideals and values we aspire to, and our own situation. An answer will not usually come right that second, but sometime throughout the day it may just pop in your head when you least expect it. I cannot tell you how many times a day things just pop in my head, but in this case it will be something useful. You may have to ask several times, or sleep on it, but it will sure keep you focused on the way to act that would best achieve your goals. Enjoy your weekend and I will see you on Monday with more secrets to an amazing life!
IT’S THE STATE FAIR!
Today marks the first day of our state fair. A celebration of food, fun and music. It runs eleven days and is my favorite time of the year. I stressed this in an earlier blog, but each one of us needs such a time. Having something you look forward to each and every year helps us get through the obstacles in life. Whether it is a yearly birthday celebration, a family vacation, a camping trip with friends. Having some event to look forward to keeps us focused on a pleasurable aspect of life, which makes the challenges a little more bearable. I suggest each one of us decide which thing we look forward to and write it down. Make plans involving it. When you have a particularly rough day, spend some time thinking about your fun activity. Maybe look at new tents, create a photo album from years past you can reminisce about all the good times you have had and all the good times to come. Just another way to stay focused on something positive. Oh, and if you see me at the fair and mention this blog post, your next beer is on me! Stay positive my friends!
THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTING LIKE A FOOL
Yesterday we spoke of doing things from our youth and how it can prevent our minds from growing old. There is another way to keep our minds young and flexible. Acting crazy. Now before you think I am going to suggest something that would land you in jail or a nice comfortable padded room with a jacket that fastens in the back, let me explain. What way to you drive to work? Have you ever arrived there and not remembered anything about the trip there? Providing you arrived sober let me explain what happened. When we travel the same course five or six days a week it becomes almost ingrained in our mind how to get there. So much so that much of the duty of arriving there safely is delegated to the subconscious mind. Think of the act of driving itself. When we first learned to drive our minds were on overdrive. There seemed so much to pay attention to. How fast are we going, don’t look at that too long, check the review mirror every 8 seconds. After a few months we pretty much just get into our car and well, drive. We don’t think about making sure our foot is on the brake before we put it into drive. It all seems to happen automatically. So what is the problem with this? Well, when we lose our focus on the present two major things occur. One like physical exercise if we use our brain for the same things over and over again we plateau. We cease making new pathways in our brain and it fails to get a workout. How many times has a new business opened up on the path to your work and you fail to notice until somebody else points it out to you? Just because you are not looking for something you ‘know’ is not there. The other thing that happens is we fail to appreciate the beauty of the present. A lot of what we do on a daily basis is nothing short of a miracle and was considered, even by ourselves in the beginning, to be a monumental task.
So, how can we avoid getting in these ruts? How can we keep our brain sharp? I am going to take a lesson from the Shaman. For those of you who do not know Shamans were spiritual, and sometimes political leaders of indigenous Peoples. Quite often people would think of them as crazy. They would do things like walk backwards, eat hot food cold and cold food hot, wear ridiculous outfits, or even say things that seemed to make no sense. This all was part of the way of keeping the shamans mind from falling into a rut. Now I am not suggesting you come into work dressed in drag as the boss may frown. What I am suggesting is do a few things to shake up your routine. Take a slightly different path to work. Eat a breakfast meal for dinner. Most of the things we do out of habit are really not all that serious. It will give your mind a jolt and keep it sharp!
A HIGH SCHOOL REUNION AND TWO OLD MEN
A customer came into the post office the other day to mail thank you cards to people who showed up to her 40th high school reunion. She had nothing to do with the planning of the event and stated quite simply, “I just wanted to thank them for showing up and being kind to me”. Not only do I think it is a marvelous idea to sit down and write people a proper thank you letter, but she said something that impressed me even more. She stated that everyone she met seems to have turned out so nice, but some people she spoke with after told her they had the opposite experience. Even though they talked to the same people. How could this be? How could two people go to the same event, talk to the same people, but have entirely different results? There are many factors I suppose, but it reminded me of a story I heard that I would like to share with you.
Two old gentleman were sitting outside of a local diner discussing how the neighborhood was changing and a lot of new people were moving in. Suddenly their conversation was interrupted by just one of those people. “Excuse me, but you look like you may have been a member of this neighborhood a while. What are the people like here?”. That was the question put forth to the old men. “Well what were the people like in the town you came from?” replied one old man. “Oh they were very nice. In fact, we were sad to leave, but my husband’s job had us relocate here” was the reply from the new neighbor. “Well there is no need to worry, I believe you will find the people just as pleasant down here” replied the old man. She thanked them and was off. Well in the middle of a heated debate as to the fate of the local college football team the old men were interrupted by another new neighbor asking the same question. Again the old man replied by asking what the people were like where the individual came from. “They were terrible. Never friendly, rarely said hi to us. That is why we moved here in hopes of finding a nicer group of people” replied the young man. “I’m sorry to tell you, but you wasted your time. I’m afraid you will find the people the same here” replied the old man. The new neighbor left shaking his head. Well now the other old man couldn’t help but ask how he could give two completely different answers to the same question and which one he believed was the right answer. “They both are.” he replied. “People will find just what they are looking for. It has to do with a great deal in how they see the situation.”
Now I like this story, and it brings up a good point. People often do find what they expect to find. Unfortunately there are people who have no expectations and wait for the world to dictate to them how the situation will be. Even worse, there are people who expect the worse in every situation. Have you ever heard someone say “Expect the worse and you will never be disappointed”? Not only is this a very dismal and cowardly way to go through life. Effectively saying you have no control over how things turn out, but it is also negating one of our greatest powers. If you enter a situation or even a day expecting it to be a good day, chances are you will have more good than bad happen. Even if some things do not go as planned, they are easier to take in stride and quite often may be part of a greater plan. If you approach ever day with anxiety and expecting the worse, you will quite often find yourself correct. There are a million reasons why this is so, and we shall discuss them another day. We must ask ourselves, what feels better expecting joy and experiencing the occasional disappointment or glumly expecting the worse and being occasionally pleasantly surprised? I can tell you the attitude I would rather bring to life. The important thing here to realize is we have the power to choose, or to leave it to chance.
Playing at the soda fountain
Seeing as today is my birthday, I thought I would do a post about one of the important elements of an amazing life. Maintaining a youthful spirit. Who wouldn’t want to remain young forever? Less aches and pains, fewer responsibilities, more fun. Well, there are lots of ways from a physical standpoint to remain young. Some we looked at in previous posts, some we will look at in future posts. Today, however, we are going to look at the youthful spirit. Remember when everything in life seemed magical? When the park at the end of the block held the promise of day long adventure? How do we manage to recapture that view of the world while remaining serious responsible adults? Part of that is realizing we can’t do both. I have a few stories to demonstrate what I am talking about. The other day I was at a local establishment for lunch and was watching a young man about 6 years old mixing up a new flavor between six different soft drink flavors. His mom caught him in the act and ran over to put a stop to it. “Stop that, just pick one and sit down”. The kid did as he was told and sat down the smile gone from his face. I began to ponder, other than the terrible effects of drinking soft drinks, what is the harm in mixing five or six together? Sure it is not the responsible thing to do, but it is sure fun. So I grabbed my cup and proceeded to do just that. Some adults looked at me a little funny, but it took me back to when I was a young man.
My next story comes from this past Saturday. My sister and some friends had taken me out for my birthday. On our way to try some new tikki bar she found some songs she used to like when she, and her friends liked when they were about ten. These were songs that were long past popular and would not be considered ‘cool’ anymore to anyone who may have been listening. They turned them up and started singing and dancing along. To all those who may have been driving by we probably looked crazy, but we were having fun! Not to mention for those few minutes everybody was taken back to the time when that song had come out.
In both of these stories people may look at you as if you are being ‘immature’ or just plain crazy. If it were not for the fact that people already know I’m crazy I might get that more often too. So this week I encourage you to find something you used to do when you were young. Go to the mall and try on every goofy hat at the store while you look in the mirror. If you are still concerned with how people may look at you, try something a little more secret. Go for a walk in the park imagining you are walking in a mystical jungle, or turn on a movie at home from your youth and sing and dance along. It will give you a shot of youthful exuberance that we all need. Who knows, those aches and pains may disappear for a minute or two as well.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 