Do you ever get the feeling you are chasing the brass ring… and an Olympic sprinter is wearing it? That is to say you can never quite catch it? When we spend our life focused on chasing the next big goal and saving our celebration until we reach it, life can feel like one big chores.
What is the secret to an amazing life? As the photo above states, celebrating the little wins. There are so many ways in which to do this. As I mentioned in the last few posts, the weather here is so cold it is downright dangerous. The other night, my lovely Margie and I had to go out to our DJ job. It was -3° F when we left. My 2005 Ford Escape not only made it home but purred like a kitten.To me, making it home safe was a win.
Celebrating safe travels and good health keep us realizing how much we truly do have. I’m sitting in a local Korean coffee shop writing this. I’m so glad my city not only has one of these, but I am able to enjoy it. This will be the 935th day in a row for these blogs. That is worth Celebrating. I’m not waiting to celebrate until I reach my goal of 1000.The fact that despite my hectic life I’m still able to bring these blogs to you is a win.
How about you? What small wins can you celebrate? The more you celebrate, the more life seems like 1 big party!
Hello friends! Welcome to another day here at Secret2anamazinglife.com! Today we are sharing a very important label. Many of us have taken to reading labels in an effort to maintain or improve our health. This a great idea. Knowing what you are putting into your body can help you improve your health in a major way. As of yet, there are tags for what we are putting into our soul or spirit. The tag above is a good start. Listed are several things that will help you maintain a joyful spirit. I would recommend adding some gratitude and some sort of reflection or meditation to the list.
How about you? What on this tag works the best for you? What would you add to your ‘Good Mood Tag’? I would love to hear your answers below. In the New Year, we should all work together to help each other have more good days. Here at this website we are committed to do our part. We will continue to bring you motivating and uplifting content all year long. If you have any suggestions for topics you would like covered, please let us know. In the meantime, enjoy crafting your good mood!
Yes, this is a funny little meme. Yes, it is also the honest truth for me when it comes to winter. It is also a great suggestion for appreciating different aspects of what the cold weather brings. I mentioned a few posts ago that where I live the weather is dangerously cold. The news is recommending people do not leave their house unless they have to. Makes you wonder why I am not on vacation writing to you from the tropics. As you read this, there is a great chance that I am doing just what the photo above states. Sitting inside enjoying a good cup of coffee. Chances are that I am doing so with some wonderful company as well.
As much as I dislike the cold, there is something wonderful to be said about being inside looking out at it. Enjoying coffee with Margie, my mother or some other wonderful person becomes so much more of a blessing. The fact that we have the freedom and ability to do so is something we are all grateful for. While it is true that you can do this in the warm weather, it has a different feel when the temperature plummets below freezing.
Wherever you are, and no matter what the weather is like, may you enjoy the blessing of sharing a great cup of coffee with some wonderful company. Make sure you take time to be grateful for the ability to do so. In a world where things can change in an instant, it is fully enjoying the present that makes all of the difference.
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr, I wanted to reflect on one of my favorite quotes of his. The only way to combat those of a negative nature is with love and positivity. It may be a news flash to some, but you cannot ‘out hate’ a person. Everyone ends up losing. The negative physical effects of hate will end up costing you in the long run. The increase in stress hormones will raise blood pressure, cause headaches, upset stomach and a host of other not so wonderful maladies. What is the payoff of hate? There really is none. It will cost you sleep. It will weaken your immune system and drain your energy.
On the flip side, love has a host of wonderful benefits for you. If you can fill your life with love, you will experience faster healing from wounds, better sleep, lower blood pressure and better pain relief. Not to mention your view of the world will change. When we fill our hearts and minds with hate, the world reflects those emotions to us. The world takes on a dark and foreboding feeling. We feel that everyone is out to get us. That bad luck seems to follow us around. When we are filled with love, we notice opportunities that we may have missed. Those around us feel it too. They share a smile with us. We seem to attract other love-filled souls.
Next time you are faced with hate of any kind, or even just a negative personality, remember the words in the quote above. You cannot drive darkness out with more darkness, and you can’t drive hate out with more hate. Fill yourself with love. It will change your life and it just might save your life.
Where I live, the temperature is supposed to be downright dangerous the next few days. It will get down to -10 ° (-24C) At this temperature, many bad things can happen. Of course your car will be tested to its limits. What is really scary is those individuals who are homeless. When the news advises you not to go outside unless you have to, what about those who do not have a choice? Especially the homeless children? We hear many concerns for those left without a place to go. We also hear a lot of people grateful that they have someplace to stay inside and warm.
If there is one thing that is good about this weather, it is that it forces people to notice those that are less fortunate. All to often, they are not even a thought in the back of anyone’s mind. This is not a negative knock on society. When worrying about the welfare of your children, doing well at work and a host of other life challenges, it can be easy to not give as much attention to the less fortunate. Truth is, we can all be one medical emergency, job loss or natural disaster away from being homeless ourselves.
Dangerous weather like what we will have here the next few days will shine on light on helping those who are in a far more challenging situation than we are. It will also have us feeling so grateful for all that we do have that we may often take for granted. Let us do our best to keep this mindset even when the temperatures begin to climb and it is safer to venture outside.
Today is Saturday. Most of us are enjoying the start of the weekend. A few of us, like myself, are working. It is good to be a hard-working individual. It shows character and self-discipline. Both very good traits. What we must be careful with is to balance that with our true passions and ambitions. No matter what that job is, one day we will retire. What then? The average person lives less than 20 years after retirement. Men, it is even less for you. Why do we suppose that is? One of the main reasons is a lack of purpose. You do not want to give all of your passion and energy to a company that will replace you a day after you are gone. Think about your legacy, and what lights the inner fire inside you. That is what the world needs more of.
Forgetting your dreams to chase the dollar can have terrible side effects. Increased stress, reduced sense of purpose and fulfillment. How exciting can a life of ‘wake up, pay bills and die’ be? Not very exciting. I’ll cover more ways to go from striving to thriving in my upcoming fourth book. Until then, I want to remind all of us to continue to make our dreams a priority. Even those of us who are finished with the work-a-day world can put our dreams on the back burner. We spend our time with busy work and running errands for others. Perhaps so used to putting our own desires last, that doing anything less has us feeling guilty.
Even someone like myself who works about 60 hours a week, still makes time to pursue their passions. In fact, the words you are reading now include that. The means are not just to justify an end, but to invest in my dream. Pursuing dreams helps us feel alive. It puts light behind our eyes and a spring in our step. How can you invest in your dreams today? Through time? Financial investment? Maybe it is just dusting them off and bringing them back to life. Do not let your salary kill your dreams!
During a conversation with my boss about a supervisor we have had for 2 years, but has never actually set foot in the building (this is something that could only happen at the Post Office) she exploded with emotion. Yelling about how much the situation is stressing her out and how much it upsets her. I explained the quote above. Far too many of us have the same reaction to many things in life that are beyond our control. As I watched her get angry and yell, I couldn’t help but think of what this was doing to her physically. When we put ourselves into constant states of stress, the physical outcome can be nothing short of lethal. Everything from an upset stomach to a heart attack.
Many of you might be tempted to say that the situation was actually to blame. That is not so. Our emotions are one of the things that we can control. This is something that most of us are never taught. We assume it is just an action/reaction world. Yes, it is a lot easier to be happy after winning the lottery than when you discover that you accidentally took two laxatives instead of allergy medicine, but we still have a great deal of control over our reactions. Our mind, where our emotions actually come from, is a muscle to be exercised. Like starting to exercise any muscle, it will be difficult at first, but will get easier the more we try.
Why bother with all this effort to train our emotions? For starters, not having a heart attack would be a good thing. You may be saying to yourself, “That could never happen to me!” The number one risk factor for a heart attack is high blood pressure. It is called the silent killer because it has no symptoms. Guess what raises your blood pressure? Stress! One of the greatest ways we can reduce our stress is through gaining control over our emotions. There are many ways in which this can be done. One of my favorites is to change what things mean. Bullying, at both the adult and child level, is a huge problem since Covid and getting worse. We can let the emotional, verbal attacks really stress us out, or we can understand that these are really people who are usually suffering from a poor self-esteem themselves. Nobody who is completely happy with themselves will attack another.
Another way is to change our perception about the event. When we are constantly in reaction mode, we become slaves to our emotions. They control us instead of the other way around. Are you really going to be anger’s slave? In addition to being a slave to the emotion, you are letting the person or event that caused your reaction control you and your emotional well-being. Nobody deserves to have that power other than you! That person who insulted you might have made you angry. That person who broke your heart may have made you sad. That is understandable. To stay in that emotional state is to let them continue to hurt you over and over again. You deserve better.
Lastly, you can mine your emotions. What I mean by that is to find the lesson in why you find yourself reacting and feeling that way. Is it telling you something about yourself? Is it telling you something about the people you have in your life or the situations you put yourself in? These are all things that we have some control over. Let your emotions give you the gift of improving your life. Stop being victim to them and put them to work for you. It will save you stress. It may even save your life!
A quick reminder that you need to take time out of your busy week to breathe and reconnect. This is such an overlooked item. When we do this we not only refresh ourselves, we do so much good for others. We increase our productivity at work, which makes our bosshappy. We are better to relate to coworkers and friends. We have more patience and a higher stress threshold. This is good news for spouses and children.
Today, give yourself permission to just breathe. It will serve you and it will serve others.
How true this photo is. I’ve been guilty of this myself more than I care to admit. Especially this time of year. The holidays are over, it is cold and dreary out and I’m just wishing for sun, warmth and fun. Still, there is plenty of joy to miss if you are just wishing and waiting.
There are moments my mom and I get together at a warm coffee shop for some great conversation. Of course there is more snuggling with the love of my life. There is a lot to be grateful for. The struggles of life make the rewards that much sweeter. Imagine if your whole life was just sitting on the beach enjoying the sound of the waves. Go ahead, Imagine it. I do several times a day. After a while you might take that for granted. One day of going to work with a windchill of -12° and you will be right back appreciatingit.
For this very reason, we soups also appreciate the things we are trying to ‘make it through’ to get to the good stuff. They are what make the good stuff… well… good. We spend 80% of our lives on the journey and 20% at the destination. Why throw away 80% to get to the 20%? Especially when it is the journey thatmakes the destination so exciting to get to.
Starting now, keep looking forward to 5pm, look forward to the weekend and whatever else you are working towards. At the same time, be grateful for the journey that makes it worth while. Don’t forget to notice all the joy contained in that as well. Hopefully, I’ll see you on the beach soon!
As an author, you may be tempted to think this is a ploy to get to you buy more books. Certainly, if you would like to go on Amazon and search ‘Neil Panosian’, feel free to order away. In truth, this post has nothing to do with books at all. It has to do with people. The people in your life. Friends, loved ones and even just the people you enjoy spending time with.
In my own life, I have recently lost two people. My grandmother, who was 96 years old, and my friend Billy Spaulding, who we wrote about last post. These two are not only two entirely different people, they will serve as a great example of what we wish to discuss here today. We often have two types of relationships with people. The book version, or the CliffsNotes version. With Billy I had the book, with my grandmother, the CliffsNotes.
Above you see some very smart people with great taste in books. I hope they had the pleasure of reading the entire thing from cover to cover. When it comes to relationships, do we read from cover to cover? Here is what I mean. When we lose someone, we lose more than just that person’s physical presence in our life. We lose stories we share. We lose jokes that maybe we are the only ones to understand, or find funny.Having these to appreciate takes reading the whole book cover to cover. What is the difference and how do we go about reading these books? Let’s take a look.
My grandmother, my dad’s mother, recently passed away at the age of 96. Sadly, I can’t really share much about her as we did not spend a great deal of time together. For several years she even thought my name was Nick. Margie thought the same thing, but that is a different story. I knew her name. Spent a few moments with her and even have a few comical memories of things she did. In other words, the CliffsNotes version. Did I know her favorite flower? No. Did I know what made her laugh? Not at all.
On the opposite side of the spectrum was my friend Billy. We had spent hours discussing life and our place in it. We shared jokes, laughter and quite a few cocktails. Last post goes into this in greater detail. There is even a video of the two of us on our YouTube channel. That is reading the book version of getting to know someone. As I was laying awake unable to sleep thinking of this blog and what I was going to write, another thing occurred to me – technology. It is vital that we share with each other on as many levels as we can.
Cellphones can be linked to the decline of personal communication. They can, however, help us establish the ‘whole book’ way of remembering someone. Above are pictures of my late uncle, my cousin who passed away at the age of 22, Margie’s mom (whose birthday we celebrate today) and I, my great uncle and my grandfather. All of these people are no longer here. Many passed before cell phones were really a thing. Therefore, there is little or no audio and video of them. As I thought about people I would like to still be able to speak with, my grandfather popped into my head. My mind even strained to remember the sound of his voice. It seems unreal that there was never a video made, but you just didn’t think of those things. That is why it is important to get to know each other on the deepest level. When my young cousin passed away in a tragic accident, we were scheduled to get together and shoot a video for my YouTube channel the very next week.
The point of all of this is to create the memories now. Do not settle for surface knowledge of someone. Really get to know them. You never know when it may be your last chance to do so. If it is, do you want to be left with CliffsNotes or do you want to say you have read the whole book?
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 