Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s people used to refer to people they did not like as a ‘bum’. It was also a name for someone who did not bring much to the situation. In much the same vein, I like the acronym above. Using bum to stand for ‘broke, undermining manipulators’ is a good way to remind us to watch out for these people coming into our life. Broke can be many things. People can be down on their luck through no fault of their own. That is not the broke we are talking about. We are talking about people with no fiscal sense. People who constantly spend more than they earn. Undermining people? They are not only people who gossip and work against you behind your back, but people who talk down about your goals, your ambitions and your efforts to better yourself. Manipulators are pretty self-explanitory.
When you focus on surrounding yourself with good people, keeping this acronym in mind will help. You do not want a bunch of bums in your life and you certainly do not want to be a bum in anyone else’s life.
There is a point in the journey of self-improvement that is very difficult. With some irony, it is not the beginning. It is when you are well into your journey. You have begun making some changes in your habits and behaviors. Maybe you have seen some improvement, but certainly your life has not yet changed to the degree you were hoping for. Here is the challenging part. The people you used to surround yourself with, who may still be living a life much like the one you were trying to leave behind, do not really feel right to hang around with anymore. Maybe they want to go out for cocktails every night while you are focused on getting up early to hit the gym before work. Maybe they are discussing gossip and the ‘who is doing who’ while you want to discuss something new you have learned about the law of attraction. They call you weird or lame. Sometimes they may actively start to avoid you because your efforts to become better shine a spotlight on their lack of effort. They may not even do this consciously.
The worst part is that you have been not doing this long enough to have found your new group of people who are working to improve themselves. The ones who will both accept and encourage your efforts. You are in a purgatory of sorts. Not where you used to be, but not yet where you wish to go. This is where the temptation to give up and go back to that old crowd so you can feel like you belong is the strongest. You feel like an outcast or a weirdo. Here is what I can tell you. Any of us who have traveled the journey to better ourselves have faced this period. It can feel lonely. It can feel awkward. Trust the process. You will find yourself surrounded by like-minded people soon enough. Keep your head high. Most importantly, fall in love with yourself and the brave journey you are on! Do not give up on all of your efforts.
While you wait for this time to pass, do not forget how many resources are out there. There may be local groups that meet to discuss self-improvement ideas. Cannot find any? There are plenty of online communities that do so. Begin to comment and engage on here and you will find like-minded souls! After all, we are in over 200 countries. Sometimes someone in the online community can lead you to a physical group to hook up with. Just fall in love with who you are right now while keeping the focus on who you will become! You are a beautiful soul now, and you are only getting better and brighter!
Do you know who Earl Nightingale is? If not, I highly recommend looking him up. Not only the man himself, who did amazing things, but his works as well. They are many common sense advice to help you really excel at life. No complicated jargon. No new-age theory. Just common sense, easy to understand tools and strategies that can assist you in becoming the best version of yourself. So if you are a person, like myself, who is always looking to better your best, follow the advice of Earl Nightingale.
The work I would recommend you start with is titled The Strangest Secret. It is a roughly 30 minute audio clip that explains just how, as stated in the photo above, we become what we think about. Have you stopped and thought about this? The thoughts we entertain determine the actions we take. The actions we take determine the outcome of our life. This does not mean you sit in your home and think about being a success and it will come to you. Not at all. What it breaks down to is if you think positive thoughts, you will generally take positive actions. If you think the world is against you and there is not use in trying, you are not going to persist in the actions needed to succeed. Especially when challenges appear.
Are you aware that 95% of our thoughts are both subconscious and repetitive? That means we are barely aware of what we are thinking and it is mostly the same thoughts we had yesterday. The scary part is that 80% of our internal dialogue is negative. As you can see, leaving your brain on autopilot, which is what most people do, can limit us in such a dramatic fashion? The secret is to take control of our thoughts. Make them conscious! Make them positive! Take the inspired action they lead to! A great formula for doing so can be found by listening to the strangest secret. Take 30 minutes out of your day to give it a listen. You will be in possession of the strangest secret. What you do with it is up to you.
Here is a sad truth most of us have a hard time grasping – some people may never like you. It could be jealousy, envy, racism, or a host of other issues. There are people in my life that I have never even met that do not like me. When your writing is viewed in over 200 countries, it is difficult not to offend the likes of some. There is a gent that is offended by my sharing of anything hopeful or optimistic. He claims that is giving people a false sense of hope. Perhaps this gent would prefer a world filled with dark and depressing material. To him I say, feel free to turn on the news my good friend. At my day job there are people who dislike me because I am upbeat most of the time. That tends to offend them.
With social media there is a world filled with ‘keyboard rangers’, that is people who say things they would not dare say in person because they feel safe behind a keyboard. With this being the case, you are bound to encounter people who will dislike you because, as the picture states, your spirit will irritate their demons. Knowing this, I hope will help you shrug off their insults or attacks as just what they are – their opinions. Do not let them change your beautiful spirit. More on that next post.
Not only is the title of this blog the same as one of my favorite songs by the band Aerosmith, but that song happened to be inspired from a line in one of my favorite movies (Young Frankenstein). This blog has nothing to do with Steven Tyler or Mel Brooks however. Instead, it is a change in both mindset as well as the way we carry ourselves.
I imagine many of you who read the words in the photo above dismissed it as some ‘new-age nonsense’. In order to prove to you that there is scientific, as well as personal, proof behind this, allow me to ask you a question. This question I learned from a Tony Robbins talk. It opened up such an interesting paradigm shift, it became an entire section in my second book, Living the Dream. The question is this, “For a million dollars, if I asked you to describe a depressed person sitting behind a closed door, could you do it?” Would their posture be erect or would they be slumped over? Would their eyes be bright and looking up or would they be staring at the floor? Would their movements be energetic or slow and plodding?
How did you know all of those facts about a depressed person that you have never seen? Have you ever been depressed? Chances are your physical stature was much the same. That is because our physical presence can affect our emotions. That is why walking the way that is suggested in the photo above makes so much sense. If we walk around with our head down, dragging our feet and with no enthusiasm, how do you think we will feel? How many people do you know that this is their default state? Have you ever stop to think about this?
Yes, walking around like you have just heard the best news of your life, picturing everything working in your favor may get you some curious looks. That is fine. People can be uncomfortable with something that is different. After a while, do you know what starts to happen? People begin to gravitate towards you. Who would not want to be around someone who carries themselves that way? To, of course, the obvious way this will affect your mood. Life really is about how we feel. If there exists ways in which we can positively affect that, why not make use of them? Here is what happens when your mood is elevated. Your immune system functions better. Your mind is more open to opportunity. When stress comes your way, you will be in far better position to handle it than if you were already depressed when it arrived.
If you would like a more in-depth description of how this works, along with more tools and strategies to improve your life, please check out my book, Living the Dream by Neil Panosian. Available wherever fine books are sold.
What an uninspiring title! Shouldn’t we wish our lives were better? I do suppose the title could have read ‘Do not just wish your life was better’. What we are proposing here is not sitting back and constantly lamenting our life is not all that we desire it to be. Instead, turning that desire into action! Wishing your life was better without taking any action is little better than whining.
What if you do not know what action to take? It is my desire to be a best-selling author. Until that happens, I will continue to work on improving every aspect of my writing and do my best to get it into the hands and minds of as many people as I can. It is also important to work on ourselves. Continuing to improve as many aspects of our person as we are able. Becoming the best version of ourselves is a journey without a finish line. That means there are always ways in which we can better our best. That should excite you. This means there is the possibility for your life to improve in ways in which we have not even considered.
If you find yourself wishing your life was better but not taking any action to make it so, ask yourself why? Are you expecting your fairy godmother to come down and grant you a better life? This may sound a bit fantastical. That is because it is. There is no other way to improve your life than to take consisitent action in that direction. Make sure you do not fall into the trap of all talk and no action. Do not just wish your life was better. Make yourself, and your life, better through your actions.
So much talk in the self-improvement circles about finding your passion, or finding your ‘why’. I couldn’t agree more that finding, or more importantly, deciding on your life purpose makes life not only more productive but easier. You always know if you’re going in the right direction and if the action you are about to take will serve you well or not.
The question that always comes up is, “What should I do until I decide what the purpose of my life should be?” The answer is in the photo above. Until you know what you should be working on, work on yourself.
Working in yourself should be a life-long journey. We are always learning and growing. The better you become, the better and less stressful your life becomes. Today, if you find yourself not knowing what to do, ask yourself what can you do to move closer to the best version of yourself.
There certainly have been some things in my past that I regret and I am that proud of. How about you? I think most of us have a few of those. How do they affect you currently? Beating yourself up over them is not very healthy. It can be rather counter productive. It can ruin self-confidence, increase doubt and have you feeling down. Is the answer to forget about them all together? Not at all. Making a mistake and forgetting all about it can doom you to repeat the same one. Like the ‘Groundhog Day’ of bad behavior. That would not be good for anyone.
If the answer is not to dwell on them or forget them, than what are we supposed to do with all of the things we regret? If you are looking to live an amazing life, than put them to work for you! Let them help you to live a more rewarding life going forward. Perhaps you were not as appreciative of a gift that someone worked hard to give you in the past and that really haunts you. In that case, make sure to be grateful for the actions and gifts that people bring to you going forward. Let that memory serve as a painful reminder of how it feels when you are not grateful, or at least do not express it as much as you would like to.
All regrets can be put into use this way. That way, even regret can serve as something useful for us. In your life do you have any regrets? If so, how can you use them to improve your life going forward? This is a question we must ask ourselves. We all have regrets. The better we are at using them to improve our life going forward, the better our life would be. Turn your regrets from something holding you back to a tool to help move you forward starting today!
Does this ring true for you? We are so often our own worst critic. We can often be so hard on ourselves that we end up being our own worst enemy. Has this ever happened to you? That voice between our ears can be a harsh one. Where does that get us? It can leave us feeling less than, depressed and like a failure. I do not know of one good thing that will come out of any of those feelings.
Let us begin to develop a healthier and more positive self-talk. Let us try being a little more compassionate and encouraging in our inner dialogue. Let us give ourselves a little more grace. In doing so, we will also develop more compassion for others. What would happen if we turned our inner voice to one of encouragement and approval? We would develop a more positive self-image. We would have the courage to try something new. We would be more forgiving to ourself and to others. That would eliminate a lot of stress in our life. That would leave us in a healthier state both mentally and physically.
Start this transformation today. You could write down a list of things that are pretty amazing about you. List compliments that people have given you. You may not be perfect. You may make mistakes. If your intentions are true and you are working to become the best version of yourself, these are just lessons. You are amazing and deserver to be treating as such. Especially from yourself.
Let us have a discussion about the journey of self-improvement and becoming the best version of yourself. This is a self-improvement website after all. Many people are looking for the ‘lifestyle hack’ or the quick fix to transform into this magically positive and productive person. Others are searching for the secret knowledge, or the one thing that can turn their life around. After over 2 decades in this field, here is what I have learned – it is not that complicated. There are many paths to discovering and living your greatness. What makes you great may be different than what makes me, your neighbor or your child great.
This is where it becomes a bit tricky for someone who is coaching others to become the best version of themselves. If everyone is unique, how can you develop tools and strategies that will work for everyone? There are universal principles, which can be customized to the individual, that when applied work for everyone. One of these is understanding how all of this works. One of the best ways I have discovered is by using analogies that make it easier to understand. That is what we are going to attempt to do here today.
Think of an apple. Let us say that one of your friends gives you an apple. As you begin to eat it, the thought occurs to you that you would love more of these delicious apples. Inside that very apple is a few seeds. What happens if you plant them? Does each one give you an apple? No, it is not a one for one turn around. What does happen, eventually, is you grow and apple tree. That tree has many apples. Each of those apples have several seeds. If you continue to replant the seeds, you end up with an orchard and all of the apples you can enjoy. In fact, you can even share the apples with others at that point.
You may be thinking, “Cute apple story Neil, but what does that have to do with becoming the best version of myself?” In a word, everything! That apple that someone gave you is a tool or strategy that can improve your life. Inside of each tool or strategy is a ‘seed’ of greatness. These seeds can even be found in challenges, chance meetings and pretty much any situation in life. When we ‘plant’ the seed. That is akin to putting what we have learned into action in our life. Here where the magic happens if we do it the right way. Let us take developing an attitude of gratitude as an example. When we plant the seed and begin to utilize gratitude in our life, not much may change right away. This is what happens when you first plant the apple seed. It takes a while to grow the tree. If we water and take care of the seed, the quicker the tree will grow and the sooner we will reap our harvest. This is what happens when we continue to take the self-improvement action even if we are not seeing the immediate results.
What would happen if we plant an apple seed and three days later there is no tree so we dig up the seed to see if it is working? One, we would disrupt and slow down the growth cycle of the seed. Done enough times, the seed will die and nothing will grow. This is what we do when we are filled with doubt or stop using the tools and strategies because we do not see results in the time we desire. It is like wanting the tree to grow overnight. It often does not work that way. If we stick with it and water that seed, so we will harvest more than we had initially. Think of practicing being grateful. If we do it long enough to develop an attitude of gratitude, our life will transform in far greater ways than just being thankful. Remember this analogy when you are not seeing results as quickly as you would like.
