Here is an important idea to remember. Things will be okay. This can be hard to accept or believe when we are facing difficult times. There are a million challenges that come to mind that can really try our resolve. Can you think of ones in your past that fit this description? For me, there are several that come to mind. My open-heart surgery and following trip to the hospital. People we care deeply for passing away. Car accidents, job losses. We have all had our share of very serious challenges, have we not?
Here is something to consider, you are reading this. Whatever challenge tried, and may have succeeded, in knocking you down, you are still here. Your record for facing challenges and to keep moving forward is 100%. We all have scars, we may have some pain, be it physical or emotional, that we carry with us, but we are here. That pain, and those challenges, often allow us to better relate to and comfort others going through something similar. It can give us a good story to share with and help inspire others. It can give us motivation that we have overcome a challenge. Eventually, and it may take a good amount of time, everything will be okay. Know that. Trust in that.
In life we all have many challenges. One of mine is the weather where I live. Especially in winter. It seems the older I get, the harder it is to deal with the cold and snow. This year, I vowed to make the best of it and try to maintain a more positive outlook. For a while, mother nature seemed on board with this. The weather was unseasonably warm, and the snow was slight. My attitude seemed to remained elevated. This was good news for my family and friends. I thought to myself, “Neil, you just might do it this year!” Then, mother nature had a wicked grin.
I leave for my day job a little after 4am Monday to Saturday. This morning I woke up to over a foot of snow. As I trudged my way to where my car was parked, I saw it also was covered in snow. Upon reached my car, I discovered it was more ice than snow. Nothing starts the day off right like spending ten minutes chipping ice off your vehicle just to climb inside. Once inside, I began to defrost the windows. Once they were clear, I headed out. Trying to focus on the fact I was grateful to have a vehicle that ran. The plow that went through left a small ridge of snow in it’s path. I had to cross it to get out of the parking lot. As I did my car erupted in a chorus of sounds. None of them were very friendly. It would appear the snow had damaged some vital part of the exhaust. This happened on a Saturday. My mechanic is not open until Monday.
Driving around with a car loud enough to wake the dead is embarrassing enough, but now the temperature, which was doing just fine, is going to drop to ten degrees below zero. This makes my loud car, should it start, quite necessary. It would appear that my resolution to maintain a positive attitude is receiving quite the test. I must remember that is what the world does. I refuse to let it get the upper hand. This is not done alone. My friend CJ jokingly reminded me that some kids are trying to make their cars louder, in essence, I just gave myself a free upgrade. My friend Kurt offered his mechanic. Of course my lovely lady and her smile will keep me warm on the inside. There are my self-improvement skills I not only teach, but practice myself, that will keep me humming along.
All of this serves to remind me that tests are a part of life. They give our resolve strength. They require us to change our focus on what we do have to be grateful for in order to make it through them. It also gives us a platform to demonstrate to others, by our example, that they too can make it through their challenges. When we embrace life’s challenges and put them to work for us, we grow. When we let them get us down, we become less of who we could be. I am going to do my best to grow from this challenge and I invite you to do the same with the challenges in your life.
Here are some acorns. These things are everywhere right now. My mom and I went for a 3 mile hike the other day and almost the whole trail was covered in them. They are fun and add a little extra natural beauty, but you can easily twist an ankle if you are not careful stepping on one. A thought occurred to me as we were walking along the trail. The little acorns we were stepping on, came from the mighty oak trees that we were walking under. Inside everyone one of these little acorns, was a large oak tree that could grow to drop hundreds of more acorns of its own.
I thought about the fact that each one of those acorns could grow into a tree, and there were thousands on the ground. I began to think of what has to occur to turn the acorn into the oak. What came to me was far more than a nature lesson, so please stick with me. In order for the acorn to sprout, or for any seed to do so, it has to be buried in the ground. It must be covered with dirt and water, often for months. If that acorn is never buried, it will never grow into the oak.
This reminded me so much of us as people. Inside every one of us is something waiting to sprout and grow. It may not be as big of a transformation as the acorn to the oak. Then again, it may be even bigger. When life throws a little dirt on us, we have to make a decision. Are we being buried or are we being planted? What is the difference? When you are planted, you are using that dirt as fertilizer. You are stealing the nutrients to help you grow and develop. When you are buried, you are just laying there decaying. Becoming part of the soil, if you want to stick with this analogy. What makes the difference? Our decision. Which one we will decide it will be.
The same holds true with us. When life throws a little dirt on us, we lose a job or a relationship. Maybe the loan we were counting on getting doesn’t come through. Whatever the challenge is, life is throwing a little dirt on us. We could lay there and stay buried, or we could use that dirt. Maybe develop our skills so we can get a better job, or one in our chosen field. We can work on improving our relationship skills so that we will be a better spouse. Perhaps we will be more selective and find someone better aligned with our values? When life throws some dirt on us, we should ask ourselves, am I going to be buried or am I going to be planted?
What if it seems that life has been throwing dirt on us for years and we are not growing one bit? What if we have spent years toiling away, seemingly underground, for little or no result? For that, I will leave you with this little info about the growth cycle of bamboo. Just something to ponder. Don’t give up. Never give up!
When doing a little research for this blog post, I came across this quote. I really like the point it makes. In life, it is never fun to run into ties that challenge you. After vacation, I was looking to get back into my fitness routine. With only two hours notice, the gym I went to decided to close. No advance notice to either their members or their employees! (Not good business Xperience Fitness) Joining a new gym is a rather trying and stressful thing for me. You have to find one relatively close, with the amenities you are looking for and at a reasonable cost. For the next several weeks, I pondered and could not make up my mind.
It was not until a chance conversation with my mother, who was also victim to this gym closer, did a solution occur to me. She mentioned finding out if my insurance had any fitness club benefits. Back story, I have had this insurance since 2002 and never thought of looking into that. It turns out that I can join two different gyms for less than the price I was paying for one. (Welcome VASA and Planet Fitness) Not only will I be back on track to be physically stronger, but the same can be said about my finances. It also gave me a sense of accomplishment to get this all sorted out.
I think another reason life tests you is to strengthen your commitment. Here I was finally all set up with not only one new gym, but two! Ready to work out. I was also looking at a little more free time and eager to start my fourth book. Then….BAM! Literally! I wacked my head into the corner of a metal shelf. There goes time at the gym and staring at a computer screen. I finally had the gym, the time and the urge to start my fourth book. Instead, I was sitting at home with blood coming out of my head and a concussion.
This could have went two ways. I could have threw my hands up in the air and said, “I guess I am not supposed to work out or write that book!” or I could have used it to increase my desire for it that much more. Like a kid who is told he has to wait to open his gift until the next morning. You can just see the desire building. Life challenges are much like a parent telling us we have to wait to open our gifts. That is the goals we are chasing. Know when life gives you a challenge, it is not a denial, it is just a delay. A chance to strengthen your character and your commitment!
There will be tests in life for all of us. Nobody is immune. This begs thequestion, “If all of us are tested, how come some come out thriving, will others come out barely surviving?” The answer to the question involves the use of one of our greatest weapons – our mind and attitude.
Most people when faced with a challenge,or test, of any kind ask, “Why me?” This leads to a feeling of victim mentality and loss of control. It feels as though life is happening to us. When we change that question to “What strengths can this help me develop?” We feel like we are in control and no longer feel like a victim. It also trains our mind to search for seeds of opportunity in the face of challenges.
Change your attitude about challenges and the tests of life and you will discover strength you never knew you had. Just like in the gym, where it requires resistance to build physical muscle, the same can be said about the muscles of character.
A lot of people incorrectly assume that I do not have bad days. In fact, a more common but just as incorrect assumption is that the goal of self-improvement is to rid you of ever having a bad day. There are, believe it or not, many benefits to having a bad day.
Yes, bad days are not fun. What they do is help us grow at a much faster rate than good days. It also helps strengthen our character and positive mindset. Just like in the gym, you only achieve strength through resistance.
You might be thinking, “Neil that is all well and good, but what good is self-improvement?” What my books, and this blog, teach us is how to reduce the severity and frequency of bad days. This is done by mining them for lessons and growth.
When you ask yourself, “What can I learn and gain from my life being a dumpster fire at the moment?” You view and approach life, and your challenges, in an entirely different light. Learnto use your bad days and not allow them to use you! Please share your strategies for putting your bad days to work for you.
The strangest thing happened to me the other day. Margie and I both work extremely hard. It is rare we have 2 days off in a row. For me, I don’t even have one. This coming Monday and Tuesday I do. We decided to take advantage and treat ourselves to a mini getaway. We chose a local hotel about 10 miles from our house. We like the restaurant that they have, but never stayed there. I stopped by to book the room one day after work. That was about a week ago. Just yesterday, they called to say they were canceling my reservation. Why? You might ask. It was because I did not live far away from the hotel. It would appear this national hotel chain does not book rooms to anyone who lives in a 30 mile radius. To me, this makes absolutely no sense. Why, as a business, you would say “If you live 30 miles from our hotel, we do not want you as a customer.” is beyond me.
The more I thought about this, the more it confused me. I am an author, podcast host and blogger followed in over 200 countries. If my next door neighbor wanted to buy my book, do you know what I would do? I would sell it to him. If my good friend in Australia wanted a copy of one of my books, I would sell it to her as well. I would not eliminate anyone from my business because of how close or far they live to me. I was willing to pay a good sum to stay at this location, and they refused my money. Margie, who was also confused by the policy, called the hotel to see if there was some mistake. The lady informed her that was indeed their policy and added for good measure, “There is no way I am going to rent you a room.” Not only does it appear this business is not interested in serving their local community, but they seem bent on supplying poor customer service on top of it.
Then I do what I always do. I started asking myself empowering questions. What is this lesson trying to teach me? How can I use this? What is good about this situation? What I decided was that if a hotel was not concerned about alienating their neighbors and customer service that leads to negative word of mouth advertising, I probably would not enjoy my stay there. It also reminded me of the importance of taking care of your neighbors. It put into my head an idea for a great charity event that I am putting together for next month. (More on that in a future post.) Then I asked if perhaps there was a better location that Margie and I were supposed to stay at.
With this in mind, I began to look for other hotels that may be more interested in taking my money. This Not-so-best Western ‘plus’ seemed fine without me. I drove to a hotel a few cities over, just to make sure it was more than 30 miles. It was a Country Inn and Suites. Not only was it connected to 2 amazing restaurants, but the lady could not have been nicer. Just to be safe, I asked her if they had any distance restrictions. She wore a puzzled look. I explained my situation from the earlier hotel. “Oh no. You could live 1 minute away and we would be happy to serve you.” she assured me. This was so refreshing.
In the end, the first hotel may have frustrated and inconvenienced me with their silly policy and waiting until the last minute to inform me of it, but it served me well. It not only gave me the content for today’s blog, but reminded me how important taking care of those closest to you is. It spurred a great idea that I can use to serve my community. Hopefully, as you read this, Margie and I will be enjoying our getaway with a heated pool, hot tub and free breakfast. Let us all learn from the Mistake of the Worst Western. Let us not be so focused on changing the world, that we forget our own community. In every challenge, there is the seed for an even greater opportunity.
I was listening to Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers today. He said something I think we can all relate to. He said, “In life, you are either going into a storm, in the middle of a storm or just came out of a storm.” That may sound a bit negative, but that does not make it any less true. It seems the storms of life seem to come one right after another. There are moments of sunshine between them for sure, but another one is always around the corner if we wait long enough.
Much like the meteorological storms, we also try to predict the storms in our life. Just like they do on the weather channel, we gather information. We look at patterns and past performances. Much like the conclusions on the weather channel, they are right…some of the time. We might be able to predict the storm, but that does little, if anything, to change the fact the storm is coming. They never try to change the weather on the weather channel. You never hear them say, “Everyone point your fan in one direction so we can pull up warmer air.” Trust me, I have thought of this. Why, in life, do we try to change the weather? We fight against the storms with other people. We fight against change itself. As if we can stop these things from happening.
We can spend an entire life doing our best to avoid or run from the storms in the ocean of life. They will find us or catch up to us at some point. That time would be much better spent learning to swim. What do I mean from that? If you know that eventually you will be in a storm, you really have two options. You can hope that the storm is easy, or that it passes you over entirely. Hope is a redeeming quality, but seldom a good strategy. Your other option is to learn skills that can help you not only survive the storm, but thrive in it. In other words, you can learn to swim.
Many of you might be thinking, “Ok, that makes sense. Next time that I see a storm coming, I will work on the skills that will help me make it through.” Let us return to our analogy of the weather. Does mother nature ever call you to ask, “I plan on raining this week. When would be good for you?” I am not sure how it works in your life, but mother nature must think the time I enjoy rain is when I have an outdoor activity planned. Just like the weather, the storms of life can pop up unexpectedly, at any time.
While being interviewed for the show Positively Milwaukee, I asked the question, “When is the best time to learn how to swim? When you are on the shore or when the boat is sinking?” Little did I know, only a year later I would benefit from my own advice. I had to undergo emergency open-heart surgery. The healthy lifestyle I had been living went a long way in helping me make it through that. Had I waited until I was told that I needed surgery to start living a healthy lifestyle, it would have been too late. The same is true in any challenge of life. The longer you wait to start preparing for the storms of life, the chance it will be too late increases. Start developing your skills today. The storm could come tomorrow. Take that swimming lesson today.
When you are facing a tough challenge in life, it can be very tempting to run away from it. That will not facilitate growth of any nature. It is not our fault that we are predisposed to do this. Our brains are wired to avoid pain. I have learned two things about the storms of life from Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers. He said you are in one of three situations. You are about to enter a storm, you are in the middle of the storm, or you are just leaving a storm. This may sound a bit doom and gloom, but there are always challenges in life. Another thing he said is that there is too much pain in life to duck. No matter where you hide, it will find you. Don’t want to pay your credit card bill? They will find you and chances are, you will end up owing more.
The above quote from Wilma Mankiller seems counter intuitive, but it really is a secret to reducing stress in life. Your brain may be screaming “Get me the hell out of here!” That is the opposite of what you want to do. By running away from a problem, you only prolong it. Not to mention, you have the stress of knowing the challenge is still hanging over you. Conversely, if you run headlong into the challenge, you actually shorten its duration. It may be uncomfortable at first. No, actually it will be uncomfortable. The stress you will go through initially, will reduce the stress you feel long-term.
It can be so tempting to run from your problems, but doing so only makes them last longer and become bigger. Face them. Run through them like the buffalo. You will find that your life contains a lot less stress than if you would spend it trying to avoid problems. As an added bonus, you will have tremendous growth of character that you would not get by avoiding the storms of life.
Bad days, we all have them. Certainly, there are things we can do to minimize the possibility of one occurring, but there are just too many variables for us to contend with. One thing we have complete control over is the state of mind and attitude that we bring to each day. We all know people who can face the worst circumstances and have it bounce off of them like nothing ever happened. There are people who seem to turn every disadvantage to a learning and growing experience. Wouldn’t it be great to be one of those people?
We can! It only takes working on one thing – our attitude. We cannot know what variables are coming our way, nor can we hope to control them all. Trying to control every aspect of our lives, which often includes the lives and opinions of others, will drive us crazy. Just ask any micromanager. All we can control is our attitude towards life and its challenges. The way we do this is to surround ourselves with inspiring things such as calendars, screen savers and pictures. We also listen to empowering things on our daily commute. We read inspiring material. It is even more powerful if we do so to begin our day.
If you want to be a person who does not fall victim to every challenge in life, forget working on controlling everything. Switch your focus on controlling just one thing – your attitude.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 