This quote could not be more accurate for the world today. Unlike any other time in history, there are so many distractions to keep us from focusing on our goals. As a writer I can tell you that this is true quite often. Usually, most of my writing is done in coffee shops. Today is a rare time in which I am writing from home. I do that for the simple reason that there are less distractions at the coffee shop. At home I look up and see household chores I am supposed to be doing. Maybe my beautiful lady walks by and I pause and appreciate how lucky I am. None of that exists at the coffee shop.
That is not to say that there are no distractions. I use my phone to do research on topics I am writing about on my laptop. As I am looking up something about how the subconscious mind works, I see that the Dalai Lama sent me a friend request. (This didn’t really happen, but would be cool) Suddenly I am scrolling through social media for several minutes. Then a man in a strange hat comes into the coffee shop and I pause to notice him. I glance to the parking lot to make sure some over-caffeinated soul does not back into my car. There are a million things that can take your attention away from your goal.
The secret is knowing this ahead of time and taking actions to block out the distractions. That could be plugging in your phone in the other room while you clean. It should be not texting while you are driving. You no doubt have your own examples. We need to see distractions for what they are – the enemy. We must take action like we would for any other enemy. We must be merciless. I can hear some of you saying, “But Neil, I need to take a break.” Well, how bad do you want the goal you are working towards? Understand the more you give into your distractions, the further away from your goal you are getting.
Make your goal a priority. My fourth book has been coming out for a while now. I must sit down and complete writing it. There are social events I will have to say ‘no’ to. Sleep might be a little less. Of course that will also be no time to see what uncle Fred has posted to his Facebook page. I would love to know what are some of the distractions that get to you the most and what ways have you found to help you stay focused. The more we share with each other, the more ideas we can have and the closer we will all be to living an amazing life.
I cannot count the amount of time people tell me, “I’m giving up social media because it is too negative.” When I ask them who chooses what they see in their page, they just stare at me blankly. The truth is that we pick what pages and people, we subscribe to. If yoursdoesn’t inspire you, then you have the power to change it.
You can even subscribe to our Secret2anamazinglife.com Facebook page! That way you will have at least one inspiring post a day to look forward to. With the advent of AI,even what we talk about shows up on our phones and social media. How scary is it that you are discussing brands of sugar with your cake baking lady and suddenly you are seeing ads for sugar!
We can use all of this to our advantage. Subscribe to pages that inspire you and make you happy. Worried about your phone, and advertisers listening in on you? Then speak only of love and abundance. Not only do those things generally confuse our friends on Madison Avenue, you will also be flooded with more positive things!
Ah, social media, the blessing and curse of modern society. There are two great lessons in the example above. To get the most out of social media, and life in general, we are going to look at both of them. We will want to repost this as often as we can in an effort to help the social media experience be better across all platforms.
The first lesson should be obvious, but since there is such an example, it must not be. That is this – if you find something that you object to online, feel free NOT to comment on it. You could just scroll past. Also, drawing conclusions such as the ones our imaginary friend did above happens far too often. Especially during an exchange between what is, at least chronologically, two adults. On social media, and in life, because someone likes something, or perhaps does not like something, does not mean they are evil, have a plan to take over the world or any other conspiracy that people launch into.
The second, and slightly less obvious, lesson is that you do not need to share everything on social media. If it will not add to the good of the world, what is the sense of posting it? Perhaps it may start some disagreement such as above. As we noted earlier, the world is full of people just waiting to get offended by something. This is not to say you just restrict yourself, just ask what is the reason for you posting what you are about to share with the world. Are you someone constantly posting ‘anti’ things against causes you despise? What is the purpose of that? Do you honestly think you will change someone’s mind? I hate to ruin it for you, the answer is likely ‘no’.
In conclusion, while enjoying social media, do not feel compelled to comment on everything that may affect you emotionally in a negative way. If something inspires, motivates or just makes you happy, by all means thank the person. Ask yourself why you feel so compelled to comment and why something someone wrote on an online platform excites you so much? Could your energy be better spent on a task that would help take your life to the next level? Is getting so upset by some words on a screen really good for your health or your spirit? If you find yourself so upset, go for a walk in nature. Do a good deed for another. These actions will have you feeling far better than a juvenile back and forth online.
Here is a topic that I seem to be discussing with just about everybody lately. From those here online, to those at my seminars, book signings, DJ shows and even friends and family. That is cell phones and social media – are they good or bad? The general consensus is that they are destroying the fabric of human communications and personal relation. To a point, that may be true. Look at any line you see, whether that is for a bathroom, the grocery store or the coffee shop and it will look a lot like the picture above. Everyone with their face buried in their phones. We are becoming a world that lives in distraction.
What are all of these people looking at? It could be assumed a great percentage would be viewing some sort of social media site. This could range from Facebook, Twitter (now known as ‘X’), Tik Tok, or many others. When people start to venture into the world of self-improvement, one of the first things they do, or at least share with me, is that they have given up social media. If the reason to do so is that you have become too addicted to that and are trying to live more in the moment, than good on you. That, however, is not the reason most people give for making this change. When I ask them why they gave up their social media, they tell me the same thing, “It is just too negative.” I certainly advocate eliminating or at the very least, limiting our exposure to negative influences.
Here are two uncomfortable truths about social media. This was brought to my attention by one of my friends on LinkedIn. First of all, they are nothing but tools. Tools for connection. Tools for promotion, if you are in business. Tools for entertainment. She mentioned that people were complaining about TikTok specifically. How all they saw were videos of people lip-syncing to songs. I have heard this said about many different social media sights. People say all they see on Facebook are people yelling about politics or whatever social issue they feel like discussing. I couldn’t agree more that this happens a lot. Here is the interesting thing. If you want to promote anything online, you are aware there is an algorithm that they use to bring your material in front of others. What is that? You see more of what you react too. Let that sink in for a second.
Here is the second uncomfortable truth, along with an easy and fun solution to turn social media into a tool to work for you, instead of against you, if you so choose. Here is the truth. Who controls what you see on social media? Before you go back to the algorithm, and blame it on Elon Musk, Meta or some great unknown person behind the curtain, let me give you the answer. It is you. Whatever you subscribe to and react with, you will see more of. If you want social media to be a more positive experience, make it happen!
How do you do this? Much like many of the other areas of improvement, use the principle of addition instead of subtraction. What does that mean? Put these algorithms to use for you. Begin to subscribe to pages and people who bring you joy or inspire you. This will accomplish two amazing things at the same time. First, it will obviously add positive content to your social media. Second, by doing so, it will naturally dilute the negative content. The more space is taken up by positive, inspirational and motivational material, the less space is left for negative, soul-sucking content.
We are still going to run into some negative comments, posts and such. What are we to do then? Above are a few suggestions. If you find yourself feeling emotionally drained or upset by what you are seeing online, my first suggestion would be to step away. Go for a walk in nature. Get a cup of coffee with a friend. Watch a funny movie. Then, next time you are online, make sure to add at least one more positive influence to your sphere of social media influence. The last suggestion is one I really like as well. If you see a lot of negative comments, begin leaving positive ones. A good rule of thumb, for every negative comment you see, leave two positive ones. It doesn’t even have to be on the same post. Just go around leaving a little positive and encouraging feedback here and there. You will not only be helping yourself deal with the negativity, you will be making the internet a little more positive for the rest of us.
Remember, social media and cell phones are merely tools. They can be used for good or for bad. During the pandemic, it was social media that allowed us to stay connected. Being able to pick up a phone and call a loved one we missed seeing. Maybe even a Facetime or video call. As with everything in life, we are the ones in charge of how much we use these items, and how we use them. It is also our responsibility to make sure they do not prevent us from eliminating personal contact as well. Let us make the tools work for us, instead of the other way around.
One of the areas people complain the most about is social media. Why is it so negative? Why are all the posts they see political or making fun of people. My first question is who chooses what you see on your social media? That would be ‘you’. If you have a person who routinely posts such content, perhaps you can live without their input online. If this person happens to be a friend or family member and deleting themwould only serve to start even more issues, you still have two choices. The first would be to ‘hide’ or limit the posts you see from them. Most social media platforms have this option.
The second option is even better and is what we will discuss here. Flood your feed with positive items. Follow people who provide positive content. There are endless motivational and inspirational pages as well. You can also change the discussion to something more positive. Look at the picture above. It is one of those things I happened upon on one of my social media platforms. Why not get people talking about what they like about each other? Do you know where people talk good about someone? At their funeral. Why not start doing this while they are alive? Post this picture and see what people like about you. I would love to hear what answers you get. I will certainly share mine. Encourage your friends to share the same picture so you can share what you like about them. It sure beats the “share this or God will fill your bed with fire ants.” or the “If you don’t share this, I know you don’t care” type post. Let us get people focused on, and discussing, something positive. Maybe ask people one positive thing that happened during their day? How about having them name a person who made a positive difference in their life? There are so many ways we can change the narrative.
As an added bonus, try using this in person. You can begin to change the narrative of in person conversations as well.
In the next two posts, we are going to look at ways of becoming immortal. Don’t worry, this has nothing to do with magic potions, the occult or some guy trying to sell you snake oil. In fact, I want you to sell me something. If there was one thing that I would love everybody in the world to do it is this – share your story. I used to say I think everyone should write a book, and that still holds true, but writing a book is not for the faint of heart. After three of them, just trust me on that. Fortunately, for all of us, there are so many avenues in which to tell you story, you don’t have to write a single thing. My most recent book is about my heart surgery, but when I wanted to tell my story about the first person in my community to get Covid-19, I used YouTube videos. Now, to reach more people, I have started a podcast. You also have social media and many other outlets.
Nothing frustrates me greater than to hear someone exclaim, “I don’t have a story to tell.” Everyone has a story to tell. When I inform them of this, I hear some replies that leave me speechless. As anyone who knows me personally, that takes some doing. I have heard people say things like, “I am just a server.” “There is nothing special about me.” “I am just a parent.” or “I am not succeeding really well in life.” Those last two really get me. You are just a parent? So you are just responsible for crafting another human life and raising a future generation? Yeah, no big deal. You are not doing so well in life? Despite what you may see on Facebook, how many people would you guess have areas of their lives they are not doing so well at?
There are two VERY important reasons you should share your story. The first is the lessons you can teach the world. Before you tell me that you are not a teacher, or even haven’t been very good at something, let me tell you that you are a teacher. If you have not been very successful in life up to this point. Maybe you have made a lot of mistakes, or you let one big mistake continue to haunt you, do you think there are lessons you could give others in those mistakes? Even if your story consists of “Don’t do all of the stupid stuff I did.” You could very well save someone else’s life by doing so. Think I am being overly dramatic? Maybe that person would not be as resilient as you and would not be able to make it through. People get hung up by things that may not bother us. Let us say you have accomplished some things in life. Do you think there is lessons in them as well? “If you want a good relationship like me do this….” (My advice would be to become an active listener and work on being the best version of yourself)
Second reason you should share your story is that there are a lot of other people just like you out there. Those people may be feeling alone in their struggles. If you think of yourself as just a parent, how many other parents are out there that could relate to your struggles? That is the point, sometimes we just need others to relate to. When I am with fellow authors, guess what we talk about? The struggles of writing! When athletes get together they talk about their sports. Now imagine if you could reach a wider audience. How many people do you think you could affect? If you are a server, would you enjoy reading stories of unique customer challenges other servers have went through? Of course you would! I can just imagine you reading it shaking your head and saying “I know what that is like!” How about a parent going through the struggle of the ‘terrible twos’? I am sure just reading a story about it could help lots of other parents.
Share your stories my friends. You never know who you will reach. You never know who you will connect with. You never know who you will help.
Every morning I listen to something motivational. I recently downloaded an app to my phone called Fresh Motivation. I like it because it allows you to listen to a host of motivational videos while you have a black screen on your phone. This allows you to save battery life. Most of these videos have a mix of different people speaking. This morning I heard a video that featured Jim Rohn. If you have not listened to Mr. Rohn, I suggest you check him out. You could even do it with the free app I mentioned earlier.
In this particular video, he said something that really struck me, and I wanted to share it with you. The quote I remember was, “It is not the hours you put in. It is what you put in the hours.” He said a lot of people say “I am not getting anything done, but I am so busy.” To which he said he asked, “Doing what?” At my work we have people who seem to run around like their pants are on fire, but they seem to make very little progress, or are always behind. Then, we have people who are the opposite. They seem to look like they are barely working, but accomplish many times more than the people who are running around are doing.
How about you? Are there times when you feel like you are working like crazy and not getting anything done? You must ask yourself, what are you putting in the hours that you are putting in? Are they full of distractions? You can work in the yard cutting grass for hours, but if that is also filled with stopping to text friends or watch amusing YouTube videos, you may find yourself with a half mown yard. Same in the gym. I see people who spend more time exercising their thumb muscles on their phone, than their other muscles on the machines they are sitting on.
How do we remedy this problem? There are countless programs and books on ways to increase productivity. They certainly would be worth checking out. One simple idea to start with is to record everything you do, and the time it takes, for an entire day. Something like this…
woke up at 7am
hit snooze until 710
brushed teeth from 711 to 715
made coffee from 715 to 717
Account for every single minute and every activity of your day. If you are mowing the lawn and you stope to text a friend or watch a video, record that. Be honest with yourself. There is no point in saying ‘cut lawn from noon to 2pm’ if really you watched YouTube from 12:05 to 12:15, surfed Facebook from 12:30 to 12:45, and had a text conversation with Betty from 1:07 to 1:13. Be honest about what you spend your time on. Nobody will see this but you. If you are truly looking to increase your productivity and reduce your stress, this honest evaluation will go a long way in accomplishing that.
This may also have the added bonus of showing when you are most productive. This way you can learn when to schedule most of your projects you are working on. Try this for a week and you will be surprised to learn how much time you spend on foolish things and how easy it would be to improve your efforts.
Here are some facts according to Pew research. The percentage of adults who report that they go online “almost constantly” was 21% in 2015. How about today? That amount has risen to 31%. Not to mention that is only the ones who realize and report that. Overall, adults who report they go online at least on a daily basis? That is 85%. For someone who runs a website that provides individuals tools and strategies to improve their lives, this is a good thing. Unfortunately, not all of those 85% are not spending their time online exploring ways in which they can expand their knowledge and improve themselves.
Even more depressing is the lack of compassion and human courtesy that proliferates in the online world. It would often appear that people are willing to say hurtful things to others behind a keyboard that they would never say face to face. This is just a fact of the world as it exists presently. It is my firm belief the best way to counter that is to supply inspiring and motivating material to people whenever and wherever you can. Recently, I saw a person posting that they finally got the job they had been trying to get for a long time. My first reaction was to feel happy for this person. When I looked in the comments, I saw people saying things like “Nobody cares” and “You couldn’t get anything better?” I was baffled. Why would someone even spend time to post things like this? Somebody did care. I believe not only the person who posted it, but their family and friends were probably very happy for them. They should have been. Why couldn’t get something better? Maybe they were starting out on the ground floor. Maybe they were just looking for something to support their family? Gratefully, there were many positive and uplifting comments as well. What do you think would stick in the mind of this young man? What do you think the people posting those negative comments online got for their actions?
My suggestion to all of us, is to dedicate a period of time to look for ways and opportunities to inspire and uplift people online. Look for places to leave positivity. Is there a place to cheer someone up? To congratulate them on a job well done? You could even just post a few inspiring pictures or quotes to bring joy to anyone who may come across them. It will not only make you feel good, but will go a long way into making the online world a better place.
Now back to some of the things we mentioned earlier. While 85% of people spend some of their lives online, and are so affected by it. They are still living most of their lives, we hope, in the real world. Even the 31% of folks who say they go online constantly should at least spend a portion of their time IRL (which is social media for ‘in real life’) Here is something I want to stress to all of you. It is even more important to be a decent person in the real world. Not even just decent, but kind, compassionate and inspiring. There are several reasons why we should do this. May favorite is simple and comes from the ‘Dean of personal development’ himself, Earl Nightingale. Earl said we should treat everyone we come in contact with as if they were the most important person on earth because that is how humans should treat each other. I can’t argue with the man. He also points out that to that person, they are the most important person in their life. This can be said for all of us.
I have another reason to consider. If more and more of us are spending a good portion of our lives online, we can run the risk of encountering those who are less than inspiring, to put it eloquently. If you haven’t run across a person like this online yet, rest assured you will. Some of them may even have you questioning your faith in humanity. That is why it is so important for us to be good stewards of humanity both online, and more importantly in the real world. This cannot be stressed enough. We never know what the person next to us may be going through. Starting today, I implore all of you to look for ways to inspire and uplift as many people as you can both online and, of course, in the real world. I would love to hear any ideas you may have for ways in which we can do this.
Although rather morbid sounding, this statement rings true. Compliments are difficult to both give and receive for many adults. We have 6 people to carry us physically in death, why can’t we have 6 people to carry us emotionally and spiritually in life? Can you imagine what that might be like? 6 people checking in on you, 6 people to encourage you on a daily basis.
Maybe this wouldn’t happen from every person on every day. How different would your life be if one of these 6 people popped in to encourage or check on you? If you have 6 of them, that would be roughly one a day. We will give them Sundays off. How much more valued would you feel? Would you have more confidence and a feeling of support when trying new things? What other benefits could this add?
The million dollar question would then be, “Neil, how do I find these 6 people?” Surely you could go up and ask people, “Hey do you want to call and check on or encourage me once a week?”At the risk of sounding a little desperate, it may also leave you wondering how genuine the compliments and concern may be.
So, if you can’t just ask them, what the heck do you do? I have two solutions. The first should be obvious. As the cliche goes, if you can’t find a good friend, be one. By picking a few friends and just checking in on them once a week, eventually chances are they will return the favor. Noticing how good it felt to them, they will want to do the same for someone else.
Secondly, you can get a group of trusted friends together and explain this idea to them. If everyone sends an encouraging word, or makes it a point to check in on each other, the whole group will benefit extraordinarily.
To be honest, in this world of a million ways to communicate, I am rather surprised this is not a thing. We can slip an encouraging word in an email. We can check in with someone on Facebook messenger. We can even send an encouraging or silly picture to a friend via text. Gather your posse and make it a point to carry each other through life emotionally and spiritually before we have to carry each other in death physically.
Many of us have heard that you are, in many ways, the aggregate of the 5 people you are surrounded by most. As much as we strive to be our individual selves, I believe the people that are in our lives have a far greater impact on us than we would like to believe or certainly admit. To me, that is not a liability, but an opportunity. We can begin to focus on surrounding ourselves with people who bring positive changes and experiences into our lives. There is a picture of some wonderful and fun people I am sharing an experience at our local state fair with.
That is not to say we should base all of our interactions on a ‘what can you do for me’ mentality. Just be aware how you feel and act around certain people. I know when I enjoy a walk or a cup of coffee with my friend Nick I end feeling both empowered and inspired. When I walk with my mom in nature we both feel relaxed and grateful for the natural beauty we have experienced. When I spend a romantic evening with Margie and I am always left feeling loved and grateful to have such a beautiful and amazing lady to share life with. Even though these are examples of groups of two, it is important to appreciate the magic that happens when people get together!
Of course there are negative groups of people too. Yes, people who unite behind causes that are at best, less than noble. This was brought to my attention by a coworker of mine who was feeling despondent because, as he mentioned, everywhere he looked he seemed to see some depressing news. “Even on my Facebook it is all negative!” he proclaimed. I have explained how important it is to choose those you include in your social media posse carefully. I have actually dedicated an entire section on how to do this and why it is important in my new book, Living the Dream. I would like to give you a great example of a group I am in and how it affects my life.
I am a big fan of Mr. Rogers, the television show host who taught children valuable life lessons. Many of these lessons, such as the importance of expressing negative emotions in a positive and constructive way, could be used on adults today. I joined a group on the afore mentioned Facebook, that is all about Mr. Rogers and people’s memories of him. In this group people not only share the valuable lessons they learned, they practice them as well. I recall a young man who had autism and wanted one of the puppets like Mr. Rogers used on his show. Not only was there an outpouring of support and encouragement for this young man, but someone also sent him a puppet as well. This holds true for people who lost jobs, are feeling down or could just use a little support in general.
I told this to my troubled coworker who countered with “Yes, but that is just one group of people. Not everyone is like that.” I pondered these words. There was some truth in them, but there was an important fact that he was missing. “What about the groups of people you were talking about before? The negative and angry people.” I asked him. “Aren’t those people just one group of people? They certainly do not represent the world at large.” In this day an age, it may very well be true that negative groups get more of the press, but that does not mean they represent everyone. Just like my group of fellow Mr. Rogers fans, there are plenty of groups who display the good that is inside every one of us, no matter how deep it is buried.
I suggest we search out these groups and lend our own positivity and compassion to them. Groups of positive people not only encourage and support each other, but working together can make a greater difference than all of those individuals working on their own. Can’t find a group like this to join try searching positive terms online. I belong to groups that have a positive view on motivation, inspiration, fitness and many other subjects. If you are a self-starter, try forming your own group of positive people! I have started one on Facebook called “Fall in love with your life” that not only contains these blogs, but many other positive stories and examples! Find your group of positive people and surround yourself with them as often as you can!
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 