It is the holiday season. “The most wonderful time of the year” as the song says. To many, it is one of the most difficult times of the year. It could be due to the pain they are feeling because they lost a loved one. It could be feeling inadequate because they are unable to afford gifts for everyone they wish to buy for. Maybe it is the stress of planning, attending and getting to all of the social obligations that come with this time of year. Whatever the stress is, there are not many of us who make it through an entire holiday season without some.
That is why I am sharing these 10 tips for reducing stress during the holiday season. Everyone should be able to enjoy that love and peace that comes with celebrating with family and friends. The important things are gratitude for what we do have. One of those is the last tip – the ability to help others. Making the holidays brighter for someone who is also having a hard time is not only the right thing to do, it makes you a superhero in my mind. It will also help reduce any feelings of sadness and depression you may be feeling.
Remember to treat everyone with a little extra kindness this holiday season. There are so many who are fighting inner battles that we know nothing about. If you have any tips that we can use to help us deal with the holiday stress and blues we might be feeling, please list them in the comments below. We can never have too many.
Currently, I am working on my fourth book. It will discuss the tools and strategies that I used to go from a life of surviving, to one of thriving. Many of us, for a wide variety of reasons, are just focusing on living paycheck to paycheck. We show up at a job that does not feed our soul, and often not even our wallet. So sad is this, that the highlight of many people’s day is to go to the bathroom, sit down and look at their phones. This is not how our lives are supposed to be!
What can we do? We have to work to pay the bills. In my next book we will look at several methods to change our perspective, our emotions, and in doing so, our life. Today, I am going to give you a very basic and powerful tool to start with as you wait for your favorite author to complete his next book. Using this one tool can change mornings from something you dread, to something you can’t wait for. If this sounds a little crazy, trust me when I tell you I can understand that. I wake up for work at 4am Monday – Saturday.
What is this one activity? Finding a project that feeds your passion and makes your soul start on fire. The thought of adding one more thing to your already busy plate may seem like the last thing you would want to do, but it will actually give you energy and not drain it from you. This could be taking up a sport like bike riding or pickle ball, which seems to be all the rage at the moment. It could be planting a garden. Maybe working on that book you always wanted to write?
Having something to look forward to doing, either before or after work, will give you reason to make it through the day. It can also serve as a great mental escape when you find yourself at a job that is slowly draining your soul. You know that your passion project will help fill it back up again. It is vital that we have something to give us that inner peace and joy that allows us to make it through all that life has to throw at us. I would love to hear what passion projects you work on to feed your soul in the comments below.
For my younger readers, this here is Robert Plant. He sang for a rock band you may have heard of – Led Zeppelin. I am not sure if he really said the quote above or not. It doesn’t really matter. It is great advice we should put into action this weekend. Monday through Friday we are so inundated with news of the world. This can come from coworkers, family, friends and is even sent directly to our phones. There is war between Russia and the Ukraine. There is one now in the middle east. There are politicians fighting to outdo each other in looking asinine. It is never quite clear who is winning. I suppose it changes depending on the day. Do you know what being up to date on all of this information gets us? Not much. We can carry on a conversation in the office. It also seems to foster a feeling of hopelessness for the human race and a feeling of disgrace for humanity. Sounds fun, right? Not hardly.
This weekend, turn off the news and turn up the music. Do you know what you will lose by not being up to date on the world’s conflicts and the fools often put in charge of them? You will lose stress and a disturbance to your inner peace. Instead, do what Bob Marley advocates, and let the music take the pain away. In my first two books, A Happy Life for Busy People and Living the Dream, I advocate creating a ‘happy playlist’. Songs that lift your spirit and fill you with good vibes. It is my firm belief we should expose ourselves to positive influences at least 51% of the time. Far more than that if you would like an amazing life. Since you are reading a website titled “Secret2anamazinglife” I would surmise this to be the case.
The more we balance out the negative influences we are exposed to with positive ones of our choosing, the more inner peace we will experience. In today’s crazy world, being able to exist in peace is nothing short of a super power. Turn off the news and put on some Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley or music of your choosing. Let the music carry you away to somewhere happy. I know I will be as I celebrate my lovely lady’s birthday. How about you?
What a powerful thought for us courtesy of Anne Frank. In case you are ignorant to who Anne Frank was, she was a young Jewish girl who kept a diary while hiding in an attic from the Nazi invasion in Amsterdam. Her surviving diary gave us a great insight into what it was like during those dark times.
This particular thought is powerful because it is so true. We see people overcome with emotion at funerals. Flowers are everywhere. This is as it should be. Losing a person is the most difficult thing we go through in life. The worse emotion people experience at a funeral is seldom loss. No, worse is the emotion of regret. What we should have said, or the time we should have spent. Regret can haunt us for the rest of our lives. It can also serve as one of the best reminders and motivators to change our behavior in the future.
What should be just as, if not more, powerful is our gratitude for the people we have in our lives. Take one person that is really special in your life. Think about everything you are grateful for about that person. Do this for at the very least 30 minutes. How long do you think that list would be? Just in passing, as I write this, my list is quite long. When you focus solely on what you are grateful for about any special individual in your life, those feelings should begin to swell. When we realize how lucky we are to share life with these amazing souls, we would want to cover the room they are in with flowers!
Still not convinced? Try using the opposite end of the spectrum. Imagine everything you would lose and how much pain and lose you would feel should you lose this person tomorrow. Not very fun, I know. What it will do is help you appreciate the great gifts this person brings to your life. Combine them both and you will be surprised at how you are feeling. It may not make you want to buy them flowers, but it will overwhelm you with a feeling of gratitude for sharing life with them. When you are full of emotions such as this, can you imagine the impact it will have on your relationship with them?
Try doing this with a different person each week. You will see your relationships taken to an entirely different level. Don’t take my word for this. What takes us from the life we have to the life we love is action! Try this for yourself. Just a focused, uninterrupted 30 minutes of gratitude for one individual. Maybe do it for a week straight. They do not even have to know you are doing it. Watch what it does to your relationship with them. Not to ruin the secret, but there is an added benefit. You will be filled with more inner joy than you can imagine. Feeling gratitude is a great antidote to all of life’s trouble. The more we talk about this, the more I am excited to put this into action myself. How about you? Is there someone special in your life that you are extremely grateful for? Don’t you think they are worth 30 minutes a day of your time for a week? You owe it to them, and you owe it to yourself. Take your life, and your relationships, to the next level.
This past week we have been talking a lot about miracles. Today, I had an example of just such a thing. I would love to share it with you because, although it caused me a good deal of stress at the moment, it really pointed out a great example of how we can miss miracles. We talked about how miracles can often be overlooked because they seem like ordinary things. Today, served an example of how we can lose them in a sea of stress and chaos.
I was returning from one of my many hikes in nature with my mother. Traffic was heavy because it was about rush hour. We were turning from one busy street onto another. As I was turning onto the street, a young man on a bicycle went through the red light and I had to slam on my brakes to miss running him over by mere inches. I honked my horn. The young man, blissfully lacking in care or concern for any accidents he may have caused as well as his own life, did not even turn to look in our direction. My mother and I, on the other hand, had a rather unexpected trip closer to the dashboard and steering wheel than expected. The contents from a craft fair my lovely lady was in shifted greatly.
The rest of the drive to drop my mother off at her house and take me to mine was stressful. For anyone who has almost been in an accident, you know that you get shakes and your adrenaline spikes. My mother was questioning how the young man could be so careless, even after the incident. What we both decided, that it was a miracle that nobody was injured or worse. It would have been his fault, but I cannot imagine the knowledge that I injured or killed someone on my conscious. It was upsetting, and many people would have continued their anger, and rightfully so. That would only serve to continue our stress. We chose to focus on the gratitude that everything turned out for the best.
All of this does not mean we were ignorant to what could have happened. Quite the contrary. By realizing how this could have impacted so many lives and families negatively, only made us realize how much we had to be grateful for. What this did was take us from an emotional state of stress and anger, to one of relief and gratitude. This only helped make our day better. Finding the gratitude in such a crazy situation is a miracle in itself. Focusing on gratitude in a stressful situation is far better for your mental and physical well-being. Stress can drain us and deplete our immune system.
Next time you find yourself in a stressful situation, do your best to find something to be grateful for. It may be difficult at first, but it will save your day and might end up saving your life. Prolonged exposure to stress is the cause of many of our most severe health issues. Anytime you can take actions to reduce stress, or better yet replace it with gratitude, you are doing yourself a favor.
Uplifting Wednesdays! My favorite day for this site. Every Wednesday we look to lift each other up. Today’s thought is so powerful. Often, a change in our life is no more complicated than a change in perception. This is not to say it is not challenging, but it is not all that complicated. A perfect example is the quote above. We often miss the miracles in life because they have become ordinary. As I write this, I am sitting in a local Starbucks, where I do most of my writing, and I can see countless things that could be considered miracles.
To many of you, this may sound like it is putting on a pair of rose-colored glasses. Maybe, but there is also a great deal of truth to it. Plus, ask yourself this, what does putting on a pair of rose-colored glasses do? It makes the world look rosy! What does that do? Make us feel good. Would you rather go through life feeling good or feeling bad? So how do we get fitted for a pair of these wonderful spectacles and start seeing the miracles that we are missing all around us? I have 2 suggestions to start!
My first suggestion is to indulge in a little bit of time travel. Don’t worry. You will not even have to leave your seat to do so. Take a look at the picture above. The top shows a man in a Ford Model T. Sometime during the early 1900s I would guess. Below is a Bugatti Divo, or as we will refer to it, my next car. Can you imagine taking the man from the top machine and putting him in the bottom car? He would think it was nothing short of a miracle. Even if you put me in the bottom car I would consider it a miracle. This holds true of so many of our modern conveniences. How about a device that would reheat food in mere minutes? Can you imagine how much a mother in the 1930s would have found this helpful? A device in your hand that contains a camera, a computer, a telephone, a pedometer and many other things yet only weighs a few ounces? How about the fabulous internet it runs on? These are all miracles! Look around you and notice how many things would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. As the pace of change in the world quickens, the number of things that will be ‘modern miracles’, as those in the advertising world like to say, will continue to increase.
Although my mother does not enjoy me bringing up the subject, a few years ago I underwent open-heart surgery. In the course of this, I briefly expired and then returned. The whole story is available in my book, The Beat Goes On. Above is a picture of me recovering from such an ordeal. Having tubes stuck everywhere, including in my neck, was not the joyous experience you might imagine it to be. What a gift is was though! Why? It allowed me to really change my perspective on a lot of things. In fact, the whole process occurred due to a string of miracles. Had they not occurred, I might not be here to write this. Steve Jobs said, “You can never connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking back.” This can often be true about discovering the miracles in life.
There are so many events that can help us see the miracles all around us. I recall news stories of hostages being released. When they return to their native lands, they often kiss the ground at the airport. Why? Because the freedom they thought they had lost forever was suddenly returned. Do you think they would kiss the ground at that airport when say going on vacation? Probably not. The freedom was still there, but they did not notice it until it was taken away. Same when the Berlin wall was taken down. People rejoiced, deservedly so, at the new-found freedom they had acquired. Do you think many of those people are dancing in the street for that freedom now? No, it has been taken for granted.
Lastly, loss is a powerful way of helping us see the miracles in our life. There is a line from the song “Life is Beautiful” by the band Sixx A.M. that I think illustrates the point quite well. The line reads “There is nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive.” As dark as this may sound, it is uncomfortably true. How many times have you walked away from a funeral with a new appreciation for how fleeting life is and what a miracle it is to be alive. It also helps us appreciate the miracle of those we share life with. When I learned I was to undergo my surgery, and how risky it was, I was at the movies with the love of my life. I recall looking over to appreciate the miracle of her smile. The way her eyes light up when she is happy. The way her cheeks get rosy. These things are miracles. On any given day, I find it a miracle that such a beautiful and amazing woman loves me. Does that mean I never take that for granted? Although I do my best, I am human. All it takes is some time away from each other or reflection on what we have been through to refresh that miraculous feeling.
How about your life? Have you been letting miracles pass you by? I don’t even know you, but I can assure you that you have. There are so many miracles, disguised as ordinary things, that we can’t possibly notice them all. My suggestion for you? Spend some time each day where you stop, put on a pair of the old rose-colored glasses, and look anew at all the miracles around you. It will refresh your soul and may even help heal some of the pain you have. Feel free to share any of the miracles you are celebrating in your life with us.
What a title! What could possibly be so important that if we did not do it we would die? Is there really such a thing? The short answer is ‘Yes.’ Do not worry, this is not like one of those social media posts that claim if you don’t share it with all of your friends, coworkers and the neighbor’s dog that you will be cursed with 10 years bad luck. In fact, this is actually backed by science. You will not fall over dead when you walk out the door tomorrow if you do not do this either. What you will do, sadly, is you will call it quits several years before those we do put this simple tool to work for them will. Keep reading to find out how you can not only add more years to your life, but ultimately more life to your years.
According to Equifax, most people live 10-20 years after they retire. That is a pretty good margin. How can we be more likely to lean towards the 20 year side and not the 10 year side? I was having this very discussion with my coworker, Rob, the other day. According to neuropsychologists, having a sense of purpose is one of the greatest predictors of health and wellness in old age. Let that soak in for a while. For those of us who are picturing just laying on the beach everyday sipping cocktails (certainly something to do when retired) there must be more to life. Those who wake up with a purpose after retiring, have reduced stress levels, are in better physical health and age more successfully. Think of it. Less stress, a stronger immune system and a greater sense of happiness. Isn’t that what we all want when we retire?
Work, as trying as it can be, gives us a reason that we must get out of bed in the morning. We have to pay the bills. We have to earn money to go on vacation or to take the lady out for dinner. Whatever it is you are working towards. Sometimes it is working towards retirement. A lot of people are shocked when they get there. It is as if they worked their whole life towards something, and now that they have it, they are not sure what to do with it. If you are thinking that you do not need a purpose, consider this fact. According to a recent study of retirees, having a purpose lowered their risk of death by 15.2%. This held true across different races, religions and ethnicity.
We have discovered that having a purpose not only increases the length of your life, but the quality of it as well. This does not mean you have to work until you die. We ended the last post with a quote from the great Howard Thurman. We included two more from him in this post. I think they give us the answer to living a long and fulfilling life. That is finding what sets our soul on fire and doing more of that. It could be working in the garden. It could be joining a book club and discovering great new books, as well as friends. For me, I know retirement will consist of continuing this blog, writing books and producing episodes of the Living the Dream with Neil Panosian podcast. How about you? What will your grand purpose be when you retire?
Added bonus here. You do not have to wait until retirement to reap all of these benefits. Find something that sets your soul on fire now! At the very least, start looking for that. Once you find it, and start enjoying it, you will experience the wonderful benefits we mentioned in this blog. I know after a hard day working my day job, writing is as much of a release as it is anything else. I love exploring nature and going to the gym as well. Coffee with friends provides interesting conversations. Time spent chasing dreams with the love of my life never fails to be exciting. When I retire, it will be more a transition than an end.
The title of this post may sound a bit critical. To some men it may sound far worse than that. Fear not. There is a benign but still very important meaning to this. It has to do with one of the most important, and powerful, aspects of self-improvement – goal setting. You hear a lot about the importance of goals from many people in many places. Even the bible says, “Without a vision, the people parish.” A vision, is just another name for a goal. Here is the tricky bit. Most of us set goals based on the person we are. This may sound logical. How could we set goals for a person we are not? What is meant in the photo above, is we have to set goals that will force us to grow and become more than who we are.
One of my main passions is to encourage others to share their stories. EVERYONE has a story that would inspire many if they only shared it. Whether that is to show someone how to improve their lives, or just let them know they are not alone in the struggles they face, every single person can be a hero to many. That includes you. One of the responses that I often hear when putting this forth, is “I can’t write a book/start a YouTube channel/write a blog.” The reasons are varied, but include not having enough time. Not being disciplined enough. Not knowing anything about those activities. These excuses may be valid, but only in regards to who you are now. My friend Kurt recently completed his first book. As we was writing it, he learned and developed many new skills. The person he was when he was done, was not the person who started the project. He had grown and developed a whole new set of skills. His book, Nothing is Everything, is definitely worth a read!
Setting goals can be a scary endeavor. There is the thought of how you might feel if you do not reach the goal. Which is better, to fail or to fail to try? Two very important things to remember. If you work towards your goal and fall short of completing it, you have not failed, you have learned and can attempt it again, only full of more knowledge. I like this next fact. When they interviewed people who were close to the end of their lives, the number one regret was not the goals they didn’t reach. It was not even the mistakes they made. The number one regret was the things they did not try. Let that sink in. Do you want to reach the end of your life and regret all of the things you could have done and who you could have been? If my words were not enough to inspire you, allow me to leave you with this great thought attributed to Dr. Howard Thurman.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could go through life never experiencing a loss or a failure? What if I tell you that I actually live that life? As impossible as that may seem, it is true. Before you roll your eyes or think that I am joking, let me assure you this is not only 100% true, but you can do it too! This is not to say that you will not suffer heartache. Everything you aspire to accomplish will not always turn out as you had hoped. You will still face struggles along the way. There will still be relationship issues, maybe the loss of a job, or even worse, the loss of a loved one.
If you are a logical person, you might be asking yourself, “I thought he said we would never experience a loss?” As painful as some of these afore mentioned events are, they can be changed from a loss to a lesson. It involves a simple change of perspective. This may seem like I am splitting hairs, but hear me out. Does changing what we call something really change its reality? You bet. No, it will not bring that relationship, job or loved one back, but it will change your emotions about the situation. When we think about it, our emotions are our life. If you are happy and feeling good, your life is good, no matter what circumstances may be. If you are sad and feeling down, your life is not good, no matter how well situations may be playing out for you.
Using Nelson Mandela’s philosophy, we can see how we can never lose again either. My one caveat I would suggest is learning in both cases. Feel free to quote me on this one, I never lose, I either have a victory or a lesson. In both cases, I have learned. We can learn how to be a better life partner when we screw up a relationship. We can learn ways to improve ourselves, or align ourselves better with our passion when we lose a job. We can learn more about living with love, and less with regret when a loved one leaves us. This is not simple hyperbole, I have personally done all three.
If we learn from our mistakes, they are not a loss, but a lesson. Therefore, the only way we can lose in life, is to fail to learn. My relationship with the love of my life would not be nearly as amazing if I did not learn from my mistakes, both in past relationships, and in the wonderful one I share with her. Your relationship will have mistakes and challenges, it just shouldn’t keep having the same ones. The great thing about working for the United States Postal Service, is that they are always threatening to eliminate your job. Why is that a good thing? Sounds rather stressful doesn’t it? In a way it is, but once again, I have learned to put that stress to work for me. It reminds me to never allow my occupation to become my identity. This is a lesson that many of us could put into use. It also motivates me to pursue outside interests. To work on improving myself and my writing. Losing a loved one is never easy. It will be painful and I do not wish to marginalize that pain. However, I recall once I learned to use that pain to make sure that I loved everyone I care about to the fullest in my life, it became a great motivator. The only thing worse than the pain of loss, is to have that pain compounded with regret.
Do what Nelson Mandela does. Do what I do. Never allow yourself to simply lose in life again. When you turn everything in your life into a lesson, not only will it lessen the pain of perceived losses, but help you grow and develop as a person. There is no more powerful feeling to look life right in the eye and say, “I never lose. I either win or I learn.” You owe this to yourself.
Tomorrow is Monday. I know that does not thrill a lot of you. Here is the thing, even all we dread is filled with opportunity. The drive to work, even if it is in cold weather such as we are experiencing here, is ripe with potential. If you drive, you could listen to something inspiring. This could be your favorite motivational speaker, it could be a song that really gets you pumped up. It could be an audio book you really are interested in. My suggestion would be the Living the Dream with Neil Panosian podcast, but I might be biased.
Finding the opportunity in everything may sound a bit like ‘positive thinking’ fluff, but it is quite the opposite. Finding the opportunity in everything takes hard work. It is easy to just say, “Poor me. Why does this always happen to me?” and sulk. It takes guts and determination to ask, “How can I put this situation to work for me?” It also strengthens you. I present my recent trip to the dentist as a great example. To me, there are two people in the world. Those who like going to the dentist and normal people. I decided that I was going to use this as practice for maintaining a positive and courageous outlook. It was not easy, but focusing on learning about the procedure as well as the people performing it helped.
When we harness the ability to put all of life’s circumstances to work for us, instead of being victims to them, we control life instead of the other way around. It amplifies our successes and softens the blow of our defeats. Who would not want that? Life will be one continuous upward path to personal empowerment and improvement. It will also be a lot less stressful. Think of situations that you view as holding you back and ask yourself, “How can I put this to work for me?” You will be amazed at how this change in perspective can transform your life.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 