Tag: inspiration

ANOTHER WAY TO BEAT LIFE’S CHALLENGES

Last post we talked about the frustration of road construction and how we can view it differently. I am going to share another method for not being set back by life’s little challenges. This great and power secret (which really isn’t a secret at all) is to find the humor in the situation. Like the meme I found above in regards to road construction signs. I never thought about how the ‘end road work’ sign could sound like a protest. It made me laugh out loud when I read it. Guess what happens every time I pass one of these signs? You guessed it, I chuckle to myself. This is particularly good because I am usually just leaving some road construction I have just driven through.

Steve Rizzo calls this ‘getting in touch with your humor being’. He says that when stuck in traffic he talks like the lion from Wizard of Oz. Why? Because it makes everything more humorous. What if you picked your favorite comedian and tried to imagine the situation through their eyes? I find Groucho Marx works good for this, but that is a personal preference. What about a famed explorer? How about a television reporter who is covering your situation? A narrator in the movie of your life? “Margie looked down at the floor to discover the bag of powdered sugar she was carrying had left a trail showing where she had been.” Does this sound a little absurd or insane to you? Good! Life can be both a little absurd and insane. Go with it.

Doing this does two very important things for us. First, it adds something to laugh at. The more time you spend smiling and laughing in life, the better your life is. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it reduces the amount of stress in a situation. It may even transform it into a situation that causes you to laugh. Do you know what you call a life that has less stress and more laughter? A better one! Who would not want a less stressful, more joyful life? I know I would!

I will continue to search for the humor in life. Lucky for me, and for all of us, life is constantly supplying us with situations full of humor if we are looking for them. I have a lady that also supplies a great deal of humor. If you are not so blessed as to have a spouse who does the same, there are plenty of ways to add humor to your life. You can add an app to your phone that sends a joke a day. Perhaps get a group of friends together that look for funny signs. That way you all are working to bring humor to the group. What about a funny day by day calendar? How about joining a humorous social media page? The more ways you find humor in life, the more ways YOU win!

Road construction

Sometimes your life improving can be as simple as changing your perspective. This was brought home by something very common, yet very frustrating – road construction. In Wisconsin, where I live, there seems to be two seasons, winter and road construction. By the time the ice and snow on the roads disappear, they are replaced by orange barrels. This can lead to many unpleasant surprises. This can range from the simply frustrating longer commute times, to the more expensive flat tires and repair to your cars suspension system.

This had been taken a step further this year in my very own neighborhood. I live on the east side of our fine city. Most of what I enjoy doing is in the west part of the city. Normally, not too much of an issue. The drive is roughly 10 to 15 minutes for most places. That is until recently. They closed two of the main streets that connect where I live to the west part of the city. Just the other day, I went to pick up some flyers I had made up for my upcoming book signing. This should have been a 10 minute trip. It ended up being a 20 minute trip. With the current price of gasoline, this was a bit irritating. What I did learn was an entirely new way to get to where I was going. It also showed me a few different businesses I had either forgotten about, or never knew about. It was taking this detour that introduced me to them.

Another good thing about this detour caused by road construction, it caused me to use my brain. Often, we can get in a rut. How many of you take the same route to work every day? You drive on autopilot almost. When one street is closed, it can throw us for a loop. Much like no longer having to remember phone numbers because they are all stored in our phones, our brains tend to get a little lazy. What were to happen if we were in an emergency situation and we had lost our cell phone? Would we still be able to contact our work or our loved ones? By having to consciously come up with a new route to travel, and having to be alert on that route, my brain was getting a little bit of a workout. What happens if we never make our bodies workout? Do you not the same result could happen to a mind that no longer has to work?

Viewing the inconvenience of the road closer in this light, I found I had a lot to be grateful for. The new path caused me to be more alert and forced my brain to put in a little more effort. With cerebral decline becoming an issue the older we get, it is wise to take advantage of any brain workout we can fit in. The detour also introduced me to a host of new businesses and some that I forgot about. It allowed me to see a different part of my city I may have never had the reason to explore. These reasons turned the curse of road construction into a blessing. Next time orange barrels block or slow your progress, think of what benefits you may get out of the situation.

THE RIGHT KIND OF LABOR

Today is a day where we are scheduled to take a well-deserved break from our labors. I think this is important. It is also helpful to recognize all of the sacrifices those before us have made to create the safe working conditions we now enjoy. As we are contemplating all of this, may I humbly suggest another thought to consider? If you are looking to have a fulfilling and successful life, one way to assure that, is to find a need and fill it. If you can help enough people get what they want, they will help you get what you want.

Today, I suggest we spend a moment thinking of how our labors can best serve others. No matter what your occupation, it helps serve others. A focus on that aspect can not only help improve our performance, but also help us stay motivated and understand what a difference we make. If you are not content with the way your current occupation serves the greater good, perhaps you can pursue a passion on the side that is more in line with your values? You may find yourself switching occupations all together! If the world needs anything, it is more people pursuing their passions and doing their best to serve others. How can you do this?

WHAT WE CAN DO ON A BAD DAY

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.

BE THE LIGHT 💡

This picture was sent to me by Terri, a friend of Margie and mine. In a world where there appears to be a lot of darkness, it can often feel uninspiring. I am often asked how people can remain positive in a world that seems bent on making sure we are surrounded by negativity. This is a really good question. It can be difficult. It used to be that you would have to to seek out negativity. This could be by opening a newspaper or turning on a television. Now the negativity follows us. It will even send us a little alert in our pocket. “Hello, negativity here. Come see what is wrong with the world.” It might not be that straight forward, but will disguise itself as a social media notification. Worse yet, everyone else is subjected to this same negative atmosphere and will be happy to walk up and share it with you. Many times you do not have to even ask.

How then, with all of this negative influence, can we hope to have a positive, and amazing, life? The answer is almost counterintuitive, we must give one. This isn’t a post about the law of attraction or a testament to the biblical saying of “As you sow, so shall you reap.” It does, however, give credence to both. I am going to give you two quick and personal examples of the application of this strategy in real life.

I have told this first story on this blog and in my second book, Living the Dream, but it bares a quick recap. There was a point in my life that I was facing the loss of a job, personal problems at home, a car that was breaking down and other life-altering problems. They began to consume me and I had a hard time seeing any solution. In an effort to get out of my head, I decided to put in extra time at a meal program I volunteered at. I did this despite the fact that I may very well need it in the not so distant future. Two things happened that day. First, I saw people in far worse situations than I was in with far better attitudes. Second, I realized that I had a gift to serve and to inspire others. By giving the people that came that day not only the gift of food, but of respect and kindness, I could see their burden lighten. In turn, that lightened my burden as well.

The second example is more current and ongoing. As most of you know, during the day I work for the United States Postal Service. This is an institution that seems constantly gripped with staff shortage, political upheaval, and a general feeling of stress. The employees are often pushed to do as much work as they can until they, or their bodies, give up. All of this often happens in a combative and stressful work environment. Honestly, this could be greatly improved with some communication and appreciation. Unfortunately, by the time someone is in a position of management they can be too bitter to offer much of this. The result? Workers and bosses find themselves fighting against each other all while trying to accomplish a near impossible job. This can all feel pretty hopeless on any given day. My solution? Be the one who brings the communication and appreciation. I am constantly letting people know they did their job well, or offering a bit of encouragement. Sadly, I am often told that I am the only one who does so. One of the greatest feelings is when you hear the lines of encouragement you offer repeated by those who have received them.

I like to think of a dark room. What happens when you flip a light switch? The darkness disappears. The same can be said with kindness. Start with just one person and soon that light and that kindness will begin to spread. You will help create a positive world around you.

KEEP CALM,BE THE BEST

Here are some words that come to us from a very smart man who lived 2500 years ago. In situations where there is conflict, it is one of the greatest challenges to remain calm. Trust me, I know this personally. When you feel you have been wronged, or someone has violated a principle that is near and dear to your heart, it would be extremely unlikely to avoid emotions entering into the situation. The benefits of limiting emotional aspects of any conflict should be relatively obvious. I think the quote from the Taoist master above is easy to understand, but very difficult to put into action. One of the things that could help us stay calm in the face of conflict is to remember the why the conflict exists to begin with.

Have you ever been arguing with someone so long, that you can’t even remember what the point of the disagreement is all about? I think a good amount of us can say we have fallen into that situation at least once in our lives. In a relationship that has not evolved, the goal can feel like it is to hurt the person who hurt you. While this may seem like a good idea at the moment, seldom is that really the solution. It is 100% certain it will not feel good in the long term. I find asking yourself, “What is the reason I am so upset?” throughout the argument will help keep you on track. An even better question to ask is, “What is the solution I hope to have with this disagreement?” This not only helps you stay calm, but keeps you solution oriented. Asking, “How can I use this disagreement to create a new sense of closeness and growth?” can be a very empowering question.

It can also be a little selfish to remain calm. The one who is the calmest usually can steer the conversation and resulting actions in the direction they choose. While the party ruled by emotion is usually in a state of reaction, the one who is calm can operate from a state of action. Trust the words of a 2500 year-old wise man. Next time you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of a disagreement, ask yourself one of the empowering questions to remain calm.

3 HOBBIES YOU NEED

This is a good rule of thumb. 3 hobbies. One to keep you creative. I use this blog to do that and soon will add a podcast. One to keep you in shape. I walk and hike with my mother as well as go to the gym for that. One to make you money. For that, I write books. I would add one to fulfill your spirit. For that, I meditate daily and spend time reading books in nature.

What are your 3 hobbies? What do you do to stay creative? What do you to make money? How about stay in shape? Do you have a hobby that fulfills your soul? Is there another category you can think of?

BE PREPARED AND BE LUCKY!

I cannot count the times that I have heard someone say “You are so lucky because _____.” This could refer to many things in my life. I have heard how lucky I am that I have such a great relationship. I have heard how lucky I am that I was able to write three books. I even heard how lucky I was to make it through covid and my open-heart surgery. I will admit that there was a good amount of amazing people and grace involved in all of those situations. Do you know what else was involved in those situations? A hell of a lot of hard work.

When I had the good fortune and grace to meet Margie, I treated her with respect and worked on learning about her and improving myself. Do you know what the result was? I was lucky enough to have a great relationship with the most beautiful lady in the world. If I was a jerk, didn’t care about her wants and needs and didn’t work to improve myself, then I wouldn’t be so lucky. Even though she would still be an amazing and beautiful lady. It was, and is, both of our hard work that makes us lucky enough to have such an amazing relationship.

Lucky enough to have written three books? Unless you have written one yourself, in which case I cannot imagine you saying that, you would have no idea the hard work that goes into creating a book. To be honest, I didn’t either when I wrote my first one. I thought you just put some words on paper and someone turns them into a book. Oh no, there is editing. There is formatting. There is choosing fonts, covers for images, titles, pricing, promoting and a million other aspects that may have changed my mind into pursuing being an author had I known about them. Just one of my books took 5 years from start to finish. The last one caused me to give up most of the very short Wisconsin summer to create. That meant sitting inside looking at the warm weather and sunshine while I sat inside typing away. Anyone who knows me would understand what a torture that was.

Lucky enough to make it through open-heart surgery? Once again, I will admit some very talented, and when it came to me patient, people in the medical field. Still, there were 5 days a week spent at the gym. There is oatmeal for lunch every day, when there is doughnuts sitting in the break room. There is a 4-mile walk in the park with your mother after working for 9 hours. If I would have ate how I want (Pizza every day) and just worked out when I felt the urge (That would be next to never) the odds I would have been so lucky to recover from my surgery would have been next to nothing. If I did, it would have been longer and a lot more painful.

In any area of life, if you want more luck there is one way to assure that will happen. That way is to work your butt off. You will find yourself surrounded by more opportunities and luck. If you know someone who seems to turn anything they touch into gold, you might want to look at how hard they work behind the scenes. With that in mind, I am going to leave you with this quote from Thomas Edison. It also speaks about how to create more opportunities in your life.

USE YOUR ENEMIES

There are people in everyone’s life that seem to serve no other purpose than to make life miserable. Call them haters, gossipers, enemies or any other term you like. They can make our life more difficult and prevent a lot of the good we deserve. One of the best ways to handle these people is to use them. Nothing frustrates one of these people more than to know their actions actually went to serve the greater good. How annoying would that be? Here you are, just doing your best to bring some negativity to the world and someone finds a way to turn it into something good. If that keeps happening, it might not even be worth spending your energy on anymore.

So, how do we use our enemies? Listen to what they say. Often they are the first people to let you know some area in which you are slipping. That is why I always recommend using these people if you are working to improve any area of your life. Say you want to start working out, or maybe quit smoking? Tell these people who would love nothing better than to find you not keeping your word. They will watch you closer than any life coach you could pay. They will do it for free and be happy to. They will actually be exciting to catch you laying around eating a doughnut or out back lighting up. Can’t you just see the joy on their face when they mention it to you (and anyone else in earshot I would imagine) Now don’t you just want to smack the smirk off that face? After all it is hard enough to make a change without them taking relish in your struggle.

Before you give into the warranted violence, there is a better option. I know, it can be hard to imagine something that would feel better than knocking the block off some soul who lives to point out the faults of others. Here is what I suggest, put a big smirk on your face and say something along the following lines, “Thank you. It is hard enough to do this, but with your help I know I will succeed. Thanks again.” First of all, they were not trying to help you and will find it terrible to know they did. Second, their grin will usually fade into a look of confusion or contempt. Both of these will feel better, at least in the long term, than physically wiping their grin off yourself. It also gives you more motivation on your own journey. In the back of your mind will be the thought, “I better not light up or that jerk Mark from accounting will tell everyone and take delight in my failure.” Then Mark goes from a pain in the butt we might be trying to work on, to an unpaid employee that will gladly work for free. We also know if we view Mark’s delight in our struggle as something that works for us, it will take a great deal of joy out of it for him.

Even the people who are the biggest pains in our lives can serve to be a great asset if we find a way to use their behavior to our advantage. This will also take a lot of stress out of our lives and help us to live an amazing life.

PARKS,PIZZA, AND WEED KILLER

I had the most amazing day, the other day. The picture above gives the answer why. It is not only that I really like Winnie-the-Pooh and his attitude towards life. There was much more that went into this amazing day. Have you ever had a moment that changes your whole day? I had one of those. Normally, this would have to occur early for this to happen. That is one of the many things that made this day different. It happened late at night. Still, it transformed the entire day. The other different thing about this day was that it involved the three things mentioned in the title. Parks, pizza, and weed killer are normally not the recipe for success. Please allow me to explain.

My day began at 4:45am, as it does most weekdays. I woke up to my alarm and prepared to go to my day job at the post office. Once there, I went through my normal routine. Towards the end of the day, I noticed the weeds were getting out of hand and decided to take care of the matter. There were some containers of weed killer. This particular kind had a sprayer that allowed for a continuous spray. I walked around the entire post office taking care of all the weeds. This took roughly an hour. It was nice out and there were plenty of birds to keep me company. I listened to an audiobook as I sprayed.

Later in the day, my mom and I went on one of our nature walks. We choose a path that we both enjoy, but had somehow avoided the entire year. The weather was perfect. There was green growth everywhere. Plenty of birds of all different kinds. Everywhere we looked, nature seemed to be providing a scene that could be turned into a jigsaw puzzle. The picture above is just one example of what we saw as we walked along. We ended up doing a little more than 4 miles when neither one of us thought we would be able to walk very far when we started. My mother even mentioned just doing a mile. We were so caught up in enjoying the scenery we forgot to stop.

After our walk in the park, we stopped at the grocery store. Margie had found a good sale and my mom and I were going to pick up some things we needed. It ended up being more than just a few things. This often happens when you go to the grocery store with an appetite worked up by a 4 mile walk. By the time our shopping trip was done and I returned home, it was a little to late to prepare the delicious meal that Margie had been planning. I was a little disappointed until we settled on ordering….a pizza! Little not so secret about me – I could eat pizza every meal, every day of the week if given the chance.

As we both sat enjoying our delicious pizza and salad, it happened. I was thinking how delicious the pizza was. It was fresh, the perfect temperature and had all the ingredients I love on it. Then, I looked up and thought how delicious the lady next to me was. She looked so beautiful, has all the ingredients I enjoy and is always hot. I thought how lucky I was to be enjoying such a moment. Then, I thought about the walk through the park. I literally was beauty in every direction. My mother and I shared some great conversation and got some exercise in as well. Even the trip to the grocery store was fun. I saved a lot of money and got some good deals. I was grateful I could afford to do so. I pushed back even further and thought about the morning spent with the weed killer, the birds and the audiobook (another possible title for this blog) and thought what a wonderful day this had been.

The feeling that overcame me was one of extreme gratitude. Not everything worked out as I was hoping. I would have liked to be able to sleep in and not have to go to work. I would have liked to have seem some deer on the walk. I would have enjoyed the wonderful meal Margie and I had been planning. If I had thought about all of that, the day would have felt like a miserable failure. What changed everything, was focusing on what I was grateful for. I had a nice day at work that included time outside to myself. We had a great walk that included beautiful scenery and plenty of birds. I was able to afford the groceries I did get. We did end up eating pizza which I love and I have that amazing meal to look forward to tonight. Plus, I get to enjoy them both with the most beautiful woman.

The fact here is that the power of focus and the power of gratitude can transform any day. Had my focus been on what the day lacked, it would have turned a great day into one that felt like a failure. By focusing on gratitude, it transformed my day into one of the greatest I have had in a long time. It also allowed me to enjoy everything and everyone in the day more. I wrapped my arms around Margie and slept more peaceful than I can remember doing in quite some time. Now, thinking about that, I am already looking forward to today! It is amazing how powerful gratitude and focus can be. I am grateful for this reminder!