Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s people used to refer to people they did not like as a ‘bum’. It was also a name for someone who did not bring much to the situation. In much the same vein, I like the acronym above. Using bum to stand for ‘broke, undermining manipulators’ is a good way to remind us to watch out for these people coming into our life. Broke can be many things. People can be down on their luck through no fault of their own. That is not the broke we are talking about. We are talking about people with no fiscal sense. People who constantly spend more than they earn. Undermining people? They are not only people who gossip and work against you behind your back, but people who talk down about your goals, your ambitions and your efforts to better yourself. Manipulators are pretty self-explanitory.
When you focus on surrounding yourself with good people, keeping this acronym in mind will help. You do not want a bunch of bums in your life and you certainly do not want to be a bum in anyone else’s life.
There is a point in the journey of self-improvement that is very difficult. With some irony, it is not the beginning. It is when you are well into your journey. You have begun making some changes in your habits and behaviors. Maybe you have seen some improvement, but certainly your life has not yet changed to the degree you were hoping for. Here is the challenging part. The people you used to surround yourself with, who may still be living a life much like the one you were trying to leave behind, do not really feel right to hang around with anymore. Maybe they want to go out for cocktails every night while you are focused on getting up early to hit the gym before work. Maybe they are discussing gossip and the ‘who is doing who’ while you want to discuss something new you have learned about the law of attraction. They call you weird or lame. Sometimes they may actively start to avoid you because your efforts to become better shine a spotlight on their lack of effort. They may not even do this consciously.
The worst part is that you have been not doing this long enough to have found your new group of people who are working to improve themselves. The ones who will both accept and encourage your efforts. You are in a purgatory of sorts. Not where you used to be, but not yet where you wish to go. This is where the temptation to give up and go back to that old crowd so you can feel like you belong is the strongest. You feel like an outcast or a weirdo. Here is what I can tell you. Any of us who have traveled the journey to better ourselves have faced this period. It can feel lonely. It can feel awkward. Trust the process. You will find yourself surrounded by like-minded people soon enough. Keep your head high. Most importantly, fall in love with yourself and the brave journey you are on! Do not give up on all of your efforts.
While you wait for this time to pass, do not forget how many resources are out there. There may be local groups that meet to discuss self-improvement ideas. Cannot find any? There are plenty of online communities that do so. Begin to comment and engage on here and you will find like-minded souls! After all, we are in over 200 countries. Sometimes someone in the online community can lead you to a physical group to hook up with. Just fall in love with who you are right now while keeping the focus on who you will become! You are a beautiful soul now, and you are only getting better and brighter!
Do you know who Earl Nightingale is? If not, I highly recommend looking him up. Not only the man himself, who did amazing things, but his works as well. They are many common sense advice to help you really excel at life. No complicated jargon. No new-age theory. Just common sense, easy to understand tools and strategies that can assist you in becoming the best version of yourself. So if you are a person, like myself, who is always looking to better your best, follow the advice of Earl Nightingale.
The work I would recommend you start with is titled The Strangest Secret. It is a roughly 30 minute audio clip that explains just how, as stated in the photo above, we become what we think about. Have you stopped and thought about this? The thoughts we entertain determine the actions we take. The actions we take determine the outcome of our life. This does not mean you sit in your home and think about being a success and it will come to you. Not at all. What it breaks down to is if you think positive thoughts, you will generally take positive actions. If you think the world is against you and there is not use in trying, you are not going to persist in the actions needed to succeed. Especially when challenges appear.
Are you aware that 95% of our thoughts are both subconscious and repetitive? That means we are barely aware of what we are thinking and it is mostly the same thoughts we had yesterday. The scary part is that 80% of our internal dialogue is negative. As you can see, leaving your brain on autopilot, which is what most people do, can limit us in such a dramatic fashion? The secret is to take control of our thoughts. Make them conscious! Make them positive! Take the inspired action they lead to! A great formula for doing so can be found by listening to the strangest secret. Take 30 minutes out of your day to give it a listen. You will be in possession of the strangest secret. What you do with it is up to you.
This post comes out on a Monday. A day many of us, myself included, struggle with on occasion. You wake up early than you would like. You drive in traffic to some place you would rather not be to work with people, many of which you would rather not spend your time with. It can all seem rather pointless. In many ways, it provides great motivation to do something more aligned with your soul. Around lunch time, many of us can find ourselves sighing and asking, “What is it all for?” That is a very important and powerful question.
The picture above gives us a very important answer. Whether that is your career or any other aspect of your life, the reason why we do what we do is infinitely more important than what we get out of doing it. One of the most important reasons is to bring joy to those you love. Perhaps you have a family or a loving spouse at home? Your long hours, hard work and sacrifices can afford you the ability to put a smile on their face. Before you think it is just money to keep the lights on and a roof over their heads, which is important, let me give you another avenue to ponder.
Another way in which you put a smile on face of those who have sacrificed for you, whether that is your parents, your family or those who believe in you, is to become the best version of yourself. Becoming a ‘success’ can be defined in many different ways. That can becoming a helpful and compassionate individual. It certainly can be achieving a certain status or material level. It can also be facing and overcoming your personal demons. This could be overcoming temptation to improve your health. It could be overcoming an addiction. There are a million ways in which you can make those who have sacrificed for you smile. The hours your family have missed you while you toil at the office or on the job site. Think of all the ways people have sacrificed for you. You owe it to them, and to yourself, to give it your all and become the best version of yourself.
This should be no secret. The life you seek is hidden in the discipline you avoid. We spend so much time dreaming of the life we are hoping to achieve. If we dedicated only a fraction of that time to consistent action, we would be so much closer to achieving that life. We trade long-term achievement for short-term comfort. Where is the body you want? It is in the discipline of meal prepping and saying no to the free doughnuts in the break broom. Where is the great cardiovascular system and strong body you desire? It is in the discipline of going to the gym. The bank account that allows you to sleep peaceful at night? It is in the discipline of saving and forgoing spending on foolish pleasures. How about the blissful family? It is in the discipline of having the hard conversations and working on the communication to prevent further stress.
Each one of these seems like common sense. If we know all of this, how come we do not have health, wealth and happiness? It is because many of us lack the discipline. That is not entirely our fault. When you hear the word discipline, what comes to your mind? Usually, it is either punishment or long laborious hours of hard work. While the second may be part of it, discipline is not punishment. In fact, I would argue that discipline is the key to unlock many of the secrets of success.
In a world where we are looking for ‘hacks’ and ‘quick fixes’, discipline seems like an old-fashioned idea. Attention spans have shortened and that is why so many of us find ourselves struggling. Discipline is the answer to so many of our challenges. If you go to the gym, work out one time, you will notice nothing. If you go for a week, you may only notice some sore and rebellious muscles. Go for 6 months straight and you will begin to see the power of discipline. How many people do you know that start working on improving some aspect of their life, quick a short time later and say it does not work? How about the people who start, maintain it for a short time, quit and then start again. On a constant loop. Not only do they not achieve success, they weaken both their discipline as well as their self-confidence with each failed attempt. If only they had stuck with it, they would have found the life they seek.
What an uninspiring title! Shouldn’t we wish our lives were better? I do suppose the title could have read ‘Do not just wish your life was better’. What we are proposing here is not sitting back and constantly lamenting our life is not all that we desire it to be. Instead, turning that desire into action! Wishing your life was better without taking any action is little better than whining.
What if you do not know what action to take? It is my desire to be a best-selling author. Until that happens, I will continue to work on improving every aspect of my writing and do my best to get it into the hands and minds of as many people as I can. It is also important to work on ourselves. Continuing to improve as many aspects of our person as we are able. Becoming the best version of ourselves is a journey without a finish line. That means there are always ways in which we can better our best. That should excite you. This means there is the possibility for your life to improve in ways in which we have not even considered.
If you find yourself wishing your life was better but not taking any action to make it so, ask yourself why? Are you expecting your fairy godmother to come down and grant you a better life? This may sound a bit fantastical. That is because it is. There is no other way to improve your life than to take consisitent action in that direction. Make sure you do not fall into the trap of all talk and no action. Do not just wish your life was better. Make yourself, and your life, better through your actions.
Here is a modern-day problem. With all of the stimulation that we receive, it can be hard to discipline our minds. We can be pulled in a million different directions all at once. We are trying to keep up with our work, our friends in person and on social media, the family and the pile of laundry that seems to grow by the day. We want to get healthier, wealthier and more inner peace. Why does none of this seem to happen?
The answer is in the photo above. We are trying to accomplish too many things all at once. There is an old cliche that asks what happens if you hit a tree with an ax 1000 times in 1000 different places? Not much. What happens if you hit that same tree 1000 times in the same place? You cut the tree down. The same goes for your life. When I was growing up, we were sold the lie of multi-tasking. You are far better off giving your all to one thing at a time and moving on to the next to do the same thing. You will get more accomplished that half-assing a million things all at once. You will do a better job and it will get done quicker if you take them one at a time.
Not to mention, if we try to take everything on all at once, we will become overwhelmed and get nothing done. Then we will look at our lack of accomplishment and come to the conclusion we are just lazy. No. We are just unfocused.
How many of us have heard the saying “Don’t know what you got until it’s gone?” Also happens to be a great rock song from the 80s, but I digress. It really can bring us done to think of everything we might have lost, but a slight change in mindset can turn everything around.
There are many things we fail to appreciate until they are gone. Like a job that is barely tolerated until it is lost, and the income that goes with it. The car we complain about until it dies and we are forced to take the bus.
Loss sucks. There is no way getting around that. Using it to foster a greater sense of appreciation, and gratitude, could make it suck a little less.
So much talk in the self-improvement circles about finding your passion, or finding your ‘why’. I couldn’t agree more that finding, or more importantly, deciding on your life purpose makes life not only more productive but easier. You always know if you’re going in the right direction and if the action you are about to take will serve you well or not.
The question that always comes up is, “What should I do until I decide what the purpose of my life should be?” The answer is in the photo above. Until you know what you should be working on, work on yourself.
Working in yourself should be a life-long journey. We are always learning and growing. The better you become, the better and less stressful your life becomes. Today, if you find yourself not knowing what to do, ask yourself what can you do to move closer to the best version of yourself.
Here is a sample of some of the countries that we were viewed in the other day. You can see that they cover all 7 continents. Yes, even on the bottom there we were viewed in Antarctica! That cold and brave soul probably needed a little inspiration and motivation. It is so important to share this site and this community with those you care about. By working and thinking together we can help all of us to become the best version of ourselves that we can be. On the days that we do not reach that level, we can encourage and uplift one another. That is also a great blessing of being in this community.
The above picture represents all of the areas in which this site has been viewed this year. Where we have been is shaded in green. Where we have yet to go is in grey. As you can see, being part of this community is a global experience. We all have the same desire to live an amazing life and become the best version of ourselves. That holds true across geographical borders as well as cultures and belief systems. As different as we are, we have so much in common. That means that stranger you encounter on your daily commute or when you stop at the local coffee shop is probably fighting some of the same battles you are. They are also striving to reach some of the same goals you are.
This is important for several reasons. First, you may have learned something about the struggle you both are in that you can share with them. Second, they may hold the secret to helping you in an area of your life that you have been stuck in. That leads me to that last, and most important, reason why keeping these similarities in mind is so important. We are far less likely to approach and converse with someone when we focus on our differences instead of what we all have in common. If being the main author of this site has taught me one thing, it is that we are all far more alike than most of us care to admit. We may think and worship in different ways, but we all have the same needs and desires. We want to feel loved, significant and connection. We want to feel valued and like our life has purpose. This site not only provides tools and strategies to do so, but a community to help reinforce these values and support us in our quest to become the best version of ourself.
