Have you ever met someone who is always talking a good game? You know the ones. They know what would make a successful life. They know how to get in shape. They know all about healthy eating. They have great wisdom on time management. It would seem a person like this would need a school to teach in.
When you take a close hard look at their life, you discover that they need a fire extinguisher. Why? Because their life is a total dumpster fire. They are full of wisdom and knowledge, but lack action. Knowledge without action is only potential power. If you know what you should be doing, and you are not doing it, you are actually worse off than the ignorant.
This week, hammer out what your philosophy of life is. Than, don’t waste time telling everyone what it is. Instead, think of ways in which you can embody it. What actions do you think would demonstrate your life philosophy? I would love to hear yours in the comments below.
As we begin the week. Let us remember that the future is uncertain. This can seem scary, but it is also a good reminder to focus on the present. In fact, the little influence we have on the future is the actions we take in the present.
As we all want the best future we can have, let us set ourselves up for success by living fully in the present.
Don’t forget to show your awesome this weekend. Shinelike only you know how! Be authentically you. That is what the world needs, more people living life from their heart.
Also, create a space where others feel safe to do the same. Trade judgment for a desire to understand and replace expectations with appreciation. This is the key to a great weekend!
End of the first week of the New Year! What a wild ride it has been. As we jump into our goals for the coming year, we are going to take a few moments to look back at how we did in 2023. Above is a map featuring all of the countries that we were viewed in within the past year. We appeared on 6 of the 7 continents and in 148 countries. That blows my mind. I still recall writing my first blog 12 years ago and wondering if anyone at all would read it. I was one person who was struggling to learn the lessons of living a rewarding and fulfilling life. Using my passion for helping others, I continued to write. We are now have over 2100 posts on this site and have been viewed by almost 200,000 people!
Being able to reach so many people in so many places is such a rewarding experience. There are so many negative news outlets, that we want to continue to serve as a beacon of hope, motivation and inspiration. 2023 was great, but we are looking to do even better in 2024. We are going to reach even more people and bring the light of hope and positivity to even more corners of the world. If you like what you read here, feel free to share this site with your friends and neighbors. Print out posts you like and hang them up in the office. Share links on your social media timeline. The more souls we can reach, the brighter we can make the world.
Secret2anamazinglife wishes to thank all of our contributors, followers and even our passing viewers. You make all of this possible and worth it. We look forward to finding new and exciting ways to serve you in the future. Do not forget to check out the Living the Dream with Neil Panosian podcast wherever you stream your content. It is free and brings you the same great tools and strategies in audio form!
Here is a picture of the calendar that I have hanging at work. As you can see it adds a little splash of color to an otherwise dull space. There is much more to this story than meets the eye. The calendar in question was purchased for me by the love of my life. She bought it for me at a bird show at the Wisconsin State Fair. The profits went to support the animals in the show. They are presented by the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center. They have an array of products for sale, the profits going to support the animals that are found at their center.
Sure, a button would have been cool, maybe a t-shirt. Why did my lady choose a calendar? Besides the fact that I have no need for another t-shirt, no matter how cool, it is a gift that keeps on giving. Each month they feature a picture of an exciting bird of prey. In addition to some quick learning, I am reminded of the amazing show we were at, the fun we had and the fact that the lady in my life loves me enough to surprise me with this calendar.
With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, and the fact that you should always be thinking about great gifts that help keep the love and passion in your relationship, a calendar is a rather cool gift. They have fancy day by day ones, you can even have personal ones made! The price point is not that much, but it serves as a reminder all year long. Already have a calendar? A daily journal could be fun. Anything that can be used daily, or at least on a regular basis makes a great gift to remind someone you care. This year, I have a calendar of tropical locations that I got while shopping with my lady. We are going to take a trip to the Bahamas this year and it will serve as a great reminder of that and other fun we have had, and will have. How about you? Is there an item you have that reinforces positive thoughts and memories?
It is mid-week, time for a little uplifting thinking! How about how to have an amazing life, or at least starting with the rest of the week? You deserve it and it really isn’t that complicated. It is finding ways in which to turn all of the negative energy in our lives into something to be grateful for. That may sound like a daunting challenge, but it is really an opportunity! At the end of the day, it can be a fun game to play with ourselves. Even endeavoring to find the positive in the negative will have us feeling better and looking at life in an entirely different way.
How to do it? That is the question. How do you turn the negative in your life into something positive? There are many ways. I am going to share two of my favorite with you and I would love it if you would share some of yours with the readers of this amazing blog, including yours truly. The first way I turn the negative into the positive is by escaping the situation. This is not always possible physically. If you are stuck at your work and the boss is in a bad mood, you are stuck there. Maybe, like myself, you live where the sun rarely shines this time of year. I think it has been over a week since we had a day where the sun came out for more than just a little while.
If you are physically stuck in a bad, or negative, situation, how can you still escape. By using a strategy that I teach and remind everyone of constantly. That there is no law of physics or biology that states your mind and body have to occupy the same space and the same time. The body, so far as we know, is limited. It can only be where you find yourself. The mind, however, has no such limits. The picture above may sound humorous, but I have honestly used this method to save my sanity on more than one occasion. How powerful is this really? There have been stories of holocaust survivors using this method to make it through one of the worst situations man has ever found themselves in. If it can work in that situation, it can work for you and I. Try it for yourself. Recall a vacation you particularly enjoyed. Do so using as many senses as you can. The scent of the ocean and the tanning lotion. The feel of the warm sun on your skin. The sound of the waves lapping against the shore. The vision of beautiful turquoise water. The flavor of some delicious island food. Take yourself on a mini mental vacation. Haven’t been on a vacation in so long you can’t remember these things? Go buy a bottle of sun tan lotion, make some jerk chicken for dinner or take yourself to a tanning bed while listening to ocean waves. Whatever it takes to make it real for you.
Next is to use the power of gratitude. I know, I know. You have heard about gratitude over and over. Oprah talks about it. It is in the movie The Secret. Apparently, even the author Neale Donald Walsh is in on the subject. Do you know why all of these people are talking about gratitude and why you are hearing about it everywhere? Because it works. Your mind can only focus on one emotion at a time. If you are focusing on what you are grateful for, even for just a minute, your mind cannot be focused on whatever negative crap is going on in your life at that moment.
Another thing that gratitude allows us to do is to get our head out of our butt. Look, I get it, when things go wrong, it is so easy to get fixated on what is not working in our lives. Even if 99% of our life is amazing, we will focus on the 1% that is bringing us down. As we discussed a few posts earlier, according to the National Science Foundation, 80% of our daily thoughts are negative. Those stats are for the average person. We all know people who would fall below average in this regard. Where do you want to be when it comes to your thinking? By spending even five minutes of our day focused on what we have to be grateful for, we begin to create a habit. It is that habit that will allow us to become better than average thinkers. It will have us feeling joyous and abundant.
Use these two strategies to change the negative situations in your life and become happier and more fulfilled than 80% of the population. Using mini mental vacations and the power of gratitude, we can radically transform our life for the better. I would love to know any tools or strategies that you use to turn the negative into the positive in your life. Perhaps they will be featured in a future post.
It is estimated that we have 60,000 thoughts a day. It may be hard to imagine, but when you think of how much our brain jumps from one thought to the next, it really shouldn’t be. As an author, I think that number might even be double.
This year, let us focus on making a good percentage of those thoughts positive and empowering. According to the national science foundation, 80% of our thoughts are negative. Somehow, that is the human default. Scary part is, 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. If you are keeping score at home, 80% of what we think is negative and we repeat that 95% of the time. Is it any wonder our lives are not ones of overwhelming joy and fulfillment?
This year, take some time, even 5 minutes a day, to relax and focus on something positive. I would recommend starting with things you are grateful for. Then even try adding thingsyou are looking forward to. Let us make this year one where we defy the numbers and have more positive thoughts and repeat them!
Happy New Year to all of our family at secret2anamazinglife.com! As we all begin our journey into 2024, let us ignite a fire that will burn in our soul. Let us fan the flames of hope, love and resilience! Let us fill and strengthen both our spirit, and those around us.
Share what you are going to do to help you burn bright this year and show the wonderful light that is you.
Today we are celebrating! It is the first time in this site’s 11 year history that we have had a post every day for an entire year. It was a goal of mine to bring more inspiration and motivation to all who read this. As many of us look to create our own resolutions for the New Year, we should take a look at why and how we were successful in having a post daily for a year.
First, start where you are with what you have. Although we have been talking about having a post every day for a year, this is actually the 546 straight day we have had a post. When I decided that was my goal for the coming year, it was sometime in mid summer of last year. Why should I wait for the first of the year to start? Part of the reason I was successful was I had a strong enough ‘why’. In having a post daily, I knew the audience for this site would grow. We are now over 100,000 views in over 200 countries. I also knew I would reach and engage with more people the more content I would put out. The more people reached, the more people could get an assist in living an amazing life. The more people living amazing lives, the better our planet would be.
Were there days I struggled with posting? You bet. Being an author, speaker, DJ and full-time day job as well, time is crazy. Another one of my goals was to improve the quality and depth of my relationship with my lovely lady. That takes time and dedication. All of these things could have been legitimate reasons not to have a blog. Then, I needed to use negative motivation for my goals. What is negative motivation? I needed to consider what would happen if we did not have a post here. There may be someone who was in a dark emotional place that was looking forward to reading what we have to say here. What would happen if they came to discover there was nothing to read? Hearing all of the negativity that the world seems to bring to our attention daily, I knew that this site needed to be a balance to that. If people were not given another source for knowledge and inspiration, I was not doing my part to leave the world a better place than I found it. This is, after all, my life’s mission, or at least part of it.
In closing, this accomplishment leaves me feeling just one way…grateful. I consider it a blessing to be able to share with you everything I learn along my journey of life. I am thankful for all of the souls who join me on this journey. There is nothing but gratitude for the friends I have made and the input they have given. I look forward to hearing from more of you in the year to come. 2024 will bring you my fourth book, as well as many other surprises including new episodes of the Living the Dream with Neil Panosian podcast. In addition, we will continue to have great and valuable content here to share with you. We always welcome your feedback and look forward to living an amazing life with you in 2024.
John Wooden is one of my favorite persons that I have studied. His attention to detail and the importance he placed on character are some of the greatest lessons we can all learn. I am going to share two of them with you here, and then we are going to end by taking a hard look at the quote above.
One lesson I recall was his pregame approach. He told all of his players to check for wrinkles in their socks. His players, much like you might be doing right now, looked at him quizzically. What does worrying about a wrinkle in your sock have to do with winning basketball games? That seemingly minor inconvenience, left unattended to, would lead to irritation, and eventually a blister. This would leave the player unable to perform at their best.
In our own life, how many minor irritations do we let go until they are preventing us from performing at our best? Every morning, as I put on my socks and shoes, I am reminded of this simple lesson. To make sure even the smallest, seemingly unimportant, details are attended to. Paying attention to the small details before they become larger problems will allow our life to proceed in a far easier fashion. Can you imagine if you never changed the oil in your car until the engine started acting up? By then there would be far greater, and more expensive, problems to deal with. Think of this tomorrow as you put on your socks and shoes. As a bonus, this has saved me much pain when I have set out on hikes with my mother.
His other advice he gave his players was not to pay attention to the score board. This may not seem like something you would hear a coach say, but he had good reason. If the players saw that they were up by a lot of points, they may relax a little and get sloppy. If they saw they were down by a lot of points, they may give up and quit playing hard. Even if they saw the game was close, they may get nervous and make mistakes. Instead, coach Wooden told them to focus on playing the best they could each and every play. If they did that, when they looked up at the score at the end of the game, they would like what they saw. How about you? How much of your effort in life is influenced by the circumstance you find yourself in? If we all just focused on being the best version of ourselves that we could be each and every day, I think when we look at the scoreboard of our life, we would like what we see.
Lastly, we will talk about the quote we started this post with. “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” This really is one of the great keys to life. There will be ups and downs. It is not our circumstances that decide if we will be successful, but our mindset. Therefore, you stand a better chance at success if you work on improving your mindset over your circumstances.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 