This weekend, so yourself a favor. Believe in the good. In this world, where negativity can be ever present, that can be a difficult task. However, there is good all around us. True, it doesn’t often get the press the negative does. Yes, we may have to dig deeper, but if we do, love becomes so much more rewarding.
It all begins with belief. If you believe in the beauty in yourself, others and the world around you, it will manifest in your life when you least expect it. So, this weekend do yourself a favor and believe in the good and beauty that is all around us.
This simple quote is a key to creating amazing relationships. In this “look at me” world, almost everyone is seeking their 15 minutes of fame. That means, if you take time to express genuine appreciation to anyone, for just about anything, you will certainly stand out in a positive light.
How about you? Try this for 2 weeks. Every day, express genuine appreciation to someone different. Be sincere and don’t expect anything in return. I guarantee that in 2 weeks you will have much improved relationships.
I would really wish to express my sincere appreciation for all of you who read this, and even more for those who share it as well. With your help, we are working to make the world a more positive place for everyone. I would love to hear who you are going to appreciate and the results of your 2 week trial.
Sometimes we over complicate life. When it comes to finding more joy and less stress, it can often be assimple as prioritizing the things that bring us joy. I wouldn’t even worry so much about reducing the things that bring us stress. If we just focus as much of our energy as we can to finding and doing things that bring us joy, the stressful stuff will naturally begin to fall away.
How about you? What brings you joy? What makes your heart soar?
Monday can be one of the toughest days of the week for many of us. That is one of the reasons we exist. Here at Secret2anamazinglife, we supply motivation and inspiration you can use to get you through, not only Monday, but the rest of the week as well. Today we are giving you this little bit of wisdom to ponder as you start the weekly grind.
What can make Monday tough for some of us is our coworkers. We all have one that can get under our skin. It might not even be coworkers, but people we encounter throughout the day. Customers, the inconsiderate person on the road in front of us, or a million other souls in which we share this planet with. They often provide us with plenty of opportunities to practice our character building skills. This is great and is certainly something we should be grateful for. Unfortunately, this is not easy to remember early in the morning before the coffee has kicked in.
Just remember two words – react or respond. One gives the control of your emotional well-being, your life and your day to the knuckleheads we were discussing earlier. When we react to what others do, we let them determine how we will feel and how our day will go. If, however, we decide to intelligently respond to their actions, we say something entirely different. We are saying, albeit in our head most of the time, “Despite your foolish manner of acting, I am not going to let it disrupt my rockstar flow.” In slightly cruder terms, it is like giving them half a peace sign, or maybe a whole one if we are really in self-control, to those who could ruin our day with their thoughtless actions.
Two words to remember for the week ahead – react or respond. One gives control of your life away. The other keeps control right where it belongs, with us.Who do you want to control your life? You or someone else?
This is so true. Even yours truly, the man who wrote A Happy Life for Busy People and Living the Dream, has days where all my thoughts seem negative. This time of year, when the ground is covered in gray snow and ice and the sun rarely shines, my spirit can seem just as gloomy.
How do you beat those blues? First, acknowledge them. If we try to ignore negative feelings, they only seem to grow. If we observe them with an almost detached sense of reality, they seem to lose their grip. Often, I’ll talk to myself and say, “I’m feeling really bummed today. I wonder why?”
After that, I begin to shift my focus. The easiest way to do this is with gratitude. Focusing on what is working changesour focus and life completely. Reflection on positive memories and things we are looking forward to gives us a great mental vacation as well.
We all will have negative thoughts and emotions. Acknowledge them, observe them if you must, but whatever you do, don’t feed them!
Doing our best to find the good in every moment radically transforms our lives for the better. I personally know this because I have been working at it for over 2 decades. Some days and times are easier than others. The more I have practiced this, the better my life has gotten.
Heading into the weekend, I challenge you to do the same. Find all the good you can, in as many situations as you can. Just try it throughout your day. Notice how your mood shifts. The more you practice this, the more you will have an elevated mood. Put simply, you will be happy.
This may sound like a fatalistic post for uplifting Wednesdays, but it really is not. In fact, I debated titling this post “Everything is special” but decided on the one I did because it has a sense of urgency. Last week, we discussed how quickly things change and how the not so distant past can seem like a lifetime ago. Isn’t that true to some extent in your own life? I know it is in mine. Places you used to go are no longer there. Businesses you used to frequent have ceased operations. People sadly pass on. Animals become extinct.
Again,this is a little depressing, but it also provides us a sense of urgency. My friend Curtis gave me a great reminder about the power of being present. All too often we busy ourselves reliving memories and fail to pay attention to the ones we should be creating. Then, without a warning it seems, they too become memories. Consider this – each second of time is unique and will never occur again. The beautiful sunrise you are witnessing? Yes, the sun will rise again tomorrow, but it will look different than what you are seeing right now. That bouquet of flowers you received will be different than any you will get in the future.
One of the interesting things that I reflect on in life is how seemingly tragic world events change the way things are done. I recall what travel was like before September 11 of 2001. Recently, we all saw the effects Covid had on the way we socialize and do business. Life can change in an instant. Change is actually the only thing we can count on. That is why each moment is so precious. War has broken out in many places in the world and the lives of millions were upended ina heartbeat. The reverberations of that situation can be felt across the globe. Very few us could have predicted that was going to happen.
It doesn’t even have to be on a global scale. Think of all the people in your life. Above is a picture of my lovely lady and I. It was taken at my work’s holiday party. It was also a retirement party for one of my coworkers. That means it will be the last time he will be there as my coworker. Who knows if my work will have another holiday party or if this was the last one I will attend? A few years back during my open-heart surgery, it was almost the last time I spent with my lovely Margie. That story is shared in great detail in my book, The Beat Goes On, available on Amazon.
Challenges provide us great opportunity to see everything for the miracle it is. Recently, I shared the story about how my car was having trouble and my mother was giving me a ride to work. Although this proved to be far more stressful than we first thought, who knows when I will be able to share the ride and great conversation with my mother at 430am. Looking back, we had fun on my way to work. Who knows if those moments will ever happen again. I would much rather have a working vehicle, but the ride with my mom was a good memory.
Everything, and everyone, in life is fleeting. It may not seem like it, but as we discussed earlier, it can all change in an instant. Health is precious. Love is precious. So many things we can fail to appreciate until they are gone. Take a second an be present and grateful for everything in your life. Everything is a miracle. Everything is precious.
This post is a plea. Not only for those of you living in wonderful tropical places such as Fiji or Maldives, but for everyone! When you need that extra bit of motivation and inspiration, or perhaps just a friend to accompany you on the journey, take me with you. This could be on a run. It could be going with you to the gym. How about the daily commute to work? I’ll go just about anywhere!
What I’m talking about is my “Living the Dream with Neil Panosian” podcast. It is available in all of your streaming platforms. I’ll leave the Spotify link below, but you can listen free on Amazon prime,Audible or wherever you get your podcast fix.
There are 50 episodes to keep you motivated and entertained. They include portions of my books read by the author. Tools and strategies for living the dream. Even interviews with other guests. Add the “Living the Dream with Neil Panosian” podcast to your routine today!
There are many axioms that I use to help myself live an amazing life. These are the ones shared on this website, the Living the Dream with Neil Panosian podcast, as well as my books. One of my favorites, that was featured in my second book, Living the Dream, was the power of two questions. Whenever I find myself in a challenging situation, I ask myself to empowering questions. First, I ask myself, “How can I use this?” This takes the challenge from being a liability to being an asset. If you can use a challenge in some way, than it has become a gift. The other question I ask is, “What is good about this?” This question comes second because it can often be hard to see what is good initially. After finding a way to make it work for us, it can be a little easier to find something positive in it.
These questions have served me quite well over the years. They have helped me through many of life’s challenges. We are going to introduce another question that was brought to my attention that I am going to add to my repertoire. As I was posting one of my blogs on LinkedIn (feel free to follow me at the link below) one of my connections had mentioned a question they use in their life. That question is “How can I use this to serve others?” What a beautiful thing to consider! My life’s mission is to help others become the best versions of themselves. If I could find a way to use my challenges to do just that, they would cease to become challenges at all. They would then become tools to use to serve others and the greater good.
How about you? Do you have empowering questions that you ask yourself in challenging situations? How about adding the one my connection on LinkedIn brought to my attention? Actually, using all three of the questions we mentioned here will make challenges something that you use, instead of something that uses you.
In life we all have many challenges. One of mine is the weather where I live. Especially in winter. It seems the older I get, the harder it is to deal with the cold and snow. This year, I vowed to make the best of it and try to maintain a more positive outlook. For a while, mother nature seemed on board with this. The weather was unseasonably warm, and the snow was slight. My attitude seemed to remained elevated. This was good news for my family and friends. I thought to myself, “Neil, you just might do it this year!” Then, mother nature had a wicked grin.
I leave for my day job a little after 4am Monday to Saturday. This morning I woke up to over a foot of snow. As I trudged my way to where my car was parked, I saw it also was covered in snow. Upon reached my car, I discovered it was more ice than snow. Nothing starts the day off right like spending ten minutes chipping ice off your vehicle just to climb inside. Once inside, I began to defrost the windows. Once they were clear, I headed out. Trying to focus on the fact I was grateful to have a vehicle that ran. The plow that went through left a small ridge of snow in it’s path. I had to cross it to get out of the parking lot. As I did my car erupted in a chorus of sounds. None of them were very friendly. It would appear the snow had damaged some vital part of the exhaust. This happened on a Saturday. My mechanic is not open until Monday.
Driving around with a car loud enough to wake the dead is embarrassing enough, but now the temperature, which was doing just fine, is going to drop to ten degrees below zero. This makes my loud car, should it start, quite necessary. It would appear that my resolution to maintain a positive attitude is receiving quite the test. I must remember that is what the world does. I refuse to let it get the upper hand. This is not done alone. My friend CJ jokingly reminded me that some kids are trying to make their cars louder, in essence, I just gave myself a free upgrade. My friend Kurt offered his mechanic. Of course my lovely lady and her smile will keep me warm on the inside. There are my self-improvement skills I not only teach, but practice myself, that will keep me humming along.
All of this serves to remind me that tests are a part of life. They give our resolve strength. They require us to change our focus on what we do have to be grateful for in order to make it through them. It also gives us a platform to demonstrate to others, by our example, that they too can make it through their challenges. When we embrace life’s challenges and put them to work for us, we grow. When we let them get us down, we become less of who we could be. I am going to do my best to grow from this challenge and I invite you to do the same with the challenges in your life.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 