Tag: Social Sciences

BUILDING A BONFIRE…

What does building a bonfire have to do with living an amazing life? It serves as a very good metaphor. What does it take to build a good fire? Let’s assume you were never in boys or girls scouts and we will break it down for you. You will need a safe place to do so. Making sure your fire burns only where you want it to. You will need kindling, or small pieces of wood or other flammable material that lights easy but burns quickly. You will also need successfully larger and larger pieces of wood to burn more intense and for longer periods of time. You will need to arrange these in such a way that they burn in the proper order. If you try to light the big log first, chances are your match will burn out far before the log catches fire. This brings us to our last needed element, an ignition source of some nature to start the whole thing burning.

Ok, so we have established what it takes to build a good fire, but what does this have to do with living an amazing life? Here is the answer, your motivation is much like building a fire. You will need to properly keep the fires of passion burning hot and big if you want to be able to push through obstacles toward the amazing life you reaching for. This is true of any goal or project you are working on. You will need kindling, which represents small goals that are easier to obtain as you are on your way to achieving the ultimate goal. The feeling of triumph you feel is like the burning of the kindling that will slowly start the larger logs, also known as bigger goals ablaze. You will need the right amount of this kindling. To little and your passion will fizzle long before you are able to reach your bigger goals. Just as you will need successfully larger more daring and scary goals as you get closer to your prize. You will also need an ignition source. Now many people in life, myself included, have waited for a situation to get so bad that it forces you to take action. Desperation can be a great motivator. So should we sit around waiting for our lives to fall apart so we can give ourselves a big kick in the ass to take the actions needed? Not necessarily. Another great way to motivate your self and ignite your own personal bonfire of passion is to look at what you are missing by not taking action. Grab a pen and paper and start to make a list. What will you lose or are you currently losing by not taking action? How worse off is your life being made by your procrastination? Here is a good time to be brutally honest. Trying to lose weight? How does it make you feel when you go clothes shopping and nothing fits? How does it feel when you look in the mirror? This may seem harsh but emotion is the strongest human motivator. So in addition to this ‘push’ of emotion you can double your chances of success by adding a pull. What I mean here is on another piece of paper, or the other side list how much better your life would be if you did take action. Using the above example, how good would it feel to look in the mirror and like what you see? Write it down, but even better take time to close your eyes and picture this. Really add the element of emotion. How could would it feel to get attention from a person you find attractive? If your goal was financial freedom how good would it feel to not worry about paying the bills or if your job is safe? Write it all down and picture it in your mind. Really add as much emotion as you can.

Now if you have done this all correctly you will have created an unstoppable force that will literally burn through and fear or doubt that stands in your way. Still even after you have created your bonfire of passion for success there is more work to do. Let me ask you if you have a fire going and leave it unattended what happens? Eventually you burn through all the logs you have. So the secret to keeping motivation going is to keep adding logs. Now this doesn’t mean only to keep adding new goals, although that is not a bad idea. Other logs you can add include gathering friends who both motivate you and hold you accountable. Purchasing new books or motivational CDs, taking pictures or your fitness progress or bank statements. As you continue to go towards a goal, you must continue to add logs or your fire will burn out.

STOP! STOP RUNNING!

This is a line I hear in the beginning of the show Ghost Adventures which I must confess came to mind as I read my daily inspirational calendar. It simply said “Sit with it” like many bits of inspiration this one can be interpreted in many different ways. Here is the way I chose to take it. Many of us spend our entire lives running from things we find unpleasant. Are you guilty of this at all in your life? I know I am. A lot of us run from our fears. Run from our disappointments, run from our crazy family members. Ok, sometimes that last one might not be a bad idea. The point is if we run from things we often miss the lessons they may be trying to teach us or may continue to give them control over us. Fear for example, as long as we run from it we cannot be at peace with ourselves. It is out there. It is lurking it is scary. When we sit down with our fears for a cup of tea or in my case a rum and coke, and say look you scare the hell out of me, why is that? Why are clowns so terribly frightening? They are just circus performers in costumes right? Ok well I’m still working on that one. The point is here when we stop running we take back control of our lives, the future seems a lot more certain and we often gain a very valuable lesson. So ask yourself, “What am I always running from?” Are you going to let it continue to control you? Are you going to continue to miss the lesson it is trying to teach you? Instead of running from it, try what my calendar suggests and “Sit with it”. Now if you’ll excuse me I must pour a rum and coke for the clown and I.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE…NOW?

Last blog we discussed what to do if people have upset us in the past and we are still letting it bother us. Today we will examine a great way to reduce the stress and strain of people upsetting us in the present. How to deal with that face to face anger that sometimes we may encounter.

If you work with the public, or deal with the public or even just deal with other people in your daily life, which should just about cover everybody, one of the greatest and most common challenges is…well other people. We all know if everybody in our lives would just play by our rules and understand that we are always right there would be no issue there. Unfortunately the boss does not always understand how difficult it is to get out of a warm bed on a cold day. Your spouse may not always understand how ‘one more drink’ became three. In other words the bad news is at some point in your life people will be mad at you. On a rare occasion they may even have a reason to be. So what than? How can we somehow not get stressed about someone screaming in close proximity to us? How can we use a person who is practicing replacing our name with different profanities as a growing experience? As I try to improve my own life these are the type of questions I find myself asking. Trust me if you wait until that person is in front of you to ask the question you may decide to distress by closing their mouth for them and the only thing growing may be your legal problems. So here is a little exercise you can get used to and practice that I find turns those experiences literally into a game and often leaves both parties feeling better when parting. A big promise, but I think if you stick with me you will see how it all comes together and thus reduce one of the most common stresses from your life.

here is the ‘magic formula’, it may sound to simple, it may sound like it will not work, but trust me after you master it you will be successful nine times out of ten. There are some people who just have severe social issues and cannot be reached. They are not our concern and really should be used as humorous fodder. So what is the idea already? Here is the plan. First, let the people vent for a little while. I don’t know when I am upset being interrupted can only be equated to throwing gasoline on a fire. When you feel you have a grasp of what ever life threatening event has them ready to start the next world war, then interrupt. Now, there is a very specific way to do this. Even if the event is pretty cut and dry, such as your dog does not understand property lines when needing to relive himself, still recap with a simple phrase showing you are interested in their issue. An example is “Just to make sure we are on the same page…” or “To make sure I understand what is upsetting you…” in addition to showing them you care it forces you to listen to what they are saying as you are pondering just how to word your question. The next thing is something that can totally turn this person who may be picturing you in some terrible compromising position into your best friend. While listening to there list of complaints with the state of the world, look for something you can honestly compliment them on. Do they have a nice shirt on? Are they wearing a nice fragrance? this part takes practice and skill as does bringing it to their attention. I caution you not to try flattery which I am not a big fan of anyway, false praise comes across as such and can often generate further anger. It is even better if you can ask them a question about the compliment. The reason you want to do this is because it forces them to think about what you said. A great example of how to do this would be “I understand you are upset fido fertilized your flowers without asking, but I have to ask you what is that amazing fragrance you are wearing? It smells so familiar but I can’t quite place it?” I have even taken it one step further, but I will get to that in a moment. after discussing a legitimate compliment paid in their favor, and again a stress make it real, you would be surprised how the conversation can change.

All of this may sound unbelievable so let me provide a recent example. A lady walked into the post office with a bill for her post office box that was due on January 31st. She had come in on the 28th to discover that the price had went up 2 dollars from the amount shown. No notice was given to her and she already had her check made out. She wasn’t late, the price had just changed. She had a right to be upset. This woman, however, took it one step further and went on for roughly ten minutes on the lack of intelligence of the lady helping her, how terrible the organization was. By the time I was called up there she had worked herself into quite a stressful state for both her and all of those around her. I calmly asked if I could make sure I had this right. “You are upset because you are paying a pill that you were told would be one amount if paid by the 31st and here it is the 28th and we are asking for two dollars more? I don’t blame you for being upset” That simple act of understanding why she was upset started to calm her down. I explained that our goal was to get her Post office box renewed and that regretfully our computers did not allow us to charge her the old price. She suddenly ‘remembered’ she had two dollars in the car. As she walked out (which gave her time to breath as well as the sales associate) I started thinking I needed to find something nice to point about this lady. When she walked back in I noticed she had black pants and a plain black jacket. No luck there. Her hair was cut short and simple. Again not much to work with. She had no discernible wonderful scent. Then I noticed the rims on her glasses were an awesome red color I had never seen. Keep in mind I went through all of this in about 1 minute. If you just stand there staring at someone who may cause the anger level to rise again. So I said “I thank you for understanding about this unfortunate computer error with our pricing and I wish to get you taken care of right away, but as I am doing so I have to ask where you purchased those glasses I have never seen such an amazing color” She thought for a second and told me the name of the store. I knew there was one close to where I live and asked her if that was the location she went to. She told me no it was the one down the street. I again told her I would love to see what color they have for men and could she tell me what street it was on. (I don’t wear glasses by the way). She thought again and gave me cross streets. I thanked her for the information and began to apologize for the misunderstanding she came in for in the first place. Her reply shocked everyone who was there “No I should have paid my bill right when I got it” I countered with “Truly we will look into notifying people if the price changes in the future. I can understand how upsetting that would be” She replied “It’s not that upsetting. I’m sorry you just caught me on a bad day” So there may have been more to this lady’s anger. She left apologizing to me and I think feeling if she did not have a good experience and least did not have a bad one.

Enough practice with this and you almost feel as though you are playing a game. I felt a sense of accomplishment when that lady left. She felt a little less upset. I think it was a win for all parties concerned.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Yesterday we looked a bit at a conversation I had with a wonderful friend of mine. Today we are going to look a little more specifically at the issue she was having which very well might be an issue that you are dealing with as well. Yesterday we discussed what to do if you had an issue from your past that may be holding you back. We spoke briefly about guilt and regret which are two of the main past issues that affect people. Today we are going to look a little closer at her specific issue and what I recommended. This amazing young lady who has truly a heart of gold, was being poorly treated by several friends and even some members of her own family. She was trying her best to keep everyone happy, but their nasty behavior kept on. Sound familiar? We all have people who come into our life at some point, some who may have been in there our whole lives that mistreat us. The question is how can we not let the hurtful things they say and do affect us? In short the answer is you can’t. We are all human, we all have feelings. A point it always helps to remember when we are dealing with others as well. So if we can’t stop their arrows of hatred, jealousy and anger from piercing our hearts, what can we do? Ask ourselves the most important question “what does this all mean?” Sometimes the person we are dealing with is just having a tough time and maybe some issues we don’t even know about. It could be they are just unfairly taking it out on us. In this case although it hurts, it is a good opportunity to practice compassion and understanding. Another good question to ask ourselves is “What could possibly make someone act this way?” This is an especially good question to ask if this behavior is new. In this case we also have a chance to further practice our skills at politely asking people what does seem to be troubling them. Often times we may discover an issue we can either assist with or at least further understand the person we are dealing with. That act of caring can bring the relationship closer.

So what if we do all this investigating and compassion only to discover the person isn’t having a rough time, or dealing with an unforeseen issue? What if we discover their only issue is that they are an ass, what then? Great question! In fact, that happened to be one of the examples my friend gave me. She was fired from her job so the gentleman running the company could give a job to his mistress. Now on the outside she thought, and rightfully so, “How unfair is it that I work my butt off and this guy is cheating on his wife with this woman so I loose my job just so she can have one?” That is a fair question to ask, but it is not a very empowering one. If we asked what does this mean we could certainly come up with the answer that it means this man has lost morals and values his sexual gratification over a good employee. That is a true statement and may help us feel good…for the short-term. How can we use this to empower us more. This is why it may be important to revisit things that have happened to us that may have seemed ‘unfair’ at the time. I asked my friend if she really wanted to work for a gentleman with those kinds of moral standards. She replied no. I also asked her to share with me what happened to her after she left this job. She told me her very next job only lasted a short while, but in that time she was able to bring a lot of good to the life of a coworker who was struggling. The second job she had after that, which she currently holds. Allowed her to move out-of-state and be someone warm where she is considerably happy. These things would not have happened if her former boss had not let her go. Sometimes it is hard to understand why people do what they do or how we can benefit from it until far after the time it happens. Sometimes we may never understand but if we are always approaching life asking empowering questions and looking for ways to benefit and learn from every situation nine times out of ten we will. So don’t play the victim, play the master! Plus, trying to guess why other people do what they do is only slightly harder than guessing the winning lottery numbers.

A DREAM REALIZED…

The Tower of Dreams holds all the knowledge, w...
The Tower of Dreams holds all the knowledge, wisdom, history, and insights of the fairies race. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On December 13th a dream of mine became reality. My first book “A Happy Life for Busy People” was officially released. There was lots of things I learned along this long journey to bring this book to life. One, is that you must never lose focus on your goal and dreams. This was given a dramatic boost by a friend of mine who created a great pendant with the word ‘focus’ and a compass on it which I keep by my computer and it reminds me daily that I must keep my mind, thoughts and efforts on what is going to push me forward. Speaking of that person I have also learned how valuable the people around you are. Friends whose words planted the seeds of that would eventually grow into this blog and then to the book. There have been numerous people to give me feedback and encouragement when I was filled with doubt. As the book came out the support and well wishes filled me with gratitude almost to the point of being overwhelming. So I stress again, pay attention who you include in your life. When important and trying times arise they may be the lifeline you need. When you are about to give up on your dreams these people can push you to believe in yourself even when you may not.
What became apparent in my reflection of this whole journey is how important those words are. That brings two important points to light here. One, thank you cannot fully describe my feelings towards all of those people, and two, how important my encouragement may be for others. I have lots of friends chasing dreams of their own. My friend Cari has written a book that I am sure will change lots of people’s lives. My sister is about to graduate from school and begin a whole new career. How much we may underestimate the power of some simple encouragement from someone around us. So I encourage you to do two very important things as this year draws to a close. One, take a close look at those people who you surround yourself with the most in your life. Are they motivating? To they give you energy or drain your energy? Whom should you spend more time with? Remember it is easier to increase positive than to subtract negative. By adding more positive people to your life, the negative ones will begin to drift away. The second thing I think we could all benefit by doing is searching for places where we can add support to someone else’s dreams. Is there words of encouragement you could offer someone? Maybe something we could do to help their dreams along? The people who have helped me to get my book in the hands of as many people as possible thus changing their lives for the better have been amazing. Therefore as the year ends and a new one begins, part of my new years resolutions will be to help and to serve in whatever capacity I can to bring the dreams of others to light. Look at your own life, do you have friends or family members, maybe even coworkers or strangers who are pushing toward achieving a goal? Lend them a hand or at least an encouraging word. It could not only help them, but in doing so could help them change the world for the better!

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER!

Fill in the rest of this sentence “Wow I sure wish I was better at ___” For each one of us it could be a million different answers. When I was growing up I admired several different actors in the movies, singers in bands. I always thought “Man, if I could just be more like __” In your daily life how many times do you catch yourself saying this? Or at the very least thinking it? There are so many skills and traits that would be fun to master. Adding new skills and refining other skills and traits does a number of amazing things for us. First, as we discussed yesterday it makes us more valuable. If you can speak two languages you are more of an asset than a person who can only speak one. Also once you develop a new skill in will give you a much greater sense of accomplishment and an urge to do more. So the obvious question that becomes, “how do we learn these traits?” well certainly to some extent that would depend on the trait which you are trying to develop. With the advent of the internet and a library or bookstore in every city the resources are endless. Watch a movie on the subject. Listen to a cd from and expert. read a book or listen to an audio book. check out a website. The best part about this learning is it is nothing like the learning we experienced in school. This type of learning will be fun. We pick the subject, we pick the medium we learn best in. As we become closer to our goal and notice changes and bits of knowledge we are picking up we gain momentum! That is powerful. Gain enough momentum and you can push past limits you thought were out of sight. So decide what you would like to learn today. Something fun, something that excites you, something that stirs your passion and choose how you would like to learn about that subject. Just getting started will get the juices flowing as you continue on closer to your goal is just keeps getting better!

DREAM ON…

“If you don’t have a dream, there is no way to make one come true”

-Steven Tyler

ok, not only is Aerosmith one of my favorite bands, but Steven Tyler has a most unique look on the world. Here is a man who went from having it all to the depths of drug addiction and being close to death and back again. conquering not only addictions, but the numerous doubters that told him it couldn’t be done. His secret here was he had a dream, or more precisely a vision of what he wanted from his life. It is also proof our dreams must evolve. Being someone who has been in several bands myself I know achieving the “Rockstar life” can seem like a great goal, but look at this man who achieved just such a thing. It lead to a life of excess and self-abuse. It wasn’t until he realized life was almost being taken away from him that what was important became obvious. His love for music and entertaining people. Knowing that he could not continue doing that in the state he was in caused him to become sober and increased his passion to a point where he has more energy than most people half his age. I cannot begin to stress enough how important knowing your end game is. I equate it to playing a game where you do not know the rules or how to win. How on earth would you hope to succeed? I have had several people approach me and inquire about goals they find unrealistic. “I’m 55 years old, and I have always wanted to be an astronaut. Don’t you think it is a little late to make that happen?” So what does happen if the odds of achieving a specific goal seem like a long shot? Try looking at the essence of the dream. The essence of the dream? what is that? Well let’s take our example above. This man did pick a later time in life to start pursuing a goal that may require time and physical traits he may no longer pursue, although with private space travel becoming closer to reality every day that also may not be out of the question. Let us assume this man is not a multi millionaire ( I know him and trust me he is no more than I) So what to do if you cannot afford to purchase a ticket to space? Well this is what I mean by the essence of the dream. Why is it he wants to go to space? Is it urge to travel to exotic places? An interest in celestial bodies? Certainly there are other avenues to explore there. Keep searching for everything that excites you about your dream. Provide as many answers as you can. This will not only give you several different arenas to explore, but also help fire up your passion and provide you additional motivation to chase that dream and achieve that goal. Ok, so listening to the song “Dream On” may not hurt either.

THE FIRST STEP…

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”

James Allen from the book As Man Thinketh

Raise your hand if you have heard the acorn and the oak analogy before. Ok, now put it down as reading your computer with one hand in the air looks rather silly. Stop and think of this; if an acorn stands in your way how hard is it to move? You can pick it up and give it a toss or even just kick it away with your shoe. Same with the egg. you could easily crush the fragile shell. Now what if that hatched to a powerful eagle? The force is a lot more intimidating. This is why we must pay attention to our dreams, or more accurately our mental focus. If it tends to fall on the negative side, which as I recently discovered can be far easier to do than I remembered, we must address these thoughts while they are still an acorn, while they are still an egg. For if we continue to feed our negative focus with worry, fear, anger and other such emotions they become the oak. A far more difficult opponent. Conversely we must also closely watch our dreams. When they are in their infancy they are like the acorn, like the egg. Easily crushed by the opinions of others. We must feed them with positive thoughts. Feelings of expectancy. We must surround ourselves with others who support us and our dreams. Then as the acorn becomes the oak, our dreams become immune to the negative thoughts of others…and more importantly our own doubts. Quite often we can crush our own dreams when there are in the fragile acorn/egg stage. So just remember to keep yourself focused on the thoughts and pictures we keep in our mind daily. Destroy doubt and fear as soon as they are recognized and feed dreams as often as you can.

SAVIORS OF THE WORLD…

“THE dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as they realities which it shall one day see and know.”

James Allen from the book As Man Thinketh

 

The first few days of this week we are going to look at quotes from the book As Man Thinketh by James Allen. Today’s quote emphasizes the importance of dreamers. How many people’s lives are now better because of the dreamers? Whether we are talking about Martin Luther King jr’s quest for equality or Bill Gates vision to bring affordable computing to the masses. Dreamers always affect far more than themselves. As the quotes says, dreams often sustain us through all of our trails. What exactly does this mean? Let me cite a personal example. Recently I have been faced with losing my position at the Postal service and having to train the person who will be taking my job. Not only is this bad enough, but my future whether with the company or not is a mystery. Today I collected my personal effects from the office. A sad moment that made the reality of the situation very clear. In moments like this I am forced to examine my own skills at remaining optimistic. When life seems to have knocked you down, do yourself a favor. While you are down there contemplate what it is that keeps you going. For me it is a dream of what I wish to become. An author who can make a living bringing joy and a better life to others. Without this dream, without taking daily focused action towards its accomplishment I would feel at the mercy of my employer. In these hard times those who can inspire us become our saviors. The help us take one step further when we think we cannot. Even then we are at the mercy of their dreams. Do yourself a favor and focus on your own dream with certainty and positivity. Become your own savior.