Our Common Thread: Being Human
Well, I’ve been traveling again–Paris and Serbia and Montenegro. As I’ve mentioned in other blogs, I love to travel because of the stimulation it gives my mind and my spirit. The newness of the experiences and the variety of the places and cultures all combine to inspire and energize me. But there is one thing I don’t find much different from place to place … people.
As much as we might want to imagine it, people around the world are, at their center, pretty much the same. I know that in my experience most people are good and kind and want to help regardless of race, religion or country. We all have this binding similarity that is all too easily forgotten—we are all human and we all want the same basic thing … to be happy.
That’s why it’s so upsetting when I read in the news about people segregating themselves from each other. Whether it’s Muslims feeling hurt by what they are told about the US or the 99% trying to make it look like the 1% are another species, what would really help is for us all to stop and think that each person has the capacity for love and caring as well as hate, each individual is someone’s child, each of us are struggling with pain and misunderstanding and desire. That is who these ‘other’ people are.
Knowing this I am not at all surprised as I travel to meet smiling faces and kind gestures in every country and every culture I get to experience. I think if we expect animosity we will find animosity but if we expect compassion and generosity, it will be there for us to find.
Our Circle of Very Special People
A couple weeks ago we drove to the annual Stein Eriksen “Trollhaugen Tennis Tournament” in Montana. Before I went I worked my buns off. Okay … some of what I had to do might not fit your definition of work since a lot of it was using the tennis ball machine to work on and improve my backhand and forehand but I also did cram in a bunch of office work. In that time I wrote up a complicated contract, worked on a refinance of my Kauai house and made an offer on 3 new Family Dollar stores. All that office work and the tennis workouts were crammed into two days which made it a couple of frenzied days but it also make the tennis tournament all the more rewarding–even though I didn’t win. It was a ‘break’ that was all the more prized because of that hard work, just as I’ve been saying the last couple weeks.
Going to this tournament is actually not so much about the tennis as it is about the wonderful friends and great conversations. I mention this event on page 134 of my book “How to Ignite Your Passion for Living“. There is even a picture of the Eriksen’s and us in the book. Most of the people we see at the tournament are friends we only see once a year but still those once a year friends have become very close and dear to us over the last 15 years that we’ve been going.
Stein Eriksen (the 1952 Olympic ski gold medalist and world cup champ) along with his wonderful wife Francoise and son Bjorn are an inspiration to me. They have such an incredible ability to surround themselves with many very dynamic, successful, kind and gentle friends. I just hope over the rest of my life I can come even close to doing the same thing that the Eriksen’s have done.
There are few loftier goals, in my opinion and experience, that a person could set for themselves than to have many great, successful and kind people as friends. Surrounding yourself with these types of people is inspiring, motivating and so very fulfilling. You can never have too many so I say let’s go out and work on increasing our circle of very special people.
You Need Work and Breaks to Appreciate Both
So many people retire and shortly after retiring they stop doing things, stop going places and stop pushing themselves. Then they stop permanently and totally. They assume “room temperature”. Yes … I mean they die, long before they should! Retirement doesn’t mean inactivity. Just the opposite.
Some people worry they might push themselves too hard. But the thing is, if you keep busy and then take breaks regularly, both the hard work and the time off will be much more rewarding and enjoyable and keeping a balance between them will keep you from pushing yourself too much.
Kimberly and I have been really working hard on her recovery from her surgery and a half dozen other projects.  In fact we’ve been so busy we almost cancelled a quick trip to Las Vegas to spend time with our great Swiss friend Reto Moro and his beautiful daughter Anna and her friend Anouk. But thankfully we pushed ourselves to “take a break” even though it was only for 2 days. Wow what a great and refreshing break it was. Not so much for the excitement that comes from that crazy city of action and shows and such but from getting together with great friends. I met Reto and his mom quite by accident, almost 30 years ago on the tennis court in Garmish Germany and we’ve been great friends ever since. It’s such a treat to spend time with them and the perfect break from our busy life.
The bottom line—and yes, I was chatting about this last week but it can’t be said too much—is never stop pushing yourself to stay active, regardless of your age, but also remember to never make “your pause” or “your break” a permanent state of living. You need both to appreciate either!
Getting Away from It All Should Never Be Forever
I think most of us know that busy lives are usually happy lives. But I think we’ve also been sold a bill of goods with our thinking that if we could only make lots of money then we could quit or retire and sit by the pool drinking Mai Tai’s the rest of our lives and be happy as pigs in slop. I am here to tell you that it just ain’t true!
We think this because when we are working hard and staying busy and then we take a break –going on vacation or a quick getaway–it makes us feel so good and refreshed that we mistakenly believe that if we could just do that all the time we’d have a permanent refreshed and a super great feeling. But it doesn’t work like that. The fact is, if we don’t do the hard work then it’s really not a break and it doesn’t give us any reward or, at most, very little reward. We must all burn into our brains that the pause or the break should always remain as just that and never become a permanent thing.
Look at the recent London Olympics. Think of the four years of work that lead up to the moment we watched those young people step up on the award platform. Those award ceremonies were their break and their reward and you could see how immensely they enjoyed it. But what would become of those athletes lives if they sat back, doing nothing, trying to make that super reward moment last the rest of their lives without doing any more hard work? We can all imagine it, their lives going quickly downhill because each day there would be nothing to look forward to.
We all need to take a much harder look at our own lives and make sure we don’t ever turn the pause into a permanent state of living. Passionate, fulfilled lives come from action and staying busy. Push yourself hard then, and only then, take a break and celebrate your hard work and accomplishments.
Using a Goal Buddy for Success
We started a couple months ago talking about things we could do to improve ourselves. Since then we’ve talked about communication, health, will power and more. Each of these posts set up possible goals you might want to have for yourself. So … did you set a goal … or two or ten? Just how are you doing with them?
It is not enough to just set a goal and attempt it. You need to regularly check in and see where you are at with your goal, if you need to adjust your deadlines or other details, and take time to review the reasons for going after these goals allowing you to become recommitted.
Some people can do this on their own or with the help of scheduling software but in either case they feel accountable to themselves and follow up. Many more of us need outside help. If you tell a spouse, family member or friend what you goal is, you will feel more committed because someone besides yourself knows about it. But if you need a little extra push don’t just tell these people what you want to do, ask them to help you. Ask that they remind you of your goal and why you are working towards it and have them kindly inquire how you are progressing so you feel some accountability to them. Having someone as a goal buddy, someone who has set a goal for themselves–the goal can be completely different from yours too– can help keep both of you on track and motivated as you support and cheer each other on.
Regardless, checking in on a regular basis to see how you are doing will help keep you on track. You can celebrate all the small accomplishments you’ve had and figure out how to better accomplish those items you may not have completed as well you hoped to.
Reaching your goal takes continuous vigilance but it’s a wonderful and joyful vigilance. Congratulate yourself on your progress and your continued efforts every step of the way. That alone can give you the boost you need to get each task done and realize your dream.
Gold Medal Friends
I am sure all would agree there is nothing in the world more precious than family and good friends. Here is the story of a true “Gold Medal Friend.”
To my 96 year old super step mom Merle and our many, many great “Gold Medal Friends!†I hope you enjoy this great story that ran in the Salt Lake Tribune on Monday about another gold medalist, this time it was an Olympic Gold Medal In Friendship and it may have even saved my wife Kimberly’s life.
A friend always, Mark O.
Goals and Mind Health
I have been talking about strategies that work based on scientific research done and summarized in Kelly McGonigal’s book The Willpower Instinct. I promised I would give you more strategies to work on this week. But before I give you some more strategies that will help you to stick with your goals I wanted to share with you a very interesting conclusion from Woman’s World magazine about an extra benefit of setting a lot of goals.
They said based on 12 year research project of Robert Wilson at Rush University medical center in Chicago —“whether you long to write a novel or learn to ski, a new study shows that people with the most goals have an 89% lower risk of ever developing Alzheimer’s disease! Having goals makes you less prone to stress and depression, which have been linked to a great risk of Alzheimer’s”. Wow! That alone ought to motivate us to not only have more goals but develop a good solid workable strategy for sticking with and reaching our goals. I mean let’s face it, the more with are able to stick with our goals the more likely we are willing and wanting to set more and more goals for ourselves.
So here is another strategy or two that work.
1. This week, work on remembering what it is you really want when you are tempted to give in to your human side. For example … do you really want that great looking brownie or do you really want to fit into a pair of skinning jeans?
2. Work this week on changing your brain and I mean changing it physically. You really can change it physically by doing one little thing every day for 5 minutes: Meditation.  It has been proven with MRI brain scans that just 5 minutes of meditation a day increases the blood flow to your brain and consequently actually increases the size of your grey matter.
Just a little more focus and those five minutes a will help keep you from being distracted as easily which can help you succeed in sticking with the goals you set for yourself. That gives you more of that thing we all want more of—-Willpower!
Willpower Awareness
So, as I was mentioning last week, I have this goal to be in the best shape of my life. There is no reason that I can’t achieve my goals. But it will take a lot of work and dedication. That is the issue—not whether I can achieve this but keeping with the program.
I was just 10 days into my new program when I found myself breaking some of my work out and eating goals. Ouch! That pissed me off at myself. Not sticking with my goals was the bad news but there was good news and its news that can help anybody who is serious about setting and sticking with their goals.
What I did was to go back to that great book by Kelly McGonigal PhD, “The Willpower Instinct: How Self Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It”. I have this habit of skipping around in books to quickly find the real gems and in doing that I often miss key points. This was one such book. To my great delight, this time around I discovered a few critical secrets that I totally missed before.
I am going to give you just a couple of her gems starting this week and then adding to them in the next week or two. Kelly’s advises readers to try only one new strategy per week so here are a couple options.
1. Get To Know Yourself: Know when and where and why you are likely to give up on your goal. You must be able to see how and why you stop short. So this week I am going to work on becoming more aware of when I am making choices related to my will power. I think it is quite reassuring to know that everyone struggles in some way with temptation, addiction, distraction and procrastination. These are not weaknesses but simply part of the human condition and something we can work on.
2. Pay Attention to How You Talk to Yourself About Your Willpower: What do you say to yourself when you procrastinate and how do you judge your willpower shortcomings and successes?
Put just one of these ideas into practice. Once you become more aware of where the temptation is coming from and what you tell yourself that gives you permission to give up, you will be better able to halt that behavior and stick to your goals.
Check back next week for another couple great ideas.
Growing Ageless
I set a huge goal a few weeks ago–not long after my 68th birthday—to get in the best physical shape of my life!
Now I know that may sound like a bit of fantasy at my age but if you look hard enough you will find some great motivational examples of people well into their 70’s and 80’s and even 90’s who are in super incredible shape.
You may not believe it until you see it so check out these people:
- 77 year old Sizzling Senior, Kelly Nelson
- 70 year old model Sunny Griffin
- 95 year old Merrill Matzinger
Not such a fantasy after all, is it?
My goals is not necessarily to have just a ripped type body but to be in overall great shape which includes getting down to my high school weight of 160 pounds, be super flexible and be able to run faster and longer than ever before! Well, okay, maybe not faster but certainly longer.
There is no reason that I can’t achieve these goals. It is physically possible. But it will take a lot of work and dedication. That is the issue–keeping with the program not whether it’s possible to reach it.
Next week I’ll start talking about that—the role of willpower in our lives. I’ll tell you how to gain successful self-control so you can reach whatever goal you have your heart set on.
**If you like what you’ve read in this blog please send it on to people you know and love, to people who you think this message and information may be very helpful. There is nothing in the world that brings greater satisfaction than helping other people. Don’t you agree?
The Power of Empathy
Most of the time, when a couple or friends get into a fight, it’s because one of them is assuming they know why the other person is acting the way they do or reads into something they are saying. The thing is our assumptions are primarily based on how we think or what we would do or say which is not going to be an accurate reflection of the other person. If you try to put yourself into the other person’s shoes first, you might come to a completely different conclusion and misunderstandings can be avoided.
There is a great book, written a couple decades ago but still so very relevant, called “Love is Never Enough†by Aaron T. Beck. The one thing you really take away from this book is the power of empathizing. Beck’s book is full of great advice. Here are just a few points of his to keep in mind:
Ask questions rather than just assume and act on what you “think” the other person is thinking. There is no better way to come to an understanding of someone’s position than to let them tell you what they are thinking.
Try to figure out where the other person’s thoughts are coming from rather than focus on the words alone. What a person says and what the message really is can be quite different.
Don’t’ react defensively. This can just make things worse. Stop and try to figure out what they are feeling and respond to that, not the words themselves.
Remember, just making a sincere effort to understand the other person can do wonders for the relationship. The effort you make shows you care and is also commonly followed up by the other person trying harder to understand your point of view as well.
