Ways to Focus on the Present

One way to increase happiness in your life, and therefore maintain passion, is to stay in the present. When things are stressful, this is challenging. Most of the time we are worried about the past or the future and not really paying attention to what is happening right now. So we miss life as it is happening. It’s tough to live passionately in that place.

I’m not saying it’s always easy to live this way. It takes practice to train your mind to live in the present. It’s something I’ve worked to achieve all of my life. It is easier now than when I started, but it still takes a concerted effort. As you learn how to redirect your thoughts and focus on the present, it’s important not to be hard on yourself. Just keep working. When you get off, when you’re mind wanders, just gently steer yourself back.

Yoga is one way that I practice keeping my focus. I do yoga several times a week. Yoga is way underrated in this country. It’s a great tool and you don’t need to go to a gym, or class to do yoga. I practice at home with the Yoga Journal’s “YOGA for Beginners” with Patricia Walden. Keep practicing and you’ll get better too.

What methods of focusing on the present have worked well for you?

Keeping Passion Alive In Stressful Situations

Lately I’ve been challenged with a situation that I’m sure you can relate to – how to maintain passion when things go wrong – or appear to go wrong. Last week I started to get chest pains, and I went to see my doctor. He told me my chest pains were caused by one of three things:

1. I have a heart problem
2. I have cancer
3. It’s acid reflux

I live a healthy lifestyle, my cholesterol is low, my blood pressure is low and I eat right. This increases the odds tremendously that rather than a heart problem or cancer, I’ll be diagnosed with the much preferable acid reflux. Still, my concern challenges my ability to live in the moment.

The key is learning how to live in the moment. “Live in the moment. So I talk to myself and say: I must visit the past and the future in short segments, but live in the now.”

The real key to living in the moment is your internal dialog – how you talk to yourself. I tell myself things like, there’s nothing I can do right now. I can’t speed up this process. I recognize that worry doesn’t help. In a few days I’ll know my diagnosis. In the meantime, I’m living in the moment and redirecting myself when I stray.

My next post is going to talk about ways that have helped me living in the moment – regardless of the stresses of life around me.

The Sky is Not Falling – Mark O. Haroldsen on the Economy

“You need to stand back from the masses because the masses almost always get it wrong.”

Some might wonder if because of my lifestyle I’m somehow immune to feeling the effects of a slow  economy. I’m not saying I haven’t been hurt by it, I have. I’m not immune to it. But my take is that we’re not at the bottom yet – but we’re near.

I talked to people on my trip about it. World markets are being creamed. Many are worried. Some blame the U.S. for problems with the economy, though they have made some of the same mistakes. There is no question that a person living hand to mouth is in a bad situation and this economic downturn. It scares them — and it should scare them.
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A Journey Takes Unexpected Turns

Passion, like life, is about journeys not arriving. Kimberly and I have been planning a trip to Europe for a year. This was a goal of ours. You see the brain craves the new, the unfamiliar. Living in the moment also stimulates the mind. Of course it’s easy to live in the moment when you’re in Paris.

Another way is to experience something familiar through someone else’s eyes. We took our good friends  Frantoise and Stein Eriksen (who is now in his eighties and has a Wikipedia page) with us. We’d been to some of the places before, but they came alive again when we showed them. Our brain loves new experiences.

Everywhere we went I asked people what there passion level was. We visited a farm of a cheese maker in Switzerland. We stayed at the Palace Hotel in Gstaad Switzerland which had unbelievable scenery and impeccable service. I got to introduce the Eriksen’s to an Australian tennis champ. We were in Germany for Octoberfest (I’ll put up some video of the trip).

The most exhilarating part of the journey though started with a train ride that had some curve balls. Getting on the train and going from Zurich to Croatia there was no one was there to greet us. We had a tough time finding a cab to make it to the ship. We finally found a cab and arrived an hour late. Luckily, they waited for us.

Once we got onto the ship we realized it was not like the spacious hotel with great service. It was tight quarters. The bathroom was so small you could hardly change your mind, let alone change a shirt in it. The shower was a spout hooked up to the bathroom sink. You turned it on and sprayed yourself, along with the rest of the room.

The week long ship ride was full of adventure. There were people from all different nationalities speaking different languages. We stopped on islands of all sizes. We bicycled 30-40 kilometers. One island was so small that license plates weren’t necessary – everyone knew everyone else. With only a few hundred people, there were maybe 25 cars.

Then there were high winds – so high that the buses couldn’t run because they might blow over. So rented an expensive taxi, and headed back to make our flight home – which we barely made.

While we loved the more predictable parts of the trip, our real passion was in the unexpected – the missed rides, the cramped ship, the collage of cultures, and even the storm.

Do you fears prevent you from traveling (literally or figuratively) because you’re afraid to try something new? Sometimes people are so comfortable it scares them to do something different. Yet when they go ahead they look back that is what stands out, it’s what they talk about.

Mixing things up, trying the new, seeing something through another’s eyes, being open to adventure. This is how you create passion.

Where Did all My Passion for Life Go?

“Passion can be an elusive pursuit. As people age they have glimpses of passion here and there and then they lose it and they don’t know why.”

Have you every wondered how you get passion and how you keep it? In my book “How to Ignite your Passion for Living” I make the point that, from my experience, as people age, passion has to be kind of set up – or jerry-rigged. To jerry-rigg – is to put something together in an unusual, better or temporary way. The key to jerry-rigging passion is to set difficult objectives and work towards them.

From about age 25 every year your brain produces less and less dopamine and serotonin – the hormones that help you feel good. A child’s body is awash in these hormones. As we age we need to create these hormones. You have to stimulate them. You do this with eating right foods, exercising, and most importantly, setting goals and going after them.

Traveling can be a great way to jerry-rigg some passion. In my next post I’ll talk about a trip to Europe and how some unexpected turns made us love the journey even better.

Gold Medal Gratitude

I believe that gratitude for the contribution of others in our lives, our acknowledgment of their support, and giving credit for their part in our successes and triumphs keeps one more humble, open, and more connected to “those who brought you to the dance.”

I also believe the expression and attitude of gratitude also serves as a slingshot for greater triumph and personal satisfaction.

This is my own gold medal experience with gratitude and giving credit. I would not have had a certain personal triumph without a bunch of support, inspiration, and help mainly from three great people.

I had a goal to reach the top of the tennis rankings in my state of Utah. I certainly worked at it. But I had a problem in the way of my goal. I was hardly able to run, bend, or walk more than 200 yards without stopping because of the pain in my two arthritic hips. (See Movement Is a Must in Chapter 10, “An Umbrella Goal for LIFE” of my new book: How to IGNITE Your Passion for Living, 2008)

So how did I win the gold medal in the Men’s 60-65 Singles Tennis Tournament at last year’s Huntsman World Senior Games?

First, a ton of credit goes to Paul J. Meyer (www.success-motivation.com) who taught me by word and example to never stop setting and going after goals—he preached over and over to me to do this all my life—no matter what.

He also showed me the power of spaced repetition. What did that mean for me? It meant that I hit thousands and thousands of tennis balls warring out two ball machines in the process.

Second, I owe a huge amount of credit to the one-time most winning tennis player in the history of the game—the incomparable Australian Roy Emerson. He conducted a phenomenal one-week tennis camp high in the mountains of Switzerland that consisted of many long hours of teaching techniques, strategies, and drills that nearly wore my brand new hips to a frazzle. But what great lessons I learned!

And third … about those new hips—WOW! Without those pieces of chromium cobalt placed so perfectly by a great surgeon with steady hands and many years of experience, the example and coaching of Paul J. Meyer and Roy Emerson would not have won me the gold.

Dr. Harlan Amstutz of the Joint Replacement Institute deserves so much thanks and credit for my tennis success. He gave me my young life back.

I am so grateful!

Now about my goal of being in the top rankings for tennis in my state—as published on February 4, 2008 () I am the NUMBER ONE ranked tennis player in Utah, for my age group.

As you progress through your own life at every stage, whether you’re just starting out or you’re an old fart like me, be sure to fully realize that you owe (gratitude to) so many for helping you along your success path.

None of us, no matter how smart we think we are or even how lucky we may be,  can do it or go it alone. Take time to give credit and gratitude. It truly will amaze you how much joy and energy you will add to your life and everyone around you.

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