The Miracle of My USA
December 3, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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I was going to tell you more about what I’ve learned about increasing longevity and enjoying excellent health through all the years of your life. But something else has been on my mind this past week.
I have been reminded many times through my writing and reading, that everything I do should be connected to that good ole USA. Okay, do you remember what USA is for me? It’s pretty simple and, no, it doesn’t stand for the country I live in. It’s an acronym I use to remind myself to live a life of Unconditional Self-Acceptance.
I know a lot of us struggle with accepting and loving ourselves unconditionally. We can be so very self-critical. But even if you’ve worked hard to have good, positive inner self talk and can truly say to yourself that you love and accept who you are, negativity can still sneak in. It’s not a given that once you’ve learned to accept yourself unconditionally that you’ll always accept and love yourself unconditionally.
You just have to give that USA some thought from time to time, and if you do, you will discover that living with that USA on the top of your mind will really lift your life. It can do this for pretty much any part of your life, from your career to your relationships.
It’s so easy to forget about the meaning of my version of USA but it really can make a huge difference in your life. If you make Unconditional Self-Acceptance a super big goal for yourself, and think about it on a regular basis, you will see that by being more and more accepting of yourself and your life you’ll find more success, happiness, and contentment. And that’s because it’s that negativity and self-doubt that can really bring us down.
Whenever I focus on my USA, it helps lift my life in so many ways. It improves the way I do business as well as giving me the confidence and dedication I need to write my books. It has even lifted the quality of my tennis game. I’ve also seen how it can improve my relationships with my dear and wonderful hard-working wife, my super kids, and all my wonderful grand kids. Because when I can accept and love myself, it’s easier to love and accept everybody and everything about the people around me. And I mean everybody. Yes, everyone from new friends to long time buddies and, of course, family members!
I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling of being around people who don’t seem to like themselves very much. It can bring everybody down. So, if you stay focused on the good ole USA, you’ll be in a position to lift the lives of everyone around you instead of bringing them down.
It really does work. I say it even borders on the miraculous.
The Power of Personal Questioning
December 4, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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Last week I talked about having a great passion and how, especially when you lose that passion, it can be really hard to move forward and chase what you want. The uncertainty and fear and can be such a big hurdle. So, as I promised in my last post, here are some things you can do to move forward.
First of all, doing some writing for yourself can be a huge boost in helping you reach your goals and improve your life. Ask yourself specific questions, like the ones below, then, don’t just think about them. Write down the thoughts that these questions bring up to make them more substantial and harder to ignore.
- Do I want to significantly raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
- Do I want to become a better person?
- Do I want to be known as a person of accomplishment?
- Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
- Do I want to live a very long, active life?
- Do I want to make a fortune—a million dollars, $10 million, or even $100 million? (Just think how much good you could do with that much money!)
- Do I want the increased choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune could give me?
- Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
- Do I want to help others as I help myself?
- Do I want to travel and experience the world and its cultures?
Again, write down your honest responses to these self-searching questions. Develop some of your own “life questions” and answer those as well.
If it’s really about the missing passion in your life or because you are feeling unfulfilled, try answering these questions instead of, or in addition to, the ones above.
- What do you have a true passion for in your life?
- What part of your recent or past life—even during your childhood—really got you excited, to the point that you totally lost track of time when involved in it?
- Think about specific things you love and how they make you feel. Do you get excited about music, art, ballet, sports, outdoor adventures, writing, gatherings, social interactions, running your own small business, helping others…?
- What kind of breakthrough would you be ecstatic to have in your life right now? Would it be in the area of health, wealth, personal expression, spiritual development, or something else?
- In what would you love to excel?
Think about all that. You may find, after taking time to really go through all your interests, that you have many unfulfilled passions. Which ones do you get the most excited about?
After all this questioning, take some time to contemplate and think about it, then write down what you believe to be your true, unfulfilled passions.
If you are doing something you are passionate about, there are a few more questions you should ask.
- Am I actually doing that special something that I have a great passion for?
- If so, am I doing it for the right reasons?
- What are those reasons?
Asking questions gives us the opportunity to really come to understand ourselves, what we are thinking, and maybe even what we want. But mostly, asking and writing our thoughts down make them more concrete and can jumpstart a plan to get more out of life, to find or chase a passion you may have been ignoring because you were afraid, uncertain, or just let life distract you.
The new year is just around the corner, so this is the perfect time to define what you want and start in on a plan to make that happen for you so you are living a fulfilling and passionate life in 2023.
Embrace the Struggle
March 20, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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Think about this:
How would you feel if you played a game of golf tomorrow and shot a perfect score—that is, you shot par on every single hole? How would the inside of your head handle that experience, especially if it was your very first time playing golf?
Understandably, you most likely would feel fantastic initially. How high on the satisfaction scale would that golf score put you? I’d say pretty much at the top! Contentment? Oh, yes, you’d be pretty darn content. Satisfaction? Yes, huge amounts of that!
But how long would those feelings last? I’m afraid that, for most people, it would not last very long.
The fact is a perfect score =no fun.
I bet your reaction to that statement is, at first, “No way! A perfect score is what I’d be after so, of course it’d be fun!â€
But let’s fast-forward a week. Let’s say you played golf a second time and, again, got that perfect par score. How would you feel at that time? Sure, you’d still feel pretty good, right?
Now, let’s say that you continue to shoot a perfect par score every time, no matter what golf course you played. How do you think you would feel if it continued that way, where a perfect score became absolutely routine for you? Would you continue to feel content and satisfied?
Not likely. Now why is that?
The thing is, we really don’t appreciate things unless we’ve worked for them. That’s one of the reasons that almost all lottery winners end up miserable. They didn’t have to work for that money, so there’s nothing to be proud of by gaining it. We just don’t value or derive much satisfaction from things in our lives that we didn’t have to struggle with, fight for, or otherwise work hard to have and achieve.
We do much better, are happier and more content, when we are challenged and, especially when we overcome the challenges! Like with that imaginary first game of golf where you got a perfect score. It would have been super exciting then because you didn’t know you could do it, actually probably assumed you’d play terribly, but you would have tried your best, making that perfect score feel well-earned! After that though, you would know you could do it, so it would become less and less exciting.
Now let’s say you decided to be a golf pro in 5 years. Lots of people would say you can’t do that. But if you work really hard, golf every chance you get, and take lessons from the absolute best trainers, you might just get to go pro before those 5 years were up. Now, think about how THAT would feel! It would be beyond amazing, right? Better than a surprise perfect score first game even.
You see, we just love beating the odds and achieving really hard things. It makes us feel accomplished and of value to ourselves and others. We also get to tell the stories of our struggles and how we reached our goals!
So, next time you find yourself wishes things were easy, that you could win all the time, and that things you want would just fall in your lap, remember that you won’t be all that happy if that’s how things always went for you. Embrace the challenges and look forward to your hard won accomplishments!
The Joy in the Journey
June 27, 2021 by MarkHaroldsen
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Would you agree that most of us, at one time or another, especially when we were young, had thoughts of being rich and or famous? And maybe those thoughts were followed by, “If I was rich and famous, my life would be perfect or darn near perfect!â€
If you were at all like me, you certainly had those thoughts. Most people I’ve talked with over the years had those thoughts run through their mind at some point. But I’m here to tell you that a near-perfect life does not necessarily follow fame or wealth.
Yes, wealth can make a lot of things in your life an easier, but if you think that tons of money and fame will automatically bring you happiness and contentment, you’re dead wrong. In fact, I think you will find a higher early death rate and more addiction in the rich and famous than in the middle class. That is saying something about how imperfect a life with wealth and fame can be.
Riches and fame can give you a lot more choices, but you do need to be extremely careful with the choices you make. For example, gifting your wealth to charitable causes can bring far greater and longer lasting satisfaction than feeding a cocaine or alcohol addiction with all that money.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that money and fame, or going after great and lofty financial glory, are not worthy goals. Those are energizing, lots of fun, and can be very satisfying. Just be sure you enjoy each hour and day of your pursuit and be aware that whatever the end results of your journey, it won’t make your life perfect.
The thing is, nobody’s life is perfect and when you realize that and accept that fact, your satisfaction and contentment can really begin to soar. Trust me on that. I’ve been there, done that, and learned it. I have to remind myself that life is never perfect on an almost daily basis, pushing myself to concentrate on the big multi-year goals while, at the same time, remembering to “live in the now†and have tons of joy while on the journey.
Money can do great things for you, your family, and your life, but it is simply not everything. It is not the key to a happy, fulfilled life. Look beyond the wealth to what you can do to make things better for others as well as exploring and enjoying life. You don’t want your life to just be about making money. You want it to be about what that money can do for you and others. That’s where you will find the joy.
Something New, Near or Far
December 27, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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The human mind is an incredible machine. Our brain can remember tons of facts, experiences, feelings, and more. I find it so very interesting and exciting that, after struggling to remember some situation, name, or fact and giving up, later that day or even the next day, like magic, while I’m not even trying, the answer will suddenly pop into my head. I’m pretty sure you’ve experienced the same phenomena.
Yes, our brains are amazing but they do need to be fed. There is this super great thing we can do for our brains when we are feeling down in the dumps. It’s a simple little thing called “novelty”. Our brains crave novelty! Being exposed to something new and totally different than we’ve ever seen or experienced before does amazing things for our brains.
Today I was very bored and a bit down (Thanks COVID for picking on me and, well, pretty much everybody!) That bad ole virus has kicked our social life in the face and it wiped out the wife’s and my travel plans this year. Nearly every year we fly to Paris and from there go on to visit new countries, seeing so many new sights and faces. We are missing the novelty that we get when we travel to new places and meet new and different people.
With my brain being a bit down, I have certainly had the urge to see something novel lately and a few days ago, I knew that I was going to need that very, very soon. So, I did a very simple thing that didn’t take an airplane or a lot of time. We just jumped in my car and started driving.
I drove to places, neighborhoods, and business districts that I had never seen and it worked! Yes, we found novelty in places nearby. Seeing pretty much anything that is new to your eyes and brain can lift your feelings and attitude. It was only a one-hour drive but, wow, it was a great lift for my brain and mood and it was such a simple thing to do.
In today’s COVID world, and especially around Christmas and New Year times, we need to push ourselves to seek out and find those new sights, sounds, people, and experiences that stimulate our brains. Yes, it may take some thinking and planning but that’s not hard to do.
So, I am going to challenge myself, my family, friends, and, yes, you the reader to look for and find things to see, do, and experience, especially now as we start a new year. Let’s all go do it and make 2021 and great new and exciting year!
Creating Your Own Novelty
September 6, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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I’ve written before on this great thing called “novelty” and how it can excite our brains big time. In today’s COVID world we may feel like we are totally locked down, but I’d say it’s time to use our brains and think our way out of and beyond the lock down. Now, how do we do that?
Well, there is one thing that could help you now while giving you a great experience later. How about taking lots of time to research and plan a big novel trip or vacation, so when the pandemic is over, you are ready to take that great trip! I mean, if we are smart and use our brains, we could plan lots of novel things and maybe even carry some of them out right now. Like, hey, how about writing a book? And while you’re at it, draft a plan for selling that book online or to bookstores. In other words, create your own novelty.
Have you ever noticed how children and young people are always trying something new, pushing themselves, eager for adventure while older people seem to be content to do the same things they always have done and in the same old way? That’s really just a generalization as I know many older people, myself included, that still continuously seek out new and challenging experiences. However, there is a sense of complacency that is easy to fall into as we get older or as the obligations of our life wear us down.
As physical energy wanes so does our ambition and, next thing we know, our brains turn off and we are just living on autopilot. It’s at that point that making any change in our lives gets very, very difficult. The thinking is our brains don’t wear out the same way as the rest of our body. Normally, the brain is still willing and able to do its job – learning, solving problems, and amassing knowledge even when we physically feel worn out. But when faced with a lot of stress or just dull repetitious experience the brain deteriorates.
To keep your brain in top shape, give it the novelty it craves. Educating yourself through books, television shows such as those found on PBS and the History channel, and quality information on the internet will certainly help, but remember, your brain is a multi-sensory organ. Keep that great word and concept of novelty in your mind and pursue it always. Feed it. Don’t let COVID trap you.
We all can still get out of the house and experience new sights, smells, sounds, flavors, and textures. New experiences will boost both your physical and mental energies and motivate you to do even more. In fact, if you have lots of time on your hands, go and create a bucket list of that stuff you always wanted to do before you kick the bucket. Yes, just like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson did in that movie The Bucket List. I sure know that having my own bucket list motivates me especially in these COVID times.
Ok, you and I know what to do. Now so let’s go and do it!
Pushing Out the Negative
June 28, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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This darn pandemic is certainly creating a lot of problems, challenges, and tons of stress. For me, it’s not just the boredom, although I do miss my social life, but rather it’s the stress that has been getting to me. It has done some strange things to my sleep.
Of course, some of it is due to my age, as most of us have more trouble sleeping as we get older. On some nights, I am only able to sleep for 2 or 3 hours. Ugh! But other nights are normal. So, a couple days ago I spotted a book by Sasha Stephens titled The Effortless Sleep Method. The book is beginning to be of great help, mostly because of my change in thinking.
One section of the book jumped out at me – “The Two Negative Principles of the Mind”. Stephens said, “It is strange but true that most human beings tend to focus chronically on what they do not want. It can be difficult to spot this tendency in yourself, especially if you do not consider yourself to be a particularly negative person. But just try observing yourself for a few days. See how much of your thinking time is spent focused on what is wrong with your life. Then notice how little time you spend even noticing the good things, let alone celebrating them.” Sasha goes on to say, “If, for example, they had one bad night’s sleep along with three or four good ones, most insomniacs would focus on the one bad night. Not only does this give an inaccurate and exaggerated picture of the problem, it can actually worsen it.â€
As I write this, I have just realized that by my talking to my wife about my terrible sleep and now writing about it, what I am doing could make my sleep problems worse because I am emphasizing the negative. So, I guess I will take that risk and maybe what I am writing can help others, not just with sleep problems but addressing other challenges and changing your thinking so you spend more time on the positive stuff.
I find that to spend more time on the positive things of my life and to ignore the negative, it helps to write down specific goals that I want to reach. It makes is much easier to keep my brain thinking on the positive side. Let me give you a list of questions that I have asked myself over the years. They help me come up with specifics which helps me be more positive.
- Do I want to substantially raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
- Do I want to become a better person?
- Do I want to be known as a person of great accomplishment?
- Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
- Do I want to live a very long, active life?
- Do I want to make a fortune – a million dollars, $10 million, or even 100 million dollars? (Just think of the great good you could do with that money.)
- Do I want the greater choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune would give me?
- Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
- Do I want to be a big help to others as I help myself?
- Do I want to travel and experience the entire world and its cultures? (I will continue this one when the pandemic has let up–I’ve already visited 92 different countries!)
May I strongly suggest that you make up your own list. I think if you do you will be pleased with how it helps your life.
Stir Yourself Up Instead of Going Stir Crazy
April 26, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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Wow. Now, after several weeks, we are still in lock down mode, but that doesn’t have to force us into a mental lock down too. Use this time to look at your world and your relationships in a new way.
The virus has undoubtedly brought my wife and I closer and has pushed my mind to see and think much more about details of so many things. For example, the other day, Kimberly said “Hey, let’s take a drive and look at all the beautiful blossoms that are out now.†Before the pandemic, I would have said, “Are you kidding me? That doesn’t sound like fun to me.” But with what’s going on, I said, “Okay, let’s go.†Well, when I paid major attention to all the absolutely gorgeous and beautiful blossoms, I was so very impressed, and that drive lifted my mood. It was such a simple thing, but it did us so much good. Thank you, mister virus.
Talk about me noticing details now! Walking down my long driveway to pick up the newspaper I saw a little rock and noticed what looked like a face. How cool. By the way, walking to get my paper always starts my daily walking goal and I usually hit my goal of 20,000 steps a day, even in times like these.
Kimberly is spending hours and hours doing what she loves to do – making beautiful beaded necklaces and other jewelry. We have also found ourselves playing pool and shuffleboard and having a great time doing so many little simple things that we almost never do.
And, hey, remember that now is a great time to reach out to friends and family. My wife Kimberly has reached out to her family and had many long conversations on the phone with her father and friends. Even if you can’t physically hug your friends and family, you certainly can send a virtual hug on the phone.
I even found myself reaching out to friends from 60 years ago. I wanted to talk to my basketball buddy Richard Harvey. We were on the winning team that took first place in an American high school tournament in Rome, Italy back in the day. I got a hold of his son Kyle who gave me Richard’s phone number in Ohio. I had a great conversation and did that virtual hugging thing. Then, the very next day an old friend of mine, Russ Whitney, called me. He read my first book back when he was a meat cutter in New York and now gives me a lot of credit for his huge success in life. He’s now having 1,000 apartment units built in Florida.
So, it turns out that we don’t have to put up with those feelings that we are going stir crazy. We can turn this shutdown situation into a really good thing for us and our friends and family. It’s so amazing to me that I began noticing and paying attention to so many details, even simple things around the house, such as pictures and decorations that I have always just skipped over. And now I have that super little rock with the face to remind me to pay attention to the details too.
Writing Down the Urgent Stuff
February 16, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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Last week I wrote about how important it was to write down your goals, your intentions, your dreams, and your to do lists. Why do that? Because if you do, the odds that you will follow through and complete those tasks and dreams increases big time.
There are many other benefits to writing. If you commit your dreams to paper, or on a document in your computer, for some strange reason, the act of writing your fears and negative thoughts down helps you deal with those bad thoughts and then you can more easily overcome them.
So, getting into the habit of not only writing your good dreams and goals down but also those fears and negative feelings we all have, can become a huge asset in your life.
Here’s 17 questions from a list in Ilchi Lee’s wonderful book I’ve Decided to Live 120 Years. Ask yourself these questions and write down the answers.
- What things have I achieved in my life?
- When was I most joyful?
- When were things most trying?
- How did I overcome hardship in those trying moments, and what did I learn through them?
- What moments in my life do I regret?
- When did I do things that made me feel proud and that I found rewarding?
- What momentary choices became opportunities that changed my life?
- What values did I try to remain true to throughout my life?
- What goals have I had so far?
- What motivated me to establish those goals?
- Which of my goals have I had so far?
- Which of my goals have I achieved?
- Which goals have I failed to achieve?
- Who has had the greatest impact on my life?
- With whom have I shared my gratitude?
- With whom do I have emotional issues that I need to resolve?
- Which of my habits do I want to keep and develop?
Lee goes on to say, “If possible, write down your thoughts about these questions. Organizing them in writing and not just thinking about them will help you unravel the tangle of thoughts rolling around in your head.â€
Like Mr. Lee’s book, Henriette Klauser’s book, Write It down, Make It Happen, makes some of the same points. Klauser likewise emphasizes how absolutely critical it is to get into the habit of writing your goals and dreams down, explaining how, “putting it on paper alerts the part of the brain known as the reticular activating system to join in the play.â€
She goes on to explain this mechanism. “At the base of the brain, about the size of a little finger, is a group of cells whose job it is to sort and evaluate incoming data. This control center is known as the reticular activating system (RAS}. The RAS sends the urgent stuff to the active part of your brain and sends the nonurgent to the subconscious. The RAS awakens the brain to consciousness and keeps it alert.† So, if you write something down, then it becomes the urgent stuff and your brain will keep it accessible to the active part of your mind.
Hope I’m not getting too scientific but knowing all about the RAS and what good it does all of us should be good motivation to keep writing our goals and dreams down. So now we know, when it comes to bad feelings, ideas, or worries, paper is a good place to park those negative mind games.
Finding Direction in Your Retirement
February 2, 2020 by MarkHaroldsen
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I was reviewing a few of my past blogs and came across one from 9 years ago about retirement that hit me hard inasmuch as I’m feeling the same now as I did way back then. In the post, I started out by saying, “It’s so easy to get overly relaxed when you are in Hawaii as I have been the last few weeks …”, and now, as I write this, I’ve been in Hawaii for 5 weeks and I feel the same way. I go on to say that my relaxing days do allow me to reach some major mental breakthroughs and I really think through the ideas that come to me but at the same time, I can feel so lost. That’s true today as it was then.
It got me thinking about how common this feeling can be for people in the mid and later years of their life. You’ve worked so hard for years, looking forward to retirement and then, once you get there, you start having these days where you simply have no direction. You start to realize that the carefree retirement life isn’t quite what you expected.
I am sure you have seen people around you that seem lost in retirement. When you retire or semi-retire every day can feel like Sunday. For most people in America, Sunday is a lazy day, the day when you don’t have any specific plans, a day to unwind and not answer to the clock or to any business or work demands. But when you do this every day, it actually can get very depressing.
As it turns out, Sunday morning has been found to be the most depressing time of the week for most people. Seems very odd that this can be true, but the reason is pretty simple. It’s because we don’t usually have any particular goals, plans, routine, or structure for that day of the week. Okay, maybe you go to church for a little while but otherwise, it is unlike the days in your work week or even the often busy, errand running and playing day that Saturdays often become. When a person retires, the constant structure of their life is gone so, without goals, routines, and deadlines, most people begin to feel lost.
Even if you are not close to retirement age, it is very smart and, in the long run, rewarding to start making plans and developing goals for retirement now. Retirement is not a bad thing. I can certainly attest to its advantages. But even in retirement you should set goals, establish a routine, and make plans with a timetable.
It’s just that during retirement, you don’t have an employer to please or to tell you what is expected from you, and you probably no longer have a family that you have to provide for, so you are left to make up your own schedule and decide what you want to accomplish. The key is to make up your own challenges, structure, and hopes that make you want to get up, excited and purposeful, every morning.
To put it simply, the real key is to not stop having dreams when you get older and/or retire. There is no reason to stop making plans and there are huge benefits for making plans for the remaining years of your life. There is also another big bonus for having plans in those later years–studies have shown that you are likely to live longer and with much better health. That should be reason enough to have plans and set goals through your entire life!