The People Habit

I’ve written a few times about the great power of habits and how forming the right ones can lift your mood, health, financial status, physical strength, and stamina. In past blogs, I have quoted many very smart and helpful ideas from Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit. That book is a great place to start.

One of the habits that I decided on many years ago was to go out of my way to meet many super successful people as I was sure they could lift my life. I hooked up with quite a few and some became my mentors. Some I got to know by reading about them or reading books they wrote, after which I would attempt to fly to their city and pick their brains. And, wow, was that a great habit that helped me in so many ways!

These super successful people that I met were from all walks of life. I have to admit that much of my success in life—from sports to financial—was from getting to know these people. I kept picking their brains over and over asking them to be my coach or my mentor.

I certainly discovered that many of these super successful people really like to give back by coaching or being a mentor and it’s a great way to give back or pay it forward. Think about how great you feel when you’ve helped someone to become super successful. It’s such a terrific feeling.

I’ll never forget the great compliments I’ve received from the many people who give me credit for their success through reading one of my books. In at least two cases, a couple of billionaires have told me that it was my book, what they learned from it, and the action they then took that made them so rich.

It does take a lot of work, persistence, and determination to meet highly successful people, especially if they are also famous. Some of the ones I tried to hook up with took many, many phone calls, and letters to reach, but I had formed the habit so no matter how many times I got turned down or got no answer to my many attempts, I just kept trying. And, of course, with some I never did get past their secretary or vice president or wife. But because of my solid habit, I met with enough success to make it all well worth my time.

Here is a short list of those super successful people that I’ve met and that have added so much to my life, from financial to motivational, uplifting my mind and spirt: Larry Rosenberg, Bill Nickerson, Ray Kroc, George Romney (Mitt’s father), Lionel Richie, Willian King of the Commodores, Joe Karbo, Curt Carlson, Jon Huntsman and even that guy Joe Biden. (Granted, I just met Joe for a very short interchange!)

Who have you met or chased down that have added so much to your life? Maybe you can make your own list or get working on building it up by reaching out to great and successful people!

 

Never Stop Moving!

It’s quite a strange thing that when you start preaching to another person, whether it’s “Hey, you need to read more,” or “Workout more, eat less and lose weight,” it tends to push us to do whatever it is we are trying to get the other person to do.  Maybe that’s why I like writing a weekly blog. I find myself doing more of the things I am preaching to others about.

If you read my blog you know that I’m always writing about how important it is to keep moving especially as you get older. I play a lot of tennis and I’ll never forget how surprised I was when one of the guys I played with told me his age. He was a darn good player, moved well, and hit the snot out of the ball. Well, he told me he was over 80 years old! And I thought he was younger than me at 76.

As I said in last week’s blog, I’m re-reading the book entitled I’ve Decided to Live 120 Years. In that book, I read about the French guy who set a new world record in 1917 by cycling 22 kilometers in one hour … at age 105! Wow!

“His VO2 max (maximum volume of oxygen consumed), heart rate, and heart and lung health were measured over two years and it was discovered that his aerobic capacity was that of a 50 year old, some 55 years younger than his actual age,” the book’s author, Chili Lee, added. “Even more amazing was the fact that his VO2 max increased 13 percent.”

Of course, that doesn’t happen without a lot of effort over the years. The key is a very important thing that will allow you to live a long and healthy life: you need to keep moving!

I’ll never forget when my good friend and gold medalist Stein Eriksen (with me in the photo here) cycled with my wife and I over 30 miles every day for almost a week. It was in Europe (Gstaad, Switzerland) many years ago and he was keeping up with me and even passing me from time to time and he was 80 years old then! He won a gold medal in 1952 Olympics, in addition to a silver and bronze medal in other years. We were with him when, sadly, he passed away at age 88.

To sum it all up, I’ll quote from NASA’s former director of Life Sciences Division and author of the book Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, Dr. Joan Vernikos: “The key to good health is being as active as possible all day. This doesn’t mean that you have to exercise for several hours, like an athlete. It means you should move your body whenever you get the chance. The more often you move, the better.”

Okay, readers go to it and keep moving!

 

Raise Your Energy

As I said last week, I did let my social life go down the toilet, even though our social lives are a very important part of our life. Of course, COVID-19 didn’t help any but then I had a big health set back this last weekend. It jolted my brain and made me realize there was a part of my life that didn’t get flushed down. As a matter fact it took a big jump up.

So you know, my health setback was in the form of big stomach pains that were so painful I couldn’t sleep at night. It also really messed up my thinking and activities the next day and beyond.

It was during these episodes that I realized that even though my social life slipped a ton, my physical movement and life had taken a leap up. Of course, with this damn coronavirus, and not getting together with friends and family very often, it left me with plenty of time on my hands, or should I say in my “on my feet”.

My long walks around our new neighborhood and in the canyon really took off. I’ve written before about my walking goal of 20,000 steps a day (Thank heavens for my FitBit!) but with lots of time on my hands I started walking 25,000 steps every day and sometimes 30,000. My all-time high for one week was 210,000 steps and, wow, does that ever make a person feel good! Well, I am tired at night but overall, it feels good and lifts my health big time.

As recommended in one of my favorite little books, Inner Simplicity by Elain St. James, “Start a healthful exercise program such as walking and a limbering program such as yoga or stretching.”

That stretching, which I do before my long walks, has helped a lot and is especially important as we get older. St. James also says that “studies have shown that it’s the loss of elasticity in our muscles and the tightening of our joints that create the immobility of our advancing years.”

We all need more energy but as we get older, we notice the energy levels dropping quite a bit. Elaine says sleep is important to keep your energy up but she also warns you to “become aware of the situations and people that drain your energy.” So, try to avoid or limit time with those people.

Additionally, she says, “Sometimes you can find yourself completely deprived of energy for no apparent reason. It’s important at those times to examine what you’ve been doing, talking, or thinking about, or what you’ve been eating or drinking, so you can eliminate as much as possible not only the obvious energy drains but the subtle ones as well.”

In conclusion, she wrote that you should “keep your eyes and feelings open for the situations and the people and the happenings that raise your energy, lift you spirits, and make you feel terrific.”

For me, it’s kind of strange that all my thousands of steps, out in the wonderful outdoors, rather than draining me, lifts my energy as it lifts my spirits! So, just a little advice to you, which you probably already know—if you are feeling down go outside and walk around. The sky, air, and nature will almost certainly lift you spirits and life.

 

The Neglected Key to a Long Life

I started to re-read the book entitled I’ve Decided to Live 120 YEARS: The Ancient Secret to Longevity, Vitality, and Transformation written by Ilchi Lee. I’ve written about this book in a previous blog post but I didn’t mention an incredible statistic I learned about in these pages.

It turns out, you can do this very simple thing that, on average, can lengthen your life by 7.5 years. That conclusion was reached based on data from 143 studies with a total of 300,000 participants. In that previous post, I mostly talked about how a long and healthy life is primarily about eating nutritious foods and staying physically active but there’s a bit more you can do.

So, during my second read of the book, what really jumped out at me was something that I’ve not been doing much of since I retired. I’m kind of surprised that I’ve ignored this critical part of living a long life and I have suffered because of it.

What is it that I’ve ignored that could have possibly lengthened my life by 7.5 years? It’s this thing called a social life! Having and keeping a good strong and active social life does things to the brain including sending signals to various body parts that keep it healthy and helps you live longer.

When I retired, I let my social life slide down big time! I stopped going to the office and so I stopped seeing my coworkers, clients, partners and business associates. I also moved into a big house on the mountain side with no neighbors, so that made it even worse. And this COVID-19 has certainly not helped in the least. In addition, there’s no kids here at home anymore. It’s just me and the wife in our big, empty nest.

Lee says in his book, “The isolation of the elderly doesn’t only cause loneliness, it has been shown to have a negative impact on physical and mental health, increasing conditions like chronic disease, high blood pressure, depression, cognitive decline, and dementia”. In addition, he notes, “Having people around us with whom we can communicate on a heart-to-heart level may also reduce the effects of stress.”

We all want to be happy but things can quickly change when we suddenly retire–Lee goes on to say “People, especially as they get older, are experiencing deeper and more frequent forms of unhappiness in many spheres of life: chronic illnesses, alienation or disruption of personal relationships, weakening of economic power. Suddenly facing their social roles greatly reduced during retirement, people are likely to find their self-esteem withering away.”

Most of that has hit me hard so I’m here to tell you that, whether you are retired yet or not, it’s a good time to start making a list of plans and actions that you are going to take on when that day arrives and be sure an active social life is on there. Personally, I’m bound and determined to catch up and do just that!

In Lee’s book he also talks about another thing that can lengthen and make your life more pleasant and happy and it’s something that I’ve talked a lot about over the years – having a good strong purpose and hopes and dreams. I will talk more about those issues in my next week’s post.

Retirement – The Best or the Worst

I’m sure you, like most people would agree that the majority of us humans look forward to the day we get to retire. You know … no alarm clock to wake us up, no worrying about pleasing our boss, and so many other things we won’t have to do. You imagine life will be so great, that you will be able to relax, do anything you want to do, have tons of fun, and be able to travel anywhere in the world (that you can afford) on a whim.

Well, you know what? Some of that may be true. But when you find yourself without a schedule or purpose, that can get very depressing. You might even go a little crazy. And nowadays we have COVID-19 on top of that so it can be even worse. In fact, most of us are getting a preview of retirement now that our routines have been so dramatically changed.

You might find yourself asking, “Just what am I going to do today?”

The smart one’s among us begin to make lots of plans long before they hit that retirement wall. When I was preparing to retire, I made a few plans, but I didn’t create enough to-do lists or new routines.

So, what did I do when I was feeling down because of my lack of a schedule? I turned to books written about retirement. In Ernie J. Zelinski’s great book The Joy of Not Working, he makes lots of great suggestions such as, “One of the chief sources of happiness is having a special purpose or a personal mission in life … Finding and pursuing your true calling can make life a totally new experience.”

He then gives some examples of personal missions:

1. Make the world a better place to live by reducing pollution.

2. Raise money to help care for others in need.

3. Help children develop a special talent or skill, such as playing piano.

4. Write entertaining children’s book that help young boys and girls discover the wonders of the world.

5. Give foreign travelers the best possible tour of the Rocky Mountains.

6. Create a committed relationship and keep it exciting and energizing.

The author goes on to say, “Although a true calling should be closely tied to your values and interests, it can also be determined by your strengths and weaknesses. Your personal mission will intimately connect you to who you are and to the world around you. Taking the time to answer the following questions may help reveal a personal mission that you would like to pursue.”

I must say that his questions really helped me:

1. What are all your passions?

2. What are your strengths?

3. Who are your heroes?

4. What do you want to discover or learn?

Answering those great questions can put you on the right track. It has for me. So, if you are not retired yet, start making specific plans. And if you are retired and struggling, answer those questions above to help you discover your great purpose and direction for this new chapter in your life.

 

Solving the Mystery of You

As I promised in last week’s post, I’m going to discuss how we solve our own “mystery”, the mystery being what it is we really want out of life.

To help point you in the right direction and solve this mystery, I have compiled the following questions for you to ask yourself. Write or print out the questions along with your answers after contemplating them.

Then, after a bit of time, go back, and reread the questions and your answers, letting them sift through all the corners of your mind. Don’t get impatient with this. This is important “inner-self” work you are doing, laying a fertile foundation for that which is to come.

1. What do you naturally and instinctively like to do? Forget about any financial or time constraints. Let your mind be open and flow and just write down the first things that come to your mind.
2. What did you like to do when you were a kid? What was your passion then?
3. What is it that you do now that really gets your juices flowing?
4. What comes easily to you? Are these your passions?
5. What puts you in such a mental state that you lose all sense of time to the extent that you say to yourself, “please let this moment linger” or “I wish this moment and feeling would never end”?
6. What is it you most want to stand for?
7. What do you want to be remembered for or leave to the world?

 

Now, take time to dig deep!

Make an appointment with yourself and sift through the questions above. Remember, it takes time – sometimes weeks or even months – to discover what’s hidden in the inner regions of your mind and heart.

Take time to seek advice from others. Especially from those you think highly of and those who have done some of the things you are considering doing with your life. Go ahead, call those gurus, those super successful people who you’ve always admired and tell them that you’d like just a few minutes of their time. Sometimes people who seem far above the masses are more available and approachable than you would believe.

I’ll never forget the desire I had when I was young to pick the brain of the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc, who made a billion dollars after the age of 55. I was stunned, shocked, surprised, and pleased when I was told by Mr. Kroc’s secretary that Mr. Kroc has agreed to meet with me and talk face to face! Wow!

Read and research all items and areas you can that deal with the wants on your dream list, the areas that seem to be most relevant to you and your life and how you can reach your dreams and goals.

As you read, research, and talk to the right people, be sure to write down not only what comes from those sources about what may fit your ideal life, but also record on paper or in your computer all of your own thoughts, ideas, and feelings that come up. This, as you will see, will be helpful and insightful to you later on when you re-read your own thoughts and words that passed through your mind.

Rediscovering Passion

Passion for life is a very important thing and as we get older, unfortunately, many of us lose our passion for life. I’m sure you have noticed that little kids seem to have the most passion for life. For a kid, most things are new to them and, as we all know, novelty is what they thrive on.

In our later years, we’ve seen so much and done so much that most things are not new to us. That makes it easy to lose our passion. You may feel that you have lost some of your passion and you ask yourself, “Why don’t I have passion for my life now?” or “Why don’t I know what I want in life?” Those two questions are particularly bothersome if you once had great passion for the things you did and then, as you got older, you lost some of that passion.

If that has not happened to you, maybe someone you know and care about has hit that wall. Far too many people give up on life. They fear striking out in aggressive, new directions. They fear risk. They fear the possibility of failure and losing what they have.

With some new insight and some very directed work, that passion for living can come screaming back for you or someone you love that you want to help. It’s all about continuing to turn what you really want, what you dream of, into specific goals and then transforming them step-by-step into reality – your reality!

A good way to start is to write it all down. First, ask yourself specific questions, like the ones I list below. Write down the thoughts that each of these questions stimulate. Don’t just think about them.

1. Do I want to substantially raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
2. Do I want to become a better person?
3. Do I want to be known as a person of accomplishment?
4. Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
5. Do I want to live a very long, active life?
6. Do I want to make a fortune – a million dollars, or $10 million, or even $100 million? (Think of all the good you could do with that much money!)
7. Do I want the choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune could give me?
8. Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
9. Do I want to help others as I help myself?
10. Do I want to travel and experience the entire world and its cultures?

Again, be sure to write down your honest responses to the self-searching questions above. It’s a good idea for you to develop some of your own life questions and answer those too!

In fact, add two last questions for yourself:

1. What do you have a true passion for in your life?
2. What part of your life or past life, including your childhood, got you so excited that you totally lost track of time?

Our Short Lives Needs Big Passion

 

 

I just asked a printer to print a couple thousand copies of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, since I ran out of copies to sell or give away. I was reading a bit of what I wrote many years ago and I was surprised to realize that the words in that book were reigniting my passion, so I wanted to share some of those words with you.

Let me start with Chapter 2 which is entitled, “Short Life needs BIG Passion”.

• Life really is too darn short to live without passion.
• Time squandered is wasted–gone forever!
• Don’t be like those who, later in life, realize that they missed out on so many opportunities. I believe most people, when looking back at their lives, are in more pain over the things they didn’t do than over things they failed at while trying to do them.
• We receive long-lasting benefit, and yes, even deep satisfaction from working hard and giving something worthwhile our all.
• There are many who think the way to achieve satisfaction in life is by going after pleasure. They think that more and more pleasure will put more contentment in their lives. So sorry. It doesn’t work that way.
• There’s a huge difference between deep, enduring satisfaction and fleeting pleasure; between passion and a good time. At a gut level you already know this. The pursuit of pleasure for its own sake leads to misery.
• It’s also not easy to always remain at a high level of satisfaction and contentment with an effervescent passion for life. There are plenty of setbacks. Even, at times, huge fists of adversity may pound us in the face.
• Setbacks and adversity often reveal to us the great lessons of life if we would just learn from them.
• I’ve certainly had my share of setbacks, even tragedies. I wouldn’t choose to be faced with these tragedies but I must say that, since they did happen, they served as huge life lessons and wake-up calls that I don’t think I could have learned any other way.

Give these words some thought, set big goals, and go after them with all your energy and heart. You won’t be sorry!

 

And if you would like a copy of How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, you can get it here on my website.

 

 

Creating Your Own Novelty

 

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!

Duplicating Success

 

As I mentioned last week, I love a good success story and have often tried to get to know these big successful people. In a few cases, they even offered to be my mentor. I really believe that the mentoring was one of the most important contributors to my financial success.

I’m also a huge believer in seeing what other super successful people do and then going out and doing the same thing. I did it with my first book after seeing what Joe Karbo, author of The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches, did to sell his books. I got to know him and then did the same things he did, selling 2 million copies of my first book.

And a long time ago, I read of a guy that converted his apartment units into condos, selling them to existing tenants or new buyers. I took that idea and converted 70 plus apartment units I had in Pennsylvania to condos, quickly selling out to most of the renters who were already in them and, wow, did I make a quick profit of over $7 million! Did that surprise me and please me? Oh yeah… big time!

I also looked to other people when I started fixing up houses. Realizing that the decorating part wasn’t really my thing, I picked other people’s brains to get the ideas I needed. Picking people’s brains is pretty easy since people like to talk about themselves and what they do for a living. I would simply take designers, architects and other professionals to lunch and get ideas for the cost of a meal. I would also look at other nicely fixed up houses. I have gone so far as to exactly copy the look of a neighboring house I was fixing up because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. That little bit of copying got that house sold super-fast!

It’s amazing when I travel to new and different countries too. I see a lot of ways people in other countries are being successful and not just when it comes to making money. For instance, in Europe, people eat much smaller portions, have tiny refrigerators because they buy food fresh so often, and they take time to relax when they eat. We could learn a lot from the way they eat over there that would be healthier for us all.

All of these things are something that anyone can copy and, yes, that means you! Keep your eyes and mind open and you might just see things you can duplicate to make a better life for yourself and maybe even make a fortune.

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