The Power of Partners

So how do you make your world bigger and really live ‘large’? Probably the biggest key to living large is through other people. Unfortunately, there is a big misconception when it comes to other people that seem to be living large and have achieved super success. We think they did it alone.

When we see someone who has come up with a great invention, a super creative piece of artwork or, for that matter, a new and very successful business, most people think it came from a single person’s mind, someone who has had a mental breakthrough all on their own. I certainly used to think that, but if you and I take a closer look at some of the most successful people in the world and even around ourselves, we’ll see that it just isn’t so.

A few years back I heard Joshua Shenk on NPR radio talking about world changing technological breakthroughs along with great works of art, each of which came, not from one brilliant person working alone, but from teams of two or more people joining their brains and forces to come up with heretofore unheard of successes.

Shenk wrote a book called Powers of Two and what a great book it is! In it he talks about great people like Paul McCartney, Steve Jobs, George Lucas and Vincent Van Gogh. It turns out that the key to their super success was hooking up with another person so that the power of those two brains could come up with unequaled genius and huge breakthroughs.

Those breakthroughs Joshua talks about may never have happened if those people had not met the right partner at the right time. For Paul McCartney the breakthrough came when he met and worked with John Lennon, a collaboration that later spawned the Beatles. For Steve Jobs it was hooking up with Steve Wozniak when one was a teenager and the other was only 20 years old. And for filmmaker George Lucas, it was his wife Marcia Lucas who is his secret weapon. Lastly, there’s a very good chance that you and I would probably never have known the name Vincent Van Gogh if it were not for a guy named Theo, Vincent’s brother.

The author goes on to make an undeniable case that most great and important breakthroughs that we think came from one genius working alone came from the ‘Powers of Two’. Joshua Shenk also talks about how critical it is for you and I to go out and find our tribe and to hook up with others there that we truly connect with. Sometimes it’s people like us and sometimes it’s people that are very different from us but regardless, they hit certain hot buttons with us that lifts us to a much higher level and pushes us to fulfill our great potential.

So, if you want to live large and do great things, don’t try to go it alone. Find that other person or persons who you can partner with and create big and amazing new things.  

A Friendly Question and an Honest Answer

There are certain questions that most of us hear nearly every day. They go something like:

• How are you doing?
• How are you feeling?
• How’s everything in your life these days?

And what is our usual response? Something like:

• I’m doing fine.
• I’m good.
• Things are moving along.

The answers that you normally don’t hear are:

• Not so good today.
• Oh man, I am feeling very depressed.
• Things are not going well in my life right now.

In our polite society, we usually don’t dump our problems on others, sometimes not even our close relatives and best friends. In most situations, that would be thought of as a considerate thing but maybe it’s not the best thing we can do for ourselves. There are times when it might be better for us to open up and tell the full truth, voicing the negative or tough things that are going on in our lives and in our minds.

But when would it be better to answer honestly rather than staying quiet and not troubling others? Well, when you have something really tough going on that friends and relatives can help you with.

It’s kind of strange that, in our society, it’s perfectly acceptable to tell someone that you have a cold but it’s a no-no to tell a friend you’re feeling down or depressed. Both conditions are real and can be difficult. And there are treatments for both but, unlike with a cold that we usually treat ourselves, depression often requires that we ask for help.

I met up with a longtime friend once who said in the usual manner, “Hey Mark, how are you doing?”  Suddenly, and to my surprise, I found myself telling him the truth, saying “Man, oh man, I’ve really been depressed lately.”

Next thing I knew I was quickly apologizing for dumping my personal problems on him. To my surprise though, he was not taken aback by my honesty but rather told me in turn that he too gets down and depressed.  I was surprised to hear him say that because he always seems to be on top of the world and so very happy.

He then gave me some very good advice on things I could do to pull myself out of my slump and in a very short order I began to feel better.  The advice he gave me was a series of things I already knew but had slowly stopped doing. Things like eating foods that can improve my mood and taking supplements like 5-HTP and Saint John’s Wort. And just as important as all the rest, he suggested that I push myself to stay busy and keep connected to friends and relatives.

I think because I am an active and wealthy person, people look at me and think I must always feel positive and never get depressed.  But many times, my advantages in life also make it difficult to feel motivated. I don’t have to work, and I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to. Even though that might seem to be a good thing, it can also drive you crazy.

We all need to keep busy and feel like we have a purpose. We need to stay engaged and connected to friends and relatives. We also need challenges which mean constantly setting goals for ourselves and staying on track as we pursue those goals.  Yes, I am preaching a well-worn subject to you, but I am very definitely preaching to myself as well. Because, even though I know this stuff, and you do too, we all need a little reminder now and then. And to get that, sometimes all it takes is giving a friendly question an honest answer.

Facing Our Temptations

As human beings, we have many good habits that we’ve formed and held onto in our lives and then there are some bad habits that we’d really like to dump. Like most of us, you have probably observed and experienced how very difficult it is to change a bad habit, whether the bad habit is overeating, overworking, sleeping too much or too little, watching too much TV, checking our email or text compulsively or some even worse habit or addiction.

Thinking about this recently reminded me to look again at a book I read some years ago. I believe it’s one that can shed tremendous light on our habits including how to form good ones and how to break bad ones. The book is Living Beautifully by Pema Chodron.

I must admit that even though I’ve formed lots of good habits that have led to some very wonderful and rewarding successes in parts of my life, I’ve also had some bad habits that have hurt me, and it’s been so very frustrating for me to try to break or change the bad ones only to fail and fall back into them. But Pema’s book has some real answers and directions that, so far, seem to be quite a breakthrough.

First of all, she outlines that part of the reason we have trouble breaking bad habits is because we are too hard on ourselves.  What most of us do when we end up doing something that we’ve tried to stop doing, is to get mad at ourselves, beating ourselves up with all kinds of negative self-talk. Then we try to repress our thoughts and whatever we did that got us to break our promise to ourselves. She strongly suggests that instead, we come to recognize that we are fundamentally good rather than thinking that we are fundamentally flawed.

Probably Pema’s biggest lesson for us is a bit surprising. She suggests that if we are trying to break a bad habit, we need to think hard on refraining from doing what we promised ourselves we wouldn’t do but DON’T repress it. In other words, face the fact that you are tempted or even that you give in and do it.

She goes on to say that many bad habits come from us trying to escape from uncertainty and fear in our lives, especially in particular situations.  So when we are faced with the desire to fall into that bad habit, we need to examine our thinking to see what led us to that point and then try to refrain from that action but not repress our thoughts about it. Tell yourself it’s okay that you feel like falling back into that habit but also tell yourself, in that moment, you are going to resist. And then every time the thought comes up, you do that again.

Pema has science backing her up on this issue.  She says, “Science is demonstrating that every time we refrain but don’t repress, new neural pathways open up in the brain. In not taking the old escape routes, we’re predisposing ourselves to a new way of seeing ourselves, a new way of relating to the mysteriously unpredictable world in which we live.” And so, in the process, we are hard wiring our brain to do the right thing automatically.

What I learned from Pema is already working well on a couple bad habits that I’ve been trying to break for years, and I am so pleased!! Try it yourself and you may well see what I mean and find success.

Investing in Uncertain Times

The past couple of weeks have been a roller coaster in the news and it has left some people feeling anxious about the future. That can happen right before an election anyway because we feel uncertain not knowing who’s going to be in White House or what they might do. We have also been going through a couple of years of high inflation coming off the crazy time we had with the pandemic. So, it’s no wonder that some people don’t want to take risks, especially big risks with their money.

Investing your money will always come with some kind of risk. If it wasn’t risky, everybody would be doing it! But none of us would make much money if everybody was trying to do it so think of risk as a kind of filter that sorts out the people who can’t take a lot of risk or who just aren’t comfortable with it.

The problem for people who aren’t comfortable with taking some risks is that they can end up looking back and regretting that they didn’t invest back when they had the chance to really grow their wealth.

So, what I’m trying to say is, don’t be like the people that will look back in 3, 5, or 10 years from now and wish they had gotten into real estate income properties sooner. The sooner you can start investing in real estate, the more wealth you will have in the long run.

I’ll tell you one really true thing — politicians are not going to cure our inflation. They’ve not been able to do so since the beginning of time.  So don’t think that your choice for government leadership is going to reduce inflation, give us certainty in the stock market, or create a strong real estate market. Besides, now is actually a good time because you can benefit from national inflation instead of being hurt by it.

The thing is though, you need to know how to go about getting into these investments, because otherwise you’ll be making all the mistakes you really want to avoid. I know… I made a lot of mistakes when I got started. But you don’t have to make those mistakes that are only going to slow you down. 

My book, The Next Step to Waking the Financial Genius Inside You, contains a tried and true game plan to avoid many of the common mistakes people make when starting out and gives you specific knowledge to keep you on the right path.

You and I may be different in many ways, but I honestly and sincerely believe we have at least one common interest — that we live in a country with opportunity, and we have the means to make things happen.

I have tremendous faith in our American free enterprise system — as I hope you do — and I believe that your efforts can be so well rewarded.  If you stop and think about it, our economic system is geared to allow the ambitious to succeed. So don’t let the ups and down in the news get to you. Instead, get yourself the information you need to make you feel more confident that you can minimize your risks. Because America still is a country where a person can make their dreams come true.

The Most Helpful of Lines

When we hear the word “dead” in a conversation, most of us automatically start to imagine some really bad stuff because dead is something we try to keep away from in most of the ways the word is used. But there is one use of the word “dead” that can, and does, add so much to our lives when used in one particular way — when it’s linked with the word “line”, as in “deadline”.

The origin of the word deadline is very interesting. It came about during the US civil war when prisoners were surrounded by barriers or sometimes just simple lines drawn in the dirt. If a prisoner crossed over these, the guards we under orders to shoot them dead! These boundaries were called deadlines.

These days, deadlines are defined as the time by which something must be finished or is a line or limit that must not be passed. So, it’s not as scary as the original meaning of the word but it can motivate us to get things done so we don’t cross over that line which, today, usually means we’ve failed, or we’ve missed an opportunity.

The good thing about deadlines now is that they can make our world a more organized and efficient place. They force us to push ourselves a little bit harder to do more and be more. Even though this is true, we still often need that little extra push even though you’d think that just the idea of how short life is would make us want to hurry up and get things done.

Sometimes I think that if none of us ever died then we would probably not have a clue why anyone would want to set time limits or deadlines on themselves, since time would not be much of a concern. Why? Because we’d never run out of it. But, of course, we all have a limited amount of time in our days and even in our lives. I mean, the average person lives less than 30,000 days or 720,000 hours. So, it’s important to use the time we have wisely and efficiently. Deadlines are one of those great things that help us do just that.

Just think what it would be like if we didn’t have deadlines for things like:

• Starting or finishing the workday.
• Starting or finishing a school day.
• Business deals or real estate offers to sell, buy or close a deal.
• Expected departure and arrival times for airlines, trains and buses.
• Meeting up with friends or doing things for family.
• When we want to accomplish goals that we’ve set for ourselves.

I think the last one on that list is particularly important. Sometimes those deadlines for our goals are not as immovable as, say, the departure of your flight or when you have to start work each day, but they are just as important. And they should be considered rigid and nonnegotiable. Why set deadlines for goals if you don’t work hard to meet them?

We don’t always make our deadlines but that’s no reason to stop setting them or stop trying to meet them. They give us something to reach for, something to motivate us and they give us a sense of urgency. So, you want to have those deadlines no matter what. Just don’t let those times when you don’t succeed in meeting your deadlines keep you from trying again or trying harder next time.

So, my message for you this week, and really for all of you who would like a productive and more satisfying life, is to keep setting big goals for yourself and be sure to include those deadlines so you can push yourself to use your time wisely and more efficiently. But don’t shoot yourself if you step over the deadline a bit. Just re-boot and try again.

Faith in the Brain’s Healing Powers

We all have good days and bad days with our health, and it can be frustrating when our bodies are not performing the way we want them to or need them to. But our health is not out of our power to control. As a matter of fact, we all do have a super powerful tool right in our own heads. It’s our amazing brain.

Researchers that study the brain-body connection have shown in numerous experiments how the brain can be tricked into believing it is getting better. A simple sugar pill can relieve pain or even cure an illness if the person believes that the pill being taken is genuine medicine.

That’s how powerful our brains are. They can make physical changes in our bodies beyond what we would normally give them credit for. There is a book I reread regularly called Super Brain. The authors, Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, point out that any of us can, if we so chose, set up or create our own placebo effect at any time without any kind of pill.

What’s supper interesting, as Chopra and Tanzi explain, is that “the effect isn’t limited to drugs, which is important to remember: anything you believe in can act as a placebo.”

They also ask where the relief comes from when the placebos are not actually doing anything themselves. They explain that it is simply, “the mind telling the body to get well.” The body really believes what it was being told and then it relieves the pain or heals the sickness because it believes it can. In other words, your mind can and does control healing of all kinds including pain, disease, and wounds that our bodies deal with from time to time.

These authors go on to say “Being your own placebo is the same as freeing up the healing system through messages from the brain. All healing is, in the end, self-healing. Physicians aid the body’s intricate healing system (which coordinates immune cells, inflammation, hormones, genes and much else), but the actual healing takes place in an unknown way.”

One of the conclusions that the authors come up with in regards to conquering and taking advantage of the mind-body connection is that, “In serious illness, doubts and fears play a marked role, which is why a practice like meditation or going to group counseling has been shown to help.”

That is certainly worth trying for most, if not all of us, whenever we want to cure our pain, problems, or disease. These kinds of things are probably very helpful to do on a regular basis even.

The authors suggest that there is a method through which anyone can apply their own placebo effect. It requires the same conditions as in a classic placebo response:
1. You trust what is happening.
2. You deal with doubt and fear.
3. You don’t send conflicting messages that get tangled with each other.
4. You have opened the channels of mind-body communications.
5. You let go of your intention and allow the healing system to do its work.

Our bodies have an amazing ability to heal themselves. When we get a cut finger or knee we slap on a band-aid and know that it will heal without further help from us. In doing that, we’ve just let our brain send a positive message to our cells to do their job. But when we get a serious disease we let our minds jump into the mix with all kinds of worry and negative thoughts doing pretty much the opposite of the list above. If we can have faith and believe in the body’s ability to heal itself then the brain will send the right messages to bring on and support that healing.

The bottom line here is if we are going to benefit from our own built-in ‘placebo effect’ we’ve got to, at a minimum, follow the list of 5 conditions above. If you can do that, you are supporting your body’s ability to take care of you, as it is supposed to do. I’m not saying modern medicine is not super helpful and needed, but it’s certain to get a big boost from your brain if you strongly believe in the ability of the medicine and your body to do their jobs and heal you.

Live Large, Take Risks

Back in 2015, Mitt Romney, former GOP candidate for President made some memorable and powerful comments to the graduating class at Utah Valley University. He advised the students “to experience a fulfilling, purposeful life.” But then he took it a step further and went on to say, “One thing you’re going to have to do is live a ‘Large Life.’” 

What great advice. That is something all of us need to think about and pay attention to. We need to go out and live large and do it our entire lives. So many times, we hesitate to “Live Large” in meaningful and fulfilling ways. Why? Because most of the time we fear that we will fail.

“Failures don’t have to define who you are,” Romney said in that same speech. “Through all my occupations, I have experienced successes and failures. I am asked what it felt like to lose to President Obama. Well, not as good as winning. Failures aren’t fun, but they are inevitable.”

How about you? Have you racked up a lot of failures or just a few? Do you think the frequency of your failures compared to your successes has motivated to try harder and go bigger or has it held you back?  

It seems to me, from my experience, that the number of failures I’ve had is in direct proportion to how large I’ve tried to live.  So, yes, I’ve had a ton of failures but I’ve also had some really huge successes. And I think I had those big successes because of all that I learned from my failures.

I remember one huge loss that I learned a valuable lesson from which led me to some of those very, very large successes. I had decided to lend a large amount of money with a restaurant as collateral. This turned out to be a huge mistake on my part! Why? Because I don’t know much about that kind of business so if it failed, I had little knowledge or skills to save it or run it. And guess what? It did fail and I lost almost all of what I had loaned.

What did I learn? Well, first of all, I found out that restaurants have a very high rate of failure, and, second, I learned that I shouldn’t stray from what I know best.  Not that I shouldn’t ever loan money but if I do, I should loan it on assets that I understand as well as sticking to improved real estate which, ideally, would also be income producing.

I forged ahead and made many millions of dollars worth of loans that were backed by real estate and I was very successful there.  Later, I discovered that I could do even better by owning the right kind of income producing properties. I also, very successfully, ventured into the development of condos and warehouses, where the profits were even bigger although they did come with increased risks. The thing was, those were risks I was willing to take because I knew the business. 

Had the restaurant been successful, I might have gone on to make bigger mistakes in that and other businesses that I knew nothing about.  So, yes, I would say that much, if not most, of my success with real estate backed loans came from lessons learned from that one particular failure and, confident that I’d learned a valuable lesson, I went on to “Live Large”.

So, don’t be afraid to take those risks and make mistakes but just be sure you are paying attention to the really valuable lessons you’ll find in living large.

Teaching Your Way to a Better Life

I am often struck by the thought that there is this huge life enhancing potential available to everyone on the planet that maybe we don’t always take great advantage of. It’s our ability to teach other people and, through it, help ourselves and others by sharing the things we have learned by educating ourselves and through our successes and even our failures.

Doing this has been changing and helping my life for years now. I have been teaching and preaching from the time it occurred to me that I had some really great stuff to share. But, strangely, it took me a long time to really identify what it was that I was doing, at least enough to put it into words.

So, I’d like to share with you my thoughts on why teaching and sharing your knowledge can be so important to you as well as to the people around you. Please, think deeply and intently about this and then put it into practice in any way you can. See if it doesn’t profoundly enhance so many parts of your life, even in the areas you’re already super successful in.

Here is what makes teaching so great for the person doing the teaching. Any goal, habit, human quality, or desire that you start preaching, teaching, or pontificating about will automatically, and almost without effort, push you to do more of it yourself. The knowledge you share, whether spoken or written, is like a truth drug for the mind, pushing you to do what you are encouraging and teaching others to do.  I am totally convinced this will, and does, work that way for everyone.

If you have been reading my past blogs you might remember me setting some pretty tough and maybe even overly ambitious goals through the years. Some I reached, and some I didn’t quite manage, but I know I wouldn’t have done as well as I did if I had not been constantly sharing my thoughts and ideas with you, my readers. After talking about any particular subject or goal setting item, I usually find my mind fixating on the advice I gave to you and pushing myself to do more and do better in that area. I can now see that it’s been my inner brain keeping me on track as I dig up and share these ideas with you.

I guess you could say that my brain pushed me to remain “true to myself” and to my readers as well. You see, if you teach and preach to others what they could and should do for self-improvement, or just about any subject, your inner self gives you the message that you must live up to what you put out there. We all know the saying, “practice what you preach”, and our inner brain and soul does not want us to be a hypocrite, therefore our subconscious pushes us to be true to our words. I am pretty darn convinced that is the best way to become better at whatever subject, goal, or life enhancing idea we want to improve upon. We just need to talk and teach others about it.

What knowledge do you have, or have you learned, that you want to be reminded and pushed to improve in your life? If you want to do better at it, there will be plenty of others that will want to do better at it too. So, why not teach and share what you know and help yourself do better and better at these things?

I challenge you to start teaching and preaching now about something that you want to improve in your own life. Be sure to write down your goals and objectives as well so you can stay on track. And then, in a few months, take a look back and see what it has done for you as well as for other people’s lives. Once you see how well it works and how it is a win-win for everyone, you just might be hooked on teaching and preaching your way to a better life.

Our Very Human Individuality and Commonality

I’m sure that you would agree that no two lives are exactly the same. This is true with people’s personalities, physical fitness, intelligence, disabilities, routines, and many other aspects of our lives. I’ve always been very impressed by how all humans are unique individuals. Sure, we may find we have a lot of similarities with many, many other people but we’ll never find someone that is exactly the same as us.

I’m pretty certain that if you met someone who looked exactly like you and their thinking seemed to match yours to a T, you would be greatly surprised and maybe even super shocked. But it’s so very unlikely that a meeting like that would ever happen. I’ve lived and visited tons of cities and countries and have met thousands of people, but I’ve never met another person just like me.

That is one of the things I get from doing so much traveling. I’ve meet and seen people from all over and they are all unique. I am always amazed at how very different people can be, especially once I meet and get to know them.

When it comes to travel, I owe my father big time. My father and I were so very different, but he introduced me to traveling and all the benefits it brings to a person, not just during or immediately after the travel but, pretty much, to their entire life going forward.

No, my father and I were not similar to each other in most ways, but he introduced me to this one thing that we both love that has been life changing in so many good ways.

It started a long time ago, when I was only 15. He took me and the family to Ankara, Turkey when he changed jobs. And, wow, did that ever change my life! It was such a positive thing for me in that it gave me the travel bug and introduced me to different cultures. That experience pushed me to travel throughout the rest of my life, and so I have continued to reap the benefit of those experiences, seeing different cultures, and meeting all these really different and interesting people.

So, yes, I have done a ton of traveling including visiting 96 different countries. My strong desire to travel even motivated me to plan my honeymoon, not just as a destination vacation, but as a trip to go around the world visiting numerous places, and we spent a wonderful 28 days doing that.

I am of the belief that if all humans could do a lot of traveling, it would make the world a safer and better place. It’s funny how we think we know what other people, or other cultures, will be like just from the things we’ve read or from movies or TV shows. But I think it takes actually being there to see and understand others and realize that we’re all just human beings who are not really all that different after all.

So, as unique as people are, it helps to realize that we all share being human and having really human experiences, emotions, problems, and hopes. If we could all appreciate these commonalities while valuing the fascinating uniqueness that we each have, I believe we could all be more sympathetic, understanding, and supportive of our fellow human beings all over the world.

Acceptance in the Here and Now

I noticed that I and a number of other people are having a hard time with life events recently. We will all have difficult times to deal with but how events affect us now and impact us in the long run depends on how we deal with them. If you’ve followed this blog for a while then you’ve probably read my thoughts on living in the now and how it affects your health, stress level, and just enjoyment of life. Well, the same kind of thing is key for dealing with hard times.

When we find ourselves in an emotional or difficult moment–whether it’s a bad injury, a deadline you’ve missed at work, or the loss of a loved one, one of the first things that comes to mind is wanting or wishing you could change the circumstances you find yourself in. There’s no point in doing this but we all do it just the same. If you hold onto those thoughts, you’ll just be torturing yourself which does you and those around you no good at all and can be harmful in the long run.

It’s true that some situations can actually be changed for the better, but, unfortunately, there are a lot of things you can’t change and some things we shouldn’t try to change. Sometimes trying to change the difficult thing we’re dealing with is just going to waste a lot of energy on a losing battle. Sometimes it can make something even worse.

So, the first thing you need to do with any situation is to accept what has already happened. The past cannot be changed. If you missed that deadline, well, you can’t go back and get the work done on time any longer, but you can move forward and get the job done as soon as possible or, if it’s just too late, put it aside and pick up the next most important task. If someone has passed away, celebrate who they were and how they have enriched your life while realizing and accepting that everyone will pass on and that it’s just part of this wonderful miracle of life we have been lucky enough to experience.

Accepting and living in the moment won’t make the stress or pain of what has happened go away completely and that’s okay too. Disappointment, pain, and sorrow are normal when things get rough. It’s an emotional reaction that we don’t choose. But we can choose how long we are going to dwell on it. Those emotions are a reaction to the circumstance, but the initial reaction is momentary.

So, go ahead and feel your emotions and accept them as normal and natural but let go of any attempts to control what has already happened. This will make it so much easier to accept difficult circumstances. When you do, it will reduce the emotional and physical pain and problems you’ll have while dealing with the situation.

That’s what it means to live in the now and accept and appreciate the moments we have, the good and the bad. It’s just not worth spending your precious time wishing things had been different. And it’s not worth your precious energy to try changing the present in an attempt to rewrite the past, no matter how bad an effect it has had on you and your loved ones.

So even though you can’t change the past, you can change the here and now and you can change what happens next. The only thing that can do this and can change how a difficult situation will affect you, is in how you deal with it in the moment you have, that moment of the here and now.

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