Kiev: The City that Never Gave Up

This week I’ve been traveling in Europe and spent a very pleasurable couple of days in Kiev, Ukraine. Kiev is one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe. The city has existed on a roller coaster of great prosperity and prominence as well as near obscurity.

It’s thought that Kiev was a commercial center as early as the 5th century being on the route between Scandinavia and Constantinople. The city was seized by Vikings in the 9th century then was demolished by Mongols in the mid-13th century. The city made a comeback during the Russian Empire’s Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s then was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Ukrainian National Republic in 1917. It weathered the sweeping communist reforms of the early 20th century only to be greatly damaged in World War II. Yet it recovered to become the 3rd largest city of the Soviet Union and eventually the capital, again, of an independent Ukraine in 1991.

The history of the city is amazing as are its people. We all go through great challenges and sometimes great defeats. Being knocked down is only a temporary state though. If this city which has been invaded, demolished, controlled by its neighbors, and beaten up multiple times can recover to claim and reclaim its prominent position after all its been through, there is no reason why we as individuals can’t weather our losses and come out on top in the end.

Just a little lesson from a city that has been through it all.

Your Life’s Biggest Stars

In my home office I have a bunch of pictures of me with famous people including the Dali Lama, President Bush, Michail Gorbochev, Lech Velessa, and many more. In the middle of these photos, there is a big sign that reads “PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW ME” because I want to make it clear, I’ve meet these people and it’s kind of cool to share that moment but the fact is, they don’t know me and aren’t the important people that have really affected and changed my life.

Being famous is really no more than a characteristic of a person’s life, like having kids or knowing three languages. Famous people are just people working through the trials and tribulations of life, just like the rest of us. But there are people that we meet that truly are important and touch our lives. These are often our friends, colleagues, family and even strangers. The fact is, the only people that are truly exciting and amazing to meet are the ones that enrich your life through their friendship, knowledge, and/or inspiring actions.

So, who have been the real stars in your life? What have they done that have made them shine in your mind? These are the kind of people you want to meet. Just keep in mind, to meet more of these kinds of people you need to get out there, network, and give serendipity a chance to bring them your way.

Recognizing You Own Stardom

Last week we went to a great concert and, using a few connections I had, we got backstage and meet some amazing people, like, well, Bono, as you can see in the picture here. Was I thrilled to meet him? Sure. But meeting that big of a star really isn’t what you might expect.

It’s strange that we all kind of feel that if we meet a famous person it will somehow make us more important or more interesting or will somehow change our lives. It really doesn’t do that, except maybe in our own heads. In the end, they are just people, like anyone else you run into.

Knowing that they are just people tends to make you realize that these, essentially, regular human beings could be you. So what is the difference between you and famous people? Some of them were just lucky but more often they were persistent, highly motivated and had a great support system–all things that you can or do have.

So are there really any superstars? Well, yes. You. You are the superstar of your life. What you do, what you accomplish, even what you attempt, are all reasons to be proud and ‘star struck’. Your actions are what will differentiate you and your life, for yourself and the people closest to you, not meeting someone who has reached the kind of success that simply gets them noticed.

If you feel like success has been eluding you though, take a look (or another look) at my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, for some in depth ideas on setting and accomplishing your goals and get to work on your own life of stardom.

Gratefulness Takes Action

OK here is the $64,000 dollar question. What should you and I choose to do? Be mindful of what we have and be grateful most of the time, reaping the benefits from that attitude along the way or whine and complain and be ungrateful and end up unhappy and miserable?

Ok, I know that’s not to tough a question but isn’t it funny that regardless of the answer, we so often fall into an ungrateful mode in our daily life? So what do we do about that?

Well, maybe we just need to practice it more often, be mindful of our attitude and stop the complaining when we realize what we are doing. Let’s just go out and do it, maybe 3 or 4 times a day, and see the difference it makes in our lives and the people around us. But we just can’t think about it. We need to take action, make it important in our lives. Start now. Write or call someone or post to your favorite social network site–just put something out there, saying that you are grateful and want never to forget it. And start reaping the benefits.

Waiting is a Blessing

Thinking more on the issue of gratitude and looking at my own experience I couldn’t help but think about two incidences that I observed while traveling recently. One of these times we were waiting for our bags at baggage claim for maybe 10 minutes, when a guy standing next to me started complaining aloud about having to wait. He went on for a while before he finally blurted out “Delta always does this to me!” I thought to myself, does this guy actually thinks Delta is picking on him? Only a minute later the bags came down the chute but instead of being grateful he grabbed his bags in a huff and stomped out of the terminal. I was certain his blood pressure was pushed to some upper limit by then. And all over a couple minutes of waiting.
 
The other time was in the very well-appointed Delta Crown room in the Los Angeles airport. A young woman was loudly complaining to someone on her cell phone about her flight being canceled the night before. It seems the airline put her up in a Marriott Hotel, complete free with meals, at their expense. But instead of being grateful that the airline did everything they could to make her comfortable during an unavoidable delay she acted as if the event was destroying her life! And all I could think of was how she’d do at an airport in Libya which was dealing with a severe uprising that week.
 
Both these people had lost complete perspective on the situation they were in. It used to take days or weeks to travel from one major city to another in the US. In other parts of the world, it still does. And you don’t always get your bags back or have a flight available at all. We should be immensely grateful when things work expediently and ideally. We should be grateful we can travel rapidly and in great comfort. We should also be grateful, when we do have to wait, that we are given that opportunity to stop and appreciate all we see around us, and all that we have. Even the moments we have to stand still are something to be grateful for, if only we would stop and realize it.

Inspiration for Change from Across the Sea

Since December of last year, the Middle East has been in turmoil, unrest growing from grumbling to full scale rebellion all across the region. Protesters of these countries commonly cite the inspiring events that occurred in the small Mediterranean country of Tunisia whose citizens were the first to drive actual and dramatic governmental change in the region through demonstrations and protests.

I have to say it’s been impressive, as well as painful, to watch. But this is what change is. It causes pain as well as elation. It topples the familiar and even comfortable status quo while presenting all the wonderful possibilities it brings. It wrecks some, if not all of what was built previously to clear ground to build up for new lives, practices, and dreams.

I know the trials these people are going through in the Middle East make many of our struggles seem insignificant. But they are OUR struggles and if the people in Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, and the many other countries all over the world fighting against oppression and corruption can bravely move forward with their momentous tasks, we really should be able to pull together enough courage to move forward with the goals we’ve set for ourselves. Tunisia’s circumstance may not relate to our own exactly, but their passion and determination can be an inspiration to enact the change we know we need in our own lives.

Increase Contentment–Shut out the ‘Self’

In the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csikszentmihaly says the battle over self is the only battle that you must win for complete contentment, that all other battles will be relatively easy when battle over self is won.

It’s not an easy battle, I can tell you. But it helps if you understand what ‘self’ is and can recognize it.

Self is that part of you that is instinctual, the part that would prefer to rest, eat more, and spend more time in physical pleasures. This part of ourselves is rooted in our long ago past. Way back when every day was focused on just surviving, we had to rest whenever we could because every waking hour was spent hunting and gathering. It was also a time when food wasn’t always readily available so you would eat up when you could. And as lifespans were short, a strong sex drive was a matter of survival for our species. These desires for rest, food, and sex were a necessary part of our lives.

Our society and our way of life have evolved dramatically in a relatively short time but these impulses did not. We still battle the instinctual self every day, trying not to be distracted by it so we can accomplish the things we want and know we should be doing. When we are in ‘flow’, however, all of this inherent self falls away. Our world becomes the challenge we are engaged in and nothing more. We are no longer battling old instincts or even wrestling with modern pressures. There is no self to be concerned with, just the task at hand and that sense of contentment it brings.

It would be great if we instantly fall into this flow state whenever we needed it but it’s just not that easy to overcome the self. However, we can work towards it in many things we do, shutting out that voice that sidetracks us or complains about the work to be done. This is the old, unnecessary ‘self’ talking to you. Learn to recognize it for what it is and shut it out. We can’t do much about it being there, but we don’t have to listen to it either. That is another thing about modern man. We have a choice.

The Power of Your Written Word

Success. I talk a lot about it. But as they say, talk is cheap. Writing, however can be gold! If you want to be successful you need to have your intentions down in writing. Even if you are the only one to see it, putting down what you’re going to do, and WHEN you’re going to accomplish it, will be a major motivator. It’s as if all the thoughts in your head have become real and concrete, something that you can’t ignore or put off.

Putting your goal in writing forces you to really consider what it is you want because now you have to put it down in black and white, in a form that is concise and easily understood. When you write out your goal, answer all the basics: Who, What, Where, Why, How, and, most importantly, When:
–Who’s involved in this project?
–What is the end goal?
–Where will you work on this goal or where do you need to go to move it along?
–Why do you want this?
–How will you achieve it?
–And when will you achieve it?

Your actual questions might be a little different but put the answer to those questions down on paper and your ideas become more than just words, they become a contract. And that’s exactly how you should treat it. Write out your goal and sign it! Then post it where you can see it every day. Put your deadline (or deadlines if it will be done in stages) on your calendar, your day timer, and/or your phone. Make this goal as real and as much a priority as anything else you deem important in your life.

Your written goal will really be key to your success. It will be the starting point for your actions and determine the direction you will take. And as the journey to achieve your goal progresses, don’t forget the power of your written word. You can use it to define all the steps in between and keep you on course. After that, it’s just one step and then another. Just keep on writing it down.

Make 2011 An Year of Action

Here we are in the first week of another new year and so many of us are making plans, renewing commitments and generally trying to figure out what we want to accomplish this year. I know I have a few things that I’m ready to get to work on including training to defend my tennis gold, bringing more passion into people’s live by booking more interviews, organizing a big gather of old friends and colleagues and, yes, I have renewed my longevity goals, continuing the tough CR (calorie restriction) diet–the only scientifically way to extend your maximum healthy life span. But regardless of what any of us plan to do, there is one thing we all have in common. We MUST take action, real solid action, for any plan, goal, or dream to become reality.

That first step, the one that shows true action and commitment, is more important than any other step you take because it will be the impetus and motivation for every step afterwards. But don’t fool yourself about what a first step is. Reading a book, looking stuff up on the internet, or asking your friends’ opinions are usually part of the planning, not the actual steps to making things happen. The first real step occurs when you invest something valuable or take a real risk with your money, time, or ego.

• Throwing out all the junk food in your house is a true first step to dieting.

• Paying a lawyer to draw up your business organization papers shows a true commitment to starting on your entrepreneurial path.

• Joining a writer’s group that requires you to write 10 pages a week makes you accountable and shows yourself and other how serious you are about writing that novel.

So what is that first important step you’ll need to take to get your plans rolling?

If you feel like you still need a little push to take that step, or need some additional inspiration, try reading my book again, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. If you haven’t read it, then definitely get a copy and do so. Then get to work. Let’s see what wonderful things we can make happen in 2011.

Its Not Always About the “Really Big Goals”

Flying just south of Mt. Everest on our way from Kathmandu, Nepal to Paro, Bhutan, I was reminded of how important really big goals are in our life. Now, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, climbing Mt. Everest has never been a goal of mine but when I saw the mountain I thought, I don’t want to miss out on the chance to face that challenge, to some degree at least. So I decided, “I am going to climb that mountain and I am going to do it tomorrow!” And guess what? I did.

“Now, wait a minute!” you may say. “I thought you always preached that a huge goal like that takes a lot of thinking and planning? Can a person accomplish, to any real degree, such a huge goal without much thought or planning?” Well, yes, you can.

People ask me when they see the shirt that has my name on it, a picture of Mt. Everest and the 2010 date, if I made it all the way to the top or at least past base camp. I tell them that I did not make it to the summit but I did make it 100 meters past base camp–MY base camp, that is, a place at the very, very bottom of the Mountain.

The point was that I’d set a goal that meant something to me—taking the opportunity to try something, even if my accomplishment was small compared to reaching the peak. Because, yes, reaching the peak would take a lot of preparation and planning just like all Really Huge Goals do. But just because you can’t achieve the “Really Big Goal” doesn’t mean you always skip out on the experience altogether.

Life is about your experiences and memories, and the challenges you take on, no matter how small, will add to your sense of accomplishment and enrich your life. So even though you may not be able to ‘reach the top’ due to some unchangeable circumstance or because you chose to put the majority of your efforts elsewhere, if you have the chance to make a memory that won’t detour you from your primary goals, why not go for it?

May your New Year be filled with realized dreams and many happy experiences!

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