The Magic of Nature and the Human Connection

I’ve been hiking up Millcreek Canyon ever since it turned so very hot here in Salt Lake City. It’s been 100 plus degrees on many days.  And let me tell you, the Millcreek Canyon hike is something to behold and as a big plus the trail I take has a wonderful canopy of trees blocking the sun for probably 80% of the hike. There is something magical about the great outdoors and for me it’s even more magical in the mountains or on the beach.  I don’t know what it is but I’m sure scientist have an explanation for what nature does to our brains that lifts and jump starts our spirits to a much higher level.  If you don’t believe me, the next time you are a bit down in the dumps, just take a walk outside, preferably in the mountains, on the beach, or at least out in the country side, and see if you don’t find your mood changed.

For me there is an extra boost to my mind, mood and spirit when I hike trails where others are hiking.  As I’ve talked about before, I love to drop $2 dollar bills on the trail when I see a father or mother hiking with small children–ideally in that 6 to 10 age range.  If you give a 3 year old a $2 dollar bill they don’t know what it is and usually drop it in a short time. They need to be old enough to understand what they’ve found.

My normal routine is to say to the parents as they are approaching, “Hey, have you taught your kids to pick up paper or litter when they see it on the ground?” and then I drop the money and keep walking and I hear the kids shouting out in delight and almost always the kids also scream out a big “Thank you!” Wow. Does that ever warm my heart! The kids love it but I think I love it more and get more out of it than they do.

I also love to meet people when I am out on my usual 2 or 3 hour hikes and that also lifts my spirits.  I have some standard lines that I use over and over because they usually work to start a short conversation or a quick exchange of pleasantries.  For instance, as I am approaching couples, whether young or old, with the guy in front and the gal behind, I say to the guy as I pass, “Hey, don’t look now but there is a beautiful lady following you.” That always brings big smiles and an exchange of upbeat comments.  They love it and so do I.

With these few words and small gestures, spirits are lifted. Plus it sometimes leads both parties to stop and have a short upbeat chat.  Yesterday I used one of my other standard lines when I’m on a particularly steep part of the hike and passing people.  I simply ask “Hey, how much further to the 7-11?” It usually brings a big laugh but yesterday it also lead to a conversation and a big coincidence.

After saying this to two ladies who laughed at my comment, I noted the younger woman had a French accent so I asked her where she was from. After telling me she lived a couple hundred kilometers north of Paris, I told her we love Paris and France and have a very, very good friend from Normandy by the name of Franchoise and she is married to the skiing legend Stein Eriksen. When I mentioned this, the older lady said “Hey, I know who you are, Mark Haroldsen, the author. And I know Franchoise. Her son plays tennis with my son.” So again that brief encounter lifted our spirits with a nice conversation and a fun coincidence and we all walked away with smiles on our faces.

The bottom line here is that I think all of us should get out in nature more and go out of our way to meet other human beings.  It’s a win-win and as I preach this to you, believe me, I am preaching it to myself to do more of that!

 

 

 

What We Can Discover in Other People’s Worlds

I don’t know about you but I absolutely love to travel, especially to foreign countries and places I’ve never ventured into before. It excites my mind and does good things for me physically as well. Psychologists have told us for years that the human brain craves and thrives on novelty and also that a brain that gets excited can many times coax or persuade the body to maintain or even create better health. It sure seems to do that for me!

My wife and I just got back yesterday from Europe. Even though I have visited the Netherlands a few times before this last trip, this visit still stimulated my mind and body quite a bit. I am sure part of that was that I’d never taken the high speed train from Paris to Amsterdam and viewed that marvelous scenery. We also stayed in an old and quaint yet very different hotel right on one of Amsterdam’s famous canals.

A few days later my wife and I again took the train but to a city I’d never visited before. Just outside the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (commonly known as Den Bosch) we were privileged to watch from our nice fourth row seats a great tennis tournament played on grass as a warm up tournament for the renowned Wimbledon tournament. Interacting and getting to know a few of the wonderfully friendly Dutch people was tremendously fun as well as interesting and mind expanding. I even learned that the Dutch are, on average, the tallest people on the planet.

I’ve thought many times how different the world would probably be if virtually everyone could travel and visit dozens of different countries and cultures. I can’t help but believe that if this were to happen and we all took the time to really study and get to know and understand other people, we would grow to be so much more accepting and sympathetic. It would, no doubt, greatly diminish and maybe even halt the huge conflicts and wars of the world.

Just think about how you try to help one of your kids or friends that are having problems. Most of us try to understand the causes of those problems and the more we discover, the sympathetic we are and the more we can help out. Getting to know and understand other cultures makes it more likely that we will be able to accept, and when needed, help these others people that previously we may have thought were rather strange. Next time you travel to a new place you might want to keep that in mind and see what you might discover.

 

A Passionate Book Report

Last week I had lunch at Duke’s on Kalapaki beach in Kauai.  If you have been to Kauai you probably know the place. A friend of mine in Salt Lake City, Tom Roughton, told his cousin, Jeff Rahill, that I was on the island and suggested we have lunch since we both had done extremely well by buying beat up properties and fixing them up.  At the end of our delightful lunch I gave Jeff a copy of my latest book How to Ignite Your Passion for Living and jokingly told him there was a  book report, double-spaced and graded on a curve, due in 2 weeks.  We both laughed but then would you believe, two weeks later there it was a 5 page, single-spaced, book report on my computer screen!

I was very surprised how well it was written and how it was spot on in commenting on the most important points of the book.  Reading Jeff’s comments reignited my own passion.  Of course part of it may have been the fact that he loved my book and that stroked my ego but it also motivated me to refocus on the book’s lessons—to do more, be more and stick with my big goals and even add more goals to my list.

So I thought I’d share with you some of Jeff’s comments and wisdom and see if it stirs you up as well:

“I wanted to tell you that I just finished reading your book and will at least give you my comments–even though it’s not exactly a book report.”

“I’ve believed for many years that goal setting is the key to getting what you want, so your book resonated with me in its premise and in many of the details.”

“’Return to Exuberance.’ Yes, I would like to get back the exuberance I felt at a young age, probably sixth grade, or in my twenties, for me. I agree that the dreams or goals have to be big.”

“’Short Life Needs Big Passion.’ The older we get, the more we realize how short life is.  We are here, and gone, in a speck of time.  I didn’t have a goal as a young person to have a million dollars or anything like that. It wasn’t until I was 25 that I even started to keep track of what I had, and at that point it was more ‘keeping track’ than setting a monetary goal. I kept track of my net worth every year, but didn’t hit one million until I was 50.”

“…..we all need a dream list.  I’ve often put pictures up on my bulletin board, in front of me all day, of the things I like. It keeps me dreaming, and that’s the first step toward it becoming reality.”

Next week I want to share some more of Jeff’s thinking and wisdom from his ‘book report’. Think on these initial comments in the meantime and see if it starts a spark of motivation in you. You can order the book as well right here on our website. Just click!

A Kindness in Flight

A few weeks ago I clicked on my dear friend Richard Paul Evan’s blog and read the story of a flight he was on where he observed a random act of kindness. His story brought tears to my eyes and I wanted to share it with my readers as well. So please click here to read the story. You will be so very glad that you did.

 

The Kind of People for You

I picked up a book yesterday written back in 2003 by an old friend. The book has a one-word title: Goals! The subtitle is “How to Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible.” I’ve always felt it a privilege to call its author, Brian Tracy, a friend. He’s not only a warm, friendly person, but he’s also smart and wise. His advice in Goals! is fantastic. I read it back in 2005, and I have reaped huge rewards from following his wonderful and sage advice.

When I picked up the book up yesterday, I took a quick look at the handwritten notes and quotes I pulled that I had scribbled in the front blank pages of the book (with the page number references, of course!) I found myself immediately pulled back into the book to my favorite parts and what I thought was Brian’s best advice and ideas. Thoughts like: “Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed,” found on page 263.

But what Brian wrote about the concept that gives a person a huge advantage to be successful that really influenced me was written under the subhead, “Get Around the Right People.” Brian goes on to say that we should “make it a point to associate with the kind of people that you like, admire, respect, and want to be like sometime in the future. Associate with the kind of people that you look up to and would be proud to introduce to your friends and associates. The choice of a positive, goal-oriented reference group can do more to supercharge your career than any other factor.”

When I set my goal to be a millionaire, one of the first things I did was to set in motion a plan to meet and get to know wealthy people. On that list were two billionaires who didn’t know me from Adam but who, with persistence and a plan, I was able to meet and get to know as well as get advice and financial formulas from them. My very first “adviser”, and a man who became a good friend, was a multimillionaire by the name of Larry Rosenberg. The two billionaires were Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, and Curt Carlson, founder of the TGIF restaurant chain. Later I was fortunate enough to connect with businessman Paul J. Meyer, who built a half-billion-dollar fortune starting from zero. He shared many ideas and formulas for achieving success at a quick pace.

In the margins of Brian Tracy’s book, I found this note his words inspired me to write: “In order for me to be able to associate with the right kind of people, I must work hard on myself to be that likable and right kind of person. When I think about it I know that for me and most people, we would all much rather do business with people who we really like and we tend to shun people that are unfriendly, grouchy or that are too argumentative. I don’t even like to play tennis with people I don’t like, even if I beat them.” So the bottom line here is to meet the “right” kind of people you must work on yourself to become that same “right” kind of person.

 

A Time to Give, a Time to Live

What a great time of the year!  You can feel something different is in the air.  Of course, that great old Christmas music helps encourage that feeling of giving, loving and gratitude.  Whereas it’s true that the human brain craves novelty and unique experiences, our minds are also soothed and comforted by the familiar sights and sounds that the holiday season brings us.

I’m pretty sure you are like me, and most other people on this planet, in that you get that warm comforting feeling when you give a gift, whether it’s something fancy or a simple thing or you are giving of your time by doing something special for someone else.  Because, yes, to give is to live more fully.

You may have seen on the news recently, where some anonymous person gives away, at Christmas time, $100,000 dollars in $100 dollar bills to people who look like they are down on their luck and really are in need.  This year, he did it in cooperation with the police force.  And he has the officers give his gifts out.

As I watched how it all played out on a TV spot this year, I was quite emotional.  What the cops do is drive around looking for older, banged up and aging cars with people driving that look like that they don’t have a dime to their name.  Then they pull the people over as if they are going to ticket them.  Of course the drivers, as they see the cop walking up alongside the car, are wondering what they did wrong and as they roll down the window, filmed by body cams the cops were wearing, you can see the great distress on their faces. The drivers were obviously distressed. Some were defensive, others belligerent and others were simply and quietly upset.  But then when the officer reaches in and hands them a $100 dollar bill and says “Merry Christmas”, the drivers face is instantly transformed. Some looked shocked and some even started crying.  One woman said, through her tears, that now she could give her kids a Christmas present when she thought she would not be able to give them anything.

The cops were as touched as the people were by that act of giving, even though it wasn’t their money.  As I watched, I couldn’t help but catch the feeling and the emotions those camera caught and, yes, I teared up a bit myself.

I am pretty darn sure that the more we give, give, give, the more we live, live, live!  I sincerely hope you have a tremendous season of giving and you receive the great rewards that giving gives!  Merry Christmas!

 

Delegate to Expand Your World

Last week I wrote about the power of delegation and how it can greatly magnify and expand your world whether it’s business or social or charitable.  Your first thought may be “wait a minute I don’t have a staff of workers to delegate to and I certainly don’t have the extra money to hire anyone, so how can I do it?”

The good news is you don’t need a staff or an assistant and you don’t need to hire anyone.  There are literally millions of people out there that are willing and able to take on tasks for other people and even do it for free.

Just look around and you will see people everywhere working hard for something they believe in but aren’t getting paid for.  You see it in folks that work for the PTA, for churches, little league baseball–soccer and football, boy scouts and girl scouts and even in demanding positions like apartment and condo association presidents and their directors.

Your task, if you want to expand your world, is to do a lot of work thinking and planning to find and pick good dependable people that are qualified and have natural talents fit for the tasks you give them.

Anything that takes up your time that you wish you didn’t have to do, can be delegated to all kinds of people directly around you as well. As your kids, grand kids, spouses, friends and neighbors. If you are asking them to do something for you and that something is their passion and they are really good at it, there is a very good chance they will do it and happily. These will greatly expanding your list of delegatee.

I am not saying that it is easy.  Thinking and planning can be hard work but again the rewards and the great expansion of your life can be well worth the efforts.  It’s fascinating to study the lives of many great business and civic leaders and see how they started with a small group of people that worked for nothing or very small compensation because they were totally turned on by the project that they were working on together. It’s all about finding what things people do that makes them happy and allowing yourself to let them gain more joy by doing these things for you!

Mentor for Success

Well, did you start doing it? Did you start looking for a house to buy as an investment or a place to live and profit from today’s super low interest rates? If you don’t know what I’m talking about go read my blog post from last week entitled “Money Money Money”. Maybe I should have called it “Low Rates Low Rates Low Rates”.

If you are already in a very comfortable place financially and either don’t need to or don’t want to make some easy money (I probably shouldn’t call it “easy money” it’s more like “simple money” because it does take work!), then may I suggest you talk to your kids or friends that may not be so comfortable but have the drive, desire and energy. You can be a major financial mentor for them and they will love you for doing it and you will get a ton of satisfaction knowing that you directed them and helped them.

I receive so many messages from people coast to coast and even from foreign countries, thanking me for my financial advice, for giving them the motivation to get up and get moving and for making good financial things happen in their lives. There are not many things in the world that give a person more satisfaction and contentment than knowing you’ve helped someone make major improvements in their lives.

And I’m not talking just about money. Just helping people believe in themselves and motivating them to be proactive in any and every part of their lives is what it is really about. Having a solid financial situation is certainly a good thing and can help in a myriad of ways but there is more to life than money. Bottom line … help others to reach their goals with encouragement and constant support. You will get your reward in the happiness it brings you to see them bring about what is important to them into their lives.

Our Common Thread: Being Human

Well, I’ve been traveling again–Paris and Serbia and Montenegro. As I’ve mentioned in other blogs, I love to travel because of the stimulation it gives my mind and my spirit. The newness of the experiences and the variety of the places and cultures all combine to inspire and energize me. But there is one thing I don’t find much different from place to place … people.

As much as we might want to imagine it, people around the world are, at their center, pretty much the same. I know that in my experience most people are good and kind and want to help regardless of race, religion or country. We all have this binding similarity that is all too easily forgotten—we are all human and we all want the same basic thing … to be happy.

That’s why it’s so upsetting when I read in the news about people segregating themselves from each other. Whether it’s Muslims feeling hurt by what they are told about the US or the 99% trying to make it look like the 1% are another species, what would really help is for us all to stop and think that each person has the capacity for love and caring as well as hate, each individual is someone’s child, each of us are struggling with pain and misunderstanding and desire. That is who these ‘other’ people are.

Knowing this I am not at all surprised as I travel to meet smiling faces and kind gestures in every country and every culture I get to experience. I think if we expect animosity we will find animosity but if we expect compassion and generosity, it will be there for us to find.

Our Circle of Very Special People

A couple weeks ago we drove to the annual Stein Eriksen “Trollhaugen Tennis Tournament” in Montana. Before I went I worked my buns off. Okay … some of what I had to do might not fit your definition of work since a lot of it was using the tennis ball machine to work on and improve my backhand and forehand but  I also did cram in a bunch of office work. In that time I wrote up a complicated contract, worked on a refinance of my Kauai house and made an offer on 3 new Family Dollar stores. All that office work and the tennis workouts were crammed into two days which made it a couple of frenzied days but it also make the tennis tournament all the more rewarding–even though I didn’t win. It was a ‘break’ that was all the more prized because of that hard work, just as I’ve been saying the last couple weeks.

Going to this tournament is actually not so much about the tennis as it is about the wonderful friends and great conversations. I mention this event on page 134 of my book “How to Ignite Your Passion for Living“. There is even a picture of the Eriksen’s and us in the book. Most of the people we see at the tournament are friends we only see once a year but still those once a year friends have become very close and dear to us over the last 15 years that we’ve been going.

Stein Eriksen (the 1952 Olympic ski gold medalist and world cup champ) along with his wonderful wife Francoise and son Bjorn are an inspiration to me. They have such an incredible ability to surround themselves with many very dynamic, successful, kind and gentle friends. I just hope over the rest of my life I can come even close to doing the same thing that the Eriksen’s have done.

There are few loftier goals, in my opinion and experience, that a person could set for themselves than to have many great, successful and kind people as friends. Surrounding yourself with these types of people is inspiring, motivating and so very fulfilling. You can never have too many so I say let’s go out and work on increasing our circle of very special people.

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