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.

The Wonder of Work

I’ve been talking a lot about retirement and how to keep busy and motivated. Not only is it helpful to create more goals, it’s also really smart to become friends with a word we mostly think of as a bad thing–work.

In the book, When All You Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, Harold Kushner lists the many super benefits of working. He notes that, “we work for meaning as much as for money. We work so that our days will not be empty of meaning, but the key to our happiness, to our being able to find pleasure in our work, is the sense that we are using our abilities, not wasting them, and that we are being appreciated for it. Whatever it is in your power to do, do it with all your might.”

Wow. There is some real wisdom and truth in what he is saying and, of course, that’s a big reason we all should be involved in the kind of work that we have a real passion for, even if that kind of work doesn’t pay much. Kushner says, “If we are lucky, we will find ourselves at a place in life where we can derive pleasure from our work. Some of us, if we are lucky, will see ourselves launched on new careers in mid-life which will give us that elusive feeling of pleasure.”

Kushner, paraphrasing a couple lines from Ecclesiastes in the bible, also wrote, “If you are not going to win a Nobel Prize for your work, if it is not going to make you rich and famous, it still can give meaning to your life if you take it seriously and do it with all your might.”

I am absolutely convinced that work is a powerful and wonderful thing for our lives and makes us feel so much better about everything. As the novelist Wallace Stegner said, “More people than would probably admit it find in work the scaffolding that holds up their adult lives.”

After I read Kusher’s book some 12 years ago, I began to re-dedicate and re-motivate my life with the work I loved to do. Of course, I still spend plenty of time enjoying life so I’ll keep playing and traveling but let’s face it, you can’t realistically play tennis, work out, hike in the mountains, and watch movies for 8 to 10 hours a day, every day, but you can work that long!

In other words, if you’re feeling bored or aimless, you can find great fulfillment in the accomplishments found in hard work. You can also meet fascinating people, contribute to humanity and, as an added bonus, make a bit more money along the way. So don’t try to get away from work. See it as another wonderful thing that can lift your life to great new heights.

Refire Your Life

I’ve written a bit about retirement recently, and how it kind of kicked me in the face, mostly because I hadn’t made enough plans or lined up enough activities to fill my life and all those hours that were suddenly open and free. The big problem was I hadn’t realized I needed to plan all those “to do” things so, instead of enjoying being able to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I found myself going a bit crazy.

This really surprised me but I hadn’t really thought about how important a routine, a purpose, or a to-do list was. Once I started to understand what was missing, I did set up new goals and tried to come up with, and stick to, a daily and weekly routine and it worked for me. Well, at least somewhat. There were still tough days to deal with.

Then, recently, I came across a book—I think one of my kids gave it to me. Its title, Refire! Don’t Retire, really grabbed me, as did the subtitle, Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life, by Ken Blanchard and Morton Shaevitz.  It’s a great book that has motivated me to plan more, set better routines, and go after more in life.

The author outlines four keys to the best life: Emotional, Intellectual, Physical, and Spiritual. This made me look closer at each of these areas of my life.

After reading this great book I concluded that I certainly couldn’t play tennis, my favorite game, all day, every day, so I decided to look at other things I could do that would give me great satisfaction and use up my free time.

When I stopped to really look, wow, did I find plenty of things to put on my list. There is everything from spending more time planning stuff with my family and friends to going out of my way to meet new people. Then I also thought, “Wait a darn minute. What have I always loved to do and now can do even more of? That big something that I’ve always loved is traveling. Yes, it takes money and can take quite a bit of work to plan, but that is just another thing I get to do with my free time.

I’ve found, over the years, that traveling to new places expands and excites the mind and we can all learn so much from looking at and being with other cultures and in other countries. It really does open up your life.

Then another thought that I haven’t followed through on yet, but I will, is to do more coaching and teaching of others, young or old, about the things I’ve learned about life and living. I want others to know that life is fun and fulfilling but it really does help to help others. I’ve had so many people come up to me or write to thank me for showing them the way to make a fortune and the many ways there are to expand their lives. Doing that has been the most rewarding part of all. It is better than money even.

Dark Times in the Midst of Great Success

Life is very interesting and can have huge ups and big downs. Most people think that if they make a lot of money all their problems will be solved. I certainly thought that. At least until I made a few million dollars.

I can’t really complain but, I have to say, I was surprised by some of the feelings that came up after making my fortune. Instead of finding all my problems solved, I found myself struggling emotionally. I still struggle a bit now, but it’s nothing compared to when I reached my financial peak. I didn’t, and still don’t, have any problems with money or trying to manage all my properties, but something else popped up. I was getting depressed, a lot, and way too often.

In the last year, however, I have made some great progress in that part of my life. First, I identified where most of the depression seemed to be coming from. Probably the biggest thing that brought on the depression was the huge change in my routine. We humans really do need some routine in our lives and when I had reached a very high point in my business life, I thought, okay, now I need to make some big changes so I could better enjoy my success.

I started by putting my kids in charge of my property management and some of the money management. At first, I was very satisfied with this new arrangement, but not too long after that I found that I missed the routine associated with managing my properties and money. Playing tennis and working out was helpful, but only a bit.

I knew I had to do something about this, so I started reading many books on the challenges of retirement and what can be done to overcome them. One of the best books I read was Mood Cure written by Julia Ross. This book pushed me to look into vitamins and supplements as well as pushing myself to set up a new routine. So, I did that and got a huge lift from the supplements and vitamins. They really do wonders for the brain and can help a person overcome depression, lifting the mind and spirit to a much higher level!

I also found studies that show how much serotonin can lift you out of depression or just low moods in your daily activities. Part of the problem for most of us is that we are surrounded by enemies that lower our serotonin. Things like too much caffeine, chronic stress, a lack of exposure to natural light, and a lack of physical activity can all throw your serotonin off. So, I work on relaxing, getting outside, and staying physical.

Depression can be really tough because once you’re in it, you can lose the motivation to work on getting out of it. But you can do it. Just take one small step at a time. Starting with vitamins and supplements is a great way to do that, as well as reading some great books that will help you figure out what is best for you.

Breaking Out of the Boredom

Recently, I’ve been writing about how keeping a record of one’s thoughts through a journal can be very helpful down the road. I’ve also recently found a few thoughts in those journals about how bored I became when I retired and some of the smart things I did that helped me with that.

If you are retired, you probably know what I’m talking about and if you are totally busy, working hard, long hours plus taking care of your home and family responsibilities, you might not hit that boredom thing very often. It’s funny how so many of us think of work as a negative thing, when, really, it’s a blessing. I think many retired people would agree.

So, what do you do if retirement has you bored out of your mind or, if you are not even close to retirement, you find yourself bored way too much with what you are doing now? Retired or not, what I’ve found, and continue to find, is that there are many different ways to cope when boredom becomes part of our lives, but there is one approach that I think works best.

One of the best solutions to any kind of boredom is to get busy and stay busy with projects you are passionate about. You want to push yourself to do things that are not just fun but that challenge you. Specifically, you want to projects that are well thought out and that fit with what you like to do, what you are good at, and what you find exciting and fulfilling. This might be a big goal, maybe something you’ve always dreamed of doing, but haven’t tried yet out of fear.

A big goal can really wipe away boredom. The challenge of trying something big, even the fear that might come with it, can give you a real mental boost. I remember how fulfilled and not at all bored I was when I decided to have a new house built for me in Kauai. No, I wasn’t the guy who poured the cement or swung the hammer, but I decided on the floor plan that fit my personality and figured out things what things fit my lifestyle—like good indoor-outdoor living spaces. Then, just about every day, there were decisions to be made and new things to learn so I could make the best decisions, and that stuff that kept me really busy so that I was rarely, if ever, bored.

I also went back to work after retiring. I wasn’t working like I used to, but I did enough to keep me busy, starting new and exciting projects. Since I was retired, I could choose to work on things I had always thought about doing but hadn’t had the time for yet. So, I wrote another book, started this blog, and set new, bigger travel goals.

So, if you’re a bit (or a lot) bored, may I suggest you look for something challenging and new to keep you busy? If you don’t have anything in mind right now, that can be your first big goal—to come up with a list of things you want to try or do. If you are just totally busy and never bored, then don’t change anything and be thankful. But also know that circumstances can change, so keep any eye out for that awful boredom and keep busy with exciting new goals.

Reset for Aging

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thing they call aging recently, especially since I am moving in on that big number 80. 

Last year my son gave me a book on my birthday called Successful Aging by Daniel J. Levitin that I’ve really enjoyed. Then the other day I came across two other aging articles. One was in the March issue of the AARP Bulletin titled, “The Answer to Age Related Weight Gain” and the other was titled “100 Ways to Live to 100” found on the website HuffPost, which I had read before. Combined, they really got me thinking.  

Since I have only 11 years before I hit 90 and, even worse, just 21 years until I come up on 100, I really studied those ideas and instructions that I thought would help me make the most of my life as well as those that would help me live the longest. It’s given me a lot of great things to focus on. 

I will never forget that French lady Jeanne Calmet who lived an active 122 years and 164 days, living on her own until 110. Or the Russian woman, Nanu Shaova, who lived to a record 127 years. These ladies prove that a long, meaningful life is possible. 

A new book, The Whole Body Reset by AARP, Stephen Perrine, and Heidi Skolnik, has a lot of great advice about how to preserve muscle at age 50 and above, such as…

• Eat at least 30 grams of protein at every meal
• Eat colorful fruits and vegetables
• Try strength training

That’s just a few of the great suggestions in this book that have to do with successful aging and living a better life. 

And here are just a few of the “100 Ways to Live to 100″ from that HuffPost article I came across again recently: 

1. Find a purpose for life

2. Walk a lot

3. Be happy

4. Do unto others 

5. Practice yoga

6. Be optimistic

7, Go meatless

8. Eat your fiber

9. Make healthy changes in your life starting today

10. Don’t dread getting older

There’s a lot of food for thought here. I’ll add to that list next week as well, but in the meantime, work with some of these suggestions. You can never start too early to improve your chances of a long, meaningful life. 

Daily Joy

Years ago, after successfully building my wealth, I retired so I could enjoy the “good life”, including traveling and having plenty of time to spend with family. That is the kind of life everybody would love to live, right? Well, it did not end up being what I thought it would be. I was shocked at how unhappy and depressed I could get. Sometimes I didn’t even want to get up in the morning. I just didn’t see any joy in my day.

This situation was a mystery to me at first. Why would leisure make me so unhappy? I researched my symptoms and tried various methods to improve my health and my mind. Some techniques I found worked, to an extent, but if I thought back to my earlier years when I had been working really hard to build my wealth, there was no comparison.

The thing was, when I worked long days fixing up homes or, later, negotiating huge real estate purchases, I was happy, regardless of all the toil and pressure of those times. I had goals and a bright future, and I was intensely passionate about what I was doing. It was while pondering the past that I realized, for all the great things I had accomplished, for all the wealth and love I had in my life, life was not worth waking up for without a purpose and a passion.

As it turns out, I enjoy life the most when I am helping others better their own lives and knowing that led me to a solution for what I was feeling. With so many years of experience and knowledge, and having already written books on succeeding financially, writing another book, one that would help people not just become wealthy, but would help them reach any goal they desired, was just a natural choice. Once I decided to write the book, my days came alive again.

It was a long, arduous road, but eventually I published How to Ignite Your Passion for Living in 2008. It wasn’t long after publication that I began to see and hear the stories of people whose lives were changed because of the words and techniques in my book. It turned out, however, that the book would be just the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one where helping people find their passion and better their lives became a focus for my life.

To this day, I continue to work towards spreading these ideas through whatever channels I find, including this blog. I continue to hope that, through these posts, I can further inspire and motivate people. And I always love to hear the stories of struggle and success from my readers, so if you have one or more to share, please do write to me.

My readers are my purpose and passion now, the driving force that gets me jumping out of bed in the morning, looking forward to all the new day has in store. I hope you have found or are looking for that something that brings joy into your life every day as well. Joy really is working towards something you truly believe in.

The Challenge of Retirement

For those of you that have recently retired, or if you are approaching retirement and doing some planning, there are a few unexpected surprises that might be waiting for you. At least there were for me.

I had looked forward to being retired and having all that extra time to do anything I wanted to like travel, play more tennis, and just have a great time. Well, I must tell you, when that day arrived, I was in for an enormous surprise.

I don’t think most of us realize what a great challenge retirement can be. It didn’t hit me immediately, but after a few months of it, I found myself going stir crazy. I came to realize that we humans need structure and a routine. Without that, we can become very frustrated. I talked to a few friends that had retired a year or so before I did and they told me that the same thing hit them. We all need a reason to get out of bed in the morning and I didn’t have any routine or daily plans to motivate me.

At that point, I began to see how very important things like going to the office and interacting with others were for us humans. I missed the social part of my work life and struggled with feelings of worthlessness because I wasn’t producing anything. We thrive on being productive which helps those around us and lifts our brain and lives to a higher level. Sure, I can travel more and have great fun hanging out with my kids, grandkids, and friends, but we need to be contributing to our lives and the world around us in some way as well.

My advice to everyone is to plan for retirement, not just financially, but in what you will do with your time. Make lists and talk with others that have retired or are heading that way fairly soon to see what, if anything, they are planning. It’s a good idea to look at your life and think about what brings you the greatest pleasure and what stimulates your brain and then see if you can build your retirement around those things.

Patrice Jenkins, PhD, wrote a brilliant book called What Will I Do All Day? Wisdom to Get Over Retirement and on with Living. In the book, she offers some great advice: Creating meaningful work in retirement provides an opportunity to step out of your comfort zone. If you’d like to, you can redefine yourself try something new and different. In retirement, you have the freedom to be anything that suits you.

Even if you are many years away from retirement, it’s not too early to do some thinking and planning now. I think you will be very glad that you did when those retirement days come around.

Mindful Aging

Wow, the end of 2021 is already here, just a few more days. Time is such an interesting thing and I find it fascinating that the passage of time seems to change its speed depending on your age and/or things you have planned in your life. When most of us were young, anxious to be old enough to get our driver’s license, time seemed to be moving so very, very slowly. I remember counting down the days until I could get mine. But things do change, especially when you get older.

At my age now, just a little more than 3 months until I hit 78, the years seem to speed up. I can remember, easily, the new year’s celebration I was at last year at my good tennis friend Al Ficker’s house in Kauai. It’s like it was just a couple of months ago. Wow, this year just flew by in a flash.

I am re-reading the great book by Jo Ann Jenkins called Disrupt Aging. I’ve written and talked about her book in previous posts. There are so many good and smart things she says about “really owning your age” and being proud of whatever that age number is. I loved her quote about a woman who said, “No one’s going to deprive me of my age.”

Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Encore.org, and author of The Big Shift wrote, “In Disrupt Aging, Jenkins offers the generational call to action we’ve been waiting for—to break free from outmoded ideas about age, to embrace the rich possibilities present in the decades opening up beyond fifty, and to join a growing movement of individuals determined to live lives infused with purpose. Beautifully written, full of humor and inspiration, and powerfully argued, this book offers the definitive map for making the most of the longevity revolution, as individuals and as a nation.”

Jo Ann has so many good thoughts and ideas for our lives as we age, such as:

• The best life includes contributing to the well-being of others.
• Try new things and take chances…don’t live in fear of aging.
• Focus on health, wealth and self. 
• This is a time to shift from “mindless aging” to mindful living.

If you are retired now, take a hard look at your life and determine your thoughts about aging. How can you age more mindfully? And if you are not retired yet, then it’s a good time to start making plans for what you are going to do when retired. Yes, write it down, make lists, set priorities and write down your future schedule. You’ll be glad you did when you finally retire.

And when you do retire, as well as right now, be sure to strive for always living in the right now moment!

For Love of Work

Last week, I said I would tell more of the story about Bunker Bean who I spoke about in the last couple of posts. However, I am going to do that next week as I have something else I want to share with you first.

Recently, I was thumbing through a great book that I read years ago entitled When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough by Harold Kushner. As I always do when I read a book, I wrote down many of the most interesting, helpful, and motivating quotes and comments that the author made. These notes are a great way to go back and easily refresh my memory since they highlight those points that hit me the hardest and helped lift my thoughts, actions, and life to a higher level.

Here are some of the points in this book that really helped me, especially the comments about work and how important it is for all of us:

l. Work can be the scaffolding that holds up our adult lives. (I need to keep remembering this as being retired makes it more difficult to find and do the best kinds of work for me.)

2. The key to one’s happiness is to find pleasure in our work and to use our abilities–no wasting them!

3. Our souls are hungry for meaning.

4. We work for meaning. We work so our days will not be empty of meaning!

5. Do not expect that life will always be fair.

6. For ultimate satisfaction, lower the level of what you want to what you already have.

7. The affliction which drains so much of the sense of meaning from our lives these days is that disease of boredom.

Kushner makes several other notable points in this book that are not easily summarized and put into a list. For example, he writes, “Asked, “’What do you do?’ we invariably respond in terms of our work, not our hobbies or organizational commitments,” implying that work is often our identity.

About himself, he notes that, “I work because I have a family to support and bills to pay. But I work also because it puts me in touch with people and helps me think of myself as a competent, contributing person.”

Kushner also writes that “there is something satisfying about being challenged to do something hard and then doing it. I think it must have been what Ecclesiastes had in mind when he said to us, in effect, ‘If you are not going to win a Nobel Prize for your work, if it is not going to make you rich and famous, it can still give meaning to your life if you take it seriously and do it with all your might.’”

I think the author makes many wonderful comments and offers some very helpful advice. It’s a great little book and I highly encourage you to get it and read it but, most importantly, LIVE by the advice that you think will make a big difference in your life, a difference for the better.

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