Affirming Your Success

In my post last week, I quoted Richard Paul Evans’ book, The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me, and, of course, the very first lesson is simply “Decide to Be Wealthy”. In other words, make a commitment, set goals, and then, of course, act on those goals. To do this, you need the right mindset, one that is consistently and firmly placed in your head.

If you are smart, and have done even a little bit of homework, you know that things like fancy, expensive cars are not important and, in fact, will slow you down as surely as the value of that fancy car will drop in value. Your money needs to be put into assets that go up in value. Working hard on creating a great, big image of wealth is not the road you want, or should, take. Remember your goal is to BE wealthy not just to look wealthy.

Even if you are in terrible financial shape right now, it’s never too late to set big, financial goals and go to work on them. Once you make the decision to become wealthy, those little things called affirmations or self-talk can be a huge help. I know from experience that making a list of affirmations that I then repeat to myself on a regular basis gave a big boost to my mental attitude and lead me to actions that made me millions of dollars.

Chellie Campbell, a great writer of books and articles, has some great affirmations. I will share with you 14 out of a list of 50 super affirmations that help her and her many readers. I encourage you to take a look at this list and repeat them over and over in your mind and out loud too. It’s amazing how just saying stuff like this to yourself, even though they may not yet have happened, can bring about changes that do end up happening.

1. People love to give me money!
2. I am rich and wonderful.
3. I am now earning a great big income doing what satisfies me.
4. Something wonderful is happening to me today–I can feel it.
5. All my bills are paid up in full and I still have all this money.
6. My affirmations work for me, whether I believe they will or not. (This is for the skeptics among you.)
7. A lot more money is coming into my life. I deserve it and will use it for my good and others.
8. All my clients praise me and pay me!
9. I am a money magnet!
10. Money comes to me easily and effortlessly, waking and sleeping.
11. I am now highly pleasing to myself in other people’s presence.
12. I walk, talk, look, act, think, and am rich!
13. I am a winner–I win often and I win big!
14. I now receive large sums of money just for being me!

Wow. That is quite an amazing list of affirmations. Obviously, they are not all happening right now, but studies have shown that repeating affirmations to oneself can bring about many changes that eventually make things happen just like the affirmations that were repeated.

So, when you really decide to be wealthy, and mean it to your core, then repeating affirmations like these will not sound or seem out of the question or ridiculous. I had and have my favorite affirmations over the years and my first couple were:

• I will save at least 10 to 15% of my gross income for later investments
• I will be a millionaire by age 30 (Oops I missed that one. I became a millionaire at age 31.)

Go ahead and make your own list of affirmations and try and keep repeating that list over and over and I think you might be surprised, like I was, how greatly they help us to reach our goals.

Fully Present Wakefulness

So, what can we do to make our lives happy and contented as we age, like when you are over 55, 65 or, like me, at 75? So much of our lives depend on our thinking and it can be a bit of a challenge to put and keep the positive thoughts our minds.

I came across an interview I did years ago with the world-famous skier Stein Eriksen. He had so much passion in his life even up to shortly before he died. In the interview, I asked Stein if he had as much passion in the process of becoming a world champion as he did when he won the gold medal. And he said he absolutely did, that he both enjoyed and was totally passionate about his workouts, and his many, many practice runs down the snowy slops of Norway and Utah. He built in his mind what he was going to do each day and he almost always did it, even in his mid to late 80’s.

That passion and determination most always starts with our brain and what we are thinking. I read a cute comment recently: “Don’t believe everything you think.” It is so easy, especially as you age and know that your time on this planet earth is so much shorter than when you were 25 or 30 or even 50 or 60, to let go of that passion. Our “self-talk” can really lead us down the wrong path.

So, one big thing, or big THINK, we need to do as we get closer to the end, is to be very mindful of the little negative self-talk that goes on in our brains. Then we need to work on changing that little voice in our head to do some major positive self-talk. If you meditate even for just 10 or 12 minutes a day this can help with changing your negative self-talk to positive self-talk.

Quoting from Pema Chödrön’s book Living Beautifully, “The key practice to support us in this mindfulness is being fully present right here, right now. Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness–fully present wakefulness. Chogyam Trungpa called it ‘paying attention to all the details of your life.’”

As we get older, it’s even more important to live in the right now moment and, of course, that takes a lot of positive self-talk. Pema also wrote that, “The specific details of our lives will, of course, differ, but for all of us, wakefulness concerns everything from how we make dinner to how we speak to one another to how we take care of our clothes, our floors, our forks and spoons. Just as with the other aspects of this commitment, we’re either present when putting on our sweater or tying our shoes or brushing our teeth, or we’re not. We’re either awake, asleep, conscious, or distracted. Chogyam Trangpa emphasized mindfulness and paying attention to the details of our lives as ways to develop appreciation for ourselves and our world, ways to free ourselves from suffering.”

Additionally, Pema wrote, “You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. Embracing the totality of your experience is one definition of having loving kindness for yourself.”

This type of thinking and action certainly has made me more productive and keeps my mind busy. That along with setting a schedule and coming up with some new goals that fit my age and stage has been quite wonderful. At first it seemed quite silly for me to pay total attention to getting dress or taking a shower, but I have found it to be a good, and important, experience.

Positivity and Compassion

A very critical part of happiness and contentment is training the mind and, yes, that does take time, but is it ever worth the time you take! The authors of the book, The Art of Happiness, which I talked about last week, have this advice: “Everyday, as soon as you get up, you can develop sincere positive motivation, thinking, ‘I will utilize this day in a more positive way. I should not waste this very day.’ And then, at night before bed, check what you’ve done, asking yourself, ‘Did I utilize this day as I planned?’ If it went wrong, then regret what you did and critique the day and decide what you are going to do to correct the negative stuff of the day. So, through methods such as this, you can gradually strengthen the positive aspects of the mind.”

I think this is why the self-talk that the great Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas introduced me to is so very helpful. I have about 10 different mantras that I run through my mind almost every day and many times I say them out loud. Here are a few of those

1. I am strong and worthy.
2. I am upbeat and positive.
3. I am happy and healthy.
4. I live in the present moment.
5. I love people and I am becoming more and more social.
6. I try to live big and give big. I make “to do” lists and carry them out.

It’s amazing how I can feel down and out and how running that self-talk through my mind many times can lift my mood and make me feel so much better. The mind has a lot of plasticity in it according to scientists. The book goes on to say something that I know is true and will work for me and you: “Neuroscientist have documented the fact that the brain can design new patterns, net combinations of nerve cells and neurotransmitters (chemicals that transmit messages between nerve cells) in response to new input. In fact, our brains are malleable, ever changing, re-configuring their wiring according to new thoughts and experiences. And as a result of learning, the function of individual neurons themselves change, allowing electrical signals to travel along them more readily.” Scientist call the brains inherent capacity to change “plasticity”.

The Dalai Lama and Mr. Cutler have so many great and powerful things to say about how to achieve happiness and they are so very effective. So here is one more quote from Mr. Cutler talking about the Dalai Lama: “He can see that if someone treats him with compassion and affection, then it makes him feel happy. So, on the basis of that experience, it would help him to realize that other people also feel good when they are shown warmth and compassion Therefore, recognizing this fact might make him more inclined to give them compassion and warmth. At the same time, he would discover that the more you give warmth, the more warmth you receive”.

And that, my friends, will almost for sure raise both the giver’s and the receiver’s level of happiness!

My Words Out Loud

I have something very special for you today. Please take a listen to this pod cast I was on recently. There are a few things I share on it that I think can be very helpful to most people. I hope you like it and, if so, please share with others. Thank you so much for taking time to listen. This kind of thing is part of what I am doing to really try to be of help to others. Maybe it’s my age but I am all about sharing and helping these days!

 

The interviewer is Michelle Brown, a fellow Salt Lake City resident who teaches Life Story writing workshops. Get a nice warm beverage and sit back for a really interesting conversation. I hope you find it helpful and motivating!

 

Reviewing and Improving on the Past Year

Wow, where did the 2018 year go?  It seemed to go faster than any other year of my life. How about you?

But what really got to me was what I wrote in my journal back on February 27, 2018:  “Now in Lihue, Kauai house … Kimbo [my nickname for my wife Kimberly] is working so hard to get the house in perfect condition as to justify the $4.5 million price we have it listed for… Now at 46 days away from age 74, I hope I’ve learned a little more about life and living.  I still need to focus on living in the great now moments of life and need to practice more of what I preach and write about … living in the present, self-talk and self-affirmations … and write them down.”

In that journal entry I made this list:

1. I am living in the now

2. I love my life now

3. I love my wife now

4. I love being semi-retired

5. I gain much of life from my writing and helping other people

In that same entry I finally came to this conclusion:

“In 6 days, we head back to Utah – in my head I keep thinking about that future event and have been counting down the days. I need to stop doing that and enjoy the great right now! I mean heavens, it’s pretty darn nice, right here and right now. Beautiful, warm, wonderful view of the great blue ocean and green mountains of Kauai … so I will now take all of that in and live in the ‘now moment’.  Ok I am doing that right now and it feels great!”

It was great to have realized what I needed then, but the realization didn’t quite turn into action. Recently, on Dec. 31, 2018, I made another, related journal entry: “I re-read some of my comments from last year and it hit me kind of hard how I said I must, and want, to live more in the present moment or the great wonderful ‘right now” and I realized I just didn’t do that very much. So, that’s now back on my new year’s resolution list for 2019. I’m going to do much better in 2019!”

I know that I’ve written and preached about keeping a journal of your life and reading my own past comments really shows me how important it is to do just that. You can coach yourself and remind yourself over and over again about what you need to work on and that, at least to me, is very important to improve and expand and make your life better and better. Yes, I know that we all have to think of the future and make plans and set goals and review our past, but after we’ve done that, we need to spend more time in the “great right now moment”.

I hope you agree and maybe what I’ve learned here will help you. I’m pretty darn sure it’s already helped me and will make me more aware of living in the now moments and how to love and enjoy 2019 more than last year, even though I fell short of my stated resolution. So, let’s all double down and make 2019 the best year EVER!

Pleasure and Production

Last week we talked about Authentic Happiness which is both a concept and the title of the great book written by Martin Seligman. In the book, the author continuously emphasizes how much of our happiness comes from inside our heads.

Most of us humans look at rich and famous people and think that they must be very, very happy and content because of all their fame and wealth. Well, guess what… if you look closely, you will find that many of these people are not particularly happy. I think a big reason is that most people think that once they attain great wealth and/or fame then it will automatically make them happy. Only it doesn’t. Then these folks, finding that their brains are not filled with great thoughts of happiness and contentment, start to wonder why. That doubt causes an internal dialog to start up which can work against them, quickly driving them and their mindset downhill. Also, money and fame don’t hold a candle to the kind of true and deep happiness we get from things like the love we give and receive from family and friends.

Although most of us are not rich and famous, we may still find ourselves falling into similar thought patterns. It is so very easy to let our internal self-talk persuade us that things are not going well which brings us down mentally.

There are lots of methods for overcoming this negative self-talk but one very big one is also a powerful antidote for depression – productive gratification. Striving for gratification is automatic but the way to use it so that it overcomes negativity and depression is through producing something truly meaningful to us and/or to others. What we accomplish when we produce meaningful things sends a powerful, purposeful message to our brains and makes us feel so very satisfied and happy.

Martin makes the very good point that “pleasure is a very powerful source of motivation but it does not produce change.” It also does not produce lasting authentic happiness. A simple example is the difference between the pleasure that we receive from watching a very entertaining television show versus the gratification, genuine happiness, and personal satisfaction that we receive from reading a particularly inspiring or informative book. Think back on how you felt after experiencing these two different activities yourself. The difference in how your attitude and your state of mind will probably be quite apparent.

The author suggests that if we really want true, deep and authentic happiness we should all create a list of activities, goals, and deep desires that produce for us, personally, a sense of gratification. Look for goals and things that you do that seem to make time stop and even has you thinking, “I don’t want this to ever end.”

Yes, it’s true that many pleasures take little or no effort to acquire and that the best kind of gratification takes a lot of work. But so be it. It is so well worth it, and I do think and hope you would agree!

 

The Energy Generating Brain

I am pretty sure there’s not many people that wouldn’t like a bit more energy. Okay, maybe an 8-year-old kid has plenty, but most of us, especially as we age, really want and need more energy. The amazing thing about humans is that we can actually create more energy with our minds.

The mind can be one of the strongest and most powerful force that you possess. A overly simple example of the mind creating energy is if you were dead tired at the end of a mountain hike and could hardly take another step, but suddenly you were confronted by a grizzly bear, your brain would immediately send a signal that would produce a huge amount of adrenaline and give you plenty of energy to move very quickly to save yourself. Although that is chemical physiology, even quantum physics has proven that your thoughts can be vibrations of energy.

How about this? You are lying in bed, totally worn out with seemingly no physical or mental energy, and suddenly you think of some incredible new invention. You can visualize how this idea could very possibly make you a quick few million dollars. Suddenly, your brain creates a ton of new energy and you jump out of bed, rush to your desk, and begin putting your great new idea on paper.

Your brain really can create energy. I totally believe that your brain is the key to your financial fortune and my experience backs up this belief. Some say that you can obtain wealth by training your subconscious mind to attract wealth, and I totally agree. If you put those money-making thoughts and plans deeply in your mind and then push very hard to turn those thoughts into action, you can and will be successful.

Quoting from one-mind-one-energy.com, “The most potent form of energy is thought because thought waves are cosmic waves penetrating all time and space.”  The 5 steps below, found on that website, make so much sense and are so very true. We really need to watch our brains like these 5 steps advise.

1. “Watch your thoughts, they become words.”
2. “Watch your words, they become actions.”
3. Watch your actions, they become habits.”
4. Watch your habits, they become your character.”
5. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

Good ole Mahatma Gandhi said something similar: “A man is but the product of his thoughts–what he thinks, he becomes.”

Wow, there’s a bunch of good stuff to pound into our brains that can greatly enhance and improve our lives, whether it’s to make millions of dollars or become whatever we’ve always wanted to become and maybe have fallen short. Plus, who among us doesn’t want to have a ton more energy?

The Power of Repeated Thoughts

People commonly remark to themselves, or to other people, things like “I’m a real good people person,” or “You know, I’m not good with people. I guess I’m kind of anti-social.” Others say, “Hey, I’m really good at fixing things,” or “I sure am a poor public speaker, but I’m a very good writer.” How about you? What do you tell yourself and others that you are good at and things that you are not so good at?

This self-talk is a very powerful thing and it tends to make you much better at some things, but it also can reinforce negative ideas about your life and habits which can hurt you.

I’ve said for many years that I’m very good with numbers and that I am a good wordsmith but, when it comes to repairing or fixing things, ugh… I’m terrible. And for many years now I’ve said to myself and to others, “I’m really, really not physically flexible.” In fact, I can’t even touch the floor without bending my knees big time. But, a few weeks ago, I started thinking about the huge connection between the brain and the body and how my comments about my lack of flexibility was totally reinforcing that weakness. You see, by telling myself over and over again that I was not at all flexible, my body believed it, which wasn’t hard because I wasn’t doing anything to change it either. So, my body was just following the brain’s instructions.

It does surprise me that I didn’t have this wakeup call years ago. I just accepted having a stiff body as an unchangeable fact and by always saying that I was not flexible, I reinforced what my brain was telling my body.

So, having had my little epiphany, I decided to do something about it. I started a simple daily stretching routine and within just a few days I was delighted to see a slow but consistent improvement in my flexibility. Before my stretching program, if I had dropped something on the floor, I would ask my wonderful wife, Kimberly, it she’d pick it up and she always would. But now she doesn’t have to. Even though I’ve got a long way to go to be super flexible, I can see that it is going to happen, just a little bit at a time.

I’m not saying that we don’t each have some very natural talents and abilities but there is also a very strong connection between the brain and the body that can also affect our abilities. We need to remember that we can direct our thoughts to make changes and improvements in our body and in our life, changes that we may have thought were not possible. The bottom line is that our thoughts can reinforce good stuff in our lives as well as some bad stuff so we should pay attention to which kind of thoughts we keep repeating to ourselves and others.

Think about this and maybe experiment with ways to direct you and your body to change or improve. You might surprise yourself.

 

Stop the Worry Habit

 

As I mentioned in the last post, I have been concerned that I might have stomach cancer, but the bloating of my stomach continued to improve when I eliminated a few of my supplements so I canceled my doctor’s appointment. However, that experience was a big time scare and has got me thinking more and more about worry and how much harm it can do. As most of us know, our biggest worries almost never come to pass. Knowing that, shouldn’t we all stop worrying so much? And yet, who in this world doesn’t worry? I’d say pretty much no one.

Yes, there are a few times–a very few–when worry can be beneficial because it can push us to take needed action. But most worries are a waste of time. They drain our brains and there is even research that shows that excessive worry taxes your immune system. So, what can we do to reduce or eliminate most, or all, of our worries?

I don’t think we can totally eliminate all our worries but here are some ways to reduce some of them and eliminate others.

1. Use positive self-talk when you find yourself with a big worry, reminding yourself that most worries never materialize. Push those negative thoughts out of your mind by replacing them with positive thoughts.
2. Write your worries down because, many times, writing them out pushes them out of your mind.
3. Try setting a half hour a week or so to visit your list of worries and ask yourself if those worries are really a big deal. If they are, ask yourself how you can handle, resolve, or eliminate that worry.
4. Take a walk or work out. Just walking outside can do wonders for your mind and it helps reduce worry. There is such a great feeling that the great outdoors brings the human mind. (I just love my 20,000 steps a day and almost never miss taking my walks.)  I have noticed that most of my big worries are early in the morning as I lay in bed thinking about the day ahead. So, I find I just need to push myself out of bed and get myself moving. It almost always reduces or eliminates many of my big worries.
5. Push your mind to live in the moment, that “great right now”, rather than thinking too much about the future.
6. Play a competitive game like tennis. (And try not to worry that you might lose the game.)
7. Take a long hot shower or, even better, get in a hot tub.
8. Get a stress relieving massage.

On top of those suggestions, put this great thought into your mind. It’s a quote from Corrie ten Boom. She and her father helped about 800 Jews escape the Nazi’s in the Netherlands and resisted the Nazi Holocaust. She said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength”.

I must admit that some of my worries are pretty silly. For example, I worry about being even 2 or 3 minutes late for an appointment.  My wife worries about her clothes not matching perfectly.  What are your worries?  Yes, think about even your silly little worries. All these worries do add up. Then, with those in mind, apply the suggestions above to reduce your stress level and better enable you to live in the moment.

 

 

Making the Most of Every Minute

Wow, does time ever move fast and, as we all know, it moves faster every year.  And now, it seems that I can no longer lie about my age since my oldest son, Mark E., just turned 50 years old. I’m guessing you are like me in that you can easily remember when you turned 21 and 30 and all those other birthday milestones that seem like they happened not long ago at all. My 50^th birthday is so fresh in my mind and easy to remember in great detail. I’ll never forget the huge billboard on I-15 with my picture on it wishing me a happy 50th birthday.

I think it’s so helpful to constantly remind ourselves that, because time moves so very quickly, we should all pay very close attention to what we want to make of our lives. What do we want to accomplish? Who do we want to help? Who do we want to love? And, as I’ve preached for many years, we absolutely must take the time to write down what we want to do and accomplish as well as put a timeline on those goals.

Yes, life is very short, but it can be very productive, helpful to others, and extremely fun and fulfilling even though it passes tremendously fast.  So, what we all may want to do is repeat that in our minds every day. We’ll call it our “Fun & Fulfilling Philosophy. “

So, yes, we do all need to make our time count since life really is very short. Writing those life goals down helps you become much more efficient but also, all us humans never want to forget that, as we go after our goals, we must push ourselves to live life in the great right now, as in “living in the moment”.  I certainly have to regularly remind myself of both those very important habits as I can easily get carried away with worry and fretting over the future and what I haven’t accomplished.  Those reminders really do help me as I’m sure they would for you too. So, give it try and make the most out of every minute of your life.

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