Reflections in Lieu of a Christmas Card

Now, a week before Christmas I received this email from a very dear friend of 40 years.  He’s a great guy, now a retired doctor, whose life was turned upside down 2 years ago when he was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer and given only a few months to live.  After going through a 9-hour surgery and painful recovery he’s still hanging in there and has embraced life with incredible energy and enthusiasm, fully living life every single day.  He is a positive, lovable human being who is setting a wonderful example for all of us, a man I am proud to call a great friend.

Here is his “Reflections in lieu of a Christmas Card”

I stayed out of the hospital this year.

I played golf or pickle ball almost every day.

I enjoyed friendships, new and old.

I’m learning to say goodbye reluctantly to some
friendships that didn’t work.

I made a few new friends.

I love my kids and grand kids who each seem to be
on their own unique journey.

I continue to know less about more.

I own my own faults and will probably keep
most of them.

I travel less and enjoy my home and Robyn more.

I value things less and ideas more.

I totally reject trying to change anyone else.

I seek forgiveness for hurting anyone.

I reject exclusion, pettiness, manipulation, passive
aggressiveness, and revenge.

I love knowledge, insight, information.

I love competition and discussion.

I reject polarization, cliques, political and
group collectivism.

I advocate for things I believe and not for groups,
causes, or labels.

I advocate for health, fitness, and science.

I love animals more than people.

I reject political correctness and distribution of
wealth.  I advocate for self-determinism.

My identity is not in my possessions.

I resolve next year to reduce drama in my
life by avoiding those who need it.

I want to live as long as possible if there is good quality.

After pancreatic cancer, I’m not afraid of much so
I will speak to my beliefs.  You can have yours
so don’t be offended.  I can disagree with you
and love you.  Don’t react with anger.  Just
listen or not.

I can’t be offended unless I choose to be.

Life is short, don’t withhold love.

Don’t take yourself seriously.  Laugh at your
mistakes and embrace them.  Don’t worry
about what others think.  Worry more about
what you think of yourself.  I want you happy.

If this all sounds pontifical, it probably is.  It’s me at my best and worst.

Love to all.

–Craig Davis

Side Notes on Uncertainty

Years ago I picked up a habit that has served me well for many years and I still do it to this day. It’s simply this: When I’m reading a book–especially a book with good advice, concepts and life lifting ideas—I write notes of those statements that I find profound and powerful,  those things that I don’t want to ever forget.  I write those gems on the blank pages in the front or back of the book with the page number of the quote.  That helps me tremendously weeks, months or years later when I want to quickly review the high points in that particular book, and I can do so in a matter of a few minutes.  Those quick reviews re-motivate me, remind of many things that I’d forgotten, and help me find and follow good pathways.

Let me show you what I mean. Here are my notes from Pema Chodron’s book Living Beautifully with Uncertainly and Change.

Page 3.  “Our attempts to find lasting pleasure, lasting security, are at odds with the fact that we’re part of a dynamic system in which everything and everyone is in process.”

Page 6.  “Change….when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment….”

Page 7.  “What a fundamental ambiguity of being human points to is that as much as we want to, we can never say, ‘This is the only true way. This is how it is. End of discussion.’  In an interview Chris Hedges also talked about the pain that ensures when a group or religion insists that its view is the one true view.”

Page 10. Our habitual response to feeling ensues…when we’re hooked, we turn to anything to relieve the discomfort–food, alcohol, sex, shopping, being critical or unkind.”

Page 12. “…emotions like anger that are an automatic response last just ninety seconds from the moment it’s triggered until it runs its course.”

Page 16.   My thought from reading this page is I try to notice when I am trying to escape from the fundamental uncertainly of life!

Page 26.  “We all have our familiar exits: zoning out in front of the TV, compulsively checking e-mail, coming home at night and having three or four or six drinks, overeating, overworking.”  Note to self: I need to become more aware of these escape methods and not do them myself.

Page 29. “Don’t believe everything you think.”

Page 30.  My thoughts from this page are that I need to think about what I’m thinking but then I shouldn’t try to totally repress thoughts I don’t like but I need to work on refraining from doing it again.

Page 50. “Accept yourself as you are right now.”

Page 53.  “Loving kindness for self means making time for meditation and self-reflection, for kindhearted, compassionate, self-honesty.”

Since we all have limited time in our lives (even if you live to be 80, that’s still only 960 months and you know how fast a month flies by!), we all need to be as efficient and productive as we possibly can and that’s why I encourage you to use your time wisely. I really think my habit of capturing the best items of the best books as you read is a great habit to develop for life enhancement and productivity.

I hope you glean as much wisdom as I did from these high points of Pema’s great book. I will post the rest of the notes that I made in the front of her book next week. Right now I need to go to my club and play some more tennis. Yep … we all need to balance our lives to get the most out of the limited time we have here on the planet earth.

Just a Little ANT Spray

Last week I talked about those damn ANTS (Automatic Negative Thoughts) and how they can invade you and influence your body and your brain. Sometimes they come by the dozens or even hundreds and can ruin your hour, day or even your life.  So how does a person get rid of those ANT’s—what do we use for an ‘ANT’ spray? How do we program our brains to stop the ANT’s from marching one by one through our minds?

Here’s 3 ways to control those ANT’s, given to us by Dr. Daniel G. Amen.  He and others have discovered that just like negative thoughts that can go deep into the limbic system of the brain, happy thoughts have been shown to affect a person by “cooling of the deep limbic system”.

No. 1: When you have those ANT’s, try to quickly think happy thoughts that can push the negative ones out. “Every time you have a good thought, a happy thought, a hopeful thought or a kind thought, your brain releases chemicals that make your body feel good (and cools your deep limbic system),” says Dr. Amen.

No. 2.  Your thoughts are not always correct. “Your thoughts do not always tell the truth,” Dr. Amen again tells us. “You don’t have to believe every thought that goes through your head”. The lesson here is to challenge those negative thoughts that you at all suspect are not true.

No. 3.  Pay more attention to your thoughts. That is, be very aware of what your chatter box is saying, pay attention, and when they are negative, talk back to them.  To quote Amen, “If you can correct negative thoughts, you take away their power over you.”  He goes on to say, “One way to crush these ANT’s is to write them down and talk back to them.  When you write down negative thoughts and talk back to them you take away their power and help yourself feel better.”

Last night I had some very negative thoughts as I didn’t plan on staying the night in cold Idaho Falls, Idaho. I was visiting my brother and had the entire day planned out, but a minor car problem had made it impossible for me to drive home.  As a result, I was having an invasion of ANT’s. So I started talking to myself and changing those negative thoughts to “Hey, wait a minute. Now I can spend more time with my brother and his wife and talk about all the good memories of our childhood etc.” Wow, things started to change big time in my head. I took a long walk in the brisk night air and listened to the loud mooing of the cows and the strong field and farm aromas, staring into the beautiful sunset sky as I watched literally hundreds of geese flying overhead. My brain, my mood, my whole being was lifted so high I felt I was 50 years younger. It brought back so many fond childhood memories and I felt I was walking on air.  Talk about quickly killing thousands of ANT’s!

Even now, a day later, my body is still reaping the huge benefits of denying the negative thoughts and replacing them with positive brain activity. It’s not just a momentary thing that you change when you get rid of those ANTs, it’s can contribute to a whole better outlook on life.

 

 

Eradicating ANTs–It’s a Mind-Body Connection

You are walking along the side of a busy road when suddenly a car swerves and is heading right for you! You are just ready to jump out of its way when the car self corrects and doesn’t even come close to hitting you. So now how do you feel? Well, if you are like everyone else on this planet you’d feel a huge rush of adrenaline flow through your entire body. So what just happened? Well it’s pretty simple. Your brain sent a super quick signal to your body to prepare it to take evasive action. That action may even have been you jumping faster and further than you ever thought possible.

I don’t think that the average person really understands or fully appreciates how big the connection is between the brain and the body. You see science has pretty much proved that our thoughts send electric signals throughout our brain. Yes, our thoughts have physical properties. Then messages can and do get sent to virtually every cell in your body. Why is knowing this important? Because by using or directing our brains and thoughts we can overcome anger, depression, sadness, negative thinking and yes, even our body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure.

A few days ago my daughter shared with me a manuscript written by Daniel G. Amen, MD (I think it came from one of his many books) entitled “Ant Therapy” or “How to Develop Your Own Internal Anteater to Eradicate Automatic Negative Thoughts”(otherwise known as ANT’s). A fascinating read indeed. It’s all about understanding the direct connection between thoughts and your body and how to automatically turn negative thoughts into positive ones to greatly improve your life and relationships.

The connection between mind and body he points out is clearly shown by observing a polygraph or lie detector test. He points out that a lie detector test measures heart rate, blood pressure, breathe rate, muscle tension and how much the hands sweat. He goes on to state, “The tester then asks questions like ‘Did you do that thing?’ If the person did the bad thing his body is likely to have a ‘stress’ response and it is likely to react in the following ways: hands get colder, heart goes faster, blood pressure goes up, breathing gets faster, muscles get tight and hands sweat more.” And all of that is the results of the brain sending messages to the body.

If we really understand what is happening in our brains, we then can turn things totally around and start reaping big benefits for our bodies and life. Amen further says, and we all need to burn this into our brains, “Remember, the deep limbic system is responsible for translating our emotional state into the physical feeling of relaxation or tension.”

So how do we control or program our brains to automatically turn our negative thoughts that are causing problems in our lives to positive ones that will improve virtually everything we do? Those answers will be given in next week’s post. But do consider sharing this weeks’ blog along with next with week’s with friends or relatives that you think might benefit from knowing more about the brain body connection and how to control it.

Battling Fear in the Great ‘Right Now’

Fear and anxiety is something all of us experience from time to time in our lives—sometimes more often than we care to admit.  We fear and stress over big things that might not, and usually never, happen. They are these little things that can get stuck in our brains day after day that bug us and don’t let go. As a matter of fact I am experiencing a bit of fear and stress right now over something that logically shouldn’t bother me, something I’ve been through many, many times and logically I shouldn’t have any fear at this point. That fear and anxiety is all wrapped up in my head over a speech I’ve been asked to give to a group of MBA students at Utah State University.  Even though it’s not scheduled until next week and I’ve given many hundreds of presentations and seminars on the same subject over the years, I’ve still been worrying myself into a bit of a frenzy.

Part of the problem is that I haven’t given any speeches for a very long time  That shouldn’t bother me since I know my financial subject backward and forward and I’m sure none of the kids (Oops! I mean the MBA college students!) don’t have near the experience or knowledge of the subject I’ll be presenting.  So I really shouldn’t be stressing.  But of course our fears and worries aren’t necessarily logical or based on any facts. And furthermore I’m almost positive, based partly experience, that when my presentation is all finish I will think back and laugh at myself for being so uptight.

For most of us normal and average human beings it’s the same story–we fear things that may happen in the future even though most of what we fear never happens. So what is the lesson to be learned from all this?  It’s an old subject, an old lesson but one that we need to constantly be vigilant in observing and monitoring–that self-talk or negative chatter box inside our head.  We need to keep directing that self-talk to bring our thoughts from future thinking to thinking and living in the great ‘right now’!

Just taking time to write about my fear and anxiety over next week’s speech has already given my brain a calming feeling and the worry and stress has dropped considerably. Wow … I guess that is another lesson to learn! If we open up and talk or write about the fears and anxiety that we have in our heads, sharing it with others, that sharing can act as a kind of magic cure.

Well, I think I better get to work and outline and practice my presentation for the MBA students next week–that also reduces stress and anxiety.

 

The ‘Refrain but Don’t Repress’ Approach to Destroying Bad Habits

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

In the last few weeks I’ve been reading an incredible book that I believe sheds tremendous light on habits including how to form good ones and how to break bad ones. The book by Pema Chodron is entitled Living Beautifully. I must admit that even though I’ve formed lots of good habits that have led to some very wonderful and rewarding successes in parts of my life, I’ve also had some bad habits that have hurt me, and it’s been so very frustrating for me to try to break or change the bad ones only to fail and fall back into them. But Pema’s book has some real answers and directions that, so far, seem to be a quite a breakthrough.

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

Probably Pema’s biggest lesson for us is a bit surprising. She suggests that if we are trying to break a bad habit, we need to think hard on refraining from doing what we promised ourselves but DON’T repress it. She goes on to say that many bad habits come from us trying to escape from uncertainty and fear in our lives in particular situations.  So when we are faced with the desire to fall into that bad habit, we need to examine our thinking to see what led us to that point and then just try to refrain from that action but not repress those thoughts.

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

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

Big Buried Secrets

Ok … so do you want some sure-fire ways to help you set big goals (and/or small goals) and be able to stick with them until you succeed? Well, they are out there just waiting for you. I’m going call these methods ‘secrets’ although as you read some of these you may say ‘Hey, I already know that one!’ so for you it’s really not a secret.  Right?  Well, you may be right and it may not be something new to you but if you are not doing it, then maybe it really should be labelled a ‘secret’. A secret you are keeping from yourself.

For example, you probably have heard the first two secrets I have for you. But do you do them?

No. 1: You must write your goal down! There is a kind of magic that happens in our brains when we make a printed record of specifically what we want to accomplish. It makes it more real to us and we feel obliged to follow through. Just because they’re written down.

No. 2: Be sure to put a deadline or time limit on your goal and write that down too.  Without a deadline, you can put off forever the tasks that will move you forward and then you’ll never get close to that goal. Knowing you have a deadline gives you a kind of mini-goal and something to aim for.

Does that sound familiar? Sound like great advice? Yes? Well … do you always employ them?

How about ‘secrets’ that some people might be aware of but don’t spend enough time doing?

No. 3: Take time to carefully visualize your goal with as much detail as you can imagine.  That visualization should also include an image in your mind of actually accomplishing your goal. Think about how you are going to feel when you arrive at your journey’s end. Run it though your brain numerous times until it feels real.

No. 4: Tell other people about what you have set out to do.  Ideally tell people who care about you and understand and appreciate what you’re aiming for. Ask these people to remind you, encourage you and cheer you on as you make progress towards your goals.

This fourth step can be a huge help.  Even if they don’t ask how you are doing or give words of encouragement every time they see you, your seeing them will often remind you that they know what you are shooting for and you certainly don’t want to disappoint them, not to mention failing yourself, of course.

So I am guessing that, for a lot of you, these tips aren’t new ideas but if you aren’t doing them, they might as well be deeply buried secrets. They are all simple to do, take very little effort, and can increase your ability to persevere and reach those goals, both big and small! So dig these back up and use them! It’s your own little gold mine you can use to pave your way to all kinds of success.

There is even more good news … those are not the only ‘secrets’ out there. Next week, I will talk about more tried and true secrets to making your goals a reality. Get yourself a head start by writing down, setting a deadline for, visualizing and telling others about your goal. Because the biggest secret is that you can’t get what you want without going for it!

 

 

The Power of Unchangeable Deadlines

Here I am sitting in the Los Angeles on the way to Kauai. I know poor us, right? But what a day! Got up early to bury a rattle snake, fix a broken sprinkler pipe, negotiate the multi-million dollar sale of a property that I’ve been wanting to sell off, pick up the paperwork, write emails to the office and others, do a last check on the swimming pool motor, double check to make sure we have enough gas to make it to the airport, get packed for our trip, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  It was quite a morning but so much better than the day before with all the stress and worry about the tight schedule we had today.  But why had I been so stressed?

Well, it’s simple. Before we have a big day planned, whether it’s a trip, a big event or a similar massive change from what we usually do, most of us are filled with stress over the great unknown outcome of all we have to do. When we get going on all the tasks that need to be done, then the stress starts to go away because we are so involved with the ‘doing’.  What’s so amazing to me is that most of us humans can and do get so focused and determined to get these time sensitive and necessary jobs done that we can and do manage to get tons more done than on a normal day. We can amaze ourselves at the efficiency and effectiveness with which we get things done.

I am pretty sure you have, in the past, experienced the same thing as I did these last two days.  I’m so impressed how efficient I can become if I have absolute deadlines that I have to meet. You know, like an airline departure time that won’t wait for me.

I guess we can say that one of the great powers of goal setting is in its time limits. In this case, it’s time limits that are set by others, time frames that can’t and won’t be changed for us.  And that’s probably a good thing.  The problem we have when we set goals for ourselves, whether they are physical, family, health or wealth goals, is that we can cop out and change those goals along the way.  If we can somehow set those goals in real, immovable ways, kind of like an airline flight

Think about that and see if you can come up with a plan or a method that might create for you a deadline that you won’t think about changing or that really is absolutely unchangeable so you can’t even begin to think about not hitting your goal! What would do that for you?

 

You Are What You Believe

***

I watched an older movie last night–a real chick flick called The Princess Diaries with Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway.  In it, the soon to officially be made a princess, Anne Hathaway, was being mercilessly teased and insulted by her high school sophomore classmates.  However, she got help in facing it when one of her mentors told her that she would need to give someone that is trying to insult permission for it to work. In other words, you determine whether you are being insulted or not. If you don’t allow what is thrown at you to be an insult, you’ll be okay.

I thought that was some brilliant advice and it works. It made me think of the story of Bunker Bean.  I wrote the story of Bunker Bean in my book Goals, Guts and Greatness, in Chapter 4 which is entitled “You are What You Think You Are”.  The story tells of this very young man, Bunker Bean who had a lot of potential locked up inside him but it was locked so deep he didn’t know about it, which unfortunately is the story of so many people all over of the world.  You see, when Bunker was very young, both his parents died, leaving him alone and friendless and as he roamed through his years he began to develop fears of all kinds.

Eventually he moved into a cheap, rundown boarding house where he met a man who claimed to be a spiritual medium.  This new friend told Bunker that we cast off old bodies when we die, we and are reincarnated as a new person.  Bunker Bean was not well educated and he had never heard of reincarnation.  He was happy to hear that he had been someone else in another life before.  So when his new friend suggested that for a few dollars he would be able to tell Bunker who he’d been in a former life, Bunker jumped at the chance.

The result?  He was told that in his former life he had been none other than the great Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of France. Bunker was totally astounded. But he wasn’t sure that he believed it. “How could this be that I, lowly Bunker Bean who fears almost everything, could have been such a great person years ago?”  The medium explained how everyone’s sequence of lives turns in vast Karmic cycles.  For each of us there is a period of ascension and a period of descension and right now Bunker was living in a period of descension. “But there is good news,” the medium said. “Things are now changing, and your life is entering a period of ascension.”

It was at that point that Bunker Bean’s life began to change. He really began to believe he had been the great Napoleon and his brain went through some major changes. So what did he do? He began to learn everything he could about his former self.

Think about your own brain and how, if you really truly believed that you had been a super famous person in a previous life, you could dramatically change your current thinking. We really are what we think we are. Run that thought through your brain for the next week and I’ll finish the Bunker Bean story in next week’s post and tell you what happened to Bunker because of his changed brain.

Asking for Courage

In last week’s blog I promised I would give you my definition of  ‘Courage’ so that we can look into what it can mean to you and how you live your life.

Courage is going against the odds or against popular opinion.  It’s doing what most people are unwilling to do because of the criticism and lack of support they know they will receive from family, friends, or even strangers.  Courage is living your life for you.  It’s setting your own rules and policies and taking full responsibility when you fail or stumble. It’s resisting other people’s attempted manipulations of you.

Courageous people do not accept traditions, conventional wisdom, or pat answers without close scrutiny and severe questioning.

I came up with that definition in 1983 when I was 39 years old,   for my book The Courage to be Rich and I think it holds true today.  (Side note … Susan Orman used that title later for her own book which I found out, to my disappointment, is totally legal.) But sometimes it’s hard to know what you are accepting without question or not. So let’s ask ourselves a few questions.

Before reading this list of questions that can help build your courage, let me suggest you make a list of the areas in your life that you might want to focus on, areas you think would benefit from a big dose of courage.

Did you write those down? Good. Now, ask yourself,  Do I want to have …

The courage to be rich?

The courage to be famous?

The courage to be the very best in my field?

The courage to be super generous?

The courage to be super healthy?

The courage to be totally physically fit?

The courage to write a great book or give super speeches?

The courage to love and be loved without conditions?

The courage to help others to the max?

The courage to win at the game of life?

This is not a complete list. If you have other things you want or think you want, add them. And keep asking yourself, what do you want courage for?

It is not just a matter of asking yourself about your courage. You have to act in a courageous way. Here are a few keys items to help you obtain and keep that courage.

1.  At first take small steps in areas that you want to build courage, especially if you have great fears.

2.  Repeat those small steps over and over again.

3.  Slowly begin to take larger steps.

4.  Use plenty of “self-talk” or “positive affirmations” and always be aware of what your internal voice is saying so you can direct it towards your positive courage goals.

5.  Involve allies to help you stay on course.  Be sure to pick those that will fully support your objectives and goals.

7.  Practice confronting your fears and then analyze the reasons for those fears.

One last thought….I just read this line in a novel and thought that it was very profound……”The more you learn, the less you fear.” Arm yourself with knowledge, primarily the knowledge that you can and will face and overcome your fears.

 

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