It’s Foto Friday and I’m sick. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been sick quite a bit since December with a laundry list of ailments. It sucks to get old.
That said, I’m not about to give up, and I’m confident that I’ll overcome what’s keeping me down. Meanwhile, this brings to light an important life lesson – one we’ve discussed often in the past…
There is no guarantee of tomorrow, friends. Today is all we have.
You know all those hopes, dreams, and great ideas on your to-do list? Well if you’re putting them off for ‘the future’ you may never get to them. The flower that blooms today may be gone tomorrow. Don’t let that happen to you.
Gather your rosebuds TODAY.
Live NOW.
Make TODAY great – it’s the only thing you can control.
The first step towards gaining wisdom is to recognize the value of advice.
Our life lesson today comes to us from King Solomon who said “Listen to advice and accept instruction and in the end you will be wise” (Proverbs 19:20).
What This Means to YOU…
If you’re like me, you have people trying to give you advice every day.
Unfortunately, if you’re like me, that means you probably also find it difficult to listen to that advice!
If that’s true, it could mean you’re letting a great deal of knowledge just slip through your fingers and that’s a problem because it means you’re making your life harder than it needs to be.
Don’t let that happen to you – learn to accept advice and allow this wisdom to improve your life.
3 Ways to Use This Wisdom Today
Recognize what could be stopping from you accepting advice.
Understand how to recognize good advice from bad.
Use this wisdom to help others.
I-Overcome Your Pride Perhaps the biggest obstacle that keeps us from accepting advice is our own pride. There are many reasons for this — it could be that we feel like we should be able to figure things out for ourselves, or we foolishly believe our ideas are always better than anyone else’s, or we are embarrassed to ask for help because we don’t want to appear stupid, etc.
Regardless of the reason, the important thing to understand is that when you allow pride to stop you from listening to advice, you end up making your life more difficult than it needs to be because you limit yourself to only one solution source — you! The fact is that nobody knows everything and the sooner you and I realize that, the sooner we’ll know it’s foolish to let our pride stand in the way of gaining knowledge from others.
I know it’s hard, but the next time you find yourself in a situation that you know you could use help with, do yourself a favor, swallow your pride, and be open to letting someone help you. You’ll be glad you did.
II-Recognize Good Advice
Now that I have you at least willing to listen to advice, let me throw you a curveball – not all advice is good advice and it’s important to have some guidelines for sifting out the good from the bad.
Perhaps the most important thing for you to do is to recognize the SOURCE of the advice – is the advice coming from someone who truly cares about you? If so, then it’s worth your while to at least listen. If not, move on. However, even if the advice is coming from a person you trust, that still doesn’t mean it’s going to help you. You can recognize good advice by asking yourself a few questions.
Here are some examples…
Is the person giving you advice qualified to provide it based on their own life experiences?
Did the person listen to you and attempt to understand your situation before giving you advice?
Does the advice give you realistic options that you feel motivated to pursue?
Are you certain the person giving the advice is not just trying to take advantage of you?
Does the advice still leave the final decision in your hands?
Does the advice make sense and do you feel good about it in your gut?
These questions are just examples; I encourage you to develop ones that make sense to you — come up with a list of simple and easy to remember questions that you can ask yourself when you are presented with advice. If the advice provided overcomes these Challenge Questions then it’s probably worth listening to.
Remember this — just because you listen to someone’s advice doesn’t mean you necessarily have to follow it — the final decision on what to do remains with you.
One bonus of seeking that advice is that you’ll have more confidence when you do take action to tackle your problem because you’ll know you invested extra time to seek wisdom and that extra confidence could be the final key you need to overcome your obstacle.
III-Provide Good Advice to Others Let’s face it, the world needs more people who are willing to help others. I encourage you to be one of them.
If you find yourself in a situation where you have the opportunity to give advice to someone else and you have the knowledge you believe could help them, then why not do it? You never know when your words could change or even save somebody’s life so don’t ignore helping someone if you can. That being said, it’s important that you give good advice not just any advice. But how?
For starters, you can apply the Challenge Questions from #2 above to yourself. In addition, you can use this simple formula: Listen First, Advise Second. After all, how can you give advice to someone if you don’t listen and understand their situation? Once you do that you’ll be in a position to know if you can truly help them. If you can, then give them your advice, but be sure to respect their right to accept it or not – understand your job is only to share wisdom, the final decision rests with them.
But what if you listen and realize that you can’t give them any helpful advice? That’s ok. You can still encourage them, pray with them, and perhaps point them towards someone else who can help them. It would be better to do this than to give them questionable advice because you are too proud or scared to admit you don’t know the answers either. Part of giving good advice is knowing your own limitations – recognize that and you’ll come full circle in understanding this lesson.
Don’t Wait, Use This Wisdom TODAY…
Pick a problem, any problem, then challenge yourself to ask someone you trust for advice.
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As the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea draw to a close, it seemed appropriate that today’s Foto Friday would feature this pic. Do you know what it is? Do you know the critical life lesson associated with this pic?
Be sure to click the pic for the full effect!
These are paper lanterns and this pic was taken at the Seokguram Grotto in Gyeongju, South Korea. During my trip to the complex, I was told that the paper lanterns are a kind of prayer offering (perhaps similar to when Catholics light candles in a church?). There are many colors of paper lanterns (see below) but the white lanterns were separated from all the rest. When I asked why I was told that the white ones are specifically for ancestors who had passed away. I can’t verify 100% that this is correct, but it sounded plausible to me and it brings us to our wisdom for the day…
We Are All Ancestors
Perhaps the most important piece of wisdom I can ever give you is this…
You are going to die.
So am I. We all are. Death is the only certainty of Life. It might suck to hear that and I know it’s not fun to contemplate the end of your earthly existence, but the sooner you come to grips with that fact, the sooner you can appreciate the following:
When you think of the word ‘ancestor’ what comes to mind? For me, it’s the spirit of a relative who has passed from this world. I like to think that my ancestors are watching over me and have a desire to help me. (Hey, it fits with the whole ‘Be… Helpful’ theme of the site so that’s an added bonus!). But my question for you is, why wait till you are dead to act like a helpful ancestor? And why limit your help to only your family? Is there an opportunity for us to act like helpful ancestors to each other?
I believe the answer to that last question is “YES” and it’s really the premise of this website. I want to share wisdom with you that can help you live a better life right now – not a month or a year from now, but here, today. And I’m eager to hear your ideas too. Together I believe we can help each other. So I’m offering up a paper lantern for you too – but don’t worry, it won’t be white. 🙂
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a 3-part Foto Friday Series during the 2018 Winter Olympics focusing on South Korean culture. The other articles in the series were…
Seokguram (originally known as Seokbulsa) was reportedly established in 751 and there is a Buddhist temple on site. Since I have a pic of that (featuring more paper lanterns) you’re getting a Double Foto Friday. Woo Hoo!
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The older we get and the more wisdom we acquire, the more we realize that our legacy matters. How do you want to be remembered?
How you spend your time each day will go a long way towards determining your legacy.
If you’re looking for tips on how to live a Legacy Life, then this article can help you – we’ll talk about the challenges that interfere with our Legacy Life goals, I’ll give you 4 EASY tips you can take action on today that will allow you to spend more time on your Legacy Life Goals, and I’ll also recommend various books and links you can use to learn even more. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
How you spend your time indicates your priorities
Living a Legacy Life – The Video
Time Waits for No One
4 Easy Tips for spending more time on your Legacy Life goals.
Most Important Tip of All
Helpful Books about Living a Legacy Life
Links to learn more
Editor’s Note: this post was updated February 2019. It is also part of a larger series of articles in our Wisdom for Life series. If you’re facing a life challenge and/or looking for tips to live your best life possible, be sure to take advantage of the rest of the wisdom library.
The concepts of building a “Legacy Life” to pass along your wisdom and/or creating “Now Moments” each day is something we’ve discussed on this site many times before and you’ll find numerous articles in the Wisdom library or the links below.
How You Spend Your Time Indicates Your Priorities
Today’s lesson is easy to understand but sometimes hard to put into action.
The questions are simple:
Are you satisfied with how you spend the majority of your time?
Does the time you spend each day accurately reflect the priorities you’ve set for yourself?
Are you spending time on your legacy life goals?
If the answer is ‘no’ it may be a good time to reevaluate things.
The first step towards living a life more focused on building your legacy is recognizing all the many things you do each and every day that are NOT serving any purpose towards your legacy goals.
If you keep a journal for a week and write down all the time you spend on non-Legacy goals vs Legacy goals, I’d wager you’ll be horrified to see how little time you spend on the life goals that are important to you. I’m not saying this has to be a dear diary journal or one focused on psychoanalysis – just keep it simple, as you go thru the day or at the end of the day, write down the big picture activities that you spent your time one and then review it at the end of the week. If the pictures isn’t good, then use the tips below to change things over time.
How to Live a Legacy Life
~The Video
Want to watch this life lesson in video format? Check out this vid from That Helpful Dad’s YouTube Channel….
Time Waits for No One
Remember one of our prior discussions – there is no guarantee of tomorrow. The only thing we know for certain is that we are alive right now, in this moment.
If you spend all of your time on trying to get rich, or watching cat videos on Facebook, or doing any number of things that are time-suck activities NOT aligned with your true hopes and dreams in life then you are robbing yourself (and anyone else invested in that goal) of precious time.
Don’t let the sands in the hour glass of your life slip away from you.
Remember, unlike an hour glass, you can’t flip your life over and get more time because (unfortunately for us) regardless of how we use our time, we can never get it back.
Jesus taught his followers similar wisdom in Matthew 6:21 and Luke 12:34 when he said…
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I think it’s fair to say that for many of us, our desired treasures in life would include things like family, legacy life goals, being happy, etc.
Unfortunately,it’s all too easy to become ensnared by the cares of the world. When that happens we often find ourselves giving away our time to tasks that don’t directly support our legacy goals.
Worse yet, we don’t discover this problem until its too late.
Yes we all need to have money to eat and probably the biggest time-suck that impedes the time we have to spend on our legacy goals relates to the things we do to pursue income to provide for our families. By no means am I suggesting that you quit your job and spend all of your time on your legacy goals (although if you could, you may find yourself the happiest of all and I’d be your biggest admirer!), but sadly that option may not be realistic for most people. But what I am saying is this…
If you want to spend more time on your Legacy Life Goals then you that you need to be consciously aware of how you spend your time — especially if your free time is limited.
ACTION TIME:
Each day there are multiple decision points at which you can CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE to take a break from your non-legacy tasks and spend a bit more time on your legacy goals. Identify just one decision point each day and you’ll identify 7 more legacy life opportunities each week!
4 Easy Tips to Spend More Time on Your Legacy Life Goals
This is the heart of the article. These are the EASY tips you can use today that will help you life a life more focused on your Legacy Life goals. Use 1 ore more of these tips each day and you’ll be amazed at how your progress on your goals skyrockets!
1- The Intra-Day Just Because
Got a minute to spare at work? Perhaps even an hour? Why not give a quick call to your spouse during a break to say ‘hello?’ Better yet could you meet for lunch?
The same goes if you have kids— could you go to your child’s school and spend lunchtime with them? Think of the happiness you could bring them with such a surprise.
Would any of these really impede your work-day? I’d wager not. But would they make you a winner at the game of life with your family? I’m betting so.
2- Don’t Just Be There, Be Present.
On the weekends, do you find yourself thinking about work while you’re with your family? If so, practice ‘being present’ (AKA totally focused) with whatever activity you are doing with your family.
If you are there-but-not-there then your family is going to know. When that happens it’s like making a mental error in baseball — you went through all the trouble of putting yourself in position to make a great play, but you end up flubbing it because you weren’t paying attention — as a result, you let your team down.
It sucks.
But you can avoid this and become an all-star if simply practice being present so that you can make the most of the precious (and limited) time you do have together.
Consider this — Jesus’ advice above could likely also be translated as ‘where your mind is, there your heart is also.’
Where is YOUR mind — on your legacy goals or somewhere else?
3- Manage Time-Suck with a Plan
Be mindful when things at work are running over-schedule. Pay attention when you know you are doing something that is wasting your time. It’s way too easy to burn an hour or two on things that don’t support your goals and before you know it any free time you had is gone.
I’m not saying you have to be a robot, but I would challenge you to ask yourself a couple questions.
Is the time-suck activity you’re doing now something that can be deferred till tomorrow?
Do you really need to watch that cat video for the 10th time? Do you need to spend another hour sharing it and re-watching it with everyone you know?
Do you really need to reset your fantasy lineup…again? Does it really make a difference?
Look, I’m guilty of all of these just like you. I’m not trying to be preachy here. I’m simply trying to bring awareness to the issue so we can help each other.
Time-suck is a constant battle — but it’s one we can win if we become aware of it and use simple planning tactics to manage it.
Perhaps the easiest of all is simply to build ‘time-suck’ into your daily plan and compartmentalize it into that time-slot. This could satisfy your need to goof off so that you can better focus on your legacy life goals during the majority of the precious free time you do have. Taking it a step further you might employ some of the 80/20 principles to make better use of your time. Check out this easy to use time management cheat sheet…
4- Climb The Mountain Every Day
If you have specific legacy goals related to accomplishments (writing a book, learning a new language, becoming a better cook, etc), try this tip:
Build in some time EACH day to work on your goal and it will often propel your forward faster over the long term vs. if you just worked on it ‘when you have a lot of time to focus on it.’
The problem with deferring your legacy goals ‘until you have time’ is that all too often you never make time. Before you know it that all-important dream is 5 or 10 years old with little advancement.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If you work a little bit on your goal each day, you CAN climb that mountain. Each day take at least one simple step on your legacy life goal — if nothing else you’ll keep that goal top of mind. A super easy way to do this is to build time for your legacy life goal into your morning routine — it can make a world of difference and will energize you to do more!
Here’s the Morning Routine I use – it’s based on the philosophies of Tim Ferris and Tony Robbins…
Most Important Tip of All
If you take away nothing else from this article know this…
If you don’t take action to control of how you spend your time, the world will do it for you.
The result is that you’ll likely end up spending a lot of your life on things that are not that important in the grand scheme of things and you’ll miss out on living your best life possible. Don’t let that happen to you.
KNOW what you want out of life.
Keep your Legacy Life goals always on your mind.
Consciously make decisions that allow you to spend your time pursuing YOUR goals — not someone else’s.
If you do these things, you’ll not only spend more of your precious time on your Legacy Life goals, you’ll also be happier and more fulfilled – because you’ll live a life that you know is making a difference. And when you do that, you’ll be contributing your verse to the great play of life!
These pots are used to make a special kind of food.
The food ferments in these pots – sometimes for months.
The food product is often spicy.
The food is considered a superfood – especially in certain Asian countries where it’s used as a condiment with almost every meal.
The primary ingredients are cabbage and mix of garlic, salt, vinegar, chile peppers.
Both the food and the country where this pic was taken begin with a “K.”
Think you know it?
And the answer is…
It’s a pic of Kimchi Pots!
How did you do on the quiz?
It was a tough one. If you got it, I”m impressed. If you missed it, try again next time.
Did you know?
Travel to Korea and you’ll see kimchi pots quite often. The pic above was taken during one of my visits to the ancient ‘palaces’ of Seoul, but here’s another pic that I snapped of some kimchi pots on the roof of an apartment building.
Koreans love their kimchi and I have to say that a good kimchi does wonders for the digestive system- spend a week in South Korea eating this stuff and you’ll feel energized and ready to take on the world. If you get the chance, try some good kimchi today — you’ll be glad you did!
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The Wisdom of Woof teaches us that everything we need to know about life we can learn from our dogs.
Meet Bella.
Bella
Bella is a passionate Yorkie with more personality than she knows what to do with!
We call her “The Commander” around the Helpful Dad house because Bella is always trying to orchestrate events per her directions.
Bella is now 13 years old and she’s learned a lot during her life. She’s taught me so much that has improved my life and she can help you too.
Join Bella as she teaches you…
The Wisdom of Woof
Did you enjoy Bella’s Video? If so, why not share it with a friend and bring a smile to their face too? And if you know some more Woof Wisdom, please drop it in the comments so we can all benefit.
Did you Know? Bella has Canine Diabetes but she hasn’t let that slow her down. If your dog suffers from Canine Diabetes, it doesn’t have to be a death sentence. You CAN help your beloved dog live a wonderful life by just following a few simple strategies. For more, visit our Page on Canine Diabetes Tips.
“The time came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin
I think it’s fair to say that most people who want to achieve a goal understand that it takes hard work and effort, but in order to break free from the mold and achieve mastery level it takes something more: it takes a willingness to expose your work to the world — even if it means you risk making a fool of yourself.
The question is — are you willing to pay the price it takes to achieve such greatness?
I deliberately selected this pic because (personally) I can think of nothing more scary than dancing in public in front of a bunch of strangers. (Without a bit of liquid courage — I’d rather go in front of a firing squad!). And yet, it’s often these ‘moment of truths’ that make all the difference in life.
Flowers cannot bloom unless they are exposed to the sunlight.
Our work can never be discovered if we only keep it to ourselves. As creators we know this, and yet still we delay. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. We KNOW that sooner or later we have to put ourselves and our work on display — whether that be dancing, writing, music, or whatever is our passion. If we don’t share it with the world we are wasting God’s precious gifts to us. And we tell ourselves “Someday I will. When the time is right. When the work is perfected. Definitely, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it and not care what others think. Yes, I’m gonna do it…someday.”
But that someday never comes. We keep delaying — it’s safer that way. Yet still the urge grows inside. Until, finally, at last — we decide it’s time to let the flower bloom. It’s time to show ourselves to the world — even if people think our flower isn’t all that beautiful, it no longer matters. All that matters is we are free. We are pursuing our destiny.
And it feels incredible.
The question is — what’s stopping YOU?
Here are four questions I often ask myself in order to make progress. Pondering them helps me change my mindset and the new perspective I gain makes me think about my creativity (and my life) differently. Perhaps they will help you too.
HONESTY — are you willing to be honest with yourself, even when it hurts? It’s easy to be aware of your strengths and work to build them further, but it takes courage to acknowledge your weaknesses — especially when they are painful — but unless you are willing to view yourself from all angles, you’ll be trapped by an illusion that limits your growth. This doesn’t mean you should spend all your time developing your weaknesses and not work on your strengths — on the contrary I’m a believer that you should have an 80/20 (or even 90/10) focus on ‘living your strengths.’ But you still need to be aware of your weaknesses — make sure there are not any limiting factors that could hamper your growth.
The Wacky Weed | Walter Lanz, 1946
In our flower example, if there’s a weed growing up right next to you, it would probably be a good idea to nip the weed in the bud (better yet pull that sucker out from the roots!) before it has a chance to strangle you!
2. EMBARRASSMENT — Are you willing to endure embarrassment in order to grow? Nobel prize winner George Bernard Shaw once said…
“I learned to speak as I learned to skate or cycle: by doggedly making a fool of myself until I got used to it.”
If you want to achieve greatness, you have to be willing to suffer through some awkward moments in front of other people. Do you have the courage to face such public embarrassment while you continue to practice, make mistakes, and keep trying? Most people like the security of sitting on the sidelines and laughing at other’s mistakes — that’s why most people don’t achieve greatness. They are the weeds of life. The weeds think they are strong. The weeds think the flowers are weak. The weeds are wrong.
Courtesy of rmac8oppo/CCO Creative Commons
A beautiful flower seems fragile to the weeds, but what the weeds don’t understand is that the ‘fragility’ of the flower is an integral part of its beauty. The willingness to pursue your craft in front of the whole world, by definition, makes you more fragile, and yet it’s the only way to bloom. Let the world SEE your beauty — and gain strength in the process.
3. CHILDLIKE — can you become like a little child — unafraid of failure and instead focused on getting what you want? Babies make mistakes like they are going out of style, yet they learn and keep trying because that’s all they know how to do.
Jesus reminded his disciples of the importance of humbling themselves and ‘becoming like little children.’ Accept the fact that you still have more to learn, and see the world with the open mind of a child. That change in perspective can open your mind to recognize new paths you never even knew existed before — and these are the paths to your destiny.
4. FRUSTRATION — are you willing to deal with a little frustration in order to grow? Flowers have to break through the soil to find the light — imagine how difficult that must be? In the same way, when you must break free of the crowd. But it’s not easy. When you first start learning a new skill, you might enjoy some early successes that will inspire you to keep going, but eventually you’ll hit a wall and feel like you’re going backwards. This is because the more you learn about your skill, the higher you begin to raise your standards — and soon what was good in the beginning is no longer good enough. Additionally, the more you learn, the more you become aware of your errors — recognizing things you often overlooked in the beginning because you didn’t know any better.
Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash
You’ll feel frustration, anger, and even a loss of self-esteem as you struggle to open the petals of your flower. You may even feel like quitting. But don’t give in to this temptation! Instead understand that these ups and downs are all part of the growth process. No mountain climb is just a straight line directly up the path — there are always some peaks and valleys on the path to greatness. In the same way, no flower goes from bud to bloom overnight — but if you keep pushing through the soil, you WILL bloom.
Now that you know, it’s time to grow
I’ll leave you with this quote and then send you on your way…
“Awareness is like sunlight over a dark well.”
Dan Millman
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Public Speaking… Losing Weight… Closing a sale… Hitting a Curveball… The list goes on…
All of us face difficult challenges in our lives and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Unfortunately, all too often we allow the illusion of difficulty to discourage us — which in turn leads to feelings of frustration, causes us to complain, lose focus, and makes us just want to give up.
But what if there was a set of powerful tools that would allow us to consistently overcome our challenges?
The good news is that five such tools exist, and more importantly, YOU already possess them! In this article, we’ll discuss each of these skills and how you can apply them to make your life better.
Want to Watch This as a Video?
5 POWER-ful Tools to Overcome Life’s Challenges
Tool #1: The Power of Your Mind
It all starts here. If you believe something is too difficult, then you’re setting yourself up for failure before you even begin. You know the old adage from Confucius, “the man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t, are both right.” Which one do you want to be?
OK, so you have a task that seems difficult, maybe even impossible at first glance. Sure you could allow that thinking to control you — sending you careening down the path of disappointment. But why not change your mindset? Why not take control of the situation with your mind. Here’s how…
Step 1: Recognize that Difficulty is just an illusion because…
Step 2: Take action. Stop thinking about how hard the task it and just get started. The sooner you DO something, and focus your attention on the task, the sooner you can stop letting fear of the task control you. This action could be as simple as putting together a game plan, writing that first line of your story, or trying your first pushup — it doesn’t matter what you do, it just matters that you DO.
Step 3: Keep taking consistent, focused action on the task until after you cross the finish line. Maintain your mental focus on action and two things will happen. First off, there won’t be any room in your mind for the Illusion of Difficulty to take root. Secondly, your actions will move your closer to your goal. As you begin to recognize that you’re actually ‘doing it’ (whatever ‘it’ may be), you’ll gain the confidence you need to conquer your mental dragons and complete your quest.
Good news – you already possess the power of your mind!
Remember, when you were a baby, you couldn’t walk; there was a time as a kid when you didn’t know how to tie your shoes or add 2+2, and once upon a time you didn’t even know how to read. But you found a way to overcome each of those obstacles, didn’t you? That’s because when you were a kid you didn’t let your mind discourage you because you didn’t know any better — you simply kept trying and believing.
Maybe it’s time to rediscover that belief in yourself?
Tool #2: The Power of Preparation
When you invest the time to build a solid foundation, you provide yourself with the building blocks needed to overcome both simple and complex challenges.
Wait, isn’t taking time to plan just delaying action? Actually no. I would submit to you that the process of planning is very action oriented. Planning is itself a task — a very important one because it provides us with a roadmap to reach our goals.
Furthermore, when you focus your mind on building a good plan, you’re actively seeing yourself overcome difficulties and ultimately achieving your goal —this is because the very nature of planning requires that the final step is the successful execution of your goal. Seeing this on paper can be a powerful catalyst, propelling you forward with confidence to take further action. Armed with your plan, that action will be focused on the right tasks needed to overcome any obstacles that stand in your way.
So you wanna hit that curveball? Then learn (and practice!) the basics of hitting: having a balanced stance, how to swing the bat correctly, and of course watching the ball all the way to the bat. These simple things are easy to overlook but critical to success. Sadly one of the biggest fundamentals of hitting that is rarely even taught nowadays (at any level) is how to ‘bunt’ a baseball — a skill that absolutely requires you to learn how to focus and watch the ball hit the bat in order to succeed. Unfortunately, with less time devoted to practice because of the pressures of immediate competition, coaches tend to take shortcuts on fundamentals like bunting, proper base running, and even using two hands to catch. That’s a shame because the loss of these basic skills in a player’s talent foundation (i.e. a lack of proper preparation!) leads to problems later.
Don’t let this happen to you. Whether you’re trying to hit a ball or land a new job, always invest the time to build a good plan. It’s often the difference between success and failure.
Tool #3: The Power of Simplifying Things
ANY challenge that appears complicated CAN be simplified. The key is to break it down into smaller “bite-sized” chunks so you can take a step-by-step approach.
Wanna lose weight? Starving yourself (i.e. trying to do it all at once) rarely works. Instead, come up with a plan that simplifies the process. Recognize that you can’t climb the mountain overnight, but you can take the first step, and the next, and the next. Rather than focus on the giant, seemingly out of reach, I’ll-never-get-there goal, instead focus on the little things you can do.
Build a SMART (1) plan whose blueprint is a series of small steps, that if done correctly, will by definition, lead to the achievement of your goal. Your steps may include portion control, reducing some of your junk food, adding in some physical activity, working with a partner or coach for motivation, etc. By following a gradual, methodical, building block process based on smaller Oh-I-can-do-that steps, you will reach your weight loss goal over time. (1: SMART stands for ‘specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound’).
Better still is this — by using a series of smaller steps, you’ll be creating a series of habits that will, in turn, result in a lifestyle change. Why is this important? Because that lifestyle change will ensure that your bad eating habits don’t rebound later, so you can continue to live in your success zone.
Source: Pixabay/RyanMcGuire CCO Creative Commons
Also, more steps give you more opportunities to celebrate success, which in turn makes you feel better about yourself and inspires you to keep going. Before you know it, you’ll reach your goals.
Tool #4: The Power of Advice
There is no need to try to solve every problem by yourself. If someone else has already invented the wheel, then use their wisdom and move on. Don’t waste time because your pride won’t allow you to ask for help.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened ~ Jesus, The Gospel of Matthew (7: 7–9)
Need to solve the Pythagorean Theorem for your geometry class? If you don’t understand the math text, seek guidance from your teacher, tutor, fellow students or even sources like The Khan Academy or YouTube — the answers are out there, all you have to do is ask.
Need to close more sales at work? Stop doing the same old thing if it’s not working. Instead, try reading a book (Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Salewould be a good start), investing in a sales training course, and/or finding a mentor (and then mimic what they do). Arm yourself with wisdom and then practice, practice, practice. You’ll gain the skills and confidence you need to succeed — and in sales, the mental game is 90% of the battle.
Tool #5: The Power of Action
Although we’ve already talked about Action, it’s such a powerful tool (perhaps the most powerful!), it really needs its own section.
President Teddy Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are.”
The message is clear — you can’t get anything done unless you “Just Do It.”
Whatever your goal, don’t wait, get started by taking action (any action) today — you’ll be one step closer to your goal.
Source: Pixabay/Robinsonk26 CCO Creative Commons
Afraid of public speaking? Here’s your first step: stand in front of a mirror and just read a book. (Surely you can do that, right?) Next time, casually talk to yourself in that same mirror. (Also doable). Then write a few notes on a card and use that to speak to Mr. Mirror again. Then try it live with your pet. Then one friend. Then two. And so on. In no time at all, you’ll be delivering a keynote address to a group of 500!
Is life difficult?
Yes. And it will continue to be because that’s just how it goes.
BUT — can you overcome any challenge?
Yes, yes, and double-plus-yes!
I believe you can do it. Now it’s time for YOU to believe in yourself as well.
BONUS — A Competitive Edge?
I’ll leave you with one final thought — sadly most people won’t take the time to overcome their difficulties. That’s a shame, but it’s also an opportunity… for you.
Once you start using these 5 POWER-ful tools to consistently overcome life’s difficulties, you’ll be giving yourself a competitive advantage — once you can hit that curveball, or deliver a good speech, or get your weight under control, or close more sales, you’ll make yourself more valuable to your team, your company, and yourself. Success begets more success and before you know it you’ll be living your best life now. That’s pretty freakin’ awesome!
As Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty, lies OPPORTUNITY.”
My question to you is this – what current challenge are YOU facing and can you use these POWER-ful tools to turn it into an opportunity?
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As we celebrate the Winter Olympics in South Korea, I wanted to share a pic from one of my many visits to this beautiful country. This pic was taken in the Gyeongbokgung Palace complex in Seoul and when you stand at this spot and look at the temple and the mountains it’s quite breathtaking.
Be sure to click the pic so you can see it full size for max effect.
History:
Although I could be wrong, I believe the name of this area of the palace complex translates to “Causeway and Encouragement.”
I believe the little temple on the island is called “Kwon Wonjung” and that it was built by King Gojong.
According to the official palace guidebook, if I understand it correctly, the bridge crossing the valley setup is intended to ‘take in the mind’ by the ‘fragrance of the beauty.’ I’m sure the translation is lacking but the thought is wonderful, isn’t it?
I wonder, what could we achieve in the world if we all took a moment to appreciate the beauty that is all around us and we encouraged others with it?
Did you enjoy this article?
If so, take a quick sec and…
Share this page with a friend so they can benefit too
Share your wisdom – did you have a similar experience or great photo to share? Drop me a line below and tell us about it.
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It’s Fast, it’s flexible and it will supercharge your life – it’s The SMART Morning Routine!
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Morning Routine – The Problem
Most AM Rituals require 2-4 hours to complete – most working men and women don’t have this kind of time in the morning. Do you?
Morning Routine – The Solution
The SMART Morning Routine can be completed in a little as 30 minutes and still provide the majority of benefits of longer rituals. How does that sound?
The Dilemma of The Working Class
Morning Routines are all the rage these days – Tim Ferris, Hal Elrod, Benjamin Hardy and many more profess their greatness. Quite frankly there are a LOT of great AM Rituals on the web and I’m thankful to these key opinion leaders who’ve shared their ideas.
Unfortunately what I noticed is that many of the most popular morning routines require a long time to complete – that’s a big problem for working men and women like me who still have 9–5 type jobs, families, and a host of demands on our time.
So what do you do when you still want to enjoy the benefits of a morning routine but don’t have the time?
Simple – create a “S-M-A-R-T” Morning Routine.
The SMART Morning Routine is an AM Ritual for the rest of us : one that fits our busy lives AND still provides us the key benefits of the Morning Routine exercise.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be in a position where I can spend 2–4 hours every morning turning myself into the Uber-Human of my dreams. Who wouldn’t want to meditate for 30–60 minutes, workout for an hour, spend another hour thinking about a bucket list item, spend another 1.5 hours being creative, and taking time to enjoy a nutritious breakfast? I’d love the luxury of being able to do all those things, and if I did, I’m 100% certain my life would improve.
But let’s face it, most of us ‘worker bees’ are not yet in a position to spend 4 hours each morning on our AM Rituals — we need routines which are both realistic and achievable for us. We need a Morning Routine that is S-M-A-R-T (specific/simple, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound).
In this article I’ll share my exact plan for how to create your own SMART Morning Routine.
Morning Routine – The Video
The SMART Morning Routine – A Summary
The SMART Morning Routine involves starting the day with as little as 30 minutes of alone time designed to take your productivity to the next level and beyond.
It’s kind of like Abraham Lincoln’s advice about chopping down a tree (you remember that saying, right?)
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening my ax.”
In this case, the ax to be sharpened is YOU – and we’ll do it in a lot less time too!
By taking just a half hour so-so and doing these two big bucket items, the SMART Morning Routine leaves you a ‘complete’ person, eager to attack the day because you have already completed a few tasks that made you feel great AND you have a clear-eyed vision on what you want to do. Thus you can immediately move forward — already in a highly productive mindset. You feel like you are already a success and that confidence is half the battle to a winning the day.
The SMART Morning Routine
The SMART Morning Routine Put Me Back on Track
I had a big problem last year.
I let myself get uber-busy in with “busybody work” and for a time it took me off my life’s path. Thankfully I read a book called Tools of Titansby Tim Ferris and the wisdom there set me straight (Thanks, Tim!).
I was somebody who already had a morning routine, but over the years it got less and less productive because it lacked balance (it was essentially all work-focused and not ‘me’ focused). I used Tim’s ideas to reset my routine and eventually develop the “SMART AM Ritual.”
Now, by consistently completing the SMART Morning Routine, I’m supercharging my productivity (for work, play, and life) while also actively making myself a better person again.
The result: I’m back on track to My Life’s Journey.
The SMART Morning Routine
My S-M-A-R-T Morning Routine involves 6-7 steps and 30-60 minutes depending on how I feel each morning. It’s highly flexible so I encourage you to modify it to meet your own goals.
Here’s what I do…
1 — Control…Something
(Time Investment: 1–2 minutes)
One little thing — it doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t matter what it is — just get it done.
It could be making a bed, it could be organizing your desk, it could be anything.
It takes all of 1–2 minutes but…it’s one thing DONE.
This is especially helpful for Type-A personalities — when you can control what you can control, and get that 1 easy take completed first thing in the morning, it becomes a success (dare I say “S-M-A-R-T?”) building block that propels you forward into the day — and it makes you feel like “Yes, I can do this!”
And just like that Task #1 is done!
2 — Prime the Body
(Time Investment: 3–5 minutes)
First I do a round of Sun Salutations — this simple yoga routine takes just a few minutes and starts the process of connecting the body with the mind. BTW if you are new to Yoga and want some guidance, there is a great FREE app called “Track Yoga” — it will guide you through the Sun Salutations (with pointers on how to do it right). As a side note, Track Yoga is one of the recommended tools in my 2018 Essential Guide to Awesomeness.
Bonus Tip: Although I’d love to be able to go outside to do my Sun Salutations, that’s not realistic for me yet so I have a couple pics of sunrises hanging on my office wall — they are pics I took myself and they bring me joy by reminding me of special moments in my life. Here’s one…
Next, I do 10 reps of something — pushups, jumping jacks, air punches. Just 10. It’s not a workout, it’s just to get the body ready to go — kind of like priming an engine before you start it. You’ll be surprised how this gets the blood flowing in the right direction.
(OK, for you Seinfeld fans, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Kenny Bania who famously said on the show, “I start out with curls. That’s good for the bicep. I do 10 reps, 2 sets…” After all, everything relates back to Seinfeld, right? Apparently even the Morning Routine).
Bonus – CinnaButter Coffee is a great way to improve your Intermittent Fasting results too!
3 — Add some Caffeine
(Time Investment: 0)
One cup of black coffee (with cinnamon) does the trick for me. It allows me to keep my intermittent (read: 14–16 hour) fasting going while giving me the energy I need to move through the morning. (Why cinnamon, you wonder? Cinnamon is a natural blood sugar regulator).
This single cup of coffee gives me energy that lasts until I break my fast around 10 am (from about 6 pm the night before). Quick note — the time ‘cost’ is zero because you drink the coffee while doing the remaining tasks.
4 — Prime the Mind
(Time Investment: 10–15 minutes)
I’m all for wisdom. I try to be consciously open to acquiring wisdom from trusted sources (and that includes my own mind). Ever since reading Tony’s Awaken the Giant Within years ago, I’ve been a fan of journaling. I believe in Tony’s adage…
“If you life is worth living it’s worth recording.”
Unfortunately in recent years I let the ‘chores of life’ get in the way of my journaling — foolishly believing that “I didn’t have time to journal” (ah, big misconception — as the Buddhist would say, ‘if you don’t have time for journaling, then you need to journal right now”). Thankfully Tim’s Tools of Titans book reminded me of the benefits and now I’m back with a vengeance.
The Morning Journal is a KEY Part of the AM Ritual
My current version of AM Journal varies depending on the day.
First I write in my journal.
Sometimes I remind myself what am I grateful for (opportunities, something from yesterday, something beautiful I see, etc). Sometimes it’s thinking about specific positive-focused questions like…
“What would make today great?”
“What would set me up for success?”
Other times I write to just clear my mind of a problem or even complaina bit about something to release my frustration (it helps!). When I do this exercise I try to focus on ‘free form’ writing — don’t think, just write — let your mind release its contents (kind of like when Hooper and Chief opened up the guts of the shark on “Jaws”). You never know what you’ll find, but it’s amazing what’s in there. (And no, I haven’t found a license plate from LA yet).
Other times I don’t write in my journal, but instead, exercise what Tim calls the “Idea Muscle” — basically think of a question like…
“What Makes me Content?”
“What’s my Bucket List now?”
“How can I better focus my time to spend more of it on my life goals?”
“How can I spend money to save time?”
And then think of 10+ quick answers/ideas for these questions.
After the journal writing, I think of 3 Affirmations for the day.
These are one liners that I want to speak to myself that focus me for the day. Here are some from yesterday…
“I am vibrantly healthy in mind, body, and spirit.
I am happy — I smile a lot and am content with life.
I don’t need lots of money, possessions, or career accolades to be happy — I don’t need recognition from others to be happy — I am happy because I am alive, my family loves me, and the world is a beautiful place with lots of things to do.”
Finally, I incorporate Tim/Tony’s “3 To Thrive” productivity tool.
Click this pic to read more about the “Three to Thrive” concept
What is Three to Thrive?
Three to Thrive involves writing down 3 action items that are the most important things for me this day. 3 items that, if I accomplish these but nothing else, will still make the day a ‘win.’
It goes without saying that the sooner in the day you start working on your 3 items, the better chance you have to be successful — having this focus early on in the day, can set you up for success.
Once I have this done (and it sounds like a lot but only takes about 10–15 minutes) then I really start focusing on my breathing.
I began this a bit earlier with the sun salutations but now I take it to the next level — breathing deeply while repeating my affirmations (3+ times for each one) and then continuing the breathing exercise while I visualize the “3 to Thrive” actions as already completed.
Let’s spend a moment on this because it’s kind of important. It’s one thing to write down a few affirmations and goals for the day (and if you are not already doing this then just adding them to your morning routine can make a difference), but if you want to get to the next level, then…
Just as importantly as identifying these affirmations and goals, is taking a few minutes to visualize yourself ‘living’ them.
Here’s what I mean:
For the affirmations, use the breath to make the affirmations feel real inside you, as a part of you, nay as ALL of you. Be the affirmation.
For the goals, take some time to focus on each goal, understand why it’s important to you, and then use the breath to get your mind to focus on what it will feel like after you have achieved your goals for the day (“I’m Batman!”).
This psycho-cybernetics step is one of the keys to success because by putting yourself in the ‘already achieved’ mindset half the work is done — the first step on your journey has already been taken, the rest is just continuing the inertia in the same direction until you cross the finish line again (a finish line you’ve already crossed in your mind). You’ll be surprised how this little tweak in the process can rocket your accomplishments to success because of the consistency is adds to your productivity!
Click this pic to learn 5 “POWER-ful” tools to overcome life’s obstaclesClick this pic for 79 Affirmations you can use to change your life
5 — Prime the Soul
(Time Investment: 5–10 minutes)
While continuing the breathing routine, I’ll now complete the process of connecting the body and mind with the soul by ‘seeking wisdom’ from external sources. Here I like to read a chapter from Proverbs and one of The Gospels, and then a verse from The Tao Te Ching. All the while I am focusing on calm breathing.
It’s kind of like an active meditation experience. It’s the top of the pyramid of the ‘priming’ stage and makes me feel connected to (as Douglas Adams would say), Life, the Universe, and Everything.
6 — Pursue Your Passion NOW
(Time Investment: 10–30 minutes)
Like many of you I have a passion, one of my Legacy Life goals is writing.
It’s a passion that brings me contentment, excitement, and makes life fun.
What do I write about?
So far I’ve written a biblical ‘end of the world’ novel called The Last Temptation of John, a non-fiction book on how Minecraft teaches life lessons with my son Jax called Diary of a Minecraft Dad, and a non-fiction book about investing in options with my friend Michael Thomsett (the world’s #1 writer on options education) called The Options Alchemist.
I’m currently writing 2 more books. One is a book about the life lessons I’ve learned from my Yorkshire terrier Sassy (who passed away from the world much too soon) — her book is calledA Life Worth Living. The other is a series of fantasy novels (think JRR Tolkien meets The Bible meets conspiracy theories) called A Grim Future?
If you’d like to read any of them, I’d be happy to give you a complimentary copy — just use my contact form and let me know which one you’d like to read.
The point is that even though writing is very important to me, I kept allowing it to take second place to the typical day-to-day tasks that we worker bees face all too often.
As a result, my writing floundered.
Luckily I realized that if I add it to my morning routine, I can make sure I get a chance to do it every day. Here again, I’m borrowing wisdom from Tim Ferris..
Even if I only write 2 ‘crappy’ pages per day it’s still a win.
Why? because it gets my writing muscle exercised and gives me a chance to write a lot more too. Even if I only write for 10 minutes, I can still get 2 crappy pages in — and that’s a win because it means I’m still making progress, 2 pages at a time. Better yet, I’ve found that just getting started often leads me to continue to write beyond just 10 minutes — sometimes I write more during the AM Ritual, sometimes I write later in the day.
The point is that I get so excited by the process of writing every day that I stay ‘in the zone’ far more often than I ever did before. That’s an even bigger win!
What’s YOUR Passion?
Whatever it may be, make sure your SMART Morning Routine includes some time for it.
7 — 3 To Thrive Completed?
(Time Investment: 2–3 minutes)
This is actually a question I circle back to later in the day.
I like to come back to my AM Journal at the end of the day (or I sometimes do it as part of the AM Journal the following day) and evaluate how I did — just a quick sentence or 3 to follow-up on the day and see if I did what I set out to do or if I missed the mark (and why), so that I do better tomorrow.
This is the full circle technique that is the beginning of the Am Ritual for the next day of the journey.
And that, my friends, is the SMART Morning Routine?
What do you think?
Concerned about your time?
I can appreciate that. Here’s my advice.
First off, if you are keeping track the total time investment for the SMART Morning Routine is 31–63 minutes. Surely that is realistic and achievable for you, right?
If you do not currently have this time in your busy schedule, then I would challenge you to do what I did to make time: as cliche as it sounds, all you have to do is get up 30–60 minutes earlier.
I’ll be honest with you — for the first 47 years of my life, I hated getting up early. If I was up before 7 am I was grumpy. But, I decided to go all in on the Morning Ritual Tim suggested, and to give myself time, I started getting up at 630am.
What do you know, it worked for me. Now I am so in love with this routine (because I can SEE the results) that I usually get up at 6 am — and I usually can’t wait to get out of bed!
You’ll be surprised at how much your productivity for the entire day improves when you invest just 30–60 minutes in some morning “ME” time.
Following this process has led me to dramatic improvements in my productivity of important tasks (AKA the 3 to Thrive items), my writing (much more regular), reduction in stress, and giving me a reason to get up earlier to attack the day.
I’m grateful to have been exposed to this wisdom and I wanted to share it with you too in the hopes that it will make your life better too. Obviously, your routine won’t be the same as mine, but perhaps I’ve given you some ideas to add to your own ritual. If so, that’s a win in my book.
The SMART Morning Routine – It’s Not Rocket Science
No, but it’s simple, it’s quick, it’s incredibly easy to do AND if you follow this plan consistently, it can make a real difference for you — even if you are still a busy worker bee like me.
That Helpful Dad 