Month: July 2015

I often wake up in the morning with something on my mind.  Something to worry about – a project due, a proposal to prepare, a deadline, or wondering what the most effective thing to do today is.  At one point in my life I would wake up with a stomach ache thinking about all the things that need to be done and I would often skip everything and just jump on the computer.

However, I’ve picked up a few techniques to STOP THIS ROUTINE.

First the WHY, then the HOW.

WHY: Health, Well-being, being “In the Flow” in addition to being someone who your family, lover or clients want to be around.  When you’re busy thinking about your problems, needing money or the negative side of the coin, everything you do will be filtered by that thinking and will being even more of it into your day.

Have you ever jumped out of bed in a great mood, ready to go, excited for life?  Nothing could get you down at that time, could it. Things just seemed to go well.  Well, they do – when you’re focus is excitement, joy and happiness, everything that happens including the proverbial ‘spilled milk’ is filtered through those eyes and it’s okay.  On the other hand, when you’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed, it doesn’t matter if it was Christmas – if that toothpaste cap was off the toothpaste you’d be ready to bite someones head off, not to mention destroying them for spilling that milk.

Is that the life you want to live?  Life is made up on the days and how we feel a majority of the time.  Every hour, minute, second or moment we spend in a negative state is one that is lost forever.

So, get out of that daily routine, consciously.

HOW: When you wake up in the morning, PRIME.  Prime for the day, just as you would prime a lawnmower.  For a lawnmower, before pulling the rope, there’s a little button you press that squirts some fuel into the engine that is used to start the whole system.  The same principle works for us, Prime yourself for the day.  Start with a little juice to put things into perspective before running to the e-mails, running to the paperwork or driving out to your meeting.  Out lives are where we Live – meaning what emotional state you constantly fall back to when you’re on autopilot.  If it’s one of stress, anxiety, fear or indifference – how would you like to turn that into excitement and passion?

Here’s a few ways you can prime: 1) Put a positive book in the bathroom that you can look at for a minute every morning that changes your focus.  I suggest “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and it’s All Small Stuff” by Richard Carlson.  Amazing.  It’s a collection of very short ideas and thoughts that can break a negative routine in a few paragraphs.  2) Turn on YouTube.com (what!?).  Type in “Grateful: Love Song to the world” by Nimo Patel / Empty Hands Music.  Or, look at “Gratitude” by Louie Schwartzberg.  3) Close your eyes in a quiet area taking deep breaths, then think of all the things you are grateful for.  At least 3 things you are Grateful for – with one of them having to be miniscule like the breeze on a warm day or the morning dew on a leaf.  Then visualize 3 things you would love to go great today and see them in your mind’s eye going Perfectly, imagine the people laughing, the meeting going well, the client happy, your children or lover smiling.

By starting the day with a Focus on Gratitude or positive anticipation, you will Prime your mind to get started in creating those things in more abundance.

Don’t be afraid to shed a tear or two.  Emotions are the spice of our life, so let yourself feel the love, energy, gratitude and power that is out there.  There’s always the negative and pain to think about, but why not put that off for a few hours, a few days or even a lifetime.

Remember that TOMORROW IS NOT PROMISED.  We have only been given TODAY.  So, the question is… What Will you Do, Feel, Be, Love or Influence Today?

If you had the chance to live your life over, knowing what you know now, do you think you could have done a little more?  Been a little more?  Had a little more Passion and Joy?

Did we learn something in our Past that can help us do that somewhat in the Present?

When asked, “when is the best time to prepare for the future?”  The answer is often 10 years ago.  But, when asked, “when is the next best time?”  The answer is NOW.

I hope that somehow I can pass along a few life hacks, some big – some huge, before I or one of you get to ask that question again 10 years down the road.

I remember getting my first job at a little over minimum wage and thinking, “WOW, that’s a ton of money!”  Of course it was.  The most I had ever received, for the most part, were an occasional $20 from my parents for gas to bring my 5 siblings to school or when I sold candy at school in 7th and 8th grade (and paid for my brothers and sisters lunch money for two years).

When I did get that paycheck I remember turning to my Aunt, who worked with me at the time, and saying, “What should I do with this money?  Don’t people do things for retirement and protection and things like that?”  She looked at me with confidence and said, “Yeah, some people get life insurance or disability insurance or put it in the stock market.”

I had no idea what that meant or what any of those things were for.  I was in High School (go Fighting Zebras!), ended up graduating as Salutatorian (#2 – although I think I may have been able to pull off Valedictorian, #1, if I took some additional AP classes instead of taking College classes my Senior year – the difference between Salutatorian and Valedictorian is a ton of scholarship money, by the way), and after 11 to 12 years of public education I still had no clue about how the real world operated.

Graduating for me meant trying to get a job as some fast food joint or established business, like Rainbow Market (the local grocery store), since I obviously had no real world skills (who would have guessed after 12 years of education?).  I would then go do missionary work for two years and go to school for another 4-8 years to  learn some skill someone found valuable enough to pay me for.

Without going into too much more detail for now, I finally made a decision that I would find the fastest and quickest way to get by, to make a ton of money, to beat the system, pay as little as possible and leverage as much as I could to get the most from the simplest strategy, any life hack I could find.

Here I want to share things I’ve learned through my experiences that might make your life (and my life) a little (or allot) better, quicker and faster.  Some of the strategies I believe in so much I made them my craft and what I do for income.  Other strategies I just have a passion for because they are so life-changing, so I want to pass them on in hopes they make your own existence a ton more fun, enjoyable, exciting, fulfilling and joyous.

So here’s to learning from our Past, living in the Present and preparing for the Future.  Life & Style Planning.