2009 May

Do not be on the outlook for ill health.
Keep usefully at work.
Have a hobby.
Learn to be satisfied.
Keep on liking people.
Meet adversity valiantly.
Meet the little problems of life with decision.
Above all, maintain a good sense of humor, best done by saying something pleasant every time you get a chance.
Live and make the present hour pleasant and cheerful. Keep your mind out of the past, an keep it out of the future.

What do you think essential for living happily? Share your answer in the comment section below.

__________

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Filed Under: Blog, Personal Growth Tagged With: Aging, Attitude, happily, Happiness, happy

Take Time Out for Mental Digestion

May 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

By: Brian Tracy

Many years ago a retiring executive gave me an old pamphlet he had carried throughout his career. It was entitled, “Take Time Out for Mental Digestion.”

He told me that this little pamphlet had been one of the most helpful things he had ever read in his business life. At the time I spoke to him he was the president of a corporation with more than 10,000 employees.

The message of this pamphlet was simple. It said that people always resist new ideas and new courses of action, even if the ideas are good for them. However, if they have an opportunity to think about them for a few days, very often they will come around to the new way of thinking with both agreement and enthusiasm.

The pamphlet said that an individual needs about 72 hours to absorb a new idea. Effective executives are those who present their ideas in very casual way, rather than as a decision or a fact engraved in stone. They present their thoughts as ideas for consideration. Effective executives encourage the other person to take the new idea or new way of doing things and think about it for a few days. They say that “we can discuss this later” and they just leave the idea with the other person.

Over the years, I have found this to be a remarkable piece of advice and a very important insight to communicating effectively with others.

People Will Resist Change
It is normal and natural for people to resist change of any kind, even and including a change that they will benefit from. So, allow them to take time out for mental digestion. Present your new idea in a low keyed, non-threatening way and just encourage the individual to think about it for a while and then discuss it later.

Present Ideas As Possibilities
In my early executive career, I was continually frustrated by trying to get my ideas, which I had thought through and which I, of course, thought were wonderful, accepted by my seniors and my co-workers.

When I started taking time out for mental digestion and just presented my ideas as possibilities, I was astonished at how much more readily people turned around and came to see the validity of the ideas. I also found that, if you present an idea with too much enthusiasm, you trigger natural resistance which soon becomes ego-based, irrespective of the validity of the ideas.

Present Ideas in a Low-Keyed Manner
On the other hand, if you present your ideas in a low-keyed manner and just leave them for consideration, people can come around to accepting them in their own time and embracing your new ideas without any loss of face or without any ego problems.

The next time you have a great idea, mention it casually and ask other people what they think about it. Give people time to digest the idea, even if they are totally opposed to it at the beginning.

Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do to use this principle in practice.

First, think your ideas through on paper before you present them to others. Expect natural resistance. When you do present your ideas, do it in a low keyed, almost indifferent manner so that it stirs up no resistance.

Second, expect your ideas to be rejected initially. When this happens, simply ask open ended questions to get feedback and then present your ideas again at a later time in a different form. It is amazing how effective this strategy will be.

Filed Under: Blog, Leadership

Don’t Use Hydroxycut

May 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.

Filed Under: Blog, Weight Loss Tagged With: hydroxycut, supplements, Weight Loss

You Deserve To Be Happy

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

By: Brian Tracy

Achieving your own happiness is the best measure of how well you are living your life and enjoying your relationships. You can learn how to be happier and more fulfilled in everything you do.

Everyone is Different
Happiness in life is like a smorgasbord. If 100 people went to a smorgasbord and each put food on their plate in the quantity and mix that each felt would be most pleasing to him, every plate would be different. Even a husband and wife would go up to the smorgasbord and come back with plates that looked completely different. Happiness is the same way. Each person requires a particular combination of those ingredients to feel the very best about himself or herself.

Listen to Your Heart
And your mix is changing continually. If you went to the same smorgasbord every day for a year, you probably would come back with a different plateful of food each time. Each day-sometimes each hour-only you can tell what it takes to make you happy. Therefore, the only way to judge whether a job, a relationship, an investment, or any decision, is right for you is to get in touch with your feelings and listen to your heart.

Be True to Yourself
You’re true to yourself only when you follow your inner light, when you listen to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the “still, small voice within.” You’re being the very best person you can be only when you have the courage and the fortitude to allow your definition of happiness, whatever it may be, to be the guiding light of every part of your life.

There Are No Limits
A very important point on the subject of happiness is whether or not you feel that you “deserve” to be happy.

Accept the notion that you deserve all the happiness you can honestly attain through the application of your talents and abilities. The more you like and respect yourself, the more deserving you will feel of the good things in life. And the more deserving you feel, the more likely you will attain and hold on to the happiness you are working toward.

Make Happiness Your Key Measure
You should make happiness the organizing principle of your life. Compare every possible action and decision you make against your standard of happiness to see whether that action would make you happier or unhappier. Soon, you will discover that almost all of the problems in your life come from choices that you have made – or are currently making – that do not contribute to your happiness.

Pay the Price
Of course, there are countless times when you will have to do little things that don’t make you happy along the way toward those larger things that make you very happy indeed. We call this paying the price of success in advance. You must pay your dues. Sometimes these interim steps don’t make you happy directly, but the happiness you achieve from attaining your goal will be so great that it totally overwhelms the temporary inconveniences and dissatisfactions you have to endure in order to get there.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, accept that you deserve all the joy and happiness you can possibly achieve through your own efforts.

Second, make your own happiness the chief organizing principle of your life and judge everything against that standard.

Third, be willing to work hard and pay the price for the satisfaction and rewards you desire. Always go the extra mile and your success will be assured.

__________

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Growth

The Camera Phone Diet

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Have a camera phone? That may be just what you need to lose weight.

In a recent study, people who used their camera phone to take pictures of their food before eating it made better choices in what they consumed. There isn’t anything magic about the camera, but it served as a good tool in making people slow down and “think” about what they were eating.

Filed Under: Blog, Diet, Weight Loss Tagged With: Diet, phone camera, Weight Loss

Be A Negative Optimist, by Brian Tracy

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

The most important quality for success in entrepreneurship and in life is the quality of optimism. Optimists have an unrealistic expectation of success. As a result, they are willing to try far more things without becoming discouraged. In addition, because of their unrealistically positive attitude, they are willing to persist much longer than the average person. Optimism is a wonderful quality as long as you have it under control.

Temper Your Optimism
In order to be successful in business, and in any activity where your money is involved, you must temper your optimism with negativism. You must be enthusiastic about the possible upside of the investment but you must be skeptical, critical, suspicious and demanding about all the different ways that your money can be lost.

Listen to Negative Viewpoints
Seek out and listen carefully to people who are negative toward your idea. Look for negative thinkers, because their viewpoints can be invaluable and save you a fortune in time and money. I have a friend who is a lawyer. And he recommends and gives advice to many people on investments. And what he does is this. When someone comes and they want to make an investment that he’s unsure about, he says, all right, I want you to come to my office and I want you to sit behind my desk. And then I’m going to come in and I’m going to present this investment to you and I want you to critique this investment as if you were me.

Help Others to Evaluate Honestly
And he says that when his clients begin critiquing the investments they’re thinking about going into, when they begin becoming negative thinkers about the investments, he says they are astonished at how bad the investments really are. He said he has saved his clients millions of dollars by forcing them to be negative thinkers about their own ideas, simply by switching roles and sitting in front of the desk while they sit behind the desk.

Keep Your Mind Open
But don’t be overly influenced by negative thinkers. Just take their viewpoints into consideration. There’s a famous story of Mary Hudson, who started off with 200 dollars in the middle of the Depression and leased a gas station that two men had gone broke running at two different occasions. And from that she built a company called Hudson Oil, which is now the biggest independent distributor of gas and oil in the United States. From a 200 dollar investment, even though everybody told her she would fail. So remember, listen to negative thinkers, but don’t necessarily accept their advice.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to get these ideas into action.

First, view your idea as if you were an outside consultant. Ask, “What are all of the possible risks or flaws in this cause of action?”

Second, seek out the opinions of others. Listen without responding or defending. Thank them for their input. They may save you a lot of money.

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Growth Tagged With: Attitude, Brian Tracy, optimism, Success

Quotes To Think About

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
~ Max De Pree

I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.
~ Mary Chase

I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can’t read any poetry.
~ Randall Jarrell

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
~ John Burroughs

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Growth Tagged With: quotations, Quotes

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