Does worrying ever help?

By Saralee Perel

My husband, Bob, gets the brunt of my worry storms. Yet he still loves me.

"You hungry?" I said.

"Not really."

"What's wrong?" I grabbed the thermometer from my key chain.

"Nothing. Will you please stop being you for let's say, 4 minutes a day?"

"Well, sue me for caring."

"I'm sorry. Let's eat. Fried food sound good?"

"Not if it's fried in canola oil."

He sighed. "What's wrong with canola oil?"

"A canola is a Canadian ola ­ that's Spanish for tomato, which is in the deadly nightshade family. And deadly nightshade is poisonous. No canolas!"

"Canola oil is made from seeds of the field mustard plant."

"Oh."

We drove to a vegetable stand. "Bob, I'm worried you have a stomach ache."

"I don't. I do, however, have one huge pain in the ­ neck."

Many years ago Leo Buscaglia wrote, "Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy."

Yesterday I called the billing department at a huge hospital and spoke with a gal named Dianne. She could tell I was freaking out about my bill.

She ever-so-gently said, "You can choose to worry yourself sick about problems or not. That same problem is still going to be there either way."

Last month, we received an audit notice from the IRS incorrectly stating we owed $8000. Bob persevered through phone calls with 45-minute wait times, e-mails, faxes, a zillion trips to the bank, as well as certified letters. And he won.

He never worried about the audit, the $8000 we don't have, the paperwork, or the ludicrous process of reaching a human being, so to speak, at the IRS.

"How do you not worry, Bob?"

"In the long run, most problems won't matter. Plus I always say, 'Wait to worry.' If I didn't win with the IRS, I would have worried then."

What he does worry about is me. My walking problem makes me fragile. Frankly, like most of us, Bob is having an overall harder time as we get older.

"I worry about the future," he said tearfully. "It's almost too sad to think about."

I told him, "It's only too sad because it's so beautiful." I touched his arm. "Don't miss me while I'm here."

He was still tearful.

"Sweets," I said, "thinking about losing our dog didn't make it any better when she died. It was just as painful. Look at this day. Here we are, so lucky to live near the seashore in our tiny, cozy home. Don't miss today by worrying about something inevitable that you can't control."

I took his hand and led him to the bedroom where we spent an entire hour doing what people in love do who are spending a glorious day together near a seaside town. Googling "fried seafood." Then we went to a local shanty and gorged ourselves on fried shrimp.

Made with canola oil.

-----------------------

Award-winning nationally syndicated columnist, Saralee Perel, welcomes e-mails at sperel@saraleeperel.com or via her website:www.saraleeperel.com ( http://www.saraleeperel.com/). Her newest book is "Cracked Nuts & Sentimental Journeys: Stories From a Life Out of Balance."

"I love you and Bob. Your wisdom and humor in your book provides guidance and encouragement to thousands of people." ~ Mike Atkinson, Owner, Mikey's Funnies. You can read about her book and/or order it from her website or through Amazon.com.

Copyright 2013 Saralee Perel. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.

Accelerate your Abilities

By Chris Widener

In today's fast-paced life, the wins usually go to those with exceptional skills and abilities. The old quote is true,

"The race is not always won by the swift and the strong, but that is the way to bet."

With this in mind, and with your desire to become increasingly successful, here are some ways to accelerate your abilities, thus enabling you to achieve greater and greater things.

Become dissatisfied with your current state. Growth for growth's sake is good.

Those who will achieve much are those who say to themselves, "I want to grow. I want to be better. And I am willing to do what it takes to get there. This current state is not enough!"

This dissatisfaction will create for you an insatiable drive to do what it takes to get your abilities to the next level.

Visualize the benefits of increased abilities.
Put them at the forefront of your mind.

This will saturate your mind with the motivation that it will take for you to do what it takes to increase your abilities.

What good will come out of my increased ability?

How will I be better off as well as the others around me?

The answers to these questions act as the carrot before the horse, moving you forward.

Understand your weaknesses.

If you want to improve, one of the best ways is to start with some area that you aren't particularly good at.

This is the "shoring up method."

Sometimes it is easier to improve something you aren't good at that something you are.

And the gains will still look great for your overall situation!

Take some time to consider what areas you are weakest in and focus in on them for a while.

The results will obviously be much more pronounced than getting better at something you have already somewhat mastered.

Attempt greater levels of what you are already good at.

Another tact to take would be to stretch yourself in an area that you already have some skill and ability in.

What areas do you excel in?

Now understand that when you leave the weaker areas weak and make extraordinary gains in one area, then you will be moving more toward "specialist" rather than "generalist."

That is okay, but needs to fit in with your overall goals.

Commit time each day to improvement.

Steady improvement is the way to go.

In fact, you may not see improvement for days or weeks.

You may feel like you are failing each time.

But alas, eventually you will get it and your skill will increase to the next level.

The key is day in, day out, spending time working on improving.

Even five minutes a day equals a half hour a week, 2 hours a month.

That adds up! Remember, Practice, practice, practice.

Seek out and spend time with someone who has greater ability than you.

One of the best things to do to increase your ability is hang out with people who are already more skilled than you.

Watching, them, studying them, interacting with them, even competing with them will make you better.

As in sports, to improve, you play with people better than you, not worse.

They will raise you to a new level. 

Who around you can you get involved with who will help you with your ability?

Take a class or hire a coach. Go to school my friend.

Take a course at a local college or vocational institute.
Take a class online. Hire one of the many coaches available today.

Pick a specific skill you would like to improve upon and find someone who is a specialist in that area.
At the very least, pick up some audio or videotapes to help you grow.

Be the tortoise, not the hare.
Slow but sure.

Take your time, do it right.

Keep going in the right direction. 

Learn your craft correctly.

Don't give up quality for speed.

The whole idea of acceleration is this way: Slow start, work up to high speeds, go the distance.

Luckily life isn't a sprint but a marathon!

15 things you should give up

By Luminita D. Saviuc

Here is a list of 15 things which, if you give up on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. 
We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. 

Not anymore. 

Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change. 

Ready? 

Here we go:

1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!

“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle

6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.

9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell

10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer

11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another,  attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.

15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves.  You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.

(with permission)
http://www.purposefairy.com/3308/15-things-you-should-give-up-in-order-to-be-happy/http://about.me/LuminitaSaviuc

What is a father?

With love to my father.
A father is a person who is forced to endure childbirth without an anesthetic. 

He growls when he feels good and laughs very loud when he is scared half-to-death.

A father never feels entirely worthy of the worship in a child's eyes. 

He is never quite the hero his daughter thinks. 

Never quite the man his son believes him to be. 

And this worries him sometimes. 

(So he works too hard to try to smooth the rough places in the road of those of his own who will follow him.)

A father is a person who goes to war sometimes...and would run the other way except that war is part of an important job in his life (which is making the world better for his child than it has been for him).

Fathers are men who give daughters away to other men who aren't nearly good enough, so that they can have children that are smarter than anybody's.

Fathers fight dragons almost daily. 

They hurry away from the breakfast table off to the arena, which is sometimes called an office or a workshop. 

There they tackle the dragon with three heads: Weariness, Works, and Monotony. 

And they never quite win the fight, but they never give up.

Knights in shining armor; fathers in shiny trousers. 

There's little difference as they march away each workday. 

And so I hope that one day, I will be deemed a worthy father.

Persistence

By Les Brown

I believe there are three kinds of people.

There are winners, who know what they want and understand their potential and the possibilities. They take life on.
Next are losers, who don't have a clue as to who they are. They allow circumstances to shape their lives and their self-image.

I believe there is a third group as well. This consists of potential winners whose lives are just slightly
out of alignment.
I call them wayward winners.
It may be that they just need to learn how to be real winners. Perhaps they've hit a bump or two that has knocked them off course and they are temporarily befuddled. A failed relationship, a lost job, financial problems, unformed goals, a lack of parental support, illness, many things can send us off course temporarily.

Wayward winners are not lost souls; they just need some tweaking and coaching and nudging to get
them back on course. A map might be nice.
Many of these wayward winners are easily identifiable because they are always searching.

Right now, there are many wayward winners out there braving rain, sleet and snow because they too
still believe that they have untapped talents. They attend motivational seminars and listen to
inspirational tapes and they plunge onward, believing that sooner or later they will find their way
again.

Other wayward winners have temporarily given up. They are damaged and disoriented, their
confidence badly eroded. They tend to drift through life numbly.
The friends and relatives and loved ones of wayward winners see that they are out of sync and wonder why they can't be satisfied, why they don't settle down.
They wonder how people who have such obvious abilities and great potential can be so disoriented and unsure.

It is difficult for others to understand the rawness of a broken heart or the aching emptiness of an unguided spirit.
You and I know.
We have been there.

Wayward winners know that there are possibilities out there, but too often they feel locked out from them. Some are afraid to risk anymore because of I know now that as difficult as it may be for you wayward winners to do, it is necessary to continue to test yourselves. Even though you have been hurt before, it is the only way to grow. We all have the capacity to change, to lead meaningful and productive lives by awakening our consciousness.

You know there are going to be tough times as you go about changing your life, so brace yourself and you will be able to handle them.
When you get into your seat on an airplane, what is the first thing they tell you to do? Fasten your seat belt. Brace yourself for the turbulence.

When you decide to move your life to the next level of accomplishment, you must fasten your mental and spiritual seat belts because it is going to be a while before you reach that comfortable level again.
You will reach it, but you must endure the turbulence of change in order to grow.

Try this technique to help you through the difficult times of change and growth.

Find four reasons why you cannot succumb to your fears and your troubles.

Find those deep sources of motivation that can lift you out of the turbulence and above the clouds.

It is in these rocky early moments of bringing change to your life that you discover who you are. In the prosperous times, you build what is in your pocket.
In the tough times, you strengthen what is in your heart. And that is
when you gain insight into yourself, insight that leads to self-mastery and an expansion of your consciousness as a life-force in both your personal and professional lives.

You must change your life because,
             for example:

You have not yet tapped the talents given you.


You want to leave something more for your children.


You want to live life rather than letting life live you.


You want to do what makes YOU happy.

The Golden Rule of networking

By Bob Burg

The Golden Rule of networking is simply this... All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.

That's it. 

That is what it's all about, and our goal is to develop new relationships with people on an everyday basis and develop those relationships to a point that those people feel so good about us, they know us.

They like us. They trust us. They want to see us succeed. They want to help us find new business. They want to hopefully be a part of our business if that is apropos, but they definitely want to be a part of our lives, which means they will go out of their way to help us succeed through referrals.

So what we want to do is - we want to develop personal walking ambassadors. See, we know that it has been documented that the average person knows about 250 people. Thus every time you meet someone new on any given day for any given reason, and are able to cultivate and develop that relationship with one person to the point that one person feels so good about you - they know you, like you, trust you, want to see you succeed, want to help you find new business, want to be a part of your business if that is apropos, but definitely want to be a part of your life.

Every time we do that with one new person, we've actually just increased our personal sphere of influence by about 250 people every single time.

Do this with enough new people on a consistent basis and before long, you will absolutely have an amazing, enormous, humongous sphere of influence.

Now we are going to talk about one aspect of that over the next three minutes, really, and that is - some questions we can ask that will immediately cause this person to gravitate towards us and want to know more about us and want to have a relationship with us.

If we use these next few questions we are going to talk about, you will see that the amount of people that you can quickly win over to your side just multiplied greatly, exponentially.

Now when we are in a conversation with somebody, and throughout my Endless Referrals system, I talk about basically three things - how to find the right people, how to meet the right people and how to win them over.

We are just going to talk about one three-minute aspect and that is asking some open-ended questions with someone once you get to the point where you've met them and this could be anywhere whether it's one on one, in a group, what have you.

You see, what we know we want to do is invest 99.9 percent of the conversation with that person asking that person questions about themselves and their business.

We all know that, right?
Because the people we find most interesting are the people who seem most interested in us.

No, really! How many times have you been in a conversation with somebody who let you do all the talking, and you came away from that conversation saying to yourself, "Wow! What a fascinating conversationalist that person is."

And see, we have all done that, so I like to ask questions I call "feel good questions".

Feel good questions are simply questions that are designed to make that person feel good about themselves, about the conversation and most importantly, about you.

Now I have ten of these questions in my arsenal, but the good news is you will never have time to ask all ten, so you don't have to worry about that.

In fact, it would be almost intrusive to that person if you did, but you'll usually have time to ask two or three.

Okay, first question. The first feel good question is, "Dave, how did you get started in the widget business, whatever that person does?" Say, "How did you get started in the real estate business?" Or, "Mary, how did you get started in the oil exploration business?" Or, "Steve, how did you get started as a professional printing representative?"

I call that the movie of the week question because doesn't everybody want to tell their story?

Doesn't everybody want to be the movie of the week in somebody else's mind and have you focus all your attention on him or her? And see somebody in this audience might be saying, "Well, Bob, that's not me. I don't like to be the focal point of anyone's attention? I don't like to talk about myself?"

And my response to you would be that I know that's true with you, but everybody else in the world wants to talk about him or herself, so just go with it.

Go with that principle.

The second question I will usually ask is, "What do you enjoy most about what you do?"

See that is a feel good question. It is a feel good question that elicits a feel good response. We are taught to immediately find that person's pain, so we can cure that pain with our perfect product or service or opportunity, but see the rapport hasn't yet been established.

They are not ready to tell you all about their life's mistakes, so let's, instead of finding their pain, find their joy. "What do you enjoy most about what you do?"

It is quite the opposite from the negative feel bad question like saying to the person, "Tommy, what do you just hate most about what you do?

And while we're at it, how about the wretched excuse for a life you live?"

Not going to have the results we want, so we ask, "What do you enjoy most about what you do?"

Now after we've asked a couple of these questions, we've developed kind of a rapport and the person feels good about us.

Now we are going to ask what I call, and we are going to have to end with because we are running out of time I think, and it's what I call the one key question. Now this is not even one of the ten feel good questions.

This is a question that is only asked after you've gotten the initial rapport established, and here is what I call the one key question that will set you apart from everyone else.

And that is this, "Gary or Susan, how can I know if somebody I am talking to would be a good prospect for you?" "Mary that is really fascinating what you do. How can I know if somebody I am talking to would be a good prospect for you?" "Dave, how can I know if somebody I'm talking to would be a good prospect for you?"

What have we done when we've asked that question? We've done, I think, two things. One is we've said to this person, "I am interested in you first." We are being "you" oriented instead of what most people are being "I" oriented, and they really want to know, "What can you do for me?"

Now they may not come right out and say that, but isn't that what they are really implying when they hand the person ten business cards and say, "Keep one for yourself, and give nine to your closest friends." But we're not doing that. We're taking interest in them.

The other thing we are doing is we are getting that person to help us to help them.

The subtlety of Language

By Jim Rohn

I have found that sometimes the subtle difference in our attitude, which of course can 

make a major difference in our future, can be as simple as the language we use.

The difference in even how you talk to yourself or others. Consciously making a decision 

to quit saying what you don't want and to start saying what you do want.

I call that faith.

Believing the best, hoping for the best and moving toward the best.

A few examples could be, instead of saying, "What if somebody doesn't respond" you 

start saying, "What if they do respond?" Instead of saying, "What if someone says 

no?" You say, "What if they say yes?" Instead of "What if they start and quit?" say, 

"What if they start and stay?" or "What if it doesn't work out?" You say, "What if it 

does work out?" and the list goes on and on.

I found that when you start thinking and saying what you really want then your mind 

automatically shifts and pulls you in that direction. And sometimes it can be that 

simple, just a little twist in vocabulary that illustrates your attitude and philosophy.

Our language can also affect how others perform and behave around us.

A teenager says to a parent, "I need $10."

And if the parents learn to say, "No comprende. That kind of language doesn't work here. We've got plenty of money, but that's not how you get $10."

Then you teach your teenager how to ask, "How can I earn $10?"

That is the magic of words. There is plenty of money here. There is money for 

everybody, but you just have to learn the magic words to get it. For everything you 

could possibly want. If you just learn the philosophy. How could I earn $10?

Because you can't go to the soil and say, "Give me a harvest."

You know the soil smiles and says, "Who is this clown that brings me his need and brings me no seed." And if you said to the soil, "I've got this seed and if I planted it, would you work while I sleep?" 

And the soil says, "No problem. Give me the seed. Go to sleep and I'll be working 

while you're sleeping."

If you just understand these simple principles, teaching them to a teenager (or adult) 

is sometimes just a matter of language. It's like an investment account instead of a 

savings account.

Simple language, but so important.

It is easy to stumble through almost a lifetime and not learn some of these simplicities. Then you have to put up with all the lack and all the challenges that don't work out simply from not reading the book, not listening to the tape, not sitting in the class, not studying your language 

and not being willing to search so you can then find.

But here is the great news. You can start this process anytime.

For me it was at age 25. At 25 I'm broke. Six years later I'm a millionaire. Somebody says, "What kind of revolution, what kind of change, what kind of thinking, what kind of magic had to happen? Was it you?"

And I say, "No. Any person, any six years, 36 to 42, 50 to 56. 

Whatever six years; whatever few years you go on an intensive, accelerated personal 

development curve, learning curve, application curve, and learning the disciplines.

Now, it might not take the same amount of time, but I'm telling you the same changes and the same rewards in some different fashion are available for those who pay that six year price. And you might find that whether it's in the beginning to help get you started, or in the middle to keep you on track, that your language can have a great impact on your attitude, actions and results.