Raj Daniels

Newlyweds tragically killed in car crash.

Authorities say new strain of Malaria puts millions of children at risk.

Banks threaten that wave of foreclosures will ruin housing market.

Did you feel that?

These three headlines raised your blood pressure ever so slightly. Even worse than that, they tainted your mind for your entire day.

And yes, I apologize for doing so, but I’m trying to make a point.

I only wrote three headlines.

How many negative headlines do you consume in a day?

Constant exposure to negative headlines is like allowing a boxer to relentlessly jab at your brain.

It will take its toll, especially if you start your day with them.

If you think reading the news, or having the radio or TV playing in the background doesn’t affect you then you’re mistaken.

Your brain is always on and is constantly scanning for information. And due to an inborn survival mechanism it will always seek out negative news first.

Ask yourself this question.

What would I miss if I didn’t hear or see the news for one day?

Or

What if I started my day with something positive and uplifting?

Would it change how you viewed the world?

I’m almost sure it would.

Yes, there are bad things happening in the world, but the majority of them will not change your life.

So refrain from allowing headlines to color how you see the world, especially first thing in the morning. You’re mind and your blood pressure will both be better off.

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You hear, but do you take time to really listen?

You look, but do you take time to really see?

You eat, but do you take time to really taste?

You touch, but do you take time to really feel?

Your senses are what connect you to the world, they allow you to know and understand all that is going on around you.

Like most people, you probably take your senses for granted. And that’s totally understandable.

But what if just once in a while you stopped to appreciate them?

All the information you consume comes through one or a combination of your senses to your brain, and it’s only then that your brain can make decisions about what is best for you.

Briefly focus on your senses by doing a quick sensory audit.

Go through each one of your senses and just for a moment, really experience each one.

This practice will increase your awareness of your surroundings and create the opportunity to be more present in what you’re doing.

Taking time to occasionally ground yourself through your senses is a wonderful exercise, almost like a brief reset in your day.

Your senses are your keys to the world.

Give them some attention and experience what they might unlock for you.

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What will you do with your 26?

Will you malign or motivate?

Will you hate or love?

Will you create or destroy?

It’s almost impossible to comprehend the power behind the 26 building blocks of the English language.

Alone each letter seems to be powerless, just one small squiggle that is easily ignored. But when put together with thought and order they have the power to set the world on fire.

If English is your first language then each thought you express externally or internally is a collection of words build from these 26 blocks.

So, what will you do today with you 26?

I’m using mine to tell you how much I appreciate you.  And that the world would not be the same without you.

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What would the world look like if we all committed to a simple social agreement?

A really simple one that we could all agree on.

Well, at least most of us.

Okay, let’s narrow it down to just us.

You and me.

Are you in?

Here are the terms.

1 – Make one person smile today. It doesn’t matter who it is.

It could be a co-worker, family member, friend or even the cashier ringing up your groceries.

2 – Think good thoughts about one person.

Again, it doesn’t matter who the person is.

3 – Think one good thought about yourself.

Yes, you are important too and you should know that about yourself. You’ve taken yourself for granted for way too long.

That’s it.

That’s the whole agreement.

It shouldn’t take more than a minute out of your entire day to execute all the items listed in the agreement.

Can I count on you to participate?

You can count on me.

Imagine what the world could look like if we all made a conscious effort every day to inject just a small amount of happiness  in the our lives and the lives of others.

I’m going to start by thinking a good thought about you.

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Car didn’t start?

Failed a test?

Fired from work?

Had an accident?

Heart broken?

Lost a loved one?

Lost money?

Missed a flight?

Welcome to the club.

If you’ve experienced any of the above then you are member of the human club.

Yes, the good news is that it didn’t just happen to you but billions of other members.

The list you just read is the short list. There are many members that have experienced and endured so much more.

I know when you joined the club you weren’t told about all the things that you might experience, but it’s because we didn’t’ want to scare you.

Now look at the list again.

Do you see the empty spaces between each question?

That’s where the beauty of life resides.

That’s where the fun happens.

And that’s what I want you to focus on.

That’s where your life will be moving along smoothly and you won’t realize it until you come up against the next challenge.

You will for sure encounter challenges, but that’s the price of membership that’s paid not just by you, but also everyone around you.

However, if you can shift your focus from the price you pay to the benefits you get, and the moments you enjoy, then you’ll realize that it’s well worth being a member of the club.

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When was the last time you painted by numbers?

Remember how the instructions clearly stated which color was matched to a number so you knew the correct color that was to be used on every part of the picture until, voila! You had a perfect piece of art.

What would have happened if the picture was incorrectly labeled?

You would still end up with a finished product but it wouldn’t look like you expected it to.

Well, life is kind of like that.

You have an image in your mind about how life should be.

And you think you have all the colors.

But at times the numbers are elusive.

Sometimes you see them and at other times they won’t appear until after you’ve painted.

And no one really knows which numbers and colors are matched together.

Your colors and numbers are unique to you.

Looking at your neighbor’s life is of little help to you since their colors and numbers are different than yours.

The beauty is that it’s your life and you are painting your own original work of art, and although at times it might feel as though your life is similar to others, it’s still very different.

Your colors are your experiences, perspectives, skills and talents.

So use them all to create your own masterpiece.

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Cookie cutter.

Flawless.

Made to specifications.

Mass produced.

Life is none of the above.

It’s different.

It can be messy.

There are no instructions that work all the time.

There are no guarantees.

Nothing is promised.

Not for you or anyone else.

And that’s the beauty of it.

That’s what provides you the variety of emotions you experience.

Without sadness you wouldn’t know what happiness feels like.

If you don’t experience anger then you wouldn’t know the beauty that is calmness.

If you don’t know hate, you wouldn’t recognize love.

It’s because of all the different experiences you have that you can really learn to appreciate the full range of emotions you have.

So don’t shy away from your emotions.

They’re not wrong; they are giving you a perspective.

And remember, whatever emotion it is that you’re feeling, there’s another waiting for you at the other end of your experience.

What if you build a bird house and birds don’t show up?

Do you blame the birds?

Sound a little ridiculous?

Well.

In your life who do you do things for?

And what if they don’t appreciate what you do?

Getting caught up in the outcome of your actions is a slippery road to travel, especially when you feel as though you are doing something for someone else. Because the reality is that even when you do something for someone, you are doing it to feel good about yourself.

Doing things for others helps you solidify your identity as a good person. It reinforces that you’re the kind of person that does things for others.

Who am I really doing this for is a really good question to ask yourself.

If you can find a way to derive pleasure and satisfaction from the act of doing and not from the outcome then you can possibly alleviate a lot of heartache for yourself.

The next time you build a metaphoric bird house, try to enjoy the process. Take pride in your work and fact that you build beautiful bird houses, even if the birds never show up.

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How many imperfect decisions do you make every day?

If you’re like most people then I would guess you make a lot of them. But you don’t realize that they’re imperfect because they seem trivial.

The breakfast you eat.

The car you drive.

The clothes you wear.

The kind of shampoo you use.

And many more just like these are all imperfect decisions.

But you’re okay with these decisions because in your mind they are easily correctable, and if you didn’t make them you’d be stuck and would never do anything.

The people you see and perhaps even admire that are doing great things in their lives are also making imperfect decisions.

They’re just willing to make them on a grander scale.

You might see them change careers, experiment with big ideas or re-locate thousands of miles from their homes all based on imperfect information.

They have learned to get used to making imperfect decisions because they realize that they will rarely have all the information needed to make a perfect decision.

You too will almost never have all the information you need to make a perfect decision and the interesting thing about information is that it can also change with circumstances and time.

So if you find yourself stuck in area of life that you want to change then don’t wait for more perfect information.

Start making imperfect decisions.

And remember, everything you see around you was made by people that knew that they had to start with imperfect decisions.

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What is your definition of independence?

Is there any such thing as real independence?

The dictionary definition of independence is -freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.

In my opinion, if you agree with the definition then there really is no such thing as independence.

Perhaps there is some truth to freedom from control, but very often the control doesn’t disappear, it just moves from one controlling factor to another.

And as far as influence and support, well we’re all being influenced and supported to some degree by our environment.

Maybe we should pronounce the word differently.

How about in-dependence?

The reality is that we are all in dependence of something.

So instead of feeling as though we as individuals can survive without all that is around us because we feel that we are independent, we learn to love and respect all because we understand that we are in fact in dependence of everything and everyone around us.

How long would it take you to watch an unedited version of a movie?

Well it would depend on the movie.

I was surprised to learn that sometimes it can run as high has a 240 to 1 ratio.

What does this mean?

Well glad you asked.

In one example it means that there was 480 hours of raw footage time that was shot to produce a viewing time of 2 hours.

In essence it would take you 20 days to watch the unedited version of the movie.

So how does this apply to you?

Because as you go through your day looking at and interacting with people around you, all you see is the edited versions of their lives.

You don’t see or experience the raw footage.

And you make assumptions about them based only on what you briefly see.

Then you look at the raw version of your life and make comparisons based on that thinly sliced picture of their life.

The edited version of someone’s life is always cleanly cut and stitched together to provide you with a pleasurable viewing experience. And in many cases if they’re not doing the editing then your brain is doing it for you.

It’s difficult not to draw conclusions from what you see because your brain is wired to do so. But you’ll be much more content in your life if you can teach yourself not to draw comparisons between the unedited version of your life versus and the edited version of theirs.

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What will you regret later in life?

This is a hard question to answer since it falls in the ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ category.

But what if there was a way to know?

Perhaps not 100% but close enough to make a difference.

Well there might be.

In past few years I’ve been extremely fortunate to have spent some time with individuals from both genders that are in their 70’s, 80’s and even a few in their 90’s and I’ve seen some common themes of regret amongst them.

The one most mentioned is not spending enough time with family, especially those that have children. They say that those first few years with their children slipped away much quicker than they thought they would and they were rarely able to recover their relationships.

A close second is that they wished that they had the courage to be more vocal with their opinions. This should come as no surprise if you’ve spent any time around the elderly. They tend to say what’s on their mind and don’t seem to care what others think about them. This might be because they know that their time is limited and realize that the repercussions no longer matter.

The last one I’ll share is that they many of them wish that they had taken more chances, said yes to more opportunities during their life, and prioritized some of their dream and interests.

There are many more but I’m only sharing the ones that I’ve heard most often.

I share these with you not with any guarantee that you won’t have any regrets, but at least make you aware and maybe prevent you from having the similar regrets later in your life.

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What is your self-worth tied too?

Is it tied to your effort or to outcomes?

Do you put your self-worth in the hands of others?

Your self-worth is a very delicate thing to manage because no matter how hard you try, you’ll almost always be comparing yourself to those around you.

You can feel comfortable knowing that it’s very rare to find an individual that doesn’t experience doubts about their self-worth no matter how confident they might seem to be.

A constant comparison to those around you is a killer of your personal self-worth because you’re tying what your worth to their lives.

The interesting thing about self-worth is that the better you feel about yourself, the better you’ll show up in the world.

Building a sense of inner confidence, security and feeling of worthiness about who you are will give you a richer, fuller life experience.

A strong self-worth will give you permission to attempt to do more things in in life because you won’t judge yourself as ‘less than’ if you don’t always succeed.

Working on building your own self-worth is a worthy mission.

When you learn respect and regard your self-worth as something you value then you’ll begin to notice that those around will begin to value you too.

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Are you a finisher?

Do you have to complete everything you start?

Does the idea of something being unfinished cause you anxiety?

The compulsion to bring everything to conclusion might actually be holding you back, especially when it comes to creative endeavors.

If you speak to any creative, whether they are an artist, musician or writer, almost all will tell you that they have many unfinished projects.

Yes, there are always the exceptions that see every project through to completion, but the majority, if given the opportunity to truly confess will show you vast amounts of unfinished work.

So why do they have so much unfinished work?

Because they’re not afraid to start.

When they feel inspiration strike, they act, without a clear path ahead.  Often uncertain of what will happen next, they put pen to paper, brush to canvas and just start.

But they know a secret that many don’t.

Each additional action they take leads them closer to more finished work.

They know that all the dabbling and scribbling, the trying the failing strengthens their resolve to try some more.

So if you’re the kind of person that has to bring every project to conclusion then good for you.

But every once in a while see if you can quash the need to have everything wrapped up with a nice little bow. Try a few different things, even if eventually you leave them unfinished.

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How would it feel if you were flipping through TV channels without ever deciding on a show to watch?

Imagine channel surfing all day.

You’d probably get frustrated with it very quickly, toss the remote and walk away.

And that’s okay if you’re watching TV.

But what if you couldn’t’ walk away?

Well, that’s what happens with your mind all day long.

It’s constantly moving from one thought to another, sometimes not even in any particular sequence, just one random thought to another.

There it goes again.

What if you could put it on pause just for a few moments?

Well you can if you choose to.

I wrote about meditation way back in 2016 as one of my initial blog posts, but I thought it would be good idea to re-visit the subject, at least briefly.

Starting a meditation practice doesn’t have to be a complicated process and you don’t need incense and robes to set the mood for a perfect session.

You can meditate while lying down, standing, walking or sitting, so you don’t have to be in a traditional crossed legged pose that often associated with meditation.

With all the various styles of meditation, you can explore and find one that best suits you.

Channel surfing works well with TV because hopefully you eventually land on something you want watch. But your mind keeps bouncing around because that’s what it’s in the habit of doing, unless you intervene.

So why not consciously give your mind the occasional break?

Find a meditation technique and create a practice that works for you, and give your mind a much needed pause.

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One color

One brush

One pen

One sheet of paper

What can you produce with just your mind and a limited set of tools?

Art – Da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian man created with a limited set of tools.

Books – The Bible, Gita, Quran and Torah have influenced billions of people and all were created with a limited set of tools.

Buildings – The Pyramids and the Taj Mahal have stood the test of time and were created with a limited set of tools.

Better tools or more tools are very often not the answer.

In fact the idea that you need better tools is usually either a form of procrastination or an excuse for not starting.

And, once you begin with what you have you will eventually learn what more you might need, but very rarely will more sophisticated tools help you get started.

So get started with as little as possible and remember your imagination is unlimited so don’t let a limited amount of tools hold you back.

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Have you ever heard of any of these places?

Hayward, California

Kingfisher, Oklahoma

Kosciusko, Mississippi

Westmoreland County, Virginia,

If you have then great, if not then you’re not alone. I too had never heard of them.

These somewhat unknown places are the birth places of some very well-known individuals.

While there can be some advantages to being born in a certain place, there are also countless examples of individuals that were born in all parts of the world that have created amazing lives for themselves.

If you’re still wonder about the list then here you go.

Hayward, California – Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock

Kingfisher, Oklahoma – Sam Walton

Kosciusko, Mississippi – Oprah Winfrey

Westmoreland County, Virginia – George Washington

None of the people on this list were born in places that stand out on a map, and this list could go on to include millions of people from around the world that you’ve never heard of.

My reason for pointing this out is to illustrate that while where you were born does play a large part in your life; it doesn’t have to limit you.

So embrace where you’re from as part of your history and then decide where you’re going in your future.

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