Gloom Busters

This is the season to be jolly but I feel gloomy.  Probably it is the weather.  What the heck… it is time to bring out my reliable gloom buster.  I love quotes; they take the blues away, they encourage me, they lift me up.  Quotations are powerful that they change lives and even the world.  “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr. fueled the move to end racism.  “I think therefore I am” quote from Rene Descartes, the famous French philosopher and mathematician, ignites positive thinking or the connection between the mind and the body.

Here are some of my favorites whenever I gloom bug bites me.

"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them -- every day begin the task anew." - Saint Francis de Sales. Sometimes, we are too hard on ourselves.  We count our mistakes and become frustrated with our progress.  But we need to remember that each day is a new beginning, an opportunity to begin anew and conquer.

"A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl." - Stephan Hoeller.  "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." - Helen Keller. Treasure the challenges you face in your life journey as these will become your weapons to make you a better and stronger person. 

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." - Thich Nhat Hanh.  Smile even if you don’t feel like it because smile has the power to change your mood.  When your mouth stretches to give out a smile it changes your aura.  It lightens your face and people notice.  You too will feel the change!

Go a little farther than a smile; laugh. "Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keep friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment."  - Greenville Kleisser. 

Be compassionate and sensitive.  "The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being." - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Also, Leo Buscaglia said, "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."

 

Change your thoughts.  I don’t think anyone wants to be sad.  If you don’t want to feel unhappy, change your thoughts.  "What you thought before has led to every choice you have made, and this adds up to you at this moment. If you want to change who you are physically, mentally, and spiritually, you will have to change what you think." - Dr. Patrick Gentempo.

I save the best for the last.  My best savior when I feel sad is a quote by Reinhold Niebuhr "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness."

I hope I was able to touch you today with my favorite gloom busters.  Advance merry Christmas!

Mind Power

Mind power is so strong that it can either heal or cause us problems.  Depending on how you will your mind, it can bring you disaster or success.   It was after my high school graduation that I put this quote, “Whatever the mind can conceive, the body can achieve”, into heart and it definitely has helped me weather the storms that followed me in my life journey. 

 

A healthy mind could help ward off stress which is the primary reason of heart attack, cancer, headache and a multitude of other health issues.  An over flow of stress hormones can lead to body fat or excessive weight gain.  Overweight will result to heart problems, diabetes, etc.

 

You need to fight anxiety to prevent health issues.   Some people don’t realize it but merely spending time in natural environments like walking in the park can ward off anxiety.  Add simple exercises to deal with stress or nervous energy.

Worst than body fat, an overflow of stress hormones can cause heart failure. Cardiomyopathy is caused by severe stress. It weakens the heart muscles, which can lead to death. Mind power can help rebalance the body. People suffering from heart problems may not even have to take prescription drugs if they are able to use their mind power to control their emotional and mental issues. 

 

Healing starts with having the right perspective or feeding the mind with positive thoughts.  You need to let your mind rule and control your thoughts and emotions. Stop negative thinking as this can do you a lot of harm. Prolonged stress and negative thinking, along with other mental negativity can also lead dementia.

 

The mind is truly powerful. Positive beliefs and attitudes can heal the body.  I suppose you are familiar with the placebo effect.  Placebo effect or placebo response is a remarkable phenomenon whereby a placebo or a “fake” treatment like use of an inactive substance (sugar, distilled water, or saline solution) can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person expected it to work. Expectation plays a potent role in the placebo effect. The more a person believes they are going to benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that they will experience a benefit. “It is all in the mind”, as some people say.

 

Being aware of the ill effects of negative thoughts will help you cure your mind.  You need to use mind power and divert your mind to activities that will bring your mind to be calm and at peace.  You can take creative art therapy, cognitive therapy, or take yoga classes. The more that you are aware of how much emotion and mind play can affect your health, the better you can begin to take the proper steps towards wellness.

 

There is no discounting the fact that to help you use mind power, you need to associate yourself with people who will be able to help you overcome negative thoughts and feed your mind with thoughts that will power up your mind. Usually, people who are connected spiritually and emotionally are healthier people. People who join support groups recover faster than those without support.

 

The mind is powerful.  Use its power to heal and not to destroy.  It is your mind; you have the choice, so choose wisely.

Handling Life Changes

Nothing is permanent in this world except change.  Life changes are bound to happen; some of them are beyond our control.  Life changes may be good or bad.  What happens when the life changes are bad?  How do you handle these bad life changes? 

Always expect change as this is inevitable.  I have this life principle, “Expect the best, but be prepared for the worst”.  It doesn’t mean being a pessimist but rather being prepared when bad times come.  You need to be proactive.  Prepare a strategy that you can easily navigate through.  The transition to the change needs to be as comfortable as possible and it must be productive.  Life is a series of chapters with themes and characteristics.  Enjoy every chapter, good or bad, by viewing each chapter as an opportunity to improve yourself.

Needless to say, you need to always exhibit a positive attitude.  Change causes disruption in life.  If you caused the change, you feel more in control of the situation.  Even if the change happened without your consent, you still need to make sure that the transition does not take control of your decisions.  You need to react positively by accepting the change and doing your best to turn the bad things around.  Instead of feeling threatened, terrified or immobilized, react by being excited, stimulated and inspired.

Doing so will help you protect your health.  If you react negatively, you will succumb to stress.  We all know that stress can be detrimental to your health.  React positively by doing more physical activities; get plenty of rest and exercise.  Even if you don’t feel like it, eat healthy.  Drink more water to flush out the impurities caused by toxic stress.  Exercise to burn off some of the stress.  It is easy to get an undisturbed sleep when you are physically exhausted.  Get at least eight hours of sleep every day.

When life changes happen, never hibernate.  You will not achieve anything by being sorry for yourself.  Do not isolate yourself.  Do not be afraid to share your fears, sadness, or anxieties with others.  Change is an opportunity that can lead you to meet new friends who will help and inspire you.  Change will be easier to handle when you let others help you.  Build a network of support who will help you move forward to the path of success.

 

When unfavorable life changes happen, solve it by being yourself.  Do not try to be someone else that you think people want you to be.  This is your life change, transition to it by being who you are, not being what others want you to be.  You can’t live in somebody else’s story; it will just cause you more disappoints.

 

You need to set your “own” goals.  If you set goals for what you believe could be the best outcome, you will have a positive target to work on.  Focusing on a goal allows you to establish an action plan to move ahead, one step at a time, toward that goal.

 

You can achieve your goal if you believe in yourself.  Stop doubting yourself and start building your self confidence.  Recite to yourself the achievements you’ve had.  Also, remember that you are human and you are bound to make mistakes but that doesn’t make you less of a person. Believe in your capabilities, talents and skills, even if other people disagree.

 

Above all else, embrace your dream.  Think of what you are passionate about and focus on that dream.  Asking questions such as “Where am I now?” and “Where do I want to be in the future?”  will help you keep your focus. You need to keep moving forward as you handle life changes.  Do not forget to celebrate your successes, big or small, as you are in a life journey, and change is part of this life journey.

Gossip

Let me tell you something interesting today.  It’s about our friend…  Did I get your attention?  Did you anticipate that I am to talk to you about a gossip?

It has always intrigued me, what on earth is gossip that we (both male and female) are drawn to it?  It catches our attention, makes us put down whatever we are doing and gravitated towards the person telling the gossip.  Why do you think that television shows are earning a lot of money from talk shows and a number of people become celebrities because of gossips, good or bad? It doesn’t matter whichever part of the world you live in, gossip proliferates. 
 

 Gossip has been in this world for ages.  It is alive and freely flowing in every community.  It can be as natural as casual conversation or infested with germs degrading morale, affecting productivity and even health. It is common to associate gossip with women, but that is totally wrong.  Men gravitate towards gossip too; though they probably are less showy about it and may define gossip differently. 
 

We talk more than men do and use more personal words especially when having woman-to-woman chat.  We tend to barter information; we are more intimate in our communication.  Sharing becomes our friendship bond.  We tend to bond over feelings, men tend to bond over activities; thus less intimacy.   This difference in communication styles show the differences in how the genders gossip.  You will hear women comment, “I can’t believe she leaves her children alone in the house”.  You will probably hear men say, “Can you believe it?  She bought a Mercedes!”  
 

Why does gossip flourish despite its negative effects known to all of us?  Whether we accept it or not, gossip is our way of bonding with others and a means to isolate the people we dislike or unlikely to support our group.  It is our way of discrediting someone.  People have an inherent desire to know about other people's lives. We are fascinated by the lives of other people.   

 

Even in the business world, gossip becomes a force that marries social and business networks. Gossips affect relationships, creating an environment of fear and anger.  It fuels stress which results to decline in productivity, rise in absenteeism and even results to sickness. But despite these negative effects, I have yet to see a workplace free from gossip.   
 

We may all want to eliminate gossip in our world but there is little that we can do apart from encouraging people to have open communication to avoid conflicts. Gossip will go on as long as there are at least three people in this world.  We are wired to talk, we are wired to gossip.  That’s just the way it is.  
 

I have been a target of gossip; you, single moms were victims of gossip. Since gossip is a natural occurrence in our fallen world, why don’t you join me in shrugging off gossip from our mind?  Let us not be affected by the itching tongues of our neighbors, officemates and associates.  Let us busy ourselves with things that will do us good, like encouraging one another. 
 

Single mom, you rock!

Life Lessons from the Ant

I was rummaging through some old stuff in my garage when I found some ants nestled in one box.  I was grumbling when my son heard me and he asked me this question, “Would you rather have ants than termites?”  That question made me stop and write this article about life lessons from the ant. 

Ants may be small but we have so much to learn from them that God wrote a passage about them in the Bible.  Proverbs 6:6-8 says

“⁶Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! ⁷It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, ⁸yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.”

1. Always be prepared. The ant is busy, rain or shine.  It is not like the bear that hibernates.  The ant is always busy doing something to make sure that it has what it needs whatever that need or emergency may be.  The ant cannot be surprised with any crisis. It is always ready, always prepared.

 

2. The ant never stops; it never quits. During my childhood days in my native country, I would play with ants.  I would try to disperse them by cutting through their single file.  I would succeed for a while but a minute later, I would find them in a single straight line again. They get back to what they were doing. In life, we encounter distractions, obstacles or hurdles. It’s okay to pause for a while, recollect your thoughts and your composure. But after that little while, you need to get back on your journey, looking straight ahead to your dreams and aspirations.

3. Think about your future. The ant is an epitome of industriousness.  They are always busy storing food and making a shelter.  They are thinking about the future.  They store food to make sure that during rainy, flood or snow months, they have food to eat.  They build shelter to avoid the rains and snow (they used my box to hide from the coldJ).  They plan and think about the future.  

How about you?  Do you think of your future?  Do you save part of your earnings or you spend it the moment you receive it?  If you are an employee and you receive your Christmas bonus, do you think of mall sales or you think of your future first? 

4. Sunshine will always follow you when you are wise and hardworking. What happens to people who are lazy, always thinking of rest, vacation and recreation? Surely, they will have nothing to eat when calamity strikes.  We need to follow the frugal and hardworking ant so that whatever happens in life, we will have something to support us.  

The ant, small as it is, is full of wisdom and traits that if we follow will help us during bad times.  Not that I am a pessimist but I believe that we should always expect the best but be prepared for the worst.

Have a blessed day!

Handle Failure

I haven’t heard of any person who has not had a taste of a single failure in life; we all succumb to mistakes.  The difference between successful people and ordinary people is how they handle failure.  There are people who handle failure so well. They may feel sad; they may cry and feel sorry for themselves.  They may be demotivated and may even be depressed.  But this situation they are in will last only for a short while.  They quickly recover.
 

We all agree that we need to triumph over failures; but still majority of us finds handling failures a challenge. I am reminded by a quote from Winston Churchill "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."  

How should we handle failure?  How do we get the courage to press on?  It all starts with having a different perspective.

We need to understand that failure is a fertile training ground.  You may fail at your first attempt in putting up a business.  You may have lost a lot of money and it has become difficult to get up.  Whatever happened, you need to get up.  You need to analyse and review what went wrong.  Look for the gold nuggets from your failure.  Using your failure as a lesson, think of different techniques and tactics.  Probably, you should start small the next time you put up a business.  Starting small may create a smaller profit but return on investment is realised sooner.   Start small and grow your business at a steady pace until you feel comfortable at investing more and earning more.  Test different ways to market your product or service.  Each failure trains you to be stronger, better and more experienced than before. Failure is a fertile training ground that improves your skill, knowledge and your personality.

Failure is a normal occurrence. As I said, I have yet to find a person who has not had a single failure in his or her life.  The pain of failure becomes more intense if we wallow in it; if we keep thinking about it and feeling sorry for ourselves.  It is okay to have a pity party but keep it short.  Use that pity party to think of what happened – what you should have done to avoid the failure and what you should now do to turn the failure into success. Start counting your blessings.  Stop thinking that you are the only person suffering failure. Remember that all people experience failure. 

Failure is a temporary setback. It is not permanent as long as you take action in handling failure properly.  Do not dwell in the pains of the past. Every day is a new day; a new start.  Be hopeful.  A positive attitude will help you to think clearly and constructively to create a new beginning towards success. 

 

Face failure; handle failure with the courage to get up and try again.

Boxing Wisdom

I love to play golf although some people find it silly.  Silly because you hit the ball and then you run after it.  There is another sport that some people find silly, and that is boxing.  Some people can’t comprehend why hitting someone in the face can be enjoyable to watch.  Silly or not, this sport has given us exceptional personalities whose power impacts our lives.  One of these powerful individuals is Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali exudes a presence that is felt by those who come into direct contact with him and experienced by those who hear him speak.  He speaks a lot, in and out of the ring. He inspires and changes lives with his wisdom.  Ali fights not just on the ring.  His fight is a fight for life, for equality and a fight to make a difference.  

Following are some of my favorite Ali quotes that have spoken so much to me and have been my inspirations.

“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”   Our world is more challenging now than it was during the time of our parents.  We need to keep evolving … evolving our businesses; otherwise, your business will cease to exist.  Our parents did not imagine that there will be another means to communicate… the internet.  Because of the internet, we get to more clients than people generations ago.  Thus, we need to adapt to this new technology to compete and succeed.  If we don’t evolve, we will be left behind. 

“It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.” Choose positive words.  Anger, hatred, unforgiveness, frustration, regret will wear you down.  If you want to be successful you need to forgive and forget the bad past.  These are excess baggage that will slow you down on you ascend to the mountain of success.

“I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given.”  Success does not come easy; you need to work hard and sacrifice to achieve your goals.  Use your talents and resources you have to reach your goals.  Be creative and focus.  It will be a delight when you reach your destination and laugh as you look down on the struggles you faced along the way.  Now that you are at the top, you will have a different perspective.  What you thought before as insurmountable struggles are now just small stuff.

“I set out on a journey of love, seeking truth, peace and understanding. I am still learning.”   Education does not end after receiving a degree.  Learning is not just in the school building.  Everyday is an opportunity to learn because life is an endless journey and it is full of lessons to be learned.  We must be willing to accept challenges and not allow our mistakes and misfortunes to define who we are as individuals.

“Truly great people in history never wanted to be great for themselves.” We must live unselfishly, willing to do greater good so that those we leave behind will have a better place to live in. 

“At night when I go to bed, I ask myself, 'If I don't wake up tomorrow, would I be proud of how I lived today.'” Live each day like it's your last. Never pass up on an opportunity; it knocks only once. Stay ambitious, seeking more goals as you reach each step of success.  Make a lasting impression, always seeking to help others. Always seek to be the best version of yourself everyday. 

So, if you think boxing is silly; look at the nuggets of wisdom one of its greatest icons has given us.