Happiness & Doing it Right

Change Often Means Shifting Our View Point
According to a wealth advisor in Chicago "It's not fashionable to be positive right now."   Well, Richard Wiseman author of "Luck Factor", "Quirkology" and "59 Seconds", believes that change happens when we take small steps toward our goals and happiness is a huge factor in change. I can almost hear my mom when I read his three methods to "get" happy.

• Smile;
• Sit up;
• Act Happy - and Wiseman's research supports these simple actions. 

During this great recession, there have been lots of reasons to wipe that smile off your face - unemployment, credit crunch, housing market, etc. Looking at your business and life "What is NOT wrong right now?" Ask yourself these question:

• What have I gained in the last year?
• What have I learned about my customers that I didn't know before?
• What new skills have I learned?
• What brings me joy today that wasn't in my life a year ago?

I could have asked you to list all the things that were broken and not working, but that would have sent you to the dark side. What is working is key to making changes and keeping your journey on YOUR path.

Wiseman also gives a test for doubters. Take a pencil and grip it between your teeth for 60 seconds. How do you feel? Most people will feel happier than before.

If you now need to feel grumpy, hold the eraser end of the pencil between your lips (no teeth) for 60 seconds and concentrate at holding it straight out.

These two activities elicit happiness and unhappiness because they actively make the muscles of your face reflect the physical expression of those moods!

So, this week when you are feeling crabby, imagine Lee Lucas, my Mom, whispering in your ear "Sit Up, Smile, Act Happy". Have a great week.

Copyright 2010 Linda Fayerweather
Changing Lanes LLC
419-897-0528
http://www.changinglanes.biz/

PS - Do me a favor and forward this on to someone who might need a reason to smile!

  

Slow Down and Focus
My grandfather drilled into my head the need do good work early on. His favorite one-liner was, "If you don't have the time to do it right the first time how are you ever going to have the time to do it over?". (And believe me, if he thought it wasn't right you DID do it over.) My grand-dad was a wise man.

He also taught me to shake hands the proper way, to remember names, and always say "thank you". He never read an email and probably wouldn't have made it as long as he did if somebody had sent him a TXT message. If he were alive today I'm sure he'd be labelled a renaissance man.

But today we are multi-tasking our way through trying to cram 60+ hours into a (some say) reasonable 40 hour work week. And then balance that with family, eating right and getting enough rest. If this is you then I have a question; How's that working for you?

So how do we manage? We slow down.

We do everything we do with 100% of our focused energy.

And we complete it - correctly. (Do you remember that feeling called accomplishment?)

The bottom line is if we are not committed to doing something with everything we've got then why even start it. Eliminate it. And that frees up the time necessary to other things well.

Do it for 30 days. Your business, personal, and spiritual life will reward you in ways that you can only dream about today. Let's both do it. And then we'll talk in a month and share how our lives changed.

Thank you for taking the time read this. I appreciate you!

Copyright 2010 Todd Pillars; an Appreciation Marketer with Send Out Cards. Please contact him today at 419-855-2273 or tpillars@gmail.com  to SUPERCharge your Referrals! Surf on over to www.sendoutcards.com/tpillars  to send someone an Awesome Day!

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS

Hocus Pocus Time to Focus

As a kid, I loved the words "hocus pocus" when I would play with my magic wand that never worked like Harry Potter's did. Some quick research on the etymology of the words, reveal they don't go back to Latin and the Catholic Church. Hocus pocus started appearing in the early seventeenth century in several plays and William Vincent titled his 1694 book of conjuring, "Hocus Pocus Junior, The Anatomy of Legerdemain".

Enough with the history, besides, what does this have to do with business? Any business that has multiple jobs for each employee faces this problem of FOCUS. In the Human Resource (HR) world, when a company reaches about 150 full-time-equivalent employees, there is usually a need for a dedicated HR person. Prior to that, the head honcho needs to wave the magic wand and have someone (or an outside contractor) take on the focus of HR.

In my world, grabbing your magic wand and saying "hocus pocus" is a mental queue to getting a plan, delegating that plan if appropriate and then getting back to your own focus. Now, least we forget, as the delegator, we must review and evaluate, but if we have conjured the correct plan, someone else will be "doing" so we can be focusing on our own work.

Now all together: "Hocus Pocus Time to Focus" and check out what Pat has to say below.

Copyright 2010 Linda Fayerweather
Changing Lanes LLC
419-897-0528
http://www.changinglanes.biz/

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
Things are changing so quickly; it seems almost impossible to keep up, especially with new technology. I finally broke down and got a smart phone. I'm looking forward to receiving it this week, with its 3G mobile hotspot...whatever that means!

What's interesting though is that as much as things change, certain beliefs seem to stand the test of time. I recently located an article that was published in the April 1920 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. Did you know that Good Housekeeping has been around for that long?

The article titled "Stiffening Your Mental Backbone" is by H. Addington Bruce. The byline says: "Can you do what you want to do? How often do you go to the office with plans all made for the day's work so that you can make every minute count, and then some trivial thing upsets the whole schedule and you go home at night with the feeling that the day has been lost?"

Can you relate?

Addington tells the story of a man who goes to a doctor because he can't seem to focus long enough to get necessary tasks done. It turns out the man was not nourishing his body properly and according to Addington, the doctor explained the condition to his patient as follows:

"You are lacking in energy because you do not eat properly. Your organism not being sufficiently nourished, all your faculties, your will included, fatigues quickly. Strength of body and strength of will tend to go hand in hand."

It's interesting that in 1920, the belief that nurturing our physical energy, gives us mental energy was accepted in Good Housekeeping magazine and 90 years later we still haven't learned that lesson. In fact, we probably nourish our bodies less than back in 1920, when more whole foods were consumed.

In his article Addington also mentions these familiar concepts:

"As a man wishes, so he wills."

"Like begets like."

"Form the habit of devoting a few minutes every day to thinking about work in a large, broad, imaginative way."

Take a look at your beliefs and see if they have stood the test of time, just like these beliefs about the mind/body connection. You might also want to try an apple for a mid-morning break, instead of that donut!

Pat Altvater
Transforming Bodies and Minds
http://www.outsmartweight.com/
http://www.ignitethepowerwithinbook.com/
419-344-6613