This Sunday is my wedding anniversary.  It will be 15 years since I married my wife in Pasadena, CA on May 20th, 2003.  So, as I made plans for our weekend getaway, which I keep completely secret from my wife, she doesn’t even know where we are going LOL, I love to surprise her!  Well, like I said, as I was making the plans, I came across some old notes in a journal that I had not read in a few years. In those notes, I was reminded of a good friend of mine who reached out to me almost in desperation looking for a solution to his current financial problems at the time.

All of us as human beings are driven by emotions.  Emotions compel humans to take measures that they had prior thought they would never be able to adopt.  Emotions such as sadness, happiness, love, hatred, and much more control our actions extensively.
 
Emotions dictate our actions, thoughts, and influence our intentions.  Emotion can profoundly impact our life therefore rather than being a slave to your emotions, it is essential that you take control of them and be the master of your emotions.  Not learning how to harness your emotions can inflict major harm not only to yourself, but to the people close to you.  If you have ever had a blow up because you lost your temper, then you know how impactful that can be on your spouse, children, other family members, even employees and co-workers.  No one is safe from someone who can’t control their emotions.

Bad habits are common in everyone’s lives. Some people smoke, some people lie, some people fail to exercise, eat poorly, or procrastinate.  And some of us do many of these things, or we go in spurts doing well for periods of time and then fall off the wagon again.  Most people realize that what they are doing is essentially wrong and is affecting themselves in a negative way.  However, little is usually done in curbing these problems.

The concept of a good life is very subjective because everyone has their very own definition for what a good life is.  For instance, for some people, a good life is one in which they are monetarily superior to the masses. For other’s it may be success in their careers, and for others still, it may be the rewards of recognition.
 
One thing can be derived, regardless, is that all human beings strive for success in their respective lives in one way or the other.  The key here is to ensure that you have a clearly defined objective of how you keep score.

So, you want to reduce stress?  Today’s concept will provide you three huge benefits that will allow you to reduce stress significantly in your life…

As I updated both my LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, expecting the inevitable cascade of well-wishing messages encouraging me on my new role, I couldn’t help but think back to a time when my career change was not so enticing.  I remember a time not that many years ago when I transitioned my career in a different direction and it did not work out so well, as a matter of fact, I chalk that time up as my $250,000 MBA in business.

By now, if you have followed any of my writing, you know Goals are important.  At this point you can’t even fathom how much you have heard that statement from me. Goals are the foundation of all new challenges we take on, they are the basis for all personal growth, they bring about and help determine where you are with your progress, and most importantly, they are determined, or at least signed off on by you, if you do them correctly.

Most people out there approach each day with the best of intentions at making each day the most productive day possible, every day, myself included.  But practically speaking, it doesn’t happen too often.  Meanwhile, you see or hear of that overachieving peer or competitor of yours, waking up at early morning hours, and cashing in on the extra time they gain.  Moving easily through the afternoon hours, crushing the day on key projects, getting their work outs in, eating right, and even finding time to be on committees and other networking opportunities.  Then they can finish off the day early to attend key family functions, being the parent that never misses anything, or the spouse that does amazing things for their significant other.

How do they have that energy?  Where do they find the time to do all these things?  Who can possibly be so perfect and do everything that they know they should do every day?  What do they know that you don’t?  Why can’t you figure these things out and get more done?  What is their secret?

If you picked up on the typo in the title, then likely you also caught the reference to one of my favorite movies, “The Pursuit of Happyness” with actor Will Smith.  The pun is intended to capture your attention and remind us that the pursuit of Happyness is just that, a pursuit.  However, it doesn’t have to be a pursuit in vain.  Happiness is often alluded to as a place where everything is perfect, a euphoric place where everyone is just happy.  Well, I am here to tell you that place doesn’t exist, sorry to burst your bubble.

Last week, I wrote a blog reminding everyone that as of April 1st, we were officially 25% of the way into 2018 and I asked each of you to assess where you were with your goals for this year.  Now that you have taken time to consider where you are and how your goals are coming along, I thought I would share with you where I am at for my goals for 2018.  In full transparency, I am going to share what I started with and how things have progressed since the beginning of the year.

Can you believe it, it feels just like yesterday my wife and I were sitting at home on New Year’s Eve drinking our traditional bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, watching the ball drop, and trying to stay up until midnight.  Three months have passed, and the year is cranking along, we are now officially over 25% of the year completed.  So, with an opening like that, where do you think my article is going today?  Yep, you guessed it, time to talk about where you are with your goals…

You might have heard the old outdated cliché’s and received a lot of ceremonial lip service centered around this concept. Often, words like 'steadfast', 'determined' and 'committed' are loosely thrown around in conversations, as if it was commonplace. There is also a liberal excess of discourse around what it means to have perseverance and what are the true ingredients to success?  So, then how is this account any different? This anecdote comes in the form of colorful personal experience which is plentiful and relatable, so, let's get started...

According to groundbreaking research, announcing your New Year's resolution at the beginning of each year almost guarantees your failure in achieving them.  I’ve probably shared this with you before.  You see, loud proclamations in front of a crowd of loved ones or friends that you are setting off to accomplish some goal, makes you feel good for the moment. However, soon, you become complacent, and your goals start falling apart, which brings us to a fascinating topic; the difference between setting goals and finally achieving them.

Bad habits; we all have them. You are probably well aware of what they are and how they impact you in a negative way.  The problem is for the overwhelming majority of us, bad habits are a way of life and they are hard to break, sometimes we even feel powerless to break the chain of bad habits.  However, let me show you how important it is to your success that you not only squash bad habits, but create new empowering habits to replace them.  And, in the process increase your productivity tenfold.

I have decided to republish my first book “Success with Goals – Designing Your Life with Purpose” and I am asking all my previous employees, clients, and mentorees of the last 25 years, to please provide a testimonial of how my leadership, guidance, and coaching improved or enhanced your life.  I am looking for all stories that we can post on my website, but ideally, I would love to include many of them into my book, if you are willing.  We will have each story professionally edited and added to the republished book in the coming months and my hope is to have at least 100 testimonials from anyone and everyone who ever felt that I improved their life and would be willing to share that story on my website and/or in my book.