I am lucky to work with some wonderful people. Recently the work I do with a couple of different people has coincided with events in my personal life. And it has been a powerful experience.

Jenifer Landers (http://www.fullyexpressedcoaching.com/) is my life coach. She helps me with business and personal challenges. Because of all the changes going on in my life this year, she has talked to me about leaving space in my life for people and things to “show up.” For example, my daughter graduated from high school and will be going to college in the Fall. Yikes. That will leave a big space for me to fill.

Or, if you think about it, I don’t have to fill that space. I could just leave it open for awhile to see which opportunities arise.

Another wonderful person I work with is Kelli Wilson. Kelli recently published a book: The Clutter Breakthrough (See her blog). In this very powerful book, Kelli does NOT go through a “plan” to clean up the clutter. Instead, she looks at the root causes of clutter. Her argument is that people have painful experiences in their lives, and they fill up their lives with something in order to avoid the pain.

Some people fill these spaces with alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, or any number of other things. The goal is not about the alcohol (etc.), but about coping mechanisms that keep them from having to experience the pain or the emptiness.

Analogy: Nerves

There’s a great medical device called a TENS unit. TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. A TENS unit operates from a 9-volt battery. It creates tiny electrical impulses and has pads that are attached to your skin. For example, if you have muscle spasms in your back, a doctor might use a tens unit to block the pain.

The electrodes are taped to the body near where the pain is.

Inside your body there are large nerve fibers and small nerve fibers. Of course these nerves carry pain signals. Well, actually, only the small nerve fibers carry pain. The TENS unit sends tiny electrical impulses down the nerve fibers. It floods the nerve fibers with these harmless impulses. Once the nerves are “filled” with these harmless electrical impulses, the pain signals cannot travel through the nerves.

This is a great analogy for thinking out the spaces in your life. Space might left because of a true loss: A death, a divorce, the loss of a job, or having a child leave home. Similarly, if you have a space that’s filled with pain, you need a mechanism to either stop the pain or at least take your mind off the pain.

And so the coping mechanisms we develop help us to 1) Fill empty space in our lives, and 2) Avoid dealing with the painful spaces in our lives that we’d rather not address. Just as a TENS unit fills the nerves with electrical impulses that keep the pain from getting through, we can use a variety of behaviors to fill our lives with *something* that’s better than the nothing or the pain.

Whether the space is empty (for example, loneliness) or filled with pain, “coping mechanism” are always a short-term solution. Coping mechanism might help you get by today and tomorrow. But longer term, you need to find more permanent solutions.

In the case of pain, the most important goal is to stop the cause of the pain. In terms of emotional pain, the cause is probably YOU and not whatever you think the cause it. Yes, the original cause of the pain was very real. But the ongoing cause of the pain is probably your willingness to continue dwelling on it. Counseling, prayer, and meditation can help you understand the pain and diminish it over time.

But you need to be aware that that process will leave a space where your “old friend” pain used to be.

In the case of loss or loneliness, you will also have an empty space.

No matter how this empty space comes about, you need to find healthy ways to fill that space. But I really encourage you to take some time filling the space. It takes a great deal of self-awareness to leave spaces in your life and not give in to the urge to fill them with “stuff” (physical stuff, activities, hobbies, bad habits, etc.).

Daily quiet time can be an extremely powerful tool to help you with this process. Whether you use it for meditation, prayer, or some other means of being away and clearing your mind, the very fact that you spend time considering your life will help you to work on the spaces in your life.

You may legitimately decide that you want to take up a new hobby, buy some clothes, or do whatever. But with daily contemplation about where your life is going, you will have a much healthier perspective for examining your options.

You may also find that you’ve managed to create a great deal more contentment than you had before.

:-)

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I’m sure you’ve read this quote before: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said at his trial for heresy. He was on trial for encouraging his students to challenge  accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves. The sentence was death or  Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death.   Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his “examined life” there was no point in living. So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death.  Luckily, we don’t have to choose between an examined life and death.   The sad thing is, most people avoid leading an examined life. It’s not that they don’t have time or make time. They actively avoid examining their lives.

People who do examine their lives, who think about where they’ve been, how they got here, and where they’re going, are much happier people. No one has all the answers and no one’s life is free from trouble and strife. Yet their are those who have some sense of where they belong in the universe also have a context for understanding how all the elements of their life fit together.

If there are two people, one with a map and one without a map, who has the better chance of reaching their destination? The one with the map, of course.

When you set aside time to examine your life,

You get to choose your destination; You get to set the goals;

You get to determine the path; You get to decide how long it will take;

You get to decide whether you’re on the right path or the wrong path.

In other words, you begin to know your self and to take control of your life. You decide who you want to be and begin to become the person you want to be.

The hardest thing about examining your life is getting started. You have to sit your butt in a chair and get used to not doing anything. Just relax. Focus. Well, you understand . . ..

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Last week my daughter Victoria (age 17.9 years) embarked on an adventure. The plan was to spend three days in New York City just seeing the sights, then hop over to England and Scotland for a week. She has two weeks for Spring Break and this is her senior year.

We had plans for the first night and the last night in the UK, but nothing in between. We had Britrail passes and tube passes, so we were set to just go. Our plan was to wake up every day and figure out what to do that day.

In this modern era it is very easy to hop on the internet and find a hotel at a good price on short notice.

Note: This approach takes a certain willingness to believe that you will be okay and that things will work themselves out. I have been cultivating that spirit for some time.

Meditation helps, as does an actual commitment to being a low stress person.

I believe you can always choose how you will respond to your environment. Sometimes it’s easier than others. The more planning you have, the easier it is. But, as the saying goes, sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade.

So here’s what happened to our vacation plans.

After three fun days in New York City, we went to the airport to catch an all-night flight to England and arrive at 8:30 AM. But my daughter could not get on the airplane because of a problem with her passport.

Stop. Vacation gone. Plane departing in two hours. Fix it or forget it.

At this point some people would add: Panic.

I was a little panicky, of course. But I decided a long time ago that I’m not the kind of person who blows up, yells and screams, abuses the person behind the counter, etc. I tried to stay calm, gathered the information I could.

It quickly became clear that I could not solve this tonight and we were going to miss the plane. Period. Nothing we could do about that. We could contact the passport office in New York or Connecticut. Quick phone call. NY was a seven day wait. No good. Connecticut might get us in within 8 business hours in an emergency. And might get a new passport within 8 business hours. But that means 1-2 more days in NYC with 1-2 days sitting around a government office, just so we could spend a day flying to England to continue the vacation.

We decided to do England another time. The next question was: Do we go home or reboot the vacation?

Important factor: My daughter only gets one spring break her senior year in high school.

So where do you want to go? The entire East Coast is at your disposal. Or we could rent a car and drive home, seeing the sights. Or take trains and see America. Or whatever.

We decided to catch the next flight to Florida and spend time in the sun. Went online and booked one-way airfare. Cheap, even at the last minute. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Total elapsed time since vacation destroyed: about 60 minutes.

Was I happy about the situation? No. But I had decided to NOT panic, NOT make it a disaster, and NOT focus on what I can’t control.

Yes, it will cost a lot of money. But we can use those Britrail passes another time. And we had almost no other out of pocket expenses except airfare. Called the airline and cancelled. They’re rebating a good portion of what we paid.

And here’s the key: We can’t control what we can’t control!

The mindset of not wasting energy on things you can’t control is a mindset that you can practice. You can create that approach to life.

The mindset of creating lemonade when life gives you lemons is a mindset that you can practice.

You get to choose how you will respond to the world.

I hope that my daughter will love the new vacation we are creating and that she will always take the attitude of slowing down and looking on the positive side when things go wrong.

“Stuff” happens in life. You can make yourself miserable and dive into the well of dispair, or you can pick up the lemons and start making lemonade.

Daily quiet time, meditation, and prayer go a long way to making this possible.

Status Report: We just finished three days in Orlando. We’re working our way through the Disney parks. On Sunday we’re heading to Church (It’s Easter) and then off to Daytona Beach. We got a nice hotel ON the beach for $46/night. Thank goodness for the Internet.

We’ll head home when we had planned. It won’t be the vacation we planned, but it’s been a Great vacation and a great adventure so far.

:-)

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I finally caught up with posting old newsletters to the Relax Focus Succeed web site.

Check out the RFS Newsletter Page

If you haven’t seen all of the newsletters for the last year, check them out.

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Sometimes we let life get ahead of us. We find ourselves responding to the moment instead of keeping track of our own long-term vision about life.

Unfortunately, I have rheumatoid arthritis, an immune disorder in which the body attacks the joints.

Fortunately for me, I just passed my tenth anniversary with this disease. Fall of 2008 represented ten years since the sudden onset of R.A. Why is that fortunate? Because I’m not yet crippled by it. I still walk reasonably well. I’ve had one surgery with no complications.

For R.A., that’s pretty good!

In that ten years I’m grown a few businesses, made a bunch of money, lost a bunch of money, made it back, and recently lost some again.

Life goes on.

In that period I have also added ten years to my marriage. We’re coming up on 18 years. Not bad by any standard.

I’ve also raised a little kid into a big kid. My daughter is 16 and thinks she’s 26. In the big picture, she’s healthy, doing well in school, and staying off drugs.

In that ten years we’ve bought houses and sold houses. My wife has changed jobs. I’ve changed one business around and started another.

We’ve had one dog and one cat pass away in that time. But we’ve added a little dog and two big cats.

Somewhere along the way, we picked up a bunch of new friends, both locally and all over the globe. Ten years ago people feared that computers and the internet would separate people from one another. But human beings are social animals. We found ways to expand our social circles online.

We go through life.

I like to ask audiences to think about the last ten years. Any ten years, really.

Consider: Ten years ago, you probably . . .

- Lived in a different house
- Had a different job
- Had different friends
- Drove a different car
- Enjoyed different hobbies
- Wore different clothes

and . . .

- Your family was different
- Your income was different
- Your daily habits were different

and so forth.

You get the idea: Virtually every aspect of your life will be different ten years from now. All those changes will take place one day at a time, one choice at a time, one tiny thing at a time.

But no matter what happens along the way, remember that YOU get to choose how you’ll make your way. In other words, you can decide whether the next ten years will happen to you or whether you’ll actively participate in how your life evolves.

Working on your life doesn’t have to be a big, difficult job. If you set the long-term goals, and remind yourself of them from time to time, you’ll just tend in the direction you want to go.

Try it. Give it time. Lots of time.

After all, you have the rest of your life to become who you want to be.

:-)

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One of the elements of a “defining event” in history is that millions of people share some experience in common. Unfortunately, we’re having one of those moments now.

The economic turmoil in the U.S., and around the world, is truly unprecedented. And while it was caused by a very small band of people (a small percentage of borrowers, a small groups of loan agents, a few companies, a few executives), the credit crisis has affected virtually everyone with money.

Whether you’ve lost a few thousand or a few hundred thousand, it can be a depressing situation.

But it’s also a time for some perspective. No matter how bad it is, the economy WILL turn around. House values will return. Stock prices will go up.

When the Dot Com “bubble” burst, many stock portfolios were cut in half. Within five years, we bounced back and went way beyond the levels achieved during the bubble.

It’s hard to be where we are. But economic problems are nothing new. Don’t panic and you’ll be fine.

- – - – -

The most important thing to focus on in times like this are the people in your life and high value activities.

People

When the world seems full of all bad news, you have a bit of extra responsibility: You need to be soemone’s ray of sunshine! Seriously. Whether it’s
- your spouse
- your parents,
- your children,
- your co-workers,
- your employees,
- your employers,
- the people at the grocery store,
- etc.

Everyone you meet today, tomorrow, and the next day has a good reason to be worried about the future.

At the same time, money isn’t everything.

It’s real easy to say that “money isn’t everything” when prosperity abounds and everything seems headed in the right direction. But when things go South, you need to take stock and remind yourself about what’s important.

Central to any human discovery of what’s important is a look at our relationships with other people.

No matter how bad times are, it’s cheap to talk to friends, send Christmas cards, shoot an email to a buddy.

The other important thing to pay attention to is . . .

High Value Activities

I was thinking today about “Christmases past.” When my delightful daughter was three and four and five years old, we used to spend every weekend together. Around Christmas, we’d go look at trees. We’d go to the local lumber yard for this or that. We’d hit Long’s drug store — every weekend. We rarely bought anything at long’s. But Victoria wanted to see the plants, ride the rides, and look at whatever was new.

Those were some serious “high value” activities.

Especially during the holiday season, it’s real easy to capture these high value activities and make some new memories you can keep forever.

Remember your baby’s first Christmas. Remember the look on a face when a special present is unwrapped. Remember playing games with friends and family. Remember getting an email or letter from someone special.

Our lives are filled with human interaction. Positive, negative, and indifferent.

As Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters used to sing: “Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”

Many events happen that are outside your control. But you still get to decide how you’ll react to them and interact with others.

Have a great Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

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It’s finally here.The Promotion Monkey newsletter — Monkey Business — is finally here. Please sign up today.

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- – - – -

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Wow.

I can always tell when school is back in because there’s an explosion of activity on one of my articles:

The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living.

You’ve probably heard those words before. They’re from Socrates, at his trial for corrupting the youth by encouraging them to think critically about the government and society.

Freakin’ radical.

Anyway, when school starts up, I get a huge bump in traffic on the Relax Focus Succeed web site. Or at least on that page. I don’t know if it is actually of any use for college or high school students who are trying to understand the reading, but it does quite well in the search engines.

If you search for “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living” you’ll find it. It shows up better on Google than Windows Live, but that’s okay since everyone uses Google.

A few teachers have also linked to this article from their blogs or web sites. So that’s fun.

I guess the lessons are: 1) Nothing ever “dies” on the Internet. and 2) Put your thoughts out there for other people. Somebody will find value in them.

I encourage you to consider blogging. The social side of the Internet consists of all of us contributing a little perspective that’s different fromt he rest of us. Examining our lives as a society.

Socrates would love it.

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Let me be very clear here: I’m not a doctor. I don’t play one on TV. I don’t hand out medical advice. I just find myself thinking about the world around me and I can’t help “thinking outloud” on the web.

I’ve heard the term “ADHD” — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder — but I’m not entirely sure whether I believe it’s a disorder or just the far end of a normal distribution.

The concept of a “normal distribution” tells us that 68% of something is within one standard deviation of the mean. That means things are bunched up in the middle. The average person is average. The average IQ is average. The average ability to focus your attention on something is average.

95% of the population is within two standard deviations from the mean. and 99.7% of the population is within three standard deviations from the mean.

That means, if you’re outside the “norm” for any given trait or behavior, you don’t have to be very far outside to be very different from everyone else. I don’t know if that’s a disorder.

But if you’re a good notch or two different in a trait that affects lots of other things, then the way you process and interact with the rest of the world will also be different.

Not wrong. But different.

- – - – -

Any trait that’s a bit out of the norm (on either end of the scale) can affect your ability to succeed, learn, get along with others, etc.

I’ve written before about Success and the “Monkey Mind.” Monkey mind is a term we use to describe a busy, fast mind. We have so many thoughts rushing in on us that we can’t straighten them all out.

I am blessed (and cursed) with a monkey mind. When I go for my walk in the morning, I almost always come back with an idea for a new book, a new business adventure, a solution to a problem, etc. The problem is: I have hundreds of ideas per day. When I filter them, I think maybe five are really good ideas. One might be a great business adventure.

But this happens every day. Most of these thoughts don’t contribute to anything. And I already own enough businesses. I’m constantly being tempted away from the business in front of me because the next great adventure seems so exciting.

This monkey mind makes it hard to concentrate, hard to pray, hard to meditate, hard to relax, hard to sleep. I need to shut my mind “off” sometimes in order to relax and actually get something accomplished.

In the real world, there are no bonus points for having lots of ideas, even good ideas.

As a result, people with very busy minds are often less “successful” than people with a more normally-paced minds.

At the other end of the spectrum are people whose minds are less busy than the norm. I’m not talking about people who are “slow” or mentally retarded. Just one or two standard deviations from the norm. They simply don’t have an onslaught of new ideas every day.

In many ways, they are more likely to find success because they are not distracted every day.

Remember, you don’t have to be very different from the great masses to seem very different.

- – - – -

Here’s the thing about success: Whether you have too many new ideas, or not enough, the solution is the same.

To be successful, you need to put your time, effort, and energy into a few key behaviors.

First is Delay of Gratification

Second is Patience

Third is Activity — don’t procrastinate

Fourth is Focus. Focus like a laser beam on your goals.

The result of these behaviors is someone who gets up every day and works hard on the handful of things that really matter. They lead you to work very hard on the things that you know are successful. They keep you from being distracted by new adventures.

The starting place, whether you need to quiet your mind or focus your energy, is daily quiet time. Mornings are best because you focus your energy before you start your day.

So whether you’re smack dab in the middle, or a little bit different from the great masses, the starting place for success is the same: spend some time thinking about where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.

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There are many great aspects of gardening. One of the greatest is patience. You simply cannot garden quickly.

In fact, one of the most important skills a gardener needs is the ability to do nothing:

- Don’t prune when it’s not needed.
- Don’t fertilize when it’s not needed.
- Don’t plant when you shouldn’t plant.
- Don’t water when you shouldn’t water.
- Don’t even weed when you shouldn’t weed!

I’m not kidding.

The most important part of gardening is waiting.

You put in your plants, make sure they’ve got what they need. And then you just wait. A garden needs to “overgrow” just a bit before you can start pruning and shaping.

Sometimes you get eager to just do something — anything — in your garden.

But if you go playing around everyday, pruning and digging, pulling and watering, your plants will grow smaller and smaller until they disappear!

I’ve lived in my house for just over four years. I’ve had the pleasure of working on my yard for four summers. And most of that “work” has consisted of putting things in place and standing back to see what happens. I’d say five percent gardening and ninety-five percent waiting.

After two years I liked my yard. After three I loved it. And now, after four, my yard does everything it’s supposed to do.

- We have hummingbirds twelve months out of the year.
- We have butterflies, finches, and doves nesting in our yard.
- We have beautiful flowers with something blooming every day of the year.

In other words I have the garden I wanted.

And I would never have had it without patience.

I can’t wait until next year.  :-)

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