What are you living for?

In his book Noble Purpose, William Donovan reminds us that living for something beyond yourself is the key to real fulfillment and strength.  

He says that self-centered living leads to emptiness.  Chasing only personal success or pleasure leaves people restless and unsatisfied.

Purpose fuels resilience.  When things get tough, a higher purpose keeps you grounded and moving forward.

I have found this to be true. When there is a cause you believe in, you keep “fighting” and moving forward even when it is tough.

When you commit to a purpose, it can transform your life.  Dedicating yourself to a cause, community, or mission provides deep meaning and energy to your days.

We will talk more about purpose tomorrow.  But tell me in the comments – what purpose, cause or goal beyond your own pleasure have you dedicated yourself to – if any (yet)?

Make space for something better

Your life is full.  Full of activities, commitments, and things to do.

How can you add “more” and better things?  There’s no time.

Quitting something is the only way to find time (and energy) to do the next thing.

If I free up some space in my day, I make an opening. 

In that opening, I can plant something better; something of higher value or something fresh.

What is old, not serving you, or even destructive?

Quit it and make that opening.  

The secret to happiness

“The secret to happiness is freedom.

The secret to freedom is courage.” – Thucydides

If you do not have the courage to learn new things, you cannot be free.

If you do not have the courage to do what is hard and right, rather than what is easy, you cannot be free.

If you do not have the courage to get in the right games, and out of the wrong ones, you cannot be free.

If you do not have the courage to step out of your comfort zone, you will be trapped in it, and not free.

If you are not free, you will not be happy.

Have courage in your pursuit of a good life.

“Doing Good”

“If you’re going to be remebered after you’re gone, it will be the result not from being good, but from doing good.” – Dr. Mardy Grothe

“The happiest people I know are people who don’t even think about being happy.  They just think about being good neighbors, good people.  And then happiness sort of smeaks in the back window while they’re busy doing good.” – Harold Kusher

“Do not run after happiness, but seek to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you.” – James Freeman Clarke

Don’t believe everything you think (or say).

Your thoughts got you here.  You are talking to yourself all the time.

But if you want to keep growing, you will need new and better thoughts.

You will have to let go of some ideas and narratives about yourself and the world to allow newer, updated, (conflicting) ones to enter and grow.

Hold loosely to your ideas, and be willing to let them go when you see a better one come into view.

This is growing, and maturing, and getting better.

Don’t be a pawn

The media’s (mainstream and social) job is to entertain you and hold your attention.  

Your job is to ignore them.

Don’t be a tool.

Use that time for much better purposes in your life.

Choosing Easy World

I will lay this thought on you today – 

There is a book called Choosing Easy World by Julia Rogers Hamrick.  It’s a guide to opting out of struggle and strife and living in the amazing realm where everything is easy.

Wow!  That sounds great!

Here’s the premise.  Struggle and suffering is internal.  Choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy.  When some daunting challenge barrels into view, just decide that you’re going to experience it as easy instead.

I like that idea.  I’m going to use that when I go to the 13-day Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia in a few months!

“Fat Chance”

Today, some highlights from the book “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease” by Dr. Robert Lustig.

The book is a bold science-grounded exposé, revealing how sugar isn’t just a sweet treat but a metabolic disrupter fundamentally reshaping health.

“Sugar isn’t a neutral snack – it’s toxic.”  Lustig argues that sugar, especially in its refined forms, acts like a poison, rewiring the body’s biochemistry and fueling obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

“Calories lie – the type matters.  A calorie is not a calorie when it comes to sugar, as it triggers hormonal imbalances like insulin and leptin resistance that hijack hunger and metabolism.”

I know – we all love sugar.  But that’s a problem…

What is one substitution you can make to do better?

Sleep like a champion- continued

I find that when I was “normal” (did what everyone else did), I found some ideas like what we are talking about to be outlandish.  Like “no way I can do that”, or “That can’t make that much of a difference”.  Understandably so.  We create habits of doing and thinking that we think are good or ok because they are common.  But look around.  There are a lot of people who are not healthy, or could be doing better.  

“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

So by definition, if you want to do better than average, you can’t do what average people do.

Anyway, let’s get back to talking about sleep.  

Working out is good for you, right?  No doubt.  You have to get your heart rate up at least every other day for 30-40 minutes.  And studies show that maintaining some muscle mass is important for so many reasons.  But when should you workout – in the morning or at night?

When it comes to having good sleep, definitely in the morning.  Why?  Because working out doing strenuous exercise at night gets you all jacked up and warmed up, and you can’t get your heart rate down and go to sleep for some time afterwards.  If you work out in the morning, you will go to bed earlier and sleep better.  

I am one of those people who said “I hate getting up in the morning, so I don’t want to get up earlier to work out.”  Yeah because I went to bed too late – maybe because I worked out late and ate late!  You see, it’s a cycle.  You have to go to bed earlier to make this work.

One power lifter said that he worked out at night for many years.  When he started working out in the morning, everything changed, and he was sleeping much better.

A good day starts the night before when you go to bed.

Another thing that is important is having your bedroom dark.  Recently, I got rid of this big digital clock that glowed with blue numbers from my nightstand.  It matters.  Dark is good for sleep!  Again, that’s why you want to shut screens off early.  Many are using red light bulbs in bedroom lamps for the wind-down time.  I haven’t tried that yet.

Another thing is temperature.  Cool is good for sleep.  The sweet spot is 65 degrees F.  The cool temperature will promote deeper sleep.  You can regulate your temperature with the blanket covering a little more or a little less.

I’m not big into too much data, but if you have an Apple Watch you already have a sleep app on it.  I wore mine to bed and got some basic information, including total sleep time, time awake, time in deep, core, or REM sleep, and what my heart rate was.  If you can get your heart rate down that’s good.  Mine touches 48 for the low most nights, but can go up to as high as 68 on an average night.   

So, that’s some ideas to get better sleep.  Most of the things you need to do to get better sleep are things you do while you are awake to prepare your body to sleep well.  

Good luck with this and leave a comment!

Sleep like a champion!

Continuing our discussion about sleep, here are a few more things I found out by learning and actual testing – they really work!

The next thing is do not eat a big meal late.  In fact, if you can eat your last meal before 6pm, (even 5pm!) you will sleep better.  While this is not a discussion on how to lose weight, they are related!  If you go a long time each day wothout eating, your body will switch over from buring calories as fuel to burning fat as fuel.  And the longer you go, 12 hours, 13, 14, 15…the more exponential the benefits are.

But let’s stick to sleep.  When you eat a big meal, your heart rate goes up and your body works to digest all that stuff.  You lie in bed, and you are hot, because your body is generating heat digesting everything you ate.  Then later, in the wee hours when the bulk of the digestion is done and your body has stored all the extra as fat, then you cool down and can sleep better.  But, it’s too late – you don’t have enough hours to get enough sleep.  So don’t eat late, and don’t eat big for your last meal.  Lunch can be big – but not dinner.

Restaurants want you to have drinks, an appetizer, a main course and a desert – because they drive the ticket up and make more money!  You have to be smarter than that!

More on great sleep tomorrow!

Great sleep makes you a better person

When you sleep well and enough, don’t you feel great the next day?

I can say that when I don’t have enough sleep, I can’t focus – I have brain fog the next day.  And I am not happy!  My ambition, optimism, and patience all take a big hit.  And when I am tired, I eat more to try to maintain my energy level.

How about you?

So let’s talk about this.  It may take a few days to get through all the things I have experienced (no new discoveries for mankind!), but it’s important.

The first requirement is that you cannot sleep enough by getting up later on most days.  I mean, you gotta get the kids going, get them to school, get to work…right?

So the only way to get more/enough sleep is to go to bed earlier.  To do that, you have to start your wind-down routine earlier.

Here’s another thing – you have to shut off the screens at LEAST one hour before bed.  That’s right, people!  I know we are all addicted to our favorite app and all the content engineered to give us little addictive dopamine hits, but you have to stop.  You know if you get on your phone, you’ll be there for hours.  And what do you get out of it long term – nothing.

Screens emit blue light.  Blue light is like the daytime sky, and when your eyes see it, your brain emits chemicals that say, “It’s daytime, stay awake.”  

Kill the screens early.  Instead, get something to read.  For me, reading gets me pretty sleepy in about 15 minutes when it’s close to bedtime.

Let’s talk more about HOW to SLEEP LIKE A CHAMPION tomorrow.

The one who influences us the most…

“It was hard to communicate with you.  You were always communicating with yourself.  The line was busy.” – Jean Kerr

We talk to ourselves constantly.

Over and over, we hear messages, beliefs, and reinforcements.

What are you saying?

He who thinks he can….

Belief builds reality. 

There’s “He who thinks he can” – who goes out there and figures it out and does it.

Equally, there’s “He who thinks he can’t” – who just can’t do it – because he believes he can’t, he doesn’t try.  

Belief is a very powerful factor in achievement.

What do you believe you can and can’t do?

Crises awakens your potential

Your greatest strengths emerge when they are forced out of you; when you HAVE to do things you wouldn’t normally do, or do yet.

A crisis reveals what you can do when you have to.

And now that you know, the fence you constructed in your mind gets moved out.

What crisis in your life had you doing things you’d never have done otherwise?

“This is not happening to me, it’s happening for me.” – Sean Stephenson

Self-Control

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.” – Michel de Montaigne

While I can influence things, I can’t control what happens all the time.  I am in charge of what bothers me.  I am in charge of my reactions.

I am getting better and better at this with practice when opportunities come up.

It’s not that I do not care, it’s that I choose not to suffer over things that don’t go the way I wanted or expected.  

Practice this.  The next time you get bad news, or when people say something you don’t like, take a moment and make a conscious decision not to react, outwardly or even inwardly.

This type of self-control is freedom – not from circumstance, but from inner choice.

Flow state sessions

To get into flow, we must be free of distractions and have total control over what we are doing.

It goes for physical work and mental work.

I do my best work when I am in flow state.  I can’t always just get into flow when I want.  I need to be well rested and in a quiet place.  

When I do get into flow – when my mind is working well, I am fully engaged, and the project is coming out of me, I stay with it to take advantage of the productive “session”.

Do you have quiet spaces where you can get into flow? 

Do you take advantage of the time and stay with it?

The opening after the storm

Not all storms come to disrupt your life. 

Some come to clear your path.

It’s true.  Ask me how I know.

Don’t give up. 

Take advantage of it.

Live on purpose

There’s a lot out there in the world.  Your choices shape your life.

You have to be clear on what you want your life to look like and you have to be clear about your boundaries.

Live on purpose, according to your choices, not by whatever comes along.

You have to determine what gets your attention, energy and time.

You are in charge of you.

What is getting your attention, energy and time?

Event – Story – Meaning – Emotions – Actions (and changing history)

Something happens.  Ok.  It happened.  Then what?

Then you made a story about it.  You replayed that story over and over and assigned it meaning – “This event shows that…”

The story and meaning elicit emotions from you.

Those emotions release chemicals into your bloodstream that make you feel good or bad.

Your bahavior or actions changes based on those emotions.

Question – was it the event, or the story you told over and over that were the most influential?

In the event you may have not had any choice.  But in the story and meaning, you have ALL the choice.

You get to make the story and the meaning.

The really cool thing is that you can assign NEW meaning to things that happened a long time ago – you can literally change history.

Attitudes are valued skills or liabilities

Imagine this – two people have identical skills; one delivers their work with kindness, helpfulness, and a positive attitude and the other with a grimace, strife and negativity.

Which gets promoted?  Which gets a raise?  Which gets terminated if work gets slow?  Which makes the sale?  Which has more friends to help them?  

Which are you?