The Philadelphia Eagles traded 37-year old Joe Dorenbos to the New Orleans Saints a week before his physical discovered a life-threatening genetic aneurysm.

If a younger player had not won his Eagles job this summer’s training camp …

If he had not been traded (he never played for another team and was very popular in Philly …

If his trade didn’t require an extensive physical enough to discover his large aortic aneurysm that was missed in previous years …

That’s fate.

Life is not just about being at the wrong place at the wrong time or being at the right place at the right time.

Along with faith, luck and perseverance life is a complex balance of that which we can control and that which we cannot control.

Often it is life changing in a positive way.

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I brought my car to Costco to have them put nitrogen in the tires.

A young man named Vinny did the work very well and in conversing with him he said how much he liked working for Costco (great to hear).

That he was just transferred into automotive and likes to work in the shop.

But upon further investigation, Vinny also was considering nursing school.

Nursing or autos, I thought.  How opposite.

And there it was – the dilemma many of us struggle with when we are searching for our calling in life.

Often it’s about money.

Or we pick a business that fascinates us.

But in the end when I pressed Vinny as to which one it is likely to be for him, he said “I don’t really know – something where I can help people”.

When searching for what we are meant to do, it is often necessary to look beyond careers and search for the part of us that is itching to be discovered.

It’s a feeling from within not a job search.

The career we will decide upon will be our calling if we first satisfy our inner need to be fulfilled as a person.

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Why do we do this to ourselves?

Why do we allow others direct access to our psyche to say unedited things that could be hurtful?

Then why do we repeat them over and over as if they were true?

And why do we invite others to continue berating us when it is so easy to say – STOP.

People become co-dependent to others when they allow them to say hurtful things as if they are to be accepted as the truth.

Most people beat themselves up because they have a lack of self-confidence or self-respect that acts as a protective barrier.

Never let anyone have direct access to your mind – even with good things because should they someday take them away, you remain damaged.

Beating yourself up can be replaced by talking yourself up by taking control.

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If you’re human, you will experience rejection.

The question is how can you absorb the sting of being rejected?

1. Don’t take rejection personally. That power remains with you.  If you refuse to make the feeling of being rebuffed about you as a person, it is easier to prevent damage to your ego.
2. Remind yourself that even the most successful and respected people have been rejected –  some of them publicly.  Steve Jobs had Apple Computer stolen away from him by the man he hired to run it.  Jobs returned and until his death the rest is history.
3. Being rejected and overcoming it makes you a better person to manage others because you are sensitive to it.
4. Have the attitude of a baseball player who just struck out– I’ll do better next time.

Rejection is not permanent unless you choose to make it so.

It’s just a bump in the road that eventually makes you a better person for dealing with it and overcoming it.

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If we eat all we want to, our weight gets out of control.

Drink too much?  We pay for it with our health.

Spend too much time being distracted by our phones and miss out on life.

1. Try to avoid responding (it just keeps the black hole of distraction growing). 

2. Never react (social media and texting makes the phone a dangerous impulse device).

3. Don’t participate in email that angers you.  You have the power to simply end it. 

4. Spend at least one hour every day (including workdays) away from your phone.

5. Social media is the biggest black hole of all digital distractions luring us deeper into the lives of others.  Resist.

Phones are great tools but they are so addicting that we hold them in our hand and check them constantly looking for another jolt of adrenaline.

When your phone is in your hand even when you’re not using it, refer back to #1 above.

When your phone is out while driving, put it away.

Allstate has a simulator that it takes around to schools so that students can try to avoid accidents while driving and texting.  No one has ever succeeded.

Put the phone in its proper place and live life.

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Sometimes we need perspective.

The ability to stand back and take a look at what is troubling us.

Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy, as the Eagles sang.

When dogged by a problem that is causing anxiety, put a hold on thinking about it except for one time per week (or per day if absolutely necessary).

On Tuesday between 8pm and 8:30 you are going to have at it and wrestle with what is causing so much trouble.

Two benefits.

You are re-channeling the problem to one specific time and allowing the rest of your life to proceed without the angst.

And you are scheduling one time to take a fresh look at the thing that is making you unhappy.

The only thing worse than wrestling with a problem is doing it 24/7.

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Dreams rarely turn into reality without three ingredients.

A Goal

A Plan

An Effort

Often there is a plan of action and a commitment to the work that it’s going to take to achieve the goal, but no clearly defined goal.

Or no plan but a clear dream.

And a commitment to the amount of effort and sacrifice it will take to realize the dream is either not considered or underestimated.

Success is not a fantasy.  It is a well organized, methodical approach that guarantees the necessary things get done.

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On a weekend visit to a local arboretum recently, I saw hundreds of people taking in the adjoining gardens, fountains and meadows and only two people that I counted texting.

It’s easy to say use your phones less, but more helpful to replace it with something compelling to do in real time.

These visitors didn’t turn their phones off or put them away, they just used the camera more than chat leaving Instagram for later.

An obvious choice to enjoy the beauty, the day and the company, people of all ages, races and genders were choosing to be present in the now.

The more time we devote to passive digital living, the more we miss out on other things that make us feel happy and connected.

It’s not an either or.

It’s what’s best for the situation.

Take control and actively create more in-person focused situations and the phone will take its place as a helpful tool and not a replacement for nothing else to do.

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The reason our phone is in our hand is because we fear missing something.

The average number of times a person checks their phone each day is 150 times.

Even if it does vibrate, we check anyway in anticipation.

The fear of missing something is eclipsing what we’re really missing – each other, new experiences, the beauty around us, time to think.

Take control.

Spend an equal amount of time discovering something new not fearing what you will miss.

Instead of pounding away at your phone to keep the fear of missing something away, change your goal to have the highest quality relationship with other people – on and off the phone.

Be more focused on what you’re missing in real time than on your phone – helpful reminders change habits.

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We self-interrupt every 3½ minutes.

That is not counting the interruptions that are initiated by others.

You’re collaborating in a group and trying to use your 3½ minutes to the best of your ability and someone contacts you with input, requesting information or asking for something.

Multi-tasking is a fad that never really worked.  It just sounded good.

Working or living with constant interruptions, some of which we ourselves are causing, is a difficult way to be productive or happy for that matter.

First steps toward becoming more focused:

Eliminate the interruptions of others (example:  set your phone on “do not disturb”)

Do not respond immediately to interrupters, it just brings more unfocused chat 

Don’t click on anything digital immediately

Don’t check the phone to see what you’ll get 

It takes 23 minutes to refocus our attention after we interrupt each other – a good motivation to take control to regain control.

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