An Applied Research in Quality of Life study shows that anticipating a vacation – not actually taking it – increased happiness for eight weeks. 

After the vacation, happiness returned to pre-vacation levels.

Shawn Achor, an expert on happiness and author of The Happiness Advantage says anticipating almost anything positive makes us happy while we remain in the anticipation stage.

And it doesn’t have to be anything major.

In one study, even thinking about watching their favorite movie, raised the participant’s endorphin levels by 27%.

We all know about the adverse effects of negative thoughts on our wellbeing.

Now there is research to show that anticipation makes us happier than actually doing that which we anticipate.

A simple step to increasing happiness:  always have things to anticipate in your life.

If you try it and it works, please share this with someone you care about – Jerry

You can buy Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now.

Or you could meditate.

Being mindful of gratitude can also work.

But if you’re like me – we want to live more in the now but what’s happening in real time often prevents us.

A family crisis, an illness, problem at work, a bad break, too much stress, not enough sleep, feeling guilty or not good enough.

But there is a powerful phrase – just 5 simple words – that can interrupt life’s distractions and point us directly to a place where we can reclaim living in the present.

May I share it with you?

Emily Dickinson wrote:  “Forever is composed of nows”.

What a thought!

If we can survive a crisis, meltdown, stress or inconvenience, we can simply make another positive, happy, productive moment in spite of it all and it adds up to a life.

Anytime.

Any place.

Our lives consist of moments that we embrace and we can control.

Today, let’s see how many “nows” we can create even as life interrupts us and please share this with others who might appreciate a fast and effective way to quickly get in the moment — Jerry 

I used to work for Paul Drew, a hard-driving radio program director who didn’t suffer fools lightly. 

He often sought out information from me about what my friends at competing Philadelphia radio stations were saying.   

I found myself going on and on to impress the boss about what I knew.

But I learned a big lesson.

He would look me right in the eye and let me go on and on until it became apparent to me that he already knew that which I was trying to tell him.

I once asked him why he never stopped me and he said that you can’t learn anything if you’re talking and reminded me about Columbo, the disheveled private eye from TV dressed shoddy and looked dumb. 

But by asking “one more thing” and listening for the answer, the detective mystery was always solved.

The secret to knowing more is to conduct yourself like you know less. 

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing” – Socrates  

Have another GREAT Day!  Jerry

Susan Cain has a great new and much acclaimed book out called Quiet:  The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking.

Loud gets heard.

Pushy gets its way.

But introverts get left on the sidelines.  It may have always been that way but with the advent of social media, it is far worse.  Domineering people rule social media as well.

Cain tells us about foreign students who feel uncomfortable in the extrovert-oriented American school system.  And she walks us through Tony Robbins, Dale Carnegie and an evangelical church.

Quiet is as powerful as bombastic.

• The best speakers know the power of a dramatic pause and yet some of the most effective speakers are soft-spoken.
• In a world increasingly dominated by 80 million Millennials, authentic is more persuasive than dramatic.
• Sometimes it is better to pretend to be an extrovert than to actually be one.
• Contrary to popular belief, many of the best and most successful salespeople are introverts.  They have the one quality that guarantees effective salesmanship – the constant ability to listen rather than talk.

If you’re soft-spoken, quiet or downright shy, stop seeing it as a disadvantage.

Our world may seemingly reward the loud and aggressive, but quiet and authentic people are powerful in all phases of life if they can see their introverted traits as being the gift that they are.

“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas” – Susan Cain.

Please share this thought with a friend who needs to hear it or a child whose life defends on it — Jerry

1. Every time you have a success of any kind, make a mental IOU for yourself.  I put them as notes on my smartphone.  Build the list and refer to it often.  Exceeded your sales quota?  Make an IOU note of it.  Helped your child through a rough time?  Another IOU.  They add up and they build confidence.  Review them often.
2. Do the thing you fear to do.  Paralysis by indecision is more deadly to self-confidence that making a bad decision.
3. Speaking of bad decisions, you’ll have them.  Embrace them.  Learn from them.  Each failure is temporary unless you stop trying.  Never fear failure.
4. Think less of what people might think of you and more of what you think of yourself.  Take five minutes upon rising each day to look into the mirror and ask “Am I the person I want to be?”
5. Failures, setbacks or misfortune are the things that makes us more confidant tomorrow.  Just surviving builds confidence if we let it.
6. See vividly in your mind’s eye that which you want to accomplish.  Getting rich is not as effective a goal as seeing yourself in a beautiful house, nice car and surrounded by loving people.  Wishing for a promotion is not as much as a confidence builder as seeing your imaginary new business card “Vice President of …” with your name on it.
7. Take a compliment and repeat it often.  It is a flaw of being human that we repeat the negative things that hurt our confidence when there are so many positive thinks we too easily forget.

Thank you for letting me be part of your day!  I love to hear from you.  Jerry

When we say “no” very quickly, we are usually wrong. 

Experience proves that when we catch that word coming out of our mouth we have usually closed our minds to hearing something that is being said.

“No” is appropriate when we have considered the consequences, but it is often limiting when we react swiftly without forethought.

“I’m sure” is trickier.

When we say “I’m sure” it can mean that we’re not really sure.  We think we are sure.  Therefore when your response is “I’m sure of that”, take a second double check so you can have the evidence at hand to prove it.

When I was a TV reporter in Philadelphia, I was sent out on a story where torrential afternoon thunderstorms flooded a creek in a nearby county.

The assignment editor dispatched me with a crew to bring back the flooding on video.  Before leaving I asked if he was sure that the creek was overflowing.  

He said “I’m sure”.

But when I got to the scene, the water had subsided and there was no story at all – not that he didn’t make me bring one back anyway.  Hey, it’s TV.

“I’m sure” and “No” – red flags to beware of.

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If it’s all about you, enjoy it — alone.

If it’s about others, you will make and keep more friends than you ever thought was possible.

We think it’s normal to make the focus of life on us but doing so is an illusion.  We feel like we have lots of friends but do we really?  Followers are not necessarily friends.

We don’t number our friends – hey, I have 45 or whatever the number.

We value them one at a time.

There is one way to guarantee to make friends and keep them for a long time.  To enjoy rich relationships whether they are face to face or in our mobile social media world.

The secret is to become genuinely interested in other people.

Let them talk.  Ask them questions.  Reaffirm what you’re hearing or reading so they know you are really interested in what they say.

It takes a little self-control to hold back what we want to say but by talking in terms of the other person’s interests, you win a friend right away.  And often, they will reciprocate by showing the same kind of interest in us.

Taking time to care pays off instantly.

If you would like to receive these thoughts every day …

What if I make the wrong one?

What if the possible repercussions are worse than originally thought?

Will I make someone angry?

Good questions.  Bad approach to being decisive.

1.  There are no bad decisions.  Even when a decision seems to turn out wrong, other benefits may follow later.  Never forget that a decision is not judged immediately but over time and that can make all the difference.

2.  See vividly in your mind’s eye that which you want to accomplish.  When we clearly see the benefit of an action, we are more likely to muster the courage to take that action.

3.  Avoid wallowing in self-doubt.  Set a reasonable timetable based on the importance of the decision you are wrestling with, gather all the facts and then act.

4.  Second guessing is useless. 

5.  Humans have more potential courage than they think they have and the best way to focus on this courage is to review the decisions we have made previously that worked out well.

6.  Do the thing you fear to do and the fear will go away from you.  Fear of making a decision is usually more dangerous than making the actual decision.

“It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late” – Marilyn Moats Kennedy

If you would like to receive these thoughts every day …

Even the master of human relations did not believe people should sit silently by when they have pressing issues with others.

Dale Carnegie simply asked that we try tactful interaction as opposed to aggressively making enemies.

There is a three-stepped approach that can be very helpful the next time you find it necessary to confront an employer, co-worker, friend or even family member.

Step 1 – Name the issue in a phrase or sentence, no more.  Cutting to the chase by accurately articulating what’s wrong goes a long way.  Take responsibility for perhaps being part of the problem.  Avoid being accusatory or this conversation will blow up in your face.

Step 2 – Be a great listener in hearing the other person’s response.  In most confrontational situations, the accuser does all the talking and you see where that gets us.  Change it around.  Let the other person respond and listen intently – try not to interrupt.  Let them air it all out.  The other person has to know that you understand their perspective before you can move on to a resolution.

Step 3 – Say “how can we move forward from here now that we understand where each one of us is coming from?”  What’s the next step?  Get specific about how the two of you can abide by whatever is agreed to. 

Some people cannot be reasoned with.  So it’s best that we keep our expectations low. 

But often confronting another person is retribution for ill feelings that build up over time.  Try a different approach that allows for the potential of something positive to result when clear statements are made and both parties realize they want a resolution.

“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.” – Abraham Lincoln

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We are obsessed with the future.

What will happen when we get out of college, our next job, who will be the love of our life even what new features will be on the next iPhone one day after the latest one is introduced.

With all this pressure to think ahead, we have taught ourselves to make it difficult to live in the moment.

Everything we live for is here today – now.

What we want for the future is just conjecture until it happens in real-time.

Being stuck in the future is not so easy to change.  There isn’t one thought or action that will make us flip a switch and all of a sudden become Eckhart Tolle, the author of books on living in the now.

But there is hope and it’s very simple.

Look for things in the present to inhale, to become lost in – one thing a day, 365 a year. 

It’s probably something right in front of us that is getting lost as we continually look ahead.

What is the one thing occurring in your life that you want to focus on as it happens?

As D.H. Lawrence wrote, “The living moment is everything”.

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