It is amazing how many beginners are lucky.

If you’ve wondered why that is, perhaps it is because beginners are not really lucky.

They are fearless.

The more we fear failure, the more we fear what it takes to be successful.

When we start something new – such as a new job, a new hobby, or a new interest, our best days are usually in the beginning before we hear the negative attitudes of others, or even worse – the repetitive words of constraint.

What can’t be done. 

What’s too expensive to consider. 

What someone else might not want.

You could say Mark Zuckerberg had beginner’s luck when he invented Facebook in college.  

But it was no accident. 

It was a lack of fear.

So beginner’s luck is a misnomer.  It should really be called beginner’s fearlessness.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few” – Shunryu Suzuki

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A friend of mine took me to lunch in his new car.

It was a brand new Cadillac.

I complimented it and wished him the best but I got more than a pleasant lunch that day.  I learned an important lesson.

He was a business owner/salesman who relied on his own work ethic and ability to sell himself to make a living.  And here is what he told me:

“I bought this car because I exceeded the sales goal I set for myself in the beginning of the year.  I knew if I could hit that goal, I would make enough to reward myself with a new car.”

But I asked him was there ever a time when he set a goal and fell short.

His response:

“Last year – which is why had I picked you up for lunch then, we would have been driving there in my old car.”

His advice:

1. Even if you get close to your goal, do not give yourself the reward anyway.  Getting close is such a strong motivator, you will actually more than exceed your original goal once you’ve fallen short.
    
2. Choose a reward that can be well defined – like a car, a vacation, a full day at the spa, etc.  The more tangible, the better.
    
3. Once you earn your reward, be mindful every time you think of it or use it (as driving in his car) that the material reward represents something more important – your commitment to work toward your goals.

Or as Confucius said:

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps”.

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The 2007 Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman movie The Bucket List contributed a few words to our vocabulary based on a wish list conjured up by two men who were terminally ill and wanted to embark on a road trip before they “kicked the bucket”.

The term “bucket list” has now been borrowed by the rest of us as a way to formulate a wish list of our own without the exclusive motivation of dying. 

The concept of 10,000 Things to Do Before You Die is also a bit wanting.

There’s nothing wrong with fantasizing and you never know, you may actually do something you would have not done had it not been for your bucket list.

But bucket lists should also be all about sharing your life and doing fulfilling things – not just focused on one person.

A better alternative to the bucket list is to live each moment to the fullest.

The things we do for ourselves, families or friends is not a sacrifice but a privilege.

Here are some ideas from wikiHow to live like there is no tomorrow:

1. Listen to music and enjoy it. Express yourself by dancing to it or singing along.
    
2. Participate in active conversation and engage in the subject matter with another human.
    
3. Forgive. Many of us carry grudges with us that haunt us, and those grudges also prevent us from opening our hearts to others because we’re scared of getting hurt again.
    
4. Children don’t worry about the future; they play and enjoy every moment for what it is. They haven’t yet learned to think ahead or mull over the past, so take the opportunity to learn from them.
    
5. Watch your breath, by noticing your breathing pattern your mind naturally quiets and pays more attention to the present moment.
    
6. Think about how happy your good deed could make someone!

Sometimes the fantasy of the future is found on no list at all. 

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Can you remember where you were 5 years ago? 

Who you were with?  Where you lived?  What your routine was like?  Your hopes?  Your fears?

One way to better understand how unpredictable life can be is to take yourself back 5 years and see if you could imagine being where you are today.  Most people could not.

Looking ahead can be useful but to really see what the future has in store for us is to respect how impossible it is – even for very smart people – to see even a year in the future.

5-year plans are useless.

Being docile and ready to respond (not react) is the skill we should shoot for.

This blog was not in my purview one year ago.  A change in where I live was not on the table.  I could not anticipate the new friends I met over the past 12 months that would change my life or the ones I lost to death.

The irony of life is that the future is impossible to predict.

In fact, predicting it is vain and senseless.

A better use of our time is to:

1. Prepare for the future by being able to deal with problems that invariably will crop up.
    
2. Act with ease on opportunities that occur and live with a sense of wonder that life is not a time tunnel but an adventure, which means when we fail, we get up and resume the quest.

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Can’t and its cousin “cannot” should be banned from our vocabulary.

When I hear a person say can’t, I translate it to mean “I won’t”.

And that person is often me not just everyone else. 

One of the most overused words in our lives is “can’t”.

Coaches tell their players they can.

Teachers tell their students you will.

Dreamers tell themselves I might.

We are the sum total of what we think so ban the use of the word “can’t” for one day and see how much positive energy you create.

“Never say ‘I can’t.’ ‘I can’t’ is a limit, and life is about breaking through limits. Say ‘I will’ instead.” – Heather Vogel Frederick 

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Amit Sood is a remarkable man.

A physician at Mayo Clinic, Chair of the Mind and Body Initiaitve and Associate Professor of Medicine.

I have never seen a better case made for forgiving others than Dr. Sood makes in 14 pearls of wisdom.

I am anxious to share my discovery with you.

How to Forgive:

1. Consider forgiveness a life long process. Quick fixes are not likely to work.
    
2. It is okay to be selfish in forgiveness.  You forgive because you wish to heal and stop the pain.
    
3. Broaden your worldview to include imperfections.  Include the existence of evil which we must face in our lives.
    
4. Try to understand other’s actions.  See things from the other person’s point of view.
    
5. Consider forgiveness as an opportunity.  Take this as an opportunity to grow rather than hamper your progress.
    
6. Exercise the privilege to forgive as soon as you recognize the need for it.  Nurture the intention to forgive.
    
7. Forgive gracefully without creating a burden on the forgiven.  Don’t use forgiveness to advertise that others have been wrong.
    
8. Forgive before others seek your forgiveness.  Forgiveness is for you not for them.
    
9. Look forward to forgiving.  Do not consider forgiveness a burden.
    
10. Extend your forgiveness to what even may transpire in the future.  If you can forgive and accept future annoyances you have inoculated yourself against future suffering. This does not mean you will allow indiscretions.
     
11. Praying for others increases your ability to forgive them.
     
12. Prevent future situations where you may have a need to forgive.  Lower expectations, clearly communicate these expectations, keep an attitude of internal acceptance or disappointment if these expectations are not met.
     
13. Lower your expectations.  Low expectations avert disappointments.
     
14. Have a low threshold to seek forgiveness that is not just about forgiving someone else. Seek forgiveness from others if you think it is reasonable and might help.

“The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi

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Bill Taylor showed up unexpectedly at my recent media conference.

I was worried about the flu.

He had just had a session of chemotherapy for a hereditary cancer that was recently diagnosed.  

Earlier Bill apologized for having to skip this year’s event but he changed his mind and brightened my day and that of those who he encountered by showing up to participate as usual.

There’s a new book called Picture Your Life After Cancer, which deals with the process of living life after a cancer diagnosis.

No one wants this dreaded disease, but it is remarkable the number of people who turn cancer into a positive way to live life in the present – the way we all must.

But why wait?

• Focus on enjoying even the smallest things in life.
   
• Do what you have put off – take that trip, spend time with your family, set another goal.
   
• Being forced to live one day at a time is not a direct result of the disease, it is exactly how everyone else – healthy or not – must live their lives, too. They just may not know it yet. 
   
• Optimism is as important as medicine, which is why almost to a person cancer patients are so positive, so determined.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things”  — Robert Brault 

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Did you see what a power failure did to the Super Bowl game?

Everything was going along great for the Baltimore Ravens when the lights went out.  That was 33 minutes for them to stand around and think about how close they were to winning the Super Bowl over the San Francisco 49ers.

And the 49ers who were losing by 28 to 6 when the power failed, had a lot of time to realize that they were running out of time to put some points on the board.

Golfers hate to wait because then they have too much time to think.  Their muscles react differently and their minds can lose focus when they have to wait for the group in front of them to move along.

Time is always an asset.

Momentum goes to the person or people who can use that time to stroke the fires of positivity and not let in the doubts of fear.

I used to take my kids to the Flyers hockey games in Philadelphia and sit them on my lap observing with them what often happens on the ice when a team rolls up a comfortable lead.

It gets too comfortable.

And the other team uses the lack of time to make something positive happen – anything.

In our lives, momentum changes constantly.  When we feel like we’re on a winning streak, nothing can seem to stop us.  And when everything is going badly, it seems things will never get better.

Time is on your side when you don’t think too much about failing.

Just trying harder.

Which is why there are so many upsets and near upsets in sports and why people confuse too much time for too many fear thoughts.

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The Super Bowl is a time for parties and social gatherings that are as big as the event itself.  It’s a great time to try out a few new skills: 

1. Try talking to one or more people about themselves and not you.  You’ll see that the fewer words you say, the more the other person will like you.
    
2. Text in private while at social events – the bathroom, the corner away from people, outside.  For a few hours, try to be all-in by focusing attention on the others you meet.  I like texting a lot, but it is ignorant to text at a social event.
    
3. If you’re not good at names, try this:  meet someone new?  Hear their name and repeat it frequently in conversation.  See how good it makes them feel and you.
    
4. Follow up with a note, a card, a text or a Facebook message to people you have enjoyed and don’t forget the person whose hospitality you relied upon for a good time.

I’ll have a lot of time to practice these skills again this year as The Eagles will be socializing like me instead of playing football.

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When I was a radio program director in Philadelphia, a listener visited the station to complain. 

Not about the programming, but the fact that because of a war injury that required a metal plate in his head he couldn’t turn the station off in his head.

You see, there was an array of broadcast towers next to our studios and unfortunately he lived next to them.

I never forgot that man because in many ways we are all like him when we let people into our heads 24 hours a day.

Sometimes it’s nice but too often the messages we carry around and repeat over and over are hurtful and unproductive.

Here’s what I do:

1. I picture a digital recorder like the one on my iPhone sticking out of my forehead.  It records everything that I hear in life.  But only I can record on it. No one else gets to push the button.
    
2. Even compliments are not allowed directly in – I appreciate them and record them in my own brain as validating good traits I know I have.
    
3. There are no messages in my brain that I have not recorded.
    
4. The only time a fault is worth pointing out is if you record it yourself otherwise it is unfiltered criticism.

If we reinvent the way we talk to ourselves, others will take their rightful places in in our lives and we will constantly feel good about who we are.

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