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See the Joy in Life

See the Joy in Life

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What is Joy?  It’s a noun, “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness”.

But what does it mean to you?  Does it have to be “great”?  Only big life events, getting married, the birth of a child, a graduation, getting that job you’ve always wanted, buying your first house or having your first book published.

If you only feel Joy when big events occur you’re probably not getting the full dose of Joy that you deserve.  There’s so much more Joy to be had.  Many times we get so busy, stressed and are living on autopilot that we miss little things that can put a smile on our face and Joy in our heart.

Luckily, you can change that and have more Joy in your life with very little effort.  Just change your mindset and expectations.  It’s easy to start.  When you go about your day practice being present and in the moment and expect to find the Joy all around you.  Quiet all the chatter and noise in your head.  Take three slow and deep breathes. Focus on what you’re doing each moment.  Notice how your body reacting to what you’re doing and adjust your thoughts and actions to feel more relaxed.  Look around you for little things that you usually don’t notice.  You’ll be surprised by the beauty around you and by peoples acts of kindness.  You’ll see others helping each other.

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How could you help someone or make them smile and feel good?  Open a door for a stranger, carry someones groceries for them.  These little gestures will put Joy in their hearts as well as yours.

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Through out the day keep your eyes open, notice fresh flowers on the table, the wildflowers that grow among the weeds on the side of the road.  What do you see in the cloud formations?  Use your imagination, see the angel or the horse in the clouds?

I hope this encourages you to slow down, calm your thoughts and open your eyes to the Joy that can be found if you just look.

Thanks for stopping by.  Share with your friends if you like.

 

Photos copyrighted by John McFadden, Permission required to use.

6 Stages Of Retirement

6 Stages Of Retirement

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Bell Rock, Sedona, AZ
Bell Rock, Sedona, AZ

 

Recently, I retired after several months of medical leave.  It’s the best thing I ever did!  Much more relaxing and less stress then the daily 9-5 and long commuting.  But, I discovered that retiring can throw you for a loop emotionally and psychologically.  You might find yourself questioning your purpose, value and who the heck you are as a person.  That’s a shocker.

Below is a great article on the stages of retirement.  There are many different ideas about the effects of retirement but this is a good article to start with.  Happy Retirement!

 

Journey Through The 6 Stages Of Retirement By Mark P. Cussen, CFP®, CMFC, AFC

Most major life-changing events, such as marriage or divorce, involve an ongoing process of emotional adjustment. Retirement is no exception. Marriage, divorce and other family-related issues have been the focus of decades of research and analysis by both clinical therapists and religious institutions.

Unfortunately, the emotional and psychological frontier of retirement has remained virtually unexplored until recently. However, while research on this subject has barely begun, it is clear that the psychological process of retirement process follows a pattern similar in nature to the emotional phases accompanying other areas of transition. Read on to discover the six stages of retirement and what you can do to prepare for this important life transition. (For related reading, see Life After Retirement.)

Retirement: The Final Frontier
Retirees must face what is essentially the last transition in their lives. The first transition comes when we leave the security of home to begin our school life in kindergarten, and after school we have the rest of the day to ourselves. Another major transition comes when we join the working world. Now we work all week but still have the weekend to ourselves. Then finally comes retirement, a time when careers are over and the work is done. Retirees have the rest of their lives to themselves. The transition into retirement can be broken down into six main phases. Let’s take a closer look at each of these phases.

1. Pre-retirement – Planning Time
During the working years, retirement can appear to be both an oncoming burden and a distant paradise. Workers know that this stage of their lives is coming, and do everything they can to save for it, but often give little thought to what they will actually do once they reach the goal – the current demands that are placed upon them leave them little time to ponder this issue. Many people face retirement like a running back on the football field who dodges or plows through one defender after another until reaching the end zone. It’s hard for many workers to think seriously about what their lives will be like in 20 or 30 years when they are trying to stay on top of their mortgage, put their kids through college and have a little fun in the meantime. They want to reach the end zone, but other issues will tackle them long before then if they don’t take immediate action. (For more insight, check out Enjoy Life Now And Still Save For Later and Life Planning – More Than Just Money.)

2. The Big Day – Smiles, Handshakes, Farewells
By far the shortest stage in the retirement process is the actual cessation of employment itself. This is often marked by some sort of dinner, party or other celebration, and has become a rite of passage for many, especially for those with distinguished careers. In some respects, this event is comparable to the ceremony that marks the beginning of a marriage.

3. Honeymoon Phase – I’m Free!
Of course, honeymoons follow more than just weddings. Once the retirement celebrations are over, a period often follows where retirees get to do all the things that they wanted to do once they stopped working, such as travel, indulge in hobbies, visit relatives and so forth. This phase has no set time frame and will vary depending upon how much honeymoon activity the retiree has planned.

4. Disenchantment – So this is it?
This phase parallels the stage in marriage when the emotional high of the wedding has worn off and the couple now has to get down to the business of building a working relationship together. After looking forward to this stage for so long, many retirees must deal with a feeling of letdown, similar to that of newlyweds who must get down the the business of living once the honeymoon is over. Retirement isn’t a permanent vacation after all; it also can bring lowliness, boredom, feelings of uselessness and disillusionment.

5. Reorientation – Building a New Identity
Fortunately, the letdown phase of retirement doesn’t last forever. Just as married couples eventually learn how to live together, retirees begin to familiarize themselves with the landscape of their new circumstances and navigate their lives accordingly. This is easily the most difficult stage in the emotional retirement process and will take both time and conscious effort to accomplish. Perhaps the most difficult aspects of this stage to manage are the inevitable self-examination questions that must be answered once again, such as “Who am I, now?”, “What is my purpose at this point?” and “Am I still useful in some capacity?” New – and satisfying – answers to these questions must be found if the retiree is to feel a sense of closure from his or her working days. But many retirees cannot achieve this and never truly escape this stage – make sure you do!

6. Routine – Moving On
Finally, a new daily schedule is created, new marital ground rules for time together versus time alone are established, and a new identity has been at least partially created. Eventually, the new landscape becomes familiar territory, and retirees can enjoy the last phase of their lives with a new sense of purpose.

Conclusion
Life planning is an important key to successful retirement. Workers that have given serious time and thought to what they will do after they retire will generally experience a smoother transition than those who haven’t. Dreams and goals that cannot be achieved with a single trip or project may translate into long-term part-time employment or volunteer work. But it is never too soon to begin mapping out the course of the rest of your life. (To get started, read A Pre-Retirement Checkup.)

As with all emotional processes that can be broken down into separate phases, it is not necessary to completely achieve one phase before beginning another (except, of course, for the actual cessation of employment). But virtually all retirees will experience some form of this process after they stop working. Their ability to navigate these uncharted waters will ultimately determine how they live the last phase of their lives.

Original post at http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/07/sixstages.asp

For more on the emotional transition to retirement, see Money Can’t Buy Retirement Bliss.

Read more: Journey Through The 6 Stages Of Retirement | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/07/sixstages.asp#ixzz41yfnRlVV
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Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to see you again soon, John

4 Ways Retired? Out of work? Now’s the time to Reinvent Yourself

4 Ways Retired? Out of work? Now’s the time to Reinvent Yourself

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Sick of the daily grind?
Sick of the daily grind?

Baby Boomers and others, sometimes find themselves faced with situations that are life changing.  Maybe you got laid off, forced to retire early or you’re just sick of all the hassles, politics, daily commuting and daily grind.

What to do?  Now’s the perfect time to Reinvent Yourself!  Do what you’ve always want to do!  Be a teacher, made wooden furniture, teach music, travel guide, become a voice over artist, a researcher, or become and author and speaker.  Do what makes you happy.  As they say, it’s now or never.

Below, is the story of an athlete that was forced to change careers, and how he did it.  There’s lots of good information in his article.  Additionally, there is great information online.  Go for your Dreams!  Create a new life for yourself.  You can begin today!

(original article can be found at http://www.success.com/article/4-tips-to-reinvent-yourself-lewis-howes-style) or click here.

4 Tips to Reinvent Yourself, Lewis Howes Style

How to go from a nobody to a wildly successful somebody
Amanda Enayati
November 24, 2015

It all began, as many things do, with devastation and a door closing, permanently.

All-American football player and decathlete Lewis Howes sustained a wrist injury in 2007. The resulting surgery landed him in a cast for six months and out of the game forever.

As he recovered on his sister’s sofa, Howes pondered his future and didn’t like what he saw: no career, no college degree, no money.

Christmas came and he was still living on that sofa. He got one gift that year, from his brother who drew his Secret Santa. It was a book. “As a dyslexic who struggles with reading, I remember thinking it was one of the worst gifts you could give anyone like me,” he recalls. “Plus, it wasn’t even wrapped.”

The book was The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss—and Howes read it in three days, cover to cover. “Which, for me, was really fast,” he says. “I couldn’t put it down.” On the fourth day, he closed the book and said out loud: “One day I’m going to become really good friends with the author, Tim Ferriss.”

He had no idea how it was going to happen. Ferriss was already a big deal and “I was a nobody,” Howes shrugs. But on that day, eight years ago, he drew his line in the sand. Howes decided someday he would write a book. He would inspire and open up possibilities for millions of people around the world, the way Ferriss’ book had just opened up his.

And so he has. A few weeks ago, Lewis Howes found out that his book, The School of Greatness—based on his wildly successful podcast—is a New York Times best-seller. In eight years, the journey had come full circle.

In our culture, you hear many near-mythical tales of prodigies, golden men and women, and instant success. And, should this be your perception of Lewis Howes’ success, he deprives you of it immediately. It was a long, hard road of twists and turns, missteps, and trial and error.

So, maybe you’re broken and broke, too, not sure what’s next, either. His story can help you reinvent yourself and who knows, maybe, just maybe, build your own multi-million dollar business:

1. Find a mentor or three.

The first thing Howes did was find mentors. “I had been an athlete. I knew that the better the coach, the better I got. And so I very consciously looked for people to help coach me.”

He had three mentors during the long stretch on his sister’s couch—let’s just call them the Sofa Years.

It so happened that Howes despised the cast he was stuck in for six months. “It kept scratching my face, plus it smelled and was ugly.” And so he created an arm sleeve to cover the cast. It occurred to Howes that there might be a market for his creation. His girlfriend made an introduction to an inventor she knew.

Their first meeting was in a bar. “I was this talky jock walking into the bar with a backward cap on. I got up the nerve to ask him to mentor me.” And the inventor did. He taught Howes everything about taking a product to market: creating, branding, marketing, packaging, licensing, even how to name things.

That product went nowhere, but it served as a catalyst for Howes learning how to market and brand.

Another mentor had mentioned that Howes should check out LinkedIn, which he did, so much so that in 2009 he went on to self-publish a book about it. A third mentor helped Howes figure out how to leverage that book.

2. Put yourself out there and learn from everyone you meet.

Remember Neo from The Matrix? Howes did his best to channel him during the Sofa Years. “I said as long as I’m here, I want to be like Neo and download as much information and build as many skills as I can and really I put myself out there.”

One of those skills was salsa dancing. And it was during salsa that Howes met a guy who traveled around the world and gave speeches for a living. Howes was terrified of public speaking and asked his new friend for advice on how to be a better public speaker. The man urged Howes to join Toastmasters.

The following week, Howes found a Toastmasters meeting nearby. He attended every single week for a year. By the end of the year he had overcome his fear of public speaking. It was another piece of the puzzle: “an incredible journey of becoming more influential and more impactful in my message,” he says.

3. Hone your instincts and honor them.

Howes’ sister was amazingly supportive through all the troubles and experiments of the Sofa Years. Eighteen months in, she asked him, in the gentlest way possible, if he could begin pitching in by getting a job. “I said yes, of course. I was putting myself out there so much, but nothing was happening for me,” he recalls. He began searching Craigslist for sports marketing jobs in Columbus, Ohio. He sent out a slew of résumés and eventually got called in for an interview.

On the day of the interview, he couldn’t leave the house. “I was paralyzed. I had a feeling I was going to get the job,” he says, “and my instincts told me I was about to make a big mistake.” He called and canceled.

“I was still working with my mentor, the inventor, and I remember telling him I could really use some money.” Howe will never forget what the man told him: “He said, ‘Lewis, money will come to you at the exact moment when you’re ready for it.’”

It wasn’t until much later that Howes understood exactly what that meant.

4. Stay consistent, build momentum and master the art of the leverage.

“The first time I made $1,000 off sponsorships for a three-hour LinkedIn networking event, I was floored,” he says. For the next several years, Howes hosted dozens of these events around the country. He promoted them through his ever-growing channels and they continued to build momentum. He emphasizes the importance of consistency: “People will start a project or company and will stop because it got too hard. I was consistent in doing the same thing and building momentum.”

But consistency doesn’t mean you get too comfortable. Howes mastered every opportunity and then leveraged it to move to the next level. Following one of his events, he was approached to do a free live webinar. That led to him teaching an advanced webinar. He liked it. He also found it lucrative. “At the end of that first session, I gave out my PayPal link. Within an hour there was $6,200 in my account.”

That was a game changer, he recalls. “I could teach people from all over the world information that I know from my laptop? I thought, I’ll do this every day!”

And so he began to master the webinar, both to build his game and his audience. It worked. Since 2009, he has conducted close to 1,000 webinars, with more than $10 million in sales.

Build The School of Greatness and they will come.

Howes knew it was time to move on when he began to lose his passion for the webinars. He sold the company to his partner and began to look around for his next gig. He moved from NYC to LA for a girl. She broke up with him the day he got there.

“It was so dramatic, being in a new city, and I was stuck in traffic all day.”

One day, during the hour it took him to inch forward a single mile, it occurred to him that there had to be a way to get in front of all these people, literally sitting in misery. He recalled the goal he had started out at the outset of the Sofa Years: to inspire, to open up possibilities for millions of people around the world.

The rest is history, of course. The School of Greatness book launched a few weeks ago and soon hit the New York Times best-seller list. The podcast has an audience of millions. And Howes himself is something of a phenomenon, particularly in the way he inspires people to do what they otherwise may not have had the courage to do: Start an ice cream company. Heal a relationship. Lose 100 pounds.

They come to his readings, from hundreds of miles away, to tell him their stories.

His success, he says, is all about connection, love and intimacy. He thinks people relate to him because he shares his pain. Because he’s open about his vulnerabilities. Because he shows his imperfections and fears.

This is what I believe, he tells me: “We were born to be great, to discover our unique gifts and talents and to pursue our dreams, even as they evolve. It’s our duty to go after our dreams. Because not only are we ourselves more fulfilled when we do, but we also inspire others to do the same. We give each other the courage.”

And with that, Howes bids me a quick goodbye, and school is dismissed.

– See more at: http://www.success.com/article/4-tips-to-reinvent-yourself-lewis-howes-style#sthash.1MISFB95.dpuf

19 Tips to Making a Positive Impression

19 Tips to Making a Positive Impression

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You’re at a party for work or a social occasion and you know maybe one person.  How do you get through it without hiding in the corner or embarrassing yourself or feeling awkward?  How do you network and meet new people?  This applies during any time of life, including when you’re a Baby Boomer Grandpa or retired.

There’s some great advice here, in what I call, 19 Tips to Making a Positive Impression, on how to meet people and make a positive impression, so they’ll want to talk to you or work with you in the future.  I specially like numbers 1,2,6,7 and 12.

Here it is (http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/impress-literally-everyone-you-meet?bftw=main):

Thank you Carolyn Kylstra for great advice.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet

It takes between 34 and 100 milliseconds to make a first impression. Here’s how to make it a good one!

posted on Nov. 4, 2014, at 8:50 a.m.

Carolyn Kylstra

Carolyn Kylstra

BuzzFeed Staff

1. First things first: Remember that most people you’re about to meet are just as uncomfortable as you are.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
FOX / Via bobs-burgers.tumblr.com

Tons of people self-identify as shy — in fact, the numbers of shy people have grown in the past 20 years (58% in 2007, up from 40% in 1995). “According to the shyness research, most of us feel uncomfortable walking into a room where we don’t know many people,” Susan RoAne, keynote speaker and author of How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lasting Connections—In Person and Online (William Morrow, 2013), told BuzzFeed Life.

Bottom line: You’re definitely not the only one dreading this cocktail party, and that should hopefully help take the edge off. And with that in mind…

2. Shift your attitude before you walk into the room to focus on others and not on yourself.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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“A lot of the time we go into a social situation thinking, How can I make myself more comfortable?” RoAne says. “Your attitude shift should be, What can I do to make other people comfortable around me?” See that first tip again for a reminder about why this attitude adjustment matters. Bonus points: “The person you’re talking to will become more comfortable,” RoAne says, “which makes you more comfortable!”

3. Smile!

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People make snap judgments about whether or not you’re a “trustworthy” person after only 34 milliseconds of looking at your face, according to research from Princeton University. And further research found that your facial expressions can influence those judgments.

Simply put: “People judge smiling faces as trustworthy, and angry-looking faces as untrustworthy,” Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the psychology department at NYU, told BuzzFeed Life. Mende-Siedlecki is also one of the co-creators of a TED lesson called “Should You Trust Your First Impression?”

4. Before you go somewhere new, know what you’re getting yourself into.

Before you go somewhere new, know what you're getting yourself into.

Flicker: benjamin sTone / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: benchilada

Before you go do something where you know you’ll meet new people — whether that’s a job interview or your partner’s office holiday party — do your research. “Figure out who’s going to be there, what the theme of the event will be,” RoAne said. “That helps you customize your approach, dress for the occasion, and prepare for potential conversation starters.”

Mende-Siedlecki agrees: “It’s a matter of knowing the context that you’re walking into, and knowing the norms for the environment.” Mental preparation can put you on the right wavelength before you even walk in the door — and will minimize how much spur-of-the-moment thinking you have to do. And dressing as formally or informally as other people are will make you feel more comfortable and less self-conscious. This allows you to focus more on the conversations you’re having, rather than wonder if people are judging you for wearing a T-shirt to a formal event.

5. Prepare a seven- to nine-second introduction about yourself.

Prepare a seven- to nine-second introduction about yourself.

Getty Images/iStockphoto Carosch

“This is NOT the 15- to 30-second networking thing,” RoAne says. Rather, it’s a warm introduction, followed by one or two statements about yourself. The idea is to give the other person something that they can comment on to get the conversation going. RoAne suggests explaining your relationship to the host, and making an observation that the other person can ask questions about or add their own observations to.

For instance, something I could have said at my brother’s recent graduation: “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you! I’m Carolyn, Jimmy’s sister. I’m from New York, and it’s been great to explore Chicago this weekend.”

6. Find a more interesting way to talk about what you do.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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The standard go-to when meeting people is to introduce yourself by saying your name and your job. The problem with that is unless you do something utterly fascinating, it’s not going to drive conversation forward. You need to give the person you’re talking to more to work with.

RoAne suggests that instead of stating your job title and company, give a more general and even mysterious statement about what you do — like by stating the benefit of your job. “When you give them the benefit of what you do, you give them the opportunity to ask questions,” she says. For example: If you’re a realtor you can say you help put a roof over peoples’ heads. If you’re a textbook salesperson you can say you give kids the tools they need to learn.

And if this sounds too cheesy or embarrassing, you can always stick with your job title and company as long as you add an extra line in there describing some unusual element of your day-to-day. For example: “I’m a health editor at BuzzFeed, and I spend as much time talking to doctors as I do hunting for the perfect GIF.”

7. Learn these four little magic words: “And how about you?”

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
Emily Fleischaker / BuzzFeed

So you’ve just explained the benefit of your job, and that elicited some good chit-chat for a minute or so. Instead of turning to the person and saying, “And what do you do?” RoAne suggests leaving it a lot more open-ended. “The four magic words are: And how about you? That invites them to tell you about themselves, and to go in the direction they’re most excited to go in,” she says.

The beauty of this language is that it helps you avoid potential awkwardness — like if you’re talking to someone who’s unemployed, or who hates their job but would love to talk about their hobbies, or who works in an unpaid capacity as a stay-at-home-parent or caregiver. Asking them to talk about themselves is much kinder than pigeonholing them into a conversation about how they currently make money (or don’t).

8. Wear something that makes you feel awesome — it’ll make you more approachable.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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“Wear clothes that make you feel good, because you’ll have more confidence,” RoAne says. Along those lines, comfort is key! “If I’m wearing shoes that hurt my feet, I’ll be wincing — that’s unapproachable.”

9. Give compliments that encourage conversation.

Give compliments that encourage conversation.

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Don’t just tell someone you love her shoes. Instead, say that you love them, they’re fantastic, and you’ve been looking for a pair just like them — where’d she get them? “When you’re making an observation, accompany your observation with a question or a statement that invites them to give you a bit more,” RoAne says.

10. Read more. Read everything!

Read more. Read everything!

Flickr: Patrick Gage Kelley / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: patrickgage

“In order to be a good conversationalist, you have to be well-read,” RoAne says. And that doesn’t mean you should stick to the high-brow stuff, either. “I know a couple people who run associations, and they have their staff read People magazine before they go to an event with their members,” RoAne says. “That guarantees they know what’s going on and can talk about it!”

So maybe you don’t care at all about the fact that Taylor Swift just released the most perfect album of all time. But you should at least know that it happened, because chances are someone else will care about it and will be interested in chatting about it.

11. When in doubt, talk about food.

When in doubt, talk about food.

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After all, everyone eats. And most people like talking about it, RoAne says. “They talk about recipes, they talk about diets, they talk about restaurants.” An easy way to talk about food? Strike up conversations with people at the buffet table. Nom nom nom.

Along those lines, may I recommend the BuzzFeed Food newsletter? Food for thought, straight in your inbox.

12. Don’t wait for people to approach you.

Don't wait for people to approach you.

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“A major roadblock that people have is that we’ve all learned to wait to be approached,” RoAne says. “But good things come to those who initiate.” When you approach anyone, smile warmly, stand up straight, and make good eye contact — “People who do those three things make the other person feel immediately at ease,” she says.

13. Talk to the person who isn’t talking to anyone.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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“The one person that’s very easy to talk to is the person standing alone,” RoAne says. “They might be shyer than you. And they’re most likely going to be so relieved that someone’s found them. When you approach someone to talk to, what you’re inherently saying is, ‘You look interesting, you look smart.’” And that’ll make them feel great and appreciate your kindness.

14. Join groups of three or more, especially if they look like they’re having fun.

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“A group of three or more people is typically more open to a new person than just two people having a conversation,” RoAne says. When it’s three or more people, they’re not necessarily talking about something personal. When it’s just two people, an unexpected third can feel like a crowd.

15. Find an equal balance between making observations, asking questions, and revealing things about yourself.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
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This balance is the key to being a great conversationalist, RoAne says. “If you’re always observing, you’re probably pontificating,” she says. “If you’re always asking questions, you can come across as a busybody, or nosy. And if you’re always revealing things about yourself, you’re going to share TMI. The magic’s in the mix.”

Here are examples of each type of statement, in case it helps:
Observation: Wow, this hotel has recently been renovated and it looks gorgeous!
Question: Do you remember what this place used to look like?
Revelation: I was last here a year ago, before they fixed it up.

16. When you’re standing in a circle of people, notice if someone is trying to join in — take a half-step backward to open the circle up.

When you’re standing in a circle of people, notice if someone is trying to join in — take a half-step backward to open the circle up.

Flickr: Ari Helminen / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: picsoflife

“If you include someone that’s in on the periphery, it’s a smart thing to do, it’s savvy, and it’s nice,” RoAne says. “You’ll make a great impression on that person, and on the other people in the circle.”

17. Be nice to everyone.

19 Tips To Impress Literally Everyone You Meet
Paramount Pictures / Via youtube.com

Let’s say you’re at a work or networking event, and a lot of people brought their spouses or children or guests. Your ultimate motive might be to rub shoulders with people who could be good connections at work, but it’s important to pay attention to everyone. “Be nice to the guests, the spouses, and the children of the people who might be in the room with you,” RoAne says. Think about it: “If I work with this woman and her spouse is standing there and I’m ignoring that person, that’s not smart, that’s not nice, and that doesn’t make a good first impression.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

18. When you’re talking to someone, give them your full attention.

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“The key to making a great impression is really listening when you’re talking to someone,” RoAne says. That means don’t zone out, check your phone, or look over their shoulder or past their head to see if you can find someone else in the room who you might prefer talking to.

Paying attention and being fully involved in the conversation has benefits beyond not being a jerk. For starters, it might help make the conversation flow more easily. “People tell you what they want to talk about, if you listen,” RoAne says. “But if you’re planning your grocery list in your head, you’re going to miss picking up on small cues that they’re excited, or bored.”

19. Learn to make a graceful exit from a conversation.

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RoAne offers this game plan for when you’re ready to mingle elsewhere:

1. Interrupt yourself, not them.

2. Smile warmly, tell them what a pleasure it’s been to talk to them about [fill in the blank… whatever it was you were talking about], and that you could just monopolize their time all night.

3. Say, “But if you’ll excuse me, I need to…” And then offer an excuse. Try: Catch up with my friend from college over there. Grab a bite to eat; those cookies are calling my name. Go help my husband take care of the kid. Go thank the hostess.

You may also want to offer your hand for a handshake, which most people understand to mean, “It was nice meeting you, good-bye.”

“The point is to leave a conversation knowing that you made someone feel better because they’ve talked to you,” RoAne says. Making it clear that you were paying attention, enjoyed the conversation, and are leaving for a reason (rather than because the person is boring) all help.

6 Great Activities For Retirement

6 Great Activities For Retirement

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Follow Your Retirement Dreams

Baby Boomers, Grandpas and Retirees, we all find ourselves with the true blessing of more time to do what we’ve always wanted to do!  What do we want to do with this time?  I’m re-inventing myself as what I call a Free Range Explorer.

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Until now,  I’ve always been a right brain creative type in left brain logical type jobs and careers.  I did what I had to do to support my wife and children.  No regrets, it is what it is and it’s all good! We all turned out pretty well.

Now, my life has changed dramatically for the better.  I’ve decided to focus my time on things I love.  Here are the 6 Great Activities For Retirement that I enjoy.  There are Many More, but these make me happy and are on top of my list.

They aren’t in order of preference, just random.

Photography – I remember my Dad taking lots of photos while on our “summer trips”. It was something he enjoyed along with the “slide shows” we all endeared after we got home.  Reliving those memories got me interested enough to get a 35mm SLR(I’m dating myself) and take a few photography classes during school.  My interest continued and is still strong today.  Now I have the time to take outings and trips and get more serious about making photographs.  Our house is filled with various 8×10 and 16×20 museum quality canvas prints of scenes from the South of France, Amsterdam. Norway, England and all over America and of course, children and grandchildren. It’s nice to have part of “me” hanging on the wall to enjoy.

Travel – Along with photography, my Dad taught me the love a worldwide travel when I was young.  So much so, that I’ve had careers with an international airline and elite travel agency. Now we travel to visit our children who are spread out.  And we travel mostly America and Europe learning from the locals, and experiencing their sites, nature and cuisine.

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Cooking – Cooking is fun and satisfying and has a nice reward at the end, Eating!  For fun, get your kids and grand kids involved with the planning, preparation, cooking and serving, and, oh yeah, the eating.  This makes for a nice bonding time and they might even learn something about getting along, planning and life.  I plan on adding Cooking classes in some of the cities I visit.

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Writing – Now that you have more time in retirement, you can write the block buster, all American book.  Write stories for your grand kids. Write your biography. A romance novel,  or a cookbook or a How To book.  Those last 3 happen to be the biggest selling niche’s on Amazon Kindle books.  After all these years you’re probably an expert at something.  Share that knowledge with the world on a blog or ebook.  The options are endless.  If you don’t think you can write a book, outsource it, based on your knowledge, to a professional writer on Fiverr.com for a small fee.  They can make your cover, do all the layout and get it ready for you to upload to Kindle.

Friends and Family – Your friends and family always need your attention and nurturing.  Try finding your roots by studying genealogy. Spend time with your family and friends, do things with them and have fun connecting.  Ride bikes, go to a movie, take a hike, learn a craft, restore an old car, or learn to knit or play cards together or play musical instruments together.  If your relationships are strained, now’s the time to reconnect.  Be the brave one and reach out to them, in the long run they’ll appreciate it.

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This is only 6 possibilities out of hundreds.  It might take some time to figure out what is most important to you but it’s worth the effort. Now that I’m moving into retirement I’ve been reinventing myself.  I’ve had to do some deep soul searching.  Even now, I’m still not done.  It will be an evolving mission with lots of change of route a long the way.  That can make life even more exciting.

Thank goodness we have the time and resources (more than ever before) to do what we want and become our best and happiest selves.   So how do you REALLY want to spend your time?  Go ahead, create your dreams and Live Life Well, everyday!

Thanks for stopping by today, John

A Free Range Explorer

 

Boomers Being Left Behind!

Boomers Being Left Behind!

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(Anne Frank Huis, Amsterdam)

We are older now, like it or not.  Maybe a little more tired, maybe being forced out of the workforce, feeling like we can’t keep up in today’s “new normal”.  Basically, we feel out of sync with what’s going on around us.  As boomers we feel like we are Being Left Behind.  Face it, the world is changing EVERYDAY.

But, there is hope.  There is something we should do it everyday!  If you do it, you’ll feel more connected and more alive, and be able to have more of what you want and look forward to.

Do what?  LEARN SOMETHING NEW. Learn about all the great new things happening in your world.  Don’t be overwhelmed, learn about it, be part of it!

Here’s what one of TV’s Secret Millionaires has to say about learning:

Jeff Usner Shares: A Success Strategy that Never goes Out of Style

“Do you want to have something that you don’t have right now? Here’s a strategy to get exactly what you  want!

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Can I ask you something? What was the last thing that you have learned and when did it occur? Your answer to this question will greatly impact how little or how much you can accomplish in life.

Let me tell you, one of the most important concepts that I value, not just in business but also in life, is to always be a student. You know, for a long time, all of us are students; in fact we begin our lives as students. We go to kindergarten, enroll in primary school, go all the way to high school then college; some of us even attain further education that. But what most people do, after all the formal schooling is done and they just stop learning and acquiring new skills. This is really a sad thing because it stops you from growing and investing in yourself.

This is very important. You always have to be a student. You have to learn and acquire new skills. Invest in yourself because at the end of the day no one will be able to take this from you. To me, personally, now I am trying to learn Karate. My kids started going to Karate twice or three times a week and I’d take them, then one day it hits me, I’m already there and investing my time but instead of just waiting for my kids to finish, why not take Karate lessons too? It’s a new skill that I can add to myself plus I get to spend time and have fun with my kids.

Are you putting a lid on your abilities by not learning and getting new skills? Don’t! Always be a student and keep learning. Never stop growing and investing in who you are. What new skills do you want to learn today?”

Don’t be overwhelmed, dig in there and keep learning everyday.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Make it a great one!

John

P.S. Want to save time and hassle and earn cashback?  It’s free to sign-up, try shopping online at my web portal, shop.com/johnmcfadden

Depression, Even Boomers Suffer From It

Depression, Even Boomers Suffer From It

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As we goes through life our circumstances such as job, friends, death of someone close, family and relationships gradually change.  All these can cause Depression.  Most often depression effects us physically and well as emotionally.  Usually, it’s so subtle we don’t even notice it.  Then one day we find it getting harder and harder to even get out of bed. Some Boomers feel like they don’t know where they fit into the working world, their role in their family and society, and they worry about the future, retirement, and health.  They are entering into a time of life very different that anything they’ve ever experienced.  It’s difficult to have your body age and not being able to do things that used to be so easy.  If you think about it, your 50th birthday is truly the mark of middle age.  You have your life or less to live.

When it gets to that level, it’s time to do some soul searching and re-evaluating of your life.   Make sure you’re living life by your standards and expectations not someone else’s.  Ask yourself are you investing time in your relationships, and things that you enjoy, such as photography, music, hiking, running or exploring the world.

Depression, according to Merriam-Webster is, “a state of feeling sad : dejection (2) : a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies.”

So, what causes us to feel this way?  Webmd.com says, “Depression is an extremely complex disease. It occurs for a variety of reasons. Some people experience depression during a serious medical illness. Others may have depression with life changes such as a move or the death of a loved one. Still others have a family history of depression. Those who do may experience depression and feel overwhelmed with sadness and loneliness for no known reason.”

So, what do we do about these feelings?  Depending how severe it is, definitely see your doctor.  There are a wide variety of medications that can you you feel yourself again.  In addition, there are simple steps to help you start feeling better.

One of the most important things you can do, and it can be hard but well worth it, is to pull the Positive Thinking and Talking to Yourself card.  I can’t stress enough how important this is.  It’s up to you how you react to situations, what you believe in, what you believe you are and what you say to yourself and to others.  One of the most powerful quotes I’ve heard, and I use everyday is that “Thoughts Become Things”.  Our brains are Creating Machines, and WE decide what we Create with our Thoughts and Words.   Admittedly, this can be hard, especially if your depression is in your family genetics or a chemical imbalance.  That’s no reason to give up and not try to help yourself feel better!

Your quality of life is in your “hands” (brain, thoughts, words).  You are creating your Tomorrow with the thoughts and words you have Today!  Make your thoughts work For you rather than Against you.

Here is a great article from psychcentral.com to help you get started.  A better life awaits you!  Thanks for reading, John

After trying 23 medication combinations, 7 psychiatrists, two hospitalization programs, and every form of alternative therapy available–from homeopathic remedies to yoga, I assumed I was one of those unfortunate statistics with treatment-resistant depression, a Humpty-Dumpty type that would never recover from the fall of a nervous breakdown.

There was no magic that happened between then and now, the month my book about my recovery hits the shelves. I just kept on getting out of bed. Even on the days where my thoughts were cemented in the black stuff, in negativity and toxic emotions, I tried to pick up one foot and place it in front on the next.

Here are the tools I picked up along the way, the basic lessons that help me in my mission to stay Beyond Blue, or at least out of black for as long as possible.

1. Laugh.

From my 12 years of therapy I have learned at least one thing: I use sarcasm as a defense mechanism. But I’m keeping the jokes and the acerbic tone because Abe Lincoln and Art Buchwald, two of my mental health heroes, said wit was essential to sanity, that comedy can keep a person out of the psych ward (not really). And if you’re laughing, you’re not crying … even though the two look similar from 10 feet away.

2. Sweat.

As a recovering addict, I love any buzz I can get. Working out–any exercise that gets my heart rate over 140 beats per minute (into the cardiovascular zone) does the job. And in a safe way, so I don’t have to cheat on my sobriety. I’m probably as addicted to exercise as I was to booze, but this is one mood-altering activity that doesn’t deteriorate my marriage and my other relationships.

The right kind of exercise actually acts like an antidepressant: increasing the activity of serotonin and/or norepinephrine in your brain and releasing those coveted endorphins and other hormones that reduce pain, induce euphoria, have a calming effect, and combat stress.

3. Eat the right stuff.

The more I investigate–both through research and nonscientific experiments with body–the more I realize how my diet affects my mood.

Here are the bad boys: nicotine, caffeine (it’s a drug, which is why I’m addicted to it), alcohol, white flour and processed food (what you live on when you have kids who won’t touch tofu and spinach); and sugar … that’s a whole other blog post.

Here are the good guys: protein (eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, meat, fish, chicken, seeds, nuts); complex starches (whole grains, beans, potatoes); vegetables (broccoli, spinach, squash); vitamins (vitamin B-complex, vitamins E and C, and a multivitamin); minerals (magnesium, calcium, and zinc); and omega-3 fatty acids.

4. Sleep!

Sleep is crucial to sanity. Let me repeat: Sleep is crucial to sanity.

Because sleep disturbances can contribute to, aggravate, and even cause mood disorders and a host of other illnesses. You see, if you’re not sleeping, your brain doesn’t have an opportunity to do all the stuff it needs to do without the constant interruption of your thoughts. The brain works night shifts. And when it doesn’t get all the work it needs to do done … well, it gets a tad irritable, like you do when you can’t get your work done. And it takes it out on you.

According to one recent study, sleep deprivation can cause a decline in cognitive performance similar to the intoxicated brain. That’s right! Drunks can reason and judge better than you if you’ve gone too long without getting some zzzzs.

5. Light up.

Have you ever noticed all the crabby behavior in November and December?

Changes in the amounts of daylight a person gets alters circadian rhythms, the internal biological clock which governs fluctuation in body temperature and the secretion of several hormones, including the evil one, Cortisol. When a person gets less daylight than she needs, her circadian rhythm starts to act like a high-maintenance houseguest – getting all flustered over small stuff (i.e. the wrong kind of soap). That’s why light treatment is so effective for fragile human beings like me. If I can’t get outside for at least a half hour a day, I try to sit under my mammoth HappyLite, a lamp with 10,000 lux, and think happy thoughts.

6. Rely on friends.

I used to be a loyal support-group kind of girl. But since I’ve had kids, getting to meetings is much more difficult. So I’ve found my support in other ways–in phone calls and e-mails and visits to friends and relatives who also suffer from depression or bipolar disorder. That lifeline kept me alive during my suicidal days, and continues to empower me every single day.

During the darker days of my depression, I walked around with six phone numbers in my pocket. Because I didn’t want to wear out any one friend or relative, I’d call two people a day, and rotate the numbers. I spent hours on the phone and writing e-mails and visiting friends because I needed constant support.

(from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/01/25/6-steps-toward-freedom-from-depression/)

Manifesting Tips for Money and Much More

Manifesting Tips for Money and Much More

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Boomer Grandpas and a lot of Boomers are at a time in our lives when we are assessing where we are financially, physically, socially, as well as what retirement will look like.

We wonder if we’ve done the right thing, made the right decisions and much more.  In some areas we may have come up short and need to do a little catching up.

We watch movies like The Secret and study the Law of Attraction for ways to get what we need.  Below is a good article with some “new” tips and ideas for how we can get what we want.  I hope you enjoy the read and learn something new.  Best of luck!

From:

How to Manifest Money

November 8th, 2010 by Steve Pavlina http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/11/how-to-manifest-money/

Playfulness

The most important aspect of manifesting money is to approach it from the right heartset. Think of your heartset as the overall vibe of your relationship to the activity of attracting money. How would you describe that relationship? Is it greedy, needy, excited, hopeful, etc?

If you approach this process from a place of neediness, clinginess, scarcity, or too much seriousness, you’ll most likely fail. That’s the right vibe for attracting nothing — or for making things worse by attracting unwanted expenses — but it’s not the right vibe for attracting money.

So if you come at this from a place of saying, “I really need $1000 to pay my rent next month, so I’m going to focus hard on manifesting it via the Law of Attraction,” well… good luck with that. But I’d bet against you.

A slightly better vibe is that of hope, but this is still a pretty weak vibe. Hope won’t get you very far.

A much better vibe is to come from a place of curiosity and experimentation. Go into a state of childlike wonder. With this vibe you may begin to generate some interesting results.

An even stronger vibe is to generate feelings of playfulness and excitement. This is a great vibe for manifesting money. In the next section, I’ll share a story to illustrate how I do this with my daughter.

Knowing

When you want to manifest money, it’s important to know that it’s already there. If it’s hidden at all, it’s hiding in plain sight, waiting for you to notice it and pick it up. This applies whether we’re talking about cash found on the ground or opportunities that will generate cash.

Know that the cash and the opportunities are right in front of your face. You just have to adjust your “eyes” to see them. You do this by shifting your vibe — your frequencies of thought and emotion — to one that’s capable of detecting the money.

It’s fun to think of this vibe-shifting process as shifting dimensions, as if you’re tuning in to a different perceptual frequency spectrum. That other reality was there all along. You just couldn’t see it before because you were tuned in to incompatible perceptual frequencies, frequencies that made the money invisible and undetectable by your senses. Maybe you were stuck on the red part of the spectrum, while the money was hanging out in the blue part.

Obviously your senses pick up a lot as you go about your day, but you only notice a puny fraction of all that input. In order to manifest money, you need to tune your senses to bring to your attention useful input that you’ve been subconsciously dismissing as irrelevant background noise. This tuning process takes some time, but you can definitely do it.

Lately I’ve been teaching my daughter Emily (age 10) how to manifest coins. I do this by turning it into a game. When we’re out walking together, I challenge her to see if she can find more coins than I can.

The first time I did this, she was really bad at it. I found several coins during our walk together, often coins that she walked right past without even noticing. Instead of finding coins, she didn’t notice anything. The coins didn’t register within her perceptual reality.

Later on she began noticing things that were close to coins, but not coins. She found bottle caps, paper clips, scraps of paper, and coin-like smudges on the floor — everything but coins. I kept pointing out to her that there are coins everywhere, but you have to tune in to the “coin abundance frequency” to see them. Each time I found a coin and showed it to her, I could tell it was gradually helping her tune in to the right perceptual frequency.

One reason she was bad at this game was that she was tuning out the possible existence of coins everywhere she walked. She just didn’t think there could be that many coins hiding in plain sight. By demonstrating to her that the coins were indeed there and that she was simply failing to notice them, I helped shift her beliefs. She stopped thinking of the game as something outside her control (relying on luck or chance), and she began thinking of what she could control (her open-mindedness and attentiveness).

At first when she would walk past a coin, and I’d pick it up and say, “Look at this, Emily. There was a nickel there, and you walked right past it! Your eyes definitely saw it because you were looking in that direction, but the coin didn’t register in your mind. You still need to adjust yourself to the right vibe. Remember — the coins are everywhere! You just have to command your eyes to notice them.”

Initially this surprised her. She could dismiss it as luck… or as some kind of trick… or as a momentary lapse of her part. Then when it kept happening, it began to frustrate her. I helped her shift that frustration to amusement by pointing out that she was really good at finding bottle caps and smudges, and we had some laughs about that. She just needed to adjust her mind a little bit more to notice the coins.

Finally she began to accept that yes, there really are coins everywhere, and she only has to notice them. It seemed like she was beginning to tell her eyes and her mind to get with the program and start noticing the coins.

Emily has a competitive side, so I played to that by challenging her to find more coins than me, which boosted her motivation and desire to get good at it. She knows that technically it’s a fair game, and she even gave herself an advantage by walking in front of me, so she could be the first to spot new coins. And since she’s only 4’9″ inches tall, she’s a lot closer to the ground than I am.

Gradually she got better at the game. We went out yesterday and played again. In an hour of walking around some hotels on the Vegas Strip, she found 46 cents: 1 quarter, 3 nickels, and 6 pennies. In that same time, I found only 6 cents. She won the game for the first time and was pretty excited about it. And of course I gave her lots of accolades for it, so as to encourage her to keep improving.

I dare say she’s probably better at finding coins than I am now. She now knows there are coins everywhere, but she also really gets into the playful and competitive spirit of the game, which is much more exciting for her than it is for me. I think partly she likes knowing that it’s a fair game that either of us can win, and there’s no reason she can’t be at least as skillful as I am.

When it comes to creating a vibe of playfulness and excitement, children can easily be more masterful than adults. This is the same vibe we need to recreate as adults in order to manifest whatever we desire.

It may sound silly to do this as an adult, but it’s a game worth playing. When you’re out with friends sometime, have a contest to see who can manifest the most money. You may not get too excited about finding coins, but you may generate some excitement about trying to best your friends in a silly contest. That silliness will actually help you get the right vibe, thereby improving your ability to manifest money.

Detachment

People often get confused about the relationship between desire and detachment. Aren’t they diametrically opposed? How can you have both at the same time? Isn’t desire a form of attachment?

No, these aren’t in conflict. They coexist perfectly.

Let me ‘splain.

Desire is about what you wish to create. You could describe this vibe as passion, excitement, or even lust. It’s a delicious pool of emotions you summon by focusing on a new target. The stronger your desire, the better, so amp it up!

Detachment, on the other hand, is about how those desires ultimately manifest for you. When you become too attached to when and how your desires show up, you screw up the manifesting process. Instead of holding the vibe of playfulness and abundance, you start sending out signals like concern, worry, and stress. Don’t do that!

Would you become stressed and worried if you couldn’t find enough coins on the ground? Would that vibe improve your performance? No, that would only lower your performance.

When you notice that you’re getting frustrated, pause, breathe, and go back to the desire side. Hold that vision of the creation you wish to experience, and wallow in the positive sensations of being there in your heart, mind, and spirit. Know that physical reality will soon catch up, as long as you keep holding the right vibe.

When you feel moved to take action from a place of passion and excitement, not stress, then go ahead and let those actions flow through you. It will seem to be more work to stop yourself — you’ll feel like you’re chickening out and holding back if you stay still. Follow your impulses. But don’t worry about the immediate results of those actions. There may be some twists and turns along the way.

Power

When manifesting money, it’s especially important that you don’t give your power away to money. This negates your creative ability, and the money probably won’t arrive if you do that. This is a VERY common mistake.

You can’t effectively wield the power of manifestation by believing that you can manifest something you desire (i.e. money) while simultaneously believing that something you desire has power over you (i.e. money).

If you want to manifest money, you CANNOT believe that money is a power source. Money cannot give you wealth or abundance or happiness. It really can’t give you anything. Money just sits there — all the power comes from you. If you believe that having more money will give you any additional power at all, then you’re actually holding the vibe that says, “I’m too weak to attract money.” You’ll have to get a job instead. ;)

Think of it like this. If you want to manifest money, but you believe that money is its own power source, then deep down you’re giving money the power to say no to you. If money has power, then it can refuse to show up.

Instead of this crazy wrong approach, in your mindset and heartset, you must KNOW that you’re completely 100% dominant over money and that money is completely 100% submissive to you. You’re in total command of it. If you order it to show up, it must obey you. It has no power of its own. It cannot refuse you.

When you manifest money, you are COMMANDING it to come into your reality. You’re the CREATOR. Money has no choice but to obey you, but only if you wield your true power. If you give your power away to money, then you empower money to deny your requests. Money will say, “Well, if you’re letting me decide, then no, I’m staying over here.”

If you approach money like a power source of its own, then by trying to manifest it, you’re really trying to overpower it, and in such a contest you’ll usually lose. That contest, however, is completely internal — and pretty much insane. It’s like trying to arm wrestle yourself. How can you win? It’s a false reality you’re projecting because you aren’t ready to fully wield your own power yet.

Remember that money is nothing but a number. Or it’s pieces of metal and paper. How could it possibly be more powerful than a conscious human being such as yourself?

If you think that once you have money, you will become stronger, you’re crazy. Absolutely deluded! More likely — if you actually did manifest money from that kind of vibe — you’d grow even weaker. This would be a bad outcome for you, even though it seems like what you want. You’d be a weak-minded, weak-hearted person with more money, and you’d still see the money as more powerful than you, even while it’s in your possession. You’d then become attached to it and afraid of losing it because you’d still mistakenly see it as a power source. It would become a source of security for you, a constantly vulnerable one. The more money you had, the more paranoid you’d become about losing it. This would really mess you up big time. So be very, very glad that you naturally attract less money when you think of money as a power source. If you invite money into your life from that crazy frame of giving away your power, then money will become your Master, and you will be forever its slave. Don’t even go there!

If money has no power, then why manifest it at all? In truth, you don’t need to. But if you wish to manifest money, then do it as a game. Money is a just toy you can play with. Get excited about the experience of manifesting money, but don’t put any attention into what you’d do with the money once you have it. It’s merely a number.

If you desire something you think money will give you, then focus on that desire directly, not on the money you think you need to get it. Money may or may not be part of the manifestation process.

Only focus on manifesting money directly if you’re capable of seeing the money as a plaything, like a video game score. It’s only something to manifest for fun, not something to get all worked up and stressed about.

Once again, do NOT give your power away to money. You must know that money is completely powerless. All the power is within you, never out there.

Upgrading

When manifesting money, start small and work up to larger amounts. See it as a score you’re aiming to increase, but don’t put larger amounts on a pedestal by assuming they’re more difficult to manifest.

I started with manifesting pennies in the Summer of 2006. Then I graduated to nickels, dimes, and quarters. I focused on quarters for several weeks. Then I progressed to dollars to $100 to $1000 to $10K to $50K. Overall it took less than a year to go from manifesting pennies to manifesting $50K. After that point I become more interested in non-monetary manifesting and had some especially fun times with manifesting in my social life — friends, mentors, and other yumminess. In fact, I honestly feel that manifesting money is a bit boring compared to all the other cool stuff you can manifest. It’s like playing a video game and obsessing over the score. That can be fun for a while, but eventually you want to focus on more interesting aspects of the game world.

If you can get good at manifesting coins, you can manifest larger sums too. The process is the same. Only some limiting beliefs of yours may stand in the way. But as you gradually upgrade to larger sums, you can collapse those false beliefs.

Once Emily gets good at manifesting coins and feels comfortable and confident with it, I’ll start challenging her to manifest larger sums. She may not find money on the ground as often, but it will show up in other ways.

Money comes to you through the filters of your beliefs, but you don’t have to change your beliefs radically. You just have to open enough of a portal in your beliefs to allow different sums to come to you.

Coins may be found on the ground while you’re walking around. Bills will sometimes be found on the ground too. Larger sums may manifest in the form of exchanges, business deals, inheritances, inspired action, and other ways. Assume that those larger sums are right in front of your face, staring at you and screaming at you to notice them. You just have to tune your vibe to the right frequency to pick them up.

I’ve noticed that as I’ve shifted my vibe to manifest larger sums of money and to manifest new experiences in other parts of my life, I seem to fall out of resonance with manifesting smaller sums. I’m not as good at manifesting coins as I was in 2006. That’s because my vibe isn’t tuned in to the coin manifesting frequency as much. These days I’m spending more time using the LoA to manifest cool social connections and travel experiences. I’ve tuned my vibe to focus on that part of the perceptual frequency. I also feel more excited and playful about manifesting in these other areas as opposed to adding to my financial score.

Congruency

Every relationship in your life contributes to the overall vibe you’re putting out. This includes all the different ways you relate to money.

For example, if your job sucks and doesn’t pay you very well, and you try to manifest money on the side, that probably won’t work so well because each time you go to work at your job, you risk re-triggering the vibe of feeling financially under-appreciated.

This is where lots of people get stuck with the LoA. They put out conflicting vibes every day. They may visualize having more money and feeling abundant and grateful, but then they go to the grocery store, and they buy cheap, low quality food because in the back of their mind, they’re saying to themselves that they can’t afford the good stuff. And that naturally cancels out the vibe of abundance, so the result is no change.

If your current circumstances cause you to emit conflicting vibes, then even as you go through the motions of acting in accordance with a scarcer financial situation than you’d like, keep your vibe focused on that of abundance. The best way to do that is by holding the heartset of gratitude. So even if you buy cheap, low-quality food, hold the vibe that you’re grateful for it and that you appreciate it. Feel appreciative that such food exists and that it’s within your budget. And then look at the high quality stuff, and emotionally invite it into your life. If possible, find one way in which you can splurge for higher quality items, like buying a few organic apples, and feel grateful that you can do that. And when you eat those apples, really enjoy them, and intend to receive more of the same.

But do NOT beat yourself up for not being able to afford what you desire. That will only lower your vibe.

Do like I did with Emily when she kept finding bottle caps and smudges. Praise yourself for succeeding at what you’re already manifesting, and then command your senses to adjust to a more abundant part of the spectrum of reality. Be patient with yourself — you’ll get it.

Whenever you start feeling bad about your financial situation, see that as a form of feedback. Let it become an immediate trigger to refocus on your desires. Say to yourself, “Okay, obviously I don’t want this. So what do I want instead?” Then think about happier alternatives; allow your mind to go there, and let the resulting new vibe flow through you.

Manifesting money is a fun challenge. It’s definitely doable if you approach it from a place of playfulness, knowing, and power. It does involve some discipline, but the discipline is mental and emotional, not physical.

You aren’t going to let a 10-year old girl kick your ass at this game, are you?

 

Thanks for stopping by, surround yourself with awareness and a winner’s attitude, John

 

Boomer Opportunities Everywhere

Boomer Opportunities Everywhere

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Opportunities Are Everywhere

As a boomer, getting a little bit older every year, we step back and take a new look at our lives.  We survived our career choice in small business, government or corporate America or maybe the military. Now that we’ve raised our kids and maybe have a few beautiful grand babies, the kind you can play with then give back to their parents, our interests, needs, and our physical abilities have changed.  That’s the way life is, admit it or not.

We’re thinking about retirement, downing sizing the house you raised your kids in or maybe even moving to a warmer climate.  We might even be thinking about giving back to the community or starting your own business.  To do that we need to find the right opportunity.  So, here’s a good article of Finding and Creating Opportunities.  Hope you enjoy it.

Here we go………………..It’s by a young man by the name of Ryan P. Allis.

“How, in your own lives can you find and more importantly create opportunities?

In the Chinese language, you have the character representing crisis and the character representing change. When these are combined you have the character representing opportunity. Now why is that? Why is it that when crisis and change merge you have opportunity?

Because when crisis and change merge you have disequilibria. You have changing laws or changing conditions. New needs and problems are created and often it is up to the entrepreneurs to fill those needs.

Whenever you experience new things or the world around is changing, there will always be lots of opportunities. Here are some tips for finding, creating, and taking advantage of opportunities.

  • You must live your life wholly and fully as an entrepreneur. Your job isn’t being an entrepreneur. You ARE an entrepreneur. You must keep your eyes open at all times.
  • The more you travel to other regions and countries, the more opportunities you will see. Often in other places things are done differently or there are good products that haven’t yet reached your country.
  • You must be a networker. The more people you talk to the more opportunities you will find out about. It is not just what you know but also who you know and how well you know them that counts.
  • You must be in it for the long run. You cannot be discouraged by setbacks or mistakes. You must have perseverance, learn from your mistakes, and keep going. As you learn more and gain more experience you’ll be able to see and be prepared for more and more opportunities.
  • The world is filled with opportunities just waiting to be found by an energetic and intelligent person.
  • Too many people wait for opportunities to come to them. Don’t. Don’t wait for the opportunities to come to you. Create the opportunity for yourself. This is what entrepreneurs do. We see a need or a problem and from that derive an idea. Then, through doing all those steps I listed a few minutes ago we create an opportunity that hopefully will be validated in the marketplace.
  • You must have the opportunity mindset. You must be looking for and evaluating opportunities constantly. You must make time to talk to others about what opportunities they are pursuing. You must become magnetized towards opportunity.

Let me conclude this section with a quote from one of my favorite authors. His name is Napoleon Hill and the quote is “Every adversity comes with it a seed of equal or greater benefit.” “Every adversity comes with it a seed of equal or greater benefit.” Another good quote is, “There is no person worth remembering that lived a life of ease.”

You will be discovering many many opportunities for learning, for partnership, for collaboration during your lives. From the adversity of life there will come many benefits and opportunities. Take advantage of every one of them.”

By, Ryan P. Allis, 20, is the author of Zero to One Million, a guide to building a company to $1 million in sales, and the founder of zeromillion.com. Ryan is also the CEO of Broadwick Corp., a provider of the permission-based email marketing software and CEO of Virante, Inc., a web marketing and search engine optimization firm. Ryan is an economics major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a Blanchard Scholar.

I hope you enjoyed this post. If you liked it let me know.

Thanks for dropping by today, John

Boomers Get Ready for a Happy Retirement

Boomers Get Ready for a Happy Retirement

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As we get ready to retire, and spend for time with our kids and grands kids, and to travel, there are lots of factors to consider. 

Allstate has a good blog to refer to from time to time.  Here’s a post I find interesting.  Hope you do to.

 

79384616_4.jpgIf you thought that preparing for a happy retirement just consisted of making sure that you have a dependable retirement income, then you are mistaken. No matter what your age, money is important, but it’s not everything. Here are seven things you should prepare well before you call it quits to make sure that your retirement can be the best that it can be.

 

Make sure you are healthy

You can’t travel in your retirement if you don’t have the energy to sight see, and you won’t be able to enjoy the company of your family and friends if you are always sick. You need your health to enjoy anything, but most people don’t think about it until it’s too late. Maintain a good diet and exercise regularly starting… NOW!

 

Keep close ties with your whole family

Family seems to become more and more important to us as we age, but many often neglect the people closest to them in pursuit of wealth. Don’t make this mistake. Make an effort to call your siblings regularly to check in on them. Take care of your parents, and do your best to create a loving environment for your children so they can grow up to be the best that they can be so that when you are retired, your family will be there for you.

 

Make friends

Our social support system is a significant source of happiness, and it’s even more important in our golden years. Having a social circle to hang out or have lunch with is crucial to a happy retirement. If you do it right, your twilight years will be as happy as those carefree younger days!

 

Nurture a hobby

If there’s anything you have more of when you retire, it will be time. There aren’t many better ways to spend your time than doing what you love, so start learning something that you will enjoy for the rest of your life.

 

Develop a good attitude

When we are young, we tend to have more ambitions, expectations and try to force situations that end up stressing our life and those around us. Now that you are preparing yourself for retirement, practice patience, learn to see the good side of things and see your life magically become better because you and everyone else around you are less stressed.

 

Own your own house

You will find tremendous comfort in knowing that you own the place you call home. In your twilight years, having to pay a mortgage is just more stress than you need to deal with. While you are preparing your retirement, work hard to retire that mortgage when you retire!

 

 

Get your retirement income in order

No brainer there. Learn to save money every month by spending less, and make more money so you can put more towards your latter years. Given enough years, spending less than you earn is all you need to become financially free.

 

Do all the steps well, and you will be living a happy retirement!

 

David is a guest blogger from MoneyNing. In exchange for sharing this content, the Allstate Community has compensated him via cash payment.