Be grateful for someone in your life.

Choose for this to happen.

Do it 5 or 10 times and it becomes a positive state of being.

Focus on the most important aspect of your life – your relationships – not material things.

Be specific.

Name the person.

Remind yourself of the reason why you are grateful for having them in your lives.

You may be a block away from school to pick up your son or daughter.  Why are you grateful to have them in your life this day?  It will change the way you relate to each other when they hop in.

The salesperson who made it possible for you to replace your damaged cellphone for free – it’s not that you managed to get a new phone.  Someone managed to help you get a new phone.  A big difference and something for which to show gratitude.

Your spouse is getting home ahead of you, preparing dinner.  See him or her in vivid terms, hear their voice and say why you are grateful to have them in your life. 

Living a happier life is not one big thing.

It’s many little things.

Everything good that can happen to us in this world starts with being grateful for the people in our lives.

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We all have a great motivation to changing the way we deal with mean people for if we don’t, we can easily become more like them.

Be more compassionate of their faults.

If your ex is hurting you, first say “It must be awful for him or her to have to hurt the people they love”. 

An employer who makes your life miserable because they lie or are insensitive to your needs or input is a person you should pity at the next sign of bad behavior.  Something like – “What a waste – to hate instead of appreciate“.

Or “That SOB that just cut me off almost killed me, let’s hope his family is not in the situation he put me into”. 

Being compassionate to mean people is not condoning it or allowing any kind of abuse to continue.

Taking a second to rise above is the gift you will give yourself to prevent you from retaliating in a similarly mean way. 

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Yoga and meditation are very effective ways to help some people focus on the now.

For many, staying in the present is difficult to do and often they end up spending too much time dwelling on the past or overly concerned about tomorrow.

If you’re like me, you might find this an effective way to focus on the only thing that can bring you happiness – what is happening now.

Think of the past as an old steel file cabinet, the kind that used to be prevalent before we started keeping files on computers.

It’s good to refer back to files from time to time, but not to keep your head buried in them.  When that happens, close the drawer and return to the present.

Looking ahead is invaluable to making good decisions, but If you’re spending too much time in the future, be conscious of the time you spend looking forward to things that may never happen and return to your life at this very moment.

The past and the future are not your life.  What is happening here and now is the only thing that matters.

Avoid the black hole of the past or the never-never land of the future by always returning to the present.

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Successful entrepreneurs are often not very nice people.

Headstrong.

Unwilling to listen to the input of others.

Human relations that make you want to hate them.

And yet they are often so critical to the success of businesses that they are at least tolerated if not adored.

There are lots of stories about Steve Jobs.

His temper, impetuousness, bad manners, sense of entitlement and even lack of consideration.

He routinely parked in the handicapped spot at Apple and drove his California car without a license plate.

But Apple is the great company it is because they do things well.

Customer service, sales, support.

And Apple employees are among the happiest of modern day corporations.

So how do you earn your next promotion?

Be an expert at effective human relations.

See every person as different and you make the key that unlocks their potential.

Give credit rather than take it.

Listen to the ideas of others.

And most importantly, be authentic – the number one quality we should all work on every day.

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Catherine Steiner-Adair, a Harvard psychologist, interviewed 1,000 children from 4 to 18 years of age and hundreds of teachers and parents for her book about protecting childhood and family relationships in the digital era.

One red flag was children’s ire, sadness and frustration in trying to get their parents away from smartphones, tablets and computers.

You might have thought it would be the other way around – parents complaining about their kids being too digital.

Parents often parcel out screen time to their kid, but they often violate the boundaries that separate work from family.

Put the phone away at dinner – do not answer calls, emails or texts.

Separate from the phone (as hard as that is to do) on a regular basis. 

Charge your phone way off the beaten track to give you and those around you some face time.

Take a one-day holiday from digital activity and give that time to someone you care for.

Your children and loved ones deserve the same addictive focus that your cellphone gets.

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Schedule 10 minutes of worry time every day.

It limits your worry and frees your time for living.

When you feel the urge to worry, hold that thought for your next 10-minute daily worry session.  When that tine comes, worry away – have at it.  At the conclusion return to focusing on the present.  Any future worry thoughts are held for the next day.

Most things we worry about never actually happen.

And the ones that do, don’t happen the way we fear they will.

Why hold our lives hostage to worry when we can schedule 10 minutes of worry time every day to deal with whatever is eating at us.

Mark Twain said, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened”.

Try 10 minute worry sessions and see if they don’t help break the unreasonable fear that ruins our happiness.

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If you have kids and watch their behavior, you’ll notice that they have an innate way to focus on what is right.

They don’t try to improve us.

That’s what we try to do to them.

When you are in the company of a loved one don’t try to improve them.  Accept them as they are.  This is the secret to real friendship.

My best friend never criticized me in any way.  And when he had a point to make, he did so by asking a question.

More families, more friendships and more workplace associations are ruined by our need to improve someone else.

If the need to improve is so great, we can start by looking in the mirror.

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Life is tough because it tends to interrupt our well-intentioned plans to be happier.

A few weeks back, my wife and I attended a one-day Mayo Clinic Stress-Free Living seminar in Scottsdale, AZ.

The author and physician Amit Sood dazzled with so many ways to get to a more meaningful, stress-free life that it left one wondering where to begin.

But here is what Dr. Sood said.

If you do only two things to change your life, do these two:

1. Don’t postpone joy.  Our little and big victories, our happy moments are often squandered because we tend to move on to what’s next before we celebrate what has just happened.
2. Live a life of kindness even if others around you are not kind to you.  There are many benefits to the person who is being kind to others.  Most — not all – of the recipients will show kindness in return.

There is time to become an expert at relieving stress and living the life you really want to live, but to begin take these two steps that make all the difference in the world.

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The undisputable fact is that genetics and circumstances have the most to do with our happiness.

Thanks, mom and dad.  And thanks to your boss who is making life miserable.

The good news is that about 40% of happiness is due to intentional activities.

We can fight back or stack the deck in our favor by taking action.

And the number one way to take action and reap the happiness benefit is to increase our practice of being grateful every day.

Research studies also show that gratitude-based happiness also tends to increase the happiness of those around us as well.

There are so many ways to be more grateful.

Start each day by identifying three people for whom you are grateful even before you get up out of bed.

Or just writing a big “thank you” on the receipt for breakfast, lunch or dinner whether the service is great or not.  I like to include the server’s name with that “thank you”.

We take a lot of pills to improve our mood, but small and deliberate acts of gratitude are accountable for 40% of how we feel.

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When we don’t have the time, we lack priorities.

We always have time for the people who are important or the things that must be done.

It’s just a matter of putting our priorities in order and being constantly aware of this process.

The father at dinner with his children who glances at his cellphone even one time is telling his children that hearing them is not a strong priority.

Put the phone away and listen – that sends a positive message.

Lack of time to enjoy your success is failure.

Enjoying the fruits of your labor is a priority you can choose to make.

For people who wonder, “When am I going to have the time to do everything?”, they are guaranteed a stressful life unless they prioritize what is important.

The good news is we don’t need more hours in the day.

Years ago I read a great book that I can recommend to you by Alan Lakein called How To Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.  It was written before the digital age even though it is almost hard to believe that life could have been stressful back then.

In it, he emphasizes constantly asking ourselves if what we’re doing now is a good use of our time.  It’s not just about being efficient.  It’s about being happy.

Because in the end there is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all.

And there is nothing more disappointing than wasting a precious day on that which in the end is not going to increase our happiness.

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Modern life is fast moving and egocentric.

TV commercials tell us that companies wishing to do business with us are letting us have it our way. 

Social media by its very nature is egocentric.  We take “selfies” and post them and “like” the pictures posted by our social media “friends”.

Our lives are narrated on Twitter where our next thought becomes part of the thread of our lives.  Following others sometimes gets us caught up in their limited world.

Dale Carnegie used to say to make another person truly like you “talk in terms of the other person’s interests” yet now we find that the “other person” is already talking in terms of their own interests.  The world has changed that much.

Social media is perhaps the greatest invention of the Internet age but it has more potential to be a real tool for friendship.

Parties, events and special occasions are just plain fun and social media makes them even more fun by extension.

To live among the self-absorbed, make a conscious effort to remove yourself from self-absorption.

Spend some of your time talking in terms of the other person’s interests and make sure you’re not monopolizing the conversation whether it is in-person or through social media.

For those willing to deflect attention from themselves will come the reward of being sincerely liked if not loved by others.

In other words, the other person’s self-absorption stops and starts with us.

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Bronnie Ware who is a nurse to the dying in Australia wrote a book about dying that is actually very much for the living.

In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed By the Dearly Departed, Ware gives us a second chance to avoid the regrets that so often come at the end of life.

They are:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  To me, this regret hits home and is a timely reminder to be the person you want to be.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.  I’m sure you can relate.  Life has a way of interrupting our master plan.  No one ever regrets more time outs spent with family and friends.
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.  There is a nice, pleasant way to say how you feel.  What is left unsaid at the end of life is more painful.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.  Friendship takes work that pays a dividend all during life.  It is not an accident.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.  People from mid-life on often say that they consider their personal happiness more than when they were younger, a practice that will leave few regrets.

Just writing these five things that I have shared previously makes me hope that I won’t have these regrets someday.  How about you?

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There is appropriate anger, which is good and inappropriate anger, which is self-destructive.

1. Are you sure you are angry with the right person?  Often we take our frustrations out on the wrong people or even people who are close to us who have our best interests at heart.
2. Is it the right place and time?  Tempers tend to flare when we can’t deal with things that irk us.  But just as important as our response is asking ourselves the question “Is this the right place or time to express my anger?”.
3. Is the anger we’re feeling directly related to the issue we are responding to?  You don’t have to think too far back to the last time you witnessed an unfortunate display of anger that started dragging in the past.  Couples do this all the time at the expense of their relationship. 
4. Is my anger intended to vent in a constructive way or retaliate for being hurt?  Inappropriate anger is that which is directed at a person who may have hurt you through something they said.  Only respond if your goal is to express your feelings to the issue at hand.

Believe it or not, two tools that can help are deep breathing as you are getting amped up and postponing your response – even a second or two – to fully hear what is angering you.

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Every son should be a champion of empowering women because their mothers are women who deserve to be treated no less than a man.

Every father should be willing to fight for equal opportunity and advancement because their daughters need a strong advocate.

Every husband who is married to a woman should be anxious to see that their partner is treated with the same respect and gravity as any man.

Every friend who has a dear female friend should advance their cause because that’s what real friends are for.

My sister once told me that equal rights and treatment liberates men not just women.

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A delightful school psychologist from Haddonfield, NJ – Libby Falk once shared with me an effective way to get people to butt out of your business.

On personal matters, people have the right to know only that which you want to tell them.

But some people push boundaries.

They pry.

They cajole. 

Some even bully to get access to information and feelings that we are uncomfortable to share with them.

You make the decision of what you want people to know.

Here is Libby’s advice when faced with intruders who want to get too personal:

• Fog the issue by changing the subject or making the request for information appear to be watered down.
• Use humor.  Humor is our friend once again.  If someone says, as one of my “friends” said to me – “How did YOU become a professor at USC?”, my answer was “They ran out of real professors so they called me”.  I never answered and never had to because the invasion of privacy was not his business.  He was probably jealous.

We give social media a lot of slack these days by revealing more information than our parents ever shared in their day.

There are big debates about government snooping into our cellphone calls.

We are routinely asked to trade some personal information when we sign up for something online that we want.

But in the end, what is ours is ours to share as we wish.

Now you have two more ways to push back those who invade your personal space.

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I love writing and I love texting.

Both.

Texting is just emerging as a powerful way to communicate.

Not just the trivial back and forth stuff we all do.  Texting can enhance relationships.

• Texting “thank you” is powerful.  Try to do it several times a day.
• Texting a short message of remembrance is warm and friendly.  “I’m with you on your job interview”.
• Statements of love.  Love u is good.  Love u because you always have my back is better.  Statement + evidence to back it up.
• Requests.  Can we talk?
• Discovery.  Guess where I am?  Guess what I am doing?
• Apologies.  I’m sorry.  Politicians have made apologies a national joke, but a sincere apology perhaps even with a few words to promise better is.

These six things make us better people.

Why not unlock your cellphone and make texting the powerful tool it is.

And pay attention to what’s around you while texting.  One of my readers wrote to tell me her son was on a school bus that hit and killed a person who was texting.  He’s still not able to fully process what happened.

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That’s what the old saying says, but the old saying is wrong.

Nice will soon be the new self-absorption.

We’re getting tired of things being all about me.

Study after study shows that happiness is derived from giving and not receiving.

Giving your time. 

Focusing your attention. 

Doing kind deeds. 

Ironically, no one is truly happy even if they get precisely what they want because often they don’t even know what they really want.

If I am reading this right – and I believe I am – having the courage to be nice, to be honest, to be authentic, to be compassionate – these are advantages that accomplish two important things.

One, you will be happier being the fine person you are instead of the person who you may not want to be for one reason or the other.

And two, you will be more successful because being focused on the other person’s interest is always the way to personal and career success.

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A USC student whose father was a math professor asked me in the middle of a music industry class, when do you stop chasing your dreams?

It’s complicated.

First, you have to have dreams and even early in life people give up on them as unattainable because of the negative influence of those around them.  And if you manage to hold on to your dreams, then reality often checks in – student loans, marriage, babies.

The answer is:  never stop chasing your dreams.

This doesn’t mean my music student should turn 70 still hoping to be the next hot country artist.

It does mean that we must never give up the things that inspire us the most.  Often, different opportunities occur – things we could not have seen in advance.  So a performing artist may not be in his future, but this young man would be wise to make sure music was somehow in his life.

When do you stop chasing your dreams?

You know.

This is not a decision to outsource to those around you.  It is your decision to make.

Abandon no dream – keep them close by throughout your life at any age.

A life well lived is one in which is driven by our deep dreams and desires and this is a gift not a problem.

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An artist creates a new picture on a canvass or piece of paper.

They do not cover over what they have painted on a previous canvas.

In life, we all too often go through the stressful routine we are up against just to get through the day even if every day gets to be the same.

One way to break that habit is to think of each day as a new canvas.

• Before getting out of bed, think of three things you are grateful for.
• As you fully awake, see in your minds eye a blank canvass on which to create your day.
• Routines are good – nothing wrong with Starbucks in the morning if that’s what you like – but create a new routine to add to your canvass.  Maybe you stop at a different location.  Perhaps you order something different.  Maybe you brew your own.
• Look for every opportunity to do something different even if it is routine.
• And sometime during the day, splash a lot of color on your canvass.  Surprise others.  Surprise yourself.

At the end of the day look back on how you created a day that was different from the others.

When something great happens – you get a promotion, your child is born, etc. – you remember these days because they are not routine.

No one ever sits on their deathbed wishing they had lived each day of their lives the same way.

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The Mayo Clinic Stress-Free Living Program found that 70-90% of program participants say their life is right and only 10-30% think it is wrong.

But they actually live their lives thinking 10-30% is right and 70-90% is wrong – the other way around.

Imagine the sea change that can be brought about if we start to believe what is right about our lives trumps what is wrong.

Everything meaningful starts in our brain.

As long as we have another day to work on that which needs improving and have the ability to be grateful for what we have, positive change occurs.

As the director of the Mayo Stress Free Program says, “even more important than being blessed is to know that you are blessed”.

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