There are bucket lists for people who want to make sure they get to do more of the things they want before they die.

Books like 1001 Places To See Before You Die and 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

But there are only 5 regrets that a palliative nurse gathered as she cared for patients in the final weeks of their lives.

Her discoveries may surprise.  Here they are in order:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  Most of the dying suggested that they had not fulfilled anywhere near even half of their life’s dreams because of the choices they had made when they were healthy and able.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.  This came mostly from men who regretted not being able to be there for their children or share in the lives of their spouses and they came from an older generation where women were more often stay at home wives.
3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.  Many suppressed their feelings to avoid conflict.  Others became sick because of the resentment they felt as a result.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.  Life often gets in the way of maintaining friendships and almost all the dying regretted not giving the proper time to nurture their friendships.  Even to their last days, they missed their friends.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.   Many did not realize that they could choose to be happy.  Fear of change allowed them to maintain a life that wasn’t the one that they really wanted – and to the end they regretted not being able to live and laugh again.

It is never too early to head off regrets that others have had at the end of life.

Life is to be lived now – moment-by-moment, by choosing The 5 things You Must Do to live the life that you really want.

After writing this, I’m on it.  How about you? — Jerry

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

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

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

And it doesn’t have to be anything major.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or you could meditate.

Being mindful of gratitude can also work.

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

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

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

May I share it with you?

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

What a thought!

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

Anytime.

Any place.

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

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

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

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

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

But I learned a big lesson.

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

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

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

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

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

Have another GREAT Day!  Jerry

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

Loud gets heard.

Pushy gets its way.

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

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

Quiet is as powerful as bombastic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m sure” is trickier.

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

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

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

He said “I’m sure”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We value them one at a time.

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

The secret is to become genuinely interested in other people.

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

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

Taking time to care pays off instantly.

If you would like to receive these thoughts every day …

What if I make the wrong one?

What if the possible repercussions are worse than originally thought?

Will I make someone angry?

Good questions.  Bad approach to being decisive.

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

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

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

4.  Second guessing is useless. 

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

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

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

If you would like to receive these thoughts every day …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We are obsessed with the future.

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

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

Everything we live for is here today – now.

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

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

But there is hope and it’s very simple.

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

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

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

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

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There is something in all of us that wants to get our way.

But when the desire to impose your desire on someone else becomes a compulsion, it ruins relationships and damages critical self-esteem.

Bosses do it when they abuse power and force everyone to think as they do. 

Power figures and parents often cross the line between being helpful and hurtful when they must have their way at all costs.

A friend of mine used to half jokingly say that what a wonderful world this would be if we could choose our parents.

For good outcomes in dealing with control freaks, consider this:

1. When someone intimates or states that they know what is best for you, best to not believe it even if you are forced to carry out their will (from an employer, for example).
2. Never let anyone program what gets recorded in that “digital chip” we call our brain.  Even a compliment.  When we allow others to say, “You must do it this way” or worse yet, say hurtful critical things if you resist, then do not let it into your mind.  When getting a compliment, you add it to your mind by using it to reiterate how you already feel about yourself or else risk being co-dependent to the person offering the compliment.
3. Our brains tend to replay criticism rather than positive things, fill your head with positive statements that can be repeated all day.
4. Never try to control a controller.  Be assertive but don’t let them turn you into what you don’t like about them.
5. Say, “I appreciate hearing your thoughts, I’d like to share mine” for those close enough to appreciate your position because sometimes others may not be aware that they are as domineering. 
6. Set boundaries.  Defend them respectfully.  If you get nowhere, refuse to discuss the topic further.
7. Trying to control a controller at work makes life more stressful and will get you fired.  Make suggestions but defer to the boss until you can find other employment.

One more thing.

Sometimes we become the control freaks, but the solution is more readily treated by taking a dose of the following medicine:

“The best way to gain control is to give up control”.

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Potions and lotions and Botox exist to make us eternally younger but as one of my readers wrote, “Do you have any suggestions for making our world more livable as we age?”

It seems as if we live in a world created for young people, but every generation has said that.

I used to tell my USC music students that they would get so old that they will not like music younger people like.  They were shocked to hear me say that day would come before their 30^th birthday.

So much for chronological aging.

Good health goes a long way but aging really is terminal unless you adopt a more positive attitude.

1. Living in the past relegates us to aging more quickly.  Visit the past for happy recollection not as a retreat from contemporary living.
2. A future with no new ideas, routines or challenges accelerates the aging process.  Think like a teenager, it’s okay.  Force yourself to try new things and no one will care or even notice your numerical age.  You may have to kick yourself to get started but you’ll love the way it makes you feel.
3. Every attempt to live in the present transcends the march of time.
4. Avoid using the word “old”.  And the word “young” is not useful.  Substitute “enthusiastic” instead.
5. Even many doctors stop learning when they get in their productive earning years, the first sign of aging is an unwillingness to commit to learning new things about your profession, life and interests.

Life is not fair.

Babies die, men live until 100 and suffer the ravages of aging for decades until they pass.

In this economy it has been noted that if you lose a job today and you’re older than 50 it may be your last full-time career position.  Depressing?  No.  It means, take a different path instead.

Lots of 20-year olds are old and 70-year olds young.

The best advice for remaining “young”:  never outgrow your zest for enthusiasm.

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We know that when things go bad, dig down and find more gratitude.

But one way to endure rough spots in life is to take an inventory of your strengths.

In a Veterans Affairs psychiatric rehabilitation program, patients were given an opportunity to take a 240-question survey to determine strengths and virtues and receive a printout of their five best strengths. 

The participants reported pride in their discoveries, improved mood and a sense of accomplishment by doing nothing more than reflecting on their strengths and virtues.

And this had a carryover effect in which many veterans referred to their strengths as they continued therapy and planned for their future.

We spend too much time ruminating about what is wrong.

For most of us, making a conscious effort to recall and remember our strengths and virtues can be the best help for getting through tough times.

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I read a fascinating article from the doctors at Harvard Medical School that happiness in part depends on choices but more choices don’t necessarily mean more happiness.

Actually, fewer choices can help you appreciate what you have – the opposite of what many of us think.  After all, today we’re all about options. 

Having fewer choices can also be freeing.

The University of Minnesota conducted a mall survey in 2008 that showed making more shopping choices made people less able to pay attention.  They were tested on simple arithmetic problems and were less able to complete them.

Research from Swarthmore College and Columbia University showed college students who had the most choices for employment made on average 20% more but a year after being hired reported being less happy with their new jobs than classmates who looked for the best options instead of going for volume.

It turns out once again that more is not automatically better.

If you’re like me, you crave the most options, but the research that I am sharing today is making me take a second look.

Action Step:  “To keep the burden of choice from robbing you of pleasure, go on a choice diet.  For choices of no great consequence, limit the amount of time or number of options you’ll consider.  Just say “no” to too many choices” – Harvard Medical School “Positive Psychology”.

If you liked today’s thought, tell a friend and I’ll keep them coming

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I’ve liked myself the best when I have been true to myself.

When I think with my head.

Feel with my heart.

And not the other way around.

When my life is not the “overnight Nielsen ratings” in an attempt to make more friends, curry more favor to ingratiate myself to others, make more money and accrue more power by being someone who I am not.

I start each day in front of the mirror while shaving by being grateful for the people in my life, looking deep into my own eyes to remind myself of who I really am and who I want to be and by dreaming of what my life could be with the day ahead that I am fortunate enough to have.

Sometimes it is difficult to be yourself.  God knows, there are pressures all around to be the employee the boss wants, the partner your spouse wants and the “success” society expects.

Everything we do to be a better person should be directly tied to everything we do to be the fine person we already are.

It takes courage to become the person you really are.  When we make it part of our daily routine, it is not only possible, but probable.

“Do your thing and don’t care if they don’t like it” – Tina Fey

Let’s face it.  People are often funny about saying those three words.

But there is no need to let that stop you from expressing love to a spouse, a friend, a child or a parent. 

Maybe we just don’t do soap opera I love you’s very well.

Not a problem from now on.

The words are nice but the deeds are nicer.

A dinner with a card that says it for you is just as much a winner as the words without dinner.

A USC student told me that most of his friends have credit cards from mom and pop and to him that meant spend anything but don’t ask me to come visit.  So, when it comes to expressing love, actions do speak louder than words.  Money isn’t love.

Consider this as a father Paul Harvey once talked about on his radio show how he slipped a note into the glove compartment of his daughter’s car in case of an accident.  Well, she had that accident and read the note which said something like don’t worry about the car, you are safe and that is all that matters.

And remember, even people where I love you’s freely roll off of their lips have no advantage over the rest of us.

Food is love.

The gift of time is love.

Funny thing.

Sometimes when the action speaks louder than the words, the words find a way of coming out more easily – in that order.

Let’s get lovin’.

If you liked this thought, tell a friend and I’ll keep them coming

When I was a Dale Carnegie instructor, I once heard a student who, as part of her speaking assignment about a childhood experience, told the class that her father removed all doors from their house including the bathroom.

What a dramatic reminder of the power of shame.

But shame isn’t limited to bizarre situations like removing the doors in a house.  Shame happens every day even in subtle ways.

Sometimes we are the shamers who tell another: “you should be ashamed of yourself” and sometimes we are the recipients of shame.

Marilyn Sorenson, author of Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem says “unlike guilt – which is the feeling of doing something wrong, shame is the feeling of being something wrong”.

There are four effective ways to deal with shame:

1. Accept your faults as long as you can name an equal number of good virtues.  The French poet Jean de La Fontaine said:  “Everyone has the faults which he continually repeats, neither fear nor shame can cure them”.  We are less vulnerable to shame when we feel good about ourselves.
2. Avoid becoming codependent to another person because codependent people rely on others to validate them and they are subject to shameful feelings.
3. No one – like in no one – gets your permission to act in an abusive way.
4. Love in self is the antidote for shame. 

Shame kills self-esteem.

But love of self kills shame.

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The brilliant underground artist Lou Reed who died over the weekend at the age of 71 pleased audiences and performers alike.

But perhaps his best contribution was to remind us that our lives have a certain order – a type of continuity – that should be on our minds throughout our lives.

Reed told Rolling Stone in a 1987 interview that he considered all of his albums as chapters of a book in his life:

“All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter … They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.”

Life with a purpose, not an accident.

The chapters are things that we actively dream, plan and accomplish using our God-given gifts.

You never complete it, nor do you stop writing new chapters until the day you die.

Reed pioneered lyrical honesty and paved the way for punk and alternative rock with his life’s work.

How is your very own Great American Novel shaping up – now is a great time to plan and write the next chapter.

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Look at it like this.

When you start your car, you can’t use your house key.

When you open your office, you can’t gain entrance with your desk key.

What lets you into a safe deposit box doesn’t open your luggage.

But somehow we miss the most valuable tool we could ever use to bring the best out of others – it takes a different key for everyone to unlock their value.

Bosses have one set of rules – but why?  Everyone is not the same.  This doesn’t mean every employee gets to make their own rules, it means not everyone responds the same way to one approach.

Why email memos to “the staff” or “the team” are a waste of time.

And “rules” will increasingly get you no cooperation in a world that hates rules.

The best new management skill is to create a mental key for everyone you deal with – by the way, this works at home as well.  From now on, one key doesn’t fit all. 

The key to unlocking the talents of Megan is not necessarily the same key that unlocks the skills of Josh.  Know this and you will increase your effectiveness as long as you do it.

Be prepared to carry around a mental keychain with all the knowledge you have of dealing for each individual in your life.

The greatest achievers already have this in their DNA. 

We can add it today.

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