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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Can you remember where you were 5 years ago? 

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

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

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

5-year plans are useless.

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

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

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

In fact, predicting it is vain and senseless.

A better use of our time is to:

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

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

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

And that person is often me not just everyone else. 

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

Coaches tell their players they can.

Teachers tell their students you will.

Dreamers tell themselves I might.

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

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

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Amit Sood is a remarkable man.

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

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

I am anxious to share my discovery with you.

How to Forgive:

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

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

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Bill Taylor showed up unexpectedly at my recent media conference.

I was worried about the flu.

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

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

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

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

But why wait?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time is always an asset.

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

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

It gets too comfortable.

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

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

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

Just trying harder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s what I do:

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

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

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He was one of the best hitters in baseball. 

Musial was so well respected that he had not one but two statues built in his honor outside the Cardinals Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Musial won seven batting championships, hit 474 homeruns and got 3,630 hits in his career and a career in which he was never thrown out of a game in 22 seasons for arguing with an umpire.

He was such a great guy that 50’s era pitcher Johnny Antonelli reportedly said, “Stan was such a nice guy that I was probably happy for him when he homered off me.”

“Stan the Man” as he was known was a gentleman who had a quality all of us cannot get enough of – humility.

We live in a self-absorbed world. 

We collect Facebook friends just for clicking and document our lives in social media as if we won seven batting championships.

The quality that is so elusive is also so attractive – it’s the one we should all aspire to.

Humility.

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real” – Thomas Merton.

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See if you can guess who said this:

“I call, I cling, I want – and there is no One to answer – no One on whom I can cling – no, No One.  – Alone … where is my faith – even deep down right in there is nothing but emptiness and darkness – My God, how painful is thus unknown pain – I have no faith”.

In researching my book I was surprised to discover that these words were said by Mother Teresa who is now being considered for sainthood for her work with the poor lepers of Calcutta.

If that great woman could question her faith in a higher power, what are the rest of us to do?

Finding your higher power is not an exercise of religion.  It’s a necessary means for transforming into a life well lived.

It matters not whether we have an official religion or any religion at all.

But we must have faith.

And questioning it is a good thing.  It means we take faith seriously.

For as Sir William Osler said:  

“Without faith a man can do nothing, with it all things are possible.”

And Scott Peck said,

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy or unfulfilled.  For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

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A recent Wall Street Journal article on the power of concentration raises the issue of the importance of focused concentration.

The article says, “The world’s greatest fictional detective (Sherlock Holmes) is someone who knows the value of concentration of ‘throwing his brain out of action’ as Dr. Watson puts it.  He is the quintessential unitasker in a multitasking world.”

I had a freshmen student in one of my USC music class who visited my office one day and announced, “I have four different kinds of ADD”.   When I said, “Well, you’ll be able to overcome them, I’m sure”, he put me in my place by saying, “It’s not a disadvantage.  It’s an advantage.”

And so it was for that “A” student.

We’re becoming too obsessed with meditation, concentration and the ability to focus.  Not that these things are bad.  Meditation, for example, has many benefits.

My A.D.D. students were very bright.  They just approached things differently.

There is no one way to think, to decide, to learn.  I know that I became a better speaker when I learned new ways to teach students with attention deficit or what we should probably call Attention Positive.

After all, we all have it in some way in the digital age.

That’s why we advance our TiVos past commercials and click off of our iPods before the song has ended.

What really matters is to judge people by what they are, who they are and what they accomplish – not the method by which their minds work.

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Sometimes you don’t need meds, shrinks or even friends to jumpstart a better mood.

Life is full of ups and downs.

I know from my television and radio career that sometimes you don’t feel like being happy.  You just want to be left alone until you snap out of it.  That’s a luxury we don’t have in that business.

Before I speak, I try physical activity and nine times out of ten, my emotions rise to the occasion.

But I found these great ideas to get real happy, real fast.  I hope you like them and if you do pass them on to others:

1. Pump up your activity level.  Increase exercise or even take a walk.  It helps.
    
2. Contact someone who makes you happy to be in their company.  Even a text or an email will do.
    
3. Get rid of things that bother you in your space.  Set a timer and see how you feel after 10 minutes.
    
4. Do a good deed for another – even if you don’t know them.  Practice random acts of kindness (this always works for me).
    
5. Paste a smile on your face.  My friend Jay Cook was a disc jockey at WFIL, Philadelphia. Before he opened his mike to talk, he broke into a big smile.  Try it.  It works.
    
6. Do something new.  Anything.  Discovery leads to happiness.

We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t get down from time to time.

If you have a moment, click “comment on this post” and share your best methods for restoring a good mood.

And feel free to share mine with your friends and loved ones.

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I accept you the way you are.

Actually, psychologists say that try as we may, we can only change 10% of a person – if that!  Mister Rogers was right when he said, “I like you just the way you are.”

It’s all about you, not me.

Try that one in this era of self-absorption.  You’ll feel the love in return.

Forgive me.  I forgive you.

No words can be more powerful that these in a living relationship.

I’m focusing on just you. 

Whatever time can be devoted to giving undivided attention is time well spent.

I will make you laugh.

Laughter heals tears. 

Here’s a hug.

I know no one who doesn’t feel better after a hug.

I will listen.

Open your heart when you open your ears.

See hundreds of other ways on Tumblr.

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I’m really bad at this.

My entire life I have ascribed any success I might have had to the fact that I see the future.  In fact my music media website is all about the future.

But it’s a bad prescription for happiness.

It didn’t take a psychologist, just Ralph Waldo Emerson to remind me that “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

I discovered this great game plan in Psychology Today:

1. Loosen up – no one is watching you.  Be less self-conscious.
    
2. Avoid worrying about the future by savoring the present — Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend who, whenever she sees a beautiful place, exclaims in a near panic, “It’s so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!” “It takes all my persuasive powers,” writes Gilbert, “to try to convince her that she is already here.”
    
3. If you want a future with your significant other, inhabit the present.
    
4. To make the most of time, lose track of it.
    
5. If something is bothering you, move toward it and not away from it (acceptance).
    
6. Know that you don’t know.  Harvard’s Ellen Langer says, “Develop the habit of always noticing new things in whatever situation you’re in. That process creates engagement with the present moment and releases a cascade of other benefits.”
    
7. Don’t just do something, sit there.  As the article points out, “If you’re aware of that feeling right now, as you’re reading this, you’re living in the moment. Nothing happens next.  It’s not a destination.  This is it.  You’re already there.”

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I saw an article in the New York Times just before New Year’s in which the movie critic Robert Ebert never said goodbye to his longtime television partner, Gene Siskel.

Humorist and writer Nora Ephron never told her friends that she had a terminal illness.  Her friend, the actress Meryl Streep said she felt ambushed. 

Saying goodbye forever is an individual’s own call.

I’m more interested in saying “hello” over and over.

The article listed some ways that people could leave this earth without divulging much to others.  I looked at the list and thought we should only do these things while we’re healthy, happy and here.

1. Say Nothing – sometimes the less said, the better.
    
2. Say Something Before It’s Too Late – You don’t have to be dying to be human and communicate.
    
3. Say the Obvious.  I love you.  I appreciate you.  Forgive me.  I forgive you.  Great stuff while living in the moment.
    
4. Say It With Deeds – Showing love rather than saying it is also very, very effective.
    
5. Say It If They Can’t Hear You – Saying I’m sorry even if you are not yet able to tell that person is an elixir that’s worth taking over and over again.  It transforms you and prepares you to have meaningful conversations when you can be heard.

Waiting until the end is no way to live life.

Live in the moment as if every day is your last.

“What day is it?”
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.
— A.A. Milne

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The litmus test of a solid family is how many times you eat dinner together.

Especially important in the digital age.

Does this picture scare you?  It should.

Social and digital communication is the great innovation of our age.  But it is not a replacement for face-to-face social interaction.

A psychologist told me that he recommend that families have dinner together. 

Mobile devices off!

I’m talking to mom and dad here because you can’t preach face-to-face interaction if you’re going to say one thing and do the other. 

Talk about your day.  School.  Work. People. Politics.  Movies.  Anything. 

A girl told me her parents were adamantly against using digital devices as babysitters when adults want to talk.  The other day the adults were having a good time and the two and three year old were getting restless.

The mother broke her rule and handed them her iPhone.

Until she sucked it up and took them home instead.

Don’t ruin great mobile digital devices by making them a substitute for face time.

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Thomas Edison who failed thousands of times in his quest to eventually invent the light bulb said “I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

That’s the attitude we need.

Failure means you’re on your way to success not that you’re headed for failure.

But employers don’t often think that way.

They want us to hit it out of the park.  Go big.  Lead the team to immediate victory.

Friends and family also send mixed messages.

Be your best.  Don’t let us down.  Everyone is counting on you.

I know of no one who has ever accomplished anything good or great by never making a mistake.  No one.

We know that but we let others get into our heads.  Instead, stop letting the stress and pressure of someone else’s desires act as a disincentive.

Don’t go big.

Go back – again, and again and again – until you succeed.

Winston Churchill said:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill.

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Things are so bad for dethroned Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong that he has taken to Oprah Winfrey’s couch to express remorse.

From Oprah’s own mouth we hear that Armstrong did not go far enough in his confession of doping to give the cyclist the winner’s advantage. 

USA Today turned on Armstrong in a front page story yesterday where it proclaimed the view that “sorry just doesn’t cut it”.

For those who argue that Armstrong who battled through testicular cancer and did much good from the organization Livestrong, the issue is what is an apology?

A sincere expression of sorrow along with the will to right the wrong.

In fact, apologizing is dreaded by most people.

It should be the other way around.

Saying “I’m sorry” is a freeing thing.

It is being condemned to posture and defend a wrong and hurtful position that poisons the human spirit. 

So, if you haven’t found a reason to say the words “I’m sorry” today, you’re probably missing the opportunity to be really human.

And once we overcome the shame or embarrassment of being human, people gravitate to us and we feel better.

This is a good time to recall Marion Jones after her steroids case when she said:

“I recognize that by saying that I’m deeply sorry, it might not be enough and sufficient to address the pain and the hurt that I have caused you. Therefore, I want to ask for your forgiveness for my actions, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

Forget excuses. 

Learn to admit when you messed up and learn to relish the opportunity to admit it.

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“Tell me, what is your biggest fault?”

It’s designed to have job applicants turn against themselves.  But you can’t just ignore it.

The response that many people give is:  “I work too hard” – a perceived employer advantage that applicants hope will circumvent the trick question.

I advised my students at the University of Southern California who were looking to interview for their first post-collegiate job to show up prepared.

Here are some responses like these with which you feel most comfortable:

1. (Basic Approach) “I realize that everyone is fallible so I am sure I have the same tendencies other applicants might have.  But I learn from my mistakes and see even temporary shortcomings as long-term advantages”.  The interviewer will likely probe and you win when you are prepared to cite specific examples of fallibilities you have overcome.
2. (Strong Response) “I can be impatient.  I have often had to overcome my desire for immediate results with swift action”.  When asked what is that swift action, you have won the interview question if you answer, “I immediately go to PPP – purposeful positive progression to turn my lack of patience into an advantage”.  Be prepared to cite an example or two if you choose this response.  That lends credibility.
3. (Brave Response): “I can be intolerant of people who can’t work together as a team.  When this happens I try to channel my best human relations to guide my behavior and deal with theirs”.  Be ready to cite examples or this is no better than “I work too hard”.  And be prepared to show what exactly makes you skilled in human relations (courses, reading, specific life’s experience, etc). 

What interviewers really want to know by asking “What is your biggest fault?” is how do you handle not being the “perfect” candidate that you seem to be on this interview. 

Do not dump on yourself, but do not equivocate, either.  You’re out if you screw this question up.

So admit that you are like everyone else – not perfect – but attach a believable upside to your humanity with evidence.

Try these responses or consider similar ones of your own and perhaps you’ll get what most of my students received when they tried it – a follow-up interview or a job offer.

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One of my best friends passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer.

His name is Wynn Etter. 

I met Wynn when he was sponsor for the Dale Carnegie Courses in Cherry Hill, NJ.  Over the years I met the most wonderful people through Wynn and was honored when he asked me to teach the Dale Carnegie Course.  I cannot imagine what my life would have been like for me without calling this man my friend.

The loss of a friend sometimes occurs when they are alive but not available for a relationship.  But in this case, Wynn was a mentor and an inspiration very much involved in my life.

When I did research for my book, he would pack up tons of motivational literature and ship it to me.  He was thanked in the book’s dedication.

He used to call me “Tiger” – an enthusiastic reminder to go after what I desired in life.

A positive man who as he endured chemotherapy never uttered a negative word even as his disease progressed. 

I have a fond memory of Wynn pulling up to tollbooths that linked southern New Jersey bridges to nearby Philadelphia and anonymously paying the toll for the car behind him.  The grateful recipient of his random kindness would step on it and pull next to his car at the top of the bridge and wave their thanks.

It’s hard to contemplate living without the benefit of people like Wynn.  But I have a consolation plan.

If I can take just one of his many good qualities and make it mine, he will live on through me.  And there is a long list to choose from.

There is a beginning, middle and end to life but the good qualities of friends can live on in their name through others.

“What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us”  – Helen Keller

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