A picture is worth a thousand words.

Below, is Austin Ardman who died two years ago December 8^th by a texting driver.  His father gave me permission to remind everyone that no message, no call, no fear of missing something is more important than the safety of our most precious assets.

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When bad things happen for some reason they seem far worse than when good things happen often hijacking the way we feel about our lives.

One way to put it all in perspective is to grade your day from 1 to 10 with a happiness score just before you turn in at night.

You may have a lot of 5s but you may have also posted a few high scores and some dreadful low scores.

The point is by looking at your month on a calendar to inspect the scores, you may find that you had two or three awful days and a lot of pretty good ones.

By seeing it this way, it prevents a calamity from making you feel like things are worse than they feel in the scope of a month.

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One absolutely effective way to get along with a difficult person is to find something you have in common and ask the other person about it.

It may be sports, a hobby, interest or a goal.

Difficult people are not just hard on us.  They are hard on themselves and often their own worst enemies.

Step in and start fishing for the one thing you have in common.  They’re not likely going to tell you without you searching.

Keep asking questions until you find something of mutual interest.

Then start asking questions rather than making personal statements.

It’s harder to be difficult when you find something in common.

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Watch a sports team when the wheels come off their game.

They bear down, try too hard (yes, too hard) and they start repeating negative thoughts.

Ironically in sports, losing streaks often follow winning streaks because teams get cocky and winning streaks follow losing streaks because they get down on themselves and eventually get off their own backs.

The thing is to keep motivation high and expectations reasonable.

No one can avoid ups and downs in life.

The ups seem like they speed by and the downs seem like they will never end.

But they always do.

The way to handle a prolonged losing streak is to commit your mind to believing that no matter what, things will not be bad forever.

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Sports teams break down the entire season’s schedule into smaller pieces to gain higher performance.

That way, it’s easier to focus on the task ahead instead of everything you have to do.

A losing streak doesn’t get to be so much pressure because there is a chance to hit the reset button every 30 days.

For us, seeing things on an incremental basis – say, 30 days or less – helps us keep our eyes on the goal.

It is very forgiving when we hit a rough patch and very stabilizing when everything seems to be going our way.

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Self-absorbed people are not new.

They just have many more tools now to get into our face and ears.

One person’s obsessive behavior rambling on about themselves can easily become a stress causing response in the person who suffers such one-sided relationships. 

• Ask what would you lose if you step away from them – Be specific.  Often the addiction to people who care only about themselves and their lives is made easier by asking exactly what you would lose if you ended the conversation.
• Cut contact – The more you let them know you are not available to listen to them talk incessantly about themselves, the sooner they will take it elsewhere.
• Find someone interested in you, too – Turn the previously wasted time of suffering from one-sided friendship and invest it in a person truly capable of being interested in your life.

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If you want to end unhappiness this morning, repeat these words:

EVEN THE BAD TIMES ARE GOOD

It’s easy to say, but difficult to accept.

But if you could, whatever is troubling you now automatically gets put in its proper place – a problem, a concern, a recurring worry – but not the end of the world.

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It’s back there somewhere – the thought of potential failure.

It’s silent.

It’s always present.  Some days louder than others.

Triggered by something that can be random like a failure in another area of your life totally unrelated.  (Sounds like I’ve been down that road).

You can block it out, but it’s still there.

How to turn that voice in your head into a positive?

• Only listen to it once a week – Not compulsively every day until it brings you down.  Once a week.  For no more than 30 minutes.  So when you feel that voice getting louder, you say “I’ll deal with you openly and honestly Tuesday night for a half hour on the way home”. 

• For every negative, a positive — During the half hour be frank about your negative thoughts.  Avoid discounting them no matter how troubling they may be (i.e., “I’m afraid I’m going to mess up my presentation”).  For every true negative thought, find an off-setting positive thought (“No one here knows the subject matter better than I do”). 

• Get out of knocking yourself down — Speak up for you the way you would have a friend do it.  No matter what the fear, do not buy into it.

Successful, happy people accept failure and learn from it.  But they don’t bring it on by letting doubting voices takeover their minds.

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When your elevator arrives, you step forward and walk in.

Here’s a young mother who pushed her baby stroller in when the elevator doors opened.  And although elevators are statistically very safe, it was an assumption that caused the accident.

In life, we assume things that are not fact.

A fact is something that can be observed and verified.

Most people are very smart whether or not they have a formal education.

Where it goes wrong is our propensity for assuming something is true when it is not a fact.

Lots of friendships breakup as a result of assumptions made.

Dreams are broken before they start when they are based on accepting something as true when it has not been proven.

If you’re working on yourself – one good place to increase your effectiveness and happiness is to remind yourself to frequently ask this question:

“Am I making an assumption or do I have proof”?

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Remember that feeling in grade, middle or high school?

The feeling of being excluded – left out.

It would be nice if children outgrew excluding others when they became adults.

SnapChat allows young people to create their own groups and only include the invited – a step stronger than simply having people “friend” you.

You can’t do anything about other people’s behavior but while they are out excluding people, you can be making great friends by being inclusionary.

Be thoughtful enough to make sure everyone is included in the event.

It’s shocking how many companies fail to invite people who sit outside their doors to be part of teams.  Invite them in.

Reach out to those left out.

Before this day ends, include someone in an activity or a simple conversation and watch how making them feel wanted will make you feel better.

Only weak people exclude others.

Strength of character comes from standing up for and alongside people who bring diversity to our lives.

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