It really isn’t possible to think yourself out of being a worrier. 

In fact, it may make you worry even more.

That’s not to say reading or learning about how to conquer fear and worry isn’t a good beginning.  But no one ever thought their way out of what is eating us alive from inside out.

The secret is to take action.

One-step at a time.  From the time we wake up to the time we go to bed.  And it’s doable.

Dale Carnegie always said that he had 50% of his worries vanish once he came up with a clear, definitive decision about what was bothering him.  And another 40% vanished when he started to carry out that decision.

This is pure gold for worriers.

Banish 90% of your fears by taking these four steps:

1. Writing down precisely what you are worried about.
2. Writing down what you can do about it.
3. Deciding what to do.
4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.

“Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear” – Dale Carnegie

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We’ve been hearing it for years now, the next generation is self-absorbed.

Correction:  All generations are becoming more self-absorbed.

The latest issue of Newsweek has a cover story about “The ‘Me, Me, Me’ Wedding” about how America is exporting its bridezilla culture.

You don’t have to hear it from me – people are more self-absorbed than ever.  It makes life tough for anyone on the other end of such behavior.

Two things.

One, no need to suffer from people who are not interested in you.  The antidote is to show interest in them.  It’s good human relations and the person who can practice effective human relations with others is still happier, more promotable, and a cherished friend.

Two, it is not necessary to compete with others for attention.  When we become comfortable in our own shoes, we are less vulnerable to the attention grabbing techniques of self-absorbed people and more content.

“I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can’t be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people” – Russell Brand

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A 26-year old girl was interviewed on a New York City radio station a few weeks ago.

She has brain cancer.

The disease has been in remission but it has returned.  While she battles the disease she says that despite her youth, she is aware of the diminishing time she has left.

She asked her doctor what she should do now that the disease is back and his reply was to do whatever she wants to do.

This brave young lady has discovered the real meaning of living every day to its fullest.

What is our excuse?

After hearing her testimony, I can’t think of any reason to waste another moment, day, year or life not doing what you want to do.

It isn’t the number of years; it is the quality of the years.

It isn’t the regrets but the satisfaction.

There are lots of things that can’t be controlled in life but one of the things that can is our ability to grab the next day and live it to the fullest.

In the case of this brain cancer patient, she has no choice.

For everyone else, it is the choice we must make.

“Life is a terminal condition.  We’re all going to die.  Cancer patients just have more information, but we all, in some ways, wait for permission to live” – Kris Karr

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Danny Briere, the Philadelphia Flyers hockey player, had hoped to play out his long contract with the teammates he loves in a city that he has embraced and that has embraced him.

Little did he know when he signed with the team that there would someday be a new NHL collective bargaining agreement that would make it accretive for some teams to buy out expensive players like Briere and reduce their salary cap.

The Flyers don’t want him to go to a competitor but they can’t afford not to take the $6 million salary cap expense off their books.

For Briere, the single father who shares custody of three young boys, he has had months to speculate and hope that it wouldn’t come to this.  But how Briere has handled fate is textbook for the rest of us.

He’s been decisive – the kids stay in their home in Haddonfield, NJ outside of Philadelphia to continue their education.

They and he must accept that he will not be there during the hockey season – he’ll visit instead.

He’s likely to sign a short contract with another nearby east coast team and who knows, maybe he returns to the Flyers.  (The collective bargaining agreement forbids the team taking a buyout from also then resigning the player for a period of one year).

Briere hoped against hope.

Accepted fate.

Showed gratitude by warmly thanking the fans.

And did what we must all do when faced with change.

“I have no regrets … I’m moving forward” – Danny Briere

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I don’t know about you, but I have already heard so many “keys” to success in my life that there isn’t a “key” chain big enough to hold them all.

I’m not saying I haven’t heard some very good ones, but I’ve never heard the one killer thing that can always guarantee success.

All that has changed.

Let me give you two examples.

At the recent US Open Golf Tournament, the winner was the 32-year-old British golfer named Justin Rose who when he was a teen missed the cut in his first 21 professional golf tournaments. 

He had never won a PGA “major”. 

But on that day, Father’s Day, Rose prevailed and overcame his previous mistakes, a tough golf course and the missteps of competitors.  Upon winning, Rose looked to the heavens in a salute to his father.

And there is Lionel Shriver, the controversial but very successful author who couldn’t get arrested by a publishing company.  Her first book, We Need To Talk About Kevin was rejected by 20, 30, 40 … even more publishers who wouldn’t take it.  Finally HarperCollins took a chance.

Shriver didn’t beat herself up. 

She didn’t reinvent herself.

She didn’t throw the book away and try something else.

She stuck with it, prevailed until she succeeded.

Like Rose, the golfer, who put his head down and kept playing. 

No excuses.

No discouragement. 

No quiting allowed.

My friends, the one indispensible secret to success is to never quit, never give up chasing the dream and never, ever be talked out of your success.

“You can win it in the late innings, if you never quit” – Robert Forster

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78% of 2,698 people in a VitalSmarts survey report an increase of rudeness online.

Rudeness and insulting behavior are ending friendships and two out of five social media users have cut off contact after an online fight. One in five have reduced face-to-face contact after an online altercation.

Manners lag behind technology and with 67% of online adults now using social media (Pew Study) this is becoming a problem.

Some of the survey respondents said they were still not talking to family members after two years after a fight that resulted from posting an embarrassing photo of a man’s sister when the instigator refused to remove it and in fact sent it to all his contacts for spite.

When people talk about workplace associates on social media, it invariably gets back to the subjects.

There are ways to play nice and play it safe at the same time:

1. When you feel a conversation is getting too emotional to be out there online, it’s time to take it face-to-face.
2. From VitalSmarts:  three rules that could improve conversations online were to avoid monologues, replace lazy, judgmental words, and cut personal attacks particularly when emotions were high.
3. Don’t hit send if what you send cannot be read before a jury in a court of law – this one works for me every time because it forces one to think about how a third party might perceive what is being said.
4. When it doubt, leave it out.

Increasingly our lives are online and on social media sites, there is no Emily Post yet but there is emerging “netiquette”.

“Everything I think of now is too rude to actually say” – Craig Ferguson

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That 84-year old Florida grandmother who won a $590 million Powerball jackpot recently is taking a lump sum settlement of $370 million due to her age.

That ought to buy a lot of happiness, right?

It’s not starting out that way.  The young, gracious woman who let Gloria MacKenzie ahead of her because she didn’t want to see an old woman standing in line too long is getting nothing for her consideration.

What’s worse, she was buying tickets for an office pool and her fellow workers are not too happy.

Of course, even if the winner didn’t get to cut ahead, there is no guarantee the good Samaritan would have won the jackpot – tickets are sold from a main computer by the split second. 

All of this highlights the reality that most people who win large lottery jackpots wind up destitute.  Now, that wouldn’t make a good TV commercial, but it is true.

People change when they have so much money and those around them change as well.  The winner often winds up the loser; sometimes homeless and without a penny left as incredible as it may seem.

But one sure way to hit the jackpot is to take a gamble on your ability to follow your dream.

It’s a sure thing and it is far more rewarding in the long run.

“Forget the lottery.  Bet on yourself instead” – Brian Koslow

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Once we fail, we understandably protect ourselves against more failure.

This can be an unintended consequence of self-preservation but what it is not is a good way to succeed.

We have human potential every day. 

Endless possibilities are out there at all times.

And we have to put it out there at all times to succeed.

When I taught the Dale Carnegie Course I used to lead a chorus of chants with class members that included the phrase “act enthusiastic and you’ll be enthusiastic”.

Why?  Because we can’t think ourselves into enthusiasm.  We have to do it first and feel it as a consequence of taking action.

The same is true of success.

If we disregard the fear of failure. 

Push forward with abandon. 

Chase our dreams. 

Let no one stop us. 

Settle for nothing less than fearlessness, we automatically succeed whether we attain our specific goal at the time or not.

To live this life to the fullest, we must live this life to the fullest.

“The man (person) who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare” – Dale Carnegie

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Perhaps you like The Haggler who writes in The New York Times as much as I do.

The column takes up for the often tough fights by ordinary consumers to get satisfaction from companies that have wrong them.

The other day, something caught my eye that I want to share with you.  It was one of the most effective ways to show your dissatisfaction with a product or service without having to turn yourself into something you don’t want to be.

The Haggler unsuccessfully tried to get the attention of DailyCandy and turned to his Twitter account.  He sent a post asking for someone to help.  

No one ever replied.

Then, as an experiment, The Haggler turned to Twitter and tried the same thing with a company he had no complaint with but that had a good reputation for customer service.

He also changed his approach.

The Haggler tweeted the following:

“I am not happy with Quicken Loans! And you can tell because I used an exclamation point!

No shouting.  No obscenities.  No threats or boorish behavior.

The response came within hours:  “How can I help?”

True, you have to be dealing with a company that cares, but the fastest way to complain about a consumer issue is to be honest, direct and public in your request for attention.

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

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A new Harris Poll Happiness Index indicates that Americans are not as happy today as we were just two years ago.

Minorities, the disabled and college grads were less happy than they were previously.  Only a third of the poll said they were “very happy”.

It could be the job market.  Or the sequester or for that matter political issues like immigration.  Women were happier than men (35% vs. 32%).  Independents (32%) were not has happy as Democrats and Republicans (35%).

What is happiness?

One of the best definitions I have ever seen is from Martin Seligman, a well-known researcher in positive thinking and author of Authentic Happiness.  He says it comes in three parts:

1. Pleasure (the “feel good” stuff)
2. Engagement (“good life” or work, family, friends and hobbies)
3. Meaning (using our strengths to contribute to a larger purpose)

Of the three, engagement and meaning are the most important to living a happy life.

Sometimes it takes a roadmap to find where we want to go.

“Happiness is not something ready made.  It comes from your own actions” – The Dalai Lama

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