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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Thank you is two powerful words.

If you ask people what is eating them, a lack of appreciation is near the top of the list.  In fact, for decades, workplace studies confirm that the number one thing employee’s want in their career is appreciation.

Even above money!

Money often ranks fourth or lower.

Appreciation is free – we humans have the capability of manufacturing as much appreciation as we need every day.  And yet, too frequently we don’t do it.

Everyone knows how to show appreciation – a word, a note, a handshake, a compliment in front of others – the ways are endless.

But first we must make generating constant appreciation a more significant part of our daily routine.

May I share with you what got my attention the very first time I heard it?

Even a seal is thrown a fish for listening to its trainer.

What an image.

What a great way to remember to walk around and hand out the “food” that makes people happy, cooperative and motivated – sincere and honest appreciation.

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You don’t have to be a monk to meditate.

Sometimes life is too intense.  Too much going on.  Not enough ah ha moments.

Brain scans done on people who meditate prove that the body pushes more blood to the brain creating more happiness and calm.

For those having difficulty mediating, here’s the workaround:

1. Ten minutes a day – set an alarm.
2. Phone off.
3. Find a place to be undisturbed but it can be done anywhere
4. One deep breath through the nose and out through the mouth, close your eyes, feel the weight of your body and mentally scan down from the head to foot to discover how your body feels.

For some reason we think we have to take meditation classes to get the proven medical benefits of just 10 minutes of stress relief per day.

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A friend of mine named Wynn Etter used to pay the bridge toll for the car behind him when he crossed from New Jersey into Pennsylvania.

He loved to do it and to watch the reaction of many grateful drivers over the years who sped up to try to pull up beside his car and wave a gesture of thanks.

In Sunday’s New York Times, the journalist Kate Murphy wrote that Americans are being spontaneously generous these days – perhaps due to the discouraging things that are happening in our nation right now.

So in many cities in the U.S. and Canada fast food drive-thrus are seeing an unprecedented number of customers who are paying for the person’s meal in the car behind them.  There have been “pay it forward” incidents involving between 4 and 24 cars at Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Del Taco, Taco Bell, KFC and Dunkin’ Donuts in many states according to the author.

The payer pulls away before the person behind gets a chance to say thanks.  And because it is anonymous it’s not creepy because nothing is asked for in return.

Imagine if this “pay it forward” movement expanded to helping people get ahead in life with the understanding that they, too, would then one day have to give a helping hand to others.

“Pay It Forward” is not a government program, it’s not mandated, and it’s all about doing good during troubling times.

They say one person can’t change the world, but they can buy them a burger. 

“For it is in giving that we receive”  — St. Francis of Assisi

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Why waste the energy to hate a person who is at odds with us?

That includes people who are evil, selfish, hurtful or ignorant.

Expending positive energy on disliking people who are not nice is tantamount to a boomerang coming right back at us.

But forgiving is not forgetting.

We must find a way to forgive our enemies as difficult as it can be.  Sometimes they are family and often they are people we know well so it can be very difficult.

We don’t have to expose ourselves to continued hurt and disappointment.  Cut it off and move on.

But no one has ever found justice by doing the exact same thing to others who wish hurt onto them.

Let it go, move on and rid yourself of the negative energy of others.

“Never waste a minute thinking about people you don’t like” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Almost no one can remain unhappy if you do this.

Try to say yes.

Among the things that make people angry and upset is when they feel no one is listening.  Worse yet, not responding to them in a positive way.

On a recent flight from Philadelphia to Phoenix a US Airways gate agent seemed to look for ways to say “no”. 

To be fair, these airline employees are often hamstrung by company policy.  Can’t find you a seat.  Can’t sell you an upgrade so you can sit together until just before boarding.  Can’t stand in line an hour in advance to be first to board. 

Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.

The airlines are famous for this but unfortunately in today’s world, no is the new yes.

Let’s get beyond no.

1.  Find ways – and that means really look for them – to say yes to others at work, at home and even in occasional contact with people you don’t know or see very often.  Even if policy prohibits you from doing exactly what others want, we can often find another way to say yes and deliver the message we’re listening and responding.

2.  In personal relationships – you can do this one today if you want – give a spouse, child or friend your say in making a choice or decision if you can be comfortable with it.  Stand back and watch happiness like you’ve never seen.

3.  Be sincere.  Nothing is worse than an insincere attempt to manipulate another person by fooling them into thinking you’re listening and responding.

There are lots of things we cannot control in life, but saying, “yes” to others is not one of them.

Say yes to impress.

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Advocates of the mind/body connection say you don’t have to go to church to practice gratitude. 

And adopting an attitude of gratitude has been proven to make those willing to do it happier.

What I thought was useful was the term “Intention Deficit Disorder” that I heard Dr. Oz use – that is, the ability to start each day with a positive intention as opposed to rehashing or ruminating on the negative things in our lives.

What is your intention to be happier today? 

To be blunt, if we start the day without a specific intention to be happy then we are at the mercy of luck to find happiness.  Those are bad odds.  We can do better.

1. On your phone or iPad or on a simple piece of paper, wake up, take a moment and isolate one positive specific thing you intend to do to be happier today.
2. You will have 365 of them for each year – 366 in a Leap Year.
3. You may repeat the same intention on purpose or not because this simple log will tell you a lot about your intentions.
4. Before closing out the note or putting away the paper, rate how yesterday’s intention worked.  Did you have a good day or bad – rate from 1-10 (10 being a spectacularly happy day).

Most of us want to be happier and only need to make a positive daily affirmation part of our routine to rid our minds of negative thoughts that haunt us so we have a chance for happiness.

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When I graduated from college, call me stupid, but I never once said I wanted to make a lot of money.

Yes, I wanted a nice car and a house some day – and that takes money.  But money as a goal is something I have never pursued.

Many of my classmates took a more direct path seeking riches over even happiness.  And a half-time report would indicate that those of us who sought to work in jobs that made us happy instead of rich actually did pretty well in both ways.

Millennials care more about happiness than money and their older friends and family often think they are misguided.

But …

1.  Psychologist and psychiatrist offices are filled with not just the poor but the rich which helps explain why so many rich people have shrinks.

2.  Nothing is worth working in a job that doesn’t make you happy no matter what the price.  Note how Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was recruited from Google for her high-powered job that is built around her new child and family.  She got what she wanted because she knew what she wanted.

3.  Money doesn’t buy friends, it buys the illusion of friends.

4.  Now, when our friends are happy or sad it influences us.  When people do things that make them happy, it spreads instantly through social media and picks up momentum.

5.  Choose who you work fore carefully.  Millennials are not easily pushed around and they know what they want.  A 2010 poll showed they actually like their bosses more than Baby Boomers.

6.  Dreams and optimism are mood enhancers.  Dreamers are really happier.  We all have dreams, but we must give ourselves permission to pursue them in our personal and family lives and at work.

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?” -Adam Smith

As long as we don’t give up, we can never, ever fail.

Think of that.

Do everything wrong, get every bad break, have everyone turn against you, compete against the more talented, get beaten down every day and it is still impossible to fail if you absolutely refuse to give up.

The one thing about giving up is that it is for losers.

Winners never give up no matter how bad things get.

When England was bombed night after night by Nazi planes in World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill could not afford to mince words to his beleaguered people.

Remember, by day the British had to walk over the rubble, tend to the injured and dead and then prepare to get battered again at night.

It doesn’t get any worse than that.

Keep that in mind and repeat the powerful phrase Churchill told his people:

“Never, never, never give up”.

It’s in our power to will our way to success because you can’t fail unless you stop trying.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight” – Japanese proverb

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