When I taught the Dale Carnegie Course, the magic formula for those ready to take on their fears was the phrase “do the things you fear to do and the fear will go away from you”.

Sooner or later most of us get tired of living a fearful life.

We’re ready to step up and try something new.

Changing jobs, accepting a relationship that cannot be saved, our phobias, insecurities, irrational thoughts and all the ways we terrorize ourselves needlessly.

The price we pay for fear and worry is high, indeed – both physical and mental.

So if today is your day to confront a fear to get the monkey off your back, do the thing you fear to do and that fear will go away from you.

As Dale Carnegie said: 

“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday”.

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A young relative of two Boston Marathon bombing victims nearly brought me to tears when I heard her interviewed on the BCC World Service the other day.

Mature, kind, composed and grateful just begins to sum up her comportment.

She said that her sisters, one of whom lost both legs and the other riddled with shrapnel were doing fine.  The one lit up when the man who helped her after the explosion visited her at the hospital she was in.  The victim now considers this person – a previous stranger – one of the family for life.

Several other people who came to their aid asked not to be identified.  They were not seeking publicity or praise. 

And so the stories go – the good ones, the ones about random acts of kindness, bravery and compassion right in the middle of this premeditated act of terror.

Terrorist attacks and senseless killings rightly bring the focus to evil people in a world that makes us feel in peril.

But goodness is already superseding evil.

Healing begins when we focus on how good people can be without being asked when they are needed.

It is a triumph of hope over fear.

Good over evil.

Fred Rogers who played Mister Rogers on the PBS children’s show Mister Roger’s Neighborhood had just the right thought:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’”.

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The winner of last weekend’s Master’s Golf Tournament, Adam Scott, came through under pressure to win the title, the green jacket and vault Australia into the winners column at the event for the first time.

But that’s not the way it was less than a year ago for Scott at July’s British Open where he choked miserably at the end.

Some great people somehow manage to let pressure get to them.  Fellow countryman Greg Norman blew a six-strike lead in 1996 at the Masters.

What we learn is that losing helps our resolve. 

Helps make us rehearse in our minds how we will deal with pressure the next time it confronts us.

In our daily lives, stress is a major factor.  When the stakes are high, stress is greater.

In a post-match interview, the young Scott said that with the weather turning bad and the opportunity that his playoff partner had given him it was time to just go out there and get it done.

That’s it.

When pressure envelops us, go out there and get it done.

“There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself” – LeBron James

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A friend of mine recently shared a childhood story that resonated loud and clear.

She recalled fond memories of sitting around her family’s Kansas City dinner table and hearing her father ask the same question every day: 

“What’s the best thing that happened to you today?”

Dad wouldn’t accept, “I made it through the day” as an answer or the stock reply “nothing”.

Something more meaningful was required – more specificity.

The children were being positively programmed to see good routinely no matter what else life was offering on its menu that day.

Increasingly families don’t eat dinner together and when they do they don’t enforce the “no digital devices” rule.  Eat, talk and build your self-esteem.

Gratitude is like penicillin.  It cures most everything and unlike penicillin, no one is allergic to gratitude.

So, for one day only – try this.

Ask those you care about, “What’s the best thing that happened to you today?”  And don’t grade it, make fun of it or dismiss it because you are saving a lot of money on psychologist bills.

And while you’re at, for one day only, ask yourself the same question.

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” – Eckhart Tolle

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It’s hard to find a person who doesn’t want to improve – to make real changes in their lives.

It’s also hard to find many who have a plan for effecting that change.

That’s because change is difficult.  It requires an understanding of the problem or situation and a game plan to respond.

But often that is the easy part, believe it or not.

The hard part is sticking to the plan.

Change never happens overnight.  Sometimes you have to work hard to nudge things just a very little.  Folks get discouraged and frequently give up.

Significant change comes when you succeed as little as 10% of the time.

You’re ability to live in the present, for example, is improved greatly if you fail at 90% of the things you’re trying, but succeed at only 10%.

Same is true in sports.

Your golf game gets better not when you hit the ball like The Masters champion but when you hit the ball 10% better than you used to.

So, try the 10% rule and stick with it.

Oh, one more thing.

It’s really hard to know what exactly 10% better is so be prepared for much more then start by setting a realistic goal.

“When you’re trying to motivate yourself, appreciate the fact that you’re even thinking about making a change.  And as you move forward, allow yourself to be good enough” – Alice Domar

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While speaking to a class of college students, one young man who coveted a career as a musician, asked me “When is it time to give up on your dream?”.

Apparently his father, a college math professor, wanted him to have a career with a more substantial and predictable income stream.  A valid thought for a parent, for sure.

However my answer was: never stop chasing your dream.

But, he replied, “How do I make a living?”

I cautioned not to confuse making a living with following your dream.  Sometimes they are the same.  Sometimes they are not.

As long as we live on this earth and have the ability, why would we knowingly decide to throw our hands up and stop going after that which ignited our passions.

No employer, no mate, no friend, no enemy has the right to prevent us from chasing our dreams. 

Because today’s dreams are tomorrow’s accomplishments.

Dreams help enhance our self-esteem.

And perhaps more importantly, our dreams today lead us on the next great adventure tomorrow.

Say it – display it – embrace it.

“You have to speak your dream out loud” – Kelly Corrigan

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If you watched any of golf’s Masters Championship recently, perhaps what occurred to me occurred to you.

How awful it must feel to work so hard to compete in this major event and lose.

The same feeling emerges when a politician we support loses an election, when we fail to get the promotion we have worked so hard to get and so on.

Dealing with disappointment is major because we are disappointed so much.

No one plays to lose, but too few of us play to win because we played.

Participating in The Masters — check off, well done.

Running an election campaign – check success.

Working hard for a promotion that eludes us – chalk one up for being a hard worker who will soon not be denied.

The problem with losing is that we make it worse in our minds than it really is.  Not everyone can win a golf tournament.  Only one person may.

Where did we get the idea that we have the right to be disappointed for more than 24 hours and that’s the special rule I want to share with you this morning.

I allow myself 24 hours to be human and be disappointed – to sleep it off and start over again the next day.

Then resurrect all the good things we’ve done short of getting all that we wanted.

It’s true that to win tomorrow we have to lose today – and build our self-esteem rather than diminish it.

“Anytime you suffer a setback or disappointment, put your head down and plow ahead” – Les Brown.

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The movie critic Roger Ebert was being remembered last week when he died for all that he accomplished in journalism, television, speaking and digital media.

Ebert embraced the computer as his ability to speak was compromised by cancer that left him with the removal of his chin.

Beyond battling all that, what touched me that I want to share with you this morning is two lessons in living that are invaluable.

When he criticized the film “Brown Bunny” at the Cannes Film festival, the movie’s director skewered Ebert in return in vulgar terms.  But when Ebert saw a recut of the film, he praised the film.

Lesson one:  be gracious enough to offer praise and honest appreciation even in light of bad blood that may have developed between you and others.

Then when Ebert trashed “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo”, he later admitted that star Rob Schneider had sent him get well flowers and a card upon learning of his illness.

Roger said, “although Rob Schneider might in my opinion have made a bad movie, he is not a bad man, and no doubt tried to make a wonderful movie and hopes to try again.”

Lesson two:  see good in others even when you may be critical of them.

The best way to remember someone who has passed away that left a heritage of some sort is to give renewed life to their good traits and let the departed live on through us.

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When adversity hits us or someone close to us, it is human to say “Why me?”.

In 1987 when famed Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, who died recently, found out that she had multiple sclerosis she saw the illness as a calling to help raise money to fight the disease.  She raised millions through her fame and misfortune by establishing the Annette Funicello Fund for Neurological Diseases.

But it doesn’t take starting a fund to work through adversity.

Women with breast cancer often volunteer their services to help others affected by the disease.  I know of one woman who for years made wigs for breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Disease, accidents and misfortune are not on our wish list for sure but often adopting a “can-do” attitude about fighting back not only helps the patient but those around them as well.

It gives life a more defined meaning and a healthy perspective when dealing with misfortune.

“Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.” 
~ Michael Douglas

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One of the best things about constant contact with others on our mobile devices is that we can easily converse with more people and faster than ever before.

One of the worst things is that we can easily converse with more people and faster than ever before.

We seem to know what to do with spam and unwanted email.  There are programs that will shut these things down.  After all, email looks more and more like junk mail – the kind the postal service delivers.

But when it comes to work, our friends, family and new family (Facebook friends and virtual buddies), email is becoming a drain as well as a pain.

Some ideas I’ve adopted seem to help:

1. Everyone who takes the time to write to me gets a timely response – and happily because as you’ll see prioritizing email responses allows for better, more meaningful communication.
2. In an age of Twitter and texting, aim for short responses that are as succinct and meaningful as the best tweets.  It works for email.
3. Manage digital communications with you in control.  That is, a phone call is a tool for talking to some people, as texting is a way to reach others.  There are many tools that add up to communication.
4. If someone invests a lot of time to write a long email, invest a lot of time to return a meaningful (not necessarily long) response.

Life is stressful and constant contact makes us more stressful.

See these things as tools and not burdens.

You didn’t have to answer the phone 10 years ago and you don’t have to communicate with anyone that isn’t worth a thoughtful succinct response.

Email is becoming outdated because texting and Twitter are tools that many find more useful.  Whatever works, reduce social stress by taking charge of your digital life and using the tools that we all share more effectively.

“I don’t believe in email.  I’m an old-fashioned girl.  I prefer calling and hanging up” – Sarah Jessica Parker

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