In a world of makeovers, start overs and resets the one thing that does not need changing is you.  Maybe an awakening or discovering a quality you didn’t know you had.  We are always so focused on improving but it is useless to devote so much emotional energy to improving until we can like what we already are.  Feel free to share

Just setting 10-15 minutes a day to engage others in interaction can be life changing for all involved according to a group of new studies.

Becoming more focused does not require hours, but it does mean putting phones and digital devices away – it’s quality over quantity.

When a dad or mom puts the world on hold and directs it to their child it builds a sense of value greater than almost anything we can do.

Putting aside time for chats can promote a feeling of safety and it can also lessen depression in adolescents (as published in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology).

This focused one-on-one time works for adults, too – conveying positive feelings that the line of communication is more important than life’s distractions.

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For years I have been driving 200 miles round trip to New York City to teach my NYU music business classes which I love.

I use CarPlay to access Waze to check traffic, estimate time of arrival and tell me where the Jersey state troopers are looking for speeders.

Somehow the drive has been more nerve wracking than it needed to be and I’m going to share what it is – the tone of voice of my Waze sidekick navigating my trip was not very relaxing for two hours each way.

So, from a long list of options I changed Waze’s robotic voice to a laid back, over-chilled Australian “voice” named Matilda and to my surprise just hearing a calm voice in heavy traffic made all the difference.

When she said “accident up ahead”, it was so soothing, not alarming.

Got me to thinking how important it is for us to sound reassuring and calming to those around us in our everyday life because the tone of our voice matters.

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In the late 70’s Eastern Airlines introduced the slogan “We have to earn our wings every day” – the commercial worked, the company failed and was sold off.

The concept of earning what you want to accomplish every day may be generational but it is a way to never lose sight of your goals.

Good fortune doesn’t just happen, luck is a residue of design.

Staying focused on our strengths makes it easier to keep them strong.

The superpower of the shy is that they usually do more listening than talking.

Loudness is not confidence.

Fast talk is not good talk.

Assertiveness is not better than stick-to-itiveness.

Shy people often make unrealistic social comparisons, pitting themselves against the most vibrant or outgoing individuals. Believing that others are constantly evaluating them poorly, shy people abandon new social opportunities—which, in turn, prevents them from improving their social skills.

Better listeners, more thoughtful, intelligent and being more likely to think before speaking – real superpowers.

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“A lot of my stress and anxiety comes from me feeling like I’m not good enough or I am always doing something wrong”.

This is an actual student comment from my mental health for musicians class at NYU.

First, we’re all good enough.

Why are we always trying to be better when the first order of business is to accept and celebrate the good person and things we are.

Trying to get better while harboring the feeling of never being good enough is trying to improve on nothing.

You’re good enough.

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The onetime Chair of the Mayo Clinic Mind Body Initiative, Dr. Amit Sood, has a novel way for us to look at ourselves – through our pet’s eyes.

• “You are who your dog thinks you are – kind, caring, and compassionate.” 

• “Your pet does not care about your financial net worth, job, health, fame, etc. All it cares about is your love and your ability to express it. The loving you is the transcendental you that no one can rob”.

What a great way to build self-esteem on how loving we are instead of our material accomplishments.

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We humans have trained ourselves to get what we want as part of our morning routine – coffee or beverage upon awakening, bagel, eggs – our preferred wake up routine.

From a happiness point of view, adding a few other things can supercharge a day ahead.

One, the first ten people you see say this to yourself (not to them): “I wish you well”.

It rewires our brain and over time helps us to be happier and more compassionate.

Ten people – you don’t even have to know them.

Food for thought.

Try it, feel free to share it.

Young people who have been raised on digital screens will admit that one reason for not cutting the time they spend on social media is they fear it will make them lonelier.

More cutoff from people like themselves, less available.

Judging from my mental health class for the music industry at NYU there is little dispute that their phones are making them sicker.

Some workarounds:  Balance screen time with in-person time.

See the phone, not as a tool (we train ourselves to think of phones and social media as a slot machine searching for something gratifying every time we pick it up).

And our mantra is:  we are more than just a screen, an app or social media.

If you know someone who would appreciate this thought, feel free to pass it along.

Steve Jobs gave up control of Apple and got fired.

Bill Gates bundled Internet Explorer browser with Windows 95 but failed to see the importance of search engines.  Google did.

Walt Disney’s first animation company went bankrupt.  And the man who coined the term Imagineering at Disney was fired as a news editor because – believe it or not – he lacked imagination.

Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting in his entire life.  His most expensive painting now sells for around $150 million.

The Beatles were told by their record label that “guitar groups are on the way out” and that the Beatles had no future in show business.

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb but after thousands of failures.  That’s right, thousands!  Edison eventually said, “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward”.

Here’s basketball great Michael Jordan: “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

The proven formula for success is failure.  Failure is not permanent until you stop trying.

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