I was a Dale Carnegie Course instructor for 11 years and we often pointed out to class members wishing to learn to speak on their feet that from all surveys, people feared speaking in public more than death.

Now things have changed.

The number one fear according to a new Men’s Health poll is fear of failure – and again, second to death.

The advantages of failure outweigh the disadvantages.

Every misstep is an opportunity to learn.

An opportunity to test yourself to see how badly you really want what you’re chasing.

You find out who your friends really are.

And you must be developing more self-confidence because trying a second or third time shows you’ve got the guts to keep at it.

Success is not the only goal – learning about how you handle temporary setbacks is far more valuable in the long run.

If this DayStarters has been forwarded to you by a friend, you can start receiving a new one every day here.

I recall reading most of Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning on a Jersey beach so far north you could see the financial district in Manhattan on the other side.

Nine short months after Frankl was freed from a concentration camp, he wrote this:

Live as if you were living for the second time.

To me that meant every crisis presents an opportunity.

Today, every problem is not just an irritation but an invitation to live better the second time.

If this DayStarters has been forwarded to you by a friend, you can start receiving a new one every day here.

Remember when business schools advised making a five year plan?

Too much changes in five years to plan that far ahead and in fact, it’s hard to see from now until next New Year’s Day.

A plan that is revised no more than annually is the framework – that’s why teachers update their courses to keep them relevant.

Most importantly, remain nimble – the ability to change, adapt, add and delete making you more open to opportunities that cannot be seen in advance.

Dwelling in the past is often an unhappy place, focusing on joy is a better option.

6 proven ways to accomplish a mood upgrade.

1. Try to solve your problems before bed.
2. Think of five people who care about you for a few minutes every morning before getting out of bed.
3. Meet people including your family as if you haven’t seen them for a long time.
4. Try not to change anyone because it is a sure way to unhappiness.
5. Observe something new every day don’t just go through the usual motions of daily living.
6. Instead of judging people, silently wish them well because everyone is hurting not just us.

Our stress is not caused because we’re weak – it’s our brains, it’s the way they function so trying to be stronger and better may not be smarter.

Multi-tasking makes things worse the brain developed over ages cannot deal with it even if our digital devices can.

96 out of 100 events each day are good, four are bad according to Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Amit Sood.

Focus on the 96% good not the 4% bad as a major way to start making a dent relieving stress.

One of baseball’s greatest athletes ever was more than a baseball card, homerun record or statistics that those behind him are chasing today – it was the grace of making a difference.

Aaron was a civil rights icon who suffered the many insults of racial discrimination over the years but emerged as a gracious human being who never stopped fighting for civil rights.

• Legacy #1 – Living by example transcends racial bias.
• Legacy #2 – Humility looks better each day when chosen over championing your own accomplishments.
• Legacy #3 – A record breaking career, and no amount of money is a substitute for something more meaningful: “I think people can look at me and say, he was a great baseball player but he was an even greater human being”.

One of Aaron’s last public acts at age 86 was to take the coronavirus vaccine to help Black Americans overcome their understandable skepticism of historical medical abuse and discrimination.

The man who conducted over 50,000 interviews on radio, television and online had no formal education, was not even a high school graduate and was a voracious reader who was famous for not reading books written by guests before he talked with them.

King’s real genius was not talking perhaps the oddest quality for someone in the entertainment industry.

• He said “I never learned anything while I was talking”.
• Was a premiere conversationalist who let the other person have their say.
• If you were ever interviewed by Larry, you found him laser focused looking into your eyes while the distractions of doing a talk show occurred around him.

Larry King’s “unspoken” wisdom was that the art of good conversation is centered around the ears not the mouth – a potent lesson in the age of Twitter, texting and user generated content.

They work in a high stress profession with the lives of thousands of passengers in their hands so they can only effectively focus for short periods.

They work for two hours and then rest for 45 minutes.

The brain tires after two hours, minds wander, we become more forgetful, our error rate goes up.

Many Millennials are already burned out having graduated during a recession and now facing a pandemic, but in spite of your profession or age, a rest after every two hours can make you a dynamo.

Isn’t it remarkable that succeeding often doesn’t come down to how good your plan is but how quickly you get started and how long you persist?

Failure Method:  Need to do more research.  Have to check with a friend.  Haven’t had the time to think things through.

Success Formula:  Here’s what I want to do, let me start now.  I’ll divide things up into small projects.  I’ll stay with it even if nothing happens.

The benefit of failing is it tells you how badly you want something and what price you are willing to pay in persistence to get it.

I can’t

I won’t

If only

Problem (they cause stress)

Someday

Don’t

I hate

Impossible