If we eat all we want to, our weight gets out of control.

Drink too much?  We pay for it with our health.

Spend too much time being distracted by our phones and miss out on life.

1. Try to avoid responding (it just keeps the black hole of distraction growing). 

2. Never react (social media and texting makes the phone a dangerous impulse device).

3. Don’t participate in email that angers you.  You have the power to simply end it. 

4. Spend at least one hour every day (including workdays) away from your phone.

5. Social media is the biggest black hole of all digital distractions luring us deeper into the lives of others.  Resist.

Phones are great tools but they are so addicting that we hold them in our hand and check them constantly looking for another jolt of adrenaline.

When your phone is in your hand even when you’re not using it, refer back to #1 above.

When your phone is out while driving, put it away.

Allstate has a simulator that it takes around to schools so that students can try to avoid accidents while driving and texting.  No one has ever succeeded.

Put the phone in its proper place and live life.

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Sometimes we need perspective.

The ability to stand back and take a look at what is troubling us.

Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy, as the Eagles sang.

When dogged by a problem that is causing anxiety, put a hold on thinking about it except for one time per week (or per day if absolutely necessary).

On Tuesday between 8pm and 8:30 you are going to have at it and wrestle with what is causing so much trouble.

Two benefits.

You are re-channeling the problem to one specific time and allowing the rest of your life to proceed without the angst.

And you are scheduling one time to take a fresh look at the thing that is making you unhappy.

The only thing worse than wrestling with a problem is doing it 24/7.

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Dreams rarely turn into reality without three ingredients.

A Goal

A Plan

An Effort

Often there is a plan of action and a commitment to the work that it’s going to take to achieve the goal, but no clearly defined goal.

Or no plan but a clear dream.

And a commitment to the amount of effort and sacrifice it will take to realize the dream is either not considered or underestimated.

Success is not a fantasy.  It is a well organized, methodical approach that guarantees the necessary things get done.

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On a weekend visit to a local arboretum recently, I saw hundreds of people taking in the adjoining gardens, fountains and meadows and only two people that I counted texting.

It’s easy to say use your phones less, but more helpful to replace it with something compelling to do in real time.

These visitors didn’t turn their phones off or put them away, they just used the camera more than chat leaving Instagram for later.

An obvious choice to enjoy the beauty, the day and the company, people of all ages, races and genders were choosing to be present in the now.

The more time we devote to passive digital living, the more we miss out on other things that make us feel happy and connected.

It’s not an either or.

It’s what’s best for the situation.

Take control and actively create more in-person focused situations and the phone will take its place as a helpful tool and not a replacement for nothing else to do.

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The reason our phone is in our hand is because we fear missing something.

The average number of times a person checks their phone each day is 150 times.

Even if it does vibrate, we check anyway in anticipation.

The fear of missing something is eclipsing what we’re really missing – each other, new experiences, the beauty around us, time to think.

Take control.

Spend an equal amount of time discovering something new not fearing what you will miss.

Instead of pounding away at your phone to keep the fear of missing something away, change your goal to have the highest quality relationship with other people – on and off the phone.

Be more focused on what you’re missing in real time than on your phone – helpful reminders change habits.

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We self-interrupt every 3½ minutes.

That is not counting the interruptions that are initiated by others.

You’re collaborating in a group and trying to use your 3½ minutes to the best of your ability and someone contacts you with input, requesting information or asking for something.

Multi-tasking is a fad that never really worked.  It just sounded good.

Working or living with constant interruptions, some of which we ourselves are causing, is a difficult way to be productive or happy for that matter.

First steps toward becoming more focused:

Eliminate the interruptions of others (example:  set your phone on “do not disturb”)

Do not respond immediately to interrupters, it just brings more unfocused chat 

Don’t click on anything digital immediately

Don’t check the phone to see what you’ll get 

It takes 23 minutes to refocus our attention after we interrupt each other – a good motivation to take control to regain control.

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A teenage girl in Abington, PA was crossing the street in a crosswalk near her high school August 23 when she was hit by an SUV in broad daylight.

The driver wasn’t charged because the girl was looking at her phone and engaged in a FaceTime video chat when she was injured and hospitalized in critical condition.

Distracted living is deadly for safety – New York City has an outbreak of walkers who get hit by cars every day when they fail to pay attention crossing streets – but also deadly for relationships.

Face time is time spent in present company not on social media or chat apps.

For every minute spent safely on digital chat, at least the same time should be spent in real time 100% focused on another person.

It has only been ten years since the iPhone was introduced but in that period phones have replaced real relationships with both unrecognized and even deadly results.

A phone is a tool not a life.

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People want to be included in new ideas and decisions.

Even good ideas are not as important to others as the buy in.

Bright ideas become dull when they bypass the buy in process.

Some of the most creative problem solvers are rendered useless without the skills to include others in their ideas.

Encourage others to “hitchhike” on your idea and offer them a sense of ownership.

Show a sense of willingness to listen to the input of others.

Ask “what do you like best” about this solution and take notes.

Present creative ideas with a sense of wonder and humility.

When one person does all the thinking, they lose the powerful cooperation of others.

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You don’t have to check with other people to know what to do.

Just check with yourself.

Other points of view are useful as context in helping make the best decision.

Fear of failure contributes to outsourcing decisions.

Lack of confidence encourages turning your power over to the person closest to you that has the most self-confidence.

It’s right 100% of the time to consider everything and then make your own decision.

Give someone else that power for any reason and the decision will always be second best.

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Never forget the comebacks.

Recording artists, music stars and politicians know that if you’re planning a comeback, the best way to approach it is to recall all the comebacks you’ve already had.

Did you get cut by the varsity baseball team in 11^th grade only to make the team again as a senior?

This is where all the bad stuff comes back to help.

Recovering from illness.

Marrying again.

Finding a job after being fired.

Making money when you were previously fired.

Pushing back the bully.

Out of bad comes good but not only that everyone has a track record of great resilience if we will only think back to the past and use them to motivate us in the present.

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These 6 steps are more inspirational than any fancy pep talk and can be delivered to others or saved for yourself.

1. Begin with praise and sincere appreciation 

2. Acknowledge the problem or challenge in honest and real terms 

3. Provide help as to how to overcome the problem or challenge

4. Remind yourself (or others) that you/they are human and sometimes get discouraged

5. Vow to eliminate negativity 

6. Tie your pep talk into a specific goal personal or group.

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Between 2014 and 2015 the average time spent on apps has increased 117%.

Apps – especially social media apps – are now the great black hole of the Internet.

Once we’re on them, we go deeper and deeper and stay buried in them.

One way to cut the use of apps for yourself and your children, a growing problem for parents today, is to organize your apps to avoid the attention black hole.

1. Make the first 2 screens of your phone, apps that you just go in and out and use as needed (weather, news, Uber, etc.).

2. After that use a folder for social media where Facebook, SnapChat, Twitter, Instagram and others go.  Check these on an appointment basis with time limits or else become a slave to social media that just sucks your attention in deeper and deeper.

3. Then use your phone consciously as a tool not unconsciously for another shot of dopamine.

I must confess that even sharing these things that I have gleaned from young Internet and mobile experts made me uncomfortable especially the part about making an appointment to check social media apps.

But that’s the problem to be honest.

The phone is not the problem but using it for things that entertain and distract us has consequences.

Bite the bullet and take control.

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Just when you think the country is hopelessly divided, something bigger than politics shows up and dumps four feet of rain on millions of people.

Nothing unites more than a tragedy.

People automatically rise to the occasion and help each other above everything else including their own precarious situations.

There are two kinds of problems.

Thing problems and people problems.

The damage from a hurricane is largely a thing problem which can be fixed eventually although there is always an underlying psychological component.

People problems are worse.

The death of a loved one, loss of any kind, hurt and pain.

Out of bad comes good as we have seen in tragedies such as the recent Houston and Gulf states flooding.

When at a loss for words to grasp the evil of it all, remember the first responders.

They are the light that never goes out among humans.

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Imagine spending every morning devoted on how you can make other people your focus.

Listen to them.

Be less judgmental.

Try to offer help.

Make it about them and not you.

Then in the afternoon, spend your time introspectively making sure that you are living the life you want to live and not living someone else’s plan for you.

At night, focus on friends and family.

Greet loved ones every night as if you are just returning from a two-week business trip away from them.

Phone off – and put away.

100% attention to the people closest to you that matter most.

It’s impossible to make positive change by repeating the things that discourage it.

Wake up focused on others.

The middle of the day is for making sure you are living the life you want to live.

The night 100% present with family and or friends.

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How can you motivate someone without giving them a goal?

Threats work in the short term then fall on deaf ears.

Failure to clearly define a goal results in spotty results.

Money is perhaps the worst motivator because while everyone wants more, it is too vague to bring out the best effort over the long term.

The best motivator for others or yourself is to clearly see in your mind’s eye the goal before you.

Not more money, what that money will bring you that makes you work harder. 

Not more prestige, see vividly what is on your business card. 

Not a promotion, but what that promotion will mean if you get it. 

Achievers may make a lot of money but in truth they are motivated by a whole lot more.

What if you thought about your number one and number two goals today, can you see vividly what they will do for your life or just what they will get you?

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Do one thing differently today.

Smile at everyone you come in contact with whether you know them or not.

I promise, it works.

Say nothing, just be the first to smile and ask no more – move on.

Smiling is empowering because for the most part, the positive chance happens within us no matter what response we get.

Forget that smiling people are more engaging and come off friendlier.

That often, a smile is returned.

Sometimes you even enter into conversation but that is not the goal to transform yourself into the smiler-in-chief.

It is to feel the power of positivity every time you glance at another human being emerge from your being.

Also, it works in meetings.

How many times have you attended a meeting when the leader walks in with a sour face?

Dread!

Imagine what a smile would do before the first words are spoken.

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It’s odd that we can be lonely in the midst of many people or in a relationship gone wrong.

It’s more ironic that one of the best ways to deal with loneliness is to first become your own best friend.  We spend too little time tending to the business of nurturing ourselves in more meaningful ways.

Lonely people cannot find a pill to cure it, but by offering their humanity to others and asking nothing in return, the pain is incrementally less.  To crave friendship from others makes us needier and lonelier.

Happiness comes from giving your presence and not craving that of another.

Just as psychiatrists have found that focusing on gratitude relieves depression so it is that directing your friendship to others without craving it in return makes you happier.

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Anxiety is reported to be the number one problem among women and men between the ages of 19 and 35.

It’s serious stuff.

Repeat after me:

I’m worried, uneasy and nervous which makes me human 

10 deep breaths make me feel better 

My magic mantra is: “I’ve dealt with this before and I will do it again” 

Solving anxiety is not as important as owning it

99% of my fears will never come true so I am going to put them in their place 

Every fear gives me a chance to gain a new confidence – I’m not afraid 

Repeat: “Do the thing you fear to do and the fear will go away from you” 

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Dress in a way that expresses your personality.

Wear humility like it is your favorite outfit.

Your quirks are someone else’s fascination. 

Being vulnerable is not a negative.  It makes you human and attractive. 

Different is the new popular. 

Confidence is best achieved by first giving a helping hand or a sympathetic ear to another. 

Your best comes out when it’s all about them and not you.

Print out and memorize.

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Why don’t we take pleasure in putting people together?

Usually the person who keeps his or her friends to themselves is jealous and self-centered.  My friends, not yours.

The best parties are thrown by people who mix and match their acquaintances with each other.

Being left out of a meeting is a common insult at workplaces but inviting others who are not specialists in the area of discussion can be a stroke of genius.  It also promotes good will and camaraderie.

Left out of a friend’s circle can be painful because humans want to be accepted.

When families exclude, they are asking for more drama.

When friends leave other friends out of the various aspects of their life, their lives are not as rich and their friendships not as deep and rewarding.

To combat being left out, double down on including others into your world.  It is in giving that we receive the most satisfaction and help in forgetting the selfishness of others.

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