Love Train

Image by Orangeadnan via Flickr

The Beatles had it right…”All you need is Love” !  I will admit that I didn’t know what this meant back in the 60’s when I was in grade school but I finally understand that “Love” really is all you need to accomplish anything you want in your life.  1967 was the famous Summer of Love and I was definitely in love, with a 1967 Red Mustang , to this day that is my dream car and was the first time I “loved something”.  Love was always a difficult word to define, understand, experience or use but over time I finally get it.

Love isn’t something that just happens, I don’t think love is something that happens to you, I believe Love is something you create.  Love is a choice, it is a decision you make in your life but once you understand it’s power and use it the right way it can deliver anything and everything you could ever imagine.  One thing I still don’t quite understand is accepting Love from others.  It is one thing to Love someone or something or some activity it is another thing to feel the Love someone else.  I am not sure I can define or describe that kind of Love, I am not saying that people like my family don’t Love me, but I am not sure feeling the Love of someone else for you is the same as Loving that person and giving them your Love.  You see Love isn’t about being loved, it is about Loving someone or something.

Let me explain where I am going with this and why I feel like I finally “Get it”.   I have embarked on a new career in a field I absolutely, positively Love.  My new career is selling Cinema Ads, the kind that run on the screen before the main movie starts.  My job involves going door to door, cold calling on businesses of all sizes most of which have “No Solicitors” signs posted on their doors.  There was a time in my life that this would have scared the hell out of me and I can honestly say it would still scare the hell out of me if I didn’t Love my product, Love my company and Love my prospects, yes I said Love my prospects !.   I have spent the last few weeks knocking on at least 20 doors a day and with only a couple of exceptions, everyone has greeted me kindly and only once was I told I should have read the sign on the door about soliciting.  I truly believe that since I have come to understand the true meaning of Love, it has served me well.  I know that if I didn’t go into each business I call on thinking I was going to Love the people and Love handling their advertising, I wouldn’t have been greeted so kindly.  I also know that Loving my job, every part of my job, makes everything go better, I know that without this Love for my career, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am sitting in this hotel by myself tonight.

Love can serve you in many ways.  One of the things I am working very hard on is using Love in every portion of my life no matter what the situation is.  When my son or daughter call me  in the middle of an important meeting with an urgent message which turns out to be they need money to buy gas to go some place fun, I pause and think what Love means in this situation, does it mean be kind or get angry for the interruption ?  it always, means to be kind.  To me that is the definition of “tough love“, deciding to be kind when it is really tough to be kind.  When I am in a tough situation and trying to negotiate with a mortgage company, a creditor or anyone that isn’t exactly trying to be your friend, I have recently taken the approach that I am going to send my Love to the person I am talking to and my experience so far is that without fail, the Love comes back to you in the form of the result you had hoped for.

April 26th, 1980 was an incredible day, that was the day I married Suanne Fodstad but it was also the day I really listened and took to heart 1 Corinthians 13 from the Bible.  This passage is in my opinion the best definition of Love there ever was and as I have re-read it the past couple of days, it is truly amazing to me how it applies to everything I have been doing to turn my life around and get back on track.  If you have never read this passage or have forgotten what it says it is worth re-printing here for your review:

1 Corinthians 13

¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith, Hope and Love….. there it is.  Can you see what I mean about how this can apply to every area of your life.  Just in the way you do business or deal with others, if you do it with Love you cannot fail.  A dear friend of mine from High School sent me a great power point presentation today called “Life on a Train’, I don’t think she had any idea how much I love trains, and love riding them but this presentation she sent me compared Life to a long train ride and it was so right on, it was just another one of those moments where the light clicked again and everything in my life has started to make sense.  That power point presentation got me thinking about Love and what it has meant to me recently as I have tried to apply it to everything I do.  Then that mental Juke Box of mine picked up Love message and combined it with the train analogy from the power point and wouldn’t you know it, it flipped on the turntable in my head and started playing the O’Jay’s classic  “Love Train”  which led to me writing about Love today.   So let me leave you with the words of the O’Jay’s  Start a Love Train  and Please don’t miss this train at the station, because if you do, I feel sorry, sorry you. Join hands Start a Love Train, Love Train….it is all you will ever need to get everything you want in life…..I love you !

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Creating Your Own Reality

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It used to bother me when people would say things like “Tim is in a world all to himself” or “Tim lives in a fantasy world” or “He’s always so lucky, but some day his luck will change”.   Up until the point those comments started bothering me, I really did live in a fantasy world and in my fantasy world every fantasy I dreamed came true starting in High School.  You see everything in my life was created in a thought or a dream so when I had great thoughts and great dreams that is exactly what my world was made of, when I started listening to people make comments like I mentioned earlier, I started thinking that maybe they were right, the minute I started thinking that way, I got exactly what I was thinking of.

I have spent alot of time analyzing my 51 years of life here on Planet Earth, especially with the trials and tribulations of the past three years.  I had to find out why 48 years were about as perfect as a life could be and then the last 3 years were as ugly as life could be.  I say ugly only because they were so dramatically different then the first 48, while it wasn’t great it was a lesson I needed to remind me about how powerful our thoughts are and why it is so important to create your life as you want it and not by what others may think is right for you.

So let me tell you about the reality I created the last 51 years, including the last three which were also my creation.  Growing up in Crystal, Minnesota I was always fascinated with all the things you could do in life, I wanted to experience everything.  In the fourth grade our class took a field trip to the North Hennepin Post Newspaper, I thought the News paper business was really cool after that visit, so I went home and started my own neighborhood newspaper.  The first paper I created was on a manual typewriter with 5 pages of carbon paper(for those who don’t remember, carbon paper was something you could put between two pages of paper and make a copy of the first by either pressing hard with a pen or typing), because I was trying to make so many copies, my fingers got very sore from trying to slam down the keys so it would go through all 5 copies.   Later, I graduated to a printing press that I found in the Montgomery Ward catalog.  I remember sitting in front of the TV with a TV tray watching the Batman TV show and setting type letter by letter in my little printing press.  It was a fun little operation and I had several subscribers both in the neighborhood and at school who were willing to pay 5 cents a copy.

My next dream come true was when I decided after spending time growing up at the Terrace Theater in Robbinsdale it was time to open my own theater.  I loved the theater business from time my mother started working at the Terrace when I was 2 years old.  I was at the Terrace alot and took my time to learn how they did everything including getting to spend time with the Union Projectionist in the projection booth learning how to run the projectors.  So in the 5th grade, I opened the Hollywood Chief Theater in my basement showing silent films I took out at the public library on my Super 8 projector.  This venture was so succesful that I opened a second theater in my backyard, called the “Bike-In” theater which was created by stringing a large white sheet between two trees and pointing the projector out the back window of our house. 

Moving on to 6th grade, I decided that it was time to get with the latest technology after seeing my favorite disc jockey from my favorite radio station at the State Fair broadcasting live.  You guessed it, I signed on my own radio station WTIM using at first a CB radio and broadcasting the latest top 40 hits so all the kids in the neighborhood could hear them on their walkie talkies.  Later that same year, I found a kit at an electronics store called Lafayette Electronics for an AM Transmitter so I could broadcast on real radio.  The kit was very specific that your antenna should not exceed the 12 inches of wire that came with the kit, well I would have no part of that because I needed the whole neighborhood to hear me so I strung a 50 ft antenna from my house to the highest point I could climb to in one of the trees in our backyard.  I guess this radio empire was the beginning of my mini-media empire, because the next thing I did was buy an FM transmitting microphone from Radio Shack, now I was big time, AM and FM.  But that was just the start, 8-track tape players were all the rage and I was fortunate enough to get an 8-track tape recorder for Christmas that year which led the way for me to open up yet another business I called Sound Dynamics.  Today that business would be highly illegal and would be called Tim’s Pirate music company, I had no idea that I was pirating music by buying a vinyl album, recording it to 8 track and then selling to my friends.  I did quite well with this business adding cassette tapes to my 8 tracks.  So by the time I had graduated 6th grade I was operating 2 radio stations, 2 movie theaters and a record company.

I went to Hosterman Junior High in New Hope Minnesota for my next three years of school.  Alpine skiing was huge back in the 70’s and I loved watching the Olympics and the coverage of skiing including the local ski show hosted by local weatherman Barry Zevan.  I went skiing for my first time in 7th grade and by the end of the first day, I was skiing about as good as most of the people on the hill at Snowcrest ski area in Somerset, Wisconsin.  My dream was to become a ski racer and have all the girls admire me especially petite blondes which I decided was what would be the perfect fit for me.  At that time, Cooper High School had a ski racing team , the High School was for grades 10 to 12 while the junior high was 7 to 9.  I  heard that you could be on the High School ski team if you were good enough in 9th grade so I convinced my friend Steve Banker to try out for the team with me.  Steve and I had skied together quite a bit with the boy scouts, so what the heck, I thought we should give it a try.  And just as I had dreamed it, Steve and I made the ski team as 9th graders and by the time we were in 10th grade we were co-captains of the Cooper High School ski team.  Now you tell me that you can’t create exactly what you want.  I went from never having skied to the captain of the High School team, my first year in High School, pretty powerful life creating powers I had and you have as well.

While I loved sports, the media bug was still in my system so I started a film company to make ski movies.  I learned to ski backwards so I could ski down and look up the hill to film my friends.  I learned how to edit film, sync sound from a cassette recorder and eventually made 3 feature length Super 8 films with sound.  My friends hated my new film company because we would take a trip to Montana or Colorado to ski and I would spend half the time making them film me or letting me film them crashing off jumps and cliffs.  It was quite the deal for a junior high kid and it was exactly as I dreamed it would be.

Once I made it to Cooper High School my thoughts turned to having the greatest High School experience ever.  My favorite TV show was always “Leave it to Beaver” and I always wanted to be just like Wally, so while I continued to ski race, my real passion was Baseball, Blondes and good grades while having the greatest high school experience ever.  I had always loved baseball but was never able to keep up with the star athletes from my junior high days but after buying a book called “Show the Coach” and attending a summer of Baseball Camp, I was the starting 3rd baseman for the Cooper High Junior Varsity team and wouldn’t you know it just as I had dreamed not only was I the starting 3rd baseman but I had the perfect coach in Ted Leuer, who recognized how much attention I paid to playing the game right.  For the next 3 years in high school and 1 year of college I played and enjoyed baseball more than I had ever dreamed of.  But the point is I dreamed it and knew it would happen exactly the way I wanted it to happen and it did.

As for the Blonde, my bride of 30 years plus walked into the Terrace Theater in the Summer of 1974 and I saw the vision of the woman I had always dreamed of.  It took me almost a year to convince her to go out with me but just as I had dreamed and thought about constantly, we went out for 5 years and got married and moved to South Dakota where I had the job I had been dreaming of, I was morning disc jockey and Basketball Color announcer for the radio station.  I was living the dream and things only got better.   I dreamed of waiting about 8 years to have kids and knew that I wanted 1 son and 1 daughter which is exactly what we ended up with.   I won’t bore you with all the details but for the next 20 years, I got the houses I dreamed of, the cars I dreamed, travelled all over the world to every place I ever wanted to go, built multiple companies that I had dreamed of.  I even played a half season of 40 plus baseball.  During those amazing 48 years, I can’t tell you how many times things would happen exactly as I had dreamed they would or thought they would.

So what about the last three years ?  Well, I dreamed about those as well.  Unfortunately, I forgot how powerful my dreams and thoughts were.  I can tell you when it all started, I had paid off everything, I had zero debt, I had a ton of money in the bank, things were going incredible.  I can actually remember the exact moment that my thoughts changed to thoughts of what has happened the last three years.   I was on a Northwest Airlines flight flying from Minneapolis to San Francisco, sitting in First Class enjoying my status and thinking about how fortunate I was to have had all my dreams come true, then a thought popped into my head, a thought like I had never had in my whole life, “What if I lost it all ?” started going through my mind, which was something I never, ever would have even considered.  Things got weird after that thought popped into my mind, about an hour out of San Francisco, the Captain came on the PA system to tell us that the plane had hydraulic problems and we were going to have to make an emergency landing.  The minute I heard that, the thoughts of doom and disaster just got worse.  We dumped fuel and as we landed in San Francisco, fire trucks raced down the runway beside us.  The Captain had done an incredible job of landing the plane and nothing serious happened to anyone but my thoughts of loss grew stronger each day after that event.   As time went on, I noticed I had started to worry about crazy things like the election between Bush and Gore, my thoughts of impending disaster continued to grow leading up to the morning of September 11, 2001 as I sit in my home gym riding my Lifecycle watching Good Morning America as I saw the second plane, crash live on TV into the World Trade Center everything changed and for some reason from that day forward I was never able to get 100% back in the groove.   I had thoughts of my business failing, of losing my home ,of losing my cars and losing everything I had worked for my entire life.  It was at this time that I should have thrown myself into the good stuff like I have for the past 6 months.  I had created my own reality and what I had worried about starting in 2001 came to pass in 2009.  Talk about a wake up call !   Thoughts really do become things and that is why it is so important to choose them carefully.

Today,  I am seeing signs of the thoughts I had six months ago coming true, I dreamed of the perfect opportunities coming my way and sure enough they are, on a daily basis.  But the most important thing I have learned through all of this is that we really do create everything that happens in our lives.  It is easy to create exactly the life you want and it is just as easy to create exactly the life you don’t want.  It’s your choice, choose the good stuff or worry about the bad stuff.  I can tell you I am done with the bad stuff and totally focused on the good stuff including getting in the best physical shape of my life.  It’s kind of funny on this physical shape thing because, I have watched what I have eaten in the past in many attempts to lose some weight but for some reason over the past 9 years it never worked well.  Now that I am back in the “Groove”,  40 pounds has effortlessly dropped from my body primarily because I knew it would and visualized myself being in the best shape of my life for the 35th Class reunion of Cooper High School Class of 1977.  I will have a lot more to report on creating the life I have always wanted to live and boy do I intend to live, for at least another 70 years !  I hope you will consider my story and take some time to thing about the life you want for yourself, think about the good stuff and don’t ever, ever worry about anything bad.  Speaking of the Cooper High School Class of 1977, it was the greatest group of people I have ever met, and I spent most of my life telling the world about these special people.  I know many of them, maybe without knowing it have created exactly the lives they have wanted.  A few worried about things they shouldn’t have and have had to deal with the reality that brought them but I hope they have found what I have in the power of creating your own reality through visualizing the good stuff.  Thanks for spending a few minutes with me, you know I have been thinking of you.

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A Kindle Powered New Year and more resolution stuff….

Cover via Amazon

I don’t know if it took getting back to writing in my blog or the Amazon Kindle that my wife gave me for Christmas to get my head back in the game but at minimum I have been able to fill my head with all the good stuff the last week via my Kindle.  I have to say that the Amazon Kindle may be one of the greatest inventions of our time.  Not only can I read all the really cool new books on the Law of Attraction, the Secret, The Power and the 4 hour workweek and 4 Hour body but I can also listen to all the great audiobooks out there.  Unlike a book that has to be held open to read, the Kindle is flat, light and easy to hold as well as effortless when it comes to turning the pages.  I believe it will become my single greatest tool in 2011 as I fill my head with all the good stuff.  Here’s the disclaimer, I have no affiliation with Amazon, this wasn’t a commercial, I am just a very excited and thrilled owner of this wonderful new tool.

Now, the really important stuff, New Year’s Resolutions.  I am not sure I ever believed in the resolution thing but each year at this time I have always taken the time to review my goals and plan for the new year.  While reading the newsletter from my Church this morning, my Pastor said that most resolutions for the new year are abandoned by January 7th, which I totally believe.   What I am proposing for this year for everyone and for myself is “New Day” resolutions, it other words resolving each and every day to lose weight, work harder, be kinder, love more, forgive more, visualize more, give more etc.  I am sure there will be people who abandon their New Day resolutions by 9:00 am they can make them again for the next day without having to wait a full year.

I think today’s post will have to fall into the random thoughts category because I have a bunch of random thoughts on my mind as I review the past year and prepare for the New Year. One of things I was thinking about this morning was personal responsibility and how important it is to always be responsible for yourself and your actions.  This is a subject that has been on my mind for sometime, I think I tend to take responsibility for just about everything because I refuse to pass the blame, this gets ridiculous when one of my kids blames me for the lousy weather and I find myself apologizing and feeling like I had something to do with it.  The other thing that was on my mind in this whole taking responsibility thing was how tough it is to teach your  kids personal responsibility  by setting an example by taking responsibility yourself.   As I said, I think I take responsibility for everything even when I shouldn’t and it has become more apparent to me as I listen to friends and family not take responsibility.   Anytime something happens to a friend or a family member the first thought that goes through my mind is that I did take the action I should have to prevent this from happening to them.  So my first action in these cases is to take the blame and tell them it was my fault and I take full responsibility, while I honestly feel that way, an analysis of recent events leads me to believe that quickly taking responsibility for everything leads to being quickly blamed for everything that goes wrong in those same people’s lives.  While I feel bad that I get blamed for things, my nature is to take responsibility and try to figure out what I can do to help.

Let me be clear, I love to be responsible for everybody and everything because I want to take care of people and do everything I can to help them but what I perceive as a good deed (personal responsibility)may also be my biggest weakness and the primary cause of the failures in my life.  I know that certain business decisions I have made that didn’t turn out good come from my desire to take responsibility for trying to fix someone elses problems.  That’s why I guess it is Personal Responsibility that is so important and not responsibility for other people’s problems.   OK, that was pretty random and yes, I take full responsibility for the above content, responsibility in all forms is another one of life’s mysteries that I intend to figure out one day.

Now the feel good stuff !  This past year, I have blogged about my mental juke box and how just the right song plays at the right time in my head to lift my spirits and carry me through various challenges in life but the number one thing that makes me feel good, appreciate life and makes things fall in place for me is realizing how much stuff in life I love.  Whether I am driving through the country and appreciating the scenery or looking at pictures of my wife and kids or the new Ford Products especially the new Ford Explorer and Mustang.  The more I am grateful and appreciative of all that life has to offer the better I feel.   The most important part  is consciously acknowledging this gratefulness and appreciation, whether saying it out loud, writing it in a journal or blog or thinking about it over and over.  If you don’t believe me give it a try and see how your outlook and your life starts feeling better, look at a picture of your spouse or kids and remind yourself how much you love them, or drive by the Ford dealership and check out the new Explorer and tell yourself how cool that vehicle is and how much you love it.  Do like I do and find a piece of land, along a river or lake or mountain or in a big city that you would love to own and build a house on and tell yourself how much you love that property.   Think about the city you live in and how much you love it or how much you love the city or place you would like to live in.  I guarantee you that when you start throwing all this love around you can’t help but change your outlook and feel better about everything and if you can hold on to those good feelings all the time, those things you love that you don’t have will soon come your way and those other things you do have like your family, they will start sending you love back in ways you never thought possible.   Happy New Year….I can’t wait for 2011, I love the number eleven and when 20 is in front of it, nothing is better.   What will you love in 2011 ?  Everything possible I hope !

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Lost in Space

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One of my favorite television shows when I was growing up was Lost in Space.  Lost in Space is what I have felt like the last couple of months when I wasn’t writing and posting to my blog.  I got so caught up in just going through the motions that I truly was Lost in Space.  I really needed the Robot around saying “Warning, Warning Will Robinson”  “continuing to just go through the motions will lead to disaster”.  While going through the motions and working the graveyard shift at a convenience store probably weren’t the best choices I have made recently they have fired me up to enter the new year pursuing all of the dreams that had slipped from the forefront to Lost in Space file.

I have always found the week between Christmas and New Years to be an excellent time to review the past year, think about what’s really important and set the stage for the coming year.  While I had taken all out massive action to attack the problems that led to my personal financial crisis, the solutions I jumped into ended up not being the answer but providing the answers and solutions to what I need to do in 2011.  You see, it is very easy to settle in to something that is easy, the hourly job at the convenience store was fun, easy and an escape from reality.  When I was mopping floors at 3 in the morning, all the cares of the world were absent, the silence was therapeutic and it was easy to just go through the motions.  But my life has never been about going through the motions and getting Lost in Space like I did, wasn’t helping my situation one bit.

So as I sit here, doing what I enjoy most (writing) I am planning my escape from the alien planet and that place in space where I was lost.  In 2011, I intend to focus on the things I do best and the things I have always wanted to do.  I am an Entrepreneur and the failures of the past three years had dampened my spirit and led me to believe that just getting a normal job was the way to go.  Getting Lost in Space was what I needed to understand what it was that I needed to do moving forward.  2011 promises to be an exciting year and I have set up a number of new plans to challenge myself to find my way back to the planet Earth.

I know that was a pretty lame attempt to try to work in one of my favorite TV shows from my childhood, but actually it was that TV show that set me straight.  Part of my daily routine was to lay down at 6 pm to take a short nap before going into my job at the convenience store at 9pm.  I would turn on the Family Network at 6 just as the reruns of Lost in Space would come on.  I ended up not getting a lot of sleep because I got so caught up in watching Lost in Space.   After about two months of this routine was when it hit me that I had become Lost in Space.  Somehow, I don’t think it was coincidence that Lost in Space began airing on the Family Network about the same time I started this routine of working 2 full-time hourly positions that paid just a little over minimum wage.  The Universe has a funny way of working and I believe, the TV show was reminding me of what I was doing to myself.

I apologize for the scattered way my post today is going but it may take me a few days to get my writing groove back in synch.  Before I close things out today I want to share with you an email I received as one of my daily notes from the Universe (www.tut.com) .   It is really amazing what the right words can do to lift your spirits and remind you of what your true purpose in life is.  Imagine how you would feel if you received the email below and took it to heart.  I believe this email is what helped me remember what I was up to before getting Lost in Space.  More than anything, I hope that I can someday find the words to share with people around the world that will help them feel the way I did when I received this email.  Thank you Mike Dooley for your daily notes from the Universe! I hope everybody reading this goes to your website and signs up for your daily notes right now.  Here’s the email:

 

 

 

 

        

     

  

If it’s not yet obvious to you, the real reason for this, and all seasons, is you, Tim. A more perfect child of the Universe has never lived. Until now, only celebrations cloaked in myth and mystery could hint at your divine heritage and sacred destiny. You are life’s prayer of becoming and its answer. The first light at the dawn of eternity, drawn from the ether, so that I might know my own depth, discover new heights, and revel in seas of blessed emotion.

A pioneer into illusion, an adventurer into the unknown, and a lifter of veils. Courageous, heroic, and exalted by legions in the unseen.

To give beyond reason, to care beyond hope, to love without limit; to reach, stretch, and dream, in spite of your fears. These are the hallmarks of divinity – traits of the immortal – your badges of honor. May you wear them with a pride as great as the immeasurable pride we feel for you.

Your light has illuminated darkened paths, your gaze has lifted broken spirits, and already your life has changed the course of history.

This is the time of year we celebrate Tim Braun.Bowing before Greatness,
    The Universe

So this email has set up the challenge for me in the coming year, my number one goal is to give beyond reason, care beyond hope, love without limit; to reach, stretch and dream in spite of my fears.  I challenge you to do the same.  It seems to me that if a person can pull this off there is no possible way for them to fail or to ever again get Lost in Space….

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Keep The Faith !

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I don’t know what it is about this mental juke box phenomena I have been experiencing but it seems to be intensifying as things start falling back in place for me.  This evening I received an email from a good friend who is having some difficulty with a business related legal matter.  I know how stressed he has been after experiencing events similar to what I have gone through the past three years.  When I read his email, I started thinking about what I could do to help him get through this difficult situation, I wanted to tell him that there was something good hidden in this trouble but I just didn’t know how to tell him without minimizing the size of the issue.  I know that this is a temporary but still uncomfortable situation and that thinking about it will only make it worse.   As I sat in my office contemplating what to say, I could hear a quarter drop into my mental juke box and Bon Jovi’s “Keep the Faith” started playing,  “you gotta keep the faith” kept playing over and over, which made me wonder what the lyrics were to the song.

There is definitely a message in the lyrics of this song for everyone facing a troubling issue especially when other parties are involved and especially when people are pitted against people.   Check this out from Bon Jovi’s  ” Keep the Faith”…I have suffered for my anger,  there are wars that can’t be won,  I am laying down my guns, I am broken like an arrow, forgive me, forgive me your wayward son.  This may sound depressing but it truly is a strong message that tells me not to get angry, not to fight but to work toward a solution and when you submit, I think most times even when you are right, the truth prevails.  I know that’s a little deep but it all comes down to how you play this out in your mind,  you can let the anger kill you, you can get angrier when the other side does something you think is unjust but when you know in your heart you are right and you know you will prevail, you can settle back and let God handle the details.  Here’s some more lyrics from the same song that apply to the same situation…”Everybodys bitching, cause they can’t get enough, and its hard to hold on, when there’s no one to lean on”.  I have been here, when there is no one to help and it’s all on you, it seems like the end of the world but all that has changed for me because my thoughts have changed as well as my approach to everything.

“Faith, you know you’re gonna live through the rain, Lord you got to keep the faith, Faith don’t let your love turn to hate, right now we got to keep the faith”  So  my internal, head banging, juke box keeps playing and picking songs randomly to fit my thoughts.  How do you explain that ?  These are more than coincidences, I know that by eliminating all the negative input from today’s media, the right songs play at the right time in my head and it props me up and makes me stronger each day.  

I grew up with my Mother working at a movie theater and ultimately worked as an usher at the same theater, many, many hours were spent watching movies over and over.  I am sure I saw “The Sting“, “All the Presidents Men” and Disney‘s “Robin Hood” among others hundreds and possibly thousands of times.  So my entire life I have been addicted to movies and just recently I realized a lot of the movies I was going to see may also have been putting the wrong thoughts in my head.  This was never more apparent than when I went to see “Secretariat” last week.  This was such a positive and moving movie that I think I had tears flowing down my face most of the movie.   It wasn’t a sad movie, it was just that emotionally I connected with the movie on a level that brought on that effect.   It all goes back to the intensity of everything in my life these days, I can’t seem to look at leaves changing on a tree without being thrilled with the beauty of the Universe and the Perfection that lies before us each day.

Intensity and Keeping the Faith, they go hand in hand and when you get to the point that you know every single thing that happens in your life happens for a reason, you marvel at the perfection instead of getting angered over a legal issue or business audit or whatever you are facing.  The greatest lessons in my life have come at times that people thought I should be depressed or angry with the situation I had found myself in, but no matter how bad the situation or for that matter how good a situation appears to other parties, the truth is it is all as it should be and there is a powerful lesson for us in every event no matter the size or scope.

God sends us teachers all the time, whether it is an opposing attorney, a chance meeting with a young man who had a very rough life as a teenager in Chicago and moved to Minneapolis to get a new start, that guy in the big red truck that cut you off on the highway, a friend who has a different political view than yours or a parent who calls you at all hours of the day or night to check on you.  All of these people have been sent to teach you something and it is your reaction to each event that will determine what you learn, and how you will feel.   Negative events do not by themselves make us unhappy but rather it is our reaction to the event that determines how we are going to feel.   Each time I am tested by challenging events,  I have a new tool that seems to be serving me well, the internal juke box loaded with a play list to fit every thought or situation that presents itself.   “Keep the faith, though, you know it’s never too late.  Keep the faith, keep the faith, keep the faith”

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Change the Way You Feel About Things and the Way You Feel Will Change

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How would you feel if over the course of two days, you poured your heart and soul into writing a piece for your blog that you thought could really help people improve the way they feel in their lives, only to accidentally lean on the alt key on your keyboard and have the whole two days worth of work vanish from your screen forever ?  I have to be honest, when this happened to me this morning my first thought was not a good one, but I quickly glanced up, read the title on my screen and took my advice.  Funny thing, the 1500 words in the body of the blog post had disappeared but the title stayed intact.  I guess it was the Universe testing me yet again.

The way we think and feel about things has a direct impact not only on how things look to us  but how we ultimately feel.  One of my favorite Wayne Dyer quotes is “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at Change”, nothing could be more true.  But as I thought about it, the same could be said for the way we feel about things,  If you change the way you feel about things or events in your life, the way you feel will change.   When I lost my 1500 word blog post this morning, I could have felt terrible about losing all that work, instead I chose to feel like there was a positive reason for losing that work.  Had I chosen to feel terrible, I could have spent the whole day angry, upset and taking out my feelings on the world instead, I feel great, I figured out a way to prevent losing work like that in the future and I am taking a different, more refined approach to getting my real message across to you in this version 2.0 of this blog post.

All of us can feel great 100% of the time, it’s a choice we make as each of us are totally responsible for the lives we create.  I have seen great days turn into lousy days just because a friend or family member chose to feel angry about something that was totally a waste of time.   Road Rage in particular is one of those things,  whether I am riding with people, listening to people on cell phones or driving myself it never fails that when someone else does something stupid on the road, it causes most people to get angry, and that anger usually burns up a good hour or two of what could have been fun and happy time.  I used to be incredibly guilty of the road rage thing, so much so that I would not only get angry, I would transform into a stalker who had to show that person how wrong they were for their lousy driving decision.  Today, I keep in my mind, another Wayne Dyer quote that I repeat to myself as I take an extra breath when these situations on the road happen  “When faced with being right or kind always choose kindness”.  Repeating that quote to yourself and choosing kindness makes you feel totally different then choosing “Right and Anger“.

The way you feel and this “KNOWING” thing I always talk about.  Think about times in your life when you were uncertain about something, you were anxious, stressed, worried and maybe even feeling a little sick not knowing what the outcome would be.  Then think about times in your life when you knew the outcome of something was going to be exactly what you expected, you were happy, satisfied, joyful and confident.   Now think about how you would rather feel, Happy or anxious, Satisfied or stressed, Joyful or worried.  Think the choice is easy, and everyday you are faced with that same choice, only you can decide how you feel, no one else can make you feel sad, it is your reaction to what someone else has said or done that makes you sad or happy.  You are in complete control, and once you  absolutely “KNOW”  you are in complete control, you never have reason to not feel great 100% of the time.

Over the past 5 years when I lost my way from always “KNOWING” to questioning whether I could do it, my health suffered, my family suffered, I suffered, I wasn’t happy and I thought that what was happening in my world was making me unhappy.    But, I was creating my world and was choosing to feel unhappy about what I created.   For the first 46 years of my life, I was very good at creating exactly what I wanted and the only time I didn’t feel great was when I slipped up and thought the wrong way.  Let me give you a little insight into what I am talking about.  Throughout my life I have constantly heard people talk about me as being lucky, always being in the right place at the right time, that everything I touched turned to gold.   When I heard those things, I always told myself those people were right but I knew that I was creating my luck, and everything that went with it by choosing the right thoughts.  When I slipped into the dark days of the past 5 years,   I started thinking that maybe it was just luck and that my luck couldn’t continue since things had been so good.  I would sit through meetings with people who would tell me that I am too positive, too optimistic and that I have to be honest with myself, that I have to get real.  I started to believe those people and what they were saying for no good reason.  After all, my life went just as I had planned it for the first 46 years, it wasn’t until I started listening to people tell me that I wasn’t who I thought I was that things changed.    The most important thing to understand is that the people who told me these things weren’t responsible for my downfall nor do I believe they had any ill intent, they just didn’t understand themselves the power of “KNOWING” that I had come to master over the prior 46 years.   I was completely responsible for the past 5 years, I created it and I own it.   The biggest and most valuable lesson to date in my life is realizing exactly what happened the last 5 years.  The Universe has its way of providing lessons and clues for you along the way, you just have to understand  and learn along the way.

Now that you know how to make yourself feel great all the time, why not give this “KNOWING” thing a try ?   Let’s do this together, as I mentioned in my last post, this stuff is contagious and it is fun when we can all share actual experiences with these life creation ideas.  I know I am going to have another incredible day, I know things are going to fall into place with several different projects I have in the works, I know I am going to lose some more weight today and feel even better than I did at 40 when I was in the best shape of my life.   What do you know ?  Get out a piece of paper and right down the things you know and see how you feel.  Change the way you feel about things, Know the things you feel good about are yours and the way you feel will change for the better.

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Your Kiss is on My List

“My list of the best things in life”  includes music that puts a smile on your face and makes you feel good all over.  Like my Blog post “Don’t Worry Baby”, music is great therapy and hearing the Hall and Oates classic “Your Kiss is on My List” immediately brought me back to the early days of dating my wife ( 30 years of marriage, and 35 years of dating).  Not only did it bring me back to the early years of my relationship with my wife but it also made it clear to me that we are constantly creating our own experiences in life.  And what may seem a simple coincidence is actually much more.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner.   Whether you call it Synchronicity or coincidence, I believe it all happens for a meaningful reason and it is up to you to figure out what the synchronicity in your life means.  So where am I going with Hall and Oates and Synchronicity ?  Well, something very interesting has been happening to me since I started writing this blog, meaningful and fulfilling synchronicity is started to appear daily, I am getting back into the zone where I was completely in control of my life and able to create things almost exactly as I wanted.  Miracles both large and small have started to happen but most importantly, friends, family and random people who have found my blog have started to have similar experiences.  I received an urgent text today from a business associate who has been reading my blogs who wanted to let me know what a great day she had and how everything was falling into place as she visualized it.  Now I know this particular person is very spiritual, has incredible faith, an awesome attitude and likes to read things like “The Secret” and similar works.  So she is understands the whole “knowing” thing that was the reason I started writing this blog in the first place.   What was really cool for me was that she created her day the way she always knew she could but she took the time to share her experience with me.   Her sharing of her experience today sent a positive shock through my body of knowing we can all create exactly the lives we want and that thought (good or bad) is contagious.  

Hall and Oates, what role do they play in today’s post ?  That’s another fun story I would like to share with you today because it is a great example of the incredible sychronicities in my life.   A few months back while searching Facebook for old friends, neighbors and business associates, I ran across Bren.  Bren or Brenda as I knew her back in the 60’s and 70’s was the cute Blonde from across the street in the neighborhood I grew up in.  Bren was a year younger than me but I had a crush on her during my entire elementary school experience.   Back then,  and I suppose at that age, you never hung around with girls in a grade below you and besides I never thought she had any interest in me.  But I always had that crush and anytime I had the chance to give her a ride on my Schwinn Apple Crate bike, I always was happy.   Well it turns out that Bren is a huge Hall and Oates fan, which was interesting because my wife when I started dating her in 1975  was also a huge Hall and Oates fan.  I have enjoyed Hall and Oates ever since my wife first played “She’s gone” for me from the “Abandoned Luncheonette” album.   So last week, I am checking out the news feed on Facebook and Bren posts that Hall and Oates are going to be in town and she wants to know who’s going with her ?.  I jokingly, immediately posted that I was going.  I really wanted to go but couldn’t justify spending the money at the moment.   So after posting my reply, I forgot about it, then late last week Bren sends me a message telling me that she has two extra tickets that my wife and I could have.   Wow,   I couldn’t believe the offer so I told Bren I just had to check with my wife to confirm.  Saturday rolls around and I tell my wife about Bren and the tickets, she was thrilled, so I immediately confirmed with Bren.  Now that was all incredible and fun but listen to this,  so my wife and I decide to go to a movie that afternoon, we decided to see “You Again” with Jamie Leigh Curtis.  Now, we decided to got to this movie just minutes after I confirmed with Bren about going with her to the Hall and Oates concert.  My wife and I really knew nothing about the movie except that Jamie Leigh Curtis  was in it.   So we are sitting in the  theater, eating a HUGE bucket of buttered popcorn when all of a sudden the couple in the movie are playing the Hall and Oates song “Your Kiss is on My List” on the radio, now that may seem like just a funny coincidence to you but to me it was synchronicity and a reminder to me that I played a role in the events that had just been created.  Even better, at the end of the movie and rolling into the credits, Hall and Oates and the cast of the movie sang “Your Kiss is on My List”.   While I always enjoyed that song, I never remembered the lyrics including the line “The Best Things in Life”, when I heard that, I knew the Universe was sending me yet another message about why happiness is the key to everything and when you know the outcome of your life, you can’t help but be happy.

You can have all of the Best Things In Life, you know you can, you just have to visualize your list of the best things and sit back and watch them show up.  I am adding something to my list of the best things in life, getting everyone to know they can create incredible experiences in their lives.  I know you can do it and I know that in my life, cancelling out the media has had a major impact and changed the way things are going for me.  I no longer listen to  or watch  any of the major news networks including my favorite Fox news, I don’t pay attention to the political nonsense going on in this country (I do intend to vote and I know my intuition will guide me to the right candidates),   I have turned off talk radio in favor of audio programs from Wayne Dyer, Mike Dooley and Joe Vitale.  Yes you could say I am brainwashing myself with positive, fulfilling and uplifting messages, and yes the brainwashing is working, I am washing out all the dirt and replacing it with clean new information.  I hope you will join me in creating incredible life experiences and if you get a chance, a text message, blog comment or email would be great, I love to hear about people and the great experiences they have created for themselves.  Get to work on your list of the “Best things in life” and make your life the best !

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Breaking free from my addiction….

When I was in Junior High School there was nothing I wanted to do more than make the 9th grade baseball team.  I loved baseball and played it just about everyday at the field behind Thorson Elementary School on the border of Crystal and New Hope, Minnesota.  When it came time for the coach to pick the team I missed the cut by 1 person but ended up being added to the team when another guy got kicked off the team.  So I spent the year being treated like I was the guy that shouldn’t have been on the team but made it because of somebody elses misfortune.  When school got out that year, I made up mind that I was going to find a way to make the High School team  the following year without being the last guy.  While paging through the Sporting News classified ads I came across an ad for a letter called “Show the Coach”,  I call it a letter because that is exactly what was sent to me when I mailed in my $2 to get the letter.  “Show the Coach” was a blueprint for how to make the team and much more, the principles I learned in that letter helped me succeed at many things I did in my business career as well.

“Show the Coach” was written by a guy who had been a lifelong minor league baseball player and later went on to be a “Baseball Clown” that performed at Minor league and major league stadiums.   One of the guidelines for showing the coach was to take care of yourself and not drink alcohol or soda.  I was so committed to following this blue print that I went through all of High School never drinking any alcohol or soda, all I drank was milk, water and orange juice.  This was really the start of a discipline that I have carried with me most of my life.  All through College, Broadcasting School and my first year in the radio business I never touched a drop of alcohol.  Things changed when I got my second radio job and moved to Spearfish, South Dakota.   I was on the air for 5 hours a day as a disc jockey.  All of the DJs drank bottomless cups of coffee and were chain smokers, for my part I stayed a way from coffee and cigarettes but I would drink a six pack of Mountain Dew on each shift.   I also drank a little beer when the sports director and I would be out doing play by play for a basketball game.  At that time they had drive thru windows at the liquor store, so on the way back from every game the sports director would drive thru and get a six pack for us to share.   That pretty much was the extent of my serious alcohol drinking period.  After I left Spearfish, and for the next 29 years up until today, about the only drinks I have are on vacation and they all have those little umbrellas in them or occasionally a lime in a bottle of Corona.

It was very interesting during those 29 years to be a non-drinker.  I can’t tell you how many times I would be at dinner or lunch with someone who had ordered a drink when I didn’t that would look at me very seriously and say ” you don’t drink ?” or “why don’t you drink?” as if I was a recovering alcoholic.  Many times it was recovering alcoholics that asked me the question.  To this day I am convinced that many people that asked me those questions were convinced that I was a recovering alcoholic.  I still think it’s funny and for that matter empowering when you can tell someone that you don’t drink because you never got started because you cared too much about your High School and College Baseball career.

I turn 51 years old this week and after all those years of feeling that I was so strong that I could never get addicted to anything, I have to admit that I did develop an addiction a little over 10 years ago that I finally realized had a huge hold on me and was negatively affecting my life.  I am serious about this and this isn’t a joke,  I have many friends who have been through recovery and I don’t want them to think I am making light of their situation by what I am about to say.  About two weeks ago, I was thinking about what I was doing in the late 90’s that made everything go right, I was in fantastic physical condition, I was focused and KNEW everything was going to fall my way and I was not addicted to anything.  So what had changed in the last 10 years ?  primarily I wasn’t the confident, knowing person I had been when I achieved my greatest levels of success, I was 45 pounds heavier and I had developed an addiction that I believe caused the weight gain and attitude change.  For the last 10 years, I was addicted to Diet Mountain Dew which I think was as bad or worse than alcohol or drugs.  As I look back, my day revolved around Diet Mountain Dew, it was the first drink I had the morning and I usually drank the equivalent of 2 six packs per day.  I was thrilled when the SuperAmerica gas station chain announced their Mountain Dew club which gave you every 7th, 20 ounce Mountain Dew free when you purchased six.  I hate to admit it but I was averaging 5 free Mountain Dews per week.   Diet Mountain Dew had a hold on me and it affected everything I did, I haven’t slept well in 10 years, I gained a ton of weight, my memory isn’t what it used to be and I couldn’t do anything without having my diet Mountain Dew.  I truly was addicted if in no other way than I couldn’t break free of it’s hold on me.

So two weeks ago, I gave it up and started an intensive course to focus on the things that led to my success and knowing in the 90’s.  The Diet Dew is gone, the weight is leaving as well and my creativity and memory is back.  I am sleeping better and I know I am in for a big change that is going to lead to the next 10 years being better than ever.  Addictions of any kind can hold you back from achieving great things, it doesn’t matter if that addiction is drugs, video games, soda, food, sex , alcohol or whatever, addictions will hold you back and destroy the life you really deserve to have.

Look closely at your life, are you addicted to something ?  it doesn’t have to be obvious or for that matter one of the usual addictions.  Freeing yourself from your addictions will allow you to move to the next level, you can become someone who KNOWS not just believes that they can do amazing things.