Opportunities are like sunrises, if we wait too long we miss them.

Too often we waste our time waiting for the ideal path to appear. But it never does of course. Because we forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting. Let this be your wake-up call today!

If you always sit around until you feel 100 percent ready for the journey, you’ll likely be sitting around for the rest of your life. Most of the time you just have to get up and go for it. And no, you shouldn’t feel any more confident before you take the next step. Taking the next step is what gradually builds your confidence.

Today is the day and now is the time! Thus, it’s finally time to admit that… (more…)

Each prompt below contains a quote and question to think about. I have personally used each of these prompts countless times in the past to nudge myself into self-reflection, and I continue to revisit them regularly. They bring awareness to the subconscious attachments and assumptions we all have. And they can help you think and move through situations, big and small, so you can let go, refocus yourself, and make better decisions going forward.

Challenge yourself to read and reflect on one prompt a day for the next few weeks…

1.

Forgive yourself for the bad decisions you’ve made, for the times you lacked understanding, for the choices that hurt others and yourself. Forgive yourself, for being young and reckless. These are all vital lessons. And what matters most right now is your willingness to grow from them.

What specifically do you (more…)

You can’t lift a thousand pounds all at once, yet you can easily lift one pound a thousand times. Little repeated efforts will get you there.

I have witnessed people reinventing themselves at all ages — 48-year-olds starting families, 57-year-olds graduating from college for the first time, 71-year-olds starting successful businesses, and more. How did they all do it? In a nutshell, they started being more mindful about making progress in their lives, step by step. And by doing so they changed the trajectory of their lives.

What you need to remember most right now is that it isn’t too early or too late to start making positive changes in your life. Your future is always affected by what you start doing today. Yet so many people wait around for some arbitrary date and time, like tomorrow, to take action. Don’t be one of them! Make yourself a bigger priority starting now. It’s time to…

1. Insist on embracing your humanness.

“Human” is the only real label we are born with, yet we forget so easily. To become attached to a loaded label of (more…)

It’s not what you say to everyone else that determines your life; it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the greatest power and influence.

The best lessons we learn in life are the lessons we learn over and over again. The human mind needs lots of reminders — lots of practice — to operate effectively. For example, deep down we know it’s OK to…

• Say “no”
• Speak up
• Tell the truth
• Believe differently
• Change our mind
• Prioritize our needs
• Learn from our mistakes
• Embrace our imperfections
• Forgive and seek forgiveness
• Begin again, stronger than before

Yet, we often do (more…)

“You only live once, but if you do it right once is enough.”
— Mae West

Twenty years ago, I was lucky enough to witness the humble, elegant, peaceful passing of my 89-year-old grandfather. As I sat quietly in his hospice room alongside my grandma and other family members, his nurse smiled softly and said, “I can see he lived well. People his age often pass just the way they lived.”

And as I drove home that evening a couple questions kept cycling through my mind…

“Am I living well?”

“What do I want to be able to smile about on the inside when I’m close to the end?”

These questions are tough, especially the second one. At the time, I struggled to fully accept my own mortality — just thinking about it stressed me out. So I simply avoided the question and the soul-searching it demanded of me. I distracted myself for a few more years until I found myself back in a hospice room with my grandma on her 90th birthday (more…)

The truth doesn’t disappear when it is forgotten or ignored.

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a bunch of different ways before it finally gets through to you? The ten truths discussed here fall firmly into that category — timeless lessons most of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of since, but for whatever reason we haven’t fully grasped them yet.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…

1. The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will (more…)

The goal is to change your response to what you can’t control — to gradually grow stronger on the inside, so less on the outside affects your inner peace and joy without your conscious permission.

The mind is the biggest battleground. It’s the place where the greatest conflict resides. It’s where we all develop thinking habits that put us in direct opposition with reality — where the things we fear drain us but never actually happen. It’s where our expectations get the best of us, and we fall victim to our own trains of thought, again and again.

Truth be told, in the game of life we all receive a unique set of unexpected limitations and variables in the field of play. The question is: (more…)

You have come a long way, and you’re still learning and growing. Be thankful for the lessons. Take them and make the best of things today.

For my 18th birthday, many moons ago, my grandfather on my mom’s side gave me four lightly-used flannel shirts that he no longer needed. The shirts were barely worn and in great shape; my grandfather said he thought they would look great on me. Unfortunately, I thought they were odd gifts at the time and I wasn’t thankful. I looked at him skeptically, gave him a crooked half-smile, and moved on to the other gifts sitting in front of me. My grandfather died two days later from a sudden heart attack. The flannel shirts were the last gifts he ever gave me, and that crooked half-smile was the last time I directly acknowledged him. Today, I still regret the little thing I didn’t say when I had the chance: “Thank you Grandpa. I appreciate you.”

That was a huge wake-up call for me — one that has served me well for over two decades now.

And here are eight wake-up calls for all of us to reflect on today — some important lessons worth learning (more…)

The most powerful changes happen when we decide to take control of what we do have power over, instead of craving control over what we do not.

Holding on is hard. Holding on contributes to stress, unhappiness, relationship issues, and so much more. Yet, as human beings, we cling desperately to almost everything…

• We don’t like change, so we hold on tight to the past.
• We want life to be the way we think it “should” be.
• We get attached to our ideals even when they hurt us.

Over the past 15 years, as Marc and I have gradually worked with hundreds of coaching clients and live event attendees, we’ve come to understand that the root cause of most human stress is (more…)

Earlier today, I was sitting on a neighborhood park bench eating a sandwich when an elderly couple pulled their car up under a nearby oak tree. They rolled down the windows and turned up some jazz music on the radio. Then the man got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and opened the door for the woman. He took her hand and helped her out of her seat, guided her about ten feet away from the car, and they slow danced for the next half hour under the oak tree.

It was a beautiful sight to see. I could have watched them forever. And as they wrapped things up and started making their way back to the car, I clapped my hands in admiration.

Perhaps doing so was (more…)

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

When you can no longer think of a reason to continue, you must think of a reason to start over. There’s a big difference between giving up and starting over in the right direction. And there are three little words that can release you from your past and guide you forward to a positive new beginning. These words are: “From now on…”

So from now on… (more…)

Be OK with walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject what’s not right for you.

As you look back on your life, you will realize that many of the times you thought you were being rejected by someone or something you wanted, you were in fact being redirected to someone or something you needed. Seeing this when you’re in the midst of feeling rejected, however, is quite tough. I know because I’ve been there…

As soon as someone critiques, criticizes, and pushes you away — as soon as you are rejected — you find yourself (more…)

On the average day happiness is letting go of what you assume life is supposed to be like, and sincerely appreciating it for everything it is.

Over the past 15 years, as Angel and I have gradually worked with hundreds of our course students, coaching clients, and live event attendees, we’ve come to understand that the root cause of most human stress is simply our stubborn propensity to hold on to things. In a nutshell, we hold on tight to the hope that things will (more…)

Operate with your own intuition and wisdom as your guide.

Your life is yours alone. Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you. They can walk with you, but not in your shoes. So make sure the path you travel aligns with your intuition and values. And don’t be scared to pave your own path while learning the way on the way.

Will the people in your life always support your decisions? No. But you need to remember that life is not about justifying yourself — it’s about creating and respecting yourself.

So make this your lifelong motto: “I respectfully do not care.” Say it to anyone who (more…)

The most important decision you will ever make is what to do with the time given to you.

I recently received a thank you email from a reader named Hope. She said our work helped motivate her through an arduous recovery process following a serious car accident last year. Although her entire story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, this one line made me pause and think:

“The happiest moment of my life is still that split-second a year ago when, as I laid crushed under a 2000 pound car, I realized my husband and 9-year-old boy were out of the vehicle and absolutely OK.”

Dire moments like this force us to (more…)

Asking the right questions is the answer.

In a recent email newsletter I wrote, “Calm your mind today. Don’t think outside the box. Think like there is no box.”

And to my surprise, 67 people quoted that line and responded with the same general question: “How?”

I’ve spent some time thinking about how to answer their collective question in the most universal way possible, and I’ve decided that the simplest explanation I can give is this: Ask yourself better questions — questions that (more…)

You ultimately become what you repeatedly do. If your daily habits aren’t helping you, they’re hurting you. Here are some fairly common and widespread examples of the latter that will drain all your joy and energy if you let them:

1. Focusing on how life “should” be every step of the way.

Try to use frustration and inconvenience to motivate you rather than annoy you. You are in control of the way you look at life. Instead of getting angry, find the lesson. In place of envy, feel admiration. In place of worry, take action. In place of doubt, have faith. Remember that your response is always more powerful than your present circumstance. A small part of your life is decided by completely uncontrollable circumstances, while the vast majority of your life is decided by your responses. Where you ultimately end up is heavily dependent on how (more…)

We are not just what we know, but what we are willing to learn.

When my Grandma Zelda passed away a decade ago at the age of 90, she left me with a box of miscellaneous items from her house that she knew I had grown to appreciate over the years. Among these items was an old leather-bound journal that she aptly named her Inspiration Journal.

Throughout the second half of her life, Grandma Zelda used this journal to jot down ideas, thoughts, quotes, song lyrics, and anything else that moved her. She would read excerpts from her journal to me when I was growing up, and I would listen and ask questions. I honestly credit a part of who I am now to the wisdom she bestowed on me (more…)

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”

As you age you will learn to value your time, genuine relationships, meaningful work, and peace of mind, much more. Little else will matter.

Deep down you know that already, right?

Yet on most days, just like the majority of us, you get distracted by so many others things. You give your time to lots of meaningless time-wasters. You take your important relationships for granted. You get to work skeptically with inner resistance. And you let everyday stress get the best of you…

Why?

Because you’re (more…)

You can’t calm the storm. What you can do is calm yourself, and the storm will gradually pass.

Calmness is a human superpower. The ability to not overreact or take things personally keeps your mind clear and your heart at peace, which gives you the upper hand in most life situations. And it’s a daily practice too. Over the past several years I’ve been cultivating calmness in myself — I’ve been gradually taming my tendency to get riled up and argue with people when their behavior doesn’t match my expectations.

As human beings we all have an idea in our heads about how things are supposed to be, and sadly this is (more…)