1. Talk with family and friends.
   A daily dose of friendship is great medicine. Call or write your friends and family to share your feelings, hopes and joys.
2. Engage in daily physical activity.
   Regular physical activity relieves mental and physical tension. Physically active adults have lower risk of depression and loss of mental functioning. Physical activity can be a great source of pleasure, too. Try walking, swimming, biking or dancing every day.
3. Accept the things you cannot change.
   Don’t say, “I’m too old.” You can still learn new things, work toward a goal, love and help others.
4. Remember to laugh.
   Laughter makes you feel good. Don’t be afraid to laugh out loud at a joke, a funny movie or a comic strip, even when you’re alone.
5. Give up the bad habits.
   Too much alcohol, cigarettes or caffeine can increase stress. If you smoke, decide to quit now.
6. Slow down.
   Try to “pace” instead of “race.” Plan ahead and allow enough time to get the most important things done.
7. Get enough sleep.
   Try to get six to eight hours of sleep each night. If you can’t sleep, take steps to help reduce stress and depression. Physical activity also may improve the quality of sleep.
8. Get organized.
   Use “to do” lists to help you focus on your most important tasks. Approach big tasks one step at a time. For example, start by organizing just one part of your life — your car, desk, kitchen, closet, cupboard or drawer.
9. Practice giving back.
   Volunteer your time or return a favor to a friend. Helping others helps you.
10. Try not to worry. The world won’t end if your grass isn’t mowed or your kitchen isn’t cleaned. You may need to do these things, but today might not be the right time.

Imagine flying in a balloon and looking at yourself and your situation from a higher altitude.

An intelligent and motivated executive may be negatively impacting their co-workers without realizing it. A small business owner may have a vision of what is possible; they invest countless hours and energy to achieve their vision, along the way that vision may get clouded in the din of day to day operations. In both cases, a different perspective can be very effective.

This lack of clarity may cause the impact of your actions to not be aligned with your intentions. According to a 2010 study, “senior leader reputation can drive employee commitment by as much as 41%.”

In these cases it is helpful to partner with someone who can help us see more clearly.  A trusted adviser or coach can work with you to change your perspective. Executive coaches use a process to help you take an elevated view of things. A skilled coach can help you see with your mind’s eye, your interactions at work or in your personal life. With practice you will be able to adjust your approach to bring your behavior in alignment with your intentions. 

In addition to working with a coach there are others ways to change the altitude of your perspective. One highly effective way to get an elevated view of your reputation and to see things more clearly is through a 360 evaluation. This formal process allows you to compare your perspective of your reputation and compare it to up 16 other people. You may choose from among direct reports, peers, family members and more.

A less formal method of seeing yourself and your situations more clearly is from trusted and honest advisers. Work with people who know you well and ask them to lend their unbiased feedback.

Executives will benefit from taking time to gauge the impact they are having within the organization. Working with a coach or trusted adviser will provide the change in altitude necessary improve your results and will help you be more effective in whatever role you are in.

Reblogged from Scott W. Taylor, CPA:

If you are like most of us on the planet, you are searching for happiness in your life. Where do you believe we find happiness: fame, riches, power? Do you know someone that has these things and is not happy? Or conversely has none of these things and is supremely happy? I believe that each of us has it within our power to be happy. How is it done? Here are a few simple rules which I find make a difference:

1. Increase your gratitude: Increasing your feelings of gratitude can impact your happiness and so much more. When I am frustrated or upset, I am thinking about what is wrong in my life. Since we get what we focus on, dwelling on frustrations will only erode our happiness. The next time you are experiencing frustration that robs you of happiness, I invite you to focus on an event in your life that brings you intense feelings of gratitude. It could be the birth of a child or an act of kindness that was proffered on your behalf, etc. Our minds cannot focus on negative and positive feelings at the same time. If your gratitude feelings are strong enough, they will quickly chase away your frustrations and negative feelings.

2. Do something for someone else: For many, the pursuit of happiness is a self-centered process. However, when you take a moment to stop thinking about how events and people impact you and think about how you impact others, you will be much closer to your goal. Helping someone else will allow you to take your focus off your own challenges. It will energize you, give you a sense of value and contribution. Focusing on others who may have needs greater than your own will also increase your gratitude for what you have. You don’t have to look far for opportunities to help someone else. Nor do you have to go to great lengths to make a difference. Take time to notice someone in need. Listen, console, give of your time and labor, write a note or letter, give a gift, etc.

3. Look for the good: Look for the good in every situation. No matter how bleak things may seem, there is always good that may come. I know from personal experience that when something I perceive is negative happens to me, I have a choice. I can feel self pity and become depressed, or I can use my creative energy to focus on what good may come. I found that that as I look back on events that were challenging, I invariably gained experienced or developed talents that I might not have had, but for the challenging experience. Looking for the good puts our creative energy to work for us in our pursuit of happiness.

4. Surround yourself with good: Be very careful about what you put into your mind. make sure what you read, watch and listen to reinforces your happiness. Our minds are the most powerful computers in the universe. They search and find whatever we program them to find. This means everything we put into our minds will take us further or closer to our goal of happiness. Surround yourself with good people who will hold you accountable to your goals and will let you know when are off course. Make sure you read good books, listen to good music and watch only media that reinforces good.

5. Find life balance: I know many people who feel great fulfillment in their work, so they neglect other areas of their life. The best way to find happiness is to find balance in many areas of life including: financial; emotional; spiritual; physical; relational; recreational, and intellectual. You may find that all of these pursuits are interrelated. I personally find my self out of balance often. However, when I take the time to work on life balance, I feel greater happiness.

6. Exercise: This is a part of life balance. Exercise releases chemicals that can help us feel great and think more clearly. Remember life balance. Some feel that since exercise makes them feel good, more is better. An excessive focus on any pursuit may take us further from our goal.

7. Develop your talents: Learn something new. improving your abilities brings a sense of satisfaction and increases your ability to help yourself and others.

8. Avoid criticizing others: Along with looking for the good, avoid criticizing others. We find what we look for. More importantly, how we treat others has a way of coming back to us. Call it karma, law of the harvest, universe or what you will. Thinking good of others will do much to bring those good thoughts back to us.

9. Let go of the past: While it is true that we have control over out thoughts, we can’t always control what happens to us. When something bad happens, it is hard to think of the good. Holding on to negative feelings about something or somebody will only rob us of reaching our goal of happiness. We have the power to give meaning to thoughts. They can only control us if we give them power to do so. Letting go of the past requires us reframe our thoughts. For some, this process may be difficult and require professional assistance. Being willing to get help if you need it is a good thing and will help you get one step closer to being happy.

10. Live by a morale code: Some people believe anything goes when pursuing happiness. When you choose to be disciplined in following a moral code, you are closer to finding happiness. A friend of mine shared his experience with this principle with me. When his children were young, he and his wife set boundaries of behavior. They had friends that took a different approach with their children. They chose to let their children behave without boundaries or restrictions. This couple would criticize my friend for being strict with their children. My friend and his wife were more interested in being parents than friends. As the children grew older the results of the two approaches was clear. The children of my friend loved their parents and respected them. They had a strong rewarding relationship. Their friends children did not respect their parents. They were self centered and spoiled.

It is not the events or situations of our lives that determine happiness. Rather, it is our own behavior and thought process. I am sure there are many more ways to be happy than I have listed above. I would love to hear from you. What have you found that makes you happy?

It is my opinion and experience that our happiness absolutely depends on how we decide to feel bout the events in our lives and consequently the actions we take or don’t take in response to those feelings. This is not to say that I do not believe in good or bad, I do. I believe there is great good in the world and I believe there is terrible evil. What I have learned that our happiness does not depend upon only good things happening to us all the time. Thank goodness for that, because I do not know of a single person that has what most would interpret as good things happen to them all the time. Since we all don’t have good things happen to us all the time, why are there happy people in the world? Why aren’t we all unhappy since bad things happen to all of us? The answer is choice!

Let me illustrate by using a few personal example: My father had a very successful business. He provided a specialized color separation service for the printing industry for over 20 years. He was looking for a new accountant. At the time, I was seventeen and I knew that one of my church leaders was an accountant. I told my dad that this man was an accountant and he must be a good man because he was a member of our church. It turned out that this man saw an opportunity in my father’s trust and worked to take control of the company. Because of the stress of the situation, my father had a massive stroke at age 59. He was in intensive care for a month. He lost his business, his home, his wife and almost all his earthly possessions. We were devastated as a family. There were some member of the family that criticized my father for his poor decision to hire this account after he began recovering from the stroke. Personally, I was devastated because I lost the father I knew who loved life and loved being active. I lost the future opportunity to run the business and reap the rewards of family succession. Our family felt by all accounts, these events were bad and we had reason to be unhappy. My father certainly had reason to be depressed and feel sorry for himself. Instead, he taught me a very valuable lesson.

My father chose to look at these events as good. He recognized that he could be angry at the person who defrauded him. However, that would just make him miserable. Instead, he decided to forgive the person. This took a huge burden off his shoulders. No longer did he waste precious thoughts on revenge or anger. My father had worked very hard his entire life. He rarely took time for himself. Now, he had time to study and learn. He took time to do much of what he had not done up until now. After these events, my father was almost always happy friendly and outgoing to people he met. Even though he was partially paralyzed from the stroke, he chose to laugh at his awkwardness and slurred speech. He chose to look at every day as a gift.

I believe this is an example of an event that could definitely be interpreted as bad. However, since my father decided to look at the event in a positive light, he took the opportunity to use his time in ways that he never did before his stroke and loss off business. Because of his choice, he was happy until the day he died at age 79 on February 16, 2008. I miss my father, and I am grateful for the valuable lesson he taught me about choosing happiness. There are some members of my family who have decided to look at these events as negative. To this day, they hold resentment and frustration that robs them of happiness. How can the same event produce such different attitudes and feelings of happiness? It has nothing to do with whether the events are good or bad and 100 percent to do with how we choose to interpret if events are good or bad. In fact, I believe that events that many would interpret as bad can have the biggest opportunity for good and even happiness in our life. The choice is ours.

Most of my life I have avoided looking at my behavior too closely. Why? Because it is not comfortable for me. If something upset me I usually repressed my feelings or “powered through”. Not only is that not healthy, it prevented me from learning how to better manage my emotions and feelings. Knowing who and what sets you off is essential to getting control of your behavior. When you become aware of your triggers, you are more likely to stay in control and respond to challenging situations instead of reacting.

The next step is to understand why these triggers set you off. I have found for example, when I am frustrated with some of my children’s behavior, it is usually for behavior that I see in myself. Ironically, I seem to get most frustrated with my children that are most like me in behavior and temperament.

Another source of frustration for me is, because I understand emotional intelligence, it is all the more frustrating when my emotions get triggered. In other words, when I get mentally hijacked, this hijacks me even more because I know better. Kidding aside, knowing your triggers and their sources is a great place to start to control your behavior and emotion. This will allow you to apply self-management techniques as you learn them.

Movies and television are a good place for me to identify behaviors that I recognize in myself. It seems that behaviors are often exaggerated for effect. This helps me  identify how people react under pressure. Then I can practice identifying behavior triggers that might affect me. I notice that I get uncomfortable in awkward or tense situations. My wife can always tell if I am getting nervous. If she is holding my hand, I heat up and she has to let go. I also get fidgety and if I am watching television at home, I sometimes get up and go to the refrigerator for a drink which always elicits a laugh from her.

It seems that the place I usually feel the most uncomfortable is during sitcoms or romantic comedy’s where the guy is making a fool of himself. Hugh Grant always makes me nervous because of his halting and nervous style. His stuttering in awkward moments can have an immediate impact on me. Over the past several weeks, I have made a conscious effort to pay attention to my feelings and reactions in movies and I have become more aware of my feelings and therefore am more able to manage how I react.

Another place I like to watch people is at the airport. This is a great place to observe people under stress. Two weeks ago just after I had taken my emotional intelligence assessment, I traveled to Houston to conduct training for one of my clients. On my way home to Las Vegas, I was getting ready to board the plane. The customer service representative taking our boarding passes stopped a couple in front of me and told them that their carry-on was too large and would have to be checked. The man became irate and began shouting expletives. He said that he travels all the time with no problem carrying his bag on. He had gone into a full-blown emotional hijack. The representative was adamant that he must leave the bag at the end of the jet-way.  He continued down the jet-way swearing and proceeded to board the plane with his luggage ignoring the direction he had been given.

This couple was assigned the seat right behind me. The man was visibly upset. His wife was consoling him and I heard him say, “I have to calm down”. I was pretty disgusted with his behavior. I really wanted to tell him what I thought. Instead I  suggested that he take deep slow breaths, which is one of the best ways to regain control of emotions. Oxygen helps fight the chemicals that flood our system when “fight or flight” kicks in. The more I observe people, the more I become aware of my own feelings increasing my ability to manage my emotions.

The next opportunity I had to observe people at the airport happened last Friday.  I was boarding a plane in Chicago on my way to Jackson, Mississippi. This time I was flying Southwest where you line up by number. I was seat A36 and the person who had A35 was right in front of me. As I stood in line I was profiling the other passenger in line just to practice. Soon, a well dressed woman who I guessed was a high dominant personality got in line next to and slightly in front of me. I noticed her boarding pass said she was A39 which should be behind me. Since I am also high dominant, I wanted to tell her to take a step back to her proper place in line. Instead I decided to hold my boarding pass so that she could see it. I wanted to see what she would do. I decided that no matter how she acted, I would not respond and let it go. She never looked around to see if she was lined up in the proper order. She stood firm in her spot and as we boarded she went right ahead of me. When I told my wife about this, who is highly flexible and steady, she said that person used to be me. That was very hard for me to believe. I may have  a dominant personality, yet I thought I have been fairly aware and sensitive. Apparently not then, hopefully I am more aware now.

The last event happened Sunday on my way home from Jackson to Las Vegas. My itinerary said the flight was direct. I soon discovered we would stop in Houston and Los Angeles. I felt this was a bait and switch by the airline. When we arrived in LA, we were told that our flight was terminated and we would be rerouted on another flight three hours later. Apparently, hurricane Irene was to blame. Four people were on the original flight from Jackson. Each of us was anxious to get to Las Vegas sooner. We were told that there was a flight leaving in one hour that was full, however, we could go on standby. We arrived at the gate counter which was vacant. Soon many of the passengers that were waiting for our canceled flight begin to line up behind us. People were tense and I watched the frustration level rise from the front of the line.

A gate operator came to the counter to call for help. He said to the people on the other end of the phone he needed help because an angry mob was lined up out the door and he was afraid for his life. The women next to me who had been on the flight from Jackson, said to me that she was offended that he was saying we were an angry mob. She thought we were calm and civil. I was observing all these behaviors and I was doing a pretty good job staying relaxed and in control. I said to the woman next to me, I was sure the gate operator only said those things so he would get a more immediate response from his supervisors. I essence, he was doing us a favor. The gate operator returned to the counter as the phone rang and he repeated the dire situation imploring them to send help immediately. When he hung up, he said he did that to get their attention. The woman looked at me and smiled. As it turned out, all five of us were able to get on the earlier flight and things worked out great given the circumstances.

If you have had similar experiences becoming more aware of your behavior or the behavior of others, please share them with me. If you have had experiences with me where I have been unaware of how I impacted you, I would like to hear about it, I think.

Unlike belief systems, which I believe must be regularly examined and updated, I believe values must remain constant if they are to be an effective tool. The Northern star is valuable to navigators because it remains consistently fixed in the heavens. It is a tool that provides accurate direction when needed no matter where the person is located;it is a constant in a world full of variables.

So how does this apply to you and me? perhaps you adhere to a set of values that guide your behaviors. I have found that when I have made decisions consistent with my values, I have had success and feel generally satisfied.

In the past few years I have also found great benefits from following a set of values in business decision-making. You may be saying, “Spencer you must be slow, of course that makes sense.” You may be correct, yet my experience is that most companies have a published set of values that may be found on their walls or in their employee handbooks. The problem is, that is usually where the values stay; looked at once and collecting dust.

Companies spend a great deal of time and money defining values that are important to them. The challenge seems to be in behaving in harmony with those values. I have experienced first hand how behaving and making decision in alignment with your stated values improves employee satisfaction, and just as importantly it improves efficiency and productivity. Not only is behaving in alignment with your stated values the right thing to do, it will benefit your bottom line. Following the constant guidance of positive values will lead us inexorably to the destination we desire.

During these difficult times it is easy to complain to others about our condition. Sometimes we do this to garner sympathy from others, or just get a burden off our chest. It is natural for us to desire the support and understanding of people close to us. It is important that we do not dwell on our problems or let our fears consume our thoughts. When we do, we actually help bring about the thing that we fear. It is possible that by sharing our fears too much may reinforce our behavior and the behaviors of others that bring about the fear.

I do believe it is good to reach out in our times of challenge. However, I submit that we must avoid the negative complaining that fuels fear and focus on thoughts and action that builds faith. For example, a co-worker recently asked each of us at work to think positive thoughts or pray for her mother who was receiving her final chemo-therapy treatment and check up for cancer. I know my friend was concerned about her mother and the chance that her cancer would persist. However, instead of focusing on the fact that the cancer may persist, she focused on getting everyone around thinking that her mothers health would improve. In fact it did, her faith and actions were rewarded.

I understand that our faith may not always be rewarded with these positive outcomes. I believe our faith and positive outlook must persist regardless of the outcome. This will allow us to have the greatest fulfillment in our life. We will have the attitude that we need to face the challenges of life. We will get through the difficulties of life that we will all face. When we face our fears and difficulties with faith and act accordingly, we will begin to have the results we deserve: Great relationships, health, wealth, confidence, happiness, etc.

Below are some thoughts to consider:

We come this way but once. We can either tiptoe through life and hope that we get to death without being too badly bruised or we can live a full, complete life achieving our goals and realizing our wildest dreams. -Bob Proctor

I have insecurities. But whatever I’m insecure about, I don’t dissect it, but I’ll go after it and say, “what am I afraid of?” I bet the average successful person
can tell you they’ve failed so much more than they’ve had success. I’ve
had far more failures than I’ve had successes. With every commercial
I’ve gotten, there were 200 I didn’t get. You have to go after what you
are afraid of. -Kevin Sorbo