Posts

Introduction

Don't give up...Don't ever give up!

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  “Don’t give up…don’t ever give up” - Jimmy V When I was 44, I was in a relationship with a woman who I loved who sadly has a terrible drug problem that I was unable to help her through.  She ultimately stole my truck and my money, leaving me on a moment’s notice, rendering my children and me homeless, penniless, and without any transportation. She shut down our corporate account and emptied all the money out o f it... ...and that might have been the easiest part of what I was to face in the next 3 weeks... please keep reading

Don't Pull That Trigger!

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You may have noticed in some of my pictures that I have a bump on my chest. This bump, or port, is how they have administered chemotherapy and checked my blood over the past 3 years. While it might look painful it is actually a luxury to have one. The number of pokes in the arm that they would have to do over the years while receiving various treatments would be far too many, and my veins would eventually be damaged.  It is painful to have put in and removed, but the alternative was 1000 pokes.  The port connects a direct line through my chest up to the main artery in my neck.  Literally a direct line! Yesterday I had it taken out.  I was awake for the procedure both times. Both when it went in and yesterday when it came out. While you are numb and the doctors do everything they can to make it painless, there is this tug in your neck.  It feels awkward and you know they are pulling on some pretty important stuff in there but ultimately no pain.  Just pressu...

Are you Brave Enough to Listen?

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I am still determining where most of the world's problems lie, but if I had to take a guess, my first choice would be the breakdown of interpersonal communication.   Ineffective communication has hampered me throughout my life, and while my intentions were often good, the way I communicated them to others fell short.  I would be willing to bet that if you consider any argument or disagreement you have had with an employer, spouse, or friend, you would find that the breakdown of interpersonal communication was likely the crux of the issue.   Ironically, before I reevaluated this, I would have considered myself a good, if not great communicator.  I have been a successful salesperson and my ability to articulate my thoughts isn't too shabby.  With all that said, I was, and am still at times, a poor communicator. For starters, communication is a whopping 93% non-verbal.  So whatever delusions I had about my proficiency with the English language it was...

Recognizing the Errors in Our Thinking

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As I have mentioned in the past, our emotions are based on our thoughts which are based on our beliefs, experiences, values, etc.  Emotions are difficult to control, so I am not going to suggest that you simply “get over it” or “snap out of it”.  Emotions feel very real to us, and therefore are real.  What you CAN control are the thoughts that propagate those feelings.   I know many self-help professionals focus on emotional discipline and control, but what I am trying to do is acknowledge that your emotion(s) are absolutely real, but I also want to challenge the thought that triggers it/them. Our thoughts are in our domain of control. Most of us make critical thinking errors every day, which cloud our emotions and hurt us. Worse still, can lead to bad decisions. Some of these decisions can be more costly than others, but if you are in any decision-making business, it is vital that you operate on all the information available. When you have a bad feeling wr...

Thank God, Life is Not Fair.

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The only thing that makes life unfair, is the delusion that it should be fair"  --Dr. Steve Maraboli-- I am pretty sure I have mentioned this before, but while sick and unable to do too much other than exercise my brain, I did a lot of studying and reading.   One of the things that I think helped me to recover was, instead of working my brain overtime worrying about what was going to happen to me devoting whatever time I had left, to helping others in ways that I most needed at my darkest points.   This led me to take classes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and neurolinguistic programming (NLP)  Over 100+ hours of classes later, I became a Certified CBT Therapist and a Master NLP Practioner.  (who could imagine?)   I took some other courses on nutrition, exercise, and meditation (I had a whole lot of time), but these two certificates were closely aligned with my Christian Stoic philosophy, and really put me in the best position to help ...

I Almost Forgot to Talk to you about Alzheimers

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Bad joke, I know, I know. While I was sick I had a lot of time to read, learn and take classes that I hoped would allow me to help people if I was to get out of that situation, and I haven't stopped.  Some of that reading and research was pertinent to my situation and some of it was outside of it.  One of the best things about learning and expanding your purview is that you will learn things that might not be useful to you but may be useful to others.  Luckily for me, my parents are aging gracefully and seem to be healthier than most people my age, but dementia is a real threat to everyone eventually, and losing your mind while staying healthy is a whole other struggle that is hard to even imagine.   Alzheimer's (the most common form of dementia)  was one of the things that I came across by mistake.  While I am still young enough that I do not need to concern myself with Alzheimer's...yet, what I do live with and have experienced is "chemo brain" which...

Your Emotional Home Doesn't Have to be Where the Heart (or mind) is.

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“Most people are as happy as they make their minds up to be” --Abraham Lincoln. Every year it seems that hurricanes and tornados hit the same spots, damage the same people’s homes, and occur almost like clockwork every couple of years. While it is always sad to see people lose everything, I always wonder "Why wouldn't they just move?". The same might could be said for why I still live in NY with a giant crime rate, ridiculous taxes, and politicians that do not reflect my values. For me, the answer is, (as I guess the answer for the people subject to natural disasters would be) “because it is home”. I do not have a good logical answer other than familiarity, friends, family, and attachment. We have familiarity and attachment to our "emotional homes" as well. This is the place we go to emotionally when we are triggered by external events. It is important to be aware that we have an emotional home and what our emotional home is.  Only then you can begin to g...

When is the Right Time?

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  This week, I got a call from my son Hunter, who is currently stationed in Texas with the Air Force: "Dad I am signed up for the Norwegian Ruck March , and I maybe shouldn't have told anyone" "Why?" "Well they are giving me a little bit of a hard time saying I won't be able to finish it, and I think I should have just kept it to myself, last year only 31 guys on base completed it." "How many guys are going to do it in your squadron?" "2" "Do you know the other one? What does he say?" "Oh, he is doing it with me and he says we'll do it" There it was.   More often than not the brave ones are pushing you to come along with them and the people who are telling you cannot do something, or laughing at your efforts aren't even signing up! This was a valuable lesson for him and a reminder for me at the same time. Too often we wait for things to be just right.  Maybe to prevent failure or to avoid judgment fro...