Weaponize your body for the fight against Coronavirus

In this extraordinary time of COVID-19, fear is firmly in the driver seat for many of us. Our internal fear meter has been steadily rising since this pandemic began on the other side of the world. Fear drives a lot of our feelings and our decisions. We struggle with many questions. How did we get here? How long do we stay here? Where is the end? Is there an end? Do you remember when you first heard of the Coronavirus? We first learned of an outbreak in a region of China that most of us have never heard of. It seemed far enough away that it didn’t pose any danger. Then things escalated rather quickly. China forces its citizens to quarantine themselves at home. Our fear meter ticks up a notch. Cruise ships couldn’t dock because ports were afraid they carried infected passengers. One case is confirmed in the U.S. Then another and then another. The fear meter needle moves up even more. Then Italy sounds the alarm. Then the rest of Europe. Fear is evident in financial markets as their values begin to tumble. Our stress rises and our internal fear meter is higher than ever in recent memory. I’m not sure exactly at what point people’s fear made them rush the grocery stores and hoard all the bread, pasta, milk and toilet paper. A roll of TP, not even single ply, was anywhere to be found. Fear had reached a new high water mark. Concern was now an understatement. Full blown panic was still in the distance but was in our line of sight, and it seemed fast approaching. States issued stay at home orders or so called “Safer at home” orders which sound less scary. Sports were cancelled, schools closed, followed by bars and restaurants, then beaches and churches. Any gathering spot was now taboo and testing centers began popping up and the count of confirmed cases skyrocketed each day. The outbreak that turned into an epidemic and then a pandemic was now at our doorstep. Homemade masks and latex gloves are now the new fashion trend inside the grocery store. At this point in time, we still don’t know how many more people will be infected, how many more will die, and how long this unprecedented event will last. Fear of the unknown is here and quickly outwearing its welcome. As almost everything is shutdown for the duration of this pandemic such as businesses, schools, parks, and stores, it has given people time to think. Without distraction, constant contemplation can be bad when it comes to our fears. Questions with no answers stew in our heads. It can consume our thoughts and feed the fear. Fear is an emotion centered on the anticipation of danger. It is a belief that something bad may happen. Fear can protect us from danger and that aspect is good. But fear can also consume us and often the fear is about something that isn’t real, won’t happen, or very unlikely to happen. But it’s the uncertainty that feeds the fear and uncertainty can be described as a lack of belief. Danger can be real but fear is not. Let’s explain. To better understand fear, let’s look at the meaning of darkness. There is nothing real or tangible about darkness. Darkness is just a description of space that lacks light. Darkness is therefore the mere absence of light. Likewise, there is no such thing as coldness. The way you make something cold is you remove heat. For example, a refrigerator doesn’t make things cold, it works by removing the heat from the inside. Just like darkness, coldness isn’t real. It is merely the absence of heat. The same holds true for fear. Fear isn’t real. Fear is merely the absence of faith . The fear that you feel just means that faith is not present. Just as we can eliminate darkness by turning on a light or remove coldness by turning on the heat, you can purge your fear by swapping it for faith. I'm not just talking about faith in the religious sense although the same concept applies. Faith is a belief just as fear is a belief and they are direct opposite beliefs. Just as opposites go, one is real and one is not. How do you swap fear with faith? Since faith is a belief, we can change our level of faith the same way our regular beliefs change. For instance, the learning of new information can change our beliefs. We replace unknowns with truths. If we learn something new that we didn’t know before, it will change our pre-existing thoughts. We know a little more each day but we need to be cautious of the source of our new information. The spread of misinformation is easier with social media. We can also change our beliefs by creating a new future vision for ourselves. Do you really believe that this pandemic will last or is it likely that it will begin to recede much like flood waters and we will be back to some sense of normalcy in a matter of weeks? Can you visualize yourself at some point in the near future venturing back out of our house, kids going back to school, sporting events taking place again, and businesses opening back up? Can you see that light at the end of the tunnel? Do you see the light evicting the darkness and growing brighter each day? Envision how your life will be once we get the all clear to resume our routines. Recognize that this will happen, it’s just a matter of time and that timeframe is likely short term. One other thing we can do to change our beliefs and eliminate fear is to build upon our existing faith. Faith can be fertilized and watered to grow into certainty and fill the space occupied by fear and squeeze the fear out. We can train our brain to be more optimistic and increase our certainty. Focus on positivity boosters such as fun activities you can't wait to do once the orders are lifted. Until you have your own new vision, belief, and certainty, you can borrow mine. I believe, sooner, rather than later, we will get the “all clear” and be allowed to congregate, socialize, and do all the things that allow us to connect with each other again. We will soon be looking back and reflecting on our experience. We will memorialize the victims, heal those still sick, and tell stories about the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 and discuss what our favorite meme was on social media. We will feel more alive, experience our freedoms once again and be a lot more grateful for what we previously took for granted. “Flattening the Curve” will take on new meaning as we turn focus to flattening the curve of our bulging bellies from all those quarantine snacks. And most of all, faith will fill the void of fear and move us all forward into a much more certain future. Fear is now on the outside looking in and will soon be an afterthought. Keep the faith.

Remember last decade when Louis Vuitton purses, Rolex watches, and super sports cars like Ferrari were a symbol of wealth and status? That was soooo 2019. Well extravagance and lavishness are taking a backseat to new status symbols in 2020. Don’t worry. Clothes and cars still catch the eye but new trends are catching on with the wealthy and not so wealthy alike. Luxury is out and lifestyle is in. Experiences In the new decade, people are trading material symbols of wealth for more experience based opportunities. Some people are just making bucket lists while others are crossing things off of theirs. Maybe it’s an international vacation, a trip around the track in a racecar, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, go on an African safari, or maybe even treat yourself to a super pampered spa treatment. Living life instead of owning something has much more satisfaction for the soul. Going on adventures and creating memories, then sharing them on social media is telling the world what gives you joy. Your social status is elevated as others witness your delights and maybe even a little envy sets in with your friends and followers. So get out your bucket list and start crossing some things off by experiencing them for yourself. Discrete wealth and being debt Free My grandfather paid cash for everything. He didn’t like owing anyone any money, not even a bank. I don’t know if he could have had more material possessions by taking out a mortgage or a loan while he was living but I don’t think he cared to have any more. Any debt was a burden to him and would weigh on him like a monkey on his back. Being debt free gave him pride and I admired him for it. His viewpoint seems old fashioned but what is old is new again. Being debt free and creating discrete wealth is a new status level. Discrete spending and understanding the long term consequences of debt are driving some to pay it off quicker while others still take out more credit cards and borrow the maximum allowed to get more material goods such as houses and cars. Credit card debt is at an all-time high in the U.S. A healthy status symbol for the new elite is to be rid of debt and to have savvy financial investments instead of mounting debt. Fitness and Health Looking fit or just looking like you came from the gym is the popular, trendy style in 2020. Athleisure wear is a booming industry with yoga pants, dry-fit shirts and Fendi brand sports bras. Shoes have always been a cornerstone of fashion symbols. And don’t forget: Having a protein shake or a high end juice is a must to complete the ensemble. Healthy foods and supplements are a growing trend and looking fit means you have to eat healthy and not just workout. If your diet sucks, it doesn’t matter how many burpees you do at the gym. High end supplements are a status symbol and many carry them around so they can be seen taking them at lunch or at dinner. Again, I think this is a good trend for society to be health conscious and want to look and feel their best. Being an Influencer One status symbol trend that has emerged and that I have mixed feelings about is the growing status of online influencers. Born from the popularity of the guilty pleasure of many called the Kardahian’s who helped make social media influencers a commodity. There are a lot of people measuring their social status with likes, shares, and retweets. People put on a show of their alter egos and portray their highlight reel on the internet for everyone to see and admire. It can be entertaining, informative, and sometimes a little sad. But, I think it is here for a while as everyone is carrying around a portal in the form of a cellphone to escape and see how good the lives are of everyone else and occasionally post something good or something bad about their lives as well. My takeaway is this. Money can be made but you never get back time. Living life is much more valuable than any property so make your bucket list but more importantly, start crossing things off of it!

Why do our New Year’s resolutions fade faster than footprints on the beach? We enter the New Year excited, we have all of these ideas and there is no shortage of hope. We join the gym (again), we start the diet (again) and we go back to work (again) but maybe with a little bit more enthusiasm that before we left for the holiday break. Starting a new year gives us a sense of rebirth, revival, and starting anew. But, as in previous years, we get into our old routine and the new ideas and hopes slip away slowly like a slow sinking ship. Improving your life is about replacing old habits with new ones. The problem is that the old habits don’t want to be replaced and they will try to convince you that things aren’t so bad and you’ll be just find with your old ways. Don’t listen to their fearful lies! With persistent behavior, the voices of the old habits are drowned out and replaced with the cheers of your new and improved ones. Here are some tips to keep those resolutions and actually accomplish something this year: Step 1: Set your sights on some goals What’s your end game? What do you want to accomplish this year? Maybe it’s to get in shape, learn a new skill, save more money, eat healthier, or travel more. Whatever it is, no matter how big or unreachable it may seem, decide what it is and write it down. Step 2: What’s the plan, Stan? A goal without a plan is just a wish so figure out the steps you need to take to get there. Break down into smaller short term goals wither weekly or monthly so you can see incremental progress towards the bigger picture. If you want to save more money, decide what extraneous spending you want to give up and how much you want to deposit into your savings each week. If you want to get in shape, decide how many times a week you’ll take that exercise class and hit the gym. Decide what you’re are cutting out of your diet and what you are putting into your body. If your goal is to learn something new, decide how many pages per day you want to get through and in which books. Look for that class or a mentor who can teach you. Whatever it may be, look at the “how” after the “what” and get started. Step 3: Commit to yourself Have a conversation with yourself about why you want what you want and what the alternatives are. If you want to improve your health, decide why that is and what would happen if you don’t change your current habits. IF you want to travel to that place you’ve always wanted to go, visualize yourself being there and the happiness it brings. If you want to lose weight, tell yourself that it will come to be if you stick to your plan. It helps to look at the short term steps, weekly or monthly. If you can persist until the end of February and then March and April should be easier. Then the summer months will be even easier and then you will be into your new habits and break out of the old ones. Step 4: Tell the world Something psychological happens when you announce your goals to others. The secret’s out! You instantly have accountability partners that may remind you of your goals and some may even participate with you. Some may not even care but in your mind, they are counting on you. It’s great to align yourself with people with similar aspirations to motivate each other. It’s easy to give up on yourself but much harder to give up when someone’s watching. Step 5: Reaffirm daily You need constant reminders to keep your goals top of mind. The distractions and temptations of everyday life will want to slow you down and deter you from making progress. I like to write something on my bathroom mirror to remind me of where I want to go. It’s something you see every day and usually in the morning so you can start your day with your goal in mind. My wife likes to use vision boards. She cuts out pictures of representations of her goals and glues them to a poster board and hangs in a special place she sees every day. Find a method that works for you to remind you of your goals so that you keep moving forward and don’t let your distractions win. Step 6: Take daily action Goals are achieved through consistent actions taken on a daily basis. You can’t bake a cake by turning the oven on one minute and off the next. It needs persistent heat to bake. Your success is achieved the same way. Do something every day to keep moving forward. You can’t eat healthy one day and then pizza the next and expect to optimal health. Writing my book was a goal for 20 years before I decided to write something daily. Some days it was a paragraph and others, it was a page or two but after a year and a half, I had the book I’ve wanted for over two decades. Create a Daily Method of Operation or DMO. This consists of 5 things that you will do consistently every day until your goals is reached. If my goal is to chop down a tree, I will take 5 swings of the axe every day and over the course of consistent action, that tree will eventually fall. Let’s Celebrate! Celebrate all of your little victories as you cross each milestone to your goal and then plan a big celebration once you’ve hit your final desired state. Plan that celebration to take place in the New Year. Then for next year, let’s improve ourselves even more because we now know how to.

Did you ever do a good deed? Have you ever helped someone that couldn’t return the favor? Did you ever volunteer your time to those in need? Do you remember the feeling you got when you’ve done one of these things? It’s called emotional income . It’s a feeling like no other and money can’t buy it. Or, can it? One day near Christmas, I went to eat at a restaurant for a quick lunch. The waitress seemed overworked and it showed. In fact, she was mildly rude, stressed out, and snapping at coworkers and even customers. I didn’t know her backstory so I made one up in my head. I presumed she was a single mother working as many hours as she could to give her kids a nice Christmas. Or maybe she needed to work a thankless job that’s anything but glamorous to put food on the table. There were dozens of scenarios going through my head that made me empathize whatever situation she was currently in. I decided to leave a sizeable cash tip for her. I left before she picked up the tip and went to the front counter to pay the check. As I turned to walk out the door, the manager stopped me. “Sir, did you mean to leave this tip?” He then discretely showed me the cash I left for her in his hand. I replied, “Yes. I did and please tell her to have a Merry Christmas!” I turned to walk out the door. As I walked by the windows in the front, I caught a glimpse of the manager handing her the money and he said something to her that I could not hear but I assumed he was relaying my message to her. She immediately burst into tears. I quickly turned away as I wanted to remember the moment as I began to tear up myself. I imagine she served the other customers with a little more care and with a bigger smile after that. The feeling that was going through my entire body was extreme fulfillment and is what I called emotional income . Maybe money can buy happiness but only if we give it away. You may have a similar story or maybe several of them. It feels good to give, doesn’t it? Helping those that need our help is one of the qualities that makes us human. There are other examples in the animal kingdom of other species helping others. Elephants have been witnessed to help each other when one is in distress. Bees swarm when they detect a distress pheromone emitted by another bee. There is even examples of dolphins helping humans that are in distress. Do these animals also feel the fulfillment that we humans do when they help out their own? I’ll leave that question to be answered by animal researchers. It doesn’t have to monetary. Time is our most precious commodity and we certainly can’t buy more time with money. If we give our time to be servants to those in need, the payoff can be huge and it’s in the form of emotional income. When you give others time, help, and hope the return on your investment is much bigger than if it was monetary. My question to you is how much emotional income are you earning? No judgement implied. It’s a question for you to ask yourself. Giving our time, money and knowledge to those that need it more than we do gives us a feeling like no other. We know we did something good for someone and a sense of nobility can make us smile. It’s often addictive and contagious as others can be inspired by the acts of kindness of others. And once we get that emotional income, we wish to earn even more. It doesn’t take much to make a difference. I’m not talking about changing the world. I’m talking about changing the world of just one person. Over and over again.

Happiness is something we all strive for. We want to be happy as often as possible. We also want it for our loved ones. We want our kids to be happy. We want our family members to be happy. We want our ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend to be happy – Well, at least that’s what we say during the break-up. Anyway, happiness is a commodity that we briefly experience and then, POOF! It’s gone. It’s often a short lived emotion as the event that made as happy slips into becoming a memory and we revert back into our daily cycle we call our life. Happiness is an emotion and therefore, is a temporary feeling. Chasing happiness is like a cat chasing its tail. Fulfillment is something much different than happiness. The difference between happiness and fulfillment is similar to the difference between your paycheck and your savings account. The paycheck is an occurrence and we feel joy on payday. But then we pay some bills and by the weekend, we realize we need to go back to work on Monday and we are unhappy again by Sunday. The savings account is more long term and is our baseline for our financial needs. Fulfillment is an emotional foundation that is built upon a collection of all of our assets, tangible and intangible. Fulfillment is our fallback, our safety net, our place of safety when life doesn’t go in our favor. Remember the story about the three little pigs? One built his house of straw, one of twigs, and the third with bricks. When life happens such as the big bad wolf did for the pigs and he blew the houses of straw and twigs down, only the house of brick withstood the distress of the huffing and puffing. What is your house of fulfillment built with? Is it built with straw or twigs? That means that the little stuff usually gets to you and steals your joy. Or have you built your house of fulfillment with brick which means you have some resiliency so you don’t sweat it when things go wrong? Think of fulfillment as something you create and cannot lose. It acts as our home base. It’s a place of safety that we can retreat to when life happens and we get thrown for a loop. The bigger and stronger your fulfillment foundation is, the less you care about the stuff that goes wrong or could go wrong. Your self-esteem is stronger and so is your confidence. Whatever life throws at you can bounce right off. There are techniques that you can use to build your fulfillment. This will give you more self-esteem, confidence, and resiliency in your life so your happiness can springboard off of this foundation of fulfillment. I’ve outlined techniques in a new book that is coming in 2020. Here are a few techniques to build a foundation of fulfillment so that you happiness can thrive. Itemize your appreciation - When you are getting ready in the morning, think of three things that you are grateful for. It can be health, family & friends, a job, or anything else that you appreciate. When you lie down to go to bed, think of three more things that you appreciate. Keeping a journal on things you appreciate in your head or on paper will build a mindset of gratitude which is a cornerstone of fulfillment. Celebrate wins – No matter how small, make a point to celebrate with others on your wins by going out for happy hour, treating yourself to ice cream, or sharing your accomplishment or that of someone you know on social media. Maybe you completed a project at work, ran a 5k, or got something special in the mail. It doesn’t matter what you celebrate, just go celebrate! Connect with others - Personal connection is a fundamental human need. Make a point to connect or reconnect with friends and family more often. Ask questions about what is going on in their life and make it about them. Make them feel special and give a compliment or two. Not only will you make them feel good, you will also get the benefit of feeling good. When you build a foundation of fulfillment, you are building up your armor to take on the challenges of life. Less will upset you and your self-esteem and self-confidence will get a boost. You can then live in that house of bricks at an emotional level where your happiness can prevail over all of life’s little challenges.

What I wish I knew when I started my career

What I wish I knew when I started my career

Replace toxic friends with people that inspire you.