Dr. Mike's Motivational Mojo

Poof! What if it's all gone?

What do you do when it's all gone?  What do you do when one day you wake up and you realize that many of the things that you considered to be part of your life and your identity are gone.  What you have built is gone or in a much smaller form than it once was.  These things have perhaps, through self-fault and/or the fault of others, been wiped away only to now be a recent memory.  The things that you felt comfortable with...your comfort zone...no longer exist.  What you built is not there.  What you had is gone.  Life is very very different.   OMG!  As Karl Malden used to ask on those old American Express commercials... "What WILL you do?"
In the course of our lives we have one or several of these pivotal moments where we find ourselves at a major-life-changing crossroad.   This crossroad can happen all of a sudden or it may take time to come into focus.  Either way the cross road in which we all find ourselves from time to time is always startling and it is never easy.  When this happens, you constantly ask yourself ...
What now?
How will I survive?
Who am I?
What happened?
Why?
How could I have changed it?
At this point you have a flood of emotions that are difficult to telegraph and control.  You don't see them coming but a picture, a thought, a smell, situation, whatever...bring back the memories of what once was.  Then the sadness, the anger, the despair, the hurt, the confusion...etc...it all comes flooding ...without warning and seemingly without provocation.    Again...I ask...What WILL you do?
Lately we've all seen things that have just "poofed" before our eyes.  The world-wide financial crisis has seen markets and capital simply disappear overnight.  What once were bastions of fortune and captains of industries are now simply the rabble of a system that collapsed under its own weight.  The safe and secure feeling we once knew from our childhood has now been replaced by the the terms "terrorism and swine flu."  Where once we were comforted by coming home at night from our jobs to our lovely house and sitting on the back deck with those we loved has been replaced by searching for a job, alone and in a tiny, cold rented apartment.
"Wow" you say.  "What a downer man."
I paint this picture to ask you what you would do when this happens to you?  It may never happen in the form that I mention, but something similar will happen.  We all have cross roads that we encounter and we all have crosses to bear.  that's life.   Nothing stays the same.  Things change.   I've talked about change on here many times and I've talked about how to deal with change on a professional level.  What to do when change happens and how to maximize yourself during change.  It's nothing new.  You hear this from everyone...not just me.  I will not repeat all of those tips and tricks to riding out the rough waters of change, but instead I will harken back to what I learned as a boy.
The reality of today's situation goes back to what my great-grandma always said.  "When the Lord throws you lemons...make lemonade." Obviously, Granny wasn't the first one to say this but, as a young mom during the depression, she lived by it.  She had to make due.  She had to, in today's vernacular, - suck it up - she had to adapt and she had to change.   She had no choice.  This isn't to say that Granny didn't get sad or angry or a whole host of other things; rather though she simply made the best of the situation.  She played the cards she was dealt.   During Granny's time, most lost their homes...their jobs...their ways of life.  I've heard the stories of family and friends during the depression back in the hills of West Virginia where my people lived.  They weren't pretty stories but they were stories that, even as a little boy, I cherished.  Back then, those folks hurt...it sucked...they hurt bad and lost much.  Not only possessions like their big houses on the hill or their huge farms, but lost things like their identity, their pride, and pieces of them that, for some, were never to return in the same form.  Many back in the day as they do now, turned to other things to ease the pain and forget about the hurt.  Habits were born back then that were to haunt some of them for the rest of their lives.  One thing though...a lot of these people, like my Granny had an undying and unwavering spirit.  They had a sense about them that life was to be lived and whatever came one's way was just the way it was.  "Accept it and move on and live life damnit" is what they would say.  Might as well enjoy it because the alternative is gloom and who wants that.  I was amazed how Granny and others would talk of the hard, almost impossible life that they had to bear but that they always managed to find the nuggets in the moment however small.  A laugh here...a smile there...a hug over there...another laugh over here.  They found these nuggets and they used them to get through.  To survive...to live.  A baby's smile.  The fresh smell of a spring iris growing in the flower garden.  The sounds of the guys playing the banjo on the porch on a steamy summer evening.   THAT is what mattered.  THAT is what made them happy.
"But Granny...you lived in a shack up on cinder blocks with dirt for carpet?" I used to think to myself.  But as I grew older and experienced life...I realized that the shack wasn't what was important to Granny.  It was so much more than that...so much more.  Granny was no saint mind you...and she was as stern as the hickory switch that she used to whip your butt if you misbehaved, but she was still soft.  She still appreciated the small things in life.  She still had heart.  She still loved.   Sadly, Granny passed in 1979 but I will always be thankful to her and others with whom I spent many evenings sitting on the porch listening to them pick music and pontificate about life.  It was there I learned to appreciate what I have instead of yearning for what I had.
So what's a person to do now...we are faced with many of the same problems - in different form and on a different scale - but the same concepts of loss of pride, dignity, safety, etc...are the same.  Banks foreclose, companies go out of business, people lose their job and everything they have worked for, people who once loved get divorced, and our standard of living goes down.  What's a person to do?  What's a society to do?  Will we fold under the pressure or will we marshal all that is within us to live and think like my Granny and so many others did so many years ago and to appreciate what we have instead of what we had?
I wonder...what will we do...

Dealing With It in Troubled Financial Times

Lately it seems as if the world (or at least the financial markets) are crashing in.  There is no doubt that the financial crisis we find ourselves in is serious and that all of us are going to hurt in one way or another from the fallout.  Since the majority of us cannot do anything about it in terms of adjusting the economy, we are resigned to just sitting back and watching things happen.
There are many times in life where things are just out of our control.  We seem helpless to do anything about it so we just sit back and watch it happen and fret, fret, fret about it until, like my granny used to say, “we’re worked up into a tizzy.”  I have always talked about how we control everything we do, how we feel, and indeed our lives.  This is true in many respects, however, there are things that in reality are out of our control no matter what.  But, what we do have ultimate, 100% control over is how we REACT to things.  How we Deal With It - D.W.I. How we deal with things that are presented to us is vital.  It’s vital because, to a large extent, the way we deal with things moves our lives in certain directions.   The choices that we make in terms of moods and behaviors based on experiences at any given time effect our future!  They really do!
During this financial crisis we must remind ourselves that HOW WE REACT to the crisis will, to a large extend, determine the manner in which we ride it out and how we emerge from it in the end.  We can sit around watching CNBC and the stock ticker and realize how bad things are and how much money we’re all losing or we can make rational, reasonable decisions - deal with the realities of the situation and then move on to let things play out as they will.  Of course you don’t want to lose one cent of money you’ve worked for and you should take steps to minimize your loss in ways that you can, but what I’m talking about here is how you react to everything as it crashes down.  You can sit back and let that negative mojo work into your psyche so that you become paralyzed by worry or fret, or you can DWI and move on with your life in a positive, productive manner.
Do NOT let worry and fret paralyze you!! It’s easy to get caught up in gloom and doom.  The media and everything you see and hear speaks of impending gloom and doom.  It’s difficult to escape it.   Remember a positive attitude cures everything. Why is this so in these crazy times?  Think about it…even if the worst case scenario happened and you lost everything and had to start over…would starting over with a negative attitude help you rebuild your life?  No…it wouldn’t.  Negative attitudes keep us from achieving positive results.  However, starting over with a positive attitude would help motivate us to excel and move to effectively better our lives.  Keeping a positive attitude may be cliche, but it works - plain and simple.
Another way to keep a positive attitude in crazy financial times is to keep focused on the things that truly matter - health, loved ones, and those things that you find comfort in.  Like I’ve said many times before, it’s important to keep focused on those things and persons in your life that surround you with positives.  Focus on the good things in life, not the bad things. Turn the TV from the gloomy news to the Cartoon Network and have a few laughs…or watch Little House on the Prairie to be reminded of the wholesomeness inherent in people…or watch the Three Stooges…or read your favorite book…play ball with your kids…make a birdhouse to hang in the back yard…WHATEVER it is that you DO to make you happy…DO IT EVEN MORE in times of long-protracted crisis.  Remember, you must first deal with the crisis situation of course but once that is dealt with to the best of your ability then it’s up to you to put the positive things in your life to work for you to drown out the negative gloom and doom that will surely overtake you when you least expect it if you are not careful and proactive.
In essence, you don’t need pills, books, or 24 hours of TV news to weather this financial crisis.  You simply need YOURSELF, your WITS, and the stealthy focus to stay positive.  I’ve summarized a few tips below that will keep you on track.
(1) Positive thoughts bring positive results.
(2) P.A.C.E. Positive Attitude Cures Everything
(3) D.W.I. and move on toward positive thinking.
(4) Surround yourself with positives!
(5) This too shall pass.

What Makes People Tick

This Episode Originally Aired August 28th, 2007
What makes people tick?  This is a question that we often hear.
However, we often fail to really think about what it means and how it affects our relationships.  Finding out what makes people tick is one of the keys to developing good, healthy relationships whether they are personal or professional.
What makes a person do the things they do?
What are the things they will not do?
What are a person’s passions?
What turns them on both personally and professionally?
What do they most enjoy?
And perhaps the most important thing in finding out what makes people tick is the WHY question!  Take time to find out WHY people do or don’t do what they do.  People will really appreciate this and they will think more of you and the relationship because of it.  This will help you to develop your relationships in a much deeper and more substantive fashion.   To put it bluntly - You’ll get along better with people if you find out what makes them tick!

Unstress Your Mojo!

This Episode Originally Aired August 1, 2007
Stress Sucks! That’s right…we all know it…we all experience it…we all have caused it and we will always have it in our lives. It’s a scary but true realization that stress is part of us and that we must deal with it or it will deal with us.
Although stress is such a part of the human experience it doesn’t always have to be negative and can be dealt with in many ways. Multitudes of books have been written on stress-relief and many more presentations and programs have focused on minimizing stress in our lives.
When that “internal compass” that guides our moods and behaviors is stressed, our lives and relationships more easily spin out of control - or at least they seem like they are out of control. This can lead to a whole host of problems - both emotionally and physically. Although there are loads of things one can do to help with stress, I’ve summarized a few very simple things here that I think really help with controlling that nasty mojo we all know as stress!
(1) Chill - make conscious decisions NOT to escalate into an angry state.
(2) No Gulping - taking deep slow breaths always helps ease tension. Gulping breaths create it!
(3) S L O W D O W N - Speak more slowly than usual. This will cause more clear thoughts and reduce stress.
(4) Change It Up - A change of scenery or getting a breath of fresh air always helps.
(5) Don’t get parched - Avoiding dehydration as well as eating right can ease stress tremendously.
(6) AT - TEN - TION! - Believe it or not, our posture has a lot to do with stress - Don’t slouch!
(7) Recharge - At the end of EVERY day you need to recharge doing something that relaxes you.