Archives for August 2015

4 Questions that Will Change Your Attitude (When You Can’t Change Anything Else)

08.30.2015 by Marc Chernoff // 57 Comments

4 Questions that Will Change Your Attitude

A peaceful person is not a person who’s always in a good situation, but rather a person who always has a good attitude in every situation.

To a great extent, we create our fate every single day, and most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own (controllable) attitude. Life is packed full of uncontrollable events; in many situations the only thing we can control is the attitude we choose to respond with.

When you really take the time to think about it, everything happening around us is neutral and meaningless up until the point that we give it meaning. And the questions we ask ourselves drive the meaning we create and the attitude we have about everything.

Regardless of what you’re going though, it’s about choosing: Will I allow this to upset me? Will I choose to make this bad or good? Will I choose to stay or walk away? Will I choose to yell or whisper? Will I choose to react or take the time to respond?

When our course/coaching students come to us feeling down about a life situation they can’t control, we typically start by reinforcing the hard truth: sometimes changing your situation isn’t possible – or simply not possible soon enough. You can’t get to a new job in an instant. You can’t make someone else change against his or her will. And you certainly can’t erase the past. But…

You CAN always choose an attitude that moves you forward. And doing so will help you change things from the inside out, and ultimately allow you to grow beyond the struggles you can’t control.

Here are four powerful questions that will support you with a positive attitude adjustment when you need it most:

1. Who would you be, and what else would you see, if you erased the thought that’s worrying you?

Worry is the biggest enemy of the present moment. It does nothing but steal your [Read more…]

12 Little Known Laws of Mindfulness (That Will Change Your Life)

08.26.2015 by Marc Chernoff // 33 Comments

12 Little Known Laws of Mindfulness

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
– Carl Jung

Mindfulness as a daily ritual is the ultimate challenge and practice. It’s a way of living, of being, of seeing, of tapping into the full power of your humanity.

At its core, mindfulness is…

Being aware of what’s happening in the present moment without wishing it were different
Enjoying each pleasant experience without holding on when it changes (which it will)
Being with each unpleasant experience without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t)

Knowing this is important. Living every day in such a way that makes mindfulness possible is life-changing. Here are twelve basic laws of (practical) mindfulness we often cover with our coaching/course students that make mindful living a gradual reality:

1. Your only reality is THIS MOMENT, right here, right now.

The secret to health for the mind, body and soul is not to mourn the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment mindfully and purposefully.
True wealth is the ability to experience the present moment fully. No other time and place is real. Lifelong peace and abundance is found in such simple awareness.

2. A negative thought is harmless unless you believe it.

It’s not your thoughts, but your attachment to your thoughts, that causes suffering.
Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true without proof. A belief is a thought that you’ve been attaching to, often for years.

[Read more…]

9 Ways to Make Your Days Simple Again

08.23.2015 by Marc Chernoff // 46 Comments

9 Ways to Make Your Days Simple Again

Any darn fool can make a day more complicated than it has to be; it takes a touch of genius to make it simple again.

PLEASE NOTE: This post has been updated with new information and republished here:

How to Make Life Simple Again

Photo by: The 10 Cent Designer

30 Quick Stories that Will Make You Think Differently

08.19.2015 by Marc Chernoff // 55 Comments

30 Quick Stories that Will Make You Think Differently

“There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.”

Our blog posts typically start with a quick intro story – a super-short narrative about something Angel and I have experienced, heard or read – that inspired us to write. And not surprisingly, based on our line of work, these stories often find their way to us through everyday interactions with our coaching/course students (of course, we always get permission before we share something publicly).

This morning I randomly received emails from three different blog subscribers (subscribe here) that basically said the same thing about three completely different articles: “The story you shared at the beginning of the post made me think differently. Thank you.”

In light of this, I just spent an hour sifting through our blog archive and re-reading the intro stories to dozens of older posts. And I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment of our subscribers. Even when taken out of the larger context of a full blog post, these quick stories pack a thought-provoking punch. So, I figured it would be a fun to re-share them with you today. I hope you appreciate them as much as I do…

This morning, like he has every morning for the last decade, my 86-year-old grandfather picked a fresh wild flower on his morning walk and took it to my grandmother. This morning I decided to go with him to see her. And as he placed the flower on her gravestone, he looked at me and said, “I just wish I had picked her a fresh flower every morning when she was alive. She would have loved that.”
Today, on my 47th birthday, I re-read the suicide letter I wrote on my 27th birthday about two minutes before my girlfriend showed up at my apartment and told me, ‘I’m pregnant.’ She was honestly the only reason I didn’t follow through with it. Suddenly I felt I had something to live for. Today she’s my wife, and we’ve been happily married for 19 years. And my daughter, who is now a 21-year-old college student, has two younger brothers. I re-read my suicide letter every year on my birthday as a reminder to be thankful – I am thankful I got a second chance at life. [Read more…]

7 Surprising Reasons You’re Attracting Toxic People

08.16.2015 by Angel Chernoff // 118 Comments

7 Surprising Reasons You’re Attracting Toxic People
by Cylon George

Wrong things happen when you trust, and give too much attention to, the wrong people.

Do you have toxic people in your life? Do they influence you in detrimental ways? Do they leave you feeling manipulated or bad about yourself after every encounter? If so, you’re probably wondering how things got to be this way. Despite your positive attitude and approach to life, you find yourself unexpectedly surrounded by negativity.

It might not occur to you that some of your strongest positive attributes may actually be attracting toxic people. These people may subconsciously feel threatened by your strengths, or they may just see you as an easy target. Either way, they will attempt to undermine or control you by limiting your peace of mind, happiness or success.

It’s important to understand that every character strength has what is commonly called a “shadow side.” When used too liberally, our strengths can become weaknesses and also make us more susceptible to toxic people.

I’ve experienced this in my own life. One of my character strengths is that I am extremely sincere and compassionate. But when pushed to its limit, my sincerity and compassion can become people pleasing. I’ve realized that I sometimes quickly appease people who are pushy or rude just so they will like me. By doing so, I inadvertently allow these people to enter my life and subject me to their toxic behavior.

I eventually learned to find my boundaries and say no, without losing myself in the process. I became aware of how people may try to use my character strengths to their advantage. This awareness has helped me ward off many toxic relationships.

The key is not to suppress your positive character strengths, but to educate yourself so toxic people can’t use them against you. If you feel like these people are drawn to you, here are seven surprising reasons why this may be happening, and some actionable tips to help you address it:

1. You are a great listener.

Let’s face it. With technological distractions stealing our attention all the time, great listeners are often hard to find. When you find one, it’s hard not to take advantage of the rare opportunity to be heard.

Toxic people, however, take things to [Read more…]