Category Archives: Hope

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Stuck In Loops

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RunningLoopsLike a broken record… or an endless audio loop.  Those thoughts that just keep turning in your mind.  Okay, in MY mind.  But I bet it happens to you, too.

Let’s say, hypothetically of course, that I get up to 2 emails.  One is complimentary, thanking me for resources, books, podcasts… things like that.  Then there is another email, critical and harsh, telling me how useless my info was.

I read them both and head off to walk my dog.

Do you think I ponder that kind one?  Or keep looping back to that unkind one?

Yep, you guessed it.  And I bet you guessed it because it happens to you, too.

And that thought… it isn’t just a passing thought.  No.  I find my body tense up, the anger/hurt churning in my gut.

The other day, I was out for my morning walk with my sidekick, Ziggy (our silver lab).  We were about half-way through and I realized my palms were sweaty, tightly gripping the leash (which is a waist leash, so I don’t even need to be holding it!).  My chest is tight, my stomach is tight.  I ask myself, “why am I ready for a fight?”  Nothing had happened.

Nothing.

Except a thought I was having… not just having… looping.  It was about an experience that happened 3 decades ago.  One I don’t typically think about.  But today, it popped in my head and I was stuck in a loop.  Looping on an old thought that was making me feel a certain way in the present.

I dropped back and followed my own little routine when I find myself looping.

You can’t stop the loops from starting.  But you can decide how long you run the loops.

Let’s talk about how to stop those pesky loops.  Podcast below.

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Book:  The Immutable Laws Of Living

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Giving Thanks: Gratitude and the Season

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Thanksgiving, the holiday, is often lost in food and family.  What is lost?  Our opportunity to experience gratitude.  The chance to really give thanks.

Many times, it can feel like an obligation.  Instead, I suggest we see it as an opportunity.  Even in tough moments (actually, especially in tough moments), we can make a shift from fear to thanks, from lack to sufficiency.

Over the years of my podcast, I have repeated this theme, both on Thanksgiving episodes and elsewhere.  Below is a list of the various episodes around thanksgiving and gratitude.  Just click each one to listen to the episodes.

Why Thankful?


Why Being Thankful Matters


Giving Thanks: Thriving Through Gratitude


What Thriving People Know About Gratitude And Appreciation


Living Your Engagement



And if you want to find my books on thriving, CLICK HERE.

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Find Hope or Build Hope

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Do you find hope or do you build hope? We discuss it on this episode of the Thriveology Podcast.Where does hope come from?  Does it come upon us?  Do we discover it?  Or do we build it?

I believe that hope is an important ingredient in thriving.  If you have no hope, it is tough to thrive. Finding hope often helps us find thriving.

Oh, and thriving is not about having an easy life, always exciting and happy.  A thriving life is built on taking on the challenges of life.  Not avoiding them, but taking them on, learning from them, and thriving because of them.

2020 has been the year of challenges.  So, it has also given us lots of opportunities to work on thriving.  How has it been for you?  Hopeful or hopeless?

What if hope is built?  What if all you have to do in order to find hope is follow a formula?

As is true for many things in life, the formula is pretty simple.  But that is not to be confused with easy.  Do remember that thriving is rarely built, though, on the easy.  Taking on the simple, but important, is often the path to thriving.

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, we take a look at hope.  Where it comes from, how you can find it, and how you can live it… both for yourself and the world.

Listen below.

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What You Can Control
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Dealing with Election Anxiety

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Dealing With Election AnxietyHasn’t 2020 been a doozy of a year?  Pandemics, weather, policitics… asteroids???  What else can happen?

A national election, of course (in the United States, anyway).  And not just any election.  It would be a doozy, too, any other year.

But this year??

According to a recent poll, over 70% of those polled in the States say that the election is a significant source of stress.  And 77% saya they are worried about the future of the US.

How do we deal with the Election Anxiety?  How can we keep from feeling the negative impact of the election on our emotional well-being?

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, I cover what causes the anxiety, and six ways to deal with it.  Listen below.

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The Coping with Covid Series
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You are Built for Purpose

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You are built for purpose. Live it out!So many of us feel despair.  It is not as much a loss of hope as loss of purpose.  There is no hope without a sense of purpose.  It is in your basic design.

Humans are meaning-makers.  We find meaning in what happens (or doesn’t happen) around us and to us.  We can find meaning in random numbers and events, in an attempt to make sense of the world.

But meaning, alone, is not enough.  We also need a sense of purpose. We need to feel that we are moving toward something worthwhile… something significant.

You have a purpose.  Whether you are moving toward it or not, it is within you.  Waiting.

It is your purpose imprint.  Finding it is not enough.  But achieving it isn’t what marks success.  It is in the movement toward your purpose.

In this week’s Thriveology Podcast, I discuss how we are primed for purpose, need a sense of purpose.  And I cover what happens when you don’t have that purpose.  And we discuss how to move toward that purpose.

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Finding Calm in the Midst of Chaos

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How to be calm and stay calm in the middle of chaotic times in a crazy world.These are some crazy times, aren’t they?  The world seems upside-down.  A pandemic, politics, conspiracy theories… news just seems to be crazier and crazier every day.

And that can catch up with each of us, stressing us out and leaving us afraid.  Which places your body and brain on constant alert.

That is exhausting.

And chaotic.

Why do those news stories and social media feeds keep us so amped up and stressed out?  And how can you stay calm(er) in the midst of chaos?

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast,

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“I’m Feeling a Little Acedic”

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What is acedia? And why do you feel the way you do during this pandemic? The antidote to acedia.Six months.  That is how far we are into the pandemic… at least in the US.  Yes, I  know.  There were cases before then.  But March marks the start of the social effects of pandemic.  Lock down.  Restrictions.  Social distance.  Six months.

And many people are feeling the effects!  I would go so far as to saying most, but plenty would contact me to tell me that they are not.

If you are feeling the effects, I am speaking to you.  Do you find yourself just… listless?  Out of sorts?  Lost in things to do, but not getting them done?

That feeling you are having is not a new one, just from the pandemic.  It dates back to the ancient Greeks.  It was an idea that Christian writers discussed as the distraction of monks and others.  In fact, it was a thought process Christian writers warned against, as it can spiral.

And here we sit, 1/2 of a year into feeling the effects of a pandemic.  And many people are feeling just a bit… acedic.  The term for this feeling was Acedia.  That listless, not caring, ought-to-be-doing-something restlessness, where nothing actually gets done.

Is that the feeling you have?

It is perfectly normal… which is different than saying it is helpful.  So while it is no surpirse you are feeling it, let’s talk about the acedia antidote.

Listen below.

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How NOT To Thrive: Top 5

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5 ways to guarantee that you don't thrive... and what to do instead.Over the years, I have tried to learn to thrive.  And I have tried to teach others how to thrive… even getting other experts to do the same.

But today, just for a moment, let’s assume you DON’T want to thrive.  In fact, you want to… well, do the opposite of thriving!  You want to be miserable and live a smaller life.  You want to feel stuck and frustrated. (I’m not going to even explain WHY you would want to do that… let’s play a little mental game and pretend you just don’t want to thrive.)

What then?

How would you go about NOT thriving?  How would you really make yourself as miserable as possible?

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, I start in on my Top 10 List of How NOT To Thrive.  I cover 5 top ways to NOT thrive in this episode, and follow up with the other 5 in the next episode.

Why in the world would I do this?

Because if you know how to NOT thrive, then you can NOT do the NOT’s.  You can do the opposite, and move toward thriving.  It is also a good way to run through the list and see if you find yourself falling into any of the non-thriving traps.  They are all around us!  And sometimes, we are doing them… not even realizing it.

Listen below for part 1 of How To Guarantee You Don’t Thrive.

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How to Engage in Life

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The 3 P's of living an engaged and present life. Live with passion and purpose.Wow!  What a time in history, right?  A pandemic rages.  Division is pulling us apart. Sometimes, it seems easier just to crawl under a rock and hide.

But hiding isn’t the solution.  And you have more to offer than hiding. You are built to engage the world, to make a difference.

Then why do we  “play small”?  When  there should be more to life?  More for YOU to do in life?  More your life should be about?

That life you are thinking about… that is the Engaged Life.  Living with more engagement, more depth, more meaning… more purpose.

Over the years, this has been a fairly constant refrain from clients:  “There should be more to life than THIS.”  There is….

Engaging in life.  Being engaged in life.

Living a bit deeper… a bit wider.

Over the years, 3 P’s have emerged as the Path to living an engaged life.  Those 3 P’s:  Passion, Purpose, and Presence.

When you are focused on building those 3 areas, your Engaged Life builds.

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, I cover the 3 P’s of Living an Engaged Life.  Listen below.

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Book:  Thrive Principles

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Thinking Through The Pandemic

Coping with COVID Series

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Donald Robertson, modern Stoic philosopher and therapist.I was at a book signing a while back, signing a book of mine that is a few years old.  This person picked it up, looked at the publication date, put it down, and said, “I was looking for something more recent.”

That had me pondering… how long is information valid?  Sure, I would not likely want to read a computer book about the Windows 98 operating system, or about the coming “Y2K crisis.”  But what about transformational information?  When does that lose value?

Human brains have not changed in structure for millenia.  Which is why we still garner insight and understanding from books written millenia ago.  Ancient thoughts and texts still illuminate us these days.

Which brings me to my guest this week on the Thriveology Podcast.  I asked Donald Robertson to talk with me about some pretty old thoughts.  No, Donald is not millenia old.  But the philosophy he espouses and teaches is.  Donald is a modern Stoic philosopher, drawing on ancient Stoicism and what it offers to us in our current world.

And in our current pandemic situation, Stoic thought has LOTS to teach us.  In fact, Stoic thought is the underlying philosophy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the cornerstone of modern mental health counseling.

Donald discusses the relevance of Stoic philosophy in today’s world, and how we can apply it to the pandemic in which we find ourselves.  Listen in as Donald Robertson gives some powerful help in dealing with our thoughts and our emotions in the midst of today’s (and future) struggles.

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