Category Archives: Positive Psychology

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Ending Your Day Well

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End your day on a high note.Days have a rhythm.  All day long, it is a huge inhale, trying to get that energy in you and into your efforts.

But at the end of the day, it is a big exhale, a moment of relaxing and calming.

Or more accurately, it should be.

In our natural rhythm, evenings are a time to wind-down, calm down, and move toward rest.

In fact, our ancestors had no choice but to do that.  No lights to keep on.  No screens to watch or video games to play.  No social media to post to.  Just a quiet time to move toward sleep.

Experts tell us that our society is sleep deprived.  And researchers are clear that this impacts work performance, relationships, happiness, health, moods, and a myriad of other factors.

To put it simply, if you are not getting adequate rest, you will struggle to thrive!  Your body, psyche, and relationships will pay the price.

In this podcast, I cover 4 areas of your life that you can shift, so that you have the best chance for getting the best rest.

Join me to end your day on a high note, and start your night ready for rest.

RESOURCE MENTIONED IN PODCAST:
Podcast on Starting Your Day Right

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The SSC Strategy for Thriving

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StartStopContinueHave you heard of Kaizen?  It is the principle of continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement is a great model for change.  It is based on constant changes toward a better outcome.  No need for sudden upheaval or change (although that is sometimes necessary).  Instead, course corrections are made along the way, nudging something toward improvement.

That “something”?  It might be a product (like Japanese automobiles, where Kaizen became the method of them becoming excellent automobiles), companies, or even individuals.

But how, you might wonder, do you actually DO that continuous improvement?

Let me offer a super-simple tool that you can apply to your own life, to your company or workplace, or even to a relationship or organization.

SSC – Start, Stop, Continue

Three benchmarks:  What do you need to Start?  What do you need to Stop?  What do you need to Continue?

In this week’s episode, I discuss how to apply SSC to your own life… and to other areas in your life.

Listen in for a new tool.

RELATED RESOURCES
Dealing with Change
Why We Avoid Change
Paradigms
Limiting Beliefs

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Thrive in ‘25

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Here we go!  The old year has passed, and the new year stretches before us… full of possibility and potential.  Let’s talk about how to Thrive in ’25!

In this episode, I’ll tell you where I have been, and where the podcast is headed.  I’ve got lots of great stuff coming your way, and am excited to share it with you.

Also in this episode, I tell you the 3 A’s of what you can control, so you can start applying that RIGHT NOW.

Stay tuned for future episodes!

And listen to this episode below.

 

RELATED RESOURCES:
My Books, Click HERE
Episode Synopsis, Click HERE

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Give Thanks

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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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Community and Connection

The Thrive Code Series

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We all need connection and community in our lives. Where is your connection? Where is your community?It’s in our DNA.  We have a need to connect with others, to have connections and relationships.  We express that in close relationships and larger groups.

And unfortunately, lately, we have often allowed tribalism into our connections.  When we slip into our tribal thinking, we work from a place of exclusion.  This leads to a greater illusion of connection.  In reality, that connection is based in being the same as others in the tribe.

Community, on the other hand, allows others to include themselves.  It is not about differences.  Lines are not drawn to separate.  Differences have room for inclusion. And true connection can grow.

Speaking of connection… we need connection in life to thrive.  Those who are caught in isolation suffer, both emotionally and in their health.  It is also deeply wired into our DNA.

Where is YOUR community?

Where is YOUR connection?

Listen to this episode of Thriveology Podcast for why community and connection are so important.

RELATED RESOURCES
Challenge:  Thrive Code #1
Control:  Thrive Code #2

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Finding Self-Confidence

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HowToBuildSelfConfidenceWe all want confidence — SELF-confidence.  We want to be confident before we act.  In other words, I want to feel confident of myself before I move toward something.

Or maybe that’s just me!  🙂

But I think that comes at it from the wrong direction.  FEAR seems to be between us and action.  Mostly because of the order we have for action:

Confidence ==> Action ==> Success.

But instead, we have:

FEAR ==> Wait for Confidence ==> Keep Waiting

If you understandt the real flow, then you can step aside and let fear pass you by, letting you take action AND gain confidence.

Listen to this episode of the Thriveology Podcast to learn more.

RELATED RESOURCES:
Getting Un-Stuck
Fear Is A Given
New Book:  Immutable Laws Of Living

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What’s Your Challenge??

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How to challenge yourself and grow!Are you up for a challenge?

In the last episode of my podcast, I discussed how to hold on when life is tough.  That’s when life is challenging you.

But what about when life isn’t so challenging… where life is copacetic?  Just cruising.

It’s my observation that we work hard to keep life flat.  We work hard to keep things smooth.  Cold out?  Turn on the heater.  Hot out?  Turn on the A/C.  Keep things even… even-keeled.  Flat.

We spend LOTS of energy to save the energy of dealing witb challenges, big or small.

But does that help (or harm) us?  Does it keep us safe or make us fragile?

What if taking on small challenges actually gets us better prepared for bigger challenges?  What if making choices to expand into life helps us deal with life encroaching upon us?

One of my “things” is to find little challenges for myself… new things to try, new activities to do, new tastes or sounds to take in, and new ways to try life.

How about you?  What challenges are you taking on right now?

Listen to this episode of the Thriveology Podcast to discover the power of a challenge.

RELATED RESOURCES
Learning and Life
Ways to Expand
Growth Mindset
Lessons in Jiu Jitsu
Book:  Thrive Principles
 

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How to Be FREE

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One day, I was watching some videos (you know how that rabbit hole works) that led me to a video on this interesting sport.  I love water sports, and am frequently daydreaming this time of year about being in warm water.

Prime Hall and Don Tran of Deep End Fitness.I have no idea how that led to this video, but it was a team playing this weird underwater game of hockey/ultimate frisbee/survival thing.  It was the Underwater Torpedo League.

Underwater Torpedo was invented by two former special ops guys.  They used it to help training clients get better at breath holding and calm under stress.  But it sure looked like a blast of a time!  I filed it under “I’d love to do that!”

Fast-forward and I met these two guys.  Turns out they do more than just train some people.  They actually train professional athletes on a regular basis, including MMA, NFL, and even pro surfers.

Prime Hall and Don Tran are the guys behind the game.  But they are also performance coaches outside the pool.  They work with people about performing in life, using their F.R.E.E. Your Mind protocol.  Through their coaching, they help people reduce stress, perform better, and become better versions of themselves.

In this episode, Don and Prime discuss their protocol with me, so that you can make shifts toward higher performance in all of your pursuits.

RELATED RESOURCES
FREE Your Mind Info Website
Underwater Torpedo League Website
What Is Stress?
How To Deal With Stress
 

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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.

RELATED RESOURCES
What You Can Control
The MPI Triad and Why it Matters
The Coping with Covid Series
My Books on Thriving

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Is the Present Perfect?

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Is the present perfect? Yes. Find out how in this episode of the Thriveology Podcast.My client was telling me about lots of struggles, difficult times, and a few positive moments.  I noted, as I have many times with many clients, “It sounds like your present is perfect.”

She went silent.  I was silent.  But I could see her processing and struggling with my words.  I sat quietly.

She finally erupted: “Perfect?!? How can you say that?  After all the stuff I told you… how can you tell me that things are perfect?”

I told her, “I didn’t say great.  I didn’t say it was how you wanted them to be.  Only that the present is perfect.”

In that moment, I could see her gears turning… but she still couldn’t make sense of what I was saying.

How can things feel upside-down and inside-out, and be perfect?

“Perfect” does not mean preferred.  It means something is complete.  A perfectly cooked steak is complete. It is cooked to a certain level.  But also consider a “perfect storm,” the perfect combination of  circumstances that mean the storm is more powerful than when those circumstances don’t combine.

The idea of the Present Perfect, which sounds like grammar, comes from life coach, Thomas Leonard.  He noted that the Present Perfect is the fact that this moment perfectly reflects everthing that has come before, up until now.

Why does that matter?  We explore it in this episode of the Thriveology Podcast.  Listen below

RELATED RESOURCES
Medium Article on the Present Perfect
Importance of Acceptance
What Can You Control?
Accept or Act
My Books

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