Category: love

10 way how to improve how you and others feel about yourself


fountain

Be a fountain and not a drain 

Photo credit: Wikipedia link El Alamein Memorial Fountain in Sydney, New South Wales

It is so much easier to be a drain than to be a fountain. A fountain takes a lot of energy to push out water and distribute it such that it works effectively. Fountains symbolize refreshment, nourishment, and providing water as a life spending human resource. Fountains therefore help sustain life. They also represent beauty and many say they even are a source of good luck. A drain is just there and does not need to do anything.Of course that is not a literal reference, but it is a great analogy. When we are at our best we are a fountain: we expend our energy to provide love, inspiration, empathy, compassion, creativity, and so many other positive attributes.

However, many, many people allow themselves acting as a drain to themselves and others. Just take some time at the airport, in traffic, and even at the grocery store and observe the sometimes really nasty interactions between total strangers. Ultimately, these folks are energy sinks – a drain of immense power. How about the drain you experience when you have issues with your spouse or your boss? That hits in the gut and heart, doesn’t it? You can literally feel the energy leaving your body and soul when you are close to nasty people like this.

Ultimately though is your choice. Only you can choose to either take a positive route or the negative. Here a few ways how you can be that fountain to others and you will good about yourself as well:

  • Choose your attitude: Every morning and moment brings along a new choice for you to make. You can either choose to be miserable, or you can choose to smile and be full of joy. No, I am not saying you should fake this. No matter how miserable you think you have it, rest assure there are plenty of other people who have got it so much worse than you.
  • Make other people’s day: It is easier than you think. From random kinds of kindness to just being there for others when they need a boost will do wonders for the ones whom you are helping and your own self esteem.
  • Employ the Platinum Rule: I am sure you know the Golden Rule – treat others like you would be treated. Kick this up a notch or two. The Platinum Rule is treating others like they want to be treated. How do you know that other people like what you like? Is it not better to ponder how other people would like to be treated? Would this not make a much better first impression?
  • Play: Having genuine fun with others whether or not you are at home or at work is incredibly inspiring and uplifting. Ponder how you can generate a good solid mutual laugh with each other. Carry that out as much as your laughing muscles will bear it.
  • Be grateful: Gratitude is when you are truly humbled by the many gifted and talented people you get to meet on a daily basis. Gratitude is when you are truly grateful for your health, family, and friends. We have so much to be grateful for.
  • Share your talents: You impact more people than you think by what you do best. Share whatever talents you have and do it freely.
  • Volunteer: Let it be at school, church, hospitals, fire companies, local business associations, theater, special events, etc. Volunteering impacts the lives of many people and it feels great having made a difference for others.
  • Sleep: Huh? What does that have to do with being inspiring to others? That’s really simple: You had better sustain yourself and sleep as much as you can such that you have plenty of energy to expend.
  • Believe: Faith has a great impact on sustaining yourself. I find it all but impossible to be a fountain and not having a strong belief. Stock up on Faith and you will be inspiring to others and have the necessary integrity to do that for the long haul.
  • Ask what you may bring – not what you can get: In anything you do with and for others make sure you demonstrate your servitude attitude. Serving others is key to advance yourself. Yes, you serve the ones you may be in charge of. Be open, collaborative, inquisitive, and help break down barriers for the people whom you serve. Give and you shall be given.

Don’t be a drain like this woman (click to watch video). Fear, hatred, bitterness, too much ego drain your personality and reputation straight into the gutter. Sometimes it may be fun and also lucrative to let those bad feelings and thoughts direct you through the day. Ultimately, you allow those dark forces to lower, if not destroy your potential.

That’s when you see a fountain make sure to think of what you will do today to inspire others to also do their best in becoming one too.

Ralf

1 important life tip for young folks


1 important life tip for young folks 

Photo credit: Pablo by Buffer.com

Please ponder the following request that is actually important for everyone: Make sure to enjoy life while it still is in a giving mode. First life gives, later it starts taking things away from you. When we are young there are so many gifts that are available to us. Skills, friends, education, career, health, etc., in fact there are countless examples of it. Then there is a time when life seems to start taking things away from us.

In the last couple of years quite a few great people were taken away from me due to cancer. Sure, there are still many new gifts that keep coming our way, but there are equally more people and other things important to us that are whisked away. Take health for instance (I need reading glasses now, how did this happen?) and it will not take all that long, at the rate of speed we are going, that the kids will eventually move on.

How about you? Where are you in this cycle? Is life giving you more than it takes? Hopefully so. Be really thankful if it does and do not waste any time making the best of the gifts presented to you. Also, growing older lets us take fewer risks – it’s the tool helping avoid things taking things away from you. Point of today’s post is to appreciate life to its fullest and to fill it with meaning. You never know if your life is the next thing that is about to disappear.

Ralf

Find out who is making a greater difference in your life


Find out who is making a greater difference in your life 

What is more important: success or significance? Most societies put a lot of peer pressure on people when it comes to careers, education, and personal / societal status. The pressure is on all of us to succeed. Succeed in what though? What does success look like? How does significance fit into this scenario? Feeling a little confused yourself?

The following 2 different mental approaches may help guide you towards more clarity where you want to draw the fine thin line. It also helps finding out who is having the greatest positive impact on your life.

Let’s take a quick look at 5 brief questions/ scenarios that will get us started pondering “success”:

  1. Who were the last 5 recipients of a Nobel prize (name any that come to mind)?
  2. Who were last year’s 5 top earners in the United States?
  3. Name 5 Emmy winners from last year?
  4. How about 5 Oscar winners for the same time period (your choice of any category)?
  5. Name the last 5 Heisman trophy winners?

These individuals truly embody success. How many did you remember? In pondering all 5 categories myself, I had some significant issues coming up with even a few names.

Now reflect upon the next list of scenarios and take some time to write the results down. By the end of the exercise you will know why.

  1. Name 5 people that you really enjoy spending time with.
  2. List 3 to 5 teachers that have impacted your life the most.
  3. Think of at least 3 friends who have helped you through tough times.
  4. How many people can you think of that changed your life forever?
  5. Name 3 folks for whom you would give your life, because they are so special to you.

Which list affected you the most? The former list certainly is in a league of its own and no one will argue that any of the people you came up with are extremely successful. One thing that probably struck you is how fast the world of the successful passes us right by: Isn’t it amazing how few of them we remember even though their achievements have been very recent.

Wouldn’t you agree that the second list of people is the one that captures significance best? Take a good hard look at the people whose names you wrote on a piece of paper. Some of them will be in your thoughts (and prayers) for as long as you live.

There are two things I would like for you to do. How many of these folks are alive today? If they are alive, do they know how much they mean to you? Please go out of your way telling them this right away. Secondly, ponder what kind of a legacy you want to be known for. Here is an exercise you can use to get there.

How did this mental jogging work for you? Remember that you hold your own life’s snow globe in your hands. Give it a good shake. Do not hold back and start becoming your better self today.

Ralf

Which person impacted and changed your life forever?


Which person impacted and changed your life forever? 

Photo credit: Pablo by Buffer

Think of a person that has changed or impacted your life the most. This person saw something in you that he or she believed in you more than you did. His/ her encouragement led to a much enriched life journey for you.

Does this person know what kind of impact their belief had in you? My call to action is to get in touch with this person immediately. Let her/ him know how you feel and appreciate what he/she did.

Next, follow this train of thought and create a ripple effect. Give of yourself. Help out a person who struggles through life. If you want to read up on what that could look like, Jeff Goins’ book “Wrecked” could help set the stage for you.

My person is my best friend Holger who helped me through some great difficulty when I was 17 and enduring the hardship of apprenticeship. My mom and dad did not have problems with alcohol – they had problems without alcohol. They were alcoholics. The home life was a royal mess, and we did not even have money to buy heating oil for about two winters.

Girl friend? Hah, did not have the guts and the heart much less the energy getting entangled with more issues. I was bullied extensively during the first year of my job apprenticeship. Whenever I could I would drink heavily. Shame galore – living in a small village in Germany was not a walk in the park when you are being put into the same category as your dad. Dad is an idiot = son must be an idiot also. That was a simple equation that came with some “interesting” ramifications. Life was miserable.

One particularly bad night I had come back from a party with co-workers, drunk and depressed. I bumped into Holger at a block party and he saw the heap of a mess that was me. He listened and helped me get my bearing again. Day by day and thought-by-thought. We became lifelong friends, but as of late we can no longer stay in contact all that much as we live in totally different places. Thanks for all you did my friend during the darkest time of my life! Life improved soon thereafter once I realized that I was still in control of my thoughts. Thoughts are just thoughts – they are not me! Once I stopped my own pity party life improved beyond measure.

Do you know someone who picked you up from the floor and put you back on your feet? How about a teacher or coach? This special person may not even remember you. It does not matter. Make sure you tell him that you love him and that you appreciate everything that he did for you. Do it fast, because life can change with an blink of an eye*.

Ralf

*Thanks, Tom!