Denny Strecker’s Blog

If you find yourself vulnerable to the criticism of others, remember this:

There are two types of people in the world. Those that DO. And — those that comment
on what the do-ers do.

Criticism of others makes the critic feel like he is doing something important.
Meanwhile, he does nothing. Takes any risk. Contributes nothing of value. And,
adds to the stress and discouragement of everybody around him.

I knew a man who always appeared to be an expert. Wherever he worked, he always
seemed to know what the bosses were doing wrong.

When his son joined the sports team at school, he was very opinionated about
the strategies of the coaching staff.

At first, I was impressed with his opinions. Quickly, though, I began to see
that this man never did anything himself. He only commented critically on
the actions of others.

It was difficult to resist saying, “Well, why don’t YOU open a business, become
the boss and see how you do?” or “Why don’t you coach the team…and let’s see
what you’ve got!”

Of course, there is no point in saying these things. The only useful thing
to do is to recognize these comments for what they are…and to NOT be
affected by them when they are directed at you!

Have you ever been driving and some other driver nearly knocks you off the road—maybe even comes within a foot or two of killing you? It’s happened to me a few times in the almost 30 years that I’ve been driving. Whether it has ever happened to you or not, pretend for a minute that it did.

Imagine the thoughts that would be running through your mind while you were still heated. I can imagine the thought “I should kill that guy,” being one of your thoughts, or something similar, relating to some sort of revenge. Now the question becomes, “would you do it?” I mean it. Would you kill the driver? Of course you wouldn’t.

And other than the fact that it’s against the law and that you’re a moral person, why wouldn’t you act on that thought? The reason is simple: The thought was just a thought—like the thousands of other thoughts that run through your mind every single day. You realize it was just a thought and you promptly dismiss it.

This doesn’t mean you aren’t a little spooked or that you don’t care—of course you do. But by dismissing the thought, you put the event behind you, opening the door for you to move into the present moment and be happy in this moment instead of caught up in a thought that is just a thought, like all other thoughts—including the thought of the baseball player dropping the ball.

Today, as we live our life, that event is merely a thought carried through time, via our own thinking As long as you see it, not as a reality to contend with, but as a simple thought, you are free to live right now, in this moment. Because thoughts are just thoughts (all of them) you have the power to drop any thought, at any time. You are absolutely in charge and have the last say! This is the ultimate in taking responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings.

Here’s a little more food for thought. Let me ask you a funny question. Would you ever, even for a moment, consider writing yourself a nasty, mean-spirited letter and then mailing that letter to yourself? Then, when you get the letter you open it and you’re immediately offended by the mean and obnoxious content! You storm around the room and act all out of sorts!

Of course this would never happen in a million years, but why? The reason is that you would be aware that it was you who wrote the letter. How silly would it be to write a letter and then become upset by that very letter?

Well that’s the exact same logic we can apply to our thinking. Think about it carefully. Why would you ever have a thought—any thought, no matter how negative or scary—and then become nervous, reactive, angry or in some other way bothered by it? Remember, it’s just a thought you’re having, just like all the others. And what’s more important, you’re the one who produced the thought to begin with.

Being upset by your own thoughts is a little like smashing your head against a wall and wondering why your head hurts. Remember, you wouldn’t act on a scary thought like killing another driver, no matter how bad he or she was—why? Because it was just a thought. The secret to a happy life is to realize that all of our thoughts are just thoughts. True things happen all the time, but once they are over—or if they haven’t happened yet, they are just thoughts.

Before I close, take one last look at that ball player who dropped the ball. Regardless of how high the stakes were, it’s now, today, right now, nothing more than a thought—no more or less important than any others! Try applying this logic to all of the thoughts that run through your mind and, pretty soon, you’ll be dropping any negativity you’ve been burdening yourself with—and what you’ll be left with is, you’ve got it—happiness!

About the Author
Richard Carlson, PhD, was considered one of the world’s foremost experts on happiness and stress reduction. As the author of thirty popular books, which have sold more than 26 million copies worldwide, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, he showed millions of people how to not let the small things get the best of them.

By Richard Carlson

It’s always been interesting to me that the average person (go ahead and ask them), spends ten times (or more) the amount of time watching television than he or she does even considering happiness.

In fact, in one poll that I conducted, not a single person out of more than 30 people admitted to spending even one second thinking about how they might go about becoming happier!

Some of these people spent anywhere from 2-7 hours a day in front of a television set, yet not one minute contemplating what could amount to the most important question of one’s life—how can I be happier?

One of the first rules of any venture is that in order to get somewhere, you need at least a general idea of how to get there and, at the very least, where you are going!

We’re really lucky in a way as learning to be happy is a very easy thing to do. In fact, happiness is our natural state. If left to our devices and if we could find a way to stop interfering with the flow, we’d be extremely happy right now. So while life did not come with a instruction book on happiness, it really didn’t have to. By following some really simple principles and also knowing how to get out of our own way, we can become extremely happy, regardless of our present circumstances.

Most people would agree with the notion that when a baby is born, he or she is a fairly clean slate. In other words, they aren’t vicious, reactive, judgmental, dissatisfied, prejudice, jealous, or angry. Instead, they are simply little beings who are curious and open to learning. Unfortunately, most of the time they eventually learn some pretty negative thinking which leads to some pretty unhappy times.

We are taught that our thoughts are real and that we should pay attention to them. Problem is, they aren’t real, they are just thoughts.

Think of a time when you were, say, driving home from a baseball game and on the last play of the game, your favorite player, dropped an easy ball and blew the game and the season for your team and all the fans, you being one of them. You’re now in the comfort of your own home and the outcome of the game is brought up by other members of your family. You start to think about the dropped ball and you start to get depressed. You launch into a lecture about how the team needs new outfielders! Yikes, it’s happening all over again!

It’s as if the dropped ball is happening all over again in your living room. As you think about it, you get more and more distressed, after all, you rationalize, he “did” drop the ball!

That’s true he did drop the ball. But let me show you how easy it is to dismiss that thought now that the event is over. You’re about to see that while the unfortunate event did occur, it’s now only a harmless thought with no power over you other than that which you give it. And once you realize this, happiness will be moments away.

To Be Continued…

Did you know that there are many different languages within a language?

Here’s what I mean. There is a language of gossip, isn’t there? Or how about
the “language of swearing?”

And have you ever had anyone speak to you who was fluent in the language of criticism?

Many people are skilled in the language of condemnation and criticism. They have a load
of different ways to you something they don’t like about you or about what you did?

Most people, though, only have a few ways to speak highly of somebody or something.

Want to be a better person? Work on your Language of APPROVAL.
Become fluent in this . Find more and better ways to describe good people, good things
good efforts.

You will be a better human being as a result!

The best place to start the Language of Approval is in your home and with your children.
Challenge each family member to come up with a different way to compliment someone
else and see who runs out first. This is a great way to get people thinking about compliments,
improving their vocabulary, and just having a lot of fun with your family!

By Jim Rohn

Here’s the great challenge of life - you can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are.

I have found that income seldom will exceed your own personal development. Once in a while income takes a lucky jump, but unless you grow out to where it is it will go back to where you are.

Somebody once said if you took all the money in the world and divided it among everyone equally, it would soon be back in the same pockets. However, you can have more because you can become more.

You see, here is how the other side of the coin reads - unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got. The marketing plan won’t do it. It’s a good plan but it won’t work without you. You’ve got to work it. It is the human effort that counts. If you could send a sales manual out to recruit - wouldn’t that be lovely? The major thing that makes the difference is what YOU do.

In order to have more, you need to become more. The guy says “If I had a good job I would really pour it on, but I have this lousy job so I just goof off.” If that is your philosophy you are destined to stay there. Some people say if I had a lot of money I would be really generous, but I don’t have much so I’m not generous.

See, you’ve got to change that philosophy or you will never have “the lots of money”. Unless YOU change, IT won’t change. Amazingly, however, when we throw out our blame list and start becoming more ourselves - the difference is everything else will begin to change around us.

I love stories. I think they are a very powerful way of making important points.

Here’s one of my favorites about self-confidence:

The business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench, head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy. Suddenly an old man appeared before him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.” He asked the man his name and wrote out a check. He pushed it into his hand, and said, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.” Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come. The business executive saw in his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world! “I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the uncashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business.

With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again. Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the uncashed check. At the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the check and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man. “I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been bothering you. He’s always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller.” And she led the old man away by the arm. The astonished executive just stood there, stunned. All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after. As nice as this story is, I doubt if it is actually true. However, like a lot of fables, it makes a great common sense point about career and life success. If you believe in yourself and your success, you are likely to find ways to make that belief come true. Think about it.

Obesity in the United States continues to rise and is now affecting our children. Kids are becoming lazier each day and therefore less active which then naturally leads to overweight. With video games, computers and television taking the place of any “real” physical activity - and I hate to be the bearer of bad news parents…but buying your children the Nintendo Wii DOES NOT constitute exercise.

Kids don’t even go over to their friends houses anymore. Instead, they text or IM each other. So here is a great idea to help your child stay out of the obese category and live a healthy life.

They have to earn credits to watch tv or play their video or computer games. The credits are tied to a physical activity. This setup can benefit your child in a number of ways.

First, if they don’t want to exercise they don’t have to - but then they aren’t able to watch any time or play any games. They may actually begin to read more, which can lead to study more, which may in turn, lead to better grades in school. Wouldn’t that be a treat?!

Second, they will learn to schedule their TV time. If they REALLY want to watch a show, then they have to make sure they have the credit time to do that.

Third, they will begin to learn how to budget - which a much needed skill in most adults these days. They can spend all of their credits today that they earned, or they can save some for later in case a better show or movie comes on that they did not know about.

Finally, they learn that being healthy won’t kill them. Find creative ways to keep them active and make sure most, if not all of those ways, include you! Remember, you are the role model. Yelling at your child from the couch with a soda and chips in your lap is not good parenting!!

Now, you may be thinking, “How can I limit their TV time when I am not at home with them?” Well, I have the answer to that question. Want to know what it is? Then click the comments button below and leave me a comment about what you think about this article. If enough people reply I will post the answer next Friday.

By Zig Ziglar

Just what can positive thinking do? To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can’t stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do “anything.” If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it. As a ridiculous example, I’m a positive thinker, but I could never slam-dunk a basketball or perform major surgery - or even minor surgery - on anyone and expect that person to survive. Nate Newton, the 300-plus pound lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, is positive, optimistic and outgoing but he’d be a complete failure as a jockey or a ballet dancer.

It’s safe to say that positive thinking won’t let you do “anything.” However, it is even safer to say that positive thinking will let you do “everything” better than negative thinking will. Positive thinking will let you use the ability which you have, and that is awesome. It works this way. You can walk into a dark room, flip on the switch and immediately the room is lighted. Flipping the switch did not generate the electricity; it released the electricity which had been stored. Positive thinking works that way - it releases the abilities which you have.

The student who hasn’t studied and prepared for the test won’t be helped by “thinking positively.” However, positive thinking will help the student who has studied and prepared by “releasing” the stored knowledge when the questions are asked. To express it in a different way, knowledge breeds confidence; confidence breeds enthusiasm; and enthusiasm is an important key to being and doing more with your life.

Buy the positive approach to life and I will SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Zig Ziglar is a motivator and teacher. He is the author of 26 books and loved by millions of people world wide for his practical wisdom and his gift of hope.

By Robert Ringer

Detachment is an incredibly powerful tool that I wish I had understood much earlier in life. There are many things from which you can detach yourself, and one of the most important is the habit of judging people, actions, and circumstances as being right or wrong, good or bad.

As Deepak Chopra says in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when you are constantly classifying, labeling, and evaluating, you “create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue.” The more internal bickering that takes place, the less time and room (in your mind) for constructive thinking.

Worry, irrelevant thoughts, and fears only add to this internal bickering. All of these are abstracts from which you should make a conscious effort to detach yourself. Even more important is the necessity to detach yourself from needing the approval of others. When you are attached to peer approval, you tend to make bad decisions.

Then there is the pain and discomfort of your present situation. The more you struggle against the unpleasant circumstances of the moment, the more time and energy you waste. It’s okay to want things to get better down the road, but don’t waste time and energy wishing things were different than they are right now.

Accepting your present situation means detaching yourself from the pain it is causing you. Philosophically, you should learn to accept pain as a normal part of life. Which means, paradoxically, that the best way to eliminate pain is to not try to eliminate it. The more you fight pain, the more it is likely to persist.

Above all, learn to detach yourself from specific results. Practice the art of being flexible. Understand that circumstances constantly change and that things rarely work out precisely as planned. The results you end up with may be much different from the results you were after, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be less satisfying. If you are too attached to a specific result, it shuts down your creativity.

As with peer approval, when you are too attached to a specific result, you have a tendency to force decisions. And forced decisions are most often bad decisions.

The quickest and most certain way to achieve a goal is to mentally focus on what you want, and attach very strong feeling to wanting it. If you picture a result without attaching strong feelings to it, it’s no more than a thought. And that’s where the subtle connection between desire and letting go comes in.

Having strong feelings about wanting something in your life is a good thing. The stronger your feelings, the better. But, at the same time, you have to let go and allow it to come to you - perhaps in a different form than you expected.

If a specific objective becomes an obsession - if you believe that you can’t be happy without achieving it - your feelings pass the point of diminishing returns and your focus becomes counterproductive.

All this does not mean that you should permanently resign yourself to the circumstances of your currently bad situation. Nor does it mean that you should give up your desire or intention for a specific result. What you should give up is your attachment to that result. Or, as Chopra puts it, you should “accept the present and intend the future.”

When you become adept at detachment - from pain, from evaluating and classifying everything that crosses your path, from precise results - it gives you the time, energy, and mental clarity to focus on the single most important activity for overcoming an impossibly bad situation: exploiting opportunities.

What opportunities? The opportunities that are part and parcel of every “impossible” situation.

Based on personal experience, I am convinced that the greatest opportunities lie in the eye of the storm - at the very center of your worst problems.

Use your will to detach yourself from your impossible situation and, instead, spend your time cultivating the opportunities it has brought into your life - keeping in mind that such opportunities may be heavily camouflaged.

During my research today I came across an incredibly sad statistic:

The average child hears 432 negative statements per day and only
hears 32 positive statements per day.

It’s no wonder why our children are stressed, depressed, and not excited
about growing up. This is not the example we need to be setting.

Parenting Challenge

Step 1 - Click on the Comments button at the end of this article and leave
a comment saying that you Accept This Challenge.

Step 2 - Click the Share This button and forward this article to any other
parents you know and see if they are willing to accept the challenge.

Step 3 - For the next 7 days, track how many times you say something negative
to your children vs. how many times you say something positive.

Step 4 - Come back to this article and click on the Comments button and
leave your results.

I am excited to see how many parents are willing to STEP UP and not only
accept the challenge, but be willing to follow through and post their TRUE numbers.

This is your chance to become the role model that I have discussed time and
time again in this blog. If you don’t take action now, I am concerned you will
never be able to help your child be confident.