November 2006

“Any success you achieve will be in direct proportion to your focus.”

There are lots of ingredients that go into a recipe for success. Talent, ambition, luck, circumstances, environment - just to name a few. But, like the quote preaches - we should never underestimate focus. In fact, we could come up short on one of the other ingredients, and laser-like focus will carry us through. But if we come up short on focus, no amount of the other ingredients will matter. Focus is that important.

When I think of the word focus, I think of the word centralize (to “draw in toward a center.”) It’s almost as if we create a magnetic field with our thoughts, attracting everything we want in our direction. These powerful thoughts have to be fed daily, then the thoughts have to be followed up with work. Good old roll up your sleeves and “get after it” work. The kind that isn’t sidetracked or distracted by doubt, worries, insecurities, anger, frustration, television, web surfing, talking, etc. Talk about buzz kills.

Think of it this way, the opposite of centralize is, of course, decentralize (to “cause to withdraw or disperse from a center of concentration.”). It’s what happens when we lose focus. Rather than pulling all of the things we want in our direction, we push them away. After a while, it becomes a habit. We get comfortable and we actually just push what we want further and further away.

Tonight, give it a little thought. What do you want from life tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Five years from now? Are you focused on drawing these things into your life? Are your creating a powerful magnetic field to draw them your way? Or are you literally pushing them further and further away with each passing day?

This is yet another post that I’m writing to myself as much as anyone.  I have a real problem with Focusing on one thing at a time.  I honestly believe part of it comes from being an only child.  When I was a kid, I had to “be” all the Barbies, bring all the toys to “life,” etc - so my imagination and brain were in full swing 24/7.  (Did I say were?)  I’m still guilty of getting a billion and one things going on around me. 

I’m the one who watches a movie while baking homemade bread, cleaning out the pantry, and writing a post all at once.  I always sign posts on another of my blogs “Make each moment count double”  - but I’ve been known to carry it to extremes.  Sometimes I go for quintuple, but it requires a lot of coffee.

Something I’d very much like from myself is more focus.  It’ll be tough, after all I’ve literally been unfocused since Barbie got her Malibu tan.  But, I’m feeling pretty cocky today, in spite of a hellacious cold.  Sure I’m sneezing my head off, but in between sneezes, there’s a distinct swagger. I absolutely can cut down from doing 5 things at once to 3.  Tomorrow.  Right now, there are four articles to write, a couple of plugins to manipulate (they aren’t seeing things my way), rice to steam, 6 posts to post,  a Christmas tree to put up and decorate, grocery shopping to do, laundry, about 45 e-mails to respond to, and 2 websites to finish revisions on.

I’m going to need more coffee.

Joi

I came across a great article on Super Foods this morning.  It was one of those reading experiences when your mind keeps saying, “Oh - I didn’t know that…”  Happens to me all the time….. you’d think that eventually I’d gain on the didn’ts and start having more, “Knew that” moments.  Eh.

While the article is geared toward you brave, inhuman people known as runners, the information is just as important for those of us who are content to walk and save running for an emergency - i.e. pit bulls chasing our cats, a sale at Kohl’s, sprinting to the phone, that sort of thing.

The information is priceless.  It’s a “Greatest Shopping List of All Time” and lets us know the foods we need to start putting in our shopping cart in place of the cans of Pringle’s, deli doughnuts, and Hershey’s with Almonds. 

I’d actually pull off a quick sprint for a Hershey’s with Almonds right now…after all, Almonds and chocolate are both on the list.  I’m loving this information more and more. The author tells us that the best way to get more chocolate into our diet (not a problem) is to eat it. Now, that I did know.

Click HERE to see the other foods on the list and why they made it.

I hope your week is so amazing that, by Wednesday, you have to pinch yourself.  Twice.

Joi

To me, those two words always seemed totally at odds with one another:  Holiday and Blues.  The holidays have always brought my inner little girl out to play - I absolutely love everything about them, even the crowds and 12 hour days in the kitchen.  Great stuff!

There have only been two years when the holidays lost some of their luster for me - the first holiday season without my father and this year, the first without my mom.  With Daddy, Thanksgiving was the hardest - it was his favorite holiday.  He loved it so much that I sometimes wondered if he didn’t keep a calendar marking down the days to that magical Thursday each year.

With my mom, the Christmas season was her favorite.  She was almost as bad as me.  Someone once told her that she was nuts because she started thinking about Christmas the day after Halloween.  She asked them what that’d make her daughter, who’d officially been talking about it since September 1st.  Not the first or last time I’ve been called completely nuts.

I actually considered for a span of 5 minutes not decorating this year. The Grinch knocked on my door and I actually invited him in.  But after I pictured what my mom would have said to me (”Joi Tania! Are you out of your mind?”).  She always pulled out the middle name when I was in trouble or had done something odd.  I kicked the Grinch out of my house and brought the Santas, Snowmen, Angels, Greenery, etc in.  There’s still plenty of blue, mind you - but all the green and red is making it a lighter shade of blue, somehow.

If I’m going through this, I know others are too - or have or will.  So I wanted to give a few words of the “I’ve been there” brand of wisdom.  To me, that’s the sort of advice I’ve always looked for.  The kind that comes from someone who has been on the road I’m on.  And if any of us have navigated a particularly nasty road - I think the least we can do is tell others about it, in the hopes of helping them in any way we can.  Tell them to watch out for this bump, how to make this turn, and where the road gets better.

So how do you handle the Holiday Blues?  The answer lies in the question.  You handle the blues or they’ll handle you - they’ll take you down to the floor and everyone you love right along with you.  They’d love nothing more, actually.

You have to literally make yourself find normal in a decidedly abnormal time and put a smile on days that are drenched in heartache.  Grief is one of the cruelest things we ever endure, and holidays shine a spotlight on it - you remember the times you had with your loved one(s) and you’re painfully….no, PAINFULLY….aware that they’re missing from their rightful chair.

Seems almost too much to cope with, doesn’t it? So what can get you through the day(s)?

1. Prayer.  If we pray for God to “Get us through” something - He’ll not only get us through it, he’ll carry us.
2. Instead of looking at the “empty” place - look at the “full” ones.  Try with all your might to concentrate of the loved ones you have with you.  Draw strength from them. 
3. Keep busy.  They say that idle hands are a devil’s workshop. Well, if that’s true - an idle mind is grief’s production line.  Stay just as busy as possible.  Not only will you be too busy during the day to think - you’ll be so exhausted at night you’ll drift right off to sleep.  Again, keeping thinking at a minimum!
4. Try to keep things as normal as possible.  Keep the traditions and routines in place as much as possible.  Remember, your loved one would want that.  Several times this year, I’ve taken myself to task - asking what I’d want my own daughters to do if I’d been the one to die.  The answer was always the same, I’d want them to keep living - if I were looking down on them and saw them crying more than laughing, it’d break my heart in a billion pieces.  I’d want them to make the holiday that I loved so dearly as beautiful as possible - and I’d want them to love it as much as I did.
5. Finally, realize that no matter how tightly wrapped you try to stay, you’ll come unwound.  Just try to master the art of unwinding on your own terms.  I’m getting better at that one.  On Mother’s Day, I lost it in the middle of a store - all at once the tears just came and refused to stop.  My daughters were all with me and I’ll never forget the helpless looks on their faces.  One minute we were looking at fairy figurines (I collect the little lovelies) and the next minute my face was drenched and three daughters watched as one tried to climb out of a heartbreak.

If you’re going through anything like this, know that you aren’t alone.  There are a lot of us out there.  We’ll all get through it - just remember to balance out the blues with lots of reds, greens, and golds. 

Joi

“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little deep to find it.”  -Tori Amos

While researching Relationships for an article on TMFC, I came across a book titled, “After Every Wedding Comes a Marriage.”  Inside this very cool book by Florence and Fred Littauer was a Maturity Test.  The test is one of those “Mental Spark Plugs” that life’ll throw our way every now and again.  Can you imagine how together and brilliant we’d be if we took advantage of every such spark plug?

Unfortunately, most of the time we’ll read something like this list or a great quote and think, “I wish so-and-so would read this….he needs it.”  Or, “There are a lot of people who mess up there…”  We humans are pretty funny like that, aren’t we?

A Maturity Test: 

• Do you need to blame other people when things go wrong?
• Do you make excuses for your failures?
• Do you prefer to ignore difficulties and hope they’ll go away on their own?
• Do you sometimes blame your poor background for why you’ve never fulfilled your potential?
• Do you tell a little white lie if it’ll get you off the hook?
• Do people sometimes say, “When are you ever going to grow up?!”
• Do you avoid responsibility if possible?
• Do you find it difficult to adjust to new situations?
• Do you wonder if you’ll ever get all of your life together?
• Do you often think - or tell others - that next year will be different, better, a success?
• Are you usually able to talk your way out of most anything?
• Do you feel that you never get the breaks you deserve?
• When you’re caught at something you shouldn’t be doing, is your first thought to make excuses?
• Do you feel that if you had a bigger, better house you’d be happy?

That’s, like, the third time I’ve read through that list, and what I initially suspected is now something I’m convinced of.  We’re all on this list somewhere because we’re all a little immature - just in different areas.  There’ll be some areas that we own, and other areas that own us. 

For example, I couldn’t care less about the size of the house I live in.  We’ve live in a brand new house, we’ve lived in one older than the Bible (okay, maybe not that old), we’ve lived in jazzy apartments, we’ve lived in an apartment the size of a mouse hole, we’ve lived in a spacious beach house and we’ve lived with family….WHERE doesn’t mean snap - HOW you live and WHO lives with you, that’s all that matters.  Besides, small can be cozy AND there’s less to vacuum and mop.

I’m also all over the adapt to new situations one.  I’ve had to be.  We’ve moved more than Shakira’s hips or Tom Cruise’s lips, and it’s taught me that you either move with the flow or you 1. Tread or 2. Drown.  Neither of those appeal to me, so I’ve always just flowed along and found happiness wherever it waited for me.

But, I most definitely do not like responsibility, I most definitely look to the next year as being better, and have most definitely been known to stand difficulties in the corner and hope they’ll just go away….. as if by magic.  As for the one about ever hearing, ”When are you going to grow up?!”  - Heard it?, heck -  I’m the one at the mirror asking it.

Of course, recognizing one’s faults isn’t a grand thing - the grandness comes only when we recognize, then follow up with repair.  If we hear our car clinking and banging, we haven’t done anything impressive, have we?  In fact, if we don’t do something about it, it’ll keep getting progressively worse…and louder…and, and, and - then we’re walking rather than rolling.

Sometimes we have to look under our own hoods and see what areas need a little work.  You know, check-ups.

That’s the mature thing to do and I need another point in my favor.

Joi

I know I’ve written about Write a Book Now.com on this blog before - but like all truly great things, it deserves a second mention.  I’m really excited about the author, Steve Manning, and about his amazing program.  In fact,  attribute a great deal of my ability to write for 12 blogs and 14 websites to the information in Steve Manning’s program.

When I realized just how much I had bitten off of the blogosphere, I realized that I’d have to chew like I’d never chewed before….. or choke like a loser.  The whole choking like a loser part didn’t appeal to me, so I started rounding up information to educate myself.  Like the quote says, “Genius lights its own fire, but it is constantly collecting materials to keep alive the flame.” 

This particular flame-feeding information was the deal maker.  I printed out the PDF and quickly devoured the information - leaving many, many yellow-highlighted paragraphs in my wake.  I actually started out reading it on the computer, but I kept reaching for my pen and paper so many times (to write down everything I was learning), I soon stopped reaching for them and just reached for the printer button.  And that was the second above average decision I made that day.

As I said, I didn’t buy the information for the purpose of writing a book - although I’ll let you in on a little secret, it  has motivated me to do just that.  I keep my black, white, and yellow copy on my desk and we have every intention of getting started after the first of the year.

If you’ve ever wanted to write a book (either fiction or non-fiction), but faced one of the following problems…

• You’re certain you don’t have the time
• You can’t think of a plot
• You’re afraid you don’t have enough words at your disposal
• You’re afraid of writer’s block
• You don’t know where to start
• You aren’t sure you can do it

….this information is ready to get you started.  And it’ll help you write your book faster than you ever thought possible. In fact, everything’s at your disposal to propel you to write your book in 14 days!!  Two weeks.  If you have several ideas kicking around inside your head, do you realize how many books you could write within a year?!  This time next year, you could be giving your loved ones Christmas gifts like they never expected!

I apologize for all of the exclamation points, when I’m excited, they flow like coffee in a dorm room.

Speaking of writing many, many books, I know you’ve heard of Mark Victor Hansen (he’s a co-author of the amazing Chicken Soup for the Soul books as well as dozens of others).  When he saw the information, he not only said it was some of the best stuff he’d ever used, he even asked the owner of the website to speak at his next seminar! And Mark is using this information to crank out still more books!

This stuff is so powerful that folks all around the world, even absolute novices, are using these techniques to write books faster than they ever thought possible. There’s even a free email course that gets you started FAST! So if writing a book has always been your goal, your dream, your desire, scoot over to Write a Book Now.com and have a look for yourself.

The information is more of a writing course - except it’s cheaper than what you’d have to pay at a University, and you get to stay in your nice, warm home….with coffee nearby and a highlighter in your hand.  I fully, fully, fully encourage any and all writers and would-be writers to get this information.   For what it’s worth, I recommend it 100 percent, without any reservation whatsoever.
Joi

A study at the University of Mississippi Medical Center turned up some sobering information.

Mice were given either water or water and alcohol for a month.  In week two, researchers injected them with melanoma.  MIce that drank the human equivalent of 2-4 alcoholic drinks a day for a month had tumors twice as large as those in the water-only group.

Scientists explain it this way:  The alcohol spurred development of new blood vessels needed to actually FEED cancer.

Alcohol supports cancer - kind of a political backer.

“Science News” quoted researcher Jian-Wei GU, “Our message is simple.  For people with genetic signs of vulnerability to any kind of cancer, NO DRINKING.”

  Below’s  a link to a great article I just found on MSN.  It’s a list of things every father should teach his kids and ranges from Teach a Solid Handshake to Calculate a Tip.  For the most part, they’re things a lot of parents take for granted - thinking, ”My kid knows this…”  Probably not.A link at the end of the article asks, “What else should dads teach their kids?” So I juiced my brain with a little caffeine and got the gears humming.  I’m not a father, of course - but I am a mother of three and have watched two very good fathers at work.

• Life isn’t fair.  That’s why everyone says so.  You never hear anyone exclaim, ”Life’s fair!”  Sometimes Good people get sick, innocent people get blamed, bad people get rich, and the guilty go free.  Don’t dwell on it, accept it and move on.
• Trust and respect have to be earned - not demanded.  This one, of course, goes for the parents as much as it does for the kids.  Parents have a way of demanding respect and kids have a way of demanding trust.  These “awards” are like paychecks - you earn them and they’re yours.  But if you don’t earn them, don’t stand there looking for anything but the dis-.  This one leads into the next one…
• Earn what you want from life, don’t ask for it.  Everything in life pretty much has to be worked for….sometimes even fought for.  Parents who hand their kids everything think of it fondly as “spoiling” them.  Since when is “spoiled” a good thing?  If you sit a spoiled apple next to a perfect apple - it’s quickly obvious just how attractive “spoiling” is.
• Manage your anger or it’ll manage your life.  Yelling, sarcasm, tantrums, hitting walls, throwing things, and namecalling are immature and sub-human.  I’ve always tried to teach my girls that in order to be heard, you need to have something worth listening to and you need to say it in a manner that invites your listener to listen.  The only way to do that is to stay in control.  I tell them to listen to their own voice - if it gets realllllly loud or reallllllly shaky….it’s too late - their control is a thing of the past.  People do not listen to, respect, or honor a screamer.  They simply avoid the screaming.  Kids need to be taught to be calm, and granted with the world we live in, that’s may not be a small feat, but it is a big need.

To drive that last point home:  One night recently, I got bold and ventured away from my beloved Food Netword.  I turned on CNN’s Headline News, to see what was going on in the world outside of Emeril’s kitchen.  I found out that the answer can be summed up in a word - ugliness.  About 15 minutes was all I could take, so I switched over to an adorable Discovery Channel story about gorillas. 

Inside of a 30 minute span, I saw animals acting like humans and humans acting like animals.  Without looking at what my hand was doing, my remote control and I ran back to the Food Channel and Rachael Ray’s smiling face.

Here’s the article - The Book of the Dad.

Joi

I’m not sure about you, but I know one thing about me.  If something doesn’t go my way, I very much WANT it to be someone else’s fault - the nearest family member’s, the Republicans, the Democrats, God…  When, in all actualtiy, I know full well where to find the culprit.  She’s where I last saw her - in the mirror.

I’m convinced of the TOTAL validity of certain things in life:

1. John 3:16
2. If one pot of coffee is good, two is even better.
3. Chocolate is the fifth food group, whether it’s acknowledged or not.
4. We should help those who CAN’T help themselves, not those who WON’T help themselves.
5. My family’s the sweetest, goofiest, most lovable family in the world. 
6. There’s one particular stumbling block that we all trip over - time and time and time again.  A block that sends us spiraling down face first, hindering our quest to get where we’re going and do what we’re doing. 

The worst thing about this stumbling block is that it’s our equal - every bit as strong and resiliant as we are….and it knows all of our tricks and all of our weaknesses. Then again, how could it not.  It is us.

Think about the times in your life when you’ve come up short.  More times than not, you tripped over yourself, not someone else.  You did what we all tend to do - you got in your own way! 

Make it a point this week to look around at different people.  Observe them and make a mental note of the different times people get in their own way. 

• The co-worker who wears so much make-up that it’s all you notice.  Everyone knows she’d be so much prettier without her mask - she’s getting in her own way and tripping over her insecurity. 
• The boss who is consistently late - to meetings, to work, to luncheons, etc.  She is brilliant, bold, and sitting on top a zillion great qualities, but she has become the joke of the office because of consistent laziness. (Which is what I think lies behind consistent tardiness) All of her other traits are hidden behind this one.  She’s getting in her own way.
• The celebrity who has the respect of a nation, then gets falling down drunk and spews ignorance all over the place.  He got in his own way and now has to work overtime to get a reputation back that he threw away.

The list goes on indefinitely.  Just keep your eyes out for them.  Why?  Because when you see others doing it, you’ll be able to recognize it in yourself.  You’ll see that you, too, have a gazillion great traits that may be hidden behind a “louder” bad trait. (Doesn’t it seem like the bad traits are always the louder ones?)

Hopefully, each time you see someone “blowing it,” you’ll ask yourself if you’ve blown in that direction.  And, maybe - just maybe - we’ll become so enlightened that the next time we trip, we’ll run straight to the bathroom mirror and demand, “What did you do?!”

Nine times out of ten, that’s where we’ll find our answer.

When we have that answer - we’ve done something more amazing than we’ll probably realize at the time.  We will have taken a Stumbling Block and turned it into a Stepping Stone.  Then, look out world, we’re on our way!

Joi

Alert the proverbial two birds that the proverbial one stone is headed in their direction. 

Stone #1.  I feel frustrated when I see great posts/articles that I’d like to put in front of your smiling faces.  Frustrated because I don’t feel right about posting a new post for each and every great brainstorm I want to put in your mental forecast.  After all, if anyone subscirbes to the e-mail or RSS alerts, they’d get a tap on the shoulder with each one - and tapping someone on the shoulder for one or two links doesn’t set pretty with me.

Stone #2.  I want to pull the readers out of their RSS readers and invite them in.  I think of people who are ”inside” RSS readers as people who are ”inside” cars - it’s like looking out into your driveway and seeing company….but they never get out of their car. 

I’m just being honest here, we all want people to join us on our blogs - so, giving them incentive to do so seems like an idea whose time has not only come, it’s gone.  So I’ve been trying out a few things on my blogs - like news scrollers.  I put a Mental Fitness news scroller on my Mental Fitness Blog - and it has gotten a lot of great feedback.

An even bigger hit has been the Food TV schedule and rotating recipes on my Cooking Blog. 

The Self Help Alerts I’ll publish in the sidebar will be the best blog posts and articles I’ve come across.  Information that will help all of us as we demand the most from life by first demanding the most for ourselves.

The last post listed in the alerts is especially good (about Positively Hating People).  So good, in fact, that it was the first time in a very long time I looked for a “Print This” button on a blog post.  I wanted to make a copy for everyone I know to read. 

Yep. That good.

Joi

Undermining another person’s confidence by telling them that they can’t do something is the greatest weapon we can use on them. If you want to hold your spouse back, tell them that they’re trying to do something beyond their abilities.  If you have a son you want to hold down, tell him he can’t take a certain course in school because it’s over his head.  Think your daughter is a little too nervous about her math test - tell her she’ll probably fail it, but you love her anyway. 

Letting someone know what we Expect from them sets the stage for what we’ll get from them.  If we let them know that our expectations are high - because we know they can reach them, most of the time - they’ll live up to them.  If we let them know that our expectations are low - because we know they’re limited, most of the time - they’ll live down to them.

Words can be weapons of mass destruction even when we don’t mean for them to be.  I guess since we say so many of them each day we take them for granted and don’t fully realize the power each one holds.  Sometimes the power of words is so great and so inspiring that worlds move.  Other times they’re so hurtful and so discouraging that worlds collapse.

In tests in Canada, women who were told that men and women do math equally well did much better than those who were told there is a genetic difference in math ability.

The women who did better in the tests got nearly twice as many right answers as those in the other groups (Nearly twice as many!), as pointed out by Steven J. Heine - a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

High expectations or Low expectations - where do you want to set the bar for those you love?  Where do you want to set it for yourself?  We do, you know, listen to our own words….and they don’t have to be said out loud.  I’d say that 9 times out of 10 that’s the very spot we trip on.

The old saying goes something like this - “Don’t expect much, then you won’t be disappointed.”  What miserable wretch must’ve thought that one up?  If you don’t expect much, you’re disappointed before you even start!

Expect everything.  Then make it happen. 

Joi