Insights & Strategies for a Purposeful Life
Explore expert advice, powerful mindset shifts, and practical tools to help you overcome challenges, build resilience, and create lasting success.
The Power of POSITIVITY: 9 Key Traits to Transform Your Life
Positivity, or the power of positivity, is more than just a fleeting emotion—it’s a mindset, a way of living, and a powerful tool for success. Research has shown that people with a positive outlook experience better health, stronger relationships, and greater overall satisfaction in life. But how do you cultivate true positivity? One way is by understanding the essential traits that make up a positive mindset and embracing the power of positivity daily. Embracing the power of positivity can significantly impact your life. By harnessing the power of positivity, you can improve your overall well-being and create a ripple effect of positivity in your community. The power of positivity can transform your life in ways you never imagined. Using the
Is Your Calendar Controlling Your Life?
I don’t know about you, but my calendar is getting full. Opportunities that were closed to me a year ago are starting to open up. Part of me says, “Yes!” I have missed this and it feels good to be able to do this again. Part of me thinks, “There
Never Say Never?
Recently I came across an article entitled, 10 Things You Should Never Do In Life. Now, I was taught not to say never in my writing by the editor of my book, Thomas Cantrell, so I was piqued by the list. I discovered that most of the items were things
Eat Your Vegetables and Other Things Your Mother Told You to Do
It’s National Eat Your Vegetables Day We all know we should eat our vegetables, among other things. Yet, how many times do we grab for the brownie and skip the vegetables? There are other things we know we should do – but we don’t. Why not? The answers vary. Perhaps
Target Fixation: Staying Focused
Do you know what target fixation is? A person becomes so fixated on an object that they end up driving into it. I heard a friend talking about it in connection to motorcycle riding. It is one of the most common reasons motorcyclists crash. If the motorcyclist stares at a
Zooming In and Out
Computers are amazing. There is one tool on my computer that comes in handy. I seem to use it more now than I used to. Perhaps it has something to do with my twin sister having a birthday recently. It is the zoom tool. When I need to see more
Information vs. Transformation
In thinking about the topic for today’s email, I googled positivity and came up with 52,300,000 responses. That is a lot of information. If you had the time to go through and read all the articles and posts, would it make you more positive? Not likely. We can read books
Choose Love, Always
Love Conquers All Day is June 3rd. Even though this holiday is on the weird and bizarre calendar of holidays, it might be one of the most important days of the year. So much of what is happening in the world and in our homes can be solved by choosing
Is Being Grateful Enough?
I am a big believer in being grateful. Gratitude can help us to feel content. Gratitude can cause a perception shift that leads to growth. Gratitude can help us to look outside ourselves. Gratitude can create connection. We celebrate Memorial Day this weekend and I was thinking about the reason
Make a Fist, Now Catch
Make a tight fist and don’t open your hand. Now catch what I throw to you. It is a little hard to catch something when your hand is tightly fisted. I use this example when talking to clients who are having a hard time letting go of something. When they
How Can I Stop Trying To Make Everyone Happy?
This is a topic that I have dealt with and in my 30 year psychology practice, I have had more than one person in my office with the same problem. They are trying to make everyone in their life happy and they are miserable because they feel like they are
Default to Positivity
If your default is to negativity, you can learn to be more positive! My friend Devan Thorpe asked me on LinkedIn if our optimism setpoint is immovable or can we learn to be more positive? Unless you missed it, I am a Positive Psychologist. I answered that through research and
Something vs. Someone
People come to see me for a variety of reasons. They are having trouble in their marriage, their family, work, and some for personal development. Their circumstances are very individualized, but often there is one thing that is common. Relationships. There is a relationship that is in trouble or causing
We Aren't There Yet
Everything will be okay in the end. If things aren’t okay, it isn’t the end. Keep going. I was reminded of this saying when reading a hopeful study that said 10% of people with major depression were thriving 10 years later. Thriving, not just living. Many people think that once
I Can Do Better
The other day I was doing a task around the house and I took a shortcut. It wasn’t really so much a shortcut as just being sloppy. My mind was on the next task. I stopped and said out loud, “You can do better.” Now no one was around to
Remember the Comma, Pause
I was reminded the other day about commas. We use them when writing to create a space, a pause. How often though do we pause? We speed read through without paying any attention to the comma. Yet, a comma can make a powerful difference. “Let’s eat grandma,” or “Let’s eat,
How To Raise Your Emotional Quotient
No matter the reason someone comes into my office, what issue they are getting stuck with, we almost always have to do some work with what we control and what we don’t. It can be difficult or freeing when someone realizes that they don’t have control over something they have
Why EQ is Just As Important as IQ
You may know what your IQ is, but do you know what your EQ is? Your IQ is determined by a test that measures your ability to solve problems and reason. Emotional intelligence is determined by your ability to read others in social situations, empathize, decrease conflict, communicate and overcome
Be A Dorothy
Some people are gift givers. They just seem to have a knack for picking out the right gift for a person and love to see the receiver’s reaction when they open it up. Giving gifts is more important to them than receiving gifts. Over the last year as reports have
Life Is A Game
This is a chapter in my book, Pathological Positivity. We start out as little kids and there are lots of games for us to play. Preschoolers often learn very important things like the ABC’s, counting, and motor skills through games. Then we get older and there are less games and
You Deserve a Break Today
Spring Break is really popular at our house since my wife works in a school setting. Spring Break is set up to give students an opportunity to take a break from their studies so they can finish the year strong. (I see how it also benefits teachers and staff members.)
Positive Disrupters
Do you know what a disrupter is? In business a disrupter is a new product that enters the market and at the outset appears to not perform very well, but over time, it disrupts the giants of the industry and in some cases, causes massive, long-term changes. I bet you
5 Steps to Effective Communication
How did you like the interview I did with David Horsager on his book, Trusted Leader? Link to the last post to see what I am talking about. As I was going through the YouTube Comments, one came up that I thought was insightful and relevant to the interview. It
Trust and Communication
I recently interviewed David Horsager about his new book, Trusted Leader: 8 Pillars That Drive Results. (You can listen to that HERE.) In part of the interview we talked about communication and trust. Often, when people say they want more communication, they aren’t really asking for more interaction or conversation.
Pain Is Not A Contest
Have you ever heard me say that we can always imagine something better than what we have and we can imagine something worse. I use this model as I teach about discontent and how to use it to our advantage, not to compare ourselves with others. It is not helpful