Smile… Its good for you

Just some interesting facts for you about smiling…

 

1. Forcing yourself to smile can boost your mood: Psychologists have found that even if you’re in bad mood, you can instantly lift your spirits by forcing yourself to smile.
2. It boosts your immune system: Smiling really can improve your physical health, too. Your body is more relaxed when you smile, which contributes to good health and a stronger immune system.
3. Smiles are contagious: It’s not just a saying: smiling really is contagious, scientists say. In a study conducted in Sweden, people had difficulty frowning when they looked at other subjects who were smiling, and their muscles twitched into smiles all on their own.
4. Smiles Relieve Stress: Your body immediately releases endorphins when you smile, even when you force it. This sudden change in mood will help you feel better and release stress.
5. It’s easier to smile than to frown: Scientists have discovered that your body has to work harder and use more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
6. It’s a universal sign of happiness: While hand shakes, hugs, and bows all have varying meanings across cultures, smiling is known around the world and in all cultures as a sign of happiness and acceptance.
7. We still smile at work: While we smile less at work than we do at home, 30% of subjects in a research study smiled five to 20 times a day, and 28% smiled over 20 times per day at the office.
8. Smiles use from 5 to 53 facial muscles: Just smiling can require your body to use up to 53 muscles, but some smiles only use 5 muscle movements.
9. Babies are born with the ability to smile: Babies learn a lot of behaviors and sounds from watching the people around them, but scientists believe that all babies are born with the ability, since even blind babies smile.
10. Smiling helps you get promoted: Smiles make a person seem more attractive, sociable and confident, and people who smile more are more likely to get a promotion.
11. Smiles are the most easily recognizable facial expression: People can recognize smiles from up to 300 feet away, making it the most easily recognizable facial expression.
12. Women smile more than men: Generally, women smile more than men, but when they participate in similar work or social roles, they smile the same amount. This finding leads scientists to believe that gender roles are quite flexible. Boy babies, though, do smile less than girl babies, who also make more eye contact.
13. Smiles are more attractive than makeup: A research study conducted by Orbit Complete discovered that 69% of people find women more attractive when they smile than when they are wearing makeup.
14. There are 19 different types of smiles: UC-San Francisco researcher identified 19 types of smiles and put them into two categories: polite “social” smiles which engage fewer muscles, and sincere “felt” smiles that use more muscles on both sides of the face.
15. Babies start smiling as newborns: Most doctors believe that real smiles occur when babies are awake at the age of four-to-six weeks, but babies start smiling in their sleep as soon as they’re born.

 

NursingSchools.net is a website dedicated to proper care giving, healthy living and nursing student resources.

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/15-fascinating-facts-about-smiling/

 

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach 

 

Imagination

Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com, shows one of the many artifacts from his library… an Apollo in-flight instruction manual. How strange. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

I just read an article that found interesting and thought I would share it with everyone:

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JOURNAL REPORTS (WSJ)

February 25, 2013, 4:59 p.m. ET

The Power of Imagination

Jay Walker on the fuel that drives innovation

Jay S. Walker founded Priceline.com and is curator of TEDMED, a group dedicated to improving the future of health and medicine. Here are edited excerpts from his remarks at the Unleashing Innovation conference.

On why imagination has been undervalued for so long: For most of human history, there was a ruling class and then there was everybody else. If you were part of everybody else, it wasn’t your job to imagine a different future, different ways of doing things. So, imagination is a fairly modern phenomenon. It really only takes force in the 1800s in the way we think of it today, where you can make a living and not get killed for being imaginative. (To read the article, click here)

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Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~Albert Einstein

 

Nature and Health

Honey in honeycombs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m a firm believer in natural remedies, I am always looking for natural ways to keep my health, my Doctor posted this on his Facebook page, so I thought I would share it with you all…

 

Cinnamon and Honey

Drug companies won’t like this one getting around. Facts on Honey and Cinnamon:
It is found that a mix of honey and Cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of to…day also note honey as very effective medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without side effects which is also a plus.Today’s science says that even though honey is sweet, when it is taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm even diabetic patients. Researched by western scientists:

 

HEART DISEASES:

 

Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, put it on toast instead of jelly and jam and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol and could potentially save one from heart attack. Also, even if you have already had an attack studies show you could be kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of cinnamon honey strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada, various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as one ages the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and the veins.

 

ARTHRITIS:

Arthritis patients can benefit by taking one cup of hot water with two tablespoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. When taken daily even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week (out of the 200 people so treated) practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain — and within a month, most all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis now started walking without pain.

BLADDER INFECTIONS:

Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder….who knew?

 

CHOLESTEROL:

Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water given to a cholesterol patient was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic patients, when taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol-could be cured. According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.

COLDS:

Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and, clear the sinuses, and it’s delicious too!

UPSET STOMACH:

Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also is said to clear stomach ulcers from its root.

GAS:

According to the studies done in India and Japan, it is revealed that when Honey is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas.

IMMUNE SYSTEM:

Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and protects the body from bacterial and viral attacks. Scientists have found that honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of Honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles (where DNA is contained) to fight bacterial and viral diseases.

INDIGESTION:

Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food is eaten relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of meals

 

INFLUENZA:

A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural ‘Ingredient’ which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu.

LONGEVITY:

Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Use four teaspoons of honey, one teaspoon of cinnamon powder, and three cups of boiling water to make a tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans increase and even a 100 year old will start performing the chores of a 20-year-old.

RASPY OR SORE THROAT:

When throat has a tickle or is raspy, take one tablespoon of honey and sip until gone. Repeat every three hours until throat is without symptoms.

PIMPLES:

Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it off the next morning with warm water. When done daily for two weeks, it removes all pimples from the root.

SKIN INFECTIONS:

Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin Infections.

WEIGHT LOSS:

Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast and on an empty stomach, and at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. When taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.

 

CANCER:

Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder three times a day for one month.

FATIGUE:

Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Senior citizens who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, even when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, when taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M., the vitality of the body increases within a week.

BAD BREATH:

People of South America, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water first thing in the morning so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.

HEARING LOSS:

Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restores hearing.
Remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it!

 

 

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America…How I weep for Her

The Statue of Liberty front shot, on Liberty Island. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I weep for a nation that is no more, for a nation that was once a great nation, a nation that prided itself on achieving greatness through hard work and innovation.

I weep for a people that once believed that handouts were to be looked down upon and that prosperity was not guaranteed but rather something you worked for, I weep for a people that once believed in the American Dream, but now believe in the American Scheme.

Last night America voted, and last night they voted for a new America, an America that is unknown to our founding fathers, an America that removers personal responsibility and replaced it with Government handouts, an America that looks at the Constitution as nothing but an old document written by old white men and religious freedom has now become a relic of the past. America is no longer the America I grew up in, it is now the America of the twisted views of the left, a socialistic state that will plunge into a depression and America will become the next Greece.

We have given up on the dream and now want the scheme. We are willing to place our health into the care of a government scheme, ObamaCare, one of the largest corporations in the world GM is nothing more than a government scheme, following in the tracks of Amtrak. America the free has been replaced by America the Dependent, sad, oh so very sad.. I weep for my country and my fellow countrymen, I weep for all the brave men and woman who gave there lives to defend our freedom only to have it lost, I weep until I can weep no more.   

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach 

 

Destructive Thinking

I thought I would share another found article….

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post written by: Marc

10 Destructive Faults in Our Way of Thinking

The human mind is wonderful and powerful, but it’s far from perfect.  There are several common judgment errors that it’s prone to making.  In the field of Psychology these are known as cognitive biases, or fallacies in reasoning.  They happen to everyone regardless of age, sex, education or intelligence.

Over the past few months I’ve become fascinated by these biases and fallacies, so I’ve read several books about them.  Today I want to share ten of them with you.  They are the ones I repeatedly notice myself and those closest to me struggling with.  My hope is that you will use the information in this article to pinpoint these destructive patterns in your own thinking, and break free from them before they send you spiraling down the wrong path.

1. Negative self-fulfilling prophecies. – A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that motivates a person to take actions that cause the prediction to come true.  This kind of thinking often tears relationships apart and causes people to fail at their goals.  Here are two typical examples:  1.) A man believes that his relationship with his new girlfriend is “never going to last.”  So he stops putting effort into the relationship, pulls away emotionally, and a month later the relationship fails.  2.) An intelligent undergraduate in the field of health convinces herself that she “doesn’t have what it takes” to become a doctor, so she therefore never completes the prerequisites for medical school, and thus never becomes a doctor.
2. Only taking credit for positive outcomes. – This destructive thinking pattern occurs when we take full credit for our successes, but deny responsibility for our failures.  A perfect example of this can be witnessed in school classrooms across the globe.  When students receive a good grade, they often attribute it to their intelligence and their excellent study habits.  But when they get a bad grade, they attribute some of their failure to a bad teacher, an unfair set of test questions, or a subject matter that “isn’t needed in the real world anyway.”  The bottom line is that in order for a person to grow emotionally, they must be willing to take full responsibility for all of their actions and outcomes – successes and failures alike.
3. Believing we are immune to temptation. – We have far less control over our impulsive desires than we often believe.  Sex, food, and drug addictions are extreme examples of this.  Many addicts believe they can quit anytime they want, but in reality they are simply lying to themselves.  But you don’t have to be an addict to be vulnerable to temptation.  Lots of smart people end up impulsively giving in to temptation simply because it’s the easiest way to get rid of it.  It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.  If someone wants to get rid of sexual desire, the easiest way is to have sex.  If someone wants to get rid of hunger pain, the easiest way is to eat.  Restraining from impulsive behavior in the face of temptation is not easy; it takes a great deal of self-control.  So be careful, because when we have an inflated sense of control over our impulses, we tend to overexpose ourselves to temptation, which in turn promotes the impulsive behavior we want to avoid.
4. Passing a broad judgment from an isolated incident. – An inaccurate first impression is a decent example of this one.  It’s about our natural human tendency to evaluate a person or situation from a bird’s eye view, and then presume to know enough to pass a reasonable judgment.  This happens a lot in the corporate working world.  A newer employee might show up late to work after experiencing legitimate car trouble, but their boss immediately becomes suspicious that they are not committed and responsible, and treats them as such for several weeks thereafter.  The obvious solution here is to look at the big picture before you start pointing fingers or making assumptions.
5. Believing we can control the uncontrollable. – This thinking fallacy occurs when people begin to believe that they have some kind of direct influence or power over an external event that is completely random.  It is especially evident in the minds of amateur gamblers; especially those who have had a recent string of good luck.  For example, if you flipped a coin and asked someone to guess heads or tails, and they got it right ten times in a row, they might begin to believe that their good luck is confirmation that they have control over the outcome of each flip.  But the truth is that there is always a 50% probability of their answer being correct, and their last ten guesses were pure luck.
6. Ignoring information that does not support a belief. – Psychologists commonly refer to this as the confirmation bias.  We as human beings naturally tend to look for information that confirms and supports our beliefs, and we tend to overlook information that does not.  We are selective in the evidence we choose to collect so that we don’t have to challenge our way of thinking, because it’s easier not to.  This destructive thinking trap is very common, and it can have detrimental effects on our productivity when we make big decisions based on false information.
7. Beginner’s optimism. – Beginner’s optimism is the human tendency to underestimate the time required to complete an unfamiliar task.  It occurs due to a lack of planning and research on behalf of someone who is excited about doing something they have never done before.  In other words, when we get assigned a new task that we are anxious to get started on, instead of delaying the start time to accurately evaluate the level of difficulty and resources required, we simply guess and begin.  Thus, our expectation of the workload is based on raw optimism instead past experience and reliable data.  And it all backfires on us a little later when we find ourselves knee deep in work we were unprepared for.
8. Rebelling simply to prove personal freedom. – Although more common in children, this thinking fallacy can affect people of any age.  It’s basically a person’s urge to do something they have been told not to do, for fear that their freedom of choice is being taken away from them.  This person may not even want to do whatever they are doing to rebel; however, the simple fact that they are not supposed to do it motivates them to do so anyway.  The tactic of reverse psychology is a commonly used method of exploiting this thinking fallacy in others.
9. Judging a person’s capabilities based solely on the way they look. – This happens thousands of times a day worldwide when one person assumes something about another person based on their immediate appearance.  For example, someone might see a tall, well groomed man in his early fifties, wearing a business suit, and instantly assume he is successful and reliable, even though there is zero concrete evidence to support this assumption.  Bottom line:  You can’t judge a book by its cover.
10. Trying to diminish losses by continuing to pursue a previous failure. – Sometimes called the sunk cost fallacy, this is a thinking fault that motivates us to continue to support a previously unsuccessful endeavor.  We justify our decision to continue investing in this failed endeavor based on our cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing to pursue it outweighs the expected benefit.  The logical thing to do would be for us to cut our losses and change our course of action.  However, due to the sunk costs we have already invested, we feel committed to the endeavor, so we invest even more time, money and energy into it, hoping that our additional investment will reverse the outcome.  But it never will.

If you can relate to some of these destructive thinking faults, and you’re interested in learning more about them, give these books a read.  All three are equally incredible:

• Predictably Irrational
• Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
• How We Decide

Photo by: Pejman Parvandi

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I hope you found this article helpful…

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach 

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Habit Change

I thought I would share an article with you that I found on the web. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

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Secrets to habit change

by Meg Selig

Succeed at Habit Change With This One-Page "Book!"

8 "chapters," 19 quotes, 1 page, and you’ve changed.

Published on May 2, 2012 by Meg Selig in Changepower

Most people don’t change a habit with a snap of their fingers. Oh, you’ve noticed that? So have many psychologists. In fact, some psychologists, notably James Prochaska, Carlo DiClemente, and John Norcross, have done extensive research showing that most people change their habits step by step, in predictable stages, over time. The “quick-change artist” is the exception, not the rule.

Using the stages-of-change idea (and taking a little poetic license with it), I’ve created a one-page "book" of successful habit change below. Whether you have a health goal, a relationship goal, or a work goal, this one-pager will help. Each “chapter” contains a few pithy quotes that will help propel you from stage to stage and finally to a successful resolution of your habit change challenge. Use these quotes for inspiration, wisdom, and humor as you reach for a healthier body, a calmer mind, or a happier life.

Preface: You are not aware that anything is wrong with your harmful habit. True, there was that one time…but you’d rather not think about that.  Your habit and you are a happy couple.

“I can resist everything but temptation.”  ~ Oscar Wilde

“How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.” ~ Frank Herbert

Chapter 1:  As a result of your habit, you get a figurative or literal kick in the backside. You think about changing.

“We must embrace pain and welcome it as fuel for our journey.”  ~ Kenji Miyazawa

“A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.”  ~ Spanish proverb

Chapter 2: You get a Big Idea. This inspiration could fuel the change you want to see in yourself! This is your personal motivator!

“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” ~ Victor Hugo

“We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation.” ~  Jim Rohn

Chapter 3: You make the decision to change.

“(Y)ou only need one decisive act of free will to transform the course of your own life.” ~ Jill Ker Conway

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically — to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.”   ~Stephen Covey

Chapter 4: You make a simple plan or choose a program to guide you as you change.  

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"He who has a why can endure any how."  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Chapter 5: You begin your change.

“To be in hell is to drift, to be in heaven is to steer.”  ~ George Bernard Shaw

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”  ~ William James

Chapter 6: You stumble. You lapse into your old ways. You try again. You alter your plan. You find better support. You fall again. You get up again. You keep going.

"He who never makes mistakes never makes anything." ~ English proverb

“To be enlightened is to be without anxiety over imperfection.”  ~ Buddhist saying

“Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the courage to move ahead despite despair.”     ~ Rollo May

Chapter 7: Time passes. You hang in there, working on your goal. It’s getting easier. Slowly a new habit, a better habit, takes shape.

“Discipline is remembering what you want.”  ~ David Campbell

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." ~ Benjamin Franklin

Chapter 8: Your new way of life has become second nature. You’ve improved your life, your health, or your relationships, probably all three. You did it!

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” ~ Lao-tse

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.” ~ Pietro Aretino

Do you have a quote that has inspired you as you changed your life in some way? Share it in comments!

(c)  Meg Selig, 2012

I am the author of Changepower! 37 Secrets to Habit Change Success (Routledge, 2009), the 232-page version of the one-page book above. For more nuggets on topics of habit change, willpower, and healthy living that are even shorter (!) than the one-page "book," like me on Facebook, and/or follow me on Twitter.

Podcast alert!  I am honored to be the guest on Dr.Tim Pychyl’s latest podcast.You can find the podcast at http://iprocrastinate.libsyn.com/webpage/changepower, or you can subscribe to the iProcrastinate podcast on iTunes.  Dr. Pychyl, a fellow PT blogger, is a procrastination expert and interviewer extraordinaire.

Meg Selig is the author of Changepower! 37 Secrets to Habit Change Success.

——–END——-

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach

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How Folding PJ’s Changes my life

Sometimes it is hard to even start to write this blog, sometimes my mind just goes blank. Call it writers block, or what ever you want, all I know is that it is very frustrating to me. My goal is to try to write something each and everyday, I want to improve my writing, my relaying of information, and the only way to do that is to practice, and the only way to practice writing, is to write and read. The reading thing I got down, I read everyday, even if it is just a few news stories online. However the writing thing, well that’s a different story, I try to write everyday, I launch my editor everyday, I even sometimes start to type, but more often than not I delete what I have written and don’t post.

I understand that it is not an earth shattering event if I don’t post to my blog, that my readers will make it through the day, and there lives will continue, but for me it is a disappointment. I have difficulties remaining committed to tasks I set for myself. I, like a lot of people, start out strong, but seem to fizzle out shortly after the start.  I don’t give up, completely, I just fizzle…

Lets look at a few tasks that turned into Fizzles:

TASK: Eating Healthy

GOAL: Weight Loss and over all Health

At the start, I was all for it, I cleaned my cupboards and frig, tossed out what was unhealthy, tossed my snack foods and when shopping for healthy alternatives, I are carrots and other healthy stuff.  I did good for about 4 weeks, basically until I had to go shopping again. Even then it want to bad, I mostly purchased healthy stuff, but the next trip, all was lost. I was back to my old self, more or less. I did change some of my eating habits, I now go meatless two days a week, eating fish at least one day per week. I try to eat more heatlyish meals, I add more veggies to my plate and try to keep my portion size down. But my gusto for the over all healthy food didn’t take, only part of it did.

TASK: Write a Book

GOAL: Get Published

This task is somewhat different that most tasks I have, it is a task that is, in some ways completed, but in others not. I have written several manuals, for he faith formation program I, along with a partner, created. We self published the material and used it with in our parish. We did attempt to market the program, but to no success. So in one way I have already been published. But this goal is more about creating a book, not a manual, but a book for the public. I have started several “drafts” if you can call them that. I have had several ideas for a book, even began the work on them, but never get to far into it. Here i s my problem, I have research, and to write a book, you need to do research. So I always get stuck right after I lay out the concept, the ideas of what this book should look like, should be about. Once I have to do the research, I abandon the task. So I need to learn how to get over that, or I will never get published. Learn to love research or learn to pay for it, those are my two choices.

TASK: Blog Daily

Goal: Improve writing skills

This task has had several starts and stops. I started off strong on a blog called STATIC Youth, I posted daily, sometimes 2 times a day for month, never missing a day, unless I was just unable to get to the net. I even started a second blog, You Can Be new, and posted to it daily. I decided that posting to 2 blogs was just to hard, so I started to just repost the same article to both blogs, eventually I merged them into one, and renamed the STATIC blog to View Point: Paul, that blog was than merged into this blog here, An American Point of view, all the articles from both blogs were migrated to this new blog and on I went. But my postings have become less and less, my daily habit drifted away and I am finding it harder to post. This, I feel is due to the same reason that I never write my book. I made a resolution that I would do more research in to my blogs, provide more links and facts, rather than just my opinion. Because I hate research, I post less, but this may be changing, I may decide to post with or with out the back ground research, just my view-point.

So as you can see, I have issues with commitment to my own tasks, I am striving to improve, and I have, over the past few years, but I have a long way to go. I will get my book written one day, and published, I will continue to improve my eating habits and I will blog more and more. It’s all connected, this I have discovered.

Not every task I start ends up as a fizzle, for example, I decided that I would keep a tidier home. My house was never “dirty” but at times it can become untidy. So I decided to start with one task, as silly as they may sound, folding my PJ’s at night before I put them away at night. This one task has lead to many other life style changes, simple and silly as that may seem. Not sure why, but I think it was just an over all mind change. For 46 years I never concerned myself with folding PJ’s, I just stuck them in a drawer to be pulled out the next night, but now, my PJ’s a re folded, my shoes are but away each night, I polish and shine them more often (I never bothered before) and my over all bedroom remains tidy. All because I decided to fold my PJ’s.

So I know that the other tasks will happen one day, once I find there PJ’s that I need to fold. The one little task that will become the life style change I need, what ever it is.

Life is full of PJ’s, that one thing that triggers the rest to fall in to place. You know what I mean, you will walk up to that life long smoker and notice they quit. You ask them what happen and they say, Just decided it was time. They may have decided it was time hundreds of times before, but for some reason this time it was time. What changed? What made this time the right time?

The goal in life is to find your PJ’s, that one life changing event that will alter your course and set you on the path to greatness. Not greatness in the worlds eyes, but greatness in your own, greatness in the only way it matters, greatness of character and being.

That task that we place before ourselves are all created to achieve the same end, to become all we are made to be, to become the greatness we know we are to be. Each “failure” is just a lesson needed to be learned, and opportunity to fold your PJ’s yet again, in hopes that this will be your time, your moment to greatness.

Opportunities present themselves constantly, the next pair of PJ’s are always out there before us, if we choose to see them and to fold them. All we have to do is look.

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach

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One Good Laugh

 

They say that laughter is the best medicine, if that is true, than I should be as healthy as a horse, for I find the funny in the non-funny almost daily. Yet I am not the picture of health, on the outside. I am a tad bit over wright, I wear glasses and take medication for high cholesterol and have to watch what I eat to keep from becoming diabetic. Yet I laugh, daily…

  Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.

~Josh Billings (1818 – 1885)

I think Mr. Billings understood the power of laughter, the fact that a good laugh was a whole body experience, yet it emanated from the mouth. The effects were felt in the toes as well as the heart. This is the medicine of laughter, to delight the whole.

Science has proven that laughter is good for the body, good for healing, however, I think science misses the point, sure it helps you recover from surgery and depression, but it also heals the soul, laughter is a holistic remedy, concerning itself with body as well as the soul.

In todays upside down economic world, the onset of secularization and the absence of morality in the world, a good strong from the toes laugh is what is needed. We need to learn, once again, to look at ourselves and laugh, we have seemed to have lost that ability about the same time we became “enlightened” and “politically correct”. We need to return to a time when we did not take ourselves and this silly ol’ world to seriously, a time of laughter a time of easy goingness and simplicity.

What we need is One Good Laugh from the center of our being, a laugh that will not only feel good all over ourselves, but one that will move the world, one that will make the world feel good all over. Laughter is the medicine we need to heal our woes, and to fill our souls with joy and peace. So find something funny today, and laugh, and share that laughter with all you meet.

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach 

 

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McLeadership

McDonalds’ sign in Harlem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is Leadership? What makes a leader? How does one become a leader. Theses are questions that many people ask, and for everyone person who asks, there are dozens of books, seminars and blog sites like this one with answers. But how do you know who is right. What method will work for you, and can you even become a leader? Is everyone born to be a leader? Can anyone study and become a leader, or is it in our DNA, are we just born like that?

Leadership, personal development and self-improvement is a multi-billion dollar industry, and like any industry there are the McDonald’s and the fancy shirt and tie eateries of Leadership development companies and individuals. Some offering the “fast food” of leadership and others offering you the 7 course meal, both serve a purpose, but like food, there is quality differences. Like a good fast food restaurant, McLeadership fills a purpose, but also like a fast food joint, to much of it can cause health issues. So what is McLeadership?

The McLeadership

McLeadership is, simple stated, the consumption of Leadership values, ideas and material in a fast, successive fashion that ignores the need for digestion of said material. We all know the feeling we get after we scarf down a value meal on our way to the next meeting or appointment. The bloated over stuffed sluggish feeling that leaves us with an upset stomach and an on satisfied hunger. We didn’t bother to take the time to sit back and relax and enjoy the meal, but rather we stuffed in our mouths, washed it down with a pop and followed it with a few fries. Doing this once or twice wont have to much of an effect on our over all health. But turning this bad habit into a  lifetime of eating will. Well the same can be said for our Leadership and Change couping skills.

The market is flooded with books, CD’s, DVD’s and Seminars we can attend, and I am sure most of them are well produced and worthy of our attention. However, like the food we ingest affects our body, the information we ingest affects our mind. The habit of reading, as anyone who reads my blog will know, is a habit I strongly support. I recommend 15 minuets daily, at the very least. But, I also recommend journaling, reflecting and digesting the input. I strongly recommend that when you read, you find a quiet place, a relaxing place, and read in peace. This allows your body and mind to work together on digesting the input.

The fast food mentality that we are raised in as permeated our daily lives, it has infected our Faith, Family, Work and Being. We are programmed to think in sound bites and to deliver messages in Tweets and Status Updates. We are encouraged to abbreviate everything. We are living in the information age, more information is available to us than ever before, yet we seem to truly know less. We have the ability to truly connect with each other in ways never imagined, yet we don’t.

McLeadership is the result of reading, attending and listening to principles on Leadership, yet never putting in to practice the principles we have learned. Our thirty-second retention of information along with our forced acceptance of multi-tasking has created a generation that expects instantaneous results for no or little effort on their part.

True Leadership

True Leadership is a leadership of value, a leadership of effort and time. Like a good meal, one that you take time to enjoy and savor, a meal that is prepared with love and kindness. A true meal, a good meal, is one that we sit down at the table together, we pray and give thanks for what we are about to partake, and we enjoy the food, atmosphere and company. The meal itself, be it meatloaf or the finest cut of beef, is almost secondary to the time spent, digesting the whole experience.

Over the years I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel, and in doing so have made friends all over the world. One set of friends reside in Germany. They have become like family to me, we have spent many a nights together eating and drinking and conversing. He is a home gourmet cook. His food is simple but very pleasing to both the eye and the taste buds, and I have had the pleasure of many a meal with him and his wife. Each meal is a pleasure, but some of the most memorable meals where the less fancy, the more traditional family meals. Meals where he was not occupied with preparations, but was able to sit and enjoy the conversation, glass of wine and the simple family meal with us. He was able to digest in a relaxed fashion.

True Leadership is achieved in much the same way, we cannot be to concerned with the preparations, to hung up with the presentation that we miss the main point. I have learned many-a-thing about Leadership in moments of confusion and dysfunction, the moments of lack of planning and miss planning. But I have learned more, not in the McLeadership moments, but in the fine dinning moments. The moments were I can sit back, relax and slowly discover the truth hidden in the moment.

Leadership

Leadership is not reserved for the few, it is something we all must archive, in once fashion or another. But we must learn to slow down, to chew on it for a while and to savor its flavors. We must decide what Leadership looks like, taste like and is for us. My Leadership is not your Leadership, each of us have our own taste, our own cravings and each of us must discover our own style.

Fast food is fine, every-now-and-than, but as a steady diet, not so much, the same can be said for Learning and growing your Leadership skills. A quick read with no processing is fine, every-now-and-than, but as a daily diet, not to healthy for your mind.

I would recommend a steady diet of relaxed learning and reading, at least 15 minutes per day, in a quiet place, be it the bath tub or your car pared in a Church parking lot. I would also recommend that you journal about what you just read or learned. Your reading does not have to be only Leadership books, I am a strong believer in mixing it up, reading in general is a positive action, and reading different types and styles of books. I feel you can learn from anything and everything, so be it a Stephen King book or the latest guru in the self-help section, you can learn from it.

What I don’t recommend is that you substitute books with audio-books to often. Audio-books would be the fast food of reading, nothing replaces the written word. It is ok to enjoy a good audio-book on your long drive to and from work, I love to listen to talks on CD, but I always make it a point to follow it up with more reading on what ever topic truly captivated me. Same holds true for DVD’s or TED videos. Great sources for information and entertainment, but do not make a steady diet of it. The act of reading works your mind in ways a CD or DVD can not even come close to, and it is the working of the mind that causes active learning to take place.

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach

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Death and Positve aditude

As part of my weekend mornings, I love to sit and read the news, and now that I have an iPad, not only can I read the news, but now I can read articles from all kinds of different sources. One of my favorite apps for the iPad is Zite, a personalized magazine. Basically it allows you to choose the content, and based on your likes and dislikes, it customizes the content. I love it! I get to read a magazine that truly reflects my interest. I have Religion, Politics, The Beatles, Leadership, Reading and a few other topics all downloading to make my perfect magazine.

This morning as I was reading my Zite, I ran across an article that caught my eye, Thinking About Death Can Lead To A Good Life, definitely not your typical title. So I read it, and found that not only did I agree, but it was something I did naturally, and didn’t even realize the positive effects.  So I thought I would share the article with you:

Thinking About Death Can Lead To A Good Life

(source)

_{Article Date: 22 Apr 2012 – 0:00 PDT}

Thinking about death can actually be a good thing. An awareness of mortality can improve physical health and help us re-prioritize our goals and values, according to a new analysis of recent scientific studies. Even non-conscious thinking about death – say walking by a cemetery – could prompt positive changes and promote helping others.
Past research suggests that thinking about death is destructive and dangerous, fueling everything from prejudice and greed to violence. Such studies related to terror management theory (TMT), which posits that we uphold certain cultural beliefs to manage our feelings of mortality, have rarely explored the potential benefits of death awareness.
“This tendency for TMT research to primarily deal with negative attitudes and harmful behaviors has become so deeply entrenched in our field that some have recently suggested that death awareness is simply a bleak force of social destruction,” says Kenneth Vail of the University of Missouri, lead author of the new study in the online edition of Personality and Social Psychology Review this month. “There has been very little integrative understanding of how subtle, day-to-day, death awareness might be capable of motivating attitudes and behaviors that can minimize harm to oneself and others, and can promote well-being.”
In constructing a new model for how we think about our own mortality, Vail and colleagues performed an extensive review of recent studies on the topic. They found numerous examples of experiments both in the lab and field that suggest a positive side to natural reminders about mortality.
For example, Vail points to a study by Matthew Gailliot and colleagues in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2008 that tested how just being physically near a cemetery affects how willing people are to help a stranger. “Researchers hypothesized that if the cultural value of helping was made important to people, then the heightened awareness of death would motivate an increase in helping behaviors,” Vail says.
The researchers observed people who were either passing through a cemetery or were one block away, out of sight of the cemetery. Actors at each location talked near the participants about either the value of helping others or a control topic, and then some moments later, another actor dropped her notebook. The researchers then tested in each condition how many people helped the stranger.
“When the value of helping was made salient, the number of participants who helped the second confederate with her notebook was 40% greater at the cemetery than a block away from the cemetery,” Vail says. “Other field experiments and tightly controlled laboratory experiments have replicated these and similar findings, showing that the awareness of death can motivate increased expressions of tolerance, egalitarianism, compassion, empathy, and pacifism.”
For example, a 2010 study by Immo Fritsche of the University of Leipzig and co-authors revealed how increased death awareness can motivate sustainable behaviors when pro-environmental norms are made salient. And a study by Zachary Rothschild of the University of Kansas and co-workers in 2009 showed how an increased awareness of death can motivate American and Iranian religious fundamentalists to display peaceful compassion toward members of other groups when religious texts make such values more important.
Thinking about death can also promote better health. Recent studies have shown that when reminded of death people may opt for better health choices, such as using more sunscreen, smoking less, or increasing levels of exercise. A 2011 study by D.P. Cooper and co-authors found that death reminders increased intentions to perform breast self-exams when women were exposed to information that linked the behavior to self-empowerment.
One major implication of this body of work, Vail says, is that we should “turn attention and research efforts toward better understanding of how the motivations triggered by death awareness can actually improve people’s lives, rather than how it can cause malady and social strife.” Write the authors: “The dance with death can be a delicate but potentially elegant stride toward living the good life.”

• Additional
• References
• Citations

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click ‘references’ tab above for source.
Visit our psychology / psychiatry section for the latest news on this subject.

—–END—-

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did… Gives you something to think about… Life is short, make it a great one!

God Bless

Paul Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach

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