The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, by John Izzo

John Izzo begins his book: The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die with a question we should form our entire life around: “Why do some people find wisdom and die happy?” This query is one that should sit quietly in the back of our minds from birth until death. When we sit with a question like this, we open ourselves to the endless possibilities of the answer.
John Izzo seeks to provide his audience with a roadmap to discovering our own answer to this. Through his book, he invites us to create lives of wisdom and happiness, no matter what our circumstance. Before beginning the five-step lesson, Izzo outlines the greatest challenge of all. He reminds us that time is passing. In our powelessness over that, we have huge opportunities. We can manage our priorities and our choices. We are the stars of this one-person, one-lifetime show.
This book was, in some ways, a collaboration. Four thousand people were nominated by friends or loved ones as being true pillars of wisdom and joy. The author then chose 235 of those candidates between 60 and 105 years old – the most knowledgeable section of our society. These subjects have experienced the most. They can separate the hard knocks from the great lessons. Through those subjects and their wisdom, Izzo came up with five tenets for a life worth living:

1. Be true to yourself.
2. Leave no regrets.
3. Become love.
4. Live in the moment.
5. Give more than you take.

Although each of these is vital and approached with great depth and focus in the book, one or two demand a moment’s inspection and are worth implementing this very moment.

· Living in the moment. If one of the five tenets to living a happy life is to live in the moment, we are literally behind the eightball before we even begin. We are taken out of the “moment” a thousand times each day through our own technology. (Can you say email?) The author recounts taking his dog for a walk one day. The dog was enjoying that walk so much more than Mr. Izzo himself. The dog paused to enthusiastically enjoy smells or the company of other dogs (friends). The author was simply busy timing himself to accomplish his daily speed walk.
· Become Love. Izzo asks us to recognize that love is not an idea, it is an action. It means choosing to spend time with friends. (Even dogs do that!) It means embodying thoughtfulness and a loving tone. We must not miss an opportunity or spend a day in human disappointment – there simply are no do-overs. You will pass through today only once, and love will sustain you.
· Leave no Regrets. The author’s grandfather offered him the idea, early in his life, to judge his days by how satisfying they are. Each day will pass, it is simply the law of time and space, but how we live and how fulfilled we are, will become the foundation of great choices. Quite simply, we get this one chance to create a life that leaves no regrets. Do what thrills you.
Like all great books on positive psychology, gratitude is the prevailing thought throughout this book. To be able to rebound every day (if necessary) and choose to live a joyous and meaningful life. To create time to be still and find the timeless beauty hidden behind to do lists and ever-full inboxes. To author our own sonata, our own academy-award winning existence. That is the good life, and John Izzo wants us to know it. The rewards of each of these five principles are limitless, and amazingly, they are free. It’s the free lottery ticket – your one true life.

To your success, Dr. Success (aka Andrea Goeglein, Ph.D.)
http://www.servingsuccess.com/

Sex is Not Love

Newsflash: Sex is not love. Sexual acts are physiological functions. Feeling the positive emotion of love may be desired, but not required, to engage in a sexual act. The day you stop confusing sex for love you may have enough energy left to develop the well being and happiness you desire. With that sense of well being and happiness you may then be willing to describe your life as a success!

By now you are probably saying “Oh Bah Humbug”! May I say with love…”Get over it!”

I feel the need to make this statement because I have been reading and writing a lot about the development of the positive emotion, love. I thought I had hit human development pay dirt when researcher Barbara Frederickson identified the ten emotions that contribute to well being. I felt it was pay dirt since nine of the ten emotions were included in the one mega emotion, love.

That told me I should invest all my life energy developing love (interest, awe, humor, hope, contentment, amusement, joy, serenity, gratitude, pride and inspiration).
I would proudly paraphrase Frederickson’s assertion that positive emotions are the fertilizer that feeds inner resilience. If the sum total of all the positive emotions creates love than love is the fertilizer that feeds your ability to be resilient.

If I did that, I reasoned, I would have a life filled with love and I would also have all the resilience I would need to traverse the road of life success no matter how crooked it gets. Then something strange happened. I would tell people of this great news and they wanted me to explain levels of love and where sex came in. I would keep saying there are no levels, and sex is not the love I was speaking about.

The love I am speaking about, and that the research supports, is love built on interest, awe, humor, hope, contentment, amusement, joy, serenity, gratitude, pride and inspiration. That is why you can love a book, or a job, or a person. It is a feeling, a human emotion. And when you build that human emotion with another person or community of people or within a spiritual framework as part of a community, you develop the resilience you need to make it through every adversity you create or stumble upon.

My hope for this season is that Tiger Woods and his family become a living example of how being surrounded by love builds resilience.

With thanks,
Andrea T. Goeglein, Ph.D
Dr. Success™
http://www.servingsuccess.com/
http://twitter.com/DrSuccess
866 975 3777

Unexpected Teachers Part II

In my last post, I challenged you to spend a week saying four simple phrases as you engaged in all your activities and encountered all the people, places and things that crossed your path. I told you I would share how using this process has impacted my life.

First I want to tell you about the book Dana suggested that got this whole process moving. It is ZeroLimits by Joe Vitale and Hew Len, Ph.D. I did not know Dr. Len or his work prior to reading the book. I had encountered Joe Vitale and his work over the years and put him neatly into my “he is not my teacher” category. After reading ZeroLimits, I own that my reaction to what I would call “spiritual marketing techniques” is totally some memory playing out in my subconscious. Now each time I feel a need to refer to Joe, or anyone else for that matter, as “not my teacher”, I repeat the four suggested phrases: I love you, I am sorry, please forgive me, and thank you. I have learned a lot from this process.

1. I have learned that I have a new way of noticing when I am judging someone or something and a new technique to clear my judgment and align more with my spirit and my God.

2. I have been attempting to develop a way of marketing that allows me to feel good about the material I present, allow others to access the information without feeling manipulated, and still make a profit from doing what I love to do. ZeroLimits showed me ways to do just that. By noticing what rubbed me wrong, stopping and clearing the thoughts by replacing with the four phrases, I was able to see not what I did like, but how I could present my material. And I really like sending love to someone instead of feeling judgmental toward them. Reminds me a lot of the concept of unconditional love. You don’t have to agree with someone, you just have to love them.
3. I learned that like all personal development, sending love instead of passing judgment is a lifelong task.

Most of all, I came across information in ZeroLimits that helped me clarify for myself something that has troubled me most my life. From the point of my religious training, your only purpose is to love God. Since God is in everyone, I was to love everyone. I could never get it. I could not see how I was supposed to love God before my love of my child, or my husband, or my parents. I would always say the people must come first. Through this and other books, I have come to understand that when I focus only on cleaning my relationship with God through loving everyone, I have actually put God first and put the people in my life first. There is no separation other than the separation I created in my mind. My love of and for God and others is no longer a hierarchy putting one person ahead of or behind God but my infinite actions based in love.

Most of all what I learned was that I must remain open to the teaching which come through expected teachers.

With appreciation and love, Andrea
www.ServingSuccess.com
http://twitter.com/drsuccess
866 975 3777
702 869 3729