Change Your Life | Rock the World

Here in the United States, we celebrate Independence Day every year on the 4th of July, which just passed, and a lot of people here got a 3-day holiday weekend out of it this year, which was super swell.

I decided ahead of time that I was going to make the most of my weekend, come hell or high water. So I did. My wife and I attended a few different get togethers and events with our friends and family over the course of 3 1/2 days or so. And frankly, we had the best time.

Now I want to point out that we didn’t do anything that would necessarily be considered spectacular, like skydiving or riding in the space shuttle. But we don’t always need to ride the space shuttle to have a good time.

Because we have excellent friends. The best, frankly. And we can have a ton of fun just doing something as simple as spending a few hours with them at a barbecue or a restaurant or a bar, and eating and drinking and chatting.  Read more...

It probably sounds weird to hear someone tell you to take a vacation, since we all love vacations so much, and look forward to them almost all of the time, but believe it or not, there are still a lot of folks who need to be told.

You might be surprised by the number of people who never actually get around to taking any free time. And you might be surprised by the negative effects that can have on you.

How do I know? Because that was me. That was me for many years.

I worked a job where I was given 5 weeks of vacation time each year. And each year I’d use maybe 3 or 4 days. And even those were hard to get out of me.

I figured that if I missed a day of work, then who was going to do my job for me while I was gone? No one. And so it wouldn’t get done, and when I got back from vacation, I’d have that much more work to do to catch up.

And that was a giant pile of horse shit.  Read more...

I’ve had the good fortune over the years to meet, and sometimes interview, a number of people who make their livings by helping others. People with jobs as teachers, social workers, doctors, drug and alcohol counselors, life coaches, therapists, etc.

And I’ve found one very important thing in common in all of them (at least the ones who do their jobs well): they know when to help, and they know when not to help.

OK, so maybe you’re thinking, “When not to help? But didn’t their clients come to them for as much help as is humanly possible?”

Well, yes. Sort of. They went looking for help, but they’re not going to find any if what they really want is for someone to take them by the hand and guide them through every step of their lives for them.

That just doesn’t work. And that’s why the people who get the most out of any type of coaching are the ones who are actually willing to take what they’ve learned and apply it, thereby taking some responsibility for their lives, and maybe – just maybe – learning to take care of themselves.  Read more...

A few months back, I was watching an episode of The Daily Show, as I often do, and good ol’ Jon Stewart had a guest on by the name of Atul Gawande, who was there to plug his book The Checklist Manifesto.

I was really intrigued by their conversation. The Checklist Manifesto is essentially about getting things done efficiently. Atul Gawande is a surgeon, and he found that going through a specific checklist to make sure that every last detail has been taken care of before starting any given surgery works infinitely better than just trying to remember everything, and prevents a ton of possible complications. He has exact numbers for comparison. You should check it out.

Having a written checklist kept a lot of the mundane tasks from being forgotten, or just ignored. Because too often, something would go wrong, and that mundane task that wasn’t completed and prepared beforehand, just caused a huge problem. And that’s not good in a serious situation, like, I don’t know, performing surgery.

So, OK, checklists are good, and they make people more efficient and better prepared. I’m not telling you anything new. What surprised me was when I found out how many people, particularly in the medical field that Gawande describes, are resistant to using them.  Read more...

You may or may not already know this, but I’m a little bit of a movie buff. I’m no Roger Ebert or anyone like that, but I do see my share of movies, good and bad. And it’s happened a few times in the past after telling someone about how bad I thought a particular movie was, that they’d ask me, “Why would you even bother seeing that movie?”

Why would I bother seeing it? Because how else would I know that I didn’t like it? The best I could do otherwise is guess that I probably wouldn’t like it, but that’s not particularly accurate.

It’s kind of like when someone complains that a book that they’ve never read is blasphemous and needs to be burned. Say what?

But anyway, the point is that it’s the experience, and what I’ve learned from that experience, that’s important.

What is life without experiencing as much as you can? Dull and kind of pointless.

And before I get any hate mail, I want to be clear that I’m not telling you to experience everything possible, like murdering babies or something crazy. Let’s be realistic, please. I’m talking about experiencing what you can within reason. And you know what I mean by “within reason” so don’t be a dick about it.  Read more...