Say it Better

How Do You Become Genuinely Enthusiastic?

 “Enthusiasm is not the same as just being excited. One gets excited about going on a roller coaster. One becomes enthusiastic about creating and building a roller coaster.“ ~ Bo Bennett 

Getting enthusiasm is a little like learning to breathe.

Nobody can tell you exactly how to do it, but without it you’re in big trouble. No one but you can discover that compelling purpose or exciting goal that ignites enthusiasm inside you, but you can   learn a great deal from noticing how others use it to get more done while savoring their life.

This is what I’ve learned from some real life experts on enthusiasm; what’s more, I’ve tested them in the laboratory of my own life.

 "It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes life worth living." ~ Oliver Wendall Holmes

1. Enthusiasm is born on the inside

In the daily grind of life you can lose touch with what really matters. There are so many routine decisions to make, so many challenges to be met, and so many burdens to carry, that you may get dispirited and act out an unbecoming side in yourself. However, as you connect with the enthusiasm planted deep within you, you’ll feel it begin to grow and grow. Soon, you’ll be back on track.

Hint: It’s not the first mile of a long and arduous journey that gets to you — you’re excited about getting started. And it’s not the last mile — you’re thrilled about getting there.

The miles that can drag you down are the long and tedious ones in the middle where you can’t see where you are coming from or where you are going.

“None are so old as those who have out-lived enthusiasm.”~ Henry David Thoreau

2. Enthusiasm grows when you focus on opportunities, solutions and allies -  not problems, circumstances and critics.

Life for you will always be as you choose to see it.  Focus your attention on the problems and circumstances that surround you, or keep your eyes on the solutions and opportunities.

I read a story that illustrates this approach. Several farmers in Pennsylvania were sitting in a café, complaining about the increasing cost of electricity and the unpleasant task of disposing of all the waste their cows generated.

But the Waybright brothers and their brother-in-law, who run the Mason Dixon Farms near the town where I went to college, Gettysburg, decided to quit complaining about all the manure the cows were generating, and to do some generating of their own — electricity.

They built a power generator that runs on methane gas produced from heated manure from the 2,000 cows. Generating much of their own power, they cut their annual electricity bill from $30,000 to $15,000.

As you might guess, most of the other farmers laughed at the project and called it “Waybright’s folly” (and other even less flattering names). They were satisfied to see their problems and to seek out their Congressmen to complain about their miserable circumstances.

But no one’s laughing anymore.

In fact farmers and agriculture ministers from around the world beat a path to the Mason Dixon farms. Soon the Waybright brothers were selling some of their excess power to their once jeering neighbors.

Enthusiasm — with all the good things that go with it — comes when you turn your eyes from the problem or circumstance and focus on the solution and opportunity. Cash can buy, but it takes enthusiasm to sell – or otherwise sway or collaborate.

“Enthusiasm is the yeast that raises the dough.” ~ Paul J. Meyer

3.  Enthusiasm thrives around positive people

Like smiling, enthusiasm is contagious. Worse yet, negativism and pessimism are far more contagious.  It is always easier to believe the worst than to hope for the best — especially if you are struggling against overwhelming odds.  It’s even worse when you’re tired, or have just suffered a severe setback.

Don’t waste your creative energies on people who are always putting you and your ideas down.  Seek out positive, competent individuals where you can give each other candid feedback – and a boost. Enthusiasm is contagious. Unfortunately, so is the lack of it. .

4.  Enthusiasm recharges itself on momentum

Jerry Reed’s popular song of many years ago is apt: “When you’re hot, you’re hot!”

William Shakespeare put similar sentiments into the mouth of Julius Caesar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries.’”

Enthusiasm comes from the inside out, not vice versa. It’s when you feel most enthusiastic that you need to throw yourself into life’s biggest challenge.  Celebrate your greatest victories by plunging into even greater challenges.  Take full advantage of the momentum you gain with each hard-earned step.

Nothing feeds enthusiasm like success, and nothing can hold back enough enthusiasm.

"One for One"

Of course your business name is an attention grabber.  But does your business slogan:

1. Capture attention?

2. Differentiate your business from the competition?

3.  Evoke a rational and an emotionally positive response?

4. "Tip" your customer over from seeing into buying?

Or, like me, have you not yet crafted that subtitle that appears after your business name - one that cements your relationship with your customers - making them proud to buy and to tell others?

Toms Shoes sets the bar rather high with the motto, "one for one." It's the owner's commitment to give one pair of shoes to someone who badly needs them  - each time someone buys a pair.  Watch this (and flinch) to see why that promise is a life-changer.  

Who knows? A global firm may feature your small business in their advertisement to enjoy the Halo Effect. And bloggers may cover your unique story - tied to the news hook of your slogan. That can raise your profits and your capacity to do good. 

Here's to more "creative capitalism" business models that you and I can adapt to our kind of work - turning a profit while doing good.

Next: Tie your slogan to an experience that builds customers' involvement. Better yet, that brings out their better side. 

Isn't it amazing what magic the right words can conjure up?

the meaning of love ...

.. is learned and shown in many ways, yet none can ring more true than this. Puts my difficult day into proper perspective, and perhaps yours.

In life as in art ...

it is often a matter of where you draw the line.

He got a standing ovation

even before he started his lecture. I only hope I’d be half as wise, brave and funny as this 46-year-old Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor, and video game trailblazer, Randy Pausch was last Tuesday afternoon.

Pausch is one of several U.S. university professors invited to give a best “last lecture.” This is not a call for professors’ best insights on their area of teaching.

It is to answer the question, “What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?”

Here’s two pieces of advice he offered as he presented a series of large screen images of his life:
1. “Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things."

2. Be more patient. "Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you."

Then there’s his “deathbed conversion:” "I just bought a Macintosh."

He started his talk though with a big screen image of his CT scans, pointing out the 10 tumors on his liver. This inventor of “Alice” the software enabling people to "easily create 3-D animations” that was downloaded a million times in a year, this father of three has been told he has only a few months left to live.

"In the sex war ...

...thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female."

So wrote the often witty English writer, Cyril Connolly. Thanks Mardy.

Turning towards the positive, to savor your weekend and onwards, there's this (do tell me if you know the source) ....

To realize the value of ten years:
Ask a newly divorced couple.

To realize the value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize the value of one year:
Ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize the value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize the value of one month:
Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of one hour:
Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of one minute:
Ask a person who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize the value of one second:
Ask a person who has survived an accident.

To realize the value of one millisecond:
Ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have.
You will treasure it even more when you can share it with someone special.

To realize the value of a friend:
Lose one.

What happens when we understand?

Here’s some pithy perspectives on the effect of understanding. For some a hat tip to Mardy Grothe.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
- Carl Jung

If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other better.
- Lyndon Johnson

Everyone hears only what he understands.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather what he does not say.
- Kahlil Gibran

“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.”
- George Washington Carver

Want to be Happier?

Simplify. It’s clarifying. Then one can focus. Focus on what is really going on. What you feel right now. What most matters to you. What best serves the situation. Gratefulness. "First things first" will be apparent. After all, "Life is short, and many of us tend to clutter our lives with things that we do not really want to do.”

Smile.

Focus next on self-esteem.

We earn self-esteem when we learn self-confidence and self-respect. That may be the first step towards living a happier life.

Self-confidence comes from our feeling of competence in responding to the difficulties and the opportunities we encounter in our work and personal life. Self-respect means we feel worthy of being happy. That’s what psychologist Nathaniel Branden’s believes. He wrote, “Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.”

Self-esteem helps us become independent thinkers, according to Tal Ben Shahar, author of the practical new book, Happier.

Paradoxically it also enables us stay open to hearing others’ differing views, I believe. This path towards a positive and resilient outlook begins with giving oneself the permission to feel.

“Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning.”

Want to grow up into happiness? Here are two tips I’ve found especially helpful from, “the teacher of Harvard University’s most popular and life-changing course. One out of every five Harvard students has lined up to hear him.”

1. Sweat it out. Enjoy an immediate, free mood elevator by getting in vigorous motion more often. A Duke University study showed that working out for 30 minutes three times a week” is equivalent to popping Zoloft.”

2. “Accept life as a roller coaster. Optimistic people have ups and downs like everyone else, Ben-Shahar says. "The difference is that happy people realize that if they're sad, they'll get over it," he says. "There's a misconception that being happy means being on a high and having positive moods all the time. That's not what happiness is. If you're happy, you have a life — overall — that you find both meaningful and pleasurable." Methinks Gretchen would agree.

There’s more to the growing popularity of the practical application of positive psychology to everyday life and its “cash value.”

Daddy, I Love You

For those of us blessed to be born into a family with a father who loved and respected us, this is a precious day. Love is when the heart loses its mind. To love and be loved is to feel the sunshine from both sides.

Thank you, Arnold P. Anderson, for the living example of love that you are ... and generosity, love of nature's beauty, curiosity, humor, wisdom, ingenuity, honor and strong sense of justice. Fine living is sitting with you and Lestelle on the back veranda, eating fresh corn and strawberries, watching the pines sway and squirrels run the electic lines.

Five Tips For Being Happier

From Michael Wiederman’s recent article in Scientific American Mind, ”Why It’s So Hard to Be Happy” you get five tips for being happier.

Here’s one key takeaway for me, living in Marin County where the extremely wealthy live among some who are barely getting by in homes they bought long ago and immigrants who stand on street corners, waiting for a pick-up job:

“…. the greater the income disparity within a community, the less its residents were satisfied with their lives, ” discovered Michael R. Hagerty of the Graduate School of Management at U Cal Davis.

Wiederman concludes, “When we are aware that others are better off than we are, our own satisfaction suffers.”

Thank you Steve.

Now take free test to find out how happy you really are -then build a more resilient, joyful life for yourself by reading the groundbreaking book, Learned Optimism by Marty Seligman.