If you’ve never heard the expression “You are what you eat,” you have led a sheltered life.

Here’s an expression you’ve probably never heard, “You are what’s eating you.”

I had never heard it either until The Grasshopper hopped up on my computer keyboard and banged it out.

Have you ever noticed that your attention is drawn like a moth to a searchlight to something that’s bothering you?

There are a whole host of things going on in your life but the one thing getting the lion’s share of your attention is that which is gnawing at you.

Oftentimes we treat that thing like a rattle in the car. We believe that if we ignore it, it will go away. It won’t.

Something that’s eating you won’t stop until there is nothing left to chew on. You get eaten alive by that which you ignore.

I am a bit amused by the circus surrounding the Tiger Woods saga. Tiger is not playing golf well and each one of the golf analysts has a take on what he’s technically doing wrong. No one has stated the obvious, “Tiger is being consumed by what’s eating him.” He now has neck pain that has surfaced over the last month or so and has gotten to the point that he had to withdraw from competition last week. The sports physiologists and orthopedists of all stripes were getting their moment in the spotlight detailing the injury and potential remedies.

I have no doubt he is physically hurting, but this is a guy who played on a broken leg and won the U.S. Open. It’s not the physical pain that’s been plaguing his game. The lyrics to a 60s song come to mind. “When something’s wrong with my baby, there’s something wrong with me.”

“You are what’s eating you” is another way of saying, “You are what has your attention.”

That thing that’s troubling you can’t be pushed into a corner and ignored because it will come out swinging. It needs to be addressed.

There are many schools of thought on how to address issues, but my experience has taught me that the most effective way is head on. It’s the fastest way to a solution. All the finessing, dancing and nibbling around the cookie just adds days, months and years of avoidable pain.

The reality check is this: Until you address what’s eating you, that’s who you will remain. You are what’s eating you.

This is not an invitation to go throw up on someone and give them a piece of your mind. That’s a one-way strategy that rarely works. Yes, you may have something to address with someone and withholding it is not helpful to you or them. That is not the most effective first step.

The first step is to address your own behavior. No one is making you feel the way you do but you. Assailing another is just a convenient diversion to ignore your own behavior.

What can you do about what’s eating you? No one else can solve the problem for you, but I can point you in a direction – Address it.

The strategy of ignore and be blissful leads to a lifetime of pain, but you already know that.

It takes courage to address yourself, but once addressed, you are no longer on the menu.

All the best,

John

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Who can’t remember this schoolyard ditty: “Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me”?

You can find factual data in just about any saying that’s stood the test of time. Let’s look at this one.

The assertion that sticks and stones can break bones is accurate. “Names can never hurt me” is more of a personal declaration and is short on facts that everyone can agree on.

How can names hurt? Two ways come to mind – conditioning and believing.

If we are told often enough (conditioned) that a word is offensive, there’s a high probability we will be offended when we hear that word. Notice that we’re not offended if someone says that word to us in a foreign language that we don’t understand.

What words are offensive to you? We all seem to have a list.

Believing you are the word is the most hurtful of all.

If you haven’t been in a name calling match, you aren’t human. It’s one way we choose to inflict pain on someone who has caused us pain.

If you believe you are what the name implies, you will have an escalated emotional reaction.

We already know the person who is calling us a name is attempting to hurt us, so let’s set that aside for a moment.

Explore for a moment the aspect that you believe it’s accurate.

This is a choice point. You can go into argument and denial mode and claim that it’s not true. This is the route chosen most often. Or, you can entertain the facts behind their assertion and choose to address them.

If someone calls you a name that you know is not accurate, you may be offended and defend yourself with the facts. But if someone “lays you out in lavender” with a name you believe, chances are you are going to give them some high decibel, vitriolic vomit in return. Most often, your response is a frontal assault on them, never addressing what has been claimed about you.

Labels can lock us in or become the key to let us out.

If someone is calling you a name you’ve been calling yourself, it may be time to excuse their bad manners for a moment and address the behavior that makes you believe the label. The temptation is to circle the wagons again and deny it’s there. That’s a sure bet that you will have this battle again and again.

Addressing what’s been repeatedly said about you from all corners is the mark of growing up.

Yes, name calling is boorish behavior, but name recognition can be the catalyst for transformation.

It may be time to leave the battlefield of the schoolyard, and enter adulthood by extracting some learning from the school of hard knocks.

All the best,

John

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We’ve heard it said many times that life is “Give and take.”

As an old song declares, “You’ve got to give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little.”

It seems that some of us want to specialize and be exclusively one way – a giver or a taker. It never works. It seems we were created to be both.

The way I view it, we are here to contribute – give. We are also here to benefit by others’ contributions – take. The imbalance occurs when we stake a claim on one or the other and attempt to make it exclusively what we do.

There are so few pure givers on the earth that we can deduce that they are not responsible for the balance between the two being out of whack. So the onus falls on the takers.

My mother had an expression when describing a taker. She called them a “User.” They would use you to advance their agenda. When they got what they could from you, they would move on to another person to extract some more – never once giving back.

Takers don’t contribute. It’s not like they don’t have anything to give, they’ve just been conditioned into their entitled view of life.

If you only cut down trees and don’t replant them, you can easily see how poorly that strategy contributes to our ongoing, collective existence. But takers never consider scenarios like that as long as there’s enough for them.

A blog post like this will never reach a taker because, frankly, they don’t care and most likely never will.

This writing is for the unbalanced taker in us.

Have you evaluated what you are here to contribute? You have much to give but may be hiding it under a bushel basket. If you are sitting back and taking more than you are giving, you’re out of balance.

I’m considering someone who spends a lot of time online and reads only one viewpoint on a topic. Then they send out emails to others to urge them to get the point. That person is a taker. They have no viewpoint of their own. They just pass on someone else’s. They passively take in what’s said and blindly pass it on. Fact checking is not a strong suit of a taker.

What’s your contribution? Anyone can regurgitate what someone else has said. What do you think?

I have a friend that always quotes someone else – always! I want to know what they think, not what Benjamin Disraeli
thought.

I want to experience their unique contribution and not be treated to a poor imitation of someone else.

You have something to give. Find it!

The light that shines from you will pass through your life experience filters and be a unique contribution that no one else can give. Start sharing your light. Start giving.

Not everyone will take what you have to give nor will you take what everyone else has to offer. That’s the give and take of life. But that process cannot happen unless we are all contributing.

Julia Cameron, author of “The Artist’s Way” uses the term “Shadow Artist.” They walk in the shadow of the artist never casting their own light. That’s a taker.

Taking is a lonely existence.

Engage your curiosity and explore what you have to give and then give it.

When you give, you suck the overabundance of take out of life.

All the best,

John

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I ran into a young woman named Eve who worked in a T-shirt shop in a trendy vacation spot in Massachusetts.

Eve is from a foreign country and speaks English better than most Americans. She has talents well past the skills she’s being compensated for, but she’s failed to recognize them.

She’s not alone.

Eve runs what I called the “Scared Rabbit” pattern.

It’s difficult to put the pattern into words but I instantly recognize it, even when it’s slightly displayed.

“Scared Rabbit” runs from the slightest rustle. They head for a hiding place where they can’t be discovered.

They act like they are prey for just about every obstacle that stands in their way. “Run down the rabbit hole” is their conditioned reaction.

What are they running from?

An idea – a fearful idea.

FAILURE!

They fear failure more than almost anything else.

The idea of success doesn’t outweigh the notion of failure for a scared rabbit.

They prepare for success but engineer what they fear most.

Just so we’re clear, the fear of failure is the fear of what other people will think.

We don’t seem to take the time to notice that we can’t even control the thoughts that pop into our own head, so how are we supposed to control the thoughts of others?

No matter how clear your crystal ball, you’ll never know what others think. You may know how they think, but you’ll never know what they’re thinking.

If rabbits think others will judge them on their inability to accomplish something, they don’t make the effort. They take their skills and run for the hills.

A rabbit requires nurturing. They need to find where they’ve already been successful in life, no matter how minor, and build on that feeling. It’s that feeling that’s going to propel them to push past any imagined or real criticism.

Imagine having the courage as a young woman to leave your own country on your own to go to another country and make it your new home. That action outweighed anything others may have thought of Eve.

Now she has to draw on that that success to take her next step towards the carrot patch.

You can never control what others will think, but you can neutralize that feeling in you by focusing on the successful things you already do.

Scared rabbits have poor memories. They fail to remember their successes. When they begin to stack them one upon another, they form a foundation on which to build another.

If you’ve been running scared because of what others may think, it’s time to take inventory of your successes. It’s this action that gets you past the wagging fingers of failure.

All the best,

John

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I was reading through a terrific photography book the other day – Captured By The Light.

The author, David Ziser, chats about some advice he got from another photographer/author, Scott Kelby, about the importance of contributing to a blog on a regular basis. Scott said, “If you don’t feed the monster, it will die.”

It struck me how far reaching that statement is.

You can substitute just about any noun for “Monster” and the outcome doesn’t change. Whatever it is will die.

We are conditioned negatively to the word “Monster” so the wisdom may not be readily apparent. Think of your monster as the friendly ogre, Shreck.

Ask yourself any of the following questions:

How’s your relationship, your sex life, your friendships, your occupation, your avocation or your golf game? The answer is in direct proportion to the amount you are feeding it.

Anything will die if you don’t feed it.

It’s simply amazing to me the number of younger men who take erectile dysfunction medication. Lots of it has to do with the inundation of ads about the various products but most of it has to do with waning passion vs. any physical dysfunction. I quote two notables here – Donald Trump & Dr. Ruth.

Trump has said that if you are taking one of these products, you have the wrong woman, and Dr. Ruth has said that sex is more mental than physical.

Waning passion is the result of not feeding it – sexually or otherwise.

Somewhere along the way we stop contributing and before you know it, something is on death’s doorstep.

For example, people who exercise very little or not at all, may look upon it as a sometime thing. That angle of view starves the monster.

Is your career or marriage circling the drain? How much have you been feeding it?

We live the myth that things will take care of themselves. It’s never the case. Once you buy into “Set it and forget it,” you contribute to its demise.

It may be too late to feed your particular monster, but you’ll never know unless you make the effort. This much is for sure, if you do nothing it will die.

Today’s bumper sticker: FEED THE MONSTER!

All the best,

John

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Your hatred doesn’t die when you do – you pass it on.

When you hate someone, you fear someone. It’s really that basic.

You fear what they can do to you or someone close to you, or perhaps you fear that they can destroy something you believe in.

Fear keeps hatred alive and it gets recycled to the next generation, possibly a bit watered down, but kept alive.

That means if we don’t destroy ourselves in the meantime, some future generation will have hatred diluted enough that it’s no longer a factor.

That’s a long time to wait.

Is there a shortcut?

Yes, but only if you believe in the philosophy that you have to clean up your own corner of the world first.

Peace begins with you.

Maybe we institute a world holiday called, “I Don’t Hate Anybody Today.” Everyone is encouraged to participate. All wars have cease fires, all protestors put down their placards, all divorce attorneys are forgiven (well, that may be going a bit too far, but you get the idea).

How can we find a way to celebrate the personal peace that only we can generate? If we’re focused on peaceful feelings, there’s no room for hatred.

Hatred, through conditioning, takes on a life of its own and it becomes a common way of life for too many. Their life isn’t right unless they hate someone. “Those bastards!”

I wonder if those invested in hatred ever did the arithmetic. If you take time to hate someone or something, you can’t be at peace.

The more you hate, the less peace you enjoy. You cause your own lack of peace, and the personal disharmony it causes, when you choose to hate. Hatred is a choice.

Notice how hatred is embedded in our society. “How goes the battle?” is a common question. My answer to that query is usually some form of, “I’m not fighting with anyone.”

You’re probably not going to get rid of all your hatred before you die, but that really isn’t the goal. It’s not how much less hate can we have; it’s more of a question of: “How much more peace can I enjoy?”

Talk with any savvy physician and you’ll find that people who have to be at odds with others enjoy much less health. Your choice to continue being upset upsets your cart, resulting in not having an apple a day.

Invest in hatred or invest in peace? You decide!

It’s like the old church hymn instructs us, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

All the best,

John

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Even atheists have religion; they just don’t call it that.

If you have a belief system about something, and you do, you have a religion.

You may not go to a church, temple or mosque but you are a firm believer.

Here’s the difficulty I have with “Capital R” Religion: It’s exclusionary.

Just as an example, I passed a Christian Church the other day and the words they had on the billboard viewable from the highway read: “The only Messiah with an empty grave.”

I have no quibble with someone believing what they can’t prove because everyone does it. My sense is that this sign could have easily read: “My God’s better than your God.”

The implication is that their version of God is superior. It’s exclusionary. It’s not the least bit ecumenical. It sets up an argument, not a “let’s sit down and pray” together invitation.

All brands of organized religion exclude. My sense is they would be much more inclusive if there was no competition when it came to God.

I would never attempt to talk anyone out of a strongly held belief; I would merely point out that we weren’t born with any of them. They were all acquired.

We acquired most of our beliefs, religious and otherwise, through conditioning. We didn’t have any say in many of the beliefs we acquired.

Look at racial prejudice as an example. You weren’t born with it, you acquired it and, sadly, for some people it’s a religion.

The point isn’t to pick on any one specific belief or religion, but an attempt to take a closer look at the exclusionary nature of our beliefs.

If we believe something and someone else doesn’t, they can’t be in our club, or if they are a member, they aren’t a member in good standing. Political parties (religions) are also a hotbed of exclusion. Listen to politicians religiously argue for everyone to adopt their point of view, and if they don’t, castigate them and call them a name.

All religions talk about love; they just don’t practice it when they exclude.

There are a lot of ways to get to heaven but the trip will be much smoother if we remove the roadblock known as exclusion.

All the best,

John

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You don’t need a Ouija Board to know customer service is at an all time low.

What’s amazing to me is that in this challenging employment climate, businesses didn’t seem to keep the best people.

I just had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh (pronounced SHAY). In this book, you will discover an instant way to do more business and build relationships without making an additional sale.

The book details the rise of Zappos.com and how it was built on customer service. Zappos.com did over a BILLION dollars in sales last year.

This isn’t a recommendation to buy the book, (although it’s a fun read with lots of great insight); it’s more of a wake-up call to pay more attention to the people you interact with whether they are customers or not.

The lack of respect for, and acknowledgement of, other people has hit a new high, and it looks like the sky’s the limit.

You may not start a billion dollar company by being more respectful but the dividends it pays in peace of mind and improved human relations are priceless.

The main problem I see in customer service and human interaction is the tendency to make the other person wrong. It’s not a battle about who’s right; it’s more about right action.

You will not satisfy every customer, nor will you convince everyone to come over to your way of thinking. That doesn’t mean they are wrong. They just have a different point of view. Regardless of whether you think they are obtuse, they deserve your respect.

If someone becomes insulting or belligerent, you can end the interaction on a polite note and say you decline to interact with someone who’s resorted to name calling.

I believe that we have forgotten that other people are people. We’ve reduced them to things. We try and bang them into place with a hammer and wind up sticking out like a sore thumb.

For many, it’s hard not to engage when you are under assault. In the past, I found myself at the top of that list.

What I’ve found is that strategy has poor performance. Being right at all costs is filled with instant gratification. The difficulty is it’s a sugar high and you wind up needing another quick fix. You may need an intervention.

The intervention that works is recognition. Recognize that other people are you in another suit of clothes. They have the same basic wants, needs and desires as you, and didn’t wake up today intending to make your life miserable. They just have a different point of view.

Take note how you are treating others. Is it the way you want to be treated? If not, an adjustment is necessary on your part.

Improved human relations begin with you. Here’s a starting point: Just remember what it feels like to be acknowledged and respected and then convey that feeling to others.

All the best,

John

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In sports, there’s a term known as “Homer.” No, not the poet, or a four bagger known as a “Home run.”

A homer is someone who believes their home team does nothing wrong. They will justify anything a home team member does as long as they are part of the team. All bets are off if they get traded. Then the homer will then go on the attack about anything the player does when playing the former home team.

This phenomenon is not isolated to sports.

Have you noticed you will justify just about anything that one of your home members does? Logic flies out the window when it’s a member of our home team.

It’s quite natural to want to protect your own; it’s also delusional when you ignore the facts.

All families are faced with issues regarding their members. The teacher couldn’t possibly have a point about Johnny being disruptive in class. “She’s just high strung and doesn’t know how to deal with boys” is just an example of the type of justification we concoct.

The excuses pile up quicker than lawn care flyers in our mailbox in spring.

The more excuses you make for one of your members, the weaker you make them. We all become enablers when we turn our head away from the elephant in the room.

What have you been defending that’s indefensible? What are you supporting that will eventually fall on top of you and crush you?

It may be that the “member” you are blindly supporting is a pattern of behavior you have that you’ve been explaining away for years. Somewhere along the way we begin to believe our own lies. Then one day the mirror gets unfogged and shows us our true reflection, warts and all. This is a choice point.

We can crank up the steam machine again or we can finally address what makes us a mess.

You’re not going to find the following phrase on a Successories poster, but it is useful: “Listen to your horseshit.”

Listen to the “fun house mirror” logic you use. It’s the first base you have to reach before you have a chance of making it home.

Noticing our justifications puts them in a new light. I don’t have research to back this up but it seems accurate to me – 99 times out of 100, a justification is a lie.

Who are you kidding when you cheat at Solitaire? Who do you keep in the dark when you lie to yourself?

The Odyssey known as life becomes a much clearer path to walk when we don’t keep it strewn with the self imposed obstacles we generate when we argue for our limitations.

Have you noticed that the air always smells better after a thunderstorm? No justification will make that dark cloud over your head go away. We are better served when we experience the storm rather than hide under the bed with the elephant.

Become the unbiased referee of your life and be unafraid to call a foul on the home team. Your honesty may save a life – Yours!

All the best,

John

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Planning is a wonderful tool to have in your bag, but for many, it’s the only tool they use.

Planning is always foundational. If you have a solid plan, you can build something of worth on top of it.

My Dad was a construction foreman and always had plans in his car. He called them drawings. These would guide him on how to build the building the architect envisioned when he or she drew up the plans.

I remember many a night when my father would be looking over the drawings after dinner and saying stuff like, “This guy (architect) must have a hole in his head, this will never work.” The next day there would be a big confab with the architect and they would get things worked out.

Perhaps it’s never occurred to you that you are the architect of your life. It’s foundational in getting what you want.

The rub comes along when we plan and don’t inspect or review our plan or, worse yet, expect the plan to take care of everything.

Let’s look at both scenarios:

Have you noticed your plan isn’t working? This is accurate for the majority of us. Even if you don’t have a formal plan, you got to where you are by following a formula. The question is: “Is it working?”

The answer is usually, “No.” That’s OK because 100% of the people planned on having their marriage work out. Sometimes plans don’t work. They aren’t means tested along the way. Many don’t have a common sense foreman double checking on them. We set them and forget them and then the cracks show up in the foundation.

You cannot set and forget your life. You gotta’ get the plans out from time to time and spread them across the dining room table and have a look-see how well you are doing. You may need to make some adjustments to keep whatever you are building on solid ground.

But the biggest misuse of planning is having no action attached to whatever you are planning. This is mostly done by the “Dreamers.” This would not be a flattering use of the term “Dreamers.”

Dreamers are always planning. They have plans for more things than you can think of. They may even have a place where they store all these dreamy plans. You will easily notice a dreamer when their plan is absent of action. If it ever occurs to the dreamer that sustained action is necessary to get what they want, it only comes to them in a nightmare.

Dreaming is a wonderful gift, but when it’s the only one that you open, you miss a lot. Dreaming, without action, is just plain wishing. The question we rarely ask is: “How’s that working for you?”

Are you setting and forgetting or are you dreaming?

They are useful questions to ask. The useful answer is not an opinion; it’s fact based.

Are you willing to take a look at the plans, and even more importantly, are you ready to take action?

If not, plan on getting what you already have.

All the best,

John

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