Yesterday I saw an old jukebox, the kind that used to populate diners many years ago. It was loaded with songs from my dancin’, prancin’ and romancin’ years as I like to call them. It was a fun excursion down memory lane as I was spinning the hits. It got me to wondering . . .

It’s as though we have a mental jukebox that has access to a finite number of songs. When we depress the keys C3 or J5, we always get a predictable old song. We seem to be at the mercy of the current playlist on the jukebox.

These are our “Greatest Hits” and we play them over and over again. It’s a case of conditioned stimulus/response. When we or someone else depresses L9, they’re going to get a predictable tune. This is the way our life gets programmed and stale.

(Cue the announcer) “Introducing the Internet Jukebox.”

Pretend for a minute that your mental jukebox had a search engine on it like Google and it was hooked to the internet. You could search the entire internet for just the precise song you needed and download it to play on your machine. You wouldn’t be limited by the same old songs.

You have the ability to own the internet jukebox today. No money down, no interest to pay. In fact, it’s free.

The only thing you have to invest is your attention. Just notice that you are playing one from the “Golden Groove Yard” for the umpteenth time. Your noticing will interrupt the song long enough for you to activate the search engine to come up with the appropriate song for this occasion. When you are hooked to the internet jukebox, you have access to a bigger database to choose from. The selections are endless.

So the next time you’re about to give an anemic, predictable response to someone which will have the same predictable result, interrupt the song that’s about to play and search for another. This interruption and search will add delightful new songs to your playlist and keep you fresh.

You can certainly keep your all time favorites if they are still working for you. But if they’re not, hook yourself up to the internet jukebox. And as we use to say in the radio business: “The hits just keep on comin’,”

All the best,

John