Meditation is an important aspect of the Buddhist religion. Each Buddhist school has different forms and techniques for meditation. For some, it’s the form in which the mind reaches a plane of existence and understanding beyond that which we normally know, and thus, involves far more than the five senses. Some zen masters explain that meditation is “touching the heart” of the human being. As such, it is important to..
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How To Be Awesome: 3 Ways To Be The Most Interesting Man in the World
Long before the Dos Equis commercials came out about The Most Interesting Man in the World, I wanted to be that guy. I envisioned myself as that one person at parties that everyone flocked to because I had done amazing things and had captivating stories.
I often imagined this:
“Hey, Bill! Come over here. This guy is telling a story about how he parachuted out of an airplane over the Sahara, ran an ultra-marathon through the desert and then spent a week living with a tribe of nomads!”
I didn’t do any of those things, by the way. But, that was my goal. I wanted to be awesome! And while I certainly didn’t become the most interesting man in the world, I did do a few awesome things along the way. Even better than that, I met some awesome people who did even more awesome things.
The more awesome you are, the more people will be drawn to you. And if people are drawn to you, then you will put yourself in situations where opportunities are abundant. Perhaps, someone finds you interesting and invites you to a party where you’ll meet your future wife. Or, maybe, you tell a story in one interview and that makes you memorable enough to get hired.
But, being awesome and doing awesome things isn’t just about looking cool at a party. It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself beyond your status quo.
People and stories that are recognized as awesome are seen as such because they’re unusual and out of the ordinary. That means you have to do something outside of your comfort zone. You need to push yourself.
By pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones, we’ll find out things about ourselves that we never knew. We’ll discover that we are capable of so much more.
So, while being awesome and doing awesome things can make you the life of the party, there’s more to it than just that. Knowing how to be awesome is knowing how to push yourself beyond your limits and discover the deeper depths within you.
So, here are 3 quick ways to be awesome:
Do At least One Epic Activity
When I was 24, I traveled to Europe with a buddy and ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. I wore the white pants and shirt with the red sash and weaved in and out of the crowd, dodging bulls along the cobbled streets of Pamplona.
That one story has given me an “awesome factor” for 10 years. I tell it at parties, during meet-and-greet ice breaker games and to pretty much anyone. Before I met my wife, I told the story on every first date I ever went on.
Every single time, it gets the same response: “That’s awesome!” Then, they’ll ask questions and I get to tell the whole story over and over again.
By the end of the 5-minute story, I am the most interesting man in the world- or at least the most interesting man within a 10-foot radius! This one epic activity has carried me for years.
I’m not the daredevil type. But, when people hear this story, they immediately think I’m some badass. My wife laughs every time people say things, like “Wow, you’re a real adventurist!”.
But, in their minds, that story makes me awesome. You know why? Because it is awesome.
Over the years, I’ve known others with similar, awesome tales of epic activities. I met a guy who swam with Great White Sharks in South Africa, another who cared for rhinos on an animal reserve in Africa and another who got scuba certified in Thailand.
Tell one of those stories at a party and you’ll be instantly awesome. But, more important than that, you get to live out the activity and stretch yourself beyond what you thought you were capable of. And that’s more awesome.
Travel to Awesome Places and Embrace the Locals
To fully appreciate the world and see things from different angles, you need to see the world. This doesn’t mean you have to be a non-stop traveler or the person that wanders the world for a year. You should, at least, get out and see a few places outside of your comfort zone.
I am not actually a great traveler. I get nervous leaving the country (I think I watched too many episodes of Locked Up Abroad) and prefer to travel around the U.S. But, I know that this limits me and that I have to get out of my comfort zone.
So, over the years, I have pushed myself to travel to different countries. I still have much of the world to see but, by overcoming my fears and stretching myself, I know I’m to a great start.
Once you do travel to an awesome place, you need to ditch the tourist traps and hang out with the locals. No one cares if you saw the Colosseum in Rome. Everyone that goes to Rome does that. Getting drunk with the locals and laughing at each other’s accents, on the other hand, is awesome.
I went to Scotland once. When I talk about that trip, nobody cares to hear about the rolling hills or visiting St. Andrews. Everyone that goes to Scotland sees those things.
So, instead of that, I tell the story about how my buddy and I went to a local dive bar in the shipping yard of Aberdeen. We were looking to mix it up with some local drunk sailors and get into an old-fashioned bar fight. The plan backfired, however, as the Scottish shipping industry had apparently clamped down on drinking at port years ago.
Instead of encountering badass sailors with anchor tattoos, we stumbled into what used to be known as the toughest bar in Aberdeen only to find it was now owned by a nice Indian gentleman and his cute little puppy.
Despite that, we still made the best of it and did some weird shots with him before heading off to pay drunken homage to the town’s Braveheart statue. It was an awesome, memorable experience.
Anyway, if you want to be awesome, go to awesome places and hang out with awesome people.
See Also: 7 Important Things To Do To Travel Like A Local
Help Others
Helping others is, perhaps, the most awesome thing you can do. If you are able to help someone in need, whether it be something as large as building a water well in a remote village or as small as just being a good friend in times of need….well, there is just something so awesome about that type of love that it’s hard to explain in words. You have to feel it.
I have met people who have traveled to Africa to build water wells in Uganda. I have also met people who have traveled to Southeast Asia to build schools. On top of that, I also got to meet a person who taught children in South America how to read and surf! That is a lot of awesomeness!
I also know people who volunteer at the local pantry once a month, others that donate clothes to the homeless and even people who spend time with their elderly relatives. That is a lot of awesomeness as well!
Knowing how to be awesome isn’t that hard. You just have to take yourself out of your comfort zone and do something for others. It will stretch you as a person and make for an awesome story. Most importantly, it will mean the world to the person you are helping.
Do epic things, travel to awesome places and help your brothers and sisters in the world and you will be AWESOME!!!
The post How To Be Awesome: 3 Ways To Be The Most Interesting Man in the World appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
June 8th
How You Can Win The Battle Against Negativity
You’re reading How You Can Win The Battle Against Negativity, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
One time I spoke at a women-only event in Southern California and a petite blonde woman cornered me in the bathroom afterward to ask about how to better handle her husband.
She explained, “I am the optimistic one in the marriage, while my husband is the pessimist, and it’s killing me.” I could hear the concern and frustration in this woman’s voice, and even a touch of desperation as she tried so hard to help him “see the light.”
She kept butting her head against a wall every day for years, and she was at the breaking point. I’ve been there with negative people in my life—and those negative people have negatively influenced my own mood and performance.
“How do I deal with a negative person in my life?”
This is by far the most common question I get when presenting our research at client companies. Although it is asked often in terms of dealing with a negative person on a team at work, there are some who may be thinking about how to handle negativity from a spouse or in-law.
Negative people affect our stress levels and ability to choose the positive. We quit, blow up, or die early because of these people. Repeated exposure to life’s stresses actually has the potential to shorten our life span by destroying the DNA telomeres at the end of our chromosomes. Furthermore, a study conducted at the University of Georgia found that negative thoughts can be so contagious that depression can actually spread from person to person.
This isn’t a corporate or cultural problem; it is a human problem—one that we all have felt.
The key to dealing with negative people in our lives is not to isolate ourselves, but to shield or momentarily separate ourselves from negativity to retreat, regroup, and reenter the fray stronger than we were before we left it. It is possible to outweigh someone else’s negativity by refueling yourself with positivity—including mindfully reconnecting with the meaning in your life or things you’re grateful for.
Here are some helpful strategies from my book Broadcasting Happiness to help you combat negative people in your life using your own positivity:
Create a strategic retreat — on an island or in your office
Sometimes the most effective way to deepen a conversation is to retreat from it. Retreats are cowardly, but strategic retreats make us stronger and better able to handle others. A strategic retreat enables us to preserve our resources (both mental and physical) and create the space to formulate an action plan for the future.
A strategic retreat from the negative can be crucial to creating a positive shift in our relationships at work. Once when I was feeling burned out from my overnight job and by some of the frustrating people in my life, I took a vacation by myself to the Caribbean for some R & R (rum and rum). I later came to see was that this was a strategic retreat, which allowed me to recharge.
And much to my surprise, after a few days of being away, I found that I actually missed some people, even the frustrating ones. I used my strategic retreat to give space to refocus my brain on positive elements of my life including the work I loved and the close relationships I had—not only to support my own happiness, but to create an action plan to use my positivity to proactively counteract negativity from my colleagues.
Now, I understand that not everyone can just pick up and go to the Caribbean by themselves, but strategic retreats don’t have to be elaborate, “Eat, Pray, Love,” round-the-world journeys. Strategic retreats can be created almost anywhere on any given day—even in your own office!
If you are looking to retreat immediately but can’t get away from the office, take a few minutes to close your office door. Turn on some calming music and think about the things in your life that make you happy. Another way you can strategically retreat at work is to go for a walk by yourself at a nearby park or outdoor area during your lunch break. Being outside in the sun will help you think positively while enriching you with some Vitamin D.
But taking a strategic retreat is only half the battle. Eventually we need to come back and face negativity head-on.
Reenter with daily positive, proactive habits
Return to the fray with a proactive plan to keep your mind focused on the fueling parts of your reality. Here are some helpful ways that we can create daily positive habits at work that research has shown have a lasting beneficial impact on your mindset:
- Send an email of praise or thanks. Every day for 21 days, first thing in the morning, send a short positive email to someone you know. This creates a habit out of meaningfully connecting with our colleagues and shrinks the level of influence negative people have on our lives.
- Collect your gratitudes. Each day, write down three new and unique things you are grateful for in life. This will train your brain to scan the world in a more positive way. Research has found that gratitude practices conducted in two weeks led to a significant rise in well-being.
- Snap a positive picture. Each day, snap a picture of something that makes you happy, grateful or loved, whether it’s a sunset, your child sleeping, or a project at work you successfully finished. The positive pictures you take remind you of the emotions you felt while taking them, increasing your positive emotions as a result.
So, if you are like the woman from the audience at my talk struggling to cope with a negative person in your life, remember—take care of yourself first, and that will better help you broadcast your positive mindset to others. Every time you have a positive encounter with a negative person, you’re shifting his or her reality for the better.
If you’d like to learn more about how to combat negativity by retreating, regrouping and reentering relationships with positivity, I invite you to join us for our (free) Wake Up & Inspire Happiness Video Workshop. On Day 3, we share more strategies and examples to learn how to switch negative people in your life to positive in seconds.
Michelle Gielan, national CBS News anchor turned positive psychology researcher, is the best-selling author of Broadcasting Happiness.
Michelle is the Founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research and is partnered with Arianna Huffington to study how transformative stories fuel success. She is an Executive Producer of “The Happiness Advantage” Special on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course.
Michelle holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and her research and advice have received attention from The New York Times, Washington Post, FORBES, CNN, FOX, and Harvard Business Review.
You’ve read How You Can Win The Battle Against Negativity, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
“If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be…
Times Square Reborn
In today’s America of drastically reduced civic expectations, Snøhetta’s quietly brilliant reconfiguration of Times Square is an exemplar of how much can be achieved in city planning without the gigantic financial outlays and dire social displacements that typified American postwar urban renewal projects. An evident understanding of how people interact in public spaces—above all their desire to be seen as much as to see—made Snøhetta an obvious choice.
“How much there is in the world I do not want.” – Socrates
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Sig Nordal 