Dream a little dream with me........to a better tomorrow

This has been an entry that I have been looking forward to writing, I will waste no time with a fancy intro.

If you are like me, the feeling of not getting to where you want or wanted to be in life has at some point arisen in your thoughts.  Where you are right now in life is a result of what your plan was a year ago.  The only chance you have at getting to a different place begins with changing the way you think.  It is a choice that is all yours.  You have the choice to change the way your mind looks at circumstances, the choice to control your thoughts.  Different thinking patterns will change your future.  Changing “there is no way I can handle this” or “I can’t do this” to “I will find a way” will have a tremendous affect on where you are one year from now.

One major realization that I would like you to make is: you can do or have anything you want.  I repeat, you can do or have anything you want.  So many of us have been told “you can’t do this” or “you won’t be able to do that.”  If you are like me, you were told repeatedly that you were not good enough to do anything.  Forget all of that – it does not matter or mean a thing.  A good majority of the time it was only from someone who hated themselves or they were so miserable in their life, they wanted you to be where they are.  Unfortunately this includes loved ones.  This is one of the main reasons why it is imperative to surround yourself with positive and influential people.  Being around negative people can wreak havoc in your life and destroy the chances of you realizing your full potential.  Stay away from them!  My first stint in rehab, a counselor told me that out of all the patients, he knew I would be the first to fail.  I listened to him and did fail.  Thank God I eventually worked with someone who helped me see life in a different way.  If someone does tell you something negative, thank them for their unwanted opinion and move on!

In this entry we are only going to focus on the first step to realizing your ultimate everything and that first step is visualization.  Don’t make worry as to the “how’s”, just do the visualizing.  When done correctly, the "how" will make itself known (don’t say "how" am I going to go back to school or "how" am I going to own my own business, etc.).  From the time I can earliest remember, I wanted to bowl and be a star on the Professional Bowlers Tour.  Once I read a baby book comment that described a four year old Anthony that threw across the room any birthday present that wasn’t bowling related.  It was my first and only dream.  When the car accident was followed by the pain med addiction, the dream was taken away and life was meaningless to me.  Getting a taste of that dream only made it worse.  For ten years I danced with the devil.  Year after year I was in the same place because the only thing that played in my mind was that I couldn’t get clean, or I didn’t have the strength or know how to do it.  Even worse, I let myself think I wasn’t good enough to do anything else and I deserved what I was going through.  Once I made the commitment to get clean and was given the proper tools to begin life anew, I was able to make some sense of life again and found myself slowly beginning to have aspirations come to the surface.  With the help of some great people, I was able to change “there is no way I can get clean” into “I will be drug free” and “there is no way I can be a student again” turned into “I will be a college graduate.”  You see, there is always a way.  The way may not be easy, but it does exist.  When I think back five to six year ago, so many obstacles jumped in the way, but I made a promise to myself to never again say “no way” and to never again think I wasn’t deserving of whatever I wanted.  I left the last rehab facility with only the shirt on my back and the smallest piece of dignity.  However, I had a dream again and it led me to where I am now.  A very influential person in my life once shared a piece of paper with me that had the following on it:

·         After Fred Astaire’s first screen test with MGM, the talent director wrote the following memo: “Can’t act, can’t sing.  Slightly bald….can dance a little.”  Fred Astaire kept this memo and eventually framed and hung it above the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

·         Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.  He was defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at age 62.

·         Thomas Edison’s teacher once wrote on his report card that he was “too stupid to learn anything.”  He was fired from jobs for being non-productive and had 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb.  When asked what it was like to fail 1,000 times, he replied, “I didn’t.  The light bulb was an invention with 1,001 steps.”

·         Abraham Lincoln failed as a businessman, a lawyer, was defeated for six different attempts at public office, and went bankrupt.  In 1858, he wrote a friend, “I am now the most miserable man living.”  He would become president just a few years later.

·         Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, but struck out 1,330 times in his career.  Some say winners make the most errors.

·         Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he felt Disney lacked in imagination and had not one good idea.  Walt went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.  The city of Anaheim (home of Disneyland) even rejected the proposed park on grounds that it would attract “riffraff”.  One interesting note: Walt wouldn’t hire Charles Schultz (Peanuts creator).  Schultz had every cartoon rejected by his high school yearbook and local paper.

You will never be a failure unless you give up.  Sure you will have temporary setbacks that everyone experiences.  Chalk them up as life lessons.  For successful people, failure is the fuel to do more.  As you read this, I am working on the dream that has been with me since the day I left rehab (the last one (:  ).  Have most turned away their ear? I could list them.  Have doors been shut? Many.  But, I have visualized it and will not take no for an answer.  The rest of the regimen is worked on each day.  I won’t be one of those people who give up just before it was about to happen.  And never again will I give satisfaction to the people who said I couldn't do it - I urge you to do the same.

In the following posts, I will help you map out the basic steps to realizing your dream.  I dare you to do this with me.  I dare you to yearn for what you were meant to be!  As Mama Cass once sang, I want you to “dream a little dream for me.”  Begin now.  Start writing and do it now.  Channel the mind of a child.  Don’t worry about the categories or how you will accomplish any of it.  Just write it out.  We will work on the rest in the next post.  Just do it!  This could be the start of something big!

Go Well.....Anthony

Please feel free to add comments or you can personally email me.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Don't be so hard on yourself !

One of the biggest changes in life I have tried to make is learning to not always assume the worst (notice I said learning). Many of us have heard the expressions of seeing the glass half full vs. half empty or seeing the light at the end of the tunnel instead of focusing on the tunnel itself. I was one of the worst pessimists and it has been very difficult to shift my focus. When it came to looking at the glass, I didn't even see it half empty, I assumed it would be empty soon!

One of my favorite questions I used to ask (my good friend Michael Cardarelli can attest to this): Why is the entire world against me? Certain periods of my life may not have always been the best, but there sure wasn't anything that would have enabled me to back up such a profound statement. I had to learn that I couldn't control what happened in the past, but I had complete control over what happened in the future. By allowing people of my past to affect me, they still had control. Once I was able to move past the negative experiences, changes began to happen. I was tired of thinking that I was the victim.

There are actually scientific experiences to prove that pessimistic people are more likely to develop chronic illnesses than optimistic people! SO, not only do you spend time dwelling on things that you have no control over, you cut your life short as well. Sounds pretty pathetic when you think about it, huh?

In my conversations with people regarding the subject, I have actually been asked, "so, you just don't care now?"  No, that's not it either. It's being able to take the good with the bad and what I have found is that the good generally outweighs the bad. Being pessimistic will never aid in accomplishing a single thing. One of the best inspirational messages I have ever heard, "Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist."  Harvard professor Anthony Tjan gives a great practical method, entitles the "24X3 Rule." The next time you hear an idea for the first time, meet someone new, or ready to discuss a touchy subject, try to wait 24 seconds before saying or thinking anything NEGATIVE. This reinforces a foundational skill of good optimism and good leadership. That basic skill is listening. As you gain the ability to listen and pause for a brief 24 seconds before allowing  “critic” inside you bubble to the verbal surface, move to the next level and try to do it for 24 minutes. At 24 minutes, you are able to give more considered thought to the idea and think more carefully of the many reasons why it might actually work, why it might be better than what is out there, and why it might just topple conventional wisdom.  And yes, you should also work towards the ability to wait 24 hours — one single day — before pondering or verbalizing the cons against something. Starting with this pause button will reward you in more ways that you could imagine.

One last thing, I can remember during my bowling career having one of those “a-ha” moments.  I noticed that when I bowled in the team environment, everybody was encouraging to each other, with positive comments in support.  I realized that when I competed individually, I was extremely difficult on myself which too often led to negativity and that always affected my performance.  I started to talk to myself the way I would talk to a teammate, with encouraging words and support.  It made a world of difference.  Try it next time you are feeling down, give yourself the pep talk you would give a loved one or teammate.  I bet it will make a difference!