What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a time when you were in physical pain? It was a pretty bad memory right? It might have been so significant that you still carry trauma from that event. Well, perhaps we can begin to look at pain from a different angle. Dr. Jen Esquer, a doctor in physical therapist and body health expert was recently featured in a Self Improvement Sit Down, and had this to say on the topic.

While Jen focused on the value of physical pain, the same thought applies to emotional pain. The fact that something hurt you means that you need to take note of the event. Pain is your body’s way of communicating that you should avoid whatever happened to cause it, whether that’s physical or emotional. Let’s be grateful for those signals so that we can continue to optimize our beliefs, behaviors, and processes as we experiment with what works for us in our lives.

I was camping with my girlfriend and some friends and we were working on packing everything up. I received directions from one person that I then needed to relay to another person, and when I had successfully done that I took a moment to think about what had just happened. I can’t remember all of the specifics, but it had something to do with packing the car and the order of events we were about to take. The communication was completely impromptu, not prepared at all, but very effective.

A few things I did in that communication,was I catered the message to be most pertinent to the receiver. I also gave them a reason why what I was about to tell them was important. I answered their follow up questions before they needed to ask it, and I shared a clear plan that they felt comfortable moving forward in their role.

The things I just listed, I didn’t think about them. I didn’t brainstorm the different elements I wanted to include in the message and think it through. It all came out naturally as part of the way I communicate, which I believe comes from years of leadership experience.

Taking that moment to step back and realize the nuances of my own communication style was really rewarding. Not only was it validating to see the progress I’ve made and my skill in practice, but it gave me a renewed confidence to be assertive in similar future situations. And the best part is it all happened subconsciously!

There is so much wisdom when you use ideas from other fields. This is the beauty of a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving and creativity.

And that is evident in this topic. We’re talking about about a common household appliance, the thermostat, and that it’s functionality explains how we as humans respond to and achieve things in our life. Coming from the founder of Daily Law of Attraction on Instagram, Jay Stark.

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The concept is, we have our own internal gauge or setting for what we want to achieve in our life. Sometimes we under achieve, sometimes we over achieve, but at the end of the day it all balances out to that setting. We can take advantage of this by setting our internal thermostats high and let the world conspire to make that normal. This is the law of attraction to a tee.

Can we all agree that we want a little more fun in our life? Fun usually leads to happiness, which is something we all could use a little more of. The reality is, happiness is a little more ominous than we think. This can best be explained by Dr. Mike Rucker, who is an expert on the psychology of happiness and fun.

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Dr. Rucker stated, "For many of us, a fulfilling life includes a drive towards happiness, making attaining happiness worthy of pursuit. However, there is an inherent risk when we chase happiness in this way. When we make happiness our goal, often unconscious dissidence is the result. This occurs because when we try to resolve ourselves to being 'happy', we naturally become aware of the distance in our current reality and the reality we seek. You might have heard the coaching maxim, 'Its better to measure the gain, than measure the gap'. However, when we blindly pursue happiness, that's exactly what we fall victim to. Measuring the gap. I submit to you there is a better way, and that way is creating a bias towards fun. This approach steers our focus away from the happiness gap, which science suggests paradoxically makes us less happy. Instead, it creates us more opportunities to create joyful moments. When we take action-oriented approach to creating more joy in our life, we move our focus away from what is missing, and towards the awareness that we posses the agency to create our own joy".

It’s a dangerous game when we are explicitly pursuing happiness. Dr. Mike suggests instead that we pursue happy moments by way of having fun, because that is more objective than playing the comparison game, or falling into the happiness gap. Measure your happiness the right way!

I met a woman two days ago who probably doens’t know how big of an impression she left on me. She had a great answer to an interesting question, “What is the one thing you have to do to turn your passion into a business?”. Her answer was, "follow your shine". First, the word "shine". You can’t be angry and use the word shine. It’s just impossible. "Shine" has a positive connotation that speaks to a very natural beauty.  It also makes you feel protected. When we’re safe, we have more courage to explore and experience.

The last word is "follow". "Follow" provides the direction for the expression. Once you find your shine, what do you do with it? You use it to guide you where you are meant to go. It is the path being paved before you on your journey. Which is why it is the perfect thing to tap into when turning your passion into your business. You have faith in your skill set, you answer the call, and you trust the process.

Want to hear one thing we all have in common? We are all breathing.  But there’s way more to it, did you know that our breath has the ability to dictate the way our body chooses to interpret certain situations? Dr. Jen Esquer shares about how we’ve been breathing wrong this whole time! Have a listen.

“Think about a breath cycle. We have the inhalation state and the exhalation state. I inhale and I exhale right? Well that inhalation phase, even if you were to hold your breath, that's your sympathetic fight, flight, freeze response.Your exhalation state, or we're even holding after your exhalation state is more of that parasympathetic rest, relax, digest state. Now, if we can tap into that exhalation phase, then we can start to shift and we can start to stimulate that vagus nerve and activate that parasympathetic system”.

That’s really good information, especially when you think of what we have been told to do our whole lives to calm ourselves down. Take a deep breath right? Well the better piece of advice might be, take a long exhalation. There’s a reason your heart speeds up when you breathe in and slows down when you breathe out, it’s your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system at work!

Keep your phone away from your bed at night. For years, I have kept my phone plugged in, sometimes even on loud, not too far from where I sleep. It was necessary in my last job because I was on call, and the habit continued until recently. I liked the flexibility of being able to address anything urgent or stay aware of people trying to get in touch with me, but I didn’t realize the cost that it all comes at. That cost comes in two main ways.

First, keeping your phone near your bed likely means that it is the last thing you engage with before you go to sleep. The blue light on our phones throws off our circadian rhythm and actually makes it harder to go to sleep. Keeping your phone away let’s you wrap up a few other things before bed, helping to restore your circadian rhythm and improve the quality of your sleep.

Second, is when your alarm goes off in the morning it forces you to get on your feet. I never snooze my alarm, but I do have a tendency to wake up slowly and rest my eyes for about 5 more minutes before I start my day. If I wanted to continue with that in my new practice, standing up and getting on my feet brings all of my attention to the times when I do decide to slide back into bed. This worked so well that I only did that once in the last 3 weeks. Because of that, I find myself starting my days 5 minutes earlier with the same amount of rest.

So, I’d encourage you to try it. Keep your phone away from your bed tonight and see how you feel in the morning. My guess is that you fall asleep quicker, wake up faster, and start your day sooner.

It’s about using the law of least effort. I know what you’re thinking, good things come to those who work hard! I completely agree, but I would argue that better things come to those who work hard and work smart.

Historically, humans have a predisposition to prefer minimal activity and effort. This comes back to the days when we actually needed to secure resources to survive and reproduce. Things are different now, but our DNA is not.

The law of least effort is exactly that predisposition, but instead of using it as an excuse to be lazy, we can leverage it to be more efficient.  This is best understood in an example presented in the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. You want to eat healthy, but when it comes down to it, taking the extra 10 minutes in the morning is just too much to actually do it. There’s friction. What you can do, is prepare healthy meals in advance, which reduces the friction of acting on the healthy choice and allowing you to easily receive the benefits of that decision.  

The best thing to do is understand what positive choices you want to make, understand what the limiting factor is, and find ways to reduce that friction either by preparing in advance or making intentional choices. Even choosing a gym that is directly on your commute to work instead of 5 minutes out of the way could make a world of difference. It’s all about reducing friction!