Life by design mean living the life you want to live. In these tough economic times, that gets harder and harder to do. Who knows when things will get back to what we are used to, if ever.

Lots of people, especially those on a fixed budget are thinking of moving to someplace that is more economical and safe. If that is you, where would you like to live?

I am not really going to transcribe what I said in the video. I ranted and raved and acted like a crazy person. The main point is just that the American Dream is still alive and well, but you have to get off your butt. I mention Karol Gajda’s free e-book and I highly recommend you pick it up. It is free and you don’t even have to give your email address. His Manifesto is called “The American Dream Is Dead Long Live The American Dream”

Lot’s of people, including me, gripe about all the things wrong here in the US, but instead of complaining, why not do something about it. Get off your butt! If you don’t like the government, vote, write a letter, call. If you want to be successful, do something about it, don’t expect success to be handed to you!

The American dream can easily be turned into the Universal Dream, but it will take some doing. It will take work and that means all of us. The American dream is alive, but it requires you to get off your butt!

This weekend I went to a slider party at my son and daughter-in-law’s house. There was a wide mix of people there and I had a really good time. My wife and I were some of the last to leave. The thing I found most interesting was how easy it was to talk to some people and not to others. The whole thing struck me so much I wanted to write a post about how to get along with people.

I love being around people, but I am often seen as being sort of introverted or aloof. I am not, but I do love to watch people and see how the act and what they do. I learn so much from it. I am a people watcher for sure. This is what I saw, and what I experienced.

There was one group that stayed pretty isolated. They are all friends and they stayed pretty much to themselves. If I went up to them and talked to them, they were polite, but they did not go out of their way to include me in their conversations or ask how I was.

The other group was a bunch of people who, some were friends, others were not but they talked to each other finding out what work they did, how things were going for them and what they enjoyed doing as hobbies or fun. They were so easy to talk to. I found myself in deep conversations with people I really didn’t know well or ever before.

This is how to get along with people.

Be interested in them and show them that you are interested in them. Ask them where they work, go to school. What do they like to do for fun? Do they fish? Do they play tennis? Ask them if they have kids, how many, ages. Ask them anything you want to know.

Well, maybe not anything, but you know what I mean.

People love to talk about things they know well. They know themselves pretty good. Sure, there are some people who feel threatened by too many questions, but if you ask in a nonthreatening way, most will be fine.

If they ask you questions, answer them. Let them into your life a little. Just don’t bore them to death with things they do’t want to know.

See what you have in common. Even if you have nothing in common, you can express your thoughts and feelings as long as you don’t start telling them how dumb they are for theirs. Everyone has a right to their own opinions. If the conversation starts to go over ground that is obviously touchy, change the subject or find someone else to talk to.

I loved talking to some of those people. I also loved learning how to get along with people.

P.S. I found this blog post that says much of the same things, but a little differently! It’s at Rowdy Kittens and I am sure you will love it!

Wow! I just found another one! It must be something in the water! This one from White Hot Truth!

Don’t like video? Read below!

I have a lot of things I need to do today, but it was so beautiful out on the deck, I just had to have another cup of coffee and enjoy it a little bit. I got to thinking that so many times we don’t take time to smell the coffee and we don’t tear it up either.

There is a great book out there called “Crush It!” by Gary Veynerchuck. If you are in business for yourself, or even if you work for someone else, “Crush It!” is a great book for you to read. Gary Veynerchuck is all about crushing it, working hard, working your passion. He tweeted just this morning that he had only had three hours sleep and he was up and at it again.

I find that commendable. Whether you work for yourself or you work for somebody else, so many people just go through the motions. They don’t have any passion about what they do, either for themselves or their employer, they don’t have any umph to their life. They aren’t crushing it, they aren’t tearing it up!

The opposite is true too. They don’t spend any time just living, relaxing, enjoying their coffee. A friend of mine, that I exchanged tweets with this morning, she was talking about enjoying her cup of coffee this morning, enjoying the aroma and the flavor. The way she put it was so poetic. I said something about that and she said when you are used to gulping down cold coffee with a screaming baby in your arms, you enjoy those moments and make it as poetic as you can.

We need to do that in our lives. Whatever it is we do, we need to take that time to smell the roses, to smell the coffee, to enjoy the taste of our food, to enjoy being with our lover. So many times we just don’t do that. We aren’t smelling the roses

If you don’t smell the roses, if you don’t watch the sunset, then you have no energy, no passion, nothing left when it’s time to tear it up. You just don’t have it, it just isn’t there.

We’ve all had those times when we just work and work and pretty soon we’re just brain dead. Our minds turn to mush and we just can’t do it anymore. Well, we need down time. That’s why some people get into meditation or crocheting. To spend time, to just kick back and relax is important. We can’t be productive without it!

So my suggestion to you today is, take time to smell the coffee. Make having your next cup a poem. Enjoy your lover. Watch the sunset, smell the coffee and then, TEAR IT UP!

P.S. The friend I talked about is @henatayeb on twitter. Her web site is http://www.henatayeb.etsy.com Say hi on twitter and go check out her site. She does some amazing photography!

This podcast is to explain where I have been and why I haven’t done a podcast is some time. I mention a couple of places. They are:

The Si Como No Inn A really great place to stay in Flagler Beach

The Flagler Fish Company Sea food that is out of this world! This place should be a five star restaurant!

P.S. Let me know if you have been to any of these places!

If you don’t want to watch my wonderful video, here is the same thing you can read!

Recently, well over the last few years, there has been a new phenomenon. Some call it “failure to Launch”, others call it “the boomerang generation”. Whatever the name, the point is that in today’s world late twenty and thirty somethings are moving back home.

The reasons are several, but the two main ones seem to be that they are struggling in this economy, or, they just plain don’t want to take on the responsibility of adult life; they want to play a bit more.

Now I am not going to malign either reason. Hell, I want to play more too! My point is that this trend may be a resurgence of something that people used to do many years ago. It’s called nuclear family living.

Grandparents, parents, and kids all live in the same house, or very near proximity, to share the burden of life and allow for more freedom for all the members. Grandparents are not sent off to old folks homes, parents aren’t left to be empty nesters and kids have some breathing room to find their way.

The only place I have to criticize is when the kids live at home, expecting mom to do all the cooking, cleaning and so on while they save their money and plan to go off to circumnavigate the globe and then come home to find their bed made. I can’t go with the whole freeloader thing. Parents are remiss is they let their adult child come home and just lay around! If this is really going to work, how about everyone share in the work and the pleasure?

I say, great, move back in, save your money and go for six months to Spain, or wherever. When you get back, you get a job, pay the mortgage and the utilities and I’ll go to Costa Rica for three months. That way we both benefit.

Now I know that part of the reason young people are doing this is because they can’t find work. I understand that, I really do. This economy sucks! I also know several young people, in their mid-twentiesand older, one in his forties that live at home and play video games all day. They haven’t been offered a CEO job so they won’t consider working at some menial job like I did for the first ten years until I worked my way up.

The nuclear family has some drawbacks, my kids may not understand that I like to make my morning coffee in my birthday suit, but it has some advantages too. If we worked together and allowed for the uniqueness of each other and made concessions, we could have some great fun!
 We can learn to live together and live our lives by design!

P.S. Come on! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about this! I really want to know your thoughts!

If you don’t want to watch the video, here is what I said, basically!

Are you living large? What do I mean by that. Well, I suppose my definition of living large might be different from some.

By living large, I don’t mean being some fat cat with and overhang belly, diamonds on your fingers and driving one of those ginormous Cadillacs from the fifties with the fins.

What I do mean is living in such a way that you want to get out of bed. Living in such a way that you are happy with your life. Is that you? Are you living large?

Really, I don’t think most of us are. Most of us have days when we live large, when we are feeling the whole, “I got life by the tail,” thing. Most days, we just feel like life is happening to us and we are spinning out of control. That’s why I am so into life by design.

My idea of life by design is such that you spend just about every day living large. You have a design for the way you want to live and the person you want to be. It takes thought and it takes work, but it can be done.

For some it might happen quickly. For others, like myself, it happens one day at a time and slowly. However it happens for you, try living large each and every day! Design the life you want, one that is fun and full of the sort of adventure you crave.

What have you got to lose?

The alternative is living small. You know what that feels like! You hate to get out of bed. The shower feels like a death camp gas chamber as you contemplate the day ahead. You walk out the door and head to that nothing job and it feels like you are climbing the steps to the gallows.

Is that how you want to spend whatever time you have on this earth? No? Then start living large. Like I said, what have you got to lose. Those are pretty much the two alternatives you have in this life. Pick the one you want.

For me, I want to be living large.

If you don’t want to watch the video, read the post.

I know I shouldn’t be this way, but sometimes it just gets to me, you know what I mean? I read an article the other day in the NY Times about people who are getting themselves and the national forest service in trouble using technology. The article seemed to say that without these digital type devices, people would not be in the situations they get themselves into. I think it is just stupid people, not technology!

If you didn’t link over to the article, let me give you a quick rundown. People are using their digital cameras to take pictures of themselves in dangerous places, places like next to a live buffalo, or at the very edge of the Grand Canyon. Then the buffalo charges or they fall off the edge. It wasn’t the camera, folks!

The other thing they seem to do is use their cell phones to call in all sorts of idiotic requests. One camper was lost and cold and called the forest service to bring him a hot chocolate. Another group called and had a helicopter fly in because their water tasted salty! After the third stupid call from this same group, they were forced to fly out of the area.

It reminds me of the story of two girls in Australia who somehow got themselves lost in the sewer and then used their cell phones to update their Facebook page to say they were lost instead of just calling for help. Granted, the girls were 10 and 12, but I wouldn’t put it past a lot of adults. It’s stupid people, not technology.

I don’t think it is the technology that is making people stupid as much as it is just the people themselves.

I live in the state of New York in the US and out state government is so locked up that they can’t pass anything through the state congress. The state was without a budget for 125 days. The legislators are the most incapable bunch I have ever seen. Everyone complains about them, but they keep voting them back into office. Like they got smarter or better since their last term. It isn’t the legislators, it’s the voters that are stupid!

We like to blame everyone and everything else on the situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. Why not look at our own behavior and see if there isn’t something we could have done better, smarter.

P.S. Leave a comment! Let me know what you think, or give us your own stupid people story!

How many times have you said to someone else, “Don’t worry, things will work out,” or “You need to get up and do something!” That sort of advice is handed out by all of us to children friends and family. We are eager to dish it out, but when it comes our turn to be down or confused, we don’t know what to do. Well, perhaps you should learn to take your own advice!

I wrote a short report about productivity. In it I teach some ideas that will help someone become more productive. The lessons are not hard and they work.

Today, I have sat for several hours trying to think of something to write. I have been lost in a see of unproductiveness. Suddenly that report came to mind and I started using the principles in the report and in no time I was here writing away and getting done what should have been done much earlier. I needed to take my own advice!

I am often asked by people what they can do about certain problems in their life. The thing is, I know that they know the answer. I might have even heard them talk about the same problem with someone else. They know the answer. You do too. Take your own advice!

I would be willing to bet that whatever your problem is, if you step back from all the negative thinking and the darkness, you know and can see the answer. Whatever your frustration, You know that you need to get busy and give some action to the problem, or you need to stop worrying and look for the solution. You have told your kids or someone else this same thing when they had a similar problem. Now take your own advice.

We all are smarter than we give ourselves credit for. We have lived life and have had experiences that have supplied the answer. Usually, it is the same few answers for nearly every problem. They are:

• Get off your a** and do something.
• Stop worrying and look for the solution. Worry does nothing.
• Ask for help.
• Believe in yourself.
• Believe there is an answer.

I am sure there are a few more answers, but these, in some combination, hold the key to every problem you could ever have. Personally, the first two can do much to solve every problem.

Don’t wait for someone to give you some “magical” answer. You already know what it is. You already know what to do, just do it. Take your own advice.

Is This You?

I know a young woman who can’t figure out why she is so tired, occasionally depressed, and hating life. Now here is the thing. She recently returned from a vacation that was tiring and physically stressful. While on vacation, she had all the energy she needed. She was up late at night, up early in the morning and walked for miles each day. She wasn’t tired at all. She was ready for each new day.

When she came home and returned to work, she came home that evening, complaining that she could hardly keep her eyes open and felt depressed. She was unhappy in life. She couldn’t figure out why.

I’m sure you can see it. She was happy while doing the things she wanted and was unhappy when she went to a job that was not what she wanted to do. She has been back to work for a couple of days now and she can hardly get out of bed. She feels exhausted. She goes to bed crying at night.

Now the question is, is it the job, or her life in general? In her case, she can go all day and be happy as a bird on weekends and when she is off work and home. She seems happy to live her life outside of work. The answer is clearly her job!

Now, if any of this sounds like you, being tired, depressed and hating life, then you have some thinking to do. You have some research about yourself ahead.

The first thing I would suggest is to go to the Doctor and get checked out. There may be a physical reason for all this. I am assuming that this is not the case.

Think about your average day. Where and when are you happiest? Is it at home away from work? Is it at work, away from home? Could it be that you are unhappy and hating life no matter where you are? These feelings of unhappiness are clues in your life.

If you are unhappy at work, but happy everywhere else, then that says something about your job or work. If the opposite is true, you are happy at work, but not at home, then that says something about your home life. If you are unhappy about everything, then there is something else to consider.

Now the question becomes, what can you do about it. Most of us can’t just up and quit, but we can plan to do so. Leaving a spouse, partner, or family is a tragic thing, but not as tragic as a wasted life. You just have to make sure that you are doing the right thing and for the right reasons. You have to make sure that you do all you can and not harm those who will be involved in your decision.

Life is short. It is supposed to be fun and creative. Life should not be something you hate. You should not always feel tired or depressed. You should not hate life. You are in control of your life, at least to some degree. There is nothing in this life, other than die, that you absolutely have to do. You may think you so, but you can decide not to. Taxes? You don’t have to pay them, but you have to be ready to pay the penalty!

Change what needs to change.

Start today!

Do not let another day go by that drains your energy and makes you feel like you would rather die, that one thing you have to do, rather than live another one. Why be tired, depressed and hating life when you could be energetic, happy and loving life?

P.S. Here is a blog post from Danielle Laporte that will help give you permission