To mask or not to mask is the question everybody is asking themselves.
If you are confused about whether to wear a mask when you go outside your home you are not alone.
Depending on which source of news you listen to you will hear different recommendations form both sides.
Personally I do wear a mask when I go out in public where there are other people around, like shopping at Trader Joes or picking up food at a restaurant. I mostly wear it to protect others from getting the virus if I happen to be Asymptomatic and maybe a carrier of the virus. I also believe that Covid-19 is no different from any other flu or virus our society has been exposed to my past 57 years of life on this earth.
In 2010 both my wife and I were victims fo the H1N1 flu. We were out of commission for two weeks and my wife came down with pneumonia which forced us to go to the emergency room where they administered an antibiotic and a breathing treatment and sent us home.
Why are so many people affected by the flu and viruses?
I believe that many Americans are very susceptible to viruses and Covid-19 is die the SAD. The Standard American Diet.
Wikipedia describes this diet:
The Western pattern diet (WPD) or standard American diet (SAD) is a modern dietary pattern that is generally characterized by high intakes of red meat, processed meat, pre-packaged foods, butter, candy and sweets, fried foods, high-fat dairy products, eggs, refined grains, potatoes, corn (and high-fructose corn syrup)
Studies have shown that most people who follow this diet are more prone to catch colds and be at a higher risk of heart disease and cancer. If you would like to read some success stories about people who shift from the standard American diet to a more plant-based diet their website has plenty. Success Stories
Now back to the subject of the article Should you wear a mask or not? While talking to most people I found that the mask gives them a greater sense of security that they are protected and if that helps them sleep a little better at night I am ok with that. I will continue to wear a mask when out in stores and I will respect those people who choose not to wear a mask.
Two questions to ask yourself about your immune system?
If I get the latest bug going around what changes do I need to make to prevent myself from being infected in the future?
What we teach our kids about money today will have a huge impact on their future.
Did your parents teach you about money? Did they teach you how to balance a checkbook, or how to budget?
I don’t remember my mom spending time teaching me how to save, budget, or manage my money but I do recall my mom saying things like “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
In the past, I have had an up and down relationship with money due to the beliefs I adopted from my mom who was a single mom working full time raising myself and my two sisters. I am very grateful for the sacrifices my mom made to provide a stable home filled with love and acceptance. I firmly believe If I learned about money at a young age I might have made better decisions on how I invested and spent my money.
I was taught from a young age that I would need to work hard to earn money and when I did have it I must be careful or I might lose it. I was also taught that the only way to earn a good wage was to graduate high school, go to college, learn a trade, work for a company for forty years, and then you can retire with a pension.
Some men my age their parents taught them how to save and invest as soon as they were able to understand it and they are financially well off today. Other people, I know their parents established a checking or savings account in their name at the age of thirteen and taught hem how to manage their money.
I don’t blame my mom for not taking the time to teach me about money because she was only teaching me what her parents taught her. It is imperative today we learn how to improve our financial knowledge, our beliefs, and habits of how we view money so we can instill in our kids’ positive beliefs to create a bright financial future as adults.
I am taking a course called The Money Magic Course and it was by doing the exercises in the course I discovered many false beliefs I had about money. It was such a powerful revelation that I could clearly see how those beliefs I picked up as a child affected me the past 5o years. One of the most powerful tools that changed how I viewed money and my relationship was a book called Overcoming Unearning by Barbara Stanny.
It’s not too late to retrain yourself and reprogram your beliefs about money and create a prosperous future for yourself and your children.
If you want to set your children up for financial success teach them about money as early as possible. I heard about a man last week whose grandmother taught him about buying stocks at 7 years old. His grandmother took him to McDonald’s to get a snack. It was there she taught him what each job in the restaurant entailed worked starting with the workers, the manager, and the owner. She then told her grandson that she would give him a dollar if he would approach the manager and ask him if McDonald’s was a publically traded company. Her grandson approached the manager and asked “excuse me sir is McDonald’s a publicly-traded company?. The manager replied “Yes McDonald’s is a publicly-traded company. He soon left the restaurant with his grandmother and then went home and she bought him some shares of McDonald’s stock.
As a man now he started teaching his sons about investing and how to pick good stocks during this crisis and one of his boys replied toilet paper would be a good stock to buy and he asked his son why do think that is a good buy? His son replied because all the toilet paper is disappearing from the grocery store shelves.
It is never too young to teach our children about saving and spending their money wisely. If your child struggles with completing his chores you may want to offer to pay him a quarter for each chore he completes each week and when it comes time to spend his money show him how to comparison shop to allow him t get the best value for his money.
Another opportunity to teach your child is to take them grocery shopping with you, give them a calculator, have them track how much your bill will be when its time to check out and have them count the change the clerk gives you.
Be as creative as you like because the more they know about money now will help them to respect and manage it wisely when they are adults.
Five ways to change how you relate to money and earn it
The first way to gain control of your money is to create a budget for your household and track your income and expenses. You can find some free budgeting tools at DaveRamse.com How to make a monthly budget.
Stop or avoid borrowing money using credit cards or financing appliances or furniture purchases. It is better to save money and pay cash.
If you find yourself consistently overspending if you mostly use your debit card you can use an envelope system and pay cash. You can learn about using an envelope system by going here
Could you use a miracle right now during this pandemic?
If you’re tired of all the negative news and the possibility that you and your family may be asked to stay at home for another month I may have a solution for you.
I know that many of you are frustrated by the circumstances that we are facing right now with many people out of work and parents having to learn how to homeschool their children along with working from home.
Others have been forced to close their business and are deeply concerned with not having an income or possibly having to start from square one and create a new career.
I know how you feel, my business income has been impacted by the Covid-19 virus but I am fortunate that I am still able to work during the Stay at Home ordinance and so I wanted to share a tool with you that has really helped me make each day a miracle day.
In 2015 I stumbled upon a man named Hal Elrod who wrote a book called the Miracle Morning. In the book, Hal Elrod gives practical ways to develop a morning routine that inspires you to get out of bed each morning.
By having a morning routine you will be empowered throughout the day and the routine can take as little as 6 minutes. You can get the book on Amazon Here
After applying what Hal teaches to my morning routine It transformed changed hw I showed up all day long.
I thought I was doing well just by taking time to each morning to read my bible and pray but when I learned and applied the methods in the Miracle Morning my entire outlook for the day changed.
One of the most powerful exercises that impacted me was to read a statement in the book each night before I went to bed that went something like this “No matter what time I am going to sleep or what time I wake up the amount of sleep will not affect my outlook tomorrow. I will have all the energy I need to have a successful day”.
I’m paraphrasing the statement I read from memory but by inserting the belief into my subconscious that no matter how much sleep I get or how I feel I can live today with intention.
Before reading that statement each evening I would wake up the next morning with a sinus headache and that would set the tone for my day, and that would be the story I would tell people when they asked me how I was doing that day, I would reply “I’m ok now but this morning I woke up with a headache.”
The more I applied what I learned from the Miracle Morning I was no longer a victim of my circumstances. I stopped telling myself “if I didn’t sleep well or didn’t wake up feeling the greatest it was going to be a bad day. I learned how to create my day and be open to all the opportunities available to me.
If you are looking for a miracle to change the way you are handling this crisis this book may be the answer for you. Or maybe you’ve been looking for a reason t get up before anyone else in your household and have a powerful time of reflection and learn how to be more productive each day.
Whatever your reason you have you owe it to yourself to check out the book or his 30-day challenge to start creating your Miracle Morning right now. You can get more information including free resources at MiracleMorning.com/start-here/ I to guarantee you will not be disappointed.
If you found this resource to be valuable to you please leave me a comment or send me an email about your experience.
Now is the time for men to pivot their focus and follow their hearts and take action.
If you have lost your job or have a business that has been impacted by the current crisis you are not alone and you don’t have to carry the burden all by yourself.
Now is the time to get really clear on the type of work you want to do and the difference you can make in your family and your community.
As men, we have been taught from a young age that it is our job to work and provide for our families and if we lose our job or fail in business our natural tendency is to tie our work to our self-worth.
I discovered this for myself In 2012. In 2010 my wife and I had a dream of opening up a Wellness center, rented office space in our local community and began offering weight loss and health coaching, invested all of our retirement money trying to make it work only to be forced to close the doors on August 31st, 2012. I remember spending that entire day moving all of our equipment from our office to our townhouse garage, cleaning the office space and calling the landlord and leaving a message that went something like this “Hi this is Mike Stewart at Crossroads Wellness we currently rent from you and we have closed our business, the space is empty, we’ve cleaned the space and we would like to meet with you to give you the keys.” After leaving that message I was bombarded with so many fears of what our landlord would do because we still had 1 year left on our lease, they could take us to court and demand we pay them the remaining balance of the lease which would be approximately $27,000. I felt defeated, I reached the lowest point in my life.
Not knowing how we would pay the September rent on our townhouse or put food on the table in we went down to the Social Security office and applied for Food Stamps. I remember sitting with the clerk and filling out the paperwork with $10 in our bank account and 25 cents in my pocket praying “Please let them accept our application, we have nowhere else to go” We were so grateful they accepted our application which gave us some security but we still needed to figure out how to pay our rent. I was fortunate our landlord agreed to allow me to pay part of the rent and make arrangements to pay the balance by selling equipment from our business.
For the next 3 months, I looked for work in applying for jobs and reaching out to all my old employers and daily waited patiently for an answer but my confidence was very low, I remember sitting on my couch hearing a voice say ” who would want to hire a failure like you?” I was plagued by those negative thoughts every day until I was hired by my old boss on December 12th, 2012. This job was a new start for me but the negative self-talk did not stop, each project I worked on that negative voice plagued me and tried to zap my confidence and for a moment I would give in to it but I knew if I was going to make this new job work I had to combat these thoughts with my previous victories. I had to tell myself “you have 10 years of success doing this work and completed several projects and this project is no different.”
I share my story with you today because I know how you feel having been fired, your income is gone or you are struggling with thoughts of feeling like a failure. Don’t let those feelings identify you! Let me explain. Just because you lost your job it doesn’t mean you are a failure, it is just what happened, it is our past conditioning I mentioned earlier that has us feel less than whole because we are not working.
You need to realize You are in control of your future no one else! It is time to learn how to take back your life by spending some alone time and determining what is important to you what lights you up and make a commitment to yourself to never give up on your dream.
.It is time for men to rise up and take control of our thoughts, our destiny and never give up on our dreams to be leaders in our work, our families, and our communities.
I am committed to helping men regain their confidence and create new ways to build a prosperous future that will fulfill a need in our society and provide a lasting legacy for years to come.
Leave me a comment on how I can support you at staying focused on achieving your dreams, goals and discovering your passion and purpose for your life.
Have you been wondering how you can help your community during this crisis caused by the Coronavirus?
This past week has been a rollercoaster of emotions. Starting Tuesday of last week both my wife and I came down with colds and we became quite fearful that our symptoms could get worse but our fears were relieved a couple of days later as our symptoms subsided and it turned out to only be colds.
As I was filled with relief I began to shift my focus to those who have been diagnosed with the virus and those who are more susceptible to the virus such as the elderly, those in poor health and those living in fear of contracting the virus. I immediately began to pray for each one of them and sent them thoughts of health and healing.
Later in the week, I began to read about many of my neighbors who are elderly were instructed to stay at home but they still had need of groceries and errands to run but due to the announcements made by the governor and for safety sake they were homebound. This news lead me to begin to think of practical ways I could help my neighbors and I decided to help by volunteering my time at the local Food Bank and also joined Facebook groups that help organize other people who have the same needs.
Together we can build a strong community of support for one another.
Another way to help is to shift their focus from disease to health and the health of those around them. Not just physical health but mental health and one way you can do this is to shift a person’s mindset to focus on happy things instead of sad.
This reminded me of the Disney movie Pollyanna. Pollyanna is an orphaned girl who is sent to live with her Aunt Polly in a small town of Harrington and the aunt is the richest person in town and because she is the richest in town she owns most of the businesses in the town and Aunt Polly even decided the topics of the sermons the local minister preaches on Sunday morning.
But the most powerful thing about the film is that Pollyanna is able to transform the town by teaching each person how to play the Glad Game and through the Glad Game she helps them shift their focus to the happy things in life and they let go of all the anger and resentment of the past. By the end of the film, the whole town falls in love with Pollyanna and each person begins to stand up to Aunt Polly in respectful ways and her love even softens Aunt Polly’s heart.
If you want to hear Pollyanna explain how the game is played you can watch it at The Glad Game.
During this crisis, I encourage you to take care of yourself mentally and physically and if possible help those struggling in fear and worry by teaching them Glad Game and help them when the need arises.
We forego spending time as a family due to our schedules being filled with television, video games, children’s after school sports activities and social media. We say we are just too busy but these are excuses because we make time for what is important to us.
What is quality time? Quality time is uninterrupted scheduled time with our children having fun playing games and interacting with one another without the distraction of phone calls, text messages or emails.
Think about when you were a child, what do you remember most? Some of my most favorite memories as a kid are when we would go on a family vacation camping up in Cloverdale, California. I remember being able to swim as much as I wanted, go fishing and hiking and sitting around the campfire at night telling stories.
Take a moment and review the past week, the past month, and the past year and write down how much quality time you spend as a family and call a family meeting and ask your kids how you are doing as a family in this area. Their response may surprise you
As parents, my wife and I made it a priority to take several vacations each year. In January we would sit down and plan how we would spend the 4 weeks of vacation time I acquired at my job. Sometimes it would be camping with our church, a week at our timeshare in Lake Tahoe or a car trip to Arizona and those times I had to spend with my son and his friend were priceless.
Recently I had the privilege to spend 4 nights and 5 days at Disneyland with my two granddaughters, my son and his wife’s family and the look on the face of this 3-year-old was absolutely priceless!
Some other benefits of spending quality time as a family are that our children feel loved and cared for which helps them be more mentally and emotionally healthy.
Five Simple Ways to Spend Quality Time as a Family
Set aside one night a week to be a game night. Let each member choose an activity each week.
Watch a movie as a family on Friday or Saturday night and assign each member a task like someone gets drinks for everyone, someone makes the popcorn and talk about the film afterward.
Once a month take a day trip to a place everyone agrees on.
Do an art project as a family and display the art round the house.
Serve others as a family in your community.
These are just some of the ways you can continuously bond as a family and keep the lines of communication open.
Try some of the suggestions above and leave a comment with some of the ways you’ve spent quality time with your family and the impact it had on you and your children.
I listened to a talk on Youtube this week called the Crash course for phenomenal success by Marisa Peer. In the first part of the talk, she shared how she was taught as a therapist that the mind was very complicated but as she saw more and more people she learned that the mind was very simple but there was a very important piece missing in each of her patient’s lives. No matter what the patient’s lifestyle was like or how successful they were the piece that was missing was they did not believe they were enough.
Two of the stories that she shared with me made a big impact on me. One story was about a man who was a famous movie star who lived in a beautiful home in Beverley Hills, CA who was miserable. When she arrived at his home and he greeted her she commented on how lovely his home was and he replied: “I hate this house”. She also commented on the award he won for a filmed he starred in and he replied: “I hate receiving the BAFTA award because once you do they expect each following film I am in to receive a BAFTA or I am not good enough”.
After a few moments of speaking with the man, Marisa said to him “I know what your problem is” and replied what is my problem? She went on to tell him that his problem was he did not think he was enough and tears began to roll down his cheek. He went on to tell her how as a child he used to cook his father dinner because his mom worked nights and he would prefer to share the leftovers with the dog than his son and all these years he had been trying to prove to himself and the world that he was enough but became depressed and miserable in the process.
Marisa gave him a prescription that would help cure him of his problem she took a lipstick and wrote on each bathroom mirror the words I AM ENOUGH. She also configured his phone to send a message to him every morning and every evening saying the words I AM ENOUGH. She asked him to say those words to himself several times a day and the results were amazing. Within a couple of weeks his attitude completely changed, he is happy now and living life more fully.
Marisa shares how when we were a baby we were enough, we were celebrated for every accomplishment. When we learned how to go pee in the toilet our parents celebrated, when we learned how to walk, talk and feed ourselves we were celebrated but when we grow up we forget how special we really are.
The second story she shared was even more incredible she talked about a woman who was a very successful trader in British securities who had tried to throw herself in front of a train and was now confined in a psychiatric ward of a hospital for evaluation. When Marisa came to see her she read all the notes that the hospital had on her, met with the woman and asked her “Do know what your problem is” the woman replied, “yes, I have manic depression, I’m bipolar, I’m a compulsive shopper and a hoarder”. Marissa replied, “no, you don’t think you are enough”. She went on to share with the woman how her mom killed herself right in from of the woman she was a little girl and from that moment on she never felt she was enough. Marisa gave her the same prescription as the man in the first story and even sent the woman text messages telling her that she was enough and eventually the woman was cured of her depression, was now happy and it completely changed her life.
After listening to this talk I decided to do the things that Marisa suggested so that I can be the best me that I can be!
I share all this to encourage you to listen to the talk and take on the challenge of writing on each of your bathroom mirrors I AM ENOUGH and set an alarm on your phone to tell yourself every morning and every evening that you are enough. I have accepted the challenge and added the statement to my mirrors and the reminders on my phone and I will report the results in a later post.
Please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of the talk and your results if you accepted the challenge.
Have you ever wanted to learn how eliminating negative thoughts will change how you see everything?
Do you struggle with negative thoughts?
Do you listen to talk radio or news stations like CNN or Fox News? If so you may be unconsciously creating a negative attitude and begin to live in fear the stories you hear coming true.
If you are listening to these programs on a daily basis you are bombarding your mind with negativity and if you pay attention you will notice yourself sharing what you have heard from these sources with your family friends and acquaintances. By listening to so much negative information you are unconsciously programming yourself to see life from a negative point of view and will change how you live your life on a daily basis and how you see your future.
Stop right now and take an inventory of how many sources of media you listen to or watch on the internet or social media.
How many did you come up with?
I came up with 5 things that used to bombard my thoughts every day.
Rush Limbaugh: I would listen to his show every morning and noticed that every theme no matter what day was negative. What the President did wrong, what this senator said or did wrong and how it is going to ruin this country.
Fox News: If I heard of a story I would watch Fox News or CNN News to get the latest details and hear from an expert on the topic of how damaging it was to our government or our society.
Political and community posts on social media: I found myself daily getting emotional about a post on Facebook or Twitter or a group I belong to about something in the new or in my community and most of the opinions were focused on the negative without any comments about a positive solution.
Talking or thinking about negative things about other people: I constantly found myself looking at people and picking out what was wrong with what they were doing or what they were wearing.
Holding grudges against other people who have wronged and hurt me or wronged and hurt someone I love.
Thes five things I was doing on a regular basis were causing me to create and generate a negative vibe where ever I went. It took me a while to learn this valuable lesson but when I learned how these habits were damaging my future and possibility the future of my children and my friends.
So what is the solution to repelling the negativity in our media and our society?
One solution I found is to go on a mental diet, a Seven Day Mental Diet. This one simple tool allowed me to become an observer of the thoughts I think and substitute them for a positive thought. This tool can transform a negative attitude into a positive mental attitude.
For example; If I see a girl who is dressed in bright colored clothes and has blue hair and is expressing her opinion about something she believes in my old negative self-talk would say ” That girl is just trying to make people notice her and like her by dressing so outrageously and coloring her hair blue”.
But by becoming an observer of my thoughts I can now substitute these negative thoughts with the positive thought; “Wow I admire this person’s unique way of expressing herself and it so wonderful that she is not trying to look like someone else because she is not someone else, she is a uniquely created being that was hand made by her creator and has gifts talents and abilities that are unique to her and no one else.”
Using this tool is called the law of substitution and is a tool that you can master only through daily practice.
If you find yourself in my shoes constantly being bombarded by negative thoughts you can help yourself by starting the Seven Day Mental Diet now.
Give more get more is a hard lesson to learn because he who has very little will question how can I give if I have very little?
But it is not monetary or physical gifts that the world needs, it is your gifts, talents, and abilities that you were given when you born that the world needs.
If you were to ask the average person the question “what are your gifts and talent you have to share with the world”? Most people would respond with I don’t know or I don’t have any gifts to give.
Then there are some like myself who had to learn the hard way, I spent 46 years of my life looking for a way to discover my gifts and every minute has fashioned me to be who I am today.
Most people believe that in order to discover your gifts you have to go to college for four years and be trained for the field you wish to make your career and there is nothing wrong with that path as long as it is the path you have chosen for yourself and not just because someone told you that is what you should do.
Some people believe the most important thing every child should be taught is to become a self-directed thinker and given tools to discover their unique gifts talents and abilities and how to use them for the good of humanity.
The Master Key Experience course has helped me learn how to uncover my gifts, the tools to create the life I want and the importance of Give More Get More.
In this week’s lesson, I learned how my mind can be directed to focus on good thoughts and how to eliminate the bad thoughts by shifting my focus on thinking about places that have pleasant associations and during the exercise I visited two places.
The first place was Disneyland where I immediately pictured myself walking down Mainstreet, seeing all the smiling faces of the guests and smelling the baked goods and sweets and I felt overflowing with happiness and joy.
The second place I went to was the office of my home in the future where I had life-changing conversations with hundreds and hundreds of clients and helped them discover and pursue their dharma, the life of their dreams. This process was teaching me another way to defend against negative thoughts that kept me trapped in the past and equips me now to focus on positive thoughts and associations.
If you are currently not living a life you love, a life that fuels you to get out of bed every day with excitement to
By relaxing and letting go I can inhibit all thoughts and focus on the miraculous things my body does automatically. This process puts me in touch with my creator.
Image by John Hain –
When You breathe. The air first travels into your mouth and nose. From there it goes into your trachea—also called your windpipe—and then travels through tubes called airways, all the way down into your lungs. Air contains oxygen, and once inside the lungs, the oxygen can travel through the bloodstream to wherever in the body it’s needed.
Your body heals itself. The power that made your body also designed your body to heal. For example, if you cut your finger it bleeds, a scab forms and it heals. Your body makes 2.5 million red blood cells every second and 250,000 white blood cells every second? Your body has 50 to 75 trillion cells and your nervous system controls them all. A single neuron can handle as many as 833 impulses per second. Your liver performs over 657 known functions simultaneously without you even being aware of them.
The Flow of your blood. The job of the circulatory system is to move blood, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hormones, around the body. It consists of the heart, blood, blood vessels, arteries and veins.
Think about all the processes that happen in your body automatically.
Can you relate and understand how amazing this is and most of us take it for granted.
This week our Master Key part 3 exercise was to be perfectly still, and inhibit all thought as far as possible, but relax, let go, let the muscles take their normal condition; this will remove all pressure from the nerves, and eliminate that tension which so frequently produces physical exhaustion.
So as I started the exercise I began to visualize what happens when I breathe and see the airflow into my lungs and be distributed throughout my body and with each breath, I was able to relax all the muscles and nerves in my body starting from the top of my head down my spine to my butt and eventually to my toes. As I repeated this process I began to feel the electrical signals follow the same path and it felt amazing.
This exercise gave me a new connection to God my creator, the source of all good. It made me realize how easily I can help myself start each day with a clean slate. I can let go of all the stress and worry about the things I did or didn’t do yesterday, forgive all those that hurt me and walk-in complete harmony with all life.
This course is truly an answer to prayer, it has given me a powerful tool to control my thoughts feelings and actions, change the way I react to any situation and positive or negative and create an outcome that is a win-win for everyone involved.
If you struggle with negativity, worry and fear know that you have the ability to free yourself, you just don’t know it.
If you would like to learn how to start this process grab a copy of the Seven Day Mental Diet. This diet will give you a new understanding of how the thoughts you think about are affecting your attitude, feelings, and actions.
