What Do You Do To Make It Fun?

What are you doing to take care of your body? Fitness at any age is necessary and the more fun you have with it the more you will carry on your fitness traditions as you age. I have learned to channel my stress through my workouts. If you have a job that involves stress; working out at the end of your day helps you release that stress...when I get home I feel more alive and full of energy.
 
Tell us what you do make working out fun?

Happiness Is A Choice!

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”...Anonymous

Listen to this in Podcast Format!

Although it may be tempting to dismiss a call to happiness during this time of worldwide struggle and strife as overly optimistic or too simplistic, let me tell you now that I believe this is the perfect time for a reminder that when it comes to happiness, all of us have a choice.

In fact, choosing to be happy is one of the very few essential decisions that we get to keep regardless of age, stage of life, or present situation. It’s a decision that can’t be taken away, and no one else can make it for you.

Each one of us gets to choose, every single moment of every day, whether or not we decide to be happy.

It Pays to Be Happy

When we choose to be happy, the rewards are truly great. First and foremost, happy people are more likable and desirable to be around. Isn’t it amazing how we’re drawn to people with sunny dispositions? One of the many consequences of this phenomenon of human nature is that happy people regularly benefit from the enthusiastic help and cooperation of others.

Secondly, happy people consistently report an improved quality of life. They enjoy life and everything in it more than people who aren’t happy.

I can personally attest to the connection between happiness and improved quality of life. Many years ago, I decided that I would be intentional about choosing to be happy. I didn’t just say I wanted to be happy, I found out what I needed to do to make happiness a daily reality for me.

Nine Choices Happy People Make

In their book, How We Choose to Be Happy: The 9 Choices of Extremely Happy People, authors Rick Foster and Greg Hicks present the results of interviews with happy people all over the world, from all walks of life. They found and wrote about nine specific choices commonly made by happy people. As you can see, most of these are things we already know about, and may even already practice.

The key, as I discussed in What is Easy to Do is Not Easy to Do, is to use your personal initiative to do the little things that are easy to do, and do them consistently. Here’s the list of choices that Foster and Hicks came up with:

1. Intend to Be Happy. This is the fully conscious decision to choose happiness over unhappiness. Check out Learn to Enjoy What You Don’t Enjoy.

2. Be Accountable. You make the choice to assume full personal responsibility for your actions, thoughts and feelings, as well as to refuse to blame others for your own unhappiness. It is also the practice of seeing ourselves as having control over our own lives, rather than being at the receiving end of circumstances.

3. Discover Your Needs. This is the ongoing process of identifying for ourselves what makes us truly happy. You may want to review my post Was Napoleon Hill Wrong?

4. Centralize Your Goals. Creating a dream list is the happy person’s non-negotiable insistence on making that which creates happiness a central activity in life.

5. Turn Problems into Opportunities. Recasting is to change the form of something. Look at experiences in positive ways and change your problems into challenges.

6. Explore Options. Make the decision to approach life by being open to any new possibilities and take a flexible approach to life’s journey.

7. Express Appreciation. Communicating gratitude and giving thanks to the people around you daily brings happiness. For more on this valuable point read my post on The Power of Showing Your Appreciation

8. Share Unselfishly. The art of giving is the act of sharing one’s self with friends, community and the world at large without the expectation of a ‘return on investment.’

9. Be Truthful at All Times. Make a contract with yourself and design a means by which to check your thoughts and actions against your own internal, personal code. For more thoughts on the value of truthfulness, check out my blog: Being Honest With Ourselves

Though I’m fortunate that I have experienced a rewarding career and professional life, it’s not my achievements that are to be credited for my happiness and the outstanding quality of life I now enjoy. Rather, it’s the little decisions I consistently make each day—just like these—that continue to help me in my choice to be happy.

If you’ve never considered happiness as a choice before now, let me say again that I don’t think there has ever been a better time than now to begin choosing happiness. Will you commit to being intentional about making one of the choices listed above each day for the next nine days? I hope you will.

About the Author: Todd Smith is a successful entrepreneur of 29 years and founder of Little Things Matter. To receive Todd’s daily lessons, subscribe here. All Todd’s lessons are also available on iTunes as downloadable podcasts. (Todd’s podcasts are listed in America’s top 100 podcasts.)

Information obtained from www.littlethingsmatter.com.

Glitz, Glamour & Fashion

Red Carpet Awaits You!

Join Tampa Bay's A-list for an evening of fun and fashion… Maria McGill, Dancing with the Stars designer, top fashion stylist Laura Hunt of Freeway Fashion… Tammy Levent, entrepreneur extraordinaire will MC the event and the Live Auction… There’s more!

Enjoy a night of fashion… bid on auction items from some of Tampa Bays most elite businesses... including an all-inclusive trip… one of a kind diamonds and jewelry by top designers to the celebs - all to benefit the eWomenNetwork Foundation http://www.ewomennetworkfoundation.org/About.html.

Indulge in mouthwatering hors d'oeuvres, complimentary wine tasting and cocktails while enjoying the styles and couture from local designers to international sensations!

Join us Tuesday, September 8th!

The first 100 pre-paid guests will be eligible to win two VIP passes to the “Flavor of Jazz” at Ruth Eckerd Hall!

Sponsors:
Home Theater Gallery
Elite Travel
Icon-b
DoubleTake Studios
Celazome
Catering by the Family
Freeway Fashion
Designs to Shine
Gold & Diamond Source
Penny Rogo Bailes
Time for Wine
Joyce Cotton
Core Fitness Solutions
The Peak Performance Group

For More Information Click Here!

Good to Great: Jim Collins

They stick with what they understand and let their abilities, not their egos, determine what they attempt...Warren Buffett

TBBJ Business Woman of the Year Event!

My daughter Kate and I attended the Tampa Bay Business Journal Woman of the Year event on Friday night at the Tampa Marriott. What a wonderful event and so much fun to support the outstanding business women in the Tampa Bay community. All the nominees were recognized and it was great to see them enjoying their evening!

What Qualifies As Being A Good Leader?

In the book; "Good to Great" Jim Collins states that 'level 5 leadership (that being the highest level) is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.' If you want to learn more about two great leaders in the industry check out Darwin Smith and Colman Mockler.

I am sure you have probably never heard their names before....do some research and learn what made them great leaders.

What is Your Driving Force?

All of us flounder at times when asked what we want to do with our lives; what are your goals?

Even as successful as I feel on most days I still feel confused about where I am and what I want. Last month on my way to Vegas I traveled with one of my Managers and we were discussing a book written by Jack Canfield; life goals. She told me she was having a hard time putting her goals into words because “I want to do it all…” was her response to me. I sat back in my seat and turned my head to look out the window. A big smile crossed my face and I sighed…broad goals for such a young woman. That excites me…this is why she works with me. Although as much as that answer made me smile a part of me felt a tinge of concern. While it is awesome to be open about setting goals they are still necessary otherwise we loose focus and direction. We tend to wonder off track and before we know it we have accomplished nothing.

If you were to ask me what I want to be when I grow up I would tell you that I honestly don’t know…so how do you make goals when you don’t know what you want? I have always been open to what the universe has brought my way. I have never been disappointed in any of the challenges and opportunities that have come my way; I have learned and grew in ways that I never would have imagined. I have been blessed to meet and work with some of the most creative minds.

In my openness I have found that people gravitate toward me for different reasons. Through vision, creativity and the ability to motivate I draw like minded people into my life. I have the ability to see other people’s visions and goals; having the innate skill of helping them focus to make things happen. My driving force is to make other people’s dreams not just a possibility but a definite reality.

This is not my job…this is not what I get paid to do…but this is my passion. The ability to brainstorm with someone about their dreams and ideas puts me in a totally different universe. The ability to take someone’s ideas and help them create and design a vision…how exciting is that? I can create that excitement and motivation that kick starts people and moves them to action. Helping them create a blue print / their plan and then helping them be accountable to themselves.

One of the things I am able to do is to take someone’s excitement in a conversation and totally put them in a place where they want to create action. The more excited they become the more I feed on that excitement and we push into places…good places and sometimes painful but always somewhere that drives action to change or succeed.

So how do you define goals when they hinge on other people? My happiness depends on other people’s dreams…creativity drives my passion and heart. While having a conversation with an old client who still calls me to talk ideas and suggestions through…he joked at the end of our conversation that I would always be his Muse….his guiding spirit and source of inspiration. He said when he is stuck or needs that push he always knows who to call to get him ‘stoked’ about his ideas and his own self-confidence to make it happen.

Those are big shoes to fill…but there you have my driving force…in one short and to the point sentence…what is your driving force? What is your passion that drives you to accomplish things in your life?

The Next Level

Prime Training & Conditioning; Your On-line Fitness Community
www.primetrainingonline.com

All of us want to “get into great shape.” This can have a different meaning for all of us, from losing 20lbs, lowering blood pressure or cholesterol and getting off medication to the oh so popular, “I want to see my 6-pack.”

All are great and reasonable goals, but the majority of us find that we fall short a lot of the time in reaching those goals. You work hard in the gym, you eat right and you are doing your cardio faithfully so why don’t we have what we want? One answer may be that your body is just used to what it is doing. There comes a point in time when you must change the routine to make the body respond. You have to move beyond what you normally do and do something different.

Now that can mean doing less weight and more reps, or walking for longer on the treadmill, scheduling and planning out meals more efficiently…it takes effort, work and consistency. Move to the next level and see if it doesn’t get you moving closer to getting in great shape.

Check out the Prime Training Online Blog as well; lots of great information for you at: www.primetrainingonline.blogspot.com.

Prime Training & Conditioning. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without exclusive permission from Prime Training & Conditioning.

Purpose & Balance

At the beginning of the year I started off exhausted, stressed, over weight and emotionally drained. Not only am I the President of a very successful business Servicing Organization I also work with clients in my spare time through coaching, mentoring, website design and development…basically helping those who need me to help them live out their purpose and dreams in life. Most of this time is volunteered at not cost…I do it because I love it…I do it because it’s my purpose in life.

What I didn’t realize was that my purpose balance was way off…while I was so busy trying to help everyone else I forgot about me. When I joined a gym in February and started working out with a personal trainer; he very nicely informed me that my balance was…well let’s just say there was no balance…My life revolved around everyone but me and my body and mental state were starting to show signs of a blow out. A month in the gym every single night after work gave me an outlet to work off the stress…I slowly finished up with what extra clients I had and left my schedule completely open for me.

I have to tell you…from someone who is used to running from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed…this added time in my planner was looking like heaven to me. Not only were there empty time slots…I actually had time to sit and do nothing at all…I liked this…as a matter of fact I liked this so much that I thought…”wow, I could really get used to this.” I had no commitments…I practically dropped out of the social networking scene and thought oh my gosh…this is awesome…April rolled around and it was time for me to start working through some new articles for my website and my book that I am writing and I thought…as relaxed as I am this is going to be so easy. Yeah…right!

For weeks I sat in front of my laptop trying to be creative and figure out what I was going to write about…where did my creativity disappear too? What happened to the woman who could punch out 10 articles in a weekend – good articles I might add. Weeks turned into a month and I felt lost and out of place. But hey…my body looks good…lost the weight, reduced the body fat and dropped A LOT of sizes. I don’t have the stress and I feel much healthier but something was missing…

I thought to myself…If I start all this back up again the stress will return and I will be right back where I was…so what is the answer? How do I find the balance and how do I get back to my purpose? I found out that my creativity and passion was fueled by my purpose and when I eliminated the purpose I eliminated the fire that motivated me. So I decided to start off slow…I took one client on…one that was very special to me. His purpose is what saved me and put me in a place that was good again. So I was passionate about helping him succeed.

So with one client I am learning to balance ‘me and my purpose’ by taking baby steps. Now that I know how to recognize when that pendulum is swinging a little heavier to one side than the other I know how to step back and level it out. By the way, I feel creative again; the writing is flowing much better again…not at the level it was before but it’s getting there and so is my level of motivation and enthusiasm.

Having a purpose that inspires people can be tough when you are less than inspired yourself. I am so excited that I have been given the tools and knowledge to make this all work. Hiring a health and fitness coach / trainer was paramount to my success; having one that knows his stuff and supported the changes in me was icing on the cake. Just remember that it is important to focus on you first and work outward. I guarantee the results you produce will align your goals and visions not just in your health but in your business as well.

Strengthen Your Core and Find your Balance!

My friend and trainer, Arnie Probeyahn of Prime Training, pushes the thoughts of balance into my mind…focus on your core and your balance will be there he says…interesting thought, yes?

Focus on your core and your balance will be there…maintaining your balance in life is a lot like maintaining your balance in exercise; it’s all about the core.

We all know that the core of our body are the muscles that are deep within our abs and back which attach to the spine or pelvis, but what is the core of your internal being? What does that consist of…do you really know?

What are you doing to strengthen your core and maintain your balance in life?

When I speak of my internal core; I immediately refer to the (5) major core essences in my life and the importance of maintaining that emotional and physical balance.

-Mind
-Body
-Spirit
-Family
-Passion

If you had to list your internal core essences (CE), what would they be? Take a minute to jot down at least 5 areas that balance your life – those things that keep you balanced. It’s okay to list something you don’t have right now but that you really want. You may find that your CE’s are very similar to mine as each of these categories can include a multitude of levels.

While these specific things have always been in place in my life…what I found is that my body was way off which threw me in a total tail spin. Now that I work out daily either in the gym, on my bike or walking I feel more balanced. I had the mind, spirit, family and passion balanced but not the body.

It can be hard to find balance daily in all of these places but I now have a system…let me share it with you. If you make a choice to be tuned into your core and balance daily you will immediately know when something is missing. I hated the feeling of being “off key” and not really knowing why so I developed this system to help me identify what part of my core is not balanced.

Once you have identified your CE’s you will have a guide. Each day in a journal list and identify those things that happen during your day that helped you meet each of these core identifiers. Don’t worry if you don’t meet every one every day. As you get used to doing this exercise you will be able to mentally feel when these goals are met. I have attached some references to my (5) CE’s and how I meet them each day.

Touching on all them daily will give you a sense of calm each day but remember don’t force this…let it happen. You may not be able to meet each of your CE’s each day when you first start…but just like when you are working out, when you engage your core everything balances out. So learn to engage your internal core daily and life will balance itself out.

Journaling

It is important for you to create your categories and how you fulfill them. For example my spiritual CE may be totally different from yours. When you created your CE’s you must have had some idea of what you do that fulfills this need.

Here is your time to now list those things under each CE that relate to your needs. Here are some examples of mine and how I put them in my journal.

Mind

-Reading
-Mentoring
-Learning

I almost always read at night because it is important to me to continue to learn and grow. If I work with my management team or someone that I am mentoring and I help them learn something new, see something different or teach them a new skill this fulfills my CE for this category. Any new and creative projects also fuel my mind, spirit and passion!

Conversations with people who make me think and use my mind are also great inspirational moments in my day…I feed on these type of moments as they help me grow, keep an open mind and understand how others feel and need.

Body

-Working Out
-Eating Healthy
-Getting a massage
-Getting an annual checkup
-Splurging on a manicure or pedicure

You will find that you need to identify ways to make sure that you are not always filling your CE’s with the same thing. For instance, if I always splurged on a manicure and forgot about working out I would not be paying close attention to what my body needs. As you will find there are also balances within each CE and different ways to fulfill them. Remember that your CE is may not always be about fun but making sure you are doing what needs to be done to balance you out. Your body is an important CE and you must make sure that you are taking care of yourself both physically and emotionally.

Spirit / Spirituality

-Self-Discovery
-Keeping an open mind
-Meaning, purpose & direction

My spirituality is very important to me and while I don’t necessarily do ‘something’ to touch on this daily I work to find my purpose in life all the time. Many times I will write in my journal something that happened that day that gave me a certain feeling, such as…’this is why I was in this particular place today.’ I find that the universe feeds me situations where I am needed to make a difference. I always write these things down because when I reflect back I know at that time what my meaning, purpose and direction was at that moment.

Family & Friends

-Spending time with family
-Spending time with friends

Anything that revolves around my family and friends falls into this CE. A phone call or lunch with a friend, dinner with my husband or shopping with my daughter, talking to my son or just sharing a laugh with a co-worker…these are all important to me and I normally have more than one of these each day.

These CE’s are my lifelines…I could not survive without them.

Passion

This is such a broad topic for me; anyone that knows me knows that I can get fired up over something that I am passionate about. This can be from a baseball game to a new work project. Normally there is not a day that goes by that I am not passionate about something; if I am not I know it right away.

Know what fires you up and what you are passionate about – this is important because it keeps you motivated and energized in life.

I also gain an imbalance from my passion at times. When something I feel passionately about is in an influx it can cause my focus and balance to plummet off the edge of a cliff. I still work to identify these feelings immediately; that is not to say that they don’t affect me in an adverse way but this system has taught me to identify this much quicker and get it under control.

I hope these tips have helped you begin to think more about what your CE’s are; how to engage them and how they can be used to maintain balance in your heath, personal life as well as your business life.