Winning at Raffles, Bingo and Winning at Life Are the Same! Here's 5 Simple Tips on How to Win at All of Them!

(This post originally ran in July 2013.)

Once again, yesterday my son won the Top Grand Prizes at a Raffle contest at one of the big international schools here in Tokyo. The prize was a trip for two, all expenses paid, to New York, New York, or another destination of our choice.

My son with his grand prize certificate. Actually, besides the Top Prize, we also won two of the other Top 50 prizes. Count that in with a day outside helping friends and volunteering to make this world a better place, it was a day of constant winning! (Look at that smile! Any child who is that happy all the time has just got to win, right?)

It is about the fourteenth time he has won one of the big prizes at a raffle or bingo in the last four years. We always win. We have come to expect to win. In fact, if we don't win (at least a trinket), it has come to seem strange to me. 

Mar. 2011: Wins 11 games in four years. Grand Prize three times. Not a bad winning 

percentage. You really can do that too! 

Winning at raffles, bingo and winning at life are very, almost eerily, similar and I'd like to talk to you about that today. I think, if there is anything that I have been a massive success in my life at is that is being able to convince my children that they will "win." I have shown them that the way to "win" is by first believing that you will win and that you are a "winner.". I have even convinced - may I suggest that I brainwashed - my third daughter into believing that she would conquer "incurable" forth stage cancer. 

I do not mean here that you can believe yourself into winning a game of chance like a lottery or the raffle; I mean you can become a winner simply by changing your attitude and better understand of what it means to "win."

But before I go into theory and philosophy more, allow me to continue (brag like a looney) by telling you about the past and our "luck" and wins in all sorts of games and winning at bingo.

Two years ago, we won the very top prize of a vacation to Okinawa that included hotel and airfare. Yesterday, he won the trip to New York. In February  of this year, he won a gift certificate worth several hundred dollars at a very famous store in Tokyo. Last year, he won five times out of a total of 12 games or so in one tournament. Think about that; there are seven hundred people all competing at bingo trying to win the prize. To win once is enough to bring wide smiles and cheers to anybody's face. But he won five games in one night! That must be a record. Every time my son won, people were astounded. By the forth time he won, everyone was clapping for him. By the fifth time, people were verbally shouting, "That's incredible!" "I've never heard of such a thing."

The lady sitting next to us at our table last night has worked for the organization that ran last night's bingo for thirty years. She told me that she had been coming to this event twice a year, every year, and she and her husband had never won even once!

One of my son's former teachers knows my son won at bingo again and she wrote him this note by email:

"Congratulations! I just can't believe you did it again and I'm so happy for you. I believe you went to Bingo with a purpose in mind and had your heart set on the Grand Prize.

We can all learn a lot from you."

She wrote, "We can all learn a lot from you." Indeed. We can. My son's former teacher is very much a woman who understands a positive mental attitude and what that can do for a self-fullfilling prophesy.

Now, if you've ever played bingo, then you know that winning any prize is very difficult. People play all their lives and never win a Grand Prize. But winning it several times is almost unheard of. Last night, there were probably about seven hundred people playing and yet he won. It's always that way; seven hundred to one-thousand people playing and we always win. 

But, even before my son was born, I was lucky at winning these things. My wife too. And, don't think it is just luck. There is something to be said for a positive mental attitude or, may I go on a limb here? ESP.

My family and I have won at least a dozen grand prizes and at least seven free vacations to places all around the world.

But this is not a blog to brag to you about how lucky I am or we are. It is a blog to tell you how you can become this way. It's a not blog post to tell you how you can start winning Bingo. But, believe it or not, folks, winning at bingo and winning at life are EXACTLY the same thing. 

Winning is easy! It is easy, actually... Well, let me say that it should be easy... But people need to understand what "Winning" actually is. For most people, with a confused idea as to the definition of "Winning," it's "easier said than done." And you know why? Because most people are so negative and defeatist all the time. People are their own worst enemy. 

Think back to your school days. Think back to that guy or girl you remember that you envied. You thought they had everything didn't you? They always won. They were the best looking, they had the nicest car; they were popular, they always won at everything. They became class king or class queen. They had the coolest parents, the most beautiful girlfriend or boyfriend. They were truly lucky. You wanted to be like them.* 

My high school class king & queen. I thought they looked like movie stars!

Well, I hate sounding like a salesman, because I'm not selling you anything, but I'm here to tell you right now you can become one of those lucky people... Read on.

There are two really important things that you need to understand about becoming one of these lucky people. One is understanding what exactly it is that we are doing and its purpose in our life; and the second part is how these things affect your entire belief system. These two go hand in hand. 

The first part about understanding what it is that we are doing is, perhaps, the most important part. Today, we're using bingo as an example, so let's go with that. Think about this; is winning at bingo the best part of going to bingo? Is winning everything? I don't think so.

At bingo, I meet friends and other parents and always smile and shake their hands and say, "Hi!" We are all at bingo so, of course, the subject quickly turns to bingo. I always try to be extremely positive and say, "I always win!" They laugh. They don't believe me (the ones who knows us well don't laugh). Invariably, they all say the same thing,

"I never win." 

They say this with a voice of exasperation and defeat. Poor folks. They are totally and completely missing the point. They are really missing the boat in the bad lesson that they are unknowingly teaching their children subconsciously. Get this: I suggest to you that they are teaching their children defeatism and a losing attitude. 

I can imagine this family in my head; after "losing" at bingo (I mean, they don't win a "prize"), they hop in the car and go home. Dad and mom and kids are sad because they "didn't win." When they get into the house, dad takes off his coat and gives out a very loud sigh. "We lost again!" He says.

Is that any way to teach your children how to win? Is that anyway to teach your children how to be positive?  

Here is what I always tell my son before we play bingo;

"Remember the best part of bingo is not in the winning of trinkets or prizes, it is in the doing. Just being able to be here playing bingo with friends and family is winning. That is the "win." This is fun and it is a wonderfully exciting time we spend together. Just by being here together, we have already won. So smile and let's have fun!" 

It is. Playing bingo with my wife and son is a great memory and it is so very much fun. 

I tell my son this because I want him to be a winner. I want him to understand what "being a winner" truly is. This sort of thinking, this positive attitude, actually, I learned from an old Zen Buddhist saying,

"The joy is in the action, not in the result."

Can you understand this concept? The joy is in the action, not the result. Get it? I think people who truly love to paint or fish or golf, etc., can understand this. For the painter, a beautiful work is nice, but the true value and joy is not the finished painting, it is in the action of painting. For the fisherman, of course catching a fish is fun, but the true joy is standing there alone in front of nature and contemplating life - the joy is in the doing; for the golfer, the winning score is interesting, but soon forgotten; the real joy is in the day and the time considering the play. For all of them, the real value is in the action, not in the result. 

This is what is meant by, "The joy is in the action, not in the result."

Now, do you understand why, whether or not my son wins a big prize (a trinket), he knows, he believes and knows in his heart that he is a true winner? Can anyone deny that, regardless of prize, that we won merely by being able to go and play together and enjoy this moment together on our short time on this earth? 

Some people will scoff at this (they have a losing attitude). But let me ask you to consider this question: There are two children. They both have to go to school. One wakes up in the morning and says, "I don't want to go to school. School is no fun." The other wakes up and says, "I want to go to school. School is fun." Which kid gets good grades at school? Which kid becomes successful at school? Which kid is positive, is popular, gets the best girlfriend or boyfriend and becomes class king or class queen? And is considered a "Winner"

Simple, isn't it? It is the old chicken and the egg problem. Which came first? The kid liking school or the positive attitude? Which came first? Hating school or the negative attitude? And how did these children get these attitudes?

How do these attitudes affect our belief system? How can we change these attitudes? And, if we have children, how can we stop teaching them bad attitudes and start teaching them beneficial ones?

I think it is obvious how these attitudes affect our belief system. In the example above, do you want to be like the father above who comes home exasperated and continually expressed doubt and a defeatist attitude to himself or his children, or, do you want to be the person who understands that the joy is in the action and not the result?

Think about that: The family who thinks they "lost;" They just spent a wonderful time together, probably a rare time together, and they are so focused on winning some "stuff," (usually junk) that they fail to see the true value of what they have just done and they fail to see that just by being alive and being together that they've won the greatest prize of all!

I see this with people I meet everyday. They are worried about their job and the economy. They fear for the future. Almost everyone I see is this way nowadays.

But consider this, my friends; you are still here. I would wager a donut that you have had these fears and worries on and off for the last 5 to 10 years; "Will I have a job?" "What am I going to do?" "How will I survive?" With all of these worries what you are actually saying is, "How can I win?" Or, perhaps, "I never win."

Guess what? Thinking like that you probably won't ever win at bingo, and I'll bet that, even if you are winning, with that attitude, you'll never realize it either...

Today, many of my friends and many people are worried about their life and the future. It is natural to worry. I do it too! But I fight it. You should, you must, fight it too. Worrying, like saying "I never win at bingo," is creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. Stop it right now. If you say, "I never win," you won't win.

You need to start saying that you are winning (not "I'm going to win." You must say, "I am winning." In the present tense). Saying first. Repeating. This will start and plant the seeds of belief. When you believe, really believe, you can move mountains.  

From today, here's five things that you need to do to start on the track to believing that you can win at bingo and win at life:

1) Write down on three pieces of paper the saying, "The joy is in the action, not in the result." Tape one of the pieces of paper to the refrigerator and tape one in your car where you see it constantly and the last one in your wallet. Think about that phrase a lot. Repeat it out loud whenever or wherever you can.

2) Get a dollar notebook and start writing down your top 10 goals for your life and do it everyday! Here's how.

3) Wake up in the morning and the first thing you MUST do is think: "Smile! Today is going to be a great day!" If you can't remember to do this by yourself, then write it in large red letters on a piece of paper and tape it to your bathroom mirror.

4) Start using the Law of Attraction and positivity to create a good self-fulling prophesy to help you. Here's how. 

5) Start greeting everyone you meet with a happy and healthy "Hello!" or "Good Morning!" Stop sounding like you are dead to the world. If you greet people with an un-energetic salutation then you sound like you are losing. Stop it immediately. Everyone is searching for positive people. You should be that person. Instead of being "dark" and absorbing light like a sponge, you should give out light. People are attracted to light.

And, number six, OK, I said there'd be only five, so sue me...

6) Call your mom or dad or kids and tell them you love them and do it RIGHT NOW! Don't hesitate! Or, better yet, give them a great big hug and tell them yourself how much you love them and how beautiful they are. Realize that today is a fantastic day and you all are the luckiest people in the world... (Oh, and of you do go to bingo, take grandma... She's lucky, right?) 

Some people read this and think that I am a very lucky person. I am. But I've been through two divorces, a war with cancer, family members dying in bizarre car accidents, worrying about work as we all do (nothing special)... I've been through a lot of difficult times... But you know what? I never forget something special; I know that projecting negativity will just make things worse; I know that projecting positivity, in the face of great challenges, is creating a good outcome for myself and my loved ones through the power of the Law of Attraction. I know that, by being happy and thankful that I create a better situation for you and a better situation for myself.

Remember my friends, "The joy is in the action, not in the result."

Stay happy. Stay positive. Spread positivity. You already possess the greatest prize of all.


* Did you know that those people you envied in high school who you thought were truly lucky had parents that went through a terrible divorce or a parent who died when they were young? Or they had a sibling who was terribly handicapped? Or they had a younger brother or sister who died at birth? The difference between these people and negative people? These people didn't allow these things to create dark clouds on their horizons. They took the challenges and learned from them and those challenges helped them to grow into better, more positive, more loving people.... Think about it. Everything happens for a reason. Look for the positive and you'll find it - or create it yourself.

For my friends: Dale Yost, Naomi Yamada, Allison Sayne, Jp Valentine, Julie Rogers, Sheena Rogers, George Williams, George Chumly Cockle, Takatoshi Uchiyama; and also a thanks to the positivity of the Moxxor gang of JT, James Turner, Jared Turner and John Saylor! You guys all rock!

My Best Friend Died

This is a very difficult post to write.


My best friend's name was David. His picture was on the front page of the newspaper. The newspaper said, "David, Father Die in Boating Accident." 

"That's impossible!" I thought. I didn't want to believe it. I read and reread the newspaper article over and over in the hopes that I was misunderstanding what I was reading. I was hoping it meant that 'David's father died. But not David.' 


Forgive me for wishing such a morbid thing, but that's what I thought.


...But there was no misunderstanding. David was dead.


I cried and cried. How could that possibly have happened? I just saw him the day before and we talked and had fun. We always had fun. David was my very best friend.


I think David was everyone's best friend because he was such a nice guy. 


When I heard the news, and realized it wasn't a mistake, I cried all day. I desperately wanted to know how it happened and why it happened. I wanted to know the exact details. I called my friends and, a few days later, they had a school meeting for classmates and explained to us about the accident. 


But I still wasn't satisfied with the details. Besides how and what, I wanted to know "why"? Why did god allow this to happen to my best friend? Why did god allow this to happen to such a good person? 


After all the questions I asked and all the details I found, I found out that they were fishing in the Lake of the Woods. The boat was overloaded and slipped under water and that the dad had tried to save David but the water was too cold and they both drowned.


That's how it happened. That still didn't answer the question for me as to why it happened. 


I was upset. "Why did god allow this to happen?" "Why does god allow bad things to happen to good people?" 


David was 7-years-old and he was boating and fishing with his dad in a lake in Minnesota. The photo of him on the front page of the newspaper was the class photo they took of him from our second grade class. I recognized it immediately.


That was 47 years ago. In 1964.


What a waste. He was a handsome kid. I think I was jealous of him because I thought he was more handsome than me. I wonder what he would have become had he lived? 


I have thought about David off and on over these past decades. Yesterday, memories of David suddenly came back to me like a shot to the head.


My own seven-year-old son was off to a friend's house to play with some other of his friends. I was sleeping on the sofa in the living room when my wife returned from the friend's house and she was very flustered. She woke me up. Her face was all red and she seemed like she was about to cry.


I was still half asleep. She started rambling on about something and it was difficult to follow what she wanted to say. It was concerning one of the boys who was supposed to come and play with my son and the others but couldn't make it that day. When my son's friend's mom had called that boy's father to ask about his absence, the father had said something like "He can't come to play as he is, 'no more.'"


He is "no more?"


My son's friend's mom is not a native English speaker so when my son (and her son) heard this "no more" they were sure she merely misunderstood and laughed about it. Why not? They were just playing with him at school yesterday and kicking the soccer ball around together.


This boy was happy as can be and as fit as a fiddle and had the whole world and his entire life in front of him... He was one of the top students in class. He was one of my son's best friends; he was everyone's best friend. He couldn't be "no more." That couldn't happen.


My son goes to a school with a large international enrollment. There are children at that school who come from all over the world. Some of their parents do not speak English well so sometimes there are miscommunications. My wife told me about this conversation and asked me to confirm if, "...he is, 'no more'" means what we think it means.


I called the boy's house, there was no answer. Then, against my better judgement, and against common courtesy, I called a cell phone number that is listed on the class schedule given to parents to be used in cases of emergency. I talked to the father.


I knew immediately from the tone of his voice what the meaning of "No more" was. It was exactly what you or I would fear it meant.


The poor boy had died the night before. I said, "I'm sorry" and "God bless you all" and hung up the phone. 


I thought immediately of my friend David from so many years ago. Here he was visiting me again. 


I also immediately thought of what I was going to tell my son and his other seven year old friends. Like I said, they didn't believe it. Why should they? It is unbelievable.  


How did this wonderful little boy die? We don't know yet. We will know how someday soon, I reckon. But we will never know "why."


Maybe the "why" is for each of us to decide for ourselves. I'm not sure.


I went to my son's friend's house to report the news. When the mother saw my face, she knew the news. I asked that she sit down and the kids playing to sit down also. I didn't beat around the bush. I told them the truth. 


There was stone silence. 


I'm not a priest, minister or man of the cloth so I didn't know what to say, but everyone was looking at me expectantly so I knew I had to say something. I spoke,


"I'm sure you will find out at school next week what happened to your friend. Now, I don't know. But, even when we find out what happened, it will always be difficult to understand why it happened.... 


When I was a little boy, I had a similar experience; my best friend drowned in a lake. I was so sad. I found out later how he died, but I never found out why. That's been many years ago and I still don't know why....


...All you can do now is to pray that he is happy and in a safe, warm place. And you must thank god for giving you the time you had to spend with this wonderful friend. Of course, you are sad and will miss him, but always thank god for the time you had and shared with your wonderful friend.... he will always be with you in your hearts...


Also remember that life is very short and we have to be very careful everyday. Accidents happen and, even though I am happy and healthy today, I could be hit by a car and killed or put in the hospital tomorrow, so we must be very careful when crossing streets or when walking near cars. It's always the car you don't see that is the one that hits you....


Pray for your friend and his family and always appreciate your friends that you have now. Give them a hug; give your parents a hug and thank god that you have such good friends and a mother and father who loves you very much."


I stuttered and stopped... I looked at their faces and they seemed to be thinking, "What is he talking about?"


I wanted to say, and should have said, something profound but I couldn't. I wanted to say something that would have made it all alright and set things straight. But I couldn't. What I said was lame. It was the minimum that had to be said, I suppose. 


Still silent, the kids all stared at me, eyes wide open and expressionless. The silence filled the room.


I sighed, paused and awkwardly looked at the floor. I didn't know what to do or say. I lightly slapped both hands on my knees and stood up. I meekly told the mother that I'd be back in a few hours to pick up my son as the kids held hands.


The kids were sad but they weren't crying. I think they still found it unbelievable that their friend could actually be gone so it hasn't sunk in what exactly has happened.


It may not sink in for 40 or 50 years. It didn't for me. Even then, as with me, they might know how, but they will probably never know exactly, "why"? 


Come to think of it, is there really ever a reason "why"?


There are lessons, I suppose. The lesson for me is that bad things do happen to good people. That can't be stopped. The only thing we can do is to try to learn something from it that can help the survivors to lead happier lives and become better people.


Later on when my son comes home, I'm going to hug him and try to explain the saying my good friend Ken always lives by. Ken says,


"Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die tomorrow."


I hope the lesson of David and my son's friend helps my own son and his friends. I also hope it helps others as it has helped me, to become, if even a little bit, a better person (I hope). It has taken me nearly 50 years to write down this tribute to my dear friend David. Now, his death taught me a lesson that I can teach my son.


Remember to hug your kids today and tell them that you love them and that they are beautiful. And, of course, teach them to dream and to live each day to the fullest and to appreciate all the wonderful things this earth and god has given us.


They say that tomorrow never comes, but tomorrow, I think, tomorrow often comes much too quickly.

Recurring Dreams and Alternate Universes

I think most people have recurring dreams. If most people don't, then maybe I am just weird because I have had the same five recurring dreams over and over for these last 27 years. Do you have recurring dreams? 

Since moving to Japan, I have had basically five recurring dreams. But, now that I think about it, one of these dreams, the dreams of me flying like a bird or a jet plane, stopped a few years ago.


I wonder why my dreams of flight have disappeared? Maybe because I turned 50 and stopped dreaming like a 17-year-old? No, I don't think it is that because I still feel like a 17-year-old many times (just won't be doing the crazy things I used to do).


The first of the five recurring dreams I've had was flying in the skies. They started when I was a small boy. In my dreams could fly like Icarus. Can you fly in your dreams? Those are fun dreams... Sometimes, I guess when my condition wasn't so great, I'd have a hard time achieving lift-off in my dream. I'd have to run and flap my arms as hard as I could until I took off. Sometimes it was a great effort and I had to try over and over. Other times, I was just like a graceful bird; a tiny step and jump and I was off soaring like an eagle in the clouds.


Then, when I got to about 30 or so, I could fly like a jet plane. In fact, many times I knew I was dreaming and that I was flying. I figured it was some sort of alternate universe and so I rode it like a snow-boarder rides the snow or a surfer rides the waves. I knew I was dreaming but didn't care. When  could really fly and fly like a rocket, doing a thousand miles and hour, I would consider flying over the Pacific Ocean and going to the United States to fly over my parents house.


Weird thing is that I would fly out a few hundred miles from the coast of Japan, look over the water, and turn around because I'd start getting scared. Scared that I would wake up and be flying over the cold ocean, fall into it, and have to swim back. I used to be a good swimmer, but not that good. Being so high over such deep water freaked me out so I'd turn back. Even though I knew it was just a dream.


The other problem with flying to the USA like a 747 in my dreams was that, at such high speeds, I had a difficult time turning and would often continue on a straight line when I wanted to make a hard left turn.


Sounds ridiculous because it was all a dream and I knew it, but I also felt that, somewhere in my heart, dreams were and alternate universe and a reflection on reality. I guess I still do.


Another dream that often occurred was fishing. I love fishing. Before I moved to japan, I went fishing every week. Sometimes two or three times a week. Fishing is heaven. Fishing is spiritual and fishing is close to God.

There is a saying about fishing. It goes like this: "Do you know what the difference is between a religious man and a spiritual man? A religious man goes to church and thinks about fishing. A spiritual man goes fishing and thinks about god."


I am a spiritual man. I'd go fishing everyday of the week if I could.


I used to dream about fishing at least once a week when I first came to Japan. Sometimes I dreamt about it every night for days in a row. That's because it is difficult to go fishing in Japan and I had been an avid fisherman since I was a small boy living in Minnesota. Minnesota is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" so fishing is a lifestyle there.


Fishing in Japan, Tokyo especially, though, is a chore. Japan is a crowded place and the good areas for fishing on the coastline are usually taken by the local fishing collective so they don't take too kindly to your fishing in their good spots... In fact, they might give you the boot up the ass if they catch you fishing in their prime areas. Going fishing in Japan is not like the USA where you can just grab a rod and reel and head off to the lake or shoreline. In Japan, fishing is an all-day expedition like 18 holes of golf: You need a plan and it costs lots of money.


My other two recurring dreams, or maybe I should say nightmares, are related to work. Whenever work is going poorly or I worry about bankruptcy or the economy going down the tubes (an understandable and common recent worry since 2008) I have bad dreams of returning to the USA and going back to my old jobs. 


The worse job is returning to Prudential to the same old office and working with those dishonest people that I wrote about yesterday in Working With Thieves, Liars and Crooks. The weird part of the dream is that I am always scheming about returning to Japan and, even after one year, haven't sold one single contract yet they do not fire me in my dream.


Talk about being able to live off one's laurels!


The other work-related dream is that I go back to working at a Sears, Roebuck and Company in Ventura, California (it was in Oxnard when I worked there, but has since moved causing the city of Oxnard to sue the city of Ventura, but that's another story about the insanity of the USA).


When I was 17 I started working at Sears in the catalogue ordering department and then transferred to commission sales in the Photo & Office Equipment department. As a commission salesman, I made a heck of a lot of money in the late 1970's.


In my dreams, for some bizarre reason, I go back there and have to work in the sewing machine and vacuum cleaner department selling poorly made and badly designed Sears equipment. The nightmarish part of the entire thing, besides selling this poorly designed and quite unstylish junk, the same management is there at the company running around doing their weird hijinks.


There is the store manager, whose name escapes me, but he was a very short, yet handsome man. He dumped his beautiful wife and four beautiful daughters (whom he often brought to the store) to marry another woman (who he soon also brought to the store). I always noticed the daughter because they were very beautiful girls. He got his lightening strike from god when, soon after the divorce and marriage, he was diagnosed with some sort of brain cancer. No kidding. I think he soon died after that. 


Then there was a guy named Walter who was a section chief who was married but he ran around unable to control his libido and was trying to take every woman working at the store to bed. I guess his wife got fed up with it one day and dumped him and got another boyfriend.


Walt, being like the immature little boy he was, then decided that he wanted his "toy" back (the wife he disrespected and treated like sh*t) and, from what I understand, went screaming drunk to the boyfriend's house while she was there and started banging on the door and breaking it down.


The boyfriend shot him and killed him.


Later, after the funeral that I didn't attend, many Sears employees were complaining that the wife was wearing black but didn't seem sad. I heard them complaining about that and said nothing. It did nothing for me but confuse me as to what was really important to these people and what they were thinking about. 


There were lots of really weird things going on at Sears at that time. I found the same types of problems when I got myself transferred to the Sears in San Fernando Valley and found that store, too, was full of some very twisted people whose priorities were not success of the business and success of their personnel and staff but protection of their position and attempting to continue their lives acting like high school students with their idiotic politics and clicks.


But, I digress....


These are the recurring dreams I often have. Even in the case of Sears or my old jobs, it is nice to be able to see my old friends and to remember them in their beautiful youth. Even when I have nightmares, I am able to realize that they are nightmares and am able to view them like a movie so they rarely scare me. 


I went to see my sick old dad a few weeks ago. He wasn't the same person that I will always remember. In my dreams, he is a young and handsome 30+ some year old Marine wrestling with us kids in the yard. For the sick, aged and ill, dreams are an escape. Back to better times and the treasures of youth. 


Surely, dreams are one of the best things about living that there could possibly be. I look forward to sleeping every night and I look forward to the dreams of my youth.

How about your dreams? I think if you wake up and think, "Today is going to be great" and you keep track and write down your goals, you can control your dreams and make sure they are positive. Try it. For more on that, read, One Easy Step to Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life.

Preventing Disasters in Business and Personal Affairs

Disasters happen all the time. No one likes disasters, even the little ones we joke about in our daily lives, like spilled coffee. Natural disasters cannot be prevented. Personal and business ones often can.

JOHNNY NASH - I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

Of course many disasters may hit us unexpectedly, these we must use our wits to react to positively. A negative or defeatist attitude to any sort of disaster will only make things worse. For example, you are diagnosed with a disease like cancer. What do you do? Do you take the defeatist attitude and worry and fear for your life? Or do you take this as just one more challenge, like all the rest, to be overcome?


Everyone knows what will happen to you if you fear and worry. Everyone knows of the "Self-fulfilling prophecy." 


The self-fulling prophecy works both ways too. It can be a terrible result or a positive result. You are the one who controls what the prophesy is about.


If you are stuck by disaster, then the best thing to do is to start training your mind for positivity. A sick or depressed mind will yield sick or depressed results. A positive mind will yield positive results. Is there anyone who can deny this? 


Two people have so-called terminal cancer. The first person is devastated and becomes clinically depressed. The second person accepts the condition and takes a positive attitude and decides that they will recover.


Which person do you think will have the best chances of a full recovery? Why is it that some people recover and others don't?


Great things and great ideas and conditions are borne out of positive thinking and cleanliness. Good and great things are not borne out of fear, depression or darkness. Depression and fear can only result in negative outcomes.


Besides positive reactions to disasters, often times many disasters can be prevented! Really! Preparation and thought can often prevent disasters or, at least, mitigate their damage, especially when it comes to business and personal affairs.


Once again, a positive attitude comes into play.


If you have that important meeting and, before that meeting, you worry and consistently run over and over in your mind the possible negative results, or the worst-case scenario, then you will probably create a self-fulfilling prophesy; You most likely will create that worst case outcome. But, if you use your mind to run over positive results, through positive mental imaging, then your chances of getting those positive results increases exponentially. 


We cannot prevent natural disasters. We can only dampen or moderate their damage through preparation and forethought and a positive attitude. 


Personal and business disasters are much easier to control as we can often prevent them from happening through mental imaging of positive outcomes and considerate forethought. We must work proactively instead of reactively to problems before they happen. 


If you practice positive imaging before an important meeting, imagining a positive outcome, instead of fearing the worst, you can create your own reality. You can create that positive outcome that you so desire. 


A positive attitude is everything. Preparation and forethought are priceless forms of insurance. Don't wait for others to bring you good news or positivity, bring it to them first.


Always spread the light to others first and, by doing so, you bring the light to you. 


Remember: You spread the light; you win.


You can do it today and everyday. It is just the flick of a switch from "on" to "off" and from "positive" to "negative." They are all, after all, two different sides of the same coin.


It's up to you to decide which face of that coin is "up."

LOUIS ARMSTRONG - WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

Watch the videos! Be positive! Have a great day!