This blog is about a topic that is becoming increasingly important to me. In the past few years, I don’t know exactly when, my focus in life gradually started changing. Maybe it was reaching 50 or perhaps it simply came with growing older. You can easily find evidence of this transformation in my prior blogs dealing with health, lifestyle and happiness: Global Health, Global Journey, Global Fun.
There are certain activities that provide me with inner peace and allow me to completely empty my mind of the routine daily distractions in life. The most common ways I reach this state are: when I go for a long slow run; when I don my noise-canceling headphones and turn on my favorite music during an intercontinental flight; when I drive extended distances alone in my car; or when I take a long, quiet, hot bath. When this tranquility sets in, my mind becomes hyperactive and fills itself with an abundance of positive thoughts and ideas. “Who is Nick Raybourne? How can I improve my life? What do I need to change to become more fulfilled and a better person? What can I learn from people I know? And so forth.” It is a very rewarding, unstructured process of creative out-of-the box thinking, soul searching and self-exploration that infallibly results in novel ideas and good things.
My ambition is to find ways to always be full of inner energy, enthusiasm and motivation, thereby achieving more of the joy and happiness we all strive for. Conventional wisdom and all the naysayers (I was one not many years ago), in fact most people, would probably say that this is impossible. But it isn’t. I constantly work on having an open mind and gather the courage to challenge conventional wisdom and status quo. Coupled with my infinite hunger to learn and change, I hope I’ll make significant progress toward this inspiring goal. I believe I already have.
It is easy to make a conscious decision to close the gate to one’s inner energy and become depressed, unenthusiastic, lethargic, even sick, etc. when something bad happens or things are not going so well. But when you are on a hot date in your favorite restaurant, or when you are on your first day of a spectacular Caribbean vacation, or when you sink a 40 foot eagle put with your friends watching on the 18th hole, you suddenly are full of energy and joy and feel at that very moment as if you can single-handedly conquer the world. You instantly have so much positive energy that nothing seems impossible. On the other hand you feel horrible and have absolutely no energy, enthusiasm or joy when you return to work on a rainy Monday morning, when your girl friend dumps you, or when you shoot 125 to finish last in your club’s golf championship.
Recently I realized that a few special people among us never allow this complete change in energy and enthusiasm to happen. I’m working hard on learning how to reach this improved state of mind. When researching this phenomenon I discovered that I could turn negative situations into positive ones by never closing the gate to the inner energy we all possess. Whenever I’m in a situation where I feel the gate might close, I now force myself to make it stay open by virtue of determination, enthusiasm, a greatly improved mindset, and by relentlessly challenging myself to leave it open. With time and by actively working on this, my goal is to never let the gate close, with the expectation that my energy level and spirit will always remain high, and my life in turn be greatly enhanced.
This, I’m convinced, represents the intangible quality, aura and edge that extraordinarily happy and successful people possess. It is not because they are smarter, luckier or harder working, but because they have found a way to always stay positive, which makes their energy, enthusiasm and joy phenomenally positive forces in their lives, relationships and businesses.
The other thing I now make a priority is practicing how to be nice. This may sound a little hokey but makes a lot of sense after I read a book about it. Being nice is not a genetic trait and thus one can learn how to become nicer. But being nice takes practice and focus like everything else in life. Why not be nice all the time to everyone and not just once in a while and selectively? Well, I’m absolutely certain that the nicer we are – to waiters, your wife, your boss, the old lady next door, the stranger in the supermarket – the happier we’ll be and the better we’ll feel. This in turn will make us more confident, better liked and respected, open up new exciting opportunities and in general make us more fulfilled.
I do all of this for selfish reasons but it’s a win-win so why not? Truly successful people have, among many things, perfected the art of being nice and probably wonder why others are not doing it too. It is a lot easier and a much more powerful tool than spending an extra hour at work or trying to find other ways to do well in life or in business. Being nice and staying positive and enthusiastic are some of the many intangible life skills they unfortunately never taught us in school. Maybe schools – from first grade through graduate school - should seriously rethink their obsolete and outdated curricula. I have many thoughts on this topic but that’s a discussion for anther day.
-Nick
www.nickraybourne.com
Many years ago, when I was about 30, I worked for a very famous and wealthy woman, as her personal assistant. I learned many things from her, but the most important was: You can always find a nice way to say anything you want, even insults. She was amazing and a great inspiration.
Posted by: Ana Villaronga | June 08, 2009 at 04:09 PM