True.  But then again isn’t personal development about changing and changing for the better?  I have found that anything worth having never comes easy.  Hence every 5 years or so I find myself going through a mid-life crisis—or better I experience…

DEFINING MOMENTS.

It happens to all of us.  For example, one day you find yourself sitting at your desk and realize that you hate the job you’re in and want to do something else.

Or you look at your unhappy life and KNOW you deserve better.

Or, as happened to a good friend of mine who realized that she’d rather be happy playing the piano the rest of her life than moving up in the high-powered world of business.

The truth is those thoughts don’t just pop up on THAT day.  Those thoughts were most likely a long time coming—probably five years coming.

But there is a key to them.  Those moments pass. You feel them.  They exist.  And then they’re gone.

What do you do about them?

The key is TAKING ACTION.  Take action on those thoughts and feelings.

Because the truth is that thinking about something is NOT an action.

It can be ANY action at all.  Don’t think that you can make a change right away.  For example, if you think of quitting your job, start working on a new resume.  That is an action.  No need to get up and announce you’re quitting your job RIGHT NOW.

And to show that I don’t just talk the talk but walk the walk, I’ll tell you about action that I am taking.  I have always wanted to show people how much FUN it can be to improve your life.  I read a lot of blogs on personal development.  I like 80% of what I read.

But personal development is HARD. And the only thing that keeps me striving to be a better person is a sense of humor about it.  Without a sense of humor, you’ll feel like a failure more often than not (even when you DO succeed).  I’ve tried injecting humor into this blog or making some wild comparisons (Doomsday Cults and overcoming disappointment and failure) to get you to think differently.

And now, I want to do more of that.  I’ll take the actions necessary to turn this blog into an informative but fun place to come to.  The first action was this post.  Look for other actions to follow, including working with some colorful writers to help me inject some fun into all our lives.

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And oh boy did they listen…

From 1840, “Millerism” became a phenomenon.  The ranks were swelling and Miller was pressed to come up with an exact date for Christ’s return.  Finally, after consulting the Bible and the calendar of the Kariate Jews, the date was set–October 22, 1844.

Given the fact that we are still here, Christ failed to return.  And left in the wake of the failed return of Christ, were Miller and his followers.  One follower said of the event:

“I waited all Tuesday [October 22] and dear Jesus did not come;– I waited all the forenoon of Wednesday, and was well in body as I ever was, but after 12 o’clock I began to feel faint, and before dark I needed someone to help me up to my chamber, as my natural strength was leaving me very fast, and I lay prostrate for 2 days without any pain– sick with disappointment.”

The event would later be known as the Great Disappointment.  Miller would die in 1849, still awaiting the imminent return of Christ.

We’ve all experienced disappointments and failures.  But disappointment and failure are often due to forces beyond your control.  For example, no one could predict the economic crisis that hit America.  Many people lost a lot of money and there was in many cases nothing they could have done to prevent it.

Yes, we should take every precaution to give ourselves a chance to succeed.  But this isn’t about preventing failure.  It’s about dealing with it.  So, what can we do?

Decide to change the way you react to disappointment and failure.

One way to do this is to reinterpret the event that led to the disappointment.  Disappointment is a reaction.  Instead follow the wisdom of philosopher Paul Reubens, who said in his treatise Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, “I meant to do that.”

An action that’s already happened cannot be changed.  You can only change your thoughts.  By reinterpreting the event, you look for the positive things to come from it.  I do not suggest you do this right after it happens.  But do it a little bit afterwards.  Write down the positive effects.

Here are two examples from my personal life:

Fired from my job–>led me to a MUCH better job 30 days later that would determine my career

Lost my biggest client–>freed me to do a more fulfilling project, reduced my stress 1000%

Maybe in 10 years, the whole story will change.  Instead of being fired from my job, I’ll say I quit and got a better one.  Or I’ll say I dropped that client to do something meaningful.  Memory is a funny thing.

But that is the key.  The events didn’t change.  My thoughts about those events did change.

And that is the way to deal with disappointment and failure.

Now, how did the Millerites dealt with their Great Disappointment?  They broke up into several groups who had their own explanations for the Great Disappointment.  From one of these groups arose  The Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

Last time I checked, they’re at 17 million members and counting….

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Yeah I called her up. She gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention.

As my friend and author Steve Harper likes to say, we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.  I agree with this 100%. But the movie got me thinking: Harry obviously listened to his girlfriend (he has ears, doesn’t he). But is listening itself important?  Or is it how you listen that’s important?  And is listening the same thing as paying attention?

The truth is we listen to people every day.  And a ton of books tell us how we have to be good listeners.  But can we take a cue from Harry?  If Harry had just “paid attention,” would his girlfriend had felt like he had “listened” to her?

Actually, there are many different types of listening.  In today’s post, I will talk about five of them.

Appreciative listening

Appreciative listening is where you listen to simply enjoy the listening experience.  This is the way we tend to listen when we are at a concert, club, or other fun venue.  Here you are listening for the joy of listening itself.  However, if you’ve ever talked to someone and it looks like they have “lost interest” in what you are saying, most likely they are utilizing appreciative listening.  Mostly likely they no longer “appreciate” what you’re saying.   This is what Harry was doing in the movie.  Obviously, he did not “appreciate” what his girlfriend told him.

Empathetic listening

Emphatic listening is when you are listening to support the person speaking.   We’ve all done this.  When our friends or spouses vent about their problems and we just listen to it, we are using empathetic listening.  We are showing how much we care when we listen like this.

I get the feeling that when Harry’s girlfriend talked to him about her troubles, she might have been looking for him to listen like this.

Comprehensive listening

Comprehensive listening is listening to organize the information given by the speaker. When you re listened like this trying to apply the information to your personal experience. Some examples might include taking directions, trying to figure out what to do next, etc.

Discerning listening

Discerning listening is listening to gather information.  With discerning listening, you are listening to find the main message.  An example might include going to a seminar and trying to find out what the whole point of a speech is about.

Evaluative listening

With evaluative listening, you are listening in order to solve the problem of the person speaking.  For example, if someone is telling you about their annoying co-worker, the evaluative listener will problem offer up different ways in which the person can deal with the co-worker.

Evaluative listeners are typically in problem-solving mode.

Now, how does this all apply to you?  Surely it can apply in more ways than I can talk about in one blog post.  But consider this:

You are venting to your friend about your bad day looking for a little sympathy, and your friend starts telling you about ways in which you could have made it better.  How does it make you feel?  Do you think your friend is really listening to you?

He is, just not the way you wanted him to.

So, keep these things in mind.  Try to see how you are listening to others.  And be aware of how others are listening to you.

I’d like to give a brief plug for Tim Ursiny’s book, “The Coward’s Guide to Conflict” that introduced the ways of listening to me.

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I almost walk out the door before the meeting starts. But I know I have to be here. I knew I had a problem. And I knew it was affecting everyone and everything around me.

In turn each person spoke, saying their names and admitting the problem. And now it was my turn. I mustered up the courage and said…

My name is Carlon Haas, and I’m…

…an optimist.

Hello, Carlon.

OK. By now you realize this didn’t really happen. But there are times when I felt that I needed to go to an Optimists Anonymous meeting. But I admit it loud and proud…I am an unrepentant optimist.

Most of the time, I get people who wonder how I stay so positive and other times I get people who tell me I need to be more “realistic” or that I am “ignoring my problems” or even I am in “denial”.

Now, I in now way believe that your goal in life is to be “happy” and “positive” ALL the time. In fact, I get a lot of inspiration from “negative thoughts”.

But the glass is always half full to me. And I’ve accepted that there’s nothing wrong with it. Sure I may at times not feel like the world is coming to an end when it’s pretty darn close to doing so. And yes, I do sometimes ignore the seriousness of serious situations.

But that’s the way I roll. Things always end up turning out all right. Some may call this denial or unrealistic, but I really think life is a mater of perception. We cannot always choose our situations, but we can choose our perception of them.

I have and always will see the glass as half-full. Sure I may slide into denial now and again, but that’s a small price to pay for a little contentment.

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Yep, 17 years is all it took for me to get the meaning of this U2 song. But more importantly, the lesson I learned from the experience of finally “getting” the lyrics is something I think everyone should learn.

Take a listen to this podcast to find out what U2 taught me about listening to others.

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To celebrate, I bought a nice bottle of wine and decided to write this New Year’s post for all of you. You see, for many years I tried making New Year’s resolutions. And just by chance, I was going to make a resolution to quit smoking on January 1^st, 2003. The problem? A friend of mine sent me a carton of Korean cigarettes. So, I felt obligated to smoke them and said I’d quit as soon as I finished.

And I did…one week later…January 7, 2003…the last time I ever smoked. But let’s move to 2007.

2007 is over.

How was your 2007? Did you do the things you wanted to do? Achieve the things you wanted to achieve? And on New Year’s Eve, amid a vast array of booze and indecent party snacks, did you make your New Year’s resolution?

Well, if you did, my advice is to…

…take it back and resolve NOT to make any New Year’s resolutions ever again.

New Year’s resolutions hardly ever work (just ask the gym people who sell memberships right after New Year’s). And I think it’s because most people don’t know that resolution, at its root, contains the word resolve. When you resolve to do something, you are determined to do it. Nothing should stand in your way.

But how long does it take after New Year’s for your resolve to fail? And let’s not just stop at New Year’s. How often do you see the beginnings of your resolutions fail because you lost the resolve, determination, and perseverance to make it work? It’s happened to me often enough.

How often do we look for instant results instead of plodding through? Plodding is boring, but the results tend to speak for themselves. If I think about myself, I have managed to get healthier after 6 months of working out regularly at the gym. The results weren’t instant, but they last,

Maybe it’s because a lot of us feel like we don’t have time to do anything. But I’m a big believer in putting in time to get results. Without any results, you can waste time. It’s like the guy who asks a woman to marry him on the first date and when she refuses says, “Well, she must not like me because she doesn’t want to marry me.” Sounds silly, but this is exactly how many people approach self-development—marriage on the first date.

And this is why I’m telling you now…

…throw out those New Year’s resolutions.

You can make those resolutions ANY TIME YOU WANT but make them only when you have the resolve to see them through.

I’m not just telling you this because I read some stupid self-help book or watched some movie that changed my life. It’s all from my own experience. That’s how in 2006, I stopped biting my nails. And how I quit smoking. You see, movies and books (or blogs for that matter)don’t change lives …

…people do.

And the person change starts with is you. No movie or book worth its salt has ever told me anything different.

Don’t let anything hold you back…

…especially yourself.

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But there’s one aspect of flying that took a little getting used to. And that was…

…turbulence. But a funny thing happened on one flight I took with my then 1 year old daguher. When we hit a patch of turbulence, my daughter started squealing and bouncing up and down. It seemed that turbulence had made the flight fun for her.

Well, since then turbulence and I have gotten along better. In fact, I just took a flight last week and we hit a rough patch of turbulence. Of course, we did this right as I was on my way to the bathroom.

So, I thought to myself. “Now what?”

The way I saw it, I had 2 choices: go back to my seat and wait it out, or enjoy the ride.

So, it is in life. Recently, I have been going through a particularly turbulent time. And there are turbulent times up ahead for me. But I have a choice. I can either sit back and whine about how hard things are for me, or I can enjoy the ride.

I’m choosing to enjoy the ride. In fact, it might just be fun. I have found that the times your life experiences turbulence are the times that can define you. They are the times that can shape who you are and who you will become.

Turbulence comes whether you want it to or not. It’s how you deal with it that makes the difference.

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You see, the other day I was sucking on some horrible (I mean REALLY horrible) cough drops for my sore throat.

And I was chatting with my friend, knowing that I should be at least offering her one even though she doesn’t have a sore throat. But I didn’t.

Yesterday, I finally got a hold of some kick-butt, great-tasting cough drops. And as I was talking to my friend, I offered her one, which she readily accepted. Though she did make a comment as to why I wasn’t offering her any before. Good question, really. I mean I know I should do so here in Korea. And it is generally the polite thing to do wherever you go, I think.

So, why didn’t I just offer her the other one to keep my usually impeccable manners?

It boils down to this: I just cannot offer someone something that I personally do not like and that I think is not good enough for them.

Let me explain. The first cough drop I was eating was simply terrible. I couldn’t stand it, and I didn’t want to subject my friend to this horrible stuff. She may have accepted my offer and then been forced to eat the terrible cough drop just to be polite to me. No way!

But when I have something that I enjoy or love, I want to share it with others. Like the good cough drop, I offered it to her not to be polite but because I wanted her to have the same pleasant experience I was having.

And if I discover a great new restaurant, I drag my friends to it and pay for their meals. The reason again is that when I discover something wonderful, I want to share it.

All of you may have noticed that I have only been posting a couple of times a week these last couple of weeks instead of my usually 3-5 posts. It’s not because I haven’t written enough posts. I’ve written plenty. The problem is that they ar not very good. I’ve been incredibly busy lately and I feel that the quality of my posts was declining.

So, I simply did not post. Some might disagree with this, but this is my philosophy. When I care about people, I want to give them my best. I want them to eat the good food I eat. I want them to read the best things I have to write. In short I want to share with others the best that I’ve experience.

Some might argue that what I like others may hate. That’s true. But I just can’t knowingly share things that I hate on the mere chance that others might love it.

That is me. And I hope that all of you out there will go out today and share something wonderful with someone close to you. It can be a small thing (like my cough drop). Or it can be a big thing. No matter what, sharing the best of our experiences makes the experience itself more valuable and even more wonderful.

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I commented on that blog post. But to be honest, I don’t identify with Michael Jordan at all. Michael Jordan is someone who is larger than life. A person who personifies greatness. One might even say that as far as basketball goes, Michael Jordan personified perfection as a basketball player.

How many basketball players have matched Jordan’s athleticism, basketball smarts, and the mental mindset that all the greats possess? The truth is Jordan was born with it all. Of course, he developed those skills by working hard but a guy like Michael Jordan doesn’t do it through sheer will. He’s born with a lot of it.

And that is hard for any of us to match.

But while it’s easy to look up to people like Jordan, it’s hard to emulate him. There were commercials of “Be Like Mike” but I for one was never going to get close. Because it’s just so darn hard to match the skill level of a Michael Jordan.

But I do identify with another player. Someone who we can look at as a role model

The basketball player I think of instead of Jordan is Robert “Big Shot Rob” Horry.

Why him?

In the regular season the guy’s a glorified bench warmer. But in the playoffs in the last few minutes of a game, the turns into something else. He is not afraid to take the big shot. I remember watching him kill the Spurs when he was with the Houston Rockets and the LA Lakers. And then when he joined the Spurs, I watched a playoff game when the big stars (Duncan Ginobli) looked petrified down the stretch. I kept screaming “just give it to Horry, he’ll take the shot”.

And what happened? Horry got the ball and drilled the big shot over and over.

I once saw an interview with Horry and he said something that I thought was telling. He said something to the effect of when he gets the ball he is not afraid of missing. And then he goes on to say that if he misses 20 shots in a game no one will notice. But if he hits the big shot, everyone remembers.

Now, this is what we can do in our lives. WE can develop a “big shot” mindset. And the truth is no one will remember our misses. They’ll only remember your hits.

The key is to not be afraid to take the shot. The fear of missing (we can call this fear of failing or fear of rejection as well) is what stops us. But honestly, we are the only ones who remember our failings. Succeed once and that’s all anyone will remember.

Step up and take the shot. You don’t need to do it all the time. Just when it matters most. And don’t be afraid to miss.

No, not all of us are Michael Jordans who can carry a team by ourselves, but I think each of us has a little “Big Shot Rob” in them.

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You are lucky!

It hurts like heck. You use your lat muscle to lift, while you’re sitting, and it hurts every time you twist your body.

Well, after taking it easy for a few weeks (treadmills are boring), I was ready to get back to some weight training.

But not wanting to take any chances, I was pretty much on light weight training (and for full disclosure, my gym activities do NOT include lifting heavy weights…I have no intention to be the next wannabe Schwarzenegger.)

How did it go?

Picture this:

I was hitting the weights. Pumping the 8-pound dumbbells. All the while, I had a small Asian woman half my size pumping 12-pound dumbbells on one side of me with these two extremely ripped guys curling 65-pound dumbbells in their hands on the other side.

Both small Asian woman and extremely ripped guys were doing quite well while I was grimacing in pain from the 8-pounders. All the while, they would glance at me with a “what-the-heck-is-your-problem-8-pound-lifting-boy” face. I’m not sure how other people saw this when viewing this scene, but let’s just say that my “coolness” factor at the gym probably took a hit.

But guess what? It’s better to work your way up slowly than to re-injure yourself. It’s not worth hurting yourself just to avoid looking like a complete idiot. And besides. I know that the ripped guys and the short Asian woman probably won’t even remember who I am next time I hit the gym.

Why am I telling you about my humiliating experience at the gym?

It’s to illustrate to you this very valuable lesson:

It’s OK to embarrass yourself.

No one likes to be embarrassed and humiliated. In fact, people often go to great lengths NOT to be embarrassed or humiliated. To do this, they will avoid activities outside their comfort zones. They will take no action when they should do something. They will refuse to try new things for fear of being “laughed at”.

Maybe we picked up this habit from when we were children. I mean, who wanted to be the one who looked stupid? But the truth is without looking stupid and embarrassing yourself, you will not be able to grow personally.

On your personal growth journey, it is not only important, it is imperative that you embarrass yourself a time or two. As I have sought to grow, I have experienced a wealth of embarrassment, but the embarrassment was temporary. Some examples include:

While learning to play violin at age 30: Being shown up by a 7-year old who laughed at my out-of-tune rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

While learning Korean in my early twenties (to the present): Thinking I was asking a woman to go somewhere with me, instead I asked her to sleep with me (just one syllable difference). Asking a high school girl who was the cashier at a Korean KFC for breast meat, but instead asked to see her breasts (how was I supposed to know that a woman’s breast and chicken breast were two different words?)

Had I been concerned about how I looked, I never would have learned Korean. And the truth is many people I knew people who lived in Korea a lot longer than I did could barely speak a word. And it wasn’t because they couldn’t, but it was the fear that they would look stupid doing it that stopped them from even trying.

Most growth opportunities in life slip right through our fingers because we are afraid of looking stupid or being embarrassed. But let me end this post with this thought:

“Embarrassment is only temporary.
But the personal growth we experience out of that embarrassment lasts a lifetime.”

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