Good luck? Bad luck?

I just re-found one of my favorite stories of all time. It’s something to really think about when you think life has dealt you a cruel blow. It’s a short piece called “Good luck? Bad luck?” by Lao Tzu:
There is a Chinese story of an old farmer who had an old horse for tilling his fields. One day the horse escaped into the hills and when all the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
A few nights later, the barn burned down. If the horse had been in the barn, it would have died. Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?
A week later his horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
Then when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this was very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able bodied youth they found there. When they aw the farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him stay home.
Another story of this kind was told by a wonderful man, Iftikhar Bhatti. When he was on his way to the U.S. many years ago from Pakistan, he missed a plane in England. The plane he would have been on crashed, and everyone aboard was killed. Good luck for those of us who knew him.
More recently a friend of mine experienced this same phenomenon. She and her fiancé and her daughter had planned to go to Europe for two weeks. Just before they were to leave, her fiancé developed severe nosebleeds and high blood pressure, and his doctor ordered him to avoid travel. All three of them were pretty discouraged. Then, a few days later, her daughter became ill and was diagnosed with mononucleosis. If she had gone to Europe, she would have been very ill in a strange country.
Next time something happens that you think is a cruel joke by God, stop and say, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

Good news about you…

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
Anne Frank

Want to win the lottery? Be careful what you wish for …

The TODAY show had a short feature on former lottery winners. Some of them have ended up bankrupt, living off Social Security, in jail. You wonder how they got into trouble? Simple. It’s that old saying “Wherever you go, there you are.” They won all that money, but they were their same old selves – losers.
I attract money and I deserve to have abundant wealth in my life. I truly believe that. They didn’t. They believed they didn’t deserve that money, so they lost it. They thought about losing it, worried about losing it, hid it and spent it on useless stuff and guess what – they lost it!

This is a perfect example of the Law of Attraction at work. They might have “attracted” that money temporarily, but because they weren’t really attuned to keeping it and feeling that they deserved it and that they were in control, they lost it.

So, before you buy that lottery ticket, be aware of the Law of Attraction. Think about abundance and gratitude and get mentally prepared to enjoy all that money and see it grow. And it will.

What is stress? Something to consider

I saw a great quote on stress. It goes something like this:

Our greatest stress is not from having too much to do but from not keeping the agreements we make with ourselves.

Well. Here’s an example. I had week off work and, as usual, made way too many commitments to myself about things I was going to get done. I wanted to finish my next edition of Planning for Practice Success, and I also wanted to work on a quilt for my daughter-in-law, and I wanted to read a book I’ve been saving, and there were a couple of projects I wanted to get done around the house, and … You get the idea. By the time I got through the week I was totally stressed because ofall the things I “promised” myself I wanted to get done. We have enough stuff coming at us from outside, so why put more stress on ourselves from inside too?

How do we avoid this kind of stress? My coach, Ernie Moore, has good advice on this topic. He says:

1. Only to commit to THREE THINGS at a time. If you finish all three, add three more. In other words, keep your commitments to a minimum, do those, andonly then do you commit to more.

2. For any self-commitments that are complex and have several parts, write down a “work order” for that job. For my P4PS re-write, for example, I wrote down exactly what I will do and, more important, what is NOT part of that project. If I were going to commit to cleaning out a closet this week, it could turn into a major project involving going to Goodwill, cleaning out every closet in the house, and painting the bedroom. If I sit down beforehand and write out “this is what I will do,” I avoid the stress of taking on too much, and I can better stick with my time frame. Writing things out also helps you prioritize, and it forces you to focus on what must be done and what can wait.

This kind of thinking works well for starting your practice. Prioritize key elements of this project, stick to doing only three at a time, and write out what needs to be done, when it must be done, and what can wait until later.

April 1 is the lauch date for the new Planning for Practice Success Startup Edition with a great new workbook full of tasks, set out in priority order, to create your business plan and start your practice. This is my #1 and ONLY task, until it’s done. No stress, I swear.

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Here’s to a fun and stress-free spring!

Jean