Slow Down

SLOW DOWN!

This letter will have unusual spacing. Stay with it!

Wake Up Get In The Shower Brush Teeth Iron Clothes Forgot To Do It Last Night Check Wallet Make Sure You Have Money For The Day Make sure Lunches Are Packed For Kids Stop At ATM To Get Money Wait On Drive Through Window Line For Coffee And Donut Listen To Top 40 Music And Mindless Drive Time Radio Babble While On Line Fight Traffic Give And Receive Middle Finger To Others Slow Down For Police Car Get To Work Exchange Pleasantries With Coworkers Look Busy For Boss Go To Bathroom Talk About Nothing In Particular Wonder If Kids Are Having A Good Day Wonder If Spouse Turned Off The Iron Go To Lunch Pay $7 For Sandwich Chips Soft Drink Decide To Start Diet Next Week Watch Clock Tick Take Phone Call From Angry Customer Boss Play Rubber Pencil For Five Minutes Go To Bathroom Do Paperwork Drive Home Fight Traffic Pick Up Dry Cleaning Get Dinner In A Bucket Make Sure Kids Did Homework Pay Bills Clean Kitchen Iron Clothes For Tomorrow Watch Friends Kiss Kids Goodnight Watch Will And Grace Brush Teeth Watch News Go To Bed.

Bet that was uncomfortable to read, huh?

How close to your own daily existence did that come?



And how much control do you have over it?



OK, two different questions...how much control do you have over the things that you do in yourday? Probably more than you think you do, but that's a story for another time.

And how much control do you have over the way you

perceive the things that happen to you?

Most people feel a lack of control because they do not have time to reflect...to make their livessomething of their own creation rather than the hand they're dealt.

Here's one idea....










Slow Down.


The average person can process information much faster than the average person can communicate it.




But we never stop trying to go faster!




It puts us in overload.





When I work with students or private clients who are experiencing a great deal of anxiety...one of the first things I do is......













Slow down.









I control the conversation to make it go slower.















It creates more anxiety at first because it upsets the usual order of things.



We're used to moving at a certain pace, and when that pace is changed....

or the

flow

of

information is

a lter ed

insomeway

we're forced to slow down and carefullyevaluate

what wesee.



It can be stressful.



But what a great purpose it serves!



How can we ever change ourselves for the betterif we never change

whatwedo?









Slow down.



Remember that jumbled mess at the beginning? Want that to take over your life?



Or has it already?









Slow down.





When I was 19 and in college, one of my favorite things to do was to go up to the top of the residence hall tower on the 22nd floor, look out at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains over sunset, see the blue sky turn yellow,





then orange,




then red,



then purple,







then black...



take it all in



without any particular agenda.



It made going out and abusing my body with alcohol and chicken wings that much easier to handle.

























Slow down.



The great mystics and spiritual leaders of the East move slowly and gracefully.



They are untroubled on a deep level by the turmoil surrounding them, though they are concerned for the welfare of their fellow humans.



Have you read all of this, or are you skimming to get to the important parts...









or have you given up in frustration?











Go back to the top and read it again.











Change your pace.

















Slow down.



If you change your pace, you change your perception.



If you change your perception, you change yourself.







Because you're already good enough...all you've got to do is find yourself in the traffic ofnoise and movement.







The boss and the coffee place and the kids and the TV will still be there.







And you'll be there too.

















You're terrific!























Slow down.






















It makes speeding up again that much more fun!

Magic on the New Jersey Turnpike

Of all the places to find magic, who would have thought it would be in the Garden State?

We were driving home from a visit with family and friends in New Jersey...an uneventful trip. Those of you who live in the area know that sometimes the best you can hope for is an uneventful trip.

But this drive back to Connecticut was cruising right along. No fighting in the backseat, no spilling of beverages...all was right with the world. As we came up to one of the toll booths, I looked around to pick my lane.

This is one of the challenges of any trip - find the lane with the least amount of traffic that will get you through the fastest.

I took a look at the exact change lanes, since I still had some left over from the weekend. These are the lanes that would usually move the fastest. All of them had at least a four car wait.

Then I took a look at the line for the cash only, no exact change lane. This is normally the slowest moving line, the one with drivers fumbling around for their money, asking for receipts, toll collectors who may or may not be in a good mood that day.

On this day, there was no line. I noticed it just in time, cruised right up to that lane, handed off my 35 cents and sailed off to New York!

Magic.

Sure, it was no big deal. Saved myself a few seconds in line. Didn't change the world.
But what would happen if you were willing to take a look at the different parts of your life in a new way?

For example, what if you needed to find a way to supplement your child's education? Most people think about extra help sessions, tutors, home study courses, the usual stuff.

What if you had a DYNAMIC lesson for your young man or woman that he or she could incorporate into their everyday lives - something that could make a huge difference for them?

What if you were looking for a way to pay for your child's college education? Most people think about second jobs, parent loans, the usual ways of doing things.

What if the answer is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, and you just need to OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE IT?

A few years ago my wife and I opened up our eyes and saw things that most people will never see until it's already past them. Unlike the toll lane, our world DID change, and we created magic.

Keep your eyes, ears, mind and heart open. You never know where you'll find your own personal magic!

Rajee and Dave's wedding (and what it means to all of us).

I grew up with an intense dislike for weddings by the time I was 16 years old.

Wait, I take that back. I grew up hating wedding RECEPTIONS...I never had anything against the weddings themselves.

You gotta understand...I was a busboy in a catering hall for two years during high school. I've been to more weddings than many priests have been to!

And I saw things that went on in the kitchen that...well, for those of you having or planning a wedding in the future...no need to go any further.

But Diane and I went to one that was one of the nicest, sweetest experiences we've had in a long time. It was a woman I had trained in counseling and her best friend Dave. They tied the knot last night.

A few things different about this wedding than others I had attended. For one thing, Rajee's (the bride) famly was from India. She was born and raised in the U.S., but her family very much kept their Indian identity.

Dave is garden variety American. So there's a wonderful mix of cultures who honor and respect one another.

Figs and hummus at the cocktail hour, along with the usual wedding choices.

(The fruit didn't look familiar, but I knew they were figs because they tasted like Fig Newton cookies.)

Women in Indian ceremonial gowns of magenta, purple, yellow, blue...doing the "Electric Slide" on the dance floor.

The women...absolutely beautiful. If I'm guilty of having a prejudice in this article, it's that Indian women are among the most fascinating, captivating, mysterious creatures to walk the planet.

And last night Rajee was their queen.

There were some other things too that were wonderful. The hall has only been opened for a couple of months...long enough time to get the bugs out of a new place, but still young enough so that everything...and everyone is fresh, magical, exciting.

The Justice of the Peace reminded us of one of those really good motivational speakers you'd see on a PBS special. She was funny, touching, full of love.

As with the best weddings, Diane and I held hands and imagined our own, now 15 years in the past.

Also, neither of us I knew another soul at the wedding, other than Rajee. It was a great opportunity to put aside any sense of embarrassment we might have had around people who were familiar with us...and be ourselves.

Thus we were the first ones out of the dance floor for the slow songs...and Diane was one of the first to do the "Electric Slide" (at the request of the Father of the Bride.)

But hands down...the coolest part of the evening was being a able to write out a generous check for their wedding gift.

I was happy and honored to attend. Rajee spent 100 hours with me last semester. I was the only person there who was part of her world of getting a masters degree in counseling.

She didn't have to invite me...she WANTED to invite me.

And I wanted to attend. She was a wonderful student and a beautiful person.

And truth be told...only a short while ago I either wouldn't have had the money to write the check I wrote, or would have been consumed with anxiety about letting go of that much money.

I'm a better man now...not because we've got the money. We all know people with lots of money who aren't worth very much.

I'm better because the lack of money doesn't rule who I am. It doesn't govern the way I think and the choices I make.

Diane and I are both better people because we've become generous with what we have...knowing that we have the ability to make more anytime we want to or have to.

It's one of the greatest benefits of anyone who is working correctly in a home business.

It's the best benefit....you get to become whomever you want. You don't even have to go to a wedding of friends you're meeting for the first time!

Raise your glass to Rajee and Dave! May their love and spirit inspire us all!

Lucky's Gate

"Dad, do you know the story about Lucky the Dog?"

"Yes, Jill. I do."

"No, not that one. The other one."

My two girls had just come back from several days with my parents and had been regaled with stories from the past. So naturally they wanted to share them with me.

I'd grown up with Lucky the Dog and had been the person who told them most of the stories (including how Lucky, who was a german shepard, bit their mother the first time they met.)

Nonetheless, Jill was eager to tell her story so off we went. She wound up telling me a story I had either forgotten or never known.

Lucky had a section of the backyard enclosed with a chickenwire fence and a gate that was all his. At one point the gate around the fence came down and Lucky was free to roam the backyard.

Apparently, the missing door wasn't in Lucky's field of vision. He would stand in the fenced area and cry to be let out, even though he could have walked through the hole where the gate used to be at any time.

Typical behavior for a dog, I suppose. They accept their limitations because they need them to survive their environment.

How about people?

Another family story from the past is more telling. My mother's cousin was a dentist for the U.S. Air Force during the 1970s and 80s. I remember him telling me he worked with the men who were being held hostage in Iran during the Reagan administration.

After their release, their dental health was very poor. He was deployed to care for them. When he arrived at the base where they were staying, he saw an amazing example of conditioned behavior.

The former hostages would wait in a room and confined themselves to a tiny little area of that room. They would not move until given explicit permission to do so.

They had become so passive and subservient to their captors that their own will barely existed.

Just like Lucky.

I only pray that the years of freedom and choice have restored their sense of self-determination.

There was one exception. One of the former hostages reacted in a completely different way from the others.

This man exercised every little bit of freedom and self-determination he possibly could. If an appointment was scheduled for 9:30, he would postpone it for no apparent reason at 9:29.
He would insist that little details, irrelevant to the rest of us, be in place before he would give his dentist permission to go to work.

This man claimed his freedom, and claimed it in a hurry. Bravo!

Look at your life. We all have self-imposed limitations. We all choose to remain behind our imaginary doors because we feel we need them to survive.

Some of us have truly been placed in situations where liberty has been taken from us. When we're rescued, do we carry the imaginary prison with us?

Or do we find our freedom waiting for us to accept and embrace it?

Your gate is open. Walk out and step into the sunshine!

Finally, a photo!

Welcome to a wonderful new week!

Two objectives today...learn how to post photos to the blog (people are doing it all over the place - why not me?) and take us somewhere other than the "wintery mix" that's falling outside. Because when I'm done here I have a date with the driveway and snow shovel.

So here they are...two birds killed with one stone:

The girls, my nephew and me at Hickory Hill Orchards in Cheshire, CT; September 2005. Good times!

Makes you want to visit my bookstore, doesn't it? (wink)

More to follow shortly, now that I have a new trick!

Stay warm,
Larry

A Great Letter From a Hotheaded Student

Hi Everyone,

I normally don't include letters to The Guidance Guy in this blog, but this one is too good to pass up. Take a look!



Dear Guidance Guy,

I'm a senior this year, and have several teachers I simply cannot respect, combined with a general student body which is, I believe, truly driving me insane.The teachers provide weak curriculum, at best. The kind where I could ditch school for two months, come back, make up every test and not miss a single point. And I'm a mediocre student, too. Every time I go to class, their inattentiveness to actual learning makes me angry, and it stacks up and gets harder and harder to deal with.

Lately, whenever particular teachers come up in conversation amongst my friends, regardless of location (In my journalism class just today, right in front of the teacher) I just blast off on a rant about my not-so-great teachers, complete with colorful profanity whose like may be found on no ship sailing the seas. The teacher who witnessed one of these outbursts is a good friend of mine, so nothing dramatic happened, but some of my friends say that it scares them once in a while. I figure it's an issue.

On the other side of the coin, there are the students who I feel promote this behavior. They describe teachers as good or bad based on how hard the class is-- not based on how well the teacher teaches the curriculum. Some of my favorite teachers have horrible reputations and are the butts of many popular jokes because they teach classes with difficult subject matter (i.e.AP Calculus BC, AP European History) and their classes are hard, while the teachers mentioned in the preceeding paragraph are glorified and lifted up on high as the best teachers in my school because they essentially hand out the answers to the tests while we're taking them.

Just to make things better, all my classes are group-work intensive. So I have to work with these people who don't value the education they're receiving-- only resent the amount of work they have to put forth.How can I deal with incompetant teachers, and how can I survive the hoards of anti-learning students?

Hothead Student

*****

Dear Hothead,

Let me ask you a question. You're obviously very smart - so why are you a mediocre student? Is it because you aren't interested in what's being taught,or is it because you haven't developed the habits of a good student, or is it that your anger is holding you back from giving school work the attention it needs for good grades?

Since you're a senior about to start your last semester, the short answer to your question is to just ride it out for a few more months. Then your world will change and open up.One problem, Hothead: if you're going to college you're also going to find students who aren't motivated and teachers (professors) who aren't necessarily the best. And since your grades are mediocre, I'm guessing the Ivy League isn't where you'll wind up. So it will be important to answer your question about dealing with other students and teachers.

First thing I would do is take stock of everything that is GOOD about your education. You're living in a country with enormous options. Your school wants to educate you, even if it isn't doing the best job in every case. You also have some teachers you respect and admire (one is even a friend). And you have fellow students - at least some - you can relate to. Not a bad starting point.

But it gets better! Some of the subject matter is stuff you find challenging. And since the other people in your classes aren't particularly interested in what's being taught, that leaves you with more to do when it comes to group work.

But it gets even better than that! Here's the truth...you'll be competing with this same group of people in the adult world. They'll be going for the same jobs, business opportunities, promotions, etc. The prizes of our economic system go to the people who put the most in, are the most curious and the most effective at what they do. So you have a head start on your competition.

The good stuff also goes to the people who are the most attractive. I don't mean physically - I mean the people who are most pleasant and stimulating to be around. The good stuff goes to the people who make those around them feel good...who build others up, not tear them down.

And I don't think I'm telling you something you don't already know when I say this will be your challenge. It looks like your FOCUS is on what's not cool at the moment.

What if you looked at things a little differently? What if you realized that all the greatest gifts are waiting for you...all you have to do is recognize and be ready to receive them? The ones who are looking for the easy way out? They're great people also. In fact, some of them may be serving you on your way to the top. Honor them for the contributions they will make. It take all kinds!

Some of these people may be late bloomers. They'll get interested in education when they get into a different environment. I was one of them!

I'm serious about this, Hothead! All you have to do is look at things a little bit differently. Lose the "hotheadedness" and watch some amazing things happen.

Have an awesome year,
The Guidance Guy

"Almost" Reality TV

What a concept, huh?

Reality shows. I don't watch them.

It's not a social statement, or a protest. I don't watch anything.

Well, that's not entirely true. I'll check out West Wing every once in a while on a Saturday night when only the police and pub crawlers are still awake. I like it for the snappy dialog more than the politics. And I do turn on a ballgame if I happen to be around a TV and don't have anything else pressing at the moment - especilally during baseball season.

But sitcoms, entertainment shows, etc. Not on my radar screen. And no reality shows.

Like I said, it's not a social or political statement. It's a lifestyle choice.

Here's the thing - I listen to other people talk about them. At first it sounded entertaining, especially considering a bunch of them sounded like things that might actually happen in real life. Someone was struggling with fixing their house up, or dealing with a child's misbehavior, or something that any of us would go through. I could relate.

Then things seem to get more contrived. All of a sudden the circumstances were being manipulated...

The boss became the "big, fat obnoxious boss."

The rich guy became a poor guy pretending to be rich... or Donald Trump.

The daily struggle to do more and do better became a struggle to eat bugs in 60 seconds, or walk a tight rope, or whatever.

Sorry if I'm not getting this right. It's all second hand. I heard others talking about it, or saw a ten second promo somewhere, etc.

But lately it seems a bunch of the new "reality shows" have started to focus on losing weight and toning up. I walked past the TV last night and saw a bunch of fat celebrities sitting on a scale.


It's the kind of stuff you wouldn't have imagined in your wildest dreams ten years ago.. But there it was.

Like I said, I don't watch them and don't really care all that much what's on. The only thing that would make me care is if my daughters became Reality TV zombies. That's why we monitor their TV watching as closely as we do.

But here's the thing I'm seeing - the reality shows are starting to reflect the needs of the population they "serve." There are still get rich quick, date my mother, fire my boss type of shows...

But there's also the aforementioned lose weight, change your life, get physically, mentally and emotionally healthy type of shows.

This is a good thing, right?

Let's talk about it...

Diane and I were talking about this trend. It's an interesting phenomenon - she said that people want to watch OTHER people change their lives. Most aren't ready to do it themselves.

That's the main reason why I don't watch TV. Too busy. I live my life actively, not by watching others do it.

That's why Reality TV - even the ones with situations that are like real life - are "Almost Reality TV"...

It's not your reality.

Some person's dating a nymphomaniac? Great! How about you?

Some person kissed and made up with their spouse? Great! How about you?

Some person married a millionaire? Great! How about you?

Some person got fired by "The Donald?" Great! How about you?

Is the "Almost Reality TV" your fantasy life?

Do you get all emotional and caught up, then head back to the same self-mutilating patterns of behavior?...

Or do you look at slimming down celbrities and reformed slobs and say, "now it's my turn?"...

Or are you too busy designing and creating YOUR OWN REALITY to get caught up in someone else's?

Want a reality show? Live in your own!