Mar
25

Did you know that stress can be managed? Or did you know that you are subject to stress every single day of your life?
When you wait in line at the post office, you are subject to stress. When you wait one hour for the bus, you are stressed. When your kids do some naughty things at school and the teacher calls you, you are stressed. When you try to determine your partner to stop drinking, you are stressed.

And I’m not mentioning here the major sources of stress like divorce, or your partner’s death, or unemployment, or serious illness. These can have a major impact on our health, if we aren’t strong enough to get over them and continue our life.

What you can do to avoid stress? Simple:

1. Know that it exists. Be aware when you are nervous or anxious, and try to visualize a solution to your problems. There is always a way out.

2. Don’t think too much. Always choose action over thinking. You’ll be more relaxed afterwards.

3. Rest well. Sleep enough, eat several times a day and give up half of the coffees you use to drink.

You’ll see how good you’ll feel if you take one thing at a time, and don’t panic for all details. And life is full of details, you know?

Last but not least, a friend of mine just told me that her method of getting rid of stress is to go for a colon detox procedure every year. I’m not sure how that can help her be more relaxed, but she knows best.

Mar
30

Have you ever heard this saying:

“Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

This is one of the most important things in life: to get to be happy with yourself. Almost impossible at young ages, loving yourself can be your gate to happiness, if you manage to find the key to it.

How many times, as a teenager, have you though that you hate the way your hair looks, that you hate the fact that you don’t have white teeth like the movie stars, or that you cannot sing like a nightingale? Too many times perhaps.

Don’t envy other people for what they have or for what they are. Think what they had to do to become that person, or to have those things. Are you willing to do the same? If you do, then just start living your dream. If you don’t, find yourself another dream and leave other people alone, as you don’t need to live their life in order to be happy.

If you feel miserable, just get yourself a cat. Cats can be very good stress relieves, they are too good to be true. And they never treat you like you were a second rate human being. They treat you just like you were any other cat, but a bit bigger.

If you are in pain, think of the ones who are in bigger pain than you do. Only imagine lots of people caring for aging parents and having to endure all the misery of seeing their mind getting worse day after day, without any reversal possibility. Yes, we are all going to either die too young or to end up just like our old parents, but it still hurts seeing them losing their minds.

Apr
03

What makes people leaders? Why do we feel the need to follow some persons? Do they have something specific, something that we don’t , or is it just a fortune game?

Daniel Goleman defines six types of leaders: visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pace setting, and commanding. If we think at this, we realize that leadership has something to do with born affinities, but is also a process that can be learned.

The style you cannot learn. The style is in yourself, it is in your genes. What you can learn are the methods. Personal leadership can be achieved with a certain degree of work. If you don’t believe it, just read Steven Covey’s book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which will give you good insights on how you can achieve personal leadership.

In order to be a leader, you need to have the desire of helping other people. You need to have a strong wish to improve things around you. Like a dog agility training, your leadership skills can be trained and improved with exercise. Or maybe you just need to have the guts to tell the truth when you see it. Many people would follow.

Apr
15

There is a saying that there are more than one ways to skin a cat. If we think a bit further, we can see how true this statement is: all problems have more than one solution, from getting rid of a baby bad breath up to finding happiness in life. It is up to us to find the most suitable one and to apply it.

Instead of panicking, you’d better start thinking and evaluating the chances that your problem gets solved in the most acceptable way, both for you and for others. Try to put your problem in simple words, identify all the involved persons and their contribution to creating the problem. Then try to figure out their ability to solve it.

You have to be patient and to think with your won head: there’s nothing to lead to the end of the world, so you have to find that way of getting through your problem without harming anybody. And without harming yourself.

Do you know how much it helps to get a look at your problem from a distance? This is the hardest part, but if you manage to see your problems as belonging to somebody else, they are almost solved. It is hard, but it is definitely worth trying.

Just think that tomorrow is another day, and rely on Murphy’s laws. There is always an escape, although you may not find it so easily.

Feb
16

I am looking for some new recipes for my festive dinners. I like a lot to throw parties with big occasions such as the SuperBowl or other sport events. My friends and I gather together, watch TV and have a great time. Now I’d like to try a new pulled pork recipe, something that I never tried before. It has to be surprising and delicious.

If anybody can help me, please use the comments box to shout out your best pulled pork recipes ever.