A couple of days ago, a man performed a miracle by crash landing his plane into the Hudson River and saved the lives of 154 people and his own. This is an awesome deed and I am wondering if, maybe, this happened to remind us about the GOOD things that happen in this world.

It saddens me to see all the usual surrounding negativity and it is refreshing to be able to see such a great, positive event being reported on. Of course, the reality is that many great deeds happen every day but are never known to the world. But this is not my point today…

I fly quite a lot and I can’t help but try to imagine being one of these people on the plane. The passengers, the crew, the pilot and co-pilot… 155 people just SURVIVED a plane crash… One hundred and fifty five people. 155… A plane crash… Do you realize? This just seems unbelievable! How more hopeful can you get?

I just imagine what is going to happen in these people’s lives once they get out of their shock. This is like being given a chance at a second life! This is like a PS3 game where you have an extra life to play with.

I am trying to imagine how shaken these people will be and what priorities they will see in their lives from now on. I bet you a lot of them will jump into things they’ve always wanted to do but never dared. I bet you they will stop sweating the small stuff and appreciate what they have and never take anything for granted again. (more…)

  Posted By tyna     Jan 21, 2009       7 comments  

If you ask most people what they need in order to make more money, they will tell you something about a better job, or starting their own business or even winning the lottery. But the truth is - that is only a part of the picture, and unless you understand more about the driving force for your success, you will only get a part of that too!

Statistics show, in fact, that for the majority of lottery winners, their money is soon gone. Sure - they get to enjoy a higher standard of living for a while, but far from being financially set for life, they often wind up more broke than they were before - except now they’ve had a taste of the good life, so they are even more unhappy with their old lifestyle. So why should that be? Surely, having several million dollars handed to you on a plate should solve all your financial worries?

The problem is that money rarely sticks where it has not been earned in some way. It’s the same reason that young music or sports stars go off the rails - they are being presented with incomes that are so far beyond their experience that they simply cannot handle it, so the money does not stay with them.

Take a look at your own life. No matter where you are, or how much money you make - your income and your lifestyle is a reflection of your capacity for money. And there’s nothing wrong with that - but recognizing it is a very powerful starting point. What it means is that the person you are, the experiences you have had and your vision of your life and your future are all determining exactly how much money you have in your pocket today. Not only that, but they are determining how you feel about how much money you have right now too.

Now there’s nothing you can do about your experiences or what you may or may not have done in the past. But no matter how old you are, you CAN start to change your vision of your life and your future.

The first step is to realize that where you have come from and the things you have done have absolutely no bearing on your future at all. Tough to swallow? Take a good look at some of the most successful people in our time - don’t take my word for it, but research where some of the richest people in the world came from, and you might be surprised. Many of them had no more to start with than you do - the only difference was that they were determined to make a better life for themselves. (more…)

  Posted By tyna     Jan 4, 2009       7 comments  

Anybody who loves reading and especially authors know how important a catching title is.

You can think up the most appropriate and most descriptive title, only to discover - yet again - that there is nothing new under the sun and someone has beaten you to it, or you can have a title that you think is perfect, but nobody else does.

And let’s face it, when we buy or select books to read, we in fact select titles and authors before we select the contents. The titles first catch our eyes, and then we explore further.

There is actually an annual prize that is awarded by the Bookseller Magazine for the oddest book title of the year. The first winner of the prize in 1978 was the title “Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice” (University of Tokyo Press)

Here are some winners from other years:

“Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts”

“How to Avoid Huge Ships”

“Development in Dairy Cow Breeding and Management: and New Opportunities to Widen the Uses of Straw”

“Weeds in a Changing World”

“Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service”

“Living With Crazy Buttocks”

“People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It”

“The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification”

Now the top prize has been allocated to the 1996 winner, “Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers”

A cancellation number is a postal marking applied to a stamp or stationery indicating that the item has been used. We can see the cancellation details on the mail we receive, because a print on the stamp indicates where and when the item was mailed, and we cannot use the same stamp for other mail.

It appears that Greek rural postmen each had a cancellation number that they applied to incoming mail to cancel the stamps before distributing the mail. The prize winner book tells the human stories behind each of the cancellation numbers.

Cancellation number 87236 was the number used by rural postman, Dimitri Vassilikos, to cancel the stamps on all mail routed through the Elassona post office in Northern Thessalonika.

He died at the age of 87. After his death, seventeen 17 bags of undistributed letters were discovered in his attic. It transpired that Dimitri sat at his kitchen table all day, drinking ouzo (a traditional Greek alcoholic drink) and cancelling the stamps on the letters.

But then he never actually delivered even one of the letters in his life. He simply added the mail items to other bags of mail that he had been storing in his attic. As a result the inhabitants of Elassona are known to this day as “the isolated ones”. Not even Readers’ Digest could get past Dimitri Vassilikos, it seems.

Why would a postman do something so outrageous? Because he feared that his worthless sons would discover the hidden mail in the attic, steam off the stamps and use the proceeds to go to the Greek island of Mykonos. These young men seemed to be quite attracted to Mykonos and would do anything to get there. I wonder how many used stamps with the number 87236 they would have had to sell to get the money to go to Mykonos.

We think the old man was crazy, but don’t we do the same in different ways? Think of the crockery and cutlery and bed linen that are hidden away and only taken out to impress visitors. As if we are not good enough to use beautiful or valuable stuff every day. (more…)

  Posted By tyna     Nov 26, 2008       3 comments  

I have seen and heard a few presentations lately on “Prosperity Mindset” and I wanted to talk about something that is worth considering.

Most of these people who are talking today are bringing in a lot of money and on the surface that would give them credibility. But some of them I know personally and it had little or nothing to do with mindset. Their success was either when they got in, who they knew or what they are doing. I’m not saying they didn’t work hard, but to say it was all a result of their wonderful mindset is not the whole truth.

Life has a flow to it, cycles, ups and downs and most people lose their “mindset” very quickly when things don’t go well for them. But if someone truly has a prosperous mindset, it seems it would serve them best when things are down, not when everything is rosy.

Those who haven’t seen enough of life to know better would say, “Well, if they have a prosperous mindset, they shouldn’t be down”. But consider that just because things are down doesn’t mean you don’t have things you are thankful for and that your life is not prosperous.

I thought about this a lot when I read Orison S. Marden’s biography. He is the man who wrote the book “Prosperity: How to Attract It”. Mr. Marden had been a very successful man in the hotel business when a fire hit his building and burned everything included his manuscript for this book. He was living in Kansas or Missouri, I forget which, and decided to go back to the Northeastern United States and regroup.

When he wrote “Prosperity: How to Attract It”, Mr. Marden was living in a rented apartment above and butcher shop walking down to the local dinner for his meals. He had lost everything BUT his prosperous mindset. When reading the book, you would think he was the most prosperous man in the country—and he was. Even though this book was written in the early 1900’s it’s as true today as it was 100 years ago. (more…)

  Posted By tyna     Nov 15, 2008       1 comment  

Creating an attitude of gratitude is one of the easiest steps we can take to improve our lives. The happiness that we create for ourselves by showing our appreciation has far-reaching effects, both for ourselves and for those we come into contact with. The potential for gratitude to spread beyond those people also increases significantly - it can be highly contagious. There are so many different ways that we can express an attitude of gratitude. Here are just a few:

Say “thank you”. This is the most basic and well-known way to show appreciation to others. Saying “thank you” is a great way to express your gratitude and can be done in several different forms. You can say it in person, over the phone, in a note, or in an email. Using this when it’s least expected can have significant results in lifting someone’s spirits. For example, a quick note to your child’s teacher thanking her for her hard work and patience might give her the boost of energy that she needs right when she needs it most. You may never know what effect this has had on her, but it will have an effect.

Stop complaining about your life. Even as tough as life can be sometimes, remember that there is always someone that has things worse than you do. Constant complaining about what is wrong in your life will keep you focused on that. The opposite is true as well - focusing on what is right in your life will keep you focused on that. Focusing on the negative will bring you down while focusing on the positive will lift you up.

Focus on what you have, not what you don’t have. This is very closely related to not complaining about your life. Being grateful for what you do have keeps you in a positive place, whereas focusing on what you don’t have keeps you in a negative place. Focusing on what you do have, regardless of how little or how much that may be, is a great expression of gratitude. (more…)

  Posted By tyna     Nov 6, 2008       2 comments