Being “Cool” and/or “Hip”

There’s something to be said about feeling like you belong. Very often the entire point of our lives becomes finding that magic blend of personality and attitude that will allow us to “fit in.” Sometimes this occurs to such a degree that we hide certain aspects of ourselves in order to feel like we belong. I see this pretty frequently, especially playing in a small unknown local band. I’ve been playing guitar and singing in bands since I was 16 and if there’s one thing that happens all the time with bands, appearance become so important that sometimes it overshadows the real point of being in a band, and that’s making music.

I find that there’s a pretty direct correlation between this and life, we are born into the world to do certain things, sometimes we excel at things that those around us might not consider important, or relevant. Often it gets to the point that because of the opinions of other people we stop doing the things that are most important to us. And I think that’s really sad, that we would give up something that is such a part of us in order to fit in. In the same way that there are bands who started playing music for the sake of playing music, and then the music became secondary to the image. We as people shrug off who we really are in order to find acceptance in a certain image.

It does not have to be this way, a life lived in an attempt to impress someone else is a life wasted.I would encourage everyone to let the music of their life play and forget about what other people may think you. A great philosopher once said, “what you think of me, is none of my business.” And we can all benefit from living in this way. Live your life to the fullest extent that you can, and do the things that will bring you the most happiness.

Yours, in happiness,

Keith

I am back, with a vengeance.

It’s been quite some time since I last posted on the website. I apologize for the many many months of absence, I hope that you will all forgive me and continue coming back for updates as I plan on updating the site at least once a week from now on.

The good news is, the reason I haven’t been able to update the site is that business has been booming! For any of those who know me, you know that I’m in real estate and most people in real estate have not been doing well. Things for me have been so busy that I literally had no time.

Been so busy was quite an interesting experience, at times there was so much work to do that I wanted to just give it up, but I couldn’t, I really care for my clients and I wanted to make sure that I was doing the very best job possible for them.

You may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with happiness?” My experience of this past year has shown me a few things and reiterated a few things to me that I already believed, when I began the site I was almost broke, but I was happy, I was able to sleep well at night and I knew that even if I didn’t have a lot of money that I had other things in my life that bring happiness. Like my family, and good friends, and of course music. Oftentimes we look at our life and we may blame external circumstances for why we feel that, oftentimes we blame the fact that we have no money for our being sad. Sometimes it even seems like there is nothing to be happy about. One thing I found out this past year is that it doesn’t matter how much money you have, I went from having nothing, to having more than I have ever had before in my life. And oddly enough I think back to the final months before business picked up and I realize that those were some of my happiest memories from this year.

And that I guess is the point, sometimes we spend all of our days wishing that things were different, we wish for something else, more money, a different family, may be an entirely different life. But what you have is all you have to work with, and if you spend your life constantly hoping that conditions around you will change, it will likely appear that they never do.

Happiness truly comes from inside you, it doesn’t come from anything outside, it comes from your heart. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, happiness is not something that you attain, it’s something that you are.

Yours In Happiness,

Keith

Are you ready to be happy?

From time to time my 3 year old son Noah asks me to read to him from my “boring book” which is often whatever book I am reading, when he asks me to do this he lays in bed while I read to him by the glow of his nightlight. There’s a strange part of me that thinks he’ll “get” the lessons in the books I read because at least 3 times a week I find myself reading out loud from some great books.
Last night I was reading to Noah from the classic “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. With this book in particular I have found it is of huge benefit to me as I read it out loud. Reading out loud gives e a chance to think even more about the words on the page and I use more of my mind comprehending what has been written. I came across a passage that seemed to jump off the page and slap me in the face. And while “Think and Grow Rich” is principally a book about generating a higher income I thought the lesson of this passage was very applicable across a wide spectrum of life experience, and notably the desire to be happy. The passage says the following;

“There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it.
No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it.”

I thought about how true this is as it applies to happiness and inner peace. So many of us wander around through the day to day wishing that we could have a happier life. But it never really goes any further than that, it remains a wish, and any desire that remains a simple wish is no more effective than if you dropped a coin down a well. I believe there are people out there who wish they could be happy but deep down they don’t feel they are worthy of happiness.

In my own life I have seen this with some of my family members. My siblings and I had the unfortunate experience of losing a brother and several years later losing both of our parents within months of each other. This is not an easy situation to handle, and I must say in the moment I believe we all handled it very well. As the years pass however certain of my siblings have not been able to let go of the melancholy that often accompanies you when you lose a loved one. Sometimes it seems they “catch” themselves being happy and then experience guilt for feeling happy even though they have lost these people that are so important in their lives.
This is exactly the sort of thing that we need to overcome, until you know that you are worthy of happiness, until you know deep down inside that you deserve happiness, you are not going to be able to experience lasting happiness.

Keith

Audio from Call Number 02 and news on Call 03!

Hi Everybody,

Thanks so much for the great response to the teleseminar, as I mentioned on the call there was just too much information to get it all in one call so I have added a 3rd call on Tuesday April 21, 2009.

To register for call three and to get free audio of the entire teleseminar go to the teleseminar tab and sign up, I’ll make sure you get access to the downloads and all the information on call 03

Once tyhe call series is over I’ll get back to regular blog posts, there are only so many hours in the day and the content for call number three is going to be the best content we’ve seen yet!

Keith

Call Number 2 is TODAY!

Call number 2 is today! Don’t miss the teleclass today “Being Happiness” I’m really excited about the great and practical stuff that we’ve put together for this call. I spent a long time debating whether or not I could share what I wanted to share over a teleclass, and while I was debating it I was talking with a mentor of mine and discussing how to possibly share some of the important things I’ve discovered in my life and he said something to the effect of, “the best message in the world is useless if it is not shared as widely as possible.”
That thought really struck me and immediately I planned this call, and actually started a podcast as well in addition to the regular blog and incredible things have happened! I’m really excited about sharing this great content with everybody and want to remind you that this call is guaranteed to be 100% pitch free!
If you can’t make it on the call today, go ahead and register and I’ll make sure you get a copy of the audio for the call in MP3 format so you can listen to it at your leisure as soon as it’s available.
Visit http://youarehappiness.com/?page_id=85 to register for the call or for your free recording!
In Happiness,
Keith
P.S. The Call is today April 14th 2009  at 3:00 PM EST/2:00PM CST/1:00 PM MST/12:00 PM PST. I hope you can make it!

The Teleclass Is Today!

Don’t miss the teleclass today “Being Happiness” I’m really excited about the great and practical stuff that we’ve put together for this call. I spent a long time debating whether or not I could share what I wanted to share over a teleclass, and while I was debating it I was talking with a mentor of mine and discussing how to possibly share some of the important things I’ve discovered in my life and he said something to the effect of, “the best message in the world is useless if it is not shared as widely as possible.”
That thought really struck me and immediately I planned this call, and actually started a podcast as well in addition to the regular blog and incredible things have happened! I’m really excited about sharing this great content with everybody and want to remind you that this call is guaranteed to be 100% pitch free!
If you can’t make it on the call today, go ahead and register and I’ll make sure you get a copy of the audio for the call in MP3 format so you can listen to it at your leisure as soon as it’s available.
Visit http://youarehappiness.com/?page_id=85 to register for the call or for your free recording!
In Happiness,
Keith
P.S. The Call is today April 14th 2009  at 3:00 PM EST/2:00PM CST/1:00 PM MST/12:00 PM PST. I hope you can make it!

Faith vs. Fate

Faith vs. Fate
I believe that sometimes we get confused about the difference between accepting things as they are and resigning ourselves to how things are. These are two very different ways to look at things but the difference in how you approach reality is sometimes the difference between a peaceful life and a stress filled one.
I call this difference of perception Faith vs. Fate. There exists out in the world all sorts of reasons to choose turmoil; there is no lack to these things they are all around us. The only real control we have is in how we approach all these things.
Often when people start looking to improve themselves they try things for a little while and then give up, much more common however are those that try for a few months even and when things don’t work out they say, “well I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.” It’s when you say this that you resign yourself to whatever “fate” has in store for you. I would rather see people approach these sorts of situations with faith. When something doesn’t work out as you intended there is always a lesson to be learned that will help you in your next venture, or even in your next attempt at the same venture.
Faith is asking yourself “what can I change next time that will improve my experience?” Sometimes the answer is that you need to set out in another direction entirely, but most of the time you find that in looking at what didn’t work, we will find out what does work.

Next week we’ll begin a two part free teleseminar called “Being The Miracle, finding your inner happiness regardles of circumstances.” I’ll have more information on this great call tomorrow, but for now, have a beautiful day.

Keith

Go Out And Do Something

There is a real power in getting off your backside and going out and getting something done. You see, no great success ever happened without someone somewhere getting up and acting on whatever idea or impulse they had, I have a friend who used to complain a lot that all his great ideas had been stolen, fo example at one point very early in the time of the cell phone he mentioned that if a phone had a small camera built into it you could take pictures of the people stored in your phones address book so you could remember who they are, I thought it was a great idea, and sure enough some years later we had the camera phone. And I will be the first to tell you that my good friend was more than eager to say that someone stole “his” idea. When the truth is that no one stole his idea, at any given moment multiple people around the world are having the same new idea, but the one who acts until they achieve success is the one who gets the lion’s share of the winnings. We know now that having a camera on your phone isn’t even a special feature anymore; it pretty much comes standard on most cell phones, why? Because someone who was blessed with an idea took action. You see no single person is given any single idea for some new innovation, and that is because most people will not take action, so to ensure that whatever the universe is hoping to create multiple people are having this same idea, and it’s not even who has the idea first that wins, it’s the person who acts on the idea that achieves it, the world is full of complainers, but there are only a few doers and if then world had more doers the complainers would slowly become extinct.

New Free Audio Program Is Almost Complete!

Just a quick note that I am almost finished with an incredible short audio program about how one simple change in our attitudes can change not only our lives, but the lives of everybody in the world. It’s actually an expanded version of the last blog post and I’m really excited about it. It should be complete later this week, and I’ll have it available on the website for free. Also look for some pretty cool upgrades to the blog and the total website in the next few weeks!

Love In Action,

Keith

Separate or Connected?

In the Tao Te Ching there is a short part of one of the verses that reflects well how the world at large sees itself as separate from everyone else. It says the following;

All the world says,
“I am important;
I am separate from all the world.
I am important because I am separate,
Were I the same, I could never be important.”

This is a very general misconception that we often have as we look at ourselves and the world around us. The temptation is always there to see ourselves as separate from one another, and that the more we distinguish, or separate, ourselves from those around us, the more important we become. This is one of the great reasons behind much of the strife we encounter as we go through life.

Going through your days seeing yourself as separate from each person you encounter only distances you from that person, and until we can see that we are all one, we have little hope of solving the issues that the world now faces. This is at the core of the philosophy that I am sharing, while indeed happiness is found inside of you, it is also found inside each person you come in contact with. When we approach life seeing ourselves as connected to all people there is a very positive energy that comes with. Conversely if we see ourselves as separate from the world then each encounter we have with another individual will negatively impact both ourselves and the other person.

For example when we are driving along the highway, we often by default revert to seeing ourselves as separate from all the other people driving along the same road, and in seeing ourselves as separate we often enter into ridiculous little contest with other motorists, trivial things like pacing just ahead of the car next to you, or driving too close to the bumper of the car ahead of you because you feel he is not going fast enough. This is not something you would do if you were walking down the street, you would feel ridiculous indeed walking closely behind another person because you feel they are not walking fast enough. The reason that we behave differently when walking than we do when driving is because when we are walking we tend to see the other person as an individual, another human walking along, and as we walk along we feel more connected to that person. When we drive it’s a whole different situation. Inside of each car is a person, but while driving most people don’t see the other person, they simply see a vehicle, and when all you see is an object you act with greater indifference to that object.

But the truth is that we are all connected, human life on this planet progresses at a rate relative to how closely humans see themselves as connected to other humans. In what history of western civilization calls the “Dark Ages” we see that human progress slowed to a near halt for centuries, this is because the societal system was based on the acquisition of power over other people, those in power simply saw their “subjects” as objects with which they achieved their own desires, this extended from politics to religion and all avenues in between. In a society based on the gain of dominion over others there is really no room for society at large to progress. This is exactly what happened during this struggle through history.

As soon as ideas started surfacing throughout the world that “all men are created equal” we started to see the collective human consciousness awake as if from a deep sleep and as we progressed further into such great causes as equal rights for women, and ultimately equal rights for all people regardless of their origins we have seen huge strides in the progression of things that add to the general welfare of society, you can follow along and see that as more and more human rights were recognized more and more technological advances were made and with greater speed than ever. The printing press as developed by Johannes Gutenberg in the middle part of the 1400’s remained relatively unchanged until the early part of the 1800’s at which point the automated printing press came into being. We can look at technological advances since that time and be absolutely spellbound at the speed and ease with which technology has impacted our lives.

We now find ourselves at a crossroads, increasingly we are being convinced that we live in a world of “us versus them” whether it be as a result of political strife within our own country or if it is nation against nation, or even someone trying to convince us that we need to hate another group because they think differently than we do. This information is all around us and seems to be getting more and more forceful in its approach. We need to start turning off the voices out there that tell us that we are separate. We need to recognize that simply because we have ideological differences there is no reason that we must be enemies. Possibly the worst attitude to have is that “if you are not with me you are against me.” This is not true, the reality is that we are all together; we are all pieces of a great puzzle that in order to be complete requires all of us. The Dalai Lama is said to have stated that if every child on the planet meditated on compassion for others for just one hour a week that the world could, in a single generation, eradicate all of the societal plagues that torment our society. Can you imagine? One generation has the capability to put an end to worldwide hunger, and sickness, and most importantly war.

Remember to stay connected to those around you, treat everyone with the respect and love that you desire to be treated with. Let’s see if we can help raise the collective consciousness of the entire world, and who knows what kind of great strides will be made if we are able to not focus on our differences, but focus on the common goal. After all I think almost everybody in the world wants the same thing, peace and happiness in their own lives. And we can accomplish this by making sure that we are a source of peace and happiness, and not a source of hate and unrest.