Daily Gratitude: Emmet Fox talked about your mixing bowl, saying that you can expect whatever ingredients you put in that bowl will somehow be tasted in your finished dish. If for some reason you put kerosene in the mixing bowl, you can expect the finished item to taste like kerosene – not so pleasant no matter what else you put in there. The same applies to your thoughts. If you’re “almost” always positive about things, what does that mean? Is there sometimes kerosene in your thoughts? If so, things may not work out so well. Sure things can appear to be bad. But if you use my mantra “everything always works out for me”, you can just accept what happens knowing that the universe has some plan for you and even if that plan doesn’t seem to be the same as the one you laid out, it is most likely the better plan. My life has proved that. So, instead of trying to be Pollyanna, I simply proclaim that “everything always works out for me!” As such I don’t put any kerosene in my mixing bowl. Keep track of your thoughts and see which ones you want to filter out. Then go about that elimination process diligently.

Daily Gratitude: I love this. It’s just another way to get people to focus on the steps in the process and not the massive leaps or the outcome. This phrase came when two people were hiking and one noted all the little streams along their path. The other person, who was local, remarked that each one of the little streams fed into the big river. It goes to demonstrate that without all the little pieces of a project, the final goal won’t occur. So, when you’re bored and tired of paying attention to all the little things, remember the big river. Since we just had the Olympics it behooves you to think about all the hours each athlete spent over the years just working on the basics – each little stream. Without those streams, you’ll have no strong foundation to your dream or project and therefore your ultimate result will be unstable! Remember the streams to get to your dreqms.

Daily Gratitude: Habits are simply “apps” you’ve installed in your subconscious. Once installed, all yo have to do is push a button and the app executes what it’s supposed to do. If you get in the habit of meeting everything with “good mental training”, you’ll be convincing your subconscious that everything really is good and that everything is good mental training. This helps you accept all the “not so good” things that you encounter. But in order to install it properly and permanently, I recommend using it with all sorts of things that come into your life. I’ll give you an example from years ago where I should have used it. In my last years in the navy I worked 75 miles from my home – in Washington DC. and I commuted up and down interstate 95 – a nightmare. One day they forecast a big snow storm so I asked my boss if I could leave early. He usually said yes in situations like that. But this time we were having a guest speaker so my boss said no. Instead of using this phrase I resorted to my usual childish behavior and just pouted. When the lecture was over, i hurriedly got into my car and headed home. Well it turns out that I couldn’t go anywhere near I-95 because there had been a 100 car pileup due to the storm. Had I left when I wanted, I would have been caught right in the middle of all that. And maybe seriously injured. Had I just known about this and said “good! It’s good mental training” the outcome would have been the same but I would have enjoyed the lecture and not been so worried. Next time you’re stuck in traffic say “good. It’s good mental training. This is helping me learn patience”. Practice all day long and it will become second nature to you and you’ll ultimately be grateful when something really big happens and you just blurt this out!