How I Became a Kind and Patient Father - And you can too!

I used to have a short temper. I used to get angry for seemingly unimportant reasons. One time I even lost my temper and slapped my son... I've only done that once... But it had a big effect on me.

I soon regretted that and wondered if I hadn't over-reacted. I felt a strong sense of regret.


That was more than 4 years ago. I don't do that anymore.


A few years ago, I taught my son to ride a bicycle. Any parent who has done that know what kinds of a frustrating experience that can be! I was pulling my hair out. A few times I caught myself getting frustrated to the point of getting mad. 


But I caught myself. I was able to calm myself down.


Today I never get mad at my son and get that rush of frustration that often leads to a burst of anger. It used to happen to me all the time. It never happens anymore.


How do I do it? What has helped me to radically change my personality so that I never have bursts of anger anymore? How have I been able to change years of habit in just a few months time?


By the power of taking notes. That's right. Just by merely taking notes everyday, it reinforces my subconscious daily and has helped me and countless others to alter their behavior.


You can do it too. 


Get yourself a good $1 notebook. Everyday write down your top 10 most important goals. 


Two of my goals that I write down everyday religiously are


1) I am a kind and patient father, husband and person.


2) All my loved ones are healthy and prosper.


By writing number one above, I have become more patient with my son and it has also had the added benefit of helping me not to get mad when people write things to me that are not complimentary - like many of the comments I get on this blog - or on emails.


The second one just is a sort of personal prayer for everyone I care about. I figure a bit of insurance by using the powers of the Law of Attraction couldn't hurt.


Of course writing down your goals everyday won't change you overnight. But, as the old zen saying goes, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step."


Begin that journey to become the parent, husband, or person you want to become just by starting. If you do this everyday as I suggest, I guarantee that you'll begin to see results within a few weeks.


The person you want to become, actually, already resides within you. You just have to help him to come out.


For more on this subject, please refer to:


One Easy Step to Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life


Pocket Notebooks - the Secret of Millionaires and People Won't Listen


How to Stop Worrying so much and Become More Successful at Life

Make Your Own Success

How to Stop Worrying So Much and Be More Successful at Life!

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” - Mark Twain

In today's world, there are plenty of things to worry about and the list seems to grow everyday. There's war, the safety of the food we eat, nuclear accidents, car accidents, "Will our children be safe?" There's diseases, pollution, taxes, will we still have a job next year? The list goes on and on. There' a million and one things to worry about. Take your pick.

You want to be a worrier or a warrior? Take your pick.

I have plenty of friends who seem to worry constantly. The biggest thing they worry about is work. I think it is pretty safe to say that they are their own worse enemy. 

The funny thing is they think I don't worry about work or these other things at all. But I do worry! I am a "worrier" for certain. They just don't know! I think, up to a certain point, worrying is perfectly normal human behavior, and we all do it. But my friends think I don't worry because I've found a good way to control it and I'm glad I did. It's easy to do and just takes 3 minutes every morning. That's a better deal than worrying all day, right?

Many years ago, I used to worry so much that I wouldn't sleep well at night. The funny part is that I'd be worried about work! Think about that! I'm worried about work so much that I cannot sleep well. Then, the next morning I go to work and I'm tired. I'm so tired that I don't do a good job. So I worry so much about losing my job that I lose sleep and then, on the job, do a poor job because I'm sleepy because I didn't sleep well because I was worried about losing my job! What an idiot I was!

Doesn't make any sense, does it?

Worrying all the time is a proven cause of unhappiness and stress. Stress is a proven cause of a wide array of physical and mental illnesses and disorders. Life is rough enough as it is without our own thinking placing a heavier burden on our shoulders than we already have.

Think about it, is there any one of us who can do our best and achieve to our capacity - or even higher than that - when, in the back of our mind is this crawling negative fear - a worry - that binds us? Of course not.

So why do we do this to ourselves?

Today I want to give you two really good tips that can help you control your worrying. First off, I'd like to recommend that buy yourself a $1.00 pocket notebook and that you write down your top 5 or 10 goals first thing in the morning when you wake up everyday. Do it like religion or brushing your teeth.

Writing down your goals will help your subconscious mind to focus better on what is really important to you in your life and it will also allow the Law of Attraction to work in your favor. (There are several links at the bottom of this post to other articles with more details that you might enjoy reading).  

Here's how I do it: I wake up and sit down and think about what is really important to me. Do not cheat by looking at what you wrote the day before. Think. Really think about what is important for you and write it down. If you do this everyday and do not look at the previous day's goals, the things that are important to you and your life will naturally flow to the top. I used to write things about money and business as my top goals, but after doing this for so many years, I came to realize what is truly important in my life is not that. It is my family.

These are my recent top four goals (and I always add today's date at the end):

1) I am a wise and patient father and husband. I am a kind person.

2) Thank you god for all the wonderful things I have and am about to receive today.

3) All my loved ones are healthy and prosperous today.

4) I am a very successful businessman and 2012 is my best year so far. 2013 is even better!

Recently there are another 4 on the list, but those have to do with my work and financial goals. Everyone would be different, of course.

Actually, writing these things down is not my original idea. It is the method of success in life and business for many extremely wealthy people and the basis for a best-selling book: "Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible" by Brian Tracey. May I suggest that you do yourself a great favor and read that book and apply some of the simple rules to your life? 

By the way, one of my dearest friends read this book and later I asked him about it. He said that he does write down his goals in his iPhone. Folks, the advice of millionaires say to buy a handy pocket notebook. It is extremely difficult for any computer or hand held device to be faster than a pen and paper. Why ignore the advice of these people who have succeeded and are rich for the $1.00 it costs to buy a pocket notebook? 

Also, I find that having a handy pocket notebook is great for lowering stress in that I never forget anything. Anytime I have a good idea or something that I must remember to do, I jot it down. It's so much faster with a pen and paper than any electrical device could ever be!

The second good piece of advice I have for those of you who find yourself in a serious pinch whereby you are worrying so much that it has engulfed your entire being is to realize that your brain can only think about one thing at a time. Seriously. It's true. The human brain can only process information about one thing at a time.

There will be people now who think I am wrong about this, but I am not. Just because you can multi-task at work doesn't mean that your brain can think about more than one thing at once. It cannot. Your brain can switch back and forth quite quickly so that the skilled person can multi-task but that doesn't mean that the brain can focus on more than one matter at any given moment.

Here. Let me prove it to you. Here is a sentence. Read it and them repeat it over and over in your head. You will see that, as you are repeating it, you are unable to think about anything else, unless you switch off the repetition. Here is the sentence:

"I am a positive and hard working person and today is the best day so far this year and tomorrow is going to be even better!"

Read it and memorize it. Now, repeat it over and over in your head. Do it many times. 

See? Your mind can only focus on one problem at a time. This is why constant worry is so dangerous. Because if you are only worrying, you will begin to make things worse as you will focus your entire being on that worry. It is a vicious cycle.

Stop it right now!

Anytime of the day, if you catch yourself starting to worry, stop. Take a phrase like the one I have given you above and repeat it in your head over and over until the worrying goes away. If the worrying (or panic) comes back, then start up the phrase and repeat again until the fear and worrying subside.

Some astute readers will recognize what I have written here as a form of meditation, chanting, or prayer. Call it what you want, it will help you to defeat the worrying that is destroying your health and your life. 

I hope that, if you start to worry, that you'll try these these two simple exercises that will help you set your mind free and help you to relax. They've helped me greatly. I know they will help you too.

I do recommend the book, "Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible" by Brian Tracey but, if you are a cheapskate (like me) and need more evidence, I've written extensively about it here below:

One Easy Step To Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life

Pocket Notebooks: The Secret of Millionaires and People Won't Listen!?

Vacation is a State of Mind - How to Get The Truly Wonderful Things in Life

Holidays and In-Laws Driving You Crazy? "Find Your Center"

Just came back from a vacation and wanted to relate a story that happened when I just arrived on a southern Pacific island. 

Buddha on Tumon in Guam

From past experience, and my feelings of irritation, I knew that at the moment when we arrived on the island, my in-laws might drive me crazy. You know, it was the typical story with old people; forgetting things; worrying about unimportant nonsense; taking 15 minutes to do something that most people could do in 20 seconds....


We arrived at the island airport after midnight. Everyone was tired and sleepy. We checked into to the hotel bus service which would drive us all to the hotel for free. 


We had two luggage carriers with three pieces of luggage on each. I received the six luggage tags from the limousine service to put on our bags for the bus.  I started putting the luggage tags on the three pieces of luggage on my cart and handed three luggage tags to them to put on the three bags on their cart. I finished attaching the tags. I stood up and, of course, there was some confusion at their cart. The tag numbers were wrong (?) or were they? No! There weren't enough tags.

Oh Lordy! I thought, "How hard could it be to properly attach three tags to three pieces of luggage." I walked over to calmly investigate. Sure enough, they were two tags short. 


"What happened to the three tags I just gave you?" I asked.


"Oh? We put two of them on your luggage." I rolled my eyes. I looked at my cart and sure enough, they had put two of their tags on my cart's luggage. Why? Hell if I know. For 1/2 a second steam came out my ears.... I caught myself and I smiled. Then I removed the tags from my luggage and put them on theirs... I won't go into details of how they started using a pen to alter the numbers on the tags for some reason. Once again a simple 30 second process took over fifteen minutes of time.


I turned back to the nice young man at the service counter. He said, "First time in Guam?"


"Nope!" I answered. Smiling I said, "First time with the in-laws and the entire family so all I have to do is try to be patient and keep calm...." I scrunched up my face and whispered to the guy like I was going nuts and said, "BECAUSE, BLESS THEIR HEARTS, SOMETIMES THEY DRIVE ME CRAZY!"

It was then and there, the Great Buddha who lived within the heart and soul of that young man came out and spread wisdom to me he put his hands together and smiled knowingly at me and said,


"Find your center, man!"


I really laughed. What wisdom. That's right. "Find your center, man!" All I had to do was to find my center and take it easy. I couldn't allow these things to irritate me... Oh, and trust that there were many things they did that irritated me. But, by remembering what that young man said,  I was able to stay cool (for the most part) and chill out. I was able to expect these things would happen and so, when they did, they didn't bother me.


Fifteen minutes to decide whether or not it is cold or hot enough so that they need to take a sweater with them when we are driving in our own car anyway? No problem. Calling a hotel to make special dinner reservations for a dinner that always gets sold out yet calling the wrong restaurant? No sweat (I knew I should have called myself anyway). Wanting to take a hour to shop in a clothes store that doesn't seem to have 50 pieces of wardrobe in the entire store that is the size of 1/2 a convenience store? Sure. Knock yourselves out.


Hell, I wasn't going anywhere.


Another thing that helped me to have a better and more relaxing time was to write in my notes as my daily goals every day as my number one priority was:


1) I am relaxed & patient & having fun 12/23/11


I wrote that as my #1 priority goal first thing when I woke up every morning while on vacation. It helped my subconscious to remember it and it helped me to forget about work and problems at the office.  

  


I also wrote at the top of my notes every morning,


"In Guam. Find your center." It helped me to relieve stress and have more fun. I think whether you  re in a south Pacific island or not, writing your goals and finding your center can help you to be happier and more productive and stress-free. Try it everyday in 2012.


NOTE: Write down your goals everyday for a better, more successful and happier you. http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/2011/06/pocket-notebooks-secret-of-millionaires.html

Confessions of an Extreme Right Winger on the Internet (And Controlling My Temper!)

A commentator to one of my recent posts called me a "extreme right winger on the internet" because I said that "Japan is a homogenous society." When I asked for an explanation, he wrote:


"as for ネトウヨ it means in internet speak an extreme right winger on the internet... article talks about the right wingers angry at a group called perfume (who are very cute and very good singers too by the way) because they were on a tv show and said they liked kimuchi nabe. This caused the ネトウヨ to become angry and spout their anti-korean messages and calling korean チョン and saying they should die and what not." (sic)


I failed to see (and still do) where I can be called an "extreme right winger on the internet" because I related the world-wide commonly understood notion that "Japan is a homogenous society." Let me defend myself by saying that I didn't invent the term, nor did I apply it first to Japan, nor am I intelligent enough to analyize Japanese society enough to formulate the opinion. I'm just passing on commonly agreed to knowledge and conclusions.


Even though I do that, I am called an "extreme right winger on the internet"?  


Yes. I know, dear reader. It seems very twisted and painful logic but these are the things that bloggers must suffer. If you wish to blog, be forewarned. But that's not the point... I get these kinds of attacks all the time. Perhaps my writing (of course my writing) is not as good or clear as it should be. I usually delete the ad hominem attacks immediately as they are VERY rude and insulting. But today's I have, so I want to use it as a base... This is not meant as an attack on this one individual as, like I said, it could be because my poor writing skills so I'm sorry. Let me explain.... 


Everyday, when I wake up, I write my ten goals for the day. You should too! I was taught to do this by some of my millionaire friends. Trust that when a successful millionaire advises you to do something, you probably should take the advice. One of my important goals is always #8. It says, "I am kind to people." This has to do with people I meet on the street or at work or people who comment on my blog posts. Many people just try my patience. Whether it be from their lack of experience, naievity, or poor education or work skills. 


Being kind to people, especially to rude commentators is great therapy for the soul. I am always happy with myself when I can be kind and not lose my cool. So writing it down everyday helps me to do it. 


I tried not to blast the guy (a few years ago I certainly would have). 


I find it astounding that someone would call me a right winger with its connotations of being racist and anti-immigration. Why? Since I was born, I have been a minority in my home country with an immigrant mother. I am most certainly a minority and an immigrant in Japan with children of mixed heritage (even more so than myself). How in the world could anyone consider me right wing? That would be the height of hypocrisy (which might make me eligible for a ranking post at the US State Department, no?)


In America, I had a Japanese immigrant mother. So I was considered half-Japanese American. No big deal. I was proud of it.


In Japan, my mother was part Korean Japanese (well, when you get right down to it, what Japanese isn't?) Why my mom was naturalized Japanese is because her 1/4 or 1/2 Korean Japanese mother (unsure exactly) and Japanese father died when she was a baby and she was adopted by a very wealthy Japanese family with connections (or so her adopted family "sisters" told me). Hence she was allowed to be naturalized Japanese. On top of that, I am an immigrant with a Japanese wife and mixed race children.


Gee, think I am right winged and racist? That's probably like attacking a gay or  transvestites by claiming they are "Republicans."


So that probably defends my position as not being "extreme right winger on the internet" no? Then the commentators remarks about,


This caused the ネトウヨ to become angry and spout their anti-korean messages and calling korean チョン and saying they should die and what not."  


Relating my saying "Japan is a homogenous country" to this is, well, frankly speaking scatalogical and just plain nuts. 


Anyway, not to completely change the subject...


I also work with Korean artists and promoters bringing Korean music to the Japanese public. In a recent exchange with a true right winged nut I was attacked with these comments:

Mike, you should know how entrenched the yakuza are in business. Most, if not all, Yazuka have their roots in Korea. Korean pop culture does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for Japan-Korea relations. It simply makes those promoting it richer.

Soccer is global phenomenon and, after Japan beat Korea at the recent Asia Cup 2011 (which they took the championship), a Korean soccer player mocked the Japanese by imitating a monkey. That simply goes to show you how much the friggin' Koreans feel about the Japanese.

You might seriously consider passing the pipe you're smoking so the rest of us can hallucinate an ideal world the same as you...

Oh, Lordy, the things that try my patience. I get silly stuff from both the right and the left. I responded 

Yes. I know better than most. The Yakuza are entrenched in all areas of Japanese and Korean pop in Japan. The fact that 16-year-old Japanese girls find Korean pop (a new phenomenon) fun and attractive shows how much better it is at bringing peace to the world's people over something like, say, professional soccer that appeals to nationalism and the neanderthal savage spirit of humans.

You'll never get me to say anything about idiot professional sports fans (especially like those who exhibit behavior as you have reported). This sort of thing happens because professional sports fans are so immature and barbarous that they get a vicarious thrill and pride at seeing "their" team defeat another team as if that makes them - or their "tribe" - superior in some way.

My argument stands. You'll never see any kids at any of these concerts making racist mockery towards each other. You saw it at your sports game. You have proven me correct by your example.  


Even that I tried to control my temper, I failed a the end by calling these pro sports fans "idiots." Please forgive me. Rome wasn't built in a day. I would like to come back with some funny and snappy remarks, but it is hard when people are so, well, dumb and antagonistic.

Korean artist "Kara" at sold out shows in front of Japanese fans. 

Obviously tensions between these pop-stars and their fans are about 

to break out in war on the Korean peninsula (cue idiotic sound 

effects and canned laughter!)

Read more on how Korean artists are spreading peace and 

understanding between home and Japan here. 

Why argue with these people? Excepting as therapy to teach one self patience?


Finally, let me show you some recent pictures from November 2011 with some friends. I am a producer of radio programs:

K-Dance Lovers on 76.1 InterFM Bam! the girls came to promote...

this event.... Which is just one of many Korean music events that I am involved with like...

Kim Jeong Hoon! I helped promote and organized ticket sales for this event - actually in Sept. 2011 (and many past and future K-Pop events! Read more about these promotions here!)

Oh, and there I am with my buddy, Kim! Hey dude! See you in January 2012!

I am so  ミーハー！ Oh, yeah, and to pre-empt any attacks that I am right winged and hate people with so-called "alternative lifestyles" let me introduce some of my other friends...

From Kitson (fashion maker), drag queen Kaede who came on the show at the start of Nov. 2011 to promote awareness and World Aid's Day!

A few weeks after the radio show, my weird "straight" friend, Ken Nishikawa and I met Kaede and had drinks (well, too many drinks, actually!) See my friend Kaede's blog here! 

Of course, I cannot change the world by myself. But I do have the power of the mass media and this blog, for what it's worth. Not nearly enough, but not too bad for a "extreme right winger on the internet" who, alas, is awfully thin-skinned. 

I plan to work on that (being thin-skinned) after I am satisfied with my level of patience. Forgive me now, if I get seriously angry when someone calls me "extreme right winger" when I have been fighting that sort of thing all my life.

One does get riled about that sort of thing when they have memories of, say, going to a restaurant as a small child of six-years-old in Memphis and the owner saying that my dad will be allowed entry but my Japanese mother and my brothers would not.

My dad was furious. He had fought in the Korean War and was a marine (1st Marine division) and when this happened, I clearly remember him going back to get his gun from the trunk of the car. He was going to shoot the restaurant owner (my dad was kind of cool & crazy like that) but my mother stopped him. She begged and pleaded with him for us to leave. We did. Finally.

I figure it's my American side that wants to blast people when they make asinine statements like me being an "extreme right winger on the internet". It's my Japanese side that makes me want to be patient... 

Or is making that claim being racist too?

Now, my therapy is working. I'm being patient... This guy calling me a "extreme right winger on the internet" is just, seriously, laughable.

NOTE: Trust that I don't hate "straights" and Japanese people. I even have some straight friends and a few Japanese friends, too!.... If you don't understand the insinuation and the joke here, you're lame.

Recurring Dreams and Alternate Universes

I think most people have recurring dreams. If most people don't, then maybe I am just weird because I have had the same five recurring dreams over and over for these last 27 years. Do you have recurring dreams? 

Since moving to Japan, I have had basically five recurring dreams. But, now that I think about it, one of these dreams, the dreams of me flying like a bird or a jet plane, stopped a few years ago.


I wonder why my dreams of flight have disappeared? Maybe because I turned 50 and stopped dreaming like a 17-year-old? No, I don't think it is that because I still feel like a 17-year-old many times (just won't be doing the crazy things I used to do).


The first of the five recurring dreams I've had was flying in the skies. They started when I was a small boy. In my dreams could fly like Icarus. Can you fly in your dreams? Those are fun dreams... Sometimes, I guess when my condition wasn't so great, I'd have a hard time achieving lift-off in my dream. I'd have to run and flap my arms as hard as I could until I took off. Sometimes it was a great effort and I had to try over and over. Other times, I was just like a graceful bird; a tiny step and jump and I was off soaring like an eagle in the clouds.


Then, when I got to about 30 or so, I could fly like a jet plane. In fact, many times I knew I was dreaming and that I was flying. I figured it was some sort of alternate universe and so I rode it like a snow-boarder rides the snow or a surfer rides the waves. I knew I was dreaming but didn't care. When  could really fly and fly like a rocket, doing a thousand miles and hour, I would consider flying over the Pacific Ocean and going to the United States to fly over my parents house.


Weird thing is that I would fly out a few hundred miles from the coast of Japan, look over the water, and turn around because I'd start getting scared. Scared that I would wake up and be flying over the cold ocean, fall into it, and have to swim back. I used to be a good swimmer, but not that good. Being so high over such deep water freaked me out so I'd turn back. Even though I knew it was just a dream.


The other problem with flying to the USA like a 747 in my dreams was that, at such high speeds, I had a difficult time turning and would often continue on a straight line when I wanted to make a hard left turn.


Sounds ridiculous because it was all a dream and I knew it, but I also felt that, somewhere in my heart, dreams were and alternate universe and a reflection on reality. I guess I still do.


Another dream that often occurred was fishing. I love fishing. Before I moved to japan, I went fishing every week. Sometimes two or three times a week. Fishing is heaven. Fishing is spiritual and fishing is close to God.

There is a saying about fishing. It goes like this: "Do you know what the difference is between a religious man and a spiritual man? A religious man goes to church and thinks about fishing. A spiritual man goes fishing and thinks about god."


I am a spiritual man. I'd go fishing everyday of the week if I could.


I used to dream about fishing at least once a week when I first came to Japan. Sometimes I dreamt about it every night for days in a row. That's because it is difficult to go fishing in Japan and I had been an avid fisherman since I was a small boy living in Minnesota. Minnesota is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" so fishing is a lifestyle there.


Fishing in Japan, Tokyo especially, though, is a chore. Japan is a crowded place and the good areas for fishing on the coastline are usually taken by the local fishing collective so they don't take too kindly to your fishing in their good spots... In fact, they might give you the boot up the ass if they catch you fishing in their prime areas. Going fishing in Japan is not like the USA where you can just grab a rod and reel and head off to the lake or shoreline. In Japan, fishing is an all-day expedition like 18 holes of golf: You need a plan and it costs lots of money.


My other two recurring dreams, or maybe I should say nightmares, are related to work. Whenever work is going poorly or I worry about bankruptcy or the economy going down the tubes (an understandable and common recent worry since 2008) I have bad dreams of returning to the USA and going back to my old jobs. 


The worse job is returning to Prudential to the same old office and working with those dishonest people that I wrote about yesterday in Working With Thieves, Liars and Crooks. The weird part of the dream is that I am always scheming about returning to Japan and, even after one year, haven't sold one single contract yet they do not fire me in my dream.


Talk about being able to live off one's laurels!


The other work-related dream is that I go back to working at a Sears, Roebuck and Company in Ventura, California (it was in Oxnard when I worked there, but has since moved causing the city of Oxnard to sue the city of Ventura, but that's another story about the insanity of the USA).


When I was 17 I started working at Sears in the catalogue ordering department and then transferred to commission sales in the Photo & Office Equipment department. As a commission salesman, I made a heck of a lot of money in the late 1970's.


In my dreams, for some bizarre reason, I go back there and have to work in the sewing machine and vacuum cleaner department selling poorly made and badly designed Sears equipment. The nightmarish part of the entire thing, besides selling this poorly designed and quite unstylish junk, the same management is there at the company running around doing their weird hijinks.


There is the store manager, whose name escapes me, but he was a very short, yet handsome man. He dumped his beautiful wife and four beautiful daughters (whom he often brought to the store) to marry another woman (who he soon also brought to the store). I always noticed the daughter because they were very beautiful girls. He got his lightening strike from god when, soon after the divorce and marriage, he was diagnosed with some sort of brain cancer. No kidding. I think he soon died after that. 


Then there was a guy named Walter who was a section chief who was married but he ran around unable to control his libido and was trying to take every woman working at the store to bed. I guess his wife got fed up with it one day and dumped him and got another boyfriend.


Walt, being like the immature little boy he was, then decided that he wanted his "toy" back (the wife he disrespected and treated like sh*t) and, from what I understand, went screaming drunk to the boyfriend's house while she was there and started banging on the door and breaking it down.


The boyfriend shot him and killed him.


Later, after the funeral that I didn't attend, many Sears employees were complaining that the wife was wearing black but didn't seem sad. I heard them complaining about that and said nothing. It did nothing for me but confuse me as to what was really important to these people and what they were thinking about. 


There were lots of really weird things going on at Sears at that time. I found the same types of problems when I got myself transferred to the Sears in San Fernando Valley and found that store, too, was full of some very twisted people whose priorities were not success of the business and success of their personnel and staff but protection of their position and attempting to continue their lives acting like high school students with their idiotic politics and clicks.


But, I digress....


These are the recurring dreams I often have. Even in the case of Sears or my old jobs, it is nice to be able to see my old friends and to remember them in their beautiful youth. Even when I have nightmares, I am able to realize that they are nightmares and am able to view them like a movie so they rarely scare me. 


I went to see my sick old dad a few weeks ago. He wasn't the same person that I will always remember. In my dreams, he is a young and handsome 30+ some year old Marine wrestling with us kids in the yard. For the sick, aged and ill, dreams are an escape. Back to better times and the treasures of youth. 


Surely, dreams are one of the best things about living that there could possibly be. I look forward to sleeping every night and I look forward to the dreams of my youth.

How about your dreams? I think if you wake up and think, "Today is going to be great" and you keep track and write down your goals, you can control your dreams and make sure they are positive. Try it. For more on that, read, One Easy Step to Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life.

Make Your Own Success!

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." - Peter Drucker


My daily thoughts and meditation, that I always perform in the morning, and before I go to sleep go something like this:


"Today is a very big day in my life. Today is the day I finally make it.


I'm going to make it. It is decided.


I've prepared.


I've visualized the success and I am creating my success.


Years of experience and preparation have come to this.


Today is my day. Today is the greatest day of my life and tomorrow will be even better. And, the day after that, will be even better still.


It will continue like this until the end of my life.


........... I make this dedication to my family and myself everyday."


Doesn't your family and don't you deserve the same dedication from you?


I always write down my top 10 goals in my note book.


Consistently, everyday my #2 goal is, "I am worth $10.5 million US dollars on Dec. 1, 2015"


With a goal like that at #2, you might wonder, "What could be #1?"


My #1 goal is, "I am a kind and generous and patient father and husband today and every day."


There's many things that are important and many types of success.


The best way to predict the future is to create it. Visualize your success and write down your goals.