Oftentimes the hardest part of the journey is simply believing you’re worthy of the trip.

This short article was inspired by an email we received last night from a new course student:

Dear Marc and Angel,

Life hasn’t been the easiest on me over this past decade.  I won’t get into all the details now, but these hard times have left me with many cracks.  And although I’ve still managed to be a reasonably successful person, I often struggle desperately with my self-confidence.  I just don’t feel good enough most of the time.  I feel flawed.  I feel like my cracks make me undesirable.  It’s all in my head – I know it is!  But I really need help shifting my mindset.  I need a new outlook.  Do you have any insight that might assist me?

Sincerely,
A Shy Student

Our reply (an open reply to all who don’t feel “good enough”):

Dear Shy Student,

It’s time for a quick story about life…

Once upon a time there was an elderly woman who needed to walk down to the [Read more…]

“If only…”  These two words paired together create one of the saddest phrases in the English language.

Here are ten choices that ultimately lead to that phrase of regret, and how to elude them on the average day: [Read more…]

The reason for our suffering, in all walks of life, is our resistance to the truth.

Sometimes it’s brutally hard to accept life’s greatest lessons. And yet we must!

Because it’s lessons like these that ultimately make our lives beautiful, by showing us how to thrive even through the toughest of times…

1. Happiness doesn’t start with a relationship, a vacation, a job, or money. It starts with your thinking and what you tell yourself every day.

Typically, when I ask someone “How are you?” they reply, “I’m OK.” But this morning the attendant at the gas station replied, “Oh, I am absolutely marvelous!” Her enthusiastic response made me smile, so I asked her what was making her feel so marvelous. She continued, “I’m healthy, my son and daughter are both healthy, and we all have access to clean water and food and shelter and so much more. So I don’t have any good reason not to be positive.” The difference was simply her attitude and her choice of words. She wasn’t necessarily better off than anyone else I spoke to this morning, but she sure seemed a lot happier.

For many of us, I suspect that sometime between the innocent delight that we start out with in life and the grim acceptance of grown-up responsibility, we slip into [Read more…]

When I was a high school freshman, a 260-pound freshman girl showed up for track and field tryouts right alongside me.  Her name was Sara, and she was only there because her doctor said her health depended on it.  But once she scanned the crowd of students who were on the field, she turned around and began walking away.  Coach O’Leary saw her, jogged over, and turned her back around.

“I’m not thin enough for this sport!” Sara declared.  “And I’ll never be!  It’s impossible for me to lose enough weight.  I’ve tried.”

Coach O’Leary nodded, and promised Sara that her body type wasn’t suited for her current weight.  “It’s suited for 220 pounds,” he said.

Sara looked confused.  “Most people tell me I need to lose 130 pounds,” she replied.  “But you think I only need to lose 40?”

Coach O’Leary [Read more…]

Maybe it’s the life lessons I was forced to learn the hard way, or the toll of loss and failure I had recently endured, but fifteen years ago, in the midst of a panic attack on my 27th birthday, I had to admit to myself right then and there that the youthful world of possibility I once felt now seemed dead inside me. I wanted to feel light and free and ambitious and passionate again, but I didn’t know how. Luckily, I had a wise mother nearby who gave me some good advice. She told me that she could still see a positive, passionate young man inside of me, but that I needed to do some soul searching to reconnect myself to him.

As I attempted to follow my mother’s advice, I remembered that I used to have two quotes written on post-it notes hanging on my bedroom wall when I was a kid: [Read more…]