Life

10 Things to Remember Before You Take Things Personally

10.24.2021 by Angel Chernoff // 33 Comments

Let me share three quick stories and some life-changing lessons with you…

This morning at a train stop near the hospital, a man and his three young kids got on. The kids were loud and completely out of control, running from one end of the train car to the other. An annoyed passenger sitting next to me looked over at the man and asked, “Is there a reason you’re letting your kids go nuts right now?” The man looked up with tears in his eyes and said, “The doc just told me their mother isn’t going to make it. Sorry, I’m just trying to think before we all sit down at home to talk about this.”
Two of my ex-coworkers actually laughed at me last year when I told them I dreamed of opening my own hair salon. When I spoke with you and Marc on a coaching call that same day, Marc said something like, “We’ve known quite a few people who went after their dreams and succeeded. One thing they all had in common was they got laughed at in the process.” That advice really pushed me forward. And I’m proud to say I opened my salon almost six months ago, and business is really taking off. But to think I almost didn’t do it … I almost took my ex-coworkers’ negativity to heart!
Today one of my regular customers, a really grumpy elderly man who has been eating in our diner every morning for the better part of five years, left me $1,000 in cash for his $7 breakfast. Alongside the cash he left a small note that read, “Thank you, Christine. I know I haven’t been the brightest smile in your life, but your smile and hospitable service over the years gave me something to look forward to every morning after my wife passed away. I wanted to say thank you. I’m moving eight hours down the road this afternoon to live with my son and his family. May the rest of your life be magical.”

5 “Notes to Self” About the Precious Little Time You Have Left

10.13.2021 by Marc Chernoff // 54 Comments

A Good Girl (Who Didn’t Make It)

Alyssa was my best friend. She was a talented musician, a graceful gymnast, a brilliant writer, and a deeply passionate human being. She cared about people. Love bled from every facet of her being. When she spoke, her eyes were as sincere as her words. And she always wanted to understand what was wrong so she could strive to make it better.

But Alyssa woke up one day during her senior year in college with a strange pain in her chest. The on-campus doctors didn’t understand why, so they referred her to a specialist. After several MRIs and blood tests, they determined that she had a rare, escalated case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma—a form of cancer. She spent the next three years suffering through varying degrees of pain and sickness as multiple doctors treated her with radiation and chemotherapy. And although these doctors were initially hopeful, Alyssa’s condition worsened, and she eventually succumbed to her cancer, dying on her [Read more…]

The Art of Being Grateful on Really Hard Days

10.01.2021 by Marc Chernoff // 29 Comments

“If you’re always grateful for the little things, it’s hard to avoid momentary happiness. It’s a lack of gratitude that often keeps us feeling down.”

There’s a little ritual Angel and I practice every single day, that can turn hard days into easier ones, and extremely difficult life situations into far better ones—and it won’t surprise you either. It’s the ritual of gratitude.

Of course, this is such a fundamental ritual, and yet it’s one we often forget to practice. But when we do practice diligently, it can quickly transform both our minds and our lives.

Let me give you a quick example. Just over a decade ago, I remember one specific night I was struggling with grief, and also feeling very stressed about being broke, without work, and unhappy with the direction of my life. I was depressed, and very lost.

But that night I pushed myself hard to put things into perspective. I wrote out a list of everything I was truly grateful for, even as everything in my life seemed to be going wrong. It ended up being a pretty long list, and I still have the list hanging on my home office bulletin board today. Some of the key things on it include: [Read more…]

4 Hard Truths About Today that Will Make You a Stronger Person

09.15.2021 by Angel Chernoff // 26 Comments

Life keeps leading us on journeys we would never go on if it were up to us. Don’t be afraid. Have faith. Find the lessons. Trust the journey today.

We are all beautiful human beings, just trying to find our way. Today and every day we seek to better understand the meaning of our lives. We long to discover our gifts and release them fully into the world, and we hope to find happiness, peace, and strength along the way. For some of us the key to these desires rings loud and clear, driving what we do and how we do it from moment to moment. For others, these deep seeded needs are buried below the noise of daily life, below ego, below fear, below the pressures and norms that we face in society… and thus, they are rarely addressed.

Along my own journey of self-actualization, I’ve witnessed dozens of amazing people — friends, course students, live event attendees, etc. — discover their own paths to happiness and self-fulfillment, and I’ve noticed many common themes emerge. In all cases, the happiness they discover and gradually develop internally is seeded by the realization of certain hard yet fundamental truths about the nature of their lives in the present day.

It seems we are all here to realize these truths [Read more…]