How to Accomplish Your Goals

2 May 20162 May 2016

We always struggle to stick to a goal we set for ourselves. We say we want to lose weight. We are gung ho about it for a few weeks (if we can make it that far) and then we quit. Maybe we want to save money, but end up going on a spending spree instead and spend all the money we saved. Or maybe we want to take classes, but end up quitting after a few weeks.

We’ve all been there. We try, but often give up before we’ve truly started. We give it our all at the beginning, but then lose steam and all interest shortly thereafter. We don’t like the discomfort, pain and changes that come along with trying to accomplish our goals. It’s so much easier to just give up and go back to our old ways, saying we’ll try again later. It’s easier to say “Yes!” to the doughnut, instead of focusing on our healthy lifestyle.

What if you discovered the secret to accomplishing all of the goals you set for yourself? Would you try again? Maybe set higher and better goals for yourself?

The trick to accomplishing your goals all lie in changing your beliefs by creating new beliefs.

Polly Campbell writes in “Detoxify Your Thoughts,”

Beliefs are simply thoughts or ideas repeated over and over until they become tethered to every aspect of our lives. We take them as truth — even though they are merely illusions. We act from them. And, as a result, they are reflected back into our lives as tangible results. Empowering beliefs can support us en route to our greatest potential. However, often we are saddled with limiting beliefs that narrow our possibilities and keep us from the things we most desire.

She goes on to discuss how we can recognize beliefs that sabotage our goals, and silence them by creating new, positive beliefs to help us accomplish our goals. It is an article worth reading in understanding the process of stopping the sabotage right from the start and trying to overcome it by creating new and positive thoughts that will help you accomplish your goals.

Create Daily Visualization

I create new goals for myself all of the time. The current goals I’m working on in an attempt to make them a lifelong habit is to exercise more, meditate two times a day, complete 100 chores a day, eat healthier, read more and write more. With each goal, I know that I have to make small, but definitive changes each day where I can see I have made actual progress.

Having a monthly/weekly calendar to keep track of the progress of my goals has been the most important tool I have in my arsenal. By visually keeping track of each accomplishment, it gives me more power and incentive to keep going.

I use THIS calendar as my every day calendar. It is unique because at the beginning of the planner, you can list all of your goals, including a time frame you’d like to accomplish each goal. The calendar is designed by Whitney English of Day Designers. It has by far been the best calendar I have used to date. You can download FREE printables from Day Designers to get yourself started. What’s great about Day Designers is that you can customize your own calendar according to your lifestyle or needs. What I also love about Whitney English’s Day Designers is that she teaches you how to best use your calendar by offering you guidance on how to calendar and focus on getting the things done you want to get done. Her calendars are one of the best calendars for perfectionists, Type-A’s, and people who have goals and need a structured way to accomplish their goals. She helps you think outside the box and gives you the tools to focus on how to get through your day and accomplish the goals you have set for yourself.

Day Designers has been working in collaboration with Blue Sky (soon her calendars will be in Target). So if she’s sold out on her site, check Blue Sky for additional products.

Don’t Be Discouraged

One resolution I have this year is to read more than 52 books (12 classics) by December 31, 2016. I started off fantastically. But this past month, I read only two books. Visually seeing that setback could be discouraging. I could do like I did in the past and stop reading for the next few months, telling myself this is something I can’t do. It’s just a crazy feat I will not be able to accomplish. In other words, I could completely sabotage myself.

It’s something we all do because it’s so much simpler to not challenge ourselves to be better. It’s easier to just curl up and flip through Instagram photos, or play Farm Heroes, or read tweets on Twitter. Why read when you can do something else, right? We can always do mindless things that do not challenge ourselves to be better.

It’s easier to indulge in our cravings and reach for that doughnut when you’re on a diet, or buy that new handbag when you’re trying to save for a house, or sleep in when it’s raining outside and you are supposed to go workout. After all, we live in an age of instant gratification. Why work hard to be something we’re not, when it’s so hard or too much work is involved? It’s just easier to give into our cravings then it is to resist them.

That’s because the things that are going to be amazing for us takes a lot of work. We appreciate it more when we have to work hard for it. We will never appreciate the things that come to us easily.

A calendar is a great way to reflect on how you are accomplishing your goals. Even if you only complete two items that month towards that goal, or you suffer a bit of a setback…don’t look at it as a setback. Look at it as part of the challenge. Reflect at the end of the month how you can work with that ‘setback’ to get yourself back on track to accomplishing your goal.

For example, say you saved up $5,000 for a down payment on your dream home, and then your car breaks down. All of that money has to go towards the repairs on the car. You are dismayed because you have to start saving all over again. Don’t give up! Just keep doing what you were doing. You got to $5k and that was an accomplishment. It also means you can do it again. Keep going. Maybe even look for more creative ways to make that money a little faster than you did the first time around. Find fun ways to make that money. Pretty soon you’ll find twice that in your savings account. What you thought was a setback ended up being just a small snafoo.

One thing I always like to remind people is that even millionaires and billionaires can lose their entire fortune. They can end up far more broke than the homeless guy on the street. They pick themselves up and in no time, they have those millions/billions of dollars back in no time. How? Because they had the tools of knowledge on how to make that kind of money. All they had to do is keep doing what they were doing before. Soon they have even more money than they did before. That minor setback was only a learning experience. It wasn’t forever.

That setback taught them how to be better at business so that they could make even more money than they ever did before. They learned from their mistakes and went in a new direction.

The Steps

Accomplishing your goals are simpler than you think it is. You just have to be willing to do the work. It first starts by changing your beliefs.

Get a monthly/weekly calendar. Write down all of your goals for the year. It could be getting out of debt, saving more money, paying off your mortgage or student loans, eating healthier, exercising more, learning a new language…whatever you dream of being, put down all of your goals that will lead you to your ultimate goal of the person you envision yourself as being.For me, each time I finish a book, I put a sticker in my monthly calendar, marking completion of a book. I write down the number of the book, so I know how many books I’ve read so far that year. I then put another sticker in the weekly section and write down the name of the book and the author. Being able to visually see what books I read gives me a clearer reflection of what I read over the past year. It also helps me remember what I read!
Stay positive. In the previous example, even though you suffer a little setback and feel like you have to start all over again, you shouldn’t be discouraged. You were able to save $5k. Give yourself a pat on the back. You were able to create success in attaining your goal. You were also given the tools on how to save up that money. You can use those tools to raise that money again.By remaining positive and staying focused on your goal, you can keep pushing forward. Campbell says “with practice and commitment you can trade out the bad beliefs for better ones.” So instead of thinking you failed, think of how you were lucky that you had that $5k saved up. If you hadn’t had that money saved up when the car broke down, you would have been screwed.Instead of focusing on the negative, focus on the positives of the situation. With that new understanding, you can charge forward with your goal. But while you’re charging forward with your goal, think of how you can improve on this situation. Is there a way you can make the money faster than you did before? Can you start making money off of a hobby you have? Can you make money off of the items you don’t need anymore? Can you work a part-time job? Brainstorm how you can help reach your goal faster after this small setback. You’ll have the $5k plus more in no time.
Just remain positive.
Take pride in every little accomplishment. Losing weight doesn’t happen overnight. Books don’t read themselves. That mile isn’t going to run itself.The purpose of the calendar is so that you can see that you are actually accomplishing your goal one step at a time. Each day, I count how many chores I do. My goal is to do 100 chores a day. I wake up and start doing chores, counting them in my head, no matter how sleepy I am. I write the number down on the chalkboard and move on with my day. When I get home at the end of the day, I finish up my 100 chores and then I sit down and relax.You may think it’s nuts doing 100 chores a day, but it’s actually quite simple. Each dish I wash counts as one chore. Each piece of mail I go through counts as one chore a piece. That makes getting through those 100 chores so much easier. I oftentimes have to make myself stop at 100 so I can have something to do the next day. I do it this way because knowing I accomplished a daily goal makes me happy. It tells me that I can do anything I set my mind to, because I accomplished a goal for the day.
If I didn’t have those 100 chores a day, I would save the chores for the weekend and end up not being able to relax and enjoy my weekends. In a way, I would be sabotaging myself from all of the other things I want to do…like write more.

My daily goal of 100 chores a day spills over into wanting to accomplish other goals. Those 100 chores forces me to get up at 5:30AM to meditate, workout and write. It encourages me to create healthier recipes and to eat healthier. It allows me to create time for doing the things I want to do with my life, because I’ve created a new belief system. I can visually see that I can accomplish a daily goal. That good feeling of knowing I’ve accomplished a goal I’ve set for myself, tells me I can accomplish all of my goals.
If you make it part of your belief system, you’ll find time. One of the biggest excuse people come up with is not having time to do what they want to do. They don’t want to make time to do it. They are not a morning person, so they don’t want to wake up to workout. Eating healthy is too expensive. They don’t have time to read. They’re already strapped for cash, so how can they save money?Simply put, if you make your goal a part of your belief system, you’ll accomplish your goals. I don’t like waking up before the sun rises, but I do. I have a Maine Coon cat that wakes up at 4AM every morning. He tries to wake everyone up at that time and doesn’t stop until he’s fed at 5:30AM. After he’s fed, maybe he’ll let you sleep until 7AM.After two years of this, I find I wake up a few minutes before he does. That’s when I was able to find time to meditate in the morning. At 5:30AM, the cats are fed and I start yoga or tai chi. After yoga, I sit down with a cup of coffee and write or do research. At 7AM, I begin my day. As I go along in my morning routine, I do chores here and there. On the commute in, I read. At the office, when I find I’m going to be at my computer for an extended amount of time, I listen to an audio book, mainly classics (like now, I’m listening to Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”). On the commute home, I read. When I get home, I finish up the 100 chores for the day before sitting down to relax. By the time I’m in bed, I do some more reading, waiting for both cats to fall asleep so that I can do one last meditation before I go to sleep.
I’ve learned that through meditation, I don’t have to sleep as much. Five to six hours of sleep are all I need. I’ve learned to sleep when Matthew Lucifer (the Maine Coon) sleeps. It’s quite similar to new parents learning when to sleep when their children sleep. They learn to get their few minutes of ‘me’ time in here and there.

The thing is no matter what your circumstances are, you can create time to accomplish your goals by making it a part of your belief system. If you want to live a healthy life, you have to constantly make it part of your choice and belief system until it becomes an unconscious belief. In the beginning, you have to keep at it until the change has become a part of your life.

Matthew used to wake me up every hour on the hour when I first adopted him. I had Mom Brain that whole first year…then all of a sudden a miracle happened. In November 2015, he slept through the night, waking up between 4AM-5AM, demanding breakfast at 5:30AM. Now, we’re all on his sleep schedule. Luckily, the times he wakes up are the times I’m supposed to be getting up to meditate, workout and write. He has helped me find a time to do the things I really want to do. Those are the times I used to wake up when I was in high school to finish my homework, because I was too tired at night to think. I’m still that way. I never write at night, because I’m too tired.

It was difficult at first getting used to waking up early again, but bringing meditation into my life helped me see that I don’t need to sleep as much…but I do need a lot of coffee.
The mind is a powerful thing. By meditating twice a day, I am able to focus on the things I want out of life. All of my goals are easier to accomplish, because I am able to get rid of the clutter in my mind and focus on the things that are important to me.If there’s anything I know that is true, always keeping a positive mind will make wonderful things happen for you. It doesn’t just take a positive mindset, it takes a powerful mind. Meditation is the only way to creating a powerful mind. You’ll be able to confront your own demons, the ones that try to sabotage you every step of the way. You’ll be able to vanquish them and decide that you are not going to listen to the naysayers in your head. You’re going to focus on the good stuff.You learn how to speak to yourself in a nice way. You won’t tolerate the bad thoughts. When the bad thoughts happen, you’ll decide that you’re not going to listen to those thoughts anymore. You choose to listen to only the good things. You choose to remain positive.
It takes a lot of practice to focus on choosing the good and positive things in life. That’s why I meditate no less than two times a day. A lot of times, I go for walks and meditate while walking (not all meditations are closed eyes).

We all have things we have to work on inside of us. We can choose to let go of our past and focus on creating a better self for ourselves. Meditation is a powerful thing. It’s you taking back control over your entire life and deciding that from here on out, you’re going to live an amazing life.

You’ll begin to see that you are not a victim of circumstances. You are the creator of your circumstances. We all have choices we make in life. How we view life and the challenges that happen along this journey, is all a choice.

We can choose to look at life negatively, thus creating a negative circumstance, or we can choose to see things in a positive light and see great things happen. We can see the silver lining even in the worst of circumstances.

Achieving your goal is all in a mindset. It’s all about incorporating your goal into your own belief system.

WHAT TO DO

You’ve gotten this far. First, read that article by Campbell. You’ll see how you can stop from sabotaging yourself and strengthen your belief system.

Get yourself an all-in-one monthly/weekly calendar to keep track of your accomplishments. Be colorful about it. I use different color pens and stickers.

Create a daily goal that you know you can accomplish every single day. Mine is 100 chores a day and to read 50 pages a day. This is your daily dose of the “You Can Do It!” feeling that will overflow into your other goals. It will help give you motivation to accomplish your other goals.

See your setback as a challenge to up your game. Don’t be dismayed when you feel like everything you worked so hard for is wiped out from under you. Instead, take a moment to reflect. Keep doing what you were doing, but ask yourself how you can do this better. Is there something you overlooked? Is there a way you could probably improve upon what you’ve already done? Is there a way you can do this differently, but still accomplish your goal?

Take one step at a time. It is tough making changes like waking up early in the morning to go for a run. When you get up in the morning, resolve to thinking the SNOOZE button no longer exists and you have a crazy Maine Coon cat waking you up and attacking you if you even attempt to press snooze (yes, mine does this). You are accomplishing something each time you wake up and resolve to run.

Keep in mind that you are taking this one step at a time. Create better habits with each step. Maybe instead of taking the elevator up those few short flights, you’ll arrive 10 minutes earlier to walk up those flights of stairs. If you sit at your desk during lunch, resolve to walk during lunch to get in your daily 10,000 steps. Make small, but positive changes to accomplish your goals. This is about incorporating this into your belief cycle…the belief that you should be doing this because it is WHO YOU ARE.

Do this again and again and again until it becomes an unconscious decision inside of you. Practice Makes Perfect! If you want to eat healthier, it’s about always wanting to choose the healthier food the majority of the time. If you don’t like healthy food, create healthy food you’ll fall in love with. It’s all about trial by error. Sometimes you’ll find that trying and trying again, even attempting new things to reach your goals will create a new passion in life…being the person you always dreamed of being…YOU in this moment…the person that accomplished their goals and made their dreams come true.

Everyone Has Their Own U2 Story

5 August 20156 August 2015

Everyone has their own U2 story…that story when they first fell in love with the music.

For me, it was just one of those bucket list moments. I was living in Washington, DC, trying to find some direction in my 20-something life. Fresh out of college. Maybe I was working in politics or law during that time. I can’t remember. U2 came to town and I said to myself, “I have to see this band at least once in my lifetime.”

I wasn’t a huge die hard fan. I knew a few of their songs. I mean…who doesn’t? I still remember “Where the Streets Have No Name” being among the first music videos I had ever seen on MTV during those days when I would sneak out and go over to my neighbor’s house to watch the forbidden MTV with my friend.

When I went to see them play at MCI Center in DC, I had no idea what U2 would do to me that night. I went in expecting nothing, and U2 changed my entire existence.

It was like they were making love to their music. I could feel each note in every single cell of my body. The energy of each note vibrated within my very being. I became intoxicated with the rhythm and flow of the music. It was like I was riding the waves that they bring. [“Even Better Than The Real Thing” reference.] They literally blew my mind.

I walked away from that concert a changed person. It began a new adventure into discovering who I was.

From wanting to change the world, working with non-profit groups, to learning more about the issues around the world, I began to see who I was in the grander scheme of the universe. The music opened my mind to who I am and who I could be.

I was sitting in traffic on the way to work one day and “Stuck in a Moment (You Can’t Get Out of)” came on the radio. Bono was singing, “You’ve got to get yourself together, you got stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it.” I listened to that over and over again and then said, “NO. I’m not stuck. Not anymore.” And that’s when I decided to leave DC and pursue a different path in life.

I was young, not dumb
Just wishing to be blinded by you
Brand new
We were pilgrims on our way

“The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)”

Behind the Lens

In due time, I would end up in New York City. I never understood why I ended up here, all I knew was that this is where my path led. It was while I was here that I discovered who I am and the person I will become. I’m a writer first and foremost. When I first started out writing for Orato.com back in 2007, they asked that I start submitting my own photos with my work.

My editor pushed me in that direction, because she was also a photographer herself. That push ended up opening me up to understanding how I see the world. Photography is one of the best ways for me to visually see how I am improving spiritually in life. It’s not the quality of the camera that determines if the picture is a better picture. It’s the person behind the camera.

I read this story the other day:

A photographer went to a socialite party in New York. As he entered the front door, the host said ‘I love your pictures – they’re wonderful; you must have a fantastic camera.’ He said nothing until dinner was finished, then: ‘That was a wonderful dinner; you must have a terrific stove.’ – Sam Haskins

In other words, it’s the person using the device that creates wonder, not the device itself.

A friend once told me that I have the ability to capture the beauty in the moment. It’s how I look at the world. I look for the beauty in the moment. It’s in that moment that helps me to remember and connect to the things I’ve forgotten and will forget. To capture the beauty of that moment, I have a visual aid as I take the steps to remembering what happened in that exact moment.

I mention the importance of remembering things forgotten because after the last tumor, I lost a lot of my memories. I spent the next year trying to piece things back together again. I created a 4’x4′ collage of photos of the places I had been from all over the world. It was a collection of beautiful moments.

Each day, I would stand in front of that collage and focus on one photo trying to remember where I was, who was there with me, what I ate while I was there, the smells, and how I felt. Who was I in that moment? A simple photo is a beautiful memory to me and a key piece in remembering who I was. It became a training tool to help me focus. It was like playing a game of Memory, but matching the photo to the actual life event that had become lost in the river of forgetting.

Bono made a comment during the show about ‘photographs.’ He said we were missing the moment. We were missing the concert because we were glued to our devices. I beg to differ, Bono. The person behind the lens of my camera is documenting a moment that is going to be relived again and again and again. More importantly, any person who knows me can tell you, what you see in the final product is not just the subject. You’re seeing how I see you. I’m able to pull out the beauty of that moment so that I can share it with the world. Some people will see it, others won’t.

I can find a simple moment that may mean nothing at the moment to anyone and create a moment that means everything to everyone who sees the photo. It creates a symbolic gesture that will take your breath away every single time you see it. Yet, in that actual moment, it means nothing to the person being photographed.

The joy isn’t just in the music and seeing U2 on stage. For me, the joy is being able to finally photograph them and share just what I see. While some of these photos look distorted due to the lighting, etc., that’s not what I see. I see the energy. I see the soul. I see the life force. I see the beauty in the art. It’s how I see them.

The Music

U2 was formed the year I was born. It’s a bit synchronistic how their music would follow me throughout my journey in life. Joshua Tree. Achtung Baby. Rattle and Hum. Zooropa. All That You Can’t Leave Behind. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Invisible. Big Girls Are the Best. What’s Going On?

There was even a time a musician was trying to get me to forgive him and come back to him. When he saw me walk into the club one night, he stopped right in the middle of a song he was playing, pointed to me and said, “This one is for you,” and started strumming out the chords to the song. He knew how much I loved U2. When I realized what he was doing, I walked right out of the club. I wouldn’t let him bastardize U2 or equate some memory of him to a U2 song.

I won’t let anyone I have come across in this lifetime connect themselves to a U2 song. To me, “One” is not about two lovers fighting. To me, “One” is about my relationship with God when I’m mad at him for breaking my heart. Some rockstar wants to make it about us? No. I can’t ever let him do that, because then I’d never listen to the song again.

To me, “One” is God asking me: “Is it getting better? Or do you feel the same? Will it make it easier on you now? You got someone to blame.” When I was really mad, that song would come on and it would make me really reflect deep within my soul about the relationship I have with God, the father. I would probably not have forgiven God for breaking me if it weren’t for that song.

Since that concert in DC, U2’s music has become my spiritual soundtrack in life. It’s not always just the lyrics to the songs. A lot of times it’s just the music. Desire is one of my favorite songs. I have no idea what it’s about. It’s one of the first (and only) songs I learned to play on the guitar. Who knew that what The Edge makes sound so complicated is actually just a few chords mixed in with his genius?! That’s what I call art. Or how about Larry Mullen, Jr. on the drums in “Sunday Bloody Sunday?” Or Adam Clayton on the bass in “Bullet the Blue Sky?”

If there was any song that explained my entire spiritual existence, it is “Running to Stand Still.” What the song is really about is not what it means to me. The song is my spiritual journey in life. “She said, I’ve gotta do something about where we’re going…” “I see seven towers, but I only see one way out.” “You got to cry without weeping, Talk without speaking, Scream without raising your voice,” “She’s running to stand still.”

This song probably has some of the most powerful words in it. To the band, it’s a song about a heroin-addict couple in Dublin. To me, it represents the internal spiritual journey filled with conflicts and choices that come along when deciding what to do. The feeling that you’re running through life only to be able to stand still…that’s the power in words. It explains who I am.

Words mean something different to everyone when they relate to what is being said. What one person says can mean something powerful in different ways to those who hear it. The author of the words may mean one thing, but how the audience relates to the words is something incredible in and of itself. They are the words that provide spiritual growth in a multitude of ways. That is how God speaks. He says a million things all at once. Our simple minds can’t register it all in one swoop, but the masses together can understand every single word, because we each understand the message in our own way.

U2 is the soundtrack of my life. When I’m writing spiritually and want to get to the core of how I feel and the message I’m trying to relate, only U2 plays in my ears. They provide the music to every soulful piece I write. Their music has been so much a part of my journey in life.

When I was in Fes, Morocco, my guide asked me if I knew who U2 was. I laughed and said, “Of course. They’re my favorite band.” He then told me that they spent a lot of time here working on their music. Who knew that the days that followed, I would end up connecting to Morocco in Mysterious Ways. It’s a very spiritual place, and a country I hold very dear to my heart.

As I started writing about my journey after the riad doors closed and I was locked in at sunset, I turned on my computer, put my earphones on and listened to U2 as I went through my photos and wrote about my journey through this desert land that made me feel God everywhere. He was in the broken smiles of the nomads, the sands that blew in the wind, and the mountains that called out my name. God was everywhere. I could feel him everywhere. That is why Morocco is so important to me. It changed my soul. It is one of the most magical places on the planet.

If there’s any album I’m closest to, it’s “Achtung Baby.” The song “Mysterious Ways” makes my soul dance. “Love is Blindness” is the song that explains the love of my life. The dark, eerie emotion you truly feel when you are still in love with someone who is six feet under and your heart refuses to move on. Some say the song is about committing the violent act of suicide. The love of my life put a bullet in his heart. Loving him has been like my “Love is drowning in a deep well.” Part of me knows that is how he felt as well.

This album defined those teenage years of my life.

Seeing U2 in concert in 2015 comes at the right moment. Post-op, I have felt lost and empty. Who I was prior to that surgery has been gone for some time now. Trying to figure out who I am after the surgery…that is the journey I am on. Just who is that person looking back at me in the mirror? What is she supposed to do with the rest of her life?

Every dream I had before the surgery died that day. I don’t dream anymore about being anyone or having a certain life. The things I wanted more than anything, I look at with disgust now. The question these last two years have been, “Just who are you now?”

That’s where filling that empty cup comes in. Seeing U2 in concert is like refilling that cup that had long gone dry. They’re not reminding me of who I was. They’re reminding me of who I am and who I can be. I am not my past. I am only my present. Who I choose to be in this moment is a writer and a photographer sharing a part of my life with you and what U2 means to me.

Using Fame to Better Humanity

One of the greatest lessons I ever learned from watching Bono was how he was using his fame to better humanity. Using his work as a model, when I’ve interviewed hockey players over these last seven years, I am always curious to hear what they are doing to give back to the world. How are they using their fame to better humanity?

20150731_012929 — Bruce Springsteen joined U2 on stage during Show #8 of the NYC run at Madison Square Garden. July 31, 2015.

The people I am most disappointed with are the ones who embraced their fame and fortune and gave back so little. A visit to the hospital or showing up at a kid’s hockey practice is such a huge thing for them. But they could do so much more.

Then you look at Bono. This guy worked towards getting AIDS patients the drugs they needed to help them. He’s working on getting water into homes so kids don’t risk their lives walking miles away to get clean water to bring home. Those kids risk being killed, kidnapped or raped just to get clean drinking water. While those of us complain about getting no 4G on their phone, there are people that don’t even have running water in their homes. When we don’t finish our meals and just throw it out, I’m always reminded of how there are people that would kill to have the scraps from our tables. There are kids out there that go through the dump just to find rotten food to eat.

There is so much we take for granted. We don’t know how lucky we are. That luck all depends upon where we were born on this planet.

If anything, the work Bono does is meant to not only educate the masses, but it is also designed to help inspire each and every single one of us to our own greatness.

When God gives you fame, you have a choice. Use it for good or use it for evil. Those who use it for good aim to change and inspire humanity to help them evolve into their own greatness. Those who use it for evil use it for their own selfish needs and concerns and give little or nothing back.

When I changed this site around, I wanted to focus on the needs of the many. What could I create that could help benefit humanity? That’s when I came up with the angle that I would share the stories of people out there who are living their dreams in order to inspire others to live their own dreams.

Choosing that path has led to some very incredible things and incredible moments. I’ve met people along the way who are not only just like me, but we are also inspiring each other to our own greatness. There are people I’ve met over these past few months who not only inspire me to work harder and to be wiser with the words I choose, but I am also inspiring them to do the same in their own field. Those are the people you keep close. Those are the people you support. They are part of your journey just as much as you are a part of their journey.

You don’t have to be a mega-rockstar to change the world. You can change the world by starting in your own world wherever you live. You can inspire others to their own greatness. I can tell you right now, there is no better gift you can give to someone than to help them on their journey in life. I’ve never met U2, but they have helped me in this lifetime in ways I can’t even explain or thank them enough for. They set the example of what it means to inspire the masses to be greater human beings. It should also inspire each and every person to do the same. Go out and inspire the people around you to be amazing.

Change begins within you. If you want to make this world a better place, you have to be the change you seek. Do what is right in your heart and follow it at all costs. That’s the journey you were always supposed to be on from the get go.

The Photos

The photos in this post were all taken by me during the July 31, 2015 U2 concert at Madison Square Garden. These pictures join the Rockstar Collection I’ve been building up for the last few years. That series also includes photos of Constantine Maroulis and Pete Yorn. U2 was the final piece that was needed for the collection.

The collection will be released in the upcoming months, as well as the never before seen photos from the Pete Yorn concert.

Certain photographs in the series will be available for sale. Details will follow.

Soul Searching: Our Life’s Work

6 April 2015

We are our own greatest mystery, and our life’s work is to solve ourselves.

– Jan-Philipp Sendker

Today, I want to talk about this quote and how it pertains to this site.

Soul Searching

There are a lot of things in life that I aim to perfect: my mind, my body, my heart and my soul. When I cook up recipes, I look for things that are challenging so that I can become a better cook. When I try out new restaurants and new dishes, it is so I can learn to be more cultured. When I read, I want to learn things I didn’t know before. When I walk this path, I want it to be filled with all of the riches that life has to offer. The only way to do that is by not only becoming a greater human being, but by also challenging myself to make myself better than I was before.

We never know what we are capable of. There are times you can feel so defeated that you feel like the only best alternative in life is death. I know. I’ve been there many times at various junctures in this lifetime so far. I was ready for whatever decision God had for me. He could let this tumor kill me or he could change my life.

That latter part is why this site exists. Back in August 2013, I was diagnosed with a tumor in my parathyroid gland. Both the tumor and the gland had to come out. The parathyroid is the gland in the neck that synthesizes calcium. When I went in for my physical, the amount of calcium in my blood stream was over 120. Normal is in the single or lower double digits.

What did that mean? It meant that not only was the gland synthesizing the calcium I was putting into my body, it was working overtime and pulling calcium from my bones and putting that calcium into the blood stream. Left untreated it could either give me a heart attack I could not come back from or a brain malfunction due to the amount of calcium circulating in the body.

Doctors still talk about my case. It wasn’t because I had a tumor, it was how I knew something was wrong.

Only a Doctor Can Fix It

Right when I had given up on the only dream I had ever had in this lifetime (to have a family of my own), I was struggling with my relationship with God. I was furious with him because for some reason he just didn’t seem to want to make my only dream in life come true. He pointed out this one guy. It was someone he had been talking to me about all of my life. After 36 years of promises and nothing to show for, I doubted God would deliver up what he had promised to me. He was failing to live up to our bargain.

Was what I have done for God my entire lifetime not good enough? Or was it not enough?

I was mad. I felt like I had paid my dues and God decided I was not worthy of this one dream…the only dream. So I decided to break my own heart and let go of the dream. Trust me, I was mad at God. I would sit in the meditation room at the Meditation Center trying to center myself, feel peaceful, but all I could do was scream at God.

Why give me this dream if he never intended to make it come true?

At one point, I heard him yell back at me after having to listen to my laments for a few months. He told me it was enough. There was something more important that I needed to focus on. He told me that there was something wrong. I needed to see a doctor. It was not something I could fix. Only a doctor could fix it.

At first, I blew off the warning. What makes me think this is really God talking to me after I thought he was talking to me all of these other times pointing some guy out to me saying, “That’s him. That’s the one I’ve been telling you about ever since you were a child.”

I blew off making the doctor’s appointment. Each time I went in and humbled myself before God, he kept repeating the same message: “You need to see a doctor. There is something wrong. It is something you can’t fix. Only a doctor can.”

So after several warnings, I made the appointment to see the doctor. I went through all of the motions. I appeared healthy. She just wanted me to go to the gym, maybe interact with other people a little more. Be more social. So I started looking at gyms and classes, trying to take my doctor’s advice.

I was prepping to go on a cruise with my friend when the doctor called and left a message saying she had received my blood tests. She said, “Scrap everything I told you before.” She needed me to come back in to do the tests again. There was something wrong. My calcium count was off the charts. She needed to double check to make sure it wasn’t an error.

I thought to myself, “What in the hell is high calcium?” I quickly did a Google search and discovered that I had hyperparathyroidism. In other words, I had a tumor in my parathyroid gland. This is what we had been waiting five years for. The tumor had finally shown up.

I had been showing signs for the last five years that something was wrong. We knew it was cancer related we just didn’t have any idea where it was in the body. Now we did.

When I returned from the cruise, I was retested and it came back positive that I had high calcium. We started going through the next steps to having the surgery. All the while, they were preparing me for the worst.

With each doctor I saw after the diagnosis, they asked me how I knew. I said, “God told me in my meditation that something was wrong. I couldn’t fix it, only a doctor could.” I repeated this from one doctor to the next.

When I went in for my nuclear tests at Roosevelt Hospital, the doctors had been talking to each other about what I had said. As I awaited the chief doctor’s decision on whether I needed more testing, one doctor sat looking at the screen, shaking his head. He asked me, “How did you know?”

I repeated the same thing.

He was an Indian man. He looked at the screen then looked back at me in disbelief. I realized that God was working his reality on this man.

You see, there was absolutely no way I could have known about the tumor. There are ZERO SIGNS. There are symptoms that can easily be misdiagnosed as acid reflux or feet problems that can be corrected with shoe supports. There are no signs that are definitive that there is a tumor in your parathyroid gland. Only a blood test can reveal there is a tumor.

The doctor told me his faith (before he went into medicine) believed this way. He said this was the actual first time that God and science agreed. They had several doctors ask me the exact same question: How did you know? The fact my response was the exact same every single time, so matter of fact, and I did not appear delusional, it made them question their own beliefs. Maybe God really was talking to us. They had put my responses in my medical report. Each doctor confirmed I said the exact same thing.

Because the truth was, there was something wrong. I couldn’t fix it. Only a doctor could.

I was diagnosed mid-August. I had the tumor removed on October 22, 2013. Who I was prior to going under died that day. Who I became after I woke up…that is the journey I’m currently on.

Who Are You?

I lost almost all of my memories within the weeks that followed. I had to remind myself what my name was every single morning. The woman looking back at me in the mirror…I did not recognize. To this very day, I still don’t see that the person I am today is the same person I was before the surgery. I can tell. I can even see it in the pictures of me before and after. They are two very different people. At least to me, I see two very different people. They do not look the same at all. Actually, I don’t recognize the person looking back at me anymore.

I cut off my long locks. I refuse to grow them out anymore. That person with the long beautiful hair is not me anymore.

That person that loved hockey and writing about it and just loved that journey she was on…she does not exist anymore.

I had to reteach myself how to do so many things, like math, for example. I tested out of every math course in college except statistics (because it was required for my major). To all of a sudden forget how to add simple numbers, do division or multiply…I was absolutely humiliated that I was reduced to being an idiot.

I had problems reading books. I just didn’t want to read. I had no interest in it whatsoever. I knew I loved to read. I just couldn’t pick up a book.

I had to reteach myself how to spell. I’m a credentialed member of the media…I never had to check my work after so many years of writing. Now, I have to read everything ten times before clicking SUBMIT. I leave out words all of the time. ALL OF THE TIME.

I knew I loved to travel all over the world, but something inside of me refused to leave New York. Now, I use my newly adopted cat as a reason I can’t leave.

It took almost a year for this foodie to eat anything beyond basic children’s food. I ate grilled cheese sandwiches for months. I knew I loved amazing food, but I tried to eat it post-op and I could not taste anything. It took almost a year to be able to enjoy something that was absolutely amazing.

In other words, all of this time post-op, I struggled to find myself. I was lost within the walls of this body feeling trapped. I have said to myself every single day since I woke up, “I should have died that day.” But for some reason, God decided I should live. We are not necessarily on the same page.

One think I am thankful for, no matter how complicated this journey has been, was the loss of my memories. He left me with only one memory. He left me with the dream thus far. That story about that guy he had pointed out to me…I remembered him and the story thus far. I could not even remember my own name or the person looking back at me in the mirror, but I remembered that guy.

I couldn’t remember the people that hurt me in the past. When they surfaced, my friends and my brother helped me. If they were bad, they just told me to stay away from them. If they were good, they let me know that person was okay. When the memories came back, it came back without the emotions. I recognize that an emotion existed connected to that person, but I no longer felt that emotion towards that person. I no longer felt the pain and suffering.

While this is a good thing, I think it disconnected me from being human.

Second Chances

This site was a way of finding myself again. It was a way to force myself to rediscover who I was prior to 10/22/13. There are things I discovered in life that were tremendous and amazing. There were experiences I had in life that created this incredible and amazing journey I was on. I needed to find myself again in that confusing emptiness that now existed within me.

I was given a clean slate when I lost the memories. Now, I’m refilling this mind, soul and body with things that will make me into a better human being.

This is also the life of learning how to live without the dream. You just don’t realize how much you are part of something until it is gone. This is what happens when you stop dreaming. You are lost trying to figure out what in the world is going on.

Being Faithful

God gave me a second chance and left me with only one clue…the dream. He didn’t even give me my name. He told me about that dream I had let go.

Knowing God, he’ll make sure he puts this post before the eyes of the other person this dream is meant to be shared with. For some reason that dream means something very important to God. I wish it didn’t. I also realize that this person must have prayed for me to live. I’d like to slap him across the face for it, especially because when you look at our reality today, what has become of the dream? Nothing.

This morning, during my meditation, I was talking to God about reality versus faith today. How can he expect me to have faith in a dream that in reality has never come to fruition?

His answer came from Master Noel Bada just a few minutes later.

God hasn't called us to be realistic, He has called you to be faith-ful to your calling. #MondayMotivation #embracethemoment

— Master Noel Bada (@Master_Noel) April 6, 2015

How about that for an answer? God has called you to be faithful to your calling.

Don’t Forget

Before I awoke from the anesthesia, I felt like I was floating down the river of life, going past houses with families standing alongside the road. They were all smiling and waving as I floated past. I heard God say, “Don’t forget.”

I woke up to the sound of a loud beeping noise and a nurse telling me to breathe. I felt like I had just taken a dip into God’s ocean of love. I was reborn.

All of these things are connected: the dream, seeing families alongside the road, and remembering only one person in this entire universe (and it wasn’t me).

That is life’s mystery, trying to figure out what this life is meant for. We are meant to solve that mystery.

It’s Not the Story, It’s Just the Setting

In a dream I had not so long ago, God explained this lifetime to me. He explained why the story played out a certain way. He explained the mystery within the story. I am in a certain setting. It’s just the setting. We may think it’s really the journey in life, but it is only the setting.

The setting was created that way because it was designed for the two of us to meet. The real story was the love story.

God appeared as the best friend I took with me wherever I go. No matter what happens, what pain I endure, or the decisions I ultimately choose, I will always return to my best friend no matter what. There is no being in the universe that can rip me away from him, because no matter what happens in the story…even if I lose my way and fall in love with the wrong person…I will always return to God.

That’s where I am in this juncture. I’m working on my relationship with God. I’ve had to go back to the very beginning, reminding myself of the law of attraction. I’ve had to remind myself that my soul is always recording what is happening. That videotape is always seen by God. I must always have pure thoughts, no matter how sad my soul is. I must always do good for others first. Bestow good thoughts and blessings upon people as they walk past. I have to refill my karmic bank account for the next lifetime…the one where I ask God to make sure I don’t come back and I can just stay with him. This child wants to go home, but I’m stuck here. My mission is apparently incomplete.

So this is my new mission: I dream of owning a large home filled with children that do not have a family of their own. Perhaps we can be a family together. That is what I want. This is not something I aim to do with anyone else. I am exactly where I want to be right now. I’ve changed my entire way of being and living because I understand my choice to do this on my own. The dream isn’t about faith anymore…it’s either God delivers what he promised, or he doesn’t. Either way, I’m moving forward without God’s dream. If that dream is so important, he’ll figure out how to deliver it. I’ll look at it with absolutely no expectations. I find that when you expect something and it isn’t delivered, you become disappointed. I kind of don’t want to be disappointed in God again. He has failed me several times already in this lifetime.

But where there is failure and disappointment, sometimes you can look at it as a life lesson. But what that lesson is…only time will tell. You just have to hope and pray you figure it out before it’s time to start a new life all over again.

What Any of This Has To Do With This Site

I just want all of you to understand where I’m coming from by putting my energy into this site. This is my way of challenging myself to be a better human being. By pushing myself to understand things I never understood before, relearning how to do the basic stuff, and using what I’ve learned to create a better world…that is my aim for this site.

I don’t want a life that is just mediocre, because I’m not mediocre in any sense of the word. I aim to have a better life. Most people do. But what is better?

We start with learning how to be a better soul. So once a week I’m going to get spiritual on you. Believe it or not, I find that bearing my soul has always had more interest. Why? Because we relate to each other in some way. We just need each other in order to learn and be inspired to be greater than we were yesterday. That is really our aim in life, to be a better human being than we were yesterday.

That, in itself, is the true journey I’m on. That is this site’s mission: To Be A Better Human Being Than I Was Yesterday.

It’s about healing ourselves and the world. I haven’t heard this song in years, but every time I get a moment of quiet, I hear this song playing in my mind. This is my new life’s mission.

[youtube=https://youtu.be/BWf-eARnf6U]

It’s All About the Climb

13 November 20149 April 2016

Diary Entry (11/13/2014)

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to go back and look at the puzzle pieces in my life. I’m thankful I’ve kept this blog over the years so that I can see the life I lived. There are things I don’t understand like why I’m in this present moment, but going back and reading the entries over again, I start to remember the steps along this path.

Over this past year, I’ve been struggling with memories. I lost the majority of them after my surgery last year. I had cognitive issues prior to going into the surgery (a side effect of too much calcium in the blood). But this could also just be a side effect from the anesthesia. Who knows. All I know is my present struggle I have with both short and long term memories.

Because I know I have cognitive issues now, I’ve been taking steps to re-learn a lot of things like math. It’s hard knowing that I used to be really good at math, and now all of a sudden I don’t know how to add 2+2. I give up the second I have to multiply anything. I count using my fingers and then get so flustered when I don’t understand what comes after 11.

There are days math is simple and I feel like I’m remembering the simple math. Then there are days when it just doesn’t come to me.

The doctor says I’m too young to have Alzheimer’s. But the fact remains, something happened (or is happening).

Writing used to be extremely difficult. To combat that, I’ve been writing more and reading more. I edit more, too. I go back and read things a good 10 times before I publish. Then after I publish, I end up editing it another 3 more times. But the important thing is, practice makes perfect.

I didn’t start this post to talk about my cognitive issues. I wanted to talk about those puzzle pieces.

A few years ago, my Moroccan friend Driss told me to take a look at my life. This life is leading somewhere. I just have to figure out where it’s going. It’s apparent that all of the pieces are in place. I just have to figure out what it all means.

Going back and reading the posts over this last year when the signs kept saying “Go back to the beginning” and “Start all over again,” who knew that starting all over again would mean wiping out so many memories from before.

I even wrote about ‘Re-Branding Yourself.’ Ends up that’s what I’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on. I didn’t realize how re-branding myself would take me into a whole new territory. The direction I decided to take myself and my career ended up being a lot harder. It meant more research. It meant going out and meeting the people I need to know and learn from in order to make this next step in life. They say that when you are on your path in life, you attract the people to you that will help you along the way. The universe will drop into your lap the tools you need in order to grow.

Who knew that going to meet Anne Rice and see her speak about her own career would put me in a unique spot where I realized I’m learning about the changes in going from a hockey writer to a novelist. Hearing her editor speak alongside her helped me realize this unique opportunity to learn what it was I was writing. What set Anne aside from the rest, she was innovative. Interview With the Vampire had never been done before when it was released back in 1976. That was what made it so important.

I thought back to what I was writing and realized…this has also never been done before. As much as I complain (mainly to myself) that there is nothing out there for people like me, I realize that’s because I need to create something for people like me. If that means diving into insanity and hoping I come out alive, then so be it. That may be what it takes to write what needs to be written.

And that has turned into its own theme in the re-branding: to write what needs to be written. What I mean by that is the reason why this blog exists…to help others in the grander scheme of things. If telling a story of someone’s struggle in life in order to get to where they are today helps someone else out there, then that’s the story that needs to be told. You never know who is reading. Just being honest and truthful will help not only yourself, but others.

In the re-branding I noticed the theme in my work that was being repeated over and over again…telling the stories that will help others. Those stories are going to be my main focus.

I also wanted to make sure I had more fan engagement when it comes to hockey, so I changed the way I covered and wrote about hockey. In other words, I’m investing in the fans just as much as they invest in me and my work. I’m giving them different content, but content they will enjoy.

I’m also spending a lot more time researching different subjects pertaining to the content I’m developing. Sometimes this research is hard and difficult to absorb because of the shock that goes along with it, but it needs to be done in order to understand the bigger picture as a whole.

What this all means in the end is that for what I want in this re-brand, it takes a lot of work…much more work than I’ve ever had to do before. Things in life have always come very easily for me. This time around, I want things to be better than they ever were before. I’m branching out of my own comfort zone because I want something bigger out of life…something I’ve never had before.

As I move into the re-brand phase, I am constantly reviewing who to affiliate myself with. I’m looking for the things that are missing in this world, and I’m trying to fill it with an answer. The key to being innovative is to deliver something new to the people. Along the way, you have to pay it forward. Helping others that will help you, those are the people you work with. Most importantly, you promote people that deserve it. Just like if you deserve to be promoted, someone out there will notice your work and promote it. They’ll tell others about you and what you’ve done. Some times, word of mouth is a much louder advertising device than just an ad you pay for. Those are the people you aim to be your audience.

It’s just funny how everything changed last year and I’m now looking back and understanding that certain things had to happen the way they happened in order to push me in a new direction. Starting over again meant starting over bigger than before. That only means that it takes a lot of hard work to do what I’m trying to do. Hopefully, what I’m creating is the right thing in the long run for everyone. It’s amazing to see just what I gave up in order to push myself forward.

The road ahead requires a lot of hard work, but I’m up for the challenge. After all, if the journey isn’t difficult, when you reach the top, did it truly mean anything in the end? What every person has ever told me…it’s all about the climb.