Personal Success or Failure

2:19 AM by pbrandt
It always seems to take one thing going wrong in life to trigger a need to review the rest of your life as well. That "aha" moment came for me this week when yet again I was faced with a job that has become highly unfulfilling.

In that moment of wonderment, I began to look at my life overall and what I have accomplished. To many it would appear that I have accomplished a lot. Too me, it appears I have accomplished almost nothing.

Outside of the standard "two wonderful kids and a fantastic marriage," I began to peer deeper into my commitment to other parts of my life. At 55 it has become somewhat apparent that time is running out. Not in the "I'm going to die soon" kind of thing, but the whole "my wild and crazy youth (yeh right!) has been replaced with a wonderful stable lifestyle." Maybe it’s a midlife crisis…again.

I am not interested in getting people to try to convince me I have it good, or I have accomplished great things. My head isn't there. I am the first to agree I have done plenty of things in my life and I have always done what I wanted. I wanted to become an author, I did. I wanted to act in movies and television, I did. I have even written a couple of screenplays which are being produced. I am living in the Middle East making lots of money and although I am good at what I do, the inner satisfaction doesn't appear to be here. So, that's not it. Let me explain.

The problem is that if what I want to do doesn't pay anything, like acting, or writing, or performing, I chicken out and stick with my safe job instead.
I have always secretly known it, but throughout my life I have tried to suppressed it; I am an artist. I have no interest in technology or business, not interested in driving anything or building anything, yet here I sit in my 8 to 5 job. I have no interest in climbing the corporate ladder and yet I sit at my desk every day wondering what the future holds for me.

My first love as a youth was music. I sang in public, at school assemblies, was in a high school band (one of only 2 in a school of 1200 kids) and played trombone in the school band. Unfortunately, I have always been something of a chicken shit. Having grown up in a poor family, the thought of not having enough has always been a real problem for me. I have never been someone who threw caution to the wind and just went for it. My very restrictive, analytical, and chickenshit brain forced me to realize that I was not the best singer in the world or the best musician. So, I looked at all of my options, weighed what my chances were to make it a living and how much it would pay me and basically abandoned it right away. I methodically rationalized my dream away.

It still bothers me when I hear of musicians, like Joe Walsh from the Eagles, who used to live in his car, who had a passion for music so strong he couldn't fathom doing anything but be a singer / guitar player in a band. People like him have a passion to stick it out, through the poverty, through the hard times, and through a personal need to do what they know they love to do. Success finally came to him and to most people who stick it out and do what they believe in. People like him become wealthy and successful because they live their passion. I should have had the guts to follow my heart. My brother did it. I didn't.

So, here I sit in a fantastic job, making more money than I ever could in North America and living in a paradise. People spend big money to vacation here and my wife and I live here year round. I know it can't get much better than this. I am sure you are reading this thinking "what a putz! He's whining about his life and people would give anything to switch places with him."

I won't disagree with that, but again this topic is about what I consider success and failure in my life and not about my situation.

I suspect it all started with my inability to really identify what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always envied people like my brother who knew as a kid he wanted to be a builder and has done that for the last 40 years. Building 35,000 sq. ft. mansions is what he loves to do and he is really, really good at it! He has been very successful in that aspect of his life.

I, on the other hand, spent 20 years in the Canadian Military because my ex-wife thought it was a good idea. When I left that job, I couldn't commit to anything again, so I knew I liked write and I could combine writing with my technical background so I went for it. It didn't hurt that it paid good money.

Once again I realize that it's not my passion.

In fact, I find technical writing very easy and therefore not much of a challenge. To most other people what I do is difficult, tedious, and of no interest to them. I get it. I like to write…anything, both technical and creative. It's my general lack of direction that appears to be the motive of my malaise.

I would love to make a living as an author writing novels, but that too failed miserably, so here I sit working as a technical writer because it pays the bills. I am pathetic.

It has dawned on me that I have become a jack of all trades and a master of none. I was an okay hockey goalie, but not great. I can write novels, but they don't sell, I was an okay aircraft technician but not excellent, I can play guitar, but I'm far from great at it and I have been taught some good acting skills, but I am no Brad Pitt by any stretch of the imagination. See where this is going? I have tried to do everything I wanted to do but I have never really committed myself to anything with a passion and become excellent at it, top of the heap, leader in my field because that would require me to give up my nice paycheck.

My last blog talked about changing old habits to new ones and how willpower is the worst thing to use to change things in your life. I need a new approach.

Approach #1
I need to get out of my current day job funk and make myself busy in a new role somewhere else in my organization, or gather work from other sections within my company so I don't stay so frigging bored. I need to revise my old work habits and replace my inactivity with lots of activity. It makes me feel better when I have more, not less, work to do.

Approach #2

My health is not optimal and that is almost entirely because I am overweight. I have used willpower to the extreme and I am still fat. It is time to change my eating HABITS…a little at a time until I master the art of eating and slim down to my proper weight. I love to eat and I like to eat the most at night, a proven disaster for me. Changing a few habits like only eating vegetables after 4 PM should take care of that and begin the slow process of getting my weight down to an acceptable level.

Approach #3

I recently took guitar lessons and although I love my Taylor guitar and love playing it, it just isn't my instrument. I have learned enough to be able to play chords and with the right amount of practice, it could be useful if I ever want to get back into a band. Of course, at my age, I am not sure how realistic that would be…who wants an old fat bald headed guy in their band. Maybe other old fat bald headed guys? Maybe if I lose some weight I can just be old and bald.

The point is, the instrument that I truly am enjoying learning is the violin, and my lessons are going well. Instead of backing out or giving up when it begins to get hard, I need to change my strategy. I need to commit to learning how to play this instrument and become a master of it, not just okay playing it. This will require me to set up a new HABIT. I need to practice every day, no excuses…15 minutes to start so it doesn't seem overwhelming at first, and move up to one hour a day. The more I practice, the better I will get.

I also need to learn how to play it properly through a recognized institution. This means taking the music school exams and going through the grades like everybody else does until I am a certified violin player. No longer am I going to do it my way, as I did writing novels, which made no money. I can at least say I have learned from this lesson.

I really think that this is my ticket out of the 9 to 5 job I have learned to endure. Being a kick ass violin / fiddle player who can play rythmn guitar would be an asset to any band.

I know it's in me. I was born to perform. I love to act, sing, and play in a band as well as writing. I listen to music all day, every day when I write at work and at home. This should have been a big red flag a long time ago for me in identifying where my love and my passion lives.

I was born an artist, I can see that now. It's time to become so proficient in playing the violin that bands start calling me to play with them.

My brain screams "you are an artist!"

Peter A Brandt   
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Changing Habits and Why Willpower Never Works

1:13 AM by pbrandt
I have been reading an excellent book titled the "Happiness Advantage" and last night it touched upon something I had not expected. The book is generally about how being happy is much better in business and in life than not being happy.

But last night the author Shawn Achor described how during one of his lectures a man stood up and asked him, "isn't this all just common sense." It was an awkward moment for Shawn but he worked his way through it. After the lecture he was informed that the individual who had made the comment was in fact one of the most negative people in the company. It may have been obvious, but not obvious enough to this guy.

Comment sense doesn't mean common action.

Knowledge is only part of the battle. Without action, common sense doesn't help, which would explain why 44% of doctors are overweight and don't take the same advice they give their patients.
80% of people break their New Year's resolutions. Therefore, why is changing our out behavior so hard and how can we make it easier.

I have personally struggled to lose weight and I have all of the motivation and willpower to carry this out, yet years later, I am still at the same 25 lbs. overweight I have always been. Why?

William James, brother of Henry James the famous writer, penned the phrase "we are mere bundles of habits," which is actually a good thing. It prevents our brains from making thousands of decisions every day, such as "should I wear clothes to work, should I brush my teeth." Our habits do these things instinctively and allow our brains to concentrate on things that are more important.

What this means is that we need to make changes in our lives by turning them into habits; otherwise, we will fall back into our old routine - our old habits. We need to train our brains. When I played the violin for the first time, it sounded like crap because my neuron pathways in my brain were slow and ineffective…but as I continue to practice my brain begins to understand what I am trying to accomplish and it makes my fingers and bow hand move quicker and more efficiently. Habits form when we train our brain to the new way of doing things.

Willpower will always fail as a reason to make a change. The more we use it, the less effective willpower becomes. In the past when I used willpower to lose weight I no longer have willpower or mental energy to do anything else. The path of least resistance then took over, and we follow whatever is the easiest. Having to cook low calorie foods is much harder than ordering a cheeseburger at MacDonald's. The path of least resistance always wins out. So, what to do I need to do to change this?

For me to lose weight I need to plan in advance, and I need to have healthy snacks and foods at the ready. Then when I feel the need to eat something, the healthy stuff will be readily available. I need to make it harder for myself to continue with the old habit while I work on a new one - eating healthy and losing the weight. I can rid my fridge of all the things that I shouldn't eat and only have things I can or should eat. I need to keep no cash in my wallet so I can't go and buy chips and burgers. At least until I have trained my brain in the new habit of eating healthy and low calorie.

Standing for an hour practicing my violin seems so difficult. If I start with 15 minutes a day instead, this  small change is easier to do and will begin to make a positive change in my habits. Soon I can go to 20 minutes, then 30 and 45 and before long carrying out a 1 hour practice will be a given.

As well, if I surround myself every day with healthy low calorie foods and make getting unhealthy and high calories foods harder to obtain, my body and brain will naturally go to the path of least resistance, which is to eat healthy and low calorie. As long as I don't ever deny myself a burger or a piece of pie or a Tim Horton's coffee, then I won't feel compelled to sabotage my new habit.

Make little changes until you are satisfied with your progress, and then increase your change a little more at a time.
I'll let you know if it works.
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How to live to 100

2:25 AM by pbrandt
I received a lot of positive responses to the Positive Thinking report I wrote, so here I am again giving a synopsis on another topic that interests me, and maybe you as well.

I listened to an excellent TED audio presentation on my way to work. It was called How to live to 100.

1.       1 in 5000 people live to 100.
2.       Our bodies are designed to last us around 90 years of age, but the average life expectancy in the USA is 78 – 12 years less than what our bodies were designed to last. This is because we are go out of our way to stress our bodies until it breaks.
3.       He stated that our cells regenerate every 8 years and each time they do, they are a little more damaged and by the age of 65 the damage begins to compound exponentially.
4.       Our genes and diet are major indicators of how long you will live. Being born into a family with poor genes will likely shorten your life, no matter what you do from that point on.
5.       So the study went looking to find on the planet an area where the most amount of people who lived to 90’s and 100’s and they found three places. One is in Sardinia off the coast of Italy where the oldest living males live, second in the United States (California) for the longest living women (a sect of Seven Day Adventist’s religious group) as well as group of ladies who live in Okinawa off Japan.
6.       So what did they all have in common. Well, nothing major that jumps out at you but here are some of the things they learned.
a.       None of them had a regular exercise routine, but they did exercise through everyday lifestyle. They were active, had a lifestyle that required physical activity. In Sardinia they lived in the mountains and therefore had to walk up and down the streets all the time. The ladies in USA did not have appliances and conveniences so if they baked a cake, they had to make it by scratch.
b.      All of them ate a plant based diet…vegetables, although the study found they did eat meat – Sardinia men loved their meat and Mediterranean diet. Okinawa residents ate more tofu and soy products than anywhere else on earth. USA women didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs and ate mainly vegetable based diet – but they had a spiritual lifestyle.
c.       All of them watched that they didn’t overeat…by eating with smaller plates, eating smaller portions, and the ladies in Okinawa kept to a diet of around 1200 calories a day. This is considered too low for most people but for them it appeared to protect them (through the starvation mode our bodies go into when we eat a restricted calorie diet).
d.      One of the most important thing they found was they had more best friends throughout their lifetime. In the USA the average person has 1 ½ friends…the lowest these groups had was 3 friends and most had more.
e.      They lived in a real sense of community…either by religion that bound them together, or in the case of the 100 year old Okinawa women, they were a group of friends that were in constant contact with each other daily throughout their entire life.
7.       The study found people usually become friends with people much like themselves. If overweight, most of their friends were overweight. If you want to be healthy, you need to surround yourself with people that are healthy. 50% chance you will become overweight if your friends are overweight.
8.       They have found that walking is the number one major exercise activity that will extend your life. This is more important than your diet.
9.       Obesity is the quickest way to shorten your life. Mortality rates are doubled in obese people. Your body has extra weight to carry around and contributes to illness in old age.
10.   The presenter told a story about one 97 year old man who didn’t like the quote he was given for work to be done on his house so he did it himself – huffing and puffing all the while as he worked outside in the heat. He ended up in a hospital later on that day but not because of the work he did on his house. He was a doctor who continues to do 20 surgeries a month. Have an active lifestyle. Keep your brain moving.
11.   The old adage that we become ill as we get older is bull. With proper exercise, diet, and friendships we can stay healthy and active into our 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

Summary of how to live to 100
1.       Pick your parents well – your genes are a major factor
2.       Eat a majority of vegetables diet
3.       Keep an active lifestyle – walk when you could drive, swim, do things by hand instead of by machine
4.       Have lots of friends – more that 3-4 good close friends keeps you laughing and enjoying life
5.       A social network – religious or otherwise…spirituality of some form – provides us with lower levels of stress hormone in our body.

Peter A Brandt  
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Positive Thinking Seminar

1:38 AM by pbrandt
Last night a few of us attended a “Positive Thinking Seminar” at Manarat Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi. It was free and had a great buffet lunch afterwards (I am a sucker for free food!)

We got to hear three distinct speakers, starting with a young Canadian guy (I had to put in a plug) by the name of Neil Pasricha. He talked for almost an hour about his life. His wife left him and his best friend committed suicide. He was pretty down at the time and decided to write a blog titled “1000awesomethings.com” to help feel better about himself. At first only his father read his blog but before long 100’s, then 1000’s then millions of people were reading it. He won an award for the best blog in the world and then turned his blog into a New York bestselling book.

The second guy was Chad Crittenden who was diagnosed in his early 30’s with cancer on the bottom of his foot and had to have it amputated. It was a deadly type of skin cancer with an almost 0% survival rate. He ended up appearing on the “Survival” TV show and has run in marathons and now works with helping other amputees fit back into society. His positive outlook was what got him through his ordeal. It has been 10 years since his cancer. He is set to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.

The last guy, Shawn Achor, was my favorite. He has written a book entitled “The Happiness Advantage,” which I have downloaded to my Kindle. He attend and graduated from Harvard University and then became a professor there teaching “Positive Psychology.” I was told that when he offered the course, their expectations were maybe a 12 - 15 people might sign up. Over 1000 people showed up for the class and it was the most successful class at Harvard. He explained his research found that our personal happiness comes from only 10% from external sources and that the other 90% comes from our internal thoughts and feelings. We are responsible for our own happiness and we can be as happy or miserable as we want.

His research also found that happy people:

1.       Have 37% more sales
2.       Are 3 times more creative
3.       31% more productive
4.       40% more likely to get promoted
5.       Have 23% less fatigue symptoms
6.       Are up to 10% more engaged in what we do, and
7.       39% of happy positive people live to the age of 94.

He then went on to tell us five things we can do to become more positive and happier in our life. If we spend the next 21 days doing one or all of these things listed we will train ourselves to be more positive and happy in our daily life.

1.       Every day think of three things to be grateful for and say them out loud or write them down.
2.       Journaling. This means that every day we take a few minutes to write down our thoughts and feelings…kind of like a diary for our brain. They have found that our brain is unable to distinguish between the act of actually doing something or just thinking about do that something. What that means is you don’t actually have to do something to get the benefit of it…just think about doing it and our brain and body gets the benefit.
3.       Exercise…this releases endorphins and makes you feel more positive and happy.
4.       Mediation – this is an excellent exercise to slow our brains and stop it from multitasking. A couple of minutes every day.
5.       Every day carry out a conscious Act of Kindness. They have found that by sending out one positive email a day to someone in our social network who has been helpful, someone we admire or respect, and let them know our positive feeling toward them, this helps to make us more positive and happy.

So, that was the seminar from my perspective.  For those who missed it, I hope this review is helpful. Carly and I practice most of the 5 things and we are extremely happy. Works for us!

Pete
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Amazon, me and my writing

3:17 AM by pbrandt
So, I took a hiatus to writing and I think it was a helpful exercise. I am still learning to play guitar and violin but I have decided not to quit writing. Why?  
If I have learned anything from the Amazon contest, it would be this:
1.       I don’t care what people think of my writing, especially the type of reviewers that participated in the Amazon contest as a judge.
2.       Trying to identify the quality of a book and the storyline by reading 3000 words out of 50,000 words is dumb. I understand the need to make the selection process a little more streamline so they don’t spend a year reading books trying to decide a winner, but it still doesn’t work.
3.       The caliber of reviewers went from very good and constructive to useless, denigrating, and likely a failed writer with a chip on his of her shoulder.
4.       Literary contests are not my thing and I knew that before I entered. I continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. I must be insane entering these contests.
5.       I write for my own fulfillment and not to impress publishing industry executives, although if they are impressed I wouldn’t complain. Hmm so what does that make me?  The book industry is in bad shape and self-publishing with a worldwide audience is much more appealing to me at this point of the game. I continue to write with the idea that good things could happen.

I must admit that I love having 100% control of my work. I make all of my own cover designs and write stories that are important to me all the while collect 70% royalties. I don’t get a large upfront royalty cheque but I don’t need it to live.

Writing is all about marketing and right now, I do more marketing for myself than any publishing company did in the past. I make my own videos, get press releases written and sent out I even have my own author page at Amazon.

Kindle is the best thing to happen to the publishing industry—maybe not publishers specifically but definitely for authors. All of my books are on Kindle and they sell better than paperback. I now own a kindle.
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Music is back in my life

3:54 AM by pbrandt
I can boast that I have a substantial mp3 music collection and I spend every day at work listing to my music. I am not a person who only listens to one style of music. I can listen to classical one minute and country the next. Except for Jazz and Hip Hop, I'm open to listening to all styles.

Being a left hander, I always felt my life would have gone in a different direction if I would have been born right handed. Why? Because I could never learn how to play guitar. Back when I was growing up you either played right handed or turned it upside down to play. Neither one of those options appealed to me. I was heavy into playing in bands and singing and if I would have been able to play guitar I never would have joined the army.

Now that my writing days are over, I decided I needed to learn something new. Of course I was still attracted to learning to play guitar, but as I stated above, I didn't think that was going to happen.

It was my wife Carly who did the asking for me when a new music school opened in our neighbourhood here in UAE.
"Absolutely," they assured her, "we have two lefty's in class right now!"
Talk about my big break. I instantly bought a beautiful Yamaha C70 Classical guitar and started lessons the following week.

It has been 6 weeks now and I am very happy with my progress. My fingers go where there are supposed to go and I am retaining all of the things I was taught up to now.

We took a trip into Dubai to a music store and low and behold they had a left hand electric guitar on sale for less than half price. No left handed guitar players (if there are any in UAE) wanted to buy a lefty Yamaha Pacifica. Talk about luck knocking on my door.

Carly wanted to learn to play piano so we invested in a small keyboard and she is learning to play that on her own.

The next purchase was for a beautiful left hand Giglia violin, along with a bow and a recent purchase of a self taught book and CD. I figured if I could learn to play the fret board on a guitar it shouldn't be too big an obstacle to learn how to play it on a violin.

The amplifier for my electric guitar was the last of it. Perhaps we went a little overboard but I cannot overstate how nice it is to:
  1. Learn to play an instrument - both a mental and a physical challenge, and
  2. No longer be writing novels.
My weekends are now fun. I practice my guitar and violin while Carly practices her piano. I no longer have writing deadlines and receive no rejection letters.

For once in my life the only person standing in the way of my success is me.

I like those odds.
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The writing is going to stop!

4:50 AM by pbrandt
Well March 22 has come and gone and my novel did not make it into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest quarterfinals. Even more important were the comments given to me by the reviewers and they helped make my decision that much clearer.

I am no longer going to write. A venture I truly love to do but alas, the sad reality is that as hard as I tried it is apparent that I am not going to be anything more than a top 20% writer. Don’t get the wrong impression, I consider this to be an accomplishment. I have written over 12 books and published seven. Not bad. But this contest has only strengthened what I already knew.

My last book was titled Canuck GI: The Peculiar Life of a Canadian Soldier. I sent out many press releases, even having it picked up by USA Today as well as publications throughout the world. My web girl Krissy made me an award-winning website and through it all it never became a best seller. For all the work it takes to write a book, the rewards have been missing, which is why my writing days are over.

I don’t mind working hard…spending months hunkered over my Mac, missing dinner dates with my wife so I can concentrate on my writing but with no sales or rewards worth mentioning, its time to move onto another endeavor.

I am fully satisfied and I’ll tell you why. I put my best foot forward. I didn’t scrimp on advertising, paying for a high class website or marketing my book. It failed…but not because I didn’t do it right.  It just wasn’t what the public wanted and I can accept that. Which is why I can move on with my head held high. There is nothing worse that looking back and thinking “if I only would have done this, or that, it might have been successful.” I don’t have that. It failed all by itself.

So, what’s next? I have had music in my blood since I was in elementary school. I won the school district singing contest 4 years in a row and have sang and played keyboards in numerous bands.

I have always wanted to play guitar and I am now taking lessons. As well, we own a keyboard and I will be buying a left hand Fender Strat and a left hand Giglia Violin. Between my wife Carly and me, we are going to focus on learning how to play these instruments.

It’s important not to be scared of failure…otherwise you won’t try new things. I am an excellent storyteller and my novels are very interesting and entertaining – they just aren’t up to professional publishing standards. My excellent technical writing career just hasn’t transpired into creative writing. I have had limited success but just not enough success to warrant continuing to do it.  What I have got from this endeavor is the knowledge that I can do it. As well, I have become friends with some very cool people.

Therefore, I am moving on to another endeavor…one that if nothing else will give me lots of pleasure.
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