Understanding and becoming our authentic selves may be our greatest life quest. And I’d pose that it is just that, a lifelong quest. To expect less is to minimize and miss it. Honestly friends, it’s not something I really gave gravity and focus to till…recent years. I’ve been pursuing personal performance most of my life, but I missed personal understanding and awareness. I see a lot of high performers who this is the case for. And it catches up to you, unless you want to settle for achievements...
Mar 30, 2023•13 min
We’ve been talking about authenticity. The authentic you. Who and where is it? First off, it’s not a totally unfiltered you. It’s not just a raw you. It’s a you who has become self-aware and at peace by resolving your hurts, wounds, angers and voids. And in that, it’s a journey to becoming authentic, to the greatest degree you can. Our muse is Vienna Pharaon, who I’ve been talking with. Vienna is a licensed marriage and family therapist and one of New York City’s most sought after relationship t...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 9 min
Even if we are being authentic, we often put on different faces for the roles we have in life. I’d like to think I’m the same guy all the time, but how I interact with my 10 year old daughter is different from how I interact with a podcast guest. I’m still me, but I have different expectations and engage from different orientations based on who I’m in front of. Sometimes we can struggle to switch gears. This is my part two session, Values, Motives, and Habits with Vienna Pharaon, licensed marria...
Mar 27, 2023•1 hr 31 min
We are at an all-time high of mental health being a mainstream topic. My experience is people are either fairly tuned in to it, or they just don’t have much thought towards it. Similar to spirituality. And in neglecting to audit and tend to our individual mental health we are missing out on key aspects of our performance. I know I have and it’s a constant challenge to make it a priority. Culturally we stay very busy and have very little margin and downtime, if any, in our day to day lives. We th...
Mar 24, 2023•1 hr 3 min
You know this quote, “It's not how many times you get knocked down that counts, it's how many times you get back up.” The quote is attributed both to legendary army officer George Custer and legendary football coach Vince Lombardy. As I said in a previous episode in this series, I get this concept if you’re in the middle of a battle or football game. But otherwise, I feel it’s fairly misleading and has us all missing out on available growth from our challenges. If you are alive, you will encount...
Mar 23, 2023•17 min
Being authentic is a big buzzword in our culture today. We want authenticity from others and we want to claim our own authenticity. Yet you’re about to get schooled in a stark, yet hopeful reality, and it starts with understanding and accepting that nobody comes into adulthood being authentically who they are, and discovering your true authenticity is a massive undertaking. The hope in this is in realizing that most of your personal struggles in your relationship with yourself and others and eve...
Mar 22, 2023•1 hr 22 min
This is a crux of the show we came to. When bad things happen, hard things happen, we want to know why. We want to figure it out so it doesn’t happen again. This is wisdom. But sometimes challenges and traumas happen that we submit - can’t be reconciled. That may ruffle the feathers of some people’s faith structure, which we’re going to do more of in this episode. This is part 3 on Neeta Bhushan and the message in her new book, That Sucked. Now What?: How to Embrace the Joy in Chaos and Find Mag...
Mar 20, 2023•58 min
My great friend. My doctor. My co-host here on the Functional Friday episodes. Randy James. Medical Doctor and Functional Medicine expert. For the first years of knowing each other I pestered him with what the core pillars of health were and he’d always push back with the answer that…”It depends! What is core for one person may not be for another. It’s very personal to each person’s makeup and pathology.” So in this episode, I tried to hit him up again, but this time, I succeeded. I posed the qu...
Mar 17, 2023•52 min
I’m betting you would benefit from a getaway. It might be a couple hours. Or an afternoon. Maybe a day, and maybe a few days. But here is the thing. Everyone who knows you will benefit too. Your family. Your co-workers. Your employees. Chances are they desperately need you to get out and fill up some so they get more than the dregs. This is a quick message that I may be more qualified to offer than nearly anyone you know. The Self-Help(ful) podcast is brought to you by Ziglar, your premier sourc...
Mar 16, 2023•15 min
One of the gravest dangers of our lives is, we don’t know what we don’t know. I don’t think I’m dumb, but I will always have areas of ignorance to address. Ignorance is merely - lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular thing. It’s our job to continually pursue our own self-awareness. I’m back with Dr Neeta Bhushan, author of That Sucked. Now What?: How to Embrace the Joy in Chaos and Find Magic in the Mess. This is Part 2 where I walk with Neeta through her personal Values...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 8 min
In this episode, I kick off a series on bouncing back. Being resilient is the latest buzzword. But it's all another way of discussing how to recover from a setback. I have a few issues with the concept that I feel cause us all to miss what bouncing back really entails and how to effectively do it in our lives. And not just simply bounce back, but bounce back...better. A common phrase in the self-help world is, “It's not how many times you get knocked down that count, it's how many times you get ...
Mar 13, 2023•1 hr 32 min
Take all the self-help organizations in the world and you’ll be hardpressed to find any with as great a success record as AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s free. Volunteer based. Informal. And yet it fulfills a primary human need; accountability. You have the group to commune with and receive support from, and you get a sponsor. It’s not someone following you around and slapping your hand every time you reach for a drink, but it’s someone who you know understands, cares, and will be there when you ...
Mar 10, 2023•56 min
Imagine you're on stage with nine other people who have the same skillset you do. The same degree and/or experience. Whatever you do or make, they all can as well. And the question is put to you...why choose you? Can you really stand there and explain why you are literally the best? Better than everyone standing next to you? Here's the thing, even if you actually were, there is little chance you could prove it and even less chance anyone would believe it. In today's marketplace there are too man...
Mar 09, 2023•16 min
I’m a 6’ tall, slim white man. I have an automobile, house, job and good income. No felonies. Imagine if myself and nine other identical men all created profiles on a dating app and that’s all we put. How many inquiries would we get? Probably zero. This is our world and marketplace today. No matter who you are or what you do, everyone is looking to know your story before they spend a minute or a dollar on you. They are looking for context on connecting points to determine if they find resonance ...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 28 min
It is from our creativity where our most valuable work and life events happen. Creativity is not just for the fine arts. We harness and rely on our creativity to generate our important ideas, critical thinking, and ultimately our ability to grasp onto hope in our lives, especially when things are challenging. And as life happens we can easily be at risk of depleting our creative juices, so to say. In this episode I’m back with artist and guide to artists, Miriam Schulman. You may have run across...
Mar 06, 2023•56 min
Do you believe it? That Alzheimer’s can be prevented, stopped, and even reversed? It’s true. Does that mean it will be eradicated from our culture? We know how to stop obesity in an individual too, but it’s not happening here in America. This show is about you however, you and those close to you. Can you do something about preventing, stopping, and reversing Alzheimer’s? Absolutely. There are never any guarantees when it comes to one’s health, but there are probabilities you can count on. In thi...
Mar 03, 2023•1 hr 30 min
Wrapping up my series on Japanese self-help celebrity Ken Honda and his focus on Happy Money, and I’m going to bring it home to what I’m grappling…with striving to implement in my life as a result of Ken’s message. I’ve talked about this topic with Ken, with Tom Ziglar in part three, and I’ve been discussing it with people in my life. The truth is I’ve historically not had happy money. I’ve not felt fairly compensated for what I’ve offered the world and I’ve looked at money as an irritant in rel...
Mar 02, 2023•17 min
People doing mundane tasks are replaced by robots. Now people producing basic content will likely be replaced by AI. What can’t ever be replaced? Your point of view. Your story and perspective. Your flavor and vibe. You buy many products and services today, not because they are proven to be the best, but because you want to associate yourself with the story behind them. With what they represent. This is the essence of art and creativity. I believe it’s a myth that some people are creative and ot...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 17 min
We’ve been looking at how we view and feel about money and it keeps drawing me back to how influential our work is. We make money from the work we provide. From our efforts to help deliver a product or service. If we are not proud of the work we do. If we are not proud of the end product or service we help provide. If we are just doing it for the money…then the money we earn as a result, we have negative feelings about. The money itself becomes a focus of our frustration along with the work. Thi...
Feb 27, 2023•1 hr 3 min
We wrap up our Functional Medicine questions from listeners for Randy James, Medical Doctor and Functional Medicine expert who addresses questions from his experience with thousands of patients striving to get past the mere symptoms of their health and discern the root cause issues so they can have true…wellness. This is my Functional Friday episode where we focus on our health and wellness so we have the physical and mental capacity to help ourselves and others. In this episode, we spend the fi...
Feb 24, 2023•1 hr 19 min
The only reason you would be here and listening to this, right now, is because you already know the power of self-help. You are a believer. I’m here today to support and affirm you, and actually give you even more power for your self-help endeavors by dispelling some of the criticism self-help gets. The term self-help, in truth, can cause some feelings of anxiety, or fear for some people. None of us truly want to feel alone in our life and we can often doubt ourselves, so the idea of having to r...
Feb 23, 2023•16 min
You have some giftings. Some inherent skills and talents. Or think of it this way, you have some things that come to you easier than they do to others. I can look at each of my kids and tell you what abilities seem to come more naturally for some than others, right out of the womb. That doesn’t make them an expert but it showcases the areas they will more likely be able to achieve mastery in. The thing is, what comes fairly easy to us we generally devalue. It doesn’t seem so impressive to us. On...
Feb 22, 2023•57 min
There was a time before money when we gathered, harvested, and produced what we needed. Or we took what we gathered, harvested, and produced and traded with someone else for something they had. It was an exchange. Today we gather, harvest, and produce a product or service that is sold for money. And we are given money. And we pay money for most all the product and services we need. Money is simply a unit of exchange. And yet it is anything. Anything but simple. And today many of us, most of us, ...
Feb 20, 2023•1 hr 1 min
We continue on with our Functional Medicine questions from listeners for Randy James, Medical Doctor and Functional Medicine expert who addresses questions from his experience with thousands of patients striving to get past the mere symptoms of their health and discern the root cause issues so they can have true…wellness. This is my Functional Friday episode where we focus on our health and wellness so we have the physical and mental capacity to help ourselves and others. In this episode, Ted as...
Feb 17, 2023•1 hr 11 min
Hi Self-Helpful listeners. This is a new format of episode and it’s just you and me. While I may be your guide here on the podcast, digging into self-help messages with today’s more important influencers in the world of personal growth and development, you know I’m also a fellow traveler on my own journey to grow and progress in my life. With that in mind, I’m here now to share a short episode with you on how a recent message is influencing my own life, and see if you relate. I’m like you and li...
Feb 16, 2023•18 min
In minding our mindset and thinking about our thinking, we bring into question how much of our perspectives and even beliefs are based on the fictional stories our brains write to protect us. This sounds minimizing of our so called realities, but I just want you to think about occurrences which have happened in your life, things you’ve experienced with other people, and how they later recount the reality that happened, and you’re standing there thinking, “That is not at all what happened!” As yo...
Feb 15, 2023•1 hr 27 min
We’ve been talking about the need to mind our mindset, which is the title of Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller’s new book, with their research showcasing a majority of what we think and believe is not fact, but the stories our brain creates to help us make sense of things and ultimately protect us. I’m back for part two with Michael to walk and talk through his personal Values, Motives, and Habits. We begin on spirituality and he shares his appreciation of his faith community helping him not ...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr
We continue the question and answer session from our last Functional Friday episode and here we address listener inquiries about balancing exercise in regards to our effort and always killing ourselves. Losing momentum is a big topic, as anyone with a new health & wellness initiative will…lose momentum. We address the faith you have in doing what you set out to do, how to stop nervous eating, and end with a biggie…how to kick the sugar habit. Which nobody really wants to do, including me. I’...
Feb 10, 2023•1 hr 10 min
“Just think positive. It’s all in your head. Look on the bright side. Just write a better story.” Who here has had one of these cliches spoken to them and it just pissed you off or deflated you? It feels so affirming and even offensive to an honest experience and feeling we’ve had. The events we experience in life are…our truth. They happened and we were there and what we experienced is just, true. And yet right there is the problem, and opportunity. What we experience is just how our brain proc...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 26 min
If we are really honest, we begin most relationships with an agenda in mind. A transaction. We are wanting something for ourselves out of it. I know many people will reject that, and I reject their rejection. We either are hoping for something from the other person, or what we are doing for them makes us feel good about ourselves. Which is ok! Our focus today, is before you seek to get anything from anyone in a relationship, you need to earn the right. And in a relationship, this usually takes a...
Feb 06, 2023•1 hr 24 min
