“The things in life I have learned from my dog” has become a very real statement to our family. Our family was recently in search of a new family pet. Little did we know that we would experience an incredible blessing through the power of love in that search.
Our family are pet loving freaks! Home would feel empty without little paws running around. We recently had to say goodbye to our fourteen year old fur baby, Beau. It was heartbreaking for everyone, and it was especially hard on our other little dog Snickers. So started our search for Snicker’s new friend. We started with putting out feelers to area vets for a rescue pet. Oh – and Petfinder is so much fun!!! I love looking at all the cute little faces in need of a home; my only problem was that I wanted them all!
With four children, the decision to adopt a second dog was a big one! There was a big disagreement among our family: would we choose another little dog or a big one? The small dog side won & we adopted the cutest little puppy we named Daisy. Although since we named her we have decided that she should have been named Miss Piggy! She is a little roly poly! Our family was excited, happy and content with our new little girl. THEN, I got a phone call.
An Unexpected Rescue
A vet I had reached out to in the beginning was on the line and said, “We have a little angel that needs lots of love. I think he is perfect for you. He is a golden retriever and lab mix. He is a very shy and cautious little guy. He has been horribly abused and is blind in his left eye. He needs a lot of love and patience.” So if adopting a second dog was not a big enough decision, we were now considering three dogs???
We called several friends for their opinions, but we were really just wanting them to talk some sense into us. Their response – “YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY! But what’s new?!”
To make a long story short, we picked up Colt that week. What a sweet dog he was but so scared and introverted. Even the tiniest noise or move would cause him to jump and withdraw; he was terrified. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out. Our boys had wanted a big dog to run and play with, but Colt was not that dog. I began questioning if we had made the right decision. “Was a home with active little boys, the right home for him?” Yet, we were committed to just love him and show him that he was in a safe place, and we did just that. We spent time with him, loving him, petting him, protecting him and showing him affection.
The Power of Love
WOW! This is where we saw the true power of love – unconditional love! After just 4 days of unconditional love Colt came alive! We watched a terrified little dog turn into a big, bouncy, happy and playful, energetic and trusting puppy. It has been so much fun to watch this 2-year old dog live the life of the puppy he had never gotten to be. He has more energy than our two boys combined – and that’s enough energy to run a small town! Now the three pawed amigos – Snickers, Daisy and Colt – are all so happy and home!
What have we learned from our dog?
We can be beaten down, abused and scared, but there is always hope for us to live the life we were intended. If we live life accepting that we are victims, we will remain in our own shell – hurting, withdrawn and holding people at a distance. We have to allow ourselves to become vulnerable; to share our hurts, and in turn open ourselves up to be loved. No – not everyone is going to give us unconditional love and a safe place, and we are probably not going to have someone come and rescue us either. But we can always rescue ourselves by surrounding ourselves with safe people. People who will encourage us, build us up and love us with God’s unconditional love, helping us to be all that we were created to be.
Stress is a funny thing. During The Biggest Loser, stress management was a life or death situation. Too much stress and your weight loss would dwindle. Too little stress and you’d be too comfortable and forgo the workouts. Jillian and Bob were all about keeping your stress level perfect – in balance. Let’s look at the word “stress” and what it means: Stress: A state of mental or emotional strain or tension (pressure) resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. Synonyms: strain, pressure, tension, worry, anxiety, trouble, difficulty. Causes: Deadlines, frustrations, demands.
Stress is normal
Stress is a natural physical response from your body when you feel threatened or when you are out of balance. It is the “fight or flight (or freeze)” response. Stress is the natural reaction to protect you from harm. It is a survival mechanism. It can give you extra strength, help you rise to meet challenges, and keep you on your toes. It sharpens your concentration or drives you to excel and work hard when time is short. That being said, stress can also kill you.
Stress, when in overdose, can cause damage to your emotional or physical health. It can ruin your mood, productivity, strain your relationships, and affect your life. Out of balance, stress is an enemy. In balance, stress is just a part of life.
Stress is inevitable
It’s not a question of if you will experience stress; it’s a question of when. And sometimes it’s all around you and you don’t even realize it – you may not even know how it’s affecting you – and those around you. Have you ever been told, “You sure are grumpy lately.” Or “Is there something wrong? You’re just not yourself today.” That could be a sign that stress is upon you and you just weren’t aware of it.
Stress can look different for different people and in different situations. You can be in the “fight” mode, seeming angry, agitated, and even looking for a fight. You might fidget or be overly emotional, ready to pounce at the slightest inconvenience. Or you could be in the “flight” mode, and appear withdrawn or shut down. You may seem spaced out or even tired and depressed. And you could even be in both modes at once – shut down, but ready to attack on a whim!
How do you handle stress?
How you handle stress can depend on a number of things. It can depend on your emotional maturity, network of support, confidence in your ability to handle situations, or your attitude. In The Journey Training, we teach about different personality traits. One personality may hate spontaneity, while another thrives on it! What stresses you out may be fuel for another.
Optimistic people can generally handle stress in more healthy ways than pessimistic people. An optimist takes challenges head on, often seeing the problem as a challenge. A pessimist usually sees a problem as a problem, and a situation that could cause pain and hurt in their life. Pessimists worry about things before they even happen, causing stress in their life. Once, Arthur and I were at the airport in San Francisco. We had planned to sit by each other to discuss a training we just went through during our time of designing The Journey Training. When we got our tickets, I saw that we weren’t sitting with each other. I freaked out! My status on the airline is supposed to avoid this! I kept saying, “We have to sit together! I want to talk about what we’ve just gone through!” Arthur said, “It’ll all work out.” I replied, “It had better!” He then replied, “Worst case scenario is that we don’t sit together.” I then said, “That had better not happen!”
When we got to the counter, I began my rant and was explaining to the attendant all the reasons this shouldn’t – and couldn’t – happen! This airline employee, who was from a foreign country, raised his hands and said loudly with his accent, “STOP! YOU ARE SCARING YOURSELF!” Arthur began laughing profusely. I was confused – until I realized that I had created a bigger problem than it actually was. To Arthur, it wasn’t that big of a deal not to sit next to each other for 3 hours. For me it was a catastrophe!
When we boarded the plane, the two men who were sitting in the aisle between us wouldn’t budge! They were “aisle hounds” as I like to call them. It turned out I sat beside a man that lived with the creator of American Aikido – something Arthur and I were going to talk about! It turned out to be a divine appointment! I was creating a problem where there was just a hiccup – or a detour.
Am I stressed?
Probably the most important thing in how you are able to handle stress is your knowledge and awareness of it. If you ignore it, or stuff your feelings when they come to the surface, you’re more prone to the explosions that can cause damage to your physical health as well as your emotional health and relationships. Like I said before, stress is a part of life. How you respond to stress is the key to making it work for you and not against you.
Stress can come in many forms. It can be financial problems, big life changes such as moving or buying a house, or deadlines that you feel you may not be able to handle. It can come from your children or family, work or school, or just feeling as though you’ve got to do it all. It can look like worry, an all-or-nothing attitude, unrealistic expectations, or even perfectionism. The crazy thing is that although stress can come from many different sources and look very different at times, your body doesn’t know the difference. It handles all stress the same way. Because this is the case, you’ve got to direct the responses of stress in a more healthy way.
Stress induced response
When stress hits, you can do a number of things to turn the tides on how you handle it. There are several ways to avoid those damaging levels of stress. In The Journey Training, we teach that when feelings arise, you must give them a healthy voice. This doesn’t mean yelling at people and raging, but it does mean getting those feelings out in some healthy, non-abusive way. This may look several different ways. We teach that though journaling you can process your feelings and seek why you feel the way you feel. You can do this with a journal, or even through processing with a buddy. You can also deal with stress by turning that energy in to a physical exertion such as exercise or cleaning out that garage you’ve been needing to tackle! In one way or the other, the physical energies that stress causes don’t go away, and they should be let out in a healthy manor.
Sometimes you need to avoid stress. There was a relationship in my life that always caused stress. I was trying to get on The Biggest Loser television show and this certain person was completely negative about it. Every time we talked, the conversation either turned into a political argument or a Biggest Loser dream bashing. I decided to quietly move away from the relationship. I’d answer texts and emails, but I always was “too busy” to take their call – on purpose. I knew when I picked up the phone, an argument would ensue. In this way, I successfully avoided the stress and was able to stay focused on my goal.
When you can’t avoid the stress, you can change the situation by changing what you can: your response. You can respectfully let your feelings and concerns be known, or explain why the situation is painful or stressful to you. You can choose to find a compromise instead of being that “all-or-nothing” person. You can’t change other people or even the situation at times, but you can always change the way you respond to the situation! You can change YOU.
In AA, the serenity prayer asks for God to give you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I was having sort of a stressful time in the relationship with another friend, so I decided to talk to my pastor and get some counseling on the situation. His response was, “Are you expecting this person to be different than what they are? Are you surprised they do that? It just seems to be the way they operate.” This opened my eyes that the power was in my hands. I had a choice: I could avoid the person or accept that this is how they are. Why would I expect any different? That simply piece of knowledge helped me heal my relationship with my friend. My expectations were simply too high, and I shouldn’t have the expectation of him acting different than he naturally does. My choice was to accept him or avoid him. I chose to accept him the best I could.
The Truth about Stress
Stress is inevitable. You must avoid it when you can, embrace it when you can’t, and learn the amount that is healthy for you. Stress can motivate you or break you and decline your health. So how much is the right amount?
I equate your life like a guitar. With no stress, the strings have no tension. You can’t play a single note. Turn the tuning peg too much and the tension becomes too much, causing the string to break, and it loses the ability to be useful. But with the right amount of tension on each string (or each area of your life), beautiful music can be played. Your guitar must be in tune, each string given the proper amount of tension to vibrate at the exact speed to make the notes work perfectly together. This is balance.
When your life is out of balance, with too little or too much stress, your song is quelled. Too little stress and you are too comfortable, and in turn you become stuck. Too much stress and you’re stretched too thin, and eventually, you break and are no good to anyone. But the right amount and a beautiful song is played called life. Avoid stress when it gets too much, and apply a little pressure when you get to lax, and your life will turn out just fine!
While I was on The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper – and all of America watching – applied just the right amount of stress to make me sing a beautiful song. Now, it seems too much stress has left me tired and worn out, and in response I have gained too much weight. It’s time for me to re-prioritize and cut some unhealthy stress, I need to add some useful pressure to my life. Will you join me in singing a song to affect your own life and that of those around you? Will you tune your guitar to make beautiful music? In the end, ask yourself one question when a stressful situation hits. Will it matter tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year? If not, let it go. If so, find the strength to change what you can, accept what you cannot, and pray for the wisdom to know the difference.
Danny facilitates monthly in an experiential training called The Journey Training. In this weekend-long seminar, attendees are taught the self-awareness needed to make positive changes in their lives. Sign up now for the next Threshold class and begin singing your new song today!
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In the days leading up to Easter we often hear about what people are giving up for Lent, but when Holy Week is over, we tend to fall back into our old lives. Often these things end up being somewhat superficial. What if rather than thinking about giving things up, we started looking for things we can give away? This type of thinking involves our hearts, and giving from our hearts always leads somewhere good. If we can somehow separate ourselves from the busyness and distractions of our messy and complicated lives, we often discover things of far greater value.
Giving from the heart helps us do just that.
Many of us may be living with purpose, but are we purposely living? Each week that goes by, I learn more about what this really means. Probably the biggest principle I’ve learned lately is that the more my heart loves to give, the more opportunities I will have to receive. Let that sink in…
The more my heart loves to give, the more opportunities I will have to receive.
I am a mentor for Thrive15.com, the world’s premier online education platform that helps entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and “in-trepreneurs” (entrepreneurial-minded people who work within an organization). Thrive15.com created “1 for 1 HandUp Movement.” With every new Thrive15 membership given away, they give a free subscription to a U.S. Veteran or active-duty service member and their spouse. That’s what I call, “giving from the heart.”
When a farmer plants a lot of good seed, he gets a good harvest in return. When giving from the heart becomes part of our daily thinking, we will be on the lookout for opportunities to give. Chances to give may include simple things like:
Opening the door for someone.
Letting a car in front of you in traffic – and smiling.
Saying “thank you” to your children’s teachers (especially when the kids are older and we don’t know the teachers quite as well).
Connecting with a friend or co-worker that may need assistance or help, mentoring.
If a farmer plants cheap vegetable seeds, he gets cheap vegetables. If he plants premium seeds, he gets premium vegetables.If you want to take giving from the heart a step further, try including a small amount of money. The opportunities to bless others financially are endless. Here are just a few:
Get some $2 bills and give them to a homeless person or the person in front of you in line at Walmart.
Pay for the person behind you in a drive-thru.
Pick up a tray of cookies from Chick-fil-A and take them to work.
I can guarantee when you look back, you will have gained far more than you invested. Giving from the heart changes the giver as well as the receiver. What can you do this week to give to others?
At the time of this post, the video below has had over 9 million views. That’s 9 million people it may have inspired to give from the heart. What does it inspire you to do?
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Are you experiencing a “Death Spiral” in your reach for success?
I’ve been around small aircraft my entire life. My Dad is a general aviation pilot with a visual flight rules (VFR) rating. In layman’s terms, he is a private pilot that should only fly during clear weather conditions. As a VFR pilot, he is not certified to fly into weather conditions that require an Instrument Flight Rating (IFR). The reason behind these different ratings is that there are weather conditions that can cause pilot confusion. And if the pilot listens to their senses, it can cause a death spiral, ensuring a crash.
In a death spiral,the pilot has no external horizon or reference point due to low visibility. The pilot can therefore can get fooled into thinking the plane is in level flight when in fact it is in a banked turn. This happens if the pilot relies on their senses rather than relying on the airplane’s flight instruments.
If the pilot notices a drop in altitude on the altimeter, but ignores the bank indicator (the instrument that shows a turn) because they “sense” the plane is in level flight, the normal response will be to pull back on the stick to regain altitude. Since the plane is in a banked turn, pulling back on the stick only puts the plane in a tighter death spiral – heading for a catastrophic crash.
The only way to get out of a death spiral is for the pilot to recognize that their senses are wrong, gather correct information from the flight instruments, and turn back to level flight. By the way, even after the pilot makes the correction, their body will continue to “lie” to them about the position of the aircraft for up to several minutes.
Death Spiral in Life
Could you be experiencing a death spiral in your life that you don’t know how to get out of it? Let me ask it another way. Are you struggling to find success in overcoming a habit or addiction in your life – failing time after time only to sink lower and lower?
Let’s talk about losing weight for a moment. We all know that eating a healthy diet and engaging in regular exercise is a safe way to lose weight. But if you decide not to workout because you don’t feel like you have enough energy, you are essentially in the clouds and in a banked turn. Let’s say you feel badly that you didn’t exercise and you promise yourself to do it tomorrow, but right now you really want your favorite comfort food. You’ve just ignored some of your flight instruments and have pulled on the stick which only tightens your turn and accelerates your death spiral. This only exacerbates the problem as you have less energy the next day, and so on and so on. Believing your body saying “I’m too tired to workout” and responding with no activity and comfort food day after day only results in more of the same with tighter turns until you hit the ground hard. You have to believe your instruments and fly through these low visibility conditions accordingly.
In the above analogy, what are your instruments?
They are comprised of friends and family that are partnering with you for success, coaches, personal trainers, mentors, counselors, and accountability partners.
When you are believing you are too tired to work out, look to your instruments for guidance – you should expect to see that your attitude is in a banked turn and needs to be corrected to level flight before doing anything else.
Your instruments, like the pilot’s, may not be giving you information you believe. You have to choose to trust them because they are not being confused by your senses.
The reason why the death spiral is so insidious is because you believe you are doing okay (in level flight) and you choose not to believe your instruments. So it goes, “I’m okay, I’ll start tomorrow, (pulls back on stick and enters a tighter death spiral), repeat behavior, repeat behavior, repeat behavior, impact.
Where are you “banked” in a Death Spiral?
Now we’ve focused on weight as the example here, but what about your challenge? Gossip, alcohol abuse, drugs abuse, tobacco use, infidelity, pornography, etc. In each case your attitude is in a banked turn and you need to choose to pay attention to what your instruments are telling you.
In conclusion, whether flying an airplane or trying to soar to your successes, always remember to trust your instruments!
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The last few months have been crazy! I had reroutes! Since winning The Biggest Loser in 2009, I have made my living primarily from motivational speaking which requires a lot of travel. Last year I made the decision that my speaking wasn’t going to be enough, and now I’ve gone back to work as a Professional Licensed Land Surveyor. Being a Land Surveyor is a noble profession. After all, 3 of the 4 faces on Mount Rushmore were Land Surveyors. But at this point in my life, I was perceiving it as a defeat.
I love to speak. I still speak! In fact, this year I have spoken for multi-billion dollar corporations in several states. But deciding to go back to Land Surveying felt like going back to something before my victories on The Biggest Loser, and that seems like failure to me. Why can’t speaking be all I do? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I know there is a purpose in whatever I do. That was made clear to me last week while overseeing the project of a 26-mile long pipeline in Southern Oklahoma. Let me explain.
I have been a Land Surveyor since I was 9 years old. My father took me to the shoe store in 1979, and I thought I was going to get a new pair of sneakers. When we ended up in the work boots section I began wondering what was going on. We tried on boots, and my father said, “Well son, here’s your first pair of work boots.” I replied, “What are these for?” He answered, “You’ll find out soon enough.” And boy did I find out! Since then I have surveyed – for 36 years – and I thought when I won The Biggest Loser that part of my life was over. Yet now I find myself working for Lemke Land Surveying, a division of EnviroClean – a larger company that I had ever worked for. For some reason, Land Surveying isn’t done with me yet!
I’ve done every kind of surveying you can think of: Boundary, civil, commercial real estate, highway, as-built surveys, subdivisions…You name it. Every kind except one: Oil and Gas Services. What am I doing right now? Oil & Gas Services. During the oil pipeline project I am managing right now, I’ve had to do several reroutes.
You see, laying 26 miles of pipe underground is intense and complicated! We first make a set of plans for the route the pipeline will take. There are roads and ponds we have to do horizontal drilling bores underneath, property owners to deal with, and all kinds of obstacles along the way. We have a beginning point, an ending point, and a planned route, but along the way we often hit some obstacles – just like in life – that cause us to have to do a reroute.
Last week alone, I had to perform 4 pipeline reroutes, or changes to the originally planned route, because of a problems with a horizontal drill, a newly found pipeline that we have to avoid, or an upset owner that wanted us to avoid their property altogether. Sure, it’s a pain to have to divert from the planned route. This causes delays, station-equations (where a reroute causes more or less feet of pipe than originally planned), and more work for our crews. But in the end, the pipeline goes through and ends up exactly where it was intended to end up. The route might have changed, but the pre-determined destination is still reached.
So you might be saying, “Danny – what the heck does this have to do with me or my life?” Well, going back to Land Surveying wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but my dream and destination are still the same! This is simply a reroute of my life. And I have to believe it is for a reason that I may not understand or see right now. According to my plans, I was supposed to ride off in the sunset, inspiring individuals to overcome their adversities, realize the dreams they had lost, and coach them along the way! What in the world does Land Surveying have to do with that?
I can honestly say that I don’t know the whole answer now. But one thing I do know is that every reroute I have had in my life that I didn’t understand at the time inevitably became crystal clear in hindsight. Now I can look back at that time my first girlfriend broke up with me, and then look at my wife and children, and I completely understand! I couldn’t possibly understand back then, but now, as I write this blog, my first child is sleeping in a bed across the room from me in a hotel in Missouri after we caught our limit of trout and spent the day pondering our roles in life together over a Mexican lunch. Ah-hah! Now I see a reason! My focus on my family is more important right now than any dreams or plans I might have for myself. And those dreams and plans are still there; my course has just been altered a bit.
Don’t constantly question your reroutes in life. Know that there is a purpose; a purpose that you probably can’t see right now. But in time, with your diligent steps forward, you’ll be able to look back and see every reason why things happened the way they did. It might not be exactly the route you planned, but it will be the way God planned it for you. There is a lesson to be learned, or a purposeful delay to avoid a pain we may not see. In the end we must trust that we do have a destiny. And we must trust that we will reach that very destiny in time – and probably with a few reroutes along the way.
Every month in The Journey Training, we see people questioning their reroutes. We see people in the middle of one, or possibly just getting back on track, realizing the reasons why things happened the way they did. Wouldn’t you like to know that your destiny is still within your reach? Wouldn’t you like to dream again and know that it may not happen tomorrow, but with your purposeful pursuit of your destiny, it can and will happen? I’d like to suggest that you sign up for the very next Threshold class at www.thejourneytraining.com and begin to identify your reroutes – and possibly the reasons for them!
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