The Power of a Smile

 

“You’ll find that life is still worthwhile if you just smile…”

So goes the last line of the popular Charlie Chaplin composition Smile (1954). While it may have been used to generate emotions and profit in the movies at that time, it looks like it has some scientific truth to it.

Smiling helps improve your health and uplift other people’s spirits. Read more about this on Smile and Others Smile with You: Health Benefits, Emotional Contagion, and Mimicry.

 

BBC Psychological Test: Spot the Fake Smile

 

What would be all this talk of happiness and positive attitude without any fun? So here’s something fun, interesting, and informational this time. It’s a test if you know how to tell if a smile is real or fake. See BBC’s psychological test, Spot The Fake Smile.

 

Don’t Take Things Too Seriously

The rest of the world, including me, takes things way too seriously.

So what if you fail at implementing self-improvement advice? I’ve failed countless times in my fight to get organized and acquire laser-like focus.

So whut if you make a couple of speling errors or typos? It doesn’t change the person that you are and it’s not that big of a deal because people understand you 90% of the time when you make a mistake anyways. And this is coming from a person who’s a total grammar Nazi. Do typos bug me? Yeah. But do they matter, in the grand scheme of things? Not really.

For all the serious stuff we preach — like getting your life into order, figuring out how to live “well”, cultivating good habits — we hardly ever take a step back and laugh at ourselves, at the absurdity that we feel like we need to absorb all these self-improvement concepts in order to live a good life.

You don’t, guys. Life isn’t that serious. It’s a tragicomedy, and you should be laughing at it often.

Don't Take Things Too Seriously

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Greatness Requires Consistency

I know, I know – I should be the last one to talk about consistency. I’m not the most consistent man on the planet, that’s for sure.

However, I’ve achieved a fair amount of success. And I know that, in order to be successful, consistently doing the right thing is the key. I’m consistent in my study habits. I’m consistent in how I work out. I’m consistent in how I do my work (an hour and a half of work, followed by a 15 minute break). I’m consistent in how I do just about everything – and, yet, somehow, I haven’t become consistent in my work on this site, even though I’ve been “working on it” for a long time.

Sidenote: even though I know what the right thing to do is, oftentimes, I don’t do it. That’s how hard implementing ANY advice is. So if you’re struggling with implementing self-improvement advice, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

You can’t take days off from practice. You can’t use excuses to get you out of putting the time in that’s necessary to become great.

If you want to be great at anything, everyone knows you have to practice a lot. The best way to guarantee that you practice the number of hours it takes to become great? You make it a habit. Forming great habits is the key to consistency.

Greatness Requires Consistency

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Where Has All the Passion Gone?

Note from Brett: this post is as much for me as it is for you, the reader. Enjoy!

Where has all the passion gone, man?

Where did it go?

Odds are – it hasn’t gone anywhere. You just choose not to feel it, because you’re scared.

Scared? Yep. You’re scared. You’re scared of showing your passion to the outside world, scared to show that you’re passionate about anything, because you’re too “cool” and “understated” and “minimal” and “stoic” to show how passionate you are about things. Things like this blog, self-development, your health, living a good life, giving yourself the tools to build a business in the future, and, yes – just having fun.

Why are you scared? Because no one else around you (in real life) is clearly passionate and you’re afraid of attracting attention?

You need to show your passion precisely because no one else will. It’s an act of defying the status quo – and one of inspiration. Maybe everyone else is waiting for someone else to show their passion and fire, so then they’ll be able to be comfortable to be passionate too. Be that first person.

Where Has All the Passion Gone?

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