YES! Attitude - A Book Review and give away

First I should admit that I have a little bit of a book problem. I own hundreds of books. My mom has it, my grandfather has it (he is a retired journalist). But if there is only 1 book I could take with me and had to give up all the others. Jeffery Gitomer’s Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude is the book I would keep with me forever and always.


The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude.


Jeffery is a kick ass kind of guy, no B.S., no excuses. Personally, I appreciate receiving my information like that, blunt and to the point. “What’s the bottom line."

I have purchased this book for myself, friends and even my nieces and nephews upon their various graduations. I even gave this book as a parting gift to my summer student at work. That’s how much I like this book. During a tough time for Jenn, Jeffery's gracious editor Jessica McDougall sent her a copy of this book. Jenn will tell you it is one of the greatest gifts she has ever received.

The Little Gold Book offers practical tips to help you reframe your thinking, to find your passion and the fire inside you and let it out. It gives you tips on how to be more positive with others whether it is a business relationship, a personal partnership or with your family. You can open this book to any page and find something useful and practical to apply to your life right now!

This book is well rounded, providing guidance for improving your attitude in every aspect of your life.

We love this book so much we are giving one away. So leave a comment on how you keep a positive attitude and we will announce the winner on Monday.

We also wanted to let you know that Jeffery Gitomer is coming to London, Ontario on Thursday October 15th.

I have seen him speak before and I have to tell you he is a very wise man, very current, he knows what’s working and what is not in this time and economy.

If you want to take your career or business to the next level this is the event you should attend. You can find out more at http://www.buygitomer.com/

Shann

Life is Green and the living is EASY???

By now we are all aware that we need to take care of this planet of ours. We are walking a fine line in time. Consumption is so high! If we move past this breaking point we may not be able to come back from it. And I for one do not want that to happen for my children.

We are raising the most eco aware generation. My 5 year old often comments "oh oh mommy someone is using the earth as a trash bin" when we see a piece of litter in our travels. He often want to stop and pick it up. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't, but I keep a trash bag in the back of the car for just such occasions.

The school boards have made tremendous strides in promoting litter free lunches and our school in particular has even adapted their schedules to allow the kids to have snacks before recess in order to cut down on the litter that often crept into the school yard.

For school this year I was able to find a good lunch bag and purchased some glad containers, tupperware and Kleen Kanteen water bottles. Over the year I hope to transition over to stainless steel food containers like these but man! they are more money so I am opting to purchase 1 container ever few months and by next year should have a very nice collection.

One of my favorite people Sara Snow has a great back to school post on Treehugger.

Along with the "equipment" to store a green lunch you also have to hunt a little to find snacks and food with less packaging. I buy treats like dehydrated fruit and cookies in bulk so there is less packaging. Don't get me wrong I am not above throwing cheese strings in there or Fruit gushers. But those are for those days when I don't practice Positive Habit #1. Enough said.

In the coming weeks we will look at all kinds of tips to work through one by one to "live green" and help make our planet enjoyable for generations to come.

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sunday stress reflief...

We all have too much of it and you know sundays for most people are a kick back and relax type of thing. Shannon and I both have different stress relievers! We thought we'd share our lists!

Jenn

- go for a walk
- church
- write in my gratitude journal
- watch my kids play hockey at the rink
- go shopping!
- tea/coffee with friends
- family hike
- Sunday football, baseball, hockey (you get the sports theme here lol)
- dinner with friends/family
- read or better yet Chapters trip


Shann

- deep breathing
- yoga
- cranking up the tunes and dancing with the kids
- meditation
- reflexology treatment or massage
- home facial
- walking the dog
- running
- reading
- planning my garden
- trip to my parents farm to sit on the porch and watch the horses in the field
- scrapbooking
- writing in my journal
- camping

Notice how I have things that range in their time requirement. Sometimes all I have is 2 mins to take a few deep breaths, sometimes I can make a couple our hours to scrapbook or drive out to the farm to get away.


As you can see, we do different things on sundays to the normal every day stresses out. What do you do?

Crisis mode

I debated what to title this but yesterday this was it for me. Why talk about this? Because it happens to all of us. At some point in our lives we end up in a crisis situation. It can major or minor and please note what is a crisis to one, isn't to another. Yesterday, I felt I was in this mode. I was at a client’s house to treat her for her monthly reflexology appointment and she had an angina attack while I was there. Talk about a wakeup call for me. She is fine, but it was an adrenaline pumping moment!!! Your reaction is what matters in a time of crisis. I remained calm the entire time I was there (and yes I even surprised myself) and afterwards I came home to think through what had just happened. Trust me, a few choice words came out too! I was scared.

However, what I did realize from what happened is how important it is for us to live a life in balance; emotionally, mentally and physically. It was a reminder to me that I have a weight loss goal to get back on track with. It was also a reminder to me that we must deal with our every day stress in a way that doesn’t affect our health.

How did I deal with the stress yesterday? For starters I wrote in my gratitude journal. (More to follow on that in another post) and then I chatted with some friends. I’m also booking in a reflexology appointment for myself next week. I went for a walk and played with the kids. All of those things were good to help relax me. Oh and I may have had a glass of wine in there too ;) One glass is okay! Upon reviewing what happened while I was there I realized it was the right timing for me. If I hadn't been there she might not have found her meds. Timing really is everything sometimes.

My bigger point to this post is that you need to take care of yourself especially if you’re in the midst of some sort of crisis. Please find some time for yourself to vent, relax, do something for you even it if it is as simple as writing down some positive thoughts.

Feel free to list some of the things you do to balance yourself out when you’ve had a stressful situation happen in your life.

Positive Habit #1

There is just no way to sugar coat this, so I'm just going to say it straight up.

Positive Habit #1 that really helps me manage my busy life. - Wake up 30 minutes to 1 hour earlier everyday and prepare for your day.

I received this advice on a CD from Darren Hardy at Success Magazine. On the CD he mentions his morning routine and how he has adopted advice from Jim Rohn to read for 30 minutes to an hour everyday which will change you life.

So for me it was a matter of adopting this tip and working it into my own reality.

I use this time in the morning to have a cup of coffee in the quiet and think. To review all the appointments for the day and the rest of the week. To prepare breakfast, lunches and paperwork before my little munchkins wake up.

I can tell you this. There are days that I want that extra 30 minutes to an hour sleep REAL bad and on those mornings I usually hit snooze and wait for the kids to wake me.

I can ALSO tell you this... The mornings that I do not engage this strategy are always far more stressful then the days that I make the effort to PREPARE for my day.

I find that if I don't just have some time to sit and think, daydream a little I get into total task mode and just move through the day from task to task. Move through the week from task to task. Everything is a task and everything seems like work I don't want to do.

I don't enjoy the moments of my life. That is no way to live.

So I'm not saying this will make your life all better or that you HAVE to do it everyday. But if things are feeling strained and out of control you might try employing this strategy to gain perspective, and a valuable few moments to plan out your day, problem solve, review your goals or daydream a little.

Be well.

quote

I found this quote a while back while Shannon and I were discussing setting up this site. It seems perfect for here and us!!!!


The more balanced our lives, the more serene we feel.

--Ann Smith


Is it not the truth? The more we feel in balanced the better we feel. On emtional, mental, physical on all sides.

It has been one crazy weekend for both of us, but we managed to survive, maybe even smiling a bit!!! ;-) I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend and is able to relax and find some harmony and balance today.

jenn

Welcome to A Balanced Lifestyle

Welcome to A Balanced Lifestyle. So happy you chose to join us here. What's going on here? What can you expect? Here's a little introduction and some of the things you are likely to experience.

In recent weeks as we prepared to launch this blog we joked that maybe it should be called IN SEARCH OF...A Balanced Lifestyle because that is probably closer to the truth of how we feel in this moment in time. We know that all of us, women and men have great positive things in our lives, things we are good at and things that we struggle with. We hope that sharing some of our tips, research and handy products we've found will help you have a positive experience on our blog.

Jenn (on the left) is a registered reflexologist by day and a supermom to two hockey and baseball playing kids by day and night. Jenn is a healer, a positive light with positive thoughts and good will. Jenn is a great researcher and writer and public speaker for workshops on wellness and self care. Jenn loves traveling, recipes, eco-friendly living, creating positive energy, scrapbooking and exercise. She struggles with taking time for herself to exercise and relax and eating more fruits and vegetables. She is the first to admit that sometimes she gets caught up in the drama of a situation and has to take a step back and breathe.

I am an office administrator for insurance by day and also a mom of two, a boy with cerebral palsy and a girl who is just bursting at the seams with energy and curiosity. I am a realist, an action oriented person, a list maker, a Type A person. I am generally positive and try to offer positive advice however, the pragmatism sometimes comes out as a blunt comment. I work hard trying to see other peoples perspective of a situation before I comment. I am also a trained Aesthetician. I am also a public speaker and conduct workshops on positive problem solving, scrapbooking and organizing. I also enjoy recipes, "green"living, scrapbooking and exercise (well most of the time). I struggle with what I want to do, stay at home and raise my family and work on the side and with what I have to do, which is work full time to maintain health benefits that pay for all my son's medical bills.

Together we will share our stories, tips, books we've read and experiments as we explore what it takes to create "A Balanced Lifestyle" We will share projects, cool tips and products and services that we like, maybe even a photo or two.

In no way are we claiming to be balanced....yet. But we are working towards it and figure others can benefit from our positive experiences, some fun and thought provoking experiments and sharing the feelings of stress and how we handle it, that will inevitably creep into our lives.

Just a couple of gals trying to live our lives, doing the best we can with what we have..., an abundant desire to create something positive.

Join us on this journey.

Enjoy

Jenn and Shannon

abalancedlifestyle@gmail.com
You can also find us on Twitter/ourbalancedlife