Honestly Speaking

Know Thyself – Transform Your Life

"Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." Helen Keller. 

Imagine yourself going through life every day having the confidence to overcome any fear, reject any label and achieve any dream. Envision knowing even though the bad times will still come it’s okay because now you won’t just "get through it" you will guide the outcome and REALLY get stronger because of it. Finally, imagine that through having that knowledge and power you can change any aspect of your life currently causing you pain.

For most of us, that sounds like just a fanciful notion with an implied empty promise not having anything to do with life as we lead it.  But when you are the expert on yourself; when you have the confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are and what you want, as well as your strengths and your weaknesses, all of a sudden not only are those things possible, they are inevitable and unavoidable. Because as the person who knows you best in the world you have the control, the power, the ability and the right to dictate how you feel and what impact you will have on the world.

I’ve long been curious and bothered by what I see as an increasing number of people going through life on autopilot not actually getting the joy they crave or worse yet actively sabotaging what chance they have at the happiness we all so richly deserve. In my everyday interactions with people, as well as through my coaching practice, I hear tale after heartbreaking tale of a population at odds with what they are doing or saying they want and what they are receiving from life.

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." ― Aldous Huxley

Despite the overwhelming abundance of our era, the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020 depression will be the second leading cause of disability. The psychologist David Myers has been researching happiness since the 1950’s and found that for more than six decades we hold steady at a mere 20% of humans claiming to be happy.

In 2013 the website drugabuse.gov reported that 31%  of Americans were addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, prescription painkillers or illicit drugs. Currently, 2/3 of us are overweight or obese, and we are getting fatter faster than ever despite more pills, surgeries, gyms and exercise programs than ever before.  

Depending on the study you use, anywhere from 30-60% of spouses will be unfaithful in their marriage at least once. Even in a down economy dating and hookup sites flourish with many of the members there being married individuals who claim "I’m happy but...".

More than one million times a month, someone asks Google a question about self-confidence, building self-esteem, happiness or success and there are nearly 370,000 Amazon results for books on those topics. There are popular fan pages on Facebook that feature nothing but memes relative to these concerns.

To say we’re "searching" for something is an understatement. While at some level we know we’re responsible for our own happiness and in turn all those other things, the reality of how to make that happen escapes us.

Every day becomes a struggle between tending to the responsibilities we already have and trying to wrest back control of elements we desire but may see slipping away. The patterns in our lives both at home and work repeat themselves often without our even seeing the impact. What’s scarier and equally tragic is that while we’re fighting so mightily to grab what happiness we can from our own lives we’re simultaneously setting our children up to experience the same insecurities, frustrations and life hurdles. More than two centuries ago founding father Thomas Paine said: "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Yet, here we are repeating the same sentiment and regretting the same actions time and again.

So how did we get here? What drives this cover up and self-medication? What does that cover up look like? And how do we begin to get back to a place of more truth, honesty and authentic communication with ourselves and others?

I have both a theory as well as a proposed solution. Therefore, my mission with this book is first to show evidence to support what I’ve come to believe and then to hopefully walk with you, my reader, down the path to our joint discovery and healing.  This is a book about control and about permission. It’s about choosing to give up our control and about giving ourselves permission to take it back.

The theory and concepts I put forth here are in no way new or profound. They’ve been addressed many times by authors some of whom have far more formal training or brand recognition than I do. However, what I intend to do is give you very real world everyday examples of how this plays out for us and how our refusal to acknowledge it threatens not only our happiness but also that of our children. Throughout the pages that follow, I’ll show what happens when we fail to live authentically as well as the amazing things that happen when we succeed. Also, in bits and pieces, I’ll relate my story with its inherent strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, because if I weren’t living in this manner every day, not only would the concept have never come to me, more importantly, nothing I said here would be of real value.

However, each of the stories here is very personal. Some of the most tragic ones represent people who are no longer on this earth. Those folks will never have another opportunity to learn from their mistakes or to change the outcome of their lives. Some of them died physically or emotionally alone thinking they were unloved and without value. The real purpose of this book is to do anything I can to prevent you and me from experiencing those same horrific and lonely fates. For that reason, I ask you to approach the rest of this text with a completely open and curious mind. Maybe, in the end, none of it applies to you, but I can tell you I learned things about myself while writing it and did my best to structure it in a way for you to do the same.

But true to the title of this book I will talk to you like I talk to the most important people in my life. Sometimes that will be gentle; other times it will be painfully direct. This is a topic of great importance to all of us. Every generation wants to be the one to make things different, but from parent to child to grandchild we continue to suffer the same struggles and insecurities. The time for sugar coating is long gone, and I’ve worked too hard to get this into your hands. I have just this one chance to make it count.

Finally, the most important thing to remember is this: what happens next is and always has been up to you. You began with picking up this book. Now open your mind and be intentional with every page. You can change, or you can stay the same. You can live in denial and cover up the misery, or you can live every day with mind blowing and breathtaking confidence, but in the end, it is all your choice.