Now, who is Epictetus you may ask?

He was a Greek philosopher that lived about 1900 years ago. When he was young he was a slave in Rome but was later released and started to teach philosophy first in Rome and later on in Greece.

Epictetus was somewhat of a lonesome minimalist.

He lived with few possessions and by himself for a long time. He also seems to never have written anything, but luckily his thoughts were recorded by his pupil Arrian.

Here are seven excellent pearls of wisdom from Epictetus.

If you are going your own way, prepare for reactions.

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

Besides being a funny quote I believe it is very relevant to self-improvement.

If you start changing then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is shining through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. Most likely they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

You choose to be insulted.

“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common to react to different things. But that mostly just all it is. You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

But as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

Forget about what you think you know.

“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”

If you think that you already know something then your mind will not be open to actually learning it. Whatever someone is telling you your mind will sort through based on what you think you know. You’ll only hear and learn what you what you want to hear and learn.

So whenever you want to learn anything it may be a good tip to disregard as much as possible of what you think you know. In my experience this makes it easier to pick things up and not disregard important stuff.

Of course, the ego often wants to jump in to meddle and strengthen itself by making you think that you already know whatever you’re about to learn. Be careful in trusting that somewhat arrogant inner voice. :)

Listen.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

This is a useful piece of advice in just about any interaction. It’s useful when learning something new. And it’s helpful just while in a regular conversation. It’s not always easy to stick to it though. Sometimes you get too excited about something to keep quiet. Sometimes you just want to brag or recount what happened. Having the attention of all the other people feels good. So how do you get around this habit of hogging the spotlight?

One useful way is to just forget about yourself. Focus your attention outward instead of inward in a conversation. Place the mental focus on the person you are talking and listening to instead of yourself. Placing the focus outside of yourself makes you less self-centred and your need to hog the spotlight decreases.

If you start to actually listen to what people are saying it also becomes easier to find potential paths in the conversation. By asking open-ended questions – the ones that will give you more than a yes or no answer – you can explore these paths and have better and more fun conversations.

Appreciate what you have.

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

One good way to live a miserable life is to constantly focus on what you don’t have. If you appreciate what you have you’ll find everyday life more pleasurable. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t focus on what you want.

To me it’s more about focusing on what you want and not keeping your focus in a more popular place: on what you lack. This will make it easier to get what you want since you always seem to notice and receive more of whatever you focus you mind upon.

Notice what is reflected.

“When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.”

I really like this one because I’ve become more and more interested in how we relate to each other. Like how what someone says about you may not be much of a reflection of you but of the person that said it.

This is a good thing to remember whenever someone is saying something negative about you. It’s also useful to remember whenever you feel negatively about someone else. It can not only help you forget about your negative emotion. It can also help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself.

Suffering is optional. And so is happiness.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

“I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?”

“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.”

Suffering is optional. And so is happiness. What you choose to think about determines how you feel. Now, again, it may be “normal” and common to go through a lot of mind-made suffering after the initial pain that ignited the suffering. And it’s easy to slip back into old thoroughly ingrained thought habits.

One tip that I have found helpful for this is to learn to reconnect as much as possible with the present moment. Suffering is to a large extent created when your mind is thinking thoughts about either the past or a possible future.

It is also very useful to realize that you are not your thoughts or emotions. They are just things that are flowing through you. But they are not you. You are the one observing them. This realization can gradually free you more and more from keeping negative thought and emotions going. Whenever they arise and you realize that you aren’t them, that you don’t have to identify with them their power over you fades and vanishes quicker than if you had identified with them completely.

As humans we tend to spend a lot of time in the past or the future.

We spend much time thinking about what was and what could have been. And we spend much time projecting into the future and wondering about what may happen.

This way of thinking is indeed a great way to make much of your life a lot more miserable and limited than necessary.

The key to solving this problem is of course to live as much as you can in the only moment that you ever really live in and control.

This moment right now.

The moment that is all there ever was and – probably :) – will be.

There are more advantages to being in the moment besides being able to decrease mindmade suffering. Some of those advantages are:

• Clarity. When you are in the moment you have a much better focus and things flow naturally out of you. This is very useful in conversations, at work, while writing or while on the tennis court.

• Calmness. You feel centred, relaxed and whatever you do you do more easily. Since you are not projecting into a possible future or reflecting on previous experiences there is very little fear holding you back or worry stopping you.

• Positivity. Since there is little fear, there are few negative emotions when you are in the present. Instead you move around on the positive part of the emotional scale.

Now, that sounds nice and useful.

But how can you step away from the thought loops that whirl back and forth through your memories and fantasies?

How do you actually return to the present moment?

Here are 8 ways. But before we get to them I’d just like to add that this is a skill.

You will slip back into involuntarily thinking about the future/past. But the more time and effort you spend connecting with the moment the easier it gets reconnecting with it. And staying there longer.

1. Focus on what’s right in front of you.

Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses.

Just look at what’s right in front of you right now (besides your laptop/phone and my blog). Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel.

For the last three days the dark winter seems to have left us here in Sweden. It’s been clear skies and sunshine all the time.

So I have been using the unexpected light and warmth of the sunshine on my skin to reconnect with the moment.

2. Focus on your breathing.

Take a couple of dozen belly breaths and just focus your mind on your inhaling and exhaling. This will align you with the present moment once again.

3. Focus on your inner body.

This is a bit similar to focusing on your breathing. In both examples you focus on what’s inside you rather than the outside.

What is the inner body?

Well, I guess you could say it is energy inside of your body. How your body feels from the inside.

A practical way to do this just to focus on your hand. To just put your focus there and feel how the hand feels to you and how the energy is flowing through it.

Yeah, this suggestion may sound a bit weird to the mind. But if you actually try it a few times you’ll probably find that inner energy within your hand.

4. Pick up the vibe from present people.

If you know someone that is more present than most people then you can pick his/her vibe of presence (just like you can pick up positivity or enthusiasm from people).

If you don’t know someone like that I recommend listening to/watching cds/dvds by Eckhart Tolle. His books work too. But cds/dvds are better than books for picking up someone’s vibe since the biggest part of communication is voice tonality and body language.

5. Surrender to the emotion that is already there.

It’s easy to get stuck in a loop of old memories. You may want to move away from them but there is a feeling there that brings them back over and over.

So you need to decrease the power that feeling has over you. And you don’t do it by fighting it. You do it by surrendering to it.

The feeling is a loop within your mind that you are feeding with more energy by resisting it. When you accept the feeling then you stop feeding it and it vanishes.

Here’s how you it:

Say yes to the feeling.

Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labelling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems to physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two the feeling just vanishes.

As you can see, this way is similar to ones above. They are all about observing.

6. See things as for the first time.

This one pretty similar to the first way. But it can be useful when you have a hard time just observing your surroundings.

That’s when you can look at things as for the first time. Imagine it like that, take that role.

Like someone who has never experienced this before. Like a child or someone who has never been here before.

I like this one and I have been doing it from time to time for years (although back then I didn’t really understand why it felts nice when I did it).

Note: These last two ways are certainly not the best ways to reconnect with the moment and I’m not really recommending them. They aren’t that healthy (especially in the long run). But they work to some degree. It’s up to you if you want to try them.

7. Punch your leg.

Try punching your leg. Or pinching your arm. Or have someone else do it.

And focus on that sensation to quickly bring yourself back to the moment.

8. Drink a beer or two.

It’s Friday so I thought I’d include this one.

This is probably the most common way to connect to the moment (at least over the weekend). You may have said or heard that it’s nice to grab a beer or two after work to take the edge off.

What is this edge?

I think it’s the clutter of thoughts that can run around in your mind after a long and busy week at work.

The alcohol quiets down these thoughts (and the decreases the number of thoughts in your mind). And you feel more relaxed.

You don’t think about the past or future as much. You just enjoy your beer and the company. You enjoy the moment.

Drinking a couple of beers – or getting really drunk – can remove the past or future from your mind.

It can add calmness and positive feelings. However, it throws the clarity out the window. :)

So besides the health aspects of drinking, this isn’t exactly an ideal way to be in the present moment. Use it at your own risk.

Or just try out a few of the more healthy and effective techniques.

I have been reading, listening to and watching various personal development information for a few years now.

I have noticed a few mistakes I have made. And so I have made a few adjustments to how I take in and use this information. These adjustments have helped me make more practical progress.

The five mistakes are pretty obvious things really. Maybe you’ve already changed things to avoid them. Maybe you are at a different place and have a different experience and don’t need to avoid doing these things because they work for you.

But anyways, I thought I’d share them and hopefully these pointers will be of some use to some of you.

1. Taking in too much information.

Up until about six months ago I took in lots and lots of self-help information from all kinds of sources.

It helped me but it also often made me a bit confused and I tended to forget quite a bit of information that could probably help me.

So I decided to trim down. Instead of reading a few books simultaneously I started to just read one at a time. Instead of reading 10-15 personal development blogs I now read 2 or 3.

The last few weeks I have taken this a bit further and delved into just one author. I have used almost all my study time listening to/watching stuff by Eckhart Tolle to both pick up his vibe of presence and to gain a deeper understanding of his work. I will probably do something similar with other authors later on (possibly Wayne Dyer next month).

Having this narrow focus has helped me get a clearer understanding of Tolle’s thoughts and just “being in his presence” a lot has made it easier for me become and stay present more of the time.

2. Just reading through things once.

I have found that by rereading information from time to time I have been able to gain a deeper knowledge because my overall knowledge and experience has grown. So one chapter of a book that once had one meaning can have a pretty different meaning once I reread it. And things that I first half-ignored while reading now seems so much more important.

3. Not applying or testing the information.

I believe that this one ties into the first mistake. When you have a continual information overload in your mind it becomes hard to determine what to try next. Or you may fall into a common self-help junkie trap where it feels like you are making progress in your life just by reading about self-improvement. This is however mostly just a sort of emotional high that you can get hooked on.

4. Not reinforcing it.

Maybe it’s just me but I have a tendency to forget what I should do. So I need to post external reminders – written notes on the fridge etc. – to reinforce what I am striving for and what changes I am working on right now. If I don’t use such reminders then I tend to slip back into old thought patterns pretty quickly. 

5. Go looking for magic pills.

A book will not change you. You change you. You have to put in work. A book may be just perfect for you at the right time, when you are ready for it. But you still have to follow the advice given to change your life.

I believe that the search for magic pills is one of those thing that can drive someone to make the mistakes above over and over and make little actual progress.

So if you know that you may have spent a bit too much time looking for magic pills I suggest that you focus on fewer ideas, actually applying them and reinforcing them.

Lately, I have been focusing quite a bit on creating and strengthening an abundance mentality for myself. It’s not so easy to maintain it though.

Much of society seems to be built on a scarcity mentality. A mentality that tells people that there is a lack in life. That opportunities are few and far between.

This is of course useful for society because if people feel that there is a lack, then you can get them to buy stuff. And so the economy and society can continue to live and prosper by reinforcing a scarcity mentality in people.

But the scarcity mentality can be quite painful for the individual and create a lot of unnecessary fear, anxiety and desperation.

An abundance mentality, on the other hand, tells you that there are always new chances and opportunities. This relieves much of the pressure you may feel if you have a scarcity mentality that makes you think that you only got this shot right now. Or makes you feel like an utter failure just because you just stumbled and things didn’t work out.

An abundance mentality allows you to see life in a more long-term perspective. And it can help you improve your performance since with it you’re creating a lot less pressure and anxieties within your own mind.

If you have a scarcity mentality then you will probably take things too seriously. You may think to yourself: “If I fail, the sky will fall”. It probably won’t, though. But you think it will, you become overly nervous and POOF! you have created a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure because your inner, self-created negativity puts obstacles on your path to success.

If it’s a game, then you may fumble with the ball. If it’s an exam, then you may not have been able to sleep and will perform poorly on the test. If it’s a date, you may come of as too needy and nervous and not as your usual, more relaxed and confident self.

Here are a few tips that I’ve found to be useful to create and reinforce your own abundance mentality.

Focus on the abundance, not on the lack.

What you focus on, you will see in your world. Since you can’t take in all impressions around you, your reticular activation system – your focus system in the mind – will bring into focus what you focus your thoughts on.

This will allow you to see the abundance in your world that you may be missing right now. If you for instance have a lack of money, then don’t focus on your lack. Focus and think about the abundance of possibilities in the world to make money.

Focus your mind on that and soon ideas and opportunities to make that happen will start to “pop up” in your world. It’s almost a bit freaky how things that holds solutions for you – perhaps books or acquaintances – that have been there in the background for quite a while just one day suddenly jumps out at you.

Appreciate.

One quick way to revert from the pretty normal habit of thinking about what you don’t have is simply to appreciate. Appreciate your food, life, your roof, your friends and family and so on.

This can not only turn a sour mood into a more positive one within minutes but also help you notice possibilities you have missed or forgotten. And create a more open vibe within you, a vibe that makes it easier to focus on the abundance. So, make habit of appreciating for a few minutes each day.

Get an abundance vibe from other people.

Since you get a scarcity mentality from the input from, for instance, advertising and media then you can change your input to change your mentality.

Cut down on watching the news. Tivo your favourite shows and skip the commercials. Or just cut down on your TV and media consumption, period.

Replace the scarcity vibe your get from that input. How do you do that? “Hang out” with people that have an abundance mentality.

Read, listen to and watch personal development material. Besides reading your favourite personal development blogs, check out products by people like Brian Tracy and Wayne Dyer. Read success stories in books and magazines. Have a positive attitude to the abundance and success of your friends, family and co-workers. Hang out with people in real life that has more of an abundance mentality and less of a scarcity mentality.

Be selective with what you put into your mind. Create your own environment of abundance.

Remind yourself.

Even if it feels like you have a scarcity right now, you can turn that around by reminding yourself of all the things to appreciate in your life.

Or you may remember previous times when you had an abundance. Perhaps you had several business or job opportunities lined up. Remind yourself of such times. Realize that you can recreate similar circumstances once again.

Remind yourself on a daily basis.

It’s very easy to slip back into your old thought patterns. You just forget about what you should be thinking about.

A useful tool to keep yourself from slipping is to use external reminders. You can for example use written notes posted at places you can’t avoid seeing several times each day – your workspace, fridge and mirrors – or put a bracelet on your wrist. Seeing encouraging words or quotes that reminds you of your new abundance mentality can help your mind snap back into the right headspace once again.

Finally, try to adopt a more positive mindset in general. Without such a mindset, if you are bogged down with negative thoughts all the time, then it will be hard to create and believe in an abundance mentality.

One starting point for positive thinking with practical tips can be found in Take the Positivity Challenge!

“The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?”

“Who was Dale Carnegie?” you may wonder. Well, he was a guy that was born 110 years ago. He died in 1955. He was a rich man, a very successful man.

He wrote a little book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. It went on to sell over 30 million copies. It still sells today and is probably one of the best books on how to improve your social skills.

Carnegie then continued to write more books and to create courses on how to interact with people, on how to make friends and on how to gain influence.

In this article I’ll explore 10 of my favorite tips from Dale Carnegie. And as the opening quote says, these tips have been time-tested for the last few hundreds or thousands of years. They are pretty solid. :)

1. Create your own emotions.

“If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.”

Emotions work backwards too. You can use that to your advantage. If you are stuck in a negative emotion then you can often shake it off. Change your body – how you move, sit and stand – and act as you would like to feel. Enthusiasm and other positive emotions are much more useful and pleasurable for everyone in an interaction. Because…

2. It’s not so much about the logical stuff.

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

This is so key. Logic is good but in the end, in interactions and in life, we are emotional creatures. We send and receive emotions from other people. That is one reason why body language and voice tonality is often said be up to 93% of communication. Now, those numbers were for some specific situations but I still believe that these two ways of communication are very, very important.

The body language and the voice tonality is a bit like the rest of the iceberg, the great mass below the tip of the words we use. Those two things communicate how we are feeling and give indication to what we are thinking.

And that’s why it’s important to be able to change how you feel.

To be in a positive mood while interacting.

Because that will have a great impact on how you say something and how you use your body. And those two things will have a big impact on your results and relationships.

3. Three things you are better off avoiding.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”

Now these things may not be easy to avoid all together. Much of our interactions and perhaps even bonds are created and maintained through those three negative Cs. There is a sort of twisted pleasure in criticizing, condemning and complaining. It might make you feel more important and like a better person as you see yourself as a victim or as you condemn other people’s behavior.

But in the end these three Cs are negative and limiting to your life. Bringing up negative stuff and wallowing in it will lower your mood, motivation and general levels of wellbeing. And this can trap you in a negative spiral of complaining, complaining with other complainers and always finding faults in your reality.

You will also be broadcasting and receiving negative emotions. And people in general want to feel good. So this can really put an obstacle in the way for your interactions or relationships.

4. What is most important?

“The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.”

Classic advice. Don’t talk too much about yourself and your life. Listen to other people instead. However, if they ramble on and on, if they don’t reciprocate and show and interest in your life then you don’t have to stay.

Some things people may treasure the most include ideas, children, a special hobby and the job. And…

5. Focus outward, not inward.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

A lot of people use the second, far less effective way. It is appealing because it’s about instant gratification and about ME, ME, ME! The first way to become interested in people perhaps works better because it make you a pleasant exception and because the law of reciprocity is strong in people.

As you treat people, they will treat you. Be interested in them and they will be interested in you.

I would like to add that one hard thing about this can be to be genuinely interested in the other guy/gal. Your genuine interest is projected though your body language and tonality.

So, just waiting for the other person to stop talking so you can talk again isn’t really genuine interest. And that may shine through. And so your interactions will suffer.

6. Take control of your emotions.

“The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.”

This basically consist of being too reliant or dependent on external validation from other people. External validation is something someone communicates to you that tells you that you are person of value. That you, for example, are pretty, smart or successful.

This leaves much of your emotions in the hands of other people. It becomes an emotional roller coaster. One day you feel great. The next day you feel like just staying in bed.

But if you fill that inner cup of validation for yourself instead then you take over the wheel. Now you’re driving, now you control how you feel. You can still appreciate compliments of course, but you aren’t dependent on them.

This will make you more emotionally stable and enables you to cultivate and build your emotional muscles in a more controlled way. You can for instance help yourself to become more optimistic or enthusiastic more of the time. This stability and growth can be big help in your relationships.

7. No, they are not holding you back.

“Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.”

Caring too much about what people think will create self-doubt and feed imaginary monsters within your mind. You may for instance think that people will condemn you if you try something.

Maybe they will. But most of the time people are thinking about their own challenges and ups and downs. They just don’t care that much about what you do.

This may feel disappointing. It can also be liberating. It helps you remove inner obstacles that are you holding yourself back.

As you, bit by bit or in one big swoop, release those inner brakes you become more of yourself. You become more confident, you have a better chance at success, and you will feel more positive feelings and less negative ones. All these things can give a big boost to your interactions and help you sharpen those social skills.

8. So, whats in it for me?

“There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.”

If you want someone to do something then will they care about your motivation for getting this thing done? Perhaps. Often they will not have that great of an interest in what you want out of something.

They want to know what they will get out of it. So, for the both of you to get what you want out of something tell that person what’s in it for him/her. And try to be genuine and positive about it. A reason for them to do it delivered in a lame, half-assed manner may not be so persuasive. And so you both lose.

9. How to win an argument.

“The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.”

Getting two egos wrapped up in an argument, having two sides defending their positions desperately, will not improve relationships.

You are more likely to feel negative feelings towards each other long after the argument is over. And so you both wallow in negativity and you both lose. When possible, just avoiding unnecessary arguments is a win-win situation.

10. It’s about more than your words.

“There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.”

I often feel that there is a bit too much emphasis and overthinking on the third way of contact (what we say).

Don’t forget about the rest.

Most people stereotype people at their first meeting. They might not want to but it is a way for their – and perhaps your – mind to organize impressions and people. So think about how you look. Think about how you make first impressions. Think about your body language. And how you are saying your sentences.

Think about how you feel because that will be reflected out into the world. And the world will often reflect back something similar.