Articles
Browse every published article connected to James LeGrand, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to James LeGrand, or search within this exact expert archive.
Everyone searches for happiness. It is second only to peace of mind in importance for the people of our time. Happiness is elusive, and many of us have only caught glimpses of it over the years. Some of us have given up and decided that happiness is something that is simply not possible for ...
When people lose everything, and the survival of themselves and family are at risk, they may be tempted to do some bad things. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Many have either lost, or are losing their homes. Food is now, or has been, becoming an issue. With less and less people to turn to for help, there is a perfect storm brewing from which one can conclude that crime may rise. Hope Is it possible to have a strong and lasting economic recovery without jobs? No.
Self-absorbed. Self-centered. Selfish. Narcissist. These are a few of the terms that we normally attribute to a person with an overwhelming sense of entitlement, a belief that they are the center of the universe, and to a person who doesn’t consider how their actions affect anyone else. These individuals will not change unless they choose to. Therefore, understanding them, and knowing how to deal with them is the circle of control you have to work within. If you are on the path of attaining balance and peace in your life, understanding the narcissist is important.
So, there you are, sitting through yet another boring presentation. As you are actively not listening and you sit back in your chair, you suddenly feel the sharp poke of an elbow from your neighbor. That's when you realize that you've been asleep. What's worse is that as your eyes open, the ...
Genius level thinking is not reserved only for highly mentally gifted. Geniuses have a system for how to work through problems, which they may or may not be conscious of. Once you learn the system, you can use it to solve problems the way geniuses do. The difference between them and you is that they’ve simply used their system longer than you have. Once you gain some practice with it, internalize it, and begin to use it automatically, the people in your life will see you as a genius to. Here are the 7 steps to genius level problems solving. 1.
If the truth shall set you free, then the lies can imprison you in guilt, burden and regret. They come as small as the occasional white lies friends tell each other to as big as the whopper of a lie governments tell their citizens. No matter the size, lies are intended to purposely deceive one into believing something, hide the truth, or both. When we find out we’ve been lied to, we feel victimized. When its been discovered that we’ve lied, we feel like crawling under a rock.
The strongest impact of terrorism lies not in the event itself, but in the fear-based responses it provokes. The 9/11 event itself destroyed almost 3,000 lives, some of the most famous symbols of commerce, and the sense of security that Americans felt while living within the borders of the United States. The fear-based emotions it generated, including rage, vengeance, worry, and paranoia, caused us to no longer see things holistically, but rather to see everything as separate and apart from ourselves.
The difference between a peak performer and a poor performer is what they each think about. If you know the secrets of a peak performers thought process, you can duplicate their process, and thus their results. So, how do peak performers perceive the problems in their lives? Here is a hint…they don’t view them as problems at all. Here are the 5 ways peak performers view problems, and how they solve them practically with just a change in perception. 1. Problems Reveal You Dr. Wayne Dyer has a great way of saying this.
Many people have tried to put the Law of Attraction to work without success. While “The Secret” has done more than any other body of work to help people manifest their dreams, there are 2 missing steps to the formula. Here are the steps to putting the Law Of Attraction to work successfully in your life and the 2 missing steps to make it work for you each and every time. 1. Everything Starts With a Dream What are the things you really want to have, do or become in your life. Start by just making a list of the dreams you wish you could fulfill in your life.
Almost every news story over the last several days has to do with a potential pandemic, terrorism, or if there will be an economic recovery. These stories play on your fears of illness, death, and bankruptcy. While all 3 can, and do, happen everyday, it is important to keep your fears in check ...
There are many activities we engage in that we believe are fun, but that secretly hurt us. We continue to do them over and over again and never realize the damage we are doing to ourselves. Are you feeling like you are being held back from what you want out of life? Do you have goals that seem difficult to reach?
We live under the illusion that we must worry or that by worrying we are proving that we care or even possible love someone or something. Worry gives us the ability to feel like we have some involvement in how things turn out while at the same time giving us the right to do nothing about it. ...
The yelling, screaming, fighting and complete disrespect for our fellow men and women over differing opinions was horrible. The debate over the H.R. 3200 Health Care Bill is emotional, complex and highly controversial. We teach our children how to resolve conflict by listening, understanding, and responding with sound and thoughtful logic. Then we behaved worse than our children ever did. As a country, the United States likes to set the example for the rest of the world. Yet the example we provided was one of our more ridiculous.
Our relationships tend to be a great source of agony. In particular, we spend a significant amount of time wanting and searching for love, and when we find it, it can be difficult to hold on to. Over half of all marriages end in divorce, and breakups in all other committed relationships can ...
People are out of work and struggling to survive. Businesses are failing or being purchased for less than their true value. People who once had a lot of wealth in the stock market are now desperate to just hold on to what they have left. Those who are employed or that have profitable businesses ...
There is a difference between a nice guy or gal (henceforth, “guy” will apply to both) and a guy that is kind, respectful, generous, and that gets what he or she wants out of life. Are you tired of being passed up for promotions while doing all the work? Have you heard, “let's just be friends" ...
There is nothing like a truly happy love relationship! This level of relationship isn’t reserved for the lucky or the favored. Happy relationships have certain things in common. If you know what they are, you can find or create happiness in your love relationship. Here are the 6 Essentials for a Happy Love Relationship. Everyday Zen Happy love relationships have peaceful exchanges all day long. It’s never anything major. It’s a way of talking and being with your partner that is balancing, calming and fulfilling.
The deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and pitchma Billy Mayes has many of us seriously thinking about our own mortality. Most of us never consider our own mortality. Our own death is never thought about or discussed. In fact, the American culture is extremely afraid of death – so afraid that we treat it as if it will never happen. We go about each day expecting to awaken the next. While intellectually we know that death will occur for all things living, we act as if death has no hold on us.
Your intuition is you as a soul communicating with your mind and body. It is those gentle nudgings that may occur to you as hunches, visual imagery, feelings, or maybe even whispers. When we talk about intuition, we are talking about information that is being passed to you that you would have ...
Life is change. Our lives ceaselessly change every second we live within it. When a species that walks this planet encounters a significant change species-wide, we call that change evolution. As human beings, we have gone through several such evolutions. Some of those changes were physical as we look at our progression from the men and women of “cave man” times. Other changes were mental, as we formed complex social structures, began to rely on agriculture and farming, our progression to the Industrial Age, and our solid hold on the Information Age.
In our society, we often use the phrase, “Go with the flow.” Many of us have not given any thought as to what that means. Going with the flow means moving with the flow of events. It means that you move with the present, and you do not fight against it. The present is also known as “current.” It is the energy of one event happening after another. By staying connected with the current, you flow with it. With flow, you are no longer resisting the events of your life. You understand that every event that occurs in your life had to happen exactly as it did.
10 Financial Mistakes You Should Never Repeat There have been a number of financial mistakes that we've all been living with for the past several years. During economic downtu s, those mistakes become apparent, and our options become limited. It's important for us to understand what got us ...
Living a healthy lifestyle is often not as hard as we make it out to be. We all know what to do, but just can’t seem to bring ourselves to do it consistently. Instead of engaging in the activities that will ensure our health, which ensures our quality of life, we prefer to medicate or ignore. Bad habits and healthy habits have one thing in common…they are both habits, and habits can be changed, eliminated, or created. Here are the 4 Healthy Habits We Love to Hate. Habit #1: Drink!
Anger is a toxic poison we willingly serve to ourselves. We think that by holding on to our anger that we are somehow punishing those that have wronged us in the past. In truth, we hurt ourselves over and over again by holding on to past experiences and angry emotions. Anger, like stress, is powerful enough to manifest itself in physical ailments. Also, since your focus determines your reality, your focus on anger attracts more opportunities for you to be angry at.
We are each born with a purpose to fulfill during our lifetimes. It is something that we tend to have a natural attraction and aptitude for. When we do that thing, time stands still. We do it because we love it, and we love it as we do it. It is our passion, our life's work and our life's purpose. Unfortunately, many of us allow that passion to be covered up. Lack of support from family and friends, taking a different route in life, or lack of belief that we can be successful often stop us from doing it.
The Christmas Day Terrorist, the Newark Airport evacuation, continued conce s about Swine Flu (H1N1), and economic recovery from the “Great Recession” are causing widespread fear and panic. People are once again afraid to fly, afraid of those that seem sickly, and afraid that recovery will never come. The fear machine is busy keeping you afraid and keeping your mind off of reality. Fear is a product. Someone is selling it, and too many of us are buying it. It’s time to understand F.E.A.R. to eliminate fear from our lives and keep things in proper perspective. F.E.A.R.
When it comes to spirituality and our personal relationships, common themes will emerge. Whether we are discussing a marriage, a work relationship, or the relationship between a stranger and ourselves, the themes of acceptance, control, respect, and “it takes two” will emerge over and over ...
In the midst of a faulty economic recovery, high unemployment, continuing foreclosures, and the prospects of inflation or hyperinflation, people around the world continue to focus more attention on things and people that cannot and will not help them in their daily lives than on the work that needs to be done to get their lives back on track. So, what do Prince William, Sarah Palin’s Alaska & Cat vs Gator have in common? Distraction!
In all of our lives, there have been circumstances where things turned out differently than we thought they should have when looking back. Regret is when we feel sorrowful for those results and wish that something different resulted. Regret is born from our non-acceptance of what has happened. Though we cannot change what has happened, we hold the wish for something different in our minds. We may think that we should have done something differently to avoid the situation all together or to change the results. However, our suffering over what has happened is what we create right now.
The current recession has proven that just having a job is not enough anymore. Millions of people around the world have lost their jobs and now have no income stream. Multiple streams of income is the safest way to ensure you and your family’s financial health. In good times, you’ll have income from your job and from your business. If you are the victim of a layoff, you can use your business as backup income.
In addition to spending Thanksgiving with your family this year, why not start a new tradition and have a “Friends Thanksgiving”? This is a great way to spend time with and honor your friendships, and the families of your friends. As an annual event, your friends and their children will be excited year after year as the event approaches and everyone can spend the day together once again. My friends have been gathering for Friends Thanksgiving for 7 years in a row. Here’s how we do it. There is normally a core set of friends that host the event.
Healthcare Reform in the United States has been getting a lot of press lately, and one thing seems certain; we continue to place a monetary value on life. Something that should be a right is being used for extreme profit and individuals all across the world pay the price. No matter where you are in the world, you cannot count on a government or privatized healthcare system.
Love, money, laughter, accomplishment, & fame are what we typically think of when we want something pleasurable in our lives. But do they really bring us pleasure? Within all of them lies a way to find temporary or permanent pleasure.
Are you currently doing things that may be negatively affecting your love relationship? We don’t always understand the impact of the things we do or say until it’s too late. It’s important to avoid the things that inadvertently hurt or push our partner away. Here are 10 things you should never do in a love relationship…ever! 1. Don’t stop falling in love over and over again
Joblessness, loss of investments, and lack of available credit with no end in sight are all ingredients in creating recession depression. Top economists predict that the recession will deepen in 2009 and will begin recovery mid 2010. So, what can we do to keep ourselves optimistic during this ...
You may be pushing your partner out of your life. Your fears, guilt, doubt, past experiences and feelings of unworthiness may drive you to doing and saying terrible things to the one you like or love. Whether you are doing this consciously or unconsciously, you could be pushing away the ...
We are in a world wide economic downturn. This Valentine’s Day won’t be about the size or the price of the gift one receives. Materialism in this economy would be irresponsible. More of an emphasis must be placed on truthful expressions of love this Valentine’s Day. So, how can we express our ...
During our daily lives or in the midst of extraordinary circumstances, we often come upon worthy causes to donate to. However, because of one of any number of reasons we fail to make the donation. When you give even a little bit to an organization that helps others, you are making a positive impact. Just as multiple rain drops can cause a flash flood, your few dollars combined with the few dollars that thousands and millions also donate can change lives. So, why do good people hold back from donating when they really want to?
Depending on your economic status, you are either having the time of your life, struggling to survive, or frustrated by stagnation and an inability to do anything. Right now, the rich are like children in a free candy store. The poor are fighting to keep their children fed and fear becoming ...
Most of us have gone about weight loss the wrong way. We view it as a "problem" that we must fight to resolve or cure. In actuality, weight gain is the result of our short term thinking and our life style choices. If you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off, it's time to make the ...
Best selling author Robert Greene wrote the wildly popular book, “The 48 Laws of Power”. The book teaches you step by step how to attain power (by the author’s definition) through intimidation, fear, scape-goating and deception. It provides historical references to how each law was effectively ...
The news that R&B singer Chris Brown physically abused songstress Rihanna placed domestic violence in the spotlight once again. The drama that is playing out in front of millions of people between these two young celebrities is lived by millions of people around the world. This is not just a ...
I have a good friend that recently decided to move her family back to her home state. To save money, she and her husband decided to live with her mom and dad temporarily. They both found jobs, and everything was looking good for them. She then began putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on ...
In 2009, we’ve seen some extraordinary events and were dealt some harsh pills to swallow. We’ve experienced great hope and happiness as well as great pain and suffering. We’ve felt the highs of hope and the results of recession. There are many lessons to learn.
The financial markets are extremely uncertain. Last week we had the worst week in DOW’s history and Monday we saw the greatest gains ever. People are losing their homes due to foreclosure or the value of their house is now less than what is owed on it. Layoffs are on the rise. Business ...
There are a lot of frightened people out there. We tend to allow our minds to go to the worse case scenario, and then come up with new ways things could get worse. This state of mind only makes our fears appear more real and present. These fear-based images and self talk can be so powerful ...
When you are serious about keeping your word, simplifying your life, or taking control of your schedule, you have to become selective about what you agree to doing. The word “no” isn’t the bad word you may have been taught it was as a kid. Instead, it’s your ticket to freedom. Understanding the different ways and situations in which to use no is key to keeping your focus on only those things that you want to do. Here are your 7 Ways to Say No! 1.
Self-limiting beliefs are a cage that we build around ourselves. It becomes our view of what’s possible or impossible for us. It’s an invisible cage that securely locks us into one perspective, and locks us out from another.
The crash landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River was amazing. The airplane landed on the water in tact. All 155 passengers and crew survived. Many of the passengers of the flight recounted tales of order, selflessness and acts of bravery. All involved continue to tout the ...
Bad days suck. They make everything that's going well in your life seem a little darker. They can make you cranky and carry around all sorts of negative energy, emotions and memories. When you are in the midst of a bad day, its hard to see beyond it. Your top priority when starting a bad day is to stop it as soon as possible. Here are 5 Ways to Overcome a Bad Day: 1. Drink Before you get too excited, let's clarify. A cup of hot tea can often break a bad mood.