This week we're focused on choosing happiness and creating more happiness. We blogged about “Seven Ways to Be Happy Right Now” and I referenced a recent book entitled The Happiness Equation. In this blog, I want to give you a very tangible strategy for self-assessment and some practical results in changing your trajectory of where you're at now. But first, we have the Quote of the Day that you can find on one of the tabs in the The Daily Mastermind App by Paul Harvey

”Like what you do. If you don't like it, do something else”

How many of us complain about what we do, but we don't do anything about it.  I want to encourage you to do what you want to do. You can fail miserably at something you don't want to do so you may as well take a chance on doing something you love. Often times we get in a place where we sort of feel stuck.  Where do we start? What do we do when we feel stuck? Even if we're focused on happiness. We might be working on all the right things, but we really just need a hard reset.  We need something to break us free from our rut.

There's been many times in my life where I felt overwhelmed or even stuck. It's those specific times that I remember very vividly that my mentor, and now a partner of mine Roberts Stuberg, would sit down with me. He referred me back to something he calls the Pearl Constellation.  Let me give you a little bit of context.  For many years Robert was trying to develop a formula for navigating through life, following the path for success. He's worked with some of the greatest minds in the industry. He was an executive vice president at Nightingale Conant. This company helped build the programs for Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Barbra De Angelis, and Brian Tracy.  He had been around these great minds and he was trying to create formulas for following this path and navigating life. This is one of the reasons he created The Life Handbook which is something I’ll reference today. This is something that we need when we’re not making progress in our life.  We need some milestones or a compass. Something to guide us. Robert came up with five words he believed encompassed the essence of life we're hoping to experience. He's proven the effectiveness of these five words as a milestone, through mentoring thousands of people over the last several decades.  It's made a huge benefit for them in creating direction, refocusing in their life, and leading to ultimate happiness. 

The words form an acronym. An acronym is the first letter of each word that spells an actual word and the word is PEARL.  The five words make up this acronym called Pearl. He calls it the Pearl Constellation because these are the five areas that can help guide you like the travelers of old that used the constellations or the stars to guide them.  These are five milestones or guideposts that you can use in your life. I think it's very appropriate for this week because we're focused on creating happiness.

I want to go through these because I believe they are very tangible and specific things that you can use to make some changes. 

PEARL CONSTELLATION: 

The P stands for philosophy 

The E stands for emotions 

The A stands for activity 

The R stands for results 

The L stands for lifestyle 

So PEARL is your philosophy, your emotions, your activity, your results, and your lifestyle. If you're not getting the results, the happiness, the progress, or wherever it is you're trying to get in life, I know that through these five words, like Robert did with me, you'll be able to recalibrate your life and get back on track. I'm gonna go through each of these five areas with you today. Do a bit of a self-assessment of each of these areas. Rate yourself on a scale from 1-10 on each of these areas.  Do that often - monthly, weekly, or periodically. Whenever you feel you're not getting where you need to go. It's going to help you to identify where you need to make course adjustments, priorities that need to change, or how to refocus.  

I'm gonna read from some things that Robert put together called the LIFE HANDBOOK.   I want to go through these in “his words not mine” so you get the real and authentic message behind each area.  Success leaves clues. You need to be consciously listening to mentors and seven, eight, nine figure earners or people that are where you need to be as they speak of their life, happiness, and fulfillment, because even their words give you meaning and insight.

Ask yourself the following five questions.  I'm gonna go through these questions and at the same time I'm going to reference some thoughts he has on each of these five areas.

#1  The first area is called philosophy.   It's how you think. Ask yourself this question and rate yourself:  What do I believe about myself or about life that isn't true? Your philosophy is how you think. You've heard your thoughts control your life, but they don't control everything. Your philosophy of life is like the set of a sail in a sailboat.  It doesn’t control the wind or the outside circumstances, but it most certainly controls the direction that you're going in life and how you set your sail. No matter what circumstances you face, or how the wind blows, you can still go any direction you want by adjusting your philosophy in life.  Just like you go in any direction in a sailboat by adjusting your sail. So ask yourself what do I believe about myself or about life that isn’t true? Where am I on on my philosophy?   

#2  The second area is emotions. This is how you feel.  Ask yourself this question: What am I feeling that I don't want to feel?  Robert says the world is a merciless mirror of your attitude.  Your feelings and emotions need to be educated. A civilization has been called the intellectual management of human emotions.  Prisons are filled with people with emotional problems. Warren Buffett says to invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information.  What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep your emotions from corroding your framework. So ask yourself and rate yourself how well are you doing with your emotions. To change the way you feel long term not just motivated, you've got to change your values.  We all have the need to feel things such as certainty, uncertainty, significance, love, growth, contribution. But the question is whether you’re meeting your needs in a way that is good for you, good for others, and serves the greater good. Rate yourself on how well you feel you're doing with your emotions.

#3  The third area is your activity.  I want you to ask yourself this question: What am I doing that I don’t want to do? We often ask ourselves “what are we doing”, or “what should we be doing”.  But I’m asking you to ask yourself, “what am I doing that I don't want to do” because of your activity.  Work harder on yourself than you do on anything else so that you can reap the rewards. But are you working hard enough or not?  If you are working hard, are you just working hard or are you working smart?  How much time are you spending working in your area of unique talent? The area you’re excellent at and passionate about.   One of Robert’s early mentors had a motto that said “Outwork them!”  He was doing really well financially, which most do that work hard. However, when Robert mentioned this motto to another mentor, he said “why not outsmart them!” Of course the best strategy is to use your unique talent.  But it's very important that your activities reflect both, your unique talent, as well as the smart, productive activities you should be doing. So rate yourself on how well you're doing on your activities right now in your life.  If you're not getting where you want to be, remember our goal here is if you’re not making progress these are the areas you need to check yourself on.

#4  The fourth area is your results.  I want you to ask yourself this question:  What am I getting or not getting in my life compared to what I want to get.  Life demands measurable progress and reasonable time.  Great companies always measure their progress. Remember you can't get enough of what you don't really want, so check the results to see if you're even getting the right results. You have to stop to examine your results from time to time to see if you're actually winning or losing. What are your wealth numbers? What are your health numbers?  If you're in sales, what are your sales numbers? You've got to check to make sure you're getting the results in the area that you want to be moving forward in, not just staying busy. While achieving and getting results is important, it's not the whole game. It's not results at any cost. There’s a big difference between “achieving” and “becoming”.  The major question is not what am I getting. The major question is who am I becoming. Tracking the results is important to you. Rate yourself on how well you're getting results in the right areas of your life.   

#5  The fifth area is lifestyle.  I want you to ask yourself this question: How am I living my life on a daily basis compared to how I want to live? I'm asking you to just analyze how you are living right now.  You can be happy with how you live, and what you have, while you're pursuing what you want.  Life is not a dress rehearsal. You just get one chance. You have to be present in the moment.  The future that you've planned for five years ago is now. Is your future vision robbing you of the joy of the present? You've got to evaluate your lifestyle.  How are you living your life right now in your pursuit of your success or your goals. Learn to create a great life now with your present resources. The chances are excellent that you don't need more money to dramatically improve your quality of life.  You can probably dazzle your family with your present resources if you use the right strategy. You can do things right now to create memories. Warren Buffett once commented to someone that sacrifice in the present for the future sounds like saving up for old age. How many of us are waiting to live that life.? How many of us fall prey to the “doing right now the things others aren't willing to do, so that in the future you can live the life most won't.” How about living life right now!  How about living the life right now that you know you want to live. 

These are the five areas if you continuously track your progress and work on, you can be on track.  You can guide yourself to greater happiness. Once again, they're called the Pearl Constellation.  This is:

• your Philosophy, 
• your Emotions, 
• your Activities, 
• your Results,
• your Lifestyle.  

Dig deep on your own life in these five areas.  You will find areas to adjust. You will find areas to refocus in your life. You will ultimately get back on track with this Pearl Constellation.  You will get unstuck. You will find ways to create a better version of yourself. Remember Prosperity Pillars #7:  I Choose To Be Happy

It's never too late to start living the life you were meant to live TODAY and create the best version of yourself along the way.

George Wright III

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