Growing up my father used to tell me that every day was “the first day of the rest of my life”.  He would mostly use the expression when I was starting something fresh like the first day of a new school year.  The expression always seemed funny but never really had any meaning for me, until today.

As you may know, Friday was my last day at my job in a position that I occupied for the last 3 and a half years.  I had a great title and I grew tremendously while I was there but at a certain point, the growth stopped and I felt like I was stuck in some sort of routine instead of being excited about each new project that came along.  I had gotten all that I could have from the job and it was time to move on. 

This morning, I didn’t have to get out of bed, but without an alarm clock, for the first time in a while, I got up on my own, earlier than usual, jumped out of bed and had more energy than I’ve had since I wrestled in college.  I didn’t have to hit the snooze button, rush to the train or sit for an hour and a half on my commute.   Instead, I took my son to school, made a real breakfast and helped my wife pack for our big move next Sunday. 

All day I was full of excitement for what the future holds because for the first time in years, I felt that I was in charge of my destiny and I am taking control.  I broke free of the hold that the corporate world held on me.  I feel like the genie in Aladin when he was liberated and was now free to discover the world. 

For the next 2 weeks I will be packing, moving, unpacking and settling into my new home in Montreal, Canada.  After that I am opening up the virtual doors of Flid Media, a social media consulting company aimed at helping small businesses and non profit organizations use new technology and media to the fullest extent to improve the way they function.  Since I will be making my own hours, I will have time to have breakfast with my family take my son to school and not have to rush off to the office hoping that I won’t be late.  I will also be working on this blog along with a few other side projects that I’ve been playing around with.  I haven’t had much time over the last month to spend on this blog but once I am settled, I plan of giving it the attention that it needs.

Back to the title of this post, I actually felt that today was the first day of the rest of my life because my future is an open book waiting to be written and for the first time in my life, I have the pen and I know how to use it.  Everyone can write their own future, it just takes some luck. 

Wish me luck!

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I heard a little story a while back about a woman working in the market place and along came a man who swiped one of her products off her table and started to run away.  The woman caught up to him and scolded him so badly that there was steam shooting out of her ears.  A few moments later she returned to her table and with the nicest, kindest smile she asked her next customer if she can help them.

Later when she was asked how she could go from one extreme to another, she responded that however you feel in one situation does not have to carry over into the next situation.  She also said that just because you feel a certain way on the inside, it doesn’t mean that you have to show it on the outside.

Yesterday I wrote about how your mood can affect your luck.  Here are a few ways to put the lesson into action:

Don’t hold grudges

Don’t let one person ruin your day

Don’t take out your anger with one person on another

By getting and staying mad, you are only blocking out your own potential opportunity and luck.

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Sometimes when I’m really frustrated, worrying about something or in a bad mood I sit down and play video games to calm myself down and forget about my problems.  The main thing it does is allow me to think about my problems in the back of my head without them being pressing issues which is how I find, better ideas come to me. 

Lately I’ve been having some crazy days at the office where I just have to unwind and since I have a commute which is over an hour each way, I unwind on the train ride home.  I use my commutes for reading and podcasts to make my time the most productive.  While listening to podcasts, I need to do something besides just listening, to really get the full effect of the podcast so I play solitaire on my ipod.  I noticed that although the game depends a lot on the way the cards are dealt, I was doing proportionately well at the game as the day I just had at the office.  There was even one game that I went through the deck 3 times without being able to make a move.  That’s usually where I would abandon the game and start a new round.  Instead I put the game away for a little while and just relaxed with my eyes closed and some good music.  A while later when I went back to my game, I ended up winning.  It seems that my mood prevented me from seeing opportunity.

The bottom line is that the better mood you are in, the more opportunity you will see.  When you’re in a bad mood, subconsciously, you have no patience for opportunity and you block it out.  What I’m trying to say is that the better mood you are in, the luckier you will be.

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