TruthOrator's Blog

They might be 30, or 75. They come in all colors, shapes, sizes and income brackets. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been together. Whatever the demographics, when you see a happy couple, you just know it! How do these couples stay in love, in good times and in bad? Fortunately, the answer isn’t through luck or chance. As a result of hard work and commitment, they figure out the importance of the following relationship “musts.” Because few couples know about all of the musts, I think of them as the relationship “secrets.” Happy Couples and Their Secrets 1. Develop a realistic view of committed relationships. Recognize that the crazy infatuation you experienced when your romance was new won’t last. A deeper, richer relationship, and one that should still include romance, will replace it. A long-term relationship has ups and downs, and expecting it will be all sunny and roses all the time is unrealistic. 2. Work on the relationship. An untended garden develops weeds that c...

Worry does nothing but steal your joy and keep you very busy doing nothing. Unknown I’ve always worried about everything. I don’t know exactly when being caught up with the future became a natural state for me, but eventually it did. Every now and then I found myself living in the past, wondering how things would’ve been if I would have made different choices. When I did something I enjoyed or was with someone important to me I was always afraid of how I would feel when things came to an end.  I was never truly present, and thinking about what might happen in the future consumed my energy and sucked the joy out of each moment. I wasn’t able to appreciate my everyday life. It took some time for me to understand where the key to happiness lies, and how wrong my future-centered thinking habits were. It’s definitely worth not worrying or dreaming about the future and just living for the moment, because only in the present will you find pure joy and fulfillment, free from fear....

by Kathy Ferguson Litton What is the best thing you can do for your husband? Love him. Love him. Love him. My love does something no one else's love does: -- My love gives my husband courage. You know that line about the love of God, "If God is for us who can be against us?" My love for my husband can give him this empowering, courage-building truth, "If she is for me who can be against me?" "Courage comes to the heart that is convinced they are loved," Beth Moore has said. More than we know, our men live with the nagging fear that he is not man enough. He feels evaluated, measured or stacked up against someone else. My love gives him courage for that world. "God, let my love make him brave." -- My love helps quiet his fears about himself. The men we have married are surprisingly vulnerable to self-doubt and gnawing sense of inadequacy. Because success and achievement play such a vital role in a man's se...

by Cindi McMenamin Serena sat across the table from me, understandably frustrated. “I wish my husband would show more of a hunger for God,” she told me. “I know he’s saved, but he doesn’t seem as excited about his walk with God as I am. He doesn’t talk to me about what he’s learning or seem to have the passion that I have now that I’m involved in a small group study. I wish I knew what was going on with him and where he really is with God.” We all have visions of what we want our husband to look like, spiritually. But it’s very possible we have expectations of our men that are too high for them to meet. That’s because we’re unintentionally expecting them to be more like women, than men. Charles Swindoll, a former pastor and the author of numerous books, says “We men are far more closed – closed toward God and closed toward one another. But women have an openness, a warmth, a responsiveness to the things of God. Women have a desire to grow, to react, to feel, to show affection...

The values that make up the foundation of a life well lived—and, no surprise, money isn’t one of them The ultimate expression of life is not a paycheck. The ultimate expression of life is not a Mercedes. The ultimate expression of life is not a million dollars or a bank account or a home. The ultimate expression of life is living a good life. Here's what we must ask constantly, "What, for me, would be a good life?" And you have to keep going over and over the list—a list including areas such as spirituality, economics, health, relationships and recreation. So, what would constitute a good life? Jim Rohn has a short list: 1. Productivity. You won't be happy if you don't produce. The game of life is not rest. Yes, we must rest, but only long enough to gather strength to get back to productivity. What's the reason for the seasons and the seeds, the soil and the sunshine, the rain and the miracle of life? It's to see what you can do with it—to try ...

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” “Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” “When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.” You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He was a writer and also a humorist, satirist and lecturer. Twain is known for his many – and often funny – quotes. Here are a few of my favourite tips from him. 1. Approve of yourself. “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behaviour and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want. This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth....

If it’s such a good opportunity, why are you offering it to me? I was a street gang member and slaughterhouse worker who later made more than a billion dollars.  Along the way I’ve been bankrupt several times, built seven businesses and been pitched countless deals. What business opportunity made me a billion bucks?  It was the debt-collection business.  Talk about an area with a bad reputation.  Yet my company took a different path, and earned the praise of Working Woman Magazine for being one of the “Top 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers.”  We broke the mold, redefined an industry, and made lots of money at the same time. Reflecting on my successes and scars, here are five principles for how you can identify truly good opportunities of your own and quickly dump the rest: It Should be Just Good Enough to be True When someone pitches you on a  business opportunity and there’s only good news for as far as your eye can see—that’s bad news....

“Things do not change; we change.” ~Henry David Thoreau The world knows no joy like an evangelist with an opening. My eyes lit up as I jumped into my sermon on the incredible power of lifestyle change. The year previous I had decided it was time to take charge of my health, and I had made some big changes. I transitioned to a whole food diet, put plants at the center of my plate, started meditating regularly, and began attending yoga classes multiple times a week. I was absolutely astounded at how the synergy of these three lifestyle changes completely transformed my quality of life. So when my friends began asking me to what I owed my newfound glow, I couldn’t wait to endow them with the key to lasting health, effortless weight loss, and inner peace. And so my lecture would begin. “It’s so simple! Just change your diet, start exercising, oh and don’t forget to meditate every day!” Can you guess how many people I converted? Not a one. My regretful interlocutor would begin...

“I can affect change by transforming the only thing that I ever had control over in the first place and that is myself.” ~Deepak Chopra As the New Year quickly approaches, many of us spend time in review and reflection of the past year’s events and initiate strategic planning for the upcoming year. We create and contemplate lists of resolutions, often featuring some of the same goals from the previous year. But we convince ourselves that this is going to be the year for change and transformation. So, on January 1st, we arise, excited and committed to our new or repeated goals of exercising regularly, eating healthy, waking up earlier, taking a new class, searching for a new job and career, saving money, releasing bad habits, and the list goes on and on. Yet, by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the thrill and fervor have dwindled, and by mid-year our resolutions have fallen by the wayside—and our lives look exactly as they did the previous year. For several years, I was painfully s...

“Some people thrive on dramatic change. Some people prefer the slow and steady route. Do what’s right for you.” ~Julie Morgenstern Admit it. You feel like something’s missing from your life. You see people who have transformed their lives, given up their day jobs, and moved to exotic lands. People who have created a new life and found whatever was missing from their previous humdrum existences. But you don’t hate your life. You’re okay with a little humdrum. You like your responsibilities—your partner, kids, house, or job. The thought of the life you have stretching out in front of you isn’t awful. In fact, you’re just a fraction away from … contentment. But still. You can see there’s something to be said for adventure. You read the books, the articles, and the posts reminding you to do something new every now and then. But you wonder, how can you enhance and love the life you have rather than start a new one? Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should A trend ...

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~Dalai Lama I have recently come face to face with mortality—not my own, my friend’s. At only thirty-seven, Daniel left behind an army of people whose lives he had touched in some way, including my own. At thirty-three I have just qualified as a Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist. At the time Daniel passed away I was working as a Human Resources Manager, a profession I had originally trained in and remained in for over ten years. A number of factors and events led me to make the leap and set up my own practice as a Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist, but the overriding reason was simply to follow my dreams. Many of my friends told me how inspiring I was to them, others told me I was brave, and the rest gave me a look of awe that suggested I was crazy.   Words of well meaning advice were spoken. “Why don’t you work part time while you get the business underway?” “It’s going to take time for you to...

You don’t have to be a fortune 500 (or even a fortune 500,000) company to take advantage of these tips for good business practice. In fact, some of the best small businesses have evolved and succeeded by implementing some of these principles. I will be using the restaurant industry as anecdotal examples throughout this article, but you will see that the principles below apply to any industry. Maybe you will identify some restaurants in your area that aren’t following these tips. Watch them struggle for business, and ultimately close down as a result. 1. Know - How is Not Enough. Just because you’re an expert in your field doesn’t mean that you have what it takes to be a business owner. When you hang out that open sign on day one, it is unlikely that customers will flock to you right away just because you know what you’re doing. You’ll need marketing and administration (at the very least) to grease the wheels of your company. How many chefs or self-professed foodies have you met...

If you had asked me to write this list in my first year of marriage, it probably would have looked like the following: (1) keep a date night, (2) write notes to tell him you love him, (3) surprise him often, (4) don’t go to bed angry, (5) never be afraid to wear something fun that only he will see. While I would still recommend each of these, I have learned that often, supporting and loving each other well involves more complex depths of sacrifice.             Years of mistakes, saying things I longed to take back, and reacting in ways that pushed us further apart have widened my perspective. We are far from perfect and we fail each other daily, but we continue to work towards a better understanding of each other’s needs. Here are five of the lessons that have been both the most challenging and also life-giving in our relationship: 1. Spend more time talking about what he does do and less on what he doesn’t do. It seems simple, but when I st...

If you had asked me to write this list in my first year of marriage, it probably would have looked like the following: (1) keep a date night, (2) write notes to tell him you love him, (3) surprise him often, (4) don’t go to bed angry, (5) never be afraid to wear something fun that only he will see. While I would still recommend each of these, I have learned that often, supporting and loving each other well involves more complex depths of sacrifice.             Years of mistakes, saying things I longed to take back, and reacting in ways that pushed us further apart have widened my perspective. We are far from perfect and we fail each other daily, but we continue to work towards a better understanding of each other’s needs. Here are five of the lessons that have been both the most challenging and also life-giving in our relationship: 1. Spend more time talking about what he does do and less on what he doesn’t do. It seems simple, but when I st...