Being Wise: A collection of wisdom and tips by successful authors and leaders; For the reason why you are happy, skinny, rich, have a successful marriage, have friends and achieve much.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to all who have gone before me that have discovered, learned and created so much abundance that I get to enjoy everyday. Thank you for the inspiration encouragement, help, support and being apart of my life.

A very special part of my life is my family: A big thank you to my wife Lindsay, and our three children Jackson, Ellie and Macey. My parents Richard and Cynthia Strong. My Brothers and Sisters: Cheryl, Eric, Julie, Susan, Ryan, Scott, Heidi, Wendy, Lori with each of their spouses and children. Also my in-laws Dean and Michelle Layton; My brother and sister in-laws Kylee, Jordan, Landon, Shelby with each of their spouses and children.

My wonderful friends, extended family and to You for being apart of my life either in thought or if time will permit hopefully in person as well.

My appreciation and gratitude is greater than my ability to express in words.

THANK YOU!

Introduction

Why read this book, when there are so many books to read? When there are other things to do besides reading? When life seems to be going a million miles a second? Are you wanting to learn? Are you wanting to escape the fast pace and take a break and rest? Maybe it is because you want something more?

Knowledge and good stories have a way of staying around decades, centuries and even millenniums. The foundations of them stay the same, but they get updated and added upon with new insights and new technologies available to enhance and make them interesting again. This book is not the latest and greatest theories on happiness, meaning of life, addiction, etc. This book is a compilation of history that has stood the test of time.

Throughout history people have learned how to get what they wanted. For those few that find the answers and use that information have been pleased with the wisdom gained and life they have lived. That is what is in this book. A collection of time tested truths with applications of how to apply them and why you should.

So many books have had the opportunity to change people, families, nations and even the whole world because of the information they contained. Books from the top of best sellers lists, books handed down generation to generation. Books such as Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins, The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Peacegiver by James Ferrell, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and thousands more that have stood the test of time. Classics you may call them.

These books cover subjects in Art, Dating, Economics, English, Exercise, Marketing, Marriage, Mental Health, Music, Parenting, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Science, Self-Help, Sexuality, Sociology, and many other subjects that everyone deals with in their own personal and public life.

Included in this book are those topics that have been repeated so many times as the foundation for which every man, woman and child has been intrigued with, wanted more of and benefited from. This book was written to benefit every human being, including people from world powers to third world countries; the educated and uneducated; the popular and unpopular; the rich and the poor; the young and old; believers in God(s) or Atheists. To give everyone the information that has been learned and discovered throughout history at a more effective and efficient way. Also, to clear a lot of clutter that is around in the world and to advance ourselves at a more effective rate; Enabling us to use this information today rather than wishing that we knew this information earlier in life.

I give a word of caution at this time:

It is with great excitement to have so much wisdom and good advice in such a small book that I give this word of caution. Each topic described and talked about is roughly 2-3 pages where as the topic to be fully understood to some may require a more in-depth learning from the original classics that have 200+ pages for that one topic itself. Additionally you need to know this is a guide to the best information and gives you the information you need to start applying to daily life. As you do this please do not get overwhelmed, as I have mentioned these things took people thousands of lifetimes to learn and discover and apply to their own lives. I encourage you to seek out the references at the end of this book to further your interest in each topic discussed.

Life is complicated, and as you read you will be thankful it is. Tips in this book may resound with truths you already know about and you agree with instantly; others will spark an interest and you will investigate how this can be; while other tips will create denial in a very small few that will deny anything even that the sun will rise in the morning. The accepting of this wisdom comes from the experience gained already in life.

There is a right and a wrong, but for most topics and truths it is a balance depending on the situations and the learning of one thing before another; In other words to learn step 1 before step 2, precept upon precept, or line upon line. Sometimes you must learn several things before you can say; the thing you thought was false is indeed true. Insight, knowledge and EXPERIENCE you gain throughout life helps you to become wise and know for assuredly it is not false but True and True in some areas and not in others’. Let me explain. All would agree that thou shall not kill. Murder is ugly, sad, wrong and evil; yet you should kill to defend and protect your family or country.

These reasons are why religious books are read over and over again. As you learn something new and view a deeper message in it, the wiser you become. This book is not to replace religious books and is not one itself. It is a book to increase the knowledge of the realities of life; to come out of ignorance. KNOWLEGDE IS POWER! Those that seek, learn, grow and experience more whether life gives you happy, sad or life changing situations (such as: going to school, talking to women or men, dating, marriage, having a family, rearing children, rearing teenagers, dealing with neighbors and friends, working, building a career, laughter, money, debt, feeling happy, having a purpose, freedom, control, power, creativity, good fortune, abundance, success, intelligence, skills, easiness, perfection, health, optimism, little or no stress, organization, better image, beauty, confidence, more time, love, growth, passing of loved ones, having an unfaithful partner, having hate crimes against you, drugs and addiction, finding meaning in life) you will be able to make the best of what life gave you at that time. The more knowledge you have at a certain time in life helps you to make better decisions, we have established that. Where you spend your time, since time is something you only have so much of at each stage of your life. You can’t go back to being 80, 50, 20, or even 7 years of age. You can’t be back in High School; you can’t get your grade school recess time back. By being PREPARED for what may come into your life by gaining knowledge you are planning for better decisions for a better life. Not being prepared for the unknown is the thing that creates the most fear and wastes your time (to stay ignorant).

To get the most of your time you must realize life will get you down, life is unfair, and life is hard. Life is also joyful, fulfilling, exciting and worth living for, but if you have an unreal fantasy laid before you and you stretch and sacrifice other opportunities in your life you may find out it was for nothing. Don’t waste your time on lies, do not regret, live in the moment, and live in the PRESENT. Let me give you an example: Have you ever played a video game for hours upon hours thinking you felt productive, connected and mastered something; to later come up with regret that there was bound to have been a better use of your time? People overcoming an addiction regret the lost time that addiction controlled their life and they can’t get it back. I want to mention here that I am not saying playing video games is wrong or telling you what to do, but rather as I said there is a BALANCE. The balance is to enjoy some time playing a video game for either the fun experience with someone or the enjoyment of a fun game. And who knows this maybe a good topic of discussion to a friend or stranger at a party about how to find the lost key to open up a chest and win the game.

The Prologue

Before we dig into the many topics that have been talked about or covered in all of the best books, movies and music, I want to start by telling you that these pages are by no means the end and perfection on these topics. They are also not the only topics because I haven’t included other topics that have not yet been tested over time and those that may not have even been discovered yet. I have purposefully excluded new theories that are just that: theories. I have only included what has stood the test of time, so this would be the foundation from in which future decades and centuries of discoveries and knowledge will be learned. This book is aimed to benefit everyone from any background or culture.

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I also want to mention that many of these topics correlate one with another and build upon each other. The topics that correlate to all of the other topics in this book are that by having an Internal Locus of Control you will:

Take Care of Yourself

Be the Best you

Have Meaning

Use the Power of Thought

Use Your Strengths

The other topics that support these key topics are the:

90/10 rule including Living in the Present

Balance and Moderation including Prayer and Meditation

I encourage you to revisit this book again and again to gain more insights that may have been overlooked through your first reading. There is a List of All the Topics at the end of this book for easy reference and ease of use.

Internal Locus of Control

So what is an Internal Locus of Control? In short, it is You being in control of You. It is self confidence; self-empowerment; self-esteem; self-control; maturity; how you act and react.

1. You decide who you want to be (decent or indecent person)

2. You decide your meaning to life (including the numerous varieties)

3. You decide to have control over you or you choose to give the power to control you to something or someone else.

4. You decide to be you and discover and build upon those many qualities you possess (who you are).

Having an Internal Locus of Control means 1) you can and do control your reaction (behavior and emotion) to the uncontrollable events of life (i.e. nature, and other people's choices). 2) You can and do control your proactive choices (what you do before something happens to you). 3) You realize that your sense of happiness is determined more by the way you think about things than by what happens to you.

Having an External Locus of Control means 1) you can not control your reaction (behavior and emotion) to uncontrollable events. And so on and so forth.

Think of this in a football analogy: (Internal Locus of Control), If I play my position well and fulfill my responsibilities with every play, I am going to feel good about the game whether we win or lose. (External Locus of Control), If my linemen don't block right, and we lose because of it, I am going to be unhappy all week!

Now let us dig into the details and examples of where this may apply to you or someone you know:

• WHO YOU ARE: Know who you are. Who am I? This is a question you answer for yourself. By learning and experiencing life, you become who you are, not by fate, but by who you want to become. You choose your principles, values, vision and by developing habits you want and do form. (the 90% you can control), and from what you already are (the 10% you can’t control). Including your strengths and talents, your body build, your intelligence, and what experiences from life will expect from you.

• YOUR WORTH: Know your worth. We are divine human beings. Our worth is a birthright. It is not something we earn from the world. It is an inherited quality bestowed to you. The Actual Self is being in harmony, knowing you are perfect. The Idealized Self is a view of the goal of self, and results in feeling not good enough and has shame. The Should Self is what other people think you should be. Every person is of worth and it is up to you to realize this by believing in yourself.

• TEAMS: Though teams and families often have the same interests by nature, they don’t negate a person’s individuality. The two are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they are mutually supportive. By having an Internal Locus of Control it actually gives each individual more energy to do more for the team (work team, family, country, or marriage) because we don't use/lose energy thinking and feeling about things we cannot control.

• ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE:

o IT IS YOUR LIFE: Remember that it is your life and no one else’s. Everyone has their own agency to choose for themselves. Control your own life. Mind your own business. You get back what you put into it or you reap what you sow.

o TO CONTROL YOUR ATTITUDE: You either control your attitude or it controls you. Be in charge and take responsibility of yourself and your emotions by keeping your agency, and your control over yourself. I can control myself, I can’t control others, and what others say is what they are telling me about themselves. In disagreements fight fairly, no name calling.

o TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF: Your body is smarter than you think: trust and believe in yourself. You have everything in you that you need to succeed. NOTE: To counter fear, trust something. Trust is the opposite of fear. One way to do a trust test is dropping a pendulum from your chin and the pendulum gets extremely close but it will not get higher from where you dropped it from (your chin). As you drop the pendulum you have fear that it is going to come back and hit you in the chin, but as soon as it doesn’t you gain trust that when it swings back again it won’t hit you and the fear has been replaced with trust.

o WHAT YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT: If you are thinking negatively stop thinking it. That is easier said than done, but if the path is driving you around in circles then jump to a different thought. If you analyze and analyze and you keep asking yourself, but what if, and what about that, then it gets you no where and drains energy.

o TO BE HAPPY: No one is in charge of your happiness but you. Your happiness and state of mind are your responsibility. It’s up to each of us to know what it takes to be balanced and happy. What we accomplish and the relationships we have with people will enhance our lives and make them richer. We are always responsible for our own happiness. You decide to make the best of life. You choose to take care of yourself, you choose to allow time for things to progress, you choose to have meaning, you choose to use the power of thought, and so on and so forth.

o TO SHOW OTHERS WHO YOU ARE: The more comfortable and secure you become with yourself, and how you see yourself, will allow you to be you and not worry what others think or say about you. What other people think of you is none of your business. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, Why do you want to know? Then listen and respond accordingly.

o TO ADAPT AND TO STAY INTERESTING: Being in control of yourself results in you having characteristics that help you in all aspects of your life. When you choose to do something nice, or to do something funny, or to say something with tact (rather than stating the fact and are blunt), you can keep your brain sharp. This will allow you to think of different actions and words to accurately portray what you are really meaning to say. Being angry or frustrated are childlike behaviors showing you have less knowledge and are less adaptable and witty. Stay interesting. There are times when you find yourself in a no-win situation or when no logical solution would do. I invite you to then put your mind at peace, open your mind to a wider range of solutions and as you scroll all your questions through your mind, slowly and peacefully, wait until a surge of warm clarity enters your mind. It is an amazing process.

• WHAT WE HAVE NO CONTROL OF: Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become. If a person has an External Locus of Control they are not aware that they can choose for themselves. The world and all the people in it have their own choices and you can’t control what they do or the choices they make. Life is not fair and the world won’t care about your self-esteem. Once you admit that life is difficult, complicated and unfair, you can then be prepared to know how you want to act or react to it and you can make better choices. NOTE: It is hard to have a boss, spouse, friend or stranger scream and yell at you. Think for a minute though, that person has to live with themselves all the time and how much pain they must be experiencing from themselves. Angry emotion = pain.

• WHAT TRIES TO CONTROL US OR WE ALLOW TO CONTROL US BECAUSE WE WANT IT TO:

o ADDICTION: You need to overcome the appetites of the flesh. Having a craving that you can’t resist results in too much. Too much food; alcohol; sex; television, and many others. You are not in control at that point.

o MANIPULATION: Being free from other’s control and having your individual mind by knowing you ultimately choose.

o DON’T WANT THE RESPONSIBILITY: Allowing others to live your life for you because then we can blame them if it doesn’t turn out good; or so we don’t have to think for ourselves, making life easier or lazier for us. Blaming others especially bosses or parents that you messed up. Allowing your whole identity to be a part of a larger cause (company, family, team, country) in order to be freed of responsibility for your own life, and to escape the banality or misery of the present. On a smaller scale is your entire identity a thing such as your car, or your house, or another person becoming a stalker. If you steal someone else’s life and make it your own or try to live through other people, then you don’t really have a life, you have envy and shame. Your life will feel empty because you didn’t live your own. Live your life in the present every hour of each day.

• DEPENDING ON OTHERS: 1) The trap of depending on others for your happiness, or relying solely on others, is that you can’t control what they do. If they decide to leave since they are in charge of themselves you will shatter and fall apart. If you depend on yourself and they decide to leave, you won’t shatter and fall apart. Hurt, yes; not have what you liked before, yes, but you will be okay. 2) Another trap is depending on something that isn’t working for you. Doing the same thing over and over again without any changes and expecting a different result. For example say you will stop drinking, but nothing changes, yet you expect a different result. Or if you want to lose weight and you don’t change how you eat or exercise but you expect a different result. If the change isn’t happening then you have decided that it is not worth it to you to change. 3) Another trap is letting others run your life, thinking they know what is best for you. No one can do a good enough job to run your life for you, because you know yourself better than others do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen to advice from others. Of course you should listen, but remember the final decision should be yours. The buck stops with you. As long as you are making the final decision, you will live a life that you choose. A life without regrets (the best decision you could have made, at the time you made the choice).