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The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 694 – Break the Chain of Negativity #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #negativity  Happy Monday! There is a moth in the studio. 🤨 When someone feels upset, angry, or hurt they may transfer their feeling/energy to you causing you to be upset, angry, or hurt.  You in turn may then transfer your feeling/energy of being upset, angry, or hurt, and the vicious cycle continues.  Are you strong enough to break this cycle by showing kindness and love? You may look weak, however, it's one of the strongest, boldest, and most courageous acts anyone can make. 

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 692 - Dangers of Envy #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #envy #covet              Social media brings constant comparisons in our lives doesn’t it. A Facebook post might read, “happy birthday to my fantastic husband of five years because he is so great and yada, yada, yada.” That’s cool and all I must ask would it be less cool if she told her husband that directly (gasp) without any of us knowing about it? One person does it then someone else sees it and thinks, “Oh, I have to do something like that.” That’s a form of Envy. Envy is defined as a feeling of discontentment or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck (don’t believe in luck so let’s change that to opportunities). I like how Craig Groeschel describes envy in his book #struggles: Envy is wildfire, always consuming and never quenched. It is demonic. Envy is resenting God’s goodness in other people lives and ignoring God’s goodness in your life.   Does that hit home for you like it did for me? Envy is resenting God’s goodness in other people’s lives. When was the last time you celebrated a friend’s success? Truly celebrated?  Not the inauthentic where you think their accomplish isn’t fair and when will you get yours. I’m talking about feeling overjoyed for their opportunity, possession, or quality. When you do feel overjoyed for them, let them know . . .quietly . . . not on social media for the world to see. Just one-to-one which has a much greater impact anyway.

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 691 - Stop the Suffering #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #mentalhealth #passion              I’ve mentioned before that I don’t like using the word passion or passionate to describe the love for something I do. I’ve replaced the word passion with joy when describing the things, I do for the love of doing them.  Passion comes from the latin word passio, which means to suffer or endure. When you look at the word compassion, the definition ranges quite a bit however the one that resonates more with me is having a strong desire to alleviate the suffering of someone. You are not only walking with them in their suffering; you also desire to help stop their suffering. Now let’s look closer at the word, “suffering.” As we’ve seen in the word passion and compassion it has a lot to do with suffering. What exactly is suffering?  Suffering is the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. Entrepreneurs will say, “I’m passionate about [insert what they do]” It’s no wonder they feel what they do is more of a burden than one that bring them joy.  Joy can stop the suffering. The definition of joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Isn’t that something that is better than pain, distress, or hardship? I’m guilty of this as well. A couple of years ago I was a guest on a podcast to describe ways to find your passion. In my book, You Got It; Now Go Get It! I describe what it means to be passionate. It wasn’t until recently that I realized what passion really meant. Instead of finding your passion, look for the joy you feel when doing what it is you do.

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 690 - The Three Brains #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #brains #generationZ  I like how authors Scott Larson and Daniel Tocchini describe the three brains in their book, Groundwork. The first brain is the Survival Brain or “Reptilian” brain. This is where you experience a fight or flight reaction to alarming situations. No thinking, just reacting Established at birth. The second brain is the Logical Brain or Prefrontal Cortex. This is our center for logic, language, and reasoning. It is fully developed for girls at the age of 22 and isn’t fully developed for boys until the age of 25. The third brain is the Emotional brain or limbic brain Wraps around the survival brain Generates positive and negative emotions Young people in general process nearly all new information from their survival brain since their logical brain is still in development. In the United States, you can go to war at 18 years old, drink at 21 years old, and rent a car at 25 years old.  Why is that? Because data has revealed the best way to reduce risk as it relates to certain things (except going to war at 18; I personally don’t get that one). This is the foundation for my message to Gen Zers when I encourage them to wait on major decisions in their life.  Social Media and video games has brought stress into the lives of our young people that is yielding awful results because brains aren’t fully developed. If you have a little one, be the parent. Take responsibility in making hard choices even though your children may think you are over-protected or out of line. Remember, they are using the survival brain to make logical decisions and that isn’t logical.  

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 689 - Do You Want to Get Better     #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #healing The deeper you get in muck and destruction of your life the more you want to make a change. Change driven by wanting to eliminate pain is greater than change made by wanting to get better. Even in the Bible, Jesus saw a man lying there and learned he had been in poor condition for a long time. Jesus asked him, “do you want to get well?” It’s a fair question. The invalid had developed a system of living his life with this condition for thirty-eight years. If he became well, his entire life would change. He would need to be responsible. He would need to work and now pay back any debts and/or bills.  He wouldn’t receive sympathy from others. If Jesus, who healed many, asked a man if he wanted to get well, it’s a question you could ask yourself about your situation. “Do you want to get better?” Or is your life kind of like the phrase, it’s the devil I know. Are you afraid to make a change because new responsibilities will occur?  If you were blessed with more finances, would you know what to do with them? Would you give back or try to help the poor? If you were better with your intelligence, would you strive for a new position at work, or a new job that would bring on new challenges. Because if you want to get better, you can get better. Do you want to get better?  

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 688 - Three Types of Education. #knowTroy #education #learningstyles #DWUpodcast Learning comes at three levels:   We know what we know I know I need to pay bills, provide for my family, go to work, etc. We know that we don’t know I know that I don’t know how to fly a plane or make a movie – which is something I will be doing in my future. We don’t know what we don’t know These are the things we are blind to. “The unconscious parts of the mind are most of the mind,” David Brooks writes in his book, The Social Animal, “[They have] a processing capacity 200,000 times greater than the conscious mind.” Tragically, this interior domain remains largely terra incognita, a vast unexplored territory full of resources and potentials we haven’t begun to tame or to tap. According to Brooks, this results in people overestimating their ability to understand why they are making certain decisions. They make up stories to explain their own actions even when they have no clue about what is happening inside. Sound familiar to the two sides of an argument that we have today. If we can all admit that we don’t know what we don’t know, we can start to look at facts to any argument with the purpose to understand instead of fighting about it.

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 687 - Book Review: The Mamba Mentality As I’ve said before, I’m no fan of Kobe Bryant the basketball player. I am, however, a fan of Kobe the man. Kobe was a man with purpose. He was intentional with everything he did.  In his book, The Mamba Mentality, he summed it up as: To be able to constantly try to be the best version of yourself. It’s a constant quest to try and be better today than you were yesterday.  He wrote, Listen to your body and warm up with a purpose; starting close to the goal then moving out as you feel yourself getting warmed up. When you ask a dumb question, you are risking embarrassment at the time and not in the future. I like how the book was essentially a picture book with tidbits of information from those who had impacted his life over the years. He quoted Muhammad Ali as saying, “you have to work hard in the dark to shine bright in the light.”

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 686 - Book Review: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living This is the second time I’ve read the book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie and still it is in the top five of my reading of the first fifty books in 2021.  The power of your mind, and mindset, is helpless when it comes to the power of worry. When you worry, you will impact so much more than you know.  Dale summarizes this in his book perfectly: Those who do not know how to fight worry die young. Dale cites Dean Hawkes of Columbia University who said, “half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.” I like his quote from Norman Vincent Peale: You are not what you think you are. What you think, you are. “So what are you supposed to do about strife, Troy” some of you may ask. You can be concerned about things, just don’t worry about those things.             Concern: realizing what the problems are and calmly taking steps to address them             Worry: going around in maddening futile circles

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 685 - Book Review: I Give You Authority             This is the second time I’ve read the book, I Give You Authority by Charles Kraft, it was the number one book I read last year, completely changed my life. It is a religious book that describes our authority over the spiritual realm. Some of you think this is a religious podcast, it is not; you host is religious. The podcast is not. In the book, Charles Kraft writes, Jesus’ intimacy with the Father enabled Him both to maintain His authority and to get God’s instructions for what the Father wanted Him to do each day. The devil doesn’t want us to discover who we are in Christ. If we are unsure of who we are in Christ, we are powerless against the devil’s control. Consider how often Jesus prayed, a lot right? Consider how many people were healed from Jesus, a lot right? Now consider this: Jesus never prayed for healing. He didn’t ask God to heal people because He had already been given the authority. He spoke, demons flee, and people were healed. So many times, Hollywood portrays defeating demonization through saying the right words in the form of a formula. Charles Kraft writes, the power is in your relationship with Jesus and understanding the authority He has given you.

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 684 - Book Review: Content Strategy at Work The next three books reviewed over the next three days are ones that I’ve read already. This is the second time I’ve read the book, Content Strategy at Work by Margot Bloomstein. Since I’m a professional storyteller, the title I use for myself is “audience engagement expert.” Once I know who your audience is, and what you are trying to do, I can help you craft your messaging in the form of a story. What Margot does so well in this book, is the structure a consultant like me needs to establish when working with clients. If you are in any type of content creation or content strategy profession, you MUST read this book. Capital MUST. Margot writes of the importance of having a message architecture before producing content. A message architecture is a hierarchy of communication goals that appear in order of priority.  Content needs to be appropriate, current, relevant, and accurate. Your content needs to be (read checklist) Goals are met when you have a PLAN with the right PEOPLE completing the PROCESS. These are the Three Ps. 

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 683 - Book Review: Someday is Not a Day of the Week On Saturday, I completed my fiftieth book read this year.  My totals are now: Why do I bring this up? Simple. If you look at my life, some will say I’m a loser. I’m currently unemployed, haven’t paid most of my credit cards since being laid off, not a homeowner, and turn 51 years of age this November.  So, what does touting your reading totals have to do with any of that? Great question. What it has to do with that is most people struggle to finish four books in a year.  I’ve heard the critics, it’s impossible to read that many books or you aren’t retaining information, I like to read one book a month, so I get more out of it. Noise. All of it is noise.  It’s hard to dedicate time to reading and nothing good comes from easy. I read books that make me a better human or professional and I do it at an aggressive clip. The second reason I share my findings is because I want you to look at me as an example of yes you can read more. If Troy can do it, I surely can is the phrase I would love to hear more people say. Ok, enough of the disclaimer, here are the top five books read of the first fifty books in 2021. 5. Someday is not a day in the week 4. Content Strategy 3. I give you authority 2. How to Stop worrying and start living 1. The mamba mentality

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 681 - Ten Steps to Combat Long-Term Stress All week we’ve been talking about stress from the book, 10-Step Stress Solution by Neil Shah. It was the 48th book I’ve read this year and I gave it an A for the value it brought to my understanding stress. I would encourage you to purchase it or borrow it from the library.

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 681 - Stress is the Side-Effect Stress isn’t a feeling or emotion. When stressed, people admit to feeling overwhelmed, anxious, angry, panicky, frustrated, and confused however, stress is a side-effect of the physiological changes going on. It’s not the feeling. The reason we sigh after stress isn’t because we are relieved; it’s because we are literally gasping for breath. When we are stressed, we go into fight or flight mode right, well, when we are relaxed, listen to what happens in contrast to being stressed. 

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 680 - Three Stages of Stress Continuing the series on stress for the week based on the book, 10-Step Stress Solution by Neil Shah. Here are the three stages of stress: The Alarm Stage – unexpected stresser occurs Resistance Stage – I’m not addressing it and body copes with stresser event Exhaustion Stage – physically, emotionally, mentally spent

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 679 - Signs You Are Stressed Continuing the series on stress for the week based on the book, 10-Step Stress Solution by Neil Shah.  Yesterday we talked about “stressers” and the impact it has on your brain. Today, I’d like to point out signs you are stressed. Are you accident prone? Are you argumentative and a little snappy? Do you work late or often with no breaks? Do you have poor judgement or are indecisive? and more 

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 678 - Is Stress Good or Bad?  Today we start a series on stress based on the book, 10-Step Stress Solution by Neil Shah.  All five days we will discuss what stress is, how to recognize it, and how to overcome it. All the information shared in series will come from Neil Shah’s book. As much as this series will help you understand stress better, I cannot urge you enough to purchase the book for yourself or borrow it from the library. Neil writes: Stress can be the driving force that keeps us on our toes and ensures we push ourselves. Too much stress can drive us into physical mental and emotional exhaustion. A “stressor” is an event that causes stress; they can be short-term or long-term.  Short-term acute stressor is an immediate threat to the body, and you are faced with a fight or flight response. Think Joe the caveman searching for food, and he sees a sabertooth tiger. Immediately, his body is alerted of the danger standing before him. Joe the caveman will fight or run away to safety. In this example, stress is a good thing. A useful amount of stress can keep us focused and help sharpen our minds to achieve a goal.

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast  Episode 677 - Want to Feel Appreciated?    Do you feel like others in your life don't appreciate you? I have only one question for you? Do you appreciate them?    #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #mentalhealth

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 676 - Eight Misconceptions About Growth John C. Maxwell wrote about misconceptions about growth in his book, The Invaluable Laws of Growth. There are times in our life where we look back and realized we’ve grown in an area. Goals that stick are ones that are accomplished through intentional activity to achieving the goal. Here are 8 misconceptions about growth: The assumption gap – I assume that I will automatically grow The knowledge gap - I don’t know how to grow The time in gap – it’s not the right time to begin The mistake gap – I’m afraid of making mistakes The perfection gap - I have to find the best way before I start The inspiration gap – I don’t feel like doing it The comparison gap - others are better than I am The expectation gap – I thought it would be easier than this What goals do you have in life that you can become intentional with? Jim Rome once said, “you cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” Change your direction today.   #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #johncmaxwell 

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast Episode 675 - The Rare Pigeon Last night I had a dream. My brother and I stood in the living room staring intensely at a white pigeon covered in what looked like gold spots. We were mesmerized at the sight of such a rare bird. We didn’t know what to do with the rare pigeon however it was obvious the pigeon needed to be free; to fly outside. All throughout my dream, my brother and I chased the rare pigeon encouraging it to fly out the open door. Finally, we directed the rare pigeon to the open sliding door in the kitchen and the pigeon flew out. My brother and I celebrated with a loud cheer! The rare pigeon was free for others to see its beauty. As I watched the rare pigeon fly away, a large bald eagle swept in and attacked the rare pigeon. The bald eagle ripped off the head of the pigeon and discarded the body as it flew away.  I was horrified. We had just spent time trying to free the rare pigeon only to see it killed by the bald eagle. It was then I heard a word from the Lord. “Don’t be afraid. The pigeon is misinformation, and the bald eagle is truth and justice.”   #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #rarepigeon

The Daily Wake Up Micro Podcast Episode 674 - Nothing You Can Do Will Bring Me Down The top four killers on the planet have been linked to stress: Heart disease Cancer Stroke Type 2 diabetes In 1948, Dale Carnegie published his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living and included his thoughts about the smallpox epidemic in the US in the early 1920’s,  “I remember a neighbor rang my doorbell and urged me and my family to be vaccinated against smallpox. He was one of thousands of volunteers who were ringing doorbells all over New York City. Frightened people stood in lines for hours at a time to be vaccinated. Vaccination centers were opened not only in all hospitals but also in firehouses, police precincts, and in large industrial plants. More than two thousand doctors and nurses worked feverishly hard day and night, vaccinating crowds. The cause of all this excitement? Eight people in New York City had smallpox and two died. Two deaths out of a population of almost eight million.” Does this sound familiar?   #knowTroy #DWUpodcast #covid19 #vaccine