Well, I for one am tired of hearing the word "economy" partnered up with the word "down" and in the vocabulary of almost everyone I meet. Leadership is about influence and the only thing that negative news can do is lead you down the path to more negative where you increase your self-doubt and start sabotaging all that is good around you.

And, with all of the negativity these days, it's bound to cause stress. Speaking from past experience, there's no upside to stress.

Without belaboring the subject because you already know what it does to you and your health, I'd like to share 9 ways to destress on your way to amazing success.

Imagine shooting a laser beam straight at the targeted area and launching!

1. Get Out! Exercise dampens stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, stimulating "feel-good" neurotransmitters called endorphins. Over time, it can produce a natural high in which your body is at peace and your internal dialogue is quiet. Sweet!

2. Head to the Spa! Besides the benefits of taking time to relax, recharge and renew yourself, massage relaxes stress-contracted muscles, increasing blood flow to the heart, helping it to beat more slowly. Not that you needed an excuse to pamper yourself!

3. Go Ohm! Sign up for a yoga class to understand the reason why people in India have done it since 5,000 BC. Yoga uses postures, breath control and meditation to bring together the energy of body, mind, and spirit. The controlled breathing and meditation reduce stress. And, that's a fact!

4. Laugh It Up! A hearty chuckle aids your digestion, stimulates your circulation, increases your "feel-good" endorphins, and awakens your immune system. No joke!

5. Turn Up the Tunes! Research shows that music changes us. Rocking out with a stronger beat stimulates the brain and promotes alertness. Slip into slower melodies to create a calmer, meditative state in the body. Try Dr. Emoto's CD if you want your whole body to be warm and fuzzy. Mmm!

6. Practice Presence! Meditation used to just be for the new-age movement but now it's gone mainstream. Why? Because meditation fights stress by giving us the benefits of being fully engaged in the present moment which means no worries about the future or the past. While there are techniques to help you slow down, like deep breathing or repeating a mantra, nothing beats lighting a candle, putting on some quiet music and clearing your mind. So, slow down!

7. Find a Friend! Stress + Connection = Stressed Out Connection? No silly! Stress + Connection = Support. Friendship keeps you from feeling isolated and alone. Sharing your feelings with someone helps to move forward. We're not talking about dumping but if you lend a shoulder and bend an ear, all of your stress will disappear!

8. Jump into Action! Distract your psyche with a whole host of activities. Scrapbook. Dance. Stamp it up. Play tennis. Swim. Bust out the Sudoko puzzle. Go fishing. Go bowling. Ride a motorcycle. Knit. Learn Spanish. Do ceramics. Draw. Plant a garden. Golf. Now, get going!

9. Ride the Upside! Self-talk is the endless stream of thoughts that runs through your head each and every day. Pay attention to what yours say. It's easy to slip into negative self-talk, making assumptions and finding fault in what you're doing or not doing. Recognize when you start to spiral downward and replace those thought with more upside ones.

It was an exciting game of Ups and Downs. As you spin the spinner and move your pawn the number of spaces shown, if you land on a good deed, you move up. But, if you land on a naughty deed, down the chute you go.

As we climb the success ladder in life, it's inevitable that we'll stumble on a loose rung now and then. And, sometimes we're even the cause of the loose rung because of our naughty deeds on our rise to fame and fortune. Our upside attitude will determine whether we lose our footing or find our center and remain balanced despite the outcome. Additionally, these daily challenges strengthen our character so that it is through adversity that we may recognize the power within us to succeed.

Upside Thinking is about unlimited possibilities in and around us. It isn't about challenges not happening or avoiding them either. Regardless of what happens to us or around us, we are where we choose to be. Always choosing to live upside guarantees that good things will continue to happen in our lives. Looking on the bright side of life and expecting incredible, wonderful happenings in our life condition us to seek out more of that. Remember, thoughts become things.

Is your pattern of thinking "upside"? When we make the decision to choose upsde over and over again, it becomes a habit. The process of designing our destiny has begun, whether we know it or not.

Interestingly, my career path was vastly different — banking and law enforcement— than most of my peers.

Liking people and getting them to trust you is step one in getting business. And, all professions depend largely upon sales, because we're all selling something, whether it's our great idea, or a methodology, a product or a service. Everyone is looking for best practices.

Just because someone knows and likes you doesn't mean they're sold on your great idea, product, or service. There is a bit more to it than that. And, most sales people will tell you that you have to be tough enough to go through lots of "no's" before getting to the "yes's".

The piece that I believe ties it all together neatly is leadership. Leadership. Ah, yes...leadership is a word with some fuzziness around it. But simply put, leadership is about influence and influencing people to make decisions to say "yes" to your great idea no just because they like you but because it is a great idea.

So, why is this important to an entrepreneur?

When most entrepreneurs start a bursiness, they only want to do what brings them money right now. The actions that will bring them long-term success seem like a waste of time. So they print business cards, tell all of their friends, join a networking group or two, maybe advertise a little, and off they go. No business plan, no developmental plan, and no idea where they're going. If perchance that actually works, when they're interested in growing the business, they fall short and don't know what to do.

Increasing your likeability factor, your product knowledge and ability to make a sale, and your leadership ability, you'll be in the know and on the grow.

Work as defined by the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary is "an activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something" and " the labor, task, or duty that is one's accustomed means of livelihood". While these statements are both accurate, they fail to describe the emotional aspects of working.

Working to live denotes a need to eat, survive, and pay one's bills. To many professionals, however, work is more than just a means to an end, it is about fulfillment.

Working to get a paycheck or insurance benefits is usually only temporary before burnout and "drone-syndrome" have an effect on both the body and the mind. Your world starts to shrink as outside interests wane. And, everything slowly becomes uninspiring.

The average American spends more than half of their waking hours engaged in some form of work making it more than just an ideal to like your job and get a sense of satifsfaction each and every work day. Choosing work that gives purpose and meaning to ordinary activities is one of the wisest things one can do.

Leading your life in a manner where you are moving forward boldly is quite different from people whose identity is wrapped up in their job that they can't function without it.

Since "You are where you choose to be", how can you assess whether happiness, success, and meaning are all in a day's work?

1. If you won the lottery would you still continue to do what you do for a living?
2. After doing what you do for more than 5 hours, are you energized or looking for a life raft?
3. Would you still do what you do even if there wasn't a guaranteed paycheck accompanying your hard work?

You should easily and effortlessly answer "yes" to all three questions if you are living to work.

Remember, living to work doesn't equal all-consuming or no relationships. As Khalil Gibran so eloquently stated, "Work is love made visible."

Today I am fortunate to have woken up,

I am alive, I have a precious human life,

I am not going to waste it,

I am going to use all my energies to develop myself,

To expand my heart out to others,

To achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings,

I am going to have kind thoughts towards others,

I am not going to get angry,

or think badly about others

I am going to benefit others as much as I can.
-H.H. the XIVth Dalai Lama

In order to thrive, we all need to think differently. However, this isn't anything new. The necessity for change has always prevented complacency and stagnation. When you're stuck in your comfort zone, you don't know you're there. Sadly, some people don't make the discovery that they're in a rut until the challenge of digging out becomes exceedingly painful.

If change is uncomfortable, what steps can one take to make changing a bit easier?

Well, there's no surprise that I believe it all starts with your upside attitude....whether you're able to see the unlimited possibilities in and around you at all times. Our thoughts become things. Possessing an upside attitude is important because you are what you think.

Our attitudes control how we feel about others and ourselves. We can actually change our personality and responses by altering our attitude. The words will slowly start to ooze out of our mouth with unabashed enthusiasm and joy. When you speak happy, you feel happy. When you speak with confidence, you are confident.

We color the world with our presence. Our words then become who we are - our character. And, our character becomes our destiny. I wrote Designing Your Destiny: Achieving Personal and Professional Success through Upside Thinking because the change that begins inside will expand to our physical being.

We are all made of energy and we touch people around us, for better or worse. The last question in the book asks, What difference do you want to make in the world?

If you consciously find the unlimited possibilites that lie around and within you, it will make all the difference to your future and and both you and the people around you will be the better for it.

1) You are where you choose to be.

2) Our choices create our outcomes in life.

3) Action, not goals, produces results.

4) Commitment, discipline, and consistency spell success.

5) What we think about we become.

6) An upside attitude is seeing unlimited possibilities in all circumstances.

7) Our mind can only entertain one thought and/or emotion at a time so make it a good one.

(The Upside Thinkers Motto)

Still don't know what I was waiting for, And my time was running wild.
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought Id got it made, It seemed the taste was not so sweet.
So, I turned myself to face me, But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker, I'm much too fast to take that test.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes -(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes - Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - (Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes - Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me, But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size, But never leave the stream Of warm impermanence.
So, the days float through my eyes, But still the days seem the same.
And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds,
Are immune to your consultations, They're quite aware of what theyre going through.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - (Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes - Don' tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - (Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes - Where' your shame,You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me, But you can' trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Ah,changes are taking the place I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - (Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes - Oh, look out you rock n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - (Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes - Pretty soon now youre gonna get a little older
Time may change me, But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me, But I can't trace time

Life is every changing. Leading our lives and designing our destiny requires stretching and growing beyond where we are today. Who you are right now got you where you are. However, to get to where you want to be, we must all change.

And, yet, the responsibilities of everyday life along with our own negative mental chatter can make moving forward incredibly challenging. All of us, from the aspiring entrepreneur to the most seasoned professional, have mental mind-blocks that keep us from getting out of our comfort-zone no matter how good that we tell ourselves "here" is. Because if you're ever changing, there's always more.

The number one challenge is always having a big enough vision to aspire and grow into which means we much be in a constant state of change. And, yet, I know you have heard that same voice of doubt, fear and disbelief as I have. Fortunatley, it comes from our past programming and perceptions.

The truth is that each one of us is incredibly talented, wonderful, and gifted. However, we can only use these gifts to their fullest if we continue to embrace change.

So, how do we embrace change and move past the negative mental chatter?

Pay attention to Your Mindset, Your Enviornment, and Your Connections.

Your Mindset - Change the station to I.ROCK -Upside Radio! Listen to the sweet hum of all that is going well in your life. If you focus your energy on the doubts, fears, and disbeliefs, it's easy to get stuck. Only by changing what we are feeling can we change what we are doing and being. What are you thinking? Where is your mind focused on? Is it where it should be?

Your Environment - Sometimes the energy around our workspace needs a bit of a shift. Try organizing or rearranging your office. You can add something like flowers or photos that make your environment more joyful or you can get out of the office and work somewhere completely different for the afternoon.

Your Connections - Reach out and touch someone who knows how magnificent you really are. And, make sure you are continually connecting with individuals who are capable and willing to be your upside impact partners. Surround yourself who understand the importance of change and continually challenge you to be more than you ever imagined.

I know for myself there are days when I'm on fire and amazingly productive that people should be following me around taking notes. Other days, I barely make it through a few emails and feel like calling it a day.

The question always comes back to what is the reason why you do what you do? When you focus your energy on your BIG why, it's easy to be motivated and do what needs to be done. In fact, if you direct your attention to your why and don't move forward with your projects, you feel as if you're cheating others out of being part of your greatness.

So, the question today is - What is your great BIG why in business and in life? Why do you do what you do? Why are you who you are? Please feel free to email me your answers. I enjoy being part of your circle of success!