Smile Your Way Lean

A colleague has a product with a similar title to this one. And on my way home from Las Vegas I watched another passenger that made me think about this post and to rip off the title in the process. So what was the situtation I was talking about? And I'm not referring to the Jersey Shore character although he apparently frequents Vegas just as much from what I hear. Instead this story had to do with a lady sitting across the aisle from me. And it seemed liked she was intent on having a bad day. And she was succeeding at it. Here's what I mean. I was already on the plane when this lady came up the aisle towards her row. She dropped her bag at her feet and then looked around disapprovingly for a flight attendant. But by stopping and doing so she held up everyone else attempting to board the plane. So I asked her if she needed help putting her bag in the overhead compartment? She said yes but that wanted the flight attendants to help her and not me. That's fine I thought. Just trying to help. Well because this lady had dropped her bag at her feet and was standing put no one could get around her. Including the flight attendants that she was insisting come immediately to assist her. So you can imagine this isn't doing anything to ingratiate her to her fellow travellers. Specifically the ones she was blocking from getting to their seats or the ones she was hovering over as she stood in the aisle. All the while this is going on this lady is huffing & puffing. And rolling her eyes. And making comments out loud about the 'lack of service' she was experiencing. But it gets better. Later as the passenger behind this lady is putting her stuff away a bag, a coffee cup and some other items get dumped on this cranky traveller. Finally during the drink service a bottle falls off the cart and lands on this lady's lap. It almost seemed too much. But then you have to ask yourself 'do we attract good or bad in our lives?' For example if I'm having a bad day and am abrupt, have a scowl and a rude tone with everyone I deal with, what are the chances good things are going to start happening for me? To a certain extent we can control and influence what happens to us. When things don't go our way we can roll with it, laugh it off, consider how much worse a situation could be and move on. Or we can dwell on the negatives. And expand the bad things in our lives. And relive them by sharing them with others. And stay in this miserable state. Obviously I'm not saying you can control whether or not only good or bad things happen to you but you can make them the focus of your life and expand their effects. So how does this have anything to with the title? Well for many of us the balance for good and bad stress sits on the negative side of the equation. And when this happens the corresponding stress hormones are amplifed which affects our abilities to burn fat, build muscle, fight off colds etc. And the hormones related to the positive stress which allow complete digestion of our nutrients and quality rest are impaired. And if having a positive outlook and smile weren't good enough reasons to exist consider how much closer you can be to your weight loss goal. Chris okanaganpeakperformance.com 'always moving forward'