Marc Chernoff's Blog, page 14

10 Hard Realities that Will Help You Grow (If You Accept Them)

“The world is full of struggle. It is also full of overcoming.”

Character and wisdom are both sculpted over time. These qualities come with loss, lessons, and triumphs. They come after doubts, second guesses, and exploring unknowns. If there was a definitive path to personal growth, everyone would be on it. Truth be told, the seeds of your success are often planted in your past failures, and some of your best stories will likely come from overcoming your greatest struggles.

My husband (Marc) and I learned all of that the hard way. Over the past fifteen years we have dealt with several significant hardships, including the sudden death of (more…)

20 Tiny Stories of Humanity that Will Change the Way You See the World

If we have learned just one thing recently, it’s that we need to be gentle with ourselves and others. We’re all in this crazy world together, and we all get weary at times. Be recklessly gracious!

The wisest, most loving, and well-rounded people you have ever met are likely those who have been shattered in some way. Yes, life often creates the greatest humans by breaking them first. It’s the painstaking journey of falling apart and coming back together that fills their hearts and minds with a level of compassion, understanding, and deep-loving wisdom that can’t possibly be acquired any other way.

Angel and I have worked with hundreds of these incredible people over the past 16 years, both online and offline, through various forms of coaching and live events. In many cases they came to us feeling stuck and lost, unaware of their own brilliance, blind to the fact that their struggles have strengthened them and given them a resilient upper hand in this crazy world. Honestly, many of these people are now our biggest heroes. Over the years they have given us as much, if not more, than we have given them. And they continue to be some of our greatest sources of inspiration.

So today, to honor these unlikely heroes of ours, we want to share a selection of their stories with you (more…)

10 Life Choices We Will All Regret 10 Years from Now (If We Aren’t Careful)

“If only…” Those two words paired together create one of the saddest phrases in the English language.

In the end, more than anything else, we regret the small chances we didn’t take, the priceless opportunities we were too busy to nurture, and the good decisions we waited too long to make. Angel and I have learned this over the past 15 years from the countless hours we’ve spent coaching hundreds of clients, students, and live event attendees from around the world. The exact same regrets pop up in the personal stories people share with us, time after time.

Here are ten extremely common and specific life choices that ultimately lead to that “If only…” phrase of regret, and how to elude them on the average day:

1. Letting others tell us what we are worth.

We tend to forget that most people judge us based on (more…)

40 Quotes for Calming Your Mind When You Are Standing at a Crossroads in Life

It happens to all of us gradually as we live and grow. We discover more about who we are and the way life is, and then we realize there are some changes we need to make. The lifestyle we’ve been living no longer fits. The environments and relationships we once found comfort in no longer exist, or no longer serve our best interests. So we cherish all the great memories, but find ourselves at a crossroads in life, moving forward.

And it’s not easy. It’s painful to give up what’s comfortable and familiar, especially when there’s no other choice. My husband, Marc, and I have struggled through this process many times out of necessity. Over the past 15 years we’ve had to deal with several significant, unexpected life changes and challenges, including: (more…)

10 Beliefs We Often Hold On to Long After it’s Time to Let Go

One of the strongest signs of your growth is realizing you’re no longer holding on to the beliefs that once used to drain you.

Marc and I received a thank you email recently from a longtime reader and coaching client named Kevin (I’m writing about him today with his consent). He said our books and coaching sessions helped him and his wife maintain a positive, intentional mindset as they struggled and grew through one of the most difficult periods of their lives. Certain sections of his email nearly moved me to tears:

“After injuring my back, losing my job because of it, being evicted from our apartment, moving in with my in-laws, nursing my five-year-old through a nearly fatal bout of pneumonia, I was stuck in a deep rut. And I was sitting on the front porch of my in-law’s house feeling sorry for myself one day, when my childhood best friend called me crying and said, (more…)

10 Wake-Up Calls for Those Days When You Lose Your Motivation and You’re Unsure of Everything

“Head up, heart open. To better days!”
— T.F. Hodge

Struggling to find your motivation? Feeling unsure or uneasy about the next steps?

There are just a few things you need to know right now.

This quick read is for YOU…

Once upon a time there was a woman in her mid-sixties who noticed that she had lived her entire life in the same small town. And although she had spent decades enthusiastically dreaming about traveling and seeing the world, she had never taken a single step to make this dream a reality.

Finally, she woke up on the morning of her 65th birthday and decided that now was the time! She sold all of her possessions except for some essential items she needed, packed these items into a backpack, and (more…)

3 Things We Often Do Everyday that Drains All Our Joy and Potential in Life

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count — it’s the life in your years.”

As you age you will learn to value your time, genuine relationships, meaningful work, and peace of mind, much more. Little else will matter.

Deep down you know that already, right?

Yet on most days, just like the majority of us, you get distracted by so many others things. You give your time to lots of meaningless time-wasters. You take your important relationships for granted. You get to work skeptically with inner resistance. And you let everyday stress get the best of you…

Why?

Because you’re human, and human beings are (more…)

8 Things You Will Inevitably Regret Not Letting Go of Sooner in Your Life

Oftentimes you don’t even realize you’re blocking your own present blessings by holding on to everything so tightly.

It’s always necessary to accept when some part of your life has reached its inevitable end. Closing the door, completing the chapter, turning the page, etc. It doesn’t matter what you title it; what matters is that you find the strength to leave in the past those former parts of your life that are over, and those little ideals in your mind that simply aren’t meant to be.

Throughout the past fifteen years, as Angel and I have gradually worked with hundreds of our course students, coaching clients, and live event attendees, we’ve come to understand that the most common cause of human frustration on an average day is our stubborn propensity to hold on to things long after it’s time to let go. In a nutshell, we hold on tight to the hope that things will go exactly as we imagine, and then we complicate our lives to no end when they don’t.

So let’s take a look at some common things we often regret holding on to for way too long… (more…)

11 Good Old-Fashioned Relationship Habits We Should Bring Back

Love is great when spoken, but greatest when shown. Do little things daily to show your loved ones you care.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on a park bench in the early afternoon when an elderly couple pulled their car up under a nearby oak tree. They rolled down the windows and turned up some jazz music on the car stereo. Then the man got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door for the woman, took her hand and guided her about ten feet away from the car, and they slow danced to a song under the oak tree. It was such a beautiful moment to witness.

This morning when I opened my laptop to write, the elderly couple immediately came to mind. I spent a few minutes daydreaming about them, wondering how long they had been together and what their best relationship advice would be. And just as I caught my mind wandering even further off, a new email from a reader named Cory popped up in my inbox. The first line of the email was a question: “Any good old-fashioned advice for strengthening our relationships?”

The synchronicity of my daydreaming and Cory’s question made me smile. So in honor of that beautiful elderly couple, and in service of Cory’s relationship inquiry, here are some good old-fashioned habits we can practice bringing back into our relationships: (more…)

10 Good Reasons to Let Go of Things Sooner Rather than Later Today

The most powerful changes happen when we decide to take control of what we do have power over, instead of craving control over what we do not.

Holding on is hard. Holding on contributes to stress, unhappiness, relationship issues, and so much more. Yet, as human beings, we cling desperately to almost everything…

We don’t like change, so we hold on tight to the past.We want life to be the way we think it “should” be.We get attached to our ideals even when they hurt us.

Over the past 15 years, as Angel and I have gradually worked with hundreds of coaching clients and live event attendees, we’ve come to understand that the root cause of most human stress is (more…)