What advice would you give to your 20 year old self?
As the author or 14 books and a professional speaker who has traveled the world, I have never been asked this question before, so it has been a special joy to mull over what I would say.
I think I was pretty mature at age 20, perhaps because of being the oldest of four children, growing up in a small town, and a dog bite incident when I was five years old and the subsequent surgeries. On the whole, thinking back, I actually made very good decisions growing up except maybe for some silliness with friends. Choosing to spend a lot of time practicing my piano, doing my best in school, choosing where to go to college, all were good decisions.
Whatever I did, I always did to the very best of my ability, a lesson I learned as a very young person. That led to many awards and honors during those years. I also made an excellent choice in a husband, falling in love with the most honest and loyal person I have ever known……and he was handsome, too! 😉 We raised three beautiful children along the way.
I think one of the important lessons I learned early in life was the idea of the old saying, “Bloom where you are planted.” Find the good in every situation and make the most of it. Some of the wisdom I have gained over the years I think I intuitively knew in those days, but now it is fun to put this wisdom into words.
Barbara at 20 in her college graduation picture
First of all, take care of YOURSELF. Eat right, do some exercise every day, find alone time each day, get a good night’s sleep, and treasure friends and family. Even in my 70’s I am committed to at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. I either swim a mile, walk 3 miles on the beach, go to my trainer, or walk on the treadmill. I am so serious about this that even if it is 10:00 pm and I haven’t yet exercised, I am on the treadmill in my extra bedroom. Commitment is the key! Our minds and our bodies are our temples, and we have a responsibility to take care of them to the best of our ability.
Plan quiet time each day to refill your emotional bank account and to keep connected to your spiritual self. This can be done through meditation, prayer, journaling, or reading a spiritual book such as a devotional or the Bible. I love “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young and “Mornings with Jesus Daily Bible” from Guideposts.
Remember that every day is a GIFT. Look for the blessings even in the most difficult situations in your life. That is always your choice, and if you truly look, you WILL find them. I love the quote from William Winter, “As much of Heaven is visible as we have eyes to see.”
When our second child died, it was the hardest thing I will ever have to face in my life. However, many blessings came out of that time, and one of them was learning to live five minutes at a time. On the most difficult days when I didn’t think I could get out of bed or even get through an hour, I could always make it through five minutes., just five minutes, five minutes, five minutes.
What that taught me was to always be fully in the present. When I am with someone, I am totally with them. This is what mindfulness is about. “Every day is a gift. That is why we call it ‘the present’.”
I also believe that every person who comes into my life is a GIFT Sometimes I can just untie the ribbon, sometimes I can peek inside, and other times I can dig right down to the bottom. However, each time I pass that gift by, it is my loss.
Nurture your FAITH, whatever that may be for you. It is the only thing that can NEVER be taken away from you. I have learned in my spiritual life that in surrender comes perfect freedom. I just have to trust that no matter how bad things get, God IS in charge. His plan is much better for me than my own plans, and that surrender takes the anxiety for the future away. I must admit, however, that as a human being, I do take control back more often than I should, but I am learning each day to give it up to God.
When I started my company at age 52, I said, “God, You gave me this gift, so You put me where You want me to be,”and the result has been the unbelievable opportunity to speak to audiences all over the world. Because I knew from the beginning I was just the “messenger,” I have never gotten caught up in ego (Edging God Out), and my business has all been word of mouth and referral. I am very clear who is the CEO of my company! 😉
I have a new friend who was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Syria for 63 days several years ago. He said they took everything from him – his passport, his cell phone, all his contact information, and even his clothes. It was completely dark, and he didn’t even know what day it was (though he figured out a system to once a day determine light or dark to try to keep count.) He shares so powerfully that the ONLY thing that they could not take from him was his faith, and that kept him sane through the whole horrible ordeal.
RELATIONSHIPS are what life is all about. Be the best family member, spouse, parent, and friend you can be with the skills you have been given. And be a friend to have a friend.
I often think about who might miss me when I am gone. Have I truly made a difference in this world? My idea of Heaven has become that we will see all the people we have touched in some way, most of whom we know nothing about. I can hardly wait to see who is in that line!
Everything can be taken from us so quickly – our health, our homes, our possessions, the people we love, and yet our relationships and our memories can never be taken away. However, we must make the relationships in our lives a priority.
During the pandemic I decided to do a “100 Day Project.” Every day I called one or two people who had influenced my life in some way, many of whom I had not spoken with in years. What a precious gift that was to me – and I hope to them, too! It rekindled many friendships that had gotten buried in busyness.
I keep a “Blessings Journal,” and most days I write the people I interacted with and what blessings I received that day. Sometimes they are big things, but mostly they are small things that happened in my day from a phone call to an email or a surprise gift. No matter how busy or difficult a day is, I can always find one or two blessings, and most of them come from the relationships in my life.
Also, every Thanksgiving I make a list of all the people in this world that I love. I am always so touched by how long that list has grown to be, and how blessed I am to have so many beautiful relationships.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You, too? I thought I was the only one.’ “ ~ C.S. Lewis
LOVE all people. Even if you do not agree with them or don’t even like them, they were still created in the image of God, so RESPECT them as human beings. (That does not mean that you have to spend time with them! 😉 I believe that our only responsibility in life is simply to love other people as we meet them on our journey. That is why I created the – / 0 / + chart to show the CHOICE we have in every interaction.
We can discount the person and make them feel less important than us or our organization. That leaves them with a minus. We can simply take care of the business at hand which is a zero. OR we can create a Human Level connection which says . “I SEE YOU as a human being” and that leaves the person with a plus because they interacted with you.
Always try to create a plus for the person you meet, even if it is only for a moment. Just using their name, asking them a question about themselves, complimenting them, or sharing a thought with them lets them feel recognized and that they count for something.
I often tell this story about an experience I had in the Ladies Restroom at O’Hare airport as a simple example. It was a cold, snowy February morning, and as I walked into the restroom, there was a woman all hunched over, listlessly cleaning, simply going through the motions. I walked up to her, lightly touched her on the arm, looked right into her eyes, and said, “Thank you so much for keeping this restroom clean. You are really making a difference for all of us who travel.”
She looked at me like a doe in the headlights and then out came a big smile. She perked up, and she started cleaning with a passion. By the time I came out of the stall, she was handing out towels to all the women who were washing their hands.
I left with tears in my eyes, because that cost me nothing. And what did I tell her in that one statement? She was of value; I saw her as a human being with a purpose.
After hearing that story, my audience members tell me they never go into a restroom where someone is cleaning without thanking them. That is just one simple example of how choosing to make human level connections can make such a difference in this world.
My personal philosophy of life has come from Mother Teresa: “Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.”
Learn to FORGIVE, not for the other person (they probably will never know), but for yourself. Holding grudges eats away at you, so forgive and let them go. That goes for yourself as well! We are only human, and we ALL make mistakes.
I suggest that my audiences think about “mis-takes.” Even in the movies, it takes many takes to get a final print, so a “mis-take” is just one thing that didn’t work…..and we can learn from our “mis-takes” if we forgive ourselves.
“The person who succeeds is not the one who holds back, fearing failure, nor the one who never fails…..but rather the one who moves on in spite of failure.” ~ Charles Swindoll
Read and LEARN something new every day. That is what keeps you growing and young, even if you are chronologically old. I have been a reader my entire life. One of my favorite quotes is from S. I. Hayakawa, “In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live: if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.” I suggest you keep a list of all the books you read every year. It is so affirming to go back and realize all the experiences you have had through your reading.
It is so important, too, for us to be open to new learnings, especially with technology today. I am so proud of my 98 year old aunt who uses email every day and even zoom to connect with one of her sons in Thailand. She sends me the “naughtiest” emails of any of my friends! 😉
As a speaker, when the pandemic started, I had to learn how to present in Zoom, how to do webinars for my clients, and how to scan documents rather than faxing. Although I came kicking and screaming to some of it as I am not a techy person, I have continued to learn.
One example was being asked to do a Zoom keynote to over 3000 people. I don’t think I slept well for a week, worrying if the technology would fail (my office is in my home, so I do not have a trouble shooter tech person here to help!). It went well, but I still missed the personal interaction. However, I LEARNED. Continual learning keeps our minds sharp as well as open to new ideas.
Today we can always expand our horizons with listening to podcasts, Ted talks, and searching Google for things that interest us. And if you are having problems, all you have to do is to ask a neighbor kid or a grandchild. They will help you keep young!
Be RESILIENT. No matter what happens in your life, you always have choices in how you respond. I appreciate this quote from Florence Littauer, “I am not responsible for my situation, but I am responsible for my reaction to it.”
Like so many others in their later years, I have had a lot of pain in my life. We lost our second child, Gavin, when I was just 28 years old, the hardest thing I will ever have to bear.
In that same year, my Dad died unexpectedly at age 62, Nana, our St, Bernard puppy died, and I found a lump in my breast. And finally, my dear husband Charlie died when I was just 56. I was very young to be a widow, so it was an extremely lonely time for me. However, I learned that I could either be better or bitter – it was my choice.
Even though I had some rough times grieving (Gavin was buried on Christmas Eve which is the birth of a baby, and I made a move to Florida where I knew no one soon after Charlie died). However, through it all, I still today CHOOSE to be a positive person, and that has served me well.
Marcia Graf says, “Out of the coldest and seemingly most barren times of our lives, we discover hidden truths and bring them as gifts into the lives of others.”
Keep things in PERSPECTIVE. It is easy for little things to become big things. Try to think, “Will this matter five or ten years from now?” One of the things that happens, especially when you are depressed or grieving, is that we can become overwhelmed with small decisions or details.
It helps so much to have some kind of support group to help you see the bigger picture. Professionally, I am in a MasterMind group of speaker friends from all over the country. We meet once a month and share ideas and challenges. Personally, I am in a sharing group from my church as well as a Bible study that meets weekly. I also created a Book Group of friends that keep me grounded and help expand my horizons.
There are many resources on the internet today that can help you find a place where you feel you are not alone and you can share your concerns safely. That will help you keep difficult times in perspective.
Follow your dreams and dream BIG. Growing up in a town of 4500 in Iowa in the 50’s and 60’s, my dreams were limited by my experience and the people I knew. As I went off to college and experienced a bigger world, however, my dreams became bigger and bigger. I realized early on in my life that I could be and do anything I set my mind to, and I am grateful to my parents for that teaching. I learned to “always aim for the top.”
I was a high school English and Drama teacher for several years before our children were born. (In fact, one of the fun things I share in the introduction to my audiences is that I directed David Hasselhof in his first high school play! 😉
When our first child was born, Charlie and I decided that I would stay home and make them my career. I had a business plan and goals for them – by age seven they had all seen a ballet, an opera, and a stage play, I took them to classes at all the museums in downtown Chicago, and they had to take piano lessons from their seventh birthday to their twelfth birthday, non-negotiable.
During the nineteen years I stayed at home with them, I did some part time teaching and I finished my Master’s Degree in Adult Learning, one course a quarter for five years. (I have written an article titled “You CAN Have it All – A Message of Hope for Women Who Choose to Stay Home with Their Children” about that time. You can read a copy at https://barbaraglanz.com/articles/balance/you-can-have-it-all/ if you are in that situation.)
Then at age 48 when our oldest son was going off to Dartmouth, I went back to work as Manager of Training for a Times Mirror Company. At age 52 I started my own company as a professional speaker and author, and the rest has been amazing.
Even in my wildest dreams I never imagined I could accomplish and experience all the blessings I have had in my life, most after the age of 50 – inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame, being the first speaker on record to speak in all 50 states and on all 7 continents, being able to visit over 100 different countries, and to have precious friends all over the world.
And if a small town girl from Iowa can do all that, SO CAN YOU!
The message my parents taught me was to believe in myself and to always do my best. That is enough! And I believe that when we do that, doors open that we could never have imagined. So, never give up on yourself or your dreams. You CAN have it all!
Take time to determine your core VALUES and then use them in all the decisions you make. Do what is right. The end does NOT justify the means.
It is critically important that at any stage of your life you find a purpose larger than yourself. My purpose has varied at different times, but when I started my company, I created a personal mission statement: “I am here as the Lord’s helper to spread contagious enthusiasm and to lovingly and creatively help other people and myself see the choices we have to make a difference in the world.”
My best advice is to develop your own personal mission statement. As I move more closely toward retirement, I have realized that I don’t have to speak to 3000 people to make a difference. I can make it just one by one by one, and that is enough.
These are the values and ideas I try hard to live by. I certainly fail often, yet I keep trying to be a little better each day. May we continually learn from our own experiences, especially our failures, hold tight to our faith, and treasure the people we meet along the way.
Much love,
For more inspiring articles, go to www.barbaraglanz.com
BARBARA GLANZ BIOGRAPHY
A member of the prestigious Speaker Hall of Fame, Barbara Glanz, CSP, CPAE, works with organizations to improve morale, retention and service and with individuals who want to rediscover joy and purpose in their lives.. The first speaker on record to have spoken on all 7 continents and in all 50 states, A member of the prestigious Speaker Hall of Fame, Barbara Glanz, CSP, CPAE, works with organizations to improve morale, retention and service and with individuals who want to rediscover joy and purpose in their lives. The first speaker on record to have spoken on all 7 continents and in all 50 states, she is known for her inspiring presentations on Employee Engagement, Customer Service, Appreciation & Recognition, and Kindness. Barbara is the author of fourteen books including The Simple Truths of Service Inspired by Johnny the Bagger®, CARE Packages for the Workplace, and 180 Ways to Spread Contagious Enthusiasm™. Voted “best keynote presenter you have heard or used” by Meetings & Conventions Magazine, she lives and breathes her personal motto, “Spreading Contagious Enthusiasm™. She can be reached at bglanz@barbaraglanz.com or www.barbaraglanz.com.
