So my toothbrush has been talking to me lately. Thanks for joining us today. We are so happy you did. And happy 2025. Can you believe that January is almost over already? I mean, where did the time go? We're almost already into February. So you know what that means. If you haven't broken those New Year's resolutions yet, you only have a few days left.
So you better get on that. CBSnews.com says that, quote, while nearly half of Americans make New Year's resolutions, only about 25% of people actually stay committed to the resolutions after just 30 days. So three quarters of us that make New Year's resolutions quit them by February. So like I said, it's the last week. You better get on it. Stop procrastinating. If you haven't broken those New Year's resolutions yet, just go ahead and break them now already and get on with your New Year's theme.
Because cbsnews.com goes on to say that less than 10% accomplish their goals. That's why we've been pushing New Year's themes so hard instead of the New Year's resolutions. Because we want to help your life become happier. So if you haven't got on the New Year's theme bus yet, I got good news for you. It's not too late at all. There's been some times in my life where I haven't got to my New Year's theme until February or even March and beyond. So it's not too late at all. And I would highly recommend it. Because I think it just works. And I want to talk about that. So how is my New Year going so far? Well, I'm happy you asked.
They say I'm crazy, but I have a good time. And life's been good. And 2025 has been good to me so far. My New Year's theme has been very good to me so far. So once again, I want to talk about New Year's themes. Because my New Year's themes have been very, very good to me. And this year, I've noticed something that I want to share with you. I didn't say my New Year's theme has been very good to me. I said my New Year's themes have been good to me. That wasn't a mistake. I said themes plural, and doggone it, I meant it.
So I want to talk about those. I'm very excited to talk about them with you and what they've done for me so far. My themes, plural. So we'll talk about that as well as my toothbrush talking to me. But before I talk about those two, I want to talk about this quote that showed up on my word cookies app, my word cookies game on my phone this last week. And not just because it took me a whole week to complete it, but because it fits perfectly with what I want to talk about today. This quote fits perfectly with New Year's themes and it's from Aristotle.
At least the first part is. The second part, well, we'll see about that when we get to it in a second here. Let's just start with the man Britannica.com calls one of the greatest intellectual figures of classical antiquity and Western history. Ooh, sounds important. It is. Well, at least I think it is. Let's see if you agree by the time we're finished. Here's the quote. Well begun is half done. Aristotle.
Now, maybe you're thinking, what's the big deal? I mean, to be honest, when that first showed up on my game, it didn't do much for me either. But the more I've thought about it, like I said, it took me a week to get it accomplished. So the more I thought about it, the more I worked on it, the more it started to sink in and get way down inside of me. And now I think it's a very crucial point. And my New Year's themes have done the exact same thing, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Well begun is half done, which is why our yearly theme is such an important part of the new year, every year, because well begun is half done.
New Year's themes start the year off right. They start the year off with me thinking about what kind of a year do I want to have? Not what I want to accomplish, not what I want to quit, like a New Year's resolution would say, but a New Year's theme is more along the lines of it's more general, it's more broad. What kind of a person do I want to be this year? And what's a sentence or a thought or an image that that all fits into? So every time I see that or I hear that, it will remind me of the person I want to become, the kind of year I want to have. A lot of people don't even think about what kind of year they want to have. They just go through it year after year after year.
Well, like I've said the last several weeks off and on, if we just let it happen, it won't happen. When we start thinking, that's why I love New Year's themes, when we start thinking about the kind of year we want to have, the kind of person we want to become, that starts the year off well, and well begun is half done. If we start strong, the odds of finishing strong are so much greater, which is why we try to put out our podcast early on Mondays, so we can start the week off strong, therefore ending the week strong. Now, it may take a while for the New Year theme to come about. But I believe it will happen if we keep focusing on it. That's the point. There have been a lot of places that I've been a part of that have a vision statement or mission statement. But if you don't focus on it, it doesn't do any good. If you just let it happen, it won't happen. A lot of places I've been a part of, the vision statement, man, we spent weeks and months trying to come up with this mission statement, this vision statement, but then we never did anything with it. Like it's something that needs to stay in front of your purview, in front of your vision.
Like one of the credos, one of the models that we have at Happy Life Studios, look, listen, and remember. If the things that we're looking at aren't making us happy, we need to look at something else. If the things that we're listening to are creating anxiety or despair or depression, we need to listen to something else. If the things that we're thinking about aren't creating the kind of life we want to live, then we need to remember or think about something else. Look, listen, and remember. And that's the point of the New Year theme because it's not like 10 resolutions that I have to remember. I can't even remember all 10 of them, let alone accomplish all of them, right? But a New Year's theme is different.
I can work on being a more patient person or a more peaceful person or a happier person. That's easy. A New Year's theme to me is just so much easier. It's just so simple and easy, at least for me it is. But it works when we have things to remind us of that theme. I have a screensaver. And the cool part about that is I've been able to go over all my screensavers that I've had over the last several years. And as I started going over those, it's what brought me to what I want to talk to you about today.
Some of these themes that I've been looking at, I realized, man, I'm living them out now. Some of them, I went the whole year and they worked for me. I became more like that theme. But now, two, three, four, five years later, I'm becoming even more like that. In other words, when the year ended, the theme did not. It kept working in me, in my mind, in my heart, in my spirit, because I spent a year focusing on it. And now, it wasn't until I went and looked back that I realized a lot of those themes are still happening in my life. They kept working like the Energizer Bunny.
They didn't stop after a year. Clark, that's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year. It sure is. And thanks for reminding me, Eddie. Here's the rest of the quote. Aristotle said that well begun is half done. But Aristobel said, but it ain't even close to being completely done. So Aristotle, well begun is half done. And Stevo, but it ain't even close to being completely done, gives us Aristobel. Well begun is half done, but it ain't even close to being completely done. Aristobel said that.
These New Year's themes have been so cool. They've been working for years after the fact. I've been doing New Year's themes for five years now. You know how I know that? Because I've been doing them as a screensaver for five years. The very first one was rule number one. That was my New Year's theme. And it wasn't even a New Year's theme. It started off just as an idea that Joe McCarthy from Mojo Studios brought into my path. I shared a video clip with him from the movie Peanut Butter Falcon. And it's such a cool clip. So that says go. I say jump. You say how high? How high? There it is. Rule number one, don't slow me down. Rule number two, I'm in charge. And you're going to carry your own weight.
You are in charge. That's right. You are in charge. Exactly. Come on. Hey, what's rule number one? What's rule number one? Party. And what happened was I shared that with Joe and we had a good laugh about it. And it's something I needed to work on. People say I'm crazy. Yeah. But I like to have a good time. But I need to be reminded of that. Sometimes I get caught up in life and I'm not being the true person I'm supposed to be. We all have different personalities. Joe knows my personality. We've known each other a long time.
And so he started sending me text that just say rule number one. And I can't tell you how many times I would be stressed out. I would be the opposite of having a good time, of life being good so far. I would be worried. I'd be anxious. I'd be nervous. I'd be angry. I'd be whatever. I'd be in a negative state. And all of a sudden I'd get a text and it would be Joe sending me a text and he wouldn't even know what I was going through. But he kept texting me rule number one. He'd call me and say rule number one. He'd email me and say rule number one. No matter what the rules are, no matter what we got to get done, we need to have fun with it.
I need to have fun with it because that's kind of how my personality is, and that looks different for everybody. But rule number one, party is actually living it out in my life now. I am more relaxed now than I was five years ago, than I was at the end of that first year in 2021. And what happened was it meant so much to me that I made a screensaver of it, and I ended up making it my theme of the year. Mojo kind of made it my theme of the year, and I adopted it, and it changed my life, and it's changing my life to this day. The next year, the word I came across, and not too much I came across in one of my apps on my phone, one of my games, but the word was Allay, A-L-L-A-Y.
When I read that, I knew immediately that's the word for me this year in 2022. I want to allay because allay means to put fear, doubt, anger, etc. Put it to rest. It means calm, quiet, to lessen or relieve. And I've been going through some very heavy, deep stuff. That's why the party was so important the year before. But I was going through some really stuff, and I was just tired of it. I just wanted it to be done. I wanted all the anxiety, all the heaviness. I wanted it to relieve. I wanted to allay myself of the fear, the doubt, and anger. So I put the focus in my mind. I am going to work on putting fear, doubt, anger, anxiety, discouragement, putting all that to rest and be calm and quiet instead. And I'm telling you what, when I look back, allay is still working in my life. I mean, I can't tell you how good it feels right now. I'm more at peace now than I've been at in a long time.
which led me right into 2023, which was chains and chill. Those are the two words for 2023, chains and chill. And I had a little phrase that I came up with that. And I would say, the chains are gone, bring the chill on. I even had a happy lifer, give me a ring. And on the ring, it has like a little chain in the middle of the ring that you could spin around. And the reason he gave me that ring, he says, Steve, I believe that the chains have been broken. These chains that you've been going through, the difficult times, the heaviness, all that stuff. He says, I believe they've been broken and I bought you this ring and I want it to remind you of that. And I tell you what.
I focused on that all year long. I kept telling myself, the chains are gone. Bring the chill on. When I would start to get anxious or worried or concerned, I would say, the chains are gone. Bring the chill on. When I would turn on my computer in the morning, I would see it right there, large as life, right on my large screen. It would have chains and chill. And then it worked. I focused all that year on going, wait a minute. The chains are gone. Stop focusing on the chains. The chains have been broken. Steve, live that out. And those things that used to hold me back, that had me chained, they don't have me chained like they used to anymore. They're gone. And I'm more chill than I've ever been before.
And then last year, of course, my theme was living in the moment. But what I learned last year by living in the moment, I stopped regretting the past. I stopped fearing the future. When things would get out of hand, I would stop and I would live in the moment right now. I can't tell you what that did for me last year. To learn how to, when I started getting anxious or anything negative like that, I would stop and say, wait a minute, why am I so...
discouraged right now? Or why am I so worried right now? Wait a minute. What do I have right here in front of me right now? What am I doing well right now? What do I really have right now? And when I would stop looking at the future, I'd stop looking at the past and I would look at what I have right now in this moment. I'd ask myself the question, what do you have going on for you right now? I'm telling you what, it would go away like that. The negativity would go away like that. I could not believe how well it worked. All those themes have been working in my spirit, in my brain, in my insides for years now.
This theme this year has already kicked in to overdrive. I mean, my theme has been good to me so far is an understatement. This came to me at Christmas. It came to me before the New Year's even came. It came to me that fast. And it's been hitting me that fast as well, in a good way. Like yesterday, I was on the phone with Happy Lifer, Brad. And I'm on this back country road that's kind of hilly. And this big old dump truck pulls right out in front of me. There's nobody behind me. He just pulls right out in front of me. I would have hit him if I didn't hit the brakes. He just pulled out right in front of me instead of waiting to go behind me. And I'm like, what is going on? I mentioned it to Brad. And he said, oh, because we were just talking about my theme. I was just telling him about my theme is, are you positive? I want to work on being more positive this year, like we've talked about. And then I added into that, are you patient?
And are you pleased? I want to be patient with other people. I got tired of judging other people. And so that's when I felt like the theme was saying, you need to add that into your theme this year. Work on being positive, but also work on not judging other people. That's part of the reason you get negative is when you want to judge other people. And there's such a force out there trying to get us to separate ourselves from people, trying to get us to be angry with each other, trying to get us to stereotype each other and say, you're this or you're that, so I can't get along with you. That's what was causing a lot of the negativity in my life. So I wanted to work on that. So are you patient was the second part of my theme this year. Are you positive, patient, pleased?
My friend just said, it's you getting a chance to work on your patience. And I was like, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. And I had to calm down immediately because I'm focusing on that being a part of my theme this year, being patient. And wouldn't you know what? A semi-truck pulled in front of me a couple miles later after that other truck pulled over. It wasn't but a mile or less where a semi-truck pulled right in front of me. And I started laughing instead of getting mad because my New Year's theme is, are you positive? Are you patient? Are you pleased? Are you happy? That's what are you pleased means to me.
And this year, I just, even though the theme's been working really well for me, there's been a part of me that just hasn't been at peace. I was trying to explain it to someone a couple weeks ago, but I just don't feel like I've been centered. I just feel like I'm kind of off emotionally. I'm just kind of off. I don't know what's going on. And I wasn't able to figure it out until my toothbrush started talking to me. Yeah. Let me explain before you think I'm too crazy. I am crazy. I'd like to have a good time. Life's been good to me so far.
Okay, here's what was happening when I was brushing my teeth. I have a Sonicare toothbrush. And if you know anything about Sonicares, they have a little notification. It vibrates. Once you hit the start, it vibrates while you're doing your teeth. And every 30 seconds or 20 seconds, you're supposed to move on to the next section of teeth. And so it's supposed to take like two minutes to get your whole mouth completely brushed. Instead of, without the Sonicare, I would just brush it. I'd be done in 10 seconds, you know, really quick. And I'm done. And it even has a setting on there where you can work on other parts of your mouth, like your gums or your, you know, to make your teeth white or whatever. It depends on which setting you get. So it can even go longer than that. But I haven't been doing it. I mean, I turn it on and I brush my teeth.
But what normally it takes for like one or two sections of my teeth, I get through all six sections of my mouth and I'm done. I haven't even let the Sonicare do its complete job. I was just in such a hurry to finish brushing my teeth. So my toothbrush started talking to me. In other words, in my mind, I started going, wait a minute, why are you in such a hurry that you don't have time to completely brush your teeth the way the Sonicare is supposed to work for you? But it's not going to work for me if I don't finish the complete cycle that it wants me to go on. And I just get it done really quick. Why?
It wasn't like there was any place I had to go. I wasn't under a time schedule. I wasn't late for anything. That wasn't it. But in my mind, it felt like I was acting like I was late for something. It took me about a week to figure out what the deal was. And then I realized there's this part of me that I feel like there's all these things I want to get done. I have so many dreams in my mind. I have so many desires that I want to see accomplished through Happy Life Studios, through my career, what I want to do. I have all these things that I feel like I got to get them done. I got to get them done. And I realized that's why I'm not at peace. I got hurry sickness. And there is such a thing. Harvard Review says in this article titled, The Insidious Effects of Hurrying. And I'll leave a link for it in the show notes.
They said that hurry sickness, it's a relentless urgency that has a damaging effect on our cardiovascular health. Hurry sickness is like you're always in the state of frantic. I got to get stuff done. I got to get stuff done. And when you live that way, it has an effect on you.
And the effect is anything but peaceful. It's anything but happy. It's more effect of anxiety or stress or frantic. State of frantic is one of the symptoms of hurry sickness. So is high blood pressure. So is anxiety. So is depression. So is insomnia, headaches, exhaustion, physically as well as mentally, a weakened immune system. It's hard to be at peace when you have that stuff going on. And what was happening was I felt like I had to be in a hurry, but I didn't have to be in a hurry.
There was nothing to be hurried about. It was all in my mindset. It was a sickness in my brain. It was a hurry sickness in my brain. And are you positive? Are you patient? Are you pleased? I wasn't pleased because there was something going on inside me. I couldn't put my finger on until my toothbrush started talking to me and told me basically, Steve, slow down. Take your time. Stop being a hurry to get nowhere. Like whenever you go to the amusement park, it's always like hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. Got to hurry up and run that line and then just wait.
That's what was going on with me. And as I was getting adjusted at my chiropractor, I was talking to my doctor as he was adjusting my back. And I said, just curious, give me, in your opinion, what would you say? Because as I was talking about this concept with him, he was nodding his head. Like, yeah, yeah, I get it. Right. You're right. So I thought to ask him, in your opinion, right, how many people that you adjust have symptoms that you need to adjust because of they're living in a hurry? They always feel like they're in a hurry. And I was shocked with what he told me.
He said 95 to 99%. That was his estimation of the people that come in, the things that need to be adjusted from, it affects our whole body. Just like the Harvard Review article that also said this, quote, hurry sickness isn't a diagnosable condition, but it encapsulates a set of behaviors and emotions, impatience, chronic rushing, and a constant sense of time scarcity that can wreak havoc on a person's physical and mental well-being, end quote. Huh? If only my toothbrush was that smart, he would help me figure it out a lot sooner. And I should know better because four years ago, we did several episodes on hurry sickness. One of them was episode 258, Take Your Time, But Hurry. Episode 261 was called Hurry Cain, but H-U-R-R-Y Cain. And hurry and hurricane actually are words that are related to each other. When we're always in a hurry, when we have a hurry sickness, when we have this like, we got to get done. There's so much of the world, so much of America right now. We're always just rush, rush, go, go, go, go. And it's a mindset as much as it is the schedule that we live by. Even when we don't have the schedule that tells us we need to go, go, go, go, go. Our mindset tells us that. Everything is moving at breakneck speed.
We also did one on rest right around the same time, which is kind of the opposite of hurry. And that's what I had to do with my toothbrush. I had to rest and tell myself, wait a minute, are you pleased? Are you happy? Are you in a hurry instead? So what I finally did is I said, no, I'm going to take my time. I'm not going to be hurry to get my teeth brushed. I'm just going to brush my teeth and I'm going to be in that moment. I'm going to enjoy the moment and I'm going to do the full amount of brushing that the Sonicare says I should do. Two minutes, three minutes, whatever program I have it on, it's going to be okay. And it caused me to slow down and it brought me back to, yes, I am pleased.
I'm more positive, I'm more patient, and I'm more pleased. This year's theme has been working on me over time, just like all the other year's themes have still been working on me years later. So, well begun is half done, but not nearly completely done. Aristotle said that, so you know it's got to be true. Let that theme do its work.
Thanks for listening. I hope that helped. Remember, life isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean it can't be happy. So if you haven't got a New Year's theme yet, go back to the last several episodes, listen to them. We'll talk about how to help you get a New Year's theme, but I would highly recommend it, especially if you want life to be good. If you want 2025 to be good. So far.