Morning Mindset with Paul G. Markel

A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom from Paul Markel: Professional Educator and Trainer, Amazon Best-Selling Author, United States Marine, Television and Radio Host.

Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset to help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being.

To get show notes, submit a topic request, and for more from your host, Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review for this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time and effort and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

This podcast is a Think On! Production

Latest Episodes:

MM210 - Reinventing the Wheel Dec 14, 2018

Show notes

We are often admonished not to reinvent the wheel. That can be good advice. Sometimes we make things harder than they need to be. However, we can indeed make a better wheel when it is called for.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to the Morning Mindset podcast. I am your host Paul Markel, and today we're going to talk about Reinventing the wheel how many times have you been told? Whether it wasn't a professional standpoint a business standpoint or whether you're in school or what have you to not reinvent the wheel. We've often been admonished or we are often admonished by others not to reinvent the wheel, and what does that mean?
-
Well, if you're young crumb cruncher and you've never heard that for some crazy reason don't try and reinvent the wheel or we don't need to reinvent the wheel simply means we don't need to over think it or a solution already exists, such as the wheel, right? If the solution already exists then use the existing solution. Don't try and come up with a new one when the solution already exists that could be very good advice. However, you know, and we do sometimes when we try to make things harder than they need to be lots of that's where the wheel advice comes in nonetheless.
-
However, also, can we make a better wheel? Well, if you if you look at it for me a literal standpoint, let's say the original wheel was made of what you know, we all love to see the cartoons or the movies or what-have-you where they portray a caveman. With a chisel and Hammer like cavemen had chisels and hammers. I'm pretty sure cavemen didn't have steel chisels and steel hammers or whatever but all rights as a rock. They're carving a wheel out of stone. Right the original, you know the wheel and someone says, you know, we don't need to make that out of stone. That's way too hard. Let's make it out of wood.
-
So they made wooden wheels and then someone came along and said, you know wooden wheels are nice and they work but wouldn't it be better if we use some type of a cushioning material and rubber and spokes and are and all that. So it is true that you know, the wheel was invented. I don't know 2,000 years ago or twenty-five hundred years ago or 3000. I don't know long time. When Anacletus was walking around they invented? He had Wheels, right? But the wheels of thousand years ago the wheels of today are different because the wheels are today are more advanced.
-
Now, you may be confronted with a problem for which you already have a solution or there may be a tool that seems to work pretty well, but the tool could be better, and that ladies and gentlemen, that is the that's the that's the not the solution the conundrum that you will find yourself in. Sometimes people will advise you to okay, you're thinking too hard don't reinvent the wheel we say, okay, but that's when you need to ask yourself. You need to be genuinely honest with yourself and say. Are we really trying to reinvent the wheel? Are we trying to come up with a solution when a solution already exists or we wasting our time or on the other hand, are we trying to take an existing solution an existing tool and make it better to make improvements upon it?
-
Now you might be saying well. Every time I step forward and I do this I'm always trying to make improvements and that's great if you are, but I've also say this many times when people say don't reinvent the wheel or at least in my own personal experience when I've been admonished not to reinvent the wheel it wasn't because it was impossible to find another solution and it wasn't because. We could not make improvements and the in the way we were doing things it was because the person who told me don't reinvent the wheel did not want to put forth any effort to make improvements.
-
They didn't want to put any thought into changes because well that would require effort and time and commitment and risk. Yes, risk many people will not attempt to make improvements on anything because they're afraid of the risk. Well, what if I try and I fail our what if I try to do that and someone else doesn't like it or nobody appreciates it or no one gets it or no one understands or what it what if I do all that work and no one cares. Better to just keep things the way that they are. You have to decide what kind of a person you're going to be.
-
Are you going to be the person that tries to make the wheel better when they can try to make improvements on existing Solutions tools what-have-you ways of doing things or are you going to be the person that tells other people? Whoa pump the brakes slow down there, buddy. Don't think too hard. Have you ever has anyone ever told you? That isn't anyone ever said? Oh you're thinking too hard. You're thinking too hard. Can it be can that be true? Is it possible to think too hard? Hmm, I don't know about thinking too hard.
-
There is such a thing as overthinking something. But what you have to do when you find yourself in that position, whether it's at work or at home or in a professional relationship or whether you're just being creative. Yeah that little conversation with yourself. So you say am I legitimately overthinking this am I trying to reinvent the wheel or is there a way for me to make the wheel better? Alright, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to treat a family member or a friend or child you have an adult child or a child who's in high school or Junior High and you want to give them a leg up on life purchase them the book Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life. I bet you they'll enjoy it.
-
I bet you'll get something out of it. If you'd like a signed copy. You can go to MorningMindsetPodcast.com follow the links and it'll take you where you need to go. If you don't want to sign copy and you don't care anything about that, you just want the book and you want it fast go to amazon.com and you can get it Prime shipping and bing-bang-boom will be to you in a couple of days. You can wrap it up and give it as a gift to someone you really care about. I'm even if you don't buy anyone a book.
-
Even if you don't buy a coffee cup if you believe that there's someone else in your life that could benefit from positive and productive talk and thinking turn them on to the show. Leave us a review let people know about the Morning Mindset podcast. Alright, that's it Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you. Happy New Year and all that good stuff. I am your host Paul Markel and I'll talk to you again, real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM209 - Searching for the One Dec 13, 2018

Show notes

Here is a motivational talk for the coaches, teachers, and instructors out there. Heraclitus knew the deal in 500 BC.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset. I am your host Paul Markel, and I'm glad to be here and I'm glad that you are out there listening now today. I've got one for you guys who find yourself as instructors or coaches or teachers basically anyone who finds himself in a position. Where they need to coach instruct teach other people pass on whether it's physical skills or educational skills, or what have you to a group of individuals a group of people or their it's a sports team or whether it's a classroom full of kids or what have you, and the title is searching for the one I'm going to give you guys a quote and the quote is from Heraclitus of a thesis and Heraclitus according to the internet was a Greek philosopher.
-
That was pre-socratic. That means he came before Socrates and one of the things that hair Cletus was noted for having to do was to train. Men during the Peloponnesian War. This is 500 BC. So it goes back just a little while and the quote from Heraclitus that has been around for a while in that I've been using for I don't know a decade or more is this. Out of every 100 men, 10 shouldn't even be there. 80 or just targets 9 are real Fighters and we are lucky to have them for they the battle make but the one is a warrior and he will bring the others back here Cletus was talking about training men for the military and he said out of every 100 men that they send me 10 of them shouldn't even be here.
-
Heraclitus just targets 9 or real fighters and one is a warrior and he will bring them back, and as I said here are Cletus was he was BC. He was a PC guy. He lived in the 500 BC time frame so long time ago more than 2000 years ago if you're keeping score. I had the opportunity to work as a full-time instructor for the United States military and I was working actually as a military contractor for a combat skills school and strangely enough when we started with the school. Our average class sizes were around 60 men and then the military in their Infinite Wisdom decided that.
-
They needed to put more people through more often, and so they would increase the class size from sixty to a 100 same number of coaches, same number of hours in the day. We're just going to increase the class size to a 100 per class so we can get people through the training, and I can tell you that hair Cletus was 2,000 years ahead of his time. That hair Cletus was a genius because when I examined the classes and I had a lot every month every four weeks we would get a fresh new 100 bodies.
-
In our combat skills are essential, combat skills school, and I can testify that seriously legitimately. No kidding. Out of every 100 men that they sent us 10 of them shouldn't have even been there. They had no business being at the school. They were oxygen thieves. They were time thieves had no business even being there. 80 of them were there and they didn't hurt anything, but they didn't help either. Then we have the 9 and the 1 and what do you mean Paul by searching for the one if you've ever been a teacher a coach and instructor what have you and especially if you've been one for a while, you know that every class you get every class that shows up you end up with problem children, and when I say problem children, there are adults that are problem children and what do you end up doing?
-
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is this when we have a huge class and we have people that are there because well why they're there because they were sent there by their unit by their Commander they're there because they have to be. We're talking about law enforcement training or military training or work workplace-related training where it's a mandated course. Everybody has to go through this training whether they want to or not. You're going to have people in your class that would rather be somewhere else. They're not interested in the subject matter.
-
They're not interested in learning. They're only there because someone told them that they had to be there, and many of these people become problem children, and as coaches and instructors, what do we end up doing we end up devoting all of our time are in our effort and our attention not to the nine and the one but two those problem children that shouldn't even be there. Anyway, they end up being our attention.
-
They're basically attention thieves or attention vampires. So rather than devoting ourselves to the students that actually could and would benefit from our wisdom from our experience from our knowledge. We end up babysitting problem children, and I saw that when I was working for the military. I saw that my coaches and instructors and myself even were spending all kinds of Time Babysitting problem children, and that there were people that really legitimately could have used us could have used us to you know, coach them and struck them, you know, give them the benefits of our experience and our training instead.
-
They weren't and I sat down this is been a long time ago. It's been at least 10 years ago, but I sat down with some of my coaches and instructors and. We talked about this I'm and I you know, the hair Cletus quote I've been using as I said for probably 15 years or more, and I said look, this is the problem. This is the issue that we have is instead. There are people that could genuinely use their good and they could be great if we were able to devote some time and attention and help them. They could go from being good to actually being great.
-
If we would give them our time and attention I should but instead what we're doing is we're defaulting to the 10 that shouldn't even be here to the problem children, and so my challenge for my coaches and myself from that moment forward was every time we got a class of a 100 instead of searching for the problem children. People that you know that we're going to need to babysit instead I said, what we need to do is we need to be searching for the one. The one that hair Cletus said one of them is a warrior one is a warrior and he will bring the others back, and that's a totally different way of looking at.
-
If you're a coach a teacher and instructor it's easy to become depressed or frustrated or anxious or just burned out by the problem children. By those who you feel like you're constantly having to fix correct hover over what have you and what do we do? We do that so often that we end up focusing our attention. On the 10th it shouldn't even be there instead of those that could actually use our help. So we need to look at it in a different way. If you are in a position where you're doesn't matter, you don't have to have a 100 you can have a class of 10 or class of five or class of 20 or what have you.
-
Instead of focusing all of your time and attention looking for the problem children instead. Make a mental commitment to search for the one, and you may not know for a fact who that one is but I bet you you'll know the top 9 and 10 and if you spend that time with the top nine or ten people in the class those who want to be there those who are motivated those who are intelligent and have the drive to actually learn and get better.
-
You can change them from good to great and you can actually influence and find that one. So ladies and gentlemen that is your assignment for today. If you find yourself in a position where you are a leader with your coach instructor or teacher instead of focusing all your mental energy on the problem children instead search for that one. The one who can be a warrior the one who could be great. I'm your host Paul Markel, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM208 - Your Body is Stronger than your Mind Gives You Credit Dec 12, 2018

Show notes

Why do we give up? Do we give up and quit because the strength of our body fails or does the mind give up first? If you push yourself, you will likely find that the body is far stronger than the minds give it credit.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset. I am your host Paul Markel, and today we're going to talk about strength physical strength versus mental strength, and yes, there are both kinds of strength. People can be physically strong and mentally weak and then there are some people that are very very mentally strong even though their body wants to give out on them, and I was recently I was under steel was actually in the squat rack, had 300 some pounds on my shoulder and I had to do multiple sets because my coach had programmed me.
-
Yes, I actually have a strength training coach and my strength training coach. He sends me via the magic of email. He sends me my workouts and he tells me what he wants me to do and then I go and I do it because I have my own home gym. I have my own rack and bench and plates and all that stuff, and so I don't have to travel anywhere except to travel out into my garage to do it.
-
So but I was underneath the bar underneath the bar bill and I finished my fourth set was a lot of sets that day and I will admit to you guys and when I open up my workout, I usually know about what it's going to be. I have a pretty good idea what he's going to program me for what he's going to tell me to do the amount of weight. Sometimes he'll we mix it up a little bit.
-
Sometimes it'll be a little bit lighter to give my muscles time to recover, but we want to make sure that we're still doing the movement so we don't get stiff and so on and so forth and I'll admit to you when it's that day when that day comes where I have to do lots of heavy sets my mind says "You know, we have a really comfortable chair that we could be in and it would be nice to sit in that comfortable chair, and now that it's chilly now that it's cold outside. Wouldn't it be great to go sit in that chair and put a blanket over us and watch TV?"
-
That would be way more fun, that'd be way more enjoyable than being out in this cold garage, getting underneath that steel. That's what the mind says. That's what lazy mind says, and when I was doing the workout, you know, I did the first set I was like “Okay, knock that one out” second and I am okay got that, and third, alright only got one more when we did the fourth one and it occurred to me that from a physical standpoint, it didn't hurt that badly. Yeah, I wasn't completely and totally exhausted.
-
You know, I didn't have to bend over and grab the grab the bar and hold myself up or anything. I was able to do it. My body was plenty strong enough to get it done. But it was the mind that says hey, this is uncomfortable. Hey, wouldn't it be better if we wanted to use, you know if we did something else if you just go ahead and quit we can go relax and be comfortable? Because the mind wants you to be comfortable our least lazy mind does now when I was in the Marine Corps, and we had to do conditioning marches, which we called humps.
-
A conditioning March is not running. You're not running but you put all of your field gear packs and weapons and ammunition. If you have it in the, you know, sometimes you don't have the ammunition because it's just an administrative help or whatever, but you're carrying your weapons. You're carrying your packs. You're carrying your helmet, your flack jacket, and all that stuff. You march, you walk. It's not a Cadence Marge, it's not like a close-order drill. You just have to go forward, and you have to keep going forward and then you realize you reach a point where you're extremely uncomfortable and your mind says what are you doing to your body? Why are you doing this? I'm uncomfortable. This is not fun. I don't like this. You should quit.
-
Your body has the ability to keep going but your mind wants to stop because most people when they become Marines or soldiers or when they enter the military and they're forced to do really hard vigorous things. Most people that is the hardest thing they've ever done in their lives. Now there are obviously exceptions to that. There are people who joined the military who were very skilled high school athletes or maybe even Collegiate athletes.
-
There are those who had hard lives and worked very hard because they grew up on a farm and farm kids my hat is off to you because. I did spend several years working on a small farm but a professional Farm is back-breaking work. It's uncomfortable. It's up early in the morning. It's de bed late at night. It's doing things that you'd rather not do but they have to be done. That is why Farm kids and athletic kids, kids who are athletes fare far better in basic training than urban city kids do.
-
I know you can shake your head all you want you're like, oh that's not fair as prejudicial or whatever. No the fact the matter is when you get into a military structure you have to do things that are hard. You have to push your body. That is the purpose of the conditioning March. It's to make you train your mind. You're teaching your mind not to be weak. You're telling your mind "No the body has what it needs."
-
Very rarely do people ever push their bodies to the point where the muscles actually fatigue and give out and say, nope. No more. That's it guy, got no more for you. I'm just going to fall down here and lay on the ground for a while. Very rarely do humans ever get themselves or push themselves to that point because long before most people would ever get to muscle failure genuine legitimate muscle failure long before they get there their mind is already given up their mind says, oh wow, this is uncomfortable. Let's not do this anymore, and the natural response of people of humans is when the brain when the mine says hey this isn't comfortable. Let's stop they stop, and so they never learn your mind and your body never learn to push yourself.
-
You never learn to push beyond your normal comfortable limits because the mind doesn't give the body enough credit for being strong. I can tell you out there the vast majority of you who are listening to the sound of my voice right now. I'm going to make a broad sweeping assumption, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of you who are listening to me that your body is far stronger than your mind gives you credit. You can do more you can achieve more.
-
You can succeed far more than your body or your mind gives you credit for. Often the mind says quit when the body could keep going and I know you're out there you might be thinking but Paul I don't want to be an athlete. I don't I'm not, you know involved in physical Endeavors and it's not that big of a deal. the thing about working your body and pushing your body and. That your body is stronger than your mind gives you credit for. Is it when you do that?
-
When you push Beyond where you've been comfortable when you reach discomfort and you keep going and you push through to the other side, what you're doing is you're training your mind. You're telling your mind. Hey, we can do more. We can go farther. We can survive discomfort. As a matter of fact, we can survive the discomfort and come out on the other end better than we were before.
-
So ladies and gentlemen, the next time you're in a situation where your mind says, hey, you know, just go ahead and give up we can't do this. It's impossible you might as well not even try just stop now. You need to realize that you have far more strength within you then your mind normally gives you credit for and you need to train your mind. You like no mind. No lazy mind. I am strong and I can do it. Alright, that's it for today. Ladies and gentlemen, I am your host Paul Markel and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM207 - Xmas Tree Hunt: Money vs. Time Dec 11, 2018

Show notes

Purchasing a tree from a lot is certainly more convenient than cutting your own tree. We find ourselves balancing between an investment in money and an investment in time. It is the time investment that creates memories.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to the Morning Mindset podcast. I am your host Paul Markel. Thank you. Once again for being a part of our listening audience. I truly appreciate it, and if I say that too often if I thank you too often. Well, what you can do to get me to stop is write me a letter to add MorningMindsetPodcast.com and say “Paul, stop thanking me. I don't want you to thank me anymore. Alright, but until then I'm going to continue to thank you. During the previous episode, we talked about memories as Christmas gifts.

It was most of us have a lot of stuff at least I do. I have a lot of stuff and I don't really need stuff and I think that I'm at that time in my life where I'd rather have the memories than the stuff. So what did we do here just recently? Well my family and I. We went out to the woods. Yes, that's right. We went up into the mountains into the national forest, and we harvested our own Christmas tree. That's right. I bought the tag, and we stalked and hunted and took it out. Now. I probably could have been doing this when I was younger when I lived in Ohio or even Mississippi because I mean, let's face it.

There are pine trees, evergreen trees, just about everywhere in America, but here in the west the National Forest Service actually encourages people to go into the woods and harvest their own Christmas trees and you go into the office and you give them a ten dollar. They give you a yellow or pink or orange tag, whatever.

It happens to be that year and little pamphlet instructions on how to harvest a Christmas tree in case you couldn't figure it out for yourself. Yes indeed. They even tell you what you should take along with you when you go out into the woods to get your own Christmas tree. So we did this is the second year in a row that we have done that last year. We did it and it was quite the adventure. Yes, indeed.

We did not realize just how much snow was actually going to be on the ground already and we went up above 8000. I guess close to 9,000 feet to get her Christmas tree last year. This year we were a little bit more worldly and a little bit wiser and we did not Venture as far up into the mountains, but we were still I guess around 8,000 maybe 8,500 feet up and up there. The snow was about two feet deeper.

So way deeper than it is in town. So but we did we went up we part we went out and we got our tree now is the. Christmas tree the tree that we took out of the woods does it look as full and attractive as a Christmas tree lot tree those that are specifically grown on a Christmas tree farm. They were planted and raised and basically genetically designed to be fluffy full Christmas trees. The answer is no.

The tree actually looks like a native evergreen tree that you would get from the forest in the mountains. So the question that many people may ask is would you rather will would you rather have an attractive farm-grown tree and some people will say yes. Absolutely, I don't want some tree that looks like it was growing on the side of a mountain. I want a big fat full tree, and you can go and spend your money and you can stop on the way home from work tomorrow night or in the afternoon.

You can drive by the Christmas tree lot and you can exchange $30 or $40 or $50 or however much they're charging for trees and you can take one home and that's great. That's fantastic. Or you can invest your time, and what we did is we spent way more. We invested much more time in our Christmas tree Harvest than we did money, and when you invest the time you're creating memories, and it's up to you.

You can do whatever you want. I'm not telling you that you have to, you know, be Clark Griswold and trudge out into the Wilderness to harvest your own Christmas tree. Remember this if you are going to do that you need a. I saw of some sort whether a chainsaw or what I use is I actually have it's a manual chainsaw. It's one of those pack saws those emergency saws. It has two handles on it. It looks like a chainsaw chain, but it has handles. I'll basically they're leather. They're not in the leather nylon straps and you just hold them and you cut the tree like that and that's what I did.

We took along a tow rope this year case we had to pull the tree out of the woods, but it turned out that it wasn't that heavy and Zach the shipping ogre just carried it out on his shoulders. But that was our Christmas tree hunt and we didn't spend a whole lot of money, but we invested some time made it probably took us between the time. We left the house and got up into the mountains and got back.

We probably had, you know to three hours invested or so and of course my I also had to buy the family lunch. Because I'm the dad and since we all went out into the cold everyone wanted to stop and have a warm lunch inside on the way back which is fine, which is fine so that when you are adventuring out when you're venturing out this Christmas think about that. Will you do you want to spend the money?

Or do you want to spend the time and I know sometimes it's just easier to spend the money because you don't feel like you want to waste the time or take the time but every once in a while is I would suggest that you purposely and deliberately invest the time instead of the money, and make those memories that we were talking about previously. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I've got much more for you coming up.

I'll be back tomorrow with another one and the as the Christmas season quickly approaches. If there is someone in your life that you feel would benefit from the Morning Mindset podcast or the Morning Mindset. You can either go to Morning Mindset podcast.com follow the links and get them the book Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life. The book is available as a signed copy from our official website. You can also get a coffee mug.

A motivational coffee mug that you can look at every morning when you're listening to this. That's pretty cool. There's a poster on the store, there's a coffee cup on the store or there's the book on the store and if you don't want any of those. You just go to amazon.com and type in the word Paul Markel. That's me, M-A-R-K-E-L and all of the books that I have written will pop up in front of you including the Morning Mindset book.

So get it by it. I'm sure that as you listen to the ship plenty of time to get it before Christmas if you want to give it to someone as a gift. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that's your instructions go forth and do good things. I am your host Paul Markel, and I'll talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM206 - The Best Xmas Gift for your Family Dec 10, 2018

Show notes

We all have things. Many of us have more things that we want or need. One of the best things you can give your family is something that cannot be purchased in a store; fond memories.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Welcome back to the Morning Mindset podcast. I am once again still indeed your host Paul Markel. Thank you very much for joining me. Now during last week's episodes a couple episodes last week. I talked about Christmas and Christmas Memories some of the memories I had from when I was a very young child and some of the memories that I had when I was a young man, just recently married, had a little son and such. Shared those with you and I keep those memories with me share them with my wife and my family and I wanted to talk today about what I believe is probably the best Christmas gift for your family now, I don't know about you. But if you're if you're similar to me or if you're in a similar position.

Each year, you know you will hear from your family. They will ask you what do you want for Christmas or do you want anything for Christmas? We do this with our kids all the time, right Little Johnny Little Suzy we say what do you want for Christmas Johnny? What you want for Christmas Susie the used to be really simple didn't it used to be simple? We wanted a GI Joe with the Kung Fu Grip or we wanted the Six Million Dollar Man. Steve Austin action figure, right? He wanted that I wanted a football or whatever a football.

Daisy Red Ryder BB gun 200 shot Range model with a compass in the stock in the thing that tells time it used to be really simple. Didn't it? We were kids. It was simple to just ask for something whatever it was you maybe you wanted ice skates or you know, you name it. But you wanted something simple or something that you'd had your eye on all year, and like I said when I was a kid, there are two times a year that you got toys or presents on your birthday and Christmas and Lord help you if your birthday was close to Christmas.

Because then you had to wait a whole rest of the year, you know, if you're born in January, you're kind of shortchanged man because people are like man, I just gave you a Christmas gift and it's your birthday. My son. My son has a January birthday and he gets kind of shortchanged the best way to do it is maybe to have like a June birthday. That way you can spread it out. My we don't do that anymore. We indulge our kids today. We spoil our kids we give them presents and toys all the time. But when you get older, you don't really need toys. You don't really need presents.

You know, when you're an adult if there's something that you feel like you need, that you need to satisfy your life, whether it's a new golf clubs or a new bowling ball or whatever. Whatever it is that you see generally you figure out your budget and you just go get it. You don't wait for Christmas you know when you're an adult especially if you're the dad if you're Santa Claus, you don't wait around for Christmas time to ask for a new whatever because you're the one who's in charge of getting this stuff anyway.

So, how do we deal with what's the best Christmas gift? What do you want for Christmas Dad? Do you want for Christmas Mom, and most of the time the honest answer is I don't need anything. I don't have to have anything. Now. You always say well, come on dad. I know you don't need anything. But what do you want? I got to give you a present. I got to get you something or you save your wife, you know, she says to you. I don't eat anything this year.

Don't get me anything. Which really means you need to get me something but you shouldn't have had to ask me that's what that really means or there's some better be something under the tree because of there's not I'm not going to be happy the best Christmas gift that I can remember ever getting and now that I'm older and I can consider it the best Christmas gifts to me are the memories. Of Christmases past. Are the memories of the times that I spent with my family?

As a child the memories of going over to my grandparent's house and having Christmas dinner and exchanging gifts in the living room, and you know, I got gifts that I that I enjoyed when I was very young right after Star Wars was released. I was a child once the original Star Wars came out. I was in elementary school and I immediately got into the Star Wars action figures, and I started collecting Star Wars action figures and one year for Christmas. When I like I said, I was in elementary school. I remember what year it was. It wasn't even 1988. It was in the 70s, but I got a death star playset.

That's right, the Death Star playset from my grandma and grandpa for my Star Wars action figures and that was wonderful, but. You know aside from the actual physical things when I think about that now when I go back and think about the Christmases that I've had over my lifetime, I don't think so much about the objects about the things about the toys. I mean you remember things like that because it's nostalgia. But what was more important to me and what has been more important to me, especially as I get older is the memories of the times that I spent with the people in my life where I was and I think about where I was I think about the situation, you know, there were sometimes when I was in the Marine Corps.

There was a couple of times a day. Could not go home for Christmas and that's one of the big things at least it was when I was in being in the military and you're in the military, especially if you're in the Infantry and you're deployed all the time, it's will you be home for Christmas? You know, we are home for Christmas this year, and if memory serves I was home for one. When I was active duty, I was able to come home for one Christmas and that there were several times that I made it home, you know a week after Christmas or I got to go home before what have you but one year I wasn't able to go home for Christmas because it just wasn't in the cards.

I had Duty and you know, we were doing we were doing our military stuff. But a good friend of mine only lived his hometown was only a few hours away from where we were stationed, and so we got a couple of days off not really enough time for me to fly home and fly back, you know, it's just by the time you get there you're finishing up in your turn around you're coming home again. So we drove over to his house and I spent Christmas with him and his family and it was wonderful.

It was wonderful, even though I wasn't able to be with my family. I was able to I was able to share it with him and his family. There were times when I was deployed overseas and I just shared the Christmas holiday with the people in my company my platoon my unit. Then I got married and had kids and so forth and what I'm saying to you is this right now as the Christmas season is approaching. People will say to you. What do you want? Maybe your kids say that? Maybe your spouse says that?

I would say and if you're the dad if you're Santa Claus, maybe your responsibility is to help all those other people. Make good Christmas Memories. Your job is to create fond Christmas Memories and sometimes the memories don't seem so fond when they're closed up and they become Van Der as you get farther away from them like trudging up and down the side of a mountain to harvest a Christmas tree to harvest your very own Christmas tree. It doesn't seem that fun when you're actually doing it.

After you're done years later, you can talk about it. So if you're the dad if you're the Santa Claus, if you're in charge of getting gifts for people, I would say one of the best gifts that you can give yourself and your family is to do something that creates fond memories. Things that people will carry with them long after the toys and the Trinkets and the ties and you know, all the crazy stuff that you get and you put on the shelf and then you just like don't even know what happens to it long after all that is faded away. You'll have those memories and that is what I hope that each and every one of you will have this year. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I am your host Paul Markel. I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM205 - Be Professional, But How? Dec 07, 2018

Show notes

People tell you all the time to “be professional” or at in a professional manner. However, what does that truly mean? The mere word “professional” is not a magic fix it.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset podcast. I am your host Paul Markel and I hope that you are ready. Are you mentally ready? Are you psyched up for today's episode, and if not get yourself there real quick. Maybe take a moment, pour yourself a cup of coffee. Do whatever it is you need to do to psych yourself up and get ready for today's show. Alright, keeping in in line with the productive and positive, want to lead positive and productive lives, don't we?

Whether it's personally or whether it's in a business aspect or career field or whatever it is. We're endeavoring to do you will hear, and you probably have heard, throughout your life the admonition, the advice, to be professional. At work or you know, you may have been doing something, you may have been engaged in some behavior and a supervisor or a manager or somebody came over and said: “Hey, guys, be professional you need to be professional”.

Or you're in a seminar or a training session or something and then the guy up front or the girl up front was advising you and how to deal with customers or contacts or what have you, and they said: “Be professional, always be professional.”How many of you work in an office environment, or have worked in an environment? Where they had some type of one of those posters, you know, the motivational posters or what have you and it advises you to be professional. But how? It doesn't do us any good to just throw those words out say be professional.

Okay, that's like telling someone to. Play hard, you know do a good job. We can't just say to do something people need to understand how and sadly I do not believe that the adults of this world have done a very good job of preparing the Utes of America the Utes of this world to be professional. Let me tell you why, when you are a professional, you treat the situation not with levity or as a joke, you treat it as a serious job as something that needs to be done a task that is required something that needs to be completed needs to be done in order to achieve a goal.

If you're acting professionally, if you're behaving in a professional manner. You probably have an end goal in mind or you should have some type of a goal in mind right? You say well, I don't know maybe yes, no. Be professional one of the ways to be professional is to leave your personal feelings out of decision-making processes or proceeds. Leave your personal feelings at home leave your personal biases and I know that's difficult extremely difficult.

But when you're making decisions, are you making decisions based upon facts based upon Real World experience or are you making decisions based upon your feelings or your emotions, and ladies and gentlemen what we have done I would know. I don't know I guess since the mid-1990s. We have slowly moved away from facts and moved more toward feelings and emotions. We have taught the current generation, the generation that's entering the workplace is early 20-somethings.

We've been teaching them for 20 years that. When it comes down to it, the most important thing to them is how they feel. How do you feel about that? How does that make you feel? Is that make you feel? Okay? How do you feel? Well, if you feel like you tried hard will give you a ribbon. You didn't really do anything. You didn't actually accomplish anything. You didn't really put forth any actual effort, but you were there. So here's your Ribbon. Here's your trophy, and why do we give ribbons and trophies to people that don't actually accomplish anything?

Well because it's the nice thing to do because we're trying to make everyone feel good. Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot behave in a professional environment. You cannot behave professionally. If you make all of your decisions based upon feelings and emotions, but what if we taught people what if we taught these young people that feelings and emotions are the most important thing in the whole widest world.

You wonder why you're in a business environment that is not professional. Maybe it's because of instead of dealing with facts and realistic goals basing our decisions on experience. We're basing them instead upon feelings and emotion. You don't want to do that leadership here on the Morning Mindset podcast. We've gone over the 14 United States Marine Corps leadership traits and what they mean and why they're there. If you looked at "professionalism" and you applied that to the leadership traits, you probably would see that they go hand in hand. Punctuality being where you're supposed to be when you are supposed to be there.

That is the sign of a professional fairness and Equity making decisions not based on your own personal feelings, but on actual fact and reality that is being professional treating others with respect and equally treating them based upon. Their Merit and their performance not on whether or not you want to be their buddy or whether or not you want them to like you or whether you like them that is being professional judging people not by their skin color or their sex or what have you but judging people and evaluating them based upon how they actually perform in the workplace and what they do not what they said they were going to do.

Not their feelings about a certain thing, but what they've actually accomplished that is being professional. It's not enough folks for us to just say the words be professional because just telling people putting up a poster on the wall that says be professional doesn't do us any good doesn't help us how and if you see a poster that says be professional. There should be the word how question mark but how. Not joking when it's not appropriate now sometimes jokes and levity are appropriate.

I don't think I could get through my day. If I didn't make at least a few jokes or smart-alecky comments but understanding when that is appropriate that is the key. Yes indeed. Ladies and. So I think we've nailed on our we've hit on a few Nails here that we can hang our hats on “Be Professional”, how? Jokes, levity, only when it's appropriate to treat people not based on their skin color or their sex or whatever, treat them based on their performance. They either perform very well and did their job correctly or they didn't base their evaluations on that.

Base your business decisions, not upon your feelings and emotions, but base your business decisions on fact and experience. What are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish examine those first then make decisions? That's how we act professional, and it's very difficult in this world that we live in because everyone wants to give all their weight. To their emotions, they want to put everything behind their feelings. when we do that. We are not acting in a professional manner.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining me today for this episode of Morning mindset. I truly appreciate it. If you have a friend or a family member that you believe would benefit from this podcast. Please share it with them. Let them know that it is out there Christmas is coming up and is not too late for you to order the book Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life. You can get that by going to Morning Mindset podcast.com and ordering a signed copy, or you can just pop over to Amazon and you can order one there. It's as easy as that. I am your host Paul Markel. I'll talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM204 - Growth through Pain Dec 06, 2018

Show notes

Recently Paul had a conversation with someone regarding strength training and the occasional strains and soreness that is common to the process. It the growth and development worth the risk of pain and injury?

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Welcome back to Morning Mindset. I am your host Paul Markel and thank you once again for taking the time out of your day to join me for just a small amount of time just a little bit maybe the time it takes you to drink your first cup of coffee, or maybe the time it takes you to commute to work in the morning.

Either way, today we're going to talk about growth through pain. Recently, I was talking with someone with a young man about starting strength and about my strength training journey, and I mentioned that I had strained a muscle in my arm and I was currently in the process of rehabbing it and I've done that before I've strained muscles in my legs or in my back or what have you, and it takes time it's frustrating it takes time to fix it.

It takes time to come back from that injury, but it's not the end of the world and the old man I was talking to said well, if you're going to be hurting yourself, or if that training or exercise program requires you to hurt yourself. I don't know if that's something that I would be interested in and from a young person's perspective that might seem. Like a good idea or reasonably logical thing now as a person who's been on this decade for this decade on this Earth for five decades. Now I can tell you that I've been involved in a lot of programs where I was sore and strained and injured.

I guess we could say now, you know, not tremendously injured. But I played football when I was in high school for a little bit. I was in a big football player, but I did it and I engage in other types of physical activities. I engaged in martial arts types activities and obviously, you know, I was in the Marine Corps. I was in the Infantry and when you're in the Infantry specifically you get injured, people get injured in training all the time. They don't try and injure people. It's not the goal for people to be injured, but it's a hazardous duty and sometimes you get injured.

If you're going to grow your muscles. You have you actually when you if you know anything about human physiology when you're growing your muscles, you're growing your muscles because you're breaking them down. You're actually tearing down your muscles, from a truth, you know standpoint from a true standpoint. You're damaging your muscles when you overload them with the steel weights. But then your body responds by what, and sometimes you need to go through some pain in order to achieve some growth.

Now this could be applied to us from a well a personal or psychological standpoint. Doesn't necessarily have to be growing muscles or from a fiscal standpoint. Sometimes we need to experience pain in order to grow. That could be any aspect of your life. I don't know what's going on in your life, but understand this just because there's pain involved does not mean that the endeavor is not worthwhile, and it doesn't mean that the endeavor should be avoided sometimes pain is just pain and it's something you should deal with and you need to learn to deal with and get Beyond it and grow.

Not going to belabor the point but I wanted to touch on that. I thought was a good topic for Morning Mindset because we're all about being positive and productive here, aren't we? Yes, indeed we are. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. I am your host Paul Markel, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM203 - Christmas Memories Pt. 2 Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

Paul shares some Christmas memories from a time when he was a young married man and had only one child.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Hello, let's go ahead and continue on with the season of Christmas and I feel like sharing. So I'm going to. That's a great thing about being the benevolent dictator of this show, is I get to do what I want when I want to do it. That's right, and I didn't get to this position overnight, it took a little while. Going back thinking about Christmas Memories. I've got a lot of very fond Christmas Memories, and one of those and this is one that my wife and I share with each other and we talked about, we have for 20+ years now, is when my wife and I were a young married couple and we had we moved into an apartment and this apartment was part of a large house.
-
You know, many cities in America, there are large Victorian houses big houses two-story houses, and what do they do? Someone will buy the house and they'll divide it up, you know Upstairs/Downstairs and the divided into Apartments, and we were in one of those types of homes was a large house. It was probably over 40 years old at least when we moved into it, maybe older. So it had really high ceilings. We were on the first floor, and we had high ceilings probably at least 10', 10 foot ceilings, and the first year that we were there this is when we're a young married couple our oldest son, our first son Jarrad was just a toddler at the time.
-
He wasn’t quite 3-years-old and that's a special time in a little kid's life. Because you know when a child is one or two, you can buy them Christmas presents and you can give them things, but the fact the matter is is you know, a really young child can't really appreciate it. They just as soon play with the wrapping paper in the bows is any kind of a toy. It's not until they get into that pre-kindergarten stage that they can appreciate the Wonder of the shiny, you know, presence and the lights and the colors and all that. So Jarrad was, he wasn't quite 3-years-old yet.
-
He was almost three at Christmas time and his mother and I, we went out we said we're going to get a Christmas tree, obviously, and we wanted to get a live one or a real one a genuine Christmas tree went to a lot in the snow. It was snowing and purchased a tree purchased a big tree, a tall tree. Tied it to the top of the car, because I did not have a pickup truck then, and did as most people do. You know tied it to the top of the car and drove it home and we set that thing up and it was almost as tall as the ceiling, it filled up the living room.
-
It was a giant beautiful tree, and Nancy and I decorated it with all the lights and everything, and she started wrapping Christmas presents for Jarrad. Remember, this is the time we only had one child. So you'll have one child you dote on them and you spoil them and she went out and she bought all kinds of things that you know, a three-year-old would like, and she bought coloring books and she bought this's and she bought that, and rather than take the crayons and the coloring book and wrap them all in one or take all the coloring books and wrap them up.
-

She wrapped every single individual coloring book, and she wrapped the crayons, and that kid had so many presents underneath the tree that when he woke up on Christmas morning, he came out into the living room and I'll never forget this. I'll never forget him standing in the doorway. He had those footie pajamas, you know, the fuzzy footie pajamas that you put your toddlers in, because they're so cute and it keeps them all warm and snuggly. Well, he had yellow footie pajamas on, and he walked into the living room and he stopped and he stood and the tree was all lit up.
-
It was filled, you know with presents underneath it. and he stared wide-eyed and then we told him he could go ahead and open. So we started handing him presents, we handed him so many, that he got bored with it, and got tired of opening presents. He didn't even want to finish he wanted to play with the stuff that he had and I laughed and I still tease my wife for rapping every single individual coloring book and box of crayons and everything, and she wanted to make sure that he had enough presence open and he did he had plenty of presents to open
-
It was one of those memories at that, 25 years or while Jarrad's not quite 30 yet, but all these years later, we still remember that that Christmas and that apartment. We only spent maybe a year and a half in that apartment, but we remember we remember that giant tree. I remember him in those yellow footie pajamas, sitting at you know at the foot of the Christmas tree unwrapping every single coloring book and box of crayons and what have you. I hope that you have memories like that and if you're a young person, if you're a young, recently married person, if you have little kids, I hope that you have the opportunity to spend the time with them to take the time to spend with them, and you know, it's tough.
-
Let me tell you what, you know it we're doing okay now. I mean, I have a car to drive and have a home to live in and I have food to eat. So we're doing alright, but it's hard when you are a young married couple it's difficult. If you are a young married couple right now and you're frustrated because it's tough, understand this. That's the way the world is. It is and the reason that you're able to do it, is because you're young. That's why people have babies and kids when they're young because they have time and patience and energy. But I hope that you, during the season, are able to take some time, make some memories and they don't have you don't have to do everything all at once.
-
It doesn't have to be Monumental. Sometimes it's just the simplest things. Sometimes it's just the simplest things that really matter, so I'm not going to belabor the point. I just wanted to share that with you. I hope that you appreciate it, and I hope that you're out there wherever you happen to be enjoying Christmas Memories with your family. Alright, folks. I am your host Paul Markel and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM202 - Christmas Memories Pt. 1 Dec 04, 2018

Show notes

Paul takes the time to share some of his fondest Christmas memories from his youth. Merry Christmas everyone.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*

Okay, welcome to another Morning Mindset podcast. I am your host Paul Markle and it is still the Christmas season and if you would indulge me. If you would I'd like to share with you some of my Christmas Memories now when I was a young man, I was a young child my parents had lots and lots of photo albums. I don't know if people even do people even do that anymore two, people have legitimate photo albums, or is that something that only your grandparents do?

But we did we have photo albums and I remember looking at pictures of myself when I was two or three or four years old or five or what have you pictures of sitting on Santa Claus's lap in the mall, you know picture sitting in front of the Christmas tree in my parent's house. But I don't really remember those Christmases. Those are just you know, other people's memories that I that I see that I was there and I was present but I don't remember that one of the first Christmas is that I actually do recall though was when I was in elementary school and we were living in the suburb of Detroit called Roseville, Michigan, if you know anything about the geography of Southern, Michigan and the greater Detroit area there's a lot of suburbs that surround Detroit, Michigan.

I was born in Detroit. I was born actually in the city of Detroit, but when I was young I lived in this little subdivision lots of, you know, a suburb named called Roseville, which is right next to Saint Clair Shores and so on and so forth, and I remember we would have a Christmas party at school every year, and we had a gift exchange and I think back then the the gift exchange limit was like two or three dollars, you know, they would tell her moms and dads that that we were and we would bring a gift for a boy or a gift for a girl if you were a girl you brought a girl. If you were a boy you brought a boy gift. Can you imagine that in today's world?

Yeah, where there was no gender fluidity when I was we knew in the 1970s that we were either little boys or little girls and we understood that. Even in the second and third grade we did but I remember how excited I would be at the idea of the gift exchange because back then we still put Christmas trees in our classrooms and we would decorate the Christmas trees and we will put the little gifts underneath them and then we had room mothers how many of you guys had room mothers? If you're young and you're listening to me, I don't know if that if they still do that if they still do that, but the room mothers were volunteers.

They were moms who volunteered every year to assist the teacher with party's right there. Like the if you guys know the office that the TV show The Office they're like the party planning committee, and the room mothers would always make sure that for our Christmas parties and birthdays and stuff that we had cake or cupcakes usually cupcakes or cookies or punch or juice or whatever it was, and they would come in and they would just kind of oversee it and help the teacher out.

But I remember before the last day before we would get out for Christmas break. We would have our little party are in class Christmas party, you know, and we would do the gift exchange and it was always a trepidatious feeling wondering if you were going to get a good gift. Because you knew that there were some kids in your class who are going to show up with really lame gifts. But when I was I don't remember what year it was with it was in third grade or fourth grade or what have you but the gift that I got for the Christmas gift exchanges school was a little red by plane.

Yes, it was it was made of metal. It was a toy biplane. It imagined a Hot Wheels car only a little bit larger. Now like the Red Baron would have flown and back then we knew the Red Baron wasn't because it was cool stuff. I remember how excited I was to get that and I came home and that was my main focus for several days because you get out of school. Obviously, you get out of school before Christmas Day. We probably got out three or four days before who knows when it was so there I am at home around the Christmas tree waiting, you know playing. My little toy plane, my little red biplane and to this day I still remember that thing. It was so cool, I was so excited about it.

I remember the Christmas season in Michigan as I don't remember Christmas season in Michigan. We didn't have snow. I don't recall one. Sometimes we had a lot of snow. Sometimes we had a little bit of snow, but we would go out. You're ordering that Christmas break myself and my brother and sister and the neighborhood kids because there's always neighborhood kids and at the end of the street we would build snow forts and we'd be out there with our plastic shovels and buckets and so forth making, you know snow fort blocks and what have you and we'd stay out as long as we could until our cheeks were red and our fingers were numb or mittens were all wet, and then we go inside and you know, Mom. My mom would warm us up.

She'd make us hot cocoa. We didn't have microwaves back. Then she would actually make it on the stove and she would take all of our wet stuff because my mom was very handy. She would. She needed scarves or crocheted are scarves and she could even do mittens and hats and all that stuff, and of course we'd come trumpet in the house and our hats and mittens and scarves and all that would be wet and she take them and she'd throw them in the dryer, and so by the time we were all done drinking our hot cocoa and we're all warmed up again our stuff would be dry, and at least for me, I would be back out at it.

I'd be back out in the snow messing around with my buddies and friends and playing and throwing snowballs and all that until the sun went down and we had to go in for the night, and those were wonderful memories. We didn't have a lot of money when I was young, as a matter of fact, it was hard, it was tough on my mom and dad when I was a young person. I remember having you know, a car would break down or something would go wrong with the family car and there was a time when we only had one car there was often when I was young.

It was very common for a family. You know Mom and Dad kids and silver is very common to only have one car to car families. You hadn't had that money and we didn't have a lot of it but we still had everything we needed. We had a warm home to live in we had parents that loved us. We had gifts under the tree even if they weren't super expensive gifts, but we appreciated him. I know I did and I loved I grew up. In the warm embrace of not only my immediate family but my aunts and uncles and cousins and my grandparents on both sides because back then in at least when I was young in the I was born in the 60s and grew up in the 70s.

Grandparents and aunts and uncles all lived within a few miles of each other. So it was very easy to you know, visit each other's houses for holidays and so forth and that was something that it's something that I've carried with me all these years and I'm very very tremendously grateful for that. So I thought that if I would just share a little bit with you, we don't always have to be solving all the world's problems in the Morning Mindset right? Sometimes we can just share, have a good time. Alright, folks. I'm going to keep saying this because I can and this is my show. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

MM201 - Understanding the X in Xmas Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

Despite what you may have been told, Xmas is not a secular way from removing Christ from Christmas. Paul will explain why this is.

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

*Professor Paul*
Welcome to a brand new week a brand new episode of Morning Mindset, and we actually we are at a benchmark or we reached a kind of a high water mark. I guess you could say in the morning, we did episode 200 last week and now we're moving on. This is episode number 201. How did I come up with 200 things to talk about? I don't know but I did and here we are and we're advancing now as I speak the words into this microphone and this is getting ready to be broadcast out to you. It is now December, that's right.
-
So we're getting ready for the season of Christmas. I know that your local Walmart probably had Christmas decorations out in September, but for me, I don't really start getting excited about the season of Christmas until it is December. Let's talk about understanding the X in Christmas. Now maybe it is you who is guilty of this or you know, someone, a relative or friend, many of us may have an aunt or a grandmother or a mother or an uncle is usually women that get all bunged up about this, but it could be mental.
-
That has told you every year, it seems like that this person rails against the use of X, Mas, and they have contrived to convince you they have told you that that is a secular worldly way of trying to remove Christ from Christmas and you may have seen the bulletin boards or the reader boards out in front of the church that say things like let's keep Christ in Christmas and similar things, right? Well, people who say that don't know anything really about the history of the Christian church, and I'm going to head I'm going to go ahead and quote from an article called The X in Christmas literally means Christ.
-
Yes, it's they're not trying to remove Christ from Christmas by using the X. The article goes "I guess you probably heard the phrase keep Christ in Christmas and so on and so forth. The idea always seems the same, that the usage of X is to rub out or remove Christ from the Christmas season, but that is not the case at all. The X actually comes from the Greek. Christos or Chi, C-H-I, meaning Christos or Christ." I remember when I was a kid, going to church during the Christmas season and I was raised in a Lutheran Church and if you know anything about the Lutheran Church, they are very big on Christmas trees because Martin Luther was really big on Christmas trees.
-
Now, I know that there are people in the in the secular world or even in the Christian world that will debate whether or not Martin Luther was the first person to cut down a pine tree and bring it inside and decorate it and call it a Christmas tree. Some people say that that's not true that it goes all the way back to Pagan the blah-blah-blah, whatever I don't care but the fact the matter is if you grew up in Lutheran Church like I did they put up Christmas trees. Every year big ones and they decorated them with Christian themed ornaments and one of the Christian themed ornaments was a very decorative X, and you're like it's like the letter P over an X, and that is the Christos meaning Jesus Christ. It's shorthand for Jesus Christ.
-
You may have seen the word X IA n used for Christian as a shorthand for Christian and that is perfectly legit. Is a perfectly legit thing to do. So I just wanted to touch on that real quick because and I know I have had my own relatives people that I'm very close with, you know for years have said things they like don't use and what's you know, what's weird or strange about this whole X Mas thing or Christmas thing? I don't recall growing up or in my youth anyone complaining about that.
-
But my entire life as long as I can remember Merry Christmas has been abbreviated X-Mas. I remember being a child being an elementary school seeing that but I don't remember people complaining about it or getting on their high horse about it until recent history. I guess so before during this Advent season during this Christmas season during this holiday season. If you have one of those people in your lives that says, you know that admonishes you never to write out X Mas or that the use of X Mas is the worldly or secular way to try and steal Christmas away from Christ or remove Christ from the Christmas season.
-
Understand this that's not the case at all, and in fact, it's Christians who started using the x or the Greek Chi. As Christos meaning Christ, so the X in Christmas is not it doesn't mean Xmas. It's not like an episode of Futurama where they refer to the holiday is Xmas and it was Christians actually who started using it. So the next time your beloved aunt Susie gets all bunged up and she wants to. She wants to tell you not to use that you might want to say alright, let's go ahead and educate ourselves a little bit and use the language properly and know what we're talking about, and maybe that's part of being a productive and positive individual maybe have it leading a positive and productive life.
-
One of the ways we can do this is actually knowing what we're talking about. Think about that, what a cool concept that is. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for you guys today. It's the Christmas season. I hope you're you're getting excited about it. I hope that you have some I don't know where you're living in the world, but I hope if you live above the frost line that you get some snow for Christmas, and I know it's still early in the season. I'm perfectly aware of that, but I'm into it. Alright, Merry Christmas, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Morning Mindset with Paul G. Markel

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

If you like the show, please check out our Official Morning Mindset Merchandise!

Episode Transcription

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected