BurmanBooks is a publisher of motivational and self help books

So our new year has finally begun and some of you have started with a bang! Congrats to those who signed up to the Success App on www.BurmanBooks.com , I’m thrilled that you are willing to take 2 mins each day for 8 weeks to fulfill your goals way before the year ends!

I have been in LA for the last week and it has proven to be a learning exercise for me. CBS called at the last second and wanted me to come to LA for an interview. Well, I wasn’t going to say no, so I called my travel agent on Boxing Day, and no flights were available! Now, telling you all to let go after you have done everything you can, and let fate take over, applied in this case. Trying to eliminate all panicking, I let go and stated to myself the worst case is if they wanted me now, they will want me after the holidays.

Just as I came to that resolve, my travel agent called and got me a ticket. Turns out I’m a VIP customer with the hotel and car rental company (had no idea) and got a very very cheap rate during the holidays! Because everything was working out, I figured it was meant to be.

The interview went extremely well, and it ran 5 times over Dec 31- Jan 1. In fact, the producer of the news show signed up for the Success App right after! After the interview, things came to a halt. I was bored since all my acquaintances in LA had left during the holidays and my team was working diligently, not really needing me for anything. Complaining? Yes. Beautiful city, sunshine, and no work …poor me. But I realized that my problem is that we love what we don’t have…until we have it. Oi.
This struck me deeply because I realized while walking on the beach, that there are a lot of people in my life, opportunities that have crossed my path, and experiences I have endured that I have taken for granted. This made me feel like shit.

On my last night, I had drinks with a friend who conquered her fear, moved to LA and now is about to be one of 3 leads in a major movie. It was quite enlightening because I was listening to her talk about how her life now puts a smile on her face rather than tear up. It was great. Her life changed when she started to appreciate all that was happening, and then from the lessons, decided to move forward. I had breakfast with one of my authors, who had just lost her dog, and she told me how writing the book and exposing herself the way she did in it, provided support for other women. She was shocked and happy that she took the leap of faith and wrote from her heart.

It frustrates me (probably because I am seeing myself) when I see people who take for granted those that are good to them, truly love them, and want the best for them. The girls that run to the douche bags who treat them badly, and stand in front of the perfect guy, but can’t see them. The idea of my friend Bob who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and lives in Orange County, telling me about all the women he treated badly in his youth and now regrets passing on some women that
would have made him very happy, is not what I want to be saying at 65!

To the mentors I have never written about in my books, or blogs, the ones whom I haven’t called in years like Keith Orpen, my karate teacher who taught me so much more than fighting, but about life, philosophy and history, Milton Green, my first real boss who taught me about taking time off of work during the day to appreciate life by picking apples or riding our bikes in the rain, or Kevin Wright teaching me that people like to be talked TO and not AT, all of whom affected me before 15 years of age, I say thank you. Thank you for caring enough to take time out to share with me and teach me. Thank you for letting me make mistakes and not give up on me, and thank you for not hating me because I have taken you for granted in my recent years by not keeping in touch or never asking you what YOU need. To my parents, for all the times you bailed me out of bad times, for loving me when it was hard to, and supporting me through the times I doubted myself, thank you.

Forgetting to appreciate is normal, it’s the people that discipline themselves to take a second in our fast paced lives to think about it for a second, I’m positive will not only have so much more, but be so much more fulfilled with it.

This day, I am going to take a look around me and see what I have been blind to. My time for change is now, what about you?