Blog

Or this might also be titled, “Why I’m a Fan of Instagram”.

A lot of “self help” books, articles and advice from some very accomplished and brilliant people echo similar tips and pointers for making forward progress.   One very common theme is if you want to be successful, hang around with successful people, think successful thoughts and visualize positive mental images to build a success mindset.  In other words surround yourself with success. 

Not everyone’s idea of success is the same of course.  If having a lot of money is your idea of success, associating with people that are go getters, already make a lot of money, are well off and invest profitably would be ideal for you to buddy up with. However if your idea of success is to not work too much, travel like a gypsy, live on a beach somewhere and pluck your guitar under a palm tree, the success prototype you seek is probably not the “A” personality investor types.  Maybe a good model would be a Jimmy Buffett disciple instead.

If you don’t “yet” personally have easy access to people you might want to emulate, one way you can find some substitute inspiration is on line.  Being on the road a bit, lately I have adopted Instagram as my default electronic mentor and success stimulant.  There are so many excellent sites.  It gives you access to the insights of many notable people, lifestyles and beautiful things.  The sites I currently follow really help get my day off to a good start.  It’s kind of like making a vision board (look it up) but it’s done for you, fresh every day and the variety is practically limitless. Since there’s 95 million new posts a day you should be able to find some inspiration for yourself too.  Every couple of weeks there are 95 million and 1 if I get the urge to post something on stirupsomeair.

Here’s a few examples of why I am a fan.  Since I’ve been working on better eating habits I now have feeds that deliver beautiful visuals of fresh healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, smoothie recipes, etc… and usually some eating tips for the day. I’ve been trying to curb my meat eating too, so I lean more to Vegetarian driven sites.  These posts help point me in the right direction and I feel like the daily viewing kind of burns these visuals and positive messages into my mind.  Another project I’ve been working on is making my gym time more productive for better results. I have some feeds from middle aged+ people and others that show workout tips or just have great visuals of their own progress and results.  I typically look at exercise and dietary feeds before I go into the gym.  Am I getting better results, I believe so.  I think I’m more motivated to work on myself and try some different things.  I recently found a site by a woman that was literally run over by a truck while biking and her body badly mangled.  She worked her way back to being a tri-athlete.  She surely still has some challenging issues from the beating she took, but her attitude and smile light up her posts. If I ever don’t feel like going to the gym, I use her continuing story to help push me out the door to go do my work.

I also have feeds from investors, business people with some creative ideas, general motivational feeds, travel hacks, motorcycle travel, bucket list chasers and some other general topics that interest me.  If I find some feeds to be flat or not all that inspiring, I “unfollow” and then find replacements.

Today while the coffee was brewing I got a healthy dose of beautiful visions and productive advice. 

• Tasty looking fresh fruits and vegetarian dishes
• Investing advice from Warren Buffet
• Businessman Steve Sims delivering some customer service tips
• Pictures of a traveler enjoying a mountain view
• A 50+ year old named Titus that looks like he’s carved from granite. 
• A quote about stepping out of your comfort zone
• 10 Financial Mistakes to Avoid
• A motivational statement by Richard Branson
• A couple of posts allowing me to keep track of family happenings
• A travel hack with tips to adjust to time zone changes
• #eatingforhealth showing a salad with roasted vegetables and greens
• And many more

All this positive reinforcement before my first sip of coffee. Plus feeds are refreshing all day long so if you need a little boost in your attitude during the day, open it up and see what’s new and fresh.  For you economy minded folks, the cost of all this great stuff is $0.00.

What I don’t have feeding in is anything negative or political.  I find the further away I stay from that kind of thing the better.  I do have some consolidator news sites I visit to see what is happening in the business, financial and sports worlds to keep up on some of that. Mostly the rest of the main stream information in my opinion is just a lot of depressing and bad news churn.  Do I sneak a peek once in a while and see what the next crisis manufactured or real is, sure.  In general though, I can’t figure out how ingesting that information is helping anyone to better themselves.

So I absolutely think it’s a great idea to soak yourself in good vibes and visuals in the morning from the get go, any way that works for you.  At the moment I’m finding Instagram to be a good tool for me and helps kick start my day in a positive way.  Surely it’s not an all encompassing solution, but a nice little bonus add on to the other good things you (should) already do for yourself every day.  Any other suggestions on positively charging yourself up… feel free to share.

Okay, get out there and Stir Up Some Air!