Tag Archives: Change and Personal Empowerment

The Science of Creating Your Own Luck

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Are you lucky?  Is there a science to luck or is it a spiritual blessing or divine grace?   I am one of those right brain people whose pendulum swings way to the right when given a choice to rely on science or spirit. I tend to look first towards spirituality to explain or guide me with work, relationships, and setting goals.  I also look for the spiritual lesson when I encounter adversity.  So, looking for a scientific explanation of why things are is not my first line of defense.  But, I’m consistently learning that science compliments spirituality and explains things logically.  With spirituality, I don’t have to know why; I just know what is.  But, science explains the why and I am even more confirmed.  For example, I know from experience that prayer and meditation work.  Science attempts to explain why.    But, I’m learning that it is not an either/or choice.  Both are valuable and both play a role.

4 Steps to Create Your Own Luck

Many people would consider me lucky.  I am if the definition is: “Luck is where opportunity meets preparedness.”  Yes I am lucky but I feel that my attitude and faith create my luck.  Richard Wiseman studies luck and has actually come up with a prescription for how it’s done.  You’ll want to read his insightful article, Be Lucky- it’s an easy skill to learn. He writes,  “My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles.They are:

  1. Skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities,
  2. Make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition,
  3. Create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and
  4. Adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.”

After graduating from his luck school, 80% of his students were luckier.  Scientific or spiritual luck?  Perhaps you don’t have to choose and can have both!  I’m  going to make sure I apply the principles above and for luck, I’m going to continue to pray.  There you have it.  Feeling luckier?

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

Study: 80 Percent of College Admissions Departments Stalk Your Facebook – TIME NewsFeed

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Did you know that 82% of college admissions officers use Facebook in their recruiting?  What image have you portrayed on your social media sites?  Is it one that seals the deal and gets you that letter?  Many high school seniors are anxiously awaiting to hear what colleges they will be attending.  Some are just beginning to apply.  I hope for your sake that you have not put anything on Face-book that paints you in an unfavorable light.  For all of you middle school and high schoolers, be careful what you put out on the social media sites.  It could come back to haunt you.  And college students and everyone else must also be careful of the image they portray on social media sites.  You’ll be looking for jobs one day.  Remember info in the webisphere can hang out there forever. Consider the following:

“We all know that employers check out your online persona, but the trend is spreading. Now your dirty laundry on the Internet could keep you out of college, too.

A new survey from Kaplan Test Prep reveals that 82 percent of admissions officers use Facebook in their recruiting. While this sounds like a positive spin on having an online presence – meaning the college of your dreams can see your interests and your favorite books. And maybe yours jive perfectly with that of the college’s dream student.”  Click below to continue article.

via Study: 80 Percent of College Admissions Departments Stalk Your Facebook – TIME NewsFeed.

Why Do We Have So Many Negative Thoughts?

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Every thought and emotion has its own energetic signature or wave frequency.  ToeTalkwithTina writes: “Even our thoughts and emotions are energy, and every specific thought has its own unique vibrational frequency. Anger has its own frequency. Depression has its own frequency. Jealousy has its own frequency, etc, etc. Remember…energy MUST move. So when we choose to stifle a negative thought or emotion, and just keep tucking away all those hurt feelings, it is the equivalent of a percolating volcano. Eventually something is going to move….or BLOW!”

Your Assignment

If you believe that what you focus on magnifies in our lives, then you need to make a conscious effort to use and focus on those words that enhance your life .  Here’s  your assignment:  For the next week eavesdrop on your thoughts, words, and your conversations.  How many of your words, conversations, and interactions were positive?

Research shows that we are far more negative words in our vocabulary than positive ones.  Robert Schrauf, associate professor of applied linguistics and an anthropologist at Penn State was quoted in an ABC News on-line article titled, “Study: Negative Words Dominate Language’. ” Schraf says he was a bit puzzled when he began analyzing data he collected that shows that regardless of age or culture, we have far more words in our vocabulary that express negative rather than positive emotions.  …I found this surprising result,” Schrauf says. “Half of all the words that people produce from their working vocabulary to express emotion are negative. And 30 percent are positive and 20 percent are neutral.”

He has an idea of why this is so,”Negative emotions require more detailed thinking, more subtle distinctions,” says Schrauf, whose research was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. So we conjure up more negative words because the language needs to be precise. And this research suggests that’s probably true for every culture and every age group. Even though some of the words may not have precisely the same meaning in every language, they tend to be more negative than positive.”

Until next time…

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

The Power of Words

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Words are the building blocks of our communication with ourselves and others.  It is the means by which we exchange ideas, thoughts, desires, fears, needs, beliefs, etc. Negative words produce negative emotions.  Positive words produce positive emotions.  Let’s test it.  Think about debt, clutter, weight, divorce, death, bankruptcy, hatred, or betrayal.  How are you feeling?  Now think about abundance, order, beauty, freedom, fitness, health, vitality, faithfulness, and love. Do these words make you feel different? The challenge then is to use more positive words in our conversations, thoughts, and communications.  The words we use have programmed us and as we use new words we are changing the program.

Words also have ‘staying power’ both the negative and the positive.

Be careful what you put out into the universe because words have staying power.  Once implanted in someones heart or mind, they can grow there forever.  Everyone can recall without much effort a time in their lives when they were hurt by words.  For me, it was being called, “Fish Girl.” My dad had a fish market in Pennsylvania when I was between the ages of seven and twelve.  He would load up fish and produce in the truck and go door to door yelling, “Fresh Fish, Fresh Greens, Fresh Produce.”  Come and get your “Fresh Fish, Fresh Greens, Fresh Produce.”  On the surface it shouldn’t evoke painful memories, but it does.  You see when we weren’t out selling the fish, we were preparing the fish.  We couldn’t go out and play, have friends over, or have a normal childhood.  Most of our time was spent cleaning, scraping, and gutting hundreds of pounds of fish weekly.  The fish came in fifty pound boxes and my sisters and I had to stay up many nights getting the fish ready for sale the next day.  Our hands were cold and frozen and sore from being stuck and pricked by the fish fins.  If this weren’t enough, the kids would mock us to and from school.  They would throw things and us and call us “Fish Girls.”  Laughing at us saying that we smelled like fish.  Yes words can hurt, but words also can heal.  Unfortunately,  children learn the bad from their environment.  Realize that you are now a teacher and a role model for the children.  And, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.”

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

Great Self-Help Resource on Brain Research

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Have you ever clicked on one of those sites that completely sucked you in because of the overwhelming amount of value?  I don’t even know how I happened upon this self-help site on brain research, but everything in it resonated with what I was already learning and studying.  I couldn’t believe it.  I simply loved it and I hope you will too.  Here is a little excerpt to wet your whistle.  It sure captured my attention!

“I help you reverse engineer your mind (so to speak) to learn how your brain functions; your limiting beliefs about money, relationships and health; and the cause of your lack of success. To effectively make permanent changes and eliminate this self-sabotage, you need to understand how these non-conscious blocks (internal conflicts) were created in the first place.  When you strive for self-improvement in anything and it just isn’t happening, realize there are two very good reasons for this.

1. You have been programmed with self-limiting beliefs that stop you.

2. Your ancestral DNA is actually working without your awareness to keep you safe with what is already familiar and comfortable.  Some refer to this as “psychological reversal” while others might call it “self-sabotage”. via Brain research – self help. Go on; click on the link and learn more!

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.