Optimisms
Cheering each other on
How Optimism Can Find You Love!
Ever since I wrote Meeting Your Half-Orange, I’ve gotten so many touching emails from people who read the book and said it helped their dating lives—and many from people who said they’d met and married their half-oranges! Today, I’m going to share one of those letters. Why?
Because Anne’s story reflects exactly how dating optimism can completely alter your single life as you know it.
Here, Anne explains how dating optimism worked for her, with a little Christmas magic thrown into the mix:
“I started reading your book when I was newly out of the hospital. I was 20 pounds underweight and as I lay in bed, the ridiculousness of reading your book almost made me throw it across the room. But I kept reading it. I read it all through the summer as I gained my weight back and started exercising again. I felt how joyous it would be to laugh with my half orange. I lingered around happy couples and soaked up their energy. I made feelings and not looks the primary goal in guys I looked at as potential dating partners. I finished reading your book and started all over again, two pages per night. I savored each word.
In October of last year, four months after I started reading your book, I met someone who seemed to meet all my qualities. He was much younger but it seemed to be working. I had a good month with him before I realized it was not going to work. I didn’t let that discourage me. My 36th birthday loomed and I felt happy and expansive and lucky.
When I went home last Christmas I decided to connect with a guy from my past. Though we’d gone to high school and even college together, I’d never seen him as more than a friend. Somehow I felt a magnetic attraction to him during this trip. We had a magical road trip to Santa Barbara. On December 30, he kissed me. We’ve been blissfully happy ever since. We got married this past October, and we are blissfully happy.
Thank you!! The Half-Orange method really works!!”
—Anne
Wow, I love this story. Not only because Anne got her happy ending, but because the happy ending can happen to anyone. In love, in life, it can work for you. If you feel positive about your search, fall in love with yourself first and get giddy about your future, you can have the same success. By focusing on the positive aspects of yourself and your life, and by having an optimistic belief in your future, you can change your life! Whether you’re looking for your true love, pursuing a dream career, trying to start a family or building a business from scratch, the positive process I walk you through can help you achieve it.
Try this: If you’re not already getting my weekly Vitamin Optimism email, sign up to get it! Every week, I give you one simple practice in positivity to focus on. Because the more you work to live a positive life every day, the better you’ll feel about yourself and the more likely you’ll get what you’re after. The optimism is my gift to you. Please, get the email, try the practice, and then watch the magic happen. Click the box to sign up!
Big love,
7 Steps to The Art (Basel) of Happiness!
Last week, my husband and I flew down to Miami for Art Basel, where we hit galleries upon galleries full of amazing art. And over the course of a few days, as we traveled from Miami to Fort Lauderdale to Key West, I found myself noticing just how much art was all about being positive. Whether in big galleries or scrawled on light poles on the street, I found happy words and positive messages in the art everywhere—like life, it’s just up to us to take it in. Here’s just a taste of what South Beach and beyond had to say about how to live a happy life.
Step 1: Whatever you’re going through now, remember, Life is beautiful.
This is part of the Mr. Brainwash show (if you’ve seen the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop or the streets in Downtown L.A., you’ve seen his work). It’s an oldie message, but a goodie. If you look for the junk, it’ll be there. If you look for the beautiful stuff, you’ll find that, too.
He also made this piece, another good message: Where there is love, there is life.
Step 2: Remind Yourself to Be Happy. Do the Best You Can. Be Good and Kind.
At the main Art Basel exhibit inside the Miami Convention Center was this piece called “My Mother’s Words” by Jonathan Borofsky. I think I would have liked her.
Step 3: Realize you have Everything You Want. Right Now!
At the Pulse Miami show, I came across this piece by Steve Lambert. It kind of makes me think of how I get happy every day. Instead of focusing on the things I wish I had, or the things I want and don’t have yet, I remind myself to look at what’s in front of me and see how dang great it really is. You have more of what you want than you realize. Light up the good parts of what’s right in front of you.
Step 4: Duh, Love Yourself.
On Collins Avenue, just outside of the W Hotel, I found this sticker. Which led me to the site LoveYourselfProject.net. And their message is this: “It’s time to start washing our brain with a positive message instead of being brainwashed with philosophies that keep us small and limited.” Oh, yeah.
Step 5: Even when all you see in front of you is trash, Bee Happy.
I found this on the street in Key West and it stopped me in my tracks. What a surprising fun place to find an inspiring message. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking at, happiness is a choice. As you’ll see in my next book Bright Side Up that comes out in February, I believe that we have the power to change how we feel by viewing what’s right in front of us from a new angle. What’s garbage to one person can be a saving grace to another. It’s all in how you see it.
Step 6: When things go wrong, find a way to say, Es Excelente!
This was another piece at the Art Basel show at the Convention Center with a pretty excellent message. Start your day thinking “Es excelente!” and you’ll find more than enough reasons to prove yourself right.
Step 7: Order the lobster roll.
Oh…right. So this isn’t officially “art,” but believe me when I tell you that the lobster roll from The Conch Shack on Duval Street in Key West was so delectable, it tasted like art. In fact, we had it three times in two days, which reminded me: There’s no such thing as too much of a good thing. If it will make you happy and it won’t make a big dent in your wallet or isn’t a pain in someone else’s butt, order it. Eat it. Do it. Buy it. Wear it. Try it. Sing it.
Life is full of little pleasures and big signs. If you pay attention, you’ll see them all and remember to be them all.
Big love,
Surprising Secrets on How to Live Happily Ever After
I have to hand it to author Jenna McCarthy, the scribe behind If It Was Easy, They’d Cal the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon. She’s not only hilarious (check out the funny trailer for her book ), but she’s also brave and wise.
The hilarious Jenna McCarthy mentioning my book in her TED talk!
How do I know this? Because she recently gave a speech about “How to Live Happily Ever After” for a TED conference in front of a packed house (brave) that was full of smart and surprising advice (wise) on how to be happily married. And even wiser? Well, in talking about how to find the right partner to marry, she featured my book cover for Meeting Your Half-Orange in her speech! (Pay attention at the 9:20 mark).
I’ve picked up a few tips from Jenna’s speech, which is why I’m going to buy my husband some really fattening cookies today. Watch her talk and you’ll learn why that’s just one of a few fabulous ideas for living happily ever after. Here’s the video—find a free 11 minutes (oh, let’s be honest, now is just perfect) and enjoy!
Big love,
How to Be as Happy as a Pig
This past week, on our visit to Florida, my husband and I stopped by our favorite barbecue joint outside of Fort Lauderdale called Georgia Pig. It’s a 50-year-old dive in Davie, Florida with a pork sandwich that’s smokey and moist with some crunchy bits on a soft bun. Man, it’s so good, it makes me instantly happy.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised to see they have their own formula for happy on an old sign posted inside the restaurant. Here, on the back of Georgia Pig’s business card, is that simple formula:
The Georgia Pig recipe for happiness.
Use as necessary for a full, happy, tasty good life. Oink.
Big love,
Scarves and Smiles
I don’t know why I got such a kick out of this, but it made me laugh. Out loud? I don’t remember. Check out this cartoon by Drew found at Left-Handed Toons by Right-Handed People:
Ha ha ha! A scarf, meanwhile, is all I can knit (not from noodles, but still). If you ever want something knitted from me, I can either make you a little scarf or a long scarf or a really, really long scarf, and that’s about it. Hope you like scarves.
Big love,
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