The Daily Wake Up Micro Podcast

Pretty Little Avatar

The Daily Wake Up Micro-PodcastEpisode 698 – Avatar Love#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #avatar
First, you open the application and pick your skin color. You have the skin color picked, let’s choose the eye shape and color. 
Eye shape and color looks good so let’s pick our lips. If you are a dude, you may want to add facial hair; if you are a girl, you may add the long eye lashes. Either way, it’s starting to look good.
Hair color, hair style is just right, and you are so proud of what you’ve built.
Now when you make a post on social media you can show your beautiful avatar only your avatar comes to life and stomps their feet in disgust because they don’t think they are beautiful. You are shocked because your avatar looks fantastic. You created it from scratch. If only your avatar could know how beautiful they really are.
How many times have you looked at someone’s avatar and thought, that avatar is way better looking than the person in real life?
Sometimes I stomp my feet in disgust because I don’t think I’m doing anything good. I’m getting old, and don’t feel confident in my abilities. And God, who created me, knows how fantastic I am and how fantastic I look. I'm like an avatar that God created us. He looks at us the same way we look at our Prettly Little Avatar; isn't it time you viewed yourself the same way? 

Questions to Ask Your Kids Today

The Daily Wake Up Micro-PodcastEpisode 697 – Questions to Ask Your Kids Today#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #parenting #mentalhealth
 
In the book, The Parent Compass, author Cynthia Muchnick and Jenn Curtis provide questions to ask your kids daily: 
If I called your teacher tonight, what would they tell me about your? 
Where were you the happiest today? 
If today were a theme song, what would it be? 
If you were a teacher, what class would you teach? 
What is your biggest dream in life? 
What are you trying to get better at? 
and more (listen in or get the book). 

Grief Stages when Kids go Astray

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast
Episode 696 – Grief stages when kids go astray
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #parenting #mentalhealth
 
In the book, When Teens Stray by Scott Larson, he points out the grief stages when kids go astray.
Shock Stage
Feeling of numbness and overwhelmed.
Denial Stage
One-minute parents feel angry and betrayed another minute they feel sad, ashamed, and personally responsible.
Acceptance Stage
Parents start to develop a positive attitude towards the future
Parents begin to detach from the dreams they had of the child’s future
Readjustment Stage
New hope begins to appear

It‘s OK to not be OK and WANT to CHANGE

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast
Episode 695 – It’s ok to not be ok and want to change
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #mentalhealth
 
There is a common phrase amongst those of us championing the cause of an improved mental health in young people.  That phrase is "It's OK to not be OK." Although I understand where they are coming from, I'd like to complete the sentence that wanting to change is an important piece to improving our situation.  In the Harvard Business Review, Dr. Zuckerman noted, “Allowing yourself not to feel ok involves accepting all feelings, thoughts, or sensations, and sitting with them until they pass. If you try to avoid, suppress, or ignore them, they will only grow stronger and leave you overwhelmed and believing that you cannot cope.” Nov 10, 2020 Yes, Dr. Zuckerman is right (obviously) what is missing is the component of action. When you are not feeling ok, your body is telling you something. Your body is asking for help and while you are waiting for those feelings to pass, do something like text a friend how much you care for them, volunteer at a local shelter, get off your digital device. DO SOMETHING that will help your body combat these feelings of not being ok.   

My Attitude Towards Suicide is . . .

The Daily Wake Up Micro-PodcastEpisode 694 – My Attitude Toward Suicide is . . .
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #suicideprevention
While attending a Suicide Prevention course a question was asked, “your attitude towards suicide is . . . “ and we had to choose a spot on the spectrum of right or wrong.  I chose "wrong" and got some flack for it. 
Other members of the class accused me of being insensitive to what the troubled person may be going through. I responded with a question to the instructor, "did I misunderstand?" I asked, "wasn't the question, what's my attitude toward suicide?" 
He said, "yes, that was the question." 
Ok, then my attitude towards suicide is that it's WRONG. Why else are we here taking a two-day suicide prevention course. 
Don't be afraid to stand on absolute truth.  

Break the Chain of Negativity

The Daily Wake Up Micro-PodcastEpisode 693 – Break the Chain of Negativity
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #negativity 
Happy Monday! There is a moth in the studio. 🤨
When someone feels upset, angry, or hurt they may transfer their feeling/energy to you causing you to be upset, angry, or hurt.  You in turn may then transfer your feeling/energy of being upset, angry, or hurt, and the vicious cycle continues. 
Are you strong enough to break this cycle by showing kindness and love? You may look weak, however, it's one of the strongest, boldest, and most courageous acts anyone can make. 

Dangers of Envy

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast 
Episode 692 - Dangers of Envy
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #envy #covet
             Social media brings constant comparisons in our lives doesn’t it. A Facebook post might read, “happy birthday to my fantastic husband of five years because he is so great and yada, yada, yada.” That’s cool and all I must ask would it be less cool if she told her husband that directly (gasp) without any of us knowing about it?
One person does it then someone else sees it and thinks, “Oh, I have to do something like that.” That’s a form of Envy.
Envy is defined as a feeling of discontentment or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck (don’t believe in luck so let’s change that to opportunities).
I like how Craig Groeschel describes envy in his book #struggles:
Envy is wildfire, always consuming and never quenched. It is demonic. Envy is resenting God’s goodness in other people lives and ignoring God’s goodness in your life.  
Does that hit home for you like it did for me? Envy is resenting God’s goodness in other people’s lives.
When was the last time you celebrated a friend’s success? Truly celebrated?  Not the inauthentic where you think their accomplish isn’t fair and when will you get yours. I’m talking about feeling overjoyed for their opportunity, possession, or quality.
When you do feel overjoyed for them, let them know . . .quietly . . . not on social media for the world to see. Just one-to-one which has a much greater impact anyway.

Stop the Suffering

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast 
Episode 691 - Stop the Suffering
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #mentalhealth #passion
             I’ve mentioned before that I don’t like using the word passion or passionate to describe the love for something I do. I’ve replaced the word passion with joy when describing the things, I do for the love of doing them.  Passion comes from the latin word passio, which means to suffer or endure.
When you look at the word compassion, the definition ranges quite a bit however the one that resonates more with me is having a strong desire to alleviate the suffering of someone. You are not only walking with them in their suffering; you also desire to help stop their suffering.
Now let’s look closer at the word, “suffering.” As we’ve seen in the word passion and compassion it has a lot to do with suffering. What exactly is suffering?  Suffering is the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
Entrepreneurs will say, “I’m passionate about [insert what they do]” It’s no wonder they feel what they do is more of a burden than one that bring them joy.  Joy can stop the suffering.
The definition of joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Isn’t that something that is better than pain, distress, or hardship?
I’m guilty of this as well. A couple of years ago I was a guest on a podcast to describe ways to find your passion. In my book, You Got It; Now Go Get It! I describe what it means to be passionate. It wasn’t until recently that I realized what passion really meant. Instead of finding your passion, look for the joy you feel when doing what it is you do.

The Three Brains

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast 
Episode 690 - The Three Brains
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #brains #generationZ
 I like how authors Scott Larson and Daniel Tocchini describe the three brains in their book, Groundwork.
The first brain is the Survival Brain or “Reptilian” brain.
This is where you experience a fight or flight reaction to alarming situations.
No thinking, just reacting
Established at birth.
The second brain is the Logical Brain or Prefrontal Cortex.
This is our center for logic, language, and reasoning.
It is fully developed for girls at the age of 22 and isn’t fully developed for boys until the age of 25.
The third brain is the Emotional brain or limbic brain
Wraps around the survival brain
Generates positive and negative emotions
Young people in general process nearly all new information from their survival brain since their logical brain is still in development. In the United States, you can go to war at 18 years old, drink at 21 years old, and rent a car at 25 years old.  Why is that? Because data has revealed the best way to reduce risk as it relates to certain things (except going to war at 18; I personally don’t get that one).
This is the foundation for my message to Gen Zers when I encourage them to wait on major decisions in their life.  Social Media and video games has brought stress into the lives of our young people that is yielding awful results because brains aren’t fully developed. If you have a little one, be the parent. Take responsibility in making hard choices even though your children may think you are over-protected or out of line. Remember, they are using the survival brain to make logical decisions and that isn’t logical.
 

Do You Want to Get Better?

The Daily Wake Up Micro-Podcast 
Episode 689 - Do You Want to Get Better    
#knowTroy #DWUpodcast #healing
The deeper you get in muck and destruction of your life the more you want to make a change. Change driven by wanting to eliminate pain is greater than change made by wanting to get better.
Even in the Bible, Jesus saw a man lying there and learned he had been in poor condition for a long time. Jesus asked him, “do you want to get well?”
It’s a fair question. The invalid had developed a system of living his life with this condition for thirty-eight years. If he became well, his entire life would change. He would need to be responsible. He would need to work and now pay back any debts and/or bills.  He wouldn’t receive sympathy from others. If Jesus, who healed many, asked a man if he wanted to get well, it’s a question you could ask yourself about your situation.
“Do you want to get better?”
Or is your life kind of like the phrase, it’s the devil I know. Are you afraid to make a change because new responsibilities will occur?  If you were blessed with more finances, would you know what to do with them? Would you give back or try to help the poor? If you were better with your intelligence, would you strive for a new position at work, or a new job that would bring on new challenges.
Because if you want to get better, you can get better.
Do you want to get better?