Living the 90%: 9 Ways To Be Happier

By Darci Lang

In this second book of the 90% Philosophy series, the author takes us on an even deeper dive into how she has had to truly LIVE her message. This book gives the reader a unique perspective on ways to be happier, with each of the nine chapters providing nine unique ideas. So that is 81 ideas in total! Imagine what you could do with 81 id

• Language: English
• Publisher: X-L Publishing
• Release date: Nov 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777732431

Darci Lang

If anyone understands that life is what you make it, it's Darci. She quite literally went out and built the life she wanted. She has worked for great leaders and not so great leaders, built three award-winning businesses and let them go when the time was right. All she has accomplished has been done on her own terms and by Focusing on the 90% - on the positive in her world. Darci Lang has discovered a solution to help you live your life, do your job, and connect with the people who matter most, to the fullest. Darci has a bold, joyful presence - illuminating the good in audiences' lives with her dynamic message. For 28 years, Darci has been sharing tough love with empathy, creating perspective shifts and having an impact on hundreds of businesses in diverse industries. She helps to transform cultures, employee engagement and in turn, boosts morale and profitability. From farmers, ironworkers and linesmen to medical professionals, educators and administrative professionals, her connection to her audience is astounding. In the midst of her flourishing entrepreneurial career, Darci has learned powerful lessons about maintaining balance, bringing her best self home to her husband and young, adult children and embracing her own victories. Darci Lang is an inspirational speaker, an award-winning entrepreneur, Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Hall of Fame recipient, a bestselling author, a wife and a mom, whose simple tool helps individuals reframe the way they look at, and think about, their work and interactions and relationships with others.

Book preview

Living the 90%

by Darci Lang

© Copyright 2019 by Darci Lang

No part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted in any form of by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, or for informational storage or retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for brief passages quoted in a review.

Distributed by

X-L Enterprises Inc.

PO Box 32077 Regina, SK S4N 7L2

Ph: [phone] Fax: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail]

www.darcilang.com

Cover design: Sandra Preikschat

Lang, Darci, 1969-

Living the 90% / Darci Lang.

ISBN 978-0-9783157-7-1

1. Attitude change. 2. Optimism. 3. Self-actualization (Psychology)

All rights reserved.

Printed on recycled paper.

Dedication

To my husband, Darren. Thank you for 26 years of living the 90% together. As I wrote this book, you brought home supper, cleaned the house and looked after our life. I am continually loved and supported by you. We have lived through so much—including renovating the kitchen together—so now I know we can survive anything.

To my children, Jayda and John. I am grateful that God picked me to be your mom. I am beyond proud of the amazing young adults you are becoming, and I could not possibly love you more than I do.

To my admin assistant Sandra. Thank you for 26 years working side by side. I am extremely grateful for all you do.

To Courtney and Andrea for your brilliant editing.

To my family, who believed in me and stuck by me in my worst 10% times.

To my friends. It’s true the older you get, the more you value your friendships. You mean the world to me, and you are my endless support system.

Thank you to God for my family, my abundance, my health, and for always, always showing me what you need me to say.

Thank you to all of the audience members who have touched my life. Thank you for allowing me to share your stories in this book.

Thank you for buying this book and caring enough about yourself to want to live the 90%.

Opening

It’s been 11 years since I wrote my first book: Focus on the 90%. I have the most adorable picture of my then five-year-old son holding the first copy of my book (wearing the spider man pajamas he refused to take off). People often ask me, What took you so long to write your second book? To which I reply, Well, I was busy raising my family and living my epic life. Yet I always knew that there was another book sitting in my soul just waiting to be revealed. Then God gave me the month off, and the creativity I needed.

I am inspired by people, places, and life in general. I love Wayne Dyer’s books. Wayne would go to his home in Maui to write. He would take a month off and focus only on writing while sitting in his beautiful Hawaiian home. I also took a month off, during one the coldest months we have ever had in Saskatchewan. I would wear wool socks and layers of clothing as I typed away on the keyboard, tea at hand. I wrote twelve hours a day with life happening all around me. I would try and keep the teenagers and their friends quiet, so I could focus. I had a terrible cold, the weather warmed up, the snow slowly started to melt, and the dog poop started to thaw in the yard. I smiled as I wrote and thought, Not quite Maui.

In this book, I am going to share the nine ways to be happier. Each idea is a chapter in this book. Focus on the 90% showed you how to see your life through a lens of positivity and gratitude. This book will show you how to truly live that message.

Live life to the fullest, and focus on the positive.

Matt Cameron

Chapter 1

Focus on the 90%

1.Defining the 90%.

2. Why should we focus on the 90%?

3. How to embrace the 90%.

4. Why it works.

5. Change what isn’t working.

6. Change how you talk.

7. Change how you think.

8. Be the change you want to see in the world.

9. Be grateful.

1. Defining the 90%.

My first book, Focus on the 90%, shares my belief that we all hold a big, imaginary magnifying glass out in front of us. I believe we have a choice on what we focus that magnifying glass on— the positive 90% aspects of our lives or the negative 10%s. This book teaches you how to live that message.

Our lives may not be changed forever by reading one book or seeing one speaker. We need to continue reading, watching and listening in order to keep filling our professional and personal toolbox. That is what I want this 90% message to be for you, another tool for your toolbox.

Being positive does not mean we do not have personal problems. Happy people have problems. The difference between happy people and unhappy people is what we are willing to work on daily, despite our 10%s. The happiest people I know are fully committed to their own personal development. I have had ample real-life opportunities in my life to practice what I preach.

I have had countless audience members stand up and tell stories of moving from their war-torn countries to Canada—stories of living in poverty, war, abuse and fear. People tell me they want to live in Canada because the only thing we have to complain about is the weather!

Some of the happiest people I have met have been to hell and back. Having difficult times in your life gives you perspective. Tell me about someone you know who is very happy and I won’t have to meet them to know they have done something that changed their life. They did something different to change their perspective; they chose to become happier.

Are you creating a great life for yourself? Are you happy? Are you healing? Are you hurting? What depletes you the most? Can you eliminate it?

What if this tool could make your life better? What if it could change how you see your job, others, your family and yourself?

Living the 90% has changed my life. It has allowed me to see my life through a 90% lens even in my darkest 10% times.

2. Why should we focus on the 90%?

I have spent 26 years as a motivational speaker and trainer sharing my 90% message. Some people think that motivational messages are crap (their words). I am always intrigued that someone would be rude enough to share that to my face, but I am even more intrigued by their belief systems around self-improvement.

When these individuals share their opinion, that it is indeed, crap, I always smile and say, Well that is an interesting observation. What has happened in your life that caused you to believe that you don’t need a positive message? Their answers are usually pretty vague.

I then start a very thoughtful conversation. I say, So I guess whatever you are currently doing to live a full life is working then? You must be a very happy and fulfilled person. You must really love your job! The people you work with must be very happy that you arrive at work each day. The clients you serve must think you are the best person who has ever served them and, my gosh, your family must be so happy when you get home at the end of each day! These statements can create a very different and meaningful conversation.

Ask yourself these questions: Do you have a job that you love (90% of the time)? Do the people you work with enjoy working with you? Do the people you love look forward to you coming home? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then this book will really help you. If the answer is yes, then this book will also help you. No matter who you are, this book will add another tool to your self-improvement toolbox.

I love to walk. I love coming across benches on walking trails and reading the engraved plates that are dedicated to family members and friends. One of my favorites is Leo’s bench in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It reads, Leo lived like heaven was a place on earth.

What will your bench read?

3. How to embrace the 90%.

You just start.

Take out your imaginary magnifying glass and start to see the 90%s, the positive aspects of your life. Ask, What is still good? What is 90%? I have cultivated the habit of looking at what is good. It is all too easy to slip back into the negative. It is human nature to see what isn’t good. How often do you think about what is still positive?

Begin the minute you wake up and acknowledge that you are healthy enough to get out of bed. (I know people who wake up without their health, and they still manage to find things to be grateful for.) Next, look at your life. Survey what is still good, and then continue to move through your day choosing to see good things first. Make a commitment to becoming a more grateful and happy person. Even in the worst 10% days as a child, teenager, young adult, entrepreneur,