A list and a bookmark tool to light you up when it feels dark, lift you up when you feel down and let you be different today.

Inspired by three people whose thinking has made a difference in my life:

• Harry Cohen, Dr Cohen taught me to “Be the Sun” and his 47-min audiobook has been resetting my brain for two years now
• Mel Robbins, whose eight reminders in her recent podcast “8 Simple Reminders You Need to Hear Right Now” helped me interrupt and reset some of my own unhelpful thinking two weeks ago.
• Bill Crawford, Ph.D., Dr Crawford is one of the all-time GREAT Vistage Speakers who continues to help me recognize that I may not control what happens, but I can change the way I think about it—and therefore how I respond– and to remember that I should treat myself as if I am someone that I love.

I created this tool a few weeks ago for myself because I needed it.

There are days when I need to reset my brain—to pause, change the way I am looking at something, and choose what happens next. I say “separate the FACTS from my FEELINGS and create new FRAMING.”

To remind myself that “We are never starting over. We are always Starting Different.”

I also know this about myself: I am more likely to do something if I have a tool that helps me do it. Every day. Or even multiple times a day.

Because when I put that tool somewhere I will “bump into it,” the tool becomes a cue. The cue can trigger a routine. When I repeat that routine often enough, it can develop into a habit.

That is why I created this simple bookmark tool 8 WAYS TO RESET MY BRAIN

It gives me eight reminders I can use when my thinking starts moving in a direction that is not useful or fun. I put a copy as a bookmark in each of the three books I am reading. One is on my refrigerators. And I have one in my Daily Journal which I look at when I get up every morning.

The bookmark unfolds into five blank panels—I have been using one panel for each day of the workweek—where I can write down the reset I need and how I want to apply it that day.

Last week I also used it at the end of every day when I was on the road delivering Vistage Worldwide, Inc. talks in Northern Virginia, I asked “What went well? What can I do do different tomorrow?”

More than a century ago, James Allen wrote:
“They themselves are makers of themselves.”

Our thoughts do not merely describe the lives we are living. The thoughts we choose and encourage help shape the people we are becoming.

Sometimes we need a tool to help us choose them more intentionally.

The origin of the phrase Starting Different® was a conversation I had with CEO Coach Kirby Martzall a good friend who I met through my work with Vistage.

Which of these eight resets do you need today?