ELEVATE BEYOND
The Blog of Jake Kelfer
 What’s one of the best ways to learn? It’s to teach!
When I was in high school and college, I always felt the way I learned best was by teaching because the more I spoke about a particular subject or project, the clearer it became to me. Even if I didn’t fully grasp it at first, the more I shared and taught, the better I came to understand it. Back in high school, I loved math. I loved to solve problems and race against the calculator. I enjoyed this so much that I started tutoring people and the more I tutored people, the sharper I became. I learned things at a deeper level and started to find better ways to solve certain problems. Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
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 We all know the feeling when it’s our birthday and we are stoked to wake up in the morning. We look forward to having people wish us Happy Birthday. We long for the feeling of appreciation and hope that this birthday will be a special day.
After all, it’s our birthday… shouldn’t we feel special? I mean, it only happens once a year.  Photo Credit: Viral Museum Have you ever wondered what you should do when you first wake up in the morning? What about the last thing you do before you go to bed?
According to Jay Shetty, former Monk turned motivational icon, studies show 80% of us look at our phones first thing in the morning and the last thing we see at night. It causes our brains to constantly be ON. Most of us spend hours lying in bed scrolling through Instagram. When we finally finish Instagram, we move onto Snapchat, Facebook or Twitter, and when we feel that we are updated, we go straight back to Instagram only to realize that we’ve been on our phone for 2 hours and should probably put it away so we can actually get some sleep. Then when we wake up, the first thing we do is look at all the notifications we missed. If we don’t get any notifications, we immediately start our day off disappointed. If we do get notifications, we start our day in a frenzy trying to respond to everything and check every platform which can often lead to us being rushed causing more stress. The problem we are facing is that we all claim we want to be happier, but we aren’t taking the action necessary to make it our reality. So, what should we be doing then?  Month #8 is here! We are 7 for 7 with over $1,800 raised. This month we aim to keep our streak of raising $100+ alive by raising money for the LucStrong Foundation.
Before we dive in, let’s look back at the first half:
As always, thank you in advance to everyone who’s participated in the Giving Challenge by sharing my posts, donating money, or just believing in the mission of helping others and spreading the good word.  I’ve always been a happy person… for the most part.
But it wasn’t until the last quarter of 2018 when I started to take happiness really seriously. My good friend and fellow motivational speaker, Kyle Willkom, suggested I take a look at a guy named Shawn Achor. Shawn Achor is an expert on positive psychology and after spending hours of time with him (yes, we became best friends through YouTube videos 🙂), I decided to try out a few of his techniques. I wanted to take his findings and figure out how I could apply them to my life on a daily basis. Through his research, Shawn says there are 5 things we can do each day to live a happier life.
How do we do each one? Does everyone have to do the same amount? What is enough? Do we all get the same impact from each one? I’ve spent a heavy majority of 2019 studying happiness taking courses and learning what it really means to be happier and throughout this year, I’ve experimented how these 5 things have made me happier.  I spent the past three weeks in Las Vegas working with NBA Summer League. If you’ve ever been to Vegas, you know a weekend can be a long time. Now, imagine being there for 3 weeks.
You start to call your hotel your home. You start to know the waitresses in the local coffee shop. You start to forget what day it is until you see the crowds in the hotel lobby or the swarm of people getting ready for a night in the club. You eat the same food over and over again in the food court. But after three weeks, I can say… IT WAS AWESOME! Not in the way most of you are thinking. I wasn’t there to party and spend 3 weeks on vacation. I was there to work, to learn, to grow, to elevate, and to have fun. So rather than give you an in depth breakdown of the entire trip, here are 3 of my big takeaways.  Who is the voice you listen to the most? Hear the most? Get annoyed with the most? Get motivated from the most?
If you are like most people, the voice you hear the most is the one inside your head. That voice is called your inner voice. You hear it when you are getting ready for sleep, when you are reading, when you are meditating, when you are thinking, and that’s just the beginning.  Month #7 is here! We are officially at the halfway point of the 2019 Giving Challenge and this month we are raising money for Make-A-Wish.
Before we dive in, let’s look back at the first half:
As always, thank you in advance to everyone who’s participated in the Giving Challenge by sharing my posts, donating money, or just believing in the mission and spreading the good word. It only takes one person to make a difference, to believe in your business, or to choose you as their person.
It only takes one piece of content, one Instagram post, one YouTube video, for you to catch your big break. Keep going, keep pushing, and keep elevating because it only takes ONE!  Photo Credit: Molly Kay Photography Last week, I did something crazy. I picked up my phone and called someone I haven't spoken to in a while. Crazy, right?
I called her because she just graduated with her second degree and I thought she would appreciate a call. Plus it would be great to hear her voice. Of course, I liked her Instagram post like everyone else, but I wanted to use this as an opportunity to let her know how proud I was of her and how awesome she is. |
I'M JAKEI am a motivational speaker on a mission to inspire people to achieve their own definition of success and reach the highest level of personal success and happiness.
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