What My Dog Taught Me About living
a Successful and Happy Life

I’m sitting here at the desk, drinking a cup of Energise Tea from MissionUK.  Its raining pretty heavily outside and my wife has just left to take our daughter to her swimming lessons.

I’ve got a couple of hours free before I take our wee small dog to an appointment (cruciate ligament damage – I know, it’s a footballers injury isn’t it, i have a suspicion she sneaks out during the night to play in a 5-aside football league and took a hefty challenge).  But sitting thinking of taking her to her appointment is leading me to think of our other wee dog who died a few months ago, about 10 months after we found swollen lymph nodes on him and subsequently told Leo had cancer.

Months of chemotherapy took place (I had no idea such a thing existed in the animal world) which despite a short remission period, only really minimised his symptoms and probably extended his life.

As I reflect back on his life, particularly his last 10 months, I can’t help but feel pride at how he soldiered on, especially during the tough days and what an example he set in our house…

…and indeed, what an example he could set others.

Far too much whining and moaning and victimhood is prevalent these days.  Poor me types all over the place wanting sympathy, throwing themselves down on the floor at the first sign of challenge and wanting people to feel sorry for them, and criticising people as ‘uncaring’ when they don’t give them what they want.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but Leo was a siren of strength, responsibility and being truly at peace with who he was.  Every day he was teaching me and it’s only now that I sit and reflect that I can see that.

If he was alive thousands of years ago, he would have been a combination of a Spartan and a Taoist warrior.

And as I sit here right now and collect my thoughts, I can see clearly what he was showing me.  I would love right now to talk to him about it – shout him into the kitchen with the sound of a treat, (wait until he left the room to eat it and come back in) and then tell him what I have learned from him.

Aside from looking up at me and turning his head side to side, I think he would like it that I’d be accusing him or sneaking into the room upstairs to read Stoic books by Marcus Aurelius and Seneca.

In my opinion, these are straight forward yet powerful lessons, if they are applied.

So here are the principles of a successful and happy life as taught to me by Leo.

1. Consistently Show Up

I laugh when I think back at this.  One thing Leo did, was show up every single day, no matter what…when he sensed an opportunity for food.

Even when knocked him back multiple times during a day, when it got to the evening and he heard the rustle of a packet or the smell of food, you would hear his feet coming up the hall  and his hopeful face appearing in the kitchen.

This sometimes took place at 02:00 in the morning, when I sneaked down for a quick snack.  My wife would still be sleeping but his ears would hear the slight cracking open of a packet and down he would trot sensing an opportunity.

What struck me about this, is that on many occasions I wasn’t in my mind to share a bit of any food I had with him.  I would be there in the kitchen sorting myself out and he would appear, I’d see him and drop a wee bit of food to him – just because he was there.

Even earlier in the day I’d knock him back from a wee treat because he was just after his breakfast but later in the day, he would appear and i would drop him a tid bit…because he was there.

he didn’t think to himself ‘i got knocked back earlier so that means Paul doesn’t like me and there is no point asking again because he will say no and I don’t want to hear rejections blah blah’…

…all that is story nonsense that we tell ourselves.

Leo came in, optimistic for ‘the sale’ and presented himself again when the opportunity presented itself.

and much of the time, he was successful, because he proactively put himself in a position to receive

How often and consistently do you put yourself in a position to receive and be successful?

How often do you come back and try again, even when you failed or were rejected before?

Do you keep an ‘Inner’ solid attitude and self image that is separate from the ‘Outer’ experience so that individual or collections of experience don’t crush your spirit…

…you see them as feedback and reframe them as maybe not right time, right offer, right approach and you simply accept the situation at that specific moment, and come back again?

Leo certainly did that.

2. Be a positive force in the lives of others

This isn’t saying be happy clappy.  This isn’t saying don’t be truthful and honest with people despite them not wanting to hear it.  This isn’t saying you have to accept awful standards because you can’t challenge a terrible attitude in others.

Sure there were times I was frustrated with Leo, when he urinated at home or dragged mud through the place or went mental barking at the window when someone walked past and I spilled tea over myself in fright (ha)…however those instances pale in comparison to the default feeling he created in me by his loving and affectionate and funny and clever nature.

That was who he was, that was his attitude.

He was a positive force and I looked forward to seeing him because he added to my life

he improved situations and (this post as the evidence) helped me become a better and more effective person.

He had a great sense of knowing when someone in the house was upset or not feeling great and he would come over to check on you and see if you were alright.

A wee look in his eye, manoeuvring his head under your hand and lying against your leg (or sometimes climbing right onto your chest to sit).

That’s what a positive force means – it can be felt immediately or it can be felt later (even though in the moment a person’s ego goes up and they don’t want to hear the message).

3 You are not broken, you don’t need to be fixed

Dogs are real role models in that sense.  Sure they have learned behaviour from human’s imprinting on them (pavlov’s dogs) and using a reward system they can be taught to change their focus on situations (ie expect a treat when someone walks past the garden when previously they would bark their heads off).

But fundamentally, to the best we know, they don’t walk around telling themselves they are stupid, ugly, weak or failures.  They don’t sit at home afraid to go out for a walk because the cocker spaniel down the road might think they are an idiot because they have ginger fur.  They don’t get depressed thinking the Lhasa Apso in no 53 thinks their ears are too big.  They don’t spend hrs looking in the mirror wondering if they should ask ‘dad’ if he can pay for ear surgery.

They don’t stop trying because they tell themselves they can’t do it.

It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it – but we do this to ourselves every day.  That’s the human condition that listens to the inner ego orientation voice, who’s sole purpose is continued existence, and fears every moment as an opportunity where change can occur which threatens it’s existence.

And what does the ego do in this instance?  It dives down into your unconscious and finds all your ‘limiting’ viewpoints about yourself based on your previous experiences, and screams them at your face and tells you why whatever you might want to do in this instance to drive a positive outcome will end in failure and you shouldn’t even try

None of this is real!

Have you read any books about the Enneagram?

If not, I wholly recommend it.  I won’t go into it too deep here, you can pick up books easy enough in Amazon.  In addition, you can read about more specific applications of it in William Whitecloud’s book – Secrets of Natural Success.

I had to read Williams book literally 5 times before I understood what he was saying as it was a 180 degree turn on pretty much all the books I had read up to that point.

Long and short, there are a few premises here.  Personality is largely a set of ‘compensating strategies’ that emerge out of your ‘inner identity’ of who you are, that is derived from previous experiences you’ve had, usually early in life before the age of about 7.

The Enneagram is a type of personality modelling that serves as a usual framework to help us understand not only our own but others personalities and behaviours, and what lies at the root of those as the identity based beliefs.

Understanding the Enneagram helps you shift your awareness higher, and your focus above your habitual behaviour traits and helps you see your ‘inner voice’ differently.  In short you learn that the mutterings of your inner voice are not real, not real at all.  All it does is dredge up stuff related to old experiences that form part of your identity ‘as it stands today’.

Your true power rests in your higher mind faculties that are unlimited – what William terms your Superconscious.

You may set a goal where you determine you not have the sufficient capabilities to achieve just now – that may be a deficiency in skill or knowledge or ability.  Acknowledging this doesn’t mean you are broken…

…it simply means you have to acquire new capabilities to achieve your goal.  And you may need consistency and discipline to get there.

It took me a while to get my head around this myself.  Identifying a capability gap does not mean you are ‘broken’ or insufficient.  that’s the key aspect you must absorb and focus on.

You are a powerful creator, and in this situation you need to acquire more skill and knowledge to achieve your goal, and you will go through the learning phase to get there.

But realise during this time, your Ego will pop up and start running all the inner dialogue of why you are a failure, why you wont succeed, why you should stop – because it fears it’s own death by your drive to change

None of it’s words are real, none of them.  It’s just an internal story…nothing more!

It wasn’t apparent to me that Leo had all this crap going on internally, his focus was on what he wanted to achieve and living life to the full, not on internal made up stories of perceived limitation.

4. Know when it’s time to rest and do nothing

Dogs are great in this sense and you can see it clearly.  When they want to run about and play and have fun they do.  When out for long walks they love it, when they want attention or want to give attention, they do it.

But when they know they need to rest, away they go to their beds or into a corner and they rest.

They don’t sit about wondering if it’s rude to want to sleep and recharge their batteries.

And the know instinctively that they can’t be ‘on’ all the time.  There are cycles where they need rest and rejuvenation…

…which provides the energy and focus then need when they are ‘on’ next time.

This one is short and sweet, but it’s equally important.  Take the time to stop and rest your body and mind.  And that includes getting enough sleep.

5. Be consistent with your standards

Funny one this.  I’ll give Leo his dues, the things that annoyed him, he let you know about them.  Generally it was our toddler pulling at him and irritating him (fair enough) or moving his dinner when he was going to eat it, or indeed moving him off the couch when he was comfy.

Point being, we knew they were triggers for him because he told us, and he told us consistently – and we operated around these as much as we could.

From doing our best to stop the wain annoying him, to moving ‘around’ him on the couch.

How often in your life have you not stood your ground, gave that feedback and let others know what you won’t accept…and how often have you felt weak after it because you didn’t?

Not speaking up and standing firm for yourself actually reinforces the behaviour of not speaking up and and standing firm.

Why would you not tell others what behaviour you will not accept?  How are they supposed to know what is and isn’t acceptable to them if you don’t show them?

And it doesn’t stop there, what about your standards for yourself?

Bob Proctor (who recently passed, at the time of writing this) used to say that Discipline is the ability to give yourself a command and follow through on that command.

It takes will, it takes persistence, it takes a clear commitment to the outcome you want to experience from actually completing the behaviour

Whether it’s joining the 5 am Club (see Robin Sharma), getting on the Keto diet (if that approach will work for you), or committing to spend an hour working on that book in the morning before the rest of the family are out of bed.

How do you let yourself know what your standards are and what you will not accept?

Commitment to standards is what drive our life.  Determine yours and follow through – and when it comes to others, you’ll quickly see it’s no big deal telling others what you will not accept.  The ones that want to work with you will consider their behaviour…and the ones that don’t – well you need to consider if they are worth having in your life.

6. Stop and Smell the Roses

This one is related to ‘know when to rest’, but crucially different.

I used to enjoy taking Leo out for longer walks as he would mix it up between running about, sniffing every leaf possible and just sitting and letting the wind brush across his face.

During those times he would be simply say, ‘I’m not moving, I’m enjoying being out here in the moment and enjoying this nice breeze on my face and you’re just going to have to sit tight and wait on me‘.

I’ve done the opposite of this in my life many times, coupled with violating principle 4 as well – powering my way through long days and insufficient sleep over weeks with copious amounts of coffee.

It might work in the short term, but longer term its a clear declining trend – strength and energy and focus comes from a focussed, well rested and efficient environment from within, not by external stimulus.

And if you continually mess about with your brain’s ability to manage it’s own Dopamine levels, you disrupt your body’s ability to maintain a good base level (see Dr Andrew Huberman’s videos on YouTube).

I’ve experienced this myself – you get to the point where you think you can’t function without dopamine peaks from coffee.  Coffee in my experience should be strategically utilised as a tool to enhance cognitive performance, not as a lynchpin to be able to stay awake.

Smelling the roses I feel is a key part of this, where you take a break from ‘work’ and change your focus to what is going on around you in the moment – flow appreciation and gratitude so the simple things in life, to nature, to the smile of others, to funny conversations (isn’t it remarkable and scary…when you are so focussed on work and outcomes that you can go weeks without laughing?).

This act brings you back to awareness and helps you check in that you are focussing your time and energy on the right things, and not missing opportunities you will regret later in life.

7. Live In The Now

Final lesson I learned from Leo.

I did see evidence of Leo missing my wife when she was out, or looking sad at times suggesting his mind was slightly removed from the Now but still related (the wife isn’t here now, so I’m sad now).

But if you observe a dog over a longer period, you’ll see they live in the moment, as if what happened 5 mins ago didn’t even occur, learned behaviours aside.

They can go from chilling to ready to go out for a walk in 2 seconds, or they can go from chilling to sprinting into the room for a treat when they hear the box shaking.

When they are eating, they are eating.  When they are playing, they are playing, when they are doing their best attempt to get your attention to acquire some of your dinner…that’s what they are doing – they are fully aligned, fully focussed and fully present in what they are doing.

The best explanation I saw of this was in Paul McKenna’s book, The 3 Things That Will Change Your Destiny.

It was a visual that really blew my mind.  I’ve recreated it below (crudely done I acknowledge).

A friend of Paul’s said most people tend to spend their live as shown below, with probably 75% or more of their time either fretting over the past, or worrying about the future.

It looks like this

You can see clearly what’s happening here.  The present according to Paul’s friend is like a thin band of time and incidental in many respects to their life quality.

Whereas Paul’s friend says people to be happiest, they should spend their lives like this:

The difference in approach is clear isn’t it.

“It is very rare that you find someone who has learned to live their life fully in the here and now.  But as you can know, what you focus on grows – and the more of your attention you put on your life in the present, the richer your present becomes”

Try this approach, it takes discipline and consistency.  But after a few weeks…

You’ll find the past fretting and the future worrying was just you getting pulled in by the voice of your ego

You can’t change the past.

And the vast majority of your future worrying does not happen.

So this is my 7 Principles for a successful and happy life as taught to me by wee Leo.

He’s gone, but not forgotten and I feel sure we’ll see each other again for a good long walk.

Paul