John Irvin

John Irvin, CSP (Certified Speaking Professional), speaker, trainer, wellness educator, and author holds a degree from the University of Tulsa and has been active in creating opportunities for professional and personal growth for over 25 years. Today, as creator of Lifestyle Enhancement Services, Inc., John shares from his work in corporate training, mental health, leisure sciences and health and wellness. Each program that he presents sends the clear message that each of us is capable of achieving great things, that we can do more and be more than what we currently are, and most importantly, we can have great fun while doing it!

John is best known for his humor and stress program, HILARITY THERAPY®, however, John provides a wide variety of programs in the areas of “attitude enrichment”. team building and communication. John has authored two joke books, CHICKEN POOP IN MY BOWL and CHICKEN POOP IN YOUR BOWL II, and is a contributing author for POSSIBILITIES, Awakening Your Leadership Potential and POSSIBILITIES II, Stories from the Heart that Feed The Mind.

See John live at the 2006 Soar Higher Leadership Conference. Click here for more details.

Contact Soar with Eagles for more information on John at 479.903.0208 or carrie@soarhigher.com

Who’s The Jerk, Now?!

I was recently flying from Lafayette, LA to Memphis. I was on one of those little tiny commuter flights — a puddle jumper — the kind that has two seats on one side of the aisle and only one seat on the other side. It was a full flight and I was seated right behind the exit row. (There is always just a bit more room in those exit rows).

It had been a rough week, and I had covered a lot of territory with many late nights and early mornings. I was running late to the airport, hungry, and I was tired.

As the plane started to taxi down the runway, the guy in front of me leaned his seat way back. Now, according to FAA regulations, one is not allowed to recline one’s seat until the plane reaches a certain altitude. Boom! There that seat was right in my face. And I mean, right in my face, like up against my nose. I had no room. I was perturbed.

As the flight continued, my mind started racing about how this guy already had a lot of room by puddle-jumper standards, and here he was with his seat leaned way back so that I had none. I started to get more than a little perturbed. I started to agitated.

I realized my anger, and so I decided to do something about it. I leaned forward a bit and said, “Excuse me, but could you please bring your seat forward just a bit, it’s pretty crowded back here.”

Well, the guy seemed a bit startled that I would make such a bold request and without saying anything, making some type of a grunt, he brought his seat forward about an inch. I saw some relief in sight. But then, as he leaned back once more, the seat reclined back into its original compressing position. I was now dismayed. I decided that I would just live with it.

As the flight continued, my mind was racing with the notion of how very cramped I was, and how inconsiderate this guy really .What a jerk! Then with even more nerve, I noticed that the Miss Manners Moron, was leaning forward in his seat to read a book. His seat is all the way back and he’s leaning forward. The twerp.

Yes, this guy was definitely a jerk.

Once I landed in Memphis, I went to my gate and discovered that I had about 30 minutes before my flight would board. “Good.” I thought. That would give me time to get one of those supreme pizzas. Yes, I was ready for that mushroom, green pepper, a little bit of sausage. Yeah. I was ready!

It was getting late and the food places wouldn’t be open much longer. I hurried down to the little airport pizza outlet, and there were only three pizzas left: supreme, pepperoni, and a cheese. With about three guys standing in line in front of me I noticed “the jerk” from the plane. It figures that I would have to run into him again!

Then, as I watched helplessly and to my horror — he took the one and only remaining supreme pizza! I couldn’t believe it. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll have the pepperoni. I like pepperoni. That will work. Yes, pepperoni it is.”

Then the guy with the supreme noticed the guy in front of me. Apparently, the guy in front of me had been giving him the eye. “What’s the matter,” the jerk said. “Did you want the supreme?”

The guy in front of me said, “Well, I had my eye on it.”

Then, the guy from the plane said, “Well, here, take it, it doesn’t matter to me, I’ll have the pepperoni!” He handed the guy the supreme and to my horror picked up my pepperoni! Well at least they left me the cheese.

Why was I angry? Why was I upset? It was because of my thoughts. Nothing that other fellow did have an effect on me like my own thoughts. In fact, that other guy was thoughtful, caring, and giving in that pizza line while, at the time, I refused to pay attention to that little fact!

If we really want to reduce the stress in our lives and enjoy life more, then we must understand that very little stress is out there, outside of what we create. Most of our stress is right up here, in our own heads, it is the thoughts and beliefs that we hold about our circumstances.

And most of us don’t really realize that simple fact. Oh, we know it on a cognitive level. Sure, we understand it intellectually, but in practice, we still let those other people control us, not by what they do, but by what we think about what they are doing.

Did you know that a human being has somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 thoughts every day? But tragically, most of us are not aware of what those thoughts are, and, typically, we repeat the very same thoughts each and every day. So each day we have the same 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts that we had yesterday, the day before that and the day before that.

We want to recognize that the stress, frustration, anger, and disappointment that we experience in our lives come directly from these thoughts. We want to “WAKE UP!”, as Anthony DeMello says in his book AWARENESS. We want to achieve a higher level of consciousness so that as these thoughts pop up in our mind, we can make a choice whether to hold on to that thought or let it go with a new thought — a thought that will support us in our quest for more joy, happiness, success, and value in our lives.

John Irvin will be presenting two programs, Hilarity Therapy®, and Bounce Back with a Winning Attitude at the Soar Higher 2006 Professional Development Conference in Rogers, Arkansas on November 2, 2006.