Greatest. Day. Ever.: How to Make Every Day Your Greatest

by Roger Lajoie

Overview

What was the greatest day ever? Answer—today. Living a great life is simply a matter of living one great day at a time. After working in a dream job for more than thirty years, Roger Lajoie is now teaching and coaching people to cut through the clutter and simplify each day. Regardless of past outcomes, failures or setbacks, anyone can reap the joy of a truly great life by learning to embrace each experience and begin to live your greatest day ever—today!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452590950
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	03/27/2014
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.49(d)

Read an Excerpt

Greatest. Day. Ever.

How to Make Every Day Your Greatest

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By Roger Lajoie

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2014 Roger Lajoie
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-9095-0

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CHAPTER 1

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

When faced with a crucial time in our lives, we all wish we'd get some kind of sign, some divine intervention, to help us decide what we should do next ... especially when we see ourselves at some sort of crossroads. We have all been faced with times like that where we are looking for some direction and for somebody to come along and point us the right way.

I came to that point in my life as I had already started writing this book, which had been at the back of my mind to write for a long time. In fact, the quotations and nuggets that are included here for some inspiration for readers are ones that I have been collecting literally for decades; I had just never put them together in any kind of format, or organized them in any way; they were written on scraps of paper in various places in my office for the most part. I finally did manage to corral them all and put them together in a word file, and they are finally now included throughout this book (many of them were first said decades or more ago by the way, proving that wisdom is indeed timeless).

But as to my finally getting around and start actually writing the rest of this work and putting all these thoughts I had together and my daily program ideas, well that only happened after I came to a personal crossroads...and that only took a few months instead of decades. I just needed to get the idea of writing it from the back of my mind to the front of my mind, I guess, and once I did it came together rather easily.

My focus was to write something that could be a daily reminder to anyone - especially me - that you have to live life to the fullest one day at a time. Nice and simple, really, and only logical when you think about it - but common sense isn't all that common apparently because many of us just can't seem to think that way most of the time, myself included. The scripture quote at the start of this book has been my life's mantra for a long time (Psalm 118:24), but putting it into practice every day (or even most days), is sometimes easier said than done. And when all is said and done after all, more is said than done.

But finally, after spending more than three decades as a sportswriter/ broadcaster (easily one of the most self-absorbed things anybody can do for a living, trust me on that one), I wanted to do something deeper with my writing for once. The fact that I hadn't yet tackled the job of finishing this book was really starting to bug me. I guess I decided that I finally wanted to leave a legacy, and put together some thoughts about living that could help some people to live a better life - what better legacy could there be than that?

As some of you who may work in the public eye like I do already know, it's often difficult to put yourself out there. Everybody is a critic these days, especially on social media, and of course plenty of these critics do what most critics do; they tell you how to drive a car even though they don't have a driver's license themselves. And then there was a major bout of self-doubt I had just before writing it - who was I to even suggest to anyone how to try and live their lives?

I likely would have finished this book years earlier but frankly, I believe you have to actually have your own sh.. together before you even try to advise other people how to get their sh.. together. I believed that I had to be 100 percent genuine in telling people that today is the greatest day ever, and my thought was that you can't do that if you aren't fully embracing that thought yourself. It goes back to the comment I made earlier about the media career writer who never himself worked in the media; where was my credibility here?

But I was finally nearly ready to write this book after spending 5 V decades experimenting with my own life, and especially ready after I experienced the meeting I'm about to tell you about that convinced me it was time to really get going on this.

I had been a sports writer up until now in my career for the most part. I've done an awful lot of sports writing, but this is some 'how to live each day' kind of writing, which is a little more important. It can be a little intimidating when you first step outside of your comfort zone, but I wanted to venture out and share these thoughts with sports fans and non-sports fans.

I feel Psalm 118:24 is saying just that to us, about every day being the greatest, and its one I've used to motivate me for years. I wanted to take all of these inspirational quotes I had collected, including that one, and wrap them around a document that could remind anyone who reads it - and especially the guy who wrote it - not to lose sight of that universal truth.

After having used the services of a Life Coach I was also starting to do some coaching myself, and I wanted a "manual" of sorts to share to help in my coaching. The stories, quotes and the program I was using was really starting to resonate with my clients, so it was definitely time to put myself out there in a completely different venue. But my all-too-busy life in sports media was still stopping me from writing a full book on the topic.

Today is the greatest day ever, because it's the only one that really exists; that has been my theory of life for a long time actually. All of the hundreds of self-help and motivational books I've read over the years helped me formulate my theories, but I've lived a successful and very happy life myself for the most part and that's where my strengths lie - in my practical life lessons. I'd always had the idea that maybe I could take what I had learned from my life and from my reading, and write that kind of book myself.

For years I had felt that I was "almost" ready to really tackle this idea seriously and move ahead with it finally, but for some reason I still kept putting it off. I knew I was looking for something else, something deeper - more substantial was the best way to put it - to write about. I just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

The time wasn't perfect, that's for sure. Despite what people think, working in the sports media business doesn't make you rich - far from it, in fact - so where would I find the time to do this properly? And taking the time to write a book like this was certainly a far cry from The Road to Hockeytown, my first hockey book, or The Goal of My Life, my second hockey book, and also a far cry from the kinds of things I'd concentrated on for more than three decades as far as my career goes.

However working with Paul Henderson on his book, The Goal of My Life, brought me closer to what Greatest. Day. Ever. is, since Paul is such a spiritual guy and that book was about more than just hockey. For those of you who don't know him, Henderson is a Canadian hockey great who scored one of the biggest goals in the country's history, but is also known as a religious man who has a goal to spread the gospel, hence the double entendre in the title. But despite that great experience with Paul, it still took having my "sign" sent to me to finally get going and write this book and venture out of the comfort zone that my sports media career had become.

It's been a pretty good career, don't get me wrong, I've been fortunate. I've worked for newspapers, radio stations, TV networks, magazines and wire services and have pretty much done it all. My travels have allowed me to cover more than 180 major sporting events around North America, and I've been to 13 World Series, 11 Final Fours, 10 Super Bowls, eight NBA Finals, nine Stanley Cup Finals and many more major events - man I've had a lot of great memories and fun in those trips. And I got paid to go to the vast majority of them and "work" them too, which is a pretty cool thing to do for a lifelong sports fanatic like myself.

I'm not a big star in sports media compared to some others by any means, but I've still enjoyed a long and successful career. I've hosted on Sportsnet Radio The Fan 590 the biggest all-sports station in Canada, done TV work for Sportsnet, appeared on TSN more than 50 times, filled in on Toronto Blue Jays radio broadcasts on the Fan Radio Network, written a junior hockey column in the Toronto Sun and worked as an official scorer for the Toronto Blue Jays, just to mention some of the fun gigs I've had.

I've done more than 1,200 junior hockey broadcasts on TV, radio or the internet, and also worked as a public address announcer in the American Hockey League and Intercounty Baseball League, and have been a sports marketer and a teacher at a private sports broadcasting school too. When people ask me how many jobs I have, they expect an answer of maybe 10 or more but actually, my answer is always the same - it's "none." I think you can understand why I say that knowing a bit now about my background. It's not really fair or appropriate to call some of the stuff I've done to make money a "job" because they really aren't, at least to me.

All great - but again, as I headed into my 50s and then mid-50s, it became apparent to me that I wanted to branch out and do something that left more of a lasting contribution. I guess it was a mid-life career crisis of sorts, although it perhaps came along a little later than it does for some people. The delay was probably because I was just having too much fun doing what I was doing for a living - my vocation really was my vacation as I liked to tell the kids I was teaching at the College of Sports Media. When you are having as much fun as I was, who has the time to stop and think about anything else, like branching off and doing some writing that was really important for a change?

Teaching was probably one of the things that also triggered me into this introspection of my career, and thinking that I should be looking at leaving a legacy a little bit more meaningful than having a pile of junior hockey broadcasts and sports shows on my resume, now that I think of it. I tell the students all the time to branch out, spread your wings, take some chances - and here I was not practicing what I preached. I'd hired a life coach to help me get more focused, and the idea of coaching others myself appealed to me, but I wasn't spending enough time properly developing that aspect of my career either at that point.

When you are not living in alignment with what you believe is when you will have frustrations in your life. That was what I was experiencing. Despite having a fun-filled successful career, I knew deep down I was missing something.

So here I was, getting more and more frustrated as time goes by - when lo and behold, I get a sign. An honest to God sign, in my mind, that it was time to stop talking and start doing when it came time to writing this book, which would represent a radical departure for me in the minds of a lot of people who may have followed my career this far.

By the way, I have always believed the universe gives us direction all the time in subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, ways. We are just too busy to stop and hear or notice them, so we miss these signs. I also believe there are no such things as coincidences, people and things are brought into our life for a reason. We just don't see or hear them clearly because we are bombarded with noise everywhere we turn, which makes it pretty hard to listen and observe. It's pretty hard to be receptive towards a sign from above when we always have an IPod in our ear or the TV or radio blaring in the background all day long.

Great philosophies I expounded right there, but I had gotten so wound up and worked up in my "fabulous" sports media career that I almost missed the sign that was given to me. Good thing for me that even on a rough day, I always try to stay in-tuned to what is going on around me. And honestly, this was just too obvious a sign for even me to miss.

Anyway on to the story ... I'm at the bank in the local shopping mall near where I live trying to sort out a few financial issues. I've got my day planner with me and I walk over to a bench to try and figure this problem I'm having out away from the crowds.

I've got my calculator on my blackberry going a mile a minute trying to juggle some figures (i.e. figure out what bill to pay first), when one of the maintenance guys in the mall starts hollering a few feet away from where I am.

Have to admit, I'm a little pissed. Like most people when they get self- absorbed - and I can do that as good as anybody some days - I think the whole world should shut the hell up and let me think.

I'm looking down, trying to figure out what I should do at this serious juncture in my life. It's becoming apparent when I look at all these numbers that all I'm really doing - both financially and emotionally - is running around in circles; I'm getting more and more rundown with the frantic schedule I'm trying to maintain and I'm not making enough money while doing it in my mind, so I'm thinking I've got to juggle a few things, maybe consolidate some things to be more stable. Perhaps I can cut back on the fill-in radio shifts, do some more PR gigs, or maybe try and get some more TV work, do a little more coaching and mentoring and less sports media. and maybe way at the back of my mind, finally write The Greatest Day Ever.

And just then this mall employee (a maintenance man I later realized in uniform), can't shut the hell up! It's still a few weeks until Christmas but he's singing Christmas carols while he's walking around and yelling holiday wishes out to shoppers at the top of his lungs.

"Today is a gift, that's why they call it the present!" he chirps to some folks standing in the line for the bank machine. That's a great line, I happen to agree with it most days, but right now I've got all this crap to take care of and I don't need to hear some goofball going on and on....

Then I see he's headed my way - God no! And with my day planner spread over the garbage can and my blackberry out for the calculator function, here he comes walking right by me.

"Hey, you're the writer guy right?" he says to me. Beautiful - he "kind of" recognizes me, like a lot of people do to us 'B' level celebrities (they know you from somewhere but they're not exactly sure from where; it's the most backhanded claim to fame anybody can have!). Honestly, I have no time for this guy right now and I just want him to go away.

Anyway I try to be nice to him and at the same time, make it clear I am far too important and far too busy to engage him in any kind of polite conversation. "Yes, that's me" I smile and discretely move a few steps away with my head down in my blackberry.

My attempt to demonstrate my aloofness fails miserably with this character.

"And you are still writing, only now you're texting!" says this guy to me with a huge grin, a man who must have been popping some happy pills in the mall employees lunch room every chance he gets. "I used to be a writer myself. I even used an old typewriter when I started."

Oh God. This clown is just not going away I think. I nod again, insincere smile plastered all over my face, and this time start to pack up my day planner and shut the blackberry off, as clearly I need to find a quieter place to formulate my next step in life. The nerve of some people!

He keeps on going though, reminiscing about his early career as a writer before he gave it up to clean out garbage bins or whatever the hell else he does here. I just wish he'd leave me alone and get back to doing his job.

"I should have kept it up," he says. "My brother told me to, and I should have kept it up."

My day planner is now tucked back under my arm and my blackberry is back on my hip. I manage one more fake smile and say "well have a great day" in the happiest voice I can muster. My ultimate goal at this moment is to get away from this guy as quickly as possible, I must now shamefully admit.

He looks at me one final time, with a big smile on his face, and remarkably as it turns out he says four words that gave me the answer I was looking for to my career dilemma. Proof again you never know where the answers to your questions will be found.

"You keep on writing!" he says, looking at me square in the eye, before trudging off. "You keep on writing, that's what you are meant to do."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Greatest. Day. Ever. by Roger Lajoie. Copyright © 2014 Roger Lajoie. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction, ix,
Chapter One Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs, 1,
Chapter Two The Greatest Day Ever Is Today, 11,
Chapter Three Habits - Make the Right Time Choices, 19,
Chapter Four Step One: Set the Tone, 25,
Chapter Five Step Two: Monitor Your Thoughts, 31,
Chapter Six Step Three: Get Spiritual Nourishment, 37,
Chapter Seven Step Four: Count Your Blessings, Not Your Troubles, 45,
Chapter Eight Step Five: Finish Well, 53,
Chapter Nine Stories to Keep the Inspiration Going, 59,
Chapter 10 Never a Good Time, 91,
Thoughts to Live By Daily Spiritual Nourishment, 97,