I used to worry a lot about everything happening in my life what if I can't pass the exams what if I start a new business but fail what if I can't get my diploma and disappoint my parents what if I can't find a job after University what if my friends does not return the money and I can't pay the bills what if I get fired what would my friends and colleagues think about me Etc now when I look back I realize how I was destroying my life today worry and stress is the major cause of many illnesses such as heart attack and different types of stomach illnesses people who do not know how to fight worry Die Young after all what is the point of creating a successful business or getting a promotion if it is going to cause you to lose your health today my attitude toward worry has completely changed after reading Dale Carnegie's book called How to stop worrying and start living the book is very practical easy to apply and based on real life stories and cases in this video I will share with you 16 tips from the book that you can use to fight worry I am sure that at least one or two of these tips will stay with you for the rest of your life chapter one what is the worst that can happen when some event takes place ask yourself this question what is the worst outcome that can happen according to Carnegie things that we believe are really bad are not as bad as we think in reality I remember when I Was preparing for my state exam at the University I was so worried and stressed I couldn't sleep at night it's so stupid but I believed that if I failed my exam I wouldn't be able to find a job and people would look down on me now it's already been several years since I passed the state exam and I have worked in several companies but no single company has asked for my diploma I've only seen my diploma twice once when I received it and second when I was moving from my old flat that's it now I look back and ask myself was it worth worrying all those times because of this diploma and the answer is absolutely no if I had clearly defined the worst outcome I could see that in the worst outcome I would not get my diploma which was very unlikely to happen because if I had passed all those exams during my studies then it meant I had the potential to pass the state exam as well plus the university provided three attempts to take the exam and I am sure that I would have been successful at one of them even if I failed all three attempts I would still be able to find a jump it's crazy how we worry and stress out for the things that are not important the internet doesn't work we get pissed off TV breaks down we get angry but in reality can't you live without TV for a few days can't you go to a cafe for the internet worry and stress reduce our lifespan drastically here is a three-step formula step one analyze the situation honestly and figure out what is the worst that can happen to you step two After figuring out what is the worst that can possibly happen accept it accept it as it has happened step three once you accept the worst outcome calmly devote your time and energy trying to improve the situation acceptance of what has happened is the first step in overcoming the consequences of any misfortune one of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate when we worry our minds jump here and there acceptance calms us down and lets us focus on the solution I strongly recommend using this tactic I've used it already for years and I am amazed how it calms me down immediately because it helps me to see that even the worst scenario is not as bad as I think chapter 2 how to kick out worry from your mind during World War II a reporter asked Winston Churchill if he was worried about what was going on and Churchill replied I'm too busy I have no time to worry Churchill was not trying to look cool or strong it was simply saying the truth if you are really busy doing something then worry can't enter your mind today doctors prescribe patients who suffer from worrying to get busy doing some work the reason is that it is impossible for any human mind no matter how brilliant to think of more than one thing at any given time your brain just can't focus on two things at the same time you can't talk to a customer and at the same time worry about your rent you can't be happy and at the same time be upset it is always one of them you can't be enjoying a nice meal with your friends and at the same time be upset about your broken refrigerator so if you are worried about something and can't stop thinking about it then find a job that will keep you busy and require your full attention the reason I say full attention is because there are certain jobs that have become a habit and you can do them automatically such as making your bed the purpose of a habit is to save your brain power that is why you can make the bed and worry simultaneously it must be a job that requires your attention chapter 3. life is too short to be little in the book Carnegie tells a story about a giant old tree in Colorado this tree had stood there for 400 years during the course of its long life it was struck by lightning 14 times and the innumerable avalanches and storms of four centuries could not do anything to that tree it survived them all in the end however an army of small insects attacked the tree and destroyed it storms lightning and time could not do anything but small insects which you can Crush between your forefinger and thumb destroyed it completely aren't we all like this giant tree don't we somehow manage to survive the storms avalanches and lightning of life but let our hearts be eaten out by little worries little worries that could be crushed easily let's not allow ourselves to be upset by Small Things remember life is too short to be little chapter 4. how to analyze and solve worry problems confusion is the chief cause of worry half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient information and understanding about the problem if you devote your time to analyzing facts in an objective way your worries will evaporate in the light of knowledge a problem well stated is a problem half solved so here is a four-step formula to analyze and solve your worries step one write down precisely what is worrying you don't just do it in your mind write it down on a paper clearly step two write down what you can do about it what are the possible actions you can take step three decide what to do choose the best action from the previous step step 4. start immediately to implement your decision don't stop to reconsider don't keep looking back over your shoulder experience has proved to me the enormous value of arriving at a decision it's the failure to arrive at a fixed decision that drives you crazy it's the inability to stop going round and round in circles that ruins your days and leads to nervous breakdowns if you follow the above four-step formula you will see that fifty percent of your worries will vanish once you arrive at a clear decision and another 40 will vanish once you start to carry out that decision so you will banish about ninety percent of your worries by taking these four steps maybe right now you are saying that I am making a big claim and it's not possible to eliminate 90 of worries maybe you are right but even if this exercise eliminates forty percent of your worries wouldn't you still do it I believe it's worth doing it because worry is the root cause of countless illnesses wouldn't you be happy even if it eliminates ten percent of such a serious problem chapter five put a stop loss order on your worries in stock trading there is a common practice called stop loss here's how it works say you buy a stock that sells for a hundred dollars a share and set a stop loss order for ninety dollars a share as soon as that stock dips to ninety dollars a share you sell it no questions asked we should do the same thing with our worries let me tell you a short story when I was approximately 10 years old I had an argument with one of my friends while playing football and as a result we stopped talking to each other the argument was so small that I don't even remember it but over the years I just hated the guy and always got angry when I remembered him I carried this negative feeling for him for 12 years I was already living in a different city and studying at University but we still didn't talk to each other finally one day when I was returning to my Village for summer holiday I saw him near our house and decided to end this hatred between us I told him that I didn't even remember why we argued and stopped talking to each other but it's stupid to keep hating each other for a reason that I don't even remember it turned out that he didn't remember it either we shaked hands and had some talk after 12 years it's true that we ended it but at what cost we both carried negative feelings toward each other for 12 years we could have had very nice childhood memories together especially since we were close neighbors but none of them happened because of one meaningless argument we both paid too much today when I remember this event I feel like I paid fifty thousand dollars for a thing that only had a five dollar value in life many of our worries are only worth five dollars but we pay fifty thousand dollars for them we need to put a stop loss order on our worries we have to decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it anymore chapter six don't waste your time thinking about the people you don't like you don't have to force yourself to love the people you don't like but for the sake of your health and happiness forgive and forget them when you hate someone you don't harm that person it's the opposite you actually reward him with your most important things such as by being Sleepless you give him your sleep by losing your appetite you give him your appetite by increasing your stress you give your health the most important thing you can do is bury your hate and move on chapter seven would you take a million dollars for what you have if I come to you right now and give you 100 million dollars for one of your eyes would you sell it to me how about this would you sell your arm for 100 million you probably would not here you have at least two things you would not sell for 100 million dollars each but you worry and lose your health so that you can have more money or position you know what this looks like it's like you have a Ferrari a dream home and a private plane but you are willing to lose all of it so that you can buy a 2010 model Hyundai about ninety percent of the things in our lives are right and about ten percent are wrong if we want to be happy all we have to do is concentrate on the 90 that are right and ignore the 10 percent chapter eight live in day tight compartments what does this mean in the first place if you look at the bottom part of a ship you will see that it is divided into many compartments or rooms and the reason is that if some part of the ship starts getting water inside they can quickly shut the doors of that compartment and avoid sinking the entire ship in a similar way if you want to avoid flooding your life with worries then you have to shut the doors of yesterday and tomorrow only focus on today the best way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence doing today's work superbly today you worry about tomorrow yesterday you worried about today now pause for a moment and check if the things you worried about yesterday came true today ninety percent of the time you will see that they didn't come true but you still wasted your precious time on this planet for things that did not even happen your life is like a sand clock I'm sure you have seen one the top part of the sand clock represents the future the bottom represents the past and the middle narrow part represents today many of us worry about the future or the past so much that we forget to do anything today worrying about the future is like trying to push down all the Sands so that they come and pass faster through the narrow part but it does not matter what you do the sand will come and pass one by one when its time has arrived don't push it let one sand pass at a time live one day at a time and work on one task at a time if you do this you will be amazed how much you can accomplish within one day and feel much happier chapter 9 the law of averages one of my close friends was going to fly for the first time and he was really scared he was afraid that an airplane would explode in the air or some other type of accident would happen and he would die so to calm him down I decided to use Carnegie's law of averages approach the law of averages refers to the probability of a specific event occurring I did some research and found that the company that my friend was flying with had already existed for more than 20 years and in those 20 years they only had one accident which took place on the ground while the plane was taking off and even in that accident not a single person was injured they made at least 30 to 40 flights a day for 20 years and only one minor accident took place according to the law of averages the chances of my friend dying on that flight was almost zero when I told him the statistics he started to look at the issue logically and felt much better and realized that he had no strong base for his worries Carnegie says that the U.S Navy employed the law of averages in order to boost sailor's morale Sailors who were assigned to high octane tankers were initially worried that they would die if the tankers exploded so the Navy provided them with exact figures they said that of the 100 tankers that were hit by Torpedoes 60 stayed afloat and only five think in less than 10 minutes when the sailors heard about the numbers they realized that even in the worst scenario they had 10 minutes which is quite enough time to evacuate chances are good that whatever you're worried about isn't likely to happen so always ask yourself this question according to the law of averages what is the probability of this event happening in some cases you will find that probability is close to zero but you worry about it a lot chapter 10 how to eliminate 50 of your business worries in the book Carnegie tells a story about a manager who spent most of his time in meetings discussing the problems of the company with his team the manager said that he would usually attend a meeting and after many hours of discussions he would leave the meeting frustrated without concrete action or decision he continued to work in this way for several years but then decided to apply a new four-step formula according to the new formula anyone who wanted to bring any problem to his attention first had to answer the following four questions question one what is the problem question two what is the cause of the problem question three what are all possible solutions of the problem question four what solution I suggest the reason these questions are very effective is because the majority of the time we jump on the problem to solve it without clearly understanding what we are really solving and where this problem comes from I'm sure you have been in a meeting at work where you start discussing a problem and at some point you feel like everyone is talking about different topics after you answer the first and second questions the solution usually pops up like bread popping up from a toaster the manager said that after implementing this approach it completely changed his life because most of the time people would find the solution by themselves after answering the questions and they did not have to bother him even if they brought some problem to his attention it would take just a few minutes of discussion to decide what solution to implement chapter 11 don't cry over spilled milk in the book there is an interesting story about a man who would worry a lot he said one morning our class entered the science laboratory and there was the teacher Mr brandwine with a bottle of milk placed on the edge of the desk we all sat down staring at the milk and wondering what it had to do with the hygiene course he was teaching then all of a sudden Mr brand wine stood up swept the bottle of milk with a crash into the sink and shouted don't cry over spilled milk he then made us all come to the sink and look at the wreckage take a good look he told us because I want you to remember this lesson the rest of your lives that milk is gone you can see it's down the drain and all the fussing and hair pulling in the world won't bring back a drop of it with a little thought and prevention that milk might have been saved but it's too late now all we can do is write it off forget it and go on to the next thing the man said that one little demonstration stuck with me long after in fact it taught me more about practical living than anything else in my four years of high school it taught me to keep from spilling milk if I could but to forget it completely once it was spilled and had gone down the drain worrying about yesterday is about as productive as crying behind spilled milk you can't go back and change anything that you did yesterday for that matter you can't even change what you did two minutes ago once it's done it's done and worrying about something that has passed is a waste of energy chapter 12. do you have a lemon make lemonade I'd like to tell you a short story about one of my friends my friend said that a few years ago he found a job in a new company in a different city and decided to move there for this job with his wife they were both excited because this job had a higher pay and they desperately needed it since they were expecting a baby in three months their excitement did not last long at the end of three months of employment he was fired he was fired within 20 minutes and not just that he was fired on the last day of his trial period you probably know that most companies have a 90-day trial period policy and within this period they can fire you or you can resign if you don't like the company he was fired on the 90th day which made the situation even more dramatic guess what on the day he was fired he came home and the baby started to come and they went to the hospital so there he was in the hospital about to become a father but without a job without insurance in a totally strange country with no relatives or friends and with little money left in the bank account plus he had many legal issues since he was living in a foreign country with an employment visa and losing the job was like knocking down the most important stone that was holding the structure together he was totally devastated he didn't know how to feel for several days he could not stop thinking about what just happened he could not stop blaming his boss because she knew that they were expecting a baby he blamed his boss for not giving him any warning or notice so that he could have had a chance to fix his performance he was constantly thinking how he would do things differently or how he would respond to his boss if he had a chance again after several days he said to himself look all this thinking and complaining will not bring back or change anything it is what it is and it can't be otherwise focus on what you can do now he gave all his free time to develop his own small business he can now look back and say that getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to him and he truly means it he is happy that he was fired because if he wasn't he would be stuck at a job and would not invest time in his own projects chapter 13. cooperate with the inevitable there are many circumstances in our lives that are beyond our control the loss of a loved one the loss of an intimate relationship like marriage in these difficult times the only thing we can do is simply absorb whatever has happened and move on did you know that when cars were initially invented the wheels were made out of hard materials such as metal but they broke very often because they could not absorb the shocks on the bumpy roads if there is a rock or other object on the road rubber tires Bend inside and then come back to normal shape however metal could not do it and broke this is the same in life the more you try to change or resist the inevitable the more you damage yourself and break you will last longer and enjoy smoother riding if you learn to absorb the shocks and jolts along the rocky road of life chapter 14 eight words that can transform your life the biggest problem you and I have to deal with in fact almost the only problem we have to deal with is choosing the right thoughts if we can do that we will be on the way to solving all our problems the great philosopher who ruled the Roman Empire Marcus Aurelius summed it up in eight words eight words that can determine your destiny our life is what our thoughts make it the famous British psychiatrist Hadfield asked three men to submit themselves to test the effect of mental suggestion on their strength which was measured by gripping a dynamometer under normal waking conditions their average grip was 101 pounds when he tested them after he had hypnotized them and told them that they were very weak they could grip only 29 pounds less than a third of their normal strength then Hadfield tested them a third time telling them under hypnosis that they were very strong and they were able to grip an average of 142 pounds when their minds were filled with positive thoughts of strength they increased their actual physical Powers almost 50 percent if you forget everything in this video remember this you are not what you think you are but you are what you think chapter 15 be yourself Carnegie says that many people worry because they are not being themselves the more you try to look like someone else the more pain and worry you will have you and I have great abilities so let's not waste a second worrying because we are not like other people you are something new in this world never before since the beginning of time has there ever been anybody exactly like you and never again throughout all ages to come will there ever be anybody exactly like you again there's a nice example in the book about a woman who was trying to be a singer but was ashamed of her teeth and because of that when she was singing she would not open her mouth fully one day a man from the audience approached her and told her that he knows what she's trying to hide he told her not to be ashamed and open her mouth and sing from the bottom of her heart she became so successful that soon after other singers started to imitate her way of singing chapter 16. if you do this you will never worry about ingratitude you know we humans want gratitude for every small favor we do for others if we hold a door open for someone to walk in behind us we expect to thank you if not we get pissed let me ask you this if you saved a man's life would you expect him to be grateful you might but a famous lawyer named Samuel saved 78 men from going to the electric chair how many of those men do suppose stopped to thank Samuel or ever took the time to send him a Christmas card guess that's right none here is the point I'm trying to make in this chapter natural for people to forget to be grateful so if we go around expecting gratitude we are headed straight for a lot of heartbreaks if you are doing something do it for the joy of it and don't expect anything in return