Charles Hanna: Awaken to a More Fulfilling Life

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Charles Hanna is the Chairman, CEO, and founder of Brains II a third-party technology provider that he began in a basement in 1979 and built into Canada’s largest independent service consolidation company with offices in all of the major cities in the country.

A devoted father of three children, Hanna is involved with a range of charities including organizations that help with cancer treatment, artists, and displaced or handicapped people. He has a particularly soft spot for children and animals and contributes his personal time in various ways to the YMCA and animal shelter groups. He divides his time between Toronto and Los Angeles

Favorite Success Quote

“Happiness is a way of thinking”

Key Points

1. Your Life is Not Yours

A mistake that many of us make when we think about our lives is to believe that our lives are truly ours. We did nothing to earn this life, we did not take out a loan that we are forced to repay, we were simply given the gift of life and the responsibility to make the most of it.

You have to realize that your life does not belong to you, it belongs to the world and to the people around you. It belongs to the people that you serve and the people you love.

2. You Must Take Care of Yourself Physically

Before you can truly serve anyone else, you have to take care of yourself, and this begins with your body.

Taking care of yourself physically is imperative, and rather straightforward. If you can get 8 hours of high-quality sleep a night, eat a diet of 80% whole foods, eliminate drugs, limit alcohol, get regular exercise, and swallow your pride when you are feeling sick and go see a doctor, then you are well on your way to the healthiest version of you ever.

3. Realize Your Insignificance in the Universe

Whenever people take something personally, they fail to understand one of the most important facts about life: You don’t matter that much.

You are one of 7 billion, on one of God knows how many planets. You are a tiny speck in the universe.

This is not to say that you are not important to the people around you, but rather to say that you truly hold little significance in this universe. Your flight was not late because the world is out to get you, that cute girl didn’t give you her number because the stars are aligning for you and you alone.

Life simply happens and you get to take part in it. Realize this, realize your insignificance, and learn to live with a sense of humility and gratitude for where you are.

4. Taking Care of Your Body and Spirit Will Create Success in the Rest of Your Life

Whenever you decide to become successful and start pursuing success at the expense of your health and spiritual well being, you are setting yourself up for failure.

You have to take care of yourself first before you can truly achieve success. If you are physically and spiritually healthy, your performance will sky rocket, your happiness will increase, and you will be able to accomplish more than you had ever dreamed.

5. Nothing is Good or Bad

All things in life are simply our perception of them. Nothing is inherently good or bad, it is just the story that we tell ourselves about things. With that knowledge, what would happen if you started to reframe everything in life as a blessing? To start to see the good in all things no matter how difficult they may be.

I dare you to try it for a week and see what happens. You might just be amazed.