Ten things to help you feel good about yourself:

• Find someone or some cause to help. It needn’t be financial, you can provide coaching, information, volunteer for an activity, and so forth.

• Reach out to someone with whom you haven’t spoken for some time and ask if they’re doing well. If you can, offer help if needed.

• Don’t set up “sales meetings.” Set up “help meetings.” Find out what others need, don’t simply pursue what you need.

• Conform with the laws, but take advantage of the freedoms provided. If you need a negative test result to go somewhere you want to go, obtain it.

• Maintain perspective. Most people don’t get the virus, or get it and recover from it, or get it and don’t even realize it.

• Socialize, because today’s technology enables it. Use face-to-face means when you can, especially with distant family and friends.

• Stay informed. You can’t listen to just one news source or, heaven forfend, social media rants. Try to understand the facts as much as possible and base decisions on them.

• Pursue your hobbies and interests. Don’t feel guilty. Provide some enjoyment for yourself.

• Read some books you wouldn’t have otherwise read. Try classic fiction (Dickens, Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald) or biographies or history.

• Create a new promotional medium for your business. Start a new newsletter, blog three times a week, create podcasts, record videos, offer free webinars.

People are astounded by what they see but don’t expect. They spot someone they know on the same plane. There’s a deer on the side of the road. A fender-bender occurs. A TV actor is in the same restaurant. They meet an old classmate at a professional meeting.

What’s interested me is that no one ever thinks about what they might have seen but didn’t. There is a friend on the plane whom they never notice. Across the road from the deer is a large herd. A minute after they drive by the spot, a major accident occurs that they don’t connect to the next day when they read about it. That TV actor is with a more famous movie star whose back is turned. At that professional meeting is also a childhood best friend.

I know, you’re thinking, “How can we notice something we don’t realize is there?” How do you know the famous black swan exists if no one has ever seen one?

Well, I’d mention two points. First, you have to hold out the possibility that a black swan can exist, and not deny it simply because neither you nor anyone you know has ever seen one. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Perhaps people who have never bothered to report their sightings have seen them, thinking they are normal, no big deal.

Second, we all have to be more aware of our surroundings. We notice the deer or the actor by accident. The deer, well camouflaged, makes a move. The actor motions to a waiter, drawing your attention as well as the waiter’s. When we were on safari in South Africa, we learned that we had to be very focused on finding the animals, who are naturally endowed with the ability to blend into their surroundings and who do not necessarily call attention to themselves. It was easy to spot giraffes, and that became “normal.” But it was hard to spot lions and even harder to spot leopards. My son became very adept at finding the wildlife that was all around us and our guides were well trained in this kind of constant awareness.

Driving home from our coffee run the other morning, Bentley had his head out the rear window, staring forward into the wind, his nose constantly twitching. As we drove around a curve, I realized that he could smell what I couldn’t yet see. He was smelling a future that I was not yet aware of.

It pays to have more than one sensory apparatus focused on your surroundings, and a lot more head-turning. There may well be UFOs, and we’re just not looking up.

Deep Secrets

I’m offering “Deep Secrets” for business and personal improvement on a weekly basis, with a brief video containing my best business and interpersonal techniques, and a brief audio demonstrating the correct use of tricky language and how to sound (and BE) learned and sophisticated. Would you like to know how to quickly determine which of only five categories of issues your buyer is concerned about, and provide clarity on the spot? There’s a process for doing that.

Or would it be important to be able to read The Wall Street Journal (or an equivalent publication) with relevant comprehension in just 20 minutes? There’s a technique for doing that. Would you like to write a 500-word article in 30 minutes instead of 30 days? Guess what, you can.