10 Lessons I’ve Learned From My Dogs

Many of you know I’m the happy owner of THREE DOGS, (Lilly, Daisy and Rose) and they add a huge amount of BLISS to my life. But here's a thought: what if dogs are more than our furry friends? What if they're actually tiny, four-legged life coaches? I've been thinking over this and realized dogs might just be God's way of showing us how to live better, love more, and wag our way through life. So in this episode, I’m sharing my list of 10 LIFE LESSONS our canine pals teach us that ranges from how to CHASE your dreams all the way to PROTECTING your family. Sure, cats have their own mysterious ways, and maybe one day we'll decode that feline philosophy. But for now, it's all about our canine teachers. This week, it’s DOG LOGIC taking the spotlight. Watch/Listen to this episode for the simple yet profound lessons these furry friends teach us. God’s creatures, each with a purpose, and who would’ve thought – our dogs, some of the greatest teachers we could ever ask for! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show this week, everybody. Today's show is going to be profound because we're going to talk about what can we learn from our dogs? Life lessons from our dogs. This is Rose, by the way. She is one of my three Pomeranians. I got Rose, I got Lily, and I got Daisy. And I've learned a lot from these three ladies, and I think you can as well. I think we all have a lot to learn from our dogs. All right, so we're going to go through a bunch of things today that I have learned from my dogs, and I think that you can learn from yours about life. They know a lot. About life that we have a lot to take from them. And I mean this, let me give you an example of one of the things that I've taken away from my dogs. And that is that every day is precious. You know, remember this, every single day of your life is one week of their lives.

• 2:21Ed Mylett?

  And so I think sometimes our dogs have factored in the end of their own life and that they want to live every day. Like it's a max out type of experience for them. And some of us, we think we've got so many of them, some of them account and some of them won't. But I gotta tell you, there's a lot of lessons I've learned from Lilly, Daisy and Rose. And it's dawned on me as I've gotten older, as I watch them sometimes and I'm, I'm going through anxiety or worry or fear or stress. And you know, I look at them and I think oftentimes, man, they've really got some of this figured out. And is it that they were just here to make us happy and bring us joy? Or could it be that God uses them in our lives to teach us something? I think they're here to teach us something. I mean that sincerely. You know, one thing about my dogs I've learned, they are happy and loving, no matter what anyone does or says to them.

• 3:06Ed Mylett?

  You could take a lesson from dogs in your life. Dogs don't judge, they listen without interrupting, don't they? They're not always trying to fix the problem. They love us unconditionally. So many of us, we listen and try to solve the problem. We listen and try to fix things. Your dogs just listen to you and they love you unconditionally. They're not judging you. You know, the other thing I've learned from my dogs, they never doubt their own abilities. They think they can do just about anything. They'll go after their goals like you can't believe. They will dig in the yard and keep digging till they think they're getting to another country someday. Cause they believe in their ability so much, whereas us, we stopped trying after the first failure rejection. We get rejected a couple of times, we stop digging. Not my dogs, they will dig all day long. They will tear up the backyard to get where they think they want to go.

• 3:48Ed Mylett?

  These great animals seem to understand what things are really important in life. And which things really shouldn't bother us. And so I've made a list of 10 things that I've learned from my dogs. And that I think you could learn as well. And maybe you've learned from yours. So I'm gonna give you what they are, and I think these are great life lessons. Number one, here's a short list. Number one thing I've learned from my dogs. I've learned their joy at everything they do. They have joy in every single thing they do and they celebrate it. They fit everything all out and they bring something to the table with energy and exuberance that so many people aren't cognizant of the fact that you're always making people feel something. You're always bringing something to the table or the lack thereof.

• 4:32Ed Mylett?

  My dogs are always bringing joy. They always bring themselves joy and me joy. And I think that's a lesson in life. I think too many of us aren't cognizant of finding joy in our work, finding joy in our day that doesn't have to, you know, in my dog's life, the conditions don't have to change for them to feel joy. They just feel joy, whereas we're constantly trying to change the external conditions so that somehow we will feel something. We think if I can change this, if I can get that, if I can achieve this, then I'll feel something different. Not my dogs. Not my dogs. They're in the same house, in the same yard with the same people every single day, yet they find joy in every day. Their nature is joyous, at least my three are. Pomeranians tend to have that. Number two thing I've learned from them.

• 5:16Ed Mylett?

  If you want something, run and chase it. Have you ever seen your dog going after something else in the yard, right? They will chase it and go after it. They're not thinking they need to know everything. They have to have a perfect plan, that they're tactical, right? We have to think, I have to have the perfect plan. I have to have everything in place. I have to be totally prepared before I'm going to go for it. Not my dogs. My dogs, if they see something they want, they run, they go after it and they chase it. In fact, that's their nature is to chase. I think it should be our nature is to chase the things we want in our life, to pursue them. If you want it, go get it. I've learned that from Lilly, Daisy and Rose. I watch them chase each other like relentlessly. I watch them chase me. I watch them chase a rabbit around the yard. I watch them chase the ball. And this may seem really hokey, but it's not to me. Their natural tendency is to live, is to chase. And here's something I want to tell you.

• 6:01Ed Mylett?

  I believe it's your natural state, but I think sometimes in life, we've learned and been conditioned not to, that we are taught as a little boy, be a good boy, be a good girl, don't be in such a hurry, take it easy, slow down. And we start to have these confines put around us. Maybe that's not for you. We don't belong over there. People like us don't do that. Whatever it might be, we've learned not to chase. We've learned to question. We've learned that we have to have everything in place before we take an action. Not my dogs. If they want something, they chase it. I think that is a great life lesson you could take from Lilly, Daisy and Rose, that you could take from watching your own dogs as well. And I, I, I know as I'm saying this, some of you are going, Ed, I'm telling you, you're taking this to an extreme. I'm telling you that I'm not.

• 6:44Ed Mylett?

  I'm telling you, the older I get, I almost think all the conditioning in our culture and in our world, all the mapping we've created, all the things we worry and stress about, all the things we do to one another, I don't see my dogs doing that. I don't see them doing that at all. So number two is if you want something, run and chase it. Number three thing I've learned, let me give it to you right now. Give and accept love with every breath. And always run and greet your loved ones with love and joy. You ever do that? You ever leave and go down to the mailbox even, you come back? They're so excited to see you. There's so much love and joy. If I'm gone, then when I come back, they're waiting at the door, excited to see me. How many times have you walked in your home? And not extended that type of love to your children?

• 7:27Ed Mylett?

  Or your spouse, or your parents? Hey, good to see you. Or you don't even talk to them. You grunt when you walk in. My dogs never grunt when I walk in. They always come running. They always come up with running and jumping on me. They're always excited to see me. How about in your case? Do you do that with your loved ones? Do you do that when you see people that you miss? Even when you're gone for a few hours? What if you came back in and embraced them? What if that became part of your environment and part of your culture and your conditioning? Just like it is with my dogs. Every single time. If I leave and go to the backyard for 30 seconds, when I come back, I'm greeted with love. I'm greeted with joy. I think we could learn an awful lot from Lilly, Daisy and Rose. Number four, forgive and forget.

• 8:11Ed Mylett?

  I've learned to forgive and forget from my dogs. Have you ever accidentally stepped on your dog's tail, for example? What do they do? Like I just, the other day I sat down and my foot came down on little Rose, who's a puppy on her tail, and she yelled, "Yelp!" And it broke my heart, like I hurt her, you know? And then she's learning to sleep in the space at night. And in the middle of the night, she'll yelp out, "Brrr!" She's crying for me, right? Now it breaks my heart when I hear it. But right after I stepped on her tail, 10 seconds later, she's jumping on me, giving me love and kisses. She forgave and forgot immediately. What happens next after something like that happens is truly amazing how quickly they come back to forgiving and forgetting and moving on with getting back to joy.

• 8:54Ed Mylett?

  But what we do is we hold on to things. We resent things. We run the pattern. We want to retaliate against people instead of just living in the moment, instead of just being present, instead of just giving it up and not holding things against people, holding grudges. Because when you do that, you're actually using it as a weapon against yourself. But yet as human beings, boy, do we hold on to stuff. We very rarely forgive. We almost never forget. I like that short memory. I like that they get back to it because I think they know your intentions weren't to harm them, weren't to hurt them. So I've learned that from them. Number five thing I've learned from my dogs. Never pass up the opportunity for a joy ride.

• 9:35Ed Mylett?

  Never. You know, dogs always love to go for a joy ride, even if they're not going anywhere special. They love the windows rolled down and the wind in their ears and their face. They cherish the time, even if it's just a short jaunt around the corner. Understanding how to cherish the small things in life is a great experience that dogs have fully mastered. I'm telling you right now, when I go up to the mailbox where I lived, there was a long drive. And so actually on this place I own an island. And so it was a long drive. And so when I put the dogs in the truck with me, they're so excited. They roll the windows down. They experience all the juice, every single part of the memory they could get, every part of the experience. They're trying to take it all in. They're not trying to be cool. They're not trying to conform. They're not trying to fit in. It's not a routine.

• 10:17Ed Mylett?

  It's not, oh, another ride, another. No, every single day is a new experience and they fully embrace that new experience. What about you? Are there so many things that you take for granted because you get to do them repeatedly that you no longer deduce the joy out of it? You no longer get the pleasure out of it because it's become routine? What a blessing it is that you get to see these precious people in your life every day. But because we see them every day, maybe it becomes less precious. Maybe it becomes less special. Maybe we cheat ourselves and them out of the emotions of our gratitude and our joy and our love. And you may say, well, no, Ed, I do that a little bit. Could you do more of it? Could you do it to a greater extent? There's so much. You think about

• 11:02Ed Mylett?

  that just for a second. When's the last time you just embraced a joy ride? Seriously, got nothing to do on a Saturday, you're watching football or Netflix. What about just going out for a beautiful ride? It may seem small, but I think when we can learn to appreciate the small things in life and grab great joy and pleasure and bliss from those moments, then when the big things happen, they're even better. But I think we're all waiting around to give ourself the gift of joy for a big moment. We hold it away from ourselves. We refrain from feeling great things and beautiful emotions and living in a beautiful state until the big stuff happens. What a terrible way to go through life. My dogs don't do that. They'll embrace the joy ride.

• 11:46Ed Mylett?

  Number six, they listen attentively. And when they listen, they don't always offer solutions. My dogs just listen because they can't offer the solutions. You know, often as adults, you know, just validating a person's feelings by just being there to support them and offer love rather than solutions is something so special. Just sitting with someone in their moment, just being present with somebody instead of trying to fix everything for them or solve it or reframe it for them. Dogs fully understand the importance of listening without judgment. And so often, we're judging what someone's saying. We want to correct them. We want to fix them. We want to control them.

• 12:30Ed Mylett?

  We want to solve their problem for them instead of just being present with somebody. Big lesson I've learned from Lilly, Daisy and Rose that I imagine you could learn from your dogs or have learned from your dogs or any pet that you have for that matter. Maybe you love cats. Maybe they teach you the same things. People tell me that have cats, they teach different stuff. Number seven, lesson I've learned from my dogs, move a lot, be physical. They move around all the time. My dogs are active. Even when they're laying around and they're tired, they're laying around, they're tired because they were moving, they were chasing something, want to chase the ball, chase each other, run around the yard. Moving our bodies physically changes our state. You know, every emotion is attached to physiology. It is. And most beautiful states, most euphoric states involve some type of movement.

• 13:15Ed Mylett?

  If you think about laughter. There's a movement happening in your body. If you think about, you know, peak performance and moving your body physically and being intense, it's moving your body. If you think about pleasure with your significant loved one, that ecstasy state, it's a physical act. Dogs are physical. They move their bodies on a regular basis. They move around to change their state. I don't think it's by any mistake that dogs experience joy and pleasure and want to have the joy ride and have an ability to be in these beautiful emotional states most of the time because they're also moving their bodies all the time. Move a lot. Be physical. Don't be stagnant. It's good for your health and it's good for your mental health.

• 13:54Ed Mylett?

  It's good for your ability to think clearly, to solve problems, to communicate in an effective way is a physical thing. Remember this. Success is a neurology. Failure is a neurology. Bliss, ecstasy, happiness, joy, peace is a neurology. It's neurochemical. It's a physical state of being, as is sadness, resentment, anger, fear. It's a physical thing. You do it. So when you're moving your body in a resourceful way, you experience resourceful and beautiful emotions. When you're not, you think about it. What does anxiety look like? It's constricted, worry, it's, it's hunched over, it's shallow breathing, right?

• 14:37Ed Mylett?

  Anger, tense, bent, right? The other emotions are open, they're deep breathing. You're moving yourself in a physical way that changes your neurology, changes your state, changes your emotions and changes your performance. So move a lot. Be physical. Number eight thing I've learned from my dogs. Be brave, optimistic and completely present. My dogs are brave. They try things they shouldn't try. They've got optimism. I've watched my dog Daisy, boy, she will try to jump on the couch 900 times even though she can't make it, believing the 900th time she's going to reach that couch because she's still tiny, she's got these little legs. She's got optimism. She's brave and she's completely present. Your dogs aren't thinking about the mistake they made, the thing they've got to go do later.

• 15:21Ed Mylett?

  Your dogs aren't thinking about some relationship. They're not thinking about some incident. They're not thinking about you jumping on their tail earlier. They're not thinking about any of that stuff. They're fully in the moment, which allows them to be present and it allows them to experience that state as if it's the last moment of their life. Because remember, their lives are much shorter than ours. So if, since life is short to them, why not be brave? Why not be optimistic? Why not be completely present? Oh, by the way, your life's short too. You're here for a flicker. You're here for a window, just like this. Bam, it's over, right? Bam, you're 20. Bam, you're 30. Man, if you'd have told me how quickly I'd get to 50 years old. Man, it happened like that. Just yesterday, I was a teenager.

• 16:05Ed Mylett?

  Just yesterday, I remember dreaming of getting my driver's license and driving for the first time. I remember, man, I turned 21, I can have a drink, I can vote at 18. I remember thinking all of these things in my life and then bam, I've got a 21-year-old. Just like that. Just like that, little Max was born. Now he's 21, just like that, Bella. As I'm recording this, it's the holidays and they don't even live with me anymore. They're coming home again to visit. I remember, it was yesterday, I just brought them home from the hospital. And now they come back to visit. So why not be brave? Why not be optimistic? Why not be present? Our lives are short as well. Having faith in your own abilities is so important. This brave optimism.

• 16:49Ed Mylett?

  Have you ever met a dog with low self-esteem? I haven't. Maybe that's why they're so happy. They value themselves and they have confidence in their own abilities. They also have the amazing ability to be fully present and see the value in every moment. I've learned that from my dogs. Number nine thing I've learned from Lilly, Daisy and Rose. They protect their family. They understand part of their job in life is to protect their family. It's part of yours. You can protect them emotionally, financially, spiritually. Your job's to protect your family. Your job is to win for your family. You know, you show me anybody who's super inspired, I'll show you somebody who's doing something

• 17:31Ed Mylett?

  for someone they love, or they're doing something that they do love. Most of us will not do very much for ourselves. But we'll do a whole bunch more for other people than we ever would ourselves. I think it's a great reminder from our dogs that we have an obligation in life to stand up and protect our family. You know, this is gender neutral. It's for men and women. But as a man, I must tell you, we've built a culture, it seems to me, of a lot of men who aren't stepping up and winning for their families the way they need to. Not protecting their families. I'm not just talking about physical, I'm talking about winning financially. I'm talking about being the spiritual leader in your home. Now, by the way, again, this is gender neutral, but as a guy, I gotta tell you, men, we need to step up.

• 18:16Ed Mylett?

  We need to step up. And I know, you know, my following, by the way, is about 70% female. When I tell people that, because when I started out, I had more male followers because of fitness and, you know, deep voice and whatever, you know, a lot of gym work and so, but over time, my following has become about 70% women. And I have to tell you that, so my content is for everybody, but I have to tell you, it's important to me to just say to the men, look at all this dog hair on me, by the way, from my dog. I have to tell you that whether you're a man or a woman, your job is to protect your family. But as a man, I'm imploring the men out there, step up, do something great for your families. Be their spiritual, financial, and physical protector of your families.

• 19:01Ed Mylett?

  If you're a single mother, be the spiritual, physical, and financial protector of your families. If you're a married couple, share those responsibilities together. But our dogs understand, they protect their families. It's our job as well. And the number 10 thing I've learned from my dogs, and this is so important, be playful. Be playful. You know, there's a correlation between joy and being childlike. When you were a child, you had far less inhibitions. You didn't worry about what people thought about you. You'd dance and play and not worry about what it looked like or how cool you were all the time. I'm talking about when you were a little kid. And then over time, we learn through criticism and embarrassment and different things in our life, we just play less.

• 19:45Ed Mylett?

  We become more grown up, more adult, more serious, don't we? Actually, when you think about the difference many people between a child and an adult, one of the things they immediately think of is a child is playful and an adult isn't. And that's completely screwed up. You should be playful as an adult and joyful and experience things in a playful way. What if you approached more things playfully, a little, with a little bit less seriousness? Right? Like, how serious you are about something contributes to your fear, contributes to your stress. Maybe everything's not so serious. Maybe we overcook most stuff. Maybe we take ourselves too seriously.

• 20:30Ed Mylett?

  My dogs don't take themselves seriously. They're playful. They're like a child. There's a lot to be learned. You know, when we think of children, we think of joy. But I think even oftentimes in our life, our map as an adult, of what we think an adult is, doesn't involve joyfulness or playfulness. Because that was our model. More than likely, the vast majority of us were raised by adults who weren't playful, who weren't joyful. And although in life, you don't always inherit your parents', you know, personal characteristics, their careers, their thoughts, you might inherit some of them. But a lot of times, you do inherit their emotional home. Or the lack thereof.

• 21:14Ed Mylett?

  And so if you were raised by a parent, maybe they were a great parent, maybe they weren't so great. But ask yourself this. How playful were they? How joyful were they? Was there a culture of joyfulness and playfulness? And was that as celebrated and encouraged in your home? And if it wasn't, has that played itself out in your own life and in your current home? Is there enough joy in your home, playfulness? Take your home aside. How about just you? Is there enough playfulness in your life? Do you approach enough things playfully and joyfully? Because that's more fun, you'll learn more, you'll grow more. See, the times you learned and grew the most in your life by a mile were when you were a child. Would you agree with that?

• 21:57Ed Mylett?

  You learned and grew tremendous amount, every year, you learned and you, you were growing in unbelievable ways. That's directly correlated to your joy and your playfulness. Your ability to approach something playfully is directly correlated to your ability to learn and grow from that experience. The more serious you are, right, the more adult you are. What you think is adult, quite frankly, constricts your movement, constricts your learning, constricts the other people around you, and adds pressure. If you're leading a company right now, you have a business, how playful and joyful is it? Because that's an environment where people grow, flourish, contribute, and produce at the highest levels, just like you did when you were a child.

• 22:40Ed Mylett?

  So I learned from my dogs to be joyful and to be playful. And so those are the 10 things that I've learned from Lilly, Daisy, and Rose. I've learned a lot more than just these 10 things, but that's 10 takeaways that I believe you can take from them and add to your life and have a happier, more successful, and more blissful life. I hope that helped you anyway. It certainly helped me in preparing for this today. And when I think of my dogs, I smile. What about you? When you think about a dog that you had growing up, or your current dog that you have now, or any animal you've ever had, I bet they bring a smile to your face. Don't you want to be that person? When people think of you, they smile? When people think of you, they smile? Well, you know what?

• 23:24Ed Mylett?

  You're probably living a pretty good life. So I challenge you today. Take these 10 things and begin to bring more smiles to other people's faces, but most importantly, your own face, because you deserve it. You're worthy of being happy. You're worthy of more success. You're worthy of more abundance. And these 10 things from our dogs can help us have a whole lot more of all of that. All right, I hope today helped you. If it did, please share this episode with somebody that you care about. Hopefully, it was presented in a unique way that you'll remember it. God bless you. God bless your dogs. Max out your life. This is The Ed Mileage Show.