Think Smart Not Hard: 52 Key Principles to Success and Happiness

By Roy Huff, MS, MAEd

At a young age, severe poverty and a family hamstrung by mental illness, abuse and AIDS threatened to destroy my life. Community support and tools helped me overcome many of those obstacles, but as an adult, I confronted more challenges including multiple bankruptcies and divorce. I was overweight, out of energy, and struggling to find direction and achieve the goals I did have. Over the next year and a half after my divorce, I experienced a personal transformation. Think Smart Not Hard: 52 Key Principles to Success and Happiness captures that transformation. It’s my hope that the book will provide the guidance and tools needed for anyone in life, regardless of where they are now, to find a path to their ideal self. You can find more information at royhuff.net/thinksmart.

The book is available on Amazon here.

Wow, I did it! 90 days!

I would first like to thank you guys for your special work. You guys are really saving klal yisroel.

I just wanted to share a couple of ideas that helped me make it this far in my journey. The fist thing I did was take it one day a time. I read this statement from the Klausenberger Rebbe, I think on gye. It said the following "In my youth, I was considered a bright and diligent student. How did I accomplish this? I tricked my yetzer hara. Other children had great plans at the beginning of the school year for the whole year, but in the end, they failed. I said to myself, "I am going to plan just for today - and set the goal for this day only". The Satan, not being interested in a single day, left me alone. The next day, I again just made plans for that day, and so on until the end of the year." - Klausenberger Rebbe.

That is what I tried to do. When I felt an urge I would tell myself not today maybe tomorrow but definitely not today. Slowly days turned into weeks and weeks turned into a month. I saw in a book from Rabbi Twersky that in AA people count their sobriety by the day. He told a story of someone who said that another participant was sober longer because she had woken up earlier and was still sober. So that became my model one day at a time.

I also saw a video of Rabbi Alon Anava’s NDE. In it he described the intense embarrassment he felt in front of Hashem and all the neshamos in the world were looking at his whole life seeing everything he ever did. I would constantly remind myself of this. I would ask myself if the pleasure now would be worth the embarrassment later. Walking in the street I would go without glasses as much as possible. It doesn’t help at close distance but it helps a lot. I also tried to be listening to a shiur or chizuk as much as possible whenever I had free time. Lastly but most certainly the most important thing I did was daven. Every day I would ask Hashem to help me overcome my desires. That I only lust for him and my wife. That I should come close to him and stay there my whole life.

These past 90 days were very hard. Now that I am on the other side I feel like a whole new person. I feel better about myself. My self-esteem grew immensely. I will still take it one day at a time and Be”H the next thing I know I will be dancing with all of you in the front lines greeting Mashiach!

Hatzlacha to you all. And thank you again to the head guys here at gye. May Hashem bless you with the endless strength to continue your wonderful work.

Miriam will be doing a call for spouses

every Wed at 2pm EST, 9pm Israel time

so that women in Israel can join as well!

More info and call-in numbers on this page: https://guardyoureyes.com/component/zoo/item/spouses-of-addict-s-group

"Avi Ha'Oved" wrote in this amazing story (translated from an email we received in Hebrew):

For many years after the wedding, we didn't have children. We did tests and discovered that the chances for me to be able to ever have children were close to zero.

The doctor (who, by the way, is one of the top doctors in this field in Israel) didn't give me almost any chance. He even said it would be crazy to even try, but we insisted that he try to help us anyway.

To make a long story short, I always davened to Hashem who can solve all problems, and I requested from Him to help us because, "What do you mean? I must have a child!"

At a certain stage, after a few treatments that didn't work, we were ready to give up. I had been on GYE's 12-Step phone conferences for a while which had led me also to join the live SA groups. After being in the "program" for a while, I had learned what it means to surrender to Hashem's will. One day, I simply davened and said to Hashem in these words: "Your Will be done, not mine. If it is good for me to be without offspring and without leaving a remnant, so be it."

On that very day, we did another treatment and my wife became pregnant.

This is above nature, a real miracle!

Do you have a problem with obsessive and compulsive porn use? Have you seriously tried the tools on GYE and feel that you are not getting better? Maybe it’s time to consider joining a 12-Step program.

Porn Anonymous (PA)
If you’re compulsively acting-out with pornography and masturbation we suggest you explore joining Porn Anonymous (PA). If you need help deciding whether to join PA, call Michael at 347-699-2368, or email help@pornanonymous.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit pornanonymous.org (Hebrew: p-a.org.il / Yiddish: pa-yid.org).

Sexaholics Anonymous (SA)
If your compulsive acting-out has progressed beyond the screen (with other people, paid sexual services, etc.) we suggest you explore joining Sexaholics Anonymous (SA). To figure out if SA is for you, call Dov at 917-414-8205, or email Dov at dov@guardyoureyes.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit www.sa.org.