Could a world free of complaints ever exist? Just imagine… Welcome, lighthearted viewers, to another edition of Good People, Good Works. Today we profile “A Complaint Free World,” a US-based non-profit organization with the mission to encourage all of us to end the habit of complaining as it results in a far healthier and happier life.

A Complaint Free World was founded by Will Bowen, Lead Minister of One Community Spiritual Center in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. The story of A Complaint Free World has been featured on hundreds of US radio and television programs as well as in newspapers across the world. The reverend has written two books – “A Complaint Free World” and “Complaint Free Relationships: How to Positively Transform Your Personal, Work, and Love Relationships.”

In December 2009, he launched his film “A Complaint Free Revolution” which features inspiring stories of people from across the USA and Canada who have transformed their lives, relationships and businesses by simply ending their habit of complaining.

One of the most common questions I am asked is, “What is a complaint?” The dictionary defines “complain” as “to express grief, pain or discontent.” Now we’re expressing our complaints, we speak them aloud and you would think that we would be aware of them. The thing is that most people complain, 15 to 30 times a day and have absolutely no awareness that they are doing it.

The complaints are coming out of their mouths; you would think that they would hear them, but they don’t. I like to say complaining is like bad breath, you notice it when it comes out of somebody else’s mouth, but not so much when it comes out of your own.

What inspired Reverend Will Bowen to help others become complaint free?

Three years ago, I was doing a series on prosperity. I find that people focus too much on what is wrong in their lives as opposed to what is working in their lives. And they say they want to be prosperous, but they’re so busy complaining that they’re not going to manifest anything of value. So, I gave out these purple bracelets one Sunday, and invited everybody that every time they caught themselves complaining, they’d take the bracelet off one wrist and put it on the other wrist.

And they go back and forth until they go 21 consecutive days, and we have now sent out over six million bracelets to 106 countries around the world. Our goal is to get 60 million people around the world to wear these bracelets and go 21 days without complaining. If we can transform the consciousness of 60 million people, that’s just one percent of the world, we can transform the consciousness of the world.

A Complaint Free World decided that their sixth millionth bracelet should be given to Dr. Maya Angelou, a prominent African-American poet and author, in honor of her inspirational words that truly represent the vision of the organization.

From the very beginning, we used a quote of her’s that we thought symbolized what we were trying to say. Becoming complaint-free is not about shutting up and sucking up whatever the world sends you; it’s about healthy communication. If you’ve got an issue, you speak directly and only to the person who can effect the change. And Dr. Angelou says, “You don’t like something? Change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”

A Complaint Free World seeks a constructive shift in our world’s consciousness, where people will “focus on and speak about what they desire things to be rather than complaining about how things are.”

How do I think the world would be if one percent of the world’s population was complaint free? Einstein said no genius has ever used more than 18% of the brain. But today’s geophysicists say no genius has ever used more than 10% of the brain. The majority of us mumble and get around with five, six, or seven percent.

If we’ve been able to stay alive at all, alive and future thinking, alive and having enough courage to care for each other, enough courage to love, and know that we’re probably one percent free, imagine who would we be? What would happen? I tell you one thing, I think war would be laughed out of the room. I think the very word, if somebody said “war,” another person would say “You mean am I supposed to kill somebody because he doesn’t agree with me? Ha! I don’t think so.”

If 60 million people were to become complaint free, which would be one percent of the world’s population, I believe that people would be so much happier. When people put positive energy out and fill other people’s buckets, it makes them feel good and makes other people feel good and I believe that putting positive energy into the world, into the Universe, it makes that positive energy come back to you.

We will pause now and when we return, we will find out more about Reverend Will Bowen’s A Complaint Free World. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

I think that the world would be really a nicer place and it would be really good, in that it would almost be perfect.

We sit down before every dinner, and we sit there and we go through it, of what we’re joyful for, for that day, and we go back and forth that I’m thankful for this, I’m thankful for this experience, I’m thankful for that experience, and we’re always focusing on the positive. And it gets to be a habit, and we don’t have the criticism and the negative, and that’s where it all started with the bracelet.

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works, where we are learning about a unique organization called A Complaint Free World, a US-based non-profit organization started by Reverend Will Bowen to uplift humanity through constructive speaking. Reverend Bowen first started the movement in July 2006 with 250 members of his church working to end their habit of complaining.

So we know complaining is damaging to every area of our lives; then how do we become complaint free? Well there’s a simple and easy tool to doing it and it’s this bracelet right here. Now this bracelet, the Complaint Free Purple Bracelet is not a bracelet that you wear and it just shows the world that you support A Complaint Free World, this isn’t what this is about.

The idea is every time you catch yourself complaining you take it off one wrist and you switch it to the other wrist. And you switch it back and forth, back and forth with every complaint.

Over 60 million bracelets have been sent to 106 different countries thus far. How has wearing the Complaint Free bracelet helped program participants?

Having the complaint free bracelet on my wrist, it’s made me more aware of how much I do complain and it’s helped me cut back, and I didn’t realize how much I was complaining beforehand.

The most challenging was to accept when I’d made a remark or something that should be classified as a complaint enough to move this back from the right wrist to the left wrist, to the left wrist, to the right wrist. And to be honest with myself and not say, “No that wasn’t something I have to do that for,” because I think it’s real good to be honest with yourself about this, that’s the whole idea.

A key component of the program is to not complain for a full 21 days. Reverend Bowen now explains why this time period is so important.

The idea is to go 21 consecutive days without complaining, and therefore 21 days without moving the bracelet. Now what’s going to happen is the first several days you will move it back and forth so many times, people think you have a nervous disorder, you just keep switching it back and forth, and back and forth. But in time you’ll get to where you’ll go a few hours or maybe even an entire day. And then ultimately you go 21 consecutive days.

Now why 21 consecutive days? People believe it takes 21 days to form a new habit and what we want to do is make being complaint free habitual for you.

Is it challenging to reach the 21st day? Reverend Bowen offers his thoughts.

Oh, it’s quite difficult. And most people get into it thinking that it’s going to be easy, then they discover how challenging it can be. It takes anywhere from four to eight months I’ve found, to go 21 consecutive days. And people get at it for awhile, and then they’re embarrassed. “Oh my gosh! I’ve been at it for three months, and I’m still on day one!”

But that’s typically the way it works. It’ll take you several months to go one full day, but then it may take you a week to go two days, and then you’re back on day one, and then you make it three days.

No one is perfect, no one is going to go through the next month without stumbling or the next two months without stumbling. We all stumble, the question is how quickly do we lift ourselves back up and put ourselves back into a place where we are no longer gossiping, we are no longer complaining. Where we’re using our words in an appropriate manner. Our world emanates from who we are, so when we change, our lives change.

I myself have control over my own life, and knowing the power of your words and the things that you do with your life, gives you a sense of control, and you can lead your life. It just gave me a sense of gratitude.

Some participants of the A Complaint Free World program are so enthusiastic about it they want to become acquainted with other like-minded people. Reverend Bowen has devised a creative way to get all those interested together in one place.

We have found that people from all over who have taken this on want to meet other people, so we did A Complaint Free cruise to the Caribbean last year; it was very successful. So this year we’re doing A Complaint Free cruise to Alaska (USA). We’re going to do a week cruise up to Alaska, and I’m going to be speaking and doing workshops while at sea, but otherwise this is just going to be a wonderful cruise, and we’re really looking forward to it.

We salute Reverend Will Bowen for his wonderful initiative that is helping keep people on a constructive path in life. May many more learn of this splendid program and experience the wonderful benefits.

For more details on A Complaint Free World, please visit www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org
Books and other media by Reverend Bowen are available at www.ComplaintFreeWorld.biz

Joyful viewers, we have enjoyed your company on today’s edition of Good People, Good Works. Join us next Sunday for Part 2 of our program on A Complaint Free World. Coming up next is The World Around Us, after Noteworthy News. May Heaven light up your path with fountains of love, beauty, and wisdom.

If we were to take a bird’s eye view of Earth, what would we see? This is the premise behind famed French photographer Yann Arthus – Bertrand’s landmark eco-documentary “Home” which depicts the immense devastation humanity has caused to our only planet.

We haven't understood that we're depleting what nature provides. We are destroying the cycle of a life that was given to us. We have forgotten that resources are scarce.

Please watch Part 2 of the important film “Home” Wednesday, March 24, on Planet Earth: Our Loving Home.

Could a world free of complaints ever exist? Just imagine… Welcome, enlightened viewers, to another edition of Good People, Good Works. Today on our program we once again profile “A Complaint Free World,” a US-based non-profit organization with the mission to encourage all of us to end the habit of complaining as it results in a far healthier and happier life.

A Complaint Free World was founded by Will Bowen, Lead Minister of One Community Spiritual Center in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. The story of A Complaint Free World has been featured on hundreds of US radio and television programs as well as in newspapers across the world. The reverend has written two books – “A Complaint Free World” and “Complaint Free Relationships: How to Positively Transform Your Personal, Work, and Love Relationships.”

In December 2009, he launched his film “A Complaint Free Revolution” which features inspiring stories of people from across the USA and Canada who have transformed their lives, relationships and businesses by simply ending their habit of complaining.

I wrote “The Complaint Free World,” because I had so many people asking me questions about complaining and everything. And it was a number one best seller in Formosa (Taiwan), best seller list in China, and on the best seller list in Japan. It’s done very well here in this country.

I have another book called, “Complaint Free Relationships,” because, most people complain to or about someone else. And if you’re complaining to someone else, you’re lowering the energy within the relationship, and if you’re complaining about someone else, there’s been a lot of research that shows that you don’t inspire them to change; if anything, you inspire them to stay exactly as they are.

So there’s other ways of communicating with people that you can get your needs met, without complaining to them. Best selling author Dr. Thomas Stanley said that when we complain about somebody, they live down to that expectation. It reinforces who they are, and they stay in that paradigm. Complaining to somebody is not going to transform them; you have never complained anybody into positive change, including yourself!

Carl Palmer, a program participant, now explains what happens to our internal system when we complain.

The research says that when you complain and you’re negative you create a chemical in your brain that lasts for six seconds. If you have positive thoughts in your brain it creates a chemical in your brain that affects your body for six seconds. If you quit complaining, you can’t stop the negative thoughts, we call them “ANTS” (Automatic Negative Thoughts). You can’t stop them from coming but when you give them energy and putting them out there, you’re creating negative things inside yourself.

Studies have shown that complaining can make a person less healthy.

We hear the term “psychosomatic,” well we are all psychosomatic. “Psyche, Soma,” “Mind, Body.” The mind and the body are intricately connected, and the body responds to the thoughts that are held in the mind.

Dr. Robin Kowalski at the University of Clemson discovered that, from interviewing thousands of doctors, doctors estimate that they spend as much as two-thirds of their time dealing with people whose physical illness is either based in or exacerbated by their mental processes. In other words they are thinking “sick,” and it is manifesting sick in their bodies. As much as two-thirds. The way she puts it is, symptoms increase with symptoms reporting.

Right before we gave out these Complaint Free Bracelets for the very first time, a man started attending my church, his name is Tom Alyea. Tom suffers from chronic migraine headaches, and every day when he would come home, his wife Misha would say, “How was your day?”

Now, Tom, instead of telling her what happened during the day, gave her the headache report. He’d say, “Well, on a scale of one to 10, I had about seven headaches all day today.” Now she wasn’t asking him about his headaches, but that’s what he talked about. And he suffered migraines the entire time.

Now as part of becoming complaint free, Tom stopped complaining about his headaches. When Tom stopped complaining about his headaches, using the Complaint Free Bracelet, Tom no longer has migraine headaches at all. This has had such an impact on Tom, that Tom is now the president of the Complaint-Free-World, our non-profit organization.

A Complaint Free World seeks to share its simple, but powerful philosophy with the public.

We created a complaint free school curriculum; it’s available for free, and we’ve had thousands of teachers download that off from our website, that’s available for free. We also have a complaint-free organization program that businesses can use, and again it’s free, because we’re a non-profit.

Now I’m noticing in the salon, a difference in the people; we are a more passionate group. We have such a contrast of personalities throughout the salon, and it’s amazing because even when someone gets in a rut, the rest of us are focused on keeping the place positive, and it brings everyone together in a whole new outlook that we’ve never had before.

We noticed a real big difference in how the staff spoke to one another, how they spoke to the patients and the other staff members within the hospital. And even when they just were talking about things, we noticed that they had a more positive attitude when they had general discussions within the area.

We will pause now for a few moments and when we return, we will find out more about A Complaint Free World. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Albert Einstein said, “Reality is just illusion,” albeit a very persistent illusion. Our thoughts create our lives, and our words indicate what we are thinking.

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works, where we are spotlighting A Complaint Free World, an organization that is dedicated to informing people of the benefits of speaking constructively.

If we want to change something or someone’s behavior, what is best way to express our feelings without complaining?

Basically, talking about your feelings and your needs, using a lot of “I” language, “I feel this way when you do that,” as opposed to, “You do that.” One of the interesting studies I’ve found is that most people’s comments about someone else are about their behavior. “You left your socks on the floor,” that’s a behavioral comment, that’s a behavior you did. What most people hear is, they hear it personally.

They take it as a personal attack, “You’re stupid, you’re lazy, you’re whatever, because you left your socks on the floor,” even though it’s neutral. What we have to do is to understand that in most cases, people are going to take what we say as a request for behavioral change, they’re going to take that as a personal assault.

So in those cases we have to soften what we are saying and even say, “This is not about you personally. Would you please do this. This is about something I would like for you to do.” This is about asking people for what you want, as opposed to complaining about what is. Because one of the biggest challenges of complaining is it keeps you focused on what’s wrong, rather than looking for potential solutions, so you’ve got to leave behind what’s wrong, and begin to ask for what you want.

The greatest example of a person who did not just complain was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. In 1963 Dr. King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and Dr. King did say that the United States had written the American Negro a check which had been returned marked “insufficient funds.”

But we don’t remember that as “the bad check speech,” we remember it as “I have a dream, I have dream that one day this nation and indeed the world will judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.”

Dr. King was able to respond, he did not just stand there and say, “Isn’t it awful!” and get everybody all upset. Instead he hung a picture in people’s minds, a picture that let them see clearly what he saw from his vision and his view from the mountaintop, he invited us into his dream.

When you’re living in a complaint free world, and you can hear a complaint and then turn that complaint around to a positive, and say, “No, but what you do have is a lot hair, and you’ve got great cheek structure and bone structure, and we’re going to work with your natural beauty to bring out the best in you.”

The tools of a complaint free world give people that opportunity. And then the customer changes within themselves, and they start to feel good about themselves, they start to feel happy. And so when you leave the salon experience you’re immediately going out to tell a dozen people, not about the great haircut you had but about the great experience you had and about the positive energy you felt when you were in the salon.

By becoming complaint free a constructive energy will spread from ourselves outwards and as those around us also end this habit, a transformation of the world we live in begins.

So when we looked at various techniques that are out there that can lift people’s awareness or consciousness or that can transform a community, what we find is there are three elements that consistently apply. One is that there is something that everyone is doing together; they have agreed to do something together.

As they begin to do that together they find they are thinking and speaking in alignment, there is a resonance that begins to form. As that resonance begins to form, then there begins to be a sense of “We are bigger than any of us individually,” and there’s a joy and a delight that expands into the larger community, into the larger organization.

Ending the habit of complaining changes our thinking and we feel uplifted.

People will often contact me, and they’ll say, “You know, I’m just a happier person since I’ve done this.” They’ll say, “Is it supposed to do that?” I’ll say, “Yes, of course it’s supposed to do that!”

The way I like to look at it is, your brain is a manufacturer and your mouth is a customer. So the manufacturer is producing negative thoughts, which you are articulating as a complaint. If the customer will stop buying what the manufacturer is producing, the manufacturer retools. Then you literally become a happier person. You begin to think and to hold happier thoughts.

We deeply thank Reverend Will Bowen and his organization, A Complaint Free World, for helping people around the globe shift their patterns of speech and thought in a constructive direction and thus transform their lives for the better. May their work continue to inspire people to live complaint free lives!

For more details on A Complaint Free World, please visit www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org
Books and other media by Reverend Bowen are available at www.ComplaintFreeWorld.biz

Blissful viewers, thank you for your company on today’s Good People, Good Works. Up next is The World Around Us, after Noteworthy News. Wishing you eternal happiness, peace, and the grace of Heaven.

In 2009, French photographer Yann Arthus–-Bertrand directed a landmark eco-documentary about the dire state of our planet’s biosphere, and in closing, left us with an important takeaway message:

It's time to come together. What's important is not what's gone, but what remains. We still have half the world's forests, thousands of rivers, lakes and glaciers, and thousands of thriving species.

Join us for the conclusion of the insightful film “Home” Wednesday, March 31, on Planet Earth: Our Loving Home.

“Speciesism” is a belief system where individuals favor their species over others. The award-winning documentary “Earthlings,” by vegan US filmmaker Shaun Monson, examines the cruelty that results from speciesism and emphasizes that it must stop.

We must learn to see into the eyes of an animal and feel that their life has value because they are alive.

Join us for Part 1 of this important film Tuesday, March 30 on Stop Animal Cruelty.