Leadership
“If you wish others to believe in you, you must first convince them that you believe in them.”
—Harvey Mackay
"Most people are not going after what they want. Even some of the most serious goal seekers and goal setters - they're going after what they think they can get."
Bob Proctor
On a shelf I’ve got a fragment of thin, carefully painted 2,000-year-old pottery I picked up years ago in Petra – but I don’t look at it much.
That blue Michigan license plate from the Chrysler Something I bought way up by the Canadian border, drove to Mississippi and then bounced up and down San Francisco’s hills is on top of a bookcase. In the attic.
Somewhere tucked away is the bag of Dhofari frankincense Mabkhot Al Amiry pressed into my hand. The olive-stone necklace Umm Asad made on her porch by the Dead Sea tomato fields is chucked in with tutus and tiaras at the bottom of a play box. I kept the chunky watch that a Russian soldier insisted I take after we shared a train compartment to Warsaw, less than six months after the Berlin Wall came down – but I’m not sure where it is. The point-toed leather slippers from Marrakech weren’t a pair when I got them, and they still aren’t now. I bring out the bespoke Cairo robe, perfect for a summer evening, and my wife rolls her eyes.
Stuff we collect. A minute of life-affirming richness. Then years of dead weight, pinning us to the past, wreathing everything we do – or try to – in the stale breath of the way things were.
On a twilit Pyrenean border road it had taken us all day to hitchhike from Montpellier. I was on my knees, begging cars to stop. One did. C was in the passenger seat. Twenty years on, he’s a bit like a brother.
In Amman, T was on one end of the group of friends who’d adopted me; I was on the other, newly single and hurting. It was a reckless time. I barely remember her. Twelve years later she tweeted hello. Now she laughs while pushing my kids in the park swings.
Then there was chopping vegetables with A in her kitchen in rural Massachusetts, more than a decade after those Tel Aviv deckchairs. The sweaty hotel room in Delhi with A. The long detour next week, to see M in Paris.
Never mind stuff. Collect people.
"Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken"
Ludwig van Beethoven
"Impatience never commanded success"
-Edwin H. Chapin
"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly."
Thomas H. Huxley
Are you ready for your own personal transformation?
As we move into this season, don't neglect the most important thing in life:
YOU!!!
It's time to go deep inside, gain clarity on what you REALLY want, believe you can have it, and get to work overcoming challenges and obstacles in your way!
Just in time, Stephanie Mulac, Carolyn Hansen & Special Guest Host Alvin Huang have launched the 2nd annual Healthy, Wealthy, Wise Gifts Giveaway event and there are thousands of dollars of FREE products that will allow you to thrive!
They've assembled the greatest Health & Wellness experts online to help you achieve all that you desire!
Just look at this list of what you can grab absolutely FREE just by stopping by their massive giveaway event:
* Ultimate Life 21 Day Challenge - Ginny Dye
* Extreme Health Resolution Secrets - Vint Atkinson
* Your Income And Your Health - Tom Corson-Knowles
* Quantum Soul Clearing Small Book of Quotes - Michelle Manning-Kogler
* The Self Confidence Report - Drifa Ulfarsdottir
* Vision Board Master Class - Pamela Moss
* Starved, Stressed and STILL not losing weight? - Lianda Ludwig
* Use Your Breath to Free Your Life - Maggie Ostara
* Affirmations For a Wealthy Mindset Audio - Elaine Lockard
* Allow Abundance Gratitude Meditation - Wendy Betterini
* 20 Mistakes to Avoid in the Gym - Earl Netwal
* And TONS (OVER 500+) MORE!
Here's to your season of transformation!
It all starts here:
To Your Success!
Bronwyn
P.S. Download all the gifts immediately and check back often because more are being added all the time:
I love the beach! How about you? For me it is wonderful to be in nature, to hear the ocean waves crashing and feel the hot sand under my feet and between my toes. I thrill to the icy water on my skin and the sparkling ocean air. It is rejuvenating on so many levels, both conscious and unconscious, and helps restore balance to my life.
Have you ever noticed how nature parallels the rhythms that move through our lives? The tide comes in, and it goes out, comes in and goes out. This is just like our breath cycle, we breathe in, we breathe out. We hardly give this a thought. However, life is cycling through us at multiple frequencies, from those that are very short, as in breathing, to those that are longer, as in the path from birth to death.
If we go a little deeper into the cycles of our lives we see that both expansion AND contraction are necessary and normal phases of being powerful, of being human.
Let me give you an example. In the past, under the false belief that I should operate like a machine and produce results 24/7, 365 days a year, I struggled desperately to maximize my output and productivity. In frustration one day, I tried to figure out what, exactly, increased my energy and what decreased it. So I created a spreadsheet. I listed out about 15 or 20 different factors that I suspected had an impact on my energy level, things like amount of sleep, types and amount of food, water intake, caffeine intake, exercise, work demands, amount of outdoor exposure including sunlight, the experience of stressful or inspiring events in my life, etc., etc. I had it all on there. Then I set up a 6-month timeline and captured what I did each day and what I experienced in these areas. I then rated my energy level for the day on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 represented super low, basically dragging my ass through the day, and 5 was outstanding and amazing energy, where I effortlessly and magically moved through my day. (Don't you love those days?)
You know what I discovered? No matter what I did, no matter how much demand there was on me, my energy CYCLED. There was a very pronounced weekly cycle, where on a pretty routine seven-day cycle I had two days of very high four or five-level energy, two days of very low, one or two-level energy, and about three days of average or three-level energy. I was blown away to see this cycle running through my life, REGARDLESS of how much caffeine I had, how good my diet was, how much sleep I was getting, or whether I exercised or not! No matter what was going on in my life and what I was doing, my energy levels were cycling in this sinusoidal-like fashion, from high through the middle ground, down to low, then back through middle ground, and up to high again.
Ever since then I've watched this- it is a feature of life itself! It's reflected in the seasons: winter is low-energy season; summer is high-energy; and fall and spring are the transitional, or average-energy months. Energy comes up in the spring months, and falls in the autumn.
You can see these cycles in the dynamic of a day, as well. Energy is at its lowest ebb at night, whereas dawn sees energy rising. At midday energy is the highest, and then at sunset energy is decreasing, on its way back to the low point of the nighttime.
And you can also witness the phenomenon in your breath cycle. Most people think of the breath as only a two-phase process, in and out, but it's actually a four-phase process when you include the two moments of transition between the in and out phases. So, when you've fully exhaled, that is the lowest energy point (equivalent to winter). Then there is the transitional moment when you stop exhaling and begin to inhale, where the energy turns and begins to go up (equivalent to spring). When you've inhaled and your lungs are full that's the moment of peak energy (or summer), and then when you stop inhaling and begin to exhale the energy turns and heads back down (or fall).
My point is: Energy cycles, in the Universe AND in you. It expands and it contracts. And this is NORMAL. To the extent you are aware of this, you can be fully present in both the expansion AND contraction stages, to partner with it.
The problem is we tend to resist the contraction phases. It feels like death to us, and we are afraid of death - we don't like to think of or experience things dying, so we try to be busy ALL THE TIME. However, by doing this we totally miss and disrespect the opportunity that the contraction cycle is: it is from the contraction that expansion can even take place. You cannot have one without the other, just as you cannot breathe in if you don't breathe out.
The key is to be wise and aware of this expansion and contraction; we must recognize it as a normal and natural part of the path and of life itself. Because of this, you can embrace the contraction, knowing expansion is sure to follow. In the darker times of your life you can take comfort in the knowledge that change will follow. The tide goes out, and the tide comes in, the breath goes out and the breath goes in. If you pay attention you'll see this pattern of expansion and contraction, of cycles, in YOUR life too. By consciously witnessing the process you can be more powerful through all phases, resisting nothing and allowing it all.
Try this: Reflect upon the nature of contraction in your life, or those times when the metaphorical tide is going out. Do you recognize and embrace these times in your life? Do you fear them? Do you cling to expansion, resisting the contraction and "trying to make things happen," trying to make the tide come in when it is naturally going out?
Can you improve your ability to "be with" the times of contraction in your life? It is indeed possible. Just like you can be with your exhale, knowing and trusting that the inhale is right behind it. It's a matter of awareness, trust, and allowing. You don't have to make the tides come back in, they will come back in on their own. Once you realize this you can relax! With conscious, trusting and allowing practice, they will come back in your life, as well.
Developing your ability to be strong during the contraction phases of your life is a major key to your mojo!
................................................
Roger Kenneth Marsh is a Spiritual Life Coach & creator of the Major Good Mojo System. He has an engineering degree, MBA, is a Certified Life Coach, HeartMath® Provider, and Passion Test® Facilitator. Get his book "NexGen Human" on Amazon.com, and FREE CD "3 Keys to Major Good Mojo" at http://www.majorgoodmojo.com/free-cd
Your mouth is dry, heart palpitating, and knees knocking. You go into panic, facing a dreaded public speaking assignment.
It doesn’t have to be so.
These five tips will give you some strategies to overcome those symptoms and have the butterflies flying in formation.
1. Deep breathing will pull in oxygen. Adrenalin, secreted to help you deal with the fear brought on by little doubts, causes breaths to become shallow, or causes you to hold your breath. Deep breathing will help your brain work to capacity, and forcing the slower pace will quell the panic.
2. Bluff. Stand tall, with shoulders back and chest out. Smile. Even though you don’t feel happy or confident, do it anyway. You will look confident and your body will fool your brain into thinking it is confident. This really works!!
Bluff – body and smile
3. Keep you mouth and throat hydrated. Plan to keep a drink on hand while you are speaking., though this sounds impossible. Visualising how you will use it if you need it, and calling up the audacity to do such a thing will carry across to your attitude as you take your place to speak, placing your glass just where you need it to be.
4. Adrenalin sends the blood rushing to the fight/flight centres of your brain at the base of the skull. Place your hand on your forehead and press gently on the bony points. This will bring the blood to the parts of the brain that need it to present your speech best.
5. Know you are prepared. Obviously this depends on actually being prepared, so take every opportunity in the days leading up to the speech to prepare your material. Be familiar with the structure of the presentation, and the ideas to use. Memorise the most important parts, and the parts you are frightened of forgetting. I would memorise the opening of the speech and in the moments before presenting it, would reassure myself that I knew that part, and that would lead on to the rest. It worked!!
For my eBook on Overcoming public speaking nerves, visit http://bit.ly/NEKghl
"Do or do not. There is no try" Oh Yoda!
