"Everyone has limits - not everyone accepts them!!"

The ultimate in Fearless Living! Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner!

7 Laws of Fearless Living

Don't believe what the spiritual sharks and clever carnival hustlers tell you about fearless living -- they lie. But you already sense the truth of this, or you wouldn't still be looking for ways to escape those everyday fears that stalk your happiness like a lion does the unwary gazelle.

The deepest parts of you know that if freedom from fear was as easy as "creating a new reality" for yourself, then you would already be the fearless person you know in your heart that you're meant to be. It's just not that easy... which brings us to a great liberating truth, an insight you must prove to yourself before you can know its power to dismantle any fear.

When it comes to the fearless life, the divine gives nothing freely... save to those who freely give themselves to discovering the truth about their own fearless selves. The good news is that this supreme confidence and calm already lives within you, needing only your realization of its unshakable presence in order to empower you with the fearlessness you seek.

The following seven laws are like a golden invitation to your own coronation. To "open" each one and receive its royal instruction about how to live free of fear, you need do only one thing: Ask sincerely that you might understand its secret message, and then, when the answer comes,welcome those insights as long-lost friends -- for that is exactly what they are. They will do the rest for you.

1. When you know that what you're looking for is what you already are -- and not what you may become -- you stand on the threshold of fearless living.
2. No psychological fear exists without negative imagination.
3. When it comes to fear, the feel is real... but the "why" is a lie.
4. You cannot change one thing about times past or the fears that belong to old regrets, but you can be in a different relationship with what is happening to you right now -- and that changes everything!
5. Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.
6. Your experience of any moment -- good or bad, calm or conflicted -- is a direct reflection of your understanding about it. This means that the only thing that frightens you about any event is what you've yet to understand about yourself.
7. The universe itself is actually set up for you to succeed with realizing the fearless life, which means that you are made for whatever happens to you!

Now to these seven laws, let's add three additional facts that will help prove the possibility of a fearless life. Taken alone, each of the following statements supplies insight into the seemingly impenetrable darkness that surrounds any fear. Taken altogether, these bright new facts reveal a whole new understanding that penetrates fear's protective shell, dispelling both the feared and the fearful at once. The light that remains is freedom.

We can either spend our lives struggling to protect ourselves from our fears -- which is the general existence of the unconscious masses -- or we can learn how to use our lives to discover that, in reality, there is no self to fear, and that the shaky world perceived by this shadow-self is but its own unreal shadow. The good news is that it's possible to learn so much about the nature of fear that one day, it simply runs out of ways to make you believe in its shaking.

No fact is frightening unless it runs into conflict with what you want. When this happens, the fear is not in the event, but in you -- who have decided that in order to feel secure, life must jump through your hoop. The fear you feel is in your hoop, not in the fact that life may have jumped unexpectedly.

Last but by no means least of these fear-busting ideas is this final fact and implied action: It is in your power to discover that who you really are has nothing to fear, but that you make yourself fearful each time you look outside of yourself for some power to make you feel fearless.

Source: Guy Finley

Key Quote:

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. 
Jim Morrison 

Lighten Up!

The Power of Belief - Never Give Up!

Never believe and accept limitations placed upon you by others. There will always be lots of people telling what you can and can`t do, what you are supposed to do given your age, condition, gender etc. It`s all irrelevant. What really matters is what you believe. What you want to achieve.Never give up on your dream.

Quote of the day

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe 

Positive Thinking: How to Change Your Future

Want to be more successful? Change the way you view the world by adopting these 10 beliefs.

If there were only one thing that I could communicate to readers, it would be this all-important observation:

The results that you get in business (and in life) are simply a byproduct of your beliefs.

Human beings all live in a cycle, in which beliefs and results are inextricably linked.  Here's how it works:

• Your beliefs determine how you feel about each situation, because those beliefs tell you what each situation means.
• Your emotions (and attitude) determine how well (or badly) you'll perform in any given situation.
• Your performance, naturally enough, is directly connected to your results. Though there may be other factors in play, it's only your performance over which you have control.
• Finally, your performance reinforces your beliefs, in either a negative or positive way.

The following diagram encapsulates this process:

Expectations vs. Reality

To illustrate how this works, I'll use an example from the world of sales.

Imagine a salesman who must do cold calling to build up a sales pipeline. This salesman has a deeply held belief that "if, first thing in the morning, I get 10 rejections in a row, it means I'm going to have a bad day and not make any sales."

The moment that salesman approaches that "10 rejection" threshold, he begins to adopt an apprehensive attitude, wondering whether the 10 rejections will "prove" that he's going to have a bad day.

He begins to feel fear and defensiveness, which immediately creep into his voice. He starts thinking about his "bad day" rather than listening to the customer. His apprehensiveness virtually guarantees that he'll get the (ominous) 10th rejection--at which point his emotional state (which is already low) will plummet further.

The sales rep is now absolutely sure that he's going to have a bad day. His despair makes him even less effective.  After a few hours, he stops cold calling, having "proven" his belief. And then, the next day, he starts the process again, worried about those all-important "10 rejections."

In other words, his beliefs are creating a future of failure.

Hanging On to Bad Beliefs

You'd be surprised how many people hang on to beliefs that create failure--without realizing that their beliefs are just as unrealistic as the "10 rejections" superstition. I couldn't possibly go through the entire list, but here are three that I hear a lot:

• Mondays are always depressing
• The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
• Life sucks, and then you die.

The absolute worst example I ever saw was a guy at a nearby lake who was fishing with his shirt off. He had a tattoo on his shoulder that read "Born Loser." True story.

Anyway, I don't want to belabor the point. What's important here is to adopt beliefs that create a brighter and better future.

With that in mind, here are 10 beliefs that, in my view, consistently create positive emotions, better performance, and much better results:This is essential, because just as lousy beliefs put you into a descending cycle--where failure becomes ever easier--powerful beliefs can put you into an ascending cycle, where success becomes easier.

• I always act with a purpose.
• I take responsibility for my results.
• I stretch myself past my limits daily.
• I don't wait for perfection; instead, I act now.
• I learn more from my failures than my successes.
• I take my job seriously, but I do not take myself too seriously.
• I use rejection to renew my humility and sharpen my objectivity.
• I use both negative and positive feedback to keep on target.
• I am careful about what I put into my mind and body.
• I seek out people who are similarly motivated to improve themselves.

I wish I could say that I thought of all of the above myself, but the cycle described above and the "success beliefs" that follow are actually based on a life-changing conversation I had with the legendary Art Mortell, author of "The Courage to Fail"

Source: Geoffrey James

Quote of the Day

What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are. 
Tony Robbins 

Laughter is the best medicine

"Slaying the Dragon" - Dealing with Low Self Esteem

This is possibly the most potent and destructive limiting belief of them all. I believe that having low self esteem is at the root of many of our social problems.  If you don`t feel good about yourself; If you don`t value yourself; if you don`t feel you are a worthy person, it becomes very difficult to give those gifts to other people. I believe one of the most valuable things you can give to someone else is the gift of raising their self esteem. Certainly as a parent, there can be no finer gift you can give to your child than that of a healthy self esteem. It is far more important than any amount of material possessions. In today`s have-it-all, instant gratification society, it seems all too easy for many parents to substitute the tangible for the intangible.

 We live in an age of unprecedented wealth and opportunity. The media is constantly encouraging us to lavish the latest “stuff” on our children. The message being that if we don`t, we are not being good parents, we don`t love our children enough! A family I know very well has a son who said to them whilst on holiday in America, “If you really loved me you`d buy me this watch”. (He already owned five at home which he rarely wore!) The creation of a healthy self esteem is a product of the right environment and a loving relationship, not an unlimited bank account!

Why is it important?

The danger of low self esteem can be seen in many of society`s misfits. Remember when you were in school. Wasn`t there always a classroom bully? Did anyone actually like this person? The answer was invariably no. Many people pretended to be their friends in order to escape being bullied themselves. Bullies, thugs and loudmouths were, and still are, universally unpopular. So why would they behave in such a way?

They do it because being the way they are gives them a feeling of significance and at a deep level everyone needs to feel significant. Some achieve this through academia, by being the straight “A” student. Others get that feeling by excelling at sport while still others make people laugh. The reality is that none of this actually works unless it is built on a healthy foundation. For many people, it is merely papering over the cracks. Why else would many celebrity superstars press the self destruct button when they appear to have it all?  

In the U.S.A back in the 1930s, the public enemy number one was a gangster called John Dillinger. When the law finally caught up with him and he was cornered, his last act of defiance was to break into a house, put a gun to the heads of the occupants and scream,

“Do you know who I am??”

 When they failed to answer through sheer terror, he said,

“I`m John Dillinger … and don`t you forget it!”

 Even to the very end he still had the need to feel significant. When you are empty inside, carrying a weapon gives you an instant feeling of significance. Being quick with a cutting put down or a biting sarcastic quip gives you an instant feeling of significance. The only problem is, you can never raise your self esteem by damaging someone else’s. The people who truly feel good about themselves have no need to prove anything.

 Have you ever been involved in a group discussion were people have been vying to have their point of view heard and accepted? Where there was clearly an argument to be “won”?

 If you have the facts, and you know the person holding court hasn`t, isn`t it tempting to boost your ego and score some public points at their expense? The fact is, you don`t make yourself bigger by making others smaller. If you feel the need to win arguments and win fights to make you feel good, then there is clearly something missing.

“Why can`t you be smart like your brother?”

So if self esteem is so important, where exactly does it come from?  How you feel about yourself to a very large degree stems from how others feel about you.  You were first exposed to the notion of self esteem when you were a child.  You didn`t know it at the time, but it became clear that for you to feel good, other people were involved.  How you felt about yourself was largely determined by how your parents thought about you and more importantly, how they communicated that feeling to you. After all, what did you know about you, about life, about anything?

 Everything you knew for certain was taught to you by your parents or guardians. You had no history, no reference points, no understanding of logic. If you were told something, you just believed it as the truth. Imagine growing up listening to this,

“You are such a clumsy boy! Can`t you do anything right?”

“Why can`t you be like your brother. He is always a good boy!”

“You are such a stupid girl. You just don`t listen!”

If you were to listen to that on a regular basis, how do you think you would feel? Good about yourself? Or would you feel that you were obviously stupid or clumsy? To many people, those comments might seem fairly innocuous; just a slip of the tongue that anyone might be guilty of. After all, we are all human. Unfortunately, it is because we are human that these things happen. We often don`t think about what we are saying and very few of us consider the consequences of those words. The result is that those kind of poisonous programmes are planted at an early age and proceed to do their damage during those critical formative years.

It is said that by the time the average child reaches the age of 18 yrs. old they have heard the words, “No!” and “You can`t!” 148,000 times! Their personal belief systems about what they can and cannot do are well and truly programmed.

There was one little girl who grew up thinking her name was “Laura Dammit” because her parents had used that expression so many times when chastising her! You may remember the model and actress Paula Hamilton who became famous for advertising the Volkswagen Golf some years ago. Here was a stunningly beautiful woman who was successful and wealthy and sabotaged her success and her life by becoming addicted to drink and drugs. She once told an interviewer that she knew by the age of 4 yrs. old she would fail. What kind of childhood would create such a self fulfilling prophecy?

  If you add on to that negative programming further put downs about their behaviours and capabilities, it becomes clear why the average teenager has a well developed sense of inferiority and low self esteem. It is from then onwards that they try to compensate and attempt to achieve significance in the world through other means.

Heroes recognise where real self esteem comes from. They recognise that until you feel good about yourself for who you are, not what you have done, you cannot build real self esteem in others. Once you have slain the dragon of low self esteem, you will feel liberated and be on a quest to free others.

Think of your circle of influence? Who do you know who could benefit from a self esteem boost today? For something so small, it can have a tremendous impact.  

“It was nothing!”

An ex girlfriend of mine was shopping (one of her favourite hobbies!) and as she went to the check - out to pay, the person at the till commented upon her dress saying how great it looked. You would be amazed at what an impact that had!

An unsolicited compliment from a complete stranger. Wow! It somehow has more potency than a compliment from a good friend. After all, this person had nothing to gain from what she said. She just gave a gift to a stranger. Has that ever happened to you? Isn`t it remarkable how it makes you feel? By the way, my partner responded in the only way you should respond to a compliment, by saying “thank you”. Have you noticed that the most common response tends to be something like,

“It was nothing”

“You shouldn`t have”

“Oh, this…it`s just something I threw on!”

“Don`t mention it”

All of which are lies! If you have worked hard cooking a lovely meal for someone and they compliment you on it and you respond with a “don`t mention it”. The next time maybe they won`t! It seems to be an all too common trait of being unable to accept a well meaning compliment. If your self esteem is good enough, you accept it with thanks. 

Self Esteem Building Tips –

1.     Build your self esteem by compiling a “success log”. This is a really powerful exercise. Start by writing down everything you have ever done that you were proud of. It is important to log everything! Go back as far as you can remember. When I began compiling my “success log” I even included my cycling proficiency badge! To many people it would seem trivial, but remember, this isn`t for anyone else, this is for you! You will be amazed at how long a list you can create. Once you have started, it will keep on growing as you add to it on a regular basis. Whenever you feel the need for a self esteem boost, just look at your “Success log” to remind yourself just how good you really are!

2.     Get into the habit of regular “self praise”. Whenever you do anything well, give yourself a mental pat on the back. Don`t wait for others to do it for you.

3.     Remember to feed yourself with regular positive self talk, especially when the dragon of self doubt rears his ugly head.

4.     Learn to accept compliments

5.     Learn to give more compliments

6.     Look after yourself. It`s hard to have healthy self esteem if you look and feel unkempt and unfit.

7.     Spend as much time as possible around good, positive people.

8.     Read books that will inspire and motivate you.

Source: "Natural Born Heroes" - Brian Gibbons

Key Quote

"Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment"  - Thomas Carlyle 

If laughter is the best medicine, why wait!

The Power of Belief

The next time you`re feeling sorry for yourself and you feel like giving up on your goal or dream, or you don`t believe what you`re trying to achieve is possible..... take a few minutes out and watch this.

Quote of the day

Never, never, never give up. 
Winston Churchill 

Stop Worrying: 2 Tools That Work

Are you a worrier? Do you come from a long line of worriers? Did you have fear-filled, overprotective parents or grandparents?

Here's the good news: It's not biological. There is no "worry" gene. What it is, instead, is a learned behavior. Nurture ousting nature.

Worrying is actually a socially acceptable way of saying you live in fear of what may happen in the future. Most likely, you also lack present moment consciousness, since you cannot be here now while constantly projecting catastrophically into the future.

It is an anxiety-provoking, ingrained thought pattern that can cause a host of stress-related physical and psychological issues.

But don't worry: If you are a worrywart, there are some things you can do to get off the "What If?" highway.

Two of my favorite tools -- which help improve your ability to keep your thoughts on the present moment -- are:

1. To allot five minutes a day to worrying. If you find catastrophic thoughts creeping up at another time, remind yourself that you cannot think about these until your designated worry time. Go back to focusing on what is happening right now. (When you get to your worry time, you may not even be able to remember what it was you were worrying about earlier.)

2. Try the "Then What" exercise. Imagine the event you are concerned about actually happening, then ask yourself, "Then what?" From that point, ask "then what?" again. Keep going until you have reached the end of the questioning. Oftentimes, you will see that the fear is bigger in your mind than what could actually happen. This exercise helps create perspective. It also gives you the opportunity to see how much time you may be wasting worrying about what might happen rather than focusing on what is actually happening.

Allow yourself to step out of fear and into freedom. The only moment you are guaranteed is the one that is happening right now. When you project into the future -- and a dismal one at that -- you miss your life as it is happening and draw the misery-perception-turned-reality toward you since you are resonating on that energetic frequency. (Your mind is like a garden; what you nurture and put your attention on, grows. Why not choose to nurture what you desire rather than what you fear?)

I have been through many traumatic and scary experiences in my life, from cancer to raising teenage sons. Worrying about them would not have changed how I handled them; it would only have robbed me of moments that I cannot get back.

Worrying and preparing are two different things, so do not confuse the two. I am not saying be unprepared, I am only suggesting that ruminating on your fear fantasy does not better prepare you for anything.

Let's get honest and share -- we've all been there or are struggling still, so no need to judge or hold back your feelings. Are you an excessive worrier? What triggers your worry muscle? Are you confused by the differences between being prepared and worrying? What tools have you discovered that yank you out of future-tripping and back to the here and now?

Source: Terri Cole

Quote of the day

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength. 

Corrie Ten Boom