Life 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[winston]

Abraham: Perfect life

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1) Life is about living and enjoying
2) Wanting without doubt

[winston]

Mistakes: Friend Or Foe? by Mike Brescia

"Life is very interesting, if you make mistakes."
-Georges Carpentier

"If I make a mistake during this task, what's the worst that could happen? What's the best?"

This is a sticky subject...

Fear of making a mistake is often the last thing you feel just before you start to do something really cool; and it stops most people dead in their tracks.

As usual, I'm not putting myself above this. I'll point out that for what is still more than half my life, I was dominated by fear. Fear of mistakes. Fear of looking like a fool. Fear of failure and success.

One of the most ludicrous situations I can recall where I was afraid of appearing stupid was in Junior High School. I was told by no less than a half dozen friends that a certain girl, who I did like very much, wanted me to ask her to the upcoming Saturday night dance. It was very obvious that she liked me.

I planned to ask her as soon as I could muster up the courage.

Well, I waited and waited...

Pretty soon, it's Friday afternoon. The last class of the day let out and everyone was making a mad dash for the buses to go home for the weekend. And she just "happened by" my locker.

Here was my chance...

A few seconds of small talk and I finally start, "Would you like to, um..."

And that was all I could get out. She waited for what seemed like a minute without me saying another word.

Thankfully, she helped me out, "...go to the dance?"

What a relief! I said, "Yes!"

"I'd love to," she said.

Happily, my fear of women subsided somewhat over the years, but it was just one more pattern that kept me from enjoying a normal part of life that we can all experience if we just stop being so "self" conscious.

Part of my growth was due to my new passion for reading self help books in my early twenties. Failure and poverty was starting to get old. I then started to learn what makes us humans tick. Common themes ran through many of these works.

One recurring and potent suggestion I recall as sticking out was simply doing what you fear.

How could this help?

Well, as simple as it sounds, if you do what you fear enough times, you'll find that there is nothing to fear. You'll become comfortable doing it. The thing you feared will soon become routine.

End of story.

I found out that girls didn't hold any special power over me. I learned that making mistakes actually gave me more opportunities to learn and gain proficiency... and that most mistakes weren't going to kill me.

But a HUGE lesson in life (and make a note of this because it's profound) I learned was that I could learn more from other people's mistakes than I even had time to make myself...

... if I paid attention.

I know. "Duh!"

But in the last 14 years, I have been able to succeed in business to a degree I never even dreamed of because my competitors (and most everyone else) don't do this.

If you keep your eyes open, each day can teach you dozens and even hundreds of important lessons that you CAN use.

Think about it. Do you need to get hit before you learn not to step in front of a moving vehicle?

Every second of every day provides you with lessons...

...If you have your eyes and ears open to them.

Watch and listen to other people. Pay attention to what causes the failure and success of others in even the most tiny of situations.

This little used but powerful habit can erase most of your fears, give you a feeling of power and put you in control of your emotions in just about any situation.

Watch. Listen. Learn.

Every minute.

Live life. Have fun. But take your blinders off.
There's a lot going on around you every minute that can teach you about how to eliminate fear of making mistakes.

Mistakes are a part of life. Don't just accept thattruth. Embrace it, and your life will be a whole lot happier and filled with accomplishment.

Remember, the people who are laughing at you as you're falling down are pointing at you to keep people from looking at them!

[winston]

Striking Out? Bat a Successful Homerun in LifeBy Joan Marie Whelan

If you’ve honestly tried to reach your goals in life and have failed, then you need to take a long look at the game plan you've been using. Sometimes you have to adjust your footing so you can gain better traction in where you are right now and where you want to lead your life.

Nobody wants to strike out when it’s their turn to bat. That's why you must challenge yourself to strive to do better, achieve more, and transform your lifestyle. When you review your game plan, you should use your essential tools for living to get a firm grip on your metaphorical batting range. In addition, you have to take an extensive look at how far you are willing to run in order to achieve your heart’s desires.

There are a few key areas in your life on which you have to focus in order to prepare yourself to hit your homerun to success. Following is a powerful guideline to recreate your lifestyle and fulfill your life’s dreams:

Re-define Your Strengths

Many times, we beat ourselves up to the point that we forget the inner strength we possess, and what vital life tools we have at our disposal. You have to retreat within and redefine your frame of mind so you can really get to the root basis of what’s causing you to strike out when you’re on home plate.

You know that you can achieve your goals because you can savor the victory that awaits you. The drawback is that every time you’re up to bat, you get ousted by the umpire because you haven’t been quite able to hit the pitch out of the ballpark. But let's level the playing field -- you already possess the physical stamina to meet life demands; so you know that you are essentially equipped to get where you need to be going. What you must do now is realign your mind, body, and spirit so these vital senses can work together to create an extraordinary lifestyle for yourself.

Some of the inner strengths that individuals have include inner wisdom (or intuition), a blueprint for living, and the mental ability to transform life. The external forces that safeguard our lives are the Universal flow of energy and our God source. Talking in baseball terms in relation to life, the umpire calls the shots with regard to which plays are actually scored. Whether it's a foul ball, an out, or a homerun, the umpire is the source that lets you know where you stand in the game of life. Let's suppose that the umpire is the Universal flow of energy. When you’re at a point in your life where you've been jolted by your own blunders, it's because the metaphorical umpire is calling you on them.

As mentioned earlier, when you balance your mind, body, and spirit, and begin working with the Universal flow of energy, you are steps closer to realizing your life dreams.

Go ahead and reward yourself by taking the initiative to get a unique perspective on how to reach your goals. Sometimes, we have to take a step back and view life through a fresh pair of eyes and at a new angle. Next, let's review your blueprint for living. Within the soul being of each one of us, exists an in-depth map to fulfilling life purpose. When you look beyond your physical capabilities, trends, and hurdles; you need to ask your higher self what steps are necessary to achieve success.

A growing number of people use meditation, which is a powerful mind tool toward channeling inner wisdom for greater purpose. Your God source is also a fundamental supply that can lend support to you in your efforts. That’s why a lot of individuals frequently turn to prayer for guidance, direction, and insight. By facilitating these intuitive mental tools, you are well on your way toward hitting a homerun and receiving life’s blessings.

Become the Leader of your Life

Okay, you’ve made it to home plate again and you’re ready to take charge of your life. Like every clever team player, you pay attention to the signals that the pitcher (or your God source) is sending. Also in consideration are the elements of your environment -- the stadium, the crowd, the score, the turf, and who’s on base. Again, you have to level the playing field to your best advantage. You know the pros of the situation, and you’ve considered all your options. Do you walk the ball, take a pitch hit, or do you knock it out of the ball park? Remember, you are the leader of your life and the leader of your destiny -- what you do with your tools for success is equally as essential as fulfilling your life destiny. At this point, you have to make a strategic plan to counterbalance any negative aspects. Think, plan, and keep your eye on the ball. Whatever you do, always focus on your goals. When you decide that you are in control of your life and you are ready to manifest success, not only will you score one for the team, but victory will follow you wherever you go.

Until we speak again, I am

Joan Marie the Gift, Intuition Girl

[winston]

The Mysterium Tremendum... and You by Alexander Green

Last night I listened to a lecture by physicist Lawrence Krauss and was dismayed to hear his comments on scientific literacy in this country.

For example, when asked a straightforward true/false question about whether the earth revolves around the sun and takes one year to do so, half of respondents polled consistently get it wrong.

As an amateur astronomer (10-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain, for kindred spirits), I find this distressing. Too many of us know next to nothing about the universe we live in.

If your neighbor doesn't know the earth revolves around the sun, he probably isn't aware that our planet is spinning on its axis at over 1,000 miles per hour and traveling through space at 67,000 miles per hour, covering over a million and a half miles a day.

He's even less likely to know that the sun itself - and its retinue of planets - is orbiting the center of the Milky Way galaxy at a hair-raising 558,000 miles per hour.

We're just hitchhikers on for a brief ride. Even at this speed, the sun takes approximately 225 million years to complete a single revolution.

Why so long? Because the Milky Way is bigger than our brains can imagine. Light, traveling 186,000 miles per second, takes 100,000 years to cross our galaxy.

Moreover, the Milky Way itself is traveling at roughly 660,000 miles per hour (and you wonder why you always feel rushed), gravitationally attracted to the Virgo cluster of galaxies. The Virgo Supercluster, in turn, is attracted to an even larger assembly of galaxies, the Great Attractor.

(Just so we're on the same page, the Great Attractor is a gravitation anomaly in intergalactic space, not Angelina Jolie.)

Like most galaxies, the Milky Way is mostly empty space. But it is home to over 200 billion stars. These stars, of course, are simply other suns. Every galaxy has billions of suns. And a recent Hubble Space Telescope image indicates there are over 240 billion galaxies in the visible universe.

The next time you go outside and look up at the twinkling lights - assuming you don't live near Broadway and 52nd - consider that there are more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on all the beaches on earth. (Billions and billions, indeed.)

Earth itself is orbiting a fairly ordinary star, a medium-size yellow dwarf. Beginning in October 1995, however, astronomers began discovering planets outside our solar system orbiting other stars. So far 313 of these "extrasolar" planets have been discovered, leading scientists to conclude that there are probably hundreds of billions - if not trillions - of planets out there.

Do any of them contain life? No one knows. But if extraterrestrial life exists, it is almost certainly weirder than anything having a drink at the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars.

(As the English Astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington famously said, "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.")

Cosmologists estimate the universe is 156 billion light-years wide and 13.7 billion years old. How do they know these things? Through reason, evidence, and experimentation. Or, more specifically, by observing and measuring the redshifts of galaxies, the abundance of light elements, and the cosmic background radiation in the heavens.

Much about the universe remains beyond human comprehension, however. As H.L. Mencken said, "Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits, nevertheless, calmly licking its chops."

When asked what happened before the Big Bang, for example, physicist Stephen Hawking replies that the question is tantamount to asking "what lies north of the north pole?"

Some things we just don't know - and likely never will.

Yet it's worth remembering that everyone who lived and died before the 20th century never had good answers to these big questions about the universe. They looked up at night and wondered. They speculated. They told each other myths. But they didn't know.

Yet now that science has finally got it right, millions haven't bothered to learn.

Richard Dawkins, the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, writes that, "After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"

The men and women who have visited space certainly have strong opinions on the subject. Many describe it as a near-mystical experience.

Astronaut James Irwin said, "The earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man..."

After returning from the moon, Neil Armstrong said, "I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine."

Space exploration has much to offer us, the earthbound majority. It inspires us. It teaches us brotherhood and humility. It reveals the connection between us and everything else that exists, reminding us of our place in the tapestry of creation. It provides us with a sense of wonder, a feeling of awe.

In fact, much of what we understand about the cosmos dovetails with Rudolph Otto's characteristics of religious experience: the holy; the sacred; gratitude and oblation; thanksgiving; awe before the mysterium tremendum; the sense of the divine; the ineffable; the quality of exaltedness and sublimity; powerlessness; the impulse to surrender and to kneel; a sense of the eternal; fusion with the universe as a whole.

These experiences are open to anyone who looks up at night, believers and non-believers alike.

In "Pale Blue Dot," astronomer Carl Sagan writes:

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and, I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

[winston]

You Can't Fake Character by Mike Brescia

"A man's reputation is the opinion people have of him, but his character is what he really is."
--Jack Miner

"What do I really want my life to be about?"

I'm glad you're here.

I've been training and helping people for what seems so long now that I forget sometimes that these letters go out to people in all situations... From multiple PhD's to night clerks at run down motels to people whose only computer is at the YMCA where they shower.

Regardless of where you are, do you really want to be there?

I mean, I used to work seven days a week constantly in pursuit of the dollar, and after some time I just stopped, caught my breath and said, "What do I want to do with my life? If I could do anything I wanted, what would it be?" Chasing money was unrewarding. I earned money but life was getting away. Friends were having fun experiences and I was working.

I know, you're thinking about the stories that I tell about my records and accomplishments. And they're true, but more than what you get from your achievements must be what you become.

It must be... or you're living a life without meaning.

Like you, I've known so many people who lie, cheat and steal and justify it with every ridiculous argument possible. "I'm no worse than anyone else," I hear. "So what", "I can't help it."

Does donating money or volunteering make you feel good?
Super.

But in your life every day, what jazzes you? Figure it out and do more of it.

It comes down not to values, but character. You can value some pretty off the wall stuff... But character is like a classic suit. Everyone agrees on it. It's what people admire.

And you don't have to be wealthy or connected.

You just need a set of guiding principles. I'd recommend reading 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.' If you're not a book reader, get the 6 tape program from Nightingale-Conant. And listen to it again and again. You can't imagine what you'll be exposed to. It's like God talking to you.

If you know what you stand for, if you don't feel hate or fear of everyone that's different than you then you're in a good place, so far.

If those characteristics don't describe you, then take a drive and spend some time alone and just be quiet. Ask yourself what it is that you want to spend the rest of your life doing.

What is your life to mean?

For me, it was helping people. As many of you know, I came from as far down as you could be without living behind bars. But it was a prison in my mind. I had nothing. No hope. I had failed so many times that it was just a foregone conclusion that life was going to be fast, wild and probably short...

And then I read 'Superlearning' and 'The Greatest Salesman in the World.' That led me to developing the first audio tapes that ultimately led to founding Think Right Now! International.

A 180 degree change almost overnight.

That's the type of question I'm asking you to ask yourself. What legacy do you want to leave?

If you ask you shall get an answer.

Take that answer and use it to guide your every day.

[winston]

Fear Is Not The Enemy By Jacqueline Wales

The dictionary defines Fear as: a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.

The Christian Bible contains the directive ‘do not fear’ over two hundred times. The Hebrew Bible’s most repeated commandment is al tirah, ‘be not afraid’. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous calls it ‘an evil and corroding thread’ that weaves its way through our lives.

But fear is one of the most powerful motivating forces in the human experience. It is our clarion call. The signal that there is something we need to change in order to live a completely fulfilled life. Honoring this feeling is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

How many of us would choose to experience fear on a frequent basis? On a menu of emotions, who would select fear as their favorite flavor? In fact, who among us wouldn’t go to great lengths to protect our loved ones from being trapped by this unsettling sensation? All of us know that fear is alarming, abrasive, unpleasant, and painful.

Fear is essentially a lack of belief in our ability to handle whatever comes our way. It is a fundamental lack of trust in You.

But Fear is also a basic fact of nature. Whenever we enter unfamiliar territory, we experience it. But knowing what it is and doing something about it is the difference between allowing it to control us, or controlling our reaction to it.

Fear is both instinctual and life saving. When it is kept in its rightful place, fear is actually a vital part of the human experience. In the case of an imminent attack, fear is our body’s alarm, telling us ‘There is danger here! Hide! Run! Fight back! Get help!’ The action needed is decided by a quick evaluation of the circumstances.

The jaguar tenses his body and fixes his gaze upon you from the branch overhead. A low growl rumbles from his throat and he bares his teeth for a fleeting instant. Your heart is pounding, your palms are sweaty, your mouth is dry, and your mind is racing a thousand words a second trying to figure out the best course of action. There is nothing else happening in the world except this. All your muscles are tense. Should you run, or is there something else you can do to make this go away?

Your body is efficiently launching into its ‘fight or flight’ reaction. Each aspect of this physiological event has its basis in preparing your body for combat or the quickest escape route. This reaction may be valuable to people actually encountering savage animals in the jungle. In our daily life, this magical trick doesn’t really help us much.

Instantly, when the fear alarm rings, our body prepares for the fight or flight reaction. It is actually quite fascinating, when you are not the one experiencing the overwhelming sensations. Blood immediately rushes to the core of the body, to dedicate its energy to the large muscles, leaving hands and feet cold. The heart pounds more quickly, in preparation for the physical exertion. Adrenaline courses through your body to provide a jolt of needed energy. Digestion shuts down and the body empties itself so you can run faster. Your mind drops focus on any other activity, to keep your attention directly on the matter at hand. This all makes perfect sense if you need to fight off an attack or flee from an enemy—it’s an amazing feature of this human body!

However, for many of us, fear has a warped place of prominence in our lives. In order to meet life’s demands and leap into our greatest dreams, we need to learn the real purpose of fear, where it has gone awry in our lives, and how we can direct it toward our future success.

Regrettably, fear does not just strike us when there is something life threatening, it can happen when entering a job interview or starting a new relationship. There are also innumerable versions of intense fear that that is attached to specific items or experiences-- phobias of certain things like spiders, airplanes, dogs, public speaking. Phobic reactions put your mind on steroids, multiplying the physical reaction times a million. At any given moment, this can be alarming, embarrassing, and absolutely crippling.

If you have too much fear stimulus, or if your life is filled with dangerous situations, our alarm goes haywire. It may sound constantly, or it might go off intermittently and at inappropriate times. But eventually, you can also reach a place where the alarm bells are no longer ringing. Fear has simply become a constant part of your life. One tragic aspect of a broken danger alarm is that it may not go off when it should. What if your home’s fire alarm ignored smoke and flame, but rang wildly whenever you started the dishwasher? Many of us live with internal alarms that are just as broken.

We all know people who enter one dangerous situation after another, with no notice of the hideous consequences coming their way. It seems their alarm has been warped to the other extreme. They don’t recognize obvious danger, but are terrified of everyday situations that develop into phobias. Anyone can see the insanity of a woman who writes letters to prison inmates but is afraid to ride the city bus; many of us exist in varying degrees with that same paradox. Perhaps we let fear stop us from applying for a new job--yet we don’t register any fear when driving without our seatbelt, applying for another credit card, or giving an abusive husband one more chance.

Fear helps us to avoid suffering. If you feel afraid when you walk near the edge of a cliff, perhaps you will instead stay a safe distance back from the precipice. If fear strikes when you feel a fire’s heat, hopefully you will position yourself away from the flames. Applying this to social situations, if you have been shamed by someone important in your life, you may avoid or sabotage friendships. If you were abused in any way, you learn not to trust. No one wants pain, discomfort, embarrassment, humiliation or rejection, so we create all kinds of reasons in our minds why we can’t go into a particular situation in order to avoid the consequences.

Remember, these are the stories we tell ourselves. These are the stories that you inherited from your parents, or other significant people in your life. These are the stories you told yourself in order to avoid being hurt and disappointed. These are the stories that no longer serve you. These are the habits you have created in your life.

In the jungle, you may occasionally discover quicksand. And by discover, I mean you may step into it and feel yourself lose your footing. This is our fear showing up. Quicksand is simply sand that is so full of water that it is colloidal—a solid and a liquid at the same time. It is not as dense as sand and cannot hold weight. But, since it is so much denser than water, it is very buoyant. If you fall in, the worst thing you can do is to start madly flailing about and fighting to survive. Struggle only worsens your chance of survival. You’ve seen it numerous times in the movies as people disappear into its bowels. It keeps you stuck and pulls you down.

The funny part, the amazing truth about quicksand, is that you can float if you would just relax. Quicksand is not alive, it is not attacking you, and it doesn’t care if you drown hideously, avoid it altogether, or simply float up and wriggle across the surface, leaving with your pockets full of sludge. If you know about quicksand; if you accept that it exists in the jungle and keep an eye out for it; if you realize it is merely a geological phenomenon and not a crazed creature trying to suck you under and destroy you; if you are trained in how to deal with quicksand encounters, it is just a part of life. It loses its terrifying place as a super-villain, the jungle becomes a lot less frightening, and your ability to navigate your surroundings has increased exponentially.

Fear is quicksand. We can stop thrashing about in it, and learn how to maneuver through it. The question posed to me is always “How? How do you do that?” There is no quick answer or magical incantation. It is a process, but it is a very positive experience that will feed your soul and your heart. Ride the wave of withdrawal and see how much easier it is to transform the discomfort to curiosity. Where is this taking me next?

Just like quicksand, there is much to learn about fear. There are steps to take to learn to identify it, discover its origin, avoid leaping into it, and survive it when it crosses our path, and build confidence by practicing our new survival skills over and over again.

For further information on getting past the fears go to www.fearlessfifties.com and check out the 10 Secrets to Taking Fear Out of Your life.

[winston]

Seeing Life through Gratitude Glasses - By Lori Radun ***

Your boss calls you in his office today and hands you a $2,500.00 bonus check because the company had a good year. Are you thankful?

You go in for your 20-week ultrasound. As you watch your growing baby on the screen, the doctor informs you that everything looks great. Your baby boy is healthy. Are you thankful?

Your husband comes home with a dozen roses. He remembered your anniversary! Are you thankful?

Of course you are. It's easy to be thankful when everything is going great. When we're on top of the mountain, and we're having a beautiful day and our blessings are easy to see, we are thankful. And we should be.

As you sit across from your attorney, he informs you that bankruptcy is your only recourse. Your dream and your business are going down the tubes. Are you thankful?

You and your husband have been going through a rough time in your marriage for over two years. You barely speak to one another anymore. Are you thankful?

If you answered yes to these last two scenarios, you are way ahead of most people. It is not easy to be thankful when we're sitting in the valley. When life seems to be handing us a bunch of lemons, we usually feel bitter or victimized.

Let's assume there is a new product out on the market. You can pick up a pair of "gratitude glasses" at Target for $19.99. These glasses enable you to see life in a whole different way. Here are some of the benefits you can expect from these "gratitude glasses":

* There are no problems.
With these glasses, you have no problems in your life. Everything in your life is an opportunity. When we perceive life through our fears, unpaid bills and conflict, for instance, become problems or challenges. However, these glasses enable us to see life with loving eyes. The unpaid bills are an opportunity to learn more about financial responsibility. Conflict is an opportunity to learn how to love more deeply.

* There are no mistakes.
With the gratitude glasses, mistakes disappear. These glasses help us understand that we are doing the best we can at any given moment, and so is everyone else. We all make decisions based on who we are at the time. Instead of viewing choices as "mistakes," why not look at them as an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and other people?

* There are no annoying people.
Put on the gratitude glasses and suddenly all the annoying people in your life become your friends. You've heard the saying, "Mean people need love." Your new glasses now give you the ability to release your anger and understand the annoying people on a much deeper level. You begin to appreciate your differences and the judgments disappear. Your love begins to transform not only you, but others as well.

* Change is good.
You pick up your gratitude glasses and put them on, and suddenly you embrace change. You are thankful that life does not always happen as planned. You stop trying to control life, and instead let life unfold. Change is exciting, fear of the unknown is gone, and you can't wait to see what happens next. Your faith is strong and unstoppable.

* Pain has a purpose.
Whether it is physical or emotional pain, it's hard to go through life without experiencing it. But with your gratitude glasses, you see that your pain has a purpose. Your physical pain tells you that something in your mind or body is not working well. Your emotional pain is a wake-up call to the transformation that is possible. Without the valleys, we cannot appreciate the mountain tops.

These inexpensive "gratitude glasses" offer so many more benefits, but what if you only received these five advantages? Would you purchase the glasses? Would you wear your gratitude glasses all the time? What if I told you the glasses were yours for free? All you have to do is shift your energy by changing your thoughts.

When we allow ourselves to wallow in victim and fighting thoughts, our brains release catabolic hormones that are destructive to our entire physical system, and ultimately, our success. By wearing your "gratitude glasses," you shift your thoughts to positive and constructive ones. Thinking thoughts of thankfulness and love makes an energetic shift in your mind and body, and the results will be astonishing.

A life coach just gave you a different way to look at life. Are you thankful?

[winston]

Whenever you're trying to understand anything that is as huge as all of the Universe, or as huge as all eternity, all you have to do is bring it back to something simple that you do understand, and ask the questions and apply them.

And then you can understand the Whole. Everything that's true of the Whole is true of the individual.

Excerpted from a workshop in Tucson, AZ on Tuesday, February 20th, 2001

All Is Well

[winston]

How to Use the Elections to Tune Yourself to Your Essence By Rebbie Straubing, the Official Guide to Spiritual Healing

The U.S. presidential elections give us a rare opportunity to become masterful deliberate creators.

The rivaling campaigns are loud and clear and regardless of which candidate you prefer, you can use this rare moment to polish your human instrument and tune yourself to your essence.

YOFA Listening

This is one of the most fruitful times you will ever encounter to apply your YOFA listening practice.

Here is how you do it.

Use this when listening to friends and foes alike. Use this when listening to yourself.

And now, use this when listening to the candidates.

1 – Acknowledge that every human being has a dual nature:

a- We all have a Divine spark which provides and essential stream of pure consciousness running thorough us. This aspect is innately loving, wise, and joyful.

b- We all have the limited perspective of our human personality. This aspect can be allowing of the flow or resistant to it. This aspect can experience pain and suffering due to its limited understanding of its circumstances.

2 – Look for, recognize, and honor the Divine aspect in everyone you encounter including yourself.

3 – Have compassion for the suffering of the human aspect (when you notice it) in everyone you encounter including yourself.

When you can authentically apply this listening practice to the candidates of both sides, you add huge power to your vote for your preferred candidate. By removing the vilification of the other candidate from your consciousness, you remove resistance from your mix. Your vote becomes not only part of the tally, but a vibrational vote for what you truly want for this country.

With your vibrational vote, you not only influence who wins the election, but you influence the outcomes of the actions of whoever does take office toward the fulfillment of your ideals for our country.

You also tune yourself to the love, joy, and wisdom that your Divine spark is always flowing within your human instrument.

[winston]

The Most Valuable Thing You Own by Alexander Green

Many years ago I worked for a man who is perhaps the most charismatic individual I've ever known.

He was successful in business, gracious, funny, generous, and smart. He was thoughtful too, always inquiring about my family or how things were going.

He was wealthy, well educated and well traveled. Whenever you bumped into him, it seemed, he was returning from some exotic trip where he had rubbed elbows with Oprah Winfrey or Tom Cruise.

He impressed men. He charmed women. Everyone wanted to be like him. There was only one drawback.

You couldn't always trust him.

I'm not suggesting he was a thief or a crook. He wasn't. But he had personal credibility issues.

He would tell you he was going to do something and not follow through. His stories were often so exaggerated that they bore little relationship to reality.

And if the measure of the man is in small matters, he often came up short. For instance, he would sometimes invite a group of us to his private club for a round of golf. He would pick up the tab for everyone's greens fees, cart fees, lunch and drinks. And then cheat like the dickens to win the five-dollar Nassau we were playing.

It was ridiculous.

Over time these ethical lapses affected his business. He never broke contracts or the law. But he operated in grey areas, sometimes treating long-time employees shabbily or using hardball tactics to get his way with business partners.

Eventually, I had a falling out with him and left the company. Looking back I still shake my head. He was such a great guy in so many ways. Yet no matter what someone has going for him in the plus column, nothing compensates for a lack of personal integrity.

In the world of personal and business relationships, reputation is everything. In some ways, it is the most valuable thing you own.

"Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson two centuries ago.

Reputations, of course, aren't always entirely accurate. But they are a necessary shortcut. It takes time - sometimes years - to truly know someone's character. Decisions and judgments must often be made much sooner. So we depend on reputations.

Whether you're making a new friend or business contact, seeking a new love-interest or applying for a new job, nothing can help or hurt your prospects more than your reputation.

In a sense, your reputation is your ambassador. Every day it is out there circulating, knocking on doors, joining in conversations, arriving well before you do and paving the way - for good or ill.

Your reputation affects the way the world perceives and interprets much of what you do. A couple hundred years ago, a man would challenge another to a duel if he felt his integrity had been insulted. Reputation was beyond value. A serious slight could not be allowed to stand.

In reality, of course, your reputation is only what others imagine you are. Your character is what you truly are. In my experience, however, long-standing reputations are generally pretty accurate - and good ones are almost impossible to manufacture. People are too smart for that.

As Emerson said, "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."

Our deeds define us, not our words. If we wish to burnish our reputation, we have to work on our character. Not a bad idea, either. This is an area, if we are honest with ourselves, where we all could use a little home improvement.

Building character means taking responsibility, being accountable and treating others with fairness and respect, especially those who can do nothing for us in return.

Even then, reputations are built painstakingly, one step at a time. That's why we should never participate in malicious gossip. You don't want to inflict unwarranted damage on someone else's reputation.

And no one ever raised his own reputation by lowering someone else's. Quite the opposite, in fact. As the German writer Jean Paul Richter observed, "A man never discloses his character so clearly as when he describes another's."

Every day, without being consciously aware of it, each of us is enhancing or diminishing our reputation through our actions. Those actions, in turn, are determined by the quality of our thoughts.

As Charles Reader famously said, "Sow a thought, and you reap an act; sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny."

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus was pithier. He simply said that character is destiny. His words are as true today as when he wrote them 2,500 years ago.

Our destiny is fixed when we hold ourselves to a higher standard, follow the dictates of conscience, and do the right thing - especially when another path would be so much easier.

Or, as investor Warren Buffett once remarked, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."