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Happiness Tips Nutrition

‘The China Study’ by Colin T. Campbell: A Real Eye Opener

Blog 15

by Mark Donovan

Read The China Study or don’t at your own peril, seriously. The evidence presented in this book appears as solid as any I have ever seen. Why hasn’t it led to more wide spread action? Why isn’t President Obama declaring a National State of Nutritional Emergency?

The damage being done by the nutritional crisis facing the U.S. right now is an order of magnitude greater than any other threat the country has ever faced. Cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, depression, just to name a few, can all be rendered significantly less threatening by simply making dietary and fitness changes. Simple changes. Inexpensive changes. Meanwhile we are wasting hundreds of millions trying to repair a broken medical system, half or more of which wouldn’t be needed if people consumed an optimal diet. Please read the China Study with an open mind and then try to refute it honestly if you have doubts. But remember, one drop of doubt can be more powerful than an ocean full of evidence.

Based upon research and personal experience I know that the key to optimizing my health is a combination of good nutrition and regular fitness activity. Everyone knows this to be true. So many of us don’t take it seriously. Why? Why did it take me 43 years before I realized that a plant based diet is better for my body, reduces the risk of disease (see The China Study) and is good for the environment. Why did I not exercise regularly between my 20’s and my 40’s?

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Happiness Tips

Do we see what we see or think we think what we see?

eyeI am often reading about and teaching that we ‘become what we think’. That the external world is often a reflection of what is happening in the internal world. Do you know how our eyes actually work? I am going to be super simplistic here.

A light source shines on an object. The light bounces off that object and since your eyes are facing that direction the eye (a collection of cornea’s, lenses, irus’s and pupils) lets in the light. The signal is then taken to the mind via an optic nerve, where it is ‘interpreted’. And here is the funky bit. The ‘interpretation’ is based on our core beliefs, what we have experienced and what we believe we ‘should’ be seeing. It is not based on everything that is in front of your gaze.

That is why different people see different things. Like three witnesses to an accident can give three very different descriptions of what happened.

It is also why hypnotists and some illicit drugs (that I have obviously not had personal experience with) are able to create incredible external pictures or images for the individual. The visions start in the mind, and then the ‘eyes’ see what the mind tells them to see.

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting Tip 3 – Reasons, Reasons, Reasons

Blog-8This month’s Goal Setting Tip is: The more powerful the REASON you have for achieving your goal, the easier it is to keep going, when the going gets tough. When you have just had a fall, or a setback or a rejection it is the power and size of your reasons that will have you straight back up on your feet, dusting yourself off and planning your next move.

It works like this: emotion drives behaviour. So the more emotion you have the more ‘drive’ you will have to achieve your Goals. Emotion is created by having a really compelling reason why you want to achieve something.

Here’s two scenarios to explain it further. The goal in this case is to learn to speak conversational Italian. Which of these individuals are most likely to achieve the goal the quickest?

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Happiness Tips

Are you thinking or thoughting??

thikingWould you like to understand how knowing the difference between thoughts and thinking can make a HUGE impact on your life. I am also going to show you how – regardless of the craziness of your thoughts – you can get more of the stuff that you want in life. Because it is not about your weird and crazy thoughts, it is more about your thinking.

 

Let me explain how I describe thoughts and thinking:

Thoughts

The stuff that comes and goes. Generally they come unbidden and quite often they are completely unwanted! Like the thought that ‘I am going to lose all my investments any moment now’ or ‘I bet I will fail at this’ or any number of other pictures that would be best in someone else’s head. 😉

Thinking

This is the stuff that you guide. The stuff that requires the expenditure of energy. The stuff where you have the remote control and laser pointer to make it real clear what you want to watch and then focus on.

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Happiness Tips

An incredible method on how to overcome ‘fear’

fearThe Kaizen Way: “When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement.  Seek the small improvement one day at a time.  That’s the only way it happens-and when it happens, it lasts. ” -John Wooden (American Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and as a Coach)

I just finished reading a fantastically practical book by Robert Maurer Ph.D. (a psychologist and clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine) where he talks about how to apply the ‘Kaizen Way’ to people’s lives. How to use the principles to overcome fear, achieve results and find more success in your life. Like me, you have probably heard the term ‘kaizen’ before, but not sure of what context it operates in. So let me first explain it, and then show you how you can use it to change or achieve some amazing results in your own life.

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting: Tip 2 – Are you growing

Blog-8This Goal Setting Tip by Carl Massy is: It is very important to have a goal in your life that is difficult for you to achieve and will challenge you. If you don’t have a difficult or challenging goal in your life it is possible that you will feel like you are not moving forward.

Here is why: Have you ever thought what happens to a plant that is not growing? You guessed it. It is busy dying. We, like the plants, have an inherent need to grow. If we ever feel that we are not growing, it actually gives us a sense that we are stuck or moving backwards.

The other thing about growth is that we do not grow without resistance. It is like training muscles in the gym. If you use a weight that is too small (i.e. there is little or no resistance) your muscles will not grow. Muscles – like our emotions – need resistance to grow.

So…if you don’t have a goal in your life that is stretching you, or challenging you, or making you feel uncomfortable; then it is time to start thinking about (and getting clear on) what it is that you really want, which will cause you to grow.

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Physical Activity

The easiest, smallest and most flexible exercise prop

activityI do a fair amount of travelling and depending on where I am staying the access to fitness training facilities can be a little limited. My bicycle hardly packs up nicely into my travel bag. Especially these days as you try to get all of your travel kit into a carry-on bag so you can save a few bucks on the flight and get out of the airport asap. So recently I made a more concerted effort to find the best travel prop.

And I think I have found one of the best exercise props around! It is essentially a large rubber band. Who was the genius who came up with that? I want to give them a big hug because it just made my staying in shape when I travel or am short of time, so much easier. And because they are so simple, you can come up with numerous different exercise combinations, which you will see in this very informal video that I recorded between the serious stuff (sort of) in the studio the other day.

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Goal Setting Tips

ELITE Goal Setting: Tip 1 – Being Crystal Clear

Blog-8This month’s Goal Setting Tip is: I am doing a lot of research on Goal Setting these days and so I wanted to share with you some of the best stuff that I have found. So from now on I will include a regular Goal Setting Tip. 

 

The September Goal Setting Tip is:

When you write out your Goal (and YES you do need to write your Goal out), write it as if you were going to hand your Goal statement to a subcontractor and they are going to fulfil your request.

Here is the key: Is this subcontractor going to understand exactly what you want or is it too vague for them to know where to start? Will they get the order wrong? Your Goal needs to be 100% clear so that the subcontractor (your subconscious mind and life itself) can deliver you or bring you to exactly what you want.

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Goal Setting Tips Happiness Tips Physical Activity

What are you really capable of?

trophyThis is a story. A real story. A story of trials and triumphs. It is even a story with a happy ending. And there are plenty of lessons in it we can all take away. Myself included. It is about someone – a normal every day someone – that realised that you can continue to aim big regardless of where you are in life. Best of all, it shows we are a winner, the moment we make a definite choice and then step off in the direction of that goal. The result we achieve is much less important than the feeling that we gave it ‘our best shot’.

I met Leanne over a year ago now, through a mutual friend of ours, when she was just at the point of deciding to make her ‘comeback’ and decided to use our 30-Day Happiness Challenge as a springboard. She was 39 years old and on the cusp of turning 40. She had a daughter that was just over one year old, another daughter who was six, two young step-sons, the sometimes inherent challenges of step-family life and ex-spouses and a head full of thoughts. Hardly the stage setting, you would think, for the decision to become the number 1 Water Ski Racing champion in the world. In fact most of us would think that she was about to bite off a lot more than she could fully chew…but it was George Bernard Shaw who said “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

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Happiness Tips

The lesson we all need to learn

lightbulbI am going to tell you a story, which as we know is one of the best ways to learn. In fact all the greatest orators have been great story tellers.

Now I am not implying that I am a great orator. I like to think more of myself as someone who is good at making mistakes and then not being too embarrassed to tell others about what a complete and utter dill I was at the time. Here is one of those stories where I was a bit of a dill, or what psychologists like to call the power of ‘group-think’ (not quite the same result as a ‘think tank’ or ‘mastermind group’). It all started when…

It all started at 11:30pm on 16th of August, 1969 on a pleasantly cool north Queensland night…

Sorry. I will spare you the 27 years of antics that lead us to the current story. It was 1996. I had managed to convince the Australian Army that I needed a year off (to travel the world) and that I would be diligently returning when my travels were done (and to think I tell myself that I am no good at sales pitches). So here I was in March 1996, over in Lake Louise, Canada; getting ready for a kick-arse ski adventure. I had friends whom I could stay with, free lift tickets, half-priced ski gear and I was ready to rock and roll on the slopes.

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