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consciousness Emotional Feeling Optimum Health Perspective Rest Spirituality

How I Build Grit, Resilience and Determination

Do you want to good news, or the bad news first?

I think most people generally go the bad news first, so here goes.

To my knowledge, there isn’t a PILL on the market that does this job effectively.

Bugger!

The good news is you can do this yourself.

And often, without costing you anything (financially).

However, there might be some cost in sweat and tears.

Double bugger!!

One of my favourite ways to do this is to undertake consciously contrived “challenges”.

And I find the most impactful challenges (i.e. long-term benefits), are the ones which are mostly mental.

Like the 3-day water-only fast that myself, and about 20 other adventurers did last week.

Total (mental) challenge.

By building our grit, resilience, determination and discipline muscles, it makes other challenges in our life – professional and personal – seem not that hard after all.

That is the payback.

And it keeps on giving.

Categories
Growth Meditation Nutrition Optimum Health Rest Success

8 Pieces of Advice for Smart, Busy People

Not that I own a car now.

I used to.

Now that I live in Bali, I own a scooter, but the same rule applies.

Doing maintenance on my scooter, means it continues to run well, and doesn’t let me down when I am trying to overtake a rubbish truck while going uphill.

It is essential, in my mind, to an easeful life.

And a flourishing social life. Woohoo!!

PLUS it is something that if I don’t do, makes my life way harder than it needs to be.

Likewise if I don’t take care of my health – via maintenance – I am likely to be dealing with a train wreck or health scare downstream.

I know you know this already.

But given the proliferation of confusing or bad advice (and the many distractions with shiny new things to focus on) it can be hard to know where to direct your efforts.

So I am going to share some absolute basics for maintenance and expand on the idea where necessary.

Tick these off and you are on the right path.

Categories
consciousness Emotional Growth Happiness Tips Rest

The Power of a ‘Getaway’ To(ward) Self

I am a HUGE fan of what I call “GETAWAYS“.

I just came back from one last week.

And I attribute them to being a major part of my mental health regime, my physical health regime, and from a business perspective they are creativity on steroids.

I reckon that my creativity, productivity and sheer volume of really powerful ideas for life and business are multiplied by a factor of at least 10!

A well organised and intentional GETAWAY is like a Quantum Leaping event.

They are raw POWER as opposed to sweaty and messy FORCE.

In your tool-bag of ‘Tips to help you flourish in life’, GETAWAYS are right up there.

Convinced yet?

I hope you are well on your way, BUT HERE IS THE THING…

The GETAWAYS I am talking about are not about sipping martini’s on the beach.

Those might be relaxing (until the dehydration sets in), but they have nothing on what I am talking about.

I am talking about a GETAWAY back to SELF.

Something else entirely.

(The martini’s on the beach are actually numbing yourself to feeling self; so they are very different).

The GETAWAYS I am talking about are evolutionary.

Now are you convinced?

Categories
Choice Negative Emotions Optimum Health Rest

The 6 Best Immune System Boosters

immuneIn my last newsletter post I said I was surprised that at this particular moment in time, with the whole corona virus thing going on, there has been very little (maybe none) directives coming from our government health departments about how to boost our immune systems.

Due to a lack of top down information, let me have a shot at sharing my top pick on how to tap into your body’s intelligence and healing abilities.

I know I am talking to an educated audience who already know that doing physical activity is essential for the immune system and in particular the lymphatic system, which cleans our blood and depends on movement of muscles (aka: physical activity) to function optimally.

Now let us move on to my other Top 6 immune system boosters and triggers to optimal health and vitality.
Here goes!

Categories
Choice consciousness Growth Nutrition Optimum Health Rest Self Love Stress Success

The Message I Most Want to Share

humanI was very excited about 2020.
I was thinking that it would be an amazing year of possibility and potential. It had the potential to be something truly unique, memorable and great.

Now of the list of things I thought might unfold in 2020, the idea that one of the trillions and trillions of viruses on the planet would be the main player and the world economy would be rattled significantly was not even in my Top 100. If I had a list of Top 500, it probably would not have featured there either. Maybe I am not watching enough world ending catastrophe movies!

So what has this experience taught me, and what do I most want to share, in order to be best serve people?

My role for the last 15 years – since I wrote my first Newsletter in 2005 – has been to learn as much as I could about HEALTH (physical, mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual) in order for me to digest and trial the best of the best and then pass what I have learned to others. In 2008 this joyfully became my full-time job.

I have always believed as individuals we have an incredible amount of power and untapped power to become truly remarkable human beings, who can make remarkable contributions to the people around us and the world itself (and even beyond our planet).

I have one principle message I want to speak on today, so there is a potential this Newsletter might be my shortest ever (but I have been wrong before!).

Categories
Perspective Rest Success Time

3 Simple Practices to Increase Your Productivity, Creativity and Effectiveness

waterI don’t know about you; but I like the idea of getting MORE out of LESS.

Spending less time and energy and getting bigger outputs and RESULTS.Does that sound of interest for you too? If so, you have come to the right place.

Recently I was away for a couple of nights with my business colleague on a ‘work getaway’ where we aimed to get really clear on our business initiatives, develop some creative ideas for a project and also to establish how to get the most effective results possible.I realised while I was there I was SUPER productive, creative and effective at doing the work thing and so I thought I would do a quick analysis to see what made that place experience so effective, and how could I bring that level of output back to my (home) office.

Categories
Choice consciousness Perspective Rest Success

Sustainability, Hamster Wheels, and Eating Cake

sustainabilityAs usual I like to write about the things that are most relevant or most common with the different clients I have been working with over the last few weeks.

The theme that has been most common is how to have a work / life balance, but more importantly, how they can sustain a joyful life over the long term.

It seems that everyone is in a rush. Sound familiar?

And it seems that the rushing thing is not sustainable if you actually want to enjoy your life at the same time as creating something great, or doing great or becoming great; and not fall over in a heap of fatigue, illness or burn out.

Hands up if you would actually like to enjoy this life thing more?

If you are in a rush, I am guessing that the enJOYment factor is not even close to the 10 out of 10 possibility. You are probably barely even getting a pass at 5 out of 10 on a daily basis. That sort of sucks a bit.

Categories
Gratitude Growth Rest Time

5 BIG Tips to Close Out Another Amazing Year

new yearDecember? Really?
Who teleported me to the end of 2015? Come on. Who did it? Fess up!

You have got to agree (or not ;-)). This year has flown. Well for me anyway. I have traveled to a bunch of different countries, met some amazing people, worked with some incredible game changers, had some amazingly painful lows (bags not repeating Jul / Aug 2015), and interspersed with incredible highs and growth. Probably not too dissimilar to yourself. Actually I have spoken to numerous people who had a very tough July / August this year – so if that includes you; know you were in great company. đŸ˜‰

Categories
Optimum Health Rest

Pillar 4 for Optimum Health: Rest Up (from The Guidebook to Optimum Health)

restRest up of fall downThis was actually the name of a chapter I included in The Guidebook to Happiness.The basics are this, when it comes to ‘SLEEP’:
  • The majority of the population need 7.5 – 9 hrs sleep (which means a big % of the population are sleep deprived).
  • Deep sleep, as opposed to interrupted or restless sleep, is essential for the mind to process short term to long term information (miss this and your brain will feel full, muddled and be less effective).
  • The body needs deep sleep to carry out the billions of repair and rejuvenation functions for optimum health.
  • Your body LOVES to rise with the sun and wind down when it gets dark. Go to bed earlier, so you can rise earlier. I recently interviewed Octavio Salvado (a yogi with a good Aussie name) who said rising with the sun is one of his Top 3 Happiness Tips and was a key teaching in yoga for 1000’s of years.
  • Stimulants like caffeine obviously affect most peoples depth and quality of sleep. Ease up on the caffeine later in the day.
  • To sleep better, keep to a regular routine, so the body gets used to the cycle.
Categories
Rest Stress

How to Reduce Your Stress by Over 30%

RESTJust last night I was coaching a client who experiences pretty high levels of stress, some pretty severe back pain and with a bunch of anxiety thrown in every now and again. Have you ever been down this road yourself? I know I have. And I still do occasionally, until I remind myself of what I am about to share with you now.

It’s OK

In fact, as I recently posted on Facebook, it is ok to be ok with ok. And once again… It is ok to be ok with ok.

I just wanted to leave that sit with you awhile. In the crazy world we live in, there are sometimes some really unrealistic expectations that we perform at 110% every minute of the day. We see that motivational expert or highly successful person who is on stage or on TV and ramping things up to 120% and we think, ‘If only I could be like that’. What they don’t show you is the down time that these people need either side of the ‘big performance’ so they can actually sustain the 120% when the ‘show’ is on. Or the bit where they collapse in a heap because they have not allowed their body to rest.