Brene Brown at the Up Experience 2011

Brene brings humour to her talks - and here she is talking about boundaries. Whenever we feel someone has take advantage of, we have been ripped off, or we find ourselves giving too much, it is a sure sign that we have no boundaries.



Let me know if this resonates with you!

How to Be Like the X-Men (10 Secrets to Unlocking Your Superpowers)

My name is Jim Kwik, and I love the X-Men. (In the above photo, I’m next to Hugh Jackman wearing the Wolverine shirt.)

The newest film, X-Men: Days of Future Past, is my favorite.

I love this amazing cast and the heroic characters they portray.

Just imagine having their mutant powers in the real world… What if you had laser focus like Cyclops? Could control your emotional weather  like Storm? Had the vitality and healing strength of Wolverine? Could read people like Professor X?

What is your superpower?

You have one. We all do.

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My superpower is teaching people how to learn. As the creator of Kwik Learning’s brain training programs, I’m known for my memory and ability to read quickly. But I wasn’t born with these abilities. Like many superheroes, mine started with an accident – not a bite from a radioactive bookworm – but a head injury at five years old.

This didn’t give me super-powered reading abilities, but the exact opposite. I struggled to keep up with my classmates and never felt like I fit in. In fact, I learned to read by studying the words and pictures of my favorite comic books: Spider-Man, Batman, Avengers and Fantastic Four.

But my favorite was always the X-Men. Not because they were the strongest, but because, like me, they struggled because they were different. I happened to grow up in Westchester, New York, the renowned location of the X-Men school. At 7 years old, I spent hours on my bike every weekend trying to find it.

I never did – at least, not for a few more decades.

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My academic struggles only got worse as the years went on. Upon arriving at college, I vowed to start fresh, really focus, do better and make my family proud. But instead of improving, I did worse….a lot worse.

Just as I was ready to give up, a friend invited me to clear my mind and spend the weekend with him and his family.

When I arrived at their house, his father took me for a walk on their property.

“How is school?” he asked.

Instead of smiling and saying it was fine, I broke down and told him the truth. I wasn’t smart enough, and I couldn’t work any harder. I was considering quitting.

“Why are you going to school? What would you like to eventually be, do and have?”

I had no response. But I started listing some of my dreams, writing them down at his insistence.

It was my very first bucket list.

When I finished, this man read my goals one by one. It felt like an eternity. But finally he looked directly at me, placed his two index fingers just 10 inches apart, and said…

“Jim, you are this close to everything on this list.”

Before I could tell him he was crazy, he moved his fingers to each side of my head, and whispered again, “this close.”

“Your brain controls everything in your life. It’s the key.”

He then took me back into his home, into a room unlike I’d ever seen before. It was covered in books, and he started handing me titles from every wall. My arms were filled with biographies of history’s leaders, as well as some early personal growth classics.

Panicked, I responded, “I can’t read these books. I just told you I’m overloaded with schoolwork.”

To which this man, my own Professor X, replied with a smile: “Don’t let school get in the way of your education.”

(I later learned this was a Mark Twain quote).

So after he reread my goals list to me, and I agreed to read one book a week.

I returned to school newly motivated, with desperation as my motivation, because I knew:

This was my last chance.

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I returned to school with a renewed vigor and energy. But with my new pile of reading, I now had twice the workload, and midterms were coming up. I became so focused on studying that I hardly ate or slept.

One morning, I passed out and fell down a flight of stairs at the library.

I thought I died.

I woke up two days later in a hospital bed – weak, dehydrated, 30 pounds underweight and hooked up to wires and tubes.

But a different part of me woke up too.

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The message that changed my life didn’t come from a wise kung-fu master. It came from a mug of tea a nurse brought to my hospital bed.

On the mug was a picture of Albert Einstein, along with his famous quote:

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

These words hit me like the Hulk. My problem was that I was a slow learner… but no class in school teaches you how to learn, only what to learn. Once I recovered, I spent a month reading everything I could on brain science, adult learning theory, multiple intelligence and memory. It was like a light-switch flipped. Suddenly, I could focus and remember so well I started tutoring other students.

One of my first students was a young woman determined to read 30 books in 30 days. Her mother was dying of cancer and had been given 60 days to live. This woman was desperately reading health books to save her mother’s life.

Six months later, that same woman called me. Her mother had beat the cancer, and she credited it to the knowledge she received from her daughter in those 30 days.

I realized then – if knowledge is power, learning is a superpower. In that moment, I knew I had to help people learn.

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Two decades later, that’s exactly what I do. I travel the world teaching companies, governments and institutions how to learn. Last July, my journey took me to the offices of 20th Century Fox.

As I walked through the halls to the boardroom, I was surrounded by amazing movie posters: Star Wars, Alien, Titanic, Avatar. I felt like I was 7 years old again, and I took that childlike energy into my training. It was one of the best I’ve ever done.

Afterwards, the chairman of Fox Studios took me around the sets, and I saw a movie poster for the upcoming film The Wolverine. I mentioned that I couldn’t wait to see it. 10 minutes later, I was sitting in Fox’s movie theater with a pair of 3D glasses.

When I finished, the chairman asked me what I thought. I told him it was fantastic and told him I was a huge X-Men fan and how I used to ride my bike as a child looking for their school.

“I didn’t know you liked superheroes,” he replied. “Do you want to go to Comic-Con?”

The next morning, he picked me up at the hotel. When I boarded the plane, I was stunned to find myself surrounded by the cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past.

I spent an incredible day with them at Comic-Con, and spent the next week on their movie set. I shared brain tips to the cast and crew on how to speed-read scripts and memorize lines, and I got to watch these real-life superheroes bring my childhood dreams to life.

When I arrived home, the above photo was waiting for me. Attached was a note saying, “Thank you for sharing your superpowers with us. Here’s your class photo.”

I’d finally found the X-Men school.

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My childhood dream was to live in a world of superheroes, and that dream came true. I’m not surrounded by invincible mutants who can teleport, run at the speed of sound, or shoot lasers from their eyes. But I see superheroes everyday, and you can be one too.

10 Superhero Keys to Success:

1. Know Your Superpowers.

Superheroes know their strengths and ability. They’re always discovering and developing their talents and knowledge because their next villain or challenge is never too far away. They are committed to lifelong learning.

2. Create a Superhero Team. Superheroes build strong networks of people they can trust and who compensate for their weaknesses. Successful people are rarely ‘self-made.’ Every achiever has help along the way – from friends, family, peers, customers, mentors and other superheroes.

3. Maintain a Super Attitude. Superheroes are known for their determination and positive leadership. They guard against negative thoughts and people. No matter how bad things get, successful people always have hope. They remain optimistic and work towards a better future.

4. Have an Aspiring Vision. Superheroes have a clear and compelling idea of what the future will look like. They know what they want and why they want it. Even if they don’t know exactly how to get there, they let their goals and values guide their actions and behaviors – not the other way around.

5. Take Action. Superheroes don’t wait for stuff to happen; they make stuff happen. Procrastination is the Kryptonite to progress. Pablo Picasso once said, “Action is the foundational key to all success.” Successful people act consistently and intelligently. They also act more than others, creating an almost unstoppable momentum towards their goals.

6. Get Feedback. Feedback is the breakfast of superheroes, so successful people use their senses and smarts to learn what action is working and not working. Only by measuring your results can you manage and change them in the future.

7. Be Accountable. Spiderman’s Uncle Ben once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Superheroes rarely blame others for their circumstances. They accept responsibility for their actions and situation. When successful people screw up, they admit their mistakes and fix them.

8. Be Mindful. Superheroes live in the present because if they’re not at the top of their game, they put lives at stake. Successful people don’t ruin a good today by thinking about a bad yesterday. This also means they’re not distracted by useless pursuits – they know what’s important and prioritize accordingly.

9. Have High Standards. Have you ever considered the difference between thermometers and thermostats? Thermometers react to and are influenced by the environment, while thermostats set standards that the environment adapts to. Superheroes are thermostats. They have high standards for what’s most important to them – their bodies, careers and relationships, and refuse to settle for anything less.

10. Make a Difference. Just as superheroes use their powers for good in both small and large ways, successful people contribute beyond themselves. Successful people think “we,” not “me.” They know to give more value than they receive in everyday situations. They do well by doing good.

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The world loves superheroes.

We seek them out, they give us hope, while inspiring us to step into a greater version of ourselves.

And they show us, in no uncertain terms, that one person CAN make a difference, no matter the odds.

In the best case, superheroes are role models for standing tall, dealing with adversity, finding meaning in loss, developing abilities to serve others and turning struggles into our strength.

That’s why I want to help you find the superhero in you.

And you can start by mastering your brain.

By Jim Kwik

SOURCE

How to Activate Self Healing

Click here for the full video

It happened again.

You got excited about creating a habit, whether it was exercise, meditation, developing a new skill, or something else altogether, did a bunch of work for a few weeks and it just….didn’t work out.

We know it’s hard to stick to new habits, but the question of why is much harder to answer. The thing is, there’s a certain “resistance” we experience when attempting to set new and especially wholesome habits. This resistance is the pain that we associate with carrying out the task now and it overshadows any feeling of pleasure we’ll get in the future.

But by utilizing a principle I refer to as the path of least resistance you can make it much easier to set new positive habits by placing the odds in your favor.

How to Develop Habits with Greater Ease Using the Path of Least Resistance

Let go of your old tired habits and plant new habits in fertile soil.

– Harley King

Why is it hard to stick to new habits? There are various factors, but a large part of that comes down to one word: resistance.

When you get home from a long day at work, and you have the choice of either working out or sitting down and lounging on your couch, do you know why you sit down to relax instead of working out? Mentally, it feels much easier to just sit down and lounge around than it does to get up and work out.

You’re already at home and your favorite device or TV controller is likely on you or within feet of you. All you have to do is pick up said device and your job is done. It’s vegetable time. In contrast, if you’re like most people, to work out requires you get your workout clothes, grab water, put everything into your bag, get your keys, and drive to the gym. In that case, what are you more likely to do? Sit and lounge around. This is the path of least resistance in action and it’s our natural pattern of behavior.

We naturally lean towards the action which takes the least amount of energy. Whatever is easiest to us in any given moment will naturally have a “pulling” effect on us that is difficult to resist. However, this isn’t something you have to be held prisoner to. The path of least resistance can be placed in your favor as well if you work it right.

How to use the path of least resistance

To utilize the path of least resistance, we have to look at what causes this sense of pain and the resistance in the first place. Going back to our example, if instead of arriving at home to be confronted with the decision to lounge or workout you got your workout stuff together in the morning and threw it in the car as you left for work, it would be a much different story.

In that case, what would be easier? Drive home to lounge around or drive straight to the gym to workout? Obviously, you haven’t removed all the resistance involved in getting yourself to go work out, but you definitely have removed a lot of the pain involved when thinking about it. With your workout gear already conveniently in your car, you’re far more likely to take action on your goal.

There are many ways you can utilize the path of least resistance, but it ultimately depends on what the action involves. Here are a few general tips that will help you take full advantage of this powerful principle:

1. Bring it closer

This is all about physical proximity. Whatever it is, move it closer to you. The best example of this is in the case of exercise. Remember your workout gear? Bringing it from your home to your car, given the fact that the example was about working out after you get off of work, helps immensely.

Alternatively, if you’re working out in the morning then prep your gear the night before and either place it in your car or right beside your bed (even consider sleeping in your workout gear if that helps).

2. Reduce the time to complete the task

Is the idea of meditating for thirty minutes providing resistance? What about five minutes? Think about it. See the difference? You’ll be more likely to get yourself up to meditate in the morning if you commit to just five minutes as opposed to an hour. And a neat little secret? Once you get yourself going you’ll want to keep going for the full half-hour, so this is really just to help get you moving and passed that resistance point.

3. Simplify the action

Sometimes, it’s the complication of the action itself that keeps you from doing it. Often, when you have a ton of work to do for something all you want to do is run from it and act like it’s not there. In this case, try to find a way to simplify the process down to its essential principles and, if possible, remove what isn’t necessary.

4. Complicate and distance yourself from distractions

On the flip side, you’ll want to do all of the same things as the above, but the opposite, for any potential distractions. That means distance yourself physically from distractions, make it harder to reach them, make it more complicated to use or do them, and generally anything else that will make the process of using or doing them more difficult.

Examples include hiding your T.V. controller, deleting apps on your smartphone that tend to distract you, and blocking certain websites on your browser when you’re on your computer.

Creating new positive habits can be difficult regardless, but by fully utilizing the path of least resistance you can create an environment that places the odds in your favor, making it easier to take action on your goals and more difficult to become distracted and thrown off course.

If you’ve made it this far and you’re craving a transformation of your own, we can help you get there.

Jumpstart your personal transformation and get on track to build your best life with Goalcast’s new inspirational ebook, Explore Your Potential: Start the Journey to Your Dream Life.

Transformation doesn’t just happen. It takes a plan and a support system. This how-to guide is full of the top wisdom, tips, exercises, and success stories to inspire an old dream or create a new one.

By Matt Valentine 

SOURCE

5 Ancient Tibetan Exercises You Need To Be Doing Every Day To Stay Young And Healthy

For over 2,000 years, Tibetans have done these 5 exercises, sometimes called rites. Now, they've been made available to us in the west, and I gotta say, I'm pretty happy about it.

The 5 rites slows the aging system, gives you a boost of energy, creates incredible clarity and mental focus, improves your immune function, and tones the body.

Exercise in the morning is an important thing to do. It gets your day started off right and maximizes the benefits of exercise.

These exercises are simple to do. You don't have to be super fit in order to do them, but we do encourage you to talk to your physician before taking on any new exercise regimen, particularly if you have back, neck, and spinal issues.

Never force your body to do something that feels uncomfortable.

How to Find Your True Purpose in Life | Jack Canfield

Big fan of Jack Canfield - if like me you have spent a life time searching for purpose, it may be that you just focus on what is going on in the now. The future will present itself to you at the right time and place.

The Paradox of Choice

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