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The obstacle to a life less limiting - FEAR
FIND IT
Identify the source as it is learned. Close observation of a young child will prove that fear isnt a natural part of their make up.
FEEL IT
Negative patterns are inevitably integrated from your outside environment. On identifying the source you may feel a certain frustration towards them. Remember people do the best they can with the programme they have. They were sharing this advice believing in its wisdom. So forgive and move on.
FLOOR IT
Only one way - choosing differently in the future. So when a risk situation raises it head in the future and your inner voices are shouting "Take the sickure choice" choose differently - take the risk anyway. Over time your limiting belief will dissipate.
Choose to move outside our comfort zone and your life will transform before your very eyes.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:47 AM
Ever dreamed of running your own business and joining the wonderful world of analysis
One piece of advice – beware of the disease that limits – paralysis by analysis.
No need to know HOW you are going to achieve your dream – it wouldn’t be a dream if you knew how you were going to achieve it.
Tip: Keep your focus firmly on the dream and the map will appear.
Watch out for too much “what IF” analysis – enough if’s will provide you with enough reasons not to act.
And finally WHY should you follow your intuition the highest form of knowledge –remember Sufi poet’s Rumi powerful words -
“The eyes goes blind when it only wants to know why.”
So the message is clear – no if’s, how’s and why’s just engage remembering
that action precedes excellence.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:20 PM
New research just out highlights music as an effective destressor.
Scientists Barry Bitman and his colleagues of the Body-Mind Wellness Centre in Meadville, US performed an ingenuous experiment to establish the direct link between recreational music and the genes in the human body that send electro-chemical signals for stress.
Playing with a music machine in fact turns off the body's stress mechanism, the research found out.
"Recreational music making could potentially serve as a rational stress-reduction activity along with other lifestyle strategies that include healthy nutrition and exercise," Bitman and his colleagues say in the research published in the Medical Science Monitor.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:40 AM
Happy Valentines Day!
Interesting new research highlighted in this weekends Sunday Times.
which "proves" that love is surprisingly blind!
Scans of lovers brain show they lose their critical faculties when smitten making
them less able to spot flaws.
“The scanning shows that love activates specific regions in the reward system of the brain, while reducing activity in the systems involved in making negative judgements,” said Professor Semir Zeki of University College London.
Imagine a world where we could see only positive in others - the power of love.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:25 AM
With February 14th fast approaching, I thought it necessary to pose the question - should love come with a government health warning?!
Maybe according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.
In a study of 19 cases of what they called "broken heart syndrome" between 1999 and 2003, the researchers demonstrated a link between intense emotional stress and cardiac failure in otherwise healthy individuals.
The study dealt with 18 women and one man sent to hospital coronary care units in Baltimore after experiencing chest pains.
For all, the pains came on after sudden emotional stress from things like a death in the family, a surprise birthday party, a car accident, and a biopsy.
None of the 19 had heart disease, and though the median age was 63, the group included two people of ages 27 and 32, respectively.
Without treatment, some of the subjects would have likely died. But all recovered, and none experienced recurrences of the problems, the report said.
The study provided evidence for the existence of stress cardiomyopathy, nicknamed broken heart syndrome by the researchers.
The symptoms resemble a heart attack, which usually involves a blood clot cutting off circulation in the heart.
In broken heart syndrome, the heart simply weakens, making it temporarily less able to pump blood.
"How exactly it occurs is not clear, but the patients had unusually high levels of stress-related brain chemicals and hormones like adrenaline, which may have temporarily impaired their heart function," lead researcher Dr Wittstein said.
One of the continuing mysteries, Wittsein said, was why nearly all of the victims were female.
Interesting?
I couldnt but reflect on the wisdom of Kahlil Gibran's beautiful quote; "Love is like an oak tree and a cyprus tree that grows not in each others shadow" - the blueprint for a healthy relationship. Using poetic license, I would add "but meets at the top" to the quote highlighting the need for spiritual connection.
Based on my own life experiences, I have found that attachment to anything is a very stressful strategy.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:22 AM
More proof about the power of positive thinking highlighted in today's English Independent:
Scientists in Finland carried out personality tests on 500 older people and then studied them for a decade.
Fifty four per cent of the positive thinkers were still alive ten years later, compared to 39 per cent of the others.
Those with a negative slant on life were also six times more likely to be in institutional care at the end of the survey.
Doctors in Holland who investigated heart disease treatments in almost 1,000 people found that patients with so-called type-D personalities - negative types who have difficulty communicating their emotions - were four times as likely to have heart problems. The same findings have now emerged from at least two other studies.
The challenge: Inputting as many positives every day into your personal pc ie your software - humour, happy memories, good deeds, positive comments, affirmations etc.
In the context of pain and failure, analyse what you learned from the situation, commit never to repeat the failed pattern and acknowledge that like the child, you are now nearer your goal.
Congratulations.
Enjoy your day
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 05:50 PM
More and more, it appears that one of the key ingredients is absent in many of todays sales interactions ie personality.
Whether it is in a service environment or on the phone you sometimes wonder would robots do a better job selling.
Of course, product knowledge is a must and the transfer of the key selling points is advisable but a transfer of personality, energy and enthusiasm is of paramount importance.
Furthermore, an understanding that each situation requires a unique strategy to build rapport with your client is necessary.
It is time to review our sales aim / objectives.
The overall aim should be to build a relationship, not make a sale.
The stronger the relationship, the higher the key conversion ratio - ie customers into friends.
Customers leave - friends don't.
How do we build this new type of relationship with our client?
Congruence - a genuine interest in the clients and a desire to serve their needs better than anyone else.
When they object, you investigate and honour the motivation behind these objections.
When their physiology presents a picture of boredom, you make your way to the door!
When potential business for you client enters your consciousness, you work on facilitating this process.
At all times you design a selling proposition that is a reflection of your customers needs - ie you sell the customers product back to the customer!
In the new type of relationship you are no longer a sales person, you are a facilitator.
And dont forget your excitment and energy about your product/ service transfers to the client.
Without doubt, energy infects!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:11 AM
Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps. We must step up the stairs.
Vaclav Havel
Some men see things as they are and ask 'why' ? Others dream of things that never were and ask 'why not' ?
George Bernard Shaw
Be the change you want to see in the world
Gandhi
Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous army of the world's ills - against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single person.
R.F. Kennedy
Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice, I can help the greatest of all causes - goodwill among men and peace on earth.
Albert Einstein
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
Helen Keller
They say my work is just a drop in the ocean. I say the ocean is made up of drops.
Mother Theresa
Remember Action precedes Excellence.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:05 AM
First man: sometimes I'd like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice to continue when he could do something about it'.
Second man: what's stopping you ?
First man: I'm afraid he might ask me the same question
Anon
Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare.
Japanese proverb
To the person who does not know where he wants to go, there is no favourable wind
Seneca
The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that our aim is too low and we reach it
Anon
So long as space remains,
So long as sentient beings remain,
I will remain,
In order to help, in order to serve,
In order to make my contribution.
The Dalai Lama
There are three kinds of people; one who watches things happen, one who makes things happen and one who says 'what happened ?'
Anon
Looking up gives light, but at first it makes you dizzy.
Rumi
Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.
Oscar Wilde
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:27 AM