Monday, January 16, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The G.O.B.
You know those days when everyone irritates you? Those days when you are feeling judgmental, critical and nothing anybody says can make you feel better! Your significant other is getting on your nerves, your client is driving you up the walls, your mother keeps calling to check if you have food in the fridge and to top it all off, your assistant asks for a raise!
UUUGGGHHH!!!
For days like these, you need to remember the GOB!
I was introduced to the GOB by my own coach, Rich Litvin, and it has saved me a lot of headache and heartache.
To remember the GOB is to remember the Glimpse Of Brilliance that exists in each person. Everybody has it! It can be the way your significant other looks at you with admiration, or the way your mother ends all her speeches with "I will always love you" or the way your assistant is always willing to stay late hours to help you out. It can be any small thing the person in front of you possesses that reminds you of his/her inner beauty, power and brilliance!
For those days when you want to send the person in front of you to where the sun don't shine, remember the GOB. Take time to get in touch with and honor it. You will see that you will immediately start feeling better. You might even catch yourself smiling!
Go ahead, try it out for yourself, it's easy, it just needs practice:
Catch yourself feeling angry
Look at the target of your anger (or think of him/her)
Get in contact with what is radiant and glorious about them
Honor the GOB and...
SMILE!
The beauty in life is that we ALWAYS have the power to choose.
Choose finding the GOB in every person and you will always have a reason to smile!
UUUGGGHHH!!!
For days like these, you need to remember the GOB!
I was introduced to the GOB by my own coach, Rich Litvin, and it has saved me a lot of headache and heartache.
To remember the GOB is to remember the Glimpse Of Brilliance that exists in each person. Everybody has it! It can be the way your significant other looks at you with admiration, or the way your mother ends all her speeches with "I will always love you" or the way your assistant is always willing to stay late hours to help you out. It can be any small thing the person in front of you possesses that reminds you of his/her inner beauty, power and brilliance!
For those days when you want to send the person in front of you to where the sun don't shine, remember the GOB. Take time to get in touch with and honor it. You will see that you will immediately start feeling better. You might even catch yourself smiling!
Go ahead, try it out for yourself, it's easy, it just needs practice:
Catch yourself feeling angry
Look at the target of your anger (or think of him/her)
Get in contact with what is radiant and glorious about them
Honor the GOB and...
SMILE!
The beauty in life is that we ALWAYS have the power to choose.
Choose finding the GOB in every person and you will always have a reason to smile!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
To life in all its positivity!
Yesterday, my family had the great honor to celebrate my father's 80th birthday!
At times like these, I can't help myself - I get emotional thinking about all that this man has gone through in his life. I hope that sharing his story will serve as an inspiration to you, just as it has served me!
At the tender age of 10, my father lived the horrors of World War II, his father sent to war and his mother left to care for 9 hungry children, who were at one point prohibited by the doctor, to get up from their beds. Any movement would mean a waste of energy, something scarce and valuable, given that their main staple was potato peel soup.
I will not make this a melodramatic entry, although listening to war stories is always so inspiring to me, as it makes me think about my own life, how fortunate I am and how things could always be worse, so much worse!
What I want to share about this just turned 80 year old, is the example that he has always been to me, my sister and most people who have had the luck of coming in contact with him.
Having survived the war, he immigrated with his family to a country where he didn't speak the language and didn't have two coins to rub together. Him and the remaining 4 children (the other 4 had died during the Second World War) lived in one room with their mother (their father died soon after the war) and worked in the streets, doing odd jobs for a living.
From selling underwear in the streets to wrapping steering wheels with leather, he made his way slowly and steadily to having the biggest shop in a small town and then to owning a factory of over 600 employees in the 70s-80s that was the industry leader in its segment.
As they say, life is harsh, and following an economic crisis, the factory went bankrupt and he was made to start again from scratch, this time with a wife and children to tend to. Start again he did, and again, and yet again just to be faced with the current economic crisis in Greece, where he currently resides.
What is fascinating is that this man, having been thrown to the ground so many time, remains forever positive! He is always smiling and ready to lend a helping hand to someone in need. When times are tough, he has a way of remaining calm and together. His positive outlook towards life has been something of a mystery to my sister and I, who have often wondered if he is like this because of nurture or nature.
He has taken hardships as lessons and his positive outlook makes him resilient when times are tough. Another thing that is interesting about my father, is that he always has a project going on. He always has a goal and creates vivid images in his mind of how he will attain it. He is literally, a visionary. I have heard him say time and again "Last night, before I went to sleep I saw the new project I want to work on complete in my mind. I walked through it and talked to the people involved". He is not afraid of DREAMING BIG because he is not afraid of failing big, and that makes all the difference!
To me, my father is a living example that if we remains positive, even when that takes more of us than we can stand; if we have the courage to smile, even when all we want to do is curl up and die, we can gracefully and resourcefully get through the hard lessons this life throws at us.
Remaining positive is not just another fad line. Scientists are proving the impact our beliefs have in our lives. In his revolutionary book called "The Biology of Belief", renowned cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, shows us how our thoughts and beliefs affect every cell in our body. Remaining positive might take effort, as some of us might have been programmed to concentrate on hardship and catastrophe. Luckily for us, we have a way around this, as Dr. Lipton states in his book: "Endowed with the ability to be self-reflective, the self-conscious mind is extremely powerful. It can observe any programmed behavior we are engaged in, evaluate the behavior and consciously decide to change the program. We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals and whether we even want to respond at all. The conscious mind's capacity to override the subconscious mind's preprogrammed behaviors is the foundation of free will."
Here is to eighty years of smiling in the face of adversity and laughing at life's harshest lessons.
If my father can do it, what stops you and I from doing it too?
At times like these, I can't help myself - I get emotional thinking about all that this man has gone through in his life. I hope that sharing his story will serve as an inspiration to you, just as it has served me!
At the tender age of 10, my father lived the horrors of World War II, his father sent to war and his mother left to care for 9 hungry children, who were at one point prohibited by the doctor, to get up from their beds. Any movement would mean a waste of energy, something scarce and valuable, given that their main staple was potato peel soup.
I will not make this a melodramatic entry, although listening to war stories is always so inspiring to me, as it makes me think about my own life, how fortunate I am and how things could always be worse, so much worse!
What I want to share about this just turned 80 year old, is the example that he has always been to me, my sister and most people who have had the luck of coming in contact with him.
Having survived the war, he immigrated with his family to a country where he didn't speak the language and didn't have two coins to rub together. Him and the remaining 4 children (the other 4 had died during the Second World War) lived in one room with their mother (their father died soon after the war) and worked in the streets, doing odd jobs for a living.
From selling underwear in the streets to wrapping steering wheels with leather, he made his way slowly and steadily to having the biggest shop in a small town and then to owning a factory of over 600 employees in the 70s-80s that was the industry leader in its segment.
As they say, life is harsh, and following an economic crisis, the factory went bankrupt and he was made to start again from scratch, this time with a wife and children to tend to. Start again he did, and again, and yet again just to be faced with the current economic crisis in Greece, where he currently resides.
What is fascinating is that this man, having been thrown to the ground so many time, remains forever positive! He is always smiling and ready to lend a helping hand to someone in need. When times are tough, he has a way of remaining calm and together. His positive outlook towards life has been something of a mystery to my sister and I, who have often wondered if he is like this because of nurture or nature.
He has taken hardships as lessons and his positive outlook makes him resilient when times are tough. Another thing that is interesting about my father, is that he always has a project going on. He always has a goal and creates vivid images in his mind of how he will attain it. He is literally, a visionary. I have heard him say time and again "Last night, before I went to sleep I saw the new project I want to work on complete in my mind. I walked through it and talked to the people involved". He is not afraid of DREAMING BIG because he is not afraid of failing big, and that makes all the difference!
To me, my father is a living example that if we remains positive, even when that takes more of us than we can stand; if we have the courage to smile, even when all we want to do is curl up and die, we can gracefully and resourcefully get through the hard lessons this life throws at us.
Remaining positive is not just another fad line. Scientists are proving the impact our beliefs have in our lives. In his revolutionary book called "The Biology of Belief", renowned cell biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton, shows us how our thoughts and beliefs affect every cell in our body. Remaining positive might take effort, as some of us might have been programmed to concentrate on hardship and catastrophe. Luckily for us, we have a way around this, as Dr. Lipton states in his book: "Endowed with the ability to be self-reflective, the self-conscious mind is extremely powerful. It can observe any programmed behavior we are engaged in, evaluate the behavior and consciously decide to change the program. We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals and whether we even want to respond at all. The conscious mind's capacity to override the subconscious mind's preprogrammed behaviors is the foundation of free will."
Here is to eighty years of smiling in the face of adversity and laughing at life's harshest lessons.
If my father can do it, what stops you and I from doing it too?
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Wishing you Happiness in the New Year
To all friends who have visited, read and enjoyed this blog:
Thank you for your interest and support! It has been an amazingly fascinating and challenging year for me and it has been an immense personal satisfaction to develop this blog further.
I can't wait to enter the new year and have the opportunity to share more insights and personal thoughts on developing ourselves into more conscientious and free beings, tending for our body, minds, hearts and souls.
I Wish You a Healthy and Happy New Year!
Below are some tips for creating and allowing happiness into our lives. The Greater Good Science Center is based in the University of California, Berkley and sponsors research into social and emotional well being.
Here are 6 habits they say are worth cultivating if you want to lead a happier life:
To view Press Here:
6 Habits of Happiness Worth Cultivating
Thank you for your interest and support! It has been an amazingly fascinating and challenging year for me and it has been an immense personal satisfaction to develop this blog further.
I can't wait to enter the new year and have the opportunity to share more insights and personal thoughts on developing ourselves into more conscientious and free beings, tending for our body, minds, hearts and souls.
I Wish You a Healthy and Happy New Year!
Below are some tips for creating and allowing happiness into our lives. The Greater Good Science Center is based in the University of California, Berkley and sponsors research into social and emotional well being.
Here are 6 habits they say are worth cultivating if you want to lead a happier life:
To view Press Here:
6 Habits of Happiness Worth Cultivating
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| VIA Greater Good Science Center |
Saturday, December 17, 2011
On Education
Having had the immense pleasure and honor of working with children for several years, I am very concerned about the impact our current educational system has on them. I personally believe we ought to be working towards a revolution in the way we educate our youngsters. That is why I am impressed by Portuguese teen entrepreneur, Ricardo Sousa, who has founded the "Movement for Change in Education". MCE hopes to be an enabler and a catalyzer for local action demanding an education model where creativity, entrepreneurship and individual talent are taken into consideration. ricardosousa.me
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| VIA ricardojrsousa.wordpress.com |
My curiosity on ways to view and involve children holistically in education led me to Sir Ken Robins' work and I reveled in watching his TED speech in Monteray, California. This extraordinary man shares with us his thoughts on how our current educational system stifles children's creativity.
Sir Ken Robinson is an author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non profits, education and arts bodies. He was Director of the Arts Schools Project (1985-89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989-2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education. Wikipedia
Sir Ken Robinson is an author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non profits, education and arts bodies. He was Director of the Arts Schools Project (1985-89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989-2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education. Wikipedia
Below are a few of his inspirational words for those who don't have 20 minutes to spare to listen and reflect on where our current educational system takes the keepers of this world's future.
"Creativity now is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status"
"Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects...At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities and at the bottom are the arts."
"Our task is to educate [children's] whole being so they can face [the] future."
"We know...about intelligence:
Intelligence is diverse: We think about the world in all the way we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically, [we think] in abstract terms, we think in movement.
Intelligence is dynamic: Creativity...more often than not, comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things."
"We have to rethink the fundamental principles by which we are educating our children."
Finally, my personal favorite:
"If you are not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original"
Watch it, you will be inspired!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Let it Be For Everything To Be Alright!
At times of trouble, just remember...
Let it Be Because Everything is Gonna Be Alright!!
Just Perfect!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Dare to fail?
Coaching with my incredibly sensitive and insightful coach, Rich Litvin has had an impact on me as few self development courses or lectures I have attended. And I have attended MANY! My beliefs and world views are gently challenged by Rich, and this has the power to change the way I see the world, in only one hour! Because the way I view it changes, I automatically start occurring in the world differently!
Some time ago, Rich challenged me to fail! My work (coaching is all about taking steps forward, so there is always a call to action!) was to collect a pre set number of "NOs". When I first heard it, I thought "peace of cake, bring me the real challenge!!", boy was I in for a surprise!
When I started out trying to collect NOs, it was much harder than I thought. It made me realize that to me, receiving a NO is synonymous to failure. OK, I did ask a waiter if I could move my table outside the restaurant and he very politely replied "No, I'm sorry, that is impossible" with a very puzzled look on his face, given that there was obviously nowhere to put the table outside the restaurant. Yet that was easy. He was a stranger, he would never see me again and let's face it, these waiters see so many "weird" people everyday, I couldn't care less if he thought I was just another one of them.
Then the challenge started to feel uncomfortable. I started thinking of things to ask of people I know, that might get me a NO. I really longed to do it, and even though I knew it was only a "game" I still felt that getting the NO would mean I failed. The thought of asking real challenging things from my friends, my clients and even my landlord, filled me up with fear and paralyzed me. I was obviously not prepared to hear the two lettered word from them! I am still playing the game and at times it still feels like butterflies are having a party in my stomach.
The Bible says: Ask and it shall be given you. It never said: "Ask once and it shall be given you straight away"! As Master Coach, Steve Chandler puts it: Yes lives in the land of No! The more No's you receive, the bigger the chances to collect the so sought after Yes!
When we think failure (as in NO), we immediately put up a fight. Failure is a hard blow to our ego: "Someone said no to ME? Let me run and hide in my whole for a month!"
The No game, or any other form of failure, are ways to take your consciousness to another level. The more you fail, the more you become resilient to it, feeling the need to hide in the whole for less and less time, until one day, failure (or No) is just another word, detached from any fighting or feelings of unworthiness.
Have you seen Nike's commercial featuring Michael Jordan talking about his life's failures?
How many times have you failed this past month? Just for fun, are you willing to double the failure rate next month? Give yourself a REALLY challenging new years resolution and take your consciousness to the next level while you're at it!
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