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

VIA Greater Good Science Center

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

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

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."

"Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at schooled wasn't valued or was actually stigmatized." 


"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!

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!

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!

The Power of Commitment

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth-the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans-the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too." W.H. Murray Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Dr. Yogi, master teacher of kunadilini yoga, talks about commitment:

Do you really want what you say you want?

What Leads TED-sters to Success can Lead You Too!

I have the following eight words written on a card displayed on my refrigerator door. Without fail, all who come over for dinner and read these simple eight words open a vast and inspired smile. I can almost see their mental image of themselves being successful in their chosen areas. Their eyes shiny and dreamy. I always think "Imagine if they read the whole thing!"

I am delighted to have come across this entry once again and so happy to share these real views of what some of the world's most triumphant people believe accounts for their success. Enough said! Read on:
PS-I will PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE making this blog look nicer :-S

VIA One Powerful World

It all started one day on a plane, on my way to TED, seven years ago. And in the seat next to me was a high school student, a teenager, and she came from a really poor family. And she wanted to make something of her life, and she asked me a simple little question. She said, "What leads to success?" And I felt really badly, because I couldn't give her a good answer. So I get off the plane, and I come to TED. And I think, jeez, I'm in the middle of a room of successful people! So why don't I ask them what helped them succeed, and pass it on to kids? So here we are, seven years, 500 interviews later, and I'm gonna tell you what really leads to success and makes TED-sters tick.


1.Passion
Freeman Thomas says, "I'm driven by my passion." TED-sters do it for love, they don't do it for money. Carol Coletta says, "I would pay someone to do what I do." And the interesting thing is, if you do it for love, the money comes anyway.


2. Hard Work
Rupert Murdoch said to me, "It's all hard work. Nothing comes easily. But I have a lot of fun." Did he say fun? Rupert? Yes! TED-sters do have fun working. And they work hard. I figured, they're not workaholics. They're workafrolics.


3. Practice
Alex Garden says, "To be successful put your nose down in something and get damn good at it." There's no magic, it's practice, practice, practice.


4. Focus
Norman Jewison said to me, "I think it all has to do with focusing yourself on one thing"


5. Push Yourself
David Gallo says, "Push yourself. Physically, mentally, you've gotta push, push, push." You gotta push through shyness and self-doubt. Goldie Hawn says, "I always had self-doubts. I wasn't good enough, I wasn't smart enough. I didn't think I'd make it." Now it's not always easy to push yourself, and that's why they invented mothers. Frank Gehry said to me, "My mother pushed me."


6. Serve
Sherwin Nuland says, "It was a privilege to serve as a doctor." Now a lot of kids tell me they want to be millionaires. And the first thing I say to them is, "OK, well you can't serve yourself, you gotta serve others something of value. Because that's the way people really get rich."


7. Ideas
TED-ster Bill Gates says, "I had an idea -- founding the first micro-computer software company." I'd say it was a pretty good idea. And there's no magic to creativity in coming up withideas, it's just doing some very simple things.


8. Persist
Joe Kraus says, "Persistence is the number one reason for our success." You gotta persist through failure. You gotta persist through crap! Which of course means "Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure."


In Summary, Do it for love not for money; push your limits physically, mentally(self-doubt,shyness); Persist against Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressures; Have fun in what you do; Become really good at what you do....practice practice practice; Serve others andmoney will come; Get Ideas -Listen, Observe, Be Curious, Ask Questions, Solve Problems, Make Connections; Focus yourself on one thing.


So, the big -- the answer to this question is simple: Do the eight things, these are the eight things that lead to success.


Source: Richard St. John, TED

Shift Your Mind

Today is a big day here in Greece, where I currently live. Unfortunately it isn't like a bride's big day, full of excitement and fun anticipation! Our prime minister has obviously played his cards all wrong and the whole of Europe is extremely dissatisfied with his latest decisions. There is talk of our country leaving the Euro and going back to the Drachma and this threat has driven every Greek citizen beside himself.  Man, there is so much anger here right now! I won't go into that any further as this subject, albeit significant, isn't the least bit inspiring to me.

What I find inspiring is the understanding that all of us, collectively, as a race, not only in my country but in many other countries around the world, have reached during these turbulent economic times. We see people from all walks of life coming together to inspire change. There has been an increased interest in topics such as self awareness, self development, spiritual advancement, mind and body approaches, and so many others that only a few years ago were seen as "fluff".

We have all understood the time has come to change, shift, evolve!

I am currently the proud student of a Coaching Prosperity School led by remarkable author and master coach Steve Chandler. Steve talks about shifting our mind a lot and although it may seem like something undoable (does "I've been this way all my life, I can't change now" sound familiar?) he says it only takes one thing for shift to occur - and this is what I want to share with you.

"When the mind is open, it will shift. When the mind is closed, it won't." Steve Chandler

It's as easy as it sounds! All you need to do is keep an open mind. An open mind welcomes new people, new people carry information, information can ignite creativity, creativity offers solutions and solutions almost always bring results. Accepting and acting on all of the above brings change!

How about I set a call for action? Remind yourself everyday for the next week that you have an open mind! Let "I have an open mind" be your mantra! Be aware and start to notice how your open mind will make space for those exceptional shifts that will inevitably begin to occur!