Inspiration vs. Motivation:

Today I would like to point you to my guest post over at womansquotes.com

Do you know the difference between inspiration and motivation?
Didn't think there was one?
Well there is and it matters to your sucess.

So hop on over to read more.

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Luxembourg in a time capsule

I recently told you about how I became a Guest blogger over at Expatica.

Since then, I have written 3 guest posts titled 'Luxembourg in a time capsule'.

Come and take a trip down memory lane with me, will you?

The childhood years.

The teenage years.

The working years.

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How to become a guest blogger without planning to

Today I would like to send you over to another blog, Expatica.lu where I have been asked to write a guest post about Life in Luxembourg.

Prior to that, I had been asked whether I was willing to share a few of my earlier posts on their site (Is haggling worth the effort? and Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side) - to which I gleefully agreed.

When they asked me whether I felt like writing a story about Life in Luxembourg, I was like 'huh? what would I write about ?'.

Then again, I am living it every day and you are usually an expert at something you do every day, right?

So... I felt inspired and started writing...and writing...and writing.

And when I had the required number of words down, I had only reached the end of my childhood years. Not that I was planning on writing my life story mind you...

So I just sent them the article and asked them if they wanted it to be a 'to be continued' story and they said yes.

Oh oh...now the pressure's on and I have to start writing...

It's funny, but the words were just flying off my keyboard for the first article. But with some deadline and the accompanying pressure, I am experiencing a little bit of a writer's block.

I like it :-)))))


Picture: VW van (1977) by Ben30 (Flickr.com)

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Business Meeting Creativity Ideas - By Craig Cortello

Developing an innovative spirit in the workplace doesn't require extraordinary measures. As a manager, you can experiment with simple ideas that merely break routines, allowing your employees permission to drop the facade that we all don to some degree when we punch the clock. Here are a few ideas that will help you lighten things up for your staff and get their creative juices flowing, if you have the courage to take the leap.

1. Dart Board

Start every staff meeting by allowing everyone a shot at the dart board. Best shot gets to kick off the meeting, appoint the moderator, or tell what they did over the weekend. Starts things off on a playful note and gets your people out of their chairs. For safety purposes, stick with the magnetic or Velcro variety.

2. Colored Markers for the Flip Chart

Sounds simple, but we are programmed from an early age to correlate the amalgamation of colors with the awakening of our imaginations. If you need further evidence of this phenomenon, observe a classroom full of first graders the next time a teacher instructs them to put away their math books and take out their crayons. And experts agree that the key to creativity lies in the ability to awaken the child inside each of us.

3. Music Creativity

Ask each team member to write a 4-line verse to a song that relates to their job duties, hobbies, business ideas, etc. Go around the room and ask them to sing, rap, or simply recite (military cadence perhaps) their verse. Print the compilation in the next company newsletter to get a little PR for your department or office (others in the organization might want to transfer in when they realize that you’ve given your staff permission to have fun).

4. Music Creativity II

Ask your staff to bring in a CD with a song that describes their personality, work attitude, or how their weekend went. Play excerpts before the meeting for a laugh.

5. To Serve Mankind

Ask your staff to convey what they did over the weekend that was a service to another person, charitable organization, or noble cause. Vote to determine whose action was most heroic and award a gift certificate to the winner, let them leave work early on Friday, or take a longer than usual lunch break. This will encourage your staff to think of new ways to develop a sense of community. It will also help your people feel good about their co-workers, get to know them better, and give them a sense of pride in the organization.

6. Vocabulary Expansion

Ask your team to bring a rarely used or obscure word to the next meeting. Have them use it in a context that is applicable to your business.

7. Memory Exercise

Read a list of 10 or 15 things, preferably something related to your business, your industry, or to a customer and give an award to the person who can commit the most items to memory. This exercise can help your staff become more familiar with your organization and with your customers. Memory development is also a key to developing new customer relationships that will help your business prosper.

8. "If I Ran This Place..."

Ask your staff what they would consider the ideal job, the ideal workplace, and the ideal location. You can't transform your place into utopia, but you might gain some insight into feasible, marginal changes that will improve things. Now that you have them thinking without barriers, ask them what they would do first or different if they ran the company, office, or department. You'll be surprised by the answers.

9. Show and Tell

Have your staff bring something that they've created, that they are proud of, or from their childhood that the group would find interesting or funny. Demonstrate an interesting or unusual talent, perhaps. We loved this game when we were in kindergarten, and for some reason they made us stop playing as we got older.

10. Top 10 Lists

Until David Letterman decides to pursue intellectual property infringement, go ahead and try this one. Give a topic at your staff meeting, and ask for the answers the following week. Remember to keep it clean and non-offensive. Have your staff rank the answers and use a point system to determine the winner.

We would never ask our employees for quality without offering the resources, direction, systems, and commitment to develop procedures that ensure improvement in that area. Yet we ask employees for creativity or to "think outside the box" all of the time without giving another thought as to how to initiate the creative process. Take the first step and give your staff permission to shake things up a bit at your office. You're likely to see some changes - for the better!

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Copyright 2005, La Dolce Vita Enterprises, LLC

Craig Cortello is the President and founder of La Dolce Vita Enterprises, a consulting and training firm that assists companies in creating productive and imaginative work environments that encourage innovative business solutions. He is also the National Sales Manager of Trinity Consultants, a nationwide environmental consulting firm and an accomplished musician. He credits much of his success in the business world to his creative spirit that was cultivated through exposure to music and the arts.

Craig is a proud resident and native of the New Orleans metropolitan area, and a Hurricane Katrina survivor!

He can be reached at ccortello@ldv-enterprises.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Cortello

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Quarrelsome builders and expatriates

Today one of my blog posts about quarrelsome builders is featured over at Expatica.lu.

Expatica is a site full of news and information for the international community.

They have several country sites, one of which is Luxembourg. It's a home away from home for expatriates. It brings news and feature articles on subjects such as moving, housing, employment and Family and Kids.

They are currently looking for contributors.

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www.expatica.com

News and information for the international community.
We reach over 500,000 monthly visitors in 8 countries across Europe.
Learn more about the founding of Expatica by reading The Expatica Story.


Get Expatica delivered directly to you by signing up for our Newsletters BE CH DE ES FR NL UK LU, our RSS news feeds BE CH DE ES FR NL UK LU or by following us on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

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Does Nirvana Reside in the Right-Side of the Brain?

Today I am sharing an article from Marelisa Fabrega with you. Her Abundance Blog is very inspiring and I recommend you check it out.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard-trained brain scientist who suffered a stroke in 1996–at the age of 37–in the left hemisphere of her brain. She spoke of her experience at the 2008 TED Conference and wrote a memoir titled “My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey”.

Dr. Taylor was named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People in 2008.

In both the TED.com talk and the book she describes what the four hours felt like during which she was having the stroke and she watched her brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process information, and what life was like afterward. In addition, Dr. Taylor explains her discovery that through the right hemisphere of the brain, the part of her brain that was untouched by the stroke, inner peace is just a thought away.

In case you’re wondering, that is a real human brain Dr. Taylor is holding in the image above. She used it as a “prop” during her Ted.com Talk. You can find out a lot more about this remarkable woman and her fascinating experience below.

The Human Brain: Each Hemisphere Has Its Own Personality

Dr. Taylor explains in her TED.com talk that if you’ve ever seen a human brain, it’s obvious that the two hemispheres are completely separate from each other; that is, the two cerebral cortices are completely separate from one another.

If you’re familiar with computers, the right brain hemisphere functions like a parallel processor, while the left hemisphere functions like a serial processor. Because they process information differently, each of our brain hemispheres thinks about different things, they care about different things, and, Taylor argues, they even have very different personalities. The two hemispheres do communicate with each other through the corpus callosum but, other than that, the two hemispheres are completely separate.

(Image taken from here)

Our right hemisphere is all about this present moment; it’s all about right here, right now. It thinks in pictures and abstractions and it learns kinesthetically through the movement of our body. Information in the form of energy streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems and then it explodes into a collage of what this present moment looks like, smells like, tastes like, sound like, and feels like.

Dr. Taylor explains that we are energy beings connected to the energy all around us through the consciousness of our right brain hemispheres.

Our left hemisphere is a very different place. It thinks linearly and methodically. It’s all about the past and about the future. It’s designed to take that collage of the present moment and pick out detail after detail; it then categorizes and organizes all of that information, associates it with everything in the past we’ve ever learned, and projects into the future all of our possibilities.

The left side of our brain thinks in language. It’s the internal brain chatter that connects us to the external world. It’s the calculating intelligence that reminds us when we have to do the laundry and pick up bananas on the way home. And most importantly, it’s the voice that tells each of us: “I am”. And as soon it says that, each of us becomes separate from the energy all around us and separate from everyone else. That’s the portion of the brain that Taylor lost on the morning of her stroke.

Some of the Things Taylor Experienced While Having Her Stroke

This information about some of the things Dr. Taylor experienced as she was having her stroke was taken from her Ted.com Talk:

• She looked down at her arm and she realized she could no longer define the boundaries of her body. She could not define where she began and where she ended. The atoms and the molecules in her arm blended with the molecules and atoms in the wall. And all she could detect was energy.
  
• Her brain chatter went totally silent. It was as if someone had taken a remote control and pushed the mute button. She found herself inside a silent mind.
  
• Then she was captivated by the magnificence of the energy around her.
  
• Because she could no longer feel the boundaries of her body, she felt enormous and expansive. She felt as one with all the energy surrounding her. And it was beautiful. It was Nirvana. Any stress related to her job was gone. Any stressors from the outside world were gone, and she felt a sense of complete peacefulness. She lost 37 years of emotional baggage.
  
• She was lost in an existence of love and expansiveness, of color and energy. She adds the following: “In the wisdom of my dementia, I understood that this body was, by the magnificence of its design, a precious and fragile gift. It was clear to me that it functioned like a portal through which the energy of who I am can manifest here. I wondered how I could have spent so many years in this construct of life and never realize I was just visiting.”

Life in La-la Land

Taylor explains that when the cells in her left brain became nonfunctional because they were swimming in a pool of blood, they lost their ability to inhibit the cells in her right hemisphere.

In her right brain, she shifted into the consciousness of the present moment. She had no memories of her past and no perception of the future, but was instead in a “right here, right now, the present moment is all there is” awareness. She calls this experience being in La-la land, and adds that everything was an explosion of magnificent stimulation and she felt complete euphoria.

Describing this state, she sounds like a mystic. “All details of my life and language were gone. Language is a kind of code, and things were no longer reduced to coding. I was looking at the big picture and could see how everything is related. Everything is in motion, connected in a dance of grace. The brain is what imposes boundaries, and boundaries convey a perception of separation, but that’s a delusion. Everything is one . . . I got to sit in the space of silence gurus meditate toward for years.” (Source).

However, in many crucial ways, for a long time after having her stroke she was like an infant. She couldn’t talk, she had forgotten how to walk, and math and reading were gone. Someone gave her the pieces of a baby’s puzzle and she stared at them without comprehension, perplexed.

She found that in order to learn anything she had to take information from the last moment and apply it to the present moment. When her left hemisphere was completely nonfunctional early on, it was impossible for her to learn.

For example, she eventually became physically capable of putting on her socks and shoes, but she couldn’t understand why she had to put the socks on before the shoes. To her they were simply unrelated actions and she did not have the cognitive ability to figure out the appropriate sequencing of the events.

Over time she regained the ability to weave moments back together to create an expanse of time, and with this ability came the ability to learn methodically again. She adds that life in La-la land will always be just a thought away for her, but she’s grateful for the ability to think with linearity once again.

More of Jill Bolte Taylor’s Insights

Here are some more of Dr. Taylor’s insights:

• I was shifted into the power and the beauty of what is, right here right now, that we’re often distracted from because the left hemisphere is so tuned in to so many details.
  
• “I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle,” she wrote in her book. “The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.”
  
• “We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And right here, right now we are brothers and sisters, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment, we are whole, we are perfect, and we are beautiful.”
  
• We have this tiny little group of cells in our left hemisphere that says “I am”, and as soon as it does that I become a separate individual, solid, separate from everyone else. (Source).
  
• We’re not in a balanced brain society, we’re spending most of our time in our left hemisphere, which creates stress. (Source).
  
• The knowledge that we are connected to everything else is always there, people are just not privy to it because the left brain is so dominant. (Source).
  
• Dr. Taylor describes that she was floating from isolated moment to isolated moment because her left hemisphere-which is the one that makes connections between moments-was no longer working; therefore, A no longer had any relationship with B. The result was that she was totally focused in the present moment.

The 90 Second Rule

This is the 90 second rule from the book “My Stroke of Insight”: When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.

That is, something happens in the external world and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds.

This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away. After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry that is resulting in you having this physiological response over and over again.

How Can We Exercise Our Right Hemispheric Circuitry?

(Image from here.)
Dr. Taylor concluded her TED.com Talk by saying the following:
“Right here, right now I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are, I am, the life force power of the universe. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you . . . The more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be.”

Dr. Taylor made the decision to maintain the dominance of the right brain in areas it performs better than the left brain. She consciously avoids certain places in the mind where impatience, worry, criticism or unkindness live. Anytime her awareness drifts there, she consciously steps over to her now-familiar right side, where compassion and a subjective sense of time make things very different.

She explains that the blue sky is always there, and she sees the blue sky as the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the clouds, and the clouds represent brain chatter. The clouds come in and they block the view of the blue sky, even though the blue sky is always there.

The brain chatter comes on line and then it’s organizing and categorizing and dramatizing all of our lives in the external world. But when you quiet down those thoughts you get rid of the clouds; you unveil what’s always been there – which is the existence of the right hemisphere and that peacefulness and that awareness that everything is one and everything is connected. That is the experience of euphoria.

Dr. Taylor adds that she’s very clear that her brain chatter is a tiny group of cells that perform a specific function and that she has a say on whether or not that circuitry runs. All she has to do is make the decision that in this moment, she’s not going to have those thoughts; she’s not going to run that particular circuitry. She focuses her mind on the bigger picture and thinks about other things and blocks the clouds from being there. (Metaphor of the blue sky and the clouds taken from here).

In addition, she sets aside a day every week for her authentic self–a silent day of right-brain consciousness. She nourishes her right brain hemisphere with music, guitar-playing, and water-skiing. She also combines her science-training with her art by creating anatomically correct stained glass brains which she sells as fine art.

Conclusion

When Dr. Taylor was having her experience of Nirvana, was she delusional as a result of having a stroke, as some have argued? Or, as she maintains, was she touching real perceptions of an unexplored facet of reality, one that is wired into all of our brains, should we only learn to reach it?

I, for one, choose to believe that we can all reach this state of peacefulness by balancing our brain and becoming more in touch with our right brain hemisphere. How about you?

You can watch Dr. Taylor’s Ted.com Talk below:

Editor’s Note: I would like to thank Hilary Melton-Butcher who writes over at “Positive Letters” for directing me to Dr. Taylor’s Ted.com talk, I found it truly mesmerizing. (I found all of the information for this post on the internet, including articles published in major newspapers and interviews with Dr. Taylor conducted by Oprah and others.)

MARELISA

Feel free to reprint this article on your website as long as you include the following: This article is © 2009 Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online. The original article was authored by Marelisa Fábrega on August 19, 2009, and can be seen here.

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The Business Traveler's Guide to Unwavering Happiness

Today I am sharing an article from Christine Kane with you. I travel a lot and her tips speak to me.

Much of a business traveler's time is spent reacting.

"Annoying Thing A" happens. "Business Traveler B" decides what to do.

Some days are a constant impetus/response pattern. Some of us get good at it. Some of us pride ourselves on our inner peace in spite of Annoying Things A, B and C. But even if we learn how to react well, we're still reacting!

That's why your choice of how to use your non-reacting time is a key to unwavering happiness. You must practice proactivity when you can.

Being proactive (or CREATIVE) renews your relationship to your own power. It makes you happier. So, here are 10 Proactive (or CREATIVE) tips for the business traveler seeking unwavering happiness...

Tip #1 - Simple Self-Care

No, I won't tell you to go to a spa in your spare time.

However, I will tell you to sleep when you're tired. To pull off at the next exit when you have to pee instead of making yourself hold it. To allow extra time to get places.

Travel takes energy. And when people don't practice self-care in healthy ways, they reach for it in unhealthy ways. They eat hub-cap-sized plates of pasta and grease, claiming they "deserve it." They drink alcohol. They watch TV to numb out.

This isn't self-care. This is self-medicating. One is pro-active. The other is reactive.

Tip #2 - Discover Audiobooks

Many years ago, I decided to turn my vehicle into a "school." I started listening to books on business, coaching, and spirituality. Not only do I learn a lot, but it makes a huge difference in how I show up to my destination.

Tip #3 - Use Intention

Before any new segment of travel (getting on a plane, going to sleep) set an intention for your travel. You'll be surprised how your intention determines your outcomes.

Tip #4 - Make Mantra

Create a simple affirmation. Say it often. Say it when you're waiting in line. Say it when the plane gets delayed. Use it to center yourself. Challenge yourself to say it a thousand times in one day.

Tip #5 - Board the Plane Last

When the gate agent calls the Zones, let everyone else trip over each other so they can then stand in the hot jet way punching their cell phones.

Give peace a chance. Wait until the final boarding call. Plus, if there's an empty row, you can switch your seat because you know you're the last one on!

Tip #6 - Work out

Nothing maintains your mood like a great heart-thumpin' work-out! Wake up a little earlier, or find the hotel gym after you check into your room. This practice will make all the difference in how well you apply these other tips!

Tip #7 - Get Help

I used to lug around two guitars, a suitcase, and my computer bag. I'd pride myself on my strength and stamina.

Now, I pride myself on swiping my credit card through the cart vending machines next to baggage claim! I'm not into struggle anymore.

Get help, and tip people well. The extra $50 you might spend costs less than a visit to the chiropractor when you get home!

Tip #8 - Wash off your travel

If I have the opportunity, I always take a shower after I fly. I call it "washing off the travel." If nothing else, at least shower before you climb into bed. Try not to sleep with your travel still on you.

Tip #9 - Forgive unexpected expenses

You rush to the airport in your rental car after the conference. There's no time to fill the tank. You end up paying $45 for a teaspoon of gas at the Hertz desk. Argh!

Travel expenses like this can make you crazy. You can spend the day beating yourself up or criticizing the world for its unfair policies.

Don't waste your precious creative energy!

Travel is filled with lots of unexpected expenses. Your money will get spent because of A) stupid things you did, B) unforeseen situations, or C) the fine print. Do yourself a big favor. Breathe and let it go because A) you're traveling, B) you're wealthy, and C) you're worth it.

Tip #10 - Think Ritual

A business trip is not the time to start a new diet or yoga practice.

You can, however, keep small daily rituals. Write in your gratitude journal, even if you feel lonely or tired. Wake up 15 minutes early and remind yourself of your intentions for the day. Before you rush to your laptop and begin reacting, take time to create the day.

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Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her 'LiveCreative' weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine's blog - Be Creative. Be Conscious. Be Courageous - at ChristineKane.com/blog.

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How to Make Your Life a Drama-Free Zone - by Christine Kane

This week I am sharing with you an excellent post by Christine Kane.

You can also check out the website of the Dramastoppers.


One of the hardest things I ever had to admit was that I was a total drama queen. And one of the best things I ever did was to give up my crown and step down from that throne.

That's because drama - with all of its he-said-she-said, self-righteous anger, and done-me-wrong stories - is one big MAJOR distraction. It pulls our attention away from our dreams.

Many of us were taught that if we don't get hooked into drama, then we lack compassion. We're taught that emotion and drama are inseparable.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Emotion is the feeling, or energy, that moves through us. Drama is the thoughts and the hooks that create stories and reel other people into them. It steals our time.

Like the excess clutter that fills our closets and shelves, we can just simply let the drama go.

Becoming drama-free is more about creating space than anything else. Space for better thoughts. Space for clarity. Space for taking conscious action toward our dreams.

So, here's five ways to make your life a drama-free zone so that you, too, can have the perfect, abundant, spacious life you've always wanted.

1 - Bring awareness to your reactions.

Being a Drama-Queen requires one thing: Unconsciousness.

To shift your dramatic tendencies, start by becoming aware of your own reactions.

Though it can be tempting to point at all the drama-queens around you, start within you first. See clearly what hooks you, what compels you to gossip, what makes you judgmental of others.

Most of our unhappiness comes from one thing: our judgment.

So, where do you paint life situations with your self-righteousness or judgment? Where do you collapse because you judge yourself so harshly? Where do you want people to behave differently so that you can be happy or successful?

(And why not go ahead and just be happy and successful anyway?)

2 - Think R.O.I.

R.O.I. is "Return on Investment."

Every time you give your energy and your time to something, you are investing in it. You are, in essence, voting for it.

An entrepreneur thinks in terms of "returns" on investments. When you engage in gossip, whininess, self-righteousness, explaining yourself - you are literally getting no return on your investment. (Except fatigue!)

Your energy is your investment. So is your time. Ask yourself throughout the day, "What am I voting for here? What kind of return will I get on this activity?"

3 - Proactive communication

Melanie, a college professor, was expected to visit her family in Detroit every Christmas.

Melanie told me that she just wanted to take the holiday for self-care and reflection after a grueling semester. She didn't want to travel!

I encouraged proactive communication.

Rather than waiting for her usual sense of frustration to arrive in November, Melanie made calls in August to let her family know that she had other plans for the holidays.
She discovered that she was able to speak more clearly and compassionately because she chose to be proactive. She never once got dramatic!

Proactive communication means that you communicate when the emotional charge of the situation has passed, or has not yet arrived!

4 - Regular Exercise

There's a reason that everyone from doctors to trainers tell us to get our heart-rates up for at least 20-minutes a day. Exercise uplevels our mental health, our emotional health AND our physical health.

In other words, the more you increase your heart-rate, the more you decrease your drama!

5 - When Drama Strikes, Ask Three questions

Here are three powerful questions to ask yourself in the face of drama:

(1) What's my story here?

This is what you tell yourself in your head. "If I don't, then no one will." "I'm unworthy." "No one recognizes the good I do." "These people are idiots!" This is your "story." You probably know it well!

(2) Who would I be without this story?

Imagine that an angel surgeon comes into the room, and surgically removes that story from your head. You can't find it no matter how hard you try. Who would you be without that story? What does it feel like to move forward without it?

(3) How do I WANT to feel?

You always have a choice. But it's easier to MAKE the choice when you know your options!

So, when you remind yourself how you WANT to feel, you offer yourself a more empowered option than the drama. Even if you can't get there right away, make sure you know that this is where you can be if you choose it.

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Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her 'LiveCreative' weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at http://www.christinekane.com/.

WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine's blog - Be Creative. Be Conscious. Be Courageous - at ChristineKane.com/blog.

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Reclaim your creative self

Last week I presented my first guest post on Craig's Enlightr blog. Today I am delighted to share his guest post on creativity with you.

Craig is a 22-year-old student currently studying psychology at Bournemouth University. He runs a self improvement blog and community filled with useful advice. His main aim is to help people exceed their expectations and reach their true potential.

If you like what you find there, please subscribe to his RSS and follow him on Twitter to keep up-to date with his articles and blog posts.

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Reclaim your creative self

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” - Albert Einstein

You, like everyone else was born with unlimited creativity. You knew this when you was a child but misplaced the knowledge while growing with a strict, social conditioned life where creative ventures are outlawed in favour of rules and boundaries. The aim of this post is to allow you to regain your creative self by ejecting the systematic social conditioning that plagues our minds.

Social Conditioning

Social conditioning is your desire to fit in and be a part of society with whatever rules, regulations and norms it happens to spew at you. The drawback of this type of conditioning occurs when the social norm moves away from our basic human roots and begins cramming the fronts of magazines with worthless advice and ‘must haves’.

Social conditioning is what keeps you back from your dreams. It’s the nagging voice that tells you to go on a diet, to go to the gym or to not wear those shoes with that top. It’s what we must reveal and dismantle in order for us to achieve a truly successful life of happiness with bountiful creativity and fun, just as you were as a child, just as you still can be with a portion of effort on your side to follow the next few points of creating creativity.

How to create creativity

One thing you’ll notice about creative people is their undying understanding of themselves. A creative, happy person is uniquely at peace with themselves, they are assured of their own identity. They know exactly who they are and what they must do. They are also calm, healthy and thrive without a false sense of needs or desires. Does this sound like you, when you were 2 years of age?

1. Become aware of yourself

Being aware of yourself is the highest possible thing you could accomplish in life. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self actualisation is at the very top.
To become aware of yourself you need to sit down, on your own without any interference with just a notepad and pen. You’ll need to stay in this position, staring at the paper until you can answer these two questions without a shade of hesitation –

• What do I enjoy doing the most?
• What makes me happy the most?

These two questions will allow you to decide what your purpose in life is. Don’t be ashamed if what you’re currently doing in life is nowhere near your enjoyment or happiness path, there’s always time to change. While sitting you may flick through hundreds of ideas, decisions and scenarios where you don’t fit but eventually after minutes, hours or years. You will know the one purpose that holds both enjoyment and happiness at the same time. Grown men are known to cry when they realise their purpose in this way.

Me on the other hand, I feel my purpose is to help people reach their potential. It’s the activity that gives me the most enjoyment and happiness combined; therefore I must be on the right track. Once you’ve got yours, you’re on the right track too. All you need to do next is follow the path. On the way you will discover yourself and who you are. You will gain self actualisation and you will smile with unlimited creativity once more.

2. Become aware of your surroundings

The next step in gaining the creative juice is to be aware of your surroundings, your environment and the people that fill your life. This requires you to open up, experience and feel every moment, object and person deeply with the creativity and curiosity as you once did as a child. Refrain from the boundaries of social conditioning and feel the experience of walking down the beach with sandals and socks or singing in a busy shopping centre. You are not controlled by your surroundings; they are there for you to play with.

3. Become silent

Next you want to become silent. The most genius and creative hunches strike you when you are at your quietest. The mystery of DNA came to the founder when he was asleep, there’s no saying your unlimited creativity can do something even better.

The reason you want to be silent is again related to social conditioning. Before you could speak, what was the voice in your head communicating? Interesting question huh... perhaps there was no voice in your head? Whatever you think the answer to the question is you’ll want to realise that stressing, worrying or thinking about which celebrity is in the next film will distract your mind away from its purpose and creativity. You can’t create the next big discovery while watching Friends.

4. Know you are already everything you want to be

Lastly, know you are already everything you want to be and you are just enjoying experiences and having fun in life, just like you did as a child. This is the final step forward. Your desires to be someone in a field you don’t enjoy because it pays well are bland, boring and unhealthy to your short existence on this planet.

Aim to follow your purpose and become who you are meant to be, that’s all you need to do to have complete happiness in your life.

To sum up, you are everything, you are unlimited creativity, and you are free. The reason you many not think that now is because you’ve misplaced the knowledge within the struggle of social conditioning and the stress it creates. Apply these steps in your life and you will see a major difference in your emotional state as well as every other level of your life.

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What is self improvement and how do you 'get it'?

I am excited and honored to present to you my very first guest post over at Enlightr dot com:

What is self improvement and how do you 'get it'?

At Enlightr, 22 year old Craig has managed to set up what I would call a self improvement portal. It contains several sections and categories, so depending on what subject you need enlightenment, you do not have to weed through many irrelevant posts but are directed right to the topics that you are interested in.

So if you like what you read there, you can subscribe to his RSS and follow him on Twitter to keep up-to date with his articles and blog posts.

I hope you like my guest post and please leave a comment over there. I will be posting Craig's post on creativity next week Tuesday, so be sure to check in.

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GUEST POST: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Indie from The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy has allowed me to guest post his thoughts on a quote from F.D. Roosevelt. Thanks for your contribution Indie.

If you have a favorite quote and something to say about it, please feel free to submit it for placement as a guest post.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated in his 1933 inaugural address "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." These words were uttered during the height of the Great Depression, a period of intense upheaval and fear. The statement is inspirational because it rejects the easy exploitation of a situation in which people will, out of fear, rally behind anyone offering easy solutions and answers to difficult problems. Whereas Roosevelt called for an intelligent, considered response in reaction to a situation in which we were immobilized by fear, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini represents the opposite type of reaction.

Sane ideas such as these do not repeat themselves in history as often as their antithesis. The period of anti-communist hysteria of the late 1940's and early 1950's (McCarthyism) is a dark example of our inability to deal with fear in an intelligent manner. I have read several books documenting the period of McCarthyism. Needless to say, many innocent people from the left, actors, writers, artists, etc. were destroyed by the unfounded charges against them, and American culture since then has been all the poorer because of it. One of the books I read wonders dryly whether McCarthyism, by some wild coincidence, had actually managed to expose even a single communist among the people it singled out. Norman Corwin in "Trivializing America" (1983) quotes Gore Vidal stating that McCarthyism so weakened the left, that it paved the way for the Viet Nam war in the 1960's.

The processes of fear and how they can lead to destruction were dramatized by Rod Serling in an episode of the Twilight Zone "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" - in which residents of a typical street in America find themselves in a situation with an unseen, unspecific enemy. They eventually lose control and destroy themselves - which was exactly what the unseen enemy intended. The story was an allegorical retelling of the lessons to be found in history.

It would be grand if there were no contemporary examples of the negative affects of fear, but that is not the case. In 2003, in an e-mail to a friend, I listed some famous quotes by U.S. presidents, the ones I could remember, and matched them with a pseudo-quote by George W. Bush. If there is one underlying theme to Bush's "presidency" it would be the exact reverse of FDR’s quote. We could sum it up as "We have to fear."

Bush and his neoconservative supporters have manipulated and prolonged the fear arising out of the events of September 11th, 2001. In the immediate aftermath, the cynically named Patriot Act began the demontation of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, a surrender of liberties in exchange for "safety." Over the years we have been reminded of what we must fear: weapons of mass destruction, homemade atomic bombs destroying American cities, and general alerts warning of unspecific attacks of unspecific nature. We see attempts to label patriotic acts of protest and activism as the actions of traitors and terrorists, labels which bear in them the seeds of fear. Or these patriots are accused of directly supporting Al Quaida with their actions. From Bush's point of view, this climate of fear is necessary. There are still enough legal protections to prevent Bush from acting openly against those voices which speak out against him. But there is little that can be done against a terrified mob reacting to fear, trampling the voices of sanity.

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