Confidence, clarity, and a sense of purpose are all things that need to be established, and re-established, daily.
Your subconscious mind makes up around 95% of your behavior.
If you want to change your personality or circumstance you need to do different things. You need to do those different things consciously, our minds quickly revert to our subconscious in the absence of deliberate actions.
Wake up each day and intentionally seek to become that new person you aspire to be.
Our minds and bodies are far more comfortable with yesterday. (even if yesterday’s emotions are not enjoyable) we can predict those outcomes and therefore they are more appealing.
Experiencing new emotions as a result of new actions is emotionally daunting, hence why so few of us are willing to drive change in our lives and accept new emotions.
If you aspire to grow, you need to do things differently and accept that the outcomes will be unexpected and unpredictable.
“Avoid the temptation of showing how clever you are — it is far more clever to conceal the mechanism of your cleverness.”
— Robert Greene.
Always demonstrate how underrated you are don’t show the world how clever you are
In almost every scenario it’s far better to have someone think you know less than you actually do. conceal you me intelligence
The concept can be termed, Intellectual Humility. It will serve you well.
Thought-provoking...
Radhanath Swami
Teacher. Author. Activist.
Radhanath Swami (born Richard Slavin) is an American Gaudiya Vaishnava guru, community builder, activist, and an author. He has been a Bhakti Yoga practitioner and a spiritual teacher for more than 40 years.
Radhanath Swami has been a monk in the bhakti tradition for nearly 50 years, dedicating his life to helping people find meaning, whilst leading social initiatives which feed, house and heal millions of those in need.
Radhanath Swami is one of today’s most beloved and respected spiritual teachers. He spent his youth wandering through disparate countries and cultures yearning for an experience of truth; after finally meeting his spiritual teacher in India he has spent the last 50 years internalising that spiritual practice and sharing it with others. He is not only a guide, but a community builder, activist, and a New York Times Best selling author. Rooted in his study of ancient India’s mystic devotional tradition, Radhanath Swami’s message is as profound as it is simple: by cultivating a rich inner life of self-awareness and a genuine practice of service, we can become instruments of compassion and agents of sustainable change in the world.
“Do everything you have to do, but not with greed, not with ego, not with lust, not with envy; but with love, compassion, humility, and devotion.”
— Radhanath Swami
Radhanath Swami is the founder and co-ordinator of multiple spiritual communities throughout the world, the most prominent of which is the Radha-Gopinath Ashram located in Mumbai, India. Under his inspiration and guidance, the project has grown to include hospitals, orphanages, eco-friendly farms, schools, temples, emergency relief programs, and a food distribution program that feeds more than 1.2 million children in India every single day.
Have you ever read his biography "The Journey Home" - click here
Pondering...
Blue Zones, eating yourself to 100.
Andrew Merle writes about good habits for health, happiness and productivity.
You may have heard that Ikaria, Greece is one of the world’s Blue Zones — the places around the world with the highest life expectancy. Ikaria has been called the island where people forget to die. Residents of Ikaria stay healthy into their 90s and 100s with very little risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia, or any other diseases of old age.
Read The Blue Zones Solution, in which New York Times best-selling author Dan Buettner reveals the eating and living habits of the world’s longest-lived people.
In the book, Buettner lays out the specifics for each of these “Blue Zones” locations, analyzes the trends, and then prescribes a plan for people looking achieve the same level of health and longevity.
People have been eating bread for over 30,000 years, and it remains the most widely-consumed food in the world.
Bread is a simple delicacy.
A traditional loaf only needs 4 ingredients: Flour, yeast, water, and salt.
Ikarians eat true sourdough bread that does not contain baker's yeast.
The longest-lived people in the world don’t eat a low-carb diet.
In the Blue Zones — the places around the world where people live the longest — they actually eat a HIGH-carb diet.
The bulk of their diet is made up of complex carbs in the form of beans, greens, sweet potatoes, whole grains, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
The longest-lived people eat the least amount of protein.
In fact, 90–100% of the Blue Zones diet is plant-based — when you eat that way, you’ll naturally be reducing your protein intake.
If you want to live healthy to 100, eat like those that lived to 100
The best-of-the-best longevity foods are (Include at least 3 of these daily):
Beans (black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, black-eyed peas, lentils)
Greens (spinach, kale, chards, beet tops, fennel tops, collards)
Sweet Potatoes
Nuts (almonds, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, cashews)
Olive Oil (green, extra-virgin is best)
Oats (slow-cook or Irish steel-cut are best)
Barley
Fruits (all kinds)
Green or Herbal teas
Turmeric (spice or tea)
Explore more here
Wisdom/ What I'm Reading...
Anything you want
Derek Sivers.
Biography
Sivers sold his business, which he spent 10 years growing, for $22 million.
After making a living as a professional musician, Derek Sivers went looking for ways to sell his own CD online and ended up creating CD Baby, once the largest seller of independent music on the web with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients. Since 2008, Derek has traveled the world and stayed busy creating and nurturing creative endeavors, like Muckwork, his newest company where teams of efficient assistants help musicians do their “uncreative dirty work.” Derek writes regularly on creativity, entrepreneurship, and music on his blog: http://sivers.org/
Interesting (short) TED talk.
The book is about Derek’s lessons from building CD Baby, a company which he eventually sold for over $20M, and had 80+ employees at the time.
Too many people spend their life pursuing things that don't actually make them happy. When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you create all the laws. Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers.
What’s your compass?
In the following stories, you’ll notice some common themes. These are my philosophies from the ten years I spent starting and growing a small business.
Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.
Never do anything just for the money.
Don’t pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help.
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.
Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it.
Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people.
You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people.
Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business.
The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy
The biggest idea I took from this book was:
Most of us have lives filled with mediocrity. We said yes to things that we felt half-hearted about.
So we’re too busy to react when opportunities come our way. We miss out on the great because we’re busy with the mediocre.
The solution is to say yes to less.
If you’re not feeling “Hell yeah, that would be awesome!” about something, say no.
It’s an easier decision.
Say no to almost everything.
This starts to free your time and mind.
Then, when you find something you’re actually excited about, you’ll have the space in your life to give it your full attention. You’ll be able to take massive action, in a way that most people can’t, because you cleared away your clutter in advance.
Saying no makes your yes more powerful.
Though it’s good to say yes when you’re starting out, wanting any opportunity, or needing variety, it’s bad to say yes when you’re overwhelmed, over-committed, or need to focus.
Refuse almost everything. Do almost nothing. But the things you do, do them all the way.
There is a really impactful story about a taxi driver in Las Vegas, that lived there for 27 years and said he missed the days when the mob ruled the city, because as long as they made money everybody was happy:
Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?
“If you think your life's purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you'll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want
A true manifesto, a guidebook with clear signposts, and a fun ride you'll return to again and again.
For a different perspective and review of the book read this
Spoken Word...
Utkarsh Ambudkar
I have a lot of respect for this form of creativity. It’s not natural (at least not to me) to think so fast on your feet and make it rhyme.
Utkarsh - is in a league of his own.
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland to immigrant scientist parents.
Whilst attending arts school in NYC, he’d spend his days in class but his nights at clubs in the East Village, freestyling and battle rapping — in his mind, he was much more of a rapper than an actor.
Fortuitously, he was soon introduced to Freestyle Love Supreme, an improv-rap troupe started by Lin-Manuel Miranda with Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale.
If you haven’t seen this show please check it out here.
These guys are responsible for the incredible show “Hamilton”
Utkarsh missed his opportunity To perform in Hamilton as he was battling overcoming drug addiction.
The Story
Hamilton is the story of the unlikely Founding Father determined to make his mark on the new nation as hungry and ambitious as he is. From bastard orphan to Washington's right-hand man, rebel to war hero, a loving husband caught in the country's first sex scandal, to the Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy.
“Hamilton” became “Hamilton,” and Mr. Ambudkar, in 2014, became sober.
His career has taken a different path. He’s played memorable parts on television shows including “White Famous,” “The Mindy Project” and “Brockmire,” starred as the romantic lead in the recent independent film “Brittany Runs a Marathon” and steadily released his own music.
In my opinion his 2020 Oscars performance was epic! and a true representation of his incredible talent and the spirit of world class Spoken word artists.
He is extremely talented and very entertaining
Puts a whole new meaning to Rhyme!