Aligning your multiple brains - mBraining

"You have a brain in your head, heart and gut. Generative wisdom comes from aligning your multiple brains through their highest expressions."

As you know, my colleague Marvin Oka and I recently launched a new book called 'mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff', and I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the print version of the book is now available at Amazon CreateSpace: Get your copy here

I'd like to share with you some of the key insights and findings from the book and from our last 2 years of behavioral modeling research on the multiple brains and how to align them and harness their intelligence, intuition and wisdom.

Aligning your multiple brains

We have three separate intelligences operating in our bodies and these can end up in antagonism to each other, can have various patterns, habits and learned propensities, and can be aligned or not aligned. How our brains communicate and operate with each other is vital for success and happiness. It can be life denying when our brains fight each other or ignore each other and alternately, it is incredibly life enhancing when our multiple brains work harmoniously together to produce generative wisdom in our lives.

So how do you know when your mBrains are NOT aligned?

In our action research and behavioral modeling work we found that the following clues will often alert you when your brains are not aligned or integrated:

• You experience internal conflict within yourself between your thoughts, feelings and actions
• You’ve not acted upon your dreams, goals and plans
• You do unwanted behaviors or habits and don’t know why or have difficulty in stopping
• You find it difficult to make a decision(s)
• Something within you is making it difficult for you to motivate yourself to take action
• You sabotage yourself from achieving your goals
• You chronically experience disempowering emotional states such as frustration, depression, anger, anxiety, etc.
• You suffer from chronic health issues, especially those to do with the heart or gut region

So any time you find elements of these experiences in your life or behavior, then it's time to reach for the mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) Toolkit and use the mBIT processes we've detailed in the mBraining book, to repattern how your brains are working together to support you and enhance your life.

The mBIT Roadmap

One of the models we’ve developed during our work is the mBIT Roadmap. It is an explicit framework that outlines a clear developmental path when working with your three brains to bring them into coherence and alignment and produce generative wisdom in your life.

Alignment and integration of your multiple brains requires a number of steps and functions. To start with it needs communication between your three brains and this must be performed in an optimal sequence. The three brains need to then be brought into congruence and this is done through what we call the ‘Highest Expression’ of each of your brains’ prime functions i.e. through Compassion, Creativity and Courage. All of this needs to be facilitated within a framework of wisdom, and there are specific steps and techniques to do this.

Communication

Assuming you have recognized the need and value of aligning and integrating your three brains, the first step is to establish communication with your brains and facilitate communication between each of the brains. Remember, each brain speaks to you in different languages and in different ways as related to their prime functions. In order to facilitate communication with and between each of the brains, you’ll need to develop the skills detailed in the mBraining book and that I'll introduce you to over upcoming blog posts.

Congruence

This is about alignment between the brains. The flip side of this is to eliminate any conflict between the brains, and ensure they are in agreement and supporting each other in their functions toward a common agreed outcome. In order to facilitate this, you will need to work with NIE’s (Neural Integrative Engagements) and NIB’s (Neural Integration Blocks) — more about this in the book and in upcoming blog posts.

Highest Expression

Now that all of the brains are in alignment from the Congruence stage, you want to ensure each neural network is functioning in its most optimized state. We call this optimized state the ‘Highest Expression’ of each brain’s intelligence. Note that there isn’t a single, definitive Highest Expression for each brain that is universally true for everyone in all contexts. However, we have found that the following generative set serves as a powerful foundation from which you can start to explore, apply and work with the majority of life issues.

The Highest Expressions of the three brains are:

• Head brain – Creativity
• Heart brain – Compassion
• Enteric brain – Courage

Wisdom

This is the payoff for working with your three brains to get them aligned and integrated. This stage is about the practical applications of mBIT to the issue(s) you are working on. Wisdom is not a specific thing but rather an emergent quality that is the result of harnessing the perspectives and insights from all of your brains when they are functioning at their Highest Expressions of intelligence.

The wisdom that emerges from aligning and integrating your three brains is now applied to your issue(s) in areas such as decision-making, action-taking, problem-solving, harnessing your intuition, reflection and learning, etc. Remember that a major contributor to the emergence of wisdom at this level is not simply due to the Highest Expressions, but comes from aligning and integrating your brains in an optimally effective sequence which we have called the mBIT Foundational Sequence and I'll describe that in a later blog, or you can check it out and learn about it in your copy of the book.

Wrapping it up

So in summary, the mBIT Roadmap is a simple yet powerful framework for aligning and integrating your three brains. It enables you to quickly harness their intelligence for wiser and authentic living at your highest level of being.

The mBIT Roadmap provides a structure for the process of:

1. Establishing communication with your three brains
2. Aligning them so each is fulfilling its prime functions congruently as appropriate to the task-at-hand
3. Ensuring each is operating from its Highest Expression, and
4. Applying those Highest Expressions for greater wisdom in decision-making and action-taking

I hope you've found this as fascinating and intriguing as we have as we were discovering and researching it. Once you know how to, and are skilled in, aligning your multiple brains, life really starts to flow more easily and things that were previously difficult become so much easier. You are no longer fighting yourself or undermining your deep intuitive intelligence. You open up to the inherent wisdom of your deep inner self and become one with your core values and core authentic self. You also open up new possibilities in how you are creating and authoring your life. And that is truly life enhancing.

So do yourself a favor, and if you haven't already, pop over to our CreateSpace eStore for a physical copy of the book, or Amazon.com for a copy of the kindle ebook (and you can read it on the iPad too with the free kindle reader app). And check out our website: http://www.mbraining.com for more info on our fascinating work on mBIT and mBraining.

smiles and appreciation,

Grant

So what's mBraining about?

Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff

As you know from my last post, over the last decade, the field of Neuroscience has discovered we have complex and functional brains in both our heart and gut. Called the cardiac and enteric brains respectively, scientific evidence is emerging that these neural networks exhibit intelligence, memory and wisdom.

Neuroscience meets ancient wisdom

What's most fascinating about this is that current scientific knowledge is finally catching up with deep insights from esoteric and spiritual traditions informing us for thousands of years about the three powerful intelligences of the head, heart and gut. Take the following quotes as an example:

“And wanting what’s precious
you do what distorts your being.
The sage knows this in his gut,
And is guided by his instinct
and not by what his eyes want.”

Tao Te Ching

“Knowledge coupled with a warm heart brings wisdom.”

Dalai Lama

“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.”

Buddha

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

Aristotle

“That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.”

Rumi

“The body is the instrument of the mind...
The mind is an instrument of the heart.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Now isn't that amazing! We've known at a deep and intuitive level, across the ages and within our own lives, that our intelligence, wisdom and core life competencies are not just embodied in the head...

The power of NLP and Behavioral Modeling

So... Over the last 2 years, using methodologies from NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), Cognitive Linguistics and Behavioral Modeling, and informed by the latest Neuroscientific discoveries, my co-author Marvin Oka and I have been researching, modeling and documenting the newly emerging field of mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques). In mBIT, we have codified a powerful system for communicating with and integrating the wisdom and intelligence of your multiple brains, and we've called the process of working with and aligning your multiple brains: mBraining.

I thought it would be life enhancing and add some value if I started by giving you a summary of what we've uncovered in developing mBIT and what we've explicated in our new book. So here is a quick resume of what's covered in 'mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff', and in the coming weeks I'll blog in more detail about some of the key insights, some of the powerful and simple techniques and a bit about the underlying principles of how our multiple brains work together to either produce amazing wisdom and success, or to rob us of our peace of mind and create problems in our lives when our brains aren't aligned and working together.

What you'll discover in the mBraining book:

• The 6 Prime Functions of your head, heart and gut brains, and how each provides you with a different ability and talent. 

• The 5 classes of mBIT Neural Integration Constraints that give you deep insight into how your three brains may produce internal conflict within yourself, and what you can do about it. 

• How to recognise and interpret the different languages of your three brains when they are communicating important messages to you. 

• How your gut brain is able to learn and grow new neural pathways, and how you can actively educate it for greater ‘gut intuition’.

• How to balance your autonomic nervous system through the mBIT Balanced Breathing method to quickly relieve stress and gain access to the innate intelligences of your three brains.

• How to work with the Core mBrain Competencies Framework to quickly diagnose any unresourceful states, and to discern what is needed to bring your nervous system back into balance for optimal functioning in all three of your brains. 

• How the technique of mBIT Neural Syntax Mapping can explicitly reveal the functional or dysfunctional sequence in which your three brains are working together or conflicting with each other. 

• How to do the mBIT Foundational Sequence for yourself to ensure you are working with your three brains in the optimum sequence for generative results.

• How to work with mBIT Neural Integration Engagements to significantly amplify the effectiveness and power of your techniques whenever working with your three brains.

• How to recognise and overcome 15 types of Neural Integration Blocks that prevent integration between your three brains.

• How to use the mBIT Roadmap as a tool for self-evolution by harnessing the intelligence and wisdom of your multiple brains.

If you are interested to learn more, you can get a copy of the book here:

http://www.mbraining.com

smiles and best wishes,

Grant

mBraining and the exciting new field of mBIT

Hey there,

Well, it's been quite a while since my last blog post... and if you are wondering why, it's because I've been incredibly and hectically busy enhancing my life by writing a book with my good friend and colleague Marvin Oka, about an exciting new field we've been researching and developing over the last 2 years: mBIT (which stands for multiple Brain Integration Techniques). Marvin is considered to be one of the top NLP Trainers in the world and is sought after as an international keynote speaker specializing in Organizational Leadership and Behavioral Modeling Research.

mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff

Our book is called 'mBraining' and is about this new field and about how to use your multiple brains (your heart brain, gut brain and head brain) to do cool and life enhancing things in your life!

We finally got the book finished over Easter and the ebook has been uploaded to Amazon:

You can read more about the book and the ideas and concepts behind mBIT and mBraining at www.mbraining.com. (The print book is with our Publisher and should be coming out in a few weeks time.)

So what is mBIT really about?

I'll be blogging more about the ideas, concepts and techniques of mBIT over the coming weeks, but in a nutshell...

mBIT is a suite of tools and techniques for communicating with, integrating and harnessing the power of your multiple brains (head, heart and gut brains).

In developing mBIT, what we discovered in essence, is that each of your brains has a series of core competencies and that in particular each brain has a competency that is its 'highest expression'. What's more, the three brains, when operating via these competencies, produce synergistic effects and bring greater wisdom to decision making, relationships and life. The highest expressions are Compassion (heart), Creativity (head) and Courage (gut). When all three work together they produce amazing results!

Well, I hope that whets your appetite to learn more. I can tell you that mBIT and mBraining really are incredibly life enhancing. The techniques are powerful and can be life changing. People we have coached using the system have reported amazing transformations in their daily lives. We all know we have intelligence in our hearts and guts. We talk about gut instincts, heartfelt intuitions, messages from our hearts and guts and times when we just knew from a deep visceral feeling that something wasn't right. What we've discovered over the last 2 years is that there is a structure to how our multiple brains communicate with one another, and that you can learn to tune into your heart and gut brains, to align them and to amplify their intuitions and messages.

I trust you'll check out the website and book, and keep following along over the coming weeks as I share insights, tips and techniques from this life enhancing new field.

smiles and heartfelt wishes,

Grant

[I selected this post to be featured on Healthy Living Blogs. Please visit the site and vote for my blog!]

Uplifting your heart

"Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song."

Konrad von Gesner

Today's post is inspired by a gift I received this morning... Fellow blogger Susan Meyerott, who writes a great blog called 'Lightarted Living' (which I highly recommend), used one of my ideas and both created a cool blog post about it and also created some beautiful artwork inspired by it. So I thought it life enhancing to share her delightful artwork with you here, and write some more about the ideas behind it.

Communicating with your heart and gut brains

Over the last year or so I've been doing a lot of research on the enteric (gut) brain and cardiac (heart) brain and how they communicate and integrate together with the cranial (head) brain. I've been determining what the core competencies are of each of these neural networks and how best to work with them to align them.

[I've blogged in the past about the heart and gut brains, and you can read more about them here:

• Heart Coherence
• Aligning your multi-mind
• Messages from the Unconscious
• Habits and Patterns  
• Smiling for happiness and health 

]

Together with a great friend of mine, Marvin Oka, one of the top NLP trainers in the world, we've developed a field we are calling mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques), and we are currently running Action Research Workshops to codify our research and findings. mBIT is based on behavioral modeling informed by the lastest neuro-physiological and neuro-psych research about the heart and gut brains.

One of the simple yet powerful techniques I've created for communicating with and aligning your heart and gut brains based on mBIT is the one that Sue blogged about and created her delightful artwork for.

The idea behind this technique is to use focused breathing, along with metaphor and positive emotion, to send messages to your heart and then your gut. This leads to a re-balancing of your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), from Sympathetic dominance, back to coherence between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic arms of the ANS.

I'll be sharing more about mBIT over the coming months. Marvin and I have scheduled a 10 day writing sabbatical next month to begin work on our book about mBIT and the science and techniques involved with it. (Stay tuned and let me know if you're interested in hearing about when the book will be released. Let me know too if you're interested in attending any workshops or webinars that we'll be running later this year and into the next. You can contact me by leaving a comment or emailing me at: grant @ soosalu . com)

So what's the 'Uplifting your heart' technique?

Well, it's really amazingly simple. Whenever you are feeling stressed or in need of some uplifting or calming, simply take a few minutes to sit and breath in and out calmly and evenly, taking approx. 6 seconds on the inbreath and 6 seconds on the outbreath. Make sure the in and out breaths are of the same duration. (There's a reason and science behind this.)

As you breath in, imagine that the breath is uplifting your heart. Feel that uplifting feeling. And smile as you do this. Smiling makes a key difference. Really feel your heart being uplifted as you do this. You can imagine a color or light filling your heart with uplifting positive energy and love. And you can take that light, color and feeling and experience it going all the way from your heart to your head, taking these uplifting feelings and messages from your heart into your mind.

As you breath out, imagine your breath going down from your  head/heart to your gut, taking with it calming feelings and messages. Really feel that letting go, relaxing, calming sense fill your belly.

Breath in 'uplifting your heart', breath out and down 'calming your gut'. Continue doing this, as you smile, and feel so aligned and calmed.

It's really that simpe! Try it now. Practice it every moment you get a chance and it will serve you well in the stressful moments in which you might need it. There's a lot of science and logic behind what appears to be a very simple process. The heart leads the head and gut, and the heart itself can be guided through breathing and positive emotion. So use the 'Uplifting your heart' technique to guide and integrate your multiple neural networks and gain congruence and alignment in your life.

life enhancing smiles,

Grant

Eliciting Your Values

"Cheshire Puss, asked Alice. Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to go, said the Cat. I don’t much care where, said Alice. Then it doesn’t matter which way you go, said the Cat."

Lewis Carroll

Ok, in the last few blog posts we've been exploring the importance of values and how in times of massive change we need to prioritize and simplify where we can...

Prioritizing your life

One of the keys to prioritizing your life, is to get clear about your values, get clear about what’s most important to you and focus your energies and time there.

Most people don’t know explicitly and specifically what’s vitally important to them. They don’t know their hierarchy of values. And without that explicit knowledge, how can they effectively track and focus their time and life?

In today's post, we are going to fix that by getting you to map your hierarchy of values - your list of values sequenced in importance to your life.

Mapping your hieararchy of values

Grab a pen and some paper, and write out what you think and feel are the most important things in life for you. Is it health? Love? Adventure? Learning? What are the things that make life worthwhile for you? Brainstorm this. What do you want out of life? What do you want with others? What is the sweet taste of success for you? What is important to you? What makes your heart and mind sing?

Get your values on paper. Make a mindmap. Write them in whatever order they come to you. There's no right or wrong in this. Just make sure you capture them onto paper or computer.

Content versus Process Values

Note the difference between Content Values and Process Values. Content Values are the ‘things’ you want in life, like love, health, friends, family, wealth, adventure etc. They are the ‘whats’ of life.

Process Values are the 'qualities' by which you want to achieve the ‘whats’. They are the ‘hows’ of life. For example, honesty, integrity, courage, flexibility are all ‘hows’. They are the qualities you want to bring to the way you live your life.

I like to make two separate lists. One for the Content Values and a separate one for the Process Values. The more distinctions you make about your values, the better you are able to articulate the whats and hows of your life, the more powerful they become as tools for change.

List the hieararchy

Once you have your list(s) it’s time to prioritise your values in a hierarchy. Ask yourself:
“If I could only have one thing in life, what would it be?”

Circle it on the list as number one. Then ask, “If I could have 2 and only 2 things, what would the second value be?”

Continue till you’ve prioritised your list(s).

Then re-write the lists so that the number one value is at the top, and so on.

Listen to your heart and gut. You'll feel the importance of each value in your heart. Your heart brain knows what's important. Your gut brain will concur. Tracking goals, dreams and values is a core competency of the heart brain. Your heart's desires often guide your mind and spirit and manifest in your thoughts and ideas.

Put your list where you will see it every day

Now memorise your hierarchy of values. Put your list(s) up high on a wall somewhere in your house or office. Make them bright and bold and colourful. Refer to them often and keep them updated as you grow, learn and evolve through life. You can even make a visual collage of them. Collect images from magazines and books that represent your values and that make your heart sparkle when you look at them.

And most importantly, use your values hierarchy to organise your life and make decisions. If health is on your list as one of your highest values, and adventure is a lower value, then make sure that none of your adventures do damage to your health. Use your values as a filter to decide where to prioritize and place your time, skills, behaviours, attention and energies.

The clearer you are about your values and their relative importance, the more your conscious and unconscious decision making will align with them. Your RAS (Reticular Activating System) is powerfully linked to and influenced by your values, so the clearer you are on your values, the more it will work to serve you.

Value your life

Values are life enhancing. Use them as powerful tools to ensure you get the most of your life limited time, resources and energy. Align your decisions, choices and behaviours with them. Become a master of articulating and choosing what's important to you. Other people will support your values only as much as you know what they are and as much as you hold them strongly aligned in your own life.

"The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values."

William S. Burroughs

life enhancing thoughts and wishes,

Grant

Intelligencing

"Whether you think you can or think you can't -- you're right"

Henry Ford.

I came across the following life enhancing research report today from ScienceDaily ‘Science News’ that I’d like to share with you:

“A new study, published in the journal Psychological Science, has found that people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed.

In this study, Jason S. Moser of Michigan State University and his colleagues gave participants a task that was easy to make a mistake on. While doing the task, participants wore a cap on their heads that recorded electrical activity in the brain.

When someone makes a mistake, their brain makes two quick signals: an initial response that indicates something has gone awry -- the ‘oh crap' response -- and a second that indicates the person is consciously aware of the mistake and is trying to right the wrong. Both signals occur within a quarter of a second of the mistake. At the conclusion of the experiment, the researchers surveyed whether participants believed they could learn from their mistakes or not.

The results show that people who think they can learn from their mistakes do better after making a mistake -- in other words, they successfully bounce back after an error. Their brains also react differently, producing a bigger second signal, the one that says ‘I see that I've made a mistake, so I should pay more attention’.

The research indicates that these people are different on a fundamental level, Moser says. ‘This might help us understand why exactly the two types of individuals show different behaviors after mistakes.’ People who think they can learn from their mistakes have brains that are tuned to pay more attention to mistakes, he says. This research could help in training people to believe that they can work harder and learn more, by showing how their brain is reacting to mistakes.”

The power of attitude

Now isn’t that fascinating and life enhancing! Your attitude and beliefs about mistakes, learning and feedback makes a huge difference to how you respond to the world. Remember the blog post I wrote about ‘Learning from Feedback’? In it we explored how there is no such thing as failure, there’s just powerful and useful feedback. In light of the above research, you might want to give it a quick read to refresh your mind about this cool and life enhancing distinction.

Thinking Tool – Feedback

"No failure, only useful feedback!"

The process of Intelligencing

All of this comes together in what I like to think of as ‘Intelligencing’. That is, I believe that intelligence is not a fixed commodity, it’s not an object, but instead is a process, a set of skills and unconscious competencies. Your attitude to feedback and ‘mistakes’ is a core competency of intelligencing.

When you setup your unconscious filters to be able to use and appreciate the learnings and feedback of so called ‘mistakes’ then your brain reacts more intelligently to the information and rather than cognitive dissonance kicking in and limiting your learnings, instead you are able to intelligently use the feedback to learn and improve your self and your life. This creates a positive self-fulfilling cycle of ongoing learning and improvement. It generates more intelligencing.

It’s a cool distinction and powerful concept to apply in your life. I hope you find it as life enhancing as I do.

So embrace the research and the thinking tool above ‘No failure, only useful feedback!’ and turn all your ongoing mistakes into great opportunities for learning and improving your life.

many life enhancing smiles,
Grant

Simplifying and Valuing your Life

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. 

Henry David Thoreau 

As we've discussed in the last couple of blog posts, we now live in times of massive and accelerating change, and it's both necessary and life enhancing to embrace and lead that change. However, unless you embrace change intelligently, you can end up swamped and overloaded by all the newness that this brings.

In such times of overload and with so much happening in our lives, we need to learn to simplify where we can. Yes, you need to embrace change but that doesn’t mean you have to fill your life with noise, chaos and clutter.

Prioritise you life

In fact, one of the keys to coping with massive change is to prioritise your life, get clear about your values and what’s most important to you and focus your energies and time there.

Most people don’t know explicitly and specifically what’s vitally important to them. They don’t know their hierarchy of values.

So what are Values?

Values are those things you’ll spend time, energy, resources and money to move towards or away from.

The majority of people cannot consciously tell you their top 10 values in life.

Think about this. Your values determine what you’ll focus on and what you’ll do in life. Values help you make decisions. They direct your life. Yet can you tell me right now what your top values are, and in what order they lay in terms of importance?

You obviously can’t prioritise your time, energy and life if you haven’t decided what are the most important qualities and things you want in life. Priorities imply values. To be able to simplify your life and get the most beneficial use of your limited time, money, attention and resources you absolutely need to ‘value your life’. You need to get clear about your values and what the hierarchy is for them. Decide what’s the most important value, the second most important and so on.

Articulate your Values

The clearer your values are to you, the more conscious you are of them and the more able you are to articulate them, the more power they’ll bring to your life. In modelling successful people, the field of NLP found that successful people are incredibly clear on their values and the order of importance of them.

Clarity of values directionalises your unconscious mind and leads to what appears to be magical effects. It’s not voodoo or magic. It’s the power of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) – your mind’s attentional filtering system – to directionalise your energies and resources in achieving your values and outcomes. [You can read more about the RAS in a previous blog post here: Are there rocks on your beach? ]

It’s also the power and effect of self-fulfilling prophecies. Many, many books have been written about the 'secret' power of clarity and focus on values and outcomes. So make use of this to help you to remove the clutter and overload from your life.

It’s really very life enhancingly simple:

• Identify what’s most important to you
• Eliminate everything else

Start right now.

life enhancing thoughts,

Grant

Changing to stay the same

Have you ever noticed those people who seem to be mired in the past? At one of the organisations I’ve consulted in over the last 15 years, there’s an individual who is exactly the same today as he was when I first met him. He dresses the same, talks the same, acts the same and has the same haircut. It’s amazing. In a world of massive change, he has managed to remain as if he is chained and locked in a time-warp.

In a world of massive and accelerating change

Now think about this... In the last 20 years, the world has changed massively. In my short lifetime I’ve seen milk and bread being delivered to our door via horse and cart when I was a child, through to the dying off of home delivery of these commodities and processes. Now we have racing cars that can do 0 – 100 mph in less than 3.6 seconds. A world wide web of interconnected information. Mobile devices that allow me to communicate instantly almost anywhere in the world. And I can order my weekly organic groceries via the internet and have them delivered free of charge to my door by courier. All in less than half a human lifetime. It’s a world of amazing and accelerating change!

And with all this amazing change, the individual referred to above has managed to ‘change to stay the same’. Yes, that’s right. For him to be able to stay locked in the past, in a world of massive change, he has to actively (though unconsciously) change to stay the same. It’s an incredible skill.

A change master!

Really, he is in some senses a change master!

The only thing is… he doesn’t realise that he has incredible skills at changing to stay the same. What’s more, he uses his unconscious competence in change mastery to stay locked in to a past that is no longer relevant. The truth is, where once he was a key player in the organisation, now he commands little respect. He is sidelined in a dead-end role and has spiralled down in self-respect. He is bored and is given no opportunities for change and advancement because he has made it obvious to management that he is not someone who embraces change and growth.

Yet, he is capable of making amazing changes in order to stay the same. It’s like an old guy I saw the other day in the centre of the City. He was a wizened little fellow in his 70’s, attired in an old suit, with his hair slicked back with hair-oil. Now, when I was a young child, back in the 1960’s, it was the fashion for men to use hair-oil to slick back their hair. It was the cool thing to do. This guy has continued to follow the same fashion and pattern for the last 50 or so years. Incredible! I didn’t even think you could buy hair-oil anymore. Think of the skill this old guy needs to be able to continue to source and use the same product for all those decades. All so he can stay the same.

Are you changing, evolving and moving forward?

You know, these are more than just funny stories. I use them to remind myself to keep changing, evolving and moving forward.

It's about ensuring you are leading the change! Rather than using your skills as a change master to stay stuck in the past, how about using them to break those chains and lead the changes that are happening in your world! Change is going to happen, so anticipate those changes by leading them. Whether it’s at work, in the clubs and organisations you are a member of, in your circle of friends or at home, continue to lead positive, generative and life enhancing change. And actively look for those areas where you are changing to stay the same and let them go. Change mastery! -- It’s an orientation and attitude that reaps many, many rewards and brings newness to your mind, life and spirit.

life enhancing smiles,

Grant

Overcoming Stress - Choice and Control

"We have two choices: continue to blame the world for our stress or take responsibility for own reactions and deliberately change our emotional climate.”

Doc Childre & Howard Martin, HeartMath Solution

In today's post I want to explore some ideas and distinctions on 'stress' and how through the life enhancing skills of choice and control we can learn to master change and overcome stressing.

Choice and Control

We now have more choice than we’ve ever had before. We live in a time of massive and accelerating change. As the world changes and expands we end up with a huge range of options and opportunities. Research shows that paradoxically this increase in choice is making people:

• Not choose
• Regret their choices
• Feel depressed
• Feel overwhelmed

There are a couple of issues and insights from these findings.

Firstly, recognise that stress is an unconscious personal reaction to what’s happening to you. If a wide range of choice is stressing you or overwhelming you, notice that it is you who is stressing yourself over having to do the choosing. You create the stress, not the situation. Sure, you don’t do it consciously or deliberately. Nevertheless, it’s your brain and multi-mind (head-brain, heart-brain and gut-brain working together or working in opposition to each other) that’s generating the stressing response.

What this tells you is that you need to learn new strategies for coping with choice and control. That’s what this blog is about. Helping you learn and practice new skills for gaining more choice and control in life. That’s what life enhancing is all about.

Secondly, stressing over a large range of choices is indicative of a poor decision making strategy. It’s a signal that you aren’t clear about your values and outcomes and how to make a useful choice to satisfy them. We’ll deal with this in more detail in an upcoming blog post.

Before getting into decision strategies and values however, I really want you to understand the insight that you don’t ‘have’ stress. Stress is another of those nominalisations – a verb disguised as a noun. There’s no such ‘thing’ as stress. Instead there’s just the process of stressing.

The benefit of understanding this is that stressing is an action, it’s a process. It’s something you are doing. You have control over it. Or more to the point, you can learn to have control over how you are stressing and how you are relaxing. It’s your choice.

As Dr. Hans Selye, the father of modern stress research points out “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one”. We’ll be exploring this in more detail shortly. Once you understand that the process of stressing is something you can learn to control, you are firmly at a point of choice in your life. Now you can begin to gather the knowledge and skills you need to control how you respond to what happens in life. Remember the Law of Requisite Variety we discussed in earlier blog posts?

It says that the more choice and flexibility you give yourself, the more control you get over life. There is a sister law from Cybernetics that goes hand in hand with this law, and it says that for true control you need knowledge. So the formula can be written as:

Choice + Knowledge = Control

This explains in part why people who are given lots of choice end up in ‘overwhelm’ rather than feeling in control. They’ve got lots of choice, but they don’t have the right knowledge about how to do excellence in choosing. We’ll remedy this in upcoming posts by learning about values and decision strategies.

The formula also shows why it’s important for you to understand that stressing is a process you can learn (knowledge) about how you are choosing to respond to what is happening to you in life (choice). Get it! You are now on the road to controlling stressing in your life because you are learning both of these skills.

Yes it's certainly true that we live in a time of massive and accelerating change. Instead of being a victim of that change, you can learn to master change and lead it rather than being run over by it. You can learn to become energised by the sea of information and change rather than being swamped and overwhelmed by the waves of change. I personally find this life enhancing and something to be very happy about. We live in an amazing time on this planet and by using appropriate skills and attitudes we can live an awesome life of adventure, learning and happiness’ing. Now how cool is that!


life enhancing best wishes,

Grant

For more info on the process of Nominalisation and how you can use it to make powerful changes in your mind and life, check out my previous post: De-nominalising your world

Just say YES!

We all have the extraordinary coded within us... waiting to be released.

Jean Houston

What powerful and simple advice "Just say YES to everything!"

Years ago, when I first started my Consulting business, I was earning great money and doing fun and interesting work. But a good friend of mine was earning four times what I was earning from the same type of consulting work, and winning clients and opportunities I could only dream of. In the spirit of behavioral modeling, I asked him what his secret was, what was it that he was doing that generated his incredible success, and what I could do to emulate this.

His answer to me: "Just say YES to everything!"

Yes, it was as simple as that. The key to unlocking the extraordinary, was to say YES to every opportunity that came along, to say YES to every thing that was suggested or offered in any way. At first I thought it too simplistic. How could just saying 'Yes' create such amazing success? So I gave it a go, to see if it was true.

Amazing. When you start to say YES to everything, new doors and opportunities begin to open. It's like you're sending a positive message out to the universe. An unconscious message to clients, colleagues, family, friends, the world, that you are a positive and 'can do, will do' sort of person.

People respond. They start to offer things they previously never made available to you. You get invitations you've never got before. It's an incredible self-fulfilling prophecy effect. A snowball effect. Success builds on success. YES builds on yes!

The Yes Man

The powerful and life enhancing effects of saying YES to everything are superbly told in a wonderful and deliciously humorous book I've just finished reading called 'Yes Man: One Little Word Can Change Your Life...' by Danny Wallace.

Danny's book tells the true story of how 'one little word can change your life.... forever!'. It's the story of how, on the advice of a stranger, he decided to start saying YES to everything, and the amazing events that unfolded. His life changed over night. Amazing things started to happen and have continued to this day. [They even made a movie out of the book and the story of his adventures.]

It's a wonderful story that had me rolling on the floor with laughter at times, and deeply contemplating the philosophy of yes at others. Quite a roller-coaster of a book. Definitely worth a read! Something worth saying YES to :-)

Say YES to this

So there it is. A simple, powerful and life enhancing strategy. Start saying YES to the positive opportunities and life enhancing offers that life brings. Don't say no. If you hear yourself being negative or responding with a no to an invitation, turn around and say YES! Watch what happens in your life as you send out a clear and congruent message that you are YES! kind of person.

And let me know how you go and what adventures and experiences unfold as you bring out the extraordinary in your self and your life through the power of YES!

Remember: Just say YES to every life enhancing thing!

life enhancing thoughts,

Grant

ps As Danny found out, there's a caveat to this strategy, make sure you only say YES to those things that meet your values. Don't say yes to anything that transgresses your values, involves unacceptable risk, is illegal or might hurt you. Only say YES to those opportunities that enhance your life!

Failing the Failure Formula

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”

Jim Rohn

You know, it takes more work to fail than to succeed. Failing is a skill. There is a structure to failure and it is encapsulated by the following formula which turns the NLP Success Formula on its head:

The Failure Formula
1.    Ignorance – Don’t know what you want or what’s important to you.
2.    Don’t do anything about it – don’t take congruent action or take inefficient or meaningless action.
3.    Ignore all feedback – don’t learn from experience.
4.    Don’t change – be very inflexible, keep doing what doesn’t work.

It’s really obvious!

It’s obvious really… repeated failure comes from being very skilled in one or more of the steps above. You can easily sabotage success by not knowing what you want, or following poorly-formed outcomes; by not taking action or taking incongruent and ineffectual action; by ignoring feedback or advice; and by being stuck or inflexible and not changing as required. Oh, and remember: make sure you complain and whinge about how cruel life is to make all this happen to you...

The wise aphorism of ‘a stitch in time, saves nine’ expresses quite well the fact that failing creates more work and requires more energy from life. If you are clear on your outcomes and proactively do the ‘stitch in time’ to fix things before they fail, you’ve only invested a small amount of energy to succeed.

However, if you neglect to get clear about what you want and need in life or fail to take action in time, then you’ll end up having to do ‘nine’ times the work to remedy the failure. You will constantly be expending far more energy, time and resources just to get by.

A cool idea…


And here’s a cool idea… If you are skilled at failing, then why not fail at failing? Just stop failing. Fail at following the Failure Formula. Hmmm, obvious really: Turn failure around and do its converse – success.

Yes, failure takes work and is a skilled incompetence. Anytime you find yourself not getting what you want in life, examine your behaviour to see if you’re unconsciously following any of the steps of the Failure Formula. Look for examples of the Failure Formula in your life. Then assiduously and passionately pattern interrupt them and do the converse.

Place your focus and motivation onto the steps of the Success Formula. Get clear about your goals, values, strengths, outcomes and dreams. Prioritise and focus your well-formed outcomes. Take congruent action and follow through. Learn from the feedback life provides as you take action and then change flexibly to keep adjusting your behaviours till you’ve achieved your desired results.

If it’s possible in the world, then it’s possible for you. It’s never a question of ‘if only I could do it’, it’s simply a question of learning ‘how’ to achieve your desired success. Learning comes when you are open to feedback and open to advice. Look for role models – people who have already achieved the results you desire. Then learn from them and model their actions.

Invest in your Self

This life is yours! It’s the life you lead! So lead it well. Your life can be fantastic if you stay strong, stay focused and put action to your dreams.

Invest in your life, your future and your self. Build up your knowledge and skills. Determine your strengths and then build on them. Focus your life. Gain as many and as varied experiences as you can.

Educate yourself. The more you invest in your self and in creating a meaningful life, the more you’ll be able to live great dreams. Life is a wondrous adventure and there is nothing like living an amazing dream to create an amazing future now.

And you can learn more about all of this in my new book: 'Avoiding the Enemies to HAPPINESS'

So Take Action! Follow the Success Formula. Be the changes you want to see in your world. Watch out for the Failure Formula in your own life and those around you - Pattern interrupt it whenever you see it. You can do it! You really can make a life enhancing difference!

smiles and life enhancing wishes,

Grant

The hidden power of smiling

Heya, here's a short life enhancing video that my friend Mike shared. In it, researcher Ron Gutman reviews a raft of studies about smiling, and reveals some surprising results.

[In case the embedded vid doesn't work for you, here's the link:

TED: The hidden power of smiling ]

And if you'd like more info about the power of smiles, check out my post Smile about this it'll put a smile on your face :-)

life enhancing smiles,

Grant

The power of words...

Words can change your life. They are the tools you use to construct your reality and your connection with others. Here's a short and powerful vid that both uplifts and demonstrates the amazing power that words can have. As the description to this vid says "This short film illustrates the power of words to radically change your message and your effect upon the world."

Let me know what you think.

[and here's the youtube link to the vid in case the embed above doesn't work for your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU ]


If you'd like to learn details about the neuro-linguistic effects that words have on your mind and body, check out my previous post: Life Enhancing Language


smiles, Grant

The kindle is cool

I recently purchased a Kindle and thought I'd share my experience with you about how it is such a Life Enhancing Device (LED).

Apropos of my last post about the importance of learning and gaining myriad life experience, the Kindle opens up new possibilities and more cost effective and easier access to books, reading and learning.

The Kindle is Amazon.com's foray into the eBook Reader market. With the Kindle 3, it's now at the third version of the device. And most techo companies require three versions to really begin to get their technology matured and close to functional usability. The Kindle 3 has now reached that point, and with a price that equates to a couple of tanks of petrol (or for those in the USA 'gas'), you're crazy if you don't get yourself one.

The Kindle 3 comes in a 3G with WiFi version, that has international free roaming over the 3G network worldwide. Free that is for purchasing and automatically downloading books from Amazon.com, along with browsing wikipedia.com. It also allows you to email pdf's and MSWord .doc files to a free.kindle.com email address that automatically converts the files to .mobi format, the native format for the Kindle, and downloads them for free to your Kindle via any WiFi connection.

With thousands and thousands of free and inexpensive eBooks available at sites like ProjectGutenberg.org and Amazon.com, you can now fill your Kindle with more books than you'll ever be able to read. And if you want to buy a new book from one of your favorite Authors, you'll find that you'll recoup the price of the Kindle with the purchase of your first few Kindle versions of the books, compared to the inflated prices being charged for dead-tree books these days. Browse online with the Kindle, click to purchase and the book is downloaded, ready for reading in seconds. You'll never be without something to read again!

The device is thin, light, brilliantly easy to read with it's cool e-ink screen technology. And the battery lasts for weeks between charges (providing you turn off the WiFi when not requiring it). This means you can take your Kindle on overseas adventures and not worry about trying to find a place to recharge it.

As my friend Ryan said recently, after he'd purchased and used his new Kindle, "I love the Kindle, it's the best thing I've ever owned in my life". Which is a BIG claim given he is a techo from way back and is definitely not gadget challenged. Yup, I do totally agree with him, the Kindle is a Life Enhancing Device. It's cool.

smiles and life enhancing wishes,

Grant

Think about this...

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Here's some some thought provoking ideas and life enhancing logic explorations I've been playing with today:

1. What differentiates people in life and largely determines the results and outcomes they achieve is their actions and behaviours
2. Actions are predominantly created and generated by attitudes, beliefs, and decisions
3. Attitudes, beliefs and decisions are in turn engendered through thoughts, ideas and intuitions
4. Thoughts and ideas are guided and triggered by knowledge, learning and experience

It's kind of obvious when laid out like that... what differentiates the quality of your life over the long term is the quality of the knowledge, learning and experience that you build into your life. It really all comes down (and up) to knowledge, learning and experience.

Your thoughts guide your decisions and behaviors, but you can only think with the tools you have available in your mind. The more ideas, experience and wisdom you have in your toolbox, the greater the chance you'll think intelligent thoughts, have intelligent and life enhancing attitudes and beliefs, and correspondingly the greater the chance you'll do intelligent and life enhancing actions and behaviors. Hmmmm, simple really!

So here's the logical conclusion... If you want an intelligent and enhanced life, you need to fill it with intelligent learning, experience, knowledge and awareness. The more of that you do, the better you'll differentiate your life.

So that's my thought for today... What can you do to make a difference to your life? What books are you going to read this week? What online articles will you google and read? What learnings are you going to put into your life this week? Ongoing? How specifically are you going to learn and experience more in your life? What are you going to do to enhance your life today?

You learn something every day if you pay attention.

~Ray LeBlond

life enhancing thoughts,

Grant

ps in my next blog post, I'll share with you a cool life enhancing device that I've been using to do more reading and learning with!

Looking past limits

Here's an incredibly inspiring and life enhancing video that is well worth the few minutes of your time to watch it now.

It's about believing in yourself and looking past limits to create an enhanced and enhancing life for yourself and others.

[here's the link to the talk if the embedded vid doesn't work for you: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/1116 ]

I hope you enjoyed the video and found it useful and life enhancing.

smiles, Grant

Adventuring

Hey there,

Adventuring is life enhancing!

I've just recently returned from an incredible month of snow adventure travels in the USA, and thought I'd share with you how life enhancing adventuring can be and encourage you to do more adventuring in your own life.

I feel so refreshed and alive! So filled with a renewed sense of how magical our world truly is, how wonderful it is to meet new people, see new places and deeply connect with nature.

We started our adventures with a couple of weeks snowboarding and skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What an amazing place it is! Incredible snow and incredibly friendly people. Fresh powder falling from the sky most nights. Blue sky days. Stunning views of the Tetons. It was so much fun that you'd wonder if it's legal :-) I have to say, as I've said before in this blog... snowplay is incredibly life enhancing! If you love the snow, then make sure you get out and play in the fluffy white slippery stuff this year. And if you haven't ever availed yourself of the magic, then let me say, you really owe it to yourself to give it a go. Snow creates a fresh palette of beauty to explore, play and adventure in. It opens up new ways to move through gravity. It facilitates immediate flow state. Meditation in motion. Fun! Exhilaration! Incredible!

We followed this up, with 10 days in Togwotee, Wyoming. An amazing place, where back country snow-mobiling is king! Here we enjoyed sled trips out to Yellowstone's Old Faithful and Grand Canyon regions. Such a stunning contrast of volcanic activity, steaming guysers and the pristine beauty of ice and snow.
 

Snow-mobiling is an incredible way to explore the wilds. The power is awesome! Snowmobiles really are Life Enhancing Devices! And going backcountry on 160HP freedom machines is a whole 'nother way to mix adrenalin with passion and scenic beauty. I was in petro-sexual heaven :-D

We also went dog-sledding. Gliding along the trails in sleds pulled by 12 trusty and ever-willing hounds. What a hoot! It's also a wonderful way to explore the back-country. And boy do those doggies love to run! They are ever so eager and wag their tails the whole way there and back. Hearts of gold and boundless energy. After a day of dog-sledding I felt uplifted and inspired by both the experience and the role-models set by our team of dogs. They know how to make exercise fun and how to pull together to achieve. Wonderful.

Finally we hopped across from Wyoming to Minnesota for 10 days of snow adventures with our good friend Thomas 'Sully' Sullivan. Sully is an amazing person. So full of life and passion for making the most of every single day. He is a writer with some 80 published novels and short stories and his work broadly ranges from the excellent and Pulitzer nominated literary satire THE PHASES OF HARRY MOON through to sci-fi and thrillers, including his latest paperback release THE WATER WOLF (free chapter on his web page). If you haven't already, check out my blog posts on some of Sully's takes on life enhancing: Inspiring your Soul and Freedom is life enhancing.

Sully invited us over to the States to stay with him and go x-country skiing under the stars in the back trails around Elm Creek and Crow Hassan. He was the impetus and seed crystal for our snow-adventure holiday. An incredibly generous and gracious host, he took us out snow-shoeing and x-country skiing in all his favorite places, where we got to appreciate his fine culinary treats (raisin bread peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with melted coffee blast ice cream...) and all the fractals you could ever desire in the starkly contrasted decidous trees silhoutted by the moon or sun, depending on the time of day we were out adventuring.

Along the way we got to do an ice fishing adventure, and serendipitously connected with some of the wonderful people we met on our travels.

Adventure is life enhancing!

Yes, adventuring is truly life enhancing! New things, new people, new places. It connects you with a deeper sense of self. Connects you with the world. Opens your horizons. Suffuses your life with freshness, passion, adrenalin and energy. Adventuring makes you feel alive in ways that normal day to day life just can't provide.

So here's my gift to you... a question...

What adventures can you bring to your life now? What adventuring could you do tonight? this weekend? this month? Soon. Now!!!!

Adventures don't have to be huge or involve overseas travel. They can be as simple as a walk in the park at sunset. Or a ride on your bike along a new pathway you haven't yet explored. A visit to a beach or forest you haven't been to in a while. Getting out with some friends to a new restaurant. Going away for the weekend. Anything that you find fun, different and inspiring. And even better if it involves being out in the natural world.

As Sully reminds us "The cues to magic are all around you... The magic is in the effort".

So make the effort and go adventuring. It's truly wonderfully life enhancing!

smiles and cheers,

Grant