“There are three secrets to managing. The first secret is have patience. The second is be patient. And the third most important secret is patience.” -Chuck Tanner

Managing Yourself

In business we all know that management is everything. If you don’t manage your resources properly your business won’t succeed, it’s as simple as that.

In business we put systems in place and train our human capital to manage and execute the systems. If our systems are efficient and our training is adequate, usually the outcome is a desirable one.

Needless to say we spend a tremendous amount of time and energy in learning to manage our surroundings.

Unfortunately we live in a world that is dominated by commerce, by economics, our lives are dictated by it, that with time we end up forgetting to manage the most important thing, which is managing ourselves.

Trying to manage the outside world without managing ourselves is surely a recipe for disaster.

To be be more specific managing our inner selves, many of us do not understand what that even means, that it’s necessary. We are not aware of how our own systems that exist within us work.

Many people have become great managers in their external worlds and have become quite successful because of it, but without proper inner management, many come to suffer from their success. This is very sad because success in this world does not come easily.

I just want you to take some time to ponder over the following question. Has your happiness gone up or down as you have gotten older? In the last 24 hours how many happy moments are you able to recall?

If you can’t think of many, this just means your having bad inner management. This should be a wake up call because when you look at everything we do in life, it is done in the pursuit of happiness. Which will mean something different for everyone depending on the stage of development he finds himself at.

Somewhere deep down we believe that if we can manage our family, our careers, our finances, that it will bring us happiness, a deep fulfillment.

Managing Yourself Effectively

So what does being a good inner manager mean? It means learning to manage your body, mind, emotions, and energies. If you don’t have inner management you are managing your outside world purely by accident, there is no real meaningful intent behind your actions.

When you manage situations as an accident, you exist as an accident, anxiousness then becomes a natural part of your life.

One is not stressful because of what we are doing, but because we are bad managers of ourselves.

Everyone believes their job is stressful, stress is not the nature of the job. If you don’t have control over your systems you will be stressful no matter what it is you find yourself doing.

The systems we need to manage is our body, mind, emotions, and energies. Just like any business properly managing these systems requires diligent research and development.

What makes a good manager in a business? The person usually has a great understanding of the essential aspects of the business, it’s operations, and most importantly it’s employees. He knows his employees strengths, weaknesses, personality, and generally has built some good rapport with them. Many of us fail to take the same penetrating look inside our selves to understand how we work and then learn to manage ourselves accordingly.

If you manage yourself properly, you will rise to your true potential.

All that matters is that with whatever you are doing you put your whole heart into it, it then becomes beautiful because our heart is in it. You will be able to put your heart into anything once your systems are operating in harmony, when you understand each part and the role it plays in your life.

So now it’s time you take a penetrating look, do you really know how good a shape your body is in? Do you really understand your emotions and the role they play in your life? How about your mind, do you understand your thinking process and how it affects your life? How about your energies, do you know how to summon and keep your energies abundant so you can respond to life with actions that are total?

If you are not satisfied with your life most likely you have let these systems run unconsciously, they are not communicating with each other, they have become corrupted. They are all pursuing their own agendas and usually going in opposite directions, leaving you scattered, frustrated, anxious, powerless.

You need to start infusing your life with awareness and take conscious control over your systems, start the process of understanding all the aspects of your being and get them back in alignment. Once you start getting yourself aligned you will take control of your life.

Inner management is essential to life management. It’s your responsibility to learn to manage yourself, blaming and complaining the outside world will get you nowhere.

It’s never too late to enroll in the school of life, the lessons are endless and once you understand the basics (body,emotions,mind, energies) It won’t be long before you receive your Master’s in yourself.

Once you know yourself at a deep level you will know everything worth knowing. God speed my friend.

If you have any personal insights you would like to add, please join the conversation below and leave your comments.

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“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get” – Forrest Gump

(editors note: orginally published on 2/01/2009)

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Forrest Gump”, not because it’s a great story and very well made film, but because it teaches us a lot as well. Tom Hank’s character Forrest I feel displays some of the attitudes that would allow us to accomplish a whole lot and lead a fulfilling life.

If you have not watched the movie, “Forrest Gump” tells the story of a man and his epic journey through life. Along the way Forrest gets to mingle with historical figures, influences popular culture, and experiences first-hand historic events while being largely unaware of their significance, due to his borderline mental retardation.

Because of Forrest’s mental retardation and his mom’s sage advice, Forrest approaches life without being aware of his limitations, he simply takes action and figures it out along the way.

“My momma always said that Miracles happen everyday, some people don’t think so, but they do” – Forrest Gump

Some of Forrest’s Accomplishments:

1. All American football Player (Even though he started his life with leg braces)
2. Graduated College
3. Joined The Army and Got A Medal of Honor
4. Ping Pong Champion
5. Started a Successful Shrimp Company
6. Ran Across America for Three Years

“Make sure you do your best Forrest, I sure will momma”

What we can learn from Forrest Gump:

1. Being Grateful: Forrest did not concern himself with the past or dream about the future, he was fully present in his life, and therefore was able to be grateful for whatever he had going on.
2. Learning To Let Go: Life is a roller coaster with many up’s and downs, when things got tough Forrest always chose to see the brighter side of things, he made opportunities where others only saw defeat or failure. Forrest would put all his energy into one goal at a time, taking it to completion then moving with life to the next destination.
3. Impeccable with his Word: He kept his promises. Forrest made a promise to his friend Bubba from the army, that he would help him start his shrimp company when the war was over. Bubba did not make it back home, but Forrest still kept his promise and went 50/50 and gave Bubba’s share to his family.
4. Accepted Others: Forrest did not judge people he loved, he accepted them for who they are, complete with strengths and weaknesses.
5. Was not greedy: Forrest only used what he needed then gave away the rest. Because of his generosity the more Forrest gave the more he got in return.
6. Taking Action: Forrest did not really think about things too much, an opportunity would present itself and he would take action putting wholehearted effort into what ever he has doing.

How To Be like Forrest Gump:
There’s no doubt that we can all accomplish many great things like Forrest Gump, but we must be able to have a plan in place to accomplish our goals. We need to learn how to manage our activities (tasks) and stress along the way to get the most return from the actions we take.

Procrastination:
The reality is that most people routinely put off doing things they hate to do. A lot of the time these activities are also the ones that must be done if they are to progress and grow in their lives. The flipside is that because of our modern day society we also put off things that we love to do. The mantra is usually that there is not enough time in the day.

Today the challenge is how we make time for the things we enjoy when you are overworked, over scheduled, and overwhelmed.

With so many things competing for our attention like our job, cell phone, email, kids, TV, Internet, Twitter, Facebook, etc. our goal should be to be productive and efficient without burning out. We need to have the energy to pursue the things that will add value and meaning to our lives.

It’s not really about time management more than its managing meaningful activities. If you are not able to manage all the activities you want to complete, you will get stressed out and have your mind zooming in a million different directions.

When you observe our modern society you will notice that we get caught up in being productive, efficient, and stressed out that we slowly accept burnout as a normal way of life.

Manage Your Stress:
Being Busy all the time with out making room for the things you enjoy like yoga, cooking, reading, writing, and spending time with the family will lead to overwhelming stress. Not being able to manage your stress can lead to many health risks because of the overwhelming stress hormones that your body secretes like cortisol.

Balance is Key:
We just have to realize that we don’t have enough time in the day to do everything we would like to get done. We need to indentify the most critical things and work until they are complete, then move on to less important tasks.

Learning To Let Go:
We only become stressed about the things we respond to. How you respond and react to all the things that demand your attention is how you will learn to control your stress.

Typical modern day demands:

• Being able to manage: email, internet, text messages, PDA’s, facebook, myspace, twitter.
• Fear of loosing job
• Insecurity
• Multi Tasking several demanding activities
• Taking supplements for sleeping, energy, and mood
• Lack of boundaries

“My mom always said theres an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes, where they go, where they’ve been, I’ve worn lot’s of shoes” – Forrest Gump

Activities to help you cope with stress:

• Exercising
• Joining a sport or club
• Good nutrition
• Outdoor activities
• Meditation
• Meeting up with old friends for good conversation and coffee.

Think of your energy like being a bank, you need to manage your credit (activities that give you energy) and debits (demands that take away energy). If you are making to0 many debits you won’t have enough money (energy) in your account and will only burn yourself out.

Make a list of all the things that take away energy and the things that you are doing to add energy. If there is not a good balance start figuring out how you can achieve that balance by taking on activities that will add energy.

Whenever you feel the stress building up become aware of it, face it and think about the best way to respond to it. When you get rid of things that you did just to stay busy what will you do with the extra time?

Making Things Happen:

1. Valuable: Identify the things that are truly valuable in your life.
2. Acceptance: Love and accept who you are right now, and use as stepping stone to next level of growth.
3. Realistic: Make sure you pursue things that with proper effort and planning will be a reality. Try and take on goals that will take 3-12 months, anything longer than that and it will be difficult in finding the motivation to keep doing. Start in baby steps accomplishing things that are manageable and will give you confidence.
4. Trivial: Identity all the things that are not adding value to your life and eliminate them.
5. Define: Define a structure or daily routine that will with one step and a time get you close to the big picture goal.
6. Growth: Make the time to evaluate key areas of your life like your finances, relationships, health, and spiritual health and make time to do activities that focus on your growth.

“We either make ourselves miserable or make ourselves strong, either way; the amount of work is the same” Carlos Castaneda

Where Does Your Stress Stem From: Physically, intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually. Identify where there stress is coming from and respond with an activity that counteracts it.

Integration:
When you identify what’s valuable think of ways to integrate it into your daily life.

· Join a common interest group
· Sign up for a class
· Read a new book
· Start a project
· Start a new hobby

Taking action:

1. Put the situation into proper perspective
2. Decide what you are going to do
3. Start small
4. Set Deadlines
5. Do to most important tasks first than reward yourself

Hope you found this article helpful, I really believe that once we begin to strip away our self imposed limitations,we to can accomplish many worthwhile things like Forrest Gump.

I wish you best, keep growing, keep evolving, and keep shining my friend- Ivan Campuzano

If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to empower as many people as I can.

“Run Forrest Run…..from that day forward if I was going anywhere I was running” – Forrest Gump

“Even if you have not awakened, if you realize that your perceptions and activities are all like dreams and you view them with detachment,not giving rise to grasping and rejecting discrimination, then this is virtually tantamount to awakening from the dream.” Muso Kokushi

Yes you can shape your daily reality, there I said it, and if you join me on this journey you may even start to bend it like Neo in the Matrix. In this post I just want to present a few ideas for you to chew on and contemplate on your adventure to a better life.

To change your world you need to change your self, to change your self you need to gain a deep understanding of yourself. To understand yourself, you need to understand the structure of thought, of memory, of ego, and your thought processes.

“All that we see or seem,Is but a dream within a dream.”~ Edgar Allan Poe

We are incredibly complex, and if you are serious about going on an inner journey you will come to find how divided we are within ourselves. It’s not just one little voice that lives inside you, in reality most of us have a crowd of independent personalities that live inside us.

We never become aware of them because they are extremely clever at pretending and protecting each other as if they are one. Having so many personalities causes you much inner conflict because they all have different wants and desires, causing contradicting thoughts.

Having contradicting thoughts leads to confusion and immense energy dissipation of the mind. Having a mind that lives in comparison, confusion, and conflict is having a mind that is never in reality. It is not able to see something clearly, it can’t see “what is” it only projects your imagination to what you think it should be. Therefore there is always conflict between fact and fiction.

As an example, there may be a part of you that says that “you never gossip about other people”, and you really want to believe this so you create a personality that will keep this belief intact. Now having this belief working below your conscious awareness you can gossip all you want, and never even notice it. If someone points it out to you, you wont believe them or will quickly rationalize it with another belief.

So one of your goals in learning about your inner mechanisms is learning how to become more integrated, more grounded, and less divided within yourself. Integration leads to clarity, focus, understanding of your true wants, and elimination of false personalities that where only imagined.

Meditation is your way to become integrated, true mediation will help your mind become unconditioned from all that is false.When you learn to become aware of your own awareness you will be able to see how incredibly cunning your mind is.

If you are interested in learning about disciplining your mind here are a few intro posts: How To Master Your Mind , The Power of Discipline: Cultivating Will Power.

Your Common Thought

When you are unaware of your common thought, you are completely unaware of your enemy within. Reality reflects back to you what you think commonly. Many people are not aware of their common thought because they think that, that is who they are. You are not your mind and thoughts, only a certain aspect of you. You have been deeply conditioned to associate your thoughts with your identity and sense of self. To see who you really are is to transcend this association and observe your mind and thinking processes.

Thinking without awareness is how many people become slaves to their mind. Their mind takes on its own imagination leading you helplessly in infinite directions. Therefore, your identity also follows because you are only experiencing the world by believing that who you are is your thoughts and mind.

Each day you have thousands of thoughts and you become emotionally consumed by them. The only way you will ever be at peace is to disassociate your self-image and identity from them. This requires a shift in your consciousness that will allow you to be the witness and observer of your thoughts and ego. This is the consciousness and perspective of the real you. The more this becomes a habit, the more you will become liberated from incessant thinking.

How To Make Life Better by Shaping Your Daily Reality

Through out your day, you need to be conscious and aware of your thoughts. You need to learn to witness your mind passively. You will see that throughout the course of your day, that when you pause and contemplate, your mind is in a extremely quite space of where your thoughts will be directly sent to your subconscious mind.

Our conscious mind cannot help but analyze and judge all of our thoughts. Depending on the sum of all your knowledge and your beliefs, those thoughts will be modified and eventually sent and carried to your subconscious mind.

These thoughts, whether they are true or not, will influence your attitude and how you respond to the outside world, ultimately shaping your reality. Your subconscious mind does not think it simply receives and sends data without any judgment. This is why I mentioned that it is important to become a more integrated being, so that you have thoughts that are in harmony and not contradicting each other, causing you inner conflict.

So the key in learning to shape your day is to become a passive unattached witness to your thought process. To create the space to observe your thoughts so that you can change your thought pattern to one that is more conducive to your growth and fulfillment. Learning to watch automatically creates inner space, the more you watch, the more space you create.

At first it is helpful to write down any thoughts or general themes that you keep recycling in your internal dialogue. What does this say about your daily life? It is also important to be always conscious of what your main aim is. If your main aim is to be happy and have happy thoughts, how good a job are you doing?

“Above all, a person is his will. As he wills in this life, so he becomes when he departs from it. Therefore let your will be fixed on attaining Brahman.”~ Chandogya Upanishad

As you become a more alert and conscious person you will develop true will power. Then you can really focus and take inspired actions on the things that you truly want to achieve. I just want to thank you for reading my short article, I hope it inspires you to take control of your self and your life. Wishing you the best – Ivan Campuzano

If you enjoyed this article please take a moment to share it with your friends or anyone you think would find it useful.

You may also like:

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Self Improvement Daily

“You can gain more control over your life, by paying closer attention to the little things” Emily Dickinson

In an age of information overload having selective ignorance has become increasingly important to have a sane life. Many of us spend too much time giving our attention to trivial things that are not improving the quality of our lives. We need to learn to not sweat the small stuff and focus on what’s important. Interestingly enough many of the small things we do daily can lead us to life changing decisions. The skill you have to develop is how to be aware of the small stuff that’s important and not worry about the trivial things.

If you really analyze your life you will see that it is our small behaviors that end up defining us and give others a peek into who we are as individuals. Everything that you ever achieved that you considered worthwhile started off in small steps. Learn to acknowledge and celebrate your daily victories. Over the long run they will yield substantial change and lead to the attainment of your desires.

Small Steps To Personal Development Daily:

1. Make Small Talk: Learn to be a socially friendly person who is genuinely interested in learning about others. Having the ability to strike up conversation anywhere and with anyone can  literally change your life overnight. You never know when small talk can lead to your next business partner, mentor, or even your next relationship. The more you learn to make small talk the more opportunities you give yourself to be unexpectedly surprised.

2. Appreciate the little things: I think that beauty lies in simplicity, learn to become aware and appreciate the little things. If you really pay attention you will see that the little things are what make all the difference. If your spouse has the habit of always leaving you a little love note in your lunch, make sure to acknowledge it. Let her know how much of a difference it makes in your day, your wife will really appreciate the feedback.

3. Take Baby Steps: Whenever you have a new goal or project in your life, take the small steps that will give you direction to the bigger decisions you will need to make to accomplish your goal. It can be as small as making a phone call, sending an email, buying a book, or requesting some information from a website.

4. Celebrate Small Victories: If you take action that puts you one step closer to your dream, celebrate it. Learn to acknowledge that everything you do is molding and shaping your ultimate destination, give your self credit for mini jobs well done.

5. Take Advantage of Small Opportunities: Opportunities present themselves everyday, learn to spot the small opportunities that can be conducive to your growth and can lead to bigger opportunities down the road. If a small local group invites you to speak to 20 of its members, gladly accept even if you feel it will not directly help you. This is a great opportunity to practice your speaking skills and meet some new people.

6. Learn In Small Chunks: Try everyday to learn something small but seek to understand it fully. Working on and perfecting small chunks of information will lead you to a better understanding of the whole. If photography is a new hobby of yours make it a goal to learn a new aspect of photography like using different types of lenses.

7. Keep an Idea Book: This is your companion for your thoughts, let this be the laboratory for all your ideas. Jot anything down, most will start off small and than you can work on developing them into something more tangible.

Just remember that small things really can make a big difference, you just have to make sure you are focusing on the ones that matter. Hope you enjoyed this short post on the power of the small actions we take. If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family.

If you enjoyed this post check out:

The Power Of No

One Day At a Time To a Life of Fulfillment Joy and Contribution

How To Be And Live Like Forrest Gump

How To Increase Your Awareness and Expand Your Consciousness

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I would also love to hear your feedback, please leave your comments below. I really appreciate your support - Ivan

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” Albert Einstein

Psychological Time Management

Time is invariably and indescribably an integral part of how we experience life, but beyond its utility value, should we care about it in terms of how we choose to live our day to day lives? Should I waste my valuable time constantly worried about events in my distant future? Or should I use my time to live as intensely as possible in the now, and take the necessary actions that will set in motion the conditions of my future reality?

So what creates our psychological relationship and therefore attachment to time? The answer is that our thoughts are what create our time. If you have ever reached a place of “no mind” where your thoughts cease, either through meditation or an intense experience, you will understand what it means to have a “timeless” mind. No thoughts, no time. As soon as thoughts enter, time enters.

With that in mind, I would like you to take the time to examine your common thought and internal dialogue. What does it say about your relationship to time and how that impacts your life? Are you constantly on the run and feel like you don’t have enough time? Do you feel anxious and stressed all the time? Is it really that you don’t have enough time, or can it be attributed to incessant or disorderly thinking?

Therefore to change your relationship with time and your life, you need to come to a deep understanding of your mind and the nature of your thoughts.

Your thoughts are essentially your self image (ego), which is where much of the population derives their sense of self from. You will need to transcend your thoughts and mind to be able to observe your true nature. This is a journey that I cannot show you, it is one that you simply can’t understand logically but will have to arise as your own understanding.

Hopefully you will see that this is the only journey worth making. If you take a good look at humanity you will see that most people are asleep and mechanical. Take the plunge into becoming more awake and conscious, the world needs you to be awake.

Your thoughts come from your memory, that which already happened. Thoughts are therefore always old, yet life is always new and we react with old thoughts and ideas. Just take a look at how the world continues to cling to old ideas that are only hindering our progress.

Improving Your Time Management To Change Your Life

If you want to change a habit, why do you say it will take some time? Observe who is saying this, why do you need 6 months to change or any time for that matter? If you look deep enough, you might see that all your conditioning from society that has shaped your self image is the one who believes you need time to change.

What if you can transcend this false sense of self, and see things for what they really are, will you need time to change? The answer is no, when you are no longer in psychological bondage to your thoughts, you now have the energy to take inspired actions not dependent on your past or future. Your memory is essential for your daily life but the problem lies in when we continue to carry all the emotional baggage by becoming attached to our memories.

Getting to a deep understanding of your inner self is an arduous journey. Self study and mediation will be your keys to understanding and discovering all the subtle aspects of your mind. You will need to become the witness of your inner world, to be able to see the observer (your ego) without judgment and attachment, to be able to learn from it. You will see that whenever you see the world strictly through the filters of your thoughts you become identified and attached to whatever is being observed.

The observer becomes lost with what is being observed, in these moments you will see that you are not able to remember your self, your sense of “I am”. Unknowingly through your imagination you have now become bonded with an external circumstance. This is where much of your pain comes from, because when you give your power to something outside of yourself, eventually when it is taken away or changes you will feel the pain.

You can see that this is a common situation with a couple’s relationship. You only see the other person as a projection of the image you create through the thoughts you have accumulated, but once they change and don’t conform to your image of them, pain arises. To see a person as they truly are you need to learn to step outside your mind and see through fresh eyes, to be objective as possible. This is the only way you will ever truly love someone, a love that is free of your conditions and expectations.

How Does Your Attitude Affect Your Sense of Time

My attitude towards time is one that has become more detached and passive. The way and feeling, in which the events in my life have played out, reflected the implication of this “mindset”. As I mentioned above our thoughts create our sense of time.

I try to be in a space of being a passively detached observer of my mind. My experience is that I am able to feel more the ebb and flow to my life and respond accordingly. I am able to see how seemingly trivial decisions and actions played a pivotal role in outcomes that where days and weeks into the future.

It became evident to me that it is of the upmost importance to become conscious of all my actions and it what context they where being made, keeping in mind things such as: thoughts, feelings, attitudes, expectations. How I respond to life has become more joyful because I am not carrying as much emotional baggage and I am able to become open to life.

Beginning and end are two aspects of the same coin; the experience we observe between the two is time. How fast we change our lives depends on our understanding of our true selves, how we use time and our attitude towards it.

Example To Think About: How would your attitude, mindset, and actions differ between a project you had 1 week to accomplish vs. 4 weeks to accomplish the same task?

• How would things play out in those two scenarios?
• How would your attitude affect the final outcome?
• What is the one thing that remained constant amid the apparent external changes?
• Did life just happen to you and you reacted? Or did you allow for things to unfold on their own and you responded with the most conscious approach?
• Did you notice or feel any correlation between the events in your life in relation to your attitude towards time and change?
• Can you remember a time where if you had a different attitude towards time would have changed the final outcome?

I just want to thank you for reading my article, I hope you take a good look at your relationship to time and discover some new insights for your journey. I would love to hear your comments how your attitude and relationship towards time affected your life.

This is your life, let’s share and learn from each other but don’t let anyone tell you how to live it. If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to self empower as many people as I can.

“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” George Eliot

I really believe that all of us possess something unique that we need to contribute to the world. We all have an inner source of abundant energy and creativity. With any success you achieve in the outside world it is in direct proportion to the success of your inner world. That’s why we should all strive for continuous improvement in our inner worlds. To master your life you need to master yourself.

I love learning, I try and have an attitude that is open to new ideas and concepts. Having this type of attitude leads to higher levels of personal achievement. Another useful attitude is to always question everything, questions are one of the greatest ways of eliciting knowledge.

To reach your dreams it is essential to cultivate an inner world full of discipline, energy, power, and optimism.

“Avoid an inferiority complex, for it means that you underestimate your powers” Yogananda

Take the time to evaluate where you are and think about where you want to be. Make a list of the things you need to improve upon to become the person that will make your dreams a reality. Realize that the only limits you have are the ones you set for yourself. Examine the things you wrote down, can you see how you have limited yourself? To break these limits you will need to get out of your comfort zone. When you expand beyond your limits you will make use of your divine resources.

A good place to start is to look at all the things that you fear. Do what you fear doing, these are the things holding you back. Every time you let your fears get the best of you, you only add fuel to the fire and make it stronger. If you are ever to live a fulfilling life you will need to conquer your fears. When you take a good look at them, you will see that most of them are just imaginary; they simply exist because you have conditioned your self to believe they are real. Remember that any experience you have is not inherently painful or pleasant, it is your thinking that makes it so. When you examine your fears deeply you will realize that it is simply a conditioned response.

Going from where you are to where you want to be will be a process. You will need to build mental toughness and dare to go into the unknown with courage. You must be able to go beyond fear and greed, these are the mechanical parts of your brain. By living with courage you will be activating the non mechanical parts of your brain, you will become more intuitive. Your intuition will help guide you in the direction that you must take. When you develop courage in yourself, you will be able to do what you need to do because in your heart you will know its what’s right for you.

10 Daily Rituals To Cultivate Constant and Never Ending Improvement

1. Period of Peace: This should be a scheduled time that you allow yourself to have everyday. It could be as little as 10 minutes in the morning or at night before going to bed. Just learn to be with your silence, let things reveal themselves to you. Deep silence is something that many neglect in our fast paced world. Like they say silence is golden, make it apart of your life, it will do wonders for you.

2. Exercise: By having a healthy and energetic body our experience on earth becomes that much richer. Your body needs to move to stay vital, make sure you keep your body active in any way you can. I enjoy practicing yoga because it’s great for your mind and body.

3. Proper Nourishment: If you feel lethargic and lazy, could it be because of your diet? If you are lacking energy make sure you have a diet that is rich in live foods. This just means foods that are cultivated from the earth’s soil. Green foods are all great for energy. Try and stay away from processed foods.

• Top 10 Brain Food

4. Knowledge is power: Make sure you feed your mind new ideas daily. Have the ritual of reading something that is valuable for 30 min – 1 hour everyday.

• How To Make Reading A More Meaningful Experience

5. Contemplation: Make the habit of examining your day every night. The only way you will make tomorrow better is by knowing what you did wrong today.

• How To Enjoy and Grow By Being With Yourself

6. Getting up early: The early bird gets the worm. You don’t need more then six hours of restful sleep to function properly. Make sure you are using your time wisely and not over sleeping.

• How To Lucid Dream Easy

7. Listen to some soul music: Make sure you make the time to listen to tunes that make you feel great.

8. Mantras or Affirmations: What we say is very important, make sure you craft your own affirmations that will empower you and keep you focused.

• Top 7 Myths About Affirmations

9. Congruent Character: Make sure that the actions you take daily are in alignment with your ultimate aim or vision.

• One Day At a Time To a Life of Fulfillment Joy and Contribution

10. Simplify: Focus on eliminating anything that is trivial in your life and focus on your essential needs. Much of our stress comes from placing too much importance on these that add very little value to our lives.

• How To Be and Live Like Forrest Gump

We are all creatures of habits, where you are today is the culmination of all your past actions. If you don’t like where you are at, decide that today you will start the process of changing yourself and your life. Stay disciplined and start in baby steps with time you will see that your new daily habits have changed your life.

If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to empower as many people as I can.

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”Chinese Proverbs

Become a Teacher 101

“Teacher”! “Teacher”!! I don’t understand.

Those where the constant words my teachers would hear coming out of my tiny mouth. Luckily I had some great teachers and mentors who did not get discouraged and would inspire me to reach new heights. We are all unique beings with diverse talents and perspectives that have capacity to teach others. Fortunately teaching does not have to be something that is confined only to the classroom.

We can all contribute something valuable, and if we cultivate a few qualities can make our contribution more meaningful by teaching and motivating others along the way. Below are some qualities one should strive for to become a great teacher. Remember to not overestimate others and never underestimate yourself, if you look deep enough you have something to teach the world. One of the greatest feelings you will ever get is to be a part of another human beings progress.

I Want To Become a Teacher Where Do I Start: The Top 19 Qualities To Cultivate

1. Engaging/ Relevant: Teaching is a two way street, if the student is not engaged, your efforts will have been wasted. You need to get a student interested, excited, and enthusiastic about learning. Get to know your students desires, how can you teach in a way that is relevant to the things they want.

2. Good Evaluators: Good teachers are aware of their student’s skill sets and abilities. They are able to teach without getting to far ahead of their students abilities. They are able to stimulate the student to the next level of progress. They know when to push their students and when to back off and give them space to contemplate on their own.

3. Creative: To be become a great teacher you need to have an open mind and be creative in your approaches to teaching. Everyone learns in different ways, so you must find new creative exciting ways to make learning an enjoyable experience.

4. Good Attitude: Your attitude determines everything, when you have a great attitude you take great pride in sharing what you know, and the student will also be more receptive to you.

5. Clear/Concise: One of my pet peeves was when my teachers made a simple exercise complicated by giving unclear instructions. Many times people like to complicate things to seem intelligent or superior. Remember this is not about you; make sure you make it as easy as possible for a student to learn.

6. Organized: Time is precious and many don’t have the luxury to spend large amounts of time learning something new. Make sure to think ahead of anything you might need and be prepared so that you are able to focus on the learning experience.

7. Clear Objectives: Students need a target, be upfront with what they will be learning. If your idea is too vague or abstract a student will see no point in paying attention.

8. Empathy: Depending on your students abilities, learning complex ideas can be emotionally draining. When your students hit a wall or an obstacle, empathize with them. Try to focus on the positive, find ways to encourage them to fight through the difficulties.

9.Flexible: Many times things don’t go according to plan, if something is not working, re group and try a new approach.

10. Genuine/ Interested: Have a sincere interest in your students, if they know you care, they will go the extra mile to do their part. This is also an opportunity for you to learn as well.

11. Sober/ Professional: I remember having a few college professors who had to be drunk; there could not be another explanation to why the lecture was so terrible. Your appearance matters as well, think about what context and learning environment you will be in.

12. Knowledgeable: As obvious as this sounds, if you are not knowledgeable on a certain topic how can you teach it to someone else. Once you have your objective, make sure you do the necessary research, so that you can be confident in your ability to teach. If you are teaching something that is highly specialized, make sure you make the effort to continue your education. Subscribe to trade magazines, read up on the latest developments, go to seminars, etc.

13. Balance: Creating balance in our lives is critical. If we are to be good teachers we need to have a good balance in our mind, body, and spirit. When we neglect a certain aspect to our being, its effects spill over and sabotage our efforts.

14. Inspiring: A teacher who can inspire their students has the potential to awaken talents, that the students where not even aware they possessed. Someone who is inspired will go to great lengths to see their objective carried out.

15. Confidence: A teacher, who is confident in himself, will teach in a way that instills confidence in the student. The student will be assured that what they are learning is valuable and accurate. If a student senses that you are not confident in yourself will doubt your abilities to teach. If my friend is teaching me how to approach woman but he himself is not confident in his ideas, how will I be confident in applying what he is trying to teach me.

16. Respectful: Learn to be aware of age, gender, and cultural differences. We all come from different backgrounds learn to be respectful and seek to understand others.

17. Clear Expectations: Don’t promise a Mercedes Benz if you can only deliver a Ford Escort. Make sure you set realistic expectations in your student, than strive to go above and beyond.

18. Keep your ego in check: This is all about the learning process, don’t take anything personally when you commit a mistake or your student proves that you are wrong. Teaching is a very fulfilling and rewarding experience if you don’t let your ego get involved.

19. Adaptable: Finally the last quality to a great teacher is his ability to adapt. Change is the only constant, when circumstances change, learn to let go and embrace whatever is needed to progress.

Well there you have it, 19 qualities that if you are able cultivate within you, will almost guarantee that you become a successful teacher in and out of the classroom.

If you are a teacher who would like to live and work abroad check out this post: “How To leave America and Become a Vagabond”

If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family.I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to empower as many people as I can.

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The Power of Twitter

I have been using Twitter since October 2008 and it’s proved to be a great way to meet new like minded people and a way to share my articles. Recently I was on a Coffee tour of Café Britt in Costa Rica. I had my i-pod touch and realized they had free wi fi, so I logged into twitter, and gave a quick update that I was about to go on a tour.

When I was done with the tour and was browsing the gift shop, one of the tour guides announces “Is Ivan Campuzano here?” I raise my hand and say that it’s me, but I was a little worried that somehow they knew my name. I than come to find that one of my followers William from Alaska read my update, went online to the Café Britt website, gave them a call and purchased some coffee and chocolates as a gift for me.

To me it was a lovely surprise but also let me know what an incredibly connected world we live in. Even in a little town in Costa Rica with just my i-pod I was able to let people know what I was up to, but more importantly that I had developed some type of relationship with someone I did not know personally. I mostly use my twitter account to send daily motivation to my followers in the form of quotes, random thoughts, and links to my articles which I hope inspires others.

I assume that the reason @wrtheuer bought me this nice gift was because I somehow inspired him either through twitter or through my blog. The internet is a crazy place and sometimes it’s hard to know if your efforts are even being noticed, but this thoughtful gesture made me believe that there are many people out there who appreciate the work you do. This little experience really made my day, sure getting free coffee and chocolates was awesome, but to me just the fact that a stranger would take the time and effort to brighten up my day was amazing.

If you are not familiar with twitter, twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.

(video of Cafe Britt and me thanking @wrtheuer for the gift)

In the example I used above, I used twitter to give a small real time update to let my followers know what I was up to. Twitter can be used in many ways not just as a way of updating you status.

The Many Ways You Can Use Twitter

Get Feedback: If you ever need a second opinion or new perspective, just blast out a message asking for advice. If you have thousands of followers this can be a great source of collective intelligence that can give you immediate insight into your question.

Hire People: Everyone is on Twitter, if you ever need any type of free lance service send out a quick message to your friends for any recommendations. It’s a great place to find writers, programmers, website designers, and graphic designers.

Make New Friends: Twitter makes it easy to find people with similar interests, just go online to http://search.twitter.com and type in keywords that relate to the kind of people you would like to meet.

Personal Branding: Twitter can be a way to establish your self as a leader, expert, or persona within the world you wish to be in. If you are genuine in your interactions you will be able to develop positive relationships that where never once possible.

Read News: Twitter allows anyone in the world to become a news reporter and has been the fastest resource for immediate news as recently shown by the people in Iran.

Use it as a To Do list: You can use an online task management service that is synced with Twitter. One example is Remember The Milk.

Direct traffic: Twitter can be used to get traffic to your websites or the sites of friends. As long as you post useful, entertaining, and valuable links there is the potential for others to help you spread them by re tweeting.

Set Up Meetings: Can be a great quick and easy way to set up an impromptu meeting. You just arrive in a new city and would like some company at a coffee shop, send a tweet and meet one of your followers who lives in the area.

Business Management: Twitter can be used as a company intranet that connects employees to one another. Everyone on your team can use it for immediate updates and quick company memos.

Notify Your Customers: You can use it to notify them of any new products or services or a way to promote special offers and incentives.

Take Notes: You can tweet a quick note or save a link for later reference.

Event Updates: Need to update your audience about your upcoming art show or music festival? Send a quick update before and on the day of your event, if you have developed sometime of rapport you can expect some people to come, who otherwise would have not been aware or informed about it.

Find Prospects: If you know who your niche market is, do a quick search for keywords related to your product or service on Twitter Search and then follow users. If you find someone who may need or is interested in your services, send them a direct message. This is a tricky area as marketers increasingly use twitter to spam.

Water the Plants: Botanicalls Kits let plants reach out for human help! They offer a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates to your mobile phone. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know. Botanicalls uses moisture probes to allow your plant to tweet you a message when it needs a drink.

Well hope you enjoyed my article on the power of twitter, if you enjoyed it please send me a tweet about it so I can start following you. Hope all is well, tweet ya later my friends If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to empower as many people as I can.

http://twitter.com/ivancampuzano

If you enjoyed this post check out:

It’s The Small Things That Matter

One Day At a Time To a Life of Fulfillment Joy and Contribution

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.I would also love to hear your feedback, please leave your comments below. I really appreciate your support - Ivan