Did you know that the number one cause of obesity is something called “emotional eating?” If you use food as a way to deal with stress and anxiety, you are not alone. Here are some steps you can take that will help you to avoid emotional eating:

First of all, it’s important to spend a little bit of time thinking about the things that actually trigger you. Get a piece of paper and a pencil and think about the different life situations you’ve been through. If you’ve been through a divorce, write that down. If you were abused as a child, make a note of that as well. Write down all of the difficult emotional times that you have been through. The triggers to your emotional eating will inevitably have arisen from these emotional events and traumas from your life, even if some of them occurred decades ago. Simply being aware on a more conscious level of the emotional baggage that you are carrying will help you to recognize those triggers.

Another great idea is to start keeping what you might call an “eating journal.” In your case, write down not only what you were eating but also what you were thinking and feeling at the time. When you ate that entire bowl of chips or carton of ice cream, what inner voice were you trying to silence? What specific stress were you trying to deal with? Understanding the relationship between your eating and your emotions is a major key to breaking bad habits.

The most revolutionary idea that I would like to share with you is to start listening to your body. It’s now possible to find out exactly what your energy field “thinks” about that tasty morsel you’re about to put into your mouth!

There are a number of very effective ways to tap into the subconscious mind that are actually quite simple and easy to perform. Let me share the simplest and easiest of these ways. I call this the “Sway Test.”

If you are standing in a relaxed posture, your body will tend to gently sway forward if you are thinking about food that your subconscious mind wants, and will sway backward if you are thinking about foods that it perceives to be harmful!

Here’s how it works:

If there is any music playing in your room, or if the television is on, turn them off, so that you will be able to focus completely on the test. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Drop your hands to your side, and close your eyes. Allow yourself to completely relax.

Try thinking about the word “salad.” Try to imagine the most delicious, healthy salad that you’ve ever eaten.

The moment your inner mind connects with the thought of “salad,” and all the good fiber, vitamins, minerals and nutrients that go along with that salad, you will begin to sway forward, as your subconscious mind realizes just how good for you that salad would actually be. This typically doesn’t take more than five or 10 seconds, and gets easier with practice.

Now, allow yourself to relax again. With your eyes closed, focus your mind on the word “Hot Pocket.” As you think about this ultimate form of junk food, your subconscious mind is somehow aware of the artificial ingredients that are in that product, the humectants, the preservatives, the food colorings and so on, that are going to make you fat. Once again, the moment your subconscious mind makes the connection with what a “Hot Pocket” really is, your body will start to sway backward of its own volition, in an attempt to move you further away from eating something bad for you.

Most people have no difficulty with this test. Remember to relax completely and focus your mind in a powerful way upon the food, whatever food you choose. Test your food before you eat it. It may just surprise you to find that your body actually wants to have a choice in what you are eating!

About the Author: Author and international lecturer in bio-energetic medicine and energy psychology, Dr. Brad has successfully used The Emotion Code with thousands of patients around the globe to relieve symptoms and often affect cures in conditions ranging from depression to cancer. His best-selling book,The Emotion Code, offers step-by-step instructions for working with the body’s own healing power. Learn more at http://TheEmotionCode.com/ and www.emotioncode.tv.

We went to the funeral of friend’s mom recently. She died suddenly of a heart attack while at home with her husband, who was only into his second week of retirement. When my father-in-law Gary heard the news and learned that they were both in the same age range, he reflected, “Wow. I guess I’m really on borrowed time.”

He’s right. But not just because he was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis in his twenties and probably hasn’t had a pain-free day since then. And not just because he continues to amaze his doctors with how long he’s been able to keep on going. No, he’s right because we are ALL on borrowed time.

That becomes obvious when we hear of sudden heart attacks and car accidents. When we are faced with stories of tornadoes that drop out of the sky, ending lives at random, or see the aftermath of troubled souls who decided children are suitable targets for acts of terrorism.

Life expectancy may be 78 but that doesn’t mean we can expect to make it there.

Gary is on borrowed time. I’m on borrowed time. And so are you. The real question is, how are we investing this time we are borrowing?

By watching more TV? Keeping busy with activities that don’t really matter? Staying put on a career path we don’t really like?

Or are we building something wonderful by living with a sense of urgency and making hard choices that lead to a better story and a lasting legacy?

The choice is yours. But hurry, the clock is ticking.

by Jason Kotecki

Zig Ziglar once said, “You can have everything you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

You know what most people want? They want to be seen, heard and valued for who they are. They want to know that their life matters, and that their work is making a difference in the world (and other modest comforts, like a nice bed).

So it’s not that hard to give people what they want and then ask for a little something in return. Because here’s the really interesting thing: our brains our wired for reciprocity. So when we do something nice for someone else, they really want to do something nice for us too.

When I decided I wanted to get my book published, I gave some thought as to how to do it. Most “Writer’s Market” type books suggest querying possible book companies or agents, but go to any publisher or agent website and you’ll see that nobody accepts unsolicited submissions.

So what’s a girl to do?

As I’ve mentioned before my modus operandi whenever I want to do something is to look to whoever has already done it and find out what they did. I really hate to recreate the wheel.

So my first step was to scour the “acknowledgments” section in all the books I love (and in a similar genre as mine) and see who the authors were thanking for “having made this book possible.” Guess who they mention every time? Bingo: their agent.

So for every author who thanked their agent, I took some notes, did a little more research and then sent them a carefully crafted letter. Here’s the one I sent Elizabeth Lesser, the author of Broken Open and the founder of the Omega Institute. (Note: I really want to give retreats and talks from her stage too.)

I sent my letter to her email address (which she helpfully provided in the back of her book).

Dear Elizabeth,

You’re probably one of the most prominent midwives in America. Even though you’re no longer catching babies, you’re still a midwife, because like a good midwife, you’re willing to facilitate, support, and encourage women in dark places.

You’ve certainly been a huge inspiration for me. You see, I’m also a midwife, and I think labor and birth make excellent metaphors for life. I currently practice nurse-midwifery in a hospital-based birthing center and I have a personal coaching business, Midwife for Your Life, on the side.

I’ve dog-eared almost every page of Broken Open and heard you speak at Omega NYC last April. Your message of making friends with change and asking every crisis or challenge, “What have you come to teach me?” has helped me more than I can express. Really, that book seems full of what midwives teach their patients: faith in a process of healing and our ability to find our own path back to health.

As it happens, I’ve written a book, called Create the Conditions for a Life You Love: 28 Days of Strategy, Tips and Inspiration That Will Help You Give Birth to Your Best Life. Every one of the days contains a lesson, with exercises I created from science-based research and from my experience with my midwifery patients and my coaching clients.

So– I couldn’t help but notice that you spoke very highly of Henry Dunow in your acknowledgments. Would you be willing to suggest how I might make contact with him?

Thank you so much for your time and attention to this note. I look forward to attending future Omega retreats and dream one day of teaching at one of them! Take wonderful care, Stacey

Everything I said in this letter was true, of course. I deeply admire the work that Elizabeth Lesser has done, and I wanted her to know that she had made a difference in my life. And so I tried to be as detailed as possible, and worked hard to express all that her work has meant to me. That was the gift I hoped to offer.

I knew, too, that I needed to be detailed about how she could help me. “Will you help me get published?” would certainly have been too much to ask. But I expected that if I asked a small favor-one that would satisfy a need I had worked to define-she would have no problem granting it.

Her response?

Hi Stacey, Thanks for writing. Your website and all your work is inspirational.

Henry Dunow is not taking new clients. I can name a few other good agents, if you would like their contact information, feel free to email my assistant (details given for how to reach her). Warmly, Elizabeth

From there I proceeded to contact a few of the agents I thought most likely to be interested in my work. I was very excited when I found one who had successfully represented an author to Hay House, which is where I “see” my book published.

Here’s what followed:

Hello Susan,

Elizabeth Lesser suggested I contact you. I was delighted to see that you represented Tim Freke to Hay House, because that is where I see my book being a good fit.

My book is Create the Conditions for a Life You Love: 28 Days of Strategy, Tips and Inspiration That Will Help You Give Birth to Your Best Life. It’s a 28-day journey that guides you to your best life: With it you learn how to create the conditions for a life you love. It’s everything I’ve learned about how to live a happy and successful life.

I’m a nurse-midwife and a mentor who helps women give birth to their big dreams. I have a thriving coaching practice and blog and I’ve published hundreds of articles online.

As you know, we’re in the midst of a sort of literary “happiness boom”-with books like Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project spending months on the New York Time’s Best Seller List (and weeks at #1), it’s clear that readers are ready to get happy.

If you’re interested in receiving a full proposal, I’d be happy to send it to you.

Thanks so much for your time and attention. Take wonderful care, Stacey

A few days later I received this reply:

Hi Stacey

Great to hear from you and your project does sound interesting. As this is a first book for you I am putting you in touch with my excellent and helpful agency administrator who will take you through new author assessment procedure and will do a report on your synopsis and book a meeting with me once that report is completed.

Looking forward to meeting you in due course,

Very best wishes
Susan Mears

And after a few more email exchanges, and one Skype chat, I was signed. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So what do you really want? And how can you help enough other people get what they want-even if it’s only appreciation-so that you can get it? And when you’re pursuing your dreams, how will you avoid reinventing the wheel? Answer those questions and you’ll be actualizing your dreams before you know it!

by Stacey Curnow

There is a secret we all should know. The secret is that everyone has far more potential than they ever reach. We are all held back by forces we don’t recognize or can’t control. On a systemic level we call these forces macro-inhibitors and on a personal level we call them micro-inhibitors.

Macro-inhibitors are structural and systemic forces that constrain human potential such as nationalism, racism and toxic ideologies. They are part of the world we have inadvertently created.

We can’t change the macro-inhibitors alone — they are too large for one person to change. But we can change the inhibitors that diminish us on a personal level; the micro-inhibitors.

Although we call them micro-inhibitors, they aren’t small. They are huge in our individual lives. They will limit everything in our lives forever if we don’t identify, understand and fight them.

Fortunately, we can identify them, we can understand them and we can reduce or eliminate them. We just need the tools to do it. Potentialism can supply those tools.

These micro-inhibitors that hold us back have many sources and together constitute a form of psychological baggage.

Of course, the sources of these micro-inhibitors are different for each of us. Clinical psychologists sometimes spend years trying to help people find the sources of their problems, and that is valuable help. But many micro-inhibitors are readily knowable and can be discovered on our own. Moreover, they can be faced and diminished.

Our inhibitors may stem from traumatic events or conditions in our childhood. We are all bruised and scarred to some extend during childhood. We may not be as attractive as others, or we may come from poor families, or we may be bullied, or we may be lacking in social skills. Regardless of the specifics of our lives, we all carry psychological baggage from childhood. In addition, as adults we acquire even more psychological baggage. Eventually, we come to believe that we can’t do as much as others or we can’t do what we want to do.

Fortunately, this isn’t true. We can do more. We can be more. We all have a great power that is just unrealized. The trick is to understand that we all have psychological baggage, identify as much of our own baggage as possible, and then change the environment that perpetuates it. That is how we diminish it.

Research at major universities has shown that to reach our potential we must have a positive environment. In fact, to reach our potential we need about a 7 to 1 positive to constructive ratio in our environment. That means we need people around us that support us and help us. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have such a positive support environment.

Potentialism was created to support you. It was created to support everyone. The third book in the Potentialism Series, The Future of Potentialism , is specifically about the micro-inhibitors that plague us all.

In addition, we created GlobalHouse, a California non-profit organization designed to provide everyone who wants it with a life-long positive support network. Too often the people around us — even family and friends — can’t provide the 7 to 1 positive feedback ratio we all need to overcome our micro-inhibitors. We know that this is true. But until now, we didn’t really have anywhere else to turn for help.

GlobalHouse provides a virtual support network for anyone who wants it. Moreover, little GlobalHouses are growing around the country and even in foreign countries. We are here to help you if you decide to take the journey, free your potential and find out who you can become.

About the Authors: Humanitarian leaders Theresa Ruby and Ross Anthony Gray are authors, consultants and creators of Potentialism, a new socioeconomic model they used to help end a 10-year civil war in Nepal. They are founders of GlobalHouse, a California-based 501©3 nonprofit dedicated to positive change through human potential, and authors of the Potentialism series of books. Visit www.GlobalHouse.org for more information.

Bike tours are a fun way to get exercise and potentially see a new and exciting location. If you’re heading on one of these trips with a loved one, then you should consider the following trips for an audacious bicycle trip that you two will remember forever.

Don’t Let Haters Keep You From Being Your Best

Listen. There are haters everywhere. And by haters, I’m referring to people who get jealous of your success, do not want to see you rise, and who are intimidated by your greatness.

The truth is, your greatness is a constant reminder of what they are not doing in their lives. You can either shrink and crawl into your dark hole when you are amidst jealous folks, or you can stand in your power and keep shining on.

It can be scary at first to shine 100 percent despite what people are saying or thinking about you (which by the way you have absolutely no control over). But I promise you this: you standing strong in all of your awesomeness will create a space for others to do the same in THEIR lives.

Three things to remember:

1. Not everyone will like you or be happy for you. This took a long time for me to understand. As someone that just wants love and affection (as we all do), I never quite understood why some people didn’t dig me, or want to be my friend. I now get it. And I also know that it’s neither my job nor my soul purpose to get everyone to love me. All I can do is BE the love — wherever I go and with whomever I meet.
2. Don’t brag about your success. There is a huge difference between acknowledging your accomplishments and being humble versus rattling off a list of all your accomplishments every time someone asks you, “Hey how are you doing?” Be proud of the work that you have put in. Be proud of honoring and cherishing your gifts to make a difference in the world. And, remember that you are still awesome in spite of it.
3. Keep on keepin’ on. No matter who or what crosses your path, positive or negative, your only job is to keep it moving. Remember you have a purpose here on this planet. And, if you’re going to let haters, evil eyes, jealousy, and all the baggage that comes along with people feeling inferior or insecure stop you, then you need to reconnect with why you are here, who you know yourself to be, and keep it moving.

You are loved. You always have been. Cherish the people who support, love, and honor you. And never forget just how amazing you are.

About the Author: Licensed master social worker Vasavi Kumar coaches people to “get past their past” to take charge of their future. A certified life coach, she holds dual master’s degrees in social work and special education. Vasavi is co-author of the best-selling book Succeeding in Spite of Everything and appears regularly on Kansas City Live as the “Keepin’ It Real Guru” answering viewers’ life questions. Learn more at http://VasaviKumar.com.

When we were young, we had no trouble dreaming big. There was no other way to dream. We dreamed big, often, and with reckless abandon.

But somewhere along the way, our heart got broken. A dream didn’t come true and it hurt like hell.

That hurt stayed with us, even if only on a subconscious level. We trained ourselves to set our sights a little lower, to keep from ever feeling that way again. Many of us chalk up that “dreaming big” thing to a childish habit, and our practice of it goes the way of our belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  So we “mature,” and lower our sights to more “realistic”  levels.

And then, in between the rebranding of our dreams into “goals,” it happens. Without ever consciously realizing it, our lives settle into the groove of mediocrity.

But I caution us all — including myself — to be careful about what we label as realistic. At best, it’s too often a limited estimation of what really IS possible, and at worst, it’s a cop-out.

Was the prospect of air travel “realistic” to the great grandparents of Orville and Wilbur Wright?

Was the prospect of an African American president “realistic” to the great grandparents of Barack Obama?

Was the prospect of using a wireless telephone to have a video call with a friend on the other side of the world “realistic” to the great grandparents of Steve Jobs?

The dreams we disregard and deem unrealistic today may turn out to be things our great grandkids take for granted.

The problems we face as a nation and as a global community are large. But the hope for a better future lies in big dreams, not realistic ones. Your story is destined to be great. But the people who collect amazing adventures are the ones with big dreams, not realistic ones.

The pain of broken dreams is real. But just as real is the exhilaration of seeing an “impossible” dream come true. The only dreams that have no chance of coming true are the ones never dreamed in the first place.

Now is NOT the time to downgrade your dreams. Now is NOT the time to be realistic.

Now is the time to dream BIGGER.

by Jason Kotecki

I first started living alone about a year ago. I moved out of town for a great new job. I was accustomed to being surrounded with sisters, and later in life a roommate. However, moving to a city where everyone is a stranger meant it was finally time to rip the band-aid off and rent a single bedroom apartment.

I must admit at first the experience was exciting for me. Every decorating decision was mine to make. If I left the dishes overnight, there was no one to complain but myself. I got to choose the movies to watch, listen to my music… loudly, and eat over the sink. Such a heathen!

However the shine soon wore off and I found myself disappointed coming home to the empty corners of my apartment. I spent more and more time out alone at coffee shops and parks just to be around people. My previous roommate and I had a great friendship. I would come home to find her relaxing on the couch. We’d make dinner together and talk about our days. I missed that person to vent with, and our phone conversations went from every day to every week or so.

I also found myself nervous at every creak in the old building, which often started when my neighbor’s keys would hit his lock after coming home late at night. I quickly invested in a security system at http://www.securitychoice.com and even took a self-defense class. I live in a very safe neighborhood, but there is something about being alone in a place that sets all my hairs on end. With new security in place I relaxed.

I remembered all the times when I was younger and surrounded in a storm of my sisters and their curly red hair. I would do anything to get away, climb a tree, take a bike ride, or bury myself in a book. I thought how comforting it would be to have that storm of sisters in my apartment wrecking the place with their crayons and stickers. Of course, they are all grown now too, and probably less of a wrecking ball than I imagine. Still, there’s a good chance we would be at each others throats if we lived together again. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

Thinking about my sisters led me to go after some solutions for my loneliness. Living on my own poses challenges, but not one to be thwarted I attack my lonely situation with vigor. I schedule evening face to face time with my old roommate on Skype, and we easily fell into our old conversations through that medium. I introduced myself to my neighbor, and we promised to keep an eye out for each other. I joined a knitting group and also a reading group that exclusively reads travelogues.

Now I have friends to invite over and fill the house with laughter and companionship. It is just after having guests over that I truly have come to love living alone. That quiet time following a successful get together that filled my rooms with laughter and friendship is a sublime feeling. And it’s all mine.

It can be one of the most harrowing experiences you will ever go through in your life.

Maybe someone in your family is having a problem licking drug abuse. They could be popping pills, taking painkillers to get through a day or just finding a way to relieve stress.

Even worse, the drug abuser could be you.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a reported 22.5 million Americans over the age of 12 used illegal drugs in 2012. That was almost nine percent of the population. It should be noted that all but a little over four million of these users smoked marijuana, a drug that has gained some acceptance over the years. Many are crusading to have the drug declared legal, in order to devote resources to ending abuse of harder drugs.

That said, some of these marijuana users eventually gravitate to harder stuff. Over six million users took what are called “psychotherapeutic” drugs, or painkilling-type drugs that can be obtained with or without prescriptions.

No one needs to tell you that this type of drug use endangers health. It can cause symptoms that range from deterioration of physical appearance to mood swings. You can become volatile, edgy or even combative.

The good news is there is help. It won’t likely come in the form of an intervention found in Hollywood movies and TV shows, but someone, whether it be an individual or a group, might come to you and say you or someone you know has a problem and needs help.

If you live in the Southern California area, maybe closer to the Mexican border than Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs, maybe a dual diagnosis treatment center San Diego based can give you the care you need to get over your addiction or help your loved one lick his or her drug problem. Contrary to what you may have heard, it does not take hitting rock bottom for a person to recognize there are problems. Hitting rock bottom is another misconception that movies and TV shows may present.

You might see someone hitting the bottle or popping so many pills that they end up on skid row or in a flophouse. It isn’t always so cut and dry. Drug abuse walks around in all forms of life, from lower-income to the rich. Chances are you may know someone that has a drug problem or fought to overcome one.

If you are using drugs or suspect someone you love is using drugs, contact a treatment center. Regardless of where you are in the process, experts will know where to step in and guide the family to a successful conclusion. And it won’t be overnight. It takes time to rid the body of illegal drugs so expect some time to heal and get the body back to 100 percent.

The way to restoring good health is to recognize the problem exists. That’s the first step in battling addiction. Whether it is you or someone you love, the time is always right to step forward, treat the problem, and seek a solution that won’t send you down that path again.

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” ~ Seneca

Thinking big — whether to create a new business or more balance in your life — is great, but actually taking steps towards those goals can be scary because it may require you to step out of your comfort zone.

In previous articles I’ve suggested many science-based techniques for achieving your goals, but ultimately you may just have to-as the ancient aphorism suggests-feel the fear and do it anyway.

Note that I recommend that approach only if the fear is a small part of the equation and the excitement is much greater. And how will you know?

Start by checking in with your emotional guidance system. Does your goal make you feel bad because you don’t feel ready and you’re afraid you’ll never be ready?

Or does it make you tingle with delicious anticipation? If you’re all tingly, you can just skip to the next paragraph. But if you don’t feel ready, you might want to trust your intuition.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t make progress-it just means that whatever you’re planning, you might want to take smaller steps until you feel more comfortable.

No matter how you are feeling, if you are not taking even small steps towards your dreams it is time to call in the affirmations. One of my favorite affirmations is attributed to Walt Disney: “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

But a good affirmation doesn’t have to be all pithy and mystical like some sort of koan. Ultimately all you need in an affirmation is a clearly expressed thought that feels better and works for you.

That last part is crucial. In order to be effective, that better-feeling thought must ring true for you. For example, saying “I’m enjoying a wonderful love relationship.” may be too much of a stretch. But saying “I’m on my way to enjoying a wonderful love relationship.” may work.

Lines from your favorite songs are also a good place to look for positive messages that resonate deeply. I found one in Mary J. Blige’s Just Fine:

Having a real good time, I’m not complaining

And I’ma still wear a smile if it’s raining

I gotta enjoy myself regardless

I appreciate life, I’m so glad that it’s mine.

Affirmations that help you feel like you’re having a little fun are also great.

An affirmation I use when dealing with business matters is “Tap your inner Oprah.” It always tickles me and makes me feel powerful.

Oprah knows exactly what she wants and she asks for it — firmly, decisively, and with grace. One of the things I admire most is her curiosity.

I’ve read reports that she goes into exchanges looking for connection, without judgment, and it’s obvious she’s genuinely interested in others.

If I find myself in a situation that makes me feel uncomfortable I think about Oprah, and I become less self-conscious. I stop thinking, “This is hard,” or “How does this make me look?” and become more interested in the exchange, not the outcome.

If Oprah doesn’t ring your bells, whom do you admire? You might prefer to take a page from Cesar Milan, host of the fascinating series, The Dog Whisperer.

The premise of the show is that he rehabilitates “bad” dogs, but it’s pretty obvious in every program that he is really training the owners to think and behave differently.

Time after time he demonstrates that there are two energies in the animal kingdom: dominant and submissive. Dominant energy is energy that is aligned with one’s inner source. It creates balance; it creates a positive, forward-moving direction and everyone wants to align with it.

Cesar also calls dominant energy calm, assertive energy. This means you have no tension or nervousness in your mind. You know that you CAN think big and you’re going to do whatever you have to do to make your goals happen.

So if you’re confronted with a situation where you’re tempted to abandon your center, you might remind yourself to “Tap your inner Cesar” and get back into a calm, assertive flow.

Here’s an assignment: Write several affirmations for yourself — write them on sticky notes and post them all over your house, on the dashboard of your car and in your wallet.

Feel the shift every time you read them. You can also find a symbol that is meaningful to you. Choose an affirmation to associate with it so that when you see your symbol it reminds you of that affirmation. (That works for those times where you need a reminder, but can’t just put up a sticky note with the actual words posted-in your office, for example.)

Doing this assignment will help you create a practice, almost like a ritual, that will form and shape your day. Those messages will remind you of your intentions and bring you inspiration and encouragement. Eventually they’ll become a way to talk to yourself on a whole new level-perfect for when all your little steps forward land you on a whole new level of challenges.

By then of course, you’ll be ready: don’t be surprised when magic happens. Please share your affirmations with me in the comments below!

by Stacey Curnow

At the end of last year, jazz aficionados everywhere shed a tear when Dave Brubeck passed away at the age of 91.

Even if you are not familiar with Brubeck’s entire body of work, you have likely heard his greatest accomplishment, “Take Five”.

If you want to hear something different and introduce yourself to Brubeck’s work, this is definitely a song to consider. Brubeck could play traditional jazz music, but the signature beat of “Take Five” is what makes this song special. Because it is played in quintuple time (5/4), the rhythm of the song sounds like it is off a little, yet it is a catchy tune at the same time.

The song was written by Paul Desmond, who often played with Brubeck in his band. Written in 1959, its melodic saxophone and piano are two distinctive pieces of the song that stand out. Even if you hear a few seconds of the tune, you can recognize it right away thanks to the sax play and drum solo.

Even though it is his signature song, Brubeck was known for more than just “Take Five”. Between 1959 and 1967, he tried to duplicate that sound with other albums and singles, and his Dave Brubeck Quartet had a successful career.

If you are used to the traditional New Orleans-style jazz sound like Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington, this is a different way to listen to jazz music. With rhythms that were not the standards found in traditional songs, Brubeck’s music captured an audience wanting to hear catchy music with a little bit of a twist.

If you read TakeLessons reviews of jazz artists or musicians just starting to learn jazz, Brubeck’s name does not pop up very often because of that different way of playing the music. However, you might catch someone daring to take a chance on that type of music and taking a spin with “Take Five” or “Three to Get Ready”.

After the dissolution of the quartet Brubeck turned his attention to other forms of music, including orchestral works. It was not uncommon to see Brubeck pop up with symphony orchestras and play his regular songs but also perform other musical works. He even delved into Biblical works with “The Gates of Justice”, a late 1960s piece that combined Martin Luther King Jr., the Bible, and music into one larger piece of work.

Listening to Brubeck is a treat. He has influenced a whole new group of jazz musicians through the years, while at the same time introducing people who do not ordinarily listen to jazz to the genre. “Take Five” was heard through the years on different TV shows such as “Today” and in various commercials. His later symphonic works spread Brubeck’s audience to other parts of the musical spectrum.

Take a spin around Brubeck’s world of music. If you are the type that appreciates something different, Brubeck’s music would appeal to you. Even though Dave is gone, his children (Darius, Chris and Matthew) are also composers, and their dad’s sound can be found in the childrens’ own tunes.

It is easy to close your eyes, picture yourself in a 1950s-era coffee house, and gently tapping your foot to Brubeck’s music. It is a style of music that will not be duplicated for quite some time to come.

It’s May in Montana! One of my favorite months of the year when the snow that has been holding on starts to melt away, the dreary days of winter slowly moving from sepia tones to hues of innocent pastels that invite new life.

Just last week, I awoke to my maple tree in the front yard, regarding the buds that had seemingly opened up overnight. I am always amazed by this phenomenon, because it seems like one day the tree is bare, and the next day it is opened! But I know that the tree has been planning this rebirth all through the winter, dreaming big about once again making its debut for another year! It has the same trunk, and the same branches, but new leaves– somehow honoring all the years of leaves that have come and gone seasonally.

We can learn a lot from nature! Nature has the cycles of life figured out! Mother Nature seems to always dream big; you only have to look at the Montana landscape snapshot of winter, then spring to recognize Mother Nature dreams BIG!

But more importantly, Mother Nature dreams and thinks smart. Her dreams are based on correct timing, because the flowers and plants actually calculate the amount of days they should be dormant. If a flowering plant were to bud too early, it may not be able to reproduce, or it could even die.

And yes, this sometimes happens in Montana, as I have seen when I planted my garden too early. So I guess the key we learn from Mother Nature is that timing is awfully important!

As I reflect upon my own life at the moment, I can understand so many parallels. I have had many goals and dreams I have written down in the last five years, trying hard to achieve a better me, live more in HARMONY, and be my best self.

A few times when I either tried to accomplish something too fast, or the timing wasn’t right for these goals, I have not succeeded. However, the few times I practiced SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) I had great success!

I also believe we are like my big maple tree in so many ways. We are the same person, living in the same body branching out. Our dreams, accomplishments, challenges, and life lessons are the leaves that we see change from season to season and year to year. We are a product of many cycles of dreaming, changing, taking risks, falling, and blooming once again.

So DREAM BIG, but also DREAM SMART. Take a few hints from Mother Nature and let yourself bloom!

Happy Spring!

In Harmony,

Jen

by Jen Slayden

Here is the thing… we could all sit around and rant about how our parents messed us up and blame them for all of our failures. For a period of time in my life, I did just that. Coming from a background that is less than squeaky clean, I found it much easier to point fingers.

A product of young parents I was the third to come in a matter of a few years. At the time of my birth, my mom was 21 and dad was 23. At a very young age, I embraced that I was a mistake and not something my parents had really wanted.

This wasn’t a big deal. I knew they loved me and could live with how I came to live on this planet. By age two, my parents were going through a nasty divorce. My youngest sister was born when I was 14 and she was the 9^th (yes, that’s not a typo!) child to be born into this crazy family. There are five different moms and two different dads who contributed to this mix.

Growing up poor was okay, I didn’t mind that so much. What took a toll on my life was the realization that my dad had never really taken responsibility for us. At 16, I watched my father go to jail for the first time (that I knew of). He is still in and out and it’s all due to the inability to financially provide for his kids.

His debt to my mom is finally paid off, but I am 30 years old and have spent several of my hard earned dollars to bail him out so he can be there for my siblings. This means I essentially helped him pay my child support. Twisted right?

When I was 23 I took in one of my sisters and made sure she made it through high school as my dad clearly wasn’t doing the job and her mom wasn’t any better. Through that time I lost my relationship with my father and all respect that should naturally be given to parents.

For 3 years I didn’t talk to him and blamed him for every mistake I ever made. I wasn’t on a much better path and things needed to change. It all started with forgiveness and understanding. After several months of digging deeper I found the strength to accept my role in the life I was living. It wasn’t all bad, but some things definitely needed to change.

During that time I began to view my dad through his eyes and came to realize that he did the best he could. I accepted his downfalls, embraced his good qualities and began to build a relationship with him again.

We are now closer than ever and my life has turned around in almost every single way. It all started with taking responsibility for my actions and knowing that none of it was actually his fault. There is success and happiness inside of us and its no one else’s job to bring it out.

Father’s Day is quickly approaching and I am excited to spend it with my dad. He has taught me a lot of things through his struggles and I am grateful to be able to call him my dad. I have decided that flowers are the perfect way to show him how close I keep him to my heart. I will need a reliable vendor to deliver them, someone like florist express the same day, as that will make it that much more special. Of course seeing my pretty face will be the real gift, but I figure something more tangible will bring light to the rest of his week as well.

It has taken us a long time to get here, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Our paths are our own. Once you realize that you will be better equipped to find the happiness that you never even knew existed. Remember, that you can’t change your past, but you can make a better future.

Wading through endless emails, voicemails, and texts, I find myself inundated with various forms of communication. I am constantly connected to the world through electronic devices, and my work requires me to have at least one social media site open, jumping in to comment, post, and share for clients and myself. I am in constant communication. And yet, I feel more disconnected than ever these days.

I know I am not alone in feeling out of touch with people while constantly communicating in one form of electronic chatter or another. I hear and read regularly of others struggling with these same issues. No matter how convenient and instantaneous our messages can be through electronic forms of communication, nothing could be better than communicating in person.

Maintaining a connection with others is a soul-satisfying experience, not to be replaced by electronic devices pinging us or perusing Facebook for updates. Seeing a facial expression, hearing a story with all the nuances and inflections from the speaker, holding a hand, or stealing a kiss-this all requires connecting in the real world, not the virtual one. While I enjoy the ease of convenience with sending a quick text to my fiancé, family, and friends, being with them in person is how a greater depth of connection occurs.

The challenge in the world we live in is making the effort to have these personal connections more often. Here are some tips for connecting (or reconnecting) with others:

• Invite a friend out for coffee.
• Schedule a date with your significant other.
• Coordinate a group of friends for a casual potluck (less work and more time enjoying company).
• Call someone to simply chat.
• Invite a friend in the neighborhood to go for a walk.
• Initiate a regular get-together (monthly book club, quarterly dinner club, etc) with a group of friends.

There are countless ways to be more in touch, but this list is a good start to spark a few ideas for a better connection with others.

Do you have additional ideas?

Share below!

Image credit: A Wild One Within

by Kelly Sajonia

It was suppertime, and there they were again:

Green.

Slimy.

Stringy.

My worst nightmare—yeah, it was green beans all right—again.

By the time I was a four-year-old kid, I had already sampled green beans and concluded they weren’t for me. The strings might as well have been wood chips, the way they caught in my throat as I tried to get them down.

Mom was my boss, and I was her newest employee. We had a real labor/management crisis going on. She begged, cajoled, and pleaded. But I was determined not to eat those green beans.

So I crossed my arms, frowned, and pouted, figuring she’d give up and forget about green beans, as she always had in the past.

But this time, Mom had a secret weapon. Now, there was something else on the table besides that dreaded green scourge.

“Billy Joe, if you eat your green beans you can have some…”

You guessed it.

“Ice cream!”

This sheer stroke of maternal genius changed my behavior forever. In a flash, I saw those green beans, not as an oppressive burden, but as a first-class ticket to that lovely ice cream.

Sure, Mom got what she wanted—a balanced diet for her four-year-old.

And I got ice cream.

Pretty cool.

(Thanks, Mom. You are the best!)

I’m not sure exactly when or how Mom pared back the ice cream, but somehow I came to terms with green beans and accepted them for what they are—pretty healthy and tasty by themselves (oh, Mom learned to buy stringless beans, and that didn’t hurt either).

Mom had learned how to change my behavior!
 

• The 9-11-2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
• The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.
• Going “Postal”—a phenomenon named for the series of violent and lethal outbursts by disgruntled U.S. Postal Service employees during the 1980s and 1990s.

All of these events included a common factor: human behavior that shaped the world as we know it. After all, what is a country, a family, a school, a business? While the environment, buildings, equipment, and furniture are certainly important, it is the tapestry of human behavior that creates what we call “culture”

Culture is made up of many small behaviors and activities. Sometimes we say that the culture is “toxic” or “nurturing”. Many people assume that culture is what it is, and can never be changed. At best, they will say that culture change requires a long time.

I beg to differ. Ask Hosni Mubarak (Egypt’s strongman before the Arab Spring melted his power base) how fast culture can change.

Consider the sudden, unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

Consider this common scenario in the business world:

A president unveils his new plan to turn around his failing company.

“It won’t work, sir,” comes the timid response from his staff.

“And why not?”

“The culture here won’t support it.”

“Culture! What’s that? A fuzzy word to hide a lame excuse!” retorts the frustrated leader.

Sure enough, his plan fails, torpedoed by culture.

The word culture is often hard to define. Here’s a definition I like: “Culture is a pattern of behavior which is encouraged or punished by the management system over time.”

In reality then, to change culture, all we have to do is change behavior. Attitudes follow behavior, just as my attitude about green beans changed over time, after my behavior changed.

But many have been misinformed. An old friend of mine, whom I’d not seen for 20 years, learned about my work in behavior change. In a telephone conversation, he offered up his two cents worth on the subject: “Bill, I remember my professor in psychology to this day. He told me that before you can change behavior, you have to change attitude.”

I swallowed hard. He was a good friend, and it had been a long time since we’d talked to each other.

“Crad,” I told him, “I hope you won’t be upset, but when I see you, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me tell you why your professor was wrong.”

I guess he still likes me, because we went to lunch soon afterward, and I was able to explain to him that to change attitude, you simply have to change behavior. He even asked me to present to a group of 200 company leaders on the subject of positive reinforcement and behavior change!

No matter whether you are a parent, husband, wife, teacher, boss, supervisor, professor, cop, or anything else in life, what you often want from the people around you is the same thing: behavior change.

You want more production, quality, safety, and customer service from your employees; better test scores, homework, and study habits from your students; cleaner rooms and better grades from your kids. To get more from people, we need behavior change.

Everything we observe can be broken down into behaviors, activities, results, and culture. If culture is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, then every note from every instrument can be likened to a behavior.

Results are achieved by a myriad of behaviors. Think of your favorite dessert. That dessert is the result. But the sugar, flour, butter and other items that make up the dessert are behaviors. When we get the behaviors right, we can cook up some amazing results!

Culture, like a dessert, can be toxic or nurturing. There’s nothing like luscious banana pudding to add warmth and flavor to a meal. But a notorious husband-killer in North Carolina—known as the Black Widow—used banana pudding laced with arsenic to do away with her spouses.

So how do we achieve that nurturing culture?

Can we really navigate the murky world of the human mind? B. F. Skinner, American behaviorist, social philosopher, and poet, once wrote, “Thoughts are behaviors we haven’t learned to observe yet.”

Until technology allows it, you can’t see inside my mind, and I can’t see inside yours either. This “black hole” of human logic means that if we believe attitude must change before behavior, then we will be waiting a very, very long time to see any measurable difference in human performance. Just ask the Marlboro man how many years he read the Surgeon General’s warning printed on every pack of cigarettes he smoked. Did those produce behavior change in him? It was not until he was in the hospital, terminally ill with cancer, that his attitude about smoking finally changed. Powerful consequences had forever changed his life, his behavior, and finally, his attitude toward smoking.

Since the complex world of human thought and attitude is at present not easily read, we need another tool to understand human behavior, one that we can implement easily in today’s business world.

That tool has existed for more than 70 years. It’s a science called “behavioral analysis”.

Using some simple and easy tools, we can crack the code that reveals why people do what they do. And we can empower ourselves and others to achieve performance we never thought possible.

This book is devoted to helping you do just that.

Green Beans and Ice Cream? At first glance, they don’t sound like they go together. But this groundbreaking new book from author Bill Sims, Jr. will change forever the way you deal with your family, customers, coworkers, students, and yes, even your spouse! In Bill’s thirty year history, he has helped design more than one thousand behavior change systems that have produced tremendous gains in performance and profits at America’s top companies including Disney, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, General Motors, and Dupont. Hidden in this book you will find Bill’s “secret sauce”, and the recipe for rapid, sustainable behavior change and engagement—Positive Reinforcement (PR+). The book explains why positive reinforcement is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. Use it wisely, and performance moves off the chart. Use it poorly, and the results can be disastrous.

Green Beans & Ice Cream analyzes over 100 years of research in the field of human behavioral science, and compares it to “real world, in the trenches” true stories that Sims recounts. It points out clearly that the thing we need the most, is the thing we often receive the least—positive reinforcement and feedback from those around us. Using the techniques outlined in this book, you can master the remarkable power of positive reinforcement, and make a real difference in the world around you. This book is for everyone who must lead others. Whether in the family, the school, or the workplace, it is a “must read” for anyone who wants to improve the performance of their team. With this first book, Sims has dropped a stone in the still pond of leadership. The waves will only get bigger.