10.30.2007

Jim Carrey-It's Not The Answer

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer. - Jim Carrey

It's Not Hard to Make Decisions

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. - Roy Disney

Student and Master

When the student is ready, the master appears. - Buddhist Proverb

10.21.2007

How About Some Sit-Down Thinkin'

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. - Lorraine Hansberry Author of "A Raisin in the Sun"

Challenge to Change

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." - Victor Frankl

10.17.2007

The Joys Of Failure

The Joys Of Failure
By Deborah Beatty


I've been seriously rethinking my views on just what failure is and is not. I'm putting together a talk on the above subject and it's made me think a lot about my life till now. I realize that I am now and continue to be an amazing failure!

I am a failure at being what other people think I should be.

I am a failure at thinking the way other people think I should think.

I am a failure at looking the way other people think I should look.

And I couldn't be happier.

Not being what other people think I should be has given me the freedom to explore my life and my opportunitites in different, innovative ways.

Not thinking the way other people think I should think has given me the freedom to explore self-education, alternative education and to have my education actually serve my needs.

Not looking the way other people think I should look as given me permission to be a unique individual with my own style and my own likes and dislikes.

Most of the dictionaries and 99% of society think of failure as a bad thing. I don't happen to share their opinion. How could you possibly succeed if you don't know how to fail? How would you recognize success, then? Look at Thomas Edison - he failed 10,000 times to make a light bulb. When asked how he felt about so many failures, he said "I have not failed, I have simply found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb.".

Go try something you've never done before. Give yourself permission to fail. That way, you get a lot more joy when you succeed! After all, if you've never done it before, you have nothing to compare it to and you decide whether you've failed at all! Failure is all in YOUR mind. How many people do you know that blow off compliments saying that they could have done better and then list excuses? Especially when they've done something you are aching to just achieve a 10th of? It's all relative and it's all so very personal.

I give you permission (if you need it) to go try something new this next week. Something you've never done before and know nothing about. Go ahead, have fun.

DeBorah Beatty

Speaker/Trainer/Facilitator/COACH

http://www.DEBORAHBEATTY.COM

Walla Walla, Washington

10.13.2007

Dalai Lama Quote

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. - Dalai Lama

Do Something New

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

10.12.2007

Generous and Merciful

When our attitude towards ourselves is big, and our attitude toward other is generous and merciful, we attract big and generous portions of success. - W. Clement Stone

Tony Robbins-Walk the Walk!

I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk. - Tony Robbins

10.07.2007

Attitude of Gratitude!

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. - Brian Tracy

Great Ideas...

Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

10.05.2007

Improve Your Memory with the Help of Mind Mapping

Memory can lead to the accomplishments of many astonishing feats. Take for example the story of Mozart visiting Rome in 1770, when he was 14, and listened to Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel. The half-hour long piece of music was considered so special that the Vatican forbade its publication, but after the concert Mozart wrote down the entire piece of music from memory. Or more recently, Memory champions have been setting world records which seem nothing short of miraculous to ordinary people. It is often assumed that such people must have extraordinary brains or be amazingly clever. However, in 2002 scientists put this assumption to the test and performed a range of tests on highly ranked memorizers at the world memory championships held annually. The tests revealed that the memory champions’ brains showed no differences to that of ordinary persons. However, it was discovered that nine out of the ten memory champions were simply using a technique called ‘the method of Loci’, which dated back to ancient Greece. This method is based on Location and imagination. It was therefore concluded that a good memory is simply a skill, and a skill that can be learned – at any age.


The main principle of memory techniques is linking the thing to be remembered to some other idea – this is known as association. When your memory has meaning, your brain gives it a tag that makes it much easier to retrieve. A similar process is achieved when you see something in context or linked to some other idea which provides a tag for the idea. If you imagine your memory as a library, it is clearly much easier to find a particular memory if it has a tag attached to it. You will be amazed how dramatically you can improve your ability to remember things if you use combinations of association, vibrancy and imagination.


The best technique that encourages you to use association and imagination is Mind Mapping. Mind Mapping was invented by Tony Buzan in the 1960s, although the learning principles of Mind Mapping have been around for hundreds of years and have been used by some of the world’s greatest thinkers. Tony Buzan states that it is the ultimate thinking tool – a creative and effective means of thinking that literally ‘maps out’ your brain. Mind Maps are an ideal tool to use as a memory improvement tool, not only is it extremely simple but it can have an immediate impact on memory, creativity and your ability to concentrate. Mind Maps have a natural structure that radiates from the centre and uses lines, symbols, words, and images according to a set of natural and brain-friendly rules. A long list of boring information can be turned into colourful, memorable, highly organised diagrams that reflect the brains natural way of thinking and encourages synergetic thinking.


Imagination and association are the two main principles that make Mind Mapping so effective. By developing creative skills you are not only improving your ability to come up with innovative ideas you are also, by default, enhancing your ability to remember things. This is because creativity and memory are vertically identical mental processes – they both work best when you are using imagination and association.


A quick guide – how to make a Mind Map:

1) Gather all the information you need – your research, an array of coloured pens and a large blank piece of paper.

2) Draw a simple image or symbol to represent your central idea in the centre of the page.

3) Think of the main points or topics of your Mind Map, radiate your key topics of the central image as branches adding a key word that represents that topic.

4) Now explore your main branches with sub-branches/thoughts. Add single words to each sub-branch. Let your ideas flow freely, adding a new branch for each thought.

5) Use your coloured pens and add images to make your map vibrant and exciting.

6) Alternatively, you could produce your Mind Map using the new and exciting Mind Mapping software that has recently become available e.g. Tony Buzan’s iMindMap. By using software to facilitate Mind Mapping it enables users to create truly personal, organic Mind Maps without restricting the thinking process in any way, while incorporating all the principles of Mind Mapping technique.


Once you have created your Mind Map you will notice that instead of having pages and pages of boring linear notes you have a single page that contains all the key points that you need to remember. You will instantly see the connections and links between different ideas and thoughts and can help you quickly gain insight into the big picture as it represented on the piece of paper in front of you. Secondly, by creating your Mind Map you have used both sides of your brain. People have an extensive range of intellectual and creative skills that they only partly use. However, Mind Mapping takes advantage of the potential of both the right (creative) and left (analytical) sides of the brain. What is more, if both the right and left brain are used, both sides become stronger, engaging with each other to reinforce their creative output, and association. Consequently resulting in a noticeably improved memory.



Rose Angell recently joined the Buzan Online team after graduating in Psychology in 2007. Buzan Online was founded by Tony Buzan (the father of Mind Mapping) in 2006 and is now a key part of the Buzan Organisation. Buzan Online has recently launched the first official Mind Mapping Software, iMindMap; the only Mind Mapping software which utilities the true principles of Mind Mapping and duplicates the brains non linear thinking process.
http://www.iMindMap.com

How Do You See Things?

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. - Anaïs Nin

Follow Your Own Advice?

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero

10.01.2007

Trust Only...

Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement. - Alfred Adler

Creed vs Deed

Go put your creed into your deed. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace

Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace. - Francesco Petrarch