meditative focus/ boss of your own life/ overcome excuses

Feb. 20 Meditative focus: It’s been a couple of months since I put up articles sent to me by Ginny Grimsley.  I thought this was a good article “Can Mindfulness Raise your Net worth?”  because it’s about psychology.

• If you’re faced with what looks like an enticing opportunity, don’t just do something. Sit there. Breathe quietly and let the fear and greed subside. The easiest way to fool yourself in a deal, negotiation or transaction is to let your thinking stray from what’s happening and get seduced by a dream. It could be the dream your counterpart is spinning for you or simply the dream of results, good or bad. Like most people, you have probably experienced moments when you knew something – a business relationship, an investment – was going south, but you hesitated to act because you didn’t have facts to support your intuition. Sometimes, your intuition knows something that your logical mind does not.

• Pay attention to what your body is telling you; you may be expressing signals that your logical mind is slow to notice. In a psychological study titled “The Iowa Gambling Task,” researchers gave subjects the task of making the most money possible by choosing cards from four decks. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the decks were stacked. Some were “good decks” (producing winners more of the time) and some were “bad decks,” (producing losers). After about 40 to 50 picks, most subjects caught on to which decks produced winners and losers. Their bodies knew something that their rational minds had missed. After about 10 picks they began to produce physiological symptoms of stress when their hands reached for the bad decks. If you’re not paying attention to those subtle signals, your innate wisdom is inaccessible.

• Meditation develops emotional balance and a better business mind. If you’ve never meditated, try it! Start small by simply sitting still and keeping your eyes closed for five minutes. Feel the weight of your body in its sitting position. Try to simplify your thoughts to basic things, down to the subtle sounds of the room, your breathing. Mindfulness meditation does not require extensive study in ancient traditions. Notice the difference after only five minutes; you will feel more relaxed. Later, try it for 10 minutes, and then longer. Do your due diligence in that state of mind. The equanimity that will sharpen your acumen is also the source of your happiness in life. Don’t trade it for anything.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2014/02/can-mindfulness-raise-your-net-worth.html

Be the boss of your own life: Ginny sent me this article.  I like it because it’s about entrepreneurship, but it’s also about living a positive life.

• Embrace change, renewal and rebirth. There is no shortage of opportunity to notice change in life. Don’t be afraid to use milestones to provide yourself with an “employer’s review” on how you’re doing in your own life. What are you doing well, what needs work and how are you going to improve? Create a detailed plan on how you expect to accomplish your goals. Give yourself a timeline, such as losing 20 pounds by summer or increasing your net worth by next year.

• You’re your own best entrepreneur. Part of being a good boss means trying out enterprising ideas; it’s the mediocre bosses who are content with the status quo. You don’t have to start with something wild. Instead, follow through on ideas that are good for you, such as buying healthy food that you haven’t yet tried. Look up recipes for how to prepare a healthy item like quinoa – make a project out of it. Have fun with the new you. Just because you have a new job with plenty of responsibility – being your own boss – doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

• Manage what you can control; accept what you cannot; and look outside the box. This is not as easy as it may sound because we often think we can control things that, in fact, we cannot, including how people respond to us or how quickly our bodies respond to diet and exercise. Progress does not happen all at once. While it makes sense to focus on what we can control, you may also consider alternative methods of living. That may include riding a bike to work rather than driving, or exploring alternative forms of spiritual healing.

• Don’t be a victim! To a greater or lesser extent, we’re all taught to be obedient conform to the standards set by parents, teachers and bosses. Unfortunately, for many, this passive role can shape one’s identity and influence other relationships. It all starts with one’s own relationship to one’s self, Chervil says. As most parents and teachers will say, the best students are those who need the least help and are willing to be proactive in their own improvement. Understand that it’s not others who determine what you can do; it’s you!

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2014/02/article-how-to-be-boss-of-your-own-life.html

Overcome excuses: Ginny sent me this article.  This is inspirational.  “Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime; Winston Churchill lost every public election until becoming prime minister at age 62; Henry Ford went bankrupt five times; Albert Einstein was a terrible student and was expelled from school; Sigmund Freud was booed from a stage,” says Waldschmidt, author of “Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve Outrageous Success.”

• Avoid the need to blame others for anything. Mean, small-minded people know that they suck. That’s why they are so cranky and eager to point out others’ mistakes. They hope that by causing others to feel inadequate, everyone will forget about how woefully off the mark their own performance is. Don’t blame anyone, for any reason, ever. It’s a bad habit.

• Stop working on things that just don’t matter. Not everything needs to be done in place of sleep. If you work for a boss, then you owe them solid time. You can’t cut that out. You can, however, cut out television time, meetings and anything else that gets in the way of achieving your goals. Replace entertainment with activity toward your goal.

• Refuse to let yourself wallow in self-doubt. You’re alive to succeed. Stop comparing your current problems to your last 18 failures. They are not the same. You are not the same. Here’s something to remember: Your entire life has been a training ground for you to capture your destiny right now. Why would you doubt that? Stop whining. Go conquer.

• Ask yourself, “What can I do better next time?” And then do it next time. If you spend a decade or two earnestly trying to be better, that’s exactly what will happen. The next best thing to doing something amazing is not doing something stupid. So learn from your mistakes and use the lessons to dominate.

• Proactively take time to do things that fuel your passion. Exercise is a great example. Living in the moment requires you to live at peak performance. A huge part of mental fitness is physical fitness. A sparring or running partner is a great way to refresh physical competition. Physical activity accelerates mental motivation.

• Apologize to yourself and those around you for having a bad attitude. Do this once or twice and you’ll snap out of your funk pretty fast. When you start genuinely apologizing for being a bad influence on those around you, you learn to stop whining and start winning.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2014/02/article-overcome-excuses.html

Feb. 24 Work for free: My friend Sherry sent me this article “When and if you should ever work for free” by Sarah Gilbert.  The reasons are:

You Can Have Access to the Very Best in Your Industry




You Can Learn Skills You Couldn't Learn (or Not So Quickly) in a For-Pay Job




You Can Have a Title You Couldn't Qualify for Otherwise




Your Free Work Will Give You Leverage for a For-Pay Position




You Just Really, Really Love What Your Work is Doing




My opinion: It was a good article.  Basically if you can afford to work for free, then you should.  My Counselor told me that if I was to volunteer for something, I should get something out of it if I’m putting time and effort in it.  You can volunteer if you want to gain some sort of work experience and put it on your resume.  




I feel like I am working for free for a lot of things.  Mainly like looking for a job.  That is a job where I am constantly on the internet looking and applying to places, and going to job interviews.



I was like that with pitching my script.  I don’t have an agent.  I have to go on the internet and look for TV production companies and producers and pitch to them.  I’m not getting paid.  I am listening to music to make it more fun.

http://lifehacker.com/when-and-if-you-should-ever-work-for-free-509683212