A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself.

~ Abraham Maslow ~

Do you sometimes feel like you are chained up in a cage? Or feel like you are inside prison walls?

If so, why do you think that is?

Is it possible that you are not being completely true to yourself? That you are living a lie?

In other words, could it be that you are not living who you “really” are? Not doing what makes you happy or what makes you at peace with yourself?

Listen…

Listen closely to the answer you get from within.

Do you hear a voice saying yes? Then you know something’s not right.

Now, the question is…

When are you going to start paying closer attention to that voice? That part of you that’s crying out for help? That part of you that’s constantly begging to be set free?

And, more importantly, Continue Reading »

Stress Management
What is Stress?

Stress is the “wear and tear” our bodies experience as we adjust to our continually changing environment; it has physical and emotional effects on us and can create positive or negative feelings. As a positive influence, stress can help compel us to action; it can result in a new awareness and an exciting new perspective. As a negative influence, it can result in feelings of distrust, rejection, anger, and depression, which in turn can lead to health problems such as headaches, upset stomach, rashes, insomnia, ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. With the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, a job promotion, or a new relationship, we experience stress as we readjust our lives. In so adjusting to different circumstances, stress will help or hinder us depending on how we react to it.

How Can I Eliminate Stress from My Life?
As we have seen, positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to life, and we all thrive under a certain amount of stress. Deadlines, competitions, confrontations, and even our frustrations and sorrows add depth and enrichment to our lives. Our goal is not to eliminate stress but to learn how to manage Continue Reading »

All too often good-intentioned people set forth goals designed to satiate others rather than themselves. While the intent is honorable, the results will likely lead to failure. Why? As the somewhat provocative title of this article indicates, you need to be selfish with your goals and select ones that mean something to you.

Through segments on the evening news, magazines, talk shows, radio programming and even the advice of family and friends, we are consistently subjected to a whole litany of goals that anyone with half a brain should strive for. If we were to listen to all the experts, we would all need to be perfectly fit and rich individuals with at least two college majors under our belt.

Baloney.

Now I won’t deny that there are tremendous benefits to being physically fit, financially well off or highly educated, but let’s be honest here – one doesn’t require all of the above to live a successful and happy life. There are many somewhat overweight individuals that are quite happy to escape the annoyances of careful Continue Reading »

A tight knit team is a group of competent individuals who care deeply about each other and are fiercely committed to their mission. They are highly motivated to combining their energy and expertise to achieve the common objective. From our observation and studies on building teams, we have found three primary conditions that have to be met in order to attain higher levels of team performance and member satisfaction.

1. Resources and Commitment

2. Ownership and Heart

3. Learning

These three conditions are the heart and soul of teamwork but are not blueprints. Every team is unique, and the requirements and details of its teamwork have to be worked out separately. Let’s look closer at condition number two – Ownership and Heart.

CONDITION NO 2 – OWNERSHIP AND HEART

This condition necessary for teamwork to blossom requires that building teams occur from the “inside out.” In other words, people have to work hard at developing “team friendly” Continue Reading »

We are frequently told about how we should ignore fear and go for what we want and to some extent that’s really true. However, I think fear (like ice-cream) has more than one flavour and some fears can actually help us. There are times when fear is appropriate…like when we are faced with physical danger or someone is threatening one of our nearest and dearest. I like to distinguish between four types of fear.

Raw, visceral fear: This is the fear we experience if a threat to our own lives or the lives of our loved ones is imminent. I believe most of us in the Western world will rarely experience this, except perhaps in a car crash. Our instincts bring us through this one.

Irrelevant fear: For example, I am afraid of jumping out of a helicopter or going skydiving. However I do not have the slightest desire to do either of those things so the fear does not impinge Continue Reading »