Over cups of chilly Frapuccinos, my friend and I lounged in the theatre hall watching as beauty passed by. It was a Friday night and scores of beautiful executives and coeds piled out the premiere showing of The Banquet.

A particularly tall blonde meandered past - a hideous frog latched to her arm.

“Damn, Joey, how can that troll get a goddess like that??” he asked. Envy dripped like the sweet and sour sauce he had just moments earlier.

I was surprised. My friend wasn’t bad looking. At 36, he looked quite like the Marlboro Man. I prodded him for more details.

“I just can’t think of what to say to them. Girls like that get me stammering”"

Then he admitted investing in hundreds of pickup ebooks and courses like Speed Seduction.

“I don’t get it,” he said, “you’ve been dating a model the past two years. All your friends are girls. And you don’t even have the books I do! What’s your secret? Magic?” Read the rest of this entry »

Two days ago I stewed in my Doctor’s lounge for my Annual Executive.

I finished just about 6 of his magazines. He was late again.

Fresh out of magazines (two read thrice already), I began reading all his plaques, diplomas, trophies
and certificates. He owned many- in fact, he ran out of wall real estate for all that parchment.

Then it hit me.

Folks these days heap a great deal of importance on certificates, accolades and testimonials. They seek validation
and the best way to grab it is with parchment. That piece of paper signifies recognition bestowed.

Bottomline: people crave external APPROVAL.

I mused about that for a second.

Isn’t it funny that skilled athletes feel mediocre when they haven’t won any awards from sports organizations?

Or that handsome men feel like croaking frogs when some women reject them. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone sets goals for themselves. Every person has dreams to lose weight, make more money, spend more time with the family, and go on a big vacation. Dreams and goals are a part of every person’s life. Without them, we would have nothing to work towards and have no motivation. There are ways to help keep yourself motivated to accomplish your dreams, no matter how big or small it may be.

Motivation is the reason we do what we do. It is what drives us to accomplish a task or goal and it is what keeps us working towards that destination. Every person is motivated for different reasons, even if they are working towards the same goal. For people who are intrinsically motivated, they have the power from within to make changes and work towards their goals. They do not need outside forces to help them achieve their dreams. Some people are motivated by extrinsic reasons. These are those that need other forces to make them achieve their goals. It may be money, praise or other rewards. Most people are motivated by a combination of the two. The way to accomplish your goals is to find what motivates you and work towards those goals.

The first technique in achieving your dreams is to make goals for yourself. If you write down the steps you need to achieve to reach the end result, it will be easier for you to take those steps one by one. Visualize your goal through writing or by pictures. If you want to lose weight, use a journal to write down each step you will take every day to accomplish that goal. Find a picture of a dress or a bathing suit you want to be able to wear and visualize yourself in it. This technique can even work for smaller goals such as cleaning out a closet. Write down the steps you will take and tackle one or two small steps each day. Find a picture of they way your want your closet to look when you are finished and hang it where you can see it. Visualizing your goal will help you see what you want to accomplish and will help keep you motivated without bogging you down. Read the rest of this entry »

“Give me a good 20 minutes of utter peace and clear mindedness,” I’ve remarked on more than one occasion, “And I can change the world!”

Twenty minutes of blissful inspiration have enabled me to conjure up best-selling book titles, profitable seminars, and tremendous business alliances.

I’ve changed my life and my small corner of the world in a mere matter of 1200 seconds, and I hope to do it again and again. Read the rest of this entry »

As you seek your ultimate success, do you take the time to ask yourself “Is my goal and the timeframe for the achievement of it realistic?” Recently, to celebrate our anniversary, my wife and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, Rosalie’s Cucina, in Skaneateles, NY. It’s as genuinely Italian as I’ve seen in the States. To study this place would give you a business education beyond what many universities give.

The walk from the parking lot takes you through the giant herb garden that they pick from daily for the night’s dinners. When we walked in we were greeted by the host who called me by first name for the rest of our stay. Since they don’t take reservations for small parties, we talked and sipped wine at the bar for an hour, where I experienced the best Chardonnay of my life. As we were being seated, the host excitedly sold us on how wonderful our servers were, telling us that they really enjoyed themselves and that we would love them. He was right. They were great, and the food… as always, magnificent!
Read the rest of this entry »

Many people are in a quest to accomplish a task work very hard not to let distractions side track them. How can some one avoid sidetracking, as they attempt to accomplish their goal? Well first you need to understand what a goal is. Let me give you my definition of what a goal is; A goal is the endpoint of a series of smaller goals and objectives.

This means a goal is a compilation of many smaller goals and the way to avoid sidetracking on the way to your main goal is to break down your goal in to many separate components with a time factor built in. You must achieve all the smaller goals on your way to the larger goal in order to get there.
Read the rest of this entry »

We survey thousands of students and executives before they become speed readers, and under 10% own a formal learning system. They just paid attention and winged it, hoping the essence of what they read or hear flies into their brain. Do you have any specific memory and learning strategies?

Why bother?

When you own a methodology, a technique for learning, you can recall and use newly acquired knowledge for exams, presentations and brainstorming creative solutions. You always have the competitive-edge and run on the fast track for grades, promotions and raises.

Graduates who have a practical knowledge of meta-learning, instead of using a random approach of wishing for the best or an appeal to a higher power, score up to 39% higher on tests. It makes all the difference in the world in your stress level and self confidence. Remember, whatever we focus on expands. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently spent a few days at the beach, trying to slow down the end of summer.

While enjoying the surf, it struck me that playing in the waves is a great metaphor for dealing with change. Much like change, a wave is a force you just can’t fight.

There are only three choices when it comes to dealing with a wave:

You can let it knock you down; you can find a way to survive it; or you can ride it and make it work for you.

Much like the surf coming on to shore, change is powerful and inevitable. It also can be incredibly stressful. No one really likes change, except perhaps a baby in wet diapers.

It’s up to us to decide how we are going to hand the change and the stress that comes our way. As motivational speaker Brian Tracy says, “We can either be masters of change or victims of change.”

Here are three ways to handle the waves of change: Read the rest of this entry »

What is a MEME?

A meme is to the consciousness what a gene is to the physical body

Genes are of the physical world Memes are of the world of thought

Memes are thoughts we think without thinking. A meme therefore lives in our subconscious and can define our behavior, reactions, actions, motives, tastes, preferences, inclinations, interests, decisions. But rarely to we identify them.

Memes come from societal norms. Memes come from parents. For example incest happens in the children of incested women at nearly 4 times the prevalence than in those children of non incested mothers. This is not a gene – it is a meme.

WE have social norms. And these are memes because we hardly know that they can be questioned. In some religious societies people are punished severely for breaking or even questioning memes.

As a change agent in human love, I must question those memes and therefore I get allot of resistance from people. Memes are often unquestioned. Read the rest of this entry »

The only thing that is certain in life is its uncertainty. Unfortunately many people fail to grasp this simple yet profound concept. Years ago I read a great book by Dan Millman called The Way of The Peaceful Warrior. In it Dan wove many principles and concepts into this thought-provoking story. One that really hit at the time me was the simple premise of - embracing the unexpected and releasing the expected.

Let’s say for a moment that you have a personal attachment to a specific goal or plan. As you begin to implement your plan and move toward your goal you discover that things are just not turning out quite like you would have hoped. They could be even falling apart at the seams. They could also be heading towards total disaster, one that you never saw coming or didn’t anticipate. Been there folks, many times.

One of the most difficult things for people to do is to let go or surrender to outcomes they didn’t want or don’t like. John Lennon said it best over twenty years ago, “Life is what happens to you as you are planning your life.” I am working on a new book and the working title is, I never Thought My Life Would Turn Out This Way. In it I discuss why people experience highs and lows in life and how the outcomes of these at the time, seemed out of sync with their desires or expectations. But, as time rolled on many of these people, when they looked back on these circumstances or experiences found that the previous perceived negatives were positive and the positives were negative. Read the rest of this entry »