The Deepest Truth Of Human Existence | Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle gives a talking meditation about connecting with our deepest truth.
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8 Signs You Have A Strong Personality That Might Scare Some People | Michael Prywes

When people encounter someone with a strong personality, they don’t understand the kind of person they are dealing with.

Some people think you dominate. Some just think you are rude. But none of these are the truth. These words actually do not reflect your personality at all. In fact, strong people are often kittens on the inside. It’s just that people with domineering personalities just give you a bad rep.

Strong people do not have to win, they just are not willing to let other people walk all over them on the outside.

Sure, some people might be afraid of you. But that is only because they do not understand how you can be so comfortable with yourself that you do not need anyone else to validate you.

Here are eight signs that you have a strong personality that might scare some people.

You Don’t Put Up With Excuses

Strong personalities do not put up with excuses. When you have a strong personality, you’re not willing to listen to people waste time whining about what they can do. You would rather focus on what you can do and how you can overcome obstacles to do more.

Don’t question yourself for not making excuses. There might be a lot of reasons that you can’t do something but there are more reasons that you can.

You Are Careful About Who You Let Into Your Life

As a strong person, you do not rely on other people to tell you who you are, what you are or what you can do. You recognize that some people need to do that to make themselves feel better. You also recognize that some people need to hear these things to feel whole.

Even if you don’t yet know exactly who you are, you know that you do not need a boyfriend, girlfriend, boss, best friend or family member to tell you what you’re capable of. You can figure that out on your own.

You Hate Small Talk

Small talk is terrible. If you have a strong personality, you have a lot of ideas. You do not want to waste time talking about people when you could be changing the world.

You Can’t Stand Insensitivity, Idiocy or Ignorance

Dominating personalities come from a lack of influence or knowledge. Strong personalities are the result of being thoughtful and well-informed. There is a huge difference between the two.

Because you have put time and effort into using your brain for good, you hate it when people make instant judgements about things they do not know anything about. This is probably your best quality but not because you can use your knowledge to influence people. It is because you can use it to encourage people to actually think about what they say before it falls out of their mouth.

You Know How to Listen

People with strong personalities know how to listen. You might think that people would appreciate this. But in reality, being heard and encouraged actually terrifies people who are not used to it.

You Do Not Need Attention

Having this type of personality means that you do not need attention. Most people that you encounter think that you thrive on it but this is not the truth. It just that your personality attracts people to you. The amount of socializing you do is not because you want to do it but because people need people like you around.

Despite this perception, you still need time to recharge. Don’t be afraid to take it. It is just as important to take care of yourself as it is to take care of other people.

You Are Fearless

Okay, this one is not true. There is probably one thing that you are afraid of. But the difference between you and other people is that you do not let this fear dictate the way you live your life.

You Take Insecurity As An Opportunity

Insecurity for you is an opportunity to do better. You know you’re not perfect but if you are not trying to learn and evolve, despite the risk of looking like a fool, then you are not living. You are just existing.

They say everyone is insecure and this is probably true. But not everyone has to stop this insecurity from letting them live their life and own the things that they are insecure about.
Sure, some people think that people with big personalities are difficult to be around. But you’re only difficult to be around because you challenge other people to be the best version of themselves! If this is what being difficult is like than you already know that it is best to just keep being you.

Let me know what you think below!

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6 Ways To Focus Your Attention And Be Happier | Sarah McLean

Become Fully Engaged And Improve The Quality Of Your Life

The questions that follow are designed to illuminate your ability to manage your attention as you notice what you pay attention to, how you pay attention, and the quality of your attention. 

I include this questionnaire in my book, The Power Of Attention.

Read through each question and either use them as journal prompts or simply reflect upon them as you go about your day. This inquiry will reveal to you the way you use the currency of your attention.

Ask Yourself These Questions

1. Do I give enough attention to the people, activities, and things that are important to me?

2. How does someone or something respond when I give him/her/it my undivided attention? How do they respond when I am distracted in his/her/its presence? (You might be too distracted to notice!)

3. Do I pay attention to and listen to my inner knowing?

4. How do I feel physically - and where in my body do I feel it - when I judge, feel spiteful, or have ill will toward a particular person or situation?

5. How do I feel - and where in my body do I feel it - when I offer loving and supportive attention to a family member, a friend, or a stranger?

6. How do I feel - and where in my body do I feel it - when someone ignores me, disregards my requests, or is generally not present when they're with me?

7. How do I feel - and where in my body do I feel it - when I am truly being paid attention to?

8. Do I often multitask or am I able to sustain an uninterrupted continuum of attention?

9. What external stimulus most distracts me? (My phone? My relationship? The people or objects in my environment?)

10. What internal stimulus distracts me? (My obsessions? My daydreams? My grudges? My limiting beliefs? Body sensations?)

11. How long can I engage and be present with someone without looking at an electronic device?

12. Do I feel a sense of rushing even when there are no deadlines and nowhere to go?
With this inquiry, you'll be more conscious of how you want to spend this valuable currency of attention.

You might get frustrated as you see that you live in a world full of distractions and potential addictions. And, yes, the contemporary culture seems to encourage the half-hearted way some of us attend to the world around us.

By noticing what distracts and detours you, you can begin to create some boundaries around them to reclaim your focus.

Here are some tips to reclaim your attention:

1. Set Your Priorities

Make a commitment to give your attention to what matters to you, whether it's your body, your relationships, your creativity, your work, your family, your pets, your plants, your spiritual life, or your environment. The ability to fully engage in a relationship with others and attend to yourself is expressed in your ability to listen, to love, to connect, and to respond in compassionate and meaningful ways.

2. Practice Fully Engaging In A Conversation

Mindfully listen and stay connected as the person in front of you speaks. Don't interrupt, or assume. Simply be present. When you respond, speak mindfully and with your full attention.

3. Get To Know Your Body

Listen with the same loving attention you offer to others. Ask yourself, "How do I feel when I focus on this?" the "this" in this case can be anything: a goal, a memory, a co-worker, your family, your pet,a  project, social media, a problem at work, nature, a television show, a news article, or any activity you are engaged in. Choose to focus more on that which nourishes you.

4. Go Analog

Stop sleeping with your phone. Instead, use a clock or watch. Don't start the day in emergency mode. Create a relaxing morning routine, one where you can be present and calm. This will establish a restful response as you embark on your day.

5. Unplug

Whether a few hours a day, or one day a week, unplug from your devices and social media. Create boundaries around what distracts you. Make time to be completely available to your three dimensional reality. Uninterrupted time is when creativity and inspiration can arise and your real-life relationships can flourish.

6. Get A Dose Of Nature

Research shows that a 20-minute walk can improve attentional issues. The natural world is a conduit for connecting to reality. It brings you to your senses and can charm your attention. This gives your brain a break from endless to-do lists and habitual thinking patterns that keep you distracted.

You can reclaim and increase the power of your attention and pay full attention, on purpose, to whom and what you choose.

Harnessing your ability to pay attention will restore the relational space between you and who and what you focus on.

Your attention is powerful, and you can be in charge of it when you set your mind to it.

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The Most Powerful Success Factor: Personal Development and the Golden Hour | Brian Tracy

The most powerful success factor of personal development and lifelong success has to do with the “golden hour” of your day.

As an individual, you become what you think about, most of the time. You become the sum total result of the ideas, information and impressions you feed into your mind, from the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night. Everything counts, but some impressions count more than others. The thoughts with which you flood your mind in the first hour of the morning, the golden hour, have a strong influence on how you think, feel and act for the rest of the day.

Improve Your Personal Development

Fully 95% of everything you do or say is determined by your habits, whether good or bad. Successful people have good habits that lead them to engage in positive, productive behaviors and improving their personal development throughout their lives. 

Unsuccessful people have inadvertently developed bad habits that cause them to act, or fail to act, in ways that lead to underachievement and failure.

The Most Important Success Factor

Perhaps the best success factor and habit you can develop is to take advantage of the golden hour and start every day in a thoughtful, productive way that sets you up for greater success in the hours ahead.

Here is a successful and effective formula that has worked for me, and for thousands of others, in going from rags to riches. Resolve to try it yourself for 21 days before you pass judgment on whether or not it is helping you. My promise to you is that, by the time you have practiced these behaviors for 21 days, your whole world will have changed in positive ways that you cannot even imagine.

The 21 Day Mental Diet

1. Starting tomorrow, arise each morning at least two hours before you have to be somewhere, and invest the first golden hour in yourself, and in your mind. If you exercise physically each morning, do this before you begin to exercise mentally.

2. Before you turn on the television, radio, or read the newspaper, take 30-60 minutes and read something motivational, inspirational or educational. Be sure that the first thing you put into your mind in the morning is positive, healthy and consistent with the kind of life you want to lead.

3. After you have completed your morning reading, take a spiral notebook and write out your top 10-15 goals in the present tense, exactly as if you have already achieved them. Write goals such as, “I earn $100,000 per year”; “I weigh 165 pounds and am superbly fit”; “I drive a brand new grey BMW”; “I live in a beautiful 3500 square foot home” and so on. Rewrite your list of goals every morning without referring back to the goals you wrote the day before. This is a very important success factor for you to practice in order to achieve your goals.

4. Plan every day in advance. After you have rewritten your goals, make a list of everything you have to do that day, and then organize the list by priority, value and importance.

5. Begin immediately to work on your most valuable and important task, before you do anything else. Resolve to focus single-mindedly on that one task until it is complete. When you start and finish your major task first thing in the morning during the golden hour, you will experience a surge of energy, elation and confidence that will propel you into your other tasks, and dramatically increase your overall productivity for the rest of the day.

6. Listen to educational audio programs as you drive around. Leave the radio off. Continually feed your mind with high quality mental nutrition that uplifts and inspires you to do your best. This is a great way to improve your personal development throughout your entire life.

7. Finally, develop a sense of urgency. Pick up the pace. Move quickly from one task to the other. Don.t waste time. The faster you move, the more energy you will have. The faster you move, the more you will get done, and the better you will feel. The faster you move, the more in control of your life you will feel, and the more you will like and respect yourself.

The Golden Hour

The golden hour is the rudder of the day. When you begin to arise early and invest the first hour in yourself, you will be amazed at the difference in the way you feel and in the results you will get. You will gradually transform your thinking about yourself and what is possible for you. You will become a money magnet and begin to improve on your personal development and achieve success in all levels.

I hope you enjoyed this article on the most powerful success factor of personal development and lifelong success. Do you have any other tips for what others can do during the golden hour for greater success throughout the day? Please feel free to share and comment below!

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What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do | Michael Neill

Insecurity is a beast. Not really, of course – it just feels like it can wrap you around its finger like a professional wrestler and twist your insides into a pretzel. Like all other feelings, insecurity is made up of thought in the moment – in my case most commonly “what if?” scenarios as I drive myself crazy trying to solve problems I don’t yet (and may never) have.

As I began to see the inside-out nature of our personal reality more clearly, I noticed my insecure thinking ran the show inside my head less often. It became more of a “featured player”, coming in to do a dance number from time to time but no longer the star attraction. I relaxed inside to a level I’d rarely felt before.

When I tried to articulate what had shifted inside me, a phrase came to mind that still has great meaning to me:

"I know what to do when I don’t know what to do."

There is always a risk that in articulating an insight, people will gorge themselves on the fruit of that insight without ever allowing the seed it grew from to take root inside them. But by the same token, sometimes it’s only after tasting the fruit that one can truly recognize the value of the seed. So here’s what I know to do when I don’t know what to do. There’s not much to it, but I hope you’ll find it helpful…

1. Settle down

Were you ever told to “count to 10” before speaking when you get angry or upset?

Or to take a few deep breaths to gather yourself and regain your bearings before trying to solve a problem or resolve a conflict?

The reason these bits of advice are so common anywhere in the world is that they are rooted in a simple truth It’s the same truth behind why people have their best ideas in the shower or while out for a walk or on holiday, and why no matter how smart we are at our best, we all behave like idiots from time to time.

There is an ever-present responsive intelligence inside us – an impersonal property of what we might call “the universal Mind”. All human beings have ready access to this common sense, but it can become obscured when our thinking runs amok. The moment our personal thinking settles down, we can more easily see and hear the wisdom within.

Think of the mind like the ocean – continually changing on the surface, hidden currents underneath the surface, and absolute stillness underneath that. The wisdom that will guide us forward is already there underneath the waves of our personal thinking; the wisdom that will take us deeper is already there in the stillness and depths of our soul.

Which is why the most powerful way I know how to use the mind is this…

2. Listen

One of my mentors recently pointed out that with all the time I spend reading books, I have no time left to “read consciousness”. What I saw in that metaphoric observation was that at some level, I still value the articulation of insight in others more than the unfolding of wisdom inside myself.

Whenever I take the time to get quiet and just listen, it’s amazing what comes through. I don’t even need to ask a question – I just let my thoughts settle as best I can and new ideas and insights bubble up into the space within.

This receptive capacity of the mind tends to be undervalued in our culture, but throughout history, the greatest thinkers and leaders have been the ones willing to do what researcher Cal Newport calls “deep work” – escaping the constant noise of the world around them to reflect more deeply on the emergent wisdom within them.

When we are willing to put down what we already think we know and let something new come through, we begin to live insightfully. Instead of chewing on the cud of our own knowledge, we dine instead on the fresh green grass of our deeper wisdom. And what we are able to produce on a steady diet of healthy insight is really quite remarkable.

I’ll finish with a piece of advice from Syd Banks, the enlightened Scottish welder who I reference so often in these blogs. When asked for the “ultimate answer” to all of life’s questions, he responded with these words:

“What you’re searching for is a silent mind – a state of no-thought…What you do is you get a silent mind, then you go inside – you have a realization of this wisdom that lies within… then bingo, you get it. And when you get it, it enhances your life. If you just enjoy yourself, stop looking for any more, you silence your mind to a state of no-thought. Then divine thought comes in… and you have the answer.”

May you rest in peace in the silence of your mind and may the wisdom within you illuminate the world around you.

With all my love,


Source: https://www.michaelneill.org/cfts1050/