Made Moon Blog

Laughter, humor, a lighthearted sense of being - all of these are an important part of a well-balanced breakfast, er, life. Without humor, there is no hope. Without laughter, no love. And with a heavy heart, we live only a life of sadness and despair. Our ability to laugh at our foibles and laugh with our friends is a key indicator for predicting how readily we’ll bounce back from difficulties and how well we’ll handle the curveballs that life throws our way, and a quick smile is always the best defense in a situation that’s hit a sour note.

In addition, medical studies have shown that indeed, laughter is the best medicine. Not only does it flood our brain with “feel good” hormones and exercise our body’s core trunk muscles with spontaneous and deep contractions, but it noticeably and effectively raises our immune system’s defenses in ways that are only now being fully explored - an effect which lasts considerably longer than the laughter that triggered it. Laughing lowers your blood pressure and exercises the heart. It relieves stress and helps generate an overall stability of well-being.

People with notably jovial attitudes are seen as friendlier and better adjusted, and people are drawn to them like flies to honey. Socialization with peers becomes smoother and more enjoyable, and people can’t wait to rejoin and reestablish the acquaintance of those with a good sense of humor.

Of course, this does not include “humor” that hurts - biting sarcasm, “witty” putdowns, jokes made at the expense of others, mockery and other such imposters. It is doubtful that any of these recreate the same effects as true humor and lightheartedness, and I know for a fact that they attract far fewer friends.

Go on, laugh! It’s good for you. Learn to bring laughter and joviality into your life and every step of the way will be filled with the warm embrace of good times spent with good friends in good health. Salut!

(c) Soni Pitts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Soni Pitts is the Chief Visionary Butt-Kicker of SoniPitts.Com. She specializes in helping others reclaim “soul proprietorship” in their lives and to begin living the life their Creator always intended for them.

She is the author of the free e-book “50 Ways To Reach Your Goals” and over 100 self-help and inspirational articles, as well as other products and resources designed to facilitate this process of personal growth and spiritual development.

The GROW Model, devised by Sir John Whitmore, provides a framework both for individual coaching sessions and for the whole process. The acronym stands for Goals, Reality, Options and Will, also known as Wrap-up.

Goals - coach and client agree on specific objectives. This is vital in coaching - if you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else! The coach asks specific questions to make sure the goal is in the best interests of the client and those closest to them.

Reality - the client needs to have a realistic grasp of where they are now, where they are starting from. Is the desired objective a realistic goal - what are the chances of achieving it? Do they know someone else who has achieved this already?

Options - the coach guides the client in thinking of a number of ways of achieving the goal and the client decides which way to pursue. As the coach, you are not there to lead people, you are there to help them explore possibilities so they can decide which option is best for them.

Will/Wrap-up - the client will only be motivated to go for the goal if they are excited and motivated by it. Coach and client look at the possible obstacles and how these can be overcome. Is there a secondary gain in the client not achieving the goal? For instance, it may be more comfortable to remain in the current position than make the effort it takes to achieve the goal.

The GROW Model works because it ensures that there is nothing at the unconscious level which might prevent the client from going for the goal. It checks whether the goal fits in with the client’s capabilities and purpose in life, and establishes whether the client needs to change any current behaviours or get new skills in order to be successful.

Andy Britnell is an executive coach who works with high achievers in both the private and public sectors who wish to fulfil more of their potential by thinking and behaving more effectively.

Sign up for my FREE e-mail coaching and FREE monthly newsletter Grow and Learn at http://andybritnell.co.uk/

Information about my coaching services can be seen at http://executive-coaching-for-business-growth.com/

I have had 2 incidents come to my attention in the last few days that have reminded me how important Humility is.

A colleague shared about going to another hypnotherapist for some help and the hypnotherapist tried to dictate what her problem was and only became more insistent when my friend objected.

A client who was horribly abused as a child objected vehemently when I asked if he wanted to connect with that part of his psyche still acting as if it was the child. To my surprise, he said, “No way! I hate him.”

These to incidents highlighted for me the ways in which we attack ourself or another because of the arrogance of thinking our view is the true and only view.

One of my spiritual teachers has said that Humility is Compassion towards oneself.

This made sense to me when I realized that it is a kindness to myself to reject fearful thoughts whose essential message is that I’m not good enough, or strong enough, or smart enough, or lacking in some other way.

Seeing this, it became clear that Humility is the source of true
strength. True strength enables us to reject fear and the temptation to act on fear which usually means to commit some form of violence against ourself or someone else.

Fear always has an arrogant aspect to it, whether active against
others, or passive against oneself. It is a refusal to connect with or to share with — a complete lack of generosity.

I find that thinking about a problem as being just a problem of fear makes it easy for me to indulge it. If I look to see how the presence of fear indicates that I am being arrogant and mean-spirited, it is much harder for me to allow the fearful state to keep my interest. For me, the thought of being arrogant or mean burns and inspires me to find a greater clarity and openness of heart.

It helps to open to Humility as the antidote to the arrogance if I understand that humility is not meekness but kindness to myself. It is a kindness to open to my true relationship with life rather than persist in my fearful fantasy.

Try opening to Humility by simply stopping for 30 seconds, and
stretching your arms out and up towards the sky and breathing in fully and gently. Imagine how you would feel at the end of the day if you took this break to open and breathe every 30 minutes, or every hour, or every time you noticed yourself getting tense. Go beyond imagining — do it and discover the power of Humility. Can you be this generous with yourself? Good luck!

Jack Elias, a Clinical Hypnotherapist in private practice, is founder and
director of The Institute for Therapeutic Learning, a licensed Vocational
School in Seattle that trains and certifies Transpersonal Clinical
Hypnotherapists. Jack presents a unique synthesis of Eastern and Western
perspectives on the nature of consciousness and communication, teaching
simple yet powerful techniques for achieving one’s highest personal and
professional goals. Since 1967, Jack has studied Eastern meditation,
philosophy and psychology with masters such as Shunryo Suzuki Roshi and
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Before beginning his teaching and counseling
career, Jack worked for 20 years in sales, marketing and financial planning.
Jack offers dynamic experiential workshops and seminars, and his Finding
True Magic courses are eligible for credit at various universities.

When most people think of Self Improvement Courses, what comes to mind is usually basic information that’s not particularly interesting or beneficial. But there’s a lot more to Self Improvement Courses than just the basics.

Introduction

If selected properly, your life can tremendously change for the better with a self improvement course. Look for the course that offers the right self improvement plan to serve you and the support systems to help you change. The self improvement course should teach you how to outline what you want, how to set up a realistic plan to achieve your goals and how to train your mind to work with your subconscious so that you get results.

Always opt for the self improvement course that suits you and interests you. Grab one or two programs so you always have the right tools for the right challenge in life. Basically, the self improvement course educates you on how to unlearn negative attitudes and prejudice that society places on you, and helps you to be able to pursue your dreams and goals without fear or embarrassment. The course intends to help you regain control of your life and health. With the self improvement course, you can be what you want to be, notwithstanding what you are and you have been.

Go for a self improvement course that offers you the following:

The program content - Must be able to help you improve your mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional awareness.

Powerful tools and exercises - To draw out your inner wisdom.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Self Improvement Courses story from informed sources.

Fundamental skills - Must be able to put together a firm foundation for your life with goals, time management, and inspiration. All this would bring more control and focus into your life.

Personal development awareness programs - Must make you understand yourself and how life goes on. It should be able to put together your self-esteem, inner power, discipline, and self worth with the personal development awareness programs.

Open to a superior control - Must be able to find more significance, rationale and joy in life.

24×7 email support - Must provide 24×7 email or online support to keep you disciplined, focused, and motivated.

Convincing - Must convince you that increasing your self-awareness can change your life and that you can accomplish it with the course..

Apart from the above, the self improvement course must be able to improve your total personality. That includes spoken skills, i.e., communication skills, presentation, manners, dress sense, etc., so that you could feel better and accomplish your goals.

The self improvement course, in the end, would eliminate pressure from your life and replace it with self-confidence, improve your self-esteem, eliminate a negative approach towards family and friends and substitute them with feelings of love. This can make you a more complete human being.

Is there really any information about Self Improvement Courses that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another.

Tommy Lee currently operates an info-site on Self Improvement. Visit his website today.

Can we codify creativity? Within these few words are a number of principles that must be identified and resolved before we can really answer the question.

The first question is, what is creativity? What are we trying to codify?

One useful definition of creativity is that it is problem identification and idea generation. Another is the production of a number of diverse and novel ideas. Yet another is the engagement in a number of diverse and novel behaviours.

The second question is, can we measure creativity?

This is necessary, as any codifying must result in measurable change. From the above, we can see that creativity can be measured on a number of levels such as: a) we can measure the number of ideas produced and their diversity and novelty, b) the frequency of idea production over periods, c) the frequency of divergent and novel behaviours engaged in over periods or d) we can ask people to rate themselves as being creative before and after training.

The third question is, what do we mean by codify?

It means to code or organise into a systematic process. From the above, it becomes clear that codifying creativity is possible if we produce systematic processes that produce measurable change in the ways mentioned above.

Now onto the real question then. Can we codify creativity?

Well, yes. If we just set out a number of processes that produce measurable improvement in the ways described above.

What processes?

There are an infinite number and each produces it’s own set of results. By combining, mixing and rearranging, different results occur.

Simple psychological games, such as role-play, can be used. In the Journal of Psychology, businessmen were asked to rate themselves on creativity and they ranked themselves very low. Then, after asking them to pretend they were happy-go-lucky hippies, they re-rated themselves much higher.

Lateral thinking techniques can be used, where the point is to generate ideas without purpose, for the sake of generating ideas, follow seemingly nonsensical pathways and so forth. This simply maximises the quality and quantity of the idea pool.

Linking techniques can be used. Where everyday, novel and diverse objects are used to create connections with the endeavour.

What I have just done is codify creativity. Ask any group to come up with ideas related to a particular problem and they will produce a set quantity. Use the above three (each contains an infinite number of possibilities) and the group will produce more creative output.

Using and extrapolating the above principles (and using more precise techniques), I can, for example, codify processes and structures that make it possible to complete a screenplay very quickly.

The above is an incredibly general example, but you get the idea. And this small case begins to demonstrate how creativity can be made measurable, useable and tangible.

This topic is covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com. You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop MBA is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com

In this article, I write about the various types of stuttering therapies that are available. My background, I started stuttering at the age of four, it continued until I was twenty-two, basically ruining the eighteen years in between. I then fought very hard and eventually overcame the stutter.

According to latest figures, around one percent of people in the UK have a stutter. Most of these people will have seeked help at some stage of their life, and will have looked into stuttering treatments and the different forms of stuttering therapy. This is what they may have found:

Traditional speech therapy

Speech therapy is where the majority of people who stutter will start when trying to improve their speech. I myself, attended speech therapy from the age of five, I continued attending until the age of eighteen. Thirteen years and I still had the stutter, that was successful!

The advice I had been given at speech therapy was basically:

speak slowly

take a deep breath before you speak

accept your stutter

I am sorry but that advice is just not good enough.

Group stuttering speech courses

There are now a number of private speech courses that are run on a group basis. In my opinion these are of more value than traditional speech therapy as at least the aim of the course is to eradicate the stutter. Speech therapy is more of controlling and accepting the stutter.

One to one speech courses

There are also one to one speech courses available. I personally believe that this is the best form of stuttering therapy as each person will have their own individual stutter and needs.

Stuttering self help dvd and ebook

For people who would prefer a self help form of stuttering therapy, there are now stuttering dvds and ebooks available.

Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:

stuttering
therapy

alternative health treatments

lasik surgery

I know what you’re thinking…
“Here I am, completely stressed out and overworked, and here’s Barbara telling me
that I can change the world by having a conversation! Really…the heat must have
fried her brain…”

You’re absolutely right. (About the world-changing conversations, not about the
fried brain.) I’m not talking about changing the big world; I’m talking about
changing your world. Here are some examples:

During a group discussion on motivation, one woman learns a new way of
celebrating everyday accomplishments. She easily integrates this into her daily life,
and is soon achieving goals she thought were months and years away.

A coach suggests to a client, “Why don’t you turn your pager off during your train
ride home?” Lo and behold, the client finds that she’s arriving home much less
stressed and much more ready to spend quality time with her family.

An entrepreneur joins a group of other entrepreneurs in the same industry. After a
few weekly meetings, she learns that she is much further along in her business
planning and growth than many of her colleagues. She stops beating herself up for
what she hasn’t yet accomplished, and appreciates herself for what she has.
Focusing on the positive allows her to attract even more new business and
opportunities.

The premise is simple: the right conversation can kick-start the next greatest
phase of your life.

I don’t mean meaningless, “talk to anyone you meet about anything” conversations.
I’m talking about meaningful conversations about subjects that have value to you. A
small group of folks discussing an issue that is important to all of them. Meaningful
conversations bring many benefits…

If you’ve been working on something by yourself for a long time, you might really
benefit from the insights and experiences of others who have been where you are.

If you’ve been trying to make progress on an issue, or create a larger change in the
world, and are frustrated by a lack of movement, seeking input and sharing ideas
with others can help spread the word faster.

If you are feeling isolated and alone, it can help just to know there are others out
there in the same situation. Regardless of how you do it, I encourage you to start
engaging in meaningful conversation today.

You can certainly change your world…and who knows what will happen from there?

(c)2005 Barbara Bellissimo.

Barbara Bellissimo is a women’s life transformation coach, and author of the book,
“Become Your Own Great and Powerful: A Woman’s Guide to Leading Your Real, Big
Life.”

Visit http://www.seasonsofsuccess.com to get her no-cost special
report–”Turn On Your Power and Lead Your Self to Greatness”–and her easy-to-
use tools and ideas for leading the real, big life you want–right now!