“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
She’s written the best-sellers “Miracles Now,” “May Cause Miracles,” “Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles” and “Add More ~ing To Your Life: A Hip Guide to Happiness.” Gabrielle Bernstein is also not afraid to share her struggles with addiction to the everyday things — like work, people, coffee, sugar — that can leave us feeling exhausted and empty at the end of a busy day. Bernstein’s approach to spirituality is to forgive, meditate and let go of the fear in your life. She’s plainspoken yet uplifting when it comes to making changes — and she took the time to tell 24Life what it takes.
24Life: You speak often about miracles and that the universe conspires to bring them to life. Can you tell us more about what that means? What is a miracle mindset?
Gabrielle Bernstein (GB): A miracle mindset is a belief system free of limitation, doubt, judgment, separation and attack. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever fully live with this mindset all the time, but our goal is to strengthen it. The more we lean toward our miracle mindset, the more our life begins to flow. This happens because when we’re connected to our miracle mindset we’re aligned with an energy of joy. That frequency of joy attracts more joy, which creates freedom and flow in our life. Quantum physics has proven that everything is energy — including you. You are an energy field and you’re responsible for the energy you give off and, in turn, the energy you receive.
24Life: Why is it so hard for so many to make time for meditation and self-care?
GB: Meditation and self-care are not what we’re taught to focus on. Our society puts emphasis on achievement, hard work and “making” things happen, whereas meditation and self-care practices are much more subtle and receptive. Many Americans feel guilty slowing down. They’ve given purpose to their pain and have a belief system that suggests that only struggle will pay off. The fear of slowing down keeps people from the greatest gift we have: meditation.
24Life: How long did it take you to establish meditation as a daily practice?
GB: I’ve been meditating since I was a kid. Unlike most people my age, my mother was a meditator. I followed her lead and made meditation a part of my life. For the past decade I’ve meditated at least once a day to maintain my positive flow and health. I rely on my meditation practice for my overall well-being, joy and success.
24Life: How does one choose a meditation style? There seem to be so many available.
GB: I believe your meditation style chooses you. The whole time I’ve been on my spiritual path, I’ve always been intuitively led to the practices that have served me most. As I’ve grown spiritually I’ve been guided to new practices that can serve my expansion. In my blog post “The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation,” I offer great suggestions on where to start and what types of practices are available to you now.
24Life: You have been very public in sharing your progress and struggles with addiction — coffee and sugar, most recently. What advice would you give someone trying to make changes in their lives?
GB: Here are the steps to healing an addiction:
24Life: So what closing advice would you offer readers?
GB: Trust me when I say that your spiritual faith will be your greatest tool for maintaining and sustaining a life of recovery. You don’t need to know how or when you’ll gain this faith. It will be bestowed upon you as long as you stay in constant dialogue with your inner wisdom.
The way I stay surrendered on a daily basis is through prayer. One prayer in particular has helped me stay humble and receptive. I recommend that you say it on a daily basis to remain willing to surrender to a power greater than yourself. This prayer is recited at the end of every 12-step meeting: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
24Life: Could you pull a miracle card from “Miracles Now” for our readers?
GB: “The moment I begin to celebrate myself and focus on my successes is the moment I begin living.”
Gabrielle Bernstein has been named “a next-generation thought leader” by Oprah Winfrey. She appears regularly as an expert on “The Dr. Oz Show” and has been named “a new role model” by The New York Times. She is The New York Times bestselling author of “Miracles Now” and “May Cause Miracles.” Her two additional bestsellers include “Add More ~ing to Your Life” and “Spirit Junkie.” Bernstein is also the founder of HerFuture.com, a social networking site for women to inspire, empower and connect. Learn more at http://www.gabbyb.tv.
It’s hard to believe that there’s more to Lewis Howes, renowned for his top 100 podcast “The School of Greatness.” He’s inspired millions with his extraordinary comeback story from an injury that landed him on his sister’s couch and ended his pro sports career and his childhood dreams. He’s proved that learning disabilities and stereotypes don’t have to define you. He’s been recognized by President Obama and the White House as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the country younger than 30. He’s been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, and Men’s Health and has appeared on ESPN, “Ellen” and the “Today” show. (And he’s a USA Team Handball athlete, too.)
“The School of Greatness” is a platform for Howes to help each of us understand and then share our authentic greatness in the world. But the entrepreneur, revered by peers and followers alike, says that despite success fueled by personal experience, Lewis Howes, the person, remained behind a mask. It wasn’t a shield or a persona that he maintained to keep people out. Instead, it was a filter for emotions that he—and other men, and arguably, women—have not learned to communicate.
In fact, Howes realized that he’d worn a different mask at different points in his life, and while those masks had served a purpose, they also held him back.
In "The Mask of Masculinity " (Rodale Books, 2017), Howes is candid about the athletic stereotype that was his first mask. It was his ticket to success—and it was also his undoing. He came to the realization four years ago: “After talking to my friends and family about stuff that I went through as a kid, I opened up about a lot of things I was going through, on my podcast.”
He continues, “The more I talked about it, the more I realized that other people were going through similar things, and it was really helpful for them to hear a guy who looked like me, a big jock-looking white, straight male. Other people who looked like me or who grew up like me never had permission to do the same themselves.”
Recognizing that suppression meant that he channeled his energy into succeeding at sports and in business, Howes also acknowledges the cost for men—and women. “I wrote the book for men,” he explains. “But as I was writing it and going through this, I realized that women are struggling to connect with men because [masks make it] hard to connect and relate. And I wanted women to be able to understand the men in their lives better.
“Women have a massive influence on the way men show up in the world—by the things they say to men, by their reactions”—and when men have been hurt or made fun of, picked on or bullied, it’s hard to open up and be vulnerable. To Howes, understanding means awareness about fathers’ silence and stoicism, awareness about why husbands may get angry, why sons don’t look us in the eyes. Understanding leads to compassion, and Howes says that’s the start of a conversation that is about connecting rather than changing—and the start of a deeper relationship....read more.
When Bo Eason takes on a new craft or discipline, he doesn’t just learn how to do it — he masters it. Eason is a former NFL football player turned Broadway playwright turned global speaker, who now coaches others on how to achieve that same level of mastery in their lives. Financial advisors, artists, athletes, fitness trainers, C-suite execs, techies and more, all turn to him when they’re looking to accelerate their performance.
To impact such a broad range of people, Eason draws upon personal experience. By age 9, he knew what he wanted to do with his life. With pen and paper in hand, he drew up a 20-year plan to be the best NFL safety ever. While other boys his age slept, Eason awoke at 5 a.m. to his father, a rancher, rubbing his back and telling him, “You’re the best in there, god%*$#mit. You’re the best.”
Eason listened. When no college recruited him, he showed up at the University of California, Davis, and played his way onto the team — literally. He switched places with another player, without his coaches knowing, so he could get on the field and show them what he could do. Years of grinding were rewarded when the Houston Oilers drafted him in 1984. During his five-year career, he played against and beside some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game before a knee injury ended his run.
“As I was being wheeled off the field, I remember looking up in the crowd. We were in Miami, and I was just thinking, ‘What am I going to do now?’” Eason says.
Professionally trained to “knock people over,” Eason recognized that his highly honed physical skills and preparation had little application in the civilian world. He knew he had to find another outlet that would let him express all that “TNT” he felt inside his body. So, he moved to New York City and put it on stage.
“I channeled it into being the best stage performer of our time, and that was the new 20-year-plan,” Eason says.
Fifteen years later — with a little advice from mentor Al Pacino — he found success, starring in a play he wrote and produced called “Runt of the Litter.” He has since used his unique blend of stage work, physical training and intense preparation to help coach others on how to communicate for maximum impact and fulfill their dreams.
24Life spoke to Eason about his journey and the tools he uses regularly to help himself, his clients and his family achieve what seems impossible....read more.
June 1st, 2012
When you're called the new Tony Robbins and you're seen hobnobbing with Sir Richard Branson and "The Bills" (Clinton and Gates respectively), you've pretty much earned the right to shell out life advice. And that's what Brendon Burchard, the number one New York Times bestselling author of The Millionaire Messenger and Life's Golden Ticket does best. Equinox's senior national manager of group fitness, Lashaun Dale, recently snagged an hour with the motivation and marketing connoisseur to discuss his new best-seller, The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives that Make You Feel Alive (the author is offering complimentary copies of the book for Q readers). Here, his tips for life maximization:
You offer a lot of advice, but what's your personal secret to staying inspired and maximizing life?
Living a charged life has been on my dashboard since I survived a major car accident. In that crash, I was forced to ask the three questions we all ask at the end of our lives: Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? It was then that I knew I needed to live a life that by the end of it I can say ‘Yes’ to those questions.
Why do you think that despite all we know and all of our tools for achievement so many are struggling?
I think that becomes a very interesting question. In an abundant culture like ours, it’s not that we don’t have what we need, it’s that we aren’t using our human drives for something more. My argument in The Charge is there are ten human drives, and they’re universal, part of the human condition. And if we understand what those drives are, and we activate them more intelligently and strategically, then suddenly, our life comes back to us. I think the one thing everyone wants right now is more life in their lives!
In your opinion, peak performance isn't really the best goal, right?
There is a night and day difference between peak performance and high performance. And I’ll actually argue the majority of people don’t want peak performance. I personally don’t want peak performance, and I don’t want peak experiences. I don’t want my life to be a yo-yo of major ups and major downs. There’s always another side to every single peak. We want to feel fully-charged on a continual basis.
Your model of high performance is really a matter of lifestyle and mastering the "4 Ps"…
My argument is high performance really comes down to understanding and mastering four different areas of your life: your psychology, physiology, productivity and persuasion. When you actually have the ability to master these areas, then you’re going to be the highest performer out of anybody....read more.
“Philosopher” is the word that Danielle LaPorte uses to describe herself. Author of the personal-development sensation “The Desire Map” (Sounds True, 2014) and a member of Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100, Entrepreneur magazine calls LaPorte “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass.” In LaPorte’s religion, “there’s meditation, there’s contemplation and there’s prayer,” and also “a lot of music … a lot of cuddling … a lot of texting with my girlfriends,” she says. Her insights, grounded in the reality of paying the bills, raising her son, yoga and friendship, are raw and powerful.
LaPorte sat down with 24Life to talk about her new book “White Hot Truth” (Virtuonica, 2017). Inspired by the very hottest part of a flame and her search for the spiritual equivalent, LaPorte explains, “When you get to that point in the fire, it’s where it’s hottest. … That’s where the heat can actually melt metal. And I’m very interested in that center point in people. I want to know that truth in myself.”
She has no illusions about how to get to that white-hot center. LaPorte says, “You have to grind your way to freedom,” in a practical and spiritual sense. In her case, for example, it meant she had to design an alternative to a conventional work environment—and combat her inclination to create new “hamster wheels” for herself.
But “grind” also means taking risks on self-love, self-compassion, intuition and boundaries—the things that make it possible for us to avoid spiritual to-do lists, find clarity and make it part of our daily lives. This integration is what LaPorte preaches: “My most so-called enlightened moments have definitely been my most human.”
Here’s what LaPorte has to say about getting to that white-hot center.
DON’T CONFUSE DISTRACTION WITH SPIRITUALITY. We want to be loving, we want to be present for our men, our women, our children. We’re recycling, we want to shop in a socially responsible way. We want some form of contemplation. Your spiritual growth becomes another to-do list. … But to-do lists create anxiety; they are about production and approval. We replaced some gods with new gods, but our new gods were wearing black stretchy yoga pants. And they looked way hotter, and they’re talking about cooler things, as opposed to be heavily dictatorial. But really, there’s still this achievement that we’re going for … and we’re actually kind of going crazy and burning out because of it....read more.
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