The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Self-Help’ Category

Cover via Amazon

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: The First 30 Days by Ariane de Bonvoisin, Mythologist Joseph Campbell and Interview with Leadership Coach and Career Consultant David Gray.

Mondays at the Salon

To master a topic of interest requires reading to further knowledge, and if you are interested in the topic for your personal interest, you would be reading for information. But to learn as much as possible about a subject, whether it be for information or to further your knowledge, Adler and Van Doren recommend that you read syntopically, which is reading several books at the same time about a specific topic, and looking at them in relationship to each other.

How to Fill the Information Gap Part Two

Booked on Tuesdays

According to Ariane de Bonvoisin, The First 30 Days: Your Guide to making Any Change Easier is about “a different way of looking at change; it’s about the creation of a new mind-set. The First 30 Days will guide you toward the positive in every change and will inspire you to love your life even more.” This book is important because change is a reality in our everyday lives. Change is never easy but we all have to learn to embrace it to move forward and The First 30 Days helps you to do that.

Review: The First 30 Days by Ariane de Bonvoisin

Wisdom Wednesdays

Joseph Campbell’s lifelong fascination with mythology can be traced back to his visits to the local library where he immersed himself in reading Arthurian legends and Native American mythology. Campbell’s visits to the American Museum of Natural History where he encountered Indian religious art and ethnographic literature being collected by anthropologists stirred his imagination and deepened his interest.

Joseph Campbell, Essayist, Mythologist and Author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces 

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop FridaysThis week we featured leadership coach and career consultant David Gray. Once in a while I interview the same person more than once and you get to see their evolution, David Gray is one of those people. The two interviews are fairly consistent though. David is a straight shooter, so he deals honestly with people and treats them with respect. He offers some very practical advice in his interview. Here are Part One and Part Two of David Gray’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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Image via Wikipedia

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Review of The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, Charles Lindbergh, First Person to Fly Solo from New York to Paris and Interview with Mike DeSousa.

Mondays at the Salon

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is a quote that’s attributed to both Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. It means you have to do things differently to get different results.

Do Something You’ve Never Done Before

Booked on Tuesdays

This week we reviewed The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks which shows us how to start performing at our peak. In the book, we learn how to tap into our true genius, instead of taking hops we take big leaps.

Review: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

Wisdom Wednesdays

Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo from New York to Paris. He won $25,000 for his efforts. We can learn so much from Lindbergh by the way he prepared for his solo flight –  he paid attention to the details. And that’s possibly why he succeeded where so many had failed before.

Charles Lindbergh, First Person to Fly Solo Across the Atlantic

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured Mike DeSousa, public speaker and career coach. Imagine reading about the greats such as Marie Curie, Alexander the Great and Benjamin Franklin from when you were a child, what would your body of knowledge look like today? Here are Part One and Part Two of Mike DeSousa’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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Related articles

• Lindbergh’s historic flight, and what led to it (boston.com)

Cover via Amazon

The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks is the best personal development book I’ve read in a long time. The book gave me a new way to look at my capabilities. There are four main zones that anyone of us operates in: Incompetence, Competence, Excellence and Genius. But we should strive to operate in our Zone of Genius all the time.

Four Main Zones

Zone of Incompetence: You are bogged down doing tasks that you are not good at, that others can do much better. The solution is to avoid doing them altogether.

Zone of Competence: You are competent at doing the activities but others can do them equally well. Delegate and let others do those tasks and free up your time to do the things that make you unique.

Zone of Excellence: You perform activities extremely well and make a great living, but you are capable of much more. You are quite comfortable and may be tempted to take it easy. But there is only one place that you will truly thrive and that’s in the next zone.

Zone of Genius: This is the zone where you liberate your true genius and it puts you on the ultimate path of living a successful and satisfied life.

According to Hendricks, with an investment of 10 minutes every day you can end up spending 70 percent or more of your time operating from your Zone of Genius. The reason that most of us never reach our Zone of Genius lies in the Upper Limit Problem, which is actually four hidden barriers based on fear and false beliefs. When you identify and remove the fear and false beliefs you are ready to rewrite your life story and invent a new life based on your true genius.

Four Hidden Barriers

Hidden Barrier One: Feeling Fundamentally Flawed – You feel that something is wrong with you. Perhaps you have feelings of undeservedness and unworthiness so you think it’s impossible for you to live a successful and fulfilled life. In the past, every time you experienced success, these thoughts infiltrated your mind and somehow you sabotaged yourself. Now when you experience success and the thoughts of being flawed or unworthy come into your mind creating cognitive dissonance, acknowledge the thought and recognize that you are facing an Upper Limit Problem. It’s decision time, you can go back to how things were or you can let go of the limiting belief and move to a higher level.

Hidden Barrier Two: Disloyalty and Abandonment – You refuse to expand and embrace true success because you feel that if you do, you will have to leave your friends and family behind and you do not want to be alone. One way to find out if you are facing this hidden barrier is to ask yourself two questions: 1) “Did I break the family’s spoken or unspoken rule to get to where I am?” and 2) “Even though I am successful, did I fail to meet the expectations my parents had for me?” If you answered yes to either of the two questions, you are facing Hidden Barrier Two. Look at the pattern in your life, do you experience success then punish yourself by putting the brakes on things? The best way to move beyond this Upper Limit Problem is through communication. Speak openly with your family and friends, most likely things will work out.

Hidden Barrier Three: Believing That More Success Brings a Bigger Burden – If you have feelings that somehow you are a burden to others, those feeling will immobilize you and prevent you from rising to your true potential. Whenever these feelings of guilt are triggered, recognize that it’s because of the Upper Limit Problem and realize that you have nothing to be guilty of so release the guilt.

Hidden Barrier Four: The Crime of Outshining – You believe that if you become too successful you will make others look bad. It appears that Hidden Barrier Four is prevalent among gifted and talented children, and often continue to play out in their adult lives. Gifted children are often blamed for taking the spotlight off other family members. Look back to when you have experienced successful breakthroughs, were you gripped by fear? Were you afraid of outshining someone from your past? Did you feel that that person deserved the success more than you did? Be honest when answering these questions. Now is a great time to read Marianne Williamson’s poem “Our Deepest Fear.”

Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson

From A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

You may be wondering how you will identify your Upper Limit Problem so that you may breakthrough to your Zone of Genius, and that’s an excellent question. The reason why I loved The Big Leap is that it walks you through the Upper Limit Problem, shows you how to spot the Upper Limit Problem in your life and how to live in your Genius Zone. The book provides many examples so you can get a sound understanding of the issues. While I was reading The Big Leap I was able to figure out what my hidden barriers were and you will be able to do that as well.

To accomplishing more in life, Hendricks dealt with the issue of time. Most of us believe that we do not have enough time to do everything. The author suggests that instead of viewing time in the Newtonian manner, we should instead view it in an Einstein manner, which is that we control our time. According to Hendricks, “You’re where time comes from.” At first I couldn’t wrap my head around that statement, but after I read the examples I understood what he meant by that. Essentially it means that you have enough time to do the things that are most important to you and to work on them. To do this, you have to take full control of your life.

Four Great Quotes from The Big Leap

1. “In the face of so much evidence that life hurts and is fraught with adversity on all fronts, having a willingness to feel good and have life go well all the time is genuinely a radical act.
2. The seductive comforts of success can lull us into accepting the status quo.
3. Discovering your Zone of Genius is your life’s Big Leap. Everything up until now has been about hops, not leaps. Hopping, though it seems safe, is actually hazardous to your health. If you confine yourself to hops, you run the risk of rusting from the inside out.
4. Fritz Perls, MD, psychiatrist and founder of Gestalt therapy said, “Fear is excitement without the breath.” This intriguing statement means that the very same mechanisms that produce excitement, also produce fear, and fear can be transformed into excitement by fully breathing into it.”

Four Genius Questions

1. What do I most love to do?
2. What work do I do that doesn’t seem like work?
3. In my work, what produces the highest ratio of abundance and satisfaction to the amount of time spent?
4. What is my unique ability?

I recommend The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Levell by Gay Hendricks for those who want to realize their full potential. The book gives practical tips for us to use. To get the most from the book you have to do the exercises so you can discover the issues to rectify them. The Upper Limit Problem often manifests in the form of illnesses, you make yourself sick so that you do not have to do something that you fear.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

In an effort to streamline the blog posts, I’ve created a name for each day. Though Thursdays and Fridays have a different name, they will still be interview days, Part One and Part Two.

• Mondays at the Salon
• Booked on Tuesdays
• Wisdom Wednesdays
• Perspective Thursdays
• Workshop Fridays

Are You Winning the Mind War?

Sixty thousand thoughts are bouncing around in your mind every day, so says several sources on the internet. Of those 60,000 thoughts, how many of them are constructive thoughts and how many are destructive ones?

Whatever we are consumed with, whatever we constantly think about, has an uncanny way of materializing in our lives. So are we getting the results we want in life – whatsoever ye sow, so shall ye reap?

• Are you consumed with lazy thoughts, which prevent you from getting up earlier in the morning to work on achieving your goals?
• Are you consumed with angry thoughts so you are constantly overreacting and going over the deep end?
• Are you so consumed with acquiring money that you forget to make time for your family and friends?
• Are you so consumed with thoughts of always being in control that you lose control?
• Are you so consumed with fear that you fail to act or act quickly?

Destructive thoughts take us out of the game, whichever one we are playing. Are you winning the mind war? When was the last time you monitored your thoughts? Are you accomplishing the things that really matter to you? Are you making the kind of difference that you’d like to make in life? If you died today, would your eulogy please you?

Hale Dwoskin developed a simple method to let go called The Sedona Method. Say for instance you are constantly crippled by fear and always think of the most negative outcome for your life, here is the process. You ask yourself the following three questions.

1. Could I let go of fear?
2. Would I let go fear?
3. When?

Dwoskin has also produced a documentary, The Letting Go Movie, which demonstrates the technique for letting go.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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You must be thinking, “Not another time management book.” Yes, I know how you feel.

A few months ago I received an email asking for permission to send me a copy of Make Every Second Count by Robert W. Bly. I said, “Sure” and gave my mailing address but did not pay any attention to who the author was. I shortly received the book and placed it in my stack of books to read, when I noticed that it was written by Robert W. Bly (Bob Bly). I know Bob Bly as a copywriter.

So what does Bob have to say in Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress ? A lot actually, more that what you would expect in a time management book.

One of the things I’ve noticed with Bob Bly is that he structures his books, at least the ones I have read, in such a way that you can start at any point, and this book has 14 clearly titled chapters.

• Chapter 1: Work Habits That Speed You Up
• Chapter 2: Do You Really Want to Be Productive
• Chapter 3: Goal-Setting
• Chapter 4: Save Time and Money When You Travel
• Chapter 5: The 10% Solution for Increased Personal Efficiency
• Chapter 6: Networking Online
• Chapter 7: Using Technology to Save Time
• Chapter 8: Going Mobile
• Chapter 9: Delegation and Outsourcing
• Chapter 10: Getting Organized
• Chapter 11: Planning Systems and Software to Increase Your Productivity
• Chapter 12: Maximizing Your Personal Energy
• Chapter 13: Managing Information Overload
• Chapter 14: Saving Time at Home

There were times while I was reading that I had adverse reactions to what Bly was saying, and had to take a step back, and remind myself that that’s okay. My responsibility as a reader is to take in information, evaluate it, then decide if the information makes sense for me. And that’s something that I recommend. I also have a responsibility to my readers to be honest in my feedback.

I’m sure that there are things that you will not like about the book, but the beauty is that because Bly has done such a great job in laying out the information, you can quickly find what you need.

What I liked about Make Every Second Count.

Bly uses a system where he has three to-do lists: Daily to-do, Projects to-do and Long-term to-do (This could be some personal projects that are important to you, but do not have a definite end date, so allocate a few hours a week working on them), which I think would be very helpful and allow you to carve out the time to do things that are meaningful to you, but will not necessarily earn money in the short term.

I found chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11 most useful. For instance, in Chapter 6, which is Networking Online there is a Networking Grid which would be a welcome to a social media strategy because it allows you to structure the actions you take. There are some helpful tips in the book on how increase personal efficiency, and I was delighted to see a section on how to think faster which uses the creativity model that we have discussed on this blog many times. And very timely, are great tips to deal with email overload.

He offered an example of setting up your folders on your computer, and though some may think that information is basic, I’m glad it was included because so much time can be wasted searching for files on a computer. There is also a very detailed chart, which includes productivity software so you can compare them and determine which is best suitable for your needs.

And for those who love to travel, Chapter 4 has some great tips. I discovered that in addition to Kayak.com, SideStep.com allows you to search multiple websites for deals on hotel, airline and car rental packages. CleverDude.com provides tips on how to get free airline upgrades.

Though I couldn’t figure out why some historical information on mobile technology, and other were included, I recommend Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress but I suggest that you read only the chapters that would be useful to you. Despite my adverse reaction (I think that some of the time saving tips for home are a bit extreme, and takes out some of the joy out of life for people) to some of the content, I’m happy that I read Make Every Second Count because I picked up some tips that will increase my personal efficiency.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate link.