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An article on National Public Radio’s website by Alva Noe, a professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley,  talks about how to make time slow down for you by adding variety to everything you do.

The author states, “We are now actualized habits. Want to live forever? Break your habits.”

By this, I believe he means that the things we habitually do each day have come to define who we are. Those routines we engage in day-after-day have the effect of becoming almost unnoticeable with respect to the time involved. the more routine and habitual our lives become, the less we notice the passing of time and it flies past us at an alarming rate, seemingly leaving us with less than we need.

It would seem counter-intuitive to add variety to what we do, to actually do more and different things in order to slow the passing of time. After all, the things we already do and have some proficiency in, now take less time than they did when they were new to us – that is, when we were learning how to do them. Doesn’t that mean we should have more time?

One of the essential elements to being in a learning state, movement with attention, was the subject of my last blog post. Variation is another of the Nine Essentials For Lifelong Vitality.

Variation causes your brain to wake up, to take notice of what’s happening, perceive differences and to recognize relationships, similarities and dissimilarities.

According to my teacher, Anat Baniel, there are 9 essentials that are present when someone is living a high quality life.

Today I will talk about one of these 9 essentials, movement with attention.

I invite you to sit comfortably in a chair and follow along with me as we do a movement lesson that will demonstrate how powerful this can be when applied to any aspect of your life.

The book I mentioned, by Anat Baniel, is called “Move Into Life: The Nine Essentials For Lifelong Vitality” and can be found on amazon.com, barnes&noble.com and at bookstores near you. I highly recommend it.

If you enjoyed this lesson, I encourage you to do more lessons like this, as often as you can.

One way to access more lessons online is to do pre-recorded lessons that were designed by Anat Baniel, called Desk Trainer exercises.

These are 5-7 minute lessons that you do in front of your computer, guided by a friendly cartoon character who does the movements as they are described and as you follow along. The online lessons are designed in specific series to address particular issues you may be experiencing, from headaches to carpal-tunnel syndrome to backache or joint soreness.

Click here to try a free trial lesson. (I receive no remuneration from Desk Trainer or Anat Baniel – I’m just a fan)

Please leave any questions or comments in the box below and sharing and tweeting is welcome too.

As long as I’m on the subject of learning…

Did you ever notice how children slow everything down when they’re really intent on learning something?

You’ll find it’s more noticeable, the younger they are and when they reach 3 yrs old or so, they forget or get impatient and they will try to learn something new at a faster rate of speed, more like an adult does.

Thanks for visiting and, if you found this interesting, please leave a comment, share and tweet this post to your friends.

A comment on a previous post has me thinking about what makes learning possible.

In any situation, even from infancy, one element that is absolutely essential in order for learning to take place is the ability to see that one thing is different from another.

Perception of Difference Leads to Patience

As a child, I remember watching Sesame Street on public television.  When Bert and Ernie and Big Bird sang about, “…One of these things is not like the other…”, they were teaching this fundamental element of learning, called differentiation.

In this video I talk about how I’ve come to be a better learner and subsequently a better teacher by learning to see the smallest changes, the smallest differences in myself and in others. This has led to an ability to be patient with the process of learning.

So, “thank God!” for variety, for success and for failure.

To improve the ability to adjust and learn from failures or successes in any area, we need to develop patience with ourselves and with circumstances so we can learn to notice even the tiniest changes in performance or in outcomes.  Whether in relation to our own performance, that of our children or the performance and outcomes of those we work with or teach what we know, the ability to be patient and to notice the smallest of changes can contribute to our continued success and the success of those around us.

If you found this interesting or if it resonates with you, I invite you to leave a comment to further the discussion and to share it with those you work with and care about. Be patient with them and with yourself and notice every small change and difference.

Here’s to YOUR FAILURE… Or you can use MINE!

Have you ever thought about failure as a tool?

Like any other tool, you can use failure any way you choose. Failure can be a tool for growth and learning or it can be a tool that leads you to regression and shrinking from challenges in your life.

In this video I explain how I came to think of failure in a way that has helped me to learn and grow in so many areas of my life.

I hope this insight into failure as just another variation, and a necessary one, may somehow help you to see new ways to bring variety and differentiation into your life and that, by doing so, you will trigger the learning and growth that will lead to achieving your dreams and goals.

As always, if any of this resonates with you or causes you to think, please leave a comment below and a little Facebook and Twitter love can’t hurt either.

If you are one of the over 500 million users of Facebook, you are probably there for one of two reasons. You are either looking for friends, relatives, associates and people with common interests to your own or you are looking for all of those people I just mentioned, in order to be able to market something to them.

In either case you have probably, at some time, either sent out a request for someone to be your friend or you have received a request from someone asking for you to be their friend.

At times, you have been accepted as a new friend or have accepted someone else as your new friend. And sometimes you may have decided not to friend someone, to ignore them, and you may also have been ignored by someone, in turn.

Your response to someone asking for your friendship and the response of someone you have asked to be your friend are dependent on the same thing – First Impressions. [Read the rest of this entry...]

It seems appropriate, after my last blog post, to now move on to the task of choosing a niche for this blog, a theme or central idea that this blog will focus on.

So I’m asking myself, “What do the things I love to do, the things I really get a charge from in my life, have in common?”

*Disclaimer* For those of you who do not ski or who have never skied: 1^st. I hope you will forgive me as I digress about the thing I love to do. 2^nd. I hope my description of how I feel about it will influence you to someday try it or to try it again. As a famous filmmaker once said,”If everyone skied, there would be no wars.”

Common Threads

What I love about teaching skiing in the mountains of Colorado is many-flavored. I enjoy being outside and I never tire of looking up to where the peaks meet the sky, taking particular pleasure in the deep, cerulean blue sky in contrast with the varied greens of the trees or the pristine white of the snow and flecks of clouds. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Wow! What an adventure this is. One thing I think everyone struggles with when starting a blog, is “How do I create content that is valuable to people?” I was in the same boat, wondering to myself (and sometimes out loud) “Why would people want to learn from me?”  After all, I’m just learning, myself. How could what I have to say, as a beginner in this arena, have any value. Well, just now a friend of mine, who is also just starting out as a blogger, called me to ask for my advice, my opinion and my help with his blog. We spent about a half hour on the phone as I talked him through some of the basic things that I have learned so far. As we talked, I was just telling him how to set up his blog, how to add various essential things to it and what the possibilities are for him as a blogger. I really didn’t realize that I already knew so much about the topic. I’ve been spending so much time tweaking my blog, learning from other people in  the blogosphere (love that word!), playing around with themes, plugins, widgets, etc. I didn’t know that I had completely internalized what I had learned. I can’t tell you how good it made me feel to be able to help him so much, in such a short time. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Hello and thanks for stopping by. I am starting this blog with zero internet marketing experience. This will be my journal, a chronicle of my quest for online marketing savvy and the rewards that come with it.

Humble Beginnings

As a former sailing instructor and yoga teacher, and now as a ski instructor and trainer for the past twenty-three years and health practitioner for the past 3 years, I sat back and took a look at my life at age 46. Even though I had been in and out of various network marketing businesses for seven years, with limited success, I still had a strong belief in the MLM industry. I just hadn’t learned enough to be successful. As far as success with network marketing goes, I never felt successful, even when I managed to make good money or recruit a significant team, because I wanted to see those I introduced to my opportunity also be successful. That was and is still is my measure of success. I always heard, from every top leader in each company, about the 80-20 rule and about duplication and about how teaching was so important to build a large organization that would last. The thing that kept eating at me is that I know I am a good teacher – my results in non-MLM-related areas are testament to that. I knew it wasn’t me, as the teacher of network marketing skills, who was the weak link. I kept hearing the same things, rehashed, or polished up and ironed out for a fresh audience of newbies – “Make a list, call your friends/family/acquaintances, get them on the call/webinar, give them a DVD/CD/tape.” “This product/business/opportunity practically sells itself.””Practice and keep doing what we trained you to do.” Always the same system that never seemed to work. [Read the rest of this entry...]