Why is it that despite our best efforts, many of us remain fundamentally unhappy and unfulfilled in our lives? In this provocative and inspiring book, David Richo distills thirty years of experience as a therapist to explain the underlying roots of unhappiness—and the surprising secret to finding freedom and fulfillment.
There are certain facts of life that we cannot change—the unavoidable “givens” of human existence: (1) everything changes and ends, (2) things do not always go according to plan, (3) life is not always fair, (4) pain is a part of life, and (5) people are not loving and loyal all the time. Richo shows us that by dropping our deep-seated resistance to these givens, we can find liberation and discover the true richness that life has to offer. Blending Western psychology and Eastern spirituality, including practical exercises, Richo shows us how to open up to our lives—including to what is frightening, painful, or disappointing—and discover our greatest gifts.
David Richo, PhD, is a therapist and author who leads popular workshops on personal and spiritual growth.
He received his BA in psychology from Saint John’s Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts, in 1962, his MA in counseling psychology from Fairfield University in 1969, and his PhD in clinical psychology from Sierra University in 1984. Since 1976, Richo has been a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor in California. In addition to practicing psychotherapy, Richo teaches courses at Santa Barbara City College and the University of California Berkeley at Berkeley, and has taught at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. He is a clinical supervisor for the Community Counseling Center in Santa Barbara, California.
We live in difficult and stressful times. You’ve read books and done workshops, but you still have to face so many stubborn obstacles. Yet it’s often our pain and dissatisfaction that pushes us to seek a more conscious life.
Your Ultimate Life Plan is the missing “how to” for getting unstuck and moving past your problems into a richer and more meaningful life. It’s a roadmap to living your most happy, most authentic, most amazing life.
A practical guide that will help you improve every moment of your life and create changes that last, Your Ultimate Life Plan teaches you how to build:
Confidence: Remove what’s stopping you. Strength: Move from your wounded ego into your sacred self. Courage: Make smarter choices by embracing the Four Dimensions of Consciousness. Success: Rise to your next level of happiness, clarity, and transformation.
The distillation of Dr. Howard’s 20-plus years of experience as a licensed psychotherapist and spiritual teacher, this “workshop in a book” will help you do more than understand Wholeness–you will experience it.
Why settle for average, when the potential to live an amazing life is inside you, right now? This book will help you step boldly into your next, deeper level of happiness, wholeness, transformation, and success. Jennifer Howard, Ph.D., is the author of “Your Ultimate Life Plan,” winner of a 2013 Gold Nautilus Book Award, and finalist in the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Book Awards and the 2012 ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. The distillation of her 20-plus years of experience as an internationally known licensed psychotherapist, energy healer, and spiritual teacher, this “workshop in a book” is the missing “how to” for moving past your problems and stepping boldly into your next, deeper level of happiness, wholeness, transformation and success. “Your Ultimate Life Plan” asks, why settle for average when the potential to live an amazing life is inside you, right now?
A recognized thought leader on psychology and spirituality, Dr. Howard is a Huffington Post blogger, one of the featured experts in the national wellness campaign, Walk with Walgreens, and has appeared as an expert on numerous national network television shows. On her weekly radio talk show, “A Conscious Life,” she has inspiring, informative, and fun conversations with such distinguished guests as Sharon Salzberg, Gay Hendricks, Hale Dwoskin, Marci Shimoff, Andrew Harvey, Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., Sonia Choquette, Mathew Fox, Bernie Siegel, M.D., Lama Surya Das, and Rabbi Rami Shapiro, among others. A life and business coach, professional speaker, and co-founder of the Healing Path Center, Dr. Howard maintains a private practice with offices in New York City and Long Island, and has an extensive phone practice.
We know that each of us is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, our uniqueness resides. Is it in our genes? The structure of our brains? Our genome may determine our eye color and even aspects of our personality. But our friendships, failures, and passions also shape who we are. The question is: how?
Sebastian Seung, a dynamic professor at MIT, is on a quest to discover the biological basis of identity. He believes it lies in the pattern of connections between the brain’s neurons, which change slowly over time as we learn and grow. The connectome, as it’s called, is where our genetic inheritance intersects with our life experience. It’s where nature meets nurture. Seung introduces us to the dedicated researchers who are mapping the brain’s connections, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. It is a monumental undertaking—the scientific equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—but if they succeed, it could reveal the basis of personality, intelligence, memory, and perhaps even mental disorders.
Many scientists speculate that people with anorexia, autism, and schizophrenia are “wired differently,” but nobody knows for sure. The brain’s wiring has never been clearly seen. In sparklingly clear prose, Seung reveals the amazing technological advances that will soon help us map connectomes. He also examines the evidence that these maps will someday allow humans to “upload” their minds into computers, achieving a kind of immortality.
Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story, told with great passion and authority. It presents a daring scientific and technological vision for at last understanding what makes us who we are. Welcome to the future of neuroscience.
Sebastian Seung is Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Harvard University, and formerly worked at Bell Laboratories. His research on artificial intelligence and neuroscience has been published in leading scientific journals, and also featured in the New York Times, Technology Review, and the Economist. His laboratory at MIT is currently inventing technologies for mapping connections between the brain’s neurons, and investigating the hypothesis that we are all unique because we are “wired differently.”
The bold and thrilling quest to finally understand the brain—and along with it our mental afflictions, from depression to autism—by a rising star in neuroscience
Sebastian Seung, a dynamic young professor at MIT, is at the forefront of a revolution in neuroscience. He believes that our identity lies not in our genes, but in the connections between our brain cells—our own particular wiring. Seung and a dedicated group of researchers are leading the effort to map these connections, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. It is a monumental effort—the scientific equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—but if they succeed, they will uncover the basis of personality, identity, intelligence, memory, and perhaps disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Seung explains how this new map of a human “connectome” might even enable us to “upload” our brains into a computer, making us effectively immortal.
Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story, told with great passion and authority. It presents a daring scientific and technological vision for at last understanding what makes us who we are, both as individuals and as a species.
Make a radical shift toward a more peaceful, powerful, purposeful life!
In The Ten Bridges of Transformation, world-renowned spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson addresses 10 universal human challenges that act as gulfs, separating us from all the things we most want and need in life. When they rear their head – as they quite frequently do – we are rendered paralyzed by them, powerless and incapable of true movement.
In response, Marianne offers 10 radical new ways of encountering these inevitable challenges. These “bridges” will enable you to recognize the challenges and transitions of life as incredible opportunities for growth and enlightenment. Each one will carry you instantly from a specific challenging circumstance – anxiety, living in the past and future, focusing on guilt, negative thinking, and many more – to its positive alternative.
The 10 bridges are an eternal compass that guides us along the path to spiritual wholeness. Anytime you are lost, confused, frustrated, doubtful, fearful, even hopeless, you can use these 10 active principles to immediately reorient yourself toward love, peace, and fulfillment.
The Ten Bridges of Transformation includes several live segments, recorded at Marianne’s renowned workshops. These segments will infuse and ignite you with the incredible energy and enthusiasm of Marianne’s live events. As anyone who has heard or witnessed Marianne Williamson live can tell you, there’s nothing quite like it.
Without question, Marianne Williamson is one of the most profound, insightful, globally important spiritual teachers of our time. People who hear Marianne are invariably stunned by her incredible energy, but most of all by the absolute illusion-shattering truth of what she says.
The Ten Bridges of Transformation is absolutely essential listening for every Marianne Williamson fan, and anyone who wants to discover how to transform life’s changes, challenges, and hardships into miraculous opportunities for growth.
Marianne Williamson is the number one New York Times bestselling author of A Return to Love, A Woman’s Worth, Healing the Soul of America, Enchanted Love, and Illuminata. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have inspired spiritual seekers the world over.
Contents:
disc 1. Bridge #1: from forgetting who we are to remembering who we are –
disc 2. Bridge #2: from negative thinking to positive thinking –
Bridge #3: from anxiety to atonement –
disc 3. Bridge #4: from asking God to change the world to asking God that He change us –
Bridge #5: from living in the past and future to living in the present –
disc 4. Bridge #6: from focus on guilt to focus on innocence –
Bridge #7: from separation to relationship –
disc 5. from spiritual death to rebirth –
disc 6. Bridge #9: from your plan to God’s plan –
disc 7. Bridge #10: from who we were to who we are –
disc 8. Walking the bridges: forgiveness and service.
Life Ahead presents lessons that move far beyond the traditional forms of education taught in most schools and colleges. Drawn from transcripts of talks given to Indian students, the book covers a wide range of universal topics.
In short, accessible chapters, Krishnamurti explores the danger of competition, the value of solitude, the need to understand both the conscious and the unconscious mind, and the critical difference between concentration and attention, and between knowledge and learning. Krishnamurti exposes the roots of fear and eradicates deeply entrenched habits of tradition, limitation, and prejudice. The life he holds forth requires a complete change of thought, even a revolution, one that begins “not with theory and ideation,” he writes, “but with a radical transformation in the mind itself.” He explains how such transformation occurs only through an education that concentrates on the total development of the human being, an education carefully described in this simple yet powerful book.
A Wholly Different Way of Living: San Diego, California 18th February 1974
1st Conversation with Dr. Allan W. Anderson‘Knowledge and Transformation’
J Krishnamurti was born in South India and educated in England. For the past 40 years he has been speaking in the United States, Europe, India, Australia and other parts of the world. From the outset of his life’s work he repudiated all connections with organized religions and ideologies and said that his only concern was to set man absolutely unconditionally free. He is the author of many books, among them THE AWAKENING Of INTELLIGENCE, THE URGENCY OF CHANGE, FREEDOM FROM THE KNOWN and THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE.
This is one of a series of dialogues between Krishnamurti and Dr. Allan W. Anderson, who is professor of religious studies at San Diego State University where he teaches Indian and Chinese scriptures and the oracular tradition. Dr. Anderson, a published poet, received his degree from Columbia University and the Union Theological Seminary, he has been honoured with the distinguished teaching award from the California State University.
Description Personal Transformation Based on Mindfulness and Self-Compassion
What’s your most important goal? Why does it matter so deeply? How will you overcome the obstacles? Answer these questions with sincerity, proceed with mindfulness and compassion, and you have just set in motion a revolutionary method for personal change that is supported by both the latest science and traditional wisdom. On The Neuroscience of Change, psychologist and award-winning Stanford lecturer Kelly McGonigal presents six sessions of breakthrough ideas, guided practices, and real-world exercises for making self-awareness and kindness the basis for meaningful transformation.
Practical Methods to Retrain Your Brain to Support Your Goals
Our understanding of the incredible power of the human brain is at an all-time high, with the emerging fields of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and psychophysiology opening new possibilities for greater health, happiness, and freedom from suffering. Drawing on her training as a research scientist and longtime practitioner of meditation and yoga, Dr. McGonigal reveals these startling findings—including the clinically supported methods for training the mind away from default states and negativity that no longer serve us and establishing behaviors and attitudes aligned with our highest values and aspirations.
The First Rule of Change: It’s Already Happening
As the world’s wisdom traditions teach and science is now verifying, our lives are in fact defined by constant change. Whether you’re looking to change a behavior, improve your health or other circumstances, or simply for a way to bring hope and resilience into your life as it is, The Neuroscience of Change will help you trust yourself and unfold your true capacities for personal transformation.
Highlights
Willingness, self-awareness, and surrender—how to nourish the seeds of change
Focusing on the process, not the outcome
How to overcome the “trigger-to-instinct” reaction
The proven benefits of meditation—and how to start practicing yourself
How to transform self-criticism into self-compassion
Why your mind creates habits—and how to consciously create new ones
Making values-driven commitments
Visualization and the principle of “encoding prospective memories”
The power of the vow
“Deep activation” and the danger of rejecting what is
Working with inner experiences as the key to making outward change
Six hours of breakthrough science, practical wisdom, guided exercises, and mindfulness meditations for making positive change that lasts
Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a health psychologist and award-winning lecturer at Stanford University. A leading expert on the mind-body relationship, her work integrates the latest findings of psychology, neuroscience, and medicine with contemplative practices of mindfulness and compassion from the traditions of Buddhism and yoga. She is the author of The Willpower Instinct and Yoga for Pain Relief.
Kelly McGonigal, PhD: The Science of Change
Popular Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal, PhD, spoke at East West about how the latest discoveries in neuroscience have bridged cutting edge science with ancient, time-honored wisdom.
A call for a paradigm shift in human thinking in recognition of the interconnectedness of all things–a new mind for a new world
• Explains how the instability of our current time is part of a larger cycle of human evolution that will soon turn toward renewal and regeneration
• Reveals how to participate in the process of conscious evolution to maintain resilience during these transitional times
• Examines new findings in quantum physics and quantum biology on the interconnectivity of all life and how to utilize this for conscious evolution
For centuries, indigenous wisdom traditions have talked of an epochal shift on the horizon, of a spiritual renaissance for the earth and her living family. Now the timelines are converging and the potential for an energetic “upgrade” for humanity is here, but first we must survive and evolve through the current period of transition.
Explaining that evolution is not a gradual process but more like a “shock to the system”–radical waves of transformation after a period of dormancy–author Kingsley Dennis reveals that we are currently undergoing an evolutionary leap and shows not only how to survive but also thrive in this period of global upheaval and change.
Examining the nature of evolutionary cycles, he explains that the instability we are now experiencing–climate change, economic meltdowns, and increasing political polarization–is the convergence of complex systems that have reached a critical state. What we need in order to push through to the coming spiritual renaissance is a paradigm shift in human thinking and perception, a conscious evolution in recognition of the interconnectedness of all things–a new mind for a new world.
Examining new findings in quantum physics and quantum biology on the interconnectivity of all life as well as opportunities for us to reawaken our slumbering souls, this book offers a glimpse of the new global society to come, a renewed humanity for the 21st century, and how each of us can best participate during the process of planetary transformation.
Kingsley L. Dennis, Ph.D., is a sociologist, writer, and a cofounder of WorldShift International. The author of numerous articles on complexity theory, technologies, new media communications, and consciousness, he spends his time between Andalusia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
A short 10 minute general talk on our future years; our new consciousness, paradigms, thinking, and vocabulary…
New Consciousness for a New World with Kingsley Dennis
Published on Feb 28, 2013
Kingsley Dennis, PhD, is a researcher, sociologist and futurist as well as a prolific author. He co-founded WorldShift International, and is a passionate advocate for conscious evolution. His books alert us to the dangers of societal collapse if we ignore the social, economic and environmental tipping points that are now upon us.
A brilliant forecast of our global future, looking at human, social and technological evolution, predicting what will happen to our social structures, to our resources, to our infrastructures – but also to our minds and hearts – in the years to come.
Humanity is in the midst of great transformation. Our world is undergoing three types of revolution, all co-dependent: physical, psychic and cosmological. The media report dramatic changes due to climatic disruption: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. We are also witnessing a surge in popular protest, as decades of corrupt or inefficient social systems face their nemesis. Yet within this outward turmoil more subtle shifts are occurring, such as the transition of the ‘modern’ mind from the industrial-globalisation model towards a life-sustaining, ecological-cosmological world-view.
This book begins with an account of the transition between world ages, from one set of world-views to the next, which is likely to involve a re-structuring of our psychological and social frameworks. Part Two examines the dire state of finite energy resources and analyses our increasing global (in)security and surveillance. Part Three examines the conscious-raising aspects that have occurred since the late 19th century and discusses the emergence of a global ‘empathic mind’. Finally, Part Four discusses an integral worldview and what this means for our global future(s).
This impressively researched book discusses these profound revolutions currently under way within a planetary civilisation and the implications of a psychophysical transformation. Click Here To Look Inside Kingsley Dennis, PhD, is a sociologist, researcher, and writer. He is the author of ‘New Revolutions for a Small Planet’ (2012); ‘The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution & The Battle to Control How We Think’ (2012); and ‘New Consciousness for a New World’ (2011). He is also the co-editor of ‘The New Science & Spirituality Reader’(2012). His forthcoming books include ‘Dawn of the Akashic Age’ (2013 – co-written with Ervin Laszlo); and ‘Breaking the Spell’ (2013). He is also the co-author, with Prof. John Urry, of ‘After the Car‘ (Polity, 2009), which examines post-peak oil societies and mobility.
Kingsley worked in the Sociology Dept. at Lancaster University, UK, and is now a visiting fellow at the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster Uni. He is now collaborating with the new paradigm Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University. He is the co-founder of WorldShift International.
Kingsley is the author of numerous articles on complexity & social systems, global technologies, new media communications, and conscious evolution. As well as the academic life Kingsley has also lived and worked for many years overseas, including five years in Turkey. He currently lives in Andalusia in Spain and is working on new book material. He continues to research, write, travel, grow his own vegetables, and seeks answers to many questions.
The Great Acceleration
Published on Feb 19, 2013
The author reading an extract from his book ‘New Revolutions for a Small Planet: How the Global Shift in Humanity & Nature Will Transform Our Minds & Lives’
Do Not Go Quietly is an extraordinary and important book for all Gen Xers (40 to 45), baby boomers (46 to 64), and elders (65 and older). It is also valuable for those under 40 who want to better understand and assist their parents, older friends, and relatives. Discover how to harvest the fruits of our past and turn them into gold we can invest in the present and future. Learn how to live with greater mindfulness in each moment so that we can more fully celebrate our lives, live our dreams, and heal any wounds that may encumber us. See how to chart a more harmonious, joyful, and successful course so that we’ll be able to say with pride, “We have run the course to the best of our abilities, and we will leave behind a legacy of genuine value.”
George and Sedena Cappannelli are popular authors; speakers; and co-founders of AgeNation, a digital-media company and social enterprise, and The Age of Empowerment,a nonprofit organization that supports people and organizations serving vulnerable sections of our aging population. They are experts on individual, organizational, and societal change and well-known consultants, coaches, and keynote presenters who have worked with thousands of individuals and hundreds of the world’s leading institutions in both the private and public sectors, including Boeing, NASA, The Walt Disney Company, Oracle, PepsiCo, the Los Angeles Times, U.S. Navy, and more.
George and Sedena have appeared on hundreds of television and radio programs during two national book tours and in conjunction with their other projects and programs, including their own radio talk show, Talk About Your Life, in Phoenix, Arizona. George is also an Emmy Award–winning film and television producer/director, and Sedena has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild since 1979, having appeared in numerous films, television programs, and theatrical productions. She is also the founder of About Life, Inc, a company she created to bring personal empowerment to women.
In addition, George was the co-founder of The International Integrity Program; served as executive director of The Sedona Institute; and was the director of The Society for the Advancement of the Human Spirit, an organization chaired by the Dalai Lama. He has worked on special projects with Golda Meir, Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, and other world leaders. In 1991, George managed Jerry Brown’s U.S. Senate campaign in California, and he served as a special strategist and consultant in the 1992, 1996, and 2008 presidential campaigns. He has also served as creative director and eventually chief operating officer for Allerton, Berman & Dean, a New York–based marketing and public-relations agency.
George’s political blog It’s About Time explores the themes covered in his book, I Dream of a New America. Together, the authors have written two previous books: Say Yes To Change: 25 Keys to Making Change Work for You and Authenticity: A Guide to Greater Meaning and Purpose at Work and at Home.
Do Not Go Quietly – Birth 2012 Special ver 1
AgeNation – Living Consciously, Aging Wisely
All our lives will be deeply impacted by our aging population and AgeNation seeks to draw on the inspiration, creativity & idealism that will help redefine what it means to live consciously & wisely in the 21st century. Our activities are centered around our AgeNation.com website which contains both our rEVO online magazine & AgeNation Radio podcast sites.
AgeNation also produces entertainment events, conferences, leadership workshops, consulting and are developing unique television, publishing and travel divisions to help to teach & learn about how to achieve our mission. We are the generations that need to save our world – we cannot wait for a future generation to do it for us. We need you to help us reinvest value, care and heart into a world that is so desperately in need of it.
At this moment in history, we’re faced with one of the biggest choice points we have ever encountered. Individuals are making choices to change their nations; nature is giving us a wake-up call; economies are struggling; and for many of us, the future looks uncertain. Yet people are also rallying to have a voice, awakening from their apathy of previous decades. Collectively and individually, we are being given the opportunity to make extraordinary choices in order to change where we are headed.
Based on the extraordinary film Choice Point, which features insights from some of the world’s leading change-makers-including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sir Richard Branson, Arielle Ford, Tony Benn, James Caan, Gregg Braden, Dr. Larry Dossey, and His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa, this inspiring book reveals exclusive material not seen in the film, and explores its exciting discoveries in greater depth. It shows you how to understand your world like never before, how to align your own true purpose with the patterns of the universe, and finally, how to be the change that you want to see in the world around you.
Harry Massey
Harry Massey is a writer, director, entrepreneur, and visionary. He directed the full-length documentary film Choice Point and wrote the accompanying book. He also founded the Choice Point foundation to bring his vision for transforming the world to the general public. Its mission is both to inspire people to transform themselves—and so to be the change they want to see in the world—and to develop paradigm-changing technology that can assist us in solving some of the world’s most pressing problems. In addition, Massey co-founded NES Health Limited (www.neshealth.com), a company dedicated to furthering a 21st-century system of natural holistic health care based on integrating physics and biology. He has created several leading-edge health-related technologies, including the NES miHealth. His passion for changing the face of health care arose from his own health challenge as he sought to overcome a serious illness in his youth. Massey was also executive producer and co-writer of the 2009 best-selling documentary DVD The Living Matrix: A New Science of Healing, which championed the rise of a new kind of medicine based on energy and information fields.
Dr. David Hamilton
David R. Hamilton acquired an honors degree in biological and medicinal chemistry, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry before working as a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry for several years. His research into the mind-body connection ultimately led him to leave that profession and become a motivational speaker. He went on to co-found an international relief charity, and he appears regularly in the media. He spends most of his time writing, giving talks, and leading workshops.
Website: http://www.drdavidhamilton.com
Explore the second underlying principle of Choice Point: Align Your Purpose.
Learn how aligning your purpose with the patterns of the universe can help you to realise your dreams and make a difference in the world. Featuring wisdom from visionaries and change-makers including Sir Richard Branson, Desmond Tutu, Jack Canfield, Barbara Marx Hubbard, HH Dalai Lama, James Caan and many more. Learn more at http://www.choicepointmovement.com and join movement to align your purpose and make a real difference in the world. Enjoy!
A Q&A With Harry Massey, Founder of Choice Point
1. What inspired you to start the Choice Point Movement and create the Choice Point movie?
Barbara Marx Hubbard said, “Crises often precede transformation and innovation,” and that’s exactly what happened to me. Twelve ago I was bedridden with a debilitating case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that left me broke and unable to take care of myself. After years of going from one practitioner to another I came to my own Choice Point. I had this idea of creating a home wellness system so anyone could self-diagnose and get better from home. I had no idea how I’d do it, but I had nothing to lose by trying. I managed to build a successful health business that has helped thousands of people. I thought that if I could do this, then we could help other people align their purpose so they could help themselves and help solve some of the world’s problems along the way.
2. What is the Choice Point Movement?
Choice Point Movement helps empower the individual to help global solutions happen. It does this in three ways:
–It provides the wisdom to Understand Your World in the form of movies, courses and books from global visionaries,
–It gives you the tools to align your purpose by making self-growth fun and it provides an exchange of idea’s to make change happen in our social network.
If you imagine the world is a jigsaw puzzle composed of all of us individually. If we can help people be the best puzzle piece they can be and then help those pieces connect to each other effectively, then we’ll be able to bring forward the solutions the world so desperately needs. Choice Point Movement helps that happen.
3. How did you ever get so many world change-leaders to commit to being a part of this project?
There’s a story behind every single one of them. I think the first question you have to ask yourself is what are you prepared to give that others will be open to hearing that request. Desmond Tutu was doing his last-ever public appearance in the UK which we offered to film. With Richard Branson, one of his nephews actually targeted our health company for a job, which we gave him, but it still it took six months for Branson to agree to do it.
I think ultimately though it comes down to persistence combined with an aligned purpose. Is your purpose worthy of other people’s time and energy? It isn’t just a case of thinking and attracting it, as that doesn’t take into account the value of your idea. I think these leaders came on board because the purpose aligned not only with their own interests, but also has significant benefits to people all around the globe, too.
4. The people who have made a positive global impact and those who have made billions have a secret we can all learn? What is it?
Patterns, global patterns.
In doing my research, I came across the idea of fractals both in nature and in time. And that these fractals had branching points where different possibilities exist. And I couldn’t help but to see a common pattern between physics and the science of fractals and also what happens in people’s lives. The branching of a fractal is the same thing as a Choice Point in someone’s life. And that if you could both identify a Choice Point and also recognize where those possibilities go, then you’re suddenly able to make much better choices which can have huge affects on your life. A major Choice Point is often recognized as a crisis, but you also get minor Choice Points, too, where you might just feel a bit uncomfortable and have that desire to do something different.
5. How can people know when they are at a Choice Point and what can they do to change their lives?
Once you’re at a Choice Point, the best thing to do is start to Understand Your World.
6. You say that “understanding your world” is vitally important. How does one go about doing that?
Your world is a tarot deck example of reading signs. Another way to look at it is put a question in your head and you can then tune into a random radio stations to get the answers.
Let me just talk you through that. You’re at a Choice Point, your life is in crisis and you don’t know what to do. First step, start to Understand Your World. Examine what your skills and passions are. Ask questions, Do research. Develop empathy and intuition and you’ll start to build up a picture of a particular part of your world.
From that knowledge, it becomes much easier to make choices that patterns in nature will support. In other words, from Understanding your World, you can define and then Align Your Purpose. Once your purpose is aligned with where the patterns are going, it can be like sailing with the wind behind you. You will have the world’s support, rather than always battling uphill –and you’ll achieve success using much less energy than before.
7. “Be the Change” is of course a famous quote from Mohandas Gandhi. How does it figure into the Choice Point paradigm?
Those two principles I previously mentioned—Understand Your World and Align Your Purpose– go an incredibly long way to success and are really the key to it. However there’s also a third principal, which is to Be The Change. To truly Align Your Purpose, you have to truly live it in every aspect. Being The Change helps you to overcome the finer detail of what might be getting in the way of your success, information that is all covered in our membership on the movement site. For instance, you may have a limiting belief over success, For example–although you want everyone to have integrity, deep down you feel you may have let others down yourself. For you to actually achieve your goals, you have to be what you want in others and totally live to those principles. Gandhi’s example is quite hard to follow, but luckily we don’t all have to go as far as he did in order to succeed and make a difference.
8. You were critically ill when you were young? Tell us about that and how it led you to where you are today?
Well, when I was I young I had chronic fatigue syndrome, which was entirely self-inflicted, due to too many years of destructive hedonistic lifestyle, with all the negative beliefs and poor self-worth that lifestyle often entails.
It was a horrible time – lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, barely having enough energy to think, constant headaches, in a lot of pain all around your body and only being able to move just a few short steps each day. I had no clue what to do with myself or know what would happen to me. I had to live with my parents because I couldn’t earn a living or take care of myself. Imagine being like this day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year.
After the first four years of trying any and all kinds of treatments–however painful they were and with no results–I started to doubt that I would ever recover.
So I started to ask myself questions – questions like: How is this happening? And why is it happening to me?
I just wanted to understand what was going on from as many angles as possible. And asking questions seemed to me the most logical thing to do. I simply decided that the way to get myself better was to try to understand what was really behind health, how the body really worked and wouldn’t it be great if I could make a “home wellness system” that would give people the ability to work out what was wrong with them and– more importantly–to give them a way of getting themselves better again.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the biggest Choice Point in my life. I decided to align with a purpose that was bigger than my own self-centric desire to get myself well. I chose to make a home wellness system that added value to other people’s lives – and in doing that, I started to recover myself.
A few years into building NES Health, our practitioner business, I thought to myself – no one really understands how information and energy can help people or how any of it works. So I decided to make a film called The Living Matrix with Greg Becker which went on to do really well. After that film, I started to wonder if this had happened to other people; if once they shifted the focus of what they were doing to something that the universe would support, did incredible things start to happen to allow them to reach their goal? Once I began to investigate and interview the world’s leading visionaries, change-makers, scientists, philosophers and spiritual leaders I noticed a pattern developing over and over that once we are able to align our purpose with patterns that are supported by others, then the universe works with you to make it happen. I made the movie to show the world how this happens and spread the message that if we align our purpose, we will not only be happier and more successful, but we’ll be helping the world as well.
9. Tell us about the miHealth? You call it a portable health system in everyone’s pocket.
The miHealth is the manifestation of the dream I had 12 years ago to make a home wellness system. I met this incredible scientist Peter Fraser who had spent the last 25 years mapping out the information of the human body – the energy field. With this map, which is a bit like a blue print of how the body works when it’s working perfectly, we were able to create a device that could then both read the information and energy of the body, but also trigger a healing response back in it, too. The miHealth is a hand–held device similar to a smartphone with a touchscreen. Just by putting it next to your skin, it can both give you information about your body, but also trigger the healing response. The Hungarian Olympic team, from a very small country, won eight medals at the Olympics. And they attribute their speedy recovery and added performance to the miHealth. You can read about that on our site http://www.neshealth.com
10. What do you see as the future of where this technology is going and how will it affect healthcare?
We’ve had various technological evolutions which have changed everything – like the industrial age, telecommunications, computers and now the Internet age. However what’s coming really daunts it all. We are actually right now at The Dawn of The Quantum Age. Already industries have been creatively destroyed or radically altered because of the rise of the Internet age. You can point to publishing, communications, music, retail and the film industry, to name a few.
The healthcare industry, though, is as yet untouched, but will go through a similar creative destruction process as technology digitizes human beings and brings health monitoring and information to the fingertips of the individual, rather than holding it in the hands of a few, using outdated expensive tests.
The ability for the individual to know what’s going on in his body and monitor the effect of his health choices and treatments is here today. This then also enables the ability to share that data collectively for the benefit of all. The combination of technology and social networks, I believe, is going to change everything.
This however is only a precursor to where the future is going. The Quantum Age is the age where companies develop products based on the practical application of Quantum Physics. Specifically, that it’s possible to transfer information–and some believe energy–through space instantaneously. Already today we have health technology in our miHealth that uses these ideas.
Ultimately The Quantum Age will creatively destroy the existing healthcare, telecommunications, computing and energy industries. When I don’t know–as this is complex technologically and also politically.
However as these ideas take hold – just as the Internet has changed the world forever in only two decades – we can be pretty certain that such a major transformation will happen again.
11. Why is Choice Point so vital in this time of world shift?
As Einstein said, “The world’s problems cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created them.” The solution therefore lies in finding a way to help us all make better choices – after all, collectively we are the people who caused the problems in the first place.
And why is it so important now?
I think humanity is currently facing its biggest Choice Point ever, because of both the rapid rise in population combined with a shrinking of resources. Rather than doing the same things we’ve always done, now is the moment that we can all make better choices for our collective future… And while we may not individually be able to make a great impact, by aligning our purposes, connecting and working together, we’ll be able to make a massive, positive difference on the global outcome. Choice Point Movement is a social network which can bring us all together, supporting each other and learning from those who’ve trodden the path before us, while we can also collaborate on the solutions. Choice Point Movement helps us to Understand our World, Align our Purposes and collectively Be the Change.
13. What can people do once they see the film or read the book?
Join the movement and tell all your friends. We’d love everyone listening to help us create the tipping point that the world gets behind it. Start learning from the incredible visionaries in 41 separate mini films we have on the site and start sharing your ideas with everyone else. Everything you need to know is on the site – just check it out.
14. What does Choice Point’s social network do that’s needed by the world that others don’t?
Well, it’s a social network with a social mission – which means that when you join, you can share your personal transformational journey with lots of other like-minded people from all around the world.
By helping others to transform, we end up thinking about our own behavior and actually start to Be the Change. It also enables our friends to transform as we help them by seeing things that maybe they can’t see themselves. And it helps the world, as the Choice Point social network ripples out positive change…
On our social network, not only are you able to connect with other visionaries, but you’re also able to inspire, support and collaborate with others on specific projects, too!
How it’s different is that you are able find other like-minded people, connect, exchange ideas, learn from one another, and inspire positive change across the planet.
16. What is your ultimate vision for the world and what do you see as Choice Point’s contribution to it?
Over the past 12 years I’ve met so many talented people with so many great solutions for the planet, yet so many of them have been blocked by themselves. Or they are not able to connect to the people they need and get the resources.
As the social network gains momentum, I’d like to form a fund to help promising individuals who have the best solutions. We’d leverage our R&D and business experience to help them. Ultimately, I’d like to see the balance tipped so that more of the solutions are able to come through with Choice Point playing its piece in the jigsaw of transformation.
17. What was Richard Branson like?
Well, he was surprising. I was really nervous to interview him. He was one of my childhood heroes. I think I read his book Losing My Virginity just around the time I was loosing mine. His nephew had told me that he was quite a shy person, but you don’t really believe that when someone has that kind of media presence. He was very humble and actually more nervous about the interview than I was.
I also hadn’t really realized just how much of his time he devotes to global issues. He told me that eight years ago he came to a Choice Point of his own, when he decided to dedicate most of his time to working on global issues (non-profit vs. profit). For example, now all of the profits from his transportation businesses, including Virgin Air, go towards global warming issues AND he’s also been changing all of the fuel on his airlines to algae biofuel instead of petro jet fuel. After the interview, I really wanted to film him being involved in these projects directly. He sent me four of the projects he was working on and I got his schedule for the following six months. I’ve NEVER seen anything like it. He was flying everywhere and it was true! Most of his time was committed to these philanthropic projects rather than business. Whereas, I had assumed he mostly spent his time running his empire.
18. You’ve covered a lot of people and issues in the movie. Which one struck you the most?
Pakistan. You think philanthropy is writing a check, but it can also be an opportunity to use your individual skills to help other people, regardless of how much money you have. On Christmas Day, I flew to Pakistan with James Caan, the successful British entrepreneur-turned-prominent- philanthropist. I witnessed first-hand the flood devastation that left 20 MILLION people homeless. You can see very vivid images in our Choice Point movie of the situation there.
James wasn’t just giving money, he had been flying out once a month for the past year using his entrepreneurial skills working with the people there–building villages, free schools, roads for the teachers and students to reach the schools, etc. In that moment, surrounded by these people, it struck me that the majority of the world’s population has really simple needs and people are incredibly appreciative when you help them. They take pride in carrying on building their villages and local economy, and need only a small hand up to get that started. I wanted to do more.
James takes volunteers and if more people knew that, they could volunteer and that would be great for them — AND the people they are helping. This was one of the seeds for Choice Point’s social engine so that we could help connect people who have skills to offer with projects that need those skills.
19. Brett’s story is pretty dramatic. Tell us how he came to his ChoicePoint.
Brett was a crack addict and armed robber who turned into a life coach. He had his Choice Point in jail while he was doing a drug deal. He was hiding heroine in the prison library behind some books when one fell out – The Art and Practice of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. He picked it up and took it back to his cell and read the book over the next few weeks. Something in it hit him. That was the start of his journey that led him to explore meditation and Buddhism over the next few years. His impetus to change was really his daughter whom he didn’t see when he was a drug addict. Fast forward to today. Now he’s an addiction specialist and life coach and has a fantastic relationship with his daughter who simply adores him. I’ve never seen such a strong father-daughter relationship; it’s really something quite special.
20. You say no one is too young to start making a difference. Burke Baehr, who is 11, is a great example. What’s his story?
When he at six, Burke wanted to be a famous basketball player, but that all changed one day at the supermarket. He started reading the labels on the food and when he didn’t recognize the words, he began asking “Mom, what’s isopalminate fructose syrup?” His mum didn’t know what it was either, so he went home and looked up the words on the Internet. He was horrified! And the more he learned the worse it was. He ended up convincing his family to buy local organic food. And he decided he wanted to be an organic farmer, and to educate his generation about food and making healthy choices. He was featured on a TED-x video that got more than a million views on YouTube and now he’s being invited all over the world to spread his message. What really struck me when he flew over to be filmed was how incredibly moral he is. It was like speaking to a 60-year-old wise person, but with the innocence and purity of youth. He’s keeping to his mission and is the most incredibly passionate person I’ve ever met, young or old. He’s a shining example to the next generation coming along.
Why is it that despite our best efforts, many of us remain fundamentally unhappy and unfulfilled in our lives? In this provocative and inspiring book, David Richo distills thirty years of experience as a therapist to explain the underlying roots of unhappiness—and the surprising secret to finding freedom and fulfillment. 
David Richo, PhD, is a therapist and author who leads popular workshops on personal and spiritual growth.
We live in difficult and stressful times. You’ve read books and done workshops, but you still have to face so many stubborn obstacles. Yet it’s often our pain and dissatisfaction that pushes us to seek a more conscious life.
We know that each of us is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, our uniqueness resides. Is it in our genes? The structure of our brains? Our genome may determine our eye color and even aspects of our personality. But our friendships, failures, and passions also shape who we are. The question is: how?
Sebastian Seung is Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Harvard University, and formerly worked at Bell Laboratories. His research on artificial intelligence and neuroscience has been published in leading scientific journals, and also featured in the New York Times, Technology Review, and the Economist. His laboratory at MIT is currently inventing technologies for mapping connections between the brain’s neurons, and investigating the hypothesis that we are all unique because we are “wired differently.” 
Make a radical shift toward a more peaceful, powerful, purposeful life!
Life Ahead presents lessons that move far beyond the traditional forms of education taught in most schools and colleges. Drawn from transcripts of talks given to Indian students, the book covers a wide range of universal topics.
Description
Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a health psychologist and award-winning lecturer at Stanford University. A leading expert on the mind-body relationship, her work integrates the latest findings of psychology, neuroscience, and medicine with contemplative practices of mindfulness and compassion from the traditions of Buddhism and yoga. She is the author of The Willpower Instinct and Yoga for Pain Relief.
About New Consciousness for a New World
A brilliant forecast of our global future, looking at human, social and technological evolution, predicting what will happen to our social structures, to our resources, to our infrastructures – but also to our minds and hearts – in the years to come.
Do Not Go Quietly is an extraordinary and important book for all Gen Xers (40 to 45), baby boomers (46 to 64), and elders (65 and older). It is also valuable for those under 40 who want to better understand and assist their parents, older friends, and relatives. Discover how to harvest the fruits of our past and turn them into gold we can invest in the present and future. Learn how to live with greater mindfulness in each moment so that we can more fully celebrate our lives, live our dreams, and heal any wounds that may encumber us. See how to chart a more harmonious, joyful, and successful course so that we’ll be able to say with pride, “We have run the course to the best of our abilities, and we will leave behind a legacy of genuine value.” 
At this moment in history, we’re faced with one of the biggest choice points we have ever encountered. Individuals are making choices to change their nations; nature is giving us a wake-up call; economies are struggling; and for many of us, the future looks uncertain. Yet people are also rallying to have a voice, awakening from their apathy of previous decades. Collectively and individually, we are being given the opportunity to make extraordinary choices in order to change where we are headed.
