Imperfect Spirituality: Extraordinary Enlightenment for Ordinary People ~ Polly Campbell

Pulling a raisin out of a two-year-old’s nose probably wasn’t on Buddha’s path toward enlightenment, but it was one of the obstacles for author Polly Campbell. For many, stuck raisins and other real-life moments provide sometimes the only opportunity for spiritual growth in a day. Imperfect Spirituality shows readers how to integrate those every-day moments with traditional spiritual techniques to experience personal growth and greater well-being all in the course of your regular routine. Any activity can be transformed into a spiritual practice. Don’t have a half-hour to meditate? Can’t drop everything à la Elizabeth Gilbert and trek to Italy or India? Do a mini-meditation while stopped at a red light. Working to be mindful and present? Start by brushing your teeth.

Imperfect Spirituality is filled with practical tips and dozens of examples like these, as well as anecdotes from real people who are striving to grow both spiritually and personally. Each chapter features fascinating research about how the mind body spirit connection really works as well as illuminating quotes, and informative, easy-to-do takeaways from leading-edge academic and spiritual experts who both study and practice the techniques explored in the book.

Campbell is also a professional speaker and instructor with The Daily Om. Her writing appears regularly in national magazines and she has tested and tried many of the self-improvement strategies she writes about in her own quest to find more happiness, tranquility — and some days just socks that match. She is a writer, wife, mother, cat-litter changer, and avid player of Candyland from her home in Portland, OR.

The Terrible Truth & The Wonderful Secret (4-min version)

At this Boulder Integral sponsored event called “Engaging the Future,” Terry Patten addresses what happens at the feeling level when we face our fears about the current environmental crises. He draws from his experience in writing the upcoming book, “The Terrible Truth & The Wonderful Secret: Finding Your Radical Yes to Life in a Time of Extraordinary Change.“

Terry Patten is a leading voice in the emerging fields of integral evolutionary leadership and spirituality. In his cutting-edge writings, talks, and teachings, he not only inspires transcendental awakening, love, and freedom, but also calls us to accept and incarnate our full humanity. This expresses itself in a profound sense of purpose, spiritual inspiration, and evolutionary activism.

Terry is a faculty member in the Integral Executive Leadership programs at Notre Dame University, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, and serves on the board of the Wellsprings Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and John F. Kennedy University.

He worked with Ken Wilber a core team at Integral Institute to develop Integral Life Practice, which distills ancient and modern practices into an intelligent contemporary transformational lifestyle. Earlier, for 15 years, he undertook a life of intensive spiritual discipline in the monastic setting of Vision Mound Seminary. Upon leaving he founded the catalog company Tools For Exploration, which defined the field of consciousness technologies. Terry is also a social entrepreneur involved in supporting restorative redwood forestry. As an entrepreneur and consultant he has worked for twenty years to help leaders bring higher consciousness into practical actions that transform complex human systems. He is also a teacher, coach and consultant who travels widely, challenging and connecting leading-edge individuals and organizations worldwide.

Integral Spiritual Practice integrates the insights earned during Terry’s decades of intensive spiritual practice with those from his years as an entrepreneur and grassroots activist. In his current work, he is helping to articulate an authentic spirituality that illuminates the vital relationship between sincere care, discriminative intelligence, personal responsibility, and spiritual awakening.

A coach, consultant, teacher, and author of four books, Terry lives in Marin County near San Francisco, CA. He is the author, with Ken Wilber, of Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening.

Spiritual Bypassing – When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters Written by Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D.Author

Synopsis

Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When split off from fundamental psychological needs, such actions often do much more harm than good.

While other authors have touched on the subject, this is the first book fully devoted to spiritual bypassing. In the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa’s landmark Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Spiritual Bypassing provides an in-depth look at the unresolved or ignored psychological issues often masked as spirituality, including self-judgment, excessive niceness, and emotional dissociation.

A longtime psychotherapist with an engaging writing style, Masters furthers the body of psychological insight into how we use (and abuse) religion in often unconscious ways. This book will hold particular appeal for those who grew up with an unstructured new-age spirituality now looking for a more mature spiritual practice, and for anyone seeking increased self-awareness and a more robust relationship with themselves and others.

Questions about Spiritual Bypassing

In this video interview Robert address questions relating to his new book “Spiritual Bypassing”.

The questions answered in this video are:

1) What compelled you to write the book Spiritual Bypassing?

2) Do you think that Spiritual Bypassing will transform everyone who reads it?

Robert Augustus Masters – Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D., is the author of 11 books (including Transformation Through Intimacy and Spiritual Bypassing), a relationship expert, a spiritual teacher, and a highly experienced psychotherapist (and trainer of psychotherapists) with a doctorate in Psychology. His uniquely integral, intuitive work (developed over the past 33 years) dynamically blends the psychological and physical with the spiritual, emphasizing full-blooded embodiment, authenticity, emotional openness and literacy, deep shadow work, and the development of relational maturity.

At essence his work is about becoming more intimate with all that we are, in the service of deep healing, awakening, and integration. In all this he works side-by-side and in very close conjunction with Diane, his wife and partner in all things. His websites are www.robertmasters.com and www.masterscenter.net.

THE SOUL SOLUTION Enlightening Meditations for Resolving Life’s Problems ~ Jonathan Parker

Revelatory answers in the search for meaning can seem to be the privilege of only the most evolved, brilliant, or blessed beings. But motivational counselor and teacher Jonathan Parker puts those answers within grasp. His step-by-step soul-solution process addresses that most profound of human quests with techniques that prompt transformational shifts.

Refined over Parker’s decades of counseling experience, these meditations and self-guided practices explore fear, meaning, ego, love, abundance, and healing in ways that will connect you to your core — the soul, beyond body and mind, from which real understanding and lasting fulfillment flow. By merging with this source, you will discover the love and peace that already exist inside you, allowing negative thoughts, painful memories, and limiting patterns to dissolve easily. By doing so, you will begin to experience the soul’s limitless gifts and replace endless searching with joyful, enlightened, and empowered being.

8-minute interview with Jill Bennet. Jill asks Jonathan the following questions:

1. Aren’t all meditations supposed to be enlightening?
2. What does the book [The Soul Solution] focus on?
3. Do we have only a percentage connection with our soul or are we disconnected?
4. How do we stay connected with our soul when our lives are so busy?
5. Does connecting with the soul ever get easier and become second nature?
6. Is it possible to go through the day with no mood swings or ever have a bad day?
7. What if a person is skeptical about the soul?
8. Where would a person begin to change their life around?
9. What should be a person’s experience with meditation?

10-minute%20Interview%20with%20Jill%20Bennett_mp3.mp3

Jonathan Parker

For over thirty years, Jonathan Parker has been a counselor, author, and creator of one of the largest libraries of audio recordings for personal enrichment and self-directed growth in the world. His unique, spiritually based methods go far beyond traditional motivational and self-help techniques, empowering others to rise to an enlightened life and develop their innate potential.

His wide spectrum of programs tap the deepest reservoir of human capabilities and inspire success in achieving the highest of human potentials. His programs have touched the lives of many thousands, lifting them to achieve personal excellence and financial success, vibrant health, winning performances, and the heights of the human spirit.

His recordings, workshops, and retreats offer inspiring and life-changing experiences. Jonathan lives with his wife, Jackie, in Ojai, California.

Power of The Soul Inside Wisdom for an Outside World by John Holland

This fascinating book gives you the tools to help tap into one of the most powerful forces in the Universe -YOUR SOUL. This is a step by step guide to help you reconnect with your natural spiritual abilities. You’ll develop a conscious awareness of the spiritual laws that exists in each and every person. “Power of the Soul” will help you to dismantle some of the barriers created by your outer-self, to unveil your true inner-self and enable you to break free from some of the psychological restrictions that have prevented you from identifying and realizing your full potential.

Within these pages you’ll learn how to:
• Discover and access your spiritual faculties
• Open yourself to a guiding higher consciousness
• Tap in to your own intuitive abilities
• Remove psychological and spiritual blocks
• Find your true self as you understand the nature, function, and purpose of the soul
• Create and control your own path
• Use spiritual energy to heal yourself and others
• Enhance your body, mind, and soul to live a life of harmony

This transformational book is more than just a guide. It is also a way back to a life lived from the inside out. No matter what your walk of life, this book will help you to follow your own spiritual journey. “When you tap into the incredible force and power of your soul, and once your spiritual gifts are recognized, opened and used,” says John, “you’ll see yourself and the world in a way you never thought possible.”

POWER OF THE SOUL Inside Wisdom for an Outside World, John Holland

Strength to Awaken ~ Robert McNamara

Practice is preparation. Without practice the human being is unprepared to meet the demands of life. While some species are born “hard-wired” to operate maturely as soon as they enter life, human beings require practice. Nature provides a crocodile with all the necessary capacities to survive as soon as they are born. For all practical purposes a newborn crocodile is an adult crocodile, just smaller. In contrast, human beings require complex exchanges between nature and nurture over decades of experience to cultivate mature capacities. Of the full territory of being human, the majority of life is intrinsically tied to skills that are learned and refined through repeated practice over a diverse range of faculties.

Practice is, at its center, engagement. When you practice you engage the various faculties that the chosen activity requires. The more you engage, the more prepared you become. When you took your first steps in life and began walking you most likely balanced tentatively, teetered and fell. Often. But with practice, as you engaged the activity of walking over and over, you became increasingly more competent, more proficient and ultimately more elegant to move about in the world and meet the demands of your life.

So what happens if you do not practice? Without practice you often find yourself lacking the competence needed to meet the multifaceted challenges of life. Fail to engage your sexuality and most likely your partner will soon ask for more than you are prepared to offer. Fail to engage in disciplining your mental focus and you are likely to find yourself putting out distracting fires at work instead of focusing on real strategic priorities. Fail to practice attuning to your child and you are likely to find yourself unprepared in being able to connect with them as they grow.

Without the repeated engagement of practice you are largely unprepared to meet the demands of your life. It is simple, practice is a necessity. But what happens when you engage life and acquire a certain level of competency that is satisfactory for you? To answer this question we must look more closely into what it means to engage.

Engagement is the conscious inhabitation of your body and mind. Practice is happening when your open awareness is moving with, in and through your embodied activity. Intrinsic to practice is your conscious participation with your life. Engagement is the conduction of your free and open awareness through your activities, whatever they may be.

When you acquire a certain level of competence that is presumed to be satisfactory, practice typically stops. As soon as ‘good enough’ is achieved something subtle yet extremely powerful happens: habituation steps in. One of your habituation’s central attachments is comfort. Wherever you are comfortable, wherever ‘good enough’ is subjectively perceived, your habituation will invest vast amounts of resources to maintain this comfortable status quo. One way your ego achieves this is to stop practicing.

Suddenly, the practice that birthed the greater competence in your life stops and your conditioning steps in. As engagement ceases the conscious participation and inhabitation of your body, mind and life is replaced by your ego’s habituation. And as soon as you cease consciously metabolizing your experience within the direct immediacy of the present moment you are no longer preparing yourself, your ego is just repeating itself.

Life’s vivid textures, the alive energy and unbounded beauty, fade. The result is that hours pass, then weeks and entire months float by, years and sometime entire decades pass, with the same patterns repeating. One song is on repeat seemingly playing without end. You are not becoming more prepared through greater refinement but rather more prepared to execute the same habituated pattern regardless of what demands are present.

So while practice is a necessity for survival, it is often only a matter of time before your ego steps in and habituation hijacks your engagement with life. Fortunately, given the trap of your ego’s investment in comfort, there is a second dimension to answering this question.

The second reason why we practice is because of a desire, a seeking to improve, a yearning to refine and develop yourself and the world we live in. Survival is not enough for human beings. There is some facet of humanity that is intrinsically invested in creativity. The human drive for progress is interested in fashioning some dimension of oneself and life anew, taking what is not here and merely a possibility and make it an actuality.

If you look closely, cutting through your ego’s habituated attempts to struggle with this dimension of yourself and that dimension of life, I think you will find a simple impulse, drive or inner imposition that lives within your heart. This force is an energy that continually draws you forward, inspires you out of the limitations and constraints present and into a greater more liberated fullness of life. This impulse is congruent with the present moment, it is not in conflict as the ego’s position maintains. Instead of struggle, this force moves through uninhibited participation with the truth of your direct experience. This inspired force moves with that which is good, true and beautiful. This dimension of you is perhaps the central reason why you practice even when you have developed adequate skills to function with grace and efficiency in society.

This inspired desire to refine yourself, the inner imposition to develop and evolve your gifts, skills and unique capacities is nothing other than your Excellence calling you forth into your greatest articulations. Your desire to go beyond habituation, to reach into novelty and to liberate the constraints of your life is the beating heart of your true strength. When you free yourself from the ego’s grip upon comfort, I think you will find yourself realizing a necessity once again. If you are to actually face and embody the purpose of your life you need your strength. Without practice strength and Excellence rarely manifest. Ultimately, practice is part necessity and part inspiration. To understand and embody practice requires both.

About Strength to Awaken: An Integral Guide to Strength Training, Performance and Spiritual Practice for Men and Women

Strength To Awaken is about the level of qualitative engagement you can bring to your strength training and ultimately the engagement you are capable of bringing to your life as a whole. Many strength training methodologies myopically focus upon the muscular system. Most fail to identify a clear methodology for managing the type and quality of attention and engagement required to optimize your greater potential. These shortcomings stunt your performance.

This book takes you into the new paradigm based upon training the integral nature of the human being. Readers gain a never before seen approach that restructures thinking, attention and identity in strength training to develop new possibilities. This one-of-a-kind manual connects your pursuit of Excellence with the timeless spiritual quest for awakening. Will you discover how to leverage this rare intersection of spiritual practice and strength training and access your highest levels of potential?

Rob McNamara is Author of Strength to Awaken, a skilled Psychotherapist, leading Performance Coach, Psychology Professor at Naropa University and an Integral Zen Practitioner. He runs his private practice in Boulder Colorado serving a broad range of executives and professionals, undergraduate and graduate students and athletes ranging from high school to Olympic and professional world champions.

Rob has been lecturing on Integral Psychology and Human Development at Naropa University for nearly a decade for both graduate and undergraduate students in a number of academic and professional programs including the MA Transpersonal and Contemplative Psychology programs and BA Contemplative Psychology program. Currently Rob co-teaches Therapeutic Applications of Human Development and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Transpersonal Psychology and undergraduate courses on Integral and Developmental Psychology. He also serves as the faculty advisor for Integral Naropa.

Rob has contributed to the Integral movement over the past decade as a leading integral practitioner. While working with Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute he served as one of the core faculty for the Integral Life Practice seminar series. Rob has contributed to Integral Life, taught at Boulder Integral and is currently a faculty member of the Integral Spiritual Experience. Rob’s expertise includes the intersection of integral practice, human performance and integral strength training.

Contributions in the business sector include the Stagen Leadership Institute where Rob developed and deployed integrally informed executive curriculum for senior executives and launched corporate wellness initiatives. Rob also served as the Senior Integral Consultant and Human Performance Specialist for Phillips Performance Nutrition.

Rob McNamara received his Masters in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University and his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Susquehanna University.

Remembering the Future To Find Peace In the Present by Alan Seale

It seems that everywhere I turn these days, I hear people talking about uncertainty. It appears to be at every level of society, from personal to global—a sign of the times in which we are living. Over time, uncertainty can lead to fear and insecurity about the future, taking a big toll on our sense of well-being and confidence.

In Transformational Presence Coaching, we use a tool called “Remembering the Future” to help navigate the uncertainty of the road ahead. It can help us discover the greatest potential waiting to unfold, and then show us how to create a future in which that potential becomes reality. It’s an easy, intuitive process grounded in principles of quantum physics.

“Remembering the future” may seem like an oxymoron in our conventional ways of thinking. In our three-dimensional world, the reality that we experience is created by circumstances occurring in a specific time and space. It makes sense to us that we can remember the past because we have experienced it as a linear series of events that happened at specific times and in specific locations. Remembering the future, on the other hand, seems impossible since, by linear time standards, we haven’t yet experienced it.

However, when we expand our awareness and step beyond our conventional, three-dimensional reality, we can enter the quantum realm where there is no linear time-space continuum. There is no sense of past, present, and future as we think of it in everyday life. When we step into the quantum realm, the future is just as available to us as the past. We’ll talk about this a bit more below, but first let’s give you the chance to experience remembering the future for yourself.

So how do you remember the future? It’s a simple process that anyone can use at any time. There are just three simple requirements:

1. to accept that there is more available to you than what you can access through your five outer senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling
2. to let your intuitive senses come alive
3. to pay attention and respond to what you discover.

It can be fun, and it can also bring a lot of relief!

Take time for the exercise below and see what you discover. I recommend that you read through the exercise first, and then give yourself at least 10 minutes to actually do it. Getting up and moving around the room or an outdoor space as the exercise suggests will bring the best results. However, if you are not able to move around, you can move your finger around on the surface of a table or on the arm of your chair to represent different time-space locations in order to receive the same effect.

Let go of your preconceived notions about whether or not you can do this and just assume that you can. And here we go!

Exercise: Remembering the Future

Begin by choosing a place to stand that can represent where you are right now in your life and circumstances. Take a few moments to breathe into this time and space to feel the energy of where you are, and to be aware of emotions. Allow yourself to be fully present with “what is,” yet not get swept away by it. Just be present with it. Remember that you are not your circumstances. Your circumstances are just what is happening at the moment.

After allowing yourself to fully experience where you are right now, move to stand in another spot that can represent a time in the future. You may want to assign a specific date to that spot, or you may choose for the spot to represent a time after your current project, challenge, or goal has been accomplished or resolved. Either way is fine.

As you step into the future spot, let yourself shift in your awareness so that the future time has now become your present. Notice what shifts within you as you symbolically step into another time, space, and circumstance. Take your time and notice where you are, what the date is, and what your circumstance or story is in this new setting. Gather as many details of circumstance and feeling as you are able. Let your intuitive senses come alive and serve you. Most importantly, let it be easy. Don’t force anything. Accept whatever comes without judgment or analysis. Just observe.

You may notice that already you are feeling better. As you stand in this new time, space, and circumstance, “remember” back to the date and time where you started this exercise, and remember what has happened between that time and the time you are standing in now. Let yourself intuitively remember how you got to be where you are now in this new time, space, and circumstance.

What new information, insights, or understanding do you have about the circumstance you were in at the beginning of this process? How did you get past the challenge that loomed so large back there in the place and time where you started? Let your intuitive senses give you the answer. Simply stay in this awareness and “remember.”

After you have gathered as much information as you are able at this time, take the feelings and awareness that you have in this new spot with you as you walk back to the spot where you began. It is very important that you bring your insights, feelings, and awareness from the future back with you to the spot that represents today. Don’t leave it all in the future. Bring it back with you to today!

As you stand in the spot representing today, notice how your relationship to your current circumstances has shifted. What new insights do you have about your next steps or the way forward through whatever may be happening (or not happening!) now?

The basic process of remembering the future is as simple as that. What you are actually remembering are possibilities of how your future could turn out. We understand both from quantum physics and from ancient wisdom teachings that we are constantly creating our present and future by the choices we make today. Three different choices today could lead to three different outcomes. You can adapt this process to go stand in the various outcomes created by each of the choices you might make. This can give you greater insight and wisdom for making the choices you face today. (If you want to explore these concepts further, see the e-book, The View From the Field, or my new book, Create A World That Works.)

If when you visited the future things were still really difficult, take in that information, and then move on to another spot further into the future, asking to be shown a time and space where things feel better, more manageable, or resolved. Be creative and flexible with the process. This is a very simple model that can be adapted in any way that will serve you.

On very rare occasions when I am leading someone through this process, they find that the looming issue does not resolve. If by chance this happens to you, as you continue to visit different points in the future and remember what is happening there, allow yourself to be present with “what is” without judgment or assumption. Be a compassionate observer. Ask what gift or learning is available to you through what is happening. And ask what choices you can make back in the spot where you started that might alter the future and lead to a different set of outcomes. There is a wealth of information and guidance available to us when we step beyond the limitations of our current time-space reality.

The uncertainties of today may be challenging, but they do not have to be paralyzing or debilitating. When we employ simple time-space awareness tools, we can often find the insight and guidance that we need in order to navigate the uncertainty with confidence, clarity, courage, and strength. The more often you practice remembering the future, the easier it gets and the more it will serve you in moving through every day with a sense of grace and ease.

Many blessings,
Alan

How to Embrace Change ~ Mike Robbins

We recently went into escrow on our house, but don’t yet have a new house to move into. As excited as we are about our move (just across the San Francisco Bay from Concord to Marin County), it feels pretty scary to not yet know exactly where we’ll be living next month.

With this big change and a few others coming soon, I’ve been noticing how I deal with and relate to change. I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship to change. I love the excitement, growth opportunity and newness of change. But, at the same time, I can easily fall into states of worry, fear and become overwhelmed when facing change, especially big ones.

How do you feel about change? While it may depend on the specific change (i.e. one we want versus one we don’t want, or one that seems exciting versus one that seems hard or even “bad”), most of us seek and fear change simultaneously. Even positive changes can be unsettling or downright upsetting. And, while each of us has a unique personality and perspective, many of us tend to be creatures of habit.

Change is one of the main “constants” in life, ironically. However, we don’t usually spend all that much time thinking about our relationship to change or specifically expanding on our ability to adapt to change — we usually deal with it from a place of survival, reaction or necessity.

What if we embraced change more consciously and learned how to not only “manage” it, but thrive through it? Whether you’re someone who enjoys change and handles it quite well, or you hate it and get totally stressed out by it, all of us can benefit from embracing change more deliberately and supporting those around us as we all go through the big and small changes of life — especially these days.

Here are some things you can do and think about as you deal with change in your own life — so as to more effectively and peacefully deal with it when it shows up.

1) Become consciously aware of your relationship to change. Knowing how you deal with change, what stresses you out about it, what allows you to navigate it most effectively and what kind of support you need as you move through the change process are all important elements of embracing change. It’s rarely the circumstances themselves that cause us stress or difficulty; it’s our relationship to them. By altering our relationship to change, we can become much more peaceful and successful in dealing with it.

2) Acknowledge and express your true feelings (especially your fear). When change occurs, there are usually a number of different emotions we experience. We tend to focus most of our attention on the details, specifics and circumstances, not so much on our emotions. However, it is our emotional experience and reaction that dictates much of our effectiveness (or lack thereof) in dealing with change. Whether it’s something we consider “good” or “bad,” fear is almost always associated with change, because we’re moving into something unknown and often uncomfortable. By acknowledging and expressing our fear (and other emotions) in an authentic way, we can take back our power from the situation, get real about how we’re feeling, and move through it with more ease and grace. There’s nothing wrong with any of the emotions we experience during change, the problems begin to arise when we don’t express our emotions authentically.

3) Get support. As with most things in life, change is much easier to deal with when we get help. We don’t have to go through it all alone and there are probably many people in our lives who have gone through similar changes before and can support us in the process. Asking for and receiving help from other people can be challenging for many of us and can feel quite vulnerable. However, one of my favorite sayings is, “The answer is always ‘no’ if you don’t ask.” Getting support not only makes dealing with change easier for us, it allows other people to be of service, which is something most people love to have the opportunity to do.

4) Look for the gold. There is “gold’ in the midst of every change — even the most painful and difficult ones. When change is more “positive,” it can seem easier to find the gold in it. However, positive change can also be tricky because we don’t understand why we still may experience fear or discontent and sometimes won’t acknowledge these and other feelings due to our own embarrassment. With change that is more “negative,” it can often be hard to find or see the gold. When dealing with difficult changes in our lives, being able to authentically get in touch with the gifts, blessings and growth opportunities available to us can help as we navigate our way through the experience and also allow us to evolve in the process.

Have empathy and compassion for yourself and others in going through change. It’s not easy for most of us. By embracing change we become not only more effective in dealing with it, but more peaceful, present, and powerful in our lives.

Mike Robbins is a sought-after motivational keynote speaker, coach, and the author of the bestselling books Focus on the Good Stuff (Hardcover, Wiley) and Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken (Hardcover, Wiley).

He’s the former President of the Board of the Peace Alliance, a non-profit organization committed to creating a culure of peace and campaigning to create a cabinet level U.S. Department of Peace.

Mike and his work have been featured on ABC News and the Oprah radio network, as well as in Forbes, Ladies Home Journal, Fast Company, Self, the Washington Post, many others. He’s also a regular contributor to Oprah.com and the Huffington Post. He has worked with clients such as Google, Wells Fargo, AT&T, Apple, Genentech, and more. Mike’s books have been translated into ten languages. For more information about his work, books, media appearances, and speaking – feel free to visit www.mike-robbins.com.

Change Makers – Mike Robbins

Mike Robbins, Author and motivational speaker in conversation with Gopi Kallayil on the Public Access TV show Change Makers. Mike is a former Stanford baseball player and the author of two books – Focus On The Good Stuff, and Be Yourself: Everyone Else Is Already Taken

Leadership and Transformation Coaching with Alan Seale

Alan Seale talks about his work as a Leadership and Transformation Coach.

The Rules of Victory: How to Transform Chaos and Conflict ~Strategies from the Art of War by James Gimian and Barry Boyce

The fog of war has become the fog of life. Chaos, Conflict, and Complex problems are emerging everywhere. And the same old fixes don’t seem to help.

The Rules of Victory Chaos, conflict, and the escalation of complex problems seem to define our experience, whether we’re an army commander, a business leader, a community organizer, or a single parent. Because the ordinary approaches don’t work when things are complex and because the stakes are so high nowadays, people everywhere are motivated to find more effective ways to deal with the conflict that arises when things get tough.
The Art of War is timeless, and it is tailor-made for our times

For 2500 years the Art of War has provided people all over the world with skillful strategies for working with challenging situations, conflict, and war. This text succeeds because it views the world as an interconnected whole and takes a deeply systematic approach. In fact, the Sun Tzu text is perhaps the world’s first whole-systems handbook.
The Rules of Victory shows how the Sun Tzu Works for us

The Rules of Victory demonstrates how the skillful actions from the Sun Tzu text can apply to you and your life. The Art of War is not about an ancient approach from a foreign culture. Rather it presents inherent human wisdom about a way of viewing and being in the world that gives rise to skillful action. The strategies of the Art of War are based on common human faculties and the ways we already do things. More than anything, developing this skill requires a shift in view—in how we see things—leading to effective action and a different result.
skillful action that can make a difference

From The Rules of Victory we learn:

* How to work more effectively with resistance, reaction, conflict, and chaos, when your role as a leader requires you to encourage change
* How to create momentum and bring about the tipping point in your project
* How to employ shih—seeing how energy moves, gathers, focuses and releases in any natural or human-made system and how to use that to advantage
* About a kind of knowing that helps one to look at what others don’t, see what others can’t, go where others won’t
* About finding a way to win the battle and the war, and the peace too