Leadership

Leadership

Listening to politicians' nasty rhetoric, one might think that leadership has to be aggressive and confrontational, but consider this parable about leadership.

A student assigned to write an essay about an effective leader wrote this story:

"I've been taking a bus to school for years. Most passengers keep to themselves and no one ever talks to anyone else.

"About a year ago, an elderly man got on the bus and said loudly to the driver, 'Good morning!' Most people looked up, annoyed, and the bus driver just grunted. The next day the man got on at the same stop and again he said loudly, 'Good morning!' to the driver. Another grunt. By the fifth day, the driver relented and greeted the man with a semi-cheerful 'Good morning!' The man announced, 'My name is Benny,' and asked the driver, 'What's yours?' The driver said his name was Ralph.

"That was the first time any of us heard the driver's name and soon people began to talk to each other and say hello to Ralph and Benny. Soon Benny extended his cheerful 'Good morning!' to the whole bus. Within a few days his 'Good morning!' was returned by a whole bunch of 'Good mornings' and the entire bus seemed to be friendlier. People got to know each other.

"If a leader is someone who makes something happen, Benny was our leader in friendliness.

"A month ago, Benny didn't get on the bus and we haven't seen him since. Everyone began to ask about Benny and lots of people said he may have died. No one knew what to do and the bus got awful quiet again.

"So last week, I started to act like Benny and say, 'Good morning!' to everyone and they cheered up again. I guess I'm the leader now. I hope Benny comes back to see what he started."

Remember, character counts.

Michael Josephson
www.whatwillmatter.com

Can Science Cure Religious Extremism?

By Sara C. Nelson / Source: Huffington Post

Religious Fundamentalism 'May Be Categorised As Mental Illness & Cured By Science'

Religious fundamentalism and cruelty to children may one day be treated in the same way as mental illness, a neuroscientist has speculated.

Kathleen Taylor, a research scientist at Oxford University's Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, says strong negative beliefs could be eradicated using techniques already in the works.

Dr Taylor was speaking at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales when she was asked what she forsaw as positive developments in neuroscience in the coming years, The Times reports.

She replied: "One man's positive can be another man's negative. One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated.

"Someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology – we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance.

"In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage.

"I am not just talking about the obvious candidates like radical Islam or some of the more extreme cults. I am talking about things like the belief that it is OK to beat your children.

"These beliefs are very harmful but are not normally categorised as mental illness."

In a previous blog for the Huffington Post, Dr Taylor wrote of the "astonishing" advances in neuroscience and how it offers hope for some of the most feared diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

But she concedes motives beyond those which are purely clinical run into problematic territory.

Writing in September, a month before the release of her book The Brain Supremacy, she says: "The ethics developed by doctors, over centuries, to deal with human suffering, are different from those developed by scientists trying to understand how the world works.

"They're still more different from the ethics of businesses keen to cash in on the new technologies… techniques created to heal can also be employed for other purposes, and the ability to get data from living brains is a holy grail for many interested parties other than neuroscientists and doctors."

She adds: "Human systems are always changed by their interactions with others, and in hard-to-calculate ways. What a volunteer says and does in a research lab may be altered not only by the lab environment or the phrasing of a question, but by who the experimenters are and how they behave. The human person thus needs to be considered. Technologies which directly scan or manipulate brains cannot be neutral tools, as open to commercial exploitation as any new gadget."

Links between extreme faiths and mental health have been made before, with former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Dr Dinesh Bhugra, highlighting recent religious conversions being more associated with a developing psychotic mental illness.

In a paper entitled 'Self-concept: Psychosis and attraction of new religious movements', he points to data from studies which shows that patients with first onset psychosis are likely to change their religion.

The introduction to Dr Taylor's book adds further caution: "We need to be careful when it comes to developing technologies which can slip through the skull to directly manipulate the brain.

"They cannot be morally neutral, these world-shaping tools; when the aspect of the world in question is a human being, morality inevitably rears its hydra heads.

"Technologies which profoundly change our relationship with the world around us cannot simply be tools, to be used for good or evil, if they alter our basic perception of what good and evil are."

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

If....

If....

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Orgasms Better Than Sudoku for Brain Power

Source: Inquisitr.com

According to Professor Barry Komisaruk, orgasms are more stimulating to the brain than solving a crossword puzzle or a completing a Sudoku table. 

Komisaruk, 72, is a neuroscientist who has done a lot of research into the relationship between orgasms and brain activity. He claims that the sensation increases total brain activity, whereas a puzzle activates only relatively localized regions.

He published the first evidence of brain regions involved in orgasm in women ten years ago.

He says that the sensation of sexual climax blocks pain: "At orgasm we see a tremendous increase in the blood flow (to the brain). So my belief is it can't be bad. It brings all the nutrients and oxygenation to the brain."

The professor came to his conclusions after studying women in his laboratory at the Rutgers University in New Jersey, U.S. He measured the blood flow to their brains as they climaxed. He has been studying female sexual pleasure since the 1960s. Actually, he began his experiments on rats but moved on to women in the 1980s.

He told The Times newspaper that there is much to learn about sexual climax, saying, "We know virtually nothing about pleasure. It's important to understand how the brain produces it. What parts of the brain produce such intense pleasure, and can we use that in some way?"

He asked the question, "What would that do to depression or anxiety or addiction or pain?" Well, it's reasonable to assume that, whatever an orgasm does to deal with those problems, it certainly consumes more energy than the Times Crossword.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

The Ancient Fear Keeping You Quiet and Awkward Socially

The Ancient Fear Keeping You Quiet and Awkward Socially

BY DEAN J 

You knew you shouldn't have said it, but you did.

As the words tumbled from your mouth, embarrassment burned your face. Everyone's disgusted looks confirmed it: This was the last straw; you had to leave.

So now here you are, lumbering through the jungle, your heart pounding.

It's almost nightfall.

You're sweating; pushing through sharp palm fronds and whining mosquitoes when you hear it.

Was that the growl of a tiger? Or the rattle of a venomous snake?

You scramble for the nearest tree, but deep down, you know you're going to die out here tonight.

And it's all because you said something stupid in front of the tribe when you probably should've kept your mouth shut.

Is this the latest episode of Survivor on steroids? Actually, no. This could have really happened to you thousands of years ago. In fact, some believe early humans feared this "ultimate rejection" so much, our behavior is still affected by it today.

And believe it or not, understanding this fear can help you to be outgoing and feel confident when talking to new people. Which is great, because if you're like I was, you often feel too quiet socially and come up with excuses NOT to talk to the people who interest you.
 

Thousands of Years Ago, Your Reputation Meant Life or Death

See, for a long part of our evolution, humans lived in hunter-gather tribes of 50-150 people. Everyone knew each other, so your reputation was everything. If you said or did something the tribe didn't like, you could be shunned from the community.

That could mean the end of you. You'd be left alone in the wilderness where wild animals, hunger and exposure were real threats. So fear of rejection was a VERY useful instinct back then.

Thankfully, you no longer have to worry about being shunned into non-existence because of something you say or do.

But here's the bad news:

Your primal brain doesn't realize that and in some social settings, it's keeping you overly cautious, quiet and isolated from potential new friends.

See, some evolutionary psychologists now believe humans evolved so long in that "small tribe" environment, we have this "social anxiety" hardwired into our brains. So any time you enter a social setting where you might face rejection, your brain gets nervous.

It's still stuck believing rejection means your life is over – literally.

That's why even though you WANT to talk to that new person, you have this overwhelming impulse inside you screaming, "DON'T DO IT! YOU CAN'T; YOU MIGHT FAIL!"

And as an added fun bonus, all that nervousness and anxiety prevents you from acting naturally. In many cases, this is why you feel awkward and "not yourself."
 

Build Social Confidence by Catching Your Head Up with the Times

These days, this instinct to be cautious socially isn't so necessary, right? There are now 7 billion of us on the planet. And with so many opportunities to meet new people, it's possible to be completely shunned by one group yet easily start over with another.

And while you might realize this consciously, your subconscious still fears that wild jungle.

You tell yourself it's no big deal to talk to those strangers; just do it. But your brain starts feeding you fear signals, trying to warn you of your impending sprint from a tiger.

So how do you get past these fears of rejection and failure?

How do you eliminate a reaction that's hardwired into your makeup?

You don't.

Those feelings are here to stay. They're part of being human. Everyone has them to some degree or another. However, you can minimize the effects of that anxiety so you can be more authentic and outgoing.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Realize there's nothing wrong with you when you feel you can't talk to people. A certain amount of social anxiety is built into all of us. It's our mind trying to be helpful by warning us of possible danger. The intensity of this warning signal varies by individual. For whatever reason, you may feel it more severely than others, but there are ways to chip away at it. In many cases, that involves simply changing your perspective.
2. Repeatedly remind yourself that rejection is not a big deal. Not once, not twice –constantly. Every time you're in a situation you want to talk to someone but can't, remind yourself:

• It's not necessary for everyone to like you
• Your life won't implode if this person doesn't accept you
• There are plenty of other people in the world
• No matter what, you'll still be: good at your job, a compassionate person, [insert your strength here]
• THEN, go talk to the person

Unwind Your Social Anxiety Clock Through Repetition

But remember, it's the repetition that's key. This irrational fear was formed by repetition over millennia AND by the repetition of bad experiences in your past. It's through repetition in theopposite direction that you'll unwind the limiting beliefs keeping you quiet and unsatisfied.

As I mentioned above, these suggestions won't eradicate your fears of rejection.

But it can reduce the intensity of those fears. You can train yourself to act in spite of those anxious feelings to the point it's second nature. It just takes time.

And as you begin to truly see rejection as acceptable, your world expands.

• You become more authentic and bold
• You speak your mind and voice your opinions
• You take the opportunity to talk to the people you WANT to talk to

Because deep down you truly understand, if the encounter doesn't go well, so what? There's plenty other people in the world to befriend, right?

And besides, there doesn't seem to be any loose tigers roaming nearby. You should be fine.

What about you? What are some "A ha" realizations that helped you be more outgoing and social?

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

The World's Strangest Methods of Fortune Telling

The World's Strangest Methods of Fortune Telling

Source: Neatorama

Want to know the future? You don't need crystal ball or a time machine. Just examine your moles or your fingernails or your cats. Really.

Ailuromancy or felidomancy. Simply observe the way your cat moves or jumps to determine the future – especially weather. A black cat crossing your path being a bad omen is an old piece of ailuromancy. Did your cat lick her ears three times? Company must be on the way. Right ear? It's a gentleman caller. Left ear? Expect a lady.

Rumpology. This is just what is sounds like – divination via the derriere. But take this one with a grain of salt – the only major backer of this method is Jackie Stallone, Sly's mom and, by most accounts, a rather questionable "psychic." Jackie says Rumpology works a lot like palm reading: the cracks, crevices, birth marks and dimples can reveal a lot about a person. According to one rumpologist, an apple-shaped butt "indicates someone who is charismatic, dynamic, very confident and often creative. A person who enjoys life."

Uromancy. I bet if you think about the root word you can figure this one out. Yep… it's fortune-telling based on your urine. Sure, your urine can definitely tell you a few things about your health – how well hydrated you are, for example. But uromancy is the interpretation of the bubbles in urine to reveal future events. If the bubbles are big and spaced far apart, expect good things. If they are small and close together, something terrible (death of a loved one or a serious illness) may be just around the corner.

Cromniomancy. Good news for gardeners – you can use your onions to see if you should prepare for bad news. One method is going to require that you build an altar, though: in the past, people separated from their loved ones could write their names on onions (one name per veggie) and then lay them on the altar to sprout. The faster the onion sprouted, the better health and happiness the person whose name was on the onion was experiencing. Woe to the person whose onion didn't sprout. You can also use cromniomancy to answer yes or no inquiries: plant two onions, one with each answer on it. The one that sprouts first is the answer to your question.

Sternomancy. This sounds like a cheap pick up line to be used at a bar, but Sternomancy is actually future-prediction by looking at someone's chest. Back in yesteryear, the study was limited to markings and bumps on the chest, kind of similar to phrenology (the study of head shape and bumps to determine personality). But these days, men's and women's magazines have taken it upon themselves to twist sternomancy into personality prediction based on the size and shape of a woman's breasts. Sternomancy doesn't just apply to humans – the old tradition of breaking the wishbone at Thanksgiving is an old form of the practice.

Onychomancy. Believe it or not, your fingernails are very powerful. Fingernail clippings were once used in spells, healing rituals and superstitions. In fact, many of the superstitions are still floating around out there – Japanese girls are told that biting their fingernails will result in a difficult childbirth later on down the line. The white spots on your fingernails are supposed to be a sign of good fortune – a spot on thumb specifically means that a gift is about to be bestowed upon you. Greedy people are said to have crooked fingernails, and the half-moon shape ("lunula") at the base of the nail indicates your lifeline – the bigger the lunula, the longer your life will last. Ever bend your nail back? Bad news: not only did it probably make you use a few choice words, it also means there's a difficult time ahead of you and it could last for a couple of months.

Oomancy. Making an omelet? Give this a try first: separate the egg white, then drop into boiling water and see what shape the whites take. It's kind of like reading tea leaves. Before you dismiss the idea, consider this: one of the girls involved in the Salem Witch Trial was playing this seemingly harmless game with her friends when she saw her egg whites take the shape of a coffin. Not long after, 24 deaths rocked the community.

Moleosophy. And you thought those little bumps were just birthmarks. Nope, according to some, moles can indicate exactly what the future holds for you if you know how to read them just right. Actually, it doesn't take too much imagination to figure out moleosophy – most of it is fairly straightforward. Mole on or near your bellybutton? You want kids. Mole on your butt? You're lazy and not very ambitious. A mark on your back means you're rather unreliable. Some aren't quite as obvious, however – moles on the ears are considered lucky, a mole on the elbow indicates a love of travel and adventure, and a mole on your fingers means you're dishonest.

Margaritomancy. I briefly thought this was something along the lines of reading tea leaves, but having something to do with margaritas. And I was totally prepared to go out and test the theory, purely in the name of research. But "margarita" is actually Latin for "pearl," so Margaritomancy is actually the study of pearls to predict the future. Darn. Many years ago, a pearl would be thrown into a pot sitting in a fire and its reaction to the heat would determine a person's guilt or innocence. If the pearl just sat there, the person was innocent. Any movement indicated guilt. 

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Turning Dreams Into Reality: The 7 Lessons I’ve Learned

Turning Dreams Into Reality: The 7 Lessons I've Learned

In 1995, I was engaged to a guy who wasn't very nice. I believe that every person comes into your life for a reason, though, and his reason had to do with introducing me to Laguna Beach. He brought me to the Surf & Sand Resort on New Year's Eve 1995, and on New Year's Day, I wrote a "resolution" that I would eventually move to Laguna Beach. Even in that short, overnight visit, I knew I'd come home.

The first action to take when you've pictured your dream: Record it in writing.

Five years later, a big company transferred me to San Diego to help them revamp a large website. It was a three-year contract, but eight months later, having completed the assignment, I turned in my resignation to skip back across the line to entrepreneurship. On my way from the office to my house, I called Bob Proctor to tell him the news. He asked my plans, and I said, "I'm not sure, but I'm not ready to move back to Denver yet."

"Where do you want to live?" he asked

"Well, I'd LOVE to live in Laguna Beach, but it's SO expensive."

…Silence greeted me on the other side. I knew I had just said the worst possible thing to the man who preaches that nothing is impossible unless YOU make it so. Finally, he said, "Diane."

I winced, waiting.

"I want you to drive to Laguna Beach right now. Find one of those places where you can rent a mailbox and start forwarding your mail. Today."

So, I did.

The other thing I've learned about having a dream: ACT on the darn thing, even in just a small way, as if you EXPECT it to happen.  

Two weeks later an email arrived in my "in" box from someone I had absolutely no connection to. Completely out of the blue. They were renting their cottage in Laguna Beach for the winter.

Three weeks later, I was a resident of Laguna Beach.

In the years that have followed, Laguna Beach has continually proven a magical "vortex" for me. When I needed to find a larger home for me and my beloved Merlin (a Great Pyrenees), the dream happened in the form of a tiny "For Rent" sign next to a mailbox.

(Next hint on fulfilling a dream: Actively look in all the usual places, but be open to it showing up in an unexpected way.)

When I decided it was time to move to the beach, I had my famous Bob Proctor Goal Card written out and was searching fruitlessly for months. One evening, a friend and I trotted down to my favorite beach for a picnic and, having no knowledge of my search for a beach condo, he looked up at the condo complex looming above us and said, "Wouldn't it be awesome to live in THAT place?"

I couldn't believe I had never noticed this place before. With the image of that condo complex in my head, I revised my Goal Card that night.

(Another lesson learned: Slight revisions to the dream are OK. Dropping the dream completely, not OK.)

The next morning, I called the management, asking if rentals were available. She assured me no new rentals had opened up there for years. Two DAYS later, I saw a new, tiny "For Rent" sign on the side of the highway and knew it would lead me to that very same complex. It did, and I was moving into this magnificent place weeks later.

The magic continued again when I decided it was time to move above into the penthouse.

The magic continued again when, in 2008, I decided to start writing a blog – LagunaBeachBest.com – and, in mere months, I had collected thousands of subscribed readers. Two years later, having written hundreds of blog entries, I announced that I was going to create the first "travel guide" for Laguna Beach and call it Laguna Beach's Best.

So, here's one problem with having a dream: When you talk OUT LOUD about acting on your dream, eventually every friend who's heard you drone on and on about your PLAN to act on your dream begins to ask you for an ETA.

Initially, my announcement had been met with raucous approval from friends far and wide. After all, how hard could this be? Since 1989, I've been writing, editing and finishing books for budding authors and famous people. Since 1995 – eighteen years – I've had an agency of genius talents helping me do everything else for books, from cover design and layout to websites and marketing materials. Piece of cake.

For two years, I TALKED and PLANNED and TALKED some more … And, by Christmas last year, my raucous supporters were beginning to turn on me. The question, "When's the book going to be done?" began to pepper me like those "mine-mine-mine" seagulls in the movie, Finding Nemo.

In March this year, I reluctantly pulled up to the "Book Starting Line." I rallied a single troop – Patti Knoles – the most patient, amazing book designer in the universe. She readily agreed and vroomed up next to me, tires smoking, engine gunning, grinning over at me. What could I do? I couldn't back down now. She was already asking for the back cover copy, for criminy's sake.

That's when the terrible realization about having a dream hit me …

Once you make your "Declaration of the Dream," God/the angels/the Universe are going to be peeling rubber ahead of you, halfway to the first turn while you're still idling at the START line. The Universe is like that - it's not much for excuses when it's time to lock and load a dream you keep blabbering on about.

Granted, you have every right to TRY to put a governor on that Universe. Over the last few months, I tried a few tactics (aka: excuses) of my own … I was too busy with my clients to work on my own stuff … travel guides require so much fact checking … I had to re-take larger photos of many of the entities … the print bids were ghastly sums.

At that last excuse, I sent an email to Patti. This was costing too much money, I didn't have it in the coffers, and we should just shelve the book until 2014.

I pictured her sitting there at her computer, halfway through the design of the book with the biggest sections still looming. She could have said to herself, "Good. I'm tired of this book. Good decision."

I waited on the other side, computer humming, watching my email, wondering how long it would be before she would respond. Three minutes later, she wrote, "I'm going to keep working on the book. It's a great book, Diane. It'll work out."

The most important fact I learned that very moment about dreams: When you see someone faltering on their dream, believe in it for them.

I remember years ago, when I had talked about reaching what appeared to be an unfathomable dream, Bob Proctor told me, "Diane, if you don't believe in this dream of yours, I'll believe in it for you."

For years, I've told client after client the same. They hit that Terror Barrier; they hit that fear, and they start to back away, scrabbling back to what they know, what's comfortable. Who needs a dream anyway? And I tell them that I believe, that my team believes, and we always bring that person through to the other side.

One person believed in my dream more than I did at that moment. And at that very moment, everything changed.

Two questions I leave you with:

1.     What are you doing to act on your dream?

2.     Whose dream can you believe in today?

What you do – or don't do – will change everything.

Diane Armitage

As an Internet strategist, writer and website creator for global entities and renowned motivational speakers.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

6 Unconventional Ways to Be Happier

By Stephen Guise / Source: LifeHacker

There isn't a single human being who doesn't want it, and for many, it is the primary pursuit in life. 

Conventional wisdom tells us that we need a good job, a great family life, and 11.5 months of vacation time to be happy. But we're going to focus on some lesser known factors of happiness that anyone can apply immediately.

1. Throw Your Negative Thoughts Into the Trash (Literally)

What happens when we treat our thoughts as material objects? This study found: "When participants physically discarded a representation of their thoughts, they mentally discarded them as well, using them less in forming judgments than did participants who retained a representation of their thoughts."

It seems like we can throw away our negative thoughts and be happy forever, but the fact is, as researcher Richard Petty says, "they are not really gone—you can regenerate them, but the representations of those thoughts are gone, at least temporarily, and it seems to make it easier to not think about them." For negative thoughts, writing them onto a piece of paper and then throwing it away appears to thwart their negative power, though it may only be short term. With repetition, one could possibly gain longer term benefits by "practicing" discarding negative thoughts.

Important lesson: If you have pervasive negative thoughts, write them down on a piece of paper, and physically throw them away, or burn them! This strategy can be employed as a quick way to clear your head of negativity.

2. Use Your Imagination

A just-released study found that the human imagination is powerful to a scary and exciting degree. "This is the first set of experiments to definitively establish that the sensory signals generated by one's imagination are strong enough to change one's real-world perception of a different sensory modality," says Professor Henrik Ehrsson, the principle investigator behind the study."

Your imagination is so powerful that it can alter what you see and hear in the physical world. I submit, then, that it easily has the power to change your mindset to a happier state. Here is one experience I had with the power of imagination, and honestly, I was amazed when it worked.

One day I was feeling (extra) lazy, lounging in bed. I couldn't get motivated to do anything worthwhile. Do you know what I did then? I imagined a tiger, as vividly as I could. I could see him running towards me with great speed; his big cat eyes looking at me like I was a tuna steak. Then I visualized the rest of the scenario—if I didn't get up very soon, he would attack me, but if I did get up, I would avoid him and save my life! It jumpstarted my entire system—I was up and moving (and laughing at myself) within seconds. If you spend all of your time thinking realistically, not only will life be a little bit boring, but you'll miss out on your brain's most enjoyable and powerful tool—imagination!

Important lesson: Remember childhood, before you were trained to be "responsible?" Exercising your imagination muscle will generate creative ideas, motivate you, and make you happier if you use it well. Happiness is a perspective, and using your imagination is an effective way to alter your perspective to your liking. Or at the very least, it can get you out of bed. (Tiger alarm clock patent pending) ;-)

3. Stop Buying Possessions, Start Buying Experiences

I admit that I'm biased as a minimalist, but it's hard to deny hard data—experiences have been shown to make us happier than material possessions. The linked study from Cornell says, "Consumers spend more time thinking about material purchases they didn't choose than they spend when they buy an experience."

It appears that experiences are free from the comparison mindset that can sour an item purchase. A year later, your phone is outdated, but your trip to Rome isn't - instead it ages like wine in your mind. I went to Rome in May and my $800 Galaxy Note II was stolen. I haven't missed my phone at all, but will remember the trip forever.

When it comes to spending money, experiences are almost always a better value than possessions. As I have said before: "Things have a 'pay once and use for years' value appeal over an experience's one-time nature. I get that. But it's a value trap—as we say in the investing world - because time of use is not an accurate measure of value. If I licked a rock for 40 years, you wouldn't call the rock valuable, would you?"

Important lesson: Material possessions tend to make us happy initially and then wane off considerably, but the happiness gained from experiences may last a lifetime. If you want to be happier in the long term, consider buying plane or concert tickets instead of a TV or new phone.

4. Give

Volunteer, pay for the person behind you at Wendy's, cook a surprise meal for someone, or give someone a gift outside of Christmas or their birthday. We are incredibly powerful in our ability to make someone else's day with very little effort on our part. And one study suggests that giving is an innate source of happiness in humans. The study found that toddlers before the age of two years old "exhibit greater happiness when giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves."

Giving to others makes us happy from birth, it seems. Another study by a Harvard scholar found that happiness can be bought, so long as you're spending the money on someone else. What else is there to say? Giving makes you happier!

Important lesson: Instinct tells us that receiving is preferable, but giving brings real happiness results. If you truly want to maximize your happiness, then find ways to give to others. You won't regret it.

5. Train Your Brain Like a Monk

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, is sometimes called "the happiest man in the world." What's his secret? "We're not always angry, always jealous, always generous," says Ricard. "There is a possibility for change because all emotions are fleeting. That is the ground for mind training. Mind training is on the idea that two opposite mental factors can't happen at the same time...You cannot in the same gesture shake a hand and give a blow...There are natural antidotes to emotions that are destructive to our well-being."

Ricard says that mind transformation is the way to go, but that it takes time (from my research and experience with neuroplasticity, I agree this is true on both accounts). The mind transformation he talks about is achieved through meditation on unconditional compassion and loving kindness. "Some of [the monks] who came to the labs [...] did 20-40 thousand hours of meditation. They are real Olympic Champions of mind training," he says, getting a laugh from the crowd.

When the monks were tested for happiness using tests that measure brain activity for happiness (based on the pre-frontal cortex halves—left side activity is associated with happiness, and the right with depression), it was found that the monks were four standard deviations from the norm in favor of happiness; in other words, they were off-the-charts happy.

Important lesson: If you want to multiply your happiness results from giving, meditate on compassion and loving kindness (these are underlying components of giving). It appears that the monks' theory on opposite mental factors holds true. They spend so much time thinking of positive things, that negativity and angst are pushed out of their mind, and they become very happy (and I would add, at peace). Another important lesson here is the power of repetition—the brain is wired to form habits, and there's no reason a generally happy mindset can't be habit.

6. Focus

Perhaps the most surprising and 21st century relevant happiness factor of all is focus. Did you know that being distracted makes you unhappy? This study found that people's minds wandered a disturbing 47% of the time on average. And the result? It had a bigger (negative) impact on their happiness than what they were doing.

"If you ask people to imagine winning the lottery, they typically talk about the things they would do—'I'd go to Italy, I'd buy a boat, I'd lay on the beach'—and they rarely mention the things they would think. But our data suggest that the location of the body is much less important than the location of the mind, and that the former has surprisingly little influence on the latter. The heart goes where the head takes it, and neither cares much about the whereabouts of the feet."—Harvard Psychologist Dr. Daniel Gilbert

My blog is about staying focused, but even I was surprised to find such a powerful direct connection between focus and happiness. It makes sense though, because to focus is to live in the present moment, which cuts out worry, guilt, and other past regrets or future concerns.

One more benefit of focus is that it allows you to live the life you want to live. Focusing your skills and energy on fewer areas is a simple formula that brings big results. The more you focus on what matters, the more your life becomes as you desire, and the happier you'll be. This means no more justifying your smart phone addiction. (Yes, I'm calling you out for texting group B when you're with group A, and then texting group A when you're with group B. Or burying your face in your phone when you feel even slightly uncomfortable.) Commit to being with Group A when they are physically around you. I saw a group of guys in Chipotle, and all three of them were looking down at their cell phones. They were physically present, but they weren't mentally present.

Important lesson: Learn to control your whims (and phone notifications) or they will control your life and steal your happiness. True happiness is not being a slave to a piece of technology—it's deciding what's most important in this moment and focusing all of your energy on it. Distraction is often a failure to make this decision.

Now, see if you can use these tips to beat Matthieu Ricard for the title of happiest person alive. Even if you get second place, you'll still be pretty happy.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Can Yoga Give You Superpowers?

By Daniel Lefferts / Source: Bookish.com

Yoga die-hards have long claimed that the practice can allay physical ailments, such as back pain and headaches, as well as improve mood and mental agility. But these perks may not represent the full reach of yoga's power, says parapsychology researcher Dean Radin in his new book, Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities.

Before its recent popularization as an alternative physical and mental discipline, Radin writes, "The essential goal of yoga was to achieve states of insight that revealed the true nature of Reality."

This rarefied plane of consciousness offers many spiritual rewards, some of which we're familiar with -- deep focus, empathy, enlightenment -- and some of which sound more like the paranormal weaponry of the X-Men. By clearing their minds of static and attachments, and perfecting bare focus and attention, Radin suggests, yogis of previous eras were able to transcend their intellectual and bodily confinements to commune with—and alter—the world around them. "After thousands of years of exploration, refinement, and discussion about [yoga] techniques, advanced yoga practitioners may have advanced far beyond what science is currently capable of confirming," Radin asserts.

Radin's investigation into the supernormal potential of yoga begins with a look at ancient yogic writings called the "Yoga Sutras," which date back as far as the second century B.C. and which "provide a taxonomy of supernormal mental powers" -- called siddhis -- "and a means of obtaining them." He then turns to the cutting-edge field of paranormal science and parapsychology, where researchers test the validity of these ancient claims through a range of studies and experiments. We take a look at the hard science behind four yogic superpowers Radin identifies.

Clairaudience

The "Yoga Sutras" name 25 siddhis, one of which is "knowledge of the meaning of sounds produced by all beings," or, what Radin refers to as "clairaudience." Achieved by maintaining a meditative focus on the area behind the ear (a kind of trance state known as a "samyama"), clairaudience "may be interpreted as a form of clairvoyance, or telepathy that extends beyond human minds and includes animals, insects and other species," Radin writes. In other words, yogis who attain clairaudience would be able to communicate with--or at least understand the messages of -- living beings other than humans, leaving us to wonder if Dr. Dolittle was really just an esoteric yogi extraordinaire.

Breatharianism

According to the "Yoga Sutras," performing samyama on the throat enables some yogis to liberate themselves from the need to eat and drink, a phenomenon known in Catholicism as "inedia" and, more generally, as "breatharianism." "The implication is that the human body can transmute ambient energy into nutrients," Radin writes, "and through the practice of cultivating this ability one can live comfortably for as long as one wishes without food." He points to the case of an Indian yogic ascetic named Prahlad Jani, who claims to have lived healthily without eating or drinking from the age 11 to the present (he is now in his 80s). Jani has participated in two medical tests in India -- the first in 2003 and the second in 2010 -- in which he was observed to go without food or drink for as many as 14 days with "no drastic changes...in his physiological condition."

Telepathy

Just as a samyama focused on the ear can engender clairaudience, a samyama focused on another person's mind -- as in the case of trying to send a message to another person's mind -- can engender telepathy, according to the "Yoga Sutras." Radin points to a type of test called a "ganzfeld" experiment, in which "receivers" are deprived of sensory input (in Radin's example, they wear headphones that pump in pink noise and wear halved Ping Pong balls over their eyes) while "senders" attempt to mentally communicate a specific image. The receiver then reports any images that come to mind over the course of their sensory deprivation. Radin recounts a ganzfeld experiment that he and a team of researches conducted in 2010 in which the "sender" telepathically communicated an image of the pyramids at Giza. The "receiver," in turn, reported images of something "tall," "monolithic" and of a "rough texture." Radin classifies this experiment as a "hit."

Psychokinesis

According to Radin, "some of the siddhis in the 'Yoga Sutras' are described as interactions between mind and matter." He points to an experiment in which subjects were seemingly able to influence the physical body of another person through deep meditative focus. In this "Love Study," Radin and his colleagues tested 36 adult couples, one of whom was healthy and one of whom was undergoing cancer treatment, to see if focused, channelled affection could measurably influence the physical body of another person.

The sender (the healthy participant) sat in a remote chamber watching an intermittently played video of their partner, while researchers measured the skin conductivity of the receiver (the ill participant). Radin reports (with graphs showing results) how the ill patients' skin consistently displayed markedly higher rates of conductivity after the healthy patient had viewed a video of them. Radin argues that this constitutes evidence that a purely mental faculty—in this case, love—is able to influence material reality.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

If You Want to Be Happy Stop Doing These 8 Things

By Ashton Aiden 

Happiness is a cherished goal for each of us. We all want to be happy, but how do we achieve happiness on a daily basis? It's easy; simply remove all that extra unnecessary baggage from your life.

Very often, the way to achieve happiness in your personal and professional life is to re-examine your work-life balance and to subtract from one side of the equation, instead of trying to add to the other side of the equation. For example, imagine what would happen if you removed certain things from your everyday life.

So, Stop Doing These 8 Things:

1. Stop Putting the Blame on Others

People will make mistakes. Employees will fail to meet your expectations, friends will fail to show up on time, et cetera, et cetera.  And then you blame them for your problems.

Perhaps, the fault is on your side and maybe you should ask yourself some questions. Did you instruct your employees clearly? Did you confirm that they understood your instructions? Did you emphasize and confirm the time for your meeting? Were you asking for more than they could reasonably deliver (both employees and friends)?

You should take responsibility, instead of blaming others. This is not masochistic, but rather it gives you power. It means you can focus on doing things in a better and smarter way next time.

And when you become smarter and do things better, then you will have a greater sense of self-fulfillment, which will make you feel happier.

2. Stop Trying to Control Others

Yes, you are the boss. Yes, you are a captain of industry. Yes, you are the little tail that wags the big dog. 

You might think that you can control others. However, the only person, who is really within your control is yourself. If you are trying to control other people, then you have already decided that you, your goals, your dreams and your opinions are more important than theirs. In these situations your control will not last very long. And usually it involves you imposing your authority by some kind of fear or tension. None of these things will make you feel as good as if people did things for you of their own will. And that will make you happy.

3. Stop Interrupting People

Interrupting people is rude. Furthermore, when you do it, you are actually saying, "You are not interesting. I am not trying to understand what you're saying. I might hear you but I have already decided what I want to say and do. "

Do you want to build relationships that last? Then you should listen to others and try to understand their point of view. By putting yourself in other people's skin, your relationships with others will start giving you more joy and a sense of happiness.

4. Stop Sticking to Familiar Habits

When you are afraid or you are unsure what to do, you will stick with what you know. We all do this for emotional security, even when we know that the familiar response is not going to be the right one. An old expression for this is "it's better to deal with the devil you know".

However, your resulting emotional security is not happiness; it is simply a lack of fear or a lack of uncertainty. This might be okay for you, but it will not make you happy. If you face your fear and try to find what you really need, then you are much more likely to feel happier afterwards.

Even if you do not achieve the desired result, you will feel better for having faced up to your insecurity and for trying to fix it.

5. Stop Whining

Your words have power and an effect on people. Especially on yourself. If you are constantly complaining about your problems, it will make you feel worse, not better. Instead of whining, apply the same effort to trying to make things better.

6. Stop Trying to Impress Other People

Nobody likes you for the clothes you wear, or the expensive car you drive, or the important management position you hold. These are just "things." People may like or not like these things, but these things will not influence whether they like you for yourself or not. It is much better to be true to your nature. Stick to what makes you happy. The people around you will recognize the real you, so stop trying to impress them, and be yourself.

7. Stop Criticizing Others

Yes, you have a better education. Yes, you have more experience. Yes, you have climbed more mountains and slain more dragons. That does not mean you are smarter or better than others. It just makes you the person that you are.

Try to appreciate other people for their differences. You will see them and yourself in a better light.

8. Stop Being Afraid To Take That First Step

We can all be afraid – of what might happen, of what we cannot change, of what we might not be able to do. Instead, it is easier to hesitate and wait for the right time. Meanwhile, days, months and years pass by and we live in our dreams.

Do not let fear control you and take hold of you. Whatever you have in mind, start working towards that goal today! Take the first step and the rest will come gradually. Do something now – whatever it is. You will be happier.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

The Most Dangerous Mind Control Drug in the World

'Devil's Breath' chemical from Colombia can block free will, wipe memory and even kill

By Beth Stebner / Source: Daily Mail

A hazardous drug that eliminates free will and can wipe the memory of its victims is currently being dealt on the streets of Colombia.

The drug is called scopolamine, but is colloquially known as 'The Devil's Breath,' and is derived from a particular type of tree common to South America.

Stories surrounding the drug are the stuff of urban legends, with some telling horror stories of how people were raped, forced to empty their bank accounts, and even coerced into giving up an organ.

VICE's Ryan Duffy travelled to the country to find out more about the powerful drug. In this video he reveals the shocking culture of another Colombian drug world, interviewing those who deal the drug and those who have fallen victim to it.

Demencia Black, a drug dealer in the capital of Bogota, said the drug is frightening for the simplicity in which it can be administered.

He told Vice that Scopolamine can be blown in the face of a passer-by on the street, and within minutes, that person is under the drug's effect - scopolamine is odourless and tasteless.
'You can guide them wherever you want,' he explained. 'It's like they're a child.'

Black said that one gram of Scopolamine is similar to a gram of cocaine, but later called it 'worse than anthrax.'

In high doses, it is lethal.

Drug Creates a Mind-Controlled Zombie

The drug, he said, turns people into complete zombies and blocks memories from forming. So even after the drug wears off, victims have no recollection as to what happened.

One victim told Vice that a man approached her on the street asking her for directions. Since it was close by, she helped take the man to his destination, and they drank juice together.

She took the man to her house and helped him gather all of her belongings, including her boyfriend's cameras and savings.

'It is painful to have lost money,' the woman said,' but I was actually quite lucky.'
According to the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, the drug - also known as hyoscine - causes the same level of memory loss as diazepam.

In ancient times, the drug was given to the mistresses of dead Colombian leaders – they were told to enter their master's grave, where they were buried alive.

In modern times, the CIA used the drug as part of Cold War interrogations, with the hope of using it like a truth serum.

However, because of the drug's chemical makeup, it also induces powerful hallucinations. 

The tree common around Colombia, and is called the 'borrachero' tree – loosely translated as the 'get-you-drunk' tree.

It is said that Colombian mothers warn their children not to fall asleep under the tree, though the leafy green canopies and large yellow and white flowers seem appealing.

Experts are baffled as to why Colombia is riddled with scopolamine-related crimes, but wager much of it has to do with the country's torn drug-culture past, and on-going civil war.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Lethal Placebo

David L.

Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center

Everyone seems to love a riveting conspiracy theory- except, of course, the victims of it. We enjoy the gathering momentum of our collective outrage, and casting our passionate aspersions at some malefactor in the military industrial complex. In my world, that malefactor is often Big Pharma. Everyone loves to hate the harms that drugs do and the profits they generate along the way. Denigrating Big Pharma is a cultural pastime, and rollicking good fun.

And in the larger context of health care, it even makes sense. The prime directive of medicine, after all, is primum non nocere. Medicine becomes a legitimate target for scorn when it is a purveyor of net harm.

But what truly matters here is not the means, but the ends- the harm itself. What matters is life lost from years, and in the more extreme cases, years lost from life. And I have just such a tale to tell, but the means are peculiar. It's not the drug that's killing people- it's the placebo.

My Yale colleague, Dr. Phil Sarrel, has devoted his career in large measure to a detailed knowledge of the overall health effects, and in particular the vascular effects, of ovarian hormones. Ovarian hormones- estrogen and its metabolites, and progesterone - profoundly influence a woman's health from menarche to menopause, and then influence a woman's health some more by disappearing.

Dr. Sarrel was in the vanguard of those who saw serious problems with the large, randomized clinical trials, published just at the turn of the millennium, that refuted our prior faith in the disease-preventing potential of hormone replacement therapy. The HERS trial, and the massive and massively influential Women's Health Initiative (WHI), purportedly showed that we had been wrong about the advantages of hormone replacement, and that the practice resulted in net harm.

Even I was among those who noticed right away that the net harm was very, very slight- and grossly exaggerated in media headlines. But Dr. Sarrel was among those with the expertise to induce bigger worries.

Both trials had used the exact same form of hormone replacement, so-called "Prempro," a combination of Premarin and medroxy-progesterone acetate. Premarin is estrogen derived from the urine of pregnant horses, and thus not native to humans. Medroxy-progesterone acetate is a synthetic progesterone, not native to any species, and many times more potent than human progesterone. Most experts, including my colleague, had long preferred other forms of hormone replacement, considering Prem/Pro a dubious choice.

But when HERS and the WHI tarred the practice of hormone replacement, it was with a broad brush. The news was not that Prem/Pro, one questionable approach to hormone replacement, resulted in benefits for some women and harms for others, with a very slight net harm at the population level. The news was: hormone replacement therapy harms women!

We already had potentially serious problems at this point, but the plot thickens considerably. Dr. Sarrel was also among those to note that these clinical trials administered Prem/Pro to women a decade after menopause. They did this to be sure the women were not just merely, but most sincerely post-menopausal. But we had cause to suspect then, and abundant reason to know now, that the benefits of ovarian hormone replacement accrue right at the time of menopause, and in the decade that follows. Timing is often crucial in medicine, as in life. Administer, for instance, a potent diuretic while a patient is fluid overloaded, and it can be lifesaving. Give just the same drug after they have already eliminated that excess fluid, and the result is apt to be hypotension and even death. Timing matters- and the hormone replacement trials got it seriously wrong.

All of this suggests that many women who might have benefited from good hormone replacement administered with good timing have missed out on those benefits because of the headlines engendered by HERS and the WHI. But the story does not end here, either. It ends, as noted, with a lethal placebo.

Quite a few months ago, Dr. Sarrel and I had the first of our recent intense flurry of meetings at my lab. He had brought me a paper published in JAMA in 2011, reporting on one particular subgroup included in the WHI: women who had undergone hysterectomy. The only reason to include progesterone in hormone replacement is to protect the uterine lining from overgrowth, so women who have had a hysterectomy are prescribed (or were, back in the days when hormone replacement was not the bogeyman) estrogen only.

Dr. Sarrel's read of this paper was that the younger women- those age 50 to 59 and therefore just on the far side of menopause- had a considerably higher mortality rate when given placebo, rather than when given estrogen. I am formally trained in biostatistics and epidemiology, so my colleague asked me to verify this impression, which I did. Our project, and the resulting publication of our paper yesterday in the American Journal of Public Health, grew from there.

Working with a team from my lab, we devised a very simple formula to translate the excess death rate seen in the estrogen-only arm of the WHI to the entire population of such women in the United States: women in their 50's, who had undergone hysterectomy. Hysterectomyis very common, arguably too common, so this population numbers in the many millions. We then needed to add into the formula the most reliable estimates we could find for the precipitous drop in estrogen prescriptions following the publication of the original WHI results back in 2002.

We, of course, had to run the details of our analysis through the gauntlet of peer review. And our paper now stands, in a highly esteemed journal, on full display before a jury of peers. So I can spare you the details of our methods, and focus on the punch line.

We estimated that over the past decade, due to a wholesale abandonment of all forms of hormone replacement for all categories of women by both the women themselves and their doctors, minimally 20,000, and quite possibly more than 90,000 women have died prematurely. We were very careful to incorporate only reliably conservative figures into our formula, so the numbers might actually be higher still. Being extremely cautious, we report that over 40,000 women have died over the past ten years for failure to take estrogen.

This death toll of estrogen avoidance, or better still, estrogen 'aversion,' represented some 4,000 women every year. Whatever the emotional impact of that figure, it should be greater- because any one of those women could be your spouse, or mother, or sister, or daughter, or friend. And the impact should be greater because the massively over-simplified, over-generalized, distorted "hormone replacement is bad" message continues to reverberate, and rates of all kinds of hormone replacement use continue to decline.

Stated bluntly, we think the mortality toll of estrogen avoidance is not merely a clear, present, and on-going danger, it is a worsening one. More women are dying from this omission every year. And the next one in that calamitous line could be a woman you love; it could be you.

I write this column, as my colleagues and I wrote our paper: with a sense of urgency, and even desperation. My career is entirely devoted to the prevention of avoidable harms, and the protection of years of life, and life in years. This is as clear-cut a case of preventable harms, and as readily fixable, as we are ever likely to see.

Here, then, are the take-away messages:

1) All forms of hormone replacement for all women at menopause was never right, but nor is NO forms of hormone replacement for NO women at menopause. There was always baby and bathwater here, and we have egregiously failed to distinguish between the two.

2) The millions of women who have undergone hysterectomy are candidates for estrogen-only hormone replacement at menopause, and when that treatment is provided at the time of menopause and for the years that immediately follow, it can both alleviate symptoms AND save lives. It could save the lives of thousands of women every year in the U.S., and no doubt many thousands more around the world where the tendency toward hormone replacement aversion also prevails.

Every woman who has had a hysterectomy should be open to the option of estrogen therapy at menopause, and should discuss it with her doctor. Every health care professional needs to know that some forms of hormone replacement for some women at menopause remain potentially life saving, and needs to address the topic accordingly.

3) Medical news is often translated into provocative headlines that abandon the nuances of the actual findings for the sake of maximal impact. This certainly happened when we learned that one form of hormone replacement resulted in a very slight excess of total net harm for one particular group of women, but is a far more systemic problem; it happens all the time. All of us plying our wares where medicine and the media come together need a bracing reality check: there are lives at stake! When headlines distort the actual state of medical knowledge and take on a life of their own, they can affect patient behavior and clinical practice-and the result can be the very harm medicine is pledged to avoid. I call upon my colleagues involved in the reporting of medical news to embrace the great responsibility that comes with the great power of the press, and to deliver their headlines accordingly. How many avoidable deaths is a maximally titillating, but misleading, headline really worth?

We've all seen the commercials on television; drug companies are required to report the various potential harms of their products, as they should be. But no one is required to report the potential harms of placebo. For the past decade, millions of women who might have enjoyed more life in years, and tens of thousands who might have enjoyed more years of life by taking estrogen, were, in essence, taking a "placebo" instead. And in this case, it was the placebo causing the harm. In this case, the placebo was- and all too often remains- lethal.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad