They say that laughter is the best medicine, if that is true, than I should be as healthy as a horse, for I find the funny in the non-funny almost daily. Yet I am not the picture of health, on the outside. I am a tad bit over wright, I wear glasses and take medication for high cholesterol and have to watch what I eat to keep from becoming diabetic. Yet I laugh, daily…
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
I think Mr. Billings understood the power of laughter, the fact that a good laugh was a whole body experience, yet it emanated from the mouth. The effects were felt in the toes as well as the heart. This is the medicine of laughter, to delight the whole.
Science has proven that laughter is good for the body, good for healing, however, I think science misses the point, sure it helps you recover from surgery and depression, but it also heals the soul, laughter is a holistic remedy, concerning itself with body as well as the soul.
In todays upside down economic world, the onset of secularization and the absence of morality in the world, a good strong from the toes laugh is what is needed. We need to learn, once again, to look at ourselves and laugh, we have seemed to have lost that ability about the same time we became “enlightened” and “politically correct”. We need to return to a time when we did not take ourselves and this silly ol’ world to seriously, a time of laughter a time of easy goingness and simplicity.
What we need is One Good Laugh from the center of our being, a laugh that will not only feel good all over ourselves, but one that will move the world, one that will make the world feel good all over. Laughter is the medicine we need to heal our woes, and to fill our souls with joy and peace. So find something funny today, and laugh, and share that laughter with all you meet.
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
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McDonalds’ sign in Harlem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What is Leadership? What makes a leader? How does one become a leader. Theses are questions that many people ask, and for everyone person who asks, there are dozens of books, seminars and blog sites like this one with answers. But how do you know who is right. What method will work for you, and can you even become a leader? Is everyone born to be a leader? Can anyone study and become a leader, or is it in our DNA, are we just born like that?
Leadership, personal development and self-improvement is a multi-billion dollar industry, and like any industry there are the McDonald’s and the fancy shirt and tie eateries of Leadership development companies and individuals. Some offering the “fast food” of leadership and others offering you the 7 course meal, both serve a purpose, but like food, there is quality differences. Like a good fast food restaurant, McLeadership fills a purpose, but also like a fast food joint, to much of it can cause health issues. So what is McLeadership?
The McLeadership
McLeadership is, simple stated, the consumption of Leadership values, ideas and material in a fast, successive fashion that ignores the need for digestion of said material. We all know the feeling we get after we scarf down a value meal on our way to the next meeting or appointment. The bloated over stuffed sluggish feeling that leaves us with an upset stomach and an on satisfied hunger. We didn’t bother to take the time to sit back and relax and enjoy the meal, but rather we stuffed in our mouths, washed it down with a pop and followed it with a few fries. Doing this once or twice wont have to much of an effect on our over all health. But turning this bad habit into a lifetime of eating will. Well the same can be said for our Leadership and Change couping skills.
The market is flooded with books, CD’s, DVD’s and Seminars we can attend, and I am sure most of them are well produced and worthy of our attention. However, like the food we ingest affects our body, the information we ingest affects our mind. The habit of reading, as anyone who reads my blog will know, is a habit I strongly support. I recommend 15 minuets daily, at the very least. But, I also recommend journaling, reflecting and digesting the input. I strongly recommend that when you read, you find a quiet place, a relaxing place, and read in peace. This allows your body and mind to work together on digesting the input.
The fast food mentality that we are raised in as permeated our daily lives, it has infected our Faith, Family, Work and Being. We are programmed to think in sound bites and to deliver messages in Tweets and Status Updates. We are encouraged to abbreviate everything. We are living in the information age, more information is available to us than ever before, yet we seem to truly know less. We have the ability to truly connect with each other in ways never imagined, yet we don’t.
McLeadership is the result of reading, attending and listening to principles on Leadership, yet never putting in to practice the principles we have learned. Our thirty-second retention of information along with our forced acceptance of multi-tasking has created a generation that expects instantaneous results for no or little effort on their part.
True Leadership
True Leadership is a leadership of value, a leadership of effort and time. Like a good meal, one that you take time to enjoy and savor, a meal that is prepared with love and kindness. A true meal, a good meal, is one that we sit down at the table together, we pray and give thanks for what we are about to partake, and we enjoy the food, atmosphere and company. The meal itself, be it meatloaf or the finest cut of beef, is almost secondary to the time spent, digesting the whole experience.
Over the years I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel, and in doing so have made friends all over the world. One set of friends reside in Germany. They have become like family to me, we have spent many a nights together eating and drinking and conversing. He is a home gourmet cook. His food is simple but very pleasing to both the eye and the taste buds, and I have had the pleasure of many a meal with him and his wife. Each meal is a pleasure, but some of the most memorable meals where the less fancy, the more traditional family meals. Meals where he was not occupied with preparations, but was able to sit and enjoy the conversation, glass of wine and the simple family meal with us. He was able to digest in a relaxed fashion.
True Leadership is achieved in much the same way, we cannot be to concerned with the preparations, to hung up with the presentation that we miss the main point. I have learned many-a-thing about Leadership in moments of confusion and dysfunction, the moments of lack of planning and miss planning. But I have learned more, not in the McLeadership moments, but in the fine dinning moments. The moments were I can sit back, relax and slowly discover the truth hidden in the moment.
Leadership
Leadership is not reserved for the few, it is something we all must archive, in once fashion or another. But we must learn to slow down, to chew on it for a while and to savor its flavors. We must decide what Leadership looks like, taste like and is for us. My Leadership is not your Leadership, each of us have our own taste, our own cravings and each of us must discover our own style.
Fast food is fine, every-now-and-than, but as a steady diet, not so much, the same can be said for Learning and growing your Leadership skills. A quick read with no processing is fine, every-now-and-than, but as a daily diet, not to healthy for your mind.
I would recommend a steady diet of relaxed learning and reading, at least 15 minutes per day, in a quiet place, be it the bath tub or your car pared in a Church parking lot. I would also recommend that you journal about what you just read or learned. Your reading does not have to be only Leadership books, I am a strong believer in mixing it up, reading in general is a positive action, and reading different types and styles of books. I feel you can learn from anything and everything, so be it a Stephen King book or the latest guru in the self-help section, you can learn from it.
What I don’t recommend is that you substitute books with audio-books to often. Audio-books would be the fast food of reading, nothing replaces the written word. It is ok to enjoy a good audio-book on your long drive to and from work, I love to listen to talks on CD, but I always make it a point to follow it up with more reading on what ever topic truly captivated me. Same holds true for DVD’s or TED videos. Great sources for information and entertainment, but do not make a steady diet of it. The act of reading works your mind in ways a CD or DVD can not even come close to, and it is the working of the mind that causes active learning to take place.
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
42.303780
-83.378959
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As part of my weekend mornings, I love to sit and read the news, and now that I have an iPad, not only can I read the news, but now I can read articles from all kinds of different sources. One of my favorite apps for the iPad is Zite, a personalized magazine. Basically it allows you to choose the content, and based on your likes and dislikes, it customizes the content. I love it! I get to read a magazine that truly reflects my interest. I have Religion, Politics, The Beatles, Leadership, Reading and a few other topics all downloading to make my perfect magazine.
This morning as I was reading my Zite, I ran across an article that caught my eye, Thinking About Death Can Lead To A Good Life, definitely not your typical title. So I read it, and found that not only did I agree, but it was something I did naturally, and didn’t even realize the positive effects. So I thought I would share the article with you:
Thinking About Death Can Lead To A Good Life
(source)
Article Date: 22 Apr 2012 – 0:00 PDT
Thinking about death can actually be a good thing. An awareness of mortality can improve physical health and help us re-prioritize our goals and values, according to a new analysis of recent scientific studies. Even non-conscious thinking about death – say walking by a cemetery – could prompt positive changes and promote helping others.
Past research suggests that thinking about death is destructive and dangerous, fueling everything from prejudice and greed to violence. Such studies related to terror management theory (TMT), which posits that we uphold certain cultural beliefs to manage our feelings of mortality, have rarely explored the potential benefits of death awareness.
“This tendency for TMT research to primarily deal with negative attitudes and harmful behaviors has become so deeply entrenched in our field that some have recently suggested that death awareness is simply a bleak force of social destruction,” says Kenneth Vail of the University of Missouri, lead author of the new study in the online edition of Personality and Social Psychology Review this month. “There has been very little integrative understanding of how subtle, day-to-day, death awareness might be capable of motivating attitudes and behaviors that can minimize harm to oneself and others, and can promote well-being.”
In constructing a new model for how we think about our own mortality, Vail and colleagues performed an extensive review of recent studies on the topic. They found numerous examples of experiments both in the lab and field that suggest a positive side to natural reminders about mortality.
For example, Vail points to a study by Matthew Gailliot and colleagues in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2008 that tested how just being physically near a cemetery affects how willing people are to help a stranger. “Researchers hypothesized that if the cultural value of helping was made important to people, then the heightened awareness of death would motivate an increase in helping behaviors,” Vail says.
The researchers observed people who were either passing through a cemetery or were one block away, out of sight of the cemetery. Actors at each location talked near the participants about either the value of helping others or a control topic, and then some moments later, another actor dropped her notebook. The researchers then tested in each condition how many people helped the stranger.
“When the value of helping was made salient, the number of participants who helped the second confederate with her notebook was 40% greater at the cemetery than a block away from the cemetery,” Vail says. “Other field experiments and tightly controlled laboratory experiments have replicated these and similar findings, showing that the awareness of death can motivate increased expressions of tolerance, egalitarianism, compassion, empathy, and pacifism.”
For example, a 2010 study by Immo Fritsche of the University of Leipzig and co-authors revealed how increased death awareness can motivate sustainable behaviors when pro-environmental norms are made salient. And a study by Zachary Rothschild of the University of Kansas and co-workers in 2009 showed how an increased awareness of death can motivate American and Iranian religious fundamentalists to display peaceful compassion toward members of other groups when religious texts make such values more important.
Thinking about death can also promote better health. Recent studies have shown that when reminded of death people may opt for better health choices, such as using more sunscreen, smoking less, or increasing levels of exercise. A 2011 study by D.P. Cooper and co-authors found that death reminders increased intentions to perform breast self-exams when women were exposed to information that linked the behavior to self-empowerment.
One major implication of this body of work, Vail says, is that we should “turn attention and research efforts toward better understanding of how the motivations triggered by death awareness can actually improve people’s lives, rather than how it can cause malady and social strife.” Write the authors: “The dance with death can be a delicate but potentially elegant stride toward living the good life.”
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click ‘references’ tab above for source.
Visit our psychology / psychiatry section for the latest news on this subject.
—–END—-
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did… Gives you something to think about… Life is short, make it a great one!
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
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As part of my weekend mornings, I love to sit and read the news, and now that I have an iPad, not only can I read the news, but now I can read articles from all kinds of different sources. One of my favorite apps for the iPad is Zite, a personalized magazine. Basically it allows you to choose the content, and based on your likes and dislikes, it customizes the content. I love it! I get to read a magazine that truly reflects my interest. I have Religion, Politics, The Beatles, Leadership, Reading and a few other topics all downloading to make my perfect magazine.
This morning as I was reading my Zite, I ran across an article that caught my eye, Thinking About Death Can Lead To A Good Life, definitely not your typical title. So I read it, and found that not only did I agree, but it was something I did naturally, and didn’t even realize the positive effects. So I thought I would share the article with you:
Thinking About Death Can Lead To A Good Life
(source)
Article Date: 22 Apr 2012 – 0:00 PDT
Thinking about death can actually be a good thing. An awareness of mortality can improve physical health and help us re-prioritize our goals and values, according to a new analysis of recent scientific studies. Even non-conscious thinking about death – say walking by a cemetery – could prompt positive changes and promote helping others.
Past research suggests that thinking about death is destructive and dangerous, fueling everything from prejudice and greed to violence. Such studies related to terror management theory (TMT), which posits that we uphold certain cultural beliefs to manage our feelings of mortality, have rarely explored the potential benefits of death awareness.
“This tendency for TMT research to primarily deal with negative attitudes and harmful behaviors has become so deeply entrenched in our field that some have recently suggested that death awareness is simply a bleak force of social destruction,” says Kenneth Vail of the University of Missouri, lead author of the new study in the online edition of Personality and Social Psychology Review this month. “There has been very little integrative understanding of how subtle, day-to-day, death awareness might be capable of motivating attitudes and behaviors that can minimize harm to oneself and others, and can promote well-being.”
In constructing a new model for how we think about our own mortality, Vail and colleagues performed an extensive review of recent studies on the topic. They found numerous examples of experiments both in the lab and field that suggest a positive side to natural reminders about mortality.
For example, Vail points to a study by Matthew Gailliot and colleagues in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2008 that tested how just being physically near a cemetery affects how willing people are to help a stranger. “Researchers hypothesized that if the cultural value of helping was made important to people, then the heightened awareness of death would motivate an increase in helping behaviors,” Vail says.
The researchers observed people who were either passing through a cemetery or were one block away, out of sight of the cemetery. Actors at each location talked near the participants about either the value of helping others or a control topic, and then some moments later, another actor dropped her notebook. The researchers then tested in each condition how many people helped the stranger.
“When the value of helping was made salient, the number of participants who helped the second confederate with her notebook was 40% greater at the cemetery than a block away from the cemetery,” Vail says. “Other field experiments and tightly controlled laboratory experiments have replicated these and similar findings, showing that the awareness of death can motivate increased expressions of tolerance, egalitarianism, compassion, empathy, and pacifism.”
For example, a 2010 study by Immo Fritsche of the University of Leipzig and co-authors revealed how increased death awareness can motivate sustainable behaviors when pro-environmental norms are made salient. And a study by Zachary Rothschild of the University of Kansas and co-workers in 2009 showed how an increased awareness of death can motivate American and Iranian religious fundamentalists to display peaceful compassion toward members of other groups when religious texts make such values more important.
Thinking about death can also promote better health. Recent studies have shown that when reminded of death people may opt for better health choices, such as using more sunscreen, smoking less, or increasing levels of exercise. A 2011 study by D.P. Cooper and co-authors found that death reminders increased intentions to perform breast self-exams when women were exposed to information that linked the behavior to self-empowerment.
One major implication of this body of work, Vail says, is that we should “turn attention and research efforts toward better understanding of how the motivations triggered by death awareness can actually improve people’s lives, rather than how it can cause malady and social strife.” Write the authors: “The dance with death can be a delicate but potentially elegant stride toward living the good life.”
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click ‘references’ tab above for source.
Visit our psychology / psychiatry section for the latest news on this subject.
—–END—-
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did… Gives you something to think about… Life is short, make it a great one!
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
Like this:
2 bloggers like this post.
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All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Ellen Glasgow
Being interested in and involved in the “Change” industry, I found this quote to be dead on, All too often we tend to think that if we are changing, it must be a positive thing, that we must be growing is some manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some change is neutral, you neither move forward nor back, your just stand still. Yet other changes seems to be more positive, we move forward, all-be-it, sometimes a little too slow for our liking, but it’s still a move forward. Change can also move us backwards, much to our dismay.
Let us look at each type of change and discover its potential:
Neutral Change:
The process of non-change, as it where, in the natural state we are neither moving forward nor back, we are just there. This state of being, I would venture, is the most common state. The state of contentment or resignation, we neither desire to change or do not possess the motivation to enact the steps necessary to change. In this state there is no complaining about your current state, but it does not mean you are satisfied with your current life, you may be, but you may also be just resigned to the fact that this is your life. This state can be a sort of sloth, a laziness or true contentment.
Forward Change:
This change is what most people would consider a positive change, a change that is moving you from one state to a new state. This is true, in a forward state you are moving in a new direction. However, the move may or may not be a positive move. For example, you may decide that you wish to advance your situation at work, to become a manager. To help you achieve this goal you start to read books on leadership and management. However, in your search for the right books, you are given bad advice and read books that teach you skills that cause you to back stab and claw your way to the top. You have now moved in a new direction, but that direction is not positive. It is not life affirming it is a direction that may get you that management position, but along the way you have destroyed yourself, and your relationships. Forward change is not always positive; we must pay close attention to how we go about achieving the change we desire.
Backward Change:
Using the example from above, you have now achieved your goal, you are a manager. Yet along the way you backstabbed many friends and you have neglected your relationships. Your life, simple, is a wreck. You have seen your failures, and no longer wish to remain the person you have become. You desire change. At this junction you have three choices. 1. Stay the course; learn to live with what you are. (Neutral) 2. Move forward, correction the misguided choices of the past. 3. Return back; Undo the changes to return to your former self.
This third choice, to move back, sounds like a retreat that you are giving up. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Ask any good General, and they will tell you that you need to know when to retreat. That a well-timed retreat can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
There are times in all our lives that we need to return to our past. Times that we must go back in order to truly move forward. In the example above, you may decide that returning to the “old” you bay be the best starting point to move forward to the “new” you. Especially if you never felt comfortable in the “current” you, you just created. Retreating to safety, back behind the lines, does not mean you are giving up the ground you have taken. Returning to the old you doesn’t mean you give up your new management position. However, it does mean that you must reevaluate your current position and decide if it fits into your new tactical plan.
Change is not a single war to be won, it is many battles, some are victories others are defeats and some are draws. Nevertheless, each battle is a part of the overall war. Only in war can an army lose most of the battles, yet still win the war. We must learn to choose our battles, to plan our attach and our retreats. Learn to be content with a draw and retreat as we are with a victory.
Recommended Reading:
Each of the four books looks at change and life. The first two are historical in nature, but offer lessons that we all should learn. I have read each book, learned life lessons and gained insight in to myself and the world around me. Each book will teach you about the three types of changes and the power of each. Happy reading!
Killing Lincoln
By: Bill O`Reilly
Publication Date: September 27, 2011
A riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O’Reilly
The anchor of The O’Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history—how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America’s Civil War finally comes to an end after a series of increasingly harrowing battles. President Abraham Lincoln‘s generous terms for Robert E. Lee‘s surrender are devised to fulfill Lincoln’s dream of healing a divided nation, with the former Confederates allowed to reintegrate into American society. But one man and his band of murderous accomplices, perhaps reaching into the highest ranks of the U.S. government, are not appeased.
In the midst of the patriotic celebrations in Washington D.C., John Wilkes Booth—charismatic ladies’ man and impenitent racist—murders Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. A furious manhunt ensues and Booth immediately becomes the country’s most wanted fugitive. Lafayette C. Baker, a smart but shifty New York detective and former Union spy, unravels the string of clues leading to Booth, while federal forces track his accomplices. The thrilling chase ends in a fiery shootout and a series of court-ordered executions—including that of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government, Mary Surratt. Featuring some of history’s most remarkable figures, vivid detail, and page-turning action, Killing Lincoln is history that reads like a thriller.
Being George Washington
By: Glenn Beck
Publication Date: November 22, 2011
IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW GEORGE WASHINGTON, THINK AGAIN.
This is the amazing true story of a real-life superhero who wore no cape and possessed no special powers—yet changed the world forever. It’s a story about a man whose life reads as if it were torn from the pages of an action novel: Bullet holes through his clothing. Horses shot out from under him. Unimaginable hardship. Disease. Heroism. Spies and double-agents. And, of course, the unmistakable hand of Divine Providence that guided it all.
Being George Washington is a whole new way to look at history. You won’t simply read about the awful winter spent at Valley Forge—you’ll live it right alongside Washington. You’ll be on the boat with him crossing the Delaware, in the trenches with him at Yorktown, and standing next to him at the Constitutional Convention as a new republic is finally born.
Through these stories you’ll not only learn our real history (and how it applies to today), you’ll also see how the media and others have distorted our view of it. It’s ironic that the best-known fact about George Washington—that he chopped down a cherry tree—is a complete lie. It’s even more ironic when you consider that a lie was thought necessary to prove he could not tell one.
For all of his heroism and triumphs, Washington’s single greatest accomplishment was the man he created in the process: courageous and principled, fair and just, respectful to all. But he was also something else: flawed.
It’s those flaws that should give us hope for today. After all, if Washington had been perfect, then there would be no way to build another one. That’s why this book is not just about being George Washington in 1776, it’s about the struggle to be him every single day of our lives. Understanding the way he turned himself from an uneducated farmer into the Indispensable (yet imperfect) Man, is the only way to build a new generation of George Washington’s that can take on the extraordinary challenges that America is once again facing.
Seeds of Success
By: Bill and Billy Moyer (Father and Son)
Publication Date: 2008
This book serves as a wake up call for men and women of all ages and occupations by helping them balance their lives and realize what matters most. Will you choose success or significance? "Take a look in mirror, and redefine what matters most."–Patrick Morley
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day
By: Michael J. Gelb
Publication Date: February 8, 2000
Genius is made, not born. And human beings are gifted with an almost unlimited potential for learning and creativity. Now you can uncover your own hidden abilities, sharpen your senses, and liberate your unique intelligence—by following the example of the greatest genius of all time, Leonardo da Vinci.
Acclaimed author Michael J. Gelb, who has helped thousands of people expand their minds to accomplish more than they ever thought possible, shows you how. Drawing on Da Vinci’s notebooks, inventions, and legendary works of art, Gelb introduces Seven Da Vinci an Principles—the essential elements of genius—from curiosity, the insatiably curious approach to life to concessioner, the appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. With Da Vinci as your inspiration, you will discover an exhilarating new way of thinking. And step-by-step, through exercises and provocative lessons, you will harness the power—and awesome wonder—of your own genius, mastering such life-changing abilities as:
•Problem solving
•Creative thinking
•Self-expression
•Enjoying the world around you
•Goal setting and life balance
•Harmonizing body and mind
Drawing on Da Vinci’s notebooks, inventions, and legendary works of art, acclaimed author Michael J. Gelb, introduces seven Da Vinci an principles, the essential elements of genius, from curiosity, the insatiably curious approach to life, to concessioner, the appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. With Da Vinci as their inspiration, readers will discover an exhilarating new way of thinking.
Step-by-step, through exercises and provocative lessons, anyone can harness the power and awesome wonder of their own genius, mastering such life-changing skills as problem solving, creative thinking, self-expression, goal setting and life balance, and harmonizing body and mind.
Please let me know of other books you feel would be good reads for all. Post them here for all to see.
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
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Albert Einstein Français : portrait d’Albert Einstein (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
~Albert Einstein
How often do you think about who has come before you? How often do you look to the past to understand the now, to understand the self? Mr. Einstein, once again, has hit the nail on the head. Our now, who we are, has a direct connection to that which comes before us. Our human understanding of self comes to us from our ancestors. We owe gratitude to human history, to human expression and our basic curiosity about our own existence.
All too often, we look for the new and exciting ways to discover self, to change and we give praise only to ourselves and to the “new gurus” of today. Yet, we fail to give credit to the past, to those who came before.
If Einstein can humble himself to acknowledge that others, those who came before him, have laid down the groundwork for whom and what he is, surly we can do the same. However, the idea of become Renaissance men is gaining an understanding of the great men and woman who have come before. We read the classics, study the great ones that have come before us and expand our horizons beyond ourselves to include the great men and woman of history.
Through the trials and tribulations of history, we discover the ebb and flow of life. It is within the historical ebb and flow that we will discover the secret of discovering self. There is nothing new under the sun; all that we need to understand about our humanity is in our past. Yes, we have lots to learn about the science of the human body, but there is nothing new to learn about the human condition. Plato, Cicero, Buda along with Confucius and Jesus Christ have given us the road map to perfection, and the great men and woman of the past studied and emulated the great sages of antiquity.
We have much to learn about respecting our past, and growing our future. Nevertheless, we are capable, and we have the tools we need. Most, if not all, of what we need is free and available on the internet. We can go to our local art museums and historical museums to visualize the human condition or attend the local Orchestra concert to hear our collective human heart beat. We are never more than a few miles or few clicks away from the classics, unlike any other time in history, we, in this day and age, have the ability to read, watch and listen to the voice of history. The digital age offers us total access to online studies of the classics.
We need to establish clubs and organizations for adults and youth that delve into the classics that teach the lessons of Plato and Jesus, we need to experience, as a group and individuals, the masters such as Leonardo and Dante. We need to reconnect to our past, not through the filtered message of political views, but as unfiltered historical documents of humanity.
The human condition is defined in our art, literature and wars. How we treat others and care for the less fortunate among us. Our art is our soul and our literature our heart, it is time we reconnected to them.
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
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I just finished “How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day” by Michael J. Gelb.This is a fantastic book, one that all should read. The information is useful no matter who or what you are. Leonardo’s life lessons are timeless and learning about how he looked at life how he saw life was fascinating. I will be looking up more books concerning his life. Managers, Teachers, Parents and everyone else needs to read this book, we need to return to being renaissance men and woman once again.
So what is a renaissance man? And why do we need them again?
As to the first question, what is it:
The common term Renaissance man is used to describe a person who is well educated or who excels in a wide variety of subjects or fields.[3] The concept emerged from the numerous great thinkers of that era who excelled in multiple fields of the arts and science, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Copernicus and Francis Bacon; the emergence of these thinkers was likewise attributed to the then rising notion in Renaissance Italy expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472): that “a man can do all things if he will.” It embodied the basic tenets of Renaissance humanism, which considered humans empowered, limitless in their capacities for development, and led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. Thus the gifted people of the Renaissance sought to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, in physical development, in social accomplishments, and in the arts. The term has since expanded from original usage and has been applied to other great thinkers before and after the Renaissance such as Aristotle, Johann Goethe, and Isaac Newton. (source)
Basically, it is a person well versed on many fields of study, what we would call today, a well rounded education. But really it is more than that. It is more than just getting your Liberal Arts degree.Well at least how we in modern times view it:
The phrase liberal arts (Latin: artes liberales) refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects (called the Trivium) were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy (which included the study of astrology). This extended curriculum was called the Quadrivium. Together the Trivium and Quadrivium constituted the seven liberal arts of the medieval university curriculum.
In modern times liberal arts is a term which can be interpreted in different ways. It can refer to certain areas of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, psychology, and science.[1] It can also refer to studies on a liberal arts degree program. For example, Harvard University offers a degree of Master of Liberal Arts, which covers biological and social sciences as well as the humanities.[2] For both interpretations, the term generally refers to matters not relating to the professional, vocational, or technical curricula. (source)
The classical Liberal Arts is the definition of a Renaissance man, it is the study of Leonardo and many others. It is the study we need to return to, it is the study the will teach us to think. Modern-day Liberal Arts, modern-day education is not setup to teach thinking, it is set up to teach remembering. Students are not encouraged to think freely, but rather to retain what was told to them. The modern-day education system is one based on indoctrination not liberation. Leonardo’s education was geared towards discovery, experimentation and liberation. His disciplines ran across many areas of study, but he, as many renaissance men, had the ability to see the connections. The lines between art and science are blurred as are the lines between religion and science. The cross training and encouragement to push the envelope was the hallmark of renaissance training.
So why do we need a Renaissance man today? We have people who specialize in areas of study, so why should a rocket scientist care about the science of art? Why should an artist care about religion? Why would someone need to know about logic and rhetoric when they push a broom for a living?
Because life is connected, because the betterment of all starts with the betterment of one. Because life is more than what you do, it is who you are. And who you are is shaped by what you know. One of the main principles of Leonardo is connectedness, Leonardo saw the connections between seemingly non-connected objects. For example do you see the connection between a frog and the internet? Think about it… There is a connection. The frog has webbed feet and the internet is also called the World Wide Web. So both frog and internet have some sort of web. It is this connection, relationship that Leonardo saw, and it is this connectedness that we are missing in our lives.
Leonard saw the world not separate from humanity, but just a part of it. He saw the flow of the rivers to be the same as the flow of blood, the grass as the skin and the rock as the bones, he was a oneness between humanity and nature. Leonardo understood the connectedness of the clouds to the rain to the oceans, he saw the dependence of one upon the other. Leonardo is considered a great artiste, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper among the greatest art works in all of humanity. Yet he was much more than that, he was a scientist and inventor, a caterer and party planner. Leonardo used his talents to enlighten and entertain, he was known for a beautiful singing voice and accomplished musician. He understood that a holistic lifestyle was a healthy life style. Leonardo understood the body and mind connectedness, he was physically and mentally fit, because Leonardo knew that one could not be truly whole if a part of him was left to waste.
The Renaissance man of antiquity needs to be restored. We need to nurture and grow our children with a desire and fascination for learning. To question and explore their surroundings and to see the world, the universe with the eyes of openness and wonder.
We need more Leonardo’s’ in todays world, we need men and woman who are willing to expand their horizons, to cross over disciplines and to not fear failure, for through failure comes discovery. We need to foster the exploration of connectedness, we need to discover the universe anew.
Leonardo, where are you? Where have you gone. When did we decide that men such as Leonard are obsolete? Why did we decide they are of no use? the enlighten of man has many casualties, and this is one. But all is not lost, we can return, we can learn to think like Leonardo, we can create a new Renaissance, we just have to try.
God Bless
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
42.303780
-83.378959
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“I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34)
Jesus, after washing the feet of His friends, gave the commandment to love one another as he has loved us, that, my friends, is a hard commandment. The love of Jesus is the love of God, for Jesus is God, therefor Jesus’ love is Gods love, and we are commanded to love as Jesus loved. WOW…. Talk about asking a lot of someone.
The love that Jesus gives us is a love that knows no boundaries, has no conditions placed upon it and is given freely and without expectation. I don’t know to many people like that. At best our parents, but even they have limits, there Jesus like love is reserved for their children. Yet reading the news, we know that not all parents love as Jesus loves. But that’s the closest I can get to a love that even comes close to the commandment that Jesus gives us at the last supper.
So why would Jesus command us to do something that we seem unable to do, that seems so hard and unreachable? Why would the all-knowing and loving Jesus have us try and fail at such a task? Is is so He can sit back and laugh at our meager attempts to love as He loved? Did Jesus set us up for failure?
It’s kind of hard to imagine Jesus devising a grand plan to watch us fail, I just don’t see Him that way. So, why would He command something so hard…
Because it is hard, loving others in a perfect way, the way Jesus calls us to love, is hard, no way around it. But is it impossible, that is the next question. Did Jesus give us an impossible task? Would He, the all loving, really give His creation a commandment that was impossible to uphold?
I don’t think so…
Live all the teachings of Jesus, the command to love as He loves is a command to better ourselves, to grow and deepen our relationship with Christ. It is through Him that we can achieve anything.
22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:22-24 (NIV)
The key to the commandment to Love one another as Jesus has loved you, is to have faith in God, to love God with all your heart mind and soul:
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
Luke 10:26-28
The answer is love… Love of God and love of self…
So are we set up for failure? Nope, not at all, Jesus understands that the command is not easy, but He also knows that we are capable of achieving it. Jesus knows that we will need His help, that we will need to lean on His love. that without love of Him, we are incapable of love of self or others. Jesus’ command causes us to have to call on Jesus, to love Jesus. Jesus wants us to rely on Him, to depend upon His love, and to use His love to help us love others. So no, Jesus does not expect us to fail, but He does expect us to call upon Him, to depend upon Him and to love Him.
We are capable to love others as Jesus has loved us, but only to the extent that we are able to love Jesus and our self. Use this Holy day deepen your love of Christ, and pray for the strength to learn how to love yourself. Call upon Jesus to teach you how to love, call upon the mercy of God to show you true love and call upon Mary, the mother of our Lord, to show you how to love her Son. Use Holy Thursday as a day of love.
God Bless & Blessed Holy Thursday
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
42.303780
-83.378959
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Can I truly be happy? This is a question most of us ask ourselves at one point or another in our lives. The answer, yes, you can truly be happy, if you do a few simple things.
The secret to being happy is not secret at all, never has been, never will be. All we have to do is listen to ourselves, our body, our heart and our souls. The rhythm of life pulsates through us, and speaks to us in the sorrows and joys of our life. The tears of happiness and sadness tell us much about ourselves and our passions define us. When we learn to read the subtle nuances of or body, the shift in our stance or the tapping of our change in our breathing, we will learn to hear our body speaking to us.
We, as a whole, often times ignore the body and what it is trying to tell us, we over eat, even when our body is saying STOP!, we push ourselves to the limit, when the limit is often times to far. We need to learn to listen to our body, learn to recognize its voice and to understand its complaints.
The are of happiness is not lost to us, it has just been covered with layer upon layer of life, or what we think is life. We have dismissed it as useless information and replaced it with the latest fad in self improvement. Think about this, self-improvement books, DVD’s and seminars are a recent creation. The gurus and sages of today are pale facsimiles of the true gurus and sages of antiquity. They have discovered that with marketing and fancy plans they can make a buck off of your suffering and desires. They have developed programs the lead you to endless searching and wanting and created an industry worth billions:
Personal development – also commonly called self-improvement – is a booming industry! And Internet-based personal development – also commonly called e-learning – is now becoming increasingly popular.
According to market research and statistics, it is a 64 billion dollar industry worldwide. In the US alone, an estimated 9.6 billion dollars is invested in personal development in 2005 in the form of:
- books
- motivational speakers
- personal coaching
- weight loss programs
- audio tapes
- stress management programs
It is also projected that this industry will grow at the rate of 11.4 percent yearly and reach 13.9 billion dollars in 2010.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/904558
Granted, this blog, my Life Coaching and public speaking is all part of this industry, but… (There is always a but) I am not a firm believer in the quick easy results nor the new age trends. I believe in a holistic approach to self improvement, and I believe that each and everyone of us has the answer to happiness inside of us. I believe that a life coach, guru, sage, whatever you want to call them, job is to help you discover you. Not to teach you the latest new age process to achieve some utopia that truly does not exist. My job, as a life coach, is to listen, reflect and guide you to you, to help you see you. It is a task that requires much more from the coached than the coach themselves. I, as the coach, am to show you, teach you and guide you to hear your own body, heart and soul. To understand the language of you and not of others, To lead you to that special place that exist only inside of you, that one place that is uniquely all your own, that place were you and God commune as only you and God can.
That special place is not mine or your parents or spouses, it is yours and only yours.
This is the place of true happiness, and at one point we all have seen it, experienced it, even if for only a moment. The moment when life seemed fresh and bright, when colors were vivid and sounds of nature overwhelmed the senses. The moment when time seemed to stop and eternity was here. That is happiness, that is human potential and our heaven on earth. It is achievable, it is realistic and it is not hidden from us. It is with in our grasps, if only we learn to grasp it.
Life was created for happiness, happiness even in a world of sorrows. Our ability to overcome heartache and devastation is proof that we were created for happiness. So how come we are not happy? Why is it that others seem to be able to shoulder the burdens of life and we cannot? The difference, they, the ones that are happy and fulfilled have learned to listen to the body, hear the heart and feel the soul, they are one with themselves and have learned to be content within there own personal “special place” the place that they commune with God. The truly happy are far and few between, but it does not have to be that way, we all can achieve it, if we desire.
God Bless & A blessed Holy Week
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
42.303780
-83.378959
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“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
I have a few favorite topics, the Ego is one of them, I love to talk about the Ego as the root of all evil, and Reading, reading is also a favorite topic, and every now and then I like to post what is on my reading list. I am one of the strange people who read 4 or 5 books at a time, so it takes me a long time to get through just one book. recently I finished a book that I was reading for over one year, the day I finished it, I was extremely pleased, one year for one book is a long time, even for me. But now with the advent of e-readers, my reading list has grown from 4 or 5 to 10 or 20… It’s a wonderfully horrible problem I have. With all the free classics online that I can now download to my iPad, I’m just at a lost as to what to read… Besides the free books, I still love the printed word, so I order books, even thought I have several on my need to read shelf. It’s a never-ending problem, but a problem I love having. I have books to go with any mood I may be in, mystery, suspense, romance, sci-fi, history and religion, depending on the mood determines the book. Besides all the books and e-books, I have magazines I subscribe to, my political side of me to keep current, and all the news websites I read.
Reading is the giver of life, knowledge and death. Through reading we learn of emotions and concepts and we experience realities that we never knew existed.
I read for several reasons, to learn, to enjoy, to escape and to take part in the authors world. Reading is the window into the souls of the authors, and, if you allow it, into your own soul. Show me what you read, and ill see who you are. Reading reveals our inner most being, unlocks the doors to our imaginations and prepares us for the tomorrows that have yet to be.
So when I read articles that claim that our high school youth are reading on a 5th grade level, the blood drains from my being. How can we ever expect to produce a society of leaders, if the next in line leaders cannot even comprehend J.D. Salinger‘s classic The Catcher in the Rye or read a common newspaper article about current affairs (excluding the USA today, who’s reading level seems to be at the 5th grade level already). the dumbing down of our nations top newspapers has been happening for years, but with the current high school students graduating with only a 5th grade level, more newspapers will have to go from the current 8th grade level to a 5th grade level to keep readership.
“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader
Reading offers our minds the ability to grow, to exercise and to experience life outside of our own. Gives us insight into realities we may never have experienced, if not for the authors whom we choose to read. You want to improve your life, read, nothing else will give you as much result as that.
Paul Sposite
Guided Insight Life Coach
42.303780
-83.378959
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