In this amazing segment from our favorite mentalists, Derren Brown, he demonstrates how he uses neurolingustic programming to beat 9 chess players SIMULTANEOUSLY!
He'll even show you how it's done!
Absolutely incredible!
Ever find that your life goes through a series of ups and downs? Well, some scientists believe that our physical, emotional, and intellectual selves are governed by cyclic patterns known as Biorhythms. Based on these predictions, you might be able to predict your body's natural cycles by using Biorhythm software.
Did you know it's possible to synthesise your own happiness?. Dan Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard, discusses modern man's pursuit of happiness in this scintillating video. He first shares Sir Thomas Browne's view written way back in 1642:
"I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me." - Sir Thomas Browne 1642
We think happiness is something we find, BUT it's something we synthesise for ourselves. Take the example of Pete Best - if you don't remember who he is or was or could have been - he was the original drummer in the Beatles that got dropped on tour for Ringo Starr.
"I'm happier than I would have been with The Beatles" - Pete Best
Dan also shares the story of a guy who was falsely imprisoned for 37 years for a crime he didn't commit. Moreese Bickham, 78 years old when when he was released Speaking of his experiences in prison the guy says . . .
"I don't have one minutes regret, it was a GLORIOUS experience"
GLORIOUS, I repeat GLORIOUS! Dan goes on to back up these remarkable findings . . .
Daniel Gilbert is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research with Tim Wilson on "affective forecasting" investigates how and how well people can make predictions about the emotional impact of future events.
Dan has won numerous awards for his teaching and research—from the Guggenheim Fellowship to the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology. However, he says that his greatest accomplishment is that he appears just before Dizzie Gillespie on the list of Most Famous High School Dropouts.
Dan's research has been covered by The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, Money, CNN, U.S. News & World Report, The New Yorker, Scientific American, Oprah Magazine, Psychology Today, and many others.
He lives in Cambridge Massachusetts with his wife and a lack of pets.
- Stumbling Upon Happiness Named #1 on Amazon for category Mind, Body and Soul >>
In this highly entertaining TED talk Barry Schwarz talks about the paradox of choice in modern society.
He asks the question . . .
Is the massive amount of choice a good or a bad thing in modern society?
Apparently the answer is YES. This doesn't make a lot of sense so it's probably best that we let Barry explain:
Many women let their self esteem be affected by the stereotype that media created of a perfect woman.
Many of them become obsessed with becoming this idea created by business people that does not exist in the real world.
The real intention of media is to push women's self esteem down so women can buy their products to push their self esteem back up again.
However, women do not realize that they are all beautiful because they are all real. Mothers, sisters, wives, etc with big hearts and love are the ones that we all should really admire. They are our real models that deserve to be followed.
Editor's Note: The Capacity of our mind to learn new subject matter and subject matter which is extremely difficult to grasp is truly staggering. However, are we using the right methods to learn to our full potential?
I found an article on a very alternative approach to learning which after racking my brains for ages makes perfect sense. I'm sure after you read this article it will make sense to you as well. Just think about it - there are so many pitfalls we fall into if we can't grasp a hard topic - for example, reading and reading and READING over the same material.
Let's get the scientific aspect out the way:
Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values and wisdom. It is the goal of education, and the product of experience.
Thinking can be thought of as a network of neurons firing in a very specific pattern. As neurons are used, they become thicker and more permanent. It follows then, that the stronger the stimulation, and the more common the stimulation, the more likely the stimulus is to be remembered. More so, memory comes easier when multiple parts of the brain (such as hearing, seeing, smelling, motor skills, touch sense, and logical thinking lobes; informal names given) are stimulated.
There's the technical side - let's look at the alternative learning methods article:
Here's a strategy I've found useful for learning dry and difficult material quickly. At various times, I've used it to build up my knowledge of subjects like economics, investing, writing and computer programming languages. Some people have been surprised at how fast I can learn these kinds of skills, but I think anyone can do it with the right plan. Of course, you can use this to teach yourself interesting things as well, but most people don't have any problem learning stuff that's fun.
Okay, here are the steps...
Many people try to slowly and methodically digest difficult material. They underline things and re-read paragraphs ten times to try and understand. This approach might eventually work, but most people get fed up with it and give up before finishing. Our brains hate this way of learning.
Instead, try to get through the material as quickly as possible. Don't worry if you don't understand everything, just keep reading on. Push yourself to get the damn textbook finished, and don't worry too much about how much you take in.
Skip any exercises or quizzes and just keep ploughing through.
Some people can read an entire textbook in a couple of sittings, but not me. I like to digest 10-20 page chunks, then go and do something else for a while to give my brain a rest. If you do this three or four times a day, you can finish a 600 page textbook in about two weeks.
The only time I stop to go back is if there's some key concept that's being repeated a lot and I don't know what it means. Then, I might allow myself to read a key paragraph or two on that topic, but no more. Otherwise I just challenge myself to get through the book as quickly as possible.
Once you've finished the text, think about what the key concepts were. Don't concentrate on the details at this stage, just identify the core ten or so ideas that form the basis of the subject. Look them up again and try to define them as simply as you can. Putting them in your own words, with an example, rather than learning by rote is important.
For example, The Economist defines the concept of Opportunity Cost as: "The true cost of something is what you give up to get it. This includes not only the money spent in buying (or doing) the something, but also the economic benefits that you did without because you bought (or did) that particular something and thus can no longer buy (or do) something else. "
So you could say to yourself: "Opportunity cost means not being able to spend your resources on one thing because you've already spent them on something else. I can spend my Saturday night doing homework, which means the opportunity cost is that I can't spend that time going to the movies."
Most facts and figures can be looked up. Don't fill your mind with junk trivia that's only a mouse-click away. Instead of the raw data, concentrate on understanding the ideas of a subject.
However, in any topic, there are some things that simply must be memorized. Cut the list of these down as much as possible, so you're only remembering that which absolutely and definitely has to be remembered.
There are all sorts of memory tricks around, but the one I find most useful is pretty simple. I just repeat out loud the thing that has to be remembered ten times or so. Then, I wait until later in the day and try to remember it again. If I can't, I look it up and repeat it out loud again. Then I wait for later and try to remember it again - and so on. Usually, you can burn a fact into your brain pretty quickly using this method.
Now that you've filled your head with stuff, it's time to get some feedback on how well you've understood it. A good way is by doing some kind of mock-exam. You can find these for various subjects on-line, or you might want to try some of the exercises in the textbook.
Again, break this dull task up into chunks if necessary, doing a few different tests over a few days.
You'll probably find that you did pretty badly when you mark yourself. After all, you raced your way through the text. But if you look up the questions that you got wrong, you should amaze yourself at how quickly you start getting a detailed knowledge of the material.
What you're trying to do is build up a framework of the subject in your mind and then fill in the details. This will probably be pretty fuzzy at first, but clarity usually comes quickly as you teach your brain how the concepts are related.
The important thing is not getting the answers right, but looking up what you got wrong and learning it. Do this as quickly as possible. Try to avoid reading whole chapters unless you feel you absolutely need to.
Now is the time to get some information from other sources. Often, hearing something in a different way helps me to understand it better. It also gives some flexibility to my comprehension.
I'm not suggesting reading another whole textbook. Instead read a few short articles on the subject in magazines and on websites.
Now's the time to get some real-world feedback. If you've learnt a language, try speaking to a native in it. If you've taught yourself anatomy, try having a discussion on the subject with a doctor.
The best real world feedback of all is if you attempt to use your knowledge for fame or fortune (on a small scale of course). Throw yourself in the deep end, in other words. Join a discussion board on the subject and pick an argument with one of the participants. Or try to get paid employment using your new knowledge.
So there they are, my six steps for learning a difficult subject quickly. Of course, the actual amount of time it takes depends on how much work you put in, but this is the most efficient method I've found in terms of understanding achieved compared to time and effort spent. Usually, I can get a good broad understanding of a topic in a month or two using this method.
This remarkable story is testament that anybody in life can achieve anything they set their mind to no matter what their circumstances are. This video will give you such a warm feeling - it's not to be missed!
In this video an autistic high school basketball manager, who is used to feeling different his whole life, gets his shot in the limelight by coming off the bench for the last 5 minutes of a ballgame.
The events that unfold are nothing short of staggering as he stuns his high school friends by shooting 6 three pointers in the space of 4 minutes. Witness the jubilation of the whole hall as a kid with hardship and learning difficulties throughout his life reaches the top of the world!
Steve Pavlina recently had the pleasure of interviewing James Ray of the Secret. James was most recently on the Oprah Winfrey Show where he discussed the Law of Attraction.
I’m delighted to present this exclusive interview with James Ray, President and CEO of the multi-million dollar corporation James Ray International and cast member of the increasingly popular movie The Secret.
Last week James shared his insights on the Law of Attraction on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and previously he appeared on Larry King Live with other cast members of The Secret. Most remarkable is that he credits these appearances to the Law of Attraction itself, the manifestation of intentions he set in motion six years ago.
James has devoted over two decades to studying the thoughts, actions, and habits of those who possess true wealth in all areas of their lives. He has studied and been exposed to a wide diversity of teachings and teachers — from traditional college and the schools of the corporate world, to the ancient cultures of Peru and Egypt, and the jungles of the Amazon. As a coach and mentor, James has taught thousands of individuals and organizations to create harmonic wealth in all areas of their businesses and lives. Because of his comprehensive and integrated background, James considers himself a “practical mystic,†and he seeks to share this unique way of living with individuals around the world.
In this exclusive interview, James shares his insights into the Law of Attraction; the relationship between wealth and spirituality; and the power that comes from creating alignment between our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
More Articles on the Secret and James Ray:
Oprah Interviews the Cast of the Secret
James Ray Articles
How to use precognition in everyday life? Does it even exist? And if it does indeed exist, is it's accuracy strong enough to be of commercial use? This article from Phenomena Magazine provides some interesting insights on how some people are claiming to make money with precognition.
Have you ever had a dream about stock market investing that came true and earned you a significant sum of money?
If so, you may qualify to become a member of a prosperous and exclusive club of precognitive dreamers who intuit the movement of individual stocks and the market as a whole, then share their dreams with each other on a website.
Prospective members are first evaluated by a retired chemical engineer, Walt Stover of Arizona, who founded the stock precognition group in 1998. Its original members came from the Association for Research and Enlightenment based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the organization dedicated to a study of information from the Edgar Cayce readings.
After screening by Stover, prospects then must share at least three stock market dreams with the group, now numbering 21 persons. Their dream performance helps to determine whether they will be admitted to the group.
In a recent interview with me, Stover revealed some details about their individual and group success in tracking the market. During 2002, for instance, the group had nearly a dozen dreams that were interpreted to be bullish about the market’s overall performance in 2003. In response, Stover invested heavily in stocks that he selected from his own dreams and held onto them throughout that year.
Stover’s stock portfolio performance in 2003 turned out, in his words, “to be staggeringly profitable.†The stocks he selected for his IRA increased in value by 52 percent. Other members of the group also reaped huge profits, though they are normally reticent about touting their successes to each other.
In early 2004, five members of the group had memorable dreams in which they saw oil prices rising sharply and suddenly. Most group members promptly bought oil futures, and when oil prices surged a few weeks later, they saw the value of their futures increase by 400 percent.
As a group these dreamers are somewhat diverse, though only three of the 21 are women. Most live in the U.S., two in Australia, four in Canada, and range in age from 30 to their late 70’s. Four have Ph.D.’s, one is a nurse, one a massage therapist, a construction superintendent, and a chiropractor, while most of the rest are retired from corporate or military professions.
Their techniques for ‘incubating’ precognitive stock and commodity market dreams may vary, but their interpretation of dream imagery closely tracks the ‘theme’ approach used by Edgar Cayce when he was alive. This involves taking the entire dream and condensing it down to a central theme that can be summarized in one sentence.
The distinction of being the most successful dreamer among group members, at least in terms of achieving millionaire status from a single dream, belongs to Dr. Arthur Bernard, a psychologist who teaches dreamwork to mental health professionals at seminars across the nation.
Dr. Bernard had a recurring dream about an obscure Biotech stock called ICOS, in which he saw the stock selling at $4 a share until it suddenly exploded in value. He trusted that this dream was precognitive because of how vivid and haunting it felt, and because he had encountered precognitive dreams before among his patients when he had worked as a therapist.
Eventually he bought about 40,000 shares of ICOS, using his entire life savings, at a time when the stock was priced in the $4 range. It soon became a gold mine. When he sold the shares in 1998, they were worth $28 each, which works out to about $1.6 million in profits.
If you decide to seek membership in this exclusive dream club, prepare to have your precognitive and intuitive abilities quickly tested. For the rest of you who are just curious, you can still access the group’s website at: http://www.stockdreams.org/ .
by Rick Reilly for Sports Illustrated Issue date: June 20, 2005, p. 88
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I’m lousy.
Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars — all in the same day.
Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much — except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life,†Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.â€
But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,†Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.â€
“Tell him a joke,†Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!†And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.â€
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker†who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,†Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.â€
That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,†he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!â€
And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
“No way,†Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?â€
How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,†he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling†he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 — only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
“No question about it,†Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.â€
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,†one doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.â€
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
“The thing I’d most like,†Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.â€
To see the inspiring website of Team Hoyt, go to: http://www.teamhoyt.com
For More Info - Watch a Video about Team Hoyt below:
A glimpse of the remarkable father-son bond of Dick and Rick Hoyt, and their inspirational journey together in a triathlon and life itself. The goal of Team Hoyt is to integrate the physically challenged into everyday life. One way to accomplish this is to educate the able-bodied, making them more aware of the issues that the disabled face every day. Another is by actively helping the disabled to participate in activities that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. Team Hoyt targets both of these areas. Song: "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me
Thanks to Healthbot.net for bringing this to our attention