Caps Lock: Capitalize on What Life Throws Your Way
March 23, 2015 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
You may not be able to control what comes your way, but you can control what you do with it. You know the old lemonade poem “if life hands you lemons, yadda, yadda, yadda”. Your confidence and energy will increase each time you successfully handle one of these situations. Take stock of your uniqueness, your strengths, your experiences, and your options to create the best opportunity for yourself. Capitalize on your circumstances to make a difference in the world or in your local community. Don’t dwell on what has been in the past; start fresh from today to make a difference in your circumstances.
Look at what you can learn from each of your experiences. It’s up to you whether you see each of your experiences as positive or negative and your choice of perception has everything to do with the outcomes of you capitalize on your experience. When you find yourself in the middle of a life lesson, learn from it so you don’t have to keep repeating it in order to get the lesson. Instead of saying “why me”, ask yourself what can be gained or learned from the experience. Your brain will answer any questions you ask it, so make sure you are asking the right questions in order to capitalize on your situation.
Living Hartfully: Just Do It Now
March 4, 2015 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Are you consciously living with your heart and purposefully living Hartfully on a daily basis or are you waiting for the new mate, retirement, to lose weight, to find a new job, to quit your job, to start your business, for the kids to grow up or go to college, or to move cities? I’ve been very, very lucky to have great friends as role models who are living Hartfully and have shown me how to make moments count on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. I feel so blessed to have them in my life to show me the way. Most of them are older. I’m guessing my old soul is more attracted to souls older than mine to share their insight from a life well-lived. I’d like to pass along some insights from watching how my buddies move through life that gives me great ideas on how to live mine. I learn from clients, customers and close friends on how to be or not to be and I want to share their teachings.
Don’t wait. Do it now. Doesn’t matter about any outside circumstances, make it work. Many of my friends are already retired or have closed their businesses to play more and explore themselves and the world more. Greg went back to school at 62 to learn how to be a chef. He says most of the “kids” in his class are in their 20’s and want to know why he wants to get his chef’s certificate or degree or whatever it is he gets after months of chopping, sautéing, slicing and dicing. He said it’s the joy of knowing how to do the art well. He’s doing it for the sheer joy of cooking and the confidence of knowing he’s learning how to do it well. There’s no other outside influence. He had a cancer scare recently and took a semester off and is now back in the kitchen. Funny how those wake-up calls make things clear. His wife Kathie recently closed her business after 26 years and is pumping up the volume of leisure pursuits in her life such as yoga, beach walking, hooping, starting a writers club and a book club, kayaking and travel.
I’ve recently lost my friend Karen to cancer. We met in a mastermind group called a Success Team in Germany around 25 years ago. It was Greg’s wife, Kathie who started the group of women and we all remain friends after all these years. Karen was very healthy, ran daily, her husband retired and started a travel company and they travelled well. She was still working when cancer struck and she fought valiantly for several years and lost the fight last Fall. She had never retired. She got sick while working long hours. She was looking forward to retiring some day and travelling more with her husband on his fabulous trips. That never happened.
My BFF Barb is my adventure travel buddy. We met at ski club in Germany nearly 30 years ago and share the same passion for exotic adventure travel, experiencing new discoveries, and doing things most women just don’t do. We’ve sailed the Greek Islands in a small sailboat, hiked for days in the Austrian Alps, survived horse-packing in Ireland in driving rainstorms, and skied all over the world in blizzards and dirt-laced slopes. Barb’s life purpose is to follow her passion and share it and that she does very well. She’s a great role model for me. More about our adventures and our lessons learned in future posts. She’s decided that she’s reached her point of enoughness, is retiring early and bought a tugboat to live on and sail around America’s inter-coastal waterways and throughout the Caribbean. Guess who’s tapped to help her through some of the stretches? Ahhhhhh, it’s nice to have a friend with a boat. She’s going to do it while she’s young enough and healthy enough. She just met a woman who is 85 and sails her own boat around seeking great adventures. Doing things while we’re healthy is so important.
Barb and I recently sailed on the Queen Mary 2 for a Trans-Atlantic crossing from New York City to Southampton. It was on both of our Hot 100 Lists to do one day and we decided a few months ago was the time. We were the youngest ones on the ship by a couple decades. I was wondering why they all waited so long to do it. Then after lots of shipboard conversations, found out this was not their first time for many of them. There are some who spend months on ships to see the world and have their meals served to them and be entertained and meet new people. This is a lifestyle and not a one-time cruise. Hmmmmm, new ideas spring into my head as to what retirement can look like. We thoroughly enjoyed the white gloved high tea service and I could certainly get used to that. We also dined at Sardis in New York before hitting a Broadway play and experienced Times Square – something that we had wanted to do for a long time to have a quintessential New York evening on the town.
My other friend Sue is an Artist with a capital A. She is the most creative person I’ve ever met. She can sing, dance, act, paint, photograph anything, write and whatever else artsy fartsy you can think of. Sue has created a very cool life to suit her fancy. She combines all her talents and passions and does free-lance work in all the areas mentioned above. She also combines her travel writing with her photography and writes off her international travel as a business expense, sells her work which pays for her trip and enjoys once adventure after another – never a dull moment.
My friend Silvana is another explorer who never has a dull moment. She has travelled with her husband and daughter across country in an Airstream trailer doing speaking gigs and having her daughter test drive internships while they wrote a book about their adventures and teen internships about their experience. They’ve also travelled for several years around the nation sponsored by a non-profit setting up special events to raise awareness. She’s been on a reality TV show and her next adventure is to house-sit for several houses for several months in Europe so they can do more exploration in other countries. Free lodging, getting paid to travel, what’s not to love?
So what are you waiting for? What does Living Hartfully mean to you? How are you stepping up right now to live how your heart wants to live? Let me know of our adventures. I’m always looking for more role models who get it and I just may share your story.
Delete: Delete Internal & External Clutter
February 23, 2015 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
Have you ever known somebody who could just light up a room . . . when they left? Sometimes known as energy vampires, delete the people from your life who are overly judgmental about you, are not supportive, take more than they give, or who don’t believe in you. They will suck energy right out of you.
There are two types of clutter, internal clutter and external clutter. External clutter is anything around you that “bugs” you such as dusting, people who take more than they give, dirty laundry, unread newspapers and catalogs piling up, the tacky souvenir your neighbor brought you, or other stuff laying around that is visual pollution. This type of clutter distracts you and drains you by taking up your space. Especially draining is clutter left on the floor dragging you down with negative energy.
Internal clutter is such things as dishonesty, secrecy, deceit, debt, unfulfilled promises, worry, anxiety, fear, miscommunication, obligations, or any other “messalanea” which is clogging up your circuits to think freely and be charged up. Delete this emotional, intellectual, or physical baggage and watch your energy soar. There are umpteen books on Feng Shui and the art of de-cluttering and aligning your space to make the energy flow more freely. Check out the perpetual calendar in the back of the book Organized at Last: a Tip a Day to Keep Clutter at Bay by Pat Moore, The Queen of Clutter. Also see Appendix B for other things that drain our energy. Until you plug up some of those energy drains and delete them from your life, no amount of refilling and refueling will have any staying power. Take a good look at your internal and external clutter and delete those energy suckers in order to have a lasting affect on your personal energy and your stress levels.
Unload your excess baggage. Unburden your heart, your mind, and your space by unloading extra emotional and physical baggage you may have been carrying around. Take stock of philosophies, beliefs, behaviors, and the stuff that may have served you in the past that doesn’t make sense today. Take a look at the reasons why you do what you do – can it be streamlined? Review the reasons why you prefer a way of thinking or behave in a certain manner. Is it just a habit (perhaps a bad habit?) or a learned behavior taught by somebody whose behavior may or may not fit your personality or your lifestyle?
Letting go of material items or self perceptions that no longer fit you or benefit you allows for a fresh start and can also lighten the stress load. Be prepared that a change in patterns may cause some uncertainty and stress at first. Sometimes the excitement and enthusiasm for creating a better way and a lighter life outweighs the stress that may accompany the change. Moving through the change at a pace that you are comfortable with and at a pace where you can assimilate it easily into your life will help ease the stress of the change and newfound energy will be a benefit to your life.
Simplify your life and toss out stuff associated with bad memories or junk. Better yet, don’t buy it in the first place and you will save your money/life energy and help the cause against unfettered consumerism and overuse of our natural resources. The same goes for junk food, over-packaging, and junk mail.
Contact the direct mail and telemarketing firms to have your name taken off their lists. For pre-approved credit card offers, call 888.5.OPTOUT to cancel solicitation from all three credit reporting bureaus for two years or permanently. For direct marketing solicitations, including catalogs, coupons, and sweepstakes offers, sign up for The Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service at www.the-dma.org for $5 or for no charge if you send your request to Mail Preference Service, PO Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512.
Put yourself on the national Do Not Call Register to avoid those pesky telemarketers by calling 888.382.1222 or visit www.donotcall.gov. The cost of saving junk is skyrocketing and takes its toll on your emotions and your wallet. Save your sanity and your spare time from their clutches. How much excess is in your life? What have your purged lately?
Invite Awe and Inspiration into Your Life – Use Your Vacation Days
February 4, 2015 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
At the dentist recently, I discovered that my dental hygienist hasn’t taken a vacation in 30 years. I nearly fell out of the dentist chair on the spot when I heard the sad news. The first words out of my mouth were not diplomatic, “What the hell is that about?” I was so incredulous, I lost all sense of decorum and social graces in that moment of shock. I really count not relate on any level to that statement of not taking time for yourself in 30 years. I guess I’ve been very, very fortunate to not relate to something out of my realm of understanding. If you’re going to be a good role model for your kids or your work team, or a good leader of any type of group, you need to be inspired. What are you doing to invite awe and inspiration into your life to keep you going and keep you interested and keep you interesting?
I live for exploration, discovery, learning new things, seeing new sights and being awe-inspired every chance I get. I seek out beauty and inspiration, and surround myself with what I love as often as I can in daily life to keep the happy factor pumped up. Taking inspirational vacations is one of my favorite past times. These can be mini weekend get-aways, an overnight in a cool place, an afternoon at a local haunt, a multi-week extravaganza, or a multi-month sabbatical. I just don’t understand people who lose vacation days each year because they never took time off. This is your time, you’ve earned it. You deserve to refresh, recharge and get inspired by adding a little awe into your life.
I recently returned from a holiday Caribbean cruise and though I’ve done many, many cruises; this one held some awesome and inspirational experiences for me. Kayaking has been part of my life for a few decades and I wanted to try something I’d never done. We went kayaking at night in a bioluminescent bay that glows with movement from the organisms similar to fire flies. There are over a million organisms per gallon and they each glow only once per night when they sense motion. So off we paddled through the bay into a canopy of mangrove trees that was so narrow and so dark, you could only see the glow sticks on the kayak in front of you, the glow of the water off your paddle and from the bottom of the kayak and the glow of schools of fish you paddled through or if they jumped. It was a very eery feeling to paddle by feel instead of sight. A new and awe inspiring experience. Only when the guide turned on his head lamp could you see the tree roots hanging down from the branches, the iguanas hanging from the branches and the crabs scurrying across the roots. The tunnel of mangrove branches opened in to a lagoon a few hundred acres in size and we free paddled around and played in the water. It looked like glowing glitter as it slid down your arm. It was such a natural treat, nothing like it. We were giggly, gleeful, amazed, and agog with wonder of this ecological experience.
Coming back to the ship, I experienced a couple other types of awe and inspiration. One was the after-dinner entertainment, which is usually quite cheesy. These guys had won America’s Got Talent national talent show and now had an act in Las Vegas – Recycled Percussion. They gave everybody in the audience drum sticks and things to bang on and they put on such a highly –charged show, there wasn’t a face in the place that didn’t have a smile. They also gave out ear plugs for the faint of heart. By the end of the show everybody was boogying to the rock and roll they remembered. It was awesome. The inspiration continued as we danced our way to the after party show with the BB King Blues Club All-Star Band. The best band I had heard in countless years. They had the ship rockin’. We enjoyed them so much, it was a nightly pilgrimage to wherever they were playing and I carried home a CD so I can recapture the inspirational sounds of the classic, funky blues music.
So it turns out that experiencing awe and inspiration can come in many forms. I just Skyped with a friend in Germany who visited a surprise Monet exhibit never before shown to the world in a mansion outside of Paris. Hearing about it and experiencing it through her was vicariously inspiring. Make your list for the year – what do you want to do to invite awe and inspiration? Add these things to your Hot 100 List – you know the list I’ve been writing about for years. Your annual exercise to write down 100 things you want to have, do or be. Next on my list of awe and inspiration is experiencing the aurora borealis in Iceland and seeing Machu Picchu. What’s next for you?
Pause/Break: Take a break to enjoy yourself, your partner, your pet, your co-workers, your family. . .
January 23, 2015 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
A pause for the cause does wonders for your productivity and your soul. Slow down on that super highway or get off the beaten path and find a trail. The mind, body, and spirit all need downtime to refresh, relax, recuperate, rejuvenate, recreate, and regenerate for what lies ahead.
After the pause, you will come back with more vigor and vitality to take on life. Employers have found that allowing workers to telecommute, job share, or have a flexible work schedule to accommodate other facets of their lives will improve loyalty, dedication, productivity, and focus at work. Work-life balance and mental health breaks are critical to our health and the health of an organization. Performance research from the Swiss Polytechnic Institute shows that when workers perform a task for longer than 20-30 minutes straight, the time they need to solve the problem increases by 500%. It would be wise to take a short break at least each hour to improve your concentration, your productivity, and your problem solving ability.
Other studies have found that if you perform an activity that uses the opposite side of the brain than the side you have been using for the task, the benefits are even greater when you come back to your task because you have let that side of your brain take a break. Studies out of the National Recreation and Park Association show that even short leisure moments in your day build resilience to future stress.
Why not incorporate your pet into your break. Animals significantly contribute to your peace of mind and playfulness. Pet popularity has been on the increase and their psychotherapeutic affects are long-lasting. Our “best friends” can give us a boost like no other with their unconditional love and affection. My newly-adopted doxi, Fozzi, is proof positive of the positive affects of pets.
Research indicates the positive effects of pet therapy and the calming, yet energizing effect pets have on the people around them. Stroking them and being around their happy dispositions create a positive connection, adding joy to people’s lives. Their only reason for being is to enjoy life. Why not take a queue from our animals? Have you ever noticed how excited your pet is to see you after you’ve been gone all day? Do your kids, your spouse, or your family members exude a similar reaction? Why not try being as enthusiastic with your greetings as your pet and watch the reactions to your newfound energy.
Matt Weinstein’s book How to Work Like Your Dog is a great read on how to lighten up and be more like your pet.
The 6 Tools to Happiness
January 4, 2015 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
We’ve been sold a bill of goods for what we believe will bring happiness. Most of these false assumptions center around consumerism and buying your way to supposed happiness through wealth. One of the leading scientists in the study of happiness, Dr. Ed Diener, interviewed 49 of the wealthiest people in America and found that their happiness levels were only slightly above average. Similar findings have been uncovered in happiness and wealth correlation studies of nations. Among the more economically advanced nations, America ranks sixth out of seven with Switzerland, Denmark and Canada ranking first, second, and third. Of course as you would expect, the least wealthy countries were also the least happy. There is a moderate ground to seek – enough wealth to take us out of direct need but not so much as it leads to distraction. It what Vicki and Joe Dominguez termed “the Point of Enoughness in their 1990’s book.
Another study by a preeminent happiness researcher, Dr. David Myers showed the percentage of people in America from 1956 to 2000 pretty much flat-lined as their disposable income skyrocketed up since around 1960. What these studies indicate is that money not only can’t buy you love, but it can’t buy happiness past a certain point of enoughness. Of course all the advertisers and manufacturers out there try to convince us that if we buy their product, then we’ll be happier. It’s simply not true, yet we buy into it every time we make a purchase of something not out of necessity. We are all living proof of the grand conspiracy if we have closets, drawers, and garages stockpiled with things we can live without. I can’t even count the number of people I saw this holiday season walking around carrying flat-screen TV boxes. It was really quite a sobering sight.
Here are six tools offered to you according to the book What Happy People Know to help dig out of the consumerism daze and lead you on the true path to satisfying happiness:
- Appreciation is the most fundamental happiness tool as it is the purest, strongest form of love. Research has shown that it is physiologically impossible to be in a state of appreciation and gratitude and fear at the same time. Love and gratitude are stronger than fear because they are products of the neocortex and not the lower brain. Something I’ve posted about in the past and will share again is the simple reply one of my spiritual leaders suggested in response to the ubiquitous greeting, “how are you?”, is to answer “Grateful, thank you. And you?” If you stop and think about how many times a day you are asked the question “How are you?”, you can only imagine how often you will disperse to the universe that you are grateful. It is a great way to remind yourself to remain in a state of appreciation.
- Choice, the book says, is the father of freedom and the voice of the heart. When we have no sense of choice, we feel deprived, defeated, and in despair which leads to depression, anxiety and a condition called learned helplessness. We have choices and most of the happy people have consciously chosen their path, while unhappy people tend to choose fear and give in to that automatic sense of fleeing or freezing. Use your intellect and spiritual senses and make wise choices. It reminds me of what Anthony Robbins teaches; you don’t have a money problem, you have a lack of ideas problem. You have choices.
- Personal Power is similar to character that gives you control over your feelings, your actions, your thoughts, your behavior and your fate. Take 100% responsibility for your actions and I do mean 100% responsibility to avoid victim status of what happens for you, not to you. When you have a good sense of personal power, you’re secure with who you are and what you have and are immune to what others say, think or do to you.
- Leading with your strengths and being bigger than your challenges and situations without giving in to fear. Taking a truthful assessment of your strengths and leading with them feels good and allows us to conquer everyday challenges and builds self-confidence. Success leads to bigger success and it continues to spiral up and out.
- The power of language and stories to create our world is a heady stuff. We don’t describe the world we see, we see the world we describe. How do you describe your life? What is your life story? What old stories are you hanging onto that you’ve outgrown? Language has the power to alter perception. What kind of language do you use? Are you saying you have to, want to, or get to do something? What message is that sending to your sub-conscious and to your body? The stories of our lives and the stories we tell ourselves become our lives – how do you see your life? What spin are you putting on the experiences in your life and the actions you take? We have the power of choice to tell healthy stories or horror stories.
- Multidimensional living which embraces three main components of relationships, health, and purpose, which is usually our work. Make sure you are putting energy into all three areas. Usually if we are unhappy, we discover we’ve put too much energy into one area or not enough in the other areas and our lives get lopsided. Because of our fear of scarcity and not feeling that we have enough, let alone not be enough, most Americans focus more on their work. I say work instead of purpose because in my work experience, most people have no clue as to their personal purpose. We can help you discover that very easily if you’re interested – it’s in your personal GPS system, Genetic Purpose System in your fingertips. We’re all born with our purpose and it was formed in utero for us. We just need to decipher what it is, but I digress….. Many research studies have concluded that we simply have this scarcity fear burned into our brains. Face the facts of the studies that no matter how much you have, you won’t feel that it is enough and then decide to be happy no matter what.
Just accept that we generally won’t feel we have enough and stop waiting to accumulate enough, whatever enough is for you, and make a decision to be happy with what you have. Enjoy the now and practice the six tools to happiness and the other guides to happiness over the past year and have fun re-creating happiness in your life. Happy New Year – may you be more happy this year than last and even happier next year as you practice the steps.
-: Negative Energy is 11 Times More Powerful Than Positive Energy
December 23, 2014 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
It was Einstein who said that negative energy is 11 times more powerful than positive energy, so we must work very hard to overcome the negativity which would naturally take over. The law of entropy states that everything will break down over time without work or force applied to it (i.e. cars, relationships, communication, and mechanical items). Just look at what would happen in your garden if it were left unattended. The weeds just take over, while it takes careful cultivation to grow flowers or fresh produce.
Watch out for those weeds in your head and cultivate the positive forces that it takes to overcome the energy drain of negativity. Worrying and fear exhaust you and take their toll on your physical and emotional well being. Acknowledge that the negativity is alive, but don’t become a slave to its powers. Become aware of those whose outlook is negative and prepare statements to deflect their negative energy such as gossipers, nay-sayers, or worry warts.
Better yet, try to avoid these types of people if at all possible and surround yourself with positive, supportive people with a different perspective and upbeat outlook on life. The synergy is amazing when the positive forces of people collide.
Courage and confidence to deal with negativity get your juices flowing when you take on a risk and successfully navigate a positive outcome. Cultivating confidence to meet your challenges is very powerful and a successful bout brings on even more adrenaline. Start with what you’re good at, then keep expanding, learning, and practicing to increase both courage and confidence.
Positive self-talk instills courage, then take the leap . . .feel the fear and do it anyway. Sometimes others have more confidence in you and can give you courage and support. Enlist their honest assessment for energy interventions. These supporters can keep you going strong. Whether it’s an official mastermind group, a success team, a personal board of directors, or just an informal circle of friends who care about you. Asking for input and inspiration from your support network can help you gain the courage, confidence, and clarity to move you forward past the powerful stressful issues that may be blocking you.
Happiness is a By-Product: The 12 Qualities of Happiness
December 8, 2014 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Instead of the 12 days of Christmas, we’re talking about the 12 Qualities of Happiness as referenced in the book What Happy People Know. Happiness flows as a by-product from these qualities and is a much more positive by-product than those we are generally used to. Cultivate the following qualities and you will also be cultivating happiness. The more qualities you embrace; the more happiness springs forth and the more fear is pushed out of your life.
- Love is the opposite of fear both emotionally and neurologically. The antidote to fear is love and is the first step towards happiness.
- Optimism provides power over painful events and offers power over fear of the future and over regret for the past.
- Courage overcomes fear and helps you rise above the situation. Both fear and courage are pre-programmed into the neocortex of our brains. Courage is the quality that helps us survive and thrive.
- Freedom of choice
- Be Proactive and participate in your own destiny – create your future and your legacy.
- Security in who you are no matter what. Security in knowing that nothing lasts and that security is an inside job – not anything extrinsic which can be lost at any minute.
- Health and happiness are interdependent – we need both to sustain the other.
- Spirituality and the tranquility it brings to not be concerned about death but more concerned about not living fully.
- Altruism aids in giving you purpose and getting outside yourself – giving vs. getting mind-set.
- Perspective to see shades of gray and having the sense to turn problems into possibilities by not losing sight of the big picture in bad times.
- Sense of Humor to help shift our perspective.
- Sense of Purpose and knowing why you’re here on Earth. Doing the things you were meant to do. Did you know that we are all born with a life purpose? It is established in our fingerprints in utero and can be deciphered so you know exactly what you are supposed to be doing. If you’re interested in having a reading and knowing your true purpose through your personal GPS (Genetic Purpose System), contact me for details: Gaia@GaiaHart.com.
So why not cultivate these characteristics over the next few weeks. Why not take on some of them as your New Year’s challenge and see what happens next. I’m guessing a bit of happiness will come your way.