Tag Archives: wholistic coaching

When I learned one of the biggest life lesson

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As a kid and teenager, things happened effortlessly.  Even in my twenties, they did, but the flow was slowing down.

The gist is life is the perfect orchestrated teacher in the best, well furnished University called life.  It will give you everything you need, provide you with with every sort of warnings, classes, tests, experiments, etc for you to develop your latent inner talent.  The rest is up to you.  And therein lies the crux of our frustrations.

I Just Didn’t Appreciate It.  Growing up in a pink rosy world where everything is perfect makes it hard to fully appreciate what you have.  You may be aware of less fortunate than you and have a certain sense of feeling lucky, but true appreciation is usually out of grasp.  After all, you never witnessed hardships.  Slowly life sends you signals.  If you don’t heed to the signals, it sends you obstacles.  Any normal human being compensates with renewed ardor and marches onward.  At some point, if you do not hear, life deals you powerful blows.

Serious Obstacles Are Our Greatest Teachers.  It wasn’t until I re3ached my 30s that things changed.  While I easily commended wealth into my life, it was becoming harder and more difficult.  It peaked when I lived in Japan when I had the perfect balance… the only problem is that I wasn’t aware of it.

Learning To Be Aware As You Move Through Life.  For us gifted children, things come easily and that can be a problem if you just go through the motions, enjoying the relative ease of life.  I went through life enjoying it but not appreciating it.  It came easy and I had little respect for the mechanics and architecture of its wisdom.  I eventually hit a wall and reeling in form it.

In hindsight, I now understand and appreciate how easy things fall into place in my life.  I also can appreciate what goes into it and behind events.  It’s a mixture of happiness at observing the ease and a deep appreciation that extends to full awareness and praises for the great work behind it.

In the end, even the most carefree develop a taste of respect for what comes naturally…

The beauty of Dzogchen

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The more I read about Dzogchen, the more I love it.

The gist is have you ever found something that seem to wake up old memories?  Something learned a very long time ago, something so familiar just reading about it, talking about it fills you with a warm sense of joy and belonging?  That’s how I feel when I think of Dzogchen, read about it and talk to someone about it.

The Ultimate Paradigm.  Whereas religions and philosophies mostly start with how low and unworthy you are, Dzogchen starts with the perfectness that you are within.  The tricky part is accessing it and maintaining it.  Instead of working its way up to some unknown lofty state of mind, it starts directly at the desired state, that ultimate inherent perfection.  Instead of giving harsh regiments of strict meditation techniques, it uses secondary practices, such as meditation, pujas and whatever helps you maintain that state.

One, Two, Three, The End.  Like a well written novel, Dzogchen teachings start with a thorough but highly important setting, or foundation, or even better, introduction.  It follows with the practice and ends with the fruit of the result.

For more information, read books by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and of course, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu.  You can also visit, The Gyalshen Institute, The Treasuries of Lives, the Rigpa wiki.

How to live a balanced life anywhere

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Watching the movie: “The Science of Healing with Dr. Esther Sternberg” made me smile.  Western medicine is discovering the virtues of traditional Mediterranean healthy living…

The gist is many of us know intuitively or by having lived abroad that a healthy involves a life/work balance.  That documentary approaches that topic well.  Dr. Sternberg discovers a century old way of living and it health benefit.  In other word balancing work, play, eat, enjoy and rest makes for a healthy life.

It’s interesting to see the paradigm shift currently happening.  On the one hand, there well established business 1.0 companies making a fortune on consumers not living well, eating poor food and treating ailments.  What happens when more people become vegetarians, vegan and eat organic or local produced foods?

It will be a few interesting upcoming years…

Marketing yourself… your self!

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I’ve always felt uneasy with marketing tactics as the current trend aims to show anyone as experts in any fields, regardless of reality.

The gist is according to the current market criteria, you must pick a category  and stick to it, even if down the road you change course.  But why?  In the marketing logic, once people see you as an expert and specialist, you’re on your way up.  Why is that important?  Experts get all the attention.  However, the problem remains that when experts get it wrong, the card castle crumbles down.  A current example of this is why our so-called experts and leaders in the case of our global economy and their shoddy predictions. The problem with yesterday’s marketing tactic was to bring someone up into the limelight as quickly as possible without making sure that person, or system was the “real deal”.  Marketing managers and their companies have little professional pride in what they.  If they did, they wouldn’t leave such a mess behind.

Who Do I Attract?  The very first step before gearing up your marketing suit is to do serious soul searching.  Who am I in regards to my field and why do I do the things I do?  Starting from that, it will be easier to see if your marketing message and fervor is in alignment with your true self and purpose.

The Generalist Specialist.  Current marketing trends don’t want you to label yourself as a generalist.  But what about those generalist specialists?  Your household doctor is such a person and sends you to the right specialist after examining you.  So don’t beat yourself up if you are a general specialist.

Personally, I work with people who are not satisfied with business as-is and want to beyond learned methods.  They want to think outside the box and cement the foundations of that all new business 2.0.  It’s about time, business 1.0 is over…

Self Help, great but pople don’t think they need help…

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Self Help has been all the rage for the past few decades but a reality check still shows, most people don’t think they need help.

The gist is indeed, people understand something is amiss but the reaction is to work more, harder and earn more money.  Last I checked, money does not bring happiness automatically, you work on making money to make you happy.  A trick and feast onto itself.

Self Help, But What For?  And exactly what is meant by Self Help anyway?  We help ourselves by working and sustaining our lives on this planet, but that doesn’t offer a complete vision of what is meant by Self Help.  Self Help is really about answering those nagging life long questions that aim to answer the root core, who am I and what am I here for.

My Self Help.  We should have a phone app called My Self Help.  It would remind you to take time to meditate.  It would give you subtle cues when the day’s perpetual motions drags you down the road to more and more tasks to attend to and situations to solve.  It’s an abyss that drags us down the road to self denial.

My Self Help App would also give you something to ponder upon, such as: “Is what I am doing here and now conducive to my highest fulfillment?” but add to it, the answer doesn’t matter, awareness is key.

All in all, the greatest Self Help I know is to ask question with a constant curiosity about life, yourself and how you fit it in all.  Answers are deeply, deeply personal.

No need for the pervailing sense of fear in our daily lives

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If you look back on the short history of marketing and advertising over the past 5 decades, one thing stands out, the messages are getting stronger and downright brutal.  People are starting to live with a sense of impending doom and daily fear.

The gist is when we look around, there surely is very little to fear in life.  If the only fear we should fear is fear itself, then what happens behind the closed doors of corporations and governments is where the real fear is created and managed.

Show Me A Peace March!  The knee jerk reaction to fear is predictable but also, avoidable.  We don’t need to watch the news if all the news shows is violence, more violence and only that.  Real life is much more subtle and there is more positive in the world than marketers and then media shows.  So why all the upheavals?

Disaster sells.  Impending doom and fear sells.  While it is easy to see why companies abuse the message and generously court politicians, it is also very easy to see that what they are creating is unsustainable.  People all around the world are realizing something is amiss, from the courageous citizens in Arab countries to you and me.  Surely we realize politic track records over the pas decades haven’t been a success, the pharmaceutical industry hasn’t “cured” anything much and the financial wizards have driven global economies down the drain.

In the meantime, I still Ghandi said it best.  The revolution starts within, not without…  Fear is not something we need to live with every day.  An intelligent hopeful, yet realistic view of the situation is what saves the day.

Not being number 1, but understanding the real power of number 2

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There is a lot of wisdom and maturity around when we grasp the idea that number is good, but the real trick is what happens with number.

The gist is everyone wants to be number.  In a goofy kind of way, if everyone was number one, nothing would get done and nothing would happen.  The real power in number one is not so much to have the idea, trend or leading thought, but to have people who understand the value and create a movement out of it.  Simply put, number is nothing without number two, the one who recognizes the inherent value and translates it into a concrete movement.

Derek Siver at the TedxSocal had a powerful message accompanied by one of those videos that really drives the point home.

In essence, being number is where the real power lies. Often times, number one gets hit of intuition that can from anywhere, literally.  The receiver of the brilliant idea doesn’t always know how to translate it into a sustainable movement.  Case in point, look at most entrepreneurs and their lack of understanding when it is time to go or surround themselves with the right people.  That is number’s position, to seek out, understand and act upon it. In many ways, number is the thinking behind any movement.

What does it mean to be a man today?

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Picture: Nick Zart

I was stomped when asked what does it mean to be a man in today’s society.

The gist is there is no manual.  It surely can’t be the stereotype weight lifter at the gym, nor the attitude guy driving his car hand on the other side of the steering wheel.  Being a man today is much dynamic, with fuller depth and surely much deeper than meets the eye.  It has to be that inner most wisdome we have neglected over the decades.

What It Means To Be A Man Today.  A man today should be many things, including something most aren’t used to, deep, in touch with their inner wisdom and feelings.  Ancient societies provided young men rites of passage, today we have no such things but to sit down and think it through.

so What Is A Man, Then?  A man who acknowledges when wrong, one who knows with quiet confidence when right, one who uses wisdom and compassion wisely.  Most of these attributes I realized were found in Dzogchen, the purest esoteric form of Tibetan Buddhism… of all place.

Here is a passage I was reading this morning on Gyalshen: “Dzogchen practice gives us a clarity that is powerful enough to recognize that whatever emotion we experience, be it anger, depression, fear, or joy is not separate from the true nature of the mind. This recognition is wisdom.  It gives us the strength to leave things as they are. Our ability to leave things as they are reduces our subconscious attachment to the conditioning that judges or manipulates our emotions. We are accepting our feelings. We are becoming aware of what we are feeling right now, and we stop right there. We don’t allow that emotion to take over our life. We do not allow it to obscure the true nature of the mind and to become an obstacle.  ”

In other word, shouldn’t a “man” be one who accepts who he is without judgement, looks at what is front of him without preconceived notions, accepting his moods and feelings as that present moment, not more, and holding that space sacred so that what is to come happens untainted from expectations?  I’m going off on a limb here but I felt a strange sense of finding a clue in an ancient esoteric tradition about what it means to be a man.  Something worth while exploring for all those young guys without guidance.  I should know…

Imagines of me

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I wake up, blink my eyes a few times as I try to recall where am I, who am I.  You see, my dreams are as vivid as what we call reality.

The gist is moving through life, we need a certain amount of self image if we are to interface and communicate with others.  The problem is that self image might not be accurate, nor are others, which can explain a lot of the current problems we run into.

Self Image As A Starting Block.  We need to start somewhere in the road to self discovery, the trick is to not take it at face value, nor take our embellished self image seriously.  We are born naked and often exit the same way, with ourselves.

While we it is equally possible to say that all is illusion, therefore nothing is real, we can always remind ourselves of this proven fact, an illusion hurting another still hurts.  The trick is maintaining that careful balance of putting one foot forward into the unknown, with a hefty amount of unknown and self illusion.  After all, we must start somewhere.

In many ways, we are like computers computing for an impossible answer with little to false data.  Ours is a strange quest and yet the answers as so simple once we fear not what lies within us.

The problem with advice is…

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Tap The Source

Tapping the source for better decision making

You pay the price…  whether success or failure follows, it’s really up to you.

The gist is friends and acquaintances are well meaning and everyone wants everyone to be happy.  Thus, finding advice is easy.  Following is not simple.  So, should you?

Choosing when and how to listen to advice, as well as when to discard it is an important skill that can bring you to the road of success, or complete failure.  Take for example these 5 advices given to Steve Jobs, head of the now very successful Apple computer company.  What would have happened had he followed them?

5. Invest heavily in Newton technology.

4. Apple should adopt Windows.

3. Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone.

2. Get out of the hardware game.

1. “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Apple has now more cash flow then the US government.  If are you facing an interesting situation and plenty of well meaning folks are ready to give you advice, should you follow them?  How about listening to everything but finding your own answers?  If you feel this paints an accurate portrait of who and where you are, then it’s time for a professionally trained coach to sift through the possibilities and unfold your potential… such as… well, Nick of course! :)

For more information: Business Insider.