Author Archive
Focus on Flow for Progress and Happiness
Posted by: | CommentsFlow is engaging in challenging activities that you can handle and forcing distractions out of your periphery. The result is not only your Peak Performance but your peak enjoyment.
The more activities or passions you can find to occupy your day, the more productive and happy you are going to be. Sounds simple, no? The other requirement of activities getting into flow is that you have practiced with some mastery the basic mechanics of those activities.
Flow occurs when your practice has advanced you into a state where you engage at your outer limits or where you are pushing the envelope of your capabilities but are not alarmed that you are in over your head. In other words, you have total confidence that you can achieve and your beta waves and adrenaline are at optimum levels.
The tri-fecta one person said is when you can engage in activities that you love, are good at, and that people will pay you to perform.
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I have posted regularly on websites for a few years, have written books and an now Writing for Water. I want to raise awareness that a billion people in our world wake up with out water. Then when they get the water, it is polluted and their families get sick and often die. It isn’t necessary. We don’t need a vaccine, we need money to drill.
$1 or $5 will bring drops of precious water to those who need us. The little girls bear the brunt of the burden because they are charged with getting the water so that others in their families can do other things. Therefore they don’t go to school. I have two daughters and it would break my heart if they had to live under those circumstances.
How do you feel? For less than a latte you can bring on some water.
http://MyCharityWater.org/KaalmMediaGroup
“Every Drop is Precious”
Giving Back Can Cure You
Posted by: | CommentsI happened to be blessed by living at the beach and having most everything I need. I also get to spend my days doing pretty much what I want. 
I know that in the last few years, the developed world has been reduced to its knees as people that had saved have less than half of what they had anticipated would be the silver lining on their Golden Years.
Its a losing of control that makes the lizard brain take control of our psyche. I have found that millionaires who still live lives we would envy are worried about their future and stay up nights thinking of their ruin.
The ancients said that God is a perfect giving machine and can’t receive. Therefore he/she needed a perfect receiving machine and the Universe and man have certainly become that. They also said that when man has realized his blessings, he may also want to give. That is his purpose.
Whether we have money or not we can still be in the giving mode where the lizard brain doesn’t rule. My neighbor is from India and has a software company that is writing programs for schools. He remembers when his asthmatic mom would walk a considerable distance to get a bucket of water for them and then make another trip to get more.
He is so appreciative of living here by the beach and for the first time living near water. He mentions the United States has never been poor. When you think about it from his perspective we know we have had bad times, but we have always had resources and snap back.
We have never experienced the poverty of India or Africa where there are more people than available resources and the government does not only not help, they often don’t care. They have zero safety nets. I was in India and the wealthy people would say, “What would you expect me to do?”
Rich is not a matter of how much money you have as much as whether you live in a giving mode or are afraid you have lost control.
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I recently became exposed to the problem that a billion people are in need of water and in need of clean water. The task to gathering water falls mostly on the shoulders of the young girls. They therefore don’t get to go to school and become doomed to a life of servitude. Having two daughters, I am a little more sensitive to this issue. The water they bring back from their source is polluted and they often get sick and die.
CharityWater.org is one organization that is raising money to alleviate the pain. Contributions go 100% to raising water. They have 6185 projects in force serving 2, 545, 000 people. Each $5,000 can drill one well that serves up to 250 people in a village, school, or clinic.
If you feel like contributing, my daughters and I have set up Writers for Water and would take a $5 contribution. A 1,000 contributions drills one well. A 1.000 $20 monthly contributions gives a 1,000 more people water each month.
Healthy Eating Promotes Quality Living
Posted by: | CommentsWe are in a mad dash for no where. Everyday is often madness for a large percentage of the population. It is a never ending treadmill. It has become more so since the melt down melted everyone’s cushion.
That which we thought was under control, turned out not to be. In fact, the one thing we can control maybe the most important. We can control how we feel. If we feel great, we might even tell people we are happy.
The number one ingredient to feeling great is what we put in our mouths. The more natural the input, the more connected the output. When we eat like the animals, we start feeling as vital as the animals. Health lifts our physical condition and our spirit.
Eating healthy puts our body in an alkaline state. This state builds immunity which resists sickness and then disease. Healthy food increases our ease of digestion which allows more energy to our brain. As our body rids itself of fat, the neurons in our brain have more fuel to be creative.
Now if we could add some exercise to burn muscle, our body would be able to perform in the perfect mode for which it was created. We are built to be powerful, energetic, spirited machines.
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If you want to assist the Billion people on earth who need water to get their mojo working and survive without water born illnesses, consider contributing to Clean Water Projects. $5 gets clean water to people who need it. http://mycharitywater.org/kaalmmediagroup
See the Results from a Sample Completed Project: http://mycharitywater.org/p/myprojectsview?project_id=ET.GOH.Q4.09.048.213
Dreaming for Solutions
Posted by: | CommentsEach morning when I sit to write my three different blogs, I often use the ideas that came to me in my sleep. I am not always sure at night if I am sleeping or if I awoke and the idea bubbled up from my subconscious while I am in the semi dream state.
The subconscious has a marvelous way of working with the information and facts our conscious brain gathered during the day or over the years. It often puts everything together in an organized fashion. You might think that someone sitting over in Universal Intelligence was watching what we were doing and slipped us the answer while we were sleeping.
Revelations and epiphanies come to us from our subconscious. The whole order or symphony arrives in our mind as though shipped from Amazon. Einstein said the Theory of Relativity was a revelation. Mozart said entire symphonies occurred in his mind before he wrote them down.
Samuel Coleridge said the Kubla Khan came to his mind and he wrote it down without ever changing a word. Mendeleev said the whole Periodic Table of Elements and Chemistry we studied in high school came in one flash.
In his book Finding Your Zone, Michael Lardon, M.D. says to incorporate your sleep into your daily performance, think about what you are working on before you retire at night. Chances are, if you have been working on something important it will come up in your subconscious while your consciousness rests. Be aware and if you enter that dreamlike state where you are aware you are thinking about it, let it run.
When I have a good idea, I get up and write it down. I would rather have the idea in the morning than have to spend a few hours trying to remember what it was. When I write, I can often slip into that same zone of my subconscious where ideas come instead of me laboring over them.
Being able to access your subconscious is where the Zone exists. Athletes that are in the Zone are engaging in an activity that they have practiced and no longer have to focus on the mechanics. They just let it happen without thinking. The conscious mind takes a back seat to the subconscious.
The subconscious is the seat of creativity. Sometimes exercise releases you from your conscious mind. Meditation might do it as well. Even a walk outdoors might allow your mind to wander. Learn how to access the subconscious, awake or asleep for more productivity and creativity.
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I am committed to write about Clean Water everyday for the next 80 days. It is part of a campaign to raise awareness for the Billion people on earth that have to walk for water and the water is polluted. It mostly affects little girls who then miss school and women who then can’t join the work force.
Not to mention that every 19 seconds someone gets dysentery, cholera, or other water born diseases. The money freed from medical expenses would buy books and free people up to earn money for food. Babies are most affected from drinking polluted water.
There is an international effort in process with experts on the ground drilling wells from money provided by donors. 100% of our money goes to drill wells and not for administrative expenses. 100% of the money is accounted for in the organization’s regular reports.
My short term goal is to raise $1,000 from people who will donate even $5 or commit to $20 a month. 3rd World Populations have no choice. We do have choice- we can help or not help. See my page… MyCharityWater.org
Fitness Can Make You Happy
Posted by: | CommentsEver hear of the runner’s high? After a certain period of exertion, the body is releasing chemicals that can make you happy as heroin, not that any of us have tried heroin. 
It can be so addictive that when I was in a Track Club, runners that had hurt their feet and were wearing a cast, would still run.
If runners sustained injuries that prevented running they would start riding bikes and join another club.
You just have to get past the initial pain of getting in shape. I have enjoyed running the wood stairs at the beach and gave it up to concentrate on surfing. Then inspired by my younger daughter’s new work out routine, I decided I should get back to running the stairs.
I am glad I have. Being outdoors, I can look at the beach and all the activity while I run up and down. Then there is the feeling of satisfaction of having gotten more fit. Then there is the great feeling of mellowness that follows a good work out.
If you sit too much and don’t burn any muscle, you are missing out on one of life’s great pleasures.
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Visit me on Face Book and see some photography of others exercising at the beach. Health Fitness and Happiness are closely connected.
I am gearing up to start a Campaign for Clean Water for the Billion people on earth who spend too much time a day collecting water that is polluted. The biggest sufferers are young girls who are tasked with walking for hours a day. This takes them out of school and as adults out of the work force.
Building Happiness to Cope with Loneliness
Posted by: | CommentsThere are days of the year and hours during the day when people feel isolated. This happens to people when family is away or when they are not working and everyone they know is occupied doing something else.
These are the hours you are by yourself. It is very difficult to live with your thoughts in isolation. Man is a social animal. We like to get feed back. We want to throw something out and get a reaction.
I have done a little TV work and talking while looking at a red light in a camera with no audience is very difficult. You need to see faces to see if they are laughing or even doubting or getting bored.
We have five senses that need to get exercised. They tell us we are alive. The other half of our existence is our subconscious and our intuition. We don’t give these two fellas credit, but they are more responsible for our behavior than our five senses. They interpret what the five senses detect and create our reaction.
Expressing ourselves is exercising our subconscious and our connection to the world beyond those senses. We reach deep into our consciousness for our essence and our connection to both nature and the Universal intelligence Scientists often give credit for our biggest breakthroughs.
We are connected not only to all living things, but to everything. Most matter is made of just a few basic components and man shares these with all living and non living things on earth which is part of the Universe.
Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon unite us with everything we see and sense. Water, air, earth share common components that makes us one with our surroundings. The single spec that exploded to create the Universe and the single cell that evolved to create all life have the intelligence that unite us with everything.
Time that we have to ourselves can be used to explore our connection to everything that surrounds us and even explore our expression of how we fit in. These times of seeming isolation give us an opportunity to reach out and in to reflect and enjoy how we are unique. Use the time to explore the outside and inside world and see what kind of feedback you receive.
We can love a lot of things in life.
People will come and go in our lives and the more we can understand our true essence as individuals, the more we will have to contribute to our loved ones when they return.
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Visit my Face Book page as I post photography on Beach Life plus articles on health, fitness, and happiness. I just posted a picture of a paddle boarder about to go 500 miles to raise our consciousness of the need for Clean water in undeveloped countries.There are causes that need our attention.
Your Mind is Free Floating
Posted by: | CommentsThe mind is not attached to the body like the brain or other organs. It sort of floats above and around the brain. The brain has lots of automatic functions, but it also does what the mind tells it. 
If its time to brush your teeth, the mind gives the brain the instructions and the brain carries out the command. If its time to exercise, the mind tells the brain the body needs its exercise shoes.
By the same token, the mind might tell the brain that the body is too tired to exercise. The seventh sense is listening to what your mind is saying and deciding if you want to follow it. On one of my exercise days when I was going to run my 40 stairs, my mind said by body was too tired.
I had just given my body a day’s rest and I didn’t think the message should be true, so I thought I would test it. After my normal twenty times up and down the stairs, I figured I would go for my often 40 times. After that, I thought I would go for my record 60 times. I was feeling alright so I thought I would push it to a new record. After 80 times, I stopped.
I figured I put my mind in its place and proved that sometimes it lies. Will power has to over come some of the minds messages. Getting control of our mind is often working with it to demonstrate that we are stronger and more capable than it would have us believe.
The mind resists leaving our comfort zone and change makes the mind uneasy. It will often try to sabotage our efforts. We can condition the mind to change by continuously changing and challenging. Progress requires stretching beyond what the mind thinks we can do comfortably.
If we want excitement we have to push the envelope. The more we do, the more the mind signs on to work with us and the less it will act as an anchor.
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See my Page on Happiness plus Beach Living on Face Book. Follow my daily tweets on my new Twitter. Connect with me at Linked In and get my monthly business newsletter of Attracting Ideal Customers. If you would like a website like this to Express Yourself, visit http;//SampleOrganicWebsite.com. I’m also at Google + for Happiness.
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Why Are People Bored?
Posted by: | CommentsChallenging yourself to push the envelope and get out of your comfort zone is the best way to find excitement in life. It is easy to get trapped in routine where you fulfill your obligations but never get tested on who you are. 
We often get trapped into thinking we are our jobs. We are not. We are very special individuals put on this earth to be happy and enjoy the wonders, but often have to work in order to live.
The blessed find their passions, are good at them, and get paid for pursuing them.
There is a great tribute to a Howard Benedict, a Leucadia dentist that just passed away at the age of 67. Since he was twelve he loved the ocean and par took of both diving and surfing. He worked his way through USC dental school and then set up his practice to drill at night so he could dive and surf during the day.
Working and then hiding afterward makes life pretty boring. We have to have areas where we test who we are and express ourselves. Letting other people judge our work is a courageous step but part of the process. We love to watch others do it in the movies and may live vicariously.
Working and partying doesn’t make life more exciting, it makes it working and coping. You can’t party forever. It starts to wear you out. In the meantime, you could be building a special skill that is you. It could be work related or it could be a hobby, an art, a recreation, or a charity.
Fulfilling our obligations makes us responsible but finding out who we are and testing the limits makes life exciting. Having a coach or friend that can give feed back is helpful as we often need encouragement when we step into the vulnerable zone.
Half a Glass of Water
Posted by: | CommentsI find the task of drinking eight glasses of water a day daunting. I am not really a water drinker. But we need it to energize our bodies and I know it. However, I can walk by the cooler anytime and drink a half glass of water immediately.
A lot of people would like to write including my daughters who graduated college with English degrees. It is rather daunting because we think about what we could write about, how would we get something sensible on paper and what if someone read it?
A few years ago I started writing everyday and it just sort of comes to you. Not that I am great now, but the writing starts to flow and you don’t worry about whether you can get something on paper.
Surfing is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I even teach it and wonder whether people will get through the early stages. It takes a lot of determination. I have found the secret is just to go in every day. You learn by inches not by miles.
It is just as difficult to learn other jobs, arts, recreations, avocations and so on. We can be in awe of what it would take to get there or we can just start jumping in every day and the only commitment is to do it every day.
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If you ever had an interest in surfing you might like my posts on “how to” or my E Book on Surfing Instructions Beginner to Advanced at SurfBoardsOceanside.com
If you work on New Customer Recruitment for your business you might connect with me on Linked In and get my monthly newsletter on Attracting Ideal Customers
If you would like a website like this to express your ideas, it is easy to become your own master. http://SampleOrganicWebsite.com
Waking Up Happy
Posted by: | CommentsLooking forward to each day makes life good. We have to have some routines in the morning to which we look forward. Even that first cup of coffee is a great hello. 
I like to stretch first. I like to know my back is ready for the day and finding that my lower back responds well to my various stretches is happiness. I start my day with writing some blogs and expressing myself early takes care of a few of my daily requirements.
If I had to get up a little early to do something else good for myself like a walk or quick run, I would be ahead of my day and the nasty little surprises I know could be waiting for me.
Having something else during the day that I am going to look forward to keeps my chin up. I know that I can get through my work and then into something I treasure. If you don’t have it, create it.
Finally, at the end of my day I like to do something that builds me rather than lets me just recover by submitting my soul to the TV. An evening exercise that is physical or mental which might include hobbies, reading, listening to music, photography, gardening, cooking, or sunset gazing renews the spirit. 
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Are you into surfing? See my surf site for posts on learning, a surf book, or lessons if you are in San Diego. http:// SurfBoardsOceanside.com
Going All Out Can Make You Cry
Posted by: | CommentsWell, maybe it doesn’t make the participant cry, but I felt weepy watching the effort people were putting in to finish the Half Iron Man staged yesterday in Oceanside. 
A lot of people don’t know that a Half Iron Man is still a 1.2 mile swim in 55 degree water, 55 miles on a bike, and then a 13 mile run. I was impressed that after four hours most of the participants still looked strong.
Thinking of the hours of dedication and practice in all kinds of weather and condition that are required to finish this test of stamina. It was young and older men, young and older women. They all made me proud and I didn’t even know them.
I used to run 60 miles a week and we thought of doing tri-athalons, but it would require starting over with swimming and bike riding in addition to running. I have done a few mini tris and I have run after riding 50 miles on a bike. My legs felt like tree trunks.
Humans are capable of the most amazing feats. It inspires me not to take my life for granted.
Life Flows in Relation to Passions
Posted by: | CommentsFlow is the engagement in activities that you enjoy and allow you to escape your daily routine and plaguing thoughts of responsibility. A release from all that ails you.
The requirement is that it be an activity at which you practice. Practice 
requires commitment. The difficulty with commitment is that most things are not fun at the beginning, they are tiring or frustrating. You have to endure the beginning to get to the good stuff.
Commitment requires discipline. You have to have a routine in which you enter your activity, whether you feel like it or not. Some days you are eager with anticipation and some days you would prefer not.
How many things can you think of that are worthwhile that don’t require this process? You can’t graduate college without going to classes. So achievement of the things you would like to experience still require you to go through the process of commitment.
You become passionate about the things you master. Its hard to say which comes first, the passion or the mastery. Tiger Woods didn’t think about becoming number one in the world, he thought about mastering the golf shot.
If you can enter two or three of these processes, you can have a full day of doing what you like. Flow produces dopamine which is the body’s anti depressant neurotransmitter. It’s the free happiness drug. The only side affect is smiling and unbridled enthusiasm.
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Routine is Important for Improvement
Posted by: | CommentsI have been pretty disciplined in writing every day. I prioritize my routine. When I talk to my friends who also aspire to writing, the first thing they mention is they don’t have a routine.
I find routine is important to making progress in most endeavors. The time slot you give the activity becomes a priority. Your whole mental framework starts preparing on a daily basis for that routine.
I have made surfing a routine where I consider the 9:30 a.m. time slot my surfing hour. It is important to progress in the sport and to get my exercise. Exercise can fall by the way side if we don’t prioritize our routine.
I have even prioritized getting my fruit and veggies into my diet by when I prepare them. I like to keep up on my reading and have hours when I am disposed to venture into career reading and time for pleasure reading.
I find my body even responds well to the same routine of waking and sleeping. If you ever asked me, I would say I don’t like routine, but here I am a slave to routine in order to get the most out of my day and make progress on several fronts.
Are you having problems getting things done you would like to accomplish? I pose the question on my Face Book Timeline (It’s Marks@theBeach) for comments. See some Beach’n pictures while you are there. You don’t have to Like it to get in.
Are Passion and Peak Performance Linked?
Posted by: | CommentsAnd does it matter to you? Some people have no need to be the best they can be. You can start a new endeavor at any age.
Peak Performance is for people who want to be all they can be, but it 
requires dedication and commitment to push the envelope. You push the envelope by leaving your comfort zone and practicing when you don’t really feel like practicing.
This is desire turned to will as Michael Lardon M.D. says in Finding Your Zone. Top athletes are committed to laying it all on the line. They want to find out if they are the best and we love to see who wins.
But, we can be heroes in our own worlds. Is there something we would like to try that tests our limits? I hear people say they want to write, but they don’t really want to be judged. There is nothing quicker to make you look stupid than putting pen to paper and publishing it.
We can test our limits without publishing. How about walking further each week or cooking something that makes you say you are great, to yourself. Practice makes perfect and with practice comes more enjoyment. When we engage in activities that we have practiced we can leave the world behind and enter “the zone” which is a realm of happiness.
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You can read Finding Your Zone. by Micheal Lardon, Stanford educated sports psychologist, Amazon sells it used for about $5.
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Happiness is Making Helping Others a Priority
Posted by: | CommentsIt is so easy to have a day full of challenges and problems. For most species on earth, the first order of the day is to find food and say out of someone else’s mouth. See how easy we have it already.
From the beginning man had to hunt and forage and keep warm. We have that taken care of pretty well. We have substituted jobs and fighting the line at the take out window. Some say that is a first world problem.
Let’s not take our selves too seriously. Survival has been an issue for 5 billion years. We are more civilized, advanced and cultured now. We have opportunities no species or even man has ever experienced.
Not only do we have every means of expressing ourselves, we can share our selves with others and receive what they have to offer. If we want to advance that a step, why not make helping others a priority?It doesn’t really cost us anything. It reaps a tremendous reward.
I am sure it will be a long time before lions are killing antelope and giving it to the hyenas, but that is where man is different. We can make others smile. We can make that day of survival a little easier and maybe a little happier.
If you look for opportunities to do this on a daily basis, your day becomes much better.
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You can Like me on Face Book and get some great Beach life pictures, surfing tips, and Fitness helpers. Its Mark@theBeach.