Tune Your Fulfilment

This Holds You Back More Than Anything Else

Peter Levin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:30:42 +0000

Many books has been written on how to form a new habits and how important it is in order to be productive and successful. It is an easy concept that most people intellectually understand.

The issue might come up when we try to form a habit, so it becomes our second nature. Ideally we can rewire our brain in a way that new habits will support us instead of. In reality it is not that easy. You can still form a habit, but is that habit is the most effective habit possible for you?

What do you think is the most important resource we have to enjoy life and be productive and successful?

It is our energy. In a way we are energy. If we have high level of energy we can sustain high pressure, stress , conflicts and stay positive and optimistic.

Mental energy is highly consuming because of countless connections between neurons in our brain. Each thought can fire millions and millions of neurons. And all that takes energy.

We as humans suppose to have high level of energy by design. It is the case if we live and stay close to natural resources. In that case our energy(vibration) is in sync with natural environment. Most of us live in cities where we lost our natural intuitive abilities. Civilization structured in such a way that something or someone consistently drains our energy. What drains us energy the most?

It is the inner conflict between our different brains.

Brain Theory

In the 1960’s Dr. Paul MacLean at the National Institute for Mental Health, expanding on the work of James Papez, described a three part concentric layering structure to the human brain.

The outermost layer is the neomammilian brain (Mammalian Brain), the neocortex which is the seat of thought and most voluntary movement.

The next layer inward is the paleomamalian brain, composed of the limbic system, the seat of our emotions and autonomic nervous system.

In the innermost portion is found the reptilian brain, composed of the brain stem, midbrain, basal ganglia and other structures.

Each brain serves different functions with some overlap, but what Dr.MacLean postulates is that the integration, or coordination between the brains is inadequate, a genetic problem in our species.

All three of these brains interact with each other to make up what and how we think, consciously and subconsciously. They can act in a contradictory or complimentary manner to one another leading to spectacular or terrible results. But it takes all three to make us what we are.

You can think about relationship between those brains as heart body mind relationship or mental physical emotional relationship.

The mind, or neocortex, is the part of ourselves we most often think of as who we are. It perceives itself in the head, and it is the part of us that forms judgments, handles short term memory, and does abstractions like mathematics.

The heart is the limbic system in the brain, yet perceives itself in the chest, probably because this is the area of its primary biological responsibility and sensory awareness. It allows us to feel emotions, and be either positively or negatively emotionally aware of the presence of others.

The body consciousness is composed of the tissues at the base of our skulls, and probably other distributed systems in our body. It experiences itself in the lower belly, its area of major biological function. This brain gives us a sense of time and our ability to feel sexuality. We communicate with this brain when we do dowsing or muscle testing.

What does all this mean to you?

Each of our 3 brains is independent. You may see how those 3 brains can be in conflict. For example imagine that you like to eat chocolate. You physical part of you (action) wants it badly. Intellectual part of you (thoughts) understands that it might not be the right choice at the moment and it is better not to eat chocolate right now because of weight benefit. Emotional part of you (emotions) might bring different feelings of guild because of this act.

That is the example of parts of the brain being in conflict. Don’t you think for the same internal reason we don’t exercise when we know we suppose to? Probably.

We have more 90% of the same thoughts today that we have yesterday. Once we formed a certain habit we tend to act automatically. Interesting thing is that our inner friction may become a habit. Obviously any friction burns energy inefficiently. We need to build different habits which not included friction.

What is the solution?

So, what can we do to eliminate friction and to go with the flow?

Take inventory of your thought patters to figure out what kind of mental activities drains you energy the most and build the support system to manage it.

Pattern is the keyword here.

For me the one of the patterns which drains my energy efficiently is being unorganized. I became aware of this pattern by looking on the information I store on my PC and on my desk and by comments from some friendly people

If you walk into my room now you will not be able to tell that I am not organized (maybe only when I am working on a project - it is really messy).

Why my room is clean if I tend not to be organized by nature?

I figure this out several years ago. I tend to go through a lot of information on a regular basis and information I go through piles up extremely fast. It becomes impossible to find something on my desktop or in my room after a couple of days.

I didn’t have choice as to create some kind of system of storing ideas and information. I bought folders and bookshelf’s to organize my stuff.

The interesting thing is my pattern is still there. I learned to manage around my weakness, but this pattern of behavior is still with me and I have to constantly build various support systems to manage this weakness of mine.

Can you imagine how much energy I would have to burn if I don’t have right systems in place? It is ridiculous. I use to freak out about that all the time. Actually it is still an issue at some degree, but once system is build it is still saving me tons of mental energy.

Know exactly what you need do each and every day (schedule activities to eliminate patterns of behavior that creates friction), ideally on a minute by minute basis (I don’t like schedules at all, but I want to be successful, helpful and efficient on a long run, so I don’t see another choice at the moment).

For instance we want to lose weight. We know that it is bad for us to eat before we go to sleep, but sometimes we still do. What if we decided to form a healthy ritual that will eliminate this draining energy pattern and we write it down. One of the activities in our ritual might be: not to eat after 7:00PM (eat only before 7:00Pm - in positive tense).

When we schedule activity and we know why and what the results would be on a long run, we can eliminate unnecessary worries (save energy) and next time you notice yourself being next to the fridge at night, you will know not to grab that tasty piece of cake.

Build rituals based on a new pattern of behavior which you want for yourself.

If you take time to reflect and think it through and look for patterns you will find a conflict between thoughts, feelings and actions. Think how can you bring all those parts in sync and then form rituals that will support it. This way you build effective and efficient patterns because new ritual will support you on all levels.

Balance long term and short terms thinking by focusing on end results (vision)

What’s good and pleasant for you on a short term not necessarily good and pleasant for you on a long term? You may enjoy the taste of cake and may enjoy it so much, but on a long term you know the consequences of that. choice might be. If you don’t know who you want to become and what you want to have and do on a long run, you will keep eating this tasty cake for the sake of instant gratification (luck of vision/purpose)

Enjoy the process and do not go into extremes

Consider everything being said but do not go into extremes. This can lead to disappointment and frustration. Enjoy life now, but at the same time hold your long term vision in your mind.

By now you see how internal conflicts like that can drain us energy and for the most part we are not aware of what drains us. Now you know the reason, but it up is to you to identify patters and behaviors that drains your energy the most.

It seems that all that brains and interactions between them are all hardwired in us, and we can’t change that. What we can do is to become aware of pattern s of our thoughts and behaviors so we can eliminate internal friction that drains us of energy. This is the fastest way I know to get into the flow state consistently.

What some of yours enificient patterns that drains your energy and how you manage or plan to manage it? what is your thougts on 3 brains model?

5 Simple Ways to Know if You Will Make it Big

Peter Levin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:07:08 +0000

We often have problem to follow through on tasks, procrastinate a lot and not really sure what we want to do when we grow up. I’ve been struggling with that most of my life and felt frustrated and disappointed because I couldn’t figure out my purpose and I wasn’t sure what I really want to do with my life.

That brought total mess and limited me in many ways. I won’t want this for anyone and I know that most people are struggling with the question of purpose, passion and COMMITMENT.

I like everything even closely related to self-improvement, but lets be honest. A lot of things we hear are really good information but often what self-improvement gurus are saying we don’t get on a deep level from the first time or even after 100 times.

Here the example. A lot of people talk about commitment. “You must be committed before you can really be or do something great”. Well, I understand that and I know that I need to be committed but how? What is the commitment? I want to be committed, but how I do it?

I worked for this really cool network marketing company. They are greatest thing since sliced bread, but I couldn’t make any money with them. Every day I heard the phrase, “you have to be committed.” I agreed with that and here I am months later and still don’t make any money. I knew for sure that I wasn’t committed, but I didn’t know why I wasn’t and didn’t know how to fix it.

I really believe in network marketing industry (not pyramid schemes - network marketing), I knew they doing a right things for people. Company have inspiring mission too, but still no commitment from my part.

To make the long story short, I am still associated with them, but I am not active. More importantly I figure out why I wasn’t committed and therefore couldn’t make money.

Here is why.

My internal values and the way I projected myself into the future wasn’t totally in line with multiple activities I need to be doing inside the company to be successful.

In other words I had a conflict between my inner reality that I wanted for myself and reality of what I will be doing in a company in a long run. They wasn’t in sync. My thinking was a long term. I thought that if I will be working with them, it has to be forever and that I need to be totally aligned and see myself with them far into the future. But I didn’t see, myself this way.

It is may sound simple. But you need to remember that I wasn’t consciously aware of all of that at that time.

Here are several points on what kind of life I imagined myself in (maybe not consciously, but on deep level I knew I must have that).

I wanted to be free and not dependent on location to live and to do business
I wanted to do something and help people in area that related with Self-Growth
I wanted to learn something new every day in area I am passionate about

Those points were missing from the equation in my case. Company is really great at helping people change their lives in certain area, but I wasn’t too passionate about that area even though I have interest in that area and I still do. It is area of personal finances. But it wasn’t the area I was most passionate about.

I am totally committed now to what I am doing: blogging, building a long term business, association with like minded people, learning, personal growth, visiting seminars and at the same time helping others maybe to see more what is available and what is possible. Those are all compatible with my values and my purpose.

I am still refining my views, my likes and my purpose because it is an ongoing process, but now I know that path I choose to travel is right one for me.

I understand that I talked a lot here about myself but because it is all comes from inside and I know that everyone can relate to that on some level.

So far I don’t really see anyone really explains well how to know if we are really committed. Following is my views and my experiences. They are all very simple but not let it deceive you. I believe that they can let you know for sure if you are committed or not and show what commitment really means.

Here how you can know for certain that you are COMMITTED (Passionate).

Time stops when you performing activity in a direction of your desires

For me it is learning, researching interesting facts, new facts, and communicating with like minded people, discussing various points of views, meeting like minded people in person and online and bridging value in various ways. Days for me flying just like that.

You absolutely know that you are going to make it

When some people tell me that I need to find a real job and work 9-5 as all people do (not sure where what planet they live for the past 10 years), I say that I have 2 choices: do what I like until the end or die :). You may not know when you going to make it, but you know you will.

You are not get pissed when someone annoys you with questions about your occupation and you even laugh about it

When I work in a company mentioned above, when someone I knew asks me, so did you make your million yet? I got really pissed off because of course I wasn’t making money and I wasn’t sure if I ever will. Now if someone asks me this question about million I do not get pissed (even if I am not making millions yet :)) and I just laugh because I know that I can make as much as I want and besides that will be doing what I like.

You eliminated most of the distractions from your life and make necessary adjustments to fit your lifestyle.

For me it meant to stop going out as much as I would like (I still do of course, we have to maintain balance and not get religious about anything), stop watching as much movies as before (I don’t watch TV for years but I like to rent movies I like and watch them), temporarily stop going to Toast Masters class (I will later, I am still a member) for some period and so on.

You making ambitious plans for the future with great desire even you may have no idea how something is going to happen

I have several trips schedule for the next 6 months (one of them in 2 weeks) and I know that it will happen no matter what. I know that nothing or no one can prevent me from doing what I want even if I have to do a lot of personal sacrifices.

If you have all of the above - you can be sure that you are committed and in this case there is should be no doubt in your mind that you will reach any goal you set for yourself and more importantly enjoy the process of getting to desired destination.

Now you know for sure what commitment is and when someone talks about commitment you will know for certain what it means to you and more importantly you will know if you are committed or not. And if you are not committed, do something about that NOW. Life is short and we must do what we love.

How you know if you are committed? If you are not committed then why and what should you absolutely do or change about that?

How to Enjoy Every Moment - Energy Management Fundamentals

Peter Levin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:40:54 +0000

We often feel urge to get things done and do not feel happy when something didn’t get completed. What we often forget is that being fulfilled and having a lot of things done fast may not be the same thing. A lot of people work long hours without even enjoying what they do. Most people seemed busy. Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive and fulfilled. Sometimes the opposite is true - the more things we need to get done the more stress we feel.

When we present we have more things done in less time and at the same time feel energetic and alive. Most energy derived from being in a present moment. What can give us ability to stay in a present and be fully engaged? It is the ability to manage our energy effectively on multiple levels.

Small Things Ads Up

Bad habits still running our lives and we usually tend to have a lot of them. Each one taking our energy on an unconscious level and a lot of those old patterns adds up quickly and by the time we even get up from bad in the morning, we already on our way to waste a lot of energy which is trapped in our body as an emotion. Its can be changed by taking control of our energy.

We need to take an inventory and figure out what taking energy from us and what gives us energy. Do you know what gives you satisfaction and good emotions? Let’s assume that working on your business activities is giving you energy. Do you know which activities in your business will give you the most leverage?

From reading what successful people do and by studying business fundamentals I know that is probably 2 types of activities:

Creating Content (bringing value to people)

Promote your business (expending your communication channels)

Those are leverage activities and everything else will be details but can take significant amount of time and energy. For example I can be working on producing a graphic for my blog post, which can take significant amount of time especially when I am not really proficient doing this type of work.

Could this activity help me to get much closer to my goal? Maybe just a little, but it can take a significant amount of time. I know if I do thing kind of activities for a long time it drains energy. Small things like that adds up quickly and contribute to our whole energy picture.

Where Our Energy Comes From - Four Fundamental Sources of Energy

Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal

Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz

Source1: Spiritual

The most important type of energy that we can possibly get comes from our purpose and passion. If you don’t have some sort of purpose, if you don’t know what are you doing and why on daily basis - you are not enjoying the process and this probably will deprived you of energy more than anything else.

I use to work in corporate environment and often feel tired and sleepy at the end of the day. I couldn’t understand why at that time. I have been healthy throughout my life. I’ve been doing physical activities in one form or another and eat pretty healthy foods. I thought that I should have enough energy because of that. My friends even called me energizer because of my natural energetic. Despite all of that, I felt drained at work and after work on a regular basis.

Now it is clear to me why. It is happened because I was lacking purpose and was heading nowhere fast. I expended too much energy minute by minute thinking about what’s going to happen in a future and probably constantly ponder thoughts on how I hate my job. And this kind of mental activity is draining.

You must know your purpose and passion to have a lot of energy which will lead to all kind of good things.

Figure out what you want to do each and every day and do it

Source 2: Physical

Obviously physical conditions are crucial to live quality life and have balance. If you don’t watch your body conditions that you probably don’t really care much about anyone else. You must love yourself first before you can love anyone else. And how can you love yourself if you not taking care of your body. Some people probably will argue with me on that, but that is how I feel.

Physical energy also can be divided on several sources:

Exercises
Nutrition
Rest

We need to pay attention to all of them to maximize our energy so we can become more and do more. Luck of good nutrition plan can drain your energy dramatically. I almost eliminated meat from my diet 4 years ago (I still eat meat on rare occasions) and personally can tell that it made a big difference. Especially I felt this difference first thing in the morning after waking up. Result was much more energy.

Rest is also very important. All athletes work out hard but also have good periods of rest and recovery. Do you think that working 10 hours a day in a row is very good idea? It is probably not. I’ve done that.

It is proven that people can’t concentrate for more than short period of time on one task and be really productive. We got distracted and it is not most efficient way to spend time. That’s maybe one of the reasons why when I was in school we have brakes every 45 minutes. I notice if I take a brake every hour or hour in half between doing important tasks I feel much more energized and creative.

Source 3: Emotional

We must feel positive emotions to derive energy from this source. We get positive energy from being self-confident, having the right skills, empathy, openness, trust. Negative emotions are very costly and drain our energy. Obviously emotional energy is well connected with spiritual and physical and they work together. By doing physical activities we train our emotional system as well.

Source 4: Mental

Mental energy is our ability to focus, concentrate be creative and optimistic. We need to stimulate our mind to stay sharp and focused. To increase our energy derived from this source we need to do visualization, positive self-talk, have positive attitude and constantly sharpen our minds.

What can prevent us from taking advantage of these sources are bad habits. And what is the best way to get read of old habits is to form new habits.

Conclusion: The key to stay present/engaged is to have a lot of energy. We can do that by becoming aware of area that need improvement and form new habits (behaviors) to replace old ones that drains our energy. Once new habits are formed, it is automatic and energetically supports us instead of draining us. Habit is a nature’s (God’s) way of least resistance.

All those sources are interconnected. Now that you can become aware what sources of energy exists it is easier to spot the problem and understand why you are not feeling the way you want to feel and to form a new habit to fix it.

Please leave comments on what area drains your energy and what area gives you more energy. Argue with me if you don’t agree - that’s ok

3 Assessments to Uncover Your Personal Talents Explained: Assessment 3

Peter Levin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:28:15 +0000

This is a third post in 3 post series on how to discover personal talents through self-assessments.

First post covered Kolbe assessment. Second post is about Strength Finder 2.0

Today we will cover Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI)

First who invented the theory of personality types was Carl Gustav Jung. He is the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern people rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of unconscious realms.

He considered the process of individuation necessary for a person to become whole. This is a psychological process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious while still maintaining conscious autonomy. Individuation was the central concept of Analytical Psychology.

Jung collaborated with Sigmund Freud and they supported each others theories. In Jung’s famous book “The Psychology of Unconscious” he introduced different from Freud’s views on unconscious and their professional relationship ended.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. These preferences were extrapolated from the typological theories originated by Carl Gustav Jung, as published in his 1921 book “Psychological Types“.

From Wikipedia:

Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers were original developers of the personality inventory. They began creating the indicator during World War II, believing that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be “most comfortable and effective The initial questionnaire grew into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was first published in 1962. The MBTI focuses on normal populations and emphasizes the value of naturally occurring differences.

The primary theory behind the MBTI is that each person’s personality fits into only one of 16 types. These categories are based on four features of personality, each consisting of two opposite preferences. According to the theory, all people have an innate preference that determines how they will behave in all situations.

The four dimensions are:

Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extroversion (E) or Introversion (I).

Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).

Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).

Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).

From Myers-Briggs foundation website:

Your Personality Type: When you decide on your preference in each category, you have your own personality type, which can be expressed as a code with four letters. The 16 personality types of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument are listed here as they are often shown in what is called a “type table.”

Read through all of the 16 type descriptions.

Here is table of description:

They have the disclaimer on their site that states:

MBTI® type indicates a person’s preference but not his or her ability or character. Personality type should be used as a way of understanding yourself and for assisting you in making choices. However, it should not be used as the only tool for choosing careers, partners, jobs, schools, etc.

If you look on each description you can tell more or less precise which personality type you belong to, but do not base your decision just on that.

I came across many opponents of theory behind MBTI and I tend to agree with some of the opponents. I like the idea behind this test, but I can tell just from the experience that description I have for my personality is pretty good indication of my behavior. At the same time I do not feel that description is completely accurate. Some parts of the description from different personalities describe me better.

They don’t claim that 16 personalities are set in stone. I want to add that 16 personalities is a good start to find out more about you, but it is not enough. There is too much variations between those 16 types that it is maybe a mistake to assume that you exactly one of those 16 types. As a model it serves well, but I wouldn’t rely on those 16 types to make a life changing decision about career or relationships.

I’ve been really fascinated by this model for years, and I still think that it is a great model to follow (not blindly though) but must admit that MBTI model probably has it flaws.

For example test can indicate that you are either introvert or extrovert. I agree that we born with inclination to be more if one type or another (extrovert or introvert). But at the same time I believe that there is an extravert-introvert scale.

I would consider myself an extrovert on a scale from 1 to 10 as being 9. Some people would say that they are not sure, because they tend to act differently in different situations. They would say that they know that are extroverted but on a scale from 1 to 10 can give themselves 6.

There are should be much more than just 2 variations on an introvert and extrovert scale. And if we assume that various degrees of introversion and extroversion exist, and that we can have the same 1-10 scale apply to another 3 dimensions (Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, Judging or Perceiving) we can come up with much more than 16 personality types. It would be much more than 100. I am assuming that there is possible to develop more comprehensive model, but so far as far as I know no one have done it yet and it might become to complex to understand.

My conclusion that this model is a good indicator of our personality traits but it is not complete and should not be used blindly to make important decisions.

Two biggest supporters of this theory are Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger.

Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron Tieger are nationally recognized experts and the authors of five books about Personality Type: DO WHAT YOU ARE, NURTURE BY NATURE, THE ART OF SPEEDREADING PEOPLE, JUST YOUR TYPE, and The PERSONALITY TYPE TOOLKIT.

You can take a quick personality quiz on their website.

I’ve read several of their books and they seems to be very descriptive, informative and easy to read.

My type is ENFP.

Here is the description of that type from Paul’s and Barbara’s website:

Curious, energetic, adaptable, and creative, ENFPs like considering unconventional approaches. They enjoy batting around ideas and finding creative solutions and are energized and intrigued by new possibilities and anything out of the ordinary. ENFPs tend to be talkative, enthusiastic, playful, and generally fun-loving people. Warm and caring, ENFPs have strong personal values upon which they base most decisions. Conversations with ENFPs can be very circular as they excitedly move from one topic to the next, making connections and associations. Unconventional and occasionally irreverent, they pride themselves on their uniqueness and originality. Optimistic, and spontaneous, ENFPs have a strong sense of the possible. For them, life is an exciting drama. Because they are so interested in possibilities, ENFPs see significance in all things and prefer to keep lots of options open.

If you want to take a professional version go to http://www.capt.org/take-mbti-assessment/mbti.htm and take test by calling them or sending an email. It cost $150 in the US and $175 international.

I want also introduce you to another model (similar on MBTI) which you most likely never heard of. It is called Socionics. The theory was developed in the 1970s and ’80s mainly by the Lithuanian researcher Ausra Augustinaviciute. It is very popular in Russian speaking courtiers and I am familiar with the model because I speak Russian

Wikipedia description:

Socionics is a theory of information processing and personality type. It incorporates elements of Carl Jung’s work on Psychological Types and Antoni Kępinski’s theory of information metabolism. Socionics is a modification of Jung’s personality type that uses all eight Jungian functions (in socionics called information elements), in contrast to Jung’s 4-function model, and also it’s supplemented with the idea of type-level interpersonal interaction (intertype relations).

The central idea of socionics is that information is divided into 8 different categories (information elements, in compliance with 8 Jungian functions), which a person’s psyche processes using eight psychological functions. Each socionic type has a different correspondence between functions and information elements, which results in different ways of perceiving, processing, and producing information. This in turn results in distinct thinking patterns, values, and behavior, all of which are encompassed within socionic type. Socionics’ theory of intertype relations is based on the interaction of these functions between types.

There is too much information about socionics that I will write a post about it in a future. I want to mention that I like socionics better than MBTI because they took more integral approach to personalities and tend to evaluate personality with integration of social role theory. In another world it considered social factor into the equation and therefore description of personality types tend to be more precise and accurate.

Socionics also based on 16 models that has it’s limitation for the reasons described above.

My type ENFP assigned social role: Psychologist / Reporter

Belong to club: Humanitarians (NF): ENFJ, INFP, INFJ, ENFP.

Temperament: Extraverted Irrational Temperament (EP).

This post concludes the 3 post series about assessments to discover your personal talents.

If you take all 3 assessments (if you don’t want to pay, you can just figure out a lot just by looking at the descriptions and by taking free versions) and combine the results by pondering it in your mind, you will get clarity on your life directions, discover you talents and will understand other people better.

Taking various assessments is one of multiple ways to determine natural talent. I personally was able to determine the direction I am on right now by being curious and by leaning various personality systems. Always remember to take your own judgment and do not follow blindly any of assessments.

Intuition is a best way to get on a right road. I believe that by knowing more about yourself will let you understand others people better that will lead to more money, better relationship, self-fulfillment, happiness and will allow you to enjoy journey toward your desired destination.

Let me know what do you think about MBTI and personality assessments in general. Do you think they can tell you about your persona, your talents?

You Have Got to Find What You Love - 3 Stories from Steve Jobs

Peter Levin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:03:10 +0000

Today I came across video where Steve Job gave a speech in front of college graduates and Stanford University.

He simply tell 3 stories from his life

The first story is about connecting the dots.

The second story is about love and loss.

The third story is about death.

IF nothing else please spend 14 minutes to watch this video and I am not afraid to say that this may change your life

Steve never graduated from college and he shared those stories to bring several important and unforgettable points

You’ve got to find what you love. And it is as as true for work as it is for you lovers. Your work is going to feel the large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is a great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

Steve Jobs

Here is the video:

You’ve got to find what you love

Here is the link to full text of his speech: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Let me know what you think. Do you find what you love? If not what stops you?

3 Assessments to Uncover Your Personal Talents Explained: Assessment 2

Peter Levin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:58:48 +0000

This is the second post in 3 post series on how to discover and become aware of personal talents through self-assessments.

In my first First post I covered Kolbe Assessment. Please read my last post to find out more about Kolbe.

Today I will cover Strengths Finder 2.0 assessment.

Let’s get right into it and find out what is about and is it worth to bother to take the test.

Test is provided by Gallup Research Organization. Gallup has studied human nature and behavior for more than 70 years.

Gallup’s reputation for delivering relevant, timely, and visionary research on what people around the world think and feel is the cornerstone of the organization.

How did I find out about them?

I did some research on Amazon some time ago and discovered a book by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton “Now, Discover Your Strengths“.

Marcus Buckingham worked for Gallup organization as a Sr. Researcher. He is not longer with them. He opens his own company The Marcus Buckingham Company. You can get more information about him here.

Marcus Buckingham spent years interviewing thousands of employees at every career stage. He is widely considered one of the world’s leading authorities on employee productivity and the practices of leading and managing.

According to Marcus:

Companies that focus on cultivating employees’ strengths rather than simply improving their weaknesses stand to dramatically increase efficiency while allowing for maximum personal growth and success.

Marcus Buckingham has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.

Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D., was cited by the American Psychological Association as the Father of Strengths Psychology and the Grandfather of Positive Psychology. He was a chairman of Gallup, Inc., and he invented the Clifton Strengths Finder assessment.

I heard about their book from several different sources before, but as often happens I did procrastinate to get it. Eventually I borrowed the audio version of it and I loved it. Book comes out in 2001. I did some research and find out that new book was now available called: “Strength Finder 2.0” and was written by Tom Rath.

Tom Rath is Gallup Global Practice Leader and has written 3 bestselling books. His first book, “How Full Is Your Bucket?”, was a #1 New York Times and #1 Business Week bestseller. Rath’s 2007 book, “Strengths Finder 2.0″, is a long-running #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller and was listed by USA Today as the top-selling business book of 2008.

I ordered book from Amazon and at the end of the book, there is a code which is unique to the book you buy. You can use this code to take an online assessment in their website. It is only valid for 1 person and will not work once you enter the code.

I personally had a small problem with my new book. I scratched the code, went to their website, entered it and find out that my new code wasn’t working. I was so impatient to take the test, and here I am can’t do anything with that. Fortunately their staff got back to me pretty fast after I emailed them with a request for a new code. I apply the code they sent and took the test.

Strengths Finder 2.0 Assessment

According to Gallup, Strengths Finder 2.0 is a new and improved version of assessment. If you bought “Now, Discover Your Strengths” you will get test Version 1.0.

The only way to take this assessment is to buy a book. I did research and I did not find a way to buy just a code without buying a book. To get newer version 2.0 you must buy one of those books:

“Strengths Finder 2.0” by Tom Rath or “Strengths-Based Leadership” by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie (this is newest book, 2009)

I got both of those books. If you interested in leadership and running your own company, you might want to get both, but information is very similar.

Most of those 2 books take most space to describe the 34 themes of talents.The whole idea here is to identify your top 5 themes that is unique to you (your dominate themes).

They mentioned that there is much more than 34 themes, but those 34 is most dominant and enough to find out about our unique strengths.

Here is my Top 5:

Connectedness, Input, Learner, Woo, Empathy

Another 29 Themes are:

Achiever, Activator, Adaptability, Analytical, Arranger, Belief, Command, Communication, Competition, Consistency, Context, Deliberate, Developer, Discipline, Focus, Futuristic, Harmony, Ideation, Includer, Individualization, Intellection, Maximizer, Positivity, Relator, Responsibility, Restorative, Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic.

After you I took a test, they gave me an option to print out the reports. You will have your own user name, so you can access your reports any time you want.

Inside the book and in reports you will discover description of all themes, ideas for actions and how to deal with other people who have certain theme of talent.

Here the information from their website:

Once you have completed the online assessment, you will receive a comprehensive Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide that is based on your Strengths Finder 2.0 results. This guide includes:

Your top five theme report, built around the new Strengths Insight descriptions

50 Ideas for Action (10 for each of your top five themes) based on thousands of best-practice suggestions we reviewed

A Strengths Discovery Activity that helps you think about how your talents, investment, experience, skills, and knowledge work together to build strengths

A Strength-Based Action Plan for setting specific goals for building and applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year

Here is an example of one of the descriptions for one of my themes “Input”

Instinctively, you are grateful when your questions are answered, your studies yield new information, or your knowledge increases. You routinely deepen your understanding through conversations, the media, the Internet, books, or classes. You resist spending the majority of your time on topics that are not in line with your natural abilities. Instead, you choose to take advantage of your talents — and by doing so, you consistently produce topnotch results. It’s very likely that you can simplify the most complex, convoluted, or intricate procedure. People usually rely on you to offer clear and easy-to-comprehend explanations. Driven by your talents, you naturally harbor feelings of good will toward almost everyone you meet. From the start, you probably pose questions that reveal to you another person’s strengths, interests, or goals. Knowing as much as you do about an individual allows you to appreciate him or her more than others can. People often turn to you for insights about strangers or newcomers to the group. Your knowledge usually helps them to accept these outsiders sooner rather than later. Chances are good that you probably gather lots of information, facts, or insights from a variety of written materials. Fortunately, your passion for reading fills you with the reassurance you need to render a proper decision, state the right points, or tackle an assignment correctly. Because of your strengths, you enjoy reading as long as you can savor each sentence and consider each idea. Your goal is to comprehend everything you read. It makes no sense to you to rush through books, magazine or newspaper articles, Internet sites, or other forms of written material just to say you finished them.

You already probably decided for yourself if it worth it or not to invest $13 in book. My view is that it is probably the cheapest investment you can make to become aware of your talents.

All other assessments that worth look at cost much more than Strengths Finder 2.0.

Here are my words of precaution. Do not take everything for granted and do not get discourage if you do not like something after you pass the test.

At the end of the day, it is you who will decide what’s better for you and how you can apply the information to your advantage.

Take some time to reflect on results and think how you can apply them in your situation. Those can be a life changing for some people, for some a way to find out more about their unique talents and make decisions that may lead to completely different level and quality of life.

Hope it will help to bring you closer to your true self and help you to live life you are capable of living. It definitely gave me more understating and even more questions to answer.

To take the test get this book or this book.

Good Luck ans see you in a last post in this series

I want to find out what you think about this assessment and talents in general. What your experience with this test.

Do you think talents exist at all or maybe we get all of our talents through learning, practice and repetition?

3 Assessments to Uncover Your Personal Talents Explained: Assesstment 1

Peter Levin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:21:20 +0000

It is not a big secret that most people are not aware of their personal talents and therefore do not live to their full potential. I was totally miserable trying to figure out why I didn’t like my job or why can’t I follow through on certain subjects. I wanted to figure out why I do things the way I do it. I wanted to find out about my talents, then refine them and turn them into strengths. It is an ongoing process of refining personal talents and it should never end.

Although there are multiple ways to uncover personal talents, taking perosnal tests is the easiest way to do that. It takes most guesses out to the picture. People spent decades figuring out the question of talent. Now we can take advantage of all of their research. It is incredible.

If you into self-development and personal growth field, you most likely already tried to identify ways to discover what you most good at. I am the same. I tried to figure stuff out about myself for years. I discovered a lot of things about me and my personality. Taking various assessments helped me to become much clearer on what my talents are which brought me to totally new level of understanding myself.

Here are the 3 assessments I found most effective that work great to uncover your personal talents:

1. Kolbe Index A Assessment

2. Strength Finder 2.0

3. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Today I want to talk about one of the assessments I took and you can take too to get clear on your innate talents. It is Kolbe Assessment. Lets take a look on what is about and is it worth it or not to take the test.

Take a Kolbe A Index assessment

I came across Kolbe A assessment several months ago. I never heard of them before and therefore don’t feel that it is something I want to take. I like to make sure that information I consume and paid for is credible and the best one I can get.

I didn’t take their assignment the first time I came across their website. Later I receive some email from one of the newsletters I subscribed to. They mentioned Kolbe Corporation and how credible they were. I decided to go back on their website and read more information about them. Here is what I found from their website:

Kolbe is an organization that exists over 30 years. Kolbe Corporation helps people to identify their instinctive talents and use this information to develop peoples self confidence, and succeed in various life situations such as running own business or getting through school.

“Kathy Kolbe started Kolbe Corp with a passionate commitment to helping elementary and high-school students of all ability levels navigate the educational system, learn more, and achieve their personal goals. In fulfilling that mission, Kolbe Corp’s team of educators, academics, and artists created over 100 books, games, and interactive activity kits. These award-winning products became the basis - and the gold standard - for a new genre in educational publishing. Teachers and parents have been using Kolbe products, methods, and techniques for decades with extraordinary success. Their extremely positive feedback tells us that many have been excited and amazed to discover how the Kolbe approach to learning helps children thrive, develop outstanding problem-solving skills, and embrace each of their individual, unique, exceptional capabilities.”

The system has been used by organizations such as Intel, Volkswagen, Honeywell, and other companies from the very small to the very large. The results have been impressive enough to garner attention from media outlets across the nation, including The Wall Street Journal, ABC Nightly News, USA Today, and CNN.

Kathy Kolbe is a founder of that company. Here is her quote:

“My definition of success is the freedom to be yourself”

I couldn’t agree more with that.

Let’s take a look what their system is about:

Kolbe assumes that we have 3 part of the mind that modern psychologist and ancient philosophers shared:

Cognitive - Thinking
Conative - Doing
Affective - Feeling

Conation is:

Action derived from instinct; purposeful mode of striving, volition. It is a conscious effort to carry out self-determined acts. The Latin ‘conatus’, from which conation is derived, is defined as “any natural tendency, impulse, or directed effort.”

Connative (doing part) contain the instincts that drive a person’s natural way of taking action (Modus Operandi). This is the unique set of innate strengths and talents every person has which remains unchanged from birth. Everyone has an equal amount of conative energy for engaging the thinking (cognitive) and feeling (affective) parts of the mind to produce purposeful action.

Kathy Kolbe was the first who identify 4 universal human instincts. She found a way to quantify them and that is what you can define by taking Kolbe Index A assessment.

Here is document you can download from their website to get more information regarding history and theory behind conative part of the mind: Wisdom of the Ages

Here are those 4 instincts, Kolbe called it Action Modes:

Fact Finder - the instinctive way we gather and share information.

Follow Through - the instinctive way we arrange and design.

Quick Start - the instinctive way we deal with risk and uncertainty.

Implementor - the instinctive way we handle space and tangibles.

Here is the sample picture from their website and what they said:

The Kolbe A Index result is a graphical representation of an individual’s instinctive method of operation, or modus operandi (MO). The numbers in each Action Mode represent different points on a continuum, rather than relative values. Each point on the continuum indicates a positive trait. There is no such thing as a negative or “bad” Kolbe Index result.

From those 4 action modes derived 12 unique ways to solve problems. Each of us will use four of these approaches, one in each Action Mode, when we tackle challenges in the way we are most naturally comfortable.

Here are picture of those 12 ways:

Each of us will be most productive when we operate in our own unique way.

By taking assessment on their website you can figure out what are your natural instincts and how they can help in different areas such as: Improve relationship, improve job performance, become affective parent, understand how to use it in your business or line of work you involved.

I took their assessment. It was around 50$. I was skeptical first, because their questions seemed fairly simplistic and look like most assessments I already took, but actually when I look on the results and analyze them it was quite revealing in certain instances. (I have been interested in personalities kind of information for a long time, so I thought that I knew everything)

My action modes are 3-3-9-3. First 3 mean for me that I gather information by simplifying it. What it means that I don’t like the details and pay attention to a bigger picture. And I feel stressed when I have to deal with all the details.

It is actually explains why I never like math that much. I always like psychology, religion, philosophy but no disciplines with a lot of numbers involved. You can see that it might have a practical implication.

If you work as a computer programmer and have to deal with numbers but your natural instinct saying opposite you may feel miserable and feel as if you are not really happy on a job.

By becoming aware of that, it is possible to develop action plan to move out of current job and do something you really like.

I know that some people would argue that natural personal talents exist at all. I will leave you with that.

In next several posts I will provide you with 2 completely different systems that use the same assumption that natural personal talents exist and ways to apply them so you can get clear understanding on this important concept. This will lead to better quality of life, more fun, more money, self-fulfillment and satisfaction.

To discover you natural talents and ways to apply them click here.

Please leave comments on either you agree or not on existence of natural talents. Take the assessment and lets discus our results.

Short Attention Span or Syndrome of Information Overload

Peter Levin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:37:37 +0000

“It’s not our fault our generation has short attention spans, Dad. We watch an appalling amount of TV.”

Yeardley Smith

Information Overload: excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information

Wikipedia

We live in interesting and exciting time. Growth rate of information is staggering and growing each and every day. We have more information available to us than in any time in history.

We can learn anything we want and get any information available to us with a push of a button. It is very convenient. It seems that we should be happy and appreciative that now we don’t have to spend our precious time going to the library and doing research that might take days, weeks or even months. Paradoxically it causes more frustration and disappointment and makes us feel more unhappy and unfulfilled.

Attention span is dropping with each and every day. The more information becomes available the more we need to be selective on which information to process and which to ignore. It causes our attention span go down dramatically.

“The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish,” said the BBC in 2002. “Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things,”

Here are several major causes of information overload:

More information than we can process
Value of information decreases
Doubt of existed information(credibility)
Constant Craving for More and More Information
Bombardment of unsolicited information
Speed of new information increases each and every day

The Paradox of Choice

Resources we have available to us limited in one way or another. There is so much we can do in a day, so many choices we can make. Between all of those choices we must discriminate and limit our choices to something that is very important to us.

Too many choices lead to paralysis by analysis syndrome. The more choices we make, the more it leads us to believe that there is perfect solution somewhere available and if we don’t include this in our decision making, we will missed out on something important.

I am experiencing this issue firsthand. Instead of taking action on information available, I try to do more and more research. At the end, I might totally forget where I started and nothing gets done.

In his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”, Malcolm Gladwell describe this very well by stating that if we have to much information available to make a decision, it probably will not be the right one despite all the facts available. Intuitive nudge might be a better solution in many situations.

It is hard to hold multiple pisses of information to make a right decision. When complexity increases, out chance to make a right decision decreases. The solution here is to take action on information that is available and improve it along the way.

Consequences of Information Overload

Too much information and not enough actions (Input and Output Imbalance)
Not enough time to do things we know we need to do
Negative emotions such as anxiety, self-doubt, low self-esteem because we
unable to make a decision
Productivity drops dramatically which leads to poor results
Issue got transferred into personal, professional and all areas of life

Solution

1. Develop your vision, so all information you process get filtered through your vision

The best way to overcome problem of information overload is to make sure that all information is filtered through your vision, in other words you need to know what you want.

I am guilty around studying a lot of different subjects because it is just interesting to me, because I want to be in the no and informed. It is a good thing, but this way I hardly got anything useful done in terms of results. Yes I becomes smarter and enjoy learn new things, but I realize that I can enjoy and get smarter plus producing outcome all at the same time.

Take time and think what you really want lout of life and only consume the information that will lead you to your outcome in the moment. Got some vision in place, it is better than no vision, you will refine your vision as you move forward.

2. Know your Deep Values

Knowing your deep values will help you to establish priorities when making any decision. Write 5 values and organize it in order of priorities.

For example:
1. God (spirituality)
2. Family
3. Health
4. Integrity
5 .Learning and Growing

You really need to think about your values, it is not something I can show you how to do. The best way I found to determine values is by “looking for patterns”. See if you have any recurring patterns.

For example you don’t like when you see someone who do not take care of themselves physically and it get you irritated because you know that they need exercises and you frustrated that they don’t see it for themselves.

At the same time you know that you need exercises more than you do now. It may tell you that one of your values is HEALTH. You might not have a healthy lifestyle now, but you know that it is very important because it will show up in all other areas.

Health is one of my values. Since childhood I been pretty active and still are and it is make me said when I see people who completely ignore their problems. I do ignore mine too, but I always striving to have a better health in any way that I can.

3. Drop all sources of information that not serving your vision and not compatible with your values

Cut all sources of information that not serving you. Ask yourself if watching a television will get you closer to your goal or away from it? (Assuming that you have goal in a first place)

“Rich people have big libraries, poor people have big TVs.”

-Jim Rohn

If you have no purpose - you have television

4. Develop a system to effectively and efficiently organize and process information

There is so much information available on how Get Things Done, organize information and leverage technology. Again it can be confusing and overwhelming. If you try to learn a new system of organization it might take you a long time to adapt and learn the system. Instead of being productive we learn another system on how to be productive.

The best solution I found is to begin with as simple system as possible. Write your vision, tasks and goals in simple notebook and based on that do you daily task list based on your vision and your goals. You will feel when you need to improve your system, it will come naturally. Do not try to adapt all at the same time. I tried and failed every time.

When I start to do my origination I realized that I need more visual representation of information, because our brain can process visually organized information better then list information. It has to do with how our brain structured. It likes linked information, the same way our brains are wired.

That’s where program: Mind Manager comes into play. It is not free, but you can find lot of free tools available on the internet. Here is one of them: http://www.text2mindmap.com/

5. Develop an action plan that will get you from where you are to where you want to be

Without action nothing is possible. It is a good idea to plan before taking any action.

Most people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.

When you have a long term plan it is easy to divide it to monthly, weekly and daily goals. Then all we need to do is to get busy to make it a reality.

This list by no means complete, my goal was bring this issue with which you probably already familiar with and make you realize that you are not alone and then most people who one way or another striving to improve their lives will be touched by this issue. When we have understanding and strategy to deal with it, it is much easier to deal with it. You are now alone. Let’s get it handled Now.

Let me know what you think :

1. how you deal with information overload

2. what the best solution you found that works for you

3. At what degree it influence your self-fulfillment level

4. Suggestion on important points I might not include in this post

How to Dramatically Tune Your Fulfillment by Discovering 4 Fundamental Sources of Energy

Peter Levin — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:33:33 +0000

Performance, health and happiness are grounded in the skillful management of energy

Tony Schwartz

Many factors responsible for how we feel on a daily basis. In fact there are so many factors that it is hard to be aware and recognize everything that influence our mood and satisfaction. Fortunately there is one concept if understood can help us to become aware of how we feel each and every day and why we feel in a certain way. And this concept is managing our energy in systematic manner.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote book called: “The Power of Full Engagement“. They introduce the concept of Energy Management.

Managing Energy, not time, is the key to high performance

System they introduced is not new but the way they lay it out is profound. I have very similar concept of 4 energy levels, but I never realized it until I’ve read this wonderful book. In fact it is probably one of the best books I can’t recommend highly enough.

Tony and Jim work with professional athletes, most of the time with tennis players and they are highly respected authority on high performance and full engagement in work and in life.

4 Fundamental Sources of Energy

There are 4 fundamental sources of energy.

1. Physical
2. Emotional
3. Mental
4. Spiritual

Lack of energy on any of those levels will lead to low energy, which lead to low quality of life, low awareness level and lack of engagement in all areas.

In order to experience high quality of life, you have to be

• Physically energized
• Emotionally connected
• Mentally focused
• Spiritually aligned

On Physical level it show how physically energized you are and it includes Quality and Quality of sleep, Exercise, Diet and Hydration (drink enough water)

On Emotional Level it shows how emotionally connected we are and it includes Openness, Trust, Enjoyment, Patience

On Mental level it shows how mentally focused we are and it includes Visualization, Positive Self-talk, Positive Attitude

On Spiritual level it shows how well we align with our purpose and values and it includes Integrity, Courage, Persistence, Honesty…)All of that in energy and we need all 4 level fulfilled in order to live life to the fullest, be fully engaged, happy and fulfilled.

Now you can see that if your energy level is low, you can just take a look on this system and figure out where is the problem and then you can go ahead and fix the problem.

All levels are different but interconnected. Increase of energy on one level will give you more energy on another level. For example if you exercise (physical level) it will get your emotional muscle stronger and atr the same time because your emotional muscle become stronger you can get more work done in less time and so on.

The fundamental level of energy is physical, but most important level is spiritual. You have to really know what you want and what your deep values. If you don’t know your deep values, it is hard to focused and get anything done because there is no priority in any of your action. If you spiritually align it will give you a boost of energy and make focus and discipline almost an effortless task.

Rituals

You can look at any problem on any level as a muscle that can be exercise. For example on a physical level when you exercise biceps muscle it will grow more when you exercise it. On emotional level it is the same concept. You can choose to exercises muscle of trust.

The best way authors discovered to exercises any muscle is by implementing rituals (habits). I personally went through a lot of different systems in my life and can totally agree with authors that the fastest and easiest way to develop any skill or develop any muscle is by forming a habit. It takes somewhere from 21 to 30 days to form a habit if you do it every day. I can tell from the experience that it is not that easy at the beginning but after 30 days it becomes easy to do then not to do something.

My recent habit I formed is to work out regularly 3 times a week. I do it for more than 2 months now and I didn’t skip work out even once. Here is the interesting part. Sometimes I don’t feel very well the day I need to go to work out, but when time come to go to the gym, I don’t even question myself should I go or not, it is totally automatic now. Next thing I know, I am on my way to the gym and it is start to happened on autopilot. This works perfectly.

Now it is hard for me to stay home because new habit is in place. The same way we can form any habit. I am working now on a habit of waking up at 5:30Am, do my morning exercise routines and get to work on my most important tasks first thing at 7:00AM.

Specificity

Tasks has to be very specific, otherwise you will not follow through. Example of specific task is: I will go to gym at 7:00PM 3 times a week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Recovery and Renewal

One of the most important concepts is concept of recovery and renewal. Too much recovery time leads to stagnation (eat too much and no exercises). Similarly, not enough recovery leads to exhaustion (work too much and not enough breaks or vacation time).

We have to balance our energy on all levels. If you work to much, it will lead to stress and imbalance in all areas of life and at the same time make you’re less productive. In this case you can choose to take brakes every hour and do some starches, possibly take walk outside in your brake time, and take a mini nap for 10 minutes with your eyes closed. It will give you more energy and make you more productive and fulfilled. Sometimes less is more.

Those are several of important concepts of this system I described here. It is by no means inclusive. It is important to understand the concept itself and its application. I will be coming back to this over and over, because I believe that this is a fundamental systematic approach to understand any issue we are facing and by recognizing the missing component we can tweak and improve our level of awareness, self-fulfillment and happiness.

5 Great Fulfillment Quotes That Inspired

Peter Levin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:58:15 +0000

Here is 5 self-fulfillment quotes that is good to remember:

“It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.”

Denis Waitley

“As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found–in himself.”

Erich Fromm

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity.”

Viktor Frankl

“Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase ‘to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy’. The need to live is our physical need for such things as food, clothing, shelter, economical well-being, health. The need to love is our social need to relate to other people, to belong, to love and to be loved. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow. And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution”

Stephen R. Covey