Gaia Community: Brian's Blog

DECIDERATA~ Max Ehrmann - 1952

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:46:20 -0000

Just got this from Dan Millman's newsletter:

DECIDERATA~ Max Ehrmann - 1952

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive God to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy

The House of 1000 Mirrors

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:01:24 -0000

Just got this from a friend:

The House of 1000 Mirrors (Japanese folktale)

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often."

In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again."

All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet?

Learn a New Language with EduFire!!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:04:51 -0000

Ever wanted to learn a new language but haven't had the time to go thru the normal motions of finding a tutor and all that jazz?

Well, check out eduFire where my good friend Jon (who invested in Zaadz and created another awesome site, LearnOutLoud) is revolutionizing the education world.

It's seriously cool.

You can find a tutor from anywhere in the world and learn a language from them in the comfort of your own home.

Check it out!!!

Best Free Training

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:35:09 -0000

My virtual friend Mike has a cool site called "Best Free Training" where he, you guessed it, shares some of the best free self-dev training out there!! I thought this week's message he sent me on the science of happiness is cool and wanted to share.

Here goes:

.....

What's new this week at The Best Free Training? THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS!

* The Science of Happiness: Part 1, A Little Theory - ” …scientists now believe happiness is a skill that can be learned, just like skiing or playing a musical instrument: With daily practice, you get ever better.” ... the Science of Happiness has emerged as part of the field of Positive Psychology....As you’ll see if you follow the links in this series, there is a solid and growing body of science to support this simple assertion: You can train yourself to be happier.

* The Science of Happiness: Part 2, Some Fun Stuff - In this Part (Some Fun Stuff) we highlight some of the resources available from the website supporting the BBC Series, The Happiness Formula. To be fair, the resources recommended here aren’t so much wild and crazy fun as they are entertaining and well-produced, in the typical BBC fashion.

* The Science of Happiness: Part 3, Train Yourself to Be Happier -- If you want to train yourself to be happier and you’re not sure where to start, here’s some very good news: You don’t need to spend a lot of energy analyzing and worrying about your weaknesses. Instead, you can simply identify some of your key strengths and build on them by performing some relatively simple exercises that have been scientifically proven to increase happiness. (Detailed steps and URLs provided.)

Here's the URL for the List of All Reviews.

PhilosophersNotes (Pre-) Launch Special

Thu, 29 May 2008 05:42:11 -0000

Hey guys!

So I've been playing around with packages (how many notes to send out how often, etc.) and prices for PhilosophersNotes while chatting with the over 2,500 wonderful peeps who've downloaded free samples so far and I've found a package I'm excited about :)

I'm going to be offering an annual subscription where I'll give instant access to 35+ titles in the archive and send a Note from the archive every other week for $39.95. (woo hoo! :)

For the next few days (until June 1st), I've got a little pre-launch special-dealio going for $19.95...so, if you're diggin' it, get yourself over there and sign up!!! :)

ALSO!

I'm working with some really cool partners (from Gaia to What Is Enlightenment and Experience Life magazines to a bunch of other cool sites and people and organizations) to help circulate the wisdom and wealth. I'm also launching an offline program where people can help pass out/post flyers (like above) promoting PhilosophersNotes if they don't have a big online presence. The program is really simple: I'm paying 30% commissions on all sales.

If you'd like to help me and join the first wave of partners, I'd LOVE to chat!!! Send me an email at brian at philosophersnotes.com or stay tuned for more info soon.

Hugs and smiles,

-bri

Day 23 and...

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:42:05 -0000

OMG!!!

Going raw and not blowing away in the wind is a part-time (maybe even full-time!! :) job!!!

I'll post more on this soon but...

Altho we started out strong, survived 8 days of travel (went to my friend John Mackey's (Whole Foods CEO) ranch for a sports weekend with cool peeps and then Aspen for a forum of founders of conscious businesses who sold their companies to multi-nationals), and I was actually feeling pretty good, I was alsofeeling (more than) a little ungrounded and realized now isn't quite the time for me to invest sooo much energy into food prep and simply thinking about how I'm going to pull it off!

So, after 23 days of 100% raw, we had Indian food. Cooked. Very cooked, Indian food. (And REALLY yummy cooked Indian food. :)

It was an *incredible* experience, tho. Fell in love with green smoothies (red lettuce/romain lettuce, sprouts, frozen fruit, cucumber, etc.), massaged kale (OMG yum!), and I got a glimpse of how I can go 100% raw and pull it off healthfully.

At the same time, it's WACKY how many different perspectives there are out there on what to do/what not to do. some say eat a boatload of fruits, some say fruits are evil. some say fats rock, others say they suck. my body was actually diggin what we were doing (a LOT of greens, good deal of fruit, also good deal of fat (avocados, cocunuts, olives)), but I was thinking about/planning to eat/eating/shopping/prepping what seemed like ALL. THE. TIME.

So....

Will come back to this raw thang.

For now??!? Enjoying the grounding energy of some more cooked foods and excited to officially launch PhilosophersNotes. Speaking of: sign up for $19.95 for the year now. Raising the price to $39.95 on June 1st.

fun!

-bri

Bling!!! (aka "I'm engaged!" Part Deux :)

Thu, 08 May 2008 05:52:11 -0000

So, when I proposed to my lovely Goddess, Alexandra, after our 10-day silent vipassana meditation retreat I didn't have a ring.

Yesterday I re-proposed and re-committed at the peak of our favorite hike here in Topanga, Ca with this bling!

Just looking at it here and on her finger makes me smile from ear to ear and with all my heart. It's soooooo her.

Pink, fun, dazzling, regal and sexy.

(She likes to call it her "raspberry bliss bling." hehe :)

Too fun.

To love, smiles and bling,

-bri

Going Raw for 100 Days!!

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:05:22 -0000

I decided yesterday it was time for me to turn the dial up on my life, starting with my energy, strength and vitality.

I've played around with raw a few times in the past (aside from some seafood on our 5 week trip last year, I've been vegan for about 3 years) but never seriously committed. Until now.

So, quick post to put my commitment out there so there's no turning back. :)

Spent the day with Alexandra and her/our friend Tim Van Orden--check him out at RunningRaw.com--who's gonna be one of my coaches on this little journey. (Just spending a few hours together today already TOTALLY transformed my relationship to nutrition and I'm giddy to rock it with him over the next 100 days.) I'll also be tapping into the wisdom of my buddy Brendan Brazier--the vegan (pretty close to raw) professional Ironman triathlete and author of Thrive.

On the strength/fitness side, I'm gonna be tapping into the wisdom of two friends: Jon Hinds and Shawn Phillips (check out his new book Strength for Life). I prefer to train outside so I'm excited to embrace Jon's "MonkeyBar' training combined with Shawn's Focused Intensity Training and HIIT stuff (more on all of that stuff in blogs to come). Fun.

10+ lbs of lean muscle will be added to my currently (really) lean 6'0+/152 or so frame. :)

Alright. Time for bed. The commitment is out there. No turning back now. :)

-bri

P.S. btw: when I did my 10 day vipassana retreat one of the big reasons I didn't walk out during the hardest first 2-3 days was b/c I had put in my Gaia Brian is "..." thing: "in 10 days of silent meditation." I *had* to do it once I put that out there. hehe.

So, Brian is "going raw and rockin' it for 100 days!!"

There. It's out there. Done.

Another Wow

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:36:47 -0000

I already posted this, but setting up the videos in the free inspiration section to PhilosophersNotes.com and just watched this again. Stunning.

And, this one.

And all of the inspiring videos!!!

Have an awesome day,

-bri

Knowledge Informs; Wisdom Transforms

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:45:05 -0000

My friend Shawn Phillips just posted this:

Knowledge Informs; Wisdom Transforms

In 1597 Sir Francis Bacon gave words to the belief that “knowledge is power” and for the last four decades man has sought knowledge, often in the service of power.
Can knowledge deliver? Few have thought to question these words.
I contend that today knowledge is both overvalued and overserved—and that it’s not actually knowledge we are after but something much more…something richer and more transformative.
--> More...

His new book "Strength for Life" comes out later this month. if you'd like a sneak peak at my PhilosophersNotes on it, send me an email at brian [at] philosophersnotes [dot] com

Fun!

-bri

It's Not About the Money

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:59:18 -0000

Just posted my first review on Amazon for my friend, Brent Kessel's new book, "It's Not About the Money."

Here's what I said:

"Don't get me wrong. I am by no means saying that you can't be both wealthy and happy. But whether you have a seven-figure trust fund or a pile of unpaid bills on your kitchen table, the path to freedom requires that you focus more on your inner life than on your outer financial circumstances." ~ Brent Kessel from "It's Not About the Money"

If you, like me, have struggled with integrating your spirituality with your economics, your self-awareness with your bank balance, and all the rest of the challenges that go with showing up consciously around money in our often frenetic lives, Brent Kessel, "financial planner by day, yogi by dawn," is your friend. And, his book, "It's Not About the Money," is a must-read.

"It's Not About the Money" is all about pointing us to the spiritual path within our relationship to money--helping us master this part of our life to help us live in integrity with our highest ideals. As Brent wrote the book, he traveled around the world, interviewing such spiritual and investment luminaries as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Harold Kushner, David Whyte, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Harry Markowitz, Vanguard Funds founder John Bogle, Ram Dass, and Joseph Goldstein.

It's a remarkably transformative book--the 50+ exercises Brent shares brought me to tears several times--as I re-lived traumatic episodes around money from my childhood and witnessed how these experiences have affected me throughout my adult life. AND how I can now use this awareness to better understand my financial archetypes and create a more conscious life around money. VERY powerful stuff.

You're going to want to get this book to dive deeply into Brent's brilliant process of discovering your Core Story that's running your show and which of his eight archetypes show up in your life--from "The Guardian," "The Pleasure Seeker," "The Idealist," and "The Saver" to "The Star," "The Innocent," "The Caretaker," and "The Empire Builder."

It's quite remarkable to see which of these archetypes shows up when and how. And, as I said, what you can do about it. So, I think you'll really enjoy Brent's many Big Ideas and what the yogi/financial planner has to say about achieving spiritual and financial abundance!

--

You can get a free PhilosophersNote on It's Not About the Money at my new site (just launched yesterday!!): PhilosophersNotes.com.

To our growth!!!

-bri

Hopkins Medicine: The Alfredo Story

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:43:52 -0000

From Dan Millman's recent newsletter:

Hopkins Medicine: The Alfredo Story.

As Dan said, " If Alfredo Quiñones could accomplish what he did, what excuses do the rest of us have?"

Fields of Fuel

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:56:05 -0000

Just got back from a showing of "Fields of Fuel"--a brilliant film by Alexandra's friend Josh Tickell. It won the Audience Award at Sundance and will be coming to theatres this summer.

Learn more at fieldsoffuel.com

Friday Joke - The Front Fell Off

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:57:07 -0000

Eulogy of Bobby Kennedy

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:05:15 -0000

some of my favorite parts:

"Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.

     "These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

     "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.

     "For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

     "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.

     "Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live."

from here.

Between Four Eyes

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:34:37 -0000

Had a fantastic lunch last week with my friend Theo Koffler and her business partner, John Kern to chat about her non-profit, "Between Four Eyes."

I think you'll dig it. And, they're recruiting "Teacher-Ambassadors."

More from Theo and John:

...

Teacher-Ambassador Program Seeking Applicants Interested in Bringing Mindful Awareness-based Education

to Conflict and Post-Conflict Communities in East Africa and the Middle East

www.betweenfoureyes.org

Btwn4Eyes, a project of the Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) organization, is now accepting applications for our Teacher-Ambassador (TA) program.

TAs will travel internationally to teach mindful awareness-based education to adults and children in the Middle East and East Africa.

We seek individuals with drive, enthusiasm and dedication, as well as a background in teaching and mindfulness.

A description of this program is available at: www.betweenfoureyes.org/teacherRecruitment.htm

The TA application is at: www.betweenfoureyes.org/teacherRecruitmentForm.htm

For More Information Contact:

John Kern, Director of Teacher Ambassador Program johnk@btwn4eyes.org

Philosopher's Notes

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:08:16 -0000

So, I'm going to call my new biz "Philosopher's Notes." (Think: mini-Cliff's Notes for self-dev :)

Planning a spring launch. Here's the logo Will (genius creative director from "What is Enlightenment?"/EnlightenNext) put together:

And, as I type this, I have a little puppy in my jacket!! :)

Too fun.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed the samples!! Your feedback and support have been AWESOME. :)

What Will You Do?

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:48:36 -0000

So... what will YOU do?!?

[Hint: the right answer(s) will include taking personal responsibility and going out and being the change. :) ]

Love love love

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:22:17 -0000

How did I miss this one on Valentine's Day?!? :)

Entrepreneurial Solutions Essay by Michael Strong of FLOW

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:09:38 -0000

I always love reading Michael Strong's work.

He has an uncanny ability to get you thinking wiht his creative angles on entrepreneurial/economic solutions to pressing problems.

I think you'll dig his latest piece on stimulating environmental change by liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good.

--> Check it here.

(And, if you haven't stretched your perspective with this piece yet, get on it: Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart :)