Mindfulness Mode

Raised in Alaska, Damion Lupo is part Alaskan, part Texan and 100% Reinvention. He's a four-time college dropout who cut his teeth in the trenches of real life, becoming a self-made multimillionaire by age 25. He's the founder of Yokido, holds a black belt in Aikido, is a practitioner of yoga and a student of Reiki. He's a lifelong student of Austrian economics and runs a precious metals company based in Austin, Texas. Damion spends his time teaching and lecturing on the art of Reinvention with his unique teaching style focused on his personal life experiences and the process for developing consciousness and awareness to the truth. His personal philosophy of self responsibility influences his Yokido practice and his financial theory around retirement planning.

Contact Info

• Company: Total Control Financial
• Website: www.DamionLupo.com
• Social Media: Twitter & FB @DamionLupo

Most Influential Person

• Frank Allen

Effect on Emotions

• It, [mindfulness] let me let go of the anxiety, the stresses, the ability to ask what is true. It allows us to let go of the stuff; the beliefs. We peel back these onion layers, and whether that was sitting in an office and chatting or whether that was on the dojo and we're throwing each other around. Always  repeatedly asking that question, you keep going deeper.
• To me this is what a great coach does or a great therapist; they just hold space because we are our own inner guru.
• We are all black belts. We have all this stuff in us. What we have to do is find ways to get outside of all of the barriers and blocks.
• Somebody that's holding space will ask questions to where we start peeking around the corners and we start seeing things and we show up because it's already inside us.

Thoughts on Breathing

• One of the things that I really hated ago was, years ago, when I was stressed out, when my financial world was really at the peak.
• At the time I was spending a lot of money, making a lot of money and there was a lot of toxicity going on.
• And one of the problems was I took a break from martial arts for a couple of years where I wasn't really training and I don't think I was really breathing; very shallow breathing. And so there was a lot of dead air. There's a lot of dead life. There was just nothing going on deep down in my lungs and really pushing through my body.
• And so one of the things that I shifted to - I started learning about Transcendental Meditation.
• I started learning how to deep breathe and to really take breath all the way in and slow it down.
• And it's funny because if you think about this, the world is going so fast. Anything we can do to slow things down, even if it's for seconds or minutes a day, can change everything because we start seeing things. Otherwise we're just running, we're in a rat race all the time.
• So that was probably the one key thing was slowing it down and being able to focus on that.
• Literally thinking about my breath, counting my breath. It seems crazy or simple or like you know OK I've heard that before. All right. Well great. How often are we doing it? And that's really the question. How often can we get in that space where we're paying attention to our breath?
• And that's what I'm doing now more than ever. Back then one of the side effects of not being there, that toxicity, was the anxiety and the stress. And it was causing me to be really nauseous.
• And typical system answer; hey we'll give you drugs, let's give you clonopin or something.
• And the breath work has allowed me to shift away from that. So I haven't touched any of that stuff for many many years. But I think if people don't focus on their breath they're going to be stuck in big pharma and a lot of the other numbing agents whether it's drugs or alcohol or these different things and the breath can absolutely solve anything.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard
• App: Calendar

Bullying Story

• Boys, the amount of bullying that I've experienced. I mean one of the most intense events in my life was when I was in junior high up in Alaska.
• I had a kid come on the school bus and he pulled a 357 pistol out into my head and said he's going to kill me. And that's a pretty intense bullying experience.
• Not very many people know that I had that experience. And it's I think that was one of the things that made me feel like I need to be able to be in the space where I can do something; that I'm not going to be a victim.
• And so now, one of the things that I train on is is being able to move gently around that type of thing. So if that were to happen [again], if somebody were to pull a gun on me or to pull a knife or whatever, I'm naturally, instinctually going to move around it. And I'm going to deflate or de-escalate the situation.
• And those type of events didn't just stop in junior high. When you're out there disrupting and that's what I tend to do because I don't follow systems very well. I tend to say this is a bad idea, which makes people crazy that are really focused on protecting their system.
• I tend to disrupt a lot which pushes the system back on me and I'm OK with that because I'm doing it for something that is more impactful and freeing people in pretty much every case these days.
• So I've had lots of different pushback from people telling me I was crazy. In 2010 for example I was on a a campaign and I was volunteering and I got fired as a volunteer. So that tells you how bad of an employee I am.
• And after this thing happened I was watching the Internet and I noticed people were saying that I had been fired. And so there were these anonymous trolls that were out there and this happens on Facebook. I mean people are sadly committing suicide. Kids are committing suicide when this stuff happens. It's horrible.
• And my experience was just this onslaught of people being negative and just attacking me, telling me how terrible of a person I was. And I was defending it and I finally said, wait a second, let's just be honest. What happened? I got fired. I wish that I had quit.
• And that was one of the moments I realized I had to just be with the truth and the truth was I was a terrible employee. I didn't follow the rules I was trying to break the system because I wanted to win. And I just acknowledged it and that was a big step I think in the right direction, acknowledging the truth. It was allowing and I can take that and redirect it.
• And that's one of the principles of Akido. It's being with the energy and allowing it. You can redirect it but you're not going into it. You're not fighting it. And that's a very common thing when we think about conflict.
• We don't think about turning and blending with something and accepting it and saying thank you for it.
• We think about saying no you're wrong and I'm going to get into a fight and I'm going to win. I'm going to beat you. And that usually doesn't end very well.

Tommy Breedlove is the founder of Choose Goodness, a company dedicated to helping executives and entrepreneurs focus beyond the financial bottom line. By empowering leaders, Tommy bridges the gap between humanity and profitably. He transforms organizations to

attract and retain the best and brightest people, create a loyal customer base and promote goodwill within their communities. Choose Goodness provides both the rational and emotional perspectives to the strategic and financial decision making process.

Contact Info

• Website: choosegoodnessnow.com
• Email: tommy@choosegoodnessnow.com
• Twitter: @choosegoodness
• Facebook: @choosegoodnessnow

Most Influential Person

• Nancy Vedo

Effect on Emotions

• It made me from a fear-based to a loving-based person. I start with love now 90 percent of the time as opposed to a fear based mentality.

Thoughts on Breathing

• Oh. Breathing is my mindfulness so it starts there and goes back there no matter what. If I find myself in a planning mode or remembering mode or a future mode, I always go back to the breath and start with the breath.
• Also have gratitude for your breath because at the end of the day it's actually what keeps us alive.
• And so breathing to me is everything. And so it's everything about how I live my life and in the choices that make it. It starts with the breath.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan
• App: Oprah & Deepak’s 21-Day Meditation Experience

Dr. Russell Jaffe is scientist who is certified in Clinical and Chemical Pathology. He has more than 40 years of experience contributing to molecular biology and clinical diagnostics. He has spent his career searching for deeper wisdom and insight into how humans can enjoy better

health. Being incredibly curious and yet skepical, he set out to prove that many holistic forms of health and healing systems were not particularly valid, or at least not scientific. Instead, his discoveries changed the direction of his career and he became deeply engrossed in the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, meditation, homeopathy and manipulative arts.

Contact Info

• Website: DrRussellJaffe.com
• Online Book: Perque.com/alkway
• Health Tests: Betterlabtestsnow.com

Most Influential Person

• Bonti (My Mentor)

Effect on Emotions

• Well I would like to think that I am a bit more kind and compassionate. My experience is that emotions are now like the weather. They affect me. I am aware of them. I watch them because for me it's a dynamic of engaged non-attachment; engaged with what I'm doing, this conversation for example. But nonattached to the outcome and therefore able in fact more than able, willing and practicing the art of living. And if you want to fully be in the moment and feel the fullness of the moment, practicing non-attachment is very helpful for mental health.
• You can easily get overwhelmed with the emotions. That's the astral level of life. But then there is an electromagnetic level or an astral level and maybe beyond that a spiritual, or soul level. And in my tradition as well as in my science, all of it is grist for the mill, all of that is part of the art of living.
• Practice Non-Attachment To Experience The Art of Living Says Scientist Dr. Russell Jaffe
• Practice Non-Attachment To Become Compassionate Says Scientist Dr. Russell Jaffe
• Non-Attachment Leads To Compassion Suggests Scientist Dr. Russell Jaffe

Thoughts on Breathing

• Our breath is a refuge. That's a classic Buddhist concept. What that means is that when most people feel what's called fight or flight response, some of us practice the third way which is fortitude.
• So yes we can flee, yes we can fight. But both of those are afflictive and harsh. The other choice is fortitude. Fortitude means being calm in the midst of everyone else's turbulence. It means letting your breath engage you as the witness of your life because when I say non-attachment I mean that as we're having this conversation part of me is watching me and us have this conversation, this communion, this connection, this meaningful moment.

Suggested Resources

• Book: The Science of Breath by Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine, and Alan Hymes
• Book: Active Meditation: The Western Tradition by Robert R. Leichtman, Carl Japikse
• App: Timer App

  Your Meditation Practice

  • I had the great good fortune of just doing it. I was told to take twenty minutes, twice a day, and be. And during that time of twenty minutes, I should just repeat the sound that I was given, it was whispered in my ear.
  • There was a whole ceremony. It was lovely in the sense that it heightened my attention to that particular sound for me. What I did was the lowest of the low tech versions.
  • I picked one place. I sat there for twenty minutes twice a day and I learned to measure approximately what twenty minutes was without any device.
  • I have no problem, if you want to set your phone to tell you when the time that you allot has passed so that you don't have to be preoccupied with whether its going to be nineteen, twenty or twenty-one minutes.
  • The essence of meditation is to be, to be with your breath, to be with a sound, to be with an image, to be with whatever it is that you are inclined to be with.

Jordan Cowe is a certified wine educator, a meditator, and co-founder of Be Wineful. Jordan is one of approximately four hundred people worldwide to achieve the designation of Certified Wine Educator since its inception in 1977, becoming the youngest to do so in 2015. Jordan has taught at 

conferences and events across North America spreading interest in unique and unknown wines. Jordan has also suffered for many years from Panic Disorder and agoraphobia [a fear of going outside]. His desire to succeed in the world of wine and live a happy life led him to create his system of Winefulness. He is now dedicating himself to spreading happiness, joy, and relaxation with wine.

[show-notes-bio]

Contact Info

• Company: Be Wineful
• Website: BeWineful.com
• Facebook/Twitter: @BeWineful

Most Influential Person

•  Steve Abma, my therapist.

Effect on Emotions

• I've become much calmer, much less reactive, so I don't experience anger. Well I do occasionally, but it takes a lot. But I mean I don't experience much anger. I don't experience many extreme emotions. I'm just always pleasant and happy.

Thoughts on Breathing

• Breathing is essential. You're always breathing so you always have your breath with you.
• If I'm in an environment where I start to get worked up or start to get stressed out, I can always come back to my breath and I can just shut out everything around me and just focus in on the breath coming in and out of my nose.
• I can meditate in the middle of a crowded building at this point. I can sit down on a bench in the middle of the casino here. We went for dinner the other night, I freaked out and I just sat on the bench in the middle of all these people. I was able to go into meditation and I used the breath.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Danny Penman
• Book: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
• App: Headspace

The Science

• Bruce: So Jordan what's the science behind this? Is there science that tells us about the combination of wine and mindfulness. What is the science?
• Jordan: Well it's a mix of things. I mean the sensory side of meditation is very important. So as far as mindfulness meditation it's ability to help many things, that's been widely spread.
• As far as anxiety, high stress, as far as depression, mindfulness fits there. Now the one thing that has been noted in the past, especially for people with attention deficit disorder which is me, hence why I can get distracted easily. Typical breath, focus, and things like that doesn't always work well.
• I get distracted very easily and they get frustrated. So having another method into meditation is very useful for them. So I mean obviously in a clinical environment they're not going to be using wine, they're going to try and come up with other systems.
• For somebody who needs a stimulus that's intense to keep them on track, that's a wonderful side. The other side of it is, wine from a science point of view, for the meditation itself. Obviously a slight bit of alcohol does allow people to loosen up a little bit. It allows people to be open to new ideas. It allows people to accept something different. It puts people into a very happy and relaxed mode for the most part to begin with.
• The other cool side about wine, as a wine science point of view, it is one of the only fruits where when you ferment it, the complex sugars and the complex organic compounds, they break down into things that smell like other things.
• When you ferment a blueberry or a peach wine, they smell exactly like blueberries or peaches. But because of the way yeast evolved it can actually break down some of the other more complex components of wine. And so when you pick up a wine there can be hundreds of different aromas emanating from that glass.
• You're giving somebody something in front of them where there's so many possible reactions and there's so many things in front of them that it forces them to open up to the stimulus. So you just give them one aroma, they smell and they're done.
• The brain can shut off where you have them sit there with the wine, like up their nose and they're smelling it. They just sit there with it. It's constantly changing.
• There's constantly new things happening in their brain. It's triggering new memories, triggering new emotions.
• You can sit there for 15 minutes and your brain will always have a new stimulus. That's the important thing for me.

Sharon Carne is passionate about the healing power of sound and music. She has developed stress reduction programs making use of the healing power of sound. Sharon has produced sound healing recordings and is frequently invited to speak for corporate and private events – many of them based within the medical community. Sharon also has written a book called, “Listen From the Inside Out”.

Contact Info

• Company: Sound Wellness
• Website: SoundWellness.com
• Book: Listen From The Inside Out by Sharon Carne
• Blog: Sound Wellness Blog

Most Influential Person

• My good friend Tina and also my sister.

Effect on Emotions

• Mindfulness calms my emotions so much.
• That deep breath is one of the first places you go to. Then whatever situation I'm in, whatever the mindfulness tool I bring in. A sound or an internal sound. One of my favourite things is to listen to the bird songs as I go on my walks. That's my mindfulness walk. My mindfulness meditation.

Thoughts on Breathing

• The breath brings me right back. It always does that.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Book: Listen From The Inside Out by Sharon Carne
• App: Authentic Tibetan Singing Bowls by Oceanhouse Media

Bullying Story

• We had quite an experience in our own family with our older son.
• When he was in grade 7, he moved to another school. About six of the kids who were his best friends in grade 6 in the previous school were in his group at school.
• Our older son has always been my teacher for integrity; since he could speak. At that age of grade seven when you're twelve or thirteen and peer pressure becomes an important part of the social milieu and so he would say, I'm not going to do that, that's not right.
•  He started getting bullied, which ended up after several months with an enormous amount of angst. He was crying himself to sleep at night and he came home one day and said, mom, I'm not going back to school.
• He was just vibrating with stress and frustration and anger. He actually hit a kid, which is why he said he was not going back to school. I said, OK.
• Another of his friends was being homeschooled at that time so I called his mom and said, what do I do. She coached me on what to do and so I called the school and said I was taking him out to be homeschooled and explained that every intervention I've tried had not worked.
• So, it was one of the things that really helped Will, whenever he was really super stressed, it would affect his stomach.
• I found a CD. It was called Chakra Chants by Jonathon Goldman. I said, just stay in bed, Will. I know your stomach's hurting and this is psychological hurting so it was real.
• I would put the CD on and he would come down sixty minutes later saying, I'm all better, Mom. It was amazing.
• It helped him so much, having it in the background and encouraging him to allow the sound to do it's work, even though he wasn't focusing on it.

Jaimal Yogis is an author and teacher of creative writing. He is widely known for his best-seller, Saltwater Buddha, a masterpiece novel and documentary film which tells the story of a young surfer’s spiritual journey as he experiences monasteries, meditation and mindfulness as part of his fascinating search for eternal truth. His most recent book called ‘All Our Waves Are Water’ is to be released in July. Jaimal skillfully uses the sea as a powerful metaphor to explore questions about the nature of the true self.   

Contact Info

• Website: JaimalYogis.com
• Social Media (IG, Twitter, FB): JaimaYogis

Most Influential Person

• My mom. (She always did Yoga and meditation daily).

Effect on Emotions

• I think mindfulness has enhanced the good emotions and it's helped me let the bad ones go.

Thoughts on Breathing

• Breathing is my mindfulness practice. The breath is always there. It's something to focus on and it's just so pleasant, just taking a breath and being there with it. It's amazingly rich.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice by Shunryū Suzuki
• App: Headspace

Bullying Story

• In the surfing world, a lot of people think of surfers is like really peaceful, zen dudes, but it gets pretty tense out in the water sometimes.
• I actually had a story in Saltwater Buddha about a time when I was surfing in Santa Cruz and it gets really crowded and I was just I  in my intermediate level of Surfing.
• I got a great wave, I got a barrel when I got inside and that was one of my first waves like that. I was feeling really confident and got a little overconfident and I dropped in front of a guy on my next wave.
• That's sort of the biggest faux pas in surfing. When you drop in on someone it's dangerous but it's just an etiquette issue.
• A lot of beginners don't realize this and if you break rank essentially at one of these uber competitive surf breaks like in films like North Shore and Point Break you know you can really invoke wrath.
• I did that and and the guy was a young local guy who just started spewing all kinds of invectives and every four letter word and then some. This was for maybe 45 minutes. This guy wouldn't let it go and I kept thinking, should I get out of the water or should I apologize.
• I ignored him and eventually I was pretty seething inside. It was mindfulness that really brought me out of it.
• There was a point where he was shouting all these homophobic obscenities at me. I remember seeing his neck bulging and his face really red and I thought the fact that he was really suffering in this situation. He was the one who had no control over his anger. I was suffering too.
• It was sort of a mutual situation. That little thought of compassion switched me out of it.  I wasn't quite as offended. I almost felt a little bit of compassion to this guy who clearly had no anger management skills.
• I breathed and I remembered a Zen story where a Samurai is seeking an advice from a Zen master and he goes to the Zen master and he says, Sensei, teach me the difference between heaven and hell.
• The Zen master says why would I teach a cretin like you? You're an uneducated Samurai. This is a high teaching. I wouldn't stoop to that level.
• This is a very respected Samurai.He picks up the sword and he's about to slice the the monk and just as his eyes are bulging and he's about to drop his sword, the Zen master says, wait.
• He says, that right there is hell. The Samurai thinks about it and he realizes that he's been given this great teaching and he realizes that his emotions got the best of him. Then he bows to the Zen master. (Hear more on the podcast interview).

JJ Flizanes is an author, coach and podcast host of The Fit 2 Love Podcast Show. JJ is vibrant and determined and she’s a great connector of people. She’s currently been working on her newest book, The Invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets to Release Weight and End Body Shame. Today she talks about left brain, right brain, accountability and the topic of shame. 

Contact Info

• The Book: The Invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets to Release Weight and End Body Shame
• Website: www.fit2love.tv
• Podcast: Fit To Love on Itunes (Audio Only) 

The Conversation...

Bruce: JJ's currently been working on her newest book which she says is her best. It's the invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets To Release Weight and Reduce Body Shame. Tell us more, JJ.

JJ: This book is a culmination of 20 years of work. It is the simplified version, the nuts and bolts, the proof and the science on all levels; science of body, science of mind, science of the spirit. science of biochemistry. It's so vast. Of the five Secrets, three of them are uber scientific and the other two are very spiritual, psychological and mindful. It 's all in the emotional piece.

It goes from one extreme to the other and that's that's who I am anyway. I'm the left and right brain person who is going to bring in both sides because both sides are important. I think a lot of times most of us have our strength in one of those sides. We're either very creative and expressive but we lack structure.

Then we have the structured people who are very frustrated and unsatisfied because they lack the outlet of creativity and emotional expression. I am an empowerment strategist and I combine those two and help people find the balance and use both sides in order to really live your life to the fullest.

Bruce: How can we help to integrate our left in our right brain? Tell us more details about how this can work for us on an individual basis.

JJ: It's important to understand and identify your strengths and weaknesses.  Then you're going to know how to ask for help or guidance and to know what pieces you need to implement so if you know that you're a creative free spirit; unrestricted, not linear kind-of-person ,then you're very right right brained.

So what that means is you need structure. It's like masculine or feminine .it's always said that the masculine is the riverbank and the feminine is river.

If you know that you are a creative person and you know that you have creative thoughts ideas and yet you can't implement, you're not very linear.

Structure is what you need and so finding systems, finding people to keep you accountable, finding methods that follow a plan, and again I'm going to really stress the keeping accountable part.

The people that are left-brained or accountable they will get their stuff done.

What they need help with is uncovering some of that emotional creativity. A lot of left brain people are very controlling they need to learn how to let go and how to be spontaneous and how to the expressive and to do things that don't color in the lines.

First identify which one you are. I know there are some tests online t o figure that out. Besides just testing your brain's left or right brain percentage, you can also take a strength finders test.

I really love the Strengthsfinder's 2.0 test. The basic one is about $19.99 for your top 5 strength and that will also give you information about what it is that you are really good at. It will also find what is it that you lack.

There's no shame in acknowledging who you are.

If you continue thinking you can do it all and that you're built to do it all, you stay frustrated for a really long time. You'll wonder why can't I do this?

You're not built that way. Can you learn? Sure, but most likely you just need support in adding those elements into your life but they're not your strength.

Bruce: What can we do to be more organized, more right brain?

JJ: I create accountability for anything I need help with. So let's say if you need to be organized, whether it be hiring somebody to come in with you. I mean it could literally be a friend to come sit with you and talk with you while you're cleaning. You designate on your calendar just like a personal t raining session or coaching session. For this hour this person will come or maybe talk to a person on Skype while you get your work done. You can have a friend or family member sit with you.

You can make it fun. My husband's clued into how to get me to clean the garage or my car or do yard work. He knows the right music to put on because I listen to very specific Latino kind of music.

When I hear that go on I know he wants me to be in a good mood. Sometimes there might be a cocktail involved and there's always music.

You create an environment which creates less resistance. But I would say the most important thing about that is accountability.

Bruce: Let's talk about body shame. Tell us about this?

JJ: I'm a big fan of the late, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's work which is non-violent communication. What he says is that should is the most violent word we use.

we have an idea of shoulding. You have this idea that, I should be able to do all these things. I've done the same thing, I have a good capacity of a left and right brain. I learn very quickly. There are many things that I can learn to do so I just do whatever.

What I've learned is, even if you're really good at a lot of things and you can do all those things, it becomes a life lesson of, is this really the best use of your time. I would say for a lot of us that's just a life path.

You do all those things because you think you should or because you can and then you see the results and you say, alright it's working and if it's working then you keep doing it but if you spend all this time and you're frustrated and your brain hurts and you feel stressed out, then it's not working. Ev entually you're going to say, I can let this go and I can hire someone else to do it.

Tune In To Hear More of the Interview

MindfulnessMode.com/227

Allison Sutter is a contemporary spiritual teacher well known for her ability to seamlessly blend spirituality and practical self-help teachings. She does this in such a way that she makes spirituality relevant to daily life. Allison has created life-changing digital courses that serve students in over 32 countries. Mindfulness is a central focus of her life everyday - that’s how she is so powerful in her ability to help others. She resides with her husband and 3 girls in Chicago.

Contact Info

• Website: www.Living360Coaching.com

Most Influential Person

• My mom. (She died when I was twenty but she still influences me).

Effect on Emotions

• I understand what my emotions are. I understand they're our guidance system so I can bring myself back into a place of feeling good which opens up this mindfulness aspect which gives me all the present solutions that I need for positive transformation in the situation that I'm in.

Thoughts on Breathing

• As much as I possibly can on any given day, whatever I'm doing, I can use mindful meditation in picking clovers from the grass or I can be sitting trying to connect with spiritual guides or whatever it is.
• Feeling the depth of the breath and feeling the expanses  going into it and finding, in a good way, the abyss below which is connected to everything I guess you could say.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Accelerate Your Mojo: 7 Simple Steps to Ignite Intuition, Shake Off Fear and Unleash the Real You by Allison Sutter
• Book: Stories Of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (Was made into the movie, Arrival)
• Book: The Nature of Personal Reality: Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know by Jane Roberts
• App: Use Your Timer App

Bullying Story

• There's a story every single day in every school system around the country where one child is so disconnected from who they really are. They come at another kid with a vengeance every day.
• For my own girls, what I do when they come home with these stories, first we talk about the fact that the person coming at them is disconnected from who they really are. They're so angry, jealous & upset at whatever they got going in their life. It's causing them to feel and act in a particular way.
• First we center them and then we say, what do you think.  Whether it's an immediate friend of theirs or something they witnessed. Are you a bystander in this? Are you helping? So we talk about the situation itself and how they can center.
• From this place of center they can make a decision. Every situation is different.
• Last night my daughter got some text messages which caused her to cry and it was about a school project. We talked about how the child sent these from a place of disconnection.
• If you disconnect and just come at them, it just complicates the issue. Helping them center themselves and just go out into the world as an example of how you center yourself.
• One person who's centered can literally be the wave of positivity that brings the others into their spirit of influence.
• Negativity doesn't last forever and it's not who we really are.

Cameron Brown sold or donated 99% of the things he used to own back in 2016 and proceeded to embark on his latest project known as ‘A Place Called Earth.’ He travels the world, coaching & training people on how to make a greater positive impact. Cameron also creates short films and music that has reached millions of people across the globe, inspiring positive change on a personal, social and environmental level. Cameron believes part of his purpose is to assist in the evolution of humanity and our planet. He is a songwriter and anti-bullying advocate, having written and performed, Close To The Edge, a wildly popular anti-bullying anthem known across the world.

Contact Info

• Website: www.ThrivingCollective.com
• Website: A Place Called Earth
• Social Media: /AskCameronBrown (IG, FB, Twitter)

Most Influential Person

• Eckhart Tolle
• Dr. Wayne Dyer

Effect on Emotions

• I still get frustrated; I still get annoyed. There's still these things that play out.
• Being a human isn't about saying I just want to be happy all of the time. It's about allowing yourself to experience the full wave of emotions.
• That's what's beautiful. You can't know a beautiful day without a really cloudy, rainy day. You don't know light without dark.
• Life is a sea of contrast. I look back to my teenage years when there were a whole lot of dark times. My life could have gone one way or the other. I could have ended up in a really bad space long term.
• I'm extremely thankful that I found personal development and emotional intelligence, mindfulness and all the other pieces that make up allowing yourself to experience what it means to be a human and be aligned to why you're here.
• The moment you can notice and understand you are not your thoughts, you can allow your emotions to flow through you, not get stuck in you.

Thoughts on Breathing

• I don't even know if I consciously do it anymore. A number of different breathing strategies that used to take conscious awareness to actually do them, there's a framework that I use at the moment which is having unconscious incompetence, which is not knowing that you suck at something, to having conscious incompetence which is, ah, I know this, I suck at this. Conscious competence is, I can do it, but I need to focus, to then being unconsciously competent which is I can do it with my eyes closed.
• It takes time in the beginning to build in new strategies and patterns of behaviour, whether that's breathing, which it used to be for me to being able to allow things to flow through, to knowing why it is that I'm experiencing it. Having the awareness around that, having the emotional regulation.
• Whatever the pieces are, it's about knowing and understanding that for a period of time there's going to be a feeling of incompetence and feeling like you're not getting it. Until you move to conscious competence, and actally been to unconscious competence, that's where it becomes part of your identity and this is where a lot of people fall short.
• Because they build a habit, but it's still conscious competence in the strategy that they're trying to implement. They think they've got it and they focus on something else and they cycle back because they didn't allow it to be an unconscious pattern even when they've got their eyes closed.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Presence by Amy Cuddy
• App: N/A

Simon Crowe coaches and mentors inspiring people and helps them come alive. He takes people on life-changing adventures into their heart and soul and helps them connect to their deepest purpose. These adventures are both metaphoric and physical, with Simon traveling to Africa recently with groups of his clients. His passion is creating partnerships with influential entrepreneurs, leaders and humanitarians and co-creating visions that positively impact the world.

Contact Info

• Website: www.SimonCrowe.com Please connect with Simon and tell him about your wildest dream.
• Website: TheBigIdea.space

Most Influential Person

• My wife, Stacey

Effect on Emotions

• To me, an emotion or a feeling is a word that we give to an awareness of a vibration. Why that's important to me is, I've been reading a book called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer and what I appreciate about the book is he talks about our emotions. If we're scared of them then we live our lives trying to protect ourselves from our emotions and we create this incredibly crazy complex life full of emotional interactions.
• If we can just see our emotions as energy, they don't mean anything to who we are ... that distinction between our higher self and our ego-driven mind.
• What I find myself doing now when I feel strong energy, I try not to label it as a particular emotion. I let it rise up in my heart and my chest. I let it find a way out. Almost like letting the gas bubbles in a bottle escape.
• If I suppress it or try to change my behaviour, or change the external world in some way, then all I'm doing is keeping that locked in. And so it just keeps returning.
• How mindfulness has really helped me is, I've become much more aware of those energetic vibrations. I've got a completely different relationship with them now. I get less fearful of them and I now allow them to arise in their energetic form and not connect to the stories that I hold around those energetic vibrations, those emotions, and just watch them pass.
• I feel so much more resilient and able to deal with situations.

Thoughts on Breathing

• I have a series of affirmations I say every day and one of them is, I breathe deeply into my belly.
• I had a yoga teacher one who said, if men just breathed properly into their bellies, then 90 percent of the problems we go to therapists around, would be solved.
• The breath is a fundamental connection.
• When I'm meditating that's what I use as my focal point.
•  I bring my awareness and my attention to my breathing. Breath is something which opens me, which expands me, which connects me to the greater cosmos.

Suggested Resources

• Book: The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
• Book: The Unteathered Soul by Michael A. Singer
• App: ThinkUp: Positive Affirmations & Motivation (Precises Wellness LLC)

Effect on Emotions

• There were times when I was a young boy when I was guilty of bullying other people.
• I realize that when I was twelve or thirteen, I would pick on the kid in the class for whatever reason.
• Whatever this person was being singled out for, whether they wore glasses or they looked different, or were from a different background. I would just join in the name-calling and didn't give a moment's thought to the experience that poor person was having and what the impact may have been as to what they thought or felt about themselves.
• It felt very selfish. But that's only on reflection. I didn't feel selfish in that moment, I was just doing what everybody else was doing. It's because I didn't have that awareness.
• There were two things going on, there was the action I was doing and there was the ability to think about and assess whether those actions are ones that I really want to be engaged in. Whether it's something that they would have the impact that I would be proud of and now I'm slightly embarrassed to have to tell this story.
• It was a complete lack of mindfulness, of awareness in that moment.
• I was just behaving automatically. It was just really ignorance. I hadn't given it a moment's thought.
• Now with the awareness I now have as an adult, I think that was just really poor behavior.