Meditation has become one of the most important habits in my life.

It has helped to reduce my stress and anxiety and live more in the present moment.

I've never felt more connected to myself than I do when I'm meditating. Simply put, meditation has changed my life.

If you knew how to meditate, how would your life change for the better? If you're ready to live more mindfully and feel the benefits of meditation, take a deep breath and read this.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Are you ready to connect to your mind, body, and spirit on a deeper level? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE 21 Morning Rituals Cheatsheet! 

This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support!

Why should you meditate?

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has changed our lives forever. Isolation, job insecurity, and fear of the future have impacted people's mental health. During these uncertain times, meditation is a powerful mindfulness-based practice for finding calm amidst the chaos.

On a daily basis, the majority of your thoughts are focused on the past or the future. In this emotional state, it's easy to become a victim of your mind. Meditation shifts your focus away from these places and brings you back to the present moment.

If you've never meditated before, figuring out how to start can be overwhelming. For many years I was resistant to meditating.

Why?

I didn't understand how the process of meditation worked.

Intellectually I knew that meditating was good for me, but I couldn't connect with it. I decided to change my perspective. Instead of getting frustrated, I decided to get curious about meditation. I forced myself to meditate every day over an extended period.

Not surprisingly, I started noticing the profound benefits that meditation was having on my mental and emotional health. At that point, there was no turning back. I was hooked.

Some of the mental health benefits of meditation include better focus, improved self-esteem, and lower levels of stress and anxiety.

As an entrepreneur and overachiever, my mind is constantly moving.

I have a lot of responsibilities in my business, which can create anxiety. Meditation has helped me relax my mind, while still being productive. It's also given me more clarity and less brain fog while doing things like reading, learning, listening, and speaking to someone.

Why Is It Hard To Meditate?  

The reason why a lot of people resist meditation is that they are addicted to thinking. Your brain doesn't know how to slow itself down. Did you know that from the moment you are born, you process anywhere between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day?

If ruminative thinking is familiar to you, calming your mind and sitting in silence will be incredibly challenging. When you're first starting to meditate it's natural to experience boredom.

Meditation challenges you to practice being in the here and now instead of trying to escape or avoid it. I've struggled with a variety of different addictions throughout my life, everything from video games to pornography to binge eating.

The root cause of addiction is an inability to be comfortable with being. Meditation has helped me shift from doing mode into being mode. In being mode, my mind is forced to slow down because it has nowhere to go.

In this state, I have learned how to be fully present, which has given me a heightened sense of awareness. If I have thoughts, feelings, or sensations that arise in my body, I don't feel the need to change or resist them.

Instead, I observe them in a non-judgmental way.

Meditation teaches you to watch your thoughts and feelings come and go instead of getting attached to them.

If you are new to the world of meditation, I suggest you read Meditation For Beginners by Jack Kornfield. Inside his book, he has some great guided meditations. Having someone direct and guide you through the meditation process is extremely helpful when you're first learning to meditate.

When I first started meditating, I used Headspace and Calm. These apps helped motivate me to meditate and stay on track until I had the willpower to meditate on my own.

Meditation Technologies 

Muse Meditation Headband

With the Muse headband, you listen to a guided meditation while the headband scans your brainwaves. It will identify when your mind is overly active versus when it's calm. When your mind is active during your meditation, you'll hear birds chirping.

Conversely, when your mind is calm, the birds will stop chirping. At the end of your meditation session, you can identify what your meditation experience was like and track your progress.

The Brain Tap

The Brain Tap uses frequencies of light and sound for brain wave entrainment. You wear a headset over your closed eyes and headphones in your ears while experiencing these frequencies.

Essentially, it's a guided visualization and meditation that helps your brain to experience higher levels of alpha brain waves. The visualization puts you into an incredibly relaxed state of mind.

HeartMath Inner Balance

This is a heart rate sensor that attaches to your ear. It is accompanied by an app that teaches you how to shift your emotional state and create synchronicity between your mind, body, and heart. Not only does this device help reduce your stress, but it also helps bring awareness to your breathing and heart rate throughout the day.

How To Meditate

You want to make sure that you're in a comfortable seated position, whether that's in a chair or sitting cross-legged on the floor. If you choose to sit in a chair, I recommend sitting upright so that your back is fully supported.

There are many different ways that you can meditate, but one of the most common ways is with your eyes closed. Take a deep breath and allow your body to fully relax. Do a scan and bring attention to every part of your body.

I go through this process in the video above!

If you notice any tension, focus on melting into the tension. Doing this body scan will bring you into the present moment. Once you have done this, bring attention to your breath. Don't try to control your breath. Merely watch and observe it.

Through this practice, you'll notice that your mind will start to get busy.

This is your monkey mind in action.

When this happens, it's important that you don't get frustrated and react. Your only goal is to observe your thoughts. As soon as you become aware of what your thought loops are, simply return to your breath.

While you may enjoy 5 seconds to 1 minute of pure awareness, shortly thereafter, more thoughts will arise. Again, you want to observe your thoughts and be with them. When you're meditating, certain emotions will arise as well.

I like to identify where in my body I'm feeling emotions and get curious about them. At times, the feelings will be so strong that I'll have an urge to stop my meditation altogether. However, if I sit with the emotions long enough, eventually they fade away. The same thing happens with physical sensations that arise.

This is how to meditate for beginners.

Meditation teaches you so much about yourself. It brings awareness to how you think, feel, and move throughout your life. If you're a beginner, I recommend meditating for 10 minutes per day.

Research has shown that a lot of the long-term benefits of meditation occur once you're meditating for 20 minutes per day. If you can work your way up to that, fantastic.

A daily meditation practice transformed my life and it can do the same for you. Connect to your breath and go inward. The answers you seek are found in the stillness.

Are you ready to connect to your mind, body, and spirit on a deeper level? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE 21 Morning Rituals Cheatsheet! 

This is my Biocybernaut review where I talk about how I biohacked 40 years of meditation in 7 days.

Tatiana and I recently took part in a 7-day brain neurofeedback training at the Biocybernaut Institute in Sedona, Arizona. 

This was one of the most powerful self-development experiences I've ever had. I was given the unique opportunity of biohacking my brain waves.

Dr. James Hardt is the founder of the Biocybernaut Institute and one of the original inventors of EEG feedback technology.

Keep reading to discover the life-changing benefits that I received from this brain training!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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How would your life change if you could biohack your brain and enhance your mental game? CLICK HERE to discover how the Biocybernaut Institute can help you do so!

This was my experience with 40 years of meditation in 7 days.

The Biocybernaut Institute is the gold standard in neurofeedback training. As many of you know who follow me, I have been heavily invested in self-development for the last 17  years. I will try anything that has the potential to enhance my life. If something benefits me, my mission is to share what I learn with you, in the hopes that it will improve your life in some way.

That is why I do what I do. I've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into my self-development, in the form of training programs, seminars, coaches, consultants, masterminds, and live events. Not to mention that I have read hundreds of self-help books.

I can confidently say that my experience at the Biocybernaut Institute is the most transformative thing that I have ever invested in. That is saying a lot. I discovered the Institute a few years ago from friends who shared the life-changing benefits that they've received from going through the training.

Some of them have even done the training multiple times! It is that powerful. My mentor, Tony Robbins gives a great Biocybernaut review of his experience going through the training. I encourage you to watch if you're interested in attending it one day.

Benefits of Biocybernaut Training

Dr. James Hardt has conducted scientific studies that confirm that participants who go through his 7-day neurofeedback training experience the following benefits:

• 50% increase in creativity
• +11.7 point increase in IQ (stable 12 months out)
• +15.8 increase in EQ (stable 12 months out)
• A calmer mind and less anxiety
• Heightened consciousness, greater self-awareness
• An increase in peak performance and flow states

If you want to go deeper and learn more about the science behind this treatment and the benefits outlined above, I encourage you to check out the Biocybernaut Publications and the Biocybernaut Technical Papers.

The Five Brain Wave States

• Delta – Restorative sleep, dreaming
• Theta – Lucid dreams, limited consciousness
• Alpha – Alert, but physically and mentally relaxed
• Beta – Awake and alert
• Gamma – Intense focus and concentration

Every thought and emotion that you have is experienced at a certain brain wave state. After studying Zen meditators from all over the world, Dr. James Hardt discovered that people who meditate for 20-40 years have higher levels of alpha brain waves.

He was able to recreate that same pattern of the alpha brain waves in his biofeedback training, thereby helping people biohack 40 years of meditation in 7 days.

Neurofeedback Training Explained

At the Biocybernaut Institute, you train for 10-14 hours a day over a 7-day period. They attach gold-plated electrodes to different parts of your brain so that they can read and see where your alpha is coming from and to what degree.

Most of our alpha comes from our occipital and frontal lobes. They put you in a sound-proof chamber where you spend the majority of your time. Inside the chamber, there are speakers all around you.

When your alpha goes up, they start playing various sounds or tones. Based on where the alpha is being increased inside your brain, you will hear different tones.

As your brain starts hearing these different brain waves from inside the chamber, your brain gets rewarded for it.  As a result, this triggers the production of more alpha in your brain. This is how neurofeedback works.

Most people experience these different brain waves but we don't get to measure them, nor do they get to receive feedback when these states go up and down.

Studies that have been conducted at the Biocybernaut Institute have found that a higher level of alpha reduces negative emotions; like anxiety, stress, anger, and worry. 

At the Biocybernaut Institute, they integrate the 14-step forgiveness method into their training program.

This is the most beneficial part of the program and was life-changing for me. Through his research, Dr. James Hardt found that trauma suppresses our alpha levels. A traumatic experience can still affect you on a subconscious level, regardless of the amount of inner work that you've done to heal from it.

Therefore, the purpose of the forgiveness method is to help people release subconscious trauma. The only way to accomplish this is by being in a high state of alpha. When you're inside the chamber, their technology reads your EEG alpha activity to see whether or not your painful thoughts are suppressing or increasing your alpha.

If the machine finds that if your alpha is suppressed, you go through a forgiveness process of the people who wronged you to understand why they acted the way that they did.

From there, they ask you to take some time to reflect upon the gifts that came from the painful experience that you endured. As you go through this forgiveness process, you are raising your alpha brain waves and restoring balance to your brain's electrical patterns. 

I hope that my Biocybernaut review has inspired you to biohack your brain! 

Again, my experience at the Biocybernaut Institute was life-changing. It has allowed me to access higher levels of consciousness, among many other amazing benefits.

What is unique about this training is you're doing something that is having a permanent effect on you in real-time. Even better, anyone who has done the training says that the benefits continue to increase 6-9 months afterward.

How amazing is it that someone like Dr. James Hardt has created technology that allows us to biohack our brainwave patterns and inner peace?

Do yourself a favor and add this experience to your bucket list!  When you change your brain waves, you change your life.

How would your life change if you could biohack your brain and enhance your mental game? CLICK HERE to discover how the Biocybernaut Institute can help you do so!

The benefits of mindfulness exercises for people in the workplace are far-reaching.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how mindful would you say you are? For a lot of people, mindfulness seems like a “cool” idea but extremely unrealistic.

In your busy life, finding time to practice mindfulness may seem like one more task on your ever-growing to-do list. However, if you want to reduce your stress and get more done, living a mindful life is a necessity.

Are you ready to learn the benefits of mindfulness exercises?

Watch the video below where I share a 2-minute daily gratitude meditation:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

Do you want to learn how you can create an empowering morning ritual? CLICK HERE to join my Morning Ritual Mastery program!

This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support!

Practicing mindfulness at work has become the new craze.

Work-related stress and job burnout have become an epidemic in today’s world. Not only does it affect the bottom line of organizations, but it also wreaks havoc on the physical, mental, and emotional health of the people that comprise them. When you don’t work, nothing works.

In today’s business world change happens at such a fast pace. If you aren’t running around the clock, it feels like you are getting left behind. Becoming locked to a computer screen, working hours on end to hit unrealistic deadlines is something that a lot of people share in common.

If you arrive at work feeling scattered, guess how the rest of your day will unfold? Our minds are always working, moving, and thinking about the future. All of this hinders our ability to be present with ourselves and others. Stress will always exist, which is why it's vital that you have tools in place so that you can work with it, instead of against it.

The best way to live a happier, healthier and more productive work life is through mindfulness. A lot of big corporations have implemented mindfulness-based practices into their workplace culture after seeing the amazing benefits that it has had on their employees and their bottom line.

Mindfulness is all about paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, without judgment. In the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, “The real meditation is how you live your life.” By being more mindful, you gain control of your mind, instead of allowing your mind to control you. As a result, you are able to respond to stressors more healthily and get more done.

Do you have a mindfulness-based meditation practice?

The problem that a lot of people encounter is that they don’t have a mindful minute where they can sit down and relax. The great thing about mindfulness exercises is that they don't take a lot of time AND you can practice them while you are working. 

Recent studies have shown that including mindfulness exercises in your daily routine cuts down the production of the stress hormone cortisone and reduces feelings of anxiety and fatigue. Before you sit down and get ready to work, try some mindful breathing.

For 1-2 minutes, close your eyes and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let your breath flow in and out of your body purposefully. Notice how it feels. This is a great mindfulness-based stress reduction technique. 

Similarly, you can practice mindful awareness.

The purpose of this exercise is to cultivate a heightened appreciation of the daily tasks that you engage in. Instead of moving throughout your workday on autopilot, take occasional breaks where you stop and become aware of what it is that you are doing.

Be mindful of how you feel in these moments, without judgment. Doing so will allow you to connect with yourself and your work on a deeper level. Mindfulness is a choice. If you make it a part of your everyday life, your relationships, your work, and your mind will thank you for it. Here are seven ways mindfulness exercises benefit you in the workplace.

1. Improves Mental Focus

Your ability to focus on tasks is one of the most significant indicators of your success in life. Successful people are hyperfocused. We all have 24 hours in a day. However, the problem is that we live in a world where distractions and procrastination is the norm.

A lot of people have become obsessed with short-term gratification and shiny objects that take away their ability to focus on one thing. The result? Procrastination. Practicing a mindfulness meditation has drastically improved my concentration levels. I've found that the more often that I pull my attention back to the present moment, the easier it is for me to focus.

2. Reduces Anxiety

Anxiety sucks. I know because I lived with it for many years of my life. One aspect of anxiety is that it is so challenging to understand is why it exists in the first place. Trying to pinpoint where your racing thoughts come from can make your anxiety worse. In my experience, if you force yourself to control your thoughts, it only precipitates the symptoms of anxiety.

Meditation helps with anxiety by quieting your busy mind. Instead of letting fear take over your world, start quietly observing your thoughts through meditation. Anxious people often shy away from meditation, for fear that they won’t be able to sit still long enough to control their thoughts. I can relate. Back in the day, I wasn’t able to connect with the idea of meditation.

As a result, I didn’t practice it. However, once I forced myself to meditate over an extended period, I noticed the benefits of mindfulness start to take shape in every area of my life. Today, it is a core part of my daily morning ritual.

The benefits of meditation for anxiety have been well-documented. One study, published in the Psychological Bulletin, combined the findings of 163 different studies. The overall conclusion was that practicing mindfulness or meditation produced substantial improvement in areas like negative personality traits, anxiety, and stress.

Meditation allows you to return to your center and detach yourself from the stress that anxiety brings with it. Through consistent practice, I have been able to master my anxiety for good, and so can you. As someone once said, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

3. Decreases Stress

Mindfulness can also help decrease your stress levels by improving your ability to regulate your emotions. If you want to be a leader in any work capacity, you need to be able to calmly respond to stressors.

Maria Gonzalez, author of the book, Mindful Leadership: The 9 Ways to Self-Awareness, Transforming Yourself, and Inspiring Others, says that true leadership comes from within, a place of deep calm and focus, that allows you to respond to any situation as it arises. Mindful people come up with mindful solutions.

By consciously making mindfulness a consistent habit in my life, I have been able to make friends with stress. Rather than seeing the negative consequences of feeling overwhelmed with work and life, I now think differently about it. I encourage you to make an effort to always see the good amidst the bad. The only thing that you have control over is your mind. By using stress as fuel to achieve more, it will allow you to be the driver of your life, instead of the victim of it.

4. Improves Listening Skills

In today's busy work world, a lot of people don't have time to listen because they are so focused on doing a million things at once. One of the most significant barriers to mindful listening is if you are continually thinking about what you are going to say next. This is when a lot of information can get lost or misunderstood.

Do you seek first to be understood by people? This is a natural thing to do because you want to be heard. However, in the process of doing so, you may completely ignore what the other person says. Or worse, you may pretend to listen or completely forget what someone is saying while they are talking. In the words of Dr. Stephen Covey, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Listening mindfully requires that you pay attention to the message that is being shared with you. This is achieved by keeping eye contact, smiling, and asking open-ended questions. Why is mindful listening so important in the workplace? When people feel heard, they feel appreciated, and when they feel appreciated, they are more motivated and productive at work.

5. Increases Emotional Self-Awareness 

Our minds are always wandering. Most of the time we act unconsciously, without awareness of what we are doing or why we are doing it. This is why it's so important to be self-aware and pay attention to what’s going on inside of you. Self-awareness is the ability to understand who you are and how others see you.

A vital tool for building self-awareness is tuning in to your body, which is achieved through a mindfulness-based practice. Daniel Goleman, a leading expert on EQ, explains that “Knowing yourself lies at the core of emotional intelligence, and the best mental app for this can be found in the mind-training method called mindfulness.”

When you practice mindfulness, you become more aware of your thoughts and emotions. You learn to notice when your mind starts to wander and how you can guide your attention back to your experience. When it comes to the workplace, having a high level of self-awareness allows you to focus more effectively, better relate to your colleagues and clients, and more effectively manage your emotions.

6. Enhances Creativity 

A creative work environment is one where people are encouraged to come up with innovative solutions to problems. In an ever-changing business landscape, creativity and innovation have become critical skills.

When you take on a new project that is extremely meaningful to you, it can be easy for your mental thoughts to get the best of you. In your desire for it to be perfect, sometimes it can cause your brain to get overwhelmed. Can you relate?

When the ideas don't flow, the result can be procrastination, limiting the ability to get into a creative flow altogether. By applying meditation to my daily life, I have found that it has drastically helped my creative process.

HBR reports that studies show people are at their most creative when they are more relaxed. Relaxation allows people to look at problems differently, using divergent thinking to consider a wide range of possible solutions. Because mindfulness simulates a relaxed state of mind, integrating it into the workplace could very likely support a stronger creative process among people and teams.

7. Improves Sleep

Do you sometimes struggle to fall asleep because your mind just won't shut off? Join the club. In our 24/7 digital world, insomnia has become commonplace for many people. Lack of sleep affects everything, including your ability to concentrate at work.

Let's face it… work can be stressful, especially if you take your work home with you. Long hours spent on a computer screen, especially at night, inhibits the busy mind from moving into a more relaxed state. You spend a large amount of your life sleeping, which is why you want to do the work to hack it as best you can. 

Creating a consistent mindfulness practice before you fall asleep is a great way to help calm your mind, whether that's in the form of meditation or deep breathing. By focusing your mind’s attention on the present moment, you remove yourself from a “doing” mode of thinking. A powerful way to elicit a relaxed state of mind is to choose a calming focus point, like a mantra, to guide you inward.

If you create an evening ritual and are consistent with it, over time, you will notice that you sleep better. More importantly, you will wake up feeling more refreshed and ready to crush your day.

Mindfulness exercises can change your life.

The overall health benefits of mindful thinking are far-reaching. I encourage you to incorporate mindfulness exercises into your daily life, even if it’s only 10 minutes every day. It has been a game-changer for me. As Sharon Salzberg says, “Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it.” 

You will be surprised how much calmer you will feel. More importantly, you will be more energized, focused, and productive at work. All of those elements create the perfect recipe for success.

The beautiful thing about mindfulness is that you can practice it anytime, anywhere. It's all about learning how to pay close attention, on purpose, to what is happening inside of you and around you.

Are you ready to hack your brain and get more done?

Do you want to learn how you can create an empowering morning ritual? CLICK HERE to join my Morning Ritual Mastery program!

How would your life change if you knew how to get rid of anxiety naturally?

Anxiety is a debilitating condition that can affect every area of one's life. If you struggle with it, you know how difficult it can be to live with. When it strikes, everything feels like it is out of your control and you are unable to think clearly. As a result, you feel helpless.

If you think that you are fighting this battle alone, you are not. Globally, anxiety facts show that 260 million people suffer from anxiety disorders.

The tricky thing about anxiety is that a lot of people don't even know what they are anxious about. This can make it difficult to seek out support from others. Moreover, there is a heavy stigma that exists about anxiety. This causes a lot of people to feel shame and embarrassment.

You don't need to live with anxiety anymore. There is a cure, and it is staring back at you in the mirror. Close your eyes and imagine waking up in the morning, anxiety-free. Anything is possible. It all starts and ends with you.

In the video below I talk about how I overcame shyness and social anxiety.

Do you want to discover how to master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Are you ready to learn how to get rid of anxiety naturally?

It starts with making a commitment to yourself that you are ready to heal your life. I hate to break it to you, but there is no magic pill that will get rid of anxiety overnight. It will require that you make some major changes to your lifestyle.

You are already on the right track, just by reading this blog post.

In the medical system, medication is the golden rule for how to relieve stress and anxiety. However, this is only a band-aid solution. Instead of prescribing pills, we need to address the root of anxiety.

By doing so, we empower people to learn how to get rid of anxiety naturally and take back control of their lives.

Anxiety isn't something that you want to manage. Rather, it's something that you want to remove from your life forever. Throughout my 20's, I struggled with shyness and social anxiety, to the point where I was unable to talk to people. On top of that, I also had depression.

As a result, I was bullied and picked on by my peers. This went on for many years. Anxiety became a part of my identity. I thought it was who I was. That turned out to be BS.

A lot of people put too much effort into ignoring or avoiding their anxiety. Unfortunately, that's not how you rid yourself of it.

Researchers have found that people perform better when they acknowledge their anxiety. Labeling their emotions and accepting that feeling anxious can be part of the process, helps them devote their time and energy to their goals.

The best way to eliminate anxiety is to explore ways that you can address your symptoms. 

Yes, your anxiety still may pop up from time to time, but knowledge is power. When you know how to catch it before it starts, you empower yourself. It's all about being one step ahead of the anxiety game.

Here are 7 ways for how to get rid of anxiety naturally.

1. Exercise Regularly 

How you use your body determines how you feel at any given moment of time. Think about what happens to your physiology after you go for a run or do a sweaty yoga class.

I'm assuming you feel great! Your mind is clear and you feel unstoppable.

A regular exercise routine can be a natural form of medication. According to some studies, regular exercise works as well as medication for some people to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. More importantly, the effects can be long-lasting.

2. Eat A Well-Balanced Diet 

There is a connection between what you put into your body and how you feel. Have you ever heard of the adage, “You are what you eat?”

Be mindful of what you are putting into your body because it may be negatively affecting your physiology.

Some great foods to reduce anxiety include leafy greens, healthy fats, like avocado or coconut oil, seeds, legumes and organic meats. More importantly, do your best to avoid all sugary foods, caffeine, and alcohol. This is one of the most holistic ways to get rid of anxiety naturally.

It may sound like a death sentence, but if it means you don't have to experience anxiety anymore, isn't it worth it? On top of that, you will live a healthy and well-balanced life. It's a win-win.

3. Face Your Fear

I overcame my anxiety naturally by facing it, head on. It wasn't easy, but I quickly learned that the only way out of the dark place that I was in, was through it.

The idea is to work slowly at facing the thing which you fear the most until you reach your final goal.

When we are forced to step outside of our comfort zone and live uncomfortably, we stretch ourselves. Your success in overcoming anxiety, depends in part, on your willingness to purposefully experience it.

I encourage you to not shy away from anxiety. Instead, learn how to make friends with it.

4. Practice Mindfulness 

Learning how to be calm is an inside job. How would it feel to start your day feeling calm and grounded? You have the power to control how you feel.

Meditation is a powerful medium that can help you achieve this state of being on a daily basis.

Meditation connects us with our anxiety, and that is why it is such an important practice. I'm not a meditation guru by any means, but it has been something that has transformed my emotional, mental, and spiritual state over time.

We don't always have control over how a situation plays out, but we can mindfully change our response to that situation.

You have the power to choose a more constructive way of coping with stress, rather than a way that leaves you feeling depleted, anxious, and overwhelmed.

5. Seek Out Help 

Oftentimes people who have anxiety suffer in silence, for fear that they will be judged as “mentally ill” or “damaged.” This is far from true. Reaching out for support from a friend, loved one, or a therapist is one of the best ways to cope with anxiety and other life stressors.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is an extremely effective treatment for anxiety. This is an approach that works with changing the way that you think, feel and behave, through the modification of old thinking patterns and habits.

At the end of the day, you need to find something that works best for you.

6. Engage In Positive Self-Talk 

Oftentimes we are not even aware of our self-talk because it is unconscious. If you struggle with anxiety, you need to be mindful of the dialogue that is going on in your head. Why?

Because negative self-talk can aggravate anxiety, sending you down a rabbit hole of ruminative thoughts and reactive behavior. Our inner critic feeds off of our worries.

When you engage in positive self-talk, over time you can consciously shift your state of mind so that you feel more in control of your thoughts and emotions.

Instead of saying, “I am helpless”  focus on more empowering thoughts like, “I am in control of how I feel.” In this place, there is no room for anxiety to run free.

7. Master Your Emotions

If you are someone that experiences anxiety on a regular basis you know how easily your emotions can spiral out of control – your heart begins to race and your thoughts go in circles.

Oftentimes, the source of one's anxiety isn't so much the experience that is making them anxious. Rather, it's the emotions that are connected to the experience.

From personal experience, when I tried to fight against my anxiety, that is when I felt more of it.

According to psychologist Erin Olivo, “If you want to stop stressing, you need to be in charge of your emotions, rather than your emotions being in charge of you.”

The next time that anxiety strikes, be proactive. Stay calm, pay close attention to what is happening in your body, and acknowledge your emotions. We may not have control over the physical symptoms, but we can control how we react to them.

In doing so, we have the power to shift our mindset and stop anxiety dead in its tracks.

When you master your emotions, you master your life.

My anxiety did not define who I was, and it does not define who you are either. In the words of Seth Godin, “Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste.”

If you commit to practicing these lifestyle changes, you will see a massive shift take place in your life.

Now that you know how to get rid of anxiety naturally, what strategy will you commit to starting today?

You can read all the anxiety advice out there, but none of it means anything unless you take action. Visualize what your life would be like if you didn't have anxiety anymore and hold onto that feeling.

Change begins with a single step. Are you ready to master your anxiety and take back control of your life?

Do you want to discover how to master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Are you ready to learn the reasons why anxiety doesn't define you? CLICK HERE to read the article that I wrote on Medium!

Today I would like to walk you through my morning ritual for daily success, motivation and productivity. This routine allows me to optimize my body, mind, and spirit so that I can perform at my best, every day.

I’m a big believer in the power of rituals. I’ve been doing them since I was 17 years old. I used to struggle with shyness, social anxiety, and depression.

By creating a morning ritual, I was able to recondition my beliefs and transform every area of my life.

The morning is the best time to condition your mindset. Research shows that your mood in the morning affects your productivity all day.

Are you ready to wake up every day, feeling more productive, energized, and happier? My morning ritual for daily success, motivation and productivity will allow you to make that happen.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

Are you ready to learn how to create an empowering morning ritual? CLICK HERE to watch the full 60-minute version inside Morning Ritual Mastery!

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Discipline is one of greatest barriers that prevent people from achieving success in life. If you want to build habits that stick, you need to be consistent with them. In the words of Tony Robbins says, “The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

How you start the day is how you end the day. If you only engage in a habit once in a while, it won’t stick. It’s what you do consistently that makes the difference.

How do you start your mornings?

If you wake up in a reactive state, you will move throughout your entire day feeling stressed and anxious. A lot of people believe that they need a triple espresso as soon as they get out of bed. This way of thinking is counterintuitive.

My morning ritual for daily success, motivation and productivity provides me with a natural ‘buzz.' It makes me feel unstoppable, without the negative effects that come from over-use of stimulants.

Do you wake up every morning, feeling tired and sluggish, even though you slept for 8 hours? If so, it’s time to start a morning ritual.

If you want to maximize your productivity, you need to spend the first part of your morning taking care of YOU. If you make your job, your partner, or your friends a priority, then you need to commit to making yourself a priority as well.

Just like you train your body at the gym, you need to train your brain every day. I treat myself as if I am a high-performance athlete. I know that if I want to get the most out of myself, I have to create rituals that will allow me to do just that.

In order to make sure that I successfully complete my morning ritual for daily success, motivation and productivity, I create a list and check-off each activity, as I complete it.

The purpose of a checklist is so that I can visually measure my progress as time goes on. If you don’t have a plan for your life and you just move throughout your day aimlessly, then you’re not going to get the most out of it.

Here is my morning ritual for daily success, motivation and productivity:

1. Smile

The first thing that I do the moment that I wake up is smile. When you start your day with gratitude, it shifts your entire perspective. Every day that you are alive is a gift, and you need to treat it as such. Don’t ever take your life for granted.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel happy and positive 100% every morning, but by training myself to smile and start the day in an empowering way, I am setting myself up for success.

Research shows that when you smile, neurochemicals and peptides are released, which tricks your body into raising your dopamine; which in turn raises your spirits and calms your nervous system.

2. Drink Water

After you’ve been sleeping for 7-8 hours your body is dehydrated, and your cells crave water. I’ve got a water ionizer that I use which produces high quality, 9.5 alkaline water.

By drinking water first thing in the morning, you kick-start your metabolism, which will give you immediate energy and flush out toxins from your body.

3. Take Supplements

I start off by taking a shot of apple cider vinegar, which is a great bacteria killer. Then, on an empty stomach, I take a digestive enzyme supplement called, Masszymes. I also take a variety of other supplements, like B12 and Vitamin D3.

Supplements like these ensure that I have energy throughout the day, so that I never have to rely on caffeine or sugar. More importantly, engaging in this body ritual ensures that I will experience optimal health and performance, over the long-term.

4. Read A Book

I spend at least 10 minutes every morning reading an inspiring book on my Kindle reader. Don’t start your day by obsessing over social media, or reading negative things on the news. Instead, try feeding your mind with positive information and commit to learning something new.

5. Write in my Journals

After reading a book, I like to write in my Five Minute Journal, a simple exercise that allows me to focus on what is most important for me to accomplish throughout my day.

I also write in my Productivity Planner, which offers a similar process. I write down what my most important task for the day is, what my secondary tasks of importance are, and then determine what my daily productivity score is.

For those of you who are spiritual, I also write in my Christian gratitude journal.

6. Lie Down On My PEMF Mat

A PEMF mat is a portable mat that produces pulsed electromagnetic fields around an individual’s body. I lie on this mat every morning and do my meditation.

The health benefits of PEMF are amazing, some of which include regenerating nerves, reducing stress and fatigue, and eliminating bodily toxins.

I hope you enjoyed learning about my morning ritual for daily success, motivation and productivity! If you want the more in-depth version, that covers all of my rituals, then join my 7-day course, Morning Ritual Mastery.

Rituals have been the secret to my success, and have allowed me to become the person that I am today. Invest in yourself. Your body, mind, and spirit deserve it.

Are you ready to learn how to create an empowering morning ritual? CLICK HERE to watch the full 60-minute version inside Morning Ritual Mastery!

I would like to share with you 3 ways to find your flow in life. Can you remember a moment in your life when you experienced effortless focus while doing something that you loved, that time seemed to fade away?  

Positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this as flow, a mental state of complete absorption in one's current experience. In this state, you feel productive, happy, and 100% focused on the task at hand.

Oftentimes this experience is short-lived, but imagine how good it would feel if you could harness this feeling whenever your heart desired.

In the words of Csikszentmihalyi himself, “The flow experience has the potential to make life more rich, intense, and meaningful; it is good because it increases the strengths and complexity of the self.” 

The question is, “How do you achieve this flow state?” It's a lot easier than you think. Are you ready to learn 3 ways to find your flow in life?

Do you want to learn how you can master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

Activities that lead to a flow experience are called autotelic (from Greek: auto=self, telos=goal), because they are intrinsically motivated and gratifying. They also have an end in themselves, rather than in some other end product.

Finding your flow is about losing yourself in tasks that you are passionate about. It allows you to experience enjoyment in the progress of doing something challenging, yet rewarding.

Let's explore 3 ways to find your flow in life:

1. Calm Your Mental Chatter

Mental chatter is the inner noise that plays out in our brains every day. Before you attempt to go into a flow state, ask yourself what is going on in your mind that will prevent you from fully immersing yourself in a task.

A great way to do this is through meditation. Consciously bring attention to your thoughts, without engaging with them. Doing so will allow you to become more aware of the conditions that allow you to enter into a calm state of mind so that the experience of flow occurs naturally.

2. Find Your Zone Of Focus

We all know how discouraging it can feel to sit down, with the intention of immersing ourselves in one task, only to jump onto the next thing.

Research shows that multitasking actually drains the energy reserves of your brain. If you want to find your flow, you need train your mind to become fully immersed in one task.

Turn off all distractions until you've done nothing but the thing you set out to accomplish, for at least 20 minutes. Once you hit that point, you will tap into your flow state.

3. Do Work That You Love

If you aren't passionate about the work that you do, you will have a difficult time losing yourself in it. The best way to find your flow is to find what it is that makes you come alive inside. Invest time and effort into it, and don't settle for less.

Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, said it best: “If you’re into kite-surfing and you want to become an entrepreneur, do it with kite-surfing.”

A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that flow is highly correlated with happiness, both subjective and psychological well-being. When you utilize your talents at work and accomplish challenging goals that are meaningful to you, the outcome is full alignment with your passion and purpose in life.

These are 3 ways to find your flow in life. Knowledge about flow is great, but it's not enough. It will do nothing for you unless you take action and find ways to implement more flow into your life.

Make the effort to find that state of effortless concentration and enjoyment that makes life worth living.

Do you want to learn how you can master every area of your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!

I would like to share with you 4 ways to build your mental toughness. In today's fast paced and complex world, the ability to effectively adapt, remain calm under pressure, and change at a moment's notice is a necessity.

Your mental toughness, or “grit” as they call it, plays a very important role in achieving your goals in health, business, and life. Nobody in the business world needs mental toughness more than an entrepreneur.

Being your own boss and designing the life that you desire is great, but unfortunately not a lot of entrepreneurs possess the skills that are needed in order to weather the storms of the online business world.

The good news is that mental toughness is a skill that you can learn. Steve Siebold, mental toughness expert and author of 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class: The Thought Processes, Habits and Philosophies of the Great Ones, 3rd Edition, teaches that a person of modest means can become world class by implementing the thinking, habits, and philosophies associated with mental toughness.

Are you ready to learn 4 ways to build your mental toughness so that you can master your online business?

Do you want to receive cutting-edge online business and marketing advice every month? CLICK HERE to join my Online Business Mastery Accelerator program!

You can have amazing organizational skills, be highly productive, and be passionate about your online business. But without mental toughness, you won't be able to stay on course when things get challenging.

Below are 4 ways to build your mental toughness in order to ensure that you stay one step ahead of the game:

1. Embrace Change

Mentally tough people are constantly adapting to changing circumstances. They strive to get outside of their comfort zone on a daily basis because they welcome challenges and see them as opportunities for growth.

Making it a daily habit to engage in activities that force you to step outside of your comfort zone, take risks, and embrace the unknown is a great way to expand your capacity for mental toughness.

If you want to become the best version of yourself in your business and in your life, you need to take risks and do things that make you feel uncomfortable.

2. Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is all about staying present in the moment. Entrepreneurs often find themselves stretched in multiple different directions, which can effect their concentration.

This is why focusing on the here-and-now is such an important skill for online business owners to learn.

A University of Miami study showed that one of the best ways to build mental toughness is through practicing mindfulness on a consistent basis.

One of the greatest benefits of creating a mindfulness-based practice, like meditation, into your daily life is that it allows you to effectively manage the myriad of stressors that can come with running an online business.

3. Be Active

There is no doubt that a healthy body contributes to a healthy mind. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the higher one’s mental agility and stability, the more likely they are to achieve and maintain a healthy body.

If you run an online business, it is imperative that you commit to staying active. Hours in front of a computer can be taxing on your physical and mental state.

According to the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. James Levine, in the U.S. people spend more than half of their waking hours sitting down, which can result in a myriad of health problems.

I highly recommend investing in a LifeSpan treadmill desk. It has radically elevated my productivity, enhanced my business, and transformed my health. Getting your heart pumping in the morning is a great way to stimulate your brain for optimal performance and prime you for success.

4. Master Your Emotions

In order to become mentally tough, you need to master your emotions. Running an online business requires that you are able to make strategic decisions under pressure, which is why it is important that you are able to stay calm and objective, regardless of your emotional state.

It is impossible to be mentally tough if you are unable to fully understand and manage your emotions. This is where the power of emotional intelligence (EQ) comes into play. Research shows that 90% of top performers have high EQs.

Unlike IQ, the good news is that EQ is a skill that you can build and master over time. Research shows that 90% of top performers have high EQs. Robert Kiyosaki said it best, “The strength of character and emotional intelligence to face your failures and learn from them are at the core of success.”

I would like to share with you how to stay focused and productive, without getting overwhelmed or stressed.

No matter how successful you are, there will always be days when you don’t feel on top of your game. Have you ever had so much on your to-do list that no matter how well you prioritize your work, you have no idea where to start?

It’s normal to feel overwhelmed when you have endless deadlines to meet, a business to run, a family to provide for, or a staff that is relying on you. Given these circumstance, it’s nearly impossible to not experience stress.

Our ability to succeed at anything in life is directly linked to our ability to stay focused and productive, without getting overwhelmed or stressed.

Are you ready to master the quality of focus so that you can achieve more with greater ease and confidence?

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

[smart_track_player url=”http://www.buzzsprout.com/9299/552847-plm-460-how-to-stay-focused-and-productive-without-getting-overwhelmed-or-stressed.mp3″ background=”default” ]

Do you want to learn how to create a morning ritual that will inspire you to live every day with confidence, passion, and energy? CLICK HERE to join my Morning Ritual Mastery course!

Below are 3 ways for how to stay focused and productive, without getting overwhelmed or stressed:

1. Accomplish More By Doing Less

People get overwhelmed when they commit to too many things. The brain becomes frazzled and people lose focus when they feel that they have too much to do and too little time to do it.

According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “It is the mark of effortful activities that they interfere with each other, which is why it is difficult or impossible to conduct several at once.

Multitasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It doesn’t allow you to be more productive. Rather, it creates stress. The key to not getting overwhelmed and stressed is to work smart, not hard, which means narrowing your focus on the few things that matter the most.

Every day I ask myself, “What are the 3 highest leverage actions that I need to take in order to achieve success?” When you master those 3 things, you will find the motivation to do and achieve more.

2. Outsource Tasks

When you run a business, it can be tempting to do everything yourself. Nobody knows your business more than you, right? This way of thinking is what gets people into trouble.  The reality is that financial success occurs when you work ON your business, not IN your business.

Outsourcing some of your most simple business tasks can save you a lot of time and energy. More importantly, it will free up your time so that you can focus on what is most important and be more productive.

Make a list of everything that you are currently doing and ask yourself on a scale of 1-10 how important that task is. Then determine what you can outsource. In the words of Peter Drucker, “Do what you do best, and outsource the rest.”

3. Calm Your Mind

Meditation is one of the most effective ways to cope with stress and increase your ability to concentrate. A new study in the Journal of Neuroscience found that people who regularly practice meditation may improve their mental focus by altering brain function.

Meditation isn’t about emptying your mind. Rather, it’s about conditioning the mind to focus on one thing. It’s natural for the mind to wander, but if you commit to doing it every day, you will see a massive shift in your ability to focus on tasks over time.

In the words of Deepak Chopra, “Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet; it’s a way of entering into the quiet that is already there, buried under the 50,000 thoughts that the average person thinks every day.”

These are just a few ways of how to stay focused and productive, without getting overwhelmed or stressed. Are you ready to get back to a life of flow and ease? You don't have to live in a state of overwhelm. A worry-free life is yours for the taking. The choice is yours!

Do you want to learn how to create a morning ritual that will inspire you to live every day with confidence, passion, and energy? CLICK HERE to join my Morning Ritual Mastery course!

I want to share with you a simple 2 minute daily gratitude meditation, called the HeartMath Meditation Technique, that was developed by the Heart Math Institute (HMI).

HMI researches the heart-brain communication, and its relationship to managing stress, increasing coherence, and deepening our connection to self and others. It is founded on the belief that our hearts have their own intelligence.

Your heart was created long before before you even had a brain. Don’t get me wrong, the head is an amazing tool for setting goals, learning, and strategizing, but it falls short at providing us with gratitude and happiness.

If you want to lead a happy life, you need to experience positive emotions, like gratitude and joy. In the words of Paulo Coelho, “You will never be able to escape from your heart, so it is better to listen to what it has to say.” Are you ready to get out of your head and start listening to your heart?

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

[smart_track_player url=”http://www.buzzsprout.com/9299/537727-plm-452-2-minute-daily-gratitude-meditation-heartmath-meditation-technique.mp3″ background=”default” ]

Do you want to learn how to create a morning ritual that will allow you to live from your heart every day? CLICK HERE to purchase my Morning Ritual Mastery course!

I believe in the power of cultivating a daily morning ritual ritual that inspires us to live in our hearts, rather than our heads. HMI has created a technique called “The Freeze Frame” will allows you to do just that, and I would like to share with you how it works.

First and foremost, I want to be clear that you don’t need to wait for something bad to happen in your life in order to engage in this 2 minute gratitude meditation. I do this meditation every morning, and a few times throughout my day, in order to ensure that I am experiencing the positive emotions that I value most.

Whatever moment I’m in, I like to stop, close my eyes, put my hand on my heart, and focus on my breath. The breath is one of the fastest ways to get out of your head. Your mind may not be able to understand this process, and that is OK.

As you take a deep breath, feel the power and strength of your heart. Then ask yourself the question, “What is something that I am grateful for in this moment?” From this place, if you were to take a measurement of your brain, you would find that your head and heart are in-sync.

Then ask yourself, “What is the truth of this moment?” My truth is that I am an incredible force of energy in this universe, I am guided, and unconditionally loved. I am not life’s circumstances or what other people say.

Your truth doesn’t have to be logical, rational, or make sense for that matter. All that matters is that it resonates with your heart. Never forget that your heart has zero limits, whereas your head will always create stories and excuses.

The next time that you are experiencing a challenge in life, ask yourself, “What would my heart do?” There is no better compass that you can access. When you’ve finished having a conversation with your heart and you’ve tapped into your truth, give gratitude to the experience, and then open your eyes.

If you want to be happier, implement this 2 minute gratitude meditation into your morning ritual. Connect to the intuitive guidance of your heart’s intelligence. I know that when I do this exercise, the depth of emotions that I experience is indescribable. My entire being vibrates, it nourishes my spirit, and I feel more alive.

Trust your heart, because it is the essence of who you are. Aristotle said it best – “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” What is your heart telling you? Listen.

Do you want to learn how to create a morning ritual that will allow you to live from your heart every day? CLICK HERE to purchase my Morning Ritual Mastery course!