Archive for the Mind and Body

“The monk who sold his Ferrari” is one of the best spiritual tales I have read to this date. I thought I would give you a recap hoping it would entice you read this book as well:*

This fable provides an approach to living a simple life with greater balance, strength, courage and abundance of joy. It makes the message being conveyed linger in our minds. Although most of the principles dealt with can be found in countless other books on self-help and spirituality, there is a difference in the way how Robin S Sharma has put things together.

This story is the tale of Julian Mantle, a lawyer, brought face to face with a spiritual crisis. Julian’s spark of life begins to flicker. He embarks on a life-changing odyssey and discovers the ancient culture of India. During this journey he learns the value time as the most important commodity and how to cherish relationships, develop joyful thoughts and live fully, one day at a time.

The eleven chapters are meticulously planned and flow seamlessly from one to the next. Julian Mantle, a very successful lawyer was the epitome of success. He had achieved everything most of us could ever want: professional success with an seven figure income, a grand mansion in a neighborhood inhabited by celebrities, a private jet, a summer home on a tropical island and his prized possession a shiny red Ferrari parked in the center of his driveway. Suddenly he has to come terms with the unexpected effects of his unbalanced lifestyle.

John, who is a friend as well as co-worker of Julian, narrates the story. He begins by describing Julian’s flamboyant lifestyle, his exaggerated courtroom theatrics, which regularly made the front pages of newspapers and his late night visits to the city’s finest restaurants with sexy young models.
Julian Mantle, the great lawyer collapses in the courtroom, sweating and shivering. His obsession with work has caused this heart attack. The last few years Julian had worked day and night without caring about his mental and physical health. That helped him become a very rich and successful lawyer but took a toll on his health and mental state. At fifty-three he looked seventy and had lost his sense of humor. Julian refused to meet any of his friends and colleagues at the hospital. One fine day he quit his law firm and took off without saying where he was headed.

Three years passed without any news from Julian. One day he paid a visit to his friend and former colleague John, who was now a cynical older lawyer. But Julian, in the past three years, had been miraculously transformed into a healthy man with physical vitality and spiritual strength.

Following his heart attack Julian Mantle had sold all his property (Yes, his Ferrari too) and left for India. The author tells us about Julian’s Indian odyssey, how he met the sages of Sivana who had a life changing effect on him. Julian Mantle shares his story of transformation, his secrets of a happy and fulfilling life with his friend John. Julian describes Sivana- a small place located in the Himalayas, the land of rose covered huts, placid blue waters with white lotuses floating, youth and vitality, beautiful glowing faces, fresh and exotic fruits. He tells John about the sages of Sivana who knew all secrets of how to live life happily and how to fulfill one’s dreams and reach one’s destiny.

Julian relates his experiences with yogi Raman the leader of the sages of Sivana and the person who taught Julian his secrets of a happy and fulfilling life. He narrates to John the fable that contained the seven virtues for a life abundant with inner peace, joy and a wealth of spiritual gifts. He tells John the techniques that he learned from yogi Raman on how to master our minds with simple techniques like “the heart of rose technique” and “the secret of lake technique”. He tells John how to cultivate the mind and how to use setbacks for expanding knowledge of the self.

He talks about setting and following our own purpose and teaches John the ancient art of self-leadership with techniques such as “do the things you fear” and “the 5 step method for attaining goals”. He waxes eloquent about the value of self-discipline and respect for time. He describes techniques such as “the ancient rule of 20” and “the vow of silence”. He teaches how to focus on the priorities and thereby maintain a balance and simplify life. He gives examples that prove that willpower is the essential virtue of a fully actualized life.

Julian teaches John the virtue of selflessness in serving others. He asks John to embrace the present and live in the present – “Now”, never to sacrifice happiness for achievements and to savor the journey of life and live each day as his last one. At the end he asks John to spread these secrets for the benefit of other people. Embracing John like the brother he never had, Julian leaves.

May this story bring you as much inspiration and joy as it has brought me.

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then please do leave a comment below, sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

*Taken from: http://www.chillibreeze.com/bookreviews/ThemonkwhosoldhisFerrari.asp

I recently had the incredible pleasure of attending some of Jan Hargrave's seminars on body language. She also delved into the jury selection process in court hearings which gave us an incredible insight into how much thought, work and energy is put into simply selecting the right jurors for a specific case. She then moved on to talk about how much you can read from a witnesses body language as opposed to the spoken word and how much a witness really remembers or simply believes to remember, and this is the topic that I would like to write about today: is reality seen through our eyes or created in our brain whether we have actually seen/heard something or not?

Part of the problem is that the brain does not have a knack for retaining many specifics and is highly susceptible to suggestion. Our memory is weak and usually overloaded with information. An event usually happens so fast that when we are asked to recount specifics of the event we can hardly remember any details as we never focused on the even in such detail. Hundreds of studies have already shown that memories are malleable and, contrary to popular belief, don't work like a video recorder but rather like a grainy slide show.

And here are some examples: in a 1974 study at the University of California, Irvine, participants were asked to view films of minor car accidents in which no glass was broken. When the subjects were asked how fast the cars were driving when they 'smashed' into each other – as opposed to 'hit' – they were more likely to describe shattered glass they never saw. In 1999 researchers at Harvard University showed a video of people dressed in either black or white passing a basketball. The participants were asked to count the number of passes made by players in white. During the test, a woman dressed in a gorilla suit strolled through the players. She remained unnoticed by about half of the subjects. And finally, just to make my point, distraction is not limited to the eyes: at the University of London a 69-second long audio recording of two men and two women preparing for a party was played to a group of participants. Almost all the subjects instructed to listen to the women did not hear a third man repeating 'I am a gorilla' for 19 seconds during the conversation.

These are very powerful findings: if you tell your mind to focus on something – anything – it will filter out everything else, just like a computer.

You can utilize this feature to create the most fulfilling, healthy and happy life for yourself – simply program your mind to see what you ultimately would want to see. Visualize it, bit by bit. Scientists have already proven to us that our brain cannot distinguish whether we saw an object or a situation with our own eyes or whether we 'only' imagined that object or scene by thinking about them. Why not take advantage of this most powerful feature of our brain/mind/computer and program it so that can experience life the way we would want to?

Now most of you might sigh and ask – but how am I supposed to do that?! This is much, much easier than you might think: simply visualize, in every possible tiny detail, the outcome or result you would want to see happen. And allow the rest to simply unfold for you.

Have fun programming your mind into creating the best life ever for you!

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then please do leave a comment below, sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

We become what we think:

Watch your thoughts as they become your words.

Watch your words as they become your actions.

Watch your actions as they become your habits.

Watch your habits as they become your character.

Watch your character as it becomes your destiny.

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then please do leave a comment below, sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

What we believe in and what we focus on ultimately creates our reality. This blog is all about how to utilize the most powerful computer ever built – our mind – so that we can live the most proactively and consciously created life ever!

To show you how rather easy it is to train your mind to seek out whatever it is that you would want in life: be it a (better) job, a (more fulfilling) relationship or a healthy body, all you really have to focus on are exactly those things: a (better) job, a (more fulfilling) relationship, or a healthy body. You might say, this is crazy – by simply focusing on these things one simply cannot achieve any of this. And still I say it is possible – and I will give you an example that will prove my point. This exercise works great in my one on one private coachings because I have the element of surprise on my side, but I will do my best to achieve the same here:

Important: If you would like to do this exercise, then only read up until point 5! Do the exercise and then continue.

1. Go to the kitchen and have pen and paper as well as a timer ready.

2. Put the paper on a hard surface, such as a book or clipboard, so that you can walk around with it and write something on it.

3. Go to your living room. 

4. You have 120 seconds (2 minutes) – start the timer now – and write down everything that has any shade of blue in it. Anything blue counts.

5. Return to the kitchen and take a tally and count how many items with the color blue in them you were able to identify in the past 2 minutes. Pretty impressive, don't you think?

Our mind is like a giant computer that we can program as we see fit. If our programming is right, our mind will only focus on the things that we tell it to focus on, such as on the color blue. When you look at the list with all things blue that you just compiled you can see for yourself how focused and how target-oriented your brain can be.

If you thought that this was the exercise then all I can say is – you should know me better ;)

And now onto the next step of the exercise:

1. Stay focused on the piece of paper with all things blue.

2. Start the timer. You have 120 seconds again.

3.Without peeking into your living room write down anything that has the color yellow in it. Anything yellow would count. You must do so from memory.

4. How many items do you remember? Any at all?

5. Compare the number of blue items with the number of yellow items on your list. Pretty eye-opening isn't it?!

Conclusion: if you tell your mind to focus on something specific, then it will focus on exactly that and nothing else! Even though your eyes might most likely have seen things with the color yellow in them, you simply do not remember them, because they never entered your conscious realm. Your mind was not programmed to do so and thus discarded them as useless. Now imagine you were to focus on opportunities galore and that life was full of wonderful experiences and that people can be trusted and that money comes easily and were able to program your mind to only see these – imagine what a life you would be creating for yourself.

Every day, upon waking up, program your mind anew so that it will only focus on and filter through opportunities, sunshine, easy flow of money, deep and meaningful relationships, healthy body, etc., etc., etc.

May your life be consciously and proactively created and filled with eternal sunshine.

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then please do leave a comment below, sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

As I received so many great comments about my last video post, I thought I would take the opportunity to follow up with a blog entry and dig a little deeper into the matter.

The movie per se was incredible but specifically from a counselor's perspective I think it was simply mind-blowing: Geoffry Rush was my hero, period. Why?! Because he had so much strength and patience. He was a gentle but determined coach and practiced tough, classy love and never lost sight of his ability to be an inspiring counselor even when his client was the future King of England and he only an immigrant from Australia.

In today's blog entry I would like to show you how a seemingly incurable physical challenge – in this case a stutter – can be overcome by shattering our belief system buried deep in our mind and through the loving and caring guidance of a gifted healer. The whole movie boils down to one scene, pretty early on when Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush tells the Prince of Wales, played by Colin Firth, that he indeed can speak without stutter. First he makes him sing a text where the future king realizes he can do so without stuttering. As the Prince remains a doubting Thomas, Logue plays out his trump card, a new recording device that has just arrived from America. He puts a headset over Firth's ears and while he has him listen to very loud music he makes him read a text which he records. This is the quintessential part of the movie for me: with this new recording device he was able to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt to the Prince and us, the audience, that indeed a stutter free speech is possible as long as the unknown and gigantic beast called mind can be reigned in. In this case the connection between ears, i.e. hearing oneself speak, and the brain. By cutting that connection, the Prince's belief system was cut. Since he couldn't hear himself anymore, his ears could not verify his belief system – that he had a stutter – that he had been carrying with him his entire life. All of a sudden his mind was free to simply "live" and breathe again without being hammered down by the Prince's paradigm. The future King would have never believed Logue that he spoke without any stutter in his voice had there not been his recorded voice as an unshakable evidence of his capability of free and normal speech.

What a revelation this scene was – not only to the Prince, but also to me. This scene again showed me the incredible and apparently limitless power of our mind to either hold us down or to propel us into glory. If we only learned how to dance with our mind and tell it where to go, the sky would be the limit. The first step toward that journey would be though to take utter and full responsibility for everything that "happens to us" because ultimately the source is deep within our mind. If I take responsibility and acknowledge that I am 100% interwoven with whatever situation I find myself in, because it was created in my mind and through my own thoughts first, then I have the power to undo things and recreate any situation I would rather want to experience. Sometimes we might be able to do so on our own and sometimes we might need the guidance of healers to get there, be it through the help of allopathic medicine, therapists, counselors, coaches or healers.

Either way. take charge of your fate and you will be enjoying a fulfilling because proactively self-created life. I wish you good luck with your endeavors and am cheering you on from the sidelines.

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then please do leave a comment below, sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

Last week we organized a bowling event as part of our efforts to improve group dynamics at our company. Well, needless to say that many of us had either never played before or only had very little experience in bowling – and I certainly would say that I belong to the latter group – while some others could be called pros of the game.

We tried to create teams of equal strength to make it more fun for everyone so we established three categories: total beginners, intermediate and folks who knew how to play. I self-assessed myself as fitting into the second group.

Well, first round of the game came about and it was time for me to bowl and just as I internally had feared the ball hit the side barrier and my first try thus didn't count. I sighed and told myself – "told you so, you are a loser, period!" With this thought rushing through my head I bowled again and so that I could just prove myself, I of course also bowled this one right passed each and every pin so that I had a big fat 'zero' t o show for after my first round. I really tried to shrug it off and tell myself that I would do better next round, but internally I thought to myself, o boy o boy, you cannot even effing bowl.

Second time round I scored a combined five points – not great but certainly better than the big fat zero from my first attempt. Of course I immediately started to observe my fellow teammates as well as watched the other teams wondering whether I would be the worst in the crowd that night. With a little practice though, I got better and better as the night progressed and I realized that I did not need to throw the ball with brute force but rather with a bit of 'flair' making sure it would go through the middle of the stack. When the first game ended after 10 rounds my score card showed 86 points, which put me in the top third of our thirty some strong posse that night.

We created a second round of teams and off we went again. This time though, now that I had a better feel for the weight of the ball and length of the bowling alley and how much strength I should be using, I started to really focus my mind on hitting the first, central, pin slightly to its right or left. Every time before I threw the ball I visualized a perfect score of 10 with all the pins being throwed around by my perfect handling of the bowl. This time round I managed to clean the slate 4 times, twice as much as during my first game. I ended this game with 108 points – significantly more points than before.

Even though we were competing as teams against one another, I of course wanted to be at least the best in my team. First time round I finished as third in our team of six, and second time round I finished already as a close second.

People really liked the game so we decided to play one final game and created new teams again.

Now that my confidence was a lot higher than when we had started to play my visualizations were also much stronger. This time I simply knew how to throw the ball, I felt one with the alley and the pins and felt good about myself and so it happened that I wiped off all 10 pins three times in a row. I was so in tune with the game that I already knew way before the ball got even close to the first pin that I would clear out the field. I would already turn around and dance the dance of a winner before I could even hear the loud bang of the ball hitting the first pin. It was a wonderful feeling. I could have continued all night long. Life and everything that I believe in – the power of our mind, the power of visualization, self-love and self-acceptance, patience and determination – all came about during a simple game called bowling. While I was riding on this high wave I started to realize that I could actually beat the high score of the night, which at that time stood at a pretty impressive 154. I don't even remember where I stood after I finished my 9th round, all I know is that I didn't really think I could beat the high score anymore as I only had one round left. But I was in such a good place emotionally and mentally that I was able to clear out twice before scoring 9 points in my third round.

When all was said and done my score card was reading 165 points – the biggest number of the night by far. I felt like a champ. It was great.

The only reason why I am sharing this story with you is to show you that the power of our mind can propel us into spheres we never thought possible. Once your energies are flowing and you are in tune with the universe and you have a clearly defined goal, there is nothing that can stop you, as long as you have unwavering belief that you can and will achieve your dream!

Merry Christmas everyone!

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

In order to create the life that you would want to live in, you need to be able to visualize. Your mind needs to be in a state where it is relaxed, calm, and balanced enough to produce a picture of your future that sweeps you off your feet.

One way of centering yourself – and by the way in my opinion the most powerful way – is through controlled breathing as shown in one of my videos: 'How to Breathe – the Power of your Breath".

A second way – and this would go in tandem with the above mentioned – would be meditation. Click here for a video on "How to properly Meditate – the easy way".

There is another way – the usage of herbal supplements – to help relax the mind during the day and help you to fall asleep after a hard day's work.

In this blog entry I would like to highlight 4 such supplements:

1) Melatonin:

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland in the brain. It helps regulate other hormones and maintains the body's circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is an internal 24-hour “clock” that plays a critical role in when we fall asleep and when we wake up. When it is dark, your body produces more melatonin; when it is light, the production of melatonin drops. Being exposed to bright lights in the evening or too little light during the day can disrupt the body' s normal melatonin cycles. For example, jet lag, shift work, and poor vision can disrupt melatonin cycles.

Melatonin has strong antioxidant effects. Preliminary evidence suggests that it may help strengthen the immune system.

Studies suggest that melatonin supplements may help people with disrupted circadian rhythms (such as people with jet lag or those who work the night shift) and those with low melatonin levels (such as some seniors and people with schizophrenia) to sleep better. A review of clinical studies suggests that melatonin supplements may help prevent jet lag, particularly in people who cross five or more time zones.

Dosage suggestion: start with 5mg and observe how long it takes you to fall asleep. You can crank up the dosage to 15mg if necessary.

For more information on the impact of melatonin on your health, please read this article.

2) Magnesium:

Magnesium citrate, a magnesium salt of citric acid, is a chemical agent which is used medicinally as a saline laxative and to completely empty the bowel prior to a major surgery or colonoscopy as well as being a natural supplement to ward off the negative effects of a prolonged period of stress or an overreaction to stress. Going through a stressful period without sufficient magnesium can set up a deficit which, if not corrected, can linger, causing more stress and further health problems.

Magnesium has an important role in essentially every life function. It helps maintain normal muscle and nerve activity, keeps heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system and keeps bones strong.

Magnesium also helps regulate blood sugar levels, promotes normal blood pressure and is involved in energy metabolism, helping overcome low energy levels, fatigue, insomnia, and anxiety. Many researchers believe that no single dietary factor is as critical as magnesium.

Dosage: you can take it daily, but you would need to build levels that your body can sustain otherwise you will end up having diarrhea. Start with half the recommended amount and work up your way until you feel the effect.

3) St. John's Wort:

St. John’s wort is an herb most commonly used for depression and conditions that sometimes go along with depression such as anxiety, tiredness, loss of appetite and trouble sleeping.

Dosage: start with 300mg in the evening and pump it up to around 900mg if need be.

4) L-Theanine:

L-Theanine is an amino acid commonly found in tea, specifically in green tea. The calming effect of green tea may seem contradictory to the stimulatory property of tea's caffeine content but it can be explained by the action of L-theanine. This amino acid actually acts antagonistically against the stimulatory effects of caffeine on the nervous system. The amino acid directly stimulates the production of alpha brain waves, creating a state of deep relaxation and mental alertness similar to what is achieved through meditation. Second, L-theanine is involved in the formation of the inhibitory neurotransmitter, gamma amino butyric acid (GABA). GABA influences the levels of two other neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, producing the key relaxation effect. For more info you can check out this article.

Dosage: you can take several hundred mg per day as no side effects are known.

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

Given the success of my last blog entry: "Moneyball or the Power of Focusing on what You have Power over!" and all the feedback I have received, I thought I would write a follow-up blog entry giving you a step-by-step guide on how you can create your own "Moneyball success story".

My philosophies and teachings are pretty straight forward and easy – and because they are so simple, I keep saying "it's easy but not simple; and simple but not easy". Why am I using this mantra? Well it seems that people fall off the wagon because they simply cannot believe how simple the process is – so they try to either overcomplicate things by adding steps to or altering the process or simply not getting or believing in it. And then they wonder why it doesn't work. Those who do understand the process and have faith reap tremendous results.

Allow me to outline the process in as clear and straight forward manner as I possibly can to you:

1) Step one: Identify the precise problem – what is the actual challenge, what is the issue at hand? (Believe me, in 99% of the time money, or the lack of it, is not the issue!)

2) Step two: What would be a perfect solution for the problem? Create a solution in your mind. Visualize an ideal picture of how you would want things to be.

3) Step three: Work consistently at it. You have got take steps that take you to your ideal place. Your actions must be congruent with your vision.

4) Step four: Believe that it will happen – you must have unwavering faith that results will show up when the time is ready!

For the above steps to work, two statements have to accepted as fundamental laws of the universe:

1) Everything is energy – literally. From bricks to computers, rivers and airplanes to thoughts, emotions, speech, and planet earth. Since everything is energy then that means that everything is oscillating at at specific frequency. Thus, to change something, anything, one only has to change the frequency of bring about almost instantaneous change.

2) We are all connected. Actually, everything and everyone are connected through an invisible net of energy: from humans to nature and the animal kingdom to the universe at large. Precisely because of this connection we have an impact on everyone and everything else and thus can alter the course of our fate.

Good luck with creating the best life for yourself ever!

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

Just a few weeks ago I had to fly to England for a business trip. I seized the opportunity to fly up to Birmingham to not only visit one of my oldest and best friends but also my former university I used to study at for a couple of years – the University of Wolverhampton.

Revisiting my former stomping grounds made me very melancholic and I found myself overwhelmed with emotions several times during my visit. And quite frankly had I not had my mate Gabe with me I would have shed many tears, that’s for sure

Walking through the town and the campus and revisiting the dorms and the house we used to live in brought back wonderful memories of simple and joyful times. Mind you though, simple times compared to now that is – then of course we also had our worries and concerns, such as: Will I be able to pass my next exam? Will I be able to secure my summer internship? Where will the next party be? Will I be able to ask her out for a date? Hopefully I will be able to change classes and get rid of the lecturer I do not like, etc, etc.

These concerns and worries seem so innocent and naïve from today’s point of view – but boy o boy were they real and all encompassing then.

In the 15 years since I first moved to Wolverhampton everything in my life has changed and so have of course the town the the campus. Physically being were I used to live so many years ago allowed me to slip back into the person that I was and relive my dreams and wishes again, only to realize that most of my dreams have dramatically changed and that what was important then to me has become tertiary now.

All day and many days thereafter I kept on pondering about where those 15 years have gone? What have I done with my time? If my life ended tomorrow could I truly say that I led a self-determined and fulfilled life, living to the max and experiencing life at its fullest glory or would I have to admit that I fell short of achieving my highest potential? These questions have been gnawing on me since and I have not been able to shake them off yet – maybe because I have to admit that despite a truly amazing life that I have had the luck of having I continue to feel that I am falling short of my highest possible potential. There it is out on the table – just to verbalize this makes me breathe easier and freer. Despite all the growth that I have gone through and all the self-improvement and (self-)healing work that I have done, I am still not where I would want to be – actually far from being where I would want to be…sigh…

Time is so precious, time is so dear – and the more I make myself aware of this simple but fundamental fact, the more I am able to let go of the unimportant daily crap that eats away my energies and focus more and more on what is important to me as well as society at large. Whenever something has bugged me in these past couple of weeks and I catch myself getting tense and allowing my ego to take over I think back of the sadness I felt when I was in Wolverhampton and the realization that time is traveling by far faster than light and that I have no time to waste on stupid, ego driven crap if I really want to make a difference in this world – and as soon as I realize this, tension goes away, ego gets put back into its place and I can think clearly again and thus overcome the challenge swiftly and as painlessly as possible.

The more I think about our purpose in life the more I have to admit that I have no clue, but I believe that, at least in part, we are here to pro-actively create our life and see it blossom so that we can enjoy the fact that we are spiritual beings temporarily put in a physical body.

Time is too short to waste on the small stuff – brush it off and move on so that also you can create and lead the life that you truly want.

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.

On my last trip I came across another “Kate and William” fairy tale that I simply had to share with you.

I had the honor of traveling with Bob and Marj through Switzerland. Bob is 94 years old and Marj is 82. They have been married for four years, yes, you read correctly, just for four years. Bob is from California and Marj is from New Jersey. They met on a trip through Australia and New Zealand four and a half years ago.

They clicked immediately at the beginning of the tour and spent the rest of the trip glued to one another. After the trip, Marj flew to Bob and spent a couple of weeks with him. And then Bob came to New Jersey to visit Marj. When Marj flew to the West Coast to visit Bob again, they started to talk about the constant back and forth, so Bob suggested to simply drive to Las Vegas and get married. Marj thought it was a joke but went along. Only once standing before a justice of the peace she realized that Bob really meant it and so they got married; in Las Vegas, four months after meeting for the first time on a trip through New Zealand and Australia.

If this were not remarkable enough, I want to point out that Bob was 89 and Marj was 77 when they met halfway across the globe. To travel such long distances at such an age would sound incredulous if not crazy and impossible for most people (at that age). To get married at their age and only after knowing one another for four months might also be considered a ‘little outside the box’.

And I haven’t even started to share Bob’s and Marj’s life story, which both were very open to share with me. Bob was married for sixty-two years and Marj for forty-five in their first marriage. Bob’s wife got very sick during her final years, so Bob stayed home for two years to tend to her. He barely left his house during these two years and even had their food delivered to his house. He was there for his wife until she died. He was eighty-five when his wife died and it took him a couple of years to overcome this shock, but then he started to go amongst people again and eventually started to travel as well.

Marj’s husband was taken from her in an accident; she was seventy-five when her husband died. While Bob has a very outgoing personality, Marj is a little more reserved, but not much, I should say – quiet waters run deep as they say. Bob was an engineer who ended up starting a few companies in his lifetime which made him financially independent. Marj was a teacher her entire life. She reluctantly retired at sixty-five only because she voluntarily wanted to give a younger teacher a chance to teach.

Since Bob and Marj got married they have traveled internationally at least four times per year. They have seen seventy-two countries since they got married. And my trip with them was their second this year, but also their second to last major trip. They have one more trip planned later on in the year and then they will call it quits. They say it has become too cumbersome to travel long-distance. You should have seen them on our train trip through the Swiss Alps: always on time, they partook in all excursions, even took the gondola all the way up the Matterhorn, always smiling, always holding hands – it was so delightful and heartwarming to travel with them as well as very inspiring.

To celebrate their journey together we presented them with a gift and asked them to share their story with us. Bob immediately got up and delivered an ad-hoc fifteen minute long speech about how they met and what they have done together since they got married. And at the end he said: believe in the magic of life, there is always hope, there is always an opportunity around the corner, there is always a surprise waiting for you, as long as you believe in magic, it will happen, no matter who you are, where you are and how old you are.

I am sharing this real life story with you to inspire you to believe in the magic of life and the power that your own mind has in creating a wonderful and fulfilled life for you – create it, will it, believe it, and you will experience it…

If you have enjoyed this blog entry then sign up for my free bi-weekly Ezine and like me on Facebook.