Focus
One of the most effective methods for attaining an optimum level of concentration involves synchronizing your breathing and your focus of attention. As you inhale, imagine that your attention is a bright spotlight focused inward upon yourself. When you exhale, imagine that you can shine this powerful beam in whatever direction you choose.
Breathe in and focus, then breathe out and direct your complete attention on your chosen target…
Focus…direct…Focus…direct
Practicing focus this way, you can turn every distraction into a reminder. When Growl notifications pop up, inhale as you read, imagining that bright spotlight of attention. Then direct your attention back to your work.
Flow
One of the foundations of a focused state is the continuity of attention flowing effortlessly from moment to moment. To get a feeling for this, focus your attention on your breath right here and now in the present moment. As you inhale and exhale, notice your awareness flowing like an unbroken stream into this very moment. If the continuity of your concentration is broken, return to the breath and let your awareness flow.
Here’s a practical exercise for work. First, choose the focus of your attention. It can be an idea you’re brainstorming or an assignment you’re working on. As you inhale, allow the focus of your attention to become more vivid. Enhance the submodalities. As you exhale, feel your attention flowing toward the object or idea you’ve targeted, bringing more energy to your work.
Your continuous flow of breath can help you create an ongoing flow of attention. If you feel your attention wandering, use your next breath to refocus your attention, and then let it flow again. Better yet, condition your most persistent distractions, like Growl notifications, to remind you to come back to your breath.
Flexibility
Flexibility is your best friend if you decide not to, or if you can’t, turn off every distraction around you. Here’s a simple and practical method for enhancing your flexibility of thought. First, select a primary “anchor” for your attention. Maybe a document, something you’re planning, or another piece of work. Focus your total concentration on that anchor. Now, intentionally shift your attention away from your anchor onto something else. Remember to use your breathing as an aid in directing your attention. After a moment of concentration on the new target you’ve selected, shift your attention back to the original anchor.
Do this for a few minutes, alternating your attention between your anchor and a selection of sights or sounds around you. This exercise is great practice if you listen to music as you work. Being a musician, iTunes could steal most of my attention if I didn’t make it a practice of conscious flexibility.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the ability to consciously perform all of your activities, including everyday, automatic things like breathing, walking, and especially, thinking. Mindfulness informs you whether you’re clear and calm, dull and sleepy, or alert and aware. It’s mindfulness practice that brings your mind under control and to a state of rest.
A useful practice to build mindfulness is to create concise mental labels for the objects of your attention. For example, if you’re tired, label the experience, “tired.” When you hear the construction crew outside your office window jackhammering, label it, “jackhammer.” You can label your bodily, emotional, and mental experiences as well as your external objects of focus. As soon as you notice that your attention has shifted, see how quickly you can mentally label the object of your attention.
////////////////////1 Banana
This provides 60 calories in the form of natural sugars. As they are combined with fibre, the sugars are absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream. This gives an energy boost, but without the sugar highs and lows associated with processed sugary foods. Compared with a kit- kat, bananas are more filling and likely to help prevent over eating.
Increase in weight after a year = 5lbs in theory, but probably less as it reduces cravings for other foods
/////////////////////Bag of crisps
One plain, regular 34g bag contains 185 calories, mainly from fat with only a trace of sugars. At 34g fat per 100g crisps this is a high fat food. (The UK Food Standards Agency defines a high fat food as containing 20g per 100g). Crisps are usually eaten with high sugar foods and the fat/sugar combination makes the body store fat.
Increase in weight after a year = 22.5 lbs (1.6 stones)
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Written on November 5, 2007 on 6:20 pm by Kenneth Foo
16 Most Inspiring Famous Failures
Motivational & Inspirational 11 Comments
To succeed in business, blog or in life. I come to realize that we must continually take remedial actions. Putting myself on the line day after day can be extremely draining, especially when things do not work out as I desired. Hence, each time I face a disappointing event or undesirable outcome, I NEVER FORGET these famous failures:
Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, has literally changed the work culture of the world in the 21st century, by simplifying the way computer is being used. He happens to be the world’s richest man for the last one decade. However, in the 70’s before starting out, he was a Harvard University dropout. The most ironic part is that, he started a software company (that was soon to become Microsoft) by purchasing the software technology from “someone” for only $US50 back then.
Abraham Lincoln, received no more than 5 years of formal education throughout his lifetime. When he grew up, he joined politics and had 12 major failures before he was elected the 16th President of the United States of America.
Isaac Newton was the greatest English mathematician of his generation. His work on optics and gravitation made him one of the greatest scientists the world has even known. Many thought that Isaac was born a genius, but he wasn’t! When he was young, he did very poorly in grade school, so poor that his teachers became clueless in improving his grades.
Ludwig van Beethoven, a German composer of classical music, is widely regarded as one of history’s supreme composers. His reputation has inspired - and in many cases intimidated - composers, musicians, and audiences who were to come after him. Before the start of his career, Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him “as a composer, he is hopeless”. And during his career, he lost his hearing yet he managed to produce great music - a deaf man composing music, ironic isn’t!
Thomas Edison who developed many devices which greatly influenced life in the 20th century. Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S patents to his name. When he was a boy his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. When he set out on his own, he tried more than 9,000 experiments before he created the first successful light bulb.
The Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original five-and-ten-cent stores. The first Woolworth’s store was founded in 1878 by Frank Winfield Woolworth and soon grew to become one of the largest retail chains in the world in the 20th century. Before starting his own business, Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21. But his employer would not let him serve any customer because he concluded that Frank “didn’t have enough common sense to serve the customers”.
By acclamation, Michael Jordon is the greatest basketball player of all time. A phenomenal athlete with a unique combination of grace, speed, power, artistry, improvisational ability and an unquenchable competitive desire. Jordan single-handedly redefined the NBA superstar. Before joining NBA, Jordan was just an ordinary person, so ordinary that was cut from high school basketball team because of his “lack of skill”.
Walter Disney was American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney founded a production company. The corporation, now known as The Walt Disney company, makes average revenue of US $30 billion annually. Disney started his own business from his home garage and his very first cartoon production went bankrupt. During his first press conference, a newspaper editor ridiculed Walt Disney because he had no good ideas in film production.
Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. However, that never stopped him to work harder! He strived and eventually became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in Britain and world history. In a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 to identify the “100 Greatest Britons”, participants voted Churchill as the most important of all.
Steven Spielberg is an American film director. He has won 3 Academy Awards an ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history. Most of all, Steven was recognized as the financially most successful motion picture director of all time. During his childhood, Spielberg dropped out of junior high school. He was persuaded to come back and was placed in a learning-disabled class. He only lasted a month and then dropped out of school forever.
Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 and “for his services to Theoretical Physics”. However, when Einstein was young, his parents thought he was mentally retarded. His grades in school were so poor that a teacher asked him to quit, saying, “Einstein, you will never amount to anything!”
In 1947, one year into her contract, Marilyn Monroe was dropped by 20th Century-Fox because her producer thought she was unattractive and cannot act. That didn’t deter her at all! She kept on going and eventually she was recognized by the public as the 20th century’s most famous movie star, sex symbol and pop icon.
John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by sixteen agents and twelve publishing houses. He went on writing and writing until he became best known as a novelist and author for his works of modern legal drama. The media has coined him as one of the best novel authors even alive in the 21st century.
Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed. That did not stop him from incorporating Ford Motor Company and being the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the production of affordable automobiles in the world. He not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and Europe, but also had such influence over the 20th century economy and society. His combination of mass production, high wages and low prices to consumers has initiated a management school known as “Fordism”. He became one of the three most famous and richest men in the world during his time.
Soichiro Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation during a job interview as “engineer” after World War Two. He continued to be jobless until his neighbors starting buying his “home-made scooters”. Subsequently, he set out on his own to start his own company. Honda. Today, the Company has grown to become the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and one of the most profitable automakers - beating giant automaker such as GM and Chrysler. With a global network of 437 subsidiaries, Honda develops, manufactures, and markets a wide variety of products ranging from small general-purpose engines and scooters to specialty sports cars.
Akio Morita, founder of giant electric household products, Sony Corporation, first product was an electric rice cooker, only sold 100 cookers (because it burned rice rather than cooking). Today, Sony is generating US$66 billion in revenue and ranked as the world’s 6th largest electronic and electrical company.
/////////////////////In November of 1970, the so-called "Bhola Cyclone" careened up the Bay and struck East Pakistan -- nowadays, Bangladesh -- at an extreme (though officially unknown) intensity. Because of the low-lying landfall region, the storm's surge traveled very far inland, and the death toll was catastrophic. Estimates range from 300,000 to as high as 500,000.
It was by far the deadliest hurricane known to human history.
In 1991 came a repeat: This time, a storm officially recognized as a Category 5 struck Bangladesh, killing more than 100,000, and displacing as many as 10 million. And then in 1999, once again: The Orissa Cyclone, a Category 5, struck India, killing 10,000.
I relate this history because even as I write, Cyclone Sidr, in the Bay of Bengal, is explosively intensifying. I don't know how strong the storm is right now -- the official tracking agency, the Indian Meteorological Department in New Delhi, lacks a recent update as I write this. To my eye the storm looks like at least a Category 3 or 4, and automated estimates would agree with that assessment.
In short, it looks like this storm is going to strike India or Bangladesh, and that it may be very powerful when it does so. November is a peak month for Bay of Bengal cyclone activity, and there's this added concern: The Bay of Bengal is, compared with the open Pacific Ocean, a relatively small area. Often cyclones form there but cannot become very intense before hitting land.
However, Sidr developed in the open ocean near the Andaman Islands, and has all the time it needs to reach peak intensity without obstruction. This is a scary, scary hurricane. Let's hope it weakens again, and does not hit a populous area.
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