Have you ever gone up to a random person, just to simply talk to them? It’s amazing and I love the feeling of meeting someone new. Everyone has a unique story and identity that makes them who they are. You could meet them at any point in your life, but why right then, right now? Did I make a positive impression in their life? I sure hope so. That is my goal everytime I meet someone is to leave them better off than when I found them.

I love the feeling when two people connect. There’s no bitchy attitudes like at the clubs. Most girls are pretty friendly when you talk to them. Connect as a person, be true to yourself and your identity. There’s no smoke and mirrors, there’s nothing to hide. Just be a sociable person and people will be drawn into your life.

Today I met Katie (Above right), from the International Play Association & Play Around The World (UofA Student Group). She was promoting unique and different ways to play, and develop children, communities, and families. The activity they had set up was for children to build an igloo with ice sculpting tools. It was really adorable to see all the kids interacting and developing this igloo together. She was helping the kids meet each other and work together and it was such a great moment to be a part of. It was unique and exciting because kids don’t normally get to do these things.

She asked if I could email those pictures to her and I agreed enthusiastically. I would love the chance to be able to promote such a great cause! I am happy whenever my passion for photography can be used to influence others in a positive way. I feel a lot better knowing that I am helping other people out.

My point is that people are naturally sociable and eager to tell their story. We are a people that enjoy interacting and talking. Often people get so trapped in their own world that they don’t stop to help random strangers. It feels good, so I encourage everyone to just get out there and chat up anyone around you. I think you’ll get a positive reward/experience from it at the very least.

- Calvin

http://www.physedandrec.ualberta.ca/play.cfm

http://www.ipacanada.org/home.htm

P.S. Enjoy this short video

By Ian Smith

I’m a firm believer that there is a definite rhyme and reason to the way the universe works. While I am fairly certain that it isn’t set in stone, and that many things – including humans – create fluctuations in the way the world unfolds.

The events and situations we face everyday are cleverly disguised opportunities to realize, develop, and exercise our true potential. Now what exactly do I mean by ‘true potential’? Well, that’s simple. Each and every human being on the is planet – regardless of their physical, mental, or emotional limitations – has an indescribable capacity do to basically anything and to become anyone.

Keeping this in mind, reflect upon your own situation. I will reflect upon my own current situation to serve as an example.

- I founded this website to assist people in growing and becoming true men, while in the process allowing myself to do the same. However, I am going to prison very soon. My potential to do what I love and what also helps me become a better person on a daily basis is going to be severely cut off. I won’t be able to log-on and interact with you fine gentlemen. However, will I let this limit me? Indeed it won’t. I have taken the time to make things work, regardless of the shit I must go through. I have found care-takers and placed my faith into the co-founders and other leaders of this website to ensure it runs for everyone to use. For my own growth, I will handle that in many ways, making sure not to waste my time idly as I sit behind bars.

- Over the last few years, I have spent time on a daily basis improving my physical health. I look back at the kind of shape my body was in before, or even look around at countless people around me and I’m appalled by an overwhelming lack of respect, care, and knowledge of healthy living. When I noticed this about myself, what did I do? I didn’t feel bad for myself because I was a flabby mess, I got into a routine right away. Now here I am today, in amazing shape. I can’t remember the last time I fell ill, or wasn’t able to accomplish something physically. That is potential. Potential to be excellent.

- In high school, I was a run-of-the-mill student. I got C’s and B’s with no effort. Despite recommendations to try harder from family and teachers, I ignored them and continued doing what I was doing. Soon enough I realized that stupidity and mediocrity aren’t cool. So I started a new. Upon entering college I opened my mind, focused my intellectual energies, and started to pay attention and ask questions. And before I knew it, I was leading discussions in class, getting strait A’s, and discovered a new-found desire to learn everything I could. Today, people commend me on a regular basis about my intellectual prowess.

None of these things came easy. Nothing was given to me, and chances are, nothing will be given to you. Even when it is, you’ll wind up going back and doing it for yourself later (if you want to really know and grow). So what’s the lesson here?

Realize your true potential. If you want something, then GET IT. Don’t bullshit. Don’t sit idly resenting those who have it easier than you. Stop feeling bad for yourself. And don’t get discouraged by an overwhelming task that confronts you. You want to be an astronaut? Then be an astronaut. You wanna be the man that everyone loves, then BE that man. But get ready to WORK for what you want, because that’s just half the FUN. You can guess what the other half is!

Namaste.
Ian Smith.

Side-note: Ian Smith is already in prison, but this article is so inspiring that I decided to dig through the old files and pull it out. This guy is one of my best friends and a mentor to me.
- Daniel Becerra

Model: Our very own Kris Hansen

By Daniel Becerra

This is not an either-or matter. Do not be fooled by the title. This article aims to clear up one of the things that I am sure has happened to you, is happening to you, or will happen to you.

What happens when you want to improve all areas of your life and you simply just don’t know where to begin? What happens then? Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you had so many things you wanted to improve that at the end you just ended up confused and improved nothing at all? Or what about wanting to improve one aspect of your life more than the others, yet you were afraid you wouldn’t take good care of the others? It has happened to me and plenty of people I know and if it happens on this side of the world, I’m sure it happens on your side as well.

What does it come down to? I will call it “Focus vs Balance”, I’ll explain why now. For sake of understanding, I will call “Focus” the one thing that you have decided to improve the most, the one thing that you want to improve in this new year, or maybe in the next 6 months. And ‘balance’ will be not messing other aspects of your life because you’re ‘focused’ on another particular aspect. For instance, someone who is trying to do a lot of business may have a tough time finding the time to exercise or to spend time with his family and so on. Or if you’re studying or working for long amount of hours, then you may not have an awful amount of time to hang out with friends.

The Focus

There is a difference between focusing and balancing. FOCUSING is a special focus. It’s that SHOULD turned into a MUST. It’s that one thing you must do everyday because it’s what is most important to you at the moment. I find that the best option is to select one aspect of your life that you will FOCUS on and let every other aspect just balance. What do I mean? For instance, the aspect I will focus next is Finances and Wealth. I plan to read books on how to earn money, read biographies of self-made millionaires or billionaires. I plan to do experiments, write on my journal about it, and so on. Does this mean I will drop public speaking (Toastmasters), this website,spirituality, friends, and school? Of course not (even if it means researching until 2 am, and waking up at 8 am). Although if I did and focused entirely on finances, then I’d learn much faster. But I will not do that because other things also need to be done. I think Zig Ziglar said it best “Do what you need to do, so later on you can do anything that you WANT to do”. No matter how much you hate it, some things just need to be done.

There is a need to be clear about what aspect of your life you will FOCUS on next and more importantly for how long will you do it. Some people FOCUS for a period of one year, others for 6 months, others for 3 months. You have to commit these periods and whatever aspect you work on to paper. That is how it’s done. Write it in your journal or Google Documents which is free and you can put as much as you want. It was stated before, when you commit things to writing, that is a sign that you’re taking your studies seriously. So right now (or as soon as you finish reading this article), I would like you to do this:

* Take out a piece of paper. Draw a triangle. Flip it over, so that the widest part is at top and the peak of it on the bottom.
* Divide it into anywhere from 4-10 parts. These parts will be the aspects of your life. You can break it into whatever number of aspects you want to break it. If you visit the forum, then you can have a clear idea of how to break it down.
* Take your time on deciding what truly is the most important for you to DO right now. It may surprise you that you will actually take some time doing this.
* The most important part should be on the top, and then work your day down.

You can see what it will look like if you look at the Cone of Learning. So let’s say that the most important thing to do right now for you is your college education. Then that should be on top. It will signal that’s the most important thing for you and the area where you will spend more time. In other words, it’s your top priority. Other areas will follow, of course. Here is the trick though, every other aspect of your life must be improved as well, because you cannot improve your work if you don’t improve your family or social life, they actually complement each other. Just like your fitness level complements your productivity in the workplace or at home. In God’s infinite wisdom, when we improve one area of our life, others improve as well. They all are connected. The trick is in doing all of them, but putting more time in that aspect that is really important. For instance, my cousin is a relatively muscular guy and he exercises, no doubt that’s important. If you look at me, however, I am not muscular , but I do exercise, a relatively fewer amount of time because that is not my priority. I get enough exercise to keep my head clear but not to grow massive muscle. In my cousin’s case, he exercises to grow massive muscle, and reads enough to keep himself hungry for knowledge. See the difference? My cousin’s priority is obviously different than mine. His is fitness, mine is knowledge. We both do exercise and read, but at different levels.

Another example, I remember clearly the days where my good friend Jamie Craven took seriously his goal on losing weight and gain enough muscle to make it as a model for a prestigious brand, as an underwear model. Did he do it? Of course! Not only did he go from slob to sexy, but also he was featured in a prestigious magazine. We spoke often during those days. He spent hours researching, feeding his mind with the knowledge required for that specific goal. He read everything from how many calories each food has, how many snacks to have, what burns more calories, and so on. He took notes. He asked people. In short, he took seriously. That aspect of his life (fitness) was his priority at that point. (And boy, he made it clear!). But he still made time to hang out with people, talk to friends, feed his mind with other knowledge, help in the website, and so on. He focused on something, and he just…

Let the rest balance

Jamie just let the rest of it fall into place. He did what mattered the most first and still kept with all of his other responsibilities. Follow his example. As busy as your schedule may get, you will notice that when you put your FOCUS first, all the other things will balance. Like I said for me this year, it’s about Wealth and Finances, so I will do whatever it may take to work on it. I’ll do whatever it takes so that I find time for everything else I have to do. For instance, I’m also studying the Bible and reaching a new level on my spirituality, so if I find it hard to read the Bible during the day, then I’ll make the effort to wake up earlier just so that I can catch a glimpse of it. On days where I’m busy and I don’t get much time to read, then I could buy an audio on businesses while I exercise. There are so many alternatives. When it’s a must, you will find your way to get it done and all the other commitments will take place on its own.

If you want it, you’ll find the way, believe me. On the other hand, if you don’t want it enough, if you don’t have a clear sense of purpose and mission, then you’ll find yourself wasting more time, and you won’t even be busy! As corny as it may sound, it’s not the circumstances but rather how you adapt to them. Listen to motivational stuff while you exercise, clear your room, or drive. Wake up earlier to finish a task you may not get enough time for otherwise. Read that book with your girlfriend and ask her to test you on it. Exercise with your girlfriend to kill two birds at once. If you’re trying a new diet, ask her for support and to check on you. There are so many ways, you just have to get creative to find them. I’m not sure who said it, but the message was clear, if you want to get creative, you must remain positive, and if you want to remain positive, you must remain DOING things!

Ultimately – time management is a myth. You cannot manage time. It’s the only thing you will never have control over. What you can manage is your priorities and that you make sure that you commit to them. Something magical happens when you put your priorities first. It’s as if everything was just on your side. Do not focus on time management, it’s a waste of time. (See what I’m saying?) Focus on flexible planning, focus on prioritizing, focus on getting others to hold you accountable, focus on developing a sense of purpose, focus on those things, and time will be your friend, rather than your enemy. Lastly, commit it to writing. I cannot stress that enough. Commit it to writing. When you write it, you focus. When you focus, you balance it. When you balance it, you have amazing time management. That means you’ll have time for the things that matter. And when that happens, you’ll experience… happiness.

By Daniel Becerra

Steve Pavlina gets to the core of Personal Growth, not just the surface. His book ought to be an award.

I’m honored to be review this book, and although it is a little late, I wanted to make sure that I’m absolutely fair with what I’d write. I have read the book “Personal Development For Smart People” by Steve Pavlina, twice. The first time to learn as much as I could, the second time to check for anything I may have missed. It took me longer than I expected. As you will learn when you buy this book, it is necessary to stop, clear your mind, absorb the concepts, and then continue to fully grasp the philosophy of this book. So much is cramped on it, that is hard not to miss something at first sight. Not to praise Steve, but credit should be given where it’s deserved.

As a young man fascinated by personal development, I can tell you that this book has exceeded my expectations by far. In order to make things easier for you, I will not describe the principles of the book in this blog (although they will later be discussed in the forum), but rather I’ll give you a different perspective and why I believe this book is a must in every library. Not just a self-improvement one, but in all Universities, High Schools, and maybe even Middle Schools. Although I believe this book is not for everyone, I will urge every single person who a) Has a minimum curiosity of living a fulfilling, conscious life; b) Has been into Personal Development for some time now; c) Doesn’t believe in Personal Development, to read this book. Although Steve does an genius work in bringing the seven principles of conscious growth (truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence), I think that he excels furthermore in connecting all of them. And even beyond that in connecting all the Personal Development philosophies out there.

I can not think of it in any other way, his book is what connects the dots. It really makes sense as you read it. Yes, it is packed with helpful information about self-growth, journaling, goal setting, life purpose, and so on; but what is amazing about this book – in my opinion – is that it connects everything together in such a beautiful way. It connects things not just within the book, but with everything that I’ve read before. I furiously wrote ideas, realizations on my journal (which hopefully should soon be switched to a software journal ) as I read the book, and I assure you that if you find a quiet, peaceful place to read this book, your experience will be similar to mine.

As Steve puts it on his book’s cover. The book is a guide for conscious pursuit of personal growth. I’m almost sure that you will be inspired by the book’s content, but realize that inspiration comes from realizing your possible greatness, and Steve Pavlina’s book does that magical thing – it enables you to realize your greatness. I have personally been more than inspired to keep blogging more actively, to keep reading Personal Development books to the kids I mentor (even if the staff wants me to read them fairy tales), to work on my speaking skills, to contribute to others by living – by really LIVING. As I read the book, I realized that conscious growth is harder than what I thought. It surely takes some serious self-discipline and guts to passionately do the things you love (at least for me). It is very easy to get distracted when so many things are available to you, but with the guide of a great book, things can be done much easily.

The two chapters that really hit home for me were “Chapter 12: Relationships” and “Chapter 13: Spirituality”. If you’re a pick up artist, social skills master (or whatever you ought to call yourself), you shall read these two chapters – they will change your life. As a former Atheist, and now possibly becoming a Christian (not sure yet), the chapter on Spirituality has made it clear to me that no matter what religion I stand on, I’m still me. Furthermore, it has confirmed that spirituality is on giving, loving, and thanking. I’m very thankful for that. As a social skills blogger and coach, I tell you that I knew little to nothing before reading this book. Yes, sure enough I have skills, but it all makes much more sense once you learn how relationships align with Truth, Love, and Power.

Just for the note, I would like to repeat that I honestly believe this book is not for everyone. In a nutshell, it IS for smart people. And by smart I obviously don’t mean 4.0 GPA in school, but rather an open mind, and willingness to experiment. This book can infuriate some people who are afraid to face their fears in one way or another, so be aware when you read those reviews from other people.

Also, Steve’s book is not just empowering, it’s also humorous. If not, just ask him about the time he did Calculus with crayon on a card box. Or you could also ask him about training to run the LA Marathon so hard just to find out that the marathon was the same he was supposed to get married (an evil eye is enough to make a smart decision) . I had a good laugh at those particular stories.

“Personal Development For Smart People” will have a special place on my tiny book shelf and the phrase “Awesome – 5 out of 5″ will be written on a Sticky Note attached to it. I recommend you read his book description, as this review is for it has done for me (it can do the same or more for you), not for its content (too many bloggers have done that already).

(To steal the words of Steve Pavlina) Live Consciously.

Words: Daniel Becerra. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook

Trust in yourself comes in a variety of forms: confidence and honesty being the main two factors. If you cannot be honest to yourself, how can you expect others to believe you are being honest to them?

Let’s begin with confidence. I have confidence by the truckload. And I have the ability to make this bold statement because I also have confidence in my honesty. When I was young, I used to be shy – I was a quiet kid who played with my (amazing) Lego and Hotwheel cars, building (seemingly brilliant, yet in reality rubbish) tree houses. Girls? I didn’t even know they existed.

When I did raise my head and peak into the real world, the one that wasn’t made of Lego, I was pretty much terrified. However, I was always taught to be polite and courteous so talking to strangers compulsorily was not a problem. For example, when my Mum would go shopping, I would sit by the door and wait. Old men and ladies who needed a rest would sit by me, and being a cute boy with plump cheeks, their mouths drooled with envy. Yet they covered this up by initiating conversation. I was always told I was “a very nice and polite boy.” Yipee. Now I wanted to rebel and be bad.

As the teenage years brought a few surges in testosterone which trebled the size of my action/adventure cortex of my brain, squishing communication quarters to a minimum, I became a grumpy prat. Everyone else around me seemed to have better social skills, though in hindsight, everyone else had old school friends and I had none (actually, there was one, only that he wasn’t in my class). Luckily however, my reaction to this was a creation of a confident personality. The biggest trait being an extremely fast paced speaking style. I didn’t like silences, and I would speak about anything to cover them because of the fear of coming across as shy.

This habit of speaking fast still occasionally pops out now, especially when I’m nervous, however more so when I’m a little bit hyper. For example, at my T4 audition, when I had to sit in front of the camera and speak for one minute, although I had no preparation time, this wasn’t a problem because my natural reaction is to speak fast and about anything.

Over time, this slowly built confidence in myself. After a few tweaks here and there of my personality, resulting from lessons of life (for example lying), I decided I was confident. And believing that I was confident only resulted in more confidence. People around me could see my confidence now, and they told me as much which, further spun the upwards cycle.

However, it’s one thing to be confident, and another to radiate confidence. After beginning to read/learn self-development, especially on how to influence people and giving back to the world, I decided that the only way to improve my confidence even more, would be to uncover the confidence in others. It meant to create excellence around me. Firstly, I knew I had to believe in myself more, so I set out to essentially prove to my mind that I was confident and that I could show people so.

When I was 16, I got my first job in a ladies clothes shop called Hobbs. There were 28 staff, 27 female, and one male: me. Ok, so I didn’t join just to boost my confidence, nor because of the pretty girls (though I’m sure this had a large influence in my decision) I joined because the pay was high. A few months into my job, when I had this revelation about creating confidence, I stopped bringing in lunch money to work for food. I decided I had to get the money from the public.

I looked at my current assets and I resulted in deciding that the best option would be to perform magic tricks with cards to the public, and asking for money afterward (as I was already fairly skilled in this). So, after switching my lunch money for a pack of cards, I hit the streets every workday during my lunch break and approached the criticizing public. My main trick was the one that is performed very easily and always provokes a strong response: guessing the card they choose (over and over again). When it came to asking for money, I was honest:

“Hey let me just stop you for a second, I’ve left my lunch money at home, and I was wondering if I can guess your card three times in a row, you would care to give me 50p?”

Most people gave in. Some even gave me up to £3. There’s big money in the entertainment business. So now I had proven confidence for sure in my mind. I began developing deeper relationships with my current and new friends. I went out my way to help people who needed it, and who wanted it. I invested time in finding out what was really bringing people down. And then slowly, over time lifting them up to a greater level of confidence in themselves. I’m sure some of you reading this will be one of those I refer to.

However, over the years I have realized something critical in bringing confidence out of others: honesty. The greatest boosts of energy I aided people develop always resulted in me being brutally honest about myself. Being honest, shows confidence, even if you’re being honest about being in pain. I talked about my problems before they talked about theirs. I showed my weaknesses, and how I had/will change(d) them into strengths. This enabled the recipient of the conversation to have confidence in themselves that there was no need to hide anything from me, resulting in the creation of confidence. Like Daniel says, in order to get them to open up, you must open up yourself first.

I’ve used this metaphor before regarding other matters whilst helping people, yet it is perfect for this concept as well. Confidence comes from success. Where you stand now is in one room. This room has no doors, windows or any points of entry or exit. However, there is a room next door, and that room next door is your future, desired state. The only way to get there is to smash down the wall which divides the rooms.

If you walk up to the wall, nothing happens. If you jog lightly and jump into the wall, nothing happens. Only when you sprint, and give it your all do you smash through that wall.

There are many rooms with dividing walls in life, the great thing is, every time you smash down a wall, you get stronger and stronger and so each wall becomes easier to break. Eventually, you’ll have confidence in your ability to smash down those walls, so hesitation will be a thing of a past, indeed, it will be left behind in a different room. Once you smash down the wall leading to that of living a life of honesty and openness, things become much easier. I like to think of this wall as leading into a corridor.

Be confident in your honesty, and be honest in your confidence.

Complying to these attributes automatically increase your confidence. What have you to lose? Nothing. What is there to gain? A tremendous life!

Words: Tom Church, the creator of marketing site Flabble

Photography: Calvin Wallace. You can check more of his art in his page.