A Note From The President

Avil Beckford, President

Happy New Year! I would like to thank my readers. Thank you for giving me the opportunity and privilege to share a little of what I've learned in 2005. I am looking forward to 2006 as a year filled with new and exciting opportunities, new products to create and share, but most importantly I look at each day as an opportunity to continue doing what I am passionate about.

A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to attend a High Speed Learning course. If you remember, in October 2005, I reviewed The PhotoReading Whole Mind System by Paul Scheele and concluded that for you to understand and use the new concepts, you would need to follow-up with a seminar on the topic. I was absolutely correct in my assessment. The process, which Paul Scheele uses is a variation of what I learned in the course.

The course is excellent, but the concepts may be difficult to grasp, especially for people who are not familiar with the power of the subconscious mind. For me, one of the main takeaways from the course, was to remember to go into the alpha state when you want to learn. In this state, your brain waves slow down to 7 to 13 cycles per second. See November's Ambeck Edge for how to enter the alpha state.

In the course, we were guided into the alpha state, and without looking directly at a book (we looked just above the book), we flipped through the pages, both upside down and right side up. We did this process for about 20 minutes and then we were tested on the material in the book. The test used was a validated test. I passed the test. But how could I pass the test when I wasn't consciously reading the book? I know that it wasn't a fluke because we subconsciously processed information in two books and got tested both times.

The difficult concept for me to grasp was that when you subconsciously process the information in a book, you haven't actually read the book, so, being a logical person, I wondered what was the point of High Speed Learning. I later discovered for myself, that when I follow the techniques for High Speed Learning before I consciously read a book, I read the book faster, because there is a certain "knowingness." It's like déjà vu - I have been here before.

It's amazing how much we can achieve when we are in the correct state of mind, that is, the alpha state. If you want to get a taste of High Speed Learning, the Strategic Leadership Forum is having a workshop on March 23. (Click here for more information) I will be there - a refresher is always welcomed.

Until next time!

Book Review

Review of Tiger Heart, Tiger Mind: How to Empower Your Dream by Ron Rubin & Stuart Avery Gold

The authors, Ron Rubin and Stuart Avery Gold, explain that Tiger Heart, Tiger Mind is about "waking up every morning of the world with a will and willingness to practice doing and being." The book came about because of Carl Sandburg's poem "Nothing happens unless first a dream."

While I was reading this book, I had some mixed feelings about it. Overall I liked it because it had some good information, but at the end, I didn't feel as if I could take any action. Or, to be honest, I didn't know what to do with this information, how to use it to my benefit.

In this review, I will focus on some of the really good information. For example, the authors ask the question "How do you create the results you seek and live a life with full heart and elated mind?" Their answer, "By doing nothing." Are they crazy? No! They do not mean that we should be lazy or idle, but instead be in "State of actionless action in which the individual reaches an ability to give rise to actions that are acutely intuitive and correct through intense, intrinsic concentration." This is very difficult for people who do not meditate, or are not familiar with Zen and Buddhist principles, which often sound like babble, but when you think about them for a while, you finally get it, and suddenly it makes perfect sense.

Rubin and Avery Gold state that to become successful we must believe in continuously expanding ourselves and be open to discovering new things. They also recommend that we read biographies of great individuals, study success principles, take courses such public speaking, writing and critical thinking. To empower our dreams, we have to make the commitment to be responsible for our dreams, and must realize and accept that "We can never know all that there is to know, and remember that every step of the way." Another thing they mentioned, which I truly believe, is that to become wiser and more knowledgeable, we have to be open and empty, allowing ideas and insights to flow into us.

Five Common Sense Ideas

1. Too much of life is spent looking for the right answers, when in fact the secret to life lies in being able to ask the right questions. It's the questions we ask, or fail to ask that shape our path
2. Too often people look outside their lives for what they want, when the creative power to build their best life lies within
3. The great tragedy of our times is that too many give themselves over to the pleasing of others in hopes of gaining approval or avoiding disapproval
4. Even enemies have enemies, and the enemy of fear will always be your courage to conquer it. Fear is an unreal response that holds whatever power we grant it. Courage is not the absence of fear - it is the acting in spite of fear. If you hold what you fear up to the light, the reality of it will begin to fade, allowing you to re-take control of your thinking process and your destiny. To fight fear:
   - Face it
   - Engage it
   - Assess it
   - Reject it
5. Do not put your dreams up on a shelf to satisfy others. You have an obligation to yourself to discover and manifest your unique purpose and mission in life and set it free

How do you start to empower your dreams and create your reality? The authors suggest that you ask yourself the following questions:

• What turns me on and soars my soul?
• Where is it that my capacity wants me to go?
• What is it that I want to ultimately experience and succeed at?
  

So, you've answered the questions, what next? Your guess is as good as mine, but I do recommend the book because it will make you think.

January's Book List

Tiger Heart, Tiger Mind: How to Empower Your Dream by Ron Rubin & Stuart Avery Gold

Survey Results

Population Growth & Density

• Did you know that in 2003, the population density for:
  - Australia was 2.5 people per square kilometre
  - Japan was 338 people per square kilometre
  - The United Kingdom was 244 people per square kilometre
  - France was 109 people per square kilometre
  - Canada was 3.2 people per square kilometre
  - Iceland was 2.8 people per square kilometre
• Only 200 years ago, the total world population was probably less than a billion, today it's over 6 billion
• From 1994-2004, the world population grew at a rate of about 1.3 per cent per year, down from 1.7 per cent in the 1970s and 1980s but the lower rate is applied to a much larger population
  

(Source: "Population and environment - what's the connection?" NOVA Science In The News, http://www.science.org.au/nova/087/087key.htm)

How Did They Do That?

Amelia Kassel, Marketing Base http://www.marketingbase.com/

Challenge: I started my business 22 years ago in 1982, and in 1984, I started to work with someone. By 1986, I took over the business. It was a very big transition to make from using networking as the major marketing initiative, to direct marketing. I had to change directions, and integrate different target markets. I had to create different marketing strategies. Over the years, I have changed directions a few times, and each time it's a challenge.

Solution: Implement new marketing programs, assess that they work effectively and move on.

Lessons Learned

• You can make change effectively
• At a business level, there is always risk, but you can take the risk and follow your intuition
  
• It's very satisfying when you make a change and succeed
  

What Can Ambeck Do For You:

Ambeck Enterprise provides diverse business research and analysis services to senior level executives, through the relevant distillation of diverse facts and data.

Because Everyone is Saying It, Doesn't Make It Right

Recently, I interviewed someone and asked him what his favourite quote was. He responded that he had two favourite quotes. I will focus on one quote to demonstrate a point. My interviewee said that the quote was often attributed to Einstein, but he had seen variations of the quote. He wanted to find out definitively who the quote was by. The quote is "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result." I did a quick search on the Internet and here is what I found:
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result" Albert Einstein
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result" Benjamin Franklin

Now we have a dilemma because these are the same quote. I called the library's answer line and asked them to check their quotations reference books to see who the quote was attributed to. Either version of the quote wasn't in any of the reference books that they checked.

I went to the reference library and conducted some additional research. I found "The New Quotable Einstein" by Alice Calaprice, senior editor at Princeton University Press. I went through the entire book manually because there was no way to do it electronically, and I couldn't find the quote. I contacted the author and explained the situation. Alice Calaprice is an Einstein expert and is very familiar with, and has access to the "Einstein Papers." She responded that she had never seen that quote in all the years that she had been researching Einstein, and that there are many quotes on insanity and genius that people love to attribute to Einstein though he rarely used those words.

Should I assume that the quote must be by Benjamin Franklin? Not likely! I have found three books of quotes by Benjamin Franklin but haven't had the opportunity to go to the library to check them out. It's a very time consuming process. When I find the answer I will let you know. But, the point I wanted to illustrate to you is that because several people are citing information and attributing it to a source, doesn't mean that the information is accurate. It simply means that they are all citing from the one source so you have to exercise some due diligence. This wasn't a paid project, but I have worked on other projects where this same issue arose. Would you be willing to put in the time and effort to find the correct answer? If you experience a similar situation give me a call!

Formula For Success

Amelia Kassel, Marketing Base

To become successful, you have to be able to experiment and try new things. When something doesn't work out the way you expected, do not view it as failure, but as a learning experience. You learn from trial and error and by how you reshape things.

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