We don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our systems.

Holly comes into Divine alignment with Noah St. John to discuss his new book that addresses the system of changing habits for success: Power Habits®: The New Science for Making Success Automatic® www.powerhabitsbook.com. In it, he studies the power habits of the “naturals of success” and how they are unconsciously competent at allowing themselves to succeed.

Noah’s work has centered around “Afformations” or the reframing of how the mind answers the questions that we ask ourselves. What if instead of asking lousy questions and getting lousy answers. What if instead these questions were empowering?

The Shower that changed everything. April 1997, while in the shower and after years of “affirmations” he realized that human thought is the process of searching for answers to questions. “Why am I so rich?” instead of saying “I am rich.” Ask empowering questions that create phenomenal answers!

Questions Holly and Noah explore:

What are appropriate ways to use social media? 
What is a belief?
What does it mean to be unconsciously successful?
Why did he write his latest book?
What question are you using right now for 2020? 
Why am I attracting just the right people to me so that we can all reach our goals together?

He says he would rather brag about what the people he’s working with are accomplishing. He measures his own success and the success of others by asking the question, “Have you helped anyone else get what they want?”

Noah shares the four stages of competence:

1. Unconscious incompetence – don’t know you don’t know
2. Conscious incompetence – know you don’t know
3. Conscious competence – you know you know
4. Unconscious competence – do without thinking

What is Noah’s goal for 2020? To reach more people internationally. He’s reached people in over 120 countries and he intends to visit more of the countries where his customers are buying his products. 

Visit www.powerhabitsbook.com and purchase his book, it includes a digital gift pack and tickets to one of his live events. 

Love yourself enough!

Join Holly as she interviews Dawson Church, PhD, and they discuss how science is proving the affects of living a mindful life on the body. 

In his book, Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality Dr. Church shares:

“As Mind to Matter drops each piece of the scientific puzzle into place, it leaves us with a profound understanding of the enormous creative potential of our minds. It also gives us a road map to cultivating these remarkable brain states in our daily lives.”

So many people are skeptical of meditation, but Dr. Church’s brain science is proving that mindfulness creates vast health benefits. 

At one time in his life, he was one of those skeptical people. He suffered from depression, anxiety and PTSD from his early childhood. He joined a spiritual community and joined an ashram for several years and studied psychology to fix his own suffering. Around 2000 he got into energy psychology and committed to a daily meditation practice. His entire life changed. 

In the ashram they directed, “Sit down, be still, close your eyes, clear your mind.” Well, the mind doesn’t clear itself. He set about studying science and how the brain reacts to how the body reacts to seven simple steps of the method he’s created and shares in his book, Mind to Matter.

Some of the questions that Holly and Dr. Church explore are:

• How do you maintain and have emotional regulation once your eyes are not longer 
•  closed for meditation? 
• Did you know there is an emotional control network in your brain?
• How would you advise people to find and make time for meditation?
• How do little introductory tools create bigger results? 
• How can this industry support and change the narrative to preventing stress, rather
•  than a reactive state?

In his book, he shares a story from the first chapter of Graham Phillips, who was a television show Catalyst in Australia. He and his camera team and did a study of him for eight weeks. The results were astounding! This study biologically proved that meditation and mindfulness can actually produce growth of the emotional control network parts of the brain. 

Energy is where it all begins. When you change your energy field, it affects the world around you in a very direct way. 

Meditation is the foundation. Dr. Church offers more than thirty options, of which he states that two are the most essential; meditation and tapping. These have dramatic effects on PTSD, weight control, anxiety and traumas. His studies have revealed that over the course of one week many participants lower cortisol, the stress hormone, by more than 30%. 

He claims that results can be produced in as little as fifteen minutes a day. He suggests using aides to help get started. Guided meditations are very helpful. 

Shadow work is very important to address the past and work on traumas to shift into a powerful state of mind and body. Clearing our own past issues helps release old triggers from the past. 

When people are in tune with non local mind their brain activity changes. Huge surges of oxytocin occur, and the brain actually gets to an “at one with everything” state. Tuning in to the universe if you will. In “flow” state of consciousness, people are five times more productive and creativity doubles!

Don’t just get the book and read it but help by giving him a review about how it helps change and create a mindful world!

Will YOU commit to 15 minutes every morning to meditate and see how it can change your life? Don’t check your phone or the news, start your day with meditation! Love yourself enough to give yourself this start!

Find out more about Dawson’s work at https://mindtomatter.com/. 

“You must learn one thing – the world was made to be free in.” David Whyte

Holly interviews Marc Lesser, executive coach, speaker and author who has been at the forefront of this movement before it was on the radar, Marc Lesser, often dispels the myth that this is a new idea to bring mindfulness into work. 

Dōgen Zenji, the founder of Zen in Japan, wrote a treatise on bringing mindfulness into work. It was written as instructions to the head cook. Lesser ironically found himself as a head cook in a monastery, so he took this to heart early on. Dōgen writes that one should always work with three minds; joy mind, grandmother mind and wise mind. 

Marc’s explains his definition of mindfulness: Mindfulness is humanness – being curious about the human dilemma. 

Questions Holly and Marc explore are:

• What does it mean to be fully human?
• How has the definition of mindfulness changed?
• How can this support me in becoming a more effective leader?
• What is the difference between effectiveness and wellness?
• What is the silliest or most stern objection that you’ve gotten regarding mindfulness?
• Is meditation the only tool to be mindful or are there other tools? 
• Is there truly a way to have work life balance?

Marc shared a story about leading a group of high level executives through meditation and mindfulness practices under the guise of “attention” training; being present with their breath and taking time to stop and be present. He wants to bring awareness to executives and their teams that everything they do and everything they don’t do, and everything they say and they don’t say will have influence. Marc’s continued practice is bringing awareness to the influence that executives have within their companies and business circles.

As a former employee with Google, Marc shared that Google adopted mindfulness practices into their core wellness initiative. Marc admits that he has a bias toward meditation as the main tool to implement mindfulness. He says, “Meditate with your monkey mind!” and Holly follows with “give it a cookie, thank it for showing up, and go back to your practice.” 

He says that burnout is being out of alignment, with values, with the true nature of business and how people get lost in how business can blur the lines of ethics and caring for people. Some sense of full alignment is aspirational. Marc’s favorite quote: “Be joyful though you’ve considered all the facts.” Wendell Berry. In the midst of the gaps that exist, be committed to considering all the facts, make decisions and go with the facts that you with in the present moment. 

Marc shares the seven practices from his book Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader.

• Love the work. 
• Do the work.
• Don’t be an expert.
• Connect to your pain.
• Connect to pain of others.
• Depend on others.
• Keep making it simpler.

If you can focus on the first and the last, love what it is you’re doing and continue doing it with heart. Alignment comes when you find all the ways to make it simpler by eliminating all the distractions and only focus on what is most important in the moment. 

Marc’s focus for 2020 is to help social leaders with mindful meditation combined with mindful finance and operations – combining the inner and outer work to get the work done. 

You can find out more about Marc at https://www.marclesser.net/

Marc leaves the listener with “I wish we would spend more time promoting peace,” as well as a line from poet, David Whyte, “You must learn one thing – the world was made to be free in.”