Applied Psychology Series

True happiness, lasting happiness can be achieved through a process known as Self-Actualisation, or Self-Realisation. This is a natural state and within the reach of all human beings. It comes from having satisfied all of one’s human needs. This is the kind of happiness that cannot be obtained through the acquisition of things. The fleeting gratification in receiving goods or services is not true happiness. That is an illusion created by our global consumer society. I am not suggesting that you should avoid having nice things, just that they are not a source of true happiness. Truly happy people are Self-Actualised (SA) people, so called because they are a much fuller expression of their unique human potential than non SA people. The state has been given many labels, enlightened or awakened being two of them. In Zen, it is described Satori. While you cannot order happiness on demand, you can create the right conditions in yourself for Self-Actualisation to occur. This eBook describes what these conditions are, and how you might go about creating them. The rest is up to you. The humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow is well-known for his ideas on a hierarchy of human needs. Basic needs must be satisfied before higher order needs are felt. The hierarchy is represented as a pyramid, with the basic needs at the pyramids broad base, and with self-actualisation at the apex. A Self-Actualised person has found a way to satisfy all of his or her lower needs and has cultivated the conscious awareness of their highest self. They allow this awareness to express itself more fully in their lives. The achievement of Self-Actualisation is recognised by Maslow as a human need, so in a sense it is everyone’s birthright to be happy. The need for Self-Actualisation asserts itself once we have satisfied the lowest-order needs for food, shelter, sex, then middle-order needs for safety and security, then the higher middle-order needs for love and belonging. Above these is the higher-order need for self-esteem. The highest need of all, sitting like the capstone of a pyramid is the need for Self-Actualisation. The annals of various religions tell us that a person can achieve enlightenment with only some or none of the higher and middle order needs being met, and with only the barest of lower-order needs like food and shelter being satisfied. This is more difficult, requiring you to become an ascetic recluse and engage in mortification of the flesh in order to free yourself of these normal human needs. This eBook is not recommending this course of action. Our body is not an impediment to happiness. Quite the opposite, it is a great ally. We owe it to ourselves to take the best care of our body that we can by eating well, getting enough exercise and rest, and avoiding toxic and/or addictive substances. Self-Actualised (SA) people, whoever they are and whatever the circumstances of their lives, tend to approach life in the ways described in this eBook.

Strategic non-action is a powerful yet under-rated method of influencing worldly affairs. In cultures where action is favoured over inaction, like in many western countries, direct action is considered a virtue while inaction is little more than laziness or cowardice. Let us be more subtle and nuanced in our understanding. There is a time for both action and inaction. Non-action gives access to a deeper intuitive awareness than that gained through action, since knowledge that comes through action is obscured by situation-specific reactions. Non-action can be understood as an aspect of going with the flow, not resisting the larger forces that govern a world of which you are a small part. Non-action acknowledges that events are governed by the laws of Nature, and it is often best to simply allow those laws to operate and play out in their own time, in their own way. Taking action often amounts to interference which creates its own problems. Non-action can help us towards our goals by encouraging patience and taking the long-view. Humanistic Psychology says that it is within our reach to create the life we want for ourselves. As we think and believe, so we create our world. This is indeed true, but only up to a point. We can transform our lives in goal fulfilling ways, but the transformation is relatively slow, its progress measured in months and years. We know that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; at least we know this is true in Physics if we did not sleep through that class in school. Less recognised is the truth of Newton’s Third Law of Physics in human affairs. Just as in the world of inanimate objects, when we do things to people, we get a reaction. This then causes its own reaction, and a pendulum-like cycle is set up. Think of how people and tribes get into feuds with each other. Strategic non-action recognises the danger of this pattern of behavior and offers the only means of avoiding it. Non-action gives others nothing to react against. The ideas in this book derive from the ancient Chinese concept of Wu Wei, as expressed in Lao Tzu’s classic Tao Te Ching*. First published around 2,500 years ago, it is probably the oldest book still in print, a testimony to the force of its message. Wu Wei literally means without effort. It describes natural action that occurs without contrivance or effort. It simply happens. Think of how plants and animals grow, rivers flow and planets orbit. No-one makes them do this, it just happens without effort or control in accordance with the laws of Nature. Such action is what we should strive for, while avoiding the kind of action that causes counter-reactions.

The Flâneur is an idea originating from the French poet Charles Baudelaire. In Baudelaire’s world, the Flâneur was an idly-rich dandy, who wandered about the streets of 19th century Paris seeking a remedy for ever-threatening ennui. In this book, the 19th century Flâneur is re-born in the 21st century as the Artful Traveller; a person, not necessarily wealthy or idle, who seeks an authentic experience of a city by strolling about it in an unstructured way, responding intuitively to what they encounter. The Artful Traveller remains detached, non-judgmental; appreciating the nuanced perceptions that come their way. This portrait of the Artful Traveller is painted from several perspectives; it begins with Baudelaire's original artful stroller as the outline, then the details of the portrait are fleshed out using Pyschology and Cognitive Science, with finishing touches from a Zen-Taoist perspective. Introduction. Travel is an expression of the human instinct for freedom and it is an instinct we share with every other creature on this planet. We all instinctively need freedom so we can find what we need in life. For many people living in the world today, travel is a luxury afforded once or twice a year, if at all. Living sedentary, indebted lives that keep us tethered to one place, the instinct to travel is frustrated but not extinguished. When we do manage to get away, do we really enjoy the experience? Not if we approach it with the wrong mind-set. The same journey can be a source of pleasure or misery depending. When travel is done with an open mind, it can be a transformative experience. When approached with a rigid, judgmental mind, every encounter is unpleasant. The Artful Traveller is a handbook for people everywhere wishing to deepen their appreciation of the gentle art of travelling. In all likelihood, if you are reading this, you are such a person. Read this book with an open mind. Suspend judgment long enough to absorb the message, and then decide. What people need. Today, most of the problems of survival have been solved. We live mostly sedentary lives where our needs are met by a abundance of consumer goods and services. Yet stroll about a the city streets or shopping malls and look objectively at the people around you. Notice how few of them seem happy with the abundance that surrounds them. Most walk about with a blank expression, some look downright unhappy. This is probably because while people’s basic needs for food and shelter are being met, their middle and higher order needs for a meaningful life, for self-esteem and self-actualisation are not being met. The psychologist Abraham Maslow describes this phenomenon in his Hierarchy of Human Needs model. To be happy, people need to satisfy the lower-order needs for food, shelter, sex, then middle-order needs for safety and security, then the higher middle-order needs for love and belonging. Above these is the higher-order need for self-esteem. But the highest need of all, sitting like the capstone on a pyramid is Self-Actualisation. The Artful Traveller is someone who has progressively learned how to satisfy their lower and middle order needs, and who is now using travel as a way to achieve self-actualisation. Of course travel is not the only way a person can do this; it is simply one way, and a very enjoyable way it is too.

The Tao Te Ching was written 2,500 years ago, making it perhaps the oldest book still in print. Its longevity is due to the power and simplicity of its message. Come to know more of its simple power and allow that to transform your life. The Tao Te Ching has always had the power to transform the reader, but the reader must first be able to understand the underlying message. Phrased, as it was, by its ancient Chinese author, the language and imagery were products of that far off time and place. Not easy for people in the modern world to understand. This edition presents this timeless message in plain English for all to understand. The Tao Te Ching shows you how to create harmony in your life by finding the Middle Path. It describes a force called the Tao that operates uniformly throughout the universe and is the causal agent of everything that happens. It explains how you can develop personal power through being in harmony with the Tao.

It is a rare person in the world today who could not benefit with some help with improving their self-esteem. We are all imperfect, make mistakes, have problems. While it might seem that the people around you are doing so much better than you, the reality is that they are probably just as messed-up and confused. We cannot help but compare ourselves with the people around us. And in the media, we see idealised versions of perfect people. Despite putting on a brave face, most people judge themselves to be inferior. There is one benefit to feeling this way; it can make you take a good hard look at yourself, and motivate you to make some changes. So this eBook is for you if you feel inferior to others, not worthy, flawed, unlovable, unattractive, or just generally a loser. Be encouraged by the certain knowledge that you already have the capabilities to change these negative beliefs into positive ones that will help you find a whole new enjoyment in life. Definition of self-esteem Self-esteem is our evaluation of ourselves; a measure of our perceived worth. It is what we believe and how we feel about ourselves. It is also influenced by what other people think of us. It is a judgment that we make. Being judgmental is helpful up to a point, but as you will read in this eBook, it can be a harmful mental habit when taken too far. It gets in the way of understanding a person or situation clearly because having decided that something is good or bad, we have effectively declared the matter closed. No further investigation required. We judge the people in our lives (I like her, but I don’t like him), and we also judge ourselves (I’m so stupid). We have to lighten up on ourselves and everyone else too by becoming less judgmental.

The essence of longevity is harmony. It is bringing your inner world into harmony with your outer world, the microcosm with the macrocosm. Your inner world is a reflection of your outer world and the two should be as closely aligned as possible. The more conflict there is, the more stress and strain there is, and the shorter life tends to be. At the physical level, longevity is achieved by keeping your body flexible and in good working order. At the mental level it is keeping your mind clear and sharp, thinking creatively. At the spiritual level, it is being at peace with your world. Each of these levels is addressed in detail in this comprehensive how to guide. Secrets of a Long & Happy Life goes well beyond lifestyle advice for long life. It works on the assumption that quantity of life must also be accompanied by the highest possible quality of life. What is the point of living to 100 if you are miserable? Nursing homes and aged care facilities are filled with people who are kept alive through advances in medical science, but whose enjoyment of life is poor or non-existent. Do not let this happen to you. The Romans had a saying; mens sana in corpora sano. It means a healthy mind in a healthy body. Mind and body depend upon each other, and both must be healthy. But having a healthy mind in a healthy body is the starting point. Secrets of a Long & Happy Life gives you detailed advice on how to achieve this, and does so in a culturally neutral way. Regardless of where you live, what cultural and religious traditions you observe, this advice will work for you because it operates at the level of underlying principle, not outward form. From here, it shows you how to become self-actualised (achieving your fullest potential), how to cultivate your intelligence well beyond its current level. Secrets of a Long & Happy Life does not shy away from the reality of death. Living in fear of dying erodes your enjoyment of life, so the book draws from ancient Buddhist wisdom about how to achieve enlightenment and what happens to your consciousness when your body dies. In short, it helps you understand how to have a good death at the end of a long and happy life. This could just be the most useful book you ever read.

Genius is an often misunderstood though perennially interesting topic. Down through the ages, researchers have observed and studied the nature of genius in an effort to understand it. This book gives you the essence of that research. The material comes from across many cultures and historical periods. It is the lowest common denominator of this fascinating phenomenon, presented in plain English. The book explains the underlying nature of genius, charisma and leadership and gives you a series of exercises. If you take the time to read, understand and practice the principles outlined here, you will be well on your way to increasing your creative output and your ability to persuade others to listen to your ideas. In today’s globalised economy, we increasingly compete with low-cost workers in the developing world who charge much less for their labour. The labour market has expanded, and the competition has never been greater. The trend will continue well into the foreseeable future. As a knowledge worker, how can you increase your value in the market and future-proof your earning ability? The answer is to be able to generate great ideas that add value to whatever enterprise you work in. Creativity is a very bankable skill, regardless of where you work and what you do. Creativity, or indeed genius, can indeed be learned; it is how you think, rather than what you think that matters. Like leadership, You cannot conjure genius on demand. You can only create the right conditions and wait for it to spontaneously occur. Throughout this book, I use the terms ‘genius’ and ‘highly creative person’ interchangeably. A genius is a highly creative person who has a mind-set that generates creative output. Many people assume genius requires a high IQ, but this is not necessarily the case. It is far more about attitude, and attitude is learn-able. You can learn how to think and act like a genius. Is there a human alive who has reached their fullest potential? Possibly, but he or she is so rare as to be perhaps one in a billion. It is the nature of being human to be imperfect. We all have room for improvement. So what does it mean to be a genius? This book gives you a profile of how geniuses think and act, based on the work of researchers across cultures over time. It gives you the essence of being a genius. If you follow the advice and emulate these practices, you will create the right conditions for genius to manifest in your life. How successful you are will be largely dependent on how much time and effort you are prepared to invest in this most noble of endeavours. Genius can be understood as an aspect of the self-actualised person; someone who is in the process of living and expressing their unique human potential at its fullest. The process of self-actualisation is discussed in detail in this book.

It’s the thing that most people desire – a long-life, well-lived -- yet achieving it can be elusive. Sure, medical technology goes a long way, but what about staying healthy in the first place? This eBook is a summary of the collected wisdom of hundreds of researchers who have studied the ingredients of a healthy, long-lived lifestyle. It should be good news to us all that there are relatively simple rules that we inherited from our evolutionary past that have been proven to be true for everyone, everywhere; a few simple rules that you can apply to your life, wherever you live. Much research has been done into what makes people live a long time and be healthy. We now know that there are certain common factors that are true at a human level, true for everyone, everywhere. Of course, how these factors are put into practice is going to be different from place to place, but if we know what those underlying factors are, we can use our imaginations to work out how to live them ourselves. Looking at it from an evolutionary point of view, these factors describe the ideal way for humans to live. This is the key to understanding a long and happy life. The fossil record tells us that the human lineage split from our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, around five million years ago. By 200,000 years ago, humans were anatomically similar to people today. If a human from that time were brought into the modern world, cleaned up, given a haircut and dressed in regular clothes, it would be difficult to tell them apart from someone born in the modern era. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection tells us that the creatures that survive are those that are best suited to life in a particular environment. Humans evolved on the African savannah, so we are well-adapted to those conditions. Our ancestors lived in small family groups on the vast grassy plains along with all the other species, many of which still there today. Humans were not at the top of the food-chain. That position was occupied by Lions and other big cat predators. Our ancestors foraged for whatever they could find. For millions of years early humans lived like this. Then, about 120,000 years ago, our ancestors wandered north and found their way across the narrow seas to Eurasia. So began the human diaspora that resulted in humans spreading across that vast land-mass to the Americas and down to Australia. Logic would suggest that the key to long life is to adapt your lifestyle so that it is similar to what has been called the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. This is the set of what anthropologists might call the ‘recurring selection pressures’ that have shaped us into the creatures we are today. A less scientific way of expressing this idea is to say that we should learn to live in harmony with Nature; to harmonize our inner world with the outer world. The chapters that follow outline the essential features of the lifestyle of early humans. They serve as a model that you can use to adapt your lifestyle so that it is in harmony with our inner nature. I do not suggest that we should leave our homes and become hunter-gatherers on the African savannah again. Let us make full use of the modern conveniences at our disposal, but let us do so in full knowledge of the grounding principles that make us human. If you can find a way to combine the two, you are well on your way to achieving a long and happy life.

The Enchiridion (Greek for Handbook, pronounced En-ky-ridion) of Epictetus is a favourite text of the Stoic school of philosophy. Compiled by Arrian, a former pupil around the time of Epictetus’ death in 135 AD, this enduring text is a compilation of lecture notes based on Epictetus’ lessons. It has long been considered an excellent manual of practical philosophy. Epictetus (55 – 135 AD) was born at Hierapolis in what is now Turkey. Sold to Epaphroditos, who was secretary to Emperor Nero, he spent his youth in Rome. He developed a consuming passion for philosophy. With the permission of his master, Epictetus was allowed to study Stoic philosophy. Over time, as his learning and wisdom grew, he became a respectable citizen of Rome, and an esteemed philosopher. Epictetus, unlike some of his metaphysical forebears, concentrated on making philosophy practical. How it could be used beneficially in everyday life. The timeless message of the Enchiridion is as practical today as it was in ancient Greece. Perhaps this is where the Enchiridion gets its enduring power and long-life. A central theme of the work is to clearly distinguish between what we can and cannot control in life. We can control what we think, and how we act. We cannot control what others think and how they act. We must put our effort into what we can control and refuse to worry about what we cannot. Following on from this is to limit our expectations. If we understand we cannot control people, then we will not expect them to behave in a certain way, and we will not get upset or disappointed when they do something different. Another theme is to not become attached to people and things such that when they disappear from our lives, we will be upset. This idea bears a striking resemblance to the central Buddhist tenet of non-attachment to impermanence. Epictetus urges us to observe carefully the patterns of Nature and learn to live in harmony with them. This includes accepting what happens in life with grace, without resistance. It is how we think about events that makes them good or bad, not the event itself. Our beliefs create our reality. The same event could be interpreted by two people in diametrically opposed ways, according to their belief. These have been a sampler of the many practical recommendations to be found in this remarkable book. The first English translation was published around 1567, though this book is based on Elizabeth Carter’s 18th Century translation. Stoic philosophy, an Introduction Stoicism has come to have a narrow and somewhat negative meaning of being unemotional or indifferent to suffering, however this is a distortion. In a world of easy fixes, and mass consumption where pleasure is seen as the greatest good, Stoicism seems oddly archaic and irrelevant. Notwithstanding this, its real message has great relevance in the 21st Century. Influenced by the earlier work of Socrates and Diogenes of Sinope, the Stoic school of philosophy was founded around 300 BC by Zeno of Citium. Zeno taught that a wise person should not allow their emotions to rule them; instead they should master their emotions and use logic to think rationally about how to behave in life. He urged his followers to study carefully the laws of Nature and to live in harmony with them. A central point in Stoic philosophy is the active relationship between the laws of Nature that rule the Cosmos, and human free will. A wise person derives maximum benefit and happiness in life by bringing his or her will into harmony with Nature. They come to know themselves, recognising that their inner nature (microcosm) is a representation of the outer macrocosm, or universe; the same nature in both, differing only in scale. With its emphasis on duty and right action, Stoicism is therefore well-suited to the needs of those who would lead. It was used as a guide by the ruling class of Rome for centuries.

Happiness is an elusive quality for many people in today’s complex, often stressful world. There is however a powerful but little known secret in the pursuit of happiness. It can take a moment to learn and a lifetime to perfect. It is simply this; to not mind what happens and not react. The key to not minding what happens is to learn the gentle art of not taking offence at the things that happen to you in the course of your daily life, and not reacting to the provocation. Seen from another angle, the idea is to have low expectations. In a world where many people grow up with a sense of entitlement, this is much easier said than done because we have base-lined our expectations at a high level. Adding to this is the commercial world that sets a high standard of customer service as the necessary price of selling you something ahead of their competitors. We all enjoy good customer service, and feel we have a right to it, but consider how this might be distorting your perception of reality. They are only being nice to you so you will give them some money. The world is really not that nice in actual fact. Some of the time, even most of the time, our high expectations are met. But there will always be times when they are not met, and then you will be offended and aggrieved and trouble will inevitably follow. How dare you treat me this way? On the other hand, when your expectations are low, you are seldom disappointed and often delighted. There is an enormous pay-off for people who manage to not take offence. Not only do they not go through life feeling angry and aggrieved, they start to see the world in a much more positive light. When you allow the world to be what it is without trying to change it, you access an enormous wealth of intuitive knowledge that you can enjoy and use to live a happy, harmonious life. This is strategic non-action, and it is a powerful yet under-rated method of living and being effective in the world. In cultures where action is favoured over inaction, like in many western countries, direct action is considered a virtue while inaction is little more than laziness or cowardice. There is an advantage in being more subtle and nuanced in our understanding. There is a time for both action and inaction. Non-action gives access to a deeper intuitive awareness than that gained through action, since knowledge that comes through action is obscured by situation-specific reactions. Settle in for the ride as I reveal to you the secret of strategic non-action in the pursuit of happiness.

Do you enjoy a drink or two in the company of others, or does it go beyond that? Where do you draw the line between what is good for you and what might be doing you harm? It is not always easy to know. As a general guide, if you can stop after a couple of drinks, then you don't have a problem. But if you have difficulty stopping, when one drink is too many and twenty is not enough, then yes, maybe your drinking has moved into the red zone. This book shows you how to stay in the green zone by giving you strategies to limit consumption and advice on how to live life the fullest. Not everyone who drinks heavily is an alcoholic. Alcoholism, like dependence on any drug, has five clear characteristics; preoccupation with acquisition, compulsive use, narrowing of interests, denial, and relapse. If alcohol was all good, or all bad, it would be easy. We could simply declare it so. We all know water is good for you and you should drink plenty of it for good health. Likewise we know that cyanide will kill you stone dead in moments. No ambiguity with these substances. But it is more complicated with alcohol. In small amounts, it is not harmful; it can even be good for you. And because it feels good, it is easy to want more, and then some more. Long before you stop feeling like having more, a line is being crossed between what is doing you good and what is harming you. If we stopped wanting more when we actually cross that line, there would not be a problem.

Assertiveness is a zone on the spectrum of human behaviour that lies between Passivity and Aggression. This book shows you how to find that zone, that sweet-spot; not always an easy thing to do. Being Assertive is fundamentally about rights; yours and those of others and finding a balance between them. An aggressive person violates the rights of others, while the passive person violates their own. The assertive person finds a win-win way to balance these sometimes competing interests. Learning to live in the zone of assertiveness has many benefits; your self-esteem will improve, the quality of your relationships with others will improve and deepen. Being aggressive, like using verbal or physical threats, may get people what they want in the short term, but their relationships will inevitably suffer. Being passive is also destructive of relationships and long-term happiness because your own needs are being ignored for the sake of getting along with others. Being assertive is where the sweet spot is. Here, your needs, wants and feelings are likely to be understood, you don’t hurt people unintentionally, everyone feels respected, if not understood, your relationships become stronger, you have fewer arguments, feel more in control of your life and you generally feel better about yourself. These are just some of the benefits.

'Every Moment is the Best Moment' is for anyone seeking a richer, deeper experience of life beyond our pre-occupation with material wealth and consumerism. There is nothing wrong with having a good standard of living, but when wealth and status becomes an end in themselves, we have lost sight of what is most important in life. This eBook is a short how-to guide that can help you to cultivate a higher awareness while continuing to live in the world. The phrase 'every moment is the best moment' is the essence of Enlightenment. It captures the feeling you have when you are so fully engrossed in the moment that you have no thought for anything else. The barriers between your inner and outer worlds dissolve and you feel a sense of connectedness with everything. Every moment is the best moment because it is the only moment. Moments recalled from the past, or anticipated in the future are products of your imagination. They have no substance in the outer world. The challenge is to feel this way about the ordinary things in your life, the things that many would consider mundane or even unpleasant. The enlightened person learns how to take great satisfaction in doing one thing at a time, focussing their full attention upon it and getting into a state of ‘Flow’ (discussed in more detail later). They understand that the virtue is not so much in what you are doing, but how you are doing it.

Loneliness is a painful condition that afflicts everyone from time to time. It is a sad situation that in the modern world, loneliness is at epidemic proportions. Despite technology making it easier than ever to connect and communicate with people all over the world, never have so many people been so lonely. Being Alone is aimed directly at helping you to transform the experience of being alone from a negative to a positive one. If you already enjoy solitude, it can show you how to deepen the experience to be even more rewarding. If you are alone and not enjoying it, it shows you how to change your thinking so that you experience a rich inner life that is more than a substitute for the company of others. There are of course many reasons why people find themselves alone. It is unavoidable sometimes. Other times we are alone through choice or circumstance. This book is for everyone who is suffering from loneliness and would like to know how to feel better about being alone. Knowing how to turn loneliness into enjoyable solitude is something you can learn. This book takes a positive therapeutic approach to the treatment of loneliness. It does not give the standard advice of ‘join community groups’ and other motherhood suggestions, though this is good advice. This ground has been well covered already. Instead, we take the approach of helping you to understand the underlying nature of loneliness followed by a series of suggested ways that you can change your thinking around this whole area. At the risk of over-simplifying the situation, there is a dynamic tension within all of us. It is created by the competing needs for solitude on the one hand, and for company on the other. We all have these competing needs, though the degree differs between individuals. Sometimes we are able to get the balance just right. Other times not so much; we might feel the need to be alone when we in company and of course times when we are alone and crave company. We cannot change this aspect of human nature. It is hard-wired into us at a fundamental level. What we can do is learn live constructively with it. That is what this book aims to do, show you how to turn painful loneliness into enjoyable solitude. LONELINESS & SOLITUDE There is a world of difference between loneliness and solitude. Solitude is when you are alone, but not feeling lonely; not sad, not depressed. It is a positive state of mind in which you are experiencing some aspect of your inner life. This introspection can lead to intuitive insights about yourself or your life that can be very rewarding. Loneliness, on the other hand, is a state of painful social isolation in which you might want to be in the company of others, but for a variety of reasons are unable to. Remember, what you experience when you are by yourself is something you control, or at least have the capability to control once you learn how. It really depends on your attitude, on how you are thinking about the situation. As Shakespeare’s Hamlet wisely observed; there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Your brain is a truly remarkable thing. Neuroscience tells us that it is the most complex biological structure ever to have existed on this planet. It was made to work and work hard, probably well beyond its current level. You have the potential to raise your cognitive capacity beyond where it is now or where it was in the past. This statement runs counter to the common belief that as we get older, our brains inevitably go into decline. This is not true. There is no shortage of cases where people in their 90’s and beyond have minds that are still sharp and productively creative. In the absence of neurological disease, the decline in brain function as people age has much to do with settling into established and increasingly inflexible ways of thinking that has few new challenges. It is the mental equivalent of spending your days in a comfortable armchair, getting no exercise and watching mind-numbing TV. Sooner or later, your body, like your brain will atrophy through lack of use. Based on the work of the psychologist Howard Gardner, we know that there are no less than nine different kinds of intelligence that we all possess to some degree. Typically, one or two types are more developed in a person, while the remaining types are less developed or dormant. This eBook explains in detail about each of the nine types, and gives you action exercises to help you develop each of them to a higher level. It does promise to make you a genius, but if you follow the advice, it can definitely help you to expand your cognitive repertoire so that you can bring other modalities of intelligence to bear on the challenges that face us all in everyday life. Multiple Intelligences. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner is well-known for his work on multiple intelligences. Since its emergence in the 1980’s, Gardner’s work is still generates debate, yet many psychologists believe it contributes greatly to a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of intelligence than that offered by the standard IQ test. The nine types include; Naturalistic intelligence, Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, Linguistic intelligence, Interpersonal intelligence, Spatial intelligence, Logical-mathematical intelligence, Musical intelligence, Intra-personal intelligence, and Existential intelligence. We possess all nine of these intelligences to a greater or lesser degree. Some remain dormant, while others are expressed more fully. Understanding something of these different modalities of intelligence will be of great help in recognising where your strengths lie. It can give you guidance on which ones might benefit from being enhanced in order to bring about a more balanced profile. Establishing a balanced profile across the nine types of intelligence will make you much more effective at meeting the challenges of life because your ‘cognitive toolkit’ has been greatly expanded. You will be able to use the most appropriate tool for the task, or perhaps a combination of tools might be found to work best. It is a tragedy and a terrible waste of potential that standardised school curriculums and intelligence tests that favour one kind of intelligence over others has produced generation after generation of people who believe they are not very bright. After all, their results at school and the comments from their parents and teachers seem to suggest this. A person who is well-endowed with some types of intelligence may have performed poorly on school curriculums based on the standard IQ assessment methods. A person with high Intra-personal intelligence would probably not engage with set school curriculums, even though they possess highly developed intuitive knowledge that gives them deep insight into people and situations. Arguably such a person is no less ‘smart’ than someone with highly developed mathematical ability.

It has probably happened to you before. A problem arises at the office or in your family, and everyone looks up to you to solve it. You don’t want to hurt feelings or step on anyone’s toes, so you find yourself hedging around the issue. What you really need is a creative solution, one that will soothe everyone’s ruffled feathers. You need something that will appease all parties involved. How do you make everyone happy? Is that even possible? You smiled to yourself thinking that what you really need to be is a genius to solve this dilemma. You wish you’re one of those people who can come up with something amazing, inspiring, and creative, at the drop of a hat. Have you become a creature of habit over the years? Think there’s no way you could ever be creative? Maybe you’ve been stuck in a rut. What if I told you that it is indeed possible for you to become the creative being you’ve always wanted to be? What if you could: - Gain that self-confidence you’ve always desired. - Reduce your stress. - Find some inner peace. - Learn to have better control over your life. - Find unbelievable satisfaction. - Learn to express yourself. - Find some purpose in your life. You will feel so good about yourself, your work will prosper, your family life will improve, and even your relationships will blossom. What if you could look at something everyone else has looked at, but see it in a totally different light? What if you could give it a twist? You could develop your intuition, that special insight that only creative people seem to possess. Think you’re not creative? Think you’re not imaginative? Well, stop thinking. We’re all capable of creativity. It’s in our genes, our very DNA. All human beings are creative. It’s just a matter of developing that creativity. “But how do I do that,” you ask? “I don’t know if I'm smart enough to be a problem solver. “What if I don’t possess enough knowledge to be really good at this?” Well, Albert Einstein said, “Creativity is more powerful than knowledge.” “Want to Creatively Change Your Life?” I stumbled upon the very answer for all those who think they don’t have it in themselves to be creative, imaginative, or inspired. You do have it in you, and one report will teach you exactly how to unleash it. Unleashing the Creative New You! is all you'll ever need to start bringing out that creative person and that imaginative soul that’s inside of you. It’s possible to break free from that monotonous, humdrum existence and start living the creative life you were always meant to live. After reading this report, you will be able to understand what creativity really is, how it can help you live a more fulfilling life, and what you can do right now to wake up that sleeping creative giant within you. What you will find inside Unleashing the Creative New You! - How to conquer procrastination, fear and anxiety. - An awesome way to avoid losing all those marvelous ideas. - The first step to solving any problem. - How creative activities can take away stress and improve your health. - How to achieve a Zen-like state of creativity. - What you need to do to assure yourself of creative success. - How to apply your creative energy to your daily life. - How to develop a higher IQ. - How to counter the dreaded “enemies” of your creativity. - How to be a genius. - The many forms of creativity. - How to know when you have made contact with the creative spirit. - What leaves us too drained to be truly creative. - The biggest difference in our brains and those of so-called geniuses.

Do you find it difficult to recognize someone you've been acquainted to earlier? Do you always have to look for your friend’s phone number in your address book before dialing his number? Have you ever experienced forgetting the next few lines to utter in an important speech? Do you have a hard time passing the exams because you just can’t seem to recall the lessons you've studied? If you answered “yes” to any of these above questions, then your memory needs some work. Some might say, “So I have a bad memory. No big deal.” What they might not know is that unless affected by injury or illness... “No One is Born with a Bad Memory. It Just Needs to be Sharpened to Improve Its Efficiency” Contrary to the belief of many people that sharpening your memory takes a lot of time and effort, you don’t have to be a genius to quickly know, understand, and recall what you have read or learned. Can you imagine what your life would be like if you have a sharp memory? You can achieve the following: - Get higher grades by studying more efficiently. - Build good relationships by recalling people’s names, faces, and interests. - Enhance your career by recalling facts and numbers effortlessly. - Never get lost on the road again. - Save lots of time by never having to find lost objects. - Impress your friends with your super memory and be the life of the party. It doesn't matter whether you’re 92 years old or just 12, anyone is capable of memorizing and recalling virtually any information possible. However, you must have the proper lifestyle, attitude, habits, and methods to possess a super memory. Fortunately, an interesting book was written to achieve that purpose. Improving your Memory will teach you practical and creative strategies to refine and sharpen your wonderful memory. It will reveal to you effective techniques on how to maintain your brain in tip-top condition, how to overcome forgetfulness, and how to easily retain data in your mind for immediate retrieval anytime you desire. Best of all, many of the methods are simple, practical, and fun to learn! If you want your mind to memorize numbers, facts, and other information like nothing you've ever seen before, then this book is for you. Take a look at some of the information you’ll find inside: - Why being smart is not necessary to have a good memory. - Foods that allow your brain to operate at its peak performance. - What you should do to improve creativity. - The 3 types of memory. - Helpful techniques in mood conditioning to boost your mental capacities. - The first thing you should do before memorizing anything. - Common causes of a poor memory. - Successful strategies to maintain your focus. - How to keep track of all your thoughts. - Terrific tips to intensify your motivation. - How your subconscious helps you to remember. - Popular techniques of association. - Similarities between the mind and a video camera. - 7 powerful tactics to overcome forgetfulness and absentmindedness. - Why you can better remember a person who owes you some money compared to someone who doesn't. - 11 extraordinary strategies to help you remember names and faces. - How to convert numbers to words. - How to transform numbers to pictures. - Super techniques to remember long strings of numbers. - How to recall an item from a chronological list. - How to easily remember dates, time, and TV channels. - How to develop a keen sense of direction. - How to recall addresses and places with ease.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is a perennial, belonging to a very special category of book that has but a few members out of the millions of books ever published; longevity. It has a simple, powerful message that is as fresh and useful today as it was nearly two thousand years ago. The greater the Truth, the more simply it can be put. The original book states a few great Truths, and states them very simply. That alone makes it worthy of careful study, but it has more to commend it than that. The greater the Truth, the more simply it can be put. The original book states a few great Truths, and states them very simply. Meditations is basically the author’s personal journal, written in private over a ten year period. It is doubtful whether he intended it to ever be read by others. It was a way for him to remind himself what he recognised as being most important to remember about Life. As a result, there is much repetition of ideas. A few big ideas are constantly discussed, these being uppermost in the author’s mind as the months and years rolled by. Therefore this Primer provides a summary of the recurrent ideas of Meditations, and does so in 21st Century language, easily accessible to modern readers. It presents the first five books as being representative of the entire twelve books. This is sufficient to grasp the essence of the original. In Meditations you come to know the real man, and to the reader this can seem an extraordinary privilege. But the man was also an emperor, and no ordinary emperor, one of the finest in Rome’s illustrious history. A truly remarkable man by any standard, but as you will see, a modest, even humble man. Even today, Meditations stands tall as a guide to staying calm under pressure when there is a difficult job to do. Marcus Aurelius might have been a Roman, but his thinking had been shaped, like so many educated Romans, by the classical period of ancient Greece. Indeed, Meditations was written in Greek. Even today, classical Greek thinking still permeates the foundations of Western civilisation.

Beating Addiction is a book for anyone wanting to get control of their life and shake off an addiction that has been crippling them. It goes beyond giving strategies for beating addiction, it teaches you how to find inner peace, and how to develop to your fullest human potential - to become self-actualised. This is a long journey, but well worth the effort. Why not make a start today?

For thousands of years people have tried to understand the elusive quality of Leadership. Still no consensus. What it means to be a leader differs according to the circumstances. This book examines the timeless, underlying qualities that must be present in a person if they are to be perceived as a leader by those around them. The distilled the essence of leadership is then formulated into a simple, easy to use process model for anyone to use, whether they be project managers, team members or simply people wishing to become the embodiment of those leadership qualities. Leadership and the Tao is a fresh take on the timeless question of "What is Leadership?" Read what the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu had to say and marvel at how up-to-date is this 2,500 advice when seen in comparison with what modern day experts have to say. Come to understand Leadership as an aspect of the self-actualising person; someone who is in the process of expressing their fullest potential as a human being. This book combines the distilled wisdom of modern day thinkers like Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis with the timeless wisdom of the ancient sages. You might be surprised how useful this book turns out to be.

Do you want to experience a greater sense of freedom in your everyday life? When you live your life with low or no expectations, you free yourself from being attached to preconceived ideas of how life should be. Having those expectations is a constant source of worry; what if it does not happen? When you have little or no expectations, you are free to simply live, to go with the flow and experience life as it comes. Living with low or no expectations is a tremendously liberating way to live. Feeling free and unencumbered is one kind of being happiness, one that you can generate within yourself without needing to rely on any external source. What’s wrong with expectations? The problem is they create an attachment to certain outcomes and fear that it won’t happen. Those outcomes have to occur for us to be happy or at least not sad. If things turn out some other way, we become upset and perhaps angry and these negative emotions then erode our happiness. When you have little or no expectations, you are free to simply live, to go with the flow and experience life as it comes. Negative emotions like fear, doubt, worry and anger are the last things you want when trying to manifest your purpose. For this you need a calm sense of detachment. You act with confidence that your purpose will be fulfilled – the details will sort themselves out. From our limited perspective, it may sometimes seem that things are not working out, but we must not let fixed ideas get in the way of creative solutions. It is a sign that we are not seeing the larger picture. We need to trust that everything is happening as it should be happening in the larger scheme of events. Think of how it is with young children; they take life as it comes, moment-by-moment, accepting what happens without judgment. They have no fixed ideas, trust they will be provided for and believe that anything is possible.

Social anxiety (or social phobia) is the debilitating fear of interacting with people. At its heart is the belief that you are being negatively judged, which leads you to avoid those situations where being judged is a possibility. To make matters worse, it is a self-reinforcing fear in which the more often you avoid situations, the more established and habitual the fear of negative judgement becomes. You can understand the nature of social anxiety by seeing it in its evolutionary perspective. In our evolutionary past, strangers were dangerous. Being wary of them helped us to survive. There were the family and close friends inside our circle of trust, and then there was everyone else. There was only ever ‘us and them’. The world is not as dangerous as it once was. The foundation for dealing with social anxiety is to understand at a rational level that in today’s world we do not need to be so scared of strangers. As dangerous as they might once have been, today they are less dangerous. To watch the news on TV or read the newspapers, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world is a dangerous place indeed, but that is a distortion of reality. Every year the world becomes a little safer and more civilised as Stephen Pinker points out in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Rigorously enforced laws that guarantee individual rights have seen to that. We all know that if we attack someone we will find ourselves incarcerated with a criminal record. We have learned to restrain our violent impulses. On the rare occasion when someone does become violent, often under the influence of inhibition-reducing alcohol, they are publicly shamed on TV news and sent to jail or made to pay a hefty fine. The carrot and the stick. Since Roman times, violent offenders have been put in prison where they cannot breed. At the same time, altruistic behaviour is rewarded by society. This carrot and stick approach is gradually reducing the overall proportion of people with violent tendencies in the general population, while increasing the proportion of helpful, well-intentioned people. This process has been on-going for nearly 2,000 years, which represents roughly 6,000 generations of people. I am not suggesting that violence does not still occur in the world, only that it is gradually declining, a fact which is proven by the hard evidence presented by Professor Pinker. We did not evolve surrounded by millions of strangers. We do not need to fear strangers in the way our ancestors did 10,000+ years ago. In those days, people lived in small nomadic groups, very often a single multi-generational family group. Everyone knew everyone else. Children were raised by the community. There were no towns or cities, much less the mega-cities of today. Even though we evolved as small group dwellers, the reality of life today in the 21st Century is that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities where you live surrounded by millions of strangers. This is always going to be stressful for people in whom the age-old instinctive fear of strangers is still strong. If you suffer from social anxiety, it is helpful to understand that what you have is a natural instinct that is being outraged by the conditions of modern life. The instinct is over-reacting; the perceived danger has become blown out of proportion to the actual danger. You are not defective; you just need to dial back the instinctive reaction to a more rational level. You can take a big step towards overcoming your social anxiety by activating your rational, logical mind and coming to understand the truth of modern city life. Our instincts tell us to be afraid of everyone we don’t know, and while some of those strangers should definitely be treated as potentially dangerous, the vast majority of strangers are normal, civilised people who would not dream of harming you.

In Being Happy Part 1 we explored the dynamics of happiness through self-actualisation, the achievement of your fullest potential. In Part 2, we discuss the work of Martin Seligman, a foremost proponent of the positive psychology movement and a leading source of advice on being happy. As the name suggests, positive psychology focuses on what is good, what is working in a person’s life. Its aim is to find ways build on people’s strengths, help them to find happiness and to achieve their full potential. This is in contrast to traditional psychology that focussed on what is wrong with a person. After a broad ranging review of the various prescriptions for happiness, from such diverse sources as the Buddha to Tony Robbins, Seligman identifies three distinct ways to find happiness; the Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life and the Meaningful Life. In the fullest sense, the happiest of lives are those where all three are cultivated and practiced. Seligman found, somewhat to his surprise, that Pleasure alone contributes little to a lasting sense of happiness and fulfilment. He compares it to "the whipped cream and the cherry" that tops off a life spent in the simultaneous pursuit of meaning and engagement. Then we take a detailed look at other happiness inducing factors that Seligman has identified in the course of a long and distinguished career in positive psychology. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THREE KINDS OF HAPPY LIFE QUALITY RELATIONSHIPS SELFLESS CARING HEALTHY MIND IN A HEALTHY BODY SPIRITUAL MEANING OPTIMISM – LEARNED OR INHERENT MINDFULNESS FLOW BUILDING ON YOUR STRENGTHS & VIRTUES STRATEGIC NON-ACTION – WU WEI NOT TAKING OFFENCE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If you can observe your thoughts, who exactly is doing the observing? It is not the ‘I’ that has a name and a life history -- your egoic self. This simple question is at the centre of the great religions and spiritual traditions in the world. Mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition is one source of answers. Beyond the spiritual benefits, there are numerous health benefits for the mindfulness practitioner. At the physical level, mindfulness has been proven by recent research to help reduce stress, lower blood pressure, treat heart disease, reduce chronic pain, help you sleep soundly, alleviate gastro-intestinal problems to name a few. At the mental level, psychotherapists are using mindfulness as an effective therapy. It is showing good results in helping with depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, relationship conflicts, anxiety disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The techniques outlined in this concise, plain-language eBook are easy to understand. You have nothing lose and everything to gain by learning this ancient healing technique to help you towards a happier, healthier life. It is surprising how many folks in the world around you are operating at a largely unconscious level, which is to say they are driven by habit and instinct; displaying the same stimulus-response behavior time after time. I am not suggesting that people are unconscious in the sense of being asleep. If they are driving cars and walking about, they have enough awareness to avoid accidents -- most of the time. They are unconscious in the sense that they allow their social conditioning and innate drives to determine how they live and act. When something happens, they react in their usual way without much awareness of what they are doing. This explains why people make the same mistakes over and over. In this habit-driven state, a person is unlikely to be aware of the web of cause and effect in the world around them. They are unaware of how their actions in the past have created their present circumstances, so they have little sense of control over their lives. Mindfulness changes all of that, allowing you to consciously choose your actions, moment by moment, in order to create the future you want. It confers on you that uniquely human privilege of free will; the ability to transcend the primitive instincts that still reside not very far below the surface of your otherwise civilized life. Mindfulness opens the door to higher consciousness. For the traveller on the spiritual path or simply someone who want a higher quality life, this eBook can help.