Mindfulness Mode

Sean Douglas is a U.S. Air Force Veteran, Master Resilience Implementer, Professional Speaker, International Radio Show Host, Performance Enhancement Expert, and Author, with almost 10,000 of speaking and training time. He inspires and motivates you to “Live Your Brand” so you can grow personally and professionally. Millennials to 50 year old Professionals hire Sean to teach them Mental, Physical, Social/Emotional, Spiritual Resilience Skills that empower them to withstand, recover,and grow through adversity, stress, and life's changing demands in a highly interactive and engaging environment, utilizing online coaching sessions and face-to-face workshops. Sean equips people with the tools necessary to live EPIC lives, and leaves people better equipped to manage change effectively. Contact Info Website: www.TheSuccessCorps.com Facebook.com/TheSuccessCorps or Facebook.com/SeanDouglasSpeaks LinkedIn: Sean Douglas Podcast: Life Transformation Radio Most Influential Person Julianna Raye Effect on Emotions I know when I start getting anxious, scared, happy I literally feel those emotions and I know those emotions are coming up. I can feel myself getting mad. I am more in tune with my body. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is huge. When I smoked, I used to say that smoking was a stress reliever. What do they tell you in stress relieving class? They tell you to go take a ten second break, breathe in, breathe out. I would say, that's what I'm doing when I'm smoking. Breathing is so important because the more oxygen you get to your brain, there's a lot of science behind the breathing technique. Suggested Resources Book: The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor Book: The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale Book: The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod App: Headspace (The paid version is also excellent) Bullying Story I'm a maintainer on the F15. Some things that we do are funny so we think. We are really tight knit, like we are brother and sisterhood and we treat it as that. This is our family. We will defend you forever and we will pick on you like brothers and sisters. What we'll do is we'll take young airmen and we'll say, we have this crack in the intake of the airplane. We just found it and we need you to come and look and see what we see so you can learn. When we pull back the intake cover, we ... (listen to hear more of Sean's story).

Allana Pratt is an intimacy expert who inspires her clients to be unapologetically true to themselves, their love-lives and their businesses. Featured on CBS, TLC and Fox, this cum laude graduate of Columbia is the author of 4 books, Coach to celebrities and Host of the sexy empowering show, "Intimate Conversations Live." Contact Info Website for Women: www.AllanaPratt.com  (Complementary Training: 'Vulnerability is the New Sexy) Website for Guys: www.GetHerToSayYes.com (Complementary Training: 'How To Be A Noble Badass) Most Influential Person Satyen Raja of Warrior Sage (Check out Satyen's interview at www.MindfulnessMode.com/71) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped to balance my emotions and equilibrate them rather than have them run me. So I'm not afraid of them. I sit in the fire and take the ride with them, knowing that if I don't resist them, on the other side is wisdom, is a lesson. Thoughts on Breathing I like to imagine I'm making love with the universe. I'm having sex all day long. The mindfulness breath practice is making love to the universe so I, with my inhale, allow myself to be penetrated by the universe and feel how delicious and tantalizing that is on the inhale and then I give the universe my essence. I penetrate the universe with me as I exhale and I just feel my posture changing and I smile from the inside out. Suggested Resources Book: The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want By Being Present To The Life You Have by Mark Nepo App: Insight Timer Bullying Story All the bullies are deeply inside. They've been wounding that little you, internally. They've been bullied on the outside so there's no place safe to go in or out and then they just react. If you can get them to be present & mindful and let them feel seen and heard. You don't have to agree that it's ok to hit Joey, but you can acknowledge and validate  your stand from their point of view. They have every right to feel that way and you get it. You're not here to fix them, just to get them. Something really deep happens inside. You exhale all the way to that safe place that we've all been looking for. On the outside, seeking, seeking we can find it on the inside. My bullying story is, I was a people pleaser growing up. My dad was drunk and stoned and I just wanted to make sure I didn't get in trouble so I grew up as a young woman not speaking my truth. I attracted my dad to heal my wounds. So he was a bully; my son's father. I just put up with everything, just so that he wouldn't yell and scream at me. That was his way of controlling me and my way of letting myself be controlled. We got a divorce within one year when I discovered he was not who I thought he was. I took total ownership that when I chose to marry him, my mom was dying and I wasn't very mature or enlightened and I just wanted a checkbook, pulse, sperm. I just wanted to replace the relationship that I was losing. I know that's not very kind or enlightened, but that was the best I could do at the time, feeling so sad. So within a year, I didnt' chose somebody great, but I have a great son. As time went on, he just wouldn't stop fighting with me. I guess from his point of view, you said forever. And I stopped after a year. To him, his point of view must have been humiliation and rejection. So his anger and his bullying came after me and of course I'm just triggering his mother or his past. Our son said, I want to kill myself at nine years old. I can't handle the fighting that non-stop happens with you and dad. I had done every non-violent communication course. Every therapist, every counseller, everything you could think of. Until I realized, wait a minute, he doesn't want to get along with me. He loves to fight. So I let my son live with his dad primarily for six months, just to see. Let him win. Let him look good. Let him be father of the year. I'll sacrifice my time to save my son. But he took it and he used it against me to say that I was a flakey, unstable mom and that I had abandoned him. And he won after almost five years in court of trying to fight for the truth. I'm unconventional. I'm an entrepreneur. I don't have a PHd, but I coach people and I talk about sex. So he painted this horrible picture with this old school, archaic family law and jury system and he won seventy percent custody and I got thirty. He humiliated my career. The bullying never stopped. My mindfulness practice, even up to this very day. Right now he's convinced my son that I'm horrible and selfish and so my son's living with him and has blocked my from the phone and I have no contact with my son. I'm literally in the midst of a bullyng moment. But this becomes our mindfulness practice. How can I still have compassion, not condoning, but have compassion for why he's behaving that way. Because I believe that bullying is ultimately a reflection of the inside. Where is my unloved part of me? Where can I love myself more? Where can I be more in allowance and look past the anger coming at me to the wounded heart, to the cry for love? Everything's ultimately a cry for love so I'm doing my inner work to take responsibility that I didn't marry him for a deep commitment and love. I was scared and really own that and apologize so that I don't get emotionally triggered by his behavior and i just be that grounded, present, mindful person that allows this whole lesson to unfold and keep growing and not be that bitter ex-wife bitch who blames. That's not going to get us anywhere nor teach my son any good lessons either.  

Crystal Olivarria raised over $70,000 from grants and scholarships to help pay for her own college education at two private colleges; The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco and Holy Names University in Oakland, California. Crystal has helped others get into their top chosen college, generate money via grants and scholarships and get hands on experience in their related career field. Crystal provides a safe space to explore options in depth while providing guidance that result in children being able to reach their full potential more easily. Contact Info Website: www.CareerConversationalist.com Social Media: @CrystalOlivarria or @CareerConversationalist Most Influential Person My dad. He always taught me to be creative and resourceful. To be resourceful, you have to be mindful of what resources you have and basically how scarce they are. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has made me very aware. It's helped me understand people better because I've noticed my emotions go like this all the time based upon whether I ate, whether I didn't eat, whether I got enough sleep, whether I didn't. Just being really mindful to myself about how I'm feeling, how things are affecting me makes me think about other people when I come in contact with them. Maybe they're having a really bad day and I don't know what they went through. Thoughts on Breathing Whenever I feel like I'm going to have a breakdown, I just remember to breathe. As a kid I used to cry a lot when things weren't going my way. People would say, take a deep breath. Before anything can get better you need to breathe. That's step one and even as an adult I remember that. No matter now things are going, the first step is to take a deep breath. Suggested Resources Book: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessinger App: Notepad on my phone Bullying Story I've been on both sides of it. I will definitely say I've been in school and I know what it's like to be harassed and tell and teacher and the teacher not believe you. I've also realized that a lot of times, bullies are emotionally weak and they're struggling and the way they can raise their self-esteem is to pick on someone else. I know when I was in high school, I used to watch this girl being bullied and a lot of it was verbal. They were constantly putting her down no matter what. She was quiet and lonely. So she thought, they want to be my friends and the conversation would start out nice and then would go into this downward spiral. One day I asked her why she was letting these kids bully her. She didn't know what to say. She said, I don't know what to do. So I stepped up and ended up being a bully back to these other girls, just to give them a taste of their own medicine. It didn't matter what they said. I just had this attitude of, I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you. It really surprised them because they weren't used to having someone hold them accountable for how mean they were. Fortunately, they never bullied the girl again.  

Mike Bundrant is a master NLP practitioner. NLP stands for Neural Linguistic Programming. He is the founder of the INLP center in California where they specialize in learning and teaching NLP. He's a former Psychotherapist and is cofounder of Healthy Times Newspaper. He's also a featured blogger on the world's top mental health website called PsychCentral dot com. Mike has a unique perspective on self-sabotage; he knows how to empower his clients to reach higher levels of emotional health. Contact Info Company: INLP Center Website: www.inlpcenter.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/inlpcenter Most Influential Person Peter Michaelson (www.WhyWeSuffer.com) Effect on Emotions In terms of my emotions, I would say mindfulness has effected my positive emotions by helping me own them more and making them more alive and my negative emotions by making them workable. It hasn't banished them, it's just made them workable. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is part of my mindfulness meditation in the beginning. I don't have a breathing mindfulness practice. I just make sure I take a few deep breaths in the very beginning of my meditation and really focus on the tension that full lungs create, the muscle tension. When I let it out and relax, I just notice the tension release and my chest fall. Two or three rounds of that and then I don't really return to the breathing. It is an area that I've been interested in learning more about. Suggested Resources Book: The Phantom of the Psyche: Freeing Ourself From Inner Passivity by Peter Michaelson App: Good Habits (It's not a mindfulness app, its a habits app - it increases mindfulness because it increases awareness. Bullying Story This reminds me of self-bullying, when we bully ourselves. Mindfulness can be so helpful if we're bullying ourselves because usually if I hear an inner voice, I'm not even aware that this is an inner voice I'm responding to as if it were real. These inner voices use the word, 'you'. You're going to fail, you're no good. It’s talking to you as if you’re someone else. We respond to them as if someone else were saying this to us, and we believe it. And so, mindfulness can help this in so many ways. First becoming aware. You have to stop resisting these voices. This is happening and mindfulness is not just about the positive. Negative things are so much better if they’re experienced mindfully. When my inner voice says, people are not going to like you, I say (and I hope listeners are going to do this). This is the story so many people I’ve worked with have told me. You hear the voice, you listen to it and then you repeat it, but you change the you to an I. Ok, you are going to fail, the voice in my head just said that to me. And I say, Ok, I am going to fail. And then you tag on the word and. It’s sort of like saying, ‘tell me more’. So, I am going to fail … because I am no good. And tell me more … I’m not going to fight you. I’m just going to acknowledge that you said this to me. This inner voice said this, I’m going to own it. After a few rounds of doing this, a couple of things happen. First, it goes quiet. People say to me, I’m not hearing this voice anymore. They say, what does that mean. And I say, just enjoy the quiet. A lot of us are not used to a quiet mind. And sometimes that voice, after being heard says … oh, it might not be so bad. That’s how mindfulness can make a huge difference to how we bully ourselves. Bullying is an inner game. Whether it involves someone else, or ourselves, it all starts on the inside. To me, bullies, people who bully others, they’re chasing their own helplessness and trying to empower themselves but it only leads to more helplessness. It’s an inner phenomenon. The bully is the last person in the world who is going to admit to their helplessness.  

Joie Cheng, (M.S.W. Masters of Social Work), is the Self-Love Luminary. She's passionate about helping women love themselves so they can live their best life possible. Joie is a certified professional coach, mentor, healer, circle facilitator, and trained yoga teacher. Joie has a degree in Social Work and Psychology. She is the best-selling author of her book, The Naked Truth: A Woman’s Journey to Self-Love. This book conveys Joie's personal journey of healing herself naturally from depression through self-love. Contact Info Website: www.JoieCheng.com Book: The Naked Truth: A Woman's Journey To Self-Love by Joie Cheng Free Gift: The Seven-Day Self-Love Challenge Most Influential Person Deepak Chopra Effect on Emotions I think mindfulness has helped me to not get attached to the stories you get in your head about what something means and just saying, there's a thought and I can just let it pass. I don't have to be attached to it. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is a really good way to instantly become aware and instantly drop into our body and notice our breath. That's a really simple practice that we can do any time of the day. Just take a couple of deep breaths, especially if we're feeling stress, or are tired or whatever, just to take a few deep breaths. It's an instant state change. Suggested Resources Book: The Naked Truth: A Woman's Journey To Self-Love by Joie Cheng App: The Timer on your phone. When the alarm goes off, just be aware of what you're thinking. Bullying Story I was fortunate not to have a lot of bullying when I was a kid. There was this one girl when I was in Junior High, who used to make fun of me for being my race, my ethnicity. She would do that 'eye' thing where she would move her eyes. And she'd say things. Actually I think that I was grateful because mindfulness did help me because I didn't internalize it. It think a lot of kids take it in and they think, oh, there's something wrong with me. So they really think that it's about them, rather than realizing that it's about the other person. When someone bullies you, they're feeling insecure. It really has nothing to do with the person that's being bullied. I just want to say that I really appreciate you making that connection between mindfulness and bullying  because I've never thought about that before and it made me think, yeah, you're right, mindfulness really can help with bullying.

Serena Denmark is a certified Hypnotherapy Instructor. She teaches her clients to identify unconscious patterns and use NLP and hypnosis to make deep, rapid, lasting changes. Serena experienced a midlife crisis and came to the conclusion that her beliefs were killing her. That’s when she attended an NLP course where she was the class guinea pig. Through this experience she found her new passion in NLP and never looked back. Contact Info Website: www.BeLimitlessHypnosis.com FB: @SerenaDenmark FB: Be Limitless With Hypnosis and Other Cool Stuff Most Influential Person Colleen Fletcher (Spiritual Teacher) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped me keep that anchor to calm. It's like the pond or the ocean with the ripples on top and the stillness underneath. Even when I may feel agitated or irritated or annoyed, it's that duel experience, that higher perspective alarm, to observe yourself in the moment. I can feel the ripples, but I still have that stillness underneath. Thoughts on Breathing The breath is so powerful, just physiologically, when you breathe really deeply, you're increasing your intrathoracic pressure which puts stimulation on the vegas nerve which literally slows your heart rate down and interrupts your blood pressure so physiologically, deep breathing calms you down. Also I believe that as we breathe in deeply, we're breathing in prana or chi so we're increasing our wonderful energy that we're bringing into our body. Once you practice the self-hypnosis that's on my website, as soon as you even start to focus on your breathing, you've trained your mind to go into that place of relaxation. Suggested Resources Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle The Downloadable Self-Hypnosis by Warren Martin App: N/A Bullying Story I grew up in Zambia and I went to a missionary boarding school there. It was kind of in the boonies. It had been started around 1925 and I attended in 1973. Everything was kind of set in time. It was really interesting. They had a water wheel to generate electricity. We had electricity four hours a day. No television or radio; completely cut off from the rest of the world. Hot water was a drum that had a fire built underneathe it. We were away from our parents and there was no outside input, there was no one to run to and no one to discuss your problems with. I think a lot of those schools back in the day were strong on discipline and maybe light on love. Kids are going to find a pecking order. That's just human nature. I was at the bottom of that pecking order and there was one girl in particular who kind of pulled the puppet strings of everyone and I had what I considered a best friend. We would both be willing to betray and abandon each other if we were chosen to be the favored friend by this girl at the top of the pecking order. There was a lot of betrayal, a lot of lost trust and just a very, very, lonely experience. This girl said, you can't sing, your hair's ugly and she had all the power in my mind. I felt bad about myself. I didn't really know how to bond with people because I had moved around a lot. I had lost my ability to really open my heart to people and connect in a real way becauase I didn't know how to trust anymore. I went to the boarding school from age 10 and was there about 4 years. They censored our letters so there was really no communication or way to reach for help.

Moneeka Sawyer is the creator of the Blissful Real Estate Investor Formula and is the international best-selling author of the award-winning book “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment.” Moneeka has often been described as one of the most joyful people you will ever meet. She believes that we can and should choose bliss in all areas of our lives, including in our business and our investing. Her expertise has been featured on radio and TV including ABC, NBC, and Fox. Contact Info Company: BlissfulInvestor.com Podcast: CoreBlissLife.com Free Gift: BlissfulInvestor.com Book: Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment by Moneeka Sawyer email: Moneeka@CoreBlissLife.com Most Influential Person My parents. They taught me about hard work, determination, focus, breathing, prayer, and joy. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness is all about emotions. That's what emotional mastery is for me and that's how I live. Thoughts on Breathing I dod a moving meditation every morning. I'm a dancer, I got my legs back and I started to dance and so for ten minutes every morning I do a moving meditation and breathing is a big piece of integrating my mind, my heart, and my body. Suggested Resources Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Book: Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment by Moneeka Sawyer App: I play a game on my phone to be mindful. Play is the way. Bullying Story My parents moved to a tiny little town in 1969 and I was the only non-white person in my school. I was tormented constantly. Bullied, tormented, humiliated constantly. I took it on. I was very lonely. That bullying turned into horrible bullying as a teenager when boys took advantage of me. Horrible things happened. The thing is, at one point I realized that life was not going to continue to be that way for me. At the age of twenty-five, I was considering, whether or not I wanted to continue to live. I remember the specific day. Things had been really rough for me and then I was in a horrible car accident in 1991. It was not my fault, but I became a cripple. I was a dancer at the time and my biggest dream was to become an international dancer. Then my legs had been taken away. They wanted to put me in a chair and I did not want to be put into a chair because I wanted to walk and to dance. Things got worse and worse and because I couldn't walk, I spent a lot of time in bed. I remember I had been in bed crying for about a week and I had fallen into a huge depression. I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had the thought, "I can't do this anymore". There was a little voice inside of me that said. You have to keep on living. Anybody who has been depressed has heard the message, the longer you stay in bed, the worse it gets. I pushed off the covers and tried to get out of bed, but my legs were so weak that I fell to the ground. At that moment I pushed myself up against the bed and I cried and prayed. The prayer was, Oh God, please have mercy. I can't keep doing this, so either bring me home or teach me how to live. An hour later, a girlfriend who hadn't talked to me in about two years, called me out of the blue. She turned me on to a coach who then changed my life.

Michelle Chalfant is a life coach and therapist. Her clients hire her to enable them to find their authentic selves through a holistic approach of blending alternative healing techniques with traditional counseling. Michelle is creator and host of the podcast, The Adult Chair, which is now in its third year of production. The Adult Chair shares impactful messages about codependency, self-love, depression, getting unstuck, removing masks, and how our understanding of ourselves impacts the most important relationships in our lives. Contact Info Website: www.TheAdultChair.com YouTube Channel: Michelle Chalfant Podcast: The Adult Chair Facebook: The Adult Chair (Closed Group) You can also join this on the website. Most Influential Person John Kabat-Zinn Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped me with my emotions by really getting in touch with what's going on inside of me. I know now to slow down and tune in. Thoughts on Breathing Oh yes. I mean, taking a slow, deep breath just brings me back into present. It brings me back into my body so I know what I'm feeling again. I know where I am. I know what's going on around me. Breath has been huge. Suggested Resources Book: Wherever You Go, There You Are by John Kabat-Zinn App: Insight Timer App: Heart Math Bullying Story I was bullied. I never even became aware of it until today. I really didn't. I think what happened ... I witnessed my mom and my uncle for many years. When I was a little girl, in third or fourth grade, I went to a Catholic school. We had the little skirts and I'd get on the bus and this boy would flip my skirt up every day. I'd be so horrified and embarrassed. And I'd say, 'stop lifting my skirt' and he'd make fun of me. Then he started putting his clarinet grease in my hair. I remember coming home, at 9 or 10 years old, and feeling defeated and sad and there's no hope and no one's helping me. I had friends at school, but there was this one boy who used to do this do me every day. I remember just feeling awful and I remember coming home one day and looking at the steak knives and thinking, maybe I should just kill myself because I can't handle this. I remember thinking that thought and thinking, no, I'm not going to do that. I think of the children of today. Is that their only option? That's a whole other story. I'm still here, so I kept going to school. Then I started bullying a little girl on the bus who was really, really, quiet. She didn't say anything, she whispered when she spoke, she was so quiet. I would not have called it bullying until today, honestly. I would sit next to her on the bus and I'd say, why aren't you louder, what's wrong with you? Why are you so quiet? Talk louder. Nobody likes you. I think I was doing that as a reaction to what this kid was doing to me. And to what my uncle was doing to my mom. It was like a domino effect. Because of your show (Mindfulness Mode) I realized I was bullied and I bullied. The bullying with this boy went on for the whole school year and I remember telling my mom and my dad, it's OK. We sweep everything under the carpet. I think it ended at the end of that year and I stopped bullying that girl. I ended up switching school in sixth grade so it was over. I bumped into him years later and I said, what was that about? Why did you put clarinet grease in my hair? And he started laughing and he said, I had a crush on you. I said, well it didn't feel that way, it was not nice. And he said, well, I really liked you and wanted your attention. Quotes From The Interview Anxiety is when the body is taking those emotions and bringing them tight inside the body. It's trying to keep them contained like a pressure cooker. So what I do is I slowly take the lid off the pressure cooker. - Michelle Chalfant We have a cast of thousands inside of us. - Michelle Chalfant I help you connect with your inner child. - Michelle Chalfant Anxiety is not an emotion; it's a physical response to unfelt feelings. - Michelle Chalfant The adolescent part of us does not know what to do with the child so it pushes it away. - Michelle Chalfant We need our adult to come in and say, I choose to feel my emotions, otherwise we don't do it. - Michelle Chalfant

Diane A. Curran has been immersed in marketing for a number of years. At one point, she worked on projects for major national direct marketing clients. Later, she became a solopreneur, consulting one-to-one and began Wow Whispering which she has been doing ever since. Diane's commitment to the arts has been equally passionate, making over 4,000 presentations between business and the creative arts, ranging from boardrooms to museums, and even mystical mountaintops in Peru. Diane wrote her biz book trilogy, The Marketing Deck, to give today’s impatient mindset instant access to creative ideas and intuition with custom card games. Contact Info Website: www.TheMarketingDeal.com Social Media: @TheMarketingDeal Twitter: @wowDianeACurran Most Influential Person My sixth grade teacher. She brought her love of art to everyone in the class, no matter what their talents were. She was present and giving to everyone. [show-notes-influence] Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has allowed me to pull myself up when I'm feeling the pressure of the stress of a deadline. You say, you know what Diane, here is the deadline and here's how far you are. Let's see what you can get done and not be anxious about it because that just gets in the way of actually accomplishing anything so my emotions are willing to be as wild and crazy as anybody's. But I realize they're [my emotions are] only one part, so they can coexist with something else that I can't even define. I think you've got the word for it - mindfulness. Thoughts on Breathing I have had to learn to re-breathe because apparently I have a little hitch in my breathing. My various wellness coaches have taught me some breathing techniques. I've learned to slow down and breathe through my diaphragm and just literally become present to the physicallity of breathing. Once I become present to how physical a process it is, it just really evens me out and brings me present and kind of calms down my emotions. Suggested Resources Book: Heal Your Body by Louise Hay App: A Time tracking App at www.GetHarvest.com Bullying Story My experience was a teacher bullying me as a kid, which you would never expect. I have teachers who are just like the light of my life and then I have a second story of kids bullying a teacher. The first experience I had was in the fifth grade. I had a music teacher; I was playing the cello. I had studied it for one year and had been invited into a quartet. We played a concert and it went over really well. I was surprised at how wonderful an experience that was and this teacher, after the concert was over, came to my fifth grade classroom and took me out of my class. He brought me into the hallway and stood there with his arms folded and said, Diane, I want to tell you something important. I know that you are studying piano in addition to studying the cello. Any good muscian has to choose one and they cannot do two instruments because it doesn't work and you have to choose. He was very stern. I said what are you saying and he said, I want you to choose between the cello and the piano. I looked at him and said, are you telling me I have to do that right now? He said, yes. What I said was, in that case, I choose the piano. He turned on his heel and stomped down the corridor and left me there in this darkened hallway and that was the end of my cello career. He forced the choice; he wanted that much control and as you know, bullying involves manipulation and control and power plays and cowardice. If he had been mindful, he might have said, that is not what I was expecting you to say and let's see if we can work something out. Anything could have been better than that.

Mary Shores is the founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar business, one of the most unique collection agencies in the country. Recognized as a leader of innovative thought, Mary has spent over a decade teaching businesses and individuals how to inspire others, create new ways of thinking, identify and achieve their goals, and take action to create truly meaningful results. She is the revolutionary founder of the groundbreaking Conscious Communications system, which produces positive results through positive action. Mary travels across the nation giving lectures and teaching courses, and has been featured on local and national radio and television shows, podcasts, and blogs. Contact Info Website: www.MaryShores.com Book: Conscious Communications: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Harnessing the Power of Your Words to Change Your Mind, Your Choices, and Your Life by Mary Shores Free Gift: Ignite Your Dreams workbook: http://maryshores.com/iyd-workbook Twitter: Twitter.com/mary_shores Facebook: Facebook.com/shoresmary Instagram: Instagram.com/mary_shores Youtube: Youtube.com/maryshores Most Influential Person Louis Hay (Author and Publisher) Effect on Emotions I think it [mindfulness] really connects me to my emotions and it allows me to see especially my triggers. Thoughts on Breathing Well I've been on a breathing retreat and I can tell you that breathing has been very powerful. One tidbit I'll share is after I went to a breathing retreat once, the dreams I started having were just out of this world. So definitely supplying oxygen to your brain is beneficial. Suggested Resources Book: The Presence Process: A Journey into Present Moment Awareness by Michael Brown App: Binaural Beats App

Clay Stapleford is a full-time professional artist, living in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a successful actor, having been featured in multiple Hollywood productions including Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues and Drop Dead Diva. As an aartist, he spends his time painting primarily using acrylic on canvas. Clay has a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina and is also an avid meditator. Contact Info Website: www.ClayStapleford.com Instagram: @ClayStapleford Most Influential Person Eckhart Tolle Effect on Emotions [Mindfulness has made a difference by] learning to experience my emotions without judgment and just allowing them to be what they are and learning to be educated by my emotions too. Then learning the difference between my feelings and my emotions and how when I have learned to experience my emotions without judgment, I can then learn better how to follow my feelings in a way that serves me. Thoughts on Breathing I often just count my breath. I mean whether I'm on a walk or a run, when I'm painting, when I'm meditating. That's the first place I go to to get in ... if I feel I'm scattered in some way. It's the first exercise I jump to to bring myself into the moment, is to count my breath. I've done some breathing meditation, some guided breathing meditations where some pretty intense stuff has happened which is kind of cool. There was this one intense one where there was an hour long breathing meditation and this I had never experienced before. Halfway through it, my body began to seize up from my toes upward. Literally, it was almost like in The Matrix where he takes the pill and you can see in his body where he began to go to that other realm and it would kind of take over. It was almost like I was going paralyzed but I could still feel but I couldn't move. They called it lobster hand. I literally seized up through this breathing meditation. I later found out it was just pent up energy that had never had anywhere to go. So it took about 15 or 20 minutes for all feeling and movement to come back after this breathing meditation. When it happened, it was like, what in the world is going on right now. It was so intense. Lying there and not being able to move. It wasn't a scary thing; it didn't produce fear, it produced wonder. Suggested Resources Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle App: Youtube Guided Meditations or Music Bullying Story Especially in today's discussion about ... a lot of things come to mind but ... I bartended for many years as well prior to working in sales. As an actor in LA and then here in Atlanta ... with all the stuff going on today there'd be times where I'd see ... I have a pretty thick skin and people don't often offend me very much. It takes a lot to get under my skin but if I see other people being harassed it will kind of rile me up a little bit. Working in the restaurant business and the bars, a lot of times women can be taken advantage of or harassed in many ways. I remember one time specifically where one of our waitresses was being harassed across the bar and spoken to in a very poor manner - sexually explicit and demeaning and I literally was aghast at it and I lost my mindfulness and I took him aside and kicked him out. I think what mindfulness allows us the opportunity to do is to slow things down and to understand how we are affected and affecting others and had this particular guy just took a moment to just slow down and just think what he was saying. I think if you slow somebody like that down they would be contrite and somewhat understand. It's unfortunate. Anytime that folks bully or try to lure their power over someone, it's the exact opposite of mindfulness.

Dr. Anastasia Chopelas’ unusual combination of scientific curiosity and heritage as a 4th generation healer makes her uniquely qualified to understand the subtle energies that promote or deteriorate health, success and relationships. She retired from a 40 year career as a physicist and researcher studying quantum and vibrational physics to become The Scientific Healer. Her processes are responsible for hundreds of medical miracles, some of which are outlined in her book, The Diamond Healing Method. Dr. Anastasia’s scientific background enables her to explain energy healing in simple practical terms, to make everyday miracles believable. Contact Info Website: www.ScientificHealer.com Free Gift: 11 Minute Wake Up Your Brain Audio Free Gift: 5 Day Success Challenge Podcast: www.ScientificHealer.com/radio/ Book: The Diamond Healing Method: Get Healthy No Matter What Your Doctor Says by Anastasia Chopelas Most Influential Person My Sunday School Teacher: When I was in Sunday School I had a really awesome teacher who, when she talked, I used to be completely fascinated. She had this really peaceful demeanour about her and she was very deeply devout. Just by that connection with her, we were friends for 40 years. She really influenced me from a very young age. Effect on Emotions  I don't have explosive emotions, like I know what I'm feeling. When I get angry I can feel it but I don't explode out. I start thinking, what is it about them that's making me angry because it's usually about me so I know that I usually turn it back in and ask myself what am I doing that is making me angry because that person is doing it. I look at it like that person is showing a mirror to me. Thoughts on Breathing I take deep breaths every day because it brings me into the moment. So many of us are stuck and this used to be me sometimes when it was bad: stuck about worrying or shame and guilt of the past and worrying about the future. When you start breathing deeply, at least when I do, I breathe deeply all the way down into my belly. I use my belly and I imagine the air is going all the way down into my toes. As soon as I get into that breathing, it brings me right into the moment and I stop. It brings me away from the past and away from the future and into the now. Then I ask myself, how am I doing right now and that really settles everything down. Suggested Resources Book: The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav Book: The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck Book: The Diamond Healing Method: Get Healthy No Matter What Your Doctor Says by Anastasia Chopelas App: Pomodoro App for your computer or phone

Majeed Mogharreban is a professional speaker, author and entrepreneur. After starting five businesses before he turned 21, Majeed now helps companies succeed faster with the entrepreneurial mindset. He is known for being an energizing keynote speaker who empowers audiences to take action. His unique perspective on business leadership has taken him across the globe; guiding organizations such as World Wildlife Fund, Toyota, Vanguard, and Loblaw Inc. to achieve more, faster. His story-filled talks demonstrate how to use an enthusiastic start-up spirit to improve the working climate in the corporate world. Contact Info Website: MajeedM.com Facebook: Majeed.Magharreban Twitter: @MajeedM Linked In: MajeedMagharreban Instagram: @Majeed411 Most Influential Person My wife. She is a model of blissful presence; contentment in the moment. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has allowed me to use my emotions as information signals and data by being curious and present. [It takes me to the place of 'oh, I'm experiencing anger right now', instead of having the instinctive reaction of, "I'm angry, I'm going to go break some dishes", or "I'm going to go yell at somebody". Just that split second realization of, "Oh, I'm experiencing an emotion, this is information for me. What should I do with it?" [This] versus allowing my emotions to control my body. I think mindfulness gives me that power. Thoughts on Breathing I learned this thing about breathing. It's amazing. When we're being hunted by a predator, as cavemen, we drop our breathing really shallow so we can't be heard and so we can hear better. When we're totally cool and relaxed and the birds are chirping and the water's going by breathe deeply. So when we breathe deeply, we telling our body there's no predator there and I believe that's the fastest and easiest and cheapest way to get instantly mindful. Take a deep breath and you're already there. Suggested Resources Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle App: Calm Bullying Story I don't think that I was bullied when I was a kid. I had a pretty strong mindset; a pretty strong attitude. I think what is really more of a present feeling in my childhood and now, is the pressure to be normal; the pressure to be like everybody else. When you're an outlier; a high performer, you are by nature different than most people and you make other people uncomfortable. So what I was able to do successfully was find other highly driven people so that I was normal amongst my peers. But what I found I received some criticism for was ambition and drive and being teased for being so focused on accomplishment and not doing what I thought the cool kids were doing. They were skipping class, doing drugs, being bullies, and being jocks, and I was kind of envious of their coolness while I was studying and getting good grades. What I've always felt, that the pressure is to try to be normal, and what I found the solution is, to make my normal high performance. I do feel normal amongst my tribe.

Moustafa Hamwi is recognized as the world’s leading expert on Passionate Leadership. In one year, he has achieved what it has taken others 20 years to achieve. His amazing success at helping to empower leaders to work and live passionately, has resulted in him being nicknamed, ‘Mr. Passion’. On his talk show, Passion Sundays, Moustafa has interviewed over 180 world thought leaders. Contact Info Website: www.Moustafa.com Free Ebook Gift: Mastering Passion Podcast: Passion Sundays Most Influential Person My Swami in India who's been in caves for 13 years. Effect on Emotions It has helped me to be more observant of my emotions. I am very passionate so when I'm upset, I'm very upset. When I'm having a bad day, I'm having a very bad day. I do everything with passion. Being more mindful has allowed me to be more observant and slowly I have learned to be less judging of my emotions. I'm no longer in that space of, you have to be mindful means you shouldn't be angry. I don't agree to that.  If I'm angry, I'm angry, cause guess what, if somebody smashes into my car, I'm gonna be angry. I've learned to accept my anger as a natural reaction and watch it till it just goes up and it comes down again rather than try to fight it because when I was fighting it before, it made it more difficult. Now, I'm just present and watching. That means acceptance. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is everything. Let me put it this way, if you cease to breathe, you cease to exist. So the ultimate mindfulness is the ultimate breathing. I learned that when I did vipassana, the Buddhist meditation technique that Buddha used to get enlightened which is simply the induction course. They put us in a hall for ten days and all we do is observe our breathing. Every single morning I wake up and I do twenty minutes of vipassana. Suggested Resources Book: The Power of Now: A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle App: N/A Bullying Story The most bullied people in life, are bullies themselves. People who have been bullied at home or at some stage in their life, have an adverse protective reaction. In a way I feel empathetic with them because they had to go through a particular experience and maybe they were bullied at home and they go back to school and they take it out on their friends at school. Bullies exist everywhere in our lives. I just want to be clear, most of us are also bullies in one way, shape or form. I don't want anybody to get self-righteous here, including myself. We do bully certain people, certain ways. A lot of times we do it passively rather than aggressively. If somebody's in a place of power or fame, we can easily bully somebody much easier than someone else who has to force themself. If we're present, bullying will become a lot calmer. We can calm ourselves first and then let the other person be calm. In the end, with bullying, there is a certain reason why they are doing what they're doing. I've been bullied when I was back in Syria. I was about sixteen. I ended up in a fight, me and my friends where we fought with kids of military officers and these kids went and got seventeen soldiers to beat us up with chains. For a period [of time], that killed me, because I felt oppressed. This is beyond bullying. That incident gave me a drive to move out of Syria and explore a better future somewhere else. If it hadn't been for that incident, I would have still been living there and I wouldn't be who I am today.

Nicole Wipp is a lawyer who specializes in elder law. She is a professional planner on a mission to empower people at all stages of life to take control of two issues: health details and end of life arrangements. She is a speaker who addresses the legal aspects of these topics and she is also the author of the book, “Dear Mom and Dad; Help Me Help You”. Nicole has survived being diagnosed with a rare, debilitating disease, an experience that has changed the way she views life and death. Contact Info Website: NicoleWipp.com Website For Nicole's Law Practice: MiEstateLawyer.com Book: Dear Mom and Dad: Help Me Help You: An Elder Law Attorney's Guide to Smart Strategies & Difficult Conversations About Health and Money by Nicole Wipp Social Media: @NicoleWipp Most Influential Person Joel Walden Effect on Emotions I'm prone to anxiety just as I think a lot of people are. Mindfulness has really enabled me to conquer that and to be able to take a step back and allow myself to get out of that mode. Thoughts on Breathing I couldn't tell you more about how important breathing is. If you don't understand that, that's just a 101. Breathing is huge. I do yogic breathing to increase the health and capacity of my lungs and I also do it for my mindful state. Suggested Resources Book: Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins Book: Dear Mom and Dad: Help Me Help You: An Elder Law Attorney's Guide to Smart Strategies & Difficult Conversations About Health and Money by Nicole Wipp App: Brainwave (A Binaural tool to help calm your brain) Bullying Story I experienced bullying as a child, definitely. In fact, when I was in my first year of high school, I literally had to get in fistfights to protect myself from bullies in my school. You think about girls doing that kind of thing, but it's a real thing. I used to get in literal fistfights because I had to. I didn't have a choice; either I got beat or I engaged. For me, that was something that made me stronger. They can be a very big source of despair. I don't recommend letting that be the place that makes you stronger.  In business, I will tell you that in my niche, I definitely have other competitors that would much prefer me to be down in business. One of the things that I've done to avoid that; I just don't pay attention to my competition. So many people in business will say, pay attention to what your competition is doing. I actually find that for multiple reasons, that is not good business advice. I don't pay attention to my competition, I don't pay attention to what they're doing, to what they're saying and I just run my business in a way that works for myself and my team. By doing that we've actually done very well. We've been extremely successful and then I don't worry about those things.