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Consciousness
Living in a higher state of awareness: aware that we are aware.
As authors of every next moment, we choose, not to merely survive but to thrive, releasing power from the deepest center of our being; creating our future, not by our aims or actions, but by the state of consciousness out of which they come; no longer living unaware.
We remember that life will give us whatever is most helpful for the evolution of our consciousness, even if challenging.
In the end, our lives will reflect back exactly the way we treated ourselves and others; a mirror image of our consciousness.
When we do not take responsibility for our consciousness, we do not take responsibility for our life.
A life without responsibility is a life without consciousness. A life without consciousness is no life at all. |
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If time and money were not an issue, and you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do?
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Most people plan their vacations with better care than they do their health or their lives. Remember: when we don't have a plan for OUR day, we can be certain that someone else will.
Now: find a solitary place, make yourself comfortable and begin breathing slowly.
Be silent...
search your heart...
listen.
Take out a sheet of paper. Write at the top: "What Would I Do?" Consciously write down everything you would dare to do if time and money were not an issue. |
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We can design our life any way we want it: on purpose and not by chance. The gift of life is amazing, and the journey...well, it's not an accident. We create it.
Join me as I introduce and provide you with a complimentary copy of an inspirational classic.
Published in 1929, "Your Invisible Power" is a compelling, yet simple and easy guide that teaches us how to use the power of manifesting, the mind, and the universe to transform our lives.
Invite a friend to receive our complimentary newsletter and receive your e-book, free. Click here to receive your copy.
If you received this newsletter from a friend and would like to receive it in the future, along with your own free copy of our new e-book "Your Invisible Power", click here. |
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Recently sighted winning medals at the Senior Olympic Games and making a comeback at the USA Duathlon and California Time-Trial Championships, Gary just finished leading a three-week sold-out cycling camp called The Indoor Tour de France.
In August he was speaking on Prince Edward Island, presenting his most requested and life-changing program: Without Limits.
To participate in his internationally acclaimed cycling sessions with power meters, reserve a bike @ Kinetic Cycling Brentwood in Los Angeles. Gary believes there is a world-class athlete in everyone. While we may be getting older, we can look & feel younger. If you are interested in attending one of his inspiring events, hosting your own workshop, or to book a session for yourself or corporation,
e-mail him at: gary@garykobat.com. |
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Vision
Creating vision is one of the most vitally active processes in which a person can engage. Like a trail guide, vision leads us on a path.
Similar to a corporate manifesto, a personal vision is one of the most essential tools for manifesting what we want. The purpose of having vision is to get us into conscious creating, changing our thoughts, thereby changing our lives.
When we create vision, our lives make dramatic shifts. Vision does not teach, it points, allowing us to live life with a particular direction, concentration of mind, a calmness and simplicity that attracts the experience of peace, and through that experience, happiness.
With vision, decisions become easier, guiding us to what is true: to the way of our life, cutting away all that is false. Clear vision gives us a reason for being, a pathway of purpose that can evaluate, energize, initiate, and refine all activities, creating responsibility, while building self-esteem.
The progress we make on our path, like an athlete, will be quick or slow, according to our awareness. When we embrace our awareness, we live our lives to their fullest extent: to be happy.
Vision is really about happiness. The inevitable result: conscious alignment with happiness; the kind of happiness that endures, sees us through every difficulty, every loss, every hardship, and brightens even our best days.
When living in alignment with our loves, whether in business, athletics, or life, our vision will find us. In fact, it's on it's way, identifying more of life's calling. But we must be patient, be willing to "not know" for a short time, maintaining an open and mindful presence. Then one day we will hear a voice saying, "This is the path."
With vision, the possibilities are infinite.
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Noise
One hundred eighty million people are regularly exposed to noise levels labeled "excessive" by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Do you have a cell phone? Do you have a cell phone with voice mail, e-mail, texting, paging, and ring tones? Do you have more than one TV? Do you have a radio and/or dvd player at work, in your car, or at home?
Do you believe there is visual noise? Do you wish there were more billboards along the roads that you drive on? Are there enough strip malls yet?
How much noise do you voluntarily subject yourself to? What are some things in your life that you could change to eliminate noise? Does all the noise in your life make it harder to hear? Is there a connection between the amount of noise in our lives and the disconnect from what is important? Is it any wonder that we feel disconnected?
When was the last time you were in a solitary place? What is it about silence that is so difficult? Why is talking so much easier than listening? Do you sometimes avoid silence because you are afraid of what you might hear? Why is it easier to surround yourself with noise and keep moving than to stop, be silent, and listen? Does your schedule, your time, and your life look like that of a person who wants to hear or listen? Have you spent the same amount of time in silence or listening as you have worrying or talking?
Do you believe your answers are in your noise or in your silence? Do you wish your connection to silence would be louder in your life?
Maybe the way to calm your mind will not come from one more meeting, therapy, or training session, but simply from silence and listening.
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Sleep
If you can't sleep, you can't train. If you can't train, you can't excel. Those who recover fastest become the strongest. The podium starts with rest and recovery.
For athletes, desicions about sleep could be the most important decisions they make the entire training season. The world's best athletes sleep a massive amount. It's how the body recovers. A good night's sleep stokes a competitive fire and hunger that will not be there for a competitor who chooses sleep debt.
Every hour of sleep an athlete loses is like adding a brick to a backpack he or she carries in the next training session or race. In fact, chronic sleep debt impairs the body's ability to use insulin and break down fat, decreases endurance due to glucose inefficiencies, and causes poor muscle recovery due to high cortisol. Athletes with sleep debt take more time to discover, process, and integrate information, compromising reaction time, and race day performance. If an athlete needs eight hours of sleep and gets six, it would take only fourteen days to incur a sleep debt significant enough to degrade cardiovascular and mental performance.
Athletes pay careful attention to training plans and nutrition, but forget the driving force of the formula: sleep equals peak performance. Endurance athletes are now learning that sleep IS training: allowing protein synthesis, tissue repair, and muscle growth. They are also learning that they don't get fit when they train, they get fit when they recover from their training. It's not how much energy they have, but how much energy they have left that's important.
Spiritually, sleep is a gift from our creator, as necessary as air and water. Without it, we suffer severely. Sleep's greatest benefit is to the most important organ in our body: the brain. The ultimate reason for cultivating sleep-mindfulness? A renewed state of mental and physical consciousness.
We begin our path to happiness by taking care of ourselves first, by doing one of the most loving things we can do for ourselves: sleeping. Sleep is a spiritual practice, a surrender to something outside ourselves, a willingness to let go. Sleep debt is a show of disregard and disrespect, damaging the integrity of our consciousness, losing our sense of wholeness, visions, goals, and dreams.
One third of our life is spent sleeping. Sleep allows us to enjoy our awakeness, no matter where we are on our sleep journey. However, many think that taking a day off, or sleeping more, is a sign of weakness. Quite the opposite: it's actually a sign of physical and spiritual intelligence.
Team USA Olympian Marathon Medalist Deena Kastor says she gets paid to run. She also gets paid to sleep, because she must sleep ten hours a night to perform as a high level professional.
You are a high level professional too. Sleep.
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Love
What do you really want? Are you pursuing something you love and want passionately, or have you gotten stale and leveled-off in performance? What really excites you to move forward? Are you ready for a breakthrough, or are you holding back? Are you living life on-fire, or just lukewarm?
Are you worthy and willing to change?
Significant increases in human performance, quantum leaps, are an act of love, a passionate statement of who you are, how you care, and how much you believe in your future. Higher levels of performance and happiness are driven by the love, passion, desire, and deep precious reasons that live as a fire in your soul; a fire hot enough to protect you from the chilling effects of anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Only love can create that kind of heat.
One of the most mysterious energies in the world, love is a force so powerful, so electric, so compelling that, once you have felt it, you will never want to live without it again. Could it have been anything but love that inspired Michalangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel? Could it be anything but a brave heart and deep passion that drives Rudy Garcia-Tolson toward his goal to become the first bilateral above-knee amputee to finish the Ironman World Championship? Is there anything you value more than doing the things you love? When love flows, everything works; we even age more gracefully.
Within each of us, there is a sacred flame that is the keeper of our vitality, the guardian of our souls' life force. This flame has the power to lift us out of the most difficult times, raising us above the seductive temptations of the past, and securing us in the wisdom and guidance of the present. We must become keenly aware of the condition of our internal flame, the strength of the fire within our soul at all times. We must protect it from weakening and, if it begins to fade, embrace steps to correct it's course.
Where there is love, there is life. Love is the driving force, the fuel for your fire. Honor and hold yourself in high regard. Live your loves, and watch your life come alive.
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Truth
If you were happy, would you know it ?
We begin the path to happiness by taking care of ourselves first. When the oxygen mask drops down, we must put it on first, not last. This ability to allow and receive also expands our capacity to care about, lead, and empower the well-being of others.
Happiness comes from a foundation of mindfulness, responsibility, and truth.
Are there times in life that you say one thing and do another? Do you say what you think someone wants to hear, rather than saying what you really feel? Do you over-commit and under-deliver? When these things happen, do you even notice?
When we tap into the truth, positive energy flows and higher solutions seem to appear as if by magic. We develop self-respect, and we feel respected by others. Our sense of well-being becomes contagious. We accomplish our goals more easily, with fewer messes to clean up and apologies to make.
Are you aware that with a few simple yet significant shifts in thought or behavior, you can always create the happiness you desire ?
A recent e-mail from a past client:
"Gary, this is Kevin. A few years ago David and I ran the Boston Marathon with you; just barely finishing. The reason I'm writing is about your daily inspirational message called 'Truth'. You've touched my life again brother; allow me to explain:
I started lying to my dad when I was a young boy to get out of whippings. Why tell the truth and get in trouble? I became a liar; everything from stories about girls to how big the fish I caught. Most of all, I became a liar about my feelings. When I was scared, I said I wasn't. When someone hurt me, I said I didn't care, but I really did. I didn't want to seem weak. So I started to lift weights to get big and to intimidate the guys and impress the girls. But I was actually scared of both and always lied about it. I also lied about a secret I had about doing drugs; which is the lie that almost killed me. Six and one half years ago, with help, I MADE A DECISION TO STOP LYING. The lying was killing me inside. I was sick of living my life like that. At the beginning, I would still lie to a friend but the guilt would hurt me inside so much I would go confess to him. No matter how small the lie. Now a lie is a lie to me. NOW I have nothing to hide. I talk to people about my feelings and/or my past because if somebody is living the way I was before, I want them to know they're not alone, and they can change. I'm living proof that a Zebra can change his stripes. I live right, I don't envy others, I keep my side of the street clean, and MOST of all, I'm honest. I'm living a fear free life. What a relief! What freedom! Well, that's my story as a liar. Please let everyone know that my name is Kevin, that I am happy, and that everything in my life is beautiful now that truth leads the way. Gary, it was such a cleansing to write this. Thank you. Continue spreading the word, my friend. The truth is: just be honest, it will change our lives."
Through our commitment to truth, we create a journey of authenticity, depth, and peace. With truth we are free, not rationalizing and remaining unconscious to what is really going on. With truth there's less editing, more clarity, less tension, and more voice. We need not hide any part of ourselves we have feared. As we express our truths with full responsibility, we enter into an exquisite energy of intimacy with ourselves, friends, and others. Real truth is real power, real freedom, real peace, real love, and real happiness
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