I will be holding a Success in Life & Business Seminar in West Port, Connecticut on 9/27/14. Please contact me at [email protected] to join the seminar.
The seminar will be a 2 hour Dr. Brett Principles… Performance piece enhancement: Meditation, Mindfulness and present moment time (eliminating drama and distractions)
My twin brother just sent me this pic from Bermuda where he is vacationing with his family! I sent him one from LA where I go every month as I commit to creating a business here in part to experience more creativity and diversity and in part to leave New England winters behind!
The new leader of the M.B.A players union, Michele Roberts, is impressive to say the least. In an organization dominated by men, she beat out 300 hundred others to earn the honor and job of replacing a man who mismanaged funds and failed to deliver in recent years. With an economically impoverished background and an experience as one of the few African American woman to earn a private school scholarship to the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, she worked as a public defender at San Quentin after graduating law school in 1980. Later, she became a successful criminal defense attorney before joining a large prestigious corporate law firm.
Adam Bryant interviews Kate Cole, the president of Cinnabon, in this week’s Corner Office! Her perspective is worth knowing. For instance, when business is going well she tends to ask more questions to be certain of the why and to be prepared for the downside. She likes to encourage feedback and communication and even disagreement though in respectful ways. Ms. Cole also encourages coach-ability, curiosity, and commitment to others. I like her perspective because she seems to genuinely care about others, is intelligent and very interpersonally oriented values I teach and value myself.
The New York Times Sunday Review feature article on happiness by Arthur Brooks concludes that we must learn to love people not money, power, status, or sexual pleasure. This seems pretty evident to some and yet it’s super-challenging for many in a culture addicted to Facebook, Twitter, Reality TV, and video games to name a few. The challenge with happiness is that we must cultivate good habits over long periods of time. Essentially, I teach non-avoidance, a way of living that means we live and express out truth! Wow, that’s not easy. I often tell clients that if they are ready I can teach them how to be happier and more fulfilled but it requires substantial work on their part. The majority of people I’ve coached in over two decades of working with people have quit well before they graduated. In other words, they didn’t want to work that hard.
I’ve been working hard for months and months with very little down time. This weekend my twin brother and I went on a three day golf and fishing holiday. Getting some sun, time away, twin time, and especially time on the water was just what the doctor ordered! Occasionally, I take clients for walks on the beach or to fish and even to hit golf balls. Sometimes, I take clients to my parents’ island where I walk them out over bridges and do a session looking at the water below or the pond in the back. There is something truly amazing about the water and the elements of nature I tell them, especially when it comes to letting go. Many of us are too busy; busy doing, doing, doing and spend very little time just being. Fishing and any activity involving water is a fantastic way to help the mind release and just be!
Having come from the putting green at Rancho Park golf course in the heart of LA, I headed for the little diner inside to enjoy a meal when I came across Whole Person, a free magazine devoted to spirituality. Dr. Judith Orloff, a well-known psychiatrist and psychic/intuitive, is on the cover of the July 2014 edition. Drawn intuitively to her article I read in fascination as her perspective on love, life, and business resonated deeply with my own. She describes herself as an Empath. I too describe myself that way having opened to my intuitive, heart-based side years ago. The downside of such sensitivity to the energy of others is that sometimes we take it on. Working with angry and negative clients can literally make me feel sick at the end of a day.
Shmully Hecht’s article in the New York Times Sunday Review section on the late Rebbe Menachem Schneerson provoked an emotional response in me. I am a huge believer in spontaneous acts of generosity and kindness, a way of being and doing that clearly the late Rebbe demonstrated throughout his life and teaching. We live in a challenging world that much we all know and yet if more of us were spontaneously generous or even grateful how much easier would life be for all of us?
Last month I attended a sectional qualifier for the United States Open golf championship at Old Oaks Country Club in a Purchase, New York. Four golfers qualified out of a field of 77. I followed Lee Janzen of two time U.S Open winner fame and Cameron Wilson of Stamford University and the winner of the 2014,NCAA individual golf championship. The experience was especially fascinating because Cameron is 21 and Lee Janzen is 49. Both played well but not well enough though Cameron got in as an alternate beating Lee by a few shots finishing fifth. One at the twilight of his career, the other at the beginning, I was struck by the contrast and yet similarity of all athletes. No matter what age, true competitors want to win. Next month I am giving a presentation on the mental game to hockey players in Los Angeles. No matter who you are, athlete or entrepreneur, the same principles apply; you must deserve it, desire it, and know how to create it. This means present moment time, mental toughness, and physical ability. I teach the mental game because this is my thing. I love working with athletes and entrepreneurs because their commitment to excellence, in general, is much greater than the population at large. This means that the desire piece of the equation is gigantic, a real turn-on. The deserve piece means overcoming whatever fears and insecurities are in the way. Even the best of us have them and sometimes the best have more of them – Tiger Woods, Elliot Spitzer and Lawrence Taylor come to mind. Working through fear, insecurity, and self-sabotage can be a major challenge and yet it’s the biggest no-brainer ever. So whoever you are try to be honest with yourself, acknowledge your limitations, and find someone to guide you on the mental game in life, business and sports!
Last week I experienced several days of wonderful flow, a state where life seems effortless and even magical. For instance, my girlfriend had set me up with her accountant, a man hailing from Middletown, CT, perhaps an hour’s drive from Westport. We arranged to meet for lunch on Tuesday at a half-way point in Milford. I called a buddy who set me up with three restaurants there. I chose the first one and made the arrangement for 1pm. That morning I was at a coffee shop in town working on my novel and suddenly decided to call a friend to see if she could join me. She told me that she had a busy day but could meet me at the restaurant after lunch and we could go up together. Following my CPA meeting I ordered food my friend Alison to go just as she walked in and the manager with whom I was chatting gave her a hug! As a nutritionist, she had made a huge difference in this man’s life and didn’t even know he worked there! The manager told her to leave her car in the restaurant parking lot and off we went. The baseball game was in Manchester, CT a small town northwest of Hartford that I had never even heard of. As a Sports Psychologist, my client’s baseball game was great to watch as it gave me plenty of info to help my client going forward.