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The Real Wayne Dyer
Dr. Wayne Dyer – the real deal!
Some people are extraordinary teachers of English, History, Math or a litany of other subjects. Dr. Wayne Dyer, otherwise known as “the father of motivation”, is what I call, an extraordinary teacher of LIFE.
In 1976, he wrote a book called Your Erroneous Zones which is one of the top bestselling books of all time. The book spent 64 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list and sold over 35 million copies. This was certainly a wonderful way to start off a career as a motivational writer. Wayne has written more books than I can even begin to count since 1976, and many of them landing once again on the NY Times Bestseller list. Some titles include, The Power of Intention, Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Happiness and the list goes on.
But more than being a prolific writer, Wayne is a teacher, a teacher of life and spirituality. He is well known as the PBS guru, helping Pubic Television in the United States raise money by presenting inspiring and motivating lectures, however experiencing Wayne in person is truly a life changing experience.
I believe that there are certain people in our world that possess an ability to cut through our overly thinking analytical minds and touch our spirits with truth. Wayne is one of these people. I have seen him stand up in front of over 2,000 people for over 3 hours without one person moving a muscle or fidgeting. Wayne invokes a stillness when he speaks. He comes from love and it is palpable. He studies and meditates long and hard and then shares it with the world. I deeply admire Wayne for his constant desire to learn and grow. He is an avid reader and I am always in awe of how he consistently gives credit to the writer of a book or philosophy that he has recently embraced.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned from Wayne is how my life is profoundly changed by simply changing my thoughts. I know this sounds simple, but putting this little philosophy into action is life altering. Wayne’s work has helped millions of people how to live a life filled with more love, peace, joy, compassion and to find God within themselves. He inspires people to understand that we are all worthy of whatever our heart desires, to choose your own greatness, how to live as a limitless being, how to stop making excuses that hold your life back and so much more.
Part of what I think is so remarkable about Wayne, was how he came into the world. He spent the first 10 years of his life in an orphanage. There were no parents to nurture him, to support him or even feed him or hold him when he cried. Yet in spite of a difficult beginning, he became determined to break the family pattern and create a life on his terms. And now, even in the face of his recent diagnosis of leukemia, Wayne does not waiver from his life’s passion and intention.
Here are some of my favorite Wayne’isms:
Don’t die with your music inside you.
Nurture your intentions.
Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.
I have had the honor to spend time with Wayne Dyer. He has been one of the keynote presenters at our annual Celebrate Your Life conference in Arizona for the past 9 years. We have over 20 inspiring bestselling authors at this event and people travel from all over the world to see them in person and attend four life changing days with them. It is a breathtaking experience.
I was extremely humbled when during our last conference Wayne sat down and started to share how he felt about being with us at the Celebrate Your Life conference. Thank God someone had a camera! Click here to see the video with Wayne Dyer.
[Reprinted from Care2.com August 29, 2011]
Yogurt & WellBeing
He Will Be Missed
Steve Jobs’s Ultimate Lesson for Companies
By: Horace Dediu
In a rare reflective moment Steve Jobs, after the launch of the iPad, mentioned Apple’s DNA. He said:
“Technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that makes our hearts sing.
Nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices…that need to be even easier to use than a PC, that need to be even more intuitive than a PC; and where the software and the hardware and the applications need to intertwine in an even more seamless way than they do on a PC.
We think we are on the right track with this. We think we have the right architecture not just in silicon but in the organization to build these kinds of products.”
Steve Jobs’ legacy in product development has been clearly established and celebrated. What remains now is to determine his legacy in company development: to determine if indeed Apple has the “right architecture in the organization” to serially build disruptive products. The collection of evidence begins today.
If Apple has indeed become Jobsian then it will have been a grand achievement. John Gruber is already convinced. He points out
Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.
If indeed he has built Apple sufficiently well to last then he has built an admirable process and not just a product. But this would not be a unique achievement. There have been other companies which preserved their founders’ cultural imprints, at least for significant periods beyond their departure. Consider that Disney, Ford and even HP and IBM remained successful for many years after the departure of their founders operating much the same way. They were infused with an indelible culture and preserved it for some time.
But a leader should aspire to do more. A leader should claim to have left a legacy not just on their company but on all companies.
Is it not more worthy to have changed civilization than the fortunes of a few?
I believe that Steve Jobs has actually sought just that. He put it as “making a ding in the universe.” This can be interpreted as developing products that “change everything”. But if the thing that Steve Jobs should be most proud of is the creation of Apple Inc. then how exactly could an Apple Inc. benefit the world?
This is where Jobs’ quote above strikes me as valuable. The lesson the world should take from Apple is that a company needs to become multi-dimensional. It needs to mix the core business with the disruptive innovation. It needs to combine the intellectual with the artistic. It needs to maintain within it the rational and the lunatic.
Apple’s violent success should serve as a powerful beacon that others should follow. Rather than copying its products other companies should copy Apple’s processes-its way of thinking. They should copy how Apple harbors the creative process and the technology processes under the same roof.
If they do heed this call then we should look forward to the post-Jobs era as that time when large companies gained the ability to intertwine multiple core competencies; a time when humanism balanced corporatism; a time when we came to reconcile the rational and spiritual.
[This article originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review, August 25, 2011]
Houston, We Have A Robonaut!
[Warning Article Reprint! – You’ve been warned.]
It’s Alive! Humanoid Robot Powers Up on Space Station
by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor 
Space station astronaut Mike Fossum of NASA talks to Mission Control after working on the Robonaut 2 helper droid on the International Space Station on Aug. 22, 2011, during the robot’s first tests.
CREDIT: NASA TV
Move over Commander Data, there’s a real robot in space, now. The International Space Station got a new crewmember today, one made not of flesh and blood, but of gears and clockwork instead.
Called Robonaut 2, the automaton astronaut was activated by human spaceflyers today (Aug. 22) after months in storage since being delivered to the space station earlier this year. An initial series of tests checked the robot’s power systems and camera eyes.
“Those electrons feel GOOD!” read a post on Robonaut 2’s Twitter page. “One small step for man, one giant leap for tinman kind.”
The first view through the robot’s eyes was a complicated panel of cables, dials and instruments.
“Sure wish I could move my head and look around,” another Robonaut 2 Twitter post read. The robot won’t actually move for several more weeks, as its creators continue running tests.
To be clear, Robonaut 2 cannot post Twitter updates on its own (the robot’s engineering team does that under the name @AstroRobonaut). But the $2.5 million Robonaut 2, also known as R2, is designed to serve as a robot helper for the six-man crew on the space station.
Robonaut 2 is the first humanoid robot ever to fly in space and was built by NASA as part of a joint project with car manufacturer General Motors. The goal is to build a robot helper suitable to assist humans in complex tasks, be they in space or on Earth, project officials have said.
“He has been groveling in his stowage location over here in the lab,” space station astronaut Mike Fossum of NASA told Mission Control. “The complaint’s mainly been that he wants to get out and get to work. Well, today is finally the day.”
NASA delivered Robonaut 2 to the space station during the shuttle Discovery’s final flight in February. At the time, NASA planned to leave the robot in its box, but President Barack Obama urged astronauts to set it free during a phone call to the space station.
“C’mon, unpack the guy! He flew all that way and you guys aren’t unpacking him?” Obama joked. The robot was ultimately unpacked in March, then put aside until it was needed.
Today, space-station flight controllers at the outpost’s Payload Operations Center with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., echoed President Obama’s remarks as Robonaut 2 performed its first systems’ checks.
“We know he’s glad to be out of his container,” a flight controller told the space-station crew.
In it is current configuration, Robonaut 2 has a head, torso, arms and super-dexterous hands, but it does not have legs or feet. Instead, it is attached using an anchor-like pole to hold it in place. It is about 3 feet, 4 inches (1.01 meters) tall and weighs about 330 pounds (150 kilograms). [Infographic: Meet Robonaut 2]
A twin of Robonaut 2 stayed behind on Earth and can be plugged into a mobile base to wheel around different terrains. NASA will take that Earth-bound robot into the New Mexico desert next week as part of a space-exploration technology demonstration test program called DesertRATS.
When fully assembled on the space station, Robonaut 2 juts out from a wall in the orbiting lab’s U.S.-built Destiny module. That made the robot a hazard to other station astronauts floating by.
Fossum tied pieces of bright orange tape around the robot’s wrists after today’s tests so he and his crewmates could see and avoid the mechanical man.
“Hopefully, with a little bit of orange flagging tape there it will help remind people not to touch,” Fossum radioed Mission Control.
That was good news to Mission Control. The last thing anyone wants is an accident that could damage the robot, Fossum and flight controllers agreed.
“You know, when he goes into motion, he’ll probably act in his own self-defense,” Mission Control added with a laugh.
Beware The Reward
Lorcan sat on a rock watching the setting sun. It occurred to him that it had been a very long time since he had done anything he really enjoyed. It wasn’t that the setting sun held no attraction; it was just that he had been preoccupied with so many other things for so long, that he no longer remembered how to take a moment just for himself. He wondered to himself how long it had been since he had last thought about what really mattered, and realized that he had no clear memory of when that might have been.
It wasn’t that Lorcan had a poor memory. In fact, of all his powers, he prided the keenness of his memory almost the most. When he thought about it, he realized that even from his earliest moments, he had vivid pictures of his experiences, sometimes more vivid than he liked. Of all the pictures he retained, those of his childhood seemed to haunt him the most. Not all of these memories were bad, or wrong, or even troubling; they were merely the most vivid memories he retained, and they had the power to self-elicit – sometimes at the very worst possible moment.
As the setting sun emblazoned the sky with a luminous pink, Lorcan thought about why he was here at this particular moment, sitting on this rock, on a thin slice of land jutting out from the country he had long considered his home. Possibly because he was too tired to prevent them or more because he somehow knew that these last few weeks were highly important, his mind was flooded with memories of the recent past. The people, the places, the sights, the sounds; mostly the people – some that he cared for and some that; well, maybe it was better not to think too much about those people! As he sat considering these things, Lorcan recalled the dream he had had so very long ago, and in a place that now seemed so very far away.
* * *
It was the sound of a shovel hitting a rock that awakened Lorcan. He opened his eyes and found himself in a familiar setting. It was a room that he felt so very much at home in, although this room, this home, belonged to a distant family member on his mother’s side. Lorcan sat up and looked around at the furniture and other appointments of this room and smiled as he realized that he was very much at home here, though he had only been here a few times in his life. He knew the items in the room: the old faded wooden chest; the simple writing desk with its matching chair near the window; the solid looking oak and cherry wood dressing table near the bed. Yes, this was a place in which he always felt safe and well cared for. As he thought about these things, he caught the faint smells of breakfast and heard early workday sounds coming from the garden just outside his room.
As he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got to his feet, Lorcan realized that today was the day of his errand. After his morning lessons, he was to travel to town and be received by the Monsignor.
[Excerpted from Lorcan by Robert Eugene Miller]
The Stars Say. . .
[Special Thanks to Astrology.com]
A Child’s View of Thunderstorms
A little girl walked to and from school daily. Though the weather that morning was questionable and clouds were forming, she made her daily trek to school. As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up, along with lightning.
The mother of the little girl felt concerned that her daughter would be frightened as she walked home from school. She also feared the electrical storm might harm her child. Full of concern, the mother got into her car and quickly drove along the route to her child’s school. As she did, she saw her little girl walking along.
At each flash of lightning, the child would stop, look up, and smile. More lightning followed quickly and with each, the little girl would look at the streak of light and smile.
When the mother drew up beside the child, she lowered the window and called, “What are you doing?”
The child answered, “I am trying to look pretty because God keeps taking my picture.”
A New Definition for Addiction
[Thank you to LiveScience.com for inspiration and materials]
According to a new definition recently released by The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), addiction is a chronic brain disorder and not simply a behavior problem involving alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex.
The (ASAM) definition of addiction comes after a four-year process involving more than 80 experts.
“At its core, addiction isn’t just a social problem or a moral problem or a criminal problem. It’s a brain problem whose behaviors manifest in all these other areas,” said Dr. Michael Miller, past president of ASAM and current medical director of the Herrington Recovery Center at Rogers Memorial Hospital in Oconomowoc, Wis. who oversaw the development of the new definition. “Many behaviors driven by addiction are real problems and sometimes criminal acts. But the disease is about brains, not drugs. It’s about underlying neurology, not outward actions.”
The new definition also describes addiction as a primary disease, meaning that it’s not the result of other causes, such as emotional or psychiatric problems. And like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, addiction is recognized as a chronic disease; so it must be treated, managed and monitored over a person’s lifetime, the ASAM staff researchers say.
Two decades of advancements in neuroscience convinced ASAM officials that addiction should be redefined by what’s going on in the brain. For instance, research has shown that addiction affects the brain’s reward circuitry, such that memories of previous experiences with food, sex, alcohol and other drugs trigger cravings and more addictive behaviors. Brain circuitry that governs impulse control and judgment is also altered in the brains of addicts, resulting in the nonsensical pursuit of “rewards,” such as alcohol and other drugs.
A long-standing debate has roiled over whether addicts have a choice over their behaviors, said Dr. Raju Hajela, former president of the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine and chair of the ASAM committee on addiction’s new definition. With the new findings, the brain appears to play a much larger role than previously believed. “The behavioral problem is a result of brain dysfunction,” suggests Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Just what does happen in the brain? It’s a complex interplay of emotional, cognitive and behavioral networks.
Genetics plays a role, meaning some people are more vulnerable to an addiction if they, say, experiment with drugs as a teenager or wind up on potent prescription painkillers after an injury.
Age does, too. The frontal cortex helps put the brakes on unhealthy behaviors, Dr. Volkow explains. It’s where the brain’s reasoning side connects to emotion-related areas. It’s among the last neural regions to mature, one reason that it’s harder for a teenager to withstand peer pressure to experiment with drugs.
Even if you’re not biologically vulnerable to begin with, perhaps you try alcohol or drugs to cope with a stressful or painful environment, Dr. Volkow says. Whatever the reason, the brain’s reward system can change as a chemical named dopamine conditions it to rituals and routines that are linked to getting something you’ve found pleasurable, whether it’s a pack of cigarettes or a few drinks or even overeating. When someone’s truly addicted, that warped system keeps them going back even after the brain gets so used to the high that it’s no longer pleasurable.
Make no mistake: Patients still must choose to fight back and treat an addiction, stresses Dr. Miller. But understanding some of the brain reactions at the root of the problem will “hopefully reduce some of the shame about some of these issues, hopefully reduce stigma,” he says.
And while most of the neuroscience centers on drug and alcohol addiction, the society notes that it’s possible to become addicted to gambling, sex or food although there’s no good data on how often that happens. It’s time for better study to find out, Dr. Miller says.
In a related statement, Dr. Hajela opined, “The disease creates distortions in thinking, feelings and perceptions, which drive people to behave in ways that are not understandable to others around them. Simply put, addiction is not a choice. Addictive behaviors are a manifestation of the disease, not a cause.”
“Even so”, Dr. Hajela continued, “choice does play a role in getting help. . .Because there is no pill which alone can cure addiction, choosing recovery over unhealthy behaviors is necessary.”
According to ASAM researcher staff, “choosing recovery” is akin to people with heart disease who may not choose the underlying genetic causes of their heart problems but do need to choose to eat healthier or begin exercising, in addition to medical or surgical interventions.
Dr. Miller concludes, “So, we have to stop moralizing, blaming, controlling or smirking at the person with the disease of addiction, and start creating opportunities for individuals and families to get help and providing assistance in choosing proper treatment.”
Take That, Apple!
[RePrint Alert! Reprinted from ZDNet Tech Update Today, August 15, 2011]
Google’s $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility bet: 6 reasons why it makes sense
By Larry Dignan
Summary: Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility solves the search giant’s patent problems, gives it a bigger say in hardware integration and fixes a few other issues. Here’s a look at the moving parts.
Google’s aims to fix multiple lingering wireless issues with its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility and overall the deal is just crazy enough to work.
On a conference call with analysts, Google CEO Larry Page outlined the rational for the deal. In a nutshell, Page is betting on mobility as the future of computing (Google statement, blog). But even with the grand themes of software-hardware integration and better user experiences, Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility cures a lot of ills for the search giant.
Page said minutes ago regarding Motorola:
I think they have an exciting product roadmap, a strong vision for the future and are poised for growth. I think there’s an opportunity to accelerate innovation in the home business by working together with the cable and telco industry as we go through a transition to Internet protocol. Motorola also has a strong patent portfolio which will help protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing our work with all of them on an equal basis to deliver outstanding user experiences. We built Android as an open-source platform and it will stay that way.
Can this marriage work? Here’s a look at the ledger and six reasons why the Google-Motorola deal makes sense:
Integration may be all that matters in the wireless industry. Apple’s hardware-software-ecosystem business model brings better profit margins, can grab market share and seems to delight consumers. Google’s Android effort could be a bit like herding cats. The larger question is whether the vertically integrated model is the only one that works in the wireless industry.
Google lands its patent treasure trove. If you consider that Google was going to pay nearly $4 billion for Nortel’s 6,000 wireless patents, $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility doesn’t look like a big chunk of change. With Motorola Mobility’s patents, Google can fend off lawsuits. In other words, Google builds out its patent portfolio. On a conference call, Page called out patents as a big reason for the Motorola Mobility acquisition.
Google gets a TV play. While Google’s Motorola acquisition primarily revolves around wireless devices, there’s a significant living room play here. Why? Motorola Mobility has a significant set-top box business. In the cable box world, there are two players: Cisco and Motorola Mobility, which is the leader. Google will get significant relationships with cable providers and give Android more of a foothold.
There’s a good chance that Google can keep hardware partners in the fold—for now. Page reiterated that Google will keep Android open source and work with partners such as HTC and Samsung. Also keep in mind that this Google-Motorola deal could win it some goodwill with hardware partners. Motorola was thinking about suing other Android hardware makers over patents. Google’s acquisition would put an end to that.
The deal forces Microsoft’s hand. When it comes to the art of war, Google and Motorola force Microsoft’s hand a bit. With the Google-Motorola deal, Page is basically acknowledging that there’s no money in third party operating systems in the mobile space. The upshot: Mobile software players need a hardware component. As a result, Microsoft may be forced to acquire a hardware player. Research in Motion and Nokia are prime takeover candidates. In any case, Microsoft will be distracted by a big acquisition.
And Android boxes in Nokia and RIM. With Motorola, which has some enterprise credibility and Android innovations, Google can enter the enterprise easier. As a result, RIM increasingly looks like the odd man out. Nokia is already under fire as it waits for Windows Phone 7 to gain traction. RIM is betting on QNX as an operating system. Google is indicating that the wireless market is a two platform race. And those two horses are going to be Android and iOS.
The Miller Minute 