• A "lesson from the jungle"
• An empowering technique, tool or exercise
• Our featured Costa Rica training tour
• A weblink to help you work and play better
• Some inspiring quotations
• A bit of a giggle...

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I'll tell anyone who asks that the key to SELF-empowerment is "to do what you love". 

The pursuit of happiness will steer you where you want to be and allow you to avoid pitfalls like undue stress and depression by having you focus your energy on joyful doings. 

Asked for a few quick tips on empowerment, the following are at the top of my list:

1. Claim power by examining situations that cause you to react to life in a limiting way.  We often resist doing what we need to learn most. Next time you find yourself avoiding something, confronting the world or reacting to a situation, ask yourself: "What's bothering me about this and how can I change it? or "What do I need to learn here?"  Power will answer.

2. Don't bother with what others think &endash; Do the right thing!  Motivational psychologist Abraham Maslow once wrote that self-empowerment begins by doing away with the NEED to be esteemed by others.  It's easy to become so preoccupied with what others think, do or say, that we put real needs aside to please "them".  Don't waste time and energy that could be better spent improving your SELF.  Be "process oriented" in your quest for power.

3. Take care of your "unfinished business".  Many of us have issues that get in the way of being happy now.  We carry unresolved conflicts, soured relationships or important tasks still undone that prevent us from immediately getting to that place where joy and power exist… as fruit of the labor.  Getting past our failings is not always easy but try this 3-step process: (1) Acknowledge what needs fixing, (2) Apologize to anyone you've wronged, asking: "What can I do to make it right?" and - (3) Move on!  Crying over spilled milk serves nothing.

4. Take things "one-step at a time" …from wherever you happen to be.  Think about it - here and now are the only way to start.  There and then are illusions because wherever you go, there you are.  Start where you find yourself at this moment and decide to claim power.  Then examine what gives you most joy… and move forward towards it. 

5.  Open yourself up to your highest potential.  Resign yourself to always doing your best.  You can't do better than your best and you are sabotaging yourself if you do less than that.  Don't set up conditions for failure with negative expectations, fears or prejudices.  Instead develop the courage to confront your limits by questioning them and proceed by doing your level best.

If you consider the real challenges that must be faced to build a happy and prosperous life, then there is little option but to pursue that road less traveled… the path of your heart.  That's the only one leading to personal power.

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Some folks say "knowledge is power" but I think that's only true if you do something with the knowledge that results in acquiring power.  Just knowing isn't enough.  From awareness you have to move to acceptance and then to action. 

As the quest for self-empowerment may begin with awareness, are you aware of a documentary called "Zeitgeist"?  If not, click here for a link to see it.  

What about "Loose change"? It's thought to be a most succinct view of the kind of questions that deserve to be asked about 9-11.  See it here. 

Both those films offer knowledge to put recent events in a frightening perspective.  After viewing them, consider learning "Empowered thinking" &endash; a series of exercises that result in developing "personal power".

The tool facilitates the emergence of a creative mind.  Even if there are variations for each of the techniques presented, these descriptions deal with the essentials. See the details here.

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If you have anything to offer the world, or your community, or if you feel you have something to learn about inner power, then this tour is for you.  It is all about personal power and vision. 

If you want to to optimize your talents and abilities, if you need to be challenged, to understand yourself better or to consider the next phase in your development, then this 1-week "Visionary Flight: How Nature Favors SELF-empowerment" learning adventure is the one you don't want to miss.  Click here for details.

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Not sure where you want to go? Well always go where you are wanted… so click here and link to 150+ teams in 19 countries that need your help, while this click has 130 teams in 46 countries who can use you right now.  Have a safe trip.

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"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." Milton Berle   

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." Albert Einstein

"There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves." Arthur P.Stanley

"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." Oscar Wilde

"Even on the most exalted throne in the world, we are only sitting on our own bottom." Michel de Montaigne

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In a clearing deep in the forest early one day, trees were having an animated discussion.  "Animals come and eat our fruit or rest in our shade but they leave a mess behind," said the Spruce, "…and their smell is unbearable most days!"

The Pine and Fir trees jumped in to agree, saying that deer, moose and elk eat their shoots and rub off their bark.  "They take the grubs that grow on me, damaging my bark in the process", said a Birch tree in anger.  "That's my grub!"

"They show absolutely no concern for us and our feelings because we remain silent," asserted Spruce.

"Well I for one have had enough! I've made up my mind! From this moment forward I'll drive away the animals that comes near me!" said Birch.

"That may not be a wise thing to do," said the Oak, the oldest and biggest tree there. "The animals are a nuisance I agree, but they serve a useful purpose. We are all inter-dependent you see &emdash; we trees, the animals and men.  We are part of a whole system…"

"I'm sorry," interrupted the Birch. "I've great respect for your size, your age and your strength but not your beliefs.  Filthy animals have nothing to with me and I can't possibly see what good they do. In this matter I will not listen to anyone so I will not allow any animal here again!"

True to his word when soon a bear came to rest there later that morning, Birch suddenly began to shake violently and frightfully from side to side.

Well Bear was scared out of his wits to see a tree freaking out in this way so it jumped up and ran away. Encouraged by Bear's reaction, Birch quickly became convinced it was right and now it became bold and assertive.

Later that same day, a wolf come by and, waiting until it was comfortably installed, Birch did the exact same frightful moves and drove it away.  Well that day, birch succeeded in frightening all the animals that came to the clearing, and it did the same every day that followed for more than a time.

In due course, animals stopped coming to that part of the forest.  And before too long, Birch was a great hero to the younger trees in the neighborhood, and even some of the older ones began bowing to him …when Oak was not looking.

One day however, two woodcutters came strolling right into that very clearing.

"Oh no!" gasped Birch. "Why have men come here? They've never come here before."

"They've never come before because they were afraid of wild animals," said Oak. "The long absence of brother Bear and brother Wolf has made them bold."

Alas, only now did Birch understand how no creature is independent but that the forest is in fact interdependent.  But he could only tremble with fear.  And he did so with good cause as he was the first tree the woodcutters chopped down.