Category Archives: Emotional Well-Being

The Great Benefits and Joy of Movement

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“Anytime you engage in regular activity, you’re becoming this version of yourself that is more hopeful, more motivated, more energized, and better able to connect with others.” ~Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

Knowing only great benefits and happiness will result from movement, why are Americans so resistant to making movement a priority in their day?

While our brains and bodies reward us for moving and exertion, we also are built with an instinct to avoid overexertion, conserve energy, to rest, to avoid discomfort, and avoid failure and embarrassment, says Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., a research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and an award-winning science writer and author of The Joy of Movement.

To retrain our bodies to encourage movement, we must first start with self-compassion and the practice of gratitude. We must remove the negative connotations from movement and recognize how the practice of movement can be really rewarding on its own.

“Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore.” Kelly McGonigal

Research shows, according to Dr. McGonigal, there are three motivations that keep people moving:

  • Enjoyment – doing something you actually enjoy
  • The activity provides social community or sense of identity (i.e. “I’m a runner”), … positive social connection, and
  • It’s a personal challenge and meaningful to you as you’re making progress toward a goal.

If you can find an activity that gives you all three – you’re hooked for life! Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore and burden.

Movement can be a source of joy and is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery–and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

Basically, bliss can be found in any sustained physical activity, whether that’s hiking, swimming, cycling, dancing, or yoga. However, the runner’s high emerges only after a significant effort. It seems to be the brain’s way of rewarding you for working hard.

McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe.

Along the way, Dr. McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence.

Movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. By harnessing the power of movement, you can create happiness, meaning, and connection in your life.

The latest theory about the runner’s high claims that: Our ability to experience exercise-induced euphoria is linked to our earliest ancestors’ lives as hunters, scavengers, and foragers.

As biologist Dennis Bramble and paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman write, “Today, endurance running is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as ancient as the origin of the human genus.”

The neurochemical state that makes running gratifying may have originally served as a reward to keep early humans hunting and gathering. What we call the runner’s high may even have encouraged our ancestors to cooperate and share the spoils of a hunt.

In our evolutionary past, humans may have survived in part because physical activity was pleasurable. It takes about six weeks of consistent moderate movement to see structural and neurochemical changes in your brain. And, increase intensity amplifies the benefits. The harder stuff seems to payoff. Exercise gets easier and more pleasurable sooner.

The key to unlocking the runner’s high is not the physical action of running itself, but can be achieved on continuous moderate intensity exercise. And in fact scientists have documented a similar increase in endocannabinoids from cycling, walking on a treadmill at an incline, and outdoor hiking.

If you want the high, you just have to put in the time and effort. 

References:

  1. https://getmadefor.com/blogs/perspective/the-joy-of-movement-how-looking-backwards-moves-us-forward
  2. https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Movement-exercise-happiness-connection/dp/0525534105/ref=nodl

Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., is a research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and an award-winning science writer and author of The Joy of Movement.

An Attitude of Gratitude

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“Be in a state of gratitude for everything that shows up in your life. Be thankful for the storms as well as the smooth sailing. What is the lesson or gift in what you are experiencing right now? Find your joy not in what’s missing in your life but in how you can serve.” Wayne Dyer

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful. It’s a readiness to show appreciation

Gratitude is a foundational element to building wealth. Gratitude allows you to find joy in and focus on what you already have because envy is the stealer of wealth and comparison is the thief of joy.  If you are constantly comparing yourself to others you will never have enough. You will feel empty and inadequate. You will not find happiness.

As media mogul Oprah Winfrey explains, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

“Gratitude turns what you have into enough.” Unknown

“Mother Theresa talked about how grateful she was to the people she was helping, the sick and dying in the slums of Calcutta, because they enabled her to grow and deepen her spirituality,” explains Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., is the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude and professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis.

Like Mother Theresa’s spiritual growth, there are several important reasons that gratitude can have transformative effects on your own life, according to Dr. Emmons. Additionally, there are four effects he sites:

1. Gratitude allows you to appreciate and celebrate the present. It magnifies positive emotions.

Research on emotion shows that positive emotions wear off quickly. Our emotional system likes newness and novelty. It likes change. You adapt to positive life circumstances so that before too long, the new car, the new spouse, the new house—they don’t feel so new and exciting anymore.

But gratitude makes you focus on and appreciate the value of something, and when you appreciate the value of something, you extract more benefits from it; you’re less likely to take it for granted, states Dr. Emmons.

In effect, gratitude allows you to participate more in life. You notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, you celebrate goodness. You spend more time watching and doing things with gratitude. Effectively, you become a greater participant in your life as opposed to being a spectator.

2. Gratitude blocks toxic, negative emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret—emotions that can destroy our happiness. A 2008 study by psychologist Alex Wood in the Journal of Research in Personality, showed that gratitude can reduce the frequency and duration of episodes of depression.

You cannot feel envious and grateful at the same time. They’re incompatible feelings. If you’re grateful, you can’t resent someone for having something that you don’t.

3. Grateful people are more stress resistant. There’s a number of studies showing that in the face of serious trauma, adversity, and suffering, if people have a grateful disposition, they’ll recover more quickly. In short, gratitude gives people a perspective from which they can interpret negative life events and help them guard against post-traumatic stress and lasting anxiety.

4. Grateful people have a higher sense of self-worth. When you’re grateful, you have the sense that someone else is looking out for you—someone else has provided for your well-being, or you notice a network of relationships, past and present, of people who are responsible for helping you get to where you are right now.

Once you start to recognize the contributions that other people have made to your life—once you realize that other people have seen the value in you—you can transform the way you see yourself.

Thus, it’s imperative for you to cultivate gratitude and to overcome the challenges to gratitude. You must put conscious and deliberate effort into practicing gratitude.

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” Zig Ziglar

First is to keep a gratitude journal as a way to cultivate gratitude, says Dr. Emmons. This can mean listing just five things for which you’re grateful every week. This practice works because it consciously, intentionally focuses your attention on developing more grateful thinking and on eliminating ungrateful thoughts. It helps guard against taking things for granted; instead, you will see gifts in life as new and exciting. People who live a life of pervasive thankfulness really do experience life differently than people who cheat themselves out of life by not feeling grateful.

Another gratitude exercise is to practice counting your blessings on a regular basis, maybe first thing in the morning, maybe in the evening. What are you grateful for today? You don’t have to write them down on paper.

Additionally, you can use concrete reminders to practice gratitude, says Dr. Emmons. For example, a Vancouver family developed a practice of putting money in “gratitude jars.” At the end of the day, they put spare change into those gratitude jars. They had a regular reminder, a habit, to get them to focus on gratitude. When the jar became full, they gave away the money to a good cause within their community.

Gratitude journals and other gratitude practices seem simple and basic, but studies have shown that people who keep gratitude journals for just three weeks realize results that have been overwhelmingly beneficial in their lives, according to Dr. Emmons.

The bottomline is that having an ‘attitude of gratitude’ is the key ingredient to living your best and most rewarding life. It’s a practice and habit that we must all embrace.

“The ultimate path to enlightment is the cultivation of gratitude. When you’re grateful, fear disappears. When you’re grateful lack disapears. You feel a sense that life is uniquely blessed, but at the same time, you feel like you’re a part of everything that exists and you know that you are not the source of it.” Tony Robbins

References:

  1. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_gratitude_is_good
  2. https://thestrive.co/gratitude-quotes/
  3. https://blog.gratefulness.me/gratitude-quotes/

Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., is the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and the founding editor-in-chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology. He is the author of the books Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity and Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.

Duke’s Coach Mike Krzyzewski Career Ends

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“It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Teddy Roosevelt

One of the most impressive coaching careers in NCAA basketball history ended Saturday, April 2, 2022, when Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team lost to North Carolina Tar Heels in Coach Krzyzewski’s 13th and last Final Four appearance in New Orleans. The loss shut down his bid for a sixth national title.

The loss marked the end of Mike Krzyzewski’s illustrious head coaching career – one that started at the U.S. Military Academy in 1975 before he took the Duke job in 1980. Krzyzewski, a West Point grad, played point guard at West Point from 1966-1969 under Coach Bob Knight and then spent 1969-1974 serving in the U.S. Army, coaching three different service teams.

In a 2018 Military Times article, Krzyzewski, the 75-year-old grandfather of 10, called West Point “the best leadership school in the world.” 

Regarding his tenure as head coach, “I’ve been blessed to be in the arena,” Krzyzewski said. “And when you’re in the arena, you’re either going to come out feeling great or you’re going to feel agony. But you always will feel great about being in the arena. And I’m sure that’s the thing when I’ll look back that I’ll miss. … But damn, I was in the arena for a long time. And these kids made my last time in the arena an amazing one.”

Krzyzewski’s coaching career ends with a victory total of 1,202 — including 101 in the NCAA Tournament.

References:

  1. https://nypost.com/2022/04/03/an-epic-ending-for-mike-krzyzewski-the-man-in-the-arena/

The Optimist

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“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill

Research shows that optimists enjoy many health and lifestyle benefits, including greater achievement, greater health, a sense of persistence toward goals, greater emotional health, increased longevity, and lower reactivity to stress.

Promise Yourself

To be SO STRONG that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the GREATER ACHIEVEMENTS of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance AT ALL TIMES and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have NO TIME to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now wrote, “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the now, have your dwelling place in the now and pay brief visits to the past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation.”

Optimism is about seeing potential and working creatively with—but not being limited by— the challenges. Optimism combines having a positive outlook of what’s happening now and having a positive vision of the future.

The key to optimism is understanding how you are narrating the story of the events and experiences of your life. A story has many angles. But all the angles of the story don’t matter. What only matters is how you perceive the story, how you accept it and how you react to it. While we don’t have control over what’s occurring on Wall Street or Main Street, we do have control over how we interpret the events playing out in our own lives.

Optimism is about being positive and confident regarding our work and effort, something each of us is capable of doing in our own way. Research in Positive Psychology tells us that those who adopt an optimistic mindset are healthier, less prone to depression, live longer, and lead happier more satisfying lives.

Optimists look for opportunities for growth and positive change, but more importantly, they stay tethered to the present reality. It’s not about pretending that all is well or about avoiding challenging situations. It’s about thinking accurately, acting with confidence, making calculated risks, and when things go wrong, perceiving those setbacks as temporary, and using innovation, flexibility and resilience to learn from the fall and move forward.

“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.” – David J. Schwartz

References:

  1. https://www.verywellmind.com/become-more-of-an-optimist-3144818
  2. https://tamarchansky.com/tools/safe-optimism/
  3. https://www.optimist.org/Documents/creed_poster.pdf

 

Health, Wealth, Emotional Well-Being, Purpose and Success

Visualization: Your Life In Focus

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“The key to effective visualization is to create the most detailed, clear, and vivid a picture to focus on.”

Research shows that the more you focus on the things you desire, the better chance you have at getting them. Thus, knowing what you want and focusing on what you want are essential for success and achieving your best life.

As you might ascertain, having a clear direction of where you’re headed or where you want to go is essential. Without a clear purpose and goals, it can be very easy to get caught up in things that aren’t actually moving you forward in your life’s journey.

For example, struggling comedian and actor, Jim Carrey used to picture himself being the greatest actor in the world. When Carey was still a “wannabe” during one of his appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, he spoke about his early days trying to make it in the entertainment business. He was broke and had no future. But he took a blank check and wrote out $10 million dollars to himself for acting services rendered and dated it five year in the future.

Subsequently, he carried that check in his wallet at all times and looked at it every morning, visualizing receiving $10 million. Five years after he wrote the check to himself, he found out that he was going to earn $10 million from the movie “Dumb and Dumber.”

“Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” Oprah Winfrey

Vision boarding is an excellent way to get clear on your goals. Creating a vision board is a powerful way of getting to know yourself and what it is you truly want in your life.

A vision board is essentially a physical (or digital) manifestation of your goals. Vision boarding involves collecting images or objects that speak to the future you want to create and arranging them on a board for a tangible and aesthetically pleasing reminder of where you’re heading.

References:

  1. https://seatgeek.com/tba/articles/oprah-winfrey-2020-vision-tour-dates-tickets/
  2. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-20630/8-successful-people-who-use-the-power-of-visualization.html
  3. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-make-a-vision-board

 

“Success = Knowing, Growing, Acting and Serving.”

Seven Steps to Success: John C. Maxwell

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“Attitude is the first quality that marks the successful man. If he has a positive attitude and is a positive thinker, who likes challenges and difficult situations, then he has half his success achieved.” John C. Maxwell

Although there is not a perfect formula to be successful, everyone has the capability to become successful. Success is a journey that you create for yourself if you strongly desire it and act on it. And, success can be learned and attained by you and everyone else. One ‘tried and true’ way to learn about becoming successful is to study the success of other people.

And that is what John C. Maxwell* has done. After over nearly fifty years of knowing successful people and studying the subject, John C. Maxwell has taught millions the principles of success and has embraced the following definition of success:

Success is…

  • Knowing your purpose in life,
  • Growing to reach your maximum potential, and
  • Sowing seeds that benefit others.

By this definition, success is a journey rather than a destination. No matter how long you live or what you decide to do in life, you will never exhaust your capacity to grow toward your potential, nor will you run out of opportunities to help others.

Additionally, Maxwell has developed a process of seven steps for success that are available to you and anyone else who desires to study and pursues the journey of success:

1. Make a commitment to grow daily.

“Success is… knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.” John C. Maxwell

Success comes from growing, not from achieving, acquiring or advancing. If you commit to growing each day, you will soon start noticing positive results in your life. Every action that you take towards growing will bring you closer to success, it doesn’t matter how small your action is or how slow you go as long as you keep going. As the poet Robert Browning said, “Why stay on earth except to grow?”

2. Value the process more than events.

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” John C. Maxwell

If your goal is to go to the next level in life, then strive for continuous improvement. Events in life are temporary, they teach you how to make better decisions. However, it is the process of change and growth that have lasting value. Choose to embrace the process and learn from both, the process and the event.

3. Don’t wait for inspiration.

“If you start today to do the right thing, you are already a success even if it doesn’t show yet.” John C. Maxwell

People who advance far in life find ways to motivate themselves and live the best they can regardless of how they feel. At times, they even have to push themselves to do something. Successful people persevere. Basketball great Jerry West said, “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.”

4. Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” John C. Maxwell

There are two paths to follow: “You can play now and pay later, or pay now and play later. You choose whether you will first want to pay or play. Regardless of the path you choose to take, life will always demand a payment. If you choose “to pay first,” you will be more pleased with your results and enjoy greater and sweeter rewards

5. Dream big.

“Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking.” John C. Maxwell

If you’re going to dream, dare to dream big. Dreaming small may keep you from discovering what you’re truly made of. Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler, authors of If Ain’t Broke, Brake It, assert, “We don’t have a clue as to what people’s limits are. All the tests, stopwatches, and finish lines in the world can’t measure human potential. When someone is pursuing their dream, they’ll go far beyond what seems to be their limitations. The potential that exists within us is limitless and largely untapped. When you think of limits, you create them.”

6. Plan your priorities.

“To Stay Focused in Life: You can’t know everyone. You can’t do everything. You can’t go everywhere. We have to pick and choose between good and a little bit better.” John C. Maxwell

Successful people have many things common and one of of them is that they have mastered the art of how to effectively manage their time. More than anything, they have organized themselves. Henry Kaiser, founder of Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Permanente Health Care, says, “Every minute spent in planning will save you two in execution. Time cannot be retrieved, so live every moment the best you can.

7. Give up to go up.

“One of the major keys to success is to keep moving forward on the journey, making the best of the detours and interruptions, turning adversity into advantage.” John C. Maxwell

Everything that has value comes as a result of making sacrifices. Life will present you with countless opportunities to trade something you value for something else. Keep your eyes open to identify those opportunities and once you do, make sure that what you decide to trade will be a trade up, not down.

In conclusion, “success is a journey” isn’t just a matter of words and ideas, it’s a matter of actions. It’s in you to act on what makes you achieve your success every day. Know that what may mean success to you may not mean success to others, and vice versa–and this is completely fine. Success implies diversity of thoughts, habits, behaviors, values, and attitudes.

“If you make it your discipline to do a little bit of growing every day, in just a few years you will be amazed by your transformation.” John C. Maxwell

References:

  1. https://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/what-i-believe-about-success/
  2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seven-steps-success-john-c-maxwell-ivette-k-caballero

* John C. Maxwell is an International Leadership Expert, Speaker, #1 New York Times bestselling author, coach, and speaker who has sold more than 26 million books in fifty languages. As the founder of The John Maxwell Company, The John Maxwell Team, EQUIP, and the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation, he has trained more than 6 million leaders. Dr. Maxwell speaks each year to Fortune 500 companies, presidents of nations, and many of the world’s top business leaders. For more information about him visit JohnMaxwell.com.

Albert Einstein Best Quotes

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“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein, a German-born physicist, has been widely regarded as one of the greatest minds and physicists of all time. In December 1932, he emigrated to the United States, renouncing his German citizenship after Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.

In 1921, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to theoretical physics and discovery of the photoelectric effect.

Einstein was best known for developing the theory of relativity and the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2, often dubbed “the world’s most famous equation”.

During his life, he made many sayings about science, education, religion and life that continue to resonate today:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

“Logic will get you from A to Z, imagination will get you everywhere.”

“Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.”

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

Einstein’s words have inspired generations around the world to live life fully, and in a more positive, self aware and rewarding manner.

References:

  1. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/remembering-albert-einstein-inspirational-quotes-of-the-nobel-laureate-on-143rd-birth-anniversary/ar-AAV19qr
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

Baha Mar Resort, Nassau, The Bahamas

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Baha Mar resort, Nassau, The Bahamas is the newest family vacation destination in the Caribbean.

This blog post on travel and experiences deviates from typical posts that appear on this site. Typically, past blog posts have covered pertinent topics dealing with building wealth, healthy aging, well-being and finding life’s purpose.

However, this blog post provides details of a recent March 2022, five night, six day trip and experiences of vacationing at the SLS Baha Mar Resort located in Nassau, New Providience, The Bahamas.

Baha Mar is an integrated resort, casino, and residential development perched on Nassau’s storied Cable Beach. The destination features three renowned hotel brands and a variety of luxurious amenities including the largest casino in The Bahamas, a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, a convention center, and a diverse collection of dining, nightlife, and retail outlets.

Travel and Experiences

New Providence, The Bahamas, is a 35 to 55-minute flight from most of Florida to Nassau’s Lynden Pindling International Airport. Baha Mar resort is approximately a 10-minute drive from the airport. Lynden Pindling International Airport offers U.S. Customs and Immigration pre-clearance in Nassau upon your return to the U.S.

Traveling to The Bahamas during COVID-19 pandemic requires a little advance planning. U.S. citizens traveling to The Bahamas are required to be vaccinated and to have a negative COVID-19 rapid antigen test within three days of arrival. Additionally, The Bahamas Travel Health Visa (BTHV) ($40 cost) is required by international travelers over the age of 2 in order to enter the island country.

According to available government literature regarding travel to The Bahamas during COVID-19, individuals are required to wear a mask while indoors on the island. Although that is the stated policy of the island, what I observed was significantly different. Instead of people donning masks while indoors, I would estimate that less than one percent of the hotel guests actually wore masks indoor. In contrast, every Baha Mar associate worn their masks continuously, even outdoors.

Additionally, the Baha Mar Resorts purports to operate their hotels during COVID-19 pandemic far less than their maximum occupancy for guest comfort and safety. However, the resort was at 99% occupancy during our stay. Thus, they’re effectively operating the resort occupancy-wise as if the pandemic is no longer a concern. However, they are still going through the motions of disinfecting high touch surfaces.

Baha Mar Resort

Baha Mar Resort is located on Cable Beach, which occupies the northwest part of New Providence Island. Within the massive resort, there are three hotel brands that share the property — The Grand Hyatt, SLS Baha Mar, and Rosewood. Many resort rooms provide spectacular views of Cable Beach from balconies and permit access to the experiences of Baha Mar, such as Baha Bay water park and the white sand of Cable Beach.

We stayed at the considerably upscale SLS Baha Mar, which is advertised as “a new era of stylish, playfully sophisticated, luxe, high-design accommodations”. The hotel offers “sleek, well appointed rooms”. Also located on the property are Baha Bay water park and the casino.

During your stay at Baha Mar, you learn quickly about the burdensome Resort’s service charge of 15% and The Bahamas’ value added tax (VAT) of 10%. Added together, the combined resort’s service charge plus VAT adds 25% of additional charges to every already premium priced purchase. For example, a $16 glass of red wine would lighten your wallet an additional $4 for a total of $20 after adding the service charge and VAT. A simple Resort cheese burger starts at $26 which inflates to $32.50 after service charge and VAT are included.

Overall, the Baha Mar Resort has a plethora of amenities and activities to keep even the most acquiring guest interested. Starting with Baha Bay water park, there are death defying water slides named the “Devil’s Backbone”, which the floor drop out from under you before blasting through looping and twisting tunnels, and “Thunderball”, which is a freefall, straight-down slide that delivers an unforgettable experience. Both of these slides invoked fear into a few guests, who chose to walk back down the several flights of stairs instead of taking the faster water slide route down to ground level. Also, the water park contained The River, a typical lazy river with several interesting enhancements such as rapids and high waves. There are bail out points along The River before the rapids and several tubers did choose to abandon their tubes before making the turn to enter the rapids.

Other water activities include kayaking, paddle board and snorkeling the man made reefs a short swimming distance from the Baha Mar white sand beaches.

Dining

Marcus at Baha Mar Fish + Chop House is a celebration of Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s food and beverage creations. At the restaurant, the 8 ounce ground beef brisket and beef short rib sandwich, and Chef Yes cocktail were a favorite. Additionally, T2 Cigar Bar was a great place to relax and watch the fire fountain display during evening hours.

Resort guests are advised to make dinner reservations one week to ten days early at the most popular Baha Mar Resort restaurants like Shuang Ba haute Chinese and Fi’lia Italian restaurants. If you wait until after arrive on the Baha Mar property, it may be too late to attain dinner reservations.

Off the resort, Twin Brothers restaurant located at Fish Fry is recommended for those interested in trying local dishes prepared by local chefs. One appetizer that stands out is the Tropical Conch Salad. The salad is served in a large plastic container and it was by far one of the best dishes on the island. But, avoid the mac and cheese at Twin Brothers.

A local off-the-beaten path restaurant that is worth a visit is Sea Shell. The restaurant serves local Bahamian dishes prepared and served cafeteria style. It is well known and frequented by locals and taxi cab drivers, but it is located in an area of town few tourist would likely venture. Nevertheless, the Habanero Chicken Wings with sides of mac and cheese, and plantains, were truly memorable and well worth the short cab ride from the resort.

Casino

The Baha Mar Casino is the largest casino in the Caribbean. It was designed to remove money from every level of gambler, from casual players to high-stakes rollers, according to its literature. The casino offer several different types of gaming tables, a plethora of slot machines, live sports betting, and one of the Nassau’s top dining and nightlife scene.

For resort guest, the casino offers a $25 free play card for the slot machines. The cards must be used by guests within twenty-four hours of activation or the cards will expire.

References:

  1. https://www.onlinevisa.com/bahamas-visa/
  2. https://bahabay.bahamar.com/
  3. https://d3py87e0zuixsk.cloudfront.net/production/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/09122331/BHM_FACTBOOK_20211025_CB.pdf

Positive Wealth Building Thoughts

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“Wealth is the product of a man’s capacity to think.” – Ayn Rand

“We become what we think about.” — Earl Nightingale

Wealth building begins and ends with your mindset, thoughts and behaviors. Thus, it’s imperative to keep your thoughts focused on the positive, on success, on making an impact, on changing the world and on changing people’s lives for the better.

There is an old adage that goes:

  • Watch your thoughts, they become words.
  • Watch your words, they become actions.
  • Watch your actions, they become habits.
  • Watch your habits, they become your character.
  • Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

You must not fix your eyes on current world conditions or even your own personal situation. Instead, you must focus on what you can control, on how you respond, and on how well you maintain a positive and winning mindset and attitude. Focus on the solution not the problem.

So, your keys to success tips include:

  1. Use only positive words while thinking and while talking. Use words such as, ‘I can’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is possible’, ‘it can be done’, etc.
  2. Allow only feelings of happiness, strength and success into your awareness.
  3. Every time a negative thought finds its way into your mind, immediately replace it with a positive thought or an affirmation.
  4. In your conversation, use words that bring forth feelings and mental images of strength, happiness and success.
  5. Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome.
  6. Read at least one page of an inspiring book or an inspiring article every day.
  7. Associate yourself with people who think positively.
  8. Act courageous. Always sit and walk with your back straight. This will strengthen your confidence and inner strength.

In order to build wealth and to achieve financial freedom, you must develop a wealth building mindset and follow a deliberate plan. As you will discover, your wealth grows to the extent that you do.

“We become what we think about most of the time, and that’s the strangest secret.” – Earl Nightingale

Bottomline…for success, keep your focus and thoughts on wealth building!!! Because, what you focus on expands and establishing habits is the key to expansion.

Don’t focus on the problems your dealing with today or the conditions of the world; fix your eyes on your systems, habits and the destination.

Napoleon Hill describes success as the product of having a definite objective. In achieving that objective, you need a clear definite aim and a definite plan to get there.

A definite chief aim means in simple terms that you must have a clear objective that you are aiming to achieve. Success — building wealth and achieving financial freedom — will not come to you and you will not be able to manifest what you want, unless you know what you want.

Success is ultimately achieved by focusing on a clear objective, and pursuing that objective deliberately and with all the means at your disposal. In simple terms, success is simple, but not easy.

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.” Napoleon Hill

Actually, you just have to be exceptionally clear about what you are trying to achieve, passionate about achieving it, comfortable and happy that what you’re doing matches your values: and finally, and perhaps more important than anything else, you must believe that you can achieve it, you must expect to do so, and you must have a plan to achieve it.

So it’s imperative that you use the power of your thoughts and mind to focus on the positive aspects of your life. This works similarly to building strength in the muscles of your body. As you focus on what’s going right in your life, it will grow and expand like a muscle.

What you focus on grows and expands!

References:

  1. https://www.therealsecretofsuccess.com/napoleon-hill/
  2. https://activerain.com/blogsview/5155111/what-you-focus-on-expands

Summary: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

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“Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” Stephen R. Covey

Stephen R. Covey’s seminal book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, remains relevant because it focuses on timeless principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. It’s timeless principles are also extremely relevant for those desiring to develop a wealth mindset and to build wealth.

In his book, Covey argues that it’s your character that needs to be cultivated to achieve effectiveness and sustainable success, not your personality and behavior. Effectively, what we are says far more than what we say or do.

Character is closely related to moral and ethical values. It focuses on the traits that are unique to a person. Character is often regarded as the true self, meaning that it represents deep rooted attributes possessed by a person.

While, personality is often referred to as the mask identity of a person. It is reflected by the outer appearance and behavior that may or may not be true to inner character.

In a nutshell, the seven habits of highly effective people are:

  1. You take initiative. “Be proactive.”
  2. You focus on goals. “Begin with the end in mind.”
  3. You set priorities. “Put first things first.”
  4. You only win when others win. “Think win/win.”
  5. You communicate. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
  6. You cooperate. “Synergize.”
  7. You reflect on and repair your deficiencies…you focus on your well-being. “Sharpen the saw.”

In short, you are what you habitually do, so adopt productive habits. You have the ability to improve your habits and your life.

Covey’s seven habits are composed of the primary principles of character upon which happiness and success are based. Rather than focusing on altering the outward manifestations of your behavior and attitudes, it aims to adapt your inner core, character, and motives.

Your character is a composite of your habits, which factors heavily in your life. Because habits are consistent, unconscious patterns, they constantly express your character and result in your effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Habits are deeply ingrained and you are constantly pulled in their direction. Breaking deeply imbedded, habitual tendencies such as procrastination, impatience, criticalness or selfishness that inhibit effectiveness involves more than simple willpower or a few minor changes.

“What we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.” Stephen R. Covey

A habit is the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire:

  • Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why.
  • Skill is the how to do.
  • Desire is the motivation, the want to do.

Creating a habit requires work in all three dimensions–to listen, knowing how to listen and to want to listen. By working on knowledge, skills, and desire, we can break through to new levels of personal and interpersonal effectiveness as we break from old paradigms. 

Paradigms (another term for mindset) are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world… “If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.” – Dr. Stephen R. Covey

Habit 1: Be Proactive – Principle: I am free to choose and am responsible for my choices.

Your life doesn’t just “happen.” Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. You choose sadness. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.

Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can’t keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are “response-able.” They don’t blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior.

All external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power–you have the freedom to choose your response. One of the most important things you choose is what you say. Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself. A proactive person uses proactive language–I can, I will, I prefer, etc.

Being proactive means more than taking initiative. It means we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. 

“It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.” Stephen R. Covey

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind – Principle: Mental creation precedes physical creation.

Sometimes people find themselves achieving victories that are empty–successes that have come at the expense of things that were far more valuable to them. If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.

Habit 2 is based on imagination–the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint.

If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It’s about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.

Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.

Covey states that the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to create a personal mission statement. It should focus on the following:

  • What you want to be (character)
  • What you want to do (contributions and achievements)
  • The values upon which both of these things are based

In time, your mission statement will become your personal constitution. It becomes the basis from which you make every decision in your life. By making principles the center of your life, you create a solid foundation from which to flourish.

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. You need to know where you are going in order to better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction. 

Habit 3: Put First Things First – Principle: Effectiveness requires the integrity to act on your priorities.

Habit one encourages you to realize you are in charge of your own life, and habit two is based on the ability to visualize and to identify your key values. Habit 3 is the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2. Habit 1 says, “You are the creator. You are in charge.” Habit 2 is the first mental creation, based on imagination, the ability to envision what you can become. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation. It focuses on the practice of effective self-management. By asking yourself the above questions, you become aware that you have the power to significantly change your life in the present.

To live a more balanced existence, you have to recognize that saying no to everything that comes along is okay. There’s no need to overextend yourself. All it takes is realizing that it’s all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities.

Habit three concerns itself with putting the most important things first. This means cultivating the ability to say no to things that don’t match your guiding principles. To manage your time effectively, your behaviors and actions must adhere to the following habit 5 concepts:

  1. They must be principle-centered.
  2. They must be conscience-directed, meaning that they give you the opportunity to organize your life in accordance with your core values.
  3. They define your key mission, which includes your values and long-term goals.
  4. They give balance to your life.
  5. They are organized weekly, with daily adaptations as needed.

The focus is on improving relationships and results, not on maximizing your time.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win – Principle: Effective, long-term relationships require mutual respect and mutual benefit.

Think Win-Win is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration.

Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.

To adopt a win/win mindset, you must cultivate the habit of interpersonal leadership. This involves exercising each of the following traits when interacting with others:

  • Self-awareness
  • Imagination
  • Conscience
  • Independent will

To be an effective win/win leader, Covey argues that you must embrace five independent dimensions:

  1. Character: This is the foundation upon which a win/win mentality is created, and it means acting with integrity, maturity, and an “abundance mentality” (i.e., there is plenty of everything for everyone, one person’s success doesn’t threaten your success).
  2. Relationships: Trust is essential to achieving win/win agreements. You must nourish your relationships to maintain a high level of trust.
  3. Agreements: This means that the parties involved must agree on the desired results, guidelines, resources, accountability, and the consequences.
  4. Win/win performance agreements and supportive systems: Creating a standardized, agreed-upon set of desired results to measure performance within a system that can support a win/win mindset.
  5. Processes: All processes must allow for win/win solutions to arise.

Win/Win is not a technique; it’s a total philosophy. This frame of mind and heart constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood – Principle: To communicate effectively, we must first understand each other.

Communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read and write, and years learning how to speak. But what about listening?

If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely.

Seek first to understand involves a deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Instead, most people listen to the reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. 

Habit 6: Synergize – Principle: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems.

Synergy is the highest activity in all life – the true test and manifestation of all the other habits combined. Synergy catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers within people. Simply defined, synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw – Principle: To maintain and increase effectiveness, we must renew ourselves in body, heart, mind, and spirit.

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life:

  • Physical: exercise, nutrition and sleep
  • Social/Emotional: meaningful human connections and relationships
  • Mental: learning, visualizing, acquiring new knowledge, growing
  • Spiritual: mindfulness, art, meditation, music, time in nature, prayer and service

As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish.

Feeling good doesn’t just happen. Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew yourself. Remember that every day provides a new opportunity for renewal–a new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill.

Habit 7 makes all of the other Habits possible. When you sharpen the saw, you preserve and enhance the greatest asset you have – yourself. 

In conclusion, real change comes not from the outside in, but from the inside out, explains Covey. And the most fundamental way of changing yourself is through a paradigm shift.

There are so many people out there who are excelling in their work lives but failing miserably in their personal lives. They’re a success story on the outside but their lives are falling apart. Their problems are deep and painful. A quick fix doesn’t work in this case. To change such situations, you have to improve yourself and your mindset.

A paradigm is a way you see and perceive the world. Like a map of a territory, a paradigm is a model of something else. Two people can see the same thing and interpret it differently, and they’ll both be correct. It’s not logical but psychological.

Your paradigms affect the way you interact with people.

“Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all.” Stephen R. Covey

References:

  1. https://resources.franklincovey.com/mkt-7hv1/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people
  2. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/7-habits-of-highly-effective-people-by-stephen-covey-summary
  3. https://www.stratechi.com/7-habits/
  4. https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/7%20Habits-of-Highly-Effective-People.pdf
  5. https://earlgreyninja.com/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people-stephen-r-covey/