Mindful Startups

Stop trying to ‘get it together’. The biggest lie we’re told when we’re growing up is that soon as we’re adults, as soon as we’re in college, finish college, get that job, have that steady income, find that someone special, ‘find ourselves’, find that perfect house, get that retirement fund, have those children, everything will fall into place. Here’s a secret: it won’t. Every new development in your life, good or bad, big or small, will come with its own very special set of challenges. The sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.

Unknown (via creatingaquietmind)

(via creatingaquietmind)

Your soul doesn’t care what you do for a living - and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you are being while you are doing whatever you are doing.

Neale Donald Walsch (via hashpe)

(via myrealityofdragonflies)

To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.

Hermann Hesse (via creatingaquietmind)

(via creatingaquietmind)

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

Marcus Aurelius

The inspiration you seek is already within you. Be silent and listen.

~Rumi

When listening to another person, don’t just listen with your mind, listen with your whole body. Feel the energy of your body as you listen. That takes attention away from thinking and creates a still space that enables you to truly listen without the mind interfering. You are giving the other person space - space to be. It is the most precious gift you can give.

Eckhart Tolle

Real-time brain feedback can help people overcome anxiety | KurzweilAI

People provided with a real-time readout of activity in specific regions of their brains can learn to control that activity and lessen their anxiety, say Yale researchers.

They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to display the activity of the orbitofrontal cortex (a brain region just above the eyes) to subjects while they lay in a brain scanner.

Through a process of trial and error, these subjects were gradually able to learn to control their brain activity. This led both to changes in brain connectivity and to increased control over anxiety. These changes were still present several days after the training.

Extreme anxiety associated with worries about dirt and germs is characteristic of many patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Hyperactivity in the orbitofrontal cortex is seen in many of these individuals.

(via smarterplanet)

(via emergentfutures)

Old Japanese Man Creates Amazing Art Using Excel (Wait, Excel?) →

Excel art

I often define entrepreneurship as “a mindset that pursues opportunity without regard to perceived limits on the resources currently at hand.” By that definition, entrepreneurial thinking transcends business, and often includes art. I can’t think of a more perfect example than this: 73 year-old Tatsuo Horiuchi, who taught himself how to use Excel to create these amazing pieces.

The full story is here.

You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.

Warren Buffett, on why productive people have empty schedules (via fastcompany)

Stanford research highlights benefits of compassionate workplaces

Stanford center highlights the benefits of compassionate workplaces:

Scott Kriens, chairman of Juniper Networks and founder of the 1440 Foundation, said there is no conflict between being compassionate and being profitable, a sentiment echoed by researchers who cited study after study showing the power of a kinder workplace to have transformative effects on output.

The full article is here.