Save the Flag

Save the Flag by Chris RemspecherSave the flag!

Sometimes life is like a clear blue sky, sunny and lovely. With a few clouds here and there, it’s still great. When strong winds whip up the dust around us we switch to the default “I am OK, thank you. How are you?”

Raise your flag, let others know how you really feel – green, yellow, red! Keep the door to your room, flat, house, heart open, so others can visit you. Visiting relatives in hospital did remind me of so many basics recently…

The healthy ones have so many wishes, the ill patient only has one.

If your life currently feels like being in prison surrounded by a stress storm, climb on the top of your cage and hoist the red flag. While you are there, change your perspective and enjoy the view!

Namaste

Growing Up by Bar Refaeli

Picture for Bar Refaeli's blog post "Growing Up"This is a guest post by Bar Refaeli. Bar’s Facebook Page.

Most of the time I still feel like a kid. But over the past year or so I”™ve really started to encounter some things that constitute the real beginnings of growing up. I think one of the biggest things that comes into your life as an adult, is learning how to deal with death. It is a very strong, very dark, very difficult thing to process. As a kid, and a teen death isn”™t something you have to deal with directly. You know about it, but in a very vague sense. I remember when I was 19, my Graddy passed away. It was the first family member that I was close to that died, but even at that age I didn”™t fully go through the motions of dealing with death. But just in this past year, it seems like death has found its way into a permanent place of my reality.

I”™ve never really been a fearful person. The biggest thing I”™m probably afraid of is the dentist, doctor”¦.you get the idea. But living in LA has definitely awakened my awareness of how dangerous the world actually is. Now I”™m a big stickler for not living in fear. I think that if you are constantly afraid and let that control the things you do and do not do, you will miss out on the most fulfilling things in life. But hearing about a young woman who was raped and killed less than two miles from your apartment, changes your perspective a little bit. And seeing on the news that a child was abducted in a gated community in a nice area, and reading in a magazine about a girl who was abducted and raped twice by two different men”¦ those things are scary. And they are real.

I also have a close friend, Ben Rom was a victim of cancer and he passed away 2 years. The word cancer is probably thrown around more than any other illness or disease there is, but its different when it happens to someone you know. It”™s different when its someone in your life who loses someone so important in theirs. But you know, of all the terrible things I”™ve just written, I think the hardest things I have ever had to live through is saying goodbye to my horse, Storm, who I”™ve had since I was 10 years old. Death has never been a more real and present aspect of my life until now. For those of you who aren”™t animal lovers or didn”™t grow up with pets, this may seem silly compared to a lot of other things. But honestly, that horse has been the only constant thing in my life that has never let me down, never hurt my feelings, never disappointed me, and never left me. I had a friendship with Storm that surpassed any other friendship I”™ve had. The reality that he is no longer breathing, or walking”¦ its a very difficult thing to live with.
But I guess growing up does that. It changes your perspective, it changes the order in which things matter, it changes what you value. But thankfully, the one thing that will never change, is that God is always here. In every moment, good times and hard times. Life and death”¦. God is in it all. And the peace that He brings me will get me through this life. I am so thankful for every blessing I have been given, whether they come in seasons or for a lifetime.

 

110000 – Thank You!

110.000 unique visitorsSince the start of Chillaxing the World, the statistics have counted more than 110000 unique visitors.

I want to use this moment and thank all the readers, contributors, supporters and you.

Thank you!

To celebrate the 110k, I wrapped up a small gift for you, a ZEN-MEN Medi-X Video, the Ocean Boat in Mauritius, 5 minutes length, fine quality .MP4, about 142MB.

Watch or download it here for free: http://bit.ly/110kSpecial

Namaste.

 

Guy Kawasaki – Enchantment

Cover of EnchantmentDo you know those rare books – you read the last page, close the cover and think: YES!

Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki is not a book, its more like a manual, an action plan, a reminder to humanity and a guiding light for Web X.0.

In short, its about Win – Win. Which is work, wisdom and love. If you love what you do, your work, your product, if wisdom drives your car, negotiations and thoughts – enchantment is near.

In a network-economy the key for economic and personal success lies in creating win-win-situations and positive feed-backs. Guy Kawasaki´s “Enchantment” offers an inspiring road-map for successful navigation in our evolving digital society. This book is not only a must read, it´s a must share!
Prof. Dr. Stefan Stoll, author of the book “IT-Management”

Set your default to Yes, be a Mensch, create like a god, Just do it the ZEN style and be the pilot of your (business) life! Enchantment is also about telling compelling stories, intelligent interaction with people and understanding that a long journey starts with the first tiny step.

Nature (and Guy Kawasaki) teaches us, that Give and Take has to be in balance to build a healthy ecosystem. Digital natives grow up with facebook, twitter and YouTube but at the end, its a human handshake which is still unique and not downloadable.

Your blog, brain, business, heart and character – content is still king. Guy provides detailed and clear workflows to master push and pull web technologies. If you ever wondered what makes twitter so different to facebook, Enchantment is your friend!

Bring more Kanso into your life, celebrate Seijaku and your life gets Shizen. Read Enchantment and reduce stress. Enchant your employees, your boss and even your wife or husband!

You may think you see the “big picture,” but you don’t see her big picture. This advice alone justifies buying Enchantment. Guy Kawasaki

Update: this review is now officially listed on Guy Kawasaki’s website:
http://www.guykawasaki.com/enchantment/reviews/

Coffee and Friends by Bar Refaeli

Latte, Cappucino and more!This is a guest post by Bar Refaeli. Bar’s Facebook Page.

Today I wanna write about coffee…
I wrote about Starbucks already and how much money I spend on it every day but now I wanna write about the real stuff. Starbucks has good lattes and Frappuccino”™s but there is nothing better than a real cappuccino or a regular coffee made of great coffee beans.
Every day I need my coffee. It’s funny because 2 years ago I hated coffee. I thought it was the most disgusting drink in the world, way to bitter with a nasty smell.
Funny how things can change.
The ideal taste of a coffee should be a perfect balance between sweetness, bitterness and acidity.
A cappuccino is like a cocktail, and the ingredients need to be right. That includes the milk, full fat is the best to make a great cappuccino (but I always ask for skim- or Soy milk).
I ♥ a soy cappuccino or a skinny latte. There are so many types and styles to make a great coffee but no stomach is large enough to taste them all.

The other funny thing about coffee is that it’s also a social event for me. Every time I meet up with a friend we go for a cup of coffee. There is nothing better than to sit down and talk for hours while you”™re enjoying your cup of black gold.

Decisions by Bar Refaeli

Picture of Bar Refaeli, picked for her blog post "Decisions"This is a guest post by Bar Refaeli. Bar’s Facebook Page.

For me, decisions are hard to make but it”™s part of life and you have to make them.

Once you do, you can”™t go back. You don”™t get a do-over because people don”™t forgive easily. And they never forget.

Time doesn’t stop or rewinds for you to “fix everything” but you can believe that everything happens for a reason and that even though we mess up time and time again and make wrong decisions here and there”¦

God can take every single one of them and turn them into the life He created for you to live.

So make clear decisions and live strong!

Happy New Stress 2011

Feux in the South of FranceHappy New Year!

We finally made it into 2011, so welcome to a new year full of stress! If this doesn’t sound so attractive to you – why?

Recently I had a fine conversation about stress, life and work. It seems like you are still an alien these days, if you are not stressed. People ask you: “How’s life?”, if you answer “Oh, it’s okay, you know, it’s just full of stress!”, then you are a normal being. If you answer something like: “Life is great!” and don’t mention any stress, you are suspicious.

For 2011 I personally wish you a very productive and relaxed life- and workflow. Let 2010 go and remember the two monks:

Two monks were on their way back to the monastery. It rained the whole day and the streets were full of puddles of water. A lovely, beautiful young woman tried to cross the street but with all the puddles of water – impossible for her. The older monk walked over to the lady, lifted her up in his arms and carried her to the other side of the road safely and continued his way to the monastery.

Later in the evening, the younger monk came to ask the elder monk: “We cannot touch a woman as monks, right?”
“Right.” answered the elder monk. The face of the young monk reflected his confusion: “But, why did you carry the woman over the street this afternoon?” The old monk smiled and said: “I left her on the other side of the road, you are still carrying her.”

Xmas Stress 2010

Christmas man with treeChristmas is near and again, it looks like the end of the road. Opening the door for the new year could be great, if there wasn’t your crazy monkey mind reminding you of all the gifts you did not buy yet, your missed goals of 2010, the quality of relations these days and suddenly – you are real down. Xmas, sounds like X-Men to me, you have to be a superhero to break through the stress window in December!

So what about the quality of sleep, your dreams, your hopes and fears? If you had a manual for your life, like the book of not knowing, would that change a thing? Can we learn, that happiness cannot be found (at least not with our regular approach…)?

In 2010, did you have enough energy for the good life? For me, forest bathing and the words of my perfect teacher were great tools to refill my battery. Next year, will you make (only) a sequel of the movie of your life or will you breathe to relax?

Stress and Sadness often go hand in hand and the relativity of time might teach you the value of emptiness. Try to enjoy a mini break here and there and remember that your blood type drives your stress type!

Let it sync, take a Power-Nap by ZEN-MEN, write more postcards, have a perfect tea time and stop waiting for a better offer. I have made 2512-Christmas to help you to relax in the Xmas harvest time – hopefully it is useful for you.

For the new year, I wish you all good health, much love and FUN to chop (the) wood! 🙂

The End of the Road

Steg bei StralsundHere’s a tweet from Bar Refaeli:

Don’t torture yourself with memories of the past. Sometimes no matter how you wish things could be just like before, it won’t be anymore.

It looks like our brain is not really afraid of learning new things, it’s more scared to loose old and known patterns. Letting go sometimes simply is a no-go for us. Why?

Maybe you have seen the Pixar movie “Finding Nemo”. Being in the whales mouth, Nemo’s father isn’t really happy to let go and to slide down into the whales stomach. He is expecting the situation to get kinda unhealthy. In the end, what first looked worse to us, suddenly boosts us up directly into our bright future.

If you have difficulties to say goodbye completely to an old pattern, situation or friend in one go, free yourself everyday with another small step. Day by day.

Though you cannot return to the past to make a brand new start,
you can always make a brand new start now
, and a brand new ending. -Unknown

Thanks for the inspiration, Bar!