Diana's Blog: Quirky Words and Book Reviews

December 14, 2008
A Sunday snow, stunning in its quiet beauty.
I stay indoors -- on deadline -- tapping on the keys as I create the podcast for the MBA school ESADE in Barcelona. I feel as if I am in a cave, it is so still.
Work is play. I am immersed in the words spoken by future CEO's and professors, by the music of Catalan folkdancers, and the compressed excitement over what the future will offer.
The ESADE program emphasizes entrepreneurship, and I am so tempted! A garden of post-it notes populates my desk -- ideas scribbled on all of them, bright yellow, cobalt blue, fuchsia.
From my quote book, Condoleezza Rice, quoted in 2000. The growth of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world is an asset in the promotion of human rights and individual liberty, and it should be understood and used as such.
THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO GREAT QUOTES FOR ALL OCCASIONS contains a line from Aristotle, too:
The things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.
That's one of the cool things I learned at ESADE -- that there is some lecturing, yes, but mostly the students indulge their time in projects on teams. And, it's fun. This must have its roots in ancient wisdom as well.
Plato said No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.
It's time to do the voiceover for the podcast, and my mind is full of new knowledge -- about branding and marketing and world economics and corporate strategy.
It's as exhilarating as that new snow.

Labels: Aristotle, Condoleezza Rice, Elaine Bernstein Partnow, ESADE, MBA Podcaster, Plato, play, THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO GREAT QUOTES FOR ALL OCCASIONS, work

November 22, 2008
It has been November 22nd for about thirty-two hours for me -- left my Barcelona hotel around eight this morning, and just got home in Portland about 9pm. The bath awaits. But first!
All that time flying afforded me the opportunity to read a scientifically stunning book about the Law of Attraction. It is called THE ANSWER -- subtitle is Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life. It's by John Assaraf and Murray Smith.
The duo begins with Copernicus and Galileo and Einstein, and rises beautifully until we come to the scientific conclusion that thoughts are indeed what constitutes reality. It is so beautifully spelled out in THE ANSWER, that anyone who has felt the Law of Attraction or THE SECRET is too airy-fairy will be able to perceive the scientific support for what appears to be magic. Make our dreams come true? Yeah, you bet! One of the key pieces is the part in your brain known as the Reticular Activating System. When you decide very specifically what you want, your unconscious brain will sort information at an unbelievably fast rate and you suddenly think of the right person to call, or the perfect situation presents itself and you recognize it!
Assaraf and Smith give you a working formula to rewire your mind -- backing up for a moment, they quote scientists who say "what fires together gets wired together." Often that relates to trauma, which takes undoing. And that can be done! You meditate, visualize and use affirmations to basically rewire the way you think. If you have a but after every dream, it'll never work. It takes thirty days to change neural reconditioning.
They talk about vision boards -- which I totally love. Here's a quick example -- on my vision board, which I assembled New Year's Eve and New Year's Day -- I pasted a picture of a passport because I hadn't traveled for years, and I love traveling. And, out of the blue comes this all-expense paid trip to Barcelona to interview MBA students at ESADE and sit in on Marketing, Branding, Economic and Spanish classes -- to create a podcast. Totally fabulous! Next time, I'll build in plenty of extra time to enjoy these places!
See your dreams as if they are true, reroute that wiring if you must, and live an exciting life. There are dozens of real-life examples in THE ANSWER, and thankfully, it is very specific, to the point of including how to create a successful business.
You will walk away from this book a winner.
And now the warm bath awaits...wherein I will dream up my next adventure!

Labels: Barcelona, book review, brain, dreams, ESADE, John Assaraf, Murray Smith, THE ANSWER, The Secret, transcending the trauma, vision board