Online podcast presentations by multiple “Thought-Leaders And Role Models on Extraordinary Achievement – Helping You Succeed Under Pressure”

Free live online presentations May 21st – May 25th.
Recordings available after the Summit.

From the site:

Why do some people perform at their best under pressure and others choke?

What’s the difference between those who not only survive but thrive when faced with incredible challenge – and those who cut their losses and throw in the towel?

It’s not skill, talent or knowledge. And it’s not superior training or genes.

The “X factor” — that unmistakable quality that escapes easy definition — is mental toughness. And you know it when you see it.

… It’s the 140-pound farm kid from Nebraska who’s never seen the ocean before making it through the rigorous Navy SEALs training – while the former Olympic athlete drops out.

… It’s basketball unknown Jeremy Lin coming out of the D-League to lead the Knicks on a winning streak.

… It’s the 13-year-old winner of the National Spelling Bee spending countless hours in solitary practice with numerous spelling study guides and the dictionary to steadily improve her final ranking during five consecutive years of competition.

… And it’s tech entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky persevering in the face of rejection by potential investors to raise a record $7.1 million to fund development of his innovation through crowd-sourcing

Across every arena, the ability to drive relentlessly toward a goal despite failure, adversity and plateaus — to display grit when the going gets rough — that’s mental toughness.

One of the free presentations:

“Choke: Why We Blunder Under Pressure and How The Secrets of the Brain Can Help Get It Right”

• The “curse of expertise” and how the way pressure affects our performance depends on the activity and the type of memory required
• The “Obama effect” and other common stereotypes on performance
• Techniques that cure choking

LIVE: Thursday, May 24th at 9:00 AM PDT | 12:00 pm EDT | 6:00 PM CEST (Free recording available for 24 hours after)

SIAN BEILOCK, Ph.D, is a psychology professor at The University of Chicago and one of the world’s leading experts on the brain science behind “choking under pressure” and the many factors influencing all types of performance: from test-taking to public speaking to your golf swing.

She is the author of Choke: What The Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To.

See the list of presenters and sign up for

The Mental Toughness Summit

This poster is for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. An image of Marilyn Monroe with a birthday cake was selected to help mark the festival’s 65th birthday.

Cannes released a statement about the choice: ”Fifty years after her death, Marilyn is still a major figure in world cinema, an eternal icon, whose grace, mystery and power of seduction remain resolutely contemporary.

“The Festival poster captures Marilyn by surprise in an intimate moment where myth meets reality — a moving tribute to the anniversary of her passing, which coincides with the Festival anniversary.

“She enchants us with this promising gesture: a seductively blown kiss. The Festival is a temple of glamour and Marilyn is its perfect incarnation. Their coming together symbolizes the ideal of simplicity and elegance.”

But don’t believe all quotes attributed to Monroe herself.

“Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

This is a widely circulated quote, supposedly by Monroe, but the webpage Janie’s take on Marilyn Monroe – part of the Immortal Marilyn site - says “There are five quotes assigned to Marilyn that are exceedingly popular… However,  not one of them has a discernible source. There are no records, (whether in interviews, writings, or press conferences) of Marilyn ever saying any of these, and when explored most of them seem highly unlikely.”

The very popular quote above, the writer continues, “once it’s parsed it does not sound like Marilyn at all. ‘Imperfection is beauty’? Marilyn was well known as being an absolute perfectionist, asking for take after take on the movie set until she felt she got her scene just right. She refused to give moviegoers anything less than what she felt was her absolute best.

“She would apply her makeup only to wash it all off and do it over again, taking hours to prepare so that she presented herself to the public as nothing short of absolutely perfect. After a photo shoot she would pore over contact sheets, destroying any images that she didn’t approve of.

“In a 1960 interview, she did say: ‘My one desire is to do my best, the best that I can from the moment the camera starts until it stops. That moment I want to be perfect, as perfect as I can make it.’ Hardly seems that someone so hard wired to perfectionism would say ‘Imperfection is beauty.’.

“As to the second part, “Madness is genius”, this seems even more unlikely. Marilyn’s mother suffered from severe mental illness that traumatized the actress when she was a child. As an adult, Marilyn’s biggest fear was inherited madness like her mother’s. Considering her first hand account with what madness truly was, and her deep rooted fear of it, how likely is it that she would declare it ‘genius’? Not very.”

Perfectionism

Monroe commented about her occasional infamous delays in coming to a set to start shooting: “I believe you shouldn’t do anything in life until you’re ready.”

Director George Cukor said “Marilyn’s delays are neither irresponsible not careless. She doesn’t want to do a scene until she is ready for it and can give it her best.”

[Daytona Beach Morning Journal - Jul 17, 1960.]

This reminds me of another of my favorite actors: Nicole Kidman. In working with her on their film “Portrait of a Lady,” director Jane Campion was quoted: “She can be quite murderously challenging in her perfectionism.

“Take Twenty: ‘Are you sure that’s good enough?’ [she says]. We’re going, wearily ‘Yeah.’”

From my article Perfectionism.

Also see posts on my High Ability site on Perfectionism.

[Photo: "Marilyn Workin' It" - available from Art.com and Amazon.com]

Another source book of quotes is “My Story” by Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht [see link at bottom, in the list of books].

The author of the webpage Janie’s take on Marilyn Monroe [mentioned above] notes, “While there has been heated discourse on just how much Marilyn contributed to it and how much was ghostwriter Ben Hecht, Marilyn did sit for interviews for the book, and did approve the final writing before abandoning the project over printing issues.

“Also giving it some credibility is that the anecdotes presented in My Story are echoed in Marilyn’s own voice in her 1960 interview with Georges Belmont.  These are some quotes found in My Story that we can safely attribute to Marilyn:

“Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”

“I knew I belonged to the Public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anyone or anything else.”

Another quote:

“When you’re famous, you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way.”

Ayn Rand wrote a commentary in the Los Angeles Times, two weeks after Marilyn Monroe’s death on August 5, 1962.

Referring to the “sordid and horrifying childhood of Monroe, Rand wrote: “To survive it and to preserve the kind of spirit she projected on the screen – the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked – was an almost inconceivable psychological achievement that required a heroism of the highest order.”

From my Inner Actor site post Actor’s Privacy and The Dark Side of Fame.

A final quote from “My Story”:

“I knew how third rate I was. I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my God, how I wanted to learn! To change, to improve! I didn’t want anything else. Not men, not money, not love, but the ability to act.”

Her statement of “a lack of talent” is more about her insecurity, rather than an objective evaluation of her abilities.

In Part 1 of this article, I quoted acting teacher Lee Strasberg :

“In her eyes and mine, her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage.”

Here are a couple of my posts on this topic, which impacts so many high ability people:
‘I’m a Fraud’: Gifted and talented with insecurity
Artistic confidence – Insecurity and acting

~~

Books

Marilyn & Me: A Photographer’s Memories, by Lawrence Schiller.

Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters – by Marilyn Monroe, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment.

The photo above is used for the cover of that book.

“The library of Marilyn Monroe contained over 400 books on a variety of subjects, reflecting both her intelligence and her wide-ranging interests.  No surprise to those familiar with Monroe, they were the books of a well-read and inquiring mind.  Works of Literature, Art, Drama, Biography, Poetry, Politics, History, Theology, Philosophy, and Psychology covered the walls in her library.” From website: “Man’s Supreme Inheritance” – A Book from Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Library.

Marilyn Monroe, by Eve Arnold. – “Following a 1952 photo shoot for Esquire magazine, Monroe and Arnold forged a wonderful friendship. Marilyn Monroe chronicles the six photography sessions that took place over the course of their 10-year bond, including a two-month-long session while Monroe was shooting The Misfits.” [Amazon.com summary]

Blonde: A Novel – “Joyce Carol Oates boldly reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jeane Baker — the child, the woman, the fated celebrity and idolized blonde the world came to know as Marilyn Monroe.”

My Story – by Marilyn Monroe, with Ben Hecht.

Video – Marilyn Monroe – The Final Days, Narrated By James Coburn

~~

It doesn’t always work out that way.

In her Unwrapping the Gifted post “Multipotentiality,” K-12 gifted education specialist Tamara Fisher quotes Bryant (a pseudonym), a graduating senior who lists his possible future careers as “applied psychologist, scientific psychologist, college teacher, philosophy, mathematics, architect, engineer.”

He says, “I find it difficult to choose between careers because I fear how large the choice is. Having many options available is pleasant, but to determine what I will do for many years to come is scary.”

Fisher notes, “Multipotentiality is the state of having many exceptional talents, any one or more of which could make for a great career for that person.

“Gifted children often (though of course not always) have multipotentiality. Their advanced intellectual abilities and their intense curiosity make them prime candidates for excelling in multiple areas. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

“On the bright side, they have many realistic options for future careers. But on the downside, some of them will struggle mightily trying to decide which choice to make.”

Fisher adds that having “so many great possible outcomes can be a source of debilitating stress.”

Too many options

In her post Multipotentiality: When High Ability Leads to Too Many Options, Lisa Rivero describes Jason, a college junior, who “is trying to decide what to do after graduation. He is leaning strongly toward graduate school but is unsure of whether he wants to stay in the United States or study abroad. An honors student at a liberal arts university, he has taken a wide variety of courses–from chemistry and calculus to philosophy and political science–and he has gotten As in all of them.

“While he knows he is fortunate to have so many options available, he also sometimes panics that he will make the wrong choice and end up in a job he doesn’t like. If he gets a Ph.D. in political science, will he be tracked into being a college professor? If he pursues a master’s program in economics, will he regret not continuing with political science? And what about all of those classical languages he has studied? Were they just a waste of time?”

She adds, “This frustration can continue past adolescence as adults with multipotentiality may find themselves drifting from job to job, unable to settle in any spot long enough to know if it would satisfy over the long term, feeling that their lives and careers are a hodge-podge of failed attempts.”

Too little challenge?

In the case of Jason, Rivero writes, “Rather than indicating that he is equally good at everything, his college career thus far might instead be an indication that he is not being challenged at a level to show relative passions and aptitudes. Perhaps he would continue to thrive and be engaged in graduate-level math but find post-college classical languages more frustrating and less interesting.

“Alternatively, he might excel in a job that allows him to use his knowledge of Latin and Greek and Sanskrit but find that his interest in political science wanes once it becomes more specialized or practical. In addition, his temperament may determine whether the pursuit of research, teaching, or field work is the most comfortable fit.

RIvero explains, “The authors of the Journal of Counseling Psychology article describe this good fit as ‘optimal adjustment’ – a match between personal abilities, personal preferences, and requirements and rewards from the workplace environment.”

Parts of this article were adapted from Lisa Rivero’s book A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Teens: Living with Intense and Creative Adolescents. [The image is also from the article.]

And that can be true for adults too. Of course many people are able to realize multiple talents.

In my Psych Central post Amber Benson on Writing: Creating is Kind of Intoxicating, I wrote about actor Amber Benson (Tara on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) who also has multiple credits as a novelist and screenwriter, director and producer.

Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was often referred to as a renaissance man.

An obituary noted, “In addition to his photography, film work and poetry, he composed a symphony, sonatas, concertos, film scores, and wrote novels, instructional photography manuals, essays and three memoirs.” (From my post Being “scattered” and proud of it.)

But having advanced potential and exceptional capabilities in many talent areas also means, almost by definition, you are underachieving: you can’t do everything.

One of the pleasures of my life has been pursuing serial interests in often radically different fields: being a research assistant in genetics and later in left/right brain wave research; a visual effects camera operator, and multiple other jobs and pursuits.

But one of the ‘costs’ has been a life unmoored to any career, and many periods of anxiety and self-doubt.

Thankfully this series of sites I have created is not only creatively rewarding, but also of some value to other people.

Related:

Underutilized talents, too many aptitudes

The Too Many Aptitudes Problem, by Hank Pfeffer
“Most people have about four or five strong talents… Most jobs require about four or five. As many as 10% of the population has double that number of aptitudes… There is evidence that people with too many aptitudes (TMAs) are less likely to obtain advanced education and/or succeed in a career than those with an average number of talents.”

Adult underachievement – not living up to our high potential
In a very real sense, everyone may be called “underachieving” regardless of whether they are gifted or not. One short definition is “Performance below potential.”

Are you a scanner personality? Maybe all you need is a good enough job.
Barbara Sher writes about and leads retreats for Scanners – “also known as renaissance men and women, eclectic experts, happy amateurs and delighted dilettantes.”

Book: Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement
- by Kenneth W. Christian, PhD.

Related post: Adult Underachievement: Kenneth Christian, Ph.D. on living up to the “gifted” label – or not

~~~~

Book: Developing Multiple Talents – The personal side of creative expression
- by me, Douglas Eby
“Part book about creativity, part compendium of useful tidbits, quotations and research, and part annotated bibliography, this is a wildly useful and highly entertaining resource.” – Stephanie S. Tolan, fiction writer and consultant on the needs of the gifted.

~~~~

Program / ebook: Renaissance Business – “Specifically for the Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur”
Author Emilie Wapnick notes, “My resume reads like it belongs to ten different people. Music, film, web design, law, business, personal development, writing, dance, sexuality, education– all of these are or have been interests of mine. They come and go (and sometimes come again).

Video: A Disturbing Trend in the Blogosphere…
“Why are all these successful multipotentialite entrepreneurs telling us to “pick one thing” when they themselves USED their diverse background to build their business?!”

Related: The Productivity for Multipotentialites Course – “Ah, isn’t it lovely having so many different interests? Being a multipotentialite is wonderful, except when it comes to actually getting all of those great projects done.”

Productivity for Multipotentialites is “a complete productivity system for multipotentialites. Throughout the classes, you will be introduced to a number of practices and rituals to help you integrate all of your passions into your life, without the stress.”

~~

This is a theme of his upcoming book “The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives that Make You Feel Alive.”

There are already enthusiastic testimonials including these:

“The Charge is an inspiring guide to the one thing we all want: more life in our lives. Brendon Burchard proves that we can harness our emotional drives to feel more alive, and that it’s our internal charge that helps us meet life’s challenges with joy and courage. I love this book.”

—Paulo Coelho, New York Times best-selling author of The Alchemist

“There hasn’t been a game-changing book on personal development in a long time. The wait is over. The Charge confronts our very notions of what drives us as humans, and it brilliantly illuminates the path for how you can feel more alive, productive, and fulfilled. After reading this book you’ll find a new internal charge that’s stronger and more energized than you ever imagined possible.”

—Jack Canfield, New York Times best-selling author of The Success Principles and originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series

“The Charge will change your life. Our brains are hard wired to meet specific human drives, and learning to harness and activate those drives is the secret to success and happiness. This is a smart and beautifully written book, and it will electrify your life. Get this book!”

—Daniel G. Amen, MD, New York Times best-selling author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and Magnificent Mind at Any Age

“Every once in a while you read a book that completely changes how you think about your life, igniting within you a new internal drive to be more, do more, and give more. This is that kind of book.”

—David Bach, New York Times best-selling author of The Automatic Millionaire

“I look for authenticity and proof when I learn from someone, and I can share that Brendon Burchard is one of the most engaged, energetic, and enthusiastic people I’ve ever met. I’ve always wanted to know how he developed such a remarkably strong internal charge. This book reveals his secrets. If you too want to perform at higher levels of joy, engagement, and productivity — buy this book. It’s a must-read for any serious student of success and high performance.”

—Darren Hardy, Publisher SUCCESS magazine, best-selling author of The Compound Effect and Living Your Best Year Ever

Get more free videos by Brendon Burchard, and a free copy [you pay shipping] of his new hardcover book

The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives that Make You Feel Alive

~~~~~

More personal change books and resources:

Tapping Into Ultimate Success: How to Overcome Any Obstacle and Skyrocket Your Results
by Jack Canfield and Pamela Bruner – about Meridian Tapping, sometimes known as Emotional Freedom Techniques.

- Also see article What is EFT? – or visit the site of The Tapping Solution.

~~~~~

This is a book I have just started to read and am finding it to be a helpful tool for self-understanding, especially with its questions to explore life experiences that impact our positive self regard and confidence.  [Douglas Eby, author/editor of this site.]

Code to Joy: The Four-Step Solution to Unlocking Your Natural State of Happiness, by George Pratt, PhD and Peter Lambrou, PhD. http://vsb.li/BwD4k4

“We are meant to be happy. Instinctively, we all know this, somewhere deep inside. We all know what it’s like to feel a burst of delight. Every one of us has at some point in our lives experienced a sense of ecstatic joy, of euphoria at the sheer sensation of being alive. Have you ever wondered why that experience has to be so rare and fleeting? The answer is, It doesn’t.” —From the book.

“All the positive thinking, affirmations, talk therapy, and pharmaceuticals in the world will never be enough to make us as happy as we were designed to be, according to acclaimed clinical psychologists George Pratt, Ph.D., and Peter Lambrou, Ph.D. That’s because those approaches fail to address a third aspect of the human organism, one that bridges the gap between mind and body: the biofield.” [Amazon summary]

One of the issues (which we all face) in this book “Code To Joy” is self-limiting beliefs – which Morty Lefkoe addresses in his multiple articles on my sites, such as Why Self-Help Often Doesn’t Work.

Visit his site ReCreate Your Life to eliminate a self-limiting belief free.

~~

How do you think about being creative versus the business aspects of a creative career, such as marketing?

Do you see them as separate, even mutually exclusive?

Do you think of creative expression as something more “spiritual” or “pure” than sales or business?

Many creators probably don’t think much about the value of marketing to get their ideas and creations out to a wider audience, to have more impact and success.

> Continued: Marketing Yourself And Your Creative Work: Don’t You Deserve a Wider Audience?

~~~

As an entrepreneur, writer or other artist, success may be furthered by – even depend on – connecting with your ‘tribe’ of people who can support and benefit from your work.

Coach Molly Gordon explains,

Marketer and blogger Seth Godin defines a tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”

In the case of your tribe of just-right clients, you are the leader, responsible for giving them care and guidance.

Not in a patronizing way, but to the extent that they depend on you to do good work and to lead them toward things that match their needs.

You and your just-right clients are connected through your work, the way you market that work, and the sales conversations you have.

(Selling is a conversation. But you knew that, right?)

Finally, you and your tribe of just-right clients are connected to an idea.

> Continued in her article: Challenges of connecting with your tribe.

~~~

Mixed-media and glass artist Ginny Ruffner recovered from a near fatal car accident and a coma for five weeks and was confined to a hospital for five months.

A description on her site ginnyruffner.com about the documentary about her: A Not So Still Life says, “Doctors were convinced that she would never walk or talk again, but true to her indomitable spirit, she transformed a potentially tragic accident into a career of even more imaginative creations.

“From pop-up books, to room-sized installation pieces, to public works, Ruffner’s art has blossomed and continues to expand.”

Here is a clip from the movie.

Video: Artist Ginny Ruffner: a not so still life

In her review – ‘A Not So Still Life’: Ginny Ruffner documentary draws you in – Moira Macdonald says it is “an inspiring tale of rehabilitation and recovery. About 20 years ago, Ruffner suffered a severe head injury in a car accident; family members, in the documentary, tearfully recall that she was near death, and that the idea of her walking and talking again seemed an impossible dream.

“‘My mind was like a big empty house that you know you used to live in,’ reminisces Ruffner in the film, in a slurred but quite intelligible voice, of the weeks and months following her accident, as she struggled to remember what and who she was. Characteristically, she transformed her struggle into art: As she slowly learned to walk again with the help of a cane, she created a series of playful animal sculptures with ‘balance’ as their theme.”

In her article Ginny Ruffner’s art blooms at Bellevue Arts Museum and on film, Gayle Clemans notes “Ruffner’s determination and her humorous, philosophical approach to life served her well during her lowest point. She is reluctant to dwell on ‘the big, bad time’ of the early 1990s, when she was in a nearly fatal car accident that left her in a coma for five weeks and then unable to walk or talk.

“Now, almost 20 years after her remarkable recovery, Ruffner is mobile, vocal and very active despite some lingering limitations. She says that the experience ‘has made me more creative. There are some things that I can’t do physically, so I have to find ways to find solutions, to be more creative.’

“Her work has gotten increasingly large and complex. Like many contemporary artists, she hires specialists to help her realize her artistic goals, saying, ‘When I can’t make something, I find people who can. It’s the smart thing to do.’”

Book: The Imagination Cycle, by Ginny Ruffner.

The documentary “A Not So Still Life” and many other inspirational movies for personal growth are available to members of the Spiritual Cinema Circle.

This image of Ruffner at work in her studio is from The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet post: 3 Questions For … Ginny Ruffner.

Beliefs and thinking and our creative lives

The parts of her story I particularly appreciate are Ruffner’s “philosophical approach to life” and her willful rejection of opinions that she would never walk or talk again.

How many people in vulnerable physical or mental conditions get authoritative opinions from medical experts that are incomplete or downright wrong about the person’s capacity to deal with the condition? How many people just accept what “the doctor” says as the most valid truth?

People like Ruffner don’t just accept, they stay actively in charge of their own lives and health as much as possible, demonstrating how much impact thoughts and beliefs can have on our physical being.

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a growing field that looks at how that works. It is “the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body. PNI takes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating psychology, neuroscience, immunology, physiology, pharmacology, molecular biology, psychiatry, behavioral medicine, infectious diseases, endocrinology, and rheumatology.” [Wikipedia]

The placebo effect is not to be dismissed as “only mental” – it is another experience in which beliefs and emotions can have profound impacts on our body and health.

Here are a couple of related books:

The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, by Esther M. Sternberg, MD.

Molecules Of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine, by Candace B. Pert, PhD.

The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton, MD.

Also see articles by Morty Lefkoe. A profile by the Institute of Noetic Sciences notes that he “made a series of discoveries that allowed him to help people make permanent changes in their emotions and behavior” through his Lefkoe Belief Process.

You can try his belief change process free at ReCreate Your Life.

~~~

You started out loving your chosen career – at least in the beginning. But over time, you and your calling, well, you just grew apart.

And just like a relationship that’s gone bad, it can be hard to walk away from a career or a small business into which you’ve put so much time and effort to say nothing of the financial investment.

Take my friend Donna.

After earning her master’s degree in social work some fifteen years ago, she went into private practice as a family therapist.

For the first five or so years, Donna got a lot of satisfaction out of helping others.

For the last ten though, her work has felt more like a burden.

So what keeps her there? …

What I’m talking about is getting in touch with the one thing that should really scare the heck out of you – namely, never getting to experience what your life would be like if you pursued your true gifts and passions.

> Continued: What to Do When You Fall Out of Love With Your Work.

~ ~

“I used to drink several cups of coffee a day, but I kicked the habit a long time ago because I found that caffeine made me too jittery and unfocused.”

That is a quote by Steve Pavlina, author of one of the most popular, and financially successful, sites and blogs dedicated to personal development, StevePavlina.com – and author of the book Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth.

He notes on his site, “When I drink coffee, my activity level soars — I barrel through tasks in rapid succession.

“But at the end of the day, I have to admit I didn’t accomplish anything of major value. Caffeine causes me to overload on busywork like email, web surfing, socializing, and other unproductive tasks.”

Health risks from caffeine

Deanne Repich, founder of the National Institute of Anxiety and Stress, writes in her article The Dangers of Caffeine for Anxiety Sufferers that over forty research studies “have shown that excessive caffeine can be harmful to your health,” and can cause Rapid or irregular heartbeat; Restlessness; Nervousness; Insomnia and other symptoms.

Repich notes these are “fight or flight” reactions, which are “designed to protect you from harm. Excessive amounts of caffeine can trigger the body’s fight or flight response even though no real danger exists.”

Those body reactions can also stimulate or increase anxiety.

Paraliminal CDs

Pavlina writes that he “missed the action boost that caffeine gave me” but has found that Paraliminal CDs by Learning Strategies Corporation “have done a beautiful job of filling this void. After every session I enjoy a lingering aftereffect that usually lasts a couple hours.

“The Paraliminals provide a noticeable concentration boost that allows me to steadily flow through my work while still maintaining my priorities — that delightful state of flow.

“For me this effect translates directly into practical, down-to-earth results. During a period of a few weeks when I used Paraliminals once or twice a day, I completed several key projects that required a lot of focus and concentration, definitely much faster and at a higher level of quality than I would have otherwise.”

The image is for one of several Paraliminal programs: Peak Performance.

Paraliminal programs make use of Holosync audio technology by Centerpointe Research Institute. Visit the site to get a free demo CD.

Also see articles by Bill Harris, the Centerpointe director, about the technology.

~ ~

“You wait until the last minute to buy Christmas presents. You put off seeing the dentist, or getting that thing checked out by the doctor, or filing your taxes….

“Perhaps the stakes are higher than choosing to play Angry Birds instead of doing sit-ups. You might have a deadline for a grant proposal, or a dissertation, or a book. You’ll get around to it. You’ll start tomorrow.”

From post “Procrastination” – on http://youarenotsosmart.com/.

That site and the video are for the book: You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself, by David McRaney. http://amzn.to/pafKAv

Related book: Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement – by Kenneth W. Christian, PhD.
http://amzn.to/qQyPqo

Related post: Adult Underachievement: Kenneth Christian, Ph.D. on living up to the “gifted” label – or not
http://highability.org/72/kenneth-christian-phd-on-living-up-to-the-gifted-label-or-not/

Procrastination may often be self-limiting – but is it possibly, sometimes, a matter of careful consideration? It can be one of those easy to apply labels we use to criticize or self-criticize for not “seizing the moment” as quickly as many “high achievers” do.

~ ~