In this episode, Rick and Keith share how to bring mindfulness to every problem in life. When you do, you accept the situation just as it is and take intelligent action, if there’s any action to be taken. The situations go from being sources of suffering to openings for presence and deeper consciousness.

Keith’s Mentions:
Lanny Bassham
It doesn’t matter if you win or lose… until you lose. That is how Olympic Rifle Shooting Champion Lanny Bassham begins his book, With Winning in Mind, the most authoritative book available on mental training for sports and competitive business environments. The book tells the tale of a competitor who understands the feeling of losing. Bassham lost the Gold Medal and took the Silver instead after the pressure of the competition went to his head during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In With Winning in Mind, Bassham paints a picture for readers of just why this loss was so devastating for him. Losing mattered and it hurt! But Bassham explains that he wasn t about to walk away defeated and he sets off on a journey to find out everything he can about how the mind is involved in sport and performance. What he discovered will amaze you! His discovery lead to the creation of Mental Management Systems and brought Bassham to the Olympic victory stand just 4 years later in 1976 with his Olympic Gold Medal win in Montreal.

Olympians, coaches, parents, performers, and business professionals find success in the winner s circle. Now the 3rd Edition of With Winning in Mind includes new chapters, new stories and examples, and 25 percent more mind enhancing content as the last edition of the book. “Over the years there have been times where I have thought to myself, gosh, I wish I had put that in With Winning in Mind. Well now I have,” says Bassham.

Brian Johnson
The best Big Ideas from 500 of the greatest personal-growth books at your fingertips (and eyes and ears). Beautiful to look at and powerful to use, these mini-CliffsNotes of personal growth will inspire and empower you to live your deepest truths—giving you more wisdom in less time.

Brian Johnson’s Optimize.me makes sense and is perfect for on-the-go folks who need an occasional reminding that they have the ability to solve their own problems, and can do so effortlessly starting with being mindful.
Brian is a serial-entrepreneur, deep-thinker, relentless-reader and modern-day philosopher. Try his book summaries on Faster To Master, or, you may love his “Philosopher’s Notes“. Optimal Living 101 is his key course and along with his advanced, Master Classes. They’re a synthesis of all he’s read and discovered. They’re a mishmash of principles and methods to live by.

Rick’s Mentions:

Buddhism teaches that the cause of all of our suffering comes from ego—wanting things to be our way.  Understanding egolessness or selflessness is the key to healing our personal wounds and relationships. We tend to cling to our belief in a solid “I” out of a fear of groundlessness. This is a futile and false attempt to create some security. Ha!  There is no security in life, sorry. Clinging to this made up illusion of self, we close down  on who we really are and the options life offers. The experience of selflessness opens us up from the claustrophobia of self-centeredness into the spaciousness of possibility and connection.

The ego loves black and white.  The ego loves to judge and put others down because it elevates our ego. To see the world in black and white will bring us down. This outlook divides the world into right versus wrong, good versus evil, yes versus no. We like this kind of thinking because it is easy, we are lazy and does not require analysis. If (whatever) falls in the black category it is bad, end of inquiry.  Black and white thinking is the ultimate sign of small mindedness. It does not serve us because it ignores the fundamental truth that the world is nuanced and predominantly gray. And changing all the time.

“Wabi Sabi.” Japanese concept that escapes accurate and direct translation but roughly means the appreciation for things that are impermanent, incomplete, disheveled. Beauty is in things imperfect.  There is vulnerability and a kind of honesty in beat up or ignored things that is usually overlooked, in favor of the sleek, expensive, new, and seemingly perfect. It is a sensibility that encourages humility, respect for the stages of life and the natural world.