A coach will sometimes ask his client what he would like to see written on his tombstone after his death.
This question is a fast and powerful way of getting to what really matters in an individual’s life, i.e. life mission, purpose and main contribution.
If you died tomorrow, what would you want people to say about you? Would their comments make you proud of the way you lived and the choices you made? “If you want to know how to live your life, think about what you’d like people to say about you after you die,and live backwards.” (B.Proctor)

Some questions to help you in this process:

1) What do you want to be remembered for?
2) What do you want to create the most during your lifetime?
3) What would you regret the most if you didn’t accomplish it during your lifetime?
4) What roads do you absolutely want to take during your lifetime?
5) What was your favorite job in life?
6) What was your favorite role in life?
7) Who was your favorite mentor and what lesson(s) did you learn?
What were your happiest trips and circumstances in your life?
9) What were your greatest qualities, natural talents, natural gifts?
10) What are you most proud of and what was your best ‘creation’?

You can also check out www.obitkit.com if you want to begin contributing to the your ‘final resumé’.

“It is important to acknowledge a mistake instantly, correct it, and learn from it. That literally turns a failure into a success. Success is on the far side of failure.”

T.J. Watson
1874-1956, Founder of IBM

Mindfulness, which is the systematic training of our awareness, gets us out of limited and negative thinking into a life of passion and purpose.
The simple act of paying attention with intentionality and purpose will create immense positive changes in an individual. So begin to (re)discover the power of awareness, intention, visualization, mindfulness, meditation.

Eastern science of the mind meets Western science of the brain in this book.
Siegel defines the human mind as “an embodied, relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information.”
The emotion is the energy and the information is thought and “it always happens in relationship.” For Siegel, the mind and the brain aren’t the same.
He states: “where our attention goes (the mind), energy flows and the brain grows.” For the author, that explains why mindfulness practices are beneficial for personal transformation…i.e.
…”being aware of what’s happening as it’s happening.” This integration of three elements in the person, mind, brain and relationship–what Siegel calls the “The Triangle of Well-Being” is the key to happiness and health.

as reviewed by Kat Knecht, PCC in Choice, vol 7, num 3.

The crew spent about 3 weeks filming the Last Jesuit in Ethiopia. The crew: cameraman Claude, sound man Jay, director Georges, researcher Michel, production assistants Mary and Samson. Rivard Productions, a Manitoba based company, originated the project. The film was shot in 3 cities: Addis Ababa, the capital (over 3 million inhabitants), Debre Zeit, a town of 100,000 people one hour south of Addis and in Gondar, the beautiful and enchanting historical city north of the capital.

The principal ’star’ of the film, Father Roland Turenne is 86 years old. Age was never an issue during the filming. He was up before sunrise to say mass, then to report to the set before starting time and he would spend a whole day working with the crew as we told the story of the Jesuits’ presence in Ethiopia; their work and highlighted different aspects of Roland’s life and contribution as a missionary.

The supporting ’stars’ in the cast, people who had worked with Fr. Turenne in the past, showed up to participate in the filming and gave their testimony and shared memories and stories. All these wonderful people generously gave of their time and experience, grateful that this important story was finally being told and documented. “The world needs model of courage and perseverance more than ever’, as one participant was heard to say.

As well as contrasting the lives of the ‘Last (Canadian) Jesuit’ with the ‘First (Ethiopian) Jesuit’, Father Groum Tesfaye, the film will also profile the lives of many young people who work alongside Father Turenne. He has affected their lives in a positive way as he continues to work with them in building new homes for the homeless and poorest of the poor.

The film will be broadcast on Société Radio,-Canada in the fall of 2010.

During the actual production work in Ethiopia, I had some time to walk, observe, meditate and to take in all the sensations that this beautiful environment had to offer. I was returning to Ethiopia for the first time in forty years and this was an exciting time for me.

I have been working on learning to ‘live in the moment’ for quite a few years now through meditation and my work with Holosync. This goal hasn’t always been an easy one to accomplish. However, for some reason or other, I was finding it easy to just ‘be in the moment’ even during a busy production schedule.

In one of my favorite books, The Power of Now, author Tolle relates his experience in dissociating the ‘I’ from the ’self’. This emotional experience led him to his exploration and eventually to a total transformational breakthrough. He came to understand that there is a ‘witness’, a conscious identity he calls the ‘I’ which is observing thoughts in himself, the ‘myself’, who is doing the thinking.
His breakthrough was that he was NOT THE CONTENT OF HIS MIND! When he ‘got’ this truth, he stopped identifying with these thoughts (many of them negative) and he began to understand and observe them as separate from his true self. That’s when he found love and serenity where before there was only depression and suffering. From that moment on, he lived with a deep sense of peace.

In this Ethiopian environment, I found myself completely able to drift to a place such as experienced by Tolle. Out of my head. Out of my mind. Just there in the NOW. In effect, there was a lot going on in my mind but more than ever, it was easy for me to be connected to the fact that no matter what was going on in my mind, it is not really who I am. My mind is a tool of my self and a part of my being but not really the ‘real me’. I could transcend my mind because it appears that my ‘true I’ stands behind the mind and is so much greater than the mind itself. This part of me is also what connects me to every thing and everybody else in the universe. I believe that this ‘freedom’ from being controlled by the mind contributed to my total involvement and joy during this production experience.

“All fear comes from living in the past or the future, which are both in our minds–in reality,it is always NOW! As long as we stay with the NOW, we have peace. Knowing this, we can always choose peace at any moment.”

Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now

“Celebrity culture thrives on two qualities. One is a false intimacy–the belief that a famous person is known to us in the way our friends, family and neighbors might be. The other is blankness–the celebrity is a screen onto which we can project whatever feelings, thoughts or desires we choose at any given time.”

Fintan O’Toole (as reported in the Mtl Gazette, Feb. 23/10)

I recently returned from Ethiopia and nearly 3 weeks of working on The Last Jesuit, a documentary on missionary Roland Turenne who has lived in
Ethiopia since 1951. He will turn 86 tomorrow (St-Valentine’s Day). Roland really is the last of a generation of men who left family and country to go work in remote parts of the world ‘for the greater glory of God’. While in Addis Ababa, the capital, the crew stayed with the Jesuits’ residence near the University. We were welcomed with open arms. Their residence was built in 1968 by the Canadian Jesuits (project leader was Father Pierre Gouin, s.j.). The present superior is Groum Tesfaye, the ‘first’ Ethiopian Jesuit. The film will successfully contrast Fathers Turenne and Groum…two generations of Jesuit, two friends and colleagues in Christ. It had always been planned that one day Ethiopian and other African Jesuits would replace the foreign missionaries. And this will come to pass.
A Rivard Productions documentary for SRC, the crew (cameraman Claude, sound man Jay, director Georges and researcher/coordinator Michel) arrived January 14th, 2010 after a grueling 25 hours trip from Montreal. 12 cases of filming equipment, luggage, etc…We are met at the airport by Fr. Turenne, Fr. Groum and Fr. Ken, a young Kenyan Jesuit teaching high school in Addis as part of this training. What a beautiful welcome. After the mandatory trip to the Duty Free (as suggested by Fr. Turenne) to stock up on scotch and wine, we head into Addis and the residence for a late night supper of pizza and wine. We were made to feel very welcome and at home.
more to come…

“Celebrate whatever arises in consciousness without clinging to anything.”

Hale Dwoskin

• De plus en plus de gens deviennent travailleurs autonomes durant une période d’incertitude économique.
• On devient son propre patron. Ce n’est pas seulement une question d’argent. C’est la liberté. On peut organiser son horaire comme on le veut et on n’a pas à se rapporter à un patron.
• Inconvénients : On devient responsable de ses outils de production et de ses assurances. En plus d’exercer un métier, on devient administrateur, vendeur et collecteur.
• Pressés de toucher des revenus, bien des travailleurs autonomes laissent tomber des étapes importantes avant de se lancer. Cela peut conduire à des erreurs qui coûtent cher.
• Un bon travailleur autonome qui veut travailler 40 heures semaine doit être capable de produire en 22 heures ce qu’un salarié fait en une semaine, car le reste du temps, il faut qu’il administre son entreprise.
• Définition du travailleur autonome : -propriétaire de ses moyens de production et de contrôler son horaire. Il détermine l’endroit ou le travail est accomplie et prend les risques financiers inhérents à son travail. Il y a aussi les risques reliés à la maladie ou à un accident. Il faut se procurer des assurances invalidité et assurance santé. Il doit aussi prévoir pour sa retraite. Il contribue aussi aux rentes du Québec. Il a l’avantage de pouvoir déduire de ses revenus un certain nombre de dépenses dont le matériel de bureau, le téléphone, une partie de son loyer, une part des frais d’automobile ainsi que les frais de publicité et de formation.
• Est-ce qu’il faut s’incorporer en société? Ça ne vaut pas la peine si les revenus sont inférieurs à $ 100,000.
• Si quelqu’un maîtrise bien son métier, celui lui prendra de 6 mois à un an avant d’atteindre son rythme de croisière. Il faut donc prévoir un coussin financier pour passer à travers.
• Le plus grand défi est de trouver un équilibre entre la persévérance et l’adaptabilité. Il faut être à la fois tenace et capable de s’adapter si on constate que ce que l’on veut faire n’est pas possible. Il se peut qu’on découvre qu’on serait meilleur dans autre chose. Il est important de bien se connaître, car il faut constamment se remettre en question.
Source: Guide du Travailleur Autonome de Jean-Benoit Nadeau (Québec-Amérique