In 1987, Chip Conley started his own hospitality company, Joie de Vivre (JDV), and, as CEO for two dozen years, grew it into the second largest boutique hotel company in the United States. At the age of 26 with no industry experience, Chip transformed a seedy 1950s “no-tell motel” into the world-renowned Phoenix Hotel, a legendary rock ‘n roll destination catering to the likes of David Bowie, Linda Ronstadt and Nirvana. JDV expanded into a collection of over 35 award-winning hotels, restaurants and spas, with more than 3,000 employees – each property with its own unique theme that inspires guests to experience an “identity refreshment” during their stay. Chip and his company’s time-tested techniques and transformational leadership practices have been featured in The New York Times, TIME, USA Today, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal.

As the preeminent thought leader at the intersection of psychology and business, and a successful practitioner of emotional intelligence at work, Chip shared his unique rescription for success in PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow. Based on noted psychologist Abraham Maslow’s iconic Hierarchy of Needs theory,PEAK illustrates how business’s three key stakeholders – employees, customers and investors – are ultimately motivated by peak experiences that address their higher, unspoken needs. In his latest book, The New York Times bestseller, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success, Chip takes readers from emotional intelligence to emotional fluency – using math as a way to better understand and manage our emotions. Chip’s earlier works include The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business, and Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World.

After 24 years as JDV’s CEO, Chip is now a Strategic Advisor to the company he founded, and a successful author and international speaker for organizations from TED to PIXAR to GOOGLE. He has been honored with the highest accolade in the American hospitality industry, the coveted ISHC Pioneer award, and the San Francisco Business Times named him the Most Innovative CEO – and JDV the “2nd Best Place to Work” – in the entire Bay Area.

A committed philanthropist, he served on the board of Glide Memorial Church for nearly a decade and currently serves on the Burning Man Project, Esalen Institute, and Youth Speaks boards. He created the San Francisco Hotel Hero Awards and founded the city’s Annual Celebrity Pool Toss event, which has raised millions for inner-city youth programs that now thrive in the troubled neighborhood where he launched his first hotel. Chip received his BA and MBA from Stanford University, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Psychology from Saybrook University, where he is the 2012 Scholar-Practitioner in residence.

I recently attended a conference in San Diego where author Chip Conley was one of the keynote speakers.  I was throughly taken by Chip’s personal story, and his new book entitled ” Emotional Equations-Simple Truths for Creating Happiness and Success .

I have been interviewing authors for over 5 years and have been immersed in the personal growth field for over 30 years.  Chip Conley’s new book  ”Emotional Equations” is the real deal.  It is easy to understand, and I love how Chip has taken what sometimes can be difficult ideas to convey, and created equations out of them.  His formulas help the reader  take universal truths and turn it into a visual lexicon for mastering your life challenges.

I dont’ know how many of my listeners have read the classic book by Victor Frankl entitled ” Man’s Search for Meaning“.  If you are not familiar with the story it is about Frankl’s agony in the Nazi concentration camp.  The essence of this book is that the Nazi’s were attempting to break down the prisoners mentally, and  in Frankl’s words“everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  Chip has distilled the essence of “Man’s Search for Meaning” book into this wonderful equation: Dispair=Suffering-Meaning.  How simple!!

Some of Chips’ other equations are: Disappointment = Expectations-Reality or Joy=Love-Fear.  No matter what emotion, Chip has a formula.

Chip states that their are parallels between math and life.  He states that when he was at is lowest point in his life that the “Meaning Equation” (above)  gave him the knowledge and conviction that if he placed his attention more on the meaning of his disparate collection of painful events, as apposed to the suffering, that he would likely have less dispair in his life.  He states that during his more troubled weeks, the equation felt as if it was his instructions manual for deactivating his emotional explosives.

If you are currently dealing with pain or suffering in your life, then I would highly recommend that you read Chips’ new book “Emotional Equations“.  I personally love how he has distilled our emotions into equations,almost as  if the equations diffuse our personal connection to the painful emotions, and  allow us to see the situation so much more clearly.

In all my years of working in the personal growth, mastery and human potential movement I have never come across a book like “Emotional Equations”.  It is a must read for anyone seeing to better understand their emotions!

If you would like more information about Chip Conley then just click here to be directed to his website.  You can also click here to be directed to his Facebook page.  Enjoy this wonderful interview with a great inspirational author Chip Conley.

Dr. Goldstein, who comes from a family of psychologists, advocates that mental health comes from an approach that looks at all aspects of the self – physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual.

As a licensed Psychologist, he teaches mindfulness-based programs in his own practice and through InsightLA. He has spoken at the UCLA Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Conference headlining Thich Nhat Hanh, Daniel Siegel, and Jack Kornfield, The NICABM Conference, Psychotherapy Networker, FACES Conferences, UCLA Semel Institute and Anxiety Disorder Clinic, the University of Washington with Dr. Alan Marlatt, and often hosts daylong courses atUCLA Extension. He is author of the popular Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog on Psychcentral.com and writes for the Huffington Post, Mindful.org and Mentalhelp.net. He has designed the 12-week Mindfulness at Work™ program that is currently being conducted in many mulinational corporations and has been published in The Journal of Clinical Psychologyand quoted in the New York Daily News, Reuters, NPR, UCLA Today, Examiner.com,Beliefnet.com, Body & Soul, The Week Magazine, among others.

In addition to his books, he has created popular CDs and MP3 albums including Mindful Solutions for Stress, Anxiety and Depression, Mindful Solutions for Addiction and Relapse Prevention, Mindful Solutions for Success and Stress Reduction at Work, and Mindful Solutions for Adults with ADD/ADHD.

This is my second interview with author Elisha Goldstein, about his new book entitled ” The Now Effect“.  Is a wonderful book for anyone wanting to calm their anxious mind and take control of the incessant stress that so many of us are under.

If you are like me the anxious mind is something that is always there, I just need to learn better techniques to calm it and gain more focus.   When you learn the techniques taught by Elisha, you will certainly be able to approach your difficulties with more grace and less stress.

Elisha states that “The Now Effect” will literally change the way you think before you think and break free from subconscious beliefs and old programming that don’t serve you.   You will have more choice points in your life, bringing back a felling of aliveness and opening the doors to greater potential, opportunities and possibilities.  You will also learn how to increase your emotional intelligence and be able to relax more effectively in moment of distress.

” The Now Effect” loaded with wonderful stories as well as at the end of each chapter Elisha provides what he refers to as “Now Moments”.  These are located at the end of each chapter and designed to have you reflect or do an exercise that will reduce your stress and increase your awareness.

One of the important lessons that Elisha teaches is about something called the “Triangle of Awareness”.  Elisha states that in in given moment, no matter what you’re doing three basic things are happening to make up your immediate experience: thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. He states that in the past we thought that these elements we independent from one another, but nothing could be further from the truth.  A thought can trigger and emotion and the emotion can trigger a physical sensations.  The key is awareness, understanding what we are doing to ourselves to create this chain reaction.  If you can become more aware of what the subconscious mind does while on auto pilot, then these thoughts, feelings, emotions and physical sensations are easier to control.

Elisha new book is filled with wonderful examples, stories and exercises that guide the reader to a heighten level of awareness.  He has also included QR barcodes in the book which take the reader to short video pieces to help you understand the practice the techniques that he is teaching.  This is a wonderful book for anyone who is looking to take control of the stress, anxiety and lead a more peaceful lifestyle.

If you would like more information on Elisha Goldstein please click here to be directed to his website, ore click here to be directed to the book website.

Enjoy this wonderful podcast and interview with Elisha Goldstein the author of ” The Now Effect”.

I love books like the one that author Dov Seidman wrote entitled ” HOW, Why How We Do Anything Means Everything“.  This book not only gets you thinking about the compelling and exciting times we are living in, but provides the reader an opportunity to reflect on this extremely important issue–just “HOW” we are doing everything we do mean everything.

Author Dov Seidman argues that we need a new approach to how we live our lives and pursue our endeavors.  Dov states that we are in a new “Era of Behavior” both as individuals and organizations. He states that as our world has become increasingly hyper-connected and hyper-transparent, we need to rethink our behavior in it.  Since everyone can instantly see not only what we do but how we do it, the value of principled behavior has been raised from a nicety to a necessity.  Our connectedness has rendered us interdependent, even morally so , and as such we can not longer win at the expense of others but instead rise or fall together.  We are more tightly bound to each other as never before and therefore we are judged by who is better at forging deep connections with other through shared values and shared responsibilities.

Throughout Dov’s book he cites examples and studies of just how important this new behavior has become.  Everything from the Middle East where popular uprising this year have been freeing people from despotic governments, to the donut vendor who boosted his sales by trusting customers to make their own change.  Through surprising anecdotes like these, cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, and revealing interviews with a divers group of business leaders, experts, and everyday people on the front lines, HOW will inspire readers to reconsider how we think, how we behave, how we lead, and how we govern ourselves to uncover the values-driven “hows” that we need to adapt to our new “Era of Behavior.”

If you are interested in reading a book that will get you thinking about your own self-governance, and how your self-governance can mean so much to the way to do business to how you treat your family and lead your life then you will want to read ” HOW, Why How We Do Anything Means Everything.”

If you are interested in learning more about author Dov Seidman and his organization LRN please click here to be directed to his website.  If you would like to find out more about the book please click here to be directed to an amazingly well done book website.   They also have Facebook page for the book, and you can access it by clicking here.

Enjoy this wonderful interview with author Dov Seidman.

Therese endures every moment of helping people who wish to have this change. She takes every teaching she does in her soul to help people understand what they are doing wrong and walks them to doing what is right with an intense describes of reasons why. Therese also helps the people with an in depth look and what lies behind the wrong actions, so they can have a better understanding of the wrong that they did not realize before. Her book series was written in the inspirational words of wisdom from heaven to help people learn in a better form how to think, act, love and start changing their lives to love and forgive themselves of their past and present actions. In doing this for them it helps them change those actions to a form of beauty that they did not understand.

Therese’s mission is to help everyone and reach everyone she can, not only to help others love themselves and others right but to help change this world. She loves every minute of her life because of her gift and what she can bring to others. To her the reward is bringing others comfort within their souls and taking away hurt that they have been carrying around for years, so they may move on to a happier life. Therese was presented the Congressman’s Medal of Merit by Congressmen Steven Schiff for helping the community of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Having survived and healed from Melanoma Cancer, Therese continues on her mission of healing the world through her knowledge, love, visions, writings and her gift of guidance to help change millions of people lives.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author  and clairvoyant Therese Benedict.  Her new book entitled “Days Go By, Not Love” has been written as she states from the words of God, and it is now time for his words to reach all of his children; to bring this world together.

Theresa herself as a  clairvoyant has helped many of her clients make connections with the angels around them who are there guiding and protecting them as they move through their daily lives.  Therese states that when you give your life to God knowing your angels will help you complete your change in life—you will be successful in your hearts desires. You will learn how they speak to you, and how to make it through this life of positive change.  It is important to trust what you are doing. To know you are making the right choices to better who you are as a person.

Therese says that anyone can learn how to speak with and intuit the angels.  You need to pay attention to your spiritual intuition as well as your surroundings, and the messages that the angels are relaying to you will become clear. Practice everything you learn and use it with your heart.  Give yourself to the angles; you will see miracles when this is in place.  Trust God, believe in the angels and believe in yourself.

I know at times we all can get depressed and down because things don’t seem to be going our way.  It is times like this is when we need to reach within and believe in a higher power, God, angels whatever provides you with the inspiration to uplift your spirit and touch your soul.  It is our soul that longs to make the deep inner connection with God, and if we learn to nurture our soul we certainly will look at the difficult and challenging times with a new perspective, and sometimes that’s all it takes.

If you are in need of an uplift and some inspiration then you ought to read “Days Go By, Not Love”. Therese new book has been designed to provide the reader to dig deep,  reflect and write through journaling pages as the end of each chapter .  I don’t know about you,  but journaling is very cathartic for me–and Therese’s book provides ample opportunity to read, reflect and write.

If you want more information about Therese  Benedict and her new book please click here to be directed to her website, or click here directed to her Facebook page.

Enjoy this great interview with a wonderfully authentic author–Therese Benedict.

Kotler is also the co-founder and director of research at the Flow Genome Project, an international organization devoted to putting flow state research on a hard science footing, and the co-founder of the New Mexico-based Rancho de Chihuahua dog sanctuary.

He has a BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and an MA from the John Hopkins University in Creative Writing.

If you haven’t been paying much attention, “Abundance-The Future is Better Than You Think” has been on the NY Times best seller list for weeks.

In my interview with co-author Steven Kotler we explore the many topics covered in the book that are wonderfully articulated to guide the reader in understanding that we are living in unprecedented times.  Yes–we have our share to world problems, but on the flip side of the coin technology and science are moving at breakneck speeds and are solving many of these problems–and guess what?  Our standard of living is better than ever.

Steven points out that the focus of the book is to help change people mindsets. As fundamental as this sounds, it is a core problem in our society today.  Our brains are designed to be pessimistic  when it comes to getting our heads around global problems we are challenged, but we do much better and are more optimistic when it comes to issues that are in our reach.

Fueling this pessimism is our news media, as Steven states ” if it bleeds it leads” referring to how our media loves to report the doom and gloom and infrequently reports what is good about the world. Abundance certainly takes the bold contrarian and optimistic viewpoint for today’s cynical times, but the authors give proof that we are not living in such dire times.

Steven cites that poverty has decreased more in the last 50 years than in the previous 500. At a global level, the gap between wealthy nations and poorer nations continue to close.  Despite plenty of hardship we are living longer, wealthier, healthier lives.

The authors state that three (3) current forces are leading our world toward abundance.  1) A Do-It-Yourself revolution of backyard thinkers, which now extends far beyond homebrew computers and custom cars it is outdoing governments with high-impact innovationsin neuroscience, biology, genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. 2) A new source of techno-philanthropists who are dedicating their fortunes to solving grand, abundance-related challenges. 3) The poorest of the poor, the so-called “bottom-billion” have been plugged into the global economy by the internet, micro-fiance, and wireless communications.   By the end of 2013 , over 70 percent of the world’s population will have access to low-cost communications.

This perfect convergence of technology, science and communications is forging an opportunity for  abundance and equanimity worldwide.  I certainly agree with the authors viewpoint, and have seen massive changes “for the good” in our society.  If you want to get the facts, and learn more about what amazing technological and scientific advancement will change our world, then you need to read and study “Abundance“.  You will be glad that you did.

If you want more information the author have an amazing website, and you can click here to be directed to it.  You can also visit the Facebook page by clicking here, or watch some great YouTube videos about the book.  I hope you enjoy this great interview with a “thought leader” in the field of science, technology and spirituality–Steven Kotler.