Call to action… start improving your self-worth today.

Reprint with permission from CEO of the Women’s Advancement Compat Deborah Goldstein
source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1304495-a-call-to-action-start-improving-your-self-worth-today/

Have you noticed how our brains can prompt us to either promote or deny our own self-value?

Jenny Craig, a transformational coach and Women’s Advancement Compact (WAC) specialist, emphasizes in her recent WAC webinar the importance of positive thinking when attempting to advance our careers, maintain our health, and live richer lives. I came away personally inspired by a specific series of passages wherein she demonstrated the practicality of changing our brains, literally, in order to shed layers of negativity and reveal the powerful leaders within us.

Shape Your Own Brain
“I’m too fat, and thus, people don’t like me, are not attracted to me, or think I’m lazy.” This is an example, familiar perhaps, of how one negative thought leads endlessly to other negative self-projections. With a little deliberate “neuroplasticity,” something as simple as changing the statement “I’m too fat” to “I am sexy” can compel you to uncover how your negative emotions have been manifesting in other areas of life, including career decisions, and may be holding you back from leadership.

From this perspective, Craig strongly advocates for taking the steps necessary to re-carve the brain’s channels that may have been sabotaging your capacity to take life and career to their next levels. Her recommended approach is something we can all wrap our minds around and involves a methodology that uses reinforcement and evidence to back up your new outlook.

Our brains’ neuro-pathways comprise what can be thought of as a neurological “superhighway.”

Don’t Miss Your Exit
Our brains’ neural pathways comprise what can be thought of as a neurological superhighway. When you decide to wave the fingers on your left hand, neurotransmitters travel this highway and take the necessary “exits” in order to prompt the physical action to occur.

Craig pointed out that, in evolved brains like ours, the subconscious serves as an autopilot, causing necessary functions to occur without the distraction of active decision making. For instance, we don’t have to create a new pathway each time we need to get toothpaste onto a toothbrush or find our way to our favorite grocery store.

Acknowledging this process, your new task becomes asking yourself which autopilot habits you possess that can make you a successful leader and all-around happier person. Similarly, which habits do you possess that may be sabotaging your success, health, and happiness?

Peeling Away the Anger
Now that you’ve hopefully engaged in a little self-examination, it’s time to consider the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. This property of the brain allows us to intentionally rewire our thoughts, notions, and outlooks to be more positive in nature.

An insider’s tip from Craig’s therapist days confirms why this is crucial. She indicated that when you start changing negative thoughts into positive ones, it may expose the layers of anger, resentment, anxiety, unforgivingness, and other negative emotions that you’ve been stockpiling.

As you start to release your negative past, “quantum leaps” in your self-value can occur. This is neuroplasticity in action and is the most organic way we can transform ourselves into the people we aspire to be.

Taking the process a step further, you can secure the newly emerged “you” into place by attaching a specific emotion to your positive thoughts. For instance, in the transformation from “I am fat” to “I am sexy,” supplement your new outlook with “… therefore, I am lovable,” incentivizing the affirmation.

And finally, to help the rewiring take hold, it is beneficial to “walk your talk” every day. Take responsibility for repeating and interweaving the positive thoughts. The more you practice being the new person that you’ve become, the more natural you’ll feel in your position.

Pair your grateful thoughts with a specific action or “positive anchor,” like twisting the ring on your finger.

Want your own Grateful Ring? Go to http://www.gratefulring.com

Dropping Anchor
The final step in reinforcing your newfound positivity is sustaining gratitude. Nothing is found to be more effective in chemically healing your mind and body than gratitude, and it’s yours for the taking.

It’s responsible for lowering your blood pressure, strengthening your immune system, and decreasing your anxiety. Intentionally spending time in a state of gratitude, particularly at the start of a day, is one of the best moves you can make to promote your own good health.

Craig recommends taking it a step further by pairing your grateful thoughts with a specific action or “positive anchor,” like twisting the ring on your finger. This will allow the grateful mindset to be activated whenever you repeat the action. In time, this strengthens the brain’s rewiring and perpetuates your feeling of gratitude, keeping you healthier in the process.

Change Starts Now
Knowing that happiness, success, and leadership are all within your brain’s reach, I am calling on everyone who suffers from self-imposed anxiety, negativity, and deprecation to immediately engage in the process of positive thinking, with the help of Craig’s approach. Your life, career, and impact upon future leaders are too important to remain unfulfilled any longer. To learn more about neuroplasticity, gratefulness rings, and Craig’s executive coaching services, visit her website http://www.leadershipdeepdive.com or http://www.liveyourpower.com or http://www.gratefulring.com

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The necessary boundaries of a limitless life – three leadership lessons from a fence

Boundaries are needed for limitless growth

As a leader, I create time each morning for the serenity, peace and powerful insights of taking a gratitude walk. I walk without expectation and each morning discover insights to expanding my inner wealth. When I walk by something that delights me, I utilize my spin my grateful ring (a brain training tool creating a positive trigger). Yesterday, I found myself spinning my grateful ring for a fence. This particular fence was built to ensure young children can play safely on their elementary school yard playground. The fence created a caring and respectful boundary to the sacred space where hearts openly play, curiosity delights in new discoveries and the seeds are planted for lifelong friendships. My heart smiled as I noticed the fence was built to honor the deep roots and years of growth of a beautiful tree growing on the playground.

Then I realized, there are great leadership leassons from this fence and tree for my life and my clients.
1) Often times, the fences that were built for us when we were saplings don’t fit us anymore.
The fences that were originally built to keep us safe to grow are now constraining the process of growth. If we are to grow beyond our limits, we have to be open to tearing down the old fences and allow ourselves/company to naturally grow to its next level of success.

2) Fences are needed. When I tore down my fences in my own life/business, I did not build another fence right away because I wanted to be open to limitless growth. The problem being that with no fence, all kinds of unwanted critters came in. I found myself battling more than my share of unwanted snakes, rats, and parasites ravaging my space and limiting my growth. These critters gave me the gift of understanding that there are necessary boundaries for a limitless life. The critters forced me to learn discernment and create mechanisms to decide who was welcome into my space and who needed to remain outside the fence.

3) There is constant reconstruction. Leaders and companies are growing all the time. As a company takes off from a start up to a multi-million dollar company, fences will need to be rebuilt, expanded and mended. When I am coaching leaders, they often tell me that they have already dealt with a certain issue or vermin in the past. As we grow, expand and succeed, critters will still try and get into your space. Often times, the more successful you become, the more crafty the critters become as your space has become all the more enticing.

~ Take some time to examine your fence. Is it time to tear down parts that do not allow your growth? Does it need some mending? Do you need to weed out the self-sabotaging weeds in your space? As you take some time to do some weeding and mending, you will create a healthy space for those dreams to crack open from the seed, sprout new growth and blossom in ways more beautiful than expected.

Need some help with mending and weeding? Contact emotional intelligence expert Jenny R Craig, LCSW, BCD at jcraig@liveyourpower.com

Want to train your brain with a grateful ring? Join the grateful ring movement at http://www.gratefulring.com

Jenny R. Craig, LCSW, BCD is a transformation specialist, utilizing her expertise in assisting leaders in creating authentic, profound, long-lasting impact in their organizations and personal lives. She is a confidential advisor and sounding board to top senior and emerging executives and leaders, CEOs, nonprofit leaders, diplomats, entrepreneurs, artists and visionaries, giving tools to unleash their potential and take quantum leaps to success.  A dynamic and riveting speaker, Jenny has taught her life-changing training all over the world. She is a powerful influence in her field in psychology, having trained psychologists and coaches in 48 states on her techniques, has spoken at the United Nations, published three books and been part of two best sellers. As an innovator in brain-training tools, Jenny is the creator of the “ I am grateful for™” ring, numerous train-the-trainer programs and a six-week self-guided curriculum on emotional intelligence. Jenny is known for her unique ability to help leaders look within and move past self sabotage with practical tools leading people to quantum leaps in personal and professional success.  Jenny is also the creator and force behind the Grateful Ring world wide peace movement. 
As a top change agent, Jenny has appeared on WINK, CBS, FOX, PBS and the Lifetime Network, been named WE magazine’s 2014 Who’s Who Among Women, 2012 American Business Woman Association Neapolitan Woman of the Year, Gulfshore Business’s 40 under 40, the guru of interest in Gulfshore Life, Sapphire Award Inscape Publishing, IMPACT Leadership 21’s United Nations Academy, distinguished speaker on Emotional Intelligence at Hodges University and taught for an independent course at Columbia University School of International Public Affairs on EQ. Find out more about leadership training at http://www.leadershipdeepdive.com, http://www.gratefulring.com and http://www.liveyourpower.com

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The best thing we can teach our children…

http://www.gratefulring.com

As the Juvenile Civil Citation Program Coordinator we utilized the Grateful Ring program curriculum that was offered for our first time offenders- practical tools for real life success.  This proactive character education program helped our first time offenders build character, develop leadership and offered ways to creative a positive community.  After the six one hour sessions, the Civil Citation kids reported the skills were so important that they could not understand why they were not already taught in traditional education.  After the program, they reported a better understanding of managing their emotions and thoughts and were quite enthusiastic how they were going to change their lives in the future.   One offender was able to connect with his parents and share a plan that he created to living out a new vision within his life.  Another one of the offenders not only learned the power of meditation but began to teach his family and friends the power of meditation.  The teens reported learning skills and tools to manage anger, guilt and social pressures to conform that will help them to forgive themselves, make better choices to ensure not reoffending and understand how the brain works to form a vision, foundation and be a role model for good.  Even myself as a 28 year Law Enforcement Officer attended the program and learned new skills to live a better life.  As we know, all behaviors begin with the thoughts we form each day.  Teaching our Civil Citation kids how to take control of their thoughts and emotions is one of the most important solutions to building a better community.
Thanks so much for your consideration and hope we will partner in the near future so we can give kids a better life and be crime free.
Sincerely,
Cpl. Patti Holt
Juvenile Civil Citation Coordinator

Grateful Ring curriculum teaches children how to harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all.
Follow schools on our blog as they learn:
Personal Responsibility – Each student will receive their own Grateful Ring and learn curriculum on how to wire their brain to boost positivity. They will learn how to think, write and speak about gratitude to uncover the power positivity brings to their own life.
Empathetic Citizenship – After 30 days, the children will choose someone in the community to share new knowledge, pass on their gratitude ring and become accountable to creating a grateful community to uncover the power they have to help others.
Global Leadership – After 30 days of helping someone in the community, the children will choose another school in the world to train the positive thinking they have learned and recognize that they have the power to make changes across the world.
Follow us at FACEBOOK

Want to have your school harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all or be a sponsor?
Contact us today at stories@gratefulring.com

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Want to spread the power of gratitude throughout your company or school?

Want to spread the power of gratitude throughout your company or school?
Free faciliator training for the Grateful Ring Program will be on Monday March 16th at 7:00pm EST
Call in #: 1-605-562-3000
participant access code 346181#

Grateful Ring curriculum teaches people how to harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all.
Follow schools on our blog as they learn:
Personal Responsibility – Each student will receive their own Grateful Ring and learn curriculum on how to wire their brain to boost positivity. They will learn how to think, write and speak about gratitude to uncover the power positivity brings to their own life.
Empathetic Citizenship – After 30 days, the children will choose someone in the community to share new knowledge, pass on their gratitude ring and become accountable to creating a grateful community to uncover the power they have to help others.
Global Leadership – After 30 days of helping someone in the community, the children will choose another school in the world to train the positive thinking they have learned and recognize that they have the power to make changes across the world.

Recent testimonials

Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul enjoying his grateful ring

Follow us at FACEBOOK
Follow us on Twitter

Contact us today at stories@gratefulring.com

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I am grateful for music as it expresses that which cannot be put in words and that which cannot remain silent.

I am grateful for music as it expresses that which cannot be put in words and that which cannot remain silent.

The Key West Montessori Middle School just started the Grateful Ring project. After one week of focusing on gratitude, one student wrote:

“I am grateful for music. I honestly don’t know what I would do without it. Music is where I shut the outside world off and allow myself to go within to be with who I really am.
I am grateful to discover all the ways it really helps me like:
When I am mad, I blast my music and the anger goes away.
Music helps me express myself.
Music helps us connect.”

What is the Grateful Ring project?
Grateful Ring curriculum teaches children how to harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all.

Follow schools on our blog as they learn:

Personal Responsibility – Each student will receive their own Grateful Ring and learn curriculum on how to wire their brain to boost positivity. They will learn how to think, write and speak about gratitude to uncover the power positivity brings to their own life.

Empathetic Citizenship – After 30 days, the children will choose someone in the community to share new knowledge, pass on their gratitude ring and become accountable to creating a grateful community to uncover the power they have to help others.

Global Leadership – After 30 days of helping someone in the community, the children will choose another school in the world to train the positive thinking they have learned and recognize that they have the power to make changes across the world.

Follow us at FACEBOOK

Want to have your school harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all or be a sponsor? 
Contact us today at stories@gratefulring.com

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Dear women, What would happen if we laid down our weapons of gossip, competitiveness and cattiness?

Three generations of women collaborating to spread gratitude

Dear Women,
Have you ever thought about how powerful we can be together if we stop competing against one another and start collaborating?  At a recent seminar teaching the power of gratitude, I was blessed to have an entire audience of mothers with their children.  As part of teaching the Grateful Ring Program, I have everyone go around the room and share one brilliance that they have. (Brilliance defined as an inner gift meant to be shared with the world.)  As the women struggled to say one thing nice about themselves, I found myself saying, “Have you ever thought about how powerful we can be together if we stop competing against one another and start collaborating?  If we laid down our feminine weapons of gossip, competitiveness, cattiness, etc. and instead celebrated one another up for the brilliance that lies in everyone of us.”  They pushed through their walls of being taught to be insecure and to hide their inner beauty and shined as role models to the kids to be grateful of their inner gifts.  As the mothers sat with their children around them, they agreed they had the power in their hands to make a difference for the next generation.
As each mom and child placed a grateful ring on their hand, they pledged to be the difference the world needs by following the Grateful Ring curriculum.
In a nutshell:
1) Spend ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night being focused on gratitude while spinning your grateful ring.
Why? Whatever you choose to focus on in the morning is what your brain will seek to find all day. (i.e.; wake up cranky, your brain will find reasons for you to be cranky) Science shows that whatever you are thinking and feeling before bed is what you will dream about for the next four hours.
Why spinning the ring? The ring creates a positive psychological trigger that once trained will release gratitude each time it is touched. You are training yourself to find be mindful, be in the moment, increase your resilience and find gratitude all around.
The moms agreed during this time to have the children also speak about their brilliance and recognize that the beauty in all of us having different gifts. We are not all supposed to be good at everything as we are one human family here to collaborate with one another to assist one another in fulfilling our dreams.
We decided to all put our hands together understanding that sharing our brilliance, speaking our voice and harnessing the power of collaboration is the power that can leave the world a better place.
The picture actually includes the hands of three generations of women of the same family already out spreading the message.
HUGE gratitude to the Florida Keys Homeschool moms that inspired this story.
Want to join the Grateful Ring movement? Contact us today for your free curriculum guide at stories@gratefulring.com

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A little gratitude can make a BIG difference

A little gratitude can make a BIG difference

Grateful RIng Expereince with the I AM BEAUTY boot camp in NYC

A movement for international peace

Here are a few testimonials from the Grateful Ring​ Experience with the I AM B.E.A.U.T.Y. boot camp in NYC run by Akilah C. Thompson​

“My grateful ring experience was indescribable. To wake up every morning, sit still and just focus on why I am grateful and what does it mean to be grateful was really great. I Am B.E.A.U.T.Y. Boot Camp helped me start a new daily routine for myself. Sometimes I forget what I am grateful for. What I learned throughout this experience is to continue to be grateful for every moment in my life. I need to be more grateful for the good, bad, happy and sad moments. There shouldn’t be a dull moment in my life where gratitude isn’t expressed or shown.

This grateful ring has taught me how to be thankful for the things I already have. The ring has also taught me how to be thankful for the little things to. For example, food, water, doctors, flowers, paper, pens/pencils. One thing I’ve learned while having the grateful ring is that people don’t take enough time to think about how grateful they should be for everything they have. Some people don’t have as much as others do. This grateful ring has also taught me that anyone can make time every day to be grateful for something and all they have to do is just make a list of about five things per day and create a log. The best part about doing that activity is that it doesn’t take too much time. When you make it a priority to say or write down what you’re grateful for, you’ll automatically do it in your head and after a while it’ll become a great habit. For example, when I wrote family on my list I never realized or thought about how much I really appreciated them. I mean I knew I loved them but because of how many times I kept writing “Family” on my list the more I realized that they were the ones who always mattered and they will always be there for me. Kylie, 12, Summer 2014

Read more at http://iambeautybootcamp.blogspot.com/p/grateful-ring.html or contact stories@gratefulring.com to sign up your school or organization today!

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Caution: Gratitude walks may result in letting go and enjoying life

I want to share a quick gratitude exercise that will help to create more balance, love and peace in your life…

The exercise is to simply go on ‘a gratitude walk’…

You basically take a walk for 5, 10 or even 20 minutes and you dedicate 100% of that time to gratitude. You consciously think of all the things you appreciate in your life, notice all of the beauty and natural gifts that surround you and simply reflect on how lucky you are to have the life that you have.

Not only will you feel AWESOME, you’ll also notice an increased level of fulfillment.

In fact, in a study conducted on a group of people who practiced daily gratitude for just 3 weeks, it was measured that they had a 25% higher satisfaction toward life! They exercised more, drank alcohol less, and their friends and families noticed that they were more pleasant to be around. And, the effects lasted for several months past the initial 3 week study!

So remember to always show appreciation for the things, people and opportunities that exist in your life. And go on… why don’t you take a gratitude walk this week? I dare ya 😉

Giving gratitude to Natalie Ledwell of http://www.mindmovies.com of explaining one of my favorite things to do everyday!

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Grass roots project has children changing the world

Grateful Ring begins in Key West Montessori Charter School

So delighted that the Key West Montessori Charter School has joined the the Grateful Ring to improve promote world peace. The child will learn how to harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all.

Follow us as they learn:
Personal Responsibility – Each student will receive their own Grateful Ring and learn curriculum on how to wire their brain to boost positivity. They will learn how to think, write and speak about gratitude to uncover the power positivity brings to their own life.

Empathetic Citizenship – After 30 days, the children will choose someone in the community to share new knowledge, pass on their gratitude ring and become accountable to creating a grateful community to uncover the power they have to help others.

Global Leadership – After 30 days of helping someone in the community, the children will choose another school in the world to train the positive thinking they have learned and recognize that they have the power to make changes across the world.

Read more at http://www.gratefulring.com
Want to have your school harness the power of wisdom, caring, community and collaboration to create the highest good for all or be a sponsor?
Contact us today at stories@gratefulring.com

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Swimming in an ocean of gratitude

Little things can make the biggest difference. As a transformation specialist, I know that just attending a webinar or reading a book do not make long term changes in people. What gets people to take quantum leaps in success is uncovering their self-sabotage, learning a new tool to conquer their self sabotage and practicing this new way until the healthy way becomes their new habit. This is one of the reasons I created the grateful ring. It is a constant reminder to focus on the positive in your life . I am blessed and grateful that I receive the most wonderful notes from others on how a little positive focus in their life is making a difference!

One thought of you can have me swimming in a sea of gratitude

Dear Jenny,
Thinking I lost my grateful ring helped me to realize that such a small reminder can help me swim in a sea of gratitude every day.
I went to bed Thursday night with my jewelry on, something I never do. I awoke to find my grateful ring missing. Watch was still on. Right hand ring was still on. Earrings were still on. Grateful ring was gone. When it’s cold outside, it fits very loosely on my finger. I assumed it had just slipped off in the night. I searched the bed: in the bed, behind the bed, under the bed. I searched the covers. No ring. My heart sank. I searched my closet, my clothes from the previous day. I searched my jewelry box, jewelry bags. No ring. My heart sank lower. Mom was coming to clean that day. I told her to keep an eye out for it and to be careful while vacuuming. I went to work on Friday for the first day in months without my ring. I knew I could put a new one on as soon as I got to the office, which I did, but it was all shiny and new and it spun freely, not like mine which you really have to work at to spin. The new ring served it’s purpose well, but it wasn’t the same. You see, my ring is worn, scratched, scuffed with months and months of countless moments of gratitude. The words on the ring are barely visible, a testament to my ongoing practice of gratitude. I know the idea is to pass the ring on, but I’ve never been able to give mine away. I have given others away, but I could never give mine away; I count it one of my greatest treasures. I continued the search Saturday morning knowing it could not have just vanished. I did contemplate that perhaps God took it from me to teach me not to be attached to the ring itself but to instead be attached to the spirit of the ring. I thought also perhaps He was showing me that if I couldn’t give it away, He could. By late yesterday afternoon, I had sort of settled in to the idea that it must be time to break in a new ring and let mine go. But by the end of my devotion this morning I had settled right back out of that idea, telling myself that my ring is in this house somewhere. So back into Tasmanian devil mode I went. Moving furniture. Ripping sheets off the bed. Turning my closets upside down. Dumping out drawers. Emptying out bags. While standing in the middle of the chaos I just created and staring at a wall of jewelry in my closet, I see a jewelry bag I had already checked but had not checked twice. Slowly and deliberately I pull out necklaces, bracelets, earrings. And there at the bottom of the pile was my ring. How it got in there, I honestly can’t say. I think maybe that’s just where it landed when it got back from its trip to where the lost things go. In a truly pure state of gratitude, I put it back on my finger, kissed it along with one of the tears falling down my cheek, and gave it a good spin. I know in my heart that I will have to give it away someday. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. And I know I will know when it’s time. For now though, it’s mine, and I am swimming in an ocean of gratitude.

Want to join the gratitude ring? It’s simple. Here are a few ways.

Get your ring here.

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