Here are notes (there will be updates to this post) infused with commentary from the event called:

A Spiritually Inspired Future with Deepak Chopra, Andrew Cohen & Arianna Huffington

What is driving us as we look towards the future? Is it fear of disaster or is it a spiritually inspired motivation to create a better world? For those of us who feel responsible, this is a burning question. If we are to work together to create the next steps that so urgently need to be taken, it is essential that we begin to articulate and agree upon the values and principles that will guide us. Spiritual pioneers Deepak Chopra and Andrew Cohen, moderated by syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, engage thousands in an afternoon of inquiry into the key questions that can help us navigate this challenging and rewarding terrain. In particular, they focused on the place of spirit in today’s secular culture, and examine the role of spiritual development in forging the future.

Don’t miss the rare opportunity to listen to the replay of two contemporary spiritual luminaries thinking out loud about the direction of spiritual and social evolution.

A PerformanceLifestyle Summary: (as risk of appearing like I was multi tasking) Arianna.

Each day, I have periods where I check The Huffington Post. It is the most boldly expressed and authentic “newspaper” I have ever experienced and that is why it is mainstay app on my iphone. So, I was incredibly happy to have Arianna Huffington be the moderator of the Sunday afternoon event I got a chance to tune into today, including two other amazing people I know of and or have met, Deepak Chopra and Andrew Cohen.

Deepak has inspired me through his many books over many years, and Andrew Cohen I met through my friends Steve Haase, and Sam Rosen at ThoughtLead. They introduced me to Andrew Cohen, Founder of EnlightenNext on a seriously stormy night in the Berkshires earlier this year, in a bar not far from the EnlightenNext campus, where Andrew Cohen was playing the drums for his band, Unfulfilled Desires.

Yes, not all spiritual pioneers and teachers are hanging out in Ashrams, and temples all the time. Andrew taught me more about practical spirituality playing the drums that night in a bar, and talking with me on his break, than I have ever learned in the realm of “spirituality”.

Andrew Cohen is one of the most practical spiritual teachers I have ever met and someone who I think shares (I haven’t talked with him about this yet), the notion that to be spiritual does not mean you need to be a full time yogi, talk like you are in a church, or most importantly, exit the game of life. “It’s all spiritual” – John Allen Mollenhauer (yes, I am quoting myself)

I was asked years ago, if I talk about spirituality in PerformanceLifestyle training, and my answer is always the same: It’s all spiritual, even when we are being challenged and we are not functioning peacefully; we simply need to take steps back into being, so so that we can come back to our center, our ground, sort things out and move forward in a position of strength.

It is with that purpose, as a spiritual learner, that I teach principles, practices and lifestyle strategies for living in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind so we can achieve even our most ambitious life goals without sacrificing our quality of life.

Now onto a PerformanceLifestyle summary and interpretation of the Urban Zen Event that was simply enlightening.

Moderator: Arianna Huffington.

Arianna Huffington opened with some ideas near and dear to my heart and hopefully yours as well. If they are not, they probably will become near and dear a some point soon. I felt she got right to heart of the matter, a value I share with her about why people struggle to move forward in their lives.

As she opened up the event, she talked about a new definition for “moving forward”.

As you may know, in a PerformanceLifestyle our aim is to move forward in a position of strength, and I felt she touched on the key issues that makes that possible. She is one of the few people, in media, that I know of that, that speak so openly about something so fundamental to life, that it can almost sound trite to bring it up as a breakthrough. But today, in our performance culture, getting enough sleep, is a breakthrough in consciousness.

Arianna, the co – founder of The Huffington Post, which has changed the industry of news, revealed herself as a recovering over achiever. She told her story, about collapsing from exhaustion and breaking her cheek bone as a result of ultimately not getting enough sleep.

Exhaustion is a common occurrence in our performance culture, especially among achievers (people with a spiritual impulse) and she paid a dear price.

Having media power though, she did something about it with her sleep challenge 2010, a  number of months back, that got people talking about the power of sleep. I for one know the power of sleep as a function of life from where all strength emanates, and if you were to ask me my secret to healthy high performance and higher achievement it starts with sleep. Everything we do and if we do it well depends on how well we manage our energy.

Arianna, went on to tell a common, pound your chest story that many of us hear people tell; a person in her world who was boasting about sleeping only 4 hours, as if that was a something to show off.

She responded to that person, by saying in the context of her conversation.. “the evening would have been a lot more interesting if you had gotten 5.”

A takeaway could be: If you’ve got everything going on but you are barely hanging on, it’s hard to have a deep spiritual connection with those around you and the world you live in.

Being a burnout, and thinking you’re going to have access to all levels of spirituality does not work. Chances are you’ll exist at the lowest level of spirituality, even though you are talking about it, which is being a human doing.

See below: Deepak’s 4 levels of existence.

Deepak Chopra:

Deepak Chopra, brought the conversation into another realm, as Deepak would. It is his ability to bring clarity to our deeper spiritual selves that distinguishes him. Immediately we were in a conversation about consciousness.

Here are some of Deepak’s free flowing thoughts which are incredibly insightful in our highly connected, ever more conscious world.

Consciousness  is the ground of existence and everything that translates to.

He started by stating ” As you are listening to me, for a moment, turn towards that which is listening. That’s you, pure consciousness. ”

What’s the mind? Ref: Daniel Siegel, – “mind is an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information.”

Consciousness, the mind, is part of the brain, but not the brain itself. It is that which cannot be seen or spoken of, but that which we cannot be without.

There is no such thing as a mind by itself.

Our minds are entangled.

There is not such thing as an isolated mind.

All suffering comes from the delusion of the separate mind.

Our bodies are regulated by the mind, through the brain, which is operating everything in your body and in others bodies.

Consciousness and unconsciousness are regulating everything that happens in your body and the world.

We are exquisitely entangled on every level, mind, body and emotions.

If there is war, we created it, global warming, we created it… we have created everything through what is going on in our minds.

If we want to restore the eco-system, we have the technology. We just need to change our minds

4 level of our existence.

1. Being – the highest form of human intelligence – 100 trillion cells, every cell is doing 100 thousand activities… you don’t have to multi task, your body is already doing that, while tracking to the biological rhythms of the universe. We are more than a person, we just have to “be”, feel, think and do, we are part of the universe.
2. Feeling - love,
3. Thinking – creativity
4. Doing – comes last, based on being feeling and thinking, it is about service; about who we really are.

This is a sequence that must completely follow through to do anything that is possible.

Andrew Cohen:

Andrew began with a very practical notion of spirituality as I expected, but that is not to say, devoid of incredible levels of consolidated intelligence. He acknowledge that we are experiencing, ever increasing amounts of stress, as the pace of change increases.

Here are his thoughts:

Intelligent people, are feeling tension,  a state of existential fear and confusion…

The reason is that our culture is not giving us any answers.

Materialism, narcissism, noise, …. and all these trappings, are not the answer to the shared cultural predicament of how to share meaning that gives us a spiritual self confidence, amidst, the great challenges we are facing.

His concept of developing “spiritual self confidence” became a theme of the 2 hour panel; even Deepak Chopra began using the term.

Rate of change is not going to slow down and things are going to continue to speed up.

So how, in the amidst of this overwhelming pace of change, can we find a base of spiritual self confidence?

Many will turn to meditation and primordial peace, which can also mean escaping life. I gleamed as I saw him tread on spiritual heresy, by saying that meditation is not the only answer.

“Many people meditate, and they still “can’t handle it”.

We have to able to be peaceful and then then be able step into this interconnected world of chaos and do that from a position “power”.

Fundamentally, he said, we need to answer this question:

Is life good?

Is the creative process good?

Developing a Spiritual Self confidence that is indestructible, in spite of the fact that life is also tough, disappointing…etc is what we are seeking. Sleep, meditations… it’s all good and necessary, but unless we feel that it’s good to be here, we will always be looking for a way out.

We are all on the leading edge of the evolutionary process, some more than others.

We as the imperfect being, have to be able to respond wholeheartedly and fully engage, but we will not be able to do that if we don’t have spiritual self confidence, which without, we become ambivalent.

Personally, that’s why I live a Performance Lifestyle, the next level of healthy living that goes beyond exercising and nutrition alone. Most healthy living strategies, have an underlying premise that the stress of life is bad and we need to get away from it. I don’t think that makes sense, and that’s why I practice performance lifestyle skills, to develop as Andrew Cohen has expressed - spiritual self confidence.

Bottom line: You can’t exit the game and think you are some kind of spiritual master. You can’t think it’s it’s going to get good when we’re out of here; that doesn’t work and the people who live with that premise will likely never have a  great life experience. They will seem spiritual and be broke!

More Andrew Cohen

The nature of the energy and intelligence that is driving the creative process. – the big bang, the pulsations that are expressed as a pro creative guide are ecstasy and urgency.

Human being, are driven to innovate and create the new whereas all other animals just keep repeating.

This is what’s happening at an exponential rate today; the ecstatic rise of what is new.

Such people are not peaceful, they are driven! – so if you are an achiever, keep this mind!

The spiritual impulse is when we are compelled towards consciousness, I must become more conscious which is what created the universe.

So when we awaken to all that is possible, we have answered the questions that Andrew put forth. It life good? Yes!

If we are touch with that we can fight the big fight to the end.

John Allen Mollenhauer: Summary

Spiritual Self Confidence, was the theme of the day and a whole new light was shed on what that means.

Arianna Huffington was refreshingly real, and humble as a very high achiever, who is learning how to be a balanced, and healthy high achiever. She is most definitely on the leading edge of evolution.

At one point she asked if either Deepak Chopra or Andrew Cohen ever “fell of the wagon” of their spiritual center.

Both said no, with some humility, and I think it’s because each has such useful understandings of spirituality; my interpretation is that there is no such thing as falling off the wagon, there is simply you, getting caught up, and needing to take a step back.

It’s all spiritual, even when you judge yourself and things seemingly go to shit. It’s just you and your incredible capabilities as a “human” being not functioning right now. Overwhelm and exhaustion, perhaps a lack of focus. You can step back into being at any time and straighten all that shit out with a little help from your friends. Basically, that’s what we help you do in  PerformanceLifestyle training.

Remember what Forrest Gump said… shit happens.

Three Big Highlights

1) Andrew Cohen told the story about how productive Deepak Chopra is having written 50 books and running an international organization, and that being spiritual is about being able to be, and deal with the chaos of life at the same time.

“I’m not doing it all of that, my body is doing it… I am at peace!”  -

Deepak summarized this characterization of what being a high achiever is like for him, when he responded (I paraphrase):

Established in being… you can perform any action action with ease.

2) When asked what is his vision for the world in 202o by a woman who worked for Gallup (an organization that Deepok Chopra is on the board for)

Deepok responded, I wake up every day to create a “Peaceful just, healthy and sustainble world, and that’s what drives me.

In PerformanceLifestyle Training, we ask the question, what’s driving you?

3) Andrew Cohen, “We don’t know how to live right now, because old structures are falling away and what new, needs to be created.”

That’s how we view our work here at PerformanceLifestyle blog, part of The Lifestyle Coaching Center, where we are helping people create new ways of thinking and living that are better adapted to life today; a mindset that include spirituality, not as some escape from the daily grind and chaos (I suppose that is part of it) but as a context for being, feeling, thinking and doing so you can maintain peace of mind in spite of the chaos and stay out of overwhelm… for starters.

If you are struggling and want to experience spiritual self confidence and a more graceful life, there are some golden nuggets in this post.

Develop spiritual self confidence by  proactively structuring your life in way that can work better and get your lifestyle working better for you. Get some mindfulness training, as Deepok suggested. Also, here are some good living articles to supplement your learning and lifestyle.

Most of all, get clear on where you are headed and why, with your own personal mission that drives you.

I share mine with you on the front of this website (in the dotted area at the top) – - – - – - -

What’s driving You?

I will put links to the event replay shortly.

John Allen Mollenhauer ~ JAM

Ever feel like this Bear, surrounded by Giants?

Has life ever felt like a bear, where you being clobbered by giants all around you?

In a Performance Lifestyle, being able to tell a story that supports what you want is everything.

Stories that don’t support you are the giants, and when your stories (your thinking) do not support you, you will get clobbered.

The difference between this reality and the picture on the left, is that you can see the Giants football team, you can’t see so clearly when you have a story that doesn’t support you, but you can feel it’s negative impact.

You know something is wrong, you just can’t quite put your finger on it.

That’s why the curse of the capable person is drama, negativity, and beating the drum of a story that does not get you want you want.

In the video below, the lead character, Brock, has to face his giants when his coach calls him on his unsupportive (negative) story about the upcoming game against the “giants”. The thing not to take away from this post is the heroic “give me your very best” mantra of the video as a lifestyle solution. Heroics are not lifestyle solutions, they are tactics that summon huge amounts of energy for short periods of time. Live that way and you’ll burnout as a performance addict.

Give me your very best, is a powerful mantra and admirable, and it has it’s place in a lifestyle that will work for you (sometimes, you just gotta summon huge amounts of energy) but it is not sustainable without your lifestyle supporting the capacity to do so and even then, “giving your very best” is at best, periodic.

I know of few people giving their very best all the time. Those who do, are usually burnt out. It’s only those people who are living performance lifestyle, who can give their very best on a periodic basis and do so consistently. And the truth is, that’s all you need to do, to be wildly successfully. You don’t need to be doing your “very” best all the time.

The reason is the need for recuperation; which is why most people don’t give their very best most of the time or at all. They aren’t managing their energy and are chronically fatigued, so giving their very best gives rise to complacency and laziness as the status quo, as their energy level sinks without the level of recuperation they need to sustain.

Facing the Giants – Your Giants.

The thing to really take away from this video, is what happens when your thinking is not aligned with the outcome you want and how a change in story can change your mindset and take you to a place(s) you never imagined. Literally. Add to that, the reality check on doing your very best and the need for the energy to do it and your very best will become more regular. And that’s just one reason why we live a performance lifestyle.

In this video, I the “giants” are the negative, unsupportive stories holding the team back. Your story is your mindset and to the extent that you develop more supportive stories, the more stable and forward moving you becomes. Just like the team in this video, amazing things can happen when you change your story.

What’s the con of coping?

First don’t read into this title too idealistically; it’s simply meant to make the point that “coping” with a situation can really trick you into believing that you are changing it or even eliminating it from your life. It can make you believe that you are dealing with a situation (and in part this may be true) but by definition, coping is just that, coping; and not too many situations are improved when they are minimized, and tolerated. Read the definition above.

How do we cope?

Here are a few the way I have in the past…

By going to seminars to learn more, talking with friends, ruminating, yelling, eating, tuning out, rationalizing, changing myself to adapt to situations that didn’t suit me to begin with, tolerating, obsessive exercising (this list can go on an on) and of course seeing a psychological professional. I’m sure most people reading this have coped with a situation in at least one of these ways or some other…

Now I’m not a psychologist, (I wrote a book with one with one and I see one from time to time, because that what works best for me along with my affiliation with The Mankind Project where I process my experience in a circle of men). I’m a fairly logical man, who at times is completely irrational (I do try to limit those times ) who like others, has had to go through a tremendous amount of personal change himself to address the situation of his life and I’m still doing it. After years of performance addiction where I thought big in the world but perhaps too big, and created consequences in my life that are still affecting me today; I am only sharing what I have discovered.

By no means am I saying that coping doesn’t have it’s place, it does. I am coping with certain things right now. And there are professionals who can help you particularly if they are also helping you understand your situation and also make changes.

The reason for coping is simple; you sometimes can’t change and / or eliminate certain circumstances in your life all at once or ever for that matter, and I’m sure simply eliminating an aspect of your life is not always the best choice.

Cutting yourself off can be it’s own form of a cover up or coping strategy. Many try and just get themselves into even more trouble. Believe me, it doesn’t work that well.

By the same token, focusing too much on coping with a set of circumstances without enough action on changing the actual situation, often times takes the focus off of changing the situation or even eliminating it from your life if that’s what’s needed. I can think of a few times in my life where I thought I had had a particular nuance of my life licked, simply because it wasn’t popping up as often, but in reality had engineered a fantastic method of coping, only to have it surface later.

Why do we cope, and not change or eliminate ourselves from a situation?

Each level – coping, changing and eliminating – bring with it it’s own unique type of stresses.

All are viable and needed at times and are steps, many times taken in tandem, and / or they lead to another level of action; but the bottom line is stress. We know what we know, good, bad or indifferent, and our identity can can get attached to that. Change, or or extreme change (no matter how much it’s needed), means our experience of the world changes and that can be scary. Our bearings and the very structure of our life changes when we stop coping and that can make even a warrior cringe (at least for a short while).

• Coping often times leaves the situation in place, while you adapt your values or goals to tolerate it or perhaps buy time to prepare for a change.

• Changing addresses the situation, more head on. You are are coping still, but the situation does not warrant an ending, though change is imminent. It’s uncomfortable to make the change, but then the situation starts getting better.

• Eliminating a situation, or yourself from a situation, is a more extreme change. You address the situation head on, and it can be very painful up front as it accompanies loss, self doubt or other more intense consequences in the short run, but ultimately, if it was a bad situation life can get much better relatively soon thereafter.

I share these with you because these 3 levels of action are key to ensuring your lifestyle is working for you.

Over the years of teaching Performance Lifestyle it has come to my attention personally (first hand) and professionally (working with others) that an inability to understand a present situation can really limit a lifestyle and prevent things from working.

That’s why we ask the question “Is Your Lifestyle Working for You?”. If you are overweight, believe me, changing your eating and exercise habits is only part of the change you need to make.

For example, recently, my business partner Rosie Battista went through a change (it actually started 10 months ago) where she wanted to lose weight which she had struggled to do for some time. Did she merely start eating less and exercising more? No.

You can read more about her story here.

Is her life perfect now? No, but it’s better in so many ways; she’s got other stuff (as we all do) to change still, but now she knows how. One thing is for sure, in retrospect, if she didn’t know how to make changes at a deep enough level, she wouldn’t have achieved one of her most ambitious life goals.

In her words:

It was a colossal switch in my mindset. I remembered that that was the very message I had taught my children. I had a choice.

I could choose to (1) listen to the nasty cousins and other naysayers, the biggest one being myself, who told me that I was too old, hormonal, and menopausal. Those who said my body would never respond, that I should accept my body as is, that I looked good for my age, that all women have fat around their waists and that I would never be able to pull this off or lose the weight that I had struggled with for so long.

OR… (2) I could decide that I was going to do it, no matter what.

It’s when we get caught up in stories (especially others) that we can land ourselves in situations that don’t work and just cope; but, we have the choice. Do I just cope with this? Change it? or Eliminate it?

Without the basic awareness of these three levels of change, it’s very hard to make changes period. Especially today, when we need to be able to change quicker than ever before given the ease with which we can get caught up in stuff, and I mean lots of it. It’s the information age and things happen fast.

We need to be able to assess a situation and take the next best step for ourselves. That’s what Rosie did, and I hope she keeps on doing it.

My suggestion is cope to the degree that you need to, and with professional help if possible, but no more than you need to. I would share this same advice if I were talking exercise. Exercise as much as you need to, to get the result, no more and if you’re burning out, then change!

Whatever you do, don’t fall for the con of coping without understanding your  present situation, else the con is on and believe me, we live in a market full of impotent solutions that will help you cope, but never really solve your problem.

What is your real problem?

Are you changing it, eliminating it, or are you just coping with it?

I am writing this on the heals of a situation that’s been perplexing me for far too long. I thought I was changing it, but in fact I was only coping with it even with heroic efforts. The situation kept getting worse and the reason is simple, I didn’t understand the situation clearly (not as I do now) or completely for that matter. I simply didn’t change it. Now I am.

Changing a situation starts with changing your story – John Allen Mollenhauer

Here I am with my good friend Cindy McCormick who introduced me to the organization I spoke at.

Ironically, after just giving a talk on “story” and how your stories affect your lifestyle just hours before, I strangely, and highly unusually, did the opposite of what I know would have worked allot better in the night ahead. Maybe it was the beautiful women at the table . Here’s what I do know, when it was time to make the decision about how I was going to handle Monday night, I let other people’s stories over rule my own and here it is on Wednesday and I’m still paying the price.

As I got up to catch my plane back to Jersey Tuesday morning, on 2.5 hours of sleep, I was grateful that I had prepared for a social night, but the truth is, and while I’m not beating myself up much at all, I am also not thrilled with the decision I made to extend my night out.

Here’s how the experience unfolded.

After a well planned and delivered day, I knew I had a few hours to socialize before I had to get to sleep Monday night because a) it was a Monday night (normally, I speak later in the week with time to recover if I stay out) b) I had to get up at 4:00 am to catch a plane back to Jersey, and c) it was the start of the peak performance period of my week which is Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and d) I had a 12:00 pm meeting on Tuesday to start, an hour after I got off the plane with the leader of a national organization I am part of called The Mankind Project.

So, I went out until about 9, and was ready to go back to my hotel room, when the group I was with, asked if I would like to go to dinner and out for a few drinks. Right there was where I needed to make some key lifestyle decisions in line with my objectives and goals.

Sure, it was one of the few times I was in New Orleans recently, and I had GREAT company to hang with, but going was not a good decision and one that I knew I would pay for big time.

First, I had a great time in downtown New Orleans that included a fine dinner at the famous Arnauds’ Restaurant, where at least 5 Presidents have eaten along with a who’s who list of celebrities, and a few rounds with new friends around the Carousel Bar at The Hotel Monteleone.

But looking back would I have stayed out for the second half of the night knowing I had to leave the Hotel at 4:00 for a 7 o’clock flight? HECK NO!  I would have been grateful for the time I had with my new friends and carried on, and probably thought about how I could have planned for such an event better; but because of the way things were already set up, staying out wasn’t in the cards that night.

But noooo.

That’s not how things played as I made a lifestyle 101 error.

I listened to the people around me, who said basically “your only in New Orleans once, c’mon…”. As if I am only going to be in New Orleans once. Now I love that they wanted me to come, love and do not fault them. That’s not the point here, they did exactly what I would have wanted which was to ask me to join them and I am grateful for that. But, this was my responsibility, they don’t know my situation only I do, and they certainly they would have understood.

In a Performance Lifestyle, if I was going to have that experience on a Monday night without the negative consequences, then I would have needed to plan for it, so that there was enough recovery time, and I hadn’t planned for that. It’s one thing when you’re 20 with little responsibility and seemingly unlimited stored vitality, but I fit in neither of those categories so this was careless spontaneity.

I can already hear the spontaneity worshipers saying “He’s a stiff“, but nothing could be further from the truth.

So here I am today, reconciling my experience.

Unlike any other lifestyle skill, the skill to keep your story straight and supportive is invaluable, especially when we face circumstances that are not “usual” for us, and outside our normal lifestyle routines, that require we make all kinds of adjustments in order to compensate. This requires some resiliency and emotional fortitude as does all change and that can only be gained when you ground your new story in experience.

That I know how to control my internal story teller from generating stories about “how I shouldn’t have done that“, “I’m going to hit the wall“, “I fell off my diet“, “here we go again” etc, the types of stories you hear from someone who doesn’t know “the lifestyle”, is reinforcing my peace of mind, despite feeling really lousy today.

That I have a blog like PerformanceLifestyle.com to metabolize my experience and get clear helps me move forward in a position of strength. This was all a great experience and now, what I am grounding in experience is how I handle the aftermath and prepare for when I face that situation again.  That too, is “Performance Lifestyle”.

Staying out cost me most of Tuesday, and still on Wednesday I am feeling the loss of performance and that balanced and healthy function I’m used to. As I said, if it had been a Thursday or Friday night and not the eve of the peak of my week, I would have let the night play on, and maybe even still if I could have slept in until at least 9:00, but in retrospect, it was not a good decision to stay out the second half of the night.

I had a great time, and because it’s past, I wouldn’t change a thing; but it is a reminder to me, why 90% of the time, “the lifestyle” mindset and skill set serves me incredibly well. I’m glad that I have other aspects of my lifestyle that are helping me through this experience by minimizing the consequences. Yeah, there are some trade offs when making smart lifestyle decisions, and I like to have fun like the best of them, but I don’t think I made the right decision here, now that I am grounded in the experience of nearly two peak performance days lost due to being tired and the fun that would have come with them to boot. Being tired when you need to perform is not fun in my book.

Today, I feel great inside (a hallmark of a Performance Lifestyle, regardless of how you feel on the outside) knowing my experience in New Orleans was time well spent with good people. It was intense peak performance period that I had prepared for and enjoyed. But like any major event, a period of recovery follows; in this case an unusually long one.

Lifestyle training really pays off during times like these.

What decision would you have made?

Share your thoughts.

~ JAM