2016 THE BULLY WITHIN: A Journey of Consciousness by Dale Crowe [Where Boxing Meets Spirituality]

Traitmarker Books 2016 New Author Feature View this email in your browser Dale Crowe's The Bully Within A JOURNEY OF CONSCIOUSNESS Imagine answering someone who inquired the whereabouts of a Dale Crowe with, "There never was a Dale Crowe." Now imagine responding that way if you were Dale Crowe. To most ears, that sentence would sound like a nonsense statement or an evasive manuever. For Dale Crowe it is neither. Dale means "valley" in Hebrew. That's fitting, because I've felt squeezed between two mountains for most of my life. After going to war with that duality for almost 40 years, I've learned that there never really was a Dale Crowe... Saying that there's no real Dale Crowe sounds like a riddle. But it's actually a truth that means a lot to me. Dale Crowe & His Maternal Grandparents The Bully Within: A Journey of Consciousness is the autobiographical, play-by-play transformation of former, up-and-coming crusierweight boxer, Dale Crowe: the transformation from a bully into an enlightened man. The Bully Within is a book about spirituality, not boxing. In it, Dale seeks to answer his own riddle. From the first page of the prologue, he paints in detailed brush strokes the deceptively benign beginnings of his volatile past: I was born in Ohio and grew up with my mother, stepfather, and grandparents. The deaths of my grandparents and the absence of my father introduced me at an early age to issues of loss and abandonment. When I was very young, I was a class clown. But after meeting my father at age thirteen, I wanted to model myself after him, and I learned to box partly to impress him. I rose through the ranks of amateur and professional boxing, but not until my life came crashing around me did I return to the root issues of loss and abandonment and learn to deal with them. Those losses opened a chasm of loneliness. The combination of Dale's losses with his loneliness found him seeking larger and larger doses of ego-driven attention from an early age. It's the voice of Dale's ego pockmarking page after page in increasingly sinister, 10-point-font stocatto that Dale exposes to the light the gremlin that taunted him. It's the bully that began with him... Who's gonna stay around you very long? New school soon? New friends? You better find a way to matter. What if nobody even likes you?  ... and grew with him... Everything you got is because of boxing. You don't fit into any other role. You've failed at everything else. Better get your ass back in that ring, pal, if you like what you got. You better fight to keep it.  It was this bifurcation of Dale's identity, this objectifiction of Dale's personality, and this normalization of the voice in his head that convinced Dale from an early age that one part of him was bully and the other part was Dale Crowe. Dale Crowe (second from the right) While much of the book chronologically catalogues the stair-step accomplishments of Dale's boxing career (ESPN, Fox Sports, The Oprah Winfrey Show), Dale focuses on specific vignettes that were catalysts in the uncontrollable growth of his ego. By structuring the story like this, Dale allows the reader to see the bully operate from a wide angle. Dale wanted to write the kind of book that he wished he would have read as a child that would had described his internal fears against the stark relief of machismo culture. It might have made a difference. It might have diverted him from a life of violence. Growing up, I wasn't a big reader, but I did love stories. I was mesmerized by action heroes on television and in the movies. When my life slowed down and I started looking for answers, I found new heroes - heroes who introduced me to peace and wisdom and truth in their writings. I could ask no greater honor than to lead a reader into the path I've found by honestly sharing my life in a book. That enlightenment came four years after Dale went to prison. Dale Crowe vs. Michael Moore Fight (ESPN) ON VIOLENCE Violence takes center stage in American media. From mass shootings to murders and rapes to killings by and of law enforcement officers, we seem to hear about a new tragedy before we've had time to process the old ones. We send out thoughts and prayers to the families of victims far too often. From Columbine to Charleston to Orlando to Dallas, the venues of shootings and the names of the killers become infamous. As a result, ordinary Americans congregate in large numbers with the understanding that anywhere can be a target: a school, a movie theater, a shopping center, a bar, or a city street. And that's not even to mention the family violence or random violence that fails to make the headlines. According to Gun Violence Archive, as of July 17, 2016, 7,458 people have died and 15,450 people have suffered injury in 28,932 incidents. And according to theNational Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States." Though mass shootings grab the headlines, the violence that occurs behind closed doors may do the greatest damage to the fabric of society. CASA reports on the link between child abuse and incarceration: The new study draws a strong link between prior abuse and violent crime. Among male inmates in state prisons, 76 percent who were abused and 61 percent not abused had a current or past sentence for a violent offense. Among female offenders, 45 percent of the abused and 29 percent not abused had served a sentence for a violent crime. Abuse is far from the only factor contributing to the likelihood of a violent life. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice reports that "nationally, 7.3 million children have at least one parent in jail or prison. Sadly, 70 percent of these kids are doomed to follow in the same footsteps as their parents becoming imprisoned at some point in their lives". In fact, self-control plays a major part in whether victims become perpetrators. "Self-control is key to a well-functioning life, because our brain makes us easily [susceptible] to all sorts of influences. Watching a movie showing violent acts predisposes us to act violently. Even just listening to violent rhetoric makes us more inclined to be violent. Ironically, the same mirror neurons that make us empathic make us also very vulnerable to all sorts [of] influences". So the direction of society in great part depends on how well individuals dealing with pain and violence can control the impulse to commit violence: "Reasons for committing a crime include greed, anger, jealousy, revenge, or pride." Uncontrolled negative emotion, the choice food of the ego, acts like a cancer on society, killing the innocent to feed itself. Children who grow up abused, impoverished, or without a stable family structure carry a burden other children do not. It is harder for them to make positive choices and to halt the cycle of pain and violence. Dale Crowe  THE MESSAGE It was in prison that Dale eventually was able to relate his loss and loneliness to the bully that he had become: Outside events damaged me because of how I allowed them to make me feel on the inside. As a child, that's understandable. But as an adult, it shouldn't be. These days, I choose how I will experience any given situation. My past does not define my choices. As long as I operate in truth, I am satisfied with the outcome. My inner self is pleased, though my ego might not be. Why? Love. The ego needs past and future. I can be love in the present moment. Dale's learned that his obsession with the past and future did not allow him the ease and joy of simply being in the present. This new understanding introduced Dale to a series ofkundalini events: impromptu "ego-burning" opportunities that allowed him pratical ways to further distance himself from the false chasm of "Dale Crowe the Bully" and "The Other Dale Crowe." In prison he began to look at the young men flowing through the prison doors. He wanted to show them that stoking that negative emotion would only hurt them. He wanted to tell them that they didn't need to hold on to the pain inside them and identify with it: During my ten years in prison, I've seen a lot of bullies. I've seen men do violence to each other because they hear non-stop violence inside themselves. I try to help those who will listen to understand bullies - how to avoid suffering violence, doing violence, and allowing violence to reign within them. I know from experience that within every violent person is an inner self longing for a different life. Dale's realization of the harm caused by his inner bully impels him to share that realization with others. While his first world traces the arc from his suburban childhood through the world of professional boxing into the adjacent world of crime, violence, and drugs and into prison, Dale's second world allows him to confront his inner torment and learn to live at peace with himself, the world, and God. And he wouldn't trade anything for that world. So there never was a Dale Crowe. There never was an other. "Dale Crowe" is an identity and a history that one part of the divine essence inhabits.That divine essence exists in unity and love, and realizing its presence importance keeps the collection of wrongs, wounds, pain, and negative emotion that belong to the "other" Dale Crowe from causing more hurt and sorrow in the world. Now imagine living your entire life never knowing there never was a Dale Crowe. That's the predicament of the billions of people who walk this globe. That's the predicament of the inmate and the warden alike, the CEO and the employee alike, the parent and the child. And that's the reason Dale Crowe wrote this book. The Bully Within Paperback The Bully Within Kindle Dale Crowe

Traitmarker Books is a Nashville-based publishing & publicity service for cause-authors. Our authors own their copyrights and are free negotiate with publishers & marketing companies. A Bully Within is available for reviewers upon request. Copyright © *|2016|* *|Traitmarker Books|*, All rights reserved. *|New Author Feature|* *|Dale Crowe|* To contact the publisher, email traitmarker@gmail.com MAILING ADDRESS *|2984 Del Rio Pike Franklin, TN|* *|37069|* Invisible Doesn't Mean Unimportant unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

THE BULLY WITHIN: When Boxing Meets Spirituality [A 2016 New Book Release]

Traitmarker Books 2016 New Author Feature View this email in your browser Dale Crowe's The Bully Within A JOURNEY OF CONSCIOUSNESS Imagine answering someone who inquired the whereabouts of a Dale Crowe with, "There never was a Dale Crowe." Now imagine responding that way if you were Dale Crowe. To most ears, that sentence would sound like a nonsense statement or an evasive manuever. For Dale Crowe it is neither. Dale means "valley" in Hebrew. That's fitting, because I've felt squeezed between two mountains for most of my life. After going to war with that duality for almost 40 years, I've learned that there never really was a Dale Crowe... Saying that there's no real Dale Crowe sounds like a riddle. But it's actually a truth that means a lot to me. Dale Crowe & His Maternal Grandparents The Bully Within: A Journey of Consciousness is the autobiographical, play-by-play transformation of former, up-and-coming crusierweight boxer, Dale Crowe: the transformation from a bully into an enlightened man. The Bully Within is a book about spirituality, not boxing. In it, Dale seeks to answer his own riddle. From the first page of the prologue, he paints in detailed brush strokes the deceptively benign beginnings of his volatile past: I was born in Ohio and grew up with my mother, stepfather, and grandparents. The deaths of my grandparents and the absence of my father introduced me at an early age to issues of loss and abandonment. When I was very young, I was a class clown. But after meeting my father at age thirteen, I wanted to model myself after him, and I learned to box partly to impress him. I rose through the ranks of amateur and professional boxing, but not until my life came crashing around me did I return to the root issues of loss and abandonment and learn to deal with them. Those losses opened a chasm of loneliness. The combination of Dale's losses with his loneliness found him seeking larger and larger doses of ego-driven attention from an early age. It's the voice of Dale's ego pockmarking page after page in increasingly sinister, 10-point-font stocatto that Dale exposes to the light the gremlin that taunted him. It's the bully that began with him... Who's gonna stay around you very long? New school soon? New friends? You better find a way to matter. What if nobody even likes you?  ... and grew with him... Everything you got is because of boxing. You don't fit into any other role. You've failed at everything else. Better get your ass back in that ring, pal, if you like what you got. You better fight to keep it.  It was this bifurcation of Dale's identity, this objectifiction of Dale's personality, and this normalization of the voice in his head that convinced Dale from an early age that one part of him was bully and the other part was Dale Crowe. Dale Crowe (second from the right) While much of the book chronologically catalogues the stair-step accomplishments of Dale's boxing career (ESPN, Fox Sports, The Oprah Winfrey Show), Dale focuses on specific vignettes that were catalysts in the uncontrollable growth of his ego. By structuring the story like this, Dale allows the reader to see the bully operate from a wide angle. Dale wanted to write the kind of book that he wished he would have read as a child that would had described his internal fears against the stark relief of machismo culture. It might have made a difference. It might have diverted him from a life of violence. Growing up, I wasn't a big reader, but I did love stories. I was mesmerized by action heroes on television and in the movies. When my life slowed down and I started looking for answers, I found new heroes - heroes who introduced me to peace and wisdom and truth in their writings. I could ask no greater honor than to lead a reader into the path I've found by honestly sharing my life in a book. That enlightenment came four years after Dale went to prison. Dale Crowe vs. Michael Moore Fight (ESPN) ON VIOLENCE Violence takes center stage in American media. From mass shootings to murders and rapes to killings by and of law enforcement officers, we seem to hear about a new tragedy before we've had time to process the old ones. We send out thoughts and prayers to the families of victims far too often. From Columbine to Charleston to Orlando to Dallas, the venues of shootings and the names of the killers become infamous. As a result, ordinary Americans congregate in large numbers with the understanding that anywhere can be a target: a school, a movie theater, a shopping center, a bar, or a city street. And that's not even to mention the family violence or random violence that fails to make the headlines. According to Gun Violence Archive, as of July 17, 2016, 7,458 people have died and 15,450 people have suffered injury in 28,932 incidents. And according to theNational Coalition Against Domestic Violence, "nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States." Though mass shootings grab the headlines, the violence that occurs behind closed doors may do the greatest damage to the fabric of society. CASA reports on the link between child abuse and incarceration: The new study draws a strong link between prior abuse and violent crime. Among male inmates in state prisons, 76 percent who were abused and 61 percent not abused had a current or past sentence for a violent offense. Among female offenders, 45 percent of the abused and 29 percent not abused had served a sentence for a violent crime. Abuse is far from the only factor contributing to the likelihood of a violent life. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice reports that "nationally, 7.3 million children have at least one parent in jail or prison. Sadly, 70 percent of these kids are doomed to follow in the same footsteps as their parents becoming imprisoned at some point in their lives". In fact, self-control plays a major part in whether victims become perpetrators. "Self-control is key to a well-functioning life, because our brain makes us easily [susceptible] to all sorts of influences. Watching a movie showing violent acts predisposes us to act violently. Even just listening to violent rhetoric makes us more inclined to be violent. Ironically, the same mirror neurons that make us empathic make us also very vulnerable to all sorts [of] influences". So the direction of society in great part depends on how well individuals dealing with pain and violence can control the impulse to commit violence: "Reasons for committing a crime include greed, anger, jealousy, revenge, or pride." Uncontrolled negative emotion, the choice food of the ego, acts like a cancer on society, killing the innocent to feed itself. Children who grow up abused, impoverished, or without a stable family structure carry a burden other children do not. It is harder for them to make positive choices and to halt the cycle of pain and violence. Dale Crowe  THE MESSAGE It was in prison that Dale eventually was able to relate his loss and loneliness to the bully that he had become: Outside events damaged me because of how I allowed them to make me feel on the inside. As a child, that's understandable. But as an adult, it shouldn't be. These days, I choose how I will experience any given situation. My past does not define my choices. As long as I operate in truth, I am satisfied with the outcome. My inner self is pleased, though my ego might not be. Why? Love. The ego needs past and future. I can be love in the present moment. Dale's learned that his obsession with the past and future did not allow him the ease and joy of simply being in the present. This new understanding introduced Dale to a series ofkundalini events: impromptu "ego-burning" opportunities that allowed him pratical ways to further distance himself from the false chasm of "Dale Crowe the Bully" and "The Other Dale Crowe." In prison he began to look at the young men flowing through the prison doors. He wanted to show them that stoking that negative emotion would only hurt them. He wanted to tell them that they didn't need to hold on to the pain inside them and identify with it: During my ten years in prison, I've seen a lot of bullies. I've seen men do violence to each other because they hear non-stop violence inside themselves. I try to help those who will listen to understand bullies - how to avoid suffering violence, doing violence, and allowing violence to reign within them. I know from experience that within every violent person is an inner self longing for a different life. Dale's realization of the harm caused by his inner bully impels him to share that realization with others. While his first world traces the arc from his suburban childhood through the world of professional boxing into the adjacent world of crime, violence, and drugs and into prison, Dale's second world allows him to confront his inner torment and learn to live at peace with himself, the world, and God. And he wouldn't trade anything for that world. So there never was a Dale Crowe. There never was an other. "Dale Crowe" is an identity and a history that one part of the divine essence inhabits.That divine essence exists in unity and love, and realizing its presence importance keeps the collection of wrongs, wounds, pain, and negative emotion that belong to the "other" Dale Crowe from causing more hurt and sorrow in the world. Now imagine living your entire life never knowing there never was a Dale Crowe. That's the predicament of the billions of people who walk this globe. That's the predicament of the inmate and the warden alike, the CEO and the employee alike, the parent and the child. And that's the reason Dale Crowe wrote this book. The Bully Within Paperback The Bully Within Kindle Dale Crowe

Traitmarker Books is a Nashville-based publishing & publicity service for cause-authors. Our authors own their copyrights and are free negotiate with publishers & marketing companies. A Bully Within is available for reviewers upon request. Copyright © *|2016|* *|Traitmarker Books|*, All rights reserved. *|New Author Feature|* *|Dale Crowe|* To contact the publisher, email traitmarker@gmail.com MAILING ADDRESS *|2984 Del Rio Pike Franklin, TN|* *|37069|* Invisible Doesn't Mean Unimportant unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

WRITER & AUTHOR THARINI PANDE: Scurry's New Neighbor & the Importance of Calling Each Other by Name

Inspirational Writer & Author

Tharini Pande (www.tharinipande.com)

Names are important.

Just recently, my wife has changed her morning routine. She used to walk down our almost quarter-of-a-mile gravel driveway to retrieve her daily newspaper, walk back, pour herself a cup of tea, sit down at the diningroom table and dictate to me the noteworthy parts of the newspaper while I mind-mapped in one of my journals or worked on my laptop. This routine would last from 8:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. until recently when we woke up to the reality that, while informative, this arrangement did more to stifle our chi than, say, listening to caustic talk radio for positive inspiration.

 Our driveway

The reason we stopped reading the paper in the morning was because it set a pretty depressing tone for the rest of the day. As writers and publishers, my wife and I naturally channel and assume the thoughts and positions of others. Additionally, we have a vested interest in topics currently popular, like veteran issues, cause marketing, business trends, and immigration. It's a high level of functional empathy we experience that can be both intermittently exhilirating and exhausting. You just don't know until it happens. But one factor that made it easy to switch up my routine of newsgathering was the refugee crisis. Especially the children. 

Other than suffering, acceptance of one's mortality, or having children, I'm not sure of any better teachers to help dislodge the meaningless, petty, and untried doctrines to which we intellectually subscribe but which becomes ugly when manifested in the physical world. I have children: six of them. And lately when challenged by religious, political, and social idealogues whose gut impulse is to speak in damaging ways about the least of these, I've ended such conversations with the sentiment I'm a parent. I don't have the luxury of principles. So when I saw the image of the three-year-old Syrian boy who was found washed up and face-down in the surf on a Turkish beach, I couldn't help but to feel a jolt of primordial pain.

The Grayson Children

During this last year as the refugee situation has taken up more and more space in our daily newspapers and news outlets, I was working with the author Tharini Pande (www.tharinipande.com) on her first children's book Scurry's New Neighbor, illustrated by Lex Avellino (http://www.alexanderavellino.com/). The story has a simple storyline, reminiscent of Aesop's Fables, but in expanded form. 

Scurry is a squirrel that, living up to his name, darts about gathering food around his tree. One day he realizes that a beautiful bluejay has built a nest in his tree. Fearful that the bluejay not only has invaded his space but might also compete for his finite food resources, Scurry doubles his efforts to scurry about and hoard all the food that he can. More anxious than anything else, Scurry finds himself overworked, caught in a rainstorm, tired, and hungry. But just when he is about to go to bed miserable, the bluejay invites him into her nest to share berries. Needless to say, the selfish squirrel is caught off guard but accepts the offer.

Blue-wy: Call me Blue-wy.
Scurry: And call be Scurry.
Both: I think we are going to be great neighbors.

I told Tharini in a phone call that after several dozen times of reading her book, it finally clicked with me why the book's message meant so much to me. It was because the relationship changed when they learned each others' names.

So I learned the little Syrian boy's name. His name was Aylan Kurdi. I also learned that his 5-year-old brother's name was Galip, and his mother's name was Rehan. All drowned. And as much as it pained me to learn their names (others might say that I've unnecessarily burdened myself by learning their names), it makes Aylan, Galip, and Rehan that much closer. Like neighbors.

Aylan and his brother, Galip

So that's one major reason my wife and I don't read the newspaper in the morning anymore. Too many nameless faces and too many tragic histories that our hearts, unable to take it all in at a respectable human level, become that much more hardened to the plight of these humans. To our plight. Now, we learn about their stories after our work for the day is more than over. We converse about it in the evening, and it often plays out in our dreams. But then we wake up again the next morning, feeling more energized to work on their behalf, especially when we know their names.

To learn more about Tharini Pande and her book Scurry's New Neighbor, go to website www.tharinipande.com or drop her a line on her fb page at https://www.facebook.com/authortharinipande/

8 Broganish Habits That Changed the Way I Think About Work

(Chris Brogan)

Few people in my life have changed the way that I think. Chris Brogan is the latest in that short line-up. 

I met Chris through a subscription link given to me on April 18, 2012 by a South African colleague who was working in Taiwan (Thanks, Ian Campbell). Somewhere in the middle of several weeks of leveraging our efforts to get Taylor Swift to perform in China (We were successfully circumvented), Ian thought that subscribing to Chris's newsletter would help me better organize the strange but rich network I had. 

So I did.

My first email to Chris was this: 

"I just finished reading a blog entry you sent to a mutual friend of ours, Ian Campbell. It was brilliant! You described my life! I found your blog to be so freaking honest, that I subscribed, and I look forward to passing it around to my American network."

Chris's response was:

"You're very kind, Robbie. Thank you for sharing it, and I'm happy you found this useful. That Ian's a nice fellow :)"

Every Sunday morning since then like clockwork, I've awakened to a bubbly newsletter from Chris. At first, I was intrigued with the list of teas/coffees/drinks that invigorate his newsletters. Next, I was intrigued with the brevity of his ideas. Then I began taking his advice. 

After almost 4 years of reading Brogan, the habit-forming culminated into a streak of major, noticeable changes in my vocational work, beginning the summer of 2014 and continuing to now.

These work habits have:

• decreased my workload
• increased my income
• increased my output
• decreased my customer problems

Here are 8 Broganish work habits I attribute to Chris:

• Don't Let People Pick Your Brain. If, like me, you exchange money for information, one of the worst things you can do is to meet people for casual business meetings around food. My wife and I were at a friend's house a while back where I met a new friend. Intrigued with our conversation, he asked if we could "do coffee: one day. My wife smirked, and he wanted to know if he said anything wrong. I explained that I don't "do coffee." Why not? Because I end up paying $5.00 for a cup of substandard coffee and end up giving away hundreds of dollars in free information. Picking my brain is equivalent to picking my wallet. That doesn't mean I'm a stingy guy. It just means that I probably won't go to coffee with you and talk about business.

• Don't Care About What People Think: Especially If They Aren't Paying You. People have certain expectations of American educators. Usually, those expectations involve 1) being highly specialized in a small but impractical area and 2) being poor. In my former circles, certain people have always been suspicious of how I've made my money (because clearly my school wasn't paying the bills for years). Whatever consulting jobs I took in addition to running a school, I made sure that I didn't appear to be smarter or wealthier than people's expectations (I even gave away loads of money when I had it so that I couldn't be characterized as a snob). That led to stretches of scarcity or the inability to enjoy my money. So I learned to stop caring, and the fanbase to which I was shackled slowly disappeared. 

• Dont' Look at Your Email or Social Media the First Thing in the Morning Or the Last Thing at Night. Because most of my clients hear about me through one of my many social media portals, it's easy to justify waking up and going to bed with my phone or computer on. The reality is that most of my clients who come through social media are potential clients, and potential clients aren't the same as real clients because most of them need to be courted and sometimes coddled before you make a sale. So I've made it hard for people to get in touch with me (email & voicemail). Potential customers who shoot the breeze with me on social media are not the best investment of my time. The real ones contact me. And pay me.

• Stop Subscribing to Stuff You Plan to Do. I used to borrow credentials against reputation like I've borrowed money against time. When potential clients would ask for my credentials, I found myself telling them about projects I was planning to do, books I was planning to read, places I was planning to go (I don't know... maybe highlighting my bucket list sounded sexier?). So I was always having to play catch up. I've psycho-analyzed numerous times why I subscribed to ideas I didn't care about, books I didn't like, music I didn't care to hear, meetings I didn't want to sit through. It came down to this reason: I wasn't enough. The present was never good enough. I was perpetually unsatisfied. So, as interesting as some things are, I hit unsubscribe if it doesn't fit into my life.

• Do the Thing You Think You Cannot Do. I no longer believe people who pretend they don't know where they have gone wrong in their vocation, their marriage, their health, etc. Don't get me wrong: confusion is a very real thing. But most people can at least guess what their problems are or where their problems lie. I've learned that a lot of frantic or hyper activity isn't so much attributed to personality as much as it's suppression of the thing we need to focus on. Now, my work time is dedicated to identifying and completing these boring and unenjoyable tasks. Barring work that is overdue, I've learned that creating systems to target these boring areas minimizes the hyperventilation of incessant activity.

• Only Supervise the Areas That Need Supervision. I've spent a lot of time in the worldview world and have noticed a curious thing about my behavior over many years. When one part of my worldview shifted, I would feel the urge to overhaul my entire worldview. As integrationists, the worldviewer might spend a lot of time "thinking" about how things are wrong, but s/he doesn't do anything about it until s/he figures out how it fits. Of course, worldviews are always incomplete and always changing (it's really no big deal), so parts of it will always be in tension. But do you really not want to lose 10 pounds if it doesn't fit into your health worldview? Or do you really want to avoid paying that one bill just because you don't have a grasp on your entire financial portfolio. Thinking can be virtuous, but action (even just a little...) is the final arbiter.

• If It's Really Important, Put It On the Calendar. Chris Brogan says that if you aren't making enough money, show him your calendar and he can tell where your problem lies. Routinely doing the smallest increment of a project gets you further than random attention. For several years I was writing a book. When I applied Chris's structure, I set my alarm 6 days a week to write 20 minutes each day. In two weeks, I had a comprehensive outline and had put 4 hours towards the book: more time than I had put in the last 3 years. What's even more amazing is that for 3 years my conscience plagued me several times a week for not writing. Now, I can write for 20 minutes, and I don't think about it again until the next day. 

• Stop Pretending You Don't Know Who Your Customer Is. One part of my marketing struggle has been a desire to design the customer I want. That's not the way that it works. Just as the inventor struggles to create a valve that doesn't leak, in the end he never can have a valve that is 100% leak-proof. That's because this world gives us- get this- leaky valves! So it's not a matter of creating the perfect valve as much as it's determining how much leaking you can tolerate. So it is with customers. You can attract any number of customers, but you will only sustain the customer base that needs you. My customers have problems they want me to solve privately. Sometimes they are huge problems. Sometimes they are too huge for me so that I need to bring in a team. Those are the clients who pay good money, let me do what I need to do, and are usually satisfied with my work. I've tried to appeal to a different customer base (believe me), but this is the one that keeps coming back. I've learned that's what I'm good at. And I'm proud of it. Oh, and it just is.

Chris is a master mindshifter. And he's good at what he does. Like a scientist in a lab, he tinkers with media & online communities and tells us what has and hasn't worked for him. What I especially like about Chris is that he delivers SO MUCH VALUE in his free Sunday newsletter that you immediately will experience small successeses if you follow his advice.

So subscribe here!

_______________

Robbie Grayson III

TRAITMARKER Founder/CEO

Email: traitmarker@gmail.com

Website 1: http://traitmarker.com/

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Store: http://traitmarkerstore.bigcartel.com/

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Aboutme.com: http://about.me/robbiegrayson/

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Blog: http://pomozone2011.blogspot.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pomozone

LinkedIn: http://goo.gl/RURUrV

TRIGGERPIECES, BRAIN SAKE & VETERAN SUICIDE: How One Female Combat Veteran Turned the Tables

When I first met Cleo on my birthday last year (May 29), she was on her way to NYC for a speaking engagement. I was introduced to her by my good friend, Malachias Gaskin. So I browsed her photos, which indicated that, should I make contact, I would be dealing with a badass.

Not being a stranger to badasssery, I talked to Cleo. And found her to be DELIGHTFUL. Cleo was a combat veteran with an awesome Boston accent (She didn't take that as a compliment) and a survivor of suicide... 3 TIMES. The first time she shot herself in the face. The other two times: carbon monoxide poisoning & downing 90 tranquilizers. 

Within a couple of weeks of her return from NYC, Malachias and I had her on the road to Texas to try out a farm retreat for combat veterans. The start of that road-trip was less than desirable & Cleo ended up calling me to let me know that had she a gun, she would "eat a bullet." That was probably my first introduction to the volatility of Cleo's PTSD.

Since then, Cleo visited my family at our home in August 2014 (We had to learn not to knock on her door or come up behind her, because her startle reflex was out the roof... no pun intended). In September 2014 I met Cleo in San Francisco with a platoon of other veteran-leaders for a conference.

Shortly thereafter, Cleo "went off the grid" & didn't answer her phone over the period of a day or two. A call was made from Brentwood, Tennessee, and the police came out to Cleo's house. She ended up being at a pool hall with a friend. She wasn't happy that the police broke a metal bar in her window to gain entry to her house. Yes, I felt like an idiot. But I would rather feel an idiot and know that my friend was alive then the other option.

In February 2015 Cleo had an opportunity to undergo a little-known treatment through a company called Brain Sake in Bethesda, Maryland which specializes in treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD, TBI, and a myriad of related issues. Cleo just finished the treatment yesterday (March 30). Here is a list of hurdles Cleo says she overcame throughout the 58-day program:

• a horrible stutter... gone after the 2nd treatment
• a Boston accent (never been to Boston)... gone after 2 treatments
• major depression... gone after the 1st treatment
• suicidal ideations... gone after the 1st treatment
• rage and irritability... gone after the 1st treatment
• nightmares where she would wake up in cold sweats, unable to go back to sleep... gone after the 1st treatment.
• hypervigilance... gone after 4th treatment
• high startle rate... gone after 6th treatment
• intrusive thoughts... gone after the 1st treatment
• desire to harm myself (she's been a cutter since age 13)... gone after the 1st treatment
• and...the BIG one... suicidal ideations...gone after the 1st treatment.

In addition Cleo published a book while in treatment: Triggerpieces. This is a book of memorable pieces (poetry) coalesced over the last 20 years that spans topics of Cleo's abusive childhood, combat, post-combat, and her post-suicide attempt. Many of these pieces are dedicated to battle-buddies, mentors, and friends along the way who have helped Cleo along the way. It has taken a team... a battalion... for this veteran to get to this point. And what about the others out there?

That's Cleo's real concern ... advocating for veterans who suffer from PTSD, TBI's, suicide ideation, and MSA (military-sexual abuse).

After 5 p.m. (MST) today (March 31, 2015) Cleo will be greeted by FOX News and the controversial Sheriff Joe at the Phoenix Airport as she heads back home to Mesa. 

If you want to get a copy of Triggerpieces or find out from Cleo more about her treatment, go to https://www.facebook.com/SoldiersJourney.