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On Feb. 11, the Anthropedia Center for Well-Being, comprised of the Anthropedia Academy and The Wellness Agora, opened its doors to the public. After being approached by the previous owner, the Wellness Agora is now located in where the Library Annex once resided.

One of the main purposes of the center is to help people reach their fullest potential and relieve the stress that drags an individual down through a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. The Anthropedia Foundation, whose research informed The Wellness Agora, was founded by Lauren Munsch Dal Farra, M.D., Sita Kedia, M.P.H., M.D., and Kevin Cloninger, P.h.D., in St. Louis in 2004.

Cloninger, Executive Director of the Anthropedia Foundation, as well as Lara Pennington, MSW, Director of Development and Community Engagement for the Anthropedia Foundation, felt that there was a lack of well-being, self-knowledge, meaning and purpose in todays individuals alongside a world that is increasingly unstable.

Twenty years ago when we were getting started it was not obvious to anyone that these problems would be as bad as they are now, said Cloninger.

Sensing the degree to which individuals stress were affecting them, Cloninger felt that something had to be done to help, and The Wellness Agora was born.

The Anthropedia Center for Well-Being offers various ways for individuals to not only learn how to reach their fullest potential and decrease stress, but also to teach others to do the same. These come in the form of coaching and different services that target an individuals biological and psychological well-being. By being coached, an individual can learn how to lead a better, and more fulfilling life. By becoming certified in a training course, an individual can share what theyve learned and help others to follow in a path of a healthier lifestyle and being.

I went through the training with that personal development in mind, but also for the professional implementation of the curriculum. And I fell in love with the curriculum, stated Pennington on her experience before joining the team in April of 2018.

Osha Chesnutt-Perry, a junior at SLU, reflects on her time with Anthropedia and The Wellness Agora with gratitude. I have been fortunate to try some of these services in New York and have already reaped benefits in decreasing my anxiety, and look forward to continuing to use whats offered here to support my academic and professional pursuits, stated Chesnutt-Perry.

The services offered by The Wellness Agora target an individuals body and mind, seeking to help relax, renew and recharge. Some of these services included an iso float, a thermal relax, infrared sculpt, biobalance and various other biologically based services.

For all services, students in the St. Louis area will receive a 25 percent discount. For all SLU students with a valid ID, they will receive a 50 percent discount.

Continued here:
New Wellness Center Opens in Place of Library Annex - The University News

April 23, 1998. A bipartisan summit, of sorts, on the implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act was being broadcast by C-SPAN and I had been tasked with drafting Vice President Al Gores remarks. The summit was hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration and the Council for Excellence in Government and included the House majority leader, Richard Armey, as well as one of GPRAs lead Senate sponsors, Sen. John Glenn.

At the time, Armeyat the direction of then Speaker Newt Gingrichhad recently finished leading a task force of House committee members in scouring federal agencies first-ever strategic plans and challenging them to be more results-oriented. While this review effort was largely seen by the media as a political exercise, it actually engaged members of Congress with agency strategic plans.

Gore talked about how the decline of trust in government is linked to a perceived lack of government performance and that we can help redeem the promise of self-government [so that citizens will have] healthier levels of respect for what we have accomplished . . . '' it's a matter of performance, not politics. He also said we need to shift discussion from preparing plans to using plans . . . Our challenge is to make the Act work.

What was the medias reaction to the whole event? They reported that Gore gave an impossibly wonky speech . . . and I was never asked to draft another one for him again.

Outputs Versus Outcomes

The more significant matter coming out of that event was what were these plans and subsequent performance reports going to be used for, and who was the target audience for using them? It was clear that Congress was interested in using them for accountability purposes.

At the time, the Congress was dominated by Republicans who decided to use the GPRA law (which they dubbed the Results Act) to force agencies to be clearer about what they were trying to achieve. The biggest pushback from agencies was that they wanted to focus on what they could produceoutputs like the number of Social Security checks issuedversus what outcomes were agencies trying to achieve, such as reduced poverty among elderly as a result of incomes supplemented by Social Security. Agencies felt they should be held accountable for outputs, over which they had control, but not outcomes, which they could influence but not control.

Focus on Accountability

Agencies were afraid of looking bad. In fact, in Gores remarks, he said: There has been a great deal of reluctance among many agencies to commit to goals over which they have little real control. In fact, managers in one agency told me that their leadership directed that personal performance targets should be set at 15% below of what they felt was achievable, so they could be assured of meeting their targets when reporting to Congress. That wasnt the right approach.

Stretch goals were touted as a better practice for improving performance. Yet agencies that did set stretch goals, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, were punished by congressional appropriators for missing stretch goals, such as increasing the percentage of drivers wearing seatbelts. Seeing this response by Congress, many agencies lowered their targets and their profiles.

In 2001, the incoming Bush administration decided to double down on focusing the performance system on accountability. It created public scorecards for the performance of management systems using a red-yellow-green stoplight approach. In addition, it scored each of more than 1,000 individual government programs on a 100-point scale as to their effectiveness. These scores were made public.

The philosophy of Clay Johnson, who led the management initiatives, was that shame and humiliation was an effective way to spur improvement in performance. And to some extent, it did, but that system was dismantled in 2009 by the incoming Obama administration which had a different philosophy for driving performance improvement (the subject of an upcoming column).

Performance Accountability in Action

The emphasis on accountability, transparency and targets still has its adherents and it can work in specific circumstances, mainly in programs that are fairly stable and have a set of routines that can be directly controlled, such as processing grants, licenses, or benefits. These are largely output-oriented programs.

For example, the Veterans Benefits Administration has put in place a leading example of how to use clear goals, priorities, and publicly available information to drive performance across an organization of 25,000 employees. In a recent presentation at the National Academy of Public Administration, Undersecretary Paul Lawrence described three priorities in improving VBAs performance and accountability.

Whats been the progress? In 2013, there were 611,000 cases for benefit determination in the backlog que. By November 2019, it was 64,800. Lawrence says that veterans are getting benefits faster and are waiting less time, and that in the coming year, the targets for performance will be ratcheted upward.

The lesson: Using clear goals, performance information, transparency, and targets to highlight accountability can be a powerful tool to drive output-oriented performance (such as the approval of a benefit), especially in clearly-defined and stable program areas. But since results are not just the outputs of a particular program, and there is not always a stable program environment, there are different approaches used in other parts of government. The next column will highlight an alternative approach.

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Performance Management: The Emphasis on Accountability - GovExec.com

GAMBIER, OhioIn their final tune-up before next month's NCAA Division III Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Denison women's swimmers competed at the Kenyon Fast Chance Invitational.

The day was highlighted by senior Caroline Colville's season-best 'B' cut performance in the 200 butterfly. Colville entered with a 'B' cut time of 2:04.81 but improved that time to 2:04.51. Her teammate, Becca Taylor came close to a 'B' cut in the 200 fly as she finished with a personal best time of 2:05.86. The NCAA's provisional qualifying time in the event is 2:05.61.

Denison senior KT Kustritz had a busy day, swimming several events outside of her specialty breaststroke events. She posted a season-best 'B' cut in the 100 fly in 54.84 and another season-best 'B' cut performance in the 200 freestyle in 1:51.82.

First-year Tara Culibrk lowered her personal best in the 50 free, touching in 24.28. After having already met her 'B' cut in the 100 free in December, Culibrk returned to win the event with a time of 51.70.

First-year Emma Berdelman logged a career-best time of 57.71 in the 100 fly and Abby Fierstos notched a PR in the 500 free with a time of 5:09.34.

Another season-best time was turned in by senior Casey Kirby in a time trial of the 200 free when she touched in 1:53.01. In the 100 breaststroke, Karly Noetzel logged a personal best time of 1:06.84.

Denison returns to action on March 18-21 at the NCAA Division III Championship. The Denison divers will be in action on Feb. 28-29 at the NCAA Central Diving Regional that will be hosted by Denison. Entries will be announced early next week.

Originally posted here:
Denison women compete at Kenyon Fast Chance Invite - Big Red Athletics

It was not only Mr. Sanders and Mr. Bloomberg who were subjected to withering criticism: Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., also engaged in a bitter and lengthy colloquy about foreign policy and their qualifications for the presidency, culminating in a sharp exchange in which Ms. Klobuchar asked Mr. Buttigieg if he was calling her dumb.

There was little in the debate to suggest that Mr. Sanders, the national front-runner and the favorite to win Nevadas caucuses on Saturday, had been knocked off balance, and the pile-on against Mr. Bloomberg had the potential to work in Mr. Sanderss favor by keeping the focus of hostilities elsewhere.

But Mr. Sanders, too, was pressed to address some of the persistent questions about his candidacy, including whether he would release a fuller version of his medical records and why his candidacy appears to inspire uniquely vitriolic behavior by some of his supporters on the internet. Mr. Sanders, Vermonts junior senator, insisted that nearly all of his online fans were good and decent people, but said he would disown those people who behave in deplorable ways.

Nobody acted with more urgency than Ms. Warren, who finished a distant fourth in New Hampshire after doing little to stand out in the debate there. She repeatedly inserted herself into main currents of the conversation. The challenge for her, though, is that her newfound vigor came after tens of thousands of Nevadans had already cast their ballots in early voting.

It was Ms. Warren who initiated the exchange that may have damaged Mr. Bloomberg the most when she repeatedly demanded to know whether he would be willing to release some of the former female employees at his news media organization from the nondisclosure agreements they had signed. He declined to do so, calling the agreements consensual, and minimized the underlying complaints by suggesting that the women merely didnt like a joke I told.

After pressing Mr. Bloomberg and leaving him flustered, but unable to coax him into releasing the women she said he had muzzled, Ms. Warren then broadened her attack.

We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who-knows-how-many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against, she said.

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Warren Leads an Onslaught of Attacks, Zeroing In on Bloomberg - The New York Times

Dan Pea probably isnt a man youve heard of before, but there are literally a gazillion reasons why anyone seeking success should pay attention to him. For one, he grew up in a small barrio in Los Angeles and was thrown in jail five times for crimes that were alcohol-related, but he managed to turn his life around by taking $820 and building it into a $450 million fortune in eight years time after taking his oil company public.

Recently, Pea has started coaching, inviting mentees who pay $15,000 into his castle in Scotland to learn the Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA), a method he says he used to build his own tremendous wealth. Why such a steep price, you ask? Well, its not steep according to Pea, as he claims QLA mentees have built more than $50 billion in equity and value from learning his secrets. For that sort of exorbitant return though, mentees shouldnt expect his seminar to be a walk in the park people have been rumored to piss and sh*t themselves going through the experience.

Pea is also known to be completely uncensored. Brian Rose of London Reel was a recent attendee at one of Dans seminars, and he recounted someof the things Pena said during the very first day:

You f*cking CUNTS are weak and unaccomplished, which is why you are here in the first place. But all that changes tomorrow when we go deep and find out why Mommy and Daddy didnt love you. Guess what? I dont give a SHIT why! When you leave here you wont have an action plan, you will have a WAR PLAN. And I NEVER leave a man behind.

And dont do any of that networking bullshit, thats for losers. You are here to work on yourselfI dont want to see any business cards or electronic messages.When I see you guys swapping spit, my dick goes limp.

I could easily kill three of you myself, or at least two of you with my bad hip. So if anyone wants a piece just let me know. And if I see any phones or laptops I WILL FUCKING BREAK THEM.

Even while pushing 70 years of age, Dan Pea is hardcore. Hes bungee jumped in the worst conditions possible and hes jumped out of planes without a parachute. Why? Because he f*cking can. Hes hunted live buffalo, bears and boars and killed them with nothing but a handgun and a knife their heads are proudly displayed on his wall. Pea lives in a badass castle out in Scotland with butlers who constantly tend to him, he has maids who travel with him everywhere, and hes a U.S. Army veteran. Watch out, Dos Equis man, for you now have a true contender in the title for the Most Interesting Man in the World.

Recently, I had the pleasure of catching up with Dan Pea over the phone. Having met many successful people in the past, including billionaires, celebrities and politicians, I didnt agree with everything he had to say. At the same time though, his criticisms and ideas are the type of things people normally dont have the balls to deliver. Listening to Pea is like getting a full shot of testosterone.

Asked about his coaching program, Pea said:

I dont consider myself as a personal development guy. Those are are all titles I really dont understand. What I am is, Im a super high-performance coach. Money is not everything in life, but its the only thing anybodys kept track of since the pharaohs My pyramid has got to be bigger than your pyramid. I believe that we are put on this earth, whether you believe in Buddha or whoever you believe in, to be all we can be.

Not many people who seek success really attain it, and Mr. Pea has a straightforward reason why:

What I see is most people not just kids, but middle-aged and even older people they cop out, they blame it on somebody else. They blame their lack of success and/or their failures on circumstances. They blame it on interest rates. They blame it on they didnt go to a good enough school. They blame it on theyre too fat. They blame it on my tits are too big, my ass is too big, my nose is too big, Im Chinese, Im Mexican, Im Japanese whatever the f*cking reason is, they always got an excuse why they dont fulfill their potential. Mans greatest burden is unfulfilled potential. Ill be 70 years old my next birthday and Ive seen a lot more people than I can count, men and women, boys and girls, that havent fulfilled their potential cause they give up.

Although conventional wisdom asserts that money isnt everything, Pea heavily disagrees.

When your mom has Alzheimers and your dad has emphysema or your 14-year-old sister is pregnant withwhoever,you need money to solve these problemsWhat money allows you to do, and what wealth creation allows you to do, is to have more choices in life. For those of the kids that wanna save the planet, they believe or worry about global warming and they believe and worry about all these other things, the problems that we have in Europe. Go get rich and then take your money like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, and solve the problems. Dont just bitch about them! I tell people, Go out and be successful and then you can use your success as an instrument to help others. I see too many of the kids dont do that. They think that carrying signs around parks is gonna save the world. Well, thats not gonna save the world! Let them go out and solve the problems of the world by creating wealth and then using that wealth to solve the problems.

But Dan isnt just about criticism, as he has a lot of encouraging words for success.

You can accomplish almost anything through clear, absolute and laser beam focus. Im often asked, If you were 20 years old, what would you tell the 20-year-old Dan Pea today approaching 70? Ill only them just one thing Just f*cking do it. Dont think about it. Dont ask so many questions. Dont Google it, dont spreadsheet it, dont Wikipedia it. Just f*cking do it! Know that part of the process is that youre gonna make mistakes, part of the process is that youre gonna stumble. Part of the process is like a high-tech startup: Youre gonna pivot, youre gonna morph, youre gonna change. Know that and dont be worried about it. Fail but fail fast! But most people are afraid because were taught to want to fit in, be like other people and not stand out. You show me your friends and Ill show you your future.

Although the seminar requires a solid financial commitment to go, Pea says its not entirely necessary.

Weve got many people that have made tens of millions that have just used the book, used the product, and thats what I would suggest. You dont have to go and come and see Dan and spend twenty grand at Castle Seminar. The Castle Seminars are for the people that wanna make the ultimate commitment. They wanna be in the ultimate fight, UFC of success, and theyre willing to pay the price both financially and emotionally cause I kick the sh*t out of you.

Perhaps the most interesting part of our conversation was when he started comparing the entrepreneurs of today and the past.

The kids today arent willing; the kids today they give up too easy because the kids today have too many excuses. You look at the entrepreneurs that are in Silicon Valley, lets just take them for an example that is one of a million percent of all the kids on the planet. They are not representative of anything. They are not representative of a generation. Before them, they have Hewlett-Packard, who is actually at the forefront of Silicon Valley. With HP, theyre born in Silicon Valley 60 years ago. And those guys were billionaires when a billion meant something. Not when you became a billionaire like Im not taking anything away from Zuckerberg, hes a smart kid but I mean the billionaires of 50 years ago were really billionaires. The billionaires today they got their money from an IPO or from PayPal or wherever, thats great. But today theres more opportunities to get wealthy than there was 50 years ago.

I find the younger generations give up too soon and they have too many excuses to blame their lack of success on a previous generation. My generation and the generation after me didnt blame our lack of success on anybody other than ourselves. The millennials say the people fucked it up in the 80s; greed fucked it up in the 80s My children, who have rich parents, which is me, and so their attitude about life is a lot different. Now the only saving graces that Ive been very hard on I dont give my kids any money, I paid for their education to go to school, but now theyre out on their own. I am not leaving my kids any money; my money is all going to charity. I dont give a fuck if my kids love me. I just want them to respect me when Im dead.

Even for a man as successful as himself, Pea still has regrets in life.

People ask if I have my life to live over again what Id change. Number one, I would have set higher goals. Higher goals because Ive fulfilled 90 percent of what Ive said Id fulfill, but I would have set higher goals. I would have gotten involved in coaching probably earlier because Im really f*cking good at it. Thats an understatement Im not good at it, Im probably and Im not being a bragger, but the numbers speak for themselves. Im the most successful high performance coach on the face of the Earth and Ive created more wealth than the whole industry cumulatively put together.

In a world where many are all talk, its important to know whos for real and who is full of sh*t. When asked how to differentiate between people who are worth time and those who are not, Pea said people should ask themselves two questions.

Is this guy or gal where you wanna be? If he or she is not where you wanna be, then stop. Number two: Did he or she make it ethically, morally, legally? Now the answer to those two questions, 99.99 percent of people that youre ever gonna meet, the answer is no, no and no. Most people are living quiet lives of desperation.

Currently, Dan Pea has about 40 people hes mentoring for a year outside of his castle. He also has a potential reality show coming up and has been meeting with agents out in Los Angeles, California. For anyone interested in winning a free Castle Seminar, you can apply here. All you have to do is submit one question that Dan Pea will answer on his podcast. You can also take his success test, which he claims has a 95 percent success rate when measuring whether you have what it takes to be a high performance guy.

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Dan Pena: $50 Billion Man Explains Why You Are WEAK and ...

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Photo credits:Photo / CC BY-SA 4.0

How do you become a billionaire? My mentor, Dan Pea, known as The 50 Billion Dollar Man, tells us to stop blaming family, economics, and circumstances. If you want to become a billionaire, Dan Pena says its easier now than 50 years ago, but our snowflake generation must do the one thing that prevents success.

By snowflake, were not talking about the stuff that falls from the sky and melts in your hand in the winter. What were talking about is mental toughness. To give you some perspective, Dan Pea was the kid at school who got beat up and who beat other people up. That molded him into the high achiever he is today which the missing trait from most people.

Now, as a high performance coach who can take a mentees income from seven figures to eleven, hell cut straight to the point with brutal honesty about why youre not successful, and he wont hold back from calling you names. Its how he shows tough love, believe it or not.

Dan once told fans at a show, If I leave here with anybody liking me, Ive failed. He truly believes in helping people, and hell drag you across the finish line. He believes you have the potential to be a millionaire or a billionaire. But he wont be your friend.

It was my deep respect for him when I was a young kid in my twenties that motivated me to seek him out as my mentor, to take my business to the next level. When you choose someone to be your mentor, you want someone much more successful than yourself.

He was high-performance, but he believes most people these days are not high-performance. Its why they fall short of their own expectations, and why he overcame a violent and tough past to become a highly sought after mentor.

Ive only had three mentors in my whole life, and hes only the second, because Im very selective about who I choose as mentors. However, asking him to become my mentor wasnt easy.

Dan Pena wasnt someone you could just call up, book an appointment, and pay to coach you about business. He was the recipient of many awards. The ll wrd, hn Rgn wrd, n f th Yr wrd and nrtnl Ldrh wrd.

He has names like The 50 Billion Dollar Man and The Trillion Dollar Man. Many people wonder about his net worth.

Its believed hes worth 50 billion because of his business ventures, position as CEO of various corporations, book sales, and the Quantum Leap Advantage coaching program that creates billions of dollars in revenue for his mentees. Many say his 50 Billion Dollar name is from the 50 billion dollar value he gives to his mentees.

Learning from Dan Pena is not the usual experience where you go to training at a hotel or conference centre. He lives in, and teaches his mentees in a 15th century castle, called Guthrie Castle.

He was the founder and CEO of various companies including Great Western Resources Inc and Guthrie Group, named after the castle. Before that, he worked in real estate, and before that, he was in the military to reset the disastrous path he was on in his youth.

He grew up with a father who set the bar low, and just wanted his son to stay alive. Dan exceeded those expectations, but in a different way. He threatened to kill a teacher and was expelled not just from the school, but from the entire school district.

Over the years, he was the one being beaten up and beating up others. He ended up in jail five times before he finally changed the direction of his life and served in the US Army before going to college.

When you compare these two phases of his life, you wouldnt have expected a ex-jailbird to become a mentor of billionaires. His past shaped him as a person and hardened him to set a high bar for performance. And if you challenge him, expect an answer like a battle cry.

Dan Pena doesnt know what fear is. The discipline he learned in the military, and his experience in real estate and business became the foundation for the Quantum Leap Advantage.

Its a methodology to teach people to develop that level of toughness that creates massive profits. His mentees include Brian Rose of London Real and dating coach Jason Capital, who describe their QLA experience as shock and awe and brutal.

The Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) is a system to increase wealth that is for everyone and also not for everyone. What does this mean, and what do you learn in the QLA exactly? Its been called the week long extravaganza at Guthrie Castle, and people who have taken the seminar have grown from 7 to 11 figures in their business.

The system is about geometrically growing your wealth, starting with no money. Dan Pea developed this proven formula that has 40 years of success. Since 1993, Dan has coached and mentored thousands and created multi-millionaires.

The QLA is not for everyone in the sense that not everyone can afford the price tag to learn from Dan Pena in person. But its also a system open to anyone who wants to learn all the video presentations from the seminar are available free and online.

So whats the catch? If you can watch episodes of the Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) seminars at Guthrie Castle and read information about the seminar on his website for free, why arent most of us billionaires already?

First, to be successful, you need to change your expectations, realign your goals and redefine your comfort zone. Not everyone likes to stare into the abyss and face their darkest fears about themselves. Not everyone wants to get uncomfortable and change old habits, even if those changes will raise them to a whole new income level.

Second, they need to empty their cup and commit to learning a new way of thinking. The QLA, the one you find on Dans website, showcases several audio and video presentations. The issues that Dan addresses in these seminars are the most critical issues in the business community.

Some of the topics covered in Dans QLA are the myths, lies and misinformation fed to us for years from success gurus; the importance of hanging out with like-minded people who are also high-performance; and how you can maintain a laser-beam like focus. He also talks about high self-esteem and its role in how much wealth you accumulate.

To achieve success, there are seven steps to follow:

The QLA methodology (7 Steps to Super Success)

Third, people who really do want to change their lives and reach a new income level, will. Dans business advice about how to dominate your industry, and create winning leverage and massive profits, show his mentees how to set up their business to achieve the results they need.

Dan Penas own story is proof that what he teaches can be achieved. He started the company Great Western Resources Inc with $820, a phone, and a leased fax machine in the spare bedroom of his home. In eight years, he turned it into a $450,000,000 empire ($1,000,000,000 in todays dollars).

This level of success was why I wanted Dan Pena as my mentor, but he didnt want me as his mentee. Not at first. I called his receptionist on a daily basis, not giving up, until she knew me by my voice and until Dan finally agreed to meet with me.

It was 2003 when Dan Pea said No to mentoring me. But I was persistent, calling his office daily until he finally agreed to meet with me in L.A. and have breakfast there. That was the beginning of my transformation.

I wasnt the TEDx speaker in the trademark red suit back then. At the time, I was a young kid with glasses, wearing an oversized, cheap suit. Dan met with me for two hours, asking me many questions as if I were the VIP because I was doing most of the talking. Then I gave him a gift that he has treasured for 15 years.

It was symbolic. The frog on a stone was a symbol from QLA training meaning that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Its an allusion to the fairytale, The Frog Prince, about a princesss kiss transforming a frog into a prince. My life was transformed from my experience at Guthrie Castle.

Dan Penas QLA seminar was not like the motivational, business, or marketing seminars that I had attended in the past. None of those came close to my week long Castle Experience. I called it the Quantum Leap in my personal and business life.

To start with, I felt very uncomfortable in that environment. At the time, I was still sharing a one bedroom apartment with my mom in Canada. I could barely afford the price tag for the flight to the castle and the training. But I could see how the environment was crucial for the transformation to occur.

When you are at the castle, you are surrounded by wealth triggers. There were antiques. Crystal glasses. Large, beautifully furnished rooms. When you are surrounded by wealth, it triggers wealth. And thats what made me uncomfortable.

I wasnt used to living in such extravagance. But it was there that I learned many valuable lessons, including why some people who study the QLA dont become billionaires. It depends on each persons desire to achieve what they want.

I used to think I was working hard by putting in 10 to 14 hour days, but I realized after QLA that I wasnt. After a seminar day that ended at around 6 or 7 pm, I found my mentor working in his office. He told me, kids these days arent high-performance. Kids cant even spell high performance.

One of the reasons the kids in the current generation (at 71, Dan Pena is old enough to be a father or grandfather to most people), wont become millionaires or billionaires is they arent raised the way they used to be.

Dan Pea says that we have a snowflake generation, and he isnt referring to how every snowflake is unique. It means the new generation melts under pressure.

They arent used to being held accountable. In fact, they now have safe spaces where they can go to chill out if they are feeling stressed. This high degree of protection wont help them to become stronger when under stress.

They dont realize that the more you suffer, the more stress, and the more stress, the more success. Nothing great is ever achieved with little effort.

We have changed from Dans generation. For example, in a soccer game for kids today, there are no winners. Its about participation in sports. But thats not realistic. When you have a job at a car dealership or at a bank, you dont get rewarded just for showing up.

The problem is, the parents of these kids werent conditioned for high-performance, and now we have a generation of people who are also not trained for high-performance. The exception would be kids of world class, gold medalist athletes, or children of parents from a military background.

A snowflake is a kid that melts under pressure, not because they lack education. They lack leadership. Dan Pena remembers being shut into a closet when he misbehaved, and he was left there until the school day was over. He doesnt regret the experience. He says it made him tougher.

If youre wondering if youre a snowflake, there is a snowflake test on Dan Penas website. The original snowflake test asks questions such as

Some of these questions are meant to make you uncomfortable. Dan Pena was never uncomfortable with making people uncomfortable. He once said, If you like me at the end of this talk, then I did something wrong. Love is great, but I dont need it. Respect will do.

He is a firm believer in the saying, What gets measured gets accomplished. If were uncomfortable with change, if we melt under stress, we wont be able to set goals and accomplish them.

Also, we must set our goals higher than our goals. If our goal is to become a millionaire, then well never become millionaires. If our goal is to become billionaires, we will never become billionaires, and next, Ill explain why.

We only change for two reasons. Desperation or inspiration. If we want to be high performance, then we must have high self esteem. High self esteem will get you to your first million if your goal is to make 100 million. Self esteem will get you to your first 100 million if your end goal is to make a billion.

Heres why. Many people teach you how to become a successful entrepreneur. Youll find books in bookstores about the mechanics of starting and selling a business. Youll even find books about the drier aspects of a business, such as tax issues, business plans, and writing letters of intent. Good how to information thats also useful if youre having trouble falling asleep.

Dan Pea wrote Your First 100 Million because he noticed when he was teaching the Quantum Leap Advantage seminars that key points were missing in most books that teach you how to grow your wealth.

None of these other books teach you how to prepare your mind for becoming super successful. They dont teach you how to adjust your perspective just slightly to make the Quantum Leap to make millions of dollars over and over again.

If you want to make your first 100 million, you need to make some sacrifices. The price for super success means long hours, waking up early, not spending time with friends and family, missing their birthdays, and taking risks because youre willing to aim for bigger goals.

A high performance person is prepared to deal with failure and the lessons that come with it. They cant anticipate everything that will happen, and if they think they can, then they wont be. The best plans dont follow a script.

Dan Pena says that, The truly successful high performer understands that the strategies and skills which he marshaled to generate the first Quantum Leap can be called upon to repeat that success over and over. Thats why he doesnt hang onto this first venture like some sort of corporate teddy bear. He is secure enough in his abilities to build it up,then sell it off for a bundle. And start the process over again.

Watch this video on making your first billion.

Whats the difference between making a million dollars and making a billion dollars? When youre thinking about becoming a millionaire, youre focused on the dollar amount. You will never succeed beyond your highest expectations.

Parents want their kids to be better than them. If they are one level above poverty, that means their kids will be two levels above poverty. If they want their kids to be millionaires, then the kids must desire to become multi-millionaires. Dan says he now seen teenagers who have studied the QLA methodology who are now millionaires flying around in jet planes.

Becoming a millionaire is a high possibility, even for teens. But how do you become a billionaire? Statistics show that there are over 2000 billionaires in the world today, with self-made billionaires making up 67 percent of them. There are now more billionaires than at any time in history.

One billion dollars is a significant number. People have asked, if you have that much money, what can you buy for a billion dollars?

You can buy the L.A. Lakers or the Chicago Cubs if you like sports. Or, if you like cars, you can get a 1963 Ferrari GTO and still have a bit left over. And if you like to travel, you can buy the Solomon Islands, or a round trip to the moon.

I once asked my mentor why some people take QLA and see tremendous results and others dont improve. Ive seen this happen with my own mentees. Dan Pea says the answer is implementation. If you dont implement what you learn, if you dont take action, you wont become a millionaire or a billionaire.

So if you want to make a billion dollars, the main difference to go from millionaire to billionaire is to be passionate about what you do.

Dan Pena says, Find something that you love. Find something that can change a billion lives you make a billion lives betterand the odds have become geometrically better for you to become a billionaire.

Dan Pena is an accomplished high-performance business coach who has moved his mentees from 7 to 11 figures in their businesses. His tough upbringing and time in the U.S. Army gave him the discipline to reach billionaire status.

The Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) is a business system that he developed from his own business experience. Unlike other methodology, it also teaches you the mindset and focus you need for a high level of success.

The Snowflake Generation is the new generation of people who melt under pressure. They werent brought up with expectations of high performance and they cant handle stress.

Making Your First 100 Million teaches you about the price for success and is based on the seminars from QLA.

How To Make A Billion Dollars is a question many ask themselves because it is easier now than 50 years ago to become a billionaire. The goal is achievable if you set your goal higher than your goal, and you are passionate about helping billions of people.

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BillionaireDan PeaFirst 100 MillionGuthrie Castlehigh performanceQLAQuantum Leap Advantagesnowflake

Dan Lok has been viewed more than 1.7+ billion times across social media for his expertise on how to achieve financial confidence. And is the author of over a dozen international bestselling books. Dan Lok is the founder of The Dan Lok Organization (which includes over two dozen companies) and is a venture capitalist currently evaluating acquisitions in markets such as education, new media, and software. Dan Lok trains as hard in the Dojo as he negotiates in the boardroom. And thus has earned himself the name; The Asian Dragon.

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How To Become A Billionaire by Dan Pea - Dan Lok

When trying to lose weight it can be tempting to drastically cut certain foods your diet plan. While removing unhealthy foods can speed up weight loss, eating more of the right foods can actually give the best results. Having a diet high in protein can speed up weight loss, an expert explained.

It can be tempting to eat less when trying to lose a few pounds but this does not necessarily work.

Tucking into foods high in protein could give the best results, Elliott Upton, personal trainer at Ultimate Performance and Head of LiveUP Online Coaching, said.

He told Express.co.uk: Every meal should be built around a quality source of protein.

It helps to repair, rebuild and maintain muscle tissue, which not only improves body composition - the way your body looks - but also increases metabolic rate.

READ MORE: Gordon Ramsay: How did he shed 3st? TV chef on heartbreaking motivation for weight loss

Speeding up the metabolism makes the body burn more calories which leads to fat loss.

As well as burning fat more quickly, high protein foods reduce hunger so slimmers will probably eat less overall.

Elliot added: It is also satiating, so helps keep you fuller for longer, and the better you can control hunger, the more sustainable your diet will be.

High protein foods include meat, fish, dairy products, nuts, tofu and beans.

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Ultimately, the best diet is going to be one that is easy to stick to, the expert explained.

He added: There is no best diet or perfect diet to follow.

However, there is a best diet for you, that is always going to be the one that best fits your lifestyle and one that is going to be the most sustainable.

There is nothing overly complicated about dieting the challenging part is adhering to it consistently and long enough to see results.

Following a healthy diet plan can be paired with regular exercise for a weight loss transformation.

Elliot said full body compound exercises and resistance training are the best for burning fat.

Resistance training is the number one tool we use for weight loss and body composition change, alongside nutrition, the expert suggested.

Lifting weights helps to build muscle, lose fat and increase your metabolic rate.

The reason weight training is so efficient for fat loss is that there are so many variables we can change within the same one hour workout to keep challenging the body and progressing through progressive overload.

Some of the variables we can change are: reps, sets, weight, tempo or total time under tension, range of motion, rest, angles, machines vs. free weights, etc.

"This constant manipulation to key variables is the advantage weight training has over traditional cardio, where you essentially need to run further, longer, faster or more frequently to keep progressing and losing weight."

He explained compound exercises can help burn more calories than simply doing cardio.

Pairing exercise and diet can give the best results when trying to get into shape.

Original post:
Weight loss diet plan: The one food you should eat more of to help burn belly fat fast - Express

Prostate cancer is the second-most common cancer in men worldwide, yet approximately 70% of diagnoses occur in developed regions.1 In addition to the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening practices, one hypothesis to explain this global variation is differences in environmental and lifestyle factors. The established risk factors for prostate cancer are advanced age, ethnicity, and family history of the disease. Although some lifestyle factors, such as body weight, are thought to increase the risk of developing prostate cancer, the evidence for this theory is somewhat weak.

This study sought to determine if certain lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise, are associated with prostate cancer using a method that is thought to effectively identify causal associations.1 Most epidemiological studies can identify associations, but they are typically considered hypothesis-generating and cannot support causal relationships due to unaccounted for or unknown confounders.2

Methods

The gold standard for identifying a causal association between an exposure and an outcome is a randomized, controlled trial; however, these types of studies are not always possible because they would be impractical, too costly, or unethical.2

The current study used Mendelian randomization (MR), which is an alternative method that was developed to identify causal relationships. MR uses genetic instrumental variables (GIVs) to enable randomization of subjects. A GIV is most commonly a genetic variant such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and must fulfill 3 core assumptions: 1) reproducibly and strongly associated with the exposure; 2) not associated with confounders; and 3) only associated with the outcome through the exposure. In this study, the GIVs were SNPs identified from genome-wide association studies of each risk factor for prostate cancer that was included the study.2

MR uses alleles of the GIVs, such as SNPs, to randomly allocate subjects into groups.2 This approach exploits the natural random assortment of alleles within a population, and are therefore not typically associated with confounders. 3 As a result, any association observed between the GIV and the outcome is considered supportive evidence that the exposure is causally related to the outcome.2,3 In this study, the exposure was certain lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise, and the outcome was prostate cancer.1

There are limitations to MR that can affect the interpretability of the data.3 For example, the GIV may influence the outcome independent of the exposure, which is called pleiotropy. In addition, some MRs may lack statistical power to detect a correlation.

In this study, the authors noted that there were only 2 SNPs that they could use for their allocation of physical activity by average acceleration, which could weaken the causal inference of this association. In addition, there were no known GIVs that could be used for some other risk factors, such as some vitamins, and thus, could not be used for MR evaluation in this study.

Link:
Lifestyle Choices and Prostate Cancer - Cancer Therapy Advisor

Some clinics offer lipotropic injections for weight loss. However, researchers have not comprehensively studied the efficacy and safety of these.

Lipotropes in lipotropic injections include a mix of different vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that people report help them lose weight and fat.

Keep reading to learn more about lipotropic injections, including the ingredients, cost, dosage, and possible risks.

Some people use lipotropic injections because weight loss clinics market them as treatments that promote fat burning. In combination with a healthful diet and regular exercise, people who use lipotropic injections should lose fat more easily.

Each clinic has its own specific type of injection, so the components may differ from clinic to clinic.

Lipotropes are substances that promote the removal of fat from the liver and reduce the production of fat. Some of the more common lipotropes that clinics use include:

Vitamin B-12 and methionine are important nutrients required for reactions in the body that regulate fat and protein metabolism. That said, researchers have not confirmed that taking doses of vitamin B-12 or methionine above the recommended amount will actually help a person lose weight.

Researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana found that restricting dietary methionine in people with metabolic syndrome caused an increase in fat digestion. In this study, people in the control group and those restricting methionine lost the same amount of weight.

Another study showed that a combination of diet, myoinositol, and D-chiroinositol may have accelerated weight and fat loss in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. However, researchers need to conduct further studies to confirm the effects of inositol.

The substances in lipotropic injections may not be effective in reducing a persons weight or fat. Although, theoretically, these substances may have important roles in fat metabolism, researchers are still unsure if higher doses are beneficial for weight and fat loss.

Other clinics may introduce additional vitamins and amino acids that some practitioners believe provide additional weight loss support.

Although research into lipotropic injections is limited, researchers have studied the effects of plant-based foods as a source of lipotropes in rats. The researchers state that the major plant lipotropes include:

Other substances in plant foods such as fatty acids, fiber, and flavonoids may also have lipotropic effects. This study only explored the effect of lipotropic substances in the diet. The researchers did not investigate the effect of lipotropic injections in the test rats.

Clinical trials that have studied lipotropic injections are scarce. For this reason, some doctors may not recommend using them for weight or fat loss.

Weight loss clinics will establish the price of lipotropic injections, so the cost will vary from one weight loss clinic to the next.

One of the factors that may influence the cost they settle on is the components included in the lipotropic injection.

Vitamin B-12 injections alone may be less costly, but there is no scientific evidence around the cost of these injections.

Some clinics offer packages of injections, or they may include the cost of the injection in the price of a weight loss program.

The dosage depends on the ingredients in the injection. Also, each clinic may follow a different protocol and scheduling of the injections.

In some clinics, people receive lipotropic injections once weekly, whereas other clinics suggest more frequent injections.

As with cost, there is no scientific data to back any dosage claims that weight loss clinics make.

In one study, researchers administered 1,000 micrograms of vitamin B-12 intramuscularly to explore the effects on weight loss. Other clinics may choose different strengths of vitamin B-12 and other ingredients in their injection formulations.

People who want to use lipotropic injections should choose a clinic with a registered physician. Some clinics may not have doctors on staff, whereas others may have weight loss specialists who are also medical doctors.

Some lipotropic injections may not be appropriate for everyone. Before receiving their first injection, a person should check if any of the ingredients can be harmful in combination with their medications or a medical condition they have.

Apart from pain at the injection site, one of the risks of using lipotropic injections is that they may not work. People cannot rely on these injections to promote fat loss, so they should also try to adopt more healthful habits, such as exercising regularly.

Researchers have not studied the side effects of lipotropic injections. Information on side effects comes from anecdotal evidence from people who have used the injections for weight loss. Side effects may also vary from person to person.

People who want to lose weight can speak with a doctor or other healthcare provider to create a safe, effective, and individualized weight loss plan.

Doctors can help people find healthful ways to meet their weight, body mass index (BMI), and hip-to-waist ratio goals, which can promote overall health.

Before planning a weight loss regimen, people may wish to consider their current eating and exercise habits. Some questions they should ask themselves include:

Doctors, dietitians, and weight loss specialists can help answer some of these questions.

To lose weight and maintain the loss, a person may need to change lifestyle habits other than eating and exercise.

For example, weight loss programs that are safe and effective should also include:

People should try to avoid weight loss programs that are scams. They should report these to the Federal Trade Commission.

Some simple changes a person can make to their diet to promote more healthful habits include:

The 20152020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans provide nutrition and exercise recommendations. People who want to lose weight can follow these recommended guidelines, along with suggestions from their doctor.

Read about some other scientifically backed weight loss tips here.

Some people use lipotropic injections to aid fat loss and lose weight.

The purpose of these injections is to speed up the metabolism of fat. However, in order to maintain a moderate weight, people should also try to eat more healthfully and adopt regular exercise habits. Lipotropic injections are not a substitute for these healthful habits.

Researchers have not confirmed that lipotropic injections are effective.

Individual ingredients include some vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that may be involved in fat metabolism. However, most data on the success of lipotropic injections come from anecdotal evidence. Therefore, researchers should continue to study their effectiveness.

To lose weight and fat, a person should try to focus on lifestyle and diet.

Read more:
Lipotropic injections: Cost, dosage, and risks - Medical News Today

Excess fat poses a threat to your general health, irrespective of where it is found in the body, but abdominal fat spells particular trouble. The fat is located deep within your belly near vital organs, hiking your risk of developing metabolic conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. It is therefore imperative that you make healthy lifestyle decisions to stave off the threats posed by visceral fat build-up.

Engaging in regular exercise offers a surefire way to burn the harmful belly fat, and, while the benefits of engaging in aerobic exercise are well understood, research also backs using an overlooked gym equipment to attack visceral fat.

Research presented at the European Congress on Obesity revealed that vibration plates, if used optimally - in combination with a calorie restricted diet - were more successful at long-term weight loss and shedding the fat around their abdominal organs than those who combined dieting with a more conventional fitness routine.

A vibration plate or power plate is a machine that you stand on while it sends high-speed vibrations through your whole body.

The equipment is designed to stimulate your muscles at a much higher rate than normal, accelerating the strengthening and toning process.

READ MORE:How to lose visceral fat: A food group proven to burn belly fat and increase metabolism

Commenting on their findings, the study's leader, Dirk Vissers, a physiotherapist at the Artesis University College and the University of Antwerp in Belgium, said: "These machines are increasingly found in gyms across the industrialised world and have gathered a devoted following in some places, but there has not been any evidence that they help people lose weight."

He continued: Our study, the first to investigate the effects of vibration in obese people, indicates it's a promising approach. It looks like these machines could be a useful addition to a weight control package." said the study's leader, Dirk Vissers, a physiotherapist at the Artesis University College and the University of Antwerp in Belgium.

To evaluate the visceral fat-burning benefits of using these machines, Professor Vissers and his colleagues studied the effects of the Power Plate in 61 overweight or obese people - mostly women - for a year.

The intervention lasted six months, after which the scientists advised all the volunteers to do the best they could with a healthy diet and exercise regime on their own for another six months.

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Body measurements, including CT scans of abdominal fat, were taken at the beginning of the study and after three, six and 12 months.

The researchers divided the volunteers into four groups: one group was prescribed an individually calculated calorie restricted diet, a second group received the same diet intervention, with the addition of a conventional fitness regime, a third group got the diet intervention plus supervised vibration plate training instead of conventional exercise, and the fourth group received no intervention.

There were no significant differences between the groups in obesity and abdominal, or visceral, fat at the start of the study.

"Over the year, only the conventional fitness and vibration groups managed to maintain a five percent weight loss, which is what is considered enough to improve health," Prof. Vissers said.

However, the vibration group lost 47.8 square centimetres of visceral fat during the first six months and still had a loss of 47.7 square centimetres at 12 months.

A marked improvement over the conventional fitness group, which observed a visceral fat reduction of 17.6 square centimetres in the conventional fitness group in the first six months, but by the end of the year, it was only 1.6 square centimetres less than at the beginning.

Emphasising the benefits, the diet group had a visceral fat loss of 24.3 square centimetres after six months and 7.5 square centimetres after a year.

In his concluding remarks, Prof. Visser said: "These are very encouraging results, but it doesn't mean people trying to lose weight can ditch aerobic exercise and jump on the vibration plate instead."

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How to lose visceral fat: The alternative exercise proven to reduce harmful belly fat - Express