Exercise is a form of stress on the body and mind. Weve all fought to overcome flagging willpower during a workout thats our brains telling us to stop stressing our bodies. Surprise! Meditation can help with that, too. For example, football players who frequently practiced meditation during preseason training showed considerably higher mental resilience, better attention, and improved mood over other players.

Meditation has been shown to provide Marines preparing for deployment with a kind of mental armor. Despite intense stresses, meditation exercises improved their mood, their ability to control emotion, and their focus on complex tasks.

General mindfulness research has shown that mindfulness can reduce stress and increase attention and focus, and these are some of the psychological skills required to achieve enhanced athletic performance. Additionally, research on mindfulness and optimal performance, flow state for athletes, shows a powerful alignment. Mindfulness practice, through awareness and acceptance, has been found to be significantly correlated with increased flow in athletes.

A study involving sport shooters showed mindfulness-based interventions decreased pre-competition stress measured by reduced cortisol, and another study involving young golfers showed that mindfulness and acceptance was associated with performance improvement in competition.

The benefits of meditation for sport are no secret to some of the best athletes in the world: Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Carli Lloyd, Trey Burke, Sam Darnold, LeBron James, Derrick Morgan, and many others reportedly have used meditation to boost focus and performance.

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Meditation - Headspace

You've heard of Zen. You may even have had moments of Zeninstances of insight and a feeling of connectedness and understanding that seem to come out of nowhere. But what exactlyis Zen?

The scholarly answer to that question is that Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that emerged in China about 15 centuries ago. In China, it is called Ch'an Buddhism. Ch'an is the Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit word dhyana, which refers to a mind absorbed in meditation. "Zen" is the Japanese rendering of Ch'an. Zen is called Thien in Vietnam and Seon in Korea. In any language, the name can be translated as "Meditation Buddhism."

Some scholars suggest that Zen originally was something like a marriage of Taoism and traditional Mahayana Buddhism, in which the complex meditative practices of Mahayana met the no-nonsense simplicity of Chinese Taoism to produce a new branch of Buddhism that is today known the world over.

Be aware that Zen is a complicated practice with many traditions. In this discussion, the term "Zen" is used in a general sense, to represent all different schools.

Zen began to emerge as a distinctive school of Mahayana Buddhism when the Indian sage Bodhidharma (ca. 470543) taught at the Shaolin Monastery of China. (Yes, it's a real place, and yes, there is a historic connection between kung fu and Zen.) To this day, Bodhidharma is called the First Patriarch of Zen.

Bodhidharma's teachings tapped into some developments already in progress, such as the confluence of philosophical Taoism with Buddhism. Taoism so profoundly impacted early Zen that some philosophers and texts are claimed by both religions. The early Mahayana philosophies of Madhyamika(ca. third century A.D.) and Yogacara(ca. third century A.D.) also played huge roles in the development of Zen.

Under the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng (638713 A.D.), Zen shed most of its vestigial Indian trappings, becoming more Chinese and more like the Zen we now think of. Some consider Huineng, not Bodhidharma, to be the true father of Zen since his personality and influence are felt in Zen to this day. Huineng's tenure was at the beginning of what is still called the Golden Age of Zen. This Golden Age flourished during the same period as China's Tang Dynasty, 618907 A.D., and the masters of this Golden Age still speak to the present through koans and stories.

During these years, Zen organized itself into five "houses," or five schools. Two of these, called in Japanese the Rinzai and the Soto schools, still exist and remain distinctive from each other.

Zen was transmitted to Vietnam very early, possibly as early as the seventh century. A series of teachers brought Zen to Korea during the Golden Age. Eihei Dogen (12001253) was not the first Zen teacher in Japan, but he was the first to establish a lineage that lives to this day. The West took an interest in Zen after World War II, and now Zen is well established in North America, Europe, and elsewhere.

Bodhidharma's definition:

Zen is sometimes said to be "the face-to-face transmission of the dharma outside the sutras." Dharma refers to the teachings, and sutras, in a Buddhist context,are sacred texts or scriptures, many of which are considered to be transcriptions of the oral teachings of the Buddha. Throughout the history of Zen, teachers have transmitted their realization of dharma to students by working with them face-to-face. This makes the lineage of teachers critical. Genuine Zen teachers can trace their lineage of teachers back to Bodhidharma, and before that to the historical Buddha, and even to those Buddhas before the historical Buddha.

Certainly, large parts of the lineage charts have to be taken on faith. But if anything is treated as sacred in Zen, it's the teachers' lineages. With very few exceptions, calling oneself a "Zen teacher" without having received a transmission from another teacher is considered a serious defilement of Zen.

Zen has become extremely trendy in recent years, and those who are seriously interested are advised to be wary of anyone proclaiming to be or advertised as a "Zen master." The phrase "Zen master" is hardly ever heard inside Zen. The title "Zen master" (in Japanese, zenji) is only given posthumously. In Zen, living Zen teachers are called "Zen teachers," and an especially venerable and beloved teacher is called roshi, which means "old man."

Bodhidharma's definition also says that Zen is not an intellectual discipline you can learn from books. Instead, it's a practice of studying the mind and seeing into one's nature. The main tool of this practice is zazen.

The meditation practice of Zen, called zazen in Japanese, is the heart of Zen. Daily zazen is the foundation of Zen practice.

You can learn the basics of zazen from books, websites,and videos. However, if you're serious about pursuing a regular zazen practice, it is important to sit zazen with others at least occasionally; most people findthat sitting with others deepens the practice. If there's no monastery or Zen center handy, you might find a "sitting group" of laypeople who sit zazen together at someone's home.

As with most forms ofBuddhist meditation, beginners are taught to work with their breath to learn concentration. Once your ability to concentrate has ripened (expect this to take a few months), you may either sit shikantazawhich means "just sitting"or dokoanstudy with a Zen teacher.

As we find with many aspects of Buddhism, most peoplehave to practice zazen for a while to appreciate zazen. At first you might think of it primarily as mind training, and of course, it is. If you stay with the practice, however, your understanding of why you sit will change. This will be your own personal and intimate journey, and it may not resemble the experience of anyone else.

One of the most difficult parts of zazen for most people to comprehend is sitting with no goals or expectations, including an expectation of "getting enlightened." Most peopledo sit with goals and expectations for months or years before the goals are exhausted and they finally learn to "just sit." Along the way, people learn a lot about themselves.

You may find "experts" who will tell you zazen is optional in Zen, but such experts are mistaken. This misunderstanding of the role of zazen comes from misreadings of Zen literature, which is common because Zen literature often makes no sense to readers intent on literalness.

It isn't true that Zen makes no sense. Rather, "making sense" of it requires understanding language differently from the way we normally understand it.

Zen literature is full of vexatious exchanges, such as Moshan's "Its Peak Cannot Be Seen," that defy literal interpretation. However, these are not random, Dadaist utterings. Something specific is intended. How do you understand it?

Bodhidharma said that Zen is "direct pointing to the mind." Understanding is gained through intimate experience, not through intellect or expository prose. Words may be used, but they are used in a presentational rather than a literal way.

Zen teacher Robert Aitken wrote in "The Gateless Barrier":

No secret decoder ring will help you decipher Zenspeak. After you've practiced awhile, particularly with a teacher, you may catch onor not. Be skeptical of explanations of koan study that are found on the internet, which are often peppered with academic explanations that are painfully wrong, because the "scholar" analyzed the koan as if it were discursive prose. Answers will not be found through normal reading and study; they must be lived.

If you want to understand Zen, you really must go face the dragon in the cave for yourself.

Wherever Zen has established itself, it has rarely been one of the larger or more popular sects of Buddhism. The truth is, it's a very difficult path, particularly for laypeople. It is not for everybody

On the other hand, for such a small sect, Zen has had a disproportionate impact on the art and culture of Asia, especially in China and Japan. Beyond kung fu and other martial arts, Zen has influenced painting, poetry, music, flower arranging, and the tea ceremony.

Ultimately, Zen is about coming face-to-face with yourselfin a very direct and intimate way. This is not easy. But if you like a challenge, the journey is worthwhile.

Aitken, Robert. The Gateless Barrier. North Point Press, 1991.

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Zen 101: An Introduction to Zen Buddhism - learnreligions.com

If you intend to retire, you must initiate a retirement eligibility check and submit your retirement application on myPers. You can do this by going to the Retirement Personnel Processing Application, located on the vMPF through AFPCSecure, using the following steps:

1. Input Common Access Card PIN or enter AFPCSecure User ID and Password; click on Secure Login

2. Click on vMPF

3. Click on Self Service Actions

4. Click on Retirements

5. Click on Request Retirement

You can review information on retirement eligibility by selecting the Eligibility link. Select the Restrictions link to review tables that contain information regarding conditions that preclude the submission or processing of your retirement application and conditions/restrictions that may be waived in the best interest of the Air Force or for hardship not common to other Air Force members. Select the Entitlements Counseling link for information on basic entitlements involved with retirements. It is recommended that you review these areas before applying for retirement.

After reviewing this information, click on the Check Retirement Eligibility link to submit your request. The Total Force Service Center Retirement Section will review your record and respond via email within five duty days of receipt.

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RETIREMENT - afpc.af.mil

Sales Training in New York

Richardson offers a variety of customizable sales training programs in NYC and Northeast Region. At the core of our approach to sales training is the consultative sales skills program. Consultative selling focuses on teaching sellers how to add value to every moment the send with their customers by engaging them in customer-centric based dialogue. More targeted or advanced program offerings like ourselling with insightssolution or ourhigh-performance selling&sales negotiations trainingsolutions, take the consultative selling approach to the next level teaching selling behaviors that will help sales professionals further advance their ability to connect with clients. Sales coaching training programs in New York City and the Northeast Region are also available.Sales coaching training programshelp sales leaders learn how to sustain and develop the lessons taught in our programs designed for sales representatives. Organizational leaders who complete sales coaching training learn that every interaction with their team is an opportunity to enhance their skills. Enhanced coaching skills support an organizations overall dedication to constant and consistent improvement.

More and more, clients have a concerted focus on reinforcement, both to retain knowledge and to optimize investment in training. One tool proving popular is Richardson QuickCheck, an email-based program that delivers bite-sized learning to sales professionals while engaging their competitive drive using a game approach, with real-time tracking of results on leaderboards. These short, daily bursts of scenario-based questions appeal to multiple generations, as all learners basically want short, relevant, and easily accessible content. Coaching has become an integral part of reinforcement plans for clients. Richardson provides personalized coaching in several ways: one-on-one meetings, by phone, or by preparing individuals at the client company to take on the role of coach.

Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Yonkers, White Plains, Binghamton, Jersey City, NJ, Newark, NJ, Edison, NJ, Piscataway, NJ, Cherry Hill, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Scranton, PA, Hershey, PA, King of Prussia, PA, Harrisburg, PA, Allentown, PA, West Chester, PA, Conshohocken, PA, Wilmington, DE, Dover, DE, Newark, DE, Hartford, CT, New Haven, CT, Stamford, CT, Bridgeport, CT, Westport, CT

Atlanta Austin Boston Chicago Florida Houston And More!

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Sales Coaching and Sales Training In New York | Richardson

Sales Training Courses

Sales is a trying, but necessary part of any business. In order to be successful, you need people skills, tenacity, organization, persistence, and a great voice on the phone. If you are bringing on a set of new hires, trying to improve the productivity of current hires, or even offering a refresher to the current veterans, you will need a sales training course.

Opinions of how to conduct a sales training course vary drastically. One way to consider is walking through the sales process from the very beginning. Walking your learners through the prospecting process all the way to their closing question and then a relationship maintenance lesson is likely the best way to advance through the course. When your learners understand each step in the process while walking through you can describe the conceptual benefit of each area as well as the advancement of the overall process.

Above, you will find our sales training course online. Free lessons can offer a great place to start your training program. You may find that the above lesson even fits your team so well that you can just use it to train your team. In that case, great! We love helping teams learn.

Some sales training ideas are designed to improve the communication skills and others are designed to improve the cold email or cold call skills of your team. You will likely need to invest time in both areas to improve your team throughout the entire process. Consider offering your team some role playing scenarios with customers so they will learn to handle objections properly and start negotiating at a skill level beyond their years.

Starting with sales skills training can establish the foundation of your team. Communicating what skills your team is going to improve upon before the process even begins can lay out the roadmap. If you are going to incorporate sales training videos into your process, make them fun. Your learners are more likely to remember a video that made them laugh rather than one of those cheesy videos of a guy in front of a green screen with a typical Oh, hello, I didnt see you there. Wait, that could be hilarious. If you can make that funny ironically, definitely do that and send me the video.

If you decide to invest in a sales training software, I know a great one. Anonline training softwarecan offer a great way to easily build lessons to train your team and then track your employees. The free sales training above is a great way to try out our application and see what you think. The above lessons are a how a learner will view their assigned lessons.

Numerous sales training programs already exist. It can be a daunting task to try to sift through the unhelpful programs and find the top sales training programs. If youve made it this far, you have successfully sifted. Online sales training programs, like the one above, can give you great insight into where you want to take your sales training for your team. Below are some examples of some sales lessons that have worked in the past.

Sales 101 is the first lesson for your sales team. It will nostalgically take them back to freshman year where initially it may have seemed like a struggle, Sales 101 training may not be easy. For your veterans taking a victory lap or a refresher, it should seem like a breeze.

Make sure to throw in a tough question to throw off your veterans after they get complacent in the lesson. A tough question will also give your new learners insight into how much they will learn in your sales training program.

Action selling is defined by five buying decision stages. Those stages are made up of nine acts. In the first stage of defining the plan to win, the salesperson and their manager must create a plan to win and commit to it.

The second stage is for the salesperson. It is a base foundation level training that includes people skills, asking the right questions, and agreeing on a need. Following this process will be a great way to categorize your sales training and order it.

The fifth act is based primarily on the company, which comes before the sixth act of selling the product. If your customer knows you are a product expert in your industry or in their industry, they will want to do business with you. Next, you sell them on the product. By selling the company before the product, you establish a rapport with your prospect.

The fourth stage is time to buy. Notice Action Selling does not rush the prospect through the funnelbut instead lets them take their time getting to know the company, salesperson, and then the product. In the seventh and eighth act, ask for the sale. Get a time commitment as well as a confirmation of the sale. In the ninth stage, you can review the call and bask in your success.

Dale Carnegie is one of the most renowned names in business and in sales. If you take the Dale Carnegie Sales Training approach to your sales team, prepare for higher engagement, more positive attitudes, and higher close rates.

The Dale Carnegie sales advantage offers an eight-session course that can be helpful for anyone whether they are in sales or not. For a quick session, consider sending your team to a few Dale Carnegie workshops.

With a name like Zig Ziglar, he likely didnt have a difficult time making friends. Its a great name, Id try to be friends with him, and it may have helped his great sales technique go viral. Anyway, Zig Ziglar was a bestselling author and motivational speaker.

His techniques worked so well that others have continued his legacy through Zig Ziglar videos and Zig Ziglar seminars. Consider checking out a few options for your team to see the impact Zig Ziglar can make. I just like saying his name. Zig Ziglar.

You may think that sales should just be a natural skill to enthusiastic and extroverted people. It may be for some, but even ones naturally skilled can improve. Ensure that you are getting the most potential out of your team and invest in training. You will notice the difference of your team once you start to climb the ranks of the best sales training companies.

Even if it doesnt work out between your new sales team and your company, they will be grateful they got to experience your sales training.

Remember The Pursuit of Happyness, that movie where Will Smith is homeless? He was a struggling salesman until he landed that job as a broker. If only his company had invested in some medical sales training programs, he may have gone on to not even need to work that temporary job.

International companies or traveling salesman may have a more difficult time in their training. Trying to accommodate different cultures in techniques and knowing different areas is an intimidating task.

Training is arguably more important in these companies to increase across-the-globe sales performance. International sales opportunities can be challenging but it can be a great feeling to accomplish, I assume.

For ongoing training, consider sending a few members of your team to regular sales training seminars. It will be a great opportunity to learn from valuable speakers as well as networkwith peers. You may even close a few deals out of it. Sales training workshops can be a valuable opportunity to role-play different scenarios with individuals outside of the company.

If you are looking for a less expensive form of ongoing training, share regular sales training articles with your team. Even if they are fundamental tips, its always helpful to review.

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FREE Sales Training Courses- Lessonly

Online sales training programs and courses that use the exact same materials, exercises and modules as used in leading management training institutions and business schools. Giving salespeople the training and coaching to integrate, measure and scale sales habits that acts as a platform for change and drives real revenue

Our online sales training programs and courses cover social selling training, digital selling,sales prospecting and business development. Sales training programs that helpssalespeople become successful by learning what it takes to attract customers, engage prospects and close moresales. Online sales training courses and courses that covers all the key sales skills from social selling, sales prospecting, lead generation, cold calling, value propositions,sales calls, and digital selling.

Our online sales training programs and courses will help salespeople achieve their goals and develop valued selling skills for their career. The Digital Sales Institute training programs and courses will give any salesperson the selling skills to start selling successfully in the digital era!

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Online Sales Training Programs and Courses

The Pros & Cons Of Different Kinds Of Retail Sales Training

As I said at the outset, retail sales training encompasses the process used to train your store associates in how to engage a stranger, how to build rapport and trust, how to show a product and demonstrate both its features and its benefits, how to contrast and compare products, how to overcome objections to sell value over price, and how to close each and every sale.

In-person retail sales training which can work two ways:

Online retail sales training

Shadow or buddy system retail sales training

Self-paced retail sales training

On the plus side you have:

Face-to-face training, which is ultimately where you want your associates to excelface-to-face conversations.

When someone from the outside, with a background in training and a curiosity about how individuals learn, delivers the training, the associate does not question it because it has third-party credibility; they just believe it better.

Training can be more effective because it can immediately be corrected, explained and rewarded.

A great trainer is easily understood, is engaging, and makes the time pass quickly.

The downside of in-person retail sales training includes:

On the plus side:

Online retail sales training can be delivered anywhere in the world and at any time, allowing for a flexible training program.

Anyone who has to sell, no matter what their current level of experience, can learn from a wide range of online retail sales training programs powered by intuitive interfaces specially designed for ease of use.

Anyone should be able to start training immediately without a lot of explanation.

You can ask questions and receive answers in real time. With my online retail sales training program closed captioning technology, you can train anyone, at any location, in most any language.

Specialized modules will specifically meet the needs of sales managers so they know how to coach the online sales training and make it stick.

The best online training programs have comprehensive tracking and reporting tools, allowing management to see how their employees are faring at an at-a-glance basis. They can also view who has been certified by completing the training and who has not.

On the downside:

Youll need a laptop, desktop or tablet, earphones, and a place for employees to gather off the sales floor in a comfortable environment.

Often the training provided is dull and does not do a good job of teaching the store associate what he or she needs to know to make a sale.

This approach has few upsides, as you are trusting another employee to train a newbie. Theres really only one plus: money. You arent spending additional dollars to get employees to travel to a location; you arent purchasing additional materials or paying overtime for travel or after-hours training.

The downsides to shadow or buddy training are many:

This also has very few pluses:

But the minuses of self-paced retail sales training are serious:

A great retail sales training program is logical. It builds from the ground up with exactly what to do at every step. It makes it easy for anyone observing, coaching, or managing it to know exactly where someone is in the process.

The time it takes to train varies. Generally, the onboarding phase of retail sales training takes from 5-10 hours. The product knowledge phase should allow about 10 hours for the top 25 SKUs.

For in-person behavioral retail sales training, or training of the soft skills, allot a minimum of three hours exposure to the material to start. For an online program, you need a minimum of an hour of content.

The time it would take to master that content on the salesfloor with role-playing, trial and error with shoppers, and comfort level of the learner, however, would be closer to thirty to forty hours.

Training is not something to get through. Its not as easy as passing a simple test.

Training is the heart and backbone of your retail operations.

No matter your personality type, you can leverage your unique abilities to engage your customers and make better sales. This quiz will not only give you insight into your own type, but will also teach you to recognize, relate to, and connect with the other types to build a solid sales team.

If you are a new store, you should begin retail sales training at least six weeks prior to opening, so every crew member knows exactly what it takes to create an exceptional experience. That way, from the soft opening to the Grand Opening and beyond, anyone who visits your store will get the same treatment. Many boutique retailers miss this important step and make excuses such as Sorry, were new, which never leads to shopper loyalty.

For a more established store or stores, you can start any time to improve your sales. While it is generally best to be done with retail sales training by November 15, some training is better than none. The key is having an employee meeting to establish why you are adding retail sales training and taking questions so employees dont sabotage your efforts.

Retail sales training and customer service training are similar, but are not really the same.

Retail sales training is designed to convert more shoppers into customers so the store can exceed sales goals. Customer service training is most often used to keep existing customers from leaving and to improve Net Promoter Score or social media reviews.

Some think customer service magically happens after a purchase while selling happens before.

I think great customer service happens because of great retail sales training that allows a retail associate to build an exceptional experience customers rave about through reviews, word-of-mouth, and social media posts.

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Retail Sales Training | Retail 101

Frank Sulloway once said: Ninety-nine per cent of what Darwinian theory says about human behavior is so obviously true that we dont give Darwin credit for it. Ironically, psychoanalysis has it over Darwinism precisely because its predictions are so outlandish and its explanations are so counterintuitive that we think, Is that really true? How radical! Freuds ideas are so intriguing that people are willing to pay for them, while one of the great disadvantages of Darwinism is that we feel we know it already, because, in a sense, we do.

Suppose you find an unconscious six-year-old girl lying on the train tracks of an active railroad. What, morally speaking, ought you to do in this situation? Would it be better to leave her there to get run over, or to try to save her? How about if a 45-year-old man has a debilitating but nonfatal illness that will severely reduce his quality of life is it better to cure him, or not cure him?

Oh, and by the way: This is not a trick question.

I answer that I would save them if I had the power to do so both the six-year-old on the train tracks, and the sick 45-year-old. The obvious answer isnt always the best choice, but sometimes it is.

I wont be lauded as a brilliant ethicist for my judgments in these two ethical dilemmas. My answers are not surprising enough that people would pay me for them. If you go around proclaiming What does two plus two equal? Four! you will not gain a reputation as a deep thinker. But it is still the correct answer.

If a young child falls on the train tracks, it is good to save them, and if a 45-year-old suffers from a debilitating disease, it is good to cure them. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle which says Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad. If so and here we enter into controversial territory we can follow this general principle to a surprising new conclusion: If a 95-year-old is threatened by death from old age, it would be good to drag them from those train tracks, if possible. And if a 120-year-old is starting to feel slightly sickly, it would be good to restore them to full vigor, if possible. With current technology it is not possible. But if the technology became available in some future year given sufficiently advanced medical nanotechnology, or such other contrivances as future minds may devise would you judge it a good thing, to save that life, and stay that debility?

The important thing to remember, which I think all too many people forget, is that it is not a trick question.

Transhumanism is simpler requires fewer bits to specify because it has no special cases. If you believe professional bioethicists (people who get paid to explain ethical judgments) then the rule Life is good, death is bad; health is good, sickness is bad holds only until some critical age, and then flips polarity. Why should it flip? Why not just keep on with life-is-good? It would seem that it is good to save a six-year-old girl, but bad to extend the life and health of a 150-year-old. Then at what exact age does the term in the utility function go from positive to negative? Why?

As far as a transhumanist is concerned, if you see someone in danger of dying, you should save them; if you can improve someones health, you should. There, youre done. No special cases. You dont have to ask anyones age.

You also dont ask whether the remedy will involve only primitive technologies (like a stretcher to lift the six-year-old off the railroad tracks); or technologies invented less than a hundred years ago (like penicillin) which nonetheless seem ordinary because they were around when you were a kid; or technologies that seem scary and sexy and futuristic (like gene therapy) because they were invented after you turned 18; or technologies that seem absurd and implausible and sacrilegious (like nanotech) because they havent been invented yet. Your ethical dilemma report form doesnt have a line where you write down the invention year of the technology. Can you save lives? Yes? Okay, go ahead. There, youre done.

Suppose a boy of 9 years, who has tested at IQ 120 on the Wechsler-Bellvue, is threatened by a lead-heavy environment or a brain disease which will, if unchecked, gradually reduce his IQ to 110. I reply that it is a good thing to save him from this threat. If you have a logical turn of mind, you are bound to ask whether this is a special case of a general ethical principle saying that intelligence is precious. Now the boys sister, as it happens, currently has an IQ of 110. If the technology were available to gradually raise her IQ to 120, without negative side effects, would you judge it good to do so?

Well, of course. Why not? Its not a trick question. Either its better to have an IQ of 110 than 120, in which case we should strive to decrease IQs of 120 to 110. Or its better to have an IQ of 120 than 110, in which case we should raise the sisters IQ if possible. As far as I can see, the obvious answer is the correct one.

But you ask where does it end? It may seem well and good to talk about extending life and health out to 150 years but what about 200 years, or 300 years, or 500 years, or more? What about when in the course of properly integrating all these new life experiences and expanding ones mind accordingly over time the equivalent of IQ must go to 140, or 180, or beyond human ranges?

Where does it end? It doesnt. Why should it? Life is good, health is good, beauty and happiness and fun and laughter and challenge and learning are good. This does not change for arbitrarily large amounts of life and beauty. If there were an upper bound, it would be a special case, and that would be inelegant.

Ultimate physical limits may or may not permit a lifespan of at least length X for some X just as the medical technology of a particular century may or may not permit it. But physical limitations are questions of simple fact, to be settled strictly by experiment. Transhumanism, as a moral philosophy, deals only with the question of whether a healthy lifespan of length X is desirable if it is physically possible. Transhumanism answers yes for all X. Because, you see, its not a trick question.

So that is transhumanism loving life without special exceptions and without upper bound.

Can transhumanism really be that simple? Doesnt that make the philosophy trivial, if it has no extra ingredients, just common sense? Yes, in the same way that the scientific method is nothing but common sense.

Then why have a complicated special name like transhumanism ? For the same reason that scientific method or secular humanism have complicated special names. If you take common sense and rigorously apply it, through multiple inferential steps, to areas outside everyday experience, successfully avoiding many possible distractions and tempting mistakes along the way, then it often ends up as a minority position and people give it a special name.

But a moral philosophy should not have special ingredients. The purpose of a moral philosophy is not to look delightfully strange and counterintuitive, or to provide employment to bioethicists. The purpose is to guide our choices toward life, health, beauty, happiness, fun, laughter, challenge, and learning. If the judgments are simple, that is no black mark against them morality doesnt always have to be complicated.

There is nothing in transhumanism but the same common sense that underlies standard humanism, rigorously applied to cases outside our modern-day experience. A million-year lifespan? If its possible, why not? The prospect may seem very foreign and strange, relative to our current everyday experience. It may create a sensation of future shock. And yet is life a bad thing?

Could the moral question really be just that simple?

Yes.

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Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism - Yudkowsky

Transhumanist politics constitutes a group of political ideologies that generally express the belief in improving human individuals through science and technology.

The term "transhumanism" with its present meaning was popularised by Julian Huxley's 1957 essay of that name.[1]

Natasha Vita-More was elected as a Councilperson for the 28th Senatorial District of Los Angeles in 1992. She ran with the Green Party, but on a personal platform of "transhumanism". She quit after a year, saying her party was "too neurotically geared toward environmentalism".[2][3]

James Hughes identifies the "neoliberal" Extropy Institute, founded by philosopher Max More and developed in the 1990s, as the first organized advocates for transhumanism. And he identifies the late-1990s formation of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), a European organization which later was renamed to Humanity+ (H+), as partly a reaction to the free market perspective of the "Extropians". Per Hughes, "[t]he WTA included both social democrats and neoliberals around a liberal democratic definition of transhumanism, codified in the Transhumanist Declaration."[4][5] Hughes has also detailed the political currents in transhumanism, particularly the shift around 2009 from socialist transhumanism to libertarian and anarcho-capitalist transhumanism.[5] He claims that the left was pushed out of the World Transhumanist Association Board of Directors, and that libertarians and Singularitarians have secured a hegemony in the transhumanism community with help from Peter Thiel, but Hughes remains optimistic about a techno-progressive future.[5]

In 2012, the Longevity Party, a movement described as "100% transhumanist" by cofounder Maria Konovalenko,[6] began to organize in Russia for building a balloted political party.[7] Another Russian programme, the 2045 Initiative was founded in 2012 by billionaire Dmitry Itskov with its own "Evolution 2045" political party advocating life extension and android avatars.[8][9]

Writing for H+ Magazine in July 2014, futurist Peter Rothman called Gabriel Rothblatt "very possibly the first openly transhumanist political candidate in the United States" when he ran as a candidate for the United States Congress.[10]

In October 2014, Zoltan Istvan announced that he would be running in the 2016 United States presidential election under the banner of the "Transhumanist Party."[11] By May 2018, the Party had nearly 880 members, and chairmanship had been given to Gennady Stolyarov II.[12] Other groups using the name "Transhumanist Party" exist in the United Kingdom[13][14][15] and Germany.[16]

According to a 2006 study by the European Parliament, transhumanism is the political expression of the ideology that technology should be used to enhance human abilities.[17]

According to Amon Twyman of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), political philosophies which support transhumanism include social futurism, techno-progressivism, techno-libertarianism, and anarcho-transhumanism.[18] Twyman considers such philosophies to collectively constitute political transhumanism.[18]

Techno-progressives also known as Democratic transhumanists,[19][20] support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and prevent technologies from furthering the divide among socioeconomic classes.[21] However, libertarian transhumanist Ronald Bailey is critical of the democratic transhumanism described by James Hughes.[22][23] Jeffrey Bishop wrote that the disagreements among transhumanists regarding individual and community rights is "precisely the tension that philosophical liberalism historically tried to negotiate," but that disagreeing entirely with a posthuman future is a disagreement with the right to choose what humanity will become.[24] Woody Evans has supported placing posthuman rights in a continuum with animal rights and human rights.[25]

Riccardo Campa wrote that transhumanism can be coupled with many different political, philosophical, and religious views, and that this diversity can be an asset so long as transhumanists do not give priority to existing affiliations over membership with organized transhumanism.[26]

Some transhumanists question the use of politicizing transhumanism.[who?] Truman Chen of the Stanford Political Journal considers many transhumanist ideals to be anti-political.[27]

Democratic transhumanism, a term coined by James Hughes in 2002, refers to the stance of transhumanists (advocates for the development and use of human enhancement technologies) who espouse liberal, social, and/or radical democratic political views.[28][29][30][31]

According to Hughes, the ideology "stems from the assertion that human beings will generally be happier when they take rational control of the natural and social forces that control their lives."[29][32]The ethical foundation of democratic transhumanism rests upon rule utilitarianism and non-anthropocentric personhood theory.[33] Democratic transhumanist support equal access to human enhancement technologies in order to promote social equality and to prevent technologies from furthering the divide among the socioeconomic classes.[34]While raising objections both to right-wing and left-wing bioconservatism, and libertarian transhumanism, Hughes aims to encourage democratic transhumanists and their potential progressive allies to unite as a new social movement and influence biopolitical public policy.[29][31]

An attempt to expand the middle ground between technorealism and techno-utopianism, democratic transhumanism can be seen as a radical form of techno-progressivism.[35] Appearing several times in Hughes' work, the term "radical" (from Latin rdx, rdc-, root) is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. His central thesis is that emerging technologies and radical democracy can help citizens overcome some of the root causes of inequalities of power.[29]

According to Hughes, the terms techno-progressivism and democratic transhumanism both refer to the same set of Enlightenment values and principles; however, the term technoprogressive has replaced the use of the word democratic transhumanism.[36][37]

Hughes has identified 15 "left futurist" or "left techno-utopian" trends and projects that could be incorporated into democratic transhumanism:

These are notable individuals who have identified themselves, or have been identified by Hughes, as advocates of democratic transhumanism:[38]

Science journalist Ronald Bailey wrote a review of Citizen Cyborg in his online column for Reason magazine in which he offered a critique of democratic transhumanism and a defense of libertarian transhumanism.[22][23]

Critical theorist Dale Carrico defended democratic transhumanism from Bailey's criticism.[39] However, he would later criticize democratic transhumanism himself on technoprogressive grounds.[40]

Libertarian transhumanism is a political ideology synthesizing libertarianism and transhumanism.[28][41][42]Self-identified libertarian transhumanists, such as Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, are advocates of the asserted "right to human enhancement" who argue that the free market is the best guarantor of this right, claiming that it produces greater prosperity and personal freedom than other economic systems.[43][44]

Libertarian transhumanists believe that the principle of self-ownership is the most fundamental idea from which both libertarianism and transhumanism stem. They are rational egoists and ethical egoists who embrace the prospect of using emerging technologies to enhance human capacities, which they believe stems from the self-interested application of reason and will in the context of the individual freedom to achieve a posthuman state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. They extend this rational and ethical egoism to advocate a form of "biolibertarianism".[43]

As strong civil libertarians, libertarian transhumanists hold that any attempt to limit or suppress the asserted right to human enhancement is a violation of civil rights and civil liberties. However, as strong economic libertarians, they also reject proposed public policies of government-regulated and -insured human enhancement technologies, which are advocated by democratic transhumanists, because they fear that any state intervention will steer or limit their choices.[45][46][23]

Extropianism, the earliest current of transhumanist thought defined in 1988 by philosopher Max More, initially included an anarcho-capitalist interpretation of the concept of "spontaneous order" in its principles, which states that a free market economy achieves a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any planned or mixed economy could achieve. In 2000, while revising the principles of Extropy, More seemed to be abandoning libertarianism in favor of modern liberalism and anticipatory democracy. However, many Extropians remained libertarian transhumanists.[28]

Critiques of the techno-utopianism of libertarian transhumanists from progressive cultural critics include Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron's 1995 essay The Californian Ideology; Mark Dery's 1996 book Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century; and Paulina Borsook's 2000 book Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High-Tech.

Barbrook argues that libertarian transhumanists are proponents of the Californian Ideology who embrace the goal of reactionary modernism: economic growth without social mobility.[47] According to Barbrook, libertarian transhumanists are unwittingly appropriating the theoretical legacy of Stalinist communism by substituting, among other concepts, the "vanguard party" with the "digerati", and the "new Soviet man" with the "posthuman".[48] Dery coined the dismissive phrase "body-loathing" to describe the attitude of libertarian transhumanists and those in the cyberculture who want to escape from their "meat puppet" through mind uploading into cyberspace.[49] Borsook asserts that libertarian transhumanists indulge in a subculture of selfishness, elitism, and escapism.[50]

Sociologist James Hughes is the most militant critic of libertarian transhumanism. While articulating "democratic transhumanism" as a sociopolitical program in his 2004 book Citizen Cyborg,[31] Hughes sought to convince libertarian transhumanists to embrace social democracy by arguing that:

Klaus-Gerd Giesen, a German political scientist specializing in the philosophy of technology, wrote a critique of the libertarianism he imputes to all transhumanists. While pointing out that the works of Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek figure in practically all of the recommended reading lists of Extropians, he argues that transhumanists, convinced of the sole virtues of the free market, advocate an unabashed inegalitarianism and merciless meritocracy which can be reduced in reality to a biological fetish. He is especially critical of their promotion of a science-fictional liberal eugenics, virulently opposed to any political regulation of human genetics, where the consumerist model presides over their ideology. Giesen concludes that the despair of finding social and political solutions to today's sociopolitical problems incites transhumanists to reduce everything to the hereditary gene, as a fantasy of omnipotence to be found within the individual, even if it means transforming the subject (human) to a new draft (posthuman).[51]

Excerpt from:
Transhumanist politics - Wikipedia

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Hidden Light Codes - Espavo - Stronger Spiritual Life