The Daily Helping

In this episode continuing our Athlete's Voice series, we welcome Marcus Allen. He's a former athlete turned charismatic public servant dedicated to making the world a better place. With over 20 years of experience as a CEO, Marcus has been a visionary leader in improving the lives of those in need. He's a sought-after speaker, known for his passion, and has even been inducted into a college sports hall of fame.

Marcus had a short NBA career, but he never took his success for granted. Even during his playing days, he kept his feet on solid ground and avoided getting caught up in the fame. When he retired, he experienced a void and went through a period of depression, searching for something that would fulfill him. Eventually, he found his passion in helping young people through mentorship programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters, which he has been the CEO of for nearly 20 years. By connecting them with caring, compassionate adults, he helps kids discover their own purpose and gives them the support to achieve it.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“None of us are perfect. We live in a world that we're so quick to cancel folks or to criticize. It's so easy to write people off for the smallest of things. Our young people need people to believe in them in spite of. We have to give them grace, the same grace that was given to us. If it came to light our worst day, if it came to light to the whole world, we would be embarrassed. And a lot of people wouldn't mess with us because they saw something that we did in our past. And I'm asking, I'm hoping that we don't let ourselves shrink to the least of ourselves, meaning it's so easy to criticize folks and to disown them and try to bring people down. I want people to build people up. Let's think about how we are redemptive, that all of us deserve the second chance and some of us deserve a third, fourth, and fifth chance. And I think that is something that I hope resonates with people because otherwise, I don't know how we are going to get ourselves out of these challenges that we're facing today.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at independencebigs.org
• Connect with Marcus Allen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marcus-allen-a4860231

Dr. Srikumar Rao is a sought-after coach for entrepreneurs, professionals, and senior executives. He works with a select group of highly successful individuals to help them have an even greater impact on the world. With millions of views on his TED Talk and workshops attended globally, his mission is to improve people's lives in an exponential way.

Dr. Rao received his PhD from Columbia Business School and started his career in corporate America, where he had some success and became the head of corporate research for a communications company. He later became burnt out by corporate politics and moved to academia, where he felt stuck. Channeling his passion for reading spiritual and mystical works, he decided to adapt the teachings of the world's great masters, stripping them of religious and cultural connotations, and created a course that spread organically and was written about in major business publications. He now coaches entrepreneurs who are successful and have a spiritual quest. He specializes in telling his clients that their business success is their spiritual path.

Dr. Srikumar reads widely in various wisdom traditions and focuses on the essence of their teachings, which all point to the idea that problems stem from one's mental chatter. He believes that an individual's thoughts drive them away from their true self and that recognizing this can lead to significant improvements in their life.

Dr. Srikumar emphasizes that becoming aware of and detaching from one's mental chatter is a lifelong commitment. However, the individual can expect to see significant improvement in their life experience in just a matter of weeks if they consciously practice watching their mind. Mental chatter is not a problem in itself, but it becomes problematic when an individual identifies with it. This identification is a habit that is developed through repeated exposure, but it can be broken by observing mental chatter instead of becoming it. The starting exercise in all of Dr. Srikumar's programs is for the individual to observe their chatter and label their emotions as they arise. With continued practice, it will become easier for the individual to remain a witness to their emotions instead of being controlled by them, leading to a place of calm from which they can make decisions without being influenced by passing emotions. Though it may not be easy, the process is achievable.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“You do not live in a real world. You think you live in a real world, but you don't — you live in a construct. You created it with your mental chatter and your mental models. It's like we're all living in the matrix, but this is not a matrix created by an alien civilization out to enslave us. It's a matrix that we created with our mental model and our mental chatter. And having created it, we experience it exactly as we have created it. This is actually a highly liberating notion because if you live in a real world and you don't like it, you’re screwed — grin and bear it. But if you don't like it and you're living in a construct, you can deconstruct the parts of it that are not working for you and build it up again. And you can do this over and over again, it's a rest of your life process. That's hugely liberating.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more: theraoinstitute.com
• Read: Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots
• Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness | TED Talk

Welcome to another episode in our Athlete’s Voice series, where today we get to learn from Dillon Shije. Dillon is a professional runner and CEO of The Native Runner, providing motivational speaking, workshops, training, and community wellness. He is also a respected tribal councilman at Pueblo of Zia and a successful business partner at Zia Impact. He is dedicated to serving his community and promoting economic development through sustainable and responsible business practices. With a deep understanding of the unique cultural and economic issues facing Native American tribes, Dillon is a powerful advocate for his people and a valuable asset to the team at Zia Impact.

Dillon Shije grew up in the Zia Pueblo Indian Reservation in New Mexico in a traditional household. He was raised with a deep understanding of his culture and participated in indigenous religious ceremonies, including daily prayers at sacred sites and cleansing himself in the river. This instilled in him a strong connection to his culture and the importance of prayer, which also translated into his passion for running as a sacred act. Through hard work and dedication, he became a successful competitive runner, despite not seeing many people who looked like him in Division 1 sports or at elite levels. His motivation to excel led him to attend college and become a student-athlete, eventually earning a spot on the University of Colorado Boulder's prestigious running team. Throughout his journey, prayer remained a foundation for him, guiding him to become a professional runner.

Dillon believes that his history of running both competitively and spiritually has informed the work he does today in helping his community. He has learned valuable lessons of resiliency and perseverance, and uses this experience to balance the need to push for resources and progress with the need to rest and not burn out. He also recognizes the importance of being strategic in advocating for marginalized communities, as being too passionate can sometimes lead to doors being closed. He therefore works to maintain his voice in high-level spaces while not over-exaggerating his passion.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Wherever you may reside, reach out to some of the tribal nations, learn about the tribes that are in your area, and help them with resources. We all need guidance, especially our tribal nations who don't have as much capacity. I think that’s a good way to create that positive dialogue and learn about where people are living who have been there for hundreds of years, thousands of years.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Follow Dillon on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dillonshije
• Follow Dillon on Instagram: @thenativerunner

Ayse Birsel is an award-winning industrial designer, design thinker, and design educator. She is the co-founder of Birsel + Seck, a design and consulting studio, and the author of Design the Life You Love: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Meaningful Future. Ayse has been designing for more than two decades, working with brands like Herman Miller, Brooklyn Museum, and Vitra. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the iF Design Award, the Red Dot Design Award, and the Core77 Design Award. She is passionate about helping people design the lives they love through her work. She has been a design educator at institutions such as MIT, Parsons, and the Pratt Institute. She is also a sought-after speaker for conferences and events. Ayse’s mission is to “empower people to create meaningful lives and meaningful products through the power of design.”

People today are living longer and healthier lives than ever before, but when we think of aging and the span of our lives, we rarely think of those older years and what we want our lives to look like. Ayse Birsel wrote "Design the Long Life You Love" to encourage people to reframe their approach to problems in life and to inspire individuals and businesses to embrace the opportunities of aging. Through her year-long research, she found that older people were thrilled to be alive and wanted to share this enthusiasm with the world. By writing this book, she hopes to spread awareness of the advantages of aging and to provide a step-by-step process for people to design their own lives.

Ayse Birsel's advice for designing a life you love is to start by giving yourself permission to do so. She emphasizes the importance of being true to yourself and creating a life that is based on your values and that looks and feels like you. Birsel then suggests deconstructing your life and breaking it into its parts and pieces in order to get clarity on what matters to you and to understand the connections that you assume are between things. Finally, she encourages people to not attempt to put their lives back together the same way it was before but to instead create something new.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Think of a hero of yours, somebody who inspires you. This could be somebody you know, family or friends, or somebody you know of. What qualities of theirs do you admire? Those are your values. This is what you design with. This is how you make choices.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Sign up for Ayse’s newsletter: aysebirsel.com/newsletter
• Instagram: @designthelifeyoulove
• Read: Design The Long Life You Love
• Complete Overview of (the Amazing) Toto Washlet – BidetGenius

Steven Washington is an author and former professional dancer. After performing on Broadway in The Lion King, he found a new passion in the form of Chigong and Pilates and has since become a highly acclaimed teacher in both disciplines. His book, Recovering You: Soul Care and Mindful Movement for Overcoming Addiction, is the result of his love of movement and his dedication to helping others. Steven enjoys a life of joyful recovery and is passionate about helping others heal and grow. He hosts a monthly Heart/Mind Moments YouTube series, which has been viewed by over a million people. His videos focus on physical, emotional, and spiritual health and are designed to inspire, motivate, and bring joy to viewers.

Washington's journey began at age 15 when he had his first drink, which made him feel suddenly okay in the world. He chased this feeling for 20 years until it no longer worked and he had reached rock bottom. It was then that a friend in recovery showed him the way to sobriety. After many years of drinking and doing drugs, Washington eventually made his way to Broadway to perform in the Lion King, which he had seen as a kid and envisioned himself in. In 2014, Washington was introduced to Chigong and found it was a great tool to help manage his recovery and life in general. This led him to create an online course and eventually write a book, Recovering You. Washington's book details the use of Chigong and other practices such as journaling, compassionate inquiry, and building a social support network to help with recovery. All of these tools combined tend to the health and well-being of the body, mind, and spirit.

Steven’s advice is to practice self-care as an important foundation for addiction recovery. He suggests taking time to connect with the breath, practicing self-massage, meditating, and doing breath prayers. Breath prayers involve combining physical breathing with intention, such as breathing in peace and breathing out fear, worry, and anxiety. Doing this for five minutes can help shift the mind and create faith, optimism, and peace.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I would love for people to know that they’re not alone. That no matter what their challenges are, there are people that understand them and care for them and love them just as they are in this moment that feels very imperfect and very challenging. They’re not alone.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at stevenwashingtonexperience.com
• Read: Recovering You: Soul Care and Mindful Movement for Overcoming Addiction
• Watch: Steven Washington Experience on YouTube

Satyen Raja is known as the private transformational mentor, advisor, and confidant to the powerful and influential. He’s a living synthesis of Eastern wisdom and Western practicality, combining the power of the warrior and the wisdom of the sage to inspire audiences and leaders worldwide into their highest impact and personal fulfillment. He’s the leading authority on expanding success while serving the greater good without sacrificing the joys of personal life.

At a young age, Satyen didn’t feel connected to the paths most people walked in life. He began studying kung fu as a boy and it felt like home to him. In kung fu, students are taught the importance of balancing the warrior and the sage — the indomitable spirit and the inner wisdom within us — and how awakening both creates a heightened state.

Every person has a warrior and a sage within them. To start identifying your own inner warrior and sage, ask yourself: “What must I do today to live, to love, and to die completely without regret?” Do that, and answer honestly, and you will find the direction you are looking for.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Whether we’re a company, an organization, whether our organization is our own family and that’s the size of our organization, or you’re running a multi-billion dollar organization, multi-national organization: We’re all leaders. And we’re all being called to the next stage of our evolution in leadership. Let’s not shirk from that responsibility. Let’s tell the universe and ourselves, let’s confront our fears and our smallness, and tell ourselves: I am ready for my next stage of leadership and I own it and I claim it. Come on universe, bring it on. I welcome myself to how you wish me to lead. Let’s go with that spirit, that spirit of ourselves, to throw ourselves into what’s next for us. And you watch how the universe will respond so beautifully.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• warriorsage.com
• Connect with Sayten on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/satyenraja

We’re continuing our series at the Athlete’s Voices event which highlights exceptional athletes doing extraordinary things in the world. Today’s guest is Jen Southall, a certified hockey coach for the Portland Winterhawks and a disabled representative for the Junior Hockey Association and several other sports associations. She has more than 25 years of experience playing hockey and advocating for the accessibility of the deaf community.

Playing sports as a deaf person came with its challenges. Jen was always the only deaf person on her team. She started playing at a young age, but she didn’t have full access to people who could help her communicate until high school. She had to rely on her teammates to look out for her. She mostly stopped playing hockey after high school, but when her son wanted to start playing hockey — and wanted his mom to coach him — she started looking into how she could make access for that. It wasn’t until she entered that world that she realized how little advocacy there is for the deaf community.

The challenges the deaf community face are many, and most of them are invisible to us. Jennifer asks us to imagine a family gathering with people around the dinner table, everyone’s laughing, but nobody has taken the time to share what they’re laughing about. It can be very isolating. And finding environments that accommodate the deaf experience is difficult.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Respect the deaf community. Respect our language. Respect our culture. And give us the platform, not you running a platform for us, because it’s not your place. Let deaf people have our place.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jennifer-southall
• Jennifer Southall: My Hands Are My Voice

We’re live at the Athletes’ Voice event in Atlanta, Georgia with Kawser Amine, the founder and CEO of WSPL (Women's Solidarity for Peace and Leadership). She was born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, and is a former member of the female Afghan national soccer team. She’s working to change the world through soccer.

Kawser dreamed and hoped for something that should have been impossible in a country like Afghanistan, and she made it happen. She started playing soccer at seven years old, and went on the national path at nine and a half years old. She wanted to change her life path from the girl who was always dreaming of something to making it a reality. Kawser went on to study political science at the University of Afghanistan and starting a women’s leadership club, spreading the message that girls can get more engaged support through soccer. Soccer was so important to her personal development, and she wants to world to change so that girls realize there is room for them in the sport of soccer.

Through her non-profit organization, Kawser helps girls believe in themselves — both that they can play soccer and seek an education. While all parts of the world still don’t support those beliefs, Kawser believes that with enough support it will be possible.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Never give up. Nothing is impossible in this world. Dreaming big is not your fault, but getting to your dream, turning your vision to reality, the most key words which is plain ‘never give up.’”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at wsplglobal.org
• Connect with Kawser on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kawser-amine-859415222

Today’s expert guest is Natalie Ledwell, a bestselling author, host of the podcast Not Over, Just Different, co-host of the cable TV show Wake Up, and the founder of Mind Movies, a revolutionary online visualization tool reaching over 10 million people and helping them achieve their goals.

The law of attraction can be incredibly divisive, but authorities have been talking about concepts like it since the 1930s. And today, there’s more research than ever into the power that visualization has — whether you believe in vibrations or not.

Mind Movies is a software that makes it easy to find clarity on what you want and turn that into a moving vision board, complete with music, to put you in the prime emotional state to manifest that vision into reality. But vision boards are not magical — it is a prompt for daily action.

You want to describe:

• What it is you want
• What life looks like once you get it
• Why you want it
• What actions you need to add to your daily routine
• How you need to change your thoughts to reach this new outcome

When you take all of this into account, and take steps towards achieving your vision, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I have created and manifested some amazing stuff in my life that far exceeded anything that I thought was possible for a small-town girl from Australia. And the formula is pretty easy. If we know what we want and we’re taking action, we can see ourselves and feel ourselves already being there, you have no idea what you can create. And actually, you can create anything that you want, and I’m living proof of that. And that’s what I want for everybody else as well.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at natalieledwell.com
• mindmovies.com/dailyhelping
• personalgrowthstudies.com

Tim Shurr is the world’s best unconscious beliefs specialist and the foremost expert in freeing people from anxiety, past trauma, PTSD, and bad habits. He’s the creator of the revolutionary One Belief Away method, developed through facilitating over fifteen thousand individual hypnosis sessions and hundreds of group training experiences over the past 35 years.

After his dad was involved in a devastating electrical accident leading him to have severe third-degree burns all over his body, Tim adopted a belief — unconsciously — that he was not safe in this world and that something could happen to him at any time. That shifted his behavior towards playing life on defense. It wasn’t until he discovered the power of psychology that he learned how to overcome those limiting beliefs, and now he helps others do the same.

We have all experienced trauma, whether it’s something big like being shot at, or something less severe like being rejected when asking someone out. Regardless, these experiences force us to find meaning, and sometimes the conclusions we come to aren’t helpful or true about the world we live in.

So how do we fix these beliefs? Tim’s One Belief Away method starts by finding a person’s deepest core belief and upgrading that — from a story of “I’m not enough” to “I’m more than enough.” Then you have to work on releasing toxic emotions: the kinds of emotions that you get stuck into a cycle of.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“You are already enough. You’re already good, you have nothing to prove. You’re already worthy of love, happiness, prosperity, and all of the love that you want. You’ve just got to decide that you are worthy of that. Because we think that the world decides that for us, and truly that’s not the case. We think we need it from our parents, we need it from other people in our life to tell us that we’re worthy and that we’re enough, and after taking thousands of people through this journey, the only one that has the real power to help you feel like you’re enough, that you’re worthy of whatever you want, is you. And you can decide that today, you don’t have to wait around for other people to do the right thing because often they’re so wounded they’re not gonna. So take your power back. You don’t have to wait for others to do the right thing, you do the right thing by giving yourself what you need, by loving yourself. And if it feels weird or uncomfortable or false, fake it till you become it, do it anyway, and find a way to upgrade those beliefs. And when you do that, your life will start to improve significantly.”

--

Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at timshurr.com
• Read: "One Belief Away"
• Read: "Get Out Of Your Way"
• indyhypnosis.com