The Life:Optimised Show

What would it be like if you had a comfortable job in the bustling city of Sydney, Australia, surrounded by loving family and friends, and decided to one day - almost for no apparent reason - pack your bags and move to India indefinitely?

That's pretty much what my good friend, Michelle Rowan, did when she went from being a successful product manager to a digital nomad, travelling across the vastly diverse and extremely confronting social, cultural and political landscapes of India. You might be thinking, "Aah well I've heard plenty of stories from the hippy trail." except that Mishy isn't a hippy, and this story isn't from the 60s. It's as recent as less than 2 years ago.

So why then? Well, as Mishy herself explains in this episode, staying put and not growing as a person was even more frightening than venturing into a vast unknown to try and understand herself better, and then reinvent herself almost completely.

Mishy and I share a fascinating conversation about optimizing your personal leadership and life by shaking yourself out of your comfort zone, and she dishes out golden nugget after nugget of wisdom that is relevant and applicable to everyone, whether you're planning to escape to a mountain monastery in Dharamsala, or happy to optimize your life right where you are.

---

Mishy Rowan is a Sydney born artist currently residing in India and her mission is simple: to spread as much sunshine to as many people as possible through creative expression and random acts of kindness. As such, each painting aims to share a little bit of what yogi’s call ‘prana’ – life force. Her prana-packed colourful paintings fuse traditional watercolour techniques with stream of consciousness illustration.

Mishy, a student of anthropology, is endlessly fascinated with ‘the details’ and approaches art (and life) with infinite child-like curiosity. Mishy developed this intuitive and meditative technique out of a desire to surround herself with colour after being stung by a poisonous caterpillar in India (true story) resulting in emergency surgery. Whilst hooked up to an IV of antibiotics for two months and in what she calls “I can see through time” pain Mishy embraced the opportunity to focus on her creative side, painting every day until what was in her mind appeared on the paper in front of her, intuitively using colour therapy to support the healing process.

Like a rickshaw driver in Delhi’s peak hour traffic, Mishy moves from one stroke to the next, from moment to moment, focusing solely on the present movement to ultimately reveal a myriad of characters that lie within each painting, mirroring the chaotic and messy duality of existence, yet (much like Delhi traffic) finding harmony and balance, looking beyond ‘Maya’, the chaos, the illusion to unveil hidden treasures.

This style, a mix of watercolour and ink, influenced by street art, Jean Miró, Michael Leunig, Ken Done and Mirka Mora amongst others, enables Mishy to continue her nomadic lifestyle with the freedom to create anywhere and everywhere – from the foothills of the Himalayas to the café’s of Bondi, keeping creation social and public, harnessing the opportunity to inspire people to unlock their creativity and pursue their biggest dreams with the knowledge that (as they say in India) ‘everything is possible’.

With a background in digital media, Mishy also creates digital delights from artworks to interactive e-books.

---

You can check out Mishy's blog and see her amazingly unique artwork at http://talesandfails.wordpress.com.

You can also purchase Mishy's art in various forms at http://society6.com/Talesandfails.

Other Resources

Your Best Year Yet! by Jinny S. Ditzler http://amzn.to/1pHMnUC

Mastery by Robert Greene http://amzn.to/1pHMzDk

Mastery by George Leonard http://amzn.to/1pHMGP8

This is a preview clip from episode 12 with Michelle Rowan. Visit http://thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at http://bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow for the full episode.

This is a preview clip from episode 12 with Michelle Rowan. Visit http://thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at http://bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow for the full episode.

Dr Brett Hill is a podcast star, chiropractor, wellness coaches' coach and author of the life-changing book How To Eat An Elephant. He regularly appears on TV, radio and in print, and his media appearances, seminars, coaching and consulting have inspired thousands of people over the last decade to live a long, happy, healthy life full of energy and vitality.

In his early 20s, Dr Brett realised that it was time to make a change. He had been the kind of child who was always sick – not terribly sick, but not terribly well either. For as long as he could remember he had suffered from coughs and colds at least half a dozen times a year, he didn’t sleep well, was low in energy and not particularly fit. He realised that he had been doing the same things over and over again (including regular doses of antibiotics) and kept getting the same results. He decided to do something different.

Dr Brett realised that if he wanted better health he was going to have to make better choices. At the time he thought nothing of a lunch consisting of a pie, a pasty, a 1.25L soft drink and a chocolate bar. He would regularly go out and drink more than he should, and he did little to no exercise. Something had to give. Over the course of the next decade he gradually turned his life around. He started getting regular chiropractic care, cleaned up his diet, started exercising well and in the process he learnt what it takes to make real life-long changes to lifestyle and health.

In the process Dr Brett has been able to share his journey with his fabulous wife Rebecca and now their two gorgeous children Tom and Charlotte, who have inspired Dr Brett to take his message to the world in order to create a healthier environment for his family to thrive in.

Dr Brett’s websites, articles, videos, media appearances and books have inspired people all over the world to make drastic changes for the better in their life and their health.

You can learn more about Dr Brett Hill over on his website at http://www.drbretthill.com and check out all the shows The Wellness Couch has to offer over at http://thewellnesscouch.com.

You can also pick up a copy of Brett's book, How to Eat an Elephant, on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1oUSMew.

Other Resources:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com

The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf: http://amzn.to/1oV2aio

Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter: http://amzn.to/1oUZqS3

Wheat Belly by William Davis MD: http://amzn.to/1oUZFN6

If you'd like to recommend some more resources, please leave a comment.

This is a preview from episode 11 with Dr. Brett Hill. To listen to the full episode, follow on http://thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow.

This is a preview from episode 11 with Dr. Brett Hill. To listen to the full episode, follow on http://thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow.

This is a preview from episode 11 with Dr. Brett Hill. To listen to the full episode, follow on thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow.

This is a preview from episode 11 with Dr. Brett Hill. To listen to the full episode, follow on http://thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow.

Can the beauty of love become corrupted to the point of becoming something as destructive as an addiction?

What compels some people to chase abusive relationships, and reject loving relationships?

What can we learn from the darkest recesses of a rarely spoken about sociological issue, to optimize our relationship with our selves and love itself?

Award winning Danish film maker, Pernille Rose Grønkjær, and I dive into these questions and talk about her experiences making the internationally acclaimed feature documentary, Love Addict. We discuss our mutually shared curiosity about the human condition, both in its infinite beauty and darkest shadows (sometimes with great overlap).

And we even dare to tackle such questions that perhaps can never truly be answered in a purely objective way - what is this crazy thing called love, anyway?

---

Pernille Rose Grønkjær (born 1973) graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 1997 and has earned many awards and recognition for her documentary films and television productions over the past 15 years. Her international feature length documentary THE MONASTERY – 'Mr. Vig and the Nun' opened at The International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) and won the festival’s prestigious 1st price. With 11 awards and more than 60 festivals the world over THE MONESTARY has become an important milestone in the strong international brand that Danish documentary is today and established Grønkjær as a storyteller with a universal language and a cinematic vision.

Grønkjær's feature documentary "LOVE ADDICT - Stories of dreams, obsession and longing" opened at great reviews in her home country and had it´s international release at IDFA 2011. The film is now opening at festivals in the US and will be released in the commercial American-English market autumn 2012.

You can learn more about Danish Documentary and Pernille at http://www.danishdocumentary.com.

You can learn more about and watch Love Addict, and interviews with consulting experts, at http://www.loveaddictmovie.com.

This is a preview from episode 10 with Pernille Rose Grønkjær. To listen to the full episode, follow on http://thelifeoptimizedshow.com or subscribe on iTunes at http://bit.ly/lifeoptimizedshow.