Peter Burwash - Improving the landscape of your life

It. Isn't dome and it's a great privilege to welcome. Thanks everybody for coming. Thanks to the sponsors you can see them around the room. Thanks a lot for the sponsorship from those people. It's a great honor for me to introduce Peter. Peter's been here many times so many of you know him. He's been here how many times you think you've been here Peter. Thirty times in eighteen years that PVI has been on Guam in an intern in introducing Peter I could introduce him has an author has it now authored seven books is the next ones to come out next year. I could introduce him as a great coach who's a coast in 134 countries over the world all over the world. I could introduce him as an entrepreneur started his own business I could introduce him as an expert on vegetarianism. Peter's got a lot of expertise in a lot different areas but to me that is losing what really Peter's all about. And I

know a different side of Peter Peter to me as a mentor. He is a counsellor he is someone who pushes me. He encourages me. He advises me on becoming a better person. And as many of you know Peter is very approachable and he's here to help you and help me and help everybody. And that's what Peter Berger wash is all about. And it's a great honor to welcome him. And. Thanks Tim. Obviously since I have been coming to Guam for a long time I think many of you know how much I enjoy it here. I started a family fairly late in life I have a two and a seven year old and part of the challenge now is balancing an unbelievable travel schedule. But each year I try to fit into that schedule. I have also a strong affinity to the islands of the Pacific. Every year I take one month and go to a little

tiny island in Fiji and just drop out. I made the decision to move from Toronto Canada when as soon as I left school and was on the professional tennis tour to go and live in Hawaii in the moment I stepped off the plane in Hawaii felt very much yet at home. The Before we begin the topic today I'd like to savor some of you who have not had a chance to hear any of the presentations I've given in before. I have completed seven books but I certainly am not an author per se. You get listed as an author when you do seven books. However it I more or less fell into this role. I was a student who got a lot of Ds in even all the way through college when I saw a C on my report card. I was absolutely delighted because it was such a high mark for me. So school was a real struggle. I went to school because my parents asked me to go. I was told that was the thing to do but I didn't really enjoy a formal

education. What for me the real education came when I got out on the professional tennis tour and started to actually see the world and have been very appreciative of that opportunity. How we got to how I got to writing books. It was really I got forced into it just like I got forced into going to school and had an author by the name of John Tooley s who said they wrote me this letter he said I'd like to write a book on tennis and co-author it with you and he says he was quite a successful author and so I wrote him back and said No thank you and he wrote and I said No thank you again. And finally he flew out to Hawaii and after sitting down for quite a period of time convinced me to write the first book tennis for life which is now sold in many languages all over the world over a million copies and then went on to write a book on nutrition the third one was on exercise the fourth one was on 10 US fifth one was on leadership and service. The sixth one coming out next in July will be called Total Health and the seventh one today is called improving the landscape of your life

and you're the first people to hear this. What I do in Guam I spoke on it yesterday in Bali and the day before in Jakarta and the day before that in Bangkok. But I just started to speak on it. I do not have an elaborate slide show like I do with the nutritional program. But what I tend to do is write a book. Then speak about it because when you speak about something you get a lot of feedback you get a lot of ideas you get things that you can maybe improve the chapters maybe change the headings even the book on service and leadership. We change the title. We change the format of it even after it had been in its first print so I'm not someone who believes in hanging on to something if you can do it a little bit better. Today the subject improving the landscape of your life personally and professionally is something that is kind of interesting because almost everybody that you talk to all over the world has a desire to improve their life.

Some people are are stuck and they think that's the end that's the furthest they can go. But generally today in particular with all the tele communication capabilities people really have a desire the problem is that most people are trying to improve their life materially. And what has happened is you take a look at a television station and in America now we have many cities have between 60 and 70 stations. That is an opportunity to see a lot of television ads and the natto go up on TV and it'll say buy this product and it's going to make you really happy. And another adult Come on 30 seconds later and if you buy this product it's going to make you even happier. And so you've got people out there who think that happiness is going to be purchased as opposed to something that will happen as a natural process of you doing something mostly for others. Let me give you an example of how I liken happiness. Happiness is very much like a butterfly. When I was a young kid I grew up in northern Canada

and we before the environment got so messed up there used to be butterflies all over the place and I used to catch butterflies and I couldn't do it very easily. But then I'd sit in the field and I'd be sort of just casually looking at the sun or the wind blowing the grass and just dreaming and all of a sudden I turn around and there was a butterfly on my shoulder. And that's kind of about how happiness is like if you are actively seeking it. It's very difficult to find. But if you don't seek it per se then often it will find you. And what is very important for us is to be able to say at each day that you made some progress with your life and recently I was in in fact in. About 9 or 10 months ago I was selected by United States government to do a presentation for the South Pacific island nations that were meeting convene every three years and I did the keynote address in the person who was responsible for bringing me and was a

gentleman by the name of dawn diverts who is the U.S. ambassador for the United States to Fiji and a fascinating individual and we're having a three hour dinner one night and at his residence. And I kind of asked the question that I ask a lot of people that is what would you like to be remembered as or what what do you feel your greatest contribution is and he said well I know on your tombstone they have to put your name and they have to put when you were born and when you died. But I really only want two words on there. And that is he grew. And I thought well that's kind of interesting because if more people really focused on that in terms of growing rather than trying to get people are saying I'm going to get this I'm going to get that. And they build up all of these possessions rather than really grow as a person and that's going to be the essence of what we'll talk about today and what this book is. Right now and I say right now because it may change in a few months. But I've divided it up into 12 chapters and I'll give you the 12 chapters and they're not the final titles I can assure you of

that I just have a working title of each chapter some will keep. And this book can be read in any order. You can go from Chapter 7 to Chapter 2 to chapter 12 back to 1. Because not all of these are relevant to everybody some of you may already be doing that. Some of you may just need some reinforcement and for some of you it will be a brand new thought process. Normally I don't like to speak with a lot of notes but since I'm this is so new I'm going to have to refer to a few concepts and ideas the first chapter is entitled Courage to change. You must be willing to step out and say I am going to have the courage to do it. Today we tend to take the path of least resistance. You take a look at all the politicians as they were campaigning throughout the United States last year. We have three major issues on our hands

around the world we have permanently altered our land our water and our air. United States had 21 inches of topsoil. In the early 1900s today it has six and a half inches of topsoil civilization's live or die based on the quality of their topsoil and the amount of it. And not once during any campaign throughout the United States did any politician have the courage to change what is currently happening. We have got waterways now where you can go to the Arctic Ocean and now an Antarctic Ocean and every single fish down there has dioxin a DDT in it. That's how powerful these chemicals are that they travel all around to the pure waters of the world. And so in the United States or let's take Canada for example you may have read the article in Newsweek magazine Canada in the last three years has killed

30000 rivers and lakes yet for some reason we're focused on things that really aren't anywhere near as relevant because if we take out our land and our water and our air we have absolutely no future. So whether it's a political stand to take or whether it's a personal stand that you take you need to have the courage to change. Some of you may have become O.J. Simpson trial fans and there's a lot of negativity that came out of that but absolutely guaranteed when you see the number of women that were able to come forward who were battered. Spouses we saw a great change. A lot of people had the courage to change their lives. And so if you're going to improve the landscape your life first of all you have to have courage. Second chapter is called foundation of health. Without a good foundation of your health you really are nothing. And next time you get quite sick and you're lying in bed and you're struggling

for it do take out a piece of paper and a pencil and write down a list of all the things that you want to do right then it will be a very short list. You're not thinking about the office you're not thinking about going out for a run or for a swim. You're not thinking about going out for a sail. You are thinking about yourself and how can you get better. And there are a lot of people today that don't realize what they do. And let me give an example if you were going to build a 12 story building what is the single most important floor in that building is your ground floor. Number two through 12 are pretty useless if you don't have a good foundation. And in our life our health is our foundation. Now all of us have a had and I if I had asked each of you to take a piece of paper out and write down the teacher that made the greatest impact on you when you were in school most of you would be able to remember one name very few people can remember two or three

names and it's a shame considering we probably have anywhere from 30 to 50 teachers. When we go to school and there's only one that seems to stand out and I had one by name of John Show me when I was in Montreal Canada at the time and he did a wonderful thing to us when we were 12 years of age. We use in those days we to have to do a lot of physical exercise as part of the school program. We did our bench jobs in our push ups in our sit ups and John show me would trace and and monitor how we would do. And then one next day we came in in the morning and he had prepared a five pound belt for us. And he put the five pound belt on and he made us walk around during the day and at the end of the day we came in and we did our exercises and every one of us said age 12 having added five pounds. Our performance had dropped dramatically and everything we did and at the end of the day he brought us all together and here we are looking up at the teachers sitting on the

gymnasium floor and he says Don't ever put on five pounds. And it had such a huge impact on us because we realized how tough it was to carry extra weight. The problem is today what we do is we put on two pounds this week and two pounds next month and gradually our body adapts to the stress. I have a theory about health and that is we should give. We should have 1 percent of a communistic mentality in our society and that is when a person is in perfect shape. We must make it a mandate that that is their belt size or dress size for the rest of their life. Now that would really spur people on because when you're in good shape you had a 32 inch belt and to try to put put a 34 inch belly in a 32 inch belt is uncomfortable and that would really encourage be a problem. They would just buy bigger pants and we'd go down the rack and we go from the women go down size

12 size 14 16 18 and they feel comfortable and you see what happens in places Hawaii. We just they put their dress on like a tent and just to cover everything up instead of being able to say I've put on 10 pounds I'm going to take it off I'm going to to change. Also other things about our health. What we have to realize. If you get up at 6 o'clock this morning you should be getting ready to take a nap at 2 o'clock. Your body physiologically craves and demands sleep eight hours after you get up. All societies used to have a cat nap. Along came the industrial revolution and they want you to work. What happens today if you take a catnap most people would get fired for taking a 15 minute catnap. So and I and I caution you here you can say well gee I just went went to as you take your cat nap tomorrow afternoon and you boss wakes you up and says

What are you doing and you say well this guy Peterborough washee told me it's important to take a catnap and is that if your boss says well you're fired. I giving you this as they have on on on labels. The cigarette warning I'm giving you the warning you must make sure that you get permission from your boss to be able to do this but seriously this is a and intricate part and if and if your boss is here or isn't here do whatever you can to try to encourage that as part of your culture. All employees that I've talked to now that are doing this and management of the put it in there and there were their agreed to work an extra 15 minutes at the end of the day. But here's the statistic that's really relevant for you is that your mental and physical sharpness increases 60 to 80 percent after a 15 minute catnap. No longer because if you go into a half hour you go into a different zone as you've done on the weekend and two hours later you see you still feel groggy. It should be done on your back with your feet up

slightly above your heart and your palms facing upwards not like yes because then your upper body will be constricted. This is not an option to the quality of your lifestyle. It is it's something that the body needs 8 hours after they get up. It's also very interesting to see what has happened. We did I was in charge of the medical and health and fitness track for an organization called the young president's organization in Los Angeles a year and a half ago. So I brought in Deepak Chopra who had a teaching Ayurvedic medicine and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for about five years now with different books. Dean Ornish who did reversing heart disease we had all kinds of blends of eastern and western doctors we brought in acupuncture aroma therapy herbal medicines and also we thought we would experiment with yoga and meditation. So we thought well it's six o'clock in the morning when we're going to hold these programs.

So what we did was we set up the aerobics room for 75 people and we set up the yoga for 15 in the meditation for 15. Those numbers were almost reversed. By Tuesday we started on Monday the meditation room was so crowded that no one could meditate because they were so stressed out. So what we had to do was we took the aerobics and put it in the meditation room and flip flop that and we had over 80 people in the meditation room. Now if you've been if you read USA Today or you're reading any magazines many many corporations in America today are incorporating meditation. And we now know that in order to be able to heal your body we need to have quiet time. It doesn't mean that you all pack up and go to the Himalayas and sit cross-legged on the top of the mountain. It's just giving yourself some quiet time. It's very important that you do that. If you saw the show on PBS where Dean Ornish was talking about reversing heart disease one of the keys to reversing heart disease is that

he has these fantastic video that he shows your arteries and he blows it up on screen and within 15 minutes the artery start opening up. So it helps you stress does not give you heart attack but it could be the final trigger to giving you a heart attack. Stress is a wonderful thing. It's what motivates us. There's nothing wrong with stress. It's just that we don't know how to de-stress so be very cautious of how you go throughout your day in terms of trying to fit in some nice quiet time. Number three attitude I just labeled chapter three attitude if there is one thing that I would like to see and introduced to our educational system it would be a class called Attitude. I do all the interviews for our company. We're ten thousand four hundred plus now. And a little fraction of

people walk in the room with what I call a really good attitude. And when you think about this when when you wake up in the morning that's the only option that you really have to make. You're going to come in with a good attitude or you're going to have a bad attitude. That's it. There is no other major show you're going to decide what dress you're going to wear or how you're going to do your hair or what shirt you're going to put on or whatever it may be but the real key is what is your attitude going to be when the sun comes up it comes up for everybody. And we have I want to divert a little bit here for a minute talk about terms of attitude the negative in the positive. One thing I have learned I've been a very positive person all my life and so when I got in the business world I said I'm going to take negative people and I'm going to make them positive. Well I'll stand up here 25 years later after unbelievably perfect failure in this category.

You don't do it. You don't take a negative person and make them a positive person all you do is make them feel guilty. Get them out of your company have them form their own company negatives international something whatever it is but it's not going to work. How many of you in this room are single and have show of hands it's OK to be single right. Here's marital advice very important. Never marry never marry a negative person marry a positive person because you are going to struggle. And how do you know if someone's negative their two favorite phrases are yeah but yeah but nice day. Yeah but it's going to rain. You may have heard the story about this gentleman who dies when he goes up to heaven and he sees Jesus and Mohammad and Buddha walking together and they're walking along the shore and they go out onto the water and they're walking across the water and the optimist says Wow isn't that wonderful they're walking on water. And the pessimist says yeah

but they can't swim. So yeah but yeah but yeah but people and I'm sure some of you had parents some of you may have worked with people when you've got a creative idea. Yeah but yeah but I'm going to do this yeah but have you thought about this. So it's important that you hire people with a very positive attitude hire people that in fact today I really believe I don't I don't even know I haven't asked anyone in the last 10 years where they went to school. Just one of those things I've stopped doing because we're so desperate to find someone with a good attitude I don't care if they quit in grade six. If they can smile and they're polite to the customer and they care and they're warm sensitive people that's a whole lot more important then if they you know got a MBA because we're so desperate for those people today. So what if you have a role in the educational system here and work hard at trying to

get something like a class called attitude because in the end that's what it boils down to. Everybody talks about Disney and their success stories they all ask you where you go to school if you're going to work at Disney either they hire the smile and the attitude and then they do the training later. And sure you have to have some specialists you need some people that do have some specialty training but you can keep those in the minority because most of the people today. Ninety seven percent of the businesses out there today are in the service intensive business and particularly here where you've got a lot of tourism a lot of you are tied into that. And boy do you need people with with good attitude. The fourth chapter is called values. There's a little sign in a Paris elevator and as you know when you take something in English and you transfer it to another language and vice versa you lose the meeting but there's a sign up in a Paris elevator that I saw a few years ago that says Please leave your values at the front desk instead of valuables. And it's like today a lot of people

have left their values at the front desk or left them at home or wherever. It's like they take a little hole in the in the back of their mind and then they stick it back there and I think that's what various leaders of many high profile entertainers face and they're not very good role models. You get up off air like Charles Barkley says ouch. That's impossible. I was always happy to be role models even to the princes they have a very very good standard and a very hard sell. I'll use your time and you might say the code system in there is very very strong we've been working in prisons for 22 years. I remember the first time I went into the state prison in Hawaii and we we have as you do also we have very big prisoners and they get bigger in there because all they do is lift weights and they eat and eat and they get very large and so you must visualize this in 1905 we decided we wanted

to take tennis to people who didn't have a chance to play. So we started wheelchair tennis tennis for the deaf. We went into the prison programs the physically and mentally challenged. And I walk into the prison and we didn't have colored shorts and shirts in those days so I walk in in my white shorts white shirt white shoes and white socks. And you got all these big prisoners you come out with their tanks tank tops and their tattoos and their thoughts and they're looking at me like what's he going to teach them is 10 a sissy sport. So I knew that in order to teach the prisoners I got to bring in the element of dangerous prisoners like some danger. So being an ice hockey player I had developed a very strong wrist and we have what is called a pepper volley where I'll take people up against the wall and I can fire the ball and it will go in at about 130 to 140 miles an hour. Now prisoners who have never played tennis or anyone who's never played tennis for that matter when they are put up at the net to volley as soon as a ball comes the first reaction is to go here

whereas those of you who play tennis know that you should block it with your backhand. But I'm not going to give the prisoners this little edge because I want to show them that tennis has an element of danger. So I get I said I want the four toughest prisoners here in the about 20 of them came running out and said no we can only take four. So we lined the four up. We put a rocket in their hand and I start firing the balls in the air and it you can imagine where it hit them because they don't have any protection. They thought this was hilarious they just and all of a sudden they all wanted to play tennis. And another thing that we did that really helped him out was I said I know you guys don't like discipline because you've got discipline all day in the prison but I like discipline so I'm going to play and on my side of the court. We have lines and on your side of the court there are no lines because you don't like discipline. So I can hit anywhere over there and it's good. But you got I headed to my discipline area and you know what happened. All of a sudden they

started taking on that wow with discipline comes freedom and with freedom they are then able to make some progress. And we want awards for 17 years in Hawaii for this program. We had to take the courts out because we have so many prisoners in Hawaii now unfortunately. But the whole all the time that we were doing this we had this fantastic program it was my favorite program that I ever did. And we used to get these are lifers who we used to get out on the weekend to play the weekend tournaments in Hawaii. There were eight of them and their value system within this group was so strong that there they would sit down to the eight that were going out and they rotated they would earn it they would play matches and they would two of them would get out on good behavior. These were out with an armed guard eight every weekend. And what they would do is they'd sit down to the eight and they would say you mess up and we will find you. Don't mess up this program. It was the single most important program to them. They

put together a whole group. They developed a library they call themselves the pro cons that was their title and they registered as the pro cons with the United States Tennis Association. They were dues paying members. And the values that we that I saw in the prison among those prisoners who got a focus in life was still the strongest set of values I've seen almost anywhere in the world. And so you don't think I don't think that values cannot be switched around. People are saying today August society it's all messed up. I'm going to go home and sit on my couch and do nothing. We can make some changes. Number five take responsibility. Have you watched our daytime talk shows. It's like we're having a universal nervous breakdown in the United States. I was in Atlanta recently and there's this guy on TV who's complaining about his mother in law and what an awful person she is. And I don't

think it's of myself but he you had problems with your mother in law before the show you just told the United States of America how bad she is. Your life is going to be miserable. And when you see these people on the daytime talk shows and they've got all their problems and their whining and their arguing and everything. And who do they blame. Mom Dad aunt aunts uncles brothers sisters. Society their boss. They're constantly blaming someone else. Every prisoner practically in America that I've worked with and had a chance to talk to and I said you belong here why did you get here. And their spiel is well it's because my father did this to me when I was that age and you know my brother did this to got me involved in that. When are we going to take responsibility. And what's interesting in the prisons in South Africa. Do you know who the statue is in the front of the South African prisons. Is Gandhi who preached

nonviolence. What is the statue in front of your prison if any and you have the same problems as Hawaii has has the mainland United States has it does its. It's because we as a society are not taking the necessary responsibility. Number six in order to improve the landscape of your life you you want to get out of your comfort zone. We need to dream. What's hurting society today in business is that not enough people have the freedom nor do they take the time to get out and simply dream. Are our businesses today are built so much on bottom line that people just don't have the time. You look at these photographs tonight 80000 kids are going to die of starvation every sixty five days a year 80000 kids you know a wonderful feast we have here. What are we going to do about it. I was with a fellow on

the plane recently. He was showing me all the photographs that he had taken of the kids. And my question to him was. How much did you feed them. It's why I didn't have any food and I felt like saying Put down your camera and feed these children. That's a whole lot more important at this point in time rather than trying to create a book of pictures of starving children. Yes you can say well that picture will go around the world and alert people. Well that's not going to help the kid who wants food in their belly right away. We need to. All of us do something get out of our our comfort zone. I remember when I went over and I met Mother Teresa a few years ago I took some money to her because I was over there speaking in Calcutta and I said Mother Teresa I would like to make this donation and she said I do not want your money I want your heart first. And if I get your heart then you can donate the money she said to you have walked in the urine of these people who are 60 years of age and we have to change their diapers three and four times a day. I want to see you have the heart to be of service to other people

and do things get out of the comfort zone whether it's going to go to see mother to research or go skydiving or whatever it may be something to just get you out of your day to day little zone that you get trapped in. Number seven Life Education. Here's the two concerns of teachers in America today the top two concerns the anger and the violence of the students. And number two apathy or lack of enthusiasm of the students. When I speak to the schools around the country I'm absolutely amazed. There's a school in Hawaii called Puna which is rated the number one high school in the United States. I spoke to grade 8 students a couple of months ago stood at the front door shook the hand of every student and I wanted to get a percentage of how many smiled as they shook hands. Not only did none of them smile but they didn't even look me in the eye they looked at their shoes or my

shoes and then went right in the room. Here's the best school in the country and you got 350 kids not a single kid smile. Two weeks ago I was in Vail Colorado with Walter Dodds who had brought me in to do first Hawaiian banks chairman's award function for 20 of the top bankers. I was sitting at the table with his daughter Lauren who's 13 years of age going to an aisle and I said what's up. Why you why isn't anybody smiling. And she said kids today feel it's too cool to smile. And I thought where's our life education when we go to a foreign country. The only thing we have is a smile when you smile that gives it you go that gives you the grip on life shows people that there's some excitement inside of you. Now I know some people don't smile naturally. It's not a major problem out here as it is it's a

New York City but it is a problem. And if you have an employee that does a smile buy a jar of Vaseline to put on their teeth. They will smile naturally. It's important that we have that first impression that we are teaching kids today without life education. Let me tell you another example of one that is serious in our schools and I know you follow the same. You know what I don't understand is how the mainland United States makes all these mistakes and then Hawaii picks it up and then Guam picks it up. There's enough mileage and time lapse that you should be able to figure out not to make the same mistake over and over again. And the mistake of taking out mandatory physical education 25 years ago every state United States had mandatory physical education. Today one state has left the state of Illinois and I was back in the Senate committee a year and a half ago fighting these

people on the other side literally virtually fighting to keep it in telling them how important it is. And we got these guys over here saying yeah but we got to get physical education out of the schools because. In physical education. They they have competition and competition is really bad for our kids. So I'm on the other side over here and I say well I said you said competition is bad. Let's define competition. What does it come from. What is the Latin word for competition. Well obviously they had thought about that so now it comes my turn to explain competition and I said it comes from the Latin word copper tarry copper tarry means to come together. Take a tennis example. If I have an opponent over there who decides that they don't want to play at the beginning of the match and they walk off. How much fun is it for me. I get up here I serve goes in for 15 love go over serve goes in 30 love. How long can I splay without

competition. Plus life is competition and competition is life. The swarming some of you when you woke up you had competition with your body to get out a bad day. And to say that competition is bad for you. That's not true. Competition is wonderful. We get we had a wonderful video that we did one time with a group of juniors. We put a microphone on in front of the kids that won the match and we asked them one question what did you learn today. The did that and there was they were stymied. You asked the kids who lost and you've got a two or three minute dialogue on your hands why they what they learned. We don't learn when we win anywhere near as much as we learn when we lose and these people over here are saying it's bad for the kids. And so only one state has mandatory physical education. And what is even worse now is that only 30 percent of the kids

in the United States in the mainland. This is just the mainland 48 states now. Only 30 percent of the kids take physical education each day. And yet our body is built to exercise what percentage of muscle is our heart. It's 100 percent for those of you that have broken your arm and your leg. The muscle atrophy. So if you don't exercise your heart it after a feast. Plus your brain only works an hour and 28 minutes on each side. If you understand the brain is divided into two left side right side the right side of your brain is your creative or spiritual side the left side your brain is your mechanical side. So as I'm thinking now I'm using the right side of my brain. But it's the left side of my brain that is allowing me to hang on to the microphone and the brain switches an hour in 28 Every an hour in 28 minutes from left to right. That's why if you're trying to be creative you only got an hour and 28 minutes to do it. And then you've got to get up and do some physical exercise and I'm sure you've all experienced that where you're trying to do something and all of a sudden you go

blank you can't go anymore and that's why writers get into what's called the writing rhythm. They go to a way to islands and they write. And then when they know that time's up they go and do some physical work go out for a swim or walk and then they'll come back. So what we're doing is we're taking kids and we knowing that and we're putting them into a rhythm which doesn't fit. Next we want to build protective shields very important we build protective shields because if you're going to have the courage to change and you make the decision there are going to be a lot of people who are going to tell you Oh don't do it I'm sure you had parents who said. Not such a good idea have you thought about all of the ramifications. Instead of building your protective shields sometimes you will fold. Let me give you a little scenario here. I have a surprise for you. Let's play this out tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. We have a special charter for all of you know choices you all have to

go and we're going to go to the North Pole. I'm going to give you 15 minutes of instructions. And after that you're on your own. We'll see you at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. What's the first thing that's coming to your mind to get ready for the North Pole. I've got to get some clothes. I've got to get some protective shields. Yet people make decisions monumental decisions all of their life but they don't have protective shields and they let people hammer away at them and they break down. So if you're going to be successful you must build the protective shields because if you have the focus and you have the knowledge and the courage you'll do it you'll eliminate fear. Fear eliminates hardening knowledge eliminates fear. Let's say you go home to your apartment one night or your home and you hear some noises at the back and you think someone is in there. Burglarizing your house. Your heart starts beating. Your blood pressure goes up. I get goosebumps

all over your terrified and suddenly you get your neighbor to go in because you don't want to go in and. Get out. You bring the police and they go check it out and they find that you left the window open and that was the wind that was making all the noise. And your heart goes back to normal and your blood pressure goes down knowledge eliminates fear. And the same thing if you have a focus and you have the courage and you have the knowledge you also have to have the protective shields number nine commune with nature. Nature plays a vital role in our development. Nature awakens our spirit. Is it interesting that people work in the middle of concrete 50 weeks a year to come for one week to what you have every day of your life which is being able to look out at the ocean. Most of your air still relatively clean when you dream you don't dream of concrete for sure. We did some studies I should say we but in the eye States and in the mainland they had a series of doctors who did a study on what's called Biophilia and they blindfold

people and they have them walk along and they're on concrete. And the moment they're barefooted and the moment they step on grass all of their parasympathetic nervous system all of their vital signs everything starts going into a much more relaxed mode. Within seconds of stepping on grass and then they put them on the beach and then they put them into the water and it improves each step along the way communing with nature is very important we're desperate for it. Here's something also that might surprise you. As you know the United States is a huge spectator nation I mean we build the stadium 60 80 hundred thousand people all kinds of sports. But here's. Something I don't think many of you know and that is more people visit zoos in the United States than all sporting goods put together because we really want to be able to commune with nature. So do what you can.

Some of you go through the whole day and don't commune with nature whether it's a sunrise or a sunset or a walk on the beach or a swim in the ocean. You've got to try to incorporate that if you're going to improve the landscape of your life. Chapter 10 is called simplify your life. This is a big one. You might have seen a Time CNN poll that was done just recently and it said 79 percent of Americans want to improve their life say there to simply not approve. To simplify their life significantly. Seventy nine percent that's eight out of 10 people want to simplify their life. Isn't it interesting that what America has been all about has been increasing possessions and increasing the materialistic mentality. And suddenly now they're waking up and saying all of this isn't making me happy. I must simplify it. Go go home to your closet tonight. Look in there. Take a look at the dresses and the shirts that you have. I mean you haven't wore some of them you haven't worn for

two years and you're hanging on thinking maybe you'll use it on Halloween or something. But get rid of them. Some people need shirts on their back and they need dresses. Take every facet of your life and simplify it. You may have heard the wonderful parable about the yogi who's sitting on the Himalaya Mountains meditating and he's got his legs crossed in Iraq comes up and starts nibbling at his toes. So he said Boy I gotta get rid of this rot. I know how to get rid of the rat. I'm going to get it. So he goes out he gets a cat. And sitting here meditating on rats not bothering but the cat is meowing so he says he's the cat's hungry I gotta get milk or do I get milk while I go to go get a cow. So he goes out he gets a cow so that he can feed milking the cow to feed the cat to keep away the rats so he can meditate. But then he's sitting there meditating the cow is in pain because it needs to be milked so he says it better get a

wife. So he goes out he gets a wife who can milk the cow to take care to feed the cat to take care of the rot. And he's sitting there meditating and the wife says Dear We need a house to live in. So you could finish the rest of the story as the gentleman goes out to get his house which then has to be insured. And the story can go on and on and on and so what became of started out as a very simple life became a very complicated one. And what we need to do is simplify all aspects of our life let me give you also another example about food. Basically what fits into your stomach is you take your hands and cup them like that. And that's what fits in your stomach. Now I know some of you go beyond that on a daily basis. But that's the ideal way. Anything more than what fits in your two cupped hands is going to jam things up. Keep in mind that simplify something. Give yourself a break.

It's why don't you think about every 10 days. Tonight what are you going to do you're going to give your eyes A fast. Soon you're going to go to sleep. You'll get your legs or rest your butt but that's like a boy there. Write it down. Nate. What might be hard for some of you six hours start out eight hours. Don't open your mouth. Some of you may be married to someone that you'd love to have six hour caught us. How about a news fast. Just don't turn don't don't read any news or listen to any news for 24 hours. This is very important if you can do a news fast. It will help you psychologically if you look at CNN.

What do they do. Twenty eight minutes they batter you against the wall with all this negative news and then they give you a little two minute nice story at the end figuring that they're going to uplift you and everybody will go away feeling nice. It doesn't work that way. So give yourself a break. Number 11 educate your heart. Here's another class that I would like to see incorporated and that class is educate your heart. If we don't do that with our kids we're not giving them a real education. There's a huge spiritual vacuum today. Here's the two things that affect the conduct and the behavior of people all over the world cross-culturally number one is leadership and number two are spiritual teachings. And if you don't have good leadership and you don't have strong spiritual teachings you're going to have a behavior that's going to go haywire. Isn't it interesting that the soon as they took prayer out of school in America violence went up proportionally and has stayed up to the point

now where 100000 kids each year in America have their guns taken away from them. Nineteen hundred teenagers last year were stabbed or shot by their student. One thousand five hundred teachers were shot or stabbed by their students. Now I understand philosophically in terms of they don't want one religion because we have so many religions in this country. But just a quiet time for the kids to be able to have five minutes of prayer of something even if they just pray to themselves back to themselves just that that helps people develop spiritually. And if we don't give and educate the heart we're in trouble. If you take a tree and you put water just on the Leaves it is going to grow. It happens even with our own body. Last year women in America spent 90 TIENE billion dollars on makeup for their face.

Now where do toxins come out of your body. A good portion of toxins come out of your face. If you don't believe me don't wash your face for two days. Live in a pristine environment and your face will be filthy from all the toxins that have come out. So you've got all these toxins that are racing to get out but you got all this luck on the face and it says all can't get out. Better go back in and do some more damage. And that's why we have a lot sicker population today because we are blocking the health of our skin your skin grows from inside. People get healthy skin. Not by what they put on it. But what they put in their body. And so it's very important that we understand we need to water the root of who we are and who we are isn't something that's external. When someone says Who are you you say well I'm a comedian I'm an American I'm a male I'm a female. My name is John

Cindy whatever can you change your name. Darn right. Can you change your citizenship. Darn right. Can you change your sex. Darn right you got incredible operations to do that now. So that's not who you are who you are is what you can't fit into your hand your love your tenderness your care your understanding your thoughtfulness your commitment. That's who you really are. And when Don converts talks about I grew that's what he's talking about he's not talking about I grew my bank account. I grew the size of my garage so I could put three cars in instead of two. He's talking about how did he grow as a person. And finally number 12 we want to do it all with humility. This is a big one. This is not an easy one for men to handle. Humility we do not have the words go together in America that says humble athlete anymore. There are a couple and it happened in September 1995. What was that event that got the longest standing ovation in the history of the United States what happened September 1995. Who said that. Cal Ripken.

What do you do. He went to work two thousand one hundred thirty one days in a row. Big deal. There's people all over the world have got to work two thousand one hundred thirty one days in a row and they didn't get even a second of standing ovation. And they didn't have four months off like he does. But you know what. He's a high profile athlete and he did it with you know any one for 22 minutes the crowd stood goosebumps. People all over the stands. His opponents his teammates tears coming down their eyes because he did it with humility humility doesn't mean thinking less of yourself. It just means thinking of yourself less There's a big difference. We don't make us the focal point. We think about others we focus our service elsewhere. That's what humility is all about. Now I'm going to tell the story to the men. Women can listen in but this is for the men we interviewed recently a lady by the name of Sara mitten in last September. She's 30 years of age been all

over the world traveled and she has a preliminary interview with our training director Daniel was shot out in Palm Springs. I do most of the final interviews with a team. So Sara Mitton spends four hours with Dan over Shawn out in Palm Springs. Dan is in the final interview a couple of months later in our headquarters in Texas. In one of our interviews we want to find out how do people how do they understand other people that are in the interview. Do they get the focus off themselves. And so what I wanted to see was how perceptive was Sarah mitten. And she gave a I got to I introduced the professionals who were doing the program with me and it's about a 10 or 12 hour interview. And I talked about Daniel with Shawn and all the accolades and what he done he's one of the best coaches in the world and those of you that seen the tennis show out here Dan is the one who's now doing the show. A great entertainer a very articulate very knowledgeable.

So I ask Sarah this and to the men in the audience listen to her answer. She said He's the first man I've ever met in my life that got better after I met him. Almost all men tell you how great they are in the first couple of hours and it's downhill after that. And I can't tell you how many men have come up to me and said the light bulb went on. How many times in their relationships whether they meet somebody they don't know and I do this and I II III instead of really finding out about the other person and Sarah had spent four hours with Dan over Shawn and he had not talked about himself one second and she was so impressed by that that there was actually a male on this planet that could focus on her first. And I just share that with you because as we go throughout our lives one of the things that men want to do is develop the female side and what the women want to do is develop the male side of their personalities and the two things that men have to work on most are humility and sensitivity. Why is it that most

women when the teachers of the Year award. Its because they have the ability to walk in the shoes of their students and men as you know we tend to think of the big picture where the so-called problem solvers. And if you read John Gray's wonderful book about Venus and Mars and all of that sometimes all the women want to do is they just want to spew out the problem and the man and they want to solve the problem instead of just sit there and listen. And by the end the woman's probably solve the problem anyway so it's best to just zip it up and be quiet. Become a good listener. And that's part of being sensitive sensitive enough to the fact that all the woman wants to do is just unload. They have a few more hormones and we do they need to be able to just let it go. And that's important. And the same thing for women they have to understand how men think. You know here's an interesting thing in our training class. Every single training class we do has to be for men. We have not had a single training class for women and you think about

this how many times do you see women come to work with their hair all over the place or you know kind of their shirt hanging out you see men men come in a lot like this at to work. Sure they got shaving cream on one ear. Their ties not done up it's attention to detail they got their hair going in six different places. And that's the way men are they they're not good at attention to detail and it's interesting to see the publishing business now almost all the major editors of the publications United States today are women because it's a very detailed business. So whatever we do however we're going to work this tieback appear since we're on TV. But seriously what I challenge you to do as you leave this room is don't say I went to launch. Got some interesting ideas. Maybe I'll do it maybe I won't take one of those chapters.

Share it with somebody and get it underway whether it's trying something new whether you're going to go out windsurfer the first time you're going to skydive you're going to play tennis or golf or whatever it may be get out and do something. And then look at it. What can I do for someone else. What is needed here in Guam. What can you do. Most of the people that have a Western mentality is they complain oh all look how bad this is. You know you sit around they got what we got. We had hundreds of Archie Bunker's in every neighborhood. They sit back in their armchair and they want someone else to solve the problem. I'll finish up by telling you about a fellow I met a little while ago who di not the refs not the rightward who interview exit interviewed Peace Corps workers and in this process they asked the question what did you give to the country where you served

and what is interesting at the end of the interview to find out is that 100 percent of the Peace Corps interviewers that Peace Corps people that were interviewed said I got way more back than I gave their intention of doing. Going into the Peace Corps was a very altruistic motive. They wanted to help people. But in the end they were the winners and the only people who win in life are those who go in with that kind of mentality. LAURANCE Rockefeller had a wonderful quote which he gave me. He said you'll know you only have maturity in life when you realize the highest position you will ever attain is that of a servant he said I know people don't like the word servant has a bad connotation but think about this when you get up in the morning you walk your dog. You serve your children. You serve your family you go to work you serve your boss your leader your manager you serve your customers you serve your fellow employee. You come home from work you serve your family again you may serve your community you may serve your country if you're in the military. We are constantly in

service he said as soon as you can get comfortable with the fact that the happiest people on the planet are those that are regularly giving service to other people. Those are the ones that can wake up each day and say I'm really happy. So in closing I encourage all of you to. Have the courage to make the change. And also I encourage you that if there's things you would like changed in this talk or you would like to see I'm in the process of revising editing and if you have some stories that you want to share and you want to write down. Tim Thurman has my address I'd be happy to to hear from you. And I say that very sincerely. This is a fact of many of the titles of the book have come from people who are in the audience. This title I like improving the landscape of your life it's a catchy one it works its. It's the first one since tennis for life that I really like of the seven titles and will probably keep that so you don't have to put your creative hats on if you think about changing the title.

That seems that one seems to fit but there's a lot of other things that I encourage your participation on. I hope that today you have a little bit of a spirit spark inside of you to go out and share this with all the people that didn't come here today. And as Tim Thurman mentioned at the beginning now we have had wonderful sponsorship. In fact I just air tickets do cost money these days and I certainly couldn't come out here without the support of the sponsors. And I'm very much appreciative of that. These are this is kind of the essence of what makes us all be able to do these kinds of things and I hope that you will support the people who helped us support this program today so I know as they say on the airlines and we have a lot of choices of things you could have done today but I sure appreciate you being here thank you so. Much.