Written by: Debbie Debonaire , Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. When one finds themselves on rock bottom, the only way is up, right? RIGHT! But when you are at rock bottom, moving up seems such a huge mountain to climb. Putting one foot in front of the other takes all of your energy. I know how that feels. In this article, I am sharing how I went from overcoming my adversities of clinical depression and suicidal tendencies. I wish to create opportunities for you to overcome your own adversities so you, too, can realize your true purpose on Earth and shine in your own uniqueness. Let me take you back to a time in my life when darkness was the norm and the spiraling was the only way out, or so I thought. Clinical Depression was the label I was living by, and it is the result of me attempting three times to leave a world where I had been convinced into believing I was the toxic person in my son’s life. He was only 8 years old then. He had been a witness to my demise since he was 5 years old. Being my rock during my agoraphobia, though on reflection talking to him about it now, he did not see the situation as I saw it. Thankfully! What followed after my agoraphobia was a rollercoaster of a life that was not being lived. I was barely existing! This article is not to delve deep into my story; that is a whole other article. It is about the pillars I created from the steps I took after my ‘Oh Shit’ moment (another whole different article). These steps are what moved me out of the darkness and into the light. These pillars were brought together to give you a way to build and strengthen your own emotional resilience so you too can step forward onto your own life stage and rewrite your own life script. You can become your own director where you'd take your life in a whole new direction and where the people in your life are the characters you choose, desire, and deserve. It’s time to create the new acts of your life: Act One - Self Awareness Act Two - Self Acceptance Act Three - Support Act Four - Flexibility Act Five - Responsibility Act Six - Focus Act Seven - Optimism Act Eight - Gratitude Act Nine - Courage The act of Self Awareness is about nurturing a positive view of yourself. It's about being consciously aware of you and your life, in every area, every moment of your life. It's the ability to recognize your feelings; whilst they are happening. Also, the ability to understand how you react to those feelings and creates the life that you live. So, to be consciously aware in any given moment, you need to stop, look at what you're thinking and look at what you're feeling. Think about what has caused that feeling and how that can be changed. If it's negative, then it needs to be changed more positively. That's how you become consciously self-aware. With this awareness, you can build on your self-limiting beliefs. You can overcome negative life patterns, giving you the gateway to step onto a more positive life stage — one in which you are comfortable and love living. Self Acceptance gets you into the habit of checking your initial interpretations of things . When you accept the way things truly are, rather than what you believe them to be, it helps you perceive things differently. Begin to look into your heart and recognize how you are feeling towards each interpretation. Are they the right feelings? Are they serving you well, or do you need to create a greater harmonious feeling that serves you better? Then align these feelings with your thoughts so you create acceptance that stands more closely with your reality. Ask yourself questions about the situation you find yourself in that is challenging for your thoughts and feelings. Then further question your initial answers until you are accepting things as they are in reality. You will feel better in the moment, and you’ll be far more effective moving forward. It's about accepting all of the facts of who you are, accepting what you can and cannot change, accepting what you can and cannot control in all areas of your life. Until you accept everything about yourself currently, you will not be fully equipped to step into the changes you want to make to live the life you truly want to live, doing the things you truly want to do. Stepping into the act of support for me was two-fold. Firstly, it was about rebuilding my life’s foundations. This included creating a morning ritual, creating a healthier diet, taking a daily walk, journaling, gratitude cards, and creating a self-care/self-love routine. Secondly, it is about surrounding yourself with a positive support network of people. These are those people interested in you, people who find the best in you, people who encourage you to follow your choices and follow your dreams. They can also be those who will support you enough to point out your mistakes or give constructive criticism. You are supported enough to take on board and investigate to see if it gives you a better, more productive outcome. Having that encouragement around you allows you to move past all of the things that held you back before. You know, the lack of self-worth and a lack of self-esteem. When you have this positive support mechanism around you, you flourish, you step into the person you want to be. The person you were born to be. Do not be afraid to step away from those characters in your life who are creating negative vibes that are keeping you stuck. This will create the space you need to open up to more positive support. Flexibility is about the willingness to change or compromise as long as the compromise works for both parties. Being flexible is about having more than one way to deal with stressful situations in your life. Allowing your brain to be strengthened so you can adapt more easily to situations. Flexing your brain and heart muscles has great psychological, emotional, and physiological health benefits. Cultivating your understanding of why you're stressed, what's causing you to be stressed gives your brain and heart more flexible options to overcome that stress. Stress is a symptom, not a cause. Finding the cause is paramount, and having flexibility can allow your brain and heart to adapt to stressful situations much, much easier. This flexibility allows you to change your outlook on your life and how you are currently living it. This, in turn, will give you flexible options to choose how to make the change you want to make for your life to run more smoothly. Too much rigidity can set you up for a more stressful life. When I stood up and took responsibility for all aspects of my life and moved away from the blame game and the victimhood mentality I had been living from the age of eight, so many curtains lifted on my life, and the lights began to shine. It is all about taking responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. It's about being accountable for all of those feelings, thoughts, and actions, taking the blame and not blaming others. There are so many people out there who do not take responsibility for themselves. They believe that the situation they're in is because of what someone else has done to them, or the actions someone else took has made them be the way they are. Ask yourself this about a given situation: "Whatever I say or do, can I change the outcome?" If the answer is no, then do not waste your energy, especially your emotional energy on it. Remember, you cannot control what others say or do in connection with yourself, but you can control how you react to them. So many things are out of your control, do not waste your energy on them. It's all about taking responsibility for yourself, working through those actions, those feelings, those thoughts, so you can go out and thrive. When you take back your control on your own terms, you give yourself the freedom to be you and create the pathway on the journey you were born to take. Focus is all about concentrating on all areas of your life. Take time to acknowledge that focusing on all aspects of your life gives a holistic view of yourself. So that if necessary, you can change them. Emotional, social, relational, physical, financial, psychological, spiritual are just some aspects of your life to focus on. You can enhance them if, when, and where necessary. You can adapt them, so they serve you better in your life. Removing your focus away from the things that aren't serving you well or the people who aren't serving you well gives you the ability to move forward. When your focus is steered in the direction of the things that serve you well in all of those aspects of your life, you can begin to thrive. Balancing positivity with realism. It's a belief that good prevails evil. It's all about having confidence and hopefulness about the future in all areas of your life. In optimism , we can use self-efficacy to believe in our own abilities to succeed in anything we set out to achieve. When you have a more optimistic attitude to life, it helps you live a happier, more successful, and healthier life. Learning that optimism can protect against depression was one of the turning points in my life . It made me more resistant to the stressful things that, in the past, had spiraled me down my clinical depression route. It could be argued that optimism may even help people live longer. I would also debate that optimism is all about facing your fears, accepting those fears for what they really are. Fear is False Emotions Appearing Real . Stepping into those fears, stepping through those fears, and realizing what fantastic things there are all waiting for you on the other side creates optimism. Having an attitude of gratitude was another turning point in my life. Being blinded by stress, depression, and negativity hid the true things I already had in my life. When these were unveiled, my life was opened up to the wealth of things I already had. By creating a gratitude diary/journal, you open yourself to see what you already have in life. Many people focus on the things they do not have in life, which can have a detrimental effect on their current lives. Taking the time to be aware of what is already in their life often changes people’s perspective of what is important in life. Gratitude is not just about things, objects, or attitudes. It is about the people around you, about life’s beauty, about your inner and outer environment. Gratitude is about appreciation. Being appreciative about what is already in all areas of your life opens you up to more positive, regenerative emotions that help build and strengthen your resilience. Finally, we come to courage . It was not until I reflected on my life’s journey that allowed me to realize what people had said about me; being courageous and resilient came to light. Courage, like optimism, is about facing your fears, doing something that frightens you, and having strength in the face of adversity. All of which were part of my past life script. To move forward, you need to take courageous steps and realize that you will be okay on the other side. Although I did not stand up to the bullies for many years, when I began my journey back from the proverbial brink, courage came in many forms. Courage to look at myself in the mirror after 9 years, courage to face my son for the first time after my ‘oh shit ‘moment, courage to take back my control, courage to go out and make a difference in the world by sharing my story. One of the most courageous things is admitting when you are wrong or have made a mistake, not only to others but also to yourself. Another is to have the courage to forgive others and, most of all, to forgive yourself. You see, courage is not all about doing dangerous things. Often there is no danger involved. Except for the danger of not living your true life. The life you desire and deserve. So how do these nine acts allow you to build and strengthen your emotional resilience and rewrite your life script? Take self-Awareness ; this gives you the freedom to choose Self-Acceptance allows you to build on who you truly are. Looking at support gives you the ability to give strength to who you are and what you do. Flexibility allows you to adapt in the face of adversity to strengthen your resilience and change your current life path. Taking responsibility for all aspects of your life allows you to decide what works and does not work for you so you can change course and build on who you are. When you fully focus on the life you want to live, you rewrite your script with the knowledge and the resilience that you are in control. When you have optimism , you can allow yourself to step out of your comfort zone and experience so much more in life, and these experiences build on your life story. Gratitude allows you to appreciate your life as it is now and adjust it, which in turn builds and strengthens your resilience; and Leaving courage for you to take chances, risks and have the ability to see fear for what it really is. These give you further choices to create your best life and have the freedom to be you now! Choose Life! Choose Freedom! Choose you! Follow me on Facebook , LinkedIn , Instagram and visit my website ! Debbie Debonaire, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Debbie Debonaire is a Global Emotional Resilience Consultant and Holistic Counsellor who has transformed her life, to become a beacon of light to help others suffering in adversity, fear, severe lack of self-confidence, and self-esteem. She failed suicide three times, overcame extreme clinical depression, and prolonged mental domestic abuse, so knows what it takes to take back control and transform one's life. Her story is one of extreme courage and focus and has resulted in a complete transformation that has seen her rise to become a highly esteemed expert on contemporary emotional and trauma recovery. Debbie brings solutions, inspiration, and change, through her innovative process the HeartAct Approach™ to guide career women (and men) from negative life patterns to triumphant transformation and empowerment. This gives them the courage to take back their control and live life on their own terms so that they can thrive to their true potential and live the life they desire and deserve.

Written by: Murray Ansell, Guest Writer When we think of ourselves from the perspective of energy, everything we can imagine becomes possible. This is because what we experience in life is attracted by the frequency of our life energy, a little-understood product of the thought processes of the subconscious mind. When we understand the inputs into our subconscious mind and how to manage them, we can use energy transformation to stop attracting unhelpful experiences or blocking what we desire, allowing us to intentionally attract our desires quickly, with ease and grace. This article is intended as an introduction to the fascinating world of life energy at a level not usually explored. There are many offering energy treatments of various kinds using modalities like EFT, TFT, Access Bars, chakra balancing, and others, which are effective treatments for various issues affecting people emotionally, physically and even financially. However, this is similar to treating an infection with topical ointment ; they treat an effect without necessarily revealing the true cause. And until that cause is revealed, it will keep finding ways to draw attention to itself, physically, emotionally, and/or financially. Because life’s ultimate purpose is to facilitate our re-alignment with Love, the root cause of “illness” of any kind is the unawareness of how we have been out of alignment with the Love that we are, the frequency of our Soul. Until we align fully with our Soul’s energy, which some call Ascension, our life energy will reflect the various deficits in our Self-awareness through a combination of 5 kinds of energy, which are: mental energy, emotional energy, ancestral energy, etheric energy and spiritual energy. All are just tools used by the Soul in our journey back to wholeness as Love. Mental energy is a combination of what we have believed to be true during the course of our lifetime and the mental associations we have created represented by the neural networks in our brain. The extent to which any of these memories and associations influence our life is related to how much emotion is associated with them. This emotional component is our emotional energy. Emotional energy represents the intensity of the energy charge associated with a memory, which is why strong negative emotions from trauma can dominate people’s life experiences. Likewise, those who master applying positive emotion to visions of their desired futures can attract those experiences into their life. Ancestral energy is the mental, emotional and behavioral patterns of our ancestors, accessible through our DNA. Our brain is programmed to seek out resources to help us deal with our current experience. When our brain can’t find something relevant in our memories, it goes to plan B and looks into the memories of our ancestors, activating the most recent relevant patterns. This sets up energy patterns that often create some level of resistance to attracting the experiences we desire. Etheric energy relates to relationships. When we are in a relationship with others, and there are non-loving thoughts, words, or actions in that relationship, this creates etheric cording between the relationship partners, setting up what some call karma. These etheric cords produce the effect of both relationship parties experiencing each other’s energies and will remain in place until the relationship is restored to a state of love with respect to all moments of disharmony. Spiritual energy represents our loving Soul, as well as a variety of lower frequency spiritual energies. These lower frequency energies can affect people whether or not they consciously hold religious beliefs about demons or magical thinking about witches, curses or hexes. They can be activated from our ancestral energies by our being in the presence of those who do hold such consciousness. Misalignments due to some or all of the above kinds of energies result in a life experience characterized by delay and resistance to experiencing what we desire, periodic negative experiences, and the feeling of being dictated to by circumstances apparently beyond our control. However, when we realize that we attract from the frequency of our life energy, we can start the inner work needed to align our energy with that of our Soul. So, what options do we have for re-alignment? Well, it turns out there are quite a few ranging from spiritual practices such as Buddhism and Taoism, to yoga, meditation and energy alignment practices such as life energy coaching. Of these, the least known but also fastest approach is life energy coaching. Because the founders have studied and transformed the foundational consciousness and energies of the world’s major religions, as well as the consciousness of our non-human ancestors, the energy received from their products and services, and from those they’ve certified as Life Energy Coaches, provides automatic re-alignment of these fundamental, and deeply influential energies. This has the effect of accelerating alignment by decades relative to using other alignment methods. They have also transformed the vast majority of the consciousness and energies that typically prevent self-love, harmony with money , self-awareness, awareness of one’s life purpose , love for business, harmony with wealth, conscious relationship and more. Those who use certified life energy coaches’ products and services receive the benefits of all transformation already done by their coach or which the coach received through their initiation into the energy profile of a life energy coach. Those interested in learning more about life energy and/or experiencing the accelerative benefits of life energy coaching can do so by using the Human Energetics transformational e-book . Human Energetics goes into more depth about the various elements of human energy and, like all of Life Energy Coaching’s digital programs, transforms the reader’s energy for 7 days after each reading. For more information, follow me on Facebook , YouTube , LinkedIn and visit my website ! Murray Ansell, Guest Writer Brainz Magazine Murray Ansell is co-founder of Life Energy Coaching (LEC), an energy coaching firm where he develops advanced energy alignment programs that help LEC’s clients rapidly align their energy with their Soul, and its purpose and plan for this lifetime. This includes aligning with Self love, harmony in relation to money, the support of the Archangels and Masters, discovery of one’s unique and magnificent purpose, love for business, enlightened wealth, conscious relationship and more. Murray’s work at LEC also includes initiating and certifying Life Energy Coaches to bring these programs to a wider audience, which requires transformation of their energy system to allow them to receive guidance and energy from relevant Archangels and Masters during coaching sessions, along with many other personal benefits. Murray also runs Business Energy Coaching (BEC), which helps business owners and leaders transform their businesses by transforming themselves into heart-guided, Soul-inspired, collaborative leaders. BEC is developing a new paradigm for business based on energy alignment, that transforms business from its traditional roots in fear-based competition and survivalism, to abundance consciousness and alignment with love for employees, customers, community and nature. Prior to co-founding LEC in July 2005, Murray was founder and CEO of a Los Angeles based new product and technology licensing agency, where he developed a proprietary system for maximizing returns and speed to market for the innovative products of emerging, technology-based businesses. Murray grew up in New Zealand, earning a BCA (Accounting) from Victoria University of Wellington and becoming a Chartered Accountant. He has also worked for a “Big 4” accounting firm and an international bank in their Investment Banking and Commercial Banking Divisions.

Written by: Ellie Shefi, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. It’s one year from today, and you’re living your best life. Where are you? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What are you embodying? Who are the people around you? And how are you spending your time? Now, let’s reverse engineer it. What needs to be done to get you there? What skills do you need to improve your results? What tools do you need to work smarter and faster? Whose guidance and support do you need to keep you focused and progressing on your path? What’s the very first step? Confused? Not sure where to start? To take control of your life, you have to be clear about exactly what you want. Think big, but be specific and write it all down! Include exactly what you envision for your finances, career, relationships, home, personal projects, and any other categories that are relevant to you. If you want a raise, write down the dollar amount. If you want to move, describe your new home with as many details as possible. If you want better friendships, spell out precisely what that means to you. Once you have a complete, powerful, and detailed description of everything you want, it’s time to make a plan. As you map your paths to success in different categories, you’ll notice that some take longer than others. That’s ok! What’s important is that your desires are clearly defined and that you focus on the actions you can take right now to make progress. Break down larger, longer-term goals into measurable and manageable milestones, including deadlines and how much time each will take to accomplish. That way, you can track your progress along the way and hold yourself accountable! (More about accountability below.) Again, you want to be as specific as possible. If you want to finish writing your book this year, write down how exactly many words you’re going to write every day. Set deadlines for finding an editor, cover designer, and publisher. Write down the date your book will go to print and how many books you’re going to sell in the first month! Yes, that specific! Having a clear vision and action plan will help you identify the tools and resources you need to get the job done. Make a list of everything you need to accomplish each of your goals and the dates you need them by. It’s especially important to plan ahead if you need to schedule taking a class or save up to make a major purchase. Do you need updated software? New equipment? Books? An e-course or workshop? Which tools and resources do you need access to first? Before you shop around, be sure you’re clear about how each item on your list will accelerate your path to success. That way, you’ll be able to quickly assess similar tools and resources, ensuring you have what you need but don’t overspend on unnecessary features! Sounds like you’ve got everything you need to succeed, right? Almost. No matter who you are, what you know, or where you’re going: success takes a village. Intentionally cultivate a community that will support you, hold you accountable, and celebrate you each and every win. You need your friends and family, but you also need to invest in relationships with peers, mentors, and experts. Put yourself in close proximity to the people who have already made it to where you want to be and accomplished what you want to do! The most successful people surround themselves with others who will challenge and inspire them. They also have coaches to help them stay focused, avoid costly mistakes, and go further, faster. Taking control of your life comes down to knowing what you want and what it takes to get it. With a clear vision, a specific plan, access to the right tools and resources, and a support system to encourage you along the way, you’ll have everything you need to make your dream life a reality. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website! Read more from Ellie! Ellie Shefi, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Ellie Shefi is the very definition of tenacious. Having overcome a lifetime of adversity, including abuse, domestic violence, homelessness, cancer, and a myriad of other health issues that have seen her fight for her life for over two decades, Ellie has mastered mindset, resiliency, and resourcefulness, and she has dedicated her life to the empowerment of others. Ellie is an attorney, entrepreneur, coach, business strategist, keynote speaker, and award-winning author; featured contributor to publications, podcasts, and television shows; teacher, trainer, philanthropist, and engaged community servant. Ellie’s mission is to impact lives. A master problem-solver and opportunity creator who's determined to change the world, Ellie is the go-to expert for practical, easy-to-implement, results-driven tools, strategies, and resources that equip and empower you to take control and create the authentic, abundant life of your dreams. She is the creator of You Are Not Your Scars™, a movement that provides resources to empower women; Unlocking Your Superpower™, a program that provides resources to empower entrepreneurs; Creating An Impervious Mind™, a program that provides resources to empower the mind; and Made 2 Change The World™, a movement that provides resources to empower the next generation. Ellie is also the creator of Amplify Your Story Now™, a program that provides resources to authors and aspiring authors, and Sisters Rising™, a book series that provides women with a platform to tell their stories, showcase their businesses, and raise awareness of their work. An award-winning author, Ellie's books include: Unlocking Your Superpower: 8 Steps to Turn Your Existing Knowledge Into Income; Sisters Rising: Stories of Remarkable Women Living Extraordinary Lives; and The Authorities: Powerful Wisdom from Leaders in the Field (which she co-wrote with Les Brown, Bob Proctor, Marci Shimoff, and Raymond Aaron). Ellie is also the author of the upcoming book SuccessOnomics, which she is co-writing with Jack Canfield.

Written by: Tamara Makar, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Finally, a new year started, and with that, there are many New Year resolutions. January is the usual busiest month in the gym, when everyone is trying to commit to fitness and a healthy life. Since many countries are in a lockdown right now with gyms shut, people find it difficult to get the motivation to work out at home and eat healthily. However, a new year is always a good occasion to start something new or make a change, so if you would like to start a healthier lifestyle, start eating healthier. When you do your shopping, or pick up snacks in a shop, start reading the food labels. Although they’re not telling you everything, food labels can be a good starting point to understand what and how much you put into your body. There are a few points I would like to make though: Sometimes foods are labeled as ‘sugar-free’ or ‘no sugar added,’ but when you read the label, you can find that there is, in fact, some sugar in it under a different name. Sugar has 56 different names. Some of them are obvious: brown sugar, cane sugar, coconut sugar, date sugar. Others are a bit more difficult to recognize: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), honey, maple syrup, fruit juice, dextrose, fructose, or sucrose. Fat-free or sugar-free products are not necessarily low-calorie products. Usually, when manufacturers take the sugar out, they put fat in and vice versa. So usually, low-fat products are high in carbs, and low carb products are high in fat. Always check the label to see what’s in the product. Organic doesn’t mean low calorie. Products labeled ‘organic’ are supposed to be healthier, but by all means, it doesn’t mean it’s a low-calorie product. Organic sugar is still sugar, it will still cause an insulin spike in your blood, and it still has all the calories. Sweeteners – if eaten too much of them - can cause bloating and even diarrhea. Sugar alcohol and polyol are different names for sweeteners. Stevia and erythritol are 2 plant-based sweeteners, so they’re natural. Therefore - in general – they are easier on your body than artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are aspartame, acesulfame, saccharin, or sucralose, to mention a few. If you have any digestive issues, like IBS, you might want to stay away from sweeteners, or at least the artificial ones. I encourage you to start a food diary — for a week, put down everything you eat or drink in a diary. What you ate, how much, and when. Do it on workdays and weekends – we tend to eat differently when we work or just relax at home. Only once you honestly record everything you eat and drink will you be able to see how many calories you consume every day. If calories and macros don’t mean anything to you, don’t worry! Hit me up with your diary, and I’ll help you with a nutrition plan (hello@tamaramakar.me, in January FOR FREE). People usually underestimate how much they eat and always wonder how they don’t lose weight. More often than not, people overeat, and that’s the main reason why they can’t lose weight. Some people undereat though – eat less than what their bodies’ need, and if you do that for long enough, your body will start storing the calories in fat deposits instead of burning them – it is a normal survival mode, your body will preserve the energy for later since you’re not fuelling your body with enough energy regularly. To help those of you guys who would like to make a change in their physiques and lifestyle, in January, I’m offering online coaching for $100 in the first month – this means full online coaching: nutrition and training plans with supplementation, weekly check-ins and changes to your plans towards your goal. If you don’t want full online coaching just yet, but you would still like to start changing your life, I offer a one-off nutrition and training plan – FOR FREE in January. This is a personalized 4-week program in line with your goals, but there are no changes or follow-up with that. To sign up on either of my offers, please email me: hello@tamaramakar.me or visit my website. Let’s have a healthy New Year! Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and visit my website! Tamara Makar, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Tamara Makar is an IFBB pro female bodybuilder internationally known and recognized after competing at the highest level for many years. She has been in the fitness industry for over 25 years, helping people to achieve their fitness goals and desired physique. Tamara's passion and dedication will help those willing to change their lifestyle as well as mindset. With a huge hunger for achieving results, Tamara has been studying psychology (and specifically sport psychology) to combine her knowledge of fitness and nutrition with the knowledge of how people get motivated and how they can change their mindset to achieve their goals. She is a certified Personal Trainer and an Advanced Sports and Exercise Nutritionist and has worked with some of the best in the industry. Tamara is very much a people's person who thrives off working with people of all ages, backgrounds, and desired goals – from beginners to competing athletes, she is relentless to make sure everyone achieves their desired outcome!

Written by: Brittney Oliver, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. In a day in age of excess consumption, where most industrialized countries boast a current obesity rate of over 42%, it is safe to say that striving to be “fat” is generally ill-advised. While this is true in regards to the human physique, it is not the case for the human brain. While the physical body is recommended to stay within about an eighteen to twenty-four percent fat ratio, the human brain stands at a whopping sixty percent! Your brain feeds on and relies on healthy fats to maintain integrity and function, just like your body depends on H20 to maintain a sixty percent water composition. Essential fatty acids such as omega 3 fatty acids found in fish, some veggies and wild game are especially important during the initial brain formation in fetal development because they assist in the proper growth of both white and grey brain matter. In human breast milk, which is nature's perfect food, you will find a strong presence of DHA, which will continue to nurture an infant’s overall health, especially the rapid development of their prefrontal cortex; the area of the brain responsible for orchestrating behavior. Within the brain, you will find multiple nerves and nerve cells that send signals and coordinate functions. Around these nerves exist a fatty protective layering called myelin. By definition, myelin is an insulating layer or sheath that forms around nerves, including those in the brain and spinal cord. It is made up of protein and fatty substances. This myelin sheath allows electrical impulses to transmit quickly and efficiently along the nerve cells resulting in fast responses, focus and optimal brain functionality. This fatty protective substance is maintained through consuming healthy fats as discussed above, but it is also impacted by the body’s microbiota. Your Gut or Microbiome is the diverse bacterial community within your digestive organs and this living community, if well-diversified and healthy, holds a master key to almost every area of your health. The gut impacts sleep, metabolism, digestion, cravings, immunity, blood pressure, autoimmune responses and so much more. Even more astoundingly, the gut has a direct communication pathway to your brain. Your gut microbes have the power to either help or hurt your precious myelin. Studies have shown that certain gut flora, when overgrown, can trigger myelin autoantigens causing autoimmune demyelination. This is when the immune system attacks its own myelin leading to exposed nerves. This study was done to assess the role of gut microbes in Multiple Sclerosis and explain the conditions flare-ups. Not only did these studies give preventative hope for those suffering from MS, they gave the rest of the world something to chew on in regards to other brain degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and even behavioral conditions such as ADD in both adults and children. While the science is just now starting to dive into this miraculous concept that is the Brain-Gut connection, we have enough evidence to presume that nurturing our microbiome may be the best way to improve mental cognition and prevent degenerative disease. So, what does this mean for the intellectual, entrepreneur, student, or even parents of ever-distracted youth? It means that WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR BRAIN! We influence the growth, development, and function of our noggin with what we eat, how we move, and how we live. When we feed our children sugar-laden, processed foods and send them off to school, we are actively participating in the degeneration of their brain cognition and expecting them to work with a broken machine, day in, day out. When we bathe in chemicals and toxins, we add an extra obstacle to our own focus issues and ability to control our moods. When we sit a lot or forego sleep, we are committing to working much harder than is necessary, and we are limiting our own best potential. All lifestyle factors, especially diet, movement and stress, impact our Gut bacteria which constantly imprint on our brain neurons. This is perhaps the best perspective shift on the idea of “dieting.” What if we “dieted” not for ab muscles but for a sexy, fat brain? Willpower is generally a word given to rate a person’s ability to abstain from a compulsive behavior, but what if we focused on the very thing controlling the behavior instead; the one organ of the body responsible for your most innovative thoughts and the strategies that may ultimately lead you to purpose and passion? The thing that controls your moods and ultimately your happiness. Maybe in 2021, we should stop dieting for weight loss? Maybe we need to focus on building a different muscle? And maybe this will be exactly what our bodies, brain and life needed all along. For more information, follow me on Instagram and visit my website! Read more from Brittney! Brittney Oliver, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Brittney Oliver is a board-certified Holistic Health and Life Coach who specializes in Gut Health and the Mind-Gut connection. After writing her first book, "Buddha Belly," she went on to develop the Holistic Wellness Coaching Academy, where she certifies individuals throughout the world in Gut Health and Mindset Strategy coaching. Brittney or "Coach Britt" as she is commonly known, is passionate about mental health and strives to empower others to live their ultimate life vision. She believes that through seeking purpose, we will find a passion capable of igniting our power to grow far more than willpower ever could.

Written by: Amber Barry, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Business plans are like road maps — it’s possible to travel without one, but you risk getting lost along the way. If you’ve ever gotten lost on a road trip before, you know that it leads to huge amounts of wasted time, frantic frustration, and driving around and around in circles. The same is true when you get lost in your business. Instead of “driving around” aimlessly or grasping at straws trying to find the golden ticket that will lead to the business growth you’re seeking, how about implementing a business framework? A framework is your business road map. Bringing in the right one can keep you on track and guide your progress so you can reach your goals faster and with less of a headache. As a business owner, distractions are plentiful. There will always be someone promoting the “best” new up and coming something or other. So how do you stay in your lane and focus on where you’re going without getting bumped off course every other day? The answer is having clear goals (your destination) and a plan (your framework). When you’re on a road trip, you know your ultimate destination. It doesn’t matter how many scenic detours you take along the way or how many times you get lost — you’ll know when you finally arrive. Your business goals should be the same. When you set specific, measurable, attainable goals, you can determine the path you need to take to get there and then set your mind to it. Here’s how to reach your goals successfully every time: Identify your endpoint. This is the goal you’re aiming for — your finish line or ultimate destination. It’s great to dream big and set huge goals, but breaking those goals down into smaller, “milestone destinations” can help you stay motivated. When you consistently crush your smaller goals, you build the confidence and momentum you need to propel you towards your finish line. And not only that — breaking things down into smaller goals gives you the chance to evaluate your progress and make tweaks to your plan as needed. Do your research. Have other people reached the goal you’re aiming for? If so, how did they do it? There’s always more than one way to reach your destination. Do some research and look into several different ways people before you have succeeded. Then, customize your plan based on what feels doable for you. If it’s not something you can get fully on board with, it’s unlikely that you’ll stick to the plan with enough consistency to produce results. Make your plan. This is the HOW. How are you going to get yourself from point A to point B? And not only that — how are you going to troubleshoot problems and overcome obstacles, because it’s likely there will be hurdles along the way, and things are bound to suck from time to time. Such is life! If you’re aiming for big business growth this year, it’s time to map out and implement the right plan. That starts by building things strategically and solidly from the ground up because your business is only as strong as the foundation supporting it. If you’re looking for a framework to set you on the right track, try my free guide, The Go-Getters Framework . In it, I share the 5 pillars that your business needs to succeed. They are: Client Clarity Consistent Content & Copywriting Clear Offers Automated Funnels A Strategy for Growth Regardless of the plan you choose to use, make sure it is clear, simple, and actionable. That way, you’ll know exactly what needs to be done, and you can devote 100% of your energy towards it to reach your goals faster. To help you make some quick wins, download the framework and get free access to my Go-Getter’s Make More Sales mini-course. It’s a starter kit to set you on the path to business success. If you feel like you need additional support after that, feel free to join my private group or book a call with me. I’m happy to help you review your plans for business growth, brainstorm ideas, and offer momentum building next steps. Onward and upward! Follow me on Facebook , Instagram and visit my website for more info. Read more from Amber! Amber Barry, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Amber Barry is a US-based business strategist and consultant specializing in digital marketing, automation, and social media advertising for small businesses and startups. She is passionate about deconstructing the process of establishing and growing a business and aims to make it less overwhelming and easier to navigate for new business owners. She is the founder of Amber Barry | Digital, a digital marketing and advertising agency, and creator of The Go-Getters Club, where she offers online courses and coaching to women in business to help them maximize their marketing efforts and turn their small steps into big wins and massive momentum. She is a Registered Nurse and a Certified Health Coach by training. She draws from her 12+ years of experience in health and wellness and 20+ years as an endurance athlete to help people transform their journey as business owners into an enjoyable, successful, fulfilling experience.

Written by: Mary Yamin-Garone, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. Having your own book can be the ultimate marketing tool for your business. It also can: Demonstrate your expertise/knowledge Establish you as an authority in your field Brand your business Instantly boost your credibility. Attract higher-end clients Expand your business Most important, it can give you the edge you’re looking for in today’s economy. With all these benefits, you’d think professionals would have their own book. That’s not the case. While roughly 81% of us want to write a book someday, most of us never start. Of those who do, never finish it. So, what’s the number one reason people give for not writing—or finishing—their book? Not. Enough. Time. Everyone wants a piece of you. Your business wants you. Your family wants you. You want you. You also want to eat healthy, exercise, and sleep well so you can create the positive energy necessary to write that book. Consider these: Writing a book will take a chunk of time and energy. Your life is already full, and you have don’t have any extra time. You just don’t sit down and write a book. Given those facts, how can you make the time to write the book swimming around inside your head? You know, the one that’s been calling to you to write for months, even years. As a book coach, I’m full of ideas about how you can solve that “not enough time” problem. Here are some you can easily implement. Act on your deep desire to write a book. Put your book project on the front burner as one of your top three priorities. Whatever you want from your book, imagine it vividly, then write it down. That’s one of the most important pre-writing exercises. Your desire is what fuels your ability to keep on going even when you want to quit. Review your manuscript/story whenever your motivation starts waning. Better yet, review it daily. Getting started. Many of us have the urge to write a book but can't seem to get started. When people come to me, they almost all say the same thing: "I know I can do it if I only knew how to begin." So, they wait for that magical idea that will inspire them to start. Ideas don't come to those who wait and think. They come to those who act. Pick a story that feels "wrong" —those are always easier to find than ones that feel "right." Write a brief summary of the story, and make sure you finish it. Then pick another story and repeat. Set a weekly, monthly, and yearly goal. Whether you’re writing a novel, a non-fiction book, or -*publishing a series of articles, you must have goals. Without them, you don’t know where you’re going. You’re just floating around, and you’ll never feel like you’ve done enough. Start by deciding what the deadline will be for completing your first draft. From there, you can calculate how many words you’ll need to write each week. Write down your word count goal. Set a reminder on your phone. Put it on your fridge or tape it to your partner’s forehead. Whatever it takes to get it done. You need to keep your goal visually accessible so you can celebrate your successes. Once you know what keeps you from writing and what you’d like to get accomplished this week, month or year, spend the next 15 minutes making progress on your current goal. If it’s time to outline a new book, do it. If you need to finish a chapter, that’s your project. Prioritize. If you don’t choose to prioritize your book project, it won’t happen. I’ve experienced this hard truth when clients aren’t fully committed to finishing their book. They leave disgruntled. Not at me but at themselves. To avoid that, list the things you do that take up blocks of time. Can you hire someone to clean your house or take care of the yard? How much television do you watch? Can you forego that time to work on your book? How about going to bed earlier and getting up earlier? Start with small blocks of time. There are many resources for managing your time better, such as using to-do lists, reward yourself or skip ahead when you get stuck. Even spending 10 minutes jotting down ideas for your book, researching or writing will add up. Here’s a tip I’ll share that helped me be a more productive writer. Set a time to write for those 10 minutes. Don’t let anything keep you from sitting down and writing. It doesn’t matter what you write. The objective is to train yourself to write “on demand.” You won’t believe the power of this simple exercise until you try it. You don’t NEED to schedule a block of time. You can write the beginning hooks for the first chapter. Or you can write the middle chapter or any chapter in between. Decide what your book will be about. Once that’s done, you can break it down into bite-sized pieces. Start by brainstorming everything you want to include in your book. Next, arrange them into chapters in some type of logical order. When it’s time to write, select one thing to do that will move you ahead one step. It could be writing down more ideas for a particular chapter, researching, or writing a page. That’s what professional writers do. They set aside time to write and then set a quota of so many pages written, researched, etc. You can do the same. The key is discipline. Once you start structuring your writing into your schedule, your book will start materializing. That will build the momentum you need to keep writing. Embrace failure. Let’s face it. We all want to succeed and be good at what we do. However, we don’t become the best at something without practice. If you were afraid of failure when you were little, you’d never have learned how to walk. It would have seemed entirely too difficult to be worth all that effort. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a child again to conquer your fear of failure. You do have to be willing to step outside your comfort zone. So, as you approach the end of your book writing project, know that it will be hard, and you’ll most certainly mess up. Just be okay with failing and give yourself grace. That’s what will sustain you — the determination to continue, not your elusive standards of perfection. Trust yourself. You can do this. Take time to do what’s important to you and your book writing goals. I help my coaching clients finish their writing projects so they’ll feel confident, complete, smile a lot, and feel new business rushing to them. Inspired? Committed? Curious? To get the outcome you want, take one small action now with no cost to you. Schedule a free 30-minute Book Writing Assessment Call with me. We’ll discuss what book building outcomes I deliver and see if we have chemistry for our partnership to finish on time and laugh a little. Remember, don’t make “lack of time” an excuse for keeping that book of yours inside you. Take advantage of all the big benefits of having a book affords you and write one successfully. Still not sure how to start? Send me a message at mary@theysonewriting.com. For more writing tips, visit my website. Join my Facebook Group and follow me on Instagram! Read more from Mary! Mary Yamin-Garone, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Mary Yamin-Garone is an award-winning writer, editor, and book/writing coach. In her 36 years, she has seen most every facet of the writing world as the featured guest writing expert on a weekly radio talk show, the recipient of numerous writing awards and accolades, and the coach and editor for several best-selling authors. One of her proudest moments came after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mary received the Communication Concept 2002 APEX Award for Publication Excellence for Magazine and Newspaper Writing for her work after 9/11. She recently launched her signature coaching program, Bring Your Words to Life. Mary will help you improve your writing and turn your most important life experiences and knowledge into your best-selling book.

Written by: Jack Wang, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. For millions of families across the United States, it's an important question. In the 5,000 or so pages of the second stimulus package were a number of provisions related to financial aid and FAFSA simplification; the FAFSA is the financial aid form that parents fill out to get financial aid. As part of that simplification process, there were several combined or deleted questions and many technical changes that will have a small impact. Expansion of the Pell grant, which is geared toward low-income families, is also included. There was another provision in there that really took me by surprise. I was really shocked and haven’t seen any mentions of this in the news. I think it's the biggest thing that changed: How families with multiple children attending college simultaneously are treated for financial aid, specifically their Expected Family Contribution (EFC). Note: The legislation also changed the term EFC to SAI, or Student Aid Index, though what the number represents is unchanged. In this article, I’ll use EFC and SAI interchangeably. In the past, a family’s EFC would be divided by the number of children in college. That figure would be divided by the number of children in college, and the resulting EFC figure would be assigned to each child. For example, for a family with an EFC of $50,000 with 2 children in college, each child would be assigned an EFC of $25,000. Then, each student could qualify for more financial need-based aid, though, theoretically, the family may still be responsible for paying $50,000 per year combined. Starting with the 2023-2024 academic year, EFC will no longer be divided by the number of children in college simultaneously. With our hypothetical family with 2 kids in college, each student’s EFC would stay at $50,000, and therefore less likely to receive need-based aid. More importantly, from the family's perspective, this means that the family might need to pay $100k per year. Who does this really impact? Well, obviously, families with multiple children who will overlap in college. It’s a little less obvious from a financial standpoint because there are so many variables, including the college attended (or applied to). The most expensive college in the country is around $80k. Assuming no merit scholarships, what income would you need to still be able to qualify for some financial aid? Working backward, a family could have an Adjusted Gross Income of around $300k to have an EFC of around $80k. Many variables, such as family size and amount of savings, can impact this figure. While not everyone attends the most expensive colleges in the US, the implication is clear - this could impact a significant number of families. According to IRS data for 2017, a $300k annual income is in the top 5% of income and roughly 6% of all taxpayers as presented by the Tax Foundation. Alternatively, over 94% of all US taxpayers have income below $300k, though no data on how many of these families have multiple children. To be clear, families that attend a college at a cost less than the EFC would not be affected. Since the cost is lower than EFC anyway, they would not qualify for need-based aid. The families that would be impacted are those who would attend a private college or a flagship public university, where the costs tend to be higher. As an example, for a family with a hypothetical $50k SAI with two overlapping children, this change is now a big deal. To get a $50K SAI, family income would likely be somewhere in the $200k - $250k range, varying with assets and family size. A common scenario would be a private school near me with a cost of attendance just over $60k, though they give around $20k per year in merit aid. For our hypothetical family with an SAI of $50k and only one college student, the family would not be eligible for any need-based aid. The school would think the family could afford ($50k) more than the net price of $40k ($60k less $20k). What happens when the younger student goes off to college? Before this change, the family SAI would be divided by 2, with each student being assigned a $25k SAI. During the overlap years, both students would then be eligible for up to $15k in need-based, shown as follows: Cost of Attendance — Student1 = 60k, Student2 = 60k Less: Merit Aid — Student1 = 20k, Student2 = 20k Equals Net Price — Student1 = 40k, Student2 = 40k Less SAI — Student1 = 25k, Student2 = 25k Equals fin aid Eligibility — Student1 = 25k, Student2 = 25k Assuming that this school meets 100% of need by offering the family $15k in financial aid for each student, the family would be responsible for $50k in total cost, $25k for each student. Now, under the new regulations, the following would occur: Cost of Attendance — Student1 = 60k, Student2 = 60k Less: Merit Aid — Student1 = 20k, Student2 = 20k Equals Net Price — Student1 = 40k, Student2 = 40k Less SAI — Student1 = 50k, Student2 = 50k Equals fin aid Eligibility — Student1 = Not eligible, Student2 = Not eligible In this case, neither student would be eligible for financial aid. The family would be responsible for a total cost of $80k, or $40k net price for each student. The family would pay $30k per year more. What can a family do to mitigate this impact? Though the regulations do not take effect until the 23/24 academic year, the income used for financial aid will be based on 2021. Thus, any strategies used to mitigate this impact starts immediately. Lowering college costs truly begins with understanding the family finances, the three numbers, and setting expectations. This will help both the students and family understand what schools may be a good financial fit. Once families have a reasonable expectation of finances, then conducting a proper search for colleges that really want your student, and asking the right financial questions. All too often, students and parents are focused on the likelihood of getting accepted and academic fit. While this is important, many families end up in the position of facing a college cost much higher than they were hoping for. Families can also use tools such as TuitionFit, a service that compiles merit and financial aid award letters. Families can compare themselves with other families with having similar financial and academic profiles to see what others really paid for a particular college. Note: I am a subscriber to TuitionFit. Before or concurrently with the search/research, families can employ strategies, starting now, that may involve income or asset shifting and/or use advanced tax strategies to lower the cost of college. These strategies can help pay the bill in the most financially efficient manner, even for families that will not qualify for need-based aid. With one student, these steps are important. For families with overlapping multiple students, these steps become critical IF maintaining your lifestyle while the kids are off to college is important as wanting to be able to retire comfortably one day. Most families conduct the search and research first and worry about financial aid later. Don’t be that family that ends up having to tell your student, “Congratulations on getting in, but sorry, we just can’t afford to send you.” For more information, follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my YouTube-Channel & website! Read more from Jack! Jack Wang, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Jack Wang is a noted expert in helping US-based families with middle to high school age students lower the cost of and pay for college by navigating the complex, stress-inducing financial aid system while still being able to retire. He's helped hundreds of families and students (including his own 2 children) understand financial aid, student loan options, and payment strategies in the context of overall family finances and retirement plans. Jack studied finance at the University of Texas at Austin and started in the banking industry, where he spent 12 years as a commercial banker helping small to medium-sized businesses. Then he transitioned to be a corporate trainer for 10 years before starting his own firm.

Written by: Tanja Malovrh, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. We give ourselves great promises no matter if it’s a New Year’s resolution or just an ordinary week we have to get through. Sometimes we push ourselves too much. It sure sounds great that your company is growing, but it brings more and more obligations with it. You suddenly get lost in all the information, and sometimes you are constantly taking care of others instead of doing your own work. Even I feel like falling into one of those traps when working hard to achieve all the goals. But it’s not all in working late hours, spending endless hours talking to clients, or worrying all the time if everything will work out the way it should. We all have our superpowers, but where is that secret recipe that just says: “If you do this one thing, everything will fall into place.” At the end of the day, what that one thing actually is? Keep It Simply Stupid or The KISS Method. It sounds funny, but this is probably one of the most useful things that our Math teacher at university told us solving endless math problems. I absolutely love numbers, but sometimes we just make everything too complicated and cannot get to the result. I teach my clients to go back to the basics of business. Yes, we learned that for a successful business, you need to do things that the big companies are doing. They are successful, right? We are forgetting, and they have loads of money to spend on marketing and probably hundreds or even thousands of employees taking care of the wheels to keep ongoing. They have problems as well, believe me, no matter the success visible on the outside. So, here we are in front of a big dilemma which way to go to get results and make some money. Whether we are just starting or being somewhere in between, there is always someone “better” than us. Someone that already achieved the result we want. Finding Basic Recipe That Works for Your Business. Look for what others are doing and just put it into bullet points – this is where I am right now. Within the next three months, my steps will look like this, and the result I really want to achieve is that grand prize. You are the one creating the bigger picture, the special prize you see at the end, or maybe it’s not that big at all. It seems so hard right now, but once you get there, it’s just another thing you had to learn to achieve results. That is called growth. I would say the basic recipe for every business is different. There is no cookie-cutter model that will work for everyone, no matter the industry. My best advice is to find an expert that knows your industry and has done things you are starting with. The Online Success or Failure. Let me give you one practical example I see when working with entrepreneurs. Especially during COVID-19 year, many business owners had to go online or just turn their format upside down. Let’s say you are in the beginning stages of your online business. The biggest mistake many entrepreneurs make is losing time with endless emails sending out to just a couple of people instead of talking to them directly. They work so hard on their funnels but never getting in the sales because the information is not getting to their potential clients. Sometimes you just have to put all those people into one small group where you can keep them until the sales actually happen. In the meantime, you can nurture the relationship so they can get to know you better. Talk to people, learn about their problems, and don’t give up the first time you fail. Once your business starts to grow and you get your first clients in, you will upgrade your offer. Maybe you will add another program, service, or product. You will know exactly what your clients are looking for, so just take that information and turn it into profit. Invest into Your Personal Growth and Learn from Mistakes. When you are in business for several years, the one thing you learn is that investing in your own knowledge and personal growth is never a stupid thing to do. Sometimes you need support from a mentor that will push you over your limits, and your business will bloom. Learning from your mistakes takes a long time, but hopefully, the lesson learned can be used another time. If you are smart, the knowledge you got from making the mistakes can be your next big thing to sell. Just a thought I will leave you with. Everything is within you now – you have the knowledge, have the power, and have the skills. It is just a matter of putting everything into the right place to make it work for YOU. Reach out to me if you feel it’s time to finish up something that keeps you awake at night or just don’t know where to go next. You can book a short 20-minute Clarity Call, and let’s see where you are at right now. For more information, follow me on Facebook and visit my website! Read more from Tanja! Tanja Malovrh, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Tanja Malovrh works with professionals within different industries that need support with their business growth and setting strategy the right way. As a Business Strategist, her job is to assess the current set of resources, find the most effective way to use them, and build working business models for her clients. She gained her knowledge being part of the corporate world, holding different positions, building up her own diagnostic clinic from ground zero, and now supporting others with her expert knowledge to scale their business. She is active within European funded projects and having her own research team covering different scientific fields of work.

Written by: Bernadette Bruckner, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. 2020 is over! What’s next? Can we handle the challenges and financial damage some of us experienced, OR did we make the big shift to something we never expected that we would do? COVID-19 did something to us, psychologically, physically, and, above all, humanly. And yet, we got through it and faced a new year with new hopes, expectations, and confidence. We got shaken, not stirred a la bond! Truly shaken, globally, in a way, most of us have never experienced before. But, out of chaos, challenges, and reordering on many levels, we learned, made new decisions we’ve probably never made before, and took risks we also probably never would have taken without those challenges. Many opinions, beliefs, and values emerged, sometimes creating conflicts between friends, family, and work colleagues. Conflicts that were there before, and yet due to “being too busy to focus on daily living,” were suppressed. I often had the feeling that previously self-evident manners, solidarity, and cohesion were missing and that frustration, excessive demands, and stress-related overstimulation, paired with rudeness and emotional outbursts, showed up that would not have appeared in normal circumstances. Who are we in a crisis? And what facets of ourselves come out when we are overwhelmed with something? These were questions that went through my mind while working at Lidl. Many people believed they had "everything under control" and that "we can easily handle everything." And yet, it is not so. Many of us experienced chances, changes, and opportunities. I have never done so many interviews, written so many articles, been on the radio, been live on social media, and met so many wonderful people around the globe supporting each other. Business is considered and approached differently. My business changed, and I saw how my own resilience methods for different target groups and my business know-how could benefit many people out there. Using all of my business knowledge of over 30 years of supporting my companies and many others and helping those clients see business online/digital differently and using their gifts for building up a digital business, delivering the vision of the power of cooperation and supporting each other. Who were you BEFORE Covid19 and all other challenges in 2020, and who are you NOW? Acknowledge your changes, praise them, and be grateful for everything you have achieved and/or fucked-up learning how to do things differently from before. I built up my businesses (three companies and many co-operations and collaborations) on their VSP—Value Selling Point. They are heart-driven, which is a more crisis-resistant approach than only working on the 08/15-USP and business thinking we learned in school or university. Even in 2021, I will create two more businesses and big cooperation supporting companies in crises and change in Austria. You never know what else is in my mind, as I am known for my creativity! For more than 20 years, I have pursued a huge shift in the fields of health, business, and education. Going on the integral level of thinking and acting, I know today that being on the right track with my tribe and team supporting others that “What’s next?” will generate such a game-changer shift. Creating something completely new is not just words anymore but will become a reality! Sometimes shaking things up big time (not stirring) is a good thing, even when at the beginning of 2020, many became desperate, hopeless, and lost their subsistence method. My question here is always, “What is your living purpose, your big why, and what would you do right now if you could get paid for it?” Adaption is the key, along with acting agile! I grew up with the beLIEf that being in one company till retirement was something good. I always knew that was not my path. So, I worked in more than 15 companies internationally, and did many internships in different companies, to learn as much as possible about building up my dream business, knowing that “creating a sustainable living for the higher good of all of us” IS possible! Knowing your value, your big why, leads you to your living purpose. My question is this, “Which gifts do you use already for your business and which are ‘hidden’ gifts you can create another business from for you and your family?” Stay agile. Recognize and bless your gifts. See the challenges and match your gifts, creating solutions for those challenges. Today, I know for sure that everything I created and built up has been based on seeing the challenges others were experiencing and finding solutions to support their goals. Tomorrow, something else will be needed, and we will find partners finding solutions supporting others again. Together we grow, expand, and nurture each other for better living for everybody. All solutions are here already, and finding like-minded people is the key. More than ever, we have the ability to create something completely new – beginning NOW! My next question is, “How do you want to see the earth, humanity, and yourself today, tomorrow, in five years, in ten years, and beyond knowing?” During lockdown, I read many books, and I would love to recommend two very valuable books for me: The infinite game by Simon Sinek Proofed Planet by Oliver Specht and Axel Nauert COVID-19 did something to us, psychologically, physically, and above all, humanly. Let’s use these changes and make things better – beginning with us inside and out. Seeing business beyond ourselves but sustainable for the higher good of all is my drive for 2021. How about you? For more information, follow me on Facebook, Instagram and visit my website! Bernadette Bruckner, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine The creative allrounder worked successfully in different working fields in Austria and abroad. By her interest in corporate communications, marketing, human resources and many other areas of business, she has appropriated an enormous amount of knowledge over more than 30 years. Numerous educations at international top-trainers like Richard Bandler, Robert Dilts, Roy Martina and Clinton Swaine. Internationally active as holistic trainer in health, nutrition and mental health with exceptional holistic resilience methods. Founder of „iMM – intuitive mentoring method and 1-min-coaching-to-go“, a further development of NLP, as well as „ORINITION® - n(fl)ourish soul.mind.body.“ – an innovative nutrition work of (re-) membering our own body intelligence. Successfully Master’s degree in health management with a focus on public health. International PhD & research in the fields of health communication with focus on psycholinguistics combined with neuroplasticity and health economics. International bestselling publisher and author of numerous books in different languages. Global Author Award 2018 / Nominatee NLP Award in Research 2019 in London. 2021 opening my own research center for intuitive science in Austria.

Written by: Monica Le Baron, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. The last 12 months have taught me to be patient, resilient, and very grateful for the people and blessings around me. It has reminded me to spend more time creating meaningful memories and less time worrying about getting things perfect. Sadly, in 2020 I have lost so many people close to me, including my father and one of my best friends. It has been very sad and challenging. And at the same time, I have grown so much. I learned so many lessons and received so much support from my family, friends, yoga sisters, and empowering women-prenuers. That’s why I decided (with inspiration from Laura Belgray) to create this list to bring you free wellness resources from 25 inspiring women in the wellness industry, to help you start 2021 more grounded, inspired, and strong. In this article, you will find stress relief tools, coloring pages, divorce kits, sleep meditations, burned-out quizzes, free yoga for trauma workshops, and much more. Read to the end and download the ones that resonate more with you. And yes, you can share this list with your BFF. Sleep & Deep Rest Get deep rest and fall asleep faster! Waking up feeling rested should be your reality, not a dream. Relax, fall asleep faster, and get the rest you deserve in just 10 minutes! Use this yogic tool I created to feel refreshed before an important meeting, to unplug after work, or before going to bed to help you fall asleep faster and feel rested in the morning. Learn more here! Guided meditation to support healing and deep rest. Get a sense of joy in your everyday life with iRest guided meditations by Lynda Pedley. iRest induces deep relaxation and teaches the body to reduce stress and resolve trauma, neutralize anxiety, fear, anger, depression, insomnia, and chronic pain while supporting overall healing. Start your iRest journey here! Stress & Burnout Relief Stress Relief Series If you feel anxious or have trouble focusing, Jenna Carson’s Stress Relief Series might help you worry less about the future and enjoy the present more. This series contains five tools to relieve stress by calming the body and nervous system, rewiring the brain, and relieving upper-body tension. Get your stress relief tools here! Reduce Stress and Think Clearly It's hard to think clearly while at the same time dealing with stress. Emotional Freedom Speaker & Coach Aditi Ramchandani offers 12 tips to help you reduce stress and gain clarity. Get your e-book here! Feel calmer and more regulated Lydiana Garcia explores six actionable steps to help you stay regulated and resilient during these unprecedented times. Get the Resiliency During COVID-19 e-book to get the step by step guide with simple recommendations and coping skills designed to support you during this pandemic rollercoaster. Burnout Buster Time management is not about the amount of time available or the number of tasks on your to-do list. It is about the energy you have to do the work. If you feel like you have too many irons in the fire and you’re on the edge of burnout, grab this QUICK Burnout Buster, created by Janine Graziano-Full to cut off the “there’s not enough hours in the day” pattern at its source right now… and as many times you need in the future! The Burnout Quiz If you’re experiencing signs of burnout and overwhelm, and instead you would like to transform them into feeling more energize and joyful, then take Becky Franklin’s “beat the burnout” quiz to find out where you are on the burnout scale, and receive the tools to transform burnout, even if you feel too busy to implement new tools in your life right now. Five steps for grounding during instability If you’re looking for grounding tools easy to access during difficult times, get Annie Von Essen’s guide here, and use the steps she provides to help you navigate change in uncertain times. The Ultimate Reset List Simple tips to go from chaos to calm, instantly. In this list, Christa Bevan provides neuroscience backed-up tools to reset your nervous system quickly and effectively. Experience life with less overwhelm, feel more in control of your stress and anxiety, and cultivate calm in your life regardless of what’s happening around you. Goals & Mindset Get a Rockstart Mindset® What if you could feel strong emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to keep going no matter what? Get Gaelle Berruel’s free self-care guide to feel good, grounded, and make yourself a priority in 20 min or less. Download the free guide here! Secret Recipe to Get Anything You Want Do you want to know the secret recipe of how to get ANYTHING you want? The How To Get Anything You Want Workbook by Jacqueline Palfi Toth includes AHA-Moments, tangible, tested, and proven life coaching strategies and exercises, which will help you get the courage and confidence to become a true Dream Builder. Grab your workbook here! Sel-care to Feel Your Best Get the 3 Steps To Streamline Your Self-Care by Sheila Botelho, and discover self-care practices to fill you up so you can let go of the rest. Learn simple ways to boost your daily nutritional needs and be more present with your loved ones. Download it here! Free Coloring Pages Making art calms our nervous system, slows our breathing, and allows us to process information without being reactive instead of calmer, more thoughtful, and reflective. It is also is a powerful way to engage in community and take a stand for justice. Download your free original Radici coloring pages to inspire anti-racist action here. Divorce, Trauma, and Women’s Support Yoga for Healing Trauma. Isolation and stress compounded may increase or create anxiety, depression, and/or post-traumatic stress symptoms. It is also common for interpersonal conflict to intensify, and it can be hard to know where to turn. Yoga can be a wonderful tool in the healing process, especially in complicated and overwhelming times like the pandemic we are facing. Join Yoga Therapist Deborah King for this free yoga for healing trauma workshop here! Feminine Rhythm Rituals Get three days of grounding nourishment for your body and mind. Practice these wintery rituals provided by Korynn Elliott to help warm your heart while the weather is cooling down and the world is slowing down. Divorce Toolkit If you are ready to thrive and not just survive your divorce, this Ultimate Divorce Toolkit created by Dr. Elizabeth Cohen is the perfect start point. The support kit provides actionable tips to grow confidence, optimism, and empowerment through a bumpy divorce process. Grab it here and step into this next chapter with confidence and joy. Women’s Circle Get a free ticket to attend Lisbeth Savard’s New Moon Women’s Circle for the first time. This is a space for women to gather to share, be witnessed, be held to feel fully supported while building a community of like-minded women and awakening inner wisdom. Heart Chakra Guided Meditation Compassion, forgiveness, love, and fear all reside in your heart center. This guided practice with Melissa Ann Boyd will open and balance your heart chakra to allow new magnetic energy to arise within you. Fun Workout for a Busy Day We all have busy days when we can't make it to the gym or our favorite nature spot to walk, hike, or get some fresh air. Sarah Mehl Histand, a personal trainer and mental health counselor, offers a free 20-minute workout video to get your endorphins flowing, release stress, and get energized from the comfort of your living room. Get your free training here! Making Meals Fun and Simple Can you think of on reason your making feeding yourself and your loved ones a hassle? Deena Barselah explains 7 ways we make food for our families way too hard and offers some tips to simplify it and create more peace and enjoyment in your home. Check them out here! If you enjoyed this list, please share it with your loved ones and spread it on social media like fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website for more information! Monica Le Baron, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Monica helps busy women simplify their wellness so they can sleep better and have more energy to enjoy life. A yoga therapist and neuromuscular-body alignment expert, Monica trained with renowned neuromuscular therapist Lee Albert and graduated with honors from her MBA. She lived and worked in both Sweden and China, where she started her entrepreneurial journey. She now runs her Sleep Simplified Six-Week Coaching Program and VIP Sessions remotely while traveling the world and getting her beauty sleep.

Written by: Ghesi Stojanov, Executive Contributor Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise. If you are anything like me, last year, you found yourself trying to navigate your thoughts and feelings as the pandemic steamrolled its way through your life, quickly making your 2020 a year of self-reflection, self-awareness, and survival. It brought to the surface all kinds of feelings and thoughts that had us questioning our value and worth. Because all of a sudden, we did not have the restaurants, shopping, parties, and work to keep us "busy" (or should I say distracted) from addressing the things that were affecting us long before the pandemic hit. And now, as we head into 2021, we are left trying to work out and work through what 2020 exposed emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually by attaching it to our New Year resolutions. Now don't get me wrong. New Year resolutions are fantastic for setting goals for yourself. We all need guidelines that we create to help measure our growth and keep us accountable. However, studies have shown that less than 25% of people stay committed to their resolutions after just 30 days, and only 8% actually accomplish them. Why? Because most of us do not make set plans that will guide us to success, which sets us up for failure. So before you give up on those New Year resolutions, I want to give you five tips to help transform your thinking, empower you, and crush these resolutions. 1. Who You Are is Enough When you're thinking about your New Year resolutions, know that they have nothing to do with your value and worth and everything to do with leveling up in your life. Many New Year's resolutions are anchored to our self-worth, which automatically creates a negative internal dialogue. It makes throwing in the towel easy because we tell ourselves we are "not strong enough" to stay on that new eating plan or "Smart enough" to start that business. We need to stop blaming why things are not happening on who we are and start shifting it to actions we are taking. So please repeat after me! I am enough! I have always been enough! My resolutions have nothing to do with my value and self-worth and everything to do with leveling up in my life and living to my full potential. 2. Own It When we own our journey, we stop passing ownership of why we are not where we want to be to outside forces, in turn giving us power! If we learn to own every part of our journey — the good, the bad, and the ugly, we will start to own our growth and the who, what, where, why, and how of our circumstances. 3. Create a Plan If you build it, results will come! There is a famous line in the movie Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come," that rings true in our lives too. When we can create a strong foundation and guide for us to follow, we stay on track. Start answering the who, what, where, why, and how questions. For example, if health is your 2021 goal: Who: Who can help support you, and who can help keep you accountable? Maybe you'll need the support of a health coach or personal trainer to help get those resolution juices flowing for your first 90 days. What: What does your current everyday living look like? Do you work from home? Are you homeschooling? What activities do you like doing? What are your expenses? What do you do now in your free time? What time do you wake up, and what time do you go to bed? Questions like these will help you map out what will work for you, so you are not setting yourself up for failure. Where: Where are you going to do these activities. If you worked out the what, this would automatically point you to the where. Maybe you're going to walk 30 minutes on your break or go for a jog 20 minutes a day because you know a gym or trainer doesn't fit in your monthly budget. Why: Your why is your anchor. It's what motivated you to say in 2021; I will ---- (in this example, take back my health). Your why should be brutally honest and should be written down, so every feeling and pain point can be thought through and brought to the surface. Writing down our why also gives you something to look back on to help motivate you when you feel like you can't and give you a sense of pride when you start seeing a change. How: The How is about the tools you will utilize to help you level up your growth. How are you going to make this happen? As a coach, I love a good 30, 60, and 90-day plan. The reason most New Year resolutions fail is because of poor planning. A great plan will anchor any goal and create a guide to help you stay on track. When we use this type of planning, we create digestible micro-goals and help us stay focused and not feel overwhelmed. 4. Meditation The demands of everyday living are constantly pulling us in a million directions, and meditation helps you to pause and take 5 minutes for yourself without having to meet any outside expectations. Meditation is a great practice that helps to recenter us by giving our mind, heart, and soul the moment it needs to realign itself by destressing our minds, listening to our hearts, and refreshing our souls. The great thing about meditation is that it is a practice that can happen anywhere, anytime, and has hundreds of platforms to suit any person's needs. 5. Affirmations You need to be your biggest cheerleader, which means we need to make sure our internal dialogue supports our growth and not holding us back. Because there will be days when you slip up, slip back, and want to throw in the towel. Having three words of affirmation to help support your goal placed in places you will see consistently is powerful. These three words have to hold meaning to you and are powerful words connected to you, your feelings, and your goals. I like having my clients place these words in areas that they are guaranteed to see every day at least two times a day (more is better), like the bathroom mirror, next to your bed, or even as the wallpaper on your phone. The point of daily affirmations is to repeat and internalize the words because our minds are amazing sponges that will start to believe the words you speak light and life into. Transforming our perspective is powerful and can make or break our success. Remember, you are enough. You can own your journey. Start creating your plan, keep your self centered, and CHEER YOURSELF ON! 2020 might have been one for the books, but it’s not the end of our story. We still hold the pen and paper to create a life of fulfillment, power, and purpose. Follow me on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Ghesi Stojanov, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Ghesi Stojanov is a transformational coach with a mission to help others find balance, own their journey, and tune in to their power. After the loss of her first child in 2004, welcoming her youngest son with a genetic disorder NF1 in 2011, and a triple-positive breast cancer diagnosis in 2013, Ghesi created techniques that helped her navigate through these challenging moments with power, purpose, and light. She helps her clients on their journey so they can "Be the Color" in their greatest masterpiece that is their life.