Meditation can take many forms. Years ago (in my youth), I thought that there was just one style – like all the photos I’d seen – with people sitting cross-legged, wearing robes, chanting Om. I’d decided that that, wasn’t for me. To be honest, I was also constantly moving, running through my life, so I definitely wasn’t the type of person who could sit still for long periods of time, nor do that thing with my legs. Back then, I was terrified of anything remotely “woo-woo” i.e. weird/ religious/ or ‘out there’ – all of that stuff frightened me to death. I was sure I’d end up joining a cult, being whisked away and never seeing my family again. Those limiting beliefs stayed with me until…I had a marriage break-up. Oh boy. That was big.

After that experience, I knew I needed to change. I couldn’t continue living my life the way I had been. I knew I would have to do something completely different. I...

Marci Shimoff was speaking at the 2018 Pendulum Summit; she is one of the world's leading voices on happiness and a New York Times bestselling author. Hear more from her on Pendulum Talks.

Happiness is the one thing we have wanted from time immemorial.

How many of you would like to wake up in the morning that little bit happier? We all do. We have an epidemic of unhappiness in our society. One out of every four women are on antidepressants. We have more than we’ve ever had, yet we’re unhappier than we’ve ever been.

Thankfully, there’s good news. It’s that, for the first time in human history, science has cracked the happiness code. We now know exactly what it takes for people to become happier, and as far as I’m concerned, that should be headline news.

Some of you may dismiss this to be airy-fairy California fluff. I am indeed from California, but this is science and a major contributor to your bottom line. Happier companies outperform...

Most entrepreneurs get lost in the maze of figuring out what makes an investor bite and thus fund one business plan versus another. The people with the money have a set of rules and invest in things that the poor and middle class are not even aware of. To successfully raise money, you must understand the rules that the rich use to make their investment decisions.

If you wanted to find the formula or rules that the rich use, the best way to approach this problem is for you to write the following down on a piece of paper: “I have $10,000,000 to invest and I MUST invest it.” Now, suppose I bring you a deal and I want you to invest in my new company. What questions will you ask me? What specific issues will you want addressed? What are you looking for? What would be important for you to learn from me that will give you confidence that I have a shot at making this deal work?

The answer to these questions should be addressed in a well thought out, comprehensive business plan....

James Caan CBE is one of the most respected business titans in Britain. He was speaking at the 2018 Pendulum Summit. Hear his presentation in its entirety on Pendulum Talks.

Through life you must continually reinvent yourself.

It’s rare that your journey is one straight line. Life is full of twists and turns, and to be successful you must have have the ability to adapt and change course. The underlining ingredient in this journey is passion. Working hard for something we don’t care about is stress, but working hard for something we do care about is passion. This is an quality that I’ve held dear throughout my career.

I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I didn’t have a private education. When I left school and went out on my own at 16, I had no money in my pocket. What I did have was a great degree of ambition coupled with self-belief and a strong desire to achieve. I had a powerful work-ethic, too, something I believe imperative in any...

Joe Skoby lives in La Jolla, Southern California. Purchase his creations here.

I work enough so that I can pay my bills and feed my family, but what I truly find fulfilling is immersing myself in the creative process. For me, those two creative outlets are ceramics and surfing.

Pottery for me is like surfing. You’re hyper-focused on what’s in front of you. There’s no background noise and there’s nothing else that exists in your world besides that which is right in front of you. What I aim for in my pottery is tapping into that stripped-down simplicity - where you’re combining curves, texture and colour to create a form that’s considered beautiful.

Firing the krill is super intense. You have to be there for ten to 12 hours sometimes and it reaches up to 2,500 degrees. You have to decide on the correct amount of gas and oxygen and strike the correct combination of the two. This is in order to get the krill not only to temperature, but also to...

Ewa Pietrzak is a Dublin-based success coach and motivational speaker. Courtesy of The Irish Independent, she shares her thoughts on the art of visualisation.

Visualisation is the starting point for all great inventions in the world today, including airplanes, cars and computers. The art of painting a picture of what we want using our mind is a powerful tool that successful people have been using for aeons.

After inventing the telephone in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell said: "The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking." Imagine how far-fetched that pronouncement must have been in the 1800s? But he visualised it, and now it's commonplace.

As children, we visualised on a daily basis. We thought nothing of disappearing into our fairytale princess castle or saddling the horse and heading for the Wild West. The academic education system grinds to a halt when it comes to teaching about dreaming or visualisation. They...

 

Jevan Pradas is the author of The Awakened Ape and creator of the blog The Tribal Way. He uses evolutionary psychology to hack the human mind and body and combat the society he deems bored, fatigued and overweight. In his book, he argues how a unique synthesis of a Palaeolithic lifestyle and Buddhist meditation can teach you how to achieve a deep bliss and shape your body into the fit and healthy animal millions of years of evolution programmed us to be. Here, he explains why cavemen never visited the dentist.

 

When I was younger, I would always wonder how our ancestors survived without toothbrushes and toothpaste. How didn't they lose all their teeth by the time they hit adolescence? I brushed my teeth twice a day, visited the dentist every six months, and I still got cavities. 

The truth is that our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't get cavities.

And as soon as I transitioned to a paleo diet two years ago, I stopped getting cavities too. I didn't...

 

Jevan Pradas is the author of The Awakened Ape and creator of the blog The Tribal Way. He uses evolutionary psychology to hack the human mind and body and combat the society he deems bored, anxious, fatigued and overweight. In his book he argues how a unique synthesis of a Palaeolithic lifestyle and Buddhist meditation can teach you how to achieve a deep state of bliss and shape your body into the fit and healthy animal millions of years of evolution programmed us to be. Here, he outlines ten imperative principles of tribal societies. 

 

1.  Foster Close Bonds

Our ancestors grew up in small bands of people who counted on each other for their survival. Contemporary studies on well-being show that what separates happy people from the rest of us is the strength of their social and romantic relationships.

2.  Be Physically Active

The daily grind on the African Savannah involved walking great distances in search of food, carrying heavy buckets of water...

Gary Keegan facilitated this meeting of minds as renowned performance psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella conversed with Irish international rugby star Paul O'Connell at Pendulum Summit 2018. Visit Pendulum Talks to hear the conversation in its entirety.

Dr. Bob Rotella

My skill-set as a coach was always enabling players to believe in themselves.

I had to transmit to them that TV builds a false, impossibly ideal image of performance. People need to know that top performers build their own image of what their performance can be.

The easiest way to be confident is win early, win on a regular basis and win against people your age and five years older than you - and keep doing this for the rest of your life. 99% of people don’t have this experience.

Everything comes down to whether you can trust yourself in the most important moments of your life. A lot of people can do this in the lower tiers of sport. They look up and down the field and say to themselves:...

Work-life balance means something different to every individual, but here health and career experts share tips to help you find the balance that’s right for you.

1. Let go of perfectionism

A lot of overachievers develop perfectionist tendencies at a young age when demands on their time are limited to school, hobbies and maybe an after-school job. It’s easier to maintain that perfectionist habit as a child, but as you grow up, life gets more complicated. As you climb the ladder at work and as your family grows, your responsibilities increase. Perfectionism becomes out of reach, and if that habit is left unchecked, it can become destructive.

The key to avoid burning out is to let go of perfectionism. As life gets more expanded it’s very hard, both neurologically and psychologically, to keep that habit of perfection going. Marilyn Puder-York, PhD, in her book The Office Survival Guide, emphasises that the healthier option is to strive not...