Video: Searching for More
July 6, 2010
Video: Beyond the Ordinary
June 28, 2010
Video: Life is A Mystery
May 25, 2010
Mike Shares About Retreat 42
May 12, 2010
Here is a wonderful story from one of our first Retreat 42 voyagers, Mike Blackstone of Phoenix, Arizona. Here’s what he says about his experience on the retreat.
I was fortunate enough to be invited on the first Retreat 42. I couldn’t wait because I had a significant life project that had stalled. Retreat 42, the way Annie and Ian described it seemed to be exactly what I needed and the timing was so perfect, as well.
Going on that virtual retreat turned out to be so much more than I expected, and it was simple. All I had to do was carve out a small amount of private time each day to go inside and “stand” face-to-face with my “critic and pessimist” and talk my greatest fears.
Annie and Ian’s support was so important at that point because I could have given up. Sticking with it, I was really surprised that lasted only a few days, when optimism and peace of mind slowly began to show up, and within another few days I easily and effortlessly resurrected my project.
And wonderful things in my life way beyond my project started to happen. If you have never had the experience of getting more than you imagined and hoped for, get ready for a new “first” in your life on Retreat 42.
There were still rough spots before the end of my Retreat, and each one got easier and easier to get past, stronger than ever each time. Annie and Ian had been through theirs and they shared and warned of what we could expect. Knowing what to look for and what I might be up against was just everything. I had such confidence in their care. They are truly “from the heart” people.
If you are determined but just can’t get something going you really want and care about, Retreat 42 will be one of the best decisions you ever make.
Thanks Mike!
If you’re interested in learning about Retreat 42 or how you can join the next one, please email me at annie@anniehart.com.
Or join me and some of our Retreat 42 community on the Radio Show this Friday March 14 at 11 am. The show can also be downloaded later.
Video – Perfectly Imperfect
May 11, 2010
You Want to Live A Great Life, Don’t You?
May 3, 2010
You want to live a GREAT life. I’m sure you do. I do too. And there are millions of books out there that tell you how to do that, but you don’t have to read any of them. You’re welcome to read them but you really won’t need to because I’m going to put it all here, right in this one single blog post.
I’m going to tell you how to live a GREAT life.
Not because I’m some guru or someone that knows something more than you. But because I’m going to tell you everything you already know in a simple, concise form. Rather than teach you anything, we can just wake up what’s already inside.
You already know these things. So why don’t you listen to what we really know?
Ah, that is Secret #1 – to living a great life – you’ve got to listen to what you know. If you do that then everything else will be a cinch. But step number one is the hardest part.
So why don’t we listen to ourselves??? That’s the real question.
Well you see if go back to the beginning of time, and we should always go back to the beginning to start any good story – back at the beginning of time there were two forces – a force towards and a force away. Today we call them good and evil, dark and light but back then they really weren’t like that.
These two forces are two parts of the same whole which is the all that is everything. One day the all that is everything decided that it was bored playing all by itself so it created two parts of itself – one moving toward and one moving away.
Ah, now we can have some fun!
You see like in a sports game – you need some force of opposition to really make things worth playing. It’s no fun to keep batting the ball if no one ever bats it back to you right?
This force of opposition is not really evil but it sure can feel that way. You know how mad you get when someone pushes against you? It can make you really angry. This is how we naturally react to a force of opposition – we get so annoyed!
Just like the guy who is blocking us on the road – we want to get him the heck out of the way and this is how we react to life as well.
We’re fighting all over the place. And sometimes we don’t even know what we’re fighting about. We’re just miserable and we don’t know why.
We’re blaming the guy on the freeway, or our bad luck in life. It’s all the same thing. We’re being the force of opposition, rather than letting it take us to our next level.
Imagine you’re playing a tennis game and every time your opponent hits the ball to you (as agreed upon in the rules of the game) – you shout, “Hey you idiot what did you do that for?” And then you smack the ball back to him as hard as you can.
He hits it again. This time you shout even louder, “Didn’t I just tell you to stop that?? What are you some kind of moron?”
And so goes the game of life.
So instead of shrieking, feeling sorry for ourselves or blaming everyone else for what life does to us (as per the rules of the Universe). What about if we took that force that is moving against us and said, “Ahhhh great, now let me take my game to the next level.”
Let me move beyond my fighting, my pitifulness, my victim-hood and my anger at life and just use everything that comes my way.
Then the irony is that then, there is no more force of opposition. There is just a force that is coming towards you to strengthen you and take you to your next level.
My father was a professional golfer and he was also a very funny man, the best comedian I’ve know. He used to have this little trick that he’d do before he start playing golf. He would take a few practice swings and make them really bad on purpose and then he’d say, “Oh just practicing!”
And he’d have a really good laugh about it. You see he never took himself that seriously.
Professional golf is a very serious game and he worked at one of the most elite clubs in our area. But he always had a way to keep it a game, instead of becoming deadly serious like so many things.
- Much like life, it ‘s good to laugh and not take ourselves so seriously.
- It’s good to listen to ourselves and pay attention to what we know.
- And it’s the makings of a champion to take everything in life that comes your way and use it to take yourself to the next level.
There you have it – in one simple blog post – the story of how to have a GREAT life. Now go out and have one!
Audio Story: Planet Zeckromoozie
April 28, 2010
I’m so excited to share my first audio story. A little story to inspire your mind. Enjoy! I’d be happy to hear how you like it.
Video: Cut the Crap, Dare to Be Yourself
April 20, 2010
Retreat 42 – We’ve Launched the Ship!!
April 11, 2010
Wow, who knew that out of the confusion of my life, I would create something as amazing as Retreat 42, my brand new program for retreat in daily life.
Back in December, I was feeling stuck about getting bigger projects off the ground. I had several bodies of work that I never finished and it was really bugging me.
This coincided with meeting my now business partner, the fabulous Ian Waddelow who lives in France, although he’s a Brit by birth. Ian contacted me last fall and we hit it off immediately and began to collaborate.
Ian has amazing creative energy and wisdom in spades. He is a senior consultant to CEO’s and boards dealing with strategy and brand marketing. He’s also an educator at several major business schools in England and a well-known speaker at conferences and events.
Let me tell you, Ian is a wizard at what he does. He transforms businesses in a way that I’m pretty sure, they don’t even know what hit them!
After meeting Ian I was asking myself - What does it take to get bigger projects off the ground?? And I decided to put myself on a retreat in daily life to figure this out.
My premise was this – every great idea came from somewhere. We have this idea that when we need inspiration, that we need to ‘wait on the muses’, but I decided that waiting on the muses wasn’t good enough. Mine are too fickle, they’re always off shopping in Paris!
Waiting on the muses is a phrase we use to infer that inspiration is fickle or out of our control. But is it? If inspiration comes from somewhere else, where is that somewhere else and how can we tap it whenever and wherever we need it?
If you think about it, every great idea, every artistic masterpiece, Eureka moment, life changing work or project comes from a realm that the mystics call the 99%. This is the place of ‘divine inspiration.’ All creative ideas come from a place beyond the ordinary five senses.
That’s why it feels like we can’t tap inspiration when we need to. But I decided that there must be some way to tap it reliably and regularly. This was my quest to find out exactly how.
I took time every day to listen to music that would take my brain to another state. No, not New Jersey, but another brain state that’s called the theta wave. I tried not to work or think too hard, but just let ideas and inspiration come easily.
Each day when I woke up, I spent time writing, journalling and jotting. During the day, I would just allow inspiration to come and I would jot that down as well.
At first I didn’t even know exactly what I was going or how I was going to figure any of this out and it was pretty scary to commit to something that you don’t know exactly what it is! I decided that it needed to be 42 days.
Why 42?
- the mystics went into the desert for 40 days. I figured in our modern life, we need a day to get in and a day to get out = 42!
- it takes ’6 weeks to get a change into the bones’ – 6 weeks equals 42 days.
- the first lines of creation in the ancient Aramaic equal exactly 42 letters.
This all seemed to line up perfectly and so 42 days was set in my mind. I gave myself a few guidelines upfront. I agreed that I had to finish the retreat no matter what. I told myself that even if up with absolutely nothing, it would be ok and I committed to giving it my all and trusting the power of inspiration to guide me.
I did the same thing for 42 days and by the end of it, believe it or not, I had created an entire body of work – I had written a whole book and created an entire process that I didn’t even know I was creating.
How’s that for pure magic!
Once I was finished, I decided to take a risk and invite my new partner Ian onboard as a collaborator.
I’m sure Ian won’t mind me saying that he was pretty skeptical at first. I’m sure he thought my idea was pretty wacky, but he trusts me so he agreed to go on the Retreat 42 himself.
At first I was a little worried. Ian’s results seemed mixed. I wasn’t sure it was working and being British, he didn’t tell me much :>)
But then somewhere near the middle of the retreat, things started to happen – the ground started to quake and something new started pouring forth. After he finished, he suggested we try it out with a group and so we launched a Pilot program of 24 brave adventurer’s who agreed to try out our program for free.
I’m happy and proud to say that they did it! Their last day is today and they made it through the desert and have come out with gifts. I’ll let some of them share their stories in upcoming blog posts.
It was amazing to watch an entire group go through this process. They are extraordinary people from all over the world – England, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the US. They helped us to see that Retreat 42 really works, anytime, anywhere. 
Thanks to them, Ian and I are proud and delighted to announce:
Retreat 42 is officially launched!
We will be starting our first programs in the Fall, with an amazing line-up of goodies – from self-guided retreats, to themed programs and even (get this) wonderful in-person retreats in amazing locations around the world.
We have made the package and the pricing incredibly attractive. You just won’t be able to resist trying this out for yourself!
And I guarantee 100% that it is the most life changing thing you can do.
It was for me. I wrote a whole book and created an entire body of work in only 42 days – something that I never thought possible. If you’d like to know more about Retreat 42 or join one of our upcoming programs, please email me or Ian. We’d be happy to chat to you.
You can connect with us at annie@anniehart.com and ian@ianwaddelow.com. I encourage you to get to know Ian. He’s someone really worth knowing.
POP! Here comes the champagne – Retreat 42 is officially launched.
Video: Open Up!
March 29, 2010
Connect With Annie Hart
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