Category Archives: People You Should Know

Hope Solo Officially Named the Boldest Person of July 13, 2011

Hope Solo - Team USA 2011

Project BE Bold solutes Hope Solo as the Boldest Person of the Day! Because of her supreme performance in today’s World Cup Semifinal against France and her amazing work over the past couple of weeks, the US Soccer team is headed to the World Cup 2011 finals.

Hope Solo was born on July 30, 1981 in Richland, Washington where she was a stellar student and athlete. As result of her commitment to excellence, she helped lead Team USA to Gold in the 2008 Olympics and has since been noted by soccer experts as the best female goalie in the sport.

Solo overcame adversity when her father unexpectedly died of heart failure in 2007. A Vietnam Veteran, Jeffery was her first soccer coach when she was just five years old. She once told reporters that she had a “deep, deep love” for her father and was heartbroken when he passed away.

Solo’s approach to life is the epitome of bold. Her philosophy is that true success is possible when one stays focused, keeps connected to goals each day, and lives in the present. Many are unaware that she underwent shoulder surgery in September of last year. As she works tirelessly to protect her team from loss, her shoulder aches – yet she doesn’t complain. She stays in the zone.

“I’ve been prepared for this through heartaches, through personal struggles,” Solo said. “This is what it’s all about. It’s about defying the odds for me. It’s about proving people wrong. It’s about playing the game I’m passionate about. This is what I live for. I’ve prepared my entire life for this moment.”

Project BE Bold solutes Hope Solo and wishes her luck as Team USA goes into the World Cup Finals this coming Sunday at 11:45am PST/2pm EST.

- Project BE Bold

 

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BEST EFFORT = BEST RESULTS by Michael Brummer

workout
We live in a day and age in which time is of the essence and we seem not to have enough of.  Consequently, when scheduling your workouts into your busy days and weeks, there is a key ingredient necessary to maximize your time and the results you are wanting to obtain from your workouts—giving your BEST effort!  When you give your BEST effort, you not only maximize the time you have set aside for your workout, you also significantly increase the possibility of achieving your fitness goals and your ability to achieve your goals in a shorter period of time, thus achieving your BEST results.  Stop going through the motions and giving a half-hearted effort when working out.  Give your BEST effort everytime and see how quickly you achieve your desired fitness goals!

Michael Brummer

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30 Day Challenge by Google’s Matt Cutts

A friend of mine made me aware of a Ted.com video in which Google engineer Matt Cutts shares how 30 days can transform your life. Take a bit more than 3 minutes to be inspired by watching this video:

- Jen Engevik

Project BE Bold

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Warm Glow of Happiness by Edward Young

I had looked for happiness in fast living, but it was not there.
I tried to find it in money, but it was not there either.
But when I placed myself in tune with what I believe to be the fundamental truths of life . . .
when I began to develop my limited ability, to rid my mind of all kinds of tangled thoughts,
and fill it with zeal and courage and love . . .
when I gave myself a chance by treating myself decently and sensibly,
I began to feel the stimulating, warm glow of happiness.

—EDWARD YOUNG

 

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Fear by Author Steven Pressfield: What is Our Biggest Fear?

fearpainting

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Resistance feeds on fear. We experience Resistance as fear. But fear of what?

Fear of the consequences of following our heart. Fear of bankruptcy, fear of poverty, fear of insolvency. Fear of groveling when we try to make it on our own, and of groveling when we give up and come crawling back to where we started. Fear of being selfish, of being rotten wives or disloyal husbands; fear of failing to support our families, of sacrificing their dreams for ours. Fear of betraying our race, our ‘hood, our homies. Fear of failure. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of throwing away education, the training, the preparation that those we love have sacrificed so much for, that we ourselves have worked our butts off for. Fear of launching off into the void, of hurtling too far out there; fear of passing some point of no return, beyond which we can recant, cannot reverse, cannot rescind, but must live with this cocked-up choice for the rest of our lives. Fear of madness. Fear of insanity. Fear of death.

Steven Pressfield - Author, War of Art

These are serious fears. But they’re not real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it.

Fear That We Will Succeed.

That we can access the powers we sense in our hearts we truly are.

This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years.

We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.

We know that if we embrace our ideas, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? Will we lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to.

Of course this is exactly what happens. But here’s the trick. We wind up in space, but not alone.  instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yea, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in placed we never thought to look. And they’re better friends, truer friends. And we’re better and truer to them.

Do you believe me?

- By Steven Pressfield in his Best-Selling book The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Creative Battles

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Cancer-Fighting Foods Part II by Michael Brummer

CANCER-FIGHTING FOODS PART II

In my last fitness tip, I wrote of my Aunt May dying of breast cancer and how her illness and death impacted me inprofound ways.  I also wrote of five foods high on the list of cancer-fighting foods according to Erin Dummert, RD, CD.  Here are five more foods to add to that list:

1) PUMPKIN:  Pumpkin, carrots, squash, red and yellow peppers, and sweet potatoes are foods that are excellent sources of beta carotene.  When eaten regularly, these foods help reduce the risk of many types of cancer due to their potent antioxidant capacity.

2) SPINACH:  Spinach, the “gold standard” of green leafy vegetables, is packed with lutein and vitamin E.  These powerful antioxidants help fight off cancer of the liver, ovaries, colon, and prostate.

3) GARLIC:  Garlic has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer of the stomach, esophagus, and breast. When cooking with garlic, mince the garlic 10 minutes beforehand to increase its cancer fighting potential.

4) PINEAPPLE:  Pineapple contains the enzyme bromelain, which may protect against breast and lung cancer, and is a good source of the antioxidant vitamin C.

5) APPLES:  Apples contain the plant chemical quercetin, which has been shown to slow the growth of prostate cancer cells and reduce the risk of lung cancer, not to mention their antioxidant benefits.

According to Erin Dummert, RD, CD, the best anti-cancer diet is rich in brightly colored fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and emphasizes the ten foods discussed in last month’s and this month’s fitness tips.  Additionally, foods have a synergistic effect when eaten together, meaning that “plant chemicals work together to produce a greater effect than if they were working alone.”

Here’s a sample, synergistic menu incoporating the top 10 cancer-fighting foods:

Breakfast
Yogurt smoothie with mixed berries and soy milk

Morning Snack
Apple with peanut butter
Green tea

Lunch
Spinach wrap with mandarin oranges and broccoli sprouts
Cottage cheese and pineapple
Tomato juice

Dinner
Baked wild salmon with caramelized onions and garlic
Stewed tomatoes
Pumpkin soup or baked sweet potato
Black tea

Continue to live a strong, energetic, and cancer-free life by incorporating these cancer-fighting foods and suggestions into your lifestyle today!!!

Michael Brummer
Certified Personal Trainer
Fit for Life!

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Endgame by Author Mark Nepo – Dancing Our Way Through Challenge

dancer

Now there’s nothing left
but to keep dancing..
.

I don’t know if it is human nature or the way of life on Earth, but we seldom become all of who we are until forced to it. Some say that something in us rises to the occasion, that there is, as Hemingway called it, “grace under pressure” that comes forth in most of us when challenged. Others say this talk of grace is merely a way to rationalize hard times and painful experience, a way to put a good face on tragedy.

Yet beneath all the talk of tragedy and grace, I have come to believe that we are destined to be opened by the living of our days, and whether we like it or not, whether we choose to participate or not, we will in time, everyone of us, wear the deeper part of who we are as new skin.

Either by erosion from without or by shedding from within-and often both- we are forced to live more authentically. And once the crisis that opened us passes, the real choice then becomes: Will we continue such authentic living?

It is no secret that cancer in its acuteness pierced me into open living, and I’ve been working ever since to sanctify that open living without crisis as its trigger.

Mark Nepo & His Pup

But can this be done without crisis pushing us off the ledge? That’s the question now, years from the leap–how to keep leaping from a desire to be real, so as not to be shoved by an ever-lurking crisis.

Perhaps the greatest moment of shedding and breaking for me came as I was being wheeled to rib surgery. I found myself numbly afraid, spinning from the Demerol shot, watching the hospital ceiling roll on by, and I found myself repeating over and over the following words as I waited on my stretcher:

“Death pushed me to the edge. Nowhere to back off. And to the shame of my fears, I danced with abandon in his face. I never danced as free. And Death backed off, the way dark backs off a sudden burst of flame. Now there’s nothing left, but to keep dancing. It is the way I would have chosen had I been born three times as brave.”

We are often called further into experience than we’d like to go, but it is this extra leap that lands us in the vibrant center of what it means to be alive.

Excercise:

  • Sit quietly with a trusted loved one and a time of adversity you have endured in the past and what it opened in you. What did you discover about yourself?
  • Now that particular adversity is behind you, how has your inner view life changed?
  • Discuss what it is like for you to sustain these new inner ways.

- By Mike Nepo,  from The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to The Life You Have


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