You may get an invitation for the new soon to be launched Just Action game by going to justaction.com and signing up. There will be a very limited number of invitations released per month to former players, Facebook page fans, and Twitter followers so get in soon. I will keep you informed on progress as we move closer to launch date.

“If Mexico could end violence through compassion, it could change the world. I am asking for you financial support for this film. Help us get this film out. Helps us magnify my brother´s legacy as a force for good in the world.” Julian Lebaron

Incendiar el Corazón is a film directed by Mark Vicente, an acclaimed writer, producer, and director of documentaries such as What the Blimp do you Know, and co-produced by Just Action friend Alex Balassa, head of Blindspot. Knowing of a project that will touch the lives of millions and create a complete paradigm shift towards a higher consciousness happens in very rare occasions. Incendiar el Corazón is such a project.

Watch the trailer…

The key to the upcoming BeYourGuru program is the reconciliation with your fundamental essence devoid of all interference. One of the most “expensive” sorts of interference you may encounter is the habit to draw your sense of identity from either criticism or praise. I describe it as “expensive” because it places your attention away from your true essence at the mercy of other people´s limiting beliefs. Your attention is a terrible thing to waste. The time and energy wasted in managing what people might be thinking of you, could have been invested in discovering and realizing your unique strengths – your true essence. We certainly have enough work dealing with our own limiting beliefs to have to deal with other people´s ideas of what we should be.

Attention to both criticism or praise is an interference. Praise seems to be desirable positive reinforcement, but if not careful, it could divert your sense of self. You could also say there is much to be learned from constructive well-intentioned criticism. And that is absolutely true, as an entrepreneur, one of my main activities is to listen to any feedback to improve our products and services. However, the keyword in the title of this post is define. You should not let your identity be defined by praise or criticism. You are the only one in charge of defining YOU.

“What other people think about me is not my business.” Michael J. Fox

Praise is certainly seductive, it just makes you feel good about yourself. What´s wrong with that? You must realize that praise is a sort of pull energy that you can leverage towards your mission to inspire action and trust. But, if you let this incoming energy create your self-image, you run the risk of being left without a strong foundation when challenged by failures.

Failure is an event. Not a person – Zig Ziglar

Criticism is most draining when you take it personally – when you think it defines you. Then, your first reaction is defensive to set the record straight. However, you should stop and consider what you are defending exactly. If you respond defensively to a critic, you are defending their idea of what you should be. Not yours. It is a futile effort that creates nothing of value. Imagine if you had to conform to everyone´s opinion!

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win – Mahatma Gandhi

In some cases, if you are working towards a new vision, the onset of criticism is a great sign that you are making people uncomfortable showing progress in the advancement of your agenda. If you were to allow such criticism beyond the door steps, you would be relinquishing your remarkable quest. To be prepared, you have to be heart-centered and fully aware of who you are. That will be your journey in the upcoming BeYourGuru program powered by Just Action. I hope you will enjoy it.

When writing about a subject, I post ideas on my Facebook profile to assess multiple perspectives. It is certainly easier to consider different points of view when they are explained through personal stories. I am fortunate to have a highly engaged Facebook community to get things started. This time I posted this on my Facebook profile:

    –> Rage is Loss

(Follow the link to read the full thread)

Rage is a very common emotion that we have all experienced. It was interesting to see that a few participants started to ponder about the purpose of rage, how useful or necessary it is to express it, and whether or not it could be negative or a great motivator to make positive changes. Nonetheless, there was a general sense that thinking of rage as a “loss” implied that it was a negative emotion.

It is reasonable to find the word “loss” interpreted in association with something negative. It seems that to some people the direct interpretation was a generalization that “anger is bad”. Instead, the intention was to describe anger simply as a loss of personal energy with no moral implications. Meaning that such a loss may have a purpose, it may be necessary in a personal process, it may appear to be justified, or reasonable, but it remains a loss nonetheless.

Energy can certainly be lost, which does not mean that it is destroyed. All natural processes, including all human processes, have energy losses as byproducts and this energy loss is the main quality that describes the irreversibility of events found in nature. The direction of events mentioned here is driven by a universal quest found in the whole of nature towards reaching a new dynamic equilibrium while minimizing losses. Why is nature driven to behave this way is not known, and we may never know it, but it is the fundamental quality of life and our higher being.

Rage is simply a form of loss that we all work towards minimizing knowingly or unknowingly. It is what it is, what it has to be to realize a new state of equilibrium. Some humans are conscious of their own processes and when you master them you create the greatest value with the least loss. If said mastery is not achieved for a given process, the loss becomes a lesson. Hence, the expression of rage could be a necessary lesson in your journey towards a new dynamic equilibrium in harmony with your higher being.

Resistance is what opposes your self-realization, and naturally, you may consider this an obstacle that needs to be eliminated. Paradoxically, this seemingly logical conclusion is in itself a clever form of resistance since any attempt to destroy it may in fact misdirect your focus from manifesting your higher Self. If your attention is placed on keeping resistance at bay, you are in fact empowering it. Instead, you will find that resistance is to be integrated as an ever-present aspect in any quest. You will learn how resistance’s mounting presence is a necessary aspect of “being” your higher Self.

A ship’s purpose is to navigate, and the sea is its resistance. On occasion, there is a storm with large swells that defy the ship’s seaworthiness, but when not at sea, the ship’s purpose to navigate is not realized. Likewise, a samurai has mastered the art of combat, but his skillful handling of a sword would amount to nothing without an opponent since it is only then that his mission and calling manifest. In other words, you will learn to face your own brand of resistance celebrating its presence as a necessary and integral aspect of your higher Self.

This post is an Outside the Box exercise: Consider Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, a successful and young entrepreneur that has created the hottest web destination in the world. Facebook has over 500 million users and people are spending more time in there sharing and communicating than in any other web site. The company will probably go public in spring of next year, and it is expected to reach a USD 100 Billion valuation!

What could be Mark’s Out the Box Thought?

In light of such dire situation, Mark could be thinking of alternatives. If Facebook were a nation, it would be the third largest by population behind China and India. What would happen if instead of going public, Facebook purchased a small island territory to found a new nation with its own currency. The Facebook company would change its fiscal address to that new self-made nation. Then, invest their cash reserves on energy producing infraestructure (a source says the company is on track to earn $2 billion before taxes) and issue the Facebook Dollar as an energy backed currency that could be used by any of its “citizens” to buy and sell goods and services world wide. Funding to keep expanding the Nation would come from sales taxes levied to its citizens, and not from selling their stock. When you buy Facebook Dollars, you would be effectively exchanging US Dollars for energy backed FB Dollars whose value would fluctuate as any other currency in the market. The new nation would have 500 million virtual citizens from every nation of the world becoming a nearly frictionless market where physical borders would not be an issue, effectively rendering the traditional concept of nation obsolete. I bet John Lennon, one of humanity’s best “out the box thinkers” would love this one! What do you think about this? Contribute your out the box thoughts in the comment section!

Last week, I posted this question on my Facebook wall:

My fabulous Facebook friends exchanged various comments where the common thread was that love for your mission is what drives your actions. Perseverance is not about effort, it is a natural action that flows from love…

In the face of love all that appears to be a trying conquest against much resistance is in fact an expression of your irrepressible urge to achieve something, either because it is your passion, or because it brings great meaning, even if it is the type of hard work that would be unfathomable to most people… You persevere simply because you cannot fathom doing anything else. In such a state of seamless flow, working hard in the pursuit of your goals is effortless.

Even when facing what appears to be great resistance, you are actually in tune with the path of least resistance. On the other hand, I you feel day in and day out that you are persevering through a life of struggle, you are most certainly out of tune with your natural flow. If most days seem to be endless struggles, you have yet to tap the joyful potential of your unique guru within.

Going back to the question, are you strategically perseverant?

Strategy, as far as how to pursue a tough personal agenda, is only relevant once you are tuned to that blissful state of being that lets you express what seems to be your unique super powers as you work hard and enjoy doing it.

Do you feel you are there yet? Let me know below in the comment section.

Happiness, play, fun, success, growth, wealth are only a few of the words that are now subject to change their current meaning as we question their value attributes in the ongoing paradigm shift. Happiness will be redefined as humanity rediscovers its most fundamental meaning.

The western concept of Happiness is inextricably connected to a phrase that has shaped the motivation of many people, not only in the United States:

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

Wikipedia describes this phrase as:

“… one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language. These three aspects are listed among the “unalienable rights” or sovereign rights of man.

The meaning of this phrase is deeply engraved in our collective consciousness. So much so that it is considered an unalienable right and essencial to personal wellbeing. It would be almost impossible to challenge it, and even harder to change our conditioning to its meaning. Questioning such an important pilar of western society could even be deemed unpatriotic.

I contend that the only way for humanity to evolve is to question its very foundations regularly. Now days, the irreversible ongoing paradigm shift is pushing us to reconsider the meaning of Happiness and test it against what will undoubtedly become a new world order.

The pursuit of happiness sets you in a quest to look for something that is out there, out of reach, and difficult to get. It seems to mean that every one starts unhappy, but has the right to become happy upon possession of outward things. With the rise of the relatively new field of positive psychology we now know Happiness is a state of being rather than a joyful state of getting. What would we feel about Happiness if that famous phrase had been written simply like this?

“Life, Liberty and Being Happy”

The future of your happiness entails values and habits that seem progressive, but in most cases, we are actually recovering them from our past. So, what is the future of your Happiness about?

It is about BEING YOUR GURU

Long term happiness is about awakeneing and expressing the guru you have within. Being your guru entails acknowledging your unique gift to give while realizing your resilience even in the midst of adversity as you experience the intrinsic rewards of engaging fully in highly meaningful work from this blissful state of being.

Future challenges will require your highest creativity that can only be expressed from this state of being. Most job positions entailing rigid rules and mindless repetition from the isolation of cubicles are being substituted by dynamic jobs that will call for the emergence of your unique natural combination of qualities.

Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage and former Head Teaching Fellow for “Positive Psychology” in Harvard University, published an article recently stating this:

Happiness is the single greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy. Only 25% of your job successes are predicted based upon intelligence and technical skills, though we spend most of our education and most companies hire based upon this category. The “silent 75%” of long-term job success is based upon your ability to positively adapt to the world: optimism, social support creation, and viewing stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.

Your happy BEING will be your input and not what you get from your efforts! So instead of working to be happy, you will bring your happiness to work. Investing in awakening your Guru is your highest responsibility and not just a personal ideal.

It is about PLAYING TO MAKE IT REAL

Those of you that have been following this blog know already that Just Action is a game for personal transformation, and I make no appologies for using the term “game”. I could have called it a system, a program, a process… but it really is a game. There is ample evidence, not only from my findings, but from many other researchers that gamification of your daily activities, even if they are serious work, will increase your performance and be more satisfying. When playing games, you will more likely reach the optimal experience of flow, and enjoy its intrinsic rewards. In my previous post titled How can a Game Change your World? I show a number of examples of how game mechanics are being implemented in many daily activities at home and at work to bring joyful value creation into your real life.

It is about SHARING

One of the most significant ongoing trends is the massive mainstream adoption of Web 2.0 applications and Social Media by hundreds of millions of people in the world. What are we all doing with it? We are acting the way we used to in small town plazas in the medieval ages. We are meeting people, exchanging stories, buying and selling goods and services, supporting causes, starting revolutions, building bonds, communicating, and sharing… from cars, to office space, travel accommodations, textbooks, kids clothes, parking spaces, garden plots, camera lenses, luxury handbags, household items, and more.

Paradoxically, collaborative community engagement was lost with the advent of industrialization, but now the ability to transcend borders, time, and space has reawakened our social collaborative nature. Research in the field of positive psychology has found that we are happier when we belong to a group that meets regularly to share and collaborate. Given the shortage of material and energy resources, sharing is quickly becoming a necessary lifestyle, and we will all be happier beings! For more visit Shareable a great site on the Sharing Lifestyle.

It is about SUSTAINABILITY

The last three points converge into Sustainable Happiness: Happiness that is experienced long term through ups and downs and which means are in harmony with the earth´s resources. Studies have shown that the attainment of what society has called success, in terms of money, fame, or recognition is only going to provide a temporary sense of joy. Material objects such a new house or a new car, or the latest iPhone will only be satisfying for a while, but never become the foundations for a continued sense of happiness if other intrinsic rewards are not part of your experience. Being and playing from your guru within while sharing with others the valuable product of your hardwork will provide you with these intrinsic rewards. The future of your happiness is effortless even if there is hard work involved.

The future of your Happiness is not about:

It is not about the FUTURE

It is not about PURSUING

It is not about GETTING

It is not about KEEPING

The word game cannot possibly be taken seriously. Isn´t playing games what we do for fun? So, it cannot be serious! Right? For some bizarre reason, humanity has decided that you should not have fun when tackling tough problems or when doing important work. This premise is misguided and against common sense, (as mentioned before in this post and in this video). PLAY is well known to be one of the most effective means of enacting your creative powers. It is certainly the best way to learn, and to find innovative solutions to all sorts of problems.

Certainly, we all probably agree that the experience of play has the following qualities:

1. It allows you to concentrate in highly immersive activities - Focus.
2. It produces a satisfying sense of flow that keeps you positively motivated – Motivation.
3. It builds tighter trust-building emotional bonds with other players – Trust.
4. It makes you resilient and able to learn to tackle new obstacles – Resilience.
5. It triggers all your creative resources for problem solving – Creativity.
6. It offers the possibility for breath-taking breakthroughs – Fulfillment.

Focus, Motivation, Trust, Resilience, Creativity, Fulfillment… All good things any human activity should have. Then, why in the world don´t we consider the implementation of games in our day to day activities?

What would you say if you woke up in the morning only to realize you were not living your life as you know it today, but instead as a secret immersive game that would challenge you to collaborate with others in highly important missions… Would you say yes to that challenge? Would you play that game? Would you enjoy such an experience?

I sure hope such a plan would excite you! As a matter of fact, I am not the only one calling for games as a means to discover and realize our potential. Best seller author and acclaimed game designer Dr. Jane McGonigal has a new book out titled Reality is Broken where she claims that games can make us better and help us change the world. Check the TED video below where she explains how:

Nothing has captured the mind space of both students and adults as games have. They are deeply immersive. – Kumar Garg, Policy Analyst for the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the White House.

Jane McGonigal says in the video above that an average person in a country with a strong gamer culture would have invested 10,000 hours playing online games by the age of 21. Putting this into context: 10,080 hours is the amount of time a child would spent from 5th grade to high school graduation in USA.

Of course, you may be thinking that all this playing is likely to decrease our chances to be productive in the real world and not the other way around! So the question remains, how can we leverage this growing love for games and the optimum experience of play to address serious issues? People like Jane McGonigal and many others, are leading a growing trend towards the development of games that help people improve their lives and solve humanity’s more pressing problems.

There are games being designed to find real solutions to problems such as poverty, hunger, disease, and climate change rather than to conquer a warring faction in a World of Warcraft. This sort of games are called Alternate Reality Games since they use the real world as the game’s platform. For example: The game Superstruct helped players investigate what they would be in the future by addressing how they would respond to 5 Superthreats. Other games such as Evoke motivated players from all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems. PlayReal is a massive multiplayer online and offline game designed to create solutions for a sustainable planet.

The trend is towards gamification of daily activities that represent obligations for millions of people and turn them into fun, engaging, and highly creative experiences. The Gamification Encyclopedia considers this “one of the largest movements and trends of our time and fundamentally changes the way we live and interact with everything around us. The possible applications of game dynamics are nearly infinite with many believing that gamification will impact everything from the web to education, health, social good and even work.”

Games such as Chore Wars make the most mundane and boring activities such as home chores fun and exciting. We should also mention a pioneering effort in Education called Quest to Learn a school for digital kids that is structured as a game with special missions and challenges making students learn to see the world as composed of many different kinds of systems. It is a place to play, invent, grow, and explore.

Imagine for a moment the spaces you frequent in your daily life as game spaces. Just imagine for a second that your reality could be augmented by the excitment of a game! Getting points for actions taken, leveling up through your increased super powers as you build strong bonds with other players, making real progress towards goals that are larger than ever imagined…

I would certainly consider our game called Just Action in that category of games since it engages you in a personal journey of discovery and realization of your infinite potential. As I mention in The One Million People Paradigm Shift Challenge ebook, effective innovation can only emerge when you work in a state of blissful fulfillment, and that can be attained by incorporating game play in our day to day activities. It is truly exciting to be part of a pioneering group of projects leading a growing industry that is poised to have a dramatic positive impact in the way we live our lives.

Since Alternate Reality Games and gamification in general can be applied to any human interaction process, I would suggest you consider attending the 8th Annual Games for Change Festival that will be held in New York City from June 20th – 22dn.