
MİMARDER (Mimarlık Araştırmaları Derneği) olarak üzerinde yaklaşık 2 yıldır çalışmakta olduğumuz Cami Mimarlığını Yeniden Düşünmek Düşlemek adlı kitap çalışmasında elde ettiğimiz bilgi birikiminden faydalanarak bir sunum yapmak için EMUG tarafından Almanya’nın Köln kentinde düzenlenen Cami Tasarım Paneline Konuşmacı olarak davet edildik. Etkinliğe MİMARDER adına katılan Dr. Ahmet Gün ve Atakan Çavuş; cami tasarımının felsefesi, bağlamı, malzeme kullanımı, kente sunulan fonksiyonlar ve esnek mekân kurgusu konularında çoğunluğu mimar ve mühendislerden oluşan katılımcılara sunuşlarını gerçekleştirdi.

Panelde Samsun Üniversitesi’nden Doç. Dr. Halil İbrahim Düzenli, Turgut Cansever ve Camileri; Dr.Melek Kutlu Divleli, Son Dönem Camileri; Dr. Abdullah Asım Divleli, Samsun Üniversitesi BallıcaKampüsü Camisi ve Dr. Emin Selçuk Taşar, Cami Serüveninin Son 10 Yılı konulu sunuşlarınınardından katılımcıların sorularının yanıtlanmasıyla panel sona erdi.

Ardından Hollanda’da küçük bir yerleşim yeri olan ve yeşil dokusuyla ön plana çıkan Uden şehrinde yer alan Süleymaniye Camii ziyaret edildi. Camii kullanılan malzemesiyle çevresine uyum sağlarken sahip olduğu renk ile kendini göstermektedir.

Bisiklet kullanım oranının oldukça yüksek olduğu şehirde, cami cemaatinin de bisikleti sıklıkla kullandığı ve yapının önünde bir bisiklet park alanı olduğu dikkatlerden kaçmıyor.

Uden’de geçirilen süre boyunca yeşile doyduktan sonra son durak olan Amsterdam’a doğru yola çıkıldı. Kanallar şehri olan Amsterdam’da oldukça güzel bir konuma sahip Ayasofya Camisi mimarisiyle oldukça dikkat çekmektedir.

Amsterdam sokaklarında ilerlerken kiliseden camiye çevrilen ihtişamlı Fatih Camii yapısıyla karşılaşıyoruz. Bazilikal planlı yapı oldukça dikkat çekici malzeme kullanımı, strüktür ve iç mekân atmosferiyle dikkat çekmekte.

Program dahilinde hem panel sırasında hem de geziler sırasında Avrupada yaşayan müslümanların ibadet şartları, sorunları ve ihtiyaçları konusunda bilgi sahibi olma fırsatı elde edilmiş oldu. Avrupa bağlamında camilerin Türkiyeden farklı olarak 7/24 yaşayan, çok fonksiyonlu yapılar olarak kullanılması da dikkat çekmektedir.

EMUG Cami Tasarım Paneli’nde Sunum ve Teknik Gezi

MİMARDER olarak derneğin araştırma tabanına ek olarak kentsel gezi rotaları etkinlikleri düzenlenmiştir. Tarihi yarımada ve kara surları üzerinden bir rota oluşturularak yürüyerek deneyimlenen gezi bu etkinliklerden biri olmuştur
Fatih geçmişten günümüze aslolan,bildiğimiz İstanbul’u meydana getiren bölge olmuştur.Kara surları bu bölgenin sınırlarını batı tarafında kuzey-güney aksında belirleyen fiziki unsurlar olarak yer alır. Dernek olarak tarihi yarımadaki sur içini tanımlayan bu sınır hattını deneyimlemek için geziye Yedikule zindanlarından başlanmıştır. Fatih Belediyesinin düzenlediği tur rehberli Yedikule Zindanları anlatısından sonra gezi sur aksında yürüyerek devam etmiştir. Rota üzerinde yer yer sur üzerine çıkan merdivenler ile surlar üst kotlardan da deneyimlenmiştir.
Gezi aksında surların yanında yer alan cami,türbe,bostanlık gibi alanlar da gözlemlenmiştir.Uzun bir yürüyüş rotasından sonra gezi Ayvansaray’daki Eğrikapı’da son bulmuştur.
Kara surlarının coğrafi konumunu; sınırsallığın fiziksel durumunu,etkilerini ve geçişkenliğini anlamak adına faydalı olan bu gezi aynı zamanda derneğin araştırma tabanına da analiz altlığı oluşturmuştur.

Yedikule’den Ayvansaray’a Karasurlarının İzinde

Türkiye mimarlık ortamının zenginleşmesinde kendine has bir rolü olan değerli hocamız Prof. Dr. Uğur Tanyeli ile gerçekleştirdiğimiz söyleşimizde, "cami mimarlığı" başlığı dahilinde birçok önemli meseleye değinildi. Cami mimarisi alanında karşılaştığımız birçok sorunun kaynağının, inançla ve tarihle kurulan ilişkiyi toplumsal reflekslerin çarpıtarak belirlemesinde yattığına değinen Tanyeli, mimarlık - toplum - tarih arakesitlerinde değerli tespitlerde bulundu.

Söyleşinin tamamı için aşağıdaki linke göz atabilirsiniz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNWqEj3Xrzs&t=833s

Uğur Tanyeli ile Söyleşi

Reinvention often comes in spurts, after a long period of silence. Just as modern architecture recently enjoyed a comeback, brand architecture, a field with well-established principles for decades, is back in the limelight.

Simply understood, brand architecture is the art and science of structuring the portfolio to meet your strategic goals, defining the brand number, scope, and relationships needed to compete. Just as Modern Architecture prioritized function, a Brand Architecture is only as good as it is well-suited for the purpose it strives to achieve. Given the disruption observed today across industries and segments, it’s no wonder that companies are considering structural rather than topical solutions to the challenges they face.

Yet the context in which brand architecture decisions are being made has changed. Gone are the days of “competitive strategy”, with the military-inspired view of competition as a zero-sum game, where market share needs to be stolen from competitors, often in a street-by-street battle to win over each individual segment. The type of brand architecture required to win in this game demanded a dogged focus on each segment, and a sniper-like collection of individual brands sharply focused on each one. While there was always a place for a variety of architectures — see Joachimsthaler’s brand relationship spectrum — houses of brands were favored, as it enabled segment-by-segment competition and risk protection. P&G was the king of houses of brands, slicing and dicing the market not just by products and demographics, but also by psychographics, price range, buying patterns or attitudes. In B2B, houses of brands were omnipresent, with a product-driven logic that led to branding new features meant to provide short-term competitive advantage.

In today’s day and age, companies like Google or Amazon do not pursue growth through incremental market share gains; rather, they focus on understanding their customers’ needs and creating entirely new markets to answer them. Creating a house of brands for these markets would be folly — not only would each brand need to be created from scratch, increasing the already significant investment, but the new category itself often needs to be explained to consumers, compounding the cost.

Instead, investing in a strong master brand-led architecture and putting multiple if not all brands under the leadership of a strong brand, presents numerous advantages. First, mergers and acquisitions, or partnerships, are making it necessary to bring multiple market participants to “the same page” — and this common ground often involves a master brand recognized by all. Second, the risk profile of a “branded house” architecture has changed: the master brand can create an aura of innovation and risk-taking, supporting the launch of new products. Third, investments can be streamlined, as a strong master brand can be leveraged across markets and product launches. Finally, a track record of success in creating new categories can create goodwill, creating a virtual circle of success. To achieve this, brand architecture does not need to be a pure “branded house” — in many cases, a strong master brand creates substantial leverage and a much cleaner portfolio, even as a few particularly strong brands can continue existing as sub-brands. An example of this is Salesforce, that leverages its master brand consistently — yet allows more independence to a few specific sub-brands, such as Pardot.

There are 3 key imperatives to build this type of brand architecture — to be clear, meaningful and stretchable.

: Just as modern architecture thrives on clear and clean lines, so does brand architecture. In the age of micro-segmentation, micro-targeting, information overload and digital fragmentation, you need a clear and loud voice in order to stand out. In the context of short attention spans where specific moments and needstates need to be targeted in addition to consumer/customer profiles, multiple brands often lead to confusion. The technology space understood this early, where clear and simple architectures that bring together simple design, as Apple, with complex technology, as SAP — always under the discipline of a rigorously simple way to organize.

In addition, one of the key reasons for the regained popularity of clean, streamlined architectures, often organized around a single master brand, has been the emergence of platforms, or 2-way marketplaces structured around mutual value creation. By definition, bringing various stakeholder groups to one 

, in order to enable network effects so critical for building scale. As Uber expands into different marketplaces and “uberizes” different industries, leveraging the power of its master brand is likely to lead to faster expansion than building a targeted brand for each industry from scratch.

: Just as modern architecture prioritizes function over embellishments, a solid brand architecture is founded on brands and values meaningful to consumers (or customers), rather than product feature distinctions. Brand architecture needs to be re-organized around brands that have a “reason for being” compelling enough to elicit passion, and introducing a clear distinction between brands that merit air time with consumers vs. “clutter”. The “decluttering” trend is gaining traction in brand architecture — just as in the popular consumer “decluttering” technique, only brands that “bring joy” to consumers get the spotlight. TED, for example, leverages the powerful TED master brand, positioned around “ideas worth spreading”, in a set of sub-brands that target meaningful occasions and contexts for intellectual exploration (TED Talks, TEDx, TED-Ed, TED Prize, TED Fellows, TED Institute, TED Radio Hour).

: Modern architecture is dynamic — it finds its force in the midst of usage; movement is often embedded into its very bones. In today’s fast-changing world, brand architecture is a moving target — clients increasingly ask to design architectures that fit their growth ambitions, thinking through future growth scenarios and architecting space for the future product pipeline. In particular in industries undergoing disruption, where next generation products aim to upset the status quo, their addition to any brand architecture may require a fundamental rethink.

Much as strategy has become “real time” as the window for strategic planning has shortened, brand architecture is also becoming more “real time”, requiring more frequent reassessment, adaptations and flexibility as markets change. Witness the frequency with which Uber readjusts its portfolio. WeWork, the popular co-working space, also exploits the strength of the master brand to stretch into near-in categories such as hospitality with WeLive or the ventures space with WeWork Labs.

Traditionally, companies considered a house of brands architecture as a risk management tool — a way not to put all your eggs in one basket. It turns out, in the age of platforms and digital disruption, a masterbrand-led architecture can help you build a bigger basket, to hold more eggs.

Yerebatan Sarnıcı ve Kadırga Mahallesi Teknik Gezisi

MİMARDER üyeleri derneğin araştırma çalışmalarına ek olarak Çini atölyesinde bir araya geldi. Bu atölyeler sayesinde çeşitli sanat ve zanaat dallarında fikir sahibi olmak ve malzemeye yakından temas etmek / malzemelerin kimliğini öğrenmek amaçlanmaktadır.

Çini sanat ansiklopedisinde geçen tanımıyla “ Bir nevi beyaz topraktan yapılan ve fırında pişirilen üzeri sırlı Keramik işlerine verilen isimdir. Bundan bardak, tabak, testi, vazo, duvar kaplamaları ve süs eşyaları gibi şeyler yapılır.[1]”

Çini sanatçısı Balat Betül Sivriler hocamızın atölyesinde gerçekleştirdiğimiz çalışmada çini, çini tarihi, çini yapımında kullanılan malzemeler, teknikler ve desenler üzerine kısa bir tanıtımdan sonra desen oluşturma, desenin bisküviye aktarılması, aktarılan desenin tirlin ile hatlarının oluşturulması ve uygun renklerde boyanmasıyla çalışmalarımızı tamamladık. Tamamlanan çalışmalar sırlanıp fırınlandıktan sonra hazır hale geldi.

[1]Sanat ansiklopedisi, M.E.B 1975, cilt 1, sayfa 412

Balat'ta Çini Atölyesi

I recently went to the mountains with my friends. We were celebrating 50 years of friendship. It was very special. Six of us were to be together spending time in the mountains.

I had never been to that place nor heard of the name. I was told by my friends that they had done all the bookings. I had to just pack and join them at the station.

Both are growing areas of apples, pears, apricots, almonds, cherries, and plums in Himachal Pradesh.

We were to go on the fast train called Shatabdi from Delhi to Kalka and the onward journey would be in an SUV called an Innova.

We reached Kalka and the cab was waiting for us. We were excited souls. We reached the mountains at 8.30 PM after a long and arduous journey and were even wondering whether it was worth it.

We reached our destination. It was calm quiet with the soft rustling winds whistling through the trees.

The clean neat guest house The Wheeler Lodge B&B looked amazing and inviting.

The host and the hostess at the Wheeler lodge were waiting to welcome us. The warm welcome we received from them made us feel very much at home. The hostess had a major kidney surgery which we did not know about. They did not cancel our booking having committed to it.

She smiled and was very soft-spoken. Their two children were equally warm and treated us with respect, happiness, and kindness.

They served us fresh food. We enjoyed the simple but tasty homemade food. The whole family served the food and kept us busy with anecdotes about the small village. I could see that they were all proud of their beautiful village.

They were humble and lovely as a family. We came to know that these young girls between the age of 10 and 13 walk 4kms to school every day on the steep elevated mountains. Winter and summer they bear it all. This makes the children hardy and strong.

The girls also help out at the two beautiful orchards that they possessed at the time of sowing and picking the fruit. The orchards had fruit trees of apples, apricots, almonds, and cherries.

Taking a round of the orchards I found that a large number of people were working there. I enquired whether these people were specially hired for the work in the orchard. While some of them were laborers that come in from Nepal and Bihar other people were owners of orchards who had come to help as they believed in helping the community and worked in each other’s orchards when the need arose.

The people looked happy and relaxed and completely tension-free. The air was pure. There was no pollution. It was cool weather. The village consisted of only 150 people who helped each other all the time.

The community experience was something like the Japanese Ikegai in that the community work gave each person a sense of belonging and a purpose to do some work together. People are happy and committed to each other. They work together in unison.

This purpose of life and good physical work keeps their bodies fit too. They sleep well.

In fact in the quiet village with pollution-free and pure air we all from big cities slept extremely well. Every night was refreshing.

People in the village were very patient. Farming teaches you a lot of patience. Once you sow the trees, it takes four years for the fruits to arrive. The trees last between 10–15 years giving fruit. Once the buds begin to flower it takes six months for the apples to be ripe and sold on the market.

During that time the farmers are free to do other jobs and patiently wait for a good crop.

I found cherries to be the most cumbersome. Each cherry had to be picked individually. If they hit the ground they would spoil the crop. It could neither be eaten nor kept. The crop gets wasted.

They are also afraid that the hail storm and other pests would spoil the crop. So all the trees are covered with nets.

The apple and pear trees are netted to avoid destruction from weather and pests. 

People in this village live a long life. It is stress-free living there. The parents are highly respected by their children.

Even people in the community respect the elders and mingle with them and do their work.

In return, the old people offer life lessons storytelling and happiness to people.

Some cook excellent dishes and send them to the youngsters. This life is like a partnership between young and old.

Photo of the old lady who is so happy and stress-free. 

We met this lovely lady who was 92 years old. She was happy. She sang songs for us and made us dance around her. She laughed and told us anecdotes of her young years.

Before leaving Kumarsain she presented each one of us with a box of cherries. According to customs guests should not go empty-handed from your house. It is a gesture of love and goodwill to give them something.

The lessons about happiness that we learned from the people of the Kumarsain Village were the following:

To greet people with a lovely smile even though there is some inconvenience to you.

To make people feel welcome when they come to your house.

To have a common purpose in life. Community work shared with the purpose of being useful to other people helps in bringing happiness to your life.

Whatever you do in life requires patience to bring fruits to the effort made by you. Wait with patience to get rewards.

To spread love and happiness in the lives of people.

Being respectful towards elders and good exchanges between younger and old generations always helps in personal growth.

To live in a stress-free environment take a retreat in the mountains where you do not require anything but love and fresh air to live a good life.

Longevity is when life has less stress and more fun.

İTÜ Yayınları Logo Tasarımı

Sitting on a patio overlooking English Bay, I am eating dinner and talking with a woman I have met only hours earlier. A memorable evening for both of us, it will see us share some of the most difficult and personal memories we have. Details will be different, but the trajectory similar, in both our cases centered around death. Not one, not a few, but hundreds of deaths. For each of us.

Okay, one, don’t worry, we’re getting to the sunsets! And two, please be assured that despite what it sounds like, I do have appropriate boundaries. Because what I have just described is the life of an HIV researcher. In town for an annual research and treatment conference, it was three days of the latest science, prevention, and support findings. And meeting people like Leena, who, like myself, is a qualitative researcher, working exclusively with women who have contracted HIV from rape or abuse. While my field is HIV, PTSD, and stigma, we do share the same approach, which uses a narrative model of inquiry. Meaning, our data is the individual and community story of HIV. If you’re interested in reading more about what I do, check out the piece below.

Not surprisingly, we had a lot to talk about and found we had many things in common. Like, for example, sunrises and sunsets. For both of us, seeing them is inexplicably tied up in remembering loss from HIV. Something else she said really hit me. Originally from San Francisco, Leena talked about how HIV had literally torn her city apart. But then, oddly enough it became the shared history that helped it mend.

Last night as I watched the sunset you see above and below, I thought again of what Leena had told me about San Francisco, inspiring me to write the poem that follows below the next image.

Uden Camii Ek Mekan Tasarımı

İTÜ Camii Ek Mekan Tasarımı

How do we become better every single day? We develop practices that will help move us incrementally forward. Small steps, taken consistently. This is the path to a good life.

“Seneca gives a pretty simple prescription for the good life. “Each day,” he wrote, “acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.” One gain per day. That’s it.”- 

While routines can be important for consistency and productivity, what is even more important is our practices. These are things we do, no matter what our routine looks like, no matter if something comes up that derails us.

But we need to start small and make sure our practices are sustainable. The idea is to take small but consistent steps, every single day — 1% improvement.

“Success is not a destination. Success is a decision you make on a daily, hourly, and even moment-to-moment basis.” — Nicolas Cole

Epictetus called this incremental action “fueling the habit bonfire.”

Focus on the following 10 practices, and you will begin to see consistent improvement in your life.

While I know we’ve all heard we should meditate, I truly believe it is key to moving forward every single day.

Meditation provides stillness. It’s time alone with your breath and your body. It’s time to get to know yourself, to be aware of what is going on inside of you — both mentally and physically.

Having this self-awareness is the first step toward growth. If you don’t know yourself, how can you expect to make meaningful progress?

Develop a regular meditation practice by following 

 Aim for 5 minutes, or even just one minute if you think that’s all you can commit to. The idea is to commit to a length of time you can do consistently — ideally every single day.

 Deciding on a time and doing your meditation at the same time each day makes it much more likely you’ll do it consistently.

 While each session of meditation does produce benefits on its own, the real magic of meditation comes from consistent practice, and compounds over time.

 There are so many ways to support your practice. One of the most accessible supports is a meditation app. While using an app may not seem like “traditional” meditation, it can be incredibly helpful, especially when you’re starting out.

Building on the point above, time alone with your journal is time alone in stillness — a chance to get to know yourself on a deeper level, and to understand who you really are.

Journaling allows you to reflect, to plan, to meditate on thoughts and ideas. To always be a better human than you were the day before. This is how you move forward every single day.

You may find it helpful to bookend your day with journaling — having both a morning and evening practice.

The stillness of the morning is the perfect time to reflect on your purpose, to consider your path, and to create a plan for the day.

The end of the day is a great time to reflect on what went well during the day, what you could do differently tomorrow, and where you could be more — more loving, more patient, more valuable. You can reflect on whether you have lived in alignment with your values, and whether you fulfilled your purpose.

Find a journaling template and mode that works for you. Maybe you like the traditional pen and paper. Maybe you prefer a document on your computer. Maybe you’d do best with a phone app. Find something that resonates with you, and stick with this practice.

Therefore, being cognizant of your input in the morning is so important. Do you scroll on social media? Read the news? Read texts from your friends complaining about their life?

Or do you listen to or read something positive and uplifting?

This simple shift can make a huge difference in the trajectory of your day.

The morning is also a great time to bring to mind all that you are grateful for, and to think of the joyful moments in your life. Think about the house you slept in, your friends and family that support you, and the fact that you woke up at all.

We must always remind ourselves of the privilege of being alive, and be grateful for all that we have been given. Remind yourself of this when you wake up. Marcus Aurelius said,

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

If we view each day as a bonus day — to live, to love, to do the things we love to do — we can’t help but experience gratitude. Viewing each day in this way will ensure that you live your day mindfully.

Be cognizant of your input beyond just the morning; throughout your entire day, it’s good to be aware of what you’re allowing into your mind.

This is key to moving forward every single day — you can’t expect to improve and grow if you are constantly being held back by negative input.

Similarly, regularly reminding yourself of everything you already have and cultivating a sense of gratitude will allow you to continue striving and growing, knowing that you already have enough and you are enough. You will always be enough.

And walking may be the most important way to move our bodies. Think of how our ancestors lived — constantly foraging, hunting, and walking everywhere. This is how we have evolved to live.

If we want to move forward, we need to take care of our bodies.

But more than that, movement allows deep access into who we are; what it’s like to be in this body, right now. It’s a powerful form of meditation. You can’t help but feel the breath going in and out of your lungs. The sun on your skin. The grass beneath your feet. Movement forces you to be present in this moment, within yourself.

“Through exercise and movement, you breathe deeply and unblock the body’s channels…. It gives you energy, mental clarity, passion, and a general enthusiasm for life…. When you breathe deeply, you connect your heart and your brain instantly…. Conscious exercise puts your daily problems on the back burner and enlivens the heart and mind.… While it’s tempting to think of exercise solely as a means to fitness or weight loss, it’s really much more about making you feel alive in your body.”

Movement is therefore a tool to help you grow and move forward every single day.

Your body will stay healthy, your mind will remain clear, you will have deeper access into who you are and improved clarity on where it is you want to go.

We can’t expect to continue growing and moving forward if we don’t take care of our body and mind. Move every single day.

Being in nature is connecting to the universe — the force greater than ourselves.

Nature has been here far longer than us and will remain long after we’re gone. The trees you see have experienced far more than you. They have lived through some of the greatest hardships the world has faced. Nature has the capacity to connect us to all of history.

Connecting to nature in this way reminds us of our tiny place in the universe and how little we really know. It puts things in perspective. It humbles us. We must respect nature, for these trees were here first, and they know much more than we do.

I think we’ve all felt it, the sense of calm and contentment that comes from being among nature. Science even shows that looking at 

nature can instantly quieten our fight-or-flight response

. We inherently know that being in nature is good for us.

But nature is also crucial for our health. 

“Contact with nature is an integral part of our well-being as humans…. While we evolved outdoors and amongst nature for most of the last two million years of our species’ existence, the movement to a largely indoor environment has been a recent development for humans. Much like our diet, our physical environment has changed drastically in a comparatively short amount of time…. 

Our relationship with nature is a vital component of our wellbeing, and one often neglected due to the concerns of modern life. In order to more fully address our health and wellness as humans, we must consider the biological appropriateness of our environment to be just as important as that of our diet and exercise choices.

. Prioritize time in nature. It will keep things in perspective while also boosting your wellbeing, allowing you to keep moving forward.

“Ordinary people seek entertainment. Extraordinary people seek education and learning…. It is common for the world’s most successful people to read at least one book per week. They are constantly learning.” — Benjamin Hardy, 

How to Consciously Design Your Ideal Future

Hopefully, you make time to read every single day. Even if it’s just one page.

Reading may be the most accessible tool available to us to help us grow. We can learn from anyone in the world, living or not. We can learn from those who have already achieved what we want to achieve. We can learn from others’ successes and mistakes.

Being a perpetual student is key to moving forward. If you’re not constantly learning, how will you grow?

Make reading a priority in your day. Spend 15 minutes in the morning reading a book. Download an audiobook for your commute. Read an article online during your lunch break. Just find the time to read.

We must always be reflecting on our lives and measuring the important metrics.

With reflection, we can achieve anything. You try something, reflect on it, do more of what worked and less of what didn’t.

A great way to do this is through bookending the day with journaling, as illustrated above. In the morning, write your plan for the day. In the evening, reflect on what worked and what you will do differently tomorrow. In just a few minutes each day, you can massively change your life for the better.

Do this at the end of each week, month, quarter, and year. Growth will become inevitable.

“End your week holding a five-minute meeting with yourself and review what’s working and everything making you miserable. And do more of what works.” — 

Similarly, keep track of the most important metrics of your life — how much weight you’re squatting, how many dates you went on with your partner each month, how many times you called your mom, how many days in a row you meditated. Identify what is most important to you, and keep track of it. You may be more off-course than you realize:

“If you’re not tracking the key areas of your life, than you’re probably more off-course than you think.” — Benjamin Hardy, 

Without a body, we can not achieve anything. Your health must always come first. Running yourself into the ground will achieve nothing.

Make sure you make the time to eat nourishing foods, and make sure you’re eating enough. Our bodies need fuel — good quality fuel:

Eat loads of plants — vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds

 — it’s full of antioxidants (drink decaf if you don’t like caffeine, or black or green teas which have a smaller amount of caffeine)

Only eat what our cavemen ancestors would recognize

If you want to become stronger and more resilient, you need to stress your body.

And the best way to do this is through hormetic stressors.

A hormetic stressor is something that, in a small dose makes you stronger, but in a big dose will kill you. Think cold, heat, fasting, and exercise.

You can learn a lot simply by paying attention.

When people speak, really listen. They likely know at least a few things that you don’t, and the simple act of listening is a great way to learn and to improve yourself.

I work with an older woman from Burundi, and until recently, I never really listened deeply to what she was saying. But the other day, I got myself into the present moment and really listened. And I learned that she has had a life like I could never imagine, and she holds so much wisdom and perspective.

She told me, “My dad was killed in front of me when I was 15. Every day you have with your parents is a gift from God. Celebrate every day with them and never forget how lucky you are.”

This was a great dose of perspective at 8am on a Wednesday morning.

Furthermore, paying attention is one of the greatest gifts you can give someone. All anyone wants is to be listened to and understood. You have the power to change your own life, as well as the lives of those around you.

This is how you will move forward every single day.

Yayınlarımız