lifelong learning for humans in the
school of Earth many of you might have
an idea of something that looks like
this when I come up with that title but
don’t worry I am NOT going to give you a
convoluted thesis or a bunch of shoulds
or an instruction I’m going to give you
this whole concept in one word so I
stand with the wise words of many of the
world’s greatest thinkers leaders and
business tycoons in their concept of
Education and learning John Dewey who is
a speaker said that education is not the
preparation for life education is life
itself Albert Einstein said that when we
stop learning we start dying and Zig
Ziglar said life is a classroom only
those who are willing to be lifelong
learners will move to the head of the
class so what all of these guys are
saying is that our biggest and most
valuable learning comes from our
experience of life itself so another way
of looking at this is that a school that
we are all enrolled in from the moment
we are born is the school of life on
earth so I like to call it the earth
school in which we are always learning
now how many of you have been to an
educational institution called school
anyone been to school yes all of us have
and interestingly we are in the premises
of a school today so we know that in
school there is a curriculum there is a
syllabus there are learning objectives
like we learn how to multiply or we
learn how to construct a sentence so
perhaps in our school of life in the
school of Earth there would be a
curriculum and there would be learning
objectives for us but what could they be
what are we here to learn and how so if
I showed you this equation here most of
you will feel very comfortable looking
at that yeah we know the answer there’s
nothing to learn
but what if I showed you another
equation that looks more like this how
many people feel comfortable yeah maybe
one or two I bet not everyone’s very
comfortable looking at this because in
order to actually understand it we need
to become more conscious we need to
break it into little bits then our
perspective changes we focus more
inwards we move past our current
approach then we learn so just like in
the school that we went to they
presented us with challenging math
equations our life our school of Earth
presents us with challenging life
situations and the whole purpose of this
is to become more conscious focus
inwards and then we grow so perhaps we
can accept the idea that we learn
through challenges in our experience of
life but fortunately that is not all
that life has to offer us
so in my 13 years of working very
closely with people I have come to
understand that life presents us with
moments of challenge where we are
uncomfortable and moments of support
where we are comfortable and since we
are living in duality both happen
concurrently so at any given point in
time we will be experiencing some
challenge like maybe you were rejected
by someone that you love or you failed
your exam or you have aches and pains
and migraines that you can’t help but at
the same time there will be at least one
area in your life that is supporting you
like you have enough money in your bank
account you have friends that are
supporting you or you have a personal
resource of inner strength or resilience
and these areas of support feel really
good but that’s not where learning comes
from so when I was getting money very
easily from my generous father
throughout my childhood I didn’t learn
much about work or money because it was
just there then when I decided to open
my own company that’s when I grew and I
learned tremendously I know I was
fortunate enough to have someone that
would be willing to contribute to me
for my entire life but I didn’t want
that I was committed to try and do this
on my own so I wouldn’t have my parents
saving me and what I wanted to do is
open up a Wellness Center in Hong Kong
that focused on a modality called
hypnotherapy and when I said this word
hypnotherapy many people would think of
this so they would look at me and say I
don’t want to look at your face don’t
look at my eyes or you might make me act
like a chicken or this is mumbo jumbo
and words that you’ve taken from the sky
and you’re calling this a profession so
that judgement propelled me to look
inwards I was challenged by it I then
looked at why I’m doing this I did
believe in the work I did believe that
this is one modality that helps us to
access the subconscious mind so then I
developed this unshakeable trust in my
vision and another thing I learned was
perseverance perseverance to go with it
even if at times it might seem like I
may not make it so that perseverance had
me learn about how to overcome my
limiting beliefs there was a part of me
that thought maybe I was not skilled
enough maybe I didn’t deserve to ask for
so much money or I could fail and I had
to make peace with all of those and then
I grew tremendously and today I am the
owner of a Wellness Center in Hong Kong
and we do focus primarily on
hypnotherapy which actually looks like
this
it’s a session where we help people to
access the subconscious mind so you see
when life is comfortable it just sails
by and it’s so easy to enjoy the
experience of carrying your Chanel
handbag or going to a swanky hotel like
the peninsula and sipping in your fancy
teacups it feels good but it doesn’t
propel us to become conscious or to look
inwards instead when you are challenged
in any area of your life after your fair
share of whinging and complaining and
becoming the victim and wishing that
things were different there will come a
point where a lot of us become conscious
and we realize that the person suffering
the most is us we are suffering we can’t
change the outside
we can’t change another person even
though we really wish we could we can’t
we can change the way that we perceive
it we can shift our interpretation and
when we do that the feeling changes so
what if instead of resisting judging and
complaining about a situation we began
to accept the situation that acceptance
changes the way that we feel in a very
very positive way so there is my one
word okay this is what we are here to
learn in the school of Earth its
acceptance and the way that we’ve been
conditioned to learn this is through
challenges sounds simple right but it
may not be so easy it does take
something so let me first tell you what
I mean by acceptance the definition of
this because some people think that
acceptance means approval and they
collapse the two together and then I
hear people say things like how can I
accept something I don’t like I’m not
gonna accept that I got 30% in my exam
I’m not gonna accept that my parents
didn’t give me enough attention when I
was growing up that’s just not fair I
can’t accept that
well the acceptance that I’m talking
about is the absence of judgment both
good and bad it is not about liking or
approving or disapproving of something
it is the art of being with what is
being with what so without the judgment
and just being at peace with it and when
I say at peace with it the mind and body
feels calm so I have other people who
interpret acceptance with something like
a resignation feeling so it looks like
yeah I got a 30% what to do can’t change
it I know that’s the way my mom is suck
it up what to do can’t change her does I
look peaceful no there is no peace there
so true acceptance has no judgment and
it has peace it looks more like this I
get that I got a 30%
it happened it was an experience I
accept myself I accept the experience
it’s now over it’s in the past and now I
can focus on what can I do different or
what can I learn from that you’re not
denying it you’re not in a delusion
you’re not giving up but it’s freeing
it’s a different type of acceptance and
it feels really good
so our challenges that life has to offer
us normally comes in three different
categories we are either challenged by
ourselves our own behavior something
that we felt like we should do or we
shouldn’t have done we could have spoken
more politely or we could have spoken up
for ourselves and we beat ourselves up
the other area that challenges come is
from other people when we’re upset at
someone else for not being social enough
or neat enough or polite enough to us
and we get upset about that and the
third area is a situation like who’s the
President or a divorce happening in the
family or who is our boss it’s a
situation that we can’t change so the
thing to get from all of these is that
it has already happened whatever you are
upset about that’s happening in your
life right now has already happened it’s
in the past and the past is over the
only truth in this present moment is
that you and I are in this room that’s
the only truth everything else has
happened in the past and so it’s our
choice whether to accept it or to
continue judging it and sometimes all
these three challenges have been at the
same time so let me tell you how all
these three things happen to me and it
happened to me in my experience of
coming on the TEDx platform you see
along with being a hypnotherapist I have
become a public speaking coach and
that’s because people come to me to
overcome their fears and one of the
biggest fears in the world is the fear
of public speaking
death is number two so people would
rather die then speak in public so yes
that’s naturally made me a public
speaking coach and in fact I had coached
several people to speak on this platform
and I had never spoken myself and I
really wanted to so I decided to apply
the first time my husband nominated me
at the time that we were engaged and he
got a reply back saying yes we have
heard that this woman is getting married
soon and she won’t have enough time I
obviously didn’t know that I was
marrying him the second time my friend
nominated me and she got a reply back
saying yes we’ve kind of heard this name
before in Hong Kong and we’re looking
for someone that’s more unknown I didn’t
know that that was a criteria and the
third time I nominated myself and then I
got another reply back saying that you
know we’ve got so many applications and
so many of these people have been
through natural disasters some of them
have lost something in a tsunami and
other ones gone in a hurricane and it
doesn’t feel like you’ve had enough
trauma and obviously I didn’t want the
trauma in order to be on the stage so
there I was coaching all of these people
and facing my personal series of
rejection it was challenging and I felt
challenged on all three fronts
I felt challenged with a situation
because I feel like it’s something I
couldn’t change
I felt challenged by other people
because I wish that they would have
picked me and then I started judging
myself for maybe not being good enough
or writing a good enough application so
obviously it was time to look inwards I
was challenged in life so during one of
my regular introspections I decided that
I would accept that I haven’t been
chosen so far I would accept it that
does not mean that I was giving up or I
didn’t want it anymore
because that becomes denial it was just
accepting okay it’s not happened give up
my judgement of the people that didn’t
pick me give up my judgment of myself as
the victim be okay with or without this
experience let go of that attachment it
took something but when I did it there
was so much freedom and within that
freedom it took four days and I got an
email from a TEDx without me having to
apply and nobody nominated me and they
said to me that they would be honored
and
village to have me on stage and then
there I was last year and I did my first
TEDx so I find that miracles happen when
we apply this technique miracles happen
when we can let go and accept and we
don’t need the situation to change to
feel better so this sounds like a great
concept but I always believe that
learning really happens when we apply
this to ourselves so if you would join
me I take you through a very brief
exercise if you can please close your
eyes focus inwards and think about
something that is challenging you right
now think about any situation it could
be you’re upset with yourself or another
person or a situation and as you are
focusing on that challenge notice how
you feel in the body
I bet the body does not feel so
comfortable and there will be somewhere
in the body that you are holding this
discomfort focus your awareness on that
spot it could be your chest or your
stomach and now begin to accept that you
have been judging you’ve been judging
yourself you’ve been judging the other
person you’ve been judging the situation
the acceptance of your judgment is
already starting this process and now
just take three deep breaths and begin
to release that judgment and let it go
release the judgment of yourself and
begin to accept it’s over
release the judgment of the other person
and accept it’s just an experience it
doesn’t mean anything
and release the judgment of the
situation and get that it doesn’t mean
anything at all I’m free and when you
begin to accept something will begin to
change you can open your eyes now
whose body feels a little more
comfortable yeah and that was only 10 to
15 seconds so if we make a decision to
accept our body feels different and our
reality changes too this is something
that I invite you to do in your daily
lives make a decision to accept and
bring it in the body so folks so far we
have learned
that the lifelong education on earth is
about acceptance so far we have been
conditioned to learn this acceptance
through challenge but I’d like to leave
you with a thought and that thought is
maybe we don’t need the challenge to
learn this acceptance maybe that’s just
the way that we’ve been learning so far
what if we were as conscious in our good
moments as we are in our challenging
moments what if we could go to the
peninsula and sip our tea in our fancy
teacups and still feel present still
accept ourselves accept other people
feel connected all around maybe life
will not need to present us with so many
challenges then maybe the ups and downs
will look less dramatic and maybe we can
go back to the way we were when we were
children and we were just learning how
to walk and we didn’t see it as a
challenge wouldn’t that be an idea were
thinking about thank you [Applause]
school of Earth many of you might have
an idea of something that looks like
this when I come up with that title but
don’t worry I am NOT going to give you a
convoluted thesis or a bunch of shoulds
or an instruction I’m going to give you
this whole concept in one word so I
stand with the wise words of many of the
world’s greatest thinkers leaders and
business tycoons in their concept of
Education and learning John Dewey who is
a speaker said that education is not the
preparation for life education is life
itself Albert Einstein said that when we
stop learning we start dying and Zig
Ziglar said life is a classroom only
those who are willing to be lifelong
learners will move to the head of the
class so what all of these guys are
saying is that our biggest and most
valuable learning comes from our
experience of life itself so another way
of looking at this is that a school that
we are all enrolled in from the moment
we are born is the school of life on
earth so I like to call it the earth
school in which we are always learning
now how many of you have been to an
educational institution called school
anyone been to school yes all of us have
and interestingly we are in the premises
of a school today so we know that in
school there is a curriculum there is a
syllabus there are learning objectives
like we learn how to multiply or we
learn how to construct a sentence so
perhaps in our school of life in the
school of Earth there would be a
curriculum and there would be learning
objectives for us but what could they be
what are we here to learn and how so if
I showed you this equation here most of
you will feel very comfortable looking
at that yeah we know the answer there’s
nothing to learn
but what if I showed you another
equation that looks more like this how
many people feel comfortable yeah maybe
one or two I bet not everyone’s very
comfortable looking at this because in
order to actually understand it we need
to become more conscious we need to
break it into little bits then our
perspective changes we focus more
inwards we move past our current
approach then we learn so just like in
the school that we went to they
presented us with challenging math
equations our life our school of Earth
presents us with challenging life
situations and the whole purpose of this
is to become more conscious focus
inwards and then we grow so perhaps we
can accept the idea that we learn
through challenges in our experience of
life but fortunately that is not all
that life has to offer us
so in my 13 years of working very
closely with people I have come to
understand that life presents us with
moments of challenge where we are
uncomfortable and moments of support
where we are comfortable and since we
are living in duality both happen
concurrently so at any given point in
time we will be experiencing some
challenge like maybe you were rejected
by someone that you love or you failed
your exam or you have aches and pains
and migraines that you can’t help but at
the same time there will be at least one
area in your life that is supporting you
like you have enough money in your bank
account you have friends that are
supporting you or you have a personal
resource of inner strength or resilience
and these areas of support feel really
good but that’s not where learning comes
from so when I was getting money very
easily from my generous father
throughout my childhood I didn’t learn
much about work or money because it was
just there then when I decided to open
my own company that’s when I grew and I
learned tremendously I know I was
fortunate enough to have someone that
would be willing to contribute to me
for my entire life but I didn’t want
that I was committed to try and do this
on my own so I wouldn’t have my parents
saving me and what I wanted to do is
open up a Wellness Center in Hong Kong
that focused on a modality called
hypnotherapy and when I said this word
hypnotherapy many people would think of
this so they would look at me and say I
don’t want to look at your face don’t
look at my eyes or you might make me act
like a chicken or this is mumbo jumbo
and words that you’ve taken from the sky
and you’re calling this a profession so
that judgement propelled me to look
inwards I was challenged by it I then
looked at why I’m doing this I did
believe in the work I did believe that
this is one modality that helps us to
access the subconscious mind so then I
developed this unshakeable trust in my
vision and another thing I learned was
perseverance perseverance to go with it
even if at times it might seem like I
may not make it so that perseverance had
me learn about how to overcome my
limiting beliefs there was a part of me
that thought maybe I was not skilled
enough maybe I didn’t deserve to ask for
so much money or I could fail and I had
to make peace with all of those and then
I grew tremendously and today I am the
owner of a Wellness Center in Hong Kong
and we do focus primarily on
hypnotherapy which actually looks like
this
it’s a session where we help people to
access the subconscious mind so you see
when life is comfortable it just sails
by and it’s so easy to enjoy the
experience of carrying your Chanel
handbag or going to a swanky hotel like
the peninsula and sipping in your fancy
teacups it feels good but it doesn’t
propel us to become conscious or to look
inwards instead when you are challenged
in any area of your life after your fair
share of whinging and complaining and
becoming the victim and wishing that
things were different there will come a
point where a lot of us become conscious
and we realize that the person suffering
the most is us we are suffering we can’t
change the outside
we can’t change another person even
though we really wish we could we can’t
we can change the way that we perceive
it we can shift our interpretation and
when we do that the feeling changes so
what if instead of resisting judging and
complaining about a situation we began
to accept the situation that acceptance
changes the way that we feel in a very
very positive way so there is my one
word okay this is what we are here to
learn in the school of Earth its
acceptance and the way that we’ve been
conditioned to learn this is through
challenges sounds simple right but it
may not be so easy it does take
something so let me first tell you what
I mean by acceptance the definition of
this because some people think that
acceptance means approval and they
collapse the two together and then I
hear people say things like how can I
accept something I don’t like I’m not
gonna accept that I got 30% in my exam
I’m not gonna accept that my parents
didn’t give me enough attention when I
was growing up that’s just not fair I
can’t accept that
well the acceptance that I’m talking
about is the absence of judgment both
good and bad it is not about liking or
approving or disapproving of something
it is the art of being with what is
being with what so without the judgment
and just being at peace with it and when
I say at peace with it the mind and body
feels calm so I have other people who
interpret acceptance with something like
a resignation feeling so it looks like
yeah I got a 30% what to do can’t change
it I know that’s the way my mom is suck
it up what to do can’t change her does I
look peaceful no there is no peace there
so true acceptance has no judgment and
it has peace it looks more like this I
get that I got a 30%
it happened it was an experience I
accept myself I accept the experience
it’s now over it’s in the past and now I
can focus on what can I do different or
what can I learn from that you’re not
denying it you’re not in a delusion
you’re not giving up but it’s freeing
it’s a different type of acceptance and
it feels really good
so our challenges that life has to offer
us normally comes in three different
categories we are either challenged by
ourselves our own behavior something
that we felt like we should do or we
shouldn’t have done we could have spoken
more politely or we could have spoken up
for ourselves and we beat ourselves up
the other area that challenges come is
from other people when we’re upset at
someone else for not being social enough
or neat enough or polite enough to us
and we get upset about that and the
third area is a situation like who’s the
President or a divorce happening in the
family or who is our boss it’s a
situation that we can’t change so the
thing to get from all of these is that
it has already happened whatever you are
upset about that’s happening in your
life right now has already happened it’s
in the past and the past is over the
only truth in this present moment is
that you and I are in this room that’s
the only truth everything else has
happened in the past and so it’s our
choice whether to accept it or to
continue judging it and sometimes all
these three challenges have been at the
same time so let me tell you how all
these three things happen to me and it
happened to me in my experience of
coming on the TEDx platform you see
along with being a hypnotherapist I have
become a public speaking coach and
that’s because people come to me to
overcome their fears and one of the
biggest fears in the world is the fear
of public speaking
death is number two so people would
rather die then speak in public so yes
that’s naturally made me a public
speaking coach and in fact I had coached
several people to speak on this platform
and I had never spoken myself and I
really wanted to so I decided to apply
the first time my husband nominated me
at the time that we were engaged and he
got a reply back saying yes we have
heard that this woman is getting married
soon and she won’t have enough time I
obviously didn’t know that I was
marrying him the second time my friend
nominated me and she got a reply back
saying yes we’ve kind of heard this name
before in Hong Kong and we’re looking
for someone that’s more unknown I didn’t
know that that was a criteria and the
third time I nominated myself and then I
got another reply back saying that you
know we’ve got so many applications and
so many of these people have been
through natural disasters some of them
have lost something in a tsunami and
other ones gone in a hurricane and it
doesn’t feel like you’ve had enough
trauma and obviously I didn’t want the
trauma in order to be on the stage so
there I was coaching all of these people
and facing my personal series of
rejection it was challenging and I felt
challenged on all three fronts
I felt challenged with a situation
because I feel like it’s something I
couldn’t change
I felt challenged by other people
because I wish that they would have
picked me and then I started judging
myself for maybe not being good enough
or writing a good enough application so
obviously it was time to look inwards I
was challenged in life so during one of
my regular introspections I decided that
I would accept that I haven’t been
chosen so far I would accept it that
does not mean that I was giving up or I
didn’t want it anymore
because that becomes denial it was just
accepting okay it’s not happened give up
my judgement of the people that didn’t
pick me give up my judgment of myself as
the victim be okay with or without this
experience let go of that attachment it
took something but when I did it there
was so much freedom and within that
freedom it took four days and I got an
email from a TEDx without me having to
apply and nobody nominated me and they
said to me that they would be honored
and
village to have me on stage and then
there I was last year and I did my first
TEDx so I find that miracles happen when
we apply this technique miracles happen
when we can let go and accept and we
don’t need the situation to change to
feel better so this sounds like a great
concept but I always believe that
learning really happens when we apply
this to ourselves so if you would join
me I take you through a very brief
exercise if you can please close your
eyes focus inwards and think about
something that is challenging you right
now think about any situation it could
be you’re upset with yourself or another
person or a situation and as you are
focusing on that challenge notice how
you feel in the body
I bet the body does not feel so
comfortable and there will be somewhere
in the body that you are holding this
discomfort focus your awareness on that
spot it could be your chest or your
stomach and now begin to accept that you
have been judging you’ve been judging
yourself you’ve been judging the other
person you’ve been judging the situation
the acceptance of your judgment is
already starting this process and now
just take three deep breaths and begin
to release that judgment and let it go
release the judgment of yourself and
begin to accept it’s over
release the judgment of the other person
and accept it’s just an experience it
doesn’t mean anything
and release the judgment of the
situation and get that it doesn’t mean
anything at all I’m free and when you
begin to accept something will begin to
change you can open your eyes now
whose body feels a little more
comfortable yeah and that was only 10 to
15 seconds so if we make a decision to
accept our body feels different and our
reality changes too this is something
that I invite you to do in your daily
lives make a decision to accept and
bring it in the body so folks so far we
have learned
that the lifelong education on earth is
about acceptance so far we have been
conditioned to learn this acceptance
through challenge but I’d like to leave
you with a thought and that thought is
maybe we don’t need the challenge to
learn this acceptance maybe that’s just
the way that we’ve been learning so far
what if we were as conscious in our good
moments as we are in our challenging
moments what if we could go to the
peninsula and sip our tea in our fancy
teacups and still feel present still
accept ourselves accept other people
feel connected all around maybe life
will not need to present us with so many
challenges then maybe the ups and downs
will look less dramatic and maybe we can
go back to the way we were when we were
children and we were just learning how
to walk and we didn’t see it as a
challenge wouldn’t that be an idea were
thinking about thank you [Applause]
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