Think and Grow Fit

Have you read the book "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill? This classic has been a best seller for more than 50 years. This book can change your life in a big way as it has changed many people lives, including me.

The most important highlight of this book is the understanding that your thoughts have an impact on your actual life. If you're having negative thoughts, you will face negative consequences. If you're having positive thoughts, you will get positive results.

The mechanism was discussed in previous ezines as the impact of the subconscious mind on the real world. But more important is that the subconscious mind is "programmable". You can "install" new set of beliefs that will help you achieving what you desire in life using a technique Hill calls "autosuggestion". Nowadays, psychologists name the same old technique as "positive affirmations" or "self hypnosis".

Hill inspired me to look at new areas where I can implement the 13 steps he presented in his book. This motivation led to the development of the 12 power-mind techniques for body and mind transformation. The 12 power-mind techniques became the biggest contributor to the huge success of my Anti-Aging Fitness Program.

But it gets even better. Engaging your mind in exercise will boost your results two fold. 90% of the people that exercise go to the gym or train outdoor while their mind is somewhere else. If you are running, don't you think about your job or family? If you are working out on weight machines, don't you think about your new love…or your lost love? We all do!

The level you engage your mind in the exercise is what determines the difference between an ineffective workout and a highly effective one. I have seen too many motivated people that decided to get fit, started to workout, didn't put their mind in action, didn't get results and gave up their dream…maybe forever. Who can blame them? They tried. It will be 10 times more difficult to get motivated again. I don't want you to be in this situation.

To make your workout really effective you must focus and concentrate each and every minute you exercise. If, for example, you are doing a chest exercise on a press machine and you are not planning, focusing, concentrating and giving commands to the specific target muscles, most likely you are engaging other muscles such as triceps and anterior deltoids. The focus of the movement is split among 3 groups of muscles instead of one and none of them get the full exercise benefits.

To lose fat and get the body you want is more than just…go exercise. You have to perform using the right form that will employ the target muscle and you have to focus like a laser beam on the sub-muscle group. It's not good enough to workout your chest. This is a big muscle group that employs the other supporting muscles.

The chest muscle group should be separated, for example, into 3 groups, each one of them to be worked separately: the upper, the middle and the lower muscles. Each one of them has different exercises, form and machines. But the most important is putting your mind into action and focus your thoughts on the specific sub-muscle group.

How does it work? You think about the sub-muscle group and your mind gives a command to engage the specific muscle while isolating any other muscle. Unfortunately, you often don't get this secret from many trainers. For more than 2 years I performed squats pushing myself up with my quads rather than with my butt and hamstrings. As a result I developed imbalances. I changed it simply by thinking about the backside of my legs whenever I perform this exercise.

Next time you go to the gym, make an experiment. Try to change the muscle engaged just by thinking about different muscles you work. You will be amazed how powerful this technique. You will also grasp how much you lose when you workout without your…mind.

If you are following a fitness program that doesn't show you what sub-muscle group is trained on each and every exercise, replace it right away. Every professional fitness program must connect the specific sub-muscle group to the exercise. Your job then is to connect your mind…to your body.

Think and grow fit…

Why 'Unrealistic' Goals Are Easier to Achieve

I had to bribe them. What other choice did I have?

My lecture at Princeton had just ended with smiles and enthusiastic questions.

At the same time, I knew that most students would go out and promptly do the opposite of what I preached. Most of them would be putting in 80-hour weeks as high-paid coffee fetchers unless I showed that the principles from class could actually be applied.

Hence the challenge.

I was offering a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world to anyone who could complete an undefined "challenge" in the most impressive fashion possible. Results plus style. I told them to meet me after class if interested, and here they were, nearly 20 out of 60 students.

The task was designed to test their comfort zones while forcing them to use some of the tactics I teach. It was simplicity itself: contact three seemingly impossible-to-reach people — J Lo., Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, J.D. Salinger, I don't care — and get at least one to reply to three questions…

Of 20 students, all frothing at the mouth to win a free spin across the globe, how many completed it?

Exactly… none. Not a one.

Bigger Goals = Less Competition

There were many excuses: "It's not that easy to get someone to…", "I have a big paper due, and…," "I would love to, but there's no way I can…" There was but one real reason, however, repeated over and over again in different words: it was a difficult challenge, perhaps impossible, and the other students would out-do them. Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up.

According to the default-win rules I had set, if someone had sent me no more than an illegible one-paragraph response, I would have been obligated to give them the prize. This result both fascinated and depressed me.

The following year, the outcome was quite different.

I told this cautionary tale and six out of 17 finished the challenge in less than 48 hours. Was the second class better? No. In fact, there were more capable students in the first class, but they did nothing. Firepower up the wazoo and no trigger finger.

The second group just embraced what I told them before they started, which was…

Doing the Unrealistic is Easier Than Doing the Realistic

From contacting billionaires [here's how one reader did it] to rubbing elbows with celebrities—the second group of students did both—it's as easy as believing it can be done.

It's lonely at the top. 99% of the world is convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre middle-ground. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.

Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel.

If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort. I'll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands, but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio. If I choose the latter because it is "realistic," I won't have the enthusiasm to jump even the smallest hurdle to accomplish it. With beautiful, crystal-clear Greek waters and delicious wine on the brain, I'm prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their difficulty of achievement on a scale of 1-10 appears to be a 2 and a 10 respectively, Columbus is more likely to fall through.

The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit homeruns while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.

Discounting to Create Cash Flow? Be Careful.

Cash flow is a huge issue to a lot of companies, large and small. I would be lying if I didn't admit that even in my own company we've experienced periods of tight cash flow.

The question we're answering is if cutting a price to get a deal is a smart way to create cash flow.

Here is my answer:

Before making any decision about cutting a price to create cash flow, think about how you can maintain the price point and offer the customer more value. Cash is king. I first heard Donald Trump speak that phrase and I've never forgotten those three words.

Offer your customer more of something. Anytime you can close the sale at the original price, you're going to be better off. Just be careful in what your additional offering is.

The last thing you want to do is offer the customer something more that ultimately winds up costing you more in cash long-term. Notice I said cash. I'll give up some percent margin before I'll give up cash.

Before you look at offering the customer more, you have to ask yourself if you've truly done a thorough job of actually selling. Many times I've found salespeople will cut their price only out of a false belief that that is what is needed to close the sale. You might say the salesperson or business owner is panicking over what they believe, not what the customer believes.

Before you consider discounting your price, make sure that the customer fully understands the value proposition you offer and that you fully understand the customer's needs and wants. Too many times salespeople will flinch and offer a reduced price too early in the selling process.

A thorough selling process means you need to ask enough questions and follow-up questions – and listen – until you are certain you understand what the customer wants. The more you focus on the fact that what you have to offer is of value to your customer, the less appealing discounting becomes as the only way to close a sale.

Is Discounting Ever Needed?

If what you're selling is bought solely in an auction type of environment and cutting your price is the only way you know you can get the deal, then yes, it does become an option you can use.

Regardless of the circumstances that are compelling you to discount, you still must be very wise in your approach. You have to remember that if you cut your price for one customer, you will potentially send signals to other customers and prospects.

If all of your current and potential customers are going to find out, then all you've done is move yourself into a permanent state of always having an issue with cash flow. The reason is simple -- you'll now be selling everything at a lower price.

What Will Your Discount Do to Your Competitors?

Just as you need to be conscientious of what messages you are sending to customers and future customers, you also must be aware of what your discount says to your competitors. How will they respond? If they respond by cutting their prices to match yours, then congratulations – you've now entered what I call "pricing death spiral."

Pricing death spiral is when one company cuts their price and everyone follows. I have one response – stupid! "Pricing death spiral" is often broken only when one company ultimately goes out of business or leaves the marketplace to focus on something else.

If you do need to cut your price to gain a sale to create cash flow, then it's imperative you do it in a way that will not send signals to other customers or competitors. Make sure the customer is isolated enough and the customer is not going to become a long-term customer.

One last point I would make about discounting is that you may have to clarify to your customer that the discount is a "one time" discount. The last thing you want to do is discount a price for a customer on one sale to create cash flow, only to have them expect the same reduced price for years to come.

To further protect yourself from being in the position of having to discount, be sure to build a marketing strategy that allows you to sell to different markets or industries. This way, even if you have to discount, you can do so with one set of customers as opposed to all your customers across the board.

Only you can decide if discounting your price is a good way or bad way to create cash flow. No matter what, make sure you think it through.

Small Audiences Deserve Your Biggest Effort

Having a low turnout for a speaking event can be disappointing. You might even feel like it's a waste of your time to give your full presentation. Here's why you should put your best effort into even the smallest audiences.

To make the most of your opportunities with a small audience, follow these pointers:

Keep your attitude positive. Recognize that this audience has given you some treasured gifts. One is their time, the hour they will listen to you and the hours it took them to get there. Another is their respect, which their invitation indicated directly--and which they will confirm as they listen intently. Be grateful for their gifts and give them, most sincerely, your top-tier content and delivery
Avoid saying to anyone, especially your host, that you are dejected about the number who came to the event. If you refer to the crowd at all privately or publicly, praise them for coming. You might even clap and get them to join you in applauding themselves.
Be sure your nonverbal communication is as upbeat and positive as it would be for a crowd ten times this size.
Meet every audience member before you begin, and chat for a minute as you cannot do with a thousand attendees. Imagine the boost in expectation and support when you have greeted each individual personally.
Introduce more interactive exercises--related to your topic of course--than you might use ordinarily. Some who would be too shy to voice their opinions to a packed auditorium will become quite vocal among twenty people. Welcome the likelihood of greater input, and facilitate it vigorously.
Give your complete, unabridged presentation, as Bob Hope and Jerry Colona did.
Offer more extensive follow up that you couldn’t offer for a massive group. "Please take my business card afterward, and feel free to call me next week with any one specific question you’d like to discuss with me. I’ll be glad to talk with each of you for ten minutes, to see how I can address the one problem or issue you’ll describe." Everybody won’t take you up on your generous offer, but all of them will welcome your willingness to help after the meeting.
A final reminder: When you watch speakers address many thousands of listeners in a packed assembly, you can be sure they didn’t start at that level. Instead, they spoke to many dozens of small audiences, giving them their finest information and liveliest delivery. Only so did they earn the opportunity to keynote major events.

The Secret Ingredients that Will Cause People to Give You Money and Make You Rich

These Secret Ingredients Will Cause People to Give You Money and Make You Rich:

1. Give something of value to the world. You want more of the material treasures of life, but are you willing to give something of value in return for them? In checking the lives of over ten thousand famous and rich men and women, I found that the value they received in money, recognition, fame, or power, was directly in proportion to what they gave the world.

Mental energy, time, service, personality, gifts, and creative talents, are all convertible into gold or other things of value. I discovered that the people who give things to the world that help the greatest number attract money easier then those who create for a small group.

The scientists, inventors, and creative minds, such as writers, dramatists, actors, and producers, seem to make the biggest fortunes, because they are bringing products, comforts, luxuries, entertainment and value to millions of people. Find what it is the world needs, and then set to work producing it for the greatest good of the greatest number of people and your fortune is assured.

2. Put integrity and quality into your services or products. The hidden ingredient used by many people is integrity and quality. This applies to whether you make bread of manufacture automobiles. If you want the world to proclaim you, give people these secret ingredients and they will make you rich.

But this also applies to other values than monetary ones; what makes a good friend? Someone you can depend on; his honesty and integrity, his character, stamp him and his actions. This ingredient can be used for winning love and holding it also. In fact, it applies to every creative act of your life.

3. Think of new things to improve and change people‘s lives, and they will make you rich. It was the newness of products like nylon, plastics, wire and tape recording, TV projection, transistor batteries, frozen foods, canning foods, and all the other modern discoveries and inventions, that made them so great. Look about you, in your own work or home, and see how you could improve or change the things about you, and make it easier for people to live, or to enjoy life more. The world will reward you with recognition and money.

4. Work to add to the comfort of people, to raise their standards of living, or to improve themselves, and you will win the support and recognition of others also. People are all anxious to raise their standards of life, and if you can think of some service, or some product to help people in being more comfortable, or having higher standards of living, your fortune is made.

5. If you can add to the world‘s knowledge or show people how they can use their knowledge to best advantage, people will respond to you and give you money. One of the greatest advances in modern knowledge was in the formation of home correspondence courses and this has led to a complete revolution in the fields of education. Now, at home, one may complete his high school education, take a course in mechanics, electronics, hotel management, and almost any other subject. Millions of people enroll in such courses, and million of dollars are spent for books and courses in these fields.

6. If you can show people how to be healthy and eat right, you have another sure means to a fortune. Gaylord Hauser has made a million through lecturing and writing books on these subjects. Elizabeth Arden has built a multi-million dollar business a year, catering to women who want to lose weight and be healthy and efficient. Then there are those who help inspire and uplift people and who cater to a deep-seated need for soul-inspiration, peace of mind and peace of soul. Such workers are humanitarian, and their efforts deserve support and recognition.

One of the best known in such inspirational work is Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, whose books and inspired radio and TV appearances have helped millions. Another, who has made a great name for himself in New York, and whose books are nationally distributed is Dr. Raymond Barker, who lectures at Town Hall in New York, as has overflow audiences every Sunday morning. In the new Philharmonic Hall of Lincoln Center in New York is Dr. Ervin Seale, who inspires those who hear him with his programs on right living, right thinking and spiritual philosophy. Both of these men may be heard on radio in New York City, where they speak to thousands weekly.

7. If you can build people‘s egos and make them feel a sense of self-importance, you will win a fortune. Dale Carnegie wrote a famous book entitled How to Win Friends & Influence People and founded an institution on public speaking and self-improvement that is still making a fortune long after his death.
Josephine Dillon, who trained Clark Gable and who discovered and made Ely Culbertson famous, was such a dynamic, inspired woman. She was able to make people project their talents to the world through her technique of training. Lee Strasberg, the noted drama coach, who is responsible for over fifty of our greatest Broadway stage and movie successes, is another such person who has a knack for bringing out the ego in another person. When the late Marilyn Monroe‘s will was read, it was found she left half a million dollars to this great teacher for helping and inspiring her.

Live Long. Stay Healthy. Join the Immortals.

The seven ages of man are a thing of the past. We're never too old to find a new lover, start a business or even have a baby. Now, we're ready for anything – except death. Welcome to the world of amortality.

My father was well beyond the danger point of a dive when a weight slipped from his jacket and spiralled downwards into the gloom.

We had arrived at the quayside to discover our Red Sea pleasure boat laden with US soldiers on leave from peacekeeping duties in the Gulf. The platoon's NCO proved to be a seasoned diver. His charges were novices. A 19-year-old private from Arkansas, paired with my father, then 70, for the safety check and first dive of the day, failed to secure the weights that are essential in controlling a diver's surfacing speed.

The mishap illustrated one of many rules that the sea subverts: on dry land a healthy teenager will invariably outperform a septuagenarian in any physical exercise. Underneath the waves, age is as fluid as water.

Confronted with a problem, the soldier lost control of his buoyancy, flailing like a fish in a net, while the older man, an emeritus professor of theatre history, calmly recalibrated their dive plan, communicating the change in the limited vocabulary of scuba sign language. Only once we were back on board was the natural order restored, as the senior grouched about the teen, who stretched out in the heat, blithely unaware of the animus he had attracted.

But the natural order is itself in flux. My father still dives in his 80s, still lectures, researches, writes books. People are living longer, sometimes much longer. Across the developed world the average lifetime has lengthened by 30 years since the beginning of the 20th century.

The fastest-growing segment of the world population is the very old, with the number of centenarians up from a few thousand in 1950 to 340,000 in 2010 and projected to reach nearly 6 million by 2050. You might have thought we'd use all that extra time to squeeze in a few additional stages of life – from the seven ages of man observed by Shakespeare, when life expectancy at birth was below 40, to maybe 10, 12, 15 stages now that a man born in Stratford-upon-Avon looks forward to an average span of 76.9 years.

Here's the crazy, counterintuitive thing: the ages of man are actually eliding. Youth used to be our last hurrah before the onset of maturity and dotage, each milestone benchmarked against culturally determined expectations. Those expectations are now swirling and re-forming like glassfish in a current. What that means is that the premises on which our governments legislate are outdated. Our economies are based on data that no longer applies. There is a profound disconnect between how we imagine life and how it actually unfolds.

The meanings of age have become elusive; visual clues untrustworthy. Children dress like louche adults. Their parents slouch around in hoodies and trainers. Rising phalanxes of Dorian Grays rely on exercise, diet and cosmetic procedures to remain transcendentally youthful. Glowing teens and twentysomethings are propelled by some of those same procedures into a semblance of premature ageing, their sculpted, frozen faces timeless rather than fresh. Female celebrities don't grow old; they vanish.

And there's another reason our perceptions of age have come adrift: the disappearance of death in the developed world. If we're lucky we may be in the middle of our lives before we see death up close and then it's usually medicalised.

Polite societies don't dwell on death; we're expected to dab our eyes and get on with the business of living. In the absence of legitimised outlets, our orphan emotions attach to public bereavements, depositing flowers at the gates of Kensington Palace and composing Facebook tributes for total strangers. But there's also a growing trend to believe we can control death. Assisted suicide is becoming just another lifestyle choice, at least in the abstract. Moreover, science has already added decades to our lives and must surely be on the verge of adding many more. Barely a day goes by without a media report of a breakthrough that seems to promise another lifestyle choice: to defer death altogether.

Things change. Amortals don't, not at the core. These are the swelling ranks of people – and I am one – who live agelessly, doing and consuming many of the same things from teens into old age. For us, the concept of age-appropriate behaviour has little meaning. We don't structure our lives around the inevitability of decline and death because we prefer to ignore it. Perpetual motion is a hallmark of the condition; we are prone to overwork, to adventuring. Nothing banishes those pesky intimations of mortality more effectively than illicit sex or emotional drama or some high-octane combination of the two.

Unwitting revolutionaries, we assume all options remain open, from youth into old age, and may be startled if we get round to having children at all to find ourselves reliant on fertility treatments or adoption agencies or surrogates to help us to do so (as a result having fewer kids than non-amortals, but sometimes in batches of two or more). We never consider ourselves too young to pair up, break up, launch businesses, take on the world or too old for fresh commitments, old habits, the latest technologies or new diversions.

David Battiscombe is a 59-year-old English bass-player-turned-property lawyer: "If somebody said tomorrow I had to stop practising law and do something else it wouldn't faze me in the least. And I think whenever I stop doing this I would expect to do something else, probably something completely different. It's the old Woody Allen dead shark thing, you can't stay still. That's just the kiss of death. A shark, if it stops moving, dies."

Battiscombe took up running in 2009 and last month completed the London marathon, a few months shy of his 60th birthday. Other amortals might mark that milestone with a different kind of marathon, a celebratory bender that leaves them mewling and puking like infants. The world is used to the spectacle of baby boomers, who never imagined they would one day wake up to find themselves in danger of being marginalised by the youth-oriented culture they helped to create, challenging shibboleths about age.

Yet amortal impulses are by no means confined to boomers. Amortality has reached a tipping point and is spreading through all the generations. For a dystopian vision of the ageless world we now inhabit you have only to watch hypersexualised teens competing with hypersexualised sexagenarians on any of the talent shows that have become Saturday night TV staples. The svengali behind many of the shows is Simon Cowell, who is on the evidence of his own utterances one kind of amortal archetype. "All the things I used to like as a kid I still like," he told Piers Morgan in an intimate chat in front of 6 million viewers. "Genuinely, my tastes haven't changed at all."

The evergreen Cowell – Botox, he once said, is a routine, "like cleaning my teeth" – has more than a touch of the Peter Pan about him. He has fathered no children. His plans to marry, after his first-time engagement aged 50, show no signs of reaching a speedy fruition. Death is unconscionable to him. "I can't go to funerals and stuff like that. I find it very difficult to deal with that kind of reality. I shut myself off totally because it affects me so badly," he confided in the same interview.

"The big surprise for me is that age is just a number. It's a number without meaning," mused Hugh Hefner. Aged 85, he's preparing to marry a woman 60 years his junior.

Amortals such as Cowell and Hefner may appear marooned in Neverland but they are only part of the story. The actor Richard Wilson became the personification of grumpy old age as Victor Meldrew in the sitcom One Foot in the Grave. In real life he's as ageless as Mick Jagger or Meryl Streep. "I find myself looking at people and thinking, 'Oh, look at that poor old man,' and I realise that they're probably younger than me," says Wilson, 74. "Because my image of myself is not of an old man, I get quite shocked when people call me an old man." When he was first offered the part of Meldrew, he turned it down, he tells me. "I didn't see myself playing older people yet."

"[When] I'm 70, and I pick up the phone and I'm talking to some young spark of 30 who's at the top of his game, will he pay any attention to me?" asks Bob Geldof, rhetorically. "No, but if I was still, say, having hit TV shows or hit records or still politically active in the proper sense, still arguing and being listened to, then they probably would. So age disappears in direct proportion to the vitality of your ideas."

Retirement isn't a proposition that appeals to amortals unless life after work promises to be busier and better than the life before. And the impulse to keep working isn't such a bad thing, given the changing profile of the world's population. In Europe, the 60-pluses are projected to make up 37% of the population by the middle of this century. In some countries, two-fifths of citizens will be in their seventh decade or beyond.

One of those countries will be Greece. Among the austerity measures its government proposed as it struggled to manage the country's debt crisis was to raise the retirement age – from 53 to 67. Angry Greeks immediately flooded the streets to protest an outrage that threatened their right to be paid to do nothing for an average of 27 years. (Despite having the highest smoking rate in the world, the average Greek life span hovers around 80 years.)

Amortals are more inclined to celebrate the lifting of compulsory retirement ages and to deplore the ageism that seriously disadvantages older job seekers. Here's someone who reluctantly left her job at the Royal Court Theatre only when her employers discovered she was beyond pensionable age, and went on to establish a freelance public relations consultancy: "The other day I was washing my hair in the shower and they were blabbing on the Today programme about the problems with being able to afford to take care of the old. And I was half-listening, and I suddenly thought, I'm an elderly person – I'm 77 – and this is about me, but I don't feel any connection to it at all. And it isn't a money thing because financially I'm the least secure I've ever been in my adult life. It's really that I don't feel like an elderly person. I used to worry quite a lot about what people would think when I turned up to do jobs, because you know, the expectation, but I've completely got over that. I just think well, I am who I am and it doesn't seem to bother anyone. Nobody has ever said: 'Gosh, do you think you're up to this?' Never, never, never."

The speaker is my mother. She is amortal, like my father (her ex-husband; both parents are long remarried to younger partners) and many in our wider family. It's no coincidence that quite a few relatives work in entertainment. It's an industry that commodifies the desire for distraction, and it's rammed with people whose greatest talent is to distract themselves.

But genes don't make us amortal; our socialisation does that, and the elements of that socialisation have changed dramatically as the culture of deference died, and traditional forms of authority ceded dominance to a makeshift cast of celebrities and scientists and a globalised, digitised range of cultural influences. Family, too, has lost traction as a vehicle for cultural transmission. As generational differences erode, relationships between adults and children change, often becoming closer. But if there is a weakness to amortal parenting, it is that amortal parents may be better friends to their kids than they are parents.

In the vanguard of the amortally driven transformation of family life, you'll find celebrities endorsing these changes through their own adventures in family-building. "I feel just as hungry today as the day I left home," remarked Madonna. Her appetite for adding to her family extended beyond her 50th birthday. Elton John unburdened to OK! magazine about his decision to start a family with his partner David Furnish. "David said: 'Well what about surrogacy?' I said: 'You know what? Why not?' I'm 62 at this point, but I feel 40."

Celebrities are the most effective sales force of our age, popularising ideas and behaviours. They're committed to the institution of marriage, for example. It's the institution of being married that's palled. And they increasingly use their celebrity power to shift products, too. Avatars of extended youth are often hired as the public faces of the multibillion-pound, multi-faceted global industry that is devoted to combating ageing and death or exploiting our passionate desire to do so. When we see famous actresses apparently defying age thanks to patented nostrums and programmes and potions, we react like envious customers watching Meg Ryan's phoney orgasm: "I'll have what she's having."

The problem is that not even scientists can agree on the causes of ageing or the possibilities of an antidote. A majority of mainstream scientists are pessimistic about the possibilities for unabated life extension. The world's verifiably longest-lived person, Jeanne Calment, died at 122 in 1997, and that may be close to the edge of the possible human span. But there have been flurries of excitement around discoveries that seem to hold out the promise of slowing ageing.

Last November, Nature magazine published a study showing that mice with suppressed production of an enzyme called telomerase aged swiftly but could be rejuvenated if the telomerase supply was restored. And there is a chorus of dissenting voices promising that if we work out ways to live long enough, we'll be able to live for ever.

Ray Kurzweil, for example, puts his faith in nanotechnology, the development of machines tinier than atoms that could be deployed in the human body to repair the ravages of time. Kurzweil's impressive record as an inventor (he developed the first flatbed scanners, optical character-recognition software, print-to-speech and speech-recognition technologies, as well as making fine keyboards found in many music studios), together with his unnerving habit of issuing outlandish predictions that later prove true, mean only the foolhardy would dismiss his forecasts out of hand.



He has signed up to have his head cryonically frozen after death, envisaging resuscitation in a more technologically advanced future, but he's not "super-enthusiastic" about refrigeration; it is, he says, a back-up plan. He is perched on a sofa in his office in Wellesley, near Boston, surrounded by awards, posters for two films centred on his transhumanist ideas, photos with people even more successful than he. "I have enough trouble pursuing my interests while I'm alive and kicking," he says. "It's hard to imagine doing that when you're frozen, but proponents of it say it's better than the alternative. Really, my plan is to avoid dying, I think that's the best approach."

For Kurzweil – 62 at the time of the interview last year, "biologically more like 41" – that effort involves a Spartan diet, exercise and handfuls of vitamins and around 150 supplements daily. Many amortals can't be bothered to put the work into staying vibrant, trusting instead to boffins like Kurzweil to deliver us from the clutches of our own biology.

Unfortunately there's no firm evidence that they will do so, even in our longer lifetimes. Amortals may be assailed by depression or left unprepared when the gap between our ageless sense of self and the reality of ageing yawns. I would urge my family and friends to drink elixirs or open their veins to restorative swarms of nanobots if I thought that would grant them even a few additional years. Instead I cling to the hope that by eating well and taking exercise, engaging and being engaged, they will at the very least challenge Jeanne Calment's record for longevity.

Stretching the health span to match the life span is a goal to which any healthy human can aspire, assuming he or she has access to the fundamentals of life and the modern health and sanitation systems that have already extended our lives. The blind watchmaker has saddled some of us with defects likely to thwart that ambition; accidents will happen; we inhabit a fractious planet in which violence is distributed as blindly as genes. Those eventualities are largely unpredictable and unavoidable, but the rest is down to us.

And amortality promises benefits as well as perils. Amortals will not step aside for younger talent, but our compulsion to keep working may provide at least partial relief from the economic strains of a greying population.

Moreover, research has shown that attitude does play a significant role in determining how we age. How you feel often becomes who you are. Boredom and its ugly sisters – detachment, isolation, rigidity – can drain life of joy, as surely as sickness and poverty.

When I asked my father about the regimen that keeps him fit enough for diving, he quoted an American folk song: "Oh, it's beefsteak when I'm hungry/Rye whiskey when I'm dry/If a tree don't fall on me/I'll live till I die." In fact, like many amortals, he doesn't easily or entirely accept his mortality. His impulse to outrun death is one of the reasons he's ageing pretty well.

How to Use the Simple Magic of Mantrams to Command your Superconscious Mind

"There is a slight difference between the words mantra and mantram. Both are taken from a Sanskrit word meaning instrument of thought. The difference is this: a mantram is a vocalized instrument of thought, while a mantra is silent."

Whether you realize it or not, you create and shape your life with your thoughts. All things that become part of your physical reality are first created in the mind from the raw material called thought. Because it is an instrument of thought, a mantram is a tool which you can use to help shape your life as you wish it to be.

Now, in order to use mantrams to your advantage, you need to first understand the mind and how it works. Nowadays, the term subconscious mind is one that's frequently heard but seldom understood. Instead of subconsciousness, the lamas use a word that could be translated as superconsciousness -- consciousness of a higher order. The job of the superconscious mind is to take thought, which is pure energy, and give it physical shape in the material world.

Whole books could be written on the subject, but just now the important thing for you to remember is this: your superconscious mind is a willing and eager servant whom you command by way of your thought patterns.

When you think a thought, you issue a command. Your servant obeys by manifesting the thought in the physical world where it becomes the things and events in your life. Thus, physical reality is a mirror of your thought patterns. Change your thought patterns, and you change the reflection in the mirror. In other words, you change your life.

This concept, as simple as it is, is a stumbling block for many people. They point to some unhappy or even tragic event in their lives and refuse to believe that they could have created it with their own thoughts.

But if you examine your thoughts closely, you're likely to discover negative patterns competing with positive ones. In one breath you'll say, "I want to achieve happiness." But in the next breath you'll give yourself a thousand and one reasons to be unhappy: your job is stressful; the weather is unpleasant; bills are piling up; you're overweight; the neighbors are noisy; you are late for an appointment; and on and on. So while your stated goal is happiness, your thoughts are working overtime to create just the opposite.

A mantram is something you can use to unify your thought patterns and bring them into alignment with your highest and best desires. To start using this powerful tool, you must first clearly identify the rewards which life is to deliver to your doorstep.

A Very Simple Exercise to Unify Your Mind

There's a very simple mental exercise that can help you accomplish this. It takes only a few minutes, so I suggest that you repeat it every month of so. Sit down and make a written list of the things you desire most. Don't reason as to what you ought to want. Instead, jot down your desires quickly, including everything that comes to mind.

Now examine your list carefully and ask yourself what rewards each of your stated desires must bring you. The rewards are what you're really after, so write them down also. For example, if you wrote, "I desire a better job," what you really want are the rewards of a better job. Maybe you want the fulfillment that comes from putting to good use special talents and training you have. Perhaps you want a bigger paycheck and the feeling of security that comes with that. Or maybe you want the pleasure of working in a friendly, relaxed environment.

The rewards you want should always be expressed in terms of feelings. Feelings, both bitter and sweet, are the fruits of your lifetime experience. They are the prize. When you depart this world,you leave behind your material treasures. But your feelings remain with you always. So choose with care those which you wish to have as lasting companions.

Now review your list of desires and the rewards you wish to achieve. Read it top to bottom, and as you do, search for just two or three words or phrases to summarize everything. This may seem impossible at first. But once you look closely, you'll see groups of seemingly different desires and rewards all aimed to a common goal. Separate your desires into two or three such groups and find a word or phrase to capsulize each one. To use a simple example, if you desire a better house, an expensive automobile, and a new wardrobe, the fundamental goal behind all three is abundance or prosperity.

Create a Short, Simple Command For Your Superconscious

By now you should have a clear picture of your fundamental goals, so put them all together and state them in a brief command. Make the command positive, short, and to the point. For example, "I demand happiness, power, and prosperity right now." And there you have it. When your command is spoken aloud, it becomes a mantram, or plainly stated, a device you can use to stimulate your superconscious mind into action."

The word power is a good one, because it will help bring about health, strength, and vitality in your physical body. And on a mental level, it will empower you to become master of your own destiny. "Right now" at the end of your command tells your superconscious mind when you want things to happen: NOW. It tells your superconscious mind to get busy immediately manifesting your desires

How to Use Your Mantram

Now that you have a mantram, putting it to use is as simple as can be. All you need to do is speak it aloud with conviction. Don't be timid. Feel the power of your voice and speak as if you are commanding a magic genie who will bring you whatever you desire. Once you have spoken your mantram aloud with unwavering conviction and resolve, you've done all that's needed.

Speak your mantram just before going to sleep at night and upon waking in the morning. Then form the habit of repeating it at regular intervals throughout the day. If you find yourself in front of a mirror, gaze directly into the reflection of your own eyes and repeat your mantram with firm confidence.

Then, as you go about your daily life, pay close attention to all the things you think and say. Be alert for negative thoughts or words that will send conflicting commands to your superconscious mind. They will undo the positive force of your mantram, so when you detect them, stop, take a deep breath, and cancel the negative thoughts or words by speaking your mantram with steadfast resolve.

Of course, if you are in the presence of other people, you can't all of a sudden blurt out, "I desire happiness, power, and prosperity right now!" In such a case, I would suggest that you use a mantra. All that's needed is to repeat your mantra inwardly and contemplate the meaning of the words. Since it isn't reinforced by the power of the voice, a mantra isn't quite as effective as a spoken Mantram, but it will get splendid results nevertheless.

Focus on the End Result

Whether you're using a mantram or a mantra, an important thing to remember is this: when you command the superconscious mind, you must focus only on the end result which you desire. Never try to dictate how superconsciousness will accomplish its miracles.

The superconscious mind is far more clever and resourceful than you can possibly imagine. If it is headed off in one direction, it is not discouraged and does not give up, for it knows that there are ten thousand other ways to achieve a desired goal. If, through your own thoughts and preconceptions, you try to tell the superconscious mind how to do its work, you will only limit its options and restrict the magic which can unfold.

The superconscious realm of your mind is a magnificent thing. It takes great delight in working to accomplish literally anything you desire. Desire is a very strong force, and when you use it to stimulate the superconscious mind into action, it will be thrilled to bring you your heart's desire in ways you never dreamed possible.

Another thing you should know is this: the superconscious realm of the mind does not judge your thoughts before it responds to them. It does not differentiate between pain or pleasure, sorrow or happiness, grief or joy. A better way to state it is, no feelings or emotions are pleasant or unpleasant to the superconscious mind. Its job is to transform thought patterns into matter -- all thought patterns. And it couldn't possibly do the job it is meant to do if it were to first judge your thoughts good or bad, happy or unhappy, worthy or unworthy.

In short, the wonderfully simple secret which can help everybody achieve whatever they desire is this: change your thought patterns, and you change your life. If you think thrilling thoughts, the superconscious mind will flood your life with thrilling things, instead of the miserable things in life.