Archive for the ‘Energy Independence’ Category

Energy of Emotions

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

energyoremotions

Energy of Emotions – Power V. Force – Pages 68 – 69
Outside View Life View Level Emotion Process Drive Scale Energy of thought & emotion in vs., Benefit Out
Self Is Enlightment Ineffable Pure Consciousness Salvation of Humanity 800 1,000,000
All-Being Perfect Peace Bliss Illumination Good of all Mankind 700 100,000
One Complete Joy Calm Confidence Transfiguration Your Success is My Success 600 10,000
Loving Benign Love Reverence Revelation We can all be happy 500 1,000
Wise Meaningful Reason Understanding Abstraction We’re all capable of learning 400 100
Merciful Harmonious Acceptance Forgiveness Transcedence Others are inherently good 350 50
Inspiring Hopeful Willingness Optimism Intention Life is good. 300 10
Enabling Satisfactory Neutrality Trust Release The universe helps me survive 250 5
Permitting Feasible Courage Affirmation Empowerment I survive even if other’s don’t, won’t or can’t 200 0
Indifferent Demanding Pride Scorn Inflation I only survive if I help others survive 175 0.1
Vengeful Antagonistic Anger Hate Aggression I only survive if I can control you 150 0.01
Denying Disppointing Desire Craving Enslavement I only survive if you give me what I want 125 0.001
Punitive Frightening Fear Anxiety Withdrawl I only survive if you don’t survive 100 0.0001
Disdainful Tragic Grief Regret Despondency You don’t survive so I won’t survive 75 0.00001
Condeming Hopeless Apathy Despair Abdication Why does anyone want to survive 50 0.000001
Vindictive Evil Guilt Blame Destruction None of us need to survive 25 0.0000001
Despising Miserable Shame Humiliation Elimination Just get me out of here for good 0 0.00000001

The book Power vs. Force by David Hawkins, published in 1995 is about the energy of emotions.   Hawkins measured the energetic response of various emotional states and plotted them on a logarithmic scale.   The last columns from drive over to the right are columns I created based on my understanding of his work (I welcome debate as this as I am just exploring these ideas but find it a very good behavioral model).   The drive column is in what drives people to experience specific emotional states.   The zero value in the row starting with the term permitting is significant.  Any state of being above that line – for any energy you put to living in the respective state, provides you with a return shown in last column (based on his logarithmic scale for the energy of emotions).  My company Cheetah Learning operates at the drive level – Your Success is My Success.  By living at this level, we get a 10,000 times return on energy invested.   Anyone who knows my lifestyle and the lifestyle that we’ve created for the entire Cheetah team is probably nodding in agreement on this statement.

The issue is that most of us have been conditioned through our up bringing and the current state of our society to live below the line.  This means that by living in the emotional states below this line, the energy we put into our existence actually depletes us – we get less energy out than we put in.  For example, lets say that you are living at the vengeful level.  If the energy you put into that emotion was equivalent to $1.  For every $1 you put into that emotional state, you would get 1 cent return.   Sounds almost as bad as investing with Bernie Madoff.
We all get to deal with others who live below the line from time to time.    While we can empathize with their reality, we do not have to accept their reality as our own and live in their energy depleting states.  And we can sometimes get dragged below the line as well by our own conditioned responses to situations.   I’ve attached a model we’ve been teaching in our new courses called Conversational Akido that helps change conditioned responses so it’s far easier to live above the line as a matter of habit.   Also, by consistently living above the line – we can more easily bring people up to our level rather than going down to their level. When you set up embedded systems in your life at home and at work, it is easy to consistently live a much more energized existence above the line.
For those folks doing the Influencing strategies course with me I thought this would be insightful – as the work he is sharing in the book is at the highest level.

Life After Cooking School

Friday, November 6th, 2009
Being Serenaded by An Admirer at the Trattoria

Being Serenaded by An Admirer at the Trattoria

Cooking school boot camp ended yesterday.   And I’m still in Italy.   I head home on Sunday.   I figured it might be nice to have some unscheduled time after the culinary immersion to just hang out in Italy.   I didn’t leave the room until 1.   Went to a little Tratorria a block from the hotel.   And had a lovely 84 year old gent sing us an Italian love song.   Boy do I like a country where I am treated like one of the treasures from God instead of in the US where I’m treated as if I have some type of self-discipline disorder for not being a perfect size 8. In Ominvore’s Dilemma, Michael Polen says the US has a nationwide eating disorder.  After being here – where these folks eat and eat and eat – all natural, locally raised foods, prepared with no additives,  I completely agree with Mr. Polen.   We aren’t getting fatter and fatter in the US because we don’t have any self-discipline.   We are getting fatter and fatter because we are purchasing crap products with too many preservatives and additives that help the food manufacturers increase the shelf life and shelf stability of their products, but that are literally killing us.   Spending five hours a day in the company of great people, enjoying great food and great conversation is the way to live – not running from one meeting to another gulping down whatever food you can quickly get.   The US doesn’t just have a national eating disorder, they have a national living disorder.

Cantina in La Buca - a very authentic Italian Ristorante in Zibello.

Cantina in La Buca - a very authentic Italian Ristorante in Zibello.

What is odd is in the US I am pretty much invisible – a standard middle age, rotund short woman of average looks.  It’s very strange – I am very well known in my field.   Pictures of me appear in all our publications.  Many people claim they know me.  Yet when they see me in person at meetings, they ignore me – like I don’t exist – until I go up and introduce myself.   Then it’s as if – oh my god, this PM “big wig” is standing here in front of me.   When five minutes earlier, they just blew me off.   Yes we have a problem in the US of what we think “successful” people should look like.

But because of way I look, people actually treat me nicer here.   I am reading the book Heat by Bill Buford.   In his book, he mentions a restaurant in a town just south of here called Zibello and a restaurant there called La Buca.  We had our tour guide Melanie make us a reservation there for tonight.  We were warned the woman who runs the place Mariane was a force of nature sometimes prone to storms, but the food was GREAT.  

Diesel or Gas - Google on the Iphone Saves the Day.  New found friends Fabio and Stefano.

Diesel or Gas - Google on the Iphone Saves the Day. New found friends Fabio and Stefano.

Carey practiced her Italian all afternoon making sure she had the basics down so we would do nothing to cause bad weather with Mariane.   However, when we got there, we
were welcomed with open arms.   Mariane, just loved us.   She showed us her “cantina” – with all her salami’s, cheeses, proscuitto’s, and wine barrels.   She had her son-in-law wait on us since he spoke very good English.   We were treated like royalty.   Maybe she doesn’t like the skinny US reporters who visit her?   She was very nice to us.

The big adventure with going to La Buca was just getting there.   We had not ventured out in the car since we got here.  And getting here was a very disorienting experience.   We left for La Buca right as it was getting dark, and it was raining.   We made it there without getting lost – and had an hour to drive around.   So for another adventure we decided to gas up the car.   At the station, we couldn’t figure out if the car took diesel or regular.   After much discussion with the gas station attendant Fabio and his friend Stefano, I decided to google the make and model of the car on my Iphone – both guys looked at each other and said Google – SI, Google and were nodding their heads up and down.   Very funny – yes the answer was on google – it took diesel.

One last day in Italy before we head back to the States.   I think I might find some type of cooking school in residence back here where I can come live for a couple of months.   Who would not want to be where you are just totally loved for who you are – instead of being dismissed by the general population since you don’t live up to some ideal of what others think you should be?    I love the Italians.

First Day of Cooking School

Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Carey and I learn how to boil Italian water at cooking school.

Carey and I learn how to boil Italian water at cooking school.

Well, it is now the fourth day of cooking school, and I am just getting around to writing in the blog about the first day of school.  They keep us busy here from early morning to late at night.   Mostly in EATING.   Yes I am learning quite a bit about Italian cooking – which I am coming to find out is as much about selecting the correct ingredients and enjoying a fine meal as it is about cooking.   The Italians are very passionate about their food.  More than five hours every day is devoted to meals.   This explains why I am having to play late night catch up on the blog.

Oddly enough with all this attention on eating, my pants are getting looser, while many of my classmates are having the opposite problem.   WOW what does that say about my eating habits at home?   A big part of the Italian cooking class is also learning how to consume wine with every meal and not get too inebriated.   I unfortunately am allergic to alcohol.  So while most of my classmates are getting a good number of calories from the wine, I am just doing the tasting meals.  Which is lots of little portions.   And lots of time in between.  Slow eating, over a couple of hours, small quantities of food and LOTS of walking in between time.  That explains it all.

Overall the experience with Academia Barilla in Parma has been fantastic.  My classmates are primarily woman – most over 40.  Two brought their husbands.  The rest came with friends or solo.   It’s a group of woman who love to cook and have a great time.   The laughter has been non-stop.   What I love even more about it – I am NOT IN CHARGE.   If there is a problem, it is someone else’s to solve.  (I did have to get one of my classmate’s computers to work on the internet – but as a volunteer it didn’t matter if I succeeded at that or not).

We spent the first day in a lecture where we learned about the quality certifications on the foods produced in Parma and how to distinguish the real thing from the fakes produced all over the world.  Very insightful education.   Sounds like the food industry has the same problems the Project Management industry has with people presenting knock offs as just as good as the real thing (non-certified PMs vs. PMPs).   Then we went to their incredible kitchen classroom.   We were in groups of four working on the recipes for a five course meal.  For every two groups, we had a dedicated chef to help us.   One of the woman in our group was trained at Cordon Bleu (what she was doing in this class for untrained folks was beyond me).   I learned “knife” skills the first day. by our in group “expert.”   The Academia Barilla chef, Nicola, seemed fine with my knife skills but taught me some  techniques if I wanted to try something new.   I preferred his approach.   After almost 40 years of cooking,  I wasn’t doing everything wrong with the knife.  I learned more about group interaction styles and what approaches work well in a team and what don’t more than I learned about knife skills from our group’s self proclaimed expert.

One of the other woman taught me how she chops up rosemary – never really had given much thought to how I chopped up rosemary or that it even needed to be chopped.  But then she explained all the different ways she used chopped rosemary with cooking her own beef as well.  We became good friends fast – a fellow cattle woman.   Now we’re exchanging stories on installing windmills.  Maybe we woman who love to cook and are willing to travel to Italy to learn more, have more in common than we realize.   And since I am not the teacher in this group – I am allowed to have favorites.  Mary Jimmy is one of my favorites – she is an emergency room nurse.  If I ever find myself in need of an emergency room nurse near the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee, I will be in good hands at her hospital.  I think we need to write the definitive guide to cooking an entire cow.

I’ve made lots of other friends in class as well.   An elegant woman who on a wing and a prayer made a dramatic life change to follow her heart and start her life over in San Diego – she was as beautiful as she was gutsy.   Another was  a recently widowed full of life woman from LA.  And then there was the truffle loving  veterinarian who took copius notes.  I became fast friends with “Mom and Dad” – a recently liberated couple who sold their chain of hotels.  And by the end of the week was discussing entreprenurial opportunities with this spit fire mom-preneur from Georgia who was on the trip with her Mom.   I also got to know  two wonderful employees from Sur La Table (good move sending those two to this class).  When we reconnect with each other back in the states – at least we know we can all cook.

I’ll write more tomorrow – it’s almost 1 AM and we’re taking a boat to some island to try out various olive oils tomorrow.

Please Excuse Johnny From Taxes This Year. Sincerely, Harry Reid, US Senate

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP

In younger days, the only way out of a difficult patch was with an “excused” absence. All that was needed was a note from Mum. Congress has shown us over the past six months that they are capable of writing these “notes” as well for their friends having a rough time in the financial markets. Congress’ notes though are printed by their neighbors at the US Mint. Coincidentally, both a note from Mum and notes from Congress have about the same value these days. All either do is provide a temporary reprieve from dealing with the problems of the day.

We’re always being exorted to write to our congressmen or senator (as if that really does any good). All of them were inundated with missives from the masses against these upsurd bailouts. If we received any replies at all, were just told, “you just don’t understand.” (I will share the replies I’ve received from Harry Reid on this if anyone would like to see them). Just last night I tried to send another note to my senators and congressman and their servers were overloaded. So I well suppose there are many of us still participating in this futile exercise in modern civics.

I have a new idea – we need to get an excused absence note from our congressional representatives, similar to what we used to get from Mom, to be excused from paying our taxes. I am willing to bet that every single one of us, has had at least as tough a year as the millionaires getting the tax payer funded bonus’ from AIG. It can be thought of as a “you keep your money, and I’ll keep mine policy.” I am after all a much better manager of my money than the federal government or the banking industry (as I can bet is everyone else who is reading this blog post). I cover college for my children, create jobs for about 200 people with my business, and have helped about 30,000 people so far make at least $10k more per year over the past decade because of the skills they learn from Cheetah Learning. But it’s been a tough year to reconfigure my entire financial landscape as the rules were rewritten by several thousand greedy bastards in the financial world. Even though they rewrote the rules, I still have college to fund, a business to run, and retirement to consider (mine and now quite possibly my parents). I’d like to be excused from taxes this year – this has given me a wee bit of a headache and a year off is just what the doctor ordered.

Better yet, it would be nice to get the money back that went into the ether from the kids low risk college 529 accounts and what was even touted as more of a sure bet – that 401k. I’m not asking for anything extra – just put back in what was originally saved, of course adjusted for inflation. Yes, I am a bit daft, as I have been told by Harry Reid, which is why i don’t understand the bailouts. And yes I was a bit daft for not fully understanding the rules of my kid’s 529 college account and mine, and my employees 401k accounts.

For all this stupidity, enough to go around really on all fronts, please excuse Michelle from taxes for the year. Maybe for good measure, give her a pass on the next decade.

Thanks Harry, John, and Dean – I’ll make sure to put something extra in this year’s Holiday Greeting card if you’ll do me this little favor this year.

Project Energy Independence Feasiiblity Studies and Mind Maps

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Project Energy Independence WBS Mind Map

Project Energy Independence WBS Mind Map

The official name for my New Year’s resolution of becoming energy self-sufficient is now Project Energy Independence. My energy improvement activities are well under way with replacing hot water tanks with tankless hot water heaters and swapping out high wattage light bulbs and appliances with low wattage ones. The next phase of my energy independence project is to assess the opportunities I have at each site for creating my own power. Here is what I’ve found so far:

Nevada – great opportunities for solar. The only constraint is space and money to purchase solar panels. For both properties there I can meet all the electrical power needs with solar panels. On one property, there is sufficient space to put up several wind mills and consider installing a geothermal heat pump system as well. I created a free Solar Energy Smart Start Guide based on what I learned evaluating solar opportunities in Nevada – you can get it at www.cheetahpower.net.

Power Profile for the Nevada Property

Power Profile Mind Map for the Northern Nevada Property


Connecticut – good location to do a geothermal heat pump application. Favorable legislative climate for creating my own power from solar – so I’m looking at putting up both solar shingles and some ground mounted solar panels.

Alaska – I have numerous energy generating opportunities on the land up there. I might be able to power the entire town with the wind out on my point. I was looking at a potential hydro power application using rain catchment – it would only produce about 1/3 the electricity for a small home – but it may not cost that much to implement. And I have some great geothermal heat pump opportunities as well.

If you would like to see the details of what I have been evaluating – visit www.cheetahpower.net

Dare to Dream

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Dare to Dream

Dare to Dream

Today is the day that I spend daring to dream the big dreams of life. And I want to encourage all of you to do the same. My big dream is to one day have all of us be sustainably energy independent – where we truly have free market economies in how we choose to heat, cool and power our homes. My Cheetah Learning team and I have been busy assembling a series of activities to inspire you to dream big as well:

1. Dare to Dream Survey – Click here to take our survey to share your big dreams.
2. Podcast – Click here to listen to my dare to dream interview and what I’m doing about the big dream of energy self-sufficiency.
3. Free 1 PDU class on Payback Analysis – use the promotion code “cheetahpower” and click here to learn how to assess the break even point on pursuing your dreams.
4. Click here for our Free Solar Energy Smart Start Guide download – This is in pursuit of my big dream – to help all become energy independent.

Dream BIG – GO FOR IT.

Truly “Green” Architecture

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

As part of my drive to become energy self-sufficient (and to help others do the same www.cheetahpower.net), I get google alerts for a number of terms, and stumbled into this website by Design Pedia from the term “Energy Independence.”

Amongst the many fantastic design concepts, something about these three images were really charming. And just how did the little square house with four sides and white picket fence become the aspirational norm?

Would you like to come over to my hovel for a nice cup of tea?

Would you like to come over to my hovel for a nice cup of tea?

What if I invite over my neighbor, a former NBA star?

What if I invite over my neighbor, a former NBA star?

What if the roof was covered with mint and there were sheep up there?

What if the roof was covered with mint and there were sheep up there?

Research on Geothermal Ground Heat Pumps For Residential Heating and Cooling

Friday, January 16th, 2009

As part of my quest to become energy self-sufficient, I’ve learned a great deal about using geothermal ground pump systems for residential heating and cooling. I’m managing properties in Nevada, Alaska, and Connecticut and my goal is to make all of them energy self-sufficient – this means that I don’t have to pay utility bills to heat, cool, and power the properties. Right now with inflation exceeding the interest rate I can earn on my retirement funds and the stock market being about as smart a place to invest as a casino slot machine, there are no safe places to invest my retirement funds anyhow. Investing in making these properties energy self-sufficient looks like the best returns long term. Visit www.cheetahpower.net to see how to analyze payback scenarios for multiple energy self-sufficiency applications.

I’m researching geothermal ground heat pump applications in Alaska and Connecticut. There are three ways to access the heat in the ground – drill deep wells, run long horizontal pipes below the frost line where the ground temperature is a constant 60 degrees, and the third is to use the water from a pond (one that I trust does not freeze). I’m still researching the need for geothermal in Nevada as there is ample solar and wind power options on the Nevada site to cover the heating, cooling, and power requirements of the properties there.

For more information on geothermal energy applications check out – www.cheetahpower.net.

The Solar Energy Awning

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

The Solar Awning Made the Sun My Best Friend

The Solar Awning Made the Sun My Best Friend

As part of my energy self-sufficiency goal, I’m working on making all the properties I manage energy self-sufficient. One property had a very high heat load in the summer because of a bank of windows facing south, but in the winter, this heat load greatly reduces heating costs. We’re in the first phase of the energy self-sufficiency project on this property where we assess the opportunities to reduce energy use while identifying ways to create our own energy specific to that property. We came up with a fairly simple solution that has a triple impact – the solar awning. It decreases the solar heat load in the summer, it allows the sun to make it’s way into the house in the winter for passive solar heating, and it is made of solar panels so it produces close to 3KW of electricity – meeting about 3/4 of the electricity needs for this property.

The design of the solar awning is available on www.cheetahpower.net.

To learn how to get started with solar energy – check out the free solar energy smart guide on www.cheetahpower.net.