The Best You February 2016 by The Best You Magazine

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Be Inspired

DANIEL

RADCLIFFE

FROM HARRY POTTER TO IGOR, THE ROLES THAT MAKE HIM A STAR

ROBERT HOLDEN

BE MORE OF YOUR TRUE SELF TO FIND HAPPINESS

THE BEST YOU EXPO

THE UK’S BIGGEST PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT SHOW

CRISTIANO DANIEL RONALDO PRIESTLEY THE FOOTBALL STAR WHO GAVE IT HIS ALL

HOW TO FAST-TRACK YOUR BUSINESS GROWTH

PLUS: DITCH BAD HABITS... FOR GOOD!

THE BEST YOU www.thebestyoumagazine.co

TRANSFORM • MOTIVATE • ENRICH • EMPOWER • ENJOY FEBRUARY 2016 / Price £5.99

Be Inspired

DANIEL

RADCLIFFE

FROM HARRY POTTER TO IGOR, THE ROLES THAT MAKE HIM A STAR

SANDY NEWBIGGING

THE MEDITATION GURU SHARES HIS LIFE OF TRANSFORMATION

THE BEST YOU EXPO

THE UK’S BIGGEST PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT SHOW

CRISTIANO DANIEL RONALDO PRIESTLEY THE FOOTBALL STAR WHO LOVES TO CARE

HOW TO FAST-TRACK YOUR BUSINESS GROWTH

PLUS: DITCH BAD HABITS... FOR GOOD!

E D I TO RI AL BERNARDO MOYA

Exclusive content and shots on iPad, iPhone & Android devices

WILL YOU

CHANGE? For many of us happiness isn’t something we think about as we begin each day. It’s usually the case that events dictate our mood as we start each morning. Have you and your partner snapped at each other over breakfast? Have the kids made you late leaving the house? Was the first email you opened up irritating or upsetting? Yet daily happiness is so important to every aspect of our lives – from the impact on our mental and physical health, to the sum achievement of our lives.

Bernardo Moya, Editor-in-chief

Follow me: @Bernardo_Moya

I was shocked by the results of our recent survey, which showed that nearly 80 per cent of London workers are unhappy in their jobs, many blaming bad management and bullying as the source of distress. Yet change is just a step away and so this month we will hold the first ever The Best You Expo where personal development experts from around the globe – including some of the industry’s biggest names – will gather to share their insights, knowledge and advice to help visitors take the first steps to being the best version of themselves. In this issue we feature articles and interviews with some of those leading names, including Robert Holden, Daniel Priestley, Janey Lee Grace, Will J. Jackson and Susan Armstrong. This is an unmissable milestone in the UK’s personal development industry and I know that those who join us will have their lives changed by the advice that they receive. With that in mind, the only question is will you be with us to experience the weekend? Register now at thebestyouexhibition.com

To enjoy additional digital content, video and online galleries, download The Best You App at thebestyoumagazine.co

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CONTENTS | THE BEST YOU | FEBRUARY 2016

REGULARS 03

EDITOR’S LETTER

WE SUPPORT...

Bernardo Moya welcomes you to this month’s issue of The Best You

NSPCC, the charity which campaigns and works to protect children in the UK

BOOK REVIEWS

A few of our favourite recently published books – plus your chance to win some great reads

FEATURES 22

DANIEL RADCLIFFE

From child star to seasoned actor

ROBERT HOLDEN

Why hapiness really does come from within

CRISTIANO RONALDO

16 TOP 6 RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS

Helping others in need

A footballer who played his own success

INNER YOU 10

HAPPY IN YOUR WORK?

A look at The Best You survey’s findings

THE BEST YOU EXPO

Don’t miss this year’s hottest personal development event at ExCel on 27-28 February

ENJOY LIFE 16

TOP 6 RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS The moments that define the movement

THE GOOD NEWS

With so much of what we read in the papers being negative, The Best You brings you some good news

JANEY LEE GRACE

Janey Lee Grace chats with editor Bernardo Moya about how to show up and stand out

22 DANIEL RADCLIFFE In it for the long-haul

EDITOR/PUBLISHER Bernardo Moya DEPUTY EDITOR Daska Davis ASSOCIATE EDITORS Cynthia Phillips and Gail Kingsbury MEDIA DIRECTOR Allan Banford DESIGNER Monica Notarnicola TECHNICAL CONSULTANT Martin Carter ADVERTISING advertising@thebestyou.co

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CONTENTS | THE BEST YOU | FEBRUARY 2016

LIVE LOVE LEGACY 40

INSPIRATIONAL STORIES

Amanda Hart talks about overcoming adversity and how she dug deep to survive

OCEANS SEVEN

Endurance swimmer Adam Walker chats about his life challenge and new book on crossing Oceans Seven

AGE OF INNOCENCE

Sue Atkins voices concern about protecting young girls

WHAT DOES IT TAKE…

…to be a blogger? The Best You chats with the author of a new guide to being an online force

FEEL & LOOK GOOD

46 BLOG SPOT How to max your digital presence

MIND AND MATTER

Meditation guru Sandy Newbigging charts his journey and the technique that has changed his life and others’ 52

CHANGE YOUR HABITS, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Susanna Halonen explains why positive thinking has the power to transform your future

THE NO-NONSENSE APPROACH TO HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS

Ailsa Frank offers insight into break-through moments

WEALTH & RICHES 58

THINK ABOUT IT Sandy Newbigging talks meditation

Daniel Priestley challenges conventional thinking about building a business to financial success

HOW TO GET UNSTUCK

Susan Armstrong believes self-limiting ideas hold you back

NEVER SAY NEVER ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

7 COUNTER-INTUITIVE IDEAS FOR FAST-GROWTH BUSINESS

Will J. Jackson wants you to stop the negative voice in your head

THE ROCKY ROAD TO SUCCESS

The Best You looks at people, past and present, who worked hard for their moment in the spotlight

21ST CENTURY LIVING 68

VLOGGERS MAKING A DIFFERENCE The Best You recognises vlogstars doing good

SPRING COLLECTION

Bryan Szabo reviews the latest gadgets

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CONTRIBUTORS

THE BEST YOU

DASKA DAVIS

is deputy editor at The Best You. This issue she chats with endurance swimmer Adam Walker about his Oceans Seven challenge.”It’s amazing how mindset can affect physical performance so deeply. At this month’s The Best You Expo we hope others will take their own steps to achieve their life goals too.”

@TheBestYou

SUE ATKINS

is a parenting expert, writer, speaker, broadcaster and coach, as well as the author of the Amazon best-selling books Parenting Made Easy – How to Raise Happy Children and Raising Happy Children for Dummies, the highly acclaimed Parenting Made Easy MP3s, CDs and workbooks and The Secrets To Well Behaved Kids.

@SueAtkins

DANIEL PRIESTLEY

BRYAN SZABO

started out as an entrepreneur at 21 and built a multi-million dollar event, marketing and management business before the age of 25. With a passion for global small business, he is the author of the three bestselling books Key Person of Influence, Entrepreneur Revolution and Oversubscribed.

is a Canadian-born freelance editor and writer who specialises in helping authors realise their full potential as writers. He believes that everybody has a story that should be told. His appearance on the acknowledgement page of dozens of titles proves that the voice he is helping budding authors to find is a precious thing indeed.

@DanielPriestley

@eidolonink

SANDY NEWBIGGING

SUSANNA HALONEN

has made meditation fun and beneficial for thousands of people worldwide. His work has been seen on television in 30+ countries and his last six books have become no.1 best-sellers. His most recent release, Body Calm, aims to help people heal themselves through meditation.

@sandy newbigging

is the Happyologist®. She is a happiness coach and writer who specialises in using the science of positive psychology to help people, teams and organisations to be their happiest, best performing selves. She is a published researcher, a TEDx speaker, an online columnist and author of Screw Finding Your Passion (It’s Within You, Let’s Unlock It).

JANEY LEE GRACE

is a spokesperson for the organic and natural health world. She is known to over 8m listeners daily via BBC Radio 2, and is the founder of janeyleegrace.com, a consumer website recommending the best in the natural, organic and eco world. She is author of five best-selling books, including two Amazon #1s.

MATT WINGETT

is a Portsmouthbased author who is also an NLP master. He uses skills learned from hypnotist Paul McKenna and NLP co-creator Richard Bandler in his work. For The Best You, he writes about the recent The Best You survey and how happy UK employees are in the workplace.

@MattWingett

@janeyleegrace

AILSA FRANK

is a self-help author, motivational coach and leading hypnotherapist. She is well known for her alcohol reduction system which she developed to help people take back control of their drinking. Her work has been featured in numerous articles in national newspapers and magazines.

@AilsaFrank

WILL J. JACKSON

encourages individuals to see the limitless potential available to them through their application of the principles of the Law of Attraction. With his distinctive and plain-talking approach to new thought, Will J. Jackson makes the practical application of his knowledge and experience available to million.

@jacksonwillj

@SuskyH

The Best You is published by The Best You Corporation Ltd, 5 Percy Street, W1T 1DG. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect The Best You Corporation Ltd, policy. The Best You Corporation Ltd accepts no responsibility for views expressed by its contributors. Advertisements and reader offers are not endorsed by The Best You or The Best You Corporation Ltd.

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Be Inspired

INNER YOU HAPPY PLACES The Best Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s survey results

Connect with the wonderful, special and powerful inside. Learn ways to get your mind and body in balance, bringing out the rich core of your being. Discover the secrets that will enable you to take charge of your inner life and become The Best You.

Put your company in this space! To sponsor this page and be part of The Best You, email us at advertising@thebestyou.co

INSPIRING CHANGE Be at The Best You Expo

www. t he b e s t youm ag azi ne . co

INNER YOU THE BEST YOU’S SURVEY

HAPPY IN YOUR

WORK? In total, 2,000 people from all regions of Britain responded to our survey, with age groups between 1865+ and, with both genders polled, it created a comprehensive snapshot of British attitudes to work at the start of 2016.

“

The good news is that 62.5% of people asked if they “love their job” said they did so “all the time” or at “some of the time”. However, more concerningly, 37.5% answered with “not really” or “not at all”.

surprisingly, 41% wishing their offices had natural light. Most valued and desired was a fair reward for work done, with “regular salary increases” coming in at just over 52%.

opinions about themselves by telling themselves negative messages.

These answers give some of the clues to what makes 38% of Britons unhappy at work.

•

Asked to give specific reasons for their unhappiness, a definite theme developed.

•

Here are some sample answers to the question: “What do you think UK workplaces need, in order for everyone to feel happy at work?” •

The Best You was interested to know what positive extra benefits people received from work, above and beyond a salary, with 55% listing a pension plan and 54% citing sick pay as a benefit. Bonuses were the third most commonly mentioned bonus, at 23%. This is the upside of the picture, but there was plenty of room for improvement, with almost 50% of respondents wanting more emphasis on work-life balance and,

• • • • •

A happy environment where everyone is valued Be more accommodating of introvert personalities in terms of office layout and interaction Bosses that aren’t bullies Coaching and mentoring Good bosses Less aggressive management

These answers painted a bleak picture for people unhappy at work, feeling undervalued, stressed and bullied. Many people also felt trapped in their jobs, and reinforced negative

•

27% didn’t feel “brave enough” to make changes in their lives 24% said they felt too old to make changes in their lives 24% also said they “didn’t have the necessary skills” 11% believe they would “never be successful in what I truly enjoy”

At the start of 2016, The Best You performed a survey of attitudes to work of people throughout the UK, including questions about happiness and what can be done to give people more fulfillment in their working lives. The Life Meaning survey had some surprises and shocks. We take a look at what this means for people in the UK

Another question asked how many people had suffered from depression, with 42% of people confirming they had. Of these, 13% had done nothing about it, yet – a perhaps unsurprisingly similar amount to those who didn’t believe they would be successful in what they enjoy. Another figure jumped out from the responses: Of those who said they don’t love what they do, a staggering 32% said they intended to do nothing about their unhappiness at work. This final picture is something that particularly concerned Bernardo Moya, CEO and editor of The Best You.

“

People need to know that there is always a way out. Feelings of fear, or being too old to make a change are about attitudes and beliefs. The good news is that with the correct mentoring and life skills, fear can be overcome and new attitudes of self-belief can be learned. These beliefs colour the way people think about things and stop them seeing the possibilities ahead of them.”

Moya went on to say that once people start to see their core beliefs have been holding them back, then new possibilities open up. “The acquiring of new skills is actually easy, once you’ve acquired new attitudes,” he said, “38% of people unhappy in their work is a sizeable number. We’re here on earth for a short time, and I believe it’s vital people make the best of what they’ve got, if they’re just shown how.” So, what solutions does Moya suggest? “For those in the most stuck places, I think it’s important they recognise that change is possible,” he said. “There are countless things you can do, once you recognise you need to change. Start reading around – speak to HR at work if possible, ask to go on personal development programmes. Changes in diet or exercise regime can make huge differences to people – but I think the most important thing to know is that change for the better is possible. It’s just waiting for you to take it.”

Be Inspired

The Best You Expo is designed to give you the choices you need to start afresh. It’s an opportunity to arrive with questions and leave with answers. Find out more, here thebestyouexhibition.com

I N N E R YO U THE BEST YOU EXPO

ATTE ND THE EXPO FROM

£10

LAST CHANCE TO ATTEND CALL NOW +44 (0) 207 927 6500 Or visit www.thebestyouexhibition.com

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W W W . T H E B E S T Y O U E X H I B I T I O N . C O M

COME AND MEET WORLD LEADERS

IN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND

LIFESTYLE ENHANCEMENT IN AN

AMAZING WEEKEND EVENT

DAY 2

DAY 1

THE GREAT MINDS SEMINAR 27-28 FEBRUARY 2016 MICHAEL NEILL

DR BARBARA DE ANGELIS

KELLE BRYAN

DANIEL PRIESTLEY

GRAND SEMINAR HALL (MAIN ROOM)

TICKETS SIR CLIVE WOODWARD

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FROM £199

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WEALTH & RICHES BEST FOR BUSINESS DAY 2

GILL FIELDING

BERNARDO MOYA

DAY 1

SEMINAR

KATE VARVEDO

PAUL BOROSS

MATT KENDALL

ABI WILLIAMS

DAY 2

SEMINAR ROOM 1

THE BEST PRACTITIONERS DAY 1

SEMINAR DR STEPHEN SIMPSON

MIRELA SULA

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STEVE CONSALVEZ

SEMINAR ROOM 2

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SEMINAR ROOM 3

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SEMINAR

DR JOHN DEMARTINI

FEEL & LOOK GOOD

DAY 1

Be Inspired

40 16

GO-TO GIRLS Wonderful women vloggers

PAYING IT FORWARD

Top 6 random acts of kindness

ENJOY LIFE

THE GOOD NEWS

Laughter, humour, travel, love – these are the things that add the sparkle that makes life worth living. Climb a mountain, give to others, start a family, embrace life. What are the things you wish you had done but haven’t yet? Life is no rehearsal – enjoy life every day.

Positive stories to share

Put your company in this space! To sponsor this page and be part of The Best You, email us at advertising@thebestyou.co

BRAND BUILDER Janey Lee Grace tells her story

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Exclusive content and shots on iPad, iPhone & Android devices

SMALL BEGINNINGS

Anne Herbert and Margaret Pavel’s 1993 children’s book, Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty is believed to be the first time the phrase was used to describe the idea that small everyday actions could make a positive difference to the world.

With Random Acts of Kindness Week on 14-20 February, The Best You takes a look at some of the greatest ‘do good’ moments

TOP 6… RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS 2

KARMA ARMY

In 2002, comedian and writer Danny Wallace wrote Join Me, a book about a cult that encouraged Joinees to the Karma Army to perform random acts of kindness, particularly on ‘Good Fridays’. He followed this with a second book, Random Acts of Kindness: 365 Ways to Make the World A Nicer Place.

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IN YOUR SHOES

On 14 November 2012, NYPD officer Lawrence DePrimo gave a pair of boots to a bare-footed homeless man. The moment was captured by a tourist from Arizona who posted it on the force’s Facebook page and the shot went viral within days.

ENJOY LIFE

TOP 6

4 COUPON CRUSADER

Jordan Cox of Essex took it upon himself to scour the internet and magazines to find coupons to shop for Christmas in 2013. He then donated £600 worth of food, which he had bought for just 4p with 470 coupons, to Doorstep, a food bank for local families. We salute you, super saver!

5 STAND UP LADY When beautician Katie Cutler read about the violent mugging of disabled pensioner Alan Barnes, she was moved to set up a fundraising page to help him. The online appeal generated more than £330k towards the cost of his new home.

6 IT’S ON US!

In 2014, medical student Josh Stern posted his #FEEDTHEDEED video to Facebook, a pay-it-forward initiative to encourage people to film themselves performing a creative act of random kindness, then to nominate friends and family to continue the chain within 24-hours. With more than 10k posts to date across North America, the UK, Australia and Mexico, we’re feeling inspired – will you join us?

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WE SUPPORT

NSPCC is the leading children’s charity fighting to end child abuse in the UK and Channel Islands. We help children who have been abused to rebuild their lives, protect those at risk, and find the best ways of preventing abuse from ever happening

Last year, fewer than one in three counselling sessions took place via phone with 71% involving 1-2-1 chat or email. This is the third year in a row that ChildLine has counselled more young people online than by phone, as the trend to reach out via the internet continues.

New figures from the NSPCC show a 9% increase of counselling sessions for children with low self-esteem, according to ChildLine as the service marks 30 years.

Tellingly it also seems to strike with the start of secondary school and continues throughout teenage years, with more than half of contacts coming from 12-18-year-olds contacting Childline to talk about the problem.

In 1986 when the round-the-clock service began children were mostly concerned about family planning problems and sexual abuse.

ChildLine revealed new figures as it approaches its 30th year which show children are struggling to cope with the pressures of modern life, creating a generation of children plagued by loneliness and low self-esteem. When ChildLine began, it broke the greatest taboo by putting sexual assault on the agenda. Because the service was a safe and confidential place to ask for help, it enabled children to break through the shame and fear that had for generations silenced sexually abused children. But today their confidence is being destroyed by a constant onslaught from cyber-bullying, social media and the desire to copy celebrities as they strive to achieve the ‘perfect’ image. In 2014-15 there were 35,244 counselling sessions for low self-esteem, an increase of 9% from the previous year.

“

Over four million children have been helped by ChildLine since it began. And recently, young people have been coming forward in their droves to confide just how desperate, alone, and sad they feel.

These latest figures reveal that girls are more likely to be affected by low self-esteem and unhappiness – it was their second highest concern and the fourth for boys.

Many children reported the ever-growing influence of the internet in their lives was leaving them feeling isolated, with many saying that social media led to them comparing themselves to others, and feeling inferior, ugly and unpopular as a result.

2016 is a big year. For 30 years, ChildLine has been a place for children to turn – even when it feels like no-one else is listening. We’ve helped more than four million children since we launched in 1986. And it’s thanks to our amazing supporters and volunteers that this is possible. But right now we can only answer three out of every four contacts from children. Will you help us to keep children safe now, and well into the future? That’s what our ChildLine 30 campaign is all about, but we need your support to make it happen.

Find out more at www.nspcc.org.uk

www.thecollective.co.uk

THE

E N J OY L I F E

THE GOOD NEWS

GOOD NEWS wurf.com

LET’S WURF! We’re making a conscious effort to be more mobile in the office, so our interest was piqued by the Wurf Board, an inflatable paddle board designed as an accessory to a standing desk. Micro movements on top of the bouncy platform improve posture and blood flow to strengthen feet, legs, core and back, and when you’re ready for a quick workout us it as an exercise mat too.

TAKE A BITE Japan’s farming collective, Matsumoto Apple Association has created a clever app which uses a patient’s bites into the fruit to assess dental health. The Dentapple has a QR code sticker which is used to offer free dental healthcare advice. Adds new meaning to, ‘An apple a day’.

CO-OPERATIVE LIVING Due to launch in May, The Collective is 12k sq. ft. of shared living space in a converted, abandoned London office building. Each resident has their own bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette, but will share living space with hundreds of flatmates. With a monthly, all-inclusive £1k rent, which includes wifi, cleaning and linen change it’s a radical approach to city living at a knock-down cost.

dentapple.jp

HANDS-OFF DRIVING

roborace.com

Formula E and Kinetik have announced plans for the world’s first driverless car race. The Roborace will see ten teams develop artificial intelligence capable of dealing with real-time obstacles, overtaking and evaluating risk to win races around the world.

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ENJOY LIFE JANEY LEE GRACE

LIFE OF GRACE Today known as a DJ on Radio 2, Janey Lee Grace’s career has been wide, varied, artistic and exciting. From pop singer to DJ to self-help author and brand specialist, she has a welter of experience to share – and unique knowledge of the levers of success

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“I was born to show off – when I was young, I used to find a way at every opportunity!” Janey Lee Grace smiles. “And I always wanted to be a pop star.” At school, one of her teachers played pop songs on his guitar. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” she laughs. “He was the one who inspired me to listen to pop music.” Doing a degree in Performance Art at Middlesex University, she learned dance, music and drama and soon realised her real skill was in singing. The course also gave her a level of professionalism, and a belief that no matter what, the show must go on. To earn her Equity card (the union membership needed to perform professionally in Britain), she sang in a covers band and then joined Mari Wilson and the Wilsonettes. It was fun, “12 of us in a minibus travelling around the country,” she recalls nostalgically. Then, from one extreme to another – touring the world as a backing singer with mega boy band Wham! for three years. Then came her own single, Seven Ways To Love. On the nationwide publicity tour she got a taste for radio. “I thought wow, I like what you’re doing. If I hadn’t come across that passion...” she shrugs. “Well I call it an addiction, actually. Because once you work in radio you never want to leave.” Soon she was hosting her own BBC radio show and interviewing countless stars, learning how to put the sparkle into presenting ideas. It became second nature to interview big stars, but she had her starstruck moments – like the day she interviewed Chris Martin of Coldplay. At this time, Lee Grace also began reading selfhelp, purely for herself. She became deeply knowledgeable about personal development, and in a passing conversation was asked by a publisher to pool her knowledge into a book, The Imperfectly Natural Woman. So what is her message?

“Over time it made me realise, I can’t just keep writing about you, you need to be prepared to put yourself in the spotlight. So many therapists, particularly practitioners, real experts would say to me no, no no, I am not going to speak at that event, I’m not going to be interviewed, I’m not going to write an article because I don’t want anyone looking at me, I just want them to buy my products or to come and have a treatment.” Though these experts had fantastic skills, they were missing the one she always had – her childhood ability of “showing off” really meant being great at publicity and projecting yourself as a brand. She was only too happy to share her knowledge. “People do business with those they like, know and trust. I recognise that many people do the work they’re doing not to show off but to help other people. It’s not about ego. I call it showing up rather than showing off. It’s a case of thinking how many more people could I help? How many more lives could I change with my amazing product or service if I stand in the spotlight and really recognise this brand is me. Here I am, you know and trust me.” She adds: “That’s how we make our decisions what to purchase – how we connect with people. It comes back to owning what I call your unique brilliance – and that’s getting in touch with everything that’s great about you. That may not necessarily just be your unique selling point; the packaging of your products or the service you do – it might be something else. It’s their unique brilliance that I draw out of people.”

Janey Lee Grace will be giving advice on your brand and connection with your customers at The Best You Expo in February. To find out more, go to thebestyouexhibition.com

“

I’m really passionate about trying to take the natural approach to absolutely everything but I’m also very realistic. One of the things I say is you just do the bits you can. A small change can make a big difference,” she adds, explaining how each change can “spiral and grow into something bigger.”

She looks for the “obvious natural solution” to living, and assures me, “there usually is one.” With the success of her books, Lee Grace was approached by friends and businesses seeking recommendations of their products. It led to a fascinating new area.

Janey Lee Grace will speak in the Great Minds Seminar Room at The Best You Expo on 28 February 2016. Book your place at thebestyouexhibition.com, where you can also download The Best You Expo programme today!

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COVER STORY

DANIEL RADCLIFFE

Exclusive content and shots on iPad, iPhone & Android devices

Lucky or not, Daniel Radcliffeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transition from child star to acclaimed seasoned actor has been a journey of self-determination and hard work

DANIEL RADCLIFFE 22

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CARRYING

THE GIFT

The story of Daniel Radcliffe’s rise to fame is the classic ‘dream come true’ story. A boy, picked from thousands of boys, when the producer supposedly got a chance sighting of him is the classic account of the fickle finger of fame plucking someone from the crowd and lifting them to superstar status. The truth, however, is not quite so simple. And the aftermath of Radcliffe’s rise to stardom is perhaps equally instructive, because it reveals how he has continued to stay on a high since the end of the Harry Potter franchise. Radcliffe’s life is not a tale of rags to riches or the outsider made good. He grew up in a comfortable middle class world with parents involved in entertainment. His mother, Marcia was a casting agent; his father Alan worked for a literary agency and was familiar with theatrical work.

After seeing thousands of boys, Potter director Chris Columbus saw him in David Copperfield and declared: “I want that boy.”

Born in 1989 in Fulham, West London, he attended the prestigious private school Sussex House, Chelsea. He was not a particularly bright or able child – he suffers from dyspraxia, a condition which interferes with motor skills and makes the organisation of information difficult. When he was eight, he was told by a teacher that he was stupid. “Some people just don’t do well at school,” he says “I learn by talking back and engaging in conversation and walking around.” Though he now considers the label “outrageous”, it stuck. He was disinterested in reading and was not good either on the school playing field or in the classroom. Radcliffe remembers his schooldays with disdain, commenting that he “fucking hated” them and that being thrown into the acting world where he met thousands of people from different backgrounds changed him for the better. Escaping a narrow middle class world, he has gone on to become a thoughtful, intelligent adult. It isn’t true to say, as some have claimed, that he “always wanted to be an actor”, though through his parents he was in contact with actors and acting at an early age. His mother, seeing that he wasn’t doing well at school helped get him a part in a BBC production of David Copperfield, in which he played the young titular hero, performing alongside Maggie Smith, among others, on whom he left a favourable impression. After seeing thousands of boys, Potter director Chris Columbus saw him in David Copperfield and declared: “I want that boy.” * His parents were extremely wary of their son being pulled into the Hollywood lifestyle. Warner Bros intended to make the series in the USA, and his parents believed having Radcliffe away for so many years would have interrupted his life. They responded with a firm, ‘No’. Radcliffe was out of contention.

Harry Potter producer David Heyman later saw Radcliffe in the audience and decided to approach his parents directly to overcome the hurdles required to make the Harry Potter movies possible.

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“

It was a coincidence and a dream come true, but it wasn’t exactly the fairy tale stroke of luck the popular myth makes it out to be.

Perhaps one of the most important and stabilising influences in Radcliffe’s life has been that of his parents. Their insight into the industry has helped keep Radcliffe’s feet firmly on the ground. He is self-effacing and modest, and is truly grateful for chances he has been given. But he has traits that mark him out from other child stars. One of them is his willingness to work hard at what he does. On the Potter set, he continually pushed himself to find new depths of emotional intensity. He decided to do some stunts himself, including a spectacular underwater scene in which he spent months in scuba training. He takes guidance from whomever he can, and from early on applied himself to his role to find emotional truth in it. This even involved asking his dad to talk about a murder he heard while he lived in Northern Ireland, in order to prepare for a scene in which Harry Potter talks about the death of his mother.

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It is definitely true that Radcliffe has been “lucky”. He’s said so himself on numerous occasions. But he has also made the most of his luck.

Plenty of child stars have been wrecked by their rise to fame. Jack Wilde, the brilliant young Artful Dodger in the movie version of Oliver! is one; Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin is another who lived a troubled life after early success. Radcliffe, too, had his period of losing control. Between 18-21 he became the “embarrassing drunk at the party”, and was saved from media exposure largely by good luck and the protective behaviour of his friends. He looks back on the period philosophically. “I was too young to move out on my own from home,” he says. “And I had too much money.” That was a particularly dark period in his life, in which he would drink in the evenings to blackout, and then arrive on set the next day hungover and disoriented. It even led to some commentators seeking to guess which scenes he was ‘vacant’ in, due to overindulgence. However, at the same time, he was determined not to be trapped by his Potter image. At 17 he took on the lead role in the dark Peter Shaffer play, Equus, which saw him appearing on stage naked, in one scene simulating sex with a horse. It earned him strong positive reviews

and proved to the world he was not, in his own deliberately ironic words “a one trick pony.” Hardly the safe, family entertainment of the Harry Potter universe! He appeared in other movies which stretched him in other directions, playing a delinquent and getting naked again in the Australian movie December Boys and appearing opposite Carey Mulligan in World War One television drama, My Boy Jack. After his period of out-of-control drinking, at 21, Radcliffe took control of his life, just as the Harry Potter series came to its end. It is here that his intelligence and hard work have really shown through. His first major film after the Harry Potter series was The Woman In Black – a dark Hammer horror movie in which Radcliffe carries much of the film, playing an older man. The film received excellent reviews, with Radcliffe strongly praised by critics. In all his roles, Radcliffe continues to push himself to breaking point. For example, he took on the lead role in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying and learned to sing and dance – this despite his dyspraxia, which makes learning such things so difficult. On that run of performances on Broadway, he acted in a “perfect run”, never taking a day off. He seems to have an almost obsessive desire not to back out, but to keep going and see how far he can push himself. For this reason he refused to attend the premiere of the final Harry Potter movie, until Warner Brothers bought all the tickets for the show’s performance, at which point he agreed to come London. Radcliffe’s dedication to hard work – call it workaholism, is combined with modesty and a realism about his fame. He is not a prima donna, and finds it preposterous that people kowtow to celebrity. He is courteous with his fans, and every inch the professional. Voltaire wrote,

“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.” This is indeed what Radcliffe is doing. Yes, he was lucky. But he hasn’t squandered that luck. He has built on it. Now estimated to be worth more than £60m, he doesn’t need to work, but he goes on – hoping to improve and hone his acting – and making his own luck along the way.

To read more about Daniel Radcliffe download The Best You App at thebestyoumagazine.co

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F E AT U R E

ROBERT HOLDEN

HAPPINESS

IS THE BEST Happiness expert Robert Holden talks to Bernardo Moya about feeling good, love and success, and the place they all come from

Robert Holden has his parents to thank for his becoming a leading light of the Positive Psychology movement. He was aware of the flipside of happiness early on.

effect and not just a cause; it’s the effect of your identity. In other words, we think according to the person we think we are. Our self-image, our sense of self is what governs our psychology.”

His mother suffered depression which sometimes lasted for months and led to hospitalisation, while his father suffered from alcoholism.

So what is the way out of being governed by our self-image?

“This somersaulted me forward into an enquiry about life,” he tells me.

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“There I was as a teenager, asking big questions like: what is life for, do we have a purpose, is there a meaning, how can we live essentially a good life? ” Holden’s first experience in helping people came in his work at his NHS Stressbusters Clinic in Birmingham. He soon realised there was a problem with the clinic’s focus – it was problem-oriented, focusing on unhappiness. Soon, he started to look at what was missing from people’s lives, actively seeking to understand the positives. Doing so, meant “more and more conversations about happiness and about success and about love and about abundance,” he smiles. “Rather than just talking about all the so-called negatives, we were now talking about all of the things that really matter.” So, how does his approach differ from traditional psychological approaches to stress? “I found that really psychology didn’t help change people’s psychology for the most part. We had some success but it was patchy. What I realised is that psychology is an

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If you can change your mind about yourself, if you can understand yourself better, if you can recognise your strengths and your gifts, if you can recognise your innate value, if you can understand some of that – I consider that to be spiritual, by the way – then, automatically, your psychology upgrades itself because you have a better relationship with yourself. Ultimately, I discovered that spirituality determines psychology, and your sense of identity determines your psychology.”

The message from this approach is clear: “Work on who you are – and work on being even more of who you are, it’s one of my big messages.” So, you don’t need to mend yourself? “Absolutely. One of the big principles of my work is that most people don’t need more therapy; they just need more

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clarity, and what I mean by that is that we’re not really broken, any of us, but we are sometimes lacking in focus, sometimes we’ve got distracted, sometimes we’ve taken a wrong turn and actually when we just get clearer – clearer about who we are, clearer about what real success is, clearer about what real happiness is – that clarity actually helps us to handle our stress better. Even better than that, it helps deliver a better life, a greater life, and to help us fulfill our purpose.”

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Holden tells me there is no point “searching for happiness” in the conventional way. The approach doesn’t work because you get caught up in the act of searching, and don’t realise that restless searching is an expression of unhappiness.

His approach is different. It is about shifting the whole paradigm.

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One of my big messages is that the key to happiness and the key to success isn’t changing yourself, it’s not re-inventing yourself, it’s actually daring to be even more of who you really are, it’s trusting that you are infused with gifts and talents and strengths, and that if you pay attention to yourself, you’ll recognise those gifts, talents and strengths more.

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By recognising them more, you’ll have the confidence to express them more, to use them more and to work with them. Ultimately I think one of the great keys to success is to dare to be even more of who you are and that’s a big message of my work.”

To find out more about Robert Holden’s books visit his online shop at

Having worked and written a book with one of the personal development industry’s biggest names, Louise Hay, founder of Hay House, Holden also spent time interviewing leading names as part of last year’s Hay House Summit – Doreen Virtue, Paul McKenna, Michael Neil and Mastin Kipp all shared their career insights, giving Holden a unique perspective of different influences. These have helped to reinforce his own view of the importance of happiness.

http://www. robertholden. org/shop/

So, I ask, being happy and successful and more loved has a key ingredient – that you learn to be the best you? By connecting with your inner authenticity you become the best you can be? He nods. “That’s something that I’ll definitely be talking about at the ‘The Best You Exhibition’.

Robert Holden will speak in the Great Minds Seminar Room at The Best You Expo on 28 February 2016. Book your place at thebestyouexhibition.com, where you can also download The Best You Expo programme today!

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F E AT U R E

CRISTIANO RONALDO

Cristiano Ronaldo was born on 5 February 1985, in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, growing up in a working class neighbourhood in genuine poverty, the youngest of four children. His home by the sea was a small tinroofed shack where he shared a room with his brother and two sisters. His father was, among other things, a gardener who had a drink problem, and his mother worked as a cook and cleaner. Through his father’s other work as an equipment manager at a boy’s club, Ronaldo came to play soccer. By the time he was ten years old, he was already recognised as a phenomenon – a kid who ate, slept and drank the game. “All he wanted to do as a boy was play football,” his godfather, Fernao Sousa, recalled for British reporters, adding, “He loved the game so much he’d miss

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meals or escape out of his bedroom window with a ball when he was supposed to be doing his homework.” Ronaldo always had a strong sense of his own value, famously being expelled from school after throwing a chair at his teacher because he “disrespected” him. His mother’s mediating influence saw him agree to focus on his football at the age of 14. Early on he believed he had what it took to play professionally. In 1995, aged ten, he signed with the local club, Nacional and was later signed with Sporting CP for an undisclosed sum. From the very start, he broke records, becoming the only player to ever play for Sporting’s under-16, under-17, under-18, B-team and first team all in one season. Playing his first league game, he scored two goals.

Diagnosed with a racing heart at the age of 15, he underwent laser surgery, which cauterised the part of his heart causing the problem. He was discharged on the same day, and was playing football again a few days later. It was at an exhbition match in Lisbon in 2003 that Ronaldo stepped on to the world stage as a footballer. In an exhibition match between Manchester United and Sporting at the inauguration of Jose Alvalade Stadium his team beat the tourists.

United’s players were so impressed they urged Sir Alex Ferguson to sign him. He did, paying £12.24m for his fiery new player. It was money well spent. He repaid the investment in the 2004 FA Cup final, scoring the team’s first three goals and helping them take the trophy.

THE RISE OF

RONALDO The Best You looks at the extraordinary career of footballing legend, Cristiano Ronaldo

He is an extraordinary talent who is able to anticipate the ball with amazing precision and can read the action on the pitch with a deeply ingrained instinct and legendary reaction times

During his time at Manchester, Ronaldo developed the extraordinary skills and flair that are his trademark. He is not only a technically brilliant player, but also a consummate performer who knows how to entertain a crowd.

Described by many as, “the new George Best”, Best himself responded that there had been many players who’d been described as such in the past, but this was the first time the accolade had been a compliment to him rather than the new player.

He deliberately chooses the more spectacular kick simply because he can, to the delight of spectators.

At Manchester, Ronaldo helped take the side to three Premier League wins, and also to winning the FIFA World Cup.

Sir Alex Ferguson once said,

In 2009, he was named World Player of the Year, and then transferred to Real Madrid for the sum of £80m – at the time making him the most expensive footballer in history.

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He is one of the most exciting young players I’ve ever seen.” Nor is there any waste in his display of flair, since his shooting is accurate and fast.

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He said: “I know they are going to demand a lot of me to be successful at the club and I know that I’m going to have much more pressure than at Manchester United because I was there for many years. It means a new

challenge and is going to help me be the best footballer.” His winning streak went on from there, when he broke the 2010-11 La Liga goal-scoring record, helped Real Madrid gain the La Liga title and became the fastest player to ever reach 200 goals for Madrid and continuing to skittle away old records – the latest being his claiming the laurel of being Real Madrid’s all-time record goal-scorer. As wells as his FIFA World Player of the Year award, Ronaldo has won the highly prized Ballon d’OR, the Golden Boot and has been named the UEFA Club Forward of the Year. He is an extraordinary talent who is able to anticipate the ball with extraordinary precision and can read the action on the pitch with a deeply ingrained instinct and legendary reaction times. *

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This month we are giving away a wide range of fantastic books. If you’d like to be in with a chance of winning , simply email your name and contact details to prizegiveaways@thebestyou.co with the name of the prize you would like to win in the subject title before 29 February 2016*

Marma Therapy – the art of treating specific vital points on the human body – is one of the greatest healing secrets of Ayurveda. It can be used to detoxify, strengthen and revitalise the body, for rejuvenation and relaxation or to release blocked energy. Clear step-by-step instructions and photographs illustrate the techniques, and advice is also included for self-treatment.

Marma Therapy: The Healing Power of Ayurvedic Vital Point Massage by Dr Ernst Schrott, Dr J. Ramanuja Raju, Stefan Schrott

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The authors explain how to strengthen the Marmas through yoga and use mudras to support and complement Marma treatment. Finally, they describe how to treat common physical and emotional conditions, from headache and back pain, to exam nerves and insomnia.

Trust: Mastering the Four Essential Trusts by Iyanla Vanzant

In this wise book, the New York Times best-selling author and host of OWN’s popular reality TV show Iyanla: Fix My Life reveals how to cultivate this liberating power – by exploring what trust really is, how to trust, and why to trust. She outlines the special rewards that come from mastering the four essential trusts: trust in God, trust in yourself, trust in others, and trust in life. And she challenges us to see how each of these are actually deeply interconnected. This book’s pragmatic trust-building prescriptions demonstrate how communication, consistency and cooperation can antidote trust-destroying behaviours and revitalise us with increased authenticity, greater resilience, and renewed peace in every part of our lives.

WIN! We have one copy of each book to give away. TERMS AND CONDITIONS One entry per household. Entry implies acceptance of rules and conditions. No purchase necessary. Open to all UK residents aged 18 years or over, other than employees of The Best You and companies associated with it. Draw will be conducted by The Best You Corporation. Prize is as stated and will be awarded to the entry drawn at random on the draw date. No cash alternative is available. No correspondence will be entered into. Delayed entries will be deemed invalid. Winners’ names may be published and the winners may be required to participate in publicity. Promoter: The Best You Corporation.

Nutrition for Intuition by Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves

Now you can learn which foods and beverages will boost your natural intuitive abilities... and your physical health! Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves, N.D share practical ways for you to enhance your spiritual gifts by making simple dietary changes and additions. You’ll read about how to monitor the life-force energy within your daily meals, drinks and lifestyle habits so that you can supercharge your intuition and manifestation efforts.

A Course in Miracles – the self-study spiritualthought system that teaches the way to love and forgiveness – has captivated the minds and captured the hearts of millions of people. Delivering inner peace where fear and pain once prevailed, its universal message is unsurpassed in its power to heal. Yet many students report that they have difficulty grasping the principles or keeping up with the lessons. So even while they yearn for the spiritual freedom the course offers, they put the book aside, hoping to get to it one day.

A Course in Miracles Made Easy: Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love by Alan Cohen

Need some inspired thinking? Enter our lucky dip and we’ll send one winner a book from The Best You’s bookshelf.

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BOOK Be Inspired

REVIEWS

With the power to entertain, enrich and empower your life, books are as important today as they have been for millennia. Here’s what’s catching our eye at The Best You this month…

THE END? Fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones may see the fates of their favourite characters turn out differently on screen than for those in the book. Author George RR Martin whose novels inspired the TV show says he is “months away” from completing the latest installment which will not be delivered to publishers before the next season of the show airs in April. This leaves the show’s producers with the predicament of whether screen overtakes script and that the two differ

over future seasons. Although there have been broad discussions between the author and the producers about the plot’s conclusion, details may differ between the two – double the reason to stay tuned!

“I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write”

- J. K. Rowling

BOOK REVIEW ADAM WALKER

MAN VERSUS OCEAN BY ADAM WALKER

Adam Walker is not your everyday record-breaking sportsman. He took on arguably the toughest extreme sport on the planet – to swim non-stop across seven of the world’s deadliest oceans wearing only swim trunks, cap and goggles. It is not a test for the fainthearted: swimmers face freezing temperatures, huge swells, treacherous currents, potentially deadly marine life (from sharks to Portuguese men o’ war), vomiting and burning off a week’s calories in a single swim!

”A true inspiration” - Mark Foster,

six-time swimming world champion

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BOOK REVIEW DANIEL PRIESTLEY

OVERSUBSCRIBED:

HOW TO GET PEOPLE LINING UP TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU BY DANIEL PRIESTLEY Have you ever queued for a restaurant? Pre–ordered something months in advance? Fought for tickets that sell out in a day? Had a hairdresser with a six–month waiting list? There are people who don′t chase clients, clients chase them. In a world of endless choices, why does this happen? Why do people queue up? Why do they pay more? Why will they book months in advance? Why are these people and products in such high demand? And how can you get a slice of that action? In Oversubscribed, entrepreneur and best-selling author Daniel Priestley explains why and, most importantly, how. This book is a recipe for ensuring demand outstrips supply for your product or service, and you have scores of customers lining up to give you money.

”The Oversubscribed principles and methods have helped us become the world′s #1 in our industry in under five years” - Michael Carter,

CEO, BizEquity.com

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BOOK REVIEW

ROBERT HOLDEN

LIFE LOVES YOU:

7 SPIRITUAL PRACTICES TO HEAL YOUR LIFE BY LOUISE HAY & ROBERT HOLDEN

Life loves you is one of Louise Hay’s best-loved affirmations. It is the heart thought that represents her life and her work. Together, Louise and Robert Holden look at what ‘life loves you’ really means – that life doesn’t just happen to you; it happens for you. In a series of intimate and candid conversations, they dig deep into the power of love, the benevolent nature of reality, the friendly universe and the heart of who we really are.

Life Loves You is filled with inspiring stories and helpful meditations, prayers and exercises. Louise and Robert present a practical philosophy based on seven spiritual practices.

”Holden and Hay dish up a gem of a book – together they have the power to distill simple truths that go deep to challenge the way we live our lives and become happier versions of ourselves” - Nancy Smith

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BOOK REVIEW WILL J. JACKSON

THE ZOMBIE OF SUBURBIA:

LAW OF ATTRACTION RE-EXAMINED BY WILL J. JACKSON The Law of Attraction is boldly re-examined in The Zombie of Suburbia. New thought author Will J. Jackson visualises negative self-talk as an inner zombie holding you back. Defeat your zombie and you are free to attract a life of abundance and happiness. Jackson highlights the struggle going on inside every one of us between our inner zombie and our inner A-lister (the positive part of you that naturally wants to shine in life). The life you have depends on which part of you has the upper hand in the struggle. Are you going to be forever held back by your zombie, or propelled into a life of rich experiences and fulfilment by your inner A-Lister? The Zombie of Suburbia gives you the insights and skills you need to take your inner zombie down. It’s time to banish your zombie forever and get yourself on the A-list of life. Will J. Jackson shares how he transformed his own life using his understanding of the zombie/A-lister struggle. He provides simple and powerful ideas for change and reveals the secret weapon to aid you in attracting the life you want – your smart phone.

”I am letting my inner A-lister shine, and I have Will J. Jackson to thank for it” - Meike Zane

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Be Inspired

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GO-TO GIRLS Wonderful women vloggers

INSPIRING STORIES Looking up on life

LIVE LOVE LEGACY What do you want to be remembered for? What are your relationships like with those around you? How does life treat youâ&#x20AC;Ś and how do you treat your life? There is so much good in you. Enrich your life with the passion you feel and the connections you make.

THE DEEP END Diving in with Adam Walker

Put your company in this space! To sponsor this page and be part of The Best You, email us at advertising@thebestyou.co

TOP OF THE BLOGS Make your digital diary shine

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LIVE LOVE LEGACY INSPIRATIONAL STORY

Hardship and suffering don’t define us, says Amanda Hart whose story aims to help others move beyond despair

INSPIRATIONAL

STORY

AMANDA HART

From the age of four I learned how to survive a harrowing upbringing when I was taken from my mother and was suddenly thrust into a world of hatred and violence. Up to that point I had only experienced love, happiness and protection so my instincts always drove me to seek that in any way I could. At first the only solace was my garden which I was thrown out into often as punishment. That garden was my safe haven as I drew on the gentleness and calm of that natural environment. It was also full of animals so these became my friends. Later, finding good friendships and mentors were my salvation to keep going when the days became a living hell. These I believe were the fundamentals I needed to help me intuit what was right and wrong in my world as I tried to make sense of the craziness in my life. When I finally managed to leave the ‘house of hell’ (as I named it), naturally I thought I would attract a life of happiness. To the contrary, I eventually discovered that, regardless, the programmes I had learned through my negative upbringing in my subconscious would constantly attract more hell that was to come. As a young adult, my life was then a rollercoaster of loss, harrowing relationships and abuse on a grand scale. I was too young and naive to understand why it was repeatedly happening to me as no matter how hard I tried to lead a good life and attract good people to me, I seemed to be attracting the opposite. No matter what I tried to do it just seemed to get worse. I was a very angry young woman and felt the world was a cruel place and I was plagued with bad luck. It seemed I was being punished though I had no understanding why as I was just an innocent four-year-old when my journey of dire circumstances begun. It was only when I got married to my first husband that I was forced to look at my life from a different perspective when he ran off with my daughter, just before her fourth birthday. It seemed at the time that life was

Amanda Hart is a therapist and author of The Guys Upstairs.

playing some cruel trick on me as it seemed like history was repeating itself. I had no idea at the time why it was happening all over again but my world plunged into the depths of despair and I embarked on a destructive path of self-loathing. It couldn’t have got any worse as I was also being stalked by a violent man with an obsession for me. I felt like I was in some horror movie and many times during this period felt the only way out was to take my life and to end all the suffering. In the back of my mind though was the constant nagging feeling that I had to keep doing whatever I could to find my daughter. This was the only spark of light that was left in my world. Every day I searched for answers to try and find the root cause that was behind my bad luck and path of destruction. I had all but given up with getting help from the authorities as my circumstances always just came under the radar. I married again and had two more children and always knew my daughter would return to me one day. It was when my second marriage was suffering and I contracted meningococcal septicemia that finally I found the answers of how I could remove the punishing programmes that were causing my destruction.

I believe we all have the answers to help ourselves in dire situations which is what I teach people today. Once discovered, people can then take back their power and align themselves to a place of certainty, hope and faith, that solutions are around them. I certainly believe we have a course paved for us in life but it certainly doesn’t mean we have to suffer continuously to find our best health, right relationships and the life we desire.

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Finding our authentic selves is the most empowering experience we can achieve in life. Only then can we truly find the strength and courage needed to guide us safely and navigate our path in life.

Today my life is a rich source of loving relationships and a life I always once thought was just a dream. I hope my book inspires people to know that when it comes to choice they will always choose to dance... and I guess you’ll just have to read the book to see what that that truly means.

I became an intuitive consultant over 20 years ago when I became aware of how I was able to see beyond the every day physical reality of people’s problems and help them overcome their own programmes through working with their subconscious mind. I discovered the answers whilst in A & E in hospital and have never looked back.

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I wrote The Guys Upstairs about my journey to help others find the shortcut to overcoming adversity so other people don’t have to spend a lifetime of suffering.

Visit www.thesoulsearchingcentre.com

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LIVE LOVE LEGACY ADAM WALKER

Adam Walker is the first Brit and only the second person in the world to complete the Oceans Seven challenge, encountering deadly marine life, huge swells, strong currents and extreme cold. Now with the release of his book, Man vs. Ocean, he tells Daska Davis about his motivation, the challenges and his love of outdoor swimming

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Like running a marathon, swimming the English Channel is a bucket list dream that only a few highly motivated and dedicated individuals will achieve in a lifetime. It was a goal which, then successful senior salesman, Adam Walker decided upon after watching the film, On A Clear Day. Having competed at county level as a backstroke swimmer as a child, Walker – who describes himself as, “highly competitive” – set about accomplishing the English Channel with a grueling training schedule, supported by friends and family. But his story didn’t stop there. After he had completed the first swim, he set about training to swim a two-way Gibraltar Strait crossing, but as he completed this test of endurance, a new gauntlet was thrown down with Oceans Seven. As the name suggests, this consists of seven, long-distance open water swims and is considered the equivalent of the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge. It includes the North Channel, the Cook Strait, the Molokai Channel, the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, the Tsugaru Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar. Most people would think the idea extreme, but for Walker it became his sole focus. “I do motivational speaking and when I talk with people they can’t understand how I swam non-stop for 17-hours, but it was my dream to swim and I believe I can do anything,” he says. “This isn’t the English way, but if you work hard and build your confidence you can accomplish your goals. In fact, when I was at university, my biggest fear was public speaking and now I am presenting a documentary. As a child, I hated front crawl and long distance swimming so there were a number of psychological barriers that I had to work through first.” Determination is a trait that Walker clearly has in good measure, but he says mindset plays an enormous part in overcoming the physical challenge. “When I initially started endurance swimming, there were some gaps in my life and I couldn’t understand where I was at. I experienced frustrating injuries but I didn’t give up, I didn’t want to get to the end of

my life and think, ‘I could have…’ The perils of each of the waters was diverse, from freezing waters to swimming with sharks and being stung by a Portuguese man o’ war, Walker experienced both the best and worst of times.

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I feel most alive when I’m being tested,” he says. “In the water your brain wants out, but the other side of you wants to be different, to be unique and prove your capability. When I swim, I have no fear, in fact my biggest fear is at not achieving my goal.

“Being stung was an incredibly intense pain and even now I am in disbelief that I survived and made it, but it puts things like traffic jams or being late into perspective. When you put yourself outside of your comfort zone you can achieve so much more. “It takes discipline to train physically and mentally. Talent will get you so far but you have to put in the effort to prepare. If you are complacent, the ocean has a way of finding you out. You have to work hard at keeping calm and in control. If you create a belief system then you can do anything. “You have to work on self-doubt and have a checklist of what to do when the mental challenges rise up from within. If you are shivering, you have to tell your body that it doesn’t feel cold. If the miles ahead seem unreachable, you break it up by telling yourself that a checkpoint is just ahead and you’ll get a drink. “You think about the stroke that your arm is making, of a landmark ahead, anything, but you don’t let a negative thought enter your head. I always tell myself that a day of pain is worth a lifetime of achievement.” Having completed Oceans Seven and written his autobiography of the experience, Walker’s love of the water means he is now focused on a new challenge – to get Britain swimming. “In the UK, we don’t understand the ocean’s waters as closely as some countries do. I’m an ambassador of the

Royal Life Saving Society and this is my opportunity to give something back. “In the UK, 40 per cent of kids up to the age of 11 can’t swim a length. It’s a shocking statistic and one that we need to change for the health of the next generation. Swimming in open water burns more calories than running or cycling, and as a sport it deserves to gain more prominence in the way that cycling has. Swimming Oceans Seven has defined me as a person – there was Adam up to 28, and then Adam at 28 who had achieved this amazing challenge, and I want others to feel some of that too.” Alongside his ambassadorial role, Walker is working on a documentary about dolphin intelligence. It was while swimming Oceans Seven that a group of dolphins swam alongside him for 90 minutes, an unusually long time. “I got a call from a director who had worked with Jacques Cousteau,” says Walker, “who said that he had never known dolphins to stay with a human for so long, and I wonder if it was because they sensed a danger to us nearby. “They are incredibly intelligent animals with a sonar in their jaw which enables them to send a message back to their pod, miles away. They are the only animal that has self-awareness and an awareness of their environment. They even have their own ‘dialects’ between species, which is amazing. The film we are making will show all aspects of this intelligence – how they make friends, play, fight and communicate.” Featuring a reconstruction of Walker’s swim with the dolphins, the documentary is already to be broadcast in France, Germany, Japan and Canada.” Despite his own achievements, Walker remains in awe of the ocean, and with his love of open water and marine life he truly has made his dream a reality.

To read more about Adam Walker’s story, visit adamwalkeroceans7.co.uk

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LIVE LOVE LEGACY

S U E AT K I N S

AGE

OF INNOCENCE I see Katie Price’s eight-year-old daughter Princess was in the news about the amount of make-up her mum has let her wear. I was talking about it on BBC Radio Three Counties recently.

Sue Atkins asks whether we are rushing our children into growing up too soon

Apparently Katie dyes Junior’s hair and allows Princess to wear heavy make-up and false nails. It’s very easy to celebrity bash and we can all bring up other people’s children but it is a fine balance between allowing our daughters to play around with make-up, our shoes and our perfume to over-sexualising a child too early. I have a 21-year-old daughter so I know first hand about raising a daughter, and as a child I used to like walking about in my mum’s shoes for fun, but personally I’m not sure I’d have liked my eight-year-old daughter to be seen in public posing in such a provocative stance and wearing such heavy make-up.

Katie Price’s daughter, Princess

I also remember dropping my daughter off at a party when she was eight and the little girl whose party

it was, was wearing make-up and it made me feel uncomfortable. I think there’s a big difference between having fun, dressing up and playing about with mum’s make-up bag and over-sexualising a child.

“

Children are beautiful, have naturally beautiful skin and hair and don’t need to be told the message too young that they have to look a certain way to be liked, accepted or glamorous.

Self-esteem, self-confidence and selfacceptance are taught by parents initially until a child believes they are beautiful, worthy and wonderful just the way they are. Confidence and happiness is an inside job and perhaps Katie Price needs to ponder that.

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LIVE LOVE LEGACY CATHERINE BALAVAGE

WHAT DOES

IT TAKE TO BE...

A SUCCESSFUL

BLOGGER? 46

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WHAT’S THE SECRET TO MAKING A BLOG COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL?

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Hard work and perseverance. Always remember: content is king. If you have good content, nothing else matters.

Catherine Balavage is author of The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger – here she shares her insights into creating a thriving digital diary

Of course that content also has to be read, that is where social media and social bookmarking sites come in.

To find out more visit www.frostmagazine.com

TELL US ABOUT YOUR CAREER SO FAR I started off writing poetry, songs and short stories, then I became an actor and worked in the film industry. I always loved writing and magazines, so in 2010 I started a blog/online magazine called Frost Magazine. I thought it would just be a hobby but it really took off. It helped that I got interviews with people that I knew like Alain De Botton and Zac Goldsmith. We had an amazing launch party and it just became successful very quickly. For the past six years I have run Frost and I have also written three books. The third book, The Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Successful Blogger, is everything I have learnt from starting Frost and turning it into a success.

HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTO BLOGGING? I started off reviewing theatre for blogs and then moved on to interviewing people and attending events for Memorable TV. I was also an editor and writer for The Fringe Report. While doing this I had a live journal blog on which I wrote about people I found inspirational or reviews of print magazines like Glamour and a wordpress blog I blogged about my acting career on. I took all of this experience of writing and editing and launched Frost in 2010.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST POST ABOUT AND WHAT RESPONSE DID IT GENERATE? It was Glee: Road to Sectionals DVD Launch at Lucky Voice (www. frostmagazine.com/2010/04/gleeroad-to-sectionals-dvd-launch-atlucky-voice). I never knew that until I just checked, but it is really interesting because that article was a turning point. I got invited to that event by Channel 4 and I built a really good relationship with the people there at that time. I got exclusives and I met a lot of contacts at their parties and industry events.

HOW IMPORTANT IS VLOGGING? It is very important. It is possible to make a living from vlogging. It is best to have diverse ways of creating content for your readers. Podcasts are huge at the moment and are only going to get bigger. Vlogging is important as so many people just watch videos now. Each different type of media captures either another audience, or keeps the one you have stimulated.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE FUTURE FOR BLOGGING?

It was amazing to just start a little blog and then party with Angela Jain who was the commissioning editor at Channel 4 and be surrounded by journalists from all the big publications and all of the actors in the shows like Misfits.

Good question. Podcasting and vlogging are two ways. Vlogging is already huge but it is not going away anytime soon. The thing about blogging and technology is that it moves fast. There will always be new trends or ways of moving forward.

WHAT’S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST BLOGGING MOMENT?

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There have been so many. From being front row at London Fashion Week, reviewing hundreds of restaurants and hotels or flying to Toulouse first class for a press trip. It has given me so much. That feeling when you capture the zeitgeist and write an article which captures the attention of your readers and goes viral, it is just amazing. There is no other feeling like it. I also have such amazing writers and editors. Some have been with me since the beginning and we are like a family. I also got to meet Jo Elvin, editor of Glamour magazine, and I was floored when she said nice things about Frost Magazine. She is one of my role models and ultimate girl crushes, I’m still getting over it.

Another important thing to remember is that what works for another blog might not work for you. You have to find what works for you and build on that. Be unique. Innovation is important but the thing is not to get caught up in what’s new because it comes back to the most essential thing: content is king. As long as you have good content, you will always have readers.

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Be Inspired

DAILY FOCUS Sandy Newbiggingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision

FEEL & LOOK GOOD Feeling good about yourself has a hugely positive impact on your appearance, persona and the response you ignite in others. Explore new ways to enhance the impression you make and enjoy the benefits of a positive self-image.

MAKE A NEW HABIT Susanna Halonen shows how

Put your company in this space! To sponsor this page and be part of The Best You, email us at advertising@thebestyou.co

CUT IT OUT! Ailsa Frankâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s straight-talking

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FEEL & LOOK GOOD SANDY NEWBIGGING

Sandy C Newbigging is the creator and award-winning trainer of Mind Calm Meditation and the Mind Detox Method, the author of more then ten best-selling books and numerous television shows. Here, he tells Bernardo Moya how he became an international meditation coach, and how the technique changed his life

MIND

& MATTER 50

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It’s always refreshing to meet a transformational person who walks the walk and talks the talk. Internationally-recognised Sandy Newbigging doesn’t only help others find the place of calm at the centre of their being through meditation. He has a personal knowledge of the journey from fear to happiness.

for a few days’ meditation, he ended up doing meditation training for six months, first on Patmos and then in Mexico. Towards the end of that training he was meditating for 18 hours a day.

rewarding. While working on a documentary, which showed people’s journeys over a 7-day mind, body and soul detox, he found viewers writing in to say how much it helped them.

That’s not what he expects from others, he adds – his work encourages people to meditate twice for 20 minutes a day.

Growing up in Scotland, as a boy he was bullied and had terrible low confidence. “I was terrified of reading out loud in class,” he remembers. “I literally faked illness for a whole term because I was so scared of being the centre of attention.”

So what does meditation give him? He tells me, you’re “in the zone” and that “time disappears” in meditation.

The mind is such a powerful tool for wellbeing. He tells me that in the West we are addicted to drug cures. But that isn’t the only way forward and that is why meditation is so powerful.

He started out on his own journey of personal change when he was still a child, reading the self-help book Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.

Most people go about their lives thinking about life,” he explains, adding that because of that “they are at once removed from life... Without meditation you’re not present enough to experience life so you don’t actually have a life either.”

“When you start exploring the mindbody connection it starts to become very obvious that your mind is undeniably affecting your body and vice versa.”

The upshot is that a lot of people are rushing around thinking all the time “and they’re completely missing themselves, completely missing the moment and they are essentially living in an illusion as opposed to in reality.”

In fact, he says, most of those opinions you’re thinking are learned from your parents, teachers, media.

“I was very young at the time, but it was this amazing story that showed me there was more to life than fear and bullying... it really spoke to me.” Despite his shyness and low confidence, Sandy knew he wanted to travel. After school he took a degree in international management, but a year out from university, working in an office, his first turning point came when faced with signing up to work for the same company for another year. Unwilling to give his life over to something he hated, he refused to sign. Instead, he started studying coaching, NLP and timeline therapy, and then began to work in the personal development world.

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I found myself being invited to Spain to help at a detox retreat,” he remembers. He had no idea what he was letting himself in for when he was invited along as the mind guy. “I had never worked in the physical industry before,” he says. Yet through that retreat he “accidentally created The Mind Detox Method.”

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Meditation made it easier to focus and achieve. The first book he wrote happened organically as he prepared notes for a workshop. He got the title for it when a friend drew a card from a pack of angel cards. It read New Beginnings, which echoed his name and was the perfect title for the book. His life since, helping others to find more peace and happiness, has been deeply

Part of the problem in the modern world is we are “constantly seeking physical problems and ignoring the mind,” he tells me.

With meditation, he tells me “you start to create a space between your permanent, unchanging, underlying, still, silent awareness and your temporary mind that’s got all these millions of opinions that aren’t even yours”.

That’s why shifting your relationship with your mind makes an epically huge difference when it comes to experiencing greater inner peace and happiness. It certainly worked for Sandy Newbigging and many others who have learned from him. There’s no doubt, he’s no longer that frightened child, afraid to speak in public. Far from it, he has a message he’s delivering, with a calm, inspiring tone.

A few months later he took part in a television show that was syndicated to 30 countries. Soon after, his career took off. He was just 27. But even though he was making money and externally appeared to be a success, inside he felt no happier or sadder than before. That all changed when a friend suggested meditation. Though he was initially reluctant, he soon embraced meditation when he realised he didn’t have to, “stop his mind” to experience peace. After that, everything was different. Signing up

Watch Bernardo Moya’s interview with Sandy Newbigging at thebestyoumagazine.co

Exclusive content and shots on iPad, iPhone & Android devices

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FEEL & LOOK GOOD SUSANNA HALONEN

CHANGE YOUR HABITS

CHANGE YOUR LIFE 52

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I used to think happiness and success were driven by the goals I set. If I set the right goals and worked hard on achieving them, I would be happy and successful. I tried this approach for years, yet I failed to reach my goals. That’s when I knew something had to change. That’s when I realised my problem was my actions. Around 40 per cent of your daily actions are based on habits. That means that if you master your habits, you’ll master your life. Clearly, this was a memo I hadn’t received. I’d forgotten about my habits and hadn’t noticed how some of them had taken me away from my goals. That’s when I knew it was time to change my habits. Charles Duhigg, author of Power of Habit, identifies three different parts to the habit loop that’s ingrained in your brain. In order to kill a habit or build a new one, you need to study the habit loops in your own brain. Start by identifying the three components of the number one habit you want to change. 1. What triggers your habit? This could be the time of the day, a location, a person or the people around you, an action or a specific emotion. This is your cue for the habit. For example, the cue could be getting up in the morning (an action) or going to dinner with your best friend (a person). 2. What behaviour or routine follows this cue? This is basically what we usually call the habit. For example, drinking morning coffee could be the behaviour that immediately follows your cue of getting up. Having a glass of wine could be the behaviour that always accompanies going out with your friend. 3. What craving is your habit satisfying? This is the reward you get from doing the behaviour in your habit loop. For example, when you drink coffee right after getting up, your reward is you feeling more alert. When you have wine when you’re with your friend, the reward might be feeling more relaxed, having great conversations and laughing loads.

“ Finding it tricky to stick with your selfimprovement plans? Susanna Halonen has a strategy to get you on track

Each habit, regardless of how simple or complex it is, will have this habit loop in place. The craving that occurs whenever you’re subject to the cue is an actual neurological craving in your brain. Because you’ve done the behaviour so many times with the same cue and the same reward, the neural pathway for the habit is so strong that it sets you off on autopilot whenever you’re subject to the cue.

That’s why it’s difficult to change old habits. You actually need to change what’s in your brain. You need to change it repeatedly until the habit loop gets encoded into the subconscious part of your brain. So how do you get started? First, identify one habit that’s holding you back from your goals. Identify the trigger and reward that’s associated with the habit. Then, think about which new, better behaviour could replace this bad behaviour – whilst keeping the trigger and the reward the same. For example, I used to have morning coffee first thing to wake up. It wasn’t good because it shot my cortisol levels through the roof and I started to stress before the day had even begun. This made me unfocused and unproductive. I had to find an alternative to wake up my body and mind. I resorted to hot water with lemon and ginger – and 15 minutes of yoga. Now, when I wake up, I add lemon and ginger to a hot cup of water, and get on the mat for 15 minutes of yoga. This wakes my body and mind up in a completely different way, and gives me a much more sustained type of energy for the day. Now, identify one new habit that will help you to reach your most important goal. Come up with a trigger for it and a behaviour that gives you a reward. For example, my most important goal right now is to write more. So after my morning yoga, I have a light, quick breakfast and then immediately start the day with 30 minutes of writing on my laptop. Sometimes it has a focus, sometimes I just write whatever comes to mind. But I always do it when I open up my laptop, and it always gives me a sense of achievement because I’m making the time to do something that fulfills and develops me. If you want to reach your goals and change your life, start by changing your habits. With the right habits in place, nothing will stop you. As Tony Dungy said,

“Champions don’t do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for others to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”

Susanna Halonen is a happiness coach and author of Screw Finding Your Passion. She helps you to kill your selfdoubt and build a lifestyle you love. For more, visit www.happyologist.co.uk

FEEL & LOOK GOOD

AILSA FRANK

Experienced hypnotherapist and author Ailsa Frank shares five top tips from her book Cut the Crap and Feel Amazing to help you move ahead in life

THE NO-NONSENSE APPROACH TO

HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS 54

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Early on in my book I stress the importance of taking control of your mind at every moment of your day so you can make amazing things happen.

Step 3: Take control of overwhelming moments... aka red triangle technique

Even when it is difficult you need to keep focussed on finding an amazing way through the situation. People often have one or two areas of their lives going well whilst other areas are less positive.

Visualise a red triangle in your mind. Put any fears, uncomfortable emotions or stress into the triangle. Then imagine the triangle shrinking until it is as small as a speck of dust. Then imagine blowing the speck of dust away. You can do this technique regularly to feel more in control.

“

Step 4: Train your mind to find solutions... aka wiggly string technique

You can apply these techniques to everyday stresses, money, work, heartache and relationships....

When you are trying to achieve new things it is often hard to see how you can do this. Visualise the future as being like a wiggly string leading you on an amazing treasure hunt through your life. Imagine finding everything you need along the way. When you believe there is going to be a way forward, you will find it. Whatever is happening in your life see the string leading you through it in the best way possible.

By improving the worst and the best parts of your life at the same time the happier and more successful you will be overall.

Step 1: Release the past... aka pebbles in the pond technique Imagine you are holding colourful pebbles in your hand as you stand beside a garden pond. Each pebble represents the negative past. Imagine throwing the pebbles into the pond. As the pebbles disappear into the water you let go of the past releasing it which allows your mind and life to move on. You can repeat this exercise at anytime and in any place.

Step 5: Create an ‘I can do it’ attitude... aka inner coach technique Believe in yourself on a deeper level by making yourself get on with a task, repeat to yourself, ‘I can do. I am doing it. It is done’. Then think of an expert in the field of what you are trying to achieve, imagine them telling you how amazing you are. What would they say to encourage you? Imagine being the expert coaching yourself. If you hear yourself selfdoubting remember to call upon your inner coach. Imagine they praise you as they are pleased with your progress.

Step 2: Ignore negative thoughts.. aka clouds in the sky technique To release negative thoughts or worry, using the fingers of your right hand to rub, tap or press the knuckles of your left hand to reassure yourself that everything will be fine. Say to yourself, ‘Let it go. Let it pass’. Imagine the bad feeling passing by like clouds in the sky.

‘This book leaves you feeling like you’ve had a heart to heart with a wise friend. Ailsa has something new to offer with no mumbo jumbo nonsense I stayed with the book to the end. Go on then why not Cut the crap and Feel Amazing!’

- Amanda Riley-Jones, freelance journalist

Cut the Crap and Feel Amazing by Ailsa Frank is available at hypnobalance.co.uk and at all e-bookshops & Kindle.

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Be Inspired

40 58

GO-TO GIRLS Wonderful women vloggers

DO IT DIFFERENT

Million dollar business advice

WEALTH & RICHES Building your career or business can bring both financial reward and personal growth in every aspect of your life. Seek out advice and support to ensure your success today and for the future.

FREE YOUR LIMITS Susan Armstrongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey

Put your company in this space! To sponsor this page and be part of The Best You, email us at advertising@thebestyou.co

NO NEGATIVES Ditch self-defeating talk

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WEALTH & RICHES DANIEL PRIESTLEY

Many of the rules we hear in business are wrong, or at least not right for small businesses under a million in revenue. These rules are the top seven counterintuitive ideas I’ve used to grow businesses from an idea to a seven-figure company (often in the first year)

Getting good at spending is more important than saving money.

When building businesses, I focus on how to spend as much as I possibly can as fast as I can. I want to spend more on marketing, promotions, product improvements and team; not less. I’m looking at every possible way to responsibly deploy cash to drive the businesses revenues up. Our whole lives we get taught to fear spending money and to focus on saving – which makes sense on a fixed income but not when a business has growth potential. Until a business is turning over £1M+ there’s little point in cost-cutting or saving money; any gains will not be worth your time – it’s easy to waste five hours figuring out how to cut a bill by £150. Your focus is better spent spending money on things that help generate immediate revenue. The savings mindset will kill the expansive energy your business needs to reach ‘escape velocity’ where it can pay reasonable costs of doing business. It’s better to focus on ways to spend.

Revenue is more important than profit.

There’s an old saying ‘revenue is vanity; profit is sanity and cash is king’. I agree that cash is king and you must never let your business run out of cash BUT I don’t agree that profit is sanity until you hit a certain size. In the early stages of business, revenue matters more than profit. Let me stress, you have to be able to pay your bills, however if you have the chance to take on new business but you

know it’s probably not very profitable, take it on. You’ll figure out the profit later – hopefully. Honestly, who cares if you’re making 40 per cent profit margins on £50k of total business, you’d still be better off going and getting a job at Starbucks. It’s far better to be making no profit on a £1m and then try and figure out how you can improve margins by five per cent. The profit-seeking mindset will stop you from growing to a viable size. I like the quote from billionaire investor Peter Theil, “Profit is what you have when you’ve run out of ideas.”

Improving cash at bank is better than keeping accurate records.

In the early days of business, the only real number that matters is cash at bank. Spending too much time on detailed reports isn’t worth your focus. Do anything to improve your cash at bank but don’t sit around analysing your early numbers. Get on the phone, have more meetings, send more invoices. Once or twice a year, you can sit down and take a closer look at the numbers but in the early stages of business your entire operation is barely a rounding error on where it needs to be. Detailed reports are for businesses that have £1m+ revenues. The detail-seeking mindset will take your eye off the bigger picture. The only management number you need to know in the early stages of fast-growth is cash at bank; let your accountant worry about the rest.

Band-Aid solutions are better than well thought out systems.

Band-Aid solutions get a bad name. What’s actually wrong with a BandAid? It’s fast, it’s cheap, it works – job done! Imagine remodelling your kitchen because you cut your finger! Sometimes Band-Aids are the perfect solution. People glorify expensive long-tern solutions but in small businesses they are overkill. In the early stages of business, an Excel spreadsheet that’s working, is better than a CRM system that takes up time and money. A shoebox full of business cards is perfectly acceptable if it means you spend more time on the phone and less time on data entry. A brochure with a spelling error is better than a brochure that took an extra three weeks and £500 to remove every mistake. There’s nothing wrong with solutions that are fast, cheap and do the job for now – if anything they are the best for a business with less than £1m revenue.

A brochure is more important than a website.

A small business doesn’t get in-bound enquiries, it doesn’t have people Googling it or trying to buy online. Every sale is won on the phone and face-to-face. A good brochure is more valuable to a small business than a great website because it helps in the sales process. A brochure is perfect over a coffee meeting to explain the business or the product.

COUNTER-INTUITIVE IDEAS FOR FAST-GROWTH BUSINESS

It also beats an iPad because people often associate an iPad with an idea whereas a printed brochure has a sense of commercial reality about it. You also can’t leave your iPad with someone. A website feels safe because it puts a barrier between the market and the entrepreneur, it feels like the website is out there winning business and doing some work. This is an illusion, all the weight is on the shoulders of the entrepreneur and every sale will be hard one – it’s best not to kid yourself about this.

The only brand that matters is your personal brand.

Large companies spend millions and millions on developing a trusted faceless brand – and it still doesn’t work. Big faceless companies are constantly losing business to upstarts who are willing to ‘be their brand’. Have a look at Elon Musk of Tesla Motors beating the established car companies.

Passive income and automation will send you broke.

Many entrepreneurs fantasize about a business that runs itself. They want recurring revenue, multiple streams of passive income and automated systems that just work. It’s a fantasy and it’s a dangerous one at that. Your business exists to solve problems for people that they can’t or don’t want to solve for themselves. By that definition if it was easy to automate or if it didn’t require effort and energy people wouldn’t find it very valuable – someone else would be giving it away. There’s a lot of truth in the saying, ‘if it were easy everyone would be doing it’. Expect your business to be time-consuming and hard. Look for complex problems to solve. Get hands on in fixing problems. Don’t try to simplify the solution too quickly.

Look at Richard Branson of Virgin beating the established airlines. People who front their brand succeed at a faster rate than people who hide behind a visual identity.

Remember that the desire for a smooth road creates a bumpy road and the desire for a challenge creates a game. Enjoy the bumps – you’re an entrepreneur or a leader and that’s what makes you valuable.

As an entrepreneur or leader of a small business your job is to speak at events, comment in the media, use social media and personally meet people who you could do business with.

After you hit a million pounds in revenue you’ll start to notice ways for technology, systems and assets to do some of the heavy lifting in your business.

There’s countless companies that are looking good but going nowhere; your role is to be a key person of influence who gets things done.

You might also stumble upon some opportunities for recurring revenues and you might develop some methodologies that help you to deliver solutions more efficiently.

These insights rarely come in the early days so don’t force them, let them evolve. I know these seven ideas fly in the face of conventional wisdom but conventional wisdom has 80 per cent of UK businesses earning less than £100K revenue each year – clearly some of the common ideas don’t work. Turn your back on convention and adopt some of these counterintuitive ideas as you grow from an idea to a seven-figure business.

Daniel Priestley is a successful entrepreneur and a bestselling business author. He’s built companies in Australia, Singapore, USA and the UK as well as giving talks all over the world.

Daniel Priestley will speak in the Great Minds Seminar Room and in Seminar Room 2 at The Best You Expo on 27-28 February 2016. Book your place at thebestyouexhibition. com, where you can also download The Best You Expo programme today!

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WEALTH & RICHES SUSAN ARMSTRONG

HOW TO GET

UNSTUCK 60

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Susan Armstrong offers a lesson in overcoming self-limiting beliefs

The other day I was watching the animals in my backyard. As an animal lover I have a bird feeder/squirrel feeder… because, you know, you can’t keep the squirrels out of a birdfeeder so I just make sure there is something for everyone… and I witnessed something that caused me to pause: I saw a chipmunk; maybe 3” long and very tiny, go head-to-head with a big black squirrel who was easily three or four times his size, fighting over who was going to win the right to dine on the peanuts. I watched this, marvelling at the ferocity of the little, tiny chipmunk. He just was not giving up. He took on this black squirrel and, he won. The squirrel ran away, and the tiny chipmunk jumped up onto the feeder and commenced filling his cheeks with his prize. As I stood there watching this, it occurred to me that there were a couple of very important lessons in watching this chipmunk: first of all… the chipmunk won. His opponent was bigger, stronger and weighed a lot more than the chipmunk but the chipmunk still took him on and won. Why? Because the chipmunk didn’t know that he couldn’t win. As an animal he doesn’t have the ability like we humans do to know that the odds are against him. He wanted the food, the squirrel was in his way and so he took on the squirrel. The chipmunk won because the chipmunk doesn’t have the capacity to know that he shouldn’t have won. Think about it…if the chipmunk were human, what would it have thought? He would have thought that the squirrel was so much larger, and heavier than he, and logic would have dictated that the squirrel would win. The chipmunk would have been worried that the squirrel would beat him up, he might have even thought things like “he’s much bigger than me, I’m silly to try this”, “I’ll never win so why even try”, or “that’s crazy! Who do I think I am taking on a big squirrel?” I’m wondering now if any of this sounds familiar to you? I believe we do this to ourselves. Our human ability to rationalise and apply logic often prevents us from

going after the very things we say we want. We believe that we don’t deserve it, or it will never happen, or, we will fail. And, instead of trying… instead of working toward what we want we give up before we even start. I do believe we should be like that chipmunk… that chipmunk won because he didn’t know he couldn’t. So what would you do if you knew you could not fail?

“

Today, go and be a chipmunk! Take on whatever it is that scares you… do it anyway and even if it doesn’t work out, you have broken out of your rut and you have practice overcoming your fears for the next time. You have become unstuck! After all, you know what they say: each failure brings you closer to success!

This brings us to the second lesson from the chipmunk and the squirrel: perseverance. If you study successful people, however you define success – whether that be financial success, success in love or just in level of happiness – you will find that they kept at it. Success didn’t come on the first try – it certainly didn’t for me. You have to work at it; you have to continue to try, to refine, test new ideas and new approaches. That’s how you find success. Not by trying it once and giving up! Not by saying things like “see… I knew it wouldn’t work!” You need to keep at it. What is it you really want? What are you sick and tired of? You can change it! Just keep trying until you get it right – and get it right you will. Overnight success is a myth, you have to keep trying and never give up and there are plenty of

examples of this everywhere. It’s high time we stopped letting our own self-limiting beliefs or our fear of failure, of not being perfect, dictate our future. We don’t have to stay stuck in our unhappiness, self-hatred, misery and poverty. Everyone deserves happiness and prosperity and it’s out there for all of us.

“

The only thing preventing us from achieving it is our believe about what is possible so the next time you find yourself saying things like “I can’t do that”, “it’s never going to work”, “I’m not good enough to…”, or anything that resembles a statement that keeps you stuck where you are – push it away. Refuse to listen. Replace the negative “I can’t” with “Yes, I can!” Replace the self-loathing with self-respect and love; choose for once to believe the positive.

You might be surprised at what will happen and you will never know what’s possible unless you try, and try, and then try some more.

Susan Armstrong is a professional speaker, author and trainer working to help people break free to success and happiness. Visit www. susanarmstrongspeaks.com for more free information on how to transform your life now!

Susan Armstrong will speak in Seminar Room 3 at The Best You Expo on 27 February 2016. Book your place at thebestyouexhibition.com where you can also download The Best You Expo programme today!

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Will J. Jackson has five ways to keep you focused and help you to achieve your goals for success

Will J. Jackson will speak in Seminar Room 1 at The Best You Expo on 27 February 2016. Book your place at thebestyouexhibition.com where you can also download The Best You Expo programme today!

NEVER SAY NEVER

ON THE ROAD

TO SUCCESS

WEALTH & RICHES WILL J. JACKSON

Everybody wants success of one kind or another. How we define success is specific to each of us. Some people want money, others a perfect relationship, others a perfect job. One way to move closer to the kind of success you want is by applying the Law of Attraction. This works on the principle that everything in the universe has a frequency and that like attracts like. Therefore by keeping your words, thoughts and deeds on a positive frequency you attract people and circumstances on that same frequency. The challenge for most of us is keeping in that positive mental frame. Luckily there are tricks that can be employed to remind us to get back to a positive focus whenever we find ourselves drifting. Modern technology can be helpful in this endeavour. Keeping focused on attracting success:

SUCCESS MANTRAS Make sure your mantra states your desire as if it is already yours. For example: ‘My therapy business is growing daily.’ Or: ‘Money flows to me like a mighty river.’ Record your mantra on your smartphone’s voice memo, repeating the mantra for at least two minutes. Listen to it on your headphones throughout the day.

ACT LIKE IT’S A DONE DEAL Send yourself a Valentine’s card from the perfect partner you are yet to meet, or a letter offering you that great new job you don’t yet have. The universe can’t tell whether this is real or not so will work to bring your desire to you.

THE ART OF EFFORTLESS EXPECTATION

THE ABUNDANCE BUDDY

If you order a book from Amazon, you know the book is coming to you. Why not apply this idea to the Law of Attraction with the same degree of certainty? Imagine your desire. Ask the universe for it. Then visualise yourself receiving an email from universe.com confirming your order is on its way.

Find a friend who is also interested in working with the Law of Attraction. You can meet, email, phone or FaceTime each week to check-in and support each other. You can discuss your ideas around attracting the things you want. You can also talk about your successes and challenges. This will give each of you a weekly boost as well as a reminder that you are not working with the Law of Attraction in isolation.

POSITIVE WALLPAPERS Download an uplifting message and save it as your phone’s wallpaper. Every time you use your phone, you will be reminded of your positive focus. Download positive wallpapers from my website www. willjackson.guru

Try these ideas to see which work best for you. Remember to have fun and feel good as you work with the Law of Attraction. This is a journey to be enjoyed on the way to a great destination.

Will J. Jackson works with organisations to help them achieve their goals. He is the best-selling author of The Zombie of Suburbia: Law of Attraction Re-examined.

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WEALTH & RICHES ROCKY ROAD TO SUCCESS

CHELSEA HANDLER A HANDLE ON SUCCESS

It’s a bit difficult to be noticed when you’re the youngest of six kids and everyone in your neighbourhood has more money than your family. That’s how Chelsea Handler came into the world in 1975-New Jersey. Her father was a used car dealer, and the Handlers were used to the sort of workmanlike mentality she would later employ to build her Hollywood career. Perhaps feeling lost in the constant noise of a house full of eight people, Handler became convinced she was being overlooked by her parents. Adding to those anxieties, Handler’s brother passed away before she was a teenager; the loss left her family in a depression, and it was this catalyst that predicated her desire for radical changes in her life a few years later. A bad situation would turn into potential when a DUI arrest in her new home of Los Angeles landed Handler in front of an audience telling her cautionary tale. When she had them laughing she knew she had a knack for comedy. Her acerbic wit began to garner attention, and before long Handler was booking role after role on popular TV shows of the early 2000s. Before long she became a comedy central mainstay, eventually earning her own series. She became so popular that she soon began hosting her own late-night talk show on E! against male-only competition in the timeslot. In the midst of a seven-season run hosting her late night show, Handler has also become a best-selling author, with her books consistently landing on the New York Times best-seller list. Chelsea Handler has overcome neglect and tragedy to become one of the most successful female comedians of the past century.

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J.R.R. TOLKIEN

FANTASY IS REALITY

Born in South Africa to upwardly mobile parents, thanks to his father’s promising career in banking, J.R.R. Tolkien was only three years old when his father died. A crushing blow to the family, Tolkien, his mother and younger brother happened to be on vacation in England at the time. This left the family quite literally stranded and with no income. While living with his maternal grandparents, Tolkien became keenly interested in the natural world, often indulging in meticulous drawings of greenery and landscapes. He began to acquire a voracious appetite for fantasy and adventure stories around the same time his mother also passed away. It was a strenuous beginning for the soon-to-be-wordsmith. Tolkien and his brother were sent to live with a close family friend, and were raised in a supportive and educational environment for the remainder of their youth. It was much-needed stability in the midst of an otherwise chaotic beginning. After college, Tolkien was enlisted in World War I, a terrible-yet-inspiring time in his life. Post-war, while working in academia in and around Oxford, he began vast literary undertakings. These would later culminate with the completion of The Hobbit as well as precursors to The Lord of the Rings. A decade later, as the Second World War approached, there was great interest in putting Tolkien’s literary talent to use in the intelligence world. During the war, he also taught English literature, as well as putting in painstaking efforts to complete his The Lord of the Rings works. Many say these were directly influenced by World War II, but J.R.R. Tolkien would refute this time and again. Perhaps the iconic works instead came from a place of collected pain, from his tumultuous childhood to the oddities of fame and war later in life.

ELIZABETH TAYLOR

SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND

Elizebeth Taylor was born in a suburb of London during the all-too-short years of peace between World War I and World War II. By happenstance, Taylor’s parents had chosen to pursue financial gain in an industry seemingly impervious to The Great Depression: art dealing; they escaped much of the fallout from the economic hardship in the United States. However when Taylor was only seven, the family heard the cry of the coming World War and returned to U.S. soil. They traded one kingdom for another, as the Taylors settled in the posh surroundings of Beverly Hills. Her parents began to attract film industry titans when they opened their exclusive L.A.-based art gallery. With her mother’s tentative acceptance, Taylor went the child actor route, signing a contract with famed Hollywood studio MGM before she reached her tenth birthday. The next few years would see the burgeoning star become a teenager whose every aspect of life was controlled by a major Hollywood studio. She went to school on the studio lot, and in between classes was constantly rehearsing and filming. Having had no real childhood to speak of, Taylor would begin to develop issues stemming directly from this early experience. Often turning to medication and heavy amounts of alcohol to cope with illnesses and stress in later years of her non-stop career, Taylor’s health was rarely stable throughout her life. She spent a lifetime fighting scoliosis, undergoing operations both in early and latter stages of life. Despite her insurmountable health problems, Elizabeth Taylor fought through it all to leave a lasting legacy as one of the greatest screen legends of all time, as well engaging in humanitarian efforts for gay rights and AIDS awareness.

DABO SWINNEY

A LIFE OF GOOD PLAY-CALLING

Dabo Swinney is a collegiate American football coach who took a long-shot team to the national championship in 2015. Swinney was born in 1969 Alabama, at a time when American football was gaining exponential popularity. A born hard worker, Swinney from a young age had the fortitude to look past the rough patches his family was experiencing with increasing frequency before he was even ten years old. Swinney’s father was an alcoholic whose business was failing. A bad combination for anyone, it played hard on a marriage with multiple children. Often returning home from school to loud fights and violence, Swinney would attempt to avoid these confrontations at all costs. The family business finally went under and the end of his parents’ marriage followed shortly thereafter. High school saw Swinney launch himself into sports so he could distance himself from family life. Amidst the turmoil, he then attended college at the University of Alabama, receiving both undergraduate and graduate degrees. While there, he walked on to the football team and was part of a national championship-winning season. Soon after he would begin his coaching career as an assistant on that same team. Swinney took a detour into real estate brokerage in the early 2000s after the entire University of Alabama football coaching staff was fired. After a hiatus from coaching, he received an offer he couldn’t refuse from Clemson University. Over more than ten seasons, Swinney worked his way up the coaching ladder there, excelling at every position. Assuming the programme’s head coaching vacancy in 2009, Dabo Swinney steadily turned the team into a winning powerhouse. He had let go of his past’s demons to take the team to an undefeated 2015 season, going on to play for the National Championship.

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Be Inspired

ROAD TRIPPERS

21ST CENTURY LIVING

Vloggersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journeys We live in a technological age and the opportunities that new ideas and developments bring to both our personal and professional lives are amazing. Discover fresh thinking and technologies that can enhance daily life.

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COMING SOON... New technologies on show

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21TH CENTURY LIVING

V L O G S TA R S

Watch Devin Super Trampâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwgURKfUA7e0Z7_qE3TvBFQ

DEVIN SUPER TRAMP

If travel and high adrenalin are your idea of a good time, Devin Super Tramp is your man. Watch him rope swing over a Greek shipwreck, cliff jump in Italy and skateboard through canyons. With almost 4m subscribers, Devin is also collaborating with major brands to deliver more of his hi-definition awesome adventures.

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Exclusive content and shots on iPad, iPhone & Android devices

At The Best You, we recognise those who are using their digital space to educate, empower and do good for others

VLOGGERS MAKING A DIFFERENCE LOUIS COLE

Ever regretted not taking that gap year and seeing the world? Live vicariously through YouTuber Louis Cole who has been recording his daily life as he travels the planet, since 2011. From castles to camel surfing, this dude has seen a fair few continents and records the highs and lows of life on the road. Nearly two million subscribers have tracked his travels to date.

See Alex Chacon at https://www.youtube.com/user/chaiku232/featured

ALEX CHACON

Check out FunForLouis at https://www.youtube.com/user/FunForLouis/featured

If you read and loved Che Guevara’s memoir, The Motorcycle Diaries, which charts his travel through South America on a 1939 Norton 500cc (and if you haven’t, you really should), then you’ll enjoy Alex Chacon’s vlog. After graduating college, he sold his worldly possession to ride a motorcycle across 41 countries and 300k km in 650 days. His ‘Most Epic Selfie of 2014’ was seenº by 100m people wordwide, so check out his unique perspective on global travel.

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21TH CENTURY LIVING

Exclusive content and shots on iPad, iPhone & Android devices

LATEST GADGETS

SPRING

COLLECTION

For the tech set the first few weeks of the year are Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Midsummer’s Eve all wrapped into one. CES, the biggest tech gathering of the year, brings all of us geeks out of our hovels and into the (artificial) light. Although some of the products we’re featuring this month are yet to be released, you can be assured that this year’s crop of tech will make 2016 an unforgettable year

SAMSUNG’S SMART PRODUCTS Samsung made a huge splash at CES this year. its booth is always popular, but this year, it outdid itself. Two of Samsung’s important innovations caused most of the hubbub around its booth: the Family Hub Refrigerator and its smart wearables. While everybody is trying to outdo each other with smart watches and glasses, Samsung has created a Smart Suit featuring a button on the cuff that can interact with your smart device. The Welt (aka the Wellness Belt) monitors your waistline, expanding when you’ve had a particularly large meal. The Family Hub Refrigerator changes the game for smart appliance makers. Its most eye-popping feature is the three cameras mounted on the inside of the door. These connect to your smart device, giving you a crystal clear picture of the inside of your fridge when you’re at the grocery store. You’ll never come home with unneeded milk again. Prices haven’t been released yet, but don’t expect the Family Hub Refrigerator to feel like a bargain.

We’ve featured the Alexa on this page before, but that was back when it was still a fledgling product, competing with other voice-activated helpers like Siri. Since it was introduced, though, the people at Amazon have made massive strides, making ‘Alexa’ more intelligent and giving her a broader range of capabilities. Its main feature is still its Bluetooth® speaker (an excellent way to stream music or internet radio), but now, through partnerships with Belkin, Phillips and Ford, the Echo is becoming a smart home hub. You can access lighting, security and media, and now it will help you connect to your vehicle as well. The device is here to stay, and it’s learning how to be better so quickly that it soon might be indispensable. Suggested retail price: £139

AMAZON ECHO 70

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One of the most beautiful prototypes at CES this year was iFit’s NordicTrack Escape. It has managed to combine a beautiful 60” curved OLED TV with a highfunctioning treadmill. If you want to watch TV or a movie on the screen, go right ahead, but this isn’t what it was designed for. The curved screen provides an immersive experience for the runner. With plenty of POV videos to choose from (each of which reacts to the treadmill’s speed), the NordicTrack Escape is the closest that apartment-bound fitness nuts can come to a run in the great outdoors. Suggested retail price: £6,499

iFIT NORDICTRACK ESCAPE

With each passing day, people are becoming more and more conscious of their environmental impact. Combine this concern with a growing cost of living and you’ve got sizable niche for products like the Hydrao Smart Shower. Using an unobtrusive array of built-in LED lights, the showerhead uses coloured lighting to remind you how much water you’re consuming when you shower. The lights start off green and then, when a certain threshold has been crossed, they change from yellow to red (gently reminding you when you’re consuming more water than you should be). The showerhead also connects you to online profiles. These will help you track water consumption by household member, set monthly targets and monitor savings. Suggested retail price: to be confirmed

For those who have ever dreamed of the life (or lived the life) of a DJ, the Technics SL-1200 is the gold standard. It’s the must-have piece of equipment for those who want to spin and mix records the old-fashioned way. The 1200’s powerful direct drive motor made turntablism possible as an art form, and the machines were heavy and durable, perfect for the kind of abuse that they were regularly subjected to. In 2010, the Technics brand was discontinued by Panasonic, which meant no more new SL-1200s (the market for used ones enjoyed a bumper year). At this year’s CES, Panasonic re-introduced a new 1200. It’s a limited run, and the price of the tweaked (and definitely improved) new heavyweight model will put it out of reach for all but the most dedicated turntable purists, but there will be no shortage of demand. With vinyl enjoying a dramatic resurgence, this is almost certainly a shrewd move by the people at Panasonic. Suggested retail price: £2,750

HYDRAO SMART SHOWER

TECHNICS SL-1200 www. t he b e s t youm ag azi ne . co

The Best You is delighted to have Yes to Life as its preferred charity partner. The work it does for people fighting cancer is immeasurable, providing support for people in real need of care at the simplest and most human level Yes to Life is the UK’s integrative cancer care charity and we are here to help people with cancer navigate their way to finding the right choice for them. We provide support, information and financial assistance to those seeking to pursue approaches that are currently unavailable on the NHS. We also run a series of educational seminars and workshops for those wanting to learn more. We want to change attitudes and make integrative cancer care (combining the best of conventional and complementary approaches) readily available so more people have the best chance of reclaiming their health.

Helpline – 0870 163 2990

Our helpline offers free support to those with cancer, their carers and relatives. Staffed by trained volunteers, we do not offer advice but can signpost to experts and practitioners who can.

You give: • •

LIFE - directory

Our directory provides access to a searchable database of therapies, practitioners and clinics working with people with cancer around the world. The interactive LIFE - Talk forum offers a place to share experiences and ask questions about each therapy type.

Financial assistance

We support people to take the complementary approach of their choice. Callers to our helpline are eligible for a free consultation with Cancer Options and we provide small grants to assist with costs of supplements, organic food, equipment and therapies.

There are two ways you can help us: If you want to make a one-off donation then please join our campaign to raise money for our Funding Scheme so we can continue to help the increasing numbers coming to the charity looking for choice.

http://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/y2l/ fundpeoplewithcancer Or you can be our Friend. The best way you can have a direct impact is to donate a regular amount each month. Your money will go directly to helping individual people with cancer and gives them a real choice.

A monthly donation – as much or as little as you can afford Someone with cancer access to approaches they would not have been able to pay for themselves

You get: • • • •

The knowledge that you are helping us support people that really need it Advanced access to tickets to our workshops and seminars A Friends newsletter featuring all our latest news, stories from our beneficiaries and some delicious healthy recipes A Friends badge to display on your social media page to celebrate your contribution and share it with the world

https://www.justgiving.com/y2l/ and click, ‘Make a monthly donation’ We have been sharing stories from their beneficiaries to highlight this diversity and raise awareness of the value of complementary approaches for healing.

You can read some of their amazing stories here: http:// yestolifecharity.blogspot.co.uk/p/ stories.html

www.thebestyoudirectory.co www.thebestyoudirectory.co The Best You Directory is the most comprehensive directory for therapists, trainers, NLP practitioners and hypnotherapists. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a place for customers to find local and professional support.

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