BEIJING, CHINA - MAY 2: In this handout photograph provided by the U.S. Embassy Beijing press office, Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng (R) is shown on May 2, 2012 in Beijing, China. The U.S. had maintained silence after the activist fled to the U.S. embassy on April 26, but U.S. officials opened up over what they say had become a warm relationship with Chen as they negotiated for his safety. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

While Chen’s story is getting lots of media attention in the rest of the world, there is another story that needs to be told—the heroine who helped him escape. Her name is He Peirong and she is a blogger from Nanjing Jiangsu province who is better known to her followers as Pearl.

When Chen exposed China’s policy of forced abortions and sterilizations in rural areas, he was jailed in 2006 for four years and then immediately imprisoned in his own house. Hearing of his situation, Pearl tried to visit Chen last year but was roughed up, beaten, and detained by police. In an interview with a Hong Kong-based newspaper, she said she was bound with a rope, bundled into a car, driven miles, and thrown into the countryside more than once.

During one of her visits last year, Pearl drove to Chen’s village and the thugs in charge of guarding him smashed her car’s windscreen. When Chen learned of the incident, it made an impression on him.

Chen escaped from house arrest on the night of April 21, 2012 by sneaking out of his house and spending twenty hours fumbling his way out of his heavily guarded village. He broke a foot scaling a wall and crossing ditches in the dark. Once Chen was out of the village, he got in touch with Pearl, who happened to be in Beijing. She didn’t hesitate and drove six hours to pick him up. She says that it took another couple of hours of find him because “someone was hiding him.”

When they met, Chen squeezed her hand. It was their first meeting.

Pearl drove him to Beijing, a journey of 250 miles, where she turned him over to associates who eventually took him to safety at the U.S. Embassy. The next day, Pearl was detained by police and held for over a week. State Security Officers asked her whether she helped plot Chen’s escape, but she denied any involvement in it.

Pearl calls herself an “accidental activist” and might have been nothing more than a sympathetic ear to Chen’s cause, except for one thing—she found the inner strength to be moved into action.

Cropped screenshot of John Wayne and Angie Dickinson from the trailer for the film Rio Bravo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many of us find our hearts moved by stories of suffering and pain. Heroes and heroines are nudged a bit further, though; they not only feel, they become leaders and act upon those feelings. They are poised to respond with boldness.

Heroines like Pearl have inner strength. Life’s challenges bring out the best in them. In the process, they remind us that strength is an inner place we can all find when our backs are against the wall.

We all have the psychological muscle for inner strength. Here are three ways we can develop this muscle:

1. Never Give Up

There are no losers in life, only those who give up on themselves. As long as we are still breathing, our purpose for life is not yet fulfilled. The great adventure of life is discovering what your purpose is and to live it.

Remember this: Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections, failed twice in business and suffered a nervous breakdown before he became the president of the United States.

2. Don’t Get Stuck

Learn from the past but don’t get stuck in it. Personal setbacks can haunt us and prevent us from recognizing new opportunities or uncovering our strengths. We cannot change what has happened but we can influence and shape what it to come in the future.

Being a hero or heroine means taking risks. It means breaking with negative patterns of the past and empowering yourself for a lifelong journey to your most fulfilled self. Every moment we’re alive we can make better choices that help us move on and toward a better future.

The path to inner strength is not a straight line, but there are so many opportunities for growth along the way—a roadblock is a chance to learn and crossroads help you decide what you really desire.

3. Keep the Faith

Faith encompasses many things: faith in yourself, faith in your place in this world, and faith in others. Pearl is quoted as saying, “I was very moved and I decided I couldn’t let someone like Chen suffer.”

She found an inner place of strength when she put faith in her ability to play her part in his escape to Beijing. It was a gift she gave herself that was as great as the gift she gave to Chen.

Inner strength relies upon inner peace. It’s important to drawn meaning from the situation if we are to develop the muscle that enables us to move ahead. Once we find meaning in what we do, we immerse ourselves in the peace of mind that can empower.

Pearl says that she’s interested in working for a NGO or doing volunteer work because she wants to help out others who are in need. Like many of us, she isn’t interested so much in what you are selling or teaching, as she is in who you are and how you live your life.

What would it take for you to become an accidental activist?

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Sunset at the Calf of Man Setting sun seen from near the mainland car park with the Calf of Man on the left. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all yearn to become bigger, better, and bolder. Until we understand the filter through which we approach life, however, we can never harness the beauty and power that resides within each one of us.

The challenge is to make certain the best behavior is repeated and negative patterns are disarmed. Most writers on personal development and empowerment dwell on the kind of person we’d like to become. While this is beautiful and moving, we find it difficult to put new practices into motion in our everyday life. We give up on ourselves and return to our old habits.

In an earlier post, I talked about the importance of growing better, not older. Our future is often hidden in our past and it takes time and patience to tease out those patterns that are destined to repeat themselves.

When we are able to simply observe our reactions, instead of acting on them, we can disarm our negative behaviors. Our resistance evaporates when exposed to the light.

This is not new thinking or philosophy. Ancient scriptures challenge us to do the same thing:

“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, it is full of darkness.” Luke 11:33-34

We must be honest with ourselves if we want to grow better with age. Self-knowledge is empowerment. It can be a difficult journey, however, because the ego will try to sabotage our efforts to excavate the truth. As Eckhart Tolle said, “The good news is: If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves.”

As an FBI counterintelligence and undercover agent, obtaining background information on the targets of my investigation was extremely important. There are many ways to gather data, but the most useful information is that which focuses on people, events, ideas, and emotions that you remember.

The ego is completely conditioned by the past. So this is where we must go to understand why we persist in behavior that is not in our best interests.

We can look at the past to gain a sense of the future in three ways:

1. Remember the Crossroads in Your Life
2. Consider Your Life Direction
3. Identify Patterns in Your Behavior

Let’s take a closer look.

1. Remember the Crossroads

We have all been forced to make choices. Many of them had little impact on the direction of our life. Some, however, were big ones—crossroads choices—that moved us in a new direction. For example: in my second year at college, I had to choose my major. My heart told me to pursue a degree in history but my head told me that a degree in business management would be more marketable.

After I retired from the FBI, I knew I wanted to go back to school. I found myself revisiting the same question; again, I decided not to pursue the history degree and enrolled at San Francisco Theological Seminary. Any doubts I had about whether history would ever be more than a hobby was now firmly decided—it would not.

• Concentrate on one period of your life at a time
• Go back to a particular period in your life and identify a crossroad event
• Write up three paragraphs describing the crossroad event as best you can
• Focus on the key factors that influenced your decision
• Would those same factors influence your decision today?

2. Consider Your Life Direction

There may come a time for you when you can revisit a crossroad and take another look at the road not taken. Earlier in your life, it may not have been an option but now the time may have come to reconsider. This is one way to discern where to go in the future—by revisiting crossroads from the past and deciding whether now is the time to explore the path not taken.

If so, ask yourself these questions:

• Why does this road still hold interest for you?
• What price would you have to pay to travel it?
• What good comes from walking it?
• How would it affect your life?

3. Identify Patterns in Your Behavior

You can only be your best as you are now, not as you used to be or what you will be five years. You can use the past as a tool to help you gain insight into your current behavior. Take a look at your life and look for the following:

• Skills – what are you good at? What have you been trained in?
• Service – what forms of service have you tried? Enjoyed?
• Success – where have you found success in your life?
• Failure – where have you been less than successful?
• Joy – what brings you joy in life?
• Longings – what have you always wanted to do?

As you explore these different areas, let the positive patterns take over. Learn to cherish the behaviors that bring you fulfillment and success. Find those patterns of behavior that are your ally and recognize those that are self-defeating so you can choose to not repeat them.

What are some of your crossroad events? Would you change your decision if you had the chance to do it over again? Which behaviors are your allies? Which ones are your enemies?

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LaRaeQuy

I grew up on a large cattle ranch in a remote part of Wyoming. We were hours away from the nearest small town so I went to a little country school with one other pupil—my brother. During my grade school years, I didn’t count my brother as a friend. Instead, we took turns taunting each other at recess. Back then, I wasn’t picky about friends.

This is a guest post on Pick The Brain. To continue reading, click HERE

Growing allows us to tap into power that lies within each of us. We grow when we truly believe we have something special to offer the world. Personal empowerment is growing into our best. Growing is setting free what is already there. We do this by letting go of what doesn’t work for us.

To understand what doesn’t work for us, it’s very important to know where we are. We need to accept our situation as it truly is and not fantasize about it being something different. Leadership begins when we take responsibility for getting here and staying here as long as we have already.

Do not fear the future; instead, read the past.

Don’t live in the past, but it’s a great place to visit. Looking back, for most people, is usually a mixed bag. There are bright moments, but there are also shadows. To truly understand ourselves, however, we need to look at both the light and the shadow.

One of the most important tools an investigator uses is surveillance. FBI agents place the targets of their investigation under surveillance to gain an understanding of habits, routines, and contacts. I suggest that each of you place yourself under surveillance, but don’t use the old-fashioned diary approach to recording the facts of the days or weeks from your past. Instead, focus on people, events, ideas, and emotions that you remember.

For some of us, examining the past may be difficult. There may be painful memories or broken relationships we’d rather leave alone. Even though it may be difficult to probe through the pain, it’s important to do so. The present is a good time to do this because we often have a perspective that we were missing at the time of the events.

By reviewing our past, we can see footprints of behavior. They aren’t always clear at the time, but in retrospect, there are patterns. We can see our story from a spiritual, as well as emotional, point of view.

When evaluating past events, ideas, and emotions, we usually find a hinge point when life moves in one direction or another. Hinges do not have to be big, dramatic events—but in retrospect, they changed our life.

In earlier posts, I’ve talked about a Russian KGB officer named Oleg. I met him while working undercover as a counterintelligence FBI agent in the Silicon Valley. We talked about a lot of things, but we never talked about his work. It became apparent early on that relationships were very important to Oleg. He was happily married and missed his wife and children immensely since they remained in Russia. I, on the other hand, always had a boyfriend or husband in the wings so no “romantic” thoughts were encouraged. When I asked him about hinge-points in his life, they usually involved specifics about people. Relationships marked the periods of his life.

The ability to remember is a great gift because it allows us to remember the high points in our life. The key to examining our past is to divide it up into different phases—each providing its own insights into our behavioral patterns and habits.

Here are 3 steps to growing better with age:

1. Identify a Hinge Event

Look for hinge points—actions, people, ideas, or events that moved your life in a new direction. Here are some events that are usually considered to be hinges:

• A move from one place to another: away from your childhood home, a new city and state, a new job and/or new challenge.
• A new person in your life: a spouse, child, mentor, friend, boss, colleagues, priest or pastor.
• A new phase of education: schools and training.
• A new commitment: birth of a child, new house, new business, or new place of worship.
• A traumatic incident: death of a loved one, accident or illness.
• A religious experience: conversation, answer to prayer, a retreat, a small group or worship experience.
• A national event: election, legislation, recession, or war.
• A new idea: a book, piece of music, movie, or experiencing a new culture.

2. Arrange Your Hinge Events

When you’ve defined your hinge points, divide your life into time periods that make sense to you. At this point, the challenge becomes understanding how your character developed between the hinges.

Which period of time was the most fun for you? What was the most challenging? Explain your choices. If you’re having trouble dividing up time periods, this may help you:

• Grade school
• High school
• College
• Twenties
• Thirties
• Forties
• Fifties
• Sixties
• Retirement
• Other

3. Describe a Time Period

How did you change during that period? How did it contribute to what you are today? To assist with this, recall the following:

• Key people
• Activities that demanded time and attention
• Important ideas
• The nature of your inner life: dreams for your life, longings, and emotions
• The nature of your health: exercise, sports, and illness
• Creative impulses that shaped you
• External events that shaped you

If you don’t grow, everything becomes a repetition of the past. As leader of your life, decide which behavior served you well enough that you want to repeat. Conversely, identify the behavior and reactions that you don’t want to repeat so you can let go of what doesn’t work for you.

What was the easiest part of the process? Why? What new thing did you learn about yourself? Which hinge event surprised you the most?

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LaRaeQuy

Learn to identify the barriers that keep you from living to your full potential. If you gain a better understanding of yourself, you’ll know where to start and what needs to be worked on.

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Oleg was a Russian Intelligence Officer whom I met while working as an undercover FBI agent. My job was to identify the barriers that prevented Oleg from exploring new opportunities in his world.

In the case of Oleg, my job was to tease out pertinent information to give me direction as I tried to open up Oleg’s mind to the possibilities of what a life working for the FBI instead of the KGB would look like for him.

Oleg grew up on a farm on the outskirts of a small town in Northern Russia. He was expected to come home after school every night and help harvest crops or milk cows. Other kids in his class participated in sports and extracurricular activities, and as a result, forged close friendships and shared experiences. Oleg had none of those and felt isolated and different from his classmates.

The only recognition—indeed, acknowledgement—Oleg received from his classmates occurred through excelling in a subject or other academic achievement. In an attempt to gain some camaraderie with fellow students, Oleg became an avid member of the speech team because speech tournaments were held during regular class hours and he wouldn’t be missed from the farm.

At an early age, Oleg learned that if he became very goal oriented, he could earn the love and respect of his fellow classmates. If he performed and achieved high marks, it would earn him praise and positive attention. As a result, Oleg became an over-achiever.

As children, we learned how to cope with emergency situations and get our needs fulfilled, whether they were in the playground or at home. We begin to believe that our childhood patterns represent who we really are; in reality, they merely represent coping mechanisms that worked for us in the past.

Self-knowledge guards us against self-deception. It empowers us to:

• Recognize barriers that you’ve placed around yourself.
• Disregard limits that have been imposed by others.
• Respect the boundaries imposed by your own personality.

Most of the barriers that prevent us from living a full life are based in fear. There are many fears that show up in all personalities, such as fear of failure, success, intimacy, and change.

While not exhaustive, here are nine of the most common fears from childhood we carry within us:

1. Fear of being worthless and without value apart from their achievements

• Known as over-achievers and workaholics but also obsessed with image and success
• Motto: The world is a contest I can win if I work hard and appear successful
• Examples: Oleg, Donald Trump, and Oprah Winfrey

2. Fear of being wrong and not having integrity or virtue

• Known to have integrity and be self-controlled but also a perfectionist perfectionist and resentful
• Motto: There is a right way, and let me show you
• Examples: Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, and Margaret Thatcher

3. Fear of being unloved and unwanted

• Known to be generous and helpful but also people pleasers and possessive
• Motto: I support and empower others; they couldn’t do it without me
• Examples: Mother Theresa, Ann Landers, and Eleanor Roosevelt

4. Fear of having no personal significance

• Known as dramatic and expressive but also temperamental and moody
• Motto: My work has grace, style, and authenticity
• Examples: Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, and Stanley Marcus

5. Fear of being incompetent, unprepared, and helpless

• Known as intellects and innovative but also isolated and eccentric
• Motto: My world is built around knowledge
• Examples: Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Howard Hughes

6. Fear of being vulnerable and not surviving on their own

• Known as being courageous and responsible but also anxious and suspicious
• Motto: The world is dangerous, appearances are deceptive, and I need allies
• Examples: Woody Allen, Sigmund Freud, and Richard Nixon

7. Fear of being trapped, deprived, and unable to find fulfillment

• Known as spontaneous and spirited but also impulsive and scattered
• Motto: The world is full of exciting possibilities; my mission is to explore them
• Examples: Richard Branson, John F. Kennedy, and Goldie Hawn

8. Fear of being controlled by others

• Known as self-confident and powerful but also willful and confrontational
• Motto: I am strong and in charge
• Examples: Saddam Hussein, John Wayne, and Lyndon Johnson

9. Fear of conflict

• Known as peacemakers and healers but also complacent and passive
• Motto: Everything will work out if we stay calm and connected
• Examples: Ronald Reagan, Julia Child, and Jerry Seinfeld

Do any of these fears feel more pronounced than others? We experience all of these fears at some point in our life, but one of them will be the dominant lens through which we view life. It will place a limit on us, and can keep us confined in a very small box with little room to grow.

The more you can bring these fears from the background and into the foreground, the less power they have to influence your life.

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LaRaeQuy

Self-worth can be defined as understanding ourselves as “authentically strong.” It’s real power that resides in each of us—not something given to us by others.

Our personalities begin experimenting with emergency solutions in early childhood—we all had different ways of coping with not getting to play with the red ball in the playground.

The ego is our self-concept—the way we see ourselves—and thus it is subject to misconceptions. That’s why ego is often referred to as our “false-self.” Most of us are not the imposters we’re pretending to be. In fact, only by seeing beyond those false perceptions can we be truly authentic.

This is a guest post on Linked2Leadership. To read the rest of the article CLICK HERE

If Mick Jagger can’t get satisfaction, what chances do you and I have? To be satisfied, we have to arrange life to our liking—and live according to our higher calling.

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Even if we know what we’d like our life to look like, why can’t we get there? Or have it stay that way once we do find our way?

Our life is always being shaped by something. What has shaped your life that prevents you from getting satisfaction and living your life purpose? What impedes your personal empowerment?

Here is a big hint: go back to your childhood to identify the influences that shaped your life as you were growing up. During our formative years, our lives were influenced by factors over which we had little or no control. Because we are creatures of habit, the way in which we came up with emergency solutions to childhood issues created a pattern of behavior that we continue to repeat as adults.

There are many of us who are clear about our purpose of life—our higher calling. And yet, we still struggle with working our way through the unique baggage each of us carries with us from our past experiences. The coping patterns that allowed us to survive as children are producing a cumulative effect that I’ll call our Baggage. Just as we all have a unique higher calling, we also all have a unique Baggage—based on our unique personalities and false perceptions of ourselves that we’ve experienced since childhood.

I chose the term “Baggage” because it represents the psychological freight we carry around with us that prevents us getting unstuck from negative behavior patterns and getting more satisfaction from our work and life. It is the encumbrances that holds us back and places limits that keep us from moving forward.

“Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.” The Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass

Like many things that we inherit over time, we sometimes feel we’re stuck with our behavioral patterns. The most effective way of taking control of your unwanted Baggage is to bring it into the foreground so that it has less power over your life.

As an FBI agent, I worked with the Behavior Science Unit on several of my cases. It turns out that qualities of Baggage are consistent for everyone. They are the stuff that prevents us from the satisfaction of pursuing our higher calling.

Here are their characteristics:

1. Based on fear and a need to survive. The situations in which we found ourselves as a child called for emergency solutions—at the time, they were very serious. We continue to rely upon those same reactions and solutions through adulthood.

2. Prevent us from experiencing a deeper understanding of who we are because they produce false perception of ourselves.

3. Do not encourage honest relationships that are built on sincere self-knowledge.

4. Remain hidden in the background and are very difficult for us to identify. The coping behaviors we learned as children have been with us for so long that we no longer see them for what they really are.

5. Become a default mechanism. The “emergency solution” that we’ve relied upon since childhood runs the show whenever we get confused or become unclear about our higher calling. Our Baggage becomes strong whenever we fail to show up in life—we may wake up in the morning but have no idea of what is shaping our life that day and influencing our decisions and choices.

The Baggage we haul around is important to identify, because if we don’t take leadership in this part of our life, the Baggage will continue to run our life—even after we’ve found our higher calling. Subconsciously, it will sabotage our attempts to live our life on purpose.

Here are some questions that may help you to identify your Baggage.

• What has been shaping your life that is based in fear?
• Where have you felt a sense of lack in your life?
• Describe your Baggage. Use simple words, perhaps words you might have used as a child, since that is when the baggage started piling up. Finish each of these sentences:

1. As a child, I felt I should . . .
2. As a child, I had to . . .
3. As a child, I could not . . .

If you want to get satisfaction and turn toward your higher calling, ponder these questions:

What have been the obstacles, roadblocks, and hindrances to clarifying your life purpose? They can be real or imaginary. Name as many as you can.

You can follow me at http://twitter.com/LaRaeQuy

Most of us are passive spectators in our life. We plan careers, retirement nest eggs, and vacations, but we do not plan our life. As a result, we don’t live our life on purpose.

Is it any wonder that many of us feel unfulfilled and not following our higher calling? We are not empowered and are no longer active participants in the direction our life is going.

Research has shown that people who regularly write down their goals earn as much as nine times more than their counterparts who do not write down goals.

• Over 80% of Americans do not have goals
• 16% say they do have goals but don’t write them down
• Less than 4% actually write them down

Guess who they are? They are the ones making nine times more than the rest of us.

Without goals to anchor us, we find ourselves adrift in life. We may think we know what our goals are, but if we aren’t living our life around them, then we’re not living our life on purpose.

A goal is a dream set to paper. If you don’t have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?

In a previous post, I shared the story of Oleg, a KGB officer that I met while working as an FBI undercover agent a few years ago. Neither Oleg nor the Russians knew that the FBI had identified him as a Russian Intelligence Officer.

If they had, he would have been sent back to Moscow immediately.

Oleg’s cover was a Russian businessman involved with the joint venture. I represented myself as an individual working for an international public relations company.

We met at a seminar, but the one thing we never talked about was his work.

It wasn’t that Oleg couldn’t talk about some aspects of his overt job; it was that he didn’t want to talk about them. He couldn’t drum up enough enthusiasm about the job to even keep up a good conversation. His lack of engagement in what he was doing was a clue that he was not doing something he felt passionate about.

Oleg was not following his True North. Somewhere along the line, he had compromised and had settled for less than his dream.

Here are 4 ways I encouraged Oleg to empower himself and start following his true north:

1. Explore Lifetime Goals

I encouraged Oleg to look deeper into the goals he set for himself in each of the areas listed below. It helped for him to look at each aspect of his life as a spoke in a wheel, with each leading to the hub, which is the heart. To have a balanced life, each spoke needs attention.

• Career
• Spirituality
• Education
• Recreation
• Travel
• Relationships
• Family
• Health
• Financial

As I got to know Oleg better, I’d probe about the important aspects of each spoke—not all in one day, but over time—and ask how much attention he gave to each of them, and what his goals were in each area.

2. Be Specific

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” B.J. Marshall

I encouraged Oleg to be specific with his answers. How many of us go into a restaurant and say, “Bring me food?” Instead, we’re very specific, picking what we want from the menu, and sometimes asking for substitutions to what is offered.

Do not just say, “My goal is to be more spiritual.”

• Be specific.
• Articulate ways in which you will be more spiritual in the 6 months, in the next year, in the next 5 years.
• Write down your goal in clear and vivid terms.
• List the steps needed to get there.

3. Own It

As I talked to Oleg about his goals, I learned that, besides relationships with his family, his goals were to travel and write. He had fallen into a rut in his career at an early age and was now afraid to move away from a secure job and retirement.

At some point, Oleg needed to learn that he was either living his own life or someone else’s dream for him. He was not setting his own course, and it left him empty and unfulfilled in his work and life.

• Review your list of goals.
• Write down reasons why your idea or goal will work.
• Acknowledge issues that will need to be overcome.

4. Start a Life Plan

Never ask, Can I do this? Instead ask, How can I do this?

Living your life on purpose is an intentional act. It requires a simple plan to set your goals in action. Start by answering these questions:

• Envisioned future – when and how is the goal functioning at it’s best
• Inspiration – identify scripture, books, poems, speakers and authors from which to draw inspiration
• Current reality – be honest; where are you in relation to the envisioned future
• Specific actions needed – list what you will need to do to accomplish your goal

Writing down his goals helped Oleg to gain clarity on what he really wanted to do in life. Once he took ownership of his future, he was able to break it down and follow his True North. As it turned out, Oleg’s higher calling turned out to not be the KGB, and he resigned to begin a new career in writing.

How did you find your True North? What tips can you share about how to live your True North with intention? What can you share about your implementation of a life plan?

If you want a great life, ask great questions. Questions can be catalysts. They’re challenges, inspirations, road maps, and hints of something better.

My first assignment as an FBI undercover agent was to identify a KGB officer who was a member of Russian delegation visiting a Silicon Valley company for six months.

This article is a guest post on Pick The Brain. To read the rest of the story, click HERE

This article was a guest post on Michael Hyatt. To read the rest  CLICK HERE.