My Adventure and Awakening in the Australian Rainforest

Author : Robin Easton

I have to say that I didn’t know what to expect reading this book from Robin (I’ll have to use a first name basis knowing her already even though I would normally use an author’s last name).  I’ve known of her for some time through blogging but never really connected strongly with her until this past year where we have spent more time reading each other’s content and commenting back and forth.  And in doing so I have to say, I have learned that Robin is a very expressive and heartfelt person in her responses, compliments and writing.  So, when I had the offer to read her book I was excited to find out more about her through her writing and learn more about her stories through her book.  I’m so glad I did!

Naked in Eden is a book that I would never have picked up myself in a bookstore without having the reference of Robin first because I’ve really not ventured out too much past personal development, leadership, business and Christian book genres.  A few exceptions to that of course for various other interests but this time what I knew about Robin and her interest in nature certainly excited me to explore her book.  I have to say, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and found it very hard to put it down as I found myself absorbed in her fascinating and exciting stories of the rain forest, self discovery, fear, love and life.  The writing itself is a journey into the thoughts, discoveries and mindset of the author as a young woman exploring herself and life on her own in the rain forest of Australia.  The book is an overall story of several years of her life but what I really found intriguing was the deep emotional reflection and writing about how she was thinking in those many months of isolation yet deep connection with the forest.  I especially see now how Robin’s deep emotional writing and soul filled content came to life in the forest.  It shows in how the story unfolds and I found that it especially shows in her writing.

The depth at which the stories and thoughts took me were a joy to read.  I just wrote to her in fact saying how the book has me still pondering the content, days after finishing it, which I consider to be a great thing.  I love any book that keeps me thinking.  I also really found the writing to touch a part of my own connection and love for nature and even though I don’t have the same burning desire to escape society and live in the forest, I certainly appreciate her love of nature and desire to have that understanding of oneself and one’s connection with nature to value it, protect it and love it.

The whole story I found quite gripping and I loved how her husband Ian plays such a different yet vital role both in her life at the time and in the story.  I found myself really wanting to know more about Ian’s perspective on life here as well.  The imagery was superb and I found it easy to imagine and escape myself into the forest with them, to see the characters and critters they faced and even the turmoil with their challenges, fears and emotions.  It is a book and story that I definitely recommend to anyone really.  The wildness of Australia and the rain forest add a great dimension to the book and there is actually quite a lot to learn about the area, the many poisonous snakes and critters, and of course the forest itself.  Last but not least, you will certainly learn a whole lot more about Robin Easton and how her life was changed and formed by her time in the forest.  I definitely found that to be the most exciting part.  I would love to hear the rest of the story, more of Ian’s story and how this still affects Robin today, years afterward.  I expect to have that opportunity directly with Robin and am looking forward to it.  You can find out more about the book at Robin’s site and you can order Naked in Eden on Amazon.com here.

This is a guest post I received by Matt Schmoldt, one of my readers here at LearnThis.ca.  Matt’s article adds an interesting perspective to how we seek success.  I love the topic of success and just want to restate my own definition of success to focus the topic on what matters most in success, HOW we see success.  My definition of success is consistently living with purpose.  With that, here is Matt’s article, I hope you enjoy it!

“Everyday I take a break from my work when I get to the point of being tired of what I am doing, and I usually go play basketball. The breaks that I enjoy the most are when I am alone on the court. Uninterrupted. I shoot, shot after shot. I enjoy trying to perfect my shot. I have an inner desire to become gifted. I have come to the point where I know what I need to do to consistently make shots, but I just don’t consistently do what I need to do.

The rim lets me know how I am doing. I love having it’s instant feed back. The loud clang of the rim challenges me to become better, and the soft swish of the net rewards me. But today, I realized that the rim’s instant feed back is unnecessary.  I realized that I already knew if the shot was off course even before it hits the rim. I know by how I feel during the shot. I know if it is too short, or sailing wide left and I know if the shot is perfectly on track.  I realized that I was concentrating on the result and not on how I felt during the shot. I was fixed on making my next shot (the destination of the ball), but not on how I should feel during the shot (the journey).

When I let go of my fixation on making shots and instead focused on how I felt during the shots, an amazing thing happened. I made way more shots. Why? I got rid of my self imposed pressure on the result, and became free to follow how I felt during the journey. I didn’t care if I made or missed a shot; I only cared if I was focused on feeling what I knew I should be feeling during the shot.

Our lives are the same way. We want to succeed so badly that we become fixated on succeeding. Our every thought and desire is to succeed in whatever thing it is. Sometimes we want to succeed badly enough that we do things against our conscience and better judgment. You see this happening in our schools. Students want to pass a class without putting in the work, so they turn to cheating, and when they aren’t caught, they continue cheating. The world has recently seen what this pattern of cheating leads to in the likes of Bernard Madoff and Allen Stanford. They wanted to succeed so badly in their financial businesses, that they lied and cheated for decades. They took their new investor’s money and gave it to their old investors, pretending that this money came from legitimate investments. They let their fixation on succeeding rule their actions and look what it brought. It brought devastation to thousands of honest people who invested in their lies. It brought families heartache and devastation.

In the words of Joshua Marcus Manuel, “It hurts to look at yourself in the mirror and hate yourself, look into the mirror and wonder what ever happened to that smile that used to shine so bright. When you look at yourself, you see this version of “you” that your mind has created, someone that has become so distant and cold that nobody wants to be around. Empty eyes. Fragile bones. The only thing you have left are the lies you tell yourself everyday to survive, lies that have become your painful reality, lies that will swallow you whole and crush your insides, lies that have turned you into someone you never wanted to be.”

Let go. Let go of those fixations that are preventing you from living a successful life. The way to success and happiness comes from letting go and following your heart, from being in harmony with yourself. Look at what this did for Mother Teresa. For over 45 years, she ministered to the poor and the sick. She lead 610 missions in 123 countries for people with AIDS, leprosy and other illnesses. She dedicated her life to being in harmony with her conscience; she was her best self.

What things do you need to let go of?  Let go of them.
What things does your heart ache to achieve?

Achieve those things of your heart and live a life of honest success in harmony and happiness. Remember, “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” (Mark Twain) and “A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” (Thomas Carlyle)”

About The Author: Matt currently attends Utah State University in Logan and is studying marketing. He loves life, his family, his heaven, and his sports (golf & basketball). He also runs a necktie website on the side which teaches people how to tie a tie.

What is Beauty?

Its hard to express sometimes what beauty is.  It is something we each have our own idea of, our own experiences with and so obviously beauty is also subjective.  Luckily, it is something that we can easily find if we simply choose to see it and with that mentality, beauty can be found all around us in this world.  Beauty is in the people around us, the love shared between friends and family, within the nature surrounding us, inside our body’s with every breath and heartbeat and around us in the color, smells, and sensations we take in absorbing this beautiful world.  All of that beauty is there for the taking, the viewing, the seeking and longing.

The way I capture beauty in this world in through adventure, nature and memories.  The easiest way I have to share those memories is by capturing them with photography and by finding beauty in the resulting image so that I can remember it and share it more easily.  I’ve recently shared some other photography from various day trips hiking in the mountains and learning about the important of perseverance when climbing a mountain but I have to say this most recent trip of mine tops those in beautiful by many times and I want to share some of it with you.

Backpacking

So during some of my holidays this summer, I had booked a week long backpacking trip with my brother who I don’t get to see all that often living across this huge nation.   We planned a backpacking trip in the Kootenay National Park on the edge of British Columbia next door to my home province here in the great Rocky Mountains of Canada.  Anyway, we planned to do about 75 km of backpacking through and around what is known as the Rockwall.  I understood it to be one of the most beautiful scenic trails with fantastic views and open landscapes through several incredible passes and camping destinations.  This was also my first overnight backpacking trip so there was plenty of prep to do, unknowns to discover and a clueless approach that is the perfect recipe for discovering beauty with no expectations.

I have to say that those elements I listed for me to capture beauty in this world were in perfect combination with this trip.

• Adventure since it was something I had never done before and being out for 5 nights tenting in bear country sounded awesome to me!
• Nature since its 15km away from any roads and the wilderness offers majestic views when there is minimal human intervention.
• Memories since it was a great vacation, good time spend me my bro and a chance to spend a lot of time in thought, photography and simply remembering the trip.

Photography

Photography is definitely something I enjoy and as a 3D artist and life long hobbiest with video, photography and artistic imagery, I certainly have some skills in capturing the moment and scene with a camera.  I don’t use elaborate equipment, or any fancy camera, I simply use a simple and old Canon Elph Powershot SD700IS point and shoot.  Do I know how to use it well?  Definitely, I get the best photos I can from it and am looking forward to getting a newer camera when this one finally dies.  I’ll always be a point and shoot pocket camera kind of guy as I know I can still get a good shot, despite not lugging around an expensive DSLR with extra lenses.  I just like to have the camera in my pocket wherever I go and being able to quickly snap photos at a moments notice and have it securely tucked back in my pocket in the rain or rough terrain just a couple seconds later is my favorite part of a compact point and shoot.

Landscape and nature photography is definitely my favorite and so this trip provided endless opportunities for shooting great photos.  My brother is a big fan of photography as well so two addicts on the trails together meant scouting out the best shots, best angles, best lighting and an onslaught of photos of course.  I’ve said before my favorite kind of photos are definitely panorama wide shots and they are best with the kind of scenery we were surrounded by.  I generally take about 4-8 shots wide for panoramas but this time I did a lot of bracketed exposure panoramas that stitch together into high dynamic range panorama images so I had total control of the colors, light dynamics and contrast like you cannot get with standard shooting.  I’ve included a number of those final images in this page and gallery along with some regular photos and a few of my favorites.  Obviously I have many others I could share, but here is a sample of the beauty I lived in for the week.  Hard to compare with that is for sure upon returning to the concrete jungle landscape.  I will definitely admit I was happy to come home though to my beautiful wife, wonderful food and some clean clothes and things to do again.  I didn’t have those luxuries in the woods.

Put Life In your Leadership

Author : Stephen D. Wood

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book.  I have a few minor points against it but all in all, this is definitely worth your read.  What I especially liked right from the cover of the book is that it is unique and not really what I expected a book about living a great life would look like.  This unique style stems right from the cover through to the text throughout the book and I am quite happy to have read it now.  I am certainly not a cowboy myself even though I am often out riding horses with my wife.  What I found funny was the moment my wife saw the book, she instantly said, “Hey, Bodacious is one of the toughest bucking bulls ever, why are you reading a book about that?”  I had no idea this had anything to do with the book, and was pleasantly surprised to read about the bull, Bodacious in one of the early stories and to learn my wife was right and knew about him already.  I’m not surprised though, as she does love to watch the bull riding on TV.

Anyway, the book is about stepping up to take life on by the horns (pun intended) and to do more than sit around and watch it go by.  Its about being bodacious and bold in everything you can and to make the most of yourself in life.  I especially enjoyed the stories told and then that each of the life lessons are learned from these short stories and they are easy to remember and easy to relate to.  The book itself is quite short and an easy read in 2-3 hours.  It has important leadership lessons to learn from and is told in a way that it inspires you for your life to not settle, but to put your life and leadership together.  The one thing I didn’t like about the book was that a few of the stories and way the stories are referred to become quite repetitive and the language used seams a bit childish.  Looking past that though and the lessons presents from the stories brings it back to the mature topic of life advice.

The whole premise and message of the book are about what are referred to as the Bodacious Secrets.  These are:

• Be Extraordinary
• Be Unrestrained
• Be Bold

These secrets are expressed as the keys to taking grip of your life, leading things to move in the direction you want and to find the dreams you want in life without having restraints in life to limit you.  Each of these secrets are explored with specifics and story examples that make it easy to connect with, which is why the book does it’s job so well.

Each chapter has a summary of its main points about these bodacious secrets and you can easy use these summaries as reference and highlights coming back through it again later.  I’d definitely recommend checking this book out for anyone interested in leadership and especially for those wanting to expand their own lifestyles and lead themselves towards the dreams they have always wished they could have and fulfill.

Examining Your Own Belief Structure

We each steer our lives around a set of beliefs we have on ourselves, on others and on the world around us.  These beliefs shape our decisions, thoughts and ultimately our actions then as a result whether we know it or not.  It is beliefs that also shape us into the individuals we are and it is these very beliefs that limit or allow us to change and grow in our lives as well.  We all have them, we all have a unique set of beliefs even if many overlap, and we often don’t examine our beliefs enough to truly understand ourselves. Personal development is highly related to these beliefs and without taking time to understand them, we can never achieve the maximum personal growth we desire.  So, in this article we will explore our belief structures as they are in intermingled critical point

It is common to reflect on questions about ourselves, about our character traits and the description we have of ourselves, and most people can do that quite easily but it’s much more difficult to describe one-self entirely on the beliefs that we have.  That is where I feel the true character is revealed and knowledge of those beliefs lets each of us to move those from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind where we can shift our beliefs and decisions more easily by choice.  Without examining your own belief structure, we easily confuse our beliefs and how they steer us, with situational excuses or victimization, both which highly limit our ability to change and grow in areas we are striving for improvement in to become a better person.

Core Values and Principles

Core values and principles are often looked at to define things or a person, but they are unfounded without also looking at the beliefs that shape them.  Values and principle are really just the actions or results we show because of what we believe.  For example, take integrity as a value or principle.  Integrity is something that is shown when a person acts consistently with good judgment.  Well that judgment is really part of the underlying belief.  A person with integrity believes that making the right choice and acting consistently in those actions is worth doing or the right thing to do.  The moral aspect here is not the point, the belief in this moral aspect however, is.  You can have a similar value or principle with a negative side as well that is triggered by a belief.  Some people believe that if they don’t get their way, then they will also lose power and it is a sign of weakness.  The belief of this being a weakness steers that anger.

Activities

Core values then turn into action as we choose our activities in life.  Perhaps our activities come about from circumstances you may think, but I think they are much more in line with our beliefs than we let ourselves realize.  In fact, all of our actions are at the very least, influenced by our beliefs and so our activities are a result of choice, and the choices we each make are a direct result of our beliefs that steer those choices.  So, beliefs impact this area of our lives as well.

Aspirations and Dreams

And finally, the area I so love to write about. Aspirations. Dreams.  Everything we hope to become and do and learn is wrapped up inside our many aspirations.  Our aspirations and dreams are a reflection of character and they define the spirit within that holds them. Our dreams as children create a path for life that could be followed by what imagination places in our minds.  This creative mind is a catalyst to forming new beliefs and generates an internal motivation and drive to make the imaginative aspects reality, therefore also forging the belief the dream is based on into a realization.  If only it were left on its own for this to happen…

Unfortunately, our dreams as children and aspirations through life are not shaped only by our imaginations.  They are also shaped by the endless social aspects that form the majority of our beliefs and it is these beliefs that limit and bound our capabilities.  Some people rely more heavily on these social influences than others, but we are all affected by them to some degree.  The problem with them is that the social aspect makes wild dreams and aspirations something to be avoided, since it is less likely to ‘fit in’ or to be ‘realistic’ as others define it.  To avoid embarrassment, fear of rejection and the many other limiting beliefs, we often succumb to what is more regularly accepted as ‘normal’ and we stop chasing our dreams.  The beliefs that these social aspects are either more important or perhaps more likely shapes the decision we make when it comes to aspirations.  Some of us accept being the social outcast and are willing to take those consequences by still going for their ‘unique’ dream and others ignore their dreams in order to be accepted more by others.  Both are beliefs, the difference is that we easily forget about the daily influences and beliefs that we all wish deep down we were not limited by.

So with all this weighing on your mind and thoughts, I leave you with just a simple question.  What beliefs in your life are the strongest ones you have and how are they shaping your choices?

Leading Up to The Summit

Well, every week can feel like a bit of a mountain climb at times.  Work is busy, life is busy and all that just to enjoy the weekend.  The climbing analogy for a work week is that its a long haul uphill to look forward to the end and for me, this analogy has been especially true venturing out to climb a few local summits in the nearby Rockies.  I wrote a few weeks ago about climbing Mr. Allan with my Unicycle and how it needed great perseverance.  I generally love to always take my uni with me, but I knew this climb was not a good fit for having it since there was a fair bit of scrambling and some bouldering to do.  Neither of which fair well with a unicycle on your back.  After doing the trip though now for the first time, I’ll go again for sure, and perhaps with the uni next time just for the fun of it and some scree downhill runs.  That would be excellent to ride on the unicycle!

Anyway, I had a shortened time frame on the weekend as I had plans to get to the lake for some wake boarding in the afternoon so I planned to pack light and move quickly to summit Mt. Yamnuska west of Calgary.  It was an absolutely perfect day and luckily I made it out early to the trail before anyone else so was fortunate to solo the entire trip up without seeing a sole.  Perfect solitude!  Sometimes I wish the hectic days at work could be started out in similar solitude, to clear the mind and get focused back on life, purpose, God and nature.  I guess that is what the weekend will have to be for when you with a lot with other people.  Don’t get me wrong, I love working with others, but sometimes I just really like time to myself and the beautiful world I find myself in.

So as usual, I had some great adventures on this climb as I don’t really do anything in my life like the masses so of course I didn’t stick to the trail, I had to venture off finding new things, getting turned off course and venturing out on slopes that really are not the best places to be.  After a few hours of climbing, some detours and a bit of backtracking I made it up to the summit to enjoy the incredible views with not a cloud in the sky.  Amazing!

Photography

Definitely one of my passions in nature is to capture it and photography, especially natural landscapes I have always had a keen eye for.  I spend a lot of time taking photos on a hike and then move quickly to the next vista to capture it as well.  Some people call me Mr. panorama since I absolutely love panorama photography and take them at every chance I have.  I’ve learned a great deal about photography through my artistic and 3D graphics business/hobby.  I have always used Canon’s digital elph series of point and shoot cameras (since I must be able to easily pack them in my active sporting / hobbies) so I really find myself always pushing the limits of such a simple camera without going all out for a DSLR or something more impressive.  Personally, I like to the challenge of taking great photos with a less than fantastic camera and it drives me crazy to see so many people with camera 10x better and worth 10x more than mine who don’t even know how to run them.  Photography is about knowing your camera in order to capture the perfect photo, its NOT about having a camera that CAN capture perfect photos yet not knowing how to use it.

The digital aspect of photography is really what I enjoy about it.  I love learning and playing with photography software tools and making the photos look their very best with some editing.  Panoramas are perfect examples of this as you just can’t do them without digital editing and the software tools now for it are simply stunning.  Please have a look through these select photos and panorama views and I really want to encourage you to look at what you capture as far as moments in life, how do you remember your adventures and is photography an element that you use to reflect on life and personal development?  I know if it for me so I wanted to share that and a few thoughts on that subject here.  I hope you enjoy it, I’d love to read your comments!

Note: If you are interested in seeing the summit panorama I created it as a full 360° view using quicktimeVR and an interactive summit panorama using Microsoft’s new HDView.  Both available free using those tools.