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By Dr. Daniele Trevisani (Linkedin Page)– anticipation from the volumes “Human Potential” and “The Soul Box” (Amazon Ebook)

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If you arrive to a point where you are able to define “better” from a really internal viewpoint, from a novel cleaner way of reasoning, and out of forced cultural or external expectations, you will be very close to wisdom.

And if what is “better” for you does not correspond to what the advertising industry is showing, don’t worry. Probably you are on a good path. Express your thoughts freely about what is “better” for you.

Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.

Liu Xiaobo

When you do so, you are on a good path.

If you do not ask yourself what humans can do with their intelligence and technology, and where we should be headed to, that is like using a supercomputer as a typing machine. Is that real Human Potential?

To bring out the truth of the need to stop and pose difficult life-meaning questions to ourselves and our leaders, is like bearing the flag of freedom in a dictatorship in its central plaza.

I feel that with just one life to spend, I do not want to waste it in lies on things like Human Potential. It is not “fast and easy”, it is a life-long path.

If we do not have a clear idea about what Human Potential is, we will never be Educators, and will never achieve any type of Leadership.

To be the CEO or General Director of an Educational Institution does not make anyone an Expert on Human Potential in Education. It’s just a tag, anyone who has this tag should be proud of it but start after “second 1” to search for the truth of what a “Progress” really is.

Progress, also tends to be very “role-specific”, on example the progress in school grades is usually considered separated from progresses achieved in physical activity, sports and fitness. This separation neglects the unity of Human Potential and the interconnections among all of the human spheres of action. When we find in which field we wish to express ourselves.

A student, scientist or manager that practices sport will also be a better “thinker” since he/she will get rid of stress and have more phisical energies in any field, also intellectually.

For the same “law of interconnectedness inner energies” people who do high-intensity phisical sports will benefit from learning mental techniques on control of mind-states, relaxation, meditation, and similar.

We tend to identify ourselves in one of the several roles interpreted in life, as a one-shot imprinting, without considering that any role is a transition, is momentary and will sooner or later vanish. Being a kid vanishes, being a teenager vanishes, being a student vanishes, every job sooner or later vanishes.

We should look at our identity as a continuously evolving co-presence of several roles, unified by a soul that gives us a life purpose, a solid root of which we can be more or less aware.

For this reason the work on Human Potential must include both a work at the very “low level” of the body, a research at the “intermediate level” of skills and abilities, and a work at the very “high level” of values, life-dreams and core beliefs.

The tags Low, middle, and high, do not imply here a judgment, but the position along the continuum from tangible Human Factor issues (e.g., body power) to intangible issues (such as, the strength of personal values).

When an individual – or an entire group of people – increase their energy levels, new challenges become possible, new ways of being do emerge from the darkness and the unknown, and new forms of leadership arise.

Taking full consciousness of our self-potential and fight for reaching it, is a blessed mission, a sacred operation that goes beyond the numeric or professional results that might arrive.

By Dr. Daniele Trevisani (Linkedin Page)– anticipation from the volumes “Human Potential” and “The Soul Box” (Amazon Ebook)

© Article by Dr. Daniele Trevisani – http://www.danieletrevisani.com – Copyright. Adapted from the book The Soul Box. Ancient Wisdom meets Human Potential Research. Thoughts for Self-Expression, Inner Energy and Life

The holistic approach: taking care of human communication, soul and body

The Greek Aristotle was the first real communication scientist, much earlier than the opening of any Department of Communication or Psychology. In his treaty on “Rhetoric” he taught us that a persuasive message must contain:

  • ethos”, strong values, a call for ideals and sense of purpose,
  • logos”, a nice language structure, a nice organization, be well structured, and
  • pathos”, the ability to fire emotions and generate feelings.

aristotle ethos logos pathos

Modern research says he was right. We tend to judge a speech and the speaker against our own values, as Aristotle said, ethos is the effect of feeling in the message the presence of wisdom (phronesis), virtue (arete), and good will (eunoia);

There is now high consensus in the scientific community on the Power of Communication derived by emotions, with many of empirical findings:

“affectively valenced words show an advantage in processing with respect to neutral words, as revealed in word recognition tasks (e.g., lexical decision, Kousta et al., 2009; Kuperman et al., 2014), in naming tasks (Kuperman et al., 2014) or in memory tasks (e.g., Herbert et al., 2008; Talmi, 2013; Ferré et al., 2014), among others”. [1]

What does this all mean? It means that we have to learn the Power of Communication, the ability to motivate, to inspire, to share deep meanings, instead of swimming in a pool of banality and empty gossip.

Many phrases from the ancient world shade light, and we have to look for them where the Greco-Latin Culture left its seeds. But also in several modern thoughts found in the Anglo culture, at least on its best humanistic side, and for sure not in its materialistic side.

The power of some words and mottos is so great that they are still used today after 2000 and more years.

Mens sana in corpore sano

A healthy mind in a healthy body[2]

But there is more. Human Potential expression requires not only a good and healthy communication environment (ecology of communication), but a healthy mindset that keeps a positive psychology inside our soul, and a strong attention to our bodily machine, its nurture, its well-being, obtained via physical exercise, good nutrition, and a clear mind.
All the three aspects are intrinsically correlated.
In this Holistic view, wellness and performance depend on the degree to which we are able to set these conditions, despite what the environment presents us as “given state”.
To go beyond the “given state” and look for our Full Potential enables the expression of incredible performances and contributions to mankind, and this is our sacred mission.
Dr. Daniele Trevisani holistic model mind body relations

A healthy mind in a healthy body is not only an ancient motto.

It is a way of life that is ordinarily unpracticed from ordinary people, and managers in the companies, where the number of hours spent in the office becomes the benchmark, rather than the real intellectual contribution, the quality of your ideas and energies you generate in your working environment. Your real energetic contribution to your company is completely lost, confused with “hours spent inside”.

You even lose the ability to distinguish the people that are around you (coworkers, consultants, trainers, friends) in terms of the real energies the can provide and bring and you start measuring sick parameters, things as age or career level or the car they have or where they live. Well, let me tell, you, Albert Einstein – in this evaluation system – would have never come out of his desk as clerk, since he was not in the academia and was not a well-paid, well dressed manager with a fancy car. But his ideas changed the world.

So, where do you want to be? On the side of the material or on the side of the immaterial world? Or in a good balance between them, and if so, where?

Are you able to spot people with great ideas? How do you measure them?

Latins believed that since we are born we are fully involved in a journey. We run, whether we like it or not. We stop, whether we like or not the stopping areas and landscapes we encounter. And in this world we need to feed our soul and our body with positive energies.

Spa as modern structures where originated by the Romans and made free for all the “citizens” in Rome. A Spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but our culture is so spiritually poor that – despite the Roman habit of having them free and used for meeting, socialization and conversation places – now it has become an elite costly service and not a public service. This is just one of the thousands of “ways of living” that we can and must recuperate.

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© Article by Dr. Daniele Trevisani – http://www.danieletrevisani.com – Copyright. Adapted from the book The Soul Box. Ancient Wisdom meets Human Potential Research. Thoughts for Self-Expression, Inner Energy and Life

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[1] Pilar Ferré, David Ventura, Montserrat Comesañ, and Isabel Fraga (2015), The role of emotionality in the acquisition of new concrete and abstract words. Frontiers in Psychology, 2015 Jul 2;10(7).

[2] This Latin phrase – as many more that we will not examine – has been adopted widely, showing how deeply Latin Culture pervaded European and US culture. The following list shows some examples:

(list source http://www.thefullwiki.org/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano) :

  • The phrase was a favorite of American President Harry S. Truman.
  • Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia uses the phrase as its motto.
  • Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia uses the phrase as its motto.
  • S.C. Anderlecht uses the phrase as its motto.
  • Teacher’s College of Columbia University has this phrase engraved on its Horace Mann hall, on 120th street in New York City.
  • Motto of the Turners Organization American Turners and their local organizations like the Los Angeles Turners. The Turners promoted gymnastics and introduced PE to schools in America
  • ASICS, company name derived from the phrase.
  • Carlton Football Club uses the phrase as its motto.
  • Army Physical Training Corps (APTC) uses the phrase as its motto.
  • Asociacion Atletica Argentinos Juniors, uses the phrase as its motto.
  • The Israeli Institute of Technology athletics teams use the phrase as their motto.
  • It is the motto of Grant Medical College and Sir J.J. Hospital, Mumbai
  • PERI (Physical Education & Recreation Instructors), which is part of the Canadian Military use this as their motto
  • Widener University and the State University at of New York at Buffalo use the phrase as their motto.
  • The phrase appears in stone on the western facade of the HPER (School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation) at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
  • It is the motto of Dhaka Physical Education College in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
  • It is the motto of Sparta High School in Sparta, New Jersey.
  • It is the motto of Roger Bacon High School, St. Bernard, Ohio
  • John Locke (1632-1704) uses the phrase in his book ‘Some thoughts concerning education’.
  • Is the motto for Bjelke-Petersen School of Physical Culture, Australia.
  • Mens Sana Basket, a prominent Italian basketball club.
  • Motto of Beale Gaelic Football Club from County Kerry.
  • Used in the film Agantuk by Satyajit Ray.
  • Is the motto of Bridgewater Junior Senior High School in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.

 

 

1.1. Self-expression and self-realization: a journey into human potential, working on your dreams

Since we are born we are fully involved in a journey called life. We run, we like it or not, whether we like it or not the stopping areas and landscapes we encounter.

I would like to talk to you about a great opportunity which sometimes is denied to us, and how to get it. This opportunity is to do a good trip, and leave a positive mark in this world at the end of your trip.

But for every stretch of road, you need some form of energy.

So, I would like to talk to you about the energy you need to make this journey.

And how to grow it in you. How to measure it, how to understand at which level you are,  and how to regenerate to go ahead despite the difficulties, and to exploit the descents which sometimes appear in front of us.

It ‘a battle without limits and without end because the only purpose is to improve oneself and the world.

Working on this endless dream helps us to rediscover the pride and reason to exist.

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Copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani www.danieletrevisani.com