Personal Excellence - Bring Your Best to Life (6CDs or MP3s)
He who knows, and knows he knows.
Follow him.
He who knows, but knows not that he knows, is asleep.
Awaken him.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not, is simple.
Teach him.
He who knows not, but knows not that he knows not, is dangerous.
Avoid him.
~Ancient Proverb
Introduction
Personal Excellence means being who you really are, in touch with your own inner wisdom, bringing forth the best that is within you, and functioning at your creative peak producing optimal performance. This exciting and enjoyable Personal Excellence program will introduce you to an important power within and help you develop powerful state-of-the-art techniques of visualization and mental image rehearsal for bringing that power into effective action creating the changes you want to have in your life.
This program consists of five of Dr. Miller’s Heart-to-Heart talks, six different guided imagery experiences to help you take his inspiring message and your own intentions into the subconscious levels of your mind. In addition, there is a full track of affirmations set to inspiring music to help you get going each day. You will become clear about your personal values, your mission or purpose in life, and empower yourself to achieve. You will also learn to create your own vision for your future, set specific goals, and use feedback appropriately.
Further, and equally important, you will explore your beliefs about yourself, choose the beliefs you want to guide your life, and bring forth the best that is within you. As you work with this innovative program, you will develop a sense of wholeness and deep integrity that will multiply the effects of your guided imagery.
Contents – Track Information
Track 1: “Personal Excellence,” your introduction to the principles of this program, is a Heart-to-Heart talk by Dr. Miller. You will begin to realize the power that is within you, and the way your attitude and beliefs affect everything you do. You will also be introduced to the most useful skills, Deep Relaxation, and Mental Image Rehearsal
Track 2:” I Am” brings you the direct experience of deep relaxation. Dr. Miller’s soothing voice, accompanied by beautiful music and nature sounds, gently guides you into a state of peace, relaxation, and acceptance. You learn to let go of distractions and discover your essence – your “I AM.”
Track 3: “Secrets of the Great” explores the reasons and value of knowing and affirming your true values, discovering your personal mission or purpose, and acting with integrity. Integrity is when your personal values and mission are in alignment with your thoughts, words, and actions. You will see how these principles have empowered great men and women throughout recorded time.
Track 4: I Can is a guided imagery experience, using mental image rehearsal to draw forth power from past successes, enhance your sense of competence in the presence, and develop personal power and faith in yourself. You can achieve what you came here to achieve, but you must learn how to believe you can achieve it. Here’s how.
Track 5: “Power Vision” is another Heart-to-Heart by Dr. Miller, bringing you lots more understanding and useful information for using the “master skill,” mental image rehearsal. When you rehearse your part for a play you can perform your part better, and when you rehearse running the marathon (work out), your legs grow stronger. And when you rehearse being the best you that you can imagine being, living in a way that honors and serves your purpose and values, you become more authentically yourself.
Track 6: “I See – Visioning,” guides you within once again, this time to focus on the future. The future is not a place you are going, the future is a place you are creating, and by envisioning the future you really want, one that satisfies your purposes and supports the world you want to bring about.
Track 7: “Spirit In Action” will show you how, now that it is clear what you want, to fully commit yourself to action. This Heart-to-Heart talk by Dr. Miller explores the use of imagery skills to mentally rehearse each of the important steps and sub-steps as well as the minor and major goals along the path towards your personal vision.
Track 8: “I Will,” is an inspiring guided meditation that will help you create and experience action images of yourself, feeling the thrill of success while accomplishing a number of action steps and achieving your overarching vision
Track 9: “Staying On Course” offers you powerful tools and insights for self-guidance: for rewarding desirable behavior and adjusting/correcting your mistakes—that is, using positive and negative feedback profitably. Particularly useful when you feel down or defeated.
Track 10: “Image Rehearsal—I Act,” is an enormously practical mental image rehearsal experience. It guides you to focus on your next specific challenge: a sales presentation, an intimate encounter, an athletic competition or a test you have to take tomorrow morning – whatever you would like most to be successful at. It is rather brief and can be used to adjust your attitude and energy just before you go into action.
Track 11: Launching Your Day is a Drivetime experience, meaning you can listen to it as you get up in the morning, while you are preparing to meet the day, and as you drive or ride to work. It features numerous affirmations designed to keep you in touch with your true values and purpose even as you confront the challenges of the day.
Track 12: Successful Use of Positive and Negative Feedback is a powerful tool to create sustainability of your desired behaviors by reinforcing them. Simultaneously, it gives you a way to accept negative feedback in a way that changes your inner program in a way that eliminates obstacles to your future success.
Purpose
• To enable you to bring your best to life, and to do what you do with true excellence, in harmony with your deepest values.
• To help you learn to identify and clarify your deeper values, personal purposes or missions, and guide you in developing an overarching vision that reflects your values and serves your true purpose.
• To break through the negative patterns of thought, imagination, and behavior and guide you to use power vision to achieve Personal Excellence and perform at your peak.
• To teach you to use the “Master Skill,” the one so widely used by top performers in all fields.
• To let go of and release old, worn-out attitudes—old patterns of thinking, reacting and behaving that have impeded you in the past and prevented you from bringing your best to life.
• To provide tools to maximize your performance that you can use just before an important challenge, for the purpose of acting with unprecedented power, clarity, and effectiveness because your actions will be based on the solid ground of your deeper values.
• To guide support you in discovering your true essence and what you want most in life; to awaken self-acceptance, self-respect, and self-confidence.
How it works
The core of all personal success is the little-understood phenomenon of true Self-esteem – the awareness and respect of your true Self, empowered by self-confidence and set free to express your truth in thought, word, and deed.
In addition to the 12 audio tracks, most of them 45 minutes in length, A 40-page workbook is included with the set of six recordings, a manual to guide you in using this remarkable set of experiences. It will guide you through the five phases of this program.
Phase One: Relaxation, Self-Awareness and Personal Excellence
Phase Two: Self-Empowerment
Phase Three: Visioning
Phase Four: Commitment to Action
Phase Five: Self-Management and Staying on Course
This program features three distinctly different kinds of activities:
1. The Heart-to-Heart conversations with Dr. Miller. (These are Tracks 1,3,5,7, and 9) Each of these Heart-to-Hearts contains a great deal of information, each should be listened to numerous times. Track 1, “Personal Excellence,” for instance, should be listened to three, four or more times during Phase One of the program. You may also want to listen again as a refresher during other phases of the program. Each Heart-to-Heart talk is richly enhanced by soothing and stimulating music and poignant dramatizations.
2. Imagery experiences (Tracks 2,4,6,8,10, and 12). These are relaxation and imagery-based exercises which require your full concentration. The special value of these experiences is that you will learn state-of-the-art techniques for encoding your deeper values, purpose, and goals at the emotional level and into the actual physiology of your body. More than merely understanding and knowing, the relaxation/imagery experiences help you embody the principles of Personal Excellence.
3. Launching Your Day, a Drivetime experience consisting of supportive music and numerous wise quotes and affirmations to help you stay in touch with your power and your wisdom while you are driving or doing other things that do not require your undivided attention.
The Deeper Rationale
People generally think of success and excellence in terms of output – achievement or promotion at work, the creation of quality products, or successfully raising a child. This program will help you to achieve an excellent output, but in addition, you will learn something more important: personal excellence is more than creating a top-notch product, more than providing award-winning service. Excellence is a very special quality of the journey as well. You will learn techniques for accessing power from the past and projecting it forward into the future and for identifying deeper values and personal purpose or mission in life. You will discover how to develop your own overarching life vision which reflects your values and serves your deepest purpose.
You will develop new awareness, new attitudes and new priorities for budgeting your time, energy, and resources. You will let go of old worn-out attitudes – patterns of thinking, reacting, and behaving that have in the past prevented you from bringing your best to life.
The “master skill” mental image rehearsal (a technique to be used just before an important challenge), will enable you to perform with unprecedented power, clarity, and effectiveness because their actions will be based on the solid ground of their deeper values.
Recommended Applications
This program is highly recommended for those who are seriously interested in reaching high levels of performance while maintaining contact with and expressing their deeper values. Of special interest and value to executives, athletes, performers, leaders, and other highly success-oriented individuals.
Important information and Contraindications
For all but the most sophisticated users who have already mastered the skills of meditation, deep relaxation, and guided imagery, this program will require several weeks or even months to complete. If you want a quick fix, try Letting Go Of Stress, The Ten Minute Stress Manager, or Optimal Performance. Give this one time to work its magic in your life.
Contraindications and Precautions
Although there are really no absolute contraindications for the use of this product, people who are severely psychotic or who do not want to at least try to follow the guidance offered will probably benefit little from listening. Listening is also not a substitute for needed medical care or psychiatric care for serious mental or emotional disturbance. In any undiagnosed potentially serious condition such as a head injury, again, there will not likely be any harm, but it would be wise to delay their use until an adequate diagnosis has been made.
Although no such problems have been reported, people with seizures of any kind, or neurological or with severe neurorespiratory disease, should check with their primary care practitioner for suggestions regarding the use of this program. Likewise, if you are undergoing psychotherapy, share your use of these with your therapist, as he/she may want to integrate this use with your treatment.
And, of course, if you are driving or using equipment that requires your full attention, do not close your eyes and do not listen to any program that you find causes you to become drowsy, distracted, or incapable of functioning safely. Programs designated as “Drivetime” should be used with these precautions in mind.
Recommended Use & Detailed Description of Exercises:
Phase One: Relaxation, Self-Awareness and Personal Excellence
Track 1: Personal Excellence
Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “That which we are, we are, and if we are ever to be any better, now is the time to begin.” – and Carl Rogers said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change”
This track is a Heart to Heart talk, where you will learn to set your goals in harmony with your deeper values. The mistake that most people make is that they try to change what is before they have really become aware of who they are.
There are tremendous resources within each of us – but rather than trying to build on top of the currently existing scrapheap, if we wish to achieve those goals which will truly satisfy and fulfill us, we must clear away the debris and find the solid ground of the self upon which to build. Here is how to do this.
Listen to this track two, three, or more times the first week.
Track 2: I AM
Take a richly soothing journey into deep relaxation through a very deeply relaxing series of imagery experiences, accompanied by beautiful music. This track will guide you on a journey through time and space to a deeper source within you. Here you will drink from the inner spring, and open your mind to receive guidance. Especially you will be encouraged to develop an affirmation . . . I Am.
Allow yourself to experience this once a day the first week (or more often if you like). You will be using this in combination with Track 1. You will learn to enter the present moment, relax, and begin to practice the use of guided imagery. You may well wish to continue to listen to this track even as you explore more deeply in this program. It is a good way to relieve stress and get centered.
Phase Two: Self-Empowerment
Track 3: Secrets of the Great
Paul Mann said, “We all know problems. But how we meet them makes the difference. One man gives up. Another perseveres. . . and, armed with the knowledge born of trying, finds the way to succeed. What do you see down a rocky path? Stumbling blocks or stepping-stones? It’s the point of view that counts.”
And Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe that you can do a thing or that you can’t do it, you are right.”
This Heart-to-Heart talk will introduce you to the crucially important roles of attitude and commitment to your values. Then we will explore the potential of the Master Skill, mental image rehearsal. Listen a few times during week 2.
Track 4: I CAN
is a soothing journey to your inner safe place, where you will reaffirm your deepest values and sense of Self. Then you will review some of your past successes, no matter how small or big, and extract from them the potential you need to empower yourself in the present. You will learn to create a new internal biochemical state, one that will support the attitude that can produce success. It is best to listen once daily during week 2.
Phase Three: Visioning
Track 5: Power Vision
reflects the truth in Eleanor Roosevelt’s words. “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes . . . the process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”
This Heart-to-Heart talk will introduce you to the power of visioning. What we express in our lives and in our thoughts, words, and deeds will ultimately reflect the inner images we hold of ourselves and the world around us. A vision is a powerfully motivating mental image of the future which serves our purpose and is in accordance with our deeper values.
Visioning is the act of evolving and developing a vision and then holding it in mind as an outcome toward which all of one’s actions and activities are directed. Now you will be able to make this powerful tool your own. Focus on this track during week 3, listening to it several times.
Track 6: Visioning
I See, is a beautiful inner journey of relaxation and encouraging stimulation. It is designed to help you awaken your sense of vision and purpose. You’ll begin by allowing yourself to get in touch with the kinds of feelings you want to project forward into the future. To do this, you will re-experience one or more memories from the past which evoke these feelings. You will then use the technique of visioning to project them into the future.
Phase 2 was designed to allow you to gain access to inner feelings of competence and self-empowerment and to discover and clarify your values. Now, the aim of Phase 3 is to develop an effective means for expressing them.
Holding the vision in spite of resistance, fear, distractions and the other obstacles of life enables you to transform current reality in the direction indicated by the vision. Listen to this track and follow its imagery once a day (or evening) at least, during week 3.
Phase Four: Commitment to Action
Track 7: Spirit in Action
This phase of the Personal Excellence™ program is concerned with translating your vision into action. Up to now, everything you’ve studied has been based on your own feelings and judgment. This Heart-to-Heart talk will encourage you to develop a way to approach the specific challenges in your life by systematically establishing goals that lead, step by step, to the attainment of your overarching vision. Further, you will learn to apply the skill of power vision for an attitude adjustment.
Focus on learning the perspectives and approaches presented on this track during week 4. Listen frequently, this is the most important part.
Track 8: I Will
This track is a deep relaxation guided imagery experience that will help you envision the successful accomplishment of each of the major goals you have developed through the use of Track 7 and the exercises in the workbook. You will visualize the overarching vision you have developed after traveling within to your garden of peace and empowerment. You will re-access those feelings and qualities that you wish to project into the future. You will then travel forward into the future and envision yourself accomplishing your major goals, passing the milestones, and finally achieving your overarching vision. Listen daily during week 4; this will strengthen your resolve and commitment.
Phase Five: Self-Management and Staying on Course
Track 9: Staying on Course
is a Heart-to-Heart talk that enables you to manage yourself successfully. You have discovered your true Self, accessing the power of your mission and vision, and are on your way to your goals. Now you will learn how to successfully apply positive and negative feedback to achieve success. You will either win or learn and discover how, paradoxically, sometimes learning is far more valuable than just winning.
Now that you have been putting your plans into action, it is time to use feedback wisely. Listen several times during week 5.
Track 10: “I Act,”
guides you through the kind of imagery used by Olympic athletes—the master skill of mental image rehearsal—but emphasizing the immediacy of an upcoming event that you are preparing yourself for. With effective use of Side E, you will actually hear the applause, you will actually feel the money in your hand, you will actually experience the physical and emotional sensations that go along with the improvement in your behavior and performance. No wonder this is the favorite of peak performers everywhere. Listen daily throughout week 5, this is where the rubber meets the road.
Track 11: Positive and Negative Feedback
is a deep relaxation and guided imagery experience that will enable you to successfully use feedback, the breakfast of champions. When we use the results of a process so as to alter or reinforce the character of that process, we are using feedback. Positive feedback is the way we reinforce behaviors that were successful in the way you wanted them to be. Negative feedback is poorly understood by most people, but those who are truly successful understand it completely and use it constantly. The proper response to negative feedback is to take corrective action. This experience will show you how to do this. Use this part regularly after each new effort, endeavor, or project. Feedback is of crucial importance to success.
Track 12: Launching Your Day
Drivetime Affirmations features engaging music interwoven with powerful affirmations that can be listened to in a deeply relaxed state, or else while you are driving or engaged in other activities. Its purpose is to prepare you for optimal performance. You will notice that after the spoken affirmations, there is a lengthy space in which you can repeat—silently or aloud—the foregoing statement, altering it as you desire, personalizing it and making it better suited to your needs.
Supplementary and related programs
As you become aware of your inner power you will very likely want to participate in sharing with others so as to transform your world just as you transform yourself. Through this program, you will find the part of you that can join with others in shared leadership (Distributed leadership) of your community and your world.
Begin Your Day The Olympian Way
A positive and empowering way to start out each morning. Featuring Dr. Miller and Olympian Athlete Marilyn King, this program is aimed towards those who desire peak performance and is especially useful for those who are leaders or wish to become leaders.
Dr. Miller’s classic text will help you understand the value of Self-acceptance and how the mind-tools of deep relaxation, self-hypnosis, meditation, and affirmation can bring about healing and optimal performance at every level.
Learn how Personal Excellence can work at the social and global levels. The same skills used to bring about healing to the body and mind of an individual and creating optimal performance can also be used to help create healing at the level of the world we all share. This program will help you see how.
Our Culture On The Couch - 7 Steps To Global Healing
Discover the relationship of personal healing to the healing of the planet. This remarkable text explores the very source of the illnesses we experience individually and the dysfunctions we experience in our society and throughout human cultures. You will discover how mind tools can help enable you to do your part in righting the wrongs of the world.
Stress is a necessary part of life, especially for those who seek excellence. Because accumulating stress is at the root of all anxiety and poor performance, this program is useful for learning techniques to lower the overall level of stress in your life. A Dr. Miller Classic, Letting Go Of Stress is a perennial bestseller.