Olivia Lambert

Eminem is known for controversies, chart-topping hits and being in the tabloids for a variety of reasons. Even people who hate rap music know the artist.

His iconic hit ‘Lose yourself’ has mindfulness lessons built into it, apart from being a celebrated motivational track for more than a decade, as acknowledged recently at the 2020 Academy Awards.

The lyrics of Eminem’s iconic track ‘Lose Yourself’ begin with paying attention to how one is feeling, without judging.

It is also imbibed in the lyrics to understand that inner turmoil exists silently inside, even though the outward physical composure appears normal. By embracing the inner turmoil we move to ‘full-catastrophe living’.

At any given moment, the inner voices of hope, anxiety, regret and expectations are always there. According to Eminem’s simple but profound lyrics in his song ‘Lose Yourself’, our past embarrassment and future worries are tangled up in our heads.

We are one tiny ego in a vast and abundant universe and don’t matter as much as we think we do.

Losing ‘yourself’ isn’t about getting lost, as the initial impression of someone listening to the Eminem song. It is about losing the mental voice that keeps telling us that we should do this or that, or we suck. Lose Yourself does not mean losing yourself, but means losing your self, that is your ego.

Mindfulness is misunderstood as an escape from reality to somewhere else. The rap song is providing the biggest message about mindfulness, to be in the present moment fully.

Genius is too elusive and too subjective to be easily identified. It requires too many traits to be simplified.

However, we can try to understand it by looking at intelligence, creativity, perseverance, and good fortune that interlinks to create a genius capable of changing the world.

Lewis Terman, who helped pioneer the IQ test, tracked over 1,500 Californian schoolkids with IQs above 140, which is the near-genius or genius mark.

40 after the study began, the researchers noted that a number of the study's participants struggled to thrive, despite their high IQ scores. Others tested for the study that did not have a high enough IQ, grew up to become renowned in their fields.

Creativity is a part of genius that can't really be measured, but that can be explained to a certain extent. One sign of creativity is being able to make connections between seemingly different concepts.

The 'aha moment' that arises at unexpected times, like in a dream or the shower, often emerges after a period of contemplation. Information comes in consciously, but the problem is managed subconsciously, resulting in a solution when the mind least expects it.

It relies on the dynamic interplay of neural networks that work together.

It draws from both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, especially regions in the prefrontal cortex.

Geniuses are rare, numbering roughly one in a million. Genetic potential alone does not predict actual accomplishments.

Advances in genetic research now make it possible to examine human traits. But Intelligence is very complex, and thousands of genes may be involved - each one with a slight effect.

Social and cultural influences can provide that nourishment, creating a cluster of genius at moments and places in history, like Kolkata during the Bengal Renaissance, or Silicon Valley today.

The hungry mind can also find the intellectual stimulation it needs at home, where an environment can be created in which to flourish.

Natural gifts and a nurturing environment can still fail to produce a genius, without motivation and determination to press one forward.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth believes that a combination of passion and perseverance, or grit, drives people to achieve. Big hits emerge after many attempts. Regardless of how brilliant a person is, endurance and discipline are critical to success.

Genius cannot be singled out and cultured and nurtured without support.

• People born in poverty or oppression don't get a chance at working toward anything other than to survive.
• Mozart’s older sister for example, Maria Anna, a brilliant harpsichordist, had her career cut short by her father when she reached the marriageable age of 18.

See life as it is, without all the ideals and fantasies you’ve been preoccupied with.

The vast majority of our struggles are self-created, and we can choose to overcome them in an instant.

Tying your self-worth to everyone else’s opinions gives you a flawed sense of reality because people judge us based on a pool of influences in their own lives that have absolutely nothing to do with us.

We need to learn from the past, but also to be ready to update what we learned based on how our circumstances have changed.

We have to say “no” to good things to be able to say “yes” to important things. We simply can’t do it all. 

So be mindful and choose wisely today. You have to sacrifice something that you value less than whatever it is you ultimately want to achieve.  

... it’s something we do. Our passion comes from doing things right.

If you’re waiting to find your passion somewhere outside yourself, so you finally have a reason to put your whole heart and soul into life, you’ll likely be waiting around for an eternity.

Start working toward your goals. Don't just wait around for someone or something outside yourself to pick you up and carry you forward.

Fear-setting is a tool to help us overcome the fear of making difficult decisions.

Fear setting is an operating system for thriving in high-stress environments. It is a way to make a checklist of all the bad things that could happen, so you become less afraid of taking action.

Page 1. Make three lists with the following headings:

• Define - what are the worst things that could happen?
• Prevent - How do I prevent each from happening?
• Repair - If the worst happens, how can I fix it?

Page 2. Make a list of the possible benefits if you are successful or partly successful.

Page 3. Make three lists of the costs of your inaction. If you avoid doing this, what might you miss out on? (6 months - 1 year - 3 years).

When we set goals, we are not that great at assessing our own ability to achieve them.

Because whether or not a goal is truly attainable can only be known when we start working on it.

Although setting goals is an important tool for self-motivation, but we tend to be overconfident beings, especially when a goal is linked to our self-esteem (we want to feel good about ourselves when it comes to achievements and aspirations).
So when we assess our own capabilities at taking on goals, we tend to be excessively optimistic.

• The persistent pursuit of unattainable goals can lead to higher achievements: focusing on smaller accomplishments can bolster positive feelings, motivating us to take on more goals in the same category. As long as we know that unattainable goals are not really about the destination, but the journey, they can be quite healthy.
• But unattainable goals often end in failures and how people react to failure varies greatly.
• Another potential mental trap following failure is the “false hope syndrome.” In this case, we tend to (mis)attribute the failure to reasons other than the fact that the goal was unattainable to start with.

• Don’t negate your progress as there is power in small wins.
• Don’t dwell on the failure: Reflect on your journey to achieving your goal.
• Think about related benefits: While you may not have achieved your goal fully, not all is lost.
• Ask for an objective analysis: We need to understand why we really failed.
• Take a third-person perspective, to help you reset your expectations.

We don't have to feel grateful in order to give thanks. Acting grateful can make you grateful.

For many people, gratitude is difficult because life feels difficult. But we don't have to be a slave to our feelings or circumstance. We can actively choose to practice gratitude, and in doing that, our happiness will increase.

Studies consistently show that the people practicing gratitude enjoy significantly greater life satisfaction than those who don't.

One explanation is that acting happy, regardless of feelings, encourages the brain into processing positive emotions. Gratitude stimulates the hypothalamus (a part that regulates stress), and the ventral tegmental area (a part that produces the sensation of pleasure.)

• Start with interior gratitude - giving thanks privately. Then move to exterior gratitude, which focuses on public expression.
• Regularly express gratitude in letters to loved ones and colleagues, thanking them for what they do.
• Be grateful for the little things you experience, the smell of fall in the air, a song that brings back good memories.

No one wants to work with a self-obsessed maniac, but everyone wants to work with someone who doesn’t think he/she is the best and who supports other people’s goals while supporting their own simultaneously.

Self-reflection and solace are key to living a sane life.

Insert quiet time into your schedule. Without time away from technology, we can’t assess what is happening in our lives, we can't process the bad moments and we won't be able to find the necessary resources to endure them.

Use tragedy to give you perspective. Tragedy helps you have present moment awareness and to understand how short time is.

“We’re all in it together,” said Keanu in one of his interviews. 

All are one and equal, to be respected. It means that whether you have fame, money or success, you are still human and that means you can always help another person out.

Throughout life, we have multiple rebirths. Before every rebirth, there is a necessary period of isolation. If you never go away from the spotlight in your career, you can’t do the difficult work on yourself that is required to level-up.

An easy way to understand the term is through the opposite of normal - which is "pathological" or abnormal.

There are four different criteria for defining abnormality:

• Statistic approach. It is based on the idea that normality is what is most common. But it loses effectiveness when there are many variables.
• Biological approach. In this approach, behaviors or processes follow biological normality. But the problem with these criteria is that biological laws can be wrong or incomplete.
• Social approach. It's based on the idea that normality is what society accepts as normal.
• Subjective approach. If a person considers their behavior as abnormal, it is enough to consider them as such.

Although these criteria are used to diagnose and treat disorders in clinical psychology, we can use them to better understand our personal concept of normal and abnormal.

Social constructivism explains that the interaction people have with their environment creates all knowledge. The idea of normal is constructed through our relationship with our surroundings. It means people will always see normality and abnormality from a social point of view.

This theory may stir up an ethical and moral debate. It is society who ends up excluding behaviors, ideas, or characteristics through prejudice and criticism. This explains how the consideration of what is normal and abnormal has changed throughout history. Normality can be considered as the process for self-regulation.

With the rapid advancement in bioscience and technology, it is likely that most ailments will be cured in the future and our life span would increase considerably.

With increased lifespans, there are new challenges that would need to be overcome. One could plan ahead and accomplish tasks that would take decades or centuries, unlike our current mindset of relatively short-term goals. An extended period of existence would make us wiser and afraid of taking risks.

As the human life span increases to span centuries, the planetary environment, along with the collaboration and cooperation among nations would come to the forefront, as hostile people and chronic pollution are extremely dangerous in the long run.

While our survival would still not be a guarantee, there will be a new challenge of overpopulation, which could be moderated by sending people into space to colonize other places, and by limiting the birth rate.

As inter-galaxy travel becomes a reality, there could be many spaceships which would be able to take us to nearby habitable solar systems, setting up for new adventures, challenges and a completely radical lifestyle.

The changes in Earth’s biosphere could also be a concern, as new technologies and constant harvesting of resources (like deforestation) can lead to dangerous environmental changes.

When we look at the problems we may face if we live a million years, we start to realize that the current problems and concerns are nothing when compared to the long-term perspective of our planet and the universe which we inhabit.

The constant injury humans cause to our home planet would seem childish and stupid, when seen alongside the larger picture of where we are in the universe.

Feedback is essential when you learn a new skill. However, when people learn the skill of 'creating new habits,' they think making mistakes is a sign of being a failure and showing an utter lack of discipline.

In reality, this is not true. No one mastered anything on their first few attempts — it takes practice to get good at anything.

Overcome your mind's resistance to get started by saying, "I'm all in. I'm going to start today." Then get moving. If you're not good at this, commit to making a small habit change this instant.

Many people want to learn a language or start exercising, but then don't take action. It is because they haven't really committed to getting started.