The Dream Catcher Podcast

According to various studies, 75% of people in the world do not consider themselves to be creative. Most of them are in professions that are outside of traditional creative fields such as artists, designers and performers.

The truth is that each and every one of us is born with tremendous creative potential. Many times, when we find ourselves stuck in a rut, it’s because we have somehow blocked the creative flow within us.

In this episode, I outline the numerous benefits of expressing our creativity and a few ideas on how we can effectively channel it into all areas of our life.

Gratitude has become a popular buzz word in the field of self-empowerment. Being grateful is now considered to be one of the most effective ways to create an abundant and joyful state of mind.

But could being too grateful possibly deflate our desire for progress? Can we delude ourselves into believing that our life is good enough because we have plenty to be grateful for?

The answer is yes - people can use gratitude to hide from the truth of their life and avoid making the changes that they know they need to make. That’s why the practice of gratitude is effective only if it’s complemented with self-awareness and honesty about our life situation.

The good news is that we can turn things around by maintaining a balance between being grateful and being pulled by our goals. In this episode, I describe five simple ways you can achieve this balance.

All of us dream at night - sometimes our dreams are vivid and clear, and sometimes they are hazy and fragmented, while other times we face spells of dreamless nights. No matter what our dream experiences are like, we should take them seriously as they are the gateway to our subconscious mind.

To shed some light on the importance of our dreams, I invited dream expert Kelly Sullivan Walden. Kelly is on a mission to awaken the world to the power of dreams. She is a certified clinical hypnotherapist, whose unique approach to dream therapy led her to become a trusted adviser, coach and consultant, enriching the lives of thousands of individuals, including Fortune 500 executives, UN ambassadors, celebrities, inner-city kids, and stay-at-home moms. Her dream insights have been featured on many national talk shows, including The Doctor Oz Show, Ricki Lake, The Real and Hallmark’s Home & Family.

In this interview, Kelly shares her thoughts on the significance of our dreams when it comes to the important themes in our lives. She also shares tips on how we can recall our dreams better, as well as interpret them in a way that can offer us wisdom and insight into our journey of empowerment.

Since the dawn of time, people have been governed by leaders. Leaders typically possess a set of skills and personality traits that facilitate their ability to guide, make decisions, and direct their subordinates to accomplish common goals.

In theory, this is what is expected of a leader, but often the individuals who take up this role do not follow through. History has plenty of examples of incompetent and ruthless rulers who left their kingdoms in a state of disarray, chaos, and destruction.

Fortunately, some leaders chose differently. Their policies, centered on creating better conditions for their people, were influenced by enlightened ideas on leadership.

In this episode, we'll look at some of the most loved leaders in history and what we can learn from their benevolent leadership. By learning about these rulers, not only will you become a better leader in our own life but you'll improve your ability to elect competent leaders.

Whenever we think of the word “love” we usually associate it with the romantic kind.

But the truth is that love has many other manifestations. There is, in fact, a buffet of love with a delectable spread that we can feast on.

The ancient Greek philosophers, who were linguistic geniuses, were the only ones who were able to pick up on these distinctions in love. About 2500 years ago, within the enclaves of their stately forums, they created six words that captured the essence of the many shades of love that we can experience during our lifetime.

In this episode I describe the six types of love and their differences. As well a few tips on how we can open ourselves up to them.

In the beginning stages of any romance, you’re totally smitten. Both love and infatuation appear to be relatively similar, and it’s easy to get confused.

But if we wish to be in healthy and committed partnerships we have to move beyond having crushes and being caught up in the raptures of young love, and into a mature kind of love.

There are a significant number of people who do not make that transition, and as a result, they find it hard to tell if they are in love or merely infatuated with a person, even as adults.

In this episode, I outline the six key differences between being in love and being infatuated with a person. Knowing the distinctions, will instill an awareness that allow you to have more enjoyable relationships that are wholesome and loving.

Our emotions are not the easiest thing to deal with. In fact, given a choice we prefer to rationalize or just ignore them and get on with life. But no matter what we do, our emotional patterns will always show up in one way or another and it’s up to us to manage them in the healthiest way possible.

Dr. Tracy Thomas, my guest today has taught people how to do this for many years – she is an author, a licensed psychologist, coach, speaker and a leading expert in the area of emotional strength training.  She’s been published and cited in hundreds of national media outlets for her unique approach to mastering life’s twist and turns and helping her clients turn into leaders who take charge of their lives.

Join us on this our in-depth conversation on emotions where Tracy shares detailed information on how we can boost our emotional intelligence by identifying irrational thinking patterns and self-sabotaging behavior. She also shares some tools and strategies which you can use to build our emotional intelligence and become more resilient.

As we learn more about the brain and its boundless capacity, we’re seeing that conventional methods of evaluating intelligence, like IQ and standardized tests, simply can’t give a holistic insight into a person’s cognitive ability.

The school grading systems only measures for certain types of intelligence which tips the scales in favor of those who excel in mainstream subjects like math, science, and languages. But according to recent findings from experts, there are nine types of intelligences.

It’s important to recognize that all of us have has a small part of all the nine intelligences in us, but we will be particularly strong in one or two specific areas, and it’s essential to be aware of them so that we can develop our strengths more thoroughly. You can learn more about the nine types and take an online assessment at www.verywellmind.com

In this episode, I describe four ways that you can build on and express them.

‘Finding your purpose’ has become a popular catchphrase in our culture of self-empowerment. Self-help gurus encourage us to forge a path that’s meaningful and can make use of our talents.

According to many of these experts, our purpose is directly connected with the interests and vocations that we’re passionate about – those activities we wouldn’t mind losing ourselves in for hours at stretch.

This seems fairly simple and straightforward but it doesn’t seem to be working for everyone. While our passions may be the key that unlocks the door for some people, it may not be the case for others. In this episode, I describe a couple of unconventional ways that you can find your purpose along with some example of well-known figures who followed those paths.

Most of us are raised to believe that we must work hard and ethically earn our success, but there are some who are tempted to take shortcuts instead of jumping through the expected hoops, even if it sabotages and harms others in the process.

The problem that we face in our society is that the notion of ‘fairness’ is not as black and white - there are so many shades of gray in the fairness continuum. Where you lie on this continuum depends on your personal values and how you want to show up in the world.

Playing fair should be like a North Star that reminds us to uphold this standard, but we should walk towards it with our feet firmly grounded in reality, knowing full well that the bad guys can still win. In this episode, I describe how you can play the game of life with integrity and handle those who don’t.