Ultimate Challenges To Change Your Mind

By Dan Brown

“The first to help you up, are the ones who know how it feels to fall” What are you wanting to do with your life,
your upcoming year ahead, the month ahead, tomorrow?? Find an amazing way to live life fully. To complete challenges designed to fill your life with rewarding experiences and to look back on yourself with so much mo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Printing UK
• Release date: Apr 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781911596844

Dan Brown

Dan Brown is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Origin, The Da Vinci Code, Digital Fortress, Deception Point, The Lost Symbol, Angels & Demons, and Inferno. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spent time as an English teacher before turning his efforts to writing full-time. He lives in New England with his wife. Visit his website at DanBrown.com.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

YOU ARE AMAZING!!!!

No really, you are! Between 180 – 400 million of the wiggly fellas all tried to reach the same goal, but it was YOU that won the race to become ‘you’. Well done! From this point onwards, you have remained amazing. You continue to survive and develop into the brilliant person you are now with the fantastic ability of even looking at these small black shapes we call ‘words’ and understanding what they mean, so read on you superhero, read on…..

Throughout your life you found you needed to work for money to pay for your food and the place you live in. You found love, friendship and all the other qualities associated with being a human in this world. Social media platforms have become the normal usual regular place to share what you do on days where something interesting happened. To some, watching others do interesting things has replaced their own activities, but what have you done that you can look back on and say I did that, that made me proud, that made people around me entertained or impressed or in years to come say I remember when I did that, it was such a good day?

Only too often do we get caught up in the daily struggle of life. To work too many hours to pay for only 80 % of the costs. To worry hugely about things we cannot afford anymore. To feel as poor as a church mouse, with pockets as empty as a eunuch’s underpants, that’s just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse….taking all the cheese! We are also at times knocked down by illnesses or violence, persecution and prejudice, poor health and an ageing body. It all contributes to us forgetting how actually amazing we really are and how brilliant we can continue to be.

Did you know that on average only ¾ of us will make it to 80? So, picture this, you’re lucky enough not to have a fatal accident, terminal illness or early death. At the age of say 30 just how much life have you left? 50 years right?...WRONG.

A third of that 50 years will be spent asleep, that’s now down to around 33 years. Subtract working an average job of a 40-hour week with 4 weeks off per year until 70 years old and your 33 years is now down to around 24 years. Now take off basic life routines like eating, hoovering, toilet and bathing time, driving and travelling to get to where you need to be etc, all those boring mundane but necessary things we don’t really choose to do, and your available time left for living is cut to 8 years. That’s 8 years to live until you’re 80 from being 30 years old, if you’re fortunate enough to survive that many years. That’s just an optimistic 2 years every decade to do the things you want. What are you doing with yours??

Don’t look back wishing you had more time. Don’t say I’ll do that tomorrow or when I get the time. Don’t look back with regrets of not doing something.

When surveying very old people in retirement homes, they all said the same thing - I only regret what I didn’t do. So, procrastinate no more, don’t do something later, because your body may not be up to it. Mark your next day off with an intention to LIVE IT.

This book’s sole intention is to help you connect with the hero that lies within you. To show you how to top up your self worth and build your confidence. To help you fall in love with yourself so much that your life that follows completion of this book will be massively better than before you picked it up.

To give you fantastic memories and to spring board you onto your own amazing new life experiences. All cleverly hidden within tasks that are fun to do!

So how will it do this? Well, in the next chapter you will find challenges for you to complete. Each numbered challenge will test you in some way, you will say to yourself that you might not be able to complete some of them but to try is all you need to do. Look at it this way….at some point in your early life you didn’t know your own name, you couldn’t talk, walk, visit the bathroom alone or even eat food without help. So why can you do all these things now? Because you tried when you were encouraged to try whilst trusting those around you. Put a little trust in this book, just a little, and try to complete the challenges.

Start with one you decide would be easy for you to achieve. Mark in the page next to each challenge when you have completed one. Always take photos and videos where possible carrying out a challenge. Ask family and friends for help recording yourself completing a challenge, then upload these to this books’ Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to share with others who are also completing this book and share how you got on. Upload these to your own Facebook pages etc too. Each challenge is numbered to allow others who are taking part to quickly understand which challenge your media relates to.

The challenges are designed to show you how to appreciate other people around you, how to empathise with a fellow human. They will build your confidence in many ways you didn’t realize until you look back on them. They will improve your social skills, your fitness. You will discover new experiences you only witness when sitting down at the movies only this will be your movie.

Then, when you agree that this book worked wonders with you, pass the message on to others and recommend they try it out too. It doesn’t have to be any great secret that these challenges are being done to complete a book. You can tell people that before, during or afterwards that you’re doing something in order to complete ‘A book of challenges’.

After the last main challenge in chapter 2 you will find two more chapters of challenges, the first are challenges that can take a long time to complete and the second are challenges for the more committed. As in more physically demanding or more technical. Your main goal is to try to complete fully the challenges in the main section.

How did this challenge book idea start?

Chapter 5 is the story of how I discovered completing challenges such as these had a profound positive effect on my life and the lives of others that did them with me or that benefitted from my doing them. It all began with a decision to ‘go for a walk’ at a place where there would be no cars, no technology or distractions and indeed pretty much no people. Just for the sheer adventure of it all.

Following on from reading my story, you can visit the online social media platforms to view images and videos of me completing every single challenge this book sets. I must lead by example.

This is where it begins online.

Remember…..The only things in life you will regret, are the things you didn’t do!

CHAPTER 2

THE CHALLENGES

Before you read on, make a note of today’s date and completion.

The following 2 pages are for you to use to illustrate which challenges are completed.

And now the tick boxes for the Extreme Challenges!

And finally the time consuming challenges

CHALLENGE - 1

GIVEAWAY BALLOONS

DESCRIPTION:

Now this challenge will put you in the public’s eye. This may give a feeling of vulnerability. It’s one of many challenges that can be used as a way of fundraising for your chosen charity.

Wearing a t-shirt detailing your cause or reason for your actions, though not essential, works well with this one as it helps strangers understand why you’re there.

So, buy a good selection of balloons. Helium or just plain blown up ones.

Stand in a place the general public are walking by and hand them out to anyone you are able to get to accept them.

GUIDELINES:

Don’t be pushy in handing them out. Look for inquisitive glances.

Attach a ribbon to each balloon.

Have someone record your deed with a picture or video clip. Upload to anywhere online you choose, i.e. this book’s facebook page or your own etc. And label it ‘Challenge No.1’

BASIC RULES TO FOLLOW:

A minimum of 20 balloons to be handed out.

All ages to receive a balloon.

Accept no money for a balloon.

The challenge cannot end until all balloons are given to strangers.

Nobody you know can accept one.

You can even explain that you’re doing it as part of the ‘Challenge Book’ if asked.

Make a note of the date completed and share your results via our social media.

CHALLENGE - 2

SPEND 36 HOURS BLIND

DESCRIPTION:

Going without something in life is a great way to appreciate just what you are blessed with and therefore empathise with others.

This is the first of those types of challenges within the book.

Approach this with no feeling of how to cut corners. Just make sure you’re safe throughout and remember to have fun.

Record moments of expected fun and interaction with others.

Your perspectives on how others live, changes now with this first challenge, designed to deprive you of a basic privilege that’s taken for granted.

Try to carry out many activities rather than staying grounded the whole