 For most CEO’s, the notion of simply scrapping your entire management structure is a little uncomfortable to say the least. But let’s look at this more closely. Is your management structure adding value, or are managers actually the cogs in a cumbersome machine that is now past its best?
"people today want to be part of something meaningful" People today want to be part of something meaningful, feel empowered and valued for their contribution. Organisations must move past trite vision statements and values, made trite only because those who ‘do the work’ are often not involved in their creation, so the organization doesn't 'live and breathe' the words written on its collateral. Rallying to a purpose means involvement, which leads to commitment. As discussed in my last article on why trust leads to better business outcomes, traditionally we apportion trust in organisations in the form of access to information, decision making power and financial authority. This strips many of the people ‘doing the work’ of any real power, we want those very people to take a more holistic view yet we don’t treat them as whole. Better Brand and Bottom Line – Ditch Your Call Centre asserts that the role of a call centre is unnecessary, costly, and even harmful. But in Profit, Purpose and Personal Fulfillment Can Thrive Together - A Remarkable New Organisational Construct I discuss a wider - though similar - issue, learning from organisations who have transcended the issues faced by most by adopting more self managing constructs. So has the role of management become another middle man that is perpetuating unnecessary costs? Having been a manager for many years myself, it’s a question I’ve pondered more and more. Initially there was an ego attachment to it, a status that goes with having ‘power’, but then came the responsibility of having to achieve outcomes through others. Quickly I understood the value of intrinsic motivation and the ability to find and ignite it. There is certainly an art to good management, but the question is whether it's necessary. Do managers simply have to learn these skills because of what has, in essence, been taken away from those in the value chain (doing the work that lies at the heart of the company's existence)? Take away control and many lose that intrinsic motivation to succeed on their own. In an article, published in Forbes, Jacob Morgan talks of 5 must-have qualities of the modern manager. He covers removing roadblocks from the paths of employees to help them succeed, empowering and engaging people, having a handle of what consumers are saying online, which social and collaborative technologies are making their way into the enterprise, using those collaborative technologies to lead by example, being open and transparent, embracing vulnerability and sharing information and collective intelligence. These are great qualities, but still, I wonder where the value-add is. How many of these things would be necessary in an environment where those who plan ahead and those who 'do' worked together in self managing teams, are these not things that can be achieved by anyone with the right access, savvy and relationships? “there would be chaos” Those who are managers may not have faith that all the people they currently manage could self manage well. Some may even think there would be chaos. Yes it could be a bumpy ride at first, but people quickly adapt and evolve given the right support. There has to be a huge amount of effort put into training managers that move through the various levels of managers anyway, why not invest that elsewhere, cut out the middleman? Most people manage perfectly well outside of work, in all the other areas of their life, without someone managing them. Those you manage are after all parents, homeowners, leaders in the community, sportspeople and so on. With experts like Frederic Laloux (author of Reinventing Organizations) and Yanik Silver (author of Evolved Enterprise) around, there is plenty of support to create organisations that manage themselves in quite a different way. "firms that follow these principles have outperformed the S&P 500 by 1000%" The organisations of the future are those who rally to a real cause (both those who work in the organisation and their customers), encourage the whole person to show up (rather than the narrow professional slice that has become the norm) and have constructs that facilitate collaboration (internally and externally). In the book Firms of Endearment, the authors show how firms that follow these principles have outperformed the S&P 500 by 1000% over 10 years. If you want to stick with a management structure to achieve those things, you can, though it’s probably not the most efficient use of your resources in the long term. I’m not suggesting you fire all your managers, it’s the ‘managing people’ part of the role that is largely redundant. In the case studies that Laloux cites, the organisations that have transformed to self managing structures retained all their managers but in roles that added more value. Regardless of how to choose to evolve, evolve you must in order to thrive in today's world and in order to just to survive in the world of tomorrow. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45393120@N07/5997001123">HA0521-031</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>
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 While we want our people to take a holistic view, most people in organisations are not treated as ‘whole’. The very construct of the organisation is designed to strip them down to a narrow view, then we want them to be holistic in their day to day interactions. It’s not unique to our adult experience, it starts when we are young. We teach our kids to fit in, follow the rules, yet want them to think for themselves.
What utopia looks like is an organisation where those interacting with customers, or designing interactions, feel that they own a win-win outcome in that interaction and that they have enough skill and acumen to achieve it. That means that they understand the big picture, are privy to the information they need and empowered to achieve the outcome. Sure, there are skills involved in that, but it all hinges on trust. Talking to a tenured executive this week about the problems his organisation faces in delivering a great customer experience, he cites the common scenario of major stakeholders getting complaints from customers about the lack of help they’ve had from the organisation. He finds himself bringing together different people, who have looked at things from their constricted viewpoint, their limited span of control, and having to mediate a solution from a more holistic perspective. One that serves the customer and the organisation. Sound familiar? While ‘the customer experience’ has become a rather trite phrase, it is the thing that makes or breaks perceptions of an organisation when people have to interact with it. It’s the proof point of any brand you want to create and a vital barometer of your leadership. Whether an organisation exists primarily to make money, or is not-for-profit, whether it lives and dies by serving the needs and desires of individuals or is custodian or gatekeeper of a greater good, is irrelevant. All organisations benefit from a good reputation. Standing in the way will be the basic construct of your organisation, even ‘flat’ structures tend to have hierarchies with the power at the top. The power isn’t just about the level of financial authority and decision making, it’s about the level of input and access to information – important context that can make all the difference for the person dealing with a change that is intended to directly or indirectly help the customer, or simply in the day to day conversing with the customer and ‘doing their job’. The discussion in my recent article on how Profit, Purpose and Personal Fulfillment Can Thrive Together, focused on a new approach to organizational constructs. While this can only be driven by CEO’s and those they answer to, there is room in any construct for leaders to take an approach that allows their people to operate in a more holistic way, one that better serves them and the organisation. The issue of trust is a starting point. To trust your people to deliver win-win outcomes, aside of the skills they will need to be equipped with, you have to trust them with information, you have to listen to their input, and they have to trust you. When people trust you, they are willing to ask for help, willing to own mistakes. To gain that trust you have to firstly be willing to be vulnerable yourself, not infallible. Sure, you want to work with people who know what they’re doing, but to never make mistakes or to know everything? For most of us showing any sign of weakness is out of our comfort zone. Our survival instinct, the part of our brain that switches to flight or fight when we are in mortal danger, has become the modus operandi for the way we live. Although most of us tend not to live in mortal danger for most of our lives, we are constantly using our minds in a way that mimics that instinct. Notice as you talk to people that you are generally not listening to what they are saying. Yes you may be hearing the words that come out of their mouth, but you’re usually leveraging that to think about what to say next, rather than really understanding what is being said. Here’s the reason, while you came into the world with an innate sense of what is right and wrong for you, from the minute you are born on this earth others think they know better. Slowly but surely you start to become less of who you were born to be and more of who others think you should be. This thing called ‘ego’ forms, your mind’s perception of you are. Almost immediately we start to fight or defend in some way, outwardly or silently. Being vulnerable with the people you want to have trust in you is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. Leadership teams that can be vulnerable with each other can start to truly operate as a team and will be a lot more focused and successful as a result. But it is like wearing a very uncomfortable pair of shoes at first. As you get to know and accept your own fallibilities, so you will be able to listen to others and help them with theirs, freeing them to achieve the very things you want them to. Trusting your people to do their job in a holistic way means treating them as whole people. Any step towards trust in your organisation, even one small step, will be one giant leap towards a better customer experience and better business outcomes. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/122099374@N07/16969244789">Dave Lewis</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Dmitry Sytnik How often do you delay taking a break, getting sleep or doing something for yourself in favour of doing something that ‘needs’ to be done first? How often is your mind thinking about the next thing you need to do, something you want or need to do in the future or ruminating about something that has already happened? How often are you really ever here, in this present moment?
There’s an expression about smelling the roses that might seem trite, but even noticing the people next to you, what they are wearing, the colours in the room, the smells as you take a walk outside, just noticing, just being, can help you in so many ways if you’ll just slow down – or, at least, feel that you’re slowing down. Just look at the amazing photo taken by Dmitry Sytnik I used for this article. If you look at the city, how does your body respond, how do you feel? If you look at the sky, how do you respond in contrast? Wouldn’t it be better to bottle the second feeling and carry that with you? I know it seems hard, impossible even at times. This week I watched my brother-in-law contending with a family emergency, he runs a small business and had nearly 600 orders to get out. With my sister-in-law (his critical partner in this) in hospital, and 3 kids to organize, it was the kind of day that one just has to get through. He asked the older ones about pick up and drop off arrangements for their after-school activities, dealt with the younger one having a morning melt down, knew at some point my sister-in-law would need picked up, meanwhile there was the task of just getting everyone fed and out the door. No doubt you will have some version of this story playing in your own life. Perhaps not an emergency, but everyday life can call upon you to be many people all at once. Telling you to take more time for yourself, take a break, get more sleep or smell the roses is likely to have your mind racing with all the things you need to do, all the reasons you can’t – and that’s only if you haven’t already dismissed the idea out of hand right at the outset. But if you are at a point where you’re thinking “there’s got to be more to life than this”, you are likely ready to at least listen. “a simple moment in the midst of chaos that has changed everything” Recently I wrote about a morning when I was trying to get my two preschool children focused enough to get out the door to their respective daytime activities, in time for me to get to an important appointment. It was a simple moment in the midst of chaos that has changed everything. On the cusp of thinking I’d magically managed to keep the chaos contained in a fast flowing steam of activity that led to getting in the car and going, each daughter wanted something extra – unplanned – that was absolutely necessary to them (by this I mean completely unnecessary in the mind of a rational human being). It’s at this point I no longer heard the calm in my voice, instead I heard a mix of anger, pleading and frustration welling up all at once. Again, inevitably this just escalates the situation. So I felt bad, and I had a choice, do I keep sliding into those old thought patterns and just perpetuate more bad feeling, or do I nip it in the bud? “disconnecting from any thought of time pressure, connecting with a feeling of having all the time in the world” I chose the out-of-body surrender experience, disconnecting from any thought of time pressure, connecting with a feeling of having all the time in the world. My calm voice was back, I soothed the children trying to focus on how to help them feel good, and we soon got underway. Everything worked out; we were on time and fairly unscathed. Since then I have taken that concept and found myself quite naturally applying it to almost every moment of the day. Connecting with a feeling of having all the time in the world hasn’t slowed me down; it has kicked my body out of survival mode and into a much more productive one that recognizes the present moment and all that I am doing in it. The feeling of calm that goes with it has rendered my life almost unrecognizable from the one I used to lead. Having invested time in deliberately feeling into a space where time is not pressing upon me, through regular yoga and meditation, I can now connect with the feeling of that quite easily when I remind myself to. There are moments, like getting to a meeting, or driving to pick up the kids, where I play the voice of Louis Armstrong singing in my head “we have all the time in the world..” and it kicks me into a different mode. Nothing ever falls over, the world doesn’t end, the kids are never left stranded, quite the opposite. Here with a mission, with not a moment to waste, I walk with determination; people always joke they can recognize my footsteps striding towards the room with a sense of purpose. That hasn’t changed, this week there were some teenage kids idling through town and one cheekily mimicked me striding along. The difference though is that I’m not sure I’d even have noticed that kid a year ago. My mind would have been locked into the next meeting; my vision and hearing elsewhere, the chemical balance of my being consumed by survival hormones. Instead, here I was fully engaging in the moment, observing and smiling at this guy who soon tired of his antics, it was fun. Recently I overheard my 4 year old say to her younger sister “Out of the way, I need to go somewhere”, to which I heard a little voice bounce straight back with “But you already are somewhere.” A lovely reminder of staying in the present moment. The simple fact is this, you do have all the time in the world. Time pressure is something applied by your mind. Kicking your body into survival mode just to propel your car from a junction ahead of that red car, rather than behind it, in order to ‘save’ 6 seconds, is simply not worth it. Forsaking a trip to the loo in order to hurry to a meeting, skipping lunch or eating at the desk in order to get through some emails, constantly rushing your kids through life (hurry up and get in the car, hurry up and eat that, hurry up and get out…), none of it is helpful. In contrast, connecting with a feeling of having time, when the voice in your head is desperately trying to kick you into flight and fight mode, will keep your brain fully functioning and your being more connected to the world around you. You will have your own way of unwinding, whatever it is you do - or have done in the past - whether it's walking the dog, meditating, swimming or golfing. Take time to notice how your body responds when you're doing these activities. Take the time to notice other times your body naturally relaxes; drink in the feeling and call upon it regularly throughout your day. You’ll be here, present, happier, nicer to be around and more effective in everything you do. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Photo by Joshua Earle Watching Arianne Huffington get interviewed this week about her book Thrive, she was asked a pointed question by an audience member. In her book she talks about how our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success - money and power - has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers.
In being connected to the world 24/7, we're losing our connection to what truly matters. She makes a compelling case to redefine what it means to be successful and draws on the latest research and scientific findings that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving, The brave audience member stood up and asked “I hear everything you’re saying, but you have ‘made it’, you’re extremely successful. Do you really think you could have got here today if you’d not worked the hours you worked, made the sacrifices you have, and followed the advice you’ve just given?” Fair question, one that arises from a society that teaches delayed gratification, multitasking, and a culture of ‘staying late’, with common clichés like “you can sleep when you’re dead”, “fake it ‘til you make it” and “sleep is for losers” a part of our psyche. Hats off to Arianna, she answered “absolutely, I have no doubt I would have wasted a lot less time and experienced a lot less stress in getting here too.” We learn from life experience, as individuals and as part of a collective, as we evolve. New generations are born already more enlightened than most of the people walking around today. Few people have figured out their individuality is somewhat of an illusion, that we are more connected than we are separate, and that tapping into that connectedness, listening to our inner voice, is infinitely more powerful than listening to the one in our head – our ego. After reading my last few articles an insightful friend of mine asked whether I’d found myself at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation". It suggests that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs. Meaning when you are at the bottom of the food chain, literally or figuratively, your focus isn’t on the meaning of life, it’s on getting food on the table. Reflecting on this I’ve found myself revisiting a concept that keeps popping up, how to break the cycle. In so much as we are born fully aware, fully connected, mindful, and we somehow quickly lose this and go down the rabbit hole of chasing dreams from an individual standpoint that making the realization of those dreams so much harder than it needs to be. I saw Arianna’s interview as part of the online Mindfulness Summit , pulled together by Melli OBrien and Matt Dickenson, which is running throughout the month of October. The summit has some amazing and highly acclaimed speakers (from thought leaders and authors like Arianna and Daniel Goleman of Emotional Intelligence fame, to celebrities like Ruby Wax and a number of renound professors and psychologists in between. It is free to access all month and it's a not-for-profit project with a mission to make mindfulness mainstream. Why? Because Melli and Matt believe the peace, balance and compassion found through mindfulness has the capacity to change the whole world from within. Of course mindfulness is just a more modern term for meditation, awareness, being present, being conscious, contemplation. Whatever you want to call it, it’s about connecting to the place within you where you can let go of that wound up tightness created by the voice in your head, and create the space to make some really good decisions in your life. The question I find myself contemplating is why and how we disconnect from it in the first place? When you are present, you connect to an expansiveness greater than yourself, something eternal, the energy from which we came and to which we will just as surely return. The truth of that is written in the faces of our newly born infants who enter the world full of joy and self worth, slowly adopting beliefs about themselves and the world around them that starts to completely obscure the raw energy beneath, the real person who came with a purpose and an inner guidance system, their intuition, that many are taught not to trust. With two preschool daughters I am ever alert to the rules and beliefs that get imposed on you from the minute you are born. I’ve also been aware of that sense of ‘self’ that develops around the age of 3, when they start to look in the mirror as if to say “oh, that’s interesting, I have a face, a form”. Until then, our little ones are just present, connected and full of wonder at the world. It’s why so many of us love to be around babies and small children, there’s always joy, never judgement. While discovering our physical form is just a natural part of our development, and one to be relished like all other experiences, it’s the start of a more visible ‘self’ separate from others. Already I see my 4 year old daughter’s mind at work, choosing to avoid foods because of the way they look, or suddenly feeling pain because she’s seen blood. Her mind is whirring and she’s starting to think more. The question is whether Maslow’s hierarchy would be relevant in a world where we teach our children to remain consciously connected to their inner world. Rather than reinforcing the sense of separateness, limit and lack, if we nurtured the sense of connectedness and tapping into our intuition, reinforcing opportunities to feel abundance through acts of giving and gratitude, then our next generation wouldn’t ask questions like the one asked of Arianna. We would live in a world where burgeoning leaders are already connected and enlightened. Over the years Maslow’s hierarchy has been expanded, with Transcendance needs (helping others self actualize) at the top, but what I’m saying here is that we start out already transcended and then completely forget. Even now, some of you reading this will be wondering in the truth of what you are reading, yet, if you follow Arianna’s advice you will experience the truth of it for yourself. Waiting until you've achieved your goals is counter productive. Sure, if you want your goals badly enough, you'll get there, eventually. Instead, take time to nurture your inner world, practice meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving – even for just 8 weeks - and watch how your life is transformed. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  To let ‘more’ in we have to surrender the lack and get into the sense of ‘already having’.
On the face of it, it sounds like juxtaposition. But if you look back on your own life you will see the truth of it. I was listening to an interview with Oprah this week where she was talking about her part in the film ‘The Color Purple’. It was a part she had wanted more than anything she’s ever wanted because of the affinity she felt with the story; right from reading the book review through to being invited to audition. However, later, one of the casters all but told her she hadn’t a hope because there were “real actresses” up for the part. This caused pain and confusion as there had just been so many signs that had seemed to point to the part being meant for her, it had felt so cruel. For a long time she struggled to let it go. First there was anger and confusion, then there was begrudging acceptance, then she got to a point where she felt that she could even be magnanimous enough that she’d be able to look the actress (she thought had got the part) in the eye and genuinely say (and mean) that she had played the part better than Oprah ever could. The minute she felt that, and had truly let go the ‘lack’ of the thing she had desperately wanted, that very day she got a call to come and play the part. There are times when we really want something very badly although, for some, even beginning to believe we can have our desires – and be happy – is a stretch. So when we do get into that place of wanting something and believing we can have it, there is a cruelty when it just evades us. The process of trying to conceive made this clear in my life. My daughters are pregnancies 5 and 6, I desperately wanted children and month after month for years I would feel so disappointed. Well meaning people used to say “just relax and forget about it and it will happen”. Anyone who is trying or has tried for a baby will know how infuriating that piece of advice is, especially with a relentless monthly reminder of your ‘lack’. “to think and feel the lack of something is what stops it coming into your life” Thinking and feeling lack while desiring more is futile. There’s a lot of literature our there now on the process of dreaming big, being able to be and do anything. This is true, and believing you can is a big part of it happening. But believing and allowing are two different things. Oprah believed she could have the part, I believed that I could have a baby, but until that thing you desperately want is part of your reality, there is a tendency to feel the lack of it. This is exactly what stops it from coming into your life. When I turned 38 I finally let go of the feeling of ‘lack’ in regard to having kids. We had a really relaxing break with friends over new years and that holiday had given me perspective. The wanting of children had featured so strongly in my list of goals for so long; I’d really neglected other areas of my life. So that year I turned my attention to my health in a more holistic way and committed to better eating and more regular exercise. We were also on the list for IVF treatment and were considering adoption as an alternative, and that took the focus away from the ‘trying’ in the traditional sense. Meanwhile my partner had a client with a young baby, who swore by the treatment of a particular naturopath. He passed the number to me and I recall the irony of the situation, as he is not a fan of alternative therapies. I duly contacted the naturopath, feeling a dull sense of inevitability at being given a diet to follow and prescribed supplements; I was past all these vain hopes. However, I was impressed enough by the guy to give the diet and supplements a go, particularly since he was recommending a diet aligned with a book I’d just read by Dee McCaffrey (on flourless and sugarless living) that had made a great deal of sense to me. The next month I became pregnant with my first daughter. I could attribute it wholly to the diet, to the supplements and the naturopath. However, more than anything, I know it was the ‘letting go’ that allowed all of that to happen. I hadn’t let go of a desire for children, but I had let go of how it was all going to come about. The best way to let what you want in, is to feel that you already have it. To do that you have to get to the highest perspective of why you want it. Whether it’s wanting a part in a movie, wanting kids, wanting a new car or wanting to make an income from your life’s purpose, you have to ask ‘why’, how do you want to feel? And you may have to ask several times to get to the overall feeling you are seeking in pursuit of your desires. As another example, for most of this year my articles have dipped in and out of my journey to living a life of purpose. Interestingly, in her interview, Oprah was emphatic in saying “if you are not living your purpose, or in the process of trying to uncover it, all you are doing is just ‘rattling around’ in your life”. She describes her own journey to purpose so eloquently, and the knowing she’d found it as a feeling of ‘coming home’; an apt description. As readers of my previous articles will know, I’ve taken a rather arduous path. First there was the contrasting experience of knowing what my purpose was not – an experience I stayed in for far too long simply because I didn’t know what would be any better. Eventually I let go of needing to know the answer before jumping, because the contrasting experience of what I didn’t want was so bad. Even after finally getting up the courage to publish articles and ‘out’ the thoughts swirling around in my head, I’m still making my way towards living my life’s purpose. Being a writer doesn’t entirely fit, it’s more correct for me to say that I love love love the process of personal growth and sharing that with others who are ready to grow. More than anything I’d like to merge this with a way of making an income, so I can focus wholly on doing what I love. For a while I looked at how to make money writing, and started to think of all the ways that could manifest in my life – the cursed ‘hows’- all the while knowing I didn’t have it in my life. But now I have let go. This week I have settled into a sense of calm and peace, the feeling of ‘lack’ has dissipated to a large extent. Making an income is necessary, but I look at the process of that (in its current form of consulting) as an opportunity for me to be out in the world growing, something I love doing. Writing about what I’ve learned is a wonderful outlet that gives me a sense of ‘coming home’. I also realized, I am home in many ways; I have my kids (who teach me something new every day), an income and a creative outlet. One day the latter two will be one and the same, but it is in a process of unfolding and I am at peace with that. So what do you want and why do you want it? Really take time to understand the biggest picture of 'why' and how that will feel. It’s time to let go of the ‘how’ and focus on the feelings of already having it. Are there things already in your life – or things you can do - that will give you the same feeling you want that you can tune into? So much of what you truly desire is sitting just beyond your reach, just one happy coincidence away, if only you were tuned to the right frequency to receive it. Do whatever it takes to surrender the feeling of lack, and retune into the good vibes, and you too can have what you most want. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/66728752@N00/15607483956">P1100937</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Caleb George Among the dozens of thoughts racing through your mind, and the many more emails, let's not just get swept along by the most pressing things that arise. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, within the next ten minutes you can gain clarity on the most important thing you can do today.
Work with me here. Take a deep breath, let your thoughts subside. Perhaps take another deep breath and as another thought comes into your head, let it loose to the wind, like a balloon you’ve just let go of. Ask “What’s the most important think I can do today?” then let it go. Start to notice the sounds around you, to the north (or what you imagine to be the north), what do you hear? To the south, the east and the west? Seriously, stay still, stop reading and softly close your eyes if you can (or gently gaze just in front of you) – listen - letting go of any thoughts that come in. Listen, and when you are finished just softly open your eyes and gaze at the next paragraph. Now start to notice what you are feeling, not the emotions and the stories, let those float away with your thoughts. Just notice the sensations in your body, areas of tightness, letting go of any thoughts that come up. Just notice and move on. Focus now on your breathing, counting with each in and out breath, letting go of any thoughts that come in, keep coming back to your breath. If your body wants to move, gently let it move, just keep focusing on your breath in and out; letting go of any thoughts that arise. Keep breathing, in and out twenty times, and just keep letting go of any thoughts. If you have an extra ten minutes up your sleeve, imagine breathing in and out of each pore in each part of your body. If not, skip the next two paragraphs. Start with your right foot, breathe in and out, through every pore of that right foot, letting go of any thoughts that come up. Then your right shin and calf, breathing in and out through every pore on that lower part of your right leg. Then your knee and thigh, letting go of your thoughts as they come in. Switch over to your left leg, then the pelvic area, then the torso, breathing in and out of every pore of every organ in each part of the body. Then your left upper arm, left lower arm and hand, breathing in and out, letting go of any thoughts, before moving to your neck and head, breathing in and out. Imagine tree roots growing from your feet down into the centre of the earth, wrapping around its warm core, the energy flowing back and forth pulsating as it flows around your body, grounding you here. Imagine as every pore in your body breathes in and out that your face is tilted to the warm rays and light of the sun and all that light and energy is pouring in with each breath that you take. Letting go of any thoughts, keeping a hold of that smile as you feel the warmth and light of the sun on your face. You are connected to everything around you, welcome home. Just breathe it in. Now start to notice your heart beating, wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes. Return to the sounds around you, open your eyes. Enjoy the stillness, drink it in, capture the feeling of this moment and carry it with you into your day. Now, what is the most important thing you can do today? Namaste With thanks to Kim Eng and Tami Simon among many others for their teaching and a tribute to all those who are contributing to the online Mindfulness Summit throughout the month of October. The summit has some amazing and highly acclaimed speakers (from thought leaders such as Arianna Huffington to authors such as Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence), celebrities like Ruby Wax and a number of renound professors and psychologists. It is free to access all month and it's a not-for-profit project with a mission to make mindfulness mainstream. Big ups to Melli OBrien and Matt Dickenson for pulling it together and who believe the peace, balance and compassion found through mindfulness has the capacity to change the whole world from within. Here Here! This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  There is a sense within each of us that strives towards harmony. It’s as if we have a strong magnet right at our core that lets us know when things are out of whack. If you set your life’s compass by your inner magnet it will never let you down. Living your life where you feel the strongest, most positive, pulls may not take you down the easiest of paths, but it will always lead you to your highest good.
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” The wisdom of Lao Tzu’s words resonate, we know everything changes, we even know – in hindsight – that things generally work out for the best, yet much of the time we continue to resist change and fear it as an enemy. Life is like standing on the edge of the seashore with your feet sinking in the sand. There’s an illusion of permanence - the tide will come in and it will go out again. Yet the spot you are standing in right now will never be the same spot again, sands shift, sometimes imperceptibly, other times dramatically. Impermanence, change, is the natural order of things. "this is a time of significant change - from the inside out" In the world at large we can point to many atrocities that humans inflict on each other and on the planet. For most of us though, few of those impact our own experience of daily life. However, this is a time of significant change - from the inside out. In organisations the pace of change is faster than ever before. The resistance to change has become more an ambivalence, eroding loyalties and the sense of belonging. More and more are seeking fulfilment, "there has to be more to life". On the home front, mixed families are becoming more common with divorce rates globally trending upwards. People are less willing to be unhappy, which in itself is a good thing. Yesterday I heard from an uncle, who had been reading my articles, and felt it put him in mind of Rousseau when he said ”Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains". Indeed, if we look at our life through the lens of our mind that is true. “I can’t” is a mantra of the mind which tends towards the more pessimistic as it usually runs in survival mode as a default; unless you change it. There is much more to us than our mind. You are born into this world with talents, traits, perhaps even a purpose, and - most importantly – a sense of what is right and wrong for you, and only you; your inner magnet. "only you know what is truly right for you" You are unique. In the history of mankind, as Sir Ken Robinson pointed out in an interview recently, there have never been two humans exactly alike. Therefore, only you know what is truly right for you. I look upon life as a journey I wanted to undertake before I ever arrived. There’s no memory in mind of why I wanted to take it, because my mind belongs to this physical body, which did not exist before I was conceived. "there’s a deeper knowing within" However, there’s certainly a deeper knowing within, that inner magnet, that continually gives you feedback about whether you are on track should you choose to listen. Mind, body and spirit, all three are great feedback systems when you listen to what they are actually saying. It’s really simply, if you feel good (in all three), you’re on track. If you are out of whack, it will show up in thought patterns, distressing emotions, illness and malaise. So how does all of this relate to what’s happening today in our world, with people becoming disenfranchised in their home and work lives? I use that term deliberately, because it relates to people being stripped of their power – which is what happens in traditional workplaces and in the sense of traditional relationships. "be unwilling to be shackled by conventions and bound by ‘rules’ that make no sense for you" What we are seeing is people starting to take back their power, unwilling to be shackled by conventions and bound by ‘rules’ that make no sense for your natural growth throughout life. Earlier in the week I was asked whether my partner and I would ever get married. Yes there are benefits to couples making commitments in the raising of children, but to expect someone to feel as they do today, to want what they want today, to need what they need today, in 20, 40 or 60 years from now, just doesn’t make sense. "by getting past the need to put external controls on others, there will come a harmony" If we can get past the need to put external controls on people, instead of the anarchy feared in the minds of many, there will come a harmony. As Fredric Laloux talked about in ‘Reinventing Organisations’, any organisation that makes the change from ‘management’ to ‘self management’, does go through an unsettled period. However, self management is where profit, purpose and personal fulfilment can thrive together as discussed in my recent article about the remarkable new organizational structure. The same is true for us as individuals. With freedom comes responsibility, consequences are directly felt. Therefore the adjustment is usually fairly quick. First though, you have to wake up to the conventions, cultures, beliefs and unwritten rules you’ve unknowingly subscribed to, the things that make you think “I can’t”. Try turning that around, “what needs to be true for me to…” and follow your inner compass, not the one society has set for you. Embrace change and you will change not only your world, but the world around you for the better. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65910542@N06/6320137795">Which Way?</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Dysa Eldin More and more people now acknowledge our ability to create our reality through our thoughts. We see the truth of this every day, the way we think about something affects the way we feel about it, which affects our behaviour towards it and the experience of it.
Thoughts create energy, feelings create eves greater energy, our behaviour creates energy. Good vibes, bad vibes, we call them; we sense them because our energy is connected. In my last article on why feeling good is the key to your success, I referred to Dr Joe Dispenza’s explanations on the science behind this. So we are starting to get the point, we create our own reality. Then we think, if I create my own reality, why is this my life experience? This is not the life I dream of. How did I get here? And how do I get out of it? Usually around age 3 or 4, we become conscious of ourselves as separate from others, this is a reality only in the physical sense, but most of us were born into cultures that believed it to be true in almost every sense. Yes, your physical body is different to every other physical body that exists right now, and has ever existed in history of humankind; I’m as unique as a snowflake. Yet as all snowflakes are snow, as Michael Beckwith puts it, we too are all connected. While you come into this world with a purpose, characteristics, talents even, at first you don’t realise the role of the mind. As newborns we are so oblivious, the nature of our reality starts to evolve all around us with only survival instincts leading the way. Starting at a young age, parts of your true nature get shielded and hidden, others get exploited disproportionately, as you feel accepted or rejected. Before you know it ‘you’ are the sum of your true self and a complex entanglement of your life’s experiences. Often you can’t even discern one from the other. So from this vantage point, you are creating a reality that will be just as entangled. You’ve taken on energy that is not helping you attract the dreams you desire. Though still as unique as a snowflake, you are now weighed down by the layers that served you once and have gathered around you like a snowball. "become more of who you really are" As you become conscious of this, you start to observe ‘you’ differently, you start to pay more attention to the things you like and the things you don’t. Slowly, your view of yourself changes and you become more of who you really are, your authentic self. I wrote much about this process in earlier articles. Then, as you think about what you really want out of this life from your new vantage point, you can start to attract more that really fulfills you. Here is where the power of the mind plays a part. You can have whatever you want in life but there is a caveat, as I was reminded listening to Mike Dooley this week. What you want is often not what you think you want. Let me explain. "it cannot depend on any specific person" With the right energy you can achieve pretty much anything, from the mundane to the miraculous, but it cannot depend on any specific person. You can have happiness, love, wealth, health, meaning, anything you want, but if you are hanging that on anyone else – or the actions of anyone else – you will keep waiting and waiting and waiting. Note the premise I am discussing here, your thoughts, feelings and actions create your reality. If you what you want depends on someone else, you are contending with their thoughts, feelings and actions, you’re contending with their perception of who they really are, you are contending with a whole lot of complex, mixed up energy that may never match yours in your entire lifetime, far less at the point you desire it. Instead, if you set your own cocktail of energy free and forget about the 'how' or 'who', you are much more likely to attract what you’re really looking for. Getting what you want out of life is actually pretty simple (note I'm not saying it's easy), just work it through to the point of it not being attached to specific people or the actions of specific people. I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve wished I could change a person, if only that boss didn’t micromanage, if only that colleague could understand where I was coming from, if only that partner would appreciate my efforts, the list is endless. Instead, if you can step away from how you’d like others to change, and focus on what it is you would really like – freedom to act autonomously in your work, acceptance, appreciation, and so on, you will start to prescribe something that can really be delivered. “focus on the feeling of already having it” Then of course, because you are prescribing something you haven’t currently got, you have to focus on the feeling of already having it. If you focus on the lack of it, and constantly reinforce that feeling, you will only attract like energy and continue to not have it. If what you want is, say, a fulfilling career, then seek out stories of how others transformed their life – there are literally thousands of examples out there now in whatever form you prefer. Once you have heard even just a few of these stories, your confidence, your energy will start to change. Results are unlikely to be instantaneous. We all need a bit of growing room, you need time for your cocktail of desires and energies to attract just the right opportunities for you. But they will happen. They come to us in all sorts of ways, that seem like chance and circumstance, and only in hinsdsight will you usually be able to put it all together. "live in the present, not in the future" Meanwhile, while you are working on the feeling of already having what you desire, remember that life is indeed a journey. Not having everything that you want can be frustrating, but there will always be something you desire that is not within your current reality; this is our nature - growth, expansion. You, however, are living in the present, not in the future. This may seem like a juxtaposition, but your future is made up by a series of present days. Take a relook at your present situation and focus on the good things that are happening for you now, make good use of the positive energy you already have at your disposal and you will soon start to get more of what you really want out of life. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  We each think 60 – 70,000 thoughts a day, and apparently over 90% of those are just a repeat of yesterday’s. The same thoughts lead to the same choices, the same behaviours, the same experiences and, therefore, the same emotions; which then perpetuates the same thoughts…
This is what I learned as I was listening to Dr Joe Dispenz earlier in the week. He points out that our biology, neurocircuitry, neurochemistry, neurohormones, and even our genetic expression, stay exactly equal to how you think, act and feel. None of this is new information, yet we are so consumed by our daily schedules we rarely take time to reflect and listen to ourselves. When we think about trying to change the thoughts we have, it often feels overwhelming. Let’s face it trying to change just one thing is hard, but 60 - 70,000 things? However, as Dr Dispenza neatly points out, our feelings are directly linked to our thoughts and it’s a whole lot easier to change your experiences by taking charge of how you’re feeling. About 5 years ago I attended a workshop though work where we were challenged to really think about some of our own internal dialogues. I remember sitting at a table where there were three of us who summed up a recurring thought pattern we owned as “idiot”. It’s fair to say we were a bunch of pretty driven people with little patience. It’s also fair to say that this is not the kind of thought pattern that was going to lead to the life we each dreamed of. “feeling good has to be more important to you than anything else” Probably like you, I take on these nuggets and then life (or the 58,000 or so thoughts/ reactions I have every day) carries me on a wave of autopilot. How do we break the pattern? Well it is pretty simply, feeling good has to be more important to you than anything else. Remember though, simple and easy are two different things. There was a point this week when I was trying to get my two preschool children focused enough to get out the door to their respective daytime activities, in time for me to get to an important appointment. Inevitably, just on the cusp of thinking I’d magically managed to keep the chaos contained in a fast flowing steam of activity that led to getting in the car and going, each daughter wanted something extra – unplanned – that was absolutely necessary to them (by this I mean completely unnecessary in the mind of a rational human being). It’s at this point I no longer heard the calm in my voice, instead I heard a mix of anger, pleading and frustration welling up all at once. Again, inevitably this just escalates the situation. Now I feel bad, and I have a choice, do I keep sliding into those old thought patterns and just perpetuate more bad feeling, or do I nip it in the bud? I chose the out-of-body surrender experience, disconnecting from any thought of time pressure, connecting with a feeling of having all the time in the world. My calm voice was back, I soothed the children trying to focus on how to help them feel good, and we soon got underway. Everything worked out; we were on time and fairly unscathed. By contrast (in case anyone should get the idea I’m anything less than a very imperfect being), I slipped right back into those old thought patterns like a pair of comfortable old slippers that night when my partner arrived home asking me a ‘dumb’ question. Snap. Those 50 – 60,000 repeat thoughts all just clipping the ticket for the day and perpetuating exactly the opposite type of experience I wanted. Eckhart Tolle is definitely on the money when he points out the appeal of animals, because there’s no veil of judgment that exists; which is what generally exists between humans. Every time we interact with another our minds are busy interpreting so many signals based on our past experiences. Animals are simply closer to their natural state of being, there’s no intervention of the mind. They sense your energy but don’t judge it, they just accept it. Can you imagine if we could be disciplined enough to do that? Just suspending thought, stilling our mind, to simply be there for someone. It would change the quality of our experiences with others dramatically. Obviously I was needing a big reminder this week to focus on the experiences I’m creating through my thoughts, because I accidently opened the YouTube app on my phone and heard Esther Hicks sharply telling me that while feeling bad is a part of the process of creating something great, I don’t need to spend so long in the contrast. This is something most of us are very guilty of, we tend to put up with feeling bad far too much of the time and wait until an experience is mostly bad before really doing anything much about it. Here’s the deal, we are all in the process of creating our own experience all of the time. Yes, starting right now you will have a mammoth amount of unconscious patterning that happens day to day. If your days aren’t filled with, let’s say, 80% feeling good, then there’s probably a hunger to feel better about life. “Think of two thought patterns that you want to change.” Chances are you’ll be blaming it on others and on situations. This is not helpful. Your experiences are not what happens to you, but how you respond – mentally and emotionally – to those things. At first, as Dr Dispenza suggests, just observe your feelings and thoughts on a couple of topics you know recur for you regularly. In the heat of the moment it can be hard to make changes, but if you preplan for them you stand a better chance. If you know, like me, you’re prone to judging certain comments, looks or actions, and that the judgment creates a behaviour and therefore an experience that simply makes you feel bad, think about how you might respond differently – without judgment – in the moment, in a way that will make you feel good. By focusing on feeling good more of the time, you’ll start to rewire your biology, neurocircuitry, neurochemistry, neurohormones, and even your genetic expression. Changing how you feel will change the way you think, which will change the way you behave, which in turn will change the quality of your life experiences immeasurably. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/34039290@N06/18662478972">water attack</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Joshua Hibbert “If we can’t think outside the traditional organizational structure, the best we can do is to try and patch up the unhealthy consequences of power inequality with more enlightened leadership.” Frederic Laloux
As I discussed in my last article on why evolving your culture is, ultimately, the only way to win, the cycle of boom to bust is more akin to a slow death cycle given the construct of most of today’s companies. It is time to evolve or face extinction. The old constructs found in most organisations simply don’t work for us anymore. People - you, your staff and your customers – are evolving, they are looking for something more. If you have any doubts about this, just look at people across the generations and you will quickly see a pattern – the younger people are, the more they expect. This isn’t about money, it’s about meaning. After many attempts to implement significant changes and travel the road to transformation in traditional organisations, I know two things for certain: enlightened leadership is an improvement but not the answer, and the only person who can drive a true transformation in ‘the way things are done around here’ is the CEO or the Board, whoever is the ultimate decision maker. A conversation with my former boss a couple of years back, when taking on his new role, centred around how to create lasting transformation in that part of the company. The problem we were trying to solve was difficult to articulate at first, too often the brand experience of customers who contacted us was atrocious, there was an immediate need to stop hemorrhaging money, and the culture that pervaded that part of the company – which accounted for almost a third of the staff – seemed like it was taken straight from the Lego movie, it had been heavily micromanaged. I remember recommending that his leadership team read, action and embed Patrick Lecioni’s ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’ and ‘The Three Signs Of A Miserable Job’. My opinion at the time was these leadership fables tell you everything you need to know to get started building your team and creating a culture that will work for everyone in today’s world – win-win-win (bottom line, staff and customers). However what I missed is, regardless of how enlightened the leadership, in organisations where there is a management and support structure, all the processes and systems required to maintain each span of control breed mistrust in all those people who are not in those roles – often the very people doing the work that is the lifeblood of the organisation. If you have any doubts about that, think about the way information is handled, especially if there is a sensitive change taking place. All the classifications about who gets to know what basically tells everyone who is ‘not in the know’ they can’t be trusted. This week Frederic Laloux’s book ‘Reinventing Organisations' arrived in my mailbox. As soon as I read the words “The way we manage organisations seems increasingly out of date, deep inside we sense that more is possible. We long for soulful workplaces, for authenticity, community, passion and purpose.” I knew I had to have a copy; especially given that the book describes in practical detail how organisations large and small can operate successfully in this new paradigm. This was a book Laloux wrote after researching pioneering organisations that have been operating on breakthrough principles for a long time, as much as 30 or 40 years, and not just with a handful, but with a few hundred and sometimes tens of thousands of employees. Among the pioneers are for-profit as well as nonprofit organisations, retailers, manufacturing companies, an energy company, a food producer as well as a school and a group of hospitals. Back when I wrote Better Brand and Bottom Line – Ditch Your Call Centre, I cited many examples of the ridiculously expensive, soul destroying practices that surround call centres, a common function in many organisations. The conclusion in that article was to ‘cut out the middlemen’, let those developing products and services talk directly to their customers. In Laloux’s study he concludes the same, only in reference to the entire management and traditional support structure of any given organisation. This may sound radical and unworkable, especially if you are in just the type of role rendered redundant in the blueprint of these new organisations. However, ask yourself, just how content are you in your role? Do you feel you are really making a difference? Are you able to be completely yourself, the real you, or is there a ‘corporate’ version of you that turns up? Are you valued for the breadth of talents, passions and purpose that drive you? Like Laloux, I believe change is inevitable, and was excited to read concrete examples of companies that had transitioned from the traditional hierarchical structures we largely have today, to a very different paradigm. In those cases, the vast majority of the management and support teams remained with the company, albeit without their previous ‘powers’. Instead, these people found roles that added real value, in a way that allowed them to be more whole. What Laloux has written manages to interweave personal fulfilment and enlightenment, together with a fairly easily understood - yet scholarly - look at human development, giving context to organizational development. Most importantly, he describes in every crucial aspect what one needs to know to create such organisations. ‘Getting over our bad selves’, an expression I’ve heard people say jokingly with increased frequency, is key to making this transition. If you are still reading this, it means there’s at least a part of you ready to transcend ego and ambition for wholeness and purpose. For those who are the ultimate decision maker in your organisation, here is a workable way forward, a necessity for us to thrive. For those intending to start a company, you’re in the enviable position of being given a blueprint. What about the vast majority of you who are feeling ‘stuck’ in your role? Reading this may have given you a glimpse of something you now feel is beyond your grasp; it isn’t. Your actions will hasten change. If you can focus on the goal of uncovering your innermost self and being true to that, as I describe in Making the Shift from Ambition to Purpose, we will all be one step closer to a better world. This article was originally published in LinkedIn.  Photo by Joshua Earle Don't mistake the cycle of transformation to cost cutting as anything other than a vicious cycle, or more likely a death spiral, if you are not focused on evolving your culture.
People - you, your staff, your customers - are changing, looking for more. There are many in the morning of their life who don’t need to wait for the sunset to know there’s more, there’s a yearning for meaningful exchange. But most companies are not ahead of this change, many recognise it but don’t know the answers and don’t make seeking them a priority. The current construct of the majority of our companies is still driven by the qualities of the white, western male; I think it was the book Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath that first provoked that thought in me. Changing the construct, the way of doing things, is like crossing the Rubicon for most executives. The question is, what can companies do in order to leverage today’s diversified population, with all our talents, needs and desires? And why would you want to? Let’s take the process of choosing between limited numbers of options from a business case, which is a common place way of informing decision making in an executive board room. It is rare for anyone in the room to debate whether there are other options, never mind stand back from the options and question whether the problem being solved is even the right problem. Debating and defining your problems is a critical step in determining where to put your focus, are you taking the time and involving enough people in the initial part of the process? While ‘fresh thinking’ can be a great thing, in reality, it's not always entirely welcomed. While it seems common sense to involve downstream deliverers and recipients of a product or service upstream in its development, it rarely happens. Smaller companies that are growing tend to be more inclusive by necessity, employees feel their opinions and ideas are valued, that they need to pull together to address the problems before them. But as the company grows, processes, systems and specific roles start to push out that sense of being valued as an individual and the inner loyalty crumbles. Yes, we live in a faster paced world, and few folk expect to have a job for life. Despite that, most companies are still looking for highly committed employees. There's an old saying that really resonates "the key to commitment is involvement". A few years ago, an HR colleague and I were pondering how the company we were working for could get ahead of being seen as a utility in order for it to start turning more profit. The problem being the company had been at the forefront of making communications mobile; many of the original employees were still there and continued to see the company as the sexy start up that had brought about a revolution in the way people went about their daily lives. The culture was still deeply wedded to the ‘start up’ mentality and yet driven by a global corporate with big shareholder expectations. Customer perceptions and expectations had also dramatically changed. Among the literally hundreds of projects on the go, addressing the culture to any degree of substance wasn’t among them. If you’re lucky, you’ve got employees who are debating this kind of thing, though in most cases it will be a side bar conversation rather than a solution that the company is actively seeking. So how do we make it centre stage, invite more ideas? The obvious answer is to create a more inclusive process to involve your people in meaningful conversations to take the organization forward. But creating a process, without also investing in your people, especially your leadership, would be a serious mistake. For the most part, people need help to uncover what is within them. That is where we should focus our efforts, because through personal transformation you create an energy that is infectious. I remember working with a head of department a number of years ago who was a clever guy, but difficult to work with. He was always late for meetings, or didn’t turn up; he’d make derisory comments and just generally do what he liked. He was in charge of a large department, multi million dollar contracts and a lot of his team’s work impacted on the organisation’s reputation. Along with some other senior managers he was sent on an intense leadership development programme. This was an out of office, away from home, stripped bare type of a deal. But he came back a changed man, and it changed his relationships, and the people around him. The organisation reaped the benefits of the newfound cooperation in many unseen ways. Therein lies the rub, back to the business cases and returns on investment. Investing in your people, your culture, is often difficult to quantify. I’ve heard executives agree it is common sense and we all know it’s the right thing to do, but you have to prove it. Why is that? I'm quite sure that those of you who hold the purse strings know a wise choice when you see it. Let’s take a different approach to our corporate lives, one that seeks, values and leverages the best of people. Let’s get back to a place where we trust our inner knowing, and start to see our work lives as a vehicle for our passions to thrive (no, I don’t mean a sneaky liaison in the back office). Whether you see it yet or not, we’re not going to win where we stand. You need to be more to make more. It’s time to take a leap, cross the Rubicon, to build a better team, a better company, a better world. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Photo by Mayur Gala “The purpose of life is a life of purpose” said Robert Byrne rather pragmatically. But many of us struggle to answer the question that arises “what is my purpose?” Wise words from Dr Amit Ray point us in the right direction “It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters.”
When you are doing something you love, you radiate that. Good vibes are infectious; we can’t fail to be lifted when we are around someone who is clearly in the zone. The opposite can be true too. So the first really obvious answer to a life of purpose, is in the acts of doing things you love rather than things you feel you must. For many years I struggled to find an answer about my own purpose, some people just seemed to know exactly what they should be doing in life and I was waiting for that thunderbolt. Well, not waiting so much as prowling like a wounded tiger. Hurt by the emptiness of the world of ambition; the politics and positioning, the cyclical spiraling of transformation to cost cutting, yearning for something more. Having read many career books over the years, even some great thought provoking ones like What Color is Your Parachute and The Artist’s Way, the thunderbolt never appeared. What did happen (and is still happening) was more of a slow awakening. I attracted people into my life who were able to help point to where my talents lay. In hindsight all those things seem obvious, but stuck in a quagmire of obligation to the duties of whichever role I was in at the time, combined with a hectic schedule, like many, I was stuck in a sea of fog. Even last year when the opportunity came up to leave the big corporate role I’d come to despise, I knew I wanted to take it; I just didn’t know what I was going to do with it. There I was, 10 years old all over again, at the edge of the tallest diving board, “just jump” the inner voice said. With the responsibilities that come with having a family, my partner and I decided to lessen the financial burden by moving away from the big city. The move took much longer than anticipated, and started to feel very uncomfortable as I was trying to figure out what to do. Was it writing? Coaching? Speaking? Should I set up a website? I started investigating but was getting a bit lost in another fog of research and information about which platforms to use, what to write about, how to get published and other ways to make money. Although I became aware of the easy-to-use LinkedIn platform for publishing articles, the general advice for serious bloggists seemed to be to use the WordPress platform. It all got too technical and I almost gave it up as a bad job. Then that inner voice said “just jump”. I needed to ‘out’ my writing, to simply start. So I set aside all the ‘technical’ stuff and chose LinkedIn to publish my first blog. Nearly 6 months on from that first blog, I have published one weekly since and had some great responses. But I am a seedling that has barely taken hold. Vulnerable; though I do now introduce myself as a writer when asked what I do, which is a step forward. Having now written much about being the person you were born to be, being present and stilling the mind, I’ve had the good fortune to converse with a few of you about your own journeys. This week I heard from someone who has also taken the plunge into a role that they see more as their calling. But things aren't going as planned and they are feeling bad. The question arose, was this a sign that they were on the wrong path? Or is this a normal part of the process of a life of purpose? It was a timely question for me too. Then I learned of the passing of Dr Wayne Dyer. Earlier this year I heard about a film he’d made, and seemed proud of, with his friend Portia de Rossi, called The Shift; the inspiration for this week’s title. In his memory, Hay House Publishing allowed free access to watch the film for a short time. I’ve heard the saying “you don’t attract what you want, you attract what you need”. I am so thankful for such a lovely gift, I certainly needed it. As we have made the move to our new home, and I have made the decision to let my writing grow organically (rather than try and force it in order to make an immediate income), I had some interim contracting work all set up to contribute to the household budget. That hasn’t come to fruition and I find myself in a place I don’t want to be, relentless domesticity with little time to search for some interim contracting work and even less time to develop my writing. Is this a sign it’s not for me? What I know for sure, when you “follow your bliss”, as Joseph Campbell said, obstacles and challenges are part of the journey. Living a life of purpose doesn’t mean you no longer attract these, but you will find that as you become more of who you truly are, and as you start to still your mind to listen to your inner knowing, your perspective on life’s challenges changes. To know if something is for you or not, dwell on how it feels. For example, as I was sifting through the things I might want to do versus those I don’t, I thought of the frustration that arises for me when I’m coaching someone (who might not take the advice), versus the fulfillment I feel, the stillness, the connectedness, when I’m writing, or the frission of energy I get from speaking to audiences on a topic I’m passionate about. As I watched Dr Dyer’s “The Shift”, there was a character that was caught in a world of domesticity bringing up her two young boys, who got reminded of that feeling she used to have when she painted. Caught in my own world of domesticity at the moment, I related to that character, and it served as a timely reminder to me that my present obstacles are temporary. Gratitude has taken on a whole new meaning; it used to seem trite, something said on the front of greetings' cards. But as I sat there after the film, and after having talked to another person on their journey, after experiencing the frustration of my present situation, I felt nothing but gratitude for the things I was attracting into me experience – you get what you need – I hear, loud and clear. Are you paying attention to the signs in your life? Making the shift from ambition to purpose might not be a thunderbolt, but you can make a start. Start to do more of the things that feel good, and less of those that don’t. Be that person radiating the good vibes, and you’ll have contributed more to this world that any amount of money or recognition can. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Photo by Morgan Sessions “If you want to be somebody, then stand up and be somebody.” The words resonated in my ear. It was 1995 and I was in an auditorium listening to a mentor of mine speak at a conference, he was relaying the tale of how his wife gave him the proverbial swift kick. At the time he was pursuing a venture that I don’t think was really his calling, but his words spoke to a hunger in me.
The yearning for more, the emptiness and – oftentimes – frustration inside, there has to be more than this? Feeling, more than knowing, that the person inside is not the person you portray to others. But how could I even begin to fathom that out? Twenty years on (and where did that time go?), I say “just start”. It doesn’t matter if it’s the wrong ladder against the wrong wall you’re climbing, unless you take at least the first rung you will never find that out. Just start, you will likely climb so many ladders that the ceiling which was above your head is now the ground on which you are walking. In taking those first steps, committing to them enough until we know better, we evolve, we grow. We slowly awaken to the person on the inside, the one who looks through those eyes when you look in the mirror. The inner knowing starts to show itself in more and more ways, giving us clarity on who we really are, and who we are here to be. This week our little tabby’s ashes have been returned. I tell my daughter, everything in the world around you eventually turns to dust, but what is within will always remain. As I watched the unseeing eyes of the dead animal that was moments before our beloved pet, I knew that her body had ceased to exist, but she hadn’t, her love lives on. That inner essence that dances through you is not about the body you inhabit, the body is simply a vehicle in this life that you wanted to undertake. As I walk further through the years, part of me marvelous at the miracle of nature. I look at all life and wonder at how things that are so complex can be made out of so little in their physical beginnings. On the other hand I struggle with how little the human mind tends to be aware of. I saw a video this week promoting a Science and Nonduality Conference: Exploring the Nature of Consciousness. I was intrigued because I have only recently come to appreciate the true meaning of the word consciousness. What struck me was the divergence humanity seems to have taken over the last hundred years or so into the world of ‘science’. The topic up for discussion is how science has tried to explain consciousness as a function of the mind, and cannot, and so the question is whether the opposite is true; that the human mind is actually an expression of consciousness. Of course. After quickly climbing the corporate ladder when I finally entered that world in my late twenties, I remember one of the team asking about my ambition given the fairly senior role I was in at the time, it gave me pause. It’s not ambition that drove me, it was more the big picture wiring, I had just needed to get to a role that was more strategic. Of course as I’d been climbing I could no more have articulated that than I can figure where I’m headed right now. As a reflector, I struggle with being questioned about what I’m going ‘to do’ now. In those younger years I would go to lengths to derive a plan so I had answers for people. Well meaning people, like family and friends. Even today it still happens. As I’m making the switch away from the corporate and doing more writing, I get asked about how I plan to make money. Of course I have developed answers, I know how writers can make money, but I’m not ready to aggressively pursue this because of the need to make money. It needs to grow more organically than that. It’s about growth from the inside out, and there are plenty of other ways to make money in the meantime. The real answer is this. I trust that it will all work out, it always does. In the big picture. Of course I understand those closest to me worry, because their minds are playing out the ‘what if’ scenarios in their head. Thankfully I have learned to shut out ‘what if’ scenarios in my mind pretty quickly. Knowing the longer I dwell on them the more likely I am to bring them into my experience. Instead I use those brief skirmishes with any negative ‘what if’ to make sure that ‘what is’ does not take that route. I do allow myself to dwell on ‘what if’ in the positive sense. What if something I write sometime goes viral? What if it leads me to like minded people? It does, it has. But I’m also not getting tethered, I’m still growing, still exploring, going with my flow. And so should you. Finding your flow is about following the things that give you a positive boost, great vibes. Do those things, those are the key to figuring out who you are on the inside. Trust that if you are doing those things you will not miss out on life, you will be living your life in a way that brings no regrets, only peace. Make a start, commit to at least observing in your life what feels good and what feels bad. Make a plan to do more of the good, just inch forward if that is all you can do right now. Who you are on the inside, beneath any suffering, beneath any well meaning versions of your life loved ones have wanted for you, is the person who can do most for this planet. Go find that person and live a life fulfilled. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  I believe it was Rev Leroy Allison that said “We spend too much time living in the ‘what if’ and need to learn to live in the ‘what is.’ Accepting our present reality seems to be hard for us as an adult. Our emotional state usually arises from the internal protesting towards it.
In fact we get so wrapped up in this internal battle, we lose months of our time, years even, between moments when we ponder our life a bit more and resolve to make changes. Most people don’t take regular time to relax and still the mind a little, there’s just too much ‘to do’. This week I have been contemplating the topic more than usual, my little grey tabby didn’t survive her kidney disease and so we begrudgingly said farewell. In a detached way, I wondered whether this experience of death would be different from previous experiences I've had given all my pontificating about living in the moment. I cried, even though I believe we are all connected, in life and in life after life, but I can no longer reach out and stroke her fur, I can no longer hear her chirpy little meow talk that greeted me every time we were near. Nothing I think or feel can change the fact that she's not physically here. However, what I think can change my experience of it. Only last week I wrote about leaning into the curve balls, living in the present, and so life decided to throw me another. When close ones die, it gets us thinking about the life we are living. Those who face dying tell us they wish they had listened less to others and lived a life more aligned with their own desires. How many times each day do you waste time rebelling against ‘what is’ in your mind? The toilet seat that has been left up, the person next to you on the train with garlic breath, the kids squabbling with each other, the friend that never calls, the boss expecting you to just go along with some silly protocol, the fact that you even have to go to work at all? One of the reasons we love children and animals so much is they seem to revel in the present moment far more than we, they still see magic all around them. We, however, chew things over in our minds and create magnificent stories within seconds. Generally we tell ourselves fabulous tales of how others have done things deliberately to us, and so we feel the persecution and sink further into our misery. We also experience others doing this to themselves, friends or loved ones unload, which just adds to the bad vibes. So what can we do about all these thoughts and feelings we experience that are just slowing us down, creating a fog around ‘what is’? Change what you can, accept what you can’t. It comes down to neutralizing the effects. In the moment, if you feel especially upset, it’s better to remove yourself and get moving, burn some of that negative energy off, walk off some steam. Once you’re there, or if you’ve started at a less extreme state of emotion, start to generalise your thoughts, replay the story from another perspective, one that doesn’t put you at the centre of the drama. Most importantly, be yourself. I reflected this week how animals have their own personalities, even their own baggage. My older cat has always been wary, if approached from her peripheral vision she’ll turn and swipe, if challenged by another cat she’ll valiantly stand her ground. In contrast, that little grey tabby was a resounding example of simple presence and love. Not once did she fight, bite or swipe. Nothing ever fazed her; she just ignored any challenge and carried right on with her affectionate ways. What an amazing gift in my life, and beautiful memory. Taking regular time for yourself to get absorbed in activities that help you tune out to the ‘stuff’ and tune into who you are is a necessity, it’s certainly not an indulgence. As I watch my children grow up, I’m acutely aware of all the expectations that get put upon them, ‘rules’ that they are supposed to follow. When I think of the layers and layers of these that get added over the years, it’s no wonder we get stuck in a bit of a fog about who we really are. Accepting this, start to delayer. Spend more time in ‘what is’, you will soon notice more of what you are feeling towards things, ideas, or people. Use this as a guide to getting to know the real you. Accept what comes up, you may not be the person you think you are. There is only now, this moment, this body, this life, this experience. Accepting the moment doesn’t mean you accept a future made up of the same moments – use now to guide you to what you do want, then action it. Even if that action is only becoming aware of what you don’t want. Once you look at your life through different lenses you can't undo it, awareness is created. Inspiration follows, you start to notice more of who you really are, what you really want, act on your inspiration. The fact you’re reading this article shows you already have some level of awareness that something is out of whack in your life. I’m not going to pretend it’s easy to strip away all those layers you’ve gathered over the years, you won’t suddenly wake up tomorrow with a childlike innocence about the world. But as you work on it, piece by piece, peace returns, exuberance returns, and – most importantly - you return. Living ‘what is’, choosing this moment, aware of who you truly are and what you truly want, is a life worth living. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/40883175@N06/14331575962">Highline Elation</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Joshua Clay Life can throw you curve balls, we all know this - the question is how you respond when it happens. Who you are - how you respond to life's challenges - will determine the quality of your own experience and those around you. Many philosophers and teachers have pointed out that now, this present moment, is all we have. Yet many of us live in the past or live for the future.
Learning to live life in the now doesn’t mean life won’t throw you challenges. It’s more related to the perspective you have on those challenges, Erkhart Tolle teaches that optimally you want to still the mind and become an observer who is unattached to the outcome. At first I wondered what the point was of anything if I was unattached to it, isn’t that part of this human experience, that we feel things in response to the life around us? As I began to explore the idea more, I realised that being unattached to the outcome didn’t mean I no longer cared about anything. It’s about the futility of trying to change things that already are. That is not to say you don’t take a different course in the future. As Reinhold Neibuhr famously said “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. Of course this is easier said than done. I often catch my own responses to the challenges of life, and muse at what an imperfect being I am. So I learn from the experience and recommit to living life in the now. Whether it’s an unexpected result at the clinic, or in a performance review, or a redundancy at work, an illness in the family, or a loved one deciding to take their life in a different direction – how we respond makes a huge difference to the quality of our own wellbeing. This week as we have been settling into our new home in a new city, it became apparent our youngest cat was very sick. Pre-children, our cats were like our kids, and I have to confess in the mayhem that ensues from having little ones born into your life, the cats took somewhat of a back seat. I had noticed that she was a bit depressed and somewhat underweight in recent months, but I had put it down to upset over the move. As it turns out, she has irreversible kidney damage. At only 6 years old, we’d been expecting her to be around for another 10 years or more, and we just weren’t ready to let her go. Neither did we want her to suffer. Through my tears there came a point when I suddenly realised that, no matter how much I wanted her to stay, it wasn’t my decision; it was hers. She would either decide her time is up and leave, or she’d choose to stay a bit longer. I couldn’t impose my will, I could only support her in her choice. Although she has bounced back a little from death’s door and is now home, her prognosis isn’t wonderful. However, I am grateful for this time we have now and are making sure to feed her a specific diet that will improve the quality of whatever life she has remaining. Controlling the things we can. That lack of control is the curve ball. As humans we have a tendency to try and control everything that happens in our life, but we can’t. Everyone has their own free will, and, no matter how much you may want something of someone, you might not get it. I used to see that in the office a lot where a manager would simply tell people to do something without any real discussion, understanding or (crucially) buy in. As a result the culture was not one of lasting positive change but rather one of fear. While the Lego movie epitomizes this in a really humorous way, it’s a rather sad indication of the all too prevalent modus operandi, certainly in the western world. Frequently I’d watch managers physically or metaphorically scratch their heads when challenged by their superiors about a poor outcome, saying “but I told them”. Not all curve balls are negative of course, some are amazing, a long awaited pregnancy when all hope had been lost, a marriage proposal, a promotion or a lotto win. Regardless of what they are, the essence of a curve ball is the unexpected nature, at least in your mind. On some level you will probably have recognized what was occurring, just as I can now see signs I had noticed with my cat in hindsight. It can be hard to accept that our mind plays such a huge part in the quality of our life, that it’s not what happens but how we respond. You can choose to be a victim, or you can accept that you are the creator of your own reality. Either way, you’re right. However, if you are a leader of people or want to be, and want to be successful in doing that, not only do you have to master this, you also have to learn to teach it to others, pointing out what’s in it for them as you bring them on the journey. Change is the norm in this modern world, and the cultures that are deliberately cultivated and supported around this are the ones that thrive. Imagine a world where people deal with change in a healthy way as the norm, how amazing would that be? It starts with you, who you are in these moments. Is your mind battling against what is, or have you let go of the futility of such thoughts? Start with the easy things, the queue at the traffic lights, the unanswered call, the colleague who is endlessly talking, the appointment that is already late. Taking control of curve balls, ironically, is simply about accepting the things you can't change in the moment. Choose to accept the moment and it will surprise you how things start to turn around rather than spiral. Focus on the things you can control and you'll build such positive momentum you'll be knocking challenges out of the park. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  A thought is a curious thing, once observed, if it’s negative it loses its power; its grip on you. The energy dissipates because your inner knowing sees it in the context of that bigger picture of your life. However, if the thought is positive – aligned with what you truly want out of life – let it snowball, it creates a positive momentum and great results if you’ll let it.
This last week we have been continuing to settle in our new home, new city. When I say settling, I mean, continuing to get things out of boxes, continuing to take two steps forward and one step backwards with electrics, plumbing and a kitchen renovation, kids starting at their new kindergarten and childcare, cats still locked in to get them used to their new environment (and not enjoying being locked in with little kids). Amid the stresses and strains I catch myself being someone I don’t like, letting negative thoughts take over. As we take a small backward step with our kitchen, perhaps a handle missing, or a cabinet maker who forgot to turn up, I lose perspective and start to grumble to my partner. Here's the start of a bad snowball, I say one thing, he plays devil’s advocate and tries to smooth it out; vice versa. Suddenly the story is growing and it’s not about a scheduling error at the kitchen company, I‘ve jumped from there to the kind of person my partner is, his character and the choices I’ve made in choosing him as a life partner. Sound familiar? Of course, things cool off and you gain a little more perspective and life moves on. However, in the process, look at all that bad energy created, bad vibes. Of course, children are very sensitive to all of these things, as are animals. They are not in the specifics, they are just picking up on the energy, suddenly they are tuning in at a lower frequency – squabbling starts, and it snowballs further. If you accept the premise that everything is energy, and our thoughts and feelings emit energy, what if that energy – once created – hangs around like an invisible bubble? If all energy vibrates at a different frequency (like radio waves, great analogy Esther Hicks), you begin to realise that if you are tuned to the wrong frequency you can pick up on a lot of ‘stuff’ hanging around out there. Controversially Erkhart Tolle talks specifically about premenstrual women, whose mood – if not caught at the outset and recognised for what it is – picks up on the energy of persecution of women through the ages and snowballs. Being a woman myself, I admit to first feeling a little outraged at this. Woe betide men who make derisory comments on this topic (“oh, that explains it; it’s that time again"). Of course, when I let this cogitate with my inner knowing, I have to admit it makes more than a little sense. Play out these scenarios in your own life, they happens every day at home and at work. Think of how often a comment in a meeting suddenly leads to an attack (at least in your own mind) on your character, or a colleague’s character. It can be overwhelming when you start looking at life through these lenses. When you think of all the bad energy you create and pick up on, not just of other people you are currently interacting with, but generations passed who have inhabited the same space, it starts to feel like a futile situation. It’s not, it’s really simple, you just need to tune in at a different frequency. It's not that we are trying to never have a negative thought or experience. If negative thought exists as a result of bad experiences – and bad experiences result from negative thought – we don’t want to dwell there long. We do want to use these experiences as a contrast though, to let us know what we do want. Therefore if you aim to spend 80% of your time on the positive thoughts and experiences, that would seem like a good balance. Easy to say and – I know – harder to live, especially when you’ve spent years out of balance, stuck more often than you’d like in a quagmire of negative thought and bad energy. There is much advice and information available on the how, but the ones I like best are:
The mind is a wonderful thing when applied to creating and growing more of what you really want, but if you are finding yourself trapped in a spiral of negative thoughts and feelings, be deliberate about moving in the direction of what you do want, it will change the momentum of your life. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/56044438@N00/3266544581">freedom</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Iwanto Arif Our mind is a magnificent machine, but as I’ve said before, it’s akin to the computer that thinks it’s human. Many believe they are their mind.
Yet there is a deeper knowing within each of us that we can tend to ignore. Instead of quieting the chaos in our head, we dwell on things, amplify them, and they grow like a snowball. When we fixate on the thoughts in our mind, we can never be present, we are stuck in the past or in the future, but we are not really here, now, this moment. There’s a term that has been coined for a new movement, mindfulness, which is interesting as it describes the root cause it’s designed to tackle rather than the practice itself, the illness rather than the cure so to speak; an oxymoron. Mindfulness’ practices have of course been around as long as humans, but lost respectability among the masses. In its more modern naming the masses are taking note; the masses of stressed out, frazzled people who would otherwise have rejected meditation as a bit hippy or new age. Anything that brings us to our senses has to be a good thing. It’s amazing how many phrases we commonly use, like ‘bring us to our senses’ that contradict what people often express as their more cynical viewpoint about life and it’s deeper meaning, and the way others might go about connecting with that. Our senses are many, yet we rely on our 'rational' mind to try and interpret them. In truth, there’s a part of you that interprets the world around you and it’s congruence to the path in life you truly want to take far quicker. If you wake up in the morning and take some time for contemplation before you leap out of bed and into the frenetic flow of the day, you will connect far more easily with the things that are really important to you and those you want to achieve. This is the time in the day to set your intentions, start with the big picture in mind, rather than the inevitable endless stream of emails that will surely be waiting. It’s easy to make excuses about why it’s not possible to do that. I know, I’ve spent the last few years of my life being woken through the night by my daughters and feeling like I’m experiencing some sort of sleep deprivation torture. But I’ve been taking time lately to make sure I hit the reset button. I have a choice when I'm awoken - resistance or acceptance. Often I get woken and think “no, no, no, it can’t be time to get up already”. Then I catch myself, I stop the thought before it starts to grow like a snowball. In the past I’d have been thinking “If she starts whining for milk I’ll scream” or “Why can’t he get his lazy butt out of bed for once instead of pretending to still be asleep” or worse. Caught unaware and called from our sleep most of us are less than congenial. Lately I’ve started to be more ‘mindful’ and hear Kim Eng’s voice (I regularly do her yoga class on DVD) “accept the is-ness of this moment”. Then I quickly follow that with my intention for the day of “unconditional love”. I’ve been amazed at how these quick flashes of thought in the morning have reset the tone for the day. The unthought-of ruminations that had started to appear like shadows in my mind suddenly recede and the sun comes out. Well, maybe not the sun, but certainly not the raincloud and lightening thunderstorms of yesteryear. When we get trapped in our head, and negative thought patterns start to kick in, it’s important for your wellbeing to catch them quickly and move on. My daughter tripped and hurt her arm this week, taking the top layer of skin off, resulting in some antiseptic being applied at bedtime. As it started to sting, she felt pain and began to cry. She was so tired that I kept thinking she’d fall asleep, but instead she was fighting it, fixated on the pain. After much crying and attempts to sooth her I said “you’re stuck in your head, thinking about it is making it a lot worse”. She said miserably “I am?” I started to distract her by retelling the stories about when she was a baby, a topic I know she loves, and then a thought crossed my mind. She wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon, so I asked her whether she’d like to get up and look at her baby book. We had a wonderful time looking through it together. At last she was ready for bed, distracted enough that she no longer felt the pain. When you start to get trapped in your head, anywhere, anytime, make a point of breaking the hold the thought has. Until you do you’ve lost your perspective. And that perspective is the one of the bigger picture for your life. Most of you can’t articulate what that is, but you know it deep inside. You feel good when you’re in tune with it, and bad when you’re not. So if you’re stuck in some vortex of self destruction, deliberately break out. The best thing you can do for your wellbeing and your success in life is to regularly and proactively go out of your mind. I mean this in a healthy way of course. Whether it's ‘Mindfulness’, meditation, or simply an activity you really enjoy that lets you relax, it’s important for you to tune in, turn on and get the best of you each day. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Photo by Matthew Weibe We know instinctively that we should be aiming to be happy, because it feels better, it feels good, great even. But few of us can actually say that, for the most part, we are consistently happy throughout our lives.
What if your job in this life is simply to figure out what feels good to you and do more of it? You can use your feelings at any point in time as your guide to how you’re doing on the job. The truth for most of us is, quoted from one of my childrens' books by Janan Cain, “Feelings come and feelings go, you never know quite what they’ll be. Happy, mad, glad or sad, they’re all a part of me.” - we’re a mixed bag. Thank goodness for that mixed bag, the contrasts. I remember fathoming out as I was growing up that, in order to know great happiness, you have to first know what great sadness is; otherwise good would feel, well, mediocre, normal. Too often though we try and cut out feeling bad altogether, preferring to stay in a state of numbness over pain, or getting quick fix euphoria. Remember, feeling is at the heart of our human experience. The last episode of Grey’s Anatomy I watched, one of the doctors had a moment where he realised he kept running away each time things got tough, and that ‘running away’ is different for each of us. For him it meant taking another tour of duty, for the doctor he was talking to it was drugs, but the epiphany he had was the things they were running away from are actually a vital part of our humanity. Many of us have developed a ‘coping mechanism’ when things are tough, whether it’s a big glass of wine, or simply tearing into the cleaning at home. But what kind of life is one where you’re ‘coping’? Yes, painful things happen, really painful sometimes. The worst thing you can do is try to run away from that pain, because all that happens is it grows, you give more energy to it by focusing on not wanting it. I’ve seen people let it affect them their whole lives, passing it on through families and generations. Actually it’s sadly common, Look at some of the world’s quarrels now, borne of generations. As a Scot I can tell you the fierce hatred of the Sassenach’s (English) still runs rife in our patriot blood. Mine rises to the occasion watching sporting events, despite having been born in England and having some wonderful friends and family there. Feeling bad (whether it’s despair, resentment, anger, or any other variant) is simply your inner self telling you that you’re off track from what you’re truly wanting. I’m not saying you need to dwell there, in fact, it’s not helpful if you do. Instead, feel into it, then let it go – let it point you towards what you do want. When you face it, and feel into is, it’s overwhelming at first; but it soon starts to dissipate. Despair can turn to unworthiness, then to anger, then to disappointment before moving into more neutral territory like frustration. Eventually you start to feel hope and, from there, more positive feelings arise. Equally, when you’re feeling good, don’t just dive on into the next thing in your day. Take some time to just let that feeling soak into each cell, you’re in tune with yourself, celebrate it by staying in tune. Start to hardwire happiness into your brain as Dr Rick Hansen would say. When you catch yourself thinking about how tough you’ve got it in life, the quickest way to turn those negative thoughts around is gratitude. While gratitude has become a bit of a throw away word, clichéd almost, too rarely do we actually feel into it in its truest form. As I’m in the process of moving cities and saying goodbye to many people at the moment, it’s been a great opportunity to thank those people for what they’ve added to my life. I’ve even been grateful that we took over the new house early, with my partner going ahead to get it painted while I stay back and pack up our old house and look after the kids. In situations that are stressful, the combination of my own ‘wanting time to absorb and reflect’ nature, mixed with my partner’s ‘dive right in’ nature can exacerbate the whole experience. As hard as it’s been, separately moving through this time has had its upsides and has helped me appreciate his contribution greatly. When you’re struggling to think of things to be grateful for, go big, general even. The more general you are, the less you can argue with yourself. Who isn’t grateful that the sun comes up each morning and fills the world with vibrant colour? That helps our plants to grow, giving us air to breathe. For the rain that comes sustaining us and giving more life than it ever takes away. Even the things you’ve been looking at through the lens of ‘life is tough’ are a blessing. In knowing what you don’t want, you can start to discern what you do want far more specifically. Yes, your aim is to be happy; but it’s not ‘never to be sad’. That said, don't dwell there, growing the story in your mind and firmly setting anchor. Use those negative experiences as a contrast, use them to guide you quite deliberately towards what you do want - the best and happiest version of your life. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Photo by Aaron Burden 'Stop and smell the roses' is an expression most will have heard, but how often have you done it; literally or figuratively? It’s amazing how we can be so busy in our lives that we don’t take even 30 seconds to simply just still the mind and be present in our own lives.
J Neville Ward wrote “Death helps us see what is worth trusting and loving and what is a waste of time.” This is no doubt true but what if instead, throughout our lives, we were tuned in and turned on to what is truly important to us? You can be. This week I had a sudden recollection of a conversation I’d had with my chiropractor a number of years ago. He would always ask me to recount how my neck/shoulders/back felt at various points throughout the day. As much as I’d try to remember, I discovered I was going through my days not really present, like driving on autopilot, when you suddenly wonder how you got here with no memory of the route. I used to talk about my brain thawing after a few hours of sleep, because I’d usually waken up in the early hours of the morning with absolute clarity about what actions I needed to take the next day, often getting up to write lists or emails. Then the starter pistol would go off the next morning and I’d start spinning plates again. With constant fog brain and a dull sense of unfulfillment, there were rare moments when I was awake where I would achieve clarity, usually when I had my annual break from the rat race. Then I started to take time to deliberately still my mind. If you’ve ever tried meditation in the traditional sense you’ll know it’s incredibly hard to sit still and not start drifting back to your thoughts, starting with how uncomfortable you are feeling sitting still, you’re soon thinking about the shopping list or a disagreement you’ve had with someone and then you realise you’re deep in thought, defeating the purpose. Alternatives are activities that you enjoy that don’t take much thought, or require a singular focus. Personally I like yoga, the kind where you hold stretches, because there’s just enough movement and discomfort to keep me in the moment – deep breaths are necessary to distract from what I’d describe as a cathartic borderline pain. This is another form of meditation. You can also start to leverage moments in your life that are currently frustrating. In a world where companies think they’re giving great service if they answer 80% of their calls in 20 seconds, what if you take that 20 seconds for yourself, tune out to the music, and just focus on your breath – letting any thoughts that come up drift on past. Do the same at traffic lights, in queues, waiting for the elevator – you will be amazed at the restorative effect. We have gotten so used to identifying with the thoughts in our mind that we think we are that voice in our head. Sure, it’s a component of who we are, but if you identify with it alone, you will miss out on the clarity that comes from your inner knowing, your inner self, the real you. In my posts the central premise of my writing is to encourage the reader to be who you were born to be. When you are present in the world without all the hang ups and misconceptions about yourself that you’ve collected through the years, and all the ‘rules’ of the family, community, country that you live in, you are a person who feels inspired, driven to action, fulfilled. Present. Can you imagine going to work with people who are actually present? Not on autopilot thinking ahead in the conversation, truly listening and – not only that – they are people who are passionate about what they are doing, inspired to be there. Productivity would shoot up, engagement would be a foregone conclusion, customer satisfaction and profits would swell beyond anything we see today. It’s great that you’re taking a moment of your day to read this. How about you take another just to take a deep breath and look around you right now, right where you are sitting. See the colours? See the details? See people’s faces? Hear the sounds? Keep breathing. How does your body feel? Any aches or pains? What about the inner you, can you feel into it? Just observe and be present for a moment in the world you are in. Now go have a great day. This article was originally published on LinikedIn.  In growing up you have become immersed in a shroud of rules, rules that simply do not serve you; shed the shroud and unveil the life you intended to life.
Did you ever stop to think what a ludicrous world we live in? We invent so many rules it is ridiculous. There’s the written rules, the doctrines of religion, law, politics, then there’s the unwritten rules, society’s conventions. Tune into your own moral compass and let go of the cumbersome impossibility of living to everyone else’s standards. Freedom is the essence of our soul, every emotion we ever experience is in relation to how free we feel. We are too willing to put up with feeling bad, feeling powerless, it’s time to start tuning in to your inner knowing and turning the dial to feeling good. As I would walk to work each day from the ferry, there was one guy I’d often see – well, hear - who would walk along with his headset on and belt out a tuneless rendition of “Whiskey in the Jar”. He was completely sober and, as tuneless as his singing was, it brought about a frission of energy, a wonderful zest for life and ‘letting go’ we all paid attention to. Like many of you, I was encultured into a life full of ‘rules’. From the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep your life is dictated by rules. Rules that we, as humans, have simply ‘made up’. Let me give you another example. When my daughter started at daycare last year, she was almost 4, and – unknown to me at the time – the centre had ‘rules for eating lunch’. They raved about the healthy meals that the kids get cooked, and I assumed it was the process of their friends eating a new variety of food that would encourage the new kids to give it a go, surprising themselves that something new tasted good. But no, at 11.30am the kids get their lunch, and it’s a cooked meal. I don’t know about you, but I can’t face anything with any taste until after about 1pm, prior to that I need bland offerings. However, each to their own. The kids are told time and again (the teachers call this ‘encouraged’ but I’ll call it what it is to illustrate my point) “eat your veges, they are good for you”. Like Pavlov’s dogs they are applauded for eating the good stuff and punished if they don’t. “Oh no, we don’t punish them” I was told. Mm, so re-presenting the broccoli they didn’t eat at lunch and withholding the afternoon tea until it’s eaten isn’t punishment? No longer is my daughter in an environment where she can choose what she eats and when, she can’t go with her flow. There’s no need to dictate what they eat, provide a healthy variety and kids – heck let’s widen this to anyone – will choose the food and quantities their body needs. Yes, sugar and refined flour will mess with our chemistry and therefore our choices, but I did say provide a healthy variety of choices. We have rules and more rules. Laws that make no sense. I have decided the next time I get stopped for speeding and they ask why I was driving over the limit I’ll say “because I felt it was safe to do so” as it will be the truth. I saw an article in the AA magazine on ‘form’ versus road signage. It’s been proven that a tree lined road will slow motorists down, whereas open landscaping speeds things up, much more effectively than signage. You are born knowing right from wrong. Truly, you are. I know it’s hard to believe given the level of stuffing we’ve all had knocked out of us in the process of growing up. Most of us are conditioned into thinking we need someone to tell us the rules or society will collapse into chaos. This was in actual fact what the daycare centre told me “we can’t let the kids choose, there would be chaos!” Who are these people who decide the ‘rules’ we follow? Politics has become a game of power and ego. In religious doctrines you will find rules taking you down a rabbit hole further and further from the essence of its teaching. You are born with an inner knowing, innate wisdom. All growth adds to our collective consciousness, we evolve and our children are born wiser than we. Just in the last few decades alone we have evolved at a pace beyond previous decades, centuries even, with many social intolerances now starting to dissipate. It is a battle of the mind versus inner wisdom and knowing. There is a deeper part of you, and you know it exists because you connect with it in every moment of clarity you have, that knows right from wrong. You know what is right for you, and you don’t need others to tell you what it is. As adults we have years of conditioning to unravel before we can get there consistently. You can start today though, you get clarity through stilling your mind. As I wrote in Live the Best Version of Your Life the most common regret of the dying is “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me”. If you wonder who the real you is, just start with any activity that helps you to free your mind of those cloudy, crowding “what if’s” – go for a walk, dance to loud music in your living room, take a ride on your bike, go for a swim, whatever works for you, that helps bring you back into balance. It’s from these points of clarity that you make great decisions about what works for you and what doesn’t. Over time you can learn to get in that feeling, that headspace, more readily, and for longer. Reading through some of my earlier takes you through this step by step. In the meantime, go break a few rules. Start with things that are inconsequential, maybe you’ll take a pee on the hillside when you go for a walk, or do a rendition of “Whiskey in the jar” on the bus, whatever it is, be free to do what is right and feels good for you. This article was originally posted on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/16903262@N02/1802363801">Ice hole swimming</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Juan Galafa “I’m a parent? A journal to ponder the unfathomable circumstance that I somehow have offspring even though I have no idea what I’m doing…” This is the title of an inner truth journal I was given as a gift. Like many who start the journey wanting to be parents, I was full of hope and grand ideas, then with each step we take we realise how little we knew...
When I finally got, and stayed, pregnant (attempt number five) I remember a trusted friend saying “how wonderful, you can help your baby to be fully conscious”. Now, although I’d been on a bit of a spiritual journey, I really didn’t know what she meant – and obviously wasn’t ready to investigate as I didn’t ask – but I did know it wasn’t about keeping my baby out of a coma. Nowadays I write a lot about being who you are, who you were born to be – your fully conscious, completely authentic self. The main premise is that we come into this life with talents, traits, purpose even, then the process of ‘culturisation’ begins. We are taught what is socially acceptable in our various domains and the sense of self worth we are born with slowly starts to fade amidst the layers we adopt in order to fit in. ‘Conscious leadership’ has been talked about a lot lately, and ‘authenticity’. Recently I heard K.D. Lang say “authenticity is the new black”, that is great news because, without it, there can be no conscious leadership. The same applies to conscious parenting. Conscious parenting is, first and foremost, you being true to yourself. To raise a conscious child is to do your best to ensure they remain true to their own nature, to ensure you’re not adding to their ‘layers’. What intention have you set in your relationship with your children? How do you want them to feel around you? Today I heard Brendon Burchard give an example of sitting down with your child to do their homework with an intention to teach them the joy of learning, what a contrast to the way most of us have experienced this! Consider this. What if your life is simply the tip of the iceberg? What if the person that you see in the mirror each day is simply a physical expression of a much larger part of you that exists unseen, let’s call it your essence, or your soul, your inner knowing? Imagine you live many lives, each with its own purpose, but all about growth. As you grow, the universe grows, life evolves. You don’t retain the details of your many experiences - there is already too much crowding your brain, vying for your attention – instead you have an intuition, an inner knowing, that will guide you. Did you ever play a game to find an object where someone says “you’re warm” when you get close, or “you’re cold” when you’re off track. Like this, your intuition lets you know if you’re aligned to your true self, your true intention for this life, by how you feel; good or bad. So when you are feeling great, you’re in your slip stream, the life you chose for yourself. When you feel bad, you’re off track, it’s just not you. Learn to tune in again to your own intuition, we all have it and, importantly, affirm with your child their intuition. I recently heard Abraham-Hicks say “teach your children, if something feels ‘off’ to you, it is”. Simple yet powerful. Parenting for me has been an amazing journey so far, really a rebirth of myself too. When my first daughter was born I had no idea how I would parent her. I had my own experience to go by, that of friends and family, and had spent much of my thirties watching Super Nanny on the TV. I also knew enough from all the exposure and work I’ve done around personal development to know each person is as unique as a snowflake, so I figured I’d wait and see who this wee person was (that was about to arrive) and I’d wing it. When she started to emerge as a walking, talking human being, there were of course the splendid tantrums. Automatically we turned to ‘time out’… once… instinctively we dropped it. I saw something in my daughter’s eyes that stopped me, a light that faded. I realised that much of the parenting techniques I’d learned were about controlling behaviour, in effect that is the antithesis of what I wanted. Growing up I heard an expression that resonated so strongly I’ve never forgotten it: “what you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say”. I trust that my child knows right from wrong, there is much evidence to support that. Trying to teach our children what they already know seems fruitless to me. But to live a life of example, being who you were born to be, you will teach the same to your child. What an amazing gift to your children and to the world. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  Photo by Catherine McMahon Life is there for the taking, yet most of us are so wrapped up in our thoughts about what we need to do now, today, at the weekend, next week – or mulling over what’s just happened, who said what to who and what they meant by it, that it’s passing us by. Amid the chaos, how can you learn to live the best version of your life?
Learning happens in cycles. First we start in complete ignorance, not knowing what we don’t know; just living our life, not giving a different version of it a single thought. This progresses to a state of awareness of what we didn’t know, in this context, you become aware that alternatives exist. Then we begin to actively and consciously learn....this being the rub, as nothing different will happen without you first engaging in the thought of it, and believing it can happen. Finally we become so practiced in our new learning that it happens unconsciously, you find that you are now busily living the new life you’ve created for yourself. What if you came into this world having chosen to be here? Let’s say there’s a part of you – your essence, your spirit, your soul, whatever you want to call it, that is eternal. Its purpose is growth, expansion, evolution, more life. Your being here in this life, in physical form, is simply the tip of the iceberg. Each life adding to the collective consciousness of all life. Imagine that. Many have, many we categorise in the genre of science fiction have been explaining these concepts for many years, we go along to the movie or watch the DVD on our couch, or read the book and say “wow, imagine if that were true”. Teachers past and present have tried too, Budda, Jesus, many more. Many now are put off by doctrines, too much detail, too many stories, what is real and what is not? The teachers are exalted when it’s what they are teaching that matters. We have become a race run by ego, a self created version of ourselves, one that our mind concocts. Our mind is such a powerful tool but it’s akin to the computer that thinks it’s human. It’s a self created version of itself. Think of an example in your life where you know you’ve got caught up in a ‘story’, where your mind has completely run away with itself. It happens constantly throughout our day. Our self confidence, self worth even, has become based on how we compare ourselves with others. The computer is starting to think it’s the human. Stop. Yes it’s wonderful to have other people believe in you and to encourage you, but – please – listen to your own inner voice. Not the one your mind switches on, with all the fears and doubts, that will limit your life experience, but your inner knowing. Ever get a ‘gut feel’? Ever feel inspired to read something, watch something? Ever think of someone and suddenly you get an email from them? We all know there is ‘something else’, an inner knowing that we all have. I heard a story today about Bronnie Ware, who worked with the dying in hospice care, she has written a book called “Top 5 regrets of the dying”. The most common regret was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me”. On this journey to discover who I was born to be, the very best version of me in this life, firstly there was the illusion that I was the person that my mind defined me as – the accumulation of nature and of ‘nurture’. I frame this because of course nurture is the exact opposite of what I now understand actually happens for the most part. Instead of nurturing the real you, parents, teachers, friends and family, often - albeit well meaning - add to the confusion. In the attempt to indoctrinate us into our many cultures- the family, the home, the school, the club, the community and so on, the small child who enters the world full of joy and self worth, slowly adopts beliefs about themselves and the world around them that starts to completely obscure the raw energy beneath, the real person who came with a purpose and an inner guidance system, their intuition, that many are taught not to trust. Believing myself to be someone I'm not, not knowing what I didn’t know, in 2006, I started to become acutely aware of what I didn’t know – my true self. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, I just knew it wasn’t the successful corporate career I was embroiled in. So began the second stage of learning. 9 years on, having deliberately gone on a journey of active learning, to discover who Shona Keachie really is; here I am. It has not been an easy 9 years, and much of it has been involved in the difficulties in trying to have children, swiftly followed by the difficulties and blessings of having them. Being a full time working mum in a fairly senior corporate role meant any time for myself, any headspace at all, was prized and precious. I dedicated the little I could carve out to gaining the clarity I craved. At times it was like pulling myself up by my fingernails, inching forwards, but forwards I have come. As do we all. Once you become aware of the box you are in, the one your mind creates and keeps you in, you can’t but help notice it for what it is. Even the bad experiences, the ones that crowd your day, serve to point to what you don’t want. Once you step outside of the box, there’s no way you will want to get back in. Those moments you experience when you take a good break, when you feel relaxed and in tune with yourself, and suddenly get really clear on things you want to achieve. This is your natural state of being. For many of us, we don’t have clarity on what a life being true to ourselves means. I know, I’ve lived my life wading through the treacle, with a vague sense of unease, unhappiness. I know, because as I’ve started to write about being who you are, many of you have responded and resonated with what I’ve written, but you just don’t know how to begin. This article isn’t designed to cover all of that, it’s all there on my other posts to read at any time. In fact, this article marks the conclusion of one chapter and the start of another in my own learning cycle. Here I am in the third stage of learning, sharing with you what I have come to know – that who I am, in essence, is a soul who loves – and I mean loves, thrives, feels exultant – to learn more about this life we are all living, to grow and then to teach. Through teaching I learn more, and so the growth continues. If you meet me at a party, I’ll never be interested in small talk, I will want to get to know YOU, the real you. Because the real you will have something to teach the real me, and I crave that. My friends know I’m the serious one, the deep one, it’s all good, I am. I am serious about being real, accepting and allowing that to happen. For each and every reader, I hope something in here that resonates with your inner knowing, I hope that you will wake up before you are at the end of this life regretting you weren’t true to yourself. Go live the best version of your life, find out who you really are and what you, in your true essence, are really capable of. You will be amazed and we will stare in wonder at the glorious life you create for yourself. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  When we feel powerless, it doesn’t feel good, and our automatic reaction is to try and take control of something, anything, which tends not to end well. As Mohandas Gandhi said “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” That starts with us.
Things happen in our life that we can’t control in the moment - people die, relationships break up, jobs get made redundant. Each and every day, in our various relationships, we experience moments where we don’t feel as though we have a choice: going to work when you’re feeling under the weather because someone else had already called in sick, making the kids’ lunches because your partner has left for work without doing it, going to a meeting that feels like a waste of time because your boss has made it clear it’s not optional; the list is endless. Then there’s the interactions with people that upset us. We tend to take things very personally and attribute the worst possible reasons for people’s motives, when in actual fact, most of the time it will have very little to do with us. One day last week I dropped my daughter and niece off at their daycare. Usually they go in and hang their bags beside each others, but my niece wanted to hang hers on its own that day, which really upset my daughter. Callie (let’s call her that) felt powerless in a situation where her cousin kept moving her bag every time she put hers next to it. The story playing in Callie’s head was “My cousin doesn’t want to be friends anymore, she doesn’t like me. I don’t want to be here if I’m not wanted.” And so the upset began. Of course, for my niece, the story was quite different, and it’s hard to know exactly what her reasons were (4 year olds are pretty good at talking, but not usually at explaining the psychology behind all their actions). What I do know is it had nothing to do with wanting to be friends or not. She quite cheerily told me she still wanted Callie as her friend, and then stood there waiting to play while Callie was getting all upset (empathy is only developing at this stage!). Callie doesn’t go to that daycare every day but her cousin does, so perhaps she’s just being independent so she doesn’t create a routine that causes her to miss Callie when she’s not there. Perhaps it has nothing at all to do with Callie, and she’s feeling powerless over another issue, maybe she didn’t get her choice of breakfast that morning or wanted to play with some toys that had to stay at home, there are endless possibilities. I use an example of 4 year olds here, but I’ve seen many examples of this – and I’ll confess I’ve also been party to many – in the workplace, which show just as little empathy. All too often we attribute motives to others’ behaviour based on the stories in our own head, which are based on our values, beliefs and circumstances, not theirs. So what can you do in situations where you are starting to feel powerless? Let’s keep it simple, if you think about the many ways you can feel, let’s put them into two buckets, bad and good. We all know fear, anxiety, impatience, resentment, anger, frustration, grief and doubt feel bad; and that peace, calm, patience, commitment, allowing, acceptance, happiness and confidence feel good. Driving those feelings tends to be the extent of power we think we have in any situation. Your aim is to feel good, when you feel good, you maintain a more healthy perspective and maintain a sense of power within. Our degree of acceptance or resistance to the present moment will determine how we feel about it. Erkhart Tolle teaches us the “Power of Now”, the futility of resisting ‘what is’. Living in the present moment, accepting whatever arises, isn’t the same as being a victim or a doormat. It’s about not giving away power and feeling bad about something you cannot change. If you’re feeling bad, it’s time to change the stories playing in your head. In fact, try and catch those stories as fast as you can. Abraham-Hicks teaches us that 17 seconds is all it takes for a thought to catch momentum; soon you have a whole story, an epilogue, going on in your head. Stop! Think big picture here, you want to feel good; you want to keep your power within. Start to generalize your thoughts, put yourself in the other person’s shoes and start attributing their behavior to some other motives that depersonalize it for you. Go and do something that makes you feel good, whether it’s sticking on your iPod for a rendition of Pharrell William’s “Happy” and walking round the block, or getting up to get into the groove, do something, anything (healthy!). Lift yourself up. It’s not about moral high ground, it’s about perspective. We tend to get embroiled in the detail of our own lives and see ourselves as very separate from others. When, in reality, we are all connected and our actions affect many beyond our reach or knowing. What if your life has a much bigger purpose than the one you see today, and the things that are happening are happening for a reason? That is why you often hear expressions like “hindsight is a wonderful thing”, “what’s for you won’t go by you” and “all’s well that ends well”. If you feel bad, make it your mission to feel good. Give people a break, and give yourself a break. Put a stop to those stories created in your mind, instead, surrender to your inner knowing - that is where you’ll find your power. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/51643976@N02/5834991471">Her smile 23/52</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Alicja Colon When I was 19, I remember my dad asking me “what is the purpose of life?” It’s a question that beleaguers many, while others have attempted to answer it. Some feel confident when first asked because of a doctrine they have come to believe, whether through their upbringing or another route. Even then, it is still a deeply personal question that most of us attempt to answer in individual terms.
When I published “Be Who You Were Born to Be”, the number of people that read it was 10 times my normal audience, the innate knowing in people resonating with the title alone. We all have different ways of listening to our inner voice, our true nature, but in today’s world there are so many things vying for our attention. The times we touch upon some of the more important questions in our life become fleeting, and there’s a sense throughout our packed-out days that something else is eluding us. What if you chose this life for a particular purpose? Imagine you are eternal, and every life you learn something new, you grow and the universe grows with you. That doesn’t mean you remember every detail of everything you ever learned, rather that you have a deeper sense of knowing within you, that resonates when you read, see or hear something familiar. Of all the answers that have run through my head since dad asked that question many years ago, it’s the only one that makes sense to me. I’ve often talked about the concept of being who you are in the sense of being the person with the traits, gifts and talents you were born with, rather than the person you’ve become (nature versus nurture) layer by layer. When you are acting from your own true nature, you’re happier, more passionate about the things you do, and great to be around – inspiring even! As we take on other people’s beliefs and perceptions – you’re good at this, you’re not good at that, you’re too loud, you're too quiet, and so on - finding out who you are, the true you before you took on all that other stuff, takes a conscious effort. Effort, yes, but keep it simple. How do you discover the real you? For a start, refuse to feel bad, seek out things that make you feel good. If you’re doing something that makes you feel sucked of all energy and it’s ongoing (like a job, for example), even if you're doing it for the end result, my suggestion is to either stop doing it or to make a plan to stop doing it. Take control of feeling good. I recently listened to an interview with Sir Ken Robinson whose most recent book, written with Lou Aronica, is titled Finding Your Element: How To Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life. What a wonderful title. He talks about the point where talent and passion meet being where you feel most inspired, most ‘at home’ in yourself. What if that is the purpose of your life? To find those things and to do as much of them as possible, imagine that, you’ll start to feel inspired, and when you feel inspired you tend to learn and grow. It’s important to take time out for that reason. We all know our own answers when it comes to what’s best for us. The trick is to access and trust that inner voice more than the fear stories your mind (or other people) create when you give them too much attention. I have a friend who loves sewing, but she has no desire to do it for a living. The job she is in has the potential to give her great joy, because she certainly has a talent for it and is very passionate about it; however, she isn’t confident of her talent. The stories of doubt that play in her mind have been getting the better of her inner knowing. When doubt strikes, you feel bad – so go and do something that makes you feel good, anything, get those good vibes flowing and your perspective changes dramatically, your confidence grows. There is no doubt there are things you need to do for an end result, be it making money or maintaining good health or fitness, but 'there are many means to achieving the same ends' and certainly no reason you should feel anything less than good in the process of trying. When I tackled my fitness a few years back, I persevered with repetitive cardio and muscle strengthening exercises for ages, even spending money on a personal trainer to keep me focused. The truth was though, I hated it. Eventually I switched to yoga and walking, and can tell you without a doubt I love both. There’s no age limit on feeling good, we all spend 24 hours a day doing something, so for goodness sake, do things you enjoy. Start today, or at least start making a plan today. If you find yourself distracted and feeling bad again an hour, a day or a even a week, down the line, just start again. There’s no limits on feeling good, or the number of times you attempt to. You’ll feel inspired to do more, to learn more and in the process you will grow, and the world will be a better place for having you in it. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  If you think "I deserve more respect" when you are constantly harboring disdain towards your colleague, or you think “I want more harmony in my relationship” and all the while you’re bickering and fighting, how can you attract appreciation and love in return? It’s simple, you can’t, so what's the answer?
As you seek to become more ‘in tune’ with the person you were born to be, the subject of my previous posts, how do you in turn allow others to be who they are? With those we don’t live or work closely with, it's easier to be more objective about the traits they display, including the layers they’ve developed through their lifetime that might not be so pretty (a ‘layer’ being a belief we’ve developed about ourselves that began with someone else’s opinion, often we develop them in defense or out of fear of what others think of us). However, with those who are closer we tend to be less forgiving. Typically as adults we are so surrounded by layers we are almost unrecognizable from our true selves, the set of traits talents and beliefs we were born with. For example, despite knowing our worthiness as humans when we are first born, most of us manage to develop layers that lead to a sense of insecurity under many circumstances. So two people living or working closely together, with all their layers, certainly has its ups and downs. Understanding this helps, but not in the moments where you’re feeling powerless and lash out. For those of you who never experience discord with your partner or spouse, close family members or friends, or even colleagues, I suspect you are in the minority. Just last week my partner and I had a blazing row, at 4 in the morning, about night time parenting. Put our ‘soup’ of stubborn, bossy, argumentative and determined traits together and we can argue with the best. Add the exhaustion of parenting two little ones to the mix and, voila, boom! As I was ranting about my partner in my head after the argument, I hate to think what his internal dialogue sounded like. As much as I was berating him and wondering “doesn’t he understand and appreciate me?” and “where’s the support?”, questioning his love for me in essence, I realised he’d be doing the same. So what is the answer? It’s a choice. Instead of getting into the inner dialogue every time something lights your fire, you can generalize the thought, make it less personal - put yourself in their shoes. Think about the reasons someone might be acting this way. I know on the day we argued my partner had come home from work feeling sick. I know we’d had to be out of the house at dinnertime (we’re in the middle of selling and someone was viewing it) when all we really wanted to do was relax at home. I know my daughter had a melt down before bedtime that led to me being snippy with him as an outlet of frustration. I know he had a lot of pressure on him to return to work the next day, ill or not. So when our daughter awoke at 4am, I’m sure all of these factors played into his tone. Instead of one-upmanship (“if he thinks he’s got it bad, what about poor me…” type scenario), how about cutting our colleagues and our nearest and dearest some slack? The trick is to catch that inner dialogue – fast! Too much momentum and your frontal lobe shuts down, you go into flight or fight mode and the only thing you’re motivated to do is ‘win’. I heard someone say recently, “even if you only last an hour”, yes, even if we can manage biting our tongues, taking a deep breath and seeing things from another perspective only in short bursts at the outset, it will improve our relationships immeasurably. I’m not talking here about staying in relationships ‘no matter what’, certainly you can move on from relationships, especially when they are harmful, but it’s about doing so in a way that isn’t going to cause you further harm. Too many times our hurts live on in our inner dialogue, getting played, replayed, soon they take on a momentum and energy that shows up in the way we are feeling. Our own wellbeing suffers unnecessarily, and sometimes dramatically, well beyond the issue itself. I once read a book called Crucial Conversations, it taught me the power of the stories we create in our head. We attribute motives to people's actions (usually with us as the victim) and take great offence, when most often people's motives have absolutely nothing to do with us personally; they are usually driven by their own insecurities, doubts and fears. So how do you allow others to be who they are? First you need to forgive, yourself and others, let go of past hurts; generalise them and they will dwindle. Love yourself enough to not carry around all the negative feelings. Allow yourself to be who you truly are, unconditionally, only then you can be free to love others in the same way. I’ll let you know how it goes… This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/9763931@N04/7715063834">Delaware State Fair - 2012</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">(license)</a> |
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