The Little Book of Less=More (How
to change your life by doing less)
January
Less=More: FUN, 85 Years Old, Visualisations, Affirmations, My Possibility,
Change Now! Have a Break, Roles in Life, My Updates, Organic Growth, More, Self
Promotion, More of the Less Bit, Organic Goals, Goals, Vision and Action,
Newspapers, TV, Sleep, Less, Introduction.
Feb Less=More:
Attributional Thinking, Success Motivates, Motivation and Luck, Mind Maps,
Priorities, Word Strings, Conscious Competence, Morning Pages, Unblocking The
Artist (Creative Expression), Mix with Positive People, Winning Formula – If
you want something doing then do it yourself, Confidence, Perspective, Work
Patterns, People, Awareness, Synchronicity, Breaking Promises!, Equal =, Play
Big in Life and Shine Your Light, What’s the Worst that can Happen?, Perception,
Good Days and Bad Days.
March Less=More:
Perfectionism, More Georgia, He’s Stupid Enough to be Neutral, Move On,
Anti-Role Models, Role Models, Sunshine and Vitamin D, Risk and Failure, Twix,
Doing Less Again!, Fitting it all In, Family, Paradox of Leadership, Commit,
Timetable, Neuro Linguistic Programming (Six Step Reframing
Outline), FreeCell, Quality of Time, 2 Chairs, 3
Perspectives, Motivation Again!.
April Less=More: Sharpen the Saw, Reframing,
What Can You Give?, Action not Words, Play to your Strengths, Windsurf or
Cycle, 5 Memorable Things per Year,
Legacy, Anger, Commitment Again, Just Do It!, Roller Coaster Day, Smile,
Live Today, Animal, Dreams take time to come true, Eat LESS, Form Storm Norm
Perform, Shoot for the Stars and Hit The Moon, !,
Get Up Early and Go Out for Breakfast, Book Shop, Top Dog, Underdog, Parts of
Yourself, I Can’t Even Motivate Myself!, Myers Briggs, Beware of Symptoms and
not Cures.
May Less=More:
Having a Child, Group Psychology, Peer Mentoring, More Chaos Theory, Pain to
Change, Repeated Patterns, Tension for Change, Don’t believe the Hype, Looking
Forward, Be Careful of What You Ask For, Nothing, Coaching, Rhythm, Energy
Level, Hitting the Low, and Dreams, Give it a Go, Change, Can You Face What
You’ve Become?, Just one good thing each day, Yet More of the Less, Degrees of
Separation, Give and Take, Bad Hours, Be
Honest with Yourself, Sleep, Chaos Theory, Dreams Coming True Again, Draw a
line now and Start Again, What is it You Really Want in Life?, You are what you
Eat, Roller Coaster, Commit and all else will follow.
June Less=More:
Fate, Motivation Quote, Call Reluctance and Motivation, Kick Start, What Colour
is Your Parachute?, Best Use of Time, Nothing to write about. Baby Grounding, Have
a Dream, and Put in the hard work and it pays off later, Possibility Again,
Open your mind, Easy Networking, Luck, Joy, Money, Beating Oneself Up, How to
be an Artist, More Chaos Theory, Having a Child, Group Psychology, Peer
Mentoring, More Chaos Theory, Pain to Change, Repeated Patterns, Tension for
Change, Don’t believe the Hype.
July Less=More:
Back to Less, Hang in There, Back to my Goals, Conditions for Lack of Creativity,
Creative Watersheds.
August
Less=More: Perfectionism, Think Big, Time Out for Nature, Scott Adams,
Making the Time, Home by the Sea, Bouncing Back, Catch Phrase, Adversity,
Coincidences and Public Speaking, Life Plan.
Sept Less=More:
Have you plateaued?, Creativity, Life and getting on with things, Action Fork,
What do Dream Mean?, Tired, What God Wants, What really matters, If you keep on
doing what your doing, What’s Important?, Kick Starting Yourself, First Things
First, Sharpen The Saw and Set Goals, Will you have any regrets?, Persist, What
Matters?, Just Write, Setbacks, Gut Feel and Luck, SuperNetworkers, Complete
One Thing Every Day, Pushing the Boundaries again, Think Big, Commitment
Phobics.
Oct Less=More:
Spooky Contacts, Problem Solution Problem, Going off at a Tangent, Circle of Innovation, Life is too short to be
jerked around, Public/Professional Speaking, Business Mix, What Kind of Animal
are You?, Time Planning, Covey’s Weekly Planner, Unlimited Resource, Personal Mission Statement,
Moneymaking, Profile, Not Enough Time, Oprah says, 5 Things Everyday, Personal Mission
Generator, What’s getting Tony, Con’s
History Teacher and Michel Thomas, Plan the Big Things First, The best way to
predict your future is create it! Response-able, Homeward Bound, Walking in
Sunshine,
Nov Less=More;
Conditions for Creativity, Einstein, Dreamy, Curious Coincidence, Curiosity,
Values, Right Now, Culture not People,
Ripple Effects, Insight of the Week, Eating Less, Give yourself
permission to suck, Incrementalism and Pruning, Actors, Time Waster or
Creator?, Deep Thought, Complete Blank, Immortality, Dance like no-one else is
looking!, Time Out, Humour and what works, Opportunity, Not Getting Along,
Blank Again, Sporting Fate, Associations, Blank, Small Steps.
Dec Less=More; Less=More (Reprise), What Should I Do With My Life?, More Dragons Slayed, Ego, Space, Slayed my Dragon, What’s Important, Belief, Simplicity, SubPersonalities,
Artist’s Way Exercises, Burning Ears, Not
being hard on yourself, Judging Character,
Writing to Yourself, Why write goals down, Why are some people successful?, Intuition, Anecdotes, Possibility of Possibilities, Self Doubt, More Luck, Blind Faith, Moneymaking, Create Fate, Heart or Head,
Vision and Action revisited, Possibility, Doing
if for Yourself, DeMotivation.
Coming Soon;
Tuesday 31st December 2002
And so we come to
the last day of Less = More.
This section hasn’t
gone the way I expected.
There wasn’t
enough to write on my idea of doing Less to find time to do More.
I thought I could
write a books worth but I ran out and expanded into a more generalised look at
life and motivation.
Funnily enough, I
may get the chance to train and implement my idea in a company next month.
Whilst I’ve
trained groups in this idea before, I’ve never had the opportunity to have a
company adopt it.
So it will be
interesting to see what happens.
I am most fascinated
by what motivates us.
As humans we
mostly make conscious choices, and in any split second we choose to do what we
do.
We can do nothing
or we can do something.
There’s always a
choice.
We can start now
in this split second to change, but we largely don’t.
I wonder why that
is.
Most of us are
dissatisfied with our lot.
We want more, we
want to progress, and yet we don’t do anything about it.
Even if we get
motivated, we read a book or magazine, attend a workshop, we buzz for a while
and then fall back into our old ways.
Why is that?
And yet we still
desire more but aren’t prepared to change.
This fascinates me.
What is it that
will change people for longer than a few days or weeks?
What is it that
motivates them to change and keep it going?
All the success
stories you hear about are about the 5% who do change, but what about the rest?
I have always counted
myself as part of the 95% but in writing this for a year, I have something to
show for my time.
This has been
5%er activity
I strongly
recommend you committing in your New Years resolution to do something for a
whole year and sticking to it.
Something what
will give you output at the end of it.
I am still
puzzled given that we all have 24 hours in the day what makes some people more “successful”
than others.
And when I say
successful I don’t just mean rich and wealthy.
I mean people of
all kinds who’ve left a mark on the world and made it a better place.
It’s not what the
successful people do that I wonder about; it’s what they don’t do.
What is it in 24
hours per day that successful people don’t do?
Have they made
sacrifices in their lives that most of us aren’t prepared to make?
Any answers?
Monday 30th December 2002
This article in
Fast Company is fundamental to answering that question, in terms of your work
in life.
Have a read. What
Should I Do With My Life?
It’s asking you
to think with your heart and not your head as to what you really want to do in
life.
I’m well on the
way to achieving heartfelt work, but I don’t yet do anything which I feel I can
sustain beyond a few years.
That is the ultimate
test to pass, to realise what your purpose is in life and align you work up
with it.
I’m not there yet
but I’m well on the way.
I’m trying to
find some quotes from it to tempt you but every paragraph is important.
So please read
the article!
Sunday 29th December 2002
So the domino
effect has been set off by me finally completing my UK tax returns after years
of guilt.
Redone my office
and tidied it up.
And better still
just done my Aussie quarterly GST tax return.
Let’s see if I
can keep this going with my new lease of life.
Slay one Dragon
and you have the taste for blood!
Saturday 28th December 2002
There’s nothing
like Ego to drive a person.
I don’t know if
it’s true but I heard that Paul McCartney wants to change the credits for some of the
Beatles songs, and put his name first where he deserves the credit.
Now that is one
massive ego!
He was also due
to come to Melbourne but declined out of respect to the Bali bomb victims.
Did he ask them
if he should stay away?
Why is it few
here believe him?
Maybe it would
have been better to give free back stage passes to all the victims and the
bereaved families.
And talking of
egos, who the hell is Yoko Ono to fight back to defend the “Lennon First” legal
action.
Another massive
ego.
Anyway that’s
beside the point, what I was trying to say is that most great achievers seem to
have massive egos.
It seems to be a
common driving force that drives them on and on and enables them to persist
through thick and thin.
So get sharpening
that massive ego.
I heard an
interview with Paul McCartney a few years ago, saying that in spite of his
great success, he still worries most about the success of the current album.
So ego has a
downside as well. It drove him to success and appears to now be ruining his
happiness.
So be warned
before you make your pact with the devil!
Friday 27th December 2002
Always a good idea
to occasionally move things around a bit, and take a different perspective.
So that’s what
I’m doing today, tidying up and moving things around my office and bringing
another table in.
Let’s hope that
brings an even more productive 2003.
Thursday 26th December 2002
Today I slayed my
dragon.
My one main
weakness, the one thing I’ve been putting off for years.
My UK Tax
Returns!
I’d like to say
it was some great motivational thing I did which set me going.
But it wasn’t, it
was the threat of even greater fines that finally after too many years to
confess I sat down today and slayed them all.
The greatest
thing I did was to overcome my perfectionist; the voice which tells me unless
it’s perfect I won’t do it at all.
So in other words
I’ve been putting this off for years because each year I wasn’t gathering all
the information.
I wanted it to be
100% correct or not at all, even though I was paying fines and putting it off
and off.
And now with one
big effort and a great sense of relief I’ve done it.
Even if each one
is 90% correct. That’s a big one for me.
It’s not as
thought the UK Inland Revenue act like dragons.
Everyone I’ve
ever spoken to or information I’ve received has been more than helpful.
The point I’m
getting at is that my biggest enemy has been my own perfectionist.
A weird kind of
perfectionist who won’t do something at all unless it’s perfect.
And today I’ve
overcome my greatest enemy.
Phew!
What it’s helped
me do is do all the little things I’ve been putting off for years as well.
Some documents
that need address changes, a quarterly Australian tax return.
A postcard I’ve
been meaning to send of over a year!
What Dragon do
you need to slay?
And how’s your
perfectionist today?
Wednesday 25th December 2002
I’ve had a real
low key Christmas today.
Lunch with the
family, but nothing over the top.
Not over eaten,
felt relaxed, and Georgia my 15 month old daughter has been a delight today.
Tea later with
the family and that’s the day.
Those are the
important things for me, and now writing this tonight.
It’s reminded me
today what I enjoy and what’s important to me, as if I didn’t know already.
Tuesday 24th December 2002
Belief goes a
long long way.
Belief in a
cause.
A righteous
cause.
Just think how
little authority and power, Ghandi, Mandela and Luther King had.
And yet their
belief in a righteous cause, shifted mountains.
They had no
perceived power and yet changed and shifted things significantly.
Makes you wonder
what we can each achieve as humans, for the good of the world.
Monday 23rd December 2002
My daughter broke
my treasured sun glasses yesterday.
I was
sulking. They cost all of $20!
So I went and
bought another pair of $20 sunglasses from the same shop!
A helpful guy in
the shop, the owner I think.
Simple Polaroid
skiing sunglasses that look good.
The weird thing
is that I learnt how to test if glasses are Polaroid, you rotate the lens
against another set of Polaroid glasses and they block out all light.
The weird thing
is they’re Polaroid alright but they don’t totally block all light when
rotated! Is that possible? Clearly it is!
Anyway, it made
me think of simplicity, I could buy 4 pairs of glasses for what most people pay
for with $80, so who cares if Georgie breaks these ones, though I will sulk if
she does break them, because they look cool.
It’s a lesson to
me to simplify things sometimes.
To not seek the
most expensive with the most options.
I nearly bought
the lowest price mobile phone last week but I’ve gone one better, I’ve kept my
current mobile even though I hate it!
What else can I
simplify?
Sunday 22nd December 2002
SubPersonalities
are an interesting part of Psychotherapy.
(Mind you doing a
Google search for subpersonalities throws up so many shitty websites with crap
icons and funny coloured background it makes you wonder!)
A simple
explanation is that we use different parts of our personality to deal with and
cope in various situations.
We are rarely the
same person all the time, and we can adapt ourselves depending on the
situation.
What is fun, is
when we identify and label our subpersonalities and better still is to meet
someone who has labelled their subpersonalities and you put them all up against
each other.
I once did an
exercise with a partner where people in a group role-played mine and my
partner’s subpersonalities and we could put them all up against each other.
It was hilarious.
To give you an
idea, I just found my old notes from a few years ago, and here are some of my
subpersonalities.
Northern Chemist – Gets things done, pragmatic, dour,
logical, thinker, sensible.
Tigger – Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy Fun Fun Fun Fun.
White Knight – Comes to the rescue of damsels in
distress, good in a crisis when the chips are down, romantic rescuer.
Perfectionist Parent – Criticises others for lack of integrity
and love, criticises himself for not being creative and inspirational enough.
Mr Flickey – Idol sod who watches TV, reads
newspapers, surfs the internet, loves chocolate mousse, loves to loaf, and has
the attention span of a gnat. Of course this is the person who controls the
remote control.
Dreamy Branson – Visionary dreamer, creative artist,
style, mad thoughts, sometimes whacky but also pragmatic, virgin visionary.
And two more
extreme ones I’ve just remembered which are illustrated best by the
pictures. And interesting in contrast!
Nazi Bastard – Aloof, withdrawn and threatens with silence. That photo still scares the hell out of me.
My subpersonality isn’t that extreme!!
Little Boy – Vulnerable, helpless, needs protecting.
So what are your
subpersonalities? Go surf with Google on
the Internet to find a website and exercise you feel comfortable with.
Saturday 21st December 2002
I just found some
Artist’s Way exercises I did a few years ago.
These look fun to
answer.
Thursday 19th December 2002
One day you’re
talking about something being inactive for months and the next day some one
sets the group going again.
Have you ever had
that happen when you tell someone their ears must have been burning because the
phone you after months just when your talking about them.
So go burn a few
ears.
Wednesday 18th December 2002
Yet another day
has drifted by with very little done.
Self loathing.
And yet I asked
myself, did I have a $15m day.
Yes I did. The people I met, and talks I had contributed
to my step towards a $15m dream.
Today was part of
the medium long term.
Ok so I didn’t
achieve enough short term actions and other things I keep putting off, but
actually I’ve had a good day, nice lunch in the sun, the weather is beautiful
and I like every person I’ve met today. I’ve had a day of good people, where
usually in my office I have a day of bad people – long lists of people who
haven’t contacted me, haven’t returned my phone message or haven’t emailed me
back.
So although
initially I felt today has drifted by with nothing done, I ask myself,
“Did I have a
$15m day?” and the answer to today is definitely YES.
The people I met
today want to meet with me.
Tuesday 17th December 2002
If your gut tells
you someone stinks the chances are they do.
Ok, so give
people the benefit of the doubt, but your gut feel is probably right.
If has a beak and
feathers, webbed feet, and quacks, then the chances are it’s a duck.
I’ve just had
confirmed to me, more proof about someone I had my doubts about, and so far
I’ve been proven right.
I can’t exactly
say why this person sets my sixth sense alarm bells off, but they do.
A friend met them
yesterday and confirmed some of my own feelings about them.
Having said that,
if you have an opinion on someone, you go out of your way to find proof that
your view is correct.
It could be that
the other person has many facets and you’re putting rose tinted glasses on to
see a few of those facets, good or bad.
I think of some
of my ex relationships, and they sure looked different at the end of them
compared to the beginning; it’s probably that they haven’t changed just my
perspective of them. They were neither
great nor bad people, and I just focused on their great bits, followed later on
by their bad bits.
Love is Blind!!
Mind you some
people do change in a relationship and do some stinky things you’d never have
thought them capable of.
Yes, you know who
you are!
Monday 16th December 2002
Have you ever
been on a course where at the end you write a letter to yourself and it’s
posted in the mail a few weeks later by the person running the course.
I attended a
course 3 weeks ago and the letter I’d written was arrived today.
I always find it
very spooky receiving a letter written in your own handwriting.
It was a letter
I’d written after setting up my personal values.
It’s says,
Tony,
It’s time for more Fun/Play
Live Health
Wealth and Advancement
Intimacy
Nice letter; and
funnily enough it’s my second wedding anniversary tomorrow!
Sunday 15th December 2002
Many speakers
quote the same material in a different guise, that, something along the lines of,
they researched a group of students at Yale (or was it Harvard) and the found
that those that were successful later on in life had written goals.
And what is a
goal?
It’s a dream with
actions.
Or something like
that.
But why write the
goal down?
I now have the
answer.
Chaos Theory.
If you write the
goal down instead of holding it in your head, you are creating the flap of a
Butterfly’s wings that sets events moving.
And that flap
sets other Butterfly flaps off.
If you didn’t
write the goal down you wouldn’t be doing a physical event that creates some
chaos.
Somehow when we
develop our dreams and goals and express them, they start to happen.
It’s not so much
that the Universe grants us our wishes, as we start to set off minute events,
which give us more chance of reaching our goals.
Saturday 14th December 2002
I don’t know the
answer to this one.
I’m thinking in
terms of time, what is it that successful people do that other people don’t do.
There are 24
hours in the day, what is it that successful people do?
And more to the
point, what is it that successful people don’t do in those 24 hours.
When I have the
answer I’ll let you know.
Do they delegate?
Do they focus?
Do they cut out something
else important and let that slip, like family?
There are only 24
hours in the day, and a lot of those hours are taken up sleeping, showering,
brushing your teeth, going to the toilet, and eating.
Maybe they don’t
do any of those things!
Friday 13th December 2002
Some things are
beyond rational.
That’s why we
have intuition.
Sometimes there’s
too much information or not enough information and we have to use our gut feel.
That person is
lying. That person is sleazy. I trust them.
I like that
person. I trust that person.
This situation
doesn’t feel safe.
Today I’m going
to do this.
I don’t know why
but I’m going to call this person
There’s so much
we don’t know than do know.
We live in such a
small part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Imagine if we
could see all the radio waves, microwaves, X-Rays, particles that pass through
air.
What else is
there outside of the electromagnetic spectrum?
What about
gravitational force?
There’s lots of
information out there that our rational five senses don’t pick up.
I wonder if other
parts of us do pick up the signals.
My gut feel
usually tell me it’s time to eat!
Thursday 12th December 2002
Anecdotes and
story telling are some of the most powerful tools in communicating with people.
They illustrate a
point and paint a picture.
The best most
charismatic, teachers, trainers, politicians, entertainers, comedians, are all
good story tellers.
That’s why
Parkinson works so well, that’s why we’re attracted to crap like The Gerry Springer
Show.
They're good
stories.
I realised
yesterday that next year, I may turn this section of writing into developing my
anecdotes.
I was struck a
few weeks ago by a professional speaker telling a group to develop their
library of anecdotes.
He said he had 76
anecdotes for every occasion.
I read the
transcript of a recent Tom Peters question and answer session and it’s clear
that Tom Peters draws from a library of anecdotes.
That’s one of the
reasons he’s so good.
He paints a
picture and illustrates it with a headline.
So anecdotes here
we come.
I have plenty.
I wonder how many
before I run dry.
Maybe I’ll start
them tomorrow.
Wednesday 11th December 2002
I’ve said a bit
already on possibility.
I’d like to
illustrate it with something that happened to me a few years ago.
I was in the
middle of a Landmark
Advanced Course, the Landmark leader gave us an assignment during the break.
“Speak to someone
during the break and ask them to do something you know they’re going to say no
to.”
I thought of
calling a friend and invite him to Landmark; I knew he’d say no.
Just as I was
thinking of calling him, whilst we were walking along to have dinner during the
break, one of the attendees asked me for a light for his cigarette.
And the light
switched on in my head, there was my task.
I said to him,
“So you
smoke? Can you see the possibility of
giving up smoking?” I knew he’d say no!
“Yes,” he
replied, “but I’m not going to give up smoking!”
“But you can see
the possibility of giving up?”
“Yes, I can see
the possibility of giving up smoking.”
I’m there I
thought, he can at least see the possibility.
He turned to me.
“Tony, have you
ever smoked or been a smoker.”
“No, I said, I’ve
never even had a drag of a cigarette, ever.”
“Well, can you
see the possibility of taking up smoking?”
He had me didn’t
he.
I was taken
aback.
If I was getting
him to see the possibility of giving up smoking, then it was only right that I
could see the possibility of taking up smoking.
So we walked and
went into the restaurant where he and some of the smokers pointed out the
possibility (and advantages!) of taking up smoking.
I really
listened. In order to present them with
my possibility, I had to step into their possibility.
We went back to
the course. I thought about the
possibility of taking up smoking.
I thought about
how I’ve always clung on to this holy thing of never having had even a drag of
a cigarette.
I went home, I
slept on it.
I woke in the
morning and I realised what a pompous git I can sometimes be, on my high horse,
and thinking how wonderful I am to have never smoked a cigarette.
I decided there
and then to get off my high horse and have a drag of a cigarette before the
Advanced Course started that morning.
I walked to
Landmark, and outside the smokers were gathered. I explained to them that I wanted a drag of a
cigarette. Most of them refused!!
Eventually some
let me have one. I held it, and took my
first ever breathe of cigarette.
It tasted
absolutely disgusting. I inhaled as much as I knew what inhaling was, held it
in, and breathed it out vowing never again!!
There, I’ve done
it I can now never claim I’ve not had a cigarette and climb down from my
pompous high horse.
We went into the
course.
People can go to
the front and share their experiences of what’s happened to them in the last 12
hours.
I went to the
front and told my story to the 100+ gathered there.
How I’ve climbed
down from my pompous high horse, and how I’ve seen possibility in myself and
others.
Done. Or so I thought.
At the back of
the room the guy who I’d talked to the night before about the possibility of
giving up smoking.
He came to the
front and related his story and how he’d slept on it overnight, and finally
this is something like what he said at the end,
“I’ve thought
about what Tony and I were talking about last night, and I realised I could see
the possibility of giving up smoking, and I woke up this morning and I’ve decided
to give up smoking. I stopped when I
woke up this morning!!!!”
So I smoked and
he gave up smoking and we both without communicating from the time we left the
restaurant both stepped in to each other’s possibility.
In order for him
to change, I fully embraced what he was talking about. I stepped into his possibility.
And miraculously
he changed.
Tuesday 10th December 2002
There are days
when most of us have self doubt.
Let’s be
realistic about this instead of pretending otherwise.
Today, this
afternoon, I was suddenly washed over with self doubt.
Was it something
I’d eaten at lunchtime?
I had a few
meetings today, it was nothing to do with them, they seemed to all go well.
Just thoughts of
what am I doing, what should I be doing, am I making best use of my time.
I guess I need to
go with this roller-coaster.
I’ve been very up
for the last few weeks and done a lot of creating.
And I’m guessing
it’s post creation blues when the thrill of creating new things and the reality
of action and now making them work is beginning to hit me. And then lots of other worries hit me.
Roller Coaster,
Roller Coaster, Up Up Up, and Down Down Down Down, as it says in my daughter’s Hi-5
video!
Monday 9th December 2002
Back to luck
again.
That quote again
from Gary Player,
“The more I
practise, the luckier I get.”
Well today, I
discovered that the stuff I’ve been working on has a symmetrical pattern about
it.
Just fluke. But it’s so significant it looks like it’s
been designed that way.
In fact other
parts of the design also have coincidences about them.
I’ve put so much
thought and work into this stuff over the last few weeks, that already it’s
starting to create luck.
Interesting,
after what I’ve been saying about Creating Chaos.
Fate is now
beginning to take charge.
Sunday 8th December 2002
Sometimes you
have to take things on blind faith.
I was struck by
this article, Interview with Dr. Brian Vonk of The Optimal Wellness Center
“Arthritis has multiple causes or triggers. It usually is due to our
diet, stress, environmental factors, or a combination of these.
I never determined exactly
what it was in our diets that caused ours, but improving our nutrition broke
the vicious cycle and allowed our bodies to heal themselves.”
In
other words, Brian Vonk had a breakthrough in changing his diet but doesn’t
exactly know specifically what cured his arthritis!
Does
that mean changing your diet to cure arthritis isn’t valid? No.
All
too often, we want the proof that something exists before we believe it exists.
What
about believing it exists until someone proves it doesn’t exist. Like God.
Too
many don’t believe in God because there’s no proof that God exists.
But
what about believing God exists until someone proves God doesn’t exist.
That’s
a much safer bet anyway, because if God does exist and you believe God doesn’t
exist, you’re in big trouble!!
People
are so sceptical nowadays, and I guess they always were sceptical to people who
say things against commonly held beliefs.
Sometimes
it’s worth listening to them. People who
are different to us and have different beliefs from us, hold the key to
progress.
On
the other hand, do you think I’m going to listen to some doctor who wants to
inject my daughter with the latest vaccine, and take that on blind faith?
I
guess I’m picking and choosing my blind faiths here!
You
know what I mean though.
Saturday 7th December 2002
You want to make
lots of money?
Then read Big Bucks by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles.
There’s an
important principle in there (that I keep forgetting!)
The first
principle, “The Test of Joy” is,
“You can’t make money
Unless you’re having
FUN.”
In other word you
have to be passionate about the work you do.
More importantly though
is “The Test of Purpose”,
“You can’t make money
Unless Making Money is
MORE IMPORTANT
Than Having fun”
And that’s the
mistake I and many others make.
We get it that we
should follow our passion, which is The Test of Joy.
But if you only
followed that rule then you’d be a hobbyist with a shop or two.
More importantly
is to realise that Moneymaking is above having fun.
Focus.
And that’s where
I keep going wrong.
I’m having fun,
but I’m not focusing on the Moneymaking enough!
What about you?
Are you having
fun?
Are you making
moneymaking more important than having fun.
There’s two more
“Tests” in the book as well, but you’ll have to buy the book to find out what
they are!
Friday 6th December 2002
That is the most profound
thing I’ve written all year. Create
Fate.
What do I mean?
I’m beginning to
believe that what differentiates people is the amount of fate they create.
Sure, sometimes
we don’t control fate, events sometimes control us, but the more I look at my
own life the more I realise that miniscule events, Butterfly Wing flaps cause
events to happen. First let me quote the
official stuff. Chaos Theory: A Brief Introduction
“The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today
produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time,
what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in
a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast
doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The
Mathematics of Chaos, pg.
141)”
So in
other words, very small events can multiply into something big.
I’m
coming to believe that those who are successful in life or who get what they
want, aren’t any more talented, or motivated, or lucky, or anything else, other
than they set off more events which creates more chaos which gives them a
better chance of succeeding.
I’ve
said it before the reason that people who have and write down their goals are
successful is because they subconsciously start to set off more events which in
turn gives them a better chance of reaching their goals.
It’s
not just that the universe starts to grant their wish, but also they start to
do things in a miniscule different way.
I was
thinking about my own life.
How
did I end up in Melbourne, aged 41, married to Annie, and with Georgia aged 14
months, running my own Sales Training company?
Every
event that has led me here has been a small twist of fate.
How
did I meet Annie? My cousin introduced
us.
How
did my cousin know to introduce us?
She
was over in Manchester, England for a family event, and I happened to have
travelled to the same event from London.
I
told her about what was happening in my life.
She acted upon that.
What
if I hadn’t told her? What if I hadn’t
have gone to Manchester?
Almost
everything in my life is down to an event, not usually random, involving people
meeting each other.
If I
track everything back, it of course leads to my Mother, Father and Sister, and
if you do some detective work, you’ll find that there a few people who shine as
being the source of many events in your life, leading to many more events.
I
don’t know about Guardian Angels, but Guardian Butterflies seems more
appropriate. My mother has set off a huge number of events in my life.
She’s
an amazing person for setting off lots of events for people, some good and some
bad. She doesn’t seem to benefit herself
from them, but other people are affected by her flapping.
There’s
very few events I created myself when younger, but the one big one which was
all mine, was taking it upon myself to go to the local careers office in
Wilmslow to seek advice on my education.
It was the great guy there (and not my school, who let me down), that
really set my adult life up by going to University. If I hadn’t gone down to the careers office,
who knows what would have happened.
And
just those two words today, CREATE FATE, have set up a whole list of my own
quotes (I think they’re my own).
Damn
it, I just looked it up on Google, and there’s loads of Create Fates! What about these from me;
The
More Failures I have, the more Successes I’ll have.
The more
NOs I collect, the more YESs I’ll get.
The
more Frogs I kiss, the more Princesses I’ll meet.
The
more I practise the luckier I get (that one’s from Gary Player the golfer).
The
more people I talk to, the more fate I create.
Create
Fate.
Create
more Chaos.
Every second we do
nothing, nothing is likely to happen!
Think about it.
How did you meet your
partner?
What brought you here
today?
How did you get your
job and other jobs?
Where were you born
and where do you live? How come?
Almost every event in
our lives happens through a chance encounter with someone!
But
you usually have to set up that chance encounter.
So
what to make of all this? I’ll tell you
what; you can choose events in your life like watching the TV which is unlikely
to set events off, or you can do things which will set events off. You can surf the Internet in isolation and
not come into contact with anyone, or you can communicate with people over the
internet, by Weblogs, groups, random chat, emails, your own website. I can see why Weblogs work now. They’re event creators. Even if you don’t publish very visibly on the
Internet, people find you and events start to happen. How the hell did I get
101 page requests to my website yesterday.
I’ve hardly publicised or worked on publicising my website. I have a dream of 100 readers per day and I
set that at the beginning of the year.
And guess what? Today as I write
this I’ve started to achieve it. Not 100
consistant readers, but I’m getting there. And jeez, I just noticed that my Alexa ranking is now 199,011, not that I read too much into
that but it’s a nice trend having started at 2 million plus 6 months ago.
Be an event
creator. Create Fate. Create Chaos.
Set more wings flapping.
Thursday 5th December 2002
I’ve been talking
to someone recently and I couldn’t figure out what didn’t quite feel right.
And I realised
today, they talk with their head not their heart.
They mean well,
but something never seems quite right to me, and that’s what I think it is.
What they say
doesn’t come from their heart.
It sounds good,
but there’s something missing.
As someone who’s
spent most of my life in my head, and only the last few years for part of the
time in my heart and gut, I know what it’s like to be that way.
What are you,
Heart or Head?
Wednesday 4th December 2002
Most companies are crap.
It goes back to my theory of Vision and Action.
People either have Vision or Action, or both, or neither.
It’s ok if you’re an MD with only Vision as long as you surround
yourself with people of Action to put that Vision into Action.
If you’re an MD of Action you need people of Vision around
you.
The trouble is, people of Action surround themselves with people
of Action.
Look at most I.T companies, especially British ones.
You can classify all people into Vision or Action.
It works very well. I once did it!! It explains
everything very very quickly.
So do you have Vision or Action or both?
Do you have all talk and no action, or all action and no direction
and purpose.
Maybe you have neither.
If you’re missing one or both then partner with people who can
compliment what you don’t have.
Mind you, you’ll probably drive each other mad.
Tuesday 3rd December 2002
Possibility is
about realising that all things are possible.
There’s not such
thing as NO.
If there’s a
will, there’s a way.
Possibility for
yourself and possibility for the world.
Once you accept
possibility you accept that anything is achievable and can be created.
(Just re-reading
the above paragraph, I sound like some kind of hypnotised zombie!)
I learnt all this
doing the Landmark
Forum, and Advanced, which I highly recommend (though some see it as a
brainwashing cult!!)
Don’t believe the
hype. Most of the people who’ve done the
Landmark Forum swear by it, even if there’s a dissenting and vocal few against
it.
Blimey, I just
had a look at some of the anti Landmark stuff on the Internet, and reading that
stuff, I wouldn’t do the Forum either!!
Speak to someone
who’s actually attended it rather than hearsay.
I created my
possibility from the Advanced course which I still stand by.
Who I am is the
possibility of,
Integrity,
Creativity, Inspiration, Love, Fun
This is who I am.
That’s what I
stand for. That’s what gets me out of
bed in the morning.
That’s what I see
for myself, that’s what I encourage in others, and that’s what I see as
possible in the world.
But I don’t
attempt to foster it or preach it to anyone else.
Possibility. It’s what is possible. If you looked back now to 5 years ago, would
you have believed all the things that have happened to you.
Did you think
they were possible or life would move in this way?
I could never
ever have believed my life now from 5 years ago.
Now, happily
married, living in Melbourne, with a gorgeous 14 month old daughter, and
working for myself.
Get out of here.
That’s
possibility for you!
Monday 2nd December 2002
I seem to
remember a recent quote I put on my pages from Barry Humphries about Doing it
for Yourself.
Right now, I’m creating
for myself and seeing if the world wants some of it, instead of creating for
the world and compromising myself.
I guess you have
to supply to what the market wants and at the same time be true to yourself.
I’m beginning to
realise, I Hate Bullet Points on PowerPoint Presentations!
Sunday 1st December 2002
Just in case you
take motivation and life too seriously, then check this out.
the 2003 demotivators®
collection
It’s so
true. A few words on a poster ain’t
going to change anything.
It’s about action
(or realising your limitations and settling for that!).
The more I look
at this website, the better it gets!
Try these. I can’t stop laughing.
and my favourite procrastination