Author Archives: valentinevitality

life, self-image, you

Fight or Flight?

Do you love YOU? Do you really, given that it is that time of the year – Valentine’s Day, where everyone demonstrates their love for another? Do you accept YOU? Do you really? “How do you mean?” you say.

Well, exactly as I mean. It is when you come to the realisation that you are many. You are also, one. It is when you bring all violence you do you yourself – to YOU, to a stop. Where you decide to love yourself more. Or, it is when you stop violence towards others by eliminating your own insecurities and inadequacies on to them, and in turn, demonstrating higher love for them.

Do you fight or flight from the most important person in the world to you: YOU?

Stop running from you. Don’t flight no more. Turn around. Look at the person you see in the mirror and ask what lies behind those eyes (refer to an earlier blog of mine with this title for further words on this). You are one but you are also one with the universe. Out of the wrongs and evil that has happened to you, good has come of it, too. Notice that.

Do you take everything as they are or do keep quiet, repress feelings and thoughts because of the fear, the fear that once you accepted these ‘things’ in your life, that you will be overpowered. This fear causes you to freeze up or flight/run. How about if I told you that this fear may not be true at all.

So, if you fear and choose to flight, flight reality, don’t. Stop!

Change strategy.

Choose your battles in the most important game you will play in life – in your life. And what is this game, I hear you say? Well, simply, the ‘game of life’. Yep, resolve within you, the real YOU, to firstly play the game of life and then become a better player. Become the best player you can be and don’t flight, but fight. Yes, fight. It is worth it – your life, that is.

Start with YOU, by loving you more.

Play the game of life: become better at life, and life will get better for you.

Become more self aware. Become more receptive to whatever comes your way – good or bad, rain or sunshine, night and day, forever alternating. In and out like the tides, knowing that you should accept you, through the good times and the bad, accepting your nature, your being and your positive and negatives sides. You may notice that you will be filled with an increased sense of vitality … that essential life-force and everything will become more alive to you.

Don’t be a fool.

Don’t try to force everything to go according to the way you thought it ought to. Don’t use force though. Use Power.

Fight and use Power, not Force – ALWAYS (refer to an earlier blog of mine regarding choosing Power or Force in life).

Fighting with Power is the only option. This is a higher love for you, and the universe.

Until next time …

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a better life, attitude, authenticness, Beliefs, better choices, change, courage, ego, Energy, examined life, game of life, gratitude, happiness, life, long-term perspective, love, perseverance, responsibility, self love, spiritual balance sheet, spirituality, success, time, truths, you, your life

Is the grass green on the other side?

Greener grass anyone?

Greener grass anyone?

Change your philosophy, change your life.
Vv.

Envy

How much do you earn?

Is it enough for you? Do you wonder if your friends, neighbours or family are earning more than you? Do you secretly covet what your neighbours’ drive; what house they live in? I wonder …. Is the grass greener on the óther side?”

How do they do it? What do they do to make so much money and wealth? How can you learn their secrets, you wonder. Should you change jobs or see if the grass is greener on the other side. What word could sum up this way of thinking, I wondered. I think a good word would be: Envy.

Some argue that envy is the root of all evil.

Some argue that envy is what spurs on economic growth. Well and good in a capitalist society. My question is how much growth is enough? I must admit that I, along with many others have been charmed by “overnight success Rags-to-riches stories” and the wealth of the very rich.  You’re bombarded with examples on social media, on-line and in magazines and papers.

The simple things in life are often the best

The outward display of success seem so appealing that it’s pretty easy to fall for those less-than-subtle advertising ploys touting fancy foreign engineering (like cars) or architectural wonders of some luxury house.

Gee, even in church we sometimes focus on the trappings – lavish sanctuary, fine pipe organs, plush carpeting and so forth.

It seems the advertising industry is the machine that uses this belief as its fuel: Envy. Most in the western world have been have been prisoners in the tyranny of consumer culture. Programmed with advertising, movies, video games, magazines, tv and MTV from the cradle. They say by the time a child in our western world reaches the age of 21, he or she would have watched and/or listened to a million ads.

Now, that is a lot of noise and clutter for the brain, and you wonder why the fastest growing disease is mental disease.

It is certainly great for business, because more growth is better for everyone, for the sake of capitalism.

De-clutter your brain of all that noise built up from early childhood clouding your thoughts.
Delete and stop contributing to the bottom-line of ‘bullshit’
Work on managing your funnel better. Don’t be part of the horribly growing stat

 

Try Harder = more success?

The theory is that if people are unhappy which has resulted because people were envious or jealous, people generally tend to TRY HARDER. Does it work that way with you? Or do you pull others down rather than raise your standards and climb up to theirs? Do you just wrap yourself in self-righteous misery when you cannot complain anymore about the unfairness of life?

If you are a believer in Christ and very wealthy, remember not to leave God our of your life. It is said that – without understanding, you are like the beasts that perish. Your power, influence and wealth won’t carry weight now but will not matter one zilch, in eternity.

I know you know this already.

A neuron example & its network of dentrites

Nature of Wealth

Do you read the annual publications of Rich Lists? Where do you stand? What do your friends make? Do they make more than you? How does it make you feel? Does it make you happy or miserable? I dare say that it must make more people unhappy than happy. The thing is, it shouldn’t be. You see, there is a finite nature to wealth ….

Do you wonder those “what if “ scenarios like the price you may have got in on a certain share/stock or what if you had sold your car or business at a better price by waiting a little longer or if you had not left that job? I’m sure you have thought about certain things in your life this way too. We all have. Does this make your life better or worse?

In this life the wealthy often inspire awe, admiration and praise. Be happy for them, don’t envy. This adulation will be short-lived. The possessions that are the basis of their pride and self-aggrandizement will not serve past ‘six-feet under (the grave)”.

Allow your mind to ”connect’ with infinite intelligence.
With consciousness.
It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.

Contentment (genuine) brings you closer to the elusive Happiness

Maybe we should resolve not to begrudge others their success or good luck in life. Maybe we should resolve to be happy for them. To genuinely wish them well with it.

Maybe we should see that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not always. Maybe we should not yearn for the grass on the other side.

Maybe.

Maybe it would be easier to sail your ship through the sea of life by looking ‘straight ahead’ instead of looking over your shoulder at the other ships (other people).

Maybe, just maybe you will find contentment and move a little closer to everyone’s elusive ‘happiness’ goal, if you stopped coveting the wealth and treasures of the very wealthy. I believe – being content, genuinely content, is one of the surest ways of moving close to happiness. It is a process by which you also move to another consciousness level. Ask yourself how content (genuinely content) are you with everything in your life?

 

Be content with where you are and what you have achieved to get this far.
Appreciate what I refer to as your ‘reverse bucket list’ and have an attitude of gratitude.
This is a key ingredient to moving towards genuine happiness

Change your colour, change your life

I know one thing for sure: being less envious and accepting that ‘the grass is not always greener on the other side’ would make your life less depressing.

No, I am going to take it further and suggest that maybe, we should trying viewing the colour of grass not as green or greener but viewing it as another colour (another view/philosophy).

Change your colour (philosophy). Find the right colour. Change your life – for the better.

For me, the colour is a combination – black with a touch of red.

What’s your new colour?

Then ….

Ask God to teach you to help you find and guide you with your perspective on life … to learn to live always, not for this life only, but with “ëternity’s values in view.”

One way to know YOU is to understand God.
God is in you.
God is you.

I’ll hopefully, see and chat to you in heaven when our time in this third dimension is done and dusted!

Until next time.

Cheers and a big ahoy to you on your journey through the maize of life!

 

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate … & thoughts on envy, contentment and happiness in life.

Appreciate beauty. Find your truth. Create your beauty if you can. Usually, beauty and truth does not involve wealth, growth, mass and material possessions.
It is counter-intuitive, but to find your beauty, your truth … LESS IS MORE.

 

Eliminate and de-clutter the ‘noise’ that has been uploaded in to your brain since the cradle

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a better life, awareness, choices, faith, leadership, life, long-term perspective, perseverance, Team that works, Team work, Teams, you

Find your A-Team.

Retired Ex-Australian Wallaby & Waratahs Champion Captain & Leader - Phil Waugh. Setting his own standards of excellence in all areas of his life, following my framework. A champion such as Phil is celebrated because we recognize that he has overcome personal ambition through sacrifice and dedication to higher principles - higher standards. Great leaders & sportsmen and women like Phil, can awaken awareness of the principle of higher standards that rests within the heart of every man and woman. Awaken yours today!

Retired Ex-Australian Wallaby & Waratahs Champion Captain & Leader – Phil Waugh.
Setting his own standards of excellence in all areas of his life, following my framework.
A champion such as Phil is celebrated because we recognize that he has overcome personal ambition through sacrifice and dedication to higher principles – higher standards.
Great leaders & sportsmen and women like Phil, can awaken awareness of the principle of higher standards that rests within the heart of every man and woman.
Awaken yours today!

With regards to one area of my life, I’ve set myself an almost impossible task as of yesterday: keep all my future blogs to less than 500 words. Now, most of you would know that I can elaborate on almost any point in a blog, just to get my ‘message’ across. One of my 2014 goals was to say more, with less.

To express a certain belief of mine in a “little muscle nugget” for you to digest with the myriad of other information you receive in this information age, as you go about your day. I must admit I haven’t been as successful at achieving this goal as I had originally hoped. It is, however, a great privilege to be allowed to share my personal beliefs with everyone who dares to read what I write.

I try to express my thoughts through the ‘ups and downs’ in my life and try to look for the meaning and the moral in those happenings. Sometimes I try to look too hard and notice more than just one message, more than one meaning in that one blog. The reflections are just that – just reflections. Reflections on the life that has just happened and as I see it happening around me. Through my eyes and sometimes through others’ eyes. Here, you see, is where it gets interesting.

You see, these reflections carry no authority, they may well be heretical and they are not meant to tell others ‘how to think’. However, if they encourage and tempt readers to do their own thinking about certain aspects of life, of their life, so far, I will be content. It reflects a little bit about me each time and the way my beliefs about life and the meaning of life came to be shaped, as Homer Simpson would say “ so far!”. Well, there you go, there’s 270 words so far …. I guess, I am going to fail at my word count goal in this blog. I might as well fail BIG!! (refer to my earlier blog on “learning to love the F word more”) Here we go …

Blog starts here:

Vote.
Make it count.

Sometimes, you have to lose, to ultimately, win

Most of you would have watched a few episodes of ‘The A_Team” in the 80s, with “Mr T” as one of the characters. I loved that TV show. But it made me think about what they had that was so special: it was entertaining tv – yes, but they had something else, they were a team and each person was an integral part of the jig-saw puzzle. Each fit perfectly to create the final product. Fantastic stuff! That is the topic today and your search for your “A-Team”.

“No man is an island”, I heard someone say once. As each day passes, I believe it increasingly. I can add that no man ( or woman) can attribute his/her success to himself alone. No man can truly say that he did it on ‘his own’. There would have been someone, somewhere or people that would have helped him progress towards his/her goal of success.

I also love noticing how champion football/basketball/soccer teams are put together. How each player has an integral role to play. Each player is selected for a certain bundle of talents that the coach sees ‘fits’ perfectly in to the team to achieve the desired results on the field of play. Of the competition. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. Sometimes you have to lose, to ultimately win. The best coaches understand this very well.

This is the ‘essence’ of what it means to be part of a team’.

You see it in organisations, particularly successful large organizations or political parties. No one man can say that he alone can run a sporting team, political party or organization. Yes, as the CEO or head coach, he or she can have a huge influence but it has to be a “Team THAT WORKS”.

I believe it simply is not enough for each person to “WORK AS A TEAM”.

The question I have always asked myself is HOW GOOD the person is at running the team or political party or organization. Take the United States of America and its Leader – Barack Obama, for example or the current Presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush. They would all have to have a great team to support their leader, their party and their goals.

Executing an exercise for maximum benefit and minimal risk takes a lot of practise, ideally under an experienced, watchful eye. Remember: practise does not make perfect. Perfect practise makes perfect.

Executing an exercise for maximum benefit and minimal risk takes a lot of practise. Just like the human body needs each part to contribute to the whole body. It is s “Team Effort” that wins in the long-term.

Key problem for Leaders: Choosing a Team

Each person would be carefully selected for their unique skills. The most important thing, I believe would have to be the skill or art of PICKING the RIGHT PERSON for the job. The right jig-saw piece. This is not easy. This is where the true value is. This is the hallmark of any great Leader: Picking a “Team that works”. Not just slapping people in to a group and hoping they would work.

Teams need people of all sorts and types and talents. All shapes and sizes.

A problem for most leaders is then simple: trying to choose a team.

For the rest of us, though, there is hope. It is fantastic news! I mean, it means that our individual differences, our different skill-set, no matter what they are or how weird it is, they may be an Asset – just what “a team” NEEDS. A team out there somewhere. A team that you need to find. A team that needs to find you and your skills.

So, if you’re not already part of a team, don’t lose hope. If you’re not already part of a team, don’t give up.

Persevere!

Yes, I know, some people are lucky and find a team early in their lives, but some don’t find their team, until very late in life. If you haven’t yet, don’t give up.

Persevere, I say.

There is a high chance there is a team out there, somewhere, sometime, where your unique personality, your unique talents, your unique skill-set … your unique YOU, could help.

My daughter has many beliefs so far in her young life. She appears to know one very clearly now and that is: to never, ever, ever, ever … GIVE UP! So, my friend, do the same.

Never give up. Never give up on the most important person in the world to you: YOU. Why? Because, that team that you’re the ‘right fit for (like a jigsaw puzzle piece) may just be the team that would bring you the success you’ve been searching for (whatever definition of the word ‘success’ you would like it to be).

Tip: increase your awareness in self and be patient.

Word count of the actual blog: approx. 1200. Failed by 600 words or so. An improvement on my last blog. Success for me today. I love it! I WILL succeed through failure. So should you.

Best of luck!

Until next time …..

Brad improving his muscle control through a traditional body-building pose: double-biceps pose. I believe it adds to muscle growth. It assists him in realising his body re-engineering goals.

Brad improving his muscle control through a traditional body-building pose: double-biceps pose.
I believe it adds to muscle growth. It assists him in realising his body re-engineering goals.

Find the courage to keep going.
The courage rests in you.
Take Lead, be the Leader that YOU are.

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adaptation, awareness, Beliefs, dreams, Goals, Imagination, life, self-image, you

Don’t give something up – take something on!

About to start a workout in my Old School Gym. Old School training principles with a 'modern twist'. Know the basics. Stick to the basics. Apply the basics. Its the most efficient, effective and safe approach to building a muscular physique in the gym. Paul.

About to start a workout in my Old School Gym. Old School training principles with a ‘modern twist’. Know the basics. Stick to the basics. Apply the basics. Its the most efficient, effective and safe approach to building a muscular physique in the gym. Paul.

Belief
An old mentor once told me –

“As one thinketh in his heart 💓, so is he”

You could use that as a possible definition of the word “belief “. What is your definition?

What do you believe in? Do you have a belief? What philosophy is it based on? What is the foundation of this philosophy? Is it the truth? What truth is this? Who’s truth is this? Do you question those so-called truths?

The most important truth is, do you know YOU? What do YOU stand for? Do you love YOU? Do you, really?

I was raised a catholic and still am. My wife adopted this faith as well as my children. It is our choice. What is your choice? Your choice in religion? Or are you ‘spiritual’, not religious? Maybe you’re an atheist. Maybe an agnostic. It is your choice. Choices have to be respected. No one is better, we are just different. 

Me & a member of my Family Gym. He strives to be his best every day and seeks to help those who need his help, to help them, help themselves.


Lent

I have come to question a lot of things about my chosen faith and about me, just like, I assume, you would have also about yourself. You see, I have always told people who don’t know the sport of bodybuilding very well, that preparing for a contest to ultimately, win or get a podium finish is like an extended period of Lent. Yep, Lent!

To achieve the goal of presenting your very best and improving your chances of winning, I have to go through an extended period of Lent, or in other words, an extended period of self-deprivation.

However, the difference with actual Lent, is that with Lent, you are told to ‘give up’ something you love – it could be chocolate, alcohol, smoking or anything else that makes you ‘feel good’ and somewhat makes you also ‘feel guilty’. As a kid, I remember choosing to give up chocolate during Lent and that was difficult because I loved chocolate.

I still do. One of my many weaknesses.

To pursue your SHIT and never achieving it is far better than never having a go at your SHIT and living with regret forever.

bodybuilding, periods of “self-imposed purity bubble of deprivation”

In the preparation of yourself for a body-building contest, you have to take this philosophy and multiply it and take it to another level. A level that very few are willing to take. You don’t just ‘give up’ one pleasure, you have to ‘give up’ many. And not just for a month (approximately the period of Lent), you have to ‘give up’ almost all the pleasures of life, all the things that make you ‘happy’, for anything up to 20 weeks, give or take. That is 5 months of your life. Five months of self-imposed self-deprivation. Five months of saying ‘no’ to things that make life a little bit more pleasurable, a little bit more happy.

You live in a self-imposed ‘purity bubble’ in a world that is in a continuous state of decadence. That is what you have to do, to achieve a ‘look’ that the judges and fans are looking for when you’re on that stage. That body-building stage. That is why I believe body-building is the toughest sport in the world (others would argue otherwise but I understand differences in perception).

That is what you have to do to get the results. To win. This is what you have to do in this sport, just like a swimmer needs to swim daily for his sport, just like a soccer player has to kick a soccer ball around.

To win!

I dared to be different. I dared to not only dream but … to Dream BIG. I wanted to be one of the best at something I loved to do… not just in my state, my country.. but in the world 🌎. I couldn’t stand being “the same”. I just wanted to strive for an ideal… another vision of what I would like to be . And I did get there … 2 x World Championships- took me 10 years but I got there

Taught to Fear Failure

Got me thinking about Lent and our society’s insatiable desire to win, sometimes to win at all costs. You see it everywhere. On tv reality shows, In relationships. In business, In sporting events, in schools and even in families. To ‘get ahead ‘ in life, we’re taught to fear losing.

Fear failure.

Growing up, I would hear my grandparents and aunties and uncles reminding us kids the point of Lent was self-denial. That by depriving ourselves of something we love, of something that brought us pleasure was a good thing. That it proved that you were strong. What a load of you know what!

Here’s where I am at odds with this way of thinking now. Here’s where I am at odds with my chosen religion. It is the propagation of the whole set of attitudes that implies that being pleased with yourself is somehow wrong. Suspect. That not being the same as everyone else is crazy. That being different is dangerous.

That high standards means lots of losers and that suppressing or ‘putting people down’ is the best way to make them grow, The best way to make them spring up.

The bible says that we need to love thy neighbours as thyself. Lovely philosophy but flawed! Back to my earlier question: do you really love YOU? I think there are more people than not that do not really love themselves.

Think about it.

The Brain 🧠. The Real Power rests within this living organism… between the billions of neuronal network… Great thinkers know that thoughts 💭 change the world. Guard and work on your thoughts … every single day. Your most important investment.
The mind.
I AM.
Use this most complex tool every created to become a better medium of communication to …. the universe, to infinite intelligence … to consciousness.
To your GOD.

Taught to feel like losers

Too much of our society and its teachings are designed to make most of us feel like LOSERS MOST OF THE TIME.

Gee, they have even got one of the most popular reality tv programs, with that very word in it. To make us feel like LOSERS MOST OF THE TIME. Like I said, its everywhere – in the media, on tv programs, in gaming shows, in our examination system, in our organizations. Its everywhere.

So, I now question that very belief of ‘loving thy neighbour as you love yourself’ and the philosophy it stands on. If machinery of today’s society, is designed to make most of us FEEL LIKE LOSERS MOST OF THE TIME, then, if we really did love our neighbours as ourselves, most of our neighbours would get the short end of the stick. They would get a raw deal. They would lose out.

My biggest competitor is ME

The up-coming Winter Olympics is a celebration of elite talent and what I am talking about will be on show there. The podium finishers: first, second and third are celebrated. Whole countries are judged on their medal tally and haul.

What will be on show during these games, is it is as if we were governed by the philosophy that only the top three count and the rest are ALSO-RANS. This philosophy is flawed! I’ll tell you why.

When I started my body-building competitive career (over 20 years ago), I always felt my biggest competitor was ME. That no matter who I came up against in contests and no matter what result I got, I would not lose sight of the fact that I am competing against ME. I was setting my own standards for ME. My goal was to set my own targets. My goal was to be better than I was yesterday and the week before that and the month before that and the year before that.

Even though winning or being in the top three was a goal of mine, it never defined who I was as my performance was not tied to the result, but it was tied to the effort I had put in to it. I dreamed of being a better ME. I dreamed of bettering myself at each contest, compared to prior contests. To prior years. Not to others That’s comparing apples with apples.

Amongst other things … I am a “Physique Artist”
Building the best physique you hope to does not rely on chance.
It comes down to many variables summed up here –
Imagination + Visualisation + Effort (hard deliberate practice) + Feel (Heart) + Talent (genetics) + Focus (never-say-die Mind-set) …
To create Balance & Symmetry in design.
It does not matter which art medium is used – building architecture, watches, cars etc ..
Beauty = Balance & Symmetry
The only difference between sculpturing your physique and the other types mentioned above is –
the human body is alive and has a mind.
Continue to work on yours.

Biggest obstacle: don’t be different, it’s too dangerous 

However, most of what we’re taught in life is to win and sometimes to win at all costs. With that comes the dreadful mind-set of the fear of failure (refer to my earlier blog on this topic and how everyone should love the ‘f’ word more). This is a direct consequence of the idea that winning is very important, even though it is so difficult.

So, fear of failing becomes more paramount. A disease of the mind. The best strategy in this case would be to avoid losing. To avoid failing. So, everyone effectively accept the ‘status quo’.

Everyone be the same. Don’t be different. Its too dangerous.

I. AM.
GOD?

If you fail, you escape responsibility 

So, if the best strategy is to avoid losing, its best to lower your sights, lower your standards, lower your goals, dream small – not big. Keep your head down, don’t try to stand out but above all, don’t try too hard. Nope! Don’t try too hard. That way, if you fail, god forbid, you can always blame your laziness, not your lack of ability. You can continue to fear failure and stay the same. That is what society wants. For everyone to stay the same.

If you fail, you escape responsibility for your actions and explain your failure by claiming that the particular challenge/contest/business venture/ relationship you were in did not justify the energy needed to sustain it.

What a load of rubbish!

I think it was the recently deceased Nelson Mandela that said that ‘being small, serves no one’. I agree. However, much of what society and religion has been founded on is the philosophy of being humble or in other words – being and thinking/dreaming SMALL.

Thinking too big, dreaming big, is not encouraged and dangerous as it leads to being ‘different’. Being different can be very costly to you, the individual, and the society, as we are taught to believe.

What Mr Mandela was trying to say, I believe is that being ‘small’ or being ‘humble’ for the sake of being humble serves no one: it does not serve the person giving it nor the person receiving it. It does not serve humanity.

What Mr Mandela was saying was probably that if humility is the mode, then apathy is the mood. Inaction and indecisiveness is exactly what society wants. Inaction or apathy is the fuel of all fears. And we wonder why the fear of the ‘f’ word – failure, is so rampant in our society. Its because, the firewood that strokes these flames is everywhere, in the very fiber of society and religion.

Know YOU.
It’s ok to Love 💓 YOU… it’s ok to be YOU…it’s ok to be different

It’s ok to be different 

Its sad, but true, it seems that most people need to be stroked like a pet cat. Frozen with fear, people need to be stroked emotionally and psychologically in a positive manner, by someone for something, almost every day. If they are not stroked, they are a heap of mess. If that is for one person, then it must be for many more.

it seems, Energies are low. Belief in self is low. Depression and diseases of the mind are rising exponentially around the developed world. The obesity epidemic that has been gripping the world in recent times is only a symptom of a bigger problem caused by the machinery of society and religion. The obesity epidemic is a symptom of the ‘obesity of the minds’ of people ( I will talk more on a later blog).

Its okay to be different.

Yes, being different does come at a cost. But it is ok. Be brave. Know yourself more. Love yourself more. It is okay to love yourself more. We are each meant to be different and to celebrate and appreciate each other’s differences. That is what makes the world go round, right?

Become a somebody 

You have been blessed with a bunch of talents or gifts and you have a responsibility to use and improve your bit of YOU. Your bit of creation. In turn, if possible, you should also help improve the talents and gifts of others. To not allow yourself to dream big, to not allow yourself to imagine a better, more improved you. To ignore these god-gifted talents yourselves and take it to new heights, new standards is to deny yourself and others a most beautiful thing.

It gives humanity the short end of the stick, the raw deal. This is the ultimate disrespect to your creator, whoever, whatever religion that you follow.

So, get up and love yourself!

Why not love yourself a little today and then love others. Make a commitment to love yourself, even more, tomorrow and continue for as long as you live. Love YOU. This is not soft. This is not wrong or bad.  Now, your neighbours will not get a raw deal, when you adopt that saying “love your neighbours as yourself”.

They will get the BEST OF YOU.

That is what I have taught my daughter to say as her prayer every night: “God, help me be the best I can be, for ME and for everyone else.” Notice, it is for her first and foremost, not for mum or dad. And so, if she hypothetically came last or out of the top 3 in a contest, but if she tells me she gave it her best, then, in my eyes, she won.

In my eyes, her effort and her participation tells me she won. And that is exactly what she will believe in. That will hopefully, instill a belief that will lower the risk of her fear of failure and allow her to just ‘have a go’.

Participate. Just do it!

It is okay to be an ‘ALSO-RAN’ and also feel like you’re a winner. You’re a winner because you didn’t believe in apathy or inaction. You’re a winner because you tried. You gave it your best. You gave it a go. You’re a winner because you came in fourth, exhausted and encouraged – because last time you came in fifth.

You’re a winner because winning is also – giving yourself to others freely; winning is also never whining; it is also picking up a beer can you didn’t throw on the beach; it is becoming that dream of yourself that would fulfill you as a person with high self-esteem; it is being glad you are you,; it is unconditional love; it is a way of thinking – a way of living; it is a habit (so is losing – be careful).

Winning is all in the attitude, an attitude of the mind. Your attitude toward your potential is either the key to or the lock on your door of personal fulfilment. Action squashes all fear.

Now, consider an alternative definition of Lent: don’t give something up, take something on. Dream big. Dare to be different. Don’t fear failure. Set higher standards for yourself.

Love yourself. Love yourself more. Love others. Give more of YOU to the world. Exercise your attitude of mind.

Become a somebody!

All the best in your journey in the sea of life.

Until next time,

My gritty Viking Pirate 🏴‍☠️ Princess 👸

 

Building muscle, one rep at a time with relevant tools like a dumbell. In my Old School, no frills gym. Just the way I like it.

Building muscle, one rep at a time with relevant tools like a dumbell. In my Old School, no frills gym. Just the way I like it.

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dreams, Goals, Imagination, life, you

Why you should love the “F” word more.

What “F’ word are we talking about? Well, its not the F word that first comes to mind, for some of us and rhymes with duck. No, not that one, but the other, arguably more important “F” word with regards to your journey in pursuit of your definition of success. The word I am referring to is of course, “F” for “failure”.

The key to success is massive failure (Thomas Watson – IBM). So, I guess, we could conclude, that if failure leads to success, then your goal is to fail as best as you can. Yep, strive for failure and don’t stop until you get there, in pursuit of the elusive success formula, everyone is searching for. So, don’t fear the “F” word. Matter of fact, go after it, better and faster than your competition. Fail faster and better than your competition. It would seem that whoever can fail the most and the fastest – WINS!

A business mentor told me once that ‘Paul, bigger, isn’t necessarily, better’. I agree. To a point! I don’t in regards to failure. The bigger, the better. If you’re going to fail – FAIL BIG. Fail big, I say!

So, you could argue that the volume and speed to fail is a determinant of success. I think it was Brain Tracy (America’s Leading Business Authority on Success) that said that “Failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.” And the one of the ways he said to overcome your fear of failure is to “act as if it were impossible to fail, and it shall be.”

Great failures is on the list of success. You can only experience growth through failure as you constantly try to improve and tweak, iterate and improve. Failure is the gateway to the ‘next level’.

“F” your way to success! What do you think? Do you agree? Let me elaborate.

We should not be concerned as to why we have failed. You should learn lessons from GROWING THROUGH failure. Seeing failure as a growth stepping stone, you can learn not only to accept failure and learn from it but more importantly, learn to pick yourself up quicker … learn to get up off the ground, faster …. Learn to take that step forward again …. Have the courage to get over that hurdle and the next time …. Succeed.

One of the many things I love about Arnold Schwarzenegger (besides him being one of the best bodybuilders of all time), is that in his Hollywood movie-making phase of his life, he always asks writers and producers who give him countless movie scripts for him to consider to act in is: what would the movie poster look like. The movie poster needs to ‘sell’! Smart man. I think, we can all learn from him and his approach to certain elements of his life. In terms of posters and the road to our own success, maybe, just maybe, we should become the poster-child for failure. Yep, become your own Poster. Make your movie poster (for failure) and sell. Do it big!

Have you experienced many failures in your life thus far? I’m sure we all have. Small failures and big failures. Failures in examinations, in relationships, in financial dealings, in sporting endeavours. I’m sure, if you thought candidly about your life thus far, your life would be littered with many examples of the F word: Failure. I know mine is.

As most of some of you know, I am a natural bodybuilder. I have been competing on the bodybuilding stage for about 20 years now, on and off. I love everything about muscle. The human body is made up of more muscle than anything else. Your heart is a muscle, your stomach is a muscle, you have skeletal muscle to hold you upright and carry your skeleton and organs in the direction you want. As far as skeletal muscle is concerned, I eat for muscle, rest for muscle, exercise for muscle and I teach my clients about muscle and the maximization and optimization of muscle retention, using my framework of body re-engineering. Someone once told me that I was just a ‘ball of muscle!”. I took that as a compliment. Anyways, bodybuilding is an avenue for self-improvement. It is a lifestyle, just like a surfer lives his lifestyle. Just like a martial artist is a martial artist every day of the week and not only on the weekend. Bodybuilding as I see it is the never-ending pursuit for balance, aesthetics and beauty and a daily appreciation of what God has given us (our body, mind and spirit) and the hope and faith that I am striving to BE THE BEST I CAN BE and DO THE MOST I CAN with what has been given to me. I think there are parallels with what it means to be a Christian or to be a follower of a faith/religion. Not doing my best and not giving my best is anti-christian and the height of hypocrisy (probably for most religions in the world too). Being a Christian, I think, demands going beyond mediocrity, demands a higher standard, more devotion to your life. More devotion to the task of living. More devotion to life itself. That is the essence of bodybuilding. Oh, and you train and work your muscles, too.

Anyways, in all those years of competition, I have come up against many formidable competitors. The biggest competitor to me was – ME. Each year, I came up against myself. My whole goal when I started was to make ME better than yesterday, than last month, than last year … and maybe, as I hoped, I will present the best of me one day. I felt comparing myself to myself was the relevant comparison as you could artificially feel good with a result because you came 1st but results could be mis-leading because the line-up could have been average or mediocre. Sometimes, it is better to come last in high-calibre line-up. So, your placings do not reflect the quality of the competition, and statistics can lie. We all know that. Politicians know that. However, it is lovely to come first and be considered the best built bodybuilder on that day and saying that I didn’t like coming first would be telling a lie. That day came and went many times. However, I also missed first place many times. I came second countless times. Made third many other times. Sometimes, I never made the podium at all and never got a second ‘look’ from the judges. It hurt. Failing to win, felt bad. Failing to make the top 3 felt even worse. I wouldn’t lie. Months of focus and dedication came down to a few minutes on stage under strong lighting. Strike! You are asked to execute standard bodybuilding poses and ‘strike!’ the judges would call out. Failing to win or get a place, hurt. However, each competition I did, each line-up I stood in, each year that went by, I learned to overcome my disappointment in failing to win a bodybuilding contest – better. I got better at dreaming. I saw failing at winning these contests as ‘successful experiences’. I saw failing as something that was necessary. Something that was necessary to make me a better bodybuilder. A better person. What mattered to me was ‘progress’. Was I making progress to being a much better bodybuilder. A much better human being. Each failure got me one step closer to knowing ‘myself’ better and as I did, my standards rose too … so much more that it resulted in my representing Australia twice in 2007 and 2008 World Natural Bodybuilding Championships in New York , USA. I placed in the Top 5 in both years. Top 5 in the World. Not too bad. It started with a dream. It was only through the many contest failures that I started dreaming more. Bigger. I ‘super-sized my dreams’ … and became what I believed. I became a top ranking natural bodybuilder in the whole World. Each contest failure made me better. Each contest failure got me closer to succeeding. Each failure made me dream bigger. There are many parallels in the journey through life. So, if you are going to dream, dream BIG, I say! I looked and still look at bodybuilding contests as beacon of hope … and keeping my hope alive .,.. making one definite step to being better … holding on to the hope that my best days are ahead. And I daily tell myself: they are. You should too, in your journey through your life.

I believe seeing failure as ‘good’ in any area in life it occurs in, whether it be in business, in exams, in relationships. It does not matter what it is. Just make sure you take the lessons you are to learn from it and try to do it better next time. Failure helps you become better. It helps you become your BEST. Stay ‘big-picture’ oriented as failure should be seen as a ‘break-through’ and not as a ‘break-down’. It is a matter of perspective.

Change your perspective, change your results. Change your life direction.

Never let your fear of failure sabotage your forward progress. You need to break that cycle of fear of failure. Most failures we experience can be tied to 1 or 2 things or both: 1) Poor decision 2) Bad strategy or plan.

There are many ways to manage failure when you are experiencing it. One of the ways I like is to remind yourself of positive mild-stones and battles/wins you have had in the past. In the midst of failure, you need to ‘rewind’ the tape of your life and remind yourself of your successes in your life. Whatever you’re in, whatever failed adventure you’re in, remember: you’re not STUCK IN IT! It is only temporary. Wherever you’re headed in life, whatever goal you have set yourself, whatever obstacles you will have to face on your way to knowing your truth, remember: its not a matter of ‘if’ … its just a matter of time. You will get there. A great thinker once said that:

“If it were not possible to fail, it would be impossible to succeed. If it were not possible to lose, there would be no such thing as winning”.

Don’t let your fear of failure sabotage your forward progress. You need to break that cycle of fear of failure. You need to continue with the idea that there is nothing wrong with failing … .and there is everything wrong with ‘not trying’. I somewhat believe that the fear of failure is nothing more than a self-confidence issue. You see it everywhere in life … all areas of life, e.g., in examinations, picking up a potential date in a social situation, sales calls … living in the past is a problem.

It probably comes down to two rules:

  1. NEVER give your power away to an event that has not yet occurred (for example, if you’ve spilled milk on the floor, there’s little point crying about it … just wipe it up and go get a new pack of milk)
  2. GET GREAT!

I would attribute success coming down to habitual excellence (refer to a prior blog on the importance of self-regulatory behaviour):

1) Being your best

2) Being the BEST at what you do (your industry, your state, your country, the world)

As I mentioned in previous blogs, I get my daughter to say a little prayer every night before bed and every time she leaves me for school, she says “God, help me be the best I can be. For me and for everyone else”. A simple, yet profound prayer. A talk to her subconscious mind to be at her best – always. This simple prayer, helps everyone else to then get the best of her, too.

An attitude strengthening-exercise for the mind. Just like you need strengthening exercises to increase skeletal muscle, one needs what I call “attitude strengthening-exercises’ for the mind.

Just like bodybuilding competitions, each attempt makes you better. Each failure makes you better. There are parallels to life. If you are a business man/woman, when you get better at business, business will get better for you. If you are a student, when you get better at being a student, grades get better for you. It follows then, that when you get better at life, life will get better for you. All reluctance is a symptom of lack of confidence. This leads to not attracting success. Maybe, you need to change your perspective on failure to:

“I am not judged by the number of times I have failed. I am judged by the number of times I succeed. The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion with the number of times I have failed and keep on trying”.

Like I have taught my daughter, “never, ever, ever, ever … ever give up!”. It is a belief of hers now.

I keep a bodybuilding contest journal. After each contest, I self-critique my plan and my performance and make new goals for the future contests, based on what I have learned from the one I had just done. If you don’t already do this, maybe, you could probably get in to the practise of having a success journal – write down everything, for whatever area in life you’re working to getting more success from.

Ask yourself these 3 questions when you have failed at something:

  1. what did I learn (this experience)?
  2. How can I use this as a positive force in the next contest/phase of life?
  3. what skill or strategy that I need to re-group on to never experience this again.

I love that NIKE logo : Just DO IT! So simple, yet so powerful. Some say, success is defined as ‘successful failure’. Then, just do it. Just Fail!

Having a good support network is vital in picking yourself up when you’ve fallen down. When you’ve hit a hurdle in life and hit the ground! There is much more talk about failure and very few talk about tolerance for it. You need to increase your tolerance to failure and this comes only from not fearing failure. The only true failure is the failure to TRY. Dreaming up possibilities/hopes and making it real is success. What matters is that you are doing it.

The biggest failure is FEAR. Having the desire to learn those important lessons from learning from other people’s mistakes. Life is too short to try to experience hurt/failure ‘first-hand’ all the time. If someone says that you will get burned if you ‘play with fire’, you should take heed of that advice and not try to get yourself burned because you would like to experience it for yourself. Stupid. As a child, an uncle of mine used to mutter sometime when he observed something happening “Stupid is, stupid does!”

Don’t be stupid. There are enough people out there doing that already.

I think it was Thomas Edison that said something to the effect that : “I haven’t failed. I just have found 10,000 ways things won’t work”. Like the desire to become a better bodybuilder, it takes years and years of dedication to build quality, dense muscle, that proportionately flows from head-to-toe. Then, using the stage as your canvas, you then master the art of painting a living, breathing picture of ‘art in motion’. Beauty and aesthetics in motion. The first thing I resolved very early in my bodybuilding career is to focus on long term. I think that is the first challenge for everyone in life. Life is not to be viewed from the eyes of a hare. One should try to look at it through the eyes of a tortoise. Your challenge: don’t be focused on short-term success, need to focus on long-term and I think many people strive too hard for perfection. This is a futile goal. I have learned one very important thing from all my years competing. There is no 100% rule, there is no secret to success in bodybuilding. Everyone does it their own way, through learning from others and learning what is best for them. This is the same for life. There is no 100% rule in Life. It is through failure, that you succeed in life.

There is one powerful point I have learned through bodybuilding though: it is the search for BALANCE. Balance of the flow of muscle. From top-to-bottom. Balance of muscle. Balance of the mind-muscle connection. This also flows in to all areas of life. We are all searching for balance and beauty. This is a universal appeal. This is what being human is. Need to keep the pendulum swinging … the ability to look for balance! Failing is part of that search for your sense of balance within yourself and also finding your place in this world (refer to an earlier blog called ‘The Pendulum of Life’).

Balance and the search for balance is the ESSENCE of Life. Life, itself, is about balance. The human body strives for balance, for homeostasis, constantly evaluating and accepting change whilst keeping everything in equilibrium. In balance. Nature is constantly striving for balance, as it is constantly in a state of order and chaos, of progress and of entropy. Just like building muscle – you’re constantly ‘breaking it down’ to allow growth and new muscle, bodybuilding follows the same formula for Nature: for progress and new growth, you need to destroy – stimulate and annihilate. This is the same for life and progress. This is why nature needs fires in bush-land. To allow new growth, through destruction. You need to keep pushing the boundaries, your own self-imposed boundaries and limitations. Ridding yourself of the fear of the “F” word, of failure and learning to love it and love it more, lifts you to another level. To another consciousness level.

In Physics, the second law of thermodynamics suggest that all physical systems, however efficient they are, inevitably undergo some sort of degeneration over time. The ordered energy within them degrades into disordered energy or chaos. When applied to the universe and nature, as a whole, that in any physical process, the entropy of the entire universe goes up a little bit but the universe overall, gets a little bit more chaotic! The universe, itself, is constantly striving for balance.

However, in your search for balance, amidst all the confusion that life throws at you, remember one thing: the answer rests in YOU. In your mind. How do you lift yourself up from confusion, misery, melancholy and failure? How do you absolve yourself from emotional and physical bondage? How do you get to the road of freedom, happiness and peace of mind?

The answer: your mind – specifically, your subconscious mind. Refer to some of my earlier blogs on clues to finding growth, through your mind.

We covered a lot of ground with that “F” word and I think we should all learn to love it more. Build up your hours with your “F” word. It is said that you become a ‘world class expert’ in a chosen field with a minimum of 10,000 hours of deliberate practise. Build up your hours with that F word. Become your expert.

Become GREAT at it …and you may just achieve your definition of success!

Until next time.

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Too many mind.

To dig deep, you have to dig deep.


My grandfather told me … 

Yes, not who are you… no, what are you?

My grandfather told me when I was very young that – “You are what you constantly think about every day. “ My grandfather was a bit of a philosopher as I later inferred.

Well, great. I guess, we had better think life-affirming thoughts then, shouldn’t we?

I think so.

Thought has power.

Thought has power.

You’re probably aware of that already… but how do you use that power – consciously?

Thought has energy. What is Energy? One would immediately think of an energy drink. Energy does not vanish., it is never created nor destroyed. It does not disappear. It persists for all of time. All of eternity. Energy transforms from one medium to another or many.

To think, really think .. is probably the hardest thing To do in life

Energy is life.

Energy TRANSMUTES.

Energy transmutes from one moment to another. Energy is the life-blood of life itself. Without energy,  I would cease to exist. You would cease to exist. Life, as we know it, would cease to exist.

So, it could be argued that energy is life and that would make Einstein one of the greatest thinkers that has ever walked this earth.

Why?

Simply, because I think he came up with a formula that fundamentally sums up Life. And what formula would that be, Paul? Well, I’m certain everyone who is reading this knows this following formula:

Energy (E) = Mass (m) x (C x C),    where C = Speed of light

Or, in layman’s speech – E = M C squared.

In the Quantum world the Experimenter becomes part of the experiment.
That is the “hard problem” of the Quantum

Everything is energy, including your thoughts. 

So, if life is Energy, then based on the formula above, everything is energy – all matter, and matter being gas, liquid and solid…. & everything in-between.

Energy is everything and everywhere and omni-present.  It could be said that Energy is God, because God is omnipresent too. The formula above describes that of classical physics but in Quantum Physics, the energy of a particle in its simplest forms (photon, proton etc) within a system is summed up in another famous formula by Physicist – Max Plank:

That Energy (E) = the wave vibration of the particle x Plank’s constant.

Phew, what is that Paul, some of you may ask?

Well, it simply says that everything is energy and that each sub-system of a system, for example, a particle, has a certain wave frequency and oscillates at that wave-length. It should also be noted that Quantum particles can exist in two or more states or locations simultaneously and can be mathematically described by a Quantum wave-function. Interesting findings by science, isn’t it? So, energy is everywhere. Everything is energy, including your thoughts.

So, What does that say? What does that tell us about thought?

Everything has a frequency, everything has a resonance. What is your resonance? What resonates with you?

Are your thoughts … Oscillating in a wavelength that is healthy?

Well, we have got to ask ourselves what frequency of thought we are on and if we are oscillating in a wavelength that is healthy. If we are not, can we and what do we need to do to change our thought operating frequency (from negative to positive) and make the change to a different thought oscillation, making this your default. Your default way of thinking.

So if everything is energy, I also think we have got to devote more thought ( as I’ve established is a form of energy) … devote more thought to energy itself but in particularly, in our management of energy.

Back to my opening statement about thought.

What are you?

You become what you think of, everyday.

It is said that any thought held unwaveringly in mind, or any thought held constantly in mind through focused concentration and brought into the conscious mind often enough, seemingly, attracts to it those qualities of the human mind which it most resembles. Basically, you become what you think, every day.

A thought is like a seed put in the ground, that produces a crop that is of its kind and how healthy it turns out depends on the nutrients and caring it has from its internal and external environment.

Therefore, one must watch one’s thoughts.

It is dangerous to allow the mind to hold any thought which is destructive. Why, because, such thought will manifest itself in the physical sense, sooner or later. Be careful, I say, be careful! Just like the seedling needs constant nutrition and nourishment from the sunlight and healthy soil to keep them alive, so does the qualities of your mind. Without proper nutrition and nourishment, everything that lives and grows, dies.

Everything.

Feel the interconnectedness of everything
Live 4 2day

Nutrition for the mind is as important… than nutrition for the body.

The qualities of the human mind also dies, if one does not nourish it and constantly feed it the nutrition it needs to live and develop. Nutrition for the mind is as important, if not, more important than nutrition for the body. How do you do this, I hear you ask?

Simple. Keep it simple, stupid (The KISS principle I learned from one of my business mentors).

Like, any plant would: learn to become more aware (of your thought/thoughts), concentrate and think about it, making the correct choice and then apply (or use it). My philosophy of the Triple A can be adopted here. Refer to an earlier blog for an elaboration on the first A: Awareness.

Are you a spirit… a soul … a leaf 🍃 of consciousness in the vast seas of consciousness?

No one has ownership of your mind, but YOU.

No one has ownership of your mind, but you.

Yes – YOU!

You do not need anyone else in this world to help you manipulate your mind so it will function as you want it to. You also have control over your mind, no matter where you are in life, which phase you  are in life, but provided you exercise the right rather than allowing others to do so for you.

Better control and ownership of your mind and choosing to exercise these factors will allow you to free you of the curse of all fears and stagnation. And why is this important? Well, because I believe that there is a growing hidden epidemic in mode-day societies (one of many) and that is many are suffering from –

Too many Mind.

We’re all swinging like a pendulum .. continuously moving between two points – activity & non-activity/ entertainment/rest . Creating waves 🌊…in the universe

Clutter to the mind is akin to weeds are in a garden.

Your mind is made up of the hardware and the software.

The software keeps changing, keeps getting updated, every day, every second of the day, for some. What happens when you fill your tummy up with so much crap, when you eat too much ….

Well, you feel like crap, don’t you?!

Well, that is also what happens when your nutrition for the mind is also crap. If you keep feeding it crap, you will think and ultimately act like someone who is physically ill. But like I said earlier, who has ownership and control of your mind?

You, yes – YOU!

Not managing your food for your body well enough, can make you very ill, just like mis-managing your nutrition for your mind. This leads to chaotic thoughts, which ultimately causes increased clutter & “noise” in the mind, which then leads to bad decisions, because of lack of focus, which then causes distress in the physical world.

Clutter to the mind is akin to what weeds are to a beautiful garden. The weeds feed on the limited resources and sometimes overgrow and overtake the area, affecting the proper growth of the desired plants. Even killing them off.

So, watch your thoughts, I say. Be the best gardener you can be for your garden! Thoughts, positive or negative GROW STRONGER when fertilized with CONSTANT REPEITITION. Remember this.

My idol.

Too many thoughts = Too many mind.

Too many thoughts = too many mind. 

Very similar to that age old saying – “too many cooks spoil the soup.” That I heard adults saying when I was a child. If you have too many thoughts … too many mind … running chaotically through your consciousness … you muddle up the soup .. muddle up or clutter up … your most precious resource: your Mind.

Clutter doesn’t do much more than cloud up or congest one’s life. One’s mind. Its like a ship with too many destinations  and being paralysed with motion as it has too many competing travel plans. I’m not sure who said this but some thinker, I think it was Einstein, that taught us a big lesson: he felt it was more important to use your mind to “think” than to use it as a warehouse for facts.

That if you could record the information somewhere, then do so, hence freeing up your mind for more important decisions. So, do just that. Don’t use your brain as a storehouse of information, it will just cause unnecessary clutter. Instead focus on the thinking or thought process behind the intelligence. That is why my kids are amazed that I have over 35,000 unread emails in my gmail inbox. I chose yo filter out unnecessary “stuff” and stopped weed from using up my brain cells and cluttering my mind.

Let your light bring colour to the world. Focus 🧘🏾‍♂️ your thoughts 💭 on the area you want the rainbow 🌈 to land

The ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.

The ability to know how to ‘get information’ is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.

What really matters is not how much intelligence you have, but HOW YOU USE what you do have. The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than the quantity of your brainpower. In other words, the thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you may have.

Does science have the answers?

All the answers to the truth? The answers we may have to harvesting the mind? What truth is this? What is truth? What is science anyway … it could be seen as a makeshift, a means to an end which is never attained?

Could nature be truth? Could the universe be truth? Where is the source of our knowledge? Do we know everything? Do we think we know something? Are we, as human beings, so arrogant to think we know something … our so-called meagre knowledge … and maybe, missing out on the advantages of actual ignorance.

A man’s ignorance may not only be useful, but can be seen as beautiful. Sometimes, knowledge can be worse than useless and worse still – ugly!

A butterfly 🦋 knows when to fly and when to sit and feed.
Timing is everything in their life.

Where and how can you harness your mind?

So, where and how can you harness your mind, de-cluttering it in the process. Well, one way, is to get you dreaming again … to spark your imagination. To do this, you could try to fall in love with nature. Become one with nature. Become one with the universe. Let nature become one with your spirit – your subconscious. This would allow the mind to be fertilized and bear fruit in the garden, the garden of your subconscious, the fruit of which is imagination.

How would you know which of your thoughts is valuable: a clue could be any thought that comes to your mind, that is anything, but what you thought….& resonates with your heart ❤️.

That is imagination. Imagination is key: A key gift to you in your journey through life.

So become more aware of your thoughts, and then, catch that ‘aha’ thought that you weren’t trying so hard to think about. Unthink to think (refer to an earlier blog on this).

Until next time,

P.

Tesla, Einstein’s hero was so “in-tune” with the Energy & understood HOW to harness that Power energy

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Dad’s old wallet

Mimicry is the most flattering form of appreciation. It’s another level altogether. Makes you feel like a ‘God’ … a god on earth!

How is your wallet? How long have you had yours for? Did you get a new one for Christmas? Do you still use the old one? Is has almost every receipt you ever had in there? Are you cards bulging out the seams of the wallet? Maybe, you need a new one. Well, my wife was struggling to think about what to get me for my Christmas gift last year until I told her that I thought I needed a new wallet to replace the 12 year old one I had. There was a sign of relief from my wife as she finds it difficult buying a present for me most of the time. The old wallet was still functionally fine. The main reason I needed a new wallet was that the transparent photo holder was damaged. The plastic was no longer transparent but translucent now. So, light passed through but one could not see through it. So, this meant that I couldn’t clearly see the photo I had in there of my wife and two children. It was irritating me for months because every time I wanted to look at it or show it to someone I had to painstakingly pull it out of the photo pouch. Little irritants. One needs to reduce these in life, if you can.

On Christmas Day as we sat around our Valentine Christmas Tree that we all put up together, my beautiful daughter, brought me my little wrapped Christmas gift, saying, “Dadda, this is for you”.

It was perfect. Just my style. It was me. Re-confirmation that my dear wife, knows ‘me’.

As I cleaned out my old wallet and chucked out all the unnecessary documents (accumulated stuff) in there, I announced loudly that I would give my old wallet to my son. Well, that was the end of that!

He was enthralled with it. I mean, he couldn’t leave it alone. He went everywhere with it for 2 whole days … just him, his favourite stuffed dog called “Foof, and the wallet. He had so many other gifts from family and friends but wanted nothing to do with it. What he wanted was dad’s old wallet.

Got me thinking. Got me thinking about role models in life. About the importance for each and every one of us to have a male and female role model. Yes, no one is perfect but we still need a beacon of hope … a light at the end of the tunnel … a shining example of a human being at all phases in life that we could adopt certain traits we admire from. We’ve just got to be honest with ourselves and keep our eyes open.

It was one of the best feelings I have felt in my life. My two year old son owning my old wallet. Going everywhere with it. Out to visit relatives, to shopping malls … to the toilet … to local parks … playing with the ‘old cards’ in there … tossing and turning it in bed … holding it close to his body. No one was allowed to touch the wallet for a while there, not even me. I felt very special on this occasion, just for being me. My blood. My son, loving my discarded wallet, like it was another ‘Foof’.

He gave me the biggest form of flattery I have ever experienced, my two year old son. My son was teaching me a few lessons of life and he didn’t know it yet. What lessons, I hear you say?

I have heard countless times that parents have a huge job in teaching their off-spring values and principles. True, but not totally. I believe that there is a reciprocity in this relationship too. Like all relationships, it’s a two way street. Both parties teach each other something, as long as the parties involved are open-minded and are willing to learn the lessons to be had. A child-parent relationship is no different. The parent just has to be aware of the lessons that his/her child is teaching.

Anyways, I believe it was an exercise in self-image.

He was modelling himself off me and I guess he is constantly doing that daily. He was indirectly practising two images:

  1. What you “see” is what you get.
  2. Who you “feel” is who you are.

At two years of age, the child has no care in the world. No stresses. No fears as yet. For us though, we could read one message through the intersection of the two points I made above: that most, if not all your limitations, are self-imposed. I think I heard someone say once that – it is not what you “are” that holds you back, it’s “what you think you are not.”

I saw that my son was pretending to be, me. He was dad for a day. He loved it. He went everywhere with me (me being my wallet). The wallet helped his imagination. The wallet (that was part of me … as he cannot wear my shoes right now .. the wallet is more manageable) helped him create his reality. A pretend life.

Made me think about us adults and how we behave. It seems, that individuals behave, not in accordance with reality, but in relation with their ‘perception of reality’. How you feel about yourself is EVERYTHING. As everything that you ever do or aspire to do will be based on your ‘self-image’.

I observed my son’s behaviour change, ever so slightly, when he hung on to my old wallet. Dad’s old wallet. It would seem that self-image is fundamental to understanding human behaviour. It seems that if you change your self-image, you change your personality and behaviour. My son’s self image is still being formed. I think the owning of my old wallet, was a significant moment in his development. Since birth, he has been and is constantly forming his own intricate web of self-images, that he alone is imagining in his mind. These self-images are fundamentally based on the beliefs sprung from every thought and experience he has ever had so far, every loss and win he has and will experience.

Observing him intently, I concluded that he had a ‘mental picture’ of himself when he had dad’s old wallet. That he was somehow – me. This mental picture or photo controlled him. These ‘mental photos’ control all of us. What mental pictures or photos do you have of yourself? Do you say things like “I have a terrible memory”. Or, “I’m never on time.” Or, “I’m a born loser”. Ask yourself what your inner self has been telling you. That second person. That second voice. That little voice on your shoulder.

Understand one thing: from what I have observed in life thus far, you CANNOT OUTGROW THESE SELF-IMPOSED LIMITS. You can ONLY SET NEW LIMITS. New threshold limits. You then learn to live within these limits as comfortably as you can. This feeds in to your self-image.

Your self-image is a function of your mind. Like a segment of a car engine performs a specific function. Your self-image determines the kind and scope of person you are – it is your ‘metabolic rate’ or your metabolism. As you know, everyone has a different metabolic rate – the rate at which your body consumes energy. So, basically, what my son was imagining was his perception of reality when he ‘owned dad’s old wallet, and this is the same for us adults. Apparently, scientists have agreed that the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly, emotionally and in detail.

Wow, how about that? Vividly, emotionally and in detail.

What this tells me instantly, is that you need not only to start dreaming more often, you need to start attempting to dream better. Much better.

I think we can all try to imagine or dream, better. I think we can all try to learn how to play ‘pretend games’ like little children again. Like how my daughter plays a mermaid, called Bianca … and plays it so seriously. I can’t even call her real name out, without being scolded. Maybe, we should start playing “lets pretend” games again as adults.

Maybe, that is one of the secrets of finding the “winner’ in you again. Maybe, I think it was Einstein that said “imagination is power” or to that effect. If the self-image dwells at the subconscious level or ‘metabolic level’, and it does not know the difference between what is true and false, then maybe, the key to improving your self-image is playing ‘pretend games’ like my children do everyday. It seems that a permanent change in your personality or behaviour comes from a change in your self-image, which is influenced by your environment. Playing pretend games with yourself, like enlarging your universe … or area you would like to improve on … one where your subconscious is fed with roles that you pretend play with … of whomever you want to be. The subconscious mind or your metabolism part of your engine cannot tell the difference between “The real you” and “The one you see”.

So, before trying to change external influences in your life, try turning within… within you… within yourself. Try imagining more. Try dreaming more, maybe try dreaming again. Learn the secrets of imagination. Learn it through interaction with children. Learn from them. How they immerse themselves totally in whatever role they are playing. You were once a kid. I believe you still have that ‘kid’ still inside of you, you just have to let him/her out. Realize the tremendous importance of self-image is to you and your life. Understand the vital role of your imagination and what it plays in the creation and up-grading of your self-image. That if, you cannot possibly ‘see’ yourself doing something, achieving something, you literally cannot do it! This is NOT A LIE. This is LAW. A Universal Law! Become aware. Apply the law. Adapt accordingly. It could mean finishing on the podium in the various areas of your life or just being ‘just making up competition in the line-up’. See yourself winning.

Try this: If you spend time around young children, become a storyteller and use your imagination and run wild with stories for the children. Keep trying. See how this may change your world. If you don’t spend time around children, try limiting your television viewing and instead set aside 20 to 30 minutes a day to try to relax and imagine yourself achieving and enjoying your most personal desires. Try picturing yourself in a scene of family happiness, or relishing a personal triumph at work or achieving some if not all the News Resolutions you have set for yourself or still setting for yourself as you read this. Try to ‘feel’ the event. Connect it to your heart.

Like I tell the many people I have helped over the years when I get them to exercise their skeletal muscles in the gym, the essence of working your muscles is ‘feeling it’. Its not in how much you lift, the essence is in how you feel the muscle contracting and extending (working on improving that ‘mind-muscle connection’) throughout the range of motion of the chosen exercise. I tell them to leave your ego at the gym door. If you’re not feeling the muscle, you’re not totally understanding what ‘working the muscle’ means. The essence of working a muscle. Like all things learned though, it takes time to develop this.

So, just like working your skeletal muscles, ‘feel’ the event in your heart and mind (your ‘other mind-muscle connection’, as your heart is a muscle). Like I said earlier in the blog, the imagined event/experience is to be vivid, emotional and detailed. This is the work you do when you are away from the gym.

Feel it!

I have told the many people I have helped in my transformation programs over the years:

“Change within, to change without”. The only person that can instigate help for “you” is, YOU. I then provide the vehicle in my many programs to help them achieve just that. With success.

Believe it so!

Change and upgrade your self-image(within). Change your world(without).

If you’ve made it this far in reading this blog, here is a star “*” for you. Well done.

All the best!

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Goals, Imagination, life, you

Find your tune

What’s in a name?

What’s in your name?

A lot? Not much? I think there’s quite a lot, seemingly. Anyways, many people are at it .. changing names, that is. A good friend of mine from my undergraduate Uni days  mentioned only a few days ago that he was going to change his name and also his son’s names. Yep, wind of change is in the air for this Father-Son and family relationships.

I am happy for him.

But it got me thinking, about names, and name changing, that is. Companies do it, sometimes with so much speed – designing company logos is a huge industry. Its big business. Who else does it? Whole countries do it. People do it, particularly when they marry and un-marry. Some people drop the name Michael for Mike, because it is more ‘them’.

Being different is important. Being different has its benefits. Being different also has its costs. Changing one’s name can be seen to give you a license to be different, as it can be seen to be an award to the ‘self’, by the self. A ceremony unto itself.

My beautiful wife told me after we got married that she had decided when she was younger that she would only change her name to her husband’s name, surname that is, if she liked it. She now has my name. Phew, I’m very happy she liked my surname – “Valentine”. It is however, very interesting to note that many people these days do not change their names when they marry. Why, I wonder? For many reasons, I guess. Maybe, it’s an indication that they want to be different. Being different sets you apart. Maybe, that’s one reason.

Do you want a license to be different? Have you thought of it? Maybe, changing your name gives you a start to find a ‘new you’? Do you want a ‘new you’? Maybe, it’s a start …. A new start, a new beginning, a rebirth even … of a new – YOU. There are only two questions you need to ask yourself:

  1. Why do you want to forget the ‘old you’?
  2. Who will you decide to be?

Closing the door to the ‘old you’ is very powerful but very difficult to do. Who are you running away from? What are you running away from? Can you run away? Can you out-run the old you? Only you can answer that.

The second question is: Who will you decide to be? You, I hope! Be all you can be. Be – YOU. Being you, is different. Appreciate your difference. You don’t need to be the same as everyone else. Don’t copy your colleagues or friends, instead set your own standards, your own bench-marks. Make your own definition of success. Do you want to live your life as ‘you’ or do you want to one day, die, knowing that you were on earth under false pretences. That you just pretended to live.

So, a very important question you’re probably thinking right now, and which relates to the subject heading of this blog is ‘how do I know when I am me?’ A very good question indeed. Not just for you, but for everyone – every individual, companies, countries even.

I think you’ll probably feel it, rather than see it, when you’re, you. Or maybe, not. Maybe its when you’ve accepted that you’re part of the universe, part of nature – ever changing. Complete. As beautiful as nature. Maybe, one has to get lost or like the philosopher Henry Thoreau said to the effect, something along the lines that ‘not til we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations’.  Should you? Can you? It may be the best thing you will ever do for yourself. You. To find yourself. The real you. Not a pretend you, the real you.

Back to the question: how do I know when I am me? Maybe, its something we cannot define. Maybe, we’ll notice it when we’ll see it … like when we see nature in action. The immense beauty of everything nature has to offer … from the beauty found in a snowflake to the thunderous roar of thunder to the scorching heat of deserts, to the ebb and flow of the sea tide to the myriad of examples of the beauty that is everywhere in nature. We can never have enough of nature, I think. You never tire of the more obvious ones, like a sunset or a sunrise. Just like nature, we can never have enough of beauty.    

Nature does not pose any questions and gives no answers to any which we may ask, but we live and breathe it, nature that is, if we just stop for but a second to appreciate it. You can see, smell, taste, hear, feel that everlasting something to which we are all drawn to. Like a magnetic attraction, ever drawn towards the power that is .. the universe. And all of its glory, and all of its beauty, in every sense of the word.

So, that may be the answer to the question you ask yourself after you have accepted your name, the question of ‘how do I know when I am me?’. You will just know it, like you know it when you see it or hear it. Like beauty or being in tune. Beauty in nature. Beauty in life. Beauty is universal. They say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. So be it. Immerse yourself in yourself. Immerse yourself in you. Immerse yourself in nature. Immerse yourself in life. You have to trust you and above all else, believe that there is a name or tune for you.

Maybe, name-changing is not your thing. That’s ok. Knowing you. Knowing the real you and appreciating your own uniqueness, your own beauty brings you closer to being more aware of being you. Perhaps, you don’t need an extreme measure like changing your name to re-create yourself, to have a new-beginning, a new start.

For the New Year, maybe you just need to set some new goals, not many, just a handful, based on the priorities you have at this particular point in your life. Then, break these goals down to sub-goals or ‘bite-sized pieces’ which have specific focus areas. Set some key habits that will help you achieve these sub-goals, done on a daily basis and maybe monitoring them regularly, like weekly, monthly etc. You can refer to my earlier blog on this: “the Power of Habitual Self-Regulatory Behavior”.

This of course, is just a suggestion. A suggestion that you don’t have to go to an extreme thing like changing your name, if that is a marker, a drawing of a line in the sand, of a ‘new you’. I think, to some extent, as long as you are living your life, with beauty and balance in mind, you are never in danger of leaving this planet, with people thinking or rather, having a perception of you, that you had lived a life that was less than real. That you were a pretender.

That you were a fake?!

Appreciate the beauty in nature. Appreciate all that you have and can experience. Appreciate the beauty in you.

Find your tune. Find beauty. Find your balance. Find you.

All the best for 2014.

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a better life, accountability, adaptation, attitude, awareness, Beliefs, better choices, brain, change, choices, consciousness, decisions, examined life, game of life, Goals, gratitude, Imagination, life, long-term perspective, love, mind, respect, responsibility, self, self discipline, self improvement, self-image, self-respect, strengths, success, you, your life

The Power of Habitual Self-regulatory behaviour.

I love Pirates … I love skulls.
Why the skull? Well, it holds and protects the most important organ we have –
Our brain. The organ that allows us to think and do and feel whatever it is that we desire.
Thank God for skulls.

Good, Winning Habits

One of the goals in life, as I see it, is to develop a lifestyle that is appealing and inspiring to you and simultaneously setting a healthy guideline and example for those who look to you for guidance and encouragement in their own lives. If you don’t see this as a goal in your life, that is totally fine. It is your life, after all.

I think, the most important thing is to believe in yourself, but more importantly believe in the person you imagine yourself to be. On a daily basis, as sure as you brush your teeth the first thing in the morning, you need to develop a habit of simulating how you imagine your life to be … of projecting that image of yourself that you would most like to become and living and breathing that ‘person’.

That is key.

All habits are learned. That means that just as you work on developing good habits, you can also, unintentionally, develop bad habits. Losing habits. Losing habits like self-criticism, smoking, excessive drinking, overeating, laziness, anxiety, depression, sloppiness, dishonesty, cruelty and insensitivity, amongst many others are all developed in to a part of a person’s character through deliberate and relentless practise. So are positive good, winning habits – learned and retained through the same deliberate practise!

It’s a choice. So, choose well.

Lets make a concerted effort to deliberately practise the latter habits – good, winning habits.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Building a World Class Natural Physique takes patience and deliberate practise of key daily habits.

Life ain’ts a dress rehearsal

Life is like a big stage or theater and we play many roles. We do our very best to learn these different roles and play them to the best of our ability. We soon find out that the better we play life, the better life gets for us. Part of this comes from understanding and becoming aware of you, of yourself. When you get better at playing the various roles you’ve been asked to play in life, life gets better for you.

When you work on improving your self-awareness, you begin fantasizing or dreaming your own new ‘scripts’ or better roles, as if your life were a magnificent, epic motion picture opening on all the big screens around the world. Breaking ‘box-office’ records, as you walk down your red carpet.

Play it well, my friend, play it well. Your dreams … your thoughts … your scripts … your epic movie has been written, produced, directed and starred in by no one else but YOU!

There is only one catch: life ain’t a dress rehearsal!

Each second of the 86,400 seconds in each day allows you to get to know YOU, better. Do so. Start by becoming more self-aware. Sometimes, in life, to move ahead, one needs to take a step backwards … so, try stepping back from your own life … and take a long, quiet walk … along pathways in a mountain …or in a quiet park … on the beach.

Absorb the beauty of nature and all its wonders, through all your senses. Bask in its beauty. Become one with it. Then, make an honest assessment of what you are doing, where you are going in your life and most importantly, who you are becoming.

Helping someone achieve his best, in one of the best ways I know how: through increasing self-awareness.
Vv.

Love Life and it will love your back

Then, stop!

Stop to appreciate and be in awe of your own uniqueness, of your strengths and beauty. Sit still or stand still. For a second. For a minute. For 10 minutes. Become aware of the one truth that you and many, may have not have stopped to fathom to date and that is that – you have been selling yourself short in evaluating your own potential in the whole stage rehearsal of life.

Do me a favour. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop whinging. Look around you. There’s enough whingers in the world today, already. Stop it. Please. Stop pitying yourself! If you’re breathing right now, than it means that you’re alive.

You see, when I take my first breath in the morning, I say thank you to my God, my universe and I jump our of bed, asking myself, who am I going to help and serve today! Yep, I do that every single day. Giving thanks constantly for all my blessings … on a daily basis.

If you’re alive than nothing else, in my opinion, tops that. You’re alive! If you feel like whinging, don’t! If that is the case, then, you’re enjoying some degree of health and vitality. Just for a second or two, put yourself in to the shoes of the many millions of people around the world that are suffering. Every single second. You cannot and should not complain about life, then!

Love life and it will love you back.

Be YOU.
As YOU are.
Accept the uniqueness … and weirdness that you know you are.
Embrace YOU.
Never imitate.

Keep dreaming

I tell anyone that wants to listen that the mind is the most powerful tool that we all have. You become what you habitually think all day. You effectively create to a certain degree, your own horoscope. Your own luck. You are constantly becoming what you are thinking about every waking moment – so it is very important to focus and put your concentration on things and habits that will add to your life. To your feeling of self-worth.

You need to be clear on your desires or dreams and FOCUS on these and not on fears.

So, watch your thoughts. Keep dreaming.

Hold your dreams steadfastly in your mind and focus on them. Let go your fears. Let go ALL fears. Fears do nothing but cause unnecessary stress in your life and this may cause anxiety, depression, ulcers and all sorts of diseases. Stresses, uncontrolled and mis-managed manifests itself in the physical, in the form of diseases, and part of this management comes down to self-awareness as you should also know what your stress tolerance levels are, too.

Its important to keep dreaming. Why? Because they are effectively goals. What are goals? Dreams with a deadline. Set your goals. Set your game plan. Set your game plan or course in the sea of life. Set it with worthwhile goals that are progressive and realistic. Notice, I have said progressive or incremental and realistic. It is very easy when setting goals to not address this two very important factors. Without satisfying these two factors, ones dreams is merely wishful thinking or worse still, delusional thinking.

Very common in the world today. You see it live and well on social media, tv reality programs and just daily living. People struggling to differentiate between positive goal setting and thinking and delusional thinking.

Those who dream … to be different … and aim to share their unique selves with the world, to help … get the love back in return.

Setting goals

I find it easier to put my goals down on paper.

I do it around this time of the year for the next year. Work this in to your New Year’s Resolutions if you’re setting some for 2014. You don’t need to tell anyone. Just you. For you. Try it. Put in down on paper and write down specific daily tasks and weekly and monthly that are aligned to your mean and end goals.

Your subconscious mind and the universe will conspire to help your achieve your goals. Just try it (setting goals, that is) and see. However, this needs discipline but if your heart is in it, if your heart is anything, you will find that you will almost likely achieve the dream or goal.

Real discipline as I see it is being able to imagine you have already achieved the goal even if you haven’t yet. Discipline in the physical daily habits is one thing. Discipline in simulating in your mind the achievement of it is another. This is not easy. Matter of fact this is darn right difficult. It takes a lot of practise. Your brain has to be re-wired or hard-wired and this is done by deliberate practise. It is worth achieving though. It deserves practise.

“Why? ” I hear you ask –

Allow your mind to ”connect’ with infinite intelligence.
With consciousness.
It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.
The subconscious mind is part of the ‘mind’
Question is: what does the conscious mind do that the subconscious mind doesn’t

Instant gratification

Because, I believe one of the biggest problems facing human-kind today is ill-discipline of the mind.

You can see it everywhere in everyone’s insatiable desire for instant gratification. No one believes in delayed gratification anymore. No one believes in the old fashioned value of ‘patience’ anymore. Its great for business and commerce, as youngsters want the latest gadgets – NOW, not tomorrow or next month. Now!

Lack of discipline. Lack of mental discipline. This is why discipline is necessary. Because discipline, as I have read somewhere in the past, is the ability to ‘practise within, when you are without’. We can summarize this very important philosophy on the achievement of goals in life like this:

Visualization + heart + effort + internalization = Realization.

As I close on this blog, keep in mind, amongst your many other archived thoughts, that you, yes, you are no more than the accumulated picture of your thoughts and actions.

I. AM.
GOD?

So, if you haven’t already thought about this yet, I learned from a wise man once that we –

“have to be very careful of our thoughts, as this determines our actions; be careful of your actions as it determines your habits; be careful of the habits you adopt, as it determines your character; and finally, be aware of your character as it determines your destiny.”

If you want to be loved, be loveable

So, you see, where you end up in life begins and ends in your mind. Become a better manager of your mind, my friend. Become an expert at managing your mind. What you achieve out of life and where you end up in life, depends heavily on it.

It does not matter which race you are, what creed or place in society you were born in to, understand one basic and critically important life rule:

“If you want to be loved, be loveable. If you want respect, set a respectable example!”

My early days in the catholic church taught me that one should treat others as you want to be treated. I’m certain other religions teach a similar thing. Matter of fact, I think, even if you didn’t belong to any religion, you would innately, think the same. I try and apply this every day. Great and simple teaching I think. Try it. See what happens.

Love life and life may just love you back, better.

I hope you believe in hope. It is a great word that encompasses many good things. Things like faith, courage, good, love etc. Its all encompassing. Just like the universe is. Anyway, I would like to wish all you readers the best that HOPE has to offer you, Each and every one of you, in 2014. Your hope for a better you. Your hope for a better future. Your hope for a better life. Whatever it is. Your hope is dependent on you. On your thoughts. On you mind.

Your Homework: Quiet your mind.

Until next time.

 

Cheers & Ahoy!

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate Evangelist Muscled Monk … & habits

Life is like a Merry-go-round … we’re all turning round and round … within seat-belts, and boundaries

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Energy

Should you use Force or Power?

Interesting question, isn’t it? What would you choose? Which one would yield a better probability of success, all things being equal? To answer this, lets attempt to try and define what Force is. What Power is. Lets try …. Without googling it.

The first thought that comes to my head when I read or hear the word Force, I think of the definition provided to me years ago, in my Year 11 Physics class in High School. If I remember correctly, Force is the product of a body’s mass multiplied by the acceleration that is acting on it. Put simply, in Physics terminology, the formula is:

Force (N) = Mass (kg) x A (acceleration)

where A is gravity acting on the mass, which is about 9.8m.s.s

That’s a little bit of Classical Physics for you.

There are many more definitions of Force. Maybe, we don’t need to go in to definitions. Maybe, its better if we just chat about it.

What about Power. How would you define it? You can see it when it happens – on the sporting field or arena. I particularly, love the power exhibited by sprinters in the 100 m dash – short, very intense and very powerful. There are people who possess more Power than others in all sorts of ways – economic, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical, amongst many others. We see examples of it in action every day – on the roads to work or school, on tv, with our friends and family etc … examples of power-play, every day.

I will make a bold statement to say that the universe favors the latter, Power.

A bold statement indeed.

Do you believe in karma? Do you believe that the universe registers everything? Do you believe the universe never forgets? Do you do unto others you would like to be done on to you? Do you think you would have to accept responsibility for every thought, word, and deed you generate for the entire time you’re physical body graces the earth? Do you think, in this sense, that maybe, just maybe, you or we create our own heaven or hell? Some people call it purgatory. It does not matter if you’re religious or not, you would have heard about heaven or hell by now.

How about if I told you that my bold statement reflects exciting new areas of theoretical Physics, that everything in the universe is connected with everything else. Wow, you’re kidding, right? Nope. Am not. It is now a Scientific fact that every act or decision we make, every ripple we create, generates a magnetic field that either enhances your life and lives or it takes away from it. The ripple we created returns to us, giving off a certain energy pattern. A certain frequency. We all know it as ‘karma’.

You could say, from a religious point of view, that every word, thought is known and recorded forever. There are no secrets; nothing is hidden. Our spirits stand naked in time for all to see – everyone’s life, is accountable to the universe. This is very similar to what I learned in Sunday School growing up as a child, that there is one God. He alone is God. He alone is the judge. Science is now saying that God could be … omnipresent … could be everywhere … could be, just could be … the universe. I don’t know. No one knows yet. This is not meant to discriminate against on-christian believers, it is just a statement of deduction, supported by science.

Now, back to Power.

How does Power arise? It seems that Power arises from meaning or purpose. From the Heart. This is why you need to spend a bit more time thinking about your life, what it represents and the extent of influence you would like to leave behind in this world, when you’re gone. How do you do that? Find your purpose or meaning in life. Search high. Search low. Search everywhere. Search your soul. It could be the most important few minutes/hours/days you spend for the rest of your life. Find your purpose. Do it now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not after Christmas. Do it now.

Does Power have motive? I think it does. Power is probably more appealing to us, as human beings. Why? Because, it just is. Personally, I prefer Power over Force, any day. For example, I prefer the Powerful humming sound of a Harley Davidson motorbike to a small speedster. You hear Power when it comes towards you.

Power does not seem to need justification, does it? Force, on the other hand, must always be justified. Think back to your own life, with your own examples of Force or Power. Let me help you jolt your memory with a few more thoughts.

With Power, it seems, no movement is required. Back to my opening Physics formula, you can see that for a Force to happen, it needs to be moved or move. Essentially, Force is a movement – from point A to point B (or tries to) against opposition. You see, Force, automatically, creates a counter-force. Power, on the other hand, doesn’t do this. It is still. Its constant. Its all encompassing. A good example would be something we’re all familiar with –  gravity. A standing field, that doesn’t move against anything. Its immense Power moves all objects within its field, but the gravity field itself does not move.

So, we can see that Power is complete and total. Gravity, for example, does not need anything from outside. It does not need to be fed. Unlike Force, which is always moving, always moving against something. Force has an insatiable appetite as it needs to be fed all the time.

In Year 11 Physics all those years ago, if I remember correctly, every force produces an equal and opposite force. If this is correct, and it is, as we have millions of examples, happening in our daily lives, then, we could say that its ultimate effect is to polarize. Now, if there is a counter-force which leads to polarization, we then have a situation. And what situation would this be? Well, we would create a situation of conflict and as we all know, conflict spells trouble. Trouble most of us don’t need more of in our lives. Conflicts in life inevitably results in somebody losing out and this leads to enemies being created. Constantly faced with enemies can drain you, can suck the life out of you … as you repeatedly have to defend yourself, cover yourself and ‘watch your back’. As you can see, Force requires constant defense. Defensiveness is very costly, whether in politics, personal affairs or the marketplace. It is quite evident in international affairs and the extent of costs associated with countries in conflict.

Ultimately, a source of power is that it is just, “is”! Plain and simple. It just, is. Nothing added. What do you think? It just, is. No extras with that. Only a week ago, one of the greatest individuals that ever walked the face of this earth, passed away. Mr Nelson Mandela. Now he is a great example of an individual that was just Power Personified. His life was lived with purpose, appeared to be one of which was to raise awareness to the world that all men are created equal and that human rights are intrinsic to human creation. This very concept was the source of power for another great human being exuding power: Mahatma Gandhi. These were men that lived by the native principles of our civilization which were noble and not selfish. You could say the same for others like Jesus Christ, Buddha, Krishna and Mother Theresa. There are probably many others you could think of.

I also believe that True Power also, ultimately, evolves or springs from consciousness itself. You see it everywhere. I elaborate on the idea of ‘consciousness’ in my previous blog on ‘mindless’. Have a read if you get a chance. True Power, ultimately, rests or resides in YOU. The question you’ve got to ask yourself is “who are YOU?”. More on that one very important question in a later blog, but for now, just be more aware of you, your environment – internal and external. Power is everywhere. What you are seeing is the physical manifestation of the invisible, just like the body is the physical manifestation of the mind.

How do you want to live? Are you living with meaning? With purpose? Do you want to? Why is this important? Would you like to know how you could live your life with more purpose, more meaning? For one thing, you need to live your life by life principles, and not live without intangibles like pride, honor, love, compassion and valor. One needs to align oneself with the search for balance and beauty or aesthetics. Force does not bring you joy, but Power does. People who align themselves with enhancement and embodiment of beauty, with whatever instrument (musical, sculptor, the human body), vitality and longevity. Wouldn’t we all want to strive towards that?

Yes, I think it would be wise to do so.

So, it follows, that it would be wiser to adopt a philosophy of Power than that of Force. You don’t want to learn everything in your short life on this lovely earth – first hand. Life is too short to try and experience everything first hand anyway. I remember certain older family members saying when I was a kid, especially when it came to exotic foods, “Paul, you won’t know until you try it”. Well, I thought that was the case for a long time, for most things in life. Philosophies change and years of experience has taught me that there are things I know I don’t want to try, simply because I know I don’t want it. I don’t need it. Simply because I am more aware of who I am now than I was, say, when I was a fifteen year old teenager. I know the person who lies behind the eyes that I see when I look at myself in the mirror (I have elaborated on this topic in a previous blog). I don’t need to try something to see if I like it.

Knowing you, helps you know what you need and what you want. Differentiating between the two (a need and a want) can be very difficult for some. The philosophy you base your viewpoints and decisions on will aid in this. Choosing to use Power over Force in your life, will ultimately add to your life. Not subtract from it.

Choose Power over Force to enhance and add to your life. Add to your universe. Add to all Life.

Making choices is part of life. Choices have risks. These risks have consequences. These consequences determines the path you head down in life. Do you make your own path in life? One that resonates with your heart, with your dreams, with your imagination. Do you take a path less traveled, like the path of Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi, a path of purpose or do you take a well-trodden path, one which appears safer because the majority is doing it – one without a purpose, like a ship floating in the ocean of life, without a rudder and sails, moving aimlessly, where the currents take you?

Choosing Power may help you navigate your ship in the sea of life, better. Getting to your destination a little quicker, and safer, despite the changing currents.

You find purpose when you adopt a philosophy of Power. Not Force.

Choose well. It is your life, after all.

Until next time.

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