I was doing a priming session with a friend today and we were discussing focus and energy. He has just commenced a new relationship and is very excited about it, and focused on it. This is a great thing, and he is really enjoying the friendship and love that he is creating. He is focused so much on this relationship that it has taken up all of his time. He is not currently employed or studying and is solely enjoying the relationship. This heavy investment into the relationship is creating a situation in which he has depleted most of his savings. Reality struck home when he realised that the funds were getting low, and he needed some extra money for upcoming events and challenges. The bar for a Man is to be a leader, lover and provider. Whilst he is hitting the mark by being a lover, this is only one of the three areas in which he needs to take care of if he is going to be truly happy, and if he is going to have a happy partner. As an excellent lover, he is able to provide love and tenderness to his girlfriend, however this alone will not put…
There are three resistors to mental effectiveness. They are fear, laziness and limited self-belief. I wanted to write a little about fear. In particular the fear of failure. Fear can be good or bad depending on the context. Fear can keep us safe, but fear can also prevent us from achieving our potential. Fear of failure in business can cause one to shy away from making an attempt, taking risks, or having a go. Failure can lead to financial setbacks, or great loss such as foreclosure, or bankruptcy. Many people have started businesses, only to go out of business. Fear stops people from taking out a loan to grow the business, spending money on advertising or employing staff. Fear can and will keep you from getting started, and fear can also keep the business small. Fear of failure in relationships may prevent us from being open to the possibility of a relationship. Those in a relationship may find that they unconsciously self-sabotage that relationship, or reject the other person first, for fear that they themselves will be rejected. Failure to meet our responsibilities in a relationship may likewise be costly. If we neglect our relationship in the pursuit…
Leadership is essential to every organisation and the world needs more teachers and leaders. I fervently believe that in order to build strong teams, we need strong leaders. These leaders must have qualities, attitudes and beliefs consistent with organisational values if we are to promote improved performance. A leader is not the one who can do the work of 10 men, rather it is one who can get those 10 men to do their work. In the book the psychology of winning author Dennis Waitley described that 3 resistors halt our progress. Laziness, fear and limited self-belief. However I believe there are 3 principles that enable a business leader to get the best out of others. 1/ Money. People need to be paid for what they do, and paid well. Most organisations in the developed world have a very good payment structure and employees are paid well. The only exception here is those involved with unpaid charity organisations or churches, where the reward is spiritual fulfillment. 2/ Autonomy and Mastery. Autonomy relates to extending trust to employees, and allowing for growth in their decision making muscles. Mastery is about improvement and development. Many organisations allow for creative vision, forward thinking employees and training and…
I had a conversation with my wife yesterday in which she described to me a friend that she has who is suffering with the effects of depression. She told me that her friend stated that she was standing in the kitchen when she suddenly felt negative chemicals release in her brain, followed by a flood of negative thoughts and feelings. She described how real these negative thoughts and feelings are, and how real the chemicals are. Furthermore it was the chemicals that started the whole process. If it was not for that negative chemical release she would feel different, and even happy. As my wife told me this story I reflected on the experience which the last year of my life has given. The last year of my life has been a positive and happy year for me and I thought about what had made it so. I also thought about the stark contrast in my experience of life, compared with someone who suffers from depression. This is a sensitive topic and I will therefore speak about it from my experience. I have suffered depression. I went through a divorce many years ago and I felt deeply the failure and…
I have been thinking recently of something I once heard from a religious leader by the name of Gordon Hinkley say. I’ve tried to look up this quote on the internet, yet have been unable to find it. My memory is excellent and it was such a bold statement that I committed it to memory straight away. The comment is this, “if every man and every woman would do everything they could to look after the needs of his or her companion, there would be very little, if any divorce”. I have thought about this quote a great deal over the past several months. Since the establishment of AccessWorldSeminars my focus has not been on my relationship as my number 1 priority. I certainly have not been doing all I could to ensure that the needs of my wife are being met. The first thing I needed to do, was uncover the needs of Rebecca my wife. I began to studying the needs of a woman, and the needs of a man. As I studied I found conflicting opinions, yet I soon discovered some needs that actually work in almost all situations, and with almost all women. These are fundamental…
Life can be emotionally challenging at times. It can be hard to enjoy life when we feel like we have failed, or we feel like we let ourselves and others down. One way to mitigate failure is to take fewer risks, or to take smaller risks. One way to achieve this is by not trying. Another way is to shrink and become insignificant. When you have failed at something that you did not put much effort into, the failure seems to be not so bad. The failure is half expected. Limited emotional investment, is the unconscious minds natural built in protection against negative emotions. When things are not going well, we will find a way to protect ourselves from intense negative emotions. After all, the build up of these intense negative emotions can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions. Our unconscious mind knows this and wants to help is. This is achieved by shutting down the feeling component of our nature. The issue with the is that by shutting down our emotions and eliminating these negative feelings, our positive feelings are also affected. One woman described her experience of life was like being a ‘zombi’. She told…
If you want to be great, be grateful. The world is full of highly successful people, who have accumulated a lot of money, a lot of property, a lot of material possessions and a lot of knowledge. You do not have to travel far to discover that some of these people, though wealthy, are not happy in their core. They are not living a life of fulfillment. The same rings true for the poor and destitute. Some have very meager means and yet radiate happiness and fulfillment, yet others are weighed down by the troubles of life. Fulfillment really has little to do with prosperity. It has everything to do with how grateful we are, and there are some very basic and logical reasons for this. For some Happiness does indeed come from money. This is only up to a point. Once our needs and some of our wants have been met there is no more happiness to be found in money. Therefore we must look to find happiness in some other way. As we consider the contrast between the fulfilled, and unfulfilled, let us consider the 4 ways that gratitude leads to a fulfilling life. For the past year…
I have a friend at work who explained to me that he went to a property development seminar many years ago. He further explained that he played to win and he wanted to believe that he could create wealth and make a lot of money in property. He explained that he paid over a thousand dollars to do the course, and at the end of the course he was invited to go to another course that cost $5000. At that point he pulled out and he was very glad that he did. He learned several years later that the seminar leader was imprisoned for property fraud. This whole experience taught him that self development seminars do not work. He had wasted time and money, and this fraudulent seminar leader had lied, cheated and was corrupt. This created a reference point in his mind for all self improvement seminars. Furthermore the principles and ideas taught in the seminar never did one bit of good for him. He had lost, and so do most people who attend a seminar. His philosophy is as follows. ‘They lose. They don’t change. They are still the same, and that’s just the way it…
I love my wife so very much. I think that she is incredible. Her insight and understanding is remarkable. Often we will sit and discuss things that I have been studying for weeks only to discover that she had been trying to teach me the principle I had just learned for years. A friend at work once told me, “When the student is ready, the master will appear”. I guess that as a student I was not ready for the ideas or principles that my wife has been painstakingly striving to teach me. However, over time I slowly began to understand things on a higher level. I became ready. Over time I had put myself into a position in which I could learn, really learn. How slowly do we learn? In my experience it is very slowly. I had a vision open up to my mind that revealed to me how little progress I had made in my life. To me it was a shock, as I had previously thought that I was doing really well. I was proud of the changes I had made, and believed that I was making great progress. In reality, I am boxed in by…
There are a great deal of people who believe that their product or service is great value. The value of any service or product is not always reflected in the sales. It is not always reflected in revenue or profits. It is not always received in the manner intended, neither does it always live up to its promises. The strength and value of a product or service is only as good as its ability to be measured, weighed in the balance and compared. When a product is tested against other products, this yields quantifiable results. For example a vacuum cleaner can be tested to see how much dust it collects. A cleaning product can be tested to see how shiny a surface becomes, and a knife could be tested for its ability to remain sharp after excessive use. A product can therefore be tested, measured, evaluated and reviewed. A service in the form of education or up-skilling is somewhat different. We have moved into the Information Age, and the value of knowledge has never been higher. Ideas and concepts, though intangible, hold the key to health, wealth, and success. Information cannot be quantified, weighted or tested in the same way…