Breathing Life - Joshua Roy's Blog

Contacted a friend today and learned that something incredible has happened in his life.  He in in the process of purchasing a home for him and his small family.  To me this was great news.  He sounded very happy and excited about this new project.  It sounded like he was making real progress in his life.   He told me that he had been eating more healthily and had made changes in many areas of his life.  What added more to my surprise was that he told me that these changes (health commitment, financial commitment to purchase a home) all began after he attended an Access World introductory seminar in 2015.   Something that he saw and heard impacted him in a profound way.  He had made a commitment to make these change during the seminar, and he felt great about his ability to create a compelling future for himself and his family.   One of the exercises that was taught at the introductory seminar is the State Elicitation script.  This is a process whereby I asked each person to recall a time each participant felt absolutely confident.  I then asked them to imagine the scene in which they were…

I have been thinking a lot about values over the last couple of days.   Values are simply judgements about something.  Judgements are split into two categories.  The first is made up of things that you may like.  The second is made of things you may dislike.  The reasons or judgments about why you like or dislike that thing is a key in determining your set of values.   For example; You may like exercise.  You may dislike running. You may like eating fish.  You may dislike Lamb shanks. You may like self-improvement.  You may dislike religion. You may like computer games.  You may dislike public speaking.   Our likes and dislikes create feelings, attitudes and beliefs.  These feelings, attitudes and beliefs result in us finding certain attributes or qualities important to us and our life.  As we consider what is important in a certain area of life we are in fact thinking about our values.   One of the best ways of eliciting values from a person is to ask the question.  What is important to you in that area?   As an example if you wanted to know what your physical fitness values were, you might ask yourself…

I attended a meeting on leadership principles.  In this meeting I was asked to come up to the front of the room with 2 other people.  While at the front of the room two of us were asked to grab the arms of the third person, one on one side and the second on the other.  I obediently grabbed onto the left arm of this man.  We were then asked to pull which we did.   Pointing to the man in the middle the speaker made this point.  He stated that we all represented the man the middle being pulled in two different directions.  He stated that we need to resist and remain on track and focussed, and have a constant battle within ourselves in order to make good choices.   Obviously he was talking about the conflict that exists between the conscious mind and the unconscious man.  In religion it is referred to as the conflict between good and evil.  The conflict between God and the devil.  The conflict between light and darkness.  The natural man and the spiritual man.   What if we reached a point in our minds and hearts in which there was no internal conflict? …

I thought that I would take the time to write a short blog about the six human needs.   These needs are common to all human beings who enjoy the human experience.   While these needs relate to every person, they may be sequenced and ordered differently according to the values and beliefs of each individual.   The first human need is the need for certainty.  This need grows out of the desire to know what we know.  For example we know that the sun will rise in the morning.  We know that Breakfast is the first meal of the day.  We know where we live, and who we live with. This knowledge keeps us safe and secure.  This knowledge stabilises our world and enables us to take comfort and have trust in the predictable aspects of our lives.   The second human need is the need for uncertainty.  This need is often called variety.  Too much certainty and predictability make for a condition in which there is no surprises in life.  This would make for a boring and unfulfilling life.  Without an occasional surprise, and without the challenges of uncertainty in life, the forging of our character would be null…

There is a genuine excitement that occurs when something magical happens.  These are the times that I genuinely lose myself in the excitement and the complete euphoria of the moment is overwhelming.  These moments do not happen every time that I make a conscious effort to get excited.  I have found that I now have the capacity to create excitement whenever I choose.  I did an experiment where I was able to hold myself at the peak level of excitement today for a full 10 minutes straight.  It was not the jumping euphoria, rather it was a feeling of being in a peak state.  Up until now I have found that the feeling of excitement generally only holds itself at a peak for about 30 seconds unless I keep the feeling energised by moving and jumping.  Today I created excitement and had the feeling intensify in my body and held it at the same intensity by turning an imaginary control nob up to amplify the feeling each time I felt like the feeling was about to exit the peak state and begin to decline.  By imagining this control switch I was able to keep the intensity of the feeling high…

There are people in the world who revel in other people’s misery.  They constantly laugh about those in hardship, or those who are a worse position than themselves.  Kind words of encouragement do not escape their lips, rather they are critical and happy that another is on lower ground than they themselves appear to be. Am I happy when I find someone in hardship?  Absolutely.  I get excited.  In fact the more problems you have the more excited I become. Here is why. Working with a client who is hitting home runs and making things happen is great.  My role with such a person is to offer a little bit of steering and a little guidance. Contrast that with a client who is pathetic. There are some people who have so many challenges that it makes a mine field feel like a patch of paradise. I met with a man who was overweight.  He was struggling financially.  Had no job.  His marriage was on the rocks.  He was struggling with depression.  He had no direction or purpose in life. THAT GOT ME SO EXCITED.  This is such a happy moment for me because I know that as a life coach…

I found this acronym for Focus whilst surfing the internet.  FOCUS could stand for “Follow on Course Until Successful”.   Brian Tracey once stated that if you could focus all of your attention on a watch face without diversion or distraction for an entire minute, you could accomplish anything you want in life”.   When I think of focus I am reminded of the laser beam.  The word LASER is also an acronym that stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation.   When the marvellous power of light is compressed and shot through a laser it becomes incredibly powerful.  So powerful in fact, that the laser beam can cut through solid steel.   In the same way, when we as human beings focus all of our attention in a direction we become a powerful force in the universe.   The question is how do we do this?  How do we focus wholeheartedly on one thing without diversion or distraction?   One may think that the answer to this question is practice.  The answer for some could be to double your effort.  The answer to another could be commitment.   Practice, effort and commitment will help, however all of…

There are two major inhibitors to creating change in our lives.  They are Time and Money.  Let us consider both of these inhibitors.   The first inhibitor is time.  Each of us the same amount of time in our day.  We are all blessed with the same 24 hour period each day that we must decide how to spend.  The reason ‘time’ and ‘spend’ can be used in the same sentence is that time is a resource much like money.  Some hold the belief that time=money.  In other words they see their time as an investment that produces profit and income.  For some, extra socialising, too many parties and abundant holidays are a waste of time, and therefore a waste of money.   Time is a resource that is bound by laws of the universe.  There is nothing that we can do on this planet to change the amount of time available to us.  These constraints do not allow for manipulation or denial.  All that we can do is accept that time will continue to tick away regardless or our desires, feelings or any other factor.  Time is a limited resource and commodity.   Some of the greatest minds and…

I was life coaching a woman who was allowing her husband to continually push her buttons.  She was separated and soon to be divorced.  This woman had explained to me that just seeing her husband sent her into a tail spin. I had her imagine that he was in front of her now.  Her whole body changed.  The look on her face changed.  Her shoulders drooped, the corners of her mouth pulled toward the ground and she almost looked as though she was physically ill.  (She had created an anchor that when she saw him {or imagined she saw him} negative feeling entered her body). It was obvious to me that she was giving up her personal power and allowing herself to be effected emotionally to a large degree.  As many do, she was trapped in blame.  She was very busy blaming him for the way the relationship was turning out. I was planning at this point to have a lengthy conversation to help her understand that she was creating the feelings in her body.  That she was completely responsible for her feelings of anger, frustration and hurt etc.  (She created these feelings again while I was with her just…

As we travel through life each of us has to deal with feelings of loneliness.  These feeling may result from loss of a loved one, separation from friends or a situation in which a person may feel disconnected from people in their lives. Relationships are vital to our feeling connected with others and enjoying a happy and productive life.  It is interesting to me that some men and women comment that they do not have any friends.  They do not really know how to connect with other people, or how to establish a long term relationship.   Others can connect with other people in the short term, however they feel like they cannot maintain a long term relationship.  For yet others there seems to be no necessity in their mind to connect with others.  There is no driving passion compelling them to have rich friendships. Wherever you are on your journey in life, if there are ever feelings of loneliness, I believe that this feeling is prompted by a yearning in our soul to have deep and rich relationships. I have learned about really connecting with the people in our lives.  What I have recently become aware of is that experiences…