Breathing Life - Joshua Roy's Blog

I had a brilliant student in one of my workshops state that there are only 3 ways to use time.  He said that we can sell our time, invest our time or waste our time. As I have thought about this comment, and looked back on my life I realise that I have wasted so much time.  In fact even when I was selling my time and investing my time, at the core often I was wasting my time. The biggest reason for this is my reluctance, or resistance to planning.  Planning takes time.  Planning takes mental focus and energy. Planning is a vital part of all success, and it is a principle that successful people understand and live.  Planning is not only goal setting. It’s not only about the big picture. It is about all the small details. It is about the moments in our lives, and making those small moments count. Whilst I understand the importance of planning, often I feel like it is a waste of time because I am so focussed on taking action.  However planning is an important aspect of ‘sharpening the saw’. My brother in law and I were using an electric chainsaw that was…

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…

There was once a young woman who had finished her degree, and she was asked by a leader to describe her experience in one word. She paused as she thought of an appropriate answer. As he was waiting the leader thought of a number of words that he would use to deprive such an achievement. He thought of the word faith, and the word discipline. After a pause, she said “the word is commitment”. Commitment is far greater than involvement. I will use a story to illustrate. There was once a politician in a small town who was in the running to become the Mayer. He knew that it was important for him to have influential people by his side. He knew of a farmer who was well respected and decided that he needed this farmer to be on side. He believed that someone with that amount of influence could sway the vote in his favor. He took a trip into the country and visited with the farmer. The farmer listened quietly while he put forward his policies and spoke about what impact could be have on local economy and the future of their small town. The farmer expressed that…

I have been contemplating a course of behaviour that is not sitting well with me. I can pretend the situation does not exist and yet In The final analysis it is a real situation and it does exist.  Insurance fraud is a concern in our country and making false claims is against the law.  On the other side of the argument is the practices that exists with insurance companies, and their assessment processes.  As I converse with others it is evident that having a claim make it all the way through the claims process can be a nightmare. There is often technical differences from the insurance company itself.  For example one man stated that he took out insurance on a new car and paid this extra cost for peace of mind.   Within 3 months some major things happened that led to a fault within the engine of the car.  He then contacted his insurance and they refused to help.  He expressed to me that insurance gave him false peace of mind, and yet he has discovered now that the insurance he took out had no value for that situation.  He expressed to me that he is currently going through…

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…

You may not realise this but you are a storyteller. We all are. With ever action you take, with every word you speak and even your very presence tells a story. This story is being written every minute of every day. Just like almost every book, there is a main character. That main character is you. You have a past, a present and a future. There past is already written, and yet the past may not actually be an accurate rendition of events and situation because those events are filtered through perceptual filters, false associations and limited understanding. In other words we make meaning of events and situations that may be more imagined than real. Please understand that the events are real, yet our memory and interpretation of these events may be grossly inaccurate.  These filters can effect our perception of reality of a situation so profoundly, that the memory may be completely inaccurate and even unrecognisable.  To really understand this try reading both sides of domestic violence dispute, or getting versions at at traffic accident, or listen to someone tell a story about a situation that you were there for. It is always fun hearing someone tell a story…

Often when we are honest with ourselves, we realise that stories are a critical factor in life.  The stories that we tell ourselves affect our experience of life.  This experience can be positive or negative, based on the stories we choose to believe.  I say ‘choose to believe ‘  for a reason. It does matter what we believe. Our beliefs are foundational to the results that holding onto those beliefs produce in our lives.  The creation of our world is a construct based on our beliefs. Einstein said, “we are boxed in by the boundary conditions of our thinking”. For example, I believe that empowerment is the best way to live.  I believe that empowerment enables a person to take control of their life, and consciously and deliberately create the future they want.  This to me is critical, and therefore I spend time and energy planning my work, my relationships, and my physical body through self-development.  I also teach others how to take control of their unconscious expectations of the future, and reduce those things that they don’t want and increase those things that they do want.  I also believe that teaching is another form of learning, and so I teach for the…

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…