The Path I Choose

What If My Best Isn't Good Enough?

2012-01-07T18:44:00.004Z

It's a common question at the root of many people not even trying. They have a goal or a dream, their heart races and they have images of what it would be like to succeed, what it would look like if their dream came true. It's beautiful. Doing something that you love, your passion, for the rest of your life. AND you get paid for it. Then they take the first tentative steps and then someone laughs. "YOU'RE GOING TO WHAT? BUT YOU'RE...." And suddenly the first unplanned obstacle rears its head. And you question yourself. What if my best just isn't good enough?

Indeed, many 'reality' TV shows thrive on this. Sitting there mocking and gawking as some person gives it their all because they believe in their talent but it falls wickedly short of what we think. Then there's the transformation shows, of people and houses. "We took this dumpy hausfrau that we transformed physically and mentally in to something unrecognisable..." For the better? Perhaps. I don't feel comfortable with the message the children receive when they don't recogise their own mother. "What about this house? We've taken it and changed it in 24 hours. What do you think?" Yes, the shows seem to indicate that unless your undertaking is nothing short of Herculean in time and scale, why bother? (His original Greek name is Heracles, by the way.)

So let me give you this quote from Maryanne WIlliamson from "A Course In Miracles":“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

To you, your best will always be good enough provided you can put your hand on your heart and say "Yes, I gave it my best at the time." I say at the time because new knowledge and circumstances will arrive that may change your perception of the event. If you are doing something that you love, do it because you love it and be your own judge. If you hand over judgement to someone else, listen without prejudice and make sure that the judge is someone that you respect. “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.” Mark Twain. Say this may not be the path that everyone walks but this is The Path I Choose

Do we really know what we want?

2011-11-17T21:23:00.001Z

Henry Ford is famously quoted for saying "If I asked the people what they want, they would have asked for a better horse." Funny but probably true. There is a paradox in choice where, at some point, there is too much choice and people just take anything.

In this funny but educational video, Malcom Gladwell tell us about Howard Moskowitz, an American market researcher and Psychophysicist, who is responsible for Prego's perfect sauces and the creation of "extra chunky"...

It's also interesting becuase it highlights the new commercial, social, and socio-economic thinking; there is no "standard" consumer, we're not robots.

2011-09-12T18:27:00.001+01:00

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This is one of the poems from which I took the company name "The Path I Choose". In this life, we but one traveller so we can only choose one path. This is an incredibly powerful notion, that we can choose our own path. If we believe that, then there are no excuses, no outside forces to blame and we must take full responsibility. Wow, taking full responsibility. It doesn't sit well with a lot of people for myriad reasons but mostly becuase we've learned to surrender a lot of our decision making to others.

It's at the crux of the current financial situation we find ourselves in now. We trusted financial institutions with our money making decisions, we trusted our politicians to govern with integrity and we trusted what we earn to companies that pay just enough to keep you.

So when you stand at a V in the road of life, first consider that you have a choice and then be prepared to stand by it. While many subscribe to the axiom scientia potentia est the truth is knowledge is only powerful if you act on it.

Now, time for my walk...

In God we trust (me I'm not sure about).

2011-05-30T21:14:00.001+01:00

Belief in oneself often comes when we see what we've accomplished. If we don't see what we've done, this can be a stumbling block. This is especially the case when we feel that we're just doing what everyone else is doing anyway. Big "Whoop eee!", I've done the shopping and yet a whole series of events and circumstances have taken place that we just take for granted.

Most, if not all, reading this will have no dis-abilities so there will have been no challenges go to or from the car, drive the car, negotiating the aisles or reaching to the higher shelves. There will have been no curb too high for a wheelchair to overcome or issues carrying the groceries.

Most, if not all, will have no intellectual impediment. You'll have read the labels and the sell-by dates with ease. You'll have made calculated choices about how many steaks to buy for the family and what to make instead for the vegetarian or the vegan in the family. At the till, you'll tender the correct amount or know what change to expect.

You'll know where your car is parked and an you'll know how to get home, a home that you have created through your choices. The neighbourhood, the house, the decor and the storage.

It's easy to take note when something isn't working properly and all too easy not to notice when something is. In personal development we learn to appreciate the now and be grateful and not 'comparative gratitude' (I should be thankful that I'm not...). A gratitude that celebrates what works in our lives, the miracles that happen every day for those who have eyes to see.

Yes, there's a lot to celebrate daily so start by taking note of all the good decisions that you've made during the day. Trust your gut and see what the results are.

I'm always reminded of the scene in the Matrix when Neo, having been shot, is brought back to life and begins to see the fabricated world for what it is. For so long it was someone else's reality and it took a life changing event to make him see otherwise.

Don't wait to 'die' to see how wonderful the world can be through your eyes and through your choices.

We trust in God but we forget that we are of God. Trust that you have been made with great abilities to make great choices (remembering not to be prideful by praising the decision not yourself).

When I Entered The Home Business Arena...

2011-04-29T22:18:00.003+01:00

Over three years ago I started my business. I started it for the money, as you do with business. I had tried several multi-level programmes in the hope that they would turn in to businesses and generate a serious income. I so wanted to leave my jobs and play big. You see, I have a particularly wealthy uncle and aunt who had started their business in the motor car industry from the ground. They are so generous and they don't hesitate to share this life, my cousins too. As much as I love it though, it's not mine. So this was my motivation for starting a business. I was 38 at the time and my goal was to retire by 40.

So, having tried some programmes for which I am truly grateful to have done, I learned my first lesson. It was a simple lesson in mathematics. I failed to calculate how much in sales I would need to generate in order to at least break even. As a result, I was spending more on marketing than I was making in sales. The knock on effect was that I questioned the profit margins of the programme. At the same time, I was trying to recruit to a 'business' website whose training practices were, to be frank, unprofessional. It drives me scatty when I see people do some of those things now but I also remember that I did it once too due to poor leadership.

So I continued my search. At the end of my tether, I must have keyed in "Big profit home business" or something similar to Google. I clicked on a link and took the chance and filled out the contact form. I didn't expect much. So when I got the inital call I was waiting for the 'the hook'. "Give us your credit card details and..." and I had this vision of a woman in curlers in her dressing gown on the couch doing this to several people. But that didn't happen. The call was rescheduled to Monday at 5.30pm (the first call being at 9.00pm on a Friday evening due to them being in the States and I in Ireland). So when I got the call at 5.30pm on Monday (not 5.30ish), I took note. I was dealing with people of integrity. The kind of people that I wanted to be associated with.

After a brief call/interview I got a link sent to me. I'll never forget it. I was blown away by what I heard and saw. Really? Could this be true? I called my wife... could this be true? Here it was, a business, with products, leverage and big, up front profits. It required investment that called for me to step outside my comfort zone, to stop thinking like and employee, the call to play with the rhinos and leave the herd of cows. And I nearly didn't because I didn't particularly like the attitude of my enroller who I thought was abrupt and unfriendly (which I absolutely understand now. This guy was looking for a business partner not someone he had to molly coddle and babysit). Whatever my personal feelings were, I wasn't going to leave that kind of money on the table though. This was franchise level income without the franchise level casts. In I went. Three and a half years ago.

As a by-the-way, the industry the business is in is Personal Development/Entrepreneurial Education and now, positive media too. I can't tell you how much I've grown as a person. Sometimes step-by-step other times by quantum leaps. Identifying what's holding you back is only the start. What I thought was the fire was only the spark. The absolute feeling of serendipity is tempered by the journey you need to take if you want enact change. I'm happier now than ever, which means my parents are happier, my wife is happier, my kids are happier, my friends are happier and people that I haven't even met but catch that constant smile on my face are happier. And yes, I'm making the kind of money that can only be generated by owning a business.

So here's a checklist of questions that I would suggest any would be home based business seeker ask.

Why am I looking? (This has got to be about you and what you want.)
Are there products? (You may think this is an obvious question but believe me, I've seen programs that just call for a cash donation to be made directly with no products.)
What are the profit margins like? (Making 0.05c per sale will require thousands of customers. So how much work will be required to do this? Only you, through practical experience, can answer this. Don't ask anyone else, they won't be running your business.)
Could I make a presentation to a bank for a loan about this business?
Is the compensation plan set up so that could I make more money than the person who enrolled me? (Every organisation is in the shape of a pyramid, EVERY one but in network marketing, through your own efforts, you can make more money than the person who enrolled you.)
What is the training like?
What is the level of investment to return on investment ratio?
Am I prepared to stick this out? (This will depend on your answer to question one.)
Is my goal worthy of my effort? (Don't shrink your dreams to fit your pocket. If you're going to put in the time and the effort, make sure your dream is worth it.)

And here is the most important question that is for no-one else to answer:

Do I believe that I can make this work for ME? (In any compensation plan the 'x', the variable in the equation will always be You, no-one else. So look carefull and solve for 'x'.)

There may be a question that is conspicuous by it's absence "What about liking the product?". I'll tell you that, for me, I had no idea about personal development or what it was about when I started but I'm over the moon about it now. Whatever you turn your hand to, be a product of the product otherwise the only person you'll be short-changing is yourself.

Just Do It!

2011-03-26T20:52:00.000Z

You can make money or you can make excuses but you can't do both. Here, Art Williams from his 1987 address states very clearly what the difference is between winners and losers.

Earl Nightingale defined success as the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal. This means that you are successful as sonn as you make that decision and take that first step. Therefore success IS YOURS TO LOSE. You are already successful and the only way to fail is to quit. It's your choice.

We Are Not Who We Were

2011-02-17T20:06:00.000Z

I was speaking with a friend of mine recently (I say friend, she works in the same business as I do and unless something drastically alters, that's her status!). She had Skyped me wondering about my daily affirmations. I have three at the moment and I tailor them depending on where I want to go. She was having an issue with abundance. She's not alone. Many people feel that if I take something, then there is less of it for someone else. What kind of god would create a world in which we would have to steal from each other in order to survive? She felt that this was reason that she wasn't moving forward as quickly as she would like in her business.

Digging a little deeper, the word 'fear' kept appearing in her dialogue. She was afraid of this and regretted that and wasn't sure she could make that happen because she had made bad choices in the past. Well here's some food for thought; neither the past nor the future have any reality. We can't go back in time and we can't go forward in time (time being the common, linear illusion). What we can do is make a decision in the NOW having learned from the past that will shape our future. So only the NOW has any reality. We can only act in the NOW and shape our future.

So here's the rub, NOW is in a continuous state of change. In personal development we learn to evolve, to release the shackles of our mind that is bad habit. We learn to evolve, to move forward with the time and to embrace change, to morph with it. As we do this, we become entrepreneurs. We discover how read "change" and how to put it to our best use. And I'm not just talking about business, I'm talking about being a father, a son or a brother. I am not the person I was when I wrote nor 5 minutes after you read this.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." said the oft quoted Mr. A. Einstein. And it's true. One of the great pieces of evidence to support this is the lack of mediaeval Starbucks. Ok, so I'm being flippant. We no longer live in caves or have to hunt for our food. This is just change, it's neither good nor bad, it's people who put those tags on them.

To expend energy worrying about your past is about as fruitful as getting stuck in a revolving door so use that energy and brain capacity for something you can influence, a better future for yourself.

Where to now?

2011-01-24T21:52:00.000Z

As you can see from the length between posts, I've had a looooog holiday season with regards to blogging. My attention has been on my business and my role within it. It's been a real eye-opener and I love what I see. It's a revelation that has been three years in the coming. Like an asteroid that was once viewed by a telescope, it's now entered the earth's atmosphere and hit me.

So where to now? Well the new me is sounding different and is using different language, is aware of others but as the great Bob Proctor says (I'm paraphrasing here) other people's opinion of you is none of your business. As I grew up the underlying message that was handed down to me was this question "Do you think that no-one else has thought of that?" and "Empty vessels make the most noise". I believed that I was the same as everybody else, my thoughts, actions and words were nothing new. I learned how to be a socail chameleon. I could fit in anywhere by being anyone which was rarely myself. I would have to listen to others' conversation before I spoke so that I knew how to be in that setting. To my mind it worked. I was caught out a couple of times but hey...

That was then. Over the past three years I've had the time freedom and the curriculum to work on myself. It is a most amazing journey and the great thing is that it never ends. It means that I always have something to look forward to. What a great way to live, evolution.

What a feeling.

2010-12-11T11:47:00.000Z

My daughter is a chuckle monster. She has smiles for everyone and screeches too if you'd like them. She's 8 months old and she love Daddy Bear snuggles before she goes down to sleep.

My son is coming up to two years old. As I work from home, we spend a lot of time together. He has started to get very affectionate and he runs up, grabs my kness and says "Hug, hug". Recently, he just sat on my lap, he was snoozy and didn't say a word but just very gently leaned his cheek in against mine. It was the most amazing feeling.

We are all this age and we are all this loved.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Just One More Spoon...

2010-11-25T14:37:00.000Z

One of the aspects of my life that I really appreciate is that I started my journey of personal development before we had our kids. And one of the reasons for this is that my kids now benefit from it two. They are 22 months and 7 months. Coupled with that, my sister discovered the Glenn Doman method of teaching my niece from a young age. It open up a world for her from a very young age and her mind, to this day, fires on all cylinders. At age 25 she has done a Masters in Theoretical Physics and is in her second year of studying to become and actuary. This also raised the bar for my sister who taught her higher grade maths, herself having failed lower grade maths for her high school graduation. The forerunner to all this being my grandmother who raised eight, very forward looking children. One of them, of course, my mum. So in this short paragraph alone, we can see how one person can cause effect to generations.

But that's only part of the point of my post. Being a product of the product that is the cornerstone of my business, one of the key things it has taught me is to keep my own promises. Now, this may sound like a very simple notion but I think you'll find it's something that many overlook. They are happy to let things slide because 'it's only' for themselves. I remember the first major promise I kept to myself. It wasn't easy because all my friends were going in that direction and, seeing it coming, I had already promised myself that I wouldn't. IT FELT GREAT. As I became better at keeping promises to myself, the by-product was that I became more resolute and my word truly was my bond. It's a great thing to be able to say 'my word is my bond'. It's even better when people realise this to be true.

An off-shoot of this is that I have a great relationship with my children. They trust me to be direct, truthful and factual. I don't point and say that's a dog, I point and say that's a dog, it's called a doberman pinscher or that's a bird, it's called a blue tit. And when we're eating and I say 'Just one more spoon...' they eat it becuase they know I won't push any more on them.

To acquiesce to your child's desires does neither party any favours. One of the great things about the company I work with is that when all the distributors meet up at the live events, they all being products of the product too, there is resolution and positivity. Stephen Covey in his brilliant book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, points out that the best relationships we have are with other independent people. Interdependence through independence. As Barbara Streisand correctly point out in her song, people who need people are the luckiest people... I'd add the caveat "Don't make people a priority if they only make you an option".

Activation Energy - Keep It Simple

2010-11-14T16:09:00.000Z

I like the simple life. By simple I mean uncomplicated. I like it when things work the way they should and I like my path unobstructed and unencumbered. For my business, I like my marketing to be 'set and forget'. I get deals for 3 months at a time or if I'm handing out flyers, you either take on or you don't. My door keys hang from a belt ring from my jeans on a snazzy looking climbing hook and there are only the three that I need. I hang the keys in the same place in the house and leave my sunglasses in a place of their own too. The nappies/diapers, cream and wipes are always kept in the same place and so are the kids. Ok, I'm kidding about that last part.

There's a reason for this and it's not laziness. Keeping things simple allows you to get more done. It frees up your time and your memory to concentrate on other accomplishments. Once a habit is formed (about 21-30 days), it stays with you. It requires little or no thought on your part to make it happen. This also the case with 'muscle memory' or arc reflex. Professional boxers and tennis players alike can perform feats that defy our belief system simple because they are constantly working scenarios that may occur and then coming up with the response. It becomes pretty much automatic. I studied Kenpo Karate myself for years and if someone were to come at me a certain way, before my brain has time to respond, hey presto, my body has already kicked in to action.

I digress slightly. I had the pleasure of hearing Prof. Shawn Achor, major exponent of positive psychology and personal development, speak on a couple of occasions, once in Rome, Italy and once in Kona, the big island of Hawaii. One of top things that I came away with was his story of learning to play the guitar. He noticed that there was a certain scenario in which he practiced more than others and that was when his guitar was in the cradle as opposed to when he had to get it out of the case (next to the cradle). The couple of seconds extra that it would have taken him to take his guitar out of the case tipped that decision.

It's called 'activation energy', the energy required by you to get a task done. To get up to go to the fridge to get ice-cream during a good movie, low energy require. To get up and put on a wash when a good movie is on, high energy required. But let's say, in some situation, you're watching television in the laundry room? Low energy require there, right?

So here's the thing, if you would like to start a new, good habit or skill, make it easy for yourself. If you'd like to eat healthier, fill your presses with the good stuff so it's to hand. If you'd like to be more fit, put your trainers near the couch... You get the picture. We all have high and low activation energy activities but we can tip the energy ratio in our favour by making it easier on ourselves.
Don't struggle, keep it simple!

Good for a laugh and educational. Prof. Martin Seligman, 'father' of positive psychology.

http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html

Let The Greatest Among You Serve

2010-10-29T16:02:00.000+01:00

Yep, it's another quote from one of the earliest and voluminous personal development books, the Bible. Widely read and translated in to several languages, although I've never seen a copy with a big banner across it saying "Over 20 million copies sold!".

Is it possible to have a re-epiphany? You know, when this realisation hit's you out of the blue like the it's the first time but then you remember that it isn't? I had one recently. It came from litening to a friend of mine talk about the circumstances leading up to her current situation which finds her living in a beautiful 2 bed apartment on a Greek island for next-to-nothing. She's really loving life and her business is on fire. Deservedly so.

She was making the point that she had put others first for so long that she had lost track of what made her happy. She wasn't begrudging, it was an observation. So many of us do it, especially parents. I'm not saying neglect your kids, that's the extreme but I am saying look after yourself and don't forget to put yourself first.

My kids aren't really mine, I'm minding them for God for when they grow up to be their own person. So the onus is on me to be the best person that I can be becuase I would like the children to surpass me and my accomplishemnts. So if I set the bar high... you get the picture.

So where does that put me? Well if I'm going to lead by demonstartion I'm going to have to be the best me that I can be. And who wins ultimately by campaign for success? Well, everyone around me. A wise man was told me "The best way to help the poor is to not be one of them." I heard it but I didn't really understand until recently. If IAM poor how can I help other poor people? What resources do I have? And let me add this, there is no virtue in poverty. So let me put my goals first, let's have the bigger house, the newer, nicer and safer car and let's travel with our kids to broaden their minds. Let's be the best that we can be for glory of living.

"Did you have a good life when you died? Enough to base a movie on?" Jim Morrison.

Ego a go-go

2010-10-09T15:47:00.000+01:00

Transcending the Levels of Consciousness is a book that's had a huge impact on my life. It has helped me so much on my journey through personal development. It has helped me to understand so much about myself, my interactions with others and the hidden determination of human behaviour. The paradox is that the more I learn, the less I care to remember.
The main stumbling block to happiness in many people's lives is their ego. The best way I can describe the ego in my own words is an identity and self of self that evolves through the years as we grow. It's triggered when we take offence or mis-interpret praise (it is the act or deed that is good, not the person). It rears it's head when we feel self-satisfied or prideful. It's the rage we feel when someone cuts us off in traffic or we feel like someone is treating us like an idiot. Am I making sense? lol
It's a fine line that takes practice because when you do a good deed that isn't self-serving, it is a great feeling. It takes practice. The ego is responsible for a lot of our sorrow, wars and strife. It's becuase of ego that Hitler felt he could take over the world, that Saddam felt he could not toppled and it's responsible for road rage. I casues anger when we don't get the attention that we look for. At the end of the day, I think Alfred Einstein said it best when he said "Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."

Your Goals

2010-09-21T21:10:00.000+01:00

Steering away from the partial negativity of my last post and getting back to shorter posts, I thought I'd throw this log on the fire and see who warms their hands on it. (I thought I'd use this kind of parlance due to Wall Street II the movie coming out.)

Are your goals worthy of your actions?
When you look at the actions that you are taking to reach whatever goal that you have set yourself have you stopped to consider its worthiness? This is a question that anyone should ask themselves in any endeavour. What am I doing this for? What am I hoping to achieve and are the scales balanced here?

Because somewhere along your journey you will be tested once, twice even thrice if not more and only your unskakable certainty will see you through as you suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (to borrow a phrase from the Bard).

I have a dreamboard here that's all up in my grille every day. It's the booster rocket that propels me out of the mire becuase I can tell you this for nothing, being poor is hard work. I know, I was there.
So as we dust off whatever cobwebs may have shrouded our mind and vision, ask yourself these questions three;

1) Why not?
2) Whay not me?

3) Why not now?

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” Carl Bard

Just for Laughts: Following on from Michael Berry's post on the South African airline, I thought I'd share this you.

After every flight, Qantas Airlines pilots fill out a form called a gripe sheet, which conveys to the mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need repair or correction. The mechanics read and correct the problem, and then respond in writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken, and the pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor.

Here are some supposedly actual logged maintenance complaints and problems as submitted by Qantas pilots and the solution as recorded by Qantas maintenance engineers.

By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.

(Editor's Note: I recevied a series of emails in July 2008 that indicated the above statement was an urban myth. To see a list of Qantas crashes compiled by Ken Sanford, please click here.)

(P = The problem logged by the pilot.)
(S = The solution and action taken by the engineers.)

P: Left inside main tyre almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tyre.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on backorder.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what they're there for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

"It's A Scam", they cried. Should we allow MLM and Network Marketing?

2010-09-07T14:20:00.000+01:00

scam - a dishonest scheme; a fraud : [with adj. ] an insurance scam.

When I was younger there was a very clear definition of this word. This was before the internet, MLM or Network Marketing. It was clear that if someone was scammed they had been relieved of something valuable (usually money) for nothing in return (or consideration, to use a legal term). Scamming was done by people with the intent of being dishonest. Such people will always find a way. These days they can duplicated your ATM card or credit card and find your PIN and, hey presto, relieve you of your money giving you nothing in return. There are people who forge money or gems or tell you you've won the Spanish lottery when you haven't even played it. These are scams.

Today, unfortunately, this word is all over the internet. Sometimes even in its correct context. You see, the internet has given many people a voice. It has given everyone a voice. This blog is a perfect example. It allows me to jot down my thoughts and opinions for the public to see and it allows them to respond with their own opinions. Nice.

It also means that people's opinions ma be taken as unverified fact. It's a double edged sword. I know many of you who read this are in the network marketing businesses and MLM opportunities. Opportunities that offer people the chance to become business owners and build teams, a chance at empowerment to make their own decisions. I am sure that you believe in the products that you sell as well as the compensation plan otherwise you wouldn't be successful, right? You understood the risks, the numbers and you read the terms and conditions, right?

So what happens when someone doesn't make it in this industry when the statistics show that only 3% will? Should we close down this type of business model? Should we stop franchises or bricks and mortar businesses where there is a two year break-even period and perhaps only a 9% long-term success rate? Should we allow lotteries where the chances of winning is astronomical?

Are these scams because the success rate is so low?
Do we have an obligation to the majority to deny an opportunity where only a minority will succeed?

As always, I look forward to your comments and leave you with this quote from the Buddha;

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” Buddha

Play Your Own Game

2010-08-30T17:19:00.000+01:00

I play golf. Correction, I play golf badly. In fact, I played so badly the other day I came home and told my wife that I was seeing someone else for the four hours.

It doesn't matter to me because I'm just so happy to be out there swingin' the clubs. I'm the village idiot of my own town. It's great. Of course (no pun intended), the great thing about playing badly is that there is always room for improvement. And I don't mean small, tweaky improvements, I'm talking LEAPS. Perhaps that's why I'm so excited.

Anyhow, while I was out swinging at the turf, I realised something. It was while I was going through a purple patch. I noticed that, while my slight better golfing partner went off looking for his wayward shot, I kept the head down, addressed the ball correctly and hit the ball straight and true. For a while, everything came together and I enjoyed the game more than usual. Now, I wasn't suddenly some Tiger Woods player but I was relaxed and let the clubs do the work (as any professional teacher will tell you you should).

It got me thinking about my business, even my life. I play the same game as hundreds of thousands, home based business owner. I play the same course as thousands, sales. I play the same type of course as many, personal development. I'm even a member of a club.

For a long time, I watched the top players in the club and tried to emulate them and that was a mistake on my part. What I should have been trying to emulate was the simple system that is being used by them and be true to my own self. You see, marketing gurus are not duplicable but systems are. I can't outdrive John Daly but I can learn to emulate his swing. And would I like to get lessons from John Daly? No, I'd like to get lessons from the person who taught John Daly!

The information is the key, not the person, and my business has benefitted greatly from the training and support given by the top income earners in the company that I work with. They're brilliant. So free with their time and knowledge. It took me a while to get used to it. It also took me a while to discover that I had been trying to match up to people instead of playing my own game. Once I figured that out though, guess what? That's right, I'm keeping my head down, addressing the ball correctly...

Here's an interesting article I came across while writing this http://cac.ophony.org/2008/06/11/drive-for-show-putt-for-dough-its-the-small-stuff-that-matters/

Addendum: Playing the same course consistantly and getting great scores there does not make me a great golfer. Knowing my clubs and perfecting my swing does so that I can play any course well.

The Children of Genesis

2010-08-17T16:13:00.000+01:00

An English comedian named Jimmy Carr, famous for his one liners, posed the question "If we're all God's children, what's so special about Jesus?" At first I laughed. It's a good question though and it got me thinking. There is no doubt that he was an amazing person, however, he was not unique. In fact, the story of his life mirrors many 'non-Christian Saviours' and his teachings are much the same as any of the major deities of mainstream religions. He was, after all, Jewish and brought up in that tradition. The Christian Bible Old Testament is pretty much the same as the Torah. Now let me make it clear at this point, this is not a religious post, it is merely me writing about some pieces of a puzzle that fell in to place for me that help me live such a wonderful life. I'm not looking for consensus, I'm not looking to be disrespectful and I certainly know that I will be wiser for your comments at the end for which I am truly grateful.
In my last post I used the metaphor of car and driver for our bodies and souls, our Self. When the car no longer worked, we could get out but is the nature of the driver? Well, as I said in the previous post, what possibly makes us uniquely us as individuals is not our bodies or our jobs but our high faculties, our thoughts and reasoning, the way we see the world and our conscious minds. These things are intangible. Like the wind blowing leaves in autumn (the fall) we see the effects but not the wind. The Empire State building existed as a thought before it ever existed in this plane. The computer existed as a concept before it materialised, so wow, our minds are the link between a non-linear world to the linear. Through the power fo thought, we can bring things through that veil that separates the two worlds into manifestation. What an extra-ordinary ability we have. So what's out there? Where are our thoughts coming from?
The Swiss psychologist Carl Gustave Jung called it 'the collective unconscious'. It goes like this; Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, in that the personal unconscious is a personal reservoir of experience unique to each individual, while the collective unconscious collects and organizes those personal experiences in a similar way with each member of a particular species. So when you think it, you've pulled it from this great bank of knowledge that is 'out there' and also put it back in for someone else to think. The proof is simple, people having the same thought simultaneously in different parts of the world. So here's the biggie, the Empire State building existed before it was even thought of. You see, time is linear and we see cause and effect whereas thinkingness and thought are not, they just are. This has taught me humility, to not claim things as my own, even my thoughts. That is the pay-off of the ego. It has taught me not to be boastful or prideful. I'm just passin' thru baby. Conversely, it means that, at my disposal, is a fathomless bank of knowledge to fill the empty and willing mind that comes through meditation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45LuPQUUEAI
So here's the big release for me, what you are reading here are not my thoughts, I am just the conduit through which this message comes. In this equation, I am the variable! This information existed before and after me. You wouldn't hug a telephone because you heard great news through it, right? Well maybe some of you would and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. lol So back to the cars to make this metaphor work again - the collective unconscious are the radio waves travelling through the air, unseen. The radio in your car (your mind/the self) hears whatever station you are tuned in to and it is processed by the Self but relayed through the self. What does this mean?
Well I don't know much about mechanics so if someone told me to spread the word on how to fix an intricate part of car, say the electronics and fuse board, and I had to relay that to the general public, how do you think it would sound coming through me rather than a mechanic. I'd have to try and make sense of it, right? Then relay it. Oh dear. Hopefully there are other mechanics in the audience who can comprehend what I'm trying to say as I try to deliver this message.

So back to the title of the post. I am a Christian and this is what fell in to place for me. The first book of the Bible is the book of Genesis: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. To this person, it seems we existed as a though first, without form, and we were brought in to existence by a God, 'maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen (linear) and unseen (non-linear)' (from the Credo). So now I see the nature of our immortality - our being is a reflection of God and God is Creation. All Creation and Evolution is God because God created it which makes us 'children' of God/Creation and each one of us is connected because we are part of Creation. We are connected through everything that IS, the flowers, the wall, the building, the animals.

I also see now how Jesus can be depicted in any ethnicity because Jesus was not his body either, he was/is one of the great Avatars on this plain, along with the Buddha, the prophet Muhammud, may his name always be praised. They were not the Message, the Message came through them. They were the beings so highly evolved on a conscious level to be able to relay the Word to us in its purity and simplicity.
Since then, we have evolved. I'm not the same person as I was in fourth grade, I am not even the same person I was five minutes ago, and we as humans have evolved to a greater capacity of understanding than we did two thousand years ago. We are in a great position now, as evolved beings, to take a fresh look at the scriptures, all scriptures and see what was said, with new comprehension. My freedom and joy comes from loving everything because everything is a reflection of God. I love the truth and simplicity of the Message, no matter who it came through because the Message has always been the same. I love you even if you don't like me because you are a part me. We are Creation experiencing itself. And love, by the way, is not the Hallmark/Hollywood branded comodity to be given and taken away, it is a state of being.
So you have the choice to tune the radio in your car to a specific frequency. Let the message on that station allow you to be the best person that you can be. Let it be a message of empowerment, of success, of beauty, of peace and of love. Philippians 4:8 (NIV) ~ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
May your God go with you. Gloria in excelcis Deo.
Transcending the Levels of Consciousness - Dr. David Hawkins

My Body, The Car

2010-08-10T15:45:00.000+01:00

Here's something that has been knocking around my head for a while. It started after I read the book Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior. It is an amazing book that has changed the way I see life, creation and Divinity. It is a concept of self-awareness that has changed the way I live my life.
I'm also writing this because I was speaking with a friend last night and she mentioned, just out of the blue and quite casually, that her 18 year-old daughter is in intensive care after ingesting 400 paracetamol. He daughter is bi-polar and she had been living with it for a while and she was told that the best thing she could do was 'be normal'. She is doing a great job. Her daughter is highly intelligent, being able to read and write at age two and reading a book in Japanese, cover to cover and understanding it. It turns out that she can read and write Japanese. She never did Japanese before. The daughter has also had her trials and tribulations having lost a grandfather, a step grandfather and, most recently, her father in the last 18 months. What came across most, though, as her mother spoke, was the feeling of dis-association that the daughter had with herself as if she was an independent observer in her own life.
So who are we? How do we define ourselves? Well usually, it's by our job. "Hi, I'm Howard I'm a production manager in a graphic design company", "Hi my name is Kevin Martineau, am the Pastor at Port Hardy Baptist Church on Northern Vancouver Island." It seems the most natural thing in the world. So what happens if we are to lose that role? We always have our person to fall back on, right?
In his book mentioned above, Dr. David Hawkins puts forth that our bodies are not "us" any more than a jug is the water that it holds. What defines us as who we are as individuals are the thoughts that we think driven by our identity, our 'soul' for the want of a better word. I would liken our bodies to cars and our souls to drivers. So let's take a closer look at this analogy and just for the purpose of this post, let's take the above to be true.
Our bodies are like cars, once we become aware that we are in them we can animate them. They have working parts and if we look after them, we'll get good mileage out of them. Yet a car doesn't think for itself, it needs us to direct it and we use it to get where we would like to go. In this analogy our bodies require our Self (as opposed to the self) to drive/operate the body. And here's a remarkable and simple concept, like drivers of a car we can choose where we want to go with our bodies, literally and figuratively. We now have the means to take ourselves wherever we would like to go. How much fun is that?
And like cars, bodies come in different shapes and sizes. Some built for speed, some for comfort and some for distance. So who's to say that the driver of a Bentley is better than the driver of Ford? Look in to the windscreen (the eyes) and see the person within, see the driver not the car. As for the maintenance manual? There are many to choose from; the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita and the teachings of the Buddah would be the main ones. I am sure this is part of my attraction to Personal Development, it is the self-awareness and empowerment that it is me and my will who is driving this body, my choices and yet, paradoxical as it may seem, nothing happens except through the Grace of God. I don't even need a road map, just a clear decision on where I would like to end up. If I make that choice and act with certainty, the Universe will move to assist, my faith can move mountains. Of course, nothing happens without taking the appropriate action. A car won't start unless you turn on the ignition, it wont move unless you push the accelerator (or 'the gas').
So here's an opportunity to delve deep and see who your driver is, who is your Self whose will is governing your actions. As Yoda says in The Empire Strike Back, " Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." As I see it, when this person's car has run its course, the entity in the body you call Howard Michael Hughes will get out. Then the next adventure begins! I will be free to travel without the limitations of the physical.
There are corollaries to this notion that I'll post in my next piece. As always, I will get more enjoyment from seeing your comments and views that I have in writing this. I'm glad I shared though. Gloria in excelcis Deo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBTRLp9JOIo&feature=related

Adendum: On the night of Tuesday 10th August, my friend's daughter passed away. The body couldn't be fixed and the driver had to leave. My belief is that she is happier now that she could ever be on this plane and that she is with the other immortals that have left this world. Her mother asked for no sadness as her daughter had been struggling with the dis-ease for some time. Gloria in excelcis Deo.

The Power Of Positive Failure

2010-07-31T21:25:00.001+01:00

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/07/the_power_of_positive_failure.html

My Responseability

2010-07-29T22:52:00.000+01:00

Between a stimulus (event) and the response there is response-ability.
As Jennifer Aniston used to say in a shampoo commercial "Pay attention, here comes the science part."

Victor Frankl was a determinist brought up in the tradition of Freudian psychology. They postulate that whatever happens to you as a child shapes your character and personality and basically governs your whole life. The limits and parameters of your life are set and there's not much you can do about it.
Frankl was a psychiatrist and a Jew and was imprisoned in the Nazi death camps of World War II. He lost his parents, wife and brother and saw many atrocities that don't bear repeating.

One day, alone and naked in a cell, he became aware of what he termed "the last of the human freedoms" - a freedom his Nazi captors could not take away. They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Victor Frankl was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response. That last sentence warrants reading again, I reckon. While they had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment, Victor had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options. He visualised himself lecturing his students after the war, describing himself in the classroom giving them the lessons that he was learning during his very torture. (Reproduced in part from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)

So what does this mean for us? It means that between an event that occurs to us and our response to that event, we can choose what our response is. We can slow time right down, take a look at our programming and knee-jerk reactions and see that, by using the 'last of our human freedoms' we can make better decisions. Through our observations of ourselves, we can make better choices. It means we can now take responsibility for our actions and our circumstances. You get fired, the knee jerk reaction could be panic and resentment towards your former employers. Or you could stop and re-direct your thoughts, you now have the free time to finish your online marketing project that has been swilling around in your mind. You no longer have to take instruction from a person that you don't particularly respect and you now have more time with the kids. Perhaps someone is rude and abusive to you, your initial reaction would be to give them a piece of your mind and mirror their abuse. Or perhaps you could stop to listen to why they're adopting that attitude (and probably wonder how unhappy their life must be) instead of preparing your response in your head. (This is one of the key impediments to good listening).

Within us all is this great freedom, a freedom to exercise choice through thought, imagination, creativity, independent will and self awareness.

So I ask you this, how often do you exercise this ability, this freedom, this inalienable right to choose what you think? Because if you're just going along with the herd, are you truly free?

Guilty!

2010-07-20T18:27:00.000+01:00

Isn't it great when you look back and see where you've corrected your attitudes and thought behaviours for the better? Isn't it wonderful to be in a community where you feel 'safe' to say "boy was I wrong.."? Isn't it great to just answer questions? (Ok, so I made that last one up. Or did I?). Through my business and now through the Tribe Syndication, I find myself in the company of great people. People who are raising the bar for themselves. They're tired of a life of mediocrity. It's great to be here.

The reason I say this is because I was reading a friend of mine's blog, Michael Berry, and saw a phrase in there that I related to. It reads: "Network marketing is not the lazy man’s way to the top." Right there is where I threw my hands up and went 'Guilty!'. When I entered the home business arena I really thought I was on the pig's back. In my first couple of ventures I thought I had it made. I thought I could just build a bit of team and then it was 101, Easy Street from there. In my mind, I rubbed my hands together with sympathy for my poor friends who had to work for a living. I was ahead of the pack, had they not heard how the internet had revolutionised business? Suckas! As I explained excitedly how little I had to do, I remember my very wealthy and successful cousin telling me how every business needs work. "Pfffft!" I said, being sooo verrryy wise. "Boy was I wrong..." See? I can say now in front of you guys. All I saw was the "home" in home business.

Having gained expereience now, I am reminded of the a Chinese saying that goes: The diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor the man perfected without trials. And along this path there have been trials, adversities and obstacles. I'm not the first and I certainly won't be the last. So I leave this piece of 'gaffito' to those coming behind me who may see this. As I say to someone starting with me, the only difference right now between you and me is that I've made more mistakes. But hey, if we stayed down after the first time we fell when we practiced walking, we'd never have learned to walk, right? So, to those more seasoned in the world of online business, you can now go off and tell people how 'perfected' you been down through the years!

Since my initial forray in to this world of home business, I've come a long way and corrected up my thought process. I'm delightfully busy these days as the head of and international, multi-million dollar company. I am taking the appropriate action as the CEO of any large corporation should take. How's my marketing? How are my profits? Where am I losing? Where am I heading? How are my budgets? Are my staff happy? (In a recent survey of all those polled I got a resounding 100% "Yes". Well, there is only me.) The internet has made a HUGE difference to business but not the way I thought initially.

Now, through my association with company that I now represent, I am ahead of the pack through what I'm feeding my brain now and the actions that I'm taking. Enjoy the video and remember, you are a business owner (at home)!

Our Kids, The Teachers

2010-07-13T16:01:00.000+01:00

I was 42 in June of 2010. I've seen a lot and there is a lot more to see. I'm "middle aged" (provided I die at 84). It's at this age that you start to see certain life cycles repeating themselves. Fashion, for instance, here in Ireland and the UK amongst teenagers, has returned to eighties as has the film industry (see remakes of "The Karate Kid" and "The A-Team"). At this age, it's easy to think we've seen it all, if not most of it, before. We become complacent and we look for the new and the shiny. We also know at this point that all that glitters is not gold (and all that doesn't isn't either). I'm speaking for myself here. Even radom events became routine. So we yearn for 'the miracles'.

That was until recently when my eighteen month old son started his 'investigations'. I see everything now with new eyes. He loves lights and light switches. Have you ever stopped to wonder at the lightening speed at which a light comes on when you turn on a switch? Do you understand the processes of the spark and the energy and how Thomas Edison discovered 10,000 ways how it didn't work? Have you marvelled recently at how self raising flower works when you cook, even if you don't do the cooking yourself? Have you wondered how the grass, abundant in its greeness, keeps coming back every time you cut it? What instruction is kept within its make-up that keeps it photosynthesising? Have you thought about how your skin heals after a cut, how it meshes back together to leave no trace? Where is the instruction in the eight cells that I started out as to grow into this human being with fully functioning organs and the capacity for thought. Eight cells!
Miracles happen on a daily basis to those who see.

Your life and your part in this Universe is a miracle in itself. It is something to be celebrated on a daily basis. Here are a couple of links to mull over as you contemplate the miracles that occur daily in your life. First is the Scale Of The Universe an amazing diagram of scale. It's mind boggling. And secondly, here's a Monty Python song that keeps me calm in so many situations but makes the same point. It's the Universe song, from their Meaning Of Live movie.

Choose success, choose happiness and choose the life you want because the chances of you being here are very slim, so the fact that you are here shows that you can accomplish great things.

Have fun, relish the free gifts created for your enjoyment, and have a wonderful life. :)

Have you read A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume?

Who's Your Hero?

2010-06-29T16:38:00.000+01:00

I got a mail from a friend of mine recently. She was disappointed in the behaviour of someone she held in high regard. "She was a hero of mine, someone I looked up to..." It was an interesting comment to which I replied that it's always diappointing to find that our heroes are human and prone to failure like the rest of us. Even superheroes have, ironically, an Achilles heel, a little weakness that even they cannot overcome without outside assistance.
Now, having just finished Transcending the Levels of Consciousness by Dr. David Hawkins. It's the follow on from his first book which I can't recommend highly enough, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behaviour. In the Transcending book, he notes that all wars, hatred and general misery derives from our ego and ego positionalities and our dualistic approach to life i.e. the difference between a flower and a weed is perception.
So where does our ego get the fuel to gain strength? From our misinterpretation of praise. As children, when we did a good deed we were praised. Mistakenly, we took the praise when in fact, it was the act that was being praised. You see, in any act the 'doer' is variable. If I help someone across the street, it is the deed that is good, I just carried it out. It could have been anyone who helped the person across the street in this scenario. The fact that it was me is incidental. Verse 34 of the Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Perennial Classics) illustrates this:

The great Tao flows unobstructed in every direction.
All things rely on it to conceive and be born,
and it does not deny even the smallest of creation.
When it has accomplished great wonders,
it does not claim them for itself.
It nourishes infinite worlds,
yet it doesn’t seek to master the smallest creature.
Since it is without wants and desires,
it can be considered humble.
All of creation seeks it for refuge
yet it does not seek to master or control.
Because it does not seek greatness;
it is able to accomplish truly great things.

So it's what we see in our heroes that attracts us to them, strength of character, great conversationalist, good joke teller or intelligence. These are qualities that we tend to see as out of ourselves, possessed only by those we've chosen to lionise but this is simply not true. It make take some of us longer than others to incorporate those qualities we wish to emulate but it's possible.
There are some points implied in this post which anyone can pick up on such as "Should we praise our children?", "What goes in place of our 'ego'?" or "What can we do to surrender our ego positions?". Answers on a postcard to...
Next time you look at someone you hold in high esteem ask yourself what it is about that person that draws you to them? What are the qualities that you most admire, duplicate them and be your own hero.

What Example Am I Setting?

2010-06-22T14:47:00.000+01:00

It's been a strange half year. The trust in my instinct has become stronger. We all know that voice that tells us that something is not quite right or how someone's outward behaviour is incongruent with their actions. It's all good though right? It's about how we choose to percieve events that will either put a smile on our faces or a frown. To quote Galileo Galilei "I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." We have teachers all around us, for better or worse, whether they know it or not. They're the person that says 'Thank You" or the person who jumps a queue. We can learn from them all.
Which means, of course, that we are teachers for those who look or come in to contact with us. So this includes everyone. So we should ask ourselves "What example am I setting?". Especiall to the impressionable, children. I was watching a video recently which showed fourth greaders reaction to a wonderful documentary called Unbeaten. When you see how socially aware they are it made me think. I'm a father myself of two wonderful children and as any parent knows, they're little recorders. They'll repeat what they hear, they copy what you do, they'll follow your lead. So what about other people that look to you for an example?
It came to mind as my friend, Lisa Molina in the states posted an entry about ethics in network marketing. A friend of hers coyly asked her to review an opportunity they were thinking of joining. Long story short, the person had already joined and hoped to sway Lisa as she watched the promotional video and it put her on the auto-responder list as someone who had signed in. Check the link for the full story. So what kind of person does this? Who taught them how to do it? And why would they, in all good conscience, do it? At best, it deiplays a lack on that persons part. You can fill in what you may think that lack is.
So remember how good it feels to be good, remember how good it feels to be the good example, not for you to lord it over someone but for its own sake. As Shakespeare wrote for Jacques in As You Like It:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Have a wonderful day and shine, be the beacon that you know that you are and feel the joy that comes from it.

Social Media Guru

2010-06-16T22:17:00.001+01:00

Information Overload. What Do I Do?

2010-06-16T22:16:00.000+01:00

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” Buddha.

Getting The Word Out There

2010-06-15T15:58:00.000+01:00

I've noticed something about reading other people's blogs. I like the short ones! So I'll keep this short.
There's not point in having a cure for cancer that nobody knows about. Whatever we've got that we feel the world should be aware of we've got to get the message out there. It's called marketing, if if the product is you. One of the great things about the internet is that it has given people a voice, a medium to communicate to everyone. For business, this allows people to form relationships with their customer and customers with their sellers.
Enter 'Social Media'. More and more online marketers are using these sites to reach people that advertising just isn't. Here are a list of sites that work for me and at the end, a way to tie them all together.

Facebook: the biggest and most populated of the sites. Profiles for personal communication, set up a 'Fan Page' for followers.

LinkedIn: this is social media for business people. Using this has me ranked No. 1 on Google (pages from Ireland) for the search 'Howard Hughes'.

Twitter: Not that Google is linked to twitter, tweeting can get you or your company No. 1 on Google in real time rankings. Learn to set up a business twitter account for this and learn to link to the right people. I'm finding tweetdeck very handy for keeping tabs/filtering who is saying what.

Posterous: is another great way to get the messgae out there. Again, it's oriented towards the professional/business owner and accepts all forms of media.

These are just four of the sites that I use so that people can see who I am and what I'm up to. There are a mutlitude out there so don't get bogged down in trying to be everywhere at the same time!

Finally, here's a little thing I use to tie them all together and it may give you some ideas to move even further. It's Ping.Fm. Once you've set up your various accounts, it will allow you to send the same message to all of them.

That's it, short and sweet. Have a great day.

Best Global Home Based Business

2010-06-15T15:19:00.000+01:00

What would you do for a million dollars?

2010-06-09T15:25:00.000+01:00

It's a game we used to play. What would you do for a million dollars (I'll use dollars as a common currrency)? And we'd all try to outdo each other for what we'd do for this huge amount. We could have said anything, it was never going to happen. It was always 'out there'. Then I grew up and things changed.
For a long time, ignorance was bliss. I had a job, a car, a place to live and the one sun holiday a year. Life was good. Then I grew some more and, even though I didn't have any clear goals written down, I felt that time was passing me by without me being where I felt I should be. So I got a second job becuase I thought if I was going to make it big, working hard was the way to do it but well intentioned, hard work in the wrong direction serves only as a good lesson in what not to do. So on I went.
It was when I came across a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki that my mindset really shifted. The business people I admired and respected were all business owners, not employees. So I decided to become a business owner. I started searching the web for products I could retail, something I could do from home and something that I could see myself making some serious money. That search is another story in itself.
I'm now a distributor for a wonderful company and I absolutely love what I do. I have now found the vehicle for the millions that I seek. It won't be overnight but now I can realistically ask "What would I do for a million dollars?". I find that I'm ready to do whatever it takes and it's not by accident. The company with which I work is in personal development and has given me the mindset or success through its products and I find, like any entrepreneur, that I can apply what I've learded to any aspect of life. Again, another story.
Along with that, I have two of the great reasons, bigger than me, to make my millions, my two children. I'm human and there are times it can become tiring, disheartening and challenging, I never entertain thoughts of quitting and I will do whatever it takes to promote my business. I could just as easily not write this article and watch the tennis instead but what do I tell those two reasons why their daddy didn't succeed like he said he was going to? More importantly, what would I tell my future self?
So perhaps you may play "What would you do for a million dollars?" and if you do, have a good think about it. Think about it seriously. What would it mean to you and how can you get your hands on it?

Persistence and consistence

2010-05-10T10:57:00.000+01:00

At the start of the year you may have noticed that you got any amount of unsolicited emails from people who are just starting out trying some new money making scheme. Let me distinguish, on the net you will find business opportunities and you'll find money making schemes. I was getting emails for replica watches day in, day out. I admired their persistence and thought 'good for you, your taking control of your life and finances and you're actually doing something about it'. I didn't need their services becuase I have a real Rolex purchased through determination and goal setting on my part.
So, as an experiment, I watched to see how long they would solicit me along with their friends, the pharmacy people. You know the ones with the discount medication that you just may be too embarrassed to ask your own pharmacy for?
Well, the mails started to trickle out by the end of February and were completely gone by mid-April. All these enthusiastic people who had started out with such good intentions for themselves only gave themselves three and a half months at most. Imagine if Ray Kroc or Col. Saunders gave up after three and a half months? If George Lucas or Bill Gates gave up?
In these times, it seems we hear people getting money for nothing, lottery wins or out-of-court settlements. Or maybe you heard how YouTube was purchased for a gazillion dollars? Here's the thing, lottery winners are consistent in their action to purchase tickets and if you know anything about programming, YouTube was not a cake walk to set up. Even people who look for settlements as a profession are usually versed in law to see what it takes.
You see, I work with Polaris Global. I'm a proud distributor for their products and, in order for me to know what I'm talking about, I'm a product of the Beyond Freedom Evolution course and one of the great tools that is taught in that curriculum is the ability to persistent and consistent. Consistent action is key to longevity on any business. And it is a business. I treat it as such and am registered here in Ireland. I've been with them since October 2007 where I was a student of the first Beyond Freedom program which had be co-written by the great Bob Proctor and which gave me so much. As an aside, the current course has so much more in Departure, the first of the modules, that it's taken me the whole four months prescribed for it.
The difference between a 'Yes' and a 'No' is how many times you ask. Do you believe in yourself enough to follow your dream and do whatever it takes to make it come true? Do you have what it takes to create that mindset for yourself? Well one thing I know for certain is that this kind of integrity to your dream can be taught and applied, not just to business, but to any aspect of life. Whether it's relationships, in business or personal life, financial decisions or assessing an opportunity and trusting your gut. To quote Warren Buffet "The most important investment you can make is in yourself".

My Time With Polaris Global

2010-04-20T21:39:00.000+01:00

It's a very interesting experience being a business owner. The fact that it's a home business has its pros and cons. One con being the fact that it's a 'home' business. They are often easy to start up with low entry fees and low overheads. They tend not to feel like a 'business', more like a hobby. I found myself in this very boat. I don't have to pre-stock or warehouse any product, I don't ship or warehouse anything and the business is explained to my potential business partners by a top income earner in the business. I'm not even involved in the sale. Simple, right? Totally. And right there was my inital downfall on two levels.
Level One, coming from a corporate background it was too easy. Surely there is more to it. There's a secret that the top income earners aren't sharing. Maybe there's some magic pixie dust that I need to find? Maybe if I re-route the tachion emissions through the warp coil, it would sling shot me out of orbit? (The Trekkies may laugh there.) Evolutionary wise, humans are problem solving creatures, if there isn't one there, we'll make it up. We love crosswords and puzzels and making things fit so that when something as straightforward as this comes along, we look to throw something else in. The truth is that this system, exactly the way it was designed, was work prefectly before I came along! All I had to do was follow it.
Level Two, because I didn't have to produce invoices or ship or pay rent or wages, I treated it like a hobby. And so I got hobby results, ziiiiiiiiip! To be honest, there were times I nearly quit, convinced that it just wouldn't work for me. What kept me going was 1) the evidence that this was working for thousands of people around the world, so why not me and 2) that story in Think And Grow Rich about being three feet from gold.
Well, I'm glad I stuck it out. My life, both financially and personally as changed beyond recognition. The Beyond Freedon Evolution program has taken me to a level that I never though possible. It's given me a confidence, a happiness and a re-written self image, a self image written by me, not by what I thought people thought of me. I started to make my own decisions and took responsibility for those choices. I started to grow from within and I am still growning. Thanks to the Polaris Global business opportunity, I'm doing thiongs that I thought would never be 'my lot in life'. And the game of life is not about the hand you're dealt, it's about how you play that hand.
And let me be clear here, my company is The Path I Choose and I distribute these products that I am so passionate about. It's one of those great decisions that I've made that I'm talking about!

Polaris Global, Leaders In Entrepreneurial Eudcation

2010-04-18T20:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I died

2010-04-06T18:22:00.000+01:00

Yesterday (April 5th 2010), I died. In the early hours of that morning, a doctor told me that these would be my last 24hours. I should prioritize my day accordlingly. And so I sent about my day with this on my mind. I would do the things that were important to me and anything else would have to be subordinated. What a day that turned out to be.
By now, you may have twigged that I'm not actually dead. I'm writing this in the first person and in the present tense. So what I describe above is something of my own choosing. I chose yesterday to be "my last 24 hours" and to act accordingly. What was revealed to me was something unexpected. I had no "bucket list" (101 things you'd like to do before you die). There was nothing that I felt that was missing in my life through want or desire. Want or desire.
Without thinking, we often project onto objects and situations. We see them as we are, not as they occurr or exist. "If I had that new car, my life would be so much better." "If I won the lottery, my life would be sorted." And when they don't come good for us our excitement turns to anger. "It didn't do what it promised to do!" (It didn't do what we expected it to do.) And in that moment, we surrendered our ability to be happy to some external object, project, event. How silly does that look when you write it down logically? But that's another story.
For me, to be present in every moment with the people I loved was what shone forth. I dressed and fed my little boy. I listened to his nonsensical outburts of noise as he attempted to master the art of speech wuth me or the video on the computer that he was watching over breakfast. He is only 15 months old. That was me once. I was that age once and unable to communicate through speech. Was I really? I must have been. Then I took him to the swings, his favourite outdoor activity so far. He just loved the sensation of going to and from me. His face lit up with the broadest of smiles and so did my heart.
At home, his mother, eight-and-a-half months pregnant was having a very well deserved sleep. Through this whole pregnancy she has been amazing. I didn't tell her about my "news". I just wanted her to know how much I love her and wonderful I think she is. She thought I had done something wrong!
I won't go through the whole day so I'll fast forward to end... As I lay down to sleep I again told my wife how much I love her and I started to take my final breaths. How had I spent my day? The funny thing was, I hadn't spent it doing the things that I liked, I had spent it making those close to me happy. My happiness was in my ability (ALL our abilities) to make someone else happy. Wow. Each one of us can choose to exercise that ability, the ability to put a smile on someone's face, ANYone's face. There is that power, there in our own hands. I don't have to wait for some one, thing or event to come to me to make me happy, it is in me all the time. I was at peace.
As a consequence of "dying" I woke up feeling slightly down. And then slowly but surely the realisations came in to my head. Because I had "died", there was really nothing left to fear. All fear eventually come down to death if we pursue the "And then what?" line of questioning. What power now does the world now have over me? Unhappy people that shout at you, people trying to feel surperior to you, people trying to get one up on you, recession, politcal corruption? When you look in their eyes and think to yourself "I know what's importnat in my life because I have already died", what impact do you think they will have on your life?
If you choose to do this exercise, I'd really love to hear from you about your "last 24 hours".

Follow Your Compass!

2010-03-18T11:23:00.000Z

It's a difficult time for many out there. The winds of change are blowing hard. This means that the landscape has changed. It reminds of listening to Steve Donahue in Puerto Rico last year. Although his message was serious and right on the money in this day and age, he delivered it in a humorous way. This in itself is a great thing because the mind takes in more information when it's relaxed. In fact, tests have shown that people can endure more pain or discomfort while laughing (ref. http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/humr.1993.6.1.71).
Steve is a man who has crossed the Sahara and has an amazing story to tell. His point was that in the Sahara, what good is a map? Let's put the Sahara Dessert in to context, it is roughly the size of the United States but is completely sand and dunes, with the exception of the odd oasis. It would be like travelling from Canada to Mexico on foot (or camel). (If you want an interesting perspective of how the world looks according to land mass http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa030201a.htm). He asked us what use is a map when a sand storm blows and changes the scenery, what use is a map then? That third large dune straight ahead where you were going to take a left is gone! And the winds of change have certainly changed this social and financial landscape of this planet. Let's face it, jobs that are going now will not be replaced. There is no need for them nor will there be. (See Robert Kiyosaki's book, The Cashflow Quadrant) So what now? How do I equip myself for this journey of life now that the map I had is redundant?
Well, there one thing that is constant in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres and that is true North. It's the heading that any compass will give you and it's constant in any terrain. So let's take a compass heading in our lives, one of our own choosing, by which to guide ourselves. Let it be three of four words in length and let it guide your actions. Mine is "Make a difference". So any act I do, whether great or small, I am guided by this compass setting. Whether it's picking up a piece of rubbish on the footpath/sidewalk so that the environment is just one bit cleaner, whether I pick up my socks off the floor so I don't annoy my wife, or whether I go out and raise thousands for the charity of my choice, I make a difference. My passing through will have made a difference. And my destination is "A life of luxury and wealth that I can share", after all, as a wise man once told me, the best way to help the poor is to not be one of them.
So now I am armed with a compass heading and a destination of my own choosing. I know where I'm going and I'll know when I have arrived. And like any journey it takes ACTION! If I do not move towards my goal, my goal will move away from me because the Universe is in constant motion and me with it. So regardless of how things look now, if I follow my compass and take the actions necessary to be in alignment with my compass heading, I will reach my destination. The terrain may shift and change, there will be obstacles, there will be times of great high and great low, let's not kid ourselves. But if I can hold my course and be true to my destination then I will have comfort and excitement as I go. As Darwin pointed out "In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment." Our actions may include learning new skills, we may have to take a look at how we define ourselves (I ama a banker, I am a mechanic, etc... (this is not who you are this what you do)) but as long as we follow our compass heading, we know, with every degree of certainty, that we are on the right path.
So take the time to create you compass heading and take the time to think and write down your destination. These should never change. And at each oasis, stop, refuel, check your heading and recognise how far you've come from where you started. And here's a tip: you may meet someone at the oasis who has done the journey you are taking... so ask questions!

Choosedays

2010-03-02T14:59:00.000Z

When I was younger I used to love to go "clubbing". Friends of mine were top djs playing with Sasha, Digweed and Nigel Benn. Their mixing was flawless and the tune selection always moved the crowd. I learned a lot about djing through them. Although I wasn't a dance dj I learned how to construct sets and I was, by all accounts (not mine), a great dj. The proof of this was in the calibre of gigs that I got. I was a mobile music man doing 21sts, weddings, 50ths as well as some plug in and play gigs around town too. I still love the dance music but as a father of two, it's not easy to get out that much any more and although I stay young at heart, I know that if I were to appear at one of those places, they'd look at me funny. And with good reason. I'm only 40 btw.

One of the things I remember from those heady days was the signs. When a great track would come on some people would hold up a card with "CHOON" or "TOON" written on it. "CHEWIN'" may have been closer to the point. If you were a clubba, you understand. So it got me thinking. I write notes phonetically sometimes such as Thank Ewe or refer to today as Chewsday or even Chooseday. One day I stopped to take a look at what I'd written, Chooseday.

The shortest and most powerful sentence in the English language is "I am". Full and complete. It's the answer to a question and it's a statement. It's a very powerful statement. I am. Say it out loud in front of a mirror. Look yourself deep in the eyes and day "I am". I'm puffing out my chest just writing it! I am. Amazing. Powerful. So what does "I" do then to reinforce this fact? Descartes said "Cogito ergo sum", I think therefore I am. That was in the days before television though. Instead of a lack of education to control the masses these days, I believe that people in a position of power use the television. It keeps the masses docile and let's them know what to think. Research has shown, in fact, that television causes mild depression. Once we watch TV we don't have to think. Like a scene from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, we should, according to Descartes, disappear when we watch it. Ok, so I'm being facile.

I believe that the best thing the "I" can do to affirm her or his power as an individual is to consciously say "I choose...", I Am So I Choose. This is simple in its concept but boy oh boy, does it have a lot of weight by its implications. Think about it, I Am So I Choose. Well suddenly this means I'm not a victim of circumstance anymore. Whatever is happen in my life is not because of something that is happening "out there". Now I have to take responsibility for my actions. I wasn't late because the traffic was so heavy, I was late because I didn't leave in time to factor in a traffic jam. I'm unfit because I choose not to exercise as much as I should. I not not an entrepreneur because I choose not to leave the herd or my comfort zone.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I would have found that very harsh. "What do you mean I'm stuck behind a desk because I choose to be?! I have a family and mortgage and yady ya ya..." That was me, really. I used to say and still say Yady ya. Then I started down the road of personal development. You see that word there before "development"? It's "personal". I'm choosing to develop myself and in a personal way. I'm not looking to change everything around me first. Why? Because as I development myself, sure as God made little green apples (it's from a song), my environment will develop with me. And so, at the end of the day, it's my choice. It's my day to choose happiness (see Andy Andrews book The Traveller's Gift on happiness as a choice), to choose success and to choose to be grateful for what I have. Everyday for me is a Chooseday because I am. So perhaps start today, Tuesday, to consciously make a choice to do something with your "I". It doesn't have to be a trip to the moon, just start your sentence with "I choose to...".

So just before I choose to wrap up here, I choose not to watch much television. In fact, public figures have died without me knowing, global disasters have occurred without me knowing until a few days later and I can tell you now, I don't miss it. And although I'm not a mutli-millionaire right now through choices that I had made, now it's just a matter of time. I choose to be successful so I choose that actions that are going to get me there. And how do I know I'm going to get there? Because it's not over until I win. Make it a great Chooseday, whatever day it is.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

2010-02-24T15:10:00.000Z

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
by Robert Frost

What a beautiful poem. It's not very long but it encapsuales so much. Change is inevitable in life and if the framework that we live within is not flexible enough to change with the times, then we can expect a life of resistance.
One of the things I find rigid in life is judgement because if you are going to jusdge someone, then you must come from a standpoint which is unwavering, a counterpoint. If you can see the other persons point of view then it becomes difficult to judge, then we enter a discussion. If we surround ourselves with people who have the same opinions and beliefs as us, how can we grow?
A flexible outlook on life also manifests itself in our Limbic System and so too in the longevity of life. With grief, our brain tries to match the model of how life should be with the event and so our sorrow comes from the mismatch and from the flood of chemicals to our brain which causes the emotional outflow in the first stages of grief. If we choose to let this dominance of emotion control our lives then we never fully recover to lead full and health lives. I strongly suggest the Chapter on Handling Disappointment from Dr. Kerry Spackman's "The Winner's Bible". It's a great read.
In my own life right now, there is a lot of change. In my business and in my personal life. In business, people I thought would stay the course have left and I've seen relationships change. Yet I know that these things are just swirling wind around me as I walk toward my goal. The constant in this scenario is me and always will be in my life. And so I bend but don't break although I know I will be tested, it will take a very strong force that will break me if I'm flexible.
So I think once you embrace the last quatrain of this peom you may find yourself enjoying life more, appreciating transience more and appreciating the time you spend more.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Food, Focus and Running a Home Business

2010-02-06T15:38:00.000Z

Wow, what an awesome life I have. I'm just back from the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic. We were gathered there for the first of our Team Europe Kick-Off events and also for the first of our Foundation Live events. My travelling companion is a hero of mine and a fellow entrepreneur, Patrick O'Reilly. I'm also happy to say that he's my cousin. He has a great head on him and I love being in his company and just generally talking things out with him. His ability to sieve what's relevant from what is not is just amazing. It was one of the reasons that I was delighted when he agreed to come along with me. You can view the pics here.
We arrived a couple of days early so we had time to check ('scuse the pun) out the city and just generally hang out. The hotel we stayed in was the Hilton in Prague and, if you go there, check out Cloud 9, the sky bar with stunning views of the city at night. And the food! I didn't have a bad meal the whole time I was there. The highlights for me were The 3 Golden Stars. Kampa Park and the Bellevue. We had our own room in the Bellevue which made it more intimate and a whole lot of fun. And I like fun.

And for me, my business should be fun. What's the point in trying to tell someone how great the food is in a restaurant when they can tell by your voice that you haven't eaten there? Same with business, how can I tell someone how great this opportunity is if a) I'm not a product of the products and b) if I'm not enjoying it myself? You know the answer there. Well, as it happens, I do love my life because of what I do and I am a product of the products and I do love to tell everyone with whom I come in contact (mainly because they ask why I'm so happy all the time or where I'm off to next!). And I think that's the way it should be; find something you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life again.

Let me add at this point however, that as much fun and travelling that I do, it is a business and I run it as such. I'm registered as a business here in Ireland and I keep my receipts and bills to write off against my earnings. My approach is relaxed but professional on the phone as I don't look to work with just anyone. And it takes focus because I am a fully time dad too. My time to "work" is limited as I am a full time dad with another on the way shortly. So I've got to be top of my game when the window opens. Again, this fun to me and I love raising my own standards as I go.

That's it from me for this week. Have a great one, you deserve it.

Why do some people succeed Part 2

2010-01-14T18:16:00.000Z

In my last article I discussed 3 of the "threads" that link successful people together. Those were Action, Environment (the company they keep) and "Why?" (their motivation).

The next attribute, or thread, that I've noticed is their lack of attachment to their comfort zone. I'll say this; NONE of my business heros are employees. I'll say it again; NONE of my business heros are employees. If it all goes belly up, they're left carrying the can. No "sick days" or "duvet days" for them. (That's probably also due to the fact that most illnesses are a reflection of poor mental health and they just don't get sick). So while they have built empires with multiple streams of income, they still overreach for business deals. They'll step out of their comfort zones to get what they want. What did Donald Trump do when he found himself facing bankruptcy in 1991? Was it a case of "If at first you don't succeed, failure just may be style"? Well, it's 2009 so we have the answer. So, having the cojones to step outside you comfort zone is another trait.

Resilience is the next. Edison was famously quoted as saying "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." If something isn't working for the successful entrepreneur, they'll take what they've learned and move on. In fact, the majority of the entrepreneurs in a sample were serial entrepreneurs. The average number of businesses launched by respondents was approximately 2.3. You can be pretty sure that the history of entrepreneurialism is littered with a string of "failures" behind any successful business person and the business people enjoying that success have earned an enormous education in what not to do. So get out of the mindset that we got sucked in to at school or some other social mores that failure is ultimate, that you only get one bite of the cherry, that Rocky Balboa is shouting "stay down son!" because he caught you with a right hook that took you to the canvas. No, failure is the question at the end of a chapter that asks "what did you learn here?" and then we move on to the next chapter.

Accountability. This is the most obvious and yet the hardest for many to swallow. To take responsibility for your actions on yourself. To not place our responsibility on some outside factor. Whether we like it or not, we all have choices in life, even in the most dire situations. If you're an employee, I'm sure you sent out more than one CV, I'm sure you interviewed with more than one company and even if you didn't, you had the choice of accepting the job offer or not. (Usually the employee mindset goes "What am I going to pay the bills with...? etc.") Again, you have a choice. So when you start sentences with "I choose to..." it's a real eye-opener even if it's "I'm choosing to go to the shops now to buy the groceries". You empower yourself. It's a power you've always had.

Love: People who succeed are people who love what they do and get behind what they are doing. I remember when I was younger, I picked the subjects to study because I thought these were the subjects that would make my parents happy and get the results that they wanted. Needless to say, I bombed yet here I am now, getting the results but through an avenue that I absolutely love.

At this point I go etherial. It is my personal belief that the Law of Attraction and Noetic Science is where we start to recognise the god within us. To quote a man whom I could listen to for ages, the CEO of the Polaris Media Group, Shane Krider, "Most people are giants drowning in 3 feet of water." So where did our world of possibility turn into a world of hierarchy and subservience? Who did we listen to that told us we couldn't? Well, it happened when we surrendered our god-given power to someone else. That doesn't have to be the case. (I'm using god with a lowercase "g" here in recognition of the various terms for the Creator, Buddah, Allah, Jehovah, etc.)
While we take so much time to look after our bodies, shaving, cosmetics, hair-dos, how much time do we spend on ourselves? Wonderful beings that we are with consciousness that transcends the limitations of our body. So why can't I harness a universe that is non-judgmental? What can't I have it all? Why can't I maximise my life not just for my good but for the benefit of those around me? I believe I can attract that which I desire in to my life by using laser focus and the Law Of Attraction. I believe because I have done it.

Finally, the Law Of Attraction works both ways in business. It's not all about attracting what I want in to my life, am I being attractive to someone who is looking for me? It's a question I pose to my associates when they get stuck sometimes. Am I living the life/being the person that is attractive to others? Well, how you're feeling is a great gauge for that. It's very simple, how am feeling? There's your answer.

So I'll leave you with these three questions for you to answer for yourself;
Why not?
Why not me?
Why not now?

That's it from me for now folks. I trust you gleaned something out of all this, no matter what business you're in. It's nothing new but perhaps, as has happened with me on more than one occasion, something resonates with you in the way it was presented. You are your own hero, the star of your own movie and the director. Now, all it takes is what psychologists call "Activation Energy" on your part, that amount of energy from you that it takes to do what it takes...

Why do some people succeed Part 1

2010-01-14T16:41:00.000Z

I don't cold call. I don't go door to door. I don't have to pre-stock. I don't invoice. Nor does anyone in the business I work. Which leaves me with the task of marketing and then chatting with people who have agreed to be contacted for more information.
I get to talk with people from all walks of life, chefs, financial directors, salespeople and so on. All people looking or a genuine business. People from a corporate life looking for a way out. What I've learned though, is that it's just not enough to run from something. There has to be more. So what have my observations of the successful been? What is the common thread to all of them? Action!
The first thing I notice about all them is that they take consistent action, not just sporadic action. People whose DMO (Daily Methods of Operation) are consistent and congruent with their business. If that means sending out 1, 5, 10 or 100 people or speaking with 1, 5, 10 or 100 people a day, week or month, there they are. How does an ant eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Or to use another analogy, as a plane takes-off down a runway, it needs consistent power/energy in which to do so. If it looses power half way down or even two thirds the way down, it's going to get off the ground.
Another attribute of successful people is the company they keep. Now, this may seem obvious to some, rich people tend to know around with each other. Great. So if your income is the average of your 10 closest friends, how does that look to you? For me, it wasn't where I wanted to be. I'm looking to make MILLIONS. So while I love my friends dearly, they aren't going to be able to show me how to do it. Millionaires can show me how to do. And when you knock around with millionaires, you can see how easy it is to do it. Mindset. THINK MILLION DOLLAR THOUGHTS and fill your mind with what is possible.
What is your "Why?". What did you come to a business to accomplish? How long are you willing to take to pursue your dream and is your dream worthy of your efforts? And don't make it about money. We ALL want more money. But what is the money for? To mortgage free so there's no worries that the bank can reposes, to have a nice yacht in the marina go fishing with the kids... and make it about you. Be emotionally attached to your "Why". When you look a picture of it or read it on your goal card (you've got a goal card, right?), you get goose bumps and it drives you on regardless of adversity.
Now, I'm going to leave it there for now because family time is very important!
I am a stay-at-home father of 1 (so far. We plan more) and I live in Ireland. I am only new to being a father and loving it. I have been working from home since October 2007 with great success and I personally believe that everyone should at least be aware that they have a choice on how they spend their time and to be responsible for generating their own income. I can be found at http://www.thehappypaddies.com or I would appreciate any comments at my my blog http://adadssuccess.blogspot.com
Together, we're better.

The hardest people to make laugh...

2009-11-17T14:34:00.000Z

are those who need it the most. So is the line from http://www.comedytheroadlesstraveled.com/
It's a link to a movie and the webiste of an American comedian, Michale Jr., who sets about taking his comedy to those who most need it; prisoners incarcerated when they were young (and foolish), the homeless and destitute and, worst of all, drug endangered children. The trailer speaks for itself. I'd like to point out one thing that, having been at a pre-screening of it, I'd like to point out. It's the most heartwarming story in the 60-odd-minutes of the full movie; the little boy you see in the Spiderman outfit is the son of a woman who was coming down of some very bad drugs. The boy was physically abused, including having his nails pulled, and wore the mask for such a long time so that his face would not be seen...
Even watching the trailer will show you that laughter can be one of the best medicines there is. I am so very proud to be associated with the company that produced this very positive piece of media. It's the first in an ongoing series of documentaries that they will produce to combat the negativity that appears to be so prevalent in today's mainstream media.
So I invite you to watch the full movie and remind yourself that you can choose your respomse to any situation. So choose to be happy, choose the road less travelled and remember, it's never as bad as it seems and "this too shall pass".

Online Exclusive Update #2 | Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money

2009-10-01T11:25:00.000+01:00

Online Exclusive Update #2 | Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money

Shared via AddThis

Where am I now?

2009-09-07T16:03:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I took the time to write in my blog. On January 16th of 2009 my little baby boy, Samuel was born. For anyone with kids you know what a life changing experience this is. Not only that, he is text book perfect. I say this without fear of contradicition as we have been told, with raised eyebrows, on many occasion. He sleeps on time and through the night. He rarely cries unless it's something serious (he has learned to sit up now and falls forward to odd time throguh over-reaching. The funny thing is, he cries because he hasn't quite mastered the art of rolling back yet!). We are reading him books and I take him to Baby Gym on Tuesdays.

For most fathers, I would think this is ideal. I'm just back from Hawaii and Barcelona and off to Puerto Rico (in the Carribean) in six weeks. At the moment, Mary and Samuel are not coming with me as he is too young and she is not pregnant again with our twin girls (well that's what we "asked" for and so far, so good).

My personal development is taking me to places that I think you only see using very special effects in movies and TV programmes. It's a wonderful feeling to have this sense of being connected to everything. I don't subscribe to religions but I do to people's own sense of spiritualtiy.

So that's where I am right now. I'm keeping my entries short so it won't feel like a chore when I get busy. I'll leave you with this: I went in to a fortune teller recently and told HER what my future is going to be.

Being a SAHD (Stay-At-Home Dad)

2009-02-22T12:47:00.000Z

I'm writing about being a stay-at-home dad because it's one of the most wonderful things that I have ever decided to do and I believe there will be a lot more of us in the future in this new world order. To quote Robert Kiyosaki of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" fame, we are moving from the Industrial Age in to the IT Age.
So what is the mindset to go from "man - the fire bringer and bacon winner" to "man - the fire keeper and the several ways to use bacon in cooking"? Well, I think the answer is in the start of this sentence - it's mindset. For some, it will be easier to re-programme the script than for others. I do believe, however, that it is that simple, just a question of re-programming the script. Some men not even want to tamper with the script that they have been handed down from the Industrial Age paradigm: go to school son, get good grades, go to university, get a good job, work your way up through the ranks, find a nice girl, settle down, have kids, work your way up the corporate ladder (perhaps only to find that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall!)..". You see where I'm going with this, right? I'm sure 99.99999% of men (and women) do. I certainly do because I used to be that person. I jumped ship before I was pushed (the company of 14 that I worked in let 3 people go shortly after I left) and I'm so delighted that I did. I jumped ship onto a personal yacht of a wonderful home business that I will save for another story although I mention it because it helped greatly in me stepping out of my comfort zone.
So what's it like being a SAHD (stay-at-home dad)? Well dads, how gut-wrenching it to leave your kids to go earn money for someones else's dreams? I'll be honest, I don't even want to think about a whole day (1.5hrs each way in traffic on top of an 8hr day) being without Samuel. He'd be in bed by the time I got home, I'd have to sleep in a separate bedroom to my wife so that I could get enough sleep to function during the day and I'm sure his cry would grate on my last nerve because I was so tired. Poor little mite. And of course I'd justify it by saying that I was providing for my family. An excuse that reminds me of the days when I used to be a smoker: I live in Ireland where the weather is, for the most part, awful. When the smoking ban came in, I would smoke in ALL kinds of weather and justify it to justify my addiction. Terrible.
The life I do lead, so I don't have to speculate, is one of fullness. There is no alarm for me to get up to so I usually take the 1am, 5am feeds and my wife Mary takes the rest. We/She breast feeds so I we only use the bottle about 2-3 times a day. Apart from that I change his nappies/diapers and change him for bed or in to his day clothes. At the time of writing (Feb 22 2009) he is only 5 weeks old so all he really does is sleep, eat and crap so I have a lot more to look forward to in his development.
So what does the future hold for Samuel? Well, my wife and I have agreed to teach him using the Glen Doman, Gentle Revolution materials (which I would highly encourage every parent to look into as an option) which will be left primarily for me to do as my wife wants to go back to work to finish some goals that she has set for herself. So me and Sam, walking the dogs as spring and summer come in, we're heading off to Hawaii in July of 09 with the business for two weeks and we have enrolled him in a Gael Scoil (Irish speaking school) just around the corner from us and, well, anything else that we choose to do! We would like that his life have no limits and I'm working towards that now. I'm so excited about the future yet careful to appreciate every minute of the present. People who haven't seen him for even a week say that he has grown so much but I don't notice myself as I'm with him every waking (and sleeping) hour.
For those of you who don't know Sam "Make Every Day Saturday" Crowley's story, it's a great one and I suggest it to any dad who is working his ass off becuase he feels he has no choice.
Ok, that's it for my first attempt... I really enjoyed writing it so I hope you enjoy reading it. What I would like at this point is for your feed back, your critique, your opinion, your stories. What good if we don't share?

2009-02-10T16:46:00.000Z

is looking forward to introducing his new members on the European Team Call tonight. :) I'm so excited about the choice they have made.

2009-02-09T19:40:00.000Z

is having another wonderful day. My son has been feeding for the last 3 hours!

2009-02-07T13:16:00.000Z

The purpose of the herd is, and always will be, to keep people in the herd. So many jobless people now recognising that they have surrendered their income ability to the hands of someone else.

2009-02-06T15:56:00.000Z

"Look at me, look at me, look at me now, it is fun to have fun but you have to know how!" - The Cat in the Hat. Reading Fox In Socks makes me feel great too... Thank you Dr. Seuss

2009-02-05T19:41:00.000Z

What a day! What a life! To give feels truly better than to receive. :)

2009-02-05T19:28:00.000Z

What a day! What a life!

2009-02-04T11:15:00.000Z

Another great day looking after my wife and son and and helping people to realise the life they want. Looking forward to the 6 nations rugby and my cousin's birthday at the weekend too.

When the going gets tough...

2009-02-03T16:37:00.000Z

When I look back at my life as a smoker, I see now what an addiction that smoking is. I was happy to justify my smoking to serve my habit. I loved smoking so much that I would happily smoke in all sorts of weather (I live in Ireland!). I loved them and thankfully, at the time, I had a boss who understood me popping out for smoke breaks. Now that I run a business, I see how understanding. Imagine the downtime he allowed me to sate my habit? I see now how we (my wife smoked as well) were controlled by the smoking despite our lip service to the contrary.
So it is with the live I lead now. When I look back at my life as an employee and how I justified my unhappiness. Psychologists call it "learned helplessness". The experiment was done on dogs in a partitioned cage. They were given that were given no means of escape and were given a mild electric shock. After this constantly happening even when the dogs were given a means to escape to the other side of the partition, they didn't. They had learned to be helpless. Their reasoning was "this bad thing has happened to me so often with no means of escape, what's the point even looking?". A form of this is used in training elephants too but that would take me off on a tangent.
So that was my life for 15 years, learned helplessness. I wish my boss would give me a raise but what am I going to do? I wish my boss would give me more holidays but what am I going to do? I wish I could start work later in the day but what am I going to do? I need the money so I had to play the game, right? Well you tell me, is a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke in case you haven't heard it before) the only way in this world to make money?
Now thanks to pioneers such as Dr. Martin Seligman psychologists have opened up a whole new field of thinking called "learned optimism". If you can learn to be helpless surely the converse is true? Can't we learn to be happy? Surely if we take note of all the good things that happen in our lives, if we take note how many of those occurrences are attributed directly to actions that we have taken, that surely as there is learned helplessness, there is learned optimism. And so it is in my life. I have taken ownership of my actions and of my life. When something goes wrong the error is not pervasive. My life isn't going to terrible in all areas.
So here's 411: people of my age (I'm 40) have lived through recessions before, they're not the end of the world. We came out the far side with appreciation for what we have now. And even that was forgotten in the height of the good times. You don't even have to have lived through a recession to know that it's not the be all and end all - the world is still here for God's sake. Society is still here, it still exists! In my time it was "The Bomb". Both the US and Russia (as it was then) had stockpiled an awesome amount of nuclear power. Organisations such a CND, with their logo were ubiquitous. Our lives were lived in fear and there was a recession on too. Many of my friends sought work overseas (thank you America!) but the one thing I do remember is... the music. Filled with inspiration, hope, rebellion.
So I'll leave this with you: because of this economic climate and the mindset I'm in due to the home business I'm in, I making money... Or to quote Mark Twain "I experienced many problems in my life, some of them real."

Becoming A Father

2008-12-03T12:45:00.000Z

At the tender age of 40, I'm going to become a father. Around the 18th of January 2008 is the due date. 7 weeks or so to go. I am awash with emotions, the predominate one being elation. WTF!
From my late teens to early thirties I lived the devil may care life. It's been great. From early on I've been a big fan of The Doors and as Jim Morrison once asked: "Did you have a good life when you died, enough to base a movie one?". I kept that with me and always asked, would that be good in a movie? From failure to great success I've run the gamut of highs and lows in my life to date, I've kissed girls AND boys, got lost (deliberately sometimes), been found, seen the savage beauty of mountain top from other peaks, clear streams, wildlife, lowlife and all kinds of animals that populate the earth.
Because my dad was in the UN we traveled a lot too from Bangladesh to Israel and some places in between. I've seen the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramids, the Dead Sea and Jerusalem. I have an affinity for both Arabs and Jews, Sikhs and Muslims. I can ask "How are you?" in 17 different languages. Not bad for boy from an island on the westernmost part of Europe, Ireland.So why am I telling you all this? It's not to boast but to let you know what a great life I've had.
So now the wheel turns and my baby boy Samuel is about to introduced to this world. For a while he will be completely helpless and dependent on us and he will be trying desperately to take in all the information around him and we'll be doing our best to give him all the knowledge he needs! What an exciting time.
Recently, I've just finished painting his room, putting up shelves and assembling his cot and crib. It's really coming together and really bringing it home. Now I see more clearly what other fathers have told me; "You have no idea what you're in for until it happens!". Well, I'm as ready as I can be at this time with only 2 weeks to. I'll keep you all posted and I promise to put up pics. :)

The work from home mindset

2008-11-14T13:02:00.000Z

Would you like to work from home? Many might say "Well, that's a stupid question, dumbass... ... I want to work from home because (fill in as appropriate)". I can't counterpoint any of the valid reasons that people give. "I want to be there as my child grows up", "I'm not getting along with my boss", "My jobs isn't certain at the moment". I hear these a lot because of the home business that I work in. People go to my site, fill out their details and I call them back to conduct a brief interview. I do this because I don't want to work with just anyone.

The distance between the perceived wish to work at home and the actual, ok I'm ready to start working from home is vast. It's a chasm that, in this day and age, is insurmountable for most. I say "in this day and age" because as Robert Kioysaki, author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series (I highly recommend them if you are an employee, self-employed, a business owner or an investor) notes, we are living at the end of the Industrial Age and the start of the I.T. age. I'll return to this later.

So why is it so huge? Well, to comment from the point of view of this writer, it's the mindset. For society to run smoothly we need rules that we all agree to. For example, this oblong object that I hold in my hand, solid and sturdy and used in the building of houses, we all have agreed to call "a brick" in the English language. All we all agreed? Yes? Great. So when I ask someone to fetch me a brick I pretty much know what that person is going to bring back. (I'm not going to go in to the semantics of colour or size or make of brick.) So it is that we are taught in school. That's a flower, that's a bee, that's a quadruped. Great, I'm learning! So when does education turn us into conforming, solid members of society and of the work force? At what age do we "choose" to do the best we can at school so that we can get the praise we so richly deserve, that we can move higher to high school/secondary school. When did we choose to be streamlined from the achievers to remedial? Perhaps it was in University where we're studying to get that much needed degree so that we can get a good job, marry the right person, live in the right neighbourhood and have the right amount of children.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ranting. This is the blueprint for live of so many people, me included. I did all these things but I wasn't happy. Many aren't. I think that's because, and again I am speaking from my own point of view, that our source of happiness was always external. What kid doesn't want their mum and dad to be proud of them, to a less extent, praise from the teacher, recognition from their professors and recognition from their bosses for doing a great job? The television adverts tell us that if we have a Caribbean cruise or whiter teeth that we will be happy. I think nowadays the collective consciousness is more aware that happiness comes from within. I'm very happy now to look in the mirror and say "I love you Howard". I don't do it to the exclusion of others like Narcissus. How can I let others love me if I don't love myself? Conjure up, if you will, the image of a person who doesn't want to be loved. They exist. You may know them but that's for another day.

To answer my above questions on when we became comfortable in the Industrial Age blueprint for a happy life... who knows. It was some time when you looked to your early role-models for life, your parents. Those who grew up in that age. Get good grades, get a good job, marry a good girl and live in a good neighbourhood would have been their words of wisdom. So that's what we did for 20, 30, 40 years of our lives. We settled and we were content but I think we may not necessarily have been happy. The comfortable old shoes of going to work with the security of the paycheck at the end of the month were not something we wanted to take off. Mmmmm comfy. It's a very difficult mindset to get out of. So I ask again; would you like to work from home? Are your ready to work from home?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So how many employees do you worked their way up to being multi-millionaires? I'm sure you could count them on one hand. We can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. If we want different results, we have to change our mindset. Thankfully, with this business, I did and now I teach others how to become wealthy, they bring the why.

Until next time,
make it a great day because you deserve it.

The Path I Choose

2008-10-21T17:11:00.000+01:00

2008-10-21T17:01:00.000+01:00

2008-10-21T16:55:00.000+01:00

Power vs Force

2008-10-20T15:07:00.000+01:00

If one was to plot my journey of knowledge about business and myself since I joined Liberty League on a graph, it would show a gradual increase. I don't know what the gradient of the graph would look like as the graph is continuous! The great thing is, this isn't exceptional to any Liberty Leaguer and it's not why I'm posting this blog. The reason I'm posting is that I have read 6 or 7 books since I came back from the Summit in April of this year (it's now 2nd August 2008). I didn't so much read them as "consume" them. That said, there would be two "spikes" in my graph that would show an exceptional rate of growth. The two "spikes" are related to two books. One is the ubiquitous "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. The second is, in my opinion, one of the most mind expanding, life perspective altering books, "Power vs Force" by Dr. David Hawkins.

When my adviser, the larger-than-life, John Lavinia, told me that this book would be as important to me as Think And Grow Rich, I was a tad unbelieving. You see, I had just finished reading Think And Grow Rich (I'll shorten it to TGR if you don't mind?) and THAT was a life altering experience. Having learned about neroplasticity from Prof. Shawn Achor at the Rome Summit 2008, I knew why my forehead ached slightly when I read it. My brain was taking a new shape with the new information. Heavy jelly, eh?

So what else could or would produce 1) such a feeling of empowerment and 2) the need for my brain to reform with new information?

Well, the short answer is Power vs Force. If you want the long answer, read the book! lol. Whereas TGR had reformed my mind in business practice in such a profound way, Power vs Force has changed my perception of our world with the same, if not greater, profundity. Let me illustrate by saying that last night I was in a karaoke booth with my friends from work (I'll be handing in my notice at the end of Aug 08 btw yipee!) and on the walls, as big as the walls allowed, were pictures of space and spiral arm galaxies. As I pondered them, I considered them small compared to the vast bank of consciousness that I can tap into. Space, time and distance were and are all relative. Without my body (and I mean that in both senses of the term i.e. outside of and "not with") is the most amazing "world" that each of us has power and ability to tap into and see. What if we could step out of linear time? Would there be causality? Would "this" cause "that"? Life and the universe are not linear.

So if we lead linear lives were missing out on our true potential to be greater. Life is a gift from God (I use the term God to refer to the Creator and not a religious icon) and as such, I was to maximise his gift, not hide it away in a hum-drum life. Beauty exists in everything and your point of view is only relative to where you're looking from so what would your poit of view be if you looked at an object from various viewpoints? You'd have different opinions right? Different opinions from the same conscious entity. As you you think these thoughts, you put them into the bank of collective consciousness right? It's in the bank for someone else to be aware of. The converse is also true, your thoughts are taken from the bank and "realised". So now I know that "my" thoughts aren't really my conception. To have the notion "my thoughts" is, a vain concept and vanity doesn't serve anyone justly.

So, having read about two-thirds of the book, I'm fairly sure that I know AN answer to the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Let me leave it at that for now. If you're still with me, well done! There are no embedding link on YouTube but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45LuPQUUEAI will give you a taste.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. You have the power, so make it a great day.

My First Week

2008-10-14T12:01:00.000+01:00

Testing testing.... is this thing on?

Hi there. If you've come across this blog it may be by chance or it may be because I have very excitedly pointed you in this direction. So you're probably a friend of mine. Sad.

When I first came across the concept of blogging it blew my mind. This online diary that EVERYONE could read. Or not as the case may be. It's a big world but I wouldn't like to give it a second coat.

Which leads me nicely on to the point of my first blog entry. It's a BIG world.

About a year ago, I signed up with a home based business. What attracted me was the "home based" bit. I've always tried to give my best to companies and be really enthusiastic about whatever project I was working on. I'd suggest that perhaps we could do it this way or improve it by doing it that way or including this person. While my enthusiasm was appreciated, I never felt like my ideas were. I've been told that I'm quite a strong personality so I've tried to hold back in case others felt encroached by me.

Right there is the mistake. Instead of celebrating my "large" personality I tried to throw camouflage over it. I was the elephant in the room. I had some run-ins.

So a home based business for me then. To be my own boss and to work my own hours and to make the money that would never have been possible had I stayed in corporate life. So here I am now, coming the end of my first week of working from home. AND I LOVE IT.

You may ask "what took you so long?". The truth is, I did.

When someone is used to, as we all are, of being taught how to conform and that things don't work if you don't, it's hard not to want to run back into the burning building. At least you knew where you were then! The building that is you pre-formed life. I'm not dissing it. I was there for a long time. And once you're there for a long time, it's hard to leave.

So, I'll sign off on this post saying that, for me, I've found a better way. I'm spending more time with my pregnant wife. Our son, Samuel, is expected in mid-January and I'm going to be there for him every step of the way. It's nice to be able to keep that promise to him and hold that glow in my heart when I think about it.

Next time: why I prefer not to refer to myself as "me".

Arrivederci Roma

2008-09-20T08:48:00.000+01:00

Did you ever thing about something for so long and so hard that it actually manifested itself? Up until now I would have referred to it as a wish or a longing. I used to watch planes fly overhead and wish that I, too, could fly. Not in a superman way, I mean the mechanical way. For years "I wished" it. And then one birthday, my then girlfriend, now wife, actually bought me flying lessons. Out of the blue and without conscious prompt from me.

So it was with little surprise that I found myself in Rome in April with Liberty League. To say "I expected it" is not to mean that I took it for granted. Myself and my wife had arrived 2 days before the Summit and on both nights we toasted "our Liberty League Life".
It being my first Liberty League event, what we couldn't have anticipated was incredible and indelible the event would be on our lives.

Having checked in and registered at the Sheraton Roma, we went to the loby bar to grab some lunch. There in shorts and T-Shirt chatting casually was my adviser, John Lavinia. John has been in this business since its inception, or close to. He is a self-made millionaire with the heart of a lion. He is an amazing public speaker too but I digress. He came over to us delighted by the fact that we made it, Ireland's first Summit and Conference advisers with no small help from him.He flipped over his phone and says, in his New Jersey accent, "Let me grab my partner in crime.... Hello Shane..?" Pretty soon we were having lunch in a very relaxed fashion with Shane Krider, his lovely wife Michelle and John. Just shooting the breeze talking about dogs, odd photos and moving house and a small bit about the business, the reason that 900 of us have gathered there in Rome!

So how does an Irishman, an islander, and his wife sit down to lunch with two self-made millionaires imparting to him the benefit of their wisdom in a casual fashion? Because I wanted it to happen! Subconsciously, I had orchestrated this meeting. As an amusing aside, my wife had no idea who Shane and Michelle were at the time. The look on her face was priceless when the light came on inside her head.

I think it's important to note at this point that I'm not in awe of these people or feel inferior to these people but I do have the utmost respect for what they have accomplished. Their lives are truly their own. They made a decision to a) become wealthy and b) be their own boss. And it's something they have passed on to countless. Unfortunately some don't see it for the opportunity that it is.

So that was day 1! I won't go through everything in detail but I would like to share the "pearls" that I came away with at another time.