We’re all going to die!

Look at everythingas though you were seeing it either for the first or last time.then your time on earthwill be filled with glory.Betty Smith, novelist (1896-1972)Today as I was eating lunch, a shiver ran through my body. My mother used to say that when this happens, someone has walked over your grave. Not a pleasant thing to say, you might imagine, but it got me thinking (again) about death, something I haven’t done for a very long time.You’re going to die. Of course you are. Everyone over the age of about ten knows that. And today we are nearer to our own death than ever before. Last week we were further away. Yesterday we were further away. But today is the closest we have ever been to that moment when life finally gets snuffed out.We don’t know when death will come to greet us. It’s quite possible that today will be our last day on this Earth. Worldometers.com maintains a meter which clicks up how many people are dying all over the world – I can’t keep up with it: it’s more than one per second anyway. Only two things re certain: one day we’ll be one of those numbers, and we have no idea when that will be.

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The 80/20 Rule

Joseph Juran died on 28 Feb 2008 at the age of 103. He was the man who coined the ‘Pareto Principle,’ named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population.

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To compete or cooperate?

The world seems to be full of competition. Kids at school sit exams, compete for grades and try to get into the best universities. Universities compete for the brightest students. Sports teams compete for the trophy or cup. Political parties compete for power. Democrats compete to become the presidential candidate. Businesses compete for customers and market share. You get the picture.

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Going Against the Flow

Change happens so gradually, we almost don’t notice it. It ripples outward in a series of connected events. One day we wake up, look around, and no longer recognize what we thought to be true. That’s change in effect.

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Increasing your net worth

Being rich is a state of mind. Your mind is like a garden which contains rich, fertile soil, and it will bring forth whatever you sow in it. You can sow a mentality of lack and poverty or a mentality of abundance. The harvest will be a life of poverty and struggle or one of ease and comfort. Which one would you prefer? The answer is obvious, but it is surprising how many people choose the former. The rich have sown an abundance mentality, and here are ten ways you can start to tend your own garden of riches.

Think more about money. Our experience of the world starts in our mind, and what we focus on will expand and push its way out into the physical world. If we focus on lack and poverty, this is what we will experience, but if we concentrate on wealth, it will start to appear in our lives. I have noticed that the rich spend a lot of time talking about money. So do the poor, in fact, except that they are talking about the lack of it.

Admire people who have money and associate with the wealthy. How do you feel when you see someone who you know is rich? Whether it be a movie star, the boss at work or a guy who lives down the road, if you are jealous about the success and wealth of others, you are never going to attract it into your own life. You need to admire these kind of people and ask yourself ‘what can I learn from them?’ The best way to learn from the wealthy, of course, is to be around them, so you should try to associate yourself with successful and wealthy people.

Be comfortable carrying money around. What do youy find when you open your wallet? I used to withdraw money from the ATM only when I needed it and I was habitually running short of money. The message an empty wallet sends to your subconscious is ‘got no money.’ So sure enough, this will play out in your life. Maybe you say to yourself ‘I can’t carry money around or else I’ll spend it!’ Well, if you can’t trust yourself with cash on the hip, you’re never going to be rich.

photo credit: rimages

Get used to spending money and buying nice things. If you have a poverty mentality, as soon as you get some money you will spend it. People who think like this cannot trust themselves with cash. Having an abundance mentality means spending money and enjoying it. It does not mean living above your means and getting into debt, but it’s also important not to scrimp and save. Your money is there to be enjoyed, and so long as you are sensible, you can go out and treat yourself. Go to a nice restaurant, get your hair done at an expensive salon, buy a designer suit or bag. These things will send out signals to your subconscious mind (and other people, and the universe) that you have an abundance mentality and that you are comfortable with money.

Get into the habit of investing. Hoarding money and spending all your money are signs of a poverty mentality. Both cause stagnation and an end to wealth. But growing money is at the heart of an abundance mentality. Money is like a living thing – it has to move and it to grow. If you win $100 in a competition, what would you do with it? The rich would think about how to turn it into $1000. The poor would just spend it or bury it. There’s an important difference.

Don’t be too attached to money. Hoarding money is also symptom of a poverty mentality. Because everything in life is in flux, money – as well as all other things – cannot sit still. It cannot lie dormant. It has to move. Either you can move it or it will move of its own accord. If you try to hoard it, it will find a way of moving on anyway – an unexpected bill or other expense, a car or house repair that needs to be paid for – so keep your money flowing. Put it to work in investments, spend some of it on nice things, be generous and, above all, enjoy it! Otherwise, what’s the point?

Feel that you deserve to be rich. Don’t feel guilty about it. Many people have been deeply scripted in a mentality that equates money with guilt. How can the rich live with themselves when there are starving people in the world? Why don’t they give their money way to help others? These are the things I used to say to myself, until I realized the truth: if all the money in the world were redistributed equally, in a matter of months, there would once again be massive inequality. And this is because poverty is a disease of the mind. Of course we should support the needy, the homeless, the sick and the hungry, but giving a person with a poverty mentality a large sum of money will not make that person rich, because so long as the poverty mentality is running, their subconscious autopilot will find a way of bringing them back to poverty.

Associate money with a healthy, balanced life. Many people think that money is tainted. They use phrases like ‘filthy rich’ and associate making money with dishonest practices and unsavory ways of living. But the reality is that money is not bad: it’s just money. And there’s no more or less reason to acquire it than there is a reason to be happy, healthy or successful. Money is good and necessary, since it can allow you to experience more of life and to help other people.

photo credit: nerdcoregirl

Take responsibility. Don’t blame anyone or anything for your situation. There are other people in that same situation who are making it! It is not your parent’s fault that you are poor. It is not the government’s fault. It’s not your age or education. None of these things have stopped others from getting rich. Many people just stay poor because it’s easier – they don’t have to face up to their part in creating their own reality. But if you truly want to be rich, stop making excuses and take responsibility. When you have done this, it clears the way for amazing things to happen.

Believe that anything is possible. Henry Ford said, ‘Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're probably right.’ People have come from abject poverty and made billions. Others have started at the top and lost it all. Anything is possible in this world. So start believing it!

Ten Tips for Healthier Living

I do not usually write about health, but our health is part of a balanced, life. Without your health, you cannot enjoy your career, your success or your relationships, so you must pay attention to this area. Here are ten simple things anyone can do to make a real difference to your level of health and fitness. Doing all thee simple things will probably add years to your life, too! As with all things, good health starts in the mind and then takes form in the real world - opportunities arise naturally and we must take them, acting in a natural and easy way to achieve our goals.

Know that you are in control

In The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey tells us that between stimulus and response there is a gap, and within this gap lies all our happiness. Between what happens around us and our response to it, there is a choice. Yes, we have been scripted through our childhood to respond automatically in certain ways to certain events, but we can unhook from our scripting and switch off the autopilot. We can assume manual control and take charge of our own experience of life. Realizing this can be frightening, but it is also immensely liberating and, ultimately, it is the fist step to a successful, abundant and healthy life. You must decide to get up and do something!

Live in ‘Easy World’

‘Easy World’ is a phrase I have borrowed from Julia Rogers Hamrick. In her blog, she writes, ‘when you are in the Easy World reality, harmony and ease prevail and things work out as if by magic’ and ‘as long as you relax and allow yourself to align with Easy World, you are there.’ This is a nice way of saying that life should not be a struggle. Effortlessness is our natural state and, whatever our circumstances, we should relax and go with the flow of things, not out of laziness and apathy, but out of a realization that to swim against the tide is tiring and futile – there is a grain to the universe and we should go with it. The benefits of a low stress life are enormous and scientifically validated – those of us with less stress in our lives live longer, healthier lives.

Exercise three times per week

It’s vital that you take some time to exercise several times per week. Do some weights and then either some cardio or interval work. This will build muscle and increase your metabolic rate. The benefits of exercise are astonishing. You will be less prone to diabetes and, since your gastrointestinal transit time will be reduced, it lowers your risk of colon cancer. Exercise strengthens bone making you les prone to osteoporosis and you will also be less likely to suffer lower back pain. It also increases your HDL (good) cholesterol and lowers your blood pressure. People who exercise regularly live several years longer than those who do no exercise.



Sort out your sleeping habits

Not getting enough sleep gives you a poorer quality of life. Of course, it makes you feel groggy and tired, but it also affects your memory and cognitive functioning – your ability to process information. People who don’t get enough sleep have twice the risk of being injured at work and The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 100,000 deaths are caused each year because of tired drivers. How much sleep you need is a very individual thing, but not getting enough can damage your health and even reduce your life expectancy. One study recently suggested that the reason women live longer than men is because they sleep better.

One helpful suggestion for getting enough sleep is to always get up at the same time but to go to bed when you are tired. Some days you will get more sleep, and some less, but by doing this you will always get the amount of sleep you need.

Meditate

Like sleep, taking time regularly to relax and unwind is very beneficial to health. Regular meditation can reduce back pain, headaches and depression. It can lower blood pressure and boost the immune system. It can help improve sleep quality and, above all, it promotes a relaxed and restful state of mind and helps with concentration and focus.

Eat a handful of mixed nuts every day

Eating 30-60 grams of nuts per day can do wonders for your health. Regularly eating nuts reduces the risk of stroke, diabetes, dementia, macular degeneration and heart disease. Nit eaters live two years longer than the rest of us, according to a recent study. Nuts contain vitamin E, copper, magnesium, boron, folic acid as well as manganese and plant sterols. They contain a lot of unsaturated fat and very little saturated fat, and nut eaters do not put on weight from consumption of nuts. Nobody knows why nuts are so good for you, but eating them regularly will do wonders for you.

Eat a salad every day

A recent study by the UCLA School of Public Health/LSU Health Sciences Center found that eating a salad every day has significant health benefits (as if we didn’t know already!) Try to go for a mixture of dark, green leafy vegetables (not iceberg lettuce which doesn’t contain much by way of nutrients). Salad provides many important vitamins and minerals, and even better news is that salad dressing contains chemicals which help the body absorb cancer-fighting nutrients called free radical scavengers more effectively.

Stop drinking alcohol

The health benefits of drinking small amounts of alcohol on a regular basis have been well documented. However, most people who drink alcohol tend to drink too much and there are many negative health effects of this kind of drinking. I have found personally that it is just a lot easier to be very clear-cut and decide that you will never drink under any circumstances. Of course, you need not be too evangelical about this – eating a tiramisu or some brandy sauce won’t hurt you, but a black and white rule makes life a lot easier.

Cut down sugar and caffeine

photo credit: Unfurled

Again, you probably don’t want to be too evangelical about this, but it’s worth cutting down on refined sugar and caffeine. I have found that having ‘sugar-free’ days to be a very useful way of cutting back. Once or twice a week I will have a sugar day, when I allow myself to eat sugar. I don’t binge, but I allow myself a small amount of chocolate or desert. I also recommend having ‘caffeine-free’ days, too. Even on days when you do drink coffee, tea and coke, only have one or two cups. This will improve your quality of sleep and make you less tense. Coming down from a ‘sugar high’ can make you really tired, so staying away from sugar can keep you alert. Try to go for less refined sugars, such as those found in fruit, honey and, especially, maple syrup.

Go to church!

Recent research has shown that people who attend church or some other form of corporate religious activity on a regular basis live between 1.8 and 3.1 years longer. So you’ll need to wait a couple more years before getting your reward in paradise!

Why write a mission statement?

What is the difference between people who are successful (however you might define success) and those who are not? Well, there is a long answer and a short answer. I know the short answer, but I'm not going to tell you (just yet - this is for another article!) but one of the key differences is that successful people have a compass. They have a clear direction, a sense of where they are going and, as importantly, why they are going there. This compass is a mission statement and, like all successful organizations, individuals who aspire to success need this guidance system. I have written about the importance of a personal mission statement elsewhere. Here, I would like to expand a little on why mission statements are so important.

Steven R. Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, tells us that ‘all things are created twice,’ once in the mind, and once in the world. Although this idea that ‘thoughts become things’ (to use Earl Nightingale’s expression) has been widely disseminated by self-development books and movies such as ‘The Secret’ in recent months and years, most people do this without any conscious awareness of the process. It is happening all the time, but most of us simply create our experience by default through reactive and habitual thought patterns that we have picked up from parents, friends and society at large.

Successful people are conscious of this process and use it more deliberately, but there is another, vital aspect to our ability to orchestrate our own experience, and it is this – life is all about flow. We need to give and we need to receive, and Covey tells us that ‘paying attention to the development of self in the greater perspective of improving one’s ability to serve, to produce, to contribute in meaningful ways’ will enable us to create in a sustainable way. To ignore this give and take is to cause stagnation and decay, like a pool with no outlet stagnates and dies. I am reminded here of the story of the goose who laid the golden eggs. The farmer focused too much on the eggs and, in his greed, killed the goose. We need the eggs (what we create) but we also need to keep the engine of creation going, and we do this by honoring the fact that all life is about giving and receiving.



Bringing these two basic truths together – that we create twice, and that we must work with the flow of life – brings us to the point where we must think deeply about what we want and where we are going in life. If we fail to engage at this point, we will continue to drift along, either experiencing by default (as most people do) or creating our life in a way which ultimately leads to stagnation and decay.

The most important step is to identify your values, those basic principles which are most important to you. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl suggests that we detect our meaning in life, so it is worth spending some time seriously reflecting on what values we live by, what really moves us. Steven R. Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, suggests that we imagine ourselves attending our own funeral and listen as we hear the eulogies being reads out about us. Do we like what we are hearing? What do we want to hear? How have we been remembered? We need to identify what is deeply important to us.

If these values can be distilled and concretized into a personal mission statement (what you want to be and do, based on your personal values), then we can live out each day deliberately creating an experience which leads to sustainable growth and happiness.

We need to decide where the focus of our life is located. People have many focuses – work, money, family, friends and so on – but the truly creative person has his or her core values at the center of life. Steven R. Covey identifies four features which flow from this center and which need to be in harmony in a truly creative and successful life.

First is security, our sense of worth and emotional anchorage. In an value-centered life, change should seen as an exciting adventure and an opportunity to learn and grow Secondly, guidance, our sense of direction. Here, we should be detached from life’s changing landscape and guided internally by our core values. Thirdly, wisdom, or how we respond to events. In a value-centered life, we do not respond reactively to the vicissitudes of life but proactively make decisions, not being acted on by others but acting independently and skillfully in the world. Fourthly, power, our ability to achieve. Here, we should recognize that what we achieve is our own responsibility and is not determined by the beliefs and behavior of others.

The mission statement itself should be short and encapsulate the core values in your life. It should be personal, positive and is probably best written in the present tense. But this is where guidance has a limit – above all, this is a personal exercise, and the act of engaging with it and really thinking about what the mission statement should be like is an individual and immensely valuable process.

A wide range of personal, corporate and other mission statements can be found at missionstatements.com. Here is my own mission statement.

photo credit: camera_shy_gal

I experience abundance in all areas of my life by working with the natural flow of things. I deliberately orchestrate my life through a permanent connection with the Universal Mind and, in so doing, I recognize that I am responsible for my experience. Remembering that change is inevitable and continual, I embrace it, always seeking to learn and grow in all areas of my life. Living interdependently, I teach and learn from others.

Thinking about your core values and writing your mission statement is one of the most important things you can do. I recommend you engage seriously with this activity – your life will be all the better for it.