A simple step

As we begin the Christmas season around this beautiful world, a period of reflection often occurs. Christmas (for most of the western world) is a time when we think about the year gone by, and about how far we have come along the road, and then we turn to the new year and begin to think about how far we are going to go and what we are going to do with our time next year. We all live life at different paces, sometimes we move quickly, at other times more slowly. We each choose how fast we want to move, making decisions that alter our progress and that sometimes take us in different directions. Sometimes those decisions help us gather momentum, at other times we lose it. That got me to thinking about physics...I was never really any good at school physics, I think the highest exam mark I ever got was around 40% despite the attempts of some very good teachers!, and the lowest was somewhere in the teens ....now a few years on from school, the querky reality is how much physics i...

Every week is an interesting one at the moment. The global economic crisis (or GEC as it is now being labelled) has affected almost everyone on the planet one way or another. It reminded me of the fact that the fear of not being in control can be our achilles heel. That fear of not being able to control the events in our lives can often be related to a fear of failure, especially when other people around us are moving things in a direction that makes us feel uncomfortable or out of our depth - the book 'Who moved my cheese' is a good one to pick up if you suffer from this phobia. More often than not, the people or changes to our lives that we most fear are the ones who can and will give us the most benefit, they are the ones that get us up off our butts and actually help us to 'shine', they are the ones that stretch us and help us to grow. In my life, these people and events are characterised by a feeling of fear, immense fear - they have on a couple of occasions brou...

Good morning! The most powerful thing you can do (and it is very powerful) to change the world is to  change your own beliefs about the nature of life, people and reality to something more positive  .. and begin to act accordingly. Success is a choice.. and it is possible to make friends with adversity and your misfortunes. Bear in mind that sometimes it doesn't take much to put things right - take for example a little water on a small plant to help it grow Paragon in Robin Hobbs' Liveships trilogy states .. "long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey you will divide it into endless pieces - any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end".."teach yourself to believe you will succeed. Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning"

We often refer to people as straight talkers, and we also like to think that we are all just that - straight talkers, you know, we say what we really mean. This week in NZ, there has been quite an uproar about the Government pushing through legislation despite the fact that the nation voted in a referendum, not to pass the law. I was left wondering why that was the case, as after all, a referendum is a means of getting a nation to voice their opinion, in a straight talking kind of way - and the Government decided to ignore what the nation said and do 'its own thing anyway' ... so in essence, that left me feeling that if the NZ Government do not listen to straight talk, then why the hell should anybody? Ok, that's a little bit simplistic, but, we all learn our behaviours from those around us. As a rebellious youngster a few years (well quite a few actually) ago soaking up the experiences around me, I'd have been left thinking "well hey, if the Government doesn't...

The other day I found a piece of paper that I'd created with my best friend a few years ago, and it reminded me of how simple things are when we want them to be. We travel along our path, experiencing this and that - hearing and seeing this and that, and along that pathway we make decisions. Those decisions keep us moving, either in the same direction or in another. Like travelling along a road, we sometimes know our way, we recognise the road - it's a well travelled road as they say - we know where we are going because we have been there before. At other times we see signposts and respond to what they are telling us - we react to them and alter our direction based on what they say. At other times, we register signposts to give us confidence that we are on the right track, we experience 'deja vu' or coincidences we just get that intuitive feeling that we are moving in exactly the right direction. I think this simple little topic is going into my book. Have a gre...

Gets you thinking doesn't it. Are they friend or foe? Ally or enemy? Over the past few days, something hit me between the eyes as things do sometimes. Recently (and in the past) there have been people who have threatened me professionally and personally. Recently I have become aware that this is a common phenomenon, we all feel threatened one way or another by other people sometimes, it's human nature ... The interesting bit is that when someone feels threatened, there is a reaction that often involves the person feeling threatened thinking, hey - is this person who is threatening a friend or a foe? Different races respond in different ways - societies that are generally somewhat hostile in nature naturally foster a fear of others who threaten you and hence, a feeling that someone who is a threat is also a foe, an enemy. The reality is that often that threat is actually a wake up call - a reminder from someone that you can do better, and that person is actually a friend helping...

Today is my birthday and I'll remember it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I was reminded today about the fact that people come to things in their own time, and that there is a right time for everything. You know how sometimes you feel that things just aren't clicking - but you know that what you are striving for will happen and that the right things will all connect at the right time to manifest your 'dream'. Today I facilitated a meeting between two people who I respect very highly, both extremely experienced in their fields. The meeting was to bring them together as a final attempt at gettting them to do business together. Until today, both people were focused on achieving the same thing (a business partnership) but for whatever reason they did not see eye to eye and the trust simply wasn't there to 'make it happen'. So we tried a last ditch attempt by asking each of them what they would be doing, on the assumption that they WERE in business together ......