How to change in a majorly big way

If you want to make a huge change in your life because, in the words of Les Brown, "you're sick and tired of being sick and tired" but struggle to make it stick, it might be that your approach is wrong. Try a holistic approach, as I explain in this video, part of my online course "3 video life changer" Enjoy! R. ...

Scattered or Focused?

May 2012. I was at pretty hyped up business meeting.  The kind that makes you think you are in the US of A, in a pep talk before a football match, with the cheerleaders there as well. Very un - British! but I loved it. My biggest take away from that meeting was this: Consider a 100 watt laser and a 100 watt bulb. Both the same energy, but one is harmless, the other incredibly powerful. Tweet: Being focused beats being scattered the same as Laser beats lightbulb One you can stare at or touch, the other you...

Productivity enemy #4: disorganized finances

Phone wakes me up from my slumber. "We are Do Gooders Ltd. We can save you time and money by finding you a better price for your current car insurance/home content insurance/mobile phone contract/body/girlfriend....." I'm interested. I enquire further info. Ok, the last 2 examples are completely made up. Wait...The company name too. Anyway. Focus! These cold callers tend to promise the world, don't they? They sell dreams. You buy them only to find out there are just that. Dreams. Carefully crafted shiny-glittery-shams. Then you wake up and realise you've been robbed in broad daylight! Yes this is...

Productivity enemy #3: resistance

Let me be straight with you. When I started writing this post a few weeks ago, I was down. Riddled with self-doubt. Why? First because there was not much money in the bank to cover my fast approaching tsunami of expenses. How would I manage? I was thinking I was not being realistic trying to do "the entrepreneurial thing" without a clear vision of what I'm after, and that I was getting deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole, leading to spiralling debt and overwhelm, not wonderland. That's Resistance from within. Second, and this was the biggest trigger for...

Productivity enemy #2: inconsistency

Back in November 2009, I had the bright idea to train to do 100 consecutive push ups. I could do about 45 at the time. I did achieve my goal. I was able to 100 consecutive press ups...  ....  ... ehrm... some 3 years later! Why was that? Why did it take me so long? Because I'm a weakling? Well, not exactly. It was because of productivity enemy #2: inconsistency! Have you ever had that experience? Do you sometimes struggle to finish what you start? Perhaps because you lose momentum due to constant interruptions and then re-start on the goal...

Productivity enemy #1: poor health

There is an enemy of productivity that slips under the radar, wreaks havoc right under everybody's noses. 131 million days were lost because of it in 2013, in the UK,  and it cost the US 227 billion dollars. Do you think the culprit is procrastination? Laziness? Lack of motivation? Incompetence? Well those have been named, shamed and dealt with all over the interweb. But what about this one? Sickness "Cough, Cough"! My boss is coming down with the lurgies. Yes.I still got a boss (well, several but they don't own me as I'm self-employed).  This boss has the weight...

Blast through your own negativity in 3 steps (KA-ME-HA-ME-HA)

“OPPORTUNITYNOWHERE” How do you read the above? Do you need to clean your filter? No child is born negative. We see the world through fresh eyes, eager to explore the fun world outside, eager to grow up and experience new things. Then we grow up and are subjected to an onslaught of negativity. The media seeks and dishes out bad news after bad news because we need to be shocked to stay glued to our screens. But negativity is a filter. When it’s before our eyes, we unconsciously filter out anything positive that we experience and only notice...

Why Innovation is not what you might think

Back in the day when iGoogle was around, I had a little app about innovation that was supposed to glean the internet for articles on the subject. For the entire 2 years I had the app, there was no article.  Not one single iota of innovation on the humongously huge interweb to talk about? Well I'm guessing the app was somehow broken. But on reflection, Real novel ideas do not exist. Every idea is built on another, whether you are aware of it or not. Innovating isn't necessarily coming up with something completely and mind-stretchingly new. All you...

This is the year

Tempus fugit!  It's already the end of January. Many of us would have had resolutions and broken them already. If that's you, how serious are you about those resolutions? By this, I mean are they really what you want or is it something you were told to do? Do you see their value? If you don't, you can't expect to be driven to fulfil them. I wrote this post regarding connecting to what you really want and also that one on proper goal setting. Have a read. Have a think.Then when you have a resolution that you are truly...

What you can expect from this blog in 2014

Dear reader, Maybe you've read me before, maybe this is your first time. Well in whichever case you might be in, here's what you can expect from me: I will relentlessly explore, reflect on and sometimes question the paradigms that society promotes in the field of entrepreneurship, personal development, spirituality and health . I stand for taking control over our lives, breaking the shackles of old ideologies that are redundant at best, designed to keep us ignorant and under the thumb at worst. I don't presume to start a revolution. I don't stand for anarchy. I'm not here...

Wanna grow? Prepare for growing pains.

Previously, in this post, I talked about how we resist change, consciously or not. You would have thought that knowing this on a conscious level would have set me free, right? Wrong! here's why, which I found out while perusing a post called "do you have an upper limit problem" by sassy business guru Marie Forleo. "We shall rrresist!" I have noticed that while pursuing goals towards being coherent in my professional/spiritual/physical life, I have to contend with myself. I find myself feeling down sometimes while I should celebrate a success. It feels like my subconscious is comfortable with...

What inspirational stories don't tell you

I have been binge reading/ viewing motivational stories for the past few months and I've come to the conclusion that there is no shortage of people out there who have overcome tremendous challenges and done great things. The media laps these stories up,  packages them to feed our need for an uplift in these challenging times. It's become a bit of a trend. But they don't tell the whole story. These are 3 things that are not always apparent in these stories: Overnight success is extremely rare. Most successes are the result of hard work over a relatively long...

The trap to avoid when diving into personal development

While on holiday, I could not help myself reflecting. I found myself on the same beach (where I did THIS) I was on my previous holiday there. You probably can understand why, with this picture. But still, doesn't it show that we are creatures of habit? We go back to what we are familiar with so easily.Is that why we can also easily go round in circles? I feel this is a trap we can fall into when diving in the ocean of personal development. Yes, knowledge is important, going back for it as often is too...But there is...

Proper goal setting in 3 steps

You may have noticed there is a plethora of self-help advice out there (AKA "personal development"). A lot of gurus have stepped up to the lime light in the last decade or so... Or maybe they tend to be noticed by a particular type of people (people like me). This post is a condensed version of what I have gleaned from them so far. Does Zig Ziglar ring any bell to you? Les Brown? Tony Robbins? If so, well you may well be like me. If not, bear with me, we're not that different. I won't write an...

The big lesson I've learned about negative thinking

If you are reading this post, you may suspect that negativity isn't a great coping mechanism for possible disappointment. You have heard the reasoning "I'm gonna do this but I won't keep my hopes up" many times, (from yourself and/or others)closely followed by a " I knew it" or "I told you so" and you sense there is something sinister underneath it all. You're right. Let me show you what it is. Negative thinking is cunning. That gremlin is having you on, taking you for a ride, he's playin' you! If you believe something won't work, your brain...

Stuck in the past yet somehow stretching towards the future?

We go about the world seeking new experiences,  ideas and insights but somehow  we  remain attached to the outdated an awful long time. Columbus went  exploring .Went round the globe the unconventional way  and stumbled across the Caribbean  but  he called it West Indies. But this was no western India. Yet the misnomer has survived to this day. One would have thought that the fact that Columbus didn’t fall off the edge of the world was enough to lay to rest the idea that the Earth was flat. Yet some still hang on to the idea to this...

How to be creative and innovative in 5 steps.

In my last blog I was a bit harsh on the music industry. I don’t think their problem is lack of creativity. I think it may well be that creativity is being hampered because it has to be profitable. New tunes have to have the right mood and package to appeal to the masses. It can’t be too retro or too ahead of its time because the aim is make millions. So what's on the charts is just the tip of the iceberg. Much innovation and creativity is taking place but it doesn't get to go mainstream. But...