It’s started!

Your future has just begun, the moment you read this sentence.  With each passing word you read, your future possibilities changed.

Doesn’t that blow your mind? The fact that because you stayed to read just a millisecond longer that your future changed it’s path.

Right now, this very second, your future is getting prepared, eagerly awaiting your arrival, waiting for you to come and claim it, waiting for you to welcome it with open arms and shout ‘It’s me, I’ve arrived’ – What frame of mind will you arrive in?

Are you going to journey to your future complaining about the rest of the world?

Are you going to reach your future with a heavy heart and slowly drag yourself through the rest of it?

OR

Are you going to run and scream into your future, singing, whooping, thanking the world that you made it to your future, excited, ecstatic by the possibilities that this new place brings, your mind races with the possibilities, the endless possibilities – a new love, a new friendship, a new book, a business, rekindled love, your family join in the celebrations with you as they can see your future is a bright one, one that is infected with the possibilities of a new way of doing things, a new way of thinking, and an old way of happiness, forever following you.

Failure, depression, lost dreams, forgotten love, hatred, and anger all go with you to your future but each time diminished by the thoughts of a new future.

Your future asks you to let go of your inhibitions, stop trying to please others, dump falseness, drop the protocol, open up the person inside, the person that wants to say ‘Fuck it’, this is me, this is who I really am – I want to be genuine, I need to be passionate, I have finally met my authenticity.

Your future awaits you!

All it asks of you is:

Honesty!

I am reading a fantastic book just now by Robin Easton called ‘Naked in Eden’.  In it Robin shares a story about her connection to a Bandicoot which reminded me a lot of a similar connection I had with my dog ‘Trinty’ (named after the character in ‘The Matrix’).

We bought Trinity, a gorgeous Lhasa Apso, for our son who was terrified of dogs when he was younger.  She was a little pup and our son could grow with Trinity and get over his extreme fear of dogs, which he has now.  Over 4 years Trinity became my dog, you know how in every family who has dogs, the dog has a special connection with one person, well, I had the connection with Trinity.

Early last year Trinity took ill, she was listless, just lying about and wasn’t eating at all.  Concerned I called the vet and took her up to the vet the same day, it was a Friday.  The vet advised she would keep Trinity in over the weekend to keep an eye on her.  On Saturday morning we got a call to say that Trinity had a rare blood disease and they would keep an eye on her for a few more days and run some more tests.

On Sunday morning at around 4am I had an extremely vivid dream about Trinity.  She was lying in her bed, with her little paws folded over each other and her head resting wearily on her paws.  She spoke to me and advised it was time for her to leave.  I gently stroked her head and said; “are you not getting any better baby?”, Trinity looked at me with big brown eyes, tired and weary and shook her head.  I started crying and told her I loved her and how much we loved having her in our lives for the 4 short years.  I awoke from the dream with tears streaming down my face.

At about 7 am we got a call from the vet to say Trinity had passed away quietly in her sleep.  Naturally I was gutted and it took me a while before I could even talk about it.  She was a part of our little family and she was gone.  It’s hard for people to understand who don’t have pets just how attached we can get to our non human friends.

The connections we share

I truly believe that we are connected to everything in this world, be it animal, plant, rock etc, we are all evolving at different rates and I believe we can cross boundaries and communicate in some way.  My communication with Trinity was real and I often spoke to her mentally which gave us the connection we had.  Sound absurd? Maybe, but it helps me reconcile my connection with the real world and by ‘real’ I mean the natural world.  As Robin says in her book:

“What happened to our relationship with earth?how did our species lose daily intimate contact with her…………..We fly to the moon, yet we are further away from the stars than ever before”

We all have different glasses we wear when looking at the world, and in particular, when dealing with certain events that happen in our lives.

I’d like to give you an example of what I am talking about here.

A few years ago when I was driving my eldest son home from one of his clubs, I noticed a car just outside our home and next to it was a man who looked to be shouting at a young boy.  As I drew closer, I noticed the young boy was my youngest son and he was crying.  I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and lost it with the guy who was shouting at my son, and being honest, I was ready for decking him.  The guy retreated and held up his hands and advised me there had been a misunderstanding.  He was simply asking my son who his mother and father was as he had nearly knocked down my son who was showing off to his friends and standing in the middle of the road when cars were going by.

I looked at my son who confirmed with his eyes that the guy’s story was correct.  I calmed down almost as quick as I had flared up, apologised to the guy, and explained what I saw from my point of view.  We spoke for a few minutes and everything was okay.  Needless to say my son was grounded after explaining to him why, what he had done, was dangerous and trying to look big in front of his friends had earned him a two week grounding, plus the fact I nearly decked a guy as I thought he was shouting at my son and making him cry.

Lessons learned

My Son learned valuable lessons on that day: showing off and trying to act the big man is not good, and his father would do anything to protect him.  Kids need to know that their parents will protect them at all costs and from that point of view my son knows how much I love him and how what I would do to protect him.

In that situation, I wore the glasses of a father protecting his son.  Thinking about it, I could have worn so many other glasses to see the situation from another point of view.  In the UK, all workers working with the public have to go through something called a disclosure, to make sure we are fit to work with the public.  If there is a criminal record of any type comes through on the disclosure we would be sacked or would not get the job in the first place.

Had I thought about the situation, wearing the glasses of a public service worker I could have approached the situation differently, knowing that I would lose my job if I got a criminal record for punching someone’s lights out.

Putting on a different pair of glasses

We all have different glasses we can wear in life and it’s good to mentally change our glasses in order to be able to see the world from a different viewpoint.  We have the glasses of:

A parent

A brother/sister

A daughter/son

A worker

A spouse

A breadwinner

A friend

A hater

A lover

A doer

A thinker

I think you get what I mean here.  There are so many glasses we can see the world through and it’s great just to step back sometimes and just wear another pair of glasses sometimes.  See the world through a different lens.

It’s amazing how your perspective can change when you mentally say to yourself ‘I am looking at this from my own point of view, how does the situation look if I look at the world from a loving husband’s point of view/a workers view/ a boss’s view.

Be interesting to hear what kind of glasses you wear.

Martin Luther King’s Achievements:

• travelled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times
• awarded five honorary degrees
• named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963
• became not only a leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
• became the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Alright, let’s be real.

At one point or another we have all looked up to someone else, and I think it’s safe to say a majority of people who are considered leaders may never amount anywhere near to what Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela have done. As true as this maybe,  does that mean we can’t be a leader in our own way?

I consider my father a leader, same goes for my business mentor, and even Joe, my mail man for six years.

But if we don’t need history-changing-triumphs to be considered a leader, then what do we need?

There are many characteristics that the both of us may take on when becoming a leader, to name a few:

• A Leader takes charge
• A Leader Builds teams
• A Leader has helps others succeed

All of these aspects do play a part in being a leader, but there is the question of how. How do you take charge? How do you build teams? How do you help others succeed?

In my personal experience and through what I have observed, here’s what I’ve learned when it comes to creating Newborn-Leaders.

To become a leader you must have influence, before influence you must be respected, but to be respected you must be good at something, and to strive towards being good at something…..you need:

Ambition

As obvious as it sounds that you will need to have ambition, it easy for people to not challenge themselves. And that’s because as a society, naturally, we all want the “quick fix”, a “get rich quick” strategy.  Take blogging for example, working from home is ideal for everybody (mostly everybody). But it’s not easy, and I’m quickly reminded everyday as I struggle to keep my own blog alive and running.  The best perks in life simply won’t come easy…unless we’re Paris Hilton.

So we have to be motivated, you and I.

Our biggest enemy is ourselves and there will be times when we (our minds) talk crap to ourselves,  “ You can’t do it! Don’t even try! Give up!“

But we can’t give in. Don’t worry dude, I have your back. And I’ll be damned if I sit back while you talk shit to yourself.

What’s my Solution? Reasons.

What kind of reasons? The reasons why you’re striving to better yourself, your goals, your dreams and aspirations. Most people have very unclear and vague reasons. That’s why they fail to achieve their goals. The more in depth reasons you have the better. Ultimately, whatever your reasons may be…. yell them out loud!  Upon yelling and listening to your own words of reason, if you don’t feel emotions ignited within your body–you better go back to the drawing board.

Why do you want to stir up your emotions?

Because the “impossible” happens when our emotions come into play. Take the countless stories of super-humans lifting up the “impossible” upon having a gush of emotions ignite their bodies.

Simply put, I want you to strive to set out on finding reasons that ignite you emotionally. Besides, if you’re emotionally affected by your reasons, it’s normally a good (or bad) sign that what you’re fighting for matters.

As you may or may not know, I teach people how to mingle and build relationships for a living and I worked hard to get where I am. There were many times when I went out to social events alone trying to meet and build connections with strangers. It was scary, sometimes traumatizing, meeting strangers alone. My mind would say discouraging things–variations of how I could not take charge, how I could not make friends, but mostly how I would not be successful. I was at a point in my life where I felt secluded, that no one liked me, and I was afraid that I would end up alone in life.

But in those moments of doubt, I realized that I wanted my life to be filled with friends who appreciated me for me. I knew that my future depended upon the relationships that I would build during those times.

And that’s when I manned up and decided to follow my ambitions.

Ultimately, the fear of being alone was more than enough for me to get my ass through that door and take action for my life. And those were my reasons to achieve my goals on becoming a social coach.

Four years later, 45 cities all over the world later, hundreds of clients who I’ve successfully coached later… here I am, talking to you. I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t have reasons that emotionally ignited my body to take action.

Now my question to you is this: What are Your reasons?

My good friend and fellow blogger has just released his new book Upgrade Reality.  Dirk, known to the world as ‘Diggy’ is 25 years old and is a fast rising star in the blogging and personal development world.

The book itself is for anyone who is looking to craft a successful lifestyle for themselves and shows you ways to get more confident, have a vision, start your own business, how you can become emotionally healthy and so much more.

What I was so surprised about is the book was written by a young guy.  You would think that it has been written by someone much older and with a lot more experience.

Upgrade Reality is a book to dip into time and time again and to keep on your desktop for reference for your personal development needs.

the design of the book itself is fantastic, so much so that I asked Dirk to reveal the designer for the book and have actually gone to the designer myself to start designing my own guides and books.

The only downside that I could find with the book is that he has tried to pack so much into the ebook itself that it’s chapters are short.  However this doesn’t detract from the information in the book as he doesn’t give any fluff, it’s short, to the point and will get you thinking a lot about your life and how you can change it for the better.

What you will get from the book

Get Happy – Sometimes it can be difficult to be happy and that makes life unpleasant and miserable. You will learn the simple secrets, tips and mindsets to being happy. When you are happy, not only is your own life more enjoyable, but the lives of all those around you are made better too.

Get Rich – You will learn practical and smart ways to handle your savings and you will learn some mindsets that will allow you to build our own empire. You will likely not get rich overnight and you will get no guarantees, but you do get very useful and practical advice to help get to where you want to be financially.

Get Healthy – How you eat and how you exercise have a tremendous influence on your health and well-being. You will learn how you can easily eat healthy and exercise right so you have much more energy, get sick less often and enjoy life more. If you are overweight or even obese, a proper diet and regular exercise will get you back in shape.

Get Confident – You learn how to build serious confidence and healthy self-esteem with anything that you do. This will help you to enjoy life more, not be afraid to believe in your own ideas and decisions and to do what you have been scared of doing all along. Confidence is a very important part in making friends, doing business and having healthy relationships.

Buy The book Upgrade Reality here, I don’t think you will be dissappointed

A client who I am working with just now, call him Dave,  came to me with alcohol issues.  We worked out he was drinking over 350 units of alcohol per week, which is over 10 times the amount that the government recommends for a man to be drinking before health problems start to kick in.

I had been working with Dave for a few months and, being honest, I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, so I started looking more closely at his daily rituals in life.  He had already told me he would get up in the morning, have a drink, go to his friends for a drink and drink, by himself, later on at night.

I dug deeper and looked at his daily rituals hours by hour.

What transpired was that one of his rituals was to go out and get a newspaper from the local newsagents.  After that he would come back home and pass by his friends house, who would always be waiting for him so they could have a drink together in the house.  The drinking sessions would last for about 3-4 hours, and Dave would consume another 15 units of alcohol.

When Dave showed me his diary for the weeks, I noticed there were a few days, every week,  where he drunk a lot less than normal.  Dave advised that he would go for his daily newspaper and then visit his family sometimes, instead of going to his friends house.  He advised he loved seeing his family and his grandchildren.

We spoke about this and it was suggested that he could see his family every day and he could alternate between them: he had 4 members of family he would see so he could see one of them every 5 days, therefore not intruding.

Dave started his new ritual, which took him a few weeks to get into as he would slip back into his old ritual of going back to his buddys house to have a drink.  However he eventually made it a ritual and now he drinks a lot less and feels less of a need to drink as he is surrounded by family who support him.

This one ritual enabled him to cut down his drinking by over 30% and could have possibly save his life.

We are still looking at other positive rituals to implement into his life.

Swapping rituals

This idea of swapping one ritual for another struck me as being a great solution to a lot of life’s issues.

In true ‘put your money where your mouth is’ style, I decided to swap one of my ‘bad’ rituals’ for another more positive ritual.

I get up at about 5am every day, a ritual I started years ago, and I work on internet related work, answer emails, do some writing.  However I noticed I would spend more and more time doing nothing but ‘happy surfing’.  So I decided to start walking from 6am until 6.30am, and get fit.

The upshot is that I spend less time surfing aimlessly, get more work done as I am more focused and I get a 2 mile walk in every single morning come rain or shine.  So because I swapped one half hour ritual for another I am fitter, more focused, healthier, more productive and feel as if I have more energy.

I have implemented other rituals in my life which are benefiting me tremendously such as meditation, micro naps, drinking water, and visualization.

Do you have any ‘bad’ rituals that could be replaced?

Are there any rituals you can think of that you could replace with a positive ritual and enhance your life in some way, or have you done it already.  Why not help someone else out and share your story in the comment box below, I would love to hear about it.

I would like to introduce you to something called Redesigning Your Reality and it’s all about changing how you perceive the world.  This is something that I have learned with NLP and changed it slightly to come up with this concept.

Reality

Your reality is totally different from my reality, and my reality is totally different from 6 billion other peoples reality – Why is that?

Without going too much into the neuro-biology of how external information from our five senses are processed, sufficed to say that the electrical signals are passed to various areas of the brain to give us feedback on how we should interpret the world around us.

So, we can therefore break it down like this

• Reality is the world in which we live
• The world in which we live is interpreted by our five senses
• Our five senses are essentially the same as every other human being in the world
• If all humans have the same five senses (some have lost some of their senses, but we mostly have the same 5 senses) then it stands to reason that there is another factor, which differentiates us,  between the processing of our five senses and the feedback of that processing.

That factor is:

Past experience

Past experience

Our past experience, beliefs, emotions, and thoughts are what makes every one of our realities totally different from one another.  So our perception of the world, or our reality, is shaped by our past experiences.

Since the past is the past, and we can’t go back and change it ,is it possible to change our reality and our perception of the world?

I think there is a way with a 3 step process called Redesigning Your Reality.

Redesgning Your Reality

Step 1 – Grouping

Using the example that you often feel intimated by certain people whilst in their company.  I’d like you to, on a piece of paper write down all the names of the people you have felt or feel intimated by.  Try and get a list of ten people if you can.  Now write down roughly when and what your situation was when you felt intimidated and why you feel intimidated.

So for example:

Name: Ann Hartley (just a name that sprung to mind)

Situation: At work

Date: Every day

Why: She is much more intelligent than me and makes me feel stupid

Step 2 – Re-Label

Now what I’d like you to do is to put a label on how you would like to feel around these people – e.g. You might want to label yourself as ‘Intelligent’ when you are around these people.

Re-Interpreting

Now imagine you are in a movie theatre and it’s just you sitting in the middle. Now for each person you have on your list go back to the past in the movie theatre of your mind, and talk to the people involved and imagine yourself having intelligent conversation, it doesn’t matter what you say it’s all very intelligent and the people are really interested in what you have to say because you are really intelligent. Make the movie extremely vivid with colours, sound, smells, use all five senses here.

Do this with every person on your list and do it as often as you can, possibly daily for the next few weeks until you start seeing the difference it makes in your life.

Now whenever you have a thought or a picture in your mind of feeling intimidated, shrink that image, to its smallest size, make it black and white and make it disappear from the movie screen in your mind and replace it with the movie of you feeling confident, having intelligent conversation with the person and make it as vivid and use all the five senses.

I think this concept is a powerful one as it gives us the ability to change our interpretations of past events in our lives and assign new ways of thinking.  Since we are re-labelling the past, the brain will assume that our re-labelling of the past is our actual past, so our past experience has been given a new look, so to speak.

I think this exercise has the potential to change a lot of aspects of our lives which we feel we want to rid ourselves of such as old beliefs, negative thinking patterns, unwanted emotions etc.

When I told psychologist Lawrence LaShan about 20 years ago that I had created a process that permanently eliminated beliefs, he replied: “Anyone who claims to do that is a fraud.”

Despite the fact that LaShan, most other psychotherapists, and the average person think that getting rid of beliefs permanently is very difficult, if not impossible, I have thousands of clients whose experience proves otherwise.  Over 25 years ago I developed the first in a series of interventions (Lefkoe Belief Process^®) that eliminates the beliefs that are responsible for most of our behavioral and emotional problems.

How The Lefkoe Process Works

To get a sense of how the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) works, please try the following mental exercise: Assume you are a very young child with parents who are very critical of you most of the time and who rarely acknowledge you for your achievements.  No matter what you do, they focus on what you didn’t do and how you should have done better.  …  Really take a moment and imagine this. …If this is the pattern of their interactions with you, there literally would be thousands of instances by the time you are six or seven years old.  What would you have concluded about yourself by this time?

If you are typical of most children, you would have concluded that There’s something wrong with me or I’m not good enough. You would have experienced these beliefs as “the truth” about you as a child.  Today, as an adult, even though you might consciously realize the beliefs were silly and illogical, on some deep level you still would experience them as the truth about you.

If you looked carefully at the events that led to the belief, namely, your parents’ behavior, you would realize that their behavior could have a number of different meanings, each one as valid as the one you chose, I’m not good enough. For example:

·     My parents thought that being critical would motivate me to excel.

·     My parents had lousy parenting skills.

·     My parents may have thought I wasn’t good enough, but they were wrong.

·     Maybe I wasn’t good at doing certain things, but that doesn’t mean I, as a person, am not good enough.

·     Maybe my parents were dissatisfied with my behavior, but they didn’t think I wasn’t good enough.

If you were to recall your childhood interactions with your parents, it would seem to you that you could “see” that I’m not good enough. In other words, when you visualized your parents being critical, it would seem as if you also were visualizing I’m not good enough. It’s as if your parent’s behavior inherently meant I’m not good enough. It would be so real to you that you could see your belief in the world that it seems you could say to someone: “If you were there watching my interactions with my parents, you also would see I’m not good enough.”

If I asked you to describe what I’m not good enough looks like, you would realize you couldn’t, because you never really did see it. All you actually saw was your parents’ behavior. And if that behavior could have a number of valid meanings, it has no single inherent meaning. At which point you would be forced to conclude that the only place that meaning has ever existed has been as a belief in your mind.

When you reach this point, the belief has been transformed from “the truth” to “a truth” and is no longer a belief.  If you were to state the words of the belief, they would sound silly and meaningless.

This short thought exercise explains why it usually is difficult to get rid of beliefs: We think we “saw” the belief.  It is difficult to talk someone out of something they think they “saw.”  As soon, however, as we realize that we never saw the belief (i.e., the meaning we created) in the world, that the meaning existed only in our mind, the belief disappears.

Purpose of Lefkoe Belief Process

While the goal of psychotherapy is to help you cope better with your problems—and it frequently does that very well—the purpose of the LBP is to help you eliminate the problems totally, by eradicating the beliefs that are at their source.  For example, if you get rid of the beliefs that cause a lack of confidence, a concern with the opinions of others, or procrastination, those problems will disappear totally.

The following case history will provide even more details about how the LBP works.

At the start of our first session David reported to me that his wife complained that he generally was very reserved and had a hard time expressing his feelings.  I helped David identify several beliefs that contributed to this pattern, including My feelings don’t matter. When I asked David what happened early in his life that led him to that conclusion, he replied: “Dad was always telling me to stop crying.  He’d get annoyed when I got really excited about things.  He’d always say, ‘No one cares what you feel.’”

After telling David that his belief was, in fact, a valid child’s interpretation of his father’s behavior, I asked him for a few additional interpretations of what his father did and said.  His answers included: My father isn’t interested in what I feel, but his reaction might not be typical of other people.  A lot of people aren’t interested in what a child feels, that might not be true of an adult’s feelings.  In my family my feelings didn’t matter, in other places they might.  My father might not have literally meant what he said; he just might have had lousy parenting skills and wasn’t careful about the words he used.

I then asked David, “If your father’s behavior could have had many different meanings, can you see that what you’ve been living with as a fact, as ‘the truth’ is only ‘a truth,’ just one interpretation out of many?”  He nodded agreement.

“Didn’t it seem as a child when your father was yelling ‘No one cares what you think,’ that you could see that My feelings don’t matter.”

“I did see it,” he exclaimed.

“Take another look, now.  I know you saw your father and heard his words, but did you literally see My feelings don’t matter?”

“It seems like I can see it,” David said hesitatingly.

“Well, if you can see it,” I responded, “tell me what it looks like.  What color is it?  What shape is it?”

David grasped the point I was making, “I got it. I really never did see My feelings don’t matter.”

“What did you see?” I asked.

“I saw my father yell at me and I heard what he said.”

“And what is the inherent meaning of that? In other words, what do I know for sure about you or anyone else as a result of knowing that your father told you that no one cares what you feel?”

“Nothing.  His comments didn’t mean anything.”

“David,” I said, “say the words of your belief out loud: My feelings don’t matter.”

He said the words slowly and then looked at me with surprise and exclaimed: “I don’t believe that any more!”

When David realized that his belief was only the meaning he attributed to his interactions with his father, not meaning he discovered inherent in the events, when he realized he couldn’t really see the belief in the world, and when he realized his father’s behavior had no inherent meaning—the belief was gone.

Study on the Lefkoe Method

I realize that the LBP might sound very simplistic and that many people will be skeptical of the claim that the beliefs are completely and permanently eliminated in a matter of minutes.  Nonetheless, my associates and I have used the LBP successfully with well over 13,000 clients in one-on-one sessions.  Over 50,000 people have used a free on-line version of the LBP.  You can try it here: http://recreateyourlife.com/free

Some of the feeling problems that clients have presented and gotten rid of after eliminating the underlying beliefs include social anxiety, fear of public speaking, anger, shyness, anxiety, depression, lack of confidence, and worrying about what people think of them.  Behavioral patterns they have eliminated included phobias, relationships that never seem to work, procrastination, a fear of confronting people, money issues, eating disorders, drug and alcohol addiction, and sexual dysfunction.

Because anecdotes are usually not acceptable in scientific circles, early in 2004 I joined with researchers at the University of Arizona to demonstrate that fear of public speaking can be eliminated in a matter of hours, despite the fact that for most Americans it is their most intense fear. The researchers used The Lefkoe Method (which includes the LBP and other related processes) to eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that cause the fear.

The study concluded: “Overall The Lefkoe Method is an effective, quick, and convenient procedure to eliminate the fear of speaking in public. … The Lefkoe Method was effective in virtually eliminating the fear of public speaking in, on average, only three one-hour sessions.” The researchers were Lee Sechrest, Ph.D. and Victoria Cunningham, Ph.D., psychologists at the University of Arizona, and myself. (The link to the complete study that was published in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 13, 183-193, 2006, is at http://www.speakingwithoutfear.com/support-files/EliminatingFears.pdf.)

Over 65,000 people have used The Lefkoe Method to eliminate the beliefs that had kept them from doing what they had always dreamed of doing and living the way they had always dreamed of living.  That’s probably the most successful “fraud” LaShan or anyone else has ever seen.

Destiny. Fate. You may believe in it and you may not.

I recently read the book ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho. It has been around for a number of years and I was a bit late to read it, but I am glad that I did because it is among one of the best books I have ever read (which is probably the reason why it has already sold millions of copies around the world).

Although this post is not meant to be a book review, I want to give you a very brief summary of what ‘The Alchemist’ is about, because it will help you understand the rest of my post.

‘The Alchemist’ is a story about a boy named Santiago who lives his life as a shepherd somewhere near the north of Africa. One day, as part of his life as a shepherd, he went to a village to sell some wool from his sheep. In this village he knew of a gypsy woman who could interpret dreams. He went to see her because he had experienced a very strange dream that he wanted to know the meaning of. The gypsy woman told him to go to the Pyramids of Egypt so that he will find a great treasure that is destined for him.The boy was very sceptical and unbelieving, and he walked out thinking that the gypsy’s words were utter nonsense.

However, back in the village, he meets an old man who was actually a great king. This king gives the boy the inspiration and the belief in the gypsy’s spoken words and the boy proceeds to sell his sheep and travel across the water to reach Egypt in search of his treasure.

From that moment on, Santiago embarks on a journey across the dessert. On his journey he learns much about himself and the world. He overcomes incredible challenges and he meets and parts with an Englishman, the woman of his dreams, angry tribe leaders and finally the alchemist. (An alchemist is someone said to be able to transform lead into gold).

As Santiago learns more about himself and the Soul of the World, he comes closer and closer to realizing his destiny and how to get there and eventually he does, while it was right in front of him all the time, he needed to go through the entire journey of crossing the dessert and overcoming incredible difficulties to be able to see and find his treasure.

Everybody Walks Their Own Path

You are not your father, you are not your mother or your brother or your sister or anyone else in this world.

You are you, and you are unique. Your life is unique and nobody else in this world will experience exactly the same things as you will. Nobody will perceive the world to be exactly the same in all aspects the way you perceive the world.

One of the best things you can do is to accept this fact. While it is okay to look up to others, and learn from their success and their habits, it is not okay to wish you were them. You have to be content with the fact that you are you, and it is up to you to become the best possible version of yourself that you can be.

Every single person in this world needs to walk their own path, from beginning to end. Your life path is different from mine which is different from my friend’s life path and so forth. Sometimes that path may be very clear and easy to follow, and sometimes it is like a jungle with no clear path. That is when you need to make the path, pick up the machete and cute the bushes,plants and branches out the way so you can make progress. (Figuratively speaking of course).

When there is no path and you have to make your path, it is by no means easy. It will go very slowly, it will be very tiring, and sometimes you have to go back and start a new path in another direction because the current direction leads to a dead end.

You can compare cutting your own path to for instance quitting your job to pursue your dreams and passions of starting your own business. The fact that it is so difficult and that it costs so much effort is the reason why so many people do not do it. They are too scared to start the journey towards their dreams by making their own path where there is no path.

If you choose to follow an entire path that someone else has already made you will likely not live up to your full potential. You don’t learn as much from it, you don’t grow as much and your success is not the same as when you cut your own path after the easy path ends.

The Only Way To Learn Is To Do And To Make Mistakes

Theory and observation can only teach you so much. You can sit next to your parents in the car for years and yet when you have to drive it is really difficult. The chance is big that you are going to make many mistakes before you are as good as your parents are at driving.

You can study the theory and techniques of boxing for years, but when you get into that ring for the first time, you are going to make mistakes and take a lot of punches. It takes experience to become good at something. Experience is just a fancy word for having made many mistakes and having learnt from them.

Making mistakes is not a crime, it is not even a failure. It is what you need to do to get better. Ask any successful person and they will tell you they have made tens if not hundreds of mistakes when they were learning to do what they are now so good at. I have made many mistakes in my life so far, and I will continue to make many more in the future, I’m certain of it. Yet, I do not regret making these mistakes because they have made me who I am today, and they are part of the path that I have to walk.

Taking Responsibility

The most difficult part of forging your own path is the fact that you have to take responsibility. You have to take action and risk failure. You risk making mistakes, wasting time, losing money and being laughed at. To take this kind of responsibility takes serious courage and determination, but in the end, that which does not kill you only makes you stronger.

Do not view taking responsibility for your actions as a burden. Instead, see taking responsibility for your actions as taking responsibility for your own life. You are taking control of your own life so that you can head towards where you want to go and how you want to live.

Your Destiny

I cannot tell you what your destiny is, I don’t even know what my own destiny is. I do believe that when you live your life to the fullest, be the best person you can be (love generously) and work hard, that your destiny will reveal itself. My definition of destiny is that one thing that feels like you were put on this earth to do it or to complete it.

Life is full of surprises, both good and bad, that is what makes it interesting and fun! Whether you believe in destiny and fate or not, you have one life and it is yours to live and enjoy. Make the most of your life and become the best person you can be. Do not let your fear or other people’s opinions hold you back from living the way you want to live. Follow your heart and follow your dreams and do not be afraid to have to forge your own path in order to get to where you want to be.

Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Don’t just read this article if you agree with it, put it into action. Take that first step of your thousand mile journey today, and take it one step at a time.

P.S. If you have not read The Alchemist yet, I really suggest that you do because it is an amazing book.

Photo Credit

A lot of people have been using EFT to help release their limiting beliefs with great effect and I wanted to explain a little about how to use it.  This video is a very brief look at EFT and how you can use it to change your life for the better.

I first discovered it over 12 years  when I signed up for the manual and have been receiving emails from Gary Craig ever since.  It is one of the tools which has helped me in my life and I think you will love it if you start using it as well.

I am not affiliated in any way with the company.  You can download the manual at www.emofree.com and the other ebook I mentioned in the video can be downloaded here Attracting Abundance with EFT

The video is by no means a comprehensive look at EFT it is a very brief introduction and to really get you thinking about it and trying it out for yourself.

If you have any stories about using EFT to help in your life I would love to hear about them in the comments below.