Category: Relationships

A powerful access ‘extraordinary living’: whole, complete and perfect


Before I share with you a powerful access to ‘extraordinary’ living  I want to share with you what is so about ordinary living: the point of view that keeps is embedded in ordinary living and the price we pay.

Ordinary living: I am flawed, you are flawed

Dig into your experience, dive deep, and you will find that the culture tells you that you should be whole, complete, perfect.  Yes, you should!  Yet, the message that you (and I) have been getting from our parents, our school teachers, our colleagues, our media, our places of work, even our religions is that we are not whole, we are incomplete and we are imperfect.  Christianity is the dominant religion in the Western world and what does it say?  You are born a sinner and you have to seek redemption!  That is exactly what most of us buy into and do yet we fail to find that redemption because we are no a fool’s errand, we have a mistaken view of us, of life (more later in the post).

When you look at yourself, relate to yourself, experience yourself, you (and I) see ourself as something like this:

What is the price that I pay, you pay, he pays, she pays?  What is to like to know/feel/experience being not whole, not complete, imperfect when the culture around you spins the myth of perfection?  I know what that is like. You know what that is like!  He knows what it is like and she know what it is like.  We keep that shame of imperfection hidden.  We strive and strive and strive to be complete, to be perfect, to be whole.  Yet, the way that we go about is guaranteed to keep us rooted to being incomplete, broken, faulty, worthless, inferior, imperfect.  If you sense of wholeness / perfection is tied to your partner then what happens when your partner becomes unhappy with you, starts an affair, or leaves you?  If your sense of wholeness / perfection is tied to your job then what happens when you lose your job?  If it is tied to your wealth then what happens when you lose your wealth or are in danger of losing it?

The price that we pay is the cost of wearing a mask.  We can never put ourselves in the world as we are – we give up self-expression.  We can never build genuine human bonds – the cost is genuine relatedness with our fellow human beings.  We can never relax into the world – the cost is shows up as alcoholism, drug taking, stress, disease and an early death.  Right?

Access to ‘extraordinary’ living: “I am whole, complete, perfect – just as I am and I am not.  You are whole, complete, perfect – just as you are and just as you are not”

Look into Buddhism and you get a central insight into the human condition: we cause our suffering by living from/into an incorrect/false view of ourselves and the world.  The false view is that I, you, he, she, they, we are broken, incomplete, imperfect!

The correct, the right, view is that I am whole, complete and perfect, just as I am and just as I am not.  There is nothing to add and nothing to take away!  And that applies to everyone of us.  Sound philosophical to you?  It is.  Let me make it more concrete to you – take a look at the diagram below:

Do you see it?  Do you see / get the beauty of what is so?   Look at the diagram again.  If you look at each shape in isolation you can easily say that it is incomplete, imperfect, something missing – none of the shape are a square or a circle!  Now look at the picture as a whole – how the shapes connect to make a beautiful figure.   And the figure is never completed!  No matter how big it grows the design allows more and more piece to connect.  The design of the design is connection!  You only get this when you stop looking at one individual piece and start looking at the whole show.  Sound abstract?  Think about an orchestra – you can zoom into only one member of the orchestra or you can use a wide angle lens and see the whole orchestra.  Both are there!  Each individual member of the orchestra and the orchestra itself. 

Here is the truth of our design, of our situation, our existence on this planet:  we are social beings: you, me, they, we, have been designed for connection – we are perfectly designed for connection.  We have whole, complete and perfect for connecting with our fellow human beings.  Think about language and the connection it enables: I see you, you matter, you make a difference, your existence matters to me, you contribute, I love you.  Neuroscience tells us that we have mirror neurons:  I see you crying and seeing you crying, my mirror neurons enable me to feel/get your experience and thus I have the access to connect with you.

Look around you, look around you, wherever you want in the world.  What do you see?  People live with one another, people live next to one another, people work together, people trade with another.  Now think about this, you are invited to party you are told how amazing it will be – the food, the drinks, the place (say Hawaii or whatever your favourite place), the music will be just so, exactly they way you want it.  Can you imagine yourself at this party?  How delightful does it feel?  There is catch to this party.  No other human being will be present. The drinks and the food will be served by robots.  The dj taking care of the music will also be a robot.  How excited are you now?  Are you going to that party? No, right?  That is the truth of our being, our design, that we do not see and we are not encouraged to see.  Hell for us is solitary confinement: have you ever wondered why this is the harshest punishment meted out in prison?  Because the prison guards gets what is so – the truth of our design as human beings.  People matter to us. People contribute to us.  We are only human when we are connected to, contributing to, one another.

A movie recommendation: The Way

Are you up to getting present to what I am speaking about?  I recommend that you watch “The Way”: Michael Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to France to collect the remains of his dead son, killed in the Pyrenees while walking The Camino de Santiago.  Driven by profound sadness, and desire to understand his son better, Tom decides to embark on this historical pilgrimage.  Tom navigates this 800km journey and soon meets others around the world, all looking for greater meaning in their lives.   This is a moving, inspiring movie that provides a powerful access to the human condition and our greatness.

And Finally

If you are still wondering about your greatness then let me repeat:  our greatness is that we are whole, complete and perfectly designed for reaching out, connecting, uplifting, healing, completing one another and generating a beautiful pattern called life on Earth.  I leave you with this picture to ponder – it is visual metaphor for our lives:

I thank you for your listening.   The context from which I am living my life is “I matter, you matter, they matter, we matter, let’s live extraordinary lives and co-create a world that works, none excluded”.  Are you up for joining me?  You Matter, your answer matters and shapes our world that we share!  I love you. I hope you will join me.

Live a life of freedom: dismantle the prison bars by dismantling positions that limit


Live is full of experiences – some of them painful

Come take a walk with me down memory lane.  Imagine that you are around 7 years of age, it is autumn, it is cold, you have just got off the school bus and you are walking home with you school bag slung over your shoulders.  After a five-minute walk you are happy to arrive home.  You knock on the door.  To your surprise, your father opens the door instead of your mother.  You and your father don’t get along so you are already a little anxious.

There is a problem: you want to get into the house and your father doesn’t let you.  There he is, a big strong man, standing at the door and refusing to let you in.  “Why?” you ask and he says something like “This is not your home.  You are not my son.  You’re not allowed to come in, go away!”  You are only 8 years old, you are puzzled, wondering what is going on here.  So you ask “Where’s my mum?” and your father tells you she is not at home.  So you wonder what has happened to your mother – you love your mother.

Puzzled, cold, frightened you plead with your father to let you in: you tell him that you are his son, that this is your home and you plead with him to let you in.  He stands his ground insisting that this is not your home and that you not his son.  This goes on for something like 10 minutes.  Then something changes for you – tears flow down your cheeks as you turn around and walk back the way that you came.

Lets stop for a minute.  You the 8 year old child, walking away from home, what do you say to yourself?  Take a moment, given your experience, what is the conversation that you are having with yourself as you are walking away with tears running down your cheeks?

Here is the position that I took and the prison I entered into

I am that 7 year old child walking away thinking that I am all alone.  As I walk I tell myself that I will never see my mother again: maybe she is dead, maybe she has left and taken my brother with her.  I wonder where is my brother, will I ever see him again?  Then it hits me: how am I going to survive?  Who can I count on to help me, to look after me, to care for me?  My mother!  But she is not here and I don’t know where she is.

What would you say to yourself, if you were in my shoes, experiencing what I am experiencing, speaking what I am speaking to myself?

Here is what I said.  From somewhere I heard these words spoken with absolute confidence: “There is nobody that I can count on to help me.  That’s OK, I’ll count on myself.  I will survive, no matter what it takes, and I will find my mother and my brother.  I don’t need anyone, I can do this by myself!”  Repeating these words, the tears dried up, my back stiffened and fierce resolve took hold. That is the day the 7 year old child gave up his childhood and became a ‘man’.

Every position has a payoff

I didn’t just speak those words.  I became convinced that my speaking was a truth about myself, people and the world.  And from then onwards my living, my life was shaped by that position.  What do I mean?  I wouldn’t say that I did not ask anyone for anything, I would say that I never asked anyone for anything that mattered and they might say no.  No way, was I going to repeat the experience that I had experienced with my father.  No way was I going to allow people to let me down and upset me.

So from the age of 7, I stopped asking for and expecting any help from anyone. I was the hero of my life and I was going to do it all myself:  I dived into the Greek legends full of heroes and heroism – I read these legends every day.  I got totally absorbed with Alistair MacLean novels – full of heroes, villans, adventure.  I stopped showing any weakness and focussed relentlessly on doing well. And by the age of 30 I attained everything that I set out to attain: I had my own flat that I loved; I was being paid a great salary and had lots of money;  I was driving a BMW;  I had my own office; and I was managing businesses

Every position has a cost

The position I took at the age of 7 sounds marvellous doesn’t it.  Look at the fruits it delivered: money, status, power, possessions…  Don’t fool yourself and don’t be fooled, every position has a cost: imagine each position as a stick with one end being the payoff and the other end being the cost – a stick always has two ends.  So what was the cost?

The cost was that I was alone.  I stood alone, always.  I relied on no-one and I never asked anyone for anything.   I always had to be strong, I could never be weak:  if any signs of vulnerability, of weakness showed up then I despised myself and stamped upon these weaknesses.  How did that show up? I had a small circle of friends that I had made at university and loved (Tim, Jim, Dave, Andy, John, Simon) and I was distant from just about everyone else.  It would be fair to say that whilst people valued my efficacy then did not want to party with me.   I was lonely whenever I was not occupied with work and personal development.

Ah, personal development, that was my religion – relentlessly focussed on learning and developing myself.  That had come in handy and delivered the fruits and yet in the process I had become addicted:  there was always something more to learn, something to change/improve about myself…..  What did I do with my free time and money?  Spend it on personal development as I had be stronger, more capable, more resilient – after all I am on my own right and I have to face the whole world!

How to dismantle your positions and why I will never forget Karl

I, you, the self is made up of many positions, we call them beliefs.  During my participation in Landmark Education courses I got present to and let go of many of my positions (the prison bars that construct the self) and thus opened myself up to freedom and self-expression that I had never experienced before. Yet, there was one position, the one I have shared with you here, that I would not let go of.  That was until the day that I chose to step out of my position.

I was participating in the ILP course.  To get certified, to achieve the outcome, I had to do a whole bunch of stuff.  I was committed to achieving the outcome and the issue was that I was struggling with the ‘bunch of stuff’ that I had to do.  The more I insisted on doing it myself, not asking for help, the more I struggled and the more I fell behind.  Finally, out of desperation, and at the insistence of my coach I asked for help.  No help came: the first person was busy; the second person was busy; the third person I could not get hold of; the fourth person was busy…. I had left it too late – to the very last minute to ask for help and all of these coaches were busy helping others who had asked for their help.  What did I make it mean?  How stupid of me to listen to my coach and ask for help: hadn’t life taught me that I couldn’t count on anyone else!

Shortly thereafter, I was assisting at a Landmark seminar – setting up the room so that it was just so.  One of the people doing that work was a chap called Karl.  Karl and I got talking and in that talking I shared what I was doing with/at/via Landmark.   When he found out that I was on the ILP course he told me that he had gone through it.  He asked me about how I was doing. I told him the truth – I am good at being straight with myself and others.

To my shock, Karl volunteered to help me.  That’s right, he volunteered to help me, without me asking.  Karl set aside a full day – a full day – of his time to coach me and coach me he did.  Again and again and again: we started the work around 10am and we finished around about 7pm.  I expected the work to last about 2 – 3 hours.  The love oozed out of Karl – he was patient, he was demanding, he was ruthless and behind it all was love.

When I was getting ready to leave, I gave Karl a big hug and thanked him for his contribution to my life.  He had helped me to dismantle the position that had run my life to that day.  Karl had shown me that my position was false.  I can count on people to help me, I do not have to do it all on my own and I cannot do it all on my own.  And I experienced joy in doing the work with Karl – collaborating with a fellow human being.  Karl thanked me.  Yes, he thanked me for spending the day with him.  “What?  I have taken a day of your life and you are thanking me!  What is going on here?  Are you simply being polite?”  Karl told me that life had been a struggle for the last six months or so – some days he had found it hard to get out of bed.  He had lost his job, his marriage had fell apart, his wife had taken the children with her and he only got to see them at weekends…..

Then Karl told me something that opened up my world, offering me an opening to asking for help from a context that I had never considered.  What did Karl say?  Karl told me that me asking for his help, being open to his help, taking his coaching for the whole day it allowed him to experience being worthwhile.  Our interacting had impacted us both deeply.  I was not the only one who had dropped a position that curtailed my freedom and locked me into prison, Karl had done the same.  Through our interexperiencing Karl let go of his position that he was a failure, that he had nothing worthwhile to contribute.  Instead, he experienced being useful and powerful – the Karl that he used to experience himself as.

Putting in place a more powerful position

What happens when you take out all the old furniture from your living room / lounge and send it away?  You are left with an empty room, right?  What happens with this empty room?  It gets full again – either all in one go or in little steps.  Right?

The same applies to the human mind and positions.  So the trick is to replace old positions that limit you and your freedom and replace them with powerful positions that provide you with freedom and self-expression.  What did I do?  I replaced the position “I can’t count on anyone so there is no point in asking anyone for anything; I’ll do it all by myself” with:

  • “I will ask people for their help whenever I need help and sometimes when I do not need the help.  I will give people an opportunity to contribute to me and in so doing I am contributing to them: allowing them to get present to being useful, being powerful, being worthwhile, being great human beings.”

How powerful is that? For me, powerful.

Question for me, for you, for us

Am I, are you, are we willing to search for, examine, let go of the positions(beliefs, fixed points of view, decisions) that limit us, that restrict us, that are the bars of the prison we construct around ourselves?  And replace them with positions that provide the context for freedom, self-expression, joy and power: the power to create the life / the world that we are up for living in?  I know where I stand. What about you?  Are you up for a life of freedom, self-expression, joy and living powerfully?

I thank your for your listening and I love you: I know, that like me, you are a soul whose intentions are good and underneath all the muck you are a ‘god’.  Do you get that?  Really, do you get that?

Are you ready to face the scariest truth of all? You matter


Intentionally blind to the truth of our existence?

I am blind to something and if you are like me then you are likely to be blind to something.  Why am I blind to this particular truth?  Because, to get present to this truth leaves me no excuses.  When I, you, we get present to this truth there are no escape routes.  I, you, we become responsible for a ‘world that does not work’ and then the usual avenues of excuses and complaining are closed to us.   For most of us that burden is so heavy to bear that we go about absolutely convinced of the opposite of what is so.  Before I share this truth with myself and with you let me share with you what is so in the taken for granted, ordinary, mode of being.

The ordinary mode of existence: I am puny, I do not matter, I am not responsible

In our day to day existence we tell ourselves that we do not make a difference.  That’s right we feel small, we occurs to ourselves as being insignificant in comparison to the powers that matter, that shape the world.  We are puny in comparison to; the nation states; the institutions of the nation state including government, judiciary, the police; the global corporations that often wield more power than many nation states; and the media which decides that which gets attention and what gets ignored.

Take a look at the picture.  Do you not see yourselves as one of those small dots – one amongst an ocean of small dots surrounded by, subservient to the powers that be?  And do you not just give up – go with the flow, accepted practice, doing you best to fit into the way that the world is.  If you have more gumption, more intelligence, you may make the effort to carve out a place for yourself in the world where you can simple be – rather like a hermit or a warlord, depending on your disposition.

Seeing ourselves so puny do we (you and I) not comfort ourselves with the notion that we ‘victims’ of the way that the world is?  Do we not say that the way it is has nothing to do with us?  Do we not escape any and all responsibility to do with the way that it is and the way it is not?  And as such we can comfort ourselves saying the world may be ‘bad’ but we are ‘good’?

A funny thing happened in the office recently

I turned up at the office recently and talking with a member of leadership team I was confronted with what is so and I do not wish to face. What exactly am I talking about?  I was told that my presence in the office was missed!  He was telling me that it matters (to him, to the leadership team, to the company) whether I am present in and work out of the office.  My automatic reaction?  What are you talking about?  I don’t matter to you, to the leadership team, to the company!  I do matter to my clients and I take care of my clients – I make sure that I take care of my clients.

Then it hit me.  How many times have I been told that I matter?  How many people have told me that I matter?  How many people have told me that I have changed their lives simply by being me and doing what I naturally do? What is my response – what goes on in my mind?  Sometimes I discount what I am told, other times I am simply embarrassed and most of the time it is both.  My reaction? “You cannot be talking about me.  I am ordinary.  I make no difference.  You are just being nice.  No, you cannot be serious, I’m just an ordinary fellow getting through life as best as I can.”  Outwardly, I simply say “Thank you”.  The conversation finishes, I am glad it is over and so I can forget about it.

‘Extra-ordinary’ living:  I matter and I take the stand that I am responsible for EVERYTHING as it is and as it is not

I matter, you matter, they matter, we matter!  Through our speaking and our acting – including that which we do not speak of and that which we do not do – we influence, shape and create the world we live in.  Why is that?  Because, our existence is like a wave that ripples and touches many others.  We are waving all the time and so we are touching others all the time.  Contrary, to our beliefs and our cultural worldview, we are NOT particles.  No, we are waves: we are constantly touching others and being touched by others; we influence others and they influence us – all the time.  This influence extends to our death – we touch others through our dying.  And even beyond the grave we touch others with the legacy that we have left – either through action or inaction.   Allow me to share a quote with you:

“We cannot be deceived.  Men can and do destroy the humanity of other men, and the condition of this possibility is that we are interdependent.  We are not self contained monads producing no effects on each other except our reflections.  We are both acted upon, changed for good or ill, by other men; and we are agents who act upon others to affect them in different ways.  Each of us is the other to the other.  Man is a patient-agent, agent-patient, interexperiencing and interacting with his fellows.”  RD Laing, The Politics of Experience

It matters:

  • whether I work here at home, with my clients at their offices or at the offices of the company I work for;
  • whether I look my fellow human beings in their eyes and smile;
  • whether I choose to let one of my fellow human beings cut into the main road from a side road given that I have the priority;
  • whether I cycle to work or drive a gas guzzling car to work;
  • whether I help the old man in the start that has fallen over and is lying on the pavement;
  • whether and how I speak to you when we encounter each other in the office;
  • where and how I spend my money..

EVERYTHING I, you, we speak or do not speak matters;  EVERYTHING I, you, we do or do not do matters; EVERYTHING we focus or do not focus our time-money-effort on matters.  I, you, we matter, ALL THE TIME.  That is simply what goes with existing – being a part of the pattern called life.

EVERY action or inaction, no matter how small matters: we live in a non-linear world where small changes can have a huge impact.   The ‘Butterfly’ principle shows that in the world as it is EVERYTHING is interconnected, interdependent AND a miniscule change, action, like a butterfly flapping its wings can change the weather half way across this planet. 

Now more than ever I, you, we are enormously important and powerful.  It is easier than ever for each SINGLE one of us to change the world. The internet, mobile telephony and social media allow us to come together and effect change in the world. 

Two great examples of the impact we can make if we choose to make it

The first is our fellow human beings, in Brazil, putting their humanity into action and saving 30 stranded, in pain, dying dolphins.   Their actions matter – notice that it started with one person moving from the beach into the sea and this set the cue for others to follow, to join in.  And that video has been viewed over 2 million times.

People in Brazil save 30 beached dolphins:

The second video is part of the most talked about social campaign in existence today.  It has been viewed over 69 million times and as a result Joseph Kony is now a well known name.

Kony2012:

Final question: am I, are you willing to give up the delusion and live as ‘gods’ and shoulder the responsibility that comes with that?

I matter, you matter, they matter, we matter – that is simply what is so and it is even more so now, today, than any other time in our history.  Our delusion is that we think, we believe and we go about our living from the context that “I am insignificant, I am puny, I do not matter.  So I can do whatever I want as it has no impact on anyone else.”  We do not leave it there.  We add a fool’s errand on top of this delusion, actually it is only possible if this delusion is there as the foundation.  What is this fool’s errand?

Fools errand: being deluded that I am puny, I am in signficant, I do not matter, I set about doing all manner of stuff to prove to myself, to you, to my work colleagues, to the world that I do matter.  Hey look I matter, I am important, I am significant.  Look at my job title.  Look at my big, new house.  Look at my latest, expensive car.  Look at my clothes.  Let me tell you where I went on holiday this year……

I can give up the fool’s errand and so can you.  You and I can face up to the scariest (and most powerful) truth of all: you matter, I matter, we matter all the time.  Everything that we do or do not do has an impact (especially now in the days of the internet and social media) and because of that you and I are 100% responsible for EVERYTHING that is so and is not so in this world.   What an awesome responsibility that is.  What an awesome opportunity that is.  What an awesome context to operate from!  And this context provides the access to live a transformed life.

Alberto Cairo: what shows up when you are OPEN to Possibility


The default human condition: dead to Possibility

The default condition of human existence is dead to Possibility. Are there any exceptions? Yes, young children – their world is Possibility and then we set about draining that out of them so that they can be like us, dead to Possibility. What do I mean when I say “dead to Possibility”? I got present to one instance of this just today. It was a beautiful day – sunshine, blue skies, calm – and I wanted to go for a walk just after lunch. I fell asleep. When I woke up it was around 4pm and it looked like that sun was about to go to sleep. Automatically, I was dead to the Possibility of going out for a walk and enjoying that walk. Why because I was dead to the Possibility that I could go out, walk and enjoy the experience of walking at that time. Nonetheless, I went out for that walk and walked for 90 minutes and thoroughly enjoyed that walk. And the sun did not go to sleep, it stayed and I even got to experience some of its magic on my face.

How else does ‘dead to Possibility’ show up in our lives? When I say this is how I am and am not – a nail in the coffin of Possibility. When I say this is how you are – another nail in the coffin of Possibility. When I say this is how they are – another nail. When I say this is the way that world is and is not – another nail. And especially when I say this is simply not reasonable, acceptable, practical, possible – that is a whole set of nails into the coffin of Possibility.

How do we live when we are living from the context of ‘dead to Possibility’? We do not take risks – especially not risks to our life, our financial security and our reputation. We do not break the rules – especially those that threaten our freedom, our standing, our financial security. And we ignore everything that is not a priority. The last one is a beauty. Why? Because the priority is simply surviving, fixing and striving to look good and avoid looking bad. Generating new realms of Possibility is a luxury, it is not a priority, and so we spend our lives surviving and fixing and then one day we die. That someday when everything is perfect and we can focus on what really matters to us, never arrives.

What shows up when one is open to Possibility?

Everything that is shows up in our world as new is because someone was open to Possibility. If I open to the Possibility of a new relationship with my wife then I set the context for that new relationship to arise. If I open to the Possibility of doing fulfilling work then I set the context for me to create that outcome and/or for that Possibility to show up in my life. And so forth.

I have a question for you. What is possible for this man in Afghanistan whilst the war is raging, no government is really in place, there is no law and order or social security, and where people are busy doing their best to survive:

  • He has no legs;
  • He has only one arm;
  • He is illiterate; and
  • He has no skills

I assume, if you are like me, that you would say not much. You’d say he is condemned to begging and that is exactly what Mahmood was doing. Wheeled about by his young son Rafi, he spent is days begging.

Enter Alberto Cairo and his right hand man Najmuddin. The first is a humane man, the second is an unreasonable man. Most of us get what a humane person is – s/he is a person that is willing to take risks to exercise care for his fellow human being. He is the one that even when the bombs and bullets are flying around (in Afghanistan) gets out of his car to help a man (Mahmood) and his young son (Rafi). Why? He can see that Mahmood is stranded in his wheelchair and Rafi is not strong enough to push the wheelchair (and Mahmood) to safety. He is the man that offers to give/make artificial limbs to Mahmood.

Perhaps it is more interesting to ask the question, “What is so about an unreasonable man?” An unreasonable man is simply one that is not ‘dead to Possibility’. He is man who stands in the space of Possibility – he can see what can be, he is willing to try out new stuff, to give it a go.

What is possible when you take people like Mahmood and put them in relationship with both Alberto and Najmuddin? Watch this touching-inspiring TED talk by Alberto where he shares a story that moved me deeply:

I want to leave you with a few quotes that really speak to me:

Alberto Cairo: “It’s not a priority!”

Najmuddin: “Listen, now we are here, at least we can start repairing the prosthesis, the broken prosthesis of the people. And maybe try to do something for people like Mahmood”

Mahmood: “You have taught me to walk, thank you very much. Now help me not to be a beggar anymore. My children are growing and I am ashamed. I do not want them to be teased at school by the other students.”

Mahmood: “I ask for a job. I am a scrap of a man but if you help me I am ready to do anything even if I have to crawl on the ground!”

Alberto: “Legless, only one arm, illiterate, unskilled. What job for him?”

Najmuddin: “There is vacancy in the carpentry shop!”

Alberto: “That’s insane. It is cruel to offer him this job knowing he will fail!”

Alberto: “I could not believe it….Mahmood was the fastest on the production line…The production was up 20%!”

Najmuddin: ” Mahmood has something to prove.”

Aberto: “Mahmood stood taller. What made him stand taller? Dignity. He regained his dignity thanks to the job.”

Final Word

Alberto, Najmuddin and Mahmood became open to and created a new Possibility: employing as many disabled people as possible on the production line, within the UN centre, and further.

If you have not watched the TED video (above) then I urge you to watch it. It is only 19 minutes long and that time will fly by – his talk is moving and inspiring.

Where is the LOVE?


I tell myself I am doing a good job taking care of that which needs to be taken care of

My wife went into hospital for an operation on Friday.  I drove her there for midday and since that time I was focussed on doing all that needed to be done: collecting the children from school, shopping, cooking, driving them to their after school clubs, visiting my wife, bringing her home……

By Saturday morning my wife was home.  She was lying on the sofa bed with all her stuff so that she could sleep, take her medicine, read, watch French tv – our daughter took care of all that.  I knew I would not be sleeping on Saturday night (as I was committed to being awake at 3am to take my son to the airport) so I took the opportunity to have an afternoon nap.  I got up and got busy figuring out what to cook and then cooking.  Once that was done I served the food, ate and then cleared up.  At this point I was feeling rather good about myself.  I had done all the things that needed to be done: drive my wife to the hospital, find missing details needed for her operation, collect the children from their schools, cook, visit my wife in the evening, pick her up the next day, ensure she had what she needed, let her be as she was in pain and tired, ask her if she wanted tea/coffee etc, cook…..

My wife asks “Where is the love?”

So imagine my surprise when my wife told me (about 10pm on Saturday night) that she did not feel loved by me.  When she explained I got it: I had been so wrapped up in planning for and taking care of the stuff that needed to be done that I had not been loving towards her.  As she said, she’d have preferred it if I had gone over and stroked her hair / touched her face with kindness instead of fretting over cooking the right meal and taking care of the details.

Am I too busy ‘fixing, surviving, getting ahead’ to put love into the game of life?

The penny dropped.  I am busy taking care of the stuff that occurs as ‘essential to surviving’.  You are busy taking care of the stuff that occurs to you as ‘essential for living’.  We are busy taking care of the ‘essentials for survival’.  And being wrapped up in that we are not present to, mindful of the fact that LOVE (being loving, feeling loved) is also essential for survival.  How would life show up if I knew, you knew, we knew that for the rest of our lives no love would show up in our living?  Would we want to live that kind of life?  Yet here are many of us doing exactly that: so busy going through the motions of living and not really present to the quality of being that puts a smile on our face, a song in our speaking and joy in our living.

Does Rebecca Ferguson sees the truth of the human situation?

Rebecca Ferguson in her first album Heaven starts off the album singing a beautiful song called ‘Nothing’s real but love.  It occurs to me that she understands the truth of the human situation at the deepest level.  Here are some of the lyrics:

“Nothing’s real but love

No money, no house and no car can beat love….

Nothing’s real but love

No house, no car and no job can beat love……

It won’t fill you up

No money, no house, no car is like love……

la-la-la-la……

No money, no house and no car is like love

It don’t fill you up,

It won’t build you up, it won’t fill you up,

It’s not love

And nothing’s real without love,

No money, no house and no car is like love,

Nothing’s real but love

No money, no house, no car, is like love “

Born free: a source of inspiration?


I watched Born Free at my daughters insistence and I am delighted that I did so.  I am left deeply moved by the love between Joy Adamson and Elsa.  And the words of the song speak to me and as such I want to record them and share them with you as there is real wisdom in the words of this song.

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free, and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

*Stay free, where no walls divide you
You’re free as a roaring tide
So there’s no need to hide

Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
Cause you’re born free

Inventing Possibilities that move, touch and inspire us is the access to our natural freedom – something many of us either never got present to or forgot at an early stage.   Want that inspiration to invent a new Possibility for your life?  I recommend watching the Born Free dvd.  Why?  Because it expands the horizon of what is possible and yet most of us cannot see it.  Who would believe that the kind of love that existed between Joy/Elsa/George was possible?  Who would believe that a lioness that was trained as a ‘human’ and was utterly hopeless at hunting and killing could ‘find that within herself’, survive and go on to have a family?

Net:  I find that accessing inspirational stuff provides me with powerful access to inventing Possibility that leaves me moved, touched and inspired.  It may do the same for you.

Glitter and gold: remember your friends & take care of your soul!


I listened to this song this weekend and it speaks to me.  It is worth sharing and so I am sharing it with you.  If it speaks to you – perfect, if it does not speak to you – perfect.  Here it is:

How good or bad, happy or sad,

Does it have to get?

Losing yourself, no cry for help

You didn’t think you need it?

And old friends are just a chore,

But no you need them now more than before.

All that glitter and all that gold

Won’t buy you happy when you’ve been bought and sold,

Riding wild horses you can’t control,

With all of your glitter and all of your gold,

Take care of your soul,

Take care of your soul.

How high, how low,

How on your own,

Are you gonna get, because

Losing your soul will cost you more,

Than that life you’re paying for,

And all those friends you left behind,

You might need them when its cold outside.

All that glitter and all that gold,

Won’t buy you happy when you’ve been bought and sold,

Riding wild horses you can’t control,

With all of your glitter and all of your gold,

Take care of your soul.

One day you’re gonna wake up and find that,

New dreams is losing its shine and,

Nobody is by your side,

And when the rain comes down you’ll be losing your mind,

So who you gonna run to, where you gonna hide

Glitter and gold won’t keep you warm,

On those lonely nights,

And all those friends who were such a chore,

You’re gonna need them more than ever before.

All that glitter and all that gold,

Won’t buy you happy when you’ve been bought and sold,

Riding wild horses you can’t control,

With all your glitter and all of your gold,

Take care of your soul

With all of your gold

Take care of your soul

Sung by Rebecca Ferguson on her first album titled ‘Heaven’

Boredom: how you can use it and transcend it


Is boredom the source of ill?

i finds oldest son ”amazing’ except when he is bored.  i rarely gets bored – from an early age i was beaten into an able reader.  In younger days, i was ‘imprisoned’ inside the house whilst friends were playing outside – cloudy days, sunny days, rainy days.  Home life occurred as dull (neither parent was educated, literate or passionate about anything in particular).  i gained wings and escaped the prison by losing itself in the Greek myths at the age of 7 or so.  Later i moved on to Alistair MacLean novels and so forth…….  To this day, i rarely gets bored – there is a treasure house of amusement in the form of modern stories, classics, philosophy tomes, psychology classics, spiritual thrillers….. i also has access to the internet and through that all manner of interesting stuff like the ‘remarkable talks by remarkable people’ on TED.  When the opportunity arises then i loves to: go for a walk – especially in the mountains; sit by the stream, river or sea; walk on the beach; cycle around; play table tennis; play pool; watch a movie; talk with friends; write blogs and so on.  i simply does not get how it is that people get bored!

When ‘amazing’ son gets ‘bored’ he ‘acts up’: he makes all kinds of noises (which occur as irritating to i); he barges into other people’s rooms without knocking or asking for permission; he ‘picks on his younger brother and sister’; muscles into other people’s activities with no consideration for their needs; he eats junk; he leaves stuff lying around the house; he ‘asks for and insists on’ hugs……..  All of these activities really press the buttons that activate the worst aspects of i: irritation; contempt; withdrawal; shouting……. i has been struggling, really struggling, with situation at hand.  I have noticed that i expects ‘peace, harmony, reasonableness’ and when i does not get it then i does not like it at all and like a two year old child i throws temper tantrums.

Is boredom is the context within which most people in developed countries live / operate out of?

I noticed that i was firmly in control and out of control so I made the choice to take time out – to read some spiritually uplifting stuff.  And in the process I am able to be at peace with my son (just gave him a big hug now).  What was the access to being at peace with my son?  Getting that ‘boredom’ is the condition that drives the modern world.  Yes, most people in the developed countries (those living in towns and cities) are bored with their lives.  Yes, we are: most of us are bored with our lives most of the time.  We hide it by taking tranquilizers and painkillers.  I could go further and say the ‘welfare of the modern economies’ rests on boredom – creating it and alleviating it.

How many of us do the following out of boredom:

  • Flee to the shopping centres and buy stuff we really do not need?
  • Watch mindless stuff on television?
  • Watch DVDs, go to the movies?
  • Read newspapers and magazines?
  • Play around with consumer gadgets?
  • Surf the internet?
  • Read books?
  • Escape to theme parks?
  • Visit art galleries and museums?
  • Have affairs, divorce, find new partners?
  • Change jobs?
  • Go to the pubs, cafes, clubs?
  • Drink and eat unhealthy stuff to unhealthy levels?
  • Do drugs?

Dive into this and you might just find that the list is endless.  Just think of the impact

How to deal with boredom?

First, recognise how ‘boredom’ shows up in your world, in your living, in your experience.  What do I mean?  I mean that you can investigate boredom: when it does it occur, how often does it occur, what specific circumstances give rise to boredom showing up for you.

Second, get that ‘boredom’ like ‘stress’ and ‘fear’ is a phenomenon we can use rather than let it use us.

Third, get that you, I, we are here and we might as well make ourselves USEFUL.

Operating out of a context of being USEFUL is a great access to transcending boredom

You can be USEFUL to others.  What can you do to make a difference, to be of service, to be a source or contribution to others?  Your family, your neighbours, your community, your colleagues, your profession, animals, plants, environment?

You can be USEFUL to yourself. How about taking up a sport – one that you have wanted to play and never have or one that you used to play, enjoyed playing and stopped playing?  How about learning a new skill – something you know that would make a difference to the quality of your life? How about stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something that scares you so that you can be free of that fear?  Does that occur as too much doing for you, too much effort?  Then how about finding a quiet room in you home and just sitting and being with yourself – meditation?  Incidentally, the latter is the hardest!


To Walk With Lions: why did we cry?


My youngest loves animals.  A year or so back I read Jane Goodall’s book ‘My Life With Chimpanzees‘ and she loved it.  At the end of the book my daughter made a choice – she chose to stop eating meat.  Why?  She was deeply touched by the story Jane shared and the fact that Jane went from being a meat eater to a vegetarian.   A few weeks back I came across a move on Sky that I thought she would like (because it is a story of people and animals) and I recorded it.

Yesterday, the two of us sat down and watched ‘To Walk With Lions‘ a film that can be described as “Set in Kenya in the late 1980s, British backpacker Tony Fitzjohn is fired from his safari driving stint and lands a job assisting the aging George Adamson at his wildlife reserve. After a shaky start with the lions, Tony soon develops a rapport with the animals and also a strong bond with George who continues to battle the government and poachers to protect the magnificent creatures that mean so much to him.”

Both of us were captivated by the movie: George Adamson’s love of the lions and his absolute commitment to his cause, his stance, the Possibility that had fired him through his life; Terrance (George’s brother) and his love of /devotion to the elephants; and Tony Fitzjohn and his transformation from a lost soul into one fired by his love of George Adamson and the Possibility that George is living into and living from – the right for lions to be exist, to live, to live free in the wild.

At the end of the movie my daughter and I were both crying.  She was crying at the slaughter of the animals (rhinos and elephants for their tusks) and the killing of George Adamson (an 83 year old man) and his associates by the local populations.   She could not make sense of why man does what he does.  Why man cannot let the animals live freely?  Why man kills fellow man just because that fellow man loves animals and insists that they be allowed to exist freely rather than being hunted to extinction or put into prisons called zoos.  And she could not understand how anyone would kill an 83 year old man.

For my part I cried deeply for a very different reason.  George Adamson lived as a ‘God’ and if you do not like that word then lets use ‘ GIANT’.  Each of his days was full of absolute commitment to an unshakeable stand (coming from Possibility that was lived from).  And from that context George lived fully, completely, deeply.  George’s life was simply a vehicle to serve a purpose that touched, moved and inspired him so profoundly that the ordinary pettiness of life (vanity, status, money, power…..) had no place in his life.  And it was this that infected Tony Fitzjohn so deeply that he became George Adamson in the sense of being a ‘GIANT’.  Within and from that context I got that for the bulk of my living has been wasted.  I cried for myself and all the moments, days, years that have been wasted.  Oh to have lived one day as George Adamson did?

And I get that I am still alive and I can invent and live into any Possibility that calls me and causes me to live as a ‘GIANT’.  Yes, I can do that, you can do that, we can do that.  And now that I get that, really get that, I am smiling on the inside and the outside.  Are you?

The Possibility that I am ‘re-inventing’ for myself and my life is that of ‘Playing BIG’: of inspiring myself and my fellow human beings to live an extraordinary life, to be of service (to our fellow human beings, to animals, to plants, to the earth, to the universe itself) and to contribute to a ‘world that works’ for all – no-one excluded.  That moves, touches and inspires me.  What Possibility touches, moves and inspires you?  What Possibility lifts your heart, gives you wings and in the process you find you have transcended your life and current circumstances?

Finally, leadership is simply OWNING your life, your living, what is so, COMPLETELY!  George Adamson was a leader.  Tony Fitzjohn became a leader simply be being around George Adamson.  Enough for now.

I love you, I thank you for listening to what I say.

Our lives work to the extent we give up our stories (and the people/structures which keep them in existence)


“Hey kid, you’re stuck in bad stories. But they’re only stories…” Werner Erhard

Yesterday my wife was spinning her usual story (or the story was spinning her) about going out. I listened to her at the level of story, I did not enter into her story, I did not collude, nor validate her story. Nor did I make her wrong for her story. I simply said nothing until I was asked to say something. Then I pointed out that it was all a story. She did not like that one little bit. Why? The whole point of her telling me her story was to entice me to enter into her story, validate her story, provide sympathy and make her feel good.

To me occurred that she would be free of the need to have someone make her feel good if she simply gave up her story and listened to herself as a highly capable person who is up to that which is at hand. Or if she simply got present to the fact that she will be fine irrespective of how she handles the situation: her life will not come to an end – she will not even catch the common cold! This got me thinking about how many of us are simply stuck in bad stories and yet do not get that they are only stories.

We have a choice – live in/be with reality or live in/from our ‘story’:

We can live in ‘reality’ in so far as it is accessible to us through our senses (see, hear, smell, taste, touch….). Living in ‘reality’ can be described as living in ‘suchness’. The world of suchness is simply what is so. It is a world in which when seeing occurs one can describe what one sees. And words like beautiful and ugly do not exist in this world – beautiful/ugly is a distinction/story we impose on what is there. It is a world in which taste occurs and can be described as sweet, sour, bitter but not as good or bad. I hope you get the idea.

Or we can live in the world of stories. Most of us, for most of the time live in the world of stories. What is remarkable about our existence is that we live in and our living arises out of our stories and we are not present that this is the case. ‘Our’ stories own us and run us and we are not present to it.

It takes something to keep these stories alive. We play a big part in keeping our stories alive – we give them life through our thoughts and our feelings. And importantly through our thoughts and feelings about our thoughts and feelings. It can be even more complicated than that: through our thoughts and feelings about our thoughts and feeling about our thoughts and feelings …… So one access to having our lives work is to give up our stories. Yet, it is not as simple as that for most of us.

We live in relationship – always! Amongst other things it means that we exist in relationship with fellow human beings: our parents, our siblings, our friends, our school teachers, fellow students, our work colleagues, our customers, the church congregation, the media we listen to and watch…….. The interesting thing is that our stories (that own and run us) are kept in existence as much by the people that we are in relationship with as by ourselves. So a powerful access to stepping out of our stories is to ‘move home’. Became a part of a community that has no listening for, no agreement with the stories that run us. Imagine going from a major city and living with the Amish in their communities. Do you doubt that our stories would lost their stranglehold over us? That we would start to see our stories and by seeing them have access to stepping out of them.

You might think that the people who are most likely to help us step outside of our limiting stories into stories that inspire us, give us more freedom, gives us more vitality, more self-expression, more joy would be the people who are the closest to us. My experience is that this is rarely the case. The people who are closest to us are the ones who both shape and help keep our existing stories in existence. This is great if the story creates a life that works for you (joy, self-expression, vitality…) and is not so great if the story bring the opposite into being, into your life.

All of which brings me to the key point: if we want our lives to work then we have to be willing to give up our stories. To give up our stories we have to be willing, prepared and committed to giving me all up all that brings our stories into being, colludes with our stories, keep our stories in existence. In practice that means not only our media, our culture, our religion, our ideologies (e.g. capitalism, socialism….) but also the people who are closest to us. That is a hard ask and that is why most people who even when they know that they are ‘plugged into the matrix’ and their ‘lives our a delusion’ are not willing to ‘unplug themselves from the matrix’. Occasionally, events come along and do that to us – at first we kick and scream, later some of us get that it was a blessing and create new, empowering, inspiring stories.

Finally the access to Possibility and Transformation is letting go of all of your stories forever. When you are standing naked of all Story then there is Nothing and in the space of Nothing you and I can create anything. Put differently in the space of Nothing there is only Possibility – a domain of unlimited possibilities and of freedom.

Oftentimes what I, you, we don’t do has more of an impact than what we do


I was on the phone with my younger son today and he asked me what I had been doing.  I told him that I had been working.  So he said “No, I mean what have you been doing in the evenings?”  I replied “Working, I worked until midnight last night and I am working this evening.”  He asked “Are you getting paid extra for the work that you are doing in the evenings?”  I replied “No” and he asked “Why are you doing it then?”

Why have I been working during the evenings?  Simply put, a bunch of people who have placed their trust in me and who I care about are counting on me to help them accomplish something that matters to them.  And people’s jobs and lives are at stake – there is something huge at stake given the economic situation in this country.

I am also working in the evenings because I am mindful of a fantastic piece of wisdom from a master of life and living.  Like a zen master (and I say he is a zen master, I suspect he lives joyfully without labels) he sees reality and the human condition just as it is and just as it is not.  Here is what he says:

“It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel, or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don’t want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act.” Werner Erhard

You, I , we act on the world by what we do and by what we do not do. Oftentimes what we do not do (that which we hide from ourselves) has more of an impact on the world than what we do do (that which is visible to ourselves and others). Unfortunately most of the time we are not present to this.

I was fortunate that I got present to the fact that what I did not do on Monday evening (structure and write up the information coming out of the workshops) was likely to make more of an impact on the project that I am working on/in than what I had been doing during the days (facilitating workshops).

Wow: I just got an insight into why my wife is unhappy with me right now!

What do I do when I have not lived up to my own expectations?


Here I am sitting in a hotel room in Ireland.  It has been a busy day and we got a lot accomplished.  Now that I am not busy designing and facilitating meetings & workshops – one after the other for the day – I am present to a certain sadness.  What am I sad about?

I did not manage my emotions.  My emotions played me and in that play my eldest son was hurt both by my words (of criticism) and by my actions (shouting at him).  As a result the affinity, the kindness, the love that was present between me and my son is missing.  This evening I did not even have the courage to ask to speak to him.  I got that was me being ashamed of myself and not wanting to  deal with the situation.  So I asked to speak to him and he refused to speak to him.  I totally get that and that is perfectly ok.  And it is also not ‘perfectly ok’ – not if I am ‘Playing BIG’ as cultivating relationships that work is a key part of that game (as I have created it).  So is managing my frustrations and emotions.

Now I can attach various meanings around me and what has happened.  I can make myself wrong, criticise myself, label myself as ‘bad’, can count that as another ‘failure’. And then I can withdraw, quit the game, beat myself up and just say ‘that is the way I am and that is the way I will always be’.  Yes, I can do that.  If I do that then what does that do for my son?  How does that address is hurt?  How does that rebuild our fractured relationship?

I am choosing to give a different meaning to what is occurred and what is present.  I am up for creating a meaning that leaves me in a powerful position to handle the rift with my son, to learn and to deal with the situations that ‘press my buttons’.  Specifically:

a) When I am under time pressure and I have multiple demands (simultaneously) on my time then I do not deal with that situation well at all.  I get into a state of distress.  Why?  Because I want to please all the people who are depending on me – asking something of me.  So I chicken out and try to do everything putting myself under more pressure.  And then someone pays the price of my ‘cowardice’ – failing to be straight with people and handling their disappointment when I say that I cannot do something they are asking of me.

b)  When people ask me for something at the last minute (and I already have a lot on my plate) I get annoyed and angry with that person. And that is simply because I do not say clearly and firmly “Sorry, this is last minute and I cannot help you now” and when they insist I fail to say convincingly “No is no!”

c) What there is for me to do is to talk with my son and ask him what I need to do to make things right and do those things such that they work for him and work for me;

d) Be mindful that these situation press my buttons and take the action to make sure that they do not arise and if they do then be straight with people and myself – what I cannot do I cannot do – and deal calmly with any disappointment.

The practice that I am taking on is the practice of saying “No” when the appropriate action is to say “No” and importantly BE “No”.  It is a challenge for me and I up for the challenge.  Now, what will it take to build that bridge with my son?  I believe I have an idea that will work for my son – take some of his pain away.  I rang just now and it is late and the family is asleep – I will call him tomorrow.

 

Giving up ‘responsibility’ and standing in the ‘space of Responsibility’ is a powerful access to getting stuff done


I want to share two experiences with you and what I have learned from these experiences.  Lets start with the experiences:

A number of times I walked up and down the stairs and noticed dirt on the stairs.  Each time i sang the following song: “Hoovering the stairs and keep them clean is my son’s responsibility.  Did he do his job of cleaning the stairs on Sunday?  Did he do the job right? i  don’t think so else the stairs would not be this dirty.  You simply can’t count on people to do what you are counting on them to do.  i should have a word with him and get him to hoover the stairs.”   What I (the one committed to ‘Playing BIG’) noticed is that nothing changed in the real world.  i did not speak to my son – not that it would have done any good.  The stairs continued to be dirty.  Furthermore, I noticed that it is I (and i) who wants the stairs to be clean.  Now if I want the stairs to be clean then who is generating that demand on the world?  I am.  Once I got that I picked up the brush and dustpan and cleaned the stairs – twice during the week so that they could be pristine. And I felt great about it.

For about a week a bunch of boxes and the metal stand for the Christmas tree has lain upstairs on the landing.  Once, during the night, I tripped over the stand and almost hurt myself.  What came out of my mouth?  I cursed my wife for leaving the stuff there.  And I asked myself: “Why the heck has she not put the damn stuff up in the loft?  She wanted the Christmas tree and decorations.  So it is her responsibility to put the damn stuff away!”  Guess what that damned stuff stayed where she put it for the week. She was perfectly content for it to be there and so were my three children. Who was put out by it and wanted it moved off the landing and in the loft? Me.  Today, I and not i was present and it noticed that I is responsible for the demands that I (and i) place on the world.  Guess what?  In less than three minutes the stand and the boxes were up in the loft.  And I was left feeling joyful.  Why?  I had taken responsibility for making happen what I wanted to happen and not pester others to make happen what I want to happen.

So what is the lesson?  There is great wisdom in Nike’s slogan “Just do it!”  The access to just doing what I want done or what needs to be done is for me to stand in the ‘space of Responsibility’.  What do I mean?  Specifically, I mean stepping out of the already, always context (space) in which i, you, we are automatically embedded.  What is that space?  I call that was space “responsibility” – notice that it is responsibility with a small r.  In this space of responsibility when what i (you) want to happen does not happen then i (you) find someone to blame – i points the finger, i criticises, i bangs the table, i insists the other party does what i wants done.  The alternative place to stand and to live from is the space of “Responsibility” (notice that it starts with a big R).  In this space I (You) take the stand that I am Responsible for what shows up in my life AND I am Responsible for bringing into my life what I want in my live and keeping out of my life what I want to keep out of my live.  By taking this stand I look always to myself to get done what needs to be done. Now I might choose to get that done through other people and if I do go down that route and the stuff does not get done (or not the way I want it done) then I take a good look at myself and ask the following question:  who am I being such that I do not create the results that I want in my life?

Finally, I am clear that if I want to be powerful in my living then the access to that is standing (and operating) from the space of Responsibility and not responsibility.

How do you contribute to someone when you cannot ‘fix the situation’?


I was meditating this morning.  Whilst I was still sitting in the lotus position (after having completed the meditation) my daughter came into the lounge.  Just by looking at her I could tell that she was upset.  She asked for a hug and I invited her to come and sit on my lap. Once she sat on my lap I asked her what she was upset about.

She told me that she did not want to go to school.   She told me that she finds school boring.  She told me that the teachers spent too much time on the academic subjects (English, Maths..) and almost no time on the creative subjects that breathe life into her and give her wings: art, painting, dance….. She told me that the teacher his moved her best friend to another part of the classroom and so they are no longer sitting next to each other.  She cried. I felt her pain – really, I FELT her pain.  And I also got that I could not fix the situation.  Life is life.  Sometimes it throws up several flavours like Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry…. At other times life throws up Vanilla and when that is so you can choose Vanilla or you can ‘resist’ and you are still faced with Vanilla: there is no escaping Vanilla when all there is, is simply Vanilla.

I got that I could not fix it for her.  So how do I help my daughter given that I cannot fix the situation for her?  I held her tight (but not too tight) and I allowed her to cry – to express and share her pain without any judgement.  And after with what was so for about five minutes she got up and got ready to go to school.

Sometimes the most profound way that we help our fellow human beings is to a create a safe space where they can be who they really are.  A safe space where they can share what is really going on for them without fear of judgement.  A safe space where they know that we will not make any attempts to tell them what to do, to fix them.  A safe space where the communication in our being and relating simply says: “You are equal to the circumstances that you are facing.  And I am here for you.”

A remarkable experience on the way to college


This post is related to the following post:  Getting, owning and letting my disappointment be sets me free!

Usually my wife drives my daughter to school (along with two young girls from next door)  and my eldest son takes the bus to college.  Something came up, my wife asked for my help and yesterday I committed to taking the three girls to school.

This morning I was completely at peace after finishing my morning meditation.  Being in that space the thought came to me: “I can be of service to my eldest son – drive him to college”.  So I called in my son and told him that I would be leaving at 8:30 to drop the girls off at school and if he came with me then I’d drop him off college (after we dropped the girls at school).  He was pleased: he had overslept, would not have been able to do what he needed to do, get the bus and get to college by 9:00am.

After we dropped the girls off school and there was just the two of us my son apologised.  He said he was sorry for the way that he had behaved the previous day during our time playing table-tennis together at the sports centre.  How did this occur to me?  A genuine sharing of what was so for my son: he simply said what there was to say.  He did not occur as ‘making amends’ because that was something expected of him nor of  ‘sweet talking me’ to get something out of me.  He went on to share that he did not know why he had behaved the way that he had behaved.  I listened – just listened.

How was I left feeling?  I was touched – nothing more, nothing less.  I felt no sense of satisfaction like I would have done previously.  Nor did I feel proud of my son (as he had done the right thing) as I would have done previously.  I did not feel or think any thoughts of forgiveness because it did not occur that I had anything to forgive: I had seen into the nature of my disappointment and accepted it totally on Sunday and through that processes I had set myself free.

I was more than simply touched, I was touched deeply.  I got that my son had been living with the disappointment of Sunday’s table-tennis session.  His disappointment was worse:  he had no-one else to blame and was left with only himself to blame.  He also felt guilty at letting me, his dad, down and he had been carrying around this pain for the better part of a day.

How did I respond?  I thanked him for getting my disappointment and sharing his disappointment.  I also told him I loved him – that was simply what was so and I felt it deeply.  I was experiencing compassion and love for my son.  And I told him that I was looking forward to playing table-tennis with him.  I noticed that some of the heaviness that he was carrying about his being lifted.

What is the insight?

I am not the only one who experiences disappointment.  So do others.  I am not the only one that experiences suffering.  So do others.  I am not the only one that is puzzled and asks himself “Why did I do that?”. So do others.

If I can own and be with my experience without getting wrapped up in my ‘story’ then I can be free – at peace – to be compassionate towards my fellow human beings.  And I can put that compassion into the game of life and so take some of the burden off the hearts of my fellow human beings.

Getting, owning and letting my disappointment be sets me free!


Doing more of that which brings joy and human connection into my life is part of the game I have created for myself called ‘Playing BIG’.  Coming from that context I booked a table-tennis table at the sports centre for 9:30 am today.  I was so excited at the thought, picture, of my sons and I playing table-tennis together on a proper table and in a room with lots of space to move around freely – as opposed to playing table-tennis in our lounge.

This morning I rang my son at 8:30 to let him know that I’d pick him up from his friends at 9:15.  And that is exactly what I did.  My son appeared to be in good spirits and I took that to mean that all was fine and I could expect a great experience: playing table-tennis with my son who enjoys playing table-tennis!  We got there, I paid £5 and headed to the table-tennis table.  When we got there delight was present for me: single table set-out in a large room (lots of space) just for us.  This is great and this is going to be great – that is the conversation that I was having with myself.

We got playing.  First my son said that he had to hit the ball harder (than home) – he occurred as being surprised and put out by this.  After practicing for five minutes or so he told me he wanted to play a game.  “Fine, let’s play a game” was my response.  When we got playing he kept asking me if I was playing my best and I kept telling him “Yes”.  He was not happy with this – he seemed to be convinced that I was taking it easy on him.  What was happening in my world: “How the heck do you expect me to play better given that you cannot cope with the level that I am playing at right now?  And yes, I am playing the best that I can play given the circumstances.  Quit asking the same stupid question and just focus on playing!”  On the outside I was calm because whilst i was getting activated by what occurred as a ‘poor attitude’ on my son’s part, I was in control and able to transcend i.

I won the first game – no surprise, no significance to it. We started playing the second game.  Now the room was too hot for my son – he kept saying how hot it was.  I offered to open the double doors – he refused. Then he kept telling me he was thirsty and so I offered him money so that he could go and get a drink – he declined.  All the time I kept calm and simply played table-tennis when there was table-tennis to play.  It soon became obvious to me that the table-tennis that we were playing did not match the ‘table-tennis schema’ that my son had in his head and so he did not want to play table-tennis.  Actually, there was no genius on my part – he kept repeating that he was bored.  At 10am – half an hour in reality yet an eternity in my experience I put a stop to it.  I simply said that I could see that the situation was not working for my son and so we should go home.d

What was there for me?  What was happening underneath the surface?  I noticed that I was disappointed and i (my automatic machinery) was disappointed and angry:  i kept wanting to blame and criticise my son; i felt betrayed; i felt that it’s time had been wasted; i did not approve of people who quit especially when that person is my son – i was brought up to finish whatever it started or it got punished big time.

Yet, I stayed calm and did not let i run me like it usually does.  How did that come about?  I was present to the fact that reality was perfectly OK (just great the way it is and the way it is not) and i noticed that the disappointment was a natural result of how i works.  i had jumped into the future and mapped out how it would be (a great game of table-tennis and a great bonding exercise with my son).  And when reality was reality and it did not match up with what i had expected then i had got upset.  I could see that i had created and was continuing to create my disappointment.  When I got this I owned that i was creating this disappointment and not my son.  I noticed that I soon as I got that and owned my disappointment and let it be without resisting it, it vanished.  And I was left with everything is OK – just the way it is and the way it is not – and that set me free to get on with what I needed to do this morning in complete peace!

How about you?  Are you owning your disappointment and thus setting yourself free?

Want a life that works? When you notice you are ‘on it’ then ‘get off it’!


If I want to ‘Play BIG’ then it is necessary that I be present to and mindful of ‘i getting on it’. And when I notice that ‘i is on it’ then ‘I get off it’. Sounds a bit abstract so let’s make it concrete and personal by sharing what happened this morning.

Guess what happened this morning?

Everything was OK, I had just returned home from dropping my daughter off from school.  I was in the kitchen (alone) and enjoying the peace.  Then my wife came into the house and started asking where the three boxes of presents (I assume they are presents as they were gift wrapped) came from?  My eldest son replied that he did not know.  I said that I did not know – I had not even noticed that they were there sitting on the black granite kitchen worktop.  Either my wife did not hear us or more likely her automatic machinery was hooked by the presents because she looked agitated and continued asking where the presents came from.  At this the automatic machinery that runs me kicked in:  she is being unreasonable and demanding so let her have it and i let my wife have it.  i made my wife wrong for continuing to ‘demand’ that we tell her what was in the presents and who they had come from.  Clearly i was on it and giving my wife a hard time.

Then my wife brought my attention to what i was doing by telling me to get off her back.  What she told me and the way that she said it paused i and brought I into the foreground.  And I being that part of me that is mindful and present to the game that I am playing allowed me to see that I was acting out of Integrity with my Possibility and my Stand.  Noticing that ‘i had been on it’ I got off it: stopped telling my wife off and apologised for my behaviour.    And I was back to being peaceful.

If you need the theory then here it is

If I want to ‘Play BIG’ then it is necessary that I be present to and mindful of ‘i getting on it’. And when I notice that ‘i is on it’ then ‘I get off it’.  When I say this what am I saying?  Let’s unpack this a little:

When I speak “i” I am simply pointing towards the machinery that is always running me, you, us  (the default condition that goes with being human)’.  The psychologist and Nobel Laureate in Economics calls this machinery “System 1” and he is clear that it runs us the vast majority of the time and we (“System 2”) are unware that we are being run as it occurs outside of our conscious awareness.

The nature of machinery “i” is stimulus-response. When certain things happen in the world (stimulus) our machinery kicks into action and we ‘get on it’ meaning we become righteous, we act out of the mode that something/someone should be this way and not that way and we start ‘throwing our weight around’ in some way – some of us do this through aggression other do it in other more subtle ways best described by those that are experiencing the effects as ‘death by a thousand cuts’.

When I say ‘I get off it’ I am pointing out that at some point mindfulness will be present and I will notice that my machinery is hooked and throwing its weight around (‘i is on it’) and so it is the responsibility of I (what Kahneman calls “System 2” and Stanovich calls “algorithmic mind”) to get off it – I think of it as unplugging the automatic machinery and getting of ‘shoulding’, being self-righteous, dominating the situation (with my story) and invalidating others.

Insight and practices for noticing that ‘i is on it’ and for ‘getting off it’

‘Playing BIG’ requires that I be a master of noticing when ‘i is on it’ and then ‘getting off it’.  How do I become a master of this?  First by practicising mindfulness – the daily meditation is making a difference here.  Second, by deliberately putting in place times/practices during the day (e.g. lunch) that call me to be mindful.  Third, committing to ‘getting of it when I notices that i is on it’.  Kahneman points out that spending time in advance thinking/picturing what we want is a good way of programming ‘System 2’ (the reasoning mind) to do a better job of monitoring/controlling the automatic machinery.  I used to be pretty good at these practices (and they worked) before I gave them up and entered a long period of darkness.  So I am confident that I can be great at them this time round.

Own your story, own your experience and tell the truth, ruthlessly, to yourself and others


Yesterday the family (five us) spent some time just being together and sharing what we were happy to share about our lives.  I found myself laughing when my younger son was sharing his encounters and experiences at school: it was not the content that ticked me, it was the way he was being and how he was expressing himself.  At one point all of us were laughing and I could see that my younger son was enjoying the relationship – our laughing had him laughing.   Then the laughter died – at least inside of me.  How?  Why?

My son mentioned that he was going to the taking the foundation course in English.   There is nothing to that statement – it is just words.  Yet, that is not what the mind (I hesitate to call it my mind as I do not own it and I do not control it, it controls me and in that respect i belong to it) made it mean.  Straight away my experience was that of disappointment and anger.  Given that was the case, what do you think I said?  I found myself listening to the following: “I don’t care, do whatever you want, it’s your life!”

Reflecting on that experience I am present to the fact that I lied.  I made that statement to persuade / convince myself that “I do not care, do whatever you want, its your life!”.  Why did I need to convince myself?  Some part of me cared deeply about what my son studies and how well he does.  And that part was disappointed that my son had not stayed with the original course: it listened to the foundation course as a lesser course and listened to my son as someone who does not have high standard.  Once I got what had occurred and that I was the source of my experience all of my disappointment and anger just flew away (instantly) and I was left  with “What a jerk I am when I am playing small!”

If I was ‘Playing BIG’ I would have owned my experience and been truthful.  I’d have said: when you said “I am doing the foundation course in English” I noticed that disappointment and anger were present in my world and I noticed that my stomach tightened up as if I was going to be sick.  That tells me that I have a point of view on what course you should be taking in English.  It also tells me that I have a stake in what you are doing and how well you are doing.

If I had been ‘Playing BIG’ I would have owned by story and been truthful.  I’d have said: “I know that you have extremely high standards.  In fact sometimes I think your standards are too high – unreasonable.  It just does not strike me that you have to play to get A* in all of your subjects.  I know that you are on track to do well.  I also know that you struggle to do well in English and realistically you expect to get a B.  Will the foundation course allow you to get a B?”  Most likely he would have said (which he later did say) “My teacher and I are aiming for a B and the foundation course will allow me to get that without all the stress I am putting myself under trying to get an A/A*”.  And I would have said “I wonder what it is about me that I am or was disappointed and angry when you mentioned that you are going to switch to the foundation course?”

It strikes me that a core part of ‘Playing small’ (which is what I have been doing for the last 10 years) is lying to myself and others.  It also strikes me that another core part of ‘Playing small’ is not taking responsibility for ‘my story’ (what I tell myself about how I should be, people should be, the world should be) – noticing it and owning it.  Not using it to beat up others even if the beating up is indirect through statements like “I don’t care, it’s your life, do what you want!”

So if you are up for entering into the game of ‘Playing BIG’ full out then you also need to adopt these practices:  own your story, own your experience and be ruthlessly honest with yourself and with people you are in relationship with.

Are you a ruthless stand for a ‘life that works’


Werner Erhard is a ruthless stand for ‘lives that work’ and a ‘world that works’

Werner Erhard is the man that synthesised a whole bunch of stuff and invented EST.  I have been listening to Werner speak and this is what he says:

“Yes, I am ruthless.  I am ruthless in the sense that I see no need for people to suffer. 

I see no need for people to live lives of if only or I could have been.  Or for somebody to be on their deathbed and realise that they had something to give, they had something to contribute.  They had something of themselves to express that never got expressed. 

I’m ruthless, ruthlessly against that, ruthlessly for people having ALL of it.”  

How about you and I?

Are you and I a ruthless stand for ‘a life that works including having ALL of it’?  For ourselves?  For the people that matter to us?  For the people in our organisations?  For the people in our societies?  For the whole world that peoples us, feeds us, houses us…?

If we are honest then we would say that we are not – we compromise, we live for ‘someday’, for most of us ‘someday’ never comes, and for those that get to ‘someday’ they end up asking “Is that all there is?”.   What will it take for you to be a ruthless stand for your life to work and for you to have ALL of it – meaning, purpose, relationships, vitality, full self-expression?

What will it take for me to play full out for a ‘life that works and having it ALL’?  ? I know that this Christmas I went through the dark night of the soul and coming out of the night I was blessed with seeing my life with such a clarity that I know that I have been ‘playing small’ for the last ten years and that with that came a loss of power, possibility, zest for living, sacrifice of self-expression.  I also know and declare that there is no going back.  Why?  Being present to Possibility (each day) and acting in line with that Possibility my life occurs as a blessing and an opportunity to contribute, to make a difference, to simply dance with life including savoury all the stuff that I took for granted like the smell of soap or the feel of the water on my skin when I shower, or the feel of the leather steering wheel when I drive.

What will it take for you to play full out, to be a ruthless stand, for being/authoring/having a ‘life that works’?

Are you open to miracles? Yes, they do happen – here is mine


Teachers and educational psychologists say my eldest son is dyslexic.  What does that mean?  It means that from an early age he struggled to read, to comprehend, to spell and write.  We knew there was something special and unusual about him when he was about 2 – 3 years old.  Whilst he has curious and great with stuff like using remote controls to work the television and VCR we noticed that he struggled to use words to voice what there was there for him to voice.  Somehow it never came out right.

At the age of 7-8 it was official: your child is dyslexic.  That did not worry me as I had chosen to put him in a Montessori School from the age of 5.  And if there was a schooling method and system that would help him then the Montessori method and associated school would help – I was totally confident.  We (my wife and I) searched out all manner of ‘quacks’ that offered hope of helping our son and spent quite some money.  Why?  We were open and committed to the Possibility that our son would read, comprehend, spell, write and would not be limited by the way that his brain is wired.  On top of the private Montessori school we found private teachers who specialised in helping dyslexic children. Why did we make this effort?  We love our son.  And because he is smart when it comes to the three dimensional world – the real world: he struggled only in flatland (two dimensional world of reading and writing).

When our son moved from primary school to secondary school he went from the private education system to a state school.  This is when our ‘battle’ with the education system began: in theory (and under the law) our son should have got specialist teachers, in reality he did not. At the age of 12 his reading age was around 8, his comprehension age was around 6.5 years – this meant that he was unfit for and could not cope with being in a secondary school.  Even in subjects like mathematics or business that he is good in he struggled in exams because he could not read, understand and then write answers to questions!

After fours years of fighting and a mountain of paperwork we finally won our case in Court and our son got the specialist teaching support that the law said he should be provided with.  In the meantime I spent considerable time, energy and money in finding all kinds of material to help me: computer, software, books….. And I spent quite some time ‘teaching him’

By the time my son had left school he had done much better than we had expected in many subjects including getting several A grades.  That was a relief.  On the other hand his reading and comprehension age was around 11 years.  And most importantly he hated reading and rarely read.  Once I had stood for the Possibility that my son would be competent in reading, comprehending, spelling and writing.  By the time he left school I was utterly defeated – I accepted that my son would never read, comprehend or write at a level to reflect his age.  The Possibility that had been so strong and for which I fought fiercely had died and instead resignation reigned supreme.

This week I found a book in my son’s room.  Not only that he told me he had read 15 pages the first night.  The other night he told me that he had read 50 pages and was going to bed early so that he could read more.  My reaction: what a marvellous miracle!  Who would have thought my son would voluntarily read and enjoy reading?  What made the difference?  My son loves business and he is great at it.  He loves watching Alan Sugar and the apprentice.  He works in a charity shop and the people around him recognise his passion, his skill and the contribution he makes.  One of the good folks gave him Alan Sugar’s autobiography!

Lesson 1:  when you and I are intrinsically motivated, because your heart is called into play, we can do the most amazing stuff

Lesson 2:  be open to Possibility, be open to miracles, never ever give up on your dreams!