The Consultant of Greed or the Guidance Counsellor of ‘Enough’

This month’s Blog begins with a very disturbing news story that struck me to the core of my being. And I think the reason it struck me so hard and deep is not only because of the personal circumstances, but because it seems to reflect a disturbing trend of modern culture. How this trend began is a pointless contemplation. But knowing it must end requires comment. I don’t claim to have the answers to such issues, but I do offer a perspective. I hope it is of value. And value is a concept we will explore below.

Michael Brewer.

15 year old Michael Brewer was set on fire by five of his peers over a $40 dollar video game. His potential path and path of potential is forever altered, over a $40 video game. I shouldn’t be surprised. In my life I have witnessed compromise and sell-out at all levels of ages and intelligence. What do we value anymore? What is value? Where has integrity, dignity, honour gone in modern western culture?

The truth is the modern age has provided us with more than we’ve ever known in past history. With everything at our fingertips we seem to value less, and expect more. And ‘more’ is the problematic word here. ‘More’ is a significant creation of modern contemporary society. It is intimately connected to greed. And greed has now expanded to all kinds of things and matters of perceived importance. We now have a need for greed, and greed of need. And not of all it is material. There is now a greed for stimulation, validation, attention, status, style, fashion, anything and everything that can expand our expectations to have us focus on a perceived greater need for “appearance” over significance.

A $40 video game is traded for a sense of humanity. And now here we are; all of us. We live in a fish bowl of entitlement. I want mine, you go get yours. Greed becomes our identity consultant. And consulting with greed is the biggest mistake of our time.

The Greed Consultant

Linda Kulman put it this way: “We are a nation that believes in having it all. In 1950, American families owned one car and saved money for a second one. In 2000, nearly 1 in 5 families owned (or the bank did) 3 cars or more....Americans actually shell out more for garbage bags than 90 of the world’s 210 countries spend on EVERYTHING....And worse yet, America has double the number of shopping malls as it does high schools.”

I think the latter sentence says a lot about modern culture. People demand their consultant of greed be met to the tune of shopping for identity and stuff, outweighing a value for education. People’s ‘want’ is no longer for substance. To think that the number of malls to schools is unrelated is to miss reality. And we are often blind to what we need to see, because we choose to look in another direction.

In Money: A User’s Manual, Bob and Rusty Russell’s study revealed “In 1900 the average person living in the US wanted 72 things and considered 18 of them essential. Today, the average person wants 500 things and considers 100 of them essential.” Notice the use of the word, “want.” Perhaps the reality is, that it’s now money that is using us, even though we arrogantly think it is the other way around. As the old Russian proverb says, “when greed speaks, the truth is mute.”

Well, I would like to un-mute some truth in this Blog. Some of you will get it. Some of you will not.

Greed has now become the consultant to our soul. It’s no longer humanity and all its component parts. This is the hard truth. And the consultant of greed has many voices but speaks one direct dialect: The dialect of ‘more’. More of everything: more approval, more status, more money, more muscle, more breasts, more applause, more attention; more, more, more.

And it need not be about quality. The competitive side of bodybuilding is a good example. ‘More’ has replaced ‘better.’ A competitor needs to be ‘more’ ripped and have ‘more’ muscle regardless of its effects on aesthetics and capacity for what’s reasonable. More is the new thing. This is what our consulting with greed for meaning and purpose, leads to. Think about it; how many times do you seek favour before you take action?

Greed represents the pursuit of the symbols of happiness, meaning and success, often at the expense of actually having any of them. Money isn’t real, and doesn’t matter. It’s the greed we consult that makes it seem so. When we live by the dictates of this greed consultant, perceptions are twisted in a way where people automatically equate meaning with material matters. The consultant of greed which people have now internalized has led to greater choice than ever before in the pursuit of identity and meaning. But in reality, what transpires within this endless sea of modern choice? More choice, leads to more perceived need, and more perceived want to gratify it. More importantly the abundance of choice leads to an abundance of heightened expectations. At some point, with such intense need, abundant choice, and higher expectations, disappointment instead of fulfillment is the result.

Greed makes a poor consultant for substance.

When we live by the dictates of greed and times are flush, the “up” is never as high as the expectations we may have had of it. This is the lie told to us by our greed consultant. And when the lean times come and there’s a crash, the lows are never as bad as this poor reality consultant would have us believe. And now that ‘want’ and ‘need’ have infected people beyond material goods, the greed for power and attention and status is just as misplaced as it is for material representations of wealth.

More indeed.

I know from personal experience when I was at the height of my “status” and personal attention and validation, based on my ‘appearance’ the 'high' was a crushing reality. At one time I pretty much had the keys to the city, in a very big city. People couldn’t do enough for me, and rushed to fall all over themselves to be around me. And yet, I recall this as the loneliest time of my life. Indeed, speaking personally from what I’ve lived and what I have witnessed in others, the truth is, when greed is now your internalized consultant; your humanity satellite is off-line.

When greed is the consultant, the old adage applies, “if you give a man an inch, he thinks he’s a ruler.” This may be one simple explanation as to why one of the boys arrested for setting Michael on fire, laughed about the incident.

Greed is a hunger that no diet solution can satisfy. Its stomach is always empty. Once greed is internalized as the consultant for meaning; neither one can ever be satiated. Internalized greed is like a giant tapeworm. You can binge feed it, and still die of starvation. And yet this is the modern mantra everyone holds close but no one admits. It’s the mantra ‘I don’t want much, but I always want more.’

In actuality, it’s ‘meaning and purpose’ people are starving for. When people consult greed for answers they often lose their sense of purpose; because greed tells you that ‘more’ is the purpose.

Greed is a poor consultant.

All the symbols of what the greed consultant would have you believe matters are fleeting at best. In and of themselves, these symbols are not substance. The greed consultant would have you believe in the unreal and intangible. Things like fame, glory, success. It’s what fuels that need for stimulation, validation, attention. It’s what grows that insatiable tapeworm. And yet it’s not real.

Try this quick mental comparative as an example.

Off the top of your head let’s make two lists. In the first list of fame, and glory quickly name the last 5 best actor or actress winners of the Academy Awards. Name the last 5 best picture winners as well. (quickly and off the top of your head) Similarly name the last 5 MVP’s of the Superbowl or Stanley Cup. Name the last 5 Grammy winners for best song. Can you go back to say 2003, and off the top of your head name the top five television shows from that year; or the top five books?

Ok let’s change gears for this other quick list, off the top of your head. Name 3 of your favourite people from your past, and you can go back as far as you like. Name a teacher who influenced you in a positive way. Name a friend you can count on or who has been there for you in a time of need. Name a person who helped to show you, your way. Name five people you would cherish spending time with.

Now, which list is easier for you to conjure? Which provokes more sentiment? You see the second list seeks no consultation from greed because there is nothing (no-thing) in it for him. And without the involvement of his consult, meaning and substance are much easier to find and even easier to hold on to, no?

Applause and attention fade to black folks. Trophies gather dust in a corner. This is one symbol of success I managed to avoid. I gave away all of my trophies to whomever was my training partner at the time; or whomever was by me at the time. I knew they earned the acknowledgement. The truth is winners are soon forgotten and replaced by a new crop. And the swooning continues.

Greed and its off-spring of need and want, can distort anyone’s vision of truth and reality. Without the marching orders of the greed consultant, you need no longer look away from what is truly relevant. The truth is if you are not content with where you are, you will more than likely not be content when you arrive where you think you want to be. This is the loser thinking of the greed consultant.

When Annie was in real estate she had a client who was looking to move from his rural location to something more urban and downtown. With the kids gone, and his wife passed, he found his property too much to maintain. He had a couple of acres and some animals, and a stream ran through his property. He hated sitting on a mower for hours at a time, and raking leaves and being at the beckoning of the seasons. He said he was tired of it all. When he went to visit downtown condos, he was sure he found his niche. The freedom to no longer have to take care of mindless chores of land maintenance and work really appealed to him. Annie had him talk to someone living in the condo who was about the same age, and would become his neighbour. The current condo dweller said he ‘didn’t mind’ the condo living but sometimes the noise in the building and in the city was a lot to take. The man said he sometimes got leery and weary of the pace of the urban life which surrounded him. Annie’s client took it on advisement, and expressed what an easy trade off this would be compared to the upkeep of a couple of acres and always having to drive a distance to and from town. He looked forward to the move.

Then Annie prepared the listing to properly sell the house and land. It read something along the lines of the following. “Two well-maintained acres of land just outside the city. Located in a quiet and private area, the land has rolling hills, green meadows, wild flowers, and weeping willow trees. There is a stream which also runs through the edge of the property. This house and land is an ideal setting for people who love to raise pets, tend a garden, or anyone seeking a peaceful country landscape away from it all; yet close to all amenities.

When Annie read him the ad for approval, he said, “what was I thinking?” “I’ve been looking for a place like you just described my whole life.” Running the land was never a chore again, and he took to his riding mower like Forrest Gump did to his. The difference was made in opening his eyes to the truth of the value and guidance of ‘enough.’

The Guidance Counsellor of ‘Enough’

Greed has no value. It only presents the pursuit of perceived value. And it’s an endless pursuit. It’s constant tail/tale chasing until at the end, the tail/tale wags the dog. John Ruskin said “every new possession loads us with new weariness.” I discuss this in my book Your Truth is Calling as well.

As the old Japanese proverb dictates: “you can have one thousand mats to sleep on, yet you can only sleep on one.” I mean really, does having fine bone china and gold cutlery ever make the food taste better? And I’m not saying people should not enjoy the fruits of their labour. In fact my point may be, that it’s the consultant of greed which prevents most people from doing so. Everyone is pursuing symbols over substance. Maybe if we all stopped looking for ways to get rich, and live instead in a manner of being rich then real substance could be more easily experienced.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked, “what if the stars came out but once every one thousand years?” Poignant. We marvel at so little of what is already here, while we continue to seek meaning in what is out there.

Enter the guidance counsellor of ‘enough.’

The book of Psalms is basically a spiritual statement that says, “I have surrounded you with favour.” Greed is blind and deaf to the statement. My guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ instructs me to embrace the statement instead.

Luke 16:10 “He who is faithful in little, can be trusted with much.” This is the truth the guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ will lead you to experiencing and knowing. While the fact is the consultant of greed would mistakenly have us embrace the opposite. In my experience I have witnessed more often than not, that ‘people who put faith in wanting much, can usually be trusted with very little.’ And yet this seems to be the path of choice of modern culture. Myself, I value no-thing so much that I couldn’t give it away if asked. I keep my experiences close to my heart. I do not embrace symbols at the expense of substance. But this was a learning process for me.

My guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ leads me to the conclusion that “happiness is not something you find. Happiness is not something you get. Happiness is something you do!” In this sense, happiness is something that gets you.

And in terms of status and attention, validation and all these other modern traps of want and need, the “guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ also sets me straight.

I learned in my own career that when greed inspires a desire to be great, you often lose being any good.’ Sometimes occupational or vocational promotion results in spiritual demotion. The dissonance often leads to conflict of emotion. Having it all is a way of being in the world. It has nothing to do with these external symbols. The quest for more can take you away from who you were meant to be. Think about your life in those terms right now. I know when you abide in the guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ you become far more relaxed in who you are; and what you have as well. (and therefore you can be trusted with much more)

And you learn the truth that being in your right place and wanting little, is often qualitatively better than being in your wrong place while having a lot.

Some of you need to re-read that line several times over. I have learned from my guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ the joy and contentment in downsizing my life. With a connection to the concept of ‘enough’ you can connect to your own design; your own path, your own purpose; what you are meant to do. You need not ‘chase’ anything. I would suggest that mastering this inner connection is to experience the term ‘a calling.’ So when considering change of any kind consult the guidance of ‘enough’ not your sense of ‘want or need.’ Acknowledge the value and contentment that resides in ‘enough.’ To do so is to embrace a world of meaning, of purpose, of substance. Your world. Perhaps this is what is meant in the verse of Job 8: 7

“though your beginning is small, your latter days will increase.” Increase. Not an increase of need, want, more, stuff and accumulation. No. Just the word ‘increase.’ Embracing the concept of ‘enough’ means an increase in knowing value, meaning, purpose.

My guidance counsellor of ‘enough’ has taught me how to better live and live better in this world. It is the road less travelled. I continue to learn from its guidance and counselling. I learned there was a greater purpose for me than my own personal victories. My true personal victories are now shaped by helping others to find their own. My satisfaction and contentment in ‘enough’ led me to remove myself from the game.

The counter-intuitive truth is that ‘enough’ is especially abundant all by itself.

I think the greatest lesson for me from the guidance of ‘enough’ is the true meaning that there may be a time for all things, yet one thing for all times. And for me this one thing is the direction and guidance of living happily and ‘one’-derfully with ‘enough.’ To put it more poetically “a candle loses nothing when employed to light another candle; and in so doing, results in more light, and more heat.”

This is the satisfaction of ‘enough,’ the abundance in ‘enough’ and the guidance of ‘enough.’

Some of you will get it. Some of you will not.

As for Michael Brewer, I believe there is a foundation set up on his MySpace page where people can go and wish him well. Please do so.

Those arrested in the case remind me of the whole point of even mentioning this incident. It is true of this case, it's true for individuals, and true of the modern cultural predicament as well. It is a quote from Dwight D Eisenhower, which is also in my book Your Truth is Calling. I think it aptly sums up this Blog topic.

“A people whole value their privileges over their principles, soon lose both.”

I welcome your commentary and discussion, both here and on my Forums.

Excavating Essence: Mining for Personal Wealth

I’ll begin by letting everyone in on a little secret. Twice last month I was told that these blogs of mine are costing me business. “People that hear about you and your expertise and then come to your Blogs don’t want to read this stuff Scott.” I consider this feedback and then smile to myself.

Then, on a professional front I’m told I need to research key words and tags in my Blogs to move me up the Google list and search engine optimization etc. I consider this feedback, and then smile to myself.

I have no doubt both scenarios are true. And I should pay heed and care. But, then, I smile to myself as I have faced this same advice my whole career. And ‘my whole career’ will, as of Jan 2010, be entering its 4th decade. Maybe I actually know a little more about sustainability then people give me credit for.

What about authenticity in the modern age for crying out loud. Doesn’t anyone care about integrity anymore? Is everything always first and foremost about the bottom line? Well, I have learned that my bottom line is best served, at least in my heart by following my path. For decades I have had people approach me and lay in front of me the current popular “template” for success that I should subscribe to. It’s an agenda. I’ve always been bothered by “templates.”

Merely fill in the blank, and treat people, even yourself like a number to be counted. I’ve never related to one-dimensional templates. Where most people see limited design, I see endless possibilities. Where most people want to put the recipe in a box; I have no box. Instead I’ve come to know, understand and embrace something deeper. And this is what I trust in. And this is what I will share with you today. And for what it is worth; this secret has allowed for me to live my life, on my terms, as my own boss, for what will begin its 4th decade in January. For me, this is the recipe, maybe not to success; but to true meaning.

You see I’ve come to learn that I see and examine my life much differently than most people. I’ve never really fit any specific label people put on me. While so many people fervently pursue an “image” I never coveted one. And as far as advice as to how to better manipulate people and modern technology to enhance my bottom line, well its all well and good. But it comes second in my life, not first. You see, I’m driven by my essence, not my circumstances. And I’ve come to learn and acknowledge the closer I live this truth, the more freedom and abundance seem to flow into my life.

Excavating Essence

I may have learned it late, but I learned to study my skills, not so much my process. To do so is to begin to understand personal assignments not borne of agenda’s; and not borne of needs for validation, attention or stimulation. To deeply address your skills, the answers come without even asking any questions. You begin to know and feel within you a personal assignment. You gain the wisdom that no inner-assignment comes without the skills to accomplish it.

Your own life has a design; your years have a theme. To uncover these is to unleash your authentic self. So if you can just begin by studying your skills, your true assignments reveal themselves to you. Following your authentic self, is following your life’s blueprint if you will. It’s what tells me that writing these Blogs, which apparently no one wants to read; is still the right thing for me to do.

Studying your essence can reveal to you uncommon strengths while performing very common tasks. You learn that it is actually your essence which is “seed to your deed.” Think about that for a minute. Most people spend their energies watering their deeds, not their seeds. Then they wonder why they never get anywhere and never grow themselves. Frustration or fatigue is usually the result of living this mistake. And yet it is so commonplace.

To examine deeply, your own gifts, talents and strengths, is to light up the world, your world. Yet instead, people take far too much time and energy enamoured by, and embellishing their own image. When people put image before essence it’s no wonder so many lose their way. But how you relate to your essence colors everything. To ignore or embrace your true essence is to choose a specific way of living. Dread your own essence and you become forever seeking. Yet, trust in your essence and you will be forever growing and expanding within it. From a connection with your essence you extract your strengths with great joy. You experience them; you test them; you nurture them; you grow them. They become “seed to your deed.” Embracing your essence means not having to try and find your strengths or your present purpose for life. You learn also that a person not only “does” in the process of doing, but “becomes” in the doing of the process. To not try to connect to your essence is to miss the gifts which are your birth right. And we all have them.

To exploit your own gifts and your own skills is to empower yourself in knowing that you can do something no one else can do in a style no one else can duplicate. (There are no templates for that!) And you get there only from mining the personal gold inside you. When you anchor yourself to your essence, there is no undertow from externals; people, things, or circumstances. This gives you the wisdom for knowing that sometimes you need to say 'no' to instant pay offs or props to your reputation; so that you can say 'yes,' to your essence, and your being. The gold of purpose is mined and excavated here. You mine this gold by looking inside you, not just looking around you. To do so is to learn to honour your essence within your work; any work.

By example, the story of David and Goliath is more than a classic underdog story. Everyone approached David with the fear of the giant. They only saw circumstances. They all warned David, Goliath was “too big to hit.” But David was not swayed by his circumstances because unlike the crowd he trusted in his essence. Instead of seeing the giant as “too big to hit” David saw Goliath as “too big to miss.” Popular opinion had little influence on him. Fear could not cloud his vision nor weaken his connection with his essence.

Kierkegaard said, “At each man’s birth there comes into being an eternal vocation for him; and expressly for him. To be true to himself in relation to this external vocation is the highest thing a man can practice.” Yes, to know and excavate your essence. Let’s get real here. You cannot be anyone you want to be. A corn seed will never grow to become a daffodil or a rose. A rodent will never learn to fly like a bird. But within each beginning is the path for all of them to become what it is meant to be. All that is required is to water the ‘seeds’ not the deeds.

But this doesn’t mean that you are just a mixture of your parents DNA. You, we, are all something even more profound. You are a unique idea in all the universe. You are a unique idea within a world of experience. To excavate your essence is to understand every person counts and every day matters. Stop trying to be someone else. That person is already taken. You should want to be YOU. Exploring this will take you right where you are meant to go. And all that is required for mining this gold of you and your purpose is In-sight!

In-sight and I-sight

In-sight is a mining expedition to uncovering your essence. In-sight is not a ‘look in’ but an ‘action in.’ It requires work, the results of which are the truth of your passion and purpose and life. The greatest gift anyone can receive is not material wealth, but the wealth of experience already inside them. All it takes is a concerted effort at mining and excavating the wealth there. In-sight is a God-given ability for each of us to look inside ourselves for clarity.

Only you can hear your inner music. Only you can dance and sing to it. But first you must be in “tune” with it. Unfortunately, and instead, people continue to choose to live inside the lies they tell themselves. They are not only out of tune but distorted and fractured from their own harmony.

Somewhere within all of us is a divine spark; a place which lies in concert with our affections and our uniqueness. There’s an essence within us which equips each one of us for the assignment at hand; whatever it may be. This assignment always knows that your life is a verb, not a noun. It’s not “what am I going to do with my life.” It’s instead the reality of living it with awareness right here, right now, tomorrow and the next day. To look inside yourself with in-sight, is to excavate your own strengths, which in turn inform your own uniqueness to bring out into the world. Right fully stated, mining for, and excavating your inner essence reveals to you the truth of your own YOU-niqueness

Disregard your own skills at your own risk and consequences.

Without knowing and connecting to your essence you suffer from poor “I-sight.” Only your own perceptual lens can correct it. Without connecting to your essence, your view of yourself is either near-sighted (narcissistic or egocentric) or far-sighted. (insecure and inadequate) Neither are true, and neither are right-sighted. The near-sighted and far-sighted lack of proper I-sight, represent the continuum of either self-glorifying, or self-loathing. Neither extreme reflects essence.

Indeed one of my previous faults from lack of I-sight, was that I pumped a lot of air into my own arrogance. Only life lessons deflated it, or more specifically, a small pin prick burst the bubble and brought me to my knees.

But the burst opened a flood gate of knowledge and wisdom for me to connect to. The one reality I know for sure is none of us are for the long term, either a mistake; or an MVP. Only lack of I-sight makes it seem so. Both perceptions of self-loathing or self-glorifying lack humility. And both deny a person’s divinely-driven essence. And this essence is always there for any of us to connect to. All it takes is getting “right-sighted.” And this comes from in-sight.

I-sight, on the other hand means believing is seeing; it is just a capacity to see things most other people cannot. I-sight means knowing the scenery of your life may change; as well as the people in it. But common themes remain and can be seen. You can examine in fact what is destiny’s pattern for you. Desire and ability should have a certain flow to them; both working in harmony on your behalf. I-sight means knowing that always striving or fighting to achieve is to be out of your element, not within it. Your desires can be gifts for you to heed, rather than some source of frustration and anxiety.

Mastery is different than martyrdom.

People continue to want for more than they could ever handle. And yet they fail to master themselves within all they currently have. People are surrounded by favour and still can’t see it: Poor I-sight indeed. To be a seeker who never finds anything is to lose at life. People seek meaning through validation, attention, and stimulation. And it leaves them empty almost every time. This is the epidemic of commonness that has people flocking to bars, therapists, social networking sites; and the addiction for immediate gratification and sense of attention. To my mind it all represents the life of mediocrity.

Is it really “choice” or are people herded to commonness like so many cattle; craving for the next ‘template’ to fall into? No. Poor I-sight represents dull shades of grey rather than the rainbow of possibilities, which the action of in-sight provide. Digital stagnation and stimulation are just a new means of getting by. It’s a far cry from being truly plugged-in.

Yet in their quest to quench the thirst of commonness people look outside rather than inside. What was You-nique is sacrificed for the template du jour. And within the new commonness, some people work a lot, some play a lot, others get high, some buy value; others buy sex, and some seek therapy. And yet for all, the true answer is to seek inside and mine for their essence.

The Anatomy of Spirit

A disconnection with your own essence is a fractured faith in oneself. It leads to broken hearts, broken dreams, broken homes, and broken lives. What is broken is the faith which is the backbone of being connected with your own essence. Heal this fracture and all else not only heals, but thrives as well. The truth is, broken spirits lead fractured lives. But it need not be this way. The anatomy of essence is that it’s your spirit which is the bones and teeth that support the soft tissue of material existence. To be spiritually connected to your essence is akin to being vaccinated against need, want, and fear. And when you place complete faith and trust in the essence of your being, your essence ignites the spirit in you. And it lights the path in front of you.

Your essence exists for you to capitalize on and expand your life. Be who you are meant to be. Find out who that person is by excavating and mining your essence. Become that person. Poor I-sight from failed in-sight means a deflection instead. Too many people are not just misconnected but disconnected as well. Their heroes are, by way of metaphor, tall basketball players. Their mentors are tall basketball players. They feel guilty for being short and inadequate for not measuring up. Yet inside of them are a set of unique skills being ignored, and subsequently atrophied. For crying out loud if you can’t dunk a basketball, maybe you weren’t meant to!

The realization of in-sight is that there is no ordinary life and there are no ordinary talents. How great is this?


Conclusion and Personal Comment!

How many varied metaphors can I employ to illustrate the value for you to begin to excavate and mine for your essence? You are the architect of the house of you! You are author of your own biography. YOU, is not a book to be read, but one to be written! YOU are the purpose of your own life. That is the true message. How dare any of us shrink ourselves to be so much less. So awake to the promise that you are more than your genes; more than your heredity; more than your environment; and for sure more than the current template of pop-culture or material sway. You can own your genes, heredity and environment to empower yourself. Stop being a working slave to their influence.

Be the CEO of your own essence, merely by owning it. In-sight, for those of you still reading, is the stock option to owning your world and receiving these dividends always. Working your essence, is just like money in the material world. While some people work to earn money, financially adept people employ money to work for them instead. The same is true when you employ your own YOU-niqueness.

You never need friends in high places, if you connect to the one in a deeper place.

I say excavate the path to your own essence: Your soul. Mine for that gold which surely exists there inside you. Then, once you secure its value don’t use it to buy stuff, and use people. Be a philanthropist and pay it forward.

So as this applies to me and my Blogs, let me be clear. I am tired of one-dimensional people trying to tie me to their own perceptual limitations. God forbid I may be about something greater than percent body fat, or 18 inch arms! God forbid I may take time, energy, and effort to meticulously prepare these Blogs, merely because my connection to my essence tells me its right, regardless of pay off. Maybe I am meant to employ my own uniqueness for something more than a single dimension. What if there is no bottom line in that? I would rather see my business fall into the abyss and take a job at Starbucks than to compromise who I am, and why I am, just to manipulate the market for a greater pay off. “Keep up or get left behind.” Well, sometimes, getting left behind is merely a matter of perspective.

What if I have intent for something else, as well as my coaching? Someone can’t do both? Maybe it’s time in this industry for some focus on sculpting lives, not just physiques. And it's ironic to me how easy the latter comes, with an intuitive focus on the former.

SOME OF YOU WILL GET IT. SOME OF YOU WILL NOT.

To the ADHD types who criticize these Blogs for being too long, too deep, and meaningless, well..........I leave it to the actual readers who value my Blogs to fill in that blank.

My Real Life Title Fight in MMA: A Loser’s Perspective

Well this battle and title-fight has been looming for me for some time. And now it is upon me. I am taking on the undisputed, unbeaten champion in this battle. And the truth is, I don’t stand a chance. I will lose. And I will lose soundly. But I will prepare. I will fight the good fight. Not because I am expected to, or because I have been entrusted to do so. I will fight the good fight because I have been raised to do so, especially when the cause is right. And I will prepare, and I have been preparing. I have whole-heartedly signed on. But I will lose.

The first rule to fighting any opponent is to know your opponent well. I have been preparing myself thusly. My opponent likes to make everything personal, and human nature being what it is, once a certain line is crossed it is indeed deeply personal. He likes it that way. So I make it personal by giving him a short-form first name: Al.

Al is not only tough, but he’s arrogant. He’s the worst kind of undisputed champion. And he’s huge. He’s bigger than I am, stronger than I am, and has more manoeuvres for the fight than I am even aware of. The more I study him pre-fight, the more intimidating he becomes. Al likes it that way. It’s part of his strategy. Al doesn’t just want to win, he wants to humiliate in the process. He fights dirty, he has no rules, and he doesn’t just beat on you for the submission or the tap out. He beats on you relentlessly till the end. Al loves to add insult to injury. He has no scruples, even though he is undeniably, champion. Al makes every part of the battle, including the preparation all about him. And for an unbeaten champion he has little humility. Anyone who knows Al as I have come to know him knows him as a mean, cruel, and insidious adversary.

He has way more experience than do I. He loves the fight more than I; he cherishes each victory as another notch on his championship belt.

Al doesn’t mind being the bad guy. He’s so arrogant he cherishes even that. He likes to make everyone aligned against him so he can be all the more egotistical when he wins. He has no friends, no fans, and he embraces this as part of his strategy.

And did I mention; he’s huge?

The truth is this is a David and Goliath fight without the underdog possibility for victory. Al holds all the cards. He has more strategies and tactics than I can ever study and prepare for; let alone be able to do anything about them. This David has little chance in such a title fight.

So I will not meet him in the middle of the ring on his terms. I’ll meet him on mine. My approach is now going to be more cinematic than systematic. I go back to the first Rocky movie: The tale of a loser. I am now that loser. But like Rocky I have decided my chance, my meaning, my purpose, is not to beat the champ. If I am to gather anything from this experience and move forward; if this fight is to bring anything of merit into my life; then I have to change the strategy.

My goal is not to beat what is a winless possibility. That is a dream that has now come and gone regarding Al and his prowess. No, like Rocky, I know in my heart I cannot win this showdown. So I just want to go the distance. I want to make it to the last round; meet Al in the centre of the ring, and although battered, bloodied, bruised and defeated, I will look right into his eyes, deeply and passionately, and declare, “I’m still here.” “You win Al, but so what!”

The truth is this fight was handed to me by default. Al, as always likes to select the weakest opponents to prop himself up. This fight was passed to me. Al doesn’t care who enters the ring with him. But I care. He can pummel and punish for all he’s worth, and he’s famous for his brutality. And every time he knocks me back or knocks me down I will look up. I will get up. And I will not, give up.

The truth is this fight is over before it starts. I know that. I am a realist. Al wins.

But there are a few things that Al, in all his arrogance overlooks and doesn’t realize:

I’m not after his title. I don’t want it. I don’t even dispute it. But I need not honour or respect it. If I can go the distance, for the sake of the people who can no longer take the fight to Al; if I can do that merely because I have been asked to; then I can fight for a different title, different sake, and a different stake.

But the match is now upon me. And it is more overwhelming in experience than what could ever seem to be possible in preparation. Of course in my pre-fight prep, I’ve heard this over and over and only now, so early in the fight do I know it to be an understatement. Al, the unbeaten, undisputed champ, is just so overpowering as to not be believed.

M.M.A. (My Mother’s Alzheimer’s)

In round one Al makes his intentions clear. The experts, the referees, draw a circle and ask my mom to write the two hands of a clock anywhere inside it and she cannot do it. Al laughs mockingly, mocking me, mocking my corner, and unsympathetically mocking my mother as well. She is asked to remember five common but unassociated words, and 10 minutes later cannot recall them.

For Al, this is just first round jabbing.

He wants us all to know and experience his dominance. And we do. But he continues to mock all of us as he jabs on. The truth is Al is just toying with all of us, and he is deliberately carrying the fight along so he can make the pain and torment last longer. He is that effective, that accomplished, and that wicked.

But I’ll regroup for round two.

And just like with Rocky, this loser has a realization within the throes of the actual contest. Once the fight moves into round 2 and becomes far more serious, there is no time or inclination for intimidation. I am no longer intimidated by Al or the fight. The actual fight itself leaves little time for this kind of reflection.

Al has now taken us to the mat.

He lays down a series of blows and manoeuvres that are so sinister, they do not even merit commentary: Just another tactic for him to use to prop himself up. But he is doing real damage now. The fight cannot last much longer, but he will insure it does since he masterfully controls every aspect of it. Still, I find nothing to envy within his mastery. And this knowledge seems to give me some strength: The strength to fight back. And it’s here in the middle of what must be one of the final rounds that I have a revelation even within all the punishment Al is inflicting on me.

I see that beneath the surface Al is so insecure that it’s not even about being victorious for him. It’s something else. Al has such deep self-hatred that he seeks to rob his opponents of grace and dignity. This is his true mission. He seeks to take what he himself lacks and always will. I’ve seen so much of this by dealing with others in my own life that this realization is empowering to me.
Al with all his talent, skill, and status is really just a bully. He’s trying to fill a deep void in himself by chalking up one victory after another.

So in round three as Al continues to pilfer human grace and dignity one humiliating gesture at a time, I’ve realized I can meet him with my own grace and dignity. For every piece of dignity he takes from my mom, I’ll meet him on the mat, and look him in the eye with my own version of dignity. For every element of grace he cheats and eliminates, I will again, get up and match him with mine. I can look Al in the eyes.

I now realize that although I may not be helpful I am not helpless either. I’ll grab the ropes, get up, and fight one more round. He may win, but he’ll know there was a fight. And more importantly he’ll know I’ve figured him out. It’s not what Al has that drives him. It’s what he’s lacking that drives him. That doesn’t make him strong. In fact, it makes him rather ordinary. And ordinary is something I can fight regardless of its skill. So although at the end of this match I will surely be a loser, I will not be a victim. Because the truth is, this is not about me. This is another realization that Al wants to hide from the fight.

Because he lacks passion he wants to deprive everyone else of theirs, or at the least, demean it. And Al will take the mind first and then the organs. I know that. But as I fight my way out of the corner and off the mat, I see another weakness in Al that he endeavours to hide. While he can take the mind and the brain, he can’t ever really take the heart. Not if we don’t allow it. Because inside my mother’s heart is the story of a life that has been lived. A story that has been told and shared and touched others. Am I not living proof of that?

Al can’t eliminate that, even though he battles to do so. So even though he is unbeaten he can never be truly victorious, which is why I think he continues to try to count victories; moving from one to the next. What he can never claim is the story inside someone’s heart. The story of a life lived. Al wants us to miss all this so we can concentrate on him to make his victory seem all that more complete and devastating.

But as I counter his next move with my own I realize it’s not how someone dies that matters; regardless of Al’s intention to make us think that way; and to build himself up. No. What matters is how someone lives and lived. Al, in all his fury cannot defeat this reality. Perhaps this is why his victories are so hollow for those of us who are on to him.

In my mom’s heart is a life-story. And it will beat on. Long ago, as a young girl, she played in a school yard somewhere, fought with her siblings over trivial fare. She hung out at the local swimming hole where she met my father all those years ago. She gave birth to three boys, and stored all in her heart’s memory of stories and experiences. She will leave these with us. She will leave these to us.

And we will interpret the stories in our own hearts.

In my whole life I seldom heard my mom say a disparaging thing about anything or anyone. Myself, I seldom get through a whole day without doing so. Moreover, when I think about it, I’ve never heard my mother ask for anything from anyone either. What a great lesson. If not for Al, I would not have heeded it now. And the first time my parents accompanied me to Vegas: that’s where my mom fell in love with playing the slot machines! On her first jackpot win, amid all the bells and lights, you would have thought she had been named Princess for a day. It’s a look of contentment and simplicity I will not soon forget. And this minute or two of consideration is just some of my own heart’s story of that life lived.

Al is frustrated he can’t vanquish these stories from those who remember, so he chooses to punish and insult and inflict as much pain as possible. And this is where he is most adept and skilled. He goes after my father and weakens and depletes him. But Al doesn’t acknowledge the transformation in my dad that only a heart’s tale can tell, and only a life lived, can witness. My dad has become caretaker and caregiver. He does his best to oversee everything. It is a valiant effort. He does the laundry, makes the food, does the shopping, and worries and worries over the near future. He tries to get my mother to take her medication. She resists, which is one of Al’s tactics he so delights in. And when she is not herself and Al is clearly speaking through her, my father simply succumbs to the argument.

At 81, I see a fear in my dad’s eyes; and it’s not a fear for himself. One of the most truly fearless men I’ve ever known is being worn down. But he gallantly fights on as well, and as best he can.

Al can’t see or won’t see the strength in all of that.

But truly, it is Al that is alone: Champion that he is. It dawns on me that Al is reining champion only in the arena of death. He’s never participated in life. That truth gives me strength. I will not meet him on his terms.

But as I fight this battle and lose, my corner gets stronger and more adept in the fight as well. We start to focus not on what is lost, but what is retained. There is a place Al cannot get to. So although I am staggered and rocked, battered, beaten, bloodied and defeated, I will unrelentingly go the distance.

And I will stand up; and see him for what and who he is. I am not intimidated.

I may be sad, Al wins. I may be a little lost, Al wins. I may be exhausted, Al wins. But I remain undaunted. Therefore Al is not victorious.

I think of some words to try to express my father’s heart at this time. What it must feel like to face slowly losing someone you’ve shared life with for almost 60 years. The closest thing that comes to mind is my retooling of some of the words from a Richard Marx song: “wherever you’ve gone, and whatever you’ll do, I will be right here waiting for you...Whatever it takes, or how my heart breaks, I will be right here waiting for you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said this: “A friend may well be reckoned a masterpiece of nature.”
And in my fight with Al I can honestly sing loud and clear, just like another song, that: “I get by with a little help from my friends.” (Something Al will never be able to relate to)

And the fight continues........

I sincerely welcome your comments here. And to any of you fighting Al now or in the future; look him in the eyes. And remember the stories a loved one’s heart speaks. Speak them. You will see Al in a totally different light.

Some of you will get it; I pray few of you, ever have to experience it. But if you do, my advice for what it's worth, is GO THE DISTANCE !

Joy's Spirit

Well this month I am taking a different approach to the Blog. I appreciate everyone that reads my Blogs and writes me with their comments and support. I wish more people would leave comments and discussion, but it's obvious that these Blogs strike personal chords with people that make them a little uncomfortable sharing in public format.

I can certainly appreciate that.So this month I am sharing something of my own in terms of 'personal chords.'

I actually wrote this month's Blog on the heels of last month's Blog. I wrote them consecutively; back to back.This month's Blog is actually a short story that I wrote for Annie as a part of her Annieversary gift from me. The story came to me during my trip to Europe and took shape during the long flight home. Truth be told I could easily turn it into a novel because I have developed the characters so significantly in my mind. But a novel would be self-indulgent without a publisher or public to get it to. But I digress.

I'm always a little leery of sharing my 'short stories' with anyone as they tend to leave me feeling a little exposed and vulnerable. But I know now this is not always a bad thing. Sometimes sharing personal sensitivities can go a long way in terms of paying it forward. And that is the intent of this Blog.

It's a short story I called "Joy's Spirit" The characters are fictitious but based on my own experiences as well; hence the exposed and vulnerable sentiments. You can access the story by clicking on the link below. I do suggest NOT reading it in pieces. Try to sit down and read it when you have a good 45 minutes to an hour to devote to it. Keep in mind it was initially a gift for my wife Annie; at least part of the gift. (the whole gift you will understand once you read the whole story)

So if it serves any of you on any level than I am happy to share it with you all. And I welcome your comments as always.so please read and consider "Joy's Spirit" by clicking on the link below:

http://www.scottabel.com/Joys-Spirit.pdf

Changing Your Story!

You know every month I get people beseeching me on how to make various changes in their lives. Some want to be able to forgive loved ones; others to stop obsessing. Some want to get over mourning a loss. Really the list of what people wish to overcome never ends. Some of it is serious stuff; some of it is beyond frivolous. And yes I do in fact have some exercises and solutions that go a long way to working things out and changing your lives for the better. All that you want is within your grasp. The important thing is to not need it so much. And part of changing your story has two-component pieces. One is to change your mind; and the other is to know that your life is indeed an unfolding story.

People think changing their minds has to do with positive thinking. That is but a small and insignificant part. The truth is we don’t attract what we want; we attract what we are! Needy and desperate people can think positive all day long but what they end up attracting into their lives is the energy of need and desperation. One way to alter this is by mere metaphor.

Exercise one is to see your mind as a container. It contains your thoughts. So for example, see the mind as a big vase or watering container. If you wish to “change your mind” about anything or even your own being then start with this: See that container of your mind as filled with murky and dirty unwanted water; representing your unwanted thoughts about unwanted issues. Imagine drinking this water or using it to water your soul. Now is thinking and contemplating on the dirty water going to get rid of it? Of course not.

Instead, think about another container; another vase filled with pure crystal-clear water. These are the pure positive thoughts. If you pour pure positive crystal clear water into the container with the dirty, murky water, what happens? The dirty water becomes diluted. Gradually the crystal clear water begins to fill the vase and the dirty, unwanted, murky water flows out of the container and is gone. See your mind as a vase. Pour crystal clear water of positive thought and clarity into that vase and whatever thoughts, cloud your minds, will eventually clear out. This is but one single exercise in “changing your minds.”

But some people need to go beyond that. To find the key to the lock that opens the door to a better life, they need to really “change their story.” And that is what this Blog is about. I hope you find valuable tools here to do so.

The first reality in “changing your story” is in realizing that your life is indeed a story unfolding each and every day. Some people keep diaries and record them in the first person. “I this” and “I that” If you really want to uncover the truth of “who you are being” start writing your diary in the third person, as a narrative. Because the truth my friends is that everyday is a line on a page in the chapter of what will be the story of your life. In the end, the question begs, “how would you want this book to read?”

If for instance your name is Jane, and you start “writing the story of your life” in third person; would you really want it to read as follows:

“Today Jane spent most of her time obsessing about her body in the mirror. She frantically searched websites for new diets and ways to workout to solve her weighty issues.” As an editor writing the story of her own life, Jane could stand back and then write, “It’s too bad that Jane can’t see that happiness doesn’t start 20lbs from now. It’s most unfortunate that Jane doesn’t realize that beauty is not a size and that fitness is not a shape.”

Is this kind of theme really how you want the story of your life to read as well?

To write honestly about yourself, a line on a page everyday in third person narrative is not for the faint of heart. It is very revealing. For those who cannot resist making a drama out of their lives; this exercise may be self-indulgent nonsense. But for people who really want to see who they actually are, this exercise is totally enlightening. And the reality for all of us is that where we are is not where we have to stay. In fact write it. “Where Jane is now in life is not where she will remain.”

I will give you some hints now in “changing your story” and hopefully some lessons I learned when I began to write my own story and changed it. I hope you can benefit from the lessons I took away from, first writing my own story, and then what I learned when I faced reading it!

Preface
For people who love their own drama, let’s first get real about being real. The truth is that no one is given a cross they cannot bear. But for whatever reason, some people seem to embrace ‘bearing crosses.’ Walking with either angels or demons is a choice you make. And in that choice are many truths. The first truth is the beginning line of each book. “I am the story I tell myself.” Poor me, or blessed me, is all in the interpretation of telling your own story. The second truth is as spoken by Anais Nin: “we don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.” If you see yourself as being in a rut or unhappy, you need to write it. But know as well that the difference between a rut and a grave is only a matter of depth.

Another truth to be written in your Preface is that we have all we need to fulfill our own purpose, no matter how that story unfolds. To expect favour from the universe if you are not truly doing your best is to be writing science-fiction. We, all of us, already possess the winning lottery ticket. It’s simply a matter of finally choosing to cash it in.

Introduction
And as you write your story in the third person, read it that way as well. Closely examine the “me” that you write about. You will find between the lines another truth. The empowering fact is that no one can beat you at being you. Only you can do that. And how sad that is if true in your story. If you don’t have what someone else has it must mean you don’t need it. At least not right now. Envy is in fact, one of the deadly sins. Don’t envy other people or what they have. Appreciate skill and talent and be motivated and inspired by it; but not envious.

The flip side of that reality is that only you have your fingerprints. As you write and tell your story, on what, and where, will you leave these fingerprints? I say leave them on someone special, on something special. That way, your story will be written in other places as well. Find the talents and abilities that are entirely your own. You may surprise yourself. Some people go a lifetime missing their true gifts. As you write and change your story, find yours. One thing is for sure in this story you write: When love and skill work together, you can expect a masterpiece!

If you are still working to find what your special gift to the world is, keep doing so. All good things work, if you just consistently work them.

And I’ll add the beginning of your introduction to the story of your life is also about punctuation. Don’t make the self-indulgent mistake that I did in the beginning of writing my story.....Never put a period where God has put a comma.

Chapter 1: past experience
We are all the same. Stop deluding yourself in the writing of your story that your pain is unique. Begin to live the reality that painful experience is universal. And as Kahlil Gibran put it, “your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” But write, knowing that with a safe setting and right clear thinking from that vase; your own self-talk can lead to speaking that truth about your own reality without shame or guilt. Write to become empowered in real terms, not dramatic ones. There are no trophies to hoist or accolades to accumulate in the changing of your story. The actual truth is there are only the realities of grace, humility and honour. Write these into the story of your life and your deeds will change.

Then, putting the past in perspective is easy. Letting go of baggage and past emotional scripts and chapters is ended. Accountability in real terms about who you are being, elicits real strength.

There are many instances where no one deserves whatever circumstances befell them. No one deserves a life of pain, shame or guilt. So in this chapter, so early in the writing of your story, make a choice to experience all the raw emotions and feelings attached to unfair experiences and then let them go. Learn in Chapter 1 to trust empowering perceptions instead. You will find another truth in that these perceptions have nothing to do with what’s ‘out there’ and instead everything to do with who is ‘in here.’

Write your story. But to change your story, ask the question in Chapter 1, “does pain go away?” Of course it does. It’s a choice you make in this next line on this page of the story that will tell your life. How will you write it? How will it read?

As Thomas Paine said, “we have it in our power to start the world again.” Perhaps this is an appropriate title for your own Chapter 1.

Chapter 2: self-talk
If chapter 1 is setting up a narrative of the past; then chapter 2 needs to examine your own self-talk; again as a third person narrative. Within yourself, the most important part of communication is to hear what is being communicated from you to yourself. I know so many people and clients who are so self-deluded that they are not even close to who they think they are. And they just won’t see it. Not that they can’t see it; they choose not to. But self-talk is like any other form of communication.

When you stretch the truth beware the snap-back.

The hard and sad fact is that people who find themselves always in some form of struggle is because that’s what they want. It’s a great excuse for failure, or failure of accountability. Convincing yourself, never truly wins the argument. As Nietzsche put it, “the most common sort of lie is the one uttered to oneself.” As you write your narrative in the third person, watch out for the shock value of “who you are being.” How you think and more importantly how you examine how you think is the difference in artistry. Picasso said that many artists take the sun and reduce it to a yellow dot of paint; while many others take a yellow dot of paint and create the sun.

Your self-talk is the perpetrator of your own reality: As Milton put it in Paradise Lost: “The mind is its own place; and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” We’re back to that vase again, and the waters it holds.

They key to self-talk is to leave emotions and rationalizations out of it, especially in writing the narrative of the story of your life. The goal is to reduce all rationality to common sense objectives. It is infinitesimally better to have common sense without education than to have high education without common sense. What am I saying? I’m saying anyone can write or re-write the narrative of the story of their life. I’m not sure where and how common sense became so elusive. It’s actually perverted when you consider it. Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he believes you. Put a “wet paint” sign on a park bench and he has to touch it for verification! And people’s own self-talk filtered by rationalization seems to work the same way. Know that a perfectly normal life is lived with the common sense assertion that no life is perfectly normal.

Then take your self-talk to the next level and free your mind. So many people remain trapped in limitation by such insignificant issues. Even within your own self-talk the truth is that people become what they are encouraged to be, not what they are badgered to be. People’s iron-cage of regimen, especially in their thinking, traps them in to limits they never see. Fixation only increases an issue as what you focus on expands. Mere acceptance is a way to freedom. But instead as people live their stories instead of writing them first; there is a huge price. Aesop put it this way: “beware you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” So chapter 2 in the writing of your story is about self-talk. And between the lines, self-talk is all about attitude!

Chapter 3: attitude
Let’s face it, as you write your third person narrative your attitude about life and your own life will come to the surface for you to face. Your choice of words, adjectives and adverbs will show you in spades “who you are being.” Some people will find their attitudes are weak and reactive; flowing emotionally back and forth depending on what circumstances come into their life at any given time.

Other people will find their attitudes fixed and deep. That can be great or that can be a sad truth to face. There’s that snapback of stretching your truth again. A macho or negative attitude serves what purpose exactly? Ghandi said “you can’t shake hands with a clenched fist.” It’s amazing to me to this day how many people are looking for something to rail against. They have that “fight” attitude for no purpose other than to fight: that so hackneyed cliché of ‘rebel without a cause.’ Or more aptly put ‘rebel without a clue.’ (That used to be me to be sure.) And then you stand back and watch and notice one thing about people who always want to fight at anything. It’s only themselves they fight with in real terms. It’s just reflective of a bad attitude is all.

And it’s such a waste of valuable energy. As I say, “any medium sized dog can seek out a skunk and kill it; but is it really worth the stink?”

In fact the truth is, there is a downside to owning a “go to hell attitude.” And that is, if you are not careful you surely will....

And as I rewrote my own story by witnessing in the third person “who I was being” I formed a better attitude; a new and improved attitude, at least for me way back then. Because the truth is there is an opposite of a “go to hell attitude.” Remember, we attract what we are. Over time I came to learn and write a more productive and rewarding attitude. And that is, “for those who truly wish to sing, they will always find a song.” Again, the importance of a right attitude is not to sing well, but to sing out. Right attitude is everything. As in Psalms 84:11 “No good thing will be withheld to those who walk uprightly.” And that is an attitude reflective of the truth that we attract what we are.

With that right attitude there is no defeat; only meaning in everything. Defeat or losing are mere connotative terms, subject to interpretation. Both can lead to an attitude and spirit of inner peace from seeing defeat and loss as processes of growth and knowledge; merely the flip side of victory and gain.

Therefore the attitude changes:

Staying in the game, enjoying the competition, whatever it may be, whatever the outcome; this is what forges a champion spirit. The final score is not the measure of life, but the attitude in how you play its game. I had the blessing at a young age to adapt at least one truth among my many otherwise misspent moments. And that is an attitude that “quitters never win, winners never quit.” And I’m not talking about events. I’m talking about the rewriting of the narrative of my life; knowing that others may read it.

With right attitude there is not so much need to control everything, or anything for that matter. Purpose is not a means to an end; but an end in itself. People work so hard to “know what they’re doing” as some air of self-confidence or false bravado. When your attitude allows you to let go of that you learn that knowing what you are doing is far less inspiring than just showing up and letting life show you all that you ‘could be’ doing. So as you write this chapter of your life, in the narrative, get your mind right. Get your attitude straight and purposeful. It leads you to an easy segue to your next chapter. And that is faith.

Chapter 4: Faith
Faith need not be religious or even spiritual. If your faith is in nothing greater than yourself, then that is still a faith; albeit grandiose and misplaced. But faith is not covetousness. People need to learn, and it took me a long time to learn this: you may have to let go of what you do have in order to find out what you can have: If people could only move away from their safe zones and closer into their faith zones. People seem to only try to forge faith in where their talents and securities lie. Talent has very little to do with it. You can play “chopsticks” on the keys of your life and still be able to build a symphony around it. Faith can lend tremendous power to your life. It allows us to add the “super” to the “natural.” All that is required really is for us to play the notes. And then the ordinary can become extra-ordinary.

But faith is active not passive. And it must be practiced. Faith is both diet and training. So people should learn as they write the narrative or their daily life, that it is unrealistic to pray when it rains if you don’t also pray while the sun shines. Faith is serious business. And as a form of diet and training, faith allows you to believe in the sun when it is hidden and in the spring while it is winter. It knows that the next line you write on the page that will be your life’s story, is leading somewhere; somewhere good; somewhere better. Faith is to know it, not hope for it. Hope becomes then, merely ‘the faith in the me who is yet to be.’ And so once you correct or change your attitude, and once you direct and strengthen your faith, you find your way to your next chapter and that is awareness.

Chapter 5: awareness
If you continue to write and change your story with due diligence, you begin to not look back in anger or forward in fear, but rather you look all around you with awareness. As you do this, more universal truths reveal themselves to you. While your former darkness would be convincing you of present lies, awareness lights the path ahead to what is right and true for you.

All it takes is the application of the above chapters as you write the words of your life’s story. The roundness of the world becomes a great metaphor. What seems like an end is actually a beginning at any and all points. This is true whether it’s a day or a line on the page that will write your story for all to read. Every day the clock strikes 12:00 and offers a new beginning, not an ending. With all these possible beginnings, optimism is a forgone conclusion.

And it isn’t coincidental at all to realize at that point that things seem to turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out. There is also an irony about life when it comes to awareness. We set out for instance to teach our kids all about life, and they end up teaching us. Awareness means being able to laugh at all the irony. As Goethe put it, “nothing illustrates a man’s character more than what he laughs at.” (Think about that prophetic statement a minute) And with awareness you tend to laugh at yourself more and more often. It lightens a heart to do so.

I’ve heard it said that if people concentrated on the truly important things in life....there would be a shortage of fishing poles. Finding peace and stillness seems so easy yet becomes so elusive as people chase for that ‘something better.’ And yet as Emerson put it, “most of the shadows of life are created by standing in our own sunshine.” Wanting too much has us failing to see and appreciate the abundance already there. The old “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” As in the Russian proverb, “if you chase two rabbits, both will surely escape.”

And as right attitude, faith and awareness begin to reshape our self-talk, we can move to the next chapter of rewriting our story.

Chapter 6: Grace, Gratitude and Humility
As we become more aware we see and know the connection of these three elements. I know for a fact that my place in the world is a direct result and consequence of populations of strangers that came before me, a billion/million people who lived and died making this life, my life, possible. I am not ‘all that and a bag of chips.’ No. I am indebted. Those who began with creations like a car, electricity, computers, air travel; advanced communications, and all those who advanced these things, are small tiny examples of what allows my success and worldliness to even be possible. To think not is plain arrogance.

To them all I owe doing my best as well.

"And if I have seen further, it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”

Gratitude renews the journey, and brightens it a thousand times over. “A thankful heart is the parent of all other virtues.” (Cicero) Gratitude means as I rewrite my story it’s not really about me at this point. Now that I am older I can hope emphatically that as a person I am judged by the number of times I can say “thank you” and how often I am able to say, “I’m sorry.”

The flip side of such gratitude is the grace of forgiveness. And while forgiveness may never change the past it certainly enhances the future. Work becomes less about me, and more about ‘them.’ Like these Blogs and all the time, research, and editing that goes into them, for no pay or reward. I hope you all get to know such blessings of grace and doing. Even your work can represent your gratitude. Your work need not be a source of pride, about you, but a source of gratitude and grace.

What I can tell you is that when you teach a student; you teach the student’s student as well. There is honour in that process that pride can’t come close to matching. It’s one of the ways I changed my story, by replacing pride with gratitude.

Once we can let go of pride and let real awareness guide us humility is nothing risky. Like the old saying goes it is a liberating experience that if you have skeletons in your closet, take them out and dance with them. More people could learn from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy hiding them or denying them.

So with humility and gratitude you don’t want to rest on your laurels or accomplishments. They are too fleeting a reality. But as a person the foundation is laid to be bigger and brighter. As Thomas Huxley put it, “the rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put his other foot somewhere higher.”

So as you progress along in your narrative of a line on a page that will tell the story of your life, hopefully you learn you can change your story at any time. Eventually there are only two chapters left to write: A narrative conclusion, and an epilogue.

Conclusion
If you have the fortitude to begin to write your story in the narrative, you begin to realize that life is too short to think small. Moreover, as you add that one line on one page that will tell your story the truth hits you hard. The day of reckoning is always today; right now. It’s not tomorrow, or ‘someday.’ That rationalization was one of the key mistakes of my past, till I began to re-write my story.

As I wrote further into my story I uncovered the reality of a personification of this noun called life. It is this gift that is interactive. It must be worked at till it works. When you give toward all life, life gives right back to you. You begin to learn that it’s less about finding the right person, and more about being the right person. I guarantee you, if you have the daring to proceed; that for every one step you take toward your own truth, that truth will take two giant steps to meet you. In a world of abundance, we read about waiting for our ship to come in. But write it differently instead. That interactive energy of life is that you do not wait for your ship to come in. You swim out and meet it.

I rewrote my story with an urge toward mastery. I say become a black belt. Become a black belt in reality not drama. Becoming a black belt means becoming a master, not a master fighter. It means always being prepared and aware. It means distinguished discipline not convenient discipline. It means a deep understanding of the principles. Being a black belt means always flowing with technique, whether called upon or not. And the best part of being a black belt in life; is that now that you can fight, you learn you no longer have to. What a fantastic means for writing your story.

Epilogue
One of the most confrontational aspects of changing your story is to look ahead to your own epilogue from where you are now. How will it read? How would you want it to read? Remember my example of Jane early on. Imagine if she didn’t ‘change her story’ how it would read at the end. There is Jane on her death bed, writing her last words in old age. Do you really think those last words would be, “I wish I had spent more time trying to perfect my body?”

Your story need have no audience except yourself. But write it as if it did. At least write it with an intended audience of One. Change your story as if you are writing it between you and your God; whatever that source of energy may be to you personally. Or write it as if it will be on a book shelf for all to read. The message in the changing of your story is that we are, all of us, in the memory business: the ones we store; and the ones we create for others. And then the writing becomes effortless. We realize what is most precious becomes memory. It’s the paths not taken that are forever lost in the telling of your tale.

The only mistake is resisting that directive woven into our very souls. Move. Move on. Do. And be. This is to write your story. Dare to write another line on the page in the story that will tell your life. Then a paragraph: Then a page: Then another chapter. Write it! Do not let it be written for you.

Change your story every day for the better. But write it yourself. Remember, “I am the story I tell myself.” Follow the script laid out above, or the wise words of Martin Dodd:

Trust is the path......
Self-acceptance, the direction....
Serenity, the destination....
Self-centredness, a detour......
And impatience, a rock in your shoe!

As you write just realize, some of you will get it; some of you will not.....

I welcome your comments below and in my Blog Discussion threads on my site.

Bonus Blog: Defining Moments, and the Peace Labyrinth

Given that I will be away during the time I usually post new Blogs, and given that it will take me some time to get caught up when I return from my trip; I am going to post this as a bonus Blog to fill in the gaps. It’s a story I’ve never shared with anyone, but one I have kept close to me since that day. I hope you find some value in it.

Late 07 and early 08 were very busy for me. I had just completed some projects, I was writing articles, and I had two DVD projects set to produce as well. Just after that was a planned workshop to prepare for, physically and academically. At the completion of these series of events and projects; I vowed to complete my book, Your Truth is Calling. I returned back from my workshop, put out the usual fires, and proceeded to write. I didn’t workout for nearly 12 weeks and committed all mental energy to the book. If my mind gave me two hours a day worth of energy, that is how much time I devoted; if my mind gave me five hours a day of energy then I was equal to the task. I spent most of the winter holed-up in my office completing the task that was a year in the making. By spring, it was more or less complete. I was looking forward to a vacation. For Annie and me, there was only one spot we could think of: Aruba.

Now Aruba is not for everyone. It’s basically a desert after all. But it sits in a quiet part of the Caribbean, with the warmest salt-water trade winds; the calmest of beaches, and miles of soft white sand. The crystal blue skies there; matched only by the crystal blue water, make Aruba a perfect haven for R and R: At least for us. We had been there before a few times, and agreed that this time, this was our destination. One thing we have in common is that we are both called by the ocean.

On vacations, we usually make a habit of keeping our typical up-early schedule. We get up, grab a coffee, and seek a new place to watch the sun come up each day; and repeat that at night to watch the sun go down. Of course the only difference at night is wine for Annie, and beer for me to witness the splendiferous sunset. Every trip we take to the Caribbean seems to have some kind of defining moment for us. All good ones. On a previous trip there, we had found a secluded spot to watch the sunset. We gathered our little chairs, our bottle of Dom, and got set up perfectly. There was no one else in sight. That scene was soon to be interrupted in a way that defined that trip for us. As we settled in, and the sun began to drift out to the horizon, out of nowhere appeared in the distance a stray dog. This is no surprise because Aruba is full of stray dogs. But not usually on the beach; and certainly not in what seemed like a completely secluded beach.

We watched back and forth between the sun moving off in the distance, and the dog moving closer toward us. It circled several times, each time in more and closer concentric circles. Such is the skittish nature of stray dogs there. As the dog gathered more confidence and came closer it was obvious the mutt was a female. And quite pregnant. She circled closer and closer. Finally she came to us, and sniffed around. This dog was so pregnant she could have given birth at any moment. In fact her belly pretty much scraped the beach sand, like a pot belly pig’s underside would do. She sniffed between the two of us. She had all the markings of a dog with no home. She finally moved toward my legs; sniffed again, one last time to be sure and then circled three or four times before laying herself right across my bare feet on the sand. There couldn’t have been a more poignant moment for me. Her bare belly had no fur, just skin and I could actually feel the puppies moving around inside her. I dared not move.

Annie got in the car and raced back to the hotel room. She cut up some food, grabbed a bottle of water and bowl and returned just in time for the best part of the sunset. We sat there, just the three of us; together witnessing another breath-taking sunset, my new friend sleeping securely at my feet. We fed her, and watered her. She gave us a look of seeming gratitude. It was the event that marked that particular vacation. Yes, for sure, Aruba was the place this time. And what moment, would await me to define this latest trip, especially with me feeling very much in need of the island’s calming effects?

Once we arrived everything seemed synchronous. It was indeed the perfect vacation as we always expect our vacations to be. We seemed to take to new but still familiar habits. We would get up in the morning, grab coffee, and drive around the tiny island; especially where the citizens lived. We love to witness a place while it still sleeps in the morning hours. At night we began a new habit. With so many strays always in the middle of the road, and us always having to wait for them to clear out of the way; we ended up with a new purpose every early evening. While shopping at the grocery store for convenient food for the hotel room, we also picked up a bag of dog treats. Every early evening, and even in the morning in the remote areas; if we pulled alongside a stray, we gave it a biscuit. After a few days, we were actively looking for them. It was a blast. The deeper we got off the paved highways, the more dogs we encountered. Most of them looked in need of a meal to be sure. One of the most comical sights we witnessed was a dog and a goat walking together like two misfit best friends, side by side, same walking cadence, and right down the middle of the dirt road in front of us. And we were just going to have to wait till they decided to move; if they decided to move. They could care less that we were a meter behind them. And we were content to watch such an odd site.

(I only mention this because of the paradox of that behaviour compared to the former me. A decade or so ago, these hours would be spent in a glitzy casino, seeking an adrenalin rush; or in an air-cooled private jewellery store, seeking yet another self-indulgence to add to my collection. But; back to the narrative at hand.)

Mornings offered even more. Annie and I found some great tiny and secluded churches. One of them almost ended up as the picture for the cover of my book, Your Truth is Calling. It is a tiny and secluded yellow church on the top of a hill. It is surrounded by a view of the ocean. But it is quiet and peaceful. It even has a rock bed in the back that is reserved for contemplation, meditation, or prayer. It is called The Peace Labyrinth. Everything seemed so in synch with the book I just finished writing. Everything seemed to represent it in so many ways. For sure this site had to be the defining moment of this particular vacation, I thought.

I wasn’t even close.

Over the next few mornings we ended up back at this quaint little spiritual hideaway. I would finish my coffee and then also drink in the magnificence of the site, and breathe in the uniqueness of the air. Only then, I would spend a few minutes at the Peace Labyrinth in quiet contemplation of gratitude. What an amazing vehicle of transport for inspiring each day: At least for me. One morning we went from the church over to the Natural Bridge and then to the Natural Pool. On the way back to the hotel, Annie needed to stop somewhere for a large diet pop. We were still in the back roads and as is our habit we just followed busier and busier traffic to find our way out. While still deep in the neighbourhoods where the citizens lived, we came upon a Wendy’s restaurant. We weren’t even sure if it was open. We were the only ones in the huge adjacent parking lot. As Annie went in to purchase her diet pop, the incident that would define this vacation for me began to unfold.

From a distance I could see a male figure, probably in his late 40’s, moving toward the area where I was parked. From that distance I instantly noticed what I thought was an incredible physique. He was shirtless, with only a pair of jeans for clothing. As he walked closer to me, his dark black skin glistened from the burgeoning day’s heat. Even from a distance his physique was obviously ripped, cut, shredded even, beyond description. Naturally since we were the only ones in the area, I kept my observing eyes upon him. He seemed oblivious to my presence even though, mine was the only car in the lot.

As he neared closer, a different perspective was forming in my mind. His steps seemed to be of a “shuffle” more than a walk. He was decidedly unkempt. And it was clear he had his mind on something. One thing. He moved closer to a dumpster that was all by itself in the lot. It was apparent the dumpster belonged to Wendy’s. This dumpster was different though from the ones here. It didn’t open from the top. It opened from the front, like new washing and drying machines do, but about 4 feet off the ground. He looked left and right, as if combing the area to make sure no one was watching. Then I observed an odd behaviour. He swung open the huge door to the dumpster, left to right; turned his back to it, slipped off his shoes, then dove into it backwards; like a scuba diver would do. I was puzzled by the unfolding of events.

Annie returned to the car at that time. I told her what I had been witnessing. (even though I am leaving out some details for you readers) I thought maybe he was sleeping off a drunk or a hangover, or maybe this or maybe that. But then again, you don’t climb into a dumpster in 85-90 degree heat to go to sleep. I had to check to see if he was all right. Something inside me, drove me to not mind my own business this day. As I got to the dumpster I looked down at his “shoes.” He had two different shoes, two different sizes, and no laces. I knew now why he seemed to shuffle more than walk. I opened the dumpster door side to side and was witness to what dropped my heart to the pit of my stomach. This man was wading chest-deep in filth and stench that I can’t even describe to you. He was smoothing over the refuse with one arm, looking for anything edible. You can only imagine the stench of 4 feet of garbage in one place in 90 degree heat, I tell you!

It took him a few seconds to even notice me. When he did, his reaction sank my heart deeper than my day knew possible. He saw me looking at him and immediately rushed to a corner of the dumpster. He raised both arms over his face as if to protect himself, and began profusely apologizing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again, please don’t hurt me.” Etc.
It never even occurred to me that someone would be beaten for wading through a garbage dumpster looking for food. But it was obvious this had indeed been a previous experience of his.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “Let’s get you out of there and get you something to eat.” I reached my hand in, and pulled him out. He continued to apologize to me. As far as I am concerned, to this day, he had nothing to apologize for. I approached him after all. He did not approach me. I gave him some money and told him to go to the drive though window. With no shirt, and reeking of filth and garbage I wanted to make sure he would at least get some food. I told him to buy enough for the next day or so. He apologized once again. Annie and I stayed to make sure he got served. If not, we would go in and get for him. A few minutes later he emerged and walked through the lot, slumped down on a concrete parking block and began eating, shirtless, shoe-less, jeans at least two sizes too big for him, and he still had various tidbits of trash attached to various parts of his body.

The situation was too much for me to bear and I burst into childlike weeping and crying. You know the kind of tears where you end up gasping and gulping for air. I was just short of wailing to be honest. I was apoplectic. I pounded the dash of our fancy rental car: The obvious paradox of my good fortune staring me right in the face. As I often do when faced with realities my mind is still processing, I thought immediately of the John F. Kennedy quote that often brings me relief. “Some people see things as they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never will be, and ask, why not?” The reality of how some people have to live is never lost on me. It’s also part of my being to believe it doesn’t have to be this way. Right then, my mind captured on a sentence in big bold impact, even though it was racing to get out of my emotional bluster. “Do unto others” entered my mind and stayed there. Annie suggested, “Go to him; you can’t just leave him like that.”

She gave me a bunch of money that we didn’t even bother to count. Still inconsolable myself, I approached him again. Once again, he didn’t notice me till I was already upon him. He looked up at me and didn’t say a word. I looked into his eyes, and saw something I had never really ever witnessed before. Utter despair. It was obvious I was not going to change this man’s fate. I don’t have that kind of power. But I could, at least, right here, and right now, alter the circumstances of his day for the better. I helped him to his feet, in the middle of his meal. I pulled up his jeans. I wiped away some refuse from his skin. As I gave him a big hug, I slipped the money into his pocket and begged him to go and buy some shoes, and some clothes. And the same strange reply he gave me. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m so sorry.” Not “thank you” but rather “I’m sorry.”

His eyes met mine and he saw the tears freely flowing down my face. What I was actually emoting was empathy; yet what he saw in my glazed and runny eyes, reflected back on him as shame. That was the last thing I intended. He started to cry as well, and continued to apologize. I told him there was no need to apologize, but for just right here, right now, could he try to take care of himself, just today.

As I walked away he apologized yet again. I didn’t turn back. And a few more feet towards my vehicle I heard him say, “God Bless You.” I was stunned by the impact the sentence had on me.
I know a lot of cynics think, “Oh you give people like that money only to make yourself feel better.” Really? Well I can tell you I didn’t feel better. I felt emotionally stunted and trapped by the paradox of my perceived paradise and witnessing the spiritual decay of another human being. I could only pray for some meaning from this interaction. I’ve always believed one thing. No matter what I witness or experience, good or bad, I am always exactly where I am supposed to be. With that philosophy of spirit and fate, it was up to me to find meaning from this emotionally impacting event.

I was not myself for the rest of the day, contemplating on the moments that I knew would define this vacation for me. It certainly was not what I had in mind.

I tossed and turned on the event early that night. Then it hit me, and I woke up with one sentence fresh in mind; the sentence that answered that question of meaning and “why” One sentence, ran through my mind, the irony of which has not been lost on me, to this day: “Scott, Your Own Truth is Calling.” From there, the lessons and meaning came pouring in to me.

For what it’s worth, I’m going to share them with you now.

Like many people I mis-spent a lot of my adult youth pursuing one pleasure after another to satisfy. Over time I realized that satisfying pleasures, only led to creating something else to crave; some appetite to create in order to feed it. But as time went on; that mentality never actually led to any long term gratification. I came to realize that creating and satisfying pleasures, is kind of like competing and winning bodybuilding shows without ever having to diet or train to do so. Where is the meaning or purpose or significance in that?

I began thankfully, all those years ago, to question myself, and my various pursuits. A popular line from advice columnist Ann Landers resonated with me, and I wrote it down, and posted it all over my house where I had to witness it over and over again, to reset my mind. The line was simple: “Know yourself. Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful!”

I had been doing that very thing for so long, I was lost in it. Except, instead of a dog, it was clients and fans who built me up to the point where I built myself up, on very shaky foundations. For a time, back then, I was not a very good or nice person. All that really mattered was my own selfish wants and needs.

Redemption began to be my new purpose for meaning in life. I had/have a lot of ground to make up. I built on that trite Ann Landers comment, all those years ago, to more acutely ascertain, not only what I can do well, but I what I cannot. I used those as a staircase for discovery of my own personal calling. It’s not a calling to be wonderful or admired; especially for something as silly as my physique. It is a simple calling to just do my part; whatever that may be; and however it may unfold. I had been living a cheap cop out, never really challenging myself. From that point on, I had a new goal. I was no longer going to focus only on finding challenges equal to my strengths, but instead, find and develop strengths equal to any challenges. Or to put it spiritually; “I stopped whining to my God about the size of my problems, and instead I warned my problems about the size of my God.”

“Scott, Your Own Truth is Calling!” Indeed. I realized how much I had changed. I am no longer “trying to be” someone else. I finally “am” someone else. I spent a year writing “Your Truth is Calling” There was no editor, no publisher, no “what’s in it for me” motive. I felt compelled to write it; and that is what mattered. I am no longer asking “what’s in it for me” in my projects. I realize now I am finally asking, is there value in this project, for other people. My meaning and purpose has shifted. I finally get it. Every action in our life touches on some musical chord that will vibrate to the harmony of our chosen existence. For good or bad, the reality is that our feelings catch up to our choices over time. That’s a warning as much as it is a proclamation.

I finally am living in a way that serves. It’s a different mode of awareness is all. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “We are made wise not by the recollections of our past, but by the responsibilities to our future.” It’s not about what I expect from life that matters now; it’s what life expects from me that’s important. These Blogs for instance. There is technically nothing in it for me to write them. I don’t even claim to be a good writer. But yet, I feel compelled to do so, in that there may be some value in my words for the reader: for any reader. And that has purpose.

And the answer to the purpose and meaning of that provocatively emotional event that I was part of was more simple than deep. It was to show me, my actions and behaviour are part of my change. Maybe, there is no earthly “paradise.” Perhaps, paradise is an attitude you take within yourself. Perhaps that is all you are enhancing in a vacation or holiday experience. It’s more the realization of the inside-out of awareness that actualizes itself.

For me the new operating principles are simple. Maybe they are not easy, but they are simple. “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Or maybe even more importantly, “to whom much is given, much giving is expected.” Do unto others, means actually doing, taking action, being witness; not just wishing for things to turn out all right for the less fortunate.

For one moment, in one day, without contemplation, there was a call to action. Leaving would have been an action: Too easy to ignore life. And if I truly believe I am always where I am supposed to be; perhaps there is still more to it. The deeper truth is that we are not led to go only where kindness comes easy and already exists. Perhaps we are also called to go where fate sends us, and bring kindness with us. It may not be easy, but it is profoundly simple.

Bad things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Good things happen to good people. That is the nature of free-will. Yet generosity is itself a selfish act. Proverbs 11:24-25 clearly says “he who waters, shall himself be watered.” I seem to be living in that reality now. Finally.

In the end, Aruba still remains one of our favourite spots, and we look forward to going back there, maybe next year. And the defining moment of that vacation ended up being one of subsequent clarity. Wisdom need not be some deep-seated contemplation of meaning and purpose. What I found to be true in its simplest of forms is expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau, “what wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
If you find one, let me know. Meantime, since I am fortunate enough to be blessed with a life of favour, than I best live my life favourably.

Scott, “Your Own Truth is Calling” And I guess I've finally learned that spiritually speaking, once you learn how to walk, it's impossible to go back to crawling.

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.

I welcome your comments here below or on the Blog Discussions thread on my Forums

Seeds: What are you doing with yours?

Seeds: Yes, what a great word, and all it implies literally, figuratively, connotatively, denotatively. And to wisdom: how is that element, separate from knowledge, actualized and realized? I know that wisdom leads to a comfortable and harmonious way of being in the world. Knowledge is a mere slice of wisdom. But how does a person get there? The answer lies in the treatment of its seeds. I make no apologies that this Blog will be a long one. My hope is you will read along; maybe even read a segment per day. And hopefully you will find some new seeds of your own to take away from this project.

Memories, experiences, life: All the component parts that lead us to who we are now in the world, but not to “how” we are now in the world. How we are is a choice we make. Many people seek to “change their minds” but can’t find the key to the lock that will allow them to step through that door to the other side. Often it leads them to think they are trapped in the way they are. It’s understandable. It’s also not true.

The issue for me is the seeds of their life and their past and their current path. You see there is a difference between “burying” bad memories and bad experiences, or even current ambiguous situations; and instead using life experience as “seeds” to be planted: Seeds to take root and bear fruit over time. Such is the path to wisdom. What we bury does not come back. What is planted grows. It’s the attitude that determines the difference. When you bury potential seeds, they are lost and gone. But when you plant them; at some point they will take root; and if nourished well, can take all previous experiences and memories and create bounty. And while some people bury their seeds, and others plant them, there are also the in-between people whose seeds remain scattered on the ground. They also will not take root. These people know the value of their life experience, but they don’t ‘go the distance’ to a full mental and emotional examination of their life, so they can rightly plant their seeds, and grow along with them. And as we know, people who don’t learn from history, including their own, are destined to repeat it. This is the path to nowhere from buried or scattered seeds of experience. It’s a lost potential for all kinds of personal greatness. But seeds planted from our own experience are the eventual life-spring of meaning for our life and in our life. So I am telling you that what seems to you like dirt in your life is actually fertile soil for planting the seeds of your own life-experience.

We know seeds at full maturity do not only bear fruit, but bear a multiplicity of it. The tree grows first, then it grows blossoms, then it bears fruit. Then it bears fruit over and over again: All from the potential of tiny seeds. And the same is true of life-experience. Good or bad, happy or tragic, your life is providing for you seeds of abundance. It is up to you to plant them. Unfortunately most people choose to bury them or leave them scattered, as so many unconnected life experiences. And then the potential seeds to their own path to wisdom are gone forever. Without well-planted seeds, scattered seeds and buried seeds never fulfil any potential in your life or for your life. It leads people to running around in circles searching for meaning. And as the song says, “when people run in circles it’s a very, very, very, Mad World.


Reality Math
Meaning is the new currency for our life. And having meaning begins by being able to embrace your own personal life experience. People would be amazed how much commonality there actually is among us all. This is that 6 degrees of separation we hear so much about. I believe it to be true. I see parallels and commonality all around me; mainly because I allow myself to see it. I learn not only from my own but from other people’s relevant experience.

I can often tell miles in advance a person’s life becoming a train-wreck, even when they can’t see it themselves. Some of them don’t even know they’re on the train!

Far too many people live in dream worlds and then make excuses for reality. They leave their seeds scattered. I will collect them and plant them to the benefit of my own well-being. I can tell you as someone now pushing my late 40’s, with 50 on the visible horizon, that this commonality of experience even exists at various stages in life. At some point those of us paying attention just move into a deeper experience of life and the magic of being. It’s not that we now know more, but we know more deeply. As we age, and our seeds bear the fruit of our relevant experience, we’re not losing it, but finding it in life. The “it” to which I refer is a state of being in the world. It’s a state of comfort and harmony and joy. I will explore this further in another section.

And by contrast people’s 20’s and 30’s seem for far too many, a time of losing it; losing themselves; paying attention not to what matters but to confounding elements of social experience. Style vs. substance, and dealing with various types of personalities we will be confronted by in our lives. There are those people; those “seed-buriers” who take delight in pessimism and negativity, hostility and subterfuge; and their purpose in life is a reflection of the dreaded three C’s club: criticizing, complaining and correcting. I call them “The Peanut Gallery.” The faces change, but the personality type continues. Wisdom learns to ignore them as they “shout at windmills.” And it’s ironic that these same people seem to always be the ones who are talking, but are always talking about the people who are actually “doing.” And it’s the doers out there who are planting and cultivating the most viable seeds. They know their own dirt to be only fertile soil. They won’t water it with the people from the three C’s club. I’ve come to learn and value that people need models more than critics. As Elbert Hubbard put it, “Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”

By observation, wisdom observes that an inauthentic person is a sucker for another inauthentic person. I had to live this lie myself; several times before I learned from history and planted those seeds. We attract what we are! The truth is, damaged people damage people. They are also attracted to other damaged people. A person can take part in that drama; and they can then be a part of triggering each others wounds, or allowing those of the three “C” club to trigger their own; or people can be a part of healing each other’s wounds and experience. Service to others is not co-dependency. And it is also not enabling. These reality seeds illustrate that we don’t “attract what we want” we attract what we are. I chose a long time ago to say to these energy vampires in life, “You deplete me!” But I don’t resent these people. That would just fuel their energy at the expense of my own. Instead I pay them no mind and they move on to other targets like vermin tends to do. Resentment only serves the members of the three “C” club: Or as it has been said so often, “resentment is like drinking poison ourselves, thinking it will kill our enemies, or our past.”

Abundance has created far too great an illusion of entitlement for everyone. The reality math is that people have more than enough to live now, but “no-thing” to live for. They have enhanced ‘means’ but not enhanced ‘meaning.’ This is a reflection of lost or scattered or buried seeds of experience. It reflects a poverty of modern culture.

As these seeds of experience take root a person at my age can clearly see there are only 3 columns to live life experience, and experience life. These are 1) be good, 2) get good, or 3) give up. And within these three columns of experience are 3 modes of living; that create specific seeds of experience. These three modes of living are correspondingly 1) living in ambition and inspiration, 2) living in practice and preparation always, or 3) living in drama and the illusion of want and emotional reaction. The first two modes of living tend to lead to seeds of experience being well-planted. The latter at best leads to scattered seeds and at worst buried seeds. It leads to the traveling in circles of the members of this Mad World of reactive existence.

People often talk about the ‘good ole days’ but wisdom reveals that these days were in fact more ‘old’ than good. Life cannot be lived in reverse. My best days are still ahead of me. And they will be of a different quality of experience than the experiences of those ‘old days.’ To stay alive, and be good, and get good, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I am alive with fruits of my experiences, seeds coming to full harvest, time and time again. It’s electric! And I know, “I’m too blessed to be stressed!”

Knowing Joy
One of the current problems of existence for many is that they really don’t know happiness or joy. And they certainly don’t know the difference between the two either. With my life coach clients I often ask the question, ‘are you saying yes to life; or instead trying to say no, to pain.’ These are entirely different ways of ‘being’ in the world.

Wisdom tells us that joy is a state of being. ‘Happy’ tends to be more conditional. Let’s observe laughter by example. When a person depends on something else, or someone else, to make them laugh, that laughter is conditional. It is dependant on that other person or situation. It is happiness or joy from the outside-in. This tends to be episodic at best. But inner joy that provides laughter is different. It is non-conditional. For instance, infants laugh all the time, yet they have no grasp of the concept of humour. This suggests that joy may be a state of being, something we are born with. It is an inner source of awareness, that is not episodic, but of permanent potential. It is a state of being, from the inside-out.

But it is this inner state of knowing and being that is lost as we mature, and because it is mis-placed; people attempt to re-place it by stressing over medication, or diet, or lifestyle to try to find what is already part of their being. The outside-in conditional nature of happiness or joy represents scattered seeds, not planted ones. Those ‘keys’ you are looking for; they are in your pocket and always have been.

One of the surest ways to have joy escape you is to stay in situations or circumstances that do not reflect any part of your true self. I also know that one from experience. People tend to speak two words that can be more properly put in a context of their associations with their more vulgar counterparts. It’s been a long time but one of the tools I used to create momentum in life experience was the comparison of two words, put in a sentence, relative to other another body part and function. I used to say, “I will not speak from my “but” today. And also, I will not “should” on myself today.” Or more bluntly, I used to have my head so far up my “but” that I was always full of “should” I advise you if you catch yourself using either word frequently throughout the day, you are more than likely not living your authentic self. I seldom use either word any more. I have no need of them. And yet still, people seek ‘meaning’ in their lives without even a notion in their minds what it would be if they had it. That leads to a lot more “shoulds” and “buts” in their self-talk. So let’s examine meaning a little further. Or at least what meaning represents in this discussion of seeds of experience.

Meaning
First let’s get real about our actual needs in life. Let’s acknowledge a basic and solid truth here. The things people actually need are not subject to invention, at all. Sun, water, hope, love are all requisite human needs that no one can bottle for us; for us to buy and have such needs met. At some point we get away from that reality. And then as people pursue all kinds of other things that are not a true reflection of their needs; they get further and further away from actual meaning and purpose. And yet the simple slogan “the purpose of life, is a life of purpose” can forge that key to unlock experience that leads to seeds becoming trees and bearing fruit over time. It’s not about the times between struggle and bounty. Those are situational, circumstantial.

But they also supply a wealth of experience and the germ of seeds and fertile soil. As Nietzsche said, “he who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.” So, purpose is the foundation to build. And it doesn’t have to be anything grand. More importantly, it has nothing to do with anyone else!

Everyone is working to compete against others, and have accomplishments represent meaning. This just leads to a teeter totter or roller coaster of comparison of oneself to one another in any given field. What a wasted way to gauge a life. Maturity; and I offer wisdom as well, means instead, wrapping meaning around purpose like a well-wrapped gift. It has nothing to do with comparing the “presents.”

And the truth is none of this happens in a vacuum. Instead of regretting the past, embrace it, and plant those seeds of experience. ‘Meaning’ begins a new approach by consuming experiences, not stuff, and not information. When ‘meaning’ becomes your currency, instead of money you learn a valuable truth. It is ok that it may take more than a few very difficult, and even painful number of scary years before a person finds that purpose to rescue him from his own self. But you can’t buy your way there; and I will get to that.

So instead of the 'compare' life, dare to declare instead! There is meaning and purpose in declaration: Stop being so afraid to make mistakes. They are inevitable. You will realize that by mere declaration in purpose or for a purpose, there is no need to compete for anything. Where I live for instance I am surrounded by the tallest and straightest trees you can imagine. They grow side by side in occupied forests where each one individually reaches for the sun that allows it to grow into such large and impressive heights. They don’t compete for the sun’s energy. They share it. And yet they all share as well similarly impressive heights. Their seeds, once they take root, declare their intent to grow. So the only question for people is what seeds are you actually planting, because remember you will attract what you are.

Forget about mistakes as a limiting proposition. That false fear kills creativity. Sometimes all the stakes lie in the mis-takes. There are no useless experiences. You can reap double your trouble or you can reap double from your trouble. It’s the experience that is there to grow you. What you do with those seeds of experience becomes everything.

People tend to want to always separate freedom and responsibility. That is not wise. They are parts of a whole. This was one of my longest lessons to learn. The truth is there is freedom in responsibility and responsibility must be a part of freedom. They are not separate entities to chase or resist. But it’s how people approach their responsibilities that limit or enhance their own meaning. Without a fear of mistakes, and by acknowledging the freedom within responsibility a whole mode of “getting good” opens up. Work can be a vital source of meaning and purpose without attached pressure. People tend to conceive the opposite of work to be play. I know I used to. But like many, I’ve come to realize the meaning and purpose in my work. And with that, I realize the opposite of work isn’t play, it’s depression.

But without that attached fear of mistakes to our work, a play ethic can lead to all kinds of creative freedoms within any work experience. Creativity becomes that way of living what I call “being good.” And it doesn’t have to be earth-shattering discoveries or art. Again, it’s just part and parcel of the truth that when you embrace that “why” in your life, the “how” becomes a positive attitude that fertilizes all seeds of experience. So, instead of fearing what you can’t do, go out and do it. Fail miserably, and laugh and enjoy it. Play at it. There is creative foundation there.

And if you want to make it incredibly simple try some easy practices I give to my life-coaching clients. Brush you hair and brush your teeth, tie your shoes, with your opposite hand. Do it till you master it. Not only is this fun to fail at; but it activates right-brain activity. Remember embracing what you can’t do well, can inspire a healthy play ethic. Isn’t that how kids learn? And this can strengthen and dignify a stronger work ethic. It has to because the fear of mistakes factor is eliminated by that empowering ‘play’ mentality.

It’s important to remember; especially now in this high tech world, that often the deepest relationships, even within ourselves, can be developed during the simplest activities. How many of us formed lifelong friendships with someone just because we walked the same path to school every day, or sat beside each other in class? And within ourselves as well: For me, there was something different about my approach to training over the years. It was a relationship I had with myself. It was a deeper connection. It took me years to realize that the majority of others were not working out with a similar meaning within it. So once again, meaning and purpose can not only create, but can become their own aesthetic value. In other words I didn’t work out to acquire a 20+ inch arm. But I loved that kind of training so much that a 20+ inch arm was the result of working out.

And value is the key word when it comes to consuming experiences and not appearances. And I think that is where so many people get off track. We have lost the ability to distinguish between style and substance. It is just one more thing to stay clear from if you don’t want to end up in the chasing circles that are the illusion of meaning and purpose, but are neither.


Style vs. Substance
In all the areas of my professional interactions: from the academic world, through to the competitive world of athletics and even in social work I have always been cognizant of the difference between those people involved who were all about “style and appearance” vs. those grounded in the substance and meaning within any given pursuit. Once again, it becomes about what you are consuming. Are you consuming appearances, or are you consuming experiences? One leads to a gathering of seeds to cultivate, the other leads to the endless circles of the members of the mad world who think meaning is purchased within style. The first rhetorical question I ask people, and one I used to ask myself to keep me grounded is, “Do I want to make music, or do I want to be a rock star?” This helps to delineate the lines between style and substance more clearly. Or to put it another way, do I truly want to love and notice what I am doing; or do I truly want to be loved or noticed for doing it?” To ask this question in key moments where you find yourself using those dreaded words of “but’ and “should” can help you find your way out of that dilemma. It really is that simple; not easy, but simple.

Style changes now faster than ever. There used to be “era’s” that took years to work through; hippie, disco, punk, all kinds and manners of expression. And there were of course those people who lived it, and those people who bought the style and identity-shopped it. And now with the digital age, style is evolving and changing at warp speed. To be caught in that tale-pipe of pursuit of style is to never find that true beauty of real self-expression. We now let style concerns consume us, as we continue to consume appearances over experiences. No seeds can be gathered this way. Without a life to be lived, look and feel of style, have zero purpose or meaning. I see this all the time in the competitor-mentality who identity shop, with little substance left at the end for seeds worthy of cultivating. It’s all style over substance.

All it really seems to create on closer inspection are bigger, but emptier egos. No one has been guiltier of this, than was I. But in all the industries I have moved through I see the identity shoppers of style and appearance quite clearly now. And believe me; they come in all kinds of forms. These include but are not limited to arrogance, ignorance, celebrity, even intellectual pride and intellectual bullies. All you have to do is look for people wearing their status badges. It’s all about style, in the illusion of substance. And as the saying goes, “their egos write checks incredibly fast, while their personalities simply lack the cash.” I know I had to work on myself to build a wealth-account, of real personality; instead of a status badge. And even though this exercise in substance-building is a good way to gather seeds; there still exists a danger of not being able to recognize the ‘ego-check-writing-frauds’ of others. This was another great lesson I had to churn, painfully from my 20’s to my 40’s. And all it really takes to see it is to start consuming experience, and not appearance. Again, it’s simple, but it’s not easy.

Digital Candy
And now our status badges are viral and digital. This is also problematic because it leads to the deepest consumption of appearance over experiences I think I have ever seen. Facebook, Twitter etc, all have a real potential for substance but instead it’s become almost entirely about style, and the status-badges involved. So style is now also about networking. It’s not just clothes or bling or lifestyle; it’s about how many friends you have on Facebook; or how many visits to your MySpace Page. Or it’s about dropping real face to face interaction, to answer your Blackberry. It’s a digital priority over a human one. Instead of talking “to” someone, you talk “at” people en masse. It’s all about consuming appearances, over consuming experiences. But it’s all just digital candy. And I tell you, digital candy leads to aesthetic cavities. Are you really benefitting from such a digital surface investment in someone else’s life? And there is always the Yin and Yang in pursuit of appearances. Status badges also lead to status anxiety. Industries are built on that creation. But the digital candy illustrates we live in an era where adding style gives an illusion of adding value.

“Man, I am so popular; I’ve got 2000 friends on my Facebook page.”(said one of the loneliest people I know)

Style is the element of the moment only. It’s buying status badges designed to impress or even stimulate oneself. But it is so fleetingly momentary. Why can’t people see that? Style has such little return value, and one style is quickly replaced by another to achieve only the same shallow intent as the previous style; and the members of the Mad World of pursuit fall in line and dance to its new beat. It’s tail-chasing at best. It’s identity shopping. It’s the tale wagging the dog. So now we have come to let style consume us as we consume it. And in the end what is lost? And what is gained?

Just like every nuance of style that preceded it, down through the years, every creative insurgence becomes eventually just another irritating trend because of all the followers, posers, and pretenders who value style over substance. They just don’t know any better. Style is seldom an end in itself. To think so is really for those doing the most scattered identity shopping.

Style leads people to cling to convention. People fight to defend the current vogue trend because anything unconventional upsets their comfort zones. It also tends to upset the confirmation of their identity shopping purchase. I don’t really contemplate convention. And that’s because to “get good” and “be good” as I discussed above, I’m not focused on what is, I’m actively and excitedly seeking what’s next!

And yet the digital age hurries to keep creating new trends and new styles. It sells. It sells people and eventually sells products. To watch it all from a distance is to see that reality time and again, that when “people run in circles it’s indeed a very, very, Mad World.”

Yet that dangerous Yin and Yang of it all continues. Folklore becomes fakelore. The modern medium of the web tends to employ the former to create the latter. GQ and Cosmo and so many other cultural culturists convince us we can buy good taste and beauty. But what I know from decades in the cosmetic industry of physique enhancement is this is a sad lie. The Yin and Yang of beauty is that beauty can comfortably coexist with stupidity, vulgarity, cruelty, rudeness, ignorance etc. It’s the proverbial, lipstick on a pig analogy. Wisdom can easily penetrate the status badges to see the sharp pins and needles of status anxiety keeping it all in place. So beautiful bodies can produce pleasure as well as anxiety. I’ve known and trained and coached tons of beautiful people who were as much prisoners of their bodies as obese people. So consuming appearances from the outside-in assessment can be completely misleading. Matching outside appearance with inner identity is fine. But if it’s only about nuance and appearance then it will echo hollow. Instead, consumption of experiences over time allows anyone to see beyond that.

If you need to buy magazines like the ones mentioned above to tell you what good taste or style is, then you don’t have either to begin with. It is not as they want us to believe, something to purchase. It should be part of who you are. That is the difference between consuming appearances, and consuming experiences. It’s all about collecting those seeds of experience and planting them, nourishing them, cultivating them.

Conclusion
So in the end, meaning for your life and in your life is accessible from your own life. Again, it’s simple but it’s not easy. And it’s because we artificially look to complicate our lives, looking for meaning. We can’t see the forest for the trees anymore. Even meaning in another context in terms of learning and advancing is becoming something else altogether.

We are now in the post-information age.

Importance these days is no longer analysis of information; but the big picture emphasis is now on the synthesis of information. What’s most important is being able to perceive and combine what seems like unrelated bits of information into complete new wholes.

Kind of like this Blog.

Again, your own seeds of experience allow for this to be uniquely your own vision. This is the new relevance of meaning, and the meaning of relevance. Now that facts are viral and information instantly accessible, these facts and information bites become less valuable. What is most important in the new era is the ability to place facts in a relevant context and deliver the message with emotional impact. Books are safe, but they are indifferent.

The new relevance of meaning is known as “symphony” or quantum flow. It’s the recognized element for success in the digital age. Once again, we get back from style to substance. Reductionism is out; symphony is in. It means as Daniel Pink put it combining elements no one else though to pair together. “The right brain concerns itself not with a particular spruce, but with the whole forest-not the bassoon player or the first violinist but with the music of the entire orchestra.” And for our own life ‘gathering seeds’ and planting them, can also lead to the new era of awareness. Gathering information instead of seeds misses the point. And professionals and experts, who continue to focus on how acquired information or knowledge makes them look, are weak in terms of the new meaning of relevance. They will not last long or be heard from for long in the new era of relevance and meaning.

Context
Researchers, Cox and Alm have illustrated that people skills and emotional intelligence are the new levels of relevance and meaning. This word “and” is most revealing. I see in my industry those who continue to seek information to further themselves, miss the point. That is no longer relevant in the new reality of quantum flow. Moreover there are those people with plenty of people skills, but they lack emotional intelligence; and others with adequate emotional intelligence, but pathetic people skills. Substance in the new era, demands both; not one or the other. And this is separate again, from knowledge. It’s the ability to deliver knowledge in a meaningful way that helps others to cultivate their own personal seeds of experience. This is the new “tipping point” to success.

And to one’s own inner awareness, the consumption of experience leads to that peace of mind this whole Blog has been about.

Aspiring toward a goal can be a pleasurable invigorating experience, filled with hope, and self-improvement goals; or it can be filled with anxiety, despair and stress. Both have elements of expectation. A young person taking up bodybuilding or Figure competition may begin from a place of dissatisfaction with their current physique; or even a basic sense of challenge. One person may diet and exercise to a healthy state of self-confidence and self-awareness. Another portrays that but instead is swallowed up by obsession, pre-occupation, excess, and self-loathing rather than self-loving. They often don’t know the difference themselves. That’s when particular attention should be paid to using those words, “but” and “should” when examining one's self-talk. It signifies something’s amiss.

The phrase “shop till you drop” takes on new importance, not in terms of goods and services, but so much identity-shopping as well. Substituting spending and consumption for accomplishment and meaning, is moving further and further away from “being good” or “getting good” and closer and closer to “giving up.” Consuming ‘appearances’ leads to buried seeds, while consuming your experiences leads to planted ones.

Finally, as years go by, a person discovers if they’re truly outgoing or more reserved; adventuresome or passive, ambitious or complacent. They find their authentic self. They realize once experience takes root, there is no sin to be any of these things. Rather it is more important that a person discovers his/her own true nature. It’s not about wishing to be one type of person or another. That is identity shopping. To try to emulate a life or characteristic that may not be suitable to your own make-up is to miss your own gifts. To embrace who you are, know who you are, understand who you are, does not have to fit into any other mould. From this place, from a cultivation of the seeds of your own experience, joy is a state of being.

To know this kind of self-respect means never having a desire to attain it from others. There is no identity shopping because there is finally no identity crisis.

The end message is that some things are worth giving up. Others demand your integrity to hang in there to either “be” good, or “get” good. This is principled integrity. A person can think giving up on something is easier, but the truth is not living up to commitments; especially the ones you make to yourself, ends up complicating life, not simplifying it. Uncommitted people end up with a lot of unfinished projects throughout life: So many scattered or buried seeds. They have a history of making constant changes in jobs, goals, relationships, and other important decisions. They remain in a constant “identity shopping mode” searching for meaning and relevance.

In reality all these constant changes from a lack of deep commitment to one’s own life, end up being more difficult than if people just saw their projects through to the end, regardless of outcome. To finish what you start is to find your authentic self, even if it is by eliminating that very thing. This is the preciousness of those seeds of experience.

I took many days and a great deal of effort to write this Blog. So as long as it takes you to read it; it’s taken a lot longer an investment to pen it. Some people will find it too long and laborious to read; even though those are the exact people I write this for. I hope rather than just reading this Blog, you instead consume the experience of reading it. My hope is it will strengthen some seeds already within you. Plant them deep. My goal was to employ substance first, and style second. So for some readers this may be much too long an investment of their time. But then again.......

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.

I welcome your comments here, or by all means join the Blog discussion in the forums section of my website.

Building True Wealth: The Value of Time

You know every month I probably get at least ten inquiries from people who want to know how to succeed like I have. Depending on the person, I seldom know what to say, and the reason is that I have always just felt differently on the varying definitions of success or wealth. Initially, to be able to do what you think you are meant to do, is one version of success. Or the old adage, “success is getting what you want, while happiness, is wanting what you get.” Both of these have reflected true at different points in my life.

But there is also a deeper reality as well, that I know when people are asking me that question, they will never understand my answer. There comes at some point for all thinking people, a full circle. That full circle is now not about considering what I can get from a situation, but more importantly, what I can give or lend to that situation. Giving back becomes a sincere form of receiving; but it is counterintuitive to most people.

One of my saving graces in life has been that I have always considered time as a metaphor for everything I do, and more importantly how I do it. Whether this is exercised in how I structure my day, how I interact with people, or even in reflection of times gone by; I employ metaphors of time to relate to. This will become much clearer below, but it terms of where I am at now, since many of you ask, the answer is reflected well in a quote by Carl Jung: Carl Jung, Stage of Life “thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie.”
I hope you will all take some time to reflect on this passage before moving on below.

So what is real wealth anyway? Well once again, I differ from most in that wealth to me has little to do with what I have and most to do with how I experience what I have, and who I am. I think I may have something of value to offer here for those of you willing to change the way you think about what is valuable. My association with the various metaphors of time have served me well, and I offer some of them to you in this Blog.

Time for me is the precious element. It is what has the most value in use and exchange. It has always amazed me how so many people miss that reality, and thus pursue the wrong things in pursuit of meaning, joy, relief, and wealth and wellness. I call time the tic toc of wealth. And for me time is the element I use to redeem and invest and gauge how I am doing, wealth-wise. But we all have a skewed sense of real-wealth and we tend to value its illusions more than its reality. We tend to use people and value things, rather than rightly value people and use things. We all would like to think we are not this way, but a quick observation of your own reality here, may reveal some hypocrisy that is difficult to face.

So money equals the currency of exchange and value in our society. Or does it? Let’s consider time as the alternative as I have for almost 30 years now. One of the very first meaningful realities of a consideration of time vs. money is that you can always make more money, you can never make more time! And we know in life, that what is most limited in supply is usually what is most valued. This led me to ponder the clichés attached to the element of time; we can invest time, waste time, spend time, and worse yet the phrase, ‘just killing time.’ We have the idea of ‘free-time’ as well. Indeed many of these expressions can be directly tied to the element of time’s value. This leads to the phrase that I have used to design my day and my life for some 25 years. “Time is money.”

And while we can say that and know that, wisdom lies in knowing the reverse is NOT true. In other words, while time is money, money is not time. This ‘reality math’ if you will, led me to a path of valuing time, as money. I made a literal calculation of time to serve me to that end. I relate seconds to pennies, and minutes to dollars. I have known for some years now that each day I have 86,400 pennies or seconds of value that are mine. This equates to $1,440 dollars or minutes of value as well. Each and every day, that is what I have. How I spend it reflects value, my value, my wealth, my wellness. And here’s the great and empowering reality of that. Every day, no matter who, no matter where, it’s the same potential for everyone. Whether it’s Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, or Oprah Winfrey, or you or me; we all get 86,400 seconds or 1,440 minutes of value to do with what we choose. And then it’s gone. And this leads to the second element of time’s reality. We can start each day with the reality of “choose to” and not “have to.” This in itself will begin to serve your investment of time, in time itself, and then create wealth.

The problem for most people is that they cannot see the difference between spending time and investing time, or worst yet, between wasted time, and invested time. If time is a value to be invested like money, then if you are not in tune with that energy field, how can you ever capitalize on it? For me time is real. I personify time to serve me. Time becomes an investment in contentment. I employ it to enjoy it. I reflect it to respect it. And then I invest the rest in my time allotment account which pays me dividends and has for years, just like a stock market, except this stock is the real value of time.

So how do I get wealthy with that mentality?

Easy. A long time ago someone told me, “if you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid to do more than you do.” Almost every truly wealthy person I know has lived this truth, and they have not only a wealth of money but a wealth of time as well.

I remember that example with an old friend of mine. He was fresh out of nurse’s college and had landed a great job at a hospital. And he took on a strange work ethic, or at least what seemed strange to the other nurses. My friend volunteered on every shift to clean bed pans and sheets, or clean up after ‘accidents.’ Of course all the other nurses hated that job, and gladly did his other duties while he did what others assumed were the lowliest tasks. And he did it happily. I remember asking him why, asking him if he was being some kind of martyr. He told me it wasn’t that at all. He explained to me how all the other nurses would act if they had bed pan or clean up duty. They would give off this energy that the patient was offending them. He hated that patients who were already vulnerable were led to feel embarrassed about a consequence of their illness. So he said he volunteered because he didn’t want any patient feeling that way; they had enough to worry about. He also told me that if he thought he was too good to clean bed pans, then he should have been a Doctor, not a nurse. My point was my friend was doing more than he was paid to do. But guess what? When it came time for promotions, he quickly moved through the ranks, to the upset and chagrin of many of the other nurses who had seniority, but not the work ethic. My friend invested his time. He knew it was about how he did his job, not how long he did his job. I took that lesson to heart at a young age. I knew that time was the true element of value.

I take my time seriously. I make sure that each and every day, I use time, and it never uses me: As it says in Corinthians: 9:26 “run with purpose in every step.” And I do. This doesn’t mean I am hard at it from the time I rise till the time I lay my head down. That is to miss the point. Busy does not mean productive. I can show you tons of “busy” people who have little to show for their time. They have spent it, but they have not invested it. I have been fortunate that for almost 25 years now, I have lived a life of semi-retirement. I get to work as hard or as long as I choose each and every day.

How? Well I focus on time, as my value centre. I focus on what time represents for me. These are two things, freedom and abundance. Most people focus on the value of money, and then they try to use that, to buy the things that represent freedom and abundance. I just chose to cut out the middle man of money. If freedom and abundance are what people truly seek, then trying to buy it, rather than value it seemed to me like taking the stairs rather than the elevator. I wanted to get to the top rested, not exhausted.

So how do we begin to employ time? Make no mistake you either employ time or time employs you. You have to choose to create a wealth of time and to do that you have to realize its true value. Most people are in fact devaluing themselves and their time. Take these new Social Networking sites for example, Facebook and the like. Who are you networking with and what are you paying attention to on these sites? To follow someone else’s day is to devalue your own time. So people should be choosing wisely such an investment, rather than choosing stimulation over redemption of time. Stimulation represents the spending, wasting, and killing of time, and usually at your own expense. Then just like any account; you end up with a debt of time. Just like with money, to not value it, be careful with it, be deliberate and be purposeful with it, usually leaves you in debt of it. To be in debt of time, is to know a hamster wheel I want no part of.

The next consideration is your attitude regarding time. As I said in my last workshop, how you wake up in the morning has everything to do with whether you will spend time, or invest time. Do you wake up in the morning and say “Good morning God!” or do you wake up in the morning and say “Good God, morning!” I think it’s easy to see which path starts the day with investing in time’s wealth, and which ends up spending time in a way that drains its account. If you don’t value your time, don’t expect others to either; and if you don’t value your time, don’t expect time to value you. This bank account as you can see is just like the currency of money. If it is well-managed it leads to freedom and abundance, if not it leads to serious debt.

The next thing about the attitude of investing in the value of time is to employ sense to make cents. There are two kinds of sense to my mind; non-sense, and common-sense. The first one leads to spending time, the second one leads to its investment. Too many people worry too much about insignificance which is time lost. Or they focus on things that do not turn out as they envisioned or wanted. Common sense dictates to let go, and that time is valuable. Disappointment is inevitable. It’s time spent. But misery is a choice; its time wasted. Time invested means all things are revealed in time: So even time spent in a way that yields disappointment, can at some point become time that is an investment; again just like investing in the stock market. But the stock is time and its value.

So by way of metaphor, disappointment can represent rain instead of sun. No one escapes that. But the reality of time is such that only a serious rain will yield a rainbow. So time spent can actually become time invested yielding eventually, vaulted outcomes.

C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, and whoever he is.” Based on that, how is your future looking to you, as a valuable investment of your time? Are you ‘taking stock?’

Too many people spend far too much time on other people; what they may or may not think; how it may or may not affect them. Is this a wise investment of time? As Will Rogers said, “too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

And if this is you, and time is money, can you see how you are creating debt instead of wealth. Let me clue you in on something that may help in this example. It’s called the 25% rule. 25% of people, who come into your life, will not like you, and nothing anyone can say can change their minds. Another 25% of people who will come to be in your life, may not like you, but their minds may change on that and they may be persuaded to like you. Another 25% of the people who will enter your life, may like you, but their minds may be changed to reconsider and not like you. And finally another 25% of people in your life, you will like you and nothing can be said to change their minds. They stand by you. So why do so many people focus and stress over that lower 75 percentile group? Is that time spent, or invested?

There is one more item I like to employ about my attitude of the value of time, and the wealth it provides me. There is a saying about the value of time that states, “If you don’t have an assistant, then you are one.” Makes you think doesn’t it? I have many assistants. All my clients are my assistants. How and why is the important part. They are my assistants because I am theirs as well. Because I value my own time so much I have to value theirs in return. This is an investment of my time that serves them, and serves me as well. I am fortunate enough that I could easily drop the clients that give me grief. But I choose not to. Why? Not because they pay me. No. It’s because being out of my comfort zone is a valuable investment of my time. They become my assistants because I am challenged. I have to deal with them differently, think laterally, use different approaches; all of which expand my capabilities and resources to further employ time on my own behalf; and theirs as well.

To value time is to become strong, stronger, strongest. To value money is an illusion of wealth that only time can give. Many people have this notion upside down. It’s not money that buys you time; it’s time that earns you money. I often have new people write me about their “weak moments” in sticking to diets or missing workouts or whatever. The reality math of time, as I said earlier is that there is no such thing as ‘weak’ moments; only moments.

To value the potential of moments, and therefore time is to grow an investment in it. I punctuate my minutes with periods and exclamation points, never question marks! I have invested in a way that I have no more ‘weak’ moments.

This is how I have been able to live a very comfortable semi-retired lifestyle for all these many years. And whether its writing this Blog, meeting someone for coffee, answering an email, or taking on a mentoring student; it’s my way of saying I respect your time because I value my own. To engage any interaction from the value of its time investment is to treat everyone in your field of influence with respect, and have it returned to you in kind. This is how I have managed to build my wealth of time and success. It’s a great life!

One Thousand Marbles

A man was contemplating his mortality as all of us seem to do the older we get. As he approached his 55th birthday he started doing some of his own reality math. The average person lives to be 75 so he realized if he was so blessed, then he had only 20 more years to live. He did some calculations and came to the realization that in 75 years, there are something like 3,900 weekends in life. He couldn’t imagine how many of those he had already squandered, time wasted. He also realized that at 55, if he did indeed live to be 75; that meant he had about 1,000 weekends left. He went out and bought himself 1,000 marbles to represent his time to live. He put them all in one glass bottle and labelled it, “time left to live.” In an equal sized glass container beside it, he labelled the bottle, “time well-spent.” This was a real in his-own-face reality to face each and every weekend.

And he made sure he spent that time living, just as the bottle was marked and intended. Each weekend, one marble would come out of the ‘time left’ container, and he put it into the ‘time well-lived’ bottle. He literally got live like he was dying. Time became that precious thing to invest in; that short supply that was constantly running out.

And yet he reached that age 75 having lived and experienced his best years to date. He took stock of his time. What then? Well he marked another bottle and labelled it “borrowed time” and he continued to live out his life according to what really mattered and held value: one marble put into another container, one weekend at a time. This is the value of time. To know it, feel it, embrace it, live it, experience it, build on it. The question for you all is, how many marbles do you have left to invest?

I leave you with a quote from Horace Mann: “Lost yesterday somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with 60 diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.”

Some of you will get it, many of you will not. I welcome your feedback here below and as usual on my Forums.

The Conversation:
A Short Story by Scott Abel

It was 1999. I knew Cameron well back then. We weren’t friends, but I certainly knew him. More to the point of this story, I knew his type. But all that changed in 1999. After that incident, that circumstance, that event, Cameron became someone else. He grew, he inspired, he transformed, he achieved. He seemed to have shuffled off whatever demons had hitherto lived inside of him. But it wasn’t until he nearly died, that he began to live.

He doesn’t see it that way. To him, life moved forward and seeds took root, not because of the event, but because of what he remembers vividly as “the conversation” that came from it. From that point on, he was forever a changed man, and forever for the better. The seeds produced a tree, the fruits of which to this day and every day nourish those around him.

I sat and listened to his version of “the conversation” in wonder, wet eyes, and amazement. Something in him died that day, that’s for certain. And at the same time, it seems something else was born in him, or maybe reborn. The semantics don’t really matter. It’s the ‘feel’ of “the conversation” that matters, that invigorates, that inspires.

What can possibly be so life-changing about a conversation? Lots of us have deep conversations quite frequently, but they don’t seem to alter our lives, our spirit or our being?

Some of you will get this “conversation.” Many of you will not.

It was on a Cruise in 1999 that Cameron fell ill. The medical professionals assumed it was food poisoning as was so common on Cruises. But it was not. It was a rare spider bite that caused serious and dire medical consequences. The misdiagnosis led to the wrong medication, to which Cameron had a severe allergic reaction. Between the medication and the original spider bite, Cameron’s condition turned almost immediately for the worse. He slipped into a coma.

He says it was during the coma that “the conversation” took place: The conversation that altered his life path. It wasn’t an easy breezy conversation either; at least not from Cameron’s position.

He doesn’t remember tunnels or bright lights; he just remembers waking up in a strange but at the same time comfortable place. He was sitting on a rock, with all mental comforts of being at ease, but emotional anguish as well, more than likely from his body fighting for its life. But he didn’t feel that way. Just across and perpendicular to him on a grassy knoll he could see the profile of a young lad. He seemed quite virile, alive,curly-wavy,dark hair. Cameron could only view him from the side and his view was blocked because of the height of the knoll.

But the young man gave off an allure of strength, just by sitting there. He looked off into the distance as if sunning himself. But there was no sun, no sky, in this place. But you wouldn’t have known that by drinking in the sight of the young lad.

He seemed quite content soaking up whatever was in that distance. He appeared to be chewing slowly and gleefully on a long weed, like so many country boys would do, while sitting in a quiet meadow examining their thoughts or watching clouds go by. It was a strange setting, but not so-strange all at the same time. The whole environment surrounding “the conversation” would be filled with paradoxes, where things were and were not, all in the same moment. It was definitely different than physical existence, whatever it was.

Cameron asked, “Is this heaven?” to which there was no reply
He asked again, “Hey, is this heaven?”

The young lad glanced over at Cameron and casually, and with little interest engaged him. He answered. “This is whatever you will end up feeling it to be. For now, you could consider it a waiting room, or even more appropriate, consider it a classroom.”

Cameron pondered over the comment. If it was indeed a waiting room, he presumed he knew what that meant. But the classroom comment confused him. This environment did not look or feel like a classroom; at least none that he had ever conceived of. So he queried, “So you are the teacher then, I suppose?”

The lad answered, “You suppose a lot, don’t you? I am whatever you feel me to be. Perhaps you are the teacher. Perhaps I am. Here it doesn’t matter much about what labels you attach to such things. It matters more what and how you end up feeling about them.”

The lad speaks in mystery and at the same time makes sense. He is exactly the paradox of the whole place. It made Cameron uncomfortable. Cameron didn’t want to be a part of this at this point. He did not want to entertain what this may mean about his mortal life. He asked, “Straight up, why am I here?”

The young man looked and paused, not so much because he didn’t know what to say, but because he didn’t want to waste an investment in saying it. He replied, with no urgency or interest in Cameron: “First off, you know nothing about being, 'straight up' so try not to use phrases here that are bigger than you are. Next, why you are here, is up to you, not me. I have no idea why you are. The bigger question for now is, how did you get here?”

Cameron proceeded to begin to tell the young man about his Cruise and becoming ill, not yet knowing why or how. All Cameron knew was, it was totally unfair, and not his fault. But the young figure seemed to take little interest in these facts.

Instead he queried Cameron, “Why a Cruise, what appealed to you about a Cruise?”

Cameron answered, “well I’ve always loved the water, and love being around it. And as much as I like the beach I never want to go. So this is the next best thing.”

The poised image seemed to take an interest in this comment. “Why would you avoid the beach if you love it, and love the water?”

Cameron answered, “I never like being seen in shorts or a bathing suit. My calves are too small, and I don’t like the way my legs look either. And it’s too bad really. I love the beach. I guess it’s a lot like why women tie a sarong around them, while at the beach; to hide what they’re ashamed of, you know, a wide waist, cellulite, fat, whatever. Same idea, just self-conscious I guess”

The image looked sternly at Cameron, almost as if searching his eyes for clarification. “And this seems rational to you, what you just said?”

Cameron was insistent. “It doesn’t have to be rational. It’s the way a lot of people feel.” He protested, “There’s nothing wrong with that!” “What would you know about it anyway?”

The young man seemed eager to reply: “About that kind of insecurity and shallowness I know very little. But I recall now by your question, that in my own life, people remember me a certain way. And the irony is that when people picture me or my image in their minds, I’m usually wearing shorts.”

Of course, that had no immediate meaning for Cameron. How could it? But still, Cameron became irked by that comment that he perceived to be a poke at him. He muttered a sling of his own at the young lad. “Well so what, you are young and strong and wear shorts or go to the beach without apprehension. Don’t pretend you know me unless you’ve walked a mile in my shoes.”

The image responded, “I would gladly walk a mile in your shoes, as long as I don’t have to lace them with that attitude.” He was obviously trying to provoke Cameron now, or at least that’s how Cameron perceived it.

“Just forget it,” shouted Cameron. “Who are you to judge me?”

The image smiled a knowing smile, and replied, “This is a classroom. There is no judgement here. All there is, is truth in observation. You can’t get away with that emotional spin and drama here. It doesn’t work here, because here is not there, where you come from. But I know your type all too well: Apprehension about wearing a bathing suit or going to the beach. The problem with emotionally immature people like you is that the only things you take seriously are seriously unimportant things.”

Cameron was/is proud and wasn’t going to take that from a stranger: “You don’t know, is all. My whole life has been like this. Even this illness or whatever, happened to me. Why me? My whole life has been like that from as far back as I can remember, so maybe that’s why my not going to the beach may seem like an unimportant thing to you, but still matters to me.”

“Well then, do go on,” replied the young man. “But I expect this won’t be anything I haven’t seen, heard, or witnessed before. So why don’t you start at the very beginning then. What was your childhood like, your interests, your memories?”

Cameron was only too pleased to respond. His favourite topic had always been up to then; himself. “Well my mom was an alcoholic, and my dad was a workaholic. I was left alone a lot. My dad seldom made it to my ballgames, my recitals or my school plays. I guess maybe that’s one reason I am, the way I am now, about the beach and whatever.”

The image interrupted. “Man you people sure come here full of it, don’t you? So it starts there, with your parents, and what they didn’t do for you? Yet forget the fact that they seemed to provide for you the freedom and abundance to play ball, take part in recitals and school plays. I guess that accounts for less in your weak eyes of perception. A generation or a social class ago, you would not have had any opportunities to do any of these things. You would have maybe not even been able to go to school because you would have had to work to help keep the family viable and alive. Had you lived in those times, you would now be here lamenting on your lack of opportunity in life.”

Cameron was quick to retort: “But I didn’t live in those times, and I wanted a dad, not just a father.” I had to go to all my games with David’s dad. He was a dad; always there. I wish my dad would have been more like that.”

To which the young man calmly replied. “Yes, it stops there for people like you, doesn’t it? You never try to entertain the realities of where your father or mother may have been coming from, what factors of their own lives and family histories may have influenced their choices and ideas. No, for you again, it’s about what you didn’t get, not about what you did get. You employ self-absorption, but not empathy. And you use and employ David’s dad as some kind of comparative standard with no knowledge or facts behind that other than your own opinion. An opinion you formed by the way, in your childhood. That’s another issue with you “grass is greener, on the other side,” people. You fail to go the distance in your fantasized thinking. You fail to realize that even if the grass is greener over there, it still has to be mowed. So, many of you focus only on the dark years, wherever they may have been in your life, and you choose to believe the lies you told yourself then, to be some kind of lifelong truth.”

Cameron was not used to what he was hearing. People didn’t talk to him this way. Ever. He couldn’t yet consider that it may be the literal wake up call he needed. He was just slightly intimidated by the truth that was confronting him.

“But with a little more support maybe I wouldn’t have been so hell-bent on proving myself and trying to measure up. Isn’t that what parenthood is supposed to provide?”

Cameron knew maybe he should have taken that back before he even said it, but it was too late.

The young man was only too ready to answer: “Well you sure started with this victim stuff early on, didn’t you? No wonder it became your default thinking position for your life. If only your parents were more to you, and for you. Yes that must be the answer. I guess the symbolism is lost on people like you that even Superman, was raised by those simple, plain-folk in Kansas. It didn’t seem to retard him at all. Listen, parenthood is not about giving kids a person to lean on, it’s about making leaning unnecessary. From anything you’ve told me so far, you received that and even more. You choose victimhood.”

At that point Cameron is quick to try to steer opinion. But he still hasn’t realized, what he hears here is not an opinion from someone else, but a reflection of his own truth. He’s not quite ready to feel that; at this point in the conversation.

So he fires back, “So I suppose this illness or whatever brought me to this place is my fault then?”

The young man does not waiver even for a moment. His Presence is now being felt heavily deep inside Cameron. The young man knows this and so changes his tone slightly: “I only know of what I can speak. There is much to be gained by acknowledging this victim-itis, so common to your era; to learn more about spiritual economics, and finally to truly know personal triumph. Your generation has the most abundance of any in history. Every time an innovation is created to make your lives easier you go out and consume it. And yet with all the ease and comfort this affords your life, you still whine about limitations, and lost opportunities. Do your whining in front of a mirror. Talk about your limitations in front of a mirror and start to feel, what you feel inside when you do so. All these creature comforts of your generation have led you to falsely believe you have a right to the results of persistence, dedication, hard-work, and expectations. You don’t have a right for the results of these things; you have a responsibility for them. This is basic spiritual economics. Your culture of entitlement blinds you to what is worth knowing and having.”

Cameron is clicking-in, that he is way over his head with his own rationalizations on life, and his position in it. But he is still curious. This is after all a young man in front of him. No way is someone that young that wise. “How do you come to presume to know all of this Cameron asks?” He is now non-confrontational, but sincerely inquisitive. “After all you seem so young.”

The lad explained it this way. “The image you see is how I came to be here. It has no meaning in this place. Here, there is only awareness. I am allowed to access the awareness and ideas of all others who have also came here to this level of awareness. Here we access what it was within each of us; that brought us to such a place of understanding and meaning. There are no attachments to anything here, only truth.”

Cameron was shaken to the core by that reality. No doubt now he was experiencing something profound. He started to ‘feel’ the depth of the conversation, just as the young lad said he might when he first arrived there. It was no longer about words with meaning, but about feeling the Presence.

The words were merely for this descriptive purpose. It intimidated him to his core, and at the same time enthralled him to no end; once again representing the endless paradox of this strange place, and this young representative, who was so knowing, so experienced, so deep, and paradoxically also seemed so obviously innocent and naive all at the same time.

Cameron begged, “Then tell me more about “victim-itis?”

“Surely, he replied.” “Well as we see with you it starts with a perception that can go way back. It’s a false reality. It can be physical, mental, emotional, or all various combinations of perceived limitations. You all come here with your various lists, “my depression, my divorce, my stress, my medication, my bad back, my bad knee, my thyroid condition, my busy life that leaves no time, my lack of money, my ulcers, my colitis; I mean the list never ends with you people. But you employ the word “my” because you so badly need the ownership of your victim status and limitations.

Cameron inquired, “So none of those realities are legitimate to you then?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the young lad replied. He continued, “Many will go out and have their limitations legitimized by professionals. It’s kind of a stamp of approval why they can’t achieve a goal, or do a thing. They seek out legitimation for rudimentary things as a resource of viable and plausible reasons to not be all they can be. It’s become like a way of life for people. If it’s not that, then it’s at least a pattern of existence. Your issue is not that you don’t have actual chances, opportunities, good fortune and abundance. You’re problem is you’re afraid to admit you have them all around you. You avoid embracing them so you don’t have to give up your convenient excuses for where you are, and who you are.”

“But,” said Cameron, “surely why I am here beside you right now, is legitimate, is it not? How am I responsible for this?”

The lad didn’t skip a beat. “One way or the other,” he said, you will find this out soon enough.” Then he said, “Life is a simple equation. It is this, circumstance + response = Outcome. You victims love to focus on circumstance, as outcome. It's incomplete, it’s not true and it’s not real. For every legitimate limitation or excuse out there in the mortal world, there is someone else who has faced the same limitation and still succeeded or achieved some desired goal. It’s a perspective. You are either a victor, or a victim. The problem with you people is you are soulless. You live life from the outside-in, rather than from the inside-out. You don’t realize it’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s what happens in you that matters.”

Cameron was becoming a little embarrassed now as situations from his life were streaming through his head at warp speed. But he was seeing them differently now. He asked, “So how do you become the victor?”

The young man as usual made no bones about perspective. He said by way of metaphor. “Where some people see a limitation, others see an obstacle. Those who perceive limitation, manifest that reality, those who perceive an obstacle, are motivated by it, and challenged by it. In the end, the victors develop a conscious decision in life, that if you can’t climb the wall, then you find a doorway. If you can’t find a doorway, you make one. Excuses of victims become just that, fancy rationalizations for stagnation or failure. As Richard Bach said, “Fight hard enough for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours” “You own them.” “It’s amazing that in the fight for your limitations, you only seem to create a drama out of circumstance, rather than a challenge.”

He continued, “It takes actually reaching toward possibilities to access the power to nullify limitations. You people that live life from the outside-in, lead your life acting according to circumstances. People that live life from the inside-out; lead life acting according to vision. Which type do you suppose is most likely victorious?”

For the first time Cameron was less interested in himself, or how all of this effected him. He assumed out loud, as part question and part commentary, “Then I supposed you achieved everything you set out to do in life, and that’s why you are here as a teacher; because you know victory?”

Patiently, the young man replied, “No not all. You couldn’t be more incorrect. I did not know or taste victory. Not the way you mean it anyway. I actualized something much deeper and something much greater. But to answer your question, no is the answer. I had a goal. I didn’t reach it. I failed and failed by a large margin. And in that defeat I didn’t just lose the battle, I lost the war as well. But cradled in defeat, I actualized something greater than wins and losses, successes or failures. I actualized personal triumph. That is why I am here.”

This confused Cameron even more. Just when he thought he was starting to understand and learn, he was back to confusion. “How does anyone know triumph when cradled in defeat, as you put it?”

The young lad politely admonished Cameron. “You are still perceiving things as outcomes, results, as outside-in merit or non-merit. Knowing triumph is far more abundant than experiencing victory. It’s why I am here. There are far more accomplished and more talented souls in this place than my own. I floated to this level of awareness, so they could access my awareness of personal triumph, and know what that truth is like, as an idea, as an experience, as a truth. In turn I am allowed to access all the ideas and truths and accomplishments of those here with me. Some of their eloquence I am using to communicate with you.

Cameron now had to ask, “What is so abundant about a personal triumph? I do not understand,” he stated.

“To triumph beyond circumstance is to be and to know that a good dream, sincerely lived and honestly pursued, supersedes the weight of your personal history. My personal triumph is one that is still celebrated all these years later, here, and there. Triumph is not about reward or achievement, it’s much deeper a thing. And it connects deeper as well. It resonates, it echoes, it speaks to ears tuned in to its own high frequency. And it speaks in harmonies that cross boundaries. That is the symphony of triumph. Defeat cannot stop it, loss cannot contain it. It transcends mind and emotion and sings directly to one’s own heart, and often and everywhere, to the hearts of the common man as well. And we are all common men.”

Cameron was dumbfounded. The words sounded like poetry coming from the young man. Cameron didn’t so much hear the words anymore as feel them. At that moment he again understood Presence.

I have to ask, said Cameron, “is this about courage then; is that what you are talking about?”

“Well, said the young man, not by the word you mean when you say it. It’s not a display. But I can tell you from being here so long that verbal courage is a lie, physical courage is very common, but spiritual courage, that is a rare thing in the world you come from.”

Cameron now wanted more. He wanted to feel this experience, more than just understand it. “Please elaborate for me. Help me to know what you are talking about.”

The young lad continued in all honesty, truth and sincerity, the quality of which Cameron could feel as well as hear:

“At some point, you realize that all moments are each moment. Every one, this one to that, is the same. Visions and dreams are not born out of experience, but out of vision, not of limitations, but of possibilities. It’s not a matter of looking around you, but of looking inside you. Direction is a matter of character, not strategy. Your state of being will determine your state of doing. Not the other way around. Strong character is bigger than any circumstance or experience. The mission is to look inside and examine what an experience or circumstance means. Meaning is not what a situation gives to you; it’s what you give to the situation. To live life forward from this point of inner direction is a path to knowing and experiencing triumph. This is to know living from the inside-out.”

“And for me, what does that mean, asked Cameron?”

The lad responded, “You need to journey inward, not just to learn new meanings, but to re-examine old ones. You should look to examine more deeply not just what you know, but more importantly, ‘what you know that just ain’t so.’ In the end you will find what you know means little, what you demonstrate means everything. Spiritual power is not like the physical body. It doesn’t just grow and mature on its own into some kind of spiritual adulthood. It has to be nurtured and developed and earned in experience. This is why you seem to feel like much is missing, when nothing is missing at all. Inside of you were experiences, potential happy memories that are now holes, where smiles should have been. Look at your memories more closely and examine them, not with emotion, but with spirit. You cannot “possess” an experience or memory, and neither should you be possessed by them either. Perhaps when an experience does not turn out as desired that may have been the whole point behind the experience to begin with. Not something to mourn or lament, but something to recognize for its value and then let go of. All things and meanings can exist at once. They do not have to be either/or in terms of knowing what they bring to you. An experience can break a heart, and open it all in the same moment.”

Cameron was now weeping. He was feeling every word. In fact the words expressed were no longer verbally communicated, but felt to him, in a profound way he had never before experienced. He was beginning to understand, and to learn. And sadder for him still was a realization he had. Cameron was beginning to fully grasp that while he was physically alive, he was living spiritually dead. And now that he may be physically dead, he finally knows what it means to be alive. He is overwhelmed by his own sorrow at the truth of this. To think moments ago he was defending why he avoided beaches, as if it were some true cause and effect: Seriously unimportant things indeed.

All he could utter to himself is “what can I do?”

And even though he was asking this question of himself, the young man still took it upon himself to answer. “You need to inhale some soul into your life, and then exhale some life into your soul. Perhaps that is the purpose for your journey here. But you can’t stay any longer. You will have to go back.”

Cameron realized what this meant, and he was filled with glee and ecstasy, but emptiness and regret at the same time. That paradox again, of ‘go, but stay,’ both in the same moment.

He had an intense sense that this time here in the classroom was coming to an end, and then it dawned on him. “Wait a minute, he cried. Who are you?” Cameron could not conjure a likeness of someone who was known by an image people have of him in his shorts; someone who knew triumph in total defeat. Who could that have possibly been? And would it matter?

The young lad replied, “This you know by now; here, in this place, I am no one. I am everyone.”

“Ok then,” Cameron declared in a state of relative desperation for meaning. “Please, who were you? I want to Google you? Maybe I can understand more of this personal triumph you talk about, and the paradox of knowing triumph, in the grips of total defeat. I want to feel and share and know such an experience, if possible.”

The young lad glared strikingly at Cameron, and innocently asked, “What’s a Google?”

This time it was Cameron’s turn to grin knowingly. Perhaps it may have even been a set up. Cameron doesn’t know and doesn’t care. But one thing Cameron surmised is that if he could find this young man, or information about him, he would never take Google for granted again. He would never assume anything about his own life again either. So he answered. “Google is one of those tools you talked about to make our lives easier. It may help me to find out more about you. Please who were you?”

The Young man replied with all sincerity, humility and no pretention at all:

“Well if it may help you, then of course I will donate to you my name and my truth. In life, my name was Terry, Terry Fox.”

And what Cameron surmised became his own truth about his experience. The Conversation, changed his life because it became part of him, in each moment of his life from then on, from one point to the next, all newly lived from the inside-out. Cameron would never again measure his existence by whatever life throws at him. Instead he made the decision to live from the inside-out. He knows that the quality of existence is not about what life throws at him; but rather, it’s about how much of himself, he will throw into life.

He began to live in triumph, not circumstance.

In fact, the last time I saw Cameron, “was at the beach.”

Some of you will get it, some of you will not. Usually I tell people to comment on my Forums, which I hope you will, but feel free to comment here as well.

Little Joe and a String Attached

I write this Blog with a sense of inspired Honour. As most of you know my background is in social work and my formal education in all matters of social theory as well. This month I am going to tell you a story that has now come full circle.

One of my first jobs in social work was at a youth facility for troubled or hard to reach kids. This was front lines social work which can often get quite intense. I went into the world of social work with a mission that I was going to change the world. That is why I studied it, why I earned a degree in it, and my passion was why I picked up several scholarships along the way as well. My inner world view at the time was that everyone would get a fair shake from me. And as much as I told myself I was true to this mantra, the fact was it wasn’t true at all.

Little Joe was a “live-in” case in the toughest unit at the facility. No one liked him. I know I certainly didn’t. He was loud, prone to violent or verbal outbursts, obnoxious, dangerous, and he didn’t take care of himself very well, to the point where he smelled bad and would have to be told to clean up, just so we could tolerate him at meals or group sessions. Several times Little Joe would have to be physically restrained and usually for the most frivolous reasons. Anything could set him off. He had a mouth a sailor would envy and his favourite word was that “c” word, which I always found especially vile and offensive. And he would deliberately use it around me to provoke me, and engage me.

Truly, I didn’t like him that much.

The staff had come up with an idea that every time he used foul language he would have to do 20 push ups. Since every other word he uttered was foul, I saw no purpose in this. Truth be told I was right. All that practice did was give him attention for a behaviour we were trying to eliminate. I saw right through it, so I would not participate in it. Instead if he was talking to me and he used such language I would either walk away with no explanation or I would take immediate interest, again with no explanation, to another kid near by. Several times I would leave him in mid-sentence and walk into the office and shut the door. No explanation.

More often than not, he would pound on the door and yell and scream. ‘F--- You’ I hate you!” I would not respond. This kid had really got to me and everyone else. All the staff could talk about was when he would be gone out of there and be someone else’s problem, and how he was at least getting used to “institutionalization” since everyone knew this would be his life, no doubt about that.

The energy on every shift was always one of tension, and everyone attributed that to Little Joe.

One night I came to work on the night shift. All was quiet. That could only mean one thing. And yes, before I arrived Little Joe had to be restrained again and was locked in his room. Alright I thought, a quiet stress-free night for me. In fact it was so quiet I began going through the “good kids” files. There was seldom any time for that. On a lark and well, just plain old curiosity and since he was the topic of the evening, I decided to go through Little Joe’s history as well. As usual there was a common thread here.

Truth be known, for about half the kids I ever worked with in social work, it wasn’t the kids that needed institutionalization and structure, it was their parents.

Little Joe’s situation was more of the same. In fact there were all kinds of notes on what a good and normal and happy kid he had been up till his life changed through no control of his own. His acting out behaviours that landed him in the facility were actually not all that evil. In fact I had probably done worse growing up, and I never got in to the kind of trouble he did. But once in the system, his behaviour and demeanour just changed for the worse.

It got me to thinking. My job wasn’t to like him or not like him. My job also certainly wasn’t to “fix” him. That attitude always bothered me about the people who chose social work, who were doing it more to meet their own needs than any true commitment to the work at hand. It also became obvious to me that his situation seemed to always arise out of behaviours laid out for him that he was to abide in; and if he jumped through these hoops, he would be deemed successful, but if he didn’t, then he was a problem kid. It struck me just how intelligent he was underneath all of what he presented to everyone.

I changed my tactics with Little Joe. And even though I tried, I still did not like him, at all.

One night he started again with his vulgarity. But instead of reacting I had now been contemplating Little Joe for a while. I responded the only way that was possible at the time. I restrained him with help from other staff, and locked him in his room. However, what I didn’t do was record the event in the “incident” log. At the time the kids were allowed to read whatever was recorded in an “incidents log” if it was about them. They couldn’t read their file, but they could read an incidents log report so that all facts of the incident were in accord.

The next morning apparently Little Joe was even more shocked that I had not recorded the incident. He was reported to have said “F--- him, I hate him.” I know this because he was of course, reprimanded and punished for his disrespect. The next night I came to work, Little Joe decided to “up the ante”. He was even more belligerent and ready for violence than before. The pattern of physically restraining him and locking him in his room had to be repeated. From his room he yelled “F--- you, I hate you!” I remember saying back to him, “let’s hope it’s a long and healthy hate”

But once again, I refused to file an incident report. This could of course land me in trouble as well. But I wouldn’t do it. I can’t even say that at the time I was smart enough to know why. It was just a hunch. The next night I worked he was even more hell-bent on a confrontation. This time I man-handled him, flung him in his room. He yelled from his floor, “F--- you, I hate you.” But something changed in him when he saw me turn around and instead of leaving the room; I locked the door, and faced him. I said to him, “you seem to really like violence. I can relate to that. You also like to think you don’t have to play by the rules, and I can relate to that as well. So here’s the deal, you can now react to me any way you want. You know I won’t file an incident report and now it’s just you and me. Make your move.”

He yelled “F--- you, I hate you.” I responded, “Let’s hope it’s a long and healthy hate.” Before I left the room I paused and faced him so he knew leaving was my idea.

My next few shifts, Little Joe kept his distance from me. Not out of fear, that wasn’t his nature. But I think he knew I was on to his game, even though I certainly didn’t consciously know that myself. Some time later I found myself again on the night shift. Little Joe couldn’t sleep. He came downstairs and appropriately asked if he could sit up a while. I allowed it. I turned the television to the music video channel which was all the rage back then. I engaged him as to what was his favourite video. He would tell me. I asked him why. He would tell me. This started a constant engagement between us over the next few weeks.

You know, all of a sudden it occurred to me I didn’t notice that Little Joe had body odour. I don’t even recall it at all now, except that I read it in his file. I also realized that I didn’t, in fact, “not like him.” Were things changing, or was I changing? As usual in life, probably a little bit of both.

But I was supposed to be the professional. And as a professional I also found it ironic that a troubled youth could consistently dictate a mood and energy of tension in a house full of professional adults. It struck me how much personal power that really represented.

I started giving Little Joe modest assignments. And I would spend as much time engaging him on his work as he spent doing it. It was directly reciprocal. Then one night after Little Joe had had yet another outburst with a different staff member on a different shift, I engaged him in his agitated state with another assignment. I made it sound really important to take his mind off his outburst. I seemed to have his minimal trust at this point which wasn’t much, but it was certainly beyond the other staff members. Before I gave him the assignment I said to him, “there are only two rules, say what you mean, and mean what you say!”

Little Joe worked really hard on this written assignment. In fact he was gone so long and was so quiet we had to check on him to make sure he wasn’t up to something.

But, there he was writing feverishly. When he came and presented this assignment to me, there must have been 5 pages full of writing front and back. I took it in my hand. I looked up at him and said “Little Joe, did you say what mean, and mean what you say!” He replied, “oh yeah, just wait till you read it!” But I didn’t read it. I crumpled it up right in front of him and threw it in the garbage can. He looked at me stunned and howled, “F--- You, I hate you!” As usual I calmly reiterated, “let’s hope it’s a long and healthy hate.” His reaction to this was to yell back the same profanity and I couldn’t blame him. I never got to make my point.


He didn’t speak to me for a couple of days. He didn’t speak to any staff actually. He was such a strong-willed kid. In fact he was starting to remind me of, well, me. I was waiting for him to engage me so I could rekindle that conversation. But he beat me to it. One afternoon, he came completely composed and peaceful into the office and asked, “why did you do that to my assignment, that I worked so hard on. I really wanted to know what you thought?” I told Little Joe, you know what Little Joe that is the point. The whole point of that assignment is to always “say what you mean, and mean what you say.” Don’t look for anyone else to tell you its right or wrong or good or bad. If you start everything you do with that sentence, it will lead you where you need to go.

I’m not sure Little Joe understood a word of it. Lord knows I deal with all kinds of intelligent adults who don’t get it. I’ve forgotten it myself several times over the years since then. Then I said to him, “When you say F--- You, I hate you", make sure that is what you mean to say, and say it if you mean it.” But also Little Joe, know that when I say “let’s hope it’s a long and healthy hate;” that I also am meaning what I am saying, and saying what I mean.”

Suddenly it was like time stopped but also like it moved ahead to some other parallel universe. We seemed to be engaged in a real conversation. The conversation was about nothing, but oh it had such meaning attached to it. At the end of the conversation, Little Joe noticed that I had been playing with a piece of string. It seemed so inconsequential. I can only even recall it now, because of the significance it ended up having. Little Joe made a quip about the string I was wrapping and unwrapping around my finger as we talked. I unwrapped the string, held it up to him, and said “See this string Little Joe, it starts here, and ends here. Take this piece of string, wrap it around your finger or whatever and tell yourself, “it starts and ends with me.” Think about all the times you’ve been restrained or locked in your room. Look at the string and relate to the concept, “it starts and ends with me.” Think of all the times I had to come to your room and know that I also hold a piece of string and I also hold the notion that my interactions with you all start and end with me.”

Joe took the piece of string. He wore it instead like a bracelet. We never spoke of it again, but it was always there and it always meant something. I think in retrospect it seemed to represent the maturation of the both of us. I never had an issue with Little Joe again.

In fact going to work became lots of fun. We all did things together. The staff, the kids; it was all starting to mean something other than managing behaviour.


Then my contract expired. It was time to move on. Sometime over the next couple of weeks, when I was checking in at the front desk at the gym, there was a message for me. Everyone at the gym knew me of course. The girl at the front desk handed me one of those pink phone message slips, and told me, the “guy made me promise to hand it to you directly.” I unfolded the message and it said:


“I am going to say what I mean, and I mean every word. Thank you. I’ll never forget you. I will never lose my string bracelet.”


A couple of years later I got a Christmas card. It said “Scott, it’s Little Joe, I graduated high school, and I still have my string bracelet. Thank you, I will never forget you”


Several years later I had moved and was quite busy with my bodybuilding career. I had gone back just outside my home town to do a guest posing appearance and seminar. The local newspaper did a big article on me the day prior to it. The day after the event, while walking through the mall several people stopped and asked me for pictures. They had seen the article and recognized me. Several minutes later someone tapped me on the back. He said, “You are Scott Abel, I saw you in the paper last night, this is so cool.” Being a little full of myself and assuming he was just another fan, I was surprised when he asked, “do you remember me?” Indeed I did not. He then told me how he was one of the boys at the youth facility I worked at, and how I changed his life. He introduced me to his wife. She said “he’s been going on and on about you since he saw the article last night.” I was indeed very touched.

At that moment I started thinking about Little Joe and wondering about him. I remember hoping that he was all right as well.


Very few boys with such backgrounds turn out to be real men. I couldn’t picture a life for Little Joe of someone controlling for him, what time he went to bed, what time his lights went out, what he would eat and when. Such is the life of institutionalization. And it was what suffocated Little Joe even as a youth. His spirit would be too great to handle it as an adult. And then of course my mind went on to other things.


Not long after that, maybe a year or so, I got an email.


“Dear Scott, you used to call me Little Joe. I hope you still remember me. I now go by my full name, and he spelled it out. I just graduated University with honours, just like you. Thank you. I will never forget you. I still have my string bracelet.”


And the truth remains I would never have remembered that piece of string or maybe even Little Joe had he not looked me up and reminded me of it so often, and the meaning it holds for him.


And then everything came full circle. This Christmas I heard yet again from Joseph. He no longer would refer to himself as Little Joe, not even in an email to me.


Dear Scott:
Its Joseph ..... I tracked you down from the internet. Great website by the way. I want you to know that I finished my MBA and am now doing well. My wife and I have a daughter, and we just had our first son. This is why I am writing you. We are going to give his first name David and his middle name Scott. I hope that is all right with you. I told you, I would never forget you, and thank you. But as for that piece of string, I have changed it. I now wear a small elastic band around my wrist as a bracelet. And although I still believe and have counted on all these years, “that it all starts and ends with me;” I also realize that people like you come along and stretch and expand us, so that “ME” keeps adapting and stretching and expanding always to new lengths before, like an elastic, it goes back to its original shape.

Thank you for stretching and expanding me. I will never forget you.


Yes; and the student becomes the teacher. It allowed me to recall the mentors in my own life. My academic advisor: And real mentors that never tried to fix me or change me. No. These mentors were beyond their own needs. What they did is enable me and stretch me to help me know and discover a much stronger me, than I knew existed. I am so grateful for them.


Little Joe, thank you man. You taught me to be a better teacher. I no longer judge people by files, emails, or other people’s accounts. None of that matters. I don’t coach people by rules, instructions and formulas. No. I coach “people.” And the truth is Little Joe stretched me as well.

I learned to no longer care what people think of me. That is life. Some people will like us, some will not. Some will attract, and some will attack. I am attacked practically every day on some website somewhere. It doesn’t faze me. The real lessons for me, that Little Joe taught me is that it is not who doesn’t like me that counts. That is just my ego and pride: But who I don’t like; Ah, there are lessons there. When I address why I don’t care for someone, usually at the bottom of that answer is something about me, not something about them.

And again, I stretch and grow as Little Joe puts it.


Mentorship is not about dominance and submission. It is instead about sincere commitment. And “it starts and ends with me.”

The truth was never in trying to change Little Joe or getting him to abide by some arbitrary house rules. The truth was in awakening his fighting spirit in a direction that served him, that he could count on, and he could grow from. In fact the truth was in mentoring what was already there, not changing it or fixing it.

Real work isn’t accomplished by trying to rescue someone or be their hero. The real work is done when a person, as an individual can say what they mean, mean what they say, know in their own heart, “it starts and ends with me.” The real work is when they become their own champion, their own hero. Helping anyone to find their inner map, and then find the strength to travel that territory that is revealed is all anyone can ever be to someone.

Sometimes a bird just needs to be told to trust his own wings, and fly.


Little Joe taught me the difference between reacting and responding. And he had to endure that journey in me first hand. That is unfortunate. He also showed me how strong people can take a mess and make it a message. And all these years later Little Joe also taught me to “treat every interaction like it matters!” You will never know what “strings” may be attached.

To Little Joe, I mean Joseph, let me say “Thank you. I will ever forget you!”


Some of you will get, some of you will not.

Breezes

New Year’s Eve. It seems to be able to make a lot of people crazy. It also makes them unrealistic. All this “resolutions” business is for losers and pretenders. Why not just be resolute all the time? Then there is no need for resolutions, which are at best wishes or false claims.

Being resolute is all that is necessary and then to make a decision.

Instead I find this time of year best to just contemplate on beginnings. So many of us have had so many beginnings. Oh when something is new or new again: innocence of youth; experiencing the world through the 5 senses, but in a way that is clear to who you are, and you carry the sensations with you.

New era’s: of your life, and culture in general. Whether we realize it or not we are always part of an era, our own personal one, and the one of geopolitical structure. This time of year, I hearken nostalgically to periods of my life and remember them with smiles and chuckles and personal innuendo. To this day it amazes me how many people choose to haul around emotional baggage as some kind of trophy. To them I say “get over yourself” Life happens to all of us. Like the Clint Eastwood movie, there will always be the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. No one escapes them. And in all matters of these, “this too shall pass” So if you want to haul into the present the bad, and the ugly of what has been your life, have at it. But please, leave me out of it. If you are having pity parties, I RSVP, that I cannot attend. I leave my Bad and Ugly behind me where it belongs. It doesn’t serve me. And I certainly won't burden other people with it either.

Too many people want to bring who they blame and how they were wronged into every conversation like some kind of trophy case. Good for you. You win. But unless you lost everything in something like Katrina, or your life is a tale like David Pelzer (A Child Called It), then please, I’ve heard it all before. And frankly it bores me to death. If you find a need to defend yourself right now at this point, then YES, it’s you I’m talking about, and YOUR STORY bores me to death. Time to move on.

I can’t imagine these same people holding on to their drama and trauma in their 70’s and 80’s. Talk to people at this age, very few recall the very things that people in their 30’s and 40’s are so hell bent on holding on to.

Eras. Going back, going way back, all the way back.

I remember so many beginnings:

So many senses that marked specific times in my life. New Year’s I mark with a self-refuelling of personal nostalgia. And I find the most insignificant events and times seem to bear the most sentiment. I also realize that my life also seemed to mark specific eras of time and experience that so many others can relate to as well.

So before the internet, before Mac’s vs. PC’s, before Playstation vs. Wii, before cell phones, pagers, Blue Rays, DVD’s, CD’s; even before voice mail and email, there was a bygone era of my youth. Not better, not worse, just different. But there are the solid memories of the senses that they hold.

Childhood

The senses fill and flood and bring with them so many memories, personal and cultural. I realize they are now but a breeze that passes by me in recall, and like any breeze brings a refreshing sort of calm: My choice: And in no particular order:

I recall the smell of the first day of school each year: The chalk board, the wooden desks: The smell of my hockey bag the first day of the season. The smell of the rink, the dressing rooms. All of it. And yes, the smell and tastes of each season. The taste of kool-aid meant it was summer. Hot chocolate with a marshmallow meant it was winter. (And by the way, hot chocolate at the rink was much different than hot chocolate at home.) Rolling up a piece of white bread with peanut butter and dunking it in the hot chocolate meant it was Friday night. And speaking of peanut butter; PB and J sandwiches were staples. There was no such thing as “peanut allergies”

Almost everyone went home for lunch anyway. Mom’s were usually always at home for lunch or dinner. This wasn’t something assessed and judged, it just was. Summer meant drinking from the hose. Sometimes the water tasted more like rubber than water. And of course the funniest thing in the world was to cinch the hose as your thirsty buddies tried to get a drink. The most infuriating thing was when they pulled the same trick on you. Simplicity.

Games meant being outside all day. Climbing trees, falling out of trees. Stupid games we would make up on the spot. They made no sense but we still played them all the day long.

Games were real and had real human interaction. Imagine that. They weren’t played out on screens and amassing “kills”. Friday night was Mary Tyler Moore and the Partridge Family. Such shows embedded in me being a sucker for schmaltzy “chick stuff” for the rest of my life. In any half hour or hour situation, all matters were worked through to happy endings by programs end.

Then Saturday morning cartoons. Bugs Bunny, Popeye, wow. Am I really that old now?

Thankfully, yes.

Laughing till we cried. Best friends when best friends meant something. No political correctness. What was funny, was funny: if there was no intent to offend then no offense was ever taken. Jokes didn’t have to be analyzed for appropriateness. There was indeed an age of innocence. Some would call it ignorance, and I suppose there is that side of the coin to consider as well. But I don’t. Too breezy right now in recall.

Playing till exhausted in all kinds of filth.

There was no “overtraining” to consider. You left the house in the morning, and you rode for miles, or walked for miles, only to play football or ball hockey or whatever and then home again.

Remember playing cards in your bicycle spokes. Falling off your buddies handle bars. I still have these scars of youth.

But they represent these so many breezes.

The smell of my dog after a day with me at the river:

Popsicles.

25 cents meant a welcome and exciting choice. I could either have one pop and a bag of chips, or one pop and a chocolate bar. The choice was as simple as did I want sugar or did I want salty. That was grade 7.

Like it or not parenting was done by real people. Real people make mistakes. Parents yelled “Dinner Time” from the door or porch. You did the same with your dog. We all seemed to hear the call.

Allowance: work and chores earned real money for tangible efforts. Shovel the driveway, cut the grass, rake the leaves, take out the garbage, garbage day, wash the dishes.


Race issues were about who went the fastest over some arbitrary distance by arbitrary means. One foot hopping or 10 block bike rides with your winter boots on and of course in the middle of a snow storm.

That was a race issue.

The color of one’s skin didn’t mean a thing till we were told it did. I grew up in a Greek neighbourhood. So I imitated all the Greek by phonetic imitation. So I could “speak Greek” but had no idea what I was saying.

Learning how to whistle.

A foot of snow was a blessing. Bumper jumping.

Terror issues were all about the release of the movie “Jaws” and its theme music.

Fear for your life was associated with “wait till your father gets home.”

And that feeling of the first time your heart raced from being around “that girl.” And the only thing you could possibly catch from any girl was “cooties.” But then you could inoculate yourself with a simple claim of being “super-cootie-proof.” This of course allowed you to enter unchartered 1:1 dialogue or walks home with that girl you claimed you hated; but you couldn’t stop thinking about. And even now you wonder about her. You wish her well. Of course this eventually leads to that first kiss, with eyes open and mouth closed.

And yet it still felt like something no one else could ever understand.

A.M. radio! Songs for almost every year and every era of your life represented in time every time you hear them, even now.

This was just the general nostalgia of childhood. Then there was highschool:

Polyester: bell-bottoms: Platform shoes: Satin shirts. The first Kiss concert. Bruce Springsteen, The Boss: The difference was the difference between musical entertainment and art. High School rivalries: High School dances, and the last dance was always Stairway to Heaven: lame in retrospect, but so cool at the time: High school parties: High School hijinks: The High School Play: High School year books: High school hangovers: Squirt guns that fit in the palm of your hand: Water balloons or water filled condoms were the funniest thing on the earth: Pranks on teachers.

Your first drive in the car alone after you got your licence. Your first ‘cruising’ in the car with your buddies as well.

Beginnings: Many of them: Too many more to go over right here, and right now. But I will continue to do so, in private, after I post this musing of my mind. Socrates said “an unexamined life is not worth living” This is true not only morally and ethically, but in recall of joy as well.

There should always be room for nostalgia.

To embrace again an era of your past. Not because you want to go back there, but recognize from where you came. For my generation, to recall a simpler time.

To recognize that even right now, this period in your life is also an era that will pass as well. Are you going to spend it, lamenting on who wronged you and why? Are you going to carry the bad and the ugly forward? If you do you only create a block to recall in the future. This era of your life belongs to you. No one else. In 10 or 20 years what senses will fill you when you recall this time in your life? I say recall this era as so many more beginnings.

The only constant in all the years of your life, will be YOU.

This era like all the others will surely pass you like so many other previous breezes: breezes that can in the future be recalled for the comfort they give, and then they’re gone.

Happy New Year to you all !!!! I hope you take the time for recollecting “beginnings” and refreshing breezes that have been your life. It’s a great place to start. And New Years is all about beginnings and wonder of what lies ahead.

Tot Teaches Tao Lessons: The Kyle Lograsso Phenomenon

Fresh off my latest lecture from the Tao of Scott Abel at my most recent workshop, many people contact me to expand on the concepts. Some of these concepts are difficult to grasp as people cannot seem to “get it” that these are not quests to accomplish or achieve, but rather elements of our own self-hood that merely have to be accepted to be understood. The Tao and spiritual elements of “intention” and “attention” remain confusing to many of my clients and readers; perhaps because of a desire to want to make them complicated. Yet they are anything but. The most powerful constructs available to any of us, merely have to be accepted to be actualized.

Seems simple enough. I get asked all the time what makes me “Scott Abel” or how I became successful? People inquire to me which certifications they should get, or which books they should read, that I have read. And yet I learned some years ago, what separated me from so many others was not my level of “information” but rather my level of “inspiration.”

The world of form, from which we access information is the trap that prevents so many people from the goals they seek. Enter the Kyle Lograsso story.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1197420&=yvmtf

Please view this video all the way through and then come back to my Blog. This is not a blog about drama, or comebacks, or victims or survivors. I think many people miss the point here. It’s not even about child prodigies. No. For me, Kyle’s story screams of real life lessons learned in the Tao, and taught by a tot! This isn’t about genius or cheating death twice. The real lessons lie in between.

First we have the discovery of Kyle’s prowess. How did it unfold? An 18th month old, channel surfing lands on the Golf channel and is instantly mesmerized. He is focused; he is transfixed. Somehow inside of him the visual just “made sense.” He immediately began to mimic what he saw. Not “trying” to do or accomplish anything. He was, at that age, too young to strive after anything like that. Yet the images he saw just made sense to him. It was "a" purpose. So he was given a toy plastic golf club and swung it, “on” purpose. And as I lectured this past week, we see that “what we strive after depletes us, but what we aspire toward completes us.”

There is a Zen expression that “the mind should be like an empty rice bowl. When it is empty the universe can fill it. But when it is full there is no room to receive.” An 18 month’s old boy’s mind was open and receptive to a message; “this is for you.” It made sense to him. It didn’t need any complicated explanation; it just made sense and he followed that inclination. Because he was paying “attention” within himself; he found what would eventually serve his “intention” and his genius. This is what is meant that “genius is an expression, not a creation.”

Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of 4. He paid attention, and developed his intention. He just sat down at a piano and “it made sense to him:” Much like Kyle with a golf swing. No golf lessons for Kyle. His father didn’t even own golf clubs. No lessons for Mozart. And such are the lessons of the Tao of passion. That attention and intention to a quiet mind reveals itself.

Like Mozart, by way of metaphor, when are we all going to finally realize that our life is a symphony just waiting for us to be its maestro or conduct its music? Instead we get all caught up in false value and start questioning the notes, or the melody of our lives. We start wondering if our music is in the right key, the right octave and all various forms of complicating what is simply there to be actualized and expressed. As I said in my workshop, and Kyle so simply exhibits, virtuosity in life comes from sing out; not necessarily from singing well. We get so caught up in the “skill” that we continually under-estimate and under-value and under-serve, the “will.” Kyle’s and Mozart’s genius expression, began as simple “will” A simple “intention” if you will, to just do “what feels right” and it had nothing to do with being right or striving to achieve.

I knew the same feeling the first time I ever worked out. It wasn’t about getting a bigger arm or bigger leg. It just felt like a “cool” thing to pursue. It made sense to me. It wasn’t till much later that my mind got bogged down with such other nonsense.

Yes, many of us can even get so far as to “see” the music in us. That is, we recognize or are told of our talents and abilities. But how many of us truly “feel” our music inside of us. That is the attention that leads to intention which then flows back and forth each to the other. Mozart didn’t just “know” music was his talent. It was his calling. He felt it before he knew it! Kyle picked up a golf club and never again put it down. His “calling” “just made sense to him.” It is that simple. Perfection lies in excellence, not pursuit. It lies in passion, not performance. It lies there softly, in subtlety, within us, just waiting for its awareness in order to express itself. How simply beautiful is that?

And then complication ensues itself into young Kyle’s life. Cancer takes his eye. But within hours of having his eye removed and barely able to stand, Kyle was up and attempting to swing his golf club again. This is the nature of passion as expression. Set backs are only that. They don’t stand in the way of singing out one’s music; no, they yield the way. Kyle more than likely was too young to understand his set back: And soon after, he cheats death again by overcoming medical poisoning: Yet the passion rules. There he is swinging his golf club. There he is “actualizing” what makes perfect sense to him. It’s synchronicity of attention and intention. His focus was not on his problem; his focus was on his passion. And what we focus on expands! Hence the problem is merely incidental. How many of us can say that? Kyle exemplifies that “it’s not what happens “to” us that matters, but rather what happens “in” us. Or as Jung said “I am not what happens to me, I am what I choose to become.”

In fact I ask you the question:

Are you focused on your set back, or are you focused on your comeback?

What I see in my life is that this is a trick question. People look to this and answer one way or the other without acknowledging their real truth. They aren’t truly focused on their set back or their comeback. What they are really focused on is the drama they worship within either context. At some point they need to learn a lesson that I embraced a long time ago. Your drama only works on an audience! With a real purpose, drama is presupposed by passion. Drama “wants” an audience even if it’s in one’s own mind. Passion just sees drama as “in the way.” (Why? Because it is not “of” The Way”: The Way being Tao) In fact I would go so far as to say drama is merely reflective of “need and want” and is at best an obstacle to “feeling your own music.” It prevents you from ‘singing out’ your real music!

And now young Kyle continues to go about his business, by going beyond swinging a club and actually playing. How many golf pros decided it “was not worth their time” to look at a 5 year old? Such is the limitations of the world of form. Inspiration can come from anywhere.

Kyle is far too young and therefore unscathed by his new limitation. In fact he seems to view his prosthetic eye as merely another part of him. He in fact even uses it to amuse himself. (see video clip) Yet I can imagine how many adult golfing enthusiasts who would be challenged with a lost eye would use it as a dramatic event and set back. Their focus, would be on the new limitation, and all the fuel for drama it provides. Again, such is the world of form. By contrast, Inspiration, passion and calling allows and expresses possibilities, not limits.

It is said that the purpose of life, is a life with purpose. It does not have to be anything grand. But it is life changing. What people fail to acknowledge is that it is their own life that begs of change. Changing the world begins there in your own head, heart, and hands. A 5 years old leads the way in lessons of the Tao. Myself, I can only be of value as a teacher when I continue to learn as a student.

I have many steps ahead of me. I am enthralled to take everyone of them to see where they lead.

And we need to stop chasing outside of us, what is already internally abundant. All we need to do is slow down long enough and be still enough to feel our own music. We can after all, only see our reflection in still waters! Once we feel that music, then all we need to do is have the “chutzpah” to conduct it, and sing it out loud. Learn from Kyle. I know I did.


Giving

Kyle also has a website kylelograsso.org where you can read more about his story. And in keeping with acknowledging “gifts” the website is an attempt to give to a worthy cause. I am of the same sentiments no matter how and where they manifest.

I love this time of year. It’s a time for generosity. It’s a time to give without expectation. We get so caught up in the messenger that we fail to feel the message. Christmas is such a time. And what is wrong with a message of spirit? What is wrong with a message of “good will to all men?” Only pride would try to negate such a simple message.

I urge all of you to go out and give something anonymously this holiday season. I don’t care if its old clothes to Goodwill, or money in the Salvation Army Drum. One of my favourites (if you read last year’s December Blog “Why I believe in Santa”) is the practice of “drive through generosity” Just get in to a drive through line and pay for one or two cars behind you and drive off. Its simple, its effortless, its effective, and yet you are the one who benefits. A small act like that, and you will “feel” the intention come back to you. But again, some of you will get it; many of you will not.

It will be interesting indeed to see how Kyle’s life plays out. As for right now, he teaches all of us many simple lessons. Just like he “knew” golf without ever having studied it; he seems to know lessons of the Tao in much the same way. They say that genius is knowing without ever studying. It comes from outside awareness of form.

When we live according to the 5 senses we live only in the world of form. Therefore we are limited to and subject to, solely the influence of in-form-ation. But when we live in the world of spirit, we can trans-form. When we trans-form, then we can also trans-send the limitations of form. When we live in the context of the world of spirit; then we can access in-spirit-ation. Trust me it is a greater source of power. And there is nothing more Yin and Yang, inspiring and at the same time humbling, than being taught these lessons by a “tot.”

Again, some of you will get it, many of you will not!

My best to all of you this Holiday Season. My wish is that you all find your music inside you, and sing it out loud and play it well ! And self-harmony is just that !

Tales from the Tao: The Tao of Optimism

A long time ago, yes, in a land far, far away there was a small kingdom led by a very egotistical king. As in most royal families of the time the king had a court jester/advisor who was with the king always and always whispering to him his thoughts on any and all circumstances and issues presented to the king. One of the jester’s constant whisperings to the king was the expression “everything happens for the best.” Whether good news or bad, serious or benign, the advisor would always slip in the expression “everything happens for the best.” The king, who considered himself a wise and learned man, would often be irritated by this constant mantra of “everything happens for the best.” To the king, this was a ridiculous and meaningless statement: Easy thing to say, but hardly representative of real world circumstance.

The king and his close followers; the advisor included, were preparing for their annual hunting trip in their new found and claimed territory. This was a very big event in the land, and to be a part of it, was quite an honour as well. During preparation the king had inadvertently stepped on a sharp shard of broken stone and cut his foot deeply. Back in those days cuts came with a great scare of infection. But there was no way the king and his court were going to miss the annual hunt. When the jester/advisor arrived for the final discussion of the preparation for the trip the king showed him the deep cut on his foot. Instead of the sympathy the king had received from all of his followers and friends the advisor remarked, “Well sire, everything happens for the best.”

This infuriated the king. He already hated that simple statement. Now with his foot throbbing in pain, and the hunt looming, it was the last comment he expected to hear. That comment in his mind does no one any good at such a time. How insensitive could the jester be! To the king this was the last straw and time to teach his advisor a lesson about his expression “everything happens for the best.”

The king angrily summoned the guards and without hesitation ordered the jester be put in the gallows. The gallows, the darkest part of the castle was the least desirable place in the kingdom with the least desirable criminals and vermin of all kinds, as you can well-imagine. This would teach the advisor a good lesson thought the king. Not only would he miss the magnificent cultural tradition of the hunting trip, but he would spend that time in a dark, dungy, cold cell. The king mumbled to himself, “I have heard for the last time, “everything happens for the best.” Hmmf !

As the king and his followers made their sojourn deep into the forest for the onset of the legendary hunting trip, there was an unexpected turn of events. It seems they had inadvertently encroached on a native tribe who had their own traditions and practices. The king and his small band of men were immediately surrounded by the natives. This was so unexpected, many of the kings “loyal” followers scattered in fear and ran for their lives. The natives did not recognize any of the adornments that would suggest the king was a man of high social placement; nor would they care. The natives captured the king and a few of his men as well. They took him back to their village, bound his hands and feet and it seems they were going to offer the king as a sacrifice to their Gods.

At first the king didn’t realize what was happening. He was busy processing the fact that his loyal protectors abandoned him. His immediate thought went to the jester/advisor. He lamented that surely if his jester had been there, he would have loyally fought and stayed by his side. That much the king knew. The jester had ALWAYS been there for him.

When the natives started decorating the king in various dyes and wrappings, he quickly began to understand his situation. If only he could communicate with the natives and tell them who he is. But it was no use. He was indeed going to be sacrificed to the native’s gods. As the native’s unwrapped the bounds of his feet in order to complete their decoration for sacrifice, they noticed the long, wide, gaping cut on the king. One of the natives inspected the foot, then all the preparations and celebrations suddenly halted. Among the customs of these natives only perfect specimens can be offered to the Gods; to offer anything less would surely offend the Gods. The natives had no choice but to let the king go. They untied him and let him back to the forest.

The king ran for his survival fearing they may come back for him after all. Weary, hungry, tired and alone he made his way through the forest and eventually caught up to a band of his scattered men and servants. They rescued the king and took him back to the caravan and fed him and treated him. It would be a solemn trip back to the kingdom.

Once the fear for his life was behind him, and he was fed and treated, the king’s mind went back to his friend whom he had directed to the gallows. His mind went to the exact reason he put the advisor there. “Everything happens for the best.” It suddenly dawned on the king this was in fact true. Indeed it was the gash on his foot that saved the king from sure death. And while the statement was “true” was it the “truth?” That is a matter that could be argued another time.

For now, the king’s thoughts were with his friend, and for his friend. The king felt terrible. How could he do such a thing to a loyal subject over such a trivial thing as an irritant?

Once back at the village the king ran with his guards as fast as he could to the dungeon, and with true sincere remorse approached his friend and advisor and begged forgiveness for such a selfish act. He laid out the story of what happened before the advisor. He told him, “if not for my cut on my foot, I would surely be a pile of ashes by now” “My friend, everything does happen for the best!” But then the king’s thoughts went back to his friend. “Can you forgive me for doing such a thing to you?”

The jester thought for a moment, looked up at the king and said “dear king, everything happens for the best!” This shocked the king. He queried his friend: “How can you say that? With no due reason, I locked you up in this dark and cold, empty, rat-infested place. And yet I know, of all my loyal subjects you surely would not have abandoned me in my time of need. So how can you say that, my loyal friend?”

“Ah yes” responded the advisor/jester. “Dear king you are correct. I surely would not have abandoned you there, and would have stayed by your side as I always have. But dear king, I do not have any such gashes or cuts on me. For the natives I would have been the perfect sacrifice! Had I been there king, I would now be the one reduced to a pile of ashes. Everything happens for the best!”


Perspectives on Optimism

So this tale from the Tao will strike some of you as something to think about and strike others out there, just like with the king, as absurd thinking. I know people who have lost loved ones suddenly in vehicle accidents, and others who have watched loved ones die long slow suffering deaths through cancer etc. How can “everything happens for the best” be even remotely true in real world situations?

Well it requires faith, and it requires belief. Even if not in a higher power, then at least in the lessons of life. Our thoughts are more powerful than we realize, yet we seldom put them to proactive strategies, and instead use them as reactive tactics. Optimism is a fantastic great and magical force to light the path of your own awareness. It is not about wishful thinking. It is much deeper.

I remember Annie lost her whole family, mother, father, and brother in an 18 month period. But it did not dampen her spirit. Her spirit of optimism prevailed even in the face of trying times. It’s not about “putting on a happy face.” It’s about having a happy face without the put on!

True optimism does not know limits.

The real truth is that we can all aspire to have whatever we want. That is the gift of this truth. The reality is that this doesn’t mean we always get to have what we want. Optimism lies in the lines between the gift and the reality.

Optimism by metaphor means it’s about spending time with the birds, rather than lamenting alone that you wish you had wings. Optimism is about the gift of the open heart rather than the restrictions of the closed mind. Like our king and jester, as Shakespeare said often, “a wise man knows himself to be a fool, the fool knows himself to be a wise man.” Hmmm. Maybe that’s why Annie is always walking around here saying “I married an idiot.” Now I get it. It’s really a compliment!

We live in a world of pessimism and realism. Optimism is for fairy dust and for people who believe in Santa. Well that includes me. So often people present me with their limitations. It’s virtually automatic these days. But what about “possibilities?” We need to stop the tail wagging the dog, mental energy. How’s that workin for ya?!

At some point optimism becomes the voice of victory. Who speaks victory to you? Who whispers it to you? Who is your court jester/advisor? The truth is, the voice can come from anywhere, a television show, a bad movie, a 5 year old speaking in observation; to recognize these whispers of optimism, of possibilities, of victory, is all it takes to realize them. Greatness already exists. We spend far too much time turning away from it, rather than toward it.

For good or bad we are never a finished project. Of course undesired things will come into our life. Optimism is merely a world view in meeting it. Every unfavourable thing that has knocked me to my knees, in the end, helped to change my life for the better, once I stood back up. We are all folks, a work in progress. We need to do as the bible says, every so often, take a pause in our life; observe some fact of ourselves “and know that it is good.” Because the truth of optimism is that of all good times and bad “this too shall pass.” Life can only be lived forward.

So how will you do that?

The negative voices in our heads and surrounding our lives may indeed be the loudest. It doesn’t mean they need to demand the most of our attention. Optimism filters those negative, loud voices through the mute button of the heart; where all things are possible.

So the perennial question remains, “if not you, then who, if not now, then when?”

If you can’t build bigger muscles, then build better ones... If you can’t run fast, then walk tall...if you can’t sing in tune, then speak in tone....if you can’t dance, then tap your foot. If you can’t write a good book, then read one.

Optimism means perceiving disadvantages merely as uniqueness. It’s all a matter of perception.

Why do people wait on perfection before full participation? Why do people need full comprehension before being complete? Why are people living by excuses instead of living by example? How limited are you really? Isn’t limitation merely a motto of perception, albeit one without optimism? As I always say, it's like waiting for all the lights ahead to be green before proceeding through the first one. It makes no sense!

You don’t need favour in order to have favour! The optimist knows if there is no path ahead of you, then you forge one. You can either have a life full of excuses, or have many excuses for a full life!

I choose optimism. And that requires belief. To be-lieve is to not be-leaving possibilities in place of limitations. To be believing is to be-living!

In the end the goal is to as Stephen Coveny said “live out your imagination, not your history”

As usual some of you will get it, many of you will not. I welcome your discussions on my Forums

McSameness and McFashion: The Supersizing of the Modern “Burger, Fries, and Shake Mentality”

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Often this statement is one that is “sad but true.” I remember back about 15 years ago. A client had given me a gift for helping him reach his goals. It was a rectangular long and thin wood-backed print graphic. From one end to the other it was covered with about 16 depictions of Dalmatians, all in black in white, in various sizes and different degrees of repose. All accept the Dalmatian in the middle of the graphic. He sat tall. He was depicted in color instead of black and white. And his spots instead of black white were all multi-coloured polka dots. And the caption read:

“In a world full of copycats, BE AN ORIGINAL.”

It sat hung on my wall for some years. All who witnessed it would say, “Yep, that’s you.” I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into that back then. But since, it has struck me just how true that slogan rings. So much imitation out there, so little creativity and originality. Why is that?

I fast forward to this summer when I met for lunch with a colleague who was in town and we got to talking about the industry and the “McFashion” and “McSameness” of it all. He was expressing how long I’ve lasted in an industry that is usually so fickle and short lived in terms of longevity. The fact that most clients average a five year stay with me as their coach was not lost on him. We discussed what may be different about what I bring to the coaching table. It took me some years to recognize these attributes but I think I finally have a grasp on it.

One thing I have noticed in my extensive travels and that I abide in as well; is that no matter where and no matter when, there will always be a market for Five Star Restaurants and Five Star Hotels. And of course there will always be an even bigger market for the McHappy Meal crowd, who prefer McSameness: after all “over one billion served!”

And this is my digression from the industry. What I offer is a little different than exercise prescription. It seems our industry has lost that quality. Exercise prescription has become wrapped up in pseudo science, which has replaced traditionalism but still remains a representation of what is McFashionable, over true quality. There is such a thing as ambiance, even in the coaching world. People who can appreciate “quality” will understand ambiance just by being exposed to it.

Just like with fine dining or 4 Diamond resorts, ambiance is a part of the experience of that indulgence. To me, coaching works the same way. And while being McFashionable is far easier and more popular, high performance, even as a coach demands a certain ambiance. Some people get it; most people don’t. I laugh when people want to debate whether Scott Abel’s “thinking outside the box” is good or bad, right or wrong, beneficial or not beneficial. The label of that ‘box’ is their own projection of limited thinking, on to me. The fact is, I don’t perceive a “box” to think in or outside of. That is their limitation. And the funny thing is, in my travels all over the world as a coach I have recognized another fact as well.

The less accomplished or established the people I am speaking to, the more judgemental they tend to be. If what I present doesn’t fit into their McHappy Meal mentality of McSameness; then it is questioned. If it’s not some version of ‘burger, fries, and shake’ mentality; then they can’t relate to it. If thinking is beyond their little McFashionable box, then it is to be questioned and judged first.

On the other hand in my travels I have also experienced the opposite. The more educated and accomplished an audience tended to be; the more they wanted to hear what I had to say. The more they wanted to ‘consider it’ rather than judge it. In fact it represents the greater their understanding of ‘ambiance’ which is beyond professional ideology, McFashion, McSameness, and thinking within smaller and smaller boxes.

There are three things the McHappy Meal mentality just cannot see. One is artistry, one is quality, one is talent. There is also ambiance, originality, and context to consider.

Unfortunately for the McHappy Meal, McSameness mentality; if these things are not imitated and wrapped in McFashion; they just cannot recognize them for what they are. And they are that specific thing that sets people apart from the crowd in so many certain and indefinable ways. To people who appreciate quality; this is a good thing. To people who think quality exists in McSameness and McFashionable imitation, these qualities of separation are threatening.

Indeed, in a world full of copycats, BE an original.

And it’s funny by comparison. There are McDonalds restaurants all over the world. Yet there isn’t a single “cook” from McDonalds with their own show on the Food Network! Why is that? Real artists understand McFashion and McSameness, is McNowhere. The Food Network is representative of any industry that understands the concepts I am hinting at. In other words, it’s not the recipe, it’s the CHEF !!!! That is why Chef’s can give away recipes. It’s only information and options. But to the McSameness and McFashionable crowds; these ‘recipes’ represent art. It gets monotonous.

Artistry is defined as a quality of effect or workmanship. Artistry is defined as the subtle or imaginative ability in inventing, devising, or executing something. I guess this separates the Chef from the Recipe. It separates the original from the imitations. And this reality is completely lost on the burger, fries, and shakes mentality that cannot see beyond their assembly line of McSameness information as reality. The artist has no thinking box to relate to. And the artist is not concerned with being McFashionable.

Quality is defined as a degree of excellence or distinguishing attributes. It is also defined as some “thing” or characteristic that sets people apart. And I would add quality specifically sets people apart from the McSameness and McFashionable crowds. Indeed this definition of quality certainly explains why there are no McDonald’s line cooks with their own show on the Food Network. That which is easily replaced or imitated, lacks quality, and artistry.

Talent is best defined as a special or unique aptitude that is creative or artistic in expression. Notice talent is a character trait, not a behaviour. It’s about the Chef, not the recipe. And yet real and original talent is rare indeed. Television shows like American Idol, every year, illustrate well that the McSameness, and McFashionable crowd do not even understand what talent or quality even is. Still more unfortunate is that it usually requires other artists or experts on talent, quality, and artistry, to recognize real talent in order for it to flourish.

In a world full of copycats, BE an original!

And just like McDonalds offers a McFashionable representation of real food; it is in fact, McSameness. Imitation is the fashionable way to reflect what is artful within the recipe. Yet all it really does is reduce it to a commonality of experience. McSameness and McFashion are now pursued “AS” artful or creative or right or wrong. And while “imitation is a sincere form of flattery” it is also often vulgar and rude. It is also often an attempt to usurp real quality, artistry, ambiance, and talent of the originator, without credit given. But imitation remains just that. A person with a good voice can win many Karaoke contests but never transform themselves beyond being cheap or reasonable ‘imitations.’ This is why the definition of imitation varies from ‘copy or counterfeit’ all the way to ‘fabrication, bogus, sham etc.’

As the old saying goes about imitation: “Go to bed in your garage tonight and see if you wake up as a car.”

To true originals imitation is non-threatening. Real talent and artistry will be recognized by others who are not trapped in a limiting black and white box mentality; that if it isn’t burgers, fries, or shakes; then it isn’t food.

And here is my rant on this: Modern technology has convinced people that they are smarter than ever. But man isn’t any smarter now; he is merely more arrogant. Modern technology affords its consumers the development of a mentality toward McFashion and McSameness. It ‘represents’ creativity and originality but is everything else most of the time. Digital technology has afforded people incredible ease and comfort, but not more originality.

McFashionable IPhones, and McFashionable MySpace pages, and McFashionable Blackberry’s and Bluetooth headsets. McFashionable Health Foods with McFashionable advertising aimed at Mcfashionable people to establish McSameness consumption. And of course McFashionable media to cater to McFashionable people who all want to be McFashionable and McSame as well. And every one of us has to be a bit McFashionable ourselves to not get sick of it all. And for me it’s the constant McFashion-oriented attempts to replace talent, artistry, and quality that is most troublesome. It’s technological grossness syruped over with incredible romantic phoniness and cheap imitation. And it’s all in an attempt to market prettiness in order to produce profit. And while this caters to the McSameness desires of the McFashionable crowd; these McFashionable people have no idea where to go, or how to begin because no one has ever taught them about this thing called quality in the world. Quality that is real, not McFashionable! Quality that represents substance over form. Real quality. Not the Paris Hilton imitation that ends up illustrating the opposite; that of form over substance.

And so it ends up for the McSameness McFashionable thinkers, that they no longer have a ‘hamburger experience’ they now only know ‘hamburger consumption.’ The “over 1 billion sold” becomes the McGoal, once again diluting and usurping real talent, quality, artistry etc. And the pretenders fail to realize as Aristotle said, that real “quality is not an act, it’s a habit.”

I’m reminded of a recent television commercial. At a staff meeting, the boss presents that the needs of the company is for more talented resources.

One of the staff replies, “I’m your man. I’ve got over 500 friends on my Facebook page.”

“Great says the boss, I need someone who can speak Cantonese, someone who can do some advanced math, and someone with international marketing skills.”

The employee responds. “Well I don’t have anyone like that on my Facebook page.”

Exactly.

McSameness represented as quality. McFashionable time wasted in pursuit of, well, being McFashionable. McNumbers that represent quantity over quality, and illusion over reality, and form over substance. Its all just fancy imitations of quality.

Another example just presented itself as I write this. This weekend there was a new Mr. Olympia crowned. Right away the comments from people in the industry who own supplement stores is that there will now be a run on the supplements that the new Mr. O endorses. And this is true indeed.

It represents the total McRidiculousness of it all!

The McFashionable mindset of the burger, fries, and shake mentality that do not know quality. Forget the fact that Mr. O represents the genetic elite at the top of the genetically elite scale. Forget the fact that Mr. O took years and years of sacrifice and training and lessons learned along the way. Forget the fact that Mr. O is won through a complicated last week peaking strategy that comes from unique coaching and years of knowing one’s own body. Forget that none of that has anything to do with supplements. No, forget all of that. Forget indeed that Mr. O probably doesn’t even ingest the supplements he endorses. None of that matters to the burger, fries, and shake mentality of the McFashionable people.

Instead, they think that if they reduce some quality of his experience and they can drink from the same well; then they can experience some sort of McSameness of that winning quality of experience that goes into being a Mr. O. What a croc! What a ridiculous pursuit. And what a low and vile form of imitation.

Enough of this. Let’s examine this another way.

The Andrew Johnston Story

Every so often many of us ‘seekers’ get to witness something special. The Andrew Johnston story is the illumination of the topic of this Blog. In a show called Britain’s Got Talent, Andrew’s story unfolded. In your typical American Idol format, out comes this shy 13 yrs old kid to audition. He claims his talent is that he ‘sings.’ The story unfolds of a boy without a male influence in his life. A boy bullied for singing in the choir. A boy bullied for most of his young life. And the bullying showed in every part of him: Soft spoken, unsure of himself, a total lack of confidence.

Shy and nervous he proceeded to sheepishly answer the questions. “How did you handle the bullying?”

“Well, uhm, I keep on singing”

But he didn’t say it in a form of McFashionable McDrama so typical of modern self-indulgence. No. Up until that point here was a boy who lived entirely inside his own heart. But often, that kind of being is where quality, talent, and artistry, are nurtured. Most young people bullied for a thing, would more than likely hide that thing or give it up. Andrew didn’t know how to do this. His singing was something that helped him deal with the bullying, even though it was a cause of it.

The inner strength this represents is lost on a 13 year old boy; and on many adults as well!

But can real talent be denied if it is exposed? Andrew opened his mouth and within seconds it was obvious something very special was happening. Like many who were in the audience, I saw this and began weeping. Annie yelled from another room, “Are you crying?” Yes I was indeed.
But I wasn’t weeping because of his story. I was weeping because of his talent. I was weeping because it was that rare moment when quality, the real thing, is married to true artistry, and talent is witnessed as that special singular thing that can be recognized instantly, by anyone. It’s like many who first experience seeing the statue of David or the Sistine Chapel, fall to their knees or weep, or are duly overwhelmed, even though they are not religious.

Such is the impact of artistry.

And yet for Andrew, it was still obvious that the years of bullying had indeed taken a toll: Bullying by the McSameness crowd of which I have addressed in this Blog. The McSameness crowd that attacks what is original: The McSameness crowd that can’t see real talent and artistry, because it is not McFashionable.

The McSameness crowd at any age just cannot hear ‘music’ of any different kind. The McSameness crowd cannot understand that different can be good: Different can be exalted: Different can unite and even transcend limited thinking and tiny boxes. Different can indeed move a world forward.

Talent cannot be denied.

But first it must be recognized.

And a shy unassuming boy with zero confidence expressed in his body language and by his story awaited the feedback from the judges. And here is the thing about talent, artistry, and quality.

Just a simple acknowledgement of it, gives it wings to fly!

A simple, “I believe in you” from someone who understands quality, gives rare talent permission to strengthen and become all of its potential.

I urge all of you to go on to You Tube or any of these sites. Watch Andrew’s “first audition.” Notice his body language and the unfolding of his story. Then search and watch his performance in the semi-finals, (interview with his mother etc). Observe what a little reinforcement can do, to undo, a boy’s emotional prison so that his talent can leave its nest and soar like an eagle.

And while you may not weep as I did, you will be touched. His transformation, based in recognition of his uniqueness is truly as inspiring as his talent. Quality can be seen and felt though it cannot be measured. Andrew represents that opposite of the McFashionable myth.

Like I said in an email this week to a client: Big steps do not require big shoes or big feet to fill them. That is the myth of the McFashionable crowd. What Andrew shows us is that Big Steps only require a willingness to take a big stride; even if the ground may not be solid.

Quality, folks, is becoming so unrecognizable, that we are perceiving all of its imitations as the real thing. It’s only when we witness the real thing that the dull black and white reality of these imitations is made real to us.

Again, “in a world full of copycats, BE an original.”

Some of you will get it; most of you will not.

I welcome your comments and expressions and impression of Andrew in my Forums section. Do you feel him? That is quality and artistry that you feel!!

Diet Psychology: Understanding the Diet Dilemma! There’s more to lose than weight!

Several times in the pages of my new book Your Truth is Calling I make a simple exclamation to a point by stating “It’s not the diet.” That statement in fact is sprinkled throughout the text in an attempt to make relevant metaphysical points. Many of you have written me since and asked me if I would expand on this a little deeper. I will use this Blog to do so.

Way back when, in my days of academia we students were faced with the old chicken and egg dilemma of behaviour and thought. My life experience and study led me to the decisive conclusion that mindset determines behaviour and not the other way around. At the time this flew in the face of prevailing models of social work that were centred on a concept called ‘behaviour modification.’ It still exists today and is one of the main marketing strategies behind the Diet Industry and its success. The relevant point here is the success of the diet industry to make money, not necessarily to help people achieve sustained weight loss.

Often I concede that behaviour can indeed reinforce a mindset but mindset is the determining element. How this plays itself out in the diet industry is particularly interesting. In most cases it is flat out fraudulent; but still interesting. If people truly understood their own role in falling victim to various marketing strategies they may come to awaken to my point that “It is not the diet!” And the rest of this editorial serves Understanding the Diet Dilemma.

If people seek to change themselves by changing a behaviour, in this case, eating a certain way; well without a corresponding alteration in their mindset that illusion of ‘choice’ will never work long term. In truth 95% of diets will fail a person long term. This is well known. In the fitness industry most of these ‘before and after’ successes attached to supplements ads regain their ‘before’ status in very short time. Dieting is behaviour of futility. Because it reflects a futile mindset. Weight loss and fat loss are not diet related; they’re a mindset. And the marketing industry knows and understands this very well. They endeavour not to empower people but to keep them dependant on a certain mode of thinking. And that thinking is rooted in ‘want and need and lack.’ (powerlessness to be exact)

Lately I have been boning up on some old research for another book I am writing. The research I have focused on is obesity or very overweight people, diet attachment, and various support groups and studies affiliated with them. I noticed a common thread that jumped out at me that seemed to be missed by every single researcher I reviewed. And it seemed to be missed because their focus was narrowed to various diets and behaviours rather than the more qualitative information gained from the interviews. The fact is, diets fail people and people fail diets because of mindsets and thought patterns. Of course as a coach I witness this all the time as well.

Most people begin a process of diet to get thin because of a deep sense of need, want, or lack. In qualitative feedback interviews from overweight people in their support groups, there were many consistencies that reflected this mindset. Most reported being unhappy and always wanting a thinner body. They lack self-esteem and self-acceptance going into the diet. The results of the diet were going to change all of that.

They failed to see and the researchers and counsellors failed as well to coach them of the reality that they may be overweight because of the prevailing mindset and its emotional affects which would play out in various behaviours. Overeating, using food for comfort, using food for disconnection, and being overweight in general are often, to me, merely the behavioural results of faulty mindsets of need, want and lack. These people want a thinner body, their emotional needs for themselves are not being met.

And like most people they seek meeting these needs from external sources. And of course the diet industry is only too happy to oblige and capitalize on this intense sense of desperation. Usually the more emotionally desperate the sense of need, want, and lack, the more desperate will be the diet attempt. In other words the diet will tend to be more extreme. Diets geared toward achieving thinness at the expense of wellness are diets that reflect faulty mindsets. I witness this extensively in the fitness arena as well. Any undertaking born out of the emotionally weak position of want, need, and lack, will inevitably fail. And industries that know this and market to manipulate that need, shamefully make billions of dollars by re-creating a circle of misery in people’s lives. It will only cease to be for the people who seize control of their own needy thinking process.

But shame on the industry that promises solutions in pre-packaged food, easy to swallow pills as remedies, and of course the fad diets solutions that compromise their own principles on a regular basis in order to sell more products to meet more desperate needs of it consumers. So Atkins, the decidedly ‘anti-carb’ diet, ends up marketing Atkins ‘breads’(isn't that a carb?)and Atkins meal replacement bars with sweet sounding names. And the marketing succeeds because no one holds these companies culpable for the mass manipulation. No, if a person fails a diet, and they will, then it only reinforces their sense of lack and failure and want and need within themselves.

There is in fact more diet recidivism than any other kind of consistently failed behaviours. People go from Jenny Craig, to Weight Watchers, to Nutrisystem, to Atkins, and on and on it goes. People continue to literally ‘buy into’ a fallacy that when their dream weight has been achieved, they will then ‘be’ their true selves. What a shame. And the bigger shame is that it continues. As one diet rebound leads to further and greater weight gain, another attempt at diet solutions begins. And yet the mindset of desperation does not change; therefore behaviour of dieting cannot be ‘won.’ Dieting is not a solution to want, need and lack. People fail to realize that they will never get beyond the barriers of their own minds. And these are decidedly NOTdiet issues.

And here is how it plays out in the time course of a diet. Psychologically the diet begins because the overweight person seeks to change him/herself. Most of the interviews reflect a sense of want. They want to be thinner. They want to not be laughed at or ridiculed. They want to feel better. They want to look better. The want reflects the deeper sense of lack.

They think they lack, what thinner people have.

They lack validation for who they are. They lack the tools to change that. And then of course the sense of need forces the initiation to change oneself by changing the behaviour. And now, the new diet begins; usually in spite of the fact of previous miserable failures. But this time, faith is put into a new diet (the belief in externals), its no carbs, instead of no fats, its Jenny instead of LA; it’s South Beach instead of Ornish. And so it goes.

And the diet behavioural requirements all centre on an insistence of denial and deprivation. This is of course completely counter-intuitive. People are usually overweight because of spiritual self-denial and self-deprivation to begin with. These are THE problem. They cannot be part of the solution. And yet self-denial and self-deprivation requirements of diets are inviting to people with a need and want mentality. It is what they know and respond to. So the mindset that precludes being overweight is activated in the undertaking of the diet strategy. It is foolhardy; it is ridiculous; it is rationality.

So the diet begins with a firm commitment we call ‘motivation.’ Some call it willpower. I discuss in my book how both of these are fantasies. In the beginning there will be weight loss and success. But because the mindset of need and want has not changed, it merely reinserts itself at some point in the process. So it begins as a need and want to lose weight. After a certain amount of weight has been lost, and the discipline of diet takes a toll, the mindset of need and want merely changes attention. (the self-denial, and self-deprivation seeks release)

Now because weight has been lost and is being lost, the common sense assertion would be that this would fuel further success. Why is this not true of the history of dieting? It is not true because that mindset of need and want has not changed. It can be suppressed but a mindset will never be denied. So it just changes its focus. Now the need and want based in self-denial and self-deprivation switches to a want and need for the foods that have been denied. So if someone is on Atkins, then they ‘want’ and ‘need’ carbs. And so it goes.

What is being denied is now what is being wanted.

Behaviour begins again to reflect the mindset and before long all weight has been gained back and usually more. This leads to more self-denial in the form of self-recrimination. And once that begins to become unbearable the mindset of need and lack will once again seek out a diet, ‘to change’ and satisfy that endless need. Denial and deprivation mentalities will never work.

It is the mindset of ‘choice’ and free-will, rather than ‘will-power’ that will succeed long-term. The self, must always be engaged, not denied. And this is what the diet industry does not want its consumers to know and understand. Let’s examine this another way:

How thin should someone be? How much weight loss is enough to feel like that illusory true self that is being pursued? Often, movie stars and celebrities represent the ‘ideal body image.’ But do they? Jennifer Anniston for example is reportedly 5 ft 5 inches tall and weighs 110 lbs. That would make her BMI (Body Mass Index) 18.3. Sound good? Sound like a target identity to feel better about yourself? Well this BMI makes her underweight, not ideal weight. In fact less than 3.5 percent of American women meet that BMI range. In other words very few women are that thin. To think you can work to earn it is a part of a faulty mindset steeped in need and want and lack.

But this does not represent the total lunacy of vanity insanity. If we look instead at the pageant industry and use Miss America as the example, then even Jennifer Anniston is too ‘fat.’ Say what? The apparent ideal for Miss America according to one of their popular consultants is 5 ft 8 inches tall and 110 lbs. Within that industry many pageant queens collapse and are hospitalized seeking that ideal for competition. So how is that BMI attainable for the average person via behaviours rooted in self-denial and self-deprivation? Simply, it's not. And the same lunacy exists in the fitness arena as well where ‘achievable’ standards and ideals keep getting more and more absurd. For everyone that can attain these goals without consequence, there are hundreds of thousands forever damaged by seeking to do so.

And the double standard exists as well in the fact that it truly is a man’s world. Men tend to set the standards of women’s Body Image. Yet the demands on men are far less severe. Take Brad Pitt as an example: The quintessential male version of desirability and perfection. Reportedly Brad Pitt is 6 ft tall and weighs 160 lbs. This gives him a BMI of 21.6, very healthy and normal range by BMI standards. However, if Brad Pitt had the same BMI of Jennifer Anniston, at 18.3, he would weigh 135 lbs! Do any of you know any 6 ft tall males who weigh 135 lbs? The modern standard of ideal body image that keeps getting marketed to consumers also keeps getting more and more strict, and more and more ridiculous and narrow; usually also reinforced with some form of cosmetic enhancement.

By comparison, in 1904, the winner of the ‘world’s most perfectly formed women’, was almost 5 ft 5 inches tall and weighed 136 lbs. This would give her a normal and healthy BMI according to current BMI standards of health and wellness, and yet that look would now be considered ‘chubby’ if she decided to compete within any of the vanity industries.

By 1960 the ideal for a female was that of a pre-adolescent as the first supermodel of the era, Twiggy, was reportedly 5 ft 7 inches, and a waifish 91 lbs. Kate Moss, reportedly is 5 ft 7 inches and weighed or weighs 105 lbs. But the aspects to address are what is reasonable and achievable. Twiggy reportedly never dieted. She was just ‘thin’ as she reported it. Perhaps the modern pressures of diet and ideal are what push people like Kate Moss to their addictions to various drugs. After all certain fashion designers have stated publicly that they prefer models who would reflect what the clothes would look like draped on a hanger. No wonder anorexia is a pervasive problem in the vanity industries, and Binge Eating, particularly so in the fitness industry. I once had a pageant competitor who considered one stick of gum, ‘a meal.’ Once again, behaviour reflects the mindset.

Many people will respond, “but I don’t live in 1904, and I still want to lose weight.” And there is that word again, ‘want.’ People who want to really change themselves need to learn that self-denial, and ‘self-deprivation’ will NEVER lead to ‘self-expression.’ Self-expression is a form of comfort with self-identity. It does not seek to fulfill need, want, and lack. It is not the prevailing mindset.

Self-expression comes instead from a mindset of self-acceptance, self-respect, self-assuredness. If someone truly wants to meet weight loss goals and keep them, then it will require this mindset. The behaviour is merely incidental to that achievement. People who want to truly change their circumstances will have to face the fact to change their mindsets first. Undertaking a diet will not do that for them. Self-talk and exercises remain the key to success. What someone says to him/herself in the midst of difficulties will determine how long they stay in difficult situations. A mindset of need, and want, and lack, will only continue to reinforce itself. People must stop focusing on the problem and instead focus on the solution. If the problem is ‘overweight’, realize the solution is not in undertaking a diet. That merely reinforces a focus on the problem.

The mindset is what requires work; then the behaviour will follow.

And the behaviour then will not require self-denial, and self-deprivation. It will be instead behaviour based in real choice and self-expression. This is the true diet dilemma. People must start employing self-talk as a means to changing their situations, rather than describing their situations. The former is empowering the latter is enabling.

Thoughts and thinking strategy focused on abundance, favour, hope and value, are thoughts that lead to empowering behaviour. These types of thoughts replace the self-limitations of behaviour adherence based in self-denial, and self-deprivation. These are limitations of the self.

The successful mindset is positioned on possibilities that express the self, not limitations that deny the self. Hence, why dieting will never work!

And here is the diet dilemma that represents the falsehood of the diet industry. These diets, whether represented in books, like The South Beach Diet, or the Atkins Revolution, or in diet centres like Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, L.A. Weight Loss, or whatever, all lead the consumer to believe that behaviour is the solution to their diet dilemma.
It’s time to wake up to the truth.

The psychology of eating should not require support groups.

Again, as I began this Blog, IT’S NOT THE DIET !!!!

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.

I welcome your comments in the forums section of my website. Meantime, if you know someone trapped in ‘diet dogma’ please forward them this editorial. It is written with going on 3 decades of experience with people who ‘struggle’ for diet solutions for what are not diet issues.

It’s time to disarm the power of the diet industry and see if for what it is.

Lessons in the Tao: The Capitalist and the Fisherman

Well this month finds me very torn on which topics to tackle in the Blog. The fact of the matter is, these insane diets and protocols continue to gain momentum in spite of the havoc they wreak after the fact. The mere attachment of a popular or celebrity industry name to such diet protocols seems to somehow legitimize this foolishness, and yet the number of victims on the scrap heap of metabolic damage continues to mount. Perhaps next month I will address this in greater detail. But for now my sentiments are for the ridiculous nature that the more things change, the more they stay the same. To be continued to be sure.

But on the other hand it seems finding the Tao is also taking on huge momentum and interest and for that I am truly grateful. So this month, I will explore a little further my feeble attempt to grasp something as simple and elusive as the nature of living in the Tao. This happens to also correspond to the release of my new book, (Your Truth is Calling...Connecting the Dots to Self-Awareness)just this morning, and my father’s 80th birthday, also today. Happy Birthday Dad! So given it is the time of the month to pen a Blog, the blessing of my new book, and continued presence of my Dad and his birthday, for this month I will concentrate on the stronger yet more intangible and positive lessons in the Tao. I hope it serves you on some level.

By the way you can click on this link to find out more about my new book, and scroll down and read the Prologue to the book as well.(http://www.scottabel.com/store/product.php?productid=16155#)

The Capitalist and Fisherman

A very successful venture capitalist takes a summer vacation, flyes to another remote but beautiful country in order to get away for awhile. After a few days in the capital, he rents a huge yacht for himself and his family and ventures out to see this area from the water, after having explored it by land. The yacht takes him to some beautiful scenery as well as some sleepy small villages, further and further away from the capital. After a night of sailing, very early one morning he drops anchor in one of those small, beautiful sleepy villages.

Next to where he docks he observes a fisherman come in to land as well. The fisherman’s boat is small, beat up, old and sea-worn. And of course it smells of fish. Interested, the capitalist notices a substantial catch in the small boat and engages the local fisherman in conversation; the whole time the capitalist’s mind is working, working, working. First he asks the fisherman, how long it has taken him to stock such an impressive haul. The fisherman informs him that it really varies depending on how long he wants to stay out there fishing, the weather, his mood, the day etc. The capitalist inquired if this impressive store was regular for him, or just a great day of fishing. Puzzled, the fisherman explained that this amount of fish is always available and more, there is nothing impressive to the fisherman about his daily haul. The capitalist was curious as to how early the fisherman must awake to get out and catch such an impressive display of stock. When the fisherman told him he was only out for a few hours, the capitalist asked him why he doesn’t stay out longer and catch even more fish.

The fisherman shrugged off the question like he just didn’t understand the question at all. To the fisherman he always fishes only long enough to bring in a haul that ‘supports his family’ and their immediate needs.

Now it is the capitalist that is puzzled.

He inquires to the fisherman, if this is what you do in a few short hours, then what do you do with the rest of your time?

The fisherman again seemed to just not understand the nature of the question. He replied that sometimes he goes home and takes a nap. He plays with his kids for a stretch; maybe he walks into town with his wife, or putters around home on various hobbies. In the afternoon he takes a siesta, and then being well-rested he goes into town with his wife, joins his friends, enjoys their company and some wine, maybe watches the sun set, plays guitar and sings along; maybe catches a sunset. Then the next day, he does it all again. The capitalist laughed to himself when the fisherman ended his answer by saying, “I am very busy with my life”

To the capitalist, napping, siesta, sing-alongs, does not mean a busy life at all. The capitalist knew right away the tremendous potential of such an untapped fishing resource. If only he could explain it to the fisherman, he could really help him out. This man is after all a successful Wall Street venture capitalist; throwing money at small projects to make them huge is what he does for a living; and this fisherman might as well have been sitting on a gold mine. So the capitalist excitedly began to explain it to him.

The capitalist pointed out with his help he could show the fisherman how to achieve success beyond what he currently could even fathom, and he could have financial abundance and freedom that could serve him and his family for several generations.

The fisherman, curious more than anything; asked how that could be. He was being more polite than anything because he really still didn’t understand all the excitement in the eyes of the capitalist. He just didn’t relate to it.

The capitalist told him about work ethic and deferred gratification. If fish in that area were that abundant; then if he fished a few hours longer each day, he could buy a bigger boat, with newer technology to enhance his catch even more. From that initial investment of his labor the proceeds from that bigger boat could lead to several boats, and eventually a fleet of boats, and he would have a monopoly on the fishing business in the area. From there he could sell his fish directly to a processor, cut out the locals and the middlemen, make a better life for himself. He could even open his own cannery down the road. That way he could control the product, the distribution, the processing, all of it. He could become very rich indeed. Then he started to explain about stock options and the market etc.

The fisherman was a little lost in urban financial jargon beyond what he knows in his sleepy village. So he asked humbly, “how long would such a process take?” Without missing a beat, the capitalist, still excited by what he could envision, explained to the fisherman it would be a lifelong commitment, maybe 15-20 years. Of course at some point he would have to move to the capital city to make everything legal and oversee his interests. From there he would more than likely have to go back and forth to New York so that venture capitalists like himself could fund these various ventures at each step. The scope of the possibilities, the capitalist could anticipate and depict quite fervently to the fisherman.

The fisherman trusted the sincere excitement of the capitalist tourist and so continued to indulge him in the conversation. The fisherman asked, and then what? The capitalist was so enthused by the question he couldn’t wait to explain it to him. The capitalist replied "that is the best part of what I do. When the time is right you announce a stock sale, sell your company stock on the open market, and become very, very rich. You could make millions." To which the fisherman replied, ‘and then what?’ The capitalist told him then he would be rich enough to do anything and everything a man could want.

The fisherman thought for a minute of what that would be. At the same time he asked the capitalist, what kind of things other successful business people have done at such a time.

The capitalist replied, “well they retire young, they often move to a small, sleepy coastal fishing village, where they work a few hours per day; maybe take a morning nap, play with their grandkids for a stretch, take up various hobbies; go into town with their wives and sip wine and enjoy the company of friends, watch the sun set, and for the rest of their days, do it all over again for as long as they want.

Such is the parable of the capitalist and fisherman

Lessons from the Tao

Now before everyone jumps to a trite conclusion that the message is anti-capitalist, anti-business, let’s stop and understand the true message. Both men are living in the Tao. The fisherman knows nothing of lack, need, desire, comparative living. Because he ‘wants’ for nothing, his life is the Tao of experience, and happiness is at his feet. The capitalist though is the same. He entertains the energy field of immediate possibilities on a grand scale. His involvement with the fisherman was an earnest interaction to help him see and fulfill a possible potential. Because his energy is focused on the ‘now’ of possibility and potential, he is also living in the Tao; his experience has not lead him to ‘want or desire or lack’ associated with the fisherman, only the possibilities inherent in what he does. There is consistency and flow to that kind of energy which is sincere and expressive. It is the excitement of the capitalist that engaged the fisherman.

Many people use this parable as a way to be ‘anti-money’ or ‘anti-abundance.’ This is sour to the notion of Tao. Abundance is everyone’s right in whatever form it takes. It is never fiscal abundance that is a problem but only the form of attachment to it. Greed and generousity are matters of the mind, abundance is an experience in the spirit. Let’s remember that if the fisherman sought to fulfill such a destiny, jobs would be created, offering more abundance for more people. No one can give away what they don’t have. To be anti-money is meaningless and prideful. No one can every be poor enough to help the poor, sick enough to help the sick, or depressed enough to help the depressed. That kind of prideful martyrdom serves no one, and is a disservice to the Tao. To reject abundance in fiscal or spiritual form goes against the Tao.

A consistent focus on darkness, only enhances a knowledge and awareness of darkness. It never brings it to light. Only those with abundance, be it material or spiritual can offer it, and treat it as a flow of energy. This is Tao. The lack of want is what is shared by both the fisherman and the capitalist, it is just expressed in different ways. Passion is also a way of the Tao. Passion is never self-proclaimed. To claim it is surely to not have it. Passion is an expression, not a creation. The fisherman and capitalist both express a passion just in different forms and states. Passion is in keeping with the Tao. Abundance in all its forms is a good thing. Attachment to forms of abundance is the route to suffering, and the seven deadly sins.

In the end the way of the Tao in terms of this parable of the capitalist and the fisherman is best expressed in the words of Hillel:

“Watch your thoughts; they become your words

Watch your words; they become your actions;

Watch your actions; they become your habits

Watch your habits; they become your character

Watch your character for it will become your destiny

Your world is a reflection of your current nature. The way of the Tao, the way of the spirit is always about Intention, and Attention. These are the two currents of energy currency of ‘the way’ Both the fisherman and capitalist, have this strength of the Tao guiding them.

As usual some of you will get it, most of you will not. I welcome your comments on my Forums.

Obsession and Passion: Becoming the Craftsman

Well I wanted to go in a specific direction with this month’s Blog, but reality seems to have me backtracking a bit each month. Several people have joined or contacted me just within the last week who have full blown eating disorders as a result of competition in the past. Given we are in the heart of competition season I would like to address further elements of approach to goal achievement which may help some people see the bigger picture or at least begin to question their own participation in a given process.

I’m often contacted by people asking me how I got to where I am and what they should study or read to get there as well. The answer is that there is no knowledge that will bring someone to this point of perceived success. The truth is knowledge is one of the bigger deceivers out there. The best coaches are not the ones who know the most ‘stuff’, but the ones who are the best at the craft of coaching. And this is the answer to that question.

I became a craftsman at a young age in my pursuit of this ‘thing’. The defining factor was not what I knew or learned from books, but rather my passion for the pursuit. As a matter of fact, of my colleagues whom I respect the most, are the ones who also started out with a passion as a powerful entity that drew them to the right places, at the right time, for the right reasons. Passion leads to becoming something else, something entirely greater and building upon itself. Passion leads to becoming ‘a craftsman’. And a craftsman is defined in the dictionary as ‘a highly skilled artist’

And this unfortunately is what is missing in our industry; and that is the art of artistry itself. That is what I would like to discuss this month.

First it is necessary to distinguish between passion and obsession. It is possible to think of both of these on parallel but different roads, or more importantly as maybe a part of a continuum that extends from the ego to the spirit.

Obsession

In and of itself the problem with obsession is that of the attachment to the symbols of achievement or progress and the symbols of success. Obsession concerns itself mostly with externals. Because of this it also induces a certain amount of perceived pressure to endure or perform. So many times people undergo a chosen process, and up being concerned and attached to what they will and can get from it rather than what it adds to their sense of being. Obsession begins the process of constantly looking over one’s ‘ego shoulder.’ With obsession, there is a constant measuring of everything, a constant assessment and judgement of all aspects of process. Rules are viewed with rigid right and wrong assumptions. Good and bad are often assessments based only on the attachments to the symbols of the process or success. So a person is ‘good’ and ‘right’ if they have checked off their three hours of cardio and weighed every gram of this portion of carbs, this portion of proteins etc. It all represents the ‘deserving’ of the thing that is sought after. And yet this ‘right or wrong’ assumption is merely arbitrarily placed in one’s head. But with obsession there comes to be an emotional component of rightness and deserving that has little to do with reality, and a lot to do with want and need. Obsession is steeped in ‘want’ and ‘need’. It bears little fruit in the end, even if it finds what it seeks. All obsession tends to do is reinforce that very need and want to continue. This is far different from passion.

Passion

Passion is far more invested in the personal sense of real self involved in any endeavour. Passion is more correctly in tune with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm literally means “The God within” Passion is for the spirit of doing a thing. The nature of that carries with it the logical conclusion of success of that very thing. It took me a long time to realize this difference between myself and others. I never actually ever ‘trained’ to say, have a bigger arm. Each arm day represented a journey for me to know myself and as such I knew the bigger arm would be the natural result. I did not ever doubt that about the process. A process done with passion has no need to judge and see right or wrong or good or bad. There is only a result. There is no failure because all results have meaning. A result either takes you toward or away from your goal, or replaces that goal with another because your passion allows you to switch gears as you go. Obsession does not.

Passion allows for constant learning. Obsession merely follows process only for the sake of doing so. If an obsessed person has their process interrupted, they are thrown off, agitated, disrupted, and feel a sense of loss. A person of passion feels none of these ill effects because passion IS the process. I just took, as I often do, 5 days away from training and diet. There is no attachment to them. My craft, my passion, is what I do. It can not be lost by simple interruption, because how can you lose what you are, or who you are? It’s because many people do not have a handle on these two aspects of their identity that they are susceptible to perceiving weak obsession, with strong passion and determination.

Yet often, people near the completion of a task will often claim they cannot wait for it to be over with to breath easier for a bit. But what happens? Instead of breathing easier and calmly and satisfied from a passion seen to its conclusion, they now feel at completion, a sense of emptiness, anxiety, loneliness, and void. They were not nourished by experience because they became obsessed within it. This happens a great deal. The whole ego judgement of the event takes over the actual joy or curiosity that began the event to begin with. And then what usually happens is a seeking of yet another process to undertake. Passion is usurped by undertaking challenge for the sake of reward or validation. Passion undertakes challenge because it is the extension of the real SELF. When approached with an inner sense of true passion, the completion of any undertaking is always a reason for celebration and joy. Outcome has little to do with true passion.

Fulfilment is the means and the ends with passionate process.

And these are huge differences in how someone becomes a craftsman. As Abraham Maslow put it “a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be” Only passion can unfold and manifest a greatness that is strived toward.

But with obsession, this concentration on parts at the expense of wholes, leads to a mentality of right/wrong, good/bad, instead of endless options. Innervation Training, The Cycle Diet, and many other creations and programs were born of a passion not influenced of right and wrong, but only by information gained from a passionate doing of the thing. Once obsession becomes the nature of the process, no matter how much intelligence guides it, it is limited. Once the art of what is uniquely individual is removed from process, meaning is lost, and that is why there is a sense of loss at completion of an undertaking. It is also why so few people actually achieve and maintain their desired goals.

The craftsman is passionate about his craft, and the projects within it. This way passion is expansive, and geometrically so. The craftsman doesn’t follow any ‘specific’ set of written instructions because the nature of the task at hand determines his thoughts, motions, and potential. And this alters and changes the task at hand for him. Passion makes personal what seems impersonal. Obsession keeps it impersonal in terms of rules and recipes to follow. 3 hours cardio regardless of biofeedback is obsession, not passion.

The true craftsman is spiritual in process whether he defines it that way or not. And there is nothing robotic about process that is spiritually driven and passionately grounded. It begs the age old question, who is more complete from process, the carpenter who builds a whole table from scratch; or the labourer in the factory who attaches the same table leg to the same table on the assembly line over and over again? The craftsman is attached to the work because he has invested himself in it. It, the work, represents him, not the results or the assessment made by others. The result of the work is therefore representative of the creative process, and what someone is creating is the true SELF. This is how I coach. So many people are missing the purpose behind their undertakings. This is sad in a world that offers fewer and fewer chances for expressing and finding that passion of that expression.

On a grander scheme, the divorce of art from process, from technology, is completely unnatural, and for most it will be felt, in terms of that disconnect of meaning from results. Obsession adds little to learning and empowerment. Building a body for example means being a craftsman, a carpenter if you will. Does the carpenter obsess over his tools? A carpenter uses tools as an extension of his work to accomplish a finished project of creativity. Building a body is not a survival mission. It is not a war you wage with inanimate iron, or against the bathroom scale, the calories, the grams, the percentages. This is to lose focus on the creative possibilities of self-expression. The passion express, is decidedly Tao, or is at least one of the principles in the Tao of Scott Abel.

What is wrong with these insane approaches to results is that they are not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and the heart. The body created by obsession over these component parts is the illusion of craftsmanship at the expense of the creativity. Creativity is within anyone who wants to tap into it, to find their nature or soul so to speak.

All this dogma of science and pseudo science has it all upside down. Creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination, these are often outside the domain of science, but within the reach of passion. Rationality and logic and reason are necessary but limited, especially within the obsessive approach. Our industry is a reflection of this absurdity. If a ‘rationality’ factory is torn down but the rationality that produced it is left standing, then that same rationality will simply produce another factory. So the obsession with dietary fat as the enemy, is replaced with an equally absurd obsession with carbohydrates as villain. Everyone talks about systems of logic and rationality but so few actually understand them.

Beyond Obsession

The Tao of goal fulfillment is self-rewarding if the goal of the aspirant is one of direction. Then passion is endlessly self-fulfilling, whereas in contrast, a life devoted to gain and reward is full of pitfalls and suffering. Prosperity is measured not only in dollars or results but also in the joy of participation. Intention of directed passion has everything to do with growing. Intention as my new book discusses is all about concentration and focus, not about thinking and measuring. Intention with passion is self-direction. There is no doubt that the accomplishment will be achieved. There is not so much striving after it as there is ‘anticipation’ of it. This, unlike obsession becomes a part of character. Razor-like focus, not on rules, or guidelines but on the craft itself is expanded to all aspects of life. Then as passion and intention develop, there can be no selection of ‘this’ or ‘that’ as being more important than the other. It is all the same, whether one is bench pressing a new personal best, or merely peeling a potato. Even digging a ditch, every single shovelful is equally important to the goal of the ditch and the commitment to the activity is absolute and total. We know this creates in athletics what is known as The Zone.

The Zone

Intention leads to what is known in athletics as The Zone. All actions become spontaneous and even effortless. The body stops being thought of as a “me” and becomes just another object in the picture. In baseball, hitters in The Zone report at the time the baseball to seem like the size and speed of a beach ball. There was just a sense of ease and non-effort and flow. This is the Tao of non-effort, or trying by not trying. Obsession with symbols of success like calories, and grams, and percentages, and fancy charts and graphs, is too much trying and not enough experiencing. The craftsman knows that experience is never forgotten. There is no goal to be achieved. There is only the present moment. Only right now: The one-pointedness of mind and absolute intention. Clarity takes over and stops time. There is the absolute exclusion of everything except that pinpoint of focus. I have witnessed and experienced this Zone many times in my career. Passion and intention. That is the Tao of craftsmanship. The way of the heart, the way of the mind, and the way of action is actually accomplished via the pathway of surrender to it; not the endless ‘trying’ to control it. The pathway of the craftsman is so counter-intuitive to our society.

Lots of people write me and they want to know more resources for information. And yet as Einstein said, information is not knowledge. Often those obsessed with results accumulate ‘data’ with the intellect but it does not ripen into subjective experience. Sometimes the realization is that the intellect is no longer a useful tool but is now the barrier (paralysis by analysis)

The craftsmen knows it is really simple to follow both paths simultaneously...This is Tao, the way of the heart, and the way of the mind, which is the way to having, knowing, and being the higher self. The question that begs is, what if you let go of your obsession of want and desire, right here, right now, and instead put on the tool belt and began to practice your craft?

As I have quoted many times, “real winners forget that they are in a race; real winners just love to run”Some of you will get, many of you will not.

Arnold as the prime example

Many competitors say to me, but I have a competitive instinct. I “need” to compete in order to satisfy it or I feel lost. Untrue. This is the classic disconnection that requires obsession and pursuit, not for fulfillment but for its illusion. The key word is “need” But passion is a form of inspired competitive instinct. It’s just that the instinct does not ‘need’ an opponent or a stage to play itself out.
Look at the biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger. To many, he represents the American dream or so many other aspects of success. But underlying what he accomplished was simple and profound passion.

First Arnold had to overcome a countryside mentality and learn a new language. Then he had to travel to the big city and establish himself in Europe. But all the while his dream began to be, America.(which meant learning yet another language) His passion knew it would lead him there, the only variables were when and how. Arnold used passion to master everything he touched. He owned the bodybuilding world of its time. He was indeed bigger than the sport. But his passion saw possibilities and options beyond another inch to his arm, or another Olympia title. His passion led him to real estate, then to movies where he was laughed at for his thick accent, weird name, and total lack of acting skills. Yet he became in his time the top box office movie star and most recognizable face and name on the planet. And yet his spirit, ignited by passion, still did not rest there. With a keen political interest Arnold has gone on to become governor of “Callyforneeah” I can’t think of a better representative of the difference between passion and obsession. Passion never ends. And the craftsman employs it to master the craft at hand. Obsession, doesn’t entertain possibilities; it just circles itself on an endless hamster wheel of process, because of need and want and desire.

I had to laugh when I heard about a thread on some website recently that asked “if there is life after competition” Only an obsessive personality could take that seriously, because the truth is for most, there is zero life within competition. Not the kind of life lived with passion and possibility anyway. I think Arnold’s life answers the question in spades. It depends what you are made of, passion, or need.

Become the craftsman. Decide, what is my craft? Call on your passion. Fuel it with possibilities. There are no limits. The past cannot remember the past, and the future cannot generate the future. This is the Tao of now. A surfer never rides behind the crescent of the wave, or far in front of it. There is only the current wave that rises in the now, and then fades. This is the Tao of the craftsman. It is to be so absorbed in a passion that time loses meaning. That is where YOU really live, and that is where and how you find happiness and fulfillment.

Again, some of you will get it, some of you will not. Some of you will rail against it. And that is fine as well. I welcome your comments on my forums.

The Tao vs. Ego Approach to Climbing Any Mountain

Many of you have written me asking me if I would continue to address my interpretation of Tao, or my following of Tao. I would be happy to do so. A long time ago, before I even knew anything about the Tao, I was actually quite already in tune with it. This is something I would eventually have to lose in order to rediscover later. Indeed there is a verse of Tao Te Ching that tells us, often we lose by what we gain, and we gain by what we lose. This was certainly true of my journey that was at one time on a good and pure and truthful track. But the journey was sidelined, corrupted, altered. My truth was being lost by the more I gained. Competition, status, recognition, and other lures of the ego replaced what at one time were virtuous simple pursuits. It took me a long time to gain that purity and simplicity back again. I certainly lost by what I had gained.

But before that time when things went awry, I remember reading and following the exploits of Sir Edmund Hillary, and his conquering of Mount Everest. When he was asked “Why did you climb Mount Everest?” I remember to this day the chills and meaning I got from his answer. I just got it. Many did not. Many were criticizing his answer as flippant, arrogant, trite, and evasive. And of course people attack what they do not understand. I related to the answer deep inside myself. I just got it. I didn’t need to study it or contemplate it. It was whole and entire and yet decidedly Tao. I think back on that answer often now and would like to share with you something about the meaning behind it. When asked “Why climb Everest?” Hillary answered in all manners of Truth, “Because it is there!”

Now before I get into this, let me tell you. If you have not ever seen or witnessed an event like an Everest climb, go out and read or see video of someone who has accomplished it. It is described by all as ‘life changing.’ Many people have died and will die trying to scale Everest. Most will report seeing God or their version of creation by attempting the feat. All are changed in some way. For many it is where life meets death and vice versa, and from that, real meaning springs forth, not from the mind, but from somewhere else.

I am going to discuss the Tao approach to climbing mountains. The truth is we all have mountains to scale in our life. So I will use the word mountain and mountain climbing in the most literal but also the most metaphorical way that you can envision. And I am talking about real mountains. I am not talking about the ego’s creation of mountains from molehills and the need for drama that people seem to manifest to feel ‘big’ within themselves. I’m talking about struggles that will define you as a person. Whether this is dealing with intense grief from a loss, dealing with the loss of a long term relationship, battling yourself or watching someone you love battle terminal illness; all these things I think could fall under the metaphorical category of mountain climbing.

Another side of that humanness in all of us, are the mountains that we choose for ourselves to climb. So I will use mountain climbing literally, and interject as well with contest dieting and training as a smaller version of smaller climbing when appropriate.

So there are the mountains that we choose to face in life, and then there are the mountains we find ourselves facing. The first thing to acknowledge about a Tao approach to mountain climbing is the mountain is the teacher, we are its students. The ego tends to get that backwards and I will address this. The test of anything is its potential for us to learn from it. The tasks we chose (the workout, the program, the mountain, the field of study) are tested themselves only by the satisfaction that they bring to our being. If process produces tranquility then it is right for you. If it disturbs or disrupts then either the process must change or the mind will need to change. The test of the usefulness of any process is always someone’s own mind; someone’s own heart. The problem to address is falsehood. So many people feel ill at ease even in peaceful process and so many more like in my Industry say “I love competing” yet an obvious observation is that the process of competing brings only disruption and not tranquility of mind and spirit. This is the most common falsehood I see in my industry, especially among Figure competitors. They are climbing mountains for the wrong reasons. Therefore the result will only bring dis-satisfaction.

In every non-problem or circumstance where we choose the challenge, normalcy allows for endless possibilities and promises to greatness; not for what is accomplished, but for what is discovered. And for those mountains we must face and climb that we do not chose, the solution lies within that very problem. It is only now a mountain because we have not faced it beforehand. But beyond the solution to the problem of that mountain climb, lies something greater. Too many of us stop at only seeking solutions. How will I get over this? Why did he/she do that to me? What will I do now? What we fail to see is the other side of that mountain climb. Beyond that solution, lays possibilities. Beyond the solution there are truths and powers that we miss because we seek only solutions. Beyond the solutions lies transcendence. This is the real gift of the mountain climb. So now let me break down the actual mountain climb. All of us should be able to identify ourselves as climbers within the scenario. To do so honestly will be enlightening to all aspects of your being.
So the question begs not only “why climb a mountain”, but in terms of process “how”, to climb mountains?

The Ego Climber and The Tao of “The Path”

A mountain needs to be climbed with as little effort as possible, and without desire. Non-effort is a part of effort. We all need to learn the contradiction of a phrase like “trying hard to relax.” The reality of the climb then is determined by your own nature. I have borrowed from my own Industry of performance and coined the phrase “Spiritual Workload Capacity.” I think all of us can benefit from memorizing that phrase as a starting point to process. So how fast you climb any mountain has a lot to do with this. If you become winded, you slow down. If you become restless, you speed up. Simplicity. You climb the mountain in balance between restlessness and exhaustion. All matters of process require balance. This is Tao.

When that balance is accepted, by not comparing to others for example, then the climb can continue. With the balance assessed within yourself between restlessness and exhaustion, then you stop thinking ahead, and realize the uselessness in doing so. Once that is accomplished and accepted, each footstep on the climb now is something unto itself. The footstep in the process of the climb is not just a means to an end now, but a unique event unto itself. Each step allows the opportunity for a different feel, different feedback, and unique perspective. From each point and footstep along the climb observations become apparent. This rock looks loose, what a great view of the water, the air is a little thinner, this plant is new at this point. These are things we ‘should’ notice along any climb anyway but we do not as we become ever focused on results or solutions, ‘that’ top of ‘that mountain’. So we make the actual climbing insignificant because the ego tells us it is.

But to live only for that future goal of the acquiring that mountain top is shallow. It has no meaning. As we will see, goal fulfillment is only self-rewarding when the goal is discovery. In contrast, a life devoted to ‘gain’ is full of pitfalls, misery, emptiness and suffering. Climbs start to equal suffering.

So by focusing on the mountain peak and the summit our rationalizations of what is important takes us over. But these are illusions. We forget the nature of the mountain itself. It’s not the top of the mountain that sustains life; it’s the sides and the valleys. Things only grow in these places along the climb. There is no life at the top. And yet, there can be no sides of the mountains without the tops. The top defines the sides and their nature. This is a lot like attaching importance of sets/reps/loads in training without experiencing the biofeedback that they provide. We create these constructs and then arrogantly forget their overall context.

We forget the nature of the climb and the mountain. Yet any effort that has self-glorification as its only final goal will at some point, end in calamity. When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, the size of that mountain prevails. You almost never make it and if you do, you are negatively imprinted by that experience. Some people develop the ego mantra to ‘stop telling your ego about the size of that mountain, and instead tell that mountain about the size of you.’ While that is motivating dogma to be sure, it creates a duality of conquering that is also an illusion. If you view the climb with fear from the bottom, then you are captured by ego, if you view it with arrogance from the top, you are on the other side of that same ego equation. Both represent meaninglessness. The victory of any climb viewed as ‘conquering’ is then hollow. From here, like most competitors, in order to sustain the ego’s perception of victory you have to prove yourself again, and again, and again, in some other way. Usually this means finding another mountain to climb, even if you have to create one in your own head, and in your own life.

With the ego climb and ego climber there is that need to fill a false image. We end up fearful that our image is not only not true, but will be found out, so we keep proving, proving, proving, by climbing, climbing, climbing. This just induces a state of spiritual and physical exhaustion.

Our mountains overcome us.

They seem bigger now than they actually are. Physical strength and stamina is now not enough to accomplish the climb. Intellectual motivation is also just not enough. The climb itself has now created its own demons in the ego. Now many of us cannot conquer issues that were not even present just down at the bottom of the mountain. Binge eating for competitors post-contest, etc. These all become huge ‘issues’ separate from the climb. And even though we have the intellectual capacity to overcome them, we still cannot. It is no longer enough. We have lost by what we have gained. Why? The problem is that people undertake a journey and hold only their own purposes in mind, such as seeking solutions and not entertaining transcendence. By doing so they create the self as some fixed entity. The mountain then is now ‘serving’ some selfish purpose of need and want. The climb reflects that in that it now creates more problems than it solves.

The Tao approach sees the mountain differently. The real climber, who ‘experiences’ the summit does so because he seeks it out differently. The real climber does not see himself or the mountain as fixed entities. Both become a level of experience that serve and transcend each other. It is said it is better to travel than to arrive. But this is incomplete. The Tao climber sees that travelling and arriving are the same. They happen at the same time, and they create each other along the way. As you climb and travel that mountain, you arrive simultaneously somewhere new with each step: Somewhere that could have only been arrived at, by travelling and arriving a moment earlier somewhere else. Only when the mountain becomes intensely appreciated, can each step of the climb within it, become “The way” “The Path” which is the definition (if there can be one) of the Tao.

Climbing then becomes an act of devotion. It is no longer about conquering mountains but instead submitting to them. The climber acknowledges, accepts and embraces the mightiness of what is before him, not ahead, but as traveller and arriver now. The mountain, the game, the situation, the circumstance, the contest, are all something else entirely. The sanctity and specialness of that unique mountain climb is now also infused and becomes a part of the climber himself. They are not separate. This new spirit of the climber enables him to endure far more than physical strength or intellectual know how could accomplish on its own. This is the Tao of pursuit/non pursuit, effort, as non-effort. There is no conquering because there is nothing there to be conquered, only to experience and know about.

Struggle, discipline, survival, become something else; not measured against the ego, but absorbed in the Spirit; forever travelling and arriving at the same time with each footfall of the climb. This is empowering. Competing and conquering is NOT!

Reducing the journey, the travelling, the arriving, the whole process to sets/reps/grams/calories/winning/losing/periodizing performance/ does more to negate the spirit than to embrace it. When every-thing becomes a ‘thing’ to rail against rather than an active part of the climb, the meaning of each footstep is lost. The Tao of enhancing spiritual workload capacity is stagnated. With the Tao approach to mountain climbing, freedom from process allows for acknowledging freedom within process. Creativity is awakened here.

The Ego Climber, The Ego Competitor

To the untrained eye, ego climbing and self-less climbing look the same. Both types of climbers place one foot in front of the other (both perform sets and reps) both stop the climb when they are tired. Both proceed when rested. But there is in fact a huge difference. As a coach I have witnessed every nuance of this difference all along its continuum. This difference is what creates the post-contest, post climb, post event, post circumstance, fall and emptiness that fill people with depression, angst and other negative influences.

I have seen clients not even place in a contest but embrace the discovery that the event made available to them; and I have seen those who win shows all the way up to pro status, while their lives crumble all around them.

The ego climber is like an instrument, of and from the climb that is out of adjustment now. The ego climber neglects what a Tao climber acknowledges. The ego climber does not rest when tired. He misses the importance of each footstep, misses the views along the climb. His steps become faulty but he climbs anyway. This is how and why many people actually die trying to scale a mountain. The ego climb kills them. This is much akin to the set/reps/ and calories worshippers who follow ridiculous advice and void experience at their own expense. A Tao athlete would never endure the protein only, 3 hour cardio rituals of contest prep, not because they couldn’t, but because they would see it for what it is and refuse to. If the climb does not serve “THE” purpose, then it does not serve any purpose.

And if, at this point you think the climb is still about the mountain peak, or the stage, or the trophy, or the validation at the end, then you are sure to suffer the slings and arrows of this mentality of weakness.

And so the ego climber continues with his blinders set on discipline. The ego climber looks up only to view the climb that awaits him; but what is ahead is the same view of the same climb as last time he looked two seconds previously. It’s the same for contest prep when tomorrow is going to be a repeat of today, even though it doesn’t have to be. Nothing is gained. Nothing is learned. Nothing is absorbed. Spiritually, workload capacity is a non consideration as the ego climber climbs now merely to finish climbing. There is no sense or justification to it.

The ego climber continues to go too fast or too slow. There is no reliable biofeedback to determine pace because relevance is gone. The ego climber fails to acknowledge the conditions and the environment on the mountain, the altitude, the slope, the air, the ground: Just like the absolute dieter who fails to acknowledge biofeedback cues and maintains the same calories deprivation, denial, endless cardio, all because the journey has become only a footnote to being a slave to the process. The servant has become the master.

Mentally the anguish of the separation of the climber from himself is easy to observe as a coach or bystander. The out of synch and disconnected climber or contest dieter will talk about ‘something else’, ‘somewhere else’, ‘anything else.’ I see this all the time. Off season athletes talk about looking forward to the next ‘diet.’ Dieting athletes talk about their next ‘off-season.’ They are not spiritually absorbed in process but are instead obsessed with it, and possessed by it.

The ego climber, ego competitor, is obsessed with ‘here’ but is not truly actually ‘here.’ He is not present except in ritual. Indeed he now rejects what is here and seeks what is instead, ‘over there.’ The climber just wants to be further up the mountain. Nothing else. But when he gets there now with this mentality of exhaustion he will be just as unhappy because that will be his new ‘here.’ So that just creates in his mind another and different ‘there’ to get to.

Just like the contest dieter who at 8 weeks out, after dieting for some six weeks, just wants it to be closer, but at four weeks out, that closer is now ‘here’ but he can’t stand it; and instead seeks the new ‘there’ of two weeks out and so on. He no longer is on The Path. In the process now the climber hasn’t gathered any psychic momentum. He instead just feels the power of that mountain winning over the ego.

Yet the irony of the Tao approach is what is missed by the ego climber and ego dieter. They miss that what they now are seeking is all around them, but they reject it simply because it ‘is’ all around them and therefore can’t be right. They miss that the ‘there’ they seek is actually ‘here’ and always has been. And they would have been able to capture it and build from it and absorb it had they only truly been witness to their own experience of it along the way. Their way. The contentment of right here, right now is the surest and most secure footing available during any climb. But these ego climbers and ego competitors can’t see it, so they can’t have it. So instead they keep seeking what is outside themselves, supplements, deprivation, and denial. Surely ‘suffering’, must make the ego more deserving they think.

Yet suffering just leads to more and more ‘wanting’ in the ego. Now the ego wants what was perceived as normal only a short time ago, before the mountain, before the contest. So because of the ego pursuit the endless circle of emptiness and striving continues. Maybe the answer is now on top of that next mountain? Yes that must be it. Maybe it was my climbing equipment? True enough. Maybe it’s that ‘new and other diet’ a harder one at that. That is the answer. It’s always ‘out there.’ And by following that logic the ego climber and ego dieter get more and more out of step, out of synch. And then every step, every workout, every meal, every day, is now an effort. It exhausts him even more physically and spiritually than before. He now longs and pines for what was normal only a short time ago. He wonders if he can ever really again know what ‘normal’ will feel like if he has it. He has lost his Way. There is no Tao when self-glorification is the means and ends of pursuit.

As I note in the preface to my new book, a quote by Paul Eldridge, “A man who has pedaled twenty-five thousand miles on a stationary bicycle has not circled the globe. He has only garnered weariness.”

All this disconnection to self, because goals are plotted and imagined as distant and external, instead of ignited within and actualized as a growing flame, where the mountain, the workout, the diet, the circumstances are all a part of the soul’s journey of travelling and arriving. It is right here, not ‘out there.’ All the while people kid themselves, telling themselves it’s all about the journey, but they don’t walk that talk.

There is no winning or losing in a Tao pursuit; there is only discovery from and within process. To the Tao climber often “those who learn to walk away, live to climb another day.” No one on a true path would endure insanity for any external reward. Those on a Tao path realize if a climb is meant to be or not. They know that sometimes what is gained is far less meaningful than what is lost. So within that mountain climb what is acknowledged is that the Tao is the spirit of the valley in the climb. It is not and never will be the acquisition of that mountain top. The valley sustains the life and the mountain and the climb. So what any person can learn climbing any mountain or at the completion of any contest prep, is that there is no meaning at the top, or upon completion; except for the meaning you gathered in getting there. If you gathered weariness and separation that is what you will inherit. Emptiness.

Enrichment and growth lie in process and The Path. To serve a purpose, a climb needs to have a purpose. That purpose is always discovery; enhanced spiritual workload capacity is the result. This is where enrichment lies. It’s not in the trophy, the placing, the pats on the back, the title, the kudos. No, instead it is that inner spark, acknowledging itself for its own sake.

No one can sustain living on a mountain summit, and no one can sustain contest form. It is not an identity. You are not a mountain climber or a bodybuilder. You are instead a person who does bodybuilding or climbs mountains. You are a person experiencing what cannot be sustained because of the human call to do so. It is a call to grow from experience. It is a call to actualize that all of it is part of you, and you are a part of all of it. You become the process. The process becomes you. Process is not something you blindly follow. It is something you deeply feel. This is the Tao approach to mountain climbing.

Why do you climb the mountain? Because it is there.

For this Blog even more than most, some of you will get, most of you will not. My hope is that more of you will open yourselves to your own experience of mountain climbing, whatever form it may take.

I welcome your comments on my forums

Exposing the Ideology of Nutritionism: A Glimpse at a Bigger Picture

Well I am not sure how to begin this month’s blog. A proper investigation of the topic at hand could take several Parts, but I will try to at least get some ideas started so that many of you can begin to at least question your questions and perhaps being a process of thinking differently. One of the more key tenets of a Tao- based understanding is that if you are not finding the right answers, then you are not asking the right questions (within yourself).

Another key aspect of modern brilliance is the non-acceptance of reductionist science as ‘truth’ in and of itself, and that wholes are always greater than the sum of their parts. The modern tendency toward ‘isms’ is categorizing many useful practices in ways that end up amounting to no more than ideologies masquerading as truth. In this sense there is no such thing as Tao-ism. It cannot be surmised in that way as a category of truth, thought, or practice. It is a much greater and more profound whole than what can be captured even in discussion. For some of the more ethereal topics in life, mere discussion or delineation is a mode of reduction that negates its own wholeness. (For example trying to explain ‘love’ without context)

To make matters worse the modern trend has been to accept as truth what is anything but. I have been speaking a lot lately about paradigm blindness and its associated ‘isms’ Of these, scientism and within that, nutritionism are two accepted ‘truths’ that are as arrogantly employed as all of their previous ancestors which over time were proven either false or at least faulty. The modern issue now is that nutrition study has turned into nutritionism, an ideology all its own, which does not stand on truth. And the same can be said of science, now becoming ‘scientism’ a false ideology that influences application, thought and practice based on little else but interpretations of questionable science of questionable scientists. These are now huge industries. Industry has a need first and foremost to perpetuate itself. Industry is selfish, not self-less and that should always be kept in mind when consuming ‘information’ or propaganda in any form from any industry. Tradition, which was faulty in and of itself, has now been replaced by scientism, which is just as faulty, when context is not considered. As an example I would like to address in greater depth the notion of ‘nutrition-ism’ in this month’s blog.

In recent years at the top of the academic chain there has been a shift away from reductionist thought and toward looking at whole patterns rather than component parts. This is decidedly Tao as well whether labelled as such or not. Science is still employed within that mode of investigation, but it more appropriately places science back as the horse before the cart within inquiry and investigation. The move is away from mechanistic reductionist approaches to more quantum understanding that focuses on relationships, contexts, flow, rhythms, connections etc. We see and know that the body is more than a machine; it is more complex than what reductionist science would have us think. And yet the beauty is that within that complexity lays the simplicity that allowed man to flourish and adapt as a species.

A study of nutrition can yield very specific answers to very specific questions, and yet at the same time alienate us further and further away from our own nature. This is what Marx referred to as ‘alienation from species being.’

It should be noted that food and nutrition are different things, yet a study of one or the other is inclusive of both. And herein lays the problem of context. Man is much more than sum of his parts. It is ironic that as science and nutritionism replaced culture and tradition in the last 30 years, man has become more and more ill and less healthy because of it, and not in spite of it. We need look no further than our own industry of health and wellness to notice the irony and the falsehood of nutritionism. A recent long term study showed that over a period of 5-7 years, the group that gained the most unwanted fat and became overweight, was the group that qualified themselves as ‘chronic dieters.’ Those who ate freely manifested less weight issues, metabolically, physically, and more importantly mentally and emotionally.

So lets’ get to it then. What is this ‘nutritionism’ that I am talking about? Nutritionism as an ideology has as its core many pernicious myths. One is that what matters most is the nutrient and not the food; another is that the purpose of eating is to promote a very narrow concept of physical health and wellness. And yet the irony of this science is that it has produced the most unhealthy and unwell consumers among its believers. Everyone following a western diet mentality now seemingly ‘eats for a purpose.’ In our industry it can be to get lean, get ripped, compete, or off-season to bulk up, to gain muscle etc just to name a few. But much is lost in this quagmire of ‘purpose.’ And the key thing lost is the connection of the dots to awareness and health. There comes to be a disassociation between mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health and wellness connected to food.

The ideology of nutritionism like most ideologies produces a duality in thought and process. Food becomes associated with good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, positive/negative, fattening/not fattening etc. And yet this duality itself produces more problems than nutrition science solves. Reductionist science can never encapsulate or address metaphysical forces so important as vitality, vitalism, wholism, and the connection of these parts to overall wellness and completeness. In original cultures across the globe there was no such thing as an unhealthy diet, until the modern western diet and western thought associated with it, replaced traditional cultural thinking. A common thread throughout my new book is to use ‘diet’ as an example and illustration of illusion. And the point I make consistently is that “it is not about the diet!”

There are hundreds of references of traditional diets that were varied by region and culture. All of them prove the context of the quantum nature of food and disprove or upset the nutritionism approach to defining ‘healthy diets.’ There have been culture diets, of high fat, low fat, no fat, high carb, low carb, low protein, plant protein, meat only, plant only, dairy free, dairy based, and the list the goes on. While nutritionism reductionist science attempts to explain these diets ingredient by ingredient it fails to explain why all of these diets had less heart disease and other modern ailments associated with them, than the modern western industrialized diet.

While everyone out there seeks a ‘diet solution’ the truth is there isn’t one, because there is no diet 'issue' to begin with. Nutritionism has created diet issues along with its many myths and fallacies that keep on alienating man from his own nature.

I can get people lean and ripped on any number of the above diet specifications; yet I consistently receive questions about my ‘diet approach’ where people want me to categorize menus according to the fallacies of nutritionism. And yet one of the most basic aspects of a Tao approach to anything is simplicity.

Is it not ironic that modern man, the so called smartest creature on earth, is the only species on earth that needs professional guidance in deciding what he should eat, and how he should eat it?

Orthorexia and Hunger

Nutritionism as dogma tries to emphasize a falsehood that there is a right food to eat, and a wrong food to eat up and down the food chain. As I said culturally this has been disproven. A low fat diet is just as viable as a high fat diet, yet both contain their opposites as well. In other words a low fat diet implies, a high carb diet, while a high fat diet implies a low carb diet and so the duality of mental turmoil continues. All of this confusion negates the fact that all through time the most motivating factor of food and culture was hunger and pursuit of more food. Man was motivated by a biological sense of hunger; he had to do something about and respond to this. This led to man being nomadic, inventive, creative and omnivorous.

This is the quintessential nature of man. Hunger is good; hunger is a cue of fat burning in most cases; hunger used to be a motivating factor to action. Hunger = motivation in the natural state of man. Indeed many dictionaries will define ‘hunger’ in metaphysical terms. (say, a craving for satisfaction or achievement) This is correct.

The biological imperative of eating based on hunger was part of a greater context. Man had to procure food, prepare food etc. Entailed within this was an understood appreciation of man as part of the food chain; not above it, but an integral part of it. As we became more alienated from this truth, the industrialization of food, and now nutritionism has perverted our sense of hunger. Now hunger is perceived as something to be avoided or unnatural or intolerable. And yet it could be argued that a constant sense of controllable hunger is a measure of health and wellness. But as nutritional expert Susan Allport put it, “hunger is now a much less agreeable condition than being overweight.” I have seen this in our industry of cosmetic fitness my whole career. As much as people ‘want’ cosmetic appearance, they cannot resign themselves to the fact that this will necessitate adapting to dealing with a sensation of persistent and consistent hunger, which is actually natural to all animal species.

My conversations with other experts in my field have yielded a frustration for many coaches and experts over people who buy into the whole nutritionism dogma that there is a diet out there that will give someone the body they desire, with no hunger or appetite for wanting more. This is of course an illusion and a falsehood.

On the other hand the consequences of believing in this dogma of duality of diet mentality is that many people will settle for metabolic issues, fatigue, ill-health etc, in exchange for cosmetic external effects. And ‘effects’ and results are not the same thing. The consequence of this mentality and obsession with dieting for results often manifests in what is known as orthorexia. I see this manifestation of ill mental health frequently in my industry.

Simple orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with eating, or with healthy eating. This is a psychological issue and represents the ramifications of modern ideology of nutritionism and diet mentality. Any obsession is not good for psychological health and worrying so much about food and eating is just not mentally healthy. And as we will see this is a cultural phenomenon, mostly related to the ideology of nutritionism.

The irony is that putting science and scientism in charge of diet protocol and ‘rules’ of healthy eating has produced the mental context of anxiety and confusion over the most basic proposition of a biological imperative which was meant to be enjoyable.

When food systems are studied in their broader context what is revealing is the mental ill-health that current vogue nutritional ideology has induced in so many consumers. What I have noticed my whole career in the cosmetic end of diet application is now backed up by research that goes beyond nutritionism to consider the broader contexts of its ramifications. Notably, there is an inverse relationship between the time people spend worrying about nutrition and their overall health and happiness. It is sad that more important criterion for happiness and wellness get squeezed out of the mental process at the expense of preoccupation with food; good/bad, right/wrong guilt/reward, fat/thin etc.

The French Paradox

By example the study of various cultural paradoxes of eating habits and food represents the limits of nutritionism and scientism toward broader understandings of ourselves and the food chain. For example, Science thought that everything was explained by examining the Eskimo diet and reducing its 'effects' to Omega 3 fatty acids and heart health. Yet this did not explain the almost total lack of anything green in their diets, and the resultant lack of various fibers and vitamins from plant life. And yet they were heart healthier than consumers of the modern accepted ‘truths’ of nutritionism. And there are hundreds of other cultural examples as well, where food staples were limited to a preponderance of specific food stuffs.

Moreover, the heart health of the Eskimo has not been duplicated in western society merely by introducing the new magic bullet of the 21rst century, the Omega 3 fish oils. So we have a modern paradox. Actually we have many that studies of nutrition, separated from the food chain cannot adequately explain.

In the 80’s there was a great deal of attention paid to the concept of the French Paradox of diet and food in modern culture. Now that attention is once again swinging back toward studying wholes and patterns and connections, the French Paradox is being revisited for clues and truths about culture, diet, and nutritional dogma. Of course we must keep in mind that the French Paradox represents the traditional aspects of eating of the French before the “Mc-Westernization” of industrial food production and consumption across the globe. The label of French Paradox was not a label the French gave themselves but rather named by American nutritionists who could not understand or explain in ‘nutrient-speak’ how a culture who enjoy their food as much as the French and merrily indulge in so many nutrients and foods deemed toxic by American standards; could also have substantially lower rates of heart disease and related illnesses.

Perhaps there is something more Tao about the ‘enjoying’ of food in the first place.

Keep in mind that the French are also known for being heavy smokers of non filtered cigarettes and we have another mystery paradox as well. A strict observation of content of French traditional diet shows a lot of trim French people eating a lot of saturated fat washed down with bottles of wine.

Researchers have tried to explain the paradox of leanness and health by, you guessed it, trying to isolate food stuffs and reduce the diet to specific ingredients to find that magic bullet for health and wellness. Nutritionism simply cannot explain the French paradox.

Yet in a broader context we see that the French traditionally eat in a much different way, and with a much different attitude toward foods then we North Americans. Some of these behaviours and attitudes are that the French seldom, if ever snack. And while they seem to eat what dogma determines to be unhealthy they also eat smaller portions and spend a significantly longer time eating as well.

In other words they dine and savour and appreciate food. The mental and emotional connections to food go far beyond nutrient components, and constituent parts and instead toward an appreciation of food as a cultural and biological indulgence of pleasure for its own sake. We see this as well in other parts of Europe and the world. There is an emotional comfort with food that is healthy. It is not reflective of disconnection but more an appreciation of abundance.

In Italy there is actually a phrase for this that basically has to do with the ‘slowing down’ of eating, and appreciating life, and food as a reflection of that. Traditional country side Italian and Mediterranean lifestyle embraces a respect for slowing down the day in order to appreciate the day, and celebrate it with food. If there is a paradox at all it may lie in the way we eat in western culture without regard to any context for food and a total disconnection of it beyond a reflection of want, desire, need, and indulgence.

In western culture the negative behaviours of eating for emotional comfort is created in fact by a culture that removes emotional comfort from the meal to begin with.

Food is more than nutrition. Nutrition is greater than the component parts of any given food stuff. This is the Tao appreciation of wholeness and abundance. It is not taken for granted but celebrated. Most traditional cultures have embraced this almost by nature. We are now so divorced from food, as food, that the western diet is now composed of ingredients and attitudes toward actual food that are counter-intuitive and emotionally fragmenting.

Paul Rozin, psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania does a lot of work in the area of ‘nutritionism’ and study. In one experiment he showed a group of North Americans a piece of chocolate cake and asked for a response. The top response was the word “guilt.” Yet when the French respondents were shown the same picture the top response from them was “celebration.” We have a lot to re-learn about our relationship to real food, culture, and our part in and of the food chain.

And as I have said before ‘unlearning’ is quickly becoming the new learning paradigm.

It would be quite easy to formulate an argument on behalf of mental nutrition, emotional nutrition, and spiritual nutrition, all from an attitude and act of food consumption. It may not only be ‘you are what you eat’ but it may be more importantly true that ‘you are HOW you eat.’

In another experiment the French were asked when they stop eating and they responded “when I am full.” Yet the American responses were more along the lines of ‘when my plate is empty’ or ‘there is no more food.’ As I have been preaching for years, western society pays much more attention to external cues than to internal ones and in the process many have even lost the capacity to determine satiation from biofeedback. Hunger becomes an opinion based on portion size and what the gut is used to rather than actual biological hunger and feedback. Combined with the disconnection and divorce of our selves from the mental, emotional, sociological, ecological, and cultural connection to real food and it is no wonder that reductionism has led to more ill-health than actual health. This includes mental and emotional as well as physical health.

We have lost our connection (Tao-truth) that food is a product of labor and our relationship to nature. Food is instead now a ‘product of industry.’ Nutritional science is as well. Yet some stark truths speak to the falsehood of nutritionism and our loss of cultural perspective.

When I was at the movies on the weekend, I took a gander at the large size popcorn bag, which by the way had free refills. Without a biological perspective and nuance toward nature it is quite easy to devour and enjoy that large size bag of popcorn. I do it myself on a regular basis. But let’s examine that from our biological connection which illustrates our own alienation from our connection to real food, and instead to industry. Imagine that same size bag of popcorn filled from bottom to top with sliced fresh apples and raw baby carrots. I am sure none of us would come even close to finishing even half that bag. Yet as consumers of the mentality of western diet, we eat ‘till the food is gone, or the bag is empty’ As a psychological image is this not an amazing testament to our own alienation?

A mere choice of real food, naturally made, would have us naturally stop eating way before overeating and way before gluttony. Gluttony is a ramification of our own alienation away from food as meals, and meals as connections; instead, to food as ‘diets’ with perceived consequences.

So the French Paradox may itself be upside down. It may in fact if anything be a North American paradox, which is represented by an unhealthy preoccupation with ‘nutrition and diet’ rather than a healthier perspective of ‘food and meals.’

The difference in the attitude toward food is the difference of one cultural group, embracing the ‘joy of living’ (joie de vivre) while the other group tries to control their ‘fear of dying.’ Indeed we do not just ‘consume’ the foods of our culture, but we ‘consume’ mentally the attitudes toward our food in culture as well. This is the unhealthy paradox of nutritionism.

Food is just one more example of the opportunity to embrace life rather than to reduce it to component parts. The latter is part of the disconnection of self-awareness I discuss in my new book; a disconnection that so many of my clients suffer. The message of nutritionism is to eat for a purpose, for good health, to get lean, to gain muscle, to look pretty or handsome; yet all of these reductionist approaches to a biological imperative have alienated people further and further away from a natural joy.

This joy is toward a Tao approach to a mentality toward food, instead of nutrition.

In fact food is but one representation that is in itself a powerful form of communion with other people, other species, nature, spirituality, recognition of abundance, appreciation of grandeur etc. (was this not the original notion of Thanksgiving?)

There is a reason food tastes good, and sex feels good. They are so because of our biological imperatives to propagate the species and survive. Hunger also arguably serves a similar purpose. Somehow these have been removed from overall context in day to day living. And that context is a connection to nature, our own, and in the general sense.

As it mutates, we seek to get back what is lost and disconnected, emotional comfort from food, intimacy in sex etc. Just like with sex, for many dieters, food is now so restricted and rules-oriented. The disconnection to it creates a sense of lust instead of love: A sort of “Food-Porn” mentality if you will toward aberrant indulgence, bingeing, sensory titillation etc.

So in the end health and wellness may be, and to my mind is for sure, not about ‘a proper diet’ but more importantly about a ‘proper mental approach to diet.’ And I don’t even like using the word diet. My new book addresses this from a mental, emotional, and spiritual context.

I get attacked often for my approach of warning that science is often dogma just dressed up nice and sexy. I believe it was Einstein who said that there is more religion in science than people know. Just a few years ago the top supplement manufacturer in our industry was sued over its fat burners and the various claims surrounding them. Seems this company threw around some big bucks for Universities to do ‘studies’ on the benefits of its product. The problem was there were numerous ‘studies’ that showed their own paid-for research yielded the product to have no effect or even a negative effect. Of course none of ‘these’ studies made it to publication.

There is a lot more going on in the research arena than you can accept as knowledge or truth. This is why I was happy to see the comment from a professional career epidemiologist Gladys Block, a professor in the School of Public Health in Berkeley. As a recognized accredited expert in this exact area, she had this to say as she nears retirement. “I don’t believe anything I read in nutritional epidemiology anymore. I’m so skeptical at this point.” I am sure that comment, while a breath of fresh air to me, probably caused her a certain amount of grief from her colleagues.

I’m reminded in any area of study of the quote on statistics which is especially relevant in these days of scientism, or the ‘appearance of science.’ People say to me all the time, “well Scott, statistics don’t lie.” But the old adage which is just as true today is that, “statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.” If you are getting all of your information from industry sources of books, magazines, and websites, then of course you are getting schooled in propaganda and ideology.

As usual, some of you will get it, many of you will not.

P.S.

This month’s blog is motivated by my e-mail Inbox. Now that contest season is on, I am receiving a disproportionate number of e-mails from people suffering metabolic damage and psychological consequences of the ‘diet mentality.’ The truth is nutritionism caters to people who grow up with ‘guilt consciousness levels.’ By adapting this diet mentality, they have another vehicle to exercise the illusory quest of ‘perfection and control’ yet they end up with neither.

This 'diet' mentality merely serves as another vehicle to measure and concentrate on guilt and reward mentality. It becomes a permutation of their whole life. It becomes a mentality that is difficult to escape. Many of you are suffering.

“It is not about the diet.”

A few have even written me, and have expressed concern that I may be disappointed in their ‘disordered eating’ and that they can not compete because diet obsessive compulsive disorder has taken them over. Since many of you who read my Blogs are not members of my Forums or my client let me make this perfectly clear.

I am way beyond the point of needing or wanting clients who ‘represent’ and especially in a contest format. I will not use clients that way, nor should clients allow themselves to be used that way.

My goal is the health and happiness of my clients first and foremost. If competing is a part of that, wonderful. But if competing is damaging to that, then my emphasis is what is best for the client’s well-being, not just present but long term!

I hope this Blog sheds some light on why so many of you struggle with a diet mentality that creates illusion, anxiety, disconnection, from rules and regulations. Often these rules and regulations, of ‘eat this, not that’ are more destructive than constructive.

The ideology of nutritionism which disconnects us from wholeness and comfort with food is certainly partially responsible for a failed mentality of good health and wellness.

To repeat, some of you will get it, many of you will not. I welcome as always your comments in my forums section.

Well I'm posting this up a few days early. This month's Blog is taking a different direction but as always the goal is to serve the greater good. So below is an article that I have written that has been sent to various sources. No one has chosen to publish it. This is disappointing to me. Yet at some degree it speaks to the reality that denial is still the order of the day in our industry. No one wants to address the negative sides of physical pursuit at the expense of wellness. But since I see it so often, I feel compelled to do so.

Below is an article I wrote that joins the parallels of extreme contest prep diets to a study done on semi-starvation way back in 1950. The similarities are spooky to say the least. I hope in good faith many of you will present this to other people, sites, Forums, or correspondance as an educational notice of potential self-destruction from adhering to absolute contest-prep approaches. Sometimes folks winning is in reality a losing proposition. I have also included references at the end for further investigation.

Metabolic Damage among Figure and Bodybuilding Competitors: an unflattering but real issue reflective in Dieting Studies

I have been in the fitness and bodybuilding industry now going on my third decade. My coaching experience extends to all levels of competition, professional and amateur alike. With the explosion in Figure Competitions there has also been an explosion in what I have termed “metabolic damage” which I have seen ruin individuals as competitors; their physiques, and their lives as well. Most of this is due to bad contest preparation advice and what I have termed “absolute deprivation diets” The dialogue on that can wait for another time and I have entertained it in Blogs and previous articles. The topic of this article is more to the point in examining all of the potential devastating ramifications of Figure Girls and bodybuilders working in absolute calories deprivation states, trying to “starve off fat” with crazy diet schemes and rigid diet rules that may lead to the winner’s podium of a contest, but with devastating long term consequences as well.

A short time ago I came across the work of Dr. Garner, whose main study of focus is in the treatment of eating disorders. In a book, Handbook for Treating Eating Disorders, (1997) Dr. Garner makes some salient compelling points and speaks some direct truths that reflect also my experience and concern with short and long term damage in the arena of the physical culture which has been my professional life for a long time now. As a matter of fact the known observations of one key relevant study so closely parallel what I have sadly witnessed in real life experience, that it necessitated me to write this. The conclusions are strong and impactful. I hope for a change they get some attention.

Dr. Garner’s key assessment in looking at the data and the people is “that prolonged and severe diet restriction can lead to serious physical and psychological implications” (1997) This statement alone reflects what I have seen in the Bodybuilding and Figure industry especially in the last few years with the explosion of Figure contests and ill advised diet strategies in the “pre-contest” period. It seems many, even so called 'experts' in this industry understand very little about the biology of weight control and regulation even though dogmatic and pseudo scientific presentation would lead intellectually naive competitors to believe otherwise.

In a land mark study more relevant today than ever, especially with the craziness I am witnessing in the Figure Competition world, Garner cites the Minnesota Experiment by Keys et all, 1950, as a powerful illustration of the effects of restrictive dieting and weight loss on behaviour and well-being.

The Keys et al study was known as the effects of “semi-starvation” of diet study. Truth be told by looking at the data, the calories restrictions and food restrictions imposed were far less limiting than what is going on in the Figure and modelling and pageant and bodybuilding world as it currently exists. This is the first point which should be made absolutely clear.

Next this study selected men as subjects. My findings and numerous others are that women suffer in greater magnitudes of the consequences that will be listed here, for varying reasons due to hormonal and other elements associated with gender distinctions. But it should also be noted that the researchers went out of their way in screening potential candidates so that those selected tested the highest in levels of physical and psychological health prior to undertaking the experiment.

This makes what transpired over the course of this “semi-starvation” experiment even more worrisome. The fact is that what I see from many competitors and former competitors in pageants or Figure or Fitness and bodybuilding, is that many that now come to me from hearing about my work with metabolic damage will never have a sane relationship with food again. The results of the Keys et al study and Dr. Garner’s conclusions as well, shed light on the effects of prolonged restrictive dieting.

Summation of the Minnesota Study

Basically the men followed a specific restricted diet of about half their usual calories for a 6 month’s period. The results you will read about were evident in as little as a 25% loss of bodyweight, far less than what most bodybuilders and Figure girls end up losing generally speaking. And as well, half the level of usual calories is also not nearly as restrictive as some of the insane diet practices adhered to currently in the world of physique competition.

The study also included a very important follow up and re-feed period. The findings here represent exactly the same scenario as exists in post contest eating behaviours in the Figure and Bodybuilding Industry. This will prove useful as well for reasons that will become apparent.
But to make a long story short and cut to the chase, as you will see, these men experienced dramatic physical and psychological and social changes, and these changes persisted well beyond the re-feed stage. This is more than just a parallel coincidence to what happens with Figure competitors and bodybuilders in post contest time frames as a result of extreme dieting. The question then is, just how dire were these repercussions?

Categories

Attitudes and Behaviours Related to Food

During the course of the study, the subject’s preoccupation with food became an obvious issue. Concentrating on things other than food became more and more difficult. For most of the subjects, food took over conversation, reading, daydreams, night dreams etc. Things like menus and cookbooks were themes of fascination and intense interest, where previously the subjects elicited no such interest in these matters. Since this study was in 1950, I’m sure with advent of cable and food networks as well as the internet, such a fascination could soon lead to obsession in quicker order. As a matter of fact I have witnessed this exact process among contest dieters previously unaffected by food, now obsessed by it. As I have said in previous articles and Blogs the problem here becomes an obsession that also leads to various compulsions as will also be addressed below.

To reiterate despite little interest in food or food preparation prior to the semi-starvation experiment, over 40% of the subjects became enthralled or obsessed with all aspects of food and preparation, not only during, but after the experiment as well. This post experiment period reflects what I have also observed in post contest eating behaviours which I will expound on further.

2) Many men began strange hoarding behaviours as well. They started collecting things they couldn’t afford with no reason why, and hoarded other meaningless items as well. This behaviour is also seen in anorexics as well as even in rats put on starvation diets. (See Crisp et al 1980, as well as Fantino and Cabanac 1980) More recently other behaviours such as outrageous spending have also been noted among severe dieters (Crisp 1980) representing the compulsive aspect of what I have observed over 25+ years in the dieting bodybuilding and Figure competitor. This represents the flip side of the obsession induced over diet control. It is also a sign to my mind of a changing psychology toward ill health, and a manifestation of a lack of control of compulsive forces induced by severe diet restriction.

3) The men also began to obsess over the actual timing and eating of the food, planning an almost ritualistic approach to meal timing. Concordant with that, the use of salt and spices skyrocketed. Just as I also see in the physique competitor arena tea and coffee consumption also blew up to obsessive dependency proportions. Men became so dependant on this version of stimulant use that the men had to be limited to 9 cups of coffee per day! I see this reflected often in Figure and bodybuilding competitors as well.

Also remember this study was 1950. In this day and age many are compounding their dependency on stimulants with abuse of various forms of ephedrine on a massive scale that I would prefer to not address beyond an acknowledgement of its specific abuse. Furthermore gum chewing also reflected a need to deflect hunger. One man was chewing up to 40 packs of gum per day. As with Figure competitors and bodybuilders as well, many go beyond gum to smoking and other negative habitual behaviours.
There seems to commence an individual need to try to trick or deflect hunger even in irrational contexts. In my industry multiple chemical solutions are also involved such as thyroid medications and other stimulants or amphetamine like substances over and above the usual choice of fat burners etc.

These 1950 reactions to the diet are beyond close coincidences to the pre-contest diet tendency of many to begin a path of destructive obsessive/compulsive tendencies in order to see a diet through to completion of “contest day” The problem for me as a coach is that there are far more destructive choices and alternatives available today vs. the 1950’s diet subjects. A quick warning is that expertise to diet instruction should always be chosen over absolute or vogue approaches.
This study also reflects that these destructive behaviours persisted even after the 12 week re-feed period.

Again, this is often where I see the most damage in post-diet Figure and Bodybuilder competitors who have reported a complete lack of control over food, post contest, and a corresponding sense of guilt and self-hate, of new and unhealthy proportions far beyond just “cheating on my diet”

Binge Eating

Many of then men in the Keys et al study could in fact tolerate the diet, but many others experienced a complete breakdown in self control. As stated above just as reflected in the modern physique competitor where body image becomes self image, the resultant binge eating behaviours led to self-hate, and self-disgust afterward. This guilt/reward duality tends to become a means of self-defining over time based solely or predominantly on resisting hunger or adhering to absolute eating regimens. As I have witnessed especially among Figure competitors this begins that path to never having a sane association with food again.

Food starts to take on immense emotional meaning beyond sustenance. The tragedy here is the tremendous emotional energy toll that this mentality takes on an individual. Many former and current Figure competitors report constant emotional and mental exhaustion that they fail to see related to their new emotional relationship to diet and food. This is one of the more worrisome psychological ramifications of metabolic damage associated with “get contest ready at all costs”

For the men in this study the binge eating started to represent a vicious circle of behaviour followed by self-hate, again reflective of what I see so often in the competitive cosmetic physique industry. Binge eating would ensue, followed by emotional upset, often accompanied by physical nausea. Then the individual would regain a sense of self-control, along with negative self-chastisement, and then resumption in the same circle of behaviour.

Many reading this will acknowledge “Oh my, that’s me!” Unfortunately many people fail to connect the dots between physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of any undertaking. Simply becoming aware of this can go a long way to help breaking the cycle of it. In other words, “how’s that workin for ya?”

Post Diet Ramifications

In the re-feed period following the diet in this study, even after 12 weeks of refeeding the men still complained of increased hunger even following a large meal. I see this as well all the time in physique competitors post contest who use a “mentality” of off-season to offset serious compulsive eating behaviours. On the physiological side of this equation, something I experienced myself in the early days of contest dieting, once a diet has run its course, the satiety or “I’m full” centre of the brain seems to malfunction in various degrees of intensity.

For instance after my first contest in 1983, where I lost 50 lbs in 10 weeks, I regained 45 lbs in 4 days, and I continued voracious eating behaviours for some time afterward. While I learned a valuable lesson, this path to metabolic damage has for others not only continued but intensified mostly because of the appeal of women’s magazines. The explosion of Figure contests often places unnatural metabolic demands on many women who take up the contest challenge, but whose physiologies are not resilient enought to endure it.

I’m not sure if this malfunctioning on the satiety centre is physiologically or psychologically based or both, but the body is almost responding as if food may never be available again, and the compulsion to eat goes beyond a mentality of fullness. This is certainly reflected by the men in this study, as well as the modern competitor world and even among pageant competitors who have written me regarding their metabolic damage and psychological eating issues; all of which seem to be induced via the competitive environment.

As an example from this study and something I experienced as well back in 1983, one volunteer ate immense meals of 5,000-6,000 cals but started “snacking” behaviours within one hour post meal. As I have also seen among male competitors and a few females, where pharmacological aids were used, one man in this 1950 study ate to the point where he needed aspiration and hospitalization for several days. I have seen this too often to count in competitors hospitalized within the week or month following the contest as a result of the systemic stress of constant eating, weight gain, osmotic rebound, and breathing issues. The body is just overwhelmed by post contest out of control eating and drinking beyond rational levels. More than one competitor has actually torn his stomach lining from sheer volume of compulsive food intake. Such is the price that many pay, reflected in the subjects of this study.

At this point in the article, and reflection on this “semi-starvation study” does any of this sound like normal or sane consequences to any athletic pursuit?

This experiment also illustrated certain patterns of binge behaviour that I also see paralleled in the modern competitor. Most of the subjects as well as post contest individuals find the weekends to be particularly problematic without that ritualistic schedule to adhere to. With fewer distractions on the weekend many could not stop eating, consuming as much as 8,000-10,000 cals and eating not just beyond fullness but to almost complete incapacitation. This is more common than many are led to believe. Unfortunately the diet industry wants to entertain only the equation of calories and grams while trying to ignore the costs to incomplete advice that should go beyond the physical.

Many are suffering in silence and self blame not realizing these attitudes and behaviours are actually diet induced. As I have always said, and the Keys et al study reflects, for every absolute calories deficit diet, there will be an equal and opposite binge. The consequences of this can be devastating long term, not just in bodyweight but in well-being both physical and emotional.

As the Keys et al study points out some men did indeed return to a normal eating regimen and psychological health, but often it was months and months after the study. The issue for me is that with “competitors” there isn’t a long enough break to regain mental health because many now associate the only way they can be “in shape” is to go back to an “on-season” deprivation diet. So they pick a show and repeat the same destructive force again, going deeper and deeper into the point of no return both metabolically and psychologically. Many Figure competitors write me in their 20’s who are constantly ill, depressed, suffering, but the only time they “look good” is when they feel worse.

This is a sign to get off that hamster wheel. To any people reading this, if this is you, then you need to make some serious accounts of yourself and why you are pursuing diet and competition. It may lead to your own ruin, not your benefit. This whole sequence leads to a Yo Yo diet scenario backed by starvation techniques, metabolic shut down, and post contest depression and eating which repeats itself over and over.
What the Keys et al study closely reflects of the new era of competition is that habitual dieting can lead to various eating disorders as well as what I refer to as “dis-ordered eating” As Garner notes, "this study should temper speculations about primary psychological disturbances as “the” cause of binge eating” (1997) (see also Polivy and Herman 1985, 1987; Wardle and Beinart 1981)

Emotional and Personality Changes

To me as a coach the most disturbing trend in the Fitness/Figure and pageant world where such insane diets are followed are the consequences of emotional and personality changes that ensue and take over and often forever change the individual. This is not to be understated and should be stressed, is the result of extreme starvation type diets so readily followed in the pageant and Figure competitor world today.

Just in my geographical area alone there are crazy no carb, 400 calories “protein day” diets, and diets where 7- 9 lbs of broccoli or green beans are eaten every day for weeks at a time. Again, these “coaches” do not seem to understand the first thing about the biology of weight control. This is most unfortunate as many trainees will adhere to whatever is put in front of them out of a strange and perverse sense of loyalty and fear.
I will say for the record it is not difficult to starve someone in to contest shape, and make up for catabolism with anabolics and other pharmaceuticals. They may win a show, but they will certainly lose long term. The old win a battle, lose the war analogy.

In the Keys et al study we must remember that the candidates for this experiment were also the most psychologically healthy and robust prospects going in to the experiment. (Garner 1997) In other words these candidates were selected as to be “better suited” than normal or average people to endure and tolerate the effects of this semi-starvation diet protocol. However, the conclusions for these psychologically healthy men were actually quite frightening. Most experienced “significant emotional deterioration” as result of the semi-starvation. (Which we must remember was far less absolute than many contest and pageant diets as they currently exist) Some suffered emotional consequences so severe that it interfered with daily functions. Just as witnessed almost en masse with the modern physique competitors, depression and mood swings were the most common observed and reported consequences of the diet as it progressed.
Even though this was 1950, it duplicates what is seen among the modern competitive dieter. For most competitors, family members report just “wanting it to be over” and also report having to walk on egg shells because of the unpredictability of their loved ones on the diet. On the flip side, my experience is that the dieters see the loved ones “just don’t understand” which is a faulty perception or rationalization at best. They do this in order to continue to see the path through to its conclusion, called “contest day” even though the destructive signs are visible on many levels, not just physical. Often these mood swings can have violent tendencies and outbursts where anything from physical displays or verbal hurtful rantings manifest from virtually minor or no provocation.

As Garner stated referring to the Keys et al study, “irritability and frequent outbursts of anger were common” (Garner 1997) Many competitors reading this will nod an embarrassing affirmative to this experience if they are being sincere and honest. The important point to make is that the men in this study just like most male and female competitors in the physique and pageant world, “had quite tolerant dispositions” prior to the experimental undertaking. Extreme diets can definitely induce unwanted personality changes for short term and long term.

Another reported change from the Keys et al 1950 study which I also witness in the competitor field is both tremendous nervousness and apathy as the diet progresses. Some participants reported extreme emotional disturbances during the course of the study; often to “psychotic proportions.” I have seen an explosion of this particular manifestation and the point in pre-contest diets where many start to self-medicate with anti-anxiety, anti-stress, anti-depressant medications and the like. The unknown truth reflected in the Keys et al study is that these emotional disturbances would more than likely be eradicated with a return to a normal and sane diet approach.

In the Keys diet study one man in response to the stress actually and consciously chopped off three fingers. This does not seem so far fetched given the new evidence of trying to medicate stress, when the causes are non-medical. We have seen this in wrestler Chris Benoit and actor Heath Ledger. The point of the Keys et al study is the reality of diet induced personality and emotional changes beyond mature tolerance. This must not be underestimated.
For the men in this study standardized testing revealed significant increases in depression, hysteria, and hypochondriases. One man with only a 10 lb weight loss experienced “gross personality disturbances” The point to be made here is that it is not a matter of extreme weight loss that precipitates these changes, but rather extreme dieting without end.

Many good relationships I have seen come to an end as a result of undertaking competition and the emotional toll of extreme diets and training regimens that take place in an absolute sense, of extreme diets and mentally exhausting training rituals. Notice I used the word “rituals” rather than protocols. Truth be told the rituals of endless cardio are a waste of time, but to the extreme dieter,that time mentally and emotionally keeps them away from free time which would be otherwise occupied with food temptations.The extra dulling activity also exhausts them further in to an emotionally apathetic state. This makes it easier to avoid acting on food compulsions at least till contest stresses are over.

Social Changes

One of the most common social ramifications of extreme dieting illustrated in the Keys et al study as well as the modern competitor environment is one of withdrawal. Many competitors make a choice to be more socially isolated and withdrawn even from loved ones, and including their own children. Because many acknowledge their new short fuse from extreme diet, they choose to remove themselves from potentially exhausting interactions. The costs to such isolation behaviour over time can lead to personal resentments and repressed hostilities among loved ones. Many competitors will escape to a world of the competitor sub culture, where interaction is seemingly stimulating rather than threatening. Pre-occupation with various media replaces family time etc.

Many also just like in the study report diminished sexual appetite. The only appetite the mind entertains after prolonged extreme dieting is an appetite and desire for food, and a pre-occupation with it as previously mentioned. This tends to over ride other instinctual impulses, which of course can have a marked effect on social and relationship health.

Cognitive and Physical Changes

One of the first and most noticeable cognitive changes as the diet study went on was obvious impairment in concentration, alertness, comprehension, and judgement. Of course this is also reflective of the competitor diets as well. The judgement impairment is particularly note worthy as it can lead to behavioural choices that affect others and lead to long term regrets.

The one contrast of these side effects of the extreme dieting is the exact opposite of what takes place in typical athletics. In real sports and competition arenas athletes become increasingly focused and alert during preparation for competition. This is an interesting point to contemplate as such cognitive skills break down in extreme diets.

As the extreme diet wore on the subjects in the Keys et al study suffered sleep disorders, dizziness, headaches, gastro-intestinal disorders and discomfort, and hypersensitivity to noise and light. They also suffered reduced strength, not just workout strength, experienced hair loss and a decreased tolerance to cold. Every single one of these symptoms I have seen reflected in competitors that have come to me exhibiting these ill effects of extreme diet while preparing for competition. As a matter of fact I have witnessed many competitors’ male and female who suffered every single one of the above mentioned debilitations all at once! This reflects a general breakdown of systemic function.

Once again it begs the comparison to traditional sport since those in the cosmetic arena of competition are supposed to be representing health and wellness and fitness, at least that was the intention of the founding fathers of this industry. The irony is that the end result is the exact opposite of represented intention. Many competitors in this industry do not realize until too late that they do not have the physiological constitution to endure contest prep in a manageable healthy way.

Traditional sport prepares athletes to be adapted and adaptable to the specifics of competition, and they become more mentally and emotionally prepared for advancing. That is an understandable aspect of athletics. What we see here, in the competition arena as reflected by the Keys et al study is a breakdown of mental and emotional capacities rather than a strengthening of them.

Metabolically the changes were clear that the subjects in the study experienced a slow down of the body’s physiological processes. There were noticeable decreases in body temperature, respiration, and BMR. I have addressed this aspect regarding metabolic damage in previous articles as well as referring to Wilson’s Low Temperature Syndrome, that so many Figure competitors go through. At the end of the Keys et al semi starvation study the men’s BMR had dropped by a whopping 40% from normal levels. The body is an incredible adaptive machine, especially when it comes to lack of energy intake.

Other recent studies have also illustrated a reduced metabolic rate even among dieters who do not have a history of dramatic weight loss. (Platte, Warner, Wade, 1996) The point to be made here is to focus that it is an aspect of “dieting,” and not weight loss that has these tremendous consequences.

One of the observations made during the re-feed process was that metabolism and BMR was sped up most efficiently by very high calories intake. Consuming large amounts of food (not binge eating) “caused” a sharp increase in energy burned through the metabolic process” (Garner 1997) Just to mention this also backs up the major contentions of my Cycle Diet (see Cycle Diet DVD 05) that relative deprivation of calories combined with well timed re-feeds of lots of calories within a short time period of hours will effect metabolism in a positive way. This is of course far different than post contest binge eating that is mentioned previously in this article.

Those that tried to raise calories only slightly in order to still adhere to a diet, did not speed up metabolism.

Conclusions

Whether you label it “semi-starvation diet” or “extreme dieting” or “absolute calories deficit dieting” or “contest dieting” or any other name, especially within the physique contest arena, the consequences to such dieting are dire and long term. Not only that, but the consequences extend well beyond the physical and metabolic. The result is not just seen in terms of bodyweight rebounds and food preoccupations but lead to all areas of psychological and social functioning as well. (see also Pirke and Ploog, 1987)

The Keys et al study illustrates how human beings whole psychological, physiological, and metabolic systems will orient toward food as a survival mechanism inherited from our ancestors, where the drive for food was indeed an element of survival. “All other systems of survival become subordinate to the primary drive toward food” (Garner 1997) The most important thing to note as a result of this study and many others that deal with regulation of body weight (not body fat) is that the “diet” was unsuccessful in overriding the body’s preference to defend a particular weight. (In this case an absolute calories deprivation diet which reflects as well in the modern physique and pageant competitor)

What this means is that although lower weights can be achieved it is unlikely to be maintained or sustained as a result of extreme diet choices. Furthermore, expert diet advice and practice, complete with an understanding of selectively timed re-feeds is the only way to establish and maintain not just weight loss but fat loss long term. Extreme diet methods still followed in the name of cosmetic contest preparedness is reflective of metabolic damage and psychological catastrophe in both the short and long consequences of extreme diet approaches.

My goal is to educate and inspire toward big “C” elements of Coaching. For many a little awareness can go a long way for rational people to cease and desist a mentality of extremes when it comes to body image and contest preparation. Such practices, whether they come with “expert” advice or not are self-defeating strategies to the physical and mental and emotional well being of the unaware practitioner who is led to believe that suffering is a part of healthy body maintenance.

As a physique transformation specialist in my third decade I can tell you whole heartedly that suffering seldom leads to fulfillment.

Metabolic Damage is a real issue for the modern competitor, in areas of cosmetic physique display like Figure, Fitness, and Bodybuilding and Pageant competitions. I went back to the Keys et al 1950 study of semi-starvation and its consequences because it eerily parallels what I see going on in the competitive side of our industry. By all means compete. But embrace the rational side of you which tells you it should lead to fulfillment and not devastation. There are experts out there who know the more intelligent, less extreme routes.

If you find reading this you exhibit some or many of these warning signs of your diet, then you should consider talking to a real expert and getting real expert advice. There is a difference between the biology of weight control and the science of fat loss. I sincerely hope many of you will read this article with an open mind and reconsider your diet protocol if any of this reflects your own experience.

But as usual, some of you will get, and many of you will not.

References
1) Abel, Scott The Science Behind the Cycle Diet (DVD 2005) Best of SWIS Symposium
2) Crisp, A.J. Anorexia Nervosa: Let me Be. London: Academic Press (1980)
3) Crisp, A.H., Hsu, L.K.G., and Harding, B. “The starving hoarder and voracious spender: Stealing in anorexia nervosa. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, (1980), 24, 225-231
4) Garner, D.M. (ed) “Psychoeducational Principles in the treatment of eating disorders” Handbook for Treatment of Eating Disorders, (1997) New York: Guilford Press
5) Fantino, M., and Cabanac, M. “Body weight regulation with proportional hoarding response in the rat” Physiology and Behaviour, (1980) 24, 939-942
6) Keys, A., Brozek, J., Henschel, A., Mickleson, O., and Taylor, H.L. The biology of human starvation (2 vols) (1950) Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press
7) Pirke, K.M., and Ploog, D. “Biology of human starvation” in Beaumont et als, eds. Handbook of eating disorders: Part 1: Anorexia and bulimia nervosa, (1987), pp 79-102.
8) Platte, P., Wurmser, H., Wade, S.E., Mercheril, A., and Pirke, K.M., “Resting metabolic rate and diet- induced thermogenesis in restrained and unrestrained eaters” International Journal of Eating Disorders, (1996), 20, 33-41.
9) Polivy, J., and Herman, C.P., “Dieting and bingeing: A causal analysis” American Psychologist, (1985), 40, 193-201.
10) Polivy, J., and Herman, C.P., “Diagnosis and treatment of normal eating” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, (1987), 55, 635-644.
11) Stunkard, A.J., and Wadden, T.A., eds, Obesity: Theory and therapy, 2nd edition, 1993, New York: Raven Press
12) Wardle, J., and Beinart, H. “Binge Eating: A theoretical review” British Journal of Clinical Psychology, (1981), 19-20, 97-109.

The Tao Athlete


I’ve taken some time out from writing my new book to address this months Blog topic about the Tao athlete and the Tao in general. To give some background I will use myself as an example. I realized very early on in my bodybuilding pursuits that I was somehow different in the way I looked at bodybuilding than almost anyone I had come in contact with at that young age. For years I could never put my finger on it but I just knew that when I interacted with other bodybuilders, I just didn’t pursue bodybuilding in the same way or for the same reasons as my fellow competitors. That realization would follow me my whole career. It wasn’t until the last few years that I even became acquainted with the concept of the Tao athlete; and of course the Tao itself.

At one of my very first seminars I answered a question that would be most revealing over the next 20+ years. I was still in my 20’s and I was asked about motivation for a contest. I really had no prepared answer because I had been an athlete, even mentally my whole life, so the idea of being unmotivated or not motivated never actually occurred to me till that very moment. But my answer had some people shaking their heads. I said what motivates me is that my body is the house where my true self will reside for the rest of my life. Like any house, the more I like the surroundings and lack of clutter and the more clean and organized that environment, than the more likely I am to think more clearly and “be” a better me. That was my answer even way back then about motivation.

And the thing was, it was the truth.

Early on that is exactly how I felt about my training and workouts. Even then I had connected my spirit self with my athlete self. The Tao nature of that would become obvious over time. I was never comfortable identifying myself as a bodybuilder. My whole career, instead I saw myself as an athlete, who did bodybuilding. It was a difference that still exists today.

The Tao and the Tao nature is about the path, the fulfillment or filling you up from being on the path. It’s about YOUR path. It is unique. The Tao is about balance. It is beautiful in its context that it can be about pure devotion and commitment but at the same time not be about obsessive compulsive preoccupation with outcomes, or results or externals that take us off its path and away from balance. It is said even to discuss the Tao is to lose it. It’s kind of like trying to hold on to running water. It is a natural truth that you know only when you know it. Seek it and it cannot be found, live it, and you become just like that flowing water. There is no need to hold what you are part of, and what is part of you.

This is Tao, and at the same time, not Tao.

For the Tao person of focus it means you are always in and of the moment. The past and future do not exist in that they cannot be part of this moment, and this moment does not have externals, only your voice of your path within it. This is also Tao. To try to express it, or capture it, is to negate it. But for the Tao athlete or person it is the most powerful force to achievement, and the easiest path to get there. Many, like my former self are on a Tao reality path without even knowing it by that name. They simply live as examples of expression.

The Tao is beauty without a judgement of beauty. It is your SELF recognized from the level of self. Maybe in a great many ways, to understand Tao would be to illustrate what it is not.

For my personal history, competing never had me feeling quite right or comfortable. Competition for me, at least in bodybuilding took me away from why I did it to begin with. I lost myself rather than found myself in competing. I think many people also have a similar experience. For me, it wasn’t about beating someone else. To my mind, how was that even possible in a bodybuilding contest? I used to think, will winning this show really measure who worked the hardest, who overcame their genetics by the widest margins, who showed the most honest commitment? None of these could possibly be accurately rewarded within the context of a contest. Competing quickly lost its appeal for me, on a personal level. But the artistic side of me loved the entertaining of the crowd in the posing routine. The artistic side of me purely appreciated a fine sculpted physique, in art or on a bodybuilding stage. So the question for me was one of what is gained, and what is lost by competing. As an athlete my whole life I understood and appreciated competition as well. I loved competition, or loved witnessing it; especially in its also artistic dimension of the human spirit.

But the Tao also dictates that you lose by gaining and you gain by losing. This was also my experience. My early contest successes and lessons were starting to get me to focus on other things like contests, numbers in the gym and on the weight scale. I gained in terms of recognition, status, victories etc, but also I lost my inner compass and inner reason for the initial pursuit. I was lucky enough to make that note early on and go back to pursuing it for my own personal growth. I realized what I had forgotten. This activity for me was supposed to be a path to fulfillment, not a path to grow and enhance a sense of lack or need or negative emotions.

I re-discovered my inner compass. By not competing any more I gained. Not only did I get back passion and purpose, but I ended up more successful in the process than almost any other bodybuilder I know of in Canada. And of course one’s definition of success varies.

So here is the thing. Is your undertaking, no matter what it is, truly a vehicle for growth in your life or is it mirroring your attitudes and behaviours in other areas of your life? Are you pursuing it from a sense of lack, as in not good enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, not popular enough, not enough enough, or whatever?

Is it fun and exhilarating or is that part of why you do it now just a distant memory? Are you concerned more with accumulating results, accumulating recognition, accumulating placings, accumulating trophies, accumulating “stuff” as the main reason why you do what you do? Are you compulsively driven to workout, to lose weight, to compare to someone else? Are you always measuring yourself by externals like the weight scale, the tape measurement, the weight on the bar, the number of workouts, the number of calories etc? These are informational tools only. They do not measure anything of self-worth. To be so attached to outcomes and results it to lose by gaining no matter what external success you may acquire. This is counter to your Tao nature. How many times have I discussed Figure competitors who have lost from gain? They have won contests only to permanently damage their metabolisms and lose self-respect and self-esteem long term, and thereby create a never ending struggle to gain it back.

The Tao athlete has a mature orientation to knowing and trusting the inner compass. To be externally focused is to lose that compass entirely. The goal should always be toward self-discovery and self-direction; the mental and emotional gains from this lead to physical achievement. To be attached to externals is to start to lose oneself. To understand the strength of Tao is to know that many people out there struggling to lose weight and struggling against the scale do not see what is most obvious. The Tao centre is the answer to that question. It is not “what you are eating, but what’s eating you” that is holding you back from achievement. Because achievement comes from fulfilment; fulfilment comes from process. If you do not enjoy and are not challenged by process, then you will not find what you seek; and what you seek is more than likely not on the path you are currently following.

To recognize imbalance is to find a way back to the Tao centre. The Tao centre is the trunk of the tree and the roots as well. It is the base, the strength, the power, the centre from which all else branches out. This is also the Tao.

So back to what is not Tao. The question begs at what price do the numbers in your training log or competition history come? Is balance represented? Are you firmly rooted by this pursuit? Is chasing numbers on a scale or on a barbell or in a training log or in a contest placing enhancing your being? Do you know on a gut level the feeling and knowing of enjoyment, enthusiasm, and essence from the experience of your current path? To answer no, is to answer absence. To answer no is to answer emptiness. There can be no fulfillment from empty.

I can tell you from going on 30 years in this game, its extreme demands and extreme pursuits are guaranteeing more imbalance than balance, and more people lost from their path than on it. If you pursue results at the expense of balance what you will experience is the results of imbalance which are usually some form of pain and suffering either physical or existential.

When balance is skewed toward the extreme the irony is that most people experience neither results nor achievement.

This attachment to outcomes is producing an epidemic of mediocrity in performance and overall burnout from activity. To be unaware of the brilliance to even to be able to do what you do; to be unable to appreciate the efforts regardless of the results is to empty your Source of experience. I will address that source in a minute.

When I was early on, before the placings and awards, when I was truly in touch with a deeper purpose it all came so easily. I remember in University the gym would always be empty at exam time. Everyone would be pulling all nighters, no one working out. Because of my centeredness, which I didn’t realize at the time, I was the opposite. I was studying less and working out longer during those times. Why? Because it invigorated me. It cleared my mind. It restored my Source Energy.

The “how” in my process I have realized has been my secret weapon all these years. I have managed to never veer very far away from my roots and my trunk. When I did, that is when I lost the most and experienced the most anguish. That is when I lost by what I gained. That is when I felt a drain on my Source energy.

In the Chinese tradition there are three energies of the path. The first you have all probably heard about. It is Chi. The Chi energy is your daily energy. This is both and always physical and spiritual. It can fluctuate and it includes the importance of what I always discuss, biofeedback. This is why rest and recuperation are so important to the true SELF; because rest and recuperation also represents rest and recuperation of your spiritual daily self as well. Without this rest one is more likely to burn out than to wear out. And if the whole time you are resting you are obsessing about what’s next, then you are not recharging.

Your Shen energy path is the energy you radiate out each day. It is a vibe if you will that you put out into the world. It is what the world experiences from what you radiate. Your Shen energy is real, cannot be faked. It is not the vibe you want people to perceive, but is the actual real vibe you put out. Someone with a lot of Chi energy will also radiate a lot of Shen as well.

Your Jing energy is your life’s spiritual battery. It is your stored energy that you are born with, and it is fixed at birth. We steadily deplete our Jing energy throughout our lives. Hating yourself, your body, your workouts, your job, your surroundings etc, will deplete your Jing; and this will deplete all sources because your Jing energy feeds your Shen and your Chi. Negative emotional attachments and emotions also most intensely deplete Jing and age us.

This is why so many Figure competitors struggle so much in my opinion. Instead of enhancing their energy Source, they drain it by measuring against external standards they cannot possible maintain.

Not to get off track but as poet DH Lawrence said “the cruellest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.” And now in our world, man no longer has to do so, as the media and culture and women do it to themselves at a huge expense.

From my new book is the next point. Depression, anxiety, shame, guilt, anger, envy and jealousy are often rooted in low self-opinion. Although this is an emotional context, it reflects mentality. It is so very important to not assume you are only as worthwhile as your achievements, love life, social status, attractiveness, wallet size, fat percentage or whatever. Many of these externals are temporary at best.

They are only reflections of oneself, not the ‘root’ of oneself. When you measure your worth on the basis of one or more external factors, you are likely to go up and down like a Yo Yo in both mood and self-conception. Life is always changeable. Higher levels of awareness neither force nor resist change. To be rooted is to be grounded, to be grounded is to have the strong trunk base of energy. Self-assessment needs to replace self-judgement. The most important thing someone can do to this end is to remove self-rating from self-acceptance. Again, you will not be happy “when you lose all this weight” but finding happiness will make weight loss easier. Its not your diet that is weighing you down, it’s your thoughts that are weighing you down.

Trying to “control all variables” is an exercise in folly that only produces and induces stress. Look to external variables in a way that allows you to “keep them alive” rather than being slaves to measurements that then induces judgement. This is to lose “the way” The Tao. The Tao athlete truly understands energy levels connected through the self are reflected in and through the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual self. It truly is a mind over matter attitude toward looking inward, and using external variables, not judging oneself within them for good or bad.

Sport or any activity of pursuit should always be a vehicle to enhance and fulfill oneself. What the Tao student knows is that a passion for learning is greater than a desire to get good grades. The former nurtures energy and strengthens, that latter reduces by an attachment to externals that produce stress, anguish, worry and other energy draining emotions.

So the question is whatever you are pursuing “do you attach self-esteem to the pursuit?” If so you will not find what you seek, because what you seek is not “out there” at the end of the path, in say a contest. What you seek is actually already “in here” and is a part of being on the path, experiencing it and knowing it. This is why the Tao cannot be adequately discussed and explained.

When we allow our obsession to take the fun out of pursuit, we diminish not only who we are, but our Source energy as well. You should follow any path because of what it gives to you, because you love it, not because you seek something from it. This is me. I always always always loved to workout more than anything. And I was always connected to myself from it. In that sense while others were suffering from their pursuit I was growing at an exponential rate as a person. I was, through this pursuit more complete because I used it to connect the dots of mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical self-awareness. It strengthened me beyond measure, because I didn’t measure. I knew then and now know intuitively that it is not about the diet and not about the workout.

The Tao athlete preserves that “kid in a candy store” type of attitude and challenge. It is not something measured and judged but is instead something that is experienced and assessed, but not just in physical terms. Pursuit of any kind should always represent "fun and games" in the mental sense. How many of you have approached your diets that way in any stretch of the phrase? I remember early in my career when I thought I was really hungry on the diet, I would cut cals even more, so mentally I would say, “now I know what real hunger is” then when I went back to the calories I thought was making me hungry, I would just mentally laugh at it. I intuitively kept it alive, kept it a challenge, kept it ‘fun and games’ but made it a difficult challenge as well. At the time it may not have been the most scientific approach, but on the other hand, I was never one of those competitors “just wishing it was all over” Ask yourself, what kind of experience are you truly going to have if your mental state is just wanting to get it over with?

All worthy pursuits will still boil down to very hard work, incredible discipline and commitment, and scientifically applied expertise or approaches. But the attitude of “experiencing” and the knowledge to always “be present” is to know the Tao of pursuit. It is to know real accomplishment. The Tao is the constant communication of the little self with the Source SELF. The mental state is one of anticipation and excitement even in the face of fatigue. So the question begs, “Are you as strong in your head as you are in your body?” If doubt, worry, guilt, factor in to your active mind, they you are not on the path of right for you.

Where doubt exists possibilities will not.

Champions at life do not know the word “try” They only know I WILL and I AM. This is the nature of the Tao process. That does not mean there will not be set backs. It does mean we are only responsible for efforts. Following a path just to “be” a better athlete will lead to results.

One of the reasons competing ended up not being for me was because I wasn’t trying to be better than the next guy. I was only trying to be better than I was before. Eventually I realized I did not need a stage to assess myself against that. And I certainly didn;t need the opinions of seven others to validate it either. Once I accepted that challenge I made incredible gains.

A workout was never about how much I could lift, or how perfect I could eventually look.

The Tao athlete sees and knows all of that 'process' as a way to better understanding oneself. The results are not something to record in a log book as a numbers game of a job well done. The results are instead a part of who you are. Always striving to train to one’s limits, or burnout a training partner, or trying to find meaning through the external attachments to workouts and diets only leads over time to utter contempt replacing childhood fascination. You begin to hate what you once loved and strived after.

If this sounds familiar,you need to go back to just a concept and attitude of “allowing.” Allow the workouts to happen. Remind yourself of the greater purpose, not the smaller one. Focusing constantly on externals like weights lifted, calories expended, and whatever else, will reduce your efforts to “have to, must, and should” these will sap your energy sources. Yes, devotion to these factors is always important; but emotional attachment to them is immature. A workout is not something to conquer and vanquish, a diet is not something to endure and survive.

I had my first sense of Tao awareness a many years ago. I used to see video tapes of rock and roll bands where the musicians would smash their guitars into pieces. That never made sense to me. To me, the musical instrument was a part of who they are. In my mind it would be like me setting my arm or leg on fire. It made no sense. Later I was pleased to know that many other musicians felt the same and treated their instruments as true extensions of themselves as artists. This is to know the Tao.

I see the same in things like award ceremonies like the Academy Awards and the Grammy’s etc. No artist begins a creative act seeking an award at the end. No one reads a script and thinks, “This will earn me an academy award” No. Instead, as artists they take on roles or create music that resonates within them. This is also to know Tao nature. The externals are nice but not sought after.

I think the same can be true for physical training toward cosmetic enhancement. Finding the right activity or path for yourself is key.The journey is the destination. Competing then can be an external extension of that pursuit but only if someone approaches it as vehicle to self-improvement or self-knowledge. In that sense, success is always bigger than winning.Experience will always reveal essence.

This is the Tao athlete.

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.

The Carrot, Egg and Coffee Parable

Since last weekend’s workshop I have been literally deluged with e-mail from both attendees and non-attendees asking me to expand on the Metaphysical segment of my presentation on the Friday night lecture portion of the workshop. As it turns out, people are far more interested in the metaphysical side of M.E.T. than the physical.

It seems to have a struck a common nerve and makes this month’s Blog a no brainer. Now I can’t possibly duplicate what I do in person, but the fact it was not only well received but “life changing” as many put it, illustrates that people are finally starting to get it, that industry indoctrination to dogma, and an inherent clinging to information at the expense of true purpose, is a hollow empty pursuit in both the short term and long term.

I would like to also address the Tao nature of athletic pursuit, as the movement is really catching fire. The Tao, stands for the T, in M.E.T. but I will have to address this in next month’s Blog. There is only so much that can be covered and still have it sink in to levels deeper than note taking and rote learning.

Suffice it to say here that the M in MET, stands of many key words to illustrate the metaphysics of athletic pursuit or any other pursuit in any realm. The E in MET likewise represents other key words of focus beyond that of gathering information and implementing rigid principles.

And the T in MET is far beyond the physical and represents not only the Tao athlete, but much much more. Transcendence should be a key part of any pursuit worth undertaking, and if pursuing a goal does not translate in to truth, self-knowledge and personal growth, then perhaps the person needs to re-address the “why’s” of their undertaking and not so much the “how’s”

If you were to be stranded on a dessert island the rest of your life with all the comforts of home, but never to interact with anyone ever again, would you still pursue the same endeavours, and if so would you still do them with the same goal or purpose as before? With no one to measure against or judge you, and no societal norms to abide in, or adhere to, or be compared against, what meaning would you attach to said pursuits? This is reflective of the Tao nature of any pursuit from golf to bodybuilding to tri-athlons, and even to roller skating should that be your chosen pursuit to reflect your purpose or your spiritual guide.

The fact is that inside of each of us is a powerful force to guide and direct us toward happiness and fulfillment. We seem to have lost contact with that force.

As mentioned in an e-mail to me this morning, this “force” if you will has been represented symbolically in Star Wars, via a light sabre. (or life saver) Hence, “let the force be with you” This is not nearly as hackneyed as people may think, but instead something worthy of deeper contemplation. We all have a spiritual compass, unique to ourselves, our life, and our spiritual energy.

However because of the nature of society and the all encompassing force of ego consciousness, we live only in the information world.

I’m here to tell you the secret does not lie in pre and post workout nutrition or a low carb vs. low fat approach. Staying within this information based dogma is self-limiting not self-fulfilling. If it was self-fulfilling than no one would be struggling to hold on to physical achievements, to have them for a moment and then to watch them slip away, only to have to start at the beginning again, concentrating on information, like sets, reps, calories, grams, in a never ending repetition of behaviour with no purpose; in essence execution without meaning.

Yet instead of grasping the fruitless nature of “information” based dogma, we end up repeating the same, thinking that it’s a matter of “different calories” different diets, different workouts; yes that’s where the secret lies.

And all the magazines and websites and supplement companies that need to perpetuate themselves will keep presenting you with more and more complicated information and dogma, blinding you to the reality that “truth” is beyond information.

I will get to that.

First most of what is missed is because people have a counter intuitive relationship with themselves. What should be an opportunity for growth and an open mind is in actuality perceived as threatening because of the old success/failure duality. But as Marianne Williamson said, “our biggest fear is not that we are incapable, our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagination” For most people stuck in the information based dogmatic approach to achievement, such a statement makes little sense or seems confusing.

Not so if you live from a spiritual base.

As the French philosopher once remarked, “the only real voyage of discovery exists NOT in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes” When someone “sees” from a non physical, meaning non ego based, non position based place of strength, one sees only possibilities and not limitations. People need to go beyond information in order to stop limited thinking, and thinking in limitations, such as “this diet” or “that workout”

It was a surprise to me that prior to my workshop many were writing expressing real stress over whether they would be out of their league there, and if they should attend at all, thinking surely in limitations of form. I’m sure many avoided the workshop for similar reasons. But seeing adversity and choosing resistance or avoidance of it is counter intuitive and only leads to stagnation in the non physical inner world of truth and importance. To that end I present the old parable on the Carrot, The Egg, and Coffee.

The Carrot, the Egg, and Coffee

The carrot, the egg and coffee grounds were to face adversity in the form of boiling water for a specified time period. The carrot before facing the adversity of the water, was strong, vibrant, and colourful. That was its basic nature. After facing and trying to resist the adversity of the boiling water the carrot came out, dull, soft, limp. Its basic nature had been changed, but the adversity of the water remained undaunted and clearly the victor.

The egg before being beset with the adversity of the boiling water seemed symmetrical, whole, and complete in its hard shell protecting its inner liquid nature, its real self. Upon facing the adversity of the water the egg also tried to resist. The boiling water was unrelenting. The adversity was too much. The symmetry of the outer shell was now easily cracked, easily broken. What it attempted to protect had become hard, different, no longer fluid and liquid. Its basic nature had been altered by adversity.

Yet the boiling water remained undaunted, still the adversary, still the victor, still unchanged.

The coffee went in to the boiling water but something was now different. Instead of attempting to resist or avoid the water, the coffee embraced it. By embracing the water and its adversity something interesting happened. The nature of the coffee indeed changed. But it was enhanced. The coffee by embracing the adversity became something greater than it was, and for the first time, it was the boiling water that changed from being embraced rather than resisted.

The adversity of the water became part of the new form of what coffee, had “transformed” into. The coffee, unlike the carrot or the egg, embraced the adversity and by so doing, altered the adversity itself, to a more complete version of itself.

The coffee was improved by not only facing the adversity of the water, but by embracing it!

There are so many life lessons to this parable. I should think most are obvious.

Often I get many people who want to start training with me who begin with “limitations” They complain of bad knees, or a bad back or shoulder etc. When I ask them what they do for these ailments, the automatic reply is “I avoid this exercise, that exercise, etc” My immediate response of such counter intuitive logic is “how is that mentality working for ya?” In other words, does it make the affected area stronger? No. Does it make it less susceptible? No. Fact is by avoiding or resisting adversity for challenged muscles, they stay weak, they stay limited, and someone has an enduring excuse for limited thinking, failure, and rationalization.

The only real way to prepare for adversity is to experience it!!!!!!!!
However how we experience it is beyond the informational, beyond the physical. If you resist or avoid adversity you are either forever changed by it, your nature is altered negatively because it enhances fear, or you remain weak from its avoidance, also reflective of a fear mentality.

Let me save you all the suspense. There will be adversity in your life in many forms.

Resistance and avoidance are counter intuitive. They are not options. Instead let’s define fear differently. Often just having a means to identification can be powerful. Replace the word fear with the acronym of F.E.A.R. From now on Face Everything And Respond !!!

After presenting the metaphysical part of my lecture at the workshop, I still remembered all the people that expressed some intimidation and trepidation for the actual workshop. I created right there a “coffee” like attitude. I instructed everyone from that point on, no one gets left behind. The goal of the workshop would be the metaphysical approach of T.E.A.M. I run my business the same way. Enough of this macho crap of the old Musclecamps of the 20 inch arms over here, and the 400 bench press peeps over here. That is limited thinking and thinking in limitations.

No more!

Our motto for the workshop was T.E.A.M. (Together Everyone Achieves More) Now that is just an expression. Just like the parable above it could be resisted, avoided or embraced. Everyone got it. Everyone embraced the T.E.A.M. spirit.

The result was something to behold. There were no wall flowers. People would see an exercise demonstrated and ooh and ahh at its difficulty, but seconds later they were doing it. There was no “trying with doubt attached” There was only ‘executing excellence” toward it. (The E aspect of MET) That is not to say all movements were mastered. But they were embraced and from that point approached by a sense of challenge and invigoration rather than intimidation and fear.

If you’ve read the thread on the workshop then you can feel right beyond the posts, that T.E.A.M. was victorious.

Now here is the thing. The T in M.E.T, also represents transformation and transcendence beyond the “Metabolic Enhancement Training” to subjective meaning of experience. The problem with living in the ego centred world is that we are always occupied only with ‘form” as in the roles we play, how we measure up, how we achieve, what we have etc. If we look at it more closely the ego world is the world of “form” By living in that world all the time we only have access to “in-form-ation” That is quite limiting.

The solutions to all predicaments come to be seen as “in-form-ational” and physical.

Can’t sleep? Medicate. Feel anxious? Medicate. Not feeling joy? Medicate. Well with the death of actor Heath Ledger and the wrestler Chris Benoit before him, we can witness that a physical solution to non physical issues is a losing battle. Medicating adversity is avoiding and resisting it on a different plane than its existence. How is that looking to ya?

Most in our industry of competition and cosmetic enhancement forgot why they began this process to begin with. They are now forever wrapped up in the unrewarding unfulfilling world of form, where how much they lift, how many calories they eat, and their pant size are now the precipitating factors and ends. The joy is lost.

Listen, we don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing!

The surest way to make anything old is to start measuring yourself against it all the time.

We need to get beyond the world of “form” Follow me here. If we can “trans-form” to measuring against activities, then we can transcend to measuring ourselves instead against qualities of character. When we “trans-form” from the physical world and find our spiritual compass, then we can access what is beyond “in-form-ation” now we can access our spiritual nature. When we do that now we can access “in-spir-ation. I am telling you spiritual force is stronger than any other “form collecting” you can do.

Scott how do you stay on your diet?

I don’t count calories and I don’t; count grams. I stopped doing that ages ago, as a process of limited thinking and thinking in limitations and form. I stick to my diet by “executing excellence everyday” I don’t judge myself against a calorie to be measured.

That does not measure me, it limits me.

Instead I measure myself against excellence. I would not miss a workout, or cheat on my diet because commitment and discipline are qualities of character of spirit, like devotion, integrity, self-honesty etc. By measuring myself against that, the little things like following through with excellence of execution and expecting more (all elements of the E, in M.E.T) are easy by comparison. Diets are not hard, our mental and emotional attachments to them just block clarity of purpose.

Think of the spiritual self as the trunk of a large tree complete with vast route systems, and such a steady base upon which to stand.

This spiritual base which we all have as a birth right is unique to each of us. It is “the way” (the Tao) by which we connect the dots of physical, emotional, and mental being.

Everything else is just ‘branches to existence”

The problem is most of us have this upside down. Stop seeking. Like I said at the workshop, if you seek a helping hand you can find two, one at the end of each of your arms.

The fact is Big “C” coaching is beyond fancy information. Big “C” coaches are more like conductors of a symphony, aiming to create harmony between the physical and the metaphysical. Stop being impressed by insignificant information that has no bearing on your “experience” of phenomenon. Instead of accessing “in-form-ation” start accessing your own “in-spir-ation” which is infinitely stronger. I promise you the meaning of everything from that point on is substantive, not formative.

As one of my articles in the workshop workbook states, I can impress you all day long with my knowing of the chemical constituents of chocolate. Does that in any way at all, lead to an experience of its taste?

As usual some of you will get, many of you will not.

If you do in fact get it, then I leave you this, “May the force be with you”

My next book is all about this aspect of Big C coaching in the real world. If you like this Blog, then you will want to get the book. If you find this stuff represents “gibberish and non sense” then you will be well to stick to books of measurement and pseudo science.

New Year’s “Evolutions”: Negative Diet Strategies Reflective of Self-Image Issues

New Year’s seems to always be a time of reflection for many people. For many of my clients, looking forward to the New Year seems to bring out both anticipation but fear and trepidation as well. Whether or not some folks were just checking in after the holidays, or others were spelling out their New Year’s goals, some venting of their feelings usually ends up in my Inbox around every New Year’s.

This year, I had over 16 e-mails that were reflective of the 2 below. My on-going fight against Metabolic Damage remains as steadfast as ever, but one thing about coaching that few others seem to get is that the process of “doing right” is as much from the neck up as it is from the neck down. To this day many of my counterparts are ignoring the fact that Big “C” coaching needs to address not just the physical, but mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of pursuit as well.

The two e-mails below are not about picking on anyone or being critical or anything like that. These e-mails and many just like them reflect the self-induced and unnecessary anguish that many associate with goal directed behaviour. This Blog is an attempt to address the common thinking strategy mistakes that I see repeating themselves over and over again, even among the same people. If you are beginning each year with pretty much the same diet or physique goals, and the same self-image issues, then your physical process is not the issue. The issue is one of thinking strategy, which I have stated on many occasions, are often “stinking tragedies”

These are real e-mails. I make them anonymous because they represent a common theme I see all too often throughout the year. And the point is, without addressing these thinking strategies on a deeper level, no matter what is accomplished, it will not be maintained. The proof of that is that both of these e-mails are from people that have dieted for competition before. (But neither one with me, they came to me some time after)

So the question begs, “What is gained, and what is lost” if after a time all thoughts go back to negative self-image issues, and the circle begins again. So first, read the two segments of e-mails below. Many of you out there will relate to them in many details. Again, the point is not to punish or condemn but to learn and grow. These are my clients and I care about them and their well-being, so let’s not forget that as I delve in to the problems of negative emotional thought process associated with diet strategy that continues to miss the bigger picture.

E-mail Number 1

“You were right about the ebb and flow of the training spark. But for me it seems to be more with the diet. It is still going well. I still feel hungry sometimes. I've been a bit constipated the last week as well, but not really sure why. So that has made me feel a bit bloated and uncomfortable. So that has caused a few "fat day" feelings. It's hard sometimes because I just feel like I wish I was "normal" and that I didn't have to put so much effort in to the diet part. It's not that I want to eat junk food or anything like that. Some days it would just be nice to not have to think about it so much. It seems like it's always on my mind.

I'm a bit stressed because I really need to go dress shopping, but I'm afraid it will end up with me crying and depressed because I don't like the way I look in anything. The thing is, I was engaged once before, and found a dress that I looked great in, but I was also about 20-25lbs lighter then. So I find myself comparing me to how I was then. I know I shouldn't, and I hate that I do it. I just really want to lose some bodyfat before I walk down the aisle.

Some days I wish I never would have competed at all. I wasn't happy being fat before, but I was more oblivious to it. I had never been
skinny, so I didn't know any different. Now, I seem to constantly be striving for some mental image of perfection I have of how I want to
look. And since I was there before, it seems like I'm failing because I can't get back there again and I'm so desperate to lose the weight. I
just don't want to be fat anymore. I know it will take time, and that the inner stuff needs to be fixed first. I hate that it seems to
control me so much. A missed workout or eating something other than what is on my plan (even if it's still healthy) makes me feel so guiltyit's ridiculous. Some days, I just expect too much from myself. I feel like any reason I have to not train is just an excuse, even if I
am sick or run down. I really need to find a balance and realize that life will happen no matter what, and that one missed workout or a
slight deviation in my diet once in awhile isn't going to destroy my efforts. I am doing better most days with it all. I've just been
feeling gross the last few days so it all surfaces again.

E-mail #2

I realize how lucky I am to be here and how much energy I waste on always concerning myself with what I am eating and doing. I want to live a healthy and happy life not always worried about when and what I have to eat. I want to make healthy choices without obsessing about it. I want to eat good without weighing and measuring everything I put in my mouth.... I haven't been faithful to my diet or training in the last week and a half. I haven't overeaten just not eaten what I should be eating and not often enough. And as a result I have gotten terribly sick the last 3 days with a very bad cold/flu. I feel much better today but yesterday was the worst with a fever and the chills. I very rarely get sick and when I do it's always when I haven't been eating well.

If you look at both of these e-mails one thing stands out and that is use of the words “want’ and “don’t want” as well as so many emotional ties to that “state of being” all of which I highlighted for effect. And that state of being is entirely due to being in a constant state of “wanting this” or it’s seeming opposite of “not wanting that” Notice that the level of self-judgement and self recrimination remains as a constant. There are also elements of resentment within both e-mails.

Now if we go back and understand the content of the e-mails within its broader context we can see that diet strategy is also a reflection of a life strategy in general. In other words, how we pursue and perceive things, no matter how trivial or important they may seem, is a real reflection of over all world view or approach if you will. So there are tremendous life lessons present here, that even though reflected in diet strategy represent ways of thinking that are impactful in tremendous ways to the experience of living.

If someone approaches any task or goal with an element of emotional resentment, at any level, then even if the goal is achieved, it is so emotionally exhausting it is unlikely to be maintained for long. I see this all the time with attitudes of ‘I hate cardio” vs. “I love training.” In other words you create your world of experience with what you choose to focus on. Focus on wants, frustration, guilt, shame, and you will surely experience more of them regardless of goal attainment. How do I know? How many have competed only to never hold on to what they “strived” so hard to achieve. When “want” is your bottom line attitude, then it will keep presenting itself.

Many have competed “wanting” that physique, they can’t possibly maintain. And what happens once they attain it. Usually that “want” is just replaced by another want. Many want that contest look till they have it, and once attained a set of “new wants” appears does it not?

All of a sudden the attained physique is not nearly as important as “now I want to eat normal food” “I want to be able to go out and have a few drinks with my friends, and not be so worried about my physique" “I don’t want to be a slave to my training any more” So what happens then? These people with the “wanting mentality” then go out and pursue these new wants till they lose entirely their physiques they previously “wanted” for so long. And then the process of “want” continues all over again. This is hardly a winning thought strategy.

People need to change if necessary their thoughts, actions, and behaviours to build a life that suits them, not a life burdened by endless “wants” and pursuing accomplishments as end results with no long term meaning.
If people are going to develop effective life strategies, even in something as seemingly simple as diet psychology then lessons must be learned or the process just keeps repeating itself.

The sad thing about history, personal or otherwise is that people seldom seem to learn from it.

Elements of emotional context like blame, excuses, rigidity of thinking and judgementalism are self-weakening positions. People need to learn to observe without judging, explore without attachment of value or reward. More important is transcending the Infantile Ego position of Self-Pity and resentment. Negative emotional energy just brings about negative emotional consequences, as in more and more “wanting or not wanting", and then more negative emotions attached to its pursuit like guilt, pressure, obsession, shame and the like. These will zap the power of the self and create the never ending hamster wheel of making insurmountable mountains out of easily attainable molehills.

The idea of an effective diet strategy (again, reflective of life strategy) is to move “toward” positive values, and not “away from” negative ones in one’s conscious process. For instance trying to move “away from” guilt, shame, sadness, anger etc only act as a drag on you pulling you back towards them thus creating a sense of emotional “heaviness” to any task. This is exactly what we mean by the term “emotional baggage”; however, moving consciously “toward” positive values like love, self-love, respect, self-respect, joy, healing, peace of mind etc will help “push you” toward those very things. Notice that real “values” have little to do with material possessions, including cosmetic achievements like a lean body.

It’s important to develop a thinking strategy of the carrot, not the stick. Focus “toward” what you want as a quality of character, ( for example being self-directed) not “away from" what you don’t want in terms of a state of being. (for example “I don’t want to be fat”) It is important that in order to “have something” and to “be it” one must get rid of the whole concept of “want this and don’t want that” as they just tend to reproduce “new wants and not wants,” incessantly, and you end up like a dog chasing its tail. Along with this is the necessity to know the difference between outcomes of pursuit and our attachments to them. Getting rid of attachments to outcomes is also a decidedly empowering move.

People don’t really long for the goal of being “not fat.” They long for the feelings “they attach” to having achieved that goal. This is how the law of reversed effect works.

Simply the law of reversed effect states that for many, the harder the effort to succeed, the more likely is inevitable failure. This is because of an emphasis on ”want” and being focused “on” instead of “working toward” For many ladies, they are far too focused “on diet” rather than ‘working toward” self-direction. Again, this only brings pain and drain to ordinary pursuits.

Simply “wanting, and desiring, and wishing” and the like only get in the way of “allowing” the actual outcome to manifest. It’s time to change the mental thinking strategies. Stop chasing and start being a witness to fruition. It is that easy.

But to try to prove self-worth, or claim self-worth is to lose it. It must be lived, not stated and not strived after. Striving is also not an effective thinking strategy, or not nearly as effective as a strategy of ‘allowing.’ Diet strategy being representative of life strategy illustrates through experience, that diet or any other undertaking of personal challenge is only a struggle till it is worked through. At some point when working through thinking proper thinking strategy, the battle ends because the war is won over. Challenges then become just that, challenges, with no attachments to self worth within them, but rather a broader context of self-direction. There are no longer struggles or personal battles. The mature mind wins out over the Infantile Ego previously discussed.

There is no longer a position of thought of “I want this” or “I don’t want that” There is only “being and doing” from that point. There is no longer a sense of pressure nor difficulty nor emotional attachments to the specified activity (e.g. diet) From this vaulted place of thinking strategy, ease of doing becomes common place, because one’s position is a basic one of self-satisfaction. Seeds of discouragement cannot take place in a grateful heart.

Meaning and Awareness

From a position that doesn’t concern itself with “want this” or “don’t want that” then meaning and awareness are going to be more motivating factors. This is right thinking. Meaning, personal meaning and awareness of pursuit give “value” to that which is pursued. This is when any thinking strategy reflective of larger life strategies starts to swell into positive experience. At this point dieting, or competing or even Christmas tradition take on value added expression that serves instead of exhausts a person on an emotional level.

A good coach (ahem) coaches a trainee to know that there should be real meaning equated to specific achievement or achievements. This is the sincere way to add value to pursuit. Otherwise, and in most cases people simply “assume” attainment of goals, for example physical goals such as weight loss will transcend to a place of fulfillment and happiness and this is almost always NOT the case. This is why there is so much post contest or post event (Christmas) depression and blues complete with self-judgement. Meaning has not transcended the event (contest, Christmas, whatever) to become part of the working spirit of a person that directs thinking strategies.
The value associated with that meaning then, does not become a part of the person’s character.

The rush is perceived to be a result of the event itself (the contest or Christmas anticipation etc) and therefore so much that could be gained for self is lost in faulty perception of perceived value. The discovery of magnitude here is that it is not the goal itself that is often desired but the self-satisfaction associated with it, by perception. I know many who claim “competing makes me happy”, or “I love competing” but all evidence of their experience shows anything but. It’s not so much the competition for some but the attention and the sense of belonging that they are really aspiring to that they can take away and have for themselves without a “perceived need” to compete.

And of course that is not true of everyone. But my coaching experience is that many people, who claim to get so much out of competing, actually experience a lot of devastating emotional energy by doing it, and risk losing otherwise healthy and positive relationships when doing so.

In the end the most effective coaching strategy to my mind is not to impose my will on others because as you see here, I don’t need to. The goal is to get others to see they are currently imposing their own emotional will to negative ends and negative results and a consciousness of frustration or unhappiness or many other emotionally exhausting detours to achievable outcomes and pursuits.

Inspiration vs Motivation

So at this time of year when people are stressing resolutions or experiencing regret or struggle, or striving for that which shouldn’t require so much emotional effort it’s important to understand the difference between motivation and inspiration. Motivation is situational and is built upon faulty concepts at best. This is why people seldom stay “motivated” for long, because it is a state of being. Inspiration on the other hand becomes a character trait. It is a position of approach to any new pursuit or goal, and is long lasting. It is a permanent part of someone who is “inspired” Inspiration then is something that is devoted “to” the task at hand it doesn’t come “from” its completion.

In fact, completing tasks or meeting goals is the surest way to have inspiration elude us. That is why so many people go from fat and unhappy to dieted and competitive back to fat and unhappy etc. People need to stop believing in the seduction that there needs to be a goal to be achieved. At New Year’s and in this day and age in general it seems not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching a goal. This kind of logic keeps someone forever seeking “motivation” at the tremendous expense of never finding their “inspiration” We therefore end up in an endless circle of always “striving” and trying but never “arriving and being” Striving merely re-creates the “want this, and don’t want that” thinking strategy and it all begins again.

What most people are really seeking with their New Year’s Resolutions and diet strategies and other goals are paths to Inner Peace and satisfaction. But Inner Peace comes from letting go of both attractions and aversions. (for example letting go of “I want to be beautiful” or “I hate being fat”) The fewer the “wants of this, and not wants of that” the greater are both the ease and the satisfaction of life. So it is not these possessions themselves that are the problem (as in a wonderful physique) but the presumed value of importance that is placed on them that is significant. This is what needs to change. If I could get people to understand that it is their “spirit” that should drive their thought strategies and not their emotions. It’s time to no longer think with emotions, but alongside one’s spiritual strength, instead use emotions, like passion, in order to think.

Spirit is the overwhelming self-empowering position of strength. Emotional reactions and mental strategies should be subject to one’s own spiritual guidance. And I don’t mean this in the religious sense, although that can be a fine delineation as well. Don’t ever forget that things like diet strategy or any thinking strategy toward a goal is reflective of a grander approach to life.

The fact is the human spirit is never vanquished by defeat, it is only vanquished by giving up. Summing one’s spirit may take some practice but it is the strength that lies within each of us. As Henry David Thoreau said “what lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.” And when we bring what is within us into our own world, miracles happen. This is the aspect of character over striving. Joy is part of a well aware spirit. And from that place all pursuits like diet should begin.

Happiness is not a place you get to when you accomplish something large or small, happiness is the path you should use to get there.

With all my discussion of the word “want” I leave you all with this Irish Greeting for a New Year’s blessing from me to you all.

“May you all live as long as you want, but never want as long as you live”

As usual with my Blogs, I leave you by saying, some of you will get it, many of you will not. And I welcome your discussions on my Forums. Happy New Year to all.

Why I will Always believe in Santa

Well it’s that time of year again. For some it’s a time of wonderment and for others a time of stress and frustration. I just can’t seem to get my head around this; that some people find Christmas to be full of frustration and stress and just want it to be over. You hear about it ever Christmas; people fighting over parking spaces at the mall, flipping each other off, shaking a fist, being miserable while waiting in line at a store, dreading the family get together.

Christmas for all intents and purposes is a reality every year. How someone experiences Christmas is based on their on-going perceptions of it, usually before it even arrives. I watch the difference in people as parents and children line up to see Santa at the mall. Some parents are engaging their child to every nuance of expectation, while others have a “get this over with” look on their face, and are distracted far away mentally from their current situation, and they do not get to make the experience all it can and should be for their child.

This is going to be a long Blog. I sincerely hope and wish that you will all take the time to read every word, and indulge me in that. The issue at hand is not why I still believe in Santa, but rather why don’t all of you as well?

Santa

Let me first start with the jolly old man himself and what lessons he brings to us each and every year. One of Santa’s most understated lessons is that of self-image. St. Nick as we all know is a tad on the heavier side of societal norms. Yet, what we know of Santa is that he has no self-image problems. Santa is neither proud of, or ashamed of his physical self. He neither defends it or is arrogant about it. No, our Santa is much stronger and has more important things to share with the world. Santa Claus embraces his physical self. And he does so in such a way that no one else judges him for it either. We all want and expect a jolly old ST. Nick, to revisit every year complete with extra wide girth. WOW. I know so many people that could take a simple lesson from him right there. Embrace your true self. Bring that to the table and that is all others will see.

I love that Santa precedes his arrival with a Ho Ho Ho at every turn. Santa is a joyous being and gives from a position of joy, not expectation, not indulgence, not a sense of obligation. Yet Santa is so diligent about not leaving anyone out that he not only makes a list for giving, but re-checks it. Santa gives from a joyous heart in the mode of the fantastic. I don’t concern myself with how he may have to bend time in the Einstein sense in order to cover every home on his list in those precious few hours as Christmas Eve turns into Christmas morning. I leave that to smarter people than myself. I leave that to more pragmatic individuals. For me I just embrace the wonderment of it. Here is Santa, the most giving individual of all our cultural traditions. It has always awed me the metaphors that Santa offers to all of us if we just bother to take a look, and just decide to believe a little deeper, and have just a little faith.

Santa could come any time of year yet he chooses the onset of the darkest, coldest, emptiest time of the year to bring light, and joy to the world: what a metaphor for life. To not only know but expect that at that darkest coldest season of being for you, there will come a joyous wonderment right around the corner bearing gifts and the gladdest of tidings. How can you not believe in Santa!

Santa lives by a credence that it is never about him. His mission, his joy, his reality, his image, is all about bringing his joy to the lives of others. His message in that is that “it’s not about me!”

Get over yourself and your Bah Humbug naive self-absorbed assessments of the season. Embrace Santa’s message.

Santa’s focus is always on others.

Santa takes this season to seize upon the opportunity that we all have for each other all year long that we seldom acknowledge, and that is to reach in to the lives of others, and to do so from a joyous well wishing spirit. That ability inspires a whole season of giving which is contagious to all ages, and we owe that to our tradition of Santa in all of his forms.

Our Santa reality for those of us who believe in him, creates a visionary consciousness, especially among the children. Instead of being in such a hurry to let our kids know of the non-existence of a real Santa, I think we should all take a step back and may be re-examine that issue. Let’s learn from the children the very lessons we taught them. Through a belief in Santa in the eyes of the children every year I am reawakened to some stark positions.

We learn from children but we don’t internalize, (such a shame it is) the two most powerful Nations on the planet come from this wonderful spectacle of the season and Santa Claus in particular. To my mind and to borrow from “The Miracle on 34th Street” the most powerful Nations that anyone can claim as a birthright are the Imagine-Nation, and I would add as well, Determine-Nation. To come from and live in and via those Nations for a lifetime is to truly live a life of ignited spirit.

To teach material reality of the non existence of Santa for example for no other reason is to negate the tremendous force behind the brotherhood of these two most powerful Nations.

When I look at all Santa inspires and stands for it’s a no brainer to me to believe. I have always said, believing is seeing. I believe what I see in a giving Santa that is never seeking credit or validation or reward for his giving nature. Santa in all the years I have believed in him, has never even asked for a thank you. How powerful is that of a giving and loving nature! And when we look at this deeper in a sociological premise we see the lesson that it is in giving where we tend to receive the most. Santa doesn’t ask for milk and cookies, but concerned children of the world with this visionary consciousness, “naturally” learn to want to “give back” to Santa for all he does, and leave him some milk and cookies.

And thus the circle of the fantastic continues from material gifts, to sustenance, from the underlying perfect nature of believing, feeling, comfort and joy that represents the magic of the season. Santa’s greatest lesson that compels most of us with a beating heart is that it is truly in giving, where we receive what is most meaningful. And as generations change and transcend these meanings remain absolute. In Santa we teach from one generation to the next. We witness first hand that while youth is a gift of nature, and age is a work of art, traditional images like Santa Claus are a viable bridge between the two.

I think it’s no coincidence that the people who tend to embrace the Santa spirit the most are the very young, and their ability to believe in the fantastic, and the very old, who learn the value in coming back to the same. In between are those caught in the flux of reality and chasing dangling carrots. Instead, my wish for them is that they would stop and hear the Jingle Bells.

I would like to spend the rest of this Blog exploring the contagious aspects of “Santa Claus” and the giving spirit of the season.

So what do you want for Christmas?

There was a time in my adult life when self-indulgence truly got the best of me. I didn’t recognize the Santa I outlined above. I was too concerned with my own wants and desires. At one time my mission in life, my goal was that once I had “succeeded” in my own mind I would buy myself a Rolex Presidential Edition of a Symbol of my success. Yes the “Bling” attachment appealed to me before the word “bling” was even a reality.

But many things transpired on my road to success, one of which was a discovery of humility. With every Christmas that comes now, what I “want” is to actually “give” the perfect gift to someone. I’ve come to understand that the tradition of Santa lives in all of us. I’ve come to know that I can never match the fantastic of Santa Claus, but that there is a little Santa in all of us. Maybe that is why I still believe in him so strongly. I now realize that my most favourite Christmas memories have more to do with what I “got” out of what I “gave” rather than what I received in any material form.

I am now a little embarrassed by my former goal of the Rolex. It has no symbolic value to me anymore. I would rather see need around me and do something about that in any small way possible, and by learning from Santa, do so with a joyous heart and no desire or expectations of return.

As Socrates said “the greater the power that serves you, the more honour it demands of you” Perhaps this is what Santa and the spirit of Christmas has been trying to teach us for generations. Santa put it one way for children, “be nice, not naughty” and the season teaches us adults, “good will to all men” How come we keep missing such simple messages? There is brilliance in simplicity. Let us manifest the Santa spirit in all of us, and realize that in giving, we receive the most abundance.

Give till it Hurts.

I have heard this expression many times and I can tell you honestly after a few years of spirited giving without expectation, the reality is that giving never hurts. As a matter of fact, it is my experience that when I have given the most I have received the most come back to me. Again, this is without expectation, but it is a real observation none the less. I have learned that if most people do not develop a belief in giving when it is more difficult to give, then they are less likely to be of a giving joyous spirit when it is easier to give. That is unfortunate as there is a live world out there waiting for contribution, not only of survival needs, but of simple good will as well.

I’ve learned to “give’ anything there must first be a willingness to receive it. You cannot give away “good will” toward men, if you aren’t willing to receive such good will, again, being of joyous spirit, means believing is seeing. Because I still believe in Santa, and the Santa image, I am touched by its contagion and infected by the spirit. Because I believe, I not only see the miracles of Christmas and giving all around me, but I become a part of it as well. And I see these realties not as imagined pictures in my head, but as real world proof of the existence of Santa Claus as part of our nature.

New Age wisdom tells us what Santa has shown us for generations. And that is that the energy we give out comes back to us. The lesson here is that it truly is the thought that counts, behind any material gesture. In order to truly receive what is ours, give it away first. Give away what you most desire and watch it come back to you. If you desire money, trust, friendship, forgiveness, comfort, security, these will all befall you merely from a gesture of giving them away freely.

Once again, just a glimpse of what Santa provides and how he provides it, is an energy that ignites a dormant spirit in all of us believers, each and every year.

I look at how famous a young 10 yr old became by starting a collection to help pay for a well for healthy drinking water in a remote area of Africa. At first Ryan believed he only needed to raise $70.00. He did that quite enthusiastically. Unfortunately the actual price tag was more like $70,000. Undaunted, Ryan went back to seeking donations and has since raised more than one million dollars and has been to Africa himself to help in operation, “Ryan’s well.” By giving freely he became quite famous. If you wish to know more, check out ryanswell.ca.

I know myself that when I was humbled by gifts given to me, humility became part of me. When I or Annie and I give from that place of appreciation, humility always comes back to us.

Hooch

Those of you on my Forums have seen my avatar with myself and Hooch. Hooch came to us in an interesting way. Annie and I were in the dog walking program back east before we moved west. Many people would tell us they could never go walking dogs that they knew would be put down. It would be too difficult emotionally they would tell us. This is selfishness and self protection and self absorption at its most obvious. I’m not saying everyone should go and be in the dog walking program. But here is the thing. Dogs we know, are social animals. That is why they live in packs. These dogs at the shelter have no idea that they may be put down. They do however, experience the sense of isolation and neglect by being kept in such a way at such a place. Annie and I shared a joy knowing that for that 45 minutes or so we spent with a dog, walking or playing fetch or whatever, that dog’s day had an element of joy, comfort, and fulfillment. We could not control the fate of an animal but we could contribute to a sense of that animal knowing some joy by such a little bit of energy given from us.

Then one day Annie brought home our newest family member that came to be known as Hooch. Had it not been for the walking program we never would have had the opportunity to have him. To this day when people find out Hooch was a rescue animal, they ask “Why did you choose a Pitbull of all the dogs there?” Annie is always quick to respond in the most honest and sincere tone, “We didn’t choose Hooch, he chose us.” The truth is, making Hooch a part of our family has brought us more joy than any giving of our time and energy to that point in walking and playing with condemned animals. We know we have truly received, much more than we gave by volunteering a little of our time.

Eduardo

Annie and I have adapted a child via Children International. Eduardo is our third sponsored child to date. We get regular updates as to this child’s living conditions and his socioeconomic reality. It’s no coincidence to me that our latest update came while I was mentally considering this Blog and how to illustrate to you all my undying belief in Santa Claus. Eduardo is just about the cutest kid you could see. He is ten years old. He lists his pastimes as playing with his friends and playing basketball. His current living situation is that he has 5 brothers and sisters. The description of his family home is that of one multi-use room for all seven of them. The “home” construction is of concrete block walls and concrete floor. There are no beds! The children sleep on the floor with a mat.

Eduardo’s family's only water source is listed as “a neighbour’s faucet” there are no sinks, showers, basins etc. The total family income by which all seven currently live is estimated to be $80.00. THAT’S PER MONTH FOLKS. Eduardo’s sibling’s ages range from 5 to 15, and their cooking “facility” is listed as a kerosene stove.

Yet this current update comes with a color picture of a very happy and healthy looking Eduardo. Young children seldom know of “lack” Their spirit is indomitable. We tend to take that for granted here.

For Eduardo there are no Christmas wishes of flat screens, picture phones, or IPods. Yet there seems to be a song in his heart.

Once again, for Annie and I giving comes back to us in a form of humility and we learn and know that in every given situation there exists an opportunity for gratitude. We are grateful that we are able to contribute to Eduardo and his family and we are grateful through that experience to be so aware of our own abundance. As Wayne Dyer says, “when your cup runneth over, know enough to stop pouring!”

Our small Santa like gesture to that family translates for them in to comfort and security and food on the table. Knowing that, for us gives us back a certain level of comfort and security as well. How can it not! Again, how can you not believe in Santa, and the joy of giving.

I think now of the cost of that Rolex and how self indulgent it would be. It would provide me with little and give back in energy even less. But to invest that amount of exchange value in to a spirit of giving; to be some tiny form of Santa to someone who knows nothing of him, well that is a gift that keeps giving back. <