There is probably nothing harder, more discouraging than the way we perceive how to carry out New Year’s Resolutions.
Last year I wrote about how many choose copious amounts of resolution and apply a ruthless military strategy keeping them, eventually burning themselves out. I also suggested a very simple and effective way to choose only a few, group them into a few category and boil them down to 3, no more. After all, it’s simpler to keep 3 resolution than the national average of 10.
Now that we know this, we must also look at the other irritating factor, that of burning out. Usually by the end of January, we realize we took on too many and have dropped a few, if not all. The good is… we can pick up new resolutions at any time and don’t have to wait for year’s end!
In my case, I’m witnessing an interesting twist. My resolutions boiled down to the fact I am a thrill seeker, always looking for the next best thing, a typical 7 according to the Enneagram. What I need to do is be more in the present. “Being more in the present” means different things to different people and in my case, it simply means being more aware and enjoying this moment. This also leads me to better meditation time.
What I didn’t take into consideration is that being in the moment means different things at different points of our lives. For instance, being in the moment meant slowing down in the beginning of January for me. It now means to not get caught up in the bubbling amount of projects I am currently working on.
Resolutions are simple if you make them simple and keep a very flexible mind around. Dropping them is no sign of failure, just that it wasn’t the right one or the approach was off. By dropping one, we often consider it to be a negative thing but that same negative experience is what tells us if we are on the right track or not. If we are not, then nothing stops us from dropping it and choosing another, or tweaking it.
So I’m adding “being more flexible” to my resolutions
Hi everyone, I wanted to let you know about the new Winter of Wellness Summit – another great free virtual quality event from The Shift Network that helps empowering you with practical tools and inspiration to create true wellness in all areas of your life!
You’ll hear world-class pioneers Joan Borysenko, Bernie Siegel, Harville Hendrix, Dan Millman, Marianne Williamson, John Gray, Bruce Lipton and many more experts sharing their latest insights, practices, tools and advice for your optimum health.
Sick, with a cold and still went out with friends, which sets me back two days recovery time.
4Th Street Vine, in Long Beach was great and the ambiance matched our moods. Friends showed up and in a whirlwind, left 15mn before midnights, leaving us feeling empty, alone and awkward. Go figure what goes through the mind of people, no matter how close they are.
Tuesday now and I’m fighting the urge to constantly cough, which is the natural progression I’m used to with my colds. First the tonsils, then the nose and finally the lungs. If it gets worse, it continues the loop.
Things I look forward to this year. For one thing, I’m making a very conscious effort to be more in the moment and less in anticipation mode, always running after the next thing. This also implies a will to seek out positive things to do that resonate with my core self. Having said this, I’ll revamp my Coaching practice and will start to look for more clients. I’ll also start writing for TorqueNews.com, which I highly recommend you go check out. Their articles are good quality and after being burned by the Examiner ever dwindling pay, this will be a good change.
A few others things I look forward to are working more closely with Shyam, a wonderful friend I’ve learned to discover over this past year. He is a long lost brother of sorts, with whom I have much to build during this life time. We are currently working on a few projects, ranging from websites, including our own about electric cars for enthusiasts, a High-Performance Computing venture and a range of equally fun adventures. We are offering website for individuals and professionals at a very competitive rate, considering they are customized.
Somewhere along the lines I will finally get around to rewriting and redo my website, a much deserved endeavor. My website was created very late last century and has barely changed, only added to.
As entrepreneurs know, thinking, feeling, sensing and anticipating “the next big thing” is hardwired in our genes. However, sometimes we go about the wrong way. Sometimes?
The gist is as I watch Star Trek The Next Generation for the umpteenth time, I am stunned to see the visionary acumen Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek’s creator had. Gene tapped into the future and in many ways, helped shape our future.
Case In Point. Everyone knows about flip phones, fad of the late 90s and early 2000. My original Qualcomm was one and had amazing features for the time, such as recording voice notes without forcing me to send them to my email, as my Blackberry would incurring charges. The Original Series had the famous flip communicators.
What is even less known are the round storage disks found on the the very last episode of The Original Series. 20 years later, they show up in our lives as CD Roms. The list goes on and my favorite is the iPad, which mimics very well The Original Series, The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine’s pads.
What’s Next? This is where we shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed to look to visionaries and see what we can glean from our future needs. Visionaries with their stories hint at what people will use in the future. I am willing to bet Steve Jobs watched Star Trek more than once and got an inkling. The best way to do it is to play the game: “What if…?” It starts with the notion that we are doing something in a very convoluted and difficult way. How can we achieve it better? Henceforth, the CD Rom, the flip phones, the iPad, etc. One thing to consider is the following, we have only “taken” technology from Star Trek but not its very rich philosophical questions and fundamentals. We could surely use some of the wisdom expounded in those shows, in light of the current circumstances.
I’m personally waiting for the transporters as I toy with the notion to write a bible of sorts based on the fundamental principles exposed in the many Star Treks. Remember, philosophy teachers from ivy leagues asked their student to watch Star Trek episodes to discuss them the following day. Talk about a Prime Directive! But in the meantime, I’ll go back to reading Steve Jobs’ biography with the hope I will receive some distant future idea we can implement now… as I nurse a sore throat two days before New Year’s Eve!
This following story highlights the creativity of man but especially how we can get caught up in the systems we created for ourselves. Case in point when NASA had to engineer a pen that worked in space, meaning absolute cold, no gravity. After millions of dollars spent, they had their product. Russia on the other hand used pencils!
A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up. It is very difficult to have everything happen with timing so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don’t get annoyed and buy another product instead.
Understanding the importance, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months and $8 Million later they had a fantastic solution—on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.
A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!,” he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.
It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should’ve been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed.
A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.
“Oh, that,” says one of the workers, “one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over… every time the bell rang.”
Here are some tools you can use with and outside of coaching. Some of them are free, some of them are available for purchase.
Meditation. Here is a topic that is so often misunderstood. While some view meditation in the strict sense of Zen Buddhist, rigid, static, striving for that illusive spontaneous self, other see a way to relax. The bottom line is that meditation helps you connect back with your self, take scope and regroup. It’s a must for anyone wanting to reclaim their runaway life and none other than high up successful executive and business owners know its merit all too well.
You can start simply on your own by devoting 15 minutes every day by yourself, with yourself. Find a secluded spot in your home. If you can, buy yourself something to shield any lights away from from you. I found MindFold to be particularly effective and anyone can actually build one from scrap. You can also use noise cancelling headsets, such as Boses Quiet Comfort or others. Once comfortably seated, close your eyes, and start by observing yourself. Observe your breath. Don’t be disturbed by thoughts coming into to your mind. Simply, in a detached way, let them slip away. They are not you, nor do they define you. The are just thoughts.
Binaural Beats: Binaural beats are interesting and for those who have been reading this blog, I wrote a little about it a year or so ago. What they do is put a tone in one ear and another one, slightly off-tune in the other in order to balance both hemispheres. This allows you to go into deep states of relaxation, meditation and even concentration.
The Monroe Institute pioneered this type of work and perfected it over the decades. Their CDs are available. Mark Certo hails himself as a sonic alchemist and worked closely with the Monroe Institute. His CDs called The Tranquility Training Method (TTM) are fantastic and I’ve particularly enjoyed them.
Soul Contract Reading. The new tool I added for my practice is called Soul Contract Reading. The system, also called the Holy Numerology of Moses goes back to millennial and has been “reintroduced” in order to facilitate this forward momentum the human race is experiencing. By phonetically translating each letter to its Hebrew equivalent, a number and “energy” is given and put on a chart. This charts helps you understand why your life works the way it down and how to make full use of it. My initial reading was so fascinating and intense, I felt this would be an amazing tool for coaching.
Listening to your heartbeat is very helpful, so is your breath. After sometime, you will find that inner peace many speak of. In these states, everything becomes relative and problem solving is done with great ease.
Those are the basic free, if not at least affordable techniques anyone can use. Still, nothing replaces a certified, professionally trained Coach.
The title should really be: How Corporate America Went Wrong, shifting attention from customers to investors.
The gist is the difference from a few decades ago with how major corporations conducted their business and now is striking. Ultimately, their ever tightening relationship with investors has shifted their focus away from the essential client base. It’s easy to understand why companies act the way they do, when they pay more attention to investors instead of the customers who buy their products, services go down.
It’s natural for companies to need more money and turn to investors. Consumers should benefited from this. But companies saw they could have more profits and headed down the wrong road by relying too much on investors, giving them too much leverage. The result over the 80s and 90s was that companies courted investors more than their current base clients, alienating themselves. It’s a naive representation, but its makes the point.
It’s a tricky line between spending time and energy on your clients, while seeking investors. Investors can bring the much needed extra cash for a company but they come in with demands, sometimes without understand the business. Case in point, the 12 billion dollars IPO for Groupon is hardly justifiable.
So What Can Be Done? It will be difficult for corporations worldwide to come back to intelligent management, while rebuilding a sustainable way forward. If a company focuses on customer service, which has been on a constant deterioration for the past decades, while showing investors it is taking care of business, it will win both.
Why has Apple done so well with only 15% of the smart phone market share? Its cultures is translated into its products. It walk the fine line (so far) between being innovative, delivering quality products that are needed and listening to what customers want. Who cares about a fraction of the market when you pay a premium for products that work better than the competition?
What Can We Do? The most important role will come from consumers who need to exercise intelligently their use of their credit cards. By buying form the smaller, yet more competitive company that offers the same service with better products and who still vies for your attention is one way of keeping competition alive. It sends the message loud and clear to those companies who cater too much to investors demands that go against their customer base. In other words, once it gets too big, choose another company! We wouldn’t have monopolies and little to no use for laws against them.
Why am I writing this? First, I came to the US in the 70s when it was business treated you very, very differently. Second, I’ve been through a few weeks of dancing to the tune the corporate futility. My Internet provider speed was well below advertised. As I started shopping around, it was clear Verizon, the only other “choice” didn’t have a user friendly site where you could get all the information needed before buying. I guess they think I will just buy without checking the competition out. As I started shopping for a new cell phone, I went through a similar rigmarole with the big three, and found Metro PCS to offer the best bang for your buck. See here for this story.
I’ve also been motivated seeing the increasing complexity around internet services. Apple’s current services is nothing compared to what we’ve come to expect form them. iTunes had one department that didn’t speak to the Mobile Me one who had no contact with the online store. I ended up with 3 accounts, an iTunes, website accounts, Mobile Me and a series 1 iPhone that would loose passwords forcing me through a series of futile and utterly frustrating procedure of resetting my password. To add to it all, none of these passwords could be the ones I used in the past year… You know why, right? Security! Certainly, this is not what we expect from Apple and I am no criminal.
And the list goes on and on as America finds itself like a young teenager at the end of a big bash with a buzz and wanting more without knowing how, desperately clinging to how it used to be. It is safe to say, little to no corporations have given any thoughts as to: “What if our product doesn’t sell?”. Microsoft invented decades ago the reach out, embrace and choke approach which eventually sterilized competition. And putting myself in their shoes, I can almost understand these people running those corporations. They have gone through school that give high degrees based on template solving. And why not? After all, it’s the next CEO’s problem…
In the meantime, you have a desperate political scene fighting for relevancy giving us two clear message. The government will take care of you, on the one hand and work more, on the other. How about we reclaim our power. which we temporarily gave away?
In the meantime, you can watch this if you need courage, you’re not alone…
I’m very happy to announce that we are now offering a free reading for you specific Soul Contract for those of you who have subscribed to the bog. We will open the reading to everyone else at a later date.
The gist is I came upon Soul Contract when Nicolas Ngan at Center for Conscious Ascension gave me a reading which was both profound and so uncanny, it picked my curiosity enough to learn how to do it. After a few months of intense studying (and I mean INTENSE!), I would like to open the reading to a select few of you who have signed up for this blog.
What Is Soul Contract? Soul Contract is an ancient holy tool called the Numerology of Moses. In essence it is a direct Spirit, Life, The Source, God or whatever you feel more comfortable calling it given to humanity in order to accelerate our development by reading what we have chosen to experience with our lives here on Earth.
What Can You Expect? The reading will take about 20 minutes and will touch upon the major parts of your life, why you have chosen this life and to accomplish what. You will then have a better idea who why you are the way you are, how to turn anything in your life into a positive tool and better realign yourself to your original goal.
Soul Contract reading is a great tool for Coaching. It takes a direct look at what we signed up to do and experience before birth, what can we do to achieve it and how. It is my hope you will take the opportunity to try it. I’m sure you will derive as much as I have.
I’m excited to let you know that The Shift is about to start another powerful free teleseminar with celebrated evolutionary leader Barbara Marx Hubbard and transformational meditation teacher Patricia Ellsberg on The Shift from Ego to Essence.
You will most likely greatly benefit from this call in which they will reveal the keys to shifting from the egoic “local self” to the Essential Self — giving access to divine guidance and the ability to live with grace, confidence, creativity, purpose and joy — particularly needed in these times of great change. A much needed quality to develop these days.
It’s happening this Monday, November 21st, at 5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern! Don’t worry if you can’t make it live — you can register and you’ll be sent a link to the recording.
