Choosing the Path

The path we take in life is just that, it's a path. Where that path goes is completely up to us. We make the choices and decisions which will guide our life in a certain direction.

In fact where we are today is a result of all the decisions and choices we have made up to this time. Look at every aspect of your life and think about how it came to be the way it is. Somewhere along the line you chose that to be a part of your life.

If you're not sure then think about these questions...

If you had a chance to live with anyone you wanted, and you had no prior history of living with anyone, who would it be? Would it be the person or people you currently live with? If not, why not? What would you choose differently starting tomorrow?

I think of my grandparents' generation and the fact that they were expected to stay married for ever through hell or high water. What if you made a poor decision in marrying the person you did. You were committed for ever to that poor decision and felt unable to make a good decision to leave the situation for something better. It very restricting and stressful when you feel you cannot undo a decision, or at least make one for whatever obligation.

Where would you live? Would you live in the town or city you currently live in? Would you live in the country, on an acreage, on an island? Would you live in a bigger city like London, Paris or New York? Would you live in a warmer climate, or a colder climate? Hawaii, southern France, Tuscany, northern Australia, Sweden?

I know that I wouldn't live in Calgary. Having lived in Australia, UK, Germany and Canada, I can say that my living conditions here are very good, and opportunities have been afforded to me that may not have come about had I lived elsewhere. I love being a part of the booming Calgary and Alberta economy. But the weather is cold, too cold for a Australian used to plus forty in Summer and highs around ten to fifteen degrees in Winter. I would choose a warmer climate. The Mediterranean looks good to me, perhaps also Hawaii or a smaller centre in Australia. But for me there's a time and a place for everything. Right now, my place is Calgary, and I'm happy to live here, though if I had to pick a place to live permanently, this would be my number one choice.

If you could work at anything and it would pay you enough that you could live comfortably, whether that's the same as you get now, or more if required, what would you do? What work would choose? What dream job would you love to work at and have the ideal situation of getting paid to do it?

I remember seeing an interview with Greg Norman, the "Great White Shark", legendary Australian golfer, winner of two British Opens and former World No 1 golfer. At the time when he was at the top of his golfing prowess, he said that he felt he had to be one of the luckiest people in the world, because he loved playing golf and he was paid millions to do it.

Other questions to ask would be, would you like to have more children or less children, be fitter or healthier, travel more or be more stable, have more or different hobbies or interests, different friends, more excitement or less excitement?

Every aspect in our life is a result of the choices we make and have made.

One final question to ponder. If you could choose your personality, how would it be? Would you be more energetic, more outgoing or quieter, a better listener or a better talker, more friendly or more or less anything?

As you think about that remember that every morning when you wake up, you choose your personality. You choose how you will be that day. You choose it if will be a good day or a bad day.

In my book, every day is a good day to be alive.

What Do You Do?

Not "How do you do?", but "What do you do?" is usually one of the first questions asked of you by an almost-stranger that you meet at a party.

It's an interesting question to ask, really, and completely logical when you think about it. Someone who works full-time spends almost one third of their week either at work or commuting. When you consider that the average person also spends almost a third sleeping, it's around half of the waking time. So it is a fair enough question to ask what someone does with half of their waking time.

But how many people do not identify themselves with their job? I, for one. In fact I know many people who are working in a job that doesn't represent the kind of person they are... it simply pays the bills.

I actually dislike answering that question, because I feel that a short response will give a false impression. For example:

"What do you do for a living?"
"I work in marketing for a car dealership."
"Oh. Can you get a me a good deal on a new car?"
"Well, I don't actually sell cars..." etc.

You see I get caught in a conversation about marketing, cars, the fate of the US domestic manufacturers and the price of gas when I have no interest in any of them!

But what about the question, "What are your interests?"

To that I have a wide selection of answers I could put forward, all of which are interesting to me because they are my interests, and maybe my enthusiasm for it might make you interested in hearing about them.

But that's beside the real point.

What does our job really mean? Whether or not we identify with our job, which many don't, what real difference does it make what we do for a living?

I was reading a parenting magazine today and the article was talking about parents having dreams for their children, and that - (I paraphrase) "...all good parents want their children to be successful. Which parent looks at their one-hour-old infant and wants them to become a telemarketer?"

I'm not a telemarketer and I don't personally know anyone who is, but I thought very little of that last statement. After all, what's wrong with being a telemarketer? It's just as honorable a job as a politician or lawyer or car salesman. There's no difference in quality of person between a telemarketer or garbage collector and a Chief Financial Officer or a Chemical Engineer.

We're all the same, relatively speaking, and we all serve a purpose on this planet. Some people get paid more than others, but that isn't the only measure of value. Someone may be a more valuable employee, but that says little about their value as a friend or partner, parent or role model. Tiger Woods and Tom Cruise are a couple of the best paid individuals on earth, but that doesn't mean their any better a person than I am or you are. They're just richer.

As a society we spend far too much time placing value on things outside of us - what we do for a living, what we own, where we live, what people think of us. These are all superficial, and have no meaning when we're dead.

Would you rather a eulogy that read...

Bill was a great man. He will be remembered for the hours he sweated at the office, and the huge bonuses he took home at the end of the year. As a member of the most exclusive clubs he circulated only with the hob nobs in the city. His taste was impeccable and he bought only the finest money could afford. His collection of old cars and his beautiful home are a testimony to his clever investments and excellent earning capacity.

Or this...

Bill was a great man. He will be remembered for the hours he put in coaching his son's baseball team, and for the funny stories he told at the family camping trips. As a friend he was the best. Always there to lend a helping hand and the first to invite you over for dinner or a beer. His happy wife and beautiful children are a testimony to his tireless effort to always give back more than he took.

Like most parents I have a dream for my children. My dream is that they have many and varied experiences, that they learn about life and cherish their friends, and that they are satisfied and fulfilled in whatever pursuits they choose. I would like my children to appreciate what's real, and have a healthy self-esteem based on respect and knowing that who they are is the most important, not what they do, what they own or what other people think about them.

Think about life and what matters. Think about your own life and what excites you, and which days you don't need the alarm to get up. Those are the days you're really living and that's really what "you do."

So... What do I do?

I paint, I read, I learn, I travel, I coach, and most of all, I'm a Dad, a husband and a good friend.

On The Cusp

In my efforts to transform my marketing career into a Psychic Motivational Coach, I will begin writing articles for a number community newspapers in Calgary. I will write a regular half-page column dealing with a lot of the ideas that I'm writing about in this blog. As time progresses I hope to expand my reach with more newspapers.

These articles will form the basis for my newsletter, which I will begin sending out monthly.

It's all geared towards generating my personal brand, and creating a demand for my services.

It's all very exciting right now, as I feel like I'm on the cusp of something that will take off quickly.

Should've, could've, would've...

We live in a world of "shoulds". And why? A "should" is something you can never do anything about now. A "should" refers to a time in the past, which we can no longer be at.

For example... "You should have bought shares in E-Bay when they went public in September 1998. Less than ten years later you would have made twenty times your original investment."

Now, tell me... what can you do with that information now? It's never going to be 1998 again. You'll never be able to get in at the ground level on EBay shares. E-Bay, like Google and Microsoft will never again be small unknown start-up businesses just about to go big.

"You should have visited East Berlin before the wall came down."

Or, take it to the extreme...

"You should have seen Elvis Presley perform live."
"But I was born after his last concert?"
"But you could have been born earlier?"

So what's the point of a "should" statement like that?

Actually very little. There is little that's positive. A "should" statement gets you in regret mode. I was having lunch with someone today who was telling me how he should have bought some real estate in Calgary a couple of years ago, before the big boom. What could I say to that, other than a "Yeah. We all wish we did things we didn't do." But that won't improve life today or tomorrow for anyone.

And we need to always remember that at the time, the decision we made was the best with the given information.

Rather than living in a world of "shoulds", if we live knowing that every decision we made was the best at the time, and that we made those decisions for certain reasons then there can be no regrets. If that's what you decided then that was best for you then.

If we do in fact look back on our life and see missed opportunities or decisions not taken, we can then look to today and tomorrow and see which decisions we need to make to prevent a recurrence of the past.

Last weekend I saw a gentleman I used to work with. We only worked together for a month or so and were never really friends . He didn't see me in the shop and in the past I might have just left without speaking to him. I had actually grabbed the door handle and was on my way out, when I stopped myself, and thought, "I should speak with him." The time hadn't passed, so I was able to change a should into an action, and I did. We chatted briefly and I asked him what he was doing. I told him that we might have an opening at the company I worked for and that he could check it out. Whatever he does with that information is his business, but I opened the door for him if he has the desire to walk through it.

I left the situation feeling like I had done my best and that I had nothing to regret, and would never have the nagging "I should have stopped to speak with him." Instead I did something about it and made everyone better for it.

When you have to make decisions in life, go with the one you know you'll be glad you made. Take a little risk and see what the benefits will be. It's easy to take the easy road that goes nowhere. It's easy to make non-decisions, or not make decisions at all. But the people who find greater happiness, and greater success are the ones who consistently make decisions that have some risk, but a significant pay-off.

Under and Over-estimating

It's now mid March, and statistically the time when most people's New Year's resolutions have fallen by the wayside.

I notice it especially at the gym, where in early January, the crowds flock. With Christmas weight bearing down on their consciences, and resolutions to regain fitness levels of a past era, the enthusiasm to turn life around and get healthy is all agogo. Then February rolls around and the crowds thin out a little. By March it's the same old regulars again with a couple of newbies who kept up the habit.

I think about how people set themselves such lofty goals, like "go to the gym five times a week" when they never went, "lose forty pounds" without any new knowledge on nutrition, "earn 30% more" with no concept of how it might happen. What invariably happens is that they start making strides forward and then give up after a month or so, seeing little result.

We live in a world of instant gratification and it becomes an easy trap to fall into. If we're not getting what we expect right away, then there's no point in continuing... "Here I fail again!" attitude.

I know that I have at times become despondent about not achieving my lofty goals as quickly as I'd like, but what we need to realize is that we often over-estimate what we can do in a year and under-estimate what we can do in five or ten years.

Think about that... we often over-estimate what we can do in a year and under-estimate what we can do in five or ten years.

How can you possibly work out whether that's true for yourself. Well, take a very large piece of paper and divide it into 120 squares, with ten columns and twelve rows. I did this in an Excel Spreadsheet. At the top of the ten columns write the last ten years, with 1997 in the first column. Down the left put in the months of the year starting with January. now you have a grid where each month of the last ten years has its own square.

Now take the time to write down achievements, awards, events, significant anniversaries, milestones etc that occurred in each of the months. Admittedly it's not something that you can complete in fifteen minutes, but it's an interesting exercise that I continue to undertake, and it shows you in fact how much progress you can make in ten years.

At age 21, a little over ten years ago I was starting in my first job, having just come out of University with my Bachelor of Commerce degree. I was earning a whopping $23,000 and, with my girlfriend, renting an old house from a friend of my parents. We owned no furniture (the old house came with old furniture), and my only "asset" was a 1986 Ford Telstar TX5. It was white with a mere 200,000km on the clock. "A bucket o' bolts" as my Dad would say. Two years later I had more than doubled my income, and had a share portfolio with a value in the range of $15,000, and had taken a two-week trip to Thailand, the first overseas trip I funded on my own.
Five years ago after travelling the world for a couple of years I arrived in Calgary. I couldn't work, due to visa restrictions. My wife and I lived off her income and rented a one bedroom place downtown for $775 a month. 9 months later we bought a house, scraping every penny we had, which included some of my savings I cashed in from Australia. Somehow we pooled $22,000 to put down 10% on a run-down $215,000 house in a rundown inner-city neighbourhood. With still only one income I worked full-time renovating. We had to save up to buy paint or a new light-fitting, and it was a slowly slowly rate of progress. But progress nevertheless.

With some luck, good management and aggressive risk-taking (though nothing stupid!) in four years we have gone from those humble beginnings to having a small mortgage on a $500,000 home and two rental houses, each with a solid equity position.

If we wanted to we could sell our rentals and be mortgage-free with cash in the bank less than four years after we bought, and in that time we've had a child, travelled to the US four times and to Australia twice, and been on two full incomes for just over half that time. It may sound impossible, and as I read what we've done, I even doubted its truth... but I assure you it is 100% true.

I'm not trying to say anything more than- anyone can do a lot in a relatively short period of time (five years) even without tremendous resources, but with a little creativity, good decision-making, some dedication, hard work and a little luck.

Take a look aback at your own past ten years and see how in every facet of your life you've made great changes and see that the possibilities for the future are equally as expansive. When you look back ten years ago, and remember how you felt at that time, where you are now seems like it could never happen. That's the same with the next ten years. A decade is a long time. Two US Presidential terms total only eight years and think how much happens in that time.

So no matter where your life is at now, know that in a few short years it could be transformed beyond your wildest dreams. all it takes is some vision, dedication, hard work and a little luck.

"Man is born to live, not to prepare for life." - Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)

Criticism

I'm currently undertaking the Dale Carnegie course and one of the first things we learned about is how to win friends and influence people. The first rule is to never criticize, condemn or complain about someone.

It's interesting how difficult this can be for people. I think of myself as a positive person who thinks well of people in general, and I noticed that it's easy for myself to get caught in a trap of criticising and complaining.

Yesterday I realized something else about criticism. My wife was talking about our four parents and their health issues, related both to their age and the amount they look after their bodies. Three of the four are taking medication related to blood pressure and/or cholesterol. Only my mother doesn't take medication and it's because she's had a twenty-year routine of exercise and health as a life priority.

But as my wife criticized the attitudes of our parents I realized that she and I and everyone else, except for a very small minority, can really criticize from any point of authority. As my wife lay tired on the couch, I questioned her about her health. Admittedly it's better than three of our parents, but she also has a 30 year head start. Health and exercise, though important for my wife, are not a high priority, and though her health is good, it could certainly be better.

I don't want to sound overly critical of my wife, because my health could also be far better, and to that end I've re-invigorated myself toward exercise and health.

The point here is not to criticize, but to illustrate a point, that criticism actually turns out to be very hypocritical from the criticizer's end. If you can't live up to the expectations yourself, how can you possibly criticize someone else for not doing the same.

Jesus said, "He who is without sin may cast the first stone."

Rather it might be more productive to encourage the other person, lead by example, or join them in pursuing a joint goal.

Exposed!

Good news! My art will be on display for at least four weeks at the Vanishing Point Art Gallery at the 2nd level of the Crossroads Market in Ramsay. I will have five pieces on display, sharing the small gallery with three other artists.

Flowers

Today I surprised my wife at work with lunch and a bunch of flowers. It's part of my new outlook of making people close to me feel special... even more special than I've made them feel in the past.

It's only the second time I've surprised her at work with flowers, and gauging her response, it won't be the last.

She was delighted and proud to show off the flowers to her workmates, and enjoyed the lunch I had brought, down the chocolate cookie for dessert.

I realize that people appreciate gifts far more when they're unexpected, and on the spur of the moment, rather than because it's valentine's Day or an anniversary of some sort. Because there's no "peer pressure" to perform, it's all the more special.

Go and surprise your loved-one today!