Becoming Inspired

The End.

2010-12-20T16:23:00.002-07:00

This blog has officially come to an end - insofar as it will no longer reside and be updated at this address.

I have revamped my website and moved these blogs over to my new site - www.pagehanify.com.

The blogs have been or are in the process of being re-sorted and re-edited to create a more cohesive web presence.

Please now bookmark www.pagehanify.com.

Chess

2010-10-06T11:51:00.003-06:00

My oldest daughter will be five at the end of October and last night was the first time we played a game of chess with all the pieces.. yes, the knights were included.

She started learning to play chess about two weeks ago. Before starting the process I did some research to see how you get started. With all the different pieces I wondered how she would pick it all up. My research told me that I needed to start with just a couple of pieces on the board, and slowly build. So in the first game we played my daughter had the queen and I had the eight pawns. To win she had to take all my pawns before one of my pawns made it to the end of the board. The other important factor is that she had to win every game.

So we progressed from the queen takes pawns games to adding bishops and rooks to the board. Then she had to checkmate my king with the queen and two rooks. I showed her how pieces are protected and pinned.

Bit by bit she has picked it up, playing for 20-30 minutes a night, three or four nights a week.

So last night when we played with all the pieces it was quite a moment. I still talk through the moves with her and help her see different options, but she gets it, and I can see that she's thinking about her strategy.

And of course, last night she won again!

The Kiss - For Sale

2010-10-05T10:42:00.006-06:00

The reason I'm selling my art is to make room for the new art that is on its way... it hasn't yet been created. I am not selling these to make me rich. I paint for a hobby and I'd like people to hold my art in their homes and enjoy it. A lot of my paintings now live in our basement - a function of having a lack of wall-space to hang them all.

Almost all of my paintings are for sale. This is the first one I am highlighting.

Acrylic on canvas, 36" tall by 24" wide. This is titled "The Kiss".

A couple of points to note about this painting:

It is a one off original painting. There are no copies of it.
The original picture I worked from was for a perfume and I took a very close cropped view of it. The original advertisement included the two torsos.
I chose the green and the blue because they invoke different feelings from people and so does a kiss.
The appearance of the two lovers is that their lips won't quite meet, and that is intentional because in relationships there is often a disconnect.

I'm selling this painting for $150.

Please call Matthew at 403-245-0678 if you're interested.

Sold!

2010-10-04T11:21:00.004-06:00

On Saturday night we had some friends over for dinner, and it's amazing how some alcohol can change the complexion of a conversation! The inhibitions are removed, the guard drops. This friend of mine, whom I've known for about four years shared his true delight at my paintings and expressed interest in owning some.

I said "absolutely! I'd love to sell you some art."

After about half an hour of deliberations I had sold three paintings, and it felt good to see them go to a new home and be appreciated.

It struck me that often we don't express our thoughts to those that can make a difference. Although my friend had been interested in buying my paintings for a while, he had never asked, and I guess since I had never broached the topic, we never had the conversation.

Thanks to Baileys and coffee, we did.

In the coming weeks I will be posting pictures of my paintings for sale. Please feel free to email me at matthew@pagehanify.com if you are interested in purchasing any.

Howard Schultz

2010-09-28T18:33:00.000-06:00

Born 19 July, 1953
Chairman and CEO, Starbucks

In 1981, working as the General Manager of Hammarplast, a Swedish drip coffeemaker manufacturer, Schultz traveled from New York to Seattle to check out Starbucks, a popular coffee bean store that had been buying their machines.

“I walked away ... saying, ‘God, what a great company, what a great city. I'd love to be a part of that.’”

It took Schultz a year to convince the Starbucks owners to hire him. When they finally made him director of marketing and operations in 1982, he had another epiphany – in Italy coffee bars not only served excellent espresso, they also served as meeting places. They were a big part of Italy's societal glue, and there were 200,000 of them in the country.

The Starbucks owners resisted Schultz's plans to serve coffee in the stores, saying they didn't want to get into the restaurant business. Frustrated, Schultz quit and started his own coffee-bar business, called Il Giornale (pronounced ill jor-nahl-ee).

Schultz drew up plans to raise an initial $400,000 in seed capital and another $1.25 million in equity - enough to launch at least eight espresso bars and prove the concept would work in Seattle and elsewhere. The seed capital was raised by the end of January 1986, but it took Schultz until the end of the year to raise the remaining $1.25 million.

He made presentations to 242 potential investors, 217 of whom said no. Many who heard Schultz's hour-long presentation saw coffee as a commodity business and thought that Schultz's espresso-bar concept lacked any basis for sustainable competitive advantage (no patent on dark roast, no advantage in purchasing coffee beans, no way to bar the entry of imitative competitors). Some noted that consumption of coffee had been declining since the mid-1960s, others were skeptical that people would pay $1.50 or more for a cup of coffee, and still others were turned off by the company's hard-to-pronounce name.

Being rejected by so many potential investors was disheartening. Nonetheless, Schultz continued to display passion and enthusiasm in making his pitch and never doubted that his plan would work. He ended up raising $1.65 million from about 30 investors; five of whom became directors of the new company.

The first Il Giornale store opened in April 1986. On the first day, 300 customers had been served, and within six months, Il Giornale was serving more than 1,000 customers a day.
Six months after opening the first store, Il Giornale opened a second store in another downtown building. A third store was opened in Vancouver in April 1987. Vancouver was chosen to test the transferability of the company's business concept outside Seattle. To reach his goal of opening 50 stores in five years, Schultz needed to dispel his investors' doubts about geographic expansion. By mid-1987 sales at the three stores were equal to $1.5 million annually.

In March 1987 the owners of Starbucks decided to sell the whole operation and in August of the same year Schultz bought it for $3.8 million.

The following Monday morning, Schultz returned to the Starbucks offices at the roasting plant, greeted all the familiar faces and accepted their congratulations, then called the staff together for a meeting on the roasting-plant floor. He began:

“All my life I have wanted to be part of a company and a group of people who share a common vision… I’m here today because I love this company. I love what it represents… In five years, I want you to look back at this day and say "I was there when it started. I helped build this company into something great."

Schultz told the group that his vision was for Starbucks to become a national company with values and guiding principles that employees could be proud of. He indicated that he wanted to include people in the decision-making process and that he would be open and honest with them.

Schultz said he believed it was essential, not just an intriguing option, for a company to respect its people, to inspire them, and to share the fruits of its success with those who contributed to its long-term value. His aspiration was for Starbucks to become the most respected brand name in coffee and for the company to be admired for its corporate responsibility. In the next few days and weeks, however, Schultz came to see that the unity and morale at Starbucks had deteriorated badly in the 20 months he had been at Il Giornale. Some employees were cynical and felt unappreciated. There was a feeling that prior management had abandoned them and a wariness about what the new regime would bring. Schultz determined that he would have to make it a priority to build a new relationship of mutual respect between employees and management.

As the company began to expand rapidly in the '90s, Schultz always said that the main goal was “to serve a great cup of coffee.” But attached to this goal was a principle: Schultz said he wanted “to build a company with soul.”

This led to a series of practices that were unprecedented in retail. Schultz insisted that all employees working at least 20 hours a week get comprehensive health coverage -- including coverage for unmarried spouses. Then he introduced an employee stock-option plan. These moves boosted loyalty and led to extremely low worker turnover, even though employee salaries were fairly low.

Why was Schultz so generous? He remembers his father, who struggled mightily at low-paying jobs with little to show for it when he died.

Schultz has said that his model for expanding Starbucks is McDonald's, with a few key differences. One is that Starbucks owns most of its stores, while McDonald's franchises. Schultz doesn't believe it's possible to build a strong brand around franchises -- although McDonald's is an obvious exception. Another difference is that Starbucks has managed to blossom without national advertising. Finally, Starbucks sells premium products to a fairly upscale, urban clientele.

In order to sustain the company's growth and make Starbucks a strong global brand, Schultz believed that the company had to challenge the status quo, be innovative, take risks, and alter its vision of who it was, what it did, and where it was headed. Under his guidance, management was posing a number of fundamental strategic questions:

What could Starbucks do to make its stores an even more elegant "third place" that welcomed, rewarded, and surprised customers?

What new products and new experiences could the company provide that would uniquely belong to or be associated with Starbucks?

What could coffee be, besides being hot or liquid?

How could Starbucks reach people who were not coffee drinkers?

What strategic paths should Starbucks pursue to achieve its objective of becoming the most recognized and respected brand of coffee in the world?

Review - Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People

2010-08-09T17:14:00.001-06:00

Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People®
Dr Stephen Covey

Dr Stephen Covey is an influential management guru, whose book The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, became a blueprint for personal development when it was published in 1990.

Habit 1 - Be Proactive
The ability to control one's environment, rather than have it control you, as is so often the case. Self determination, choice, and the power to decide response to stimulus, conditions and circumstances

Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind
The habit of personal leadership - leading oneself that is, towards what you consider your aims. By developing the habit of concentrating on relevant activities you will build a platform to avoid distractions and become more productive and successful.

Habit 3 - Put First things First
The habit of personal management. This is about organising and implementing activities in line with the aims established in habit 2. Covey says that habit 2 is the first, or mental creation; habit 3 is the second, or physical creation.

Habit 4 - Think Win-Win
The habit of interpersonal leadership, necessary because achievements are largely dependent on co-operative efforts with others. He says that win-win is based on the assumption that there is plenty for everyone, and that success follows a co-operative approach more naturally than the confrontation of win-or-lose.

Habit 5 - Seek first to Understand and then to be Understood
One of the great maxims of the modern age. This is Covey's habit of communication, and it's extremely powerful. Covey helps to explain this in his simple analogy 'diagnose before you prescribe'. Simple and effective, and essential for developing and maintaining positive relationships in all aspects of life.

Habit 6 - Synergize
The habit of creative co-operation - the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which implicitly lays down the challenge to see the good and potential in the other person's contribution.

Habit 7 - Sharpen the Saw
The habit of self renewal, says Covey, and it necessarily surrounds all the other habits, enabling and encouraging them to happen and grow. Covey interprets the self into four parts: the spiritual, mental, physical and the social/emotional, which all need feeding and developing.

Stephen Covey's Seven Habits are a simple set of rules for life - inter-related and synergistic, easy to practice and implement in practical life.

Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, has been a top-seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity.

2:04:00

2009-05-31T20:28:00.004-06:00

The race was run. I made it! Training since February 1st for this day, and now I'm stiff and sore. I finished in an official time of 2 hours 4 minutes exactly. That placed me 1,392nd in a field of 2,836. That's also a personal best by around five minutes so I was ecstatic about that. Didn't hit "the wall" and felt good all the way.

I was proud of myself for a number of reasons.

I never thought of myself as a runner and hadn't run more than 100m in over 10 years.
I set myself the goal in January to run the half-marathon and followed through.
I came into the race very prepared having run over 20km twice already in May.
I didn't hit "the wall" which is a sign I was prepared.
I had a poor preparation given that I got sick on Tuesday and was still feeling less than 100% on race morning.
I managed my race well and started slowly, ending with a PB!

Now I set my sights on the Canmore half marathon - September 12th...

Click on image to enlarge.

Jack of Clubs

2009-05-26T17:00:00.006-06:00

Take a moment to imagine you are in the audience at a small, intimate theatre, watching a magic show. The magician hands a deck of cards to a random member of the audience, asks her to check that it's an ordinary pack and give the cards a shuffle. The magician then turns to another member of the audience and asks him to name a card at random.

"Jack of Clubs," he says.

The magician covers his eyes, takes the deck of cards, and after some fumbling around he pulls out a card.

What is the probability of the card being the Jack of Clubs?

Depending on your knowledge of cards, you probably already have an answer. Is your answer one in fifty-two on account that there are 52 cards in an ordinary deck?

That might be one answer. Keep thinking.

What happens in life when we a challenge is posed of us? We look at what we know and we make a few assumptions and presto, we have an answer. But did we consider all the available information?

Had you forgotten that it was a magician pulling out the card. That could make a difference. If you were at a theatre and the magician on stage was performing wouldn't you expect him to pull the Jack of Clubs? In fact you'd probably say he would have an almost 100% likelihood that he would pull the Jack of Clubs. The magician wouldn't be in business for long if his tricks didn't work!

Are they the only two answers? 1-in-52 or 100%?

What about that there was no chance it was the Jack of Clubs because the card was in the pocket of the lady who shuffled the deck?

Perhaps the magician pulls a ten dollar bill from his pocket and "Jack of Clubs" is written on it with a marker pen.

Maybe the magician isn't really that good and botched the trick!

The reality is that there is no correct answer to this problem, but what's interesting is it makes you think about the other possibilities, rather than just the obvious one or perhaps two answers.

The funny thing though, is that the answer 1-in-52 is actually probably the least likely to be the correct answer. Magicians don't rely on luck or probability to perform their tricks. Or else they wouldn't be called magicians, they would be called unemployed!

The opportunity here is to realize that the more we think about a problem or challenge the more options arise. Sometimes the obvious answer is incorrect and assumptions can be very dangerous!

Chasing a Dream...

2009-04-22T19:51:00.005-06:00

Historically people who have obtained tremendous success have been single-minded in their focus and determination to make their dreams come to fruition. The story of the Honda motorbike and Mister Soichiro Honda is about following through on a dream.

Soichiro Honda was a racer, a businessman, and a manufacturer. But most of all he was a dreamer. He dreamed of a better way of making piston rings, founded a small company, and began production. He dreamed of giving people everywhere an economical form of transportation.

He learned his craft as a young boy working for Tokyo Art Shokai, an automobile servicing company, as an apprentice. He was given board, lodging and a little pocket money, but received no real wages. He learned important lessons that shaped the rest of his life: Enthusiasm for hard work, an appreciation of the need to improvise, thinking for oneself, a good feel for machines. Soichiro Honda, too, learned from his boss, Yuzo Sakakibara, not just how to do repair work but how to deal with customers and the importance of taking pride in one’s technical ability. Sakakibara was the ideal teacher, both as engineer and as businessman. As well as understanding repair work he was also skilled in more complicated processes such as the manufacturing of pistons.

Honda's first motorcycle was born out of necessity in immediate post World War II Japan, where public transportation was desperately overcrowded and gasoline severely restricted.

One day in September 1946, Mr. Honda was visiting his friend, when by chance he came across a small engine - a generator engine designed for a No. 6 wireless radio from the former Imperial Army that an acquaintance had left with him. When Mr. Honda saw it, he was immediately inspired with an idea. It was a moment of destiny. This encounter determined his whole future direction, and it was from this decisive moment that the later Honda Motor Co. would be born. Mr. Honda had started out as an automobile repair mechanic. Engines were what he knew best, and on top of that, he was an inventor. It did not take him any time to come up with an idea: “Let’s use this to power a bicycle.”

His aim was to adapt them for attachment to push-bikes and, by October 1946, his small factory in Hamamatsu was making complete, makeshift motor bikes using proprietary cycle frames.

Because gasoline was in short supply, Honda adapted his motors to run on turpentine, a fuel that he himself distilled from pine trees and sold throughout Japan.

Honda's first bikes were very successful and supplies of the 500 surplus engines he had purchased ran out after a few months. Because business was good he decided to manufacture his own motors. Using the surplus motor as a model, Honda designed and built his own 50cc engine.

In November 1947, the 1/2 horsepower A-Type Honda was being manufactured and sold as a complete motorbike. It was known as the "Chimney" because it gave off a lot of smoke and a stench of turpentine.

Soichiro Honda started Honda Motor Company in 1948, at the age of 41. 1948 saw Honda introduce a 90cc version of the A-Type known as the "B-Type". By 1949 Honda came out with the "D-Type". Mr. Honda was involved in every step of the two-stroke D-Type Dream's design and manufacture. This was Honda's first motorcycle. This was far from simply slotting a motor into a pushbike frame. Honda called his machine 'The Dream', because his dream of building a complete, motorcycle had come true.

Soichiro Honda was an engineer and was always looking to produce better and more sophisticated machines. The E-Type Dream was a powerful machine capable of 50mph. It had a steel frame and proper suspension front and rear. By October 1951 the new Dream was in production at the rate of 130 units per day.

In July 1958 Honda introduced in Japan what became the world's most successful motor cycle, the C100 Super Cub. It was developed over three years to be a cheap and practical motorcycle that literally anyone could use. It was so easy to operate that even new riders could ride it as easily as a pushbike. Its innovative frame without a crossbar made it popular with the ladies and set a new trend in commuter motorcycling. The word "scooterette" was coined to describe this step-through style motorbike which sold in 50, 70 and 90cc versions.

In 1959 it was the first Honda motorcycle sold in the U.S., eventually becoming the world's best-selling vehicle (30 million to date). As proof the original concept and design was perfect is the fact that today's C50, C70 and C90s have only detail changes to set them apart from the machines of 25 years ago.

From there Honda went from strength to strength, moving into the manufacture of cars in 1963 with the S500 sports car. Today Honda is the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world and a car manufacturer with one of the best reputations for quality.

Soichiro Honda had a dream to create affordable economic motorized transport and his passion, hard work and determination saw his dreams fulfilled far past I'm sure even his expectations. Which is interesting because often we see limits to our own success.

Could Soichiro Honda possibly see that from making a few hundred motorized bicycles back in 1946 he would one day be creating a motoring icon known all over the world?

My basic principle is..

2009-04-16T09:56:00.001-06:00

My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are cheap; you make them because they're right. - Theodore Hesburgh

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. - Roy Disney

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving. - Dale Carnegie

Susan Boyle

2009-04-16T08:47:00.012-06:00

For those of you who haven't seen the video of Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, it's worth taking a look. Similar to the story of Paul Potts a little while ago, here is an unknown British lady, aged 47. Never married and never even kissed! Unfortunately, you can see from her appearance why she was laughed at when she said she wanted to become a professional singer, and be as famous as Elaine Paige (http://www.elainepaige.com/).

When she began to sing it was truly amazing. See for yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

What's remarkable is that she's 47, and up until now had been an unknown. Who knows how small the circle was before April 11th who had heard Susan sing. It's fantastic that a talent contest can uncover such hidden talents. It's also sad that it had to be a talent contest that uncovered her talents. I say sad because our society highly values fame. In fact we take fame as an indicator of talent, ability, knowledge, intelligence, intuition etc. It seems that fame is the ultimate recognition of whether someone is good at what they do. That's what's sad, because Susan Boyle's talents were always there, but the world didn't know. She's no more talented now than she was last week, just a little braver.

The question for everyone is what talents do we all have that we choose to keep hidden under a rock, that we choose to keep in the closet, that we choose to keep to ourselves. What talents are we too afraid to share with others, and what's holding us back.

It takes a televised talent show to bring Susan Boyle to the world. And it's tremendous that she entered herself as a contestant for the show, or what other opportunities would have passed her by.

Undoubtedly it was the action she has finally taken to assert herself and put herself out there that has brought the rewards. In 47 years to never marry or be kissed says something about her track record. Who knows what ridicule she has endured in the past to cause her to make that her life.

It seems there are so many "armchair experts" who know better than everyone else, who calmly sit back and criticize, but this lady should be cheered, revered and acknowledged for taking a huge risk and putting herself on the line.

She has won, simply for taking the risk. Her life will be forever changed, for better or worse. One thing she cannot say now is that she "could've been, if only..." Now she will have the answer.

We should answer these similar questions for ourselves. We should take a risk and put ourselves out there. We should not criticize those who do that because they are the ones who are taking action, and action-takers deserve to be the winners.

"Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare." -Dale Carnegie

The Running Man

2009-04-15T16:21:00.001-06:00

It's amazing what happens when you set yourself a goal and commit to it. About 10 weeks ago I committed to running the Calgary half-marathon on May 31st. It's been 10 years since I last ran further than a couple of blocks to the bus stop because I could see my bus coming. I'm a 190lb man with a body (so I thought) that was built for short bursts of strength. Running distances in the hundreds of metres, not thousands!

This afternoon I just completed another 10km mid-week, lunch-time run. This is after running 13.5km on Sunday. Week after week I have been consistently building my stamina by running a "long run" on Sundays that keep getting longer and longer. My first run back on February 1st, was a mere 4.67km and that exhausted me. Now I run almost three times the distance and I'm 15% faster over the whole distance. Some days it feels like I could run for ever!

My primary goal for May 31st is to finish the race. I'd love to run the 1/2 marathon in under 2 hours and right now that's an achievable goal.

What have I done to keep myself in the right frame of mind?

I look in the mirror when I get out of the shower and I say "I have the body of a runner." Now I believe it. That belief spurs me on to run when I'm not feeling 100% like I want to. That belief allows me to stretch my long runs each week and it gives me a "can-do attitude".

I have also been telling myself the next goal is a marathon, and it sounds achievable for me now... and who knows... maybe an iron man triathlon is next! (That's a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike ride followed by a marathon (26 miles 385 yards, 42.195 km) run, raced in that order and without a break).

It's all about changing what you believe in yourself. Setting stretch goals, pushing yourself and being consistent in application and results follow.

My effort. My results.

2009-03-06T16:45:00.003-07:00

5:30pm May, 1989.

We had just finished dinner and my father says to me, “Matthew we need to chat about your report card.”

“Yes Dad.” I knew it wasn’t going to be a good chat. I hadn’t seen my report card but I suspected it wasn’t up to the same standards as past report cards.

We went into my bedroom and sat on my bed. Dad opened up my report card. Each subject had a separate page with my percentage, the average across the whole grade and my ranking across the whole grade.

“German.” Dad started. “Eighty-six per cent. Third out of twenty-seven.” He announced.

I nodded.

“Not bad, but you’ve always scored I the nineties and your mum and I really expect you to top that class.”

“Yes Dad.” I knew he was right. It was only the second time I hadn’t been first in that class.
Dad flipped the page over, “Mathematics.”

This was always one of my strong subjects. I found the numbers subjects fairly easily.

“Eighty-three per cent. Twenty-ninth out of one hundred and fifty one students.” Dad was very matter-of-fact. “Matthew, can you honestly tell me that there are twenty-eight kids who are better than you at maths?”

“No Dad. I can’t.”

“Well then.” He cleared his throat and flipped over the page, “Physics.” He shook his head. “Matthew can you tell me there are thirty seven people better than you in physics?”

“No Dad.”

He flipped the page again, “Can you tell me there are forty-six kids better than you in Chemistry?”

“No Dad.”

Dad kept going through each subject one by one and arrived at “Geography.” He paused and looked at me. “Matthew, I know you’re not so interested in geography, but are you really in the bottom half of the class?”

“Well…” I didn’t really have much to day at this point.

“Matthew, I want to see your marks above average for geography. Is that fair?”

“Yes it’s fair.”

“So are there any good reasons your marks aren’t what they should be?”

“No good reasons.” My head dropped. I knew I had failed my parents and more importantly I had fallen well short of my own potential.

“What do you need to do to get those marks up?”

“Work harder. Pay attention in class. Do my homework.”

“Well, when your end of year report comes in I want to see the results we’re accustomed to. Fair?”

“That’s fair.”

For the next six months I put in the work that was required, and sure enough my grades had recovered to five A’s and 2 B’s. Needless to say there were no more frank conversations.

I was just fifteen when this happened but I learned the lesson young, that my future is in my own hands. Whatever I expect to get out of life, I need to be putting in the required effort.

My effort. My results.

It’s a motto I try to live my life by. That’s why I have no regrets.

My First Run.

2009-02-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from my first "long run" as part of my training for the half-marathon (21.1km) at the end of May. Now it's not that long, but I have to start somewhere. Harold and I went for a 4.69 km run along the Bow River and we completed it in 28:50, which has me at 2hr-11min pace for the half marathon. I'm setting the goal of the half marathon in 2 hours, so it's around the mark.

What is actually the best part of today is that this was my first run and my fitness is such that I performed well. Walking the 4.5km to and from work for the last 7 months would be the main contributor to that.

I'm excited about the start, and I'm encouraged now to take on greater challenges... who knows, maybe a marathon by the end of the year!

Setting the Goal

2009-01-30T16:30:00.001-07:00

Today I registered for the Calgary Half Marathon on May 31st. I'm registering because it's part of my commitment to taking my fitness to the next level and challenging myself. I've never really considered myself a runner and so this will smash those false illusions.

The Boxer

2009-01-15T12:12:00.004-07:00

He must preserve himself.
He must dodge the punches.
He cannot win by dodging alone.
He himself must punch.

The boxer who never enters the ring never holds the title belt.
The commentator is a glorified spectator.
The spectator goes home broke.
The boxer goes home broken and beaten.

He will heal.
He is richer for the experience.
He can fight another day.
He will.

Written for my friend.

It's my birthday...

2009-01-08T08:08:00.002-07:00

Each year we celebrate that we lapped the sun. And I did it again. Hurray for me! I'm taking the day off.

The Businessman

2008-12-17T20:06:00.005-07:00

The Businessman is tall and thin
With a moustache and a grin.
He has lots of money
To spend on his honey.
He blows it on coke
Drags on a smoke.
It all looks so ideal
The real meal deal,
But it's not a smile of gold
Just a grin... and that gets old.

The Runner

2008-12-17T09:36:00.007-07:00

The runner runs.
He runs and runs.
Runs and runs.
And runs some more.
Then he keeps running.
Runs and runs.
He stops.
The race is not over.
There is no race.
He has not won.
He will never win.
There is no race.
He just won.

Passion Test

2008-12-15T13:06:00.002-07:00

Last night I finished doing a passion test. It's easy enough to do for yourself and it's interesting becasue it gets you thinking about exactly what it is you love to do.

Simply write your passions on individual 3x5 cards - one passion per card.
Then compare two at a time and decide which you are more passionate about.
Keep cycling through until you have put in order from most to least your passions.

It was most illuminating. I was quite surprised how my passions are different to where I'm spending my time... and actaully quite different to where I had planned to spend my time.

Time to re-organize!

Poor Zebra

2008-12-15T12:14:00.005-07:00

The Zebra has stripes
Black and white
Which are they?
Black or white?
Is he striped to the bone?
What colour is his meat?
Is it all on the surface?
From his head to his feet?
Or from his brain to his heart?
Do we admire him for what he is?
Or what he isn't?
Poor Zebra.

I'm back!

2008-12-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

It's been brought to my attention that this blog has become overrun with cobwebs and dust. I'm brushing all that aside and I'm back writing. There's no time like the present!

No Guarantees

2008-12-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

Larry Iwan was a gentleman I worked with for almost three years. I haven't actually seen him since my last day at that company just over a year ago. He retired last Friday apparently in good health and died on Monday. He didn't even get a day off.

There are no guarantees in life.

Obituary from Calgary Herald

IWAN Lawrence John "Lars" May 9, 1938 - December 8, 2008

The Following Obituary Contains Memories That Could Be Offensive To Some Readers. Did that grab your attention?

Good, because the guy that the following is about, liked to get peoples attention. Lawrence John Iwan, or Larry as he was known to many and Lars to many more, unexpectedly passed away this past Monday morning at 70 years of age. All things considered we think that is about thirty years too soon.

To say that Larry cut a unique path through life would be a grievous understatement and a true injustice to a man who truly saw no boundaries and made it a priority to soak up all that life had to offer every single day.

His cup was always half full even when merely a drop remained. Born in Winnipeg's north end in 1938, John and Jessie's proudly Polish boy would chase inclination, love and adventure across Canada for the next several decades, eventually settling in Calgary with his beloved wife and best friend Kathy.

Larry relished the awkward moments in life; often working tirelessly to initiate them. He was the icebreaker that every room needs. Quick witted and blessed with an extremely high IQ, he really could do anything that he set his mind to. A fistful of successful careers that included; race car driving, politics, photography, music and sales to name just a few.

Long days and busy nights with the ultimate pay off, weekends at the lake, Lars loved the lake it was his little piece of paradise. We can say with some confidence that the waters of Lake Mara will never be the same. We also suspect that insurance rates will come down now that he is off the water.

This past May to mark the occasion of his 70th birthday Lars went on a pub-crawl with his wife, kids and friends. A bus was rented, a course was charted, and like a band of merry pranksters, Lars and his posse traveled the city celebrating life's rich pageant at every stop along the way. In hindsight very apropos for a man who truly lived his life enjoying each and every stop along the way.

We love you Lars ... Now get back on that bus, the next stop has dancing girls! Larry is survived by his wife Kathy Stirling, whom he adored more than life itself, and his children, Michelle, Debbie, Dwight, Darren and Dale, their spouses Rene, Jarrett, Monique and Gail; his grandchildren Jordan, Claire, Max, Cooper and Adam and his father-in-law Donald "Radar" Stirling.

188.8 lbs

2008-12-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

On October 3rd When I hit my goal weight a friend of mine said, "It's all well and good to hit your target, but it'll be interesting to see where you're at three months later."

Well, this morning I weighed in at 188.8 lbs, so I guess I'm still on track!

191.2 lbs

2008-10-03T09:09:00.001-06:00

Today is the weight goal day. Three months ago I set myself the goal of losing 10% of my body mass to drop to 190 lbs. This morning I jumped on the scales and registered a mere 191.2 lbs. My wife and I agreed that should I starve myself all day I would be able to drop the 0.3 lbs to be 190 something.

I made it!

The amazing revelation that I've come to is that after losing twenty pounds on a body most people wouldn't have said needed to lose weight, I can see there's room to lose another ten pounds, perhaps more. The last time I was weighing in the 180s I was in my early twenties. I feel ten years younger!

I feel so much better now too. All my clothes fit loosely, I've gone in at least one belt hole on all my belts. I have so much more energy and I'm fitter, due to the increase in exercise.

This increase in exercise, by the way, has been simply walking to and from work three or four days a week. It's a 45-minute walk each way, and includes a hill-climb. I still only get to the gym once or twice a week, but the walks have given me six to eight extra cardio workouts.

My portions are smaller now. I'm following the portion sizes on packaging far more closely, and I realise I don't need to eat so much to feel "full". I'm also eating more often, making sure I get in a mid-morning snack and a mid-afternoon snack. I still eat sweets and the like, but far fewer and I far less frequently. I have also cut way back on my alcohol consumption, and have replaced it with water. There are so many empty calories in alcohol, that they really tally up quickly.

So my goal is now set on five pound increments of weight loss. I'll re-assess each five pounds to see where I'd like to end up to maximise my feeling of health and well-being.

Art Show

2008-09-27T20:35:00.003-06:00

Today I opened up my house to show and sell my art. For me this has been a mental block, but I'm so glad to have done it now, I can start planning the next one. Although it would have been nice to see more people come out, I was very happy to have sold 6 pieces. It starts to make some room for the new creations that are in the pipeline!

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt."
- William Shakespeare

211.4 lbs

2008-07-11T22:14:00.003-06:00

Today I was at a friend's place and we both jumped on the scales. He recorded 212.0 lbs and I was 211.4 lbs. That's about ten pounds lighter than the heaviest I've been, but it's still more than I'd like to be. So we made a commitment to drop 10% of our body mass by October 3rd. That would have me at 190 lbs, a weight I haven't been since before I came to Canada in 2002.

My wife, Gosia, also committed to losing 10% of her body mass which would have her back at her pre-pregnancy weight. I won't say what the numbers are... women are sensitive about that kind of stuff.

Status Symbols (Published article)

2008-05-05T13:38:00.001-06:00

Oprah Winfrey’s “Big Give” has just finished playing on television. For those who never watched it or saw the promotions for it, Oprah had a number of contestants on the program giving to people in need each week. The person who gave the least or had the least effect was voted off by a high-profile panel of “expert givers”.

What struck me about this was the apparent “backwardness” of the show. Instead of the contestants trying to get the most for themselves they were trying to give the most away.

Why I say this is backward is because in life the status symbols people crave are possessions. Very few would brag about the amount of money they gave to charities last year, though the same people would happily take you to their garage to see their new car or take you on a tour of their home pointing out the various upgrades, or show you the photos from their recent holiday.

Why don’t people proclaim how much they give away?

It’s odd that it’s actually seen as rude to brag about the amount of money one donates, yet it’s not rude to casually discuss the money one spends on oneself.

In an age of abundance and in many cases gluttony, there are still massive portions of the world that struggle daily to even feed themselves.

So it is interesting then that now as our society becomes more conscious of mother earth, of waste and of understanding others, that the status symbols that still thrive are the self-centered, wastefully extravagant kind. We’re all guilty, myself included. In this day and age it’s nearly impossible not to get caught up, especially in a city as wealthy as Calgary is.

“And what’s wrong with that anyway?” You may be asking.

I guess nothing. Everyone makes their own choices as to how they want to allocate their resources, financial or otherwise. People tend to allocate where they see themselves getting the most bang for the buck.

What bang are people looking for when they buy status symbols? Prestige perhaps. Uniqueness. Popularity… even fame. And what will that buy them? Happiness would be the hope, but happiness is rarely if ever the result. True happiness comes from knowing yourself, from self-satisfaction, from making a difference, from contribution to others. Essentially happiness comes from giving.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mohandas Gandhi.

The problem with all these things that we acquire is they steal time away from us. Last week my automatic garage door stopped working. I know it’s not a status symbol, but it is a sign of abundance. So now I’ll have to get it fixed, so that I can access my garage. If I didn’t have an automatic garage door I wouldn’t be losing any time this week getting it fixed! As a society we run so many errands and make shopping trips to purchase status symbols, or upgrading the ones we bought last year that no longer cut the mustard.

If we replaced that time in acquisition mode with time in giving mode we would likely find ourselves more at peace with the world. In addition to the benefit that would be seen by our friends and family, who would spend more quality time with us, we would also have a fair bit of spare change left over. We could give it away to someone who needs it more than we need to buy yet another flat screen plasma television!

Choices (Published Article)

2008-04-04T15:36:00.000-06:00

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.

I was thinking about one of the conscious choices I make – my friends. On the weekend we had a party for some of our friends and there were fourteen of us in total. I was paid a compliment by one friend who didn’t know many of the others when she said, “Your friends are really nice people.”

It’s nice when someone pays you a compliment, and especially nice when they compliment your good judgement. We enjoy our friends and although we have only lived in Calgary for five years we have a strong network, which has taken time and energy to build.

I remember when my wife and I first came to Calgary. We didn’t know anyone and on weekends we would stay at home and play board games. Our phone would only ring when a telemarketer called, and I would relish the opportunity to speak with them!

We made a conscious effort to make friends. We played on teams through sporting socials clubs and we looked in every place we could think where friendly people might exist who could become our friends. We were prepared to put in a concerted effort to invite them for dinner or to organize outings together.

As a result we now have a strong network and find ourselves busy on most weekends, spending time with friends. In this column I have previously mentioned the value of time, and I have chosen to spend my time with good friends. These are the sorts of people we can rely on, who are honest and whom we can trust, with whom we have interesting conversations based on common interests and intellect. These are all people I could trust with my children or my wallet. They are people who make us feel special. These are people who enrich our life.

Becoming friends with all of these people took effort on our part, but the rewards are great. As life goes on I see that what makes our lives valuable is less concerned with the monetary wealth we have, but the golden friends around us.

No matter what situation you’re in now with regards to your friends or anything else in your life, ask yourself whether you would choose what you have now if given the opportunity to start fresh.

When you think about your friends could you trust them all? Are they always reliable? Do they ever let you down? Do you respect them? Do you get excited to see them? Do they make you feel good when you’re together? Do they make you feel like you are important to them?
It’s important to respect yourself so that you surround yourself only with the people who deserve your friendship. Along the way we have met many more people than we are now friends with. Our friends today are the ones we consciously chose to become friends with.

So far, the diligent effort and perseverance has resulted in a happy social life for us. Diligent effort and perseverance is a formula for success in any aspect of life.

Living My Dream

2008-03-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'm instructing a Dale Carnegie in Red Deer that stared last night. As I drove home at around 10pm, it was late and I was tired, but I was wired. The reason - I'm living my dream. It struck me that after years and years of doing something for someone else and getting little satisfaction, I am now doing what I've always dreamed of doing.

It's a great feeling, because I know so many people who dread going to work, but I love my work. My time is precious and I'm spending it the way I want to. Being out late until 10pm isn't ideal, but it doesn't feel like work.

When I think back to just over a year ago when I started taking the Dale Carnegie Course, I didn't think that a year later I would be working for them and training a class. In fact I know that when I sat in the class as a Marketing Manager, becoming a Corporate Trainer seemed like such a leap that I had no idea how I would get there. Now I realize that you don't necessarily need to see all the steps, so long as you can visualize the direction.

Life changes very quickly when you make it happen. I committed to doing whatever it would take to change my life and now, here I am. Anything's possible.

Trapped (Published Article)

2008-03-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

One of my new year’s resolutions was to read books I have on my shelf that somehow remain unread. It’s part of my de-cluttering and simplifying of my life. I have just finished Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

It’s a well-known story of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl in hiding from 1942 to 1944 with seven other people in a “secret annexe” – secret rooms above an office in Amsterdam. Because their survival relied on as few people as possible knowing that they were there, they had to remain silent throughout the days, not even using water, which might alert the office-workers below that people were hiding upstairs. Every day they worried they could be discovered and taken by the Nazis. To survive they relied on hoping for the war to end and the Nazis to be defeated.

What made me think was how these people were trapped in this life. Anne had been such a friendly, sociable person but was restricted to being friends with the seven others in hiding, two of whom were her parents and one her sister. I started to think about our lives and how we too are trapped – not physically but mentally. Anne was trapped because of her race and the horrible war situation, but how many of us are trapped in our own world. We’re trapped inside our comfort zone.

The limits that exist in our life are the ones we place on ourselves. In general people hold themselves back more often in life because of a lack of confidence than a lack of potential or ability.

Take a moment to think about your life and what you do regularly. How often do you push yourself to the point of being scared or uncomfortable? How often do you try new activities or attempt something that you’ve previously been unsuccessful at?

If you’re not pushing yourself and striving to do new and scary things then you’re not expanding your comfort zone. And the unfortunate part of that is that if it’s not expanding it’s contracting. As children we spend every day expanding our comfort zones and skill levels. Just watch a one-year-old learn to walk. There’s a period of instability, many falls and bumps into table corners but with every injury comes a stronger resolve to try again and become better. Eventually the children master the skill of walking and begin to run and jump. We take walking for granted but there was a point in our life when, as we lay on our stomachs licking dust off the carpet, it may have seemed like an impossible dream.

Somehow as adults we change and stop at the first failure or sign of failure. It appears that the encouraging environment that children grow up in evaporates as adults don’t seem to believe that encouragement is still relevant.

People need encouragement and they need to dream and have people support their dreams. Donald Trump sees that the difference between himself and others is that he thinks big. “I have to think anyway, so I might as well think big.”

Within a positive environment we feel safe thinking big and chasing our goals. Within a supportive environment we feel it is okay to fail along the way. Within an open and loving environment we recognize that we all face similar challenges and have similar worries and concerns and that we’re all here to help each other.

Unlike Anne Frank we are not forced to be a prisoner. Let’s not be imprisoned by self-imposed limits. Throw caution to the wind, take a risk - that leap of faith. Recognize that anything’s possible.

For friends...

2008-02-18T17:36:00.001-07:00

On Sunday I spent 9 hours at a friend's place painting this mural on their two-year-old son's bedroom wall. They're expecting a second child in a few months and their son is moving into this room to make way for the new addition. The boy loves Thomas the Tank Engine and wanted this for his room, and with my painting experience and having also painted a mural for my own children's bedroom I was confident I could get the job done.

Amber, the boy's mother, helped me with the mural and we worked well together as a team. Though it was a lot of work and I was quite tired at the end of it all, it was very enjoyable and very satisfying.

I realise what an awesome gift I was able to give them and their son, because there will be years of enjoyment that they will get from the mural. It's amazing how a gift that took nine hours to give can create such a lasting enjoyment.

Those are the gifts that have tremendous value. What's interesting is that is cost me nothing, yet it has a lot more value than any gift we have given them or their son.

Time is valuable, when we value it. When we can do good things with our time and give our time to others we can have a huge effect on them.

What is also interesting is the positive feeling I now have from creating this for them, and the strengthening of our friendship as a result.

Orbs and stuff...

2008-02-08T07:51:00.001-07:00

Last night after watching a video about orbs I decided to take some pictures outside and see what I would get. I have had orbs in my pictures before but never to the extent that I got last night... This is the brightest orb I've ever photographed. The photo was taken looking up at the cloudy sky. You would swear I was taking a photo of the moon, but it's an orb! You can see the colours on each side of the orb are different too. There is some "spirit mist" on the right. That white stuff that looks like fog or something was not there in the previous or subsequent photos.

If you zoom into the "spirit mist" at the bottom of the photograph you can see that it looks like a face. This photo is taken from my front door looking straight into the night sky. You can see the roof line of my house in the top right corner.

This was the second picture I took, and i was blown away by the "spirit mist"!

This one taken on the sidewalk in front of our house - a huge orb!

Here's some more spirit mist, when I took a picture of my friend Rob. Again, in the previous and subsequent pictures that were taken only seconds apart, the shot was clear. It's weird! I have never had this happen to my pictures before, but I've also never just taken dozens of photos one after the otehr looking for this either!

World Peace (Published Article)

2008-02-01T10:12:00.002-07:00

World Peace seems like the impossible dream. It doesn’t seem to matter who is driving the cause or how much money is put behind it, attempts at world peace all seem to fail somewhere along the line. That’s not to say that all efforts are in vain. Certainly I’m a big proponent of being friendly and getting along with people where possible.

The interesting thing about the concept of “world peace” is that for there to be peace in the world, there has to also be peace at home. If two brothers can’t get along, then how can we expect people of different races, religions and various backgrounds to cooperate?

I believe that if we can solve the problems at home, we can solve the problems of the world, and the reason is simple. The same reason why two family members don’t see eye to eye is the same reason two countries don’t see eye to eye.

It sounds simplistic, and perhaps it is, but that’s the beauty of it all. There are a couple of principles that if followed would go a long way to eliminating turmoil and wars.

The first is communication -open and honest communication. As I watch my two year old daughter as she’s learning to speak, form sentences and grow her vocabulary, I see how excited she is. Every day she learns something new and she’s just itching to practice. What happens between that age and becoming a teenager when it seems the lines of communication shut down and no one wants to talk any more?

Marriages break down and countries go into war against each other because they fail to remain in consistent communication and let their assumptions take over.

When communication is done well it becomes the strength in a relationship or in an organization, but when it is done poorly it can be single most destructive force. I’ve worked in places that have such poor communication that everything was learned “on the grapevine” or at the water cooler. There was constant gossiping and a lot of ill-feeling, simply because there was a lack of healthy communication from managers and between colleagues.

The second is to try and see things from the other person’s point of view. Most of the arguments (and these very big arguments become wars) that happen are a result of people not putting themselves in the other person’s shoes and making a real attempt to see it from their point of view. Sometimes that means to physically put yourself there – sit in their chair, put on their clothes, spend a day shadowing them. Ask questions why. Be genuinely interested in their life and find out what makes them tick, and why! When you begin asking people questions about their life you will be amazed at how interesting they are. Below the surface there are so many hidden treasures and experiences, it seems a shame that there are very few outlets that will allow them to come forth, and also our reluctance to talk about them.

When you truly understand why someone does something and you can put yourself in their position, you may still not agree with their point of view, but it’s much more difficult to get angry about it.

Often we look to other places to try and solve problems. It’s easier than dealing with our own issues. We complain about the world and we become victims of our environment. If we turned that energy into making the best of our own lives, the one by one we could save the world. World Peace is achievable, one household at a time.

Resolutions (Published Article)

2008-01-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of the year so many people make resolutions... to lose weight, to get fit, to change jobs, to find a partner. It’s why gyms across the city are packed with people in January and February on a quest to shed some of the Christmas pounds. But why are the gyms returning to normal usage by March and April? Why is it that so many people don’t follow through on their new year resolutions? I’m as guilty as the next person for not following through on some of these goals.

Often a lack of time is blamed... or life gets in the way.

But, honestly, what is the reality? The reality is that the goal was not a high enough priority. I don't buy the reason that “there isn’t enough time”. We have all the time we’re ever going to have. We cannot create more time. We can make more time for the things that are of a high priority.

Let me give you an example. You may “not have time” to go to the gym today, but you do have time to work late, visit friends, watch television, go shopping or attend an evening course etc. I only use the example of going to the gym because it seems to be one of the most common resolutions.

So how can you make a new year resolution become a part of who you are, to become a new habit?

When NASA was first preparing its astronauts for space they were concerned of how the convex lens of their helmets would cause disorientation. So they had the would-be astronauts wear convex goggles which made everything appear upside down. After 21 days the astronauts’ minds had flipped the image back so that everything appeared normal even though they were still wearing the goggles. For a group of the astronauts they removed the goggles for one day on day 17, and found that for the mind to flip the images the 21 day period started all over again, even though the habit was broken for just one day.

From this we can conclude that it takes a minimum of three consecutive weeks of doing a new task before it becomes a habit. Make that four weeks to be on the safe side.

What stops people from doing something consistently for just three or four weeks? The answer - a decent reason. If the reason is not important enough and the want is not great enough then why would anyone do something different?

It’s about creating a strong reason, backed up with feeling, emotion and a concrete desire to change. It’s about creating a vision for where you want to get to. Seeing that vision clearly in your mind’s eye and having a knowing that you will get there. It’s about moving yourself towards that vision without hesitation and making time for it, because it is the highest priority. Any resolution with power needs to be a stepping stone to fulfilling the vision you have for yourself. If it’s part of your big plan then you’ll have reason to strive to achieve it.

One thing you’ll also know is that if things get uncomfortable, then you are moving yourself forward. When you are uncomfortable you are working outside your comfort zone and expanding it.

So, know where you want to get to. See that clearly in your mind. Visualize it every day. Set resolutions or goals that will propel you there and follow through every day and your life will change!

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” - Helen Keller 1880-1968

A TV Star

2008-01-01T21:21:00.000-07:00

Our 3 1/2 month old daughter made her television debut on Saskatoon's CTV 6pm news on December 28th, 2007. Our friend is the Sports Announcer for CTV news and we watched the broadcast in the studio. Because Delilah had been so well behaved they decided to get her on at the very end. See the link below to watch it on You Tube.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PgUrEJsXz54

If the link doesn't work for you go to http://www.youtube.com/ and search "Delilah CTV", and it will come up.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Let it snow!

2007-12-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

Spending some Christmas time up in Edmonton, Alberta with the family and it's been snowing quite a bit. As a driver I find the snow inconvenient as it makes the roads slippery and less safe. With the snow comes cold weather, something that may also be unwanted.

However, everything in life affects us how we want it to. For some people snow represents the end of warm summer, for others it's the start of the exciting skiing season, for others it represents potential earnings in the form of snow clearing. It may signify the start of the Christmas season, something so many people look forward to.

Whatever the snow means for you, I hope it's positive. If it isn't then maybe it's time to re-frame your thoughts, especially if you live in a climate that has a lot of snow, like Canada's!

With everything and every day in life you have two choices, to make the best of it... or not.

A Fourth Gift.

2007-12-23T20:52:00.001-07:00

So I was discussing my parenting theory from my previous entry with my parents, whom I credit with being solid parental role models. They added a fourth gift that good parents give their children, and that's a good work ethic.

In life you will pay for everything at some stage. Sometimes you pay up front and reap rewards for a long time after, and sometime you get a lot early and pay at the end. This is true when it comes to everything - money, health, love, happiness etc.

The important part here is that hard work combined with smart work will generate results in the long term. Working hard from the outset, is paying for something at the start and reaping the rewards for a long time to come.

To increase the likelihood that someone realizes their life's goals, a strong work ethic is an essential ingredient.

Christmas Gifts

2007-12-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

It's just a few days from Christmas now, and I was reflecting the other day on the whole theory of gift giving. With two young children we have gifts to give them, but as I thought about the best gifts I have received in my life, not one of them came wrapped in paper.

As concerned parents we find ourselves is discussions with other parents on the merits of certain pre-schools and educational philosophies, how much television children should watch and whether computer games with violence should be allowed. There are so many details that can be argued for and against.

When I think of what's important and what will carry our children forward to live a long and happy life, the details are quite insignificant. I feel it's the big things that matter when parenting. There's no way my wife and I will make all the right decisions on the details, but we can ensure we do the big things well.

As I see it there are three gifts we as parents need to give to our children. These gifts are not given once, but are continually given over a lifetime.

The first is unconditional love. Unconditional love is the solid foundation on which a steady life can be built. Unconditional love is love that is shown and demonstrated no matter what happens. Unconditional love is shown in the most trying situations, for example, when a family heirloom is broken, when the car has been written off or when failing grades appear in a report card. Unconditional love is the knowledge that someone is loved for who they are, not what they do or what they have. Unconditional love is something you carry with you everywhere you go as a protective shield against any potential harm. Unconditional love by its very nature is never lost... it is unconditional.

The second is the ability to think. And I don't mean this in the simplest form, for example if I said, "Think of a number between one and a hundred" I'm sure anyone could do that. That's not the thinking I'm referring to. Thinking is coming up with a solution to a problem. Thinking is inventing, creating. Thinking is deciding that you don't accept everything as it is but questioning why. Asking questions like, "Why are there so many species of tree? Why is the sky blue? Why do people get jealous? Why do people voluntarily put themselves in harm's way? The ability to think comes from the time and opportunity to do so. The less children are "fed" what to think and the more they are encouraged to create their own thoughts, the better the thinking muscle will be developed and the greater their ability to survive in an ever-changing world.

The third, and by no means any less important than the other two is faith. I don't mean religious faith, but faith in oneself. It's the faith in knowing that everything will turn out for the best because I am in control of my destiny. It's the faith in being able to rely on yourself to get the job done. It's the faith that whatever you do will result in success eventually. It's that inner knowing that you will have life full of triumphs. It's knowing that no matter what happens you can always bounce back stronger and even if you can't see the way forward it will present itself.

It's that knowing, supported by the unconditional love and coupled with the wherewithal to discover answers through clear thinking that forms a potent and unstoppable force for personal success.

Really, when you think about the trivialities that fill our time, there are but a few fundamentals that make it all happen in life. These are the greatest gifts of all.

Christmas Party

2007-12-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

A great time was had by all last night at the Dale CarnegieChjristmas Party, held at the Ranchmen's Club in downtown Calgary. I love it when I've an opportunity to put the old penguin suit on again!

Expectations (Published Article)

2007-11-30T21:20:00.000-07:00

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…” so the tune goes. It seems that Christmas begins the day after Halloween, with the decorations, the music and all the paraphernalia that goes with it. And certainly it’s a fun time of year.

In fact the remarkable part of all this is that Christmas itself is in fact just one day. Actually for most people, the way it’s celebrated, it really is only an evening. Amazing then that we should spend nearly two months looking forward to it. Two months of thinking about people to buy for, two months of writing Christmas cards, two months of calculating a budget for everything and then spending double that…

It reminds me of another day that people historically spend an awfully long time and a lot of resources planning for – the wedding day. It will never cease to amaze me that people can spend a year planning for a wedding, yet funerals, which often are just as large gatherings can be organized in a week.

Anyway, I digress! In addition to the “looking forward” to Christmas there’s also the tremendous energy and resources that go into it. For those who work in the retail environment, it’s not the most fun time at all. With harried shoppers darting around, crowds of desperate people looking for the one special gift, and complaining people waiting too long for service, it all adds up to something less than “special”.

Then there’s the financial investment. Far too many household budgets get blown to smithereens in December each year. Children get spoiled, and many unnecessary purchases are made.

It seems that every year with all the preparations, for most people Christmas doesn’t really have a hope of living up to those expectations. When so much focus is put on a single event for an extended period of time, there’s bound to be disappointment. For many families, Christmas is yet another family celebration, with the usual conversations, the usual politics and the usual presents. But we fool ourselves into thinking that this year it will be different.

So why do we do this? We’re intelligent creatures? Isn’t doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result the definition of insanity?

The interesting part of this is that by having a focus in the future, we have no need to pay attention to what’s happening today. We “drug” ourselves with the hopes and dreams of tomorrow, to delay the inevitable need of dealing with today. And this trick is everywhere in our lives. We are constantly looking forward, putting energy into the weekend, the next holiday, a party… anything, but not into the only thing we have – NOW.

If we put the same effort into enjoying today as much as we put into our hopes for the future, today would be so much better that we wouldn’t be so worried about tomorrow. We likely wouldn’t have the same personal issues, struggles or problems, because we would have dealt with them rather than ignore them and focus on the future. In turn we might find ourselves in a happier, more loving and financially secure place.

Think about putting the same effort into every day as you put into December 25th. It is when we live our life with enthusiasm for every moment that we have truly found a gift. Hence the line from another well-know Christmas song, “If every day could be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world it would be!”

Exhibited.

2007-11-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

Today, some of my artwork went on display at the Second Cup cafe on 10th Street in the trendy neighbourhood of Kensington in Calgary's inner city. This is exciting because it's the first time I've been displayed at the Second Cup and it has a high traffic count. The works will be up for a month, and I hope to be displayed there in the future as well.

Prices for the works on display are as follows:

Puzzle Pieces (2 x 36"x48") Acrylic on canvas $1495
Skewed Landscape (24"x36") Acrylic on canvas $450
The Kiss (24"x36") Acrylic on canvas $450
The Hand of God (24"x36") Acrylic on canvas $450
Morning Sunrise (24"x36") Mixed media on canvas $550
The Sun and the Tree (24"x36") Acrylic with varnish on canvas $495

Depending on sales, the display will change over the month.

Success is getting what you want.

2007-11-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
- Dale Carnegie

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T22:18:00.000-06:00

As an Australian, I never celebrated Halloween - not for any religious reasons, but because Halloween is not part of the Australian culture... or should I say, the Australian retailers haven't worked out how lucrative it can be.

I must say that I was amazed when I first came to Canada how much the shops get involved with Halloween paraphernalia. Even Shoppers Drug Mart had an aisle dedicated.

But as a Canadian citizen I choose to get involved, and especially since we now have children, i can see it being a lot of fun for them too.

Every year I've been carving pumpkins, and this year I carved Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Then, tonight for the very first time ever I went trick-or-treating. Yes, I'm in my thirties and I trick-or-treated for the first time!! I went with my daughter Vienna, who celebrated her 2nd birthday on October 29th. She went as a bear and I carried the bag of goodies.

We didn't teach her trick or treat, so she said "please" with her little hands outstretched, "thank you" (which sounds more like "fafu") when she received the goodies, and "roar" on cue when the people asked what she was.

It was awesome!

I must say that I always looked at Halloween as a money grab for the shops and another time to unnecessarily spend money, but I had so much fun with Vienna that I now think it should be a part of every child's upbringing.

As Is (Published Article)

2007-10-30T17:56:00.000-06:00

There’s a small room in the massive Ikea store that houses “as is” items. These are pieces of furniture and accessories that have some defect or problem and cannot be sold on the floor. They are relegated to the “as is” room and sold at a discount to the regular retail price. This is the last stop. If they don’t sell quickly here they get discounted even further until they finally do go.

My point here is not to give Ikea a free advertisement, but to think about the thought process that goes into purchasing an item “as is”. When you do that, you accept its flaws. If you buy a table and it has a big scratch on it, you’ve accepted the scratch and purchased it anyway, because essentially you’ve got a bargain.

This works out well for both buyer and seller, because the seller has got rid of a problem and the buyer has found a great deal…

Well… it is a great deal if you’re happy with the scratch. If you truly have accepted the flaw then it is a great deal. If, however, you have a change of heart after you’ve brought the table home and realize that you can’t live with that scratch, it’s now become a problem. What are the solutions? A tablecloth… get an expert to sand and re-finish the surface… paint it?
I can see you saying, “So who cares? I’m not an “as is” shopper.”

Maybe you don’t buy furniture as is, but we are all in relationships or friendships, and like it or not these are as is. When I married my wife it was forever and ever, till death do us part etc… as is! There’s nothing in the vows that says that a husband or wife has to change drastically to become Mister or Mrs. Right after the wedding day, although that’s what a lot of people expect.

Is it fair to expect someone to become someone they never were just because now you married them?

We marry for better or worse… or so we promise.

Now I’m not saying that people don’t or can’t change, but it’s the expectation. When you truly love someone you accept them for who they are, warts and all… as is. The current epidemic of plastic surgery is a testimony to the fact that people don’t accept themselves and others as is, and try to become, or at least appear like someone they aren’t.

If you’re not happy with what you married you have two choices that can lead to greater happiness. Learn to accept and be thankful for what you have and look for the positives, or get out of the relationship.

People do change but it’s voluntary. No one can force change on someone else. Essentially every individual has to determine the path they want to take and make decisions to lead themselves there. People will influence those decisions but the decision for change lies within.
In any situation you have the opportunity to look at yourself and ask, “how did I get myself here?” Whether you like where you’re at or not, you had a hand in getting yourself there. If you want to be somewhere else, then you’ll need to make different decisions to get there.

If you’re in a situation that you’re unhappy with as is, then either make the change in your attitude towards it, or make the change in your actions. Just think…

If it is to be it is up to me.

Books to read...

2007-10-19T08:56:00.000-06:00

These aren't my words, but I found them useful, especially since I like to read books that will increase my personal growth, so I thought this might be interesting to add to my blog.

Sean Wise is the Globe's monthly entrepreneurship and venture capital columnist.

Business Bibles

SEAN WISE

Globe and Mail Update

August 29, 2007 at 2:25 PM EDT

I started my life as an Entrepreneur at the ripe old age of 13. Since that time, I've without a doubt read hundreds of books on entrepreneurship, venture capital, angel investing, innovation and business leadership.

Often I'm asked to recommend some of the best to those looking to get a jump on their entrepreneurial education. So without further ado, here's my list:
The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton
The Monk who Sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
Getting Things Done by David Allan

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

This is the book I wish I wrote. Kawasaki, bestselling author on more than a half dozen business books, outlines the what, the why and most of all the how of starting a new venture. This book covers topics including but not limited to:

The Art of Raising Capital
The Art of Pitching
The Art of Bootstrapping
The Art of Recruiting
The Art of Being a Mensch

The former Chief Evangelist for Apple and founder of ultra successful seed fund, Silicon Valley's Garage Ventures, has taken the blogosphere by storm these last few years, expanding his early works and leveraging his network to share insights. Kawasaki is often controversial, and sometimes arrogant, but his lessons are almost always extremely valuable. For those reasons, Kawasaki is a must read for all founders and funders.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

This was actually the first business book I read. The book has been a bestseller since the 1930s, and is still valuable even if some of the examples are slightly dated.Carnegie extols the virtues of putting yourself in the shoes of others before speaking or taking action. He also shares: why smiling is still the best (and most cost effective) form of customer service; the secret for getting any job (a secret I've successfully used many times); and how to increase employee satisfaction without increasing costs. My favorite lesson - and one I work at each and every day: Don't Criticize, Condemn or Complain.

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton

If Carnegie's tome helps to minimize conflict, William's and Ury's treatise on negotiation theory sets out a process which, if followed, ensure efficient negotiation and effective conflict mitigation. This great book was required reading while I was in law school and helped bring terms like BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement — i.e. what is the next best case if you fail to resolve the matter) and WATNA (Worse Alternative to Negotiated Agreement — i.e. what is the biggest downside of not resolving the matter) to the forefront. Together, these terms help to clarify the boundaries of any disputed outcome. Whether you are going to ask for a raise or acquire a company, this is your requisite prior reading.

The Monk who Sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma

I was attracted to Sharma's work by our similar backgrounds. Both of us are Toronto based, washed-up lawyers, who have both found rejuvenation in writing. However, that's where the similarities end. Sharma has been a bestseller in more than 42 countries and sold more than 10 million copies of his first book, The Monk who Sold his Ferrari . Me? Not so many. On the plus side, I do have better hair than Robin, but that's about it. As for the book, it's a classic parable, helping readers to discover the true meaning of life (and it does). In this "always on", "24/7" world we live in, with ever blurring lines between work and life, this book is more relevant than ever. If you are searching for your purpose, looking to refocus, or just wondering "is there something more", I'd highly recommend this story.

Getting Things Done by David Allan

Do you have hundreds of emails waiting for your reply? A to-do list that gets bigger everyday? More meetings than there are hours in the day? Then Getting Things Done (or GTD as David Allan devotees refer to it) is what you NEED to read. Yes, NEED to Read. Sited as "the premiere text" for managing time in the modern world, this book outlines how to set and follow through on your priorities.

Allan's book has spawned a cult-like following amongst tech entrepreneurs the world over, some even going so far as to create free software to take Allan's GTD to the next level.Recently, I had the chance to have a "fireside chat" with David during one of Silicon Valley's "Under the Radar" events. If I wasn't convinced before of the value of Allan's program, one need only look to the legions of devotees that swarmed him after the interview, clamoring for autographs and pictures.

David Allan has become the rockstar of organization, and rightfully so. Some readers claim double or triple increases in their efficiency and huge decreases in work -related anxiety. If you feel overwhelmed by your INBOX, take a break and read this book.

The Bottom Line: A few months ago, I shared with readers Jiu-Jitsu Master Sensei Helio Gracie's secret to martial arts and life — always keep learning. If that makes sense to you — then grab one, two or all of the above texts, turn off your blackberry and improve your entrepreneurial life by reading a chapter a day.

Sunset Over The Mountains

2007-10-07T18:14:00.000-06:00

This is an encaustic painting on plywood. 24" x 24". I really like the colours. It's so relaxing.

The Comfort Zone

2007-10-06T15:24:00.000-06:00

We often think of the Comfort Zone as our friend, the place where everything is good, and we get that warm and fuzzy feeling.

As time goes on this year, I realize how much of my life I have lived in a comfort zone, and how it isn't beneficial to my overall happiness. The reason I guess I fooled myself, or convinced myself that I was living out my dreams was because I now recognize that my comfort zone is bigger than many people's. The error I've made, however is to use this comparison as a justification for what I'm doing.

Let me be specific here. I've been in the work-force for a little over eleven years. No, I'll correct that. It's been a little over eleven years since I finished my university education. I have not worked every year since then.

When I look at what I've done in those eleven years, it includes working in billboard sales, in four different companies' marketing departments, the last time as the Marketing Manager, at and advertising agency and as a Tour Manager for Contiki in western Europe.

Since graduating I've lived five years in Australia, 18 months in Europe and five years in Canada.

I'm very happily married for nearly five years and have two beautiful daughters.

But it wasn't until this year that I started to get out of my comfort zone. It was the first time in as long as I can remember that I REALLY got nervous - when I started to become a Trainer for Dale Carnegie. And as I begin now to work for Dale Carnegie in a sales capacity, I realize that this is also stretching my comfort zone again.

So I was thinking today while I was working out at the gym, what I may have accomplished in the last eleven years had I really stretched myself out of my comfort zone. When I read articles about successful people, I know that I could have done what they did... but haven't.

This year has shone a light on how easily I've managed to coast along, albeit at a steady rate and with progress, but actually not enough progress to keep me excited and fulfilled.

In my dreams last night I realized that I've been holding myself back with negative self-talk - that little voice in my head that says "I can't..." When I know that all I have to say is "Give it a go. Just do it." and the rest will take care of itself.

It's time for me, and for everyone who wants to achieve their goals to throw fear out the window and let loose. Be fearless! It's only when we act in the face of fear that we will progress our life forward.

The Comfort Zone is not our friend, it is actually an insidious enemy that keeps us from achieving our dreams and finding true happiness.

Weight Gain!!

2007-10-04T22:34:00.000-06:00

It's amazing how quickly children grow! Our new daughter Delilah weighed in at a tick over eight pounds when she was born. 32 days later she's a whopping eleven pounds. That's a 37% weight gain in just a month! And unlike most women, she hasn't gained it in her thighs and bum, it seems to have all gone into her chubby little cheeks!

Living A Deliberate Life (Published Article)

2007-09-29T09:29:00.000-06:00

Take a moment to reflect on your life, and think of at least one time when you achieved something significant. You set a goal, made a plan, and dedicated time to achieving that goal. You worked hard, and eventually you did it. Maybe you set a fitness goal like running a marathon, or a professional goal to get a promotion or to work in a particular company or field. Maybe personally you set yourself goals to meet people and make friends. Whatever it was, reflect on that success for a moment.

Now think about the rest of your life, and whether it follows the same guided path that you took on that occasion. If you’re like most people, your life looks a lot less deliberate.
Unfortunately many of us live in this “accidental life” mode all the time. When we get in that mode we tend to rely on good luck, and good things happening, rather than making them happen. I do have a lot of good luck in my life, but I work very hard to get it, and I expect to get it.

You know the feeling of driving somewhere out of the usual, but you started to drive somewhere else - to a place you regularly drive. Suddenly you realize that you’re on auto-pilot.

To live a deliberate life, the first thing we need to do is become conscious and get out of auto-pilot mode. Auto-pilot is good for a lot of things, but if we make important decisions in auto-pilot mode, we can just drift along in our life and not get to where we want to go.

It’s easier to live unconsciously and “go with the flow”, but it lowers your expectations and in turn will lower your results. In life we generally get what we expect to get.

A conscious life will bring you what you want because you will know what you want and you will focus your energy towards getting it.

The first step to becoming conscious is to slow down and take some deep breaths… literally! Meditating, praying or creating quiet time without any distractions is the first step to becoming more aware. This isn’t something that should be done once, but regularly – every day if possible.

The second is to ask questions. There’s one really good question, asked over and over to help you get to the root of the issue. Answered honestly it will help you find your true motives. It’s the one little children like to ask over and over because they are living consciously – “Why?”

For example:

Why am I unfit? I don’t exercise enough.
Why don’t I exercise enough? I don’t have time, because I am so busy at work.
Why am I so busy at work? I take on more than I can handle.
Why do I take on more than I can handle? I don’t like saying “No”.
Why don’t I like saying “No”? I’m afraid I might get fired
Why am I afraid I might get fired? Because my Dad got fired when I was young, and we had to go without for a while.

Acting upon those motives is the last but crucial step. Ask yourself similar questions beginning with “How can I…” if you want to help yourself with ideas for taking action.

No action is like having an electric oven, but no electricity. The potential is there to make the best Thanksgiving dinner, but without electricity you might as well try cooking your roast in a cardboard box.

I am Canadian

2007-09-21T13:35:00.000-06:00

At around 11:30am on September 21st, 2007 I officially became a Canadian citizen! Hurray!

Florence Chadwick

2007-09-20T11:05:00.000-06:00

Florence May Chadwick was born November 9, 1918 and died March 15, 1995. She was an American swimmer who was the first woman ever to cross the English Channel both ways.

On August 8, 1950, she crossed the English Channel in 13 hours and 20 minutes, breaking the then-current world record held by American swimmer Gertrude Ederle. One year later, Chadwick crossed the English Channel yet again, from England to France; this time, in 16 hours and 22 minutes, thus making her the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.

On the fourth of July 1952, Florence, now 34, had set her goal at being the first woman to swim the 26 miles between Catalina Island and the California coastline. As she began this historical journey, she was flanked by small boats that watched for sharks and were prepared to help her if she got hurt or grew tired. Hour after hour Florence swam, but after about 15 hours, a thick, heavy fog set in. Florence began to doubt her ability, and she told her mother, who was in one of the boats, that she didn’t think she could make it.

Her mother and her trainer continued to offer encouragement. They told her it wasn't much further, but all she could see was fog. They urged her not to quit.

She never had . . . until then.

As she sat in the boat, Florence found out she had stopped swimming less than one mile away from the California shoreline. Florence explained that she quit because she could no longer see the coastline-there was too much fog. She couldn’t see her goal.

Two months later, Florence got back in the water to try her task once more. This time was different. She swam from Catalina Island to the shore of California in a straight path for 26 miles. The same thick fog set in, but Florence made it because she said that while she swam, she kept a mental image of the shoreline in her mind. Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, eclipsing the men's record by two hours!

She didn’t lose sight of the shore because she focused on that image of the coast in her mind, and in this way, she reached her goal.

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” - Helen Keller 1880-1968

The Greatest Lesson of All

2007-09-17T15:07:00.000-06:00

So often these days people rate their level of success by a few key criteria - job position, annual income, size of house, location of house, size of television, value of car(s) etc. Success for many is represented by what you can see they own.

For me success equals happiness. So, success at work is happiness at work. Personal success means happiness at home. I recently heard a definition for success that I liked, and it goes something like this...

"Success is waking up in the morning eager to go to work, being excited to return home at the end of the day and being welcome at both places."

Right now I'm in the middle of a seven-week break from working. I call myself semi-retired, although I will start working again in October. It has been an awesome time because it has given me time to spend with the family, and fully recharge my batteries for work, and rediscover my hunger to succeed in a professional capacity that had slowly dwindled over the last few years.

Being at home has also allowed me to be more hands on as a parent, and again a great learning experience. Children have the knack of highlighting weaknesses and make you realize how people of ever age have a habit of behaving childishly.

Many people have been asking us whether Vienna, our 22 month old daughter, is feeling misplaced or displaced with Delilah's arrival. We have heard many horror stories from parents whose first child gets very upset by the arrival of the younger sibling. Where the first child was once the star attraction, he or she, through no fault of their own, gets relegated to be the warm-up act.

Actually Vienna seems to be doing very well with the adjustments. We have been reinforcing from the very beginning that this is Vienna's baby. That seems to have given her ownership of her new sister and made her feel more responsible for helping and being a good "big sister".

Her behaviour is similar to that of adults whose lives are suddenly changed at work or home. If they aren't supported and given the appropriate recognition, they often times lose interest and if the feelings are widespread enough in an organization that would mean a serious deterioration in morale.

Vienna has been very helpful and likes to assist one of the parents in diaper changing for Delilah. Vienna will fetch and unfold the clean diaper and dispose of the dirty one for us.

Vienna is also often on hand to give supportive kisses to Delilah.

It has been a lot of fun over the past two weeks having a new baby, but also seeing Vienna as a big sister. Vienna surprises us constantly with her understanding and maturity.

Having children is the greatest lesson of all.

As Cute As Ever!

2007-09-14T15:33:00.000-06:00

Over the past couple of weeks a lot of the focus has been on our new daughter Delilah. However, it is so important that we don't forget our special almost two-year-old Vienna. She has been such a good big sister and is still as cute as ever!

The Hand That Feeds Us

2007-09-09T21:09:00.000-06:00

I've noticed a theme starting to emerge with some of my paintings. This is the fifth painting I have completed that depicts a hand, and I've painted a few with the theme of the environment.

This is a picture of the "Hand That Feeds Us" - the Earth. Within this Earth there are many riches, and the helping hand is always out there for us, but we are chopping it off one small piece at a time, not realizing that we are irreversibly making drastic changes.

Lamborghini Countach

2007-09-09T14:43:00.000-06:00

As a young boy, my dream cars were a Porsche 911 and a Lamborghini Countach. So you can imagine my excitement at seeing this Countach at the airport parking lot.

Maybe this will be Vienna's dream car... by the time she's old enough to drive it might be affordable!

On The Right Team

2007-09-08T17:48:00.000-06:00

Poppy

2007-09-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

I started painting this on the 2nd September, but didn't get it finished because Delilah was born. I did manage to get the last half hour finished on the fifth!

A New Addition

2007-09-02T21:11:00.000-06:00

At 9:11pm on September 2nd, Delilah Ieva came into this world, our second daughter. She weighed in at 8lbs 3/4 oz and measured 21 inches long. She's happy and healthy and we're all getting on well as a slightly larger and slightly louder family.

Failures (Published Article)

2007-08-29T19:21:00.000-06:00

A number of years ago there was a Nike commercial on television with Michael Jordan. As he walked through a dimly-lit corridor, Jordan’s voice comes on:

I've missed over nine thousand shots in my career.
I've lost almost three hundred games.
Twenty-six times I've been trusted with the game-winning shot... and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.

There are few people in this world who can say they have been more successful at anything than Michael Jordan was at basketball.

Life can be a struggle sometimes, and there are many times where things don't seem to go our way. Those are precisely the times when we need to take a step back and look at what is happening and find the lesson.

Our society mentality has become one of “keeping up with the Joneses”, and hand-in-hand with this is the strive for perfection or at least to appear perfect.

But perfection is an unattainable illusion. Nothing on Earth is perfect, and nobody is perfect, because perfection is a perception, which is subjective. What’s perfect for me, may be a disaster for someone else. In any case, everything is imperfect, and that’s why there’s evolution and change. Everything is always getting better or worse, so by definition it couldn’t have been perfect.

The people who spend the most time trying for perfection are the ones who spend the most time covering the realities in their life. They do this because it’s far easier to cover up than it is to actually face the fault and deal with it.

Imagine a house with rotten wood framing. Quickly covering over it with drywall is a far easier prospect than actually remediating the issue, although on the surface it might look the same.
Nevertheless, we’re told that perfection is the way to go, and as humans we look for the quickest and easiest way to the goal.

Society tells us that perfection is having children who are involved in five after-school activities; living in the perfect neighbourhood with the perfect picket fence and driving the perfect European vehicle into our pristine garage. You get the idea.

But what’s the point?

Being perfect doesn’t allow for mistakes, because perfect people don’t make mistakes. Not giving ourselves the freedom to make mistakes means that we aren’t giving ourselves room to learn.

When we fool ourselves into believing that we are always right, that we have “arrived” and that we know everything, it spells disaster, because it means we will stop learning and growing.
So what does this mean for the average person?

Do you know someone who “knows it all”. Where do these people end up? Usually making the same mistakes over and over and progressing very little if at all in their lives. Financial success does not mean success in every facet of life. You don’t need to look far to see wealthy people with dysfunctional home lives. But you can also just as easily find poor people who are tremendously happy with what they have.

No matter what age you’re at, it’s important to take a chance, take the road less travelled and put yourself on the line. Recognize that a “failure” is nothing more than an undesirable outcome from which you can learn.

Succeeding in life is not about being perfect. Successful people aren’t perfect. Successful people are prepared to fail and keep trying. We’re lucky Michael Jordan didn’t stop playing after losing his first game.

Tiger Woods

2007-08-13T15:07:00.000-06:00

This weekend Tiger Woods completed his fourth victory at the PGA Championship, his 13th Major, and his 59th victory on the PGA Tour. The big thing is that it's his 13th Major title in his chase of Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 Major titles.

An article in the local newspaper here commented that he is only five majors short of Nicklaus' record. What's interesting about that "only", is that only 13 golfers have won more than five majors in their entire career. Some notables who won five or less include: Seve Ballesteros (5), James Braid (5), Byron Nelson (5) Peter Thomson (5) Raymond Floyd (4), Ernie Els (3) Hale Irwin (3), Phil Mickelson (3), Nick Price (3), Vijay Singh (3), Payne Stewart (3) and Greg Norman (2).

Each one of these players was or is an amazingly talented golfer in his time. All reached the pinnacle of golfing excellence more than once. Even racking up five majors as Seve Ballesteros or the legendary Byron Nelson did in an entire career is mentioned as an "only" in the Tiger Woods realm of golf.

Tiger Woods is only in his early thirties and already has a career that would be impressive for a dozen golfers to share equally - five PGA wins, including a major each!

Look at his current world golf ranking below:

1. Woods 22.10
2. Furyk 8.69
3. Mickelson 8.44
4. Els 7.67
5. Scott 6.48
6. Harrington 6.23
7. Singh 5.88
8. Garcia 5.53
9. Ogilvy 5.49
10. Stenson 5.30

Tiger Woods is so far ahead of the #2 ranked player it's almost embarrassing. In fact the players ranked fourth, fifth and sixth have a combined total number of ranking points less than Tiger alone. Tiger almost outpoints the seventh to tenth ranked quartet.

It's truly amazing.

But what we can all learn from this is that hard work pays off. You only need to look at Tiger's physique compared to the other golfers to see that he spends more time strengthening his muscles than the rest. There's no overhang on his belt, no double chin or loose flesh on his body. For all the people who joke that golf is a a sport just as much as chess and darts should be considered a sport, Tiger gives it credibility.

No one works harder on every aspect of golf than Tiger Woods, and his professionalism is second to none. Tiger has a vision and he expects only the best of himself. And as his record shows, he invariably gets the results.

The Ostrich (Published Article)

2007-08-02T23:21:00.000-06:00

The Ostrich, officially named "Struthio camelus" is the largest of the 8,600 bird species, which exist today. Reaching a height of up to 2.6m these birds can weigh up to 135kg, cannot fly, but are very fast runners.

The long-held myth is that ostriches bury their head in the sand when they are frightened. The Canadian Museum of Nature's website states that- "If threatened while sitting on the nest, which is simply a cavity scooped in the earth, the hen presses her long neck flat along the ground, blending with the background. Ostriches, contrary to popular belief, do not bury their heads in the sand."

The term "sticking your head in the sand" has come to mean that you choose to ignore a bad situation, and hope that it will go away on its own. The unfortunate reality is that most of us take that action (really, a lack of action) when faced with a challenge. Sticking your head in the proverbial sand also prevents you from finding out more information that might help resolve the issue.

Every day I open the local newspaper to read about how people are affected by situations, how their life has become a living horror because of something that happened to them. Unfortunately most of these situations were preventable, but a lack of action allowed it to occur.

As children we are brought up with "A stitch in time saves nine" and "prevention is the best medicine", and these hold true for all of life's situations. The hard part is doing something about a potential future disaster rather than waiting for it to happen and then becoming involved in a stressful situation.

When you see something on your horizon take action now. Face your fears, get information, and move yourself to do something.

All too often we look at successful people and wonder how they get all the luck. I recently came across this a few weeks ago with a gentleman I worked with. He is in his fifties and recently moved away from Calgary into semi-retirement on Vancouver Island. He had just bought a boat and a large property overlooking the water.

Someone commented to me "Well it's alright for him. He has money!"

"Ahh yes!" I said, "but when he started dreaming about this ten years ago, he didn't. You're looking at his life nine and a half years into a ten year plan. No wonder it looks easy now, he's basically at the finish line."

No one became an "overnight success" without years of hard work before hand.

What was also interesting was how clear he could see his dreams even before they had materialised. Before he bought his boat he could visualise it, and he could even see where his dog would sleep. Having such a clear vision for what he wanted allowed him to know how to get there. He was able to take the right action because he knew where he wanted to end up. For many of us, it's having that clear vision of where we want to go that's the stumbling block.

When I asked the person who made the comment that this gentleman has "all the luck", I asked her what she wanted for her future. "To be happy," was the answer. But she couldn't tell me what "happy" looked like.

To make your future dreams become a reality it's important to imagine them, and see them clearly. You can't shoot for a goal that you can't see.

It's time to take our collective heads out of the sand, get informed, dream about our future and face our fears.

Breaking Habits

2007-07-31T12:23:00.000-06:00

My wife and I have realized how difficult it can be to break a habit... not ours, but our daughter's. Vienna is 21 months old and up until a week ago was drinking all her milk from the bottle.

A bottle on rising in the morning, a bottle before lunch, one after her nap in the middle of the afternoon, and one just before bed time.

Our family doctor told us that, for the benefit of her teeth, we shouldn't feed her the bottle anymore. So we stopped.

But to get her to drink milk out of anything else has been impossible... and we've tried. We tried about five different cups, heating the milk, not heating the milk, adding chocolate, pretending to drink it ourselves, or feeding it to her teddy bears. It doesn't matter what we try, she sees right through our tactics. Nothing is as good as milk out of the bottle!

For about a year Vienna has been drinking all sorts of fluids from sippy-cups, normal cups, through a straw, juice boxes, but milk has always been consumed from a bottle. We tried a few months ago to get her to drink milk from a sippy-cup, but to no avail.

As parents, we suddenly realised the error of our ways, and good that we recognized that before our second is born (due in six weeks). Try not to establish habits that you know in the future you will have to break. Rather, try to establish the habit of flexibility and variation. If only we had our daughter drinking milk from more than one container from an early age, phasing out the bottle wouldn't be an issue.

Instead we've abandoned the bottle completely and with it, her milk consumption has dropped by 80%. So now we scramble to add milk or cheese to her diet where possible.

I know this will be a short-term situation, but it's frustrating because we didn't foresee this problem, but looking back we can see how we helped create it.

Change of Direction

2007-07-25T15:54:00.000-06:00

This morning I handed in my resignation without any firm plans of where I'll be off to next... except to take a solid six weeks off to spend it with my wife and daughter, my parents who are coming up from Australia in mid-August, and the second child we're due with on September 6th.

One of the suppliers I regularly deal with said it was admirable that I would take off so much time, when people today are so focused on money, money, money. But I told her that in the last 12 years I have taken almost three years off work to travel and experience life.

Balance in life is a bit like communism... it's good on paper, but somehow it doesn't work in the real world. I've tried throughout my whole life to attain a kind of balance, and the best I've managed is three years off in twelve. But what's more important is to attain happiness. If you're happy at work and happy at home then the need for balance takes care of itself. The need for balance arises when we're unhappy and are constantly seeking relief somewhere else.

I always find it sad when people spend months and months looking forward to a week-long holiday. It's one thing to be excited for a holiday, but it's another to wish away the majority of your life for a couple of weeks a year. What about the rest of the time?

When I think of life I think of a dripping tap. It drips and drips a little bit at a time. Each drop could represent a day. Individually a drop is not significant, but collect many drops over time and you have a puddle. It's the same with life. To not enjoy one day in your life is not a big deal, but to not enjoy many of them - that's significant. And at some point the tap will dry up, and we don't know when that will be. What would you do with your last day? Would you spend it the way you're spending today? Today may be your last...

Make sure you enjoy every day, and get excellent value from your time. You never know how much more of it you have.

Who'll Be Next?!

2007-07-04T10:59:00.000-06:00

After a gruelling day I came home at around 10:15pm after my Dale Carnegie course, chatted with my wife until about 11pm and then went to bed.

At 1am my wife wakes to see me standing at the corner of the bed in my pyjamas, hands outstretched saying, "Who'll be next?!"

For the first time in my life I'm sleepwalking. As I dreamt I thought I was giving the Dale Carnegie class to a bright room full of eager participants.

"Wake up!" she tells me.

"Huh?" I open my eyes and suddenly my mind starts racing. Why is it dark? Where's the class? Why am I in my bedroom? Why am I in my pyjamas? What time is it?

I was quite confused at this time, but staggered back into bed and went to sleep.

They say "you don't take the Dale Carnegie program, you live it."

I certainly am.

Got it done!

2007-07-03T22:45:00.000-06:00

I have never been so nervous in my life. I started getting ulcers in my mouth on Sunday, and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I have done a lot of public speaking in my lifetime and now have few nerves from that, but today I trained my first session of the Dale Carnegie program.

My throat was dry, and no matter how much water I drank the desert in my mouth remained. My tongue was like an old leather belt and my stomach churned.

As 6 o'clock drew near the terror increased, and then I was up... opening the session and getting right into it. Everything went well, considering and I made it through to the end.

As a "Tandem-Trainer" I deliver half of the session and the experienced trainer delivers the other half, while keeping a watchful eye over what I'm doing. It's a very good way of easing into it, given the high expectations.

Now at the other side of it I've grown in confidence and I know next week won't be so bad.

Woohoo!

Taking A Risk (Published Article)

2007-06-04T23:17:00.000-06:00

As a thirty-something Generation X’er, I am surrounded with friends who are in the midst of early-life crises. It seemed that for the Baby Boomers this crisis was “mid-life” in the forty to fifty age range. Now it seems to be happening earlier, because of all the opportunities we now have at our disposal.

This early-life crisis that seems to strike between 25 and forty is generally work or career related and the number of people I know personally who have made a complete change of career, gone back to study or taken extended leave to travel the world before 35 is amazing.

I’ve done all three.

What I noticed about my life and about others is how they become energized during and after this change. This energy is what carries you through the upheaval, and the fresh new energy afterwards is a sign that you’re on the right track. That’s enthusiasm for life.

Dale Carnegie said, “Enthusiasm is more than just zest for work. It is for the whole of life and living. If you have it, you have a priceless possession. Cherish it.”

I believe that enthusiasm for life comes when you are living your dream. Deep down we all know what we would do “in an ideal world”. For many of us it takes a personal tragedy or a life-threatening illness to make us change the way we live, to set us on the right track. A friend of mine in his late thirties, quit his high-paying, stressful job to chase his dream after he saw his brother die in a car accident.

If you’re thinking that you don’t feel enthusiastic about your job or your life, I’m sure you can find at least one thing that you’re enthusiastic about. Maybe it’s spending time with grandchildren, walking the dog, golfing, volunteering at church, working in the garden, skiing… it doesn’t matter. Think of that one thing, or the many things that get you excited. That’s the feeling you’re looking for; that feeling of anticipation when you start a new and exciting job, the thrill of a first date, or the excitement of seeing or learning something new.

It’s a great feeling when the path you’re taking in your life is completely in synch with your hopes and dreams. It’s not that difficult to be there. It’s all about making some decisions. Decide what it is you want in your life and what you don’t. One piece at a time, add or remove the respective aspects to your life.

The only catch is you’ll have to take a risk. This is obvious, really, because the risks you have taken so far in life had got you where you are today. To get somewhere else tomorrow, you’ll have to do something different, also known as taking a risk.

In my personal experience of taking risks, and from those I’ve observed, I see that risk-taking is nearly always a positive experience. Win, lose or draw, taking a risk means personal growth and perhaps a new perspective. I can attribute nearly all of the greatest experiences in my life to times when I took a risk. The bigger the risk, it seemed, the bigger the pay-off. Of course if a risk is taken and the result appears to be negative, it’s how we deal with that result that has the greatest effect on our life.

Thomas Edison discovered 10,000 ways not to invent a light bulb, before he found the right way. From Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump, there are countless examples of hugely successful people who all took risks and failed, but picked themselves up and continued on.

Unfortunately for many of us, it takes only one small setback and we abandon chasing our dreams, relegating them to “unattainable dream” status.

In this respect we can learn a lot from children. Their life is all about experiments, taking risks, doing things they’ve never done before, falling down, getting hurt, but nevertheless, trying again until success presents itself.

Take a leaf out of a child’s book and take a risk! Go for it! Your life will never be the same again!

An Inspiration

2007-06-02T12:01:00.000-06:00

On this day, the second day of June 2007, it is my father's 60th birthday. Other than being a great Dad and role model over the last three decades, he has recently made a change in his life which is truly inspirational.

Faced with the prospect of not getting travel insurance to travel to Canada, due to an angioplasty he had done nearly ten years ago. Dad has now become a high-risk traveller and cannot get travel insurance for his heart condition.

This might have been a small nudge for many people, but for Dad it was a massive wake-up call. A little overweight, but quite unfit, Dad started a new regime of eating less, eating better, drinking less alcohol and doing a lot more exercise. Since March 3rd, he has only missed his daily 10km walk once due to bad weather. In three months he has lost nearly 30 pounds and is almost back to his wedding day weight from 1971. His blood-pressure is down, his fitness is up, he's feeling better and more motivated in life now that he has all this extra energy.

After hearing the news in March that he couldn't get insurance they cancelled their trip to Canada to visit us, but the trip is now back on. With their second grandchild due in early September, they will be here for the birth and despite not getting insurance, both Dad's doctor and cardiologist don't see him having any heart risk due to travel.

Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Facebook Phenomenon

2007-06-01T08:07:00.000-06:00

For those of you who haven't become a www.facebook.com member, it's this fairly new free networking/personal web space product that allows you to keep in touch with everyone on it, and find old friends.

Yesterday an old friend from school, whom I literally have not seen or heard from for over ten years found me. (Having a unique name sort of helps that process a little). But it was amazing to re-connect with someone from the past so easily and efficiently.

When I compare these times of technology to 1992 when I spent a year in Germany, a time when there was no Internet, no email and very expensive international phone calls, you rely heavily on the traditional postal service, which we now call "snail mail", but at the time was the quickest method we had.

Every week my parents would write me two letters, one with the news from the family and one with sporting news, which included newspaper clippings for me to read. You can probably guess which parent sent which letter. In return I wrote a letter to my parents every week as well, in addition to letters to all my other friends. I cherished every letter I received and read every page of newspaper clippings. These letters were my connection to home.

Once a month my parents would call me for half an hour.

Now, living away from Australia I am able to email, access Australian news online, speak to my parents for free over the Internet, and reconnect with old friends in Australia and the rest of the world through Facebook.

Many people argue that technology is ruining the world, but if you take it in appropriate doses, it's making the world a better connected place. These days it will be nearly impossible to lose touch with someone.

Positive Feedback

2007-05-31T23:11:00.000-06:00

Right now, I'm in the midst of training to become a Dale Carnegie Trainer. Because I'm "fast-tracking" things a bit, it's quite a hectic schedule I'm keeping.

For the past five weeks, and for seven more, I am a Group Leader for a Wednesday night class, that finishes around 10:30pm. Four four weeks (two gone and two to go) I'm in a Monday night study group that finishes at 8pm, and next week I start again as a Group Leader for a Tuesday night class, again finishing around 10:30pm. So for two weeks I will have Dale Carnegie on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Did I mention that there's also homework?

On the 17th June I will be in Edmonton for a training course to as the crucial step to becoming a Dale Carnegie Trainer, which is eight days long (Sunday to Sunday), 8am till 8pm.

It's tiring, especially when you add full-time work and a family and all the other commitments we have... but it's worth it.

Over and above the fact that I'm chasing my dreams to become a professional coach and speaker, the tremendous personal growth I'm enjoying and the positive feedback make the lack of sleep all worth it.

Today I received and email from one of the other two people from Calgary who are also training to become a Trainer and his opening words were "You will be an amazing trainer!"

I thought about what a good feeling I get from being around positive people who live the Dale Carnegie principles relating to good human relations. None of it is revolutionary. In fact Dale Carnegie began teaching his program 95 years ago.

Being a positive person, and genuinely caring about others takes as much energy as being negative and selfish, but the feelings you get and the way you make people around you feel is vastly different.

Spiritual peace.

2007-05-29T10:48:00.000-06:00

It occurred to me as I was walking around the campus of the George Washington University on our recent trip to DC, that as a species, humans spend a lot of time and energy studying ourselves.

Relating to health, body and mind, there are four and five year courses on physical fitness, medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, dentistry, occupational health, anatomy, biology, immunology, pharmacology, sociology, women's studies and more.

When you look at all of the courses available at the post-secondary level, a striking number are related to the study of ourselves. Why is it then that suicide rates are just as high now as they were in the 1950s? One scary aspect of that is that men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women.

When it comes to depression, more drugs are being prescribed than ever to treat this epidemic and larger volumes of younger people are on anti-depressant medication.

And no-one is surprised that obesity is a huge factor in the health of people in the 21st century. You only have to look at the people walking towards you on the street to see that poor diet and insufficient exercise plague far too great a proportion of the population.

In Canada the obesity rate for children under 18 has tripled (3% to 9%) in the last 30 years and more than doubled for the 25-34 age group and over 75 age group. While Canada's obesity rate is at 24%, it's at 30% in the United States.Officially obesity is calculated as having a BMI (Body Mass Index) over 30. What that means in real terms - An adult male who is 5'10" and weighs 210lbs or an adult woman 5'4" weighing 175lbs are considered obese. The only exception relates to body-builders, who have larger than average muscles.

So with all this study of ourselves, why do we have so many health problems?

Shouldn't we be getting healthier?

Why are they predicting that Generation X'ers will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents?

We study ourselves, but do we even know who we are?

We learn and learn but what do we know?

Theoretically we know so much about how we operate as human beings, but we don't know how to do it. It's one thing to understand intellectually, it's completely another to know and feel something spiritually.

You can read books about golf, but you'll never become a good golfer without swinging a club. Life is about experiencing first hand and learning "on the job". Life is a work in progress.

It seems with all our attention we have lost the focus.

The goal should be pure happiness, spiritual peace, calmness. But it seems our goals are status, achievement, material wealth, knowledge, power and the rest of what Gordon Gekko espouses in the movie 'Wall Street'. Greed is not good if it makes you sad.

Our education system does not encourage learning for the sake of happiness. It encourages learning to "make it in life", to gain employment and to become successful. Unfortunately success is rarely defined as happiness, as serenity.

I never once had a meditation class at school. No one ever told me that I could be happy without everything that money can buys, and in fact that the only things that make you happy are what money can't buy.

Indeed many of the health issues faced by people today are not solely because McDonald's seems to be on every street corner. Free will continues to exist. Obesity, depression, suicide, and other social issues derive themselves from deeper issues related to lack of self-worth and insecurity.

As a race we need to spend less time studying ourselves and more time understanding ourselves, not on an intellectual level, but on a spiritual and holistic level.

We should feel what our body needs. Ask it. Trust that the answer is correct. Know that if we are true to ourselves and trust what our body tells us we need we won't go wrong.

It's only when we choose to believe what someone else thinks about us as the truth, that we run into problems.

We're back!

2007-05-23T01:00:00.000-06:00

We're back... but our luggage is still on holidays!

After a week of travelling, wearing down the rubber on our shoes, developing monster blisters (not me, my wife did!), seeing more American history than Abraham Lincoln, and eating more food than we should have eaten in two weeks we're back in Calgary. Unfortunately I can't say the same about our poor bags.

We were scheduled to return from Philadelphia via Chicago into Edmonton at 10:30pm. But as our flight to Chicago was delayed by an hour and we only had an hour layover in Chicago, we would have missed our connecting flight. So we re-routed through Toronto, on a later flight. We arrived at 1am into Edmonton, but 48 hours later, our luggage is still officially somewhere between Chicago and Edmonton... although I have a sneaking suspicion it's sitting in some dark corner of the Edmonton airport.

Luggage issues aside, we had an awesome time. It was great to see the originals of the great US historical documents, like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with its amendments. I did learn a lot about north American history, and came to realize something new about the United States.

The country really is a lot poorer than it lets on. When you figure how much the government pays for the various wars it fights, money that could be allocated to looking after it people, you can see visible signs that there really isn't so much prosperity.

It struck me on the first day we were there. Our hotel was near the Lincoln Memorial, which is at one end of the famous Reflecting Pool. We walked along the Reflecting Pool from the Lincoln Memorial past the Washington Monument to the Capitol building. I was staggered that the Reflecting Pool was green with algae and slime. The grass surrounding the Pool was patchy at best, but riddled with weeds and not mown. Actually a very untidy sight that I would expect to see in a poor ex-Soviet republic. Then, rather than having a pretty building where food, drinks and souvenirs were sold, it was literally a tent, and the washrooms were a row of Port-A-Potties. Hardly impressive.

In general many of the buildings were run-down, and poorly maintained. In many ways it did remind me of the many poor European cities I had visited, certainly not the image United States would like to portray to the outside world.

When you go further and look at the health system, frailty of the economy, and the general slide of the nation from the world's primary economic powerhouse, to a diminishing influence, it all bodes poorly for the US.

As a Canadian (I think of myself as one, as it is the place I call home) it is sad for me to see our nearest neighbour in such strife, and hopefully the ill effects will not creep to far across the border.

I'm not holding my breath.

Slavery

2007-05-22T17:49:00.000-06:00

One theme that we noticed on this trip, similar to our other trips to the United States is a recurring theme of the abolition of slavery in the country, something the nation is very proud of.

What was interesting however if the definite racial division that still exists. Having always lived in a country that is predominantly of the same skin colour that I belong to, I had never really experienced any real visible racial segregation.

This trip to Washington DC and Philadelphia opened my eyes a little. It's true that there are no more "slaves", but it seems the people of African descent are still "servants". It seemed there were two classes of jobs, one for the black people and one for the rest. The blacks were in lower class jobs (and I say that with all due respect, but they are generally thought of as undesirable or dirty, but they are by no means any less important than any other job role our world requires to operate efficiently)- McDonald's and fast food restaurants, security guards, cleaners, waiters etc. Now, absolutely we saw black people wearing suits and working in high-demand jobs, but it seemed that we almost never saw any white people working in the first list of jobs.

We took a tour of the Arlington Cemetery in DC, and the bus drivers were all black, but the guides were all white.

I now understand more what Oprah talks about when she says racism still exists in the USA in a big way. Although there is officially no slavery, it is apparent that there are jobs that white people won't do because it's below them, but are happy to see black people work at.

Doing a job because you are owned by your master and having now choice is one kind of oppression, but being free and still feeling like you don't have a choice is a whole new kind of oppression... mental oppression. The kind that the Soviet Union wielded over it's "republics" like the Baltic States.

Slavery is abolished, but there is still some work to go before the races could be considered equal.

The Secret (Published Article)

2007-05-04T09:59:00.000-06:00

I'm sure many of you had seen the movie or read the book "The Secret". It's a very well marketed concept, but the interesting thing is that nothing in there is really revolutionary, and neither does it claim to be.

Briefly, “The Secret” is the Law of Attraction, which states that you will attract into your life what you think about, whether it is positive or negative. Your thoughts determine your destiny.

What I found interesting was that so many people underestimate the power of intention and positive thoughts. Look around in your own life at what you have. What you see physically in your world - your friends, relationship, job, possessions, wealth etc are all a manifestation of your emotional, spiritual and physical well being. For example, if you are emotionally depressed, you may have very few friends. If you believe that "money is evil" then you are unlikely to be rich. If you don't place health as a priority in your life you may be overweight or underweight and unfit.

To change anything on the outside, we must first change on the inside. You won't become fit and healthy if you don't have the internal desire. You won't become wealthy if you think about being poor.

After changing our attitude, we must then change our actions. Ideas or words without actions will produce little more than ideas alone.

Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, started the business as a retired man with a small pension and an old car, but with a chicken recipe he knew in his heart was a winner. He approached restaurant owners and planned to sell his chicken recipe to them. In return they would give him a residual for every piece of chicken they sold - 5 cents per chicken.

The first restaurateur he called on turned him down. So did the second, and the third. In fact, the first 1008 sales calls Colonel Sanders made ended in rejection. Still, he continued to call on owners as he traveled across the USA, sleeping in his car to save money. Prospect number 1009 gave him his first "yes" and after two years of making daily sales calls he had signed up a total of five restaurants. Still Harland pressed on, knowing that he had a great chicken recipe and that someday the idea would catch on. The Colonel's smiling face in so many cities across the world shows that the idea did catch on. Colonel Sanders franchise actually helped many people succeed in the restaurant business.

Colonel Sanders had an idea, and a positive attitude that his idea would succeed. But the path to success isn't just about wishful thinking. Success is due to action, action and more action.
I guess my point is that some people criticize “The Secret” because it seems so abstract. I don’t think any of those people in the movie are saying that by thinking about something it will magically appear. What does happen is that thinking certain thoughts will put you in the correct frame of mind to see certain opportunities and then have the courage and foresight to act correctly to make the dreams materialize.

The secret to a happy and successful life lies in, firstly, knowing exactly what you want, and secondly focusing your attention on achieving that. Setting goals and making time to achieve them is the best way to advance forward.

Every day when you wake up you begin the rest of your life. Every morning you decide how you will live that day. You choose your own life and your destiny.

Awesome!

2007-05-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

Last night was my first night as a Group Assistant on a Dale Carnegie course and it was awesome. It began with some nerves. I thought about how well I knew my previous group and how we had become friends, and now I was back at the start with 35 unfamiliar faces.

But it wasn't the same. I was in the class knowing the material already and I had extra confidence that the others didn't have. I was able to mix with the group and talk easily with people, going up to complete strangers and start a conversation. And by the end of the night I knew almost everyones first and last name.

These are two skills that I always believed belonged to others, but now I see in myself that same ability and it was an awesome realisation.

It was also a lot of fun, even more than the first time, because the nerves left very quickly, and the ability to really enjoy the time was there.

Finishing Dale Carnegie for the first time was a great experience. Starting it all over again is simply awesome!

Serenity

2007-04-28T15:13:00.000-06:00

I Made It!

2007-04-20T09:54:00.000-06:00

Well, last night I finished my Dale Carnegie course and was voted by the group to receive the Award for Highest Achievement, an award they only give to one person in the class. It's for the person who has demonstrated the principles of the course to the highest level. It was quite humbling, and for a moment I was lost for words.

But only for a moment!

I will begin as a Group Assistant on another Dale Carnegie course in a week's time. And I'm excited to continue my path with Dale Carnegie.

The Music Is In You

2007-04-19T15:15:00.000-06:00

A Step Closer...

2007-04-17T16:27:00.000-06:00

Today I became a step closer to realising my dream of becoming a professional speaker and coach. I have been taking the Dale Carnegie course and I finish this Thursday. Tentatively I will begin as a group leader in another twelve-week course starting the following Wednesday (April 25th).

I have shown a lot of interest to the organization that runs the courses in Calgary that I would like to become a Trainer and they are taking steps now to facilitate that.

It is an exciting development and one that will start me on a new path.

The Dale Carnegie program started almost a hundred years ago and resonates today almost unchanged because it deals with the fundamentals in life, relating to having better relationships with people, being a strong leader and an effective communicator.

I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

Brainstorming Your Own Goals

2007-04-16T15:37:00.000-06:00

One of the toughest things for so many of us to do is decide what it is we want to do with our life. Even when the pressure of earning an income is removed, as in retirement, it's a known fact that retirees who don't have something to keep them occupied die sooner than those who do.

For the Baby Boomers the crunch seemed to come in the forties and fifties when they hit a mid-life crisis, suddenly re-assessing their lives, what they had done and where they were going.

For Generation X (the children of the Baby Boomers) the problem seems to come about earlier in life. I can't count on both hands the number of my friends in their late twenties and early thirties who are changing careers, taking big chunks of time off (a year or more) to travel, going back to school or whatever to chase their dream. I have gone and continue to go through the same issues, and it's a tough time if you're stuck with no idea how to move forward.

One exercise I found helpful was a kind of brainstorming your goals. Sit down with a piece of paper and write 100 goals that you want to achieve given no restrictions and unlimited opportunities. This would include health, financial, personal, career, achievement, recognition goals and anything else that you can possibly imagine you would like in your life, no matter how big or small.

Doing this exercise, which takes between one and two hours I found the first forty or fifty quite easy to rattle off, but as I wrote more it became harder and harder and I had to really think about each one.

I did this with my wife. We sat opposite each other in a cafe and wrote down our goals independently. Then after we were finished we read them to each other one by one. It was a great learning experience for me about my wife as well as for myself.

The exercise forces you to think and re-think what you want out of life, and a theme to many of the goals will probably become fairly evident.

"Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity" - Paul Goodman (1911-1972)

Don't lose sight...

2007-04-06T15:44:00.000-06:00

I heard a comment directed at me yesterday that I hear quite often, "Is there anything you don't do?"

My answer is usually, "I do most things." And that's the way I like it. People who know me well know how many different things I'm involved with, and what hobbies or pastimes I have. I do a lot, and I'm interested in doing a lot. My life consists of very little inactive time, and I feel I get great value for my time. Though sometimes all these activities can get a little overwhelming I'd rather have that than sit around wondering what to do next.

I guess the reason I do so much, (other than my lack of television viewing, which has already been discussed at length) is because I'm interested in doing a lot of different things. Why shouldn't I? Really, what value does it add to my life to not be interested in doing something?

For example... I enjoy painting, and I enjoy going to the theatre, but I also enjoy exercising, dinner parties, meeting new people, camping, travelling, investing, gardening, renovating, golf, ten-pin bowling, watching sport, walking, writing, reading and spending time with friends and family.

Is there a reason I shouldn't enjoy all of those activities?

Is there a reason I can't enjoy more activities and spend time doing them? Absolutely not!

If I want to take up yoga, sewing, fishing, cycling, swimming or playing the piano, can anyone stop me? Absolutely not!

Does it matter how good I am at any of those activities? Absolutely not!

As it turns out I'm pretty good at ten-pin bowling. I averaged 187 in the last season's league. This was the second highest average in our Monday-night Mixed League. I'm not good enough to make it to the TV leagues and bowl in any sort of championship, but I'm a pretty good league bowler on a Monday night. My point here is that even if I sucked at bowling there's no reason for me not to bowl if I enjoy myself. Whether I average 187 or 87 the point of bowling on a Monday-night mixed team is to have fun.

Far too many people don't attempt something because they are worried about how good they will be at the activity. When I started bowling my average was 135. I took some lessons, persevered and practiced and after two years I was bowling in the 180s. But my enjoyment for the game didn't change, I just got a bit better at it. There were still the same frustrations and challenges.

I took up painting a few years ago, and I quite enjoy it. It's very relaxing and I feel a sense of accomplishment after completing a piece. I've had my work exhibited at a few places, and after my first exhibition I hadn't sold anything and I spoke with my grandmother, a recognised artist in Australia, and her words were, "It doesn't matter whether you sell anything, so long as you enjoyed having you art exhibited for people to see."

I realised how often we lose sight of the real point in doing things. Far too often people get carried away with winning at all costs, when we're really participating for enjoyment and perhaps exercise or self-improvement.

Don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough to do something. Vincent Van Gogh sold one painting when he was alive. Should he have never painted?

The Value of Time (Published Article)

2007-04-02T10:06:00.000-06:00

Have the words “I just don’t have enough time” ever passed your lips? Have you ever wished for an extra one or two hours in the day?

It seems to be a common problem, but it’s not that there isn’t enough time, it’s that the time we have available isn’t being used efficiently.

Time isn’t something we can change, but our use of it is. Somehow people like Donald Trump seem to find enough time, so how can we squeeze a little more out of the orange?

Firstly, consider how important time is for you, and how much time is wasted every day. I treat my time like a scarce commodity, because I’m never sure just how much more of it I’ll have. Time is my only non-renewable resource.

If you work full-time, then you’re donating forty or more hours per week. Unless you can increase your hourly rate or decrease your expenses, this time spent is a given.

But what about the rest of your time?

A year or so ago my life came to a crunch. I felt I was close to a breakdown because I was overdoing it, committing to too many projects and trying to get too much done. What was disconcerting was that I felt I wasn’t giving enough attention to the parts of my life I valued most. I think most of us can relate to that.

So I wrote a list of the top ten ways I’d like to spend my time, and I compared it to the top ten ways I actually spent my time. The difference was staggering.

That was the day I gave up television.

Here are some of the ways I maximize the value I get from my time. I won’t spend time with people who don't appreciate me. I am continually trying to improve myself and my life and I actively enjoy the time I have doing what I place high on my priorities - reading, painting, exercising, socializing, writing, meditating, traveling, and most importantly being a Dad and husband.

An interesting statistic: The average Canadian watches television for 21.4 hours per week (source Stats Canada). Over a lifetime of say seventy-five years, that's 9 years and 193 days spent in front of the television.

Think about what you’ve achieved over the last nine or ten years and realize that’s what you might be giving up.

I didn’t watch 21.4 hours a week, but I had my weekly shows, and a few others I liked. But I saw how those shows got in the way of doing what I really wanted to do. Watching television wasn’t in my top ten.

By giving up television (I now watch between a half and one hour per week) my available time is more than nine years longer than the average Canadian.

On the other hand a fifty-year study completed in 2004 by BUPA's Health Information Team in the U.K. stated that smoking cuts life expectancy by ten years. So when you compare watching television to smoking, which continually gets bad press, you effectively miss out on about the same amount of time to actively live.

It's important that we not only respect our own time, but even more importantly, the time of others. It is only by being active in the time we have that we can accomplish and grow.

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book" - Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

If you have any comments, I’d like to hear them. Please email me at matthew@pagehanify.com

Choosing the Path

2007-03-28T13:51:00.000-06:00

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?

2007-03-27T22:38:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-22T15:37:00.000-06:00

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...

2007-03-21T15:57:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-16T12:08:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-03-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

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!

The Hunter

2007-02-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

One "thank you" at a time...

2007-02-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have been asked how my three new habits program is going. I must say that I went off the rails a little and lost focus of those habits as a program of starting new habits each month.

Unfortunately my experience with the first three habits - sleeping an average 8 hours a day, drinking 1.5L of water at work and keeping a clean desk - was not as lasting as I had hoped. While all were maintained during December and for a little of January, I have drifted away from the discipline. You can see by the photo below what my desk looks like this morning. By the end of the day I promise to clean it up.

What I have been doing instead of adding new habits each month which didn't seem to stick, I'm trying to add a new habit here and there that I can and want to maintain forever.

I decided that I would not eat chocolate for the whole of January and from then on would maintain 23 chocolate free days a month. I achieved the January target and am on target to complete the goal for February.

I also committed to working out at the gym ten times a month. Although I missed my target in January, only working out six times, I am confident I will achieve the goal in February, with ten, and will overachieve in March to make up for the deficiency in January.

With Valentine's Day passing I realized that to show special appreciation for your loved one once or twice (on your anniversary) a year is inadequate. Every day I tell my wife that I love her and that I appreciate what she does for me, but since our daughter was born, I've noticed that we focus less on our life as a couple and more on our lives as parents.

So I decided that if on the monthly anniversary of our wedding day (the 20th of each month) I would treat it like our anniversary, doing something special or giving her a gift. My first was a couple of days ago, and I wrote my wife a nice card and gave her a gift. She was very appreciative and I'm already thinking of what I will do next month.

I've also decided to be more appreciative of people around me and people who have influenced my life. I want to create my own personal attitude of gratitude. So I try to send a card every day, but it works out to be four or five a week, to someone who has been or is important in my life and show them appreciation for how they have made a positive impact. It keeps me thinking about who and what I'm grateful for , and why I'm lucky to have these people in my life.

Hopefully showing the appreciation to others will make them think also about showing appreciation to people in their lives. The more we appreciate in life the better we all feel, and the better we all feel, the nicer this world will be to live in.

One "thank you" at a time.

Morning Sun

2007-02-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

"Up."

2007-02-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

About a week ago my little sunshine, my daughter, started saying her first word which she understood the meaning of. She's been saying random words here and there, but last week she said something and meant it.

We've been teaching her sign language, and since Christmas she's been actively signing "Please", "Eat", "More", "Drink", "Wash hands", "Bath", "Shoes", "GOOAAL!!" (She raises both hands in the air and smiles) and recently "Telephone". She's combining all these signs together now in two and three-word hybrid sentences, and gets a lot of satisfaction because we're happy she's signing and she's happy she's getting what she wants. We're also more inclined to give her what she wants to encourage her if she asks nicely with a "Please". Mostly when she wants something she points and indicates "please" by rubbing her tummy (baby sign-language). We always repeat the word for what she wants so she'll learn it, and then last week...

She put her arms up to get lifted up and she said "Up". The equal-second-shortest word in the English language was her first! Since then she's followed that up with "hug" and a few other words she's beginning to wrap her tongue around.

It's amazing to see her own satisfaction at learning something new. Obviously we're excited for her as well, which encourages her in her new pursuit of conversation. It's exciting times for all concerned!

The Fear of Change

2007-02-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

Why is it that people stay in situations that are unsatisfactory? Why do people remain in abusive relationships? Why do people continue in jobs that are unsatisfying?

The answer is simple... the fear of change. It seems counter-intuitive when you think that if you're in a situation you're not happy with that you would be afraid of changing but that's the reality. "Better The Devil You Know." is one of those catch-phrases that rings in people's minds when they are faced the prospect of the unknown.

In the end what often happens is the person will convince themselves that their situation isn't that bad after all, and they should be thankful for what they have. In my younger years I dated a girl for over four years, and we lived together for three of those. Everyone assumed we would get married. We got a long so well, we had a lot in common, and our relationship had stood the test of time. This is all true, but what I found was that we were too similar. We didn't complement each other. When I was up, so was she. When I was down, so was she. Our relationship was solid. She's the sort of girl I would recommend to any single male. She's an excellent sort to marry, just not for me. When I broke up with her, there was no defining reason. No argument, no infidelity. The relationship was good, but I thought I could do better. I wanted a great relationship. I wanted a relationship that I felt privileged to be half of. Two years later I found the woman of my dreams while I travelled in Europe.

I knew in my heart that the situation I was in wasn't the best for me. I knew that better options would present themselves. This didn't come without some doubt, I might add. There were lonely times when I sat alone in my room wondering whether I had indeed made the right decision. Time proved me right.

Every decision, and indeed every non-decision (a decision to not make a decision) shapes our life path. We can choose to take ownership of our life and make decisions that might improve our quality of life and enjoyment. Or we can sit back and decide to let life slide along, taking random turns for better or worse.

If we think of life like driving in a vehicle. Taking an active role and making clear decisions is like driving with our eyes open and hands firmly planted on the steering wheel. Taking a passive role is like sitting blind-folded in the backseat and not being able to speak with the driver. At the best of times life is a mystery tour. We never really know where we'll end up. But one thing's for sure - the more active a role you take in your life, the more you'll get out of it.

So back to my original statement/question. Why do people not actively seek change when they aren't happy with their situation. The fear of change comes from the fear of loss - that the change will produce a loss of some sort - loss of money, loss of relationship, loss of face.

But really when you look at the situation from an objective point of view and take out the emotions, the worst-case scenario rarely warrants a lack of change from an undesirable situation. The other option is to remain in the current situation for ever, or until it gets so bad you have no choice but to change. Then change comes at a price and well after its due date.

So you can remain in the bad situation indefinitely. You only have everything to lose.

Sunflower

2007-02-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

Getting Out of the Fog

2007-02-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

In my blog on entitled The Fog, I talked about how goals in my life had been very difficult to set as I didn't know where I was going and what I should be doing. I remember a sort of confusion that I had, existing every day. Life was pretty good, but there was nothing outstanding. And in fact, although parts of my life were very good, the whole life wasn't satisfying.

I think that to live a happy life, everything needs to be going well. Having financial wealth without friends, or being physically attractive and hating your job don't constitute a happy life. It's a given that we must work within a framework that we were born with. So I will never look like Brad Pitt and I will never run like Carl Lewis. But I could look make my body like Arnold Schwarzenegger's and I could become an astronaut or a doctor or a physicist or Prime Minister.

I accept that I will never run 100m in under ten seconds, and I accept that I don't look like Brad Pitt, but even if I could do that or did look like him, it wouldn't make me any happier than I am now.

Becoming someone else or having what someone else has will not make you any happier than you are now. Having what you want and being who you can be is what will make you happy.

When I was in my "fog" I knew that although nothing was badly wrong, I wasn't doing what I should be doing. My home life was good, in that I was happily married. Financially we were okay. I had a house, good equity positions in a couple of rental properties and money in the bank. Yet I knew that my life meant more than that. If I had suddenly earned a 50% pay increase at work, or been given my dream Porsche, or tickets for a six month trip around the world, that all would have been good, but it wouldn't have made my life happier for the long-term.

So in my fog I just plodded along day after day not knowing what I should do next. I have always been one to set goals and I must admit that for a couple of years I didn't set any, mostly because I didn't know what I should set.

As I look back on that today, I see how much the "fog" is lifting from my sights and I see a future beckoning.

In the past couple of weeks there have been a series of events that have changed my outlook and I see a way through to where I want to go. And although very little has changed, the fact that I can see a way forward that I'm happy with, makes me feel happier. I can see that I'm attracting some of the "good stuff" I've been looking for.

What's most interesting about these new opportunities, is that both of them were unexpected generous "gifts" from two different, totally unrelated people. When we look back at events in our life we can see that it takes unexpected situations to arise that change the course we're on.

I may look back on January 2007 as the turning point in my life. A month that will set up my future for the next thirty years. Even if it doesn't turn out to be the month, I know that at least it is the start of a major shift for me, which may take a year or so to develop, but somehow, I know it will happen.

An analogy I heard was that life is like driving at night. We can reach our destination a thousand kilometres away, even though we can only see the next hundred metres, because we only need to see the next hundred metres.

We should rest assured that our life's path is there for us to traverse, but we have to take each step, one at a time.

Worries

2007-02-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

I used to be someone who worried about stuff. Whether it was my up-coming exams or a spelling test, a job interview or a date, I worried about the outcome. Even though I realized that worry wouldn't make my situation any better, I continued to worry. I used to get knots in my stomach, I lost my appetite, and I would get anxious.

Then one day I thought, "What is the point of all this worry? It isn't getting me anywhere." So I thought about the problem I had, a test at school, for example and thought, "If I score poorly on this test, will anyone care about it in ten years? Will it change my life forever?" As the answer was "no" to both questions, I realised that there was little point in continuing to stress over that and get on with either learning for the test, or something else that would be productive.

In other situations I looked at worst-case scenarios and calculated the likelihood of that situation actually arising. Generally the chance was minuscule. So I looked at the most-likely bad outcome and decided how bad that would really be... usually not that bad. I realized that even the most-likely bad outcome isn't worth worrying about, and it's also quite likely that a far better outcome will eventuate, so I was able to proceed.

One of the pinnacles of worry in my life, which brought me literally to tears in the street was when I lost my job in London after just one day due to visa issues. After being escorted out of the building at lunchtime without any kind of severance pay, I was on my own. Without a job, and with prospects dim, due to the pending federal election, and it being the end of the financial year, my days in London looked numbered. Where everything had been going along so well, it had suddenly turned to dust.

I remember going back to the room I was renting wondering what I was going to do. I decided that "it's not what happens to you that determines your life, it's how you react to what happens, that makes your life."

Rather than deciding all was lost, I looked at the reality. I calculated how much money I had, and how long it would last. I figured on about six weeks, before I would need to take an emergency job. I looked at the worst case scenario, which was to take a poorly paying bar job until something better came around. Others before me had done it and survived, so I certainly could.

Then, rather than wallowing in my misfortune I set about doing anything and everything I could to make it better. I went on a rampage of calling all employment agencies and companies, applying for anything and everything... until I landed the dream job of Contiki Tour Manager.

Until that time, a worry that I had lived with, and to a degree, still live with is the prospect of being unemployed long-term. Growing up my parents both had secure government jobs and the security of what they had was important to them, and it became important to me. Although I never wanted to work in the public service I did still crave that steady pay cheque.

So leaving Australia for England, without any work set up for me was outside my comfort zone, but at least I was prepared for it. Losing my job unexpectedly like I did, threw me right in at the deep end. When faced with a sink or swim outcome, I decided that a few deep and calming breaths together with some logic would keep me above the waterline. I took on the challenge rather than let it consume me, and I came out stronger at the other end.

We worry in our lives because we think about what hasn't happened and what probably will never happen, but we also worry because we think that circumstances haven't turned out the way they were meant to. But since we don't know how it's all supposed to turn out, we can't know whether what's happened is good or bad for us in the long run.

Losing that job seemed like the most terrible thing, but it was an unbelievable blessing because it had me applying for jobs I never would have applied for and sent me on an amazing adventure that I continue to live.

People often talk about "blessings in disguise" and a lot of what happens in our lives is like that. If we are to live a life that is inspired, we have to allow ourselves to go with the flow, not worry about the outcomes and realize that just because we don't think something is turning out for the best, doesn't mean it's not the "blessing in disguise."

Ask a person in their eighties about how their life turned out, compared with how they might have imagined it when they were twenty. For all the Europeans, who fled their homeland during World War II, and settled on another continent, the path their lives took would be unimaginable as a young adult in the 1930s.

Life takes it turns, and after every "disaster" or "catastrophe" a new life path emerges. A path full of new and different opportunities, and certainly a life worth living.

Brown Nude

2007-02-03T09:29:00.000-07:00