Getting More Out of Life

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"Reality is what's left when you stop thinking about it." -MdB 

The end of 2008 has shown a very big truth in both personal and business endeavours: all earthly success and all material gain are temporary.

What do I mean by this? Well, just have a quick look at the investment market. In my case, all the "gains" I thought I made by investing in my superannuation fund over the last 16 years are pretty much gone. I am back to where I was when I started when it comes to my "return on investment". The stock market itself is back to levels it was at in the 1970's. That's over 30 years ago.

Look at the American housing market. The sky was the limit; right now, there are whole ghost suburbs: brand new homes with no-one in them. This last year only, house prices dropped 18%; some states/cities experienced dropped of more than 45% over the last 3 years.

Look at businesses in Australia: what looked like heaven on earth has now turned into....well, let's say, an interesting challenge. The "always the go" mining industry has caved in (no pun intended). Building company after building company collapses. Employees get laid off left, right, and centre. 

All this looks pretty grim. But is it, really? 

Personally, I see the current situation as an application of one my Knowareness Principles: the Law of Rhythm, which states that life is a continuing movement around a centre line. This will make that everything in our personal and professional life has a "due-date", will come to an end. The stronger we seem to go to one end of the spectrum, the stronger we are "yanked" back to the other end. Liken it like an elastic band: the tighter you pull it, the stronger the rebound. 

There is an upside to this, though, and that's my End-of-Year message for you: what comes down will go back up again! In our universe forces are always balancing out. In that fashion, the "recession" will also have a due-date. It may take a while, but nevertheless, eventually an upturn will come around the corner. The 1930's recession didn't last forever either! 

The Landmarc rule for these situations is this: when times are great, work harder, and use the leverage an upturn gives you. Half the effort will yield you more than double the profit.

When times are not so great, keep working on what's important to you, but also take time to rest and recharge. It's absolutely useless to fight a natural phenomenon (the rhythm of life and business). Ever been really tired, and tried to fight it? You may succeed once or twice, but ultimately you will draw the short straw. The same is true for these times. Resistance is futile. Do what feels good, but stay away from making decisions based on fear and panic. These decisions usually aren't the best ones. 

Your decision making process in both life and business matters will be very much dependent on your AusIDentities Personality Type. Eagles decide on totally different grounds than Wombats do. The feelings Dolphins will use to take action are not the ones Kangaroos feel! 

Once you have a good grip on what your personality preference is, you will be easily able to "re-perceive" the current economic tide, and take action in line with what's naturally best for you. This is congruent with another massive Knowareness Principle I use in my practice: the Law of Surrender. What is best for you arrives 100% more smoothly when you yield to what is going on, instead of resisting it. Most of our major business breakthroughs occur when we "give up", and stop fighting. 

Set a LandMarc: 

Firstly, have the knowareness that all material gains in life and business are fleeting. That realisation can already give you peace. Enjoy what you have when you have it, and allow it to leave when it is time for it to leave. The less we are attached to what it is we think we "have", the less disturbed we will be when it actually leaves. This goes for business success, money, goods, health, and yes, even life itself. 

Secondly, have the knowareness that what came down, will also go back up. Life and business are in a constant state of flow, and "down" is never "down for good". Work on conservation, preservation, and ride the tide. There are multiple tools to allow you to do this. Many I have already discussed in previous Landmarc ezines. 

Thirdly, Discover everything there is to know about your AusIDentities Personality Type. I guarantee you a massive increase in personal peace of mind once you understand why you think what you think, and do what you do. 

Lastly, Re-determine what is REALLY important to you in your life and business ventures. We will always spend most time, money, effort, thought and action into our deepest values. Usually we do that totally unconsciously, but we do it anyway! The more we can work on our values consciously, the more we will feel GOOD, even when times seem to be BAD. 

2008 has been a fascinating year in many respects. Not the easiest one for many (I've had my fair share of critical decisions to make too!), and with a Bang of an ending, economy wise! I am curious about what 2009 has in store for us. 

Remember: what comes down, must go back up. Let that be your motto for the coming year. 

Goal Achievement 101: Let Go of The Outcome

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Goal achievement 101: let go of the outcome

“The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.” –William Booth

One of the Knowareness Principles in my Integrated Development System is that achieving our personal and professional goals happens way more quickly when we surrender to the outcome and let go of our need for the end result.

Over time I received several question about the topic of surrendering when it comes to achieving goals; the most prominent one deals with the surrendering bit. “Action taking” and “surrendering” seem to be contradicting one another; so how can they coexist?

Well, in my philosophy, letting go IS an action step; it is part of the goal achievement process. As much as “doing nothing” is an action step, surrendering is. It requires effort on our behalf to let go of the outcome of our goal, and to watch it unfold.

Too often, we try to force things into existence. We hammer, drill, screw, dig, and work ourselves to the bone to force future potential in the direction we want to have it head in. We take all sorts of action steps to make sure we get what we want, and to prevent us from NOT getting it.

In that scenario we forget that our actions are just a minor part of the whole manifestation process; our INTENT is way more powerful! Moreover, limited as we are in our ability to oversee ALL the possibilities (remember: Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) states that reality is our PERCEPTION of it, which is limited!), we usually THINK we know the way to what it is we want, but really……., we don’t!

Surrendering, letting go, allowing (all mean the same) encompasses setting our intent, taking whatever action we can to make sure we are on track, and THEN letting the process of manifestation doing its work. That doesn’t mean we sit still and wait; on the contrary. We can still set action steps, but only when they are based on our enthusiasm and desire for the end result. As soon as we feel doubtful or fearful and use THAT as the reason for doing something, we are thwarting our own intention. Also, sometimes the result will come from a totally different direction than we thought it would. If we then try to redirect the course, because we think things are going “wrong”, we shooting ourselves in the foot!

I’ll use and example from my own coaching practice. I’ve always wanted to work with international clientele. I really didn’t have a clue how to manifest that, other than setting up a website, writing articles, positioning my business, and getting as much exposure as possible.

I did get some international success (I gave seminars in the Netherlands and Sweden, and had a handful of international clients, but that was it. My intention was still to do way more than that, and I surrendered to any option out there to give me that extra.

To cut a very long story short, I have been working with internet marketer Glenn Dietzel’s Awaken the Author Within system and Sell High Priced Programs for a while, but more on the back end. I did not have much client exposure for quite some time. Recently one of the business coaches on the team decided to pursue her own career, and suddenly I had about 15-20 new INTERNATIONAL clients, from all over the world…….

Now did I see this as the “logical” next step to achieve my initial goal of building my practice? Of course not. It “just happened”. Why? Well, my firm intention is because I let go of the HOW-question. I didn’t know HOW it was going to happen, I just trusted it would, because I had done what I thought I could to MAKE it happen.

I bet you have experienced something similar before yourself: you try to achieve something, and whatever you do, it doesn’t work. Ultimately, you throw your hands up in desperation and shout “ah, forget it!”. Not long after, the exact desired result shows up. That’s the power of letting go!

This is the Knowareness nugget I want you to take away from this example: you do not need to know the HOW’s of your manifestation process, as long as you know your WHAT’s and WHY’s. Action is a great step, but only after you got clear about what you want and why you want it, and can then trust the manifestation process to do its work for you.

Set a Landmarc:

Firstly, when setting a goal, be very clear about what it is you want. In my Law of Attraction material I teach people to get that clarity by first finding out what they do NOT want anymore!

Secondly, always stay true to your intention, even when things seems to go “wrong” (whatever that is anyway….); the universe works in mysterious ways! Stay focused, and let go of the time frame in which you think “things should’ve happened”.

Thirdly, stay away from taking action when you don’t have a good feeling about that action. If you feel like doing something because you’re fearful, doubtful or impatient, it may not be the right motivator. Challenge your reasons for taking this action step. Can it wait? Have you got all the facts? Are you in “reaction-mode” rather than in “action-mode”? Is there an immediate risk that needs attending to, or is it all “in your mind”?

Lastly, be open to alternative ways that lead you to the same result. We just do not know all the roads to Rome, although all the roads do lead to Rome! Having the flexibility to change direction may lead to the same or and even better result!

Admittedly, not ALWAYS do we achieve our professional and personal goals. Sometimes there are other plans in place for us. The same Knowareness Principle applies: can you let go of your initial outcome, and redirect your course? The more flexible you are, the easier life will be perceived, which is a blessing once you start to experience it I’ll touch on that in future articles.

Getting More Out of Life

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"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination" -John Lennon"

Welcome!

To this edition of Getting More Out of Life, the ezine that is
designed to give you "Knowareness" and "helicopter perspective"
about what is going on in your professional and personal life.
Awareness and self reflection are THE keys to success and
fulfilment, combined with a system of understanding yourself and
others.

Perception = Reality!

One of the things I really learned in my years as a litigation
lawyer is that there are as many views on reality as there are
parties in the legal process. It is up to the judges to
ultimately cast a verdict based upon all these different views,
which I now, after years of study, think is a (near) impossible
task.....

In Neuro Linguistic Programming, a major principle states that
reality can only be our PERCEPTION of reality. It is impossible
to see, hear, feel everything in our personal and professional
lives. Still, we make decisions on a daily basis, and feel
emotions on a daily basis, all resting on these generalised,
deleted and distorted bits of information.

There is nothing wrong with that in itself, we've been doing
that for centuries. It can go wrong, though. One of my
"Knowareness" principles dictates that we want to be very
careful with judging situation others, because we may not have
sufficient information to do so. If our own perception on
reality makes us feel bad, we may have to self-reflect, and
check whether we are justified in feeling that way.

Imagine this:

Parents punish their child for bullying other children at
school. Later on it turns out that their child wasn't the bully;
names got mixed up.....

A presidential candidate makes a statement, and the press takes
that sentence totally out of context, spinning a picture,
detrimental to that candidate (happened to Barack Obama recently
when he was talking about Sarah Palin....).

There are many examples to show that our perception may not be
the most effective and honouring perspective, neither for the
"perceiver", nor for the "perceived".

I had it happen to me recently, and again, it proved NLP to be
right: reality is our perception of reality.

We wanted to go for a BBQ, together with our 8-year old
daughter. We then found out we had to look after our daughter's
best friend too, as her mother had to work. This being the case
we decided to invite even more of her friends to the same bbq;
the more kids, the merrier. Most of the mums wanted to come
along, which was fine of course.

Now here's the spin: a dear friend of ours, who joins in most of
the social gatherings, wasn't invited -as she is not the mother
of one of our daughter's friends. When our friend found out she
wasn't invited, she was very upset. Various other
interpretations about earlier events had made her think we were
avoiding contact, and something was wrong. The "BBQ-invite", or
at least her perception of it, was the straw that broke the
camel's back. She was seriously thinking about cutting all the
ties with us, and was deeply hurt by our actions.

When I explained why we hadn't been in contact that much lately,
and why she wasn't invited to a party with a bunch of 8-year
olds, it turned out that all her negative emotions and bad
feelings weren't based on all the facts, but on just some of
them, combined with her interpretation of what had happened.
Again, we all work that way to a certain degree, but when that
makes you feel THAT bad, there may be reason to delve a bit
deeper, and check whether you know all the relevant facts, and
if your interpretation of them holds any water.

The Knowareness Principle for this month is this: when you feel
strong (negative) emotions about aspects of your personal or
professional life, check the facts, and check your
interpretation. Realise that your perception creates your
reality, and your reality creates your emotional response.
Often, what you think and feel is going on, is not what's really
going on!

Set a Landmarc:

Firstly: always make sure that you have as much information
possible as you can reasonably acquire before you make important
decisions in your life or business. This is what's called
informed decision making.

Secondly: when you have a reaction to some happening in your
life or business, STOP! Check whether you know all there is to
know about the event, and whether your interpretation is the
right one to have in that specific instance.

Thirdly: be vigilantly aware that YOUR interpretation of reality
creates YOUR reality. What you consider to be true, may not be
someone else's truth. The "I am right, you are wrong" attitude,
is the ultimate recipe to global conflict.

Lastly: go easy on yourself. we all make mistakes in our
judgements. Hitting yourself over the head for having made
mind-error is not honouring, and not effective. Commit to
deciding more carefully from that point forward.


Can we ever know reality as such? Well, I'd really like to
discuss that with you over a drink, but my reality says we
cannot. The only thing we can do is be aware of that, and do
our best to make as informed a decision as we can. That is good
enough for me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
And for a bit of humour: look at these motor insurance claims;
interesting tacks on reality......


"I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way"

"The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its
intention."

"Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a
tree I don't have."

"As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a
place where no stop sign had ever appeared before."

"I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side
of the road when I struck him."

"No one was to blame for the accident but it would never have
happened if the other driver had been alert."
----------------------------------------------------------------

Product of the month:

The key to living a more fulfilling professional and personal
life lies in becoming more aware, more "present". Aware Presence
transcends all time, is not bound by past or future. It means
living in the now. This is the concept my clients have been
imbued with since I started coaching and mentoring; more and more
people are latching on to this idea!

To facilitate becoming more aware and present, I recorded a CD
called "Zero Field". It allows you to do just that: become more
present, more in the NOW.

Check it out on http://www.landmarc.info/28.html

Until next time, go well, be well, and live well.

Marc

Getting More Out of Life

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"Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thingmakes it impossible." -George Claude Lorimer

Welcome to this edition of Getting More Out of Life, the ezine that is designed to give you awareness and "helicopter perspective" about what is going on in your professional and personal life. Awareness and self reflection are THE keys to success and fulfilment, combined with a system of understanding yourself and others.

Action!

A great Australian singer called Delta Goodrem brought out a song called “One Day”. She’s sings about how she is going to travel. One Day. How she is going to learn to speak Japanese. One Day. How she’ll learn to like herself. One day. How she’ll play the guitar. One day. One day it’ll be okay, is the tenor of the song.

Too many times we plan, visualize, budget and think about what we are going to do (one day), but it never really happens.

Action is what makes things happen. Not just any action, though, which is where many people slip up.

Too many people still think that “failing forward” is the way to go when it comes to creating results. Within the personality profiles it’s the Kangaroo type that’s most prone to this approach. Action, action, action, until they drop.

Admittedly, this approach can work quite well, but always comes at a price, whether it’s physical or mental wear and tear, or neglect of people around you.

Many coaches, mentors and consultants emphasise the importance of action RIGHT NOW. Now is always the right time, tomorrow is too late, is their motto.

I agree with them when we look at procrastination in relation to goals we really want to achieve. Not doing anything NOW would be really silly.

What we generally find, though, is that we don’t have any procrastination issues at all when we know what we want, and the desire is in line with our values. Just think back to a time when you were absolutely on track, and you knew what was driving you. Was there any procrastination? Probably not, or hardly any!

Action is awesome and can be successful, but it does presuppose there is a “thing” you are after, a goal you want to achieve.

Advanced Awareness in our lives dictates that we FIRST find out what it is we truly want, in relation to our values, and THEN make a plan to achieve it. As long as we are in line with our values, and have an actionable plan, we usually achieve what it is we desire.

More often than not we are not living out our own dreams. We let our goals be dictated by society, friends, family, bosses, partners, etc. THAT’s where procrastination becomes a problem. The desire is not ours, our motivation is low, and therefore our actions are scattered and few in numbers.

The solution? Well, here are a couple.

Set a Landmarc

Firstly: be open and honest: where and on what do you spend most of your money, time, energy, focus, etc.? Is it your family, work, relationships, your body, your finances, your personal development, your spirituality? Have awareness and look closely where most of your daily attention goes. I know, for instance, that most of my energy goes to personal growth, reading, and finding ways to make a passive income.

Secondly: as much as you can, prioritise your current values and goals list: what is your number 1 attention item, your number 2, etc.? Also, do you like the way this is set up? In other words: is your values list and the order of priority correct?

Thirdly: set some tangible, short, medium and long term goals in the top 3 of your list. Be specific, and make the results tangible.

Lastly: start walking! Take baby steps (or major ones if you’re really committed) towards your goal, and commit to doing SOMETHING each and every day, until you reach your destination. You’ll find you will hardly have any procrastination issues at all as, if you’ve done it right, you are living your life or treating your business according to your values.

The next step is applying the same technique to goals you want to kick, but have some resistance with. I know, for instance, that I have resistance in building an e-commerce business I am in. On the other hand, I also know that I really want the results from it, which drives me forward. I know what I need to do, and am putting it into practice. The next issue of this ezine will be focused on tackling this!

And for a bit of humorous wisdom, here’s The Roman Rule:

The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.

Product of the month:

The key to living a more fulfilling professional and personal life lies in becoming more aware, more “present”. Aware Presence transcends all time, is not bound by past or future. It means living in the now. This is the concept my clients have been imbued with since I started coaching and mentoring; more and more people are latching on to this idea!

To facilitate becoming more aware and present, I recorded a CD called “Zero Field”. It allows you to do just that: become more present, more in the NOW.

Check it out on http://www.landmarc.info/28.html

Until next time, go well, be well, and live well.