Wise Wednesdays

Even in hard times, there are so many things that we accomplish and can be grateful for. My proudest achievement this year: getting my 70+ year old parents to Body Pump and love it. It’s translated into healthy weight loss, lower blood pressure and strong energy. This means my father’s wish of not needing to take medication has come true; and my mother's back pains have all but disappeared. Plus, it frees up the local GP and creates business for the community gym! Someone asked me: how did it work? Well, it’s partly for my parents to tell their story (perhaps they’ll agree to do a Wise Wednesdays video?!...) From my perspective, my contribution was the same thing I always offer. It comes down to the heart of what I always talk about: Breaking through the trap of limiting beliefs that hold us back from our true potential. These (far too common) beliefs include: “I’m too old (or too young)” “I can’t do THAT” “It’s too late/too soon” “It’s just not who I am…” The biggest is probably: ...

The world has always been falling apart. And reordering itself again.     The apparent order we experience in our lives is the result of infinite cycles of creative destruction - ones that came before you and ones that you are participating in right now.   Destruction – reordering – destruction – reordering, etc.   You’ve probably had moments of realisation that none of the catastrophes that hit the world are personal. It’s just the way of things.   It was 1991 when my grandmother pointed this out to me in her own way. The civil war was breaking out and she simply said: things change. She had lived through two wars already. Almost 25 years later, while working on the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Global Strategy, I came across a scientific validation of her simple statement through Project Pandora. The Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies catalogued the major catastrophes that visited human society over 1000s of years in a bid to predict future risk. Conflict, floods,...

  It’s hard. It’s really hard. The world might be falling apart but you’re still expected to get up, answer emails and do your taxes. How is it possible? You could just throw in the towel, turn off the lights and ride off into the horizon… But somehow, you’re putting one foot in front of the other and you keep going. Nice work. Some people call it resilience. Others might say that you’re practising something very special that continental philosophers call: Hermeneutic Responsibility. It just means this: the meaning you’re making out of life is supporting you rather than holding you back. In other words, you’re likely doing these 3 powerful things when you start to feel tense or down, and it helps you transform your mindset: 1) You pause to understand what story you’re telling yourself. 2) You question the story and the assumptions that don’t serve you. 3) You choose the better, wiser story to support you and your mission in the world. Great job. And it can still be hard...

If you’re caught up in thought loops about how to get things done and racing from one thing to the next... ...remember you might be better served by slowing down and reconnecting with what you’re trying to create and who you need to be. It’s unlikely that: -      You need to be constantly stressed -      Be constantly active (and not sensing where the opportunities and solutions are in relation to the long-term vision) -      Disconnected from the people around you who can help and take a weight off your shoulders …and you especially don't need to be disconnected from yourself and your innate, deeper genius.