Monday 30 November 2009

Cold Tea, Anyone?

Do you sometimes find yourself learning the same lessons from different directions - and not realising it until you get there? I had one of those this morning.



Beavering away at my desk, I let my tea get cold. I picked it up and took a sip. YUCK. COLD TEA! Then I realisesd that my response was almost a learned reflex. I was taught long ago that cold tea was a Bad Thing, and that lesson was embodied in my YUCK-reflex - I had no conscious role to play.

I'm getting better at "watching my thinking" - I advocate it for my clients and I've done it for myself for years, yet still I'm catching myself out not doing it quite a lot.

So, recognising my YUCK-reflex for what it was, I chose to park it and re-examine the sensations available to me. Cool liquid on lips and tongue; the feint smell of oil of bergamott, a vague milkiness, the cool mug itself. All intrinsically not yucky. All available for the extraction of pleasure, should I decide that that might be a better way to process this event.

Closed-mindedness and quasi-consciousness are with us most of our waking lives, and of course - when asleep we don't even have that level of access to reality.

I talk more about being available for pleasure here, and this incident is me re-discovering the lessons embodied in that article again this morning. There are so many ways to forget the progress we make, but this is one worth working hard to remember. Listen to reality - not your assumptions about it, and not society's teachings about it.

Dumber is Better.

Tuesday 24 November 2009

Near-Death by Tube Train

Crikey!



Six Absolute Truths for Being Depressed




This is another quotation from Dorothy Rowe's wonderful "Guide To Life". If you are depressed you believe these statements, and as long as you believe these, you'll struggle with depression. Here they are:

1. No matter how good and nice I appear to be, I am really bad, evil, valueless, unacceptable to myself and other people.

2. Other people are such that I must fear, hate and envy them.

3. Life is terrible and death is worse.

4. Only bad things happened to me in the past and only bad things will happen to me in the future.

5. It is wrong to get angry.

6. I must never forgive anyone, least of all myself.

I reckon I have a propensity to think in three of these ways. By paying analytical, critical attention to my thinking, and through other  techniques, I've been able to keep it largely at bay.

I wonder if anyone is completely free of this.

Thursday 19 November 2009

People and Animals; People and People




In her book Dorothy Rowe's Guide to Life, Dorothy quotes Henry Beston, then goes on to draw parallels:


Henry Beston, [writing in The Outer Most House (1928)] about how little we understand animals, said:



Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creative through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not underlings, they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners pf the splendour and travail of the earth.

Alas, just as we interpret animals so we misinterpret other people. We think that our way of seeing things is the only right way to see things and we forget that we are all "fellow prisoners of the "splendour and travail of the earth". However, we are free to change.


Tuesday 17 November 2009

The Secret You Know and I Don't - Will You Tell Me What It Is?

Running a business is a funny old thing, and success mostly comes down to meeting one particular challenge. I often think that challenge this way. The business owner is on one side of a fence; all the potential clients are on the other side of that fence. The challenge is to get them to step over the fence, walk across your lawn, and buy your stuff.

So, you put up a big sign "Great Stuff here on my lawn!" People walk by on the other side. A few glance over. No-one crosses your fence.

So, you get yourself a Facebook profile, you Tweet, you Blog (howdy!), you advertise, you cross-link websites, but still most people don't step over the fence. You look at your products - they're great! You KNOW they work. You look at your prices - they can't be beaten! So WHY DON'T THEY CROSS THE DAMNED FENCE?

One thing is for sure, THEY KNOW. They know what you don't know. They know exactly why they don't cross your fence, walk across your lawn, and buy your stuff. And here's the point. IF YOU KNEW THEIR SECRET, YOUR BUSINESS COULD EXPLODE INTO SUCCESS.

The number one reason people people give me for not buying life coaching is that they they don't want to risk their money because they doubt it will work. My response is simple - there is NO RISK because I give a money-back guarantee.

So if this is your secret obstacle, I just removed it. If it isn't. I'd love to know what is!

Friday 6 November 2009

I'd Love To Know What You Think About This

I've set up a new Insights Panel; a group of people who help me with my marketing in exchange for vouchers towards buying my products and services, and you can read more about that here.
You're welcome to join.

But, I thought - why not ask my wider audience, too, and so here is the latest consultation, which I'd really value your opinion on.

Hiya folks,

Firstly, I hope you're all well. I didn't get a single response to my last email!
I'm sure you're all busy - and I hope - I hope in productive and enjoyable ways.
Anyway, here's another item for us to think about.

I've just developed a new product which I'm very excited about, and I wanted to run it past the panel for feedback. You can read a new, secret, article, describing the concept here

I'm interested in your views in general, and specifically as follows:

1. What do you think of the idea? How can I improve it?

2. What would it take for someone like you to buy it? (I won't hold you to it!)

3. The layout of the page is perhaps daunting and too texty and dense. What can I do to make it more accessible?

4. What images would help it?

5. What about the list of packages - are they the wrong ones? Which are missing? Which one (present or missing) would you want to buy?

6. Is the normal price tag appropriate? If not, what should it be?

7. The current name of the new product is "Fast Track Mentoring", but I don't really like it.
    Americans might call it "Inside Track Secrets" but that makes me a little uncomfortable, but it's not about what I like - it's about what my prospective clients like. Other candidate words and titles might be: "Get The Edge", "Step Up To Success", "Winning Ways", "Fail to Fail",
"Make It Happen", "Read and Rant" (!)... what else?

8. I'll be making a video on the same subject. What can you tell me about how to do it and how not to do it?

Please respond to the Facebook discussion board here - or you can reply confidentially to this email direct to me.

Many thanks & Warm Wishes,
Have a great weekend.
Chris