Life is Like a Game of Cards: How to Win

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset

Understand the game to win the game.

This is a quick post about the game of life and how you can increase your odds of ‘winning’ it.

Even though it’s a quick post it’s going to help you understand a few really important things:

What it actually means to ‘win’ life in this context.
The type of cards you have at your disposal in the ‘game’.
How you can best play these cards in order to increase your odds of getting where you want to be in life.

Here we go:

What it really means to ‘win’ or be successful in the game of life.

There are literally millions (if not more) of quotes already online about what the true meaning of ‘success’ is – most will agree that it’s not just about having a certain number in your bank account or driving a Lamborghini but about something deeper (though money and Lamborghinis can definitely DENOTE success).

For the sake of simplicity here we can say that ‘success’ just means that you’re living in a way that’s aligned with a vision that you CHOSE YOURSELF around your true values and intentions and that nobody is making you do things that you don’t really want to do or can’t tolerate (because they serve this wider vision).

This vision will be different for everybody – hence ‘success’ or ‘winning’ ultimately being subjective – but in this context the way that you win the game is that you find a way to keep growing real, make the majority of your own decisions about your life, and that you feel you’re actually spending the majority of your TIME (the most valuable thing you have) doing something that you either enjoy or that is meaningful to you because it moves you in the direction you CHOOSE your life to be going in.

Here’s what this all looks like:

It’s probably easier to understand if you look at this by comparing winning and losing in these terms:

Vision: When you’re winning, your life is either about moving towards or enjoying whatever vision you have for yourself; when you’re losing, then most of your time, energy, and attention is spent in the service of somebody else’s vision at the cost of not feeling that alive or enjoying life.

Values: When you’re winning, your life is an extension of your values (‘truth’, ‘freedom’, ‘creativity’, whatever is relevant to you); when you’re losing, you find yourself in a VACUUM where the world is not a reflection of your values at all (probably the opposite of your human values the more your loss of the ‘game’ snowballs).

Intentions: When you’re winning you CHOOSE what to do so you can act in alignment with your intentions; when you’re losing, then your intentions don’t matter because you end up being TOLD what to do.

The short-version is just that ‘winning’ means you’re living YOUR life instead of somebody else’s.

The three types of ‘cards’ in life and how to win.

There are three types of cards that pop up in life as we try to move towards ‘winning’ (living our own life by CHOOSING to align ourselves with our real vision, values, and intentions):

Deterministic Cards: Which are cards you have been dealt by life and can’t change.

Psychological Cards: Which are cards that are a product of your current mindset. These cards can be changed – or at least upgraded – as you learn to align your mindset with REALITY.

Social Cards: These are the cards that are played against you by the WORLD – in other words, you might have an idea about how you want to play your cards as a whole but society might have other plans.

Here’s a bit more of an explanation of each type:

Deterministic Cards

The Deterministic Cards are the ones that you’ve been dealt by life whether you like it or not. Some of these cards are dealt to you from birth and are just the things about your life that you can’t change because they’re INEVITABLE.

Some of these cards are dealt to ALL of us (which at least makes the game fair) – for example, the fact that we’re all gonna be DEAD one day, that we can’t control everything, that we will sometimes make mistakes, etc.

Other Deterministic Cards might be specific to you and you alone – an illness that you were born with, certain trials and tribulations that you may face as you’re growing up, your parents, the place you were born in and your economic circumstances.

Either way, the majority of these cards come down to our BIOLOGY and the laws of PHYSICS which are always beyond our control – ultimately, they’re just part of the mechanical, deterministic process of how nature and life operate at the most fundamental level.

These cards are essentially just the “IT IS WHAT IT IS” ones that are completely out of your control due to the randomness of life shuffling the deck before you even came into existence.

Other Deterministic Cards will be dealt to you as you go through life and there’s nothing you can do about them: maybe you’ll lose your job, you’ll get sick, somebody you care about will pass away, etc. – none of these things are ‘personal’ but they will be dealt to you as you keep playing the game and trying to ‘Win’.

How to ‘play’ to win: To make the most of your Deterministic Cards you need to work towards ACCEPTING them.

Only through acceptance can you prevent yourself from causing unnecessary problems for yourself that distract you from the game itself.

Once you’ve accepted, you will realise that – even though these cards can’t be changed – each one of them contains both a LESSON and an OPPORTUNITY that will allow you to move towards your personal vision and ‘winning’ the game.

To make the most of these cards you need to take yourself through that process: Accept what you’ve been dealt, look for the lesson and opportunity, and then move towards your vision in a stronger position because of this.

Anything other than acceptance will cause you to LOSE the game because it will take you out of reality and that always creates friction, frustration, and then misery.

Psychological Cards

The Psychological Cards change as you look at them. Ultimately, they are the ‘cards’ you’ve acquired as a result of your ATTITUDE towards life and your own relationship with yourself, the world, and reality.

The caveat with these cards is that you can’t play them until you’re ready and you’re only ready when your mindset is aligned with reality itself.

Ultimately, your mindset will affect whether or not you are able to ACCEPT your Deterministic Cards and then what you CHOOSE to do with them.

If you have an unreal mindset then you will not be able to see the lessons and opportunities that are available to you because of the cards you’ve been dealt – nor will you be able to be ACTIVE in your approach to life and moving towards your vision.

You can ‘pick up’ a new Psychological Card any time you push yourself through your comfort zone and test your assumptions about yourself, the world, and reality by taking ACTION.

When you do this you acquire new ‘Insight’ which allows you to get a better understanding of life and what’s possible within it – this insight unlocks your real self from any unreal or limiting beliefs that might have been holding you back from your vision and all of the amazing things that are possible for you.

The short-version here is that if you have a GROWTH MINDSET then you will continue to pick up new Psychological Cards that make it easier to see a way forward, make real choices, and win the game.

If you have a STATIC or PASSIVE mindset then you will be unable to see a way forward and will increase your odds of losing the game.

How to ‘play’ to win: Playing to win here means understanding that the cards you hold at the level of your own psychology are often FLUID and so you can increase your odds of winning the game by learning to change these cards.

Ultimately, you do this in a way where you understand that you can live your life to keep learning and growing and that by doing this you will acquire new insight, become stronger in yourself, and be able to make BETTER CHOICES about your Deterministic Cards and whatever else arises on your way to realising your vision (including the limits society tries to impose on you – see below).

Social Cards

Finally, there are the Social Cards – in the context of the game these are the cards that tell you what you’re ‘allowed’ to do or what you ‘should’ do with the ones you already have.

Like the Deterministic Cards, these can pop up at any time as you go through the game – however, unlike the Deterministic Cards, the social ones are often not something that are inevitable or inescapable as part of reality itself.

In many cases, the Social Cards are actually presenting ILLUSORY BARRIERS that inexperienced players will see as actual barriers to their progress.

For example, maybe you’ve been dealt the Deterministic Cards of being born a certain sex but Social Cards are dealt in your community (or whatever) that say that your desire to move towards your vision in a certain way (because of your Psychological Cards and the CHOICES you’ve made) is not ‘allowed’, ‘appropriate’, or something that you ‘should’ do as a man/woman/whatever.

If you have a weak mindset (because you haven’t picked up enough Psychological Cards that benefit you) then this Social Card and the associated ‘social pressure’ will stop you from doing what you actually WANT to do with your other cards and prevent you from winning the game.

How to ‘play’ to win: Social Cards will be dropped on you by all kinds of external sources as you move towards your vision (and one reason the game is hard because some of these cards will be dealt by people close to you or that you care about).

The way that you ‘win’ against these cards is by testing them to see if they’re actually presenting obstacles that are REAL (i.e. Deterministic and so you can only ACCEPT them) or if they’re just something that people in your world want you to believe are real so that they can win the game and you can lose.

Distinguishing the validity/power of the Social Cards is easier as you work on your own mindset and acquire more Psychological Cards.

Conclusion: Play To Win

Now that you understand the different cards you’ll be dealt by life (and the other people you’re sharing it with) you should be better equipped to stay real and move on your own terms.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

30 habits you can start RIGHT NOW to improve your life.

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Creativity/Life Philosophy/Mindset

Small actions with big results over time.

This is a list of things that you can do (pretty much) right now to make your life better.

If you do them in isolation then they’ll increase the chances of you feeling ‘good’ – if you do the ones that appeal to you CONSISTENTLY then you’ll keep growing real and will level up your relationship with life as a whole.

You probably won’t want to do all of them (though you probably could) but they show that there’s always something we can do to grow real, get results, and stay in the zone.

Here we go:

1. Take whatever goals you have an turn the volume UP.

Take a minute to sit down and look at goals you’re working on in life at the minute. Whatever they are and whatever plan you’ve got to achieve them, ask yourself how you can STRETCH yourself:

How do you do MORE? – For example, making more sales in your business or doing more reps in the gym.

How do you do something SOONER? – For example, doing something that you might not be ‘ready’ for in your head but stand a good chance of achieving if you can put your fears and doubts aside.

How do you impact MORE PEOPLE? – For example, finding a way to share you creative work with a bigger audience by going on a podcast or something.

These are just random examples but the idea is you need to find a way to STRETCH yourself – this will make you feel more alive and you’ll get better results faster (probably).

2. Reach out to somebody new or to somebody you haven’t spoken to in a while.

Find a way to make or rebuild a connection. Probably, there’s somebody out there you’d like to meet or haven’t spoken to in a while – send them a message (RIGHT NOW) and organise a phone call or something. People need people and – as long as we’re choosing the right ones for us – it makes us feel good to have real connections.

3. Stop talking to whatever fake or dramatic people are holding you back.

Related to number 2 but if there are people out there that only bring drama or toxicity to your life then remember the sacred mantra: “Gimme something real or GTFO”. Make the decision to start fading them out – you’ll thank yourself and have more energy once it’s done.

4.Commit to going for a walk and/or exercising most days of the week.

If you don’t exercise then start exercising. It’s the best way to increase your energy levels and ensure that you’re able to go out and do all of the other things you want to do. At the bare minimum go for a walk around the block or something – MOVE YOUR BODY (if you don’t already).

5. Replace a ‘Static Habit’ with a ‘Growth Habit’

A ‘Static Habit’ is just killing time for the sake of it (which we sometimes need to do to unwind); a ‘Growth Habit’ is one that carries you forward.

Examples:

Static Habit: Playing video games, watching Netflix, scrolling through social media (none of these really take you anywhere you want to be – you’re just EXISTING).

Growth Habit: Reading a book that serves your purpose or some emotional ‘thing’ you’re dealing with, calling somebody important to you and having a deep conversation, exercising, journaling, etc. (these kinds of things help you live a better life – you’re LIVING).

Everything has an opportunity cost and so the time spent on the Static Habits just takes away the time you have to go deeper into life with the Growth Habits.

6. Sit down and create a vision for yourself

A lot of people make life hard for themselves because they don’t know where they’re going. Sit down and spend some time asking yourself the hard questions: What do you wanna do before you die?

A simple exercise (from this post about Routine) is to just ask yourself what you want to be, do, and have.

Don’t make it complicated but having a direction will serve you more than not having one.

7. Drink some water

There’s a good chance you’re dehydrated. Drink some water.

8. Call the important people in your life at least once a week.

We’re all gonna be dead one day which means that the people in our lives are gonna be dead too. Value them and the time you can share whilst you can. Make it a regular thing because one day you won’t be able to do it at all.

9. Stop spending money on crap you don’t need and use it to invest in yourself instead.

If you’re addicted to Amazon Prime or spending money on crap you don’t need then commit to spending some of that money on investing in yourself. Maybe it’ll be a course, a class, or coaching – whatever it is, make sure it takes you where you want to be and levels you up.

10. Find a way to do something creative

A lot of us are out of touch with our creativity – make some time to do something that’s creatively meaningful to you, even if it’s only a small thing like doodling or whatever. Try and become more present by using your creativity as a vehicle for finding reality.

11. Throw some stuff out, clean, or tidy up

Most of us have spent time accumulating things that we don’t need. Go on a rampage and find some stuff in your house to throw out or donate to charity or whatever.

Clean something in your house too whilst you’re at it (or maybe just rearrange things to make things more tidy). It’s a reflection of your headspace in many ways.

12. Stretch your body (people don’t do this enough)

Go on YouTube or wherever and find a stretch routine that works for you (e.g. if you’ve got a tight neck search for that). Most people hardly ever stretch their bodies but it’s one of the most amazing things you can do for yourself as it loosens you up, relaxes, and refreshed you.

13. Find a way to GIVE something

It’s paradoxical but GIVING makes us feel good and makes us more open to life as a whole. How could you give something to the world right now? There’s always something you can do.

14. Read three books about something you want to know more about.

If you want to learn about a new topic then find three books that you’ll read in that area. For example, maybe you wanna learn about ‘Stoicism’ – find three books that are about that subject and you’ll probably have a good base-level understanding by the time you’re done (obviously, you can’t read three books right now but you can figure out what they’re gonna be and start the first one).

15. Write something free flow style.

You’ve probably heard of ‘Morning Pages’ – if not, it’s a thing where you wake up in the morning and then just write a stream of whatever words flow out of you. You don’t have to do this in the morning, though – you can do it right now: get a pen and some paper and just let yourself write a pre-determined number of pages about…whatever.

The idea is to let your unconscious make itself conscious so you can unleash what needs to come out and see what’s going on beneath the surface of yourself. You can use that AWARENESS to make your life better.

16. Meditate

Sometimes, I think people get too worked up about meditation and treat it like a Olympic Event. Really, it just means closing your eyes, focusing on your breath, and if you catch yourself thinking instead of focusing then returning back to your breath (without judging yourself).

You can do it for as long as you like (no rules) and if you need some assistance or you’ve never done it before then try a ‘Guided Meditation’ on YouTube or an app like Insight Timer. These kind of guided meditations come in all shapes and sizes so if you’re trying to be less anxious, more wealthy, happier, whatever there will be something out there.

17. Choose a time to go to bed and stick to it tonight.

Good sleep will change your life (to state the obvious) so decide on a time to go to bed and then stick to it tonight. Don’t use your phone at least an hour before and drink some water to increase the odds of actually sleeping!

18. Use your phone less

Unfortunately, you kinda need a phone to survive the modern world but you can definitely improve your life by using it less. Make a decision right now to stay mindful of when you’re just scrolling for the sake of it or texting because you’re bored or whatever else is sucking you into the digital world instead of the REAL one.

19. Put a to-do list together every day

Make a list of the things you need to DO today and then cross them off one-by-one as you go through it. Anything you don’t do today can carry over to tomorrow’s list. I do this every morning before I get to work and it keeps me on track with everything that needs doing. It’s simple but made me way more productive.

20. Listen to podcasts whilst you’re doing boring tasks.

If you want to make boring tasks more interesting then listen to podcasts whilst you’re doing them. I used to hate washing the dishes, for example, but now I use this as an opportunity to listen to podcasts about the areas I want to GROW in (business, etc.). There are loads of opportunities to multitask like this so level your time up by making use of them.

If you want a good podcast then check out Creative Status (*cough* – it’s my podcast): anchor.fm/creativestatus (or on any podcast app).

21. Check your calorie intake with MyFitnessPal or some other app.

Most people don’t know how much they’re eating so the odds are you’re either eating too much or too little for your height and weight. Download MyFitnessPal or something similar and monitor your calories for about a week or two – this will give you some good information you can use to make better choices overall (depending on your fitness goals, etc.)

22. Eat more leafy greens with your meals.

You can make any meal healthier by chucking some leafy greens in there. Throw in some spinach or kale or whatever to some of the things you eat today.

23. Check your posture and straighten your back.

Your posture affects your energy levels by affecting your breathing. Bad posture also screws you up in later life. Are you sitting up straight as you read this? If not then straighten up! Keep checking in with yourself throughout the day.

24. Take the stairs when you have a choice between them and a lift/elevator.

You might not literally be able to do this RIGHT NOW but next time you have a choice between the stairs and the lift/elevator then take the stairs. Future ‘You’ will thank you for it if you make this a consistent habit!

25. Say ‘No’ to set healthy boundaries (when you mean it)

Ask yourself what you need to start saying ‘NO’ to in life more often – this will show you where you have room to start setting healthier boundaries!

26. Develop a routine for yourself that will let you grow and enjoy life.

Sit down and spend some time developing a weekly routine for yourself that supports your growth and helps you be the person that you want to be.

This post goes into it in more detail: olianderson.co.uk/routine (you can probably add some stuff from this list to your routine t o get going).

27. Go outside for a prolonged period (at least once a week)

Most of us spend too much time indoors but outside is where it’s at – find somewhere ‘Outside’ where you’d like to go and then make a plan to go there for a prolonged period of time (i.e. for a hike or something). I do this most Sundays and it always acts as a reality reset button and makes me feel good, gives me time to find clarity, and shows me some amazing things too.

28.Think and act for the long-term, not the short-term.

Get into the habit of asking yourself “What does ‘Future Me’ need right now?” – yeah, it’s ‘fun’ to live in the short-term sometimes and just do whatever we want to do but if you do that all the time you’ll just pay the price later on down the line. Choose a VISION for yourself and live to make it happen and become the person that’s aligned with it.

29. Buy (and then use!) a foam roller

If you’ve never used a foam roller then you’re missing out – it’s an amazing self-massage tool for removing tension from your body. Get one and hop on it to release some of that deep tension that your muscles has (that you probably don’t even know about until you get on the foam roller).

30. Do the ‘gratitude’ thing.

Sit down and write out a list of things you’re grateful for – there’s probably a lot more than you might initially think and gratitude has the added bonus of making you more open so you can FLOW with life.

Conclusion: There’s loads of stuff you can do to start improving your life RIGHT now. What did I miss (leave a comment)?

If this inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now.

Routine: Building a Real Life

Published on

Life Philosophy/Mindset

Your routine shapes your whole life.

A lot of people have an aversion to routine because they think that it’s going to restrict their creativity or simply just cause them to be boring.

Actually, if you do it right, a routine can NOURISH your creativity as well as make your life more interesting.

This is because the RIGHT kind of routine (and the right attitude towards it) will make your life better by allowing your real self to emerge, ensuring that you get the RESULTs you want from life, and helping you to live a life that you actually want to live.

This quick article is going to help you raise your awareness of the benefits of having a routine to fall back upon so you can start making practical changes to either implement a new routine or tweak an existing one to make it more REAL.

Before we get started you need to be aware of the fact that a REAL routine isn’t just about doing things for the sake of it or because somebody else told you to (that’s what leads to an unreal routine and is why a lot of people think routine is ‘boring’).

No, a real routine is built around three core principles:

It supports your GROWTH: in other words, it helps you to keep moving towards your highest vision for your life as well as supporting you to BECOME the person you need to become in order to make that happen.

It gives you ENERGY: a real routine is designed to energise you and to allow you to keep building positive momentum in your life that carries you on the creative tension between where you are now and where you want to be.

If you do it right, a real routine will support your physical, mental, and emotional energy levels because you’ll be CHOOSING to nurture these things and doing things that increase your positive energy in these areas.

It involves having FUN: a real routine involves doing things that you actually enjoy doing regularly. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be some WORK to do in order to get the results that you want but it does mean that you need to make sure you choose the most ‘fun’ way of getting where you want to be if you have the option.

Nothing is worth taking so seriously that you can’t find a way to enjoy it and that applies especially to your routine. ‘Fun’ also means that you actually schedule times to be NOT WORKING – for example, taking days off to vegetate and recharge, going hiking, hanging out with friends or whatever else ‘fun’ means to you.

If you’re ‘On’ all the time, you won’t get results so build in ‘fun’ time (or whatever you wanna call it) to give yourself ACTIVE recovery, relaxation, and restoration.

If you can build a routine for yourself around these three areas – Growth, Energy, and Fun – then you’re probably going to enjoy life a lot more and feel that you’re making the kind of progress you want to make.

We’ll discuss some practical examples of what you can do in these areas in the ‘Habits’ section below but keep these three things in mind as you go through this article as a whole.

The main benefit of implementing a routine in your life is that it allows you to live in an ACTIVE way instead of a PASSIVE way. This is empowering because it means that your life is a product of something you have chosen yourself instead of just being something that happens to you.

In other words, if you want to claim your own life as your own then you NEED a routine. As long as it’s aligned with your true values and intentions and you’re not so rigid about it that you never have any fun or lose your mind being obsessed with results then it will improve your life for good.

The other incredibly powerful thing about having a routine is that due to the LAW OF CAUSE & EFFECT (see this article), it will allow you to carry yourself through time in a way that continues to COMPOUND and BUILD ON the results that you keep getting.

A simple example here is that if your routine involves working out regularly (which it ‘should’ if you want to increase and maintain your energy levels – see below), then the benefits of the work out you do will build on themselves and you’ll get better results over time.

Another simple example is writing a book (or some other creative project) – if your routine involves space for writing then every week the number of words you write will build on each other and as time passes you will definitely have written that book (or at least a first draft).

The combination of choosing a routine that focuses on consistent Growth, Energy, and Fun – as well as involving tasks that support your vision and goals in this area – leads to your life becoming a POSITIVE SPIRAL where things keep getting better.

Let’s talk about this in a little more detail:

Positive and Negative Spirals: The CHOICE is Yours

Really, a routine is just a set of CHOICES that you’ve made about your life and what you want to do with it. If you choose to do something real with it, then you’ll get something real out of it (if you take the actions); if you choose to do nothing or choose something unreal, then you’ll get something unreal out of it.

I’ve said it a load of times before but the general rule is simple:

Real in, real out; unreal in, unreal out.

The interesting thing is that as we continue to make real choices and to do what serves our lives then we start to create a Positive Spiral – all this really means is that the results we get start to build on themselves and the more good we bring into our life brings more good.

This works in the opposite direction as well: if we don’t CHOOSE to focus on our growth, manage our energy, and let ourselves have fun then we open up a Negative Spiral and things will continue to get worse (until we either wake up or hit rock bottom and have no choice but to wake up).

If you want to open a Positive Spiral in your life then you need a routine and you need to be committed to it. It really is that simple.

Here’s some ‘stuff’ you need to know to get in the flow by using your routine as a vehicle for positivity.

Vision

The first thing you need to know is that everything starts with a vision: you either have one or you don’t but if you don’t then you’re gonna open up a Negative Spiral because you’ll be living in a passive way.

There are thousands of ways (probably) to figure out what you want from your future but the most simple one is to do the ‘classic’ coaching exercise: BE/DO/HAVE.

This really is simple and just involves asking yourself what you want to be, do, and have in your life.

You can get started by just grabbing a bit of paper and splitting it into three columns, one for each of the areas.

Be: is all the things you want to be – healthy, happy, rich, whatever.

Do: is all the things you want to do – work for yourself, travel the world, win a medal as an athlete, whatever.

Have: is all the things you want to have – a Lamborghini, a new house, a dog, whatever.

The only real caveat here is that you need to check-in with yourself to make sure that what you’re aiming for is actually REAL.

All ‘real’ means in this context is that you don’t want to bring these things into your life to fill some emotional ‘void’ or whatever but because they’re actually aligned with your real values etc. (if you wanna figure out your values in detail do my free course – the 7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose).

When you’re writing down what you want in the Be/Do/Have columns, don’t hold back – the goal with your vision is to be AUDACIOUS so don’t refuse to put things down because you have thoughts pop up about why things aren’t possible (etc.). What you need in your vision is a clear picture of what you want, that’s it. Worry about the possibilities as you take ACTION and move forward.

Goals

Once you’ve figured out your Vision, you need to start breaking it down into goals. These are simply steps that you take to start moving towards making the vision a reality.

The key here is that you need to break down the things in your vision into clear STEPS or MILESTONES.

For example, if you want that Lamborghini the milestones along the way might be to figure out a business idea, implement it, get to a certain level of wealth, and then buy that Lamborghini.

These are obviously simplified steps in the process but – in relation to your routine – you need to know these steps so that one week to the next you’re doing the things that need to be DONE in order to move forward to where you need to be.

There’s a more detailed version of this process in the Personality Transplant course I mentioned but all you need to know in this article is you need to figure out a real vision and then understand the SPECIFIC goals that will lead you there.

Your routine will need to support these goals so you actually get the results you want from one week to the next and build a Positive Spiral to wherever you happen to be headed by building from one week to the next.

Habits

Your vision and your goals set the context of your routine but your habits are the thing that make or break it.

The short version is that you need to dedicate time to your vision and goals but also need to ensure that your routine meets the three criteria we set out above: supporting GROWTH, giving ENERGY, and ensuring there’s space for FUN.

If you can ensure that you build all of these things into your routine whilst moving towards your vision then you’ll be living in an active way that opens up a Positive Spiral and ensures you get the most out of your life.

What you need to do week-by-week for your VISION and the GOALS that support it will be different for everybody but the important point is that your routine needs to allow you to MAKE time to do it.

Here are some other habits to keep the positive spiral going in the other areas of your life:

Growth Habits: Anything that helps you grow more REAL (i.e. whole and connected).

-Doing the ‘stuff’ that moves you towards your vision (goals from week to week).

-Making space to reflect and raise awareness of who you are and what you’re doing (true values, etc).

-Making time to nourish the relationships you already have and to make new relationships and extend your network.

-Journaling or similar activities that help you to reflect and make sense of whatever you’re experiencing so you can process your emotions.

-Working to cultivate the QUALITIES you need to become the person you want to be (maybe this will mean working to be more trusting, patient, assertive, boundaried, whatever).

-Making time to work through any emotional ‘stuff’ you have going on or channelling it into activities that help you move through it.

-Create some kind of ‘Vision Board’ or other tool to make it easier to remind yourself of where you’re going and keep you FOCUSED.

-Etc.

Energy Habits: Anything that helps you to stay energised and to increase your energy levels.

-Making sure that you exercise at least a couple of times a week (ideally more, imo). Exercise is the BEST thing you can do to ensure you have consistently high energy levels.

-Making sure you sleep enough.

-Making sure you eat food that makes you feel good and is healthy.

-Talking to or meeting with people that energise you and help you to focus on positive things instead of drama and negativity (get rid of negative people).

-Finding activities that PUMP YOU UP like listening to music, meditating, hiking, etc. (just examples, will be different for everybody).

-Learn to be grateful: gratitude increases your energy levels because it removes friction from your life – maybe start a journal or just make time to reflect.

-Make a habit of not complaining all the time or being negative. This just brings you down and stops you focusing on solutions and moving forward (so you can open a Positive Spiral).

-Etc.

Fun Habits: Anything that makes you feel like you’re having fun and ensures that you’re not going to burn out.

-Give yourself one day a week/afternoon/whatever a week to do absolutely nothing or to just follow your feelings.

-Give yourself time to go to the movies, hang out with people without an agenda, explore somewhere new, etc.

-Basically: ANYTHING FUN that makes your life enjoyable – follow the positive energy to keep the spiral going and ensure you’re relaxed when you’re focusing on the other ‘stuff’ (vision and goals).

The final thing to be said about ‘fun’ is that you need to find ways to make sure that the other things you’re doing are as enjoyable as possible. It’s not about WHAT you do but HOW you do it so if you have a good time you’re more likely to keep the routine in place and keep getting all of the benefits that come from the positive spiral.

A simple example: if you don’t enjoy lifting weights (for example) then don’t do it – find something that’s fun to you like yoga or going to a spin class.

A Real Routine Frees You to be Yourself

Your routine frees you to be yourself because it carries you from where you are now to where you’re going and it ensures that you have fun on the way there.

If you take the building blocks shared in this article and build a routine for yourself around them then you WILL get results and start opening up Positive Spiral as those results compound and build on each other.

The final thing to say is that a routine is something to take seriously but not so seriously that you become ATTACHED to it to the extent that it starts holding you back.

Whatever routine you build and start implementing in your life is a product of the ASSUMPTIONS you carry about yourself right now – those assumptions will be as closely aligned with the truth as possible if you dig into yourself and your vision but – as things change and you learn and grow – you may need to change or tweak your routine to support new insight.

Also: don’t forget to take a detour once in a while – maybe your routine will tell you that you’re ‘supposed’ to be working out on Tuesday nights (or whenever) but you get invited to a party or something. Sometimes, you’ll need to go to the party rather than do that work out – life is for the LIVING after all.

In general, though, your routine will provide a skeleton for the structure of your life that will help you to keep growing, increase your energy levels, and enjoy the journey because you’ve chosen things that are aligned with your true values and the sense of joy that comes from growing REAL.

If this has made sense to you then spend a little time figuring out your vision, goals, and the habits that will support your growth, energy and sense of FUN on the way to making it happen.

Peace,

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Show Up: How to Get Over Your Fear of Being Real Online and On Social Media

Published on November 4, 2022

Creativity/Mindset

Real Always Works

A common problem that I’ve seen a lot of creatives and business owners ‘suffer’ from when they come to me for advice is that they’re SCARED to show up online.

This is different to not wanting to show up – if you’re not interested in being online then that’s a different story but if you’re actually interested or – even worse – have a NEED to show up (for your business/brand/whatever) then this problem is actually pretty serious because it holds you back from getting actual RESULTS.

This isn’t to say that the internet and social media are magical panaceas and that they’re going to guarantee you riches and fame (if only) but if you want to raise awareness of your creative work, business, or whatever else then the internet is an essential tool for getting ‘out there’ and connecting you with the RIGHT people.

This article is going to give you some practical steps for getting over your fear of sharing the REAL version of yourself on the internet.

It’s going to cover some of the most common obstacles people face as well as looking at some of the PRACTICAL steps you can take to start getting out there.

Before we get going, we need to make the point that the MAIN thing stopping you from getting out there in a REAL way is the imaginary JUDGEMENTS of imaginary people out there in the world.

From what I’ve seen with some of my clients, the main reason they don’t get started is because they create a phantom in their minds that projects forward into a future where they’re being mocked or ostracised by society as a whole for sharing the ‘wrong’ thing online.

This is just two things projected out into the world and stopping you from taking ACTION:

It’s your own judgement of yourself and your unresolved feelings that you’re not good enough (so you assume others will see you in the same way).
It’s your belief (maybe unconscious) that you can’t handle the consequences of being disagreed with (when if what you’re sharing is TRUE you definitely can).

Most of what we’ll be talking about in this article is about getting you to a place where you can deal with both of these things but you need to be committed from the outset to being on YOUR OWN TEAM – if you’re not, then you’re just gonna make life difficult for yourself because you’ll stop yourself doing the real stuff and “real always works”.

Here we go:

Figure out who you are, what you’re saying, and why you’re saying it.

The main reason that people find themselves unable to show up online and say something real is because they lack AWARENESS of what’s real about them, what they need to EXPRESS because of this realness, and why it’s worth sharing in the first place.

If you don’t spend some time figuring out this kind of thing then you end up getting ANALYSIS PARALYSIS which is just a fancy way of saying that you have so many potential options that your brain becomes overwhelmed and so you freeze up and do nothing.

When you start to figure out who you are and what stems from this then you narrow down your options a little but you do this in a way that refines your message and makes it easier to share.

Figuring out who you are: Just means that you do a little work to DIG INTO your true values, your true intentions, your true opinions and points of view, your own STORY (without any BS), or anything else that helps you understand yourself.

All of these things can be translated into messages – i.e. what you’re saying – for example, if you value creativity but your story has been that you’ve grown up in a world that doesn’t value the same thing then you can share stories about how you fought to nurture your creativity in a soulless world (for example).

The point is this:

When you figure out the real ‘stuff’, it makes it easier to EXPRESS it.

The first step to showing up online, then – or anywhere else, really – is to be diligent in setting the scene of your life by uncovering this kind of awareness.

The short version is this:

Uncover something real.
Live something real.
Share something real.

To make life even easier for yourself you can ask yourself why share what you’re sharing – if you understand, for example, that by sharing your story you’re helping other people to become stronger in their own lives (or whatever) then that makes it easier to stay motivated and consistent in producing content in the first place.

It also makes it easier to keep riding through the rocky terrain of the internet in general when you don’t get the results you want or people disagree with you (etc.).

If you have CONVICTION in what you’re doing because you know your ‘why’ then the judgements of others and – more importantly – the judgements of YOURSELF are way less likely to hold you back from the real stuff.

Figure out who you‘re saying what you’re saying to.

You don’t need to appeal to EVERYBODY – that’s a mistake that a lot of people try and make in life and online but it just holds you back from being real and it prevents the right people from connecting with you at the DEEPEST possible level.

As the old saying goes: “A friend to all is a friend to none” (or something like that).

Showing up online is a lot easier when you do the work laid out above (figuring out your values, etc.) and then being strategic about reaching out to other people that are on your wavelength or – at a bare minimum – will benefit in a REAL way from your message.

You’ve probably read about figuring out your ‘Ideal Customer Persona’ or working on your ‘niche’ – both of these things are great advice because they help you to get an understanding of the kinda person you’re ‘speaking’ to with your content.

Spend some time reflecting on these things. If you want to figure out your niche (and a lot more related to this kind of thing) then check out this free video workshop I made:

The point is that you don’t need to appeal to everybody and so you don’t need to aim your content to everybody either. Figure out who you’re talking to, make sure it’s somebody you actually WANT to talk to because you share things like values and aspirations, and then direct all of your online content at them in a way they can relate to…

Don’t be scared to polarise.

A consequence of not appealing to everybody is that not everybody will agree with you – that’s fine and dandy but if you have some emotional ‘stuff’ going on (like SHAME) then disagreement will make you feel like there’s something ‘wrong’ with you when there isn’t and so you’ll start holding back or stop sharing your message.

Here’s a little mantra that will serve you well here (stolen from the physicist David Bohm):

“Your opinions are something that you have, not that you are”.

In other words, your opinions don’t DEFINE ‘you’ as a human being – they’re not the real essence of what it means to be you.

If you forget that then when somebody disagrees with you online then you can fall into the trap of thinking that they’re disagreeing with you fundamentally as a human being.

Of course, some other shame-driven people actually might think that about you if your opinions trigger their ‘stuff’ but – even so – the bottom line is that an opinion is just an opinion so you can remain outcome-independent and not let it affect your self-worth.

Actually, because this is just something that is going to happen to you when you share things online – i.e. people disagreeing with your opinions – then you might as well USE IT to your advantage by turning up the VOLUME on some of your more ‘controversial’ or real opinions (without trying to be CONTRIVED and creating controversy for the sake of it – just not holding back what’s TRUE).

This might seem ‘scary’ at first if you’re not used to it but because you’re not trying to appeal to everybody (see the point we made above) your polarising opinions serve to do two really important things:

They act as a SIGNAL to call the people that you DO want to communicate with to you (because they’ll likely either share these opinions already and respect you for sharing them or they will learn something new from what you’re saying and respect you for that).
They serve to help you RISE ABOVE the noise online and help you to get attention that you need (for the sake of your business, etc. – not for the sake of filling an emotional void or whatever by seeking empty attention as an end in itself).

There is so much noise online and most of it is just people sharing the same old boring, safe opinions and ideas because most people are scared to leave their comfort zones and be REAL.

Being polarising cuts through the noise and allows you to rise as a signal instead. The payoff is that this will connect you to others and help you build confidence as you handle whatever disagreement arises and connect with those that actually matter to you and what you’re doing.

Don’t try to be something or somebody that you’re not.

The biggest mistake that a lot of people seem to make online with their content is that they attempt to come across as something they’re NOT. This might make them feel good in the short-term but if the whole point is to build REAL connections then it’s just setting them up for failure.

The most simple example of people trying to be something they’re not is when they present themselves as being a ‘guru’ or ‘expert’ in some area and so attempt to come across as though they have ALL the answers, are completely INFALLIBLE, and can solve absolutely every problem that you might have in a given area.

This is an example of somebody being a CONTROL FREAK and trying to control the way that their online audience sees them so that they can feel a certain way about themselves and feed into their ego ‘stuff’. It’s also completely UNREAL because NOBODY has all the answers, everybody is fallible, and nobody can solve all of your problems.

Trying to be something that you’re not – on and offline – is something that we do when we have an emotional need to play it safe and to try and control situations because of insecurity and lack of confidence in our abilities.

When we have true confidence in our abilities then we are able to do two really important things:

Admit where we don’t have answers or have room to grow – because we’re not trying to be an ‘expert’, just somebody who has learned certain thing in our own lives and continues to grow and evolve.
We are able to be spontaneous and therefore REAL – because we’re not trying to control the moment but we’re being in it and just sharing from the REAL place of where we actually already are in TRUTH (not where we want to make it look like we are for our own ego or attachment to certain outcomes).

The short-version of all this is that you obviously need to be able to DELIVER whatever it is that you’re telling your audience you can give them but you don’t need to be ‘perfect’.

Being perfect is BORING and it makes you harder to be humanised and to build an actual connection with people.

For example, if you’re trying to come across as some perfect ‘guru’ type creature you might think that you need to present yourself as being impeccably moral, successful, and never making mistakes. Only sharing that side of yourself – i.e. your successes – might seem interesting to you and make you feel like you’re showing yourself off to the world in the way that you want to be seen but… it’s not real.

EVERYBODY has failure. Everybody has made mistakes. Everybody has screwed up. Everybody has a dark side to their nature.

You can only really CONNECT with people by sharing your stories and if your story is just “I won and everything is great” then nobody is going to find that engaging or – more importantly – relate to it.

It’s the failures, lessons, obstacles, and challenges that make you interesting so don’t be scared to share that stuff. Even more importantly, it’s not just about the past – even right now, we’re all learning things and facing challenges. Don’t try and be something other than the perfectly imperfect human being you are in truth.

If you find yourself trying to overinflate your image of yourself with the things you share online then ask yourself ‘Why?’ – more than likely it’s because you’re JUDGING yourself and so you’re using your content as a vehicle to try and hide from your judgements. Actually, by hiding in that way you’re just exacerbating the problem as it’s a form of avoidance.

If you wanna be real, then share the real stuff. It will get you better results anyway because it will stop you being BORING.

Work on being spontaneous and consistent.

Spontaneous and consistent might not sound like they go together but if you want to show up more online that’s what you need to work on.

In this sense, ‘spontaneous’ means that you’re not over planning every little detail and you can actually enjoy the process whilst consistent means that you’re posting or showing up wherever you’ve decided to be REGULARLY.

Only if you’re spontaneous in your approach to producing your content can you allow your REALNESS to shine through in it – that might mean making a video and just following prompts or bullet points instead of robotically reading a script or it might even just mean opening your mouth and going for it raw (that’s my favourite approach – have a look at my YouTube channel).

If you’re writing content then being spontaneous might just mean that you don’t choose the topic you’re going to write about until it’s time to do so. That means that when you start writing you’re writing about something that’s FRESH to you and your experience at present (that’s what I’m doing with this article right now – reflecting on thoughts I’ve had about this area over the last few days).

This approach is REAL because it connects whatever you’re putting out to the learning journey that you’re currently on and it keeps you growing REAL (which is what it’s all about). You can still do things like add SEO strategy or hashtags or whatever but as long as it fits within the wider context of who you are, what you have to say, and why you’re saying it (like we said above) then it should resonate.

The ‘Consistency’ part means that you set yourself some kind of structure of when you release your content. That basically means having some kind of Rolling Content Calendar that you’ll stick to from one week to the next – for example, on my calendar (email if you want the template and I’ll send you it) I post on this blog/site on Mondays and Fridays.

That consistency is good for my own creative process because I know what I’m doing but it’s also good for my readers who know what to expect. Knowing why you’re doing things on what day is obviously important (I chose twice a week because it’s good for SEO) and it depends on the platform you use but the point is that having structure keeps you ACCOUNTABLE and being spontaneous keeps you REAL and you need BOTH to get RESULTS.

Add Value: Entertain, Educate, Elevate & Tell Stories

All this talk of content and sharing things is fine but you need to make sure that you’re ADDING VALUE to the people that you’re communicating with. This means – first and foremost – that your content isn’t just about ‘You’ but it’s about ‘Them’ and their own lives: the problems they’re facing, the values they share, the lessons they want to learn, and their own experiences (etc.).

This means your content has to actually be ‘good’ otherwise you’re only showing up in a way that benefits you (and that’s ego).

I think the best content does all four of these things but if you can do just one or a couple, you’ll increase the odds of adding value which makes it easier to really SHOW UP:

Entertain: Basically means, don’t be BORING. Don’t just be a humourless ‘guru’ or whatever but put your actual personality into things and make people laugh. If you’re not funny, share something novel or that grabs attention.

Educate: People read and share content online because it educates them in ways that solves their problems or gives them valuable information that can help them in their lives.

Elevate: This is the BIG one in my opinion: it means that you’re helping people to GROW MORE REAL by sharing things that help them on their own life journey to become more WHOLE. It means sharing valuable insights and ideas that make life better.

Tell Stories: Finally, you need to at least give access to your story somewhere. Stories are how human beings really CONNECT and get to understand each other and that’s what it’s all about. You can also weave stories into the things that you share in general so that it’s more engaging and relatable. That’s why I share my story on my site so people can understand where I’m coming from.

Practice makes imperfect

When you first set out – especially with video – you’ll try and be perfect and to play whatever ‘role’ you think you need to play to come across successfully. Eventually, you’ll feel comfortable enough to be imperfect and to show the REAL human side of yourself to the world (which is what they want you to GIVE anyway).

This is why you need to just practice. You can start making videos on your phone or whatever – just choose a random topic – and then watch it back and delete it. Do this a few dozen times (or whatever) until it doesn’t feel ‘weird’ and then share it with a select bunch of people and build in increments before you’re ready to share with the world at large (unless you’re feeling brave then just dive in and post it somewhere).

Like most things in life, the more you do it, the easier it’ll get – even with things like having people disagree with you or even troll you and say horrible things to you (you’ll realise it really doesn’t matter and having trolls is kind of a compliment in a strange way).

Ultimately, the reason to practice isn’t so that it becomes perfect but so that it FLOWS and, ultimately, this comes down to being CONSISTENT and focusing on the things that are real to you and that are worth sharing with the world even if you share them imperfectly.

The more you talk about certain things (or write about them) the easier it will become (trust me). You’ll start to notice connections between things and certain themes will keep arising that become the ‘building blocks’ of whatever content you’re working with (for example: one of my ‘building blocks’ is REALNESS: I’ve talked and written about it so many times now I could do it with my eyes closed).

Set yourself a routine and then stick to it. Don’t try to be ‘good’ at first – in fact, don’t try to be anything. Just let what needs to come out come out and then keep building by continuing to be consistent.

Conclusion: Show Up by Showing Up

If you want to start showing up more online then start by SHOWING UP for yourself first and foremost. Figure out who you are and what you’re all about and be ready to stand for the TRUTH of whatever that might be in the face of the world’s judgements.

The biggest gift you can give the world is your REAL self and there has never been a better time to do it. Figure out where you want to share your message, learn the technical stuff required to do so, and then just get out there and show the world what you’re made of – you only get one life so you might as well SHOW UP in it.

Book a call with me here.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Wage Cage Escape Plan: Shifting into Real Life

Published on October 31, 2022

Mindset/Creativity

9 Steps to Escaping the Wage Cage and Finding Freedom

The ‘wage cage’ is where you find yourself when you give up on yourself and allow the ‘World’ to hypnotise you into giving up your own power.

It’s a form of mental, emotional, and even – dare it be said – SPIRITUAL slavery where you’ve been conditioned to spend your life being told what to do and seeing yourself, the world, and reality as a kind of (MENTAL) PRISON instead of the sandbox for you to play with life and find a way to rise in a REAL way and to build a life that embodies your real values and intentions.

What the wage cage looks like will be slightly different for all of us but it will always be a job (‘just over broke’) that dehumanises us because of its laborious, repetitive nature and the feeling that we are only existing to do meaningless tasks for the sake of survival (and nothing higher or – more importantly – REAL).

The wage cage is so insidious because the things that can lure us into it seem like a ‘good’ thing in the short-term: just enough (but never more than that) money to pay our bills and to allow us to SURVIVE, job ‘security’ in the form of a monthly wage slip, the stability that comes from working regular shifts and knowing that things aren’t going to change that much from one week to the next.

All of those things seem relatively attractive – especially if we don’t TRUST and BELIEVE in ourselves to be able to handle the risk and feelings of uncertainty that come from going out there and doing things on our own terms (which is always a chaotic ride but even more so when we’re just getting started).

The first thing I want to help you understand in this ESCAPE PLAN is that your need for certainty and stability is actually the ‘thing’ that’s caused you to VOLUNTARILY imprison yourself in the wage cage in the first place.

Odds are that if you’ve found this page then you’re either in a wage cage right now or you’ve escaped one and you’re worried that you might get sucked back into one again because you don’t have a solid ESCAPE PLAN for avoiding the wage cage all together.

This article will give you a VERIFIED process of leaving the wage cage and taking control of your life. It’s not about ‘get rich quick’ schemes or anything like that and it will require WORK but it’s something that anybody can do if they’re willing to pay the price (which is always better than the COST of giving up your real self and your real life to be in the wage cage to make somebody else a ton of money).

Even though there’s some short-term benefit to enslaving yourself in the wage cage (as mentioned above) – think of all the immediate and long-term disadvantages it brings as well:

-Knowing that you’re actively WASTING your time (and therefore life) every minute that you spend doing MEANINGLESS, repetitive tasks in the wage cage.

-Not respecting yourself because deep down you know that you don’t really ‘own’ yourself because you’re being TOLD WHAT TO DO more than choosing what you want from life.

-Having a ‘restless’ feeling that there’s ‘more’ to life because who you KNOW yourself to be in your heart-of-hearts doesn’t get to express your real VALUES or INTENTIONS in the world.

-(Probably) Being told what to do by a ‘boss’ that you don’t even respect that much or who is less intelligent/creative/real than you and some of your colleagues.

-Always wondering what you’re actually capable of and constantly having to fight off the thoughts that you’re not living up to your real potential or growing in the way that you want to.

-Telling yourself that things will change ‘One Day’ but knowing deep down that “One day never comes” because you’re never actually changing anything; you’re just going through the motions and watching the days go by.

-Etc.

If you’ve found yourself in a situation like this, then you need to WAKE YOURSELF UP.

Let me tell you right now – NOBODY ELSE IS GOING TO GET YOU OUT OF THE WAGE CAGE. You can only save yourself.

They want you to believe that you can’t save yourself and that you just need to suck it up and be part of the standard systems of being ‘normal’ in an unreal world (which needs you to be unreal too).

They’ll tell you that you should be ‘grateful’ for doing it and that many people are worse off (which is true, but it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to STEP UP and do something you actually want to do).

They’ll tell you that the odds of escaping the wage cage are rare and so you shouldn’t try – but what’s the worst case scenario? You either try to escape and ‘fail’ or it actually pays off. Even if you fail it’s not like you’re going to struggle to find another wage cage job out there somewhere.

If you don’t actually step up and start showing up in your own life then it will NEVER be a life that you really want to live or actually feel proud of and feel like you’re somebody you really WANT to be.

This might sound a little brutal but the ONLY reason you ended up in the wage cage in the first place is because – somewhere along the line – you stopped believing in yourself and started to naively believe that ‘The World’ (which is always unreal) had your best interests at heart.

Here’s a red pill that you need to take if you want to get out of the wage cage:

The World actually doesn’t care about you – not in the sense of wanting you to live a REAL life where you actually feel like your destiny is in your own hands, you’re your own person, and that you’re doing something you actually care about doing.

No, the ‘World’ actually wants you to believe all of the myths that it’s built upon:

-That you need a 9-5 job to be ‘happy’.

-That you need to focus on being productive all the time (for the benefit of your boss) instead of being CREATIVE and using that creativity to live your own real life and add value to the lives of others.

-That trying to build a life you actually care about is ‘selfish’ (when actually it’s not because it will allow you to better help others).

-That you don’t have a CHOICE about how you live your life.

-That the wage cage is ‘normal’ and that it’s where you’re supposed to be.

All of these ‘myths’ and anything like them are just an AGENDA that your brain has been pumped to the brim with ever since you were a little kid (school is about getting you ready for employment in the wage cage, not actually EDUCATING you).

They want these ideas in your head so that you will be able to work in the wage cage and provide the ‘cage masters’ with the number of employees they need in order to be economically viable and to use your labour to keep themselves rich.

This doesn’t mean that ‘capitalism is bad’ or anything like that (personally, I’m a fan of capitalism as it lets you be REAL if you can add value in return for value) – it just means that the vast majority of organisations out there are relying on your lack of self-belief to ensure that they can put you in the wage cage and make money from your time (the most precious thing you have).

Because so many people have been dehumanised by unresolved shame (etc.) then they’re quite happy to sign up for the thankless task of spending their lives in the wage cage.

If you read any of my stuff already, you’ll know that when we’re driven by SHAME (or guilt and/or trauma) we end up creating a false version of ourselves in order to keep these emotions hidden from ourselves (in order to avoid the short-term pain of facing them).

A natural consequence of ‘hiding’ in this way is that we become PASSIVE and cultivate a passive mindset that stops us from taking real action in the world.

This real ACTION is the kind of thing that changes our lives for the better because it allows us to move towards a sense of PURPOSE in our lives but also to push through some of our illusions about ourselves, the world, and reality and to grow more REAL (in the sense of being CONNECTED to our real values and intentions and the rest of the world by extension).

The reason I’m bringing this up is because the WAGE CAGE is a place where you end up putting yourself as a CONSEQUENCE of choosing to hide from your emotional ‘stuff’ and to try and navigate life by having a passive (instead of active) mindset.

The short-version is that when you live with a passive mindset you look to the world to ‘tell’ you what to do instead of being active and CHOOSING for yourself. This doesn’t mean that you can choose absolutely anything but if you want to open up your world and increase your options and status then you need to shift out of the passive mindset that led to the wage cage and pivot into REAL life by being active.

You need to know this because that’s the FIRST STEP in escaping the wage cage: committing to taking ACTION instead of just being ACTED ON.

This might be a subtle distinction but if you’re reading this and you’re currently in the wage cage ask yourself if you’re taking ACTION in your life or if you’re being ACTED ON. There’s only one of these options that leads to wage slavery in the cage.

What follows is a step-by-step process to leaving the wage cage (or – at the very least – setting solid foundations for sticking your head out of the bars when you’re ready).

I used this process in my own life when I first quit my own wage cage job and started working on my creative performance and strategy business and I’ve seen other people shake the wage cage bars and free themselves with this method by working together one-on-one.

Just to be clear (and to repeat and important point): this isn’t some BULLSHIT plan that sounds nice – it’s something that definitely WORKS but that will require WORK in order to make it WORK.

The key point is that to leave the wage cage there is a lot of INNER and OUTER work. The ‘inner’ work is digging into the kind of stuff we’ve alluded to above: basically, looking at the emotional ‘stuff’ that caused you to stop trusting and believing in yourself in the first place and to hypnotise yourself into thinking you need to be told what to do for the rest of your life. The outer work is just obstacles out ‘there’ in the world.

You can’t escape if you have a passive mindset holding you back so make a COMMITMENT now to start taking BOLD action (if you’ve been stuck for a while then that’s something you can’t avoid).

This plan isn’t an ‘overnight’ thing either so you need to be committed to working on this stuff for 3 – 6 months minimum in order to start shifting into real life. You will start getting RESULTS and building MOMENTUM almost immediately and this will increase your confidence as it gives you EVIDENCE that what you’re doing is working.

This process it about creating a PRODUCT that you can sell people, testing it out, and then refining your offer until it gives you the results that you want. It requires that you use your CREATIVITY to escape the wage cage and that you cultivate an attitude that allows you to be more REAL as a result of moving forward (more real = you OWN YOURSELF, you’re not selling yourself into the slavery of the wage cage).

The rest of this article will give you a map for the next 3 – 6 months.

Here we go:

Step 1: Check in with yourself and figure out what you want.

The first step to leaving the wage cage is to figure out what you really WANT from life. As we’ve hopefully made clear by this stage, this isn’t about being TOLD what to do but stepping up and choosing what you want so you can go and get it.

The short-version here is that most people who end up in the wage cage end up being there because they have never really given their life the necessary attention it deserves and so they lack the following information:

-Their REAL VALUES: for example, ‘truth’, ‘freedom’, ‘creativity’, ‘health’, ‘humour’ (these are my values).

-Their REAL INTENTIONS: which are GOALS that are aligned with their values. You need to make sure that your goals are in alignment with what you actually want from life.

-A clear VISION for where they’re going: this just means actively sitting down and creating a picture for where you want to take yourself in the long-term, medium-term, and short-term. This needs to be aligned with your values and intentions.

The first step, therefore, is figuring out what kind of things are missing from your life (your values) and how you can create a vision for yourself that will bring these things into your life.

Check out the 7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose if you want to go DEEP into this in the context of your own life.

If you don’t have time for that (even though it will save you a lot of time in the long-run), then figure out your values by going through this exercise (from the Personality Transplant) and start figuring out what your actual values are.

You need to raise AWARENESS of this kind of stuff so you can use it as a compass as you move forward out of the wage cage.

Step 2: CHOOSE a creative project that is aligned with what you want and that you can use to escape the wage cage.

The next step is to choose something that will serve as your VEHICLE for escaping the wage cage.

This will always be some kind of creative project and will be different for all of – the important thing you need to know is that it needs to be something you can turn into a ‘product’ for your audience whilst also being aligned with the values you uncovered in Step 1.

Ideally, this also needs to be something that you can charge a regular retainer fee for (either every month or every [6] months depending on what you’re offering).

Here are some examples but you’re only really limited by your imagination (and what people actually value):

Photography/Videography: Maybe you know how to create amazing photos/ videos and want to turn it into a product. You would create an offer of a certain number of photos/videos each month for your clients and charge every month (or whatever).

Art: Maybe you can offer commissions to magazines/t-shirt companies/whatever and charge a certain fee for [x] number of images per month.

Music: Maybe you’ll do song writing or music production and create a set fee for the number of songs/albums you work on.

Coaching within a specific niche: Maybe you have experience working in a certain area and have solutions that can help with common problems people have (for example: maybe you want to help designers to become more confident).

You can turn this into a coaching package where you charge for a certain number of sessions every [x] months (though personally I think you should up-skill here and get some actual coaching qualifications – don’t just be one of those internet ‘gurus’. The point is to promise results you can definitely DELIVER).

Writing: Maybe you’ll become a copywriter and will create a certain amount of content within your niche for each client per month (and then charge each month per content package).

Any other business: Anything will work with this process as long as it can be turned into a ‘product’ (even if it’s a service you can productise by designing a PACKAGE) and that you can charge your clients for the value you that you DELIVER (and, to drill the point home: you do have to deliver – this isn’t about ripping people off).

These are just simple examples and you’re not limited by what’s here but the main point is that you need to make sure you tick two boxes:

-1) You need to do something aligned with your values and intentions (so you don’t end up in a different kind of self-employed wage cage).

-2) you need to be able to OFFER something that can be offered again and again from one month to the next (for a fee!) – this doesn’t mean every client will keep working with you (some people might just need your ‘package’ one time but it increases the odds of getting repeat business if there is a need for repeat RESULTS).

Okay, now you’ve got the basics, this is your roadmap for the next 3 – 6 months (and if you’re already stuck in the wage cage that might mean working on weekends for a while):

Here’s a short breakdown of each stage (because this article is getting long) but get in touch if you have any questions or whatever.

Step 3: Creative Brand Sprint

You’ve already chosen a creative VEHICLE that can be turned into some kind of product. Now, you’re going to make sure that the product you’re offering isn’t just a commodity (i.e. just like any other product in the same category) by building a brand around it.

You can do this by taking yourself through a CREATIVE BRAND SPRINT – that sounds fancy but all it means is that you get a big picture overview of what you’re offering and what it actually means to people.

The process we’re going to go through is about looking at four stages from the Truth Bomb methodology (Truth Bomb is my Creative Performance and Design Strategy agency).

There’s a video below to walk you through the basic creative brand sprint but the short-version is that you’re going to build a brand around your creative work by looking at four stages:

Substance – which is the ‘higher’ level stuff behind what you’re doing (like values and the ASPIRATIONS of your users/clients).

Style – how you translate this into a COHERENT aesthetic for the brand itself.

Communication – how the substance will be translated into marketing messages (for social media, ads, etc).

Community – how you will build a community around your brand.

The short version of all this is that you’re going to build something REAL by making sure you are helping your audience embody values they CARE about and keep moving towards their own growth and aspirations.

This one hour video walks you through this process (yes, it takes and hour but if you’re serious about escaping the wage cage this hour is an INVESTMENT of your time):

You will need the Truth Bomb Brand Design Canvas to do this which you can download for free at truthbomb.co.uk (email required or just go through the video and do it on paper yourself).

Step 4: Idea Clarification and Implementation

Once you’ve gone through the Creative Brand Sprint you’re going to have a draft version of the Truth Bomb Brand Design Canvas. This is a living document so you can keep updating and refining it as you learn more about your brand.

The next step is to start taking the insight you have here off of the page and to start taking ACTION based on what you’ve uncovered. This will be different for everybody – depending on the nature of your business – but will involve things like setting up your social media profiles (if necessary), creating a website, starting to share content etc.

Short version: Make a ‘To Do’ list based on what you’ve learned in the sprint and then start doing it.

Step 5: Create a Prototype Offer

Your implementation plan in Step 4 will give you a list of things that you need to do overall to start raising awareness of your brand. If you actually want to start making money and begin your shift out of the wage cage then you need to create an OFFER.

This is where we come back to the idea of a package mentioned above: this is essentially the art of creating something that solves the problems of your audience whilst being valuable enough to pay for from one month to the next (or whatever timeframe you decide to work in).

The short version of what you need to do in this step is to sit down and DESIGN your offer based on your real values and intentions and what you learned in the Creative Brand Sprint.

The rule here is that you need to OVERDELIVER so that it’s easier to sell down the line (especially when you get started):

If you’re making a coaching package, for example – you need to create something that has the actual coaching sessions but also support in between and whatever else you can add to maximise the value you provide (eBooks, courses, whatever).

If you’re creating a videography package maybe you need to add a brainstorming session at the start of each production to ensure the client gets exactly what they want. Maybe you’ll also upload to YouTube (or whatever) and also create social media content from the videos you make.

If you’re a web designer maybe you’ll create a package of a website with a certain number of pages and also do all of the graphic design or copywriting stuff required.

We don’t have enough time to go into all this here but essentially your job is to create a product from whatever you’re doing that is IRRESISTABLE to your audience (figured out in the creative brand sprint with the NICHE MATRIX).

It should offer so much VALUE by giving them the RESULTS that they want that they would feel dumb saying ‘No’ to it.

Step 6: Research and Experimentation

Now you’ve created an offer based on everything you’ve learned so far but this is – at present – just a bunch of ASSUMPTIONS about what you think your audience actually wants.

The reason we’ve done things this way round (instead of going out and asking people what they want from Day 1) is that we are trying to build something that’s aligned with YOUR values and intentions so you don’t end up being a slave to whatever project you end up working on.

This stage is about going out there and TESTING your assumptions with your actual audience.

Essentially, what you need to do is to find some people that are in your target market and go and TALK to them in real life about the offer you’ve DESIGNED (this is a design process).

The process here is to approach people in your network or to find new people (which is obviously harder) that could be your ideal clients for the offer if it was ready to be launched in its current state.

You’re going to let them know that you’ve created a product that you think they’d be interested in because it will get them SPECIFIC RESULTS and that you’d like to ask them for feedback.

Most people will either be flattered about you asking for their opinion or they’ll ignore you (and if they do that’s fine).

With the people that are willing to talk to you either get on the phone or have a video call and tell them what you’re doing. Don’t make this too complicated – all you really need to find out is if your assumptions about VALUE are warranted.

By the end of these interviews (aim for about 10 people minimum) you will understand what people actually want and will be able to make tweaks to your offer itself based on the feedback you get.

Ideally, at this stage, you will also be able to collect VOICE OF CUSTOMER DATA – this just means actual phrases and language that your clients use about their problems and what they’re looking for (you will use this later on to craft your marketing messages that are ALIGNED with the VOC data).

Step 7: Testing & Testimonials

Now that you’ve tweaked your offer based on the learning you got in Stage 6 you’re ready to go out and actually start DELIVERING your product (as a service in some cases) to your audience.

At this stage, we are trying to gain EXPERIENCE in service delivery and so we’re not going to try and make a ton of money yet.

Essentially, you have two options:

-1: You can work with people for free at this stage (which has the benefit of making it easier to find people).

-2: You can work at a highly discounted price (which has the benefit of people taking it a little more seriously because they invested something in it).

Either way, you’re objective is NOT money at this stage – your objective is to get TESTIMONIALS from the people you work with once you have delivered your product to them.

This means you’ll be able to use what they say in the testimonials to offer social proof that you can actually deliver what you say you can when you shift into actually selling the product/service properly.

Essentially, what you need to do at this stage is simple: reach out to people that would be your ideal clients and let them know that you’ve created a [package] and would like to test it out on them for free or at a discount in exchange for a testimonial.

Make sure they are COMMITTED and treat it like you would a paying client – i.e. be PROFESSIONAL and deliver as much value as possible in the form of RESULTS. This might mean drawing up agreements or whatever else is required (for example, with a coaching package you might have some ‘housekeeping rules’ that need writing up and sharing in advance).

Once you’ve worked with these people (which will usually take a month minimum) ask them for their testimonials which will be used on your website, etc. (make sure they know this before you even start working with them – if they don’t agree with the testimonials there’s no point).

By the time you’ve reached this stage you will have gone through the process of choosing a project that’s aligned with your values and intentions, built a brand around it, tweaked and refined an offer, and actually created a portfolio of experience with social proof that you can DELIVER VALUE to the right people.

Now you need to start SELLING and MARKETING properly:

Step 8: Retweak, Sales and Marketing

Now you’re ready for the final step which is an ONGOING PROCESS and something that will continue as long as you keep moving forward:

Essentially, you are going to keep retweaking and improving your services based on what you learn from the people you work with – this essentially means listening to their feedback so that your product/service keeps increasing the VALUE it provides in relation to solving specific problems for your audience.

Now that you have something that you KNOW is valuable to people you can start focusing on sales and marketing.

Essentially, this means finding ways to let more of your ideal clients know about what you’re product can do for them (marketing) and then having CONVERSATIONS with them to see if you can help (sales).

You don’t want to be one of those ‘salesy’ people that everybody hates so you simply need to see if you can help people (based on the evidence you’ve already collected). If you can, great; if you can’t, don’t force the sale and find somebody you can actually help instead.

What you need to do here is to connect your offer (that you keep refining) to the right people.

This means your WORK (don’t forget, it’s work) now involves building an interconnected system of three things:

All this means is you have three systems:

Lead Generation: Some system to bring in new ‘leads’ (potential clients) that you can work with. There are tons of options but some examples are:

-SEO articles to bring traffic to your site

-DM’ing people on LinkedIn, social media, etc.

-Paying for ads on Facebook or Google

-Making a YouTube channel

-Networking offline

-Etc.

There are loads of different options and you will benefit from a combination of more than just one thing. The main point is that you need to find a way to keep getting in front of new people.

Nurturing Machine: This is a system for ‘nuturing’ your relationships with the leads that you come into contact with. Ideally, you need to communicate with them regularly and develop a relationship with them.

This ‘machine’ will be a combination of different things but in my experience the best thing to use is an EMAIL LIST.

This means capturing the email address of your ideal clients and sending them regular content that is VALUABLE and helps to solve their problems.

You can use this list to sell people your OFFER by booking SALES CONVERSATIONS with people (or just letting them know you exist and what you do until they’re ready to talk).

Short-version: you will need to turn your ‘Leads’ into ‘Clients’ by having an actual conversation with them about whether or not you can help them. Your ‘Nurturing Machine’ is basically about encouraging people to reach out and talk to you for this purpose.

Offer: You’re actual offer – you already know what this is or you wouldn’t have made it to this stage.

Obviously, there’s a load more that can be said about sales and marketing but at a bare minimum you need to think of it in these terms. If you do (and you do the WORK) you will eventually build a system that connects you with QUALIFIED people that will pay you for the VALUE your offer gives them.

Step 9: Escape the Wage Cage

If you do this properly and you create something that people actually want then you will be able to take your destiny into your own hands and escape the wage cage.

This plan probably won’t make you a millionaire or anything (depending on what you’re selling) but it will shift you into a life where you OWN YOURSELF instead of being told what to do all the time.

Now that you’ve left the wage cage you can start to think about ways to SCALE your business so that you can free yourself even more but this process is vital for getting started and for living a life that’s REAL.

Hit me up if you have any questions and good luck getting out there either way.

Peace,

Health, Wealth, and Relationships: Real Always Works

Published on October 28, 2022

Mindset/Creativity

Improving Your Life by Accepting Reality No Matter What

This is going to be a pretty quick post but it’s also going to be a really important one.

It’s going to break down some of the PRACTICAL BENEFITS of using your creativity to become more REAL and how this can help you to improve your life as a whole.

In particular, we’re going to look at three areas that are important to all of us:

Health, Wealth, and Relationships.

Before we get started, you need to understand some really basic things about life as a human being:

1:- We all have a drive towards WHOLENESS because wholeness is REAL. All that really means is that there is something inside us that constantly wants us to feel more CONNECTED to ourselves, the world, and reality itself.

2:- Because of the way that we have been conditioned by life, many – if not all – of us are more DISCONNECTED and FRAGMENTED from ourselves than we would be if we followed this natural drive.

Sometimes, we don’t follow this drive because we’ve brainwashed ourselves with shame, guilt, and/or trauma – other times, we’ve been conditioned by the world to IDENTIFY as something other than what we are (so we create an EGO that hides our SHADOW).

3:- We can move WITH this natural drive towards wholeness instead of against it by CHOOSING(not ‘finding’) a sense of PURPOSE for our lives that will allow us to keep moving and growing with reality instead of against it.

The process of choosing a purpose is:

-1) AWARENESS: uncover the truth about ourselves (STOP BRAINWASHING OURSELVES & DECONDITION OURSELVES FROM THE WORLD),

-2) ACCEPTANCE: integrate the ‘parts’ of ourselves that we disowned or tried to hide from ourselves because of this brainwashing and conditioning (the ‘Shadow Self’),

– 3) ACTION: share something with the world that offers REAL VALUE as a result of the lessons learned going through this process.

(You will go through this process many times over the course of your lifetime because you can always go deeper).

‘Realness’ just means that we accept reality NO MATTER WHAT, use what it has to teach us to grow more real (i.e. towards wholeness), and then sharing something of value with others as a result of this.

When you live in this REAL way it has a number of practical benefits in the three levels that all of us NEED to make progress in so we can feel ‘good’ about life: health, wealth, and relationships.

In other words, focusing on your REALNESS isn’t just some self-indulgent thing to do because it feels ‘nice’ – it benefits EVERY level of your life.

Here’s the short version of why your realness can change your life for the better in these three areas:

Health

Physical Health: Accepting and working with reality means that you know you’re going to be DEAD one day, that you’re moving towards old age (if you’re lucky), and so you better look after your body whilst you can.

It also means that you understand the difference between WHOLENESS and FRAGMENTATION and both of these things will affect the choices you make about what you do with your body as well as what you put in your body.

The short version of this is that you can’t be real if you don’t respect your body. That means you’ll find a way to exercise, eat healthy food, sleep properly, and other foundational health habits to increase your energy levels and protect and nurture your health.

As the old saying goes, “HEALTH IS WEALTH” and so – actually – this is the most foundational of all steps in relation to “health, wealth, and relationships”: if you don’t have good health, you won’t be around to increase your wealth or have good relationships.

Mental Health: A lot of mental health problems come from being UNREAL. The two most common ones are anxiety and depression.

Realness helps you in this area because it keeps you MOVING and it keeps you GROWING.

The connection here is that if you stop moving then you become DEPRESSED because you have no connection with a sense of purpose and so life seems meaningless.

If you suffer from ANXIETY then – a lot of the time – it’s because you’ve brainwashed yourself or been conditioned into thinking you’re something UNREAL and this just gives you constant negative feedback between yourself and life (which would make anybody anxious).

Emotional Health: Because your realness means you’re not HIDING yourself from yourself you will experience better emotional health overall and be less neurotic.

This is essentially because instead of trying to hide from whatever emotions pop up and causing inner friction that comes from AVOIDANCE you face them head on and let them do their thing.

What this means is that we don’t JUDGE what we’re experiencing but we actually EXPERIENCE OUR EXPERIENCES. Once they’ve been ‘felt’ then we can integrate the lessons we need to learn from them and become more whole as a result.

Another reason that realness will improve your emotional health is because you will free yourself from your judgements and interpretations of life:

Instead of trying to be ‘right’ about everything and holding yourself back, you’ll be on a learning journey (because you’re not blocking the natural drive towards wholeness) and so you will be less likely to attach to negative thoughts and BS that stop you going out there, doing things, and feeling good about yourself.

Wealth

Working to become more real means that you will be more purpose-driven and – more importantly – that you be will adding more VALUE to the world because you will be a more authentic version of yourself (the greatest thing you can GIVE the world).

This value will be translated in most cases to some CREATIVE project or act that allows you to share your true values and intentions with the world – this might be a creative project/business, side hustle, or simply a set of skills and qualities that allow you to be better equipped to find a job or career that you like.

It’s not often talked about in our society but we’re not actually valued for having a good CV (or whatever) but because of our STATUS – if you work on being REAL, then your status will increase because you will be more CREATIVE (you have to be in order to grow real in the first place) and because you have skills and qualities that many others do not.

We’re going to talk about relationships in a second but relationships are linked to your ability to increase your WEALTH:

If you’re stuck in the UNREAL ideas of your ego then you’ll buy into the illusions of INDEPENDENCE that stem from fragmentation. If you take this to an extreme then you will be less likely to work on building a NETWORK of people that you support and who support you back and so you will miss out on OPPORTUNITIES to do creative, fulfilling, and/or profitable work.

Furthermore, if you can’t be real enough with yourself to have real relationships with others then you will limit your capacity to grow or SCALE whatever projects you’re working on if you want to do your own thing because you won’t delegate things to others or work with them on a team.

If you don’t want to be self-employed or an entrepreneur (both of which are eventually essential for maximising realness and taking control of one’s destiny, imo), then working to be real will still make you more employable because you will have the stronger network that we just talked about but also increase the “know, like, and trust” factor that’s’ vital to success in the business world (as either an employee or a solo agent).

Relationships

All that really needs to be said here is that if you work on being real then you will have a better relationship with yourself. By extension, this will allow you to have a better relationship with others.

Most problems in relationships come from people not accepting themselves and so this causes them to either judge themselves and then project this judgement out on to others. When this happens it just causes unnecessary friction which eventually turns to conflict.

Another consequence of not having a REAL relationship with ourselves is that we end up trying to outsource the things we can only give ourselves to others. By trying to get people to meet our needs in this way then it just causes more friction (…and resentment in the most extreme cases).

Finally, like I already said, being UNREAL causes you to believe that you’re independent (instead of interdependent) and separate from the world as a whole and so you’ll be less likely to go out and BUILD meaningful relationships in the first place (‘build’ in capitals because it takes work… Real is active whereas unreal is passive and just waits for things to happen).

In short, being real will allow you to have a better relationship with yourself and this will allow you to have less barriers between yourself and others. This creates a DEEPER connection that lets you get more out of life as well as GIVING more in return.

Conclusion

Real always works.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

The Wall: A Metaphor for Happiness

Published on

Life Philosophy/Mindset

This is a short story about a dog and a wall.

It’s about a dog because I like dogs (if you don’t like dogs then shame on you but you can replace it with whatever animal, person, or inanimate object that you do like).

It’s about a wall because the metaphor won’t work without it.

The set-up for this story goes like this:

Our canine protagonist – let’s call him Marcus – wakes up one day, not in his bed, but on a pavement next to a large brick wall.

This brick wall isn’t just high – so high that Marcus can’t see over the top of it – it’s also LOONG. It’s so long that once Marcus fully wakes up and starts walking there doesn’t appear to be an end to it:

The more Marcus walks, the longer the wall seems to become.

At first, this confuses and frustrates him, but – eventually – Marcus realises that there’s no point worrying about what can’t be changed and so he reminds himself that he should be grateful for what he has (in this case himself and the wall) and decides to just keep walking.

There’s just enough food and water here and there to sustain Marcus and allow him to survive and so – in a way – he has pretty much everything he needs.

“It could be worse”, he thinks to himself.

To pacify himself, he tells himself that EVENTUALLY (the key word) he’ll either reach the end of the wall (because he knows bricks aren’t infinite) or that there’ll be some kind of way THROUGH or OVER the wall – for example, he tells himself, maybe there’ll be a DOOR somewhere or a LADDER to let him climb over.

Telling himself this – without any real evidence that he might be RIGHT – gives dear Marcus just the right amount of HOPE to be able to keep going.

Marcus walks besides this wall for DAYS and DAYS – before he knows it those days turn to months and those months turn to years.

Things move like this for decades with Marcus simply telling himself that “bricks are finite” and so he must reach and end to the Wall one day.

Still, there’s no perceivable end to the wall – nor any way over it – but with the seed of hope carried inside his heart (that there must eventually be an end) Marcus becomes quite satisfied – or should we say “complacent”? – with his daily routine and becomes accustomed to his way of living.

In fact, it starts to become part of Marcus’s identity: it’s no longer that getting up every day and walking besides this endless wall is something he does, it’s who he is.

It goes like this, day after day, for years and years, decades and decades (in doggy years, of course):

-Marcus wakes up next to the wall: “Maybe today will be the day”, he tells himself.

-Yesterday was the same as the day before and this colours Marcus’s expectations for the day ahead.

-He doesn’t really want to walk further down the wall but he feels like he doesn’t really have a choice: going through the motions has essentially become his life purpose and – like we said – it’s who he is.

-He sets off walking, hoping that today will be the day that things change.

-As he walks besides the wall, time keeps ticking and eventually the day turns to night.

-He goes to sleep with nothing having changed and then the cycle starts all over again.

-Marcus wakes up next to the wall: “Maybe today will be the day”, he tells himself.

Marcus gets lost in this cycle for years (and in doggy years that’s a lot of time).

His life actually starts to feel meaningless but because he has just enough food and water to keep him alive and enough hope to hold on to, he keeps going without really changing anything – just waiting for the opportunity he’s waiting for to show up.

The problem, of course, is that nothing new ever does show up: just an endless stream of BRICKS passing by his awareness as he keeps plodding along besides the wall, hoping and wishing, waiting for something or somebody new to appear and help him to mix things up.

Because Marcus is a dog his hope is coloured by his doggy-shaped desires:

He starts telling himself that on the other side of THE WALL is a beautiful garden filled with resplendent grasses that he can jump through, a verdant lawn covered in dog toys, and an endless supply of juicy BONES that he can chew on, play with, and bury to his heart’s content.

All he has to do is keep going and eventually he’ll find a way through or over the wall and all of this effort and endless plodding along will be worth it – this has to be the case, right?

“Bricks are finite”.

Unfortunately, Marcus has forgotten one very simple but essential fact that applies to all of us: he’s going to be DEAD one day.

Bricks might be finite but life is even more finite and so it’s quite possible that the wall could last a LOT longer than Marcus himself.

If Marcus realised this then perhaps he’d start to think about changing things HIMSELF instead of just waiting or ‘hoping’ for them to change.

Perhaps dogs simply don’t reflect on their own mortality or have an understanding of the power they have to change their own lives through the CHOICES that they make…

In this case, Marcus certainly didn’t – he simply knew that there was a path to follow and so that’s what he might as well do. It was better than doing “nothing” at least.

The problem was that as the years continued to pass, the strength of Marcus’s hope began to DWINDLE.

In fact, the pattern was quite simple: with each day that passed, the hope-o-meter went down a little and Marcus became a little more dejected and disillusioned.

At first, he tried to talk himself out of this or play mental gymnastics with himself:

“Bricks are finite”, he would say to himself as he kept walking.

“The garden of bones is coming to me”, he would say (as he daydreamed about what it would look like and how happy he would be frolicking away with his bones).

But, alas, mere words and mental gymnastics are not REALITY and Marcus couldn’t escape what he knew in his heart of hearts as the hope-o-meter eventually sat itself at ‘Zero’ and then eventually went into the negative:

“What if there is no bone garden?” he started to think.

“What if I’ve wasted my whole life walking next to this wall?”

Without his HOPE – which had been UNREAL the whole time, as far as Marcus knew – his dejection and disillusionment turned to DEPRESSION.

The main difference between depression and ‘happiness’ is that depression stops you moving and that’s exactly what happened in Marcus’s case:

He realised the futility and pointlessness of the meaningless purpose he had set himself (walking besides the wall) and instead curled up in a ball with his tears and existential angst.

For days, he sat in the same place.

The sun went up, the moon came out, and dark turned to light.

Nothing changed.

After a week or two (in doggy weeks) Marcus started to awaken from his depression.

He started to understand the FUTILITY of being miserable and awoke instead to the injustice he had suffered over the past few doggy decades of his life:

-WHY THE HELL WAS HE NEXT TO THIS WALL?

-WHY THE HELL WAS THERE NO END TO IT?

-WHY THE HELL CAN’T HE GET A BREAK OR AN OPPORTUNITY?

Reflecting on these kind of questions and the senseless horror that his life had become made Marcus ANGRY.

In fact, he was beyond ‘angry’ – he was vehement.

He started BARKING at the wall to alleviate some of his frustrations – this actually made him feel a tad better but it wasn’t changing anything because walls don’t listen.

This just made Marcus even angrier.

He decided that it wasn’t enough to just bark – he would have to bite (so to speak, not literally – biting a wall isn’t gonna get you anywhere).

Marcus drove himself into a fury of emotions and started scratching and clawing at the wall.

He kept thinking about how OLD he had become and how he’d spent his WHOLE life being restrained and directed by the Wall.

He thought about how unfair it was.

He thought about what a TRAGEDY his life had become.

All of these thoughts served as EMOTIONAL FUEL for the fire that was burning inside of Marcus. It gave him a strength he thought he’d lost.

Slowly, Marcus noticed that the bricks in the wall were beginning to crumble. In fact, the more fury Marcus put into clawing the wall, the greater the size of the pieces that started to fall off it.

Seeing these pieces inspired him even more to keep going.

Eventually, a whole brick fell out and Marcus could see sunlight shining through the hole.

Another brick and then another brick.

Marcus started to wonder why he hadn’t done this decades ago when he was still a young pup.

Another brick and then another.

Before Marcus knew it there was a hole in the wall big enough for him to fit through it.

He paused to get a grip of himself – for an old dog, he’d done amazingly well at bringing parts of the wall down but doing so had exhausted him and he didn’t know if he was emotionally equipped to face what was on the other side of the wall.

He took a deep breath and reflected on where he’d been over the last few decades – his life flashed before his eyes but it was all the same image: the goddam WALL.

Freedom was right in front of him but Marcus started to doubt himself: what if couldn’t handle it? What if he’d become too used to the wall? What if he actually needed the wall (his whole sense of self was attached to it, after all)?

Suddenly, a breeze came through the hole carrying a smell with it: BONES.

Marcus snapped out of his existential reverie and decided that it was now or never:

He stuck his head through the hole to see what was going on.

When he did, he couldn’t believe his eyes – they were greeted with everything he ever wanted:

Long grass, bones everywhere, a lawn covered in the latest dog toys, and even balls being flung back and forth that he could chase to his heart’s content.

It was at that very moment that Marcus’s blood pressure got too high and he dropped dead.

The End

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13 Universal Laws of Realness: Real Always Works

Published on

Life Philosophy/Mindset

The only way you’re gonna get any RESULTS is by working with reality.

The ONLY way that you will ever get what you INTEND to get from life is if you work with reality instead of against it.

It’s a little crazy that something like that has to be stated but because so many of us confuse our interpretations of reality with reality itself, things get messy, people get confused and life gets weird.

If you’ve read my ‘stuff’ before then you’ll have heard me say “REAL ALWAYS WORKS”.

It always works because reality is the only place where things can actually happen.

This means that if you’re not getting the RESULTS that you want from life then you’ve either:

1) Set yourself a goal that is pure EGO (and therefore unreal),

Or:

2) You’re aiming for something real in an unreal way (because you lack AWARENESS about how reality works).

To understand how reality works, you need to understand the PRINCIPLES or LAWS by which it operates.

More importantly, you need to understand that these principles or laws apply to absolutely ALL of us – it doesn’t matter who you are, what time you were born, what you ‘like’ or ‘dislike’, or even what you feel, desire, or think about life: if you’re a human being having a human experience then REALITY is always REAL and you can either accept it or you can be miserable.

This article will help you understand some of the fundamental LAWS about reality that we all need to accept to work with it.

Even though these ‘laws’ are shared in words, they are not ‘interpretations’ or mere ideas about how life works – they are principles that come from an observation of life itself.

In other words, they’re just as ‘real’ as GRAVITY or the SPEED OF LIGHT or some other unalterable facet of reality itself (i.e. they would exist whether we labelled them or not whereas mere interpretations don’t necessarily need a connection to reality to ‘exist’ (in our minds)).

Laws and principles are real because they’re DISCOVERED – interpretations on the other hand are CREATED. That’s a very subtle distinction but if you grasp it you’ll understand the difference between real and unreal.

Probably, I’ll keep adding to this list over time but this should get you started in terms of increasing your AWARENESS so you can live without friction and get better results from life (if you ACCEPT the laws and take ACTION – Awareness, Acceptance, and Action ‘work’ every time because they’re REAL).

Here we go:

The Universal Laws and Your Mindset

One quick point before we get started with the ‘Laws’:

Reality requires that we are OPEN to life and that we keep growing and moving towards more wholeness (in ourselves, the world, and reality).

When it comes to ACCEPTING the Laws (the second step after AWARENESS), the only thing that can really ‘block’ you from embracing and then working with the laws is having an UNREAL mindset over a real one.

If you want to know more about this (a lot more) then check out the 7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose or read Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness but the abridged version is that a REAL mindset will allow you to keep learning and growing through your ‘identity’ and an unreal mindset will keep you attached to it.

This raises a lot of questions about where the ‘current’ version of your identity came from but – if you’re especially rigid and resistant to change – then your identity is most likely an EGO construction that has been designed to hide certain ‘Shadow’ parts of yourself beneath the surface of yourself (in the ‘Shadow Territory’).

When you have a rigid ego/identity of this kind then your MINDSET will be a reflection of this and will be REALITY RESISTANT instead of REALITY EMBRACING.

Exactly how we developed this ‘unreal mindset’ is different for all of us but this ALWAYS has something to do with unresolved shame, guilt, and or trauma.

What this means in practical terms is that you find it hard to ACCEPT and ACT with reality and the principles that it operates by then you are probably resisting some emotional ‘stuff’ within yourself.

If you can figure out what that is and start facing it then the RESULTS you get from life will grow exponentially as you allow yourself to start working WITH reality instead of hiding from it (both consciously or unconsciously).

In short: if you find these Laws difficult to accept then you need to ask yourself if the problem is with REALITY or if it’s with your attachment to your INTEPRETATIONS of reality.

The clearest sign that you need to work on accepting reality more is that you feel ‘bad’ for a prolonged period of time and you constantly don’t get the results you want to be getting (it’s normal to feel ‘bad’ sometimes and not get every result we aim for).

This is because when you resist reality you do one of two things: 1) you create friction between yourself and life with the false identity/ego you place between yourself and life (which causes anxiety and stops you getting results), 2) you stop MOVING with life (towards wholeness – your natural drive) and you stop getting results (and when we stop moving we get depressed).

The easiest way to change your mindset and make it more real is to start asking yourself questions so you can get new insight. This is opposed to thinking you already know everything you need to know which stops you learning and keeps you the ‘same’ (which just gets the same results you don’t want).

Short version: if you find it hard to accept these Laws then you might be resisting something in YOURSELF. Figure out what it is and you can expand your awareness, accept reality, and ACT in a way that has better odds of getting the results you intend to get.

Okay, with that being said, onto the Laws themselves:

The Universal Law of Cause and Effect

The Law of Cause and Effect is simple: every EFFECT in life has a CAUSE. This is just how things work in a deterministic universe (even if you want to believe in ‘acausal’ ideas like manifestation – you still need to act in way that CAUSES the EFFECT of whatever you’re trying to ‘manifest’).

The Law of Cause and Effect means that whatever you have in life right now is an effect of the causes that came before it. That’s difficult to accept sometimes because it means accepting responsibility for the way that we’ve been living and the choices we made that led us here (because everything we did so far in life contributed to the CAUSE of the EFFECT of the makeup of our life right now).

The Law of Cause and Effect is VITAL to accept if we want to get certain results from life. For example, if you have a vision for yourself to one day write a book, be a business owner, lose/gain weight, learn a new skill, or whatever else, then – due to the Law – certain actions will be the CAUSE of the desired EFFECT (the goal in question).

If you don’t accept this law then you’ll avoid the REALITY that the only way to get what you want from life and to become the person that you want to become is to get involved in the PROCESS of closing the gap between cause and effect.

This is the most basic laws of ALL REALITY – if you’re not getting the results you want then you’re either aiming for an unobtainable EFFECT (because it’s unreal/ego) or you’re not doing the WORK you need to do to close the gap by BEING the CAUSE.

The Universal Law of Effort

The Law of Effort is simple but needs to be remembered. It states that you won’t get any results or close the gap between cause and effect without expending some kind of energy or effort.

If you’re not getting the results you want then you might be neglecting this law and not putting as much effort as the task in hand requires.

A simple example: maybe you’re not gaining the muscle you want at the gym despite going seven days a week. Probably, by putting more effort in and doing MORE reps or MORE weight, you’ll get better results.

This applies in all areas of our life: if there’s no effort then there’s no real reward as you won’t GROW.

The Universal Law of Averages

The Law of Averages means that the more you work to be the CAUSE of the EFFECTS you want from life, the more likely you are to succeed. This is because getting results is ultimately a NUMBERS GAME.

Things don’t always work out in the way that we want them to (due to the Law of Uncertainty – see below) but the Law of Averages states that the more shots we take the more likely we are to score a goal.

Like all of the Laws, this applies to all of us and means that we all have a chance of getting where we want to be if we can embrace reality instead of hiding behind an unreal mindset and trying to act like the odds are always against us or that if we don’t succeed straight away then it’s not worth trying.

The Law of Averages means that you need to work on cultivating an abundance mindset (knowing that there are more opportunities out there and CREATING them), learning to be outcome-independent (not letting your self-worth depend on outcomes), and continuing to learn, tweak, and readjust as you keep working the process of closing the gap between CAUSE and EFFECT.

In practical terms this means things like:

-You might not make every sale in your business but the more sales calls you have the more sales you’ll get.

-You might not win every race but the more races you take part in the more LIKELY you are to get better.

-You might not be able to find a partner right away but the more you go out there and talk to people/look, the better your chances of finding one.

It doesn’t have to be complicated but the LESSON from this law is simple: if you’re NOT getting results then you might need to turn up the volume and do MORE of whatever it is that you’re doing to close the gap between cause and desired effect.

The Universal Law of Perspective

The Law of Perspective means that the point of view you take on situations (a cause) will change the effect of the results that you get.

In general, the Law of Perspective comes down to the idea that there is a natural BALANCE to life and that reality itself is ‘neutral’ in the sense that it stands beyond our human value judgements of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

The Law of Perspective is important because it allows you to keep MOVING with reality instead of against it by understanding that when ‘bad’ or ‘good’ things happen it’s only your perspective that shows you the difference between the two.

When ‘bad’ things happen, the Law of Perspective reminds you that there is still a lesson to be learned and an opportunity to be garnered from the ‘bad’ experience. By uncovering these and embracing them, you can get moving again and the ‘bad’ thing is no longer and obstacle (as Marcus Aurelius said: “What stands in the way becomes the way”).

When ‘good’ things happen, the Law of Perspective reminds us that there is always a ‘cost’ and that choosing one thing over another always comes with a reduced set of options. This is neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in reality but it means that we need to maintain PERSPECTIVE about the choices we make and where we expect them to take us.

In short, the Law of Perspective means that we are able to STAY REAL and to CHOOSE the perspective that will carry us where we need to be (i.e. to narrow the gap between cause and effect in a real way) and to live the life we want to live instead of an unreal life that’s an effect of distorted perception (i.e. not seeing reality clearly).

You use the Law by asking yourself if you’re seeing what you FEEL you see or what’s actually there. You can also invoke it by seeking lessons and opportunities in ‘bad’ things and finding the cost of the ‘good’ things.

The Universal Law of Action

The Law of Action is a simple law that states you need to take ACTION. This doesn’t mean that action is the only thing you need – you also need to increase AWARENESS and ACCEPTANCE before acting so that you take action that’s REAL – but without action reality will keep moving around you but it might not take you where you need or INTEND to be.

The Law of Activity works because – in alignment with the Law of Averages and the Law of Effort– ACTION increases your odds of getting a favourable result from reality as you attempt to close the gap between cause and effect.

Action increases your ODDS for two reasons: 1) it increases the SPEED with which you move forward (as opposed to just sitting around thinking about things or planning them which just keeps you in your head), 2) it TEACHES you how to take better actions by giving you feedback from reality itself.

By SPEEDING up your progress and giving you FEEDBACK, action allows you to keep refining your process and course correcting so that you become more efficient at getting the results you want.

Again, this comes back to having a REAL mindset because without being mentally ready to act in the physical world you won’t go out there and learn the lessons that only action can teach you.

In practical terms, the implementation of this LAW is simple: you need to go out there and ACT in the world instead of just observing it from the distance.

No action, no results. Ever.

The Universal Law of Uncertainty

The Law of Uncertainty states that no human being experiencing life on earth or in the world (that we’ve built on earth based on our assumptions about ourselves, the world, and reality) will ever know EVERYTHING.

This law comes down to the naturally LIMITED nature of human beings, both at the level of their PERCEPTIONS of life and their INTERPRETATIONS of life (see the post on this site about the Veiled Veil).

The short version of this is that we don’t know everything there is to know, always LACK information accordingly, will constantly be LEARNING new things as the waves of past, present, and future flow around us and bring new information and situations to be dealt with, and that the ideas we have will always end up being REFINED and RECONFIGURED by reality.

The Law of Uncertainty basically means that NOT KNOWING is more common (and real) than knowing and so is ultimately a reminder that the only way to close the gap between cause and effect is to remain OPEN instead of going about it as though the things we ‘think’ we already know are certain.

In practical terms, this law means that you need to come from a stance of knowing that uncertainty is the default state and something we have to actively work with and ride through to grow more real.

YouTube player — A video I made about the Universal Laws of Realness over on my YouTube Channel.

The Universal Law of Assumption

The Law of Assumption states that if you assume something you increase the odds of it coming true. This doesn’t mean that it will 100% come true but it means that you will make it more LIKELY to come true by thinking, feeling, and ACTING in alignment with the assumption.

The most simple example of this law in operation is if you ASSUME that you’ll fail you probably will and if you assume that you’ll succeed you probably will.

All that’s happened here is your MINDSET and belief system (which affects your assumptions) has either opened you up or closed you down and ensured that you got the corresponding results.

To complicate things, the Law of Assumption continues to operate whether or not our assumptions are conscious or unconscious. In other words, even if you aren’t aware of your own assumptions – because they’re hidden behind EGO and buried in the SHADOW – they will still dictate your life and affect the results you get.

This is why it’s so vitally important to do INNNER WORK – so you can uncover the hidden parts of yourself that have been disowned because of your shame, guilt, and trauma, and ensure that you’re not sabotaging yourself without knowing (because of the hidden assumptions).

If you’re not getting REAL results from life then there’s a very HIGH chance that your CORE assumptions about yourself, the world, and reality are screwing your life up.

You can train yourself to ASSUME things that will SERVE you and as long as these assumptions are REAL (e.g. you’re not assuming you can summon a unicorn on command or anything like that) then you’ll get better results by being more aligned with the REALITY of things (just make sure your assumptions work within the context of the LAWS).

The Universal Law of Value

The Law of Value states that in order to get value from the world you need to give value to the world. You do this by becoming more REAL (by taking the actions that will help you grow towards WHOLENESS) and then SHARING things with the world that help others to grow more real too.

To get RESULTS from life in ANY area you need to offer some kind of value to somebody. This is because we are all interdependent and so none of us is an island (as the old saying goes).

Here are some examples:

-If you want a successful RELATIONSHIP, you need to make the other person’s life better (value).

-If you want results in your business, you need to provide a product or service that people value enough to pay you for.

-If you want to produce a piece of art/write a book/create something, then it will only find an audience if it offers some kind of VALUE (helping them understand themselves more, solving a problem, whatever).

The Law of Value means that if you’re not getting results in the way that you want then you probably need to start exploring what ACTIONS you can take to be able to offer MORE value to the world.

That might sound harsh if you’re not currently getting the results that you want from life or business (or wherever) but it means that you need to use the Law of Cause and Effect to start becoming a more ‘valuable’ version of yourself by doing the WORK.

The Universal Law of Flux

The Law of Flux means that everything continues to CHANGE from the perspective of a human being moving through time, space, and causality (cause and effect).

This can be complicated somewhat because reality is WHOLE but our experience is FRAGMENTED (and what is whole doesn’t change because it’s already complete).

The Law of Flux means that we are constantly moving and the world is constantly changing around us but only at the level of fragmentation (let’s say perception and interpretation for the sake of simplicity).

If we can move with it then we can let go of some of the fragmentation that isn’t serving us (and none of it does, really) and move more closely to the truth about things (i.e. reality/wholeness).

From a practical point of view, the Law of Flux is simple: expect change instead of trying to cling to things (including our ideas about ourselves).

Any time we cling or resist change then we simply create unnecessary friction between ourselves and reality and it complicates our journey of closing the gap between cause and effect.

The main ‘thing’ that people cling to in order to attempt to resist the Law of Flux is their identity or self-image (ego). Though our experience of ourselves is STABLE – if we’re real – the details and concepts that make up the story we tell ourselves about ourselves can hold us back from ourselves and life (especially if it’s been designed to hide the SHADOW ‘stuff’).

Expect change and work with it and you will be more likely to apply the Law of Cause and Effect by taking action successfully and get where you need to be: reality.

The Universal Law of Relationships

The Law of Relationships states that you are not alone. Forgetting this law and tricking yourself into thinking that you’re alone in the universe just causes you to believe (and act) like you’re INDEPENDENT instead of INTERDEPENDENT and connected to everybody and everything else.

You’re not alone because you’re connected to life itself at all times (if you’re alive) but also because you share the world with everybody else. You also have a relationship with REALITY itself which increases in depth the more you grow into yourself towards WHOLENESS.

If you forget the Law of Relationships, you will cause yourself to live in unnecessary SEPARATION and with a false sense of INDEPENDENCE that will hold you back. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t act in an AUTONOMOUS way (i.e. OWN yourself) but it does mean that you share life with other people.

On a practical level, this law means that:

-If you want to do something great you will need to work with other people.

-That to get the most out of life you will need to keep building a REAL network of relationships.

-That you need to be able to get out of your head and to have real relationships with people in the first place (and the more real your RELATIONSHIP with yourself, the more real your relationships with others will be).

-That the Law of Value ultimately comes down to how you go about your relationships.

-Etc.

In short, your life is yours but you share it with others and to make the most of this you need to embrace the law and work on anything INSIDE YOU that decreases the QUALITY and QUANTITY of the real relationships in your life.

The Universal Law of Priority/FOCUS

The Law of Priority means that what you CHOOSE to prioritise in life will become the FOCUS of your life. Ultimately, this comes down to the FACT that you’re going to be DEAD one day and so your time, energy, and attention are the most important things you have.

Quite simply: the Law of Priority means that if you CHOOSE to give your time, energy, and attention to UNREAL things – like distractions, general BS, drama, things that aren’t aligned with your true values and intentions, etc. – the you will just get more UNREAL things in return.

If you focus on the REAL stuff – like your true values and intentions and the relationships that matter to you – then you will get more REAL things in return.

This – like all the laws – feeds into the Law of Cause and Effect but it, ultimately, means that you need to check in with yourself and make sure you’re prioritising the things that actually matter to you (as opposed to what conditioning or social program has told you should matter to you).

Using the Law of Priority in a practical way is simply about making REAL CHOICES on a daily basis: are you prioritising the REAL or the UNREAL? Your answer and actions affect what will show up in your life next (i.e. whether the EFFECT/Result will be real or unreal).

The Universal Law of Wholeness

The Law of Wholeness states that EVERYTHING is moving towards wholeness.

This happens with or without our intervention and so we either work with it and flow towards wholeness in ourselves or we resist and become more confused and fragmented.

As a human being, you have a natural DRIVE towards wholeness in yourself, the world, and reality – ultimately, this just means that your drive is to be more CONNECTED at each of these levels.

At the level of yourself, this connection comes from being more integrated between the SHADOW and the EGO and facing your hidden emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and or trauma) so you can dissolve it, remove the fragmentation that arises in your life because of it, and start to move into a deeper relationship with reality.

The CREATIVE PROCESS is actually the process of becoming more whole in yourself and allowing the unconscious to become conscious. This is the ONLY way you can become unblocked and remove your illusions about yourself (because all illusion stems from an unreal emotional relationship with ourselves and life that brings SHAME).

The Law of Wholeness is essential for allowing us to TRUST and BELIEVE in ourselves and life. Without accepting this law, it’s incredibly difficult to move forward, take risks, and ride through uncertainty as we embrace life and grow real.

In practical terms, you can cause less obstacles and trouble in your life as you close the gap between cause and effect by actively working to become more whole. This means looking at your own ‘stuff’, working through it, and ensuring that as you move forward and grow you grow into your real values and intentions.

The Universal Law of Acceptance

The Law of Acceptance states that the only thing you can do with reality is ACCEPT it (and then act from this place of acceptance). This is because reality is always real regardless of whether we accept it or not – it just is what it is.

In other words, our likes and dislikes, our judgements, our feelings, our expectations, our desires, etc. have absolutely no effect on reality or the PRINCIPLES and LAWS by which it operates.

In practical terms, this means that you need to ACCEPT the laws and work to embrace them. Any resistance is just a denial of yourself (because you’re real away from false beliefs and so denying reality is denying yourself).

Failing to ACCEPT the laws is also a waste of your time (going against the Law of Priority) because it will not change anything and will simply waste the opportunity you have to be REAL.

In practical terms, the Law of Acceptance means that you need to check in with yourself and explore the TENSION in your life. If you feel out of balance and you’re not getting the results you want then you need to work on EMBRACING the laws and living them through ACCEPTANCE.

Conclusion: You need to accept these universal laws and work with them in order to increase your odds of getting the RESULTS you want (because results can only happen in reality).

The short version: REAL ALWAYS WORKS so if it’s not working for you it’s not a problem with reality but a problem with the way you see things and act because of that perspective. Embrace the natural laws of reality and start levelling up faster.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About The Truth but Were Afraid to Ask

Published on

Life Philosophy/Coaching/Mindset

The Biggest Problem Most People Have is that People Believe What They Want to Believe

One of the biggest problems in the world is the pervasive myth that we can believe whatever we want to believe because there are multiple ‘realities’.

According to this myth, reality is – ultimately – whatever the hell you want it to be and so everybody can live in their own ‘reality’, defined only by the limits of their own imaginations and beliefs.

By this definition all beliefs are equally valid, my ‘reality’ and your ‘reality’ are worthy of equal respect and are equally true – even if I decide to believe that I’m a unicorn and you should give me all your attention and energy – and we all need to tolerate each other’s beliefs without question because questioning such personal things as ‘reality’ is offensive and can upset people’s feelings.

This article concerns itself why this myth isn’t just BULLSHIT but also why it’s causing all kinds of unnecessary confusion and conflict in the world.

We will also explore exactly what it is to cause people to want to ‘believe’ in their ‘own reality’ in the first place and how you can IMPROVE YOUR LIFE by learning to step back from this instinctual, ego-driven tendency to run away from your own emotions – especially shame – instead of running towards reality in truth.

In short, we’re going to open up a can of worms that will help you to separate belief from actual TRUTH (or, more accurately, a truthful way of living) so you can stop holding yourself and others back with attachments to mental constructs, belief systems, and points of view that may help you in the short-term but which can only ever hinder you in the long-run.

If you feel like the world is going ‘mad’ or that people are putting more and more clown makeup on each day as the world becomes more absurd then there’s a good chance what you’re about to read will help you make ‘sense’ of things.

Here we go:

The Thing that People Usually Call ‘Reality’ or ‘Truth’ is Actually Just ‘Interpretation’.

When people say that this is “My truth” or this is “My reality” what they actually mean is that this “My interpretation”.

Actually, even in most cases of people simply talking about reality or truth, they’re also talking about the same thing: their interpretations of these things.

This is a subtle distinction but it’s important because truth and reality are actually OBJECTIVE (factual, basically) and interpretations are SUBJECTIVE (clouded by a person’s own experience and sense of themselves).

A story that I always use to demonstrate this when I’m coaching people or whatever is the story of ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ which is from the Upanishads or somewhere (which goes to show just how long the distinction between reality and interpretations has been causing problems in the human experience).

The story itself is pretty simple:

As the name suggests, it involves a bunch of blind men and an elephant.

Because they can’t see what they’re looking at – a metaphor for how we all naturally perceive and interpret reality incorrectly because of our limited human capacities – they all start to argue about their INTERPRETATIONS of the reality of what stands before them (the elephant).

For example, the guy who is standing near the trunk and gets hold of it, starts to argue that what they’re dealing with is a snake; the guy that’s holding one of the elephants legs starts to argue that they’re dealing with a tree trunk; the guy who has hold of the tusks begins to argue that they’re dealing with some kind of strange weapon (or whatever).

The point of the story is that all of them are dealing with the same underlying REALITY but because of their own individual vantage points – like our own life experience etc. and literal positions in time and space – they all come up with different INTERPRETATIONS about the same fundamental thing.

These interpretations have NO EFFECT whatsoever on the FACT that there is only ONE REALITY (the Elephant) but because they all come up with their own interpretations by focusing on the fragments instead of the whole they end up causing CONFLICT.

An interesting thing here is that it’s not the reality itself that caused this conflict and confusion – it’s the attachment that the blind men have to their INTERPRETATIONS and their conviction that these interpretations are the ONLY CORRECT interpretations.

This is interesting because it helps us to understand that the truth itself is beyond conflict because IT JUST IS WHAT IT IS.

The only thing that causes problems in our lives is our INABILITY or UNWILLINGNESS to accept this truth by stepping away from our own beliefs and interpretations.

In life itself, things work in the same way:

There is only the TRUTH (or reality in my view) as a WHOLE and it’s the same truth for all of us.

The thing that causes problems in our lives is that we all see this truth to differing degrees based on how willing we are to face it (which may be difficult sometimes as the truth is the truth regardless of what we ‘like or ‘dislike’ about it).

The question now becomes if the truth is the truth then why do we WANT to BELIEVE in something else?

Understanding this can help you to GROW REAL and live a life that’s aligned with who you really are and truly want to be.

To understand it you need to understand a common law of the human experience:

People Believe What They Want To Believe

There is an important difference – as we’ve hopefully just seen – between our interpretations of the TRUTH and the actual truth.

Our interpretations aren’t the ‘thing-in-itself’ (i.e. the TRUTH) – they’re just the CONCLUSIONS we come up with after perceiving whatever’s out there in reality and then interpreting these perceptions in the light of whatever STORIES and NARRATIVES we want to believe about life.

I often call this set of fragments and confusions between ourselves and the truth ‘The Veiled Veil’ – that sounds fancy but all it means is that there is a twofold veil between us and the truth because of the way human beings ‘work’:

First, there is the veil of perception – i.e. what we literally perceive because of our bodies and the way they let information in (which is always limited because our bodies are fragmented and reality/truth is WHOLE).

Second, there is the veil of CONCEPTUAL interpretation – where we try to make ‘sense’ of the things we perceived in relation to the beliefs we already have and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the world, and reality (which are conclusions that have already been fed through the VEILED VEIL).

Anyway, maybe that seems a little complicated but all it means is that the interpretations we have are made up of BELIEFS that are almost always informed by UNREAL information: unreal perceptions (i.e. not aligned with the actual TRUTH) and unreal interpretations (that we CREATE because of whatever we have going on inside ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves and want to believe in).

The long and short of all this is that there is an important distinction between our BELIEFS and the TRUTH.

Some beliefs might be more ‘real’ than others – in the sense that they may ‘point’ more closely to the truth than others – but in general NO belief is completely true because they are just FRAGMENTS of the truth as a WHOLE.

Now, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with this – it’s just how things work: We need beliefs to make sense of the world and to interact with others (and ourselves to some extent).

The problems start to arise when we treat our beliefs as being the TRUTH and act like we’ve got everything figured out. When we do that we just end up causing unnecessary friction for ourselves and remove ourselves from the flow of life that is necessary for us to keep growing real and moving into life more deeply.

The other problem is that by acting like our beliefs are the actual truth we also invite unnecessary CONFLICT with others into our lives… For example, in cases when our interpretations of the elephant are different to somebody else’s but we both need to be ‘right’.

If beliefs cause all these problems – when treated as the truth – then why do we become so attached to them?

That brings us on to the fundamental law of human nature that we talked about: PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE.

If beliefs are not reality or truth – which can’t be chosen because they just ‘are’ – then they are something that we have CHOSEN.

We didn’t just wake up one day and find these beliefs magically embedded in our heads – they’re something that we have decided to CHOOSE as a response to whatever it is that we’ve been through in life and what we want from life further down the line.

When you understand this you can ask yourself why ‘You’ or the people in your life believe the things that they do – if they’re just running on ‘autopilot’ you can bet your bottom dollar that they’re CHOOSING the beliefs that they have for one of two main reasons:

1:- To avoid some emotional ‘stuff’ within themselves (shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

2:- TO try and run towards some illusion they need to be true about life so they can keep telling themselves some STORY they want to believe about themselves, the world, and reality as a whole.

In many ways these two motivating factors are interrelated (and go back to the unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ like shame) but the bottom line is that PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE to avoid the truth about life (because when you’ve been ‘away’ from the truth for a while – not that it ever goes anywhere – then the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off and make you miserable).

Let’s explore these two aspects of ‘People believe what they want to believe’ in a little more detail:

We Choose Our Beliefs Because of Our Emotional Relationship With Ourselves

The best thing we can do for our long-term self-interest is to accept the TRUTH and to work with it. If we can do that then we have a better awareness of ourselves, the world, and reality and will be able to act on this awareness to get better RESULTS.

Those ‘results’ will be different in the context of everybody’s life, depending on what it is they’re trying to achieve with their lives.

No matter what, though – no matter who you are or what you’re trying to do – the one thing that we all have in common is that the only place where we can get results in the first place is the same for all of us: REALITY.

Or as I say all the time, “REAL ALWAYS WORKS”.

That being said, it makes RATIONAL sense to try and ensure that our beliefs are as closely aligned with reality in truth as possible.

The problem is that – for a lot of us – this may involve going through the short-term pain of giving up some of our illusions and aligning ourselves with the truth again.

Because most of us don’t want to feel ANY pain and would rather stay in our comfort zones this means that we defend the familiar beliefs and patterns we’re used to against the truth(even in cases where they’re making us miserable because we don’t get any results).

This is where the emotional ‘stuff’ comes in:

The MAIN reason that people choose to keep believing things that go against the truth is because choosing to believe the truth instead will cause them SHORT-TERM emotional pain.

Actually, it’s not ‘the truth’ that causes this problem for them – because being aligned with truth feels ‘good’ (as you’re flowing with life and living in a creative and authentic way).

No, the thing that causes this pain is the LOSS of illusions that have been ‘protecting’ us from our unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ like shame, guilt, and trauma.

It goes like this:

-We have difficult emotions that we don’t want to face so we create a version of ourselves and a BELIEF SYSTEM to go with this version that explains these feelings away.

-Because this belief system is designed to explain away something that actually exists (the feelings) it is UNREAL from the outset.

-When the truth comes along (however that might be) it threatens the foundation of the unreal belief system by letting reality back in.

-Once reality is back in the picture, we can either FIGHT against it (a battle we can never win) – which will just cause anxiety and unnecessary tension – or we can start to face it.

-If we ‘face’ the reality/truth then we end up removing the unreal belief system and the EMOTIONS we were trying to hide resurface.

It’s not ‘The Truth’ that caused the emotional turmoil – it’s the shattering of the beliefs that were trying to hide unresolved ‘turmoil’ that was already there (and probably got worse by being avoided for a period of time).

As a general rule – general because we can become REAL and wake ourselves up from sleepwalking through life – most of the beliefs that people have are a product of their emotional relationship with themselves.

If they feel ‘bad’ about themselves – consciously or unconsciously – they will become more RIGID with their beliefs because they need to believe that certain things are true so they can keep avoiding their emotional ‘stuff’ (which will be DISSOLVED if shared with others or simply embraced anyway).

People who are RIGID like this are not open to any disagreement because they’re not willing to learn (because that threatens the belief system they created).

If you look at the world around you – especially online – you’ll see that there are all kinds of people rigidly attached to certain belief systems and defending them like their lives depend on it.

Like we already said, the TRUTH is beyond any conflict – it’s only the interpretations that cause problems. These people arguing rigidly online aren’t defending the truth but their interpretations… Hopefully, you now understand why – because they need it to be true so they can keep avoiding their feelings about themselves (as shame-driven people).

If people have a HEALTHY relationship with themselves and their emotional ‘stuff’ then they aren’t DRIVEN by shame (etc.) but instead live in a way that lets them keep going more deeply into the TRUTH about themselves, the world, and reality and DISSOLVING their shame.

These people are easy to spot because they are not RIGID about their belief systems and are ready to grow and keep evolving (though they may still have CONVICTION about their values, intentions, and principles).

Ultimately, this is the difference between being OPEN or being CLOSED – if you’re open, then you’re willing to let the truth in and change your opinions so you can grow and evolve; if you’re closed, then you’re unwilling to let the truth in and simply want to stay the ‘same’ (for the reasons we talked about).

People Need Stories to Give Themselves Hope.

When it comes to certain situations or expectations about the future, people – especially shame-driven ones – will believe what they want to see, not the actual truth about life.

Again, this comes back to their relationship with themselves because their underlying ‘stuff’ affects the things that they think they want or need from life.

If somebody feels ‘bad’ about themselves, for example, they might think that what they need is a relationship with somebody (just an example). This will affect both their PERCEPTIONS and INTERPRTATIONS of what’s in front of them.

A simple example of this is unrequited or one-sided ‘love’:

Sometimes, if somebody is particularly lonely, desperate, or feels that they can’t love themselves they will perceive themselves as being ‘in love’ with somebody and also perceive that somebody else as being in love with them too (even when they’re not).

A similar example is when somebody is horny and they have a crush on somebody (who in this example isn’t interested in them in return) and so they start to look for ‘signs’ that the other person is interested too.

In both of these cases, the person in question has a NEED that’s driven by their emotional or physical relationship with themselves and they WANT the truth to be a certain way.

When they fall into this cycle they start telling themselves a story about how the other person (in this hypothetical example) feels the exact same way… It’s not because the other person actually does feel the same way but because the person telling themselves the story wants reality to be that way.

Other examples of people WANTING to believe bullshit stories like this often revolve around avoiding reality in the form of HARD WORK:

The short version of this is that when people set themselves ‘difficult’ goals they often start to become disillusioned by all of the hard work involved and so they start to believe in ‘MAGIC BULLETS’ that can take them out of the law of cause and effect and get them IMMEDIATE RESULTS (i.e. results that don’t involve work).

If you look around you’ll see this stuff everywhere:

-Business gurus online selling people a SHORTCUT to getting million dollar clients overnight.

-Weight loss products that will help you lose weight FAST with minimum EFFORT.

-Astrology reports (or whatever) that will give you all the answers you need RIGHT NOW.

There are a million different variations of these kinds of thing but the reason there’s so many isn’t because they actually get results or have anything to do with the TRUTH but because people WANT TO BELIEVE in these products to tell themselves the story that they don’t have to do the work required to get actual results (and so they buy these products and send themselves on a wild goose chase that just makes things worse in the long-run).

Finally, another example of where this ‘story’ thing shows up is when people are giving you advice:

Almost always – especially with unwarranted advice, at least – they aren’t telling you anything about the actual TRUTH but they’re telling you how they want to see the world.

If you’re trying to do something ambitious, for example, and somebody gives you the ‘advice’ that it can’t be done they’re not advising you but telling you how they WANT it to be. Probably if you dig into their past it’ll be because they already gave up on their ambitions and have some shame around it.

I could write about this all day but what I want you to get from this is that most of the stated beliefs out in the world aren’t the truth but a RESPONSE to it. That response is always motivated by some emotional ‘stuff’ and if you want to stay TRUE TO YOURSELF you need to know this so you can check yourself and others.

What To Do: Stay TRUE.

The only way not to fall into the BELIEF TRAP is to remember that beliefs are just beliefs but the truth is the truth.

There’s a quote by the physicist David Bohm that I’ve been throwing around for years:

“Your opinions are something that you have, not something that you are.”

We need to become familiar with this idea if we want to keep growing and evolving beyond the limitations of our identities and the belief systems that we have CHOSEN because of them.

This starts by learning to understand how beliefs are formed in the first place, how they’re distinct from THE TRUTH, and how we identify with things because of our own emotional ‘stuff’ in order to keep telling ourselves certain stories.

If you want to move forward with some of this stuff then keep TESTING your beliefs.

Ask yourself questions; make sure you know how you reached certain conclusions. More importantly, be open to CHANGING YOUR BELIEFS because if you’re so convinced that they don’t need to change then you’re just keeping yourself from the thing that you actually want: THE TRUTH.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Why I Haven’t Killed Myself Yet (and You Probably Shouldn’t Kill Yourself Either)

Published on

Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

The Existential Question of Suicide

There’s a famous quote by Albert Camus where he says something like “If you haven’t killed yourself yet then you’re an existentialist”.

I think about that quote a lot.

Camus is also the guy who summed up the modern existential state by asking, “Should I have another cup of coffee or should I kill myself?”

It really helps put things in perspective: ultimately, if you’re here and you’re reading this right now then things have never got so bad that you’ve made the CHOICE to end it all.

That’s good news. Probably somebody out there likes having you around (and even if it feels like they don’t you’re probably just not looking hard enough or need to buy a dog or something).

Being a human being is kinda weird: Every morning we wake up and we keep making the choices to just keep going through the motions and ploughing on with our lives – even though we know they’re going to end anyway one day and that there’s nothing we can do about it (and maybe you could make an argument that a lot of what goes on in the world is a distraction from that inescapable reality).

This ceaseless, inexorable ‘ploughing on’ happens despite us constantly having to deal with problems and obstacles, having to deal with the dramas and derangements of other people, and having things creep up on us out of the blue every so often and knock us sideways or derail the train of our lives and whatever plans we might have had (“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”, as Mike Tyson said).

There’s a deeper sense of despair in the world than any time since I remember in my long ass lifetime (40 years young now, wtf) but despite all the absurdity and clownish chaos of the extremities of political ideologies and all of the weirdness, drama, and bullshit that permeates the world (and the subtle and not-so-subtle threats to OBVLIVION), most of us just keep ploughing and plodding along, doing the same old things we’ve always done.

I think we’ve all had that thought pop into our heads at least once or twice in our lives – even if it hasn’t really been ‘serious’:

“Why don’t I kill myself?”

Sometimes it just creeps in there when you’re washing the dishes, driving down the Bingley bypass, or making love.

Life is fragile, after all – it would be so easy to do any of the romanticised suicide rituals that we’ve all heard about and to end it all with relative ‘ease’:

-Go to Paris and jump off the Eifel Tower.

-Overdose on some drug of choice.

-Take a toaster in the bath (and plug it in, of course).

-Get a razorblade and slit one’s wrists (everybody knows that you need to go ‘down’ and not ‘across’ for whatever reason).

-Steal a car or commit some other crime and get the police to chase and shoot you (depending on your country or the severity of your crime, of course).

The options for leaving this hellhole are only limited by your creativity (which is ironic in a way seeing as the world you might be trying to escape is trying to quash your creativity anyway).

So why do we stick around? Maybe there’s some ‘stuff’ to be learned here?

I can’t really speak for others but here’s why I haven’t killed myself yet:

I’m going to die anyway.

Maybe it’s laziness but I really don’t see the point in killing myself when I’m going to die one day anyway.

Maybe it’s because I’m an optimist but I know that anything could happen between now and whenever that happens to be (within the realm of possibility, of course).

That could include things that are ‘bad’ and so maybe things will get worse than they’ve ever been but ‘possiblity’ also means that things could get ‘good’ or even better as well so I might as well stick around and find out.

I suppose knowing that death is inevitably coming anyway gives me a kind of peace because it makes me more present (when I’m reflecting on it) but it also serves to remind me that THIS IS IT – as far as I know, this is the only life I’m ever going to live and so I might as well squeeze every drop of life I can get out of it.

I know that things won’t always be perfect but nor do I want – or even need – them to be. Being ‘me’ is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and so I might as well accept it as it ‘is’ (whilst still trying to change what I can change and move towards my vision) and ‘enjoy’ the full spectrum of human emotions and experiences – misery, confusion, conflict; joy, exultation, love – all of these things are just part of the overall cocktail of life and make it what it is: a rich tapestry of colours and sensations that all come together in one hideously beautiful abstract painting that kinda makes sense if you look at it in the right way.

There’s loads more to do.

The thing about life is that there’s always more to ‘do’. Some might say that this is actually one of the ‘bad’ things about life – the fact that we constantly have to be bumbling around like blue-arsed flies ‘doing’ things instead of ‘being’ them.

It’s like the Myth of Sisyphus (popularised and given context by Albert Camus again) – pushing the rock up the mountain only for it to roll back down again and for him to have to repeat the process and struggle up-and-down for eternity.

I was speaking to somebody recently who was struggling with the endless ‘doing’ and struggle of the human condition:

They were saying that every time you think you’ve got to the top of the mountain you end up realising that it’s not the actual peak – it’s just a ridge.

And when you get to the top of the next ridge you realise you’re still not at the top (and on and on it goes).

I don’t mind ‘doing’ things as long as my ‘being’ is injected into that ‘doing’ – for example, by aligning it with my REAL VALUES (not the values that the world has tried to ingrain or condition me with).

In my own life, I’ve really found that by getting to the top of one ‘ridge’ I might not have made it all the way to the ‘top’ – to some perfect state of absolute completion and power – but I’ve still grown a lot more real (i.e. whole and integrated in myself, the world, and reality) and have got a better VIEW of life and what it all means along the way.

I think all this ‘doing’ is only really a problem if you either don’t KNOW what you’re doing (because you’ve been told by others) or because you’re FORCING yourself to do things that are taking you away from yourself rather than doing anything actually real or true to you (and that’s when you’re most likely to end up being like Sisyphus and doing something ABSURD).

I dunno, I think it comes down to our expectations. If we expect life to be life then it’s a lot ‘easier’ – or at least more SIMPLE – and so we’re less likely to kill ourselves. I think if my expectations were different maybe I would’ve been disappointed by now and jumped off the Eifel Tower or taken my plugged-in toaster in the bath.

Personally, I like the journey but I’ve learned to trust the process and it’s taken me out of my head and into life a little more… I think if we resist life then we resist life (if you know what I mean). I’m trying to be open.

The other thing about all these things to ‘do’ that’s stopped me from killing myself is that doing brings a lot of amazing MOMENTS and EXPERIENCES that allow me to dangle a future over my head like a golden suicide-prevention carrot that keeps me plodding along.

Like we said, despite all this empty ‘doing’ in the world (going to work in the wage cage, filling in spread sheets, queuing in the supermarket whilst the self-checkouts blurt out error messages), there’s a lot of BEING that creeps into our lives that makes it worth living.

This ‘being’ doesn’t necessarily have to come from anything grandiose or extravagant – it can just be small things that turn all your senses on and remind you exactly who the fuck you are:

-Sitting in a garden with your eyes closed and the sun on your face.

-Kicking those autumn leaves or watching your breath condensate as you go for a walk.

-Seeing a full moon from on top of a hill.

-Listening to the waves wash up against the shore or the ripples and whirls forming and fading away in a river.

Maybe these are clichés but those moments are FREE and – more importantly – they’re REAL.

I haven’t killed myself yet because of all the moments like that I’ve had previously – or that I’m having now as I write this and look outside every so often at a tree blowing in the wind – but also because of all the moments that I know will come.

I know that they will come because life is nothing but a series of moments that we try and thread together with the narratives and stories that we tell ourselves… None of those stories will last, though, but if the moments are real they’ll last forever (because those moments are about being connected to the whole and so they’re real and what’s real is always real).

That doesn’t mean that I’m going to be ‘passive’ about it and just let these moments happen to me (that’s ego) – I’ve learned now that the way to SPEED UP and experience life more fully is to create a vision for life and to go out there and LIVE THE VISION.

Obviously, there are no guarantees in life and I could get run over by a bus tomorrow and taste oblivion but if I don’t then there are things I’m pretty much certain I’ll do one day (unless something goes seriously wrong and then I can either learn to accept it or then kill myself lol).

I think without the vision it’s much harder to find reasons to keep living – the vision doesn’t need to be big but it needs to be something and it needs to be real:

I haven’t killed myself because I want to grow my business and help more people not kill themselves too.

I haven’t killed myself because I want to go to Norway and climb some mountains.

I haven’t killed myself because I want to go to Italy again.

I haven’t killed myself because I want to hold ‘The One’ in my arms and know that life is for the living (yeah, I know that it’s never the ‘One’ and just one of the ones but it’s still an amazing part of the human experience – just like with all the ones that were already the one).

You get the picture.

I suppose it doesn’t even really matter that much if the vision even materialises in reality or not (though if you ACT on it there’s no reason why it won’t – though maybe not exactly as you envisioned given the way the reality waves work and the inevitable gap between expectation and result).

No, what matters is HAVING the vision. I think as long as there’s some kind of picture in your heart then you’ll probably be okay. If you don’t have one just CHOOSE one – it’s not that complicated (though we like complications, especially when we’re already feeling down or depressed because they give us reasons not to move and grow through the FEELINGS that are holding us back and the IDEAS we created and attached to as a response to them).

Maybe that oversimplifies things or sounds delusional – I think that’s only the case if you choose something and then you don’t ACT on it. Without the action you’re deluding yourself; if you choose and then act then you’re really living (so why would you kill yourself?).

There’s loads more real human beings to meet.

Other people can be annoying (an understatement) and it can be easy to become disheartened by some of the time-wasting and drama that they can suck us into if we’re not careful.

Even worse than that, you see the news and it’s easy to lose faith in ‘people’ as a whole: they’re starting wars, stabbing each other, chopping each other’s genitalia off, arguing about politics, and generally causing all kinds of unwholesome havoc wherever they go.

Despite this being the case, this is just ‘people’ in general – it’s not humanity (which involves a little wholeness or soul).

People are just ‘ideas’.

People are just acting out their self-images and the points of view of their ego and causing all kinds of bother because of it.

One reason I haven’t killed myself yet is that, despite all this HORROR, there are still REAL HUMAN BEINGS out there that you can create memories and moments with and more importantly LAUGH YOUR ASS OFF with.

Even in the worst-case scenario – those periods in life when you feel totally disconnected or isolated from ‘The World’ at large – it doesn’t change the fact that there are nearly 8billion (or whatever it is today) people on the planet and that some of them out there are gonna be on your wavelength.

Just because you feel alone doesn’t mean that you are alone – even if you do have to do a little work of not being PASSIVE and actually reaching out or reconnecting to people.

I have family and friends that I think would miss me if I killed myself – actually, I’m pretty sure that some of them definitely would (even some of the ones I might not have spoken to in a while).

It sounds kinda funny when I put it like this but one reason I haven’t killed myself is because I don’t wanna DEPRIVE people of my presence. I’m saying that slightly tongue-in-cheek but it’s true: I’m funny and I have good things to say and I can cheer people up in general or make their lives better with the ‘value’ (overused word) I bring to the relationship.

Why deprive people of that? With great power comes great responsibility and – in some relationships, not necessarily always – I’m awesome.

Of course, on some levels, it’s not just about ‘being awesome’ – some people love you regardless of how awesome you are. In my case I think my Mum and my Gran actually love me unconditionally – despite whatever flaws I have or the stupid things I’ve done and been through that have made them worry in life.

I think if I killed myself now it would just cause them too much pain and even though I wouldn’t be around to feel guilty about it I don’t want to be responsible for that. I suppose this is why a lot of people don’t kill themselves – because they don’t wanna hurt the people they love and that love them. Life is life but we’re all in it together – there’s some comfort in that whether you want it or not.

The way I look at people these days is that every single one of them is an EXPERIENCE (or at least a couple of moments here and there).

Some of them are REAL experiences and some of them are UNREAL experiences – if you’ve read my ‘stuff’ before then you’ll be able to figure out the distinction between the two but the short version is that the real ones bring a spiral of energy as they take you deeper into wholeness and the unreal ones just block things with their own bullshit and there’s no real connection.

One reason I haven’t killed myself yet is because there’s already some real ones in my life that bring the ENERGY – I suppose you could say that energy is life-enhancing and so as long as it’s there and it’s taking me where I need to go then I suppose there’s something to live for.

Yeah, there’s the unreal ‘stuff’ and relationships too but that’s all part of the human experience like we said earlier – you can’t have the sweet without the sour. All of these things just make being ‘human’ human and as long as we have that basic panoply of experiences and the real stuff keeps coming or is around the corner then you might as well keep going.

Human beings are ‘tribal’ creatures (at least that’s what they tell us) and so people (or humans) need people (or humans).

Yeah, you can do it on your own if you really want – it’s not impossible. Overall, though, we need each other to be mirrors of each other and it’s just a lot more ‘fun’ to go out there and share the path with people and share battle stories and get scars together.

There have been times in my life when I’ve been alienated – even from the real ones – because of how things have just worked out or because I’ve had a period of downtime because of illness or whatever else. The real ones are always real, though – you can reach out or they will and then you’ll pick up where you left off like time, space, and causality aren’t even things we have to deal with. Real life is amazing like that.

I guess what I’m saying is that I haven’t killed myself yet because it’s always there – even if sometimes you have to reach out for it. I suppose when I was younger I might’ve fallen into the unhealthy pattern that if it’s real then you don’t need to reach out (and, tbh, in many cases you don’t) – people just get caught up their own lives, though, and sometimes reaching out is just a reminder of what’s real, not a reflection on who you are (that’s ego).

What about those cases where there is nobody to reach out to? What happens when I’m old, for example, and all my friends have dropped dead? Or what if I’m simply a different person now – because I was once unreal and now I’m not – and so I’ve distanced myself from the people and things that once seemed real in order to be true to myself?

Maybe that’s a tad dramatic but you know what I mean – not everybody is connected to people even though everything is connected.

In cases like that I always think that “It’s better alone than in bad company” (or unreal company – even worse).

If I ended up like that then I still wouldn’t kill myself – because there’s always the chance that there’s another real one out there somewhere or – if not – then there’s still gonna be those moments that we talked about up above.

There’s always something or the promise of something REAL and I suppose – at the end of the end of the day – that’s all it really takes to make a life: a taste here and there, the lingering sensations, and then the promise of something more.

You never know what’s around the corner but if you reach around you’ll probably find something and if you don’t you can still be real. Something like that, anyway.

It’s why I’m still here.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Mindset - Page 14

Understand the game to win the game.

What it really means to ‘win’ or be successful in the game of life.

The three types of ‘cards’ in life and how to win.

Deterministic Cards

Psychological Cards

Social Cards

Conclusion: Play To Win

Small actions with big results over time.

1. Take whatever goals you have an turn the volume UP.

2. Reach out to somebody new or to somebody you haven’t spoken to in a while.

3. Stop talking to whatever fake or dramatic people are holding you back.

4.Commit to going for a walk and/or exercising most days of the week.

5. Replace a ‘Static Habit’ with a ‘Growth Habit’

6. Sit down and create a vision for yourself

7. Drink some water

8. Call the important people in your life at least once a week.

9. Stop spending money on crap you don’t need and use it to invest in yourself instead.

10. Find a way to do something creative

11. Throw some stuff out, clean, or tidy up

12. Stretch your body (people don’t do this enough)

13. Find a way to GIVE something

14. Read three books about something you want to know more about.

15. Write something free flow style.

16. Meditate

17. Choose a time to go to bed and stick to it tonight.

18. Use your phone less

19. Put a to-do list together every day

20. Listen to podcasts whilst you’re doing boring tasks.

21. Check your calorie intake with MyFitnessPal or some other app.

22. Eat more leafy greens with your meals.

23. Check your posture and straighten your back.

24. Take the stairs when you have a choice between them and a lift/elevator.

25. Say ‘No’ to set healthy boundaries (when you mean it)

26. Develop a routine for yourself that will let you grow and enjoy life.

27. Go outside for a prolonged period (at least once a week)

28.Think and act for the long-term, not the short-term.

29. Buy (and then use!) a foam roller

30. Do the ‘gratitude’ thing.

Thank you!

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Goals

Habits

A Real Routine Frees You to be Yourself

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Figure out who you are, what you’re saying, and why you’re saying it.

Figure out who you‘re saying what you’re saying to.

Don’t be scared to polarise.

Don’t try to be something or somebody that you’re not.

Work on being spontaneous and consistent.

Add Value: Entertain, Educate, Elevate & Tell Stories

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Step 1: Check in with yourself and figure out what you want.

Step 2: CHOOSE a creative project that is aligned with what you want and that you can use to escape the wage cage.

Step 3: Creative Brand Sprint

Step 4: Idea Clarification and Implementation

Step 5: Create a Prototype Offer

Step 6: Research and Experimentation

Step 7: Testing & Testimonials

Step 8: Retweak, Sales and Marketing

Step 9: Escape the Wage Cage

Improving Your Life by Accepting Reality No Matter What

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Wealth

Relationships

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