Meteoric Personal Development!

Posted on August 16, 2009 by admin

Willie Horton’s acclaimed two-day personal development seminars have been running for thirteen years. He teaches that a clear and present state of mind creates extra-ordinary personal and business success. His vast expertise is now available in his Online Workshop at Gurdy.Net. His website also offers daily free personal development video seminars, articles and a Free Personal Development Ezine published every Monday morning.

Myself and my family recently spent an evening on our balcony star-gazing – watching the annual Perseid Meteor Shower – when the earth passes through a band of wayward comet grit. Many people might just see one shooting star in their lifetime – but, in the space of about twenty minutes, we counted a dozen. It was a humbling experience. Here we were, five insignificant dots on the balcony of a house – no more than a dot on this planet which, in itself is no more than a tiny pebble spinning at high speed through a vast space. That evening, we watched pieces of rock – undoubtedly billions of years old (comets are leftovers from the Big Bang) – spend the last seconds on their existence as they burned up on entering our atmosphere.

As I say, it was a humbling experience and one which gets you thinking about who you are and your place in the world – and the universe. It also gets you thinking about what people believe in – and why, as a client asked me recently, very bad things happen to ordinary people. She asked why “a loving God” would be party to the tragic drowning, whilst on holiday, of her five year old nephew. My answer related to the universe and how it responds to the things that most occupy our minds (her nephew’s mother was always convinced that something dreadful would befall her children and, as a result, was over-protective).

God – who probably does not exist in the traditional religious sense – is not a loving God. God is a responsive God. Quantum physics tells us that there is a mathematically improbable degree of order in the universe because that order is being “orchestrated by an underlying entity or singularity”. Quantum physics also tells us that the energy of the universe is responsive to our energy – responsive to the things that most occupy our minds.

Psychology tells us, however, that normal people’s minds are most occupied by nonsense – whether it’s the fifty thousand random, mainly useless, thoughts that pepper the conscious mind daily or the extent to which all normal people’s minds tend towards the negative. There is strong empirical evidence to prove these facts.

As a result, the responsive universe, of which we are an integral part, gives normal people what they inherently expect – varying from the norm of “not too bad”, to the tragedies that pepper the human condition. It’s not that “God” does awful things, it is that we conscious or subconsciously wish these awful things upon ourselves. Buddhism might call it karma, Christianity might say the what goes around comes around – either way, these are the fundamental truths of our scientifically proven responsive universe. We get what we expect.

That truth goes a long way towards explaining our part of the greater whole – it goes a long way towards explaining why the collective nonsensical thoughts of normal people wreak havoc, on a grand scale, in our world – whether that be from war and oppression or the starvation of millions in a world where many feast themselves into obesity. That truth also gives us an insight into how we can live better lives, experience happiness, peace of mind and effortless success. In other words, it’s all in our minds.

We’ve got to change our minds in order to play a positive role in the great responsive universe in which we live. We’ve got to step outside the norm – become abnormal. We’ve got to expect something different and, quantum physics tells us, something different will happen – for us, for those we love and for the world at large. In other words, we’ve got to carve out our own destinies. It is our responsibility – not that of a “loving God”. After all, God loves a trier – God helps those who help themselves.

This extraordinary – or abnormal – journey starts and finishes within. We’ve got to take responsibility for the only thing that we can fully control in our lives – our own state of mind. We have extraordinary inner energy, power and potential. And, yet, normal people only use 1% of that inner power – the rest of it idling destructively on useless thought and the negative. If we want more out of life, we need to invest more than 1% of our mental or spiritual energy in the universe and, in turn, as sure as night follows day, the universe will respond.

The steps on the personal journey that can bring us an abnormally successful and happy life are taken one at a time – moment to moment. No one can commit to being abnormal for the rest of their lives – each of our lives is lived moment to moment in the here and now, the only place and time we have and the only time in which we can commit to being either abnormal, or abdicate our responsibility for ourselves and lapse into horrible normality. Hence, the “power of now”.

The most effective way of taking control of your inner power and potential is to increase your attentiveness to what is happening and where you are, in the present moment. This is easily done by paying attention to what your five senses are telling you. We all did this as children but research tells us that we pay almost no attention at all to our five senses as adults. We need to really, really see, feel, hear, smell and taste where we are. In doing so, we prevent our minds dwelling on useless thought or on the subconscious negative. In doing so, we change our experience of now and, as a result, we change our lives. Most importantly, in doing so, we become more attuned to the free-flowing energy of a responsive universe.

What Normal People Want

Posted on August 8, 2009 by admin

I know that people are constantly striving to get more out of life. I know that many people wish for, hope for, want for more success, more happiness, more wealth. But wishing, hoping and wanting something is simply a useless mental activity – a waste of energy – because the only thing that will get you what you want is beyond wishing, hoping and wanting – it’s believing. More of that later! For now, if you really look around and observe the behaviour of so-called normal people, you will discover what normal people really want – they want you to be normal too.

There is nothing more threatening to the normal state of mind than someone who’s different – in particular, someone who is abnormally happy and successful. It’s not so much that normal people are jealous of abnormal success – they actually want to take the abnormally successful person down.

One of the biggest issues that my clients have to face following my two-day personal development workshop is that, even though they have learned to become abnormal, even though they have learned (from a vast array of research stretching back over seventy years) that so-called normal people are actually totally and completely mad, when they venture back out into the ordinary, everyday so-called real world, almost everyone the encounter will be normal – will be insane.

A brief aside – because stating that normal people are insane requires an explanation! Here are some quick facts. About 96% of us are normal – we behave according to and conform to a variety of behavioural and social norms. Normal people control about 1% of their mind – in other words, they are only capable of paying 1% attention to what is going on in the present moment. Normal people’s reactions and behaviours are automatically created by their subconscious minds which were programmed through snapshot learning during their formative years. In other words, the subconscious mind controls the normal person – not the other way around. If you’re not in control of your own mind, surely that’s a definition of madness!

There’s more – societal norms tell us that we must work hard to be a success, that there are many outstanding things in life that only outstanding people can achieve – not normal people. Research proves that normal people only see what they expect to see, only perceive what they expect to perceive. In other words, normal people wander through life with their eyes closed, their senses dimmed, their life confined to the box created for them by their key influences during their childhood years and by a society that needs normal people to conform – whether that’s a society driven by organised religion, the nation state or global corporate interests is a debate for some other day).

Back to my point – normal people want you to be normal. A client emailed me a couple of days ago saying that he had no problem opening, clearing and focusing his mind each morning – in preparation for the opportunities that every day holds for all of us. But, then, he’d get into work and be assaulted by normal people. People wanting to gossip (one of the greatest draws on our precious mental energy), people looking for a fight (“I deserve promotion”, “Someone’s getting involved where they shouldn’t be”, etc.) – and then he arrives home and is confronted by his teenage children – and, having three teenagers myself, it can often be difficult to remain calm, focused and effective!! All these everyday scenarios drag the calmest of minds into the dirt so that we end up reacting automatically all over again – and when did reacting make anything better!?!

You need to stop being normal – and, if you’ve started on the path towards being abnormal, you need to protect yourself against all those normal people who, unwittingly granted, was to drag you into their little dramas – want more of your attention, want you to make them feel important or better.

Why take the path that leads towards abnormality? Well, for starters, given my albeit very brief description of the normal mental state, do you really want to be normal? But, more to the point, you need to realise certain truths borne out by all the research that I’ve already mentioned. Anyone – and that includes you – can achieve the extra-ordinary and the exceptional. Anyone – and that, again, includes you, can achieve effortless happiness and success. You do not need to work hard to be a success. You need commitment, vision and belief – if you’ve got those, no work is difficult, no effort a strain.

The commitment you need is to your own state of mind. You need to cultivate and develop a clear, present and focused state of mind – a state of mind that is completely at odds with the normal cluttered, distracted mindlessness of normality. You need to commit to developing your ability to pay attention – not to your goals and dreams, but to the only time and place we have – the here and now. That means you pay more than 1% attention – that means you’re already exceptional.

You need to believe. Believing is not wishing, hoping or wanting. Believing is seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting the success you want, as if you already have it. Those five senses that you rarely pay attention to are the very tools by which you can enable yourself believe and, more importantly, the only tools you have at your disposal to pay attention to the here and now – to be present, to be “all there”, rather than “all over the place”.

Don’t want what normal people want – believe in the extra-ordinary.

Willie Horton’s acclaimed two-day personal development seminars have been running for thirteen years. He teaches that a clear and present state of mind creates extra-ordinary personal and business success. His vast expertise is now available in his Online Workshop at Gurdy.Net. His website also offers daily free personal development video seminars, articles and a Free Personal Development Ezine published every Monday morning.

The Motivational You

Posted on July 30, 2009 by admin

How does one self-motivate? Are there two parts of us – one that is the motivator and the other which needs to be motivated? Why does research suggests that most so-called “normal” people do not achieve their goals, dreams and ambitions? Why do the majority of people continue to do work that they dislike? Why does the World Health Organization believe that stress will be such a big 21st. Century killer? If you’re “normal” and you’re worried and stressed, feeling unfulfilled at work, how can you actually motivate yourself? And what would you be motivating yourself for? Why bother?

Lots of questions – but they all boil down to the key issue of the extent to which we need to be motivated – and that most of us are not! Even many of my own clients, who should know better, who own their own businesses and whose future is so much more in their own hands than the normal employee, tell me that they’re de-motivated, that they go into work knowing the key things that they have to do and yet they waste their time on doing things that they either shouldn’t be doing, or things that are downright destructive (like worrying about where new business will come from, like getting involved in the downward spiral of gossip about the economic environment, like gossiping about their competitors) – things that lead them away from their hopes and dreams. As a result, they end up more de-motivated than ever.

But back to that one key issue – the need for self-motivation and, in particular, one of my very first questions above – who is doing the motivating and who needs to be motivated.

Everyone needs to get a kick out of life – if at all possible, every day. Years of psychological and market research that most people only rarely experience any high in their lives and that, generally, it is short lived. As a result, the majority of us, so-called normal people, trudge through our regular routines wishing for and hoping for our next high – whether that’s looking forward to the weekend, the next night out or holiday. But in our ordinary everyday routine lives we are less than happy – less than fully motivated.

The truth is that there are two parts of us – our inner pure energy and our personality – and these two internal elements are locked in battle. As a result, we strive for, hope for, wish for a better life, more success and happiness, but we actually trip ourselves up in the pursuit of our hopes and dreams. It is our personality – the part of us with which we are all so familiar – that holds us back, that stops us being fully motivated, that disables our true inner abilities to achieve great things, to live our ordinary lives extraordinarily. As I said, we’re all very familiar with our personality – our strengths, our faults and our failings.

However, when my clients explore their self-perceptions, many of them find that they can actually recollect the first time in their lives when they actually felt a particular – perhaps of inadequacy, self-doubt, anxiety, fear, even self-loathing. That is because our current self-perceptions that make up our personality are merely a compilation of the events that stand out in our subconscious mind from our formative years, our childhood. Many years work indicates that we perceive ourselves to be who we think we are based on a series of “snapshots” taken whilst we were young and impressionable. In addition, years of research indicates that normal people are pre-disposed to being negative – both about themselves and their chances of success.

Add all this together and you will realise that the perceived you – your personality – is a phantom-like creation of your subconscious mind. As it is created from events that most impressed you during your formative years, your personality simply could not be the real you. However, your personality feels very real – your self-doubts, your perceived inadequacies all manifest themselves in your daily life, in your behaviour and in what you get out of life. That is why you need to be motivated – and the bizarre thing is that the part of you that needs motivation (your personality) is the very same part of you that is preventing you being all that you can potentially be.

You need to stop pandering to your personality. Ignore it (it might eventually go away!). By-pass it by focussing your attention in the here and now. In doing so, your subconscious mind’s obsession with your personality will begin to be broken. In focusing in the here and now, you will be less likely to waste your energy on the old, useless, self-defeating thoughts that regularly distract our minds from the task in hand, making the task in hand more difficult or frustrating. In paying attention to the present moment, in engrossing yourself in whatever you’re doing, you will be better at it, more absorbed, more effective, efficient, more likely to get the key things done that will lead you towards living that ordinary everyday life – extra-ordinarily.

Recent research indicates that our ability to be happy and successful is correlated to our ability to pay attention to the here and now. It has nothing to do with self-motivation – because self-motivation involves pandering to a part of you that isn’t really there, your personality. Get over yourself, get on with the present moment – your true ability to achieve your dreams and desires will then emerge – effortlessly.

Willie’s work in the area of self-improvement and meditation has been described as “life-changing” and “phenomenal” by clients from every walk of life. His acclaimed two-day personal development workshop is now available online at Gurdy.Net

How to Make the Right Life Choices

Posted on July 11, 2009 by admin

140271_texture_3 Everyone is at a crossroads each moment of each day – it’s just that we never stop to reflect on the fact that each minute decision we make can have life-changing consequences. A client recently recounted a story from his youth. He told me about he used to hang out with his best friend – and his best friend’s girlfriend. One Sunday afternoon, rather than doing his usual thing of going to the rugby club for a few pints, he decided he’d call to the girl’s house for a chat. The rest is history – they were married twenty years just a few days ago. As he said to me “If I hadn’t taken a right turn out of m y house that Sunday afternoon, we wouldn’t have married, my three children wouldn’t exist and I probably wouldn’t have been propelled along my career path the way I’ve been, given that my wife has helped me so much and been so supportive.

Little choices we make thoughtlessly, mindlessly, change the very course of our life. You’ve made those choices – so have I. And, yet, the vast majority of us make those choices completely unwittingly, paying little or no attention to the consequences of each of our actions. Only the very few – what the University of Chicago might term uncommonly successful people – have the presence of mind, the self-awareness, to realise the importance of the moment – every moment – and, in doing so, are all the more likely to choose their actions reflectively, mindfully. The converse, for what the same university might call “normal people” is that we continually create lives that, at best, are “not too bad”, by not being mindful of the opportunities that each moment can potentially create.

As I tell my many clients, the people who are most important to you in your business and personal lives at present were once complete strangers to you. The logical conclusion we can draw from that blindingly obvious statement is that we never know when we are going to bump into the next stranger who will assist us further on our journey. Normal people interact with other normal people and situations without this realisation and, therefore, their life’s journey can rarely be described as exciting. Most normal people plod through life on what they perceive to be almost a pre-determined treadmill. People brought up in working-class environments usually go on to lead working-class lives. Where I live, village artisans – plumbers, carpenters, masons – usually bring future village artisans into the world. The same goes for most people.

Abnormal people interact with normal people and situations in a totally different manner – ever present to and aware of the potential that each new encounter can hold. The difference between these normal and abnormal people has nothing to do with socio-economic background, nothing to do with education, nothing to do with their friends. The difference is simply to be found in their state of mind. Research indicates that many abnormal people instinctively operate at this level – in these cases, their early upbringing may well have had a positive impact (or a negative upbringing might have spurred them into alternative action). But not all abnormal people are “made that way” – we can all be abnormal, we can all re-learn the ability we innately possessed as children to meet and greet each new person and each new situation with a childlike open-mindedness.

And therein lies the secret to abnormal happiness and success, far beyond the perceived pre-determined routes on which most normal lives meander. We simply need to re-learn to be attentive – not seeking out, searching for or hankering after life’s next opportunity, but simply fully attentive to and mindful of the present moment, the here and now, the only time and place we have.

Psychological research, quantum physics and the age-old wisdom of great minds all converge on the importance of paying attention. Your ability to pay attention to directly linked to your ability to be abnormally happy and effortlessly successful. And all it takes is a little commitment on your part to deliberately pay attention to small things in your life – so that the big things in your life will follow. By way of example, I invariably suggest to my clients that they shave or brush their teeth with the hand with which they do not habitually perform those mundane tasks. This has a double effect – because in deciding to do such a repetitive and habitual task differently, we realise, in that moment, that for every mundane and repetitive task in our lives, we have a choice – moment to moment. That, for many is the only revelation they need. But there’s more because, in doing something so simple differently, we are compelled to pay that simple task more attention. And paying more attention is the key to the life your heart desires.

So, you can take the first step on a journey of discovery that will change your life right here, right now. In doing so, you will realise that the choice between abnormal happiness and success and the mundane alternatives is not a matter of luck, education or social status – it is simply a matter of choice. Your choice.

Copyright © 2009 Willie Horton; Willie’s work in the area of self-improvement and meditation has been described as “life-changing” and “phenomenal” by clients from every walk of life. His acclaimed two-day personal development workshop is now available online at Gurdy.Net

Building a Winning Business Team

Posted on June 26, 2009 by admin

1192999_oats1 Anyone out there got the guts to do it? I mean, is anyone “brave” enough to create and lead a team of like-minded people towards the kind of exceptional business success that one only sees, if one is lucky, once in a career?

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking to and working with business people – I heard a lot of anecdotal evidence which proves the old adage that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Highly placed executives falsifying new business projections whilst lining their pockets based on their lies. More highly placed executives getting massive compensation payments – once when they were unceremoniously booted out (and rightly so) from their lofty perch – and again for when the company that had sacked them was subsequently sold (because it was in their contract). We all know about the rogue bankers, the rogue traders the realtors who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them. We all know that, given a little power, people generally look after themselves first. I must admit that even I (and I’ve been around for years) was taken aback by an answer from a senior company executive to the question “What are large organizations in business for?” I expected the usual – “bottom line”, “shareholder value”, “profit”. But the answer I got was entirely unexpected: “The really senior guys are there to make as much money for themselves in the shortest space of time possible and then get the hell out before the wheels come off!”

And, yet, once in a while, I come across a group of people who are different and, as a result, exceptionally successful without being dishonest, untrustworthy or downright jailable! Only a couple of times throughout my career (in large organisations and as a “consultant”) have I had the experience that I’ve recently enjoyed with a Senior Management Group who not only know how the world really works – they’re actually putting it into practice. Part of an multi-national organisation, their business is the most profitable division in over ninety countries. They hold the number one market position in their market (with more than twice the market share of the number two) – whereas their colleagues’ normal market position is somewhere between number seven and eight. And they only set up their business two years ago! These guys and girls don’t just work hard – they play hard too, having the kind of fun that was squashed out of companies by bean-counters in the late 1980s.

Why are they different from any other organization I’ve ever come across? First of all, the CEO takes a very alternative approach to business and life. He understands that you’re at your most effective and impressive when you’re abnormally focused in the present moment. He knows that, if you’re worried about trying to make an impression (on his team, on customers, on the international board, on whoever) you’ll never make one! He knows that if you don’t find a way of truly listening to your real “gut instinct”, then you’ll never take the bold decisions and the bold initiatives which have taken him to where he and his team are. He knows that you don’t take “No” for an answer to something that makes sense – that’s why his entity has been allowed so much scope and freedom by global HQ.

He knows about the “power of now”, how to focus in the present moment and how to be achieve abnormal success effortlessly. He practices what many of my clients call their “mental exercises” – for all the world very similar to age-old meditations – because those exercises develop a sharp discipline of mind that creates a single-mindedness and presence that creates effortless success. But, more than that, he’s introduced his entire senior management team to the concepts and practice of how to clear one’s mind, how to discipline an otherwise wayward and distracted mind and how to fully focus in the here and now.

Some members of his team have called that decision “brave” or “courageous” – but such decisions are only brave and courageous to the so-called normal idiots who research tells us only use 1% of their mental power. Some say that it takes “guts” to do what he did but, surely, the old (and insanely stupid) template of planning next year’s business growth based on this years’ simply doesn’t stack up when you ask the question “What could our business be doing? What could we really achieve? What if we start from a completely new perspective?”

Seventy years research tells us that normal people are not in control of their own minds – in other words, normal people are mad. By definition, normal business and normal business practices must be, at the very least, totally dysfunctional (all you have to do is read the psychological research on team dysfunction). You need to be abnormal to be abnormally successful – you need to control your mind to be in control of your destiny. It might take “guts” to do what my friend has done – but no one would argue with the stunning and effortless nature of the results. Is there anyone else out there who’s “brave” enough?

The Dangers of Recognition

Posted on June 13, 2009 by admin

1162149_colour_explosion We all have the ability to recognise – someone we already know, a difficult situation when we see one, an opportunity that’s staring us in the face or a problem that needs our attention. However, our psychological ability to recognise is just as much a curse as it is a blessing. We take in raw data through our body’s five senses – a psychologist would term this “bottom up” data – through the process of cognition. At this point, the data, of itself is meaningless – we need to interpret it. This is done by adding our “stored knowledge” or “top down information” to the raw data and, in this way, we make sense of what is going on. This is the process of re-cognition.

As I said, this process enables us to make sense of the present moment. Or does it? The big problem with our stored knowledge or top down information is that, generally speaking, it is decades out of date. We generally start storing key elements of that “knowledge” between 12 and 18 months – when we create “schemata” (or pigeonholes) into which we then fit anything similar that we might encounter in later life. From an evolutionary perspective, this gave us a huge advantage – we didn’t have to waste our precious attention on routine day-to-day stuff – we needed that attention to watch out for the next man-eating tiger that might otherwise devour us!

But the result is that, in the modern day, we pay little or no attention to what our senses are actually telling us in the present moment – we prefer, automatically and subconsciously of course, to let our top down information make sense of what’s going on for us. And, in the process, we make nonsense of the present moment and react accordingly.

Somewhere between 12 and 25 years (adolescence), we generally stop taking in new top down information. That has drastic implications for the rest of our lives because, for the rest of our lives, we live in an illusory world of make believe – we create what we think is going on based on out of date information. As a result, so-called “normal” people never really appreciate what is actually happening – everything is “filtered” through their stored knowledge – and, as result, they react to what they think is going on. And, as you and I know, reacting generally makes matters worse, not better.

Quick example. Somebody at work asks you to do something. Because of the way we automatically pigeonhole people, you will have made up your mind whether you like or dislike the person who’s doing the asking within four minutes of meeting them for the first time. Say, for example, she reminds you of your sister-in-law (and you hate your sister-in-law because she reminds you of someone who bullied you at school thirty years ago). Also, the thing you’ve been asked to do is something that you think you don’t like doing – you might, for example, have a hang-up about putting together some sales figures because, when you were small, your father gave you grief over how awful your math marks were (these are all true client stories, by the way).

So, someone, who not only could be the nicest person in the world but who might also have a major impact on your career and on your life, asks you to do a simple task – and you snarl at them in return. It’s an automatic reaction. The request is the raw data – but you’ve made nonsense of the request based on a load of out-dated notions that are stored deeply on your subconscious. And that’s the process of recognition.

And that’s what gets normal adults into trouble. Conflict breaks out at work and at home – not because of what’s actually going on but because of what normal people think is going on. But, worse than that, real opportunities are missed because they are never spotted in the first place. The opportunity could be staring you in the face and, because of your top down data, you wouldn’t recognize it for what it truly is.

Normal people need to stop recognizing and start cognizing all over again. That’s why so many business and sports people meditate – it enables them stop recognizing and start experiencing what is actually and really going on, using their five senses, in the present moment. Watch your TVs – all the great sports people “meditate” before a field kick or a tee shot, before a penalty or a serve in tennis. And I meditation was good enough for someone as prolifically successful in business as Thomas Edison well then, it’s good enough for me. Start paying attention to what your five senses are actually telling you. Stop analyzing, judging, adding your top down out of date information. Whether it’s through some form of formal meditation or just “stopping to smell the roses” – break the vicious cycle of the normal repetitive behaviour that normal recognition automatically produces.

Photo: martyn rice

A Clear and Present Mind – Meditation and Flow

Posted on June 13, 2009 by admin

1155076_arizona_cactus_3 Most people lead normal lives. Those lives are, generally speaking, repetitive – where anything spectacular rarely happens. Of course, the normal life is punctuated by the spectacular – falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child, the odd special holiday. But, generally speaking, normal lives plod along.

Research tells us that at least 96% of us are normal and that normal people are rarely really engaged in or attentive to what they are doing in the here and now – research estimates that the normal person is only 1% engaged. In other words, the normal person is only 1% present in the only place and time we have – the here and now. If you consider the findings of quantum physics, that the universe works on the basis of energy exchange – that is universal energy responds to our input of energy – it is little wonder that the spectacular is a rare occurrence in the normal life. After all, universal energy will hardly notice if one only invests 1% energy in the present moment.

The same research indicates that normal people rarely experience “peak performance” – that’s the spectacular that I was talking about a moment ago. However, we also know that we can experience peak performance or peak experience if we become more engaged or more attentive in the present moment. You see, a peak experience is peak because it is so out-of-the-ordinary that it grabs more than 1% of our attention – an abnormal amount of our attention. When our attention is that engaged, parts of our brain that are otherwise inactive become highly activated. It also works the other way around. If we deliberately pay more attention to the present moment, if we deliberately become more engaged in the here and now, those same parts of our brain become highly activated and, as a result of our own choice, we experience a peak moment. Or, to put it in terms of the University of Chicago, we experience “flow”.

When we are in flow, universal energy flows with us. Because we are abnormally present to the moment, universal energy notices and gives us an abnormal return on our investment. Life flows – we seem to be the right person in the right place at the right time. Things we need to happen simply fall into place. We stumble across opportunities that take us in the right direction. Carl Jung would have called that synchronicity. A quantum physicist would explain it in terms of universal energy’s ability to respond to our intentions.

Many of us have experienced that type of “flow” – at some point in many lives it comes naturally. But, the more burdened we become by the cares of everyday life, the less likely we are to experience flow. That’s when many of my clients meet me for the first time. They either find themselves at a crossroads in their professional or personal lives and hanker after that “flow” that they may have once experienced or that they inherently know is “out there”.

In fact, flow is “in there” – it is within. Flow is found by calming one’s mind. Research tells us that the normal mind has 50,000 random thoughts – most of them useless – each day. That noise in our heads distracts us, takes us away from the moment, disables our desire to be more present and focused, more effective and “turned on” in the here and now. As a result, flow doesn’t flow! We get stuck in the rut that is repetitive normal living – where flow is no longer experienced, where life becomes mundane and routine.

To re-experience flow, you have to take an inner journey, one which involves switching off that useless distractive noise. It’s as simple and as challenging as that! Because our thoughts will always be with us, we have to learn how to let them pass, we have to learn how not to give them our energy. In doing so, we begin to learn how to invest an abnormal amount of our energy in the present moment. In doing so, we activate those otherwise dormant areas of our brain and, once again, experience flow.

How does one turn off that incessant inner chatter? I give my clients a variety of “mental tools” – but the one that’s most effective is meditation. Meditation is like a multi-purpose power tool – it gives you the ability to ignore the mental noise completely and not only enter into flow whilst meditating – but enables that clear and present state of mind become your default state of mind as you go through your normal day. In that way, your normal day becomes abnormal, your ordinary life becomes extra-ordinary.

Many people meditate – and, for many, it makes precious little difference in their lives. But meditation, practiced with the purpose of disciplining the mind to pay attention to the here and now, will bring you into flow, will change your life – beyond recognition.

But, be under no illusion. Meditation is a lifelong journey requiring discipline and daily commitment. However, for the investment of a few minutes in each twenty four hours, the returns are more than well worth it.

Photo: Gayle Lindgren

1.0 Degree° Amarani

To upgrade is human

Tag Archives: normal people