Tag Archives: #low self confidence

A Lesson Of Life for each of us

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” ― Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays.

Massive Bulldozer lifting power. Image from hulcher.com

Or: The Lesson of Life I learned from a bulldozer and a bucket of oil!

Think back to 1984, if you can.

This was the time of the war over the Falklands Islands, between England and Argentina. It was the year Indira Ghandi was assassinated. Reagan made his famous joke: “My fellow Americans, I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” He supposedly didn’t know the microphone was on. It was the year of the summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and the Soviet Union boycotted it. Wonder why. 1984 is the name of George Orwell’s famous novel, although he wrote it in 1949. It was the year the first “megabit” chip was ever made in Bells Laboratories – the event that heralded and made possible the super computers. 1984 was the year the “Bill Cosby Show” had its first TV premiere.

1984 was the year my old bulldozer gave me the most amazing lesson of life.

In that former life, I had a farm and an earth moving business, doing land clearing, soil and water conservation dams and channels, noxious weed management, tree removal and levelling building blocks, regular bulldozer type work.

I need to give you some idea of the scale of the machinery used, to put this into perspective.

Ironbark Tree – image from nationalregisterofbigtrees.com.au

Imagine a tree, 100 feet tall, around 30 metres. That’s half as long again as a cricket pitch. This tree is an ironbark tree, half a metre through at the trunk. It has branches and leaves on top, roots around 2 metres deep in the earth, and with a big clump of soil around them. It had to be moved. My bulldozer was actually a track loader with a clam bucket on the front (similar to the photo above), useful for picking up objects in the big jaws. The tree was gently pushed over and laid on the ground, roots and all. My bulldozer came alongside, clamped the jaws over the trunk of the tree, picked it up and carried it across the field to a large log pile, lifted it 15 feet (4 metres) into the air and laid it on top of the pile, for pole harvesting later. That was easy. And it shows the power of the hydraulic system of this particular bulldozer.

Earth moving equipment needs to be maintained for it to work properly, and there are many moving parts, using lots of oil.

Onto the lesson of life. We, my assistant David and I, were doing a regular oil change. The hydraulic oil was very special – read ‘expensive’. In 1984 dollars, when a 5 gallon can of regular oil was $20, this was $200! Every drop precious. We drained the old oil, and replaced the filters and the oil plug. Because the machine was so big, we were working on opposite sides of it. David was 18 years old and as fit, flexible and athletic as any farm kid in those days. I called out to him:

“David, I’ve replaced the plug and tightened it. I’m ready to put the new oil in. Have you tightened the filters?”

“Yep. They are tight.”

In went the new oil, glistening gold as it poured down the funnel. I wiped my hands on an oil rag, then climbed up to start the engine. As it started, a spray mist of fine gold particles created a perfect rainbow arc beside me. The precious oil was gone in seconds. David hadn’t tightened the filters enough after all! The incredibly powerful hydraulic pump that could lift a 100 foot tall iron bark tree up in the air, roots and all, pumped all that expensive oil out into a magical golden rainbow.

I shut the engine down and sat for a few seconds in silence. David stood there, out of range, but prepared to sprint for the cover of the bushes behind him. Much went through my mind. First was the thought of the cost. Then there was the thought of how much spare oil we had, because the job had to go on. Then there was David, almost rooted to the spot in fear, very apprehensive about what I might do. He looked ready to bolt into the bush and make his way home across country. A virtual whirlwind of thoughts. However, although I felt like a good butt-kicking would release some pressure from the head of steam I had developed, I didn’t feel it would achieve much else. There had to be a better way.

I looked at David, with a purposely blank expression. “I should have checked those filters, shouldn’t I?”

He just looked back in surprise – not expecting that. He was expecting spanners or other loose objects to be hurled at him I think. He mumbled something in reply but I don’t think his lips had reconnected to his thoughts at that time.

“Could you get the other drum of oil please David? I’ll clean this up and tighten the filters again.”

We put the new oil in and it tested perfectly; back to work we went.

That’s about right! Image from bestsayingsquotes.com

What was our lesson of life?

In the years since 1984, I have found so many lessons that came from that incident. I’ll list a few:

1. Getting angry didn’t serve anyone. Dealing with the problem did.
2. Blaming didn’t serve anyone. Taking responsibility did. On that point – was David to blame? He did say he tightened the filters. But David was an 18 year old staring goggle eyed at a huge machine, the likes of which were out of his imagination before he came to work for me. He was under my instruction, and it was my responsibility to make sure he understood and did what was necessary. No, I should have checked!
3. Monitor what you delegate. That came home with a $200 price tag, in 1984 – I have since had whole weekend seminars that taught me less than those few seconds and cost more too! Powerful lesson.
4. Teaching and imparting lessons rather than blaming for mistakes gains respect and trust.

I’ll spend a moment on this point. David was only 18 and this could have sent him packing, back to a cranky father with a drinking and gambling problem. Instead, it was a turning point in his life, as I later came to find out. From that moment on, he stepped up and took responsibility for maintenance. Never again did anything go unchecked; nothing was ever allowed to leak oil, rattle, or other than behave like brand new. It became his mission, to look after my machinery and be the best operator possible. He became a zealot!

We worked together for another couple of years when the business expanded and we took delivery of a massive earth moving scraper. When the dealer left after unloading and setting it up, I threw him the keys and said “Look after this, would you?”

The look on his face was priceless. However, the pride he felt was evident and he applied himself to caring for that new machine also, as though it was his very own.

David did not need a reprimand on that pivotal day. A lesson of life comes in many forms and opportunities are often disguised as disasters. That day was perhaps my greatest lesson of life and as I reflect on it from time to time, still more comes through.

5. Nurture your people, to allow them to become what is possible. Understanding of their situation and circumstances means that sometimes, you’ll make allowances. When you do, they have the opportunity to see that you are treating them as an individual, not a number. David realised I cared how he felt, and although he expected to be given the blame, he already felt bad enough – no one needed to hammer it home any more. His growth from this incident was phenomenal, but only because he was nurtured through it.
6. Education is critical. I didn’t expect David to know everything. I worked from where he was in life and built on his knowledge from that point. When he left my employ, he could stand tall with anyone in the industry.
7. The lessons you teach are taught to others. Did David tell anyone about this incident? Yes. His younger brother was the first one who came to talk to me about it. Their relationship changed at that time, as David became his mentor, rather than his tormentor – which many older brothers are. They taught others how to deal with crises when it happened to them. And so it went, down the line. Who knows how far the benefits of that lesson of life on that day have gone.
8. If David’s lesson from the day was to react in anger, instead of how it happened, do you think that lesson would have been perpetuated? Of course. However, it broke a cycle of blame and anger that had been his family’s way for generations. One incident can change a life, depending on how you deal with it.

In the 30 years since this event, much has happened. When I sold the machinery, David went his own way and I entered the corporate world. I attended seminars and heard the greats speak of their lesson of life and the amazing incidents they recounted. However, I often wondered about how these much embroidered tales of their wisdom and mastery actually began. Did they have an oil can moment too?

With my current programs and coaching clients, I am most conscious of how important the simplest lesson of life can be. The opportunity to impart them is vital, as we never know where they will end up and who they will empower.

“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” ― Tom Bodett

Life Change Coaching?

We still have a couple of coaching places available for anyone wishing to experience and benefit from our life change coaching first hand.

At your free initial session;
• We will look at what you want and gain clarity on the cause or need for your desire for coaching and change.
• We will give you an objective perspective of your situation and the opportunities, as well as the obstructions to your progress.
• Finally, we can help you establish a plan to progress your desires and goals to where you really want them to be.

If this is you, take a look at our Coaching Page, answer the simple questions at the bottom and send the answers through to us, to schedule your free session. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.

Ray Jamieson

PPS: If you wish to read my book “Lessons of Life”, check it out here!

Help From My Friends

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” ― Helen Keller

Help from my friends – Life change coaching

“You have everything you need inside of you to create anything in your life that you desire.”
― Mike Basevic, No Limits, Mastering the Mental Edge

Evolution and Change

A lot has changed in the last few million years. A creature emerged from amongst the primitive life forms on this planet, learned to use tools, to walk upright, communicate, harness fire and began to exert an influence over its environment. That creature was the predecessor of what evolved to become what we now know as mankind! It became us!

Believe it or not, most of the changes occurred, at an ever increasing rate, in only the last 10,000 years. Change in the 21st century is occurring at the fastest rate ever, with knowledge doubling in an estimated time of every few months – depending on who you ask! Whilst it is the fastest rate ever, it is also increasing exponentially!

To put this in perspective, 1,500 years ago we were generally, globally in an agrarian age, where man lived off the land, either hunting and gathering or cultivating crops to live on. OK, there were a few plunderers too – a lot of us have some Viking blood in our ancestry! In those days, change was generational – in other words, parents would teach their children what their parents had taught to them, and significant inventions and innovations were decades apart. The wheel, steel and bronze tools replacing stone tools, feathered flights on arrows, and so on. Significant advances in their time, but decades or even centuries apart.

Leading up to the 20th century, we saw a rush of inventions including wireless radio wave transmissions, the motor car which followed the invention of the internal combustion engine, the electric light bulb and the subsequent development of power generating stations and electricity transmission lines and so on. These followed and were often inspired by developments in the Renaissance Period where brilliant minds like Leonardo Da Vinci put forward some crazy (at the time!) ideas for things like flight, numerous inventions of which many are now in common use. Of course, the printing press came out of this period, enabling the distribution of these new ideas and innovations to the wider audiences.

Man learns to fly! The Wright Brothers at Kittyhawk 1911. Image from kittyhawk.bu.edu

Manned flight soon followed and travel around the globe began in earnest early in the 20th century. Rather than months of travel to cross an ocean, it became possible in hours. Knowledge and innovation jumped from brilliant minds on one continent to brilliant minds on another, and innovation and invention spread like wildfire.

So began a rapid process of ever faster change in the lives of ordinary people, like you and I.

In the early 20th century, a tradesman printer knew he would have a job for life working at his printing press. So did the person working in the woollen mills. They were in stable environments, creating products for a stable, local market. Those jobs virtually vanished within the next 50 years! Whilst there are still printers now in the 21st century, most of them work through computer programs with digital images – nothing to do with the printing presses of the early 20th century.

Woollen mills now are massive automated machines that require few people to operate them and are no longer local. Australia once produced more wool than any other country on the planet, from a flock of 170 million sheep. It had woollen mills and processing plants dotted around the country, in many regional towns and all the capital cities. There are now none! All wool from the flock of only 50 million sheep is now exported and processed in a relatively few countries overseas from us. That industry and those careers no longer exist in Australia, and the same can be said of many industries and careers in different countries around the world.

What we no longer have:
• Vinyl record manufacturing plants – it’s all CD or DVD now, stamped out by the billions in almost unmanned factories.
• carburetor manufacturers – engines are now electronically fuel injected – totally different technology and factories.
• Photographic development labs – everything is now digital.
• Steam engine powered manufacturing plants – everything is gas, oil or electricity powered.
• Steam trains – either diesel or electric powered.
• Incandescent light bulbs – converting to energy saving fluorescent light tubes.

The list goes on.

More importantly, the lives of the people who used to create and manufacture these items changed with the products vanishing. Careers and industries changed and so did the lives of the people in them. This rate of change is ongoing and increasing, and the lives of every person on the planet are affected.

How do you manage the change process?

Sometimes the change is thrust upon you, as it was for many people when those industries vanished. Sometimes, it’s a health challenge that forces change on your life. Relationships are a challenge, moving from thinking for one to thinking of your new family. When children move out, the “empty nest” syndrome kicks in. Once again, it’s the parents learning to live with and share with just each other again. Financial challenges – increasing costs and the need to replace items around the house, or even the house – these are all stressful challenges and require change. Sometimes, it is an internal desire to grow, evolve and change, for more personal reasons and ambitions. How do you manage it? Life Change Coaching is one very powerful option!

It’s really a three step process. These are the basic steps:
1. Knowing and understanding what you want and need. Clarity of your vision, something specific to aim for.
2. A realistic perspective on what it is you want, the challenges you face, your opportunities and resources. Sometimes, it can be impossible to see this from where you are in life, because life overwhelms you with the urgency and the need for change.
3. A plan or program to make the changes happen, the way you want!

Change WILL happen, whether we like it or not. If someone else directs it and controls it, the change happens according to THEIR AGENDA and for THEIR BENEFIT! If it happens too fast, the change process can have traumatic effects on the person who bears the brunt.

What is the alternative?

Take charge of the change process with personal life change coaching. When you realise that you need to make changes, identify them and then seek help with the process. If you wanted to change and improve your golf game, you’d get golf coaching. When it’s your life that has to change, why not work with #life change coaching?

Life Change Coaching is what happens when you ask a suitably qualified and experienced person to assist you with perspective, objectivity, experience and resources to manage change in your life, whatever those changes might be.

Life Change Coaching is a valuable and viable alternative to being subject to the winds of change on your own. Whilst we may have been great at what we were doing, that doesn’t mean we are either qualified or prepared for what is coming next!

With a little help from my friends… Image from ncea.org.uk

Why have life change coaching?

There are a few powerful reasons to work with someone outside your areas of challenge and change. These include:
1. An unburdened perspective on your circumstances and situation, free of the pressures you face.
2. An objective appraisal of your challenges and obstacles.
3. A realistic look at your opportunities and the resources you already have.
4. Their objectivity can help you gain clarity that otherwise may evade you, on exactly what you need and where to aim for in your life.
5. Tools, resources and experiences you may not have access to from within your own life experiences and circumstances.

Learn more about Life Change Coaching.

Life Change Coaching is not like regular life coaching. Click here to go into the website and learn more about Life Change Coaching, the specialty of Life Change 90.

Would you like a free Life Change Coaching session?

For those who wish to or need to make changes in their lives, a limited number of 35 minute life change coaching initial sessions are available free. All you need to do is request the free session and answer these questions to get your free session underway.

1. What do you want to change?
2. How urgent and critical is this change?
3. Whose change is it – yours or required by an external influence?
4. What time frame do you have?
5. What other areas of your life would you like to improve or change?
6. Full name
7. Email address
8. Skype name and contact details
9. Time zone and location

To take advantage of this offer, please complete the contact form at this link, and answer the questions above. If places are available, we will schedule your session.

If you know anyone else who could benefit from a Life Change Coaching program, please forward this to them. It may change their life too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“Some strive to make themselves great. Others help others see and find their own greatness. It’s the latter who really enrich the world we live in” ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

Fine tuning techniques – image from chicagoceocoaching.com

Google Teenage Problems.

Looking like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. Image from visual photos

I AM SHOCKED!

Teenagers only have to focus on themselves – it’s not until we get older that we realize that other people exist. Jennifer Lawrence

I was originally going to write about the most influential and positive role models of my early life, and did a little research on it. I looked for how many searches people did on the topic, and found that there were only 30 searches (globally) for that exact search and around 3,000 for that topic in general.

However, in the same search program, which brings up “related topic searches”, I also found:

Search topic Exact match Broad match

positive role models for teens                   10                                   100
positive role models for teenagers           30                                   270
positive role models                                   720                                 18720
positive role models for girls                  70                                    630

However, the search also found:

troubled teens    4400                            171600
teen depression                                           9900                           386100
teen pregnancy                                            49500                          1930500
teen pregnancy help                                 590                               14750
teenage problems                                       6600                             257400
teen issues                                                   2900                             113100
teenage depression    8100                              307800
teen suicide                                               18100                            705900

Not necessarily a good role model either! Image from belfasttimes.co

What is this saying about what is really going on with teenage problems?

There are more searches each month globally for “Teen Suicide” than there are for all the positive searches for good teen role models! There are so many more people seeking solutions to the teenage problems, than there are seeking positive ways to prevent the problems!

That lifts the scab on the huge issue of teenage problems. I confess, until I saw this, I didn’t realise the incredible depth of the teenage problems issue, even though I have written about the topic in general previously in my blog on “Empowerment for Teens”.

What is needed, obviously, are many more positive influences and role models for children and teenagers, to influence the growth and development of our youth so that these teenage problems are prevented – rather than becoming teenage problems needing treatment!

We can all play a role in this – literally! Are you a good role model for youth? Do you lead with an example that you would be happy your children could follow? Or would you be concerned if your children did as you demonstrated, but not as you said?

Children learn by example and follow the leads given by their most powerful influences in those formative years. Those potentially positive influential people are firstly, their parents, family friends and especially friends of their parents who they see regularly, and their teachers. They are also greatly influenced by what their own friends and peers do and say – mostly learning their habits – good or bad, because in the early stages of learning at least, they still don’t know the difference!

Peer groups – they can make or break a teenager! Image from tagesthemen24.de

How can we break this cycle of teenage problems?

Who were the most influential people in your early years? What did you learn from them? What can you still learn from them, on reflection?

Let me tell you of a few influences of my early years, to explain what I mean.

Aside from my parents’ influence, we had a family friend called Dennis. He was an amazing guy and a lot of fun to be with. He met my Dad when I was around 4 or 5 years old, when we were having some construction work done on the farm. He was a friend of the builder, and Dad and Dennis hit it off. He often came up to do a bit of spotlight shooting after this, and that was when we met his wife, Norma.

Norma was a paraplegic. She had been wheelchair bound since around age 18, when a car accident changed her life. She and Dennis were sweethearts at the time and he never left her side. They married and were fortunate to have a child. Dennis was a man’s man, worked as an electrician in the steel mills at Port Kembla, but was also a devoted husband and father, with strict personal disciplines and moral standards that he lived by. He set an example that has stayed with me for all of my life.

When Norma died, I was about 16. She and Dennis had become part of our family, even though they lived 200 miles away. It hit us hard, but Dennis was our strength through it all. He is still strong and courageous, well into his eighties now. He remarried and shared a wonderful relationship with his second wife until recently when she also passed away, again leaving him alone. I spoke to him about his loss and he was shaken, although still his wonderful, compassionate self. I thanked him for the example he had set me for my life to aim for, and he was most humble. He said it was just a day at a time and his aim was to make each day count. Dennis, you certainly did – your days and mine also. Thank you.

Teachers can have a huge influence on the enthusiasm and appetite of youth for all things exciting and perhaps forbidden. No one knew this better than the other major influence in my early years, that of John Stanley Gabb, the wool classing teacher and registrar of the Cootamundra Technical College. He was only a small man, and his uniform seemed to be a white dustcoat and shiny black shoes, over a shirt and tie. He was always well-groomed, probably around 40 years of age when we met, and I was 15.

His class was about a dozen unruly farm teenagers who were ostensibly there to learn to class wool, so they could handle the shearing season on their own farms. However, living miles from town and company meant these guys were also out for a day off the farm, to play up and create merry hell wherever they went before, during and after the class. John Gabb was equal to the task.

Big John Clark was a great example of the students. He would stand up near the front of the room, one foot on the chair seat, elbow on his knee and told jokes non-stop for as long as he was allowed, never cracking a smile, never pausing and knowing that the rest of the room was unable to draw breath for the laughter. But John Gabb was able to judge exactly when was the right time to intervene and say “OK, Guys, let’s give that a break and work on what we are supposed to be doing.” Always firm, but never authoritarian, and always respected.

Respected so much that when these boisterous teens had trouble, he was also the one they went to for advice. No, he wasn’t their agony aunt, but he was a great first step in the process, usually before the boys told their parents the problems they were having. Over the four years I knew him, these informal chats prevented probably half a dozen major episodes of teenage problems that I knew about. He also had other classes and there were a few hundred students at the college, whom I never met. However, he made it his business to know them all, and be available to them.

Twenty years later, I went back to Cootamundra to find John Gabb, and he had retired. As it happened, he retired to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, only an hour’s drive north of where I lived. I was running my seminars at the time and made it my business to call in to his home, to thank him personally for the influence he had in my life. I did not realise during my time at college how powerful he was. It was only a decade later when I faced certain challenges that his lessons, teachings and examples were the ones I used to pull me through. As I began writing my seminars, teaching and lecturing from the stage to quite large groups of people, I realised how much of his influence was still coming through.

That’s the thing about solid foundations and good principles, they are right and correct, down through the ages. John Stanley Gabb was influencing young people still, all around Australia, through my work, twenty and thirty years later, as he sat in his lounge room up on the Sunshine Coast. When I met him again, his welcome was warm. When I told him what I was doing, and thanked him for the powerful influence he had been in my life, his eyes teared over and he thanked me for telling him.

People such as these are the ones who really make a difference. I know that I could have had serious teenage problems if not for their influence. I was as wild and strong-minded as any other teen, perhaps more than most, but I had great role models in these people, as well as the examples set by my parents. I was fortunate. It seems so many more kids are not, or there would not be so many searches for teenage problems on Google!

Again, I ask you, are you a suitable role model for your children, and those of your neighbours and friends? Or will those children be searching for “teenage problems” on Google as well?

Are you a good role model for her to follow? Image From strategylab.ca

If you are happy that you are being all you can be, as a role model for today’s youth, then I congratulate you. If you feel you could do more, then may I recommend a look at Life Change 90?

You already know you CANNOT TELL children and teenagers how to act and behave. That’s just an invitation to rebel against you and everything you stand for.

Rather, demonstrate in your life what they aspire to, with the love and satisfaction they also desire, through knowing and using the tools available to them also and which you will not only learn, but develop as habits through Life Change 90. Show them what they want to see and let them know it is available to them also. Join me in Life Change 90.

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own. Doug Larson

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is. Dean Kamen

Related Blogs

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Success Habits

Og Mandino – Lessons from the Master

Og Mandino Courtesy of Wikipedia

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
― Og Mandino

When Og Mandino touched my life

There are moments in our lives that are indelibly etched, that live with us forever. One such moment in my life is when Og Mandino first walked out on stage in front of me, sat down and began to speak.

It was a day in early 1987, at the old Boondall Entertainment Centre on the north side of Brisbane. There were half a dozen famous speakers on the schedule; I’d only heard of a couple. A friend and business associate at the time invited me along. He had a mobile mechanic business and credited much of his success to staying motivated by events such as this. That still holds true, we do need a regular injection of inspiration. I was then new to the corporate world and this was my first taste of it.

A couple of high energy, foot stomping, stand on the chair and chant speakers came on, one of whom has since mellowed and gained great popularity. When he spoke, there was a great energy in the hall, 17,000 people were up and chanting too, clapping and cheering.

Then Og Mandino took the stage.

The man had a presence I have rarely experienced. He spoke softly, invited us to sit, then he sat and began to speak. In contrast to the energy of the previous speaker, he hardly moved on his chair. The audience didn’t move, not even sure they breathed for the next hour as this man poured wisdom forth as though there was nothing else happening anywhere in the world. I don’t recall a single person coughing, not a chair creaking, not a sound for that hour, except the voice of Og Mandino reaching into my heart and changing my life around for me. If ever there was an audience with an angel, this was it.

I have no further recollection of any of the speakers of that day, although I still have the promo material and notes I made. Og Mandino had done his work. That was, I think, his last visit to Australia. He passed away in September of 1996, the world was saddened by his passing and his loss to humanity was incredible. However, the man left a legacy that I had begun to devour long before then. He was also an inspired author.

The Og Mandino Legacy

Og Mandino wrote many books, the most famous of all was “The Greatest Salesman in the World”. I read it many times, and followed up a number of times with the ‘workbook’ “The Greatest Secret”. It was while working through the exercises in this book that I gained the personal empowerment and inspiration that has me writing to you now.

Not only did #Og Mandino teach through the wisdom of his writing, he used strategies that if implemented, work brilliantly. Old but powerful concepts that the greatest teachers and philosophers down the ages have used to change the world. He made the suggestion that we record our successes daily, so that we could see at a glance, just how successful we were. He described a simple graph paper chart he used and I followed up on it.

First, I took a sheet of paper, ruled it up as I thought he meant, and went to work with it. Then I got my first computer, and created a spreadsheet in Excel. Each morning I would set my intention and goals for the day, and each night I would tick off my successes. My life turned on this program.

At the time, I was recovering both in health and from a business failure, and my goals for recovery from each went on this sheet. Month after month, I would check back and chart my progress. Some months I would see poor results, so I got out my diary and checked what I did that did not work – and saw how to change it for the better. Other months were a series of daily celebrations. On review, I could see what worked, so I incorporated more of those events and activities into my life. Simple although crude, but incredibly effective, daily doses of empowerment. Daily readings of Og Mandino books were a staple at this time in my life, consolidating my successes and carrying me through the dark times.

Og Mandino Fundamentals Courtesy of pixpirations.com

After only a couple of years of rebuilding my health and my life, I restarted in a new career direction. I had undertaken the Entrepreneurs Program at University of Queensland, the Business Programs at Kedron Business College and numerous other courses, programs and seminars, when the share market crashed.

The 1987/1988 share market crash was a global catastrophe. Lives and businesses were ruined overnight. But I was ready. I found that people were coming to me in my new vocation of business adviser to get them back out of trouble, out of impending bankruptcy, business closures and persecution by the banks. I had made my own turn-around, and now armed with the tools of my recent experiences, I took on this challenge. The incredible part was that the empowerment strategies I had used on myself, combined with the business education I had obtained, were both the emotional and business support and advice that these ailing and failing business owners needed. We never lost one who came on board with us! We saved millions of dollars for companies that were within days and sometimes hours of closure, hundreds of jobs that would have vanished, ruining lives and families as they went. But we saved them all.

I thank Og Mandino for it. His teachings and wisdom enabled me to be in the right place at the right time, to make this contribution and Mr Og Mandino, I am eternally grateful to you Sir. Thank you.

The programs I created back then were followed by far more advanced programs in later years, seminars, workshops and advanced trainings in many fields, delving into the neuro-sciences and alternative thinking therapies and strategies way before they were popular or fashionable. Life has changed and evolved much for me since then, and the products and services I now deliver are far more advanced than anything I could have dreamed of back in the 1980’s. However, just like you can trace your DNA back hundreds or thousands of years, so you can trace the DNA of my programs and training back to the simple, fundamental philosophies and teachings of Og Mandino, and some of the other great mentors of my early years in business and training.

Whilst some people have said that “unless it’s created with the technology of the current day, it doesn’t work anymore”, I think about the other fundamental laws of nature and physics and the generalised principles that still make the world go round. Gravity is one such law. It’s still working incredibly well. Cause and effect. Very powerful also. Sayings like “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar” and so on, still relevant and absolutely true. The fundamentals will always work. Because they are the fundamentals of life and of very our existence on this planet. They are there for everyone to use, if only they knew about them and would access them to their benefit.

Please look at this link about OG MANDINO. His life story makes for powerful reading. Before becoming a best-selling author, Og Mandino was a bombardier and pilot in the US Air Force during World War 2. He flew with fellow pilot and later movie star, James Stewart. During his early life after the war, he, like so many other returned soldiers, contemplated ending it all, but found inspiration in a book, and his life changed also. His remarkable life story is well worth reading…

Og Mandino Air Crew Courtesy of www.natickvets.org

If you would like to experience the benefits of the teachings of Og Mandino as they influenced my life, you can. I have packaged much of what I learned from Og Mandino into Life Change 90, the life change program that over a period of just 90 days, can transform the life of the person who truly commits to it. No matter what you do, you are here, on this planet, and you are likely to be here for the next ninety days. Make them count. Get Life Change 90!

If you know someone else whose life could benefit from exposure to the principles espoused and taught by Og Mandino, please send this blog article to them. I’m sure they will thank you.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.

Ray

Moving House and all that stuff

Guess what? Image from MotivatedPhotos.com

Moving House

“Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.” ― Tahir Shah, Travels With Myself

There’s something about moving house. New energy, new location, new start – another beginning. Yes, that’s all true. But so is the disruption, dislocation, disturbance and the dismay when the removalists, the phone or power company doesn’t keep their many promises to make this ‘the smoothest operation ever…..!”

And that’s where we are – moving house! For the next couple of weeks, we may, or may not get a chance to get more blogs out, but rest assured, after we settle into the new home, there is so much waiting for you. For example, the next couple of blogs – titles coming are “Empowerment Lessons from an Oilcan” and “Where to start”. Powerful, fundamental stuff, with a great story embedded around the lessons I found along the way.

Just like tonight. Moving house.

Oh no! I love doing that! Image from motleynews.net

How do you keep your head together when the plan is to disrupt, dissemble and generally pull apart every part of your life as it is, box it and reassemble many miles and hours later?

There’s a way that is working for me. I work from the Life Change 90 program, and the organisation it provides in my day is handling everything for me. I put in my challenges and goals for the day each morning, I get my pep talk and off I go. The progress has been amazing – we are actually some days ahead of schedule! Then in the evening, I sit for a few minutes, tick off what we have achieved, tally the results, write a few words about the day and its progress and enable tomorrow’s plan and schedule to come through. I note that and I’m outta here – those few minutes morning and night have made the rest of my day so smooth!

One of the things I am working on is a mild revision of the Life Change 90 program. Correcting a few typo errors in the original text, which somehow I missed before it went to the producer, and adding a few details in a few sections to make it even simpler to understand and live with. By the end of the month, I expect the new version will be uploaded and available to you. If you are one of the folks who take a copy in the meantime, you’ll have the new one emailed to you, as soon as we get it back to us! No charge!

If you’d like this level of support in your day, whether you are moving house, or moving mountains, this is where to get it. Click here and download the best friend you could wish for online! If you know someone else who needs something like this, send it to them and share the love. After all, everyone needs a friend!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails. And removalist trucks!

Ray

“Some part of me can’t wait to see what life’s going to come up with next! Anticipation without the usual anxiety. And underneath it all is the feeling that we both belong here, just as we are, right now.” ― Alexander Shulgin

OK, we are ready! Image from blog.gamos.gr

Driven or Drifting

Driven? Image from Forza Motorsport

Drifting? Image from duotraq.com

Driven or Drifting

“Freedom lies in being bold.” ― Robert Frost

We are moving house at the moment. It’s a time of frantic activity, packing, planning and preparing for a major change. And it’s OK! We are enjoying the activity because we know there are great things to look forward to. The knowing is driving us forward to the new experiences we will share there.

After we arrive at our new home, we’ll unpack, get ourselves settled in, and then relax.

From time to time in everyone’s life, we are driven by a need, compulsion, goal or ambition, or fear. At other times, when none of these stimulants are present, we can find ourselves drifting, just cruising. Both are OK. As long as we are aware of what state we are in, and are happy with it.

It’s when we are unconsciously in a state of either being #driven or drifting that we can get into trouble.

Can you be unconsciously driven?

Yes. Consider the workaholic. Ask them why they work 18 hours a day and they may not know, or just say there’s “a lot on at the moment” and keep working. However, it’s a subconscious compulsion, driven by who knows what. It’s not something they can control; it actually controls them, and in the process, may ruin lives, relationships, health, businesses and more.

Choices… Workaholic! Image from rockinmarriage.com

Workaholics are not the only ones driven by unconscious compulsions and drivers. There are all the other ‘holics’ as well, plus those obsessed with anything that prevents them from enjoying the ebb and flow of normal life. Collectors are a great example. It’s wonderful to collect items of special significance to you. However, when it takes over your life, costs you financially, emotionally, ruins relationships, health and families, even your best friend will suggest that your obsession with collecting bottle tops has taken over – your life is no longer your own!

Can you be unconsciously drifting?

Yes, again. When the rush dies down, it’s nice to sit on the couch and watch a movie, or read a book. It’s a natural cycle of life that we rest and recharge the batteries before the next big push. But what if there is no ‘next big push’?

The danger of being too comfortable.

When life is cruising like this, each day is a routine where nothing challenging happens, perhaps beyond some traffic, your team losing or the local store being out of your favourite item, the danger is that your mind, and sometimes your muscles, atrophy. “Use it or lose it” is the old saying, and there’s a lot of value in it.

Opportunity passing by. Image from wilywalnut.com

We know that one of the greatest defences against mental illnesses such as Parkinson’s or dementia, for example, is to actively challenge your mind. Crossword puzzles, electronic games and other specific mental activities force the mind and the brain to work and create fresh new neural pathways, that somehow manage to stave off the onset of these degenerative mental illnesses for years, even when there is a genetic predisposition towards them. Being lazy has a terrible price to pay, and it’s not a direct cost. It’s the cost of what you can lose, both in opportunity and function, by not getting out and taking part in life, contributing and being challenged by life. Sometimes the greatest losses are only realised later, when you learn that an incredible opportunity passed by, while you were sitting on your couch!

Balancing life’s driven and drifting cycles.

Human beings need goals, as something to aim for, a purpose, something to identify with and to look forward to. As a species, we need something to look forward to, something to give us some brightness of the future, some hope. Even the worst day or mood can be lifted when the person is shown a little something they value, something to look forward to. At best, the goals we set can be empowering, motivating and inspirational, as they should be. Whether it’s a family goal, or the love of family that motivates and drives us, or whether it’s a goal to be the greatest in the world at something, it doesn’t matter. As long as it moves us, and stops the atrophy.

However, to balance it, we all need some downtime. Our bodies have a “circadian rhythm”, a 24 hour cycle in which we are programmed for a period of driven activity, and a period when the program is for the body to sleep, to rest and recuperate. Driven or drifting throughout a 24 hour period. Genetically, this is how we are programmed.

Mentally, it’s similar with being driven or drifting, but with different time frames. If we have an interest in something, we are inspired and motivated by it, but when we complete that challenge, the drive to understand and master it, that drive often dissipates and we can move on from it. Depending on what it is, that cycle can last from moments to days, months or years. At the end of that cycle, the mind needs to tune out, before tuning in again on something new.

Even the most satisfying career or job needs us to take a break, to maintain our freshness and enthusiasm. We take annual holidays – at least, we should! Most employment contracts specify some time off each year, but it’s great also to take breaks on weekends, to escape from the rush, the drive and to ‘smell the roses’, appreciating our family and friends and life other than the career or driving force.

Moving house? Image from removalists.com

Just like my wife and I will rest after we move into our lovely new home, and unpack the boxes containing our lives. We will rest, recover and start the forward planning process again, from a new base.

Are you locked into a rhythm of being too much driven or drifting?

How do you know? And what can you do about it?

The first step towards regaining control of life, whether you are driven or drifting, is to be aware of what you are doing. Consciousness is not something everyone is good at! How many times have you driven to work, and only realised when you arrived that you had no memory of the trip? Or the train or bus ride? When we develop a routine of checking in on awareness each day, we regain consciousness of our activities, our thoughts and our direction, and only then can we begin to take back control of our lives. That provides the opportunity to decide on our driven or drifting schedules, when to set and work on our inspirational goals, and when to take time to relax, recuperate and drift along with the flow of life.

The next step is to consciously assess where we are in life compared to where we want to be, and decide on how to make up the differences. Setting goals to achieve the necessary steps to catch up to where we decided perhaps in our youth, where we wanted to be by each certain age. Life throws us curve balls, and only when we become conscious do we realise that we haven’t achieved everything we wanted, or we are not feeling the satisfaction from it that we expected.

That’s when a program to raise awareness and provide the discipline and skills you need to get back on track can be such a powerful aid to progressing towards the life you dreamed of. That program would inspire you each morning, refresh your goals for you and point out the action steps you needed to take that day, provide you with a ‘to do’ list of other life matters for the day, and close your day with a cheer, congratulating you on your achievements, and inspiring you to look forward to tomorrow. You can have that program; it’s HERE! To find out more about it, click this link and picture yourself moving forward into the life you dreamed of, only this time, with the guidebook you always knew was somewhere to be had. Now you can have it!

If you feel inspired to take the next step now, perhaps others will too. Please forward this article and share it with others who you feel want more from their lives too. Change their lives, as well as your own.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life. Abert F. Geoffrey

I’m my own man! Image from super-trainer.com

RISK

Hanging on with…..?
Image from timsstrategy.com

Risk

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” ― William G.T. Shedd

Many years ago, I owned a farm in Southern Queensland, Australia and ran an earth moving business from it. One of my team was Tracey, a great guy who rode a Triumph motorcycle, had long hair down to the middle of his back, and absolutely adored his wife Rhonda and their two little girls. He was a real wag and I loved working with him. And he could drive bulldozers! Very important in our game.

The first Tuesday in November in Australia we are plagued with the Melbourne Cup, a horse race run in Melbourne where the prize money for the winners is obscene but it’s still just a horse race. The whole country virtually stops for the day, to let the horses race – it’s an institution!

Tracey said to me: “Having a bet today?”

I replied “No, not today.”

He asked: “Don’t you have a bet sometimes?”

I answered him, “I just bet $50,000 on buying us a new bulldozer; does that count?”

“Never thought of it that way” he said and we went back to work.

My new Earth Mover!
Image from olm-macchine.it

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.” ― Helen Keller

What is risk?

Risk is when you stick your neck (or wallet) out for something you think you can win, but it is not guaranteed. Like my bulldozer bet. My business needed a new, more powerful and versatile machine so I chose what I thought would handle the work I had coming in, and the risks I took were that it was the right machine for the work, and that there was enough work to make the investment worthwhile.

Recently I was sent an email with the dubious title “Just wondering…are you a risk taker?”

The email went on to dare me to invest $25 (not much, really) to get an unspecified gift worth $1,000 plus a supposed money-making blogging platform. After all, it’s only $25. How could I go wrong?

When I invested/took a risk of $50,000 on my bulldozer, it was the equivalent value of five new family cars at the time. That was a risk, but not a gamble. I’d calculated the odds, weighed up the work I had and the amount of enquiry I was getting and took that risk. The risk was worthwhile.

If I invest any money at all on what someone else has calculated to have a value, it was THEIR value they used to invite me to take MY risk, then I risk wasting 100% of my money. The possibility is that their $1000 value is not worth a cracker to me, if I don’t need or want the unspecified item they are ‘giving’ away. The blogging platform may be a scam or just plain worthless. Since then, I have been bombarded with more and more emails, up to 3 times daily, trying all sorts of ways to entice me to part with that $25. If that is what the blogging platform requires, then it’s a safe bet I’d waste my money. That is called discernment – or assessing the risk/reward potential. This $25 ‘risk’ I had been dared to was nothing more than a bet, a gamble I was almost sure to lose on!

Risk Vs Reward – Calculate the risk and prepare for it!
Image from 1000lifelessons.com

To live is to risk!

People and in fact all living creatures have an inbuilt survival instinct – in other words, they fear for their lives and have this survival program running to protect it. We jump out of the way of moving cars, avoid heights, wild animals, spiders and snakes and so on, because of this anti risk program we have running. Rather than risk death, we aim to stay alive.

“The only safe thing is to take a chance.” ― Elaine May

To love is to risk!

Is this the right person for me? Am I worthy of this person? Can I handle a relationship? Will I be hurt? Will it last? These are all the questions our risk monitors race through our minds when we fall in love, or there is even the chance of it. Is this worth the risk?

“There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.” ― William S. Burroughs

Is it worth it? Absolutely!
Image from pessimistincarnate.blogspot.com

Being yourself is a risk!

Will I be liked? Will I be accepted? Will I ‘fit in’ with the group? Perhaps this is the risk that people are most frightened of, and why fashion and fads are so powerful in societies. We are conditioned to believe that we are not quite right – perhaps the “Original Sin” conditioning, and that we need to be something else in order to be accepted by everyone else. People are so anxious to ‘conform’ to someone else’s idea of what is ‘right’ or ‘in’, that they are frightened of just being themselves, yet it is what and who we are most qualified to be. No other person on the planet can be YOU as perfectly as you can be! Being outstanding is the key to success, yet it is what terrifies most people the most!

Being yourself is different enough!
Image from rachelslookbook.com

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” ― Hunter S. Thompson

Why do we fear these risks?

Low self-confidence – the fear that we will not perform to the desired standard, and low self esteem – the fear that others will not like or value us, are the two beliefs that anchor us in fear of being ourselves. We fear taking the #risk because we feel we may not perform or may not be liked for trying to perform. Our need to be accepted and liked overrides our desire to succeed, or even try to succeed.

The antidote to this fear of taking a risk is a #personal empowerment program that delivers #self-confidence and #self esteem to you, in small doses, daily, continually, building your confidence and self esteem to the levels where you can walk confidently out into the world, just being you. And proud of it! Knowing that whatever risks you choose to take on you will succeed at. And feel great about!

“Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.” ― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

Does such a self confidence and self esteem program exist?

Yes, absolutely, and it delivers much more than self-confidence and self esteem. Confidence is built on repeated experiences of success. The Life Change 90 program teaches goal setting and how to set small goals each day, as part of a larger goal getting program. Each little goal you achieve is a confidence boost. More than that, you learn to harvest the lessons from the day, find where your shortfalls are and work on improving any that matter to your success. Communication skills, financial management skills, unlearning bad habits and installing new habits, all ticked off at the end of the day, to give you that feeling of “I DID IT!!!” Daily tutorials hone in on specific areas and build from month to month to enhance your education in life skills, stress management, health, and personal empowerment generally in all areas of your life!

What she said!
Image from bpw-lakegeneva.ch

How do I receive this new personal empowerment?

Small, daily inputs, a few minutes each morning and evening. Reading the tutorial each morning will take a couple of minutes, reviewing your goals and To-Do list, checking off your gratitude list and setting your affirmation a few minutes more, and you are ready for the day!

In the evening, check off your goal achievements, lesson for the day, expenses and income and a few minutes on your journal, and your program is complete! This is your personal empowerment program in full. For investing these few minutes a day, you receive a very healthy boost of self-confidence and self esteem, wisdom and experiences consolidated by your reviews, elimination of bad habits and installation of new desirable habits, and your goals and dreams are delivered to you, a step at a time, day after day!

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” ― Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Katherine Mansfield

What is the risk?

The risk is that you will get the program and do nothing with it. That’s why you will receive these blogs, week after week after week, a little pep talk, some further education in specific areas and a reminder of how powerful you could be, by living this program as though it was your life. The truth is, it can change your life and in the next 90 days, your life could be incredibly enhanced by it!

Take a look at the program HERE and start right now! The change you could make is the one you were searching for when you began reading this article!

If you feel this article has boosted your belief that you can become all you were meant to be, all you ever dreamed of being, and feel good about being YOU, then there are others who need to know this feeling too! Please share it, email the link or reblog it to your friends and anyone else who you think may benefit from reading it. They will thank you too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life

Please also refer to my other posts on #Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Financial Empowerment

Being yourself
Image from inspirationalquotesb.blogspot.com

Where are you searching?

An obvious place to search…!
Image from treasury.gov.au

Where are you searching?

“Make sure that the beer – four pints a week – goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.” — Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944

It was a dark and stormy evening. The very drunk man weaved his way down the footpath, crossed the road and into the car park. He thought he could see his car, over on the far side, across the garden beds. As he stumbled through the flowers, he pulled his car keys out, and dropped them. He stopped, looked around but as it was dark, he couldn’t see them amongst the flower beds. He turned around.

Some time later, another, quite sober man walked down the same footpath and saw our very drunk friend on his hands and knees under a street light, obviously searching for something. He stopped and asked if he was OK, and had he lost something.

“Yesh… (belch) …! I dropped my (hiccup) car keys an I yam trying to find them!”

“Can I help you search?” asked our Good Samaritan?

“That would be very mush apprec.. apprec… apprec… Thank you!”

After some time, it was obvious the keys were not there. The Good Samaritan asked: “Where were you when you dropped them?”

“I wuz in the flower garden over there in the car park an they dropped right out of my fingers…!”

“Then why are you looking here, and not over there where you dropped them?”

“Silly.. There’s no light over there!”

We can laugh at this funny story, but is there a real life parallel here?

#Where are you searching for what you want from life?

I went to the woods to seek enlightenment
Image from flickr.com

Are you looking where it’s easy to see, where it’s easy to be, rather than where “it” actually is?

Are you looking “out there” in things, or other people for the answers you need from a lot closer to home? It’s easy to bury ourselves in work, or distract ourselves with toys, technology, titillation or temptation. However, there comes a time when we realise that if we REALLY want to achieve what it is we said we wanted so long ago, that we have to get real, and go looking for it in the right place. So where are you searching?

Searching for answers in toys
Image from thisnext.com

The right place may not always be in the light. The right place may not be easy. The right place may be uncomfortable for a while. The right place might be hard.

But being in the wrong place is eventually a lot harder and darker and less fun than looking in the right place!

Where are you searching?

Why are you searching there, rather than where it is?

Are you searching in the wrong place because you don’t know where to look? Or because you are afraid you’ll find it? That’s the scary one – fear of success can really mess up your party, and your life! Getting over this is actually not as hard as you think, once you realise it might be a problem for you. Read on…

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.” ― Albert Einstein

How do you know where to search?

The answers are usually within. Within us. Starting with the will to be honest with ourselves, and get clear with what we truly want. And why we want it. Once we know what we want and have a powerful reason why, the how will soon appear. It always does. Internal motivation works that way.

Whether the how, the method, strategy or direction to what you want is through a person, an opportunity, knowledge or whatever, once you have clarity and the motivation to pursue it, you will find a way. However, that’s the hard way….

Many years ago, Thomas Alva Edison, working in conjunction with a team of researchers at his Menlo Park studio, invented the first practical light bulb which was great for looking in dark places.

You may not need a light bulb in your search, but you may need assistance to find what you are looking for, both in the early stages when you seek clarity and empowerment, and later, when you need a goalsetting strategy and a support team. Where are you searching now? Perhaps there is an easier way.

It’s all here for you. We have a program that can change your life, pretty much as quickly as you choose to plug into it! Your search must start with yourself, and that is where the program starts, creating a safe and supportive environment around you, teaching you how to get clarity on what you really want from life, enhancing your powers of awareness and observation, teaching you life strategies and consolidating your lessons every evening. Your goalsetting activities are recorded daily, habits you want to break or create are recorded so you can see your progress with them. Advanced life skills are bundled in so that you can change your life, in the next 90 days! Permanent, positive change. Is that what you were searching for? Click here to discover it now!

If you feel this post has helped you to stop searching under the lamp-post and start looking where your goals are, then please, share this blog, pass it on to your friends and associates. Perhaps you could be the one who helps them to start looking for what they want from life in the right place too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.”
― Peter Deunov

Please also refer to my other posts on #Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Personal Empowerment

Empowered by love

I FOUND IT!
Image from goinflippincrazy.com

An Angel Without Wings

A whole city of Angels!
Image from swotti.com

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”
― Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

An Angel Without Wings.

God is forever creating new Angels.

One day some time ago, he finished another Angel – but was having a bad day and forgot to give her wings.

“Darn it!” he thought. “Well, I won’t put her back. I’ll give her extra serves of love and courage, a radiant smile and she can go to earth and be an Angel down there, where she won’t need wings.” So he put her on earth, as a baby.

Earth was a harsh environment for the Angel baby. Life kept putting obstacles in her way, challenges to solve and the burdens of other people to weigh on her also. There always seemed to be something else to do, someone else to heal, to care for or to help.

“My Angels have a lot of work to do,” he told Saint Peter.

But with the extra love and courage in her heart, the Little Angel’s smile shone like a beacon through all her trials and tribulations. She became an inspiration to those around her.

God said, “I will give her more to do.” He sent more needy people her way.

Life’s ordeals and unscrupulous people took away all she had, her health, her marriage, her money and he thought, “Surely this will try her out!”

Her courage never faltered, still her smile shone and her love inspired those who knew her.

St Peter looked down and wept at what he saw!

“God!!” he cried. “You can’t keep this up! She has already done more by her example than many of your other Angels and raised her children to be like herself. Her example inspires all in the world that see her. Please ease her burden, so that she may freely work for you!”

“Perhaps, Peter, you are right. I will think on it.” God was pensive. He stroked a whiskered chin with his thumb. “I’ll tell you what I will do, Peter. I will give her the love of a wonderful man, surround her with true friends and shower her with peace of mind and satisfaction for what she does.

Maybe in the future her burdens will ease – but right now, My Little Angel Without Wings has much to do.”

WWII Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel in Papua New Guinea, assisting an injured Australian soldier. Angels come disguised in so many ways!
Image from en.wikipedia.org

“For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.”
― Brian L. Weiss

There are many angels without wings, just like this one. You know who you are, Dear Angel. You know when you are an angel to someone who needs you, someone whose challenges need some extra attention and you can give it to them, even though your own troubles and challenges almost overwhelm you. You know so many people count on you and you just have to be there for them. Take a bow – you are not alone!

An Angel at work!
Image from humanrights.gov.au

But you feel alone, Dear Angel, so much of the time. You feel like the pain you bear will overpower you. You feel like the isolation your situation causes will bury you in loneliness. You feel like no-one else would understand your situation, even if you knew how to explain it to them. And yet you keep on. And you keep praying. Because that’s what an Angel will do.

More power to you.

This world has need of an angel like you. We need more of you, many more of you. If I could create the “Angel without Wings Network”, you’d be in there, with all those other special angels without wings, helping each other and helping heal the world.

There is an Angel Network. However, it doesn’t cater for angels like this one, or perhaps an #Angel like you. You are an Angel in hiding, a secret Angel that only a few people know about and appreciate, unfortunately.

Even Angels have bad days!
Image from fanpop.com

What I do know is that you, our Dear Angel, need help. You need to give yourself the best possible chance of making it through this, and out to the bright spot on the other side. And to do that, you need a loving and supportive environment around you. You need encouragement, morning and evening, to keep going. You need to see your achievements each evening, so you know your day has been worthwhile, valuable to someone and satisfying to you. You need your own goals to aim for and to achieve, and you need to be taught how to rise to all the challenges that life is and will continue to throw at you.

Maybe we can help with that. Everything you need is in a program created to empower people and Angels facing challenges, just like you may be. The support, the positive encouragement, the education, motivation and inspiration each day, right here with you, every day.

Need a hand getting through life? CLICK HERE FOR ASSISTANCE! Let us empower you to make it, no matter what life throws at you. After all, an Angel without wings still should feel what it’s like to fly!

If you feel that this post has empowered an Angel, or made an Angel feel she could fly again, please share it, reblog it and pass it on to other Angels without Wings. You know who they are. Every angel should feel like they have another Angel to share with, and to fly to at times. This could be your time to fly!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails, Angels!

Ray

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version

Empowerment through Challenge

A leap of faith
Image from daretoleap.co.uk

Empowerment through Challenge

“Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” ― Roger Crawford

There are times when the road seems too hard, the climb too steep, the challenge too great. There are times when the most reasonable decision would be to give up, admit that the challenge was just too hard, and go home.

There are also people for whom that is not a choice.

Their choice is to press on to succeed or literally to die trying – or not trying. Sometimes, the challenge MUST be faced, whether we like it or not. At these times, heroism surfaces.

The unlikely heroes are those people facing chronic illnesses, chronic pain, the “invisible diseases” such as Depression, CFS and Fibromyalgia and other illnesses that at a glance, people afflicted with them show no visible symptoms. Other people with little choice are those whose children face a challenge and as parents, they must continue. There are people struggling on minimum wage, raising families on incomes below the poverty line, with no safety net and where failing the #challenge means starvation.

Invisible Illness – unsung heroes
Image from noonegetsflowersforchronicpain.wordpress.com

There are movies produced about some of the heroes. We may never know the truth of their heroism, such as in the tale of “Lorenzo’s Oil”, where a father studied his son’s disease and in the movie, found the cure for it. There are real life parallels to this tale now, especially since genetic engineering has become an acknowledged branch of science.

There are other heroes, such as where a person has been wrongfully convicted and either they or their partner studied law in order to challenge and perhaps overturn the decision. Heroes where the underdog came through, changed their world, and that of many others too.

Heroes of everyday challenges
Image from themotherhood.com

On a day-to-day basis, there are many heroes facing a challenge that will never make headlines, but is just as real. The single mother, trying to raise her children, without support, on a budget far below what is necessary, in circumstances that can at best be described as a challenge. The small business owner facing tough competition in a changing market, struggling to survive. A person with low self-confidence and low self esteem looking for a new job, a career, or even just a friend. The dyslexic person in the admin role, trying to write a report. So many people face challenges that to others are no big deal, but to them, it’s their life!

There are times when a challenge has created a break through in thinking and a whole new invention, solution or branch of science has resulted. The problem has been solved because someone either “broke through” the problem with advanced thinking and higher intelligence, or they “broke with” the thinking; they tried something totally different, lateral and creative and found a back-door solution to the problem! Only challenge provides this opportunity and it is how humanity has advanced.

Can you break through to succeed where others have failed the challenge?

It’s possible, but that doesn’t mean you always get your old life back. Sometimes, it’s not there to reclaim. You may overcome the challenge but you cannot unlearn the pain you endured. You will be a different person, even if your old life is offered to you again. It may not feel the same, because you are now changed, evolved. You’ll need to grow into your new life, even when you succeed and overcome the challenge!

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” ― Bernie S. Siegel

Where do you turn, when it is YOU facing the challenge?

The first thing to remember is that we are not alone in this. Maybe there is no saviour nearby, but that doesn’t mean help is not available. A quote from Einstein said “Man cannot solve the problems he created with the same level of intelligence with which he created them”. In other words, to solve a problem, access a higher level of wisdom, and to do that we need to find or become someone with more wisdom. Become smarter.

How can we become more intelligent when facing a challenge?

Specialised knowledge is required to solve a specific problem. Go to the source of wisdom in that area. Research, learn, outsmart your challenge.

Financial challenge – perhaps too much debt?

The local library has resources on debt and creditor control, but also resources on creating more income and cashflow. Life Change 90 presented the Financial Empowerment blog recently. It also has brilliant strategies on how you can become financially empowered by accessing higher financial wisdom and thinking.

Social challenge?

Personal development, working on your Self Confidence and Self Esteem can make a huge difference. There are simple and easy ways to improve these critical areas of your life, when you know how. These blogs HERE and HERE provide a pathway to tools, resources and education in those areas.

Health Challenge?

There are two parts to a health challenge: Firstly, finding the cure and recovering from your illness, if that is possible. Secondly, managing to live and function and have a quality of life while you face your health challenge.

Starting over in a new life
Image from amputee.com

Facing a health challenge can be debilitating. Whether it is pain, energy levels, tiredness, nausea, headache or more, when it is constant, it wears you down, slows thinking and numbs your feelings and emotions. It is relentless. The most positive person will face times of despair when it just seems too hard, too painful and just too much. We wrote about this in the Challenges Of Chronic Illness Blog. All the while you are feeling so miserable, you also face the medication, the hard work that you and your mind and your physical body must still do to actually look for and implement the cure and the healing process. It’s even harder if there is no recognised cure and symptom management is your only apparent option.

What does your particular challenge have in common with all other challenges?

There are a few aspects of facing a challenge that are common to each, and therefore have a way of being handled and managed. There are specifics which are unique to each individual challenge, and you will learn to handle these once you get the fundamentals down. Let’s look at the common aspects for strategies towards success.

Challenge Fundamentals

We all need goals!
Image from traducirco.com

First: Goalsetting. It is vital to the life of every person on the planet, but handled differently when facing a severe challenge. When life is easy, you can set huge goals and risk everything on them because you feel invincible. But that’s not now. Your goals need to be small, step by step goals that you might mark off in hours, or even minutes. The increments to your milestones might be tiny, but they are there. When you achieve them, you must celebrate like crazy! For a person learning to walk after losing their legs in an accident, running a marathon is not the goal; just standing up is the challenge. When you make it, celebrate! And when you take the first step again, celebrate that too! The marathon can come later; right now, let’s just take one more step! Keep your goals small enough to achieve realistically, without compromising other critical areas of your life. Celebrate each in your own way when you achieve them.

Second: Support. Who do you have around you? A team is important. Not necessarily friends because sometimes they try to not hurt your feelings, by not telling you the truth. Someone impartial. Maybe a coach? Your church minister? Someone who can be a mentor to you and honestly let you know how you are doing, by providing objectivity.

Third: A program. You MUST be organised. This challenge will wear you down unless you have a plan of attack for it, and you follow that plan. The plan needs to address your goals, and keep you up to working towards your goals every day. It needs to empower your motivation to keep you inspired, even through tough times. Affirmations and encouragement, inspirational education, new ways to look at obstacles, and challenges to broaden your thinking to find new solutions. It should make you think laterally, to give you a fresh perspective.

Fourth: Personal development and education. To rise above your challenge, you need to be more of you than you are now. Self education, self development, growth and evolution are required. Your program must provide a pathway to a new level of consciousness if it is to work for you.

Fifth: Encouragement. A platform and a process to recognise and celebrate learnings, lessons and achievements. When you have a win, it must be acknowledged. Every night, you need your program to register your activities and achievements so you can chart your production and progress.

Sixth: A Supportive Environment. Even if you are totally alone, you need an environment around you that is positive and uplifting, conducive to success and progress, even if much of it is internal to begin with; especially to begin with – the time of most challenge! This is when self-discipline and focus on goals is most critical, to enable you to build momentum towards your goals, to consolidate new habits where necessary, and to leave the old ones behind. Your program must create this environment around you.

To learn about and access such a program, CLICK HERE for the framework and the features you need to build in, and the benefits it will give you. Plug your life and your challenges into this program, to look at your world in a new light. The light at the end of the tunnel!

If you feel better able to handle your challenges after reading this post, please reblog it and share it around. You may be doing a friend or someone in your family the favour they have been secretly praying and crying out for!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Empowered by Gratitude

Empowered by my Failures

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

A new lease on a new life!
Image from onlytoptens.com

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

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As far as a bloke who has done it all and more Ray offers a vast array of business intelligence that you would be hard pressed to find a better and or more knowledgeable Gent.

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You will never see Ray quit on a matter - when he "stresses" it's like a Swan paddling on a sunny day .. With Ray, when one door is shutting or shut another will open he assures - stay calm and keep your vision and the next door will open as it has for myself and even for him.

If you are looking for a solid, well educated, experienced & a neutral minded consultant or a mentor ( if you will & wish ) to offer solid advise, guidance, push, promote and stand by you ...RAY IS YOUR MAN!

Ray will NOT tell you what you want to hear - yet WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAR - and this is a breath of fresh air this day and age of consultants who are too scared to call it what it really is for fear of offending or hurting you. With Ray, its respectful in delivery and its WHITE or BLACK - as for Grey, its not in his vocabulary!

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“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” ― Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays.

Or: The Lesson of Life I learned from a bulldozer and a bucket of oil!

1984 was the year my old bulldozer gave me the most amazing lesson of life.

What was our lesson of life?

“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” ― Tom Bodett

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” ― Helen Keller

“You have everything you need inside of you to create anything in your life that you desire.” ― Mike Basevic, No Limits, Mastering the Mental Edge

Evolution and Change

How do you manage the change process?

What is the alternative?

Why have life change coaching?

Learn more about Life Change Coaching.

Would you like a free Life Change Coaching session?

“Some strive to make themselves great. Others help others see and find their own greatness. It’s the latter who really enrich the world we live in” ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

I AM SHOCKED!

Teenagers only have to focus on themselves – it’s not until we get older that we realize that other people exist. Jennifer Lawrence

What is this saying about what is really going on with teenage problems?

How can we break this cycle of teenage problems?

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own. Doug Larson

You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is. Dean Kamen

Related Blogs

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.” ― Og Mandino

When Og Mandino touched my life

The Og Mandino Legacy

Moving House

“Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.” ― Tahir Shah, Travels With Myself

Just like tonight. Moving house.

“Some part of me can’t wait to see what life’s going to come up with next! Anticipation without the usual anxiety. And underneath it all is the feeling that we both belong here, just as we are, right now.” ― Alexander Shulgin

Driven or Drifting

“Freedom lies in being bold.” ― Robert Frost

Can you be unconsciously driven?

Can you be unconsciously drifting?

Balancing life’s driven and drifting cycles.

Are you locked into a rhythm of being too much driven or drifting?

When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life. Abert F. Geoffrey

Risk

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” ― William G.T. Shedd

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.” ― Helen Keller

What is risk?

To live is to risk!

“The only safe thing is to take a chance.” ― Elaine May

To love is to risk!

“There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.” ― William S. Burroughs

Being yourself is a risk!

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” ― Hunter S. Thompson

Why do we fear these risks?

“Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.” ― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

Does such a self confidence and self esteem program exist?

How do I receive this new personal empowerment?

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” ― Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Katherine Mansfield

What is the risk?

Where are you searching?

“Make sure that the beer – four pints a week – goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.” — Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944

#Where are you searching for what you want from life?

Where are you searching?

Why are you searching there, rather than where it is?

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.” ― Albert Einstein

How do you know where to search?

“Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.” ― Peter Deunov

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.” ― Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

An Angel Without Wings.

“For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.” ― Brian L. Weiss

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” ― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version

Empowerment through Challenge

“Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” ― Roger Crawford

Can you break through to succeed where others have failed the challenge?

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” ― Bernie S. Siegel

Where do you turn, when it is YOU facing the challenge?

How can we become more intelligent when facing a challenge?

Financial challenge – perhaps too much debt?

Social challenge?

Health Challenge?

What does your particular challenge have in common with all other challenges?

Challenge Fundamentals

Life Change 90 Product Range

Copyright: Life Change 90 – 2014

Follow Life Change 90

“You have everything you need inside of you to create anything in your life that you desire.”
― Mike Basevic, No Limits, Mastering the Mental Edge

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
― Og Mandino

“Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.”
― Peter Deunov

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”
― Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

“For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.”
― Brian L. Weiss

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version