In conversations I’ve been having recently I’ve observed a lot of ‘conflict’ in peoples’ lives.

Apparently, there’s this thing called ‘work life balance’ that many people seem to struggle with.

And there’s another thing; many people want to keep their ‘personal’ and ‘business’ lives ‘separate’ – a sort of self-imposed schizophrenia.

But you and I know that our ‘life’ is our life – we only have one; and we also know, often from bitter experience that attempting to compartmentalize our existence always leads to confusion or maybe worse.

Of course, the ‘normal’, ‘employment’ paradigm encourages the idea that life and work are separate.

Politicians obsess about ‘minimum’ and perhaps ‘maximum’ ‘wages’ because, to them, ‘normal life’ is based on the idea that people should go and ‘work’ for someone else doing something that they can usually just about tolerate so that they can ‘earn’ enough money to go home and do what they really want to do in the small amount of time that their employers often grudgingly make available to them.

Unfortunately, most people in this situation are so stressed or tired when they get ‘home’ that they don’t do much at all other than the essentials of ‘keeping house’.

It’s a sad story, because at the end of the day, whatever people say about their priorities, if ‘the boss’ says they have to be ‘in work’ at particular times and on particular days there’s not a lot they can do if they don’t want to risk ‘losing their job’.

And then you hear them say “there must be more to it than this” or “it will all come right when I retire”.

You and I know that, yes, there is more to it, but also that ‘retirement’ is not the answer.

For most people retirement means that they don’t have to go to ‘work’ any more and that they can “put their feet up and relax” – but that’s the route to, at best, slowly fading away.

Of course, there are many people that remain very active and even entrepreneurial when they retire – they always have something to do and something new to look forward to – but the majority, in my experience of my family and friends, have simply ‘sat in a chair waiting for God’. Sometimes for a very long time.

I’ve never thought that giving up control of my life to an employer was a good idea, I’ve only done it for about 8 years out of 52 after I left University, and I know many people who’ve never been ‘employed’ at all.

The popular media would assume that was a ‘bad thing’ but many of those people have highly successful businesses and make a great deal of money.

More to the point, as you and I know, those businesses are an integral part of their lives. And we know that the same is true for those people who are actually employed but are dedicated to their work in the same way.

For you and I, what we ‘do’ is (or at least should be) an integral part of our lives.

Everything you and I ‘do’ should be embedded in our ‘life purpose’ – that which we have decided we want to be, do and have.

You and I don’t compartmentalise or make compromises with our lives.

We ensure that everything we do, which may, and usually does, include spending some of our time serving others in one way or another, is consistent with our purpose, our ‘meaning of life’.

Everyone is here for a reason.

The trouble is that most people haven’t either realised that, haven’t worked out what their reason or purpose is; or worse, have been misled into believing in and supporting someone else’s purpose often at the expense, one way or another, of their own lives.

I was asked this week what the ‘purpose’ was behind my writing these weekly messages. To be quite honest I had to think about that; but then the conversation developed (there were four of us) into considering not just our visions, dreams and goals, but our overall life purposes.

I’m re-evaluating, what I do, how I do it and why I do it. What is my life’s purpose?

How about you?

Have a purposeful week.

You and I are always making decisions.

Big decisions like moving house, smaller decisions like where to go on holiday and a myriad of tiny decisions like ‘is it safe to cross the road now?’

Some of these decisions are ‘important’ and some not so – and some of the ‘tiny’ decisions can be more important than some of the ‘big’ ones!

But what is a ‘decision’?

When you and I ‘make a decision’ we attempt to evaluate or ‘weigh up’ the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ the ‘for’ and ‘against’, the positives and the negatives and come up with the ‘best’ course of action.

But then sometimes, probably more often than you or I might care to admit, the decision is simply “I want one of those”, regardless of any ‘for and against’ discussion.

This is especially true where ‘bright shiny objects’ are involved or when advertising plays to our emotions – especially when it implies that we’re ‘missing out’!

You and I make emotional decisions and we make rational decisions, the latter being the ones that we like to think that we’ve ‘thought through’.

But the thing is . . .

A decision is just a decision. We decide to do something, or not do something but nothing happens, the decision makes no difference at all to our lives, until we act on it.

And quite often at that point you and I find ourselves ‘reconsidering’ the decision.

Because when it comes to actually doing something, or stopping doing something, it’s a whole different ball game.

You and I can make decision after decision about how we want our lives to develop, what we want to be, do or have, as they say ‘until the cows come home’ – but none of these decisions will make any difference until we act on them.

Oh and by the way, making ‘plans’ about putting our decisions into practice isn’t ‘taking action’. Planning, although necessary in many situations, is often used as a device for putting off the actual action.

As my late mentor, Trevor Mills used to say “A plan is useless until it deteriorates into action” – indicating of course that what you and I actually do after making the ‘plan’ isn’t always the same as the plan!

How can you and I then make better use of our decisions? How can you and I ensure that once the decision is made that we really do put it into practice?

Well, here’s the thing.

You and I already know which decisions we take more ‘notice’ of, which type of decisions we are more likely to act on.

It’s those ‘I want one of those’ emotional decisions. You and I buy staff we don’t really need, but we want. We do things we don’t really need to do (or eat things we don’t really need to eat) because we want to.

You and I take action more often for emotional, rather than rational or logical reasons. In fact, we hardly ever act on ‘logical’ decisions until we inject some emotion or ‘ownership’ into that decision.

Some people spend ages on various web sites looking for the ‘best deal’. The reach a conclusion and ‘sign up’, but by then that’s an easy thing to do because emotion has been injected into the process.

A lot of time has been spent and they think they’ve ‘beaten the system’ by getting what they believe (emotionally) is a ‘great deal’.

Once people become emotionally attached to the decision they go for it and act on it.

The ‘downside’ is of course that often this is the ‘wrong’ decision but they have so much emotion invested in it they find themselves unable to reverse or change it.

But what happens in other situations? Why do you and I do (or not do) what we decide? How do we get the emotion into our ‘rational’ decisions?

There are some ‘magic words’ to use here.

The ‘forward looking’ version starts “What if”.

We think about what will happen if we act on what we’ve decided; if you and I really do go ahead and do or stop doing what we decided on.

We attempt to visualise what our lives will be like and inject that emotion into the decision.

That works, but some of us find this sort of forward visualization difficult, so what about the alternative I learned from my mentor Peter Thomson?

Consider what will happen if you don’t implement the decision.

Visualise how things will turn out then.

That’s not so difficult because it will always only be the same, or worse, than where you are now. Let your ‘negative’ side run free imagining how bad it would be if you didn’t do what you decided.

Then the ‘magic words’ are “If only I’d . . .” – implemented that decision.

That will get you going – pretty much guaranteed!

You and I often hear this phrase, and maybe sometimes use it.

“I’m in two minds about that”

Which means, usually, that they can’t ‘make up’ their mind, or that they can’t decide between two alternatives.

Of course, you and I and everyone else, most of the time, have a ‘conversation’ going on in our heads.

Or is it in our brain, or our ‘mind’?

And what is this ‘mind’ thing anyway?

A dictionary definition is –

“the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.”

But there is evidence that ‘the mind’ still operates when people are in a coma or ‘unconscious’.

And surely there’s a difference between ‘consciousness’ and ‘thought’.

Science doesn’t seem to have an answer, even though a great deal of work has been done recently into how the brain operates.

Physically there appear to be three parts to the brain.

The primitive or ‘reptile’ brain that deals mostly with ‘fight or flight’ reactions to the environment.

The ‘sub-conscious’ or sometimes ‘unconscious’ brain that deals with the general operation of the body and stores the memories. You could call this the body’s ‘operating system’.

And then there’s the conscious, thinking, creative brain that appears to come up with ideas and ways to process them, sometimes called the ‘higher’ brain.

And according to the research, the way it ‘works’ is all about electrical pulses or signals travelling along pathways inside the brain through networks of neurons.

New research has revealed that these ‘pathways’ can change or be changed over time and aren’t ‘set in stone’ as was previously thought.

All this is very technical and scientific but it doesn’t go anywhere towards explaining how the mind works or even what it is!

It can explain how I’m writing this by causing my fingers to move on the keyboard and my eyes to see where to put them but it doesn’t explain either why I’m doing it, or how I generate the content of the message.

I can sit and think about what I’m going to write about and choose my starting point – my ‘higher’ brain can call on information stored in my sub-conscious ‘hard drive’ (from where by the way nothing gets erased – but it’s often not ‘filed’ very well!)

But then something else happens: I get ‘ideas’. Paths appear in my mind which I then follow (usually!). But they weren’t there when I started.

The words and ideas just come, and you and I have heard this before from many musicians, artists and writers.

But you and I have to take notice when this happens because it’s not just about ‘the arts’ – it’s about everything that we choose to do.

Perhaps, instead of two, there are three minds.

Our ‘two minds’ are the ones that deal with what we know and argue the pros and cons of this that and the other, the ‘voices’ that seem never to stop ‘talking’ in our heads.

But of course, it’s only ‘in our heads’ because that’s where we’ve located it, sometimes it can be in our ‘heart’ or maybe it’s a ‘gut’ feeling.

You know when you have a ‘great idea’? And then you ‘forget’ about it and it ‘goes away’?

Isn’t it strange the pretty soon someone else has the same idea and instead of ignoring it, takes action?

The ‘ideas’ and sometimes the feelings that go along with them don’t come from our ‘inside’ minds but from the third mind – the ‘outside’ mind or as some would have it the ‘universal mind’.

But that ‘mind’ isn’t outside you and I, it’s within us, and it’s within everyone.

That’s why different people ‘think up’ the same ideas.

When you get a ‘gut feeling’ about something or your ‘heart’ is telling you something or your ‘intuition’ is telling you that something is the right or wrong thing to do – that’s the universal mind, the third mind, guiding you in the direction you should be going.

Notice what you’re noticing.

You see, it’s not an ‘external’ influence, it’s within all of us, it’s what makes us human ‘beings’. It’s only those people who ignore the third mind and get trapped in their human ‘bodies’ (or as Mary Morrissey would call them ‘earth suits’) and just ‘exist’ rather than growing and developing into who they are meant to be.

I’m taking notice.

How about you?

You and I are often, sometimes more often than others, asked this question.

“What do you do?”

It’s a great question to be asked for more reasons than one.

But what’s the best answer?

“I’m an accountant” – or

“I help people, I help people look after their money” (pause) “How about you?”

“I’m a police officer” – or

“I help people, I help people stay safe and secure” (pause) “How about you?”

“I work for Tesco” (other supermarkets are available) – or

“I help people, I help people find what they’re looking for when they’re shopping” (pause) “How about you?”

“I’m a coach” – or

“I help people, I help people achieve their ambitions” (pause) “How about you?”

You see, one of the reasons people ask what your or I do is that they feel the need to ‘label’ us and put us in their frame of reference – which might not be where you or I exactly want to be.

When people ask that question they’ve probably not thought that, in fact, we might be able to help them in some way.

It’s an strange thing, but most people often offer to help others but rarely ask for help themselves.

And then, if you or I mention the company we work for (if that’s what we do), then we’ll get one of just a few responses:

“Oh I use them, they’re really good” at one end of the scale or “Oh no, they’re dreadful, I had a lot of trouble with them etc. etc. etc.”

(And after they’ve unloaded their ‘problem’ they aren’t interested in you anymore.)

And if they don’t have an opinion or have never heard of your employer they’ll look a bit blank and mentally write it on the ‘label’ they’re about to attach to you.

The thing is, that when you or I answer the ‘question’ about what we do we don’t mention the role or the ‘brand’ but we ‘turn the answer around’ to focus on what we might be able to do for them.

Then there’s the pause.

That allows our questioner to come back and show interest by asking “tell me more” or “how do you do that” or words to that effect.

(This doesn’t always happen of course, people often launch straight in to telling you and I about them, they’re not interested in us anyway!)

But before we answer that question, you and I need to know more – so that we can put our answer into context.

So we ask “how about you?”

What happens next can go one of two ways.

Either they take the opportunity to ‘product vomit’ all over us telling us all about all the things they do and how successful they are, often ending up with a straightforward and usually quite unimaginative sales pitch for some ‘fantastic’ product or service.

(You know the ones I mean!)

Or, on the other hand, they may be clever enough to reflect our ‘helping’ response and explain how they can help people.

And unlike the fifty shades of plonker who don’t think of doing that, these are the people we can have a productive and intelligent conversation with, and maybe even end up doing business with.

You see, whenever I talk to people about why they do what they do, or why they have the business they have, the answer invariably includes some reference to wanting to help people.

And really that’s what successful business is all about, even as an employee rather than a business owner.

(I should add that as a rule, I don’t talk to plonkers (DTTP)  – those in Peter Thomson’s 100+ Club will know this as DDWT – and if you want to know what that means you’ll need to join the club!)

You and I are all in business one way or another to help people. We’re all part of the ‘helping industry’.

It stands to reason really, if we weren’t helping people they wouldn’t do business with us, they wouldn’t buy our products or services.

Odd that, isn’t it? People are quite happy to buy help, but reluctant to ask for it.

So what am I doing here?

I hope I’m helping you to think – in a way and about things you might not have previously considered.

‘Carry on Helping’

How often have you and I heard that phrase when we’ve brought someone’s attention to the opportunity to meet with someone, attend an event, look at a way of improving their income, or even a free holiday or break?

Well, what they say is absolutely right and completely true.

No-one has time.

You see, time doesn’t exist.

Time is just a concept, a figment of our collective human imagination.

(Although I believe there are some tribes in very remote places who don’t share this idea – yet).

No other species has any concept of ‘time’.

Certainly, they recognise day and night – when it’s dark and when it isn’t, and they recognise the seasons, where the ambient temperature and the balance between dark and light changes.

But only humans use clocks.

Only humans divide up the rotations and orbits of the planet into linear segments of existence.

Only humans attempt to measure time.

In fact, ‘measuring’ anything (and everything) is unique to our species, it’s one of those things that makes you and I ‘human’.

Other species use tools, and other species work collectively, but there are no health & safety experts or time management and productivity analysts in a beehive measuring how much honey is being made.

The bees just get on with it, they produce what they need, without ‘measuring’ anything.

You and I and the rest of humanity use the concept of ‘time’ to get to grips with how we relate our lives to what we do.

In advanced research in all branches of physics and quantum mechanics there’s no tangible quantification of time. It’s a ‘given’ and unlike measurements of length, volume and so on there’s nothing to compare time against.

Length is measured by comparison. The average human foot being an example – so if something is ten feet long then that’s ten ‘foot lengths’.

But time is measured by dividing up the ‘time’ it takes for the earth to rotate on its axis – but that’s comparing something with itself.

Unlike length or volume or weight, time is not real.

(There are more modern ‘scientific’ definitions of all these measures but the definition of any segment of ‘time’ is still by comparison with itself)

But time is not just a concept.

Time is a tyranny. Time is a tyrant.

Most of humanity, including you and I, subjugate ourselves voluntarily to this dictatorship – without even thinking about it.

You and I are pressured into running our lives according to what ‘time’ it is, what ‘day’ it is, what ‘month’ it is, and what ‘year’ it is.

People have concepts about how long they are expected to live based not on who they are or what they want to be, do or have in their lives, but on how ‘old’ they are.

I know people who have lived for many fewer years than I have who think and behave ‘older’ than I do – just because that’s what they expect.

But you and I can live as ‘long’ as we want – provided we have a plan to do so and are not bamboozled by ‘time’ into thinking we only have a certain life span.

People worry too much about ‘how long’ something will take to do rather than just getting on with it.

People get hung up about how to ‘manage’ time but it’s impossible to manage something that doesn’t exist.

When something has to be done it takes as ‘long’ as it takes.

The only occasion that ‘time’ comes into play is as a basis of co-ordination of the various events that occur in our lives.

In order for you and I to meet up we need to have some sort of reference so that we arrive at the meeting place together.

But instead of just using it as a reference for meetings, events or navigation everyone has become hung up on measuring time.

Most people in employment don’t get paid for what they do, they get paid for their ‘time’, the ‘time’ they ‘spend’ ‘at work’.

And then they are ‘generously’ (or not) given ‘time off’ to do the other things they need or want to do.

People think of time (which doesn’t exist) as currency but the flaw in ‘time economics’ is that unlike money, (which actually isn’t ‘real’ either but that’s another story) time cannot be circulated or revalued.

At least not within the concept that most people have about time.

You see, other than as a mere reference system, time has no value, no value at all.

But you and I always have ‘time’ – in the sense that we have the opportunity, at any ‘time’, to choose whatever we want to do, or not do.

And what you and I choose – think about it – has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘time’.

“Live long and prosper”

Yesterday I met someone who was really nervous.

Granted he was giving his very first two minute impromptu speech at a Toastmasters meeting but that wasn’t really the reason.

The question was about describing your greatest fears or dreams.

You see, his greatest dream is also his greatest fear.

Now you and I know that its quite easy and even common to put these two things together – we can even find ourselves doing it – sometimes!

Sometimes you and I may have a big ambition or a dream that we have no idea how to achieve – and that may generate fear.

You and I can create  false evidence in our heads that appears to be real or true.

It usually starts with a ‘what if’ question and the because we don’t know quite how to get to where we want to go or what will happen along the way we become uncertain.

And you and I know only too well that uncertainty quickly develops into fear of the unknown.

And we also know that just because something, or the outcome of something is ‘unknown’ that (and we know this to be true) rarely means that its ‘bad’.

Its just ‘different’ – but of course there are many people, many people, who are convinced that ‘different’ is automatically ‘bad’ – from their point of view.

What is ‘bad’ though, is fear.

There is an oft repeated phrase “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” which I believe originally derives from an essay by Sir Francis Bacon who wrote “Nothing is terrible except fear itself”.

You see, its only ‘false evidence appearing real’ that stops you and I attempting anything we want to do.

Yes, things may ‘go wrong’ along the way but not starting ‘just in case’ the go wrong (through fear) is always bad in itself because we become discontented and unhappy, even upset and angry with ourselves because we’ve not even attempted to do what we promised ourselves we would.

So you and I, when we ‘come to our senses’ and go ahead with what we want to do, eschew ‘fear’ and just ‘deal’ with any problems or issues as they arise.

And if the way we want to go is ‘shut’ or blocked then you and I find another way around, over, or even through whatever is holding us back.

You and I just decide to ‘face the problem when we come to it’ and continue to move forwards towards our goals.

The only thing that can stop us is fear.

But the speaker yesterday had compounded his problem.

It quickly became apparent that his primary fear was the fear of making a decision – or making the wrong decision.

He is a young man in his twenties and that may have something to do with it as he probably has not yet learnt that, as you and I know – decisions are never ‘wrong’.

You see, whenever you and I make a decision for ourselves it is at that time and in those circumstances, the ‘right’ decision – otherwise we wouldn’t have made it would we?

And you and I can always make another ‘right’ decision to reverse the previous decision if that, to us, is the right thing to do!

Of course other people may think that you or I are making the wrong decision, but, really, the decisions you and I make are none of their business. We may invite them to comment and may take their views into consideration, but that’s up to us.

So with confidence, and the reassurance that you and I can always ‘change our minds’, make your next decision, and your next, without any ‘fear’ of being ‘wrong’.

Have a decisive week.