Remember Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali?

He always said “I am the Greatest” – well before he won the heavyweight boxing championship. No-one challenged this statement, no-one else said “No you’re not, I am” – at least, not at first . . .

So he won – it was inevitable.

There was never any doubt in his mind that something ‘might go wrong’, and no thoughts like ‘it’s not the best conditions for us’ or ‘someone else is better than me right now’ that you and I hear from so many sports people from time to time.

You and I can see it in their eyes when they’re interviewed before the event and we just know they aren’t going to win.

This was never the case with Ali – until someone came along who had an even stronger conviction that he was going knock him on the floor of the ring.

And there are some top business people who think the same way; there’s no concept of ‘failure’ when they start a new project. The same is true of some political and military leaders – the prospect of not succeeding doesn’t exist.

The trouble is, that unless you and I operate in a close knit team who think the same way and are, like a sports team, pursuing the same goals, things can start to go wrong when ‘other people’ get involved as is often necessary if our projects are going to come to fruition.

The thing is . . .

‘Other people’ often don’t think the same way as you and I. Even though they may ‘sign up’ to whatever you and I are proposing, they often don’t fully come on board.

Often within an organization, you and I hear that some people are not given the ‘full story’, they don’t know what the end result of their involvement is envisaged to be, they don’t know – usually because someone thinks that “they don’t need to know” – what the real goal is for the project in hand.

Very often you and I need ‘other people’ (outside our ‘family’ team) to help in our endeavor, because we and our core team can’t do everything and the success of the project needs more hands to the pump.

Time and time again I’ve heard people being told “just focus on your bit and everything will work out fine”; and sometimes even “you don’t need to know why you’re doing this, just get on with it”.

They are thus denied knowledge of the ultimate goal and the opportunity to buy into it. They are denied the right to embrace the goal, to understand the purpose of the endeavor, and to be ‘part’ of the outcome.

But what if people (usually ‘employers’) who need others to ensure the success of their enterprise, did, as you and I would, fully share the ‘why’ and fully share the vision they have of the end result?

What if they empowered their ‘people’ with the reason and the vision and thus gave them the ability to think positively, know where they were going and know that together, even as a really large ‘team’ pursuing the same goal, they would be invincible?

There are a lot of great companies and corporations around the world who do this, as there are a lot of ‘smaller’ operations who do likewise.

It’s not a cast iron guarantee of success because the more people who are involved the more likely it is for the ‘nay-sayers’ to sneak in. But it’s the best shot you and I and anyone else involved in any sort of enterprise can have.

And as individuals (like Mohammed Ali) you and I must do the same.

Know our reasons, know our goals, know our targets, know that we can ‘win’.

That’s ‘know’ not ‘think’ remember?

There’s a great song by Bryan Adams on the album ‘18 til’ I die’ – “We’re gonna win”.

Try it out if ever you have one of those days when your ‘dark side’ is whining on about things going wrong and trying to persuade you that you’re wasting your time.

And when that happens as you and I are well aware, suppress that sneaky negativity with clear thoughts and affirmations like “I am the greatest”, “I am the winner” and “I am (now) (whatever the purpose of my quest happens to be)”.

Go on, just say it . . .

Are your goals leading you ‘up the garden path’?

In the wrong direction?

Are you actually doing what you need to do and thinking what you need to think in order to achieve your ultimate vision or dream of what you want to be, do and have in your life – what you would love your life to be?

Or are you taking actions to achieve short term goals – which may seem important and may seem to be contributing to the ultimate vision but . . .

Are leading you on a detour –

on a ‘short cut’ (and you and I know what that usually means!) –

up a blind alley?

Or are they taking you in totally the wrong direction?

I hope not.

The thing is . . .

You and I know how to set goals, to set targets, to put plans in place, and to take action.

But what if . . .

Some of those goals aren’t consistent with the visions that you and I have of how and who we really want to be?

Here’s the thing.

Sometimes ‘stuff’ just has to be done. Sometimes things just have to be ‘got out of the way’. Sometimes you and I just have to divest ourselves of things, situations and ideas we are dragging around with us.

There’s a parable about a group of golfers who set out to play a round one morning. On reaching the third tee, one of the four, Harry, had a heart attack and died. Many, many hours later the four returned to the clubhouse and were asked where on earth they had been all this time.

They explained it had taken such a long time because every time they hit the ball they had to drag Harry around the course with them until they’d completed the game.

Are you ‘dragging Harry’.

Are the goals you are working towards being delayed because you really need to adjust your plan and do something differently rather than just pushing on regardless dragging a burden with you?

The problem is though . . .

That when you and I do that, when you and I perhaps do retrace our steps and let go of whatever is holding us up – that becomes another goal.

Distracting us from what we were wanting to achieve in the first place.

And if you and I are not very careful this ‘detour’ can easily spawn yet another ‘distraction goal’ leading us toward who knows where.

Certainly not where you and I were intending to go in the first place!

You know why ‘big’ projects are usually late and over budget? Because the same thing is happening – distraction and ‘scope creep’. Things just keep on cropping up that seem to need to be done before real progress can be made.

Questions are the answer.

So when you and I are working towards our goals and visions we need to stop from time to time and check the map, turn on the satnav (well maybe not, who knows where that might take us!), and make sure we are going in the right direction and following the best route.

Especially when we’ve had to take Harry back to the clubhouse before continuing the round.

Especially when we’ve been delayed in our journey through no fault of our own.

And especially when you and I are tempted by ‘bright shiny objects’ in the form of new ideas or new ‘stuff’ that we think we just must have.

Is this ‘new goal’ consistent with what you and I want to be, do and have? Is it consistent with what you and I would love our lives to be?

I’m asking, are you?

Have an interesting week.

There’s a continuing theme in many Science Fiction books and movies about aliens who, when exploring (or invading) other worlds, wear, not a protective ‘space suit’, but some sort of functional ‘bio-suit’.

Usually, as in the movie ‘Independence Day’, this is depicted as an external bio-body inside which is another, rather different looking physical entity.

Sometimes authors have depicted the inhabitant of the bio-suit as a non-corporeal being. This idea appears in ‘Star Trek’ a few times but was more often described by earlier SF writers.

Taking this one step further, authors have depicted a non-corporeal entity inhabiting a human body, and frequently, energy based ‘entities’ or aliens ‘taking over’ humans to obtain physical form.

In one of the ‘Stargate SG1’ series episodes, one of the key players, Dr. Daniel Jackson, dies and as he does so an amorphous light energy entity leaves his body and ‘ascends’.

It reappears in the form of Daniel Jackson in a scene in an American style ‘Diner’ reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ ‘Restaurant at the End of the Universe’.

It seems that these ideas, when safely contained within the Science Fiction genre, are acceptable and quite ‘OK’ as a concept.

The idea also appears in the Bible. The Christian belief is that this actually happened to Jesus of Nazareth but this is strongly contested by other religions whose beliefs are based on the same sources. Islam has a different interpretation, but still sees Jesus Son of Mary as their most important religious figure after Mohammed.

But the thing is – that outside the SF and religious context anyone who promotes the idea that human beings might just all be non-corporeal beings or ‘aliens’ wearing a multifunctional ‘Earth-Suit’ is considered to be at least ‘crazy’ if not a dangerous lunatic.

And some people can’t accept the Christian fundamental belief that Jesus ‘ascended’ – and this even includes some ‘Christians’.

Remember – this is a belief, not a fact. There’s no ‘proof’. The belief is based on faith.

But what if it were true?

What if, inside you and I, and everyone else, there is a non-corporeal, energy based, living entity using an ‘earth-suit’ to enable a physical presence on the planet.

Some, or even most, people will immediately dismiss such an idea as pure nonsense and refuse to take any further part in the discussion – but more about that another time.

But you and I, being open minded, will go along with this ‘what if . . .’ scenario.

Because there is some merit to it.

We know that the Universe is made up entirely of energy. All substance, all matter, consists of molecules and atoms which now appear to be simply ‘formations’ of energy.

And that includes us, you and I.

We’re just formations of energy.

So there’s no reason why we couldn’t be composed of a conscious energetic entity using a formation of energy around it to create a physical form – or body.

You and I talk about ‘soul’, about ‘heart’ and about ‘mind’. But these have no physical form.

If a human body is dissected there’s no ‘soul’ there. The ‘mind’ cannot be cut out of the brain, and the ‘heart’ or ‘spirit’ which binds all our feelings together is not the organ that pumps blood around the body.

Physically none of these ‘things’ exist – but they are there, aren’t they?

No-one really knows what happens when our physical body breaks down and ‘dies’.

What happens to the soul, the mind and all those feelings?

Where do they go?

I don’t subscribe to the idea that they just ‘stop’ as some people believe. What do you think?

In most cultures and religions there is a strong concept of an ‘afterlife’, whether that be going to ‘heaven’ (in all its various forms) or simply ‘joining the ancestors’.

But the thing is

Why do our earth-suits break down? Why do you and I die?

Surely if we are powerful energetic entities inhabiting these suits then we’d ‘live’ longer – or why not forever?

But maybe that isn’t our life-cycle.

Perhaps we are similar to the insects and other ‘lower’ forms of life’ that adopt different forms during their life-cycle. Perhaps we also ‘move on’ when the time is right for us all to ‘ascend’ to a higher level.

I’ve seen a number of dead bodies in my time and the one thing that struck me about all of them was that something was ‘missing’, something had ‘gone’ from them. Perhaps those bodies of family members were just their empty suits.

Which means of course that those souls, minds and spirits are still ‘out there’, somewhere.

But in the meantime

What you and I don’t know is when we will be ‘ready’ to ascend.

Perhaps we need to make sure that we look after our earth suits to make sure they don’t ‘break down’ on us before ‘we’ are ready to go.

I’m off to check out my life support system.

How about you?

In his latest book, ‘The Code of the Extraordinary Mind’, Vishen Lhakiani explains his concept of ‘brules’.

Brules he says, are ‘BS-rules’ that exist in the ‘culturescape’ in which you and I find ourselves and that people adopt to simplify their understanding of the world.

The ‘culturescape’ is his word for the cultural landscape, and like real landscapes different culturescapes can be found in different parts of the world.

The people who live in these different culturescapes have invented millions of ‘rules’ or conventions that govern the way they live, operate and co-exist.

Some of these conventions/rules are quite sensible, like everyone driving on a particular side of the road according to the direction in which they are travelling – even though different countries apply this in different ways and in some countries it doesn’t seem to apply at all!

The reason why a particular side of the road was chosen in the first place was probably a brule, but it has now become (in most places) a quite acceptable rule.

Sometimes it’s happened the other way round. Long ago in various cultures it was considered that certain animals were ‘unclean’ and must not be eaten. At the time this was a sensible rule as these animals carried parasites which infected the human body if the meat was eaten.

Perhaps this idea of certain animals being unclean has now become a ‘brule’ although in some culturescapes there may be other reasons why it has not.

One can look at ‘laws’ in much the same way.

There are real ‘physical’ laws like the law of gravity and the other ‘laws of physics’ that cannot be broken – even in Star Trek.

Current research shows that these laws may not yet be fully understood but in most cases they have been proven to be true and to ‘work’.

‘Human’ laws are a different matter.

Within each culturescape laws are written by people – but not by you and I and not by ‘ordinary’ people.

Laws are written by people who represent vested interests and people who wish to maintain an established power base, or build one.

True, some laws are in the best interests of the population – the ‘criminal’ laws that are intended to prevent people harming each other in various ways.

They don’t always stop it happening, but people will face some form of official retribution or punishment if they are found to be breaking these laws.

Other laws are much more dubious in their provenance and are usually enacted to reinforce the brules.

You and I inhabit a culturescape or society that is governed by brules.

The education brules: you must get good qualifications to guarantee success.

The work brules: you must get a ‘good job’ with a good employer and sell your time for money. You must work ‘hard’ to guarantee success.

The leisure brules: You can only enjoy yourself and do what you want to do when you’re not ‘working’.

The loyalty brules: You should adhere to a single religion. You should adhere to and adopt the views of a single political party.

And so on . .  . and on . . . and on . . .

Lhakiani cites five key ways in which you and I take on all these brules:

Young children take on ideas from their parents and are thus indoctrinated into their brules.

Brules are promoted by authority figures such as celebrities, business leaders and politicians. Fear based politics is a classic example of ‘brule-building’.

People (but maybe not you and I) take on brules because they feel the need to ‘belong’ to a group or ‘tribe’. An extreme example of this is ‘gang culture’.

The media, advertising, ‘reality’ TV and so on create a sort of social proof that encourages people to take on more brules, many of which, especially those that come from mass media advertising, are totally wrong and misleading.

Everyone (including you and I) have internal insecurities and limiting beliefs. Thinking ‘you can’t do that’ is simply the result of responding to a brule.

You and I have taken on board a lot of brules.

The thing is – what influence do they have on our view of the world and the culturescape in which we live?

It’s summed up neatly by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars:

“You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view

Who’s more foolish, the fool? Or the fool who follows him”

You see

You and I need to question the brules we have inadvertently or unconsciously adopted – and this is Lhakiani’s ‘Law #2’

“Extraordinary minds question the brules when they feel those brules are out of alignment with their dreams and desires. They recognize that much of the way the world works is due to people blindly following the brules that have long passed their expiration date.”

I’m off to ask some questions.

And you?

Have a questioning week.