My Decision to Leave the Office Life

This was not a new desire of mine, but was now a definite intention rather than a nice idea. I started a blog stating my desire to Leave the nine-to-five lifestyle behind, just as I was making plans to get a new job!

The success of this particular plan in my life has given me all the faith, evidence and confidence I need to know I am a free man. Free from the constraints of what people tell me I can or cannot do, but not in a bullish, pig-headed way. I mean that I choose the outcomes in my life, whether I am conscious of it or not, so I make a deliberate choice rather than a random, unconscious one now that I am aware of that choice.

I also learned that often, something is required along the way that will appear counter-intuitive or at odds with the direction you are trying to move and the reason it is required is because there are still personal areas in which you need to be ‘trained’, so you are ready to see and be able to handle what comes next. In this case my requirement was getting an office job, the opposite to what the vision for my new life looked like!

Everything starts with intent. You have to intend something to have a hope of seeing it realized. You have to intend something to gain the clarity and detail of what it is you are intending, so that is what I did. In a seemingly dark couple of days after returning home from a trip from an exotic land where I spent the most memorable 6 weeks with a woman I knew I wanted to share my life with I set to work in putting into motion what needed to be put into motion in order to create the reality of what I wanted.

During those couple of days I wrestled with feelings that were painful. I caught myself in a destructive mind loop where i was thinking about what I wanted to do, but kept coming up against thoughts about how it was not possible or any other reasons that would make it too difficult or unattainable. What I did in that moment changed everything:

I went for a walk and just allowed my mind’s chatter to continue whilst I made attempts to observe the internal conversation and interject with suggestions of ‘What if?’ and ‘How about?’. By the time I got back home knew what I had to do. I got clear about what I wanted to do regardless of how, just the end result and I gave myself a time limit. It wasn’t a strict time limit, but it was fairly finite: Between 12 and 18 months, in fact was the time scale I set.

My intention: To start a new life in Thailand, marry my girlfriend, have a family and enjoy a life of freedom, joy and fulfillment.With that set I just needed to put a few details in there, just a like a baseball player has to pass all the bases to complete a home run. I set my bases, but they weren’t set as milestones in time. They were just things I desired to achieve along the way to make the possibility of succeeding in what I wanted to do more feasible.

I decided that I needed to save a certain amount of money, so I set that. In order to do that in the time I had, with the resources I had I needed to get a job. I had no doubts about getting a job that would pay well enough. I would keep my outgoings down to a minimum, of course, but I would also require at least a certain amount of time off work to visit my girlfriend in THailand, so we could still maximize the time to get to know each other better, which I felt was essential. The time I required would be at least two 3 week holidays, more than is normally available to a full-time employee, especially when first starting a job.

After looking at my intention and its details it looked quite far fetched! A job providing me a with a full-time salary, but with the kind of free time that would only come with a part-time job! Well I had worked shift work before and I knew that some shift jobs are structured in a way that many of your hours are concentrated in a shorter period of time, so you have more days off, even though you work the same hours as you would working 9 to 5.

That was pretty much what I set in my mind. I would save as much of my salary as possible, get a job working night-shifts and spend as much of my time off focusing on my goal and making it a reality!

Five days later I saw a job advertised online and applied for it. I received a phone call from the agency about this job after about an hour and I was set up with an interview a few days later. The guy interviewing was an old friend from a past job and a week later I was starting my new job.

I was officially taking the first step on the path of my next, significant, personal success and there was an amazing twist just around the corner too.

Talking to You in Riddles

Every riddle contains the answers to the questions you have.

What’s to say about this song and it’s message? Well pretty self explanatory. If you learn to listen to the voice of your intuition – Your heart then you will be more likely to head in the direction that, not only will make you happiest, but where you want to go. Don’t put too much faith in your head because that’s where the root of indecision, worry and confusion can come from. Not that the mind isn’t essential, but remember that if you are not sure of the answer or what to do next then you are relying on your head, which can’t possibly have all the answers – It gets it’s awareness and knowledge from stuff as it happens. In times like that refer to your heart (which may take some practice) because it knows what is best for you and if you allow it to, it will guide you in exactly the right direction.

Stop fighting it!

My next live video was a bit overdue, especially after the song was chosen by readers of this blog. Thank you by the way. I seem to have so many projects on the go I have given up trying to drop projects and have instead opted for continuing to live an intensely, multi-tasking lifestyle for a while. I just don’t feel alive unless I have things to remember all the time. I guess that is how I learn my life lessons and how I become more self aware.

So in an efficiency-minded fashion I decided to combine this ad-hoc live performance into being the next Musical Pick-me-up too. Making quick videos, I have discovered is great. It is very satisfying when there is no editing needed and even more so when I can see the fruits of my labour published quickly and available for whoever passes by.

MPMU’s were on my list of plans as something to develop into a premium product, but it just kept coming back to ‘Trying to sell MP3s’, so I am following my intuition here and settling on MPMU’s as being my service to you, gratis: Sometimes rough and ready like this one, sometimes more fully produced, but always sincere and with a sense of purpose, to Pick You Up!

You can of course still buy MP3s. I don’t have a problem with that.

So Near, So Far, No Cigar

But what lessons I learned! I remember talking with a friend during 2004, just after the realization of our dream of going to the USA to be rock stars slipped from out of our hands. I remember saying ‘I feel like a broken man’. Phew! If I knew at that point just how dis-empowering words like that actually are I would never have chosen them. That kind of talk doesn’t even enter my head anymore let alone exit my mouth!

We had signed a deal with a Hollywood-based music manager with some impressive credentials. We had even been through a several-month-long, ‘5-set’ game of contractual tennis via our lawyers. It was a serious contract and the excitement and the energy on the day we sat in that lawyers’s office and signed those contracts was crazy. We were going to be rock stars and it just felt unbelievable, which was probably the catalyst for what happened over the next couple of months. We heard less and less from our manager on the other side of the world and eventually he called it quits, we backed out of our contract and sat in a heap with no idea what to do or where to go next.

I felt totally deflated. There’s not really any more detail than that without going into a personal story and to be honest I don’t have the energy to bother with that anymore. It happened, it’s gone and I was to learn that the outcome of that little dance with fame and fortune was one of the best things that could have happened to me.

So summer 2004 was quite tough for me. I had quit my job and sold nearly everything I owned for this big quest to the USA and found myself jobless and with no plan and a little bit, but not that much money in the bank. I treated myself to beautiful Fender Custom Shop guitar (You’ve no doubt seen it in the videos and heard it on the recordings) and then one thing led to another and I found myself deciding to take a break from the music and going traveling. The destination I chose was South East Asia and I would be traveling for 3 months between November 2004 and February 2005.

You can read all about my travels in my travelogue, over at Leave the Office, which I published in 2006. I don’t like to dwell on details and make a big thing out of the major event of that period, which was the Tsunami on December 26th. I survived it and I am more grateful than I can put into words for that. Some people were not as lucky as me and I just don’t feel like detailing my ‘adventure’ over the few days surrounding that event. I have made mention of other things that transpired, including writing a song fairly recently about it and I may tell the story in more detail one day.

The main thing though is that if it hadn’t have happened I wouldn’t be sharing my life with the woman I know I was destined to be with and I wouldn’t have my beautiful, delightful daughter, so there is a reminder for me to see the jewel in any adverse situation. I believe I have lost the right to complain about pretty much anything now after surviving that episode and what I have ended up getting out of it.

During my travels in Thailand my songwriting friend also flew out and we met up for Christmas and New Year. Of course the events that happened changed our plans quite drastically and I ended my trip a month early because we both decided we should get home and record a brand-new album. This album would be totally self-produced and magnificent. I got myself a job working shifts as soon as I returned to the UK and I spent every waking moment that I was not at work recording and mixing this album, traveling to my friend’s house with my recording gear to record his singing and the rest of the time enduring this shift work whilst all the while having this excited feeling about being a rock star again, mixed with the rather incompatible feeling of wanting to go back and live in Thailand with the woman I had felt such a connection with.

The energy I had surviving the tsunami carried me through to completing that 11-track album by mid may. I had started it in February. By the end of the year I had lost touch with the lovely woman in Thailand, moved to a new town and a new job, was feeling pretty unfulfilled again planning a trip to the USA to see a friend there who wanted to help us with our music and was totally behind what he said was a truly great album. I very breifly got to meet Huey Lewis too, which was cool!

Also by the end of 2005 the beautiful woman in Thailand had surprised me by getting back in touch and we were regularly talking, mostly on MSN messenger, during my time at work, which would have been so boring if it weren’t for that. So after some planning and another decision to go for it I was quitting my job again in February 2006 and heading off to San Francisco to be a rock star again and… well it didn’t happen!

I returned to the UK after a month in the USA and felt right back where I was nearly 2 years before in 2004. I spent a few months in limbo, not able to face the prospect of going straight back to another day job in the same old industry I had been back to so many times before and I was kept marginally sane by the contact with my lovely acquaintance in Thailand, who was starting to feel to me like a girlfriend. I woke up one morning that summer and decided I was going to Thailand again to see if there was any future with this woman or not. I couldn’t see the point in a long-distance relationship like this and I knew that she would want to find out, just like me if there any point in the two of us investing any more of our energy in what was starting to feel like a relationship.

I’ll never forget it. We both definitely knew, for sure that this was it for the both of us. We wanted to share our life together and I got this amazing feeling that I can only assume was the feeling of falling in love, for real, no mistaking love for infatuation. It was real. I came home feeling both desperately sad and excited that despite not knowing how I could do it, that I knew I was going to go back and live my life with the love of my life.

I had a very real vision for how I wanted my life to be. I was no longer fearful of such ideas as getting married, starting a family, even in a completely different country and culture to my own. How would I get back? Would I be able to? What would I do? When would I get there? The answers to those questions would have to come later and I would have to trust that they would come as long as I just started taking action, whatever action that was.

From the song Your Brave Heart

An important thing to know with regard to your fears, worries and doubts. They are an illusion. They have power over you as long as you allow them to, but if you can step away from them and observe them for what they are then you will be able to see how natural it is to listen to your heart better than your head. Try Neural Recon Report – Tips: Weekly reminders and suggestions for transforming your habitual thoughts and self-talk to work with you instead of against you.

Don’t buy into the fears you’re feeling. Its just false evidence appearing real. You have the power to transform them in an instant your heart will heal.

Take a look around my friend. Listen to that sound again. Your heart is crying ‘cause you chose to hide it away.

Listen to your brave heart. Without it you can’t go far. You insist on trying to go it alone when your heart has connections with everyone

Your Brave Heart.
From the ©2008 album All in a Life’s Work by Boy@Heart

An Impressive Display of Tech!

Did you see the live U2 webcast of their concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California? I only found out about it an hour before it was due to start from a tweet I saw in my twitter stream and I’m glad I did.

Now before anyone rolls their eyes and starts saying "U2 are boring" or whatever, this is not about how great U2 are although I do like them. In my opinion it was not as impeccable a performance as their classic Boston gig from the Elevation tour, immortalized on DVD, but it was just as impressive for a completely different reason as far as I see it.

If you have seen U2 Elevation 2001 – Live from Boston (Amazon.com), (Amazon.co.uk), then you will know just what a premium job Hamish Hamilton did as director. That concert looked like a movie, which I guess it was really, but what Hamilton managed to draw out of the U2 performance was a tangible link between the images on screen and the space occupied by the viewer, making it feel like you were closer to being right there.

Now of course, if you don’t like U2 then none of this is going to make any difference to you and that’s OK, but hopefully this next bit will.

A Round of Applause for the Production Team

The live webcast contained all the factors that the Boston DVD had. It was obviously directed and produced, there was obviously an army of technicians, workers and ass kickers to keep everything in check so we, the viewers could experience what appeared to be an exhilarating show, effortlessly delivered from it’s origin to our computer screens. It did look pretty effortless didn’t it?

Producing a DVD is easy compared to this. If it’s a lack-lustre night or there is a technical hitch then the crew can have another go on the next night and the best gig gets edited, the music mixed to sound the best it possibly can and it’s all put onto disc.

The U2 webcast was live, which added another dimension to the experience. Although I was about 8,000 miles away it felt more like being there than watching the DVD regardless of the performance of the band.

I want to say that again because in our super fast, super-taken-for-granted world, we can forget this. IT WAS LIVE! No post production, no remixing of audio, true to the source, as it was captured and it still looked and sounded like a full-blown production. Did you notice the sound and picture quality? Even on my less than reliable internet connection it was an almost uninterrupted stream. Not only that, it was free!

I’m very interested to know exactly what systems and technology they were using to aggregate all that data because, as expensive as I’m sure it is right now, this is the technology that will in the not-too-distant future be accessible to you and I.

If we see more of this from other artists, including independent ones, like me then I’ll be pretty happy. I don’t like watching television and where I live it is vary rare to get the chance to go to a big gig, so this is something I love.

I’m impressed with this production because it was not really about U2 as far as I’m concerned. It showed a glimpse into some very exciting future possibilities for the internet and the way we experience the content. The concept of a live webcast may not be new, but at this level of quality I think it breaks new ground.

I would like to thank everyone who was involved with making the delivery of that experience possible because it made me feel good. You all did a great job that goes much further than simply putting on a show.

Thanks very much.

You can watch the Youtube video recording of the webcast in the box on the right. It’s 2 hours long. Enjoy!

From the song Repetition

I Wanted to share this message again, as I do from time to time. Especially as I also write about such things at the Neural Recon Report.

If you repeat a way of thinking enough times it becomes imprinted in your subconscious mind, re-wired in the brain and it becomes a habit – carried out on your behalf without the need to think about it.

The problem is that the mind does not distinguish between what you call ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ and so will create habits you do not want unless you apply the discipline of choosing your thoughts:

The thoughts you want to create the life you want.

I suggest you choose the thoughts that make you feel good and repeat them, repeat them, repeat them!

Repetition.
From the ©2009 album Mind over Matter Heart over Mind by Boy@Heart

Telefunky Got Soul!

I’m getting really excited! Very soon I will have my new microphone: A Telefunken M 80 Handheld Vocal Microphone, which I will refer to from now on as the Telefunky (I’m not the first one to use that term).

To those that are familiar with recording and audio production, this may not sound like a particularly exciting microphone and compared to several others that I desire, it is pretty ordinary actually, but it is not simply the object that I am excited about, it is the process of using it. I recently decided to try recording my vocals using a hand-held mic and it worked really well. Using my trusty SM57 mic was great, but in search for something with a better sound for recording vocals in this way at a reasonable price I came across the Telefunky.

It should be great for recording electric guitar too, so once I get more organized with my projects I should be able to provide more details about that and recording/mixing in general.

I have also decided to focus even more on my passion for creating music, which means spending less time on the internet. I recently assessed my day-to-day activities and realized that a very large chunk of my time is spent online without being productive. I have also been spending more time interacting with people face to face than in recent years too, which is really inspiring me and giving me some great ideas to realize many of my intentions.

Taking some time out with this microphone will provide a welcome, real-life distraction for my work, along with enjoying the time I spend with my new daughter, Lilla.

But Could I Walk Through it?

At the end of 2001 I had become acquainted with a really great record producer and we naturally hit it off, like old friends. We remain friends today. He had worked with some bands that I had liked in the 1990’s, most notable is probably The Breeders "Last Splash" album, which whether you know it or not, you have probably heard – at least the opening track "Cannonball"

By April 2002 I had become quite bitter and cynical about a lot of things. I had what I now refer to as "The World is S**t and you can’t convince me otherwise" syndrome. Of course with that attitude the world really is S**t and so you feel justified in perpetuating your miserable experience, not realizing that it is only getting worse every time you repeat your self-destructive mantra. Fortunately, although unbeknown to me at the time, my guardian angel or, you could say my connected self was steering me back on track and my inspiring new friend introduced me to a program that sounded to me like it was a kind of group therapy type of thing, but it just sounded like something that I needed. I obviously had a sub-conscious desire to break down all the negativity and bitterness that had begun to crust up around me, shutting me off from happiness, people and success. I am so very grateful that one man gave me a gift, rather than running in the opposite direction when faced with my attitude!

This program I attended was called ‘Being in Action’, which nowadays is called ‘iEvolve’ in London. It was not what I was expecting and after an initial reaction of shock about the topic of discussion I was experiencing a sensation of true transformation. This is not simply a good feeling, it is something that I cannot even begin to put into words because that just won’t make it any more easy to understand. It’s like explaining to someone who has never eaten an apple what an apple tastes like in the most explicit detail you can. They can then say they know what it tastes like, but that will still never give them the experience of what it tastes like until they actually eat one and therefore the knowledge of what an apple tastes like is pretty useless.

All I can say is that it blew open doors that had been locked to me in the past and gave rise to an awareness in me of such possibility that it was impossible to ever go back to the way I was before, even though I went close to having that door closed again. It made me realize that life is a work in progress. There is never a finish line and never a time when you can sit back and say "OK now I can switch off", there is always responsibility to accept for something, even if it doesn’t seem that way.

I wrestled and grappled with conflicting thoughts and feelings for several years after that, even at times wishing I had never been awakened to this profound experience, instead staying asleep. The old saying that ignorance is bliss. Well actually now I say ‘NO’. Ignorance is not bliss, it is ignorance! Not good, not bad, just what it is. Bliss is something you create by being awake in the moment and breathing in what life is for you in that moment because that is who you truly are and the more "now’s" that you can be awake to, the more blissful your life will be whatever is going on around you.

So without detailing everything I went through since 2002, let me summarize by saying I had an awakening to myself. Some of that was truly inspiring and uplifting and some of it was hard to accept as my own, but I learned some things that will never be forgotten and probably my most empowering lesson is not to rely on hope. There is no hope. Hope is a denial of your responsibility to create, instead leaving it to something outside of you to make things happen for you, so you have something to blame if it doesn’t happen. Being optimistic is great of course, but leaving all your possibilities at the mercy of hope is a recipe for disappointment. I do all I can every day to replace hope with intent and accept that I am responsible for what occurs.

This story is coming to a point where what happened started to demonstrate to me the cycle and flow of life in a wheel like fashion as opposed to a straight line of time. There really is more to this universe than meets the eye.

…And what a feeling!

On the 1st October 2009, the day before my birthday, my daughter, Lillana (Lilla for short) was born, nicknamed by the hospital staff ‘Cookie’. What a gift and what a feeling!

Since the birth I have been rather preoccupied as you can imagine and it has provided me with some realization too just how much time I tend to spend on the internet. After looking at that I have been able to determine how much internet time I really love and that which I don’t. With this new-found insight I am excited about putting into practice a new approach to my online activities, which will improve my day to day quality of life by allowing me the time to devote to my family, whilst still allowing me the time to enjoy my work to it’s fullest.

I have included a rough recording of a song I wrote in July at a time when my wife and I were presented with emotional challenges with her pregnancy. Without going into details, we were faced with some uncertainty for a few weeks about the health of our baby. During this time I faced some personal fears and came to the very empowering conclusion that whatever the outcome I would still be receiving the gift of a life and allowed something greater than myself to handle the matter.

I figured that, seeing as I could not choose the outcome of the situation I could choose how I felt about it and I wrote this song to help remind me of the fact that everything happens to teach us something about ourselves and a situation is only a problem if you choose to label it as such. I was very grateful for the fact that I very quickly found myself feeling extremely happy about being a father, no matter what the situation with my baby and of course I am grateful now too for now being a father to a very healthy and beautiful little girl.

The Boy at Heart Story continues soon!

The Only Thing Standing in Your Way

Welcome to the first online, Musical Pick me up. In a way I suppose I have been doing this for some time at The Weekly Songcast, which I have currently put on hold in order to focus on this – a kind of extension and integration of what the WSC was about anyway, sharing my work as a developing process.

Here is what I wrote about the shadow when I first published this song at the WSC:

There is a part of you, a part of me and a part of everyone else that has got it in for you. I’m not being negative I just want to point out that we all have a side to us that maybe doesn’t quite believe enough in ourselves or our abilities to achieve the things we want to achieve. What is so clever about this "thing" is that it is so familiar to us that we don’t even realize that it has us trapped in it’s cage. Your shadow is there to protect you, but it’s protection is way too much. It’s that voice in your head that is just automatic and you simply accept it without questioning what it is. It tells you that you must play safe, not take risks, not follow your dreams. It’s the voice that tells you that you are about to potentially mess up famously and that it would be advisable to stop now, turn back and resume the normal, safe and uninspired proceedings of your everyday life.

It’s easy to see that a shadow is not real
The voice of your shadow is unrelenting. It only really stops when you are very present to the moment, which is why meditation is so good for raising the levels of your awareness, so you can catch it in the act and see that it is NOT YOU! Not the essence of who you really are and you can see that it doesn’t share your dreams or desires. It’s goals in life are boring compared to yours, so be strong, be bold, be big and above all: Don’t be afraid!

Now back to 2009!

Well I think it was rather concisely summed up in that original post actually, but to add to that whilst trying not to repeat myself, the shadow is simply part of you without being who you truly are. It is the part of you that you have constructed yourself through decisions you made, based on how you perceived certain experiences throughout your life, resulting in you developing the character you are now playing in the movie of your own life.

You have given it a script, characteristics that have become synonymously you and you have given yourself expectations to live up (or down) to. All of these are an illusion – like a part being played by an actor in a movie, they are simply being acted out. I’m not saying this is bad. I am saying that we are under the illusion that this is who we truly are. We identify ourselves with our fears and worries and traits, when in truth we are what is left when you strip all of that away. What is left is what is real.

We all do this. How, why or when did we forget that we have a choice not to act out things in the way we believe is "Just the way I am"?

The answer lies with the shadow. If it was honest enough to answer the question, it would tell you that it has been leading you on your whole life. You have had free will to ignore it’s surreptitious ways and it’s persuasive commands that you have subliminally been following. It’s not the enemy though because it’s yours, mine, ours. We created our shadows and they provide a reference point to our true selves as shining light in comparison.

When we are living in the err… shadow of the shadow… we are selling ourselves short and playing small. Acknowledging the shadow, but being aware that it is just a voice and you have a choice, you can accept it for what it is and choose your own empowering path where you light the way rather than the shadow dimming the lights for your ‘protection’ The only thing it is protecting is it’s own dominance, so it can continue to run the show.

There is nothing to be afraid of. Why would you fear yourself?

I invite you to watch the video, listen to the song and rock out! You can download ‘Don’t be Afraid of Your Shadow’ for free or, if you choose to you can buy it. Either way I will be happy if you enjoy it, share it and above all, let me know what you think of it, so please leave a comment.

I am currently developing more material to package together with this song, some of which be free, some of which will form a premium version. Stay tuned.

Thank you and Enjoy!