This is acutally a post I started back in late 2008 but somehow never finished. I posted a lot of commented quotes on this site so far, and it’s funny how those get a lot of interested readers both from search engines and social media …

The reason for me posting them is that many quotes are a kind of essence of what these intelligent and wise people learned throughout their lives. That’s why I also think it’s very worthwhile to think about them ourselves. I studied “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama already here, and here are the best 10 quotes from him …

1. “In our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.”

That’s a very powerful quote. Only by being true to yourself you can make progress to being free. Truth is the ultimate fire that burns down everything that is false and opens the way toward happy states.

2. “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

On the one hand that shows that religion at it’s core can be very simple. It is important that this kindness is very powerful and is not coming from a weak state. Instead it’s a natural expression coming from a well developed mind. And it is the basis for being successful together.

3. “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

Helping others provides ultimate happiness.

4. “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”

That points to the reality that without love and compassion, humans can’t feel connected and can’t recognize themselves in another. Therefore selfish behavior against “the other” could potentially destroy even this planet. Feeling this connection on the other hand makes it easy to live successful together.

5. “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”

Only if you have truly worked on yourself and got the best out of yourself, you will not only be much more happier and realize your human potential, this will also give you a strong self-confidence. Using this will naturally have a positive impact on others and can build a better world.

6. “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

You won’t get happy by laziness. But it can flow naturally from right actions. For those you have to learn and act, and then learn from that experience again. In other words: do personal development.

7. “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.”

Pointing out the mistakes of others, making them responsible for your current “bad situation” is the easy way out. But not really of course. Since that moves you into the powerless corner, where you basically have no control over your life anymore. Taking complete responsibility for yourself and your own environment gives you the ability to influence your life the way you want it. While it can be hard at first, this is a true move to power and the necessary first step in your personal growth.

8. “If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. You will not be able to love others. If you have no compassion for yourself then you are not able of developing compassion for others.”

True change comes from inside of yourself. In order to love someone on the outside you first have to love yourself. You basically can’t give what you don’t have. So cultivate love and compassion for yourself.

9. “Through violence, you may ‘solve’ one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.”

10. “Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.”

Both quotes are based in ignorance, that means in having a selfish and narrow perspective on things. It’s not thinking Win-Win, but thinking Win or Win-Lose. Which ultimately leads to a Lose Situation.
The Dalai Lama: “I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed.”
Only by broadening our perspective, including seeing the world through the eyes of the other, and by educating and improving ourselves we can remove ignorance.

Outro by the Dalai Lama:

“When I meet people in different parts of the world, I am always reminded that we are all basically alike: we are all human beings. Maybe we have different clothes, our skin is of a different colour, or we speak different languages. That is on the surface. But basically, we are the same human beings.

Human beings by nature want happiness and do not want suffering. With that
feeling everyone tries to achieve happiness and tries to get rid of suffering, and everyone has the basic right to do this. In this way, all here are the same, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, Easterner or Westerner, believer or non-believer, and within believers whether Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and so on. Basically, from the viewpoint of real human value we are all the same.

Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself. It is wrong to expect some final satisfaction to come from money or from a computer.

How can we eliminate the deepest source of all unsatisfactory experience? Only by cultivating certain qualities within our mindstream. Unless we possess high spiritual qualifications, there is no doubt that the events life throws upon us will give rise to frustration, emotional turmoil, and other distorted states of consciousness. These imperfect states of mind in turn give rise to imperfect activities, and the seeds of suffering are ever planted in a steady flow. On the other hand, when the mind can dwell in the wisdom that knows the ultimate mode of being, one is able to destroy the deepest root of distortion, negative karma and sorrow.”

After a 9 year internet business, I’m currently thinking about starting a new internet based business that is very close to my heart. It’s about personal development and especially about goal achievement and it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about this (reading and commenting this).

Motivation

About 5 years ago I really started to set very strong goals for myself. I wanted to get everything that is possible out of myself, remove any limits and become the best I can be.
I changed my habits and thoughts about what is possible. I started to exercise regularly in order to get more energy. I set goals for 3 years, for the year and for 3 month and made action-plans to achieve them. I integrated the actions into my daily schedule and worked them.
There is an interesting effect if you set your mind to clear named goals that really motivate you. You get very focused and see more and more of what is possible. The challenge of course is to channel this focus and energy so that you make real progress and get productive results …

The Courage To Dream

It takes courage to dream and set those dreams to goals. You have to believe in yourself, even if others tell you that you are nuts. But we all have the ability to fulfill the dreams we have buried deep down. If you take the courage to get them to the surface, I mean the real dreams, those that give you a big smile on your face if you think about them (even if you try not to smile), those that make you really proud about yourself inside.
Those are not necessarly the dreams that society suggests you to achieve. They are the dreams that you really want.

Getting Them Out and Setting Goals

So the basic idea with this new personal development business is to get you to defince your dreams as goals. And then achieve them, step by step, by defining those steps in actions and setting time-frames for it.

The Goal Achiever Tool

The central tool will guide you gently through the process of getting your dream out and setting it as a goal. Then it will guide you to create a step by step action-plan that you can execute regularly. The web-based tool will be there as your personal coach and constant reminder of what you set out to be your goal and help you to get it. While doing your action-plan you come closer to your goal everyday and when you are done, you will have achieved your goal.

One of the most important things in achieving our goals is to follow through every day. This means firstly to keep your goal present in your mind. And secondly to take action as planned.

So there are two basic values this tool will give you:

1. define your goal and so making the very first step to achieve it by crystalizing it
2. do the follow-through with you by constantly remembering and guiding you towards the goal using your action-plan

Why do you want your goal that bad?

I’m also thinking about providing additional motivation that the tool would use. First thing is positive motivation. Why do you want it, what’s so great and cool about it. How will your life improve when you achieve it and most importantly, how will you feel then?

Secondly there has to be a negative motivation as well. Because if we like it or not: negative things have a great power to motivate us because we want to avoid them at all costs, right?

So how will it feel if you don’t get your goal? What negative consequences will be there? What are you missing out on? Will you be disappointed with yourself? Will others be disappointed with you?
And then we go back to the positive side and see in our mind how it will feel if we have it.

More about the Goal Achiever

Those reminders, which you will set yourself for you, will be there via email, mobile texts and of course on the website (and possibly ona iPhone and iPad application).

The tool on the website is the central place where you will do your working and reporting for your goal until you are there. It will be flexible, so you can change your action plan of course.

It’s also important that you get smaller achievements, so your goal will be split into some subgoals which you can achieve regularly. Let’s say your goal is to get to your ideal weight and lose 10 pounds. Then you can set subgoals i.e. for every 2 pounds you lose. In that way you can celebrate smaller victories and get into that important success-loop where you feel constant progress towards what you want.

Preset and individual goals

Since there are some goals that are common there will be some preset goals including preset action-plans and sub-goals for them. Those preset goals are for instance:

- lose weight
- quit smoking
- exercise regularly
- make X amount of money
- find the job I want
- find the partner I desire
- etc.

And you will be able to share your successes, for instance on Facebook or Twitter. There may also be a build in community feature and forums where people can talk about their successes and share their best goals and action-plans.

Will it work out?

One of the most important things I believe in business is focus and simplicity. This tool will focus on one task only and that is to fulfill your goal. To get you there, no matter what. That’s my demand on this business and this service: to provide the best goal-achievement tool possible.

If you have further questions about it or suggestions: Comment.

What is it worth?

Now … since this is a business-idea it means, that for the value provided there has to come value back. I’m sure it will be the best goal achiever tool available on the internet so far (I made the research) and the promise is, that you will achieve your goal as long as you work your action-plan to the end. This tool will make sure you will do it. That’s it’s purpose.

Most likely there may be a free trial period or a free version to test before paying anything. But this business and tool only comes into existance if there are paying users.

So the first question I like you to ask to comment on:
Do you see yourself paying for the goal-achiever tool and using it as described above?

What would it be worth on a monthly basis? ($10, $20, $40, $90 ?)

Please let me know and maybe we get a prototype by the end of the year! :)

-> Take a Look at Eckhart Tolle TV.

“Success is a journey, not a destination.” Ben Sweetland

Phew it’s been a while … :) I quit the job at my own company now and looked to start something new and make sense of how the personal and spiritual growth fits together.

One nagging issue I had was the seemingly conflict between the drive to success and spiritual being – I posted about it several times, not only on this blog … and I want to give some insights about this topic that I realized over the last view weeks:

A New View on Success

It is much easier for me now to have fun creating again and strive for and enjoy success. It’s not a bad thing at all – as one might think if one first experiences spiritual states directly. Here it seemed somehow in conflict and almost wrong to strive for worldly success, recognition and satisfaction :)

The important difference is that such things as success become enjoyable things, for instance creation of a new website and connecting with people on it is something that is fun – it has almost a playing character. But it is not something to find myself in it and to be fulfilled or to be more fully myself. That is impossible, but you have to realize it first that you are already and completely fully yourself. There is nothing to be added and you know it by spiritual realization.

But, as I said, success and drive to create is not wrong in any way :) On the contrary, and I enjoy creating it more than ever right now. It is simply an expressions, into the world of form if you will. There is no conflict anymore, you can have both totally – as long as you don’t lose yourself in the drive again and think you create a bigger me or a better me (than others or than my current me ;)).

What’s remarkable though is that success gets infused by the spiritual state, it gets more inspired (in-spirit). And everybody who sees what you are doing can sense this. Everybody wants to be inspired right? It’s a great feeling to receive and especially to give.

And this expression is something very enjoyable – the expression from your inner world into the outer world. I have the feeling that the more you can inspire your expressions, your creations, the more remarkable they are. If the expressions and actions are motivated by negative emotions like anger or greed this gets expressed in the creations, and you can see it first hand – it’s not very inspiring at all.

The Best Creations come from Spirit

Yesterday I heard the interview with Eckhart Tolle called “Even the Sun Will Die“, where he talks about his greatest achievement (“I don’t have to think anymore” :)) and how any real creative achievement comes out of the field of no-thought. In fact it seems to me the more you move into the spiritual realm and into the realm of no thought, the more powerful to create and to be successful you become. You have to take that impulse and create – take action – but if you are inspired and enthusiastic that is really easy to do.

So the difference is that creating success loses a bit of it’s ultimate importance and becomes more like a playing ground to create.

The Fight for Survival and Spirituality

Although there is the other side of the drive towards success and that is mostly before you have achieved a certain level of success. It is very much connected with the basic need for survival and a certain level of wealth, in order to live a life without worries for instance about money or providing for your family.

I have the feeling that this is almost something that happens not only on an individual level but also on a social level. In order to move more easily to a higher development of consciousness you have to ensure the basic need of survival. If survival is threatened you may even drop back to very uninspired behavior. At least this seems to be the general case. Some people like for instance Eckhard Tolle are able to skip this, I mean he lived on a park bench for years without a fixed income and a socially defined identity. But for the general public that doesn’t seem to work. We have to make step one in order to make step two.

In the end, for me spirituality and drive to success work hand in hand, or in even better words: spirituality and the drive success work best if they work hand in hand :)

PS: I opened a Newsletter for AwakeBlogger, you can get it top right on this site :)

Questioner: “How do you take on the bureaucracy that damages so many organizations?”

Jack Welch: "Damages? How about deadens?
That’s a better word to describe what bureaucracy does; it sucks the life out of a business … Kafkaesque … kick bureaucracy: At every chance, poke fun at anyone who tries to install process for process’s sake; rib people who get all puffy about their positions or titles.What you want is…A business where an idea’s value has nothing to do with the stripes on the shoulder of the person behind it…" (source)

I recently made some changes in how I approach my daily work life. I switched more to a result-oriented thinking. Again. Since I already learned the value of result-oriented thinking when it comes to getting things done. If the productivity and time-management information is not really working for you it may not be the technique but the engine running it …

The Mindset of Getting Things Done

There are two basic mindsets about something we want to do:

1. Process oriented

   What does the task mean? What will happen on the way to get there? How does it feel if I do it?

   Those may be the questions we ask internally if we adopt this mindset. The problem: if you don’t feel very good doing the necessary things, you might not give the best you could. This could lead to always trying to go the easy way and to avoid the tougher but sometimes necessary ways.

2. Result oriented

   How can I achieve this? What do I have to do now to get there? How does getting the result feel?

   If you think result oriented, you tend to see the end in your mind and you are looking for the fastest way to go there. You want to have the result. This means that you become much more focused on action “flowing” towards the result.

There may be some other mindsets when it comes to getting things done, such as the relationship oriented where you ask yourself "What does this task mean to my relationship to the people involved?" I seriously think that in general woman are more into this mindset.

Advantage 1: Flexibility

But the basic difference is the process vs. result orientation. If you think in results, the way to get the result is not that important. What matters is the result itself. This means that your way to get things done stays very flexible . If approach one did not work, doesn’t matter much! The approach was not important, the result is. So we just change the approach to a better one. We don’t get stuck in a process or even in the thick of processes.

So flexibility is one major advantage in the result oriented mindset.

Advanage 2: Drive to Action

Another even more important one is the drive to action . If you want the result you usually want it now. This produces a lot of potential energy to invest into the actions to the result. What I experience is that the anticipation of the result is what makes the process actually enjoyable, even if the task in itself is pretty boring.

An example

Here is an example when you are about to "clean the dishes":

Cleaning the dishes process oriented:

"Ahwww, what an awful boring task again! I have to take the plates and glasses and make them clean. Then use the towel, dry them and put them into the cupboard."

Cleaning the dishes result oriented:

"I want to have a clean and nice kitchen. What do I have to do to get the result? I have to wash the dishes, the plates and glasses and I put them into the cupboard then. So let’s get moving! I want to have my sweet clean kitchen back. … hmm, cleaning the dishes is not that bad actually ;)"

While it may not be that unbiased it makes the point clear: if you know why you are doing it, you are more motivated to take action having your result in mind. The same applies to all kind of usually more complex tasks of the information-age. Result-orientation simply makes it faster and easier to succeed.

Result-Orientation and the Present Moment

But …

… let me share this little story from the book "The Miracle of Mindfulness " by Thich Nhat Hanh (which I found on Kevin Rose Blog ):

The cup in your hands:

In the United States, I have a close friend named Jim Forest.  When I first met him eight years ago, he was working with the Catholic Peace Fellowship.  Last winter, Jim came to visit.  I usually wash the dishes after we’ve finished the evening meal, before sitting down and drinking tea with everyone else.  One night, Jim asked if he might do the dishes.  I said, "Go ahead, but if you wash the dishes you must know the way to wash them." Jim replied, "Come on, you think I don’t know how to wash the dishes?" I answered, "There are two ways to was the dishes.  The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes to wash the dishes."  Jim was delighted and said, "I choose the second way–to wash the dishes to wash the dishes."  From then on, Jim knew how to wash the dishes.  I transferred the "responsibility" to him for an entire week.

If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not "washing the dishes to wash the dishes."  What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.  In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink.  If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either.  While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands.  Thus we are sucked away into the future and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life." ~The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

Hmm.. this kinda contradicts my first conclusion, doesn’t it? I’m really curious. What do you think?
And secondly, do you honestly wash the dishes to wash the dishes or to have clean dishes?

The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriach Huineng, "I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas i do not quite understand. Please enlighten me."

The patriach responded, "I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning."

Said the nun, "You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?"

"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?"

The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon is the essence here. But what does this mean on a deeper level? How does it relate to todays everyday life? How can we understand the meaning in an useful manner?

The laughing Buddha Hotei is pointing to the moon, who was a monk who lived during the Later Liang Dynasty (907–923 AD) of China. Contentment and happiness being his defining attributes, Hotei has a cheerful face and a big belly.

Analyzing the pointer is pointless

… said Eckhart Tolle, yet we tend to analyze the pointers without noticing it. If we are discussing about whether something is good for us or not or especially if we come to a philosophical debate, we are discussing the validity of models and concepts. We can also go out and experience something directly.

It’s the same with spirituality.

Spirituality is all about experiencing and the truth itself. So this post here is of course a finger pointing. The words are only pointing. So as long as we are pointing and discussing about the different pointers, we are not experiencing. The experience of something is the connection with something, the feeling one with something, without labeling.

What happens in philosophy and in religion again and again is the intense discussion about the pointers. How can it be that there is a discussion about one thing that is true? It is one thing right? It can only be because we represent something differently, which are different pointers. Then it is easy to discuss and disagree about them.

The map is not the territory

The map is not the territory is just another way to point to the same thing. The map is the concept of what we have in the mind about something. It’s a belief, an image or a thought-pattern. We use this map in the same way as we use a city-map to find a location. If the map is correct, we will find our location. If it is slightly incorrect, we have to correct it by new knowledge, optimize it. If it is completely incorrect or we move to another city, we have to replace the map altogether. What is happening is that we changed the map. And this is happening all the time.

Another map is the self-image or we may call it the ego. It is everything we saved about ourselves. It is the map of ourselves and we act from it. We want to improve our self-image and we use our intellectual abilities to do so: we get our desires and we set goals and work towards them. The map called the ego is a very useful map that we constantly create ourselves. But here is the important thing: it is still a map.

It’s nice to have a map, as long as you know it’s a map

Which means:

1. The map can change : which means our self-concept (the ego, who we think we are) can change and this is the basis of personal development. This changing map includes our thoughts, beliefs and actions: the whole world-view and the self-image.

2. The map is not the territory : I am not the ego, my self-image. You are not your self-image, or in other words: You and I are not who we think we are; think in the literally sense of the word: thoughts (and all other concepts) are the map, not the territory.

The important step to Spiritual Awakening is dropping the map and experiencing what is without the map.

But, (for me at least) this means not to remove the map for all time. I need the map to function in the world and to relate to everything. So I create maps and use maps in a very intense way, in the best way possible. But there is one difference: I dis-identified the map from the territory. So I know that my self-image is my self-image but not the self.

Ken Wilber called the process "Transcend and include". Or as Genpo Roshi put it: the reason we are able to transcent the ego but still use it as a human being is that we know the Being side of the Human Being as well as the Human Side: check my posting about Personal Power vs. The Power of Now for more.

This is a Zen story I found on the website Pointing To The Moon :

"When Zen Master Nan-chuan saw his student Ma-tsu diligently practicing meditation hour after hour, he sensed a certain effort and ambition in the young monk’s demeanor, so he sneaked up behind him and asked, "What are you doing?" "I’m trying to become a Buddha," Ma-tsu replied proudly. Nan-chuan then picked up a stone and began rubbing it against a spare tile from the monastery floor. Hearing the sound, Ma-tsu asked, "What are you doing?" Said Nan-chuan: "I’m trying to make a mirror." Ma-tsu had an awakening.

And it goes on:

Everything is just as it is! Ma-tsu is Ma-tsu, the tile is the tile, and you are you, just as you are. There’s no Buddha apart from this fundamental truth, and any attempt to achieve some special state of mind just leads you away from who and what you already are. In the direct approach to truth …, the direct recognition of your true nature is available in every instant, on or off the cushion, whether you meditate or not. You merely need to "take the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate the Self," as Dogen Zenji said." – Stephan Bodian

Photo of Tina from the Happy Birthday Post of Think Simple Now

Hi Tina, could you please give us a small introduction about yourself and how you came to blogging?

I am the Chief Happiness Officer at Think Simple Now – a highly practical blog on personal happiness and fulfillment. I wanted to meet others interested in personal development and wellbeing, so I started writing as a way to share life lessons I’ve learned, hopefully to connect with others who are also working on their own personal development.

It’s noticeable that you do pretty good on social media sites like digg, how do you manage this?

I have written about this topic in detail at problogger: From 0 to 2000+ Subscribers in 90 Days .

And how did you grow your blog in general?

There are so many factors, but the two main ones are:

1. Obsession over content quality. Understanding my audience and giving them what they like. Keeping content quality and topics consistent to the brand.
2. Networking with other people as much as possible – bloggers, social media users, readers.

Think Simple Now. What role do these three words play in your life?

Life really is simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Gaining clarity and a state of contentment is really simple, but we forget that when life becomes hectic. It’s a reminder to myself that I can be happy, right now, if I just calm my mind and consciously choose clarity, peace and bliss.

How have you applied the knowledge in your blog in your own life?

All articles on my blog get their inspiration from situations I’ve encountered in my own life.

Can you give a specific and notable example?

For example, the article How to Organize Mental Clutter gives a six step solution for managing mental clutter. The outlined six step is what I practice in my own life.

In your personal development, what would you consider your greatest learnings?

Whatever is happening to us, is the best possible thing for us, because it is happening right now. Look for the blessing in every situation. It’s there if you seek it.

How do you see the realationship between Personal Development and Spirituality?

I believe a big part of spirituality is the practice of being conscious in the moment. A big part of personal development is to bring awareness into how we live our lives. The practice of consciousness increases our awareness of the world. Thus, learning about spirituality helps advance our own personal development.

If you look back on your life so far, what were your most defining moment(s)?

• When I read "The Power of Now” – Understanding ego and its play in our state of mind, and state of wellbeing.
• Spending time with Lamas in Tibet for several weeks – I learned about love and compassion.
• Starting Think Simple Now on a whim – working on it and watching it grow has been deeply fulfilling for me.

In the post "Dream to Reality: How I Quit My Day Job " you write about how you gave up your day-job to turn your blogs into your work, as well. After this, how have things developed so far?

I’m still in the adjustment period as we speak. So far, it feels a little like summer school and everyday feels like a weekend. It’s a fantastic feeling knowing that I can choose what I do with my time, at all hours of the day.

If you could choose one article of your blog, which one would that be and why?

That’s a rough one. Choosing just one article is like selecting a favorite amongst your children.

How about I give you my favorite three?

• The Secret to Self Loving – Spending introspective time on our own is incredibly valuable in our personal growth.
• Train Your Eyes to See Color, Again – I just really love this article. It’s empowering.
• I’m Sorry, I Don’t Know, I Can’t … – Something I talk about often to people around me.

From which people have you learned the most or which people are kinds of role model for you?

My parents – who introduced me to the love of self improvement. Other influential authors and teachers include: Eckhart Tolle, Dan Millman, Tony Robbins, Swamiji Nithyananda, Deepak Chopra.

Anything you would like to add?

Please subscribe to Think Simple Now here . I’ll love you for it.
And if you’re on facebook, join our facebook group .

Thanks for your time.

"To comprehend a man’s life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is till wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best." ~ John Hall Gladstone

Time-Management is not only something for managers and leaders. It is a topic that everyone can benefit from, especially if we want to get ahead and make a difference in our lives: "Where should I spend my time on? What is important?"

On the other hand we have questions like "How can I spend my time in the best way possible? How can I get the most out of it?"

It is the the art of focus and decision-making combined with effective productivity.

In this post I want to take a broader look on the topic and give an overview about time-management …

Are we really managing time?

Let’s get the shocking thing out first: there is no such thing as time-management! Why? Because time cannot be managed! Time goes on, whatever we do, we cannot change anything about it. If you even take a deeper look at it, you recognize that in reality time even doesn’t really exist: it is merely a concept we use as humans. And we pretend to measure it by using things like clocks: a mechanical or electronical devise that changes form and so displays a different condition when we look at it. What there is, is always the change in the present moment and our decision what to focus on in that moment, so we can shape the change the way we want to.

So what is it really then?

What time-management really is, is self-management. What do you do in the moment and what do you intent to do in the next moment? And what is influencing what you do in the next moment? These are the important questions to answer.

The 4 Stepping Stones in Time-Management

Basically there are four generations of time-management and each includes and builds on top on the one before. If you find your daily productivity in any of those then great, they all matter. But they all matter together. You may think it depends on the workload – what you want and have to manage and that is right. Because only you decide how productive you want to be :) If you can apply the 4th generation for you, you can really shift your whole life and productivity level.

1. The first generation is the 2do list . It is the basic organization of things we have to do. We write them down and when they are done we check them off. Great. Feels good to check a task off, doesn’t it? We’re done.
   Or not?
   The basic problem is there is no order in the 2do list. While it is an improvement over working every task out of the head, getting it out and fixating it, it gets out of control if the 2do list gets a 100 items …
2. Then there are calendars . In the second generation we plan ahead and schedule the 2do’s in the future. It gives more control and security over what we do and it adds the important thing called preparation.
3. But still it is confusing because there is no order in the tasks really. Often there are so much 2do’s and so much appointments and meetings that it gets overwhelming. What is important and what is not? I can’t do everything. What do I have to do and what must I deny to do? So we need to know what thing is more important than another. In the third generation we need to get priorities into play.How do we prioritize? We have to know our goals and our values . 2do’s are evaluated in relationship to goals and values. Is it in alignment with my value of, for instance, integrity? And what have we set out to achieve anyway? Is it getting us towards to the goal, is it irrelevant or taking us even further away from it?
4. Still it is not the final step to be as efficient as you can be, a machine. So it is not about managing time and all important tasks as efficient as possible and alienate everybody around us, including ourselves. The challenge is to manage ourselves and all needs and wants and demands in harmony, in balance .

So what time-management all boils down to is your decision of what is most important for you, and then focus your attention mainly on executing that and not something else.

What is important and what not?

Stephen Covey says to divide tasks into important 2dos and urgent 2dos. The time-management matrix, as described in my review of the "7 habits" earlier (check the link for deeper understanding), then helps to shift focus into the important 2dos.

I always understood this intuitively and if you examine your day you usually will find all 4 quadrants at work. But even if you understand it and recognize your tasks as important and urgent, how do I profit from the fricking matrix? ;) How can I make practical changes to get better in my productivity?

The value lies mainly in the awareness of what is important and what not. And then in moving more and more into Quadrant 1 (important and urgent) and with all the rest into "The Zone" (Quadrant 2): into what is important but not yet urgent.

If you do this, you will master time-management and produce not only good results but also balance. Success will be much likelier and seem more natural and effortless. Someone who is good in time-management is not someone who is constantly managing the tasks in stress. In fact that is definitely a bad time-manager, since he is constantly in quadrant 1 and possibly 3. It may be important, but it is urgent for sure. That is bad time-management and the "cure" is in quadrant 2 – The Zone .

There are several slightly different interpretations of the the time-management matrix (google image-search ), for instance The Importance of Managing Self has a practical interpretation. I also found the following mindmap from Mappio.com very good:

We need a compass instead of a clock

What is urgent? Urgent are all tasks that are "in your face" and want to be done immediately. But are they important or not important?

What is important? Important are the tasks that are in harmony with our goals and our life-balance.

• Important & Urgent -> Do them now the best you can
• Important & Not Urgent -> Set focus here, whenever you can (The Zone)
• Not Important & Urgent -> Say "No" because you have a quality "Yes", or delegate them
• Not Important & Not Urgent -> Avoid these for sure

Why are the important tasks urgent? Mainly because we did not handle them when they were not urgent. Some problems will always appear out of the blue, but most of them don’t. But if we know what’s important, will the urgent and not important 2dos magically go away? I don’t think so, clutter happens everywhere. But what it gives you is direction and control. Let’s think not of a clock but more of a compass. The compass shows the direction, the orientation and the goal that works.

If you have the compass you basically work the 4 generations backwards and use the mechanics like prioritized 2do’s in your calendar. There is one difference: you have a compass that you set north.

For me that is the whole point of time-management.

It’s the way to be successful and happy, and not only successful but miserable, because I am working my ass off on something that has no meaning for me. I do the right thing and then I do it right.

How can we really use this now?

1. Set your Life-Areas for Balance
   The message of the post is to focus on what it important. On the long run balance is most important.
2. Clarify your values & Set your goals
   To point the compass to north, you must know where north is.
3. Use a productivity system that fits you , such as Getting things done (GTD) in the context of your compass (1. And 2.)
   Now we get efficient big time! :)

"Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really?…True effectiveness requires balance." ~ Stephen Covey

"It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going." ~Brian Tracy

Does your reality look like you envisioned it 10 years ago? Have you created and expressed what is inside of you? Have you mastered the art of conscious creation?

I think it is very helpful to really know the process of how we manifest the things around us into existence. If we want to improve our life and get the things we are looking for, it is necessary to become totally aware of the process and then use it in our favor. If we can master it we can progressively produce the life we desire. I am a huge fan of proactivity, of acting from our desires in opposition to reactivity, and this post delivers the mechanics to do this. Anthony Robbins called the process the success-formula, consisting of 4 steps.

The thing is – and that struck me once I realized it – if you can think what you want, then it is a matter of mechanics to create it. Sure it will not be overnight, but within this thought is the seed to use this 4-step process and create the reality you want.

1. Intention: Think about what you want to create

This is the initial part where you get an idea of what you want. You can also call this an intention, which means that you form an image, a thought or in general a vision in your consciousness.

Where does it come from?

Well, I think this is the great power that we as humans possess: we can be creative, in the true meaning of the word. I think it often is a combination of things that already exist and thoughts from us applied to it. Maybe you get a flash of insight while you see a need to be met or a problem to be solved.

Brainstorming

A nice way to do this is brainstorming: you sit above your question or problem and think about it creatively while writing all thoughts and ideas that may come down. You don’t judge or evaluate them, you just get it out of your head. In step 2 you get those into order.

Or you already made this, maybe already several times and you already know exactly what you want to create. But it is still an idea in your head and maybe you are a bit fuzzy about it. Then step 2 comes into play now :)

One note about the popular law of attraction: what you focus on expands. This is exactly what is happening here. If you put your attention on something, preferably a question like "How can I get the job I dream about?" you will get answers. If you stay with the process you will get very good answers and see opportunities that you completely missed out before.

Wayne Dyer wrote a whole book about intention called “The Power of Intention”, maybe you want to check it out.

2. First Creation: Crystallize the mental idea into the world via planning

Once you have an exciting idea or an insight to get ahead, the next step must be to make a first creation in the physical world. This means that you put your idea down and out of "only your head", preferably by writing, painting or something similar. So if you want to write a new blog-post you write down the idea and maybe some bullets about the idea. If you want to create art you may draw a simple sketch, if you want to reach a goal you write down this goal and then the first action-steps. If it is larger maybe it translates into a whole project-plan. In general step 2 fixes the idea and produces a plan to achieve it.

Here it is also very advisable to analyze a bit about the idea. Is my planning sufficient? Is it really as good as you first thought? Is it giving me and others what I intended to?

Another very important point here is the reason for your intention: “Why do you want to do it?” The “Why” was especially emphasized by Anthony Robbins since this is the “emotional gas” that drives your idea forward later on. The reason why you are doing it must keep you going, not only at this stage but also when you are optimizing your creation. That’s why it is very important to be clear about and to align your “Why” with your deepest desires.

This actually blends with step 1 and only completes the first mental creation and transforms it into a physical creation. Everything that is created by humans (so usually everything around us, except for pure nature) came into being this way.

3. Second Creation: Execute the idea in physical reality

This is where you are actually putting what you want into action. You start to execute your plan from the first creation. This is what is generally seen in "reality" while you produce something in the world of form. You put your plan into action.

While it is the most obvious step – and I don’t want to talk about project-management here – there are some things that are interesting: First: good preparation and a good plan make the actual doing much more smoothly. Also step 2 should be finished. Usually it can get pretty frustrating if you execute your plan while on the other hand still developing it. It gets even more complicated if others are executing it, while you develop it ;) That’s a typical mistake in larger projects and I know I’ve been there :)

What also comes in handy is a good system for productivity. There are several systems for self-organization, for instance GTD ("Getting things done" by David Allen). I wrote about my system in How to plan your week: 4 Steps to Productivity .

4. Optimize: Get feedback and change until you succeed

You and other people can see your actions and your results.

Getting and Using Feedback

It is often funny how other people react to this and how you react to those reactions :) The topic of different perspectives comes into play: since you already know your creation very well, but all others not, and maybe they even don’t car too much ;) So depending on what this creation is, you should take enough time to explain and promote your idea. For instance a website is there to provide value for others, if it fails with this the whole idea fails.

Feedback doesn’t only mean feedback from others, it will also be the feedback you give to yourself: How does it work for me? Have I met my initial idea? How can I improve from here?

Optimization

The idea is to use feedback to improve your creation. You notice how it works and you adapt your plan to optimize your result. If you do this you won’t fail. It may include to change the whole idea from what you learned on the journey, or you have to optimize small things. Optimization is changing your approach until you reach your desired result.

Conclusion:

As we can see the whole process is initiated by our intention in step 1. The quality of what we create in our own reality is depending extremely on a very good first step. Of course it is depending also very much on process, what is a good idea without actually using it? The point is to do the initial 1. step consciously and decide what it is that you want to create. The rest is a mechanical process that you can learn.

The 4-step process of

1. Intention
2. First Creation: Planning
3. Second Creation: Executing
4. Optimizing until you succeed

is a simple framework to create the reality of desire. It may be intuitively clear and so the purpose of the post is more to see that every desire is achievable and encourage you to go for it.

The art of creation is the way to create the reality around us. You are constantly doing it anyway, the question is: are you aware of it and secondly: is it a creation of your own choosing? So it is about time to do it consciously.

Lao Tzu was the most important spiritual Chinese sage. His name, which is also often called Laozi, literally means “Old Master” and is generally considered an honorific.

He lived in the 6th century BC, at the same time as Confucius, who was born a generation after Lao Tzu. He once sought out Lao Tzu who told him “Strip yourself of your proud airs and numerous desires, your complacent demeanor and excessive ambitions. They won’t do you any good. This is all I have to say you.”

Las Tzu is the father of the Chinese spiritual tradition Taoism, mainly because of his text called Tao te Ching (Tao: the way of all life, te: the fit use of life by men, ching: text or classic).

It is based on the Tao (The Way), which is the creator and sustainer of all things in the Universe, and the practice of doing by nondoing (wu-wei) that enables the disciple to unite with the Tao.

Lao Tzu wrote his only book Tao Te Ching just before he walked away from the Chou empire he served. There are a lot of translations of Tao te Ching, which begins with the very first words of …

1. “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

This first sentence of his teachings seems paradoxical. In my humble opinion it says that everything that is in the world of form (or the world of the ten thousand things, as the Chinese said) is not the formless animating source, which is not nameable. It is like the analogy of the finger pointing to the moon, which is a pointer, but not the moon itself. Whenever the Tao is named, it is labeled and made into a concept which is not the eternal Toa itself.
If you are interested, Wayne Dyer did a complete interpretation of the Tao te Ching called Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao.

2. “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

Really a quote to think about. How can that be in the first place: there is no rush and no hurry, but everything works out. Grass does not try to grow, it just grows. Water does not try to flow, it just flows. The only explanation is that everything is done in a naturally perfect way, without resistance and within the flow of life …

3. “Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”

The Inside-Out approach tells us to start with the man in the mirror. Self-mastery is the basis for success, for yourself as well as with others.

4. “To see things in the seed, that is genius.”

To me this means nothing else as being able to form a personal vision for something. Genius for that matter, is to see the potential in something or someone, although not realized yet (“in the seed”). It is the essence of forming a vision of what might be and then going on making it real.

5. “When the best leader’s work is done the people say: We did it ourselves.”

A leader is not a good leader if he is so ego-driven that he is always standing in front of his team, and is letting the team feel it. The most empowering way is to inspire people so that they become able to realize their own potential.

6. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

Non-attachment – even or especially to ones own self-image – is the necessity for personal change. If we are open to change and to new possibilities and perspectives, without buying into them blindly, we can grow.

7. “To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”

This is a realization that can be understood intuitively if we practice meditation and/or are able to quiet the mind of the constant chatter of thoughts.

8. “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

This emphasizes that getting started is often the hardest part of the journey. Even the greatest thing is started and then continued by single little steps, one after another. It also has the very practical meaning of breaking huge projects down into small and doable tasks, that then can be executed more easily.

9. “Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”

In my opinion this is Lao Tzu’s expression of “intentions manifesting” or “thoughts become things”, which is also discusses widely as the secret or the law of attraction. But it is really a much more elegant way to put it :)

10. “At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

All you need to really find yourself is to look inside. It reminds me of what Eckhart Tolle said at the beginning of The Power of Now: Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth.”

Those were the selected 10 most inspiring quotes by Lao Tzu, as well as my annotations to them. Maybe you have other interpretations or other favorite quotes of him. Let me know in the comments! :)

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." ~ Steve Jobs

This is a very practical posting in which I will show you my personal weekly planning process. I hope you can use and adapt it for your own productivity and success. It is basically my own mixture of systems from Anthony Robbins, Stephen Covey and David Allen with a little bit of today’s technology powered by Steve Jobs ;)

"Wait a minute," you may think, "what does this quote from Steve Jobs have to do with weekly planning?"

Your weekly plan is your ticket to a self-directed and self-created life. That means a life that is mainly leaded by you and not by anyone else. It will focus your actions towards what you want. A weekly plan is right between your own goals and the actual things you do every day. This is exactly the reason to do weekly planning. One could say it is where the rubber hits the road.

Self-Leadership: Know your life-areas and goals

So, some things are necessary to be really effective with your weekly plan. My weekly planning is build around my life-areas. In the post "How to Create Balance in All Areas of Your Life " I already wrote about life-areas. Life-areas are areas of constant and never-ending improvement, we want to keep them at a high level and even improve them constantly here. This naming of life-areas of importance enables us to set a clear focus and to use the mind as a tool to create life-balance.

For instance my life-areas are:

Private: body, mind, spirit, social, finance, juice
Professional: b2b, sales, e-commerce, marketing, technical, product, finance

Please check my post about balance and life-areas for more on this.

Another really important thing is to have set personal goals. In "The Fastest Way to Set Motivating Goals" I wrote about a simple and fast procedure to get your goals out.

The two steps are important, because we can be as good as possible executing our goals, but if the goals are fuzzy or not really what we want it can’t bring a good result for us. If you don’t have goals or know your life-areas, your areas where you want to improve and focus on, then you still can use the weekly planning process. But it might not be as effective in the results. Your life-areas and goals make sure that you really tap into your deepest resources and create the motivation you can have.

I call this Self-Leadership , because with it you are able to lead yourself to what you want. It makes a difference between action and reaction. The more you work towards your goals in your life-areas the more proactive you are. This is a source of freedom and happiness. It is not all, but a huge part of it :)

1. Brainstorm your weekly tasks

I would suggest to do the weekly planning on Sunday. The first thing you do is brainstorm all tasks into a list you want to do in the next week and put them into the right area. The template would be

[area] task-description

This could look like the following list:

Professional:

• [sales] post a new job-description on my website
• [e-commerce] start a banner campaign for my online-shop
• [marketing] write a press-release for the new website-launch
• [marketing] improve the powerpoint presentation and send a PDF of it to the pr-manager
• [product] review and finish the project-plan of the Newsletter-project
• [technical] produce actionable tasks from the project-plan and put them into the project-tool
• [technical] meet with Peter to discuss the timeline of new shop-project
• [sales] We 10 a.m. meet the new sales-candidate

Private:

• [body] go swimming Mo, We, Fr at 6-7 p.m.
• [mind] finish the last 20 pages of "Personal Development for Smart People" and …
• [mind] … write a short review of the book into my journal
• [social] make a date and meet with Andreas this week
• [social] make a date with Susan on Saturday for dinner
• [spirit] start next meditation session
• [juice] book flight for the travel to California for March

Usually this whole process takes about 10-15 minutes, depending on how much you are already used to it. It is nothing to create something completely new, this would go to the goal-setting process. Here we have action-items that make progress during the week.

2. Set priorities

The next step is to decide what is most important this week. This means to set priorities to your tasks. I use the following system and found it to be very effective:

Priority A : Must get done
Priority B : Should get done
Priority C : Nice to have

All priority A tasks must get done within the week, there is no exception. This means that you start with priority A tasks and finish them, before you do priority B or even C tasks. If the task is scheduled for a certain time, then this time is blocked out and cannot be removed for any other lower priority tasks. This ensures that you always get done the most important things for you, which ensures real progress towards your goals.

Usually you have more A, B and C-priorities, so you sub-prioritize with A1, A2 … and so on. Then you order your tasks accordingly to their priorities.

So my whole professional weekly plan may look like this after prioritizing:

Professional:

• A1 [e-commerce] start a banner campaign for my online-shop
• A2 [sales] We 10 a.m. meet the new sales-candidate
• A3 [sales] post a new job-description on my website
• A4 [marketing] write a press-release for the new website-launch
• B1 [marketing] improve the powerpoint presentation and send a PDF of it to the pr-manager
• B2 [technical] meet with Peter to discuss the timeline of new shop-project
• C1 [product] review and finish the project-plan of the Newsletter-project
• C2 [technical] produce actionable tasks from the project-plan and put them into the project-tool

3. Put your tasks into your calendar

The next thing is to put the tasks into your calendar and lock them in to be done. Your calendar can be your number 1 tool to organize around. I personally love to use iCal on Apple as well as an iPhone to synchronize the tasks onto a mobile device. A mobile device makes sure that you have your schedule ready whenever you need it (you can always turn it off, if you want to ;)). You can use any calendar as Microsoft Outlook, Firefox Sunbird or Google Calendar.

On Sunday or Monday morning you insert your tasks into your calendar and if necessary set reminders, so the tool will inform you about the task. This way you have a system you can trust and you can get all the tasks out of your head. This is very important since you want to have all of your resources available to concentrate them on the one task you are doing.

Of course it is very important to leave space (time) in your calendar, since there are usually not only the tasks you select to do but all kind of tasks that can get to you. Maybe there are new tasks from your boss, from colleagues or an emergency. The important thing is though, to get your A-priorities done. So leave time open in your calendar. I keep 50% free every day, so I can react to what is happening. This also touches time-management with the important and urgent tasks, refer to my post on the 7 habits: 3. First Things First for more infos.

So the calendar would look like this (Google Calendar in this case):

You should use different colors for your different life-areas in iCal. So for instance in my weekly plan all professional tasks are blue, body is red and mind is green etc.

4. Execute

Start executing your A1 priority task on Monday and work along your calendar schedule. I simply have my calendar open and start with the first task now. Until it is complete I try to focus only on this task. If you get interrupted and can’t prevent it (you don’t have to take every phone-call or allow colleagues to interrupt with trivial questions), focus on that new task and then return to your current task asap.

If you have to reschedule then do it and make sure that you keep your A-priorities to the front. As I said the most important thing is to get all A’s done within the week. Then advance to the B’s and then to the C’s.

The result of this weekly planning and executing around your personal life-priorities is simply that you will make significant progress in YOUR chosen direction. You will make good progress in the week and huge progress over one year that way.

I wish you good luck! :)

Do you have feedback or questions? What are your systems and ideas that work for you? Please write and discuss them in the comments.

“To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.” – Shunryu Suzuki

Note: This is a post by Scott Aaron Gaul. Scott is a Stress Relief Trainer. He has studied in India and has a four year degree from Antioch University in spiritual psychology. You may visit his website at QuietMindCafe.com

A quiet mind is the centerpiece of any relaxation technique. And a quiet mind is developed only through skill and practice. Because, stress is automatic but relaxation is learned.

Not all stress is bad. Stress is a necessary and important element of daily life. In an instant, stress can prepare the body and mind for situations that require immediate strength and action. A little stress can improve concentration and job performance. But when stress continues throughout the day or longer, it becomes chronic stress. There is no good side to chronic stress. Chronic stress suppresses the immune system, causes rapid aging, makes the body retain excess fat, dulls thinking, increases pain, is the root cause for more than 80% of illnesses today, and generally reduces quality of life.

Stress is caused by fear.

Stress Relief Training provides the skills and practice needed to reduce stress in the mind and body. With a few minutes of training and awareness: shoulders can drop, muscles relax and soften, breathing becomes slow deep and regular, and the mind is serene.

The mind is busy

According to Eastern spirituality, the mind is always attempting to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The mind is never at rest because this attraction and avoidance causes an unending string of thoughts. For some people, most of the thoughts are not satisfying and this lack of satisfaction causes fear and stress. The mind will never find rest through achieving more, it will only find rest through slowing and becoming quiet. Following is an easy exercise to resolve this problem.

How to calm a mind

Mental images and words can slow and even stop for a short time. When this happens, the mind becomes detached from the cares and problems of the world. The body and mind relax and stress is relieved. Practiced regularly, this can make an important shift in consciousness.

The following guided exercises should be read and then practiced. Each exercise should not only be understood intellectually but should be committed to practical experience.

Guidance: Be fully present right now. Discard any thoughts about the past or the future that may arise. Enter your senses fully — feel the weight of your body in the chair, your feet on the floor. Notice the feel of the air on your skin. Feel yourself breathe. Be receptive to the sounds around you and sights in front of you.

Guidance: Just listen to all the sounds that come to your sense of hearing. Do not move your attention from one sound to the next. Rather, listen to all the sounds together as one sound. Hold all sounds equally in your attention at the same time and do not let your attention jump from sound too sound.

Guidance: Relax the muscles of your eyes so that your vision falls in front of you and slightly downward. Without moving your eyes, notice your whole field of vision from side to side and top to bottom. This is done with the eyes relaxed and motionless. Place your attention on your entire field of vision without fixating on any single object in your field of vision. Receptively experience your whole field of vision.

This is a receptive practice and does not require any “doing” on your part, other than remaining receptive. Combine each of these exercises so that you are practicing all three at the same time. Continue this practice of being present, seeing, and hearing for only a minute or two.

How it works

The attention working through the senses is no longer being pulled about by competing sights and sounds. As the attention slows and becomes calm, the whole mind slows and becomes calm.

In this receptive state, unneeded tension is released. Muscles soften and let go. Breathing can become slow and naturally deep.

This exercise delivers best results if it is practiced at least three times a day for a minute or two. Within a few days, this stress relief practice will become easier to enter and sustain. In time, the hours between each practice session will become more stress free. The desire will naturally arise to do this practice frequently, more than just three times a day. As stress is relieved, the immune system will strengthen, aging will slow, and sleep will improve.
Scott Aaron Gaul is a Stress Relief Trainer. He has studied in India and has a four year degree from Antioch University in spiritual psychology. You may visit his website at QuietMindCafe.com .

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." ~ Wayne Dyer

Have you ever fought about a position you had with another person and you simply couldn’t figure out why he or she just could not agree with you? It seemed so obvious and so darn right. "What is the matter with you? Can’t you see that I am right?"

In this article I want to look closely on the matter of different perspectives and how our own perspective shapes what seems right and wrong. Seeing something from a different perspective can raise your own awareness and enable you to find better solutions, especially if you have a lot of arguments with other people within your work or private life.

My Perspective, is it real?

The reason of the argument is that the other person has a different perspective on things. He is looking through his pair of glasses to the world, as well as we all do. This means that we filter everything by our personal history, our beliefs, motivations and concepts that we hold true.

But it is important to know that they are not necessarily true for other people. What seems to me true can be wrong for a person that has a different personal history. And if this person disagrees with me and if I would be in his shoes now, I would probably disagree with the current me too.

I have encountered many examples where different perspectives just collide with each other, especially in my work. It usually is not a discussion about right or wrong, or black or white. Mostly it is more complicated.  Seen from different perspectives an action seems to be desirable but on the other hand also dangerous and possibly destructive. Both sides usually have their points. So you have to find the sum of all perspectives and then operate within it to find a suitable solution.

A simple example would be to add advertising to a website. The user doesn’t seem to like it, but can he accept it? The website-owner needs to pay the traffic and want to make some extra money for his efforts. But can he also overdo it? Either perspective doesn’t supply a perfect solution, but taking both perspectives into account enables the solution of moderate advertising.

The value of seeing another perspective

Often we are afraid that seeing the other perspective then could lead to us losing the argument … or worse, to get a disadvantage. But the true value of another perspective lies within seeing more of a situation and therefore being able to make a better judgment for ourselves. And not only for ourselves but for the other person too.

The key is often to include the perspective of the other person (which is also the essence of thinking win/win, a win situation for both parties). It can lead to true solutions instead of compromises. I remember the interesting story of Stephen Covey who had a friend who said that going for win/win is dangerous because you can be taken advantage of. He continued with his negotiating example and how he did not get the best deal. Covey struck him with the question "Why did you go for lose/win?" As it dawned to him that he did not go for win/win but really lose/win, it was like a revelation for him.

So it can take some courage to see the perspective of the other person, acknowledge it and then look for the best solution for both. It requires the discipline to show the perspective to the other person too and to go for this win/win solution.

Switch perspectives: How to see through the eyes of another person

The best way to do this is by empathic listening. This means that you listen to the other person and try to see the world as he/she sees it. This does not mean that you give up your perspective. It means that you add another viewpoint. If this corrects your viewpoint a bit, then this is nothing to be afraid of. On the contrary, it is great: you just got a more correct picture of the issue.

You have to switch sides then and the other person has to listen to you. Again, Stephen Covey describes it on his book "7 habits of highly effective people " as habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

If you are for your own, maybe you see something on television, you can also expand your perspective and try to see the world through the eyes of other people first, before judging them. This sounds easier than it is. Only if you can understand the actions of others, if you can feel their motives within you, you can truly say that you see their perspective. Otherwise there is a certain amount of ignorance, which ultimately means that there is a too narrow perspective. Of course, feeling their motives doesn’t mean to agree with them, but to understand them.

The process of personal growth is also the process of broadening your own perspective. It is the process of becoming aware of deeper principles and of including more than our own ego into our perspective.

Broaden your perspective

Scene from Dead Poets Society

In the great movie Dead Poets Society (see the "Carpe diem" part at Youtube ) there is the teacher Mr. Keating encouraging the students to climb on the table to look at the class-room from a new perspective. It indeed looks different from up there.

If you get a bigger picture you get a perspective that is able to solve a situation that seemed unsolvable first. Albert Einstein said "Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them." This is very true with perspectives. If you look at the current problems of even wars, of course both sides think they are on the right side. From their perspective their actions are totally logical and the right thing to do. But it is a too narrow perspective. If both sides would be able to broaden their perspective and realize that humanity does not end at the border of their own country, that at the core we are all the same and seeking happiness no matter where we are, then this would be the first step to get sane again. Real solutions get in a range of possibility again. You may say "but it is not that easy", well then broaden your perspective. If you look at planet earth from space and you see two countries at war, would you say this is the right thing to do? If no, then you found a perspective that is broad and aware enough to find a better way. You can get to the details once the basic agreement has been made in the mind.

An amazing statement but it rings true. He is mindful, elegant and with a big heart. You get the feeling that as a politician he not only talks about integrity but actually has it. Looking from the outside (Germany) to the approaching election one dares to say: America, Obama is the best thing that could happen to you now! The only thing you have to do is make it happen.

I actually researched some of his speeches and found the following 10 Quotes to be most inspiring and convincing, I hope you do too.

10. Generations

"It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today."

9. Purpose

"If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress."

8. Ability

"We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people. Yes we can."
- Speech following New Hampshire Primary January 8, 2008.

7. Courage

"As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it."

6. Unity

"There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America — there is the United States of America"

5. Destiny

"The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them."
- speech, Jun. 4, 2005

4. Potential

"Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential."

3. Values

"If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren’t willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all."
- quote from his book, "Audacity of Hope" (Chapter 2)

2. Change

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
- Speech following Super Tuesday results, Feb 5, 2008.

1. Hope

"Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. Hope is what led me here today–with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be."
- speech, Jan. 3, 2008

Bonus: on himself

"I’m in this race not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation."
- February 10, 2007 Presidential announcement.

"Change doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."
- Speech in Denver, Aug. 28, 2008

Check out BarackObama.com and if you are an American, make your vote count right on Nov 4th.

“Imagine being asleep in your bed for years and years, having dream after dream. In these dreams you could experience a whole variety of things. You could have wonderful dreams and nightmares. When you’re in the dream, they feel so real. You’re either flying around the world and doing your absolute favorite things or running for your life with heart pounding. It all feels incredibly real!” ~Ariel Bravy

Ariel Bravy is author of his site ArielBravy.com and he writes amazing blogposts about spiritual growth. The content is not only Enlightenment or Spirituality in general, but there are also different insightful posts about creation, manifestation and the nature of reality.

After the first part in the interview-series with Evelyn Lim of AttractionMindMap, which focused on Personal Development and also the Law of Attraction, this interview is all about Spiritual Development.

Ariel, your blog carries the line "We Are All One" and is dedicated to Spirituality. Could you please give us a small introduction about yourself, your spiritual path and how you came to blogging?

It’s starting to feel more and more foreign to think of "Ariel" as who I am, but it’s a useful framework to come from at times, so we’ll pretend that it’s actually who I am. So I grew up doing my thing, living my life, like we all did. Went through school, went to college, dated a number of girls, the whole bit.

From a spiritual standpoint, I was born into a Jewish family, but hopped off the religion boat pretty early. It never really appealed to me. Growing up I started rejecting religion, seeing all the ridiculousness associated with it in the world and eventually became agnostic, intuitively feeling that there had to be something more, but religion ain’t it. =)

My mom had been into this weird meditation stuff before me and we had some debates on the subject. Eventually, around the age of 14 or so (I’m 24 at the time of this writing), I started reading books by Deepak Chopra, Neale Donald Walsch, and the like and something really resonated within me. It was all the awesomeness, without all the dogma, rules, guilt, and threats of sin and going to hell.

This whole spiritual thing started to flower within me, growing from just something that sounded interesting to my life’s purpose itself. Everything I did became imbued with a sense of spirituality, a recognition that there was something more going on to life than meets the eye, and an acknowledgment of this on some level. Interestingly, a lot of this comes very naturally to me, almost as if I’ve done this before many times…

Eventually I found myself finding an online forum to discuss these topics and realized people had been saving and collecting my posts. There was some really great discussions going on in both directions, a real team effort where we would all bounce ideas back and forth off one another, share ideas, book recommendations, teacher suggestions, and so on. It was like a spiritual mastermind group.

There then became a growing sense that this spiritual wisdom needed to start reaching people on a more global scale, not just within the walls of this private online forum. It was time to expand, like an animal growing out of its shell. Enter the blog. Now there is an avenue for me to express the realizations that continue to unfold literally every day. There’s SO much to share with people, SO much I have to offer. I will sit down and write 7-10 blog posts in one sitting. It literally pours through me. One subject would trigger another. There’s books inside me, just waiting to come forth. I am very fortunate to be able to structure my life to where I can sit devote all day every day to spiritual growth.

Now there’s even more stuff happening behind the scenes beyond just a blog that I’m very excited about. Growth is starting to feel exponential. As the saying goes, when it rains, it POURS! The valve inside of me is continuing to open more and more and I’m so grateful to have an outlet to share all of this with the world.

If you would have to describe the meaning of spirituality and awakening to someone who is not in this topic? How would you go about it?

Imagine being asleep in your bed for years and years, having dream after dream. In these dreams you could experience a whole variety of things. You could have wonderful dreams and nightmares. When you’re in the dream, they feel so real. You’re either flying around the world and doing your absolute favorite things or running for your life with heart pounding. It all feels incredibly real!

Imagine then one afternoon you woke up and suddenly realized that all those dreams you had were just dreams! There was never any threat at all. It was all just happening in your imagination. There’s this whole other reality that’s WAY more real than the dream world!

Then let’s say you could go back to sleep yet still consciously recognize that the whole dream was still just a dream. You’d be in the dream world, but not of it.

You’d then tell people about this whole other reality that was happening all the time, that was where you actually existed, despite the fact that you can’t see it or feel it. It exists right here and now, but you can’t imagine what it’s like. Some people might believe you. Others would think you’re crazy. The ones who’d think you’re crazy would dismiss you. Perhaps even crucify you. No big deal. It’s all just another dream anyways. They’re under no threat in the first place so you’re not worried for them.

The ones who’d believe you, maybe you’d tell them what the experience is like and they’d try to mimic the experience, to have a dream called reality. No no no, you’d say, you must first awaken and realize this for yourself. Any dream you try to have is not it. It’s still just a dream. Reality is not a dream. It’s what’s happening this whole time, yet you can’t experience it by trying to. You actually have to STOP dreaming and wake up to recognize actual reality which is infinitely more real than the one you think you’re in.

From this awake world, you could look back at the dream world and realize that literally anything is possible. There is no possibility of getting hurt, other than the mental idea that you can, which is just part of the dream too. Even the suffering you experience is part of the dream illusion, even though it feels so real. In fact, the "you" that’s suffering in the dream isn’t actually you at all!

What we call "real life" is a lot like the dream world. This "real life" seems very real. Our physical senses are telling us it’s oh so real. Our stomachs feel pangs of hunger and our heart skips a beat when we see the one we love. It all feels so real.

Enlightenment is simply awakening out from this dream and realizing that it’s all just a dream. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily escape the dream world and that dreams never happen again. It simply means that you can watch the dreams happen without getting attached to it, while realizing it’s still just a dream, without fearing what is happening or might happen in the dream. Afterall, you’re in no danger anyways! You can be totally free in the dream world, and all fear, if the mind had any, would be recognized to be totally silly, just a made-up idea that has no truth to it.

Will awakening magically fix your dream life? Not at all. Will it make you fabulously wealthy and fix all of life’s problems? Not at all. You’ll simply realize that there is no "you" to have these experiences and all suffering would then cease.

Spirituality simply boils down to waking up from the dream world and recognizing there’s something far more expansive going on and you are that which is aware of the dream world. "You" are, in a sense, in the dream world, but not of it.

Have you ever described it to a person who is new to spirituality? How did it go?

Sure, but I typically wind up hitting mental road blocks, doubt, and skepticism. Even if they believe me, the dream world of separation feels SO real and has been their reality for so long that something so radical as the idea that you don’t exist sounds absolutely absurd! lol…

(You as a separate being don’t actually exist outside of thought. The "I" that you are is existence itself. You simply are. You are existence. I am. Things may arise within existence, but they are simply the things that arise. They aren’t existence itself.)

Sometimes people may understand. Others don’t. Either way, it plants seeds and expands people’s realm of possibilities for what’s out there. When the time is right, they’ll start seeking, wondering if there’s something more to life… unless they don’t. Either way, it’s all good. It’s just a dream anyways! ;)

My role is not to improve or fix anyone, but to simply raise my consciousness as high as possible and literally be the change I wish to see in the world: a world of awakened beings.

If you would break it down to just a few sentences, what is the most important thing one can do to develop towards awakening and enlightenment, towards spirituality?

Absolute, complete, and unconditional dedication and devotion to God and the willingness to surrender all of the ego’s emotional payoffs for the love of God. If you don’t want to use the word God, which is totally cool, think of it as wanting freedom more than you want suffering. (Sounds like an obvious choice, logically, but when you’re in the heat of the moment, it can be a more challenging decision.) You have to want freedom MORE than you want to be right, to play the victim, to stick to your beliefs, to get people’s approval, to even EXIST!

Maybe there is one reader of the interview who is new to spirituality, has some distance to it and wants to have some practical entry point. Eckhart Tolle is pointing to the present moment, The Now, as an entry point to experience spirituality. What do you think about a practical introduction?

The Now moment is a great entry point. The main idea here is to realize that there is a difference between thought and who I am. It’s an extremely valuable realization to have the direct experience of witnessing thought happen without thinking that the thoughts are me or that I’m the one thinking the thoughts. Thoughts are just happening.
His teachings are also great for introducing readers to the concept of the human ego and the illusion of time.
I don’t believe that his teachings necessarily give you everything you need for enlightenment and that there are some higher understandings we can look at later, but they are an excellent introduction.

Do you see a connection between personal development and spirituality?

Absolutely! The personal development mindset often leads people to spirituality. We all grow up wanting better, happier, more enjoyable lives. It’s human nature. We want to gain pleasure and avoid pain. So the two go hand in hand, at least at first.

We want to get more things to make us happy: a bigger house, a new car, more popularity or power, lots of money, health and success for ourselves and our loved ones, whatever it is that we feel makes us happy. The personal development field offers a whole number of ways to do it. I’m sure you’re familiar with many of them. The spiritual community offers its suggestions as well.

Ultimately, however, life is not about what you can get from life. It’s about who you’re being. Who you are. Think about the last time you really wanted to get something. Eventually you got it. Did it make you happy? Maybe for a short while. Permanently? Probably not. If your achievement was really what made you happy, then as long as you had it, you should be happy, right? hm, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

So perhaps eventually we come to the realization that nothing outside of us can make us happy. This usually happens after we keep trying to get more more more from life, trying to fill the bottomless pit to get enough. It’s never enough…

So then we try to become a better person, not to get more stuff, but simply to try and make ourselves happy without needing all this external stuff. So we learn about changing our attitudes, taking control of our emotional state, reading affirmations, and so on. There’s lots of great stuff available here. Instead of trying to create a better life, we create a better me, which happens to automatically tends to createa a better life around us. Ah, that’s a cool added benefit.

This is well and good until we start examining who is the "me" that is trying to be happy in the first place. We keep trying to create new versions of me, better versions of me, happier and more fulfilled versions of me, but is this who I really am?

Some of these spiritual/religious people are telling me I am God. What could possibly be greater than THAT? Oh wait, now if I could get enlightened, that’d be the coolest thing ever! Then I’d be like Jesus or Buddha himself. By getting enlightened, I would then "escape" the world of suffering. No more suffering? Hot diggity dog! Sign me up! Then I won’t have to try and make myself happy all the time!

Interestingly though, enlightenment isn’t about a better and more spiritual version of me. It’s about the total dissolution of the idea of "me" altogether. It’s totally different from what people ever imagined it would be, yet infinitely greater than anything they ever could imagine.

Instead of wanting things in the universe, including physical items or states of being, you literally BECOME everything! If you are the entire universe, what more could you need? It sounds like the ultimate accomplishment ever. The cookie to beat all cookies.

So yeah, personal development often ties in very nicely with spirituality, and one tends to lead to another, and is often intertwined with the other.

How do you see spirituality in the mainstream today? How do you see it evolving?

I see it as literally one of the greatest things to EVER happen to the world. Ever!

There is nothing greater than raising your level of consciousness. All suffering is due to ignorance and rising above suffering involves realizing higher truths, not just conceptually, but deep in one’s heart.

As Einstein said, no problem can be solved by the level of consciousness that created it.

Today’s world is fraught with wars, suffering, hunger, murders, fights, racism, jealousy, repression, and so on. The root cause of all these issues is a certain level of consciousness, a fundamental idea that we are separate and that there’s not enough of what we need so we must fight with others to get that of which there is not enough. This includes physical things like money, land, water, and food, as well as non-physical items such as respect, sex, and love.

It is by rising above this level of consciousness, and only by rising above this level of consciousness, that the appropriate solutions can ever manifest into this world. Consciousness is everything, both figuratively and literally.

Spirituality today is becoming more experiential, something that people are living. Instead of just paying lip service to the great masters of long ago and hoping that they’ll swoop down and save us, we are literally becoming the light and love of the world. We are becoming the living Christ, the living Buddha, the living Krishna… literally living Gods! We are recognizing that we actually are God, have been all along (but just forgotten who we are), and now that we are realizing who we truly are, and we are living into our true nature.

This spiritual expansion that’s happening right now is one of the most unbelievably exciting things to ever happen in the history of mankind as we know it. It’s truly an exciting time to be alive! Heaven itself is manifesting on earth! How ’bout that!?

I am so grateful that we are all enjoying this journey together, as one. What a ride!

If you could choose one article of your blog, which one would that be and why?

I would say this article talking about how the mind isn’t actually a valid source for truth .

Why? Why wouldn’t I give people the answer they’re looking for and explain to them who they actually are? Well would you rather me eat my cookies all by myself and tell you what they taste like? Would it be sufficient for me to show you my cookies and impress you, and for you to pass down stories about this guy who had cookies? Or would you rather me show you how to find and enjoy the cookies you already have, the ones you haven’t realize are already right here?

The main obstacle in spirituality is identification with thought, believing the voice in our head, and thinking that we are our roles, ideas, beliefs, personalities, bodies, emotions, and so on.

You see, the egoic mind itself is the very source of illusion, the separation creating machine. It isn’t by trying to become what you already are that you become what you already are. How can you become what you already are? No, it’s by letting go of the false idea that you’re something other than what you actually are that you realize, that you experientially realize, what you actually are.

Instead of hearing the truth, you become the living truth.

So learning to question the validity of the thoughts you have is a starting point to spiritual growth.

From which people have you learned the most or which people are kinds of role model for you?

I most value teachers who are the living truth they teach. People who are walking the enlightened walk. My favorite teacher at this point is Adyashanti . Why? His explanations of truth are so simple and clear. Truth is simple. The mind loves making things complicated. Have you noticed that? The reality is that Truth is SO simple that people refuse to buy into it. "There must be more to it than this! Just be who I am? I already am what I’m looking for?"

See, Truth itself is very simple and I enjoy teachers whose teachings reflect this understanding.

Spiritual teachers who have influenced me most include Neale Donald Walsch, Eckhart Tolle , David Hawkins and Lester Levinson.

Perhaps most of all, I’d say life itself. Life is the greatest teacher and I am enormously grateful to be alive and to constantly be growing, unfolding, and expanding.

Anything you would like to add?

Thank you so much Myrko. I deeply appreciate your questions and I want to acknowledge the Divinity within you, as well as in every person who reads these words.

From my heart to yours, namaste.

You can read more from Ariel on his site ArielBravy.com: We Are All One and subscribe to his RSS Feed here.