Trillium in Forest

In my last post, Going With The Flow,  I wrote about how I shed the restricting burden of stress I was carrying on Monday by just going with the flow and forgetting about business for the rest of the week. The result was that I had an enjoyable week with my son and his girlfriend who were visiting from Zimbabwe. The first time we had been together in 6 years. The visit was all too short, but we packed a lot into it.

After abandoning all business activity for that week, I had a busy schedule planned for the following week. Life got in the way again or perhaps God, the Universe or the Great Spirit in the Sky decided I needed another disrupted week. It was an example of finding opportunities in unexpected places, meeting new friends and doing our bit to help a neighbour in need.

Returning home from dropping my son off with his brother on Thursday night, we found a voice mail message from one of our neighbours. Earlier in the day, she had fallen and broken her lower leg and was asking us to try to get her cats into the house. By the time we got the message she was already in hospital, on pain killers and waiting for surgery. She lives alone and has 3 horses which are kept inside a barn at night. Helping her through her adversity provided me with unexpected gifts.

As good as the Canadian “Free” health system is for serious injuries and illnesses, its shortcomings become glaringly apparent for minor injuries like broken legs. Our neighbour was transferred to a larger hospital the next day but only had surgery on Sunday, returning home that evening.

I am quite useless at herding other people’s cats, they take one look at me and run. Sue has a naturally ability with most animals but she is especially good with cats, by the following day she had them under control.

We pitched in early Friday morning and met another of our neighbour’s friends “N” who we had met briefly a year or so before. We mucked out the three stalls, gave the horses their morning hay ration, took them out to their pasture, put fresh bedding in their stalls. It was about a 45 minute task. That evening we returned to bring the horse in, give them hay and an evening feed, fill water buckets and close up the barn. That is about a 30 minute task including walking over from our farm. We are all busy people, we realised that we needed to share the duties and agreed that N would do the morning shift with either Sue or I helping when we could and that Sue or I would take care of the evening shift.

Several other neighbours are helping out with meals and other errands, but there are no other horse owners close by.

Our neighbour has to wait another week before her leg is x-rayed again, assessed and the temporary cast replaced with a more permanent one. She may then be able to place some weight on that leg and move around easier than she can now with a walking frame. It will be many weeks before she is able to manage her own horses so we are looking at a protracted period of taking between an hour to an hour and a half out of our own schedule each day. But that is what friends and neighbours are for.

Here is the good part. Having had the opportunity of working with N, on our morning horse duties, I realised how fortunate I was. N is one of the most remarkable people I have met, overcome serious adversity herself, interesting, informed and inspiring to listen to. I have referred to her anonymously, because she has promised to write a post for this blog. I don’t want to steal her thunder so I will let her tell her own amazing story. It will be well worth reading. Her different perspective on many topics gave me ideas for both my business and future blog posts.

Life is wonderful, although I had another week when I did not achieve all my business goals, it was a real gift. N has lived in the area for most of her life, she introduced us to an excellent series of trails in the conservation area behind her farm where we can walk or ride our horses. To celebrate our public holiday,  we walked about 5 km of the trail with N on Monday and will ride it in the fall when the worst of the mosquitoes and deer fly have gone. The Trillium flowers are changing from white to pink, some parts of the forest were almost carpeted with them. We saw a magnificent Oak tree that would have looked at home in Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest.

I could have chosen to feel frustrated about losing time and not catching up on my neglected business activities, a few hundred un-read emails, an inactive social media presence. Instead I chose to appreciate the gifts the week provided for me.

How do you handle a succession of disrupted weeks? With acceptance, gratitude and grace or resentment and regret?

Wishing you success.

The Best Laid Plans

“The best laid plans of men and mice….” The Anglicised part of the opening stanza of Robert Burn’s poem very accurately described my week.

I believe in the importance of having both long and short-term goals and a daily action plan to keep on track and make progress in life and business. While they are essential tools, sometimes we just have to let them go for a while and go with the flow of what is happening in our lives. Sometimes, to get clarity and make progress in all areas of our lives, we have to temporarily focus our attention in one specific area, change our priorities for a time.

Last week, I had set a goal of completing the redesign of this blog by improving the header, making the subscription forms more attractive and adding more details about what outcomes I can help people achieve to the home page. That was in addition to two new blog posts and a post each on two of my other blogs and all the other stuff that has to be done, so it was going to be a full week and with hindsight, I was overly optimistic in my planning.

My younger son and his girlfriend arrived from Zimbabwe on the previous Friday, we saw them briefly at my elder son’s house that evening then left them there for the weekend. After collecting them on Sunday evening, my son and I sat up talking until 2: 30 the next morning. We had not seen each other for 6 years and had a lot of catching up to do, as good as Skype and email are, they are poor substitutes for “real” conversations.  Catching up on what has happened to our wonderful country was a bittersweet experience. He manages one of the last 200 or so commercial farms still operating out of close to 5000 in the year 2000.

Not being a late night person and with animals demanding attention early every morning, I felt the effects of lack of sleep during Monday. Being aware of how quickly the 4 days with my son and girlfriend  would speed by, I tried to alter my plans to accommodate time with him, time to take them shopping, to visit farms and equipment dealers and all the other things they wanted to do. I found it a stressful exercise, when I was with him, I was worrying about the work I wanted to get done, when I took time to attend to some urgent business tasks, I felt guilty about taking time away from my family.

I had an important meeting on Monday evening that could not be postponed. Driving home from that meeting, I realised that I was getting my priorities wrong. After my son left in a few days time, it could be years before I saw him again. I lost out on big chinks of his and his brother’s young lives when I had to spend weeks at a time on military call up in Rhodesia. Later while building a career, I missed too many of their school activities and sports events. Too many evenings working late or at business functions and too many business trips to distant cities and countries took up more time that should have been spent at home with my boys.

On the 20 minute drive home, I decided to put all my business stuff on hold for the next 3 days. I cancelled appointments, advised people that I would be unavailable, abandoned social media and email. I accepted that blog posts would not get written or published and that the redesign would have to wait another week. I spent almost no time in my office for the next 3 days. I felt good. We had a wonderful time together, they got to see all they wanted and more, I stopped worrying about work that was not getting done.

I dropped them off with my elder son on Thursday night so that they could have a few more hours with him and then be taken to the airport. Sad to see them go, but happy that we had filled the few days with good times and not worrying about work left undone.

What were the lessons for me last week?

• Sometimes, we do have to put goals, action plans and to-do lists on hold and just go with the flow of life.
• A disrupted week is not a calamity for most people or businesses.
• We don’t get a second chance to use time spent on the wrong things.
• The course of our lives can be changed in a heartbeat, make the most of time with family today, tomorrow could be too late.

Do you have your priorities right?

Wishing you success.

Focus

Are you being held back by a lack of focus? Do you feel that you are always busy but you don’t achieve your desired results no matter how many hours you work?

Lack of focus, which leads to poor prioritising and a feeling of overwhelm is one of the biggest barriers to success. It has become more common since the blessing (or curse) of the Internet and email.

It is a problem that affects all of us to some degree but especially entrepreneurs, small business owners, professionals and anyone who spends their days doing creative work as opposed to a task oriented job. If your day’s work is dictated by a boss or an imposed schedule, you don’t have as much leeway to decide what to work on.

Why should this be and why should it be a bigger problem in the digital age?

Creating requires thinking. Thinking is hard work, Henry Ford said “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Creative thinking is particularly difficult, most minds will use any excuse to avoid it, any reason to delay it and any trivial activity to justify ignoring it.

Other reasons include:

• Lack of a structured work environment
• Distractions
• Busy work
• Lack of Accountability
• Ineffective prioritising
• Lack of Passion for or sense of purpose in, working towards goal

For those who work from home and on their own, there are the added distractions of children, household chores and other personal intrusions into the work environment.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day, most people need between 6 and 8 hours sleep a night so time available for personal and business activities is similar for all of us. Some may spend more time commuting or looking after their children than others, some may elect to allocate more time to exercise, sport or education. Despite those allocations, the majority of us still have several hours each day to work on our businesses, careers or professions. It is what we choose to work on in those hours that makes the difference between success or failure, achieving goals or stagnating, happiness or misery and abundance or lack.

Successful people, those who do achieve their goals and who leave their mark on the world through their contributions, choose to use their time on the very few activities and ideas that move them towards those goals. They focus. It is a choice which we can make too with discipline, commitment and by persevering until those choices become habits.

There are many ideas and tips for using time more effectively. Most recommend devoting a block of time early in the day exclusively to activities that move us closer to our most important goal. Not email, surfing the web, social media or fiddling around with nice but inessential website improvements.

One of the best articles on daily personal productivity I have seen is “How to do the things that matter most” by Mark Ford in Early to Rise . It is well worth reading, a real eye opener is his extraordinary list of what can be achieved in 600 hours and how those hours can be found in a year.

It is too easy to be very busy for hours each day, to learn new skills, new information have an empty email inbox, have tweeted, updated and statused, yet have accomplished nothing substantial, not moved an inch closer to any important goals. Another recent quote was “No one will go down in history for having a tidy email inbox.” This one by Robert Heinlein sums it up ” In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.”

How well do you focus on the core activities for your goals?

Do you choose to use your time effectively or do you allow yourself to become “enslaved by daily trivia?”

If you cannot answer those questions convincingly and affirmatively, then I challenge you to start working on your most important activity tomorrow for 30 minutes before doing any other work or business related task even if it means getting up earlier. You will be amazed at what you achieve and How Good You Feel. 

Leave your tips, ideas and successes in a comment.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Read more Henry Ford quotes at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henryford122851.html#As1FCVset6ScvV3a.99

Will you use it to jump-start your life?

Tristan Martin via Compfight

Time to shake off the lethargy of winter, wake up to the fact that almost a third of the year has gone. Time to get working towards those goals and plans for 2013 that we put together so enthusiastically a few short months ago. How much progress have you made towards your 2013 goals?

You may recall that I changed the design of this blog just before the end of last year, I was striving for a clean, simple, uncluttered design. I changed the theme to Gridiculous Pro from bavotasan, a versatile theme that is easily customisable. I have tried several colours and a variety of headers, tried it without a header. as much as I like the flexibility of the new theme, I have not been entirely convinced that the change from the old design has been successful, neither visitor numbers nor subscribers have increased substantially.

Using the impetus of Spring, I decided to make some more changes and sought advice from a very successful young business coach in Britain, Laura Leigh Clarke. Laura immediately advised me to make the blog “more sexy” add some colour and tone down the strong blue colour I had used in the header and post titles. She also gave me some good advice on content and other topics which I am working on.

That is why you would have noticed a change in the design of the blog this week. The header is not the final version, it needs some improvement, but early responses have been favourable.

I created this header in a few minutes using the free version of Xheader, it has a tutorial video and I found it very easy to use.

You will notice more design changes over the next few weeks. Blog posts will be focused on topics that will help you live an extraordinary life and less on contrarian views or current affairs. Posts on those topics will move to my other blog at PeterWright.biz and posts on business and social media will remain on FocusedProsperity.com.

Let me know what you think of the changes by leaving a comment.

Young or old, we only have a limited number of Springs ahead of us, for some this will be their last, let’s not waste this one.

How are you going to make the most of your Spring? Will you use the feeling of invigoration and new beginnings to build a better life? Or will you let your life slide into Summer, Autumn or Fall then Winter and look back in the quiet reflective days between Christmas and New Year’s day and wonder where 2013 went?

Wishing you success.

p.s. I do not receive a commission from the people or businesses mentioned in this post.

Last weeks events in Boston show the importance of critical thinking and asking questions. We need to ask whether the end justified the means. The outcome was almost the best that could have been expected after the tragic murder of three people by bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Whilst I am happy that a good end was achieved, I have concerns about the means to achieve it, and I do not mean that the terrorists were killed or injured, they deserved their fates.

The law enforcement authorities did an excellent job by killing one of the Boston bombers and capturing the other within a few days of the blasts. They also prevented further casualties amongst the population, but at what cost?

Readers will be aware that I have a distrust of big government, no doubt heightened by what has happened to me, my family and the two countries I called home for most of my life. Even discounting my personal bias, the events that unfolded in Boston are disturbing and raise serious questions.

From media reports (and I watched very few) it seems as if residents of a large part of the city were “ordered” to stay in their homes. Almost the entire city was in “lockdown”. That sounds like Martial Law to me. It also sounds very much like the actions of Hitler’s storm troopers in the 1930′s before WW2.

I am not an expert on the US or any other constitution, but I do know that declarations of Martial Law in democracies are rare events and never taken lightly. I also believe that such declarations are the domain of Presidents or Prime Ministers, parliaments,  or other national governing bodies, not law enforcement agencies.

Other than from a scarce few right wing commentators, adverse comment on the events in Boston have been conspicuous by their absence. I may have missed them, but I have not seen any complaints from civil liberties groups or in the liberal media, particularly blogs like Huffington Post which are so eager to point the finger at any suspicion of right wing activity.

Could it be that because most of the inconvenience occurred on  a Friday, the campaign ended successfully and the extent that the tragedy was elevated in the media to almost the level of 9/11 that the sinister side of unofficial Martial Law was overlooked?

Or could it be that all those who normally complain about “infringement of rights” are already in favour of more government control over everyone’s lives and are happy with tactics such as these?

Or is it yet more evidence of the Pendulum theory – in a “We” cycle, individual rights can be trampled in the name of a perceived common benefit?

Whatever the reasons, in the context of terrorism around the world, as tragic as it was for the victims and families in Boston, this was not anywhere near the level of a 9/11, London transit system bombing or shooting down of civilian aircraft.

What would have happened if other major, perhaps unrelated, violent incidents involving terrorists, criminals or the mentally deranged had occurred in other big American cities in the same few days? Would their residents have been “ordered” to stay in their homes and their cities “locked down”. What cost to the economy then?

It appears that the whereabouts of the second bomber was noticed by a member of the public who alerted the authorities. Was it just through luck that he spotted blood on his boat or because he was looking out for himself and not just trusting those that “ordered” him to stay inside?

One terrorist is dead and the other captured, unarguably a better end to the tragedy than if one or both had escaped, but the media attention, alarm and inconvenience to thousands has multiplied the effects of the original terrorist act exponentially.

I am not against the use of massive force to neutralise the bad guys. I have been critical that the police have been too reluctant to use the necessary force to stop rioting mobs in cities like Vancouver, London and elsewhere, with ordinary, law abiding people suffering personal injury and property damage as a result of that reluctance.

Contrast the speed with which the authorities inconvenienced thousands of law-abiding residents in Boston with the wimpish reluctance to take action against those involved in the “Occupy” movements last year. Despite widespread criminal acts, blocking traffic, drug use, trespassing on private property and allegedly, murder & rape.

The “ordering” of thousands of people to stay at home, ignoring the demands of jobs, businesses, customers, clients, perhaps elderly relatives needing assistance without a lawful declaration of Martial Law does worry me. I have experienced at bitter cost what happens when governments and government officials believe they have a divine right to act outside the law.

Another huge reason to question everything and think for ourselves before blindly following the media-driven herd.

What do you think?

Leave a comment.

photo by Andrey Korchagin via Compfight

The subject for today’s post was triggered by a discussion in the Small Business Accelerator Group on Linked In with the title “What’s Holding You Back”. - You do need to be a member to read it.

Over a year ago, I published a post  about how the limiting belief  “I am not enough” holds most of us back at some time.

Some of the comments from group members include:

• Own Self
• Lack of Knowledge
• Not good enough
• Fear of success
• Fear of rejection
• Time
• Procrastination

Most of these are related to the “I am not enough” belief.

In my own case, I know that distraction, overwhelm from information overload and investigating too many opportunities were big factors.

The photo of me running  an ultra-marathon (85km / 50 miles) is up there for a purpose. I was very afraid that I was not good enough when I set a goal as a non-runner in my late thirties to complete at least one Comrades ultra-marathon by age 40, I did it anyway. Then did it 3 more times.

I found that training 6 days a week for 2 years, getting up at 4 or 5 am most mornings, the pain and disruption to my life were all tougher than just about anything I had attempted before. However it was easier to believe that I could do it and consistently take action to achieve it than striving to achieve some business goals.

This anomaly puzzled me for a long time, I published a series of posts on the subject and then published an e-book which is available fromAmazon for $2.91 .

My early business successes, starting at age 21 with a small manufacturing business, continuing with a career in the corporate world and then starting several more brick and mortar businesses and a farm all seem easy with hindsight. Of course there were difficult periods, huge doubts at times and some catastrophic failures.

But on reflection, I believe that it was easier in many ways because:

• Fewer distractions from the Internet and Social media
• With no “on-line” business opportunities, barriers to starting a business in most fields were high – not for the faint-hearted
• Consulting / coaching industry was in its infancy, not an option for most
• Fewer regulatory, health, employment, “human rights” restrictions

Because it was more difficult to start a brick and mortar business then than it is to start an on-line business today, those that did had frequently made a bigger commitment and a bigger investment. Many of today’s dabblers or those that confuse a business with a hobby, never got started.

The Internet is both a blessing and a curse, yes it has opened up a flood of new industries and an endless store of information, but it has also opened the flood gates to a deluge of “opportunities”, false promises and distracting rabbit holes.

That had been holding me back, continually collecting new information instead of acting on what I already had. Using research, planning, looking at too many new ideas, new blogging tactics, new tools. All that is important to some degree, but in the past I had often been successful with “flying by the seat of my pants” tactics. I had  found it much easier to focus on a few strategically important activities without the distractions.

In my first business, I had a contract to make hessian (burlap) sacks to a certain specification. It was a simple business, once I had arranged finances, purchased machinery and trained workers I did not have to worry about more research. Before the contract came to an end, I found other work for the factory, more products to make, bought more machinery, still simple, not much to hold me back.

That is why, this year I have been following the doctrine of “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”, (Definitely worth a read) purging my email subscriptions, reducing the number of blogs I follow, cancelling my membership of several social media sites and spending less time on most others. I have dropped most of the products and services I was promoting as an affiliate marketer.

It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It makes it much easier to focus on the few important activities I must do to build my business as a blogger, business and life alchemist and speaker.

Wishing you success with nothing to hold you back.

Terrorism

How has the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon affected you? Has it left you wondering how any one individual or group could be so terrifyingly evil by planting bombs at a huge sporting event?

This is not a post about the horrible events in Boston on Monday 15 April 2013 in particular but on what we can do to prevent this violent act defining our lives. Not only this incident, but other past and those future violent incidents still to come. Regrettably, there will be more.

Like all concerned people, my thoughts are with those who lost loved ones and those who suffered serious injuries. As a former marathon runner and one who has lost a parent and good friends to terrorism, I can imagine what the injured and the families of those killed and maimed are going through. Many lives will never be the same again.

The sad reality is that millions of people around the world live with similar situations of adversity or terror every day. In Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Burma and much of Africa, violent death due to political, criminal or even state actions is a way of life.

For a large part of my life in both Rhodesia and South Africa, terrorist bombs in supermarkets, government buildings and public places frequently killed and injured innocent by-standers. Indiscriminately ending or shattering the lives of Black and White, young or old, male or female. Landmines on roads in farming and tribal areas took their toll on both military and civilian targets.

Two of the most horrific incidents were the shooting down of two civilian Viscount aircraft and the subsequent murder of 10 survivors on the ground by terrorists in 1979. Years later, the murders, brutality and intimidation of farmers in the illegal farm occupations were a further chapter in a continuing catalogue of terrorism.

Terrorist and all violent acts will always horrify and shock us, we would not be normal human beings if they did not. However life must go on.

Victory for the terrorists is not measured as much by the number of casualties as it is by the disruption the normal functioning of society. If we let this incident stop us going about our daily lives, prevent us from competing or attending sporting events, we hand victory to the terrorists.

As humans we have a far greater capacity of resilience and for overcoming adversity, than we might believe. Survivors of atrocities from the Holocaust, the Balkan wars, the Rwandan genocide, 9/11 and other horrendous events attest to that.

In our terrorist war and subsequent periods of violence, we found that our capacity to endure was influenced by several factors. Initially by patriotism, pride in our country and the fact that we were the last bastion in Africa against a tide of communist sponsored terrorism. Eventually it became part of life.

Sadly, as humans, our resistance to evil and horror is either destroyed by the first violent experience or incrementally strengthened by each subsequent event. Either we remove ourselves from the source of the fear by moving to a new city or country (if we can) or we make adjustments to our lives and carry on.

Some Rhodesians did leave, but far fewer than did so when we were eventually forced to hand our country over to the terrorists. South African emigration followed a similar pattern.

Those of us that stayed became conditioned to violence. Bombs, landmines, ambushes and murders no longer had the same effect on us. The normalcy bias is very strong, until an incident directly affects us, we believe that “it won’t happen to me”. I remember going to four funerals in one week, two for older people dying from natural causes and two friends killed in action. That made me sad, but did not make me change my routine.

A huge advantage then, was the absence of cable or satellite TV, 24 hour news stations and of course social media. We had one TV channel and a handful of radio stations with infrequent news bulletins. “Breaking News” and drama-filled interviews with victims had not been dreamed up. Reports were factual, concise, broadcast to let people know the important details but not to create alarm and despondency.

With most men spending half their lives in uniform, we did not have time to agonise over bad news, we had jobs to do, businesses or farms to run and families to look after. We had to cram a lot of living into four or six-week intervals of normality between the same periods in the bush.

The best thing we can do for the victims and survivors of the Boston Marathon or any violent incident is to give them our thoughts and prayers, donate blood, money, products or services if needed. Give emotional or practical support if they are family, friends or connected to us in some other way. Then switch the drama off and get on with our lives.

What we should not do, is remain in a state of shock, curtail our normal activities, cancel social or sporting attendances. That’s what the terrorists want, that is how they win.

We cannot help the victims by endlessly watching re-runs of the bomb blasts on TV news channels or You Tube videos. The same with interviews on radio, in print or dramatic accounts and wild speculation in social media. I watch very little TV, an international news bulletin twice a day and not much more. Right now, I have stopped even that, I am not being callous, but I do not need to see or hear any more about the Boston bombs until the perpetrators are identified and hopefully caught.

Yes we need to be aware of what is going on in the world, but once we have heard or seen the story once, why stay glued to the screen like a moth to a candle flame. It is only going to burn us more, not help us.

That is how we develop the resilience to overcome the effects of terrorism and violence. Acknowledge that it has happened, do what we can for the victims and refuse to let it define our lives.

Wishing you success and the resilience to deal with life.

Image courtesy of Idea Go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Barn Trap Door

Do you get tired of hearing the “Get out of your comfort zone” cliché?

I know I do, that’s why I prefer to think about moving outside our zone of familiarity (which is not always comfortable) to expand and define a new, larger zone we can become familiar with and comfortable in. Then do it again, setting new boundaries to be tested. That’s how we achieve our goals.

This morning when Sue and I were getting the horses hay from the barn, I saw a good practical lesson of expanding a zone of familiarity.

When hay was cheap, at about 5c a lb, we just put a large round bale in the feeder and let the horses eat as much as they wanted. They wasted some, but it was much easier for us than carrying a morning and evening ration out to the feeder by hand.

We get our hay in large square or round bales weighing between 300 and 350 kg (660 to 780lbs). Previously, we stored the bales outside under a tarpaulin and picked up a bale with the tractor to carry it to the feeder. Now that the price of hay is close to 20c lb, it is too expensive to be wasted, we ration it.

Unloading Hay Bales

The problem is that as soon as we cut the string or netting holding the bale together, we can no longer pick it up with the tractor. Now we store the bales on the upper level of the old bank barn, both to keep it dry and so that it is closer to the feeder.

Fortunately, the barn was built over 100 years ago, before tractors with hydraulic front end loaders or balers were invented. To make life easier, a trapdoor was built into the upper floor of the barn so that hay or grain stored there could easily be dropped down to the animals below.

Although the hay feeder is outside in the yard, it is much easier to drop the hay through the trapdoor onto a tarpaulin and carry it a short distance out of the lower door than it would be to lug it down the stairs or out the top door and around the side of the barn. Especially with all the alternating, snow, ice and mud we have had this winter.

I have a varying degree of tolerance for heights. I have scaled rock faces and cliffs without getting nervous, sitting on a bench in a military helicopter with only a small handle between me, the open door and a drop of a few hundred feet did not scare me. However, when it comes to buildings, it is a different matter. I found it nerve-wracking to walk across the glass floor at the top of the CN tower in Toronto.

When we first started using the trapdoor, I planted my feet carefully several inches away from the edge before lifting the door. I was always cautious when I was moving hay towards the hole and pushing it through. A typical hesitancy when confronted with a new challenge.

The photo above shows how blasé I have become with the routine of being close to the open door after several months of doing the task twice a day. Now I can stand there with my feet over the edge to take a photograph without worrying about it at all.

It is not the same as being on the edge of a tall building, the drop to the chute is only a couple of feet, not that it would support any weight. The drop to the lower floor is only 3m (10ft.) but still enough to break a leg or a neck in an awkward fall.

The point is that through successful repetition, being close to the opening has become a habit, it has expanded my zone of familiarity, I am completely comfortable with it. So much so, that I find it hard to believe I was ever nervous about it.

Exactly the same as contemplating any new activity or situation, it always seems frightening until we take that first step. Then it get easier with every subsequent repetition.

Taking that next step in our lives or our businesses is just like stepping closer to the trapdoor. Be bold, do it today and know that from tomorrow it will get easier every day.

How do you throw off the limitations that restrain you from taking the first step in a new direction?

Wishing you success.

Freezing Rain 12 April 2013

“If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own”. – Socrates

How do you overcome negative thoughts? Do you dispel them quickly, or do you slide into a pit of despair and wallow there for a while when things are tough or nothing goes right?

In a recent post about cabin fever, I wrote how the short days, lack of sunlight and cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere winter can affect us negatively and cause depression.

This winter has been one of the longest and coldest, with more snow, than for many years in both North America and Europe. In our part of Canada this week, we have had 3 days of heavy rain, with temperatures hovering around freezing. Yesterday we experienced strong winds and the rain started freezing as it reached ground level. Concerned about a basement with 100mm (4″) of water floating my fire wood stocks away like trees in the Amazon, power lines, fences and barns buckling under the weight of the ice it would be easy to start feeling miserable.

Luckily, unlike thousands of others, our power lines and electricity supply have survived. Our fences are still standing, the barns are intact apart from a few flapping roof sheets, there is enough dry wood in the basement to get through another week and the temperature has just crept over the freezing mark so the ice will melt.

As bad as things sometimes seem, we don’t have to look far to find others in far worse situations. This week I had to visit the major cancer treatment centre in our area for routine skin cancer treatment. (The penalty of a fair skin, a life under the tropical sun and boomer generation ignorance of the effects of the sun.) The procedure has changed to require a three-hour wait between the initial and subsequent treatment.

While waiting, I got talking to several other patients or members of their families. That made me realise how fortunate I am to only have skin cancer which although irritating, is unlikely to shorten or affect my life.

One elderly woman told me about her daughter in law who as a result of a rare medical condition as a child, had been told that she would not live to adulthood. Not only did she survive, but she married and had two children. Complications from the condition, resulted in the amputation of both her lower legs. Now at age 50 her hands are almost completely paralysed.

Despite all that, she raised her two children, often on her own for lengthy periods while her husband was away because of his job. She drives a car modified for hand operation, plays soccer and counsels others suffering from debilitating illness or injury.

Another man, many years younger than my 62 years, waiting for radiation therapy. He had lost all his hair, spoke with difficulty and seemed to be in pain, but was still cheerful and joked with his wife.

Many other cancer patients and their families coming and going during the three hours. Some in wheelchairs, many hairless, some young, many old, an army of friends, relatives and volunteers supporting them. A frightening testimony that despite all the advances in medical science, we still cannot cure or prevent most forms of cancer.

That three hours was the best tonic to get me out of thinking about my own problems, the weather, the economy, North Korea or the cost of petrol (gas). It made me realise how lucky I am to have reached my boomer age relatively unscathed and healthy enough to lead an active life. It made me grateful for the minor problems I do have, I wouldn’t swap them for any of those belonging to the people I saw at the hospital.

The Law of Attraction and the Universe operate in mysterious ways. It was almost as if I needed more than one reminder to be grateful for what I have this week. Apart from the hospital visit, I received three other reminders of how other people have had far more to contend with in life than I have.

All are worth reading, in no particular order, they are:

Roberta Hunter’s account of a difficult period in her life, how she overcame it and how she helped a friend in similar circumstances, in a post on her blog More Thyme Than Dough.

Bob Bly’s  newsletter describing the misfortunes of an acquaintance who experienced the deaths of 3 family members in a month and more. Bob provides many good tips for writers in his newsletter.

James Altucher’s story Mistakes Were Made of surviving a string of calamities and bad decisions to ultimately becoming successful and living a life on his terms.

My week has ended on a more positive level than it started. A good reminder that no matter how bad things might seem, we don’t have to look far to find someone less fortunate.

How has your week been? Are you grateful that you only have your own problems to contend with?

Wishing you success.

Is it true?

How do we discern reality in the media’s reporting of important events?

In the last two weeks, two public figures,  have received vastly different treatment in the mainstream media.

Lady Margaret Thatcher died on Monday morning, the world lost one of the last strong leaders from the 20th century. A leader who exemplified the values of perseverance, commitment, courage, determination and conviction. Values important not just to the baby boomer generation, but to entrepreneurs, independent thinkers and self-starters of all ages.

What is interesting is the attention given to her detractors in the media, yet another glaring example of media bias. Sure, she was divisive, did make mistakes and was uncompromising, but she put the Great back into Great Britain.

She took the country from the brink of chaos, a 3 day work week, widespread electrical power disruptions, piles of garbage rotting in the streets and an almost total breakdown of services to a country with a sound economy, rising employment and a position as a major player on the world stage.

With President Reagan she stood up to the Soviet Union and effectively ended the cold war.

Infographic by Penduluminaction.com

She was one of very few leaders with the courage and honesty to recognise and describe Mandela as the terrorist he was.

My complaint about her is that she failed to save my country, Rhodesia, from the effects of a succession of Labour government’s disastrous attempts to force a terrorist government on us.

That she could later commit the UK to a war against Argentina to save a relative handful of British Subjects after abandoning hundreds of thousands of white, mainly British subjects or descendants and millions of innocent black Rhodesians has to rank as major hypocrisy.

In her defence, by the time she became Prime Minister, most of the damage had already been done by her Labour predecessors Harold Wilson and James Callahan. History suggests that her advisors  including  Lord Carrington were less than honest in their briefings of the situation to her. They are the real culprits with the blood of many of their former allies from both great wars on their hands.

I don’t have a problem with the media mentioning her critics, or even showing footage of British Police horses knocking down striking miners. What I do have a problem with is the extent that focus has on the overall image of events. The creation of a biased view.

The highlighting of Lady Thatcher’s detractors, compared to the universal fawning over Mandela’s recent hospitalization is sickening and an insult to the thousands of people who have suffered from terrorism in Southern Africa and elsewhere.

Mandela was not convicted for opposing the South African Government as is commonly portrayed, he was not a martyr. In the Rivonia trial, (Wikipedia)  he admitted and was convicted of, sabotage, for obtaining an arsenal of weapons and explosives, plotting to place bombs in public places to indiscriminately kill or maim innocent people, and inciting others to do the same. For those crimes in the USA or Canada, he would almost certainly have been sentenced to at least life imprisonment.

Under Mandela’s leadership, the ANC did plant bombs in supermarkets and other public places, did murder an estimated 5000 Zulu people in Natal – mostly through the necklace method of setting fire to a petrol (gasoline) soaked car tyre placed around the victim’s neck while he or she was still alive. Warning, that link leads to an article with graphic images of necklace victims which some may find disturbing.

When I first moved to South Africa in 1979, Mandela’s name rarely appeared in local or international media until Western, left-wing agitators started attacking South Africa, interfering with the country’s sports and economic development and the media needed to create an icon.

If ever there were candidates for the International Criminal Court, it would be Mandela and Mugabe. Instead one got the Nobel peace prize, the other an invitation to the Pope’s inauguration. However the death of the second of the two greatest British Prime Ministers in the 20th century gets less than honourable reporting.

It is interesting to note that many of those whining about her in interviews in some of the poorer parts of Britain this week, might not have found the country bearable or even still be alive and free to whine today, if she had  not been the strong leader she was.

Her leadership created waves that reached much further than British welfare offices. The Balkan states, Eastern Europe and many former Soviet republics might be far less free today but for her actions.

Extensive coverage given to the opponents of a great leader, but not a hint of criticism for a convicted terrorist, instead a continuing attempt to whitewash him and elevate him to sainthood. A case of the media making the news, not reporting it. Show the negative side of leaders for balanced reporting, but at least use the same standards for the whole political spectrum.

A case of the media making the news, not reporting it. Why?

Political correctness and the pendulum effect. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister near the high point of a “Me” cycle. The end of her tenure coincided with the swing back towards the “We” phase.

Beware of what you read and assume to be accurate.

Wishing you success – and fair treatment if you become famous!

“News” Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net