Now ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my new website, www.theartofchutzpah.com
Chutzpah, when put to good use, is indeed an art. The Art of Chutzpah is for people who have a serious and important message to get across, and who want to make sure it gets heard. Master The Art of Chutzpa and you’ll stand out from the crowd.
Much more information on the site.
I’d love you to visit and give me any feedback. Thank you.
Long time, no post. Sorry folks, lots of stuff to sort out, but now I’m back.
Been thinking about why 2010 was such a difficult year for so many of us and how to make sure 2011 is the best year ever, and this is what occurred to me:
Some five or six years ago I decided it was time to give up what I call my Peter Pan syndrome, i.e. my refusal to grow up and be a fine, upstanding adult member of society, and also to make some reasonably serious money. I didn’t realise at the time that it would be such a hard struggle to make the metamorphosis, as it were, but I reckon that’s what last year was about for me.
Ah well, sixty is the new thirty, I suppose, and better late than never.
Now I hope I’m on the home straight towards being fully fledged, and I understand why I never grew up before. It’s too scary.
To make this happen. I’ve been using one of my brilliant coaching tools. It’s called act as if… The idea is, if you’re facing a scary challenge and your knees turn to jelly, just act as if you’re supremely confident and your self-belief is sky-high, take a deep breath and get on with meeting the challenge, whatever it might be, full on. After a while, as you start to get results, genuine confidence starts to build and the acting is allowed to recede. In this way you give birth to a new “can-do” mindset.
To help bring this positive state of mind into existence in my head I’ve created a new affirmation for wake-up time every morning. I say to myself, or out loud if I’m alone, “I wonder what wondrous things will come my way today? Whatever it is, bring it on. I welcome the unknown.”
Do I believe that? Do I heck! But it is starting to have a positive effect and it certainly helps me to get going.
The mystic Osho used to say, “life should be a flow from the known to the unknown.” Well it certainly is that, and I certainly know I’m alive!
I’ve just posted another video on YouTube. This time it’s to promote my service called write your book and get it published to boost your business (or for any other reason). If you’d like to have a look, here’s the link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1tsBNfGi4AY I’d really appreciate any feedback.
Writing is undoubtedly my number one passion, and also my number one talent, and now that I have written a book and had it published (The Five Pillars of Happiness), and seen the effect it has had on my coaching business, I feel I am perfectly qualified to coach and mentor others through such a project.
Contrary to popular belief it’s actually not that hard to do – if you know what you’re doing, but I should point out that from the day I got my first idea for my book until the happy day I held a printed copy in my hand, some 15 years elapsed, mainly because I had to learn my trade, develop my ideas, write four or five drafts, learn how to approach publishers and secure a publishing deal, and wait while my manuscript was edited, typeset and printed. And because I had a mortgage to pay, I had to earn a living at the same time.
Of course I had no idea how long it would take, or I may well have given up on several occasions. That’s why people come to me for help – using my knowledge and experience I save them an awful lot of time, heartbreak and effort.
Had a lot of fun making a short video to promote my book, The Five Pillars of Happiness, and putting it up on UTube. Here’s the link if you’d like to see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyjbJhecOQY
By the way, the book is now starting to get some excellent reviews, with three already on Amazon, and all 5 stars! There’s also a 5 star review on Waterstones website. Exciting or what?????
I never cease to feel incredulous when I see how we create our own problems, especially when I catch myself doing it.
There was something I wanted to do but I kept stopping myself because I was feeling negative. Just couldn’t get in the mood. Finally I decided to do it anyway and afterwards I thought to myself, “that wasn’t so bad. Perhaps I even slightly enjoyed it.” So why the resistance?
The way to deal with your resistance, I have learned, is not to fight it but to acknowledge it and then choose acceptance. That way your resistance becomes your best friend because, when you realise what you are doing, the resistance acts like a huge signpost saying, “focus your attention here.” Many a time I have hesitated because of fear, realised what I was doing and then “felt the fear and done it anyway” and afterwards asked myself, “what was all the fuss about? It wasn’t so scary after all.”
In case of misunderstanding, let’s quickly get this in proportion. I’m not suggesting when you stand at the top of the cliff at Beachy Head contemplating suicide you should “feel the fear and do it anyway.” I’m referring to those times when you realise that unreasonable or unjustifiable fear is stopping you from taking an action that will make your life better.
Sunday July 4th. 2010 As I write this I’m in shock and struggling to see my computer screen through the mist that keeps welling up when I think of her great life and her sudden and sad demise.
Chutzpa, our beloved and adored golden Labrador, died suddenly on Saturday morning. True she was ill and a little elderly in dog terms, so we kind of half expected that this could happen in the not far distant future, but it was so sudden. Luckily we were there in time to say goodbye and help to ease her passing for the final twenty minutes or so of her amazingly intense life. I just loved her so much…
Some of you may be wondering why I’m make such a fuss about a dog, but those of you who have been privileged and honoured to share your life with such a wondrous creature will, I’m sure, understand.
Chutzpa was every bit an equal to every human I have ever known. She had every desirable human quality, and then some. She had a very strong personality and she truly felt like part of our family. Love her or hate her, you couldn’t ignore Chutzpa.
The Buddha teaches us to embrace a path of loving-kindness, but Chutzpa needed no teacher to tell her that. She was the very essence of loving-kindness, it oozed from every pore of her body. She was herself a Buddha in the truest possible sense and she showed me how I also could find the courage to follow such a path.
Chutzpa was also the living embodiment of unconditional love and acceptance. She knew, not consciously of course, but deep down intuitively and instinctively, that love is the only thing that matters, the only thing that is meaningful, the only thing that is of any interest, and she focussed on it deeply and radiated it wherever she went. She never deviated from that and it truly made her a ray of sunshine.
Chutzpa packed everything into her ten years, seven months and one day. She never wasted a moment, she never held grudges, she never wallowed in negativity, she never blamed, hated or got angry and she would never hurt a fly. It was part of her nature that she somehow understood how to relate to people and empathise with them deeply. If you’d got to know well her you’d know I’m not exaggerating, she was a truly remarkable animal and a great role model.
I used to think that when you walk with a dog it’s about you and the dog getting some exercise, but I soon realised actually it’s a bonding ritual. It’s just one of a dog’s many ways of developing a relationship with you and vice versa, and Chutzpa was a master at building relationships – just about everybody loved her. Adults and children would come up to her in the park to stroke her. She was a love magnet and she spread her love without discrimination. She never held anything back.
When we came downstairs on Saturday morning and heard a strangulated little bark, we knew immediately she was in trouble, and when we open the door to the room where she slept and found her collapsed and spreadeagled on the floor we knew at once that we would never again be sharing a bowl of chips.
We instantly summoned our vet who arrived within half an hour, but she’d gone by then. All we could do in the meanwhile was to sit on the floor stroking her, reassuring her and telling her everything would be alright as she gradually and gently let go and passed away. And indeed it was.
When I think about it I realise I should have expected something like this because Chutzpa never did anything gradually or in half measures. For example she went from fast asleep to awake and highly alert in an instant. Or if she saw some food on the ground she’d suddenly dive after it so fast she’d almost wrench your arm out of its socket if you were holding her lead. So why would she hang around when it’s time to go?
Now she has gone to the great biscuit factory in the sky and we are faced with learning to drop our attachment and letting her go in our minds and hearts as well as in the physical body. Chutzpa was a very powerful presence and now she’s a very powerful absence. May she rest in peace and enjoy an end to all her suffering and the suffering of all humanity. Namaste.
If you’re feeling stressed out, fed up with being a high achiever who tries to live up to other people’s expectations, or you’re going through a painful mid-life crisis, try a spot of non-doing. Or even better, non-striving.
Can you give yourself permission to sit on your bum doing absolutely nothing for a full five minutes? Not even thinking? Not feeling guilty because you’re doing nothing? Not worrying about what to do next? Not fretting about what you could be doing? Just sitting, blank and silent? I promise you, it’ll do you a power of good if you do that at least once a day.
It’s the best kind of meditation I’ve ever found. It’ll make your day go better, you’ll be happier and you’ll save time in the long run.
Saw a very interesting movie the other day, Love in the Time of Cholera, based on a story by the legendary Colombian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
At one point the main character says to his uncle, “I want to be a rich man like you.” To which his uncle immediately replied, “I’m not a rich man, just a poor man with a lot of money.” Point taken. Sometimes I feel like a rich man with not much money. Abundance and all that…
Later our protagonist was told off by his uncle, for whose company he was now working, for being too poetic and dewy-eyed in the way he wrote his bills of lading and dealt with the company correspondence. “But,” replied our hero, “love is the only thing that interests me.” Right again, brother. When you take the bigger picture into consideration, nothing else matters.
Finally towards the end of the movie, when in his old age he finally gets the chance to woo the love of his life, an opportunity he’d been patiently awaiting for over 50 years, he explained to her that only our bodies get older but our spirits and our hearts never change. Of course – how perceptive. That explains why I still feel like a 24-year-old even though my body is two and a half times more than that age.
If you like romantic films with a philosophical slant, get this one out on DVD and give it a spin. Let me know if you enjoy it.
