May 12, 2010

What makes them different?



Someone—just the other day—asked me about my book, “What’s it about?”

My answer, I thought, was catchy, “It’s a story of hope, happiness and making your dreams come true.”

Then I said, “It’s a novel that explores creative alternatives to the common, mundane, Work-Success-Retirement formula.”

Ahem.

I was kinda proud of myself.

Work-Success-Retirement formula.

Has a nice ring, doesn’t it?

And, while I like the label, I’m not, to be honest, at all fond of what it represents.

What I mean is, I’m not fond of a formula that says, “Work hard. Become successful. Retire.”

Why not?

Look at it this way.

Is there something you love doing? Music, maybe? Photography, perhaps? Cooking, conceivably?

Whatever it is you love, when you’re doing it, are you looking forward to the day that you can stop (retire from) doing it?

Not too bloody likely, right?

You’re doing it because it’s fun, because you love doing it, because it’s who you are,

And you, likely, don’t want to entertain the thought of stopping.

Now, I know what you’re thinking too.

You’re thinking, “Hang on, we’re talking about work, and work isn’t something I love doing.”

But, what if work could be like that?

What if your career—your livelihood—was derived from something you loved doing?

Wouldn’t that be cool?

And that’s what the book addresses. It holds—within an amusing and compelling story about two people on a park bench—real-world, workable solutions for taking control of your career, your future, your life.

Now, before you dismiss me (and my idea), do me a favour.

Think about people you know, or you read about, or you see on TV, who make a living at something they love.

And think of those people—people well into their 60s, 70s or even 80s—who can’t dream of stopping. Won’t think of quitting. Won’t entertain the thought of retirement.

What makes them different?

(And it’s at this point that I finally get to, ahem, the point).

For months, I was searching for one word—one catchword, one byword, one slogan, one mantra—that explains, defines and illustrates what it is about those everyday people—those chefs, those journalists, those tailors, those musicians—who will never quit doing what they do.

And, after a long search, after scrolling, in mind, through an index of catchy one-word candidates, I found  (at last!) the mot-juste.

And that word is; Passion.

That’s the difference.

That’s why there are people who go to work, every day, and who refuse to stop going to work every day.

Because their lives—and their livelihood—are filled with passion.

They Pursue Passion

They Experience Passion

They Own their Passion

They Communicate Passion

They Live a Life of Passion—every day.

And you can too.

All you need to do, is to

Pursue passion.

Ideas? Suggestions? Questions? Please leave a comment.



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April 24, 2010

Cats and stuff



Frank Mundo the book columnist for the LA Books Examiner asks some pretty tough questions. Frank just reviewed my book (and a rather nice commentary too—I’ll post it soon. In the meantime, you can read it here).

He then followed up his review with some intriguing interview questions.

There was one question, though, about art versus commercial success, that really hit home.

That question, in fact, got me to thinking about this…

Have you heard of Schrödinger’s cat?

Erwin Schrödinger was a physicist who, pondering the matter of quantum mechanics, contemplated the possibility of a cat being both alive and dead. At the same time.

You see, one of the tenets of quantum science is that it might just be possible for an element (a particle, an atom, a molecule) to exist in all possible states, all at the same time.

Which, I suppose, led Schrödinger to wonder if that might, perhaps, apply to a cat—could it be both alive and dead?

Which, I suppose, makes most of us cringe (or scoff) at the absurdity of it all.

Which, however, led me to wonder—if quantum science is correct—if there can be more than one outcome, is anything, in fact, mutually exclusive?

Which, of course, remained somewhat rhetorical as a question, because to my knowledge, there hadn’t been any real evidence that quantum science was correct.

Until I saw a New Scientist piece, retweeted by Mike Cane, that speaks of a laboratory experiment in which a strip of metal was made to both oscillate and not oscillate at the same time.

Eureka!

Can it be true?

If a strip of metal can be made to simultaneously move and not move, is it true that the concept of mutual exclusivity exists more in our minds than in fact?

Further, if that’s true, is it also true that, in our everyday lives, we often arrive at decisions based on a concept—that of mutual-exclusivity—that is outdated and erroneous?

I mean how often do we believe that it has to be A or B, This or That?

Even worse, think of how often we frame those mutually exclusive choices in one of two ways: i) desirable but risky, ii) undesirable but safe.

And, think of how often we put ourselves in a position of choosing between; Something we want to do versus something we have to do. Or Something that’s meaningful but unprofitable versus something that pays well but sucks the creativity right out of us.

Or…..as Frank put it in his interview question, How do you reconcile art with commercial success?

All to say that maybe, just maybe, the question shouldn’t be, Should I choose this or that?

Maybe the question should actually be, How can I get both?

And, maybe, that’s exactly what Schrödinger meant.

Questions? Ideas? Suggestions? Please leave a comment.

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April 14, 2010

There is no “is” – Part II



Oh man, this is getting weird.

In a prior post, I introduced a series of videos, by Dr. Bruce Lipton, which set out to prove the almost limitless capacity we have for controlling our lives.

Now please understand.

My primary intent (in this blog, in my book, in my workshops) isn’t to discuss physiology and health.

No, my interest, in fact, lies in understanding and redefining success, careers, business, money and retirement.

Having said that, the work of Dr. Lipton (and others like him) fascinates me in that it helps me illustrate the importance of belief and perception—two of the most crucial (and yet underrated) principles of success, happiness and fulfilment.

What astounds me—and it may astound you too—is the heretofore unknown role  that perception plays in our everyday lives.

It’s weird, I tell you. It’s really weird.

You can see for yourself by watching the video below, and taking note of these pivotal intervals;

  • 1:00 We adjust our genes to fit the environment that we think we live in. This means it’s perception—it’s belief that changes our genes.
  • 2:50 We have a lot of control over our life, but it’s mediated by our perception of the environment
  • 3:10 Are we genetically controlled? Are we at the behest of your heredity? Are we a victim?
  • 3:30 95% of us got here with very appropriate genes to survive and have a great life. Almost always, when we rewrite our genes, we perform a negative process.
  • 3:45 95% of cancer has no hereditary linkage. 95% of cancer is actively produced by an indvidual’s perception, rewriting their normal genes and making cancer genes
  • 4:30 We have the ability to change anything in our body
  • 5:43 Our body has two classes of programs. One class is for growth and the other, protection
  • 7:50 Therefore humans are either in some degree of growth or some degree of protection, based on signals (perception)
  • 7:59 The most important growth-promoting signal is love.

Now imagine this.

If we have the power to change our genes—our bodies.

How powerful are we in changing other areas of our lives?

Ideas? Suggestions? Questions? Please leave a comment.

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April 1, 2010

There is no “is”



How do you deal with newly-minted information?

Especially newly-minted information that runs contrary to your existing beliefs?

Do you dismiss it? Laugh it off? Or dig in a little—see what it’s about?

You know the expression right?

“It is what it is.”

Though I used it myself, and forgetting, for now, the ring of acquiescent finality associated with the expression, it’s not really new news to hear that the self-creationists—the quantum mechanics gurus—don’t particularly buy into that statement.

But the other day, I came upon a series of youtube episodes that kinda blew me away.

And I thought they’d blow you away too.

The videos, by Dr. Bruce Lipton, depict a scene—of cells and genes—that, frankly, fascinates me.

Regular readers know of my interest in perception, especially as it relates to careers, success, money and retirement—and yet, here’s Dr. Lipton (who has a Ph.D. in cellular biology) telling us that perception invokes more than that—way more. So much more.

All of which means that maybe, just maybe, it’s a fallacy to believe that It is what it is.

Or put another way, maybe we should admit that there is no “is”, there’s only the “is” that we perceive and create.

I intend to come back to the these youtube posts about perception and biology—point out the astonishing stuff.

But for now, take a peek at the one posted here, and take note of these intervals—see what Dr. Lipton has to offer…

  • 1:44 “A belief switches on a gene…”
  • 2:50  “Genes control aspects of our live….. Victim of heredity…”
  • 3:29 “I can’t do anything about it, so why should I even try…”
  • 3:38 “This belief about genes is totally disempowering to every one of us…”
  • 7:51 Assumptions (that were never proven) on how genes control biology. Assumptions only recently disproved.



Ideas? Suggestions? Questions? Please leave a comment.


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