Today’s tip comes from a very unexpected place.
The kitchen.
To be more precise the Australian MasterChef kitchen.
Compliments of ‘Pezza’ (aka: Josh Perry).
Thanks Pezza!
Pezza was the recent runner-up in the 2024 Australian MasterChef series.
He won AU$40,000 for his efforts and learned a whole bunch along the way.
I was trying to find the right phrase, to sum up (cross-culturally) what it means when things go to sh#t, without me using a swear word.
Now the reason I refrain from swear words in my writing is so my emails don’t get flagged as bad, or naughty, or non-politically-correct.
After 14 years in the Army, I can swear with the best of them.
But I digress.
I think we all know what I am talking about when I say ‘things go sideways‘.
Essentially we have this great idea, plan and course of action happening, and then all of a sudden (or maybe not suddenly) it all “seems” to turn to poop.
Things come off the rails and you are left thinking “WTF do I do now?“
We have all been there.
Today I want to jump straight in.
First with this statement: Words Matter.
A lot.
I think that we all know that there are some statements, words, phrases, and reframes, that bring a whole lot of energy with them.
Some create negative energy (e.g. “I am stupid.”), and then there are some that light up the sky (and our minds) with passion and possibility.
It is the ‘light up the sky‘ and ‘moving mountains‘ kind we will be focusing on today.
What follows are three of my favourite one-liners to help you get better results in life.
They raise the level of our potential, when they are breathed into life.
I was uncertain about what I was going to write about today.
As I was thinking about a topic, and reviewing ideas I have had over the last few weeks, I was interrupted by a woman talking outside our house VERY loudly.
..to people who were 100cm (3ft) away from her.
And suddenly I felt my heckles go up.
The reason is that this woman is also the woman who likes to dump a plastic bag (full of scraps) into the small creek 30m from our house.
This is the person who I said could tip her organic scraps into the creek (the lesser evil) and then put the plastic bag in a bin we have provided outside our house that has a sign on it – in Indonesian – to put your rubbish in the bin rather than throw it on the land next door (I also pay for the bin to be emptied).
Nup.
Too hard.
Have you ever thought it would be great to have ‘ZERO’ stress in your life?
I know I have.
There are times I am cranky because I am getting stressed-out over something or other.
Or other times where I am just feeling a mild level of stress in my body.
At these times I wonder what it would be like to have ZERO stress, all the time.
As if that were the ideal target.
And maybe it is.
Maybe that is what ‘enlightenment’ is all about.
Or maybe it isn’t.
I have no doubts that every luminary person we can think of – who we consider as enlightened or self-actualized – also had their fair share of stress, and in most cases (if not all) had high levels of high stress experiences throughout their life.
The first thing I think is relevant to this conversation is that I am not even sure that ZERO stress is attainable, or even the penultimate achievement in life.
No stress might actually be the bit just before we take our last breath.
So today I am going to talk about how ‘zero’ stress may not a worthwhile target.
Let’s now look at the reasons why.
I was trying to think today about how to best serve you.
What could be most useful for you?
And most relevant?
The thought that came to mind is what to do if you are going along swimmingly and then all of a sudden DOUBT starts to bubble up.
Sadly, if left unaddressed, doubt can start to fester, leading to a downward spiral – generally speeding up as it goes – and then spinning into other parts of your life that you thought you were on top of.
What do you?
THAT is what we will continue to explore today.
You can thank Emma for this article.
She suggested she would like to have me focus on ‘How to become more VITAL‘.
And just so we understand what we are talking about when we use the word ‘vital’, other words we could use include:
Spunk, buzz, jazzed up, on a high, light of spirit, energized, unstoppable, vibrant, radiant, expansive, thriving, and plugged into life.
Feel free to add a few of your own. 😉
It is pretty much the opposite of anxious, fearful, worried, flat, fatigued, apathetic, disconnected, etc..
The less fun stuff.
I think the most basic way to figure out how to create the most vitality, for the majority of the time, is to do a good old fashioned “Audit”.
It is a great place to start.
We are essentially going to come up with what RAISES our Vitality and what LOWERS our Vitality.
That’s the mission for today.
Bringing AWARENESS to you in relationship to your Vitality choices.
Giving you the insight to make better choices.
And yes, you would have heard a bunch of these from me before.
But as they say: repetition is the mother of learning.
Let’s start with what lowers vitality…
I am not a fan of seeing people suffer.
Especially unnecessarily.
That is why I like to write books about how to do life LESS hard.
I have also had a fascination (perhaps more like an obsession) for the last 25+ years on all things health, well-being, and how to create lifelong vitality.
I have read 100’s of books on the subjects, listened to 1000’s of hours of conversations, plus tried weird and wacky stuff on myself to see what works and what doesn’t.
I also like to consider things from a very holistic perspective.
From the perspective and integration of the Body, Mind, Emotions and even Spiritual beliefs and practices.
So today I am going to share with you my beliefs plus what I have witnessed over those immersive years.
As always, take what resonates for you, and feel free let the rest just slip down the side.
(Because as you know your beliefs matter…a lot…when it comes to the ‘placebo effect‘).
You know I love to use my own life experiences to share lessons and insights.
So here goes.
As you know I have been in a town called Mildura (Victoria, Australia), where I have been doing some work, prior ro heading to Perth for my 35-year reunion from graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
While in Mildura, I delivered a couple of presentations, and leadership training, and one of the topics that was relevant and prevalent in each of the presentations, was our relationship with “EXPECTATIONS”.
I have written about this before and it is a chapter in my new book – 18 Ways We Make Life WAY harder Than It Needs To Be.”
The other thing about my 6-days working in Mildura was that it was exceptional in every way.
The place I stayed, my host, the food, the long walks along the Murray River in the morning, the audiences I got to present to, the smells of the eucalyptus, the sounds of the kookaburra’s, and even the swimming pool were I was staying, which was about 13 degrees Celsius and part of a 3-min ritual each morning.
What Wim Hof would call entering the cold.
So the context is, that I had a fabulous time in Mildura, and was on my way to my next port-of-call, which was Perth and my military reunion.
Perhaps the long day and delayed flights might have contributed to the outcome, but I had a great conversation with the passenger seated besides me, so it was actually pretty chipper, so we might rule that out as a factor in the event I am leading to in this article.
A quarter of a century ago, I started my ‘personal development’ journey.
It started with a 30-Day program (6 x CD’s), by Tony Robbins, called Personal Power II, and as a result I made three (3) radical changes in my life.
Firstly, I stopped getting drunk (I switched to low alcohol beers and limited myself to 2 or 3 if I was going out for the night).
Now for the record, drinking “Lite” beers was not well received by my Army buddies.
Next, I switched to a pescatarian diet (principally vegetarian, with the exception of occasional seafood).
And finally I started attending YOGA classes at my local gym in Bondi Junction (Sydney).