I love Alexander Green’s “Spiritual Wealth” letters – here’s one that particularly resonates:

Three Words That Will Save Your Life by Alexander Green Dear Reader, Talk about a model prisoner… In 1985, Fleet Maull began serving a 14-year sentence for drug trafficking. During his incarceration, he completed a Ph.D. in Psychology, authored a well-received book, became an ordained priest, founded a prison hospice program and launched the Prison Dharma Network, a non-profit organization that supports prisoner rehabilitation through contemplative spirituality. Today Maull works as a peace activist and personal effectiveness coach, lecturing at leading universities, in corporate boardrooms, in high-risk areas like Rwanda and the Middle East, and in what he calls “the forgotten world” inside our jails and prisons. Maull has plenty of wisdom and experience to share. But he sums up his core message in a single phrase: Radical Responsibility. Maull believes we create everything that’s happening in our lives, good and bad. It’s only when we accept complete responsibility that we take the giant step from childhood to adulthood. Self-responsibility is the key to personal effectiveness in every sphere of life. Yet many choose to embrace the psychology of helplessness and victimhood, preferring to explain all their struggles in terms of the actions of others. Like you, I meet many middle-aged men and women who are still grumbling and complaining about earlier unhappy experiences, who are still blaming their problems on other people or “the breaks.” They’re angry with their parents, fuming at an old boss, still simmering over their ex-spouse. They’re trapped in the past and can’t get free. Yet the great enemy of success and happiness is negative emotions. Fear, self-pity, envy, jealousy and anger hold us back, tie us down and suck the joy out of life. Studies show that there are four root causes of these emotions. Once you identify them, you can begin to banish them:   Justification. You can be negative only as long as you convince yourself that you are entitled to be angry. Unhappy individuals will always be found explaining and elaborating on the profound unfairness of their situation. Rationalization. Rationalization is self-deception, an attempt to create a plausible explanation for a socially unacceptable act. (As in, “If I turn this in six weeks late, no one will care anyway.”) Blaming. There is no quality more closely associated with unhappiness than the habit of blaming others for our difficulties. Poor Self-Esteem. Low self-esteem is generally characterized by a hypersensitivity to the opinions of others. No one wants to lose the respect of others, but conscientious people don’t need to fret about what other people think. Management consultant Brian Tracy points out that there’s a simple antidote to these factors that create negative emotions. You need only say three words: I am responsible. Whether your problem is joblessness, addiction, overspending, obesity, or a damaged personal relationship, you move closer to a solution the moment you say, “I am responsible.” It’s impossible to say these words and still feel angry. The very act of taking responsibility short-circuits and cancels out negative emotions. As Tracy says, “Every time you blame someone else or make excuses, you give your power away. You feel weakened and diminished… Without the acceptance of complete personal responsibility, no progress is possible. On the other hand, once you accept total responsibility for your life, there are no limits to what you can be, do and have.” Yet many would rather train for the Boston Marathon in three feet of snow than say these words. Why? Psychologists say human beings have a natural propensity to accumulate pride and shun regret. Whether we recognize it or not, we tend to take responsibility for the positive developments in our lives and attribute unfavorable developments to others or circumstances. This is not to say there aren’t times when our lives are significantly influenced by outside forces. Maybe you’re a great worker who lost her job due to a corporate downsizing or the poor economy. Maybe your parents really were poor role models. But victims don’t create change. It’s only when you choose to focus on what you can do and how you should act that you gain power. Businesses and other organizations today are looking for people who are willing and able to think, who are self-directing and self-managing, who respond to problems proactively rather than merely waiting for someone else’s solutions. A study done in New York a few years ago found that people who ranked in the top 3% in every field had a special attitude that set them apart from average performers in their industries. It was this: They chose to view themselves as self-employed throughout their careers, no matter who signed their paychecks. These are people who set goals, make plans, establish measures and get results. Radical responsibility changes everything. It means you own your thoughts, impulses, feelings and actions. You are accountable for the consequences they bring and the impact they have on others. This is not a burden, incidentally. It’s a privilege and an honor to take ownership of your actions. It creates freedom and control. It gives meaning to life. Self-reliance is the great source of personal power. We create ourselves, shape our identity and determine the course of our lives by what we are willing to take responsibility for. Want to change your life and solve your problems, starting today? Say three simple words: I am responsible. Carpe Diem, Alex Have “Two Cents?” Just send your thoughts, ideas or comments to feedbacksw@gmail.com.

Alexander Green is the Investment Director of The Oxford Club. The Oxford Club Communique, whose portfolio he directs, is ranked among the top investment letters in the nation for 10-year performance by the independent Hulbert Investment Digest. Alex is the author of three national best sellers including, most recently, Beyond Wealth: The Road Map to a Rich Life. He has been featured on Oprah & Friends, CNBC, National Public Radio (NPR), Fox News and “The O’Reilly Factor,” and has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, among others. He currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and Winter Springs, Florida with his wife Karen and their children Hannah and David.

For years now I’ve been receiving weekly emails from Alexander Green of The Oxford Club in the USA. He deals in investments but has a philosophical interest and produces some wonderful, thought-provoking emails.

I find this one particularly relevant this week, having just suddenly lost a close friend to a brain aneurysm… “what’s it all about???” and “where do I fit in the big picture”…

Here’s the article, reproduced with permission:

Your Place In “The Great Story” by Alexander Green Dear Reader, Over dinner a few months ago, my friend Marcy told me she was struggling with what she calls “the great questions.” Who am I? Where am I going? What’s it all about? She was visiting a new church and had picked up a few books on philosophy, religion, and science, but felt a bit overwhelmed. “There’s an awful lot to cover here,” she said. “Where do you suggest I start?” I told her it depended on where her interests lay and that she would probably end up following her own path. But I did recommend a good trailhead: Big History. You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. Big History provides the answer, using not just the knowledge and insights of historians, but of archaeologists, cosmologists, geologist, and biologists, too. The result is a grand synthesis – based on the latest discoveries – that explains our place in creation. Why is this important? As Dr. Joel Primack, a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, explains, “Without a meaningful, believable story that explains the world we actually live in, people have no idea how to think about the big picture. And without a big picture, we are very small people.” Yet this portrait is anything but easy to find… Professors Bob Bain and Lauren McArthur Harris of the University of Michigan recently asked over 75 world history teachers at a workshop to quickly compile a five-minute history of the United States. Most had no problem, using a thread that included Native Americans, European settlement and colonization, the American Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction, expansion and industrialization, two World Wars, the Depression and New Deal, the Cold War, civil rights and so on. Next they asked them to craft a five-minute history of Western Civilization. Again, the teachers had little difficulty finding common markers: the River Valley civilizations, classical Mediterranean civilization, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of nation-states, exploration, democratic revolutions and more. But when they asked the same group to create a five-minute account of world history, they were stymied. They couldn’t decide what to include, got bogged down with details and lacked sufficient knowledge to form a coherent narrative. And these were world history teachers! Their experience underscores the trouble most of us have gaining a genuine sense of the past. The subject is so broad and diverse that it is easy to get overwhelmed by a blizzard of facts that lacks any meaningful interpretation. Big History provides one. It is a story that weaves the past – including both human history and pre-history – into a single tapestry. Unlike traditional history, which focuses on political movements and key personalities, Big History deals with evolutionary changes and patterns that link us to a common background. You already know that you share a national history with millions of others and a personal history with a much smaller subset. But consider the history you share with the rest of humanity, the natural world, and even the stars and planets. At this grand scale, it is not possible to cover the actions and accomplishments of great individuals, men and women we should know and strive to emulate. The goal here is to understand our interconnections and, ultimately, our place in the world. For example, paleontologists estimate that Homo sapiens emerged from East Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. Since then, we’ve climbed from savages to scientists. A few notable developments along the way include: 1. Speech. The development of articulate expression took us from warning cries and mating calls all the way to philosophy and poetry. Without language, reason could never have gotten off the ground. 2. Fire. This discovery made us less dependant on climate, less fearful of the night, and offered a thousand things for dinner that were inedible before. (For an interesting take on this era, I recommend Quest for Fire, perhaps the funniest movie without dialogue ever made.) 3. The Conquest of the Animals. Today most of us think of animals as either pets or food. But before we took dominion of the earth, leaving a cave or your hut was a potentially life-threatening risk. 4. Agriculture. Without the development of crops and livestock, our ancestors could not have made the transition from hunting and gathering to civilization. Yet 98% of human history is pre-agricultural. 5. Social Organization. There was no security and prosperity until we learned that disputes could be settled without picking up a rock or club. Cooperation and compromise led to progress, knowledge and wealth. 6. Morality. There can be no lasting peace without justice or conscience. More than two thousand years ago, Buddha said, “Hurt not others with that which pains yourself.” Confucius said, “What you do not yourself desire, do not put before others.” Hindu scripture counseled, “Treat others as you would be treated.” Jesus of Nazareth said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Societies that adopted this ethos survived. The others did not. It’s that simple. 7. Tools. Without machines – like the wheel, the hammer and the knife – there was little we could build or achieve. New and ever-improving tools eased our burdens and vastly improved the quality of life. 8. Education. Each generation passes along its discoveries and accumulated wisdom to the next. We are born savages. Education makes us human. 9. Writing and Print. Writing made permanent the achievements of the mind. Printing carried them to the corners of the earth. 10. Mathematics and Science. Society could not have advanced without the enlightenment of the mind. From the electron microscope to the Hubble Space Telescope, science has revealed a universe vastly larger and more splendid than the ancients could possibly have imagined. Yet five thousand years of recorded history relates only a millionth of the lifetime of the earth. We seldom of think of it, but the planet has a history, too. So does the solar system. And so does the Universe as a whole. Yet – thanks to the discoveries of science – it is only relatively recently that we have pieced our earliest chapters together. We now know, for instance, that the present universe sprang into existence 13.7 billion years ago. The solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. The first signs of microscopic life arrived 3.7 billion years ago. And the largest-ever mass extinction occurred 252 million years ago. How we know these things are true is one of the most fascinating aspects of studying Big History. If you are interested in learning more, there are a number of excellent books available. A few favorites are What On Earth Happened by Christopher Lloyd, Big History by Cynthia Stokes Brown and This Fleeting World by David Christian. Christian, an Oxford-educated scholar and Professor of History at San Diego State University, is one of the founding figures of the Big History movement. He has taught the subject since 1989 and even coined the term – whimsically – in a 1991 article. Christian realized that the story of our beginnings crosses various branches of knowledge and is generally scattered across academic disciplines. Worse, it is almost never presented chronologically. That makes it tough to grasp the big picture. Students and seekers – like Marcy – often find themselves lost, confused or tied up in knots. One solution is “Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity,” a 48-lecture course taught by David Christian and available through The Teaching Company on DVD, Audio CD or Audio Download. (For more information, click here.) The course is in easy-to-digest 30-minute lectures that are short on glossy production but long on distilled wisdom. Christian doesn’t just relate the big picture. He puts in into context and makes it accessible to the layman. In an early episode, for instance, he tries to convey the immensity of our solar system and points out that a modern passenger jet flying at roughly 550 miles per hour takes about five hours to cross the continental U.S. Traveling at the same speed, you would need 18 days to reach the moon, 20 years to reach the sun, 82 years to reach Jupiter, and 750 years to reach Pluto, my favorite ex-planet. How long would it take to reach the next nearest star, Alpha Centauri, 25 trillion miles away? The answer is five million years. Yet, cosmologically, this is right next door. There are roughly 100 billions stars in the Milky Way and most are separated by a plane flight of five million years or more. The Hubble has revealed more than 100 billion other galaxies out there, each stuffed with billions of stars. Astronomers estimate that there are more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts on earth. The universe isn’t just bigger than you imagine. It’s bigger than you can imagine. The only way Big History won’t make your head swim is if you aren’t paying attention. (Which may explain why we missed most of this in college.) However, it’s only within the last few decades that scientists have had the specialized instruments and dating techniques to know where we came from and how we got here. Big History is a crash course in your connection to everything: other people, the natural world, the rest of the cosmos. What is the benefit of this larger perspective? Our world has never been more interconnected. Yet we define ourselves in the ways that divide us: national boundaries, culture, language, religion. The truth is we are all united in the most profound ways, not just as a global community but as a cosmic one. (This sounds a little Kumbaya, I know, but that doesn’t make it any less true.) Understanding the past allows us to think more clearly about the future. Your story transcends the history of particular nations, ethnic groups, individual species, even organic matter. It reveals your deep spiritual connection to the rest of humanity… and to everything else. As cell biologist and essayist Lewis Thomas observed, “I go back, and so do you, like it or not, to a single Ur-ancestor, whose remains are on display in rocks dated approximately 3.5 thousand million years ago, born a billion or so years after the earth itself took shape and began cooling down… I cannot get that out of my head. It has become the most important thing I know, the obligatory beginning of any memoir, the long-buried source of language. We derive from a lineage of bacteria, and a very long line at that. Never mind our embarrassed indignation when we were first told that we came from a family of apes and had chimps as near-cousins. That was relatively easy to accommodate, having at least the distant look of a set of relatives. But this new connection, already fixed by recent science beyond any hope of disowning the parentage, is something else ag ain… We are all in the same family – grasses, seagulls, fishes, fleas and voting citizens of the republic… Humble origins indeed.” The journey is a fantastic one because it is grounded in what geologists call deep time, eons going back beyond our ability to comprehend. Yet there is grandeur here. Reverend Michael Dowd, an author and educator, calls our modern understanding “The Great Story,” the sacred history of everyone and everything, from our cosmic genesis, to the formation of galaxies and the origin of life, to the development of consciousness and culture, to the emergence of ever widening circles of care and concern. He defines Big History as a glorious revelation – a public one, available to anyone with an open heart and an inquiring mind. Like my friend Marcy, you may be uncertain where you’re going or what it’s all about. After all, men and women have pondered these questions for thousands of years. Big History can help. It offers a vital perspective, a map of your place in space and time. And while we should never stop asking who we are or where we’re headed… it’s pretty mind-blowing to discover where we’ve been. Carpe Diem, Alex Have “Two Cents?” Just send your thoughts, ideas or comments to editor@spiritualwealth.com.

Alexander Green is the Investment Director of The Oxford Club. The Oxford Club Communique, whose portfolio he directs, is ranked among the top 5 investment letters in the nation for 10-year performance by the independent Hulbert Investment Digest. Alex is the author of The New York Times bestseller “The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio: Get Wise, Get Wealthy… and Get On With Your Life” and, more recently, “The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters.” He has been featured on Oprah & Friends, CNBC, National Public Radio (NPR), Fox News and “The O’Reilly Factor,” and has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, among others. He currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and Winter Springs, Florida with his wife Karen and their children Hannah and David.

Copyright © 2010 by The Oxford Club, L.L.C

One of my favourite online writers is Chris Guillebeau, whose blog is the Art Of Non Conformity. I’ve just read his recent article “A short collection of unconventional ideas“, which I found inspiring!

Far too many of us have, over the years, done things just because we’ve learned that we “should” do them : have a job in an office, aspire to get a fancy car, get married and have 2.5 children, etc. – but sometimes these just aren’t meant for some people. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with any of these things… just that they’re not right for everyone. Some of them aren’t right for me – working in an office, in particular!

I grew up thinking I had to do what others told me to, or what was expected of me. Now that I’m doing less and less of that, it can sometimes be very uncomfortable but also great fun. As long as you’re honest and sensitive in turning things down, it’s surprising how people will mostly just accept that it’s cool to NOT do something.

One question I’ve (slowly) been learning to ask myself is this : “Does it really REALLY matter if someone thinks you’re wrong?” I’m not talking about dangerous stuff here either … just simple stuff like turning down an invitation when you’re not in the mood, letting someone know that their behaviour had a neagtive impact on you … small things that can impact the way you live your day. I’m learning to listen to my intuition – so when something doesn’t feel right, but I go ahead with it anyway, it usually turns out to be something I should have avoided.

So listen to your own heart and instinct, and be just a little unconventional tomorrow … and see where it takes you

–>

Let me know what small unconventionalities (is there such a word??) you try & how they made you feel…

You’ve heard that it takes 21 days to break or create a habit, right? Well, here is one habit worth changing: complaining and putting yourself in “victim mode”. Read Alexander Green’s article:

Are You Ready for the 21-Day Challenge? by Alexander Green

Dear Reader, Would you like to enjoy better health, have a more satisfying job, feel less pain, experience less conflict in your relationships, and live in peace and contentment? In a matter of weeks – time that will pass anyway – you can have the life you’ve always dreamed of living. You only have to do one thing. Stop complaining. Face it. We all do it. The weather is lousy. The neighbors are thoughtless. The price is too high. The kids are slobs. The boss is a jerk. The freeway’s a mess. Etc. Most of us feel that when we’re complaining we’re just speaking our minds. Except something else is going on here, too. When we complain we are focusing on what is wrong with our lives instead of what’s right. Studies show that our motives aren’t always the best, either. When we point out other people’s faults, for example, psychologists say it’s often a thinly-veiled way of suggesting that we are better than they are. We build ourselves up by tearing others down. People with a healthy self-esteem don’t need to do this. Those who complain about the quality of the food or wine at a restaurant are often striving to create an impression of sophistication or discrimination. But it backfires. You ruin your companion’s meal and appear transparent at the same time. Bear in mind, “My steak is over-cooked” is a fact, not a complaint. “I wouldn’t feed this to my dog”… well, you judge for yourself. We also use complaints as excuses. In his new book “A Complaint Free World,” Reverend Will Bowen writes, “If you are saying things like ‘Men are commitment-phobic,’ ‘Everyone in my family is fat,’ ‘I’m not coordinated’, ‘My father told me I’d never amount to anything,’ you are making yourself a victim. Victims don’t become victors. And you get to choose which you will be.” Bowen says it’s fine to use terms like “Of course!”, “Wouldn’t you know it?”, “just my luck!”, and “This always happens to me!”, but only when something good happens.  Never miss an opportunity to say “Of course” when something goes well for you, no matter how small. There’s nothing wrong with expressing dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is the mother of progress. The key is how you express yourself. You can bellyache about how bad things are. Or you can motivate those around you by describing how much better things will be when a bad situation is resolved. Realize that you create your life with the words you choose. You can describe something as a problem, or call it an opportunity. You can complain that “I have to…” or you can say “I get to…” A negative turn of events can be described as a “setback,” or you can call it a “challenge.” Some folks might argue that carping and complaining each day is normal. But maybe you’re better than normal. Maybe you can be exceptional… outstanding… a positive influence on those around you. As Reverend Bowen says, “Complaining should happen infrequently; criticism and gossip, never. If we are honest with ourselves, life events that lead us to legitimately complain are exceedingly rare… To be a happy person who has mastered your thoughts and has begun creating your life by design, you need a very high threshold of what leads you to express grief, pain, and discontent.” For example, you are probably better off than Stephen Hawking. As a young man at Cambridge University, he began developing symptoms of Lou Gehrig’s disease. As it progressed, he became almost completely physically disabled. Yet he has gone on to produce groundbreaking research in theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. Today he holds Isaac Newton’s chair as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. “It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability,” says Hawking. “One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.” If you need any further incentive, recognize that complaining undermines your health. It creates stress in your life. The more you complain, the more stressful your life becomes. According to Forbes, all of the seven top-selling drugs in the United States are for illnesses exacerbated by stress. Americans are so stressed out we spend over $30 billion a year on them. You may believe you’re one of those souls who rarely complains. Or you may feel that complaining is so much a part of your nature that there’s nothing you can do about it. Either way, you’re probably wrong. That’s why I invite you to take Reverend Bowen’s 21-Day Challenge. Try going 21 consecutive days without complaining. (Bowen says it takes 21 days for a new habit to become ingrained.) Visit his website www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org and order two purple “Complaint Free” bracelets, one for yourself and one for someone you love. (The bracelets are free. There is a shipping charge of 75 cents.) Begin to wear the bracelet on either wrist. When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping or criticizing, move the bracelet to the other wrist and begin again. Stay with it until you can go 21 days without a complaint. This is tougher than it sounds. So far, more than 5 million people have ordered the bracelets. The average person reports needing 4 to 8 months to go a full 21 days without complaining. But the testimonials are glorious. This simple practice in mindfulness has transformed people’s lives and elevated entire organizations. My own purple bracelets are on the way. I’ll tell you how it goes at my house. You let me know how it works out at yours. In the meantime, here’s an amusing story from Reverend Bowen’s book to put you in the right frame of mind: A young monk joined an order that required total silence. At his discretion, the abbot could allow any monk to speak. It was nearly five years before the abbot approached the novice monk and said, “You may speak two words.” Choosing his words carefully, the monk said, “Hard bed.” With genuine concern, the abbot said, “I’m sorry your bed isn’t comfortable. We’ll see if we can get you another one.” Around his tenth year in the monastery, the abbot came to the young monk and said, “You may say two more words.”  “Cold food,” the monk said. “We’ll see what we can do,” the abbot said. On the monk’s fifteenth anniversary, the abbot said again, “You may now speak two words.”  “I quit,” the monk said. “It’s probably for the best,” replied the abbot. “You’ve done nothing but gripe since you got here.” Carpe Diem, Alex Have “Two Cents?” Just send your thoughts, ideas or comments to editor@spiritualwealth.com. Copyright © 2008 by The Oxford Club, L.L.C

This was written a few months back (early May 2008), but  checking on the website over 5.6 million purple bracelets have been ordered – which tells me people think this is a worthwhile experiment… hmmm, time for me to get one too!

Blessings
Tracey

I received the following email from a friend, but don’t know to whom it is attributed (apart from Bill Gates, of course!) – enjoy it anyway – and pass it on!

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things kids do not and will not learn in school. He talked about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is notbeneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on.

If you can read this – Thank a teacher!

(By Jeremy Orbell)

The evocative phrase: ‘Living every day with passion’ conjures up wildly different images for many people. Living is life, pure and simple, and your perception or definition of life is determined by your past experiences and your current thought patterns.

What does the word passion mean to you? Apart from the obvious sexual reference or lust, it can be about a very different kind of desire – the drive to succeed. It is an emotional term that can be positive or negative but it a powerful driving force. It could be for a political cause or just a hobby but ultimately it’s about doing what you love to do.

Life can be of heaven for some or hell for others. Then there are those who seem to view life purely as existence whereby they move from day-to-day without any inclination that there could be something more. Where do you fit in?

Take a moment to think about where you are this moment in time. Are you contented, stressed, angry, thrilled, eager or sad? None of the above? Express to yourself now your emotional state and say it out loud.

Well? Did telling yourself outright have any physiological effect on you and your body? Did you slouch, stand up, smile, jump around or nervously chew your nails? When you spoke was it vibrant, quiet, excited or angry?

What does this tell you? The sound of your voice and your posture is giving you an obvious sign of whether you are truly contented or not and you should treat the message being fed to you with respect.

I’m sure some of you will have noticed that I have asked a great number of questions in this article. The writing style may seem cumbersome but I have deliberately been using it to get across the importance of asking questions of yourself.

There is a rule that many life coaches use that says that you should never give direct advice if at all possible. This is because the coach’s viewpoint is mostly based on their own personal circumstances, morals and viewpoints; what would be right for them is not necessarily right for the client.

If you have a success coach of your own or witness a session taking place on TV, listen to how they speak to the coachee. It’s questions, questions, questions. This surprises many people as they often expect that they will be dispensed with some words of wisdom that will suddenly cure all their problems. Not true.

We all have it within us to solve our own problems because, let’s face it, who knows you better than yourself? Keep asking yourself questions and couple your answers with consistent action and you should begin to see some changes. If these changes don’t have the desired response try again, do it differently, until you have results that you are happy with.

Remember that we have options to choose from and decisions to make every moment of every day and we decide how we react to any one of them.

This may all seem to be off-topic but it isn’t really. Passion is an evocative word as we’ve said and when we attach it to the way we live we instantly become more positive and excited about life.

Do you feel passionate about our job? If the answer is no what does that mean? Apart from telling you that you probably shouldn’t even be doing it in the first place, it also asks you to consider your motives for being there at all. If it’s purely because of money are you able to accept that financial gain justifies any unhappiness on a longer term basis?

What activity gives you the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment? Think back now to the last time you experienced the high of doing exactly what you wanted to do, purely for the love of it. Grasp that memory and relive the feeling and do whatever you can to make it part of you.

Living every day with passion is about waking up in the morning excited about the day and the possibilities and opportunities that lay ahead of you. What will I learn, what will I experience, who will I meet?

Ask yourself again: “What is my passion?”. Decide now, take action and make it real. “

Jeremy Orbell wrote this article on Ecademy; I would like to thank him for asking enough questions to get my mind working in a much more enthusiastic way!

Many of us have lost touch with what we need, as opposed to what we want. How many times have you bought something just because you’re bored, or feeling a bit “down” … or because you’re trying to impress someone? (And no, we’re talking about date situations here – this is “keeping up with the Jones” stuff.) And how many of us chase money as the goal of our working lives, instead of it just being a means to an end?

In a very thought-provoking video, Lynne Twist describes how our relationship with money has become corrupted more and more in recent years. Our consumer society sees money as an end rather than a means, and we no longer know what is meant by simple sufficiency. She discusses some myths surrounding our obsession with money. This link was sent to me by a friend after I told him the story if a mother and daughter wishing each other “enough”… not “lots”, just enough…

To My Dear Friend,

Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure. Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, “I love you and I wish you enough”.

The daughter replied, “Mum, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mum”.

They kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. “Forgive me for asking, but why is this forever good-bye?”

“I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is – the next trip back will be for my funeral,” she said.

“When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough’. May I ask what that means? “.

She began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone”. She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled! Even more. “When we said, ‘I wish you enough’, we wanted the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them”. Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how grey the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

She then began to cry and walked away.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them but then an entire life to forget them.