2009 In Review: Did You Focus On What You Really Wanted?
I’m sitting at a Max Brenner “chocolate by the bald man” shop, slurping a dark chocolate iced frappe in Melbourne as I type this on my macbook air.
This is the first chance I’ve had to get some laptop time in the past three days because I’ve attended a wedding of a high-school friend. What made the wedding unique is because it was an Indian wedding, which means it’s a big occasion, with over 250 people showing up at different ceremonies, held over three days.
Melbourne is a great city, my second favorite in Australia after my hometown of Brisbane. I love the trams, and although the weather is a bit unpredictable, I like how much cooler it is compared to Brisbane. It’s like Brisbane winter temperatures in summer at night in Melbourne – that means long pants and no sweating, a welcome relief from what has been a hot summer in Brisbane so far. Most of the biggest events come to Melbourne, including the Australian Open tennis, my favorite tournament of the year.
The wedding has been an amazing experience, with such a variety of ceremonies, including traditional Indian customs, food, dancing and clothing. I have a small family, so seeing such a massive group of people come together essentially just for two people, along with all the emotions involved, is at times overwhelming, yet an inspiring experience too.
If you want to see photos from the wedding I’ve tweeted a few of them, so just check out my Twitter profile for the links. And if you’re reading this – a big thank you to Venkatesh and Nishi for the invite to your wedding, and congratulations again.
The Year That Was
Now that the wedding is over I’m back to the real world, thinking about what’s coming next in my life. No doubt you’re thinking about what’s coming up for you in 2010 as well.
This is the last blog post I’m going to write this year, actually – this decade. That makes it a great time for reflection.
In 2009 I turned 30, and celebrated that milestone on this blog with a reflective blog post looking back over the last ten years of my life. You can read it here -
How To Become Comfortable With Yourself
Since I’ve already covered the highlights of the last decade, and this blog is a chronicle of the last five years of my life, I’m going to focus now only on the year that was and also what’s coming up next.
Looking at small time-frames works a lot better for me. I don’t make five year plans. I don’t even make one year plans. I do look to the past to help me frame my future intentions, however they serve more as learning tools and reference points for what I want now more than anything else.
2009 has been a particularly inspiring year for me because I realized how completely in control of my reality I am. Sure I’ve understood that idea long before this year, but it was more a concept to me, something that made sense but didn’t always manifest exactly how I would expect it to if I was in control. In 2009, especially now in December as I look back, I realize this year more than any other year, was a reflection of what I wanted to experience and thus made physical.
The Law Of Attraction
Earlier in the month I attended a live one day seminar by Jerry and Esther Hicks, who you may know as major players in the movement that is the law of attraction. The Secret DVD featured a lot of content from them, though I should clarify, it’s not specifically these two people who teach, it’s an entity named Abraham, who speaks through Esther, who does the teaching.
If you’re skeptical when you hear the idea of someone “channeling” another being, I don’t blame you, I’ve felt similar judgments in the past, although it’s not such a big deal for me any more. I don’t care where people say information comes from, we just put labels on things to give different meaning. Whether it’s experts, channeled entities, or even god who is speaking to you, it’s all the same thing. Listen to the message, not the messenger, and if it resonates, take it on board.
If you need the messenger to help lend credibility, that’s fine, just don’t be too quick to judge before you listen to the words. Far too many people miss out on potentially life changing insights because they refuse to take on ideas simply because of where the information is coming from. If something challenges your way of thinking, don’t reject it on principle, keep your eyes and mind open, listen to the words, see how what is being said can fit into your world view, and grow from there. You don’t have to like or even trust the messenger, to benefit from the message.
Setting Intentions
Seeing Abraham speak live on stage was a great experience. However it was the days that followed the event that I realized I had turned a corner in my ability to control what happens in my life.
What was interesting about this awareness was not that I suddenly could manifest whatever I wanted, it was that I had already done it – and in this case, manipulated aspects of my life that I previously struggled to change. I’m talking about aspects of my personality and life that had remained rigid for years, which in the space of months had completely changed, and it was all thanks to what I was thinking, the actions I was taking as a result and what thus manifested in my physical world.
Since we are reflecting, it’s worth taking a moment now to look back over the previous 12 months of your life and ask yourself these questions -
How To Find The Courage To Change By Raising Your Awareness
Those of you on my newsletter received an email last week where I talked about a subject related to the movie The Secret.
The responses I received to that email where quite polarized, which should not be surprising since subject matter that can be interpreted as spiritual or religious tends to elicit hard-line opinions. Yet I have to admit I was surprised by some of the emails I received in reply to the newsletter, which was a little naive on my part.
I received messages from my readers from both ends of the spectrum. Everything from I love what you are saying and totally agree, to that movie is a bunch of hogwash — just thinking about what you want won’t get it, all the way to the movie is against my religion and you shouldn’t be promoting it.
I’m happy whenever people engage with my content, and I never take one person’s feedback too strongly unless I’m receiving many responses along the same line. It was certainly interesting to read the different places people were coming from and thank you to everyone who wrote to me – it was an enlightening experience to read your point of view.
I don’t adhere specifically to a branch of religion, nor am I an atheist. If a label must be applied, I’m closest to agnostic, believing in a higher power but not looking to lock that power into a rigid framework like doctrine can do. I like to take on board concepts and ideas from all religions and belief systems, but I never became so restricted by them that I can’t at least listen to other people’s ideas without labeling them blasphemous.
You might call me a perpetual fence sitter, which in itself has problems. The wonderful thing about taking on board and truly feeling a specific religious calling is that you no longer suffer from being “lost”. You now have a framework to follow, a way to live and a community of people who share your beliefs. That is a wonderful thing.
Of course I have a moral compass, as we all do, which gives me some sense of rules and structure that govern my life. I’m going to draw the line on certain actions and label them wrong or right. Some things fall into a grey area, which once again is where having a strong religious belief has “benefits” – you have less greys and more black and whites – although I don’t think that’s always a good thing. Unwavering absolutes can be very dangerous – religious fundamentalism has certainly taught us that.
Do I Believe In The Law Of Attraction?
Lessons From The Rich Schefren Conference – Part 1
I’m back at home in Toronto. It’s so crazy as I look out my window right now there is a huge snow storm, the largest this winter so far and it’s about -15c. Just a three hour flight south in Florida yesterday it was warm and sunny at about 25c. Amazing.
The Rich Schefren/Strategic Profits conference over the weekend was the first Internet business conference I have attended. It was a great experience and I want to share it with you here on my blog, especially for those of you who have never attended a conference but may be considering it, or for those considering joining the Strategic Profits coaching program.
I want to focus on lessons learnt from Rich and the whole experience, but since the networking and making friends was the big highlight for me I also want to make mention of some of the people I met, so I’ll start with that.
I gave out my business card with my blog address on it to many people over the weekend and I expect many of you are reading my blog for the first time as a result of bumping into me at the conference. I hope you enjoy what you find here and please subscribe to my RSS feed or email updates to stay up to date.
Rich Schefren and Mike Filsaime
Rich and Mike are two guys I obviously admire because of their achievements online and one of the main reasons I wanted to attend this event was to meet both of them. Mike has walked the path as an online marketer that I want to walk right along behind him, and obviously Rich is leading the charge in the business systems area. I’ve already learnt a lot from these guys simply by watching what they do and I hope to replicate their successes.
Rich Schefren, Yaro Starak & Mike Filsaime
The Long Tail
It’s about time I give my take on The Long Tail. I find myself referring to it on a regular basis as I write articles about blogging and business in general and if you have been following the recent fuss about the evolution of Internet marketing (or known as it’s “death”) or read a handful of popular blogs about business or economics, you have no doubt heard the phrase “The Long Tail” before. It’s certainly having a significant impact on the economics of doing business online and is a buzz term uttered by many of the coolest people in the online business world. In case you haven’t heard the term before here is my introduction for you in good old simple Yaro speak and my attempt to be one of the cool people too.
I can’t remember which blog I read first that introduced me to The Long Tail, but certainly the first place I read anything about it in-depth was from the person credited with creating the term, Chris Anderson, in his now seminal Wired magazine article – The Long Tail. This is certainly the first place I recommend you go to if you want the five-page medium sized story about The Long Tail and if you want the really long story he has a new book out, strangely enough called, The Long Tail, which I will provide a mini review of later in this article as I have just finished reading it.
