Who's Your Hero?

I got a mail from a friend of mine recently. She was disappointed in the behaviour of someone she held in high regard. "She was a hero of mine, someone I looked up to..." It was an interesting comment to which I replied that it's always diappointing to find that our heroes are human and prone to failure like the rest of us. Even superheroes have, ironically, an Achilles heel, a little weakness that even they cannot overcome without outside assistance.
Now, having just finished Transcending the Levels of Consciousness by Dr. David Hawkins. It's the follow on from his first book which I can't recommend highly enough, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behaviour. In the Transcending book, he notes that all wars, hatred and general misery derives from our ego and ego positionalities and our dualistic approach to life i.e. the difference between a flower and a weed is perception.
So where does our ego get the fuel to gain strength? From our misinterpretation of praise. As children, when we did a good deed we were praised. Mistakenly, we took the praise when in fact, it was the act that was being praised. You see, in any act the 'doer' is variable. If I help someone across the street, it is the deed that is good, I just carried it out. It could have been anyone who helped the person across the street in this scenario. The fact that it was me is incidental. Verse 34 of the Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Perennial Classics) illustrates this:

The great Tao flows unobstructed in every direction.
All things rely on it to conceive and be born,
and it does not deny even the smallest of creation.
When it has accomplished great wonders,
it does not claim them for itself.
It nourishes infinite worlds,
yet it doesn’t seek to master the smallest creature.
Since it is without wants and desires,
it can be considered humble.
All of creation seeks it for refuge
yet it does not seek to master or control.
Because it does not seek greatness;
it is able to accomplish truly great things.

So it's what we see in our heroes that attracts us to them, strength of character, great conversationalist, good joke teller or intelligence. These are qualities that we tend to see as out of ourselves, possessed only by those we've chosen to lionise but this is simply not true. It make take some of us longer than others to incorporate those qualities we wish to emulate but it's possible.
There are some points implied in this post which anyone can pick up on such as "Should we praise our children?", "What goes in place of our 'ego'?" or "What can we do to surrender our ego positions?". Answers on a postcard to...
Next time you look at someone you hold in high esteem ask yourself what it is about that person that draws you to them? What are the qualities that you most admire, duplicate them and be your own hero.

What Example Am I Setting?

It's been a strange half year. The trust in my instinct has become stronger. We all know that voice that tells us that something is not quite right or how someone's outward behaviour is incongruent with their actions. It's all good though right? It's about how we choose to percieve events that will either put a smile on our faces or a frown. To quote Galileo Galilei "I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." We have teachers all around us, for better or worse, whether they know it or not. They're the person that says 'Thank You" or the person who jumps a queue. We can learn from them all.
Which means, of course, that we are teachers for those who look or come in to contact with us. So this includes everyone. So we should ask ourselves "What example am I setting?". Especiall to the impressionable, children. I was watching a video recently which showed fourth greaders reaction to a wonderful documentary called Unbeaten. When you see how socially aware they are it made me think. I'm a father myself of two wonderful children and as any parent knows, they're little recorders. They'll repeat what they hear, they copy what you do, they'll follow your lead. So what about other people that look to you for an example?
It came to mind as my friend, Lisa Molina in the states posted an entry about ethics in network marketing. A friend of hers coyly asked her to review an opportunity they were thinking of joining. Long story short, the person had already joined and hoped to sway Lisa as she watched the promotional video and it put her on the auto-responder list as someone who had signed in. Check the link for the full story. So what kind of person does this? Who taught them how to do it? And why would they, in all good conscience, do it? At best, it deiplays a lack on that persons part. You can fill in what you may think that lack is.
So remember how good it feels to be good, remember how good it feels to be the good example, not for you to lord it over someone but for its own sake. As Shakespeare wrote for Jacques in As You Like It:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Have a wonderful day and shine, be the beacon that you know that you are and feel the joy that comes from it.

Social Media Guru

Information Overload. What Do I Do?

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” Buddha.

Getting The Word Out There

I've noticed something about reading other people's blogs. I like the short ones! So I'll keep this short.
There's not point in having a cure for cancer that nobody knows about. Whatever we've got that we feel the world should be aware of we've got to get the message out there. It's called marketing, if if the product is you. One of the great things about the internet is that it has given people a voice, a medium to communicate to everyone. For business, this allows people to form relationships with their customer and customers with their sellers.
Enter 'Social Media'. More and more online marketers are using these sites to reach people that advertising just isn't. Here are a list of sites that work for me and at the end, a way to tie them all together.

Facebook: the biggest and most populated of the sites. Profiles for personal communication, set up a 'Fan Page' for followers.

LinkedIn: this is social media for business people. Using this has me ranked No. 1 on Google (pages from Ireland) for the search 'Howard Hughes'.

Twitter: Not that Google is linked to twitter, tweeting can get you or your company No. 1 on Google in real time rankings. Learn to set up a business twitter account for this and learn to link to the right people. I'm finding tweetdeck very handy for keeping tabs/filtering who is saying what.

Posterous: is another great way to get the messgae out there. Again, it's oriented towards the professional/business owner and accepts all forms of media.

These are just four of the sites that I use so that people can see who I am and what I'm up to. There are a mutlitude out there so don't get bogged down in trying to be everywhere at the same time!

Finally, here's a little thing I use to tie them all together and it may give you some ideas to move even further. It's Ping.Fm. Once you've set up your various accounts, it will allow you to send the same message to all of them.

That's it, short and sweet. Have a great day.

Best Global Home Based Business

What would you do for a million dollars?

It's a game we used to play. What would you do for a million dollars (I'll use dollars as a common currrency)? And we'd all try to outdo each other for what we'd do for this huge amount. We could have said anything, it was never going to happen. It was always 'out there'. Then I grew up and things changed.
For a long time, ignorance was bliss. I had a job, a car, a place to live and the one sun holiday a year. Life was good. Then I grew some more and, even though I didn't have any clear goals written down, I felt that time was passing me by without me being where I felt I should be. So I got a second job becuase I thought if I was going to make it big, working hard was the way to do it but well intentioned, hard work in the wrong direction serves only as a good lesson in what not to do. So on I went.
It was when I came across a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki that my mindset really shifted. The business people I admired and respected were all business owners, not employees. So I decided to become a business owner. I started searching the web for products I could retail, something I could do from home and something that I could see myself making some serious money. That search is another story in itself.
I'm now a distributor for a wonderful company and I absolutely love what I do. I have now found the vehicle for the millions that I seek. It won't be overnight but now I can realistically ask "What would I do for a million dollars?". I find that I'm ready to do whatever it takes and it's not by accident. The company with which I work is in personal development and has given me the mindset or success through its products and I find, like any entrepreneur, that I can apply what I've learded to any aspect of life. Again, another story.
Along with that, I have two of the great reasons, bigger than me, to make my millions, my two children. I'm human and there are times it can become tiring, disheartening and challenging, I never entertain thoughts of quitting and I will do whatever it takes to promote my business. I could just as easily not write this article and watch the tennis instead but what do I tell those two reasons why their daddy didn't succeed like he said he was going to? More importantly, what would I tell my future self?
So perhaps you may play "What would you do for a million dollars?" and if you do, have a good think about it. Think about it seriously. What would it mean to you and how can you get your hands on it?