If you have something that you want to do but never get to it, do it first thing in the morning before you do anything else. Anthony Robbins called this ‘the hour of power’ where you take the first hour after you wake up and use it as ‘your time’ for that important activity that you never get to. It can be reading, writing, playing a musical instrument, or going for a run. The activity does not matter – what matters is that you get it done.

This surely requires some discipline, especially if you have to be at work at a certain time and need to wake up an hour earlier to create that time cushion. And it is a lot easier to sleep that extra hour when you know you can too – I would know . But all that is still easier than finding time for your activity later in the day. Something always seems to creep up and get in the way. That is why you do your task first thing in the morning before anything has a chance to get in the way. Give it a try and see for yourself….

Until next time,

V

Crowd control is a very serious issue for law-enforcement agencies, since if aggressive or violent behaviour gets beyond one or two individuals, the mob-mentality takes over and at that point it’s like the G20 Summit in Toronto. In companies group psychologists showed time after time that it is good to have a person on a team who is comfortable with challenging ideas. Otherwise, there could be a number of people who are afraid to speak up, and end up going along with the decision they don’t like. In a classroom setting, good teachers tell their students to ask any question that they may have, since chances are, there are other people in the class with the same question who are simply afraid to ask.

This also ties into personal growth. An individual will find it very difficult to succeed at anything, if the people around them are not supportive. That is why it is a wise decision to surround yourself with people who are where you want to be and have the things you want to have, or at least are heading that way. Otherwise, you’ll try a couple of things, and by doing so you’ll start to stand out from the group. That will feel uncomfortable for most people, and the group will pull you back to where you started.

I’m taking a day off tomorrow to enjoy the long weekend. Until Monday,

V

Emotions in themselves, when they do not take control of you, are actually vital to sound decision making. Reason and emotion go hand in hand. In 1848, there was a remarkable case of Phineas Gage in Vermont. Phineas Gage survived a head injury that took out his abilities to experience emotions, but left his reasoning capabilities perfectly intact. The accident made it very difficult for him to make any decisions, even trivial ones, whereas prior to the injury that was not the case.

We rely on emotions to tell us whether something ‘feels right’ or somehow just doesn’t. We trust that gut feeling and without it we seem unable to reason our way to a conclusion. So emotions are not bad unless they start to overtake you.

Until next time,

V

I recently had a chat about this with a couple of friends in relation to soccer. Refs use yellow cards to calm the players down and make sure that the game does not get out of hand. There were a few games that I have seen where refs lost control of the game by giving out too many yellow cards. At some point, the players start to intentionally be more physical and aggressive in their challenges, as to dare the ref to show another card. Since two yellow cards get you sent off leaving your team short-handed and earn you a next-game suspension, why would anyone want to dare the ref to give them a card? Well, simply because they are angry and frustrated with the ref and high emotional involvement leads to stupid decision making.

Soccer, obviously, is not the only place where this applies. We even have a different classification for murders that occur in ‘the heat of the moment’ and punish those offenders differently. So there is recognition in our society of emotional decision making and we try to account for that. However, the most valuable thing that you can do is to recognize that tendency in your own life, and give yourself time and space to cool off before making a decision. Easier said than done, but it is a very valuable skill to have. There are very few places where emotions have a place in making decisions.

Until Monday,

V

Think about it…how different would the world look if every single person took responsibility for their lives, for their actions, and for their behaviours? Now we are playing that ‘what if’ game, but I think that if that was the case, people would not be complacent and would actually take action to change things they do not like – politicians, economics, relationships, etc. People would stop blaming others, which will result in more love and peace. People would live more happy and fulfilled lives as they would not remain stuck for long in any particular place that they do not like. People would pursue what they want in harmonious ways.

That would truly transform the world, don’t you think?

Until next time,

V

Every time I contemplated this, I’ve come to the same conclusion – you can always get that what you seek without resorting to the ‘feel bad for me’ state. The other conclusion that I came to is that this is unlikely to change, unless people take their understanding of the self to another level. Why do I say that? Because this is one of the first things that we learn as infants – we cry and we get attention from our mother. Pretty quickly we as children figure out that by crying we will get attention, love, caring, and often our way. Then we take those lessons with us through life.

How often do you play ‘victim’ in order to get something? Do you think that serves you very well? Can you come up with alternatives?

Until next time,

V

Sure you may have a lot of things to do, but you will always find time to do the things that are important to you. If you are not doing them, they are not as important as the things that you are already doing. So for example, if someone watches 2 hours of Survivor (if that show is even on these days), but has no time to go exercise, then this person obviously puts more values on watching Survivor than on being active, more fit, and healthy.

This applies to all the activities that you are doing and are not doing due to lack of time. When something is important enough, you will always find a way to make it happen. That’s why I don’t believe what people say – I believe what they do!

Until next time,

V

As soon as you realize that you are responsible, you stop being a victim of circumstances and become an architect for your life. You take back the power and begin to exercise that power to, hopefully, go in the direction that you want to go. If you think about it, for you to be able to change anything, you must know that you have some power to do so. Otherwise, you won’t even try. This is, I believe, one of the reasons why so few people vote in North America – they do not think that their vote will change anything, so they don’t even bother. Do you think it is any different in other aspects of your life?

For you to make more money, you need to believe that you are capable of doing so. For you to be fit and healthy, you need to believe that you can do it. For an athlete to win the gold medal, he or she needs to believe in their ability to perform at that level. It is interesting that with the Olympic games, Canadians are constantly asked, ‘Do you believe?’.

So take responsibility for your life and take your power back so that you can use it!

Until Monday,

V

Well, at its core, it means to get to a point where you feel, understand, and internalize that you are responsible for your experience of life – the bad, the good, and the ugly. I would personally argue that you are responsible for all of the circumstances, events, and conditions in your life. This can be a difficult concept to explain, and much more difficult to internalize, and it also raises good questions, such as, ‘Is the child in Africa responsible for the conditions she is born into?’. But that’s a whole other discussion, which I will tackle later. For now, however, even if I say that you are not responsible for the circumstances, events, and conditions in your life, you are definitely responsible for how you perceive all those experiences and how you react to them.

Stephen Covey talks about responsibility as really being ‘response-ability’, or an ability to choose your response to whatever happens. Say you are in a traffic jam; you can be angry and frustrated, or you can be calm and relaxed. Chances are you have had both responses at one time or another, and in both scenarios your experience of that same traffic jam is very different. In other words, your ‘reality’ changes according to how you choose to respond to the situation. And this applies to every situation you may find yourself in.

Pretty powerful stuff, don’t you think?

Until next time,

V