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Ramakrishna’s Blind Men & The Elephant
A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said, ‘It is like a pillar.’ This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant…
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What I want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.
This quote from the great Swami Vivekananda comes from a letter he wrote while living in London in 1896. I stumbled across this while researching my hopefully soon to be published book The God In The White City. View the letter in full
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Are you moving or standing still?
Even if you think you’re standing still, you’re not really. The wonderful Planet you are standing on is spinning, The incredible Solar System in which the beautiful Mother Earth resides is rotating, The vast Galaxy in which our Solar System and countless other Solar Systems reside is also rotating, Our magnificent Galaxy, one of many…
Read MoreAre you a leader?
You should be. Anyone and everyone can, and should, be a leader. There are so many people out there waiting to be inspired. Desperate to be motivated. Eager to be encouraged to rise up and do something meaningful. They’re waiting for a leader to rally them, to bring them together, to unite them. To focus…
Read MoreWhere is the love y’all?
People killing, people dying, children hurting, you hear them crying… – The Black Eyed Peas Where is the love y’all? This song always leaves me thinking. Have a listen below and focus on the lyrics. For a pop song it actually raises a very good point. Where is the love these days? Let’s stop fighting. Let’s…
Read MoreA very bizarre situation
If you were from another Planet, another Solar System, or another Galaxy and you happened to visit earth to observe the goings on here, it’s fair to say that you’d be pretty taken aback. To put it mildly. Here is a species of people that seem pretty much intent on self destruction. They kill each…
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In hindsight – but NOW!
Remember back when you were in high school… knowing what you know now, what would you do differently if you were back there again? Probably lots – in my case, probably almost everything! The same goes throughout our lives. Looking back on things we can see where fear held us back, and we can see…
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What about the obvious?
Have you tried the most obvious option? Have you looked under your nose? Perhaps you were too daunted to take the most obvious option so you didn’t even consider it. It’s probably still there, waiting for you to open your eyes and realise that it is the path you should take. Sometimes the best answer…
Read MoreYou can’t predict the future, or can you?
You can’t predict the lottery numbers. You can’t even predict the weather these days. So how can you predict the future? Answer: By creating it for yourself. If you work hard and study before the test then you will get a good result. If you work hard you won’t just predict the future – you’ll…
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Trust those who’ve proved themselves
Would you take financial advice from the guy who owns this car? Yeah right. You’d take financial advice from someone who has their finances in order and clearly knows what they are talking about. If you want to know how to make a success of your life it makes sense to model people who are…
Read MoreYou can’t always get what you want
Wow, those lyrics never resonated with me until now. I just got back from LA you see. The weather was great, the people were beautiful and I discovered how much I love burritos. So now I’m back at work in Auckland and the thing is that I’d rather be still on holiday in the good…
Read MoreSuccess Breeds Success
What’s the best way to prepare for success in the future? Success now. Sounds like horse before the cart? If success in your big goals is impossible now, then look for smaller ways that you can be successful. There are tons of ways to do this, to give yourself a platform to build future successes…
Read MoreYou Never Know What’s Round The Corner
You just never do. No matter how hard you think about it you just never know for sure. You hear about people who are fit as a fiddle one moment and on their deathbed in hospital the next. No one knows when disease will strike, when their fortune will change, when their karma will catch…
Read MoreYou Can’t Do That
If you listened every time someone said “you can’t do that” there would be a lot of things you wouldn’t do. You would have a big list of missed opportunities. The number of successes you managed to avoid would be impressive. You would be a spectacular failure. In fact you would be the envy of…
Read MoreNeed encouragement? Here’s some…
When was the last time someone really encouraged you? Probably not recently enough I’d guess. Encourage is oxygen to the soul someone once said, so here’s some encouragement for you: You are capable of more than you could ever imagine – literally. You are capable of things that would seem impossible to you now. These…
Read MoreHealthy Skepticism
Is a rare thing. Self-proclaimed skeptics generally aren’t skeptics, they’re just people who enjoying disagreeing with things. But healthy skepticism is a different thing. It’s good to have a look at things before trusting them. It’s good to consider what people are saying before agreeing or disagreeing with them. It’s good to keep an open…
Read MoreWould Your Life Make An Interesting Story?
It should. It doesn’t have to involve wild adventures in far flung lands (although that would be cool). But it should involve some challenges that you overcome, some risks, some things that don’t work out, and some things that do. In every good story: things happen. People get hurt, humiliated, challenged, bruised, upset, defeated. But they…
Read MoreThe Future Of Personal Development…
…is service. Rather than contemplating our own navels and focusing on how we can get more ‘this’ and more ‘that’ we’ll look to see what we can do for others. Not helping people get better at tennis or making money. Not just helping little old ladies across the street but REALLY helping others. Helping people…
Read MoreThe Quick Fix That Works For Everyone…
…doesn’t exist. We always hear about the latest diet that will help you lose weight, or the latest exercise machine that is guaranteed to give you abs of steel, or the latest motivational book that will help you achieve financial success, or the latest strategy to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex etc…
Read MoreIf Your World Is Falling Down Around You Here’s 3 Top Tips To Deal With It
Firstly, complain. If you were to follow the example set by most of the people around you then surely this is what you would do. If everyone is doing it then it must work mustn’t it? I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do. – Joe Walsh Secondly, blame someone other than yourself. This is…
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