Inspiring Your Authentic Week

To Be Honest Posted: 17 Mar 2008 07:05 AM CDT When I work with people to help them to articulate their life's purpose one of the questions I ask is "what are your talents?" When I ask this question I also have to state one of my very small number of rules that: "modesty is completely banned." Modesty is a form of dishonesty. There is something about the way that most of us are brought up and /or educated that means that we find honesty very difficult. We have all sorts of beliefs that we will upset people if we are too honest or we will disadvantage ourselves if we are too honest. The reality is that we have learned to lie and we have not learned to tell the truth. Telling the truth is a skill and an art as well as a discipline. The first place to start is to be honest with ourselves, to be honest about our feelings, our purpose and our direction in life. To be honest about what and who we want to spend our time and energy on. To be honest about what we are great at and to be honest about where we need help. Once we can have this kind of internal honesty we can start to work out how to communicate our truth to others in the most positive possible way. I had a wonderful boss when I was at Razorfish. He never fired anyone, but he never allowed someone who was not contributing to the team to stay a day longer once this had become clear. He would sit down with them and in a very calm and loving way discuss their direction, dreams and aspirations. At some point in this conversation they would come to the realisation that their future and the direction of the company did not align and that they had better opportunities to pursue elsewhere. (I never had this meeting so, my understanding of the process only comes from those who did.) The same process can also apply to relationships which have begin to diverge and almost any other situation. It can only be through uncompromising honesty with ourselves and others that we can find peace and happiness. I have written another short and easily digested e-book that is a step by step guide to articulating your life's purpose and turning it into a way of life. This is the core of my work and I am now giving it away to you. Part of the reason for this is to spread the word - both of my work and of the potential that we all have. Part of the reason is an act of creative destruction to push me on beyond what has become a relatively comfortable and easy way of working for me, to whatever comes next. To download your free copy of "What Is Your Purpose, Know it, Live it. Visit www.authentictransformation.co.uk I would also encourage you to share the link with anyone who you feel may be interested in finding peace and happiness in their life. If you have not seen it already, please also take a look at my Inspiring Authentic Leadership Blog. If you are in the business of leading people, formally or informally, you might like to subscribe to the blog to pick up on the latest thoughts. Please contact me if you feel I can contribute to your leadership either of your own life or of others, through coaching, an event or consulting. As a further inspiration this week I would like to share this remarkable video clip of honesty in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgyuYHXqlO4 with love nx neil crofts  - coach, consultant, facilitator Authentic Transformation - join the evolution UK mobile 07775 658534 UK office 0845 6800648 Spain mobile (+34) 606 204 994      neil@authentictransformation.co.uk   www.authentictransformation.co.uk Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together. Jesse Jackson This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

The Message Posted: 17 Mar 2008 02:42 AM CDT In the film The Matrix, there is a great scene where one of the agents of the machines (Smith) asks Morpheus: "Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this (1998): the peak of your civilization." It is true. It seems that many, many of us find it difficult to accept that their lives can be happy and fulfilled, or even different. It seems that we are powerfully conditioned to believe that life must be hard and uncomfortable and we have very little say in how it will turn out. There is a passage quoted in my first book "Authentic" - which goes some way to explaining the attitudes that might have contributed to creating these beliefs: "When westerners first discovered Tahiti in 1767 it was truly paradise. Plentiful breadfruit and a tropical climate combined to mean that primary needs of shelter and nourishment were taken care of leaving the locals plenty of time to indulge in living. Tales of the happy free-living islanders soon made there way back to England where the London Missionary Society was formed in 1795. Two years later the first missionaries arrived in Tahiti aboard a convict ship bound for Australia. The missionaries were given a most hospitable welcome and made to feel very comfortable but after 14 years had still to make their first convert. However they had managed to turn a local chief, Pomare, into an alcoholic. Their breakthrough came during a drinking session when the missionaries promised guns to help Pomare win a battle with a more traditionally armed neighbouring tribe if Pomare would assist in the enforced conversion of his people to Christianity. The battle inevitably won, the conversion process got under way. Persistent unbelievers were put to death and a penal code was drawn up by the missionaries and enforced by the mission police. Wearing flowers, singing (other than hymns), surfing and dancing were declared illegal. Within a quarter of a century the process by which the native culture of Tahiti had been extinguished was exported to every corner of the Pacific, reducing the islanders to the level of the working class of Victorian England. After their mass conversion it was hoped that the Tahitians might be induced to accept the benefits of civilization by putting them to work growing sugar cane. The enterprise failed the missionaries believing that "a too bountiful nature ... diminishes men's natural desire to work", ordered all the breadfruit trees to be cut down. By this time the population of Tahiti had been reduced by syphilis, tuberculosis, smallpox, and influenza from the 200,000 estimated by Cook to 18,000. After thirty years of missionary rule, only 6,000 remained. Source: N.Lewis, The Missionaries , New York: McGraw-Hill 1988" The truth is that our perfect world still exists. That our perfect world is entirely accessible for every one of us - if we are prepared to be open to it. That although changes in our lifestyle and relationships may be part of creating our perfect world, the more important changes, by far, are in our mind, thinking and behaviour. We can find happiness and fulfilment without changing our job or work, without moving house and within our existing relationships. What we really need to change is out mind. The foundation for this shift is to know why we are her? To know our life's purpose, our core motivation, our why? During the next week or two I will be publishing , for free, another e-book on my web site which describes in detail how to articulate your life's purpose. It goes on to explain how you can make the adjustments in your life that will help you find and create your own perfect paradise in your life. The e-book is short and extremely simple to make use of. If you follow it carefully it can change your life for the better. Why would I give away something so valuable? Because, if we want to survive as a society, we have to transcend our existing model. We have to rise above the fear, envy, triviality and destructiveness associated with our present world view and move to a society based on love, teamwork, profundity and creativity. The only way that we will do that is for enough of us to believe in ourselves, to be fully confident, to know our purpose and to contribute it to the world. This is part of my contribution. If you would like help with finding and creating your perfect world, lets have a chat and find the best way forward for you. nx neil crofts  - coach, consultant, facilitator Authentic Transformation - join the evolution UK mobile 07775 658534 UK office 0845 6800648 Spain mobile (+34) 606 204 994 Spain office (+34) 971 673 325 neil@authentictransformation.co.uk   www.authentictransformation.co.uk Most of us seem to be coerced into conformity from a very early age by the dragon of normality. I call it a dragon not because it breathes fire or even because it is particularly nasty but because it is entirely fictitious. There is no normal. There is no right, which is more right than your right. Neil Crofts - Authentic - How to Make a Living by Being Yourself This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Enough Success Posted: 10 Mar 2008 03:05 AM CDT Our culture programs us for success, and then fails to really define what success is. We tend to have a notion of success that would better be described as security. Except that we find it hard to know when we are secure enough, successful enough. We devote time and energy to working and worrying about being successful enough. We buy stuff and do things that makes us feel successful. But we find it difficult to know that we have arrived. I would like to offer you a different definition of success. Success is really about finding peace. It is about an end to striving. It is about reaching our destiny. We can look at five key areas of life. Work and wealth Success is about a way of working that means that we are at peace with the work we do without feeling compromised. We are not looking for an alternative and we are able to attract sufficient energy into our lives through our work. This is likely mainly in the form of money, and may also take the form of learning or things that satisfy our material needs. There is also a distinction to be made between 'needs' and 'wants', part of success is to be able to let go of some of our 'wants'. Fitness and health That we are able to take responsibility for our own health and fitness to the extent that we are comfortable in our physical being. Both in terms of freedom from discomfort and satisfaction with body image. Love and relationships Our love life and close relationships satisfy us and end any urge for more or different, without any sense of compromise. We are able to love and feel loved. Location and lifestyle The places we live and where and how we spend our time fulfills us to the extent that we have no desire for change or envy of others. Spirituality and meaning We understand and accept our role and responsibility in the world. We are no longer searching for answers, we are accepting of our sense of why, with no sense of fear. Success is about finding peace in all five of these areas. Finding peace is not a conclusion. It is simply a state of arrival. It is a little like having creating the perfect garden, there is no end to the nurture and love, just an end to the striving. For help and support in finding success and peace for yourself take a look at Authentic Coaching and the Total Potential Retreat. Or if you want to develop your brilliance at helping others at leading or coaching others to finding success and peace take a look at the Authentic Transformation Advance - in California or download my new FREE e-book on Authentic Leadership. Or, if you just want to have a chat to find out what might work best for you - give me a call on 07775 658534 or reply to this mail. Or join me for an Authentic Inspiration Phone- In this Wednesday and articulate your life purpose in one hour. with love nx neil crofts  - coach, consultant, facilitator Authentic Transformation - join the evolution UK mobile 07775 658534 UK office 0845 6800648 Spain mobile (+34) 606 204 994       Spain office (+34) 971 673 325 neil@authentictransformation.co.uk  www.authentictransformation.co.uk The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.   - George Orwell This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Learning Posted: 03 Mar 2008 12:41 AM CST Our brains work like paths in a forest. There are neural pathways along which our thoughts and messages to other parts of the body travel. The neural pathways that we use the most, through the activities and thought processes of our daily lives, become clear and easy to navigate. The pathways that we use less can become narrow and obscured. The ones we don't use at all become over grown and blocked. The conditioning we experienced as we grew up opened up specific pathways and allowed others to close. How hard it is to learn anything, such as new and different ways of being, is proportional to how blocked and overgrown that particular neural pathway is. The process of learning anything is a process of getting the machete out and opening a pathway. According to the work the work of Howard Gardner there are 8 intelligences clarified so far. You can do a test to see where your strengths lie. (The questions are very narrowly defined and you may want to do the test twice or reinterpret the questions from a more personal view). How we learn things (the most effective way to use our machete) is related to the types of intelligence we favour. In the Howard Gardner model our preferred learning models would be: Lingusitic - by reading, listening, discussion and debate. Logical -Mathmatical - by working things out either alone or collaboratively. Spatial - by experiencing Bodily Kinesthetic - by doing or experiencing Musical - listening Interpersonal - through collaboration and discussion Intrapersonal - through individual reflection The best way for any of us to learn a new skill or behaviour is to use a mixture of our strongest intelligence areas, and avoid our weaker intelligences. For example, I have just written a free (and very short) e-book on Authentic Leadership. Those with strengths in Linguistic, Logical, and Intrapersonal skills are likely to find reading the e-book a perfectly adequate way of learning. Those who favour Interpersonal, Kinesthetic, Musical or Spatial might well prefer a workshop or event where they can experience, discuss and hear about it. If you are interested in developing your leadership skills whether it is related to self-leadership, team leadership or organisational leadership do take a look at the e-book. If you find that you like the ideas, but reading them does not really do it for you, perhaps we could organise a phone in or a workshop. Let me know if this appeals to you. If you are interested in broader coaching or personal development events take a look at all of exiting events that are available on my web site. with love nx neil crofts  - coach, consultant, facilitator Authentic Transformation - join the evolution UK mobile 07775 658534 UK office 0845 6800648 Spain mobile (+34) 606 204 994       neil@authentictransformation.co.uk   www.authentictransformation.co.uk The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.   - George Orwell This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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