Month: June 2017

I was sitting in my garden by the pond earlier…watching the fishes enjoying themselves, playing under the waterfall… and wishing I could join them, they seem so relaxed, like the grass they don’t even try to grow, they just grow.  Well it is 28 degrees, which in Manchester is pretty hot and we are just not used to it… I reckon I could get used to it though with very little effort, and it was all very relaxing as I was trying to think through something someone told me a few days ago. 

“I work best under pressure,” he said, “I must have a deadline to do my best work.” 

Well I have been reading through his work, and if I am going to be blunt about it, it’s not that great.  In fact it would be difficult to hide the signs of the shortcuts he had forced himself to take because he left himself so short of time to do the job properly.  I mean I do agree that a deadline is important but do we have to do all the work in the hours approaching that deadline, wouldn’t it be great if those final hours were saved for last minute changes suggested by a subconscious mind relaxed in the knowledge that the task has already been completed. 

But the truth is he really believes he works best under pressure, and he really believes his rushed efforts represent good work and actually he seems quite proud of it.  That’s a shame because it will be my job to shine the glaring light of reality on the situation. 

I will do my best to bend and shape him without breaking him and hopefully we will see both of us grow through the situation.  Really that will be more up to him than me, will he be teachable or will that pride cause him to harden his heart?  I have seen both examples with others in the past and it really can be a ‘sliding doors’ situation.  It comes to all of us sometimes, doesn’t it: none of us are perfect and we must learn to grow.  Question is, Do we want to grow? 

But what have I gained out of this as I relaxed gazing at the fish whilst taking to God amid the beauty of our creation?  That was the first thought, I noticed all the variety of colours, so many greens and yellows and purples.  I used to thing there was just green or just red but it is the infinite variety of God’s palette that has allowed him to paint such beautiful pictures.  And then I remembered what the garden was like four years ago when we first moved in, I even had a glimpse at the old pictures that are saved on my phone. 

And I felt God smile and whisper, “We did this together.  I created you in my image and I gave you the ability to create too.  You thought about this all by yourself, it came from a blueprint that I put inside you but you saw it before it was ever here, you saw it clearly in your mind just like I saw you before I made you.  You had to see it first and then you were able to take the action to create it.  I did add the finishing touches of course; you would have struggled to make a fish by yourself.  Thats why we work together, that’s why I called my disciples to be fishers of men: we are partners.” 

Well that was good, it thrills me when God speaks back in my times prayer and meditation and it would have been worth taking the break and sitting in Gods presence just to hear that, but what about this ‘working to a deadline’ challenge I was facing?  What could I learn about that? 

My young friend is not alone in claiming he works better under pressure, and I have to be honest, I have often left things to the last minute and stayed up into the wee small hours to get them finished myself but lets see what actually happens here. 

Looking back we recognise the enemy is procrastination.  The time just seems to melt away, but actually it doesn’t melt: we freely choose to spend it on less important things knowing we will invoke the old habit of cramming just ahead of the deadline.  The pressure we think we work best under is really the optimum amount of tension that we can take between giving up on the job altogether or what we need to move us to overcome that procrastination and its resultant inertia. 

The best work I have ever done, and I now I am not alone, has always been in the times I have been enjoying myself, when I have been excited about the task, where I could anticipate the satisfaction of the breakthrough, the new learning, the job well done and yes, I am no different from anyone else, the recognition that would result. “ Pride cometh before a fall and a haughty spirit before destruction,” says the ancient scribe, but I know he did not mean that I should not do such a good job that I cannot look on it with the satisfaction of knowing I did my best and enjoying the pleasure or profit it has given to myself and others. 

I will try harder now to serve my young friend, if I bring positive input as I gently correct him I am sure I can help him to be teachable.  If I can show him the benefits, that he can feel and actually be more positive, that if he will meet the challenges early he can tackle them with optimism and not with fear, that he can enjoy the doing, not just the end result, that he can delight in the journey and not flop down exhausted at the destination.  If he is relaxed, he will learn on the way, he will perform more often in what some of us call ‘the zone’ and his results will be far above what he can even imagine right now. 

I may have a different philosophical view to the lady I am about to quote below but I have read her work and wholeheartedly recommend it, particularly Atlas Shrugged which I regard as her masterpiece. 

If we only read books by authors who tickle our ears…who we know write in line with our existing viewpoint, how will we ever learn and broaden our horizons?  If we are not secure in what we believe and are afraid to debate and discuss then our faith will falter eventually anyway since it is not really faith but dogma.  If we dare to believe we already know all we need to know we are sadly mistaken and are in a dangerous place. 

“It is the Communists’ intention to make people think that personal success is somehow achieved at the expense of others and that every successful man has hurt somebody by becoming successful.” –  Ayn Rand

I wrote in my previous blog post about the power of words and what can happen just by changing even a single word…if you read the post you will remember we had a card on which we wrote a task to be completed by a certain deadline.  In the beginning we referred to the card as a “Chore Card” and then we switched its name to “Service Card.”  The atmosphere around the card and the task changed instantly and although the goal was the same the personal pleasure derived from good performance was far greater.  If I am doing a job to tick a box I can’t get very excited but if I am serving my fellow man, well that’s entirely different. 

Ayn Rands comment above is not peculiar to communists.  I have often heard people who see themselves as unsuccessful refer to those they perceive to be more successful as having cheated in some way, deprived others to gain what they have.  Whilst this is not helped by the television soaps who seem to depict successful business people as rogues more often than not it is no excuse because we are all responsible for our own thoughts and the words that follow. 

In truth very few rogues have ever made it to the top and stayed there. 

I recently heard a quote. “ People say, “It’s lonely at the Top” but they don’t know, they have never been to the top because nobody gets there on their own”. 

In truth the great majority of people who achieve and maintain success are the people who serve the most people well.  They take other people with them on the journey and they recognise that greatness comes with humility and a desire to serve. 

The Master Teacher said “if any would be great among you let him first be your servant”

If you are not currently as successful as you would like to be you are the best person to change that situation and you can start right now.  I want you to take action immediately.  If you have in the habit of using negative words regarding other people because you are jealous of their success I want you to apologise right now.  I understand they are not with you and you may not even be able to name a particular person.  That doesn’t matter, you are apologising to yourself for your attitude to others in general.  Do you see, you have never been able to affect anyone else by your attitude and you have not diminished their success but you have bound yourself.  If you resent someone else riches and say so your thoughts and words have cursed you with poverty. 

So now repent…say out loud “I am sorry I have taken such a churlish attitude regarding people who have done better than I…I see now that their success has been achieved because of their willingness to give and serve where I have too often expected something for nothing.  I forgive myself, I ask God’s forgiveness and I resolve to change from this moment on. 

I will no longer see my work, even though it may be menial right now, as a chore but I will do it proudly as a service to others.  I will guard my heart for out of it come the issues of life, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  Then I will guard my lips and ensure that only words of praise and encouragement come from them.  If I feel negative emotions or unhelpful thoughts come into my mind I will not try to suppress them.  I will use the Law of Substitution and immediately begin to replace them with new thoughts of something good, something great, perhaps I will sing a song of Praise, croaky and difficult at first but rising in tone, clarity and volume.  Soon I will be lifted higher.  I will get to work and I will do the best I can and I will resolve to read in my profession so that I can do even better tomorrow.  I will learn to use positive words.  I will eliminate idle curse words from my vocabulary.  If I cannot think of something good to say I will say nothing. 

Can I promise you if you will do that for even a few days you will feel better, you will soon begin to see better results.  People will begin to favour you and if you maintain this new positive attitude of yours for thirty days it will become a habit and will sink deep into your inner man and you will be a new person.  True success is available to every person…it is never achieved at the expense of anyone else and in fact you becoming successful will be a service to many around you.  You may have heard it said, “A rising tide lifts all the boats”

Early on in the MKMMA course of study we switched the use of just one word and replaced it with another which proved to be so much more powerful.  Whilst the thing the two words described did not change at all the attitude towards it and therefore the effectiveness of it changed greatly.  Let me explain in greater depth for clarity and to enable me to take the lesson learned to another level. 

We had a 3×5 card on which we wrote a promise to do something new each week, nothing too difficult, it was ‘keeping’ the promise that was important for the exercise and not the size or nature of the promise itself: so it needed to be something we could definitely achieve in the timeframe.  The idea was to convince the subconscious that “I always keep my promises” by actually keeping each weeks promise.  So the promises started simple, like “I promise to tidy my office by Sunday the 4th” or I Promise to wash the car by Sunday the 11th” and they gradually got more challenging like “I promise to contact 4 people about my opportunity by Sunday 18th” There was no significance about Sundays except thats when we met online to discuss our progress. 

Early on we called this 3×5 card “The Chore Card”… and it was a chore that had to be done and indeed was done.  After a few weeks we renamed the card…from that day on it was to be called “The Service Card”.  Everything else about it was to remain the same but the change in name put the card and the promise into a completely different light.  Instead of doing a chore we were now giving a service which made it much more pleasurable and felt like we were now making a contribution to ourselves and others instead of simply meeting an obligation.  Same job…but done with more enthusiasm and with love. 

That was to set the scene…we also have what we called the Law of Giving and Receiving and we wrote these out by hand on another card and read them aloud daily.  Obviously the aim was not just to say them but that reading them would influence behaviour from the inside out and cause us to do them.  I will get to the Laws themselves in a second but first I wanted to apply the previous lesson to them…A few weeks ago I realised that they were not Laws at all and my calling them laws was putting me in the same mindset as the chore card had done earlier. 

We are studying the Masterkey by Charles F Haanel.  A Master key will open any lock but it occurred to me that these four sentences we were reading each day were actually not laws but keys each of which would open its own lock . 

So where I used to say, “I promise to read the 4 laws of Giving and Receiving 3x daily I began to say…

“I promise to use my four keys to giving and receiving 3x daily…since words carry power the very act of speaking them was using them and then taking action in line with the words was further reinforcing the power of repeated use. 

Can I recommend that you write them out for our yourself by hand and also begin to read them out loud each day… faith comes by hearing and there is nothing more powerful than hearing the repetition, with feeling, of our own voice.  The four actual laws/keys are in bold below.  The additional writings around the bold letters are from other sources or are my interpretation and what I want my own subconscious mind, my inner man, to hear and believe. 

so here is my new reading…

I promise to use these four keys of giving and receiving as a normal part of my life and I read them aloud three times each day…

The first is the key of Generosity…Wherever I go I bring a gift, I may bring a compliment, a prayer, a trinket, a flower, but I promise I will give something to every person I encounter. 

The second is the Key of Gratitude Because gratitude is a cause and not an effect…I promise to be a grateful receiver of the gifts that surround me, noticing nature, kindnesses, smiles and compliments, which I gladly receive with a ‘Thank you’. 

Third is the Key of Encouragement…I promise to give the hope for Joy, Affluence, Kindness and Love consciously with every encounter regardless of the brevity. 

Fourth is the Key of Faith…I promise to give without expectation of reciprocity from the channels I enrich because I know (I have faith) I am in the dynamic flow of giving and receiving and I know my God shall supply all of my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 

I always Keep my Promises

I have enjoyed many wonderful experiences these past months…I am not a hearer only but a doer…I have not succeeded on every encounter but I have on very many done exactly what I promise each day to do… I have received some amazed responses and occasionally have caused delight far above the effort I have invested.  These keys unlock the treasuries of mens hearts.  I bought a box of pens with a torch light on the end especially to give away and although they cost not much more than a pound each some people have responded as though I had given them a gold coin.  As the Master Teacher said “It is more blessed to give than to receive”