Personal Development: Who’s The Next Most Important Stranger?

Think about it – the people who are currently most important in your life were once complete strangers to you. Whether by chance or what I might view as synchronicity – or, indeed, what a quantum physicist might view as a derivation of quantum entanglement – you are where you now are as a result of apparently random events at the core of which are people who were, when you met them first, complete and utter strangers.

When we were young we were told, as many children were and still are, not to talk to strangers. There may well be some sense in that from the perspective of protecting little children from the undoubted presence of some very strange people in this world. However, unfortunately, the subliminal message that stays with us into later life is that we should avoid getting involved with people whose path we might casually cross in the course of everyday life.

Indeed, as we go about our normal daily adult lives, the fact is that we’d never really notice a stranger anyway – because, in childhood, we developed a self-preservational psychological facility to categorize new people that we meet without paying any attention to who they actually are or the importance of the role that they migh play in our lives. As a consequence of our pre-programming and our ability for categorization, we pay no attention to people that we don’t know. The next time you’re on a tube, subway, train or bus or in an elevator, notice how carefully people avoid making eye contact.

What are these people missing? Potentially the next most important complete stranger in their lives. You haven’t the first clue who might totally change your career, who might be your next mega-customer in your business, who might become a life-long friend and mentor. You have no idea who might be the next person to change your life. And you won’t find out if you can’t take of your blinkers.

Wake up. Opportunity abounds – but is completely missed by the automatic normal mind that’s too closed and blind to see anything. Psychology asserts that the normal person only perceives what they expect to perceive and only experience what they expect to experience. What a death sentence we all are given – by our programming and by our own inaction and unwillingness to take the small leap of faith that making personal contact with a total stranger requires.

You need to open your eyes, you have to smell the roses, tune into life’s opportunities and go with the flow of a synchronous universe that is just waiting to respond to you. I’m not suggesting that you start behaving irrationally and outrageously in public places! I’m suggesting that you put up your antennae, start tuning into the here and now, let yourself off the hook of the normal outlook. Because, until you do, you normal life will never be anything but mundanely, repetitively and boringly normal – and it will be your own fault.

Personal Development And The Extraordinary Power Of Now

If you’re keen on personal development or self improvement, you’ll have some understanding of the importance placed by many experts on being focused in the present moment. Ekhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ emphasizes the virtues of what might be described as presence of mind. However, Tolle, together with other personal development ‘gurus’, doesn’t either adequately explain why ‘Now’ is just so important or, indeed, give practical advice on being more present.

First off, now is the only place and time that actually exists – the past is what you learn from (although psychology proves that most of us don’t learn but subconsciously live there) and the future is something that will only transpire the way you want if you’re prepared to be focused and effective in the here and now. Also, quantum physics tells us that the universe only exists now – and it confirms that universal energy responds to our energy – now. In simple terms, it is vital to be present. Being present gives you ‘presence’ – the hallmark of all successful people.

The big problem is that we’re not present. Our subconscious is focused in our so-called formative years, whilst our conscious mind is plagued by useless thought – thoughts tending towards negative self-doubt and worry. As a result it’s little surprise that research suggests that the normal mind is only one percent present. If that’s true you’re extremely unlikely to elicit much response from an otherwise responsive universe.

In short, it’s vital that you become more present. But how? Being present means being focused on what you’re doing and where you are now. The majority of, according to many surveys, are not focused on what they’re doing, preferring instead to do what they’re doing whilst thinking that they don’t like what they’re doing! Also, most of us haven’t understood the simplicity of what focus actually is. Focus means paying attention – nothing else. It means tuning into the reality of the moment, using the only mechanism that’s available to you to do this – your five senses. These are your sole interface with the world. Yet we pay little attention to what our senses are telling us, we prefer to let our subconscious put its own interpretation on reality. We all use our preconceived notions to make sense of now and, as a result, make utter nonsense of it.

You’ve got to relearn how to pay attention. We were all expert at this when we were young children. The simplest way to start re-learning is to set some time aside to re-focus one sense at a time. I suggest that you find somewhere quiet to sit tomorrow morning. Close your eyes and notice how all the sounds around you become more pronounced. They’re not, of course, you’re just paying more attention. Notice your body’s sensations – feelings that you wouldn’t notice when you’re normally inattentive. Next morning you might spend a few minutes noticing how your body reacts when you breathe. Five minutes each morning will vastly affect your ability to pay attention for the rest of the day – you’ll be more present, more focused, more tuned into what’s going on and the opportunities the moment offers.

Then you can start measuring your improved focus by reference to your results. You’ll be more responsive to situations and people that they might otherwise fail to see or avoid completely, you’ll be more open to doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. And, on the basis that the one thing that has your life stuck in a rut is the fact that you rarely do anything different, bold or courageous, this can only be a good thing. Through your presence you will not just be open to new opportunity – you’ll actually create your own opportunities. The net result is that, at least, your life will move forward – for the better. At most, your life will never be the same – you will achieve effortless and measurable, success and happiness.

Handling Stress

I recently spent a couple of days with a client here in the Alps – an individual who regards his personal development as the major priority in his life, somebody who changed his daily routine, going to bed one hour earlier to ensure that he has an extra hour each morning for meditation. He has been regularly meditating for up to an hour every morning for the last couple of years. The benefits? His fitness and health have greatly improved. His mental focus at work and at home has become razor-sharp and he has recently discovered a new-found creativity – in terms of news ideas and problem solving. He is in “flow” .

However, some months back, he found himself confronted by a major career decision and, in the process, found himself reverting to the indecision and stress that had practically ruined his life some years ago, that had almost cost him everything. So, his point was this – why, when it came to the crunch, did his meditation have no effect in the rough and tumble of daily life? First of all, of course, he freely admitted that things would have even been a lot worse had he not been meditating. As I said to him, at the very least, he is one of a small minority of people who are fully aware of their thoughts and fully aware when what they are thinking is unhelpful or damaging.

But the key point is that, unless you put what you learn in meditation into the moment to moment living of your everyday life, you will not get the downstream and all-important benefits of clarity, focus and presence of mind. Of course, you don’t wait until everything goes wrong to start putting what you have learned in meditation into practice – you have to do it when things are just normal. It’s pretty much like training for a big match – you train in advance to ensure that you can play your best on the day.

This training consists of regularly checking your state of mind throughout the day – every day. If things are simply running normally, chances are that your mind will be wandering and distracted – after all, this is the normal adult default state of mind. Research shows that the normal adult pays just one percent attention to what is going on when all is running smoothly. Obviously, this level of commitment to your life is not going to create a great life – and this is why normal people tend to be “not-too-bad”. As a result of this, however, the ordinary of everyday life presents us with the perfect training ground. Simply stop yourself every-so-often during the day and become aware of whether you are clear, present and focused or not – how you feel when you meditate will be your benchmark for comparative purposes.

If you’re not in a clear and present state of mind, bring yourself back to that state by coming back to now. Practically speaking, this means that you take a few moments to pay full attention to the here and now – you could stop and focus your sight, feeling, hearing, senses of smell and taste on the moment in question, or you could simply take and fully experience a few deep breaths. Our contact with the here and now – and the opportunity it provides us with to live our ordinary lives extraordinarily – is through (and only through) our five senses. You need to come to your senses!

And, if you do this when nothing stressful is happening in your day, you will be fit and ready to be at your best when things actually do go wrong.

Is Frustration Destroying Your Success

We all get frustrated every so often. People’s behaviour drives us to distraction, we get frustrated by our own laziness, we get hassled over things that we can’t control – like the weather or volcanic ash! But how about those of us who are trying our best to live a better life, or even change our lives, who get frustrated because nothing seems to be happening, we don’t seem to be making any progress?

Did you know that the guaranteed way of holding yourself back is wondering why you’re not going forward! Frustration is a waste of our precious attention and energy. Wondering why what we want to happen hasn’t happened yet is a useless, negative, self-defeating thought that is tantamount to saying to ourselves “well, I kinda knew that it wasn’t going to happen anyway!”

You and I have a finite amount of energy at our disposal and your personal development goal must be to marshal that energy and target it, like a laser beam, on getting on with the business of both living now and moving towards whatever it is that you want out of life. Frustration, worry or even wondering about when, how or if something will happen is a dangerous distraction, a self-destructive use of your energy – it’s like you’re targeting your powerful laser beam back on yourself! You’ve got to be so careful where you point that laser beam because it can be equally constructive or destructive.

However, if you’re normal, your laser beam isn’t powered up at all. Psychology informs us that the average person pays precious little attention to anything and invests a pathetic one percent of their energy in doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And if you’re not doing what you should be doing now, when are you going to start? The only place and time that you are is the here and now – the only time and place that you can focus your attention is now. Wishful thinking, daydreaming, wanting or needing are an utter waste of your energy because these distractions have nothing to do with the scientific reality that everything only exists here and now.

So, if you’re getting frustrated that you don’t seem to be making progress, it’s your own frustration itself that’s tying you down. If you feel that you’re stuck in a rut, it’s that very feeling that will perpetuate your discomfort. You’ve got to direct your attention to the urgency of living in the here and now. Now is the place and time that requires your attention – not some of it, like normal people, but as much of it as you can manage. The very input of an abnormal amount of energy into the present moment will trigger an abnormal response from energy in general. That’s how abnormally successful people are so successful – they put their energy into the present and, as a result, they have presence. This is what is required of you also.