photo credit: Dainis Matisons

Secondly, I think that while I spend much of my time tied to my computer and so am happy using new and different services, many other people have a life and don’t have the time and inclination to use anything they are not yet used to.  While I can see the potential if we all used Twitter and Skype, others can’t.

Maybe we should make it available for anyone who wants to get involved in whatever way they want to get involved? And open it up to be about anything from the range of feeling stressed to wanting a deeper level of meaning and happiness in their life?

So I’m opening the floor to you, to set whatever tone will work for you.  I’m available to use the time I have available in whatever way you want me to.  

photo credit: bradleygee 

Would you prefer to email or call me?

Would you be interested in group conference call discussions about certain topics?  If so which ones?

Do you have questions that you’d like me to answer?

If I started a community website for interaction would you be interested in using it?

While he stayed focused and in love with Boxing no-one else could beat him.  However all that has happened in his life since then has proven that all that destructive power has been turned inwards.  While no-one else could ever beat him, he couldn’t stop from destroying himself and everyone around him.  Here’s his own words on his downfall, in an interview from the Times Online;

 “I was a hero under dark circumstances,” he says. “I allowed it to happen. I’ve got nobody to blame but myself. I got bad advisers and I must have run through $300 or $400 million. I just about killed myself in pursuit of money, drugs and sex. I never went anywhere without an entourage of about 30 people. I felt like one of those barbarian kings just going to conquer the Roman Empire. I was crazy.”

He says of his critics: “They can judge me but they never understood me. I might have done a job which was to hurt people in the ring, but I have always been shy and had low self-esteem.”

photo credit: octal 

It’s a story that began when he came under the Guardianship of Cus D’Amato.  D’Amato had a history of developing Boxer’s holistically.  Not just in the sport, but in becoming rounded people who lived with dignity.  D’amoto was in the twilight years of his life and saw the potential of developing another world champion.  Tyson responded to perhaps the only person who had shown him warmth and caring and was eager to learn and become both a great Boxer and also a Gentleman.

Unfortunately D’Amato, or his Business Partner Jim Jacobs, didn’t last long enough to see out the task and some, such as Tyson’s ex Trainer, Teddy Atlas, say they cut corners in their eagerness for one last success.  Without their influence, Tyson fell for the flattery and overtures of Sharks such as Don King.  He fired his trainers and eschewed any disciplined training regimen.  He surrounded himself with an entourage that pandered to his ego.  He chased all the bling and trappings of wealth.  And so he destroyed himself. 

There are many lessons we can take from the story of Mike Tyson, but this story came to mind as I was planning the 30 day Stress Reduction Challenge.  

One day Mike Tyson and Cus D’Amato were on a train and bumped into someone Cus knew and had a chat.  After he’d left the train Cus explained who the Man was.  Some great ex Boxing Champion.  Tyson was shocked that someone so successful appeared so nondescript and unostentatious in manner and appearance and asked why he had no Jewellery and other symbols of wealth and status.  

D’Amato explained that these symbols were only necessary to someone who didn’t believe in themselves and were hoping to convince others.  He impressed on Tyson the need to behave with dignity.  And this was partly behind the Tyson phenomena.  At his greatest, Tyson eschewed any frills, appearing in only his trademark black shorts.  And it was when he became enthralled with the ‘bling’ that his downfall began. 

In my mind the stress reduction challenge was going to be this big exciting event with lots of people involved and lots of new content and features.  But then as I thought about it I realised that I was falling into the trap that many people do.  That is believing that quantity is better than quality.  

photo credit: loop_oh 

Product designers actually have a name for this problem.  It’s called feature creep.  What happens is that lots of irrelevant extra features get added on that aren’t essential and so we end up with mobile phones that few people can understand fully.

I realised that people would get overwhelmed with lots of information and dazzled by all the ‘bling’ of different tools, ideas and features.  As a result they would reduce their focus on the main issue and be less impacted.

It is more important that those who do get involved get the result they need.  And the way to do this is to get ruthlessly focused on what the problem is and how to overcome it.   

So rather than get distracted by lots of bells and whistles and continually delay getting started, I’m going to set Monday as the start date.  So like Mike Tyson and his Spartan like black shorts, we’ll be stripped down to only ever moving towards resolution of your issue.

Now, I believe that the key to overcoming stress is speed of resolution.  In other words the most effective time to resolve an issue is as it happens.  (Actually second best. I really think you should resolve it before it becomes an issue, but that’s for another time).  

And today we are fortunate to have technology that lets us communicate in real time across the globe.  So I think we have a way of running this, that lets anyone participate even if they only have ten minutes here and there.  

Find out more at the Stress Reduction Challenge.

So if you remember I’d come to a point where I’d felt that I couldn’t live with integrity and hold back information.  Where we got up to in the story was essentially up to now, where I give away the information freely.  However this has some drawbacks and limitations.  Let me explain.

I’ve been able to reach a place where I love the thrill of life.  Very little bothers me or upsets my emotional equilibrium.  And nothing for very long.  

I don’t have a knot of tension in my stomach, but I do often have a ball of excited energy that wants to bound through life making all the ideas in my head come into physical reality right now.  

I don’t experience worries that keep me awake at night.  But I do get so excited by new ideas and possibilities that I have to get up and get started on them.

photo credit: Jacob Bøtter

Through years of focus I now live much of my time in a zone of life that makes the mundane details of everyday life seem desperately bland compared to the peaks.  You see, the quality of your life depends completely on how engaged and focused you are.  It doesn’t matter what you do, what matters is how immersed into that activity you are.  

Nowadays to do anything with less than total focus is like watching a black and white film.  Let me give you a concrete example.  My wife and kids love to watch certain programs on tv.  But I find it so passive that it bores the life out of me.  I do still enjoy watching some tv.  I use it when I need a change of focus to rest.  But I watch certain programs, such as Lost, 24 or Prison Break.  And I watch it, alone, with complete focus.  Because every distraction, lowers engagement and so diminishes the enjoyment.   

I can notice the difference in relating to my children between when I’m fully engaged and when I’m distracted with other tasks.  And so can they!  

Most of the time we can have a great time.  And these are filled with the kind of moments that you dream of when having children.  Being told that you’re the best dad.  Having them tell you what great fun they are having and so on.  It doesn’t matter if they are in a terrible mood, when I’m fully engaged, because I have the tolerance and patience to go past that and overwhelm their negativity.  But at other times, when there’s jobs around the house to do and so you cannot focus fully on them, well that can be hell.  Then you get the tantrums and life descends into a battle of wills.  That’s no fun for anyone.

Yet all around me I see people not even realising that this High Definition way of living is possible.  People who are stuck fighting battles for fairness.  Or sometimes even just jostling each other for whatever they can get.  Their lives are a battleground of daily fighting.  Feeling the contrast between fighting and living in peace, I know how much happiness someone is giving up, for the need to be right.

So here I am recognising how much discomfort most people live in and filled with enthusiasm for discovering even Higher Definition zones of living.  And I do this by observing what other people do that makes them stressed or miserable.  Because I know what one does, we all do.  Tim Rowe and I discussed this recently.  At the end of the second part of our stress and awareness call.  Just to greater or lesser extents.  Then I figure out where this is true in my life.  Then I know what I am doing to lessen my happiness.  This awareness then makes the solution obvious and so I upgrade my life.   

photo credit: lupzdut

And as I do so, I write about it so that everyone else that is interested can also gain awareness and upgrade their life.  I think, we have probably all found that our interests seem a little odd.  Most of the world today would rather focus their efforts on tv or on blaming others, than taking control of their life.  

We are the Pioneers in High Definition living.    So as we share our discoveries, we are providing a bridge so that in ten or twenty years, people who are at the stage we are at now, can find it easier to transition into a higher quality of living.

So the most exciting thing I can find to do is to explore what stops us from living at the highest levels of joy and share that with like-minded people.  And I believe I have an aptitude for doing this and some success.  It’s been fun to do as a hobby without any stress or pressure.  However like all conflicted ideas it has reached a breaking point.  

All living things, even ideas, either grow or decay.  So I can either develop my work to go deeper, be more useful and clearer for people to follow.  Or I can try to stand still and do more of what I have already done and become bored.  

Quite frankly, I feel I’m failing you.  I haven’t given all I could have.

I know people tell me kind words of how a post or idea helped them, but I know there is so much more I could do.  Here am I with decades of experience, having observed thousands of people going through much the same journey, and an aptitude for accelerating the process.  

Then there are millions of people who are going through a bad patch feeling confused, stuck and in emotional pain.  

Sounds like an ideal match.  

Ironically though, this conflict, about giving freely, has been holding me back from giving as much as I can.  So I needed to address it. 

For me to grow, I need a stream of people with problems that are motivating them to grow and solve them.  One of the problems in having a free model is that it’s harder to generate visitors.  You can’t advertise and it takes time and focus to position well in the search engines.  Which comes at the cost of fresh content.  Like most things in life, it’s possible to achieve over time, but quality of life is about the velocity of how quickly you can get up to speed with an idea and move onto the next one. 

Why do I need to continually interact with new people with problems?

A friend of mine once told me, based on some profiling system he was into, that I am a Responder.  I’ve reflected on this a lot and it’s very true.  It is much harder for me to come up with things fresh, than to respond to what someone needs.  

I am at my best in identifying, analysing and solving problems.  The more diverse problems I can resolve, the better my whole level of work will be.

My writing, up to now, for the most part has been based on the big picture.  Now I want to get into the details of how to live it.  And so I need to be in the trenches and finding ways to make it easier to make the steps to the life you want.  And so to do that I need enough time to clear other distractions.  So I need to make this the way I make my living. 

Distractions are expensive.  I’ve read research that shows that it takes 20-40 minutes to get back to a task after being distracted and I believe it.  Once your chain of thought is broken, it’s the mental equivalent of moving from one town to another.  

My favourite quote from Einstein is the one about the solution is at a higher level of thought than the problem.  The way I work, is based on achieving the highest quality emotional states that I can and seeing the problem from that level.  And it takes uninterrupted focus to reach that state.  

Freeing myself from distractions, then is like the difference between driving in heavy traffic, where you rarely get out of 2nd gear to driving on an open road, where you can sail along in 5th gear.

photo credit: rutlo

Furthermore, if this were an income generating model I could develop tools that train people into implementing the ideas until they become automatic.  I could run multiple courses and mini projects so that there would be information on almost any problem or situation you face.  I could use technology to create supportive communities.  I would like to add in many more fresh ideas and perspectives, but at the moment the bottleneck is in how many I’m able to express.

Then I would like to present the ideas in better ways.  Better presentation in terms of graphic design, in editing and also in framing ideas to make greater impact.

Since I get people asking to coach them all the time and with lots of people and moderate to large sized companies needing stress management programs, it shouldn’t be difficult for me to achieve these things.  However to do this with integrity, I needed to resolve the internal conflict.

While I felt uncomfortable charging, I didn’t feel that people shouldn’t pay for what they wanted.  It’s not as if I’m suggesting that capitalism is evil or that I don’t have any needs.  

The real issue is holding people to ransom for information.  I just find it distasteful when Doctors or Drug Companies or other businesses refuse to help anyone in dire need until they pay  After the last post a couple of people suggested asking for donations.  It was something I considered.  It would be the ideal solution.  A completely free exchange based on value given and received.  

photo credit: star5112

However I don’t believe it would work.  It goes against human psychology.  And the experiences of people I’ve talked to, who’ve used a donation model have born out my bias.  I’ve used lots of free software programs and rarely donated to them.  It makes paying an extra chore.  Something has great value to you when you have a problem to solve, but is of little value when it’s all over and done with.  I have added in the option to test my bias for a while, but I’d need a lot of proof before I trusted it to feed my kids.

If you recall the final nail in my selling my book and services came from A Course In Miracles.  I searched high and low to find different perspectives to this conflict.  But never came up with anything that truly resolved it until I returned to the source, ACIM.  In a supplemental Pamphlet, Psychotherapy, Purpose, Process and Practice I found a section that expressly talks about the question of payment.  

One rule should always be observed: No one should be turned away because he cannot pay. No one is sent by accident to anyone. Relationships are always purposeful. Whatever their purpose may have been before the Holy Spirit entered them, they are always His potential temple; the resting place of Christ and home of God Himself. Whoever comes has been sent. 

Perhaps he was sent to teach the therapist how much he needs forgiveness, and how valueless is money in comparison. Again will both be blessed. Only in terms of cost could one have more. In sharing, everyone must gain a blessing without cost.

I already knew that my thinking was skewed on this issue.  But I needed to be sure that I was actually resolving the issue and not just rationalising.  The real issue comes down to fear and responsibility.  I have always taken responsibility for things that really have nothing to do with me.  And perhaps my greatest fear is that I might be paid and someone might not get the results they hoped for.  Having worked with so many people, I’ve overcome my doubts that I won’t be able to help them move past the problem.  I can’t always get it within ten minutes, but given time I have never yet failed to solve the issue.

However often people don’t want to accept the answer.  Obviously I can’t do anything about that.  There is something arrogant about wanting perfection and believing I have the responsibility for the changes that others make.  No-one has ever had a 100% success rate.  And my job is only to provide an easier choice for someone to make whether that is through the written word or through personal contact.  

Anyway, I have now come to a resolution that makes me feel confortable with offering a paid premuim service.  So going forward there will be some exciting and advanced courses.  However the bulk of my work will be focused on working intensely with a rotating small group (Maybe 30-50) of people.  

photo credit: David Hudson Floyd

They will get my full attention and my job will be to work with them to resolve their issues on demand as they crop up.  For me this puts all my ideas and philosophy to a real time test under pressure.  This is how I will be forced to respond to hundreds of problems.  So for me this will be my Lab for identifying common threads and problems.  Every course that I then bring out will be developed from this experience and observation. 

But before I do this I want to do one more thing for free.  The next post will explain in detail.

Since this has been a major issue for me to resolve.  I’d really appreciate your perspectives either in comments, by email or through the contact form here.   

why are you NOT selling this like everyone else?

 

1. are you using some ‘ghost’ software to track people’s email/identity/personal info?

2. I am yet to meet someone who has written a book and doesn’t care to do whatever it takes to  get it sold. what is the catch?

It amused me that someone should think I was technical enough to develop or use some spy level software.  It is only two or three weeks ago that I realised I could make the quote above, stand out.

However it’s a question I get quite often.  It doesn’t really stack up.  The information is popular enough and of a high enough quality to go through the publishing process.  It has actually crossed my mind on a couple of occasions that I could take down everything I have already written.  Then present it, in a more polished way and sell it as a stress management membership site to company’s.  It would be lucrative and fairly easy to do.

photo credit: > N e o G a b o X <

So why don’t I do that?  

It’s a question I have touched on, but one that I’ve never fully answered or explained.  The whole issue of monetisation is one that I need to address in order to move up to the next level in my work.  So let me explain fully once and for all, the historical context and how I’m going to be working going forward.  

Let’s start at the beginning.  I used to sell my book.  In fact I’d just got to the point where it was starting to sell well.  But I didn’t feel entirely confortable about it.  For a number of reasons.

Reason One

Firstly, I felt that this was information that could help a lot of people.  Many have written and told me that it was what helped them get out of a dark place.  Yet, I would only give it in exchange for money.  That didn’t quite sit right with me.

At the time I was reading A Course in Miracles.  And I got to the bit that says;

Give all, to all.

In that section it talks about the need to give whatever you have, freely without requiring any reciprocal exchange.  It also says that there is no getting around or compromising this idea.  

I fought against this valiantly.  But after a week or so I realised I would have to go with what I felt was right.  So I made the book available for free on my website.  Initially I offered the book on the website for free and the PDF version as still being for sale.  Then eventually I just gave it away completely.

Reason Two

The second reason I didn’t feel comfortable selling the book has to do with my way of working.  

As soon as the book was done, I wanted to go beyond the ideas in there and come up with something deeper and better.  And so as it came around to selling what I’d already done, I was more excited by new ideas.  When I have done something, I’m done with it.  I don’t like to look back.  And so because the ideas were so old and ingrained in me, they seemed less valuable.  Although to someone new to the ideas they are just as valuable now, as they once were to me.  

For me, I can’t sell what I don’t believe in.  I just can’t do it.  

I find it impossible to muster up the enthusiasm or energy to do it.  Not when there are so many more exciting things to be done.  I see some people selling shoddy products and they are screaming ‘buy me’ to everyone, but I’m not built that way.  I like money, but I can’t get motivated by it. 

Reason 3

Reason number three had to do with the people I was dealing with.  

It was a very general audience.  What I really appreciate now with my writing is that I get an educated readership.  It’s people who are looking to grow themselves with new ideas and perspectives.  So now, I get specific questions, comments and expansions on what I have written.  It’s a more equal relationship.  

Back then, there were some of those people.  And I had some very rewarding exchanges and interactions.  But I also attracted a lot of people who were having a tough time and were looking for an all-knowing Teacher or someone who would just wave a magic wand to make it better.  Sometimes they went to the Clairvoyant who promised to make it all better with her magic powers and sometimes they came to me.   So I would get emails, along these lines;

help me be happy. Tell me what to do.

Now I’m always happy to engage with anyone and I don’t mind sharing my thoughts and opinions.  But these were people who believed the infomercial promises that tell you, you only have to do XYZ and the world is your oyster.  

The gist of these contacts was they wanted me to give them the XYZ formulas that would always work without really having to put any effort into.  They tended to communicate at a very basic level.  Their lives were a mess and they really didn’t want to engage with them, they just wanted intellectual alcohol to not care about the mess anymore.   

Another part of it, was that I was getting hate mail.  

People would write to me telling me what a scumbag I was for selling this information rather than giving it away.  If I had felt comfortable with what I was doing, these wouldn’t have bothered me, but they struck a raw nerve.  The irony was that most had sales messages in their email signature for the products or MLM opportunity that they were selling.  

So anyway, I gave the book away and felt bitter and resentful about it.  Because taking away the money meant that I had to make a living from other sources and so I couldn’t develop the other courses that I had been working on.

A Fresh Start

I stopped writing and spent the next six months trying to resolve this conflict.  Grappling with these issues caused me to upgrade my philosophy to a whole new level.  And so I developed the Live Without Conflict Philosophy, which I felt so enthusiastically that I had to share.  And so this site was born.  

photo credit: nateOne

Since writing here I have enjoyed sharing my ideas, more than ever before.  

I think that comes from the writing being based on wanting to share ideas and hone them through your interaction and feedback.  There hasn’t been the pressure to sell and so the relationship is purer.  

When someone buys this kind of thing on their first contact from a sales page, they are often buying, hope, from a place of pain or desperation.  Which is great for making money, but terrible for building a relationship.  It means someone has to trust one, before the other does.  For some Customers it works out great, but for others it wasn’t a good match for their needs.  Which is just brewing problems down the line. 

You see, now I still get the same Readers sign up for my course as before, but they get filtered out before I ever have contact with them.  They get my book and a sequence of other messages and those that don’t like my style or are looking for simplistic formula’s unsubscribe.  By the time they catch up to read something that I have just written and so actually interact with me, they have been through almost thirty messages.  So we’re pretty much on the same wavelength and we’ll get along.  

When people unsubscribe, there’s a box asking them why they are leaving.  Apart from people changing email addresses, the biggest reason why most people unsubscribe from my mailing list is that they have got what they wanted.  In other words they are over their rocky patch.  

Often I get very touching notes on the unsubscribe forms as to how my material has helped them.  It’s nice to read.  But we were on different wavelengths to interact comfortably in person.  They wanted a 2 mile taxi ride.  I’m wanting to explore the heights of Mount Everest.  So they can get what they need from what I have already written.  

photo credit: FALHakaFalLin

For the sake of clarity, let me sum up the reason why I give so much stuff away free.  

1.  It gives people that need it, a bridge.  Either from a bad place, to a plateau where they want to stick for a while, or a trail up to the ideas I’m currently working on.  That way they are not jumping in at the deep end, they’ve worked their way up.

2.  It weeds out those that aren’t commited to engaging with life or that don’t like me, my ideas or style.  I have no interest in preaching to or converting people.  I just want to find the few like-minded souls, so we can mutually benefit from interacting.

3.  My laziness and personality quirks.   

This has now developed into quite an essay, so I will post how I overcame my money conflict and the ‘State of Live Without Conflict’ address in the next post.

It might be moaning about their Spouse, their work or telling you about their latest model plane. And everytime you try to change the subject, they just dismiss what you have to say and continue their droning.

Well, I’m a little concerned that I might be that droning bore.

Since I started the stress series, there have been far less comments and less questions. I’m not sure if that’s because you’re bored of the topic, because you don’t understand what I mean, because people are busy during with holidays etc or for some other reason.

So I was thinking maybe I should work quietly on the Stress series by myself and let you know when it’s finshed?

Let me know what you think by taking the poll below and/or commenting below.

[poll id="2"]

Over the end of last week my daughter got sick. It eventually transpired she had measles. The school’s policy is that she shouldn’t attend for five days. The result is she’s perfectly fine, full of energy and bored here at home. And so with her and my dog bouncing around I’m not getting anything worth posting written.

So I have another plan for this week. Something I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Which is to provide information in a variety of formats. So rather than just post to my blog, as I have done up to now, I’m working on making the same information available as a video post, an mp3 file and a weekly email newsletter.

I may also make a physical version available in book and cd format every 6 months or so, if there’s enough interest, which will of course have to be paid for.

I’ve played about with video and audio, but held off because I don’t think it suits my style. Some people say they have the face for radio, I would add in the personality and voice for print. However I think these formats are useful and maybe I should just get over myself. Audio is more convenient to listen to when travelling and video can be the closest to being there in person with someone.

So let me know, what do you think?

As an example, go back and look at the last post. The comments on stress have made for interesting reading. I think Doug started everyone off on a great basis with his summary of stress. Louise summed up how everyday life creates stress and Steve focused us on a few areas where we can reduce stress. I love the fact that Tom brought up the issue of defining stress. I have very strong opinions on this (as with most things) and will be sharing with you shortly.

Then I could go on with Maggie, Sean, Ruth, Galen, Dan, Pattie and Ois, but I think you get the point and you can read for yourself here.

And if you haven’t commented yet, share your 2 cents. There’s a few of us here gathering to chew on ideas and find ways of living with less hassle. How can we help each other to reduce stress? Or what stress do you face from day to day? Or what would help you be less stressed? Or what has helped you reduce or overcome your stress?

I’m just waiting for a few more comments before unleashing my rant on stress.