The Sixth Sense

An integrated life

A life that isn’t integrated is a life without integrity.

I’ve been thinking about this for several months now. Am I one person living one life or someone with many personas living multiple lives?

I am increasingly convinced that wholeness stems from living one, integrated life.

Do I have a compartmentalised life where different compartments come out based on who I’m with? Or am I the same, whole, person no matter who I am with?

Is there a work me, a friends me, a family me, and a private me? Or is there just one me who permeates my whole life no matter who I’m with or what I’m doing?

Don’t get me wrong, different environments will demand different things of us and bring out aspects of our personality and talents that don’t come out in other environments. That’s normal. But the question is whether we are someone totally different. Someone we might be ashamed of if people in other groups saw us like that.

Are we spending half our lives creating a persona, keeping up appearances? Are we pretending to be something or someone we’re not? In other words, are we actors or, more accurately, hypocrites?

The problem with living life this way is that it is draining. Spending our whole life acting is hard work!

Freedom comes from being so comfortable with who we are that we no longer feel the need to pretend or impress. We can be ourselves. We are whole. We have an integrated life which oozes integrity and breeds trust.

To be honest, I’m wary of people I’m not convinced I’m seeing the real them. Religious people are the worst for this. If Hollywood ever runs out of actors, they could just start going to churches and quickly identify some of the best actors the world has ever seen! It’s like the pressure of religion compels them to pretend. They cannot be themselves. They create a church persona and say all the right things. It stinks. Seems like Jesus thought so too.

An Apple household

Well the transition is now complete. The Radford household is officially an Apple household.

Until around 16 months ago, we had two PC laptops running Windows. As of October, we now have two Macs and the last of the PC laptops is ready for the scrap heap.

Rachel uses a Macbook and I have a Macbook Pro that I use for both work and personal (and which runs Windows XP via Parallels).

On top of this, we both now have iPhone’s. We’ve been well and truly Appleified!

One of the things I’ve observed about my transition to Apple is just how I don’t feel like its been a novelty which has worn off. So often with prior technology purchases, I’ve spent a load of money and then, after not too long, stopped using it, or got bored. With neither the iPhone or the Mac has it been like this.

I have also been thoroughly impressed with how straight forward everything is. As the ad says (by and large) it does all just work. I like that.

I love the attention to detail. I love the fact that they value aesthetics and yet don’t use that as a cover up for poor quality. 

I will say that Apple products are expensive. You can buy cheaper phones and cheaper laptops. In fact, you can buy a LOT cheaper phones and laptops. But I don’t resent the prices I’ve paid at all. I feel I have products that have surpassed my expectations and stand out in a league all by themselves when compared to other products.

I guess, to summarise, I am definitely now in the ranks of raving Apple fans!

You can’t always get what you want

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need

This song has been running through my head this morning. I often find myself humming a tune in the shower…my thinking space. Sometimes the songs stay in there, but other times they stick with me as I’m getting around, making lunch, feeding Max. And then I stop to wonder, “Why in the world am I singing this song?”.

If it’s an annoying song stuck in my head, I’ll either play music to push it out, or the sure fire way to rid one song stuck in my head. I’ll sing another, equally catching song, like the song from the Irn Bru Snowman advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfiqrkV_ZqI. It works EVERY TIME!

But today, as I was belting out that old Stone’s song, I stopped to wonder, why this song? I don’t listen to the Stone’s, in fact I had to google the lyrics to see who actually sang that song. But still, it keeps ringing over and over. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need.

I think my train of thought started with the realization that nearly a year ago our lives went on a journey. We started on an adventure…off towards what we wanted. We sold our house, which we wanted to do. And then we moved all our belongings to England…which we REALLY wanted. But then, what we wanted started to get in the way of what we needed. We had to make difficult decisions. In fact, they were quite straight forward decisions. But difficult to admit.

We didn’t want to move back to the States. We didn’t want to live here. Once we got back, we tried to work our desires back into the equation and moved to California. Which worked out horribly for our son, who needed much more care than the medical teams could offer him in California. So, nearly a year later, we sit where we started. We came back in July, and bought the same model car we sold while moving to England. We searched until we found just the right house, less than a mile from our old house. My son got back in with all of the medical professionals he was working with before we left.

This year we have definitely not gotten what we wanted…but as it turns out…we did get exactly what we needed. We have been provided for in amazing ways. Ways that I can’t even wrap my head around sometimes. And while I don’t always understand the logic we’ve followed this past year, I know every decision has been the best decision for us. For now, I’m trying to not focus on what I want. It seems that’s not been the best thing for me this year. Instead, I’m trying to focus on what we need. And then, seeing over and over, that’s exactly what has been making me happy. All my needs have been met. I am healthy, my family is healthy. We are happy, and cared for.

I think it’s important to dream of wants, and desires. But it’s equally important, if not more so, to focus on the needs, rather than taking for granted that all our needs will be met if we just work at the wants in our lives.

What do you think?

[Visit Deana's personal blog here.]

Logging off

When was the last time you logged off or switched your phone off. And I mean off, not just silenced.

We used to shut our computers down when we’d finished. Now we leave them in standby mode. We used to switch our phones off. Instead we, at best, only turn them to silent or vibrate.

This isn’t all bad of course. It’s the reality of the world we live in. But if we are going to be people who maximise our potential, we will need to be people who know the importance of taking time out. You know, that thing called rest.

Here’s some ideas:

- Maybe we could have one day a week where we actually log off. No email, no work, no computer. Just chill. Enjoy life. Spend quality time with friends and family.

- How about ignoring the phone when we’re eating. Savour that time and that food. Enjoy the company of the people you’re eating with by being fully there.

- What if we intentionally created some space within every day to slow down. Take a break. Enjoy that lunch hour. Step out of what you’re in the middle of with a change of scenery. Perhaps a book. Or the park. Anything really, just change the scene.

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This post is a duplication from my blog at The Human Potential Company. Not all posts are duplicated here so to make sure you don’t miss any, subscribe here.

Nobody fulfils their potential by accident

Making the most of our potential is not always easy. In fact, to break through all the obstacles and barriers in our way, it will take a lot of hard work.

Nobody fulfils their potential by accident.

We make the most of our potential when we take our innate talents and then, on top of that, work hard to develop the necessary skills and add the relevant knowledge so that we can do something meaningful with our talent.

David Beckham may well have been born with the unique ability to curve a football like few other people, but that talent would never have reached it’s potential if he had not spent hours on the training field practicing and practicing and practicing.

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This post is a duplication from my blog at The Human Potential Company. Not all posts will be duplicated here so to make sure you don’t miss any, subscribe here.

Doing what you love

I’m giving a lot of time and thought to the company I’m setting up at the moment focussed on helping people and organisations maximise their potential.

I was chatting with my wife, Rachel, about it all and weighing up the practicalities. You know, making sure we’ll have a enough money and things like that. 

As we were chatting I realised how much I love what I’m going to be doing. And it is, without doubt, something that I love and believe in so much that, if I didn’t need the money, I’d have no problem doing what I’m looking to do for free.

I love helping people maximise their potential. I love helping and seeing teams work better together because of a better understanding of each others uniqueness.

Of course, I DO need to make money from this venture. But I’m excited to embark on something that I enjoy to the extent that I would do it for free if I could.

I think that’s a great place to be.

How often do you get to do what you love?

No. 674 - The warrior poet does not live for himself

Wisdom and tales from the Warrior Poet

The warrior poet does not live for himself.

The warrior poet knows that the key to being alive is death. He recognises that life is more than mere existence.

Existence is easy. Any fool can exist. To truly live - to be fully alive - is to die.

This is not a death to ambition or purpose. Neither is it a death to personal growth and development. It is rather a death to a self absorbed and self consumed life.

The warrior poet understands that to truly live is to live for something larger than himself. It is to live for something other than himself. He knows deep down that a world orientated around himself is not the sort of world others would want to live in.

Video conference anyone?!

I’m considering the possibility of hosting a video conference conversation for a maximum of ten people every 4 to 6 weeks.

There are so many good books being read, so many important topics being thought about, and so many issues being mulled over. But all too often this is only happening amongst ourselves as individuals. And that so often results in little action happening as a result.

I’m as guilty as the next person of reading a great, challenging book but then doing nothing about it. But when I read and discuss a book with others, there is much more motivation (and peer pressure!) to actually do something.

So, here’s some ideas:

- We could read a book together and then organise a video conversation to process it and work towards action ideas.

- We could share ideas and issues that we’d like to discuss and perhaps put them to the vote for which one will get discussed during that particular video conference.

Obviously, there’s loads more possibilities and I’d love you to share any you have. And, of course, some conversations will be of more interest to some than others. We’ll pick a topic or a book though, set a date, and the first 10 people who are interested can participate.

What do you think? Anyone interested?

Looking forward

It’s been great to be away for a week here in Switzerland. I can’t believe how quickly this week has passed by. Why is that always the case with holidays?!

I’m definitely feeling very refreshed though and looking forward to heading home and really getting stuck with everything that we have coming up between now and December.

We’ve just finalised the date for our next Vox event. It’s going to be held on November 20th. For those of you who don’t know, Vox is all about showcasing creativity in Sheffield and working together to create a better world. The November events creativity focus will be music. We’re looking forward to having some great musicians participate. Watch this space for more details!

Other exciting stuff coming up soon includes a video conference call with leaders of different ventures around the UK and Europe I’m organising. This looks like it’s going to happen towards the end of October.

As well as this, me and Rachel are heading over to Amsterdam at the end of the month to spend some time with our friends Shawna, Ali, and Alycia who are heading up a really exciting project over there called Reckoning.

So yeah, lots going on and lots to look forward to!

What’s going on in your world?

Enjoying Switzerland!

This week we are enjoying a lovely holiday over in Switzerland. I grew up having family holidays here so it is bring back lots of memories.

I’d forgotten how much I love this place. The beauty of the scenery is incredible. The mountains, valleys, buildings…everything. It all feels so…Swiss! 

The weather has been amazing so far too. Crisp in temperature but lots of blue skies. We’ve been getting some great pictures.

The place we’re staying is an apartment in a place called Champex Lac which is just under two hours from Geneva. My parents bought the place a while back and it’s so good to finally be out here.

I’m feeling very rested and refreshed already and there’s still a good number of days until we come home!

You can check out the pictures we’ve been taking here: http://gallery.me.com/sam.radford#100218