book – Cherokee.blog

I have an announcement to make! I’m pretty excited to share this news as I’ve been working on this for a while! In fact, it brings me to tears, it’s taken me some 12 years to come up with this and get this far!

I wanted to be an independent thinker, so the fact that I managed to come up with this on my own only accentuates how much more important this is to me. I’ve struggled so much, I’ve been through so much pain, I’ve caused myself so much distress, and I’ve become so much more acute because of it.

In a world where we’re safeguarded from pain, difficulty and risk, going against the grain and figuring out how to experience more rather than less, is a damn difficult task. But ever so useful when we seek to go through process and evolve. You see, a process where you don’t experience any emotions is a process where you don’t grow on a deeper level. So many of us only evolve on a mental level, but never on an emotional and spiritual level. In fact, I can clearly say that 10 years ago I couldn’t express what I felt. It was so bad, that when I had girlfriends, I expressed what I felt for them through MP3 titles.

My mind was so rigid that thinking or even being anything other than what I believed I was felt like torture. In fact, I was petrified. I was scared shitless at the idea of doing anything different from what I knew. So getting outside of myself felt like I was going to die somehow. I repeated this dying sensation over and over for about 10 years, which expanded my mind and heart beyond anything I could possibly have imagined before doing so.

I knew, when I quit high-school , that I needed to go through pain. I figured that if Madonna had been raped, and Lady Gaga had experienced a rough break-up, and Eckhart Tolle had a pain body so excruciating that he had to let go of it, and they all became who they are today. Then I had to suffer
in order to achieve a degree of fame and enlightenment. For me fame was synonymous with enlightenment. If I was in any way famous, I’d achieve it by letting go of my preconceived notions and going through a process until I was excellent. I knew that this process would work for me as I had already repeated this pattern so many times in my adolescence and had become the best in my circle by applying repeated patterns.

This may have become common knowledge now, but at the time I was going on intuition. So my knowledge to train with people who were far better than I was, always striving to become better than I was and aiming to emulate the best people I can envision essentially came from me. Others may have figured it out, or maybe I subconsciously stumbled across a process which world class players applied. I remember training for soccer. I’d go running on my own, and train at the mini football pitch before going to soccer practice and matches, where other people on the team simply contented themselves with going to practice once or twice a week, I’d train nearly 4 to 5 times per week depending on energy. I applied this same process for video-games and obliterated my opponents. I then decided to apply this same method to real life practices such as business. I went to work for, what I considered the best in the area where I was working, Swarovski and Pandora. And during my 1 year stay working for them, I produced – selling products between 5 and 200 euros- around 130 000K. Of which I received maybe 10 percent during the course of the year. I then applied for some of the most successful companies in the world such as Apple, Marriott International and other such monsters of industry.

I then proceeded to reach a state of burnout. I couldn’t upkeep the rhythm at which I was working.
I simply couldn’t fuel my energy expense. Mostly because my motivation was extrinsic. Finding the energy to depend upon someone external didn’t cut it for me anymore. Not to mention that depending on others to recompense me and fulfil my needs wasn’t a good long term solution.

Transitioning from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation took a lot out of me. In fact it was a harsh process, through which I tested myself, my limits, the imposed limits which had been imposed upon me, the fears of those around me, how far I could go. I needed to discover myself and what made my tick.
I didn’t care about the effects of the process, I would succeed despite anything which came on. I would go through this and I would succeed. I did not care one Iota about what other people thought about me.
I decided to go through as many difficult situations, to face embarrassment, to go through risks, to go through a high degree of failure in order to get in the habit of feeling those emotions. I didn’t want to be bothered by anything normal people are afraid of. In fact I wanted to elevate myself above what I thought were everyone else’s limitations. I wanted to rise well above those around me because I hated the way I felt around them so much. This would take difficulty. This would take grit. This would take courage.
And beyond anything that I thought I needed to do, this would take a healthy amount of self-belief; a substance I had little of when starting out. I believed that everything I was, was because of the people I associated to. So, I needed to succeed at any costs on my own, via my own vision, and of course by making my own mistakes.

This was because I saw my parents success as something which prevented me from succeeding.
I needed to surpass what they had done in order to define myself. I needed to become a better artist, a better writer and of course I needed to become a better chef. I needed to become somewhat rich internally before I could become rich externally. I needed to believe.

Along the way, I also needed to discover my own process. What made me tick, but how I’d apply my energy. How sensitive I was, and what kind of environment and requirements I needed to achieve a degree of excellence. I’d go as far as go to 5 star hotels to experience what being rich meant, I’d do what rich people did. I’d spend time with people who had yachts. I’d spend time on yachts. I’d pop champagne. But I’d also spend time with the most successful people I could.

I developed the confidence to go to Monaco on a whim. I went to the GP. I brushed with my second uncle David Coulthard. (Yes, for some reason I’m related to him…) Which upped my standards for myself and gave me an impetus to become greater than what I was. But regardless of the external conditions I was brought up with. My grand father having been to Cambridge, my grand mother having also been to an Ivy League school. My cousins being straight A students and being top players in industry. My parents being hardcore entrepreneurs since day one. My father being a north star for me to aspire to with my own standards of doing things. Growing up my best friends were wealthy, in England, as well as in France.

For some reason, I tend to have an inner energy which – like a magnet- attracts me to those situations, or attracts those situations to me. An inner essence which seems to need to always be better. Astrologers would say this is because I have a Moon in Leo in addition to a Jupiter in Leo. Others could say it’s because I’m an achiever. And still others could say I’ve been surrounded with excellence since day one.

But, without a doubt, I’ve always had fire within. I remember when I was about 5 years old, I wanted to be an artist, I also distinctly remember expressing this inner fire as “adrenalin”. But its not adrenalin. It’s an inner feeling of greatness which I cannot ignore. An inner standard which will reside in me til the day I die.

It doesn’t matter how low I go, this fire will always carry me higher. I will always float back up as long as I can keep my mind open. And like a hot air balloon, I will float up to the top empowered by this inner flame, with my mind wide open like the Envelop.

And with this sentiment, I share with you, my new book the Creators guide to the galaxy.