When things are falling apart, your life is supposed to be a mess.

When you’re going through a transformation, a transitory phase where nothing makes sense anymore, and you have no clue what you’re doing, or where you’re going, and you overhear some random preachy youtuber telling you that you need to ‘stop living in mess’. Take it as a pinch of salt. You’re life isn’t supposed to be picture perfect right now, because you’re going through unknown states that most people would probably repress.

Take consolation in the fact that in the midde of a storm, there will be wind and stuff gets blown all over the place. So, while you’re going through this transitory period where nothing makes sense, nothing feels clear, and your life seems to be falling apart, let go.

Accepting, and letting go, is probably the best you can do, because its being mature enough to see that you don’t have control over what is going on right now and acknowleging that no matter how much you clean your room or the dishes, your mind will still be a mess, until you let go of the material reality you’re fighting against and start to make internal shifts towards cleaning up, organising, spring cleaning what you don’t want, and amplifying what you would love to have more of.

Your life is supposed to be messy, until you get it together. The only notion of control you need is the ability to accept yourself, and making yourself your top priority. You get to shine your full attention on yourself, healing yourself, taking care of yourself, Loving yourself, and building yourself.


When life falls apart, and the way you were living needs to crumble, the more you hold on, the worse it gets. In fact, being rigid and not letting change occur is probably the best way to end up hurt.

‘BUT…’, we say, ‘I need to be in control’.

In control of what? One responds.

The only thing we can control is where we place our attention, how we choose to think about what we percieve, how we interpret the information and … that’s about it really.

We are here for the ride, God is in the drivers seat, we are but co-pilots giving indications to God about where to go, what to do, and so on. We are but children sitting in the passenger seat, observing the adult ‘do what we want’, except for when we’re wrong, the adult will continu to guide us towards a better circumstances.


You can have whatever you want in life. You really can. Absolutely anything. But you can’t have it, if the foundation of your Wanting it is based in lack, fear, pain, confusion etc.

Most of the time, we want things because of feelings we aren’t allowing ourselves to feel. Rejecting our circumstances, rejecting our body, jealousy because ‘others have and we don’t’ frustration ‘because things don’t workout the way we want’, self-hate ‘because we don’t comprehend what it is that we’re doing that is holding us back, fear ‘because we don’t know how x, y, z will turn out..’. And so, what do we do? We run towards the exact opposite, we run towards the contrast of what we are feeling in order to ‘balance out’ what we are experiencing. As a way of escape, because we ‘can’t accept’ the way we feel about our present circumstance.

In truth, the answer is Acceptance, letting ourselves take inventory of what is currently going on, what we have or don’t have, where we are, and how we feel about it. Most important, is the internal narrative going on, and the emotions we’re feeling about said experience. Very clearly, what will stick out is our rejection of what it is that we don’t want.

We are holding on, and fighting what it is that we don’t want, as if it will bring us back to ‘when things were good’ or bring us to ‘where we want to be’. This is erronious thinking, because essentially, we’re holding onto a piece of concrete in the middle of a house on fire because that concrete is cool and provides a ‘momentary relief’ to the situation we’re in. Holding on won’t help us go back in time to prevent the fire, and it won’t put out the fire and save us or take us to a nice new home. (Perhaps we might have a home in heaven if we hang on too long, but that’s another conversation…). The only solution, is to let go of that fixed solid thing that can’t change, accept that we need to look at our ‘flamboyant’ emotions that are getting out of control, and perhaps call the firebregade, or even get the hosepipe and start putting the fire out…

So, your life is mess right now. Great! That means, that you get the chance to arrange it the way you want it. It means, you have the liberty to re-create, to re-craft, to re-brand, transform, look back on eveything that you’ve done, all that you’ve accomplished. You can take stock of what you’re capable of, what you’ve learned, what you no longer want, and also you have an excuse to actually change. This is a good thing, it’s freeing.

You don’t have to always see the downside, sometimes you can see the brightside, be optimistic about how everything is going to hell.

When I was in university, I had a superb racing bike, just perfect. Carbon frame, super light, it felt like an exercise Ferrari. It was snappy, it was fast, it was light. And it turned heads. I was really proud of it. I’d worked hard at my first job, and when I left, I decided to reward myself with a beautiful roadbike. But then, one day, the gearbox had a problem, so I had to get it fixed. I took it to the bikeshop, and was told to comeback a week later. I left the bike with the new piece I had ordered, and left the bike guy do his thing. A week later, I get a call. ‘Your bike is ready, you can come and get it.’ Yey! So, I go in to town to pick it up. Everything flows perfectly, it no longer makes the ‘clunk’ noise it did the week before. So, I happily cruise through town on my incredible mecanical steed. Proudly, I accelerate to see if everything was ‘not too good to be true’, and it wasn’t, it was perfect. I then decided to pop into the library to say hello to a friend, so I attach the bike to the bikerack, and walk in to the establishment feeling carefree and renewed. 5 minutes after meeting up with my friend, I decide to go for a coffee, so I head out and to my internal bewilderment, my bike was gone. I looked around, just incase, but it was no where to be found. In that instant, I had been robbed blind. And my tendency to get infuriated would normally have risen to Vesivius Volcano level anger, but in that instant, I just chose to let go and move on. I had a few moments of confusion pop up, but I didn’t even engage the feeling of anger, I just let go and my day went on as if nothing happened.

I say all this, because, it illustrates the fact that some things aren’t in our control, and choosing to get angry would have actually hurt me after something bad happened. By letting go, I actually got to experience a feeling of freedom and release which would then open the door for me to move on flowingly and happily, because it was all outside of my control.

It’s freeing, because it allows you to go towards new things. It allows us to evolve.

We’re not here for the material, we’re here for our internal evolution, our internal experiences, and these experiences help us to shape who we become. From the vantage point of this perspective, we are on a journey to personal evolution towards better internal states. And truth be told, I was always super conscious of that bike, Godforbid I get a scratch or anything… Just like my parents sports car when I was younger, we had this red convertible, and the only thing which became apparent was the rarity and price of the car and how my mum was always worried about not damaging it…

Sometimes an old banger is enjoyable, because we get to be carefree. It’s that sense of freedom which is appealing, not the self-conscious, over-alert, inability to relax because we ‘might’ make a mistake, that’s a form of imprisonment, that’s not libertating, that’s fear inducing. What we want is to feel free, to feel joyful, to feel spontaneous, to be fully in the present moment, in flow with who we are, not one step removed thinking about what-ifs.


We search for things which we believe will give us forms of pleasure, as a contrast to the fears and pains we experience within. Instead of deciding to find internal harmony, to let go and be in peace, we’d rather take action and force our way towards a fickle and temporary solution.

When it comes time to let everything fall apart, sometimes its painful. And so, what do we do? We cling to ‘what is familiar’, what made us feel a certain way, what comforts us, because of Fear of the unknown. And that’s okay, it’s okay. Because it’s a temporary phase which we pass through, as we become aware of our internal courage, or that by letting go we can feel lighter or freeer, or a tamporary moment in time where we use this ‘crutch’ as a contrasting experience on which we can decide to turn East, North or West. Our experiences provide directional knowledge while we’re grasping in the dark for what lights up our soul. We’re kind of like a ball in a pinball machine, and we bounce of things that aren’t for us, we tense up when we think the ball is about to fall, and we relax when we know the ball is on the right trajectory towards it’s winning horizon.


Letting things fall apart, means that they were put together at some point in time. While asking one’s self, why things are falling apart, one might repond with a ‘perhaps, I didn’t put things together consciously and just accepted to live life, and be as I was told because I didn’t know any different‘. Perhaps, it’s time to let the storm happen, see that the storm is happening because we have expanded and grown out of the previous shell we ‘lived in’ and that we need to now rearrange our life so that we can continu expanding rather than fighting our previous limiting beliefs, lifestyle, life…

It’s a chance, because, we get to look back at all the things we have learned, all that we have done, and build back from the vantage point of having had a vast amount of wisdom and experience. Now we get to build a house and we get to choose every square inch, every color, every scent, every feeling … We get to now play the masters of our universe from the hight of our experience and we don’t have to make hasty decisions based on the outside world, fears, not knowing, and so on. We get to create freely who want what we want to be.

How to Create the ultimate 5 – 10 people list of people you admire and aspire to be around.


“You know how they say
“the 5 people you spend your time with influences who you become” ?”


Hi! Welcome to my blog, I hope this post finds you well in this festive and comfortable season!



You know how they say “the 5 people you spend your time with influences who you become” ?
Well, we don’t always have the possibility to chose the people we want to have around us. Right?

Wrong!

Until recently, the idea that my fate would be tied to my location, the people around me (whether I like them or not, or even if I aspire to them or not…) as well as their minds, was something which created a specific amount of anxiety for me. Not that I fear the people around me or my circumstances, nothing could be further from the truth. Although, I am particularly picky about the time I spend, the attention I give and the subjects I want to devote my time to…
Though, the idea that my life is influenced by those around me and I have no control over those around me can produce a specific amount of worry. I really don’t want to pick up on certain habits, certain mind process’s or ways that don’t suit who I am developing myself to be.

On the one hand, picking people for your life is essential. In the doing we underline the examples we wish to copy. Like monkey’s we pick up on speech patterns, body language and other such subtleties which have made an impression on us because we have either liked the person or disliked them.

Csikszent Mihaly explains in his book Flow that “attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.“. And deciding who and what we give our attention to influences our lives in many subtle and important ways!

If you live in a town, going out and meeting someone specific to spend time with might be a bit of a challenge. Although not impossible, the chances are slim that the exact right people you need will be on your path with the same distinct reasons as you.

In fact, you’d probably waste more time and energy out and about than you would proactively getting done everything on your Important x Urgent list.

Pam Thomas a high end mindset coach describes the concept of energy leakage in his article https://thriveglobal.com/stories/are-you-leaking-energy/

“Depending on how we spend our $100 of energy itโ€™s possible to expend it in ways that create an energetic deficit. When we become energetically deficient we then have to borrow that energy from somewhereโ€ฆmaybe from our own cells (making us tired and susceptible to fear, self-doubt, etc.) or from someone else (making us needy or dependent).”. In understanding that we only have a finite amount of energy per day, it becomes very clear that the attention we have (i.e. 100$ of energy) is better invested in activities which give back to us, individuals who are going in the same direction, or in something with a good ROI. (Sport, Education, meditation, personal development, healthy food, clear uplifting thoughts etc…)

In a recent GQ article on neuroscience, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that our minds don’t function the way we think they do. How do we think our minds work? And with such a a variety of answers, how do we go about our everyday lives? On first hand, I’d bet that most people believe that the mind is made for thinking, stocking information… and alternatively the others don’t really wonder what the brain does at all… Though Dr.Barrett’s findings changes our understanding of how it functions and ultimately leeds us to driving our vessels in a more responsable and even more careful way. The concept of allostasis was proposed by Sterling and Eyer in 1988 as a process of reestablishing stability in response to a challenge. Barrett explains that our mind is merely a regulator, a controller to sustain our survival. “Every action you take (or donโ€™t take) is an economic choice. Everything you think, feel, and do is a consequence of your brainโ€™s central mission to keep you alive and well by managing your body budget.

This being said, you’re probably thinking we’re incredibly off topic. We’re not.

Taking in to account that some people leave us depleted and tired after spending time with them.
Some even go as far as saying specific people are “Energy Vampires”, or “Narcissists“.
Though, lets stay on topic, I nearly lost you a few moments ago…
We’d rather leave conversations with people, feeling empowered, feeling confident and bold, ready to take on the world, right?

So how do we achieve that?

How do we find the people we aspire to?

How do we encounter those so-called people we admire?

And how on earth do we create our team of smart, high achieving, high energy people?

  1. It all starts with Self: We start by focussing on ourselves. Focussing on ourselves is the surest of ways to discover what we like, what we dislike, understand how we feel about this or that, as well as discover what we’re curious about. And this takes time, investment, and even going through the nitty gritty emotions. YIKES, I know you’re hating me right about now.. But it’s true. Going through our nitty gritty emotions by ourselves over and over again is how we grow and ultimately overcome them.
    Be patient with yourself!

  2. Procrastination: Having spent a vast amount of time on naval gazing, as you might put it. I’d like to invite you to reconsider your perception of Procrastination. It is there for a reason, so no pressure, embrace it and learn to invite it into your life.
    I generally procrastinate when my energy is saturated, I’m tired or low energy, or I need to breath from the depths I immerse myself with complicated topics.

  3. FocusMate: Okay, this might perhaps be the most important part of this article. The tool which enables you, with the right perception, to network, to grow, to exchange, and also to stay where you are and save your energy for better things. You know, the productivity and creativity in pt.2 and the
    well-being I’m about to express in pt.4? Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m talking about FocusMate.

    Focusmate is an online Website/App which is meant to help you with your productivity and stay distraction free, focussed on your goals. Thats the primary reason we use Focusmate.
    The secondary reason is not what it is programmed to do, but what is most beneficial to everyone you encounter. Smile, be Warm, be Yourself, and share. You might end up meeting some really interesting, upbeat people you’d never get the opportunity to encounter otherwise.

  4. Energy, energy, energy... Yes, we’ve talked about that a lot haven’t I?
    You’ll need energy if you want to produce, work, focus on anything.
    This means you’ll need good healthy food. This also means that you’ll need to channel the energy you do have into meaningful productive practices which give you an ROI. I’ll talk about this in my next article.

  5. Structure. Yes, in order to use everything I’m talking about and something you can rely on, you’ll need a structure a ‘goto’ reference which is tangible and malleable. For this, I use the good old Whiteboard, a written structured list compartmentalised and the help of some tools
    I will add at the end of the article.


By using these 5 points, I get to meet high energy, ambitious people on a daily basis. I attract them because I am myself on that high level frequency (The exercises, The food help to develop the energy for this). And I’m able to do it often because I’m following a structure I created for myself which allows me to follow it even if I have no clue of what I’m doing that day or even feeling a bit hazy…


I thought I’d add some goodies:

Here are a Few Tools I like and use on a daily basis which get me to better focus, produce or simply keep track of what I’m doing or where I’m going.

Tools:

Create an Effective todo list: Learning how to create an effective todo list can prove invaluable. This article has been life changing in how it has effected my todo list creation. In that before I actually didn’t know how to create on effectively. I also added the notion of the Eisenhower Matrix in that I will only put what is urgent and important & important and not urgent.

https://www.notion.so/: So you need to go to the Office to have a physical layout of what needs to be done and what has been done? NO NEED! Notion is the perfect app for tracking and organising tasks, for business or simply for home. You can keep track of

https://habitshareapp.com/: You know how I talked about developing habits earlier on in the article, the concept that you can track your actions over the course of time and visualise your progress and
percentage of accuracy.

https://slack.com/: I’ve found that if you want to distribute a research, a message, and target a specific group of people, Slack is the best place to do so. Let me explain before you judge me as someone exploiting the indigenous tribes… While I was working on a startup in Fin-tech I needed to find a FullStack Developer capable of building the App. While I had no clue of how to grasp a developer, especially in the midst of a COVID lockdown, I got creative. Low and behold, I found 35 developers by targeting Digital Nomad slack communities in the space of 1 week! Need I say more?

https://discord.com/ People like to use this for gaming, because that is what it is originally used for.
Though, I use it for the TEAM to talk on in order to get work done without the hassle of planning call’s etc. Once everyone is subscribed, its fairly easy, everyone can have a reachable online office to do their work. And the messaging system is pretty simple.

https://www.focusmate.com/ Conceived as a studying platform, I figured out after a while that it could be a place to network and find likeminded people, according that you do it right and don’t overstep boundaries etc. People are generally open to discussing what they do, they’ll tell you about their goals at the start of every session and you can use it for training your elevator pitch for Work, Social, Partnerships, learning about new tools or insights, hek even relationships why don’t you. But really.. do it correctly, no one wants unwanted harassment in the privacy of their own home!

https://miro.com/: “The online collaborative whiteboard platform to
bring teams together, anytime, anywhere.” The Crema team explain the functioning of the app (in this video) pretty well and while is it still a collaborative online whiteboard, what you can do with it is nothing short of genius.

Finding a peaceful balance between what’s going on in the world and where you are inside of yourself



It is important to be in harmony between how we feel inside and how we are outside.
This isnโ€™t always possible, if so we must learn to love ourselves, and accept it from the inside out.ย 

Hence why we strive for perfection. People will qualify us through how they see us first and foremost. Which is distressing for anyone who isn’t picture perfect in today’s society. How can we possibly keep up with the constant update of knowledge?trends, tips, articles, news outlets, podcast shows and live to be as great as everyone else? How can we like anything we are, when we consistently compare ourselves with “everyone else”?

We simply cannot keep up. We can’t, even if we wanted to keep up with everything that is happening on a daily basis all around the world. There are way too many people and events occurring.

It is then wise to go in the opposite direction and disregard everything and everyone.
It becomes essential, in order to focus on the one most important ingredient in the recipe known to date, to neglect anything and everything but ourselves, how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, how we function etc. I’d say the COVID is a blessing, but I already lived like this pre-covid. It’s very much so a blessing for everyone else, whether they can see it or not.

The contrast of one’s objective and virtual presence, is an extension of self. It’s very easy for everyone to get caught up in the illusion that How we are seen by others, How we perform in video games, or media covered games, or any other sort of exposure through a screen. It simply isn’t Who we are, nor is it What we are. It is but an intention, a role we play well, a placement of our time and effort in projecting something for others to relate to.

Take it all away, and all you have is yourself. Have you ever tried sitting in the dark with one candle, with no screen, no book, no kindle or music or anything. Just you and the candle? I bet you’ll get a little anxious at a certain point. Truth is, at first it might seem uncomfortable, maybe even anxiety producing… But by staying with it, we get to experience ourselves, what we’re feeling, why we’re feeling that way and so on… A vital road, in taking time out for us.

In todays world we need to perfect our camera presence in order to feel confident with others.ย If we are critical of ourselves, we cannot feel confident entirely with others.ย Weโ€™ll often have illogicisms, and discrepancies we need to overcome.ย Looking at myself through the camera, I see my critical self come out and poke holes at what I am doing as well as how I am corresponding with myself, the camera, and others around.ย When speaking on camera, I discovered that I was highly self critical.ย The process of overcoming the camera’s perception, isn’t the camera, but how I’m seeing myself through the lens.ย 

Have something to say, an exercise to follow. A guide-line and rules to follow in order to overcome and progress.ย Once we have the rules of the game, we can test, go through trial and error until we become perfect with the camera “in our own perception of perfect”. Above all, we see our flaws. They’re highlighted and in our face. They’re big and bright in contrast to what we’re normally aware of. When other people see us, they take it as a given “This dude has x, y or z… that’s just normal.” But what if, on that day the “Dude” in question had something which wasn’t normal to his everyday settings of normality?

If my writing inspires you, take a look at some of the books which have
inspired my writing. GO TO LIBRARY