Everyone wants the truth.
We often say we can’t tell what’s true and what isn’t.
I say we can absolutely see the truth, but we’re way too close to it that it makes us blind.
In his superb book, ‘Rebel Ideas’, Matthew Syed narrates the true story of English football’s quest for answers. In 2016 a specialist team was gathered to analyse why one of the most successful nations in the game in England, with all its mega money and skilful players, the very founders of the sport, had not won a major trophy for 50 years.
That team though were only made up of one knowledgeable ex-international football player and pundit. The others were a founder of high-tech start ups, an Olympic administrator, the former head coach of the England Rugby squad, a top level cycling coach, and a female commander at the Royal Ministry Academy Sandhurst. Why then, when they were meeting to study and find an answer to such a huge problem in the national game, did they have only one (no longer playing) football expert?
Simple. The view was if you brought in other managers and football stars, they would provide the ruling FA with the same issues and awarenesses that the current manager and staff were already aware of as they were party to it week in, week out. There would be nothing new.
These football aces were far too close to the situation that they would not have the necessary perspective to work out where the shortcomings were. They would not be able to see the wood for the trees. Or the goal from the corner flag (Ok, bit cheeky that one).
It’s often obvious.
The truth is often in plain sight. It’s like the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes where the crowd could ‘see’ he was wearing no garments but they would not truly recognise it even though it was right in front of them. It took an innocent young boy onlooker to identify what was glaringly obvious once he spoke up.
The background to the sad crash of Korean Airlines flight 801 in 1997 and the loss of 229 on board is another example. The plane has descended below the minimum safe altitude in mountainous terrain as the captain believed he was nearer the airport than he actually was with devastating consequences. Black box tapes show that neither the first officer nor flight engineer questioned the captain until six seconds before impact. Far too late to make a difference.
The investigation found that they considered the captain had been aware of the wrong height and would make corrections that he didn’t. The other insight was that Korean society made it offensive for subordinates to challenge a high ranked person despite the truth again be right in front of their eyes so they delayed until their own doom was upon them.
And so it goes with all of us. We can quite clearly see the truth most of the time but as we don’t step back enough from it or let others guide us to what we may be missing in our blind spot, we plough on making the same mistakes, errors, or missed opportunities. Or simply don’t smell the roses.
In the movie, ‘A Few Good Men’, Jack Nicholson’s character Colonel Jessep rages in court, ‘You can’t handle the truth’.
I believe we can handle it but as we’re far to close to it that we simply aren’t able to realise it’s right there in front of our eyes. Our own Emperor’s New Clothes.
Maybe it’s time we honestly looked!
If you were a millionaire and you lost it all, I wonder how you would feel?
Most likely you’d be devastated, in pieces, thinking your life is over, broken…..and the usual expected emotional and mental responses.
Yet, in fact, most millionaires who did lose their wealth, went straight back out and got it again…..and often got more than before. Where the everyday person would be in a hole struggling to make ends me, our rich friends would be re-engaged at filling up their bank account once more.
How on Earth can they do that when the majority of people would crumble if they lost the few thousand pounds they had saved up?
It comes down to the old adage that typifies a SuperMInd approach. If, for arguments sake, every adult over the age of 18 in the world was given a million pounds, dollars, euros etc, within a few years all the money would be back in the hands of the wealthy who had it before. Not because the average man or woman on the street went on a spending spree and blew the lot. NOPE! Nor would it be because the rich have a big network of other rich pals and moguls who look after each other and their elite contacts who will assist them with a leg up up funding some investments for them in the meantime. Er, NO!
They would win it all back due to one internal human trait.
You Better Believe It.
That trait is plain and simple CONFIDENCE.
Their own personal inner belief system reminds them that if they have earned it once, they can most certainly claim it again. Everyday folk would decide that they were meant to have the millions as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and now its gone it will never come back. Not so millionaire minds who have already built up their self confidence. To them it’s proof that if it can be achieved once, it can be achieved repeatedly.
You could call it the Millionaire Mindset. I prefer super self confidence in a) money being everywhere so it’s not in short supply and b) they possess the mental certainty in themselves to bring it back into their lives.
Those two are their anchors through all times. From day 1 start again moment, past volatile financial peaks and troughs, and in through to big bank bucks back where they belong with them. Yes, they plan and work, and keep at it and sometimes have to take risks most would never entertain. But it’s all underpinned by their confidence that they have what it takes to welcome the wealth right back to them.
So when you see a story of man/woman who made good and then lost every single penny but came back to be financially wealthier than ever, now you know. They knew, they never stopped. Confidence was, and remains, their true currency.
And it all comes down to a few special words.
You Gotta Believe!
Mankind gets things very right. And spectacularly wrong.
Modern thinking at the turn of the last Century was that humans would struggle to ever fly. Even Wilbur Wright himself of the famous Wright brothers who pioneered the first airplane flight once said, ‘Man will not fly for 50 years’.
Edward Jenner, who discovered the first vaccine for smallpox was castigated as blasphemous by the ruling religious fraternity as trying to be God. Jonas Hanway was thrown insults and pelted with stones when he began using the umbrella he imported on the streets of London in the 1750’s. More recently when Steve Jobs launched the ground breaking Apple iMac in the mid 80’s it was dubbed ‘a toy’ by the tech media.
But we also get it wrong in reverse. Badly wrong.
In 1941 US President Roosevelt championed the development of the Atomic bomb because American intelligence informed him the Nazis were working on one to use against Allied forces. By having an equal threat the belief was that with such potential joint weaponry, peace would be more likely to be negotiated first as a deterrent. But only four years later it was dropped twice on Japan taking the lives of over 160,000 people.
Further developments over the following decades led to the creation of the nuclear bomb and the whole 1980’s lay under the very real threat of it been detonated as the East and West wagered a mind game war. The view that bombs themselves would lead to peace, only ever led to greater and greater loss of life and even the path to the very end of the world itself.
We live in Artificial Intelligence times.
And so we come to the latest and greatest tool forged by the minds of man that has been designed to make our lives better, easier, more productive, healthier, beneficial, and, of course, wealthier. Artificial Intelligence.
Will it?
Well mankind perhaps yet again has fallen into it’s own mental trap. A much repeated one as proven in history. This trap is to lean to one side of the right/wrong or good/bad equation. To perceive how we will gain without fully considering what we may use. A.I. ,as it’s now become known as, has some impressive impacts but, truth is, it’s only been available to the public for a matter of a few years and what that may result in is less contemplated (or not contemplated at all) than what marvellous results it’s currently showcasing. It’s all along the lines of a few accidents and the odd death just like the bomb makers determined is less critical than say the mega benefits of driverless cars no matter what clues they point to.
Decide before the ride.
The big truth is mankind is too quick to decide. On both sides of the spectrum. Our rush to push forwards eagerly wins over our go steady to be ready side. We simply need to learn by our accelerated surge to meaning (dismissing or championing our inventions too soon) and instead really think about not just what we create, but how that creation could evolve. What we build is not the problem here, it’s what the mind sees it as that is. And only as!
This is not some Cybernet type wisdom from The Terminator film story. In fact I will merely finish with the phrase of golden wisdom uttered by Jeff Goldblum’s character Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, ‘Scientists were so preoccupied about whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should’.
And stopping to think is what mankind doesn’t do best.
I wonder if Artificial Intelligence has worked that out yet?
Millions of people all over the world would love to become a success.
Even with the best ideas and clever concepts virtually all fall by the way side.
Millions of people will never become a success even though plenty of them try.
Maybe you are one of these? Perhaps you have experienced wanting it all and getting none of it. After all there are countless intelligent, skilful, determined souls out there (just like you), so how come so few ever reach the heights of success? What is it that’s in the way of major success?
Amazingly it’s NOT a failure in planning or too large an amount of challenges to battle away nor any economic downturn or lack of viable support that pulled down the curtain on all their dreams. It was ONE simple factor that we all suffer from at one time or another. Or all the time.
Let’s take a look!
Put yourself in their shoes – a bright exciting project or product, even image to promote, and it’s a certainty that it’s brand new and the likes of it have never been on the scene before. Yeah, you’ve spent time checking it out; it’s got legs, there’s huge potential here, in fact the more you look, the more you can’t help but keep seeing it taking off. Months of months of inner excitement leads to going for it and working out how to bring it all about……and then!
You have to get started for success…..WRONG!
I have read book after book (especially the so called ‘Smart Thinking’ ones) and seen business guru social media post in their thousands all shouting up the key to creating success is…..TO JUST GET STARTED. To get on with building it, forming it, improving it, learning from it, expanding it….you get my drift.
Except….THAT WON’T WORK!!
It won’t work due to one factor and the No.1 reason most people will never be a success.
And here it is…….
They don’t believe that they will be a success. Personally believe about themselves. Sure, the idea is a sound, if not an incredible idea, it’s just that it’s THEM that is going to develop it. And that won’t ever happen because inside where it all counts a voice is telling them/reminding them that they aren’t good enough or clever enough or possess the ability or always have been a failure before yada, yada, yada. The list could go on. The BS list.
As soon as the actual cool, mega idea gets time for action to get it off the ground, in comes those personal negatives shouting, ‘FORGET IT!’ louder than a town crier announcing the King is dead.
Success is an inside job. True success means conquering our own lesser beliefs about ourselves and the destiny that we will experience being who we are. A confident, self-aware, self-accepting soul can scale mountains and overcome any obstacle because they just know they are enough.
So, if you want to be a success be the kind of person who will never give up……at breaking anything within you that ever tells you that you won’t make it. Face it, tackle it, bust it, and get rid of it once and for all.
When you do, you will start feeling one hell of a success anyway!
Do you feel all mixed up?
Feeling confused and unable to process your emotions? Or not sure what to believe and from who and what to do about it? More importantly struggling to make sense out of right and wrong inside you?
At times like these it’s easy to look outside yourself for the answers. Going over everything that’s happened and who is involved and acting all Sherlock Holmes in detecting how on Earth you have ended so mixed up and all over the place.
But, it’s not on the outside where you will discover the real reason your head is spinning. It’s on the inside. And that’s why you keep bouncing around feeling you know why one minute your emotions are on a rollercoaster ride and then the very next moment you’re brought right back to Earth without a clue. The good news is there’s nothing wrong with you. Your are just so trapped in a mixture of everyone else’s views, opinions, standards, and values that you can’t see the wood for the trees to be able to get to your own.
Knowing Yourself.
When you were growing up all manner of people gave you advice and insight on how to best live life – parents, family, authority figures like teachers or coaches, peer groups, friends, even your local community and society itself. Without realising it you absorbed this like a sponge without ever asking yourself how YOU believed life should be lived. YOUR beliefs, standards, values, and principles got put on the backburner meaning knowing yourself took a back seat.
Trouble is you can’t switch off those you own even if they are deep within you. They are part of you, they are your DNA, your blueprint as a human, your emotional centre. If you don’t open them up and connect to them they sit in the background whispering and bothering you but YOU NEVER KNOW WHY.
Suddenly situations develop and you don’t know what to make of them. What you have been taught simply doesn’t fit with what’s before your eyes and as you haven’t honoured (or perhaps were allowed to in the past!) your personal ethics and moral compass, you end up all mixed up unsure of which way up or down is or where to turn for good or bad.
A Beautiful Mix.
So unmix yourself. Now is the time to get back to you. To finally accept what matters most to you from standards to behaviours, choices to actions, feelings to have and the way to treat others. Knowing yourself is the best relationship you can ever have in your life. And the one that will solve pretty much any problem you could ever have.
Prioritise the right way to live and be that feels right within you. Take onboard the well meaning input of others since you were born, but it’s firmly all about your self awareness of right and wrong as a person living THEIR life that is the key.
Because your are the perfect mix of human emotions and preferences and viewpoints that make you…well, YOU.
And that’s the only person you ever have to be!!
‘Have you seen the latest blockbuster film?
That’s a question that goes round every office workplace or friends group every week. It might be the latest big Hollywood movie or the hot drama show drawing in the viewers on TV. It’s a leading question that most fall for.
If films or TV series aren’t your thing and you respond, ‘No, not seen it…and probably won’t’, you will be met with shocked looks and the classic retort, ‘You HAVEN’T seen? Everyone has watched it!’. Not everyone, you haven’t. You have become one of the people who don’t do things. Things that everyone else does because, well, everyone else, is too.
Now, that’s a challenge because us humans are tribal. It all began in our prehistoric times. With few human beings on the planet then survival depended on joint efforts. As a group they combined together to catch food, stay safe, form relationships, forge unity, and procreate. That ethic was forged into their mentality – the lone person is at risk, unsupported, out on their own, and their future is grim.
The backdrop has changed (there are no T-Rex’s roaming outside or woolly Mammoth’s to snare for dinner), but the principal remains to this day both mentally and emotionally. Be part of the group, or be exiled as a outcast never to be able to return, talked about and ridiculed. Which is why centuries later we all go to the same hit movie because everyone else is just like we all wore sabre tooth jewellery back in Neanderthal days as they were cool and popular. Our psychology is still prehistoric. We want to fit it, we want to be part of the tribe.
The Road Less Travelled.
Poet Robert Frost in his epic work, The Road Not Taken’, wrote the immortal lines, ‘Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference’. His poem is an allegory – the road is our lives and which route we choose to go ‘when we can’t see the wood for the trees’, i.e. the way ahead is not clear. Most do not take the road less travelled. The tribe walks the other path.
But Steve Jobs did in his thinking and design for the I-Phone. Dick Fosbury did in his jumping style in the high jump. Clarice Cliff did in her brand of art deco styled ceramics. And Pablo Picasso certainly did in his surreal art. They and many other outliers and renegades were people who DIDN’T do things others did. They never cared about mammoth hair as a fashion statement or T-Rex claws to eat their meals with. And they wouldn’t be in the cinema line to find out what the fuss is about at the movies or catching every episode of TV’s big ratings buster just so they can be part of the chat over the watercooler.
They are people who don’t do things others do, they do things they do. Backing that up they think how they do, see what they see, believe what they believe, and choose roads other don’t. It makes them happily individual in a tribe of one. If you look at most truly stand out people who have made and left a mark on this world, that’s what they have done too. They did only themselves. And that led to a blockbuster life that could be a movie itself!
How is it time in your life that you didn’t do what others do?
