True Reasons

I've had many "lightbulb moments", not the least of which came from a contribution by someone on one of the training calls I hosted for the Network Marketing company which  I was involved with from 2008 – 2012. This post is adapted from one I made to that company's forum back in 2011.
 
I've often heard it said that we need to have a need or a desire, a powerful reason to keep us going when the going gets tough.

But he used a different expression - he called it a TRUE REASON.

Now that set me thinking because I've always had difficulty defining my "Why" - sure I could come up with vague ideas like "I want to make a difference, or I'd like to help people start their own business, but try as I might I simply couldn't hit the nail on the head. I could say I wanted a new car, or a home nearer the sea [our favourite beach is just 2 miles away  ], my own transport museum , a huge model railway, but these were all "nice to haves", they weren't burning desires. I couldn't come up with a real personal desire, the thing that keeps you focused no matter what is going on around you.The following day I was re-reading a book by John Kalench, and came across a passage in which he defined his why - and I was suddenly able to define my TRUE REASON. In fact I could define FIVE TRUE REASONS.

So here goes, the headings are John Kalench's , although not in the same order, but the words are mine

1. Creativity

I love being creative and I love expressing that creativity. Expressing that creativity is the key to my own personal growth, and I love encouraging others to empower themselves. When I allow my creativity to flow I free my soul, and express my true self in the world. When I stifle that creativity I am no longer true to myself. I love making something out of nothing. I love problem solving, and I love helping others overcome their own challenges, not by providing my solutions, but by helping them find and implement their own solutions.

2. Recognition / Acknowledgement

I love recognition, receiving it, but mostly giving it. When I receive recognition I know that I am actually making a difference in other peoples lives, that what I am doing is worthwhile. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than to give someone recognition for a job well done. Often you can almost see them grow in stature, self confidence and self esteem as a result.

3.Trust

Honesty, Integrity, Transparency, Loyalty, Friendship

John Kalench placed some of the above under the heading of Trust - I've added a couple more myself.

If you want someone to be completely honest with you - they have to trust you
If you want someone to be completely open with you - they have to trust you

The same applies to all the other qualities above.

If you want someone to trust you, you have to trust them.

It's a risk, but in my view a risk worth taking.

If you want loyalty and friendship, first you have to be a loyal friend

As John Kalench wrote : Only in relationships where everyone is trusting of one another is the mind free to create.

4. Contribution

I want to make a difference in peoples lives. A BIG difference in a lot of peoples lives.

5. Money

Perhaps there are some people who, like John Kalench, would put money at the top of the list. I include it, because in this day and age it is virtually impossible to achieve anything without it. But when is enough, enough ? For me money is simply an energy, a tool which enables me to operate here on this planet.

I firmly believe that if I allow my creativity to flow, recognise and reward all those who share my passion, and help them build their dreams, if I build honest, trusting, open relationships with these people, and focus on making a contribution, rather than on my own survival, then I will always have enough to meet my needs. For me that is true abundance.

Just after the death of Howard Hughes, the millionaire, someone asked, "How much did he leave ?" The reply ? "All of it !!" 

So, there you have it my FIVE TRUE REASONS ....

Now to restate my goals, and my commitments for the next 90 days.

The company has changed - the True Reasons haven't

Now I'm 65 !!

So there we have it ! 65 today ! The next stage of my journey begins !!
 

 Fifty years ago today, Jet Harris and Tony Meehan topped the charts with “Diamonds”  My mum and dad presented me with a Dansette record player, which would only play 33 r.p.m. L.P.’s and 45 r.p.m and 78 r.p.m. singles. Unbelievably it cost my dad more than a full-time weeks wages !! Today we can buy a CD system for less than a day at minimum wage. How times change !

 But, having said that, the trusty Dansette served me well for nearly fifteen years. Today's bargain mini-hifi's barely last beyond the guarantee period.

A few months later The Beatles, and the Mersey sound, would change the face of the U.K. music charts forever. Each week my dad would come home with a selection of last years records from a local electrical store. Among them was a song by Cliff Richard ...

The Young Ones shouldn't be afraid

To live, love, while the flame is strong 

Cos , we may not be the Young Ones very long ...

Prophetic words. Seems to me that the angry young men of the nineteen-sixties, became the grumpy old men of the twenty-teens. Looking back, nostalgia certainly isn't what it used to be. 

The following year Harold Wilson made his "white heat of technology speech, and I started work in a bank. Like many of my fellow "baby-boomers" leaving school that year I had a choice of careers, and job opportunities. The big selling point of the job with the bank was that if I kept my nose clean, worked hard, and passed all my exams, I could be earning £1000.00 a year. Yes, you read it right, One thousand pounds a year !! Like I said, times have changed. 

By 1969 the bank was looking to replace it's mechanical accounting systems with a computer. To everyone's amazement (including mine) I passed an aptitude test, and joined an elite band of analyst/programmers working on an I.B.M. 360 / 40 , and so began my love / hate relationship with computers and technology which has persisted all my working life.

Now  that brings back memories !  With decimalization fast approaching , programmers like myself were at a premium, and I was headhunted to work for a mail-order company with a 50% increase in salary, and as I was getting married that year, it was an offer I couldn't refuse ! A year later with the decimalization changes complete, the bubble burst, and programmers were ten  penny. I changed careers to accountancy, where I spent the next forty years.

Technology promised so much, we were told that we could look forward to full employment, shorter working hours, increased leisure time, as the computers took over much of the mundane drudgery of our working lives. Well, technology has certainly changed our lives, not just the way we work, but the way we play and socialize. It has helped fuel the "take, make, break, throw away" cycle of cyclical consumption , which in turn has driven our boom and bust economy of the past forty years. 

Seems to me that technology promised to take us to San Jose, but finished up taking us to San Quentin. Mobile telecomunications can connect us instantly to anyone, anywhere in the world - providing we can get a signal ! We have become so dependent on this technology that a new word has been coined ... nomophobia "the fear of being out of mobile phone contact" - yes, seriously ! http://tinyurl.com/bunk6je

Computers too have changed out of all recognition - compare the latest technology with that I.B.M 360/40 from 1970. As an American author friend of ours wrote in his latest book "the world's new technologies have placed more information at the fingertips of a 15-year old today than that to which the President of the United States had a few years ago." For me the snag has been that the more powerful the devices are the smaller they get.Miniaturisation has become almost an obsession. What a shame they haven't found a way to miniaturize my fingers :-)

Technology has revolutionized every aspect of our lives. And that is just one of the things that have changed, ever more rapidly it seems, over the past fify years. We live in an information age. But as Einstein wrote - "Information is not knowledge" To become knowledge - information must be combined with experience - and that is something we "silver surfers" can offer - life experience.

We've lived through the immediate post-war austerity years of the 1950's, through the Swinging Sixties, the inflation of the 1970's, the Thatcher years of the 1980's, the boom and bust years of the 1990's, and the economic crisis of the 2000's, and, it seems,  we are back again in the austerity years, facing the threat of a triple dip recession. We've seen the cycle go full circle - and we have a lot to share.

But we "baby-boomers" can learn too from the children of the Eighties and Nineties.

I'm going to close this post with a quote from David McNally ...

"Success begins the moment we understand that life is about growing; it is about acquiring the knowledge and skills we need to live more fully and effectively. Life is meant to be a never-ending education, and when this is fully appreciated, we are no longer survivors, but adventurers. Life becomes a journey of discovery, an exploration into our potential. Any joy or exuberance we experience in living are the fruits of our willingness to risk, our openness to change, and our ability to create what we want for our lives"

In my next post I'm going to look at the reason - the true reason - why I have started out on this journey ...

Mitakuye Oyasin

Mike Pendragon