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More than 5000 years ago, Chinese Medical practitioners realised that everything is comprised of energy. They called it Qi. Modern complementary health practitioners call it a variety of things: Universal Energy, Qi, Chi, Source etc. Read more…

When was the last time that you told your partner, children, parents and other loved ones that you love them?

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our work and neglect our personal relationships. For the self-employed, this is a real danger; we spend as much time as we can chasing and delivering work and forget the reasons why we are doing it. It’s so easy to neglect the personal; growth in the business is little satisfaction if there’s no one to share it with, if our “significant others” leave us because they feel neglected. Read more…

Have you ever paused to consider how much your personal growth can be really stymied by guilt and forgiveness issues(or often a lack of forgiveness, to be more accurate)? Why? Because they suggest to us that beauty does not lie within us, but in others. It urges us to listen to voices outside of our own and in many cases, to give away our personal power to the owners of those voices. Going further, it even suggests that other people know more about us than we do! Read more…

What’s stopping you from achieving personal growth? Michael Jordan recently said that the only thing that held him back was himself and there’s a lot of truth in his statement. So let’s have a look at the ten most common reasons for our not achieving what we want to. Read more…

One of my favourite films is Patch Adams starring Robin Williams. If you haven’t seen it, I really recommend that you borrow or buy it as it contains so many lessons that you can use for your personal growth.  And it’s not an airy fairy, pie in the sky work of fiction. It’s biographical – Hunter (Patch) Adams is a real person. Read more…

Are you really happy with things as they were before the economic downturn or are you looking for something different? Do you want to stagnate or are you prepared for a period of personal growth and societal change and even, perhaps,change on an even wider level?

I’m hoping that one of the results of the downturn will be a desire amongst many people to paddle through shift creek,  and come out into the new waters of compassionate capitalism. This requires personal growth, being prepared to let go of old habits, as well as change on a more national and even global scale. And the social media tools could play a big part in mobilising this. It is widely accepted that the Obama’s election marked, amongst many things, the first election where social media tools were used to contact voters. Wouldn’t it be cool if the population were to now use those same tools to inform politicians of what we want! Read more…

Think of someone who you consider to be an expert at communication. What makes them so good? Do they speak without hesitation? Do they have a good grasp of their subject? Is their delivery polished? Whilst all of those are important, I would suggest that there are two things an effective communicators will demonstrate: clarity and simplicity.

On  Wednesday I looked at material simplicity.  Today I want to use the same principles to look at the importance of focusing on simplicity of communication. Read more…

As I wrote here, my wife and I are going through an exercise decluttering our appartment. It’s a small appartment and having lived here for over 5 years, even though we don’t buy much, it all accumulates. However, the uncluttering is only part of the exercise. It’s part of our personal growth in the last few years that we also want to turn our backs on the mad consumerism that have dominated the west for the last 20 or 30 years, which means a complete rethink of our philosophy about posessions.

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On February 17th, I wrote a post about the economic recession suggesting that we’re asking the wrong question. In it I suggested that instead of asking when the recession should end and when will things get back to normal, we should instead be asking ourselves  “What message is this crisis giving us about the need to change?” Many thanks to all of those who sent me messages of support about the post – this post explores the question further.

It’s extremely easy to point the finger at the bankers and financial industry and blame them for the economic downturn. In an interview earlier this week, Mr Varley, the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank suggested that there was little that the government could do to make life “difficult” for bankers and he went on to say that it was ‘very unlikely’ that what he described as “the fundamental competitiveness of Barclays would ever be threatened by the decisions of the Government”. How arrogant and out of touch with public sentiment can one get? Read more…

When I think back on life, I realise that the times when I’ve really thrived, when life was exciting, was when I decided to march to the rhythm of my own drum.  The times I’ve felt stifled, on the other hand, were when I conformed to everyone else’s view of the norm.

This has taught me that whether they think they can, or think they can’t, everyone has the ability to be innovative. It just takes time, practice and daring. The box of crayons in kindergarten were not limited to those who possessed potential; because the truth is, everybody has potential for personal development. You are not stuck with who you are now, unless you choose to be. Read more…