Do you want to start creating the life you want?

Do you want have to a real, deeper relationship with both yourself and those you touch?

Personal Transformation coaching can help you bring all these areas into your conscious influence and put your future in your hands.

Most of us find our days either filled with chaos or bombarded with the demands of our peers and the media. So we run along doing the best we can with what we know, yet little changes.

But how much time do we spend on ourselves?

How much thought have we given to figuring out what is really important in our lives?

After all, there is not much point in chasing a million dollars if what we want is to be able to spend more time with our family and have deeper relationships.

Tell me you agree.

This is what personal transformation coaching is about.

Giving you an opportunity to sit down with someone who fully accepts where you are in your life and focuses on assisting you in discovering all there can be in your life.

If you want to experience the change this can bring to your life I am offering to coach you for free, no obligations, no catches.

Email me at

jarrod [at] warriordevelopment [dot] com

with:

1. What you want to create in who you are and what you experience in your life
2. Why you are committed to making this change

Why I am Offering Free Coaching

There are a few reasons why I am currently offering free coaching:

1. I want to bring the outward expression of my life more into line with personal development
2. I want to have a greater positive impact on peoples lives
3. I want to push along my transition from IT consulting to full time personal transformation coaching

To make all this happen I need to spend more time with all of you, assisting your journeys and gaining my own experience to further increase my abilities to create lasting positive change in peoples lives.

How Does It Work

Personal Transformation sessions are conducted weekly or fortnightly for about 1 hour.

The conversations are held over skype.

All you need is an hour of your time, skype and a commitment to being totally honest to yourself.

To setup a time email me at:

jarrod [at] warriordevelopment [dot] com

I look forward to joining you on your journey to a joyous future.

The results have been interesting, the majority of my speech fillers are now Japanese (ums and aahs are anos and eehhs) and I am excited 17% easier.

It begins to beg the question of, what does it mean to be a particular nationality?

I was born and raised in Australia but I consider myself to have a very different set of values to the majority of my friends. As I begin to copy the actions and mannerisms of Japanese people does that make me more Japanese?

But here is where I give up defining my nationality. Because I know that I can radically change all of my values if I want.

I can choose to be as polite and reserved as a Japanese, or as loud and in your face as an American. I can haggle as much as an Indian salesman if I really want to.

So I consider myself of a global nationality, by which I simply mean I can be whatever I want to be.

Choose whatever you want to be.

I’m proud to be Australian, Japanese, Chinese, American, African. They all have a history that is enormous compared to the amount of time that any of us have been alive.

We take it for granted that these are our preferences that we have naturally formed.

But are they really?

Who decided that I hate seafood and like ice-cream?

I have heard some people say that certain compounds are naturally preferred by humans but I seriously doubt this is a major contributor.

Rather I would say it is all in your head and you can decide what you like, or even choose not to dislike anything.

Before I went to India I never ate Indian food, but while there I decided to try whatever was around.

I noticed certain emotions and thoughts arise depending on the texture of the food but after discarding these I was fine to eat as much as I want.

I used to hate seafood and would actively avoid it. Now that I’m exploring Japanese culture I chose to eat it, often.

After discarding the initial urges to throw up I can say I like it.

The moral of this story is that you can choose exactly what you like and dislike. You just need to be the master of your mind and emotions.

The problem here is not taking a step back to consider what actual value we get out of our activities for the amount of time we put into them.

Often we see something and think, ‘oh I need to do that’ and we jump on it. But the truth is that a lot of things don’t actually need to be done, or atleast not right now.

A good example is making the desk in my room tidy. It is a mess and I can’t use it for anything other than piling things in piles which is what I do to great effect.

To tidy it up would probably only cost me an hour or so. But what value would it provide me?

I prefer to work and play in other parts of the house and the storage space on top of the desk is convenient. The space could be organised better for a few seconds time gain but that’s about it.

So really there is very little for me to gain from tidying it up. There are other things more worthwhile doing.

If my mindset was to just tidy up I would do it and the many other little side things that would be nice to have done. But this would come at a cost. All the other things that I would really like to do.

Prioritising Actions – The Software Development Approach

At work we identify things we would like a piece of software to do and then estimate how much effort it would take to do something.

In a day we know roughly how much time we have to do things. There a lot of things we would like to do(or think we should do) but the question we need to ask ourselves is what is worth most for our time.

Today at work I saw a bunch of features that would be very nice to have in the application but while we think they would be cool, there are a lot of other things that provide more value. So they will get done first.

In the end the piece of software will deliver the features of the greatest value. Simply because they were prioritised. A little bit of planning goes a long way.

Taking Priorities to your Life

Grab some index cards or tear up some paper.

Write on each card something you would like to do. Just write everything down that you think you should do. It is a short term activity, don’t spend more than a few minutes on it.

Now make a estimate on how long each activity would take, writing it down on the card. Easiest is hours or you can pick a baseline activity and say something will take x times longer than that (relative estimating).

Now for a day guess how many hours you will have for activities (or in the case of relative estimating, how many times you could do the baseline activity).

Now order the activities in the order of which you want most (or provides the most value), remembering that you only have so many hours available.

Knowing that there is a limit on what you can get done will force you to try to fit in what you want most into your day.

Anything that doesn’t fit into the day can be stored on a card to be re-prioritised tomorrow. So you don’t have to worry about tasks not getting done. They will simply get done when they provide enough value.

Using this approach keeps you getting the most out of your days, for less than 5 minutes of work.

But the good news is that there are a few things that we can do to take the busy-ness to a much saner level.

Realise the Free Time within Busy Time

When I took the picture of the scurrying pigeons I was struck by how similar they were to the hundreds of people busily crossing the intersection.

Where the pigeons were after bread thrown out before them, us humans were after filling the responsibilities that we had chosen for ourselves knowingly or not.

The first step to removing our busy-ness is to remove the busy mindset.

Within every activity there are a few seconds where it is totally fine to lean back on your chair, put your hands behind your head, relax and just smile.

You can take one of these moments whenever you want. The hard part is remembering that you can take them!

At the very least you should wear a watch that beeps every hour to remind you not to be busy.

What we are trying to do here is to take your mind away from always being busy.

You can set up whatever reminders you want but just make sure you relax and don`t think about being busy in every moment of the day.

Eliminate Being Busy for Busy-ness Sake

Often we give ourselves more responsibilities than we can handle simply because we feel we should fill any time with something ‘worthwhile’.

What happens is we end up devoting ourselves to things that actually aren’t that worthwhile or are actually worthwhile to someone other than ourselves.

Pretty soon we find out we have no time for anything else.

To get out of this trap you first need to identify all the activities that you do. Make a list of all your activities during the week.

Next to every item write down:

1. Who you are doing it for
2. How much time it takes up per week
3. Why you are doing it (What value does it bring)

Once you have got the items on your list you need to go back and read through things to see if anything jumps out at you as unnecessary in your life.

If the ‘why you are doing it’ column is a pretty weak reason and ‘you are doing it for’ someone else then this is a good candidate for dropping the activity or at the least delegating it to another person.

When looking back over the list you really need to be asking yourself ‘do I really need to be doing this?’. If the answer is anywhere near a ‘no’ then you want to try and move the responsibility away from yourself.

Focus your Own Time on What you Really Want

In your list there will be a bunch of things that you have identified as doing for yourself.

These items will generally fall into the categories of either entertainment, relaxation or goal fulfillment. Do a quick allocation of the tasks you do for yourself into these categories.

Now you want to ask yourself which category do you want to spend more time engaging in?

With this answer in mind you can make a value judgment on your activities and cut out the ones that you don’t feel that strongly about.

This is how you reallocate your own time to where you want it rather than where you happen to be spending it. By spending more time where you think it is worth more to you, you will feel as if you have more time to yourself. Simply because it is more valuable.

Wrapping up, the process is:

• Relax! There is always time for it
• Eliminate activities that provide little value
• Spend your own time on the things you really want

How do you detract yourself from being too busy?

One fire in particular has been identified as deliberately lit and a man arrested and charged for it.

Understandably people are very angry at this individual.

Watching the news in the town where this man was arrested I was stunned by a comment from one of the residents (probably around 50yrs old).

‘If I had him in my hands I would pour petrol on him and burn him’.

I wish people would not think like this. It just makes all of our lives worse.

The only way to move forward is to look for ways of improvement, not destruction.

Develop compassion and help those in need, that is how the world has to work.

I am writing this because quite a few people have asked me what is the background behind what I say. All I will ask is that you keep in mind that throughout the process I have been growing and transforming dramatically. So what I understand one day can radically change with new experiences, as it has done many times over the years.

Experience is exactly what I try to base my understandings on. Any other information that I take and present is purely to try and provide a context in which other people may be able to intellectually understand what I am saying.

But onto my history.

The Early Days

In high school I would have been classified as the smart nice guy. My interests were like everyone else, sport, games and social interactions.

But slowly I became troubled as I saw people consistently doing things that would make others unhappy.

One particular event I remember involved two friends of mine who were also good friends. One was teasing the other about a girl he liked and this broke out into a fist fight.

How could this happen? That two good friends could get physically violent, to go from friendship to hate in the matter of seconds.

Is this the fragility of happiness that humans are destined for?

It was at this stage that I began searching into the nature of happiness.

A Journey Begins

At the time the only avenue I knew of to explore this issue was psychology so I made sure I took those classes at school.

But psychology didn’t have any answers for me. It told me that people think differently because of their history and personality and that emotions and stress produced physical manifestations. However it did very little to answer the question of how to be happy and why people were not happy.

At the same time I started studying philosophy and religions from the east. In particular buddhism and its associated practices were of interest.

Along with my own investigations I started to come to the conclusion that all the pain and suffering that takes us away from happiness is caused by our thoughts and emotions. That only we are to blame.

While this in itself was a good realisation I could not figure out any way to create lasting change in my thoughts and emotions, in order to maintain happiness.

I tried out meditation and found the experiences great but within an hour after meditating I would be back to pretty much the same state as always with thoughts and emotions running amuck inside me.

Finally some Progress

While researching the general topic on the web I happened across the following site: www.gnosticweb.com

The site offered free online 9 week courses in self-discovery and so I figured I may as well sign up and have a read seems what I currently had wasn’t working for me. At the time I was still very hesitant at the word ’spiritual’ so I was quite skeptical of the site.

However after working on each of the new techniques presented each week I found what I was looking for. A way to really deal with those thoughts and emotions.

Through those techniques I discovered a freedom I could always access if I was willing and a level of peace and happiness that I did not know existed.

So when you read this blog, most of what you hear from me comes from what I have experienced by practicing the techniques from that website. Here I only discuss the beginning of those techniques because they are the basis for change.

If you are interested in learning more about what I talk about I would recommend you go to the website, signup for one of the free courses and make use of the course forums where people with much more experience than myself are around.

The next round of courses actually starts on August 24th (9 week courses) so if you sign up very soon you can get in this round. Otherwise the site also sells some book versions of the online courses which take the material a little further but obviously lack the interactivity.

For those who asked I hope this provides some information on the background that has formed my current understanding.

Just letting everyone know why I disappeared. I just arrived in India(bangalore) practically yesterday for training in my new software consulting job. I will be here for around 6 weeks so my posting will be a bit erratic as training is quite hectic.

On the plus side I thought changi airport in singapore was pretty awesome

Background on Awareness

In my last post I described awareness as the following process:

You observe the external world by letting all the sights, sounds, smells etc enter you on their own.

You observe the internal world by listening for the occurrence of any thoughts (in the mind) and feeling for any emotions (in the body, generally the chest).

You have to look both internally and externally at the same time. Whenever a thought or emotion appears you let it go and go back to observing.

So essentially you spend each moment paying attention to your physical senses, at the same time as listening and feeling inside yourself.

I try to apply this in every moment. The only time I have found it to not really be possible is when I am actively (concentrated, deliberate) thinking (using the mind). However I can be aware between these deliberate thoughts.

So in every moment throughout my day I try to push my attention to take more in from my physical senses and also be alert to internal thoughts and feelings. That is how you apply awareness throughout your day, in every moment just push yourself to use it.

Summary of Observations

I found out very quickly that there was no way I was going to be able to write down all the thoughts and feelings I saw (I already knew this offcourse). I have only listed about 200 thoughts/feelings and I stopped writing them down when I got off the train at about 4pm, so about 7 hours worth. The things noted down are generally abbreviations of a couple of thoughts. There are heaps(thousands) of thoughts I saw but could not write down because I was driving etc.. Consequently I forgot them before I could write them down. I found myself spending maybe 33% of my time writing down the thoughts I saw. Way too long!

Some observations:

• Less thoughts/feelings occur when you are concentrated on an activity
• Lots of thoughts occur about other thoughts you have seen when you try to watch them. This is the biggest trap that stops you from being aware
• A lot of thoughts repeat themselves at different times of the day
• Thoughts of ‘major’ events in the future or past often occur (such as when I was going to meet my friend I kept having imaginary conversations with him in my head)
• Bright ideas and constructive ramblings/daydreaming always take me from being in awareness where real peace and happiness is found. They are no good.

To Ari and Evelyn who asked for the journal: If this is not the style of journal (different focus) you were after please let me know in the comments and I will try to provide extra information. In each moment I always try to push to be aware no matter what task I’m doing, so all that is left is me doing a task and being aware or a thought/feeling being present.

I hope this is useful.

Awareness Log

Legend:

• Small headings indicate different major activities in the day

• Italic text represents a emotion or a thought (or what the thought was thinking
• Regular text represents a minor physical event, or a note on something

WAKING UP

• I wake up and close my eyes to try and remember my dreams clearer. I keep falling back to sleep.
  
• Thoughts(T) on how to write journal keep appearing
  
• T on checking blog statistics
  
• Emotion(E) Lazy towards getting started writing down thoughts
• T about how short time it has been since starting writing down thoughts and how impossible it is to write them all down
  
• T running commentary on what I’m doing
  
• T I’ll get nothing done if I keep writing these down
  
• T about how to present this data
  
• T that the same thoughts keep popping up
  
• T about not remembering thoughts
  
• E fear of other people reading this
  
• T need to read book for work

SHOWERING

• Notice the shower head is leaking
  
• E fear that telling mum will stress her
  
• T not going to remember all these thoughts
  
• I push extra hard to be in the present and a wave of peace appears
• I see the shower head again
• T about mums reaction
  
• T about meeting my friend today and they will think of this
  
• T daydreaming about meeting a blogger in randomly in the city
  
• E Annoyed at not being able to wear best clothes today as am saving them for the trip

ON COMPUTER CHECKING BLOGS AND EMAIL

• T concern about best way to respond to a comment
  
• I see someone linked to one of my blog articles in their post
  
• E fear in chest
  
• T what did they say about it
  
• I click the wrong button
  
• E annoyance flares
  
• E swaying with sound of the washing machine
  
• Trying on new pants, I see there is still a pin in the leg
  
• E relief that I saw it before putting leg in
  
• T to tell mum about pin
  
• T about telling mum after thinking of telling mum
  
• E Nervous when being shown some sewing tips
  
• Looking at nowdothis.com E confusion T no logging in E negativity towards it T Can I use it
  
• T I’m cold
  Push for awareness, feeling the wood of the seat. I feel a greater sense of peace
  
• T Interesting how when I focus on being more aware, I feel greater peace
  
• T Oh I have to buy deodorant
  
• E Nervous as I step over things on floor
  
• T Thought about seeing nervousness
  
• T Should I have water or juice?
  
• T Is that my glass from before?
  
• T Haven’t been many thoughts since I started reading and scouring the blogs
  
• T urging me to write plan for software idea
  
• T Should practice martial arts before grading
  
• E nervous about starting new job on monday
  
• E fear not finishing reading pre-reading book
  
• T I should read now, have I got time
  
• E urge to go for a walk to relax
  
• T See how crafty emotions are, the very stress is trying to tell me how to relax
  
• T I have less thoughts going on when I am busy
  
• T When should I eat lunch? How much time do I have
  
• T Your tripping out man
  
• T laughing at last thought
  
• E ‘happiness’ of laughing
  
• T Check train timetable
  
• T Don’t have to start work till 10 on monday
  
• E nervous about starting work
  
• T This takes up so much time writing down thoughts
  
• T Should be calling these automatic thoughts
  
• E Annoyance at always saving after I type
  
• T How many am I gonna have at end of the day
  
• T I should eat
  
• T Haven’t checked the train table yet
  
• T Ah going around in circles
  
• T That is the 3rd phone call in a minute
  
• T Say hello to brother when he walks in
  
• T Wonder how many blog views I have
  
• (without checking) E Sadness T I don’t have many
  
• T I wonder if my adds are earning anything
  
• T Oh yeah, train timetable
  
• E Very faint disgust at seeing a notice saying HTML loading
  
• T Tries to justify disgust
  
• T This is a better site for getting timetables from
  
• T Have to scroll so far down!
  
• T Doesn’t make sense
  
• T Oops I made a mistake
  
• T Mmm Salsa
  
• T I have to fill in my grading forms
  
• E Embarrassment showing mum a friend doing kenbu
  
• T http://www.arielbravy.com/enlightenment/defending-belief-systems/ makes a good point about not being able to exactly express experience
• T Blog views are steadily increasing

DRIVING TO TRAIN STATION

• T about different ways to write down thoughts
  
• I slow down as I see a potential problem with traffic up ahead, it clears.
• Further up the road, at the last minute a car swerves out in front of me and I have to break hard
  
• E Anger flares
  
• I push out of anger
  
• E Annoyance arrives watching the driver in my mirror
  
• T of anger towards him
  
• Breaking free of these thoughts and feelings I’m meeting with a wonderful feeling of peace
  
• T hope I make it through these lights
  
• Train is about to arrive at station, I’m still in the carpark
  
• T oh well I left enough time such that I can catch the next train
  
• I pay for my ticket with a whole bunch of spare change, somehow I manage to casually get on that train just before it leaves

ON TRAIN

• Man sits directly opposite me in a largely empty train
  
• E fear flares then anger
  
• T annoyed thoughts at the man
  
• E laughter at funny sign (the emotion is coupled with an attachment to ‘that is so true’
  
• T how can I investigate the nature of laughter or the desire to laugh
  
• See a car outside window
  
• T they are driving on the wrong side of the road, oh, no they aren’t
  
• T telling friend how much I’ve written and how little it is in comparison to all the thoughts seen
  
• T I feel more peaceful around nature
  
• T she is cute
  
• T It is wonderful to be around nature
  
• T Should I edit out any of these?
  
• Hear a beggar sounding voice from behind in the train
  
• E fear of voice
  
• T daydreaming about future conversation with friend
  
• T that car is gonna hit the other one (it misses)
  
• T how many lines are on a page?
  
• T I can’t write down every thought I see
  
• E laziness
  
• T about buying ticket for brother at next station
  
• T wonderful view of the city
  
• T Did they misspell that bit of graffiti?
  
• T that thought will get a laugh
  
• T see how many thoughts are to do with other writen down thoughts
  
• T will I ever be free?
  
• T Was that their thought or mine?
  
• T Will they think I’m crazy?
  
• T about employees (who I haven’t met) of my new job starting soon
  
• T thinking about future conversation with friend
  
• T are we almost at the station yet?
  
• T not really that many thoughts here on paper
  
• T thinking of introduction to this post
  
• T that sun is very bright and annoying
  
• T about future conversation with friend
  
• T not that many thoughts occuring at the moment
  
• T arriving at the station, must write faster
  
• T I can’t write down thoughts without my A4 book
  
• T hurry and pack away book, getting off
  
• I get out my pocket notepad so I can keep writing down thoughts
  
• T about being so cool being to switch easily to a small notepad

GETTING OFF TRAIN WALKING TO MEET FRIEND

• T Do I know her?
  
• E fear walking between busy crowd
  
• T should I buy tickets here?
  
• E disgust of person throwing up
  
• T + E Area is so busy
  
• T He looks familiar
  
• Some smokers walking in front of me
  
• T I hate the smell of smoke
  
• I have trouble finding the right street
  
• T lucky I caught the early train
  
• Walking along street noticing the architecture and other senses I’m filled with peace and joy appears, I smile
  
• T no starbucks here
  
• A pigeon flies low and towards me
  
• E fear of being hit by the pigeon
  
• E fear of talking about blog
  
• E fear of talking to boss

DURING CONVERSATION

• Friend brings up the topic of what else I’m doing apart from the new job
  
• E fear of what friend will think of blog
  
• Friend leaves and talking to boss for job finishing up
  
• E strong fear keeps occurring in chest while listening to boss praise me

WALKING BACK TO TRAIN STATION

• Walking back towards the train and pay more attention to my senses, a great sense of peace fills me and I can’t help but smile
  
• T Need to send my email to my friend
• E fear of guy walking, swaying in my direction with a bottle of something in his hand

ON TRAIN AGAIN

• I see a building under construction
  
• T about why certain elements of the structure are the way they are
  
• T about what I recently read in a software engineering book
  
• E desire to be loved
  
• T poor girl (in front of me) has a cold
  
• T thinking about hypothetical situations
  
• T about previous conversation with friend
  
• T daydreaming about hypothetical situations
  
• T daydreaming more
  
• T that is a cool shirt
  
• T my station is next

AFTER TRAIN

• T about software application ideas
  
• T daydream about potential logos
  
• T about new blog
  
• T about new blog designs

Afterthoughts

See how crazy our days are?

Filled with daydreams of the future and irrational fears. All of which take us away from peace and happiness.

This is why I stress the need to try to be aware, so we can break free of this.

“Come see me, I have a gift for you”

His eyes widened, he could not believe that teacher would offer him a gift. Of all the people surely he was the least important and he had done nothing useful to be rewarded for. It made no sense and yet it was clearly spelled out in the scroll.

With his teachers voice in his head he managed to haul himself to the door of his teachers training ground. He knew that in order to see his teacher he would have to pass through all the other students explaining why he was there. He decided his best bet was to act confident and hope the students would accept his purpose.

Puffing up his chest he entered and the eyes of a thousand soldiers followed him. He tried to be unfazed and walk confidently. Before he left home he had put on several layers of armour to make him appear to be self-sufficient and confident. He did his best to use them, swinging his arms and striding consistently to make a solid clanking sound.

Reaching the guards he pronounced that he was here to see the teacher and to receive a gift. Most of the guards ignored him, busy focusing on their own appearance but the two foremost glared at him defiantly. They responded harshly, interrogating him on every detail regarding his leaving the school and re-emphasising his own insignificance.

Word by word his adorned confidence was shattered and his voice began to quiver. Soon he could take no more and the guards laughing began to take off his armour. He fled to the side, trying to hide under a bench. If he could make himself small and unseen then he thought he might find some respite.

No longer were the guards hands taking away his armour, however now it was a mass of invisible hands taking off his armour. No matter how well he hid he was still grasped at and his armour was practically falling off.

Now his armour was gone and he curled up wanting to disappear, truly he felt he did not deserve to be in this place of great warriors. The hands continued to rip at his skin, they tore away at him until they felt like they were ripping at his brain and heart.

But then he noticed something unusual, there was something inside him that the hands could not touch. It felt like a small perfect pearl in the deepest recesses of himself. The hands scratched at it and yet they could not make contact.

He focused on this newly found center and discovered it emitted some what of an aura when he paid attention to it. Embracing it as his core he swam in what felt like an infinite source of energy. The hands still ravaged his body and yet dwelling in the core he found an untouchable permanency.

Moving out from his hiding spot he held nothing except this tiny pearl. Feeling incredible pain through his body he turned back to the guards. They laughed at him in his ravaged state and launched their spears at him among curses and insults.

With the increased threat he braced for the pain that he had always shied away from in his life. The spears approached and he grasped the pearl with everything he had.

The spears crashed into his body with incredible force and then proceeded to fall harmlessly aside. Any remaining armour on his body was destroyed and the force of the spears had blown away any place to hide.

Seeing the incredible events taking place he trusted himself totally to power of the pearl at his core and marched towards the guards. Everything that had once caused him pain still persisted, but it no longer hurt.

The guards ran out of spears, even if they had more it would not have mattered. They moved aside and he thrust open the doors to his teachers room, embracing the warm gentle light that shone upon him.

Walking forward he surveyed his teacher, who smiled gently as he always had.

“You said you had a gift for me?”

Contemplating his student the teachers smile increased.

“It would appear that you have already received it”

The student was stumped for a moment, until he appreciated the power of the pearl within him. Now he knew that no matter how big the fear of impending pain was he could proceed with confidence, shying away from none.

He stepped up and embraced his teacher gratefully.