Do you dislike posh people?

Do you ever find yourself thinking, “silly posh person” or “rich bugger” or “that’s just too extravagent”?  If you do then, guess what, I bet you are poor!  Certainly you aren’t rich.

I just commented on someone’s new website design and said “looks posh” and they said they didn’t know if that was good or bad.  I said I meant it in a good way. 

If you feel negatively towards people who have money (whether they earned it through hard work or just inherited it or won it) then how will you feel about yourself when you are rich?  In fact you are sabotaging your own path to richness by having these feelings because you are telling the Universe that you don’t want to be like that.

Galling as it may be in some cases, it’s best to think positively about rich people.  Try to ignore the celbrities that maybe don’t carry themselves with much respect and focus on those that do – or better still focus on hugely successful business people and see their good points.

When I see a really nice car, I don’t think “rich bugger, they don’t deserve it” or something – I think “nice car, I could see myself driving that”.

How do you dress?  Like a hippy, like a surfer dude, like a farmer, like a chav? Do your shoes and jeans have (genuine) holes in?  What message are sending out the Universe?  How to you feel when you dress like this?  Rich … or not? Maybe if you can feel rich AND eccentric then that’s OK (I think that’s how I feel )  So if you see someone with nice clothes on who looks smart, don’t think down on them, think “Yeah, they are probably well off, just like I AM” (present tense remember).

In the Indie game industry, many people say that you should make games for “art’s sake” and not focus on making money.  Guess what?  They haven’t made much money (if any) from their games (with perhaps a few RARE possible exceptions).  At the moment I’m focusing on making money from games so that I can have a stable career (I still *enjoy* making my games and using the best of my abilities to make them very polished) – later on I hope to be able to get more “arty” when I’m more established.  Who says that you can’t do BOTH - make games for money *and* art’s sake – anyway?

I’ve been polishing the car

Last Sunday I spent a long time thoroughly washing and polishing the car (and cleaning out the rubbish from inside) and today I did it again - even though the car was pretty clean already.  To some people this seems crazy, but I had already spent a morning with the family, had a nice bath, had a great lunch in the garden and been out for a lovely walk.  The kids were out with their grandma and Helen was in the bath, so it was perfect timing.

It actually takes quite a long time to do and is quite aerobic, especially the polishing part, so I view it as good exercise; plus I’m outdoors in the sun which is great.  It’s also meditative because I don’t think about anything else except doing a really good job with the task at hand – this approach can be applied to all areas of your life for amazing results i.e. stop multi-tasking and start really focusing on what you are doing so that you do it well and properly!

Also for me the end result is important.  I look at the car and see it glinting in the sun and feel proud of the good job that I did.  Then I like to drive the family around in it to do simple things like get an ice cream at West Bay or just potter into town etc.

When I drive around in my car and it’s clean and polished, I think that it looks pretty good.  It’s not to everyone’s taste, but that doesn’t matter; *I* think that it looks good and it makes *me* feel affluent.  Feeling affluent is an important step towards being affluent.  Driving a posh car would make a lot of people feel affluent, so would other things like wearing nice clothes and/or jewelery, having a newly decorated home, going on an expensive holiday, eating out at good restaurants etc.  The list is endless depending on who you are.

My car is not exactly posh, but when it’s clean I feel good about it.  It’s the same with my house, sure the interior could (and will be improved) but when it’s tidy I feel good about it.  These feelings tell the Universe that I like feeling affluent and it will bring you more things and situations to help you feel more affluent.  If someone says “nice car” or “nice house” to you, does that make you feel good or do you go “yeah it’s OK but …”?  I accept the compliment and say “yeah it’s great” thus reinforcing the message to myself (and the Universe).

The next step is to hire someone else, a professional, to valet my car and make it amazing.  Then I can feel affluent a) because of the nice car and b) because I can easily afford to get someone to spend a whole day pampering my car.  This may not be your thing, but how would you feel if someone cleaned your house from top to bottom, or decorated it, or tidied your garden, or measured you and made you some nice clothes, or cooked you a wonderful meal, or gave you a massage, or did your hair etc?  Hopefully some of these things would make you feel afflluent so why not go and get one of them done today!

Do you get fed up of waiting?

Hey if you get fed up waiting for a few minutes try looking around you and seeing “abundance” in everything, like maybe plants, or cars, or people or fag butts, whatever it doesn’t matter. Let the Universe know that you appreciate abundance and then you’ll get more of it.  You are also training your mind that there are no limits and that you can tap into and harness infinite potential.

If that ain’t your bag try deep breathing right down into your gut (“centre”).  As you breathe out imagine emptying your body of toxins and mind of negativity and feel all worries leave your system. Then when you breath in feel healing energy revitalise your organs and mind and spirit. Repeat. You can do this fairly subtly if you are worried about looking funny.

Or if that ain’t your bag, think about some goal that you are working towards and visualise it done and looking good and you feeling happy, and then maybe work out some possible paths to get there or what action to take next.

Don’t Complain!

Wow, I’ve certainly been away from this blog for a while, but I’ve not stopped my continued development and studies in self-realisation and intention manifestation.  There is *sooo* much to write about, but I’ll have to do that over the next few weeks.  For now I have a snippet that I actually just posted on someone else’s blog:

“Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody”
- Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin said many classic things that are timeless and that are particularly relevent to the “new age positive thinking” crowd.  I think some of his quotes are on the secret: http://www.buythesecret.co.uk/ (yes that’s me in the middle), they certainly crop up enough in the type of books I read and the inspirational emails that arrive e.g. quote of the day.

It’s actually quite hard not to speak ill of people and takes practice.   I’ve not mastered it yet.  Another similar thing is to not complain about anything, try not complaining about *anything* for just one week, or even one day.  Don’t complain about your health, the weather, this person, that event, this price, global warming, Iraq, whatever.  Catch yourself about to complain and stop.  Someone once said that when you complain to someone about something, they are not really interested, they are just waiting for their turn to complain about their thing!  It’s just negative energy.  Most news is negative, even articles written in newspapers/magasines by “witty” journalists are just sarcastic and negative and therefore of little use to me. 

As Arnie says: “I’ll be back”.  In fact I was recently in Austria doing some Aikido training and we actually trained in the same gym that Arnie trained in.  There were all these photos of him and we met his trainer!  However, I really regret that after the Aikido session I didn’t say “I’ll be back” to them, as most likely I will be visiting again one day – mind you, they’ve probably heard it all before a million times…

2006: My Achievements, Mistakes and Goals

I was recently tidying some virtual folders on my PC and I found a document that I made at the end of 2005 listing my achievements of the year, my mistakes and my goals for 2006. It was fun to see that my achievements are greater this year, lots of my goals were achieved and others sort of half were, and some of mistakes were repeated (oh no!) etc

So I thought that it might be good to do the same for 2006 and encourage others to do the same because this time of year is a good time to reflect and make new plans.

I wouldn’t advise making the list huge, just a few things that seem major to you right now. Also listing the mistakes is not to beat yourself up about them, but rather to say “OK, I’m aware of that, and I’m going to learn from it and do something else (hopefully better) next time”.

So without further ado, here is my list:

2006 Summary

Achievements

1) Released Easter Bonus, Wizard of Oz and Holiday Bonus.
2) Learnt BlitzMax and made a game framework that is very useful to me and has sold well.
3) Got my games security wrapped and on my own website with proper download/buy buttons etc.
4) Had a great summer spending lots of time outside and with my family and not working too hard.
5) Made leaps and bounds in my self-realisation/self-improvement studies.
6) Spend less unproductive time on forums
7) One of my Aikido students who I’ve been training for 5 years got a black belt.
8 ) Project managed two bathrooms being gutted and completely refitted in my house.
9) Maintained my good health and attitude.

Mistakes

1) Could have spent more time relaxing and with my family.
2) Did Easter Bonus in Blitz Plus and with good but non-flashy “modern” graphics.
3) Oz took too long and I put myself under huge pressure to get Holiday Bonus ready on time. I’m not doing that again!
4) Didn’t spend enough time making music, reading or playing games.
5) Whilst I enjoyed being a full-time Indie game programmer this year, it hasn’t made me much money at all – but this is just the beginning.

Goals for 2007

1) Continued improvement in my self-realisation studies.
2) Turn my self-realisation co-venture into a huge success.
3) Spend more time relaxing, doing my hobbies (reading/music/games) and with my family.
4) Make some top 10 portal games that make lots of money so that I can continue in the same career.
5) Make some games that I *really* want to make (platformers/shooters etc), even if it’s just for fun.
6) Become Rich (I’m already happy so I don’t need to worry about that one).

Good luck to all of in 2007, I hope that you move closer to, or achieve, your dreams!

Give and you shall receive

Wow, two months since my last post!  I have actually loads I could write about (I keep noting down cool topics) but I don’t seem to have found the time to blog recently.  Lots has happened including me finishing my Wizard of Oz game, plus tons of really cool stuff (I’ll try and post some more stuff soon!).

Anyway, this is a quick post to say that I’ve really been noticing that the more money you spend, the more gifts/discounts and unexpected money you get!  I keep a chart of all the money/gifts etc that I have manifested each month (not including money from work) and I have been averaging around £500 per month since May 2006, which is when I started the chart.  However, in the last two months I actually averaged £1000 per month.  This was whilst I was doing up my bathrooms so I was spending quite a lot of money.  But then I was also getting lots of discounts and gifts from relatives to help out  

This month I started off not spending much money and my chart didn’t have much on it (I didn’t think I was going to make it to £500) , but recently I’ve been spending a bit more and suddenly things have ramped up and I should make the £500 (or more hopefuly).  Also I haven’t been as focused on intending money and gifts etc this month due to finishing off my Oz game - plus my energy has been going into seeing Oz on the top 10 at Big Fish Games (which is where it is now, by the way).

The next big milestone on my chart is when I’ve manifested £5000 (which is really close now) and also when the total converts to $10,000 because that’s 1% of $1,000,000 (one million dollars!).  If I can manifest 1% of a million dollars in a few months, I’m sure I can improve and get to 10% easily and then all they way to 100% and beyond….wish me luck, in fact, please visualise me blogging that I’ve made it!

Of course this principle applies to businesses too, if you have a good plan and you spend money on it, you should see money come back in too…

So anyway, spend the money, feel good and see how that makes new money/gifts come into your life!

Doing what I want all day long

In this blog I was talking about doing what I really want to do all day long.  However I was also feeling that if I just do what I want all day right now (not in the future as that’s my aim of course), I’d earn no money and thus it would be a disaster.  Plus bills wouldn’t get paid and people who are depending on me to do certain things would get let down – I don’t just mean my family, I mean consultancy clients and the guy I’m writing a game with etc.  This could actually be a false viewpoint anyway, because in theory if I do just what I really want to do each day it should lead me to great success and earn good money (providing that what I want to do is not just getting wasted or sitting in a field all day every day staring at plants).  However, I still need to “complete” existing tasks (like my consultancy work and game), and also new things that I “have” to do seem to crop up quite often anyway (or do I just manifest them?!)  Furthermore, when I’ve reached some of my big goals, I’ll still have to pay bills and do chores as well won’t I, unless I can find someone else to do all that stuff?

So how can I resolve this current conflict between the idea of “following my bliss” and knowing that I still have to earn money and do chores meanwhile?

At the moment I treat Monday as admin day, where I just get on with the boring home/work admin type tasks that need doing so that I can free up the rest of the week for more positive stuff and not worry about unfinished admin.  This actually seems to work well for me at the moment.  I even get a sense of satisfaction from having got everything done, although sometimes the admin runs on into Tuesday, which is a pain (but this may be partly due to me not 100% knuckling down to it on Monday!)  Anyway, so what if I decide to “follow my bliss” and only do my admin when I feel like it instead of on Mondays?  Well the problem then is that I might never get certain things done!  Also some boring stuff may need to be done to move me forward in my creative business ideas (unless the Universe is just telling me they are wrong or the time is wrong).  So I need to ponder this more…

One approach to admin is not viewing it as negative, but simply as something that must be done to free up your time for cool stuff.  Certainly after working in an office for years, you get used to just ploughing through a load or boring admin without thinking about it because otherwise it might make you feel negative.  Also, when you are a parent, there’s plenty of stuff that you have to do that you don’t feel like, but you just have to do it immediately when it crops up, you can’t even choose a time to do it.  For example, your kids wee on the floor; do you leave it because you don’t feel like dealing with it now or do you hope that some universal force is going to clean it up for you?  Another example is when your kids are hungry and you have to feed them even though you are in the middle of something else really creative that you are enjoying. Well they can’t feed themselves (yet) and not feeding them is just plain cruel.  So these are the sort of tasks that I’ve trained my mind not to see as negative but merely something that must be done that is unavoidable.  Furthermore, one of the things we talk about in Aikido is trying to enjoy everything you do and to do everything to the best of your ability so that you can improve yourself – even during daily tasks like cooking or cleaning etc.  So, for example, I try to become more efficient at feeding the boys (to free up more time) and to find techniques to get them to eat everything without conflict etc, and then to tidy up in the quickest and best way so that later I can take pleasure from a clean kitchen and dining room.  I feel that this approach is valid and well worth exploring if you don’t already do this.

Another approach I’ve been thinking about is that maybe spending too much time on admin (tidying up loose ends etc) is just a form of procrastination that stops me from doing “real” work or in fact big things that put me on track to achieve my true purpose in life.  For example, maybe today instead of doing my Monday admin, I should be making a myspace and getting my music out there.  Also this can be taken a level further in that maybe I shouldn’t be doing any of my normal paid work or working on my current game, and I should be making music and doing the myspace page right now!  Of course I can even think that maybe I shouldn’t be watching DVDs in the evening or relaxing in anyway, because that is just wasting time, and that I should just get on with making more music etc.  Certainly quite a lot of entrepreneurs have no hobbies during the early stages of their businesses because they just work all possible waking hours and even sleep less to get more done.  This doesn’t sound very healthy or enjoyable to me, but I guess if your business IS your hobby and it feels right to be doing it, then that may be OK – but when do you let your mind go so that it can receive Universal Inspiration?  Again, this is something that I need to think about more, because right now if all I do is make music, then I won’t earn any money, which is a problem. Yet ultimately I would like to be making music and producing games and relaxing all day long, but I have to get myself in that position first.  How do I get there though?  Well I’m pretty sure that I need to clearly visualise myself doing what I want, and then use Universal Inspiration, Abundance, and Opportunities (plus some direct action by myself) to help me get their quicker than just logical thinking/planning and hard work would.  Also I need to complete existing tasks like my game, and some pending consultancy work and then not take any more stuff like that on board, or at least ramp it down as I spend more time making music and money from things that I really enjoy doing.

I went on a marketing course quite a while ago and they were teaching a concept that I have heard elsewhere in business too.  Basically you look at the end result that you want, then you list all of the steps that you need to take backwards from the goal to where you are now.  For motivated and organised individuals this is actually a path to success that worked for me at Merlio.  However, it’s contrary to the approach we took in our last Bubble Group meeting where we visualised success so that we could let things happen naturally.  I still have difficulty in believing that everything will just occur naturally without me doing anything but thinking about the end result (at least at the moment; in the future I’m sure that this will be possible too!)

I’m pretty sure that what Steve Pavlina and Abraham Hicks are saying is that you visualise the end result so that you get fired up into taking action AND the Universe also helps you with many things along the way.  I can totally believe this and work with it.  In fact, just this morning I have been communicating this idea to my Bubble Group members and they seem to concur.  So I think we’ve agreed that in future Bubble Group meetings we will still visualise the big picture early on to build the massively positive energy that is needed to facilitate Intention Manifestation/Law of Attraction, but then we will also look into some smaller steps that need to be taken by ourselves to get there and the group will help us to manifest those steps.  This should work well for me because I’m familiar with having goals and taking steps to achieve those goals but I’ve only recently added on the “extra factor” of the Universe helping.  Anyway, I’ll report back soon after the next meeting – wish me luck

My former To Do list

I come from a background of managing myself and a team of people (and customers by god!) in a hectic office for 9 years.  During this time I developed various techniques to keep everything organised and prioritised, and to actually get stuff done on time.  Since then I have used (and improved) those techniques to manage myself whilst working at home for the last year or so.

During our last bubble group meeting I was talking about my To Do list (the staple of any organised person – although you can still have a To Do list and be totally unorganised!) and how I “had” to do certain things on it.  Some things on the list are chore-like things e.g. bill paying, fixing stuff etc and other things are to earn money in “known” ways.  However, there are other things on the list; things that are more creative/speculative and which I think will open up new money streams, and also just fun things for me to do,  These “other” things are the things that I feel I would rather be doing all day (more on that in another blog soon.)

Anyway during the meeting we decided that the very wording of To Do list was a bit negative because it felt that I “have” to do the stuff on it. In reality, only some of the stuff actually “has” to be done, other things can be left and done when I feel more inspired to do them instead of forcing myself to do them when I don’t want to.  So as a result I renamed my To Do list as my Inspiration list so that I can feel less pressurised about it.

Since then I’ve actually split it into two separate sheets; main and ideas.  This is because previously everything was on one big list split in sub-sections for task type, but it contained high and low priority tasks (that I’d put more or less in order of importance).  This meant that the high priority tasks were cluttered with medium and low priority tasks and this is mentally distracting because I was not 100% focused on the priorities – the other tasks nagged away at my mind.  So I moved all the non-high priority tasks onto a second sheet.  This left me with a “main” sheet that is much shorter and easier to focus on and an “ideas” sheet, which is stuff that I can either do when I feel like (when I’m inspired to do it), or maybe never do.  Also, as new ideas/tasks crop up I can either add them to the main list if they are vital, or to the ideas list if not – this also helps to keep the main list uncluttered.  Furthermore, once a week I shall be reviewing both lists and transferring ideas to the main list if they need to get done, and even moving stuff from the main list to the ideas list if they have dropped in importance (this can often happen when new things crop up that you think are important at the time, but then later you discover that they don’t matter so much in the grand scheme of things.)  I’m pretty good on task management and so I shall be writing some more blogs about it in the future (it’s on my blog inspiration list so that I don’t forget )

We are guinea pigs

Today I was emailing Kit about various conflicting thoughts that I was having, and I said that perhaps I should blog about them; and he said this:
 
“I see us as guinea pigs in a way, rather than appearing as these mysterious perfect beings…”

He wasn’t refering to the role of humans in the Universe (or was he?) but rather to our participation in the Bridport Bubble Group, in that we are finding out better ways to run bubble groups and better thoughts to think so that we can guide others.  So I decided that it is OK to blog about my various thought “struggles” because it will help me to think about things more clearly, it may help others, and of course others may help me   One concept I’ve been struggling a bit with recently is getting stuff done that you don’t really want to do - more on that soon …

Alex and Universal Inspiration

So it’s been a few days since Alex died and I’ve been invited to his funeral next week.  The day after his “passing” (because it is not an end), as Sensei Kolesnikov says, I actually felt a lot better due to the support that I received from friends and family, and the Universe, of course.  I came to realise that I had shown Alex some compassion and made his last night in this realm comfortable – and that this was a positive thing.  He was more like his old positive self in the morning and this was how I had been visualising him for the last few months, since I found out about his problem.

The interesting thing was that when I got back from Aikido on the night he was in my house, I didn’t take immediate action and boot him out or whatever.  He looked so peaceful asleep that I felt a kind of caring towards him like when I see my boys asleep.  So I had a bath to think about what to do, but “thinking” often doesn’t present the answer.  Suddenly I got some Universal inspiration that basically said, “See this as an opportunity”.  “An opportunity to do what”, my logical brain fired back.  “An opportunity to show kindness and to learn how to deal with such a situation, plus you may see more things as time progresses.” said the Universe.  So that’s why I very gently woke him up and then talked to him about things and then let him stay the night.  I even tucked him up in his jumper which I used like a blanket as if he was a little boy.

Since then, I’ve told the story to my Aikido class in the hope that it will make them examine their own lives and the lives of their friends and families in regards to their use/abuse of alcohol.  I’ve also told other people and pointed people towards this blog.  If I can help some people to think about their situation and make a positive change, then this is good thing.  Also I think that more positive things may come of this experience and that they are percolating away right now.  For example, the Bridport news has not mentioned Alex’s alcoholism, perhaps out of sensitivity to his family, but I was considering writing a letter to the newspaper to carefully highlight this point as something for other people to consider – especially as Alex was only 31, an age not too far removed from the slightly younger generation of binge drinkers that I often see thronging in town during the weekend evenings.

So anyway, getting back to Universal Inspiration; sometimes(often?) sitting down and logically thinking things through may not yield the best result.  In fact relaxing and letting the Universe pop little ideas into your head is by far the best way.  If you open your mind to Universal Inspiration you can make it happen more and more often instead of once in a blue moon, and who’s ever seen a blue moon anyway?