Search Results

For some, being put in the friend zone is a death sentence. The initial rejection is brutal. It goes to the core of their being. This fucked up romance culture has tattooed on our brains that love is the reason we are alive, and without love, we are losers that do not deserve to exist. Friendship is the consolation prize - it is like kissing your sister. So let's take a few minutes to throw love and friendship into the boxing ring to test the thesis that friendship really is love's puny, ugly cousin. In the left corner, we have the champion - Love. Feels great at first. Fresh and tingly - you feel invigorated, like a sprig of eucalyptus up the nose. But after a couple of rounds, love starts to play a little dirty. Blood, tears, and frustrations start to rear their ugly heads as fatigue sets in. The viciousness of insults also starts to increase. Scenes that can unfold between lovers would scarcely be considered imaginable outside of conditions of open pugilistic hostility. Romanticism has delivered a debilitating body blow to love. This notion that one special person will complete us has created untold misery and heartache. We settle for someone who is very nice in a few ways (she has great tits, or laughs at our jokes), but fucking awful in many other ways (she is possessive, moody and just a massive pain in the ass). After a couple of weeks, months, and maybe years (if you are lucky), the relationship turns into a fucking disaster when compared to previously high expectations. But we ignore the red flags because we are terrified of being alone for two reasons. What will people say when we spent Saturday nights alone watching Netflix? They will think we are social lepers, and secondly, being alone means you have to deal with all the shit in your life that you have been running away from – like answering the most difficult question in the world – who the fuck am I? Let's now move to the right corner and friendship. In friendship, we find our highest and noblest virtues. We find patience, tolerance, encouragement, and kindness - qualities that have no real place in a boxing ring. Friends stick by us no matter what we do or say. We always bring out our best selves in front of our friends. I am amazed at how underrated friendship has become. Lovers soon become bored. Friendship is more profound. It is an arena in which people can get a sense of each other's vulnerabilities - reassure one another of each other's value. Million Man focuses on the forging of deep and meaningful friendships between members. I teach men not to chase women, but to chase excellence and high value in their lives. I do not discourage romantic connection, quite the contrary, I just do not believe that it should be high on the priority list. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

You need to work hard at forgiving all the stupid shit you have done. We all do stupid things. These self-condemning words jiggle around our brains and haunt us at the most inopportune times. Yes, you should never have written that email to your boss saying he was a small-minded idiot and the laughing stock of the 3rd floor. You should never have dated that Russian stripper. You should have listened to your friend when he told you not to invest in the dodgy cryptocurrency. Why did you not exercise more restraint and self-control? We fuck up because we were greedy, shallow, vain, lustful, selfish, and emotionally immature. Our self-loathing grows as we compare our shit lives with the perfect lives of people on social media. You need to find a healthier answer to all these accusatory questions. You fucked up because that is what humans do. History is full of examples of people acting impulsively - do you think Bill Clinton considered all the ramifications of having an affair with his intern? To fuck up is human - it is our birthright. We never have all the facts at our disposal before making a big decision. We don't know with certainty who we should marry (I am twice divorced). We are not fully aware of where all our talents lie. We do not know what the stock market is going to do. We can make some educated guesses, but that is as scientific as the decision-making process gets. There are so many things that fuck up our decision-making process. Things that happened to us as kids weigh heavily. Our brains are also faulty - it doesn't function well when your blood sugar drops or you are drunk or revealing cleavage is thrust in front of you. So go easy on yourself. Give yourself a break. Treat yourself as if you were a friend. Forgive all - or at least the majority - of your fuck ups. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

What do you think the media's top priority is? To inform you or to scare the living crap out of you? In theory, the media plays a very important role in a functioning democracy. It is tasked with the job of finding problems in the political system and then pressurizing politicians to make changes. The problem is that weaknesses in the system are not sexy news and does not drive traffic. What does drive traffic? Scandals and sensationalism. People want to read about the member of parliament that held a 3 day orgy at a 5 star hotel and then made the taxpayer foot the bill. The media wants to deliver content that will excite and titillate so we remain engaged throughout the news cycle. Power, fame, disaster and sex are the four horsemen of the apocalypse off of which the media feeds. People are guaranteed to click on this shit - me included. Our appetite for sensationalism is the same as our weakness for junk food. We are not evil, we are just weak willed and predictable. We secretly want to do the same things that were committed during the scandals. The media is not your friend. Do not rely on it to generate informed and objective opinions about the world. FIVE Ways Social Media Keeps Your Poor Social media does a great job in connecting people, but stands in the way of your financial freedom. The more time you spend on social media, the more you are being manipulated by algos that "tell" you what to buy and what to believe. Google and Facebook are not doing the manipulation – they are getting you addicted to their platforms. The manipulators are the influencers that use these platforms to sell you their stuff. This is different to traditional advertising – TV, billboards and magazines. The algos are observing you, tracking what you do, see and watch, and then looking for ways to change your behaviour. When it comes to money and finance, influencers are able to get inside your head and live there rent free. Here are the 5 most common lies that influencers feed you and keep you financially enslaved. Lie 1: Anyone Can Make Money Trading the Stock Market All you need is a laptop, a few weeks of online training, and you too can become a professional trader. How often have you come across this promise? If you found a secret way to make quick and easy money from trading, would you tell the world? Of course not. You would hold that secret as close to your chest as possible, because the more people that know the strategy, the less profitable it is going to be. Trading is a zero-sum game – for every 1,000 that is made in the market, someone must be losing 1,000. In order for the winners to win, there have to be losers that are losing. If the whole world has a "winning" strategy, it will soon become a "losing" strategy. You want to be on the lookout for scams that promise exceptional returns from trading stocks, options, forex (foreign exchange) and bitcoin. I am not talking about INVESTMENTS in these markets. Investments are long term strategies. I am warning you about short-term trading strategies that promise quick and easy money. Lie 2: Anyone can Become a Financial Guru There is no shortage of financial “gurus” on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other social media. Kids think they can read a couple of books, watch a couple of videos and suddenly they are qualified to offer financial advice. It is true that it is not difficult to understand the basics of finance, but financial education and proficiency is a lifelong journey. In a world that focuses on instant success and gratification, it is easy to be sucked into the belief that financial mastery is easy. On social media, semi-illiterate financial gurus and influencers are giving advice to completely illiterate disciples. This is creating a vicious downward spiral that will end in money being lost and financial dreams being shattered. Lie 3: Financial Freedom is about Flashy Cars, Large Mansions and Sumptuous Yachts Financial freedom is not about leading an opulent life of luxury and leisure. At the core of financial freedom is the ability to flip your relationship with money – as opposed to working for money, making money work for you and then using this freedom to pursue a meaningful life. A meaningful life is not the pursuit of pleasure. Humans are not adapted well for security and utopia. Sure, we like a degree of security because we are vulnerable, but we also want a foot in something with a degree of uncertainty and risk. A meaningful life is achieved through the pursuit of noble aims. Financial freedom means not having to worry about basic daily needs, and focusing on doing things that makes a positive impact in the lives of other people. Lie 4: It is Easy to Make Money with Digital Products Start a blog, publish an e-book, create an online course, set up a drop shipping website. These all sound like great ways to make money, and social media will make very compelling arguments in their favour. For example, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection. The cost of the product is essentially free – all you need to do is dedicate your time and creativity. Everyone in the world is a potential client. You can make money while you sleep. There is no better source of passive income. It is hard not to be sucked into the marketing rhetoric. There are three reasons why it is exceptionally difficult to make money from digital products. Firstly, what makes you think people will interested in your content? There are no barriers to entry to the digital economy. You are competing with thousands – if not hundreds of thousands - of people that are all looking to do the same thing. It is estimated that in 2021, there are 32 million bloggers in the US alone. Secondly, what makes you think people will pay for your content? Udemy alone has 130,000 online classes as at July 2021, covering a range of diverse topics. What special skills do you bring to this platform that would justify charging for your course? Thirdly, the amount of free content on the internet is astounding. We are used to free stuff. It is inordinately difficult to monetize digital products in 2021 and the Pareto Principle applies – 20 percent of the content creators capture 80 percent of the revenue. As in life, there is no normal distribution of riches in the digital world. Lie 5: Financial Success is the Norm People present themselves in social media in such a way that you quickly start to believe the following: everyone has exciting and glamorous careers, everyone is always busy doing important stuff, everyone is happy and fulfilled. In reality, these things are exceptions rather than the rule. Most people are struggling because life is hard. Financial success is not the norm, and it is not easy. If it was easy, everyone would be wildly successful. The road to financial success is paved with dedication, commitment and determination. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Inevitably someone is going to piss you off. A waiter will forget your food order, a taxi will cut you off in traffic. It could be a friend, a colleague, an employee, or your partner. Your friends forgot to invite you to a camping trip, an employee lost his shit with an important client, your girlfriend crashed into your Harley. How we respond to these situations goes to the very heart of who we are. There are essentially three ways to complain. 1) Heated fury. This is where you fly off the handle and go bubonic. Your intention is to unleash satanic fury on the perpetrator - to insult and belittle them. The problem with this approach is that your complaint will never be heard. The perpetrator becomes the victim and they too will be offended. They will switch off and not listen to the barrage of violent insults. Nothing will be achieved. 2) Frozen fury. You turn the temperature down to forty below. You do not say much but you nurture deep hate. You withdraw and you swallow the pain. You probably grew up in a family where no one ever complained or rocked the boat - this has always been my preferred method of complaining. 3) Mature fury. You come from a position of high self-awareness and self-worth. You know you do not deserve to be treated badly or ignored. You are calm because you like yourself. You have the confidence not to throw yourself into the mayhem of insults. You want to resolve and rectify the disequilibrium quickly while the event is still fresh in everyone's mind. You are secure in the knowledge that your grievance will be heard and taken to heart. You are careful not to insult the perpetrator and make every effort to be constructive. For example, you use phrases like: what you did really hurt me. It is supremely difficult for most men to complain maturely because it shows up our vulnerability, and we see vulnerability as a weakness and a feminine quality. But consider the health implications of the other two options. Blind fury causes your body to fill with toxic cortisol that will kill you in a few decades. Frozen fury causes issues to fester and will also kill you in a few decades. By process of elimination, option 3 is the healthiest way to go if you want to live to 100. There is of course, a fourth option - not to complain because you do not give a fuck. Mark Manson wrote a fantastic book entitled "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" and opens by telling the story of Charles Bukowski. Until the age of 49, he worked in a post office while writing sporadically and focusing more on womanizing, drinking and doing everything possible to stay out of the army. At the ripe old age of 50, he published his first novel "Post Office". He went on to publish another five novels and ten nonfiction books. In 1986 Time magazine referred to him as the "laureate of American lowlife". Charles did not give a royal f*ck what other people thought of him. He was not agreeable, he lived his life as he saw fit and became a prodigious author. He is not the perfect blueprint for modern living, but he lived on his terms. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

I am a nice guy. I am pleasant, positive and take a genuine interest in other people. I am not a dickhead who plays macho alpha male head games to get what I want. Lately, however, I have been embarrassed by my “niceness”. Motivational speakers have started to hate on niceness - "nice guys finish last", "if you want to be successful in life, you need to be less agreeable", "women relegate nice guys to the friendzone", "nice guys are betas and get no pussy". "Nice" has become a dirty word. In some fucked up and twisted way it is now associated with boring, predictable, agreeable, weak, insipid, and exploited. Instead, the world encourages us to be competitive, cutthroat, and ruthless. I have seen a notable uptick in Machiavellian-inspired motivation that preaches how the nice guy always finishes last in business and in relationships. Men are led to believe that women are looking for men who are edgy, domineering, unpredictable, and brutal. The question is posed - do you think women would rather have lunch with a nice guy on a park bench, or be inside a dungeon with a stranger and a whip? They would tell you that women want danger. Most women do not want this. Adventure is good. A degree of unpredictability and spontaneity is good. But being in a relationship that always moves you into the danger zone is not sustainable. Women want a man who will take control, who knows what he wants, who is confident, who understands his value but is also capable of making a deep and meaningful connection. In business, no company can survive without trust and the bonds of affection. We love to praise the exploits of Steve Jobs, but he was a fucking tyrant. His management style was not inclusive. He did not trust his colleagues and created an environment of survival of the fittest. Observe what the Apple share price has done since Jobs passed away and was replaced by a more inclusive and nurturing Tim Cook. In the last five years (2016 to 2021 -Jobs died in 2011) the stock is up 5x. You are mistaken in thinking that business is 100% dog-eats-dog. Money and the bottom line is not the sole motivator. As for the sexual thrill of nastiness, it can only be pursued in an environment of trust. Some women may fantasize about a night with a ruthless conqueror, but the idea of living with Attila the Hun seems less appealing. If you still believe that "nice guys finish last", look no further than the biggest dickhead of the 21t century, Lance Armstrong. I am a fan, but he is a self-confessed douche. He lied, cheated, bullied and intimidated his way to seven Tour de France titles. Almost everyone in the 20-year period between 1990 and 2010 was heavily doped in the Tour, yet cycling's governing body (UCI) only stripped Lance. Do you wonder why? Because he acted like a dickhead! I came across an article “9 Bad Things Happen When You’re Too Nice”. I think it is worth going through each individually, and dignifying each with a response. 1. If you are always giving, people will expect that of you. How is that bad for you? Giving is a perfectly plausible commercial transaction -you give and in return you feel good. The fact that generosity is the shortest felt human emotion, and it is likely that the givee will grow accustomed to receiving and will become resentful when the giving stops, is their problem and not yours. You cannot control what other people think of you – the sooner you come to this realization, the happier you will be. 2. You will develop unrealistic expectations of others. This is possibly true, but if you build your life predicated on expecting things from others, you are setting yourself up for a frustrating existence. 3. People will come to you only when they need something. Being nice is not the same as saying yes to everything and everyone. Let these people come when they need something – I have nothing against that. I will help where I can. I may always say yes if I can. This does NOT mean that I say yes to everyone, and does not mean that people will take advantage of me. 4. You will forget about being kind to yourself. I agree that if you begrudgingly say yes to everyone, and you only do things to pander to the expectations of others, you may forget to be kind to yourself and start to be filled with resentment. Being inherently and genuinely nice does not always mean that you are a people pleaser – it can most certainly lead to that, but not always. 5. You will be seen as being weak. Look no further than Barack Obama, two-term president of the United States of America. He was the nicest president in US history. There is no way you get to be the most powerful man in the western world for eight consecutive years by being weak. 6. You will attract needy people. I am a nice person and sure, people in the street asking for money can see that and they approach me – is it such a bad thing to help another human being? 7. People will not trust you. I go back to the Obama example – the majority of Americans do not vote for you twice in four years unless they trust you. 8. You may become needy. This is total bullshit – not sure what the author was thinking by including this in his list. 9. You become more likely to engage in addictive behaviors. This could be true, but is that necessarily such a bad thing. Addictive and obsessive are the same thing. Is it a bad thing to be obsessed about helping others? I understand that obsessive can go either way, but positive obsessive can be immensely constructive. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

For many, freedom is the absence of responsibilities and obligations- the chance to do whatever you want, to pursue a passive lifestyle of limited exertion and physical effort. It is lying on an exotic beach sipping a colorful cocktail. What if I told you that everything you think you know about freedom is wrong. I quit my high-paying corporate job at the end of February 2020, eleven days before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. I was working in Mexico City and decided to return to my native South Africa and retire in the beautiful city of Cape Town. I was 48 and looking forward to putting my feet up after hustling for 25 years in the banking and technology sectors. The last 10 years of my career had been spent in a global financial, software, data, and media company covering Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. Then the pandemic hit, my 18 year marriage imploded, and by the end of December 2020, both my ex-wife and my 18-year-old daughter returned to Mexico City. I rejoiced at the prospect of being completely free. I could dedicate 24 hours a day to doing whatever I wanted. I was accountable and answerable to no one. I could surf all day, play golf every day, watch Netflix all day, leave the toilet seat down, live like a slob, eat whatever I wanted and no one would complain. I could date multiple women on a casual basis – I was living in a male paradise. I am now 12 months into my hedonistic life of freedom, and let me share what I have discovered. This has been the loneliest, saddest and depressing year of my life. The single biggest thing I discovered is that freedom is NOT the absence of responsibilities, and discipline, and routine. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Freedom is actively pursuing responsibilities, disciple, and routine. It is the process of turning yourself from a slave into a master. Freedom, and happiness, is the process of finding the chains that control you, that make you anxious and depressed and then working on dismantling those chains. Notice how I said “dismantling” and not “breaking out”. Liberation is a process – not an event. This is not like busting out of Alcatraz. It is more like the French Revolution which took more than a decade. It is a long and agonizing process of self-observation, and self-correction, and control. So what does it mean to be the Master? Let us start off by explaining what being a master DOES NOT mean. It does not being an insensitive, mean, and miserable dickhead. I am a fan of Steve Jobs. I admire his determination and resilience (he was fired from his own company), his vision, and his attention to detail. However, I am mortified by the number of people that celebrate and emulate Steve Job’s management style. He treated people like shit – he was not kind and in my opinion that made for an unpleasant environment. He was a ruthless dictator making all the decisions himself. This showed a lack of trust in his employees. This made him unpopular with his team. Maybe, when you are endowed with that level of genius and vision, you can afford to be a dickhead. It appeared to have worked for Apple. In 2018, it became the first-ever company to reach a market capitalization of $1 trillion. But maybe Apple would not have reached this valuation in 2018 had Steve Jobs not been such a manipulative asshole. Jobs was not a master manager – he was a great leader but I do not believe that he was able to fully optimize the talents of his employees. Had he been a substantially kinder human being (which he could easily have been without compromising on his unique vision and indefatigable work ethic), I believe that Apple would have been far more successful. When Steve Jobs died in October of 2011, Apple stock was trading at around $14. Ten years later, Apple stock was trading at $160. Do yourself a favor and have a look at the Apple price chart on Google Finance. The exponential growth in the price has been experienced since he passed away. I understand that he laid the foundation for the future success of the company, but a large part of that growth has come in the last 5 years, where Apple stock has risen from $28 to $160. You cannot ignore Tim Cook’s more humane, inclusive, and nurturing management style in understanding this 5X performance in the past 5 years. One of the most damning misconceptions is that kind people are weak and insipid. The Dalai Lama said, “compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength”. I am a finance guy, and I tend to think in terms of return on investment, and kindness has the best return on investment in the world. What is the cost of being kind to someone? What does it cost you to volunteer at a homeless shelter, pick up garbage on the beach, let someone go in front of you in line, offer up a compliment to a stranger? Absolutely nothing. What is the value of this kindness? In many cases, it is priceless. Being a master does not mean being tight assed and ungenerous. Ebenezer Scrooge was not a master. He was a slave to his own avarice and was miserable and depressed. The biggest problem that many people face is that they don’t understand who they are. The first step to freedom is becoming a master in self-awareness. You hear this often – you need to know who you are. Your first reaction may be, how is it possible to not know who you are? I ask many people who they are and they tell me what they do, or what their interests are, or where they are from. Not knowing who you are does not mean you are unsure about the nature of your biography. Self-worth is at the essence of self-awareness. How much are you worth – people quickly equate worth with money. We hear in the financial press that Jeff Bezos is worth $200 billion. But this is not about money – it is about your inherent and intrinsic worth. If you do not know what you are worth as a person, there are two things that you cannot handle. You cannot handle praise, and you cannot handle criticism. More importantly, you cannot love and you cannot be loved. That is very fucked up because you have no idea what you deserve. You are in constant need of external validation. How do we seek this validation? Online dating apps are commonplace. When a bunch of people like you on Tinder – based on a few photographs, a BIO, and a handful of interests, you suddenly feel attractive, desirable, and strangely happier. Other social media such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are other places where we look for the validation of the desirability of our lives and existence. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you were raised, knowing who you are is the fruit of having been known by someone else from the start of your existence – most commonly your mother and father. If you grew up in an environment of positive reinforcement where your needs were met unconditionally and you were valued regardless of how often you threw a tantrum, then you are golden. The general rule is that unloving parents generate self-hating children. When a baby looks up at their parents from the cot, it does so with total innocence and tries to charm the parents into loving them. It is this power to attract the love that is at the core of their survival. Kids adore these giants and are in awe of what they can do. At this point, there is no innate desire for the child to question the authority of their parents – that will come later in life. For now, they are very sensitive to how well they are performing in getting their parents on their side. If they feel loved, they can focus on the more pressing business of learning how to lift up their heads, eat solid foods, and how to walk. If love is in a more restrictive supply, the picture becomes a little more complicated. Some parents are not charmed by parenthood – they leave the babies to scream, there may be violence and there may be hysteria. The child knows they are in grave danger and if the situation is not corrected soon, they will be abandoned on a hillside to die. The natural reaction of the child is to double down and make more of an effort to ingratiate themselves with their caregivers. When we look at this through the lens of an adult, we come to the conclusion that the child starts to blame and resent the caregiver because they have not yet developed that outwardly critical way of thinking. Instead, they look inwards and blame themselves. They internalize the blame and this does a great job in nuking their self-worth. But all is not lost if you were not blessed with loving and affirming parents. A skilled therapist can do a good job of mirroring your true worth and validating you. Here is the goal, guys. For you to be free, you need to be able to trust yourself, feel more whole and not have this insatiable need for validation and affirmation. If you need external affirmation to feel good about yourself, you are a slave to other people. You are addicted to them. You are a junkie and other people are your dealer. Your dependence on them is unhealthy – and these people do not have your best interest in mind. If you stop performing (paying for the drugs), they will threaten to take away their affirmation (they withhold their product from you) – and then you will find yourself in a deep and dark hole. Let us do something practical. Make a list of people whose opinions matter to you in order of importance. To be truly free, no one's opinion should matter to you. You should not care what other people think of you – the only important thing is what you think of yourself. It is natural to care about what other people think of you – especially if you are in a relationship with them. You want to be in their good books – you want to be liked because you are afraid of being cut off, and be alone and starved of intimacy. If you want to be the best version of yourself, I can almost guarantee that you fear other people's opinions. Why is it that people are terrified of doing presentations, or asking questions in a large public audience? You are worried about social disapproval. Let me tell you something that should quickly help you get over your fear of social disapproval. Most strangers/mild acquaintances generally do not give a fuck about you. They are so wrapped in their own internal struggles and miserable lives that they don’t have time to dwell on the horrible presentation you gave last month, or the massive zit you had on your nose last week, or the stupid comment you made to them at the water cooler yesterday. Parents on the other hand are trickier because they are not “just anyone”. It has been calculated that the average child will spend 25,000 hours in the presence of their parents. Parents can do a great deal of good in affirming and strengthening their kids, but they can also do a great deal of harm, and this harm does not come to an end once you leave the house. Not only do they leave deep scars subconsciously, but you will likely continue to seek their affirmation until the day they pass away. This means their opinions of you will have a high weight on your self-awareness for the majority of your life. I understand this is counterintuitive, but you need to liberate yourself from the opinions of your parents. Parents have perfected the art of making their kids feel like shit – why do you wear your hair like that, why don’t you come and visit more often, that girlfriend of yourself is a tramp, why don’t you get a better job? I am not saying you should disown your parents – I am saying you should work hard at divorcing the opinions your parents have about you. They are also carrying lots of hurt and baggage, and often the words they speak over your life are not framed objectively or with your best interest in mind. Here are four things you cannot achieve unless you have self-awareness. a) Sustained Happiness If you are not self-aware, your opinion about yourself is out of your control – it is in the hands of third parties who do not necessarily have your best interests at heart. If you are on social media, anyone with an internet connection and a smartphone can send you a shitty DM saying you are stupid or ugly, and it will throw you into the toilet for the rest of the day. A friend reads your message on Whatsapp but doesn’t reply for a couple of days and you wonder what you did wrong. This is a miserable existence and one in which you are enslaved by the affirmation – or lack thereof – of others. You may find yourself in a lapse of days or weeks where everything is running smoothly and you feel affirmed. Your life is a ship that has found a favorable current, but the ship has no rudder – so when the current switches (your partner says you are a useless piece of shit and they wished they had never met you), you have no control over your new direction. Notice how your happiness was short-lived and not sustained. b) Healthy Human Connections Humans are designed to live in tribes, communities, and societies. We were not supposed to live in isolation and we thrive on healthy human connections. In these connections, people will let us down and at times they will even reject us. Your friends might overlook you and not invite you on a fishing trip, or the local neighborhood watch might forget to ask your opinion on a pressing security matter. This rejection can be digested in one of two ways. If you have low self-esteem, you will personalize this. You will come to the quick conclusion that you are the reason for this oversight or rejection. It may be due to something you did, said, or generally because you believe you are a piece of shit unworthy of the attention of the offending parties. If you have high self esteem, you do not give a fuck. c) Cope with Rejection The sooner you understand this truth about life the better – people are judgmental and they will reject you. The most important thing is how you handle this rejection. What is the single most feared word in the world? No. We are terrified of asking for something because we will be mortified if the answer is NO. It is not that NO is so scary, but it is the feeling that is associated with this word that makes us cringe. The problem is that most people, when they hear the word NO, hear something else. They are hearing: “You are a piece of shit, you are repulsive, you do not deserve to be alive, you are a waste of space and the world”. It is no wonder that we are reluctant to ask. As with most things in life, it is worthwhile taking a step back in an attempt to get some context and perspective. One thing we can say with the utmost certainty is that it is obvious that people are not saying this to us. We are OK and we do deserve to exist so how do we explain the NO. It is actually quite simple – it is nothing personal. At that exact point in time when the question was asked, it so happens that we did not fit into that person's plans. There are a lot of things that we would give people if they only asked – money, time, affection, but we are not aware of their plans. We cannot read their minds. There is an asymmetry of information, so instead of jumping to extreme conclusions, we should either brush off the rejection or request more information. d) Healthy Long Term Relationships If you don’t love yourself, it means that you never experienced unconditional love as a child. You do not believe you are enough. So when you get into a relationship, you find it a challenge to accept the love that is being offered unless you have earned it. Depending on your level of self-loathing, you may never feel worthy of love and therefore seek out people who treat you how you feel you deserve to be treated – or in this case, mistreated. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

It took Columbus approximately 4.5 months to discover America – and he had to sail through unpredictable and unchartered waters. It took me 50 years to find myself, and I never left myself out of my sight for one single second. How is this fucking possible? I am a huge fan of Winston Churchill. My best quote from the old bulldog was concerning the late entry of the United States into the Second World War. He said: "Americans will always do the right thing - after exhausting all the alternatives." The single biggest thing that holds human beings back is their unwillingness to understand who they are – but most will do the right thing after exhausting all alternatives. Why the fuck is introspection and self-awareness so elusive? I think humans are afraid to open that box because they are afraid of what they might find. I ran away from myself for 50 years. I was the busiest person on the planet. I was doing everything possible to fill my days with activities to distract me from what I knew I had to do but did not have the balls to do. I worked 80 hours a week relentlessly pursuing my career in finance working on three different continents. I trained 20 hours a week so that I could compete in Ironman triathlons. I spent my life in business meetings, in conference rooms, in airport lounges, in taxis, and in the air. I did everything possible to fill my mind with new knowledge on motorcycles (I am a Harley Davidson nut), on learning new skills (like playing the guitar and surfing), on socializing with people I did not like because I dreaded the prospect of sitting down alone and having to ask the question: who am I? Then at the age of 48, I decided to quit my very high-paying corporate job in Mexico City, retire and pursue my dream of living in my paradise – Cape Town, which is located on the most southern tip of Africa. In 2014, Cape Town was named the best place in the world to visit by both The New York Times and The Daily Telegraph. In the same year, the city was named the World Design Capital of the Year by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. It combines stunning beaches, majestic mountains, and world-class vineyards. This was a radical move and I have to confess that I spent most of my time thinking about the financial implications of the move, and approximately zero time on the mental challenges. I quit my job at the end of February 2020, 11 days before the World Health Organization declared COVID 19 a global pandemic. This meant that we were in lockdown. I went from spending almost no time with my wife to being around her 24/7 and within a few months our marriage had exploded and in December 2021, my ex-wife and 18-year-old daughter left the glorious shores of Cape Town and returned to Mexico City. I suddenly had way too much time on my hands, so I did what I always did. I filled my days with doing stuff. There was no fucking way I was going to be forced to deal with all the personal demons that had been accumulating over the past 50 years – and my box of demons was starting to get overcrowded. This is what I did to fill my days: 1) I Wrote Five Books I considered titling this “I became an author” but then I would be trying to put myself into the same category as Ernest Hemingway and William Shakespeare, and nothing could be further from the truth. I wrote four books on personal finance, and I translated one from English to Spanish. I am not a writer, an author – I simply was filled with a desire to impart some of the knowledge on finance and investments that I had acquired over a 25-year history. 2) I Started Rebel Finance After working in finance for 25 years, I came to the uncomfortable conclusion that the finance industry was corrupt, dishonest and only was interested in screwing its clients for its own self-interest. I was embarrassed by the fact that I had been part of the problem for so long and was looking for a way in which I could in some way ease my guilt. Was this selfish and self-serving? 100%. After all, is anything we do truly selfless? I would say absolutely not – but that is an entirely different conversation. Rebel Finance is a free website where I blog about financial freedom and how to flip your relationship with money. 3) I Signed Up to Tinder There's a tragic truism that nobody ever tells a bride-to-be, namely that if a couple puts a pebble in a jar every time, they make love in the first year of wedded bliss and then removes a pebble every time they make love thereafter, the jar will never empty. In 18 years of marriage, it did not come even close to emptying the jar – I would go so far as to say that I left it half-full (or half-empty). By jumping onto Tinder, I was able to build new connections with complete strangers – and we are going to leave it at that. 4) I Learned to Surf Although I grew up close to the beach, one thing I had never learned to do was surf. I used to bodyboard – the inferior and ugly cousin to surfing. For people living in landlocked countries like Switzerland, most former Soviet countries, Bolivia and Austria, and have limited exposure to the sea, you will need to Google “bodyboarding”, although a lot can be inferred by the name. Surfing is so cool and I would go so far as to say that it can at times be better than sex, but it is extremely difficult to master. The learning curve is steep – it is not easy especially if you have been living on this planet for more than half a century. But I like hard shit – what is the fun in doing something that everyone is doing? 5) I Bought Another Harley I am a Harley nut. For some mysterious reason, I thought that buying a Harley would income way make me immune to mental anguish. The old joke goes: have you ever seen a Harley parked outside a shrink’s office? Having spent my entire life running away from my problems, what better way to continue this winning tradition than on the back of a badass all-American motorcycle. This was my second hog – I bought my first one in Mexico City 5 years earlier. You have to be a special kind of nutcase to ride a motorcycle in a city with 25 million inhabitants with scant or no regard for the rules of the road. To give you some idea of the magnitude of the chaos, consider the traffic circle (aka roundabout). In countries that drive on the right-hand side of the road, the traffic flows in a counterclockwise direction, and vice versa for countries that drive on the left-hand side of the road. In Mexico City, traffic flows both clockwise and counterclockwise! Spending your entire life running away from yourself is relatively easy – I was able to do it for 50 years. Some people can go through their entire lives and never truly know the person they have spent all their life with. It is possible – and you can have a relatively decent life but you need to keep yourself busy with cool shit 24/7. You could be a workaholic, and be married to a unicorn human being that accepts you for all you are, and be in awesome physical and mental health. You can spend your entire life DOING and avoid BEING. Although you may not be blissfully happy, you will be pretty content. The problem that I faced, however, was that the five things I mentioned above were not enough to fill all the free time I now had on my hands. This meant that I had no other option but to confront my demons and try and answer the most difficult fucking question on the planet: “who the hell are you?” I stumbled across the clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson on YouTube. He suggested there are two ways to find yourself – therapy or writing your life story. I am an investor/saver – not a spender. Austerity was inculcated in me from a young age, so I opted for the cheaper option. In addition, I love writing, so this was definitely a win-win. This is how the good doctor explains this self-authoring process: “People who spend time writing carefully about themselves become happier, less anxious and depressed and physically healthier. They become more productive, persistent, and engaged in life. This is because thinking about where you came from, who you are, and where you are going helps you chart a simpler and more rewarding path through life.” After months of procrastination, I threw myself into writing about my past, present, and future. In my typical habit of going all in, within a week I had written about 200 pages, and the process was fucking painful. This is what I discovered: 1) I am a bit of a nutcase. I used to think that I was relatively stable, mentally speaking. I now know that nothing could be further from the truth. My first triathlon was an Ironman triathlon – 3.8km swim, 180km bike, and 42km run. Most normal people start out with shorter races and build up to the ironman distance over a couple of years. I wrote four books in a space of 2 months. When I buy a bag of cookies, I eat ALL of them in 10 minutes. I literally inhale them. If I hear a song I like, I will literally be playing it 50 times. I know no sense of moderation, and this trend is showing no signs of abating in my older age. 2) I have hurt a lot of people. I always thought I was a kind and pleasant person. I realized that I have been a bit of shit to a lot of people, and most of the time I was completely oblivious to it. A lot of it goes down to intent. I did not intend to hurt these people, but I did. The message to you is that nine times out of ten, we get hurt by people that have no intention of hurting us. These people are so wrapped up in their shit lives and are so focused on their self-interest, they have no idea of the damage they are doing. 3) I was not happy. I was so busy that I had no time to be unhappy. When I had all this time, I realized that I was not happy with my life. I felt unfulfilled and guilty that I had spent 25 years pursuing a bullshit career. 4) My direct contribution to society has been minimal. Investment banking is the business of moving money from one bank account to another bank account. Henry Ford said that a business that makes nothing but money is poor. It adds nothing to society. The probability of being fulfilled in this business, unless you are Lucifer, is low.  Granted, I have paid millions in taxes which hopefully have trickled down to those people that need it most. I fear, however, that there has been considerable slippage in this inefficient system and only a fraction of my taxes reached the neediest.  It makes for an uneasy moment when you realize that you have dedicated a quarter of a century to a meaningless and self-serving profession. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

I lived in Mexico City for almost 20 years. It contains 25 million people. It is a city located 2500m above sea level, surrounded by two active volcanos, and built on a lake which means that every year, it sinks a few centimeters. No tests are required to drive in this megalopolis - all you need to do is submit some form of ID, your proof of address and pay the equivalent of approx. 40 US dollars and you are free to participate in the mayhem. Mexico City drivers are notorious for flouting traffic regulations. In my 20 years of driving in this chaos, I developed a severe case of road rage. I have had people draw guns on me, cut me off, and even get out of their cars and spit in my face. In my dark satanic trip down the rabbit hole of road rage, I learned an important lesson. I embarked upon a personal quest to find the most damaging way to express my rage to the dickhead that had the nerve to cut me off on the Periferico (that is the major highway that runs 120km from north to south of Mexico City). Would it be to tell them to go and fuck their mother? Tell them that they were ugly and their mothers dressed them funny – or could I inflict more psychological pain on these lawless motherfuckers using a different technique? In my quest, I stumbled across an interesting existential question – what is the opposite of love? Is it hate, or is there an emotion more nefarious that almost perfectly mirrors love? Yes, there is, and I found it in a most unusual place. I found it one of the best and worst creations in the history of the world – social media. Two years ago, I was introduced to the canceling culture. It is this ability to erase/obliterate someone from your social media existence without any reason, warning, or explanation that gave me the answer to my question. The opposite of love is not hate – it is indifference. The way to truly hurt someone is to make it as if they do not exist. When you cancel someone, you want them to disappear into the ether. This is the epitome of rejection – to communicate to someone in the most passive-aggressive way possible that they are worth so little that they might as well be dead. This failure to recognize that someone exists is the deepest psychological pain that can be inflicted in an age where everyone is so desperately seeking the approval of others. If you want to inflict the maximum amount of pain in the shortest period – ignore their very existence. Going back to the road rage experiment, if someone cuts you off, cut them off and then ignore them 100%. So why is the cancel culture inflicting so much psychological pain in the 21st century? If everyone is well adjusted and knows who they are, it shouldn’t matter if someone decides to cancel them on social media. That person will continue to exist in the physical world where it counts. The problem is that the majority of people are not well adjusted socially. They have low self-esteem and are riddled with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. Most people need external approval, attention, and affirmation to feel good about themselves. This inherent fragility results in devastation when they are canceled, or ghosted. In this world of opportunity, it is easy to feel like a failure - to feel small and insignificant – to feel invisible and that you do not deserve to be in this world. Throughout history, man has been paranoid about being exploited. This problem of exploitation is quickly being replaced with the problem of relevance. Automation and robotics are replacing good honest jobs. This means there is a greater chance of you being marginalized than being exploited. So what was the point of writing this blog? In this new world where we are more vulnerable than ever to indifference, the soft skill of self-awareness is one you need to hone and perfect. You need to do everything in your power to convert yourself into a high-value man, that knows his worth to himself and others, and will not be tossed around by every nasty comment received on social media. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

I used to think that keeping a journal was only for teenage girls. They would lie on their beds, surrounded by posters of One Direction, doodling and scribbling with their pink pens about the crush they have on the cute blue-eyed boy from math’s class. Why would a grown, middle-aged man in his fifties want to write about his feelings, goals, and day-to-day anxieties? I retired when I was 48 and got divorced at the age of 49, and my daughter moved with her mother to the other side of the planet. I came to the realization that a large part of my daily agenda had become freed up. Let’s look at a typical 24-hour day during the week – I used to spend 8 hours sleeping, 9 hours at work, 2 hours traveling to and from work (I lived in Mexico City which has some of the worst traffic known to humanity), 2 hours exercising (I am a bit of a nutcase), 2 hours fighting with my wife. That left 2 hours to eat, shower, get rid of excess bodily by-products. I really did not have much time to try and answer questions like: who am I, what makes me happy, what do I want out of life? At the beginning of 2021, I suddenly have 14 hours per day freed up. Let assume there are 21 workdays in a week – that translates to 294 hours per month which is about 12 days per month. That is a big chunk of time that needs to be filled, and there is only so much sex you can have, golf you can play, and Netflix series you can watch. Let me tell you what happened when I suddenly had all this free time. I was forced to find myself, and what I found was not that great. I quickly realized that I was not as mentally healthy as I originally thought – I was neurotic, anxious, and filled with self-doubt. My second marriage had come to an end and my daughter, the single greatest thing in my life, was living 15,000 miles away. For the first time, I started to have suicidal thoughts. I felt like a pear-shaped loser and I started to wonder whether maybe the world would be a better place without me. I used to take these long walks into Newlands Forest. This is a massive green area in Cape Town that leads up to the side of Table Mountain. There is a mega steep section that takes you to the top – Newlands Ravine. You scale the ravine and then into a shallow valley after which it kicks up to Devils Peak. From the top of Devils peak, there is a 100m sheer drop that if you hurled yourself over there would be no return. As I was going through my divorce, I would often sit at Devils Peak and play with the idea of ending it all. This is a scary place to be in – especially seeing as I am an inherently optimistic, enthusiastic person. It was during these dark times that I realized that I need to start communicating my thoughts, but I refused to go to a therapist. My ex-wife was in intensive therapy and if anything, it seemed to make her worse. In addition, I am old school – I come from a family where you never complain and you most never talk about your problems. I then came across Dr. Jordan Peterson on YouTube and I started to binge-watch his videos. One session spoke about the importance of writing, and more specifically writing your life story. I figured – I love to write, and I needed to tame the fucking demons in my head, so I threw myself into it – and like everything I do, I did it 200%. I started to document my life from as far back as I could remember. The process was easy and fun at times, and it was hard and painful at times, but this opened my mind to the power of writing especially when it comes to self-awareness and discovery. Here are the reasons why it is so important to keep a journal. 1) It is the Best Way to Tap into Your Sub Conscious What the fuck is your subconscious? I am going to tell you what I think it is in my own words because I am tired of using the definitions of pseudo-intellectuals who try and impress you with fancy words. I am a simple person and I need things explained to me as if I was an 8-year-old. Your subconscious is the accumulation of all the shit (good and bad) that happened to you as a kid and has made you who you are today. This is the shit that controls your life and you often don't realize it. Let’s say your mother was never there for you. You would get home from school and she was out shopping with her friends. At night, she would get home, put her feet up, pour herself a drink, and turn on the telly to watch some crap soap opera. Pretty soon, you develop a strong sense of abandonment. You are anxious that at any time, your mother will abandon you forever and you will be left to fend for yourself. You then grow up, leave home and throw yourself into the real world and start dating. After a couple of years, and multiple failed romantic relationships, you realize a pattern is developing. Whenever you get close to a woman, you break up with her. You find different reasons to exit the relationship. Maybe, she grinds her teeth when she sleeps. Or, she is just too nice, or she flosses her teeth in bed, or she has manly hands. You realize that all the reasons for ending the relationship are shallow and superficial. You then start to write about your life and keep a daily journal, and when you put the two together, you realize that you are truly a dumb ass. The reason why you are breaking up with these girls is that you expect these women to abandon you, in the same way your mother did. You are therefore implementing a pre-emptive strike – you are abandoning these women before they abandon you. You need to commit to writing. You want to focus carefully on your relationship with your parents, and specifically your mother because you probably spent more time with her than your father. You want to identify key moments in your childhood – what happened, why did it happen, and how it made you feel. You will be amazed by how much you remember. I remember more when I write than when I talk. 2) You can Unload Your Shit Think of your mind like a computer – it has bandwidth. The more bandwidth, the better it performs. If your computer is full of shit, it works slowly. If your mind is full of shit, it is going to affect your processing speed. One way to free up space on your computer is to archive and send it to the cloud. Writing a journal is archiving and sending it to the cloud. But putting your shit down in writing, you are getting it off your chest. I am not saying that that the issue is solved, but you are unloading it and a problem shared is a problem halved. You are now freeing up your short-term bandwidth to deal with other issues. Don’t ask me for a psychological explanation of what is happening because I don’t have a clue – I just know that this shit works. You are putting concrete words to a problem – you are defining the issue which is a giant step forward in getting it sorted out. 3) Writing is Organized Thinking Have you ever tried to argue with someone who knows how to write well? They will rip you apart because they know how to organize their thoughts. The more you write, the better you become at organizing your thoughts and this makes you a better communicator. An important ability in life is the ability to communicate what you intend to do clearly and understandably. Read that sentence again, because there is a lot packed in. How do you build a business? You need to communicate to shareholders, bankers, suppliers, providers, clients, etc. Success in the world is predicated on the ability to communicate your thoughts effectively. The best way to organize your thoughts is to learn how to write, and what better way to learn how to write than to commit to keeping a journal and contributing to it every day. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Retiring at 48 sounds cool and romantic. However, two years into my retirement, I am discovering some unexpected results. 1) Achieving Your Goal is Not Necessarily a Great Thing We all know that anti-climatic feeling when you achieve that goal. You run the race, you finish the book, you deliver that killer presentation or you nail the deal. You reach the summit after days, weeks, months, or years of work and dedication. Then you feel kind of low and empty. Often, a supreme sense of uneasiness descends and you are left scratching your head and wondering why you feel flat, disorientated, and maybe even a little sad. What the fuck? In 2002, I competed in my first triathlon, which happened to be an Ironman in France. Most normal people start with shorter distance triathlon and then gradually build their way up to longer races, and then culminate at the ironman distance which is a 3.8km swim, followed by a ball numbing 180km bike ride and then finishing with a soul-destroying 42km marathon. Not only did I choose one of the longest triathlon formats, but I also chose one of the most difficult Ironman races in the world in Gerardmer. If you go and Google "Gerardmer" you will quickly notice that it is a ski resort. Ski resorts are many things, but one thing they are not is flat. A flat ironman is hard - a mountainous one is fucking ludicrous. The bike took us through the hilly Vosges Region and the run took us on a cross-country adventure through the resort. The only flat and easy part of the race was the 3.8km swim. The race was so tough that more than half the people who entered did not finish (they either did not finish or did not even bother to show up at the start line). The race organizers quickly changed the venue of Ironman France to Nice. When I crossed that finish line after 12 hours of “racing”, having lost and most of the toenails and 6 kilograms, I was relieved. It was like hitting your head onto a brick wall - it feels good when you stop. That night, however, reflecting on this awesome physical achievement, I started to become restless as I asked myself, what do I do now? The goal had been achieved, the game was over, and I needed to find a new game. 2) Human Beings are Not Happy in Idleness We are under the false impression that the human brain will honor the unwritten promise that once you reach your goal, it will be flooded with contentment. The brain can handle periods of idleness for a couple of days and maybe up to a week, depending on how lazy you are. Pretty soon it will resume with its worries, questions and will force you to account for yourself by asking “so what have you been up to?” . I used to travel frequently to Colombia. A common greeting is “Que has hecho?” which means “What have you done?” Not familiar with Colombian slang, I was often confused by the question – do I need you to give them a brief resume of my entire professional life, or would a quick recap of the last few days suffice? I then realized that this phrase should not be directly translated, and was simply a common greeting of “how are you?”. The human brain, however, is far more literal in its persistent persecution. It does require you to give an immediate account, and often the honest answer is “well, actually, not that much”. You are then engulfed with feelings of unworthiness – irrational as they may be. We start to believe that no achievement will be enough – not even climbing Mount Everest and that we are doomed for a lapse of despair. 3) Humans Need to be in Motion We are mobile creatures. I lived for 18 years in Mexico City, one of the biggest cities in the world. Twenty-five million people, living in an old lake, surrounded by two active volcanos. A traffic jam where you do not move an inch in 45 minutes is not uncommon. As humans, this is brutal. Your mind automatically wanders to the worst-case scenario – what happens if we never move and they discover my dead rotting corpse three weeks later in exactly the same location? Humans need to be in movement. We need to set goals and convince ourselves they are important - even if they are not. We need to set tasks. 4) Routines are Powerful Tools I told a former work colleague that I exercise every day, and she replied by saying that I am a product of an unhappy childhood, to which I told her to fuck off (in my head – I was working in a large multinational that prided itself on political correctness). People think that routines are restrictive and they impede our liberties and freedom. Freedom is not anarchy – freedom comes through self-control and discipline. You decide to go to the gym every weekday morning at 5am. If you hit every session of the week religiously and set a routine, are you free or a slave? To answer the question, consider how you feel if you decided to hit the snooze button and miss the session. You are racked with self-guilt – you feel like a failure and a piece of shit. Those negative feelings will weigh you down for most of the day. They will hold you back like a ball and chain. Are you free or a slave? The answer is obvious. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Everybody wants to be more than they are. How else can you explain the growth in the self-help/improvement industry? Surely, if these self-help gurus were so fucking effective, this market should be contracting and not expanding. Everyone who buys the courses, the books, and the expensive 1x1 sessions should be crushing it. The single biggest reason why businesses grow is loyalty – clients keep coming back. There is no industry in the world with more repeat business than self-help. It is a drug – it gets you hooked and keeps you high long enough to attend the next course or buy the next book. I will let you in on some truth – another book, another 7-step plan, or another 5-day lecture series in Hawaii is not what you need to advance and unlock your potential. I should know – I wrote the book “10 Steps to Financial Freedom” and I don’t think a single person who bought it will activate any of the advice in the book. So why is it that we are all so depressed, unfulfilled, and operating so far below our full potential? We are terrified of what people might think if we start to do radical things or make radical changes in our professional lives. Between 1997 and 2010, I traded derivatives for large banks in Johannesburg, London, and Mexico City. I launched the warrant (listed options market) in South Africa for Deutsche Bank at the age of 26! I thought of myself as a mini rainmaker, so when Bloomberg, a financial software and media company, approached me in 2010, I thought – what the fuck? Do they want me to go and sell financial software to my peers in the financial markets? I was terrified of what people may think - from derivatives trader to software salesman. We are all so worried about what people will think if you quit your job as a doctor and start writing screenplays for Hollywood movies, or you post a video about your new sneaker business or start a podcast to brand the wines you sell. You use these excuses: I have a face for radio, or I don’t have a funky studio, or my voice is more irritating than Marge Simpson. NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOU. This is a cruel thing to say but most people are too busy dealing with their own shit to be concerned about your squeaky voice. Sure, there are deeply hurt and conflicted people that will hate on you, post negative remarks, and tell you are a piece of shit – but in all honesty, do you really care about the opinions of these sad and broken people? There will always be haters. Go to your favorite song on YouTube, what is the probability of finding zero dislikes? Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team. Tom Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft - haters gonna hate. You need to get yourself to the point where you don’t give a fuck about other people’s opinions. Why do you think Mark Mason’s book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” sold millions of copies worldwide? People want so badly to not give a fuck. Why was it that all the girls in high school wanted to be with, and all the guys wanted to be like, the devil-may-care guy who rode a motorcycle? There is something truly awesome about being unfettered by and free of the opinions of others. You live life on your own terms – that is true freedom and independence. The secret to success, happiness, and fulfillment in life is not being enslaved and paralyzed by self-consciousness. I know this is not easy because we are all hardwired to be concerned about the opinions of others. But you need to move away from that. If you want to launch a personal brand on social media and tap into millions of potential clients, you need to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. People are going to say you are ugly, stupid, full of shit, a piece of shit, etc. There are many people in the world who are so sad and miserable and have lives that are so empty, that they will take the time to write you a nasty comment. Instead of being hurt, feel sorry for these miserable fuckers. Don’t ever lose sight of your mission and purpose. The same is also true of the praise. When people say how fucking great and awesome you are, this too should not be taken too seriously. You do not need external validation. You know who you are, you know your value and no one should be allowed to change that. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business

Humans have a negativity bias. Our brains are hardwired to fixate on the negative – bad news triggers a reaction that causes us to remember more bad stuff than good. A nutcase walks into a school library, opens fire, kills 20 kids and the librarian, and then turns the gun on himself. We want to know more. This is the reason we love to watch movies about serial killers, mob violence, and drug traffickers. The online media knows this. Their objective is to increase traffic through their sites and increase the advertising dollars spent. I am not going to explain the reason for this bias. What you need to know is that it creates disequilibrium in your life. It makes you more inclined to complain and it kills any sense of gratitude. High-value men are masters of gratitude. They are grateful on a macro and micro level. Let’s start on a macro level. You could argue that there has never been a better time to be alive. Agreed, the last 20 years have been on little rough. We had the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2008 financial meltdown, the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, and we are now living through a global pandemic. But look at the positive. Between 2000 and 2015 the number of people living in poverty has halved. We have access to the best healthcare ever. We are better off than the richest man in the world in the 1920s. John D Rockefeller was the richest man in the world, but for the first 28 years of the 20th century, he did not have access to antibiotics. We live in an age of democratization of knowledge and education. The 1980s and 1990s recorded the highest rates of economic growth ever in history. There is an abundance of food, it has been 75 years since the last world war, democracy is by far the most dominant political system and commodity prices have fallen. There is widespread availability of high-speed internet, the internet itself has made the global market open to everyone. Ethnic minorities, women and gay people have never lived in a more tolerant and acceptant society. Things are pretty fucking good! On a micro level, here are five ways that gratitude can change your life. 1) It Shifts Your Focus A happy life is all about perspective and context. If you think your life is shit, go and spend some time in an old age home. Find an old man whose kids have not visited him in 5 years, who is living off a dialysis machine, and whose highlight of the day is being wheeled outside into the rose garden for 15 minutes. That will quickly put your shit and miserable life into context. 2) It Attracts People How often have you said – skrew that woman – she is such an ungrateful cow. The corollary is also true. If you ooze positivity and gratitude, you are like a shining light in a dark world full of ingratitude. People will want to spend time with you - for business and pleasure. 3) It Makes Your Happier This is so fucking obvious, I am not going to mess it up by trying to explain why – IT JUST DOES. 4) It Makes You Healthier Studies show gratitude can decrease pain, reduce bad health symptoms, increase sleep quality, and lower blood pressure. There is even reason to believe gratitude can extend your lifespan by a few months or even years. What do you have to lose, wake up every morning and write down five things you are grateful for, and see how it affects your health. 5) It Murders Envy I challenge you to be grateful and envious at the same time – it is impossible. It is like going to Disney World and being miserable. Envy is a very powerful negative emotion. Envious people are miserable shits. They tend to feel hostile, resentful, angry, and irritable. Envy is also related to depression, anxiety, the development of prejudice, and personal unhappiness. Envy is a killer, but so is gratitude. The difference is that gratitude drives a stake in the heart of envy, and then rips out its guts. #lifecoach #motivation #lifecoaching #coaching #love #mindset #coach #inspiration #selflove #life #success #selfcare #lifestyle #mentalhealth #mindfulness #personaldevelopment #entrepreneur #goals #happiness #meditation #loveyourself #healing #motivationalquotes #lifequotes #positivevibes #fitness #businesscoach #motivationalspeaker #business