I have been working with a client to overcome his fears in certain areas and it all came to fruition just recently. The big test this week was when he went to universal studios to ride some of the biggest roller coasters in the world.

As I say, a lot of what we are afraid of, is often just a metaphor or example of so many other things we try to avoid in life and what we often find is that by tackling a specific and isolated problem, it can have a domino effect in eradicating so many other issues that hold us back.

There’s no magic bullets and often what we want to rid our selves of is not always possible. Stopping someone feeling afraid is a very big ask and also detrimental in many cases. However building someone’s ability to recognise how courageous they are and how to overcome those fears is both feasible and sustainable.

Here’s what I just got sent –

Hi Jon

He rode it and loved every single second so much he had to go back again straight away for another ride…hence the two finger salute with your logo at the front.

This was all possible from your help, he has said he could never of done it without your support..so THANK YOU so much.

His confidence, his ability to overcome his fears are all down to your help….Honestly I can’t thank you enough.

This is the t-shirt he had as a way of a well done and I got him the photo souvenir as a memento…

You are an inspiration to him and he has benefited greatly from your help, support and kindness and I will never ever be able to thank you enough. Speak to you when I am back in the UK.

I saw a homeless man today.

The same one I have seen every day for the last month.

Sat in the same place when I go to work in the morning and when I return on my way home in the evening.

He sits there with a detached look on his face, too apathetic it seems to even register where he is or those around him. He just sits and stares into space.

Whenever I give him money it barely registers for him and the next day its as though he’s never seen me before.

Yesterday when I saw him, he had in his hands the financial spoils of the day and it appeared that he had done well for himself.

But when I saw him sat in his usual spot today, I thought to myself how hopeless and pointless it was to help him.

In that moment I thought he would never do anything with the money he gets that could possibly change his current position or escape his homeless environment.

And then I realised it wasn’t the man sitting down on the pavement that I was talking about, it was me.

He was, as is often the case, just a projection of my thoughts. A way if you like, to listen to my inner beliefs about me. (This is not the first time the homeless have brought me a message about myself – read my post ‘Am I my thoughts?’)

I can never have an understanding of what it is like for this homeless man and certainly have no right to judge him.

And despite the fact that I do judge, as we all do, I also accept that these judgements have more to tell me about myself than they do about anyone else.

Like an alarm clock, those, like my homeless messenger, allow us for a brief moment to wake up, often bolt upright, from a deep sleep into our current realities.

These maybe short lived moments before we walk into the ‘factory doors’ and close down our minds to adopt the ‘business as usual survival mindset’, but its in these brief moments that we get to ask ourselves some poignant questions.

As I sat there shortly afterwards, reflecting on what I had just experienced and writing what would be the notes for this post, I was invited to ask myself ‘what am I actually cultivating in my life by doing what I’m doing right now? What am I investing in for my future that will change my current position down the line?

And I invite you to do the same.

In the areas you would like to change in your life, what are you currently doing each day to make that a reality? What are you cultivating?

Being self-employed means that every day I don’t work, I don’t get paid.

When I think about taking a day off, I can’t help but ask myself whether what I’m contemplating doing instead, is worth the money I will lose by not going to work.

Would I pay that money to do what I’m contemplating if I had to buy tickets for it?

When I go on holiday the cost doubles because I have to include the money that I will lose by having those days off.

If I’m unwell, I don’t take that ‘just in case’ extra day off just to make sure I’m fully recovered. As soon as I can go back to work, that’s what I think I have to do.

Just recently however I was lucky enough to get paid more money for one of my services, which is great from a financial perspective.

However something I noticed I was starting to consider was that taking time off would now become even more expensive to do.

Getting paid extra would mean I would lose more money every day I don’t work.

When I was earning less, losing the money for a day off didn’t seem too bad. I could justify it.

Now it seemed questionable if some of the days I would normally have taken off could now be justified.

The sad thing is that some of those days I was calculating ‘the pleasure to cost ratio’ was the regular day’s I would take off to visit my family, which I know through experience, that I should never put a price on.

But there I was, doing just that.

I mentioned this observation of time becoming more expensive to a good friend over coffee.

And it was a good thing I did, because it’s very easy for all of us to get locked into a way of seeing things and then take action inside of those parameters.

Like an artist’s view finder that blocks out large areas of a scene to create a certain composition, we can do the same with how we perceive certain things.

What was pointed out, that I had forgotten to take into account, was all the days that I would now be getting paid more for, that would more than compensate for the price increase of those same days off.

What I was made to see in that moment was that I was actually better off.

Like so many things that seems obvious after they have been pointed out, I find it fascinating how we create reality depending on our view point, and how different our lives can be depending on how many clues we find prior to making choices.

We cannot ‘see’ every angle alone. (I still struggle at times to accept this fact, much to my detriment – As Hugh Grant said in about a boy ‘I am an Island, I’m fucking Ibiza!’)

The likely hood of me thinking as I do now, since my ‘over coffee counselling’ is unlikely without having talked it over and as a consequence I would be acting into a very narrow version of reality, potentially at a greater cost to me than just money.

I’m often keener than my clients for their success.

I can probably be a pain in the ass with the amount of information I want to share that will ensure their success if they follow it or challenge me about it so we can find even better solutions for them.

Showing someone how much more capable they are than who they have been taught to believe they are, is something that ignites me.

I’m not a great business man because I give away so many hours of my time that I could have charged for, or information that I could have sold, but I do it because my only objective in those moments is that my clients succeed which also means so do I.

If they fail, I fail.

We can all be so much more, but we all need a dream team around us and someone to believe in us when we start to doubt.

I am no different. I’m hugely flawed and doubt myself and my capabilities more than many.

My confidence in my self regularly wavers and I have to dig very deep to often take leaps of faith that to others are easy choices.

And as I’ve often said, much of what I do is about building our resilience and ability to cope and keep going, rather than some magical cure that changes our personalties and everything become effortless.

A lot of growing is about being able to take the growing pains that come with those changes and being able to stick it out when there just doesn’t seem to be a way out.

But its inside of this feeling of inadequacy that drives me to the point of anger that someone else should believe they are not capable or good enough.

Even though I often struggle to make changes, or know what I should be doing with my life, it somehow gives me an unbridled desire to grab those I encounter by the neck who are imprisoned by self doubt and scream ‘don’t you fucking dare let those fuckers bring you down! You can fucking do this so lets fucking do it!!! Lets get started right now!’

And I know its inside of this that I am also talking to and coaching myself.

Trying to convince yourself or fix yourself is hard work. As Einstein said its very hard to fix a problem with the same thought process that created it.

We need to get outside of my own head and working with others helps me to do that.

As a teacher of mine once said – ‘people keep bring you your problems’. Not because its some new age mysticism, but because we all have the same shit going on.

And if we are congruent and we have integrity, its very hard to tell someone to do something relevant to ourselves, with out unconsciously having to do it as well to keep that feeling of congruency.

The Death crawl clip is, I think, (if you ask many who have worked with me) how I work to ensure I get them over the line.

One criticism I had from a client a few years ago was their only real concern was they where scared to fail because I was so passionate and convinced that they could and would succeed.

I took that on board, but my drive underneath it all is still the same with everyone I work with and that is ‘you can fucking do this!’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUKoKQlEC4