Every single human suffers in their life, it’s part of being a human. We make most of our decisions to avoid suffering. For example we swallow a pain killer to avoid pain and as such we become conditioned to swallow painkillers for the rest of our lives.
In the U.K. the sales value of over the counter pain killer drugs was 658 million* pounds in 2020.
*Source statista.com
I love all the promos (NOT) suggesting the business preparation and snake oil strategies for when we come out of this, as if it will be business as normal. But nobody is even remotely touching on the subject of, ‘what if we won’t get back to normal for the next 7 year cycle?’ What then?
The medical science suggests a further 6 months or longer of partial lockdown measures to prevent. potential seasonal re-emergence of #COVID19 🦠.
It’s not about business turnaround, it’s about the resilience of our minds during all this.
It may also be the end of capitalism as we know it, now this might not be such a bad thing. Public health may finally become THE biggest priority we’ve ever witnessed. Clapping and celebrating key workers is all fine and dandy but if we suppress the resources they need and reward them insufficiently for their heroic service we should be ashamed.
We all desire plenty of votes, let me give you a few examples.
Votes from our parents, to confirm we are enough.
Votes from our teachers, to confirm we are worthy students.
Votes from our employers, to confirm we make a great contribution.
Votes from our peers, to be recognised and feel like we belong to the tribe.
Votes from our friends and families all over social media, non-stop confirmation that we are loved.
Votes from our industry in the form of awards to prove that our company is among the best in the industry, in our region, in the world etc.
Why?
Everyone wants to be loved, feel good enough, feel recognised and we are constantly looking for this throughout our lives, it shows up everywhere!
Even when I’m writing this I need you to agree with me, that you can see what I’m saying is true, confirmation that I’m enough.
We are already enough, but we don’t wish to accept it.
This is the human experiment, the human drama, all of our individual stories acting out every single day, searching for approval, searching for acceptance, for love and belonging.
Look in the mirror and there you will find it all the votes you need!
[embed]https://youtu.be/eThXzUg1qQo[/embed]
You Are Enough
‘Fear and Doubt’ are potentially the two words that sum up all suffering by humans on this planet. Although they are two different words, they are in fact the same for me. Doubt indeed can create fear and fear causes doubt. But together they make an interesting couple or are they two different sides of the same coin?
Just think about anything that you have ever encountered in your current life that has been a challenge for you, whether in business, your personal life, in relationships and you will come to realise that ‘Fear and Doubt’ will have featured heavily.
‘Fear and Doubt is used by governments to keep control over their citizens and stop them from creating revolutions against those governments in charge, no matter how badly they are performing. Just consider the dictatorships that exist and have existed around the world through the ages. They have all used ‘Fear and Doubt’ to exert control over their citizens. Only when the people of nations decide to over come the fear and doubt that has been bestowed upon them, are they able to create meaningful change, which has happened for example during the Arab Spring some years ago.
Apart from governments, teachers use the same techniques to exert control over their students to prevent any bad behaviour in school, usually very unsuccessfully.
In all areas of society, the workplace, society, medicine, homelessness, relationships, the already mentioned governments and many other areas, ‘Fear and Doubt’ is used to control us and more importantly even our own attention on these means we exert control over ourselves.
It is all part of what Tony Robbins calls, conditioning. In fact he calls it ‘Neuro Associative Conditioning’ or NAC.
We condition ourselves and we have been conditioned to stay in ‘Fear and Doubt’.
This all adds up to what the Buddhists call ‘suffering’. The human condition and our biggest task on this planet, how to overcome suffering and find happiness.
So I developed this ‘Happiness Formula’, which if you have read the above will make perfect sense, I hope.
Happiness does not equal suffering and suffering is a function of ‘Fear and Doubt’. See image below. 👇
Now knowing that this is true, and you will have to put it to the test to prove it to yourself, is one thing but to reverse it is another. Those years of conditioning are tough to undo.
But have no fear I am giving you something to ponder. My wife, Clair and I were mulling this over one day and we jointly arrived at a beautiful statement to counter ‘Fear and Doubt’.
‘Courage and Clarity’.
So the real answer to happiness is ‘Courage and Clarity’.
Hope you like it, now go and test it out and I would love to hear how you get on.
Be happy!
As I said in a previous article I call myself a straight talking Dutchman and often find myself giving feedback to members on LinkedIn who ask to connect to me. It’s always meant with the greatest intention and often it can come across as being critical. So I’m sticking with the theme and want to go a little bit more in depth on this.
By far what I witness on social is self-congratulatory language, especially LinkedIn.
Someone recently commented on a blog of mine, where I asked the question; ‘Employee! Do you see any value being on LinkedIn? The last sentence in his comment was:
‘The contributors are smug. It’s like Facebook without the jokes. It’s a breeding ground for envy. It isn’t healthy to spend your whole life comparing yourself to other people.’
Initially I felt like he might be attacking me and I because his language was quite direct and very very honest, maybe it wasn’t a good thing to approve the comment to be shown on my blog.
Seeing as I hardly receive any comments on my blog and after reading his comments a few times, I concluded that actually there is a lot of truth in his statement. People are smug on LinkedIn, it is a breeding ground for envy and people do compare themselves with others.
One of the bits of feedback I give is on people’s profile photos. See, I believe they need to look professional, a head and shoulders shot, produced by a professional photographer and when I see folks with their kids, drinking alcohol, being on holiday, on a stage, showing off with a headset microphone or anything else equally at home on Facebook I say NO! Sort out your profile photo, you look ridiculous. Judging again!
Often people come back to me and say, well I’m not doing so bad and I have more connections then you after all’s who are you to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. Not exactly those words, but pretty much the same.
I do believe social has become all about ‘look at me’, look how great I am, look at my achievements, if you don’t hire me either as an employee or as someone to solve your business issues then you are off your head, because actually I am the best thing you will ever find on here. I see no humbleness any more and don’t even get me started on the videos and adverts people post. Yuk!
Happy social networking!
All of our lives are rooted in fear at some level. We wouldn’t be so obsessed and addicted if we weren’t in fear so much.
Fear is a good thing isn’t? We often don’t think it is but actually if we didn’t have fear we would be jumping of a bridge believing we can fly and that wouldn’t get us very far.
As humans we have an operating system already programmed to keep us alive at every single step of the way. If we didn’t have fear as part of that operating system we’d be at death’s door much more often.
But not all fears are equal.
Sure we have an operating system to keep us alive but we also continue to program that operating system with our thoughts and feelings as soon as we arrive here on planet earth. We also get help from the lovely folks around us. Bless them!
I believe we focus a disproportionate amount of time on just 7 major fears that govern our actions, our emotions and keep our operating system from releasing a new and better version. It’s like being stuck with the first IBM computer and never upgrading the computer chips.
She here they are, fear of;
1. Getting Hurt
2. Not being loved
3. Being abandoned
4. Not being successful
5. What they will think
6. Not having enough money
7. Getting sick
Can you relate to any of those, maybe you can think of a brand new category I missed?
Happy fearing!
We’ve all been exposed to’ The Bully’, and they show up in many places around us. Maybe they were our parents, siblings, teachers, classmates, schoolmates, partners, banks, creditors, bosses, colleagues, governments, local communities, business interest groups, social groups, friends, social media, the internet and maybe you can think of others?
The fact is bullies exist everywhere in society.
Recently a friend of mine told me a story about his boss publicly challenging him, in front of his colleagues, in connection with what he was up to. It doesn’t matter what it was, the issue was he was doing it publicly in full view and earshot of his colleagues and likely on purpose.
I’ve heard similar stories from my stepson from managers in hospitality and in a famous high street brand who sells electrical and computer goods.
The incidents don’t matter and in all the stories I’ve heard I know that workplace bullying is far from over. It may start in the playground and it definitely moves into the workplace.
Managers in the UK are seriously under-skilled in people-management. I remember when I used to be in management, there was a prediction that in 10-years time the biggest issue with skills would be management skills. Well we passed that d-day nearly 20 years ago and still we have not improved.
The trouble in all this is, my stepson never complained about it to his manager’s manager. Neither has my friend complained to HR or higher up. If we do not complain about the bullies, they will continue their bad bad behaviour. We all need to step up and stop the offenders. There never is an excuse or good reason for the behaviour that the bully believes is okay.
Happy reporting!
I believe it’s a fantastic campaign, well thought out and of course a massively important topic. Helping people who have mental health issues with their money issues or indeed the other way around.
I for one have been affected by money possibly my whole life. My Dad used to regularly say that there was never enough money and if any of the kids wanted to money he used to point to his back and ask if we saw any money growing on it. What makes it worse, my Dad used to work for the Bank of America. He ended up being an AVP (assistant vice president), not badly paid I would have said. Actually we never went without when we were young, although I do remember a very long period of my life when I was wearing 2nd hand clothes and some of them were great.
This didn’t set me up very well for my relationship with money. Basically when I had money, I spent it. When I look back now how much money I wasted, it makes me feel sick.
Only now, in the past 6 months when I have been enlightened by The Minimalists, has my relationship with money started to change.
[embed]https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/lloyds-bank-get-inside-out-adam-eve-ddb/1455976[/embed]
But, when I saw the advert by Lloyds promoting a brilliant campaign highlighting the need for acceptance of mental health and it’s often financial impact, I felt sick when at the end they showed the prancing horse with the slogan, ‘Lloyds, by your side’.
The reason I felt sick is that in the end, although I applaud the campaign, Lloyds did this for their own profit, to show that they care and therefore we should bank with them. In actual fact all my banking is with them, which makes it even worse!
Corporations are in it for the profit Michael, they’re not in it to be nice to their customers or even nice to people with mental health, they only care about their shareholders. Oh blast, what a load of charlatans they all are.
Happy banking!
More and more I am realising that my only focus should be on myself. When I focus on others, whether it’s judging them, observing them, wanting them to change, I go backwards. I go backwards in my goals, in my health and my general wellbeing.
It really is not difficult to focus on just yourself. I am not talking here about being selfish, more about noticing what you’re doing, what you’re thinking and how you’re showing up for yourself.
I know it is an overused analogy, but it’s the easiest one to relate to. If there’s an emergency on an airplane and you’re with a young child, who should you place the oxygen mask on first? Yourself, correct!
Well, when we look after ourselves first, we will be so much better placed to look after our family, our friends and colleagues.
I know the answers, I’ve known them for over 14 years, but it’s harder to tell yourself, so whilst being treated by an accupuncturist for some eczema on my lower legs that have been there for nearly 12 months, she shared with me some wisdom that I already knew but I wasn’t able to hear myself speak. It’s as if the brain doesn’t process it unless you hear someone tell you what needs to be done.
I believe I now know what I need to do, it’s not difficult I have done it before.
Happy caring!
Mental Health disease is already a bigger issue compared to cardiovascular disease when it comes to the impact on work absenteeism but companies are unlikely to have the stats to confirm it.
Mental Health can be more impactful for a longer period of time compared to a physical ailment. It can cause long absenteeism periods and often individuals will use other reasons to hide behind the fact that something is wrong mentally.
There’s still a massive stigma attached to it.
Mental Health can’t be seen and often we don’t admit to it ourselves.
If the latest reports are to be believed, Donald Trump has some Mental Health issues. Actually we don’t need to be convinced by the reports or Michael Wolff’s latest book on the White House, all you need to do is look at Trump’s tweets and you will appreciate that something isn’t quite right.
Indeed all you need to do is look at Social Media and people’s Facebook posts and Twitter rants and you know something is not going well for them. At some level we all have Mental Health challenges but we are mostly in denial about them and we mask them through our Facebook personas, trying to make things appear much better than they actually are.
If the predictions are to be believed Mental Health will be the biggest condition affecting the global population far out stretching all other diseases combined.
This episode of Horizon looks at the issues that will change the way we live our lives in the future. Rather than relying on the minds of science fiction writers, mathematician Hannah Fry delves into the data we have today to provide an evidence-based vision of tomorrow. With the help of the BBC’s science experts — and a few surprise guests — Hannah investigates the questions the British public want answered about the future. Mental Health is discussed in this report.
I overheard on the radio that in the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) has just 100,000 beds.
Between 1987/8 and 2016/17, the total number of NHS hospital beds fell by approximately 52.4 per cent — from 299,364 to 142,568. Within this total number, there are different categories of bed across which the scale of change has varied considerably. See image.
The number of overnight general and acute beds has fallen by 43.4 per cent between 1987/8 and 2016/17 — from around 180,889 to 102,269. However, within this category beds for the long-term care of older people fell more substantially. Between 1987/8 and 2009/10 — when beds for older people were recorded separately — numbers fell 60.8 per cent, from more than 53,000 to slightly less than 20,900.
The largest percentage falls have occurred in overnight mental health and learning disability beds, which fell by 72.1 and 96.4 per cent respectively between 1987/8 and 2016/17. This was underpinned by a policy shift to providing care for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities in the community rather than in institutional settings.
Data from: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers
Considering that Mental Health will be a growing problem in years to come and that there is a time bomb in connection with a growth in older age people, I will leave it to you to decide whether the current UK government have done a good job or not when it comes to looking after the nation’s health?
He isn’t the first and he won’t be the last celebrity or non-celebrity to remove themselves from Social Media.
It’s all wonderful when your so-called fans seem to adore you and are addicted to seeing your personal life unfold in front of them.
That’s until you make a genuine mistake and then the trolling, the judging and hate starts to flood into your surroundings, as if you’ve committed this disastrous crime, you are banished to the outer edges of your mind with nowhere to hide.
Social Media has managed to infiltrate into every crevice of a celebrity’s mind that receiving hate messages will eventually takes its toll and push them into submission when even their ego can’t take anymore.
I feel saddened for a human being who just wanted to be great at their passion and share genuine stories with their fans and now feels they can no longer be so public any longer.
The trolls did win but mental health is more important.
