No, I haven't forgotten that I covered fear and worry in a previous blog, but it is such an all-consuming topic and one that has so many people trapped within its nasty claws, that I felt it was time to revisit this pervasive little monster that lurks in our heads and so often stops us from doing the things we really want to do.

It was also prompted by a discussion my wife and I had with our teen-aged daughter this morning who really wants to go on a trip, by herself, during the University holidays, but who it seems is paralyzed from acting due to her fear - but I ask her; fear of what?

To fully understand fear and the crippling effect it can have on us, we first need to understand that there are two very different types of fear  that we as human beings experience. The first type of fear is that which is known as "physiological fear". Now physiological fear is built into our genes - it is an evolutionary trait that has helped allow humanity to rise to the top of the evolutionary pyramid. Physiological fear is what alerts us to potentially life threatening scenarios, that we can choose to ignore (and some people certainly do choose to) at our peril. What defines physiological fear is the need to react physically to it. Literally speaking physiological fear is the difference between life and death. There are some fairly obvious examples here: The fear of heights is one. A long history of people dying when they fell from high places e.g. cliff edges, has ensured that an automatic fear of heights is well ingrained in our DNA. You would not walk along a thin girder suspended 100 feet above the ground because your subconscious automatically knows this is not likely to be good for your long-term survival. Similarly, when you are confronted by an angry animal, physiological fear requires a physical action to remove you from the danger you face.

Although some people do make a conscious decision to embrace the physiological fear and overcome it, for example mountain climbers, big wave surfers, skydivers et al, in general terms it is fair to say that physiological fear is good for us and warns us of potentially dangerous situations that we may choose, or not, to avoid. Physiological fear is a good thing - it helps to keep us alive.           

What is not such a great thing however is psychological fear. Psychological fear is not born in our DNA, but is born within our own active imagination, or as Andy Shaw likes to call it - that little monster in our head, called our ego. Psychological fear is the most crippling and limiting aspect of our psyche. It stops us from reaching our potential in life and most importantly of all it limits the happiness and joy we can experience. In some unfortunates psychological fear can be so great and so overpowering that it literally drives that person to a complete standstill. 

We've all read and heard of people who are so crippled by fear that they cannot even leave their own houses (agoraphobia), others who have a pathological fear of water (aquaphobia) and those too frightened of heights to even climb a set of stairs (acrophobia), but those with phobias this extreme are best assisted in overcoming them with professional psychological counselling and treatment.

For most of us the fears that cripple us are just simple psychological fears that we have allowed to become the ruling paradigms in our lives. These are fears that have been drilled into us over the years by the people we have most trusted to guide us in our lives; our parents, our siblings, our teachers, our friends, our work colleagues and indeed society in general. We have, like a good and faithful dog been exceeding well trained. The problem is that these fears have become so ingrained in our subconscious that they can stop us from doing things we WANT to do and things we SHOULD do, to grow as individuals and experience the awesome life that we were born to live. So what are these fears that hold us back from achieving our greatness?                

Perhaps one of the biggest fears that holds us back from achieving our potential is: THE FEAR OF FAILURE! How often have you thought of a great idea or considered trying a new activity, or a new hobby, even a new career and then been paralyzed by an immense fear of failure? You come up with the idea - you think that's awesome - yeah, I can do that and then what happens? 

That insane little monster in your head (your ego) starts chattering back to you. "Who do you think you are?" "What makes you think you can do that?" "You tried something like that before, remember? God, what a disaster that was!" "No, you stick to your knitting - you do what you can do" "Don't you dare have the temerity to try something new - you know you're a loser, you're bound to fail." "Best you just go and have a beer ha!"  

But why are we so afraid of failure? Failure is the first step on the road to success. It doesn't matter which successful person you interview, you will always find that there is failure written in their story. In fact successful people literally "celebrate" their failures. Here, I particularly like the comment of Robert T Kiyosaki (Author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad); "Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure, also avoid success."

If you are to be the greatest you that you can possibly be - you need to overcome this fear of failure. Whatever it is you want to do - you first of all need to make a start and from then on the key is persistence. Don't be off-put by the ego that keeps telling you, you will fail! There is an old truism - "if you don't run the race; you can never be the winner!" 

And even if you don't succeed initially; then you will have at least gained two wonderful things:

1/ You will have the immense satisfaction of having tried something you have always wanted to try. You will have given it your absolute best and you will have grown as a person. None of these things is to be dismissed lightly, they are all part of the building blocks of success; and
 
2/ You will have so much more experience than you had before. The mistakes you made this particular time will serve you well in your future endeavors. I guarantee you, you won't make those same mistakes again. As Heston Blumenthal said; "I learned more from my one failed restaurant than from all the successful one's put together."; 

So don't let a fear of failure cripple you and consign you to living a live too ordinary. You were born to excel - you were born to be great. Just take that first step down the path that you long to venture and embrace any failures as part of the process of growing your greatness.     

What other fears hold us back from achieving our true potential in life? A big one for many people is the fear of ridicule - of what other people will say about them and what they are doing. In this new, highly connected world it seems that for many people "appearing" good to others is their definition of their success or happiness. Why is this so? Success and happiness start and end with love - the love of one person - YOU FOR YOURSELF! Truly, what does it matter what others think of you? 

The biggest problem I encounter is that instead of people loving themselves for who they are - a unique individual with talents that are completely unlike those of anyone who has ever lived, or will ever live - they indulge in fruitless and debilitating episodes of self-loathing and then have to seek validation for themselves, from others. 

If we truly love ourselves and embrace our own uniqueness with passion, then why should we need validation from anyone else. "To thine own self be true." If we are going to spend our lives seeking acceptance from others and seeking their plaudits then we will waste so many opportunities to experience the joys of life that make us happy and can fill us with bliss. Fear of what others may think or say is extremely limiting and can paralyze us from action. 

YOU deserve better than that! You deserve to fulfill your own dreams and desires, not someone else's perception of who you should be, or what you should do. Take control of yourself, your own destiny and live for you - forget about what others have to say. The time they spend trying to drag other's down and limit other's potential is wasting their own opportunities to grow and experience everything that this amazing life has to offer. Don't fall into the trap of pandering to their small-minded needs. Go out there and be the best you can be; doing the things you want to do.   

The final fear I want to cover today is also a biggie for many people - the fear of the unknown; what the future might hold. 

First and foremost you need to understand that the unknown is somewhere out there, in the future. The only thing you can do to control the future is what you do TODAY - here and now. 

I am telling you - here and now, today, that if you focus your mind on all the potential problems and pitfalls that the future may hold for you - that is exactly what your future WILL hold. You will actually attract to yourself the very things you want to avoid. 

You need to accept that you live in the PRESENT , not the past or the future, and whatever you think about and do NOW, will be what your future, manifests in your life. I think the best description of how this all works comes again from Andy Shaw. His philosophy is this; you decide NOW, what it is you want in the FUTURE. You then experience that in your own mind until it becomes your reality. That having being done, you then work diligently to bring it into everyone else's reality. 

I strongly believe there is no such thing as luck or coincidence. Everything we experience in our lives is; 1/ Brought about by our own thoughts and actions of the past and 2/ Ultimately for our own good. In other words I believe; at any given point in time we are exactly where we are meant to be; doing exactly what we are meant to be doing; with the people we are meant to be doing it with. Don't let the fear of the future cripple your ambitions. Embrace the present - be the person you want to be today, and tomorrow will take care of itself.      

I want to end today with a quote from one of my absolute favorite authors and gurus - in fact the woman probably recognized as the one person who introduced the "Law of Attraction" to the masses - Rhonda Byrne. She says in her book "The Power"; "You were meant to have an amazing life - you were not born to struggle...what then would be the point of your life?" 

I couldn't agree more. We all have within us the potential to achieve greatness, whether it be just within ourselves, within our families, within our community or indeed within the world. We are not limited by anything except our own choices and our own fears. 

I thought today, for something completely different, I'd do a book review of a book from Australian author Hayden Bradford; Travesty! 

As anyone who knows me will attest, I've always been a voracious reader - reading just about anything I could get my hands on. The only downside of becoming an author myself and focusing on my own writing was that I had let my reading slip to virtually nothing at all. 

Now, all the experts tell me that to be a good writer, you absolutely must read other people's works. 

With that "guilt" fresh in my mind, I determined that I was going to return to reading, as a relaxation, on a more regular basis. I'd met Hayden through the Twitter group #promocave, which is an author group that allows us to promote and encourage fellow authors. I had always been intrigued by the Twitter posts Hayden had used to promote his book, such as; "the most politically incorrect book ever written", "you'll pee your pants when you read this book". That plus the fact that, like my first novel, Travesty was dealing with the interaction between heaven and earth; made me very keen to read it. 

When I discovered it was available for a limited time for free on Kindle, I decided to "never look a gift horse in the mouth" and downloaded it. If like me you thought you could only read Kindle books if you had a Kindle reader, I'm here to tell you that's not the case. There are applications that will allow you to read Kindle Books on smart-phones, your laptop, or indeed on your PC. You just need to download them and the whole world of Kindle Books will open up to you. You can actually download them from the Amazon page, so don't hesitate - get your Kindle Reader today and start reading.

Right, on to the book itself. Travesty is published by Hayden himself and is approximately 300 pages long. I am surprised to discover the length, given I managed to read the entire book in virtually one sitting; it really is that easy a read. 

Now Travesty is NOT for everyone. If you are easily offended, or politically correct, do not buy this book. If, like me, however you enjoy cutting satire and a good old-fashioned yarn, written in everyday language that we can all identify with, then Travesty is a "damn good read". 

To give you the basic premise of the book; without spoiling any of the surprises, this is the basic plot. Travesty was so named by his Mother, because she foresaw his birth as the beginning of a long, drawn out disaster for her. Travesty is your archetypal Aussie layabout. He hates work and prefers instead to partake in a life of lying around, drinking himself silly and when the need arises indulging in the pleasures of "agency girls". 

Unfortunately for Travesty his life is cut short by an angry Mother who catches him and an "agency girl" in her marital bed. Death, much to his surprise is not the end, but rather the beginning of his adventures. To his shock and horror, Travesty finds himself in heaven and in an audience with God himself. He discovers that only Baptists (of which he was christened one) are allowed into Heaven, regardless of the sort of life they had led on Earth. 

Heaven is nothing like what he expected it to be and the book follows his interactions with the inhabitants of heaven, culminating in a "Second Coming", when Travesty, not Jesus, returns to save the people of the Earth from the Global Financial Crisis.

There are many genuinely funny and bizarre scenes in this book, which will live long in my memory long after my read. The satire is very pronounced and cutting, and will resonate with all those who have ever experienced the arrogance and pomposity of many, religious, political and bureaucratic leaders. While it is true that I did not "pee my pants" whilst reading this book I was regularly brought to laughter and chuckling. It is a fantastic read for anyone who has ever "cocked a snoot" at authority. 

Two scenes in particular will live long in my memory; The description of the creation of the Universe - "The Big Bang" and Hayden's interpretation of Travesty's first meeting with God. As I read these sections I commented under my breath; "this man is a pure genius". The two passages were awesome. 

This really is an amazing book and a whole lot of fun. I would urge you to go and purchase it for your reading pleasure. You won't be sorry you did. If I was giving out stars, Travesty would garner a 5-star rating in my book. Well done that man!

It was only at the end of the book that I read something about the Author; Hayden Bradford. Hayden has been battling debilitating depression and associated neurological issues for a number of years now and the book was written - as he puts it; "I needed to write a good, fun story that would make my head laugh as I wrote it." 

More power to you Hayden! May you continue your recovery with more irreverent, politically incorrect, and outrageously funny material. 

Travesty is actually a reincarnation of an earlier book written by Hayden, under the pen-name Joshua Hosea, titled; "I Taught God to Gamble". This book is also available from Amazon. 

I urge you to give it a read: 

You can check out Hayden's book Travesty here: 

I intimated in my last blog that I would reveal just exactly what it is I personally believe in. I teased you with the word “Omnism”. If you look that up in an online dictionary the definition is given as: “The belief in all religions”. I chose this word because although it doesn’t quite express what I truly believe, it comes as close as anything I can think of. As individuals I believe we create our own reality; and religion, (in whatever form it takes), is many people’s reality – their belief. I respect and will always champion their right to believe whatever they choose to believe; whatever reality they choose to make for themselves. It is only when they try to force their beliefs on other people that I would feel compelled to take a stand.    
Beliefs change over time; that’s important to understand. What we believed as a child is clearly different to what we believe as an adult. We are programmed, conditioned creatures and until we can break that programming and begin to think for ourselves, our beliefs are those imparted by our parents, our families, our friends, our teachers, and society as a whole. 


I can sum up my own personal beliefs (as they are today) in a few succinct paragraphs:

So, those are my core beliefs, if you like. 

There is so much more that underlies each of these beliefs, but it is impossible to cover them in one short blog. I will expand on some of them in future blogs, but if you want to know more; don’t hesitate to contact me. I can certainly point you in the right direction or perhaps even help you with some advice myself. 


 Have a great life and spread the love! 


 Changing the world – one reader at a time!  

In a country deeply rooted in its Spanish Catholic history (with around 85% of the population still professing to be followers of the Catholic Faith), Holy Week represents a tug-of-war between the somber and stern ways of our Lola’s (Grandmother's) and the call of our young, less traditional children. My wife has often regaled me with tales of her beloved Lola’s tough attitudes to the celebration of Holy Week. “We were not allowed to wear colored clothes, we certainly were not allowed to laugh or have any fun, and all we were allowed to eat were simple, plain meals like sardines and rice – certainly no meat for us on Holy Week.” She tells me that, as children, they were taught that Holy Week was a time for solemn reflection and for remembering what Christ suffered on the Cross for their transgressions. Simply put, Holy Week was to be a time of denial, of reflection and most importantly of all a time of penitence for our unworthiness to receive this ultimate gift of grace.

Over the years, as Thess worked hard to instill this ethos into her own children but she discovered, like we all have, that the world had changed in what seemed like a blink of the eye. Holy Week no longer holds the mystique and mystery, for this generation that it once had for our generation. For many Holy Week is now seen as merely an opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life and to head for the resorts and beaches of this beautiful country. In my mind; that seems like a pretty damn good activity to be indulging in when the mercury climbs through the roof.

Indeed, this Holy Week our family has again indulged in the traditional exit from Manila; all heading for the home Province of Occidental Mindoro for a rendezvous with the glorious beaches of Mamburao and a reunion with those of the family still left in the province. I say “our family” however I have to exclude my wife and I. We have been party to this mass exodus for a few years now, but for a variety of reasons Thess decided we should eschew the joys of Lagundian Beach this year. “We will just stay at home and spend some time together;” (a rare opportunity these days), so that seemed a pretty reasonable option; although when I saw the first photos posted on FB from the rest of the gang at the beach, I did feel those little pangs of jealousy tickle at my heart.

“So, sweetheart,” I asked, arching one eyebrow in a not so subtle suggestion, “just what do we plan to do with our Holy Week?” Her answer was not quite the one I was hoping for, but then “hope springs eternal”. Her suggestion was that we tour some Churches and undertake a Catholic tradition called: “The Stations of the Cross.” Now as regular readers will know, I’m not Catholic, but I will always respect and honor Thess’ faith and beliefs. I love the woman – and that includes everything she believes in and holds dear. To do otherwise; in my opinion, would be to make my love conditional – and I don’t do conditional! What she had in mind was to link up with our daughter-in-law who was also stuck in Manila with her three children and we would tour seven different churches in seven different towns in Rizal Province; performing two of the “Stations of the Cross” at each Church. It seemed like a reasonable proposition, especially since the car is air-conditioned, and I do love touring the old Churches in this country. Since it seemed a pretty good way to get out of town for a day; I readily agreed.

There is something quite special about entering a house of worship that was built some 400 odd years ago and has survived floods, earthquakes, typhoons and war, to still be standing and serving the people of its community so well. I do marvel at the grandeur of the Catholic Faith – they do “grandeur” so much better than most. As we were tripping around and stopping to perform the rites at each Church, a few things struck me.

Firstly; I was thrilled to see that although the times they are a changing, plenty of families were still on the same pilgrimage as we were. There were still thousands of people touring around visiting the Churches on this boiling hot Maundy Thursday. It was clear that, for some, eschewing the beach for the more thoughtful and reflective task of remembering their faith was still in vogue. I noticed that families were using this opportunity to bond and to spend time together – a truly worthy activity. Although this was an opportunity to reinforce their faith they didn’t let it stand in the way of enjoying each other’s company. There was much laughter and merriment accompanying the fulfillment of “The Stations of the Cross”. The children, as children always do, just saw it as an opportunity to run, to jump and to play – and nobody cared that they were enjoying themselves. There were very few “negative” people in sight.

The question did arise; as it often does in our household as to what I do actually believe in? You know, I’ve given this topic a lot of thought over the years and its answer probably requires a blog of its own – keep tuned. As a teaser, the closest word I can think of that describes my beliefs is probably; “Omnism” (Check it up in an online dictionary)     

Would I rather have been on Lagundian Beach with the children – maybe, but I thank my beautiful wife for her excellent idea to take a break from everyday routine and just reflect on how lucky we are and what a wonderful life we now have. Thank you darling – you were right; AS ALWAYS!

A final thought - Whatever you do this Holy Week; make it something you do together, as a family, that promotes peace, happiness and tranquility in your life. Have a wonderful and restful break and remember always - DON'T WORRY; BE HAPPY! 

Changing the world - one reader at a time!