So, I started 2009 taking a few days away from the computer, the internet, and taking some time for myself, to just start thinking about what the coming year has in store?  It’s not often, in our always, on, always connected world, that we can find the time to just step back, and think, and reflect, without having a hundred and one thoughts at the back of our minds, of all the things we need to do, or people we have to respond to, and so it was good to be able to just switch off, step back, and unplug, knowing that it would just be the jovial, merry partying, and festival spirit being carried by the internet across the world, at this time of year.

Traditionally, the Winter, is associated with retreating inwards and being introspective.  To people who manage to notice the seasons, and the changes in pace of life, and the change in nature, Winter is traditionally a time of hibernation, and deep slumber, a time when we look inwards, and re-focus our dreams, and aspirations.  It’s a time that naturally lends itself to staying indoors, and having some quiet time, given that it’s so cold out, and it’s nice to be snug indoors.

Personally I like to enter the New Year, with a clear purpose, and sense of what my priorities are for the coming year, as well as clearing the slate from the previous year, and letting go of what’s not been working so well, and coming to terms with those failures too.

So 2008 was a “huge” year, for me, in so many many ways.  I’ve grown tremendously in the last year – personally experiencing and living through an entire roller coaster of emotions at times.   I’ve had some incredible highs, and some unfortunate lows.  Some of those low’s unfortunately, are still on a downturn, and until I get some closure on them, they’ll possibly continue to keep going downhill..  There’s not too much I can say about the low’s just yet, not until some things become clearer, and I know exactly what’s happening.  But the highs, equally, have been a real joy and pleasure to experience, and perhaps everything in nature finds it’s way of balancing things out – making sure we never get too high, or too low, before we get to experience the opposite.  I will gladly reveal all, as they say, when the time is right, for now, suffice it to say, it’s been a very very tough time for me personally and as a consequence, professionally.

I started 2008, with a very clear aim and purpose – “to restore my health”.

I wanted to become physically fit, wanted to restore my body to a health and vitality which I posessed perhaps 10 years ago now, and I wanted to overcome a physical condition that I’ve been fighting for over 5 years now.  No, I’m not talking about my obesity, which is also a challenge, but I’m talking about my Lymphatic condition..

Since 2003, during my stay in South Korea as an English Teacher, I went and got ill, with a condition, that has meant that I’ve had to spend the last five years, experiencing a series of recurring fevers, pains in my leg, and an abnormal amount of swelling in my left leg, which has made it challenging at times, to even find a pair of trousers I could wear, without my leg becoming completely swollen, and painful.

In the past 5 years, I’ve worked with traditional allopathic doctors, I’ve worked with healers from Mexico, with shamans from Peru, with acupuncturists, with homeopaths, and ayervedic physicians – but it seems that no-one was able to concretely deal with my illness, or I was unable to follow through with any medications, and courses of action that I was prescribed, given how much I’ve been travelling over the last 5 years.

End of 2007, I made the conscious choice to stay fixed in London, to not go gallivanting round the globe, and to do everything I could to get my leg healed, and get back into shape…  I continue on this journey, to this day, having now decided to go at this, from every possible angle I can.. I’m religiously following the advice of my allopathic doctor, and will be consulting with some of the other doctors and healers I’ve worked with before, to attack this ill health on all fronts.  But perhaps, my health is going to resolve itself in it’s own time, and I need to choose something more appropriate to focus on now??  I realised that perhaps part of the challenge is in not having something to get healthy for, I wouldn’t be as motivated.  Perhaps just being healthy wasn’t enough of a motivation, or didn’t support me enough in my goals?

Of course, I have other goals too – but they all took a back seat last year, whilst I put all of my time, attention and energy into getting healthy.   Result? I’m healthier now than I was this time last year.  (I’ve definitely lost more weight, and the swelling in my leg has reduced).  But I’m not there yet.. I’ve not reached the goal or target that I aspired to hit.  And to be completely honest, heading into 2009, with the same overriding focus, or theme just doesn’t appeal to me anymore..

The mission to get healthy, and recover completely is still there – but I don’t feel like 2009 feels like a year I need to devote to my health and wellbeing in the same way.  I’ve learnt heaps, in the last year, and if I just continue applying what I’ve learnt, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will eventually come out of this stronger, fitter, healthier, and more alive than I’ve ever been.  So if my primary focus for 2009 isn’t going to be my health anymore what is it going to be??  For the longest time, I just couldn’t understand which to choose..

I had my pick, narrowed down, to:
1) Personal Development – I could focus on learning new skills, learning new languages, studying something, etc..
2) Personal Relationships – Investing the time and attention this year, in getting closer with family, with friends, with colleagues, and with acquaintances.  Building my network deeper, and wider, and connecting with ever more people.
3) Get a career – Choose a career – and get laser focussed with it.  I’ve been drifting between projects and ideas, and volunteering, and helping people out for a number of years now, but I haven’t had that singularity of focus, on a single vision, or a single career path, that’s yielded the results I aimed for.  When I discovered recently that a friend of mine, who graduated in the same year as I did – is now a Vice President of the company he’s been working with.. I wonder where I would be today, had I just committed, and focussed on one thing already??  Conversely, if it weren’t for the variety and breadth of exposure I’ve had in life, I probably wouldn’t be the well travelled, well rounded, and lateral thinker that I am.  So there were pros and cons to my lifestyle choices.

Ironically, I’m drawn to getting a career.  I know – most people, seeing me living my life, travelling at a moments notice, the world at my fingertips, think that I have such a “great” life, and why would I ever want to give it up?? Well, I guess I’ve done all the travelling, seeing the world, and having adventures that I want to have for now.  Yes, the thought of living on a desert island, and enjoying warm weather, and a great laid back lifestyle is all good and all – but knowing that I could at any moment get myself a job as an English Teacher in Thailand, and be “living that life”, is just not appealing anymore.  I’ve been there, done that, got the T-Shirt, and bored of it already.

With that in mind, I’m making 2009, the year that I focus on my career, and my professional development, through working, and having a job.  It’s pretty easy to do the whole job thing, but for me, the real challenge is going to be in becoming the very best in my field.  I’ve often wanted the “regularity” that comes with having a nine to five, your life takes on a basic routine, and rhythm, that allows you a certain amount of freedom and flexibility that comes with the structure that a regular working day brings.  I’ve done many of those “exercises” where you imagine what you would do, if you had all the money in the world, and whilst in the past I might have dreamt of great worldly ambitions, and lofty goals, in truth, I don’t really want any of those things.  What I want is to “work”.  That kind of work that at the end of the day, you look back on it, and get a sense of satisfaction, knowing that you’ve done a days productive work.  It’s that feeling you get, after accomplishing something, knowing that you’ve completed something substantial, and completed something productive.

I haven’t yet, learnt to “monetise” my work, and my contributions, and perhaps it’s  a reflection of the fact that whilst my contributions are useful and of value, I still have some things to learn about business, and money.  My recent reading of The Richest Man in Babylon, has made me realise just how much I love and appreciate work, and how there’s some basic fundamental principles, of wealth, and abundance that I’ve been missing out on.  The most basic being – that if you don’t love your work, then you won’t be able to get really really good at something, and then be able to command a greater salary for being ever more proficient in your field, or area of expertise.

So, 2009, I’m going to focus all my energies on becoming excellent at faciliting online community.  Managing an online Community is challenging at the best of times, but comes easily and effortlessly to people who have mastered those skills, and know how to support their colleagues or constituents in generating content, and deriving value.  So with that in mind, this year, I’ll be focussing my time, attention,  and skills to both engaging more deeply online, and also to learning and developing the skillset, or toolset that’s required to be successful in facilitating online community :)  I look forward to seeing how accomplished I become in this field, by the end of 2009.  Wish me luck!!

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I Don’t Mean to be Rude, But…

The perfect title, for the biography of Simon Cowell.. I don’t know if it was the title, or the fact that I knew of Simon Cowell from TV, but didn’t know who he really was that got me to pick up a copy of the book at my local library, but whatever it was, all I can say is that I’m glad I did :)

It had been a long time since I’d read something that wasn’t directly related to me trying to be more successful, or some Personal Development Book, or Self-Improvement Book.  I’d worn myself down, with reading so much material designed to help me, or inspire me, and hadn’t just picked up a book and read it, to just enjoy the story, to read for pleasure.

In fact, after reading so much that just seemed to fill my intellect, I was getting fatigued by it all, and had forgotten how fun it can be to read something that engages you, and draws you in..

So let me pause for a moment, before I start commenting too much on this book, and give you some background to how I had come to my knowledge of Simon Cowell in the first place. (Given that I’m fairly ignorant on most things musical, or of mainstream pop culture).

So, let me take you back to November of 2007.  I was in Johannesburg, in South Africa, and a friend shared with me a video of Paul Potts, singing his winning performance on YouTube, which was apparently being viewed by people all over the world.  Watching that video gave me goosebumps. It was inspiring to watch him perform :)

Listening to Paul Potts sing, and seeing him win Britains Got Talent, on YouTube was the first I’d ever heard of Britains Got Talent.  I’d been out of the country at the time of the finals in 2007, and whilst I’d seen Pop Idol, and X Factor, advertised, in the UK, all the time, I had kinda just ignored it for the longest time ever.  It just wasn’t my thing, and I really wasn’t all that interested in wannabe pop stars.

Then, in 2008, when Britain’s Got Talent started up again, I keenly started following it, and started to quite enjoy it.  Admittedly, I didn’t know who Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan, or Simon Cowell were, but figured that they must be some big names in the music business.

After watching Britains Got Talent, for the whole series, I got a real insight into the “character” of Simon Cowell, or at least I thought so.. He seemed to be supportive, and generally a quite nice person, though at times he was quite harsh, or direct, and I thought he could be a touch more tactful, or diplomatic.  I’m sure I must have seen him on some other program, perhaps on X Factor, though having not watched the finals of any other series, I’m guessing it was Britains Got Talent.

So now I knew of Simon Cowell (I mean one season of Britains Got Talent, is really enough to get a feel for his character, I reckon!), I didn’t think too much of him.. Figured he must have made his money, somehow, somewhere, but didn’t really know what he did, or where he did it, or with who.

So I happen to be poking around my local library, curious to see if there might be some vaguely useful or interesting books to peruse…

As it turns out, this book caught my eye, and once I started reading it, I didn’t want to put it down.

It was interesting to read about how, at a very young age, Simon had an ear for good music, and didn’t have any qualms over condemning bad music, even when he was a youngster.  As you read the book, you really start to appreciate how Simon has always gone with his instincts.  That he didn’t survive in the armed forces, and deliberately sabotaged interviews arranged by his successful father, because it wasn’t what he wanted to do.  It’s not that he was lazy, or arrogant, he just knew very clearly what he wanted, and also what he didn’t want.  A trait that appears to have served him well later in life.

In stark contrast to having interviews for well paid jobs handed to him on a platter, and rejecting it, Simon Cowell was happy doing the most menial job, of working as a mail boy, in a Music Company, simply because it brought him a little closer to his goal.

Repeatedly, throughout the book, you get to experience, and see first hand how committed, and motivated Cowell was with regards to his career.  But only when it was aligned with his real and true interests.  It’s almost like he couldn’t help himself.  I know that feeling well.. It’s been described quite vividly, and in full detail, at a few events I attended a few weeks ago.  Both Chain Reaction 08, Day 1, and The Fresh Business Thinking’s Entrepreneurs in Business event re-iterated over and over, this hunger.  As an entrepreneur, you need to have that fire, that passion.. You need to have that hunger for what you want, and be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

I recognise that willingness of Cowells to be happy being just a mailboy in a record company, because he knew that in time, he would be able to move up the ranks, within the company.. I guess back when I was younger and wanted to be successful, I had that same mindset.  Having read enough books that expounded the virtues of being great at what you do, whether you be a cleaner, or an executive, I used to have romantic notions of starting at the bottom of some firm, and slowly working my way upto the top.. I guess where I failed in that, like Cowell, when I stopped seeing any progress possible, I tried to pro-actively change things, and got into trouble because of it.

Perhaps I identify a little too closely with Cowell’s supposedly arrogant know-it-all type attitude at times.. but I guess everyone has their strengths, and when you’re not able to properly apply the skills you have, sometimes, the undiplomatic manner of others can draw out a harsh response, or a sharp comment.

One of the things that really changed for me, in reading Cowell’s book, was this perception of Entrepreneurs, and Pop Stars.  In the past, I imagined that they were very different in so many ways, but in truth, the same basic truths apply to successful entrepreneurs as they do to Artists that succeed.

For one, as a pop star, you have to know that everyone is going to tell you you’re not going to succeed.  It’s inevitable.  Of course you’ll have your fans, and supporters, but in general, it’s actually just that inner desire, that inner knowing inside, that won’t let you rest until you make it, that will drive you to do everything it takes to become a success.. By the same token, for an entrepreneur to succeed you have to have the inner drive and determination to succeed.. You have to keep on going, knowing internally that you have what it takes, and even if you have to declare bankruptcy along the way, sometimes even more than once, you know that sooner or later you will get there, and you will reach that goal..

Equally, as a Pop Star, or celebrity, you have to be constantly learning, training, practicing, doing what you do, in order get really good at it.  You have to practice singing, dancing, and performing all the time, and it can be argued that the ones that practice the most, and rehearse the most eventually become the best..

Likewise in business, and professional careers even, when you’re convinced you’re going to succeed, and you keep on trying, over and over again, as long as you’re learning from your mistakes, and have some guidance and support, you’ll end up succeeding.  Some people will eventually “plateau”, in their professional careers, as entrepreneurs, or as pop stars.  That plateau is usually more to do with their fire having been put out, of their appetite, and hunger being satiated.  It’s inevitable, that eventually people’s priorities will change, or they’ll accomplish so much in terms of physical and material success, that they get everything they could have ever wished for.. Some people just “burn out”.  Usually, that means either they didn’t want it badly enough, or that they were not following their true passion, or their true desires.

In every way, the entrepreneur, and pop star, are so alike, and have so much in common, one with the other.  It’s almost uncanny how hard work, an internally burning intuition and a gut instinct of what will or won’t work are all collectively key to succeeding in both endeavours.  To succeed in either, you have to sell your work, or skills to many others, and success in providing value to others, leads to monetary value back to you.

As well as others being able to appreciate the value you’ve created, you also have to have the steely determination to keep on going, the mental endurance to keep trying, the physical support to make sure you don’t end up out of house and home, and the inner knowing and conviction that you’re going to succeed.  Even with all of these things, you still won’t get anywhere until you can start to fan the flames of desire within, that is the all important, burning wanting desire, and longing, without which, you just won’t be compelled to take the kind of action that will lead you to succeed.

At least that’s how far I’ve understood the process to work.  As for me.. where am I on this journey?? Well, as an entrepreneur, I know I’m going to succeed.. It’s inevitable, and I know one day I will get there.. Partly because what I envisage is something that is too complicated for most people to understand the intricacies of.  Hopefully, it’ll be simple enough to use, just complicated on the back end, to make it all work properly, and create tons of value.  However, when it comes to the burning fire, the desire, the passion.. That’s where I lack a great deal of the “drive” to succeed.  Ironically it comes to life as soon as I share my work with others, as soon as I start talking about it, as soon as I start writing about it even.. (am noticing myself starting to get more excited and enthusiastic about my project the more I mention it:).  But how to sustain that, without any external stimulus??

Is it even possible? I don’t know, is the real answer.. Perhaps, it’s not? Perhaps true success is actually a measure of how well you can work with others, to turn your dreams into reality? I’ll let you know once I come out the other side of the tunnel.  For now, I’m full steam ahead, and fortuantely, have found a few great people to help me stay enthused, engaged, and excited with what I’m doing.. Now, I just need to execute in the way I work best.. and find people to do those things that I’m not so good at.

After all success is truly defined not by what you accomplish, but by making sure that the right people are around you, so that your shortcomings never hold you back..  On that note, I just want to say a huge thank you to Simon Cowell for sharing so intimately his life’s story, and I look forward to meeting him one of these days, once I too become a success in my calling as an Entrepreneur.

If you want to learn just what it takes to succeed, be it as an entrepreneur, as a professional, or even as a celebrity, I cannot recommend reading Simon Cowell’s biography enough.  It’s a great reminder, of how difficult times are usually a part of success, and I think its really well written, and easy to read.  I suggest you pick up a copy, or at the very least add it to your reading list today.

simon cowell, autobiography, book review

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ChainReaction08 – Gordon Brown just
arrived on stage, and is honoured to be here at the start of Global
Entrepreneurship Week

Gordon Brown – grew up in a school,
where there was no contact between business and the school – meant
that he never considered being an entrepreneur

Returning to the school, he was
impressed to find a program teaching entrepreneurial values

wants to reward people who generate
value, and take healthy risk, and don’t want to support people who
are taking unhealthy risks

Mayor of Dagenham, had Henry Ford
opening a plant in Dagenham. Mayor asked Ford if he would
contribute to opening of an old people’s home, and with no response,
ended up announcing it.. interesting story…

Mandela shared with gordon brown, he
climbed the mountain, the led to the ending of apartheid in south
africa

he said there is now a new mountain to
climb, finding solutions to the global challenges of poverty, and
there are ways of

Jane Tewson, Peter Jones, and Gordon
Brown on Panel discussion

This is the first financial crisis of
the global age, the first time there’s been a resources crisis and
it’s time to stop thinking of this as a country economy – but as a
global one..

Oil Crisis, people dying because of
lack of food

Oil Crisis – long term greater demand
of energy rising..

Food crisis – africa large land mass,
and is a net importer of food.

Reform of financial system – at a
global level

Global program to address food, and
invest in agriculture

Energy – growing demand, fuel costs,
being unaffordable, security challenge, and need for renewable
resources.

Need co-operation

unemployment, new deal based on
consultation based on young people

solutions to these chaallenges for our
global economy will generate more growth in the coming years, and
together we can work towards creating a better society..

Peter Jones

scarcity drives innovation – we are
able, and have to do a lot more with less. – Don’t lose sight of the
fact that scarcity drives innovation, it makes you want to do more,
with less..

About the inter-connectivity, and about
small businessess out there, not getting stuck on having a hard time,
and need to get out there more, contributing, more, csr programs, to
contribute to society…

Prime Minister Gordon Brown –

There’s many social enterprises in
prime ministers home consistuency, many innovative solutions for
government services are coming out from social enterprises like
nurses, or schools being taken over..

Trying to create a social enterprises
bank, to fund entrepreneurs. Social Enterprises show, to great
effect, that there’s a big contribution to be made

Enterprise based on hard work, effort,
and having the talent to use, and everyone should be encouraged, and
challenged to tap into their talent.

Question – 20% of participants are
under 21 – what would you say?

PJ – Self belief – opportunities
not just waiting to be found, but

you are the new way, the new crest of
what’s waiting to happen.. Go and make your dreams reality

Jane – seconds that – anything’s
possible. Don’t be afraid to ask, don’t be afraid to show you’re
vulnerabilities, just ask.

PM – discover your talent and use it
to the best effect – school motto – everybody does better
together – I will strive my utmost

Rise to the light

Anything is possible

Recognise that – aspire high, aim
high, you can prove anyone can make a difference

Edison, made the lightbulb, after 100
failures .. he said they were 100 steps to success..

Never be discouraged – use your
talent to the best effect – the global entrepreneurship week is
about that.. the global economy and social entrepreneurship week at
chain reaction is all about that..

I will strive my hardest…

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Today (Monday 17th November 2008) marked the inauguration of Chain Reaction 08, a two day conference in London which “will bring together social leaders, community activists, policy makers, business leaders, young people and people like you from around the globe to share learning and to generate new ideas for social change, locally, nationally and globally.”

Today also marches the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week “the first worldwide celebration of enterprise, which aims to unleash young people’s enterprising ideas and address some of society’s biggest issues, from poverty reduction through to climate change.”

As the day ends in London, and all the delegates wind down, and finish up for the day, later, half way across the other side of the world, in San Francisco, there is another conversation about to begin, at The Global Summit where the question will be asked – “What will it take to build a sustainable future?”.  The Global Summit(TM) a world-wide partnership for a sustainable future, is laying the foundation for annual Summits across the globe. The Global Summit(TM) begins with a two-day symposium and culturally rich welcome reception. Outcomes include guiding principals for a sustainable world across six key social and economic sectors, a blue print for the world’s first global citizen voter platform and an online collaboration system that maximizes our collective impact. Learn more about this event by either reading this press release, or by visiting the website of the Empowerment works – the organisation responsible for putting on the event.

It seems like this week could truly mark the beginning of a significant changing tide in the world we live in today.. I’ll be personally attending Chain Reaction 08, where I’ll be socially reporting on the event, via twitter, and blogging, as best I can.  At the same time two dear friends, fellow facilitators of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, and former colleagues from The Pachamama Alliance where I volunteered for 9 months will be attending The Global Summit in San Francisco.  We’re planning to organise a conference call, after both events, to find out about each others experiences of what was shared, and to find out threads between the two events, that we might be able to start weaving together, between the two gatherings, half a world away from each other..

I don’t know about how much virtual engagement will occur at The Global Summit, but we’ll have plenty of resources to engage people online, coming out of the conference, so please do connect into the conversations in whatever way you feel would work best!!

Whilst clarifiying a few details for The Global Summit, I’ve discovered a few more relevant happenings this week..

This week the following related events are also happening, or did already happen:

Governor’s Global Climate Summit, Nov 18th and 19th, 2008, in Beverly Hills, California,
convened by Governor Schwarzenegger

The G-20 Global Economic Summit, on Nov 15th and 16th, 2008, in DC, organised by President Bush.
You can also read the Full G-20 Declaration.

The first pan-European Town Meeting on Climate Change, 15th Nov, 2008, simultaneously in Florence, (Italy), Cornellà de Llobregat (Barcelona, Spain) and Poitiers (France), in the context of the IDEAL-EU project, one of the ongoing Preparatory Actions on eParticipation funded by the European Commission.

So it’ll be interesting to see with all this flurry of activity, what long term sustainable social change could come out of these programs? and what actually ends up coming out of all these meetings…

If you’d like to engage with Chain Reaction 08 – we’re deliberately including an online social element to the community interactions, and so would like to extend the invitation to everyone to join in, participate, and collaborate.

You can start by tagging everything you generate with the official tag of chainreaction08 – so everytime you blog, tweet, post a photo on flickr, or just generally include anything that you would like to include in the conversation, be sure to include that tag (except if you’re replying to something that’s been said in twitter, in which case the fact you’re replying will mean that the earlier part of the conversation, as well as your response will appear in the results :)  This applies to all people who are at the event, and watching from their homes too :)

On twitter, to search for a keyword, you can use http://search.twitter.com and put in the keyword terms for Chain Reaction 08.

A comprehensive query, that includes all related variations can be found by visiting http://tinyurl.com/5pu375 – this will provide you with a complete list of all posts on twitter relating to the London Chain Reaction 08 event. (The RSS Feed for this query can be found here).

For photos, everyone’s been asked to post them on flickr, and to use the keyword tag of chainreaction08 to make sure that they are visible to everyone who is looking for images from the event.  If you’d like to see the latest photos that have been uploaded, just visit here.  If you happen to attend the Chain Reaction 08 event, and have pictures that you’d like to share with the other participants, then I’d like to invite you to create your very own free flickr account, and post the photos you’ve taken during the course of the two days onto flickr, making sure that you tag all your photos with “chainreaction08” (without the quotes, of course!)

You can also find relevant blog posts, that will help weave a connection between the participants of Chain Reaction 08.  Again, if you want to have your blog appear to other people, make sure that when you post your blog, you include the tag chainreaction08, so that other people can find it, when they are looking for related content..

Fortunately, Google has integrated it’s video search into a single interface, that comes from multiple sources, so you can also find all videos from the event, that are shared on youtube and google video using the chainreaction08 tag.

There is also content being video’d and streamed directly online, throughout the event courtesy of David Wilcox, and Qik…

Then, most importantly, we also have an active online community at http://chain-reaction.crowdvine.com/ so if you don’t happen to have been able to join the event, live, or want to join in from a distance, the online community will undoubtedly be a rich resource, that connects people together long after chain reaction 08 is over, and perhaps by chain reaction 09, there’ll be an international dimension occurring simultaneously at the same time.

If I happen to have missed any resources, please add them into the comments section below, and I’ll be sure to update this page, to properly reflect all the resources, and references relating to ChainReaction08, so that everyone can benefit from knowing where to find everything related and relevant to a matter dear to our hearts.

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I’m an avid reader of Steve Pavlina’s Blog, and an entry I was reading today, got me thinking.. I just had to post a response.

Steve Pavlina, for those of you who’ve never heard of him, is a Personal Development Innovater, who through his blog, and website is sharing his experiences with the world, with regards to his own personal growth and development.  He often experiments publicly, and shares the results in a very live, and timely manner.  At times, it’s almost as if you’re going through the trials with him, and living through the daily experiences that he shares.  His thoughts and insights are certainly truly eye opening, and I’m reminded whenever I read his blog, of just some of the wonderful qualities, that I pray one day I might posess.

He recently shared an interesting take on health.  Admittedly, it’s not the first time that I’ve heard the analogy.  In fact, my own personal inspiration towards living a healthy and active lifestyle is Jason “The Juicemaster” Vale, author of Slim 4 Life, and a man to who I owe a deep debt of gratitude, for introducing me to the juicing way of life.. Cheers Jason!

So as I was reading this blog entry, that talks about the cells detoxing, and about how diet can affect our thinking and our ability to experience peak mental and emotional states, and I wonder how consciously do I choose the food that I eat?? Do I sometimes choose to deliberately supress elevated states of heightened awareness, and deeper emotions??  I know at times I’m drawn to eating meat, partly because it makes me feel heavier, and denser, and less aware, and less conscious.  It has a numbing effect, perhaps a bit like alcohol might, for people who drink alcohol to drown their sorrows.

At other times, I’ll be drawn to carbohydrates, like breads, and rice, to give me a “heavy” filled feeling inside.  It’s almost as if it’s not enough to eat and be fed, I need to feel “full”.  But that “fullness” is sometimes something that isn’t necessarily a very empowering state.  I know that at times I’ll experience a craving, ravenous hunger, which will make me just want to continue eating, and then eventually, once I’m satisfied, I’ll have to just stop for a while and let my body digest.  Jason, talks about it as your body going comatose, whilst it deals with this influx of food, which if the body doesn’t shut down every other system, and deal with, you would end up dying.. An example being the typical Christmas post-lunch snooze, which is more a coma induced recovery period, where the body is frantically trying to process all this freshly eaten food, before it shuts the body down completely.

It might seem an intense, or extreme view to take, but having self-induced these over indulgent meals, where the body just doesn’t seem to be able to cope with the sheer quantity of food that I’m consuming, it naturally puts me in a spot, where I end up just slowing down, resting for a while, to let my body digest, and get back into being alive again a short while later.

Paradoxically, I’ve found that I can always get a comfortable “full” feeling, and not feel like I’m about to shut down completely, whenever I make sure I have lots of wholesome, fresh, raw fruits or veggies as a part of my meal (either as juice, or typically as salads).  Whenever I eat like this, then I end a meal feeling filled, but not on the verge of having to shut down, and I continue with my life.  Interestingly, my emotional and mental states seem to almost feed on these cravings, and the mood swings seem to play a key part in the emotional attachment to eating.

What I have found particularly interesting, is that when I’m working on something meaningless, and empty, the feeling inside is the same, and the desire to eat more occurs.  I used that partly to my advantage with my previous employer, where I would stock up on snacks of fruit, knowing that I would want to snack away whilst working, because of how unengaging the work was.  Equally I knew that by snacking on fruit, at least I would be positively contributing to my health, instead of allowing it to continue to deteriorate.

Conversely, whenever I complete something that’s really meaningfull, or feels like it’s a real accomplishment, I feel that same fullness inside, that I would sometimes experience with food.  The biggest difference being that when I eat something and feel full, I know I’ve been fed, on a very physical level.  When I write something, or complete some piece of work, and it’s “done”, I’m apparently still fed, since the sense of accomplishment, in writing or completing something mirrors that sense of being filled.  The difference is, that when I’m engaged with something that consumes me, all thoughts of food, and hunger become secondary, and I no longer engage with food on the same terms.  It’s almost like food becomes a distraction to my work, and I genuinely am not interested in eating anything, until I finish what I’m in the middle of doing.

Interestingly, I completed fasting for a whole month, during the Muslim month of Ramadan recently, and during Ramadan, as an observant Muslim, you don’t eat between sunrise and sunset.  What I found was that in the first few days, whilst I might notice the fasting and the hunger closer to the end of the day, by the end of the month, my body was completely adjusted to the new eating patterns, and didn’t even twinge a little, when seeing others eating food, or when the typical lunch time came around.

Now, a few months on, I’m starting to wonder.. is it because I know that I’m not going to eat, that perhaps I kept myself engaged in activities, that were sufficiently engaging, that I didn’t feel hungry??

Is hunger really a physical hunger anymore?? With the amount of processed foods we eat these days, and with a real availability of food whenever, and wherever we want it, do we really know when our bodies are truly hungry anymore??  Is part of our conditioned “hunger” response to do with some of the suggested artificial sugar highs, some of the false hungers caused by eating too much refined sugar, or white refined carbs??  What would we naturally feel hungry for, if we didn’t have chemicals, and mental conditioning to influence our natural hunger patterns?

I’m sure in time I might get to the bottom of these questions myself.  For now, I’m just going to observe Steve Pavlina’s experiment living on nothing but raw juice for 92 days, and pay more attention to the food I’m eating, and the emotional highs and low’s I’m going through.

Though it really does make me wonder.. are we as a planet, plagued by diseases like obesity, because we’re so caught up in the physical world, and have so conditioned our bodies to respond to food, as a satiating source of hunger, that we mask up and hide the true hungers of our minds need to be expressive? Of our emotions needs to be felt? and of our individual, personal need to contribute in a valuable and meaningful way??  Share your thoughts and insights in the comments below..

Now that I’ve fed my soul, time to go nourish my body, with some food ;)

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In the UK there’s a thriving group of non-profit techies, (also known as Circuit Riders) who stay connected through a mailing list, that regularly keeps everyone engaged with helping each other, and supporting each other, through those trying times when you need someone to call upon, as well as those not so trying times, when you just want to let people know what’s happening, or sound out ideas.  That’s great for the virtual contact, but I’d always felt that there was something lacking in the face to face meetings and events that could also occur, and that I’d experienced during my time as a Non Profit Volunteer Techie in San Francisco during 2006 and 2007.

Working with a model that seems to work well, of meeting on the first tuesday of each month, Amy began the first of London’s Net Tuesdays this week, and by all accounts it was a roaring success!!  You can read a nice detailed account of the event at Amy’s Blog. I don’t think it would be fair to even begin to try and give a better summary than Amy’s already done.  Clearly a seasoned blogger, with a great writing style, she’s done an excellent job of reporting the output from our Bloggers Discussion Panel, which involved Type Pad, Moveable Type, Wordpress and Community Server being represented. One of the members of the Panel, Miko who wore the slightly more technical hat for TypePad, as well as representing Community Server, has written up an excellent summary of the key blogging platforms, and a great summary of some of the differences between them.  I thoroughly recommend if you’re starting out to read her summary, and use those to help inform your decisions about which blogging platform to use.

We then ended the panel, having answered some great questions about the features and functionality of the tools, and then started to come up with a list of considerations to take into account, before getting started.  The blogging “strategies and approaches” part of the conversation was designed to verse people a little in the thinking that goes into making a successful blog, and after brainstorming from the room, we crowdsourced the following 5 key points, of :

1. Setting Goals
2. Write with Passion and Knowledge
3. Practice writing blog posts for a few months
4. Use your community to come and comment
5. Integrate your blog with everything you do

The premise behind this conversation was that in order to be successful with your blogging, there’s some key pre-requisites that are needed.  Especially if you want your blog to be engaging and participative.  With that in mind, Miko shared her own take on starting blogging, and what you should do, to prepare to succeed.

Some Of My Own Thoughts on Blogging

I’m certainly in agreement that blogging doesn’t just happen, on it’s own, in isolation from the world.  I think often people look at a blog, and think “I can do that”. They might even assume that just by installing or getting a blog set up, that they too can start to reap the engagement and conversation that occurs in the blogosphere.  Unfortunately, it really isn’t all as simple as that.

Speaking, from my own experiences, and I wrote my first blog post in 2004, I can say with all certainty, that blogging for me has been something that evolves over time. I’ve undoubtedly been learning a lot about the medium of blogging along the way too, and that journey educates and inspires me to continue to always try out new things, and then some.I first started my blog, as an experiment, using Blogger.com, and started out thinking of it as a place to capture my thoughts and interesting things that I would come across on the internet.  You can even see at Blogger.com my original blogs, as they were until I left them, and integrated them all into my current Blog, which is now a self-hosted installation of WordPress, and where you might be reading this from.

Back when I first started blogging, I decided on some key areas of interest for me in my life, and thought I would use a blog to collect interesting websites that I found and bits of information that I thought were useful.  I considered my blog to be a place to store my thoughts, and as a record of my travels through the internet. I even started a few different blogs, because I thought that other people might be interested if I started collecting enough interesting websites, relating to a specific theme, or idea, or topic, and that in time, people would start finding my blog and commenting on it, and leaving their thoughts and ideas, if I were to capture the “best of” along the way.

You must remember that this is back in those days when del.icio.us and other social bookmarking websites hadn’t yet come out, and I was itching for a way to start collecting my bookmarks online, so I wouldn’t always have to use the same computer, but would always have access to the cool links that I found along my travels.  I also wanted to be able to share with friends, and family some of the cool stuff I would find online, and thought that naturally in time, a blog would be the perfect solution.

And to an extent, it did work, for a few months, and it certainly warmed me to the idea of blogging, but it didn’t really take off, in a big way. I still didn’t quite understand, back then of what I might be able to use the blogging for, and I definitely didn’t maintain the discipline of keeping my blog updated with all the interesting and wonderful things I discovered along the way.

I think back then, part of the challenge for me was that everytime I wanted to post something I would have to log into the blogging platform, and then create the entry, and couldn’t just use a plugin, or bookmarklet script or external blogging client to write to my blog.  Now after experimenting with a number of great tools, I’ve decided that I’m in love with ScribeFire, a plugin for Firefox, and since using it I’ve also started blogging a whole lot more too.  But I digress..So after a considerably non-productive use of blogging, with little real interest in keeping it alive for the sake of keeping it alive, and with this terrible feeling that no-one in the world was interested in what I was writing about, or posting about, I laid my blogging to rest.  Not consciously, but I just didn’t feel the need, or a desire to write about stuff as much.  I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired, or excited, and I guess I was going through my own challenges in life, understanding what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to engage with the world.

Then in the summer of 2005, I ended up travelling to Peru, in South America, and all of a sudden, I had something that I wanted to share with all my friends and family back home.  After a few attempts at writing out long emails, with details of what was happening, in response to people’s emails, I realised that most of the time I was writing pretty much the same set of details in response to people, and spending quite a bit of time repeating the same stories over and over to people, on a one to one basis.  Spurred on with the knowledge and experience of using Blogger.com, quite successfully in the past, I decided I would use that wonderful medium of “blogging”, to write about my travels.  Suffice it to say, it didn’t take long before I took great pleasure in sitting in internet cafes, writing up my notes of the day.  I even became really diligent in writing in my pocket diary, a summary of the days events, so that my time in the internet cafe would be spent just writing up what I’d already thought about and reflected upon, at the end of each day.  I thought that sharing my travels, and experience in that intimate manner would be a great way to keep everyone updated on what I was upto, and how my travels were going, and it meant that I wouldn’t have to write the same email to everyone that kept asking me how things are going, and what I had been upto.

It also started to fuel my desire to write, since I knew I had a captive audience.  I’d received so much support and encouragement from people as I’d left London, that I figured most of those people would probably enjoy reading about my travels, and my adventures.  I later discovered that my cousin had also been sharing my blog out to his fellow co-workers at work, and even though I never received much email, or saw any visibility of how many people visited my blog, and hardly anyone ever commented on it, I felt like it was being read, and I kept it updated, just so if nothing else, at least my family and friends would know how I was doing, and that I was ok.

Of course, once I left Peru, and returned to London, the blogging on that trip to Peru didn’t seem like a natural thing to continue, since I was back home, and things in London just didn’t seem as noteworthy, or as interesting and different as they did out there.  My only regret with my blogging back then, was that I didn’t take a digital camera with me, and take photos… Some of my travels were just so scenic and beautiful, and some of the people I met such loving souls, that I wish I had captured them all on camera.. But instead I got the joys of having fond memories that I shall keep with me instead :)

Again, the blogging had seemed like a great idea, it had become really useful, and productive for me, when I needed it to communicate, and now that I was done with that trip, it didn’t seem like I had anything left to write, and so I just let it fizzle away.  Back then, I didn’t really have any comments on my posts, and I didn’t really understand, if I had emailed all these people that knew me, why didn’t anyone comment on anything I wrote??  And so, by not having much engagement from the audience, I ended up leaving it as a record of my travels, and nothing more.

Uncovering Your Voice

I guess all along, the biggest challenge I had, when writing for my blog, was to get clear in my mind who I was writing for, and what it was that I wanted to communicate.  I would have moments of sharp clarity, and specific things that I thought were noteworthy, and then the enthusiasm would wear off, reality would set in, and I would come to the conclusion that actually I didn’t have anything significant or noteworthy to share with the world. (At least nothing that seemed to get the whole world clamouring at my doorstep, and wanting to comment on).

I’d finally understood, that blogging is a very personal choice, and that if I chose to publicly share myself, I would always be able to do it on my terms, and didn’t have anyone to answer to but myself.  I think partly because back then I didn’t have a clear audience in mind, I used the blogging as a way of tracking my own thoughts, and adventures out into the world of the internet, but never leaving that comfort zone of writing into an empty vaccum where no-one seemed to be listening.

Now, almost four years on, a lot has changed.  My understanding of the internet, and it’s role in my life for one.  My ability to engage and connect with people for another.  And also how I’m using the internet, and what I’m seeing myself using it for are all changing too.  I think part of the online social networking phenomenon of seeing your network online, in platforms like facebook and linked in means that you slowly start to see your “community”.  Wheras in the past, the most visibility you would get is the emails you got and sent, and the IM chats.  The online social networks that have come into existence now, are slowly starting to make us all acutely aware of the fact that we now have “captive audiences”.  Be it we might use those captive audiences to chase, as werewolves, or to write on each others walls, but innately , we have people we are engaging with, and who are engaging back with us.

This is where blogging comes into play, and starts to become useful.

Whilst you can certainly send an email out to everyone you know, using bulk emailing platforms, once that email is sent, it’s gone.  There’s no permanency to that message or conversation.  It disappears into the ether, and you can only track the results, and await the response from people to know what people felt or experienced.  Whilst it makes it possible to communicate intimately, and personally, it detracts from the public presence that could be enriched by sharing the contents of those emails in public.  Especially if it’s non-sensitive information that goes towards establishing your brand, your credibility, your cause, your needs, or your experiences with others.  What people can’t see about you, people can’t know about you, and whilst email newsletters are great in principle, in practice, there needs to be something being added or updated to the blog, or the news section of your own website too, so that those people who don’t currently subscribe to the newsletter could also have the choice, based on the content.

Nowadays, I’ve come to understand a little more clearly my audiences, and my different voices when blogging.  I can’t say I understand or know them all clearly, but I do know that I have a number of different threads or streams of ideas flowing through this one blog.  I have very distinct and different communities of people that I’m communicating with through this blog.  (Albeit, those communities may only exist in my mind for now, but they are very real nonetheless).

I can see, as I re-read my own blog, and see the train of thought, and threads of conversation that I’m weaving together, that I have some very distinct and seperate groups of people that I’m talking to, or in conversation with.  And I think more importantly, I’m starting to understand how powerfully, I can start to engage in the conversation on the internet, through the blogosphere.

It never truly dawned on me, until the Net Tuesday event we had in London, but commenting on other people’s blogs has really started to make me realise and appreciate how important it is to give before you receive.  If I want people to comment on my blog posts, I have to go out there and comment on other people’s blog posts first.

If I want my blog to become successful, I have to make it more focussed, and targetted.  This is something I’ll write about properly another time, but for now, suffice it to say, that the internet is a big place, and the more targetted and focussed your writing is, the easier it will be for you to become an authority in a particular niche.  What that translates to, is that everytime someone googles something vaguely related to your topic or area of expertise, you’ll come up at the very top.  As long as you know what it is you’re passionate about, and what you genuinely know about, then chances are that you’ll eventually be able to become an established authority in that niche.  Until you get that focussed, your own thinking and writing will suffer, as well as the community engagement, and participation to your blog, your website, and your cause, or field of expertise.

Conversely, the more focussed, and targetted you are in everything that you do, the more you start to add real value for others.  You become capable of voicing the unvoiced, on clarifying assmumptions, on becoming an authoritative voice, and opinion.  You also become capable of synthesising and expanding upon the ideas and thoughts of other people, and actually further the conversation in the blogosphere.

But first, you must know who it is that you will be writing for?

Then what is it that you’re going to write that this audience is going to want to know about?

Once you can answer the above two questions, clearly, and you have people regularly asking you for, or your regularly telling people the same bits of information, then, and only then, will you be able to uncover your blogging voice, and start to contribute in a meaningful manner through your blog.  Until then, you’ll be finding your feet, through the possibilities of what you might be able to voice, and who you might be able to express your thoughts to.  That’s not a bad thing either, because until you start trying, you’ll never figure out your space, and most definitely not find the flow of your blogging voice.

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Not least, because of how self-reflective the book is, and how it forces you to examine your life, from so many different angles, and so many different perspectives, and so many different lenses.  But also, just because it truly is heavy reading.  Perhaps, it’s just me, but whilst certain chapters just flowed, and I was able to read, easily and effortlessly, other chapters just totally bogged me down, and sometimes, it would take me a few days to repeatedly go over the same words, until I could move on.  Ironically, as soon as I put the book down, or got past that part, I would be just fine.. which makes me wonder.. is it the book or was it me, that was putting up the resistance??

Being outside of the US, I only got an electronic version of the book, but straight away, I could feel this book had a very significant “conscious” element to it.  I didn’t calibrate it, to the levels of consciousness, using Kinesiology, like David Hawkins does, in Power vs. Force, but intuitively, I’ve often noticed, that certain books, websites, and other written materials often carry a certain energy, especially if there are purposeful intentions behind what’s been created.  I’ll write more about my experiences, and understandings of energy and intention around written works another time, but for now, suffice it to say, that this book felt a little “lighter”, and had an energy around it, that was perceptible.

As I started to make my way through the book, having already read the table of contents online, I was acutely aware of the correlation between the 3 Core values of Truth, Love and Power, and the overlap, between these and the core guiding principles that I’d encountered in the work of The Pachamama Alliance, and the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium.

The work of the Awakening the Dreamer symposium, is to bring forth an “environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just human presence on this planet”.

Within the symposium, Environmental Sustainability captures the essence of living in balance with the physical world, being honest about what’s really happening, and in light of that honesty, taking new actions, as a consequence.  Something which having read Pavlina’s book, I believe is signifantly connected with being Truthful, in terms of what’s happening, and having an open and honest evaluation, with the forthrightness to acknowledge what’s really at play, regardless of whether it’s good or bad.

The component of the symposium that deals with Spiritual Fulfillment, deals with our own inner connection, or lack therof with others, in our day to day lives.  The component of Love, that Pavlina talks about relates to the notion of connectedness, and how, once we are in our loving space, we automatically feel the connection between ourselves, and others.  It is that connectedness, or absence of it, that is talked about in the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, when addressing the component of Spiritual Fulfillment, which gets discussed as the lack, and emptiness… Being devoid of meaning and connection.. Living empty and meaning less lives, which is often attributed to not “doing what you love”.

As for the Socially Just human presence, I believe that to be directly connected the the element of Power, that Pavlina discusses.  A socially just world, is one in which people claim their power, and the capacity for injustice to occur is non-existent, since everyone is equally empowered.  Power is not the same as force, which comes into play, when a situation becomes unjust or is unfair.  And it is this very absence of Power, that is touched upon during the Symposium.  Admittedly the handling of social justice, during the symposium, leans more heavily towards looking at the inequalities in the world, between people, between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots, the differences that exists because of race, and culture.  To me, that is but the flip side of Power, for when power is absent, true power, then such inequalities are indeed possible.

Whilst the symposium may present each of these issues in a more global reaching light, looking at the plight of what is, and current status quo, the symposium, having been birthed a few years ago, started a conversation in the world, which I believe is being refined, and rephrased by Pavlina, in his book.  Whilst I doubt there’s any strong connection between him and the work of the Pachamama Alliance, consciously, I know the two strands are directly connected.  Why do I say this? Because both were born out of the same call from the earth, from Pachamama.  One originated, in the Amazonian rainforest, the other in the consciusness of an individual seeking growth.  Both mirror the fact that we are in a changing time.  As people connect with their own innate wisdom, their own innate consciousness, they start to be able to access the consciousness of the planet too.. That is not something which is different from country to country, or by race, language, or religion.  The world over, we as a humanity are sharing the planet we live in, and as we start to bridge the chasm, between the world we are in, of individual, seperate, disconnected beings, to realising that actually, we are all part of a blueprint woven through the ether of life, that collectively sustains life on this planet, we will have to look out our place in this world anew.

It seems that increasingly more and more people are waking up, in a crisis.  Their lives, amounting to nothing, having acquired all the material trappings of wealth, status, and success, yet feeling hollow, and empty inside. This isn’t just co-incidence that this is happening all over the world, in this unprecedented manner.  More and more people are choosing to say no.  Are stepping away from what was once thought to be the “only” way, and asking anew, how can we do this differently??

From the emergence of online portals such as Kiva.org that allows you to lend money to people in developing countries directly, to Zopa.com, which allows you to lend money to each other, challenging the traditional lending cycle of the banks, people are increasingly engaging with the world on new terms, and technology is allowing them to do so in a way that breaks down the old structures, that were fixed, and impermanent.  Life no longer has to follow the same patterns of previous generations, and with that comes a recognition of the fact that what has happened in the past, is not going to be sustainable going forward.  With increasing global populations, and reducing available resources, it’s time to re-think the equation of life, and Pavlina’s book does a great job of thoroughly dissecting everything in your life, and helping you reconstitute it in a new direction, based on some core, and fundamental principles.

Is it the only book out there that does this? I don’t know.  But it is one of the few that I’ve read that really brings Personal Development into the realm of Science, not art… Taking things step by step, in a methodical, and meticulous manner, Pavlina ruthlessly dives into each of the core values, and then builds upon them, until you’ve been cut open, and forced to bare yourself, so that you can see what’s really under your skin.  Then, in the second half of the book, he slowly starts to re-build the very thing he’s dissected, providing suggestions, experiments, and his own experiences of what’s worked for him, to help find a new road out of the chaos, and confusion that might ensue, when you see your flaws for what they are, and find yourself to be openly honest about living a life that is far from ideal, in every sense of the word.

I can’t say that I’m “taken” by his style, and approach.. It’s perhaps a little too linear, and logical for my liking.. At times, it seems to lack heart.  But then it’s perhaps also at the same time, providing me with an accurate mirror of myself, and my own reality, which makes it all the more unbearable, and untolerable.  It’s definitely not another one of those wishy washy, self help books, or flowery, spiritual books, that’s for sure.  And I’m pretty convinced, having experienced Steve Pavlina’s wisdom for a few years now, that following even just a small part of the book, will lead to tremendous growth, and success, in any area of your life.  The real challenge is going to be sustaining that change, and transformation, in a world that increasingly is crumbling apart, and reading this book, could very well shake you, from your very core, destroying any sense of  success and accomplishment you thought you had, whilst forcing you to openly and honestly, set a new course in life.

For me, there’s definitely many many great parts to the book, and whilst I found certain chapters unbearably tough to read, with moments when I was just falling asleep, whilst attempting to read the words on the page, I think there’s enough value in the book, that even if you only read the bits that interest you, you’ll get enough value out of it, to have made the book a worthwhile investment.  I for one, will always suggest, when in doubt, listen to your heart.. Feel your way through something.. If it feels right, pursue it.  If it doesn’t don’t.  Simple as that.. And in time, you may be able to intuit your way through life in a more enriching and meaningful manner.  For now, I don’t have a perfect answer.  My life is no where near perfect.  I don’t have all the outer trappings, or inner richness of perfection by any stretch of the imagination.

But I have a spirit that’s willing.  Willing to live, and try, and experience.  Experience life in all of it’s colours.  And with that, and that alone, with my heart guiding me as my compass, I can honestly say, I’ve only ever been off course, when I’ve stopped listening to this guidance.  And in time, I learn to listen to my heart again, and start to push off in a guided direction, and as if by magic, life starts to flow again.  It’s not magic, it’s not co-incidence, and it’s certainly not crazy nonsense.  But then my world view allows me to understand my heart as being more than just a physical organ that pumps blood around my body.  I’ll definitely share a more deeper and richer understanding of my heart, and what it is for me, in a future article, but for now, let me recommend you go out and buy yourself a copy of Pavlina’s new book, if you’re at all interested in personal growth, and personal development. And if you just have something in you’re life that you want changing, or you’ve found yourself facing challenges that you just can’t overcome, then perhaps it’s time to order this book too, and who knows, six months from now, you’ll be as grateful as I am now, for Steve having taken the time to synthesise and channel his thoughts, perceptions, and experiences into this wonderful book. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth, I recommend you order your copy today!

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As an entrepreneur, with a company in London, looking for investment, if you’re innovative, and looking to grow the company with an equity investment, then g2i might be able to help.  I happened to discover it when reading the comments in an article that talked about Huddle, and how they were a part of a group who went out to Silicon Valley, called Web Mission 08.  The g2i appears to offer training, advice, support and mentoring, aimed at helping companies develop their pitches, their propositions, and their teams, in order to become “investor ready”.  They only target specific sectors, so before you go off all chirpy, make sure that you’re at least in one of the following industries:

• Design & Creative
• Life Sciences
• Emerging Technologies
• Energy & Environment
• ICT
• Food & Drink
• Value Added Manufacturing
• Retail

It actually looks like a pretty broad range, so hopefully you’ll be able to find a way to fit into one of those categories.  I guess, aside from getting you ready for investors, the real benefit with g2i, is their network of investors, VC’s and business angels, which means they’ll be able to help you brush up on your pitch, and then help you walk through the door to the folks with money most suited to what you’re offering.

Seems like a win win situation to me!  They have a great summary of the g2i journey, graphically depicting the different stages, and what’s on offer..

You can also read more about the g2i team, which is comprised of Grant Thornton UK LLP, Library House, E-Synergy, The Innovatory, Quotec, and Pembrige Partners LLP.

Altogether, g2i looks like a great outfit to go through, to help shape up the business, and get things rolling, especially if you’re during the growth phase of your company, and need the equity injection to help grow the business.

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