Live WIth Spirit Blog

Seeking Wisdom Book Review

Maybe my favorite book ever. Read many times. Incredibly rich. It's a great overview of the lessons of Charlie Munger (partner of Warren Buffett) - and his approach to checklists of multi-disciplinary models to guide clear thinking. Main point: if you can just avoid mistakes, you're doing better than most. So it's a catalog of the most common or important mistakes. Focused on investing, but can be applied to life. Derek Sivers Book Review 

Delegate or Deputise

The difference between deputising someone to do something and delegating that same something is huge.

Deputise means to hand over control and move on. Delegate means to half hand over control and half move on.

When you deputise, you need to have something else to do, otherwise, you'll be stuggling to find purpose and most probably start sticking your nose back into what you let go of.

5 Essential Keys to Great Self Leadership

• Wisdom .. Wisdom is better than Experience. Experience costs more, puts stress where stress does not have to be, and reinvents the wheel each and every decision. Instead, wisdom means foundation, taking the risk out of choices and making fantastic investments where others can’t. Wisdom simply means, getting past emotional and mental Wheel Spin.

• Inspired Vision ... People love to work for those who are inspired and without inspiration work becomes an unattractive proposition and disasters follow. People like to be led by, support and invest in people who are really inspired about their work. Making money out of something is nice, but also being inspired about what we do is even nicer.

• Total Package ... Success in business includes a great home life. Money doesn’t buy happiness - even though we try to make it do so - and therefore, good management includes how we feel, our health, mind and relationship.

• Adaptation... The person who can implement plan B fastest will always succeed. They say, if you want to make the God’s laugh, write down your goals for plan A. We say to entrepreneurs in MBA Nature’s way, “Evolveyabastard” and that’s for ladies too...

• Truth ... If a person can stop 110% then they can go 110%. So, an entrepreneur needs to know how to recover fast, put the brakes on, turn up in truth, cut out the fluff, arrive in the moment, where ever they are, turn up 110% and that’s a real skill.

Are You FIT for Work? A Self Study Assessment.

Score each of the 10 questions out of ten. Ten being the top and Zero being the worst. Add up the scores. If your company scores below 50%, disaster in the form of a company Tsunami (often called a major restructure or cost reduction program) is on the cards. Assessment.

1. Do You Walk Your Talk?"

How many times a day do you say "SHOULD" or "GOT TO" - every time you do, you're losing a battle because that's not walking your talk. That's talking your walk. If you find yourself at this low end of the evolution curve, maybe it's time for some spin. Who is going to follow someone who doesn't walk their talk except someone else who doesn't walk their talk?

2. Is there a healthy intensity?

Nothing destroys the health of a person or a business more than complacency. Are you pushing yourself enough or cruising for a bruising. I't might sound great at first but cruising is like a tree that stops growing.....

3. Are you Turning up?

I don't care if you cut your foot off with an axe this morning, get over it and turn up for your work. Ok, there are some circumstances that press the past into the present, but "oh, gee I have a worry about next month, or oh, gee I am stressed over my upcoming needlework exam are not. If you have ambitions to rise at work, then know that the problems you face will rise with that so, too your process must rise

4. Is your emphasis on leadership or management or both?

Management means looking after the present moment, making sure everyone is comfortable and productive today. Leadership means having the awareness and understanding of the future that means people increase their odds of success in whatever endeavour they are working with the leader on. A manager climbs down the rope to help someone through a crack in the wall, a leader leaves instructions and hand holds.

5. Are You stressed?

Stress, negative emotion and complaints are a sure sign that emotional - egoism has taken over from leadership, and that the boat is sinking. Do you know what stress looks like? There are many early warning signs.

6. Are You staying ahead of Your team?

For every $ of training spent on a direct report $2 needs to be spent on their leaders. Very often, senior staff invest in training for "the team" but forget themselves. That means the team beneath is growing up toward the top and if the top stays in the same zone, there's going to be collision. So, are you waiting for a fire or are you installing fire retardant. When the fire happens it's too late to be thinking, "I wish I'd thought of that."

7. Are You growing in Chaos and Order?

Some organisations operate on the idea that perfection is the elimination of incompetence, and this creates a false-hood in communication. FIT companies know everyone rises to their own incompetence, and can grow through it. WE rise to incompetence but we grow in order. So, the last time someone asked you, "how's your work life?" did you answer, "I'm really busy" or "No problem - all is fine and under control." Think this through.

8. Is your focus on doing more in less time - or expanding work to fill the time you give it?

The evolution of any organism is 100% conditional on a constant focus on process improvement to get more done in less time. Some however, prefer to expand the work to fill the time so they are never in open space... are you obsessed with filling work time or are you obsessed with completions in less time?

9. Are You balanced at work?

In 1890, people went home to balance their work day. Now, imbalance costs productivity during the day so skills for sustaining balance, and therefore healthy decision making, are essential throughout the day. If you come home with less energy than you went to work with in the morning then don't blame me if your partner starts fishing in a different pond. Incompetence at work should not be compensated for at home.

10. How ambitious are you?

When a person goes into cruise mode, or achieves their goals without trying, there's a good chance that the bar has been lowered to meet reality. Lowering the bar to meet reality is the 100% cause of an awful word... REGRET... Wasting time compromised - life and love are too precious to waste hanging out twiddling your thumbs.

Redundancy - Reinvent Yourself Yearly - Or Plan for Redundancy

Yesterday, my client shared how proud he was that he'd read a book I'd recommended, "the Four Hour Working Week by Timothy Ferriss" with a friend in need of some reorganisation in his business life. I commented on the fact that he's probably been instrumental in selling 20 of those books, and yet, not many of mine and this led to the writing of this article.

What Inspired Me About Work Today? - REALISM Did - In this Great Animated Speech

See below for an extraordinary video commentary.

A few years ago I was hissed and booed in the middle of a presentation to 120 execs by a small bunch of thought leaders in the organisation. Those vocal minority were quite fundamentalist in their social paradigms - with strong study ties to books like "The Secret" and "the Art of Positive Thinking" - books I consider along with "the Seven Habits" to underpin much of the disharmony, stress, emotional fragility and moral breakdown of Corporate Life. And, I'd said so in the presentation in not so many words. 

Walker's Vision Day

Double Trouble
Originally uploaded by Chris Walker Innerwealth

If you have booked a vision session with me in nature it is wise for you to contemplate the following before you arrive (this includes half day and full day sessions:

1/ You will be in nature, rain, hail or shine so bring the right clothes. Remember, there's no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothes.

2/ If you plan to go to dinner afterward, you may need some underarm, a fresh pair of undies and different shoes.

3/ Snacks are nice but stay away from high sugar things. Apple, banana, oranges are beaut.

4/ Don't bring your mobile or if you do, turn it off. (ooohhh spooky)

5/ I'll have the paperwork, you just need a small voice recorder - cheap cassette tape ones are $20 - be good to be able to make a cd later on.

6/ Bring some money for lunch.

7/ Consider parking: we will be away from the car for 3 -10 hours (depending on what vision quest you've chosen to do) and there's no chance for "ooh I have to check the parking meter" - that means arrive very early and find good parking.

8/ Answer the following questions - but don't write the answers down anywhere:

a/ The five laws on which my world rotates
b/ The four states of mind I choose to hold
c/ The three priorities that will focus my efforts
d/ The two principles on which I life my day
e/ The single Result that will be the real testimony to my life

Stillness - Inner Calm

Not sleeping well? Facing challenge? Feeling tired or exhausted allot? Getting run down, unfit? You might be thinking “I need a break” or to “change my workplace” but think it through, “if you always do, what you’ve always done, you’ll always get, what you’ve always got” What you might need is a change of heart. Smarter thinking, less stress, more precision, less confusion, more energy for the other side of your life.

Stillness comes when we are without disturbance to our heart and mind. This means action with complete certainty, open mindedness and compassion, in other words, without emotion. The emotional person has only glimpses of stillness.

Finding Stillness - Better Self Available on Amazon

The unique home your mind and heart need is stillness, it is a space, a state of mind. Stillness is a space from which sleep is deep, facing challenge is easy, certainty comes and  thinking is clearer. It is a space where calm and rest are automatic.

Innerwealth - V.I.P

Chris Walker helps people to live inspired: naturally. He believes the only drug we need is life itself and if we live as nature intended, we get what nature intended. Good work, good love and good health. Chris believes that the human spirit thrives when our heart, mind and body are in balance. Then, not a strong wind, nor unexpected news, or anything for that matter can disturb us. We become, in his words "totally unflappable - absolutely inspired." We call this process VIP.

V = Vision - Create what you want
I = Unflappable right where you are
P = Commit to something beyond the Self - Clarity.

Work Smart - Live Long

You are born and you die. These two things you can be certain about. What you do in between is up to you. 50% of that time in between is spent at work. So, to have a crappy work, is to have a half crappy life. It's not just stress that gets you down at work. It's people. Tiredness. Boredom. And feeling depreciated.