It has been said that love is blind. Any reasonably intense emotion will blind us. Have you ever been standing at your pantry door looking for the salt whilst in an intensely flustered state? Where’s the salt? Right in front of you! Did you see it? No!!! Why? Because any form of intense emotion, whether it be anger, frustration or despair blinds us. On the other hand, positive good feeling emotions open our eyes! We can see again!

Despair is an extension of fear. Fear of the future, fear of uncertainty. Despair also tends to influence where we focus on our timeline. In despair, we tend to focus on how things used to be. How good things used to be, and even more so how things are no longer the way they used to be. By focusing on the past, we are blind to new possibilities. Hope, on the other hand, opens our eyes to the future. Typically, hope is defined as having a positive expectation of our future. Hope is having something to look forward to which in turn adds energy and...

One of the reasons why so many people suffer various versions of anxieties, depressions, and general low self-worth and lack of confidence is because they are emotionally and spiritually isolated. They may have plenty of people around them and have been able to figure out how to fit in, but on the inside don’t feel they belong.

We can all fit in by simply mimicking the behaviours, language, and attitudes of those groups. Sometimes fitting in can be the direct opposite. Go quiet, not contribute and basically be physically present, uttering all the right noises, but on the inside, you couldn’t be more out of alignment.

If all we have are groups of people we hang out with where we are completely outsourcing our power and character to the whims of the ‘needs’ of these groups, it is inevitable that we will get to a point where we can’t take it anymore. In the extreme of this people, disappear from these groups never to be seen again. They simply stop showing...

The most important journey we will ever embark on is one of ambition to meaning. This journey is hallmarked by shifting identity phases. Ultimate, long term, and the deepest growth does not come from what we do or accomplish, but from who we are becoming and evolving into. Our soul thrives on continual transformation and growth.

This journey is hallmarked by an ever-changing shift of focus and attention. This means, as we become more emotionally and spiritually mature, our lives become less about ourselves and more about others. We realise that life is not about gathering and experiencing more and more pleasure, but about connecting with deeper meaning, and sharing this with others.

Our chief desire has never been to have more pleasure, but to have more meaning. When we lack meaning, we overcompensate with more pleasure. We achieve meaning by being of value to someone else. This is the journey of ambition to meaning, the journey of a shift in priorities, also known as our values....

A common problem experienced by many is suffering at the hands of their own thinking. We don’t realise that we are the creators of all our problems. This can be very difficult to see once the horse has bolted. That is, once the problem or drama has been created and being experienced we get caught up in the drama of it all and it seems ludicrous to even suggest that we created it. That is understandable.

However, we all have perfect futures. The mission is to make sure that will still don’t have the same problems in a year’s time. Sharon Pearson’s highly regarded book, “Ultimate You” encourages us strongly to replace our safe problems with risky problems.

A safe problem is unresourceful drama which holds us back and hurts us. When we are victims of our own short term thinking we create safe problems. Examples of these are procrastination, sabotage, putting on weight, playing the victim and so on. Safe problems have instant...

The most crucial conversation we can ever have is the conversation we have with ourselves on a daily basis. This filter-free, raw, unedited edition of our inner truths impacts our life experience, life situations and all relationships more than anything. The truth of where we psychologically live is determined by our inner reactions to life.

We become what we react to.

What we react to in life is a reflection of the themes that most often show up in our inner dialogues. To grow, develop and harness the awareness of uncritically observing what we react to, is a crucial skill in creating any form of change. The level of our inner dialogue flavours not only every experience we have, it also flavours the experience others have of us.

Most inner dialogues have become so habitual that we don’t even notice them. We don’t notice the impact it’s having on our life, and we then falsely conclude that life is ‘just how it is.’

For example, if our inner dialogue...

One of my most favourite things to do in the entire world is to go for a run in the early dark hours of a still, clear and crispy Melbourne winter morning. In those moments my spirit soars. Perhaps for some, the following thought might be a strange, obtuse, off centre thing to share here, I begin to think there is nowhere else in the cosmos or universe where our non -physical essence, our truest of identities, known as our soul, can experience this. I think the same when I am eating really good pizza and the creamiest of delicious chocolates!

There is nowhere else, this is it. This to me is one of the purposes of life…experience. Buddha once apparently said that it is extremely rare for consciousness to express itself as a human being, and here we are, our consciousness, our spirit, our soul, encased temporarily in these wonderful bodies along with its personality quirks, strengths, weaknesses, weirdness, beauty, and very limited perspective on varying experiences we all...

One of the reasons why so many people suffer various versions of anxieties, depressions, and general low self-worth and lack of confidence is because they are emotionally and spiritually isolated. They may have plenty of people around them and have been able to figure out how to fit in, but on the inside don’t feel they belong.

We can all fit in by simply mimicking the behaviours, language, and attitudes of those groups. Sometimes fitting in can be the direct opposite. Go quiet, not contribute and basically be physically present, uttering all the right noises, but on the inside, you couldn’t be more out of alignment.

If all we have are groups of people we hang out with where we are completely outsourcing our power and character to the whims of the ‘needs’ of these groups, it is inevitable that we will get to a point where we can’t take it anymore. In the extreme of this people, disappear from these groups never to be seen again. They simply stop showing...

Clarity is misunderstood. We will never have clarity of what our future may bring. So many people are fascinated with the future. Nobody knows what is going to happen. Even in the professional industries relating to economics, property and share markets, nobody can predict what is going to happen. ‘Oh but Joe, I have read many articles over time, when experts have claimed they got it right!’ Well, if we continue projecting many views of what the future may bring a dart will eventually hit to the bullseye, as I discovered playing darts with Nicolas, my 10-year-old son. If we throw enough of them, one would strike the middle of the board. Just like the lottery, all the numbers will be picked at some point, sometime.

To avoid the clarity trap, we need to understand what clarity is and what it is not. We need to also know to understand how clarity actually works.

Given, we will never have clarity of the content of our future, in other words, how the future...

It has been said that as human beings we will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. Whilst it may be true that the human condition is wired this way, to simply be putting more energy into avoiding pain in the form of mistakes, fears of failing, fears of the unknown and so on, is not the only way of looking at our lives.

We also know that if life was just all about gaining pleasure that like all pleasures, they can be overdone, become addictions and ironically transform into more pain in our lives, and then we get stuck. Being stuck would have to easily be one of the top 3 reasons why people fall behind in their lives. By falling behind, I mean that they are nowhere near where they thought they would be by now.

Over the last decade and a half, I have asked 100’s of people one simple question. Are you experiencing your life today the way you imagined it 10 years ago? In other words, perhaps when you were 25 you thought that by 35 you would have a certain lifestyle, a...

As I get older I realise more than ever the importance of surrender and letting go. I was thinking about how so much of what I had as a part of my life many years ago simply no longer exists. For example, my grandparents used to live six doors up from my parents' house, where I lived until 26 years of age. My grandparents passed away many years ago, and the house they were in was sold, demolished and replaced with a modern new home.

There is no shred of physical evidence at that address that they even existed. I often think of my running friend from many years ago who last year suddenly passed away from a massive heart attack. I then think of some of my teenagehood heroes like George Michael, Michael Jackson and Prince who have all died. Everything comes to an end.

But is it the end? No. I believe it is the arrogance of the ego to think that it is the driver of this bus. It isn’t, it is simply a passenger with lots of cheap comments and opinions. Life is not what we have, life...