10 Things I Learnt At Age 23

They say that everything starts with a single step, a decision or just a simple change of mind. That is true in every connotation and definition of the saying, nothing happens without that first step. Most people go through their 20’s clueless about a lot of things that soon haunt them in their next 2 decades, yet the 20’s are the building phase of everyone’s life, they are that first step you have to take to a particular direction or path that soon becomes your life and ultimately your destiny and legacy . Think about it, each year that you’re in your 20’s filled with energy, ideas, life, creativity and if you’ve began taking your spiritual journey to enlightenment and achieving the highest level of self that you are destined to be, each year the path either gets more clearer or you develop a certain aspect of your life that contributes to your overall well-being as a young adult.

On my personal experience with my 20’s, I find each year very different than the preceding one, thus the reference and difference between who I was, who I am and who I’m becoming is always and is being constantly redefined and changed to correspond with past interpersonal habitual thoughts, beliefs and ideas about the person I see myself to be. Dreams, goals and personal yardsticks soon take on a different shape and dimension with each year that you add to your 20’s. Through this process here’s a few things that I’ve learnt, especially in the year 23.

1. It’s OK not to have money.

– This is a very tricky aspect to master because as a 20 something you’re constantly being made to feel, think and believe that money is the ultimate measurement and source of happiness. It’s OK not to have money at certain periods because: It allows you to see through the illusion of money, when you don’t depend on money to validate your happiness. Being ‘broke’ is actually a good thing because it teaches you how to be resourceful and find new ways of generating money. Lastly, its OK not to have money because in your 20’s the last thing you need is a wrong fixation on the value of life and what’s important.

2. You’re Greater than you think.

– Usually when you say this to people, it comes across as arrogant and overly confident BUT the truth is YOU are Greater than you think. What you think of yourself in your 20’s and the rest of your life shouldn’t be based on others peoples opinions and ideas. As human beings we automatically tend to degrade others just so we can feel good about ourselves. Basing your self image on other peoples opinion is a complex that you must learn to deviate or de-attach from because it supports the shortcomings of others that you soon naturally use as a reference to and for yourself. “You strengthen what you see in others” is a saying that every 20’s should keep in mind every time someone says something good or bad about them and vice versa.

3. Make more mistakes

– Parents and elder people don’t really agree with this one, matter of fact we are forever told to avoid mistakes. Reflecting back on the value of mistakes leaves one point unquestioned, mistakes help us grow. The only time we ever really learn is when we voluntary put ourselves in learning mode with the intention of bettering ourselves or a certain aspect of our lives. The beauty that comes with making more mistakes is that you’re constantly challenged by situations, people and your own thoughts to rise above the set backs that mistakes usually result into. Set backs are a springboard for Come backs. The more mistakes you make, the better and faster you learn, the greater the value and lessons you grasp and grow from as a person.

4. Don’t run away from yourself.

– Out of honesty I think that this is one of the hardest things to do in your 20’s. Because at that stage of your life you have so much to offer, time, energy, friends, recreation and all that makes the 20’s exciting. Out of fairness, I’ll admit that a lot of us 20 somethings find it very hard to face ourselves and thus we spend most of our time in groups or behind the screen or changing and jumping from one relationship to another in search of a place to hide from ourselves. The idea of facing oneself does not appeal enticing in the eyes and ears of a 20 something, yet balance is crucial because the more we run away from ourselves the harder it becomes to appreciate the value of having a social life which is what most 20 somethings end up confusing for a personal life. The knowledge of oneself and the ability to stay with yourself without needing the company of others as a distraction is of key vitality and significance to your personal growth. If there is balance, good communication, understanding and peace within you, that makes it a whole lot easier to make connections with other people because it’s supported by a healthy personal relationship with oneself and thus friction in the social life is close to impossible.

5. Invest in Moments and Memories Not Possessions

– Throughout my entire life I have never heard of any possession that has brought happiness to a person. Let me break it down, after a week of purchasing that long awaited and desired car, shoe, house, clothing item or gadget you soon realize that there’s a newer, better and more expensive one and then the cycle of  trying to satisfy and feed the ego begins all over again, you want the latest of what you thought you couldn’t live without. What was thee best thing to have last week is now old and irrelevant, it did make you happy for a few days or months but that happiness didn’t last, WHY? Real and lasting satisfaction is found in the things that we cannot interpret with our senses, in the things that we cannot buy or put monetary value on, real satisfaction and happiness is heartfelt. It takes a moment of silence while starring at a very breathtaking view of a mountain in a foreign country or jumping off a plane at 3000 feet above ground. Such moments are usually where we discover more about life, ourselves and the process of being human. Invest in creating those moment because they become unforgettable memories that will always stay with you even after that possession has lost value or better yet has been thrown in the garbage bag.

6. Celebrate the Process more than the Outcome.

– Upon my completion of my qualification, on graduation day I was so excited and happy that I had finally gotten to that point. I mean, what more would a hard working young individual like me want right? The next day I woke up and realized that there was no fun in being ‘qualified’, yes its an achievement worth being proud of but my issue was that I suddenly felt like I wasn’t being challenged anymore. I realized that I actually enjoyed the non stop pressure, deadlines, shoots, traveling and fun that came with the process of becoming a qualified Film and Television Producer. I realized that the process of becoming was actually more fun and challenging than the outcome. It sounds a bit crazy but when you think about the very essence of growth as a process regardless of where you relate it to, growth is the only time that what was becomes what is and in that process a complete transformation takes place. The journey matters more than the destination because the journey determines the destination.

7. Find Your own Truth

– What is the Truth? That question cannot be easily answered yet the answer is and has always been inside of each and everyone and everything that exists; has ever existed and shall exists on the face of planet Earth. We live in a very Information Saturated Age and that has made it even more confusing for most people to really know the difference between truth and lie, fact and fiction, finding the truth on its own has become a matter of study. One fact will always remain whether you believe in it or not, we are more than just physical beings who are here to work and then die living our kids to suffer and live the same fate, No, we are spiritual beings at our highest and truthful form. Because we are made and encrypted in the blueprint of the Creator, the Universe and Nature we too are the key to our own truth and what we thereafter see and believe as to be the truth. Although, finding the truth is preceded by not running away from yourself, when you have faced yourself and all that creates what you refer to as ‘I’. The truth is within ourselves, it’s a huge part of why we exist on this earth. Find and give yourself enough time to learn and know about yourself, give yourself the opportunity to know yourself. The person who has mastered their life through knowledge of self has mastered the world because that’s where real truth and power come from. The truth is inside you, find it!

8. Take some time off each day to Breathe

– Learn the power of breathing and its relationship with your energy source. The mind is

intimately connected with your breathing. For example, when the mind is agitated, your

breathing becomes quick and shallow. When you are relaxed and focused, your breathing

is deep and calm. By practicing deep, abdominal breathing, you will develop a calm,

serene demeanor that will remain cool in the hottest of circumstances. Remember the

rule of the Eastern mountain men: “to breathe properly is to live properly.”

9. Explore and Experience

– A life of adventure is far more fulfilling than any other life. In your 20’s you probably have more energy than you’ll ever have in all of your life stages and phases combined. Use that energy to explore the world around you, and this does not just only refer to traveling. When you’re exploring, you are fundamentally and by definition experiencing different things usually for the first time. Give yourself more WOW moments whether it be from reading a new book, playing a new sport, joining a new youth development group, creating something whether its art or a song or just like me, write and share your life lessons with others. This mentality of exploring is engraved within us but we lose it as we grow older because we are convinced that such a mentality will get us nowhere. Screw the rules, go out there and throw yourself in the deep end of a new and unknown experience, truth is we always learn a little more about ourselves in unfamiliar, unknown and strange situations. Explore and Experience the thrills that come with being a 20 something.

10. Dont rush to have it all figured out.

– It sounds like a bad idea because our minds naturally feel inclined and compelled to try and have it all figured out but the ironic and funny truth is that you cannot and probably will never get to figure it all out. Throw that idea out of the window because it’s a very strong source of depression and stress. When you focus on figuring it all out you lose sight of the value behind the unknown. Learn to acknowledge and embrace the surprises, lessons, ups, downs, loses, wins, joy, pain and tribulations that come with being young. The idea of having it all figured out is based on a wrong fixation about life, that it’s suppose to be all sunlight, bunnies and candy. That too is an idea that fully deserves to be thrown out the window because it is through not having it all figured out that life in the 20’s becomes an unforgettable adventure that lays a very strong foundation for the rest of your life.

The average 20 something almost gets over the 20’s without paying attention to life hacks of this nature until they reach the stage at which they would have been better prepared for should they have dedicated at least a fraction of their enormous free time and energy that comes with being a 20 something especially in our now information saturated and fast paced age. With the time and energy one dedicates into their own development and conquest to mastering their mind which eventually becomes a springboard at which the entire world could be mastered, a lot can be brought into light and thus helping each individual to make and live their way through the world with less friction and resistance.

Fear In Disguise.

We are all aware of what fear can do to a person, and I’m not just referring to fear as an effect but I’m also referring to it as a cause. Yes, the theory of “Cause and Effect”, probably our only salvation against our biggest and worst enemy as earth dwellers, the fear of the unknown, the fear of our own selves, the fear of death, the fear of loss of love,  the fear of taking action, the fear of being responsible for something, the fear of old age and loneliness. Yes, Fear!!! Humanities oldest and closest enemy.

Because when we start operating within a certain level of awareness and understanding of the ripples and side effects that our actions, thought patterns, habits, beliefs and everything that contributes to who and what we are, have on us,the world within and around us, we then begin to live not under conditions that our enemy, fear and its off-springs , has created for us. To put this in a wider and broader perspective, the moment we think for ourselves in situations and not allow fear to influence our thinking is when we become more awake and aware of the enemies tricks and many disguises.

In conclusive thoughts, it makes more sense to worry than not to because that’s all we’ve been induced to think and accept fear as our definite and final reality. We fear because we are not intact with our true selves, more than that we fear because our physical and egoistic selves have taken over and identified itself with a lot of “objects” and “situations” we have been programmed our entire lives by our parents, teachers, religious leaders, media etc, to use as points of identification, classification and as a truth fabrication mechanism to keep us away from the real issue, Self Governance and Knowledge of Self.

Page of my thoughts

And then situations change, all the time. But there’s a moment in your life when the change is happening so fast, you feel like you’re losing control over your life and no one else seems to understand because when you’re going through that time, nothing else really matters except for your worries and fears. Lately its become even harder to not worry or stress because of what I’m going through. Never in my life did I ever think that at a time when things seemed most promising and showing signs of major improvement is also exactly a time where I’ll be tested and broken down to my very lowest.

Just to give you an idea of what I mean by the above. 5 months into the year 2015 and I had moved to a new city, nice apartment, graduated, and my career was showing signs of growth. I was so excited about the changes even though I hadn’t started generating income and that’s where most of my stress and depression would usually start at. At a time when i was about to start generating income, my manager got sick and she was out of action for a bit. Even though it didn’t really worry me that much at the beginning, as soon as it became a mission to even afford day to day meals a choice had to be made because at that time I was living on my savings which had literally ran out and I was flat broke. Whether its pride or self respect, from a very young age I have always been the person who never asks for money, regardless of how bad the situation is but I have always believed that asking for a financial bailout from friends or family is the same as digging your own grave. Eventually it becomes a habit that you cant break and eventually people dislike you for it because it involves their money.

To make things even more interesting, I was living with my best friend and he had been paying for the apartment. We had been friends for some time and living together was something we wanted to do because we also made music together which also showed signs of progress. He was unlike me, he had a 9 to 5 that guaranteed him a paycheck at the end of the month while I had to figure out what I had to eat at the end of each and every day. He was aware of my financial situation and status and he took a chance by living with me knowing that it would take some time before I really started making money and actually contribute to our living expenses. I contributed whatever little I could find and it wasn’t always easy because it meant that I had to forget about a lot of things. At the end of the day, I was always thankful of the fact that I have a real friend who, even when it seemed tough was there to lend a helping hand. I don’t remember how long I slept in the couch because I didn’t own a lot of things back then but his couch was my bed for a few months and I also appreciated that more than anything.

At this part and stage of my life I’d be lying if I said I maintained focus all the time, it was really hard for me and the best thing I did to keep myself on coarse was to constantly tell myself that “this is preparing you for greater things”, I constantly had to shut myself up and wipe away my tears because inside me I was slowly dying and growing more impatient. Its not because I was losing hope or had began doubting myself and my future, it was because I was feeling life’s pressure in a way that I had never felt it before. I found it very easier to go through hard times if it was just hard times alone,this time I was going through a very rough patch but the other side of the coin was so beautiful and prosperous I literally had to just hang in there because it had came to a point where it was only about me being patient and wait for the universe to respond. Beauty and ugliness coexisted side by side with every situation I was in.

Because of all of the things that were taking place in my life at that stage, I spent most of my time indoors and within my head. Some days that didn’t help me much and that’s  when I’d usually go out for a walk and meet other people. Only after being around other people I’d realize that I’m blessed to even be at the situations I’m in because it was a sign of constant growth and self discovery through new experiences. This story is something I’m currently going through and so the lessons coming out of my current situations are what I’m reflecting on and from.

Lifes Landscape

Life itself is something no human being will ever understand fully. I think it was made that way for a reason because then you’re guaranteed constant growth and discovery but every now and then we look for atleast some sort of understanding or we seek the feeling of being in an understanding with life, or so we think. Quite often we put aside the main reason of existing as humans, that is “being”. Constantly and endlessly evolving, in all aspects that makes us human, busy being re articulated through experience, pain, joy and life itself.

I got to visit Cape Town for the first time and one thing that really got me thinking and captured my attention is the landscape. I live in Johannesburg, which has a very flat landscape that allows you to see the entire city and surrounding cities. In contrast to what I’m use to, Cape Town is clustered with mountains and more mountains. I remember sitting in a boat on Monday morning in the small town of Tulbagh in the Cape area, looking at the mountains and thinking to myself “life is not always flat and perfect, better yet it will not always let you see far out, but even when it’s inconsistent in its structure like these mountains it will always look as beautiful when you look for beauty in imperfections, because the feeling of not knowing what to expect is what makes the journey exciting”

Staring the mountains peeled off some skin in me, metaphorically. The landscapes low and high points reflected the changes that come with life, one might not see the bigger picture when they are going through life’s lowest points but that changes after the steep to the top has been conquered. I’ve learnt to appreciate the lows and steeps because they are what make the top look and feel amazing. The same could be said about ones psychological, emotional and spiritual landscape which ultimately determines your your lifes external landscapes.

I have no overall lesson in mind with this post but I seek to draw your attention to how you view your struggles and pains, they count a lot to what and who you intend to be because creation can be traced down to intentions. So in a broader context, it’s highly vital for one to achieve a certain level of calmness and oneness with the ‘situation’, the moment of creation as you are living. The ‘situation’ or the human moment of creation is always and always “now”. The situation is always as it is but your mental landscape that is constantly being formed and reformed will induce you into thinking that the situation is also changing. Being human means being able to change yourself dynamically, being able to detach from anything and everything else in a certain situation just so you can see the bigger picture of the landscape.

At peace with fashion : 5 tips to get you there.

Don’t wear it because “its trending”
-being distinct means being innovative. Its that simple!

If it looks good on someone else, that doesn’t mean it’ll look good on you too.
-understanding your body type and shape is important. Wear what your body is more comfortable with.

Make some alterations of your own.
-some retail clothing items look way much better if certain customizations are made, so don’t be afraid to take that expensive pair of trousers to a tailor so they can give you a fit that’s made for you and you only.

Get it tailor made.
-have designers who will create exclusive garments and outfits for you. The only way to make your mark, is by being different.

Explore
-yes indeed! Exploring means expanding way above and outside your network, friends, interests and ideas. Fashion is about being innovative over and over and over and over again. I’m sure you get the point. Explore whatever you need to explore just to get inspiration of your next look or outfit.

#KingLife

20 Something life hack : Get up and Go, Again!

Disappointments, detours and unexpected setbacks can drain you. So much that sometimes it becomes 10 times harder to regain strength and put yourself back on track. While all of that is happening, time is continuously revealing certain facts, truths and discoveries about ‘who’ you are and ‘what’ your purpose on this earth is.

There’s so much to take away from all of those bad days and lonely nights where everything somehow feels and seems upside down, regardless of how positive you are in general about life. Yes, even the best of us do go through those not so pleasant days, it’s all a part of life. But what bugs me the most and probably millions of other people reading this, is, how much of these setbacks and disappointments can one person handle before achieving their goals?

Honestly speaking, I do not know and maybe no one will ever know. But, what I know is that these minor setbacks and detours are all major contributors to ones advancement and progress in life. With that in mind, I personally have had to reassure myself that its all worth it. In the end being resilient and bouncing back from whatever setback there is, at any stage of your life or in your journey towards achieving your goal, is far more fruitful than letting these setbacks gain control over you.

Remind yourself why you want to achieve your goal and why did you chose the path you choose. Reinforcing your passion, zeal and desire to keep going regardless of the hard times will always set you on coarse and back on track.

The secret is in bouncing back and being patient until you achieve your goal.

#KingLife

10 Things I Learnt At Age 22.

LeThe truth does not cease to exist when it is ignored.

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a hundred different ways before it finally gets through to you?  The ten truths listed below fall firmly into that category – life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, but for whatever reason, haven’t fully grasped.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…

1.The average human life is relatively short.
We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know.  It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step. You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.

LIVE your life TODAY!  Don’t ignore death, but don’t be afraid of it either.  Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take action.  Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive.  Be bold. Be courageous. Be scared to death, and then take the next step anyway.

2.You will only ever live the life you create for yourself.
Your life is yours alone. Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you.  They can walk with you, but not in your shoes. So make sure the path you decide to walk aligns with your own intuition and desires, and don’t be scared to switch paths or pave a new one when it makes sense.

Remember, it’s always better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of the one you don’t. Be productive and patient.  And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard for what you believe in. This is your life, and it is made up entirely of your choices.  May your actions speak louder than your words.  May your life preach louder than your lips. May your success be your noise in the end.

And if life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it.  Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land, be brave enough to step up to the edge of the unknown, and listen to your heart.
3.Being busy does NOT mean being productive.
Busyness isn’t a virtue, nor is it something to respect. Though we all have seasons of crazy schedules, very few of us have a legitimate need to be busy ALL the time. We simply don’t know how to live within our means, prioritize properly, and say no when we should.

Being busy rarely equates to productivity these days. Just take a quick look around. Busy people outnumber productive people by a wide margin. Busy people are rushing all over the place, and running late half of the time. They’re heading to work, conferences, meetings, social engagements, etc. They barely have enough free time for family get-togethers and they rarely get enough sleep. Yet, emails are shooting out of their smart phones like machine gun bullets, and their day planners are jammed to the brim with obligations.  Their busy schedule gives them an elevated sense of importance.  But it’s all an illusion. They’re like hamsters running on a wheel.

Though being busy can make us feel more alive than anything else for a moment, the sensation is not sustainable long term. We will inevitably, whether tomorrow or on our deathbed, come to wish that we spent less time in the buzz of busyness and more time actually living a purposeful life.

4.Some kind of failure always occurs before success.
Most mistakes are unavoidable. Learn to forgive yourself. It’s not a problem to make them. It’s only a problem if you never learn from them.

If you’re too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful. The solution to this problem is making friends with failure.  You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried. Behind every great piece of art is a thousand failed attempts to make it, but these attempts are simply never shown to us.

Bottom line: Just because it’s not happening now, doesn’t mean it never will. Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.  (Read The Success Principles.)

5.Thinking and doing are two very different things.
Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it.

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do. Knowledge is basically useless without action. Good things don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals. Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.

And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you’ll likely be waiting the rest of your life.

6.You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive.
Life gets much easier when you learn to accept all the apologies you never got.  The key is to be thankful for every experience – positive or negative. It’s taking a step back and saying, “Thank you for the lesson.” It’s realizing that grudges from the past are a perfect waste of today’s happiness, and that holding one is like letting unwanted company live rent free in your head.

Forgiveness is a promise – one you want to keep. When you forgive someone you are making a promise not to hold the unchangeable past against your present self. It has nothing to do with freeing a criminal of his or her crime, and everything to do with freeing yourself of the burden of being an eternal victim.

7.Some people are simply the wrong match for you.
You will only ever be as great as the people you surround yourself with, so be brave enough to let go of those who keep bringing you down. You shouldn’t force connections with people who constantly make you feel less than amazing.

If someone makes you feel uncomfortable and insecure every time you’re with them, for whatever reason, they’re probably not close friend material.  If they make you feel like you can’t be yourself, or if they make you “less than” in any way, don’t pursue a connection with them.  If you feel emotionally drained after hanging out with them or get a small hit of anxiety when you are reminded of them, listen to your intuition. There are so many “right people” for you, who energize you and inspire you to be your best self. It makes no sense to force it with people who are the wrong match for you.

8.It’s not other people’s job to love you; it’s yours.
It’s important to be nice to others, but it’s even more important to be nice to yourself. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world. So make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you. Know your worth, even if they don’t.

Today, let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as incomplete as you think you are. Yes, let someone love you despite all of this, and let that someone be YOU. (Read Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It.)

9.What you own is not who YOU are.
Stuff really is just stuff, and it has absolutely no bearing on who you are as a person. Most of us can make do with much less than we think we need.  That’s a valuable reminder, especially in a hugely consumer-driven culture that focuses more on material things than meaningful connections and experiences.

You have to create your own culture.  Don’t watch TV, don’t read every fashion magazine, and don’t consume too much of the evening news. Find the strength to fill your time with meaningful experiences. The space and time you are occupying at this very moment is LIFE, and if you’re worrying about some other famous face, then you are disempowered. You’re giving your life away to marketing and media trickery, which is created by big companies to ultimately motivate you to want to dress a certain way, look a certain way, and be a certain way. This is tragic, this kind of thinking. It’s all just strategic brainwashing. What is real is YOU and your friends and your family, your loves, your highs, your hopes, your plans, your fears, etc.

Too often we’re told that we’re not important, we’re just peripheral to what is. “Get a degree, get a job, get a car, get a house, and keep on getting.” And it’s sad, because someday you’ll wake up and realize you’ve been tricked. And all you’ll want then is to reclaim your mind by getting it out of the hands of the brainwashers who want to turn you into a drone that buys everything that isn’t needed to impress everyone that isn’t important.

10.Everything changes, every second.
Embrace change and realize it happens for a reason. It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end it will be worth it.

What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow.  You never know. Things change, often spontaneously. People and circumstances come and go. Life doesn’t stop for anybody. It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day.  It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives. A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth. Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event.  And these events are always happening.

However good or bad a situation is now, it will change. That’s the one thing you can count on. So when life is good, enjoy it. Don’t go looking for something better every second. Happiness never comes to those who don’t appreciate what they have while they have it.

#KingLife

The Virtual Dilemma.

You’d think you’re the only person going through internal warfares with your conscious and subconscious mind but let me tell you that its not that simple. As soon as someone speaks or shuts up take note of their facial expression because what comes after that is a defensive statement. We defend ourselves even when no one is attacking only because that’s how we’ve conditioned our minds to be.

Tell me if I’m going a bit too far with this but most of the time we go too far with a lot of things. You’d think its always about perception, indeed it is but our decisions are 80% based on feelings and instincts. We rarely use perception as a platform to base our choices, we rarely utilize logic to substantiate our decisions. And we wonder why there are so many fake identities foisted by us, the youth.

Don’t even get me started about social media. Everything is magnified in the virtual world, people are overly sensitive, they think aloud a bit too loud and too many selfies have ruined the pleasure of taking pictures. Why is it even an issue? Weren’t we suppose to be the ‘enlightened’ generation? I fear that as time goes on, so does our reasoning power. Materials fade colour when exposed to sunlight, the youth is losing self value under the exposure of all these social engineering concepts disguised through social media.

From a point of concern and a glimpse of hope is where I’m coming from. If you’re reading this I urge you to find yourself within these words. I wrote this on my way to collage since they’re not teaching us how to stay human.

Respect your feelings, they are sacred.
Social media is virtual, stay real.
Address your issues, a facebook status won’t do that for you.

#KingLife

A Letter To Fashion.

This world evolves with fashion thoughts,
Giving new hopes and new possibilities!
The soul cannot rest with ordinary,
As fashion makes this world extraordinary!

This young girl looks confident,
With the fashion outfits and accessories!
Fashion makes the world appear better,
And she finds a totally new world indeed!

Man is identified by what he wears!
As fashion wear makes one jubilant, isn’t it?
The touch of fashion increases love,
As love is often a state of mind!
 
The idea of fashion is a blessing,
As new ideas enhance lifestyle!
When age differentiates the people,
Fashion always unites the world!

This world must be a fashion domain,
A beautiful look finds a beautiful mind!
The entire world is behind the beauty,
And the beauty is created by Fashion!

#KingLife

How to improve in anything.

What ever you do in life, you’ll always look for improvement. Life on its own is based on improvement. Growth is a form of improvement too, when you set goals the only important measure you look at is improvement towards reaching that goal. I think you get the point I’m emphasizing. Improvement is highly vital in every aspect of our lives.

But how do we improve? How do we become a better version of who we are in anything that we’d like to see improvement in? How do we surpass our current state and progress to what we want to be?

A while ago I wrote a post about the importance of imagination in ones life. The idea of creating scenarios in your mind as so you can evaluate your reactions and responses and their sources is an idea worth considering because that’s where the secret behind the mental factor of improvement lies.

In an imaginary meeting with my mentors : Napoleon Hill, Aaron Marcus and Robert Greene these are the questions I usually ask about any aspect of my life that requires improvement.

Question 1 : How can I improve myself in ___(the aspect of your life that you need to improve)?

Self evaluation, because you know yourself more than any person on this earth.

Be honest to yourself, that’s the only way you’ll ever truly establish your weaknesses.

Question 2 : What is the most effective way of evaluating myself in ___(the mentioned aspect)?

On a piece of paper, list every value or quality you admire and regard as good about yourself. Secondly list all the ones that you dislike about yourself and those you consider not so good.

Carefully examine those two lists and try as accurately as you can to find the key beliefs that each value is based on. For those that you dislike, you can also formulate new beliefs that will get rid of your ‘not so good’ values.

Question 3 : What lessons will help me improve based on my findings from evaluating ___(life aspect being evaluated)?

There are a lot of benefits you gain and mistakes you avoid just by evaluating yourself and changing your beliefs.

Knowing yourself gives you a firmer grip at your thoughts, environment, ideas, actions and the pace at which you improve

Your weaknesses are why you don’t improve, they are weaknesses after all! Therefore finding well thought out ways to minimize them (because its humanly impossible not to have them) or formulating effective ways of not letting them delay or drag your improvement will help maintain unparalleled improvement.

Improvement is continuous and so should be your desire to improve.

#KingLife

When feeling Safe becomes Unsafe.

Its funny how we always hold on to what ‘feels’ safe instead of finding what’s ‘real’. Safety is genuinely a good thing. I say ‘genuinely’ because nothing is entirely bad or good, its always based on your perception. Safety is one of those really tricky feelings, yes safety is a feeling. A feeling so good that it fools you into thinking that its existence is vital for your entire life.

The survival of the ‘physical’ you depends on it. Its your brain’s job to seek out what ‘feels’ safe. Although, the feeling of being ‘safe’ doesn’t just keep you alive, it also creates comfort zones, certain specifics that make you think “as long as I’m here, with these people and doing this job or living this life I’m OK”

Safety, it never puts you under a sense of urgency. It never makes you demand more from ‘yourself’. Its always going to gain favor in your eyes because its the only feeling that keeps you ‘OK’.

Time, Life and Change are all intertwined:

Life happens and Changes with Time.

Change happens over Time in Life and

Time creates Change in Life

People who want ‘Safety’ are usually unhappy, in their own terms they are ‘OK’. We all know or have been that person who’s always ‘OK’ about everything, even when everything is not ok. You see the trick about nature is that everything depends on perception and the duality of nature.

Risk takers are never ‘OK’ because they are always Happy, yes life is too exciting to be just ‘OK’ about it. You see unlike those that settle for ‘feeling safe’, risk takers are exposed to a lot of experiences that when properly used result into a life full of spontaneity, thrills and unforgettable memories. But also, taking risks and accepting that nothing is under control makes you appreciate each and every second on your wrist watch, on your device and in your mind.

The idea of wanting to feel safe comes from fear. The fear of change makes us neglect and resent new ideas, beliefs about ourselves and certain perceptual points of view about life and reality. In a way when you feel like you’re not safe, your mind always looks for a way to overcome that feeling of uncertainty and unsettlement.

Allowing yourself to feel unsafe by taking risks is the only way you’ll ever get to know how far you can push yourself to grow because risks require you to be open minded all the time.

#KingLife

5 Steps to Deal with Emotional Baggage So It Doesn’t Define You

You’ve probably heard of the fear of missing out but what about the fear of letting go?

My father was volatile and mentally unstable. Criticism was his preferred method of communication. As a child and teenager, I learned to keep my thoughts and feelings locked away and became an expert at deflecting personal questions.

Without realizing it, I carried this habit into adulthood, avoiding any talk about my feelings or turning them into a joke. When a friend finally called me on it the shock of self-recognition quickly turned to resistance. This is who I am, I thought. Why should I change?

I plodded on, working as hard as ever to keep my fortress intact. It wasn’t making me happy yet I wasn’t ready to change.

As I struggled with my desire to cling to hurtful memories and self-defeating behaviors, it dawned on me that I was afraid to let go because defensiveness was part of my identity.

The problem wasn’t that I had baggage—everyone has baggage—but that it had come to define me. I didn’t know who I would be without it. At that point it hit me: I had to dig deep, discover the person I wanted to be, and then act on it.

After I identified that I was holding on to the past because it seemed too important to jettison, I discovered that letting go is harder than it sounds. Relaxing a long-held belief isn’t a one-day, one-week, or even a one-year process. However, it is possible.

This is the five-step process I discovered:

1. Write an honest list of the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that weigh you down.

Grab a pen and notebook, find a quiet space, and spend thirty to forty minutes thinking and writing. It is important to be honest and write down whatever comes to mind. Don’t judge what comes up, just take note. 

2. Reflect on each item and identify the source of the thought/belief.

Travel back in time and see where you picked up these items of baggage. Do you fear intimacy because a partner cheated on you? Do you dread holidays because your parents drank too much? Acknowledge the painful memories but don’t wallow in them. Write it down and move on to the next step. 

3. Find at least one positive in each hurtful experience/situation.

Look for the silver lining in your cloud. For example, my father’s criticism made me aware of the power of words and taught me the importance of speaking with kindness. Looking for the good in the past helps you reclaim your power. You are no longer a victim; you decide what you take from that experience.

4. Create affirmations to foster change and counteract negative thoughts.

Take the positives from step four and turn them into affirmations or statements of intent, i.e.: “I will speak with love” or “I will treat people with kindness.” This puts the emphasis on positive future behavior and frees you from the past. Make the affirmations tangible: put a reminder on your phone, write them on post-its, or put a list on the fridge.

5. Practice patience and mindfulness.

It takes time to change habits, especially when they are rooted in deep hurts or fears. Check in with yourself regularly using journaling or meditation. If you find yourself shouldering old baggage, be sure to acknowledge it, then gently release it and focus on your affirmations. Replacing negative thoughts with positive actions will help you let go for good.

There are infinite possibilities for each of us, baggage notwithstanding. Everyone has pain. It’s part of what makes us who we are. What defines us, however, is how we handle it. One of my favorite artists, Bruce Springsteen, has some wise words on the subject:

“You can find your identity in the damage that’s been done to you. You find your identity in your wounds, in your scars, in the places where you’ve been beat up and you turn them into a medal. We all wear the things we’ve survived with some honour, but the real honour is in also transcending them.”

By taking the time to identify and understand our baggage and making a conscious decision to let go we free ourselves to experience life in a richer, deeper, more meaningful way.

#KingLife

5 Ways To Develop Your Mental Strength.

In many cases we look for extraordinary solutions for ordinary problems, sometimes the solutions are very simple. For most people (myself included) mental strength counts a lot as we’ve come to understand that its the driving force behind progress. You need to be mentally strong in order to stick to certain routines, ideas and beliefs

Below is a short list of 5 mental strength developing tips that I found to be highly useful, do use them to your advantage.

1. Evaluate Your Core Beliefs

We’ve all developed core beliefs about ourselves, our lives and the world in general. Core beliefs develop over time and largely depend upon our past experiences. Whether you’re aware of your core beliefs or not, they influence your thoughts, your behavior and emotions.

Sometimes, core beliefs are inaccurate and unproductive. For example, if you believe that you’ll never succeed in life, you may be less apt to apply for new jobs — and inadvertently, you may not present yourself well on job interviews. Therefore, your core beliefs may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Identify and evaluate your core beliefs. Look for beliefs that are black and white, and then find exceptions to the rule. Very few things in life are “always” or “never” true. Modifying core beliefs requires purposeful intention and hard work, but it can change the entire course of your life.

2. Expend Your Mental Energy Wisely

Wasting brain power ruminating about things you can’t control drains mental energy quickly. The more you think about negative problems that you can’t solve, the less energy you’ll have leftover for creative endeavors. For example, sitting and worrying about the weather forecast isn’t helpful. If a major storm is headed your way, worrying about it won’t prevent it. You can, however, choose to prepare for it. Focus on what is only within your control.

Save your mental energy for productive tasks, such as solving problems or setting goals.When your thoughts aren’t productive, make a conscious effort to shift your mental energy to more helpful topics. The more you practice expending your mental energy wisely, the more it will become a habit.

3. Replace Negative Thoughts with Productive Thoughts

Although most of us don’t spend time thinking about our thoughts, increasing your awareness of your thinking habits proves useful in building resilience. Exaggerated, negative thoughts, such as, “I can’t ever do anything right,” hold you back from reaching your full potential. Catch your negative thoughts before they spiral out of control and influence your behavior.

Identify and replace overly negative thoughts with thoughts that are more productive. Productive thoughts don’t need to be extremely positive, but should be realistic. A more balanced thought may be, “I have some weaknesses, but I also have plenty of strengths.” Changing your thoughts requires constant monitoring, but the process can be instrumental in helping you become your best self.

4. Practice Tolerating Discomfort

Being mentally strong doesn’t mean you don’t experience emotions. In fact, mental strength requires you to become acutely aware of your emotions so you can make the best choice about how to respond. Mental strength is about accepting your feelings without being controlled by them.

Mental strength also involves an understanding of when it makes sense to behave contrary to your emotions. For example, if you experience anxiety that prevents you from trying new things or accepting new opportunities, try stepping out of your comfort zone if you want to continue to challenge yourself. Tolerating uncomfortable emotions takes practice, but it becomes easier as your confidence grows.

Practice behaving like the person you’d like to become. Instead of saying, “I wish I could be more outgoing,” choose to behave in a more outgoing manner, whether you feel like it or not. Some discomfort is often necessary for greater gain, and tolerating that discomfort will help make your vision a reality, one small step at a time.

5. Reflect on Your Progress Daily

Today’s busy world doesn’t lend itself to making much time available for quiet reflection. Create time to reflect upon your progress toward developing mental strength. At the end of each day, ask yourself what you’ve learned about your thoughts, emotions and behavior. Consider what you hope to improve upon or accomplish tomorrow.

Developing mental strength is a work in progress. There is always room for improvement, and at times this will seem more difficult than at other times. Reflecting upon your progress can reinforce your ability to reach your definition of success while living according to your values.

#KingLife

Silence, why is it Golden?

“He who knows does not speak,” said Lao Tzu, “And he who speaks does not know.”

My experience with people, especially those close to me has taught me a valuable lesson about why silence is the best solution for any potential conflict brewing conversation. Just this morning, I was out jogging with my aunt and let’s just say I made a few important observations by being silent.

Silence is golden.

There might be more wisdom in this saying than most people have guessed. In experiments, speaking raises blood pressure and listening lowers it. And it’s not just because you’re making sounds. Reading aloud alone does not raise blood pressure, but reading aloud to someone does.

Let’s look at this for a minute. Let’s say you were committed to becoming calmer and more serene. With that commitment, very soon you would realize that mostly listening in the presence of others would help you be more serene. You would notice that jumping in with your opinions definitely doesn’t help create tranquillity in yourself or others. Arguing politics, family issues or religion can definitely destroy any calmness you may have achieved.

Nervous, pointless chitchat doesn’t help create calmness, either, but sometimes small talk does. You’ll have to pay attention to what’s happening and most importantly, you’ll need to keep the goal in mind (becoming more tranquil). What has been missing is the goal, not the ability. If you haven’t been aiming for tranquillity — if you were aiming for persuasiveness or being right, or trying to prove how smart you are — you would never discover why silence is golden.

Spouting opinions, arguing, trying to make yourself right, reacting to things without having given it a lot of thought and throwing harsh comments to the person on the other end of the conversation — these do not bring peace. They do not help you live in tranquillity.

I don’t think once in 22 years I’ve ever caused myself trouble or hurt someone’s feelings with silence (although I have intimidated a lot of people by being silent), but I’ve done it with speaking hundreds or even thousands of times.

But there are several arguments one can make against this general policy. For example, you have a lot to teach which will be lost if you don’t share it. Silence doesn’t seem very golden from this perspective.

But if your teachings aren’t thought out, even good information given in the wrong way or at the wrong time or to the wrong person can create unnecessary problems. The principle is not “never speak” but to be mostly silent. And besides, isn’t example also a good way to teach? And if you are mostly silent, doesn’t what you do say get more respect?

Another argument against being mostly silent is that you’ll miss opportunities to straighten out people (especially your family members, relatives and friends) if you only speak when you’ve thought through what you want to say.

But after you’ve thought it out, your “straightening out” will be much more effective, and you can do it at the right time in the right way and while you’re in the right state (calm and peaceful and kindly).

How many times have you regretted saying something without thinking first? Plenty. But can you think of a single instance where you regretted thinking about something first?

Another argument is that opinions should be changed if they’re wrong.

Opinions are rarely changed by argument. Sometimes they are changed by one good question, timed right and delivered without self-righteousness. This requires time to think things through, and a great deal of silence and a general state of calmness. But for the most part, as much as we natural arguers try to fool ourselves, studies show that even making a good case for something almost never changes a person’s mind if they already believe something else.

Another objection is, “Won’t people think you’re self centered if you don’t say much?”

Probably just the opposite. They’re more likely to think you’re wiser, and if you’re a good listener, they’ll think you must be very smart to listen to them with so much interest and attention.

What if you listened a lot and offered your opinion rarely? What would happen if you offered information or advice only when people asked you for it? What if you offered chitchat rarely, and did a lot of listening and observing and thinking about things? It would be easier to maintain a deep calm. And you’d grow wiser.

No, I say unto you the wise are eager to listen and think and hesitant to speak.

Silence is golden.

#KingLife

Good Company?

An old chinese proverb says “show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are”

That alone is reason enough to why we(you and I) all should be very selective of the people we keep around us. Looking at your close circle of friends, what can you say about yourself? What do you have in common with them? Do you share the same or similar ideas about life? We might think that friends are just people we’re randomly given as we go through different phases in our lives, but that’s usually not how it works.

The people around you can be a positive or negative factor in your life, but how? Well, on more than one occasion we’ve seen what some people get up to just because “my friends got me to it” or “my friends did it too”. As much as everyone is responsible for their decisions, not everyone is able to exercise that will power. Some if not most people leave almost every decision in the hands of their friends. The need to please friends always gets them, the need to feel accepted always gets in the way of their decision making.

But what does this really do to a person? For starters we all know that if you focus on making everyone around you happy by letting them run your life, you risk your own happiness. Every person around you is happy, except You!.

The irony in all of this is that no matter how independent you are, you need company. Whether you don’t see them as friends, but there’s always that circle of individuals you’re associated with. Those people are the ones who have a certain level of influence in your decision making.

How do you know if you have ‘good company’ or good friends?…..

Each person has their own answer when it comes to questions like this one. I too feel its more of something to think about than it is to just give an answer.

Look around you to see if you keep ‘good company’ or not.

#KingLife

Take Responsibilty to avoid ‘Burnouts’ #LessonsFor2014

Hi there :).

Its been a great year, I can definitely say that much. Along the course of this year a lot has happened and a lot has changed. I can definitely say that everyone is looking forward to 2014. We are once more in that time where everyone is making resolutions (laughs out loud), everyone is very amped up and feeling very excited about 2014. But wait!….

What happened to your last years resolutions? Did you manage to keep that momentum you had? Or you ran out of air somewhere during this ending year? (Laughs out loud, again). The truth is that 80% of the people who go into the year feeling excited reach the halfway point of the year wishing that it would be over. Pause and think about it for a second….

Why do we experience ‘burnouts‘? Why do we suddenly and unconsciously lose that excitement and ambition we have at the start of every new year?…

There’s a lot of excuses that we come up with when this question is brought up and some of them if not most have nothing to do with the real reason why we suffer from ‘burnouts‘. We can be as technical as we want to with our excuses but the fact is this : Each person is Responsible for their life, ambitions and success. The ‘burnout’ is an indication of losing focus.

Focus? Yes, focus. Being able to stick to what you’ve set out to do and actually seeing it through. This definition of focus is simple yet I think it makes sense. Mainly because that’s the only thing everyone needs to do this coming year ‘sticking to what they’ve set for themselves’. Doing that means injecting yourself with responsibility, constant attempts at your goals, consistent persistence and a good prosperity belief system.

I too have fallen victim to ‘burnouts’ because I lost focus. Earlier this year I was featured on a local magazine as a front cover page model and inside they had a 2 page story about the things that make me who I am, amongst those things was my love for adventure and traveling, and mostly about my dream of settling down in Venice, Italy. Yes, that’s my long term goal and dream, and last year I began taking Italian language classes. I enjoyed them very much because it was something new and exciting. I watched myself improve each day and the more I practiced learning the Italian language is the more my dream seemed real and then I suffered a…

BURNOUT!

I started paying less attention to my classes, emails and practice questions. I eventually lost interest in those lessons, and in turn I’ve been regretting it throughout this year. What’s even funny is the fact that instead of getting back at practicing my Italian, I just kept on telling myself “I’m gonna do it some other time, I’m too busy right now”… Common human behavior right? Yes, but that same behavior is what’s getting in our way, its the exact same behavior that breeds ‘burnouts’. I know this because I’m a victim.

This experience taught me a lot about keeping my momentum when it comes to my goals. Prioritizing your goals is the first thing that can help you stay afloat during the coming year. I will not make new resolutions only because I have to make sure that those I made last year are thoroughly done and well accomplished.

A lot of people can gain a lot from avoiding the ‘new year’ excitement and focus on what needs to be accomplished through examining themselves and looking at what and where they can improve this coming year. Burnouts are a result of going into the year unprepared.

Let’s all go back to our drawing boards to look at what we didn’t do this year, to look at those things and good habits, behaviors and beliefs that we suddenly dropped during this year because of burnouts. Let’s first make an attempt to fix that before going onto new resolutions. By doing that we’ll be helping ourselves learn to ‘stick’ to what we’ve set out to accomplish for ourselves. And for me, I’m going back to my Italian classes.

Its been a great year with everybody that’s been reading my posts. I appreciate each and everyone of You.

Happy New Year!!!!

#KingLife

Beliefs

The Power Of Beliefs: How Our Meanings Decide Our Destiny

What is a belief? It’s a feeling of certainty about what something means. The challenge is that most of our beliefs are generalizations about our past, based on our interpretations of painful and pleasurable experiences.

The challenge is, most of us do not consciously decide what we’re going to believe. Instead, often our beliefs are misinterpretations of past events. How do ideas turn into beliefs? Think of an idea like a tabletop with no legs. Without any legs, the tabletop won’t even stand up by itself. Belief, on the other hand, has legs. To believe something, you have references to support the idea—specific experiences that back up the belief. These are the legs that make your tabletop solid and that make you certain about your beliefs.

For example, if you believe you’re extremely intelligent, you likely have a lot of references to back it up. Maybe you did well in school, people always tell you how smart you are, you catch onto things quickly, etc. You can find experiences to back up almost any belief. The key is to make sure that you’re consciously aware of the beliefs you’re creating. If they don’t empower you, change them.

All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs. The moment we begin to honestly question our beliefs and the experiences we assign to them, we no longer feel absolutely certain about them. This opens the door to replacing your old, disempowering beliefs with new beliefs that support you in the direction you want to go.

If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things other people are certain are impossible.

Here are ten examples of empowering beliefs to try on:

1. The past does not equal the future.
2. There is always a way if I’m committed.
3. There are no failures, only outcomes—as long as I learn something I’m succeeding.
4. If I can’t, I must; if I must, I can.
5. Everything happens for a reason and a purpose that serves me.
6. I find great joy in little things… a smile… a flower… a sunset.
7. I give more of myself to others than anyone expects.
8. I create my own reality and am responsible for what I create.
9. If I’m confused, I’m about to learn something.
10. Every day above ground is a great day.

#KingLife

How to Re-Invent Your Style

Here’s a fact : I can boldly say that a lot of people wish they were more innovative when it comes to their clothing styles, but they are not. Only a few are brave enough to go beyond the so-called ‘trends’ that rule the fashion world mainly because as much as people want to stand out and be noticed for being distinct, truth is only a few have been able do that with confidence. The majority is constantly looking outside to check if they are keeping up with trends. Every season styles change and people follow along. What happens when you don’t ‘follow’? A lot actually, from then you can be able to originate your own trends, trends that work for you!

I’ve done it and so can you, there’s a few simple tricks to doing it and by a ‘few’ I literally mean a ‘few’, here are 4 highly important ones that you can begin with.

Understand Yourself – Clothes are a physical extension of our personality, self image, and ideas. If you wear certain clothes because ‘your friends’ wear them too then that’s not going to help you become a fashionable person but its going to make look like the rest of the ‘crowd’. Just like everything else in life, only those who challenge themselves stand out as icons and winners, and it all starts with understanding the type of person you are and what you can do best that others can’t , the looks that you can come up with that no one else can. A person who understands her/himself is a person who knows that if something looks good on someone else, it doesn’t mean that it’ll look good on them too.

Create Your Own Trends – Every season there’s a trend going out and another coming in but who’s really making these trends? I’ll tell who. Its the clothes manufacturer and designers because they understand that fashion goes beyond fabric and stitches. Those same people know that people do not want to look different, people do not want to wear clothes that are publicly said to be ‘old fashion’ , they know that almost everyone wants to be fashionably ‘accepted’ to and by the general public. There’s always a loophole in everything, this time its the fact that you shouldn’t seek approval from the general public, instead be innovative and play around with your wardrobe and watch yourself change from a trend follower to a trend setter. So what if its ‘old fashion’?!?! Garments are just garments, how you wear them is what counts! Your style is your own personal signature.

Be Bold – Being bold means being exactly what the Oxford dictionary says, look it up. I mean if you’re going through an article, its the bold words that get your attention more, even if you’re just skimming. My point is, for you to be bold, you need to be confident because once you start creating your own trends and looking different from the rest of your friends or social group there’s definitely going to be some remarks being tossed your way about your new ‘noticeable’ changes, these remarks will go from being unpleasant to being complements eventually. This is because people are creatures of habit and familiarity so once something changes, they are sure to retaliate or give negative feedback, but the more bold you become is the more they begin to notice and admire you for your courage to look different, before you know it you would’ve turned yourself into a ‘fashion statement’ that says fashion is about standing out!

Challenge Yourself – One trick that has always worked for me is challenging myself and my wardrobe. In order for any person to have a distinct style, they don’t have to own a lot of expensive clothes. Contrary to popular beliefs as that may sound but its true! I learned that the most ‘fashionable’ people are people who go for custom made designs and tailor made items. This is the most cost effective way of being fashionable that there ever was or there ever will be, mainly because every tailor made item you pay for or custom design you buy is made for you and you only! I’m sure we all feel good when people always comment about how hard they’ve tried to look for your items in stores with no success, I know it feels good because I’m use to hearing those comments about my personal style. The point is, for you to stand out you have to take that extra mile of wearing items that you wouldn’t normally wear, go to your local designers and tell them exactly what look you want to try out and how your clothes should be. Everyone is their own stylist so why not go with your own ideas when it comes to your clothes?

Remember, style has nothing to do with trends.

#KingLife

Looking forward : Imagination and Visualization.

Hello world 🙂 its been a while since I posted, the silence has been a result of some technical issues I had but everything is sorted now. I’ve received a lot of views in the past month and I’d like to take this chance to say Thank You to everyone who reads my posts, I appreciate each and every view.

Today I’d like to talk about the importance of having a vision or seeing ‘the bigger picture’ of your goals. Goals can be broken down into short, medium and long term, but what does that mean in terms of how you visualize your ‘bigger picture’? At times we catch ourselves day dreaming or imagining how our lives would be when we’ve achieved most or all of our goals, that’s never a wrong thing to do if done properly.

Many studies have been conducted on the effects of imagination and visualization, methods of how to stimulate the mind and thoughts in order to create greater levels of visualization and imagination have also been discovered of which lives of thousands of successful people have served as evidence of the importance of these 2 important factors.

Its of high importance to have stable and clear-cut mental pictures of the person you aspire to be, the life you want to live and the achievements you want to be acknowledged and remembered for. That alone is reason enough to make you wake up every morning and look at those mental pictures with belief that each time you look at them they are coming closer to you. But they don’t really have to be just ‘mental’! I’ll explain a bit more on this.

Because people are different and so are their goals, it is expected and fitting that people look forward to different achievements. This doesn’t change the value of the importance of looking forward, instead it makes it more valuable because each and every person living on this earth and reading this is already looking forward to a better life for themselves. So with that being said here are a few tricks that have been very helpful that I’d like to share with you.

Visualize – This alone is highly crucial as it helps you create your reality from within your mind. Visualize yourself in situations that contribute in bringing your goals and dreams into reality

Stimulate – When you stimulate your mind, you’re helping it expand and unfold new possibilities based on your visualization. This can be done by keeping ‘actual’ pictures of what you’d like to accomplish and things you’d like to have. Another highly effective way is to write down all of your goals and read them out loud at least twice a day so they can be encrypted deep in your subconscious mind.

Imagine – A lot of people speak of imagination as something useless and thus those same people fail to progress in their chosen fields because of that one simple reason. Imagining your situations before hand gives your mind enough time to come up with logical solutions and ideas. Without imagination none of what creates our physical world would exist so from that you can see the importance of using this tool.

From my experience of using these tools or tricks, I’ve managed to achieve a lot of things and some take more time than others because change and success are cumulative processes that need persistent practice and patience. All in all I’d like to urge each and every person to stay focused and look forward because looking forward is the only way we’ll ever be able to create the reality that we hold in our minds!

As always I’m ‘looking forward’ to hearing your thoughts on this.

#KingLife

Building From The Ground.

Hello there, as always I’m honored to have you here 🙂 And this is my 10th blog post so Thank You very much for supporting me as I’m going to continue sharing my secrets and journey toward my success, hoping that you too will pick up a few things that can aid you in you journey, which is the prime purpose behind this blog, as a way to say thank you I decided to let you know more about the person behind this blog.

Today I’d like to share an experience I’m currently going through, which is making me realize and confirm a lot of things about my beliefs, goals and ideas about what I want to achieve as a young man.

Firstly, one of my goals is to become a successful commercial model and TV presenter before the age of 25, I’m 22 this year which means I’ve got 3 years to realize this goal. For some people including my parents and relatives my goal was just too ‘unreal’  and they still believe so, it went as far as being kicked out of home and being disowned by my parents mainly because I refused to let them make decisions about what I should be doing or shouldn’t be doing with my life.  I have to admit, it was extremely tough and very emotionally straining to see my parents relentlessly  attempt to make me give up on my dreams by not supporting me and urging me on, I mean weren’t parents suppose to bring out the best out of their children? Before I started reconnecting with myself and developing myself I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me, I disliked my parents for what they were doing to me!

A year before I left home, I decided to change my beliefs about my life, dreams and goals. I had decided to only focus on building a strong, resilient and ambition driven personality which was only going to be based on beliefs of nothing less than a positive, progressive and happy nature. But most importantly, I fixed it in my mind to destroy everything I was told about not being able to stand up and work towards realizing my goal of being a successful commercial model and TV presenter, I spent hours drilling myself with every bit of information I needed in order to undo all the damage that was done by negativity in my mind, self image, self-esteem and beliefs. It was like I was rehabilitating my mind and reprogramming it with confidence in my abilities, trust in my efforts and belief in that I shall become what I think I am. Till this day I still wake up and repeat a set of affirmations that I formulated during those early days of reconstructing myself, and every night before I sleep, I go through them again along with visualizing all that I want to achieve. Through my attempts to creating this person that I am today, I have found the use of Personal Development techniques and knowledge very powerful and helpful in allowing me to constantly improve and make progress in my quest to realize my dreams.

How has the journey been so far? 

Well, let me tell you that I’ve never been happier about my life than I am today. I mean in 2 years, I’ve went from a guy who was down, out, bitter, negative, hopeless and always feeling sorry for himself because of what was happening to him, to a young confident, calm, charismatic and a direct opposite what my parents and relatives said I’d be. But what about my goal of being a successful commercial model and TV presenter? That has been a huge motivating factor behind my resilience, yes I’m facing challenges but because its what I want to do, its a desire that burns me day in day out, those challenges have become nothing but stepping  stones and I can confidently say I am going for the Big Time!!! I have no doubt that I will achieve my goal and further more surprise myself by doing it in the exact time scale I’ve set for myself. I know this because in the last 7 to 8 months I’ve appeared in several local newspaper ads, became a front cover model for a local magazine and just 2 months ago I did my first commercial ad with a national bottled water company, aQuelle. Now everyday for the last 2 months, thousands of people and myself included have been watching that ad in train stations and malls that the company targeted, I’ll tell you now that seeing myself on a huge TV screen for the last 2 months has been nothing but motivation to keep me going till I’m nationally and internationally acknowledged for what I’m truly passionate about. There is no presenting audition that I miss because I’m constantly making an effort to open, create and put myself in front of opportunities that will and are helping me live my dream one day at a time. You may not know about me now or by next week or next year but because my intention is to become the best at what I do and be successful in it, I guarantee myself and you that before I’m 25 this story would be shared with millions of people around South Africa and the world. 

In closing I’d like you to deeply think about the situation you’re in and if it makes you feel worthless then change that perception. If it makes you doubt what you can do, stop doubting and start believing in your abilities to change your life into exactly what you want it to be!

“You Can Do It If You Believe You Can”

What needs to be done?

Interesting question right? Exactly what is it that needs to be done? Well if there’s a ‘need‘ then it must be important right? If it needs to be ‘done‘ then it means doing it is going to be beneficial right? Ok let me pause a bit.

My point is that there is always something that needs to be done, by whom? you may ask. Let’s start with you for starters, and you too. Heck even I have something that needs to be done too. We all have those important things we need to do but…..

we just put them off.

Its not a pleasing fact, trust me I know. But the problem with putting things off for ‘later’ is that we end up putting our dreams, goals and our very own lives off. Another not so pleasing fact is that ‘putting things off’ is ranked amongst the top most success killing habits

Ahaa!

I just caught your attention back there! I’m saying that because this is a habit that most of us don’t pay attention to, we put things off and procrastinate so much that we even procrastinate our procrastination. After that it goes on forever unnoticed like a long dream until we hit rock bottom and realize that nothing has been done to prepare ourselves for the future. Then you wake up at the age of 47 with a lot of kids, an unhappy marriage life and a mean boss who pays your a lot less than you deserve for someone with your capabilities and in debt.

So what needs to be done to avoid that kind of reality? I’ll tell you what you and I need to do!

Realize the true value of Time! Its a very rare commodity that even the richest men or women can not buy!
What you have to realize is that your time is limited, everyone and I mean EVERYONE only has 86400 seconds in a day. That’s it! No one gets one second more!

In conclusion I want you to carefully think about the last 24 hours! Was time waisted? What about the next 24 hours? Are you going to waste them as well, or are you going to start making your seconds count by doing what needs to be done?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about on this, as always we’ll meet in the comments section.

#KingLife

10 Facts that You and I need to remember about being Successful and staying Successful.

Hello there 🙂 Thank You once more for stopping by.

Today I want us to look at a few facts that you and I need to keep in mind about success, 10 facts to be exact. I may not be a ‘success’ expert or a millionaire yet but just like each and every successful person I’ve met, heard of or read about, I’ve dedicated a portion of my time into learning and understanding the steps, mindset and knowledge that made those people successful.

Before I go on any further, I’d like to point out that these facts are what I’ve summed up from hours and days of research, reading and listening to audio books throughout the year based on the lives of people who have achieved success in their chosen fields and interests in life and maintained it throughout their entire lives.

This is what I concluded about Success and Staying Successful :

1. Success is Intentional.

2. A successful person is someone who is able not to be deterred by the possibility of failure.

3. Failure comes from fear and fear is an absurdity because we fear something(failure) that hasn’t manifested.

4. Act in your favor with no regard or what so ever to the possibility of failure because there’s always a possibility of failure lingering in every endevour you partake in as much as there’s a success possibility, so always keep moving in spite of the possibility of incurring failure.

5. Always give it your best and all to avoid regretting it later. In the event of failing, you should call to action to try even harder to get what you know you are capable of achieving.

6. Every successful person has failed at some point in their lives. Success is a game of time and persistent practice.

7. Successful people are failures that decided to stick around long enough until things began to work in their favor.

8. Failure is nothing but an increase in wisdom and a reason to advance and be successful in all your doings.

9. Never allow the possibility of failure to limit/prohibit you from undertaking noble endevours and pursuing success.

10. Failure is an illusion.

From my own experience I’ve learned the true value of these facts as they’ve helped me and are continuing to do so in my journey towards being a successful person, I’m making notable progress and you can too if you can fix it in your own mind to do so and remember these facts on your journey towards reaching your goals.

Looking forward to hearing your response on this, I’ll be waiting for you in the comments section as always. Peace:)

#KingLife

Getting a Headstart : How these small changes can cause big changes in your life.

I’m sure we’ve all heard of something like “how you start determines how you finnish” and thought ‘yeah whatever, so what?’. Well maybe its time we payed more attention to the magnitude of the message behind that saying. Maybe its about time we delve into the significance of starting good so you can end good. I’m only going to look at key things that each and every person can do to get themselves on that high start of their day. Some of the tips I’m going to talk about might sound familiar but as I’ve said on my previous posts, repetition is key when it comes to personal development

Far too many people still struggle to understand the power and influence that their own thoughts possess. Before you can even start to think about this fact on a wider scale, firstly look at it on a personal scale. Look at how much your own constant thoughts influence you and your decision making. How many times have you postponed an important task just because you decided that it wasn’t urgent or you didn’t think it was that important and then later regret doing so?
Yes! Your thoughts are that influential, they influence the entire coarse of your day, your week, month and ultimately your whole life. We can all see what this leads to, our thoughts put us into a cycle that creates our everyday life and that in turn becomes our entire life. Do we want a life full of regrets and what if’s? Not in a million years.

So how do we undo or reverse this cycle and make it work in our favor? Firstly if you want to change something big, you have to start with the little things that make it up. Its this simple : If you want a great, prosperous and successful life start with waking up each day and working on making each day great, prosperous and successful.

A more practical way of achieving this is by giving yourself a “head start”. I’ve put this in quotation marks mainly because it’s a very popular term which you hear almost everyday but without properly grasping the true application of the term. Ok I’m done talking, let me get straight to bussiness.

Do the 5 Things “life’s” most successful people do before 8.00 am every morning.

Exercise – Do something every morning, no matter what.
Map out your day – Your schedule, goals and to do list. At the same time reaffirm your short, medium and long term goals.
Eat a Healthy Breakfast – It’s the most important meal of the day after all.
Visualise your day ahead – Focus on the successes you will have during the day.
Exercise your Will Power muscle – Do the most important but least desirable tasks first.

In closing I’d like to thank you for giving yourself time to read this and I guarantee you its going to help you if you stick to it, and remember ‘repetition is key’ so don’t just do this for a week and then stop. Do it everyday.

Feel free to let me know about your take on this by sharing your thoughts and ideas about this topic or any other topic I’ve talked about, looking forward to what you have to say. Let’s meet at the comments section :).

#KingLife

Lessons From Nature : What Pigeons taught me about Courage.

Hi there, as always its my pleasure to welcome you here :). I want to share an interesting discovery or a realization that was made clear to me by pigeons.

Yes pigeons!!!

Its funny when you think about it, heck I even laughed at myself after I jotted down my observation because I never thought I’d learn such important lessons from a pigeon/s. But that alone proved to me that ‘we’ (human beings) go through life sometimes on autopilot if not most of the time, we don’t savor the tiny moments that come with being alive and in turn we live our lives as slaves, slaves of public opinions about what’s right and what’s not, this in turn becomes our own thoughts, limitations and ideas about our lives! Who said we can’t learn from nature?

The truth is that most of us don’t humble ourselves enough to get in touch with nature anymore, the fast paced, money driven lives we live don’t allow us to do that right? Wrong! We unconsciously allow it to do so and in turn we’ve lost the sense of who we are, the role we play in nature and as a part of nature.

In order to learn, a mental state of being humble is vital because let’s face it we are a part of nature and there’s a lot we can learn that can better our lives if only we would pause and observe.

Now allow me to give you my observation in the exact way that I wrote it down in my journal :

25 October 2013

” Just earlier today I was at the park during my lunch break from work looking lost and deep in my thoughts. Anyways, I was sitting down and just entertaining a thought that had traces of being worried, the thought was ‘I’m hungry but I have to save cash so I can get through next week and cover all transport costs’.

I decided not to worry too much and just fix the ‘now’ which was my growling stomach, so I got up and bought food, came back, sat on a bench at the park and enjoyed my lunch. While eating I didn’t care about next week because I was taking care of my hunger which was the issue back then.

As I was eating I kept throwing crumbs for my pigeon friends, in no time I had the whole flock at my feet. I then placed some crumbs on my hand and lowered it so the pigeons could easily reach it, at first no pigeon came near my hand because as much as they didn’t mind my presence, I was still a human and they know not to trust humans even if they are feeding you.

Second time I added more crumbs and one dark grey pigeon, probably a female because of the lack of flamboyant colors just came near my hand an cautiously stretched her neck to the crumbs in my hand, I could tell she was a bit skeptic but because she dared herself to get better food than the rest who were fighting over tiny pieces on the ground she took the risk of trusting a human not to hurt her and she showed courage by coming back for more food on more than a several occasions.

I then noticed that every time I dropped crumbs for the rest of the flock, she didn’t even bother herself on fighting it out for the tiny pieces, why should she do that when she is confident that she can get more just by trusting me to lower my hand and allowing her to eat bigger pieces out of my hand?! Courage, trust and confidence got her stomach full.

It was as if I was watching her come into an understanding of the fact that I was there for one purpose only which is to feed and learn through observation. I want a bigger piece of life, not what the world offers me, I want what I can courageously and confidently get for myself just by simply making a strong demand on myself and putting trust in my ability to access resources that the majority of people are afraid to even attempt to access.

The human brain is 10 times or even a 100 times more advance compared to a pigeons brain yet all of that potential and power is left to waste because we have relied on autopilot for so long that it has brought us to our limitations and inability to access that powerful resource which can take us to higher heights in our lives. If a pigeon can do it, then a human can do it a 100 times more and beyond that.

This pigeon caused a chain reaction of questions in my mind that each person can ask themselves if they feel that they are not achieving or performing to their fullest capacities in their lives. A few of these were as follows :

• Do I take risks to grow?
• Am I striving towards my goals so I can reach my dreams?
• Do I stand up for myself? “

In closing I’d like to say this to you, you don’t have to feed pigeons to see this because you know it, its evident in your own experience with life. You have goals and dreams but you lack the confidence and courage to withstand the challenges that come with working on and towards your goals. I dare you to stretch your neck and reach out for those big crumbs that you dream of attaining. I dare you to put trust in nature and the universe at large to work and conspire in your favor.

With this comes a guarantee of that you’ll never find yourself fighting for survival like the rest of the flock did and sadly like the majority of the population is doing but you’ll find yourself living the life that keeps you satisfied and happy. I know for sure that you want to be like that one courageous pigeon who gets the bigger crumbs! No one wants to fight, so start by accessing that power that’s lying dormant in you own mind, push yourself to get bigger and better crumbs!

I dare you to learn from nature!

#KingLife

How accurate is your aim : The importance of having a specific goal in life.

Hello again 🙂 its always a pleasure to find you here, I hope the previous blog article on habits was driven home.

Before I can talk more about the Law Of Attraction or the Law Of Cause and Effect I concluded that it will make more sense to first tackle the factors you need to know in order to come into an understanding of that great law. One of them being the importance of having a Goal, or as the great grandfather of personal development Napoleon Hill puts it : A Definite Chief Aim.

Why is it so important to have that singleness of purpose or aim in life? Well let’s be honest here, how can you even possibly dream of success if you don’t have a clear cut view of what you’d like to be successful in?

Its funny how a lot of people don’t really take the time to really sit down with themselves and think about what is it that they really want to achieve. This great Law of Attraction is always inplay, the only trick with it is that it only plays in favor of your thoughts, your constant thoughts I may add.

With that in this in mind you can determine for yourself why it is important to have that single goal constantly occupying your mind and thoughts.

By keeping a thought long enough in your mind, you’re allowing your mind to only attract everything it needs to bring your goal into manifestation. It sounds really simple right? Indeed it is, you just have to persistent at it, voluntarily or by force if you have to, focus your mind on that single purpose or goal you want to bring into realization.

Does it not make sense that after constant practice and focused aiming an archer can direct his/her arrow accurately to the point at which they’ve been aiming for? Yes it does. Without a clear aim there’s nothing!

Same goes for everyone, we are all archers, some archers keep shooting their arrows randomly because they have no aim and no goal, some have the aim and goal but lack constant practice and persistence.
Unfortunately those very same people make up the majority of the human population who are unhappy with their lives because they did not give themselves enough time to find their true purpose in life, who do not have specific goals in their lives.

The importance of having a goal can be summed up as follows : having a goal and an aim keeps you active and looking forward to making it into a reality, and when you finally realize your goal happiness is guaranteed because you would have achieved and fulfilled your purpose in life.

Remember, if you don’t aim you will never hit the bulls eye in your life, if you do not persist you will never reap the benefits that come with the fulfillment of your purpose.

#KingLife

Habits : How to make them work ‘for’ You. pt 2 of 2.

As promised in my last article, I am going to give you a few tips or techniques that you can use to create habits that work in your favor.
Before I start I’d like to thank you for taking your time to read this, you’re already doing something constructive by being here so Thank You. I’m going to keep this short and on point so here we go.

In order for something to become a habit there must be Repetition, this is self explanatory so I’ll just move right along. The key steps to forming healthy habits always start with creating a burning desire, this means that you should want something so bad that you think and act on it daily.

Notice that this too involves repetition.

Secondly, when you’ve created that burning desire, you must have faith/belief in the manifestation of that burning desire, why is that so? Why do you need to believe?
Well simply because believing in something fixes your mind into attracting the neccessary people, resources and taking the neccessary action you need in order to bring your desire into life or into something real and tangible.

Again the Law Of Attraction is the key cause of this effect. I will talk about it on the next article.

Thirdly, when you’ve created a burning desire and you have faith/belief, how does that sum up into a positive and healthy habit? This is where the third technique comes in, which is taking accurate and constructive action. Sounds too othordox right? Well let me break it down a little.

You have a definite goal you want to achieve, you have a burning desire and you truthfully believe in it, combining those 2 techniques will undoubtedly make you get up and look for opportunities, talk to the right people, train harder if your goal requires you too, study harder if your goal requires you to. I’m sure you get the point.

Taking accurate and constructive action means waking up early while the whole world is asleep, pushing yourself to do atleast one thing everyday that will contribute to the realization of your goal. These small but crucial actions later turn into habits, habits that gradually take over you and make you go an extra mile for what you desire and believe in.

Any statement that you repeatedly say to yourself or any desire that you deeply plant into your own mind will eventually seek expression through your physical outward bodily efforts – Napoleon Hill.

In conclusion any person reading this can apply these techniques in their own lives and watch the changes that occur. It will do you no harm to write the following down and commit it to memory if neccessary :

I am Success and Success flows through me because Success is my Habit! My dreams and goals are my Cues, accurate and constructive action is my Routine and I believe that prosperity is my Reward. I am Success and Success flows through me because Success is my Habit!

This is an Affirmation or Auto-Suggestion, I’ll expand more about these in the near future because they are vital aspects in your journey to success and personal development.

I’d continue with this topic but as promised I’ll keep it short and leave it here for now. Make a commitment to yourself to try these techniques atleast for 21 consecutive days because that’s how long it takes for an idea to be planted in your mind before you start seeing the effect. And remember when it comes to habits, repetition is key.

#KingLife

Habits : How to make them work ‘for’ You. pt 1 of 2.

Habits
Many studies have been conducted on this one single topic and one common theme keeps re appearing in all the results, this common theme is that habits are not just what you do unconsciously out of repetition of action, thought, or feeling.

Habits grow out of your internal environment into your external environment or simply into your everyday life and they become one of the main ‘deciding’ factors of how you go through your everyday life and ultimately your entire life.

When faced with a challenge what kind of habits take charge over your mind and body? Do you panic and start crying? Do you look away and pretend as if nothing happened? Do you take it head on and get it sorted without losing focus? Do you resort to alcohol or other distractions of that similar nature?

The truth is that we have habits that we are not even aware of and thus we may easily say ‘I always keep calm when faced with a challenge’ but I’d like each and every person reading this to ask themselves :

What happens when I worry about something?

What happens when something is depressing me?

and

What happens when I feel afraid?

Observe the changes that occur in your behavior when in those 3 states then you’ll have an idea of how habits work and how they instantly take control. Habits can be seen in everything we do, everything we say and in everything we are but I just used those 3 states because its easier to observe any person in those states.

Ok, enough with the not so helpful part but I believe that in order for a person to find a solution, they must first find the cause of the problem, its an under guiding principle called The Law Of Cause and Effect, its a long and interesting topic on its own and I promise to talk about it on my third article.

Habits are made up of 3 steps and for you to easily understand I’ll use a ‘smoker’ as an example. Every habit is made up of a

Cue : the command that your brain gives you to do something which is triggered by any sensation that involves any of your 5 senses, it can be a certain smell, sound, feeling, word or even an object . In a smokers case it is the ‘crave‘ to smoke that the smoker feels, that strong urge the body gets of wanting to get that nicotine rush that is associated with smoking say maybe after seeing or smelling a cigarette from someone passing by or as most smokers say ‘when they feel stressed/depressed

Routine : the neccessary action taken to respond to the que. In a smokers case the routine is the actual process of smoking the cigarette just to get nicotine into their system.

and a

Reward : this is the reason behind habits, what you get after satisfying that ‘burning‘ desire that comes with the que. The reward can be a feeling, a sensation or a certain mental state. In a smokers case its usually and I quote “I ‘feel‘ good after smoking” as most smokers explain or they feel more at ease like something has been fixed.

The Cue, Routine and Reward are collectively known as The Habit Loop.

For more on habits I recommend a book by Charles Duhigg called The Power Of Habit:Why we do what we do in life and in bussiness. This is a great book for those who are looking to make their habits work in their favor.

Now comes the most important fact about habits : Habits can be changed to work in your favor, they can be recreated, they can be controlled and most importantly ‘good’ habits can be created to make You become successful.

For now I’m going to leave you with one tip that you can use or think about. Every successful person I know and have read about has the capacity to remain centered, clear and powerful in the midst of emotional and mental “storms.”

How is this accomplished? I’ve discovered that most of these individuals have a fundamental rule: Never spend more than 10 % of your time on the problem, and always spend at least 90 % of your time on the solution.

Make this into a habit every time you’re faced with a challenge and I guarantee that you will not only find it helpful but you will start paying more attention to your habits and how they effect your decision making and ultimately how they will change the entire coarse of your life.

On my next article I’ll go into details a bit more on that and how You can create habits that will help you become well equipped for your success, because let’s all face it our habits can either make us or break us.

#KingLife

#KingLife

10 Things I Learnt At Age 24

I guess each year really is different from the preceding one as each one is a correction and a maybe an opportunity to improve from the one before. Just like the year before, age 24 had quite a lot to teach me and once more I’m more than happy to reflect and share some of the lessons,  blessings and hardships that came as a part and parcel of these life lessons I’m forever learning as I grow more mature psychologically, emotionally, physically, socially and spiritually. For the purpose of this post (which is to reflect and share), I will just jump to it before I start to sound like the regular internet life guru who has a cleverly writer preface for every blog post. *lol*

 

1. You don’t know shit.

-Probably a little confusing I think, but it’s true and it’s totally ok to admit to not knowing anything about anything(yourself included). Not knowing, in this case, would refer to your internal self-labelling system that requires you and sometimes demands you into trying to figure life out, sometimes when it doesn’t work out as you planned it would, it throws you into a deep dark well of disappointment, depressions and anxiety. It’s not what you know that matters, because what you know is just an attempt by your brain to avoid what you don’t know. The sooner you admit and submit to not knowing anything, the more you open yourself up to understanding beyond what you know and understand, strangely enough, that alone becomes the basis and source of limitless knowledge, just don’t let yourself be consumed by the idea of knowing as it can block you from knowing.  So go ahead and explore with new and fresh perspectives, and to push it a bit I’d say be naïve a little so you can unlearn and relearn anew what you think and thought you understood because life and all that it comes with thrives on constant change and redefinition

 

2. Care Free and Care Less.

-There is little or no difference at all between the two, but whatever principle or force that guides one also acts inversely proportional on the other. So, whenever you find yourself caring too much about one thing just know that other things or aspects of your life are being neglected and are most probably dying out as a result of being overly obsessed and fixated with one thing . Age 24 taught me that as negatively perceived being ‘carefree and careless’ is, they bring incomparable balance to one’s life (give yourself a second to process this as it may not make sense). See, there are these totally strange ways at which life works that we hardly see as important because we are stuck at what we know. These include caring less and being carefree about life itself (not in a way that poses life-threatening risks, well not quite). During the age 24, I had no form of income or money generating activities that I could depend on to see my rent paid and get food on my table but strangely enough I never even bothered myself to care about such things and somehow I’d still get my rent paid and my stomach filled. I don’t know how that worked itself out but I can tell you that every time I fussed and stressed about it, it just got worse compared to when I’d just acknowledge it as a situation and cared less about it. Don’t get me wrong, caring about stuff is important but out 3^rd dimensionally constructed comprehension and understanding of the universe makes humans doubt the beauty that comes with being. That a mean and ugly situation spewing with problems is inversely a moment filled with opportunities for a lifetime of problems doesn’t make sense to a mind trained to care, yet the mind that has learnt to be carefree and careless will tell you of the beauty and balance that come with caring less and being carefree.

 

3. Contribute to what you love.

-I don’t know why this makes sense but in my sound and insane mind it does, and probably for reasons that you might agree with. I am a multi-talented individual with potential beyond my own understanding of what and who I’m supposed to be. That alone became more evident at age 24 than in previous years. I remember those long nights in the summer making music, writing articles, movie scripts, coming up with new fashion styles to change current trends, shooting videos and mini movies, to painting random art on the streets and dancing my worries away on weekends. Hey, it might have felt like I was having fun but all in all, I was contributing to the very same things that inspire me to create and most importantly I was contributing to what I love, Art. Something about creatives and artists (still yet to define the difference) that keeps them going at their life’s worst phases is their ability to transform whatever life throws at them into a beautiful piece of art that will later give rise to a new way of looking at life, because of their contribution. In a way for them whether they know it or not but through their contribution, other people are inspired and learn to perceive life a little differently, so in a way when you contribute to what you love you are actually improving humanity.  I slowly watched young people in my community start to dress differently, become more interested in making music that speaks and reflects on their reality, I watched neighbours become more welcoming as that was the culture at which I was contributing to. Contributing to what I love helped me serve a bigger purpose than I had imagined.

 

4. Relationships are not always the way to go.

-this one is a bit sensitive for some people. And maybe it was for me for the longest time I can remember BUT sooner than later I learnt that relationships eventually and inevitably reflect each individual’s relationship with themselves first before it becomes about the partner.  Because age 24 was a little tougher (financially) than expected, it filtered out to my romantic relationship with my then partner (who left me because I was broke, even though she knew I wouldn’t always stay that way), being honest with myself I admit to getting into that relationship just because I wanted to forget about my financial crisis and other issues (unemployment and being underrated by the very same industry that needed my contribution) I was faced with at that age. At my own space, I’d see myself as financially inadequate and it made feel less of a man and a useless partner, to no surprise that’s exactly how she treated me sometimes and hence the relationship couldn’t carry on any further. The lesson here is that relationships are not always the way to go when you are seeking to find solutions for your own personal demons and problems, what a relationship will do in that case is that it will fool you into thinking that it’s the perfect cover up when in actuality it’s conjuring up all your fears and turning them into a reality. You soon realise the importance of self-reliance and when you do, all the mirrors get shattered and all that you had built in an attempt to emulate what could be, comes crumbling down and you find yourself back at your sad and lonely self. Don’t jump into a relationship just because you are running away from yourself…

 

5. Sex is healing.

-Oh yes!!!! It is. Aside from learning to get into relationships for the right reasons, I learnt that maybe even a bad relationship has some good in it. The sex part. Sex is a spiritual, physical, emotional and psychological synergetic energy exchange. Having sex at age 24 was one of the things I fell back on to comfort myself about my life which at that point kept getting worse, but I guess the healing magic in-between a black woman’s thighs was too powerful even for my then depressed and anxious mind to ignore. I would have sex day in and day out not just because it was that good but because when you are that close to a human being the two of you fall into a trans state where nothing matters, where time and every other man made concept stop making sense. The soft velvety texture of her vagina walls gave me comfort beyond understanding. Every time she pulled me in, with her legs wrapped around my waist, breathing heavily around my neck sending shivers down my spine, I swear I would stop and think to myself  ‘Why aren’t we all permanent residents in this world that sees and knows no worries, a world that only knows of pleasure, comfort, satisfaction and warmth?’. It is only after that I began to realise the healing power behind and contained by this ritual.

 

6. Don’t sell yourself short even if it’s the only choice you seem to have.

-So there was I, age 24, unemployed, broke and depressed. I had recently got my 3^rd qualification in IT and I thought that was going to open up doors for me but I later remembered why I didn’t study IT any further, I wasn’t passionate about it. Anyways, while I was unemployed and depressed, my friends and everyone else who knew my situation was trying really hard to help me find a job, but in my soul I knew that I didn’t want a job for starters, and secondly if I had to work for someone as a job it would have to be in line with one of my various passions and interests rather than a random job at a local shisa nyama or a retail store. Somehow my passion was more valuable than temporal adversity. I remember rejecting a lot of offers from people who were really concerned about my state, on the other hand, I really needed a source of income and if I wasn’t so stubborn and passionate about my dreams I would have jumped at the first job offer that was going to pay my bills but I couldn’t deal with the taxing that it was going to come with to my soul. Sure the money is important but it loses its purpose when it’s not made through passion that is why you have a lot of people who work at jobs that they are unhappy to be working at. Never sell yourself short for money, friends or even for your family. Some sacrifices will not make sense to everyone else but you. So understand that you are valuable and increase that value than decreasing it by selling yourself short.

 

7. Remind yourself why you started.

-This is probably one of the most valuable lessons age 24 taught me. So many times in my life I’ve had to defend my dreams against my own doubts and self -sabotage,  more than once I’ve had  to remind myself of what I want to achieve in my life for myself and for the world, but never has that mattered more than it did in the previous year. By my understanding age 24 was that point in my life where everything I had worked for crumbled and fell apart, I lost major deals with major brands, lost a nice apartment in the city, lost all my clients and money making ventures I was involved in, I literally hit rock bottom. But in the midst of the dust I kept on reminding myself why I came to Jozi, it wasn’t to cry and give up when the going got tough but it was to build from the ground and from the struggles that I was facing. I had to remind myself that I came here because I believed that the gifts, abilities and potential I possess were given to me for a reason bigger than my knowledge of what and who I’m supposed to be. Day in and day out I would question my strength, resilience and wonder if I will also be just another black man who gave up on his dreams and deserted his calling as a new world leader in all the ventures I was interested in. Each day I would remind myself that I came here not just for myself but I came here because the world needs me and should I fail myself, I have failed the world.  I reminded myself of the great achievements that I had accomplished in previous years despite the challenges I had to face. Reminding myself why I started this quest kept me in check even when it seemed unreasonable for people around me because they didn’t understand the horizons my eyes had gazed upon.

 

8. Destroy and Create Yourself.

-Human beings are energy and we know that science says that you cannot destroy or create energy. Well, I’d like to speak outside science’s understanding of energy. When I say destroy and create yourself I’m talking about all that makes you good and all that makes you bad (I don’t know who made the criteria but we use it regardless), I’m talking about routines and habits, bad ones and good ones. We thrive on balance, the balance of the good and bad, creation and destruction. Age 24 saw me drinking heavily because of the depression and not caring about the effects of that behaviour because every morning after regardless of how tired I was, I would jump into my jogging gear and hit the road like an Olympic champion and in the afternoon you’d find me at the soccer field training like the soccer world cup was tomorrow. I do not know of the technicalities of what I was doing because I was doing it for one reason, it was a habit deeply rooted in my subconscious. In a way I was destroying and creating myself at the same time, my mind and body were working hand in hand to maintain the balance between the creation and destruction that was happening simultaneously as a result of the reaction mechanism that my mind came up with against the depression, which was heavy drinking. On the other hand, my exercising habits were so strongly engraved and rooted in my subconscious that my body wouldn’t allow my minds mechanism to destroy it and thus I’d exercise heavily in response to the drinking.  At that point, I think I learnt that there’s beauty in how the body and mind find a balance between creation and destruction.

 

9. Throw yourself in the deep end.

-Yes, literally throw yourself in shark infested oceans without a shark tank or cage. The obvious reality is that the sharks will not hesitate to make a meal out of you but the unexpected reality is that you will discover that you’re a shark too and maybe you were born to lead sharks. That happened to me at age 24, when all things fell apart I was advised to go back home and start over but I didn’t listen( and I’m glad I didn’t follow a cowards advice). Not listening pulled me deeper into the ocean of depression and helplessness as it got even tougher to even get R10 for a kota just to keep my stomach shut from the growling noise caused by the pain of being hungry. Now that I was in the deep end, I learnt to live like the animals and people who inhabited the deep end and rock bottom, I learnt to minimise on a lot of unnecessary things that I had previously viewed as important while I was flourishing. All that mattered was what I had then and I had learnt to stop worrying about the next day as that was the source of my depression, the people at rock bottom taught me how to smile again even when I had less than I thought. In actuality they taught me that ‘less is more’ is not just a cliché saying, it is an actual secret of life that we’ve been deprived of because we are constantly told that the more you have is the happier you are, when in reality that is relatively not so true because ownership doesn’t just come with responsibility, it also comes with attachment and worry as we tend to invest more of  ourselves in what we own stripping us off the idea of being independent regardless of what we own or don’t own.  Throwing myself in the deep end reminded me that the most important thing to worry about was breathing, because as long as you can still breathe that means you are still alive and we all know that if you’re still alive the possibilities are endless, you can flip your current situation into what you want it to be.

 

10. Break and question all the Rules.

-Initially, this will get you in trouble and it will even make other people lose faith and trust in you (for a short while). Why is it important to challenge rules and question authority? Well let me just put it this way, people make rules, not the other way around. What worked in 1920, as a rule, won’t always be applied and received the same way in 2020. We don’t have to wait 100 years to challenge rules, find what you believe needs to be revaluated and through your experience with the alternative way of doing things you can set a new measure of standards and rules that are more accommodating to the current and future state of life. We are held stationary and stagnant by authority and rules because they are afraid of change. Rules may look (looks can and are deceiving sometimes) and sound like they are there to maintain order but best believe that they are just there to keep the system rigid and beneficiary to the makers of the rules, when you questions and challenge rules, you threaten the structure and stability of the system and ultimately you change the world. So don’t be afraid to be radical, naïve and crazy, those are labels used by people who are afraid to do things differently because comfort and certainty  has them on a submission hold and they can’t help but hate and curse those who are not trapped in the fear of change.

This is how I chose to remember you

Kellz :

This is how I chose to remember you.

We met by chance, maybe or maybe not. Either way there was a reason as to why we got along from the first day we met, back then we were both naive, hungry and carefree. I watched us go from strangers, to acquaintances, to friends, best friends then brothers. Never in my life did I think that I’d find relevance to someone so different from me but I did. Through that so many memories and moments were manifested, struggles and challenges were conquered, adventures and lessons experienced. I could go on for another hour or a day even but no words will explain the shock and void that consumed me when I saw these words on your facebook wall yesterday: Rest In Peach Luthando “Buddah Kellz” Mlotshwa. I remember shouting out “No!!! This can’t be true” because in my mind I don’t think I was ready to accept that you are no longer on this realm. You have taken the next path to life, existing outside your travel bag of existence.

You taught me so much and I’m happy that I always could tell you about those lessons you taught me. I can never say I remained as a good friend after I relocated to Johannesburg because when you told me that you have been diagnosed with Lung Cancer and had been hospitalized for some time, never did I buy a bus ticket to come see you, maybe I’ll always beat myself up for that. All I did was ask if you’re fine on Whatsapp, when I clearly could see that you’re not. I watched you get lighter with ever profile picture that you put on your Whatsapp profile, I could feel your lungs decaying with every breath you took. I slowly started appreciating the idea of you fighting the cancer and emerging triumphant. But was it out of guilt that I sent you all those texts about being strong and fighting the cancer? Was I preparing myself for yesterday knowing that I’ll never be really ready to accept losing a loved one.

I’m not in good terms with death, been surrounded by it my entire life, yet I still feel invincible and maybe even death knows that I am because if that’s not the case then why is it always taking those around me? Why not me?

But that’s not how I chose to remember you. I chose to remember you for those long nights of fun, those days at the park where we would sit and talk about life , family and business, I chose to remember the believer that you were. When I wanted to give up on my career because of the opposition I got at home, you always reminded of how great I am, only now that you’re gone I realize how great you were. I may be be drowning in silence and tears but I chose to remember your laughter and smile.

I chose to keep you alive in my memories and heart.

Losing touch with “I”

　　

A silent moment alone, a thought of self conservation during an argument with another confused soul, a momentary split second of self doubt and encounter with the unconscious you, the Ego. Relatively speaking, it’s rare for most people to keep track of themselves within the boundaries of their minds, feelings, experiences, thoughts and perceptions. Further more, its even tougher because on the inside and deep within oneself is another, the Ego. Form, identification, fear, gratification and attachment are all companions and very close companion of the Ego. When looking at myself in the mirror, I have changed my reference to “I’ more than a million times because every time I saw my physical projection per say, I would most probably be caught up between the real me, my ego and the companions that my ego travels with, the definition of “I” seems to be nothing more or less than what Is. Not my thoughts, not my ego, not my feelings or my perception for that matter.

I read a book which somewhere in it had the following statement ‘I dont know who I am and that’s good”…. Thought provoking I know, and thus I started to question myself, “Who is ‘I’?” When speaking and referring to this figure or person called I, who’s being referred to?

The truth will set you free, but before it does, I tend to say ‘at first it will shock you, unlearning is different from learning The truth about the person called ‘I’ did indeed shock me and its continuing to do so as the unlearning process continues and new truths come to be uncovered and once more the realization of the true self, the real I is brought into light. Demotivation, the feeling of lack, scarcity consciousness and all other perceptions entrenched and anchored within the ego or the illusory ‘I’ are the main causes of the constant feeling of being lost or never really happy about the current state of ones life because just like any other parasite, the ego always wants more, so whats there and then is never enough, it is never satisfied with the present moment, it is forever looking for something better anywhere else and everywhere else except in the now. As a result it became clear to me as to why every persons “I” is always on the quest to gain something, Yes!! Let me give very personal examples from my “I”. ‘I’ WANT to be the most successful face on television, I WANT a bentley, I WANT to be loved and adored by millions, I WANT to be the best and most successful creative of my generation…. The urge to get more, feeling of wanting more because ‘I’ will feel a little more important, “I’ will feel more valuable, ‘I’ will be viewed and received as better.

The present moment is I’s and the Ego’s worst enemy, wanting can never be present because I want it only based on the fact that presently I think I lack it. And so the long road and endless chase of illusory goals formed and based on the shortcomings of I and the Ego are what keep us away from knowing the true self and the real I.

The more deeper I unlearn, the more brighter the truth of who I is comes to light. “Presence” and the present moment that the ego and I hate so much are essentially where the real “I” resides, when you and I have started living in appreciation of the present moment we reach an understanding of that “I” can never be satisfied unless “I” is recognized in the present moment at all times, let that sink it.

I AM….

That is the true self, consciousness, and the formless true and final expression of who you are. After “I” will always follow a statement that does not acknowledge the present moment. In contrast, when you say ‘I AM” and leave it there, even before you make another follow up statement, you have affirmed yourself in the present moment as being “I AM”… I AM who I AM now, in the future I shall be who I AM when I AM.
Another personal example that resulted from this actualization of the truth about I, Ego and I AM..

I AM not I.

The Art Of Taking Action and The After Effects.

And so there I was one morning in Durban, I had been living in a shack for 2 years using public bathrooms every morning, with cold water being the norm regardless of the season. Some days were just harder than others especially when it seemed as if my life was moving at snail speed. That one morning I took a decision of moving to another city, Johannesburg. I had no idea of how I was going to live because I had no stable source of income, the only thing that I had was a couple of thousands in my savings account enough to last me for a few months. I remember the night before that morning I couldn’t sleep because I was crying the whole night, I was worried and second guessing the decision I had to take. There was nothing pushing me to take that decision, my dream of being a presenter was pulling me towards that decision and moving to Johannesburg seemed like a good idea because of the amount of opportunities available there. Being 22 and having virtually no one to support you can be really stressful at times but regardless of all those odds the universe kept showing me and giving me reasons as to why I should fight for my dreams.

The next morning I jumped into a bus with a bag full of clothes and a back pack with my laptop. I only had those things with me and during the 700 km trip I had plenty of time to think about the decision I had taken and the possibilities it potentially presented. The decisions that change us for the better are never easy to take because even before you take that decision your mind and people around you would have already given you a million reasons as to why you shouldn’t. For that reason I believe that one should be atleast 5% stupid and just act. Because the universe is forever conspiring in our favor if we align ourselves properly with it, I found a relatively cheap place in Johannesburg that I could live in. A few months before that, late in December 2014 I had found a talent and artist manager who was just starting out her agency and through social media we kept in contact until I made the move to Johannesburg and then the adventure began…

In a space of 2 months my dream was starting to manifest and even though I was living on my saving (which really depressed me a little) I was slowly appreciating the journey and what I have going on. I haven’t started making millions because the story I’m telling you is currently taking place as you’re reading this. Just last week I got my first official television presenting job on a mobile television network and all I can say is that I’m thankful of all the blessings and shifts that the universe has put into motion for me.

On the 23rd of November 2013 I wrote an article/blog post titled “Building From The Ground” and there i shared some of my deepest desires, a year later some of those have come to life.

Short Notes: #AppreciateLife

Sometimes we miss out on life because we’re too busy worrying about yesterday and tomorrow while life is happening today. One of my younger brothers is always using the hashtag #AppreciateLife and as much as I see it all the time on his online updates on social media sites, it has never actually sunk in. I recently visited my sister who lives in another province/state and only until then that I actually took some time to really think about the things I appreciate in my life. See, doing that didn’t just lift me up or give me hope, it also made me realize how much we tend to forget(willingly) about what really matters.

Today is a new day, I shall not bring yesterdays worries along. I shall not clutter today with tomorrows "what if's"… #KingLife

— Valentino Zondi (@Valentino_Zondi) March 4, 2015

Appreciating life is goes beyond showing gratitude for materialistic possessions, that’s not even a part of the things we should be appreciating mainly because one can easily get those things and they add no value to the type of person you are, they are just there to make life a little more comfortable and convenient. The real treasure is in the things we cannot touch, buy, see, smell or hear. Things worth being appreciative for go beyond the constraints of our senses, they are key elements to what makes us human and not just animals.We laugh, cry, rejoice, and experience all kinds of feelings which are in response to our environment and setting at a particular point in time.

Happiness, Solitude & You.

Growth, Change, Self Discovery are all a lonely journey that either repels or attracts certain people into ones life. Along the journey, challenges are at a constant recurrence and so are people in those challenges. In actuality, everyone is on that journey but in reality people are on their own. The people you meet during this journey are either stuck or thriving on and usually you’ll meet both and interact with both to a point where you have to make a decision of staying stuck or moving on.
Those that are stuck do not find joy in your advancement while those that are thriving on are applauding you for beating one more challenge because that’s how they progressed. Its an analogy taken to the lesser extreme yet it contains the fundamentals of this self discovery/ self creation process.

Allow me to emulate with a personal experience. Recently I’ve taken a solitude state of mind and awareness as to whom and who I surround myself with, undeniably so I’ve allowed those around me to influence some of my actions and this is where solitude came in handy. Separating myself away from any form of influence regardless of its nature (positive or negative) gave me a chance to direct my thoughts and actions to a desired direction without the influence of others. Sadly, todays world sees solitude and silence as off springs of loneliness and emptiness, of which I believe is a totally inaccurate, misinformed and completely wrong conclusion and perspective.

The urge and desire to ‘fit in’ and ‘belong’ somewhere is natural, but its also the main reason why people distance themselves away from themselves because they seek belonging in and with others instead of themselves.

I made the decision to do what makes me happy all the time. Did I achieve anything in doing so? Yes, I achieved a lot of things personally and emotionally. First thing that stood out is the amount of people who suddenly opposed my decisions, actions and way of life. The moment I stopped trying to keep people happy through instant gratification and using them as my life’s yardstick, they suddenly treated me like an outcast. No damage was caused by that reaction but lessons were learnt as it became clearer to me that most people disguise their true thoughts and feelings about a person as long as that person is still keeping them as reference as to who and how they should be as person. The moment I started thinking for myself and putting my happiness as a priority, people around me were no longer happy, even more alarming was the fact that their dissatisfaction was rooted in me being happy. I then learnt a very valuable lesson, if you want to be happy be prepared to lose people.

The other side of the coin is that as soon I distanced myself away from the people who pretended to be happy for me until I decided to be happy for myself and became enlightened to the real truth, I was able to make space for like minded people. People who are happy from within, people who smile from within, people who move the world with just one curve of the smile, I attracted honest and transparent people who had been subjected to similar situations and triumphed. The moment I decided to do what makes me happy was the moment I embraced solitude, appreciated myself and my thoughts more than what someone else said about me and who I am or suppose to be. The moment I exhaled all that is bad and negative about solitude and knowledge of self is the moment I attracted brighter and lighter individuals. I say brighter and lighter because I resonate with lightness and brightness as a state of mind that a human being can fully express themselves in, the ultimate level at which one can express oneself in is love. It is light and bright in the sense that, no social influence or contamination is present in that persons expression of who they are at their purest and highest form of their higher self, which is love.

Another lesson and achievement is that after deciding to be happy for myself first, I worry less. Worry clutters life, worry sprouts depression, worry is the root of desperation and desperation is the seed of confusion, the final product from that seed is always and forever will be unhappiness. The happier I became for and with myself is the less worried I got, about life, love, career, purpose of my life and the world in general. Through meditation I was able to reach a state of tranquility and calmness where worry and fear are only shadows that disappear at the presence of happiness light rays. When happy from within, outside factors have no space within and the universe expresses itself more through you when your inner atmosphere is calm and worry free. Achieving this is far more profitable than any business transaction known to mankind.

In closing I’d like to question your ideology and beliefs behind the words Happiness, Solitude, and Self Discovery. All these concepts or words need thorough introspection with reference to ones definition and understanding and how that in turn effects how they are perceived.