Tag: change

New pathways – leopards can change their spots.

Posted on by philipdodson

It’s 11.32 pm Friday night, I’d fallen asleep watching an episode of Sons of Anarchy. I woke and realised that I hadn’t done my 750Words for today.

I have religiously done 11 days in a row.

I was going to give in and not do this today, I said ‘don’t be too hard on yourself, you can’t expect realistically to do every single day’

So here I am at my desk at home listening to Ian Brown F.E.A.R. and you know what, I am doing my 750 words, I am not a quitter and it’s not about sheer will power, it’s about a determination to do something because I have a reason and a strong reason.

I know that I am a good writer and I know that if I practice, I will get even better. I have always wanted to write and I want to write a book, may be more than one, but one to start with would be great.

This is all part of my desire to deal with the gremlins in my head, the ‘truths’ that we all tell ourselves. Guess what if we tell ourselves these ‘truths’ often enough. Then they become the ‘truths’ that we believe and start to allow our lives to be determined by.

Well I have had enough of allowing the so called ‘truths’ about me, that I have told myself over many years, continue to stop me doing the things that I really want.

We all have them, those limiting beliefs, that prevent us for getting to the goals and dreams that we want to achieve.

I wrote only a couple of days ago about the ‘why’ power and that if we aligned this with our values then we would continue to do the hard work necessary to achieve our goals.

This is true, but there is one other factor that stands in the way of progress. That is the gremlins, the limiting beliefs, the untruths that we turn in to the truths. These gremlins as you get older become more stubborn and difficult to remove.

So that’s why I am sitting here doing this commitment.

This is one of those days, where the gremlin would have normally taken over and stopped me from going on.

Even though I am tired and probably not at my best for writing anything that will make a great deal of sense, I am here 404 words down, writing.

The longer we allow these so called truths about ourselves to remain unchallenged, the deeper they become ingrained and the more we act upon them without even realising that we are doing so.

The fact is that we can change anything within ourselves, if we are prepared to tackle them and if we are prepared to stick to it religiously to change, what after all is only a habit.

It’s a bit like a path through the forest. The path is the bad path that we walk every day and that path stays free and remains clear through the thick forest undergrowth.

So we decide we want to cut a new path. So we get out our machete and we start to cut a new one. On the first day it’s really hard work and we make a little progress. We start to make a new one. Each day that we go back to the new path and cut a bit more, the new pathway starts to open up and over many weeks of hard work, we get a new path.

The old one is now starting to get a little more overgrown every day that we don’t return to it. Eventually with enough time it will become overgrown and disappear.

This is what happens in our brains, if we work hard and long enough on something, the connections fade and new ones are made.

This is how you deal with removing the untruths, that we have held as truths for as long as we have kept walking that same path.

This is the amazing thing about life and it is the reason that I no longer believe, that we are what we are and some things just can’t be changed. The leopard can change it’s spots, it can become different.

So next time you are telling yourself something about you, that you believe is a ‘truth’, then ask yourself, if it’s really true. If you are not happy with that truth, if it makes you feel bad about yourself, then it’s time to believe that you can change that and cut a new pathway.

I’ve finished my 750 words for today, it took me 23 minutes to do and it has helped me to continue to cut that new path, had I not done day 12, some of the new path would have become a bit overgrown.

What does collaboration really mean for the world?

Posted on by philipdodson

What does collaboration really mean for the world?

I think that we would all agree that with 7 billion of us on the planet and with limited/dwindling resources, something has to change.

The problem at the moment is, we have not yet reached that critical tipping point, where necessity forces change on those who are most resisting it. We need to have shortages of fuel, food, water etc on big scale.

The reason it needs to get to this almost anarchic position is, that the old school system doesn’t want change. It likes the old scarcity, fear based world that it controls. It likes hoarding all the knowledge and it definitely does not like sharing.

The top 1% globally that controls all the wealth and power likes the status quo exactly as it is.

However the collaborative or sharing economy has the potential to give the world a complete ‘software’ upgrade, where we can move from ‘old school bollocks’ 3.8 to a brand new operating system, which is completely focused on sharing. Thus avoid having to wait for a total catastrophe.

The benefits of this for the human race are enormous, it is a chance to start implementing the solutions that can save our world. The world is on ‘fire’ and you’re not going to put it out by pouring the odd bucket or two of water on it, which is the mainly what the governments of the world do. In fact many of them actually help the ‘fire’ to spread by pouring ‘petrol’ on the ‘fire’ not water.

Most of the worlds problems could be solved and be solved by many of the new technologies that are or could be developed if enough resources were allocated to them.

One example could be hydrogen cars or other alternative fuels coupled with driver-less cars that are shared in a community. Why do we all need to own our own car and use up massive amounts of the world’s precious resources. Why because the old school world needs you to buy oil.

We can already share car journeys with platforms such as Bla Bla Car. We can recycle our furniture with Furniture Re-Use Network, we can get people going our way to delivery things via Nimber. However at the moment this sharing economy is in it’s infancy and this what needs to change and fast. The momentum needs to be accelerated.

That’s why collaboration is so important, so time banks like Echo (Economy of Hours) can grow and replace the need for money in the way in which we use it today.

We need that knowledge that the old school system keeps, in order to maintain it’s power and control over us. We need to start sharing ideas and collaborating with others to improve those ideas in order to improve them and unlock that huge latent potential that exists among the 7 billion souls that inhabit this planet.

It’s time to stop all this small minded nations and petty party politics, we need to start thinking about the world as the human race, for many reasons, and we need to get people leading who are not shackled by the dogma of a political agenda that’s based on self-preservation.

Sharing is the only way that we can change the fact, that the 85 most wealthiest people have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest. I defy anyone to give me a rational argument that’s right and good for the future of the human race.

Sharing and collaborating is the only way to get the message across, that once we reach a level whereby we have food, shelter, and enough ‘creature comforts’ in life that we don’t need to carry on hoarding and accumulating wealth and resources.

I am not suggesting that we all have to live in a shed eating worms, but we all know that we reach a level where adding more material things is an indulgence.

So the time has come to work with each other, help each, give and not do it just get money. Do it to help your community, to help others succeed and to collectively work to replace the old school OS that is now so riddled with bugs and viruses, that it is beyond repair.

I am not suggesting that we have Robin Hood style approach where we take from the rich and give to the poor. It is the responsibility of everyone of us to take ownership of this and do our bit the bring about change. We can bring about that change by collaborating and sharing. This is the way to bypass the old system and create new communities that are not driven by profit and endless accumulation resources for a very, very select few.

Essentially we need to collaborate or die.