Solotow

Karma: The Spiritual Path

2007-12-24T07:41:00.000Z

It has been rightly said that the spiritual path is not a way for the faint hearted. It can appear, on the surface of it, that it is all about getting in touch with one’s inner self, meditating in peaceful surrounds and ‘blissing out’ without regard to the physical world around us. This, in fact, is far from the case. The spiritual path is a returning to God. That means we must undergo the process of clearing our energy field of negative vibrations. You may have heard of this concept; it is commonly known as karma...

Christians preach that Jesus atoned for all our sins. This is only part of the story. While it is true, it does not mean that we are exempt from the influences of current life, or indeed, past life karma. It means, and I do not profess total understanding here, that the sins of man as a whole have been atoned for. It does not nullify the need for personal work, nor does it give us carte blanche to do whatever we want, then simply say a few “Hail Mary’s” and hey presto we are forgiven. This is one of the Churches most hideous lies.

Karma is a real phenomenon. It comes with a price too, although, it is the price, so that is neither here nor there! Karma cannot be simply brushed away. Each act we perform must be paid for in full. What this means is that all sorts of painful circumstances will befall us. This is even more so when we are on a spiritual path, for what has happened, when we commit to the path, is that we have, metaphorically speaking, placed our hand in the air and declared “I am ready to do the work”. The result of this is that we take on a larger amount of karma than most in order that we may work through it and learn the lessons that will take us home. Events from the past must be dealt with, and not just from this life either.

The thing with karma is that it is not a conscious process. What this means is that most people will have no idea where the things that happen to them come from. Illness, for example, is just one of the ways in which negative karma can manifest itself in our lives. A cold may be the spiritual clearing of an argument that took place at some point in the past. It is not without good reason that we have been unable to find a cure for the common cold. When we medicate that cold, we are simply numbing ourselves out to the healing effect of our spiritual energy field.

It is possible, indeed, if one is sufficiently attuned, to know when an illness is coming and to deal with it’s affects in the spirit body as opposed to having to deal with it in the physical. This is not something that can be attained straight away. A person must sufficiently raise their vibrational rate to the level at which they can perform such things.

If you have seen the excellent TV show, “My Name is Earl”, you will be familiar with karma. It is a universal phenomenon and it continues to operate whether we want it to or not. Theories abound as to the extent of karmic retribution. Some say that whatever one sows comes back tenfold. Others say threefold. Clearly we do not know, however, the general consensus is that whatever negative karma we incur is magnification of the original transgression. On this basis, it becomes evidently vital that we make all effort to ensure that we do not continue to create negative karma for ourselves, our planet or for other people.

How does one do this, then? To begin with it is quite simple. We merely follow a moral code such as the Ten Commandments, or the teachings of Jesus, or we may simply follow the old adage of ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’. In the end, it is entirely up to the individual what moral code they choose to live by.

What is essential though, is that we must be aware of the concept of personal responsibility. This is really what karma is all about. If we hurt or cheat or steal or lie or whatever, then we must be prepared to face the consequences of this. In fact, whether we are prepared or not, the consequences will come, if not in this life, at least in the next. It is as simple as that; only it must be continually remembered that we cannot hide any of our actions from the spirit. We may well be able to get away with things in the material world, and it may be that our fellow man does not realise our actions, but this is not the case in with realm of spirit. All our actions, both good and bad, are recorded and must be accounted for.

When one starts on a spiritual path, these concepts will be incurred very early on. The reason for this is that, when begins to look at life in this way, it becomes easier and easier to understand how we create negative or positive karma. By this knowledge, we are able to start taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions. I have dealt briefly with the ways to begin to raise ones level of vibration in other articles, but this is one of the ways in which we can become more aware of ourselves. The key to releasing karma, until one is more advanced along the spiritual path, is knowledge.

When one comes to the point in life where spiritual concerns begin to be important, it is very good to read as much as possible. In this way one may come to learn for oneself what holds good and what does not. Do not take as truth any one writer’s words. Even the Holy Scriptures can not to be taken as on face value. This is because of the fact that they are spiritual books and therefore can only be understood by the spirit. Many of the atrocities of this world have been caused by the interpretation, on a physical level, of spiritual words.

Therefore, test everything and keep that which holds true and dispense with the rest. Likewise with these words. It is all very well me offering these teachings, but how do you know who I am and what manner of man I am? It would be seriously remiss of me to pretend to have the answers you seek. To do so would incur a huge level of karmic debt on my part, and I am aware, at least enough to know not to travel down that road. I offer only that which I have found along the path I have travelled. It is often said that each must take his own road and that the traveller must beware not to mistake the map for the territory. I have found this to hold true.

My Spiritual Path...

2007-12-22T11:40:00.000Z

Currently there are many people in this world that are searching for more. They have reached that point where they genuinely ask themselves the age old question, "Is this really all there is to life?"

The fact is that this world is such a wonderful place to learn these lessons, by that I mean that it shows one very effectively that material things cannot bring happiness. In this world of ours, one can see it so very clearly if one wishes. The following is a brief description of my path so far...

When we look around it is easy to see people that earn the kind of money that one can only ever dream of. Our television screens are littered with them. In this world one can have more money than it is possible spend in a lifetime. The thing is, when I look at these people, I mean really look, they are clearly not happy. One only has to look at Britney Spears at the moment to see this very plainly. This is because the thirst inside for something more always remains.

I thought, a long time ago, that it was just a case of earning more money. I thought this would quench this thirst and so I went after it and got it. I had so much money, that I literally did not know what to do with it, but I was still not fulfilled. Then I began thinking that perhaps it was freedom that I thirsted for; to be the master of my own destiny. So I pursued that. I dropped out of the ‘rat-race’ and attained that freedom. Still, the thirst was stronger than ever...

I thought that it was love and family so that was my next target. This did provide temporary relief. Children are apt to do that. They are so wonderful and take an inordinate amount of work that can distract you for a while. Yet soon the thirst was there again. Next I began to think that perhaps I choose the wrong career in the first place and so tried to live out childhood fantasies in the hope that they would satisfy the constant craving. They did not. I found myself left with little more than my ambitions. I tried fulfilling those. It did not work. Nothing worked.

One by one all the things that this world offered were left by the wayside as I began to realize that nothing would fill the hole inside. That is when I began to despair. I had tried everything I could think of and found that none of it worked. I had been to all the wild parties, taken numerous drugs, slept with more people than should be legal, earned more money than I could ever need, achieved goals I never thought possible, and so on and so on until I finally accepted that what I needed cannot be found in this world.

This was when depression set in. Thoughts of suicide plagued me. This stage lasted a long time. What I came to understand was that this too was an illusion. All I was really doing was trying to convince myself that I had not made wise choices in this life and if I had then everything would be alright and I would not feel this way. So, I thought, let's end this life and just try harder in the next, (I believe in reincarnation, by the way). Fortunately though, I am strong and know deep down that this is not the way. Having said that, this did not stop me fantasizing about it.

Then, suddenly, and without my even realizing it for a while, a wonderful thing happens. God came to me. It was not a ‘road to Damascus’ type of experience; it was so much smaller and so much quieter than that. There is light but it is not the light that is visible to human eyes. It is light on the inside. It is the light of God that fills you. You suddenly know what you must do and where you must go. Life takes on new meaning.

And yet … yet, I had absolutely no idea how to get there; no idea even where ‘there’ was. I had read much about it. Indeed, in reaching this place, that had been an inevitable necessity. None of it really helped at this time, though. There is so much confusion in this world that I came to a point where none of the information out there added anything other than more confusion. I had reached the stage where it all said the same thing, in the end. The problem, though I did not know it yet, was that my cup was simply full, as the saying goes. How can the spirit pour anything new into you when your cup is already overflowing with the ideas of this world? Soon I came to realize this.

This is where I understood that it was time to stop. By beginning the process of emptying my mind of all the thoughts that had got me this far I slowly began to be receive the spirit. The paradox is that I needed all that information to get me to this point but, now that I was there, I needed to completely empty myself of it.

I discovered, as did Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”, that I already possessed everything I would ever need to take me home. This is where the real work began; only it is not work at all. It is the absence of work, the absence of anything at all.

I began to go inside myself, and now everything is becoming clearer. This has not happened overnight and the path from here is still a very long one. What I did not realize for a long time is that the process changes you anyway. Truly, it is not a destination but a journey. It is how we travel that is the most important thing. When we travel in the right way, the destination will come to us and we will realize that we were there already. Again, just like Dorothy, we will realize that it was all just a dream.

I have been on the spiritual path almost all of my adult life now. I have left behind much that once mattered in this world of form. This is good. This is necessary and the process will continue. I see now that everything up until the point where I started to look inside was just preparation, though very necessary preparation at that. It was then that the true journey began...

We are all beginners in this thing called life. Experience and knowledge do not make wisdom. Wisdom comes only from the God within. It is not of this world.

More Psychology of Selling

2007-12-14T16:39:00.000Z

[Note: This is part of a chapter from my forthcoming book “The Art of Telesales”.]

That the customer is always right has become a modern day cliché. In his seminal work, “How To Win Friends And Influence People”, Dale Carnegie stated that if you want to get people on your side you must never argue with them. This is especially so for a salesperson, but why is this? Surely the whole idea is to persuade the prospect to your way of thinking, isn’t it?

The answer is that, as salespeople, we are not trying to get people to think that we are right and that they are wrong. If this was the case we would never get a sale. The times when we do prove a potential customer wrong, we will invariably NOT get the sale. They will resent us for highlighting their folly. If this is the case, then what is our role? ...

Our role as sales people is to present our product or service in such a way that the prospect can not, reasonably, say no to us. That is all there is to it, really. We must be guides and ushers at best – or at least that is how we must be seen to be.

I remember once, when I was fairly new in sales, I was out on a corporate night out. At the time I was selling alternative supply maintenance agreements on telephone switchboards. I happened to get talking to a rather attractive lady that was not part of our company but happened to be at the same venue as us. The subject turned to what we did for a living. I mentioned what I did and she exclaimed, in delight, that she was a sales trainer for her company. Jumping at the chance to learn, I offered to give her my pitch so that she could give me some pointers. She readily agreed.

During my pitch, it turned out that she also happened to be the person in her company that made decisions regarding their switchboard. Anyway, it was not long before I had her ready to be signed up as a customer. She was just about to give me her work number so that we could sort the paperwork out the following Monday morning, when she suddenly said "Oh, weren’t you going to give me your pitch, by the way?” To which I replied, “I just did!”

That was the exact moment where our blossoming relationship and my chance at a sale ended. It seemed that she was not impressed at all by my revealing that our whole conversation had been a sales pitch. It took me a long time to work out why, but the reason is simply that it showed her up to be foolish and naïve and also not a very good sales trainer, to boot!

The moral of this story is that, contrary to popular opinion, real salespeople are not wide boy Jack-the-lad types who can beat everyone in sight with their skill at rhetoric. What we are is highly skilled manipulators. If people can see your technique then you are not delivering it correctly.

How does this transfer into an actual sales situation, then? Well, the most important place is in objection covers. If someone raises an objection, what is the first thing you should do? Do you spend the next few sentences explaining exactly why they are wrong? NO! All that would happen is that the prospect will go into ‘fight or flight’ mode. They will either end up hanging up on us or getting into a verbal brawl. Both ways we lose out, in sales terms anyway. Be constantly on guard for this. Our task is to deliver our pitch in a way so as never to prompt the ‘fight or flight’ response in our potential client.

So, given an objection, therefore, what you do, first and foremost, is this:

Agree with the objection!

I do not care whether they have just come out with the most ridiculous statement ever, (we will go into how to deal with that later). Your line is simply and almost invariably:

“I appreciate that…”

Notice how, in terms of martial arts philosophy, we are like water; we are pliable, yielding, soft and playful even, yet when the time is right we can unleash devastating power. This is the art of sales at its very core. Remember the old saying, ‘no one expects the inquisition’? That was what gave it such power; the fact that no one expected it. We must be just like this – no one expects a good salesperson because all they ever see are the bad ones. When they do come across a good one, they do not even know it because all the customer thinks is that they merely spoke to a really friendly and helpful person who helped them buy what they wanted. The prospect never knew what hit them. It is probably true to say that the greatest salespeople are like cats toying with their prey, for only when they are absolutely certain that there is no more fight left in the quarry, will they go in for the kill.

The real question, though, is how we turn them round after agreeing with them. The answer to this is revealed in my book, "The Art of Telesales".

Two inspirational stories

2007-12-13T21:55:00.000Z

I had the urge to relate a couple of very short stories that I once heard. I must stress that these are not mine and I do not know the origin of them so I cannot reference them. All I can say is that I have found both to be a source of inspiration...

The first is a little silly, to be honest, but ... well, here goes anyway. I like it!

Two ants were admiring the Taj Mahal. After a while, one turns to the other and remarks, "Aren't the creations of Man wondrous to behold?". To which the other replies, "What?! Don't tell me you believe in Man, do you?".

The second is a little less frivolous.

Upon dying, a man goes to heaven where he meets God. After a while he plucks up the courage to ask God a question. "When I was dying", he says, "true to the stories, I saw my whole life pass me by. My question relates to this. I was wondering why I saw it represented as footprints in the sand - two sets of footprint to be precise, side by side?"
"Ahh", replied God, "That is because throughout your life I have walked by your side".
"In that case", the man retorted, "why were there sometimes only one set of footprints?"
To this God said that they were the times when the man had had trouble in his life.
"What?!" cried the man, "You mean you deserted me whenever I had any trouble in my life. What sort of a God are you?"
God simply replied "You do not understand. When there was only one set of footprints, it was because I was carrying you".

Telesales Book

2007-12-12T13:06:00.000Z

I have received a number of requests asking where people can get copies of my forthcoming telesales book.

It is currently still in the production stages but should be ready very early in 2008. Please check back here for progress updates...

Thank you.

End of post.

Latest artwork

2007-12-12T13:01:00.000Z

End of Post!

Ramanama

2007-12-11T14:16:00.000Z

I have, of late, begun to read Gandhi’s autobiography. I have not proceeded very far with it, as yet, but one thing has struck me with such a force that I am already thankful for beginning this reading. This is the concept of “Ramanama”.

Gandhi purports to have gained immense strength from this practice. I have conducted a brief web search but profess that I have yet to find the exact methodology behind this practice. However, I am particularly impressed at the notion of having a ‘practice’ that possesses the potential to imbue one with such power and motivation as had Gandhi.

I am, therefore, set to the task of finding such a practice as this for myself. It, of course, does not have to be ramanama, since that is based around the Hindu deity of Rama. Just as long as I find something, that is what counts. I am exceedingly glad to have discovered that such a thing as this exists”

Who Wants to Live Forever?

2007-12-11T12:20:00.000Z

As I look around me, everywhere I see people giving up. I overheard a conversation this morning where one man asked an old acquaintance that he had clearly not seen in a while, what he was doing with himself these days. To this the other replied that he was not doing much at all other than playing a little golf occasionally. This struck me of a man that sees no future for himself. Of course this is a judgement on my part and one should always be wary of such a tendency, yet I feel as though I hit the mark in this case.

I see example of this type of thing all the time. It is as though people are programmed by this world to accept the inevitability of old age and death, which of course we are. Think, for example, of the old saying that there are only two certainties in life, namely, death and taxes.

The difference between this ‘worldly’ thinking and the thoughts that arise when one dwells in God are that, in God, one assumes life. Indeed, that is the entire premise of religion, is it not? That one will surely die without God, yet with God one can have everlasting life. In was not without a certain smile that I once read of one man’s response to this which went along the lines of “Why on earth would I want everlasting life? Don’t you think this one is hard enough?”

The Christian Church plays on this everlasting life aspect. It is essentially their sales pitch. I see this now. Yet, the problem is that the bible does not promise this to all believers. In fact it goes so far as to declare that most will actually not be chosen.

“Many are called, but few are chosen”
Matthew 22:14

The Church does not teach this. It implies that one is guaranteed salvation and eternal life if one simply believes in Jesus, attends church and leads a good life. This is totally incorrect. One of the core messages that Jesus tried to teach was that belief and leading a good life are just not enough. He held up the scribes and the Pharisees as an example:

“For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:20

The Pharisees were considered, (or considered themselves, at least), to be among the most righteous of all. They were well versed in scripture and held perfectly to the letter of the law. And yet they would not see the kingdom of heaven. How, then do we imagine that things have changed today?

We are taught that Jesus’ death on the cross has fully atoned us for all our sins, and that this has guaranteed our salvation, if we believe, that is. If this was indeed the case, do you not think that Jesus’ message would have been more along the lines of “Hey, don’t worry about a thing guys, I’m going to die for all of you so all you need to do is go to church and believe in me and we’ll be sorted!”

Clearly this is not the case, so what more must we do? While it may well be true that Jesus’ death on the cross atoned for our sins, we cannot expect that this automatically ensures our salvation. We must come to know the Christ in each of us. In John 17:3 we are told:

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

How do we come to know God? This passage is interpreted by far greater scholars than I as meaning to be at one with God. Therefore we must achieve what is known as Christ Consciousness. This is known by varying names around the world. Some call it enlightenment or nirvana. Jesus quoted Psalms 82:6 when, in John 10:34 he said:

“…Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”

Clearly, in our present state, we are not Gods, or at least we do not think we are. We must realise our God nature and become God before we can escape this cycle of life and death. Zen Buddhism teaches that you are Buddha. It is exactly the same as saying “Ye are Gods”.

How do we achieve this feat, then? By first realising that we can do nothing of our selves. The self is the anti-Christ, the very antithesis of our true God nature. We have often heard it called the ego. Society has diminished the meaning of this to a large extent. We often think of it in terms of merely just being big-headed. This is erroneous and dangerous. To underestimate the ego, the anti-Christ, is the route of our ailment. It wants nothing less than to continue to rule our earthly lives as it does already.

In its effort to accomplish this, it will stop at nothing – even killing us. It knows we do not need it and that we are perfectly capable of existing without it, (though not in the sense you now think of existence). The result is that it hides from us. Remember, that the devils greatest feat was convincing mankind that he does not exist. The vast majority of people are not even aware of its existence and almost all are unaware that the entity, with which they identify themselves, is actually the very thing that would deceive them.

We live under mass hypnosis. Spiritual disciplines speak of the awakening process. This is what is meant by this. It is an awakening from the sleep that is our everyday consciousness. It is an awakening to the fact that “Ye are Gods”. It is the death of the ego, the anti-Christ within each of us that has taken possession of our lives.

Once we come to realise this, we can approach an understanding of the doctrine that we, of our own efforts, can do nothing; for the very reason that ‘our’ efforts constitute the efforts of the great deceiver. The Churches have this, at least, right. Yet, by attempting thus, we send out a message or a distress call if you will, to the Higher Self that we are ready to begin the process of return.

The process can and almost invariable will take many, many lifetimes to achieve and during each we must face many more trials and tests of our commitment along the way. Do not be discouraged, though. For, by the mere fact that you are reading this, the chances are that you are already well advanced in this respect anyway. Those that are will understand of what I speak. They will know already that this is so by the unmistakable leap of your soul in recognition of these words. This will be so even if you have not consciously contemplated these concepts before.

We will be guided by our Higher Selves to read the right words, to seek out the right things for our development. Our inner direction shall act as a compass and as we progress along the path, we will gradually learn to heed this more and more. It is our intuition. The truth is that this is the inner guide alerting us to the things that will take us home. This is how we shall achieve unity with the Christ Consciousness. Not by our own efforts, but by the grace of God and by following our inner guide. Jesus came to show us the way. The Church and the State have conspired to pervert this message. When Jesus said:

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"
John 14:6

He did not mean that Christianity is the only religion. He meant that we should become God, achieve unity with our Higher Self. None come to the Father except through unity.

In this, do not be further deceived, though. The Church and the State have indeed deceived us, yet their motives were pure, (by and larger, anyway). They truly believed that the things that have been done have been so as to benefit the world. In this they acted nobly, but the problem is they have been guided not by God but by the anti-Christ. Anyone that looks at the history of the Church can plainly see this.

It is this that is the challenge we face today. While we must realise our own error and the error of our ways, we must not condemn those that would guide us for their folly, for, had we been in their position, the chances are that we would have made the same mistakes and probably many more also.

Around us we may observe the masses turning from the religion of their birth, whatever that may be. In tandem with this, we see people giving up hope of another way. People turn instead to illusory sensory pleasures and carnal vices to numb the pain of everyday existence. There is so much more than this. The journey is not an easy one, but it is the path we must tread to ultimately escape this trap, this earthly life.

Michael Jackson Caricature

2007-12-07T14:20:00.000Z

I did this a few years ago. He has changed his looks again since then so I may have to update this.

Adolf Hitler Caricature

2007-12-07T14:18:00.000Z

Albert Einstein Caricature

2007-12-07T14:14:00.001Z

Marilyn Monroe Caricature

2007-12-07T14:07:00.000Z

Illustration

2007-12-07T13:53:00.000Z

This was an illustration I did for a children's book.

Caricature of Self

2007-12-07T13:31:00.000Z

A Recent Sketch

2007-12-07T13:27:00.000Z

Religion: The Nature Of...

2007-12-04T12:16:00.000Z

I would like to make it clear that I do not belong to any one religion. The things I have found to hold truth and the things I share on this site and in my writings belong only to the category of "truth" as I have experienced it. Many times I will use quotations from the bible or from Jesus. This is only because I grew up in the west where the dominant religion is Christianity. I am not a Christian. Certain things that the Christian Church holds as absolute, I cannot agree with; like Christianity being the only way, for example. ..

It is clear that each religion holds a spark of the truth. I believe that we can come to know the whole truth, but we must be prepared to search for it. One of the main tenets of Christianity is that we are helpless and cannot attain salvation by our own means. It wields this as one of its primary weapon against other religions. The thing to be pointed out though, is that other religions have the same tenet. Yes, they say that one should purify oneself through practices such as meditation, fasting and so forth, but then so too does the bible, if one reads it.

As a student of God I can say that, when one looks closely at the religions of this world, what leaps out most is the inherent similarities. Countless thousands of lives have been lost due to the differences between religions. It seems that not a single one of these religious leaders is prepared to say, "Oh, hang on a second; doesn't it say something, somewhere about thou shalt not kill?"

I remember all too well when the World Trade Towers were bombed on 9/11. At the time I used to participate in several spiritually based discussion forums on the net. I had, previously, been most impressed at the other participants' general level of tolerance and professed love of peace. On the morning of 9/11, I was shocked by the reactions of these same people. The posts called for America to retaliate with full force. I believe the exact words of one member were simply "Bomb the f***ing b*****ds". Needles to say, my eyes were opened on that day.

This is perhaps still a very sensitive issue and it may be that I am inviting hostilities here, but retaliation, even under extreme circumstances, is not the way of Love.

One of the things that this world does with amazing regularity is that when a messenger from God appears, it promptly kills that messenger, discards the message and then systematically works to create a religion based around worshipping the messenger whilst speedily sweeping as much of the message under the carpet as possible. Is it any wonder that people have rejected God as they have? How I would love to delve inside the Vatican and see just what they have concealed over the centuries. What is it they say about absolute power…?

Gandhi was only too well aware of the nature of this world. He repeatedly insisted that his followers did not create a religion based on his teachings and that he should not be worshipped.

Let us look, for example, at the history of Europe. It becomes clear that during feudal times, when feudal lords warred against each other to gain control over the masses, it was the Vatican state that became the ultimate victor and the ultimate feudal lord. The only difference is that it did not use physical weapons to defeat its enemies, (that came later!). It learned to control people’s minds.

The main point, to conclude, is that one should always question what is set before you. Never accept something just because you think, or are told, that you should. We experience this world through the five senses. They are the tools of the ego with which it maintains its illusory hold over us. The senses are, unfortunately, infinitely fallible and all too prone to deceive. Always remember that the devil's greatest feat was convincing mankind that he does not exist.

Car Alarm Invention

2007-11-30T14:12:00.000Z

I have an idea for a car alarm that combines a cell phone with the alarm itself...

The alarm would have an inbuilt cell phone of some sort. The way it would operate is, when someone tries to break into your car, the alarm triggers a switch that automatically sends a text message from the inbuilt cell phone to a predesignated number or rings that number with a special ring tone to alert you that your car is being stolen.

In addition to this, the phone could also act as a tracking device so that your car could be tracked if the thieves managed to get into your car and drive it away.

The cell phone would be powered buy the car in the same way as other electrical devices. It could even offer a subscription service that allows the phone to notify the police with an automated message when your car is in danger from thieves.

This invention idea is not something that I shall ever do anything with, therefore feel free to use it with my blessings.

God helps those that help themselves

2007-11-30T12:19:00.000Z

"God helps those that help themselves". I just prayed a simple prayer for help from God and that was the reply I got. It came instantly like a bolt of lightening. "God helps those that help themselves". Well, there you have it.

I felt compelled to research this. Here is what I found...

From http://www.gotquestions.org/God-help-themselves.html

Question: "God helps those who help themselves - is it in the Bible?"
Answer: "God helps those who help themselves" is probably the most often quoted phrase that is not found in the Bible. This is actually a quote from Ben Franklin and it appeared in Poor Richard's Almanac in 1757. In fact the Bible teaches the opposite. God helps the helpless! Isaiah 25:4 declares, "For You have been a defence for the helpless, a defence for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat..." Romans 5:6 tells us, "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."
In terms of salvation, we are all utterly helpless. We are all infected by sin (Romans 3:23), and condemned as a result of that sin (Romans 6:23). Nothing we can do on our own can remedy this situation (Isaiah 64:6). Thankfully, God is the helper of the helpless. While we were still sinners, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8). Jesus paid the penalty that we were incapable of paying (2 Corinthians 5:21). God provided the "help" that we need precisely because we could not help ourselves.
Apart from salvation, there is perhaps a way that the concept "God helps those who help themselves" is correct. As an example, if you asked me to help you move a piece of furniture, but then just watched me as I moved the furniture for you, I was not actually helping you. I would be doing the work for you. Many Christians fall into the trap of inactivity. Many Christians ask God for help, but then expect God to do everything Himself. They excuse this by pointing to the fact that God will provide according to His will and in His timing. However, this is not a reason for inactivity. As a specific example, if you are in need of a job, ask the Lord to help you find a job - but then be active in actually looking for a job. While it is in His power to do so, it is highly unlikely that God will cause employers to come looking for you!

From http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/the-christian-paradox

In the days before his crucifixion, Jesus said you could tell the righteous from the damned by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger and visited the prisoner.
...It may be true that God helps those who help themselves, both financially and emotionally. (Certainly fortune does.) But if so it's still a subsidiary truth of Christianity.
... When one of the Pharisees asked Jesus what the core of the law was, Jesus replied: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.''
This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself''.
Love your neighbour as yourself: although its rhetorical power has been dimmed by repetition, it is a radical notion. Jesus made it very clear who the neighbour you were supposed to love was: the poor person, the sick person, the naked person, the hungry person. The last shall be made first; turn the other cheek; a rich person aiming for heaven is like a camel trying to walk through the eye of a needle.
On and on and on - a call for a radical, voluntary and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love.
...The consumer gospel of the suburban mega churches is a perfect match for conservative economic creeds about personal responsibility instead of collective action. Privatise social security? Keep health care for people who can afford it? File those under God helps those who help themselves.
... Admittedly, this is hope against hope; more likely the money changers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our spiritual life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus. As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the TV men, politicians and the Christian interest groups have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too.
They have invited us to subvert the church of Jesus even as we celebrate it. With their help we have made golden calves of ourselves, become a nation of terrified, self-obsessed idols. It works, and it may well keep working for a long time to come. When Americans hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry, and too often hungry people just come back for more of the same.

From http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/16/messages/895.html

GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES - "Some faith adages roll off the tongue, like 'God helps those who help themselves.' But the saying is not biblical and, in fact, violates a primary scriptural teaching that only God determines a person's destiny, according to religion analyst George Barna (the phrase).is an ancient proverb that shows up in the literature of many cultures, including a 1736 edition of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. But it does not appear in the Bible and suggests a spiritual self-reliance inconsistent with Christianity, said David Kinnaman, vice president of Barna Research Group.

It seems that the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" is not in the bible. The question remains though, is it the will of god? From the reading I have done and from the research above, it would seem that god does not want us to remain idle and wants us to take action within gods will. However, it would be more likely that "God helps those who love god with all their hearts and love their neighbour". How does one love thy neighbour? If we look at Christ's actions, it is clear that the way he loved them was by helping them. It seems therefore, that the saying should be "God helps those who help others".

2 blog or not 2 blog?

2007-11-30T11:56:00.000Z

I have come to the point where I am considering beginning a second blog site. I feel that what I am posting appears to be becoming some form of minestrone soup, in that it has no clear focus.

I guess I could start another blog. It would be far more spiritually biased. I could then split my blogs into their separate genres, in that one could be based around self development and the other could be more spiritual. The problem with that is that I would not really be being true to myself...

I have come to the point in my learning where the self-help/self development stuff has merged with the spiritual and the spiritual stuff has won out. What I mean by this is that the laws that govern self help and N.L.P. and so forth are a little like bastardisations of spiritual laws and are watered down versions for the masses.

Please do not misunderstand me, I am not saying there is anything wrong with self-development teaching. There is not. It is just that it is primarily geared towards a lower level of learning. On the whole it is aimed at the mass market and, in truth, much of the deeper level teaching would more often than not be just dismissed as too strange by a beginning student. It is not that the deeper teachings are beyond the comprehension of beginners, no, not that at all. It is just that society has ingrained in us one thing and much of the deeper level teachings do not gel with that. So the student must come to the deeper understanding when they have absorbed the earlier material; when they have begun to seriously question what the world at large teaches. This does happen overnight in most cases.

Should I aim at the masses or should I share what I have found without watering it down? The answer to that is that I have to be true to myself. If what I have to say alienates some and drives them away then that is a risk I must take. I cannot be anything other than true to myself. It may be the case that I am mistaken in what I have found, but as long as I offer what I believe and have found to hold true in my life then my conscience is clear. I will certainly never stop learning and so if I find anything to be contrary to the things I have shared then I will openly and honestly declare that to be the case.

In fairness, I have found that what actually happens is not that the greater understanding proves that which came before to be false. The greater understanding merely deepens the knowledge and there is an unfolding of the subject thereof. It is like a child in school. Initially it will learn one thing but that will be a watered down and simplified version of the whole truth. As the child progresses, more and more shall be revealed, but this does not contradict the initial fact, it expounds upon it. The level of teaching is geared, in an ideal world, to the level of comprehension, or just slightly above to stretch the child.

I am extremely aware that much of what I say may come across as though I am blowing my own trumpet, as the saying goes. This is not my intention, and it is well to point out that in many, many respects I am, at least by the standards of this world, not currently a successful man. My income is very low at this time. True enough, in the past this was not the case. When my worldly aspirations held a different sway than they do presently, I was considered among the top of my field as a salesman, and had an income to match.

Yet that is not where I feel compelled to be now. The inner yearnings, that I have interpreted as God directing me from within, have lead me to this place and I am happy to a large extent. That does not mean that I have no worldly concerns, for I have not yet progressed to that level. It simply means that there are greater ones right now and it is these I must follow. These writings are examples of this.

I think that what I am saying, in the end, is that I must stay with just the one blog and trust that God will direct my posts.

A lesson in humility

2007-11-29T21:06:00.000Z

It seems that life has a sense of humour. Well, I guess I'm not saying anything new there, am I?! Still, I had a rather embarrassing lesson in humility this evening that I thought I would share with you...

I had been to the supermarket and on return to my car had found myself unable to start it. Since I am not good with cars I always ensure that I am a member of the AA. The truck arrived after about an hour. I did not consider this an unreasonable wait, but boy was it cold. Anyway, it took the mechanic about three seconds to, in an albeit friendly and understanding manner, inform me that automatic transmission cars will not start in the 'drive' position. Heck, I've only ever driven a manual gearbox before so I had no idea. Needless to say he was speedily on his way and so was I.

The lesson in humility came afterwards when I remembered what had happened to me at the tills in the supermarket. They have installed several new self-service till points. These have proved to be a firm favourite with men that often only have one or two items and are paying by cash. However, when the other tills are busy other people get a little more intrepid and have a bash at these 'new-fangled' marvels of modern technology.

This evening the tills were particularly busy and so I found myself waiting in line at the self-service tills watching as several hapless old ladies were trying to figure them out. They were struggling to say the least. While remaining calm and patient, outwardly at least anyway, inside I was debating, just for fun, whether the store owners should stick signs up around these tills saying "Not To Be Used By Women - especially old ones". (I had my sexist, non-tolerant head on, by the way).

Like I said, it was only afterwards in the car as I drove home that I realised the similarities between the two incidents and the irony hit me. Having mentally used up just about every stereotypical joke regarding the elderly ladies in the supermarket, I was now the proverbial 'woman driver'!!! (Please, I do not mean to offend, I use this image for humerous affect only).

Well, like I said at the beginning; a lesson in humility for me, I think!

The Law of Attraction

2007-11-29T15:58:00.000Z

So what's my problem with the law of attraction? Well, nothing in and of itself. It is one of God's spiritual laws and it works - just like it says on the can! My problem is that we are not being shown the full can.

This means that there are issues in the application of this law and the limited perspective with which it is portrayed. It is touted that one merely need focus on something and repeatedly visualize it and, low and behold, it will come to you. In short, it is being held up as a magic formula.

This is not the truth and people are being misled over one of the most basic laws of the universe...

Many people try to work with the law of attraction and only end up pushing the things they desire away from them. The wannabe millionaire frantically visualizing success yet not having enough money to pay the rent is an all too familiar tale. There can be many causes for this. It could be, for example that you simply want it too much. There is a delicate balance between desiring something so that it burns like a fire in your chest and becoming too attached to the desired result.

Buddha taught of the need for non-attachment. In this he tried to teach us a great spiritual truth. Remember also what Christ taught when he said:

"...for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him."
Matthew 6:8

The problem with using the law of attraction for specific things is that we do not know what we need. We may think we do, but in reality we do not. How many times have you looked back on what seemed like the worst time of your life to realise that, had things gone any other way, you would have ended up in a much worse predicament. We do not have the phrase "a blessing in disguise" for nothing.

The way to use the law of attraction is to realise that it is all tied up with vibration. We are nothing but energy in motion. Science has effectively demonstrated this. Another word for 'energy in motion' is 'vibration'. The law of attraction is based on the hermetic axiom that like attracts like. If you play a single piano note in a room with another piano, the same note on that other piano will start to sound as well.

Therefore to have health, happiness and abundance in our lives, we must use the law of attraction to gain those things. Yet, to actually have them, we cannot start specifying the form in which they will manifest. It may be that we want a particular house but, if we could see things as God does, we might realise that there is a better house for us. What we must do is to attune our rate of vibration so that the things we desire are attracted to us but at the same time realise that "...your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him."

The question now becomes, how do we raise our rate of vibration? There are many ways, just as there are many ways of lowering it too. In fact, every action, every thought and every feeling we have or do is constantly raising or lowering our rate of vibration. This is what is known as karma.

It is no accident, for instance that spiritual teachers advise against things such as alcohol, drugs, smoking, swearing, pornography and the like. All these things serve to lower our vibrations. Just as watching or reading certain things, if not done so in the correct way, can also lower our rate. Similarly, reading or watching positive material, thinking thoughts of gratitude and love, praying, meditating and so forth can all help to raise our vibrational rate.

What it all comes down to is this, if you want good things to happen in your life then you would do better to have good positive thoughts, feelings and actions. If you have bad, negative and depressive thoughts, feelings and actions, then the things that correspond to that will be drawn to you like a magnet.

Guard your thoughts and your guard you life. Of course, maintaining this is not easy. However, this is what is required of each and every one of us.

The next thing to look at is why things do not come to us even when we get all these things right. That, however, is another post!

Prayer

2007-11-29T15:30:00.000Z

I have just found an awesome article on prayer. It is a catholic site but the principles taught hold good for all prayer. There is only one God, whether you call it Christ, Buddha, Tao or whatever.

http://holytransfiguration.org/Prayer.htm

Please enjoy.

Inspiration

2007-11-29T13:58:00.000Z

It is true to say that help is always available to us but, to gain access to that help, we must first make the effort to reach out for it.

After my post earlier today about hope I happened upon the following blog post. It concerns a man with no arms and no legs that has gone on to become an inspiration to millions. It is well worth a visit. Watch the YouTube videos. Outstanding!

http://growing-self.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-armsno-legsno-limits.html

Quote: Mark Twain

2007-11-29T13:02:00.000Z

I just received the following quote in my inbox this morning and wanted to share it. Please enjoy.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

A message of hope

2007-11-29T12:06:00.000Z

I wrote the following in my journal. It started off very depressive and negative but turned into a message of hope. As a result, I decided to include it on my blog in an unedited format. I pass it on in the hope that it may provide a little hope to someone else when they feel that life is getting to them...

29th November 2007
I've been feeling very down and negative of late. This next entry or, should I say, this current entry is intended to be a release session where I let all my negative and depressed feelings out and release them into this journal. This is a technique I've just read about in a magazine.

Ok, so what is wrong? I guess I'm feeling like I'm just a waste of space and cannot seem to do anything right or well enough. I fantasise that I am a writer or some sort of guru in the making or indeed even that I could reach enlightenment in the future.

In reality it's all make believe. Look at me! I'm earning precisely nothing. I have three failed businesses under my belt and I cannot even motivate myself to collect any of the money owed to me from my customers - even though I'm owed the equivalent of several months worth of living expenses.

I feel like a joke. Who am I kidding that I can achieve anything at all? I should just kill myself and get it all over with. I am so sad and lonely. I have no one to talk to at all. It is my fault really because I do not share my feelings very much. I feel there is no one I can turn to. Instead I turn to God. I would love to say that in God all my troubles are healed but they do not seem to be.

Tony Robbins says that we should not wish our troubles away because they are what makes us grow and become better people. He uses the analogy of a body builder. When asked how he got so big, the body builder replied that every day he pushes against massive resistance to build himself up and by doing that he gets a little stronger each time. The results are what you now see.

I know my troubles are the lessons I must face in life and that if I was not fully equipped to deal with them or strong enough to handle them emotionally, I would not be given them. Yet, through all this I just get so weary and tired and feel like I've gone ten rounds, not just with Mike Tyson, but also with my best friend who has decided to use all my weakest points to destroy me emotionally and psychologically. Worst of all, I do not know whether there will be a bell to signify the end of the round or whether this round will continue for the rest of my life. All I know for sure is that, just as the punches and kicks continue, so too do the humiliating taunts. They say that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but calling names will never hurt me". If only that were true.

I wish I had a passage from the bible to call on at times like this. Instead I think of Job. I think that all that befalls me is nothing compared to Job and his ails. I trust that through it all, God has a plan. God is with me and in God all shall be made right. In the words of the Elvis song "You'll never walk alone" I am comforted:

When you walk through a storm hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.

And so I am comforted somewhat. I feel the release that I so desperately needed. The tears flowed and washed me. All is not rosy, but I am given the courage to continue a little further. Winston Churchill once said:

"When you're going through hell, keep going".

Chapter Four: The Psychology of the Sale

2007-11-28T19:34:00.000Z

This is part of a series of posts from my forthcoming book "The Art of Telesales". All material is copyrighted and all rights reserved. Please see "Telesales" under "Post Categories" for more in the series.

Chapter Four: The Psychology of the Sale

Too Good to be True

Has anyone ever offered you something that just seemed too good to be true? What did you do? If you are like most people you probably assumed that it WAS too good to be true and refused to have anything to do with it. This is because when they offered it to you, they failed to understand and follow the basic principles behind the psychology of the sale.

You see the thing with people, humans, is that we have only really, in evolutionary terms, just come down from the trees. Technology beyond the everyday Joe’s understanding we may have in spades, but we still have a primeval inbuilt sense that alerts us to any potential danger and we tend to follow this because it was not too long ago that if we did not heed its warning, we may well have ended up getting eaten if we were unlucky.

This inbuilt warning system constantly checks everything around us for any signs of danger. It has learned to identify anything that is new as potentially hazardous. Incidentally, this is the main reason why most people dislike change. However, we live in an advanced society now and our inner warning system sometimes holds us back when in reality we would be better going forward.

“No thank you, you might be a hungry lion!”

So what has all this got to do with sales and specifically telesales? The answer is that it has everything to do with sales but even more so with telesales. When you speak to a complete stranger on the telephone, their inner warning system is automatically in a heightened state of awareness because they do not know who you are or what you want with them. If you do not learn to manage this then all you will ever experience is a bunch of “no thank yous”. What these really are is each person’s inbuilt warning system telling them that something about your call does not seem right so let’s have nothing to do with it, thank you very much.

The problem is that most people will never tell you this and so you come away from the call none the wiser. They may say any number of things to you, (these are covered in the section on objections), but they will not tell you the truth which is that inside they have been put into fight or flight mode and so they are choosing the latter. In reality, all that happened was that the sales person neglected to reassure the prospect’s inner defence mechanism that there was no threat.

The first seven seconds

You may have heard it said that people make up their mind about you on the telephone in about seven seconds. I do not claim any empirical knowledge of this; however, it is abundantly clear that the reason behind it is the inner defence system. If we can reassure this that we pose no threat then we stand a very good chance of getting our full presentation out, which in turn, gives us the best possible chance of securing a sale.

Face to Face Sales Versus Telesales

The advantage that the face to face sales person has is that, at this stage of the process, they are only usually asking for an appointment with the potential customer. The person on the other end of the telephone, even if they have some doubts, is likely to agree to a face to face meeting if they have interest in the product because they can take advantage of the time in between the call and the meeting to research your company and check out you and the competition. Then, any doubts they still, have can be ironed out in the meeting itself.

As a telesales person, you do not have this advantage. If the prospect has any doubt at all they will have none of you. The advantage you do have though is that you have far better numbers in terms of potential chances to secure a sale than a field sales person, but that is another story.

The Sales Pyramid

So, before we learn how to handle the prospect’s defensiveness, and indeed the whole psychology of the sale, let us first look at the sales pyramid. Fig. 1 is the sales pyramid which is a model of the perfect sales call. We will return to the sales pyramid again so please take time to understand it in its simplest form.

Image to be added soon!

Fig. 1

In Fig. 1, we can see that where the Y and the X axis intersect, i.e. at the beginning of the call, there is no impulse to buy. This is obvious to almost anyone. We further see that, in the perfect model, as time progresses, the impulse to buy greatly increases until it reaches its zenith. This would be the time to close the sale, but we shall come to that later. Beyond that point, the impulse to buy starts to wane. This is one reason that many sales calls fail. If you do not close when you get the buying signals, essentially you have missed your chance and it becomes increasingly difficult to get a positive result.

That the impulse to buy subsides is not a bad thing, though. In actual fact we depend on it doing so, assuming we have closed the sale before hand, so that we may consolidate the sale properly. At this point, if you do not understand terms such as ‘consolidate the sale’, do not worry, they will be explained in due course. Simply be content with knowing that the impulse to buy will naturally rise and fall over the duration of the call.

Next let us look at what things must happen for the graph to behave in the ideal manner:

Steps to the Sale

There are certain steps that you must take in order to ensure that the prospect allows you to pitch to them. It is by understanding and following these steps that we learn to reassure the potential customer’s inner defence mechanisms that we are actually trying to help and not harm them.

We will deal with each step in turn but in brief they are:

• Rapport
o We must establish a rapport with the prospect.
• Reason
o We must establish a clear and valid reason for the call
• Credibility
o We must establish the credibility of ourselves and our company to the prospect

Another way of saying this is to say that we must establish:

i. who we are,
ii. what we want, and
iii. why the prospect should deal with us.

Ideally, if you have been given a pitch to work with, these should be part of it already, but if they are not then please ensure that you make them so.

I think at this point it is time to discuss something that is, unfortunately, a prevalent practice among many companies that employ telesales professions. That is the practice of misleading the potential client. Examples of this come in all sorts of guises but examples include being told to infer that you are calling on behalf of some official agency such as the government or the local council or any of the emergency services. In addition, you may be told to pretend that you are carrying out some form of survey or customer satisfaction to lull the potential customer into a false sense of security. Indeed, there are as many of these types of ‘blind’ as there are people to think them up.

Let me make one thing absolutely and perfectly clear. Not only do they not work, but they are actually counter productive to the sales process. Why? For exactly the same reasons I have just gone into depths explaining; namely the prospect’s inbuilt defences. Yes, you did hear that correctly, this is the exact reason that these ploys do NOT work. That may sound strange to you, especially if you currently work in a job that asks you to do one of these things. It is also true to say that it is the reason that companies ask you to say these things in the first place. They ask you to say them precisely because they are afraid that people will not want to speak to you if you tell them the truth about who you really are.

I have worked in positions where this was the case and in every one I found that I invariably sold far more than my colleagues that used the lies when I did not. Now, please, do not let me come across here as some holier than thou ‘you must always tell the truth’ type of sales person because I absolutely am not. To be brutally honest I used as much salesman’s licence as the next man. I say that these lies do not work because I have tested them time and time again against the truth and every single time found that, in the long run, you sell more and feel better about yourself by NOT misleading potential clients.

Please note that this chapter is incomplete. The remainder will be added in due course.

Chapter Three: A Numbers Game

2007-11-28T13:12:00.000Z

This is part of a series of posts from my forthcoming book "The Art of Telesales". All material is copyrighted and all rights reserved. Please see "Telesales" under "Post Categories" for more in the series.

Chapter Three: A Numbers Game

Sales is a numbers game. Period. There is no getting around this fact. If you want to be successful at all in any kind of sales environment, whether it is field sales or telesales, then you simply HAVE to put the numbers in.

I was once told the story about a man that saw another man get attacked by a gang in the street. As he ran to aid the other man, he watched as the man under attack remained perfectly calm and still until one of the gang actually went to hit him. At this point he saw the man block the attack and knock two of the gang members out cold with a single spinning kick. The remaining members of the gang fled at the sight of this. As he arrived at the scene, realising that his help was in no way needed, he courteously asked whether the man was alright. When he said he was, the observer remarked what an amazing kick that had been to knock two people out in one go. To this the other fellow responded that, in actual fact he was an expert in martial arts and that, while it may have only looked like one kick to an observer, in actual fact it was the culmination of perhaps a million kicks practiced repeatedly in readiness for a moment such as this.

The moral of this story is simple. Excellence is not a single action but an overall result of many, many actions taken to perfect a skill. This is the essence of the numbers game. We all play the same game in sales, it just so happens that some are more skilled than others through practice and perhaps a little luck. Let me explain the numbers game a little more clearly:

The Basics

Suppose that if you hit your target you will earn £35,000 per annum (roughly $70,000 USD) and you need one sale per day to hit your target. Let us further suppose that to make that sale you must make ten sales presentations over the phone, on average. Further, let us assume that to enable you to make those ten presentations, you must make, again on average, one hundred individual calls to different companies. Clearly these figures will vary depending on your industry, your product and your level of skill, however, for the time being let us work with these for the sake of illustration.

We are left with the following:

100 calls per day = 10 sales presentations
10 sales presentations = 1 sale per day
1 sale per day = £35,000 per annum

Simple. Ok, but let us take this one step further. If there are 52 weeks in a year and we are allowed 20 days holiday, then we are left with 48 working weeks. If we then subtract the number of bank holidays which usually equals 8 days, we are left with 46.4 working weeks. If we then assume a further two weeks for sickness throughout the year, we are left with a grand total of 44.4 working weeks to each calendar year. This works out at 7.6 weeks of lost selling time.

So we have:

52 weeks in a year
- 4 weeks holidays
- 1.6 weeks bank holidays
- 2 weeks sickness & misc. absence

44.4 weeks selling time remaining

This may all seem like I am going a little too far but please remember that a company will generally make far more money from you and have to pay you far less money if you almost hit your targets but not quite.

Companies may say that your targets are weekly ones but that is not the case at all. Any organisation worth its salt will set its targets first of all annually and then quarterly. This is why when I worked for a very large private healthcare provider they did not allow their sales staff any leeway over missing targets due to holidays. Staff were expected to manage their holidays and their sales so that they hit their targets no matter how much time they had off.

So, let us return to our initial model. If we multiply it up a little, we see that to earn your £35,000 per annum you had to achieve one sale per day. Therefore, we can assume that what that means is that you have a target of around 260 sales per annum, (1 sale per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks per annum).

However, in reality, your target is no longer one sale per day because now we have to divide 260 sales by 44.4 weeks and then by 5 days per week. The result of this is roughly six sales per week and so 1.2 sales per day.

This may not seem like such a big deal but what it actually means is that if you work on a basis of one sale per day and five sales per week, on average you are likely to end up short of your target at the end of the month by four sales. This is how companies screw you. If you miss your monthly target and then your quarterly and so forth, chances are that you are missing out on some pretty nice bonuses and commission incentives. The company will be delighted because you are doing what they need and they are not having to pay you very much for it.

If you are one of those cynical people that does not think that it works this way then I would urge you to check out the people that are earning big money in your organisation. I guarantee you that they will run through figures like these on a regular basis. Every single successful salesperson that I have ever met, including myself, regularly check where they are in terms of their required sales figures and how much they need to do and how many calls they need to make to achieve that.

Bean Crunching

The next step is to determine what our actual figures are. It is all well and good me saying that to get one sale you need to make on hundred calls, but what if that is not the case for you. I know that I used to work on very different figures from this indeed. I usually only needed to average around ten to fifteen calls to make a single sale. Having said that, I knew many colleagues that had to make the hundred mark to even have a chance of a sale.

The way to discover your actual statistics is to simply count them up. Start by collecting some hard data. If your company can provide you with the number of calls you have made over a given period then by all mean get them out and start doing some sums to see where you are up to. If they cannot or will not provide these then you will just have to compile them yourself.

The easiest way that I have ever found to do this is by just sticking a post-it note to your desk and making a small mark each time you make a call. The added advantage of this is that it can give you more detailed data that a simple phone bill. You can use it for example not just to record how many calls you make but also how many decision makers you speak to and how many full presentations you make. This is invaluable information for a telesales person.

By way of a slight aside here, it occurs to me that some of you may think that all this is very pedantic and merely producing figures for the sake of it. Indeed, I have been accused of this on occasion by some bosses. Yet, when they see the results I get they soon shut up about it and let me get on with it, thank you very much. The point is that one of your primary business tools is your telephone. That hunk of plastic that sits on your desk staring at you all day long can bring you great riches and happiness if you learn how to use it properly. It gives you constant feedback by way of these daily figures. Use them and be the better off for it.

Remember, even if you are the worst sales person in the world this method of selling WILL work for you. Even if it transpires that you need to make twice as many calls as your colleagues to get the same sales then what does that matter? For as long as you put in those calls, you are guaranteed, statistically speaking at least, to get those sales.

So what do you need in the way of raw data? You need several values:

• Total number of actual calls made during a specific and measured time period
• Total number of sales made during the same time period.
• Total monetary value of sales made in the period
• Total number of days worked

What you then do is simply apply the following statistical formulae:

• (Total number of sales calls) divided by (Number of days worked) = Average number of sales calls per day

• (Total monetary value of sales) divided by (Number of days worked) = Average £’s per day

• (Total number of sales) divided by (Number of days worked) = Average number of sales per day

Then simply divide the results of those, i.e. average £’s per day by the average number of sales calls per day to get the average number of £’s per call and do the same with the average number of sales to get the average number of calls needed to get a single sale. You can go on with this process depending on the depth of data that you collect. If you have information, for example about how many full pitches you managed to make and how many actual decision makers you speak to then you can calculate how many pitches you need to make to get a single sale and so forth.

The point of this should be very clear. If it transpires that you usually make around 80 calls per day and get one sale per day, it does not take a genius to realise that without improving your selling skills one little bit, you can easily make one extra sale every four days if you simply increase your daily calls average to a hundred. Or, if you are this way inclined, you could make your average of five sales per week by Thursday and then take it easy on Friday. It is up to you.

The value of knowing your work input level to sales output level in terms of statistical ratios is enormous. Everyone has a comfort level. Most sales books assume that you want to be the next Bill Gates. I do not assume that. The majority of successful sales people that I have ever met were happy earning a certain level that they had determined necessary to live the lifestyle they wanted. Obviously that figure varied from person to person, but once they had achieved that, plus a bit extra on top to ensure they had a buffer zone to protect them, they generally preferred to enjoy their lives and get to know their work colleagues or spend more time with their families than stressing out over looming sales targets. Life, in any arena, is always about balance. The value of statistics in sales is that they tell you, (on average it must be stressed), what you need to do on a daily basis in terms of your own personal level of effort to achieve your goals.

You should check your statistical averages often – perhaps once a month - and always ensure that you have the required data available to do this, in terms of numbers of calls and so on. This will also help you to determine your progress in sales. The better your averages, the higher your level of skill. When your skill level begins to increase, one of two things usually happens. Either you can do less work to achieve the same level of sales or you can achieve more sales with the same level of work as before. Which you choose will depend upon your personal motivation. Remember, although all great sales people are motivated by money, money is not the only motivation in life.

Chapter Two: Learning the Craft

2007-11-28T12:52:00.000Z

This is part of a series of posts from my forthcoming book "The Art of Telesales". All material is copyrighted and all rights reserved. Please see "Telesales" under "Post Categories" for more in the series.

Chapter Two: Learning the Craft

I consider myself lucky that my friend from university had worked for this company and had loved it and had also done really well at it, (he had moved to another company by this time), because otherwise I would have been tempted to blame the company’s lack of instruction for my failure and just leave. Alas, I knew that I could blame no one but myself. Fortunately, and for this I shall be ever grateful to them, the company must have seen something in me beyond the results I was producing because, despite my failure to hit targets, they not only kept me on but also paid me a decent basic salary and even paid commission on the few sales I did manage to get.

It was at about this point that I determined that if the company were not going to offer the instruction that I so desperately needed, then I would have to take it upon myself get it by other means. I decided to buy a couple of decent sales books and to learn how to do this thing that was eluding me so much.

What was really difficult for me was that, throughout my entire life prior to this, I had easily been able to do pretty much everything that I set my mind to. Okay, I was never that great at team sports such a football or rugby, but I had more than made up for that in individual sports such as running and boxing. So for me to be failing at something was especially hard to take because I had not developed the tools to deal with failure up until this point. I had always had everything so easy and had never really had to try at anything before. I was determined to find a way to conquer this.

Current Telesales Books

A few trips to the library and to the large bookshops in the city quickly showed me that there was no such thing as a decent telesales instruction book. Oh, there were books about telesales alright, but they seemed to focus entirely on writing scripts and marketing techniques or using the phone in underhand ways to get a foot in the door when you next called round in person.

This was not what I needed at all. What I had to find was a book that told me how to start a conversation on the phone with a complete stranger and, by the end of that conversation, have that stranger agree to change from using their current supplier to use my company instead and further, to fax a signed order form to agree this deal. Needless to say, I found nothing that came even close.

I realised that I needed to look elsewhere. There were lots of books about field sales and so I found a book by Tom Hopkins called “How to Master the Art of Selling”. I have no shame in admitting that I am indebted to a man whom I have never met for shaping the course of my life. Without that book, I would have left sales and been doing who knows what now.

However, before you run straight out and buy that book, (I certainly would not blame you if you did), I must point out that it took me many months of studying it and interpreting its principles and teachings before they began to yield results for me. Do not misunderstand me, it was not the fault of the book, it was merely because it is a field sales book and so a good proportion of it was irrelevant to the true telesales person. Even the parts that were relevant were only so to the extent that one must extract the underlying principles.

Field Sales versus Telesales

Let me explain: Telesales, in the UK at least anyway, is very different from a typical face to face sales presentation. To begin with, most telesales people only really have one product to sell and that product is usually something that people do not need or even want. On the flip side, most face to face selling involves selling something that people either have requested, such as double glazing or an automobile or a new telephone system, or that they need anyway such as a company to build their new hospital wing or whatever. The face to face sales person will also normally have a bevy of choices of which product to offer. In consequence, traditional sales teaching focuses on a very consultative approach.

The humble telesales person has none of these advantages and often has less than seven seconds on the telephone to persuade the stranger on the other end to listen to them. Usually, telesales people find themselves selling things like mobile phone upgrades or alternative supply of utilities or insurance etc., or they may even be in the glorious position of selling advertising which is how I spent a good portion of my time on the phones.

The point is that traditional sales teaching is not really apt to this kind of position. Telesales people are driven very hard by stickler bosses that see only in terms of numbers of calls made and hours spent on the phone each day. You cannot give a telesales person an instruction book that says to research every company you call before every call. They are making around a hundred calls every day and typically will get through around a thousand leads in a month. It is not only impractical to suggest research into every individual company, but downright unthinkable.

Making it Work

The purpose of this book therefore, is to take that hardiest of person, the humble telesales soul, and give them the tools to help them succeed in an industry that is famed for not giving a damn about its greatest assets, namely its people. It took me well in excess of ten years to learn these lessons. Most of them I learned by spending hours and hours in my back garden in the late evenings, smoking myself into oblivion with stress, endlessly going over different ways of saying certain things and then practicing, the next day, on the phones what I had come up with the night before. Then, the following night, spending endless hours again analysing the results from that day and the previous days and weeks and months to see what was working and why and what was not working and why. My poor girlfriend was my constant guinea pig, though she is now my wife so it could not have been that hard on her.

Finally I saw the fruition of my labour. It was not a gradual process either. One minute it did not work and then the next minute it kicked in. I went from selling almost nothing to, in a single month in that company, selling more than anyone ever had before or ever has since. The record still stands. People have come close to it but nobody has managed to better it. I left the company about six months after that to seek another challenge of equal grandeur, (I had kind of got hooked on the challenge of breaking out of my comfort zone and becoming more than I had previously thought possible). I still occasionally call up that company. My old boss has sadly passed away but the new boss has heard of my record and every time he asks if I want to work for him. The lessons I learned during that time, and many more that I have picked up over the years, I hereby present in this manual.

Closing Thoughts

I leave this section with this final thought. In all my years working in telesales, I have frequently come across telesales people that regularly earn less than they would doing a part time job working in a fast food restaurant. In the very same companies, I have also come across people that earn well in excess of ten times the national average annual wage while selling exactly the same products to exactly the same potential buyers as their lower earning counterparts. Without doubt, the higher earners ALWAYS worked less than the lower earners and ALWAYS enjoyed their jobs more. What was the difference?

Chapter One: Failing Miserably

2007-11-28T12:47:00.000Z

This is part of a series of posts from my forthcoming book "The Art of Telesales". All material is copyrighted and all rights reserved. Please see "Telesales" under "Post Categories" for more in the series.

On the job training!

Many sales companies promote ”on the job training” or “full training given” in their adverts for staff. Often this means something entirely different in reality. The harsh truth of many companies is that they have a very high turnover of staff and so they will take anyone initially regardless of suitability and just hope that if they throw enough ‘muck at the wall’ then some of it will stick.

Essentially the ‘training’ that you get is limited to simply picking the job up as you go. The following is an account of how I started in telesales. My experience, though not horrendous compared to some organisations I have known, is pretty typical of the experience of most people in this business. The purpose of this is to reassure the would be telesales stars of the future that where they are at the moment is probably just the same as anywhere else they might choose to go, so rather than hunting for greener grass, simply bed down and make what you have work.

When I first got into telesales, I found myself at a company that did not teach you how to actually do the job at all. Sure, they were more than liberal with the amount of time they would employ you without you actually producing much in the way of results, but, in terms of instruction, all they did was give me a typed up script and told me to get on with it. It was pure cold calling. They gave me no leads to phone or any advice about objections or anything. The result was simply sink or swim. Unfortunately for me, for the first ten months or so, I did just that. I sank; and sank miserably.

I did not have a clue what I was doing because I did not understand anything about what I was supposed to be doing. Theoretically it looked simple enough. Just read a bunch of lines to some stranger on the phone and, with a lot of luck, hey presto, you got a sale. Well, that was certainly not the way it worked for me. There were two other guys about the same age as me working there doing the same job, (I was twenty-five at the time and just recently out of university, having attended a little later in life than most). I had shared a house with one of the people I worked with at university and indeed it was he that had pretty much got me this job. The other guy, a jolly Irish lad, had been there for a while by the time I joined but he was failing so badly it actually made me look okay.

My friend from university was very good at his job. For the life of me, I just could not see what he was doing that was any different from what I was doing. I asked him frequently and all he used to say was that he was not doing anything different and that all I needed to do was to relax and it would come to me. Well, as you can probably imagine, while he was easily exceeding his targets and I was reaching less than twenty-five per cent of mine month after month after month with no end in sight, his reassurances did not help much.

The office was a small one and apart from the three of us on telesales, there was only a secretary, the boss, and a couple of field sales guys in there. Most of the time the boss and the two field sales guys were out of the office because they were usually at appointments getting the kind of deals that seemed unreal to me. In one single deal they would generate, on average, a third of my whole monthly target and they would get at least a couple of these each and every week. It was mind boggling. I used to ask them for help too, and whether they could tell me what it was that I was doing so badly wrong that meant that I was getting nowhere. They would simply reply that, because they were not in the office much, they had not heard me on the phone enough to tell and so could not help me.

One of them did actually take some time with me one morning, as I recall. I had badgered him for weeks about helping me and finally he sat down for about twenty minutes with me. He asked me to go through my call backs. I had three of them I think. As usual they turned into either a ‘no’ or a ‘maybe’ that I had not managed to turn into a sale previously and had now compounded by getting no further on this last call.

The field sales guy just shook his head when he realised that I had only three potential sales in the pipeline and said that it really was not good enough. He called the ‘maybe’ one back straight away and within about half a minute had managed to turn it around into a sale. I was gob smacked but the worst part was that I had no idea how he had done it. He had said nothing at all that I had not already said. As I write these words now, all these years later, I am forced to laugh at what I was missing. Hopefully you will be able to laugh too. Do not worry if you cannot see the reason why he was so easily able to turn this sale around. By the time you finish this book and put the ideas into practice, you too will understand.

So there I was, utterly humiliated and feeling more dejected than I ever have I in my entire life. I was trying my little heart out to get a sale and yet failing miserably, when this guy comes along and turns one around for me in no time at all and then does not even tell me how he did it. All he said to me was “See, that’s how it’s done”; as if by some magic I would suddenly turn into Zig Zigglar or something at his very words. I just could not believe it!

The Art of Telesales: Introduction

2007-11-28T12:28:00.000Z

This is the first part of a series of posts from my forthcoming book "The Art of Telesales". All material is copyrighted and all rights reserved. Please see "Telesales" under "Post Categories" for more in the series.

In the United States, or so I have been lead to believe, as a profession, sales is held in the same high regard as other professional vocations. In the UK this is not so. Sales people are seen as only slightly more respectable than criminals, though the vast majority earn a lot less. The image is of the unscrupulous con-artist that would gladly rob their own granny of her life savings if there was a profit to be made from it.

We have the media in particular to thank for this view. Think back if you are old enough to remember the “That’s Life” program on Sunday nights on BBC1 where Esther Ranson and her team of intrepid reporters would fearlessly expose companies that were out to con people. These companies are out there and people do need protection, it is true, but the sales profession as a whole took a real beating. Add to that the images of George Cole as used car merchant ‘Arthur Daily’ in ‘Minder’ and David Jason as ‘Del Boy’ in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ and we begin to see a pattern emerging. The trend continues even today as the larger manufacturers of various goods try to convince you to buy from them instead of the local supposedly ‘less trustworthy’ operators.

So it is that we have a picture in our minds. Well, and do not underestimate the severity of this, if you think the image of the sales person is bad, think for a brief second about the poor telesales person. Not content with merely creating humorous shady but never the less lovable characters for the telesales person, the media feel the need to revile telesales in our society. We see this in almost every program where someone takes a cold call and then proceeds to rant at the nerve of the caller who was, after all only doing their job. Twenty years ago it seems that estate agents were the biggest villains around. Now it is the lowly telesales person. Indeed, if it was not for the genuine lack of anything like a half respectable job that would earn a reasonable wage in this country, I wonder that anyone would ever stoop so low as to think to become a telesales rep.

So we see a situation where people go into telesales because there are loads of jobs doing it and loads of people looking for work. They arrive in these jobs and get nothing in the way of training. This was exactly the case when I left university at a tender age, having a respectable history degree under my belt. Little did I know when I enrolled at university that my deep knowledge of historical events would prove about as attractive to employers as an understanding in trade unions strategy and labor negotiations!

Despite all this, I prospered as a sales and telesales person. I drove myself hard in the early years and underwent the trial by fire to emerge as a fully competent sales professional. It was not easy, to say the least. The purpose of this book is to enable others to experience the transition from newbie to fully fledged sales pro in as little time as possible and with minimum stress and maximum results.

I will post further chapters as and when I get the opportunity.

Please enjoy.

The Nature of the Universe: Pt1

2007-11-28T11:26:00.000Z

"There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses, but it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a greater extent."

Mohandas K. Gandhi

This is to be the first in a series of posts relating to the nature of the universe. This post is intentionally short by way of an introduction to the subject.

Mystery schools and initiates have always known that the universe is not as it appears. More recently, science has begun to come to this conclusion too.

It was long held by the establishment that particle physics would hold the answer to everything. The universe, it was believed, could be broken down into particles of ever decreasing size that would, for all intents and purposes, be like tiny spheres. Thus protons, neutrons and electrons were thought to be merely larger structures that would, (when sufficient technology became available to enable scientists to magnify them enough), break down into even smaller particles.

This belief was thrown into chaos, (no pun intended), when quantum theory was devised. Quantum theory states that when we reach the sub-atomic level matter behaves as either particles or as waves depending upon what the observer is looking for.

This can be confusing, but what they essentially found was that, at the sub-atomic level, matter obeyed mind. There are many famous experiments to this end. Schrödinger's Cat is one such example. Further, Einstein proved that all matter was made up of energy when he expounded his E=mc2 theorum.

What scientists found, that mystery schools, adepts and initiates already knew, was that when you really begin to look at matter, it begins to appear more akin to a thought than anything else.

Doubtless, people more conversant with quantum theory than I, would be able to poke holes in this distillation, yet I believe it will suffice as a lay-introduction. In later posts I will discuss the concept of paradigms at great length. It is at this stage that much of what has been discussed here will be put into perspective.

The important thing to note, is that the world, whichever way we look at it, is not how we perceive it to be.

M&S Food

2007-11-28T11:24:00.001Z

How to be creative

2007-11-28T02:13:00.000Z

The way to be creative is very simple, but it is a technique that many people do not feel comfortable using.

To have great ideas, you must come up with lots and lots of ideas. Your ideas will, of necessity, be good, bad AND ugly. They will be so cringingly awful that you will most probably dismiss them before you even allow yourself to write them down.

This is a massive mistake. Brilliant people have just as many bad ideas as everyone else. The difference is that they do not let that fact stop them from coming up with loads more ideas. They simply set aside their judgement while they are in the brainstorming phase and then later on they discard the ideas that are not so brilliant.

The secret is to trust that if you come up with enough ideas and do not judge them at all, you will eventually come up with a few good ideas.

Sound too good to be true? How many people do you know that actually allow themselves to come up with lots of bad ideas? Not too many I would imagine. Most people are so conditioned by society to judge everything, that anything different or new gets automatically discarded as rubbish.

Try this technique with honesty and an open mind. It never fails - assuming you stick with it. Remember though, you may have to have a thousand ideas that do not work until you get one that does. Look up Thomas Edison on the net to see how many attempts it took him to invent the lightbulb...

Most aspiring artists are told to throw away their first 100 paintings because the chances are they will be cliched or simply not very good. In the same way, potential novelists are told that they will probably have to write around a million words before they are any good, or that they will more than likely not get a publishing contract until they have written three or four novels. I ask again, how many of us are that dedicated that we would stick it out? Success comes to those that persist and never quit.

Selling People

2007-11-28T01:17:00.001Z

"Mummy, mummy, look!
They're selling people...!"

Alien Invasion

2007-11-28T01:13:00.001Z

"We travel a billion light years and that's your master plan?
To conquer earth by winning three-legged races!?"

2007-11-28T01:09:00.001Z

A painting I did some time ago.

The little boy and his animals

2007-11-28T00:51:00.000Z

There once was a small boy of about three to four years in age. No one knew exactly how old he was for no one knew who he was or where he came from. He was small for his age and kind of scrawny with messy hair, but he had that wonderful twinkle about him that little boys of his age often do. The way he disarmed strangers with a cheeky grin or a sorrowful look was beguiling to say the very least.

I had the pleasure of meeting him once, you know. It was a cold December day in the centre of town. Business people were hurrying to and fro on their lunch hour from work, trying desperately to unwind before the afternoon's toil commenced. Mothers and unemployed people milled around with little to do but spend what the government had handed out to them. School children that should have been at school dared to flaunt themselves in the fountain area in full view of truant officers.

No one really seemed to notice the small boy at first. I had the honour of watching him from the start for I was close by when it happened.

One by one he lined them up on the stone bench which sat alongside the square. There were about fifty in all, I guess. It was hard to tell since I was busily fixed upon the boy and his intense, methodical manner. Each animal was set down in front of the preceding one in a kind of farmyard conga. I imagined them coming to life in chorus at the child's hand but no such thing happened.

It was then that my eye captured that of another. Another soul had wandered into this boys trap and become a hapless watcher; an old woman as equally transfixed as I.

The mind of a child. Who can say what dwells therein? We may have vain imaginings yet we see nothing of the truth. Might as well ask to solve one of the great riddles of the ages such as the secrets of life and death or some other riddle of which we have no chance of grasping. Yet what was clear was that this particular child had motive. Each plastic creature at his fingertips was a player in a greater game as though the child were God himself arranging the lives of men.

By now there was a small crowd of adults watching. Not one asked as to the whereabouts of his parents. Not one knew or noticed that there were none to be found.

As the animal parade took shape it interested me to ponder the meaning of their placement. Was it significant that no two cows for example, were within two spaces of each other? Or that the pigs were either in twos of threes but never on their own. Hens seemed to be the only farm creature missing from his line-up for there were geese, cows, pigs, sheep, dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, crows, and even an elephant that was somewhat smaller than the rest so I surmised that it was not of the original collection.

The line was now about eight feet in length. Quite an accomplishment for a small child, and yet still he continued to line them up. By now there must have been almost a hundred animals adorning the cold white concrete. My past thoughts of order and pattern had been dispensed with, since every rule I had formulated had been transgressed on several occasions.

The silent crowd had become rather sizable. Each person just watched and waited; waited to see what would happen and where this magic would take them. By now we were hemmed in so much that we stood shoulder to shoulder, pressed tightly against one another. The line of plastic animals wound around in all directions, occasionally crossing itself and tying knots about the procession.

Tighter it grew. Tighter we grew. Tighter...and tighter...and tighter...and more pressed and hemmed and pushed and shoved...and yet...silence...stillness...rigidly we crushed around the boy and his plastic animal world.

Then it happened. The lad looked up as if in a trance. He scanned all our faces for a second and then, with a giggle, pushed the first animal over. I jerked slightly, as though coming out from a dream. I blinked several times and realised I had pins and needles in my left foot. Moving it, I noticed that others too were shaking themselves as if they too had been dreaming. The silence now broke with the sounds of yawns and sighs and coughs and groans as people stretched free.

The boy and his animals had gone. My face tingled warmly as it does when you regain composure having drifted off to sleep for a second. The people had begun dispersing. I breathed in, deep and cold through my nostrils, and began walking off in my original direction.

It was only when I got home that I found the small plastic sheep in my pocket. I like to think it was a gift from the boy. I have since heard of others that have the same tale to tell. Each received their own unique gift. Each has their own theory. Each...each has...well I guess I don't need to tell you the rest, or do I…?

Christ

2007-11-27T23:59:00.000Z

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" John 17:3

Many Christians espouse the belief that to be saved one must simply believe that Jesus is Lord , that he died for our sins and that he was risen from the cross. Clearly this is incorrect.

I do not pretend to be a biblical scholar, yet all my research leads me to the conclusion that those that are biblical scholars appear to agree with my interpretation of this scripture. Namely, that the only way to have or attain "life eternal" is to "know" God.

This means that it is simply not enough to believe on Christ. One must know, as Jesus the man knew, God. Jesus was the Christ.

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many bretheren." Romans 9:29

Jesus was that "firstborn". This passage states clearly that we are destined to become "Christed" like Jesus.

Concentration: An Introduction

2007-11-27T22:59:00.001Z

Achieving anything in this life depends to a large extent upon our ability to concentrate.

With television and video games and the like, we have lost this art to a large extent and many people now find it extremely difficult to concentrate for even the briefest of periods.

By learning the art of concentration, one may surpass all your wildest dreams in a material, intellectual and even spiritual sense. The great sages of old frequently talked at great length about the awesome power of the ability to focus the mind. In many mystery schools this is the first thing one learns.

I will, here, attempt to introduce the basics of concentration. There is much more to be found on the web, however the information contained in this article can be of great value to the student wishing to acquire this skill.

The most basic preliminary of concentration is the ability to choose an object of focus. Without this, concentration is impossible. That some-thing can be anything for practice sessions, yet to achieve greatest results it is better to have something deemed worthy of your attention.

In this world of duality that which we bring to the fore must also be accompanied by its antithesis. Thus, in any attempt at concentration, the mind will naturally throw up that which would deviate from this. Plainly said, when you try to concentrate, the mind will automatically try to distract you. Therefore, the first step towards concentration is to counter this effect. One should set a specific time, or even several times, each day, when you allow your mind to simply wander. By sticking to these appointments, whenever something other than your object of concentration pops into your mind whilst attempting to concentrate, you simply acknowledge it and make a note, either mentally or on paper, that you will allow yourself to deal with it at your set time. Then allow the extraneous thought to pass without judgment on yourself and gently bring your mind back to the object of focus.

Put very simply, that is all there is to it. One has to merely practice this on a daily basis, each time gradually increasing the length of time you maintain concentration until you are able to focus on anything you desire at the expense of all else.

Having said that, as with anything in this world, the reality is a little more complex. We have, for example, different concentration spans for different things. This is clearly seen when one considers that a teenager may easily concentrate for many hours surfing the net or watching television or playing video games, yet ask that same teenager to spend twenty minutes completing their homework or revising for a school test and we see a wholly different story.

Einstein effectively demonstrated this when he said:

"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity."

I shall conclude this first installment on concentration with a brief summary of the steps one should take to begin to build the faculty of concentration.

Always keep a pen and paper handy to note down any extraneous thoughts that cross your mind. That way they get out of your head and onto the paper where you are unlikey to forget them.
Set yourself goals for each period of activity that you wish to concentrate on. This could be a certain amount of pages to read of a book or a certain number of calls to make etc.
Try to design adequate rewards for attaining the above goals. (As a tip, use the things that are distracting you as goals. For example, if you would rather watch TV than study then set a certain amount of TV as your reward).
Take frequent short rests. Endeavor to do something different and in a different place, such as take a short walk.
Begin with short periods of concentration and gradually build up the length.
Plan the length of your activity by what you want to accomplish, not by how many minutes you will work for. Nothing kills concentration like the clock!

Sketch

2007-11-27T22:24:00.001Z

Just a recent sketch from my journal.

A little about myself

2007-11-27T21:33:00.000Z

I have lived the majority of my adult life as a seeker, (though not in the Harry Potter sense).

A seeker, for those unfamiliar with the term, is someone on a spiritual path. We are, all of us, on a spiritual path, though most are not aware of it. The path hopefully leads to God, enlightenment, Nirvana, oneness, or any other of a host of names that you could choose.

On a day to day level, this means living in an increasingly conscious manner. We are ultimately responsible for who we are, how our lives turn out and how we affect those around us. The knowledge of this carries great responsibility and the vast majority are not yet ready to face this.

There are those that believe, as I do, that people will have to make a choice in the days to come. All shall be presented with this choice though it is usually not obvious that this is what is happening. The choice we shall face is whether to live in a conscious manner or to continue to abdicate responsibility to the illusions of the ego.

More and more, people are accepting this and beginning to change their lives. We see this in the media with the advent of New Age philosophies. In bookstores and on the internet there has been an information explosion to this end. People are beginning to awaken to their inherent spiritual nature. It is a cliche, but the Age of Aquarius is now truly upon us.

Through this blog I will aim to provide a guiding light, or a signpost as it were, for the ones that would choose to see. I claim no secret knowledge nor as yet undiscovered wisdom that cannot be found elsewhere. I do not claim to offer a better way, for all must tread their own path. My only claim is that I have trodden the path to a greater degree than many and yet to a lesser one than many more still. I simply find myself now with the overwhelming urge to share what I have found in the hope of helping others. Some may say that this desire in and of itself would disqualify me from sharing this information. That is not my place to judge.

As with all information presented before you, take what you find to be of use and discard the rest.

Many blessings.

Solotow

First Post

2007-11-27T20:49:00.000Z

Ok, so this is my very first blog. Hey, I bet no one ever started their blogging career with that sentence!

Why am I entering the world of blogging, then? I guess, to have my say. I think perhaps I have something to offer - I know I've spent a long time listening to what others have to say, so maybe it's time for me to give something back in return.

What would I like to talk about? I feel I have a little to add to the world in respect to searching for our reasons for being alive and our life purpose in this crazy world. I am aware that this may sound egotistical but I have learned that we should ALL try to teach as well as learn. Just as there is always someone better or more advanced than we are, so too is there always at least one person that is a little behind. If we can but help that one person then our life has been worthwhile and our time been well spent.

There you have it, I guess. I truly hope you enjoy what I have to offer and that, even in a very small way, it benefits your life as others have done so for mine.

Solotow