This Week's Insight

You are NOT Your Behaviour

Normal behaviour is rarely fully appropriate. How could it be, dictated, as it is, from a subconscious that is looking to past cues for guidance? How could it be, given that the normal person is permanently in automatic reactive mode? On a good day, a normal person’s behaviour will be mildly effective – that is in comparison to how effective you might be had you taken the trouble to pay attention and act, rather than react. On a bad day, normal behaviour varies from less than effective to inappropriate – all you have to do is read “Normal People” below, or reflect on some of your own weaker moments – we all have them.

The problem is, however, that we tend to confuse our behaviour with ourselves – a fatal mistake that can lead us into recrimination, guilt, frustration, anxiety and more inappropriate behaviour. You are not your behaviour. How could you be? Your behaviour is dictated by your personality. And your personality has certainly little or nothing to do with you – there’s enough psychological evidence amassed over the last seventy years to prove this conclusively.

What’s my point? You can only take appropriate action by deliberately side-stepping your personality or ego. You will not be able to do that until you realise that all inappropriate action comes from that source. What’s done is done – if damage was done, go and undo it. But if the only damage was to your own self-image, then, get over yourself and get on with your life – starting now.

LATEST NEWS AND INFO

One-Day Advanced Workshop - Dublin, Tuesday, November 10, 2009. Some places still available - book online now...

Willie's latest article on EzineArticles.com "Changing Inappropriate Behaviour"

Willie's video on Stress and Depression on YouTube.com

Willie's latest article on SelfGrowth.com "Why It's So Important to Live in the Now"

This Week's Personal Development Video Seminar - "Being Abnormal"

Normal people only perceive what they expect to perceive - so they never notice life's opportunities. As a result, normal people go through the motions. You need to stop yourself in your tracks and recollect what it is you want out of life - why are you doing what you're doing? Otherwise, you'll never be adequately motivate yourself to do what you're doing, body and soul. Only when you've got your objectives clear in your mind will you be able to keep your mind clear enough to be your most effective... Watch the video...

The Free Weekly Business & Personal Development	Issue Number: 43
Video Ezine from Gurdy.Net	October 5, 2009

This Week's Book

Awareness - Anthony deMello - ISBN 0 00 627519 2

Essential reading – forthright, incredibly insightful, challenging and blunt – readable only in small chunks (there’s so much to digest) – the book is, in fact, excerpts from some of deMello’s renowned workshops. - Willie Horton

Awareness is Anthony de Mello’s best-selling guide to the spiritual life, now firmly established as a modern spiritual classic. It uses humour, compassion and insight to help readers into an understanding of the importance of awareness in order to understand ourselves and the world around us. With anecdotes and stories as well as guidelines and exercises in self-help, this book is filled with real wisdom and practical advice. It tackles the universal issues of change, happiness, suffering and loss and also gives direction on coping with love, anger and fear. One of the most gifted spiritual teachers of the 20th Century, Anthony de Mello was widely known throughout the world for his retreats, workshops and therapy courses before his untimely death in 1987.

Publisher's Note

Every week we take a look at a real-life story that simply proves that so-called normal people are 'all over the place'!

Have you ever wondered why supermarkets provide a better level of service to the customers who purchase less? After all, why is there an “Express Checkout” if you’re only purchasing a few items? Surely the bigger spenders should be getting the best service!

However, I can only assume that this logic had little or nothing to do with my experience, a few weeks back, in our local supermarket. Typical of many customer focused organizations – in fact there was a continuous jingle being played about the customer being oh so important – two of twenty checkouts were open – queues were long and the temperature rising. Of course, there was a third checkout open – but that was for “10 Items Only”. Didn’t stop one bright spark, with a full trolley, getting in the queue. Normal people being normal, everyone starting shifting but no one said anything – no one told him that his behaviour as inappropriate (see above!!).

No one until he started unloading his purchases onto the counter – when the girl on the checkout pointed out to him that he was in the wrong queue and was going to have to take all his stuff off, put it back in his trolley and go to the back of another queue. This was the detonator that lit whatever slow-burning fuse was simmering. The guy, already totally in the wrong, lost the head. Started screaming, firing the rest of his purchases onto the counter – or more like at the checkout girl.

Unfortunately, I simply couldn’t wait to see the outcome – but as we were leaving, a screaming match and scuffle, involving the whole “10 Items Only” queue, was in full swing. Not only do these guys who buy less get better service – they get entertainment thrown in for free

Lead Article

What Normal People Want

by Willie Horton www.gurdy.net

I know that people are constantly striving to get more out of life. I know that many people wish for, hope for, want for more success, more happiness, more wealth. But wishing, hoping and wanting something is simply a useless mental activity - a waste of energy - because the only thing that will get you what you want is beyond wishing, hoping and wanting - it's believing. More of that later!

For now, if you really look around and observe the behaviour of so-called normal people, you will discover what normal people really want - they want you to be normal too. There is nothing more threatening to the normal state of mind than someone who's different - in particular, someone who is abnormally happy and successful. It's not so much that normal people are jealous of abnormal success - they actually want to take the abnormally successful person down.

One of the biggest issues that my clients have to face following my two-day personal development workshop is that, even though they have learned to become abnormal, even though they have learned (from a vast array of research stretching back over seventy years) that so-called normal people are actually totally and completely mad, when they venture back out into the ordinary, everyday so-called real world, almost everyone the encounter will be normal - will be insane.

A brief aside - because stating that normal people are insane requires an explanation! Here are some quick facts. About 96% of us are normal - we behave according to and conform to a variety of behavioural and social norms. Normal people control about 1% of their mind - in other words, they are only capable of paying 1% attention to what is going on in the present moment. Normal people's reactions and behaviours are automatically created by their subconscious minds which were programmed through snapshot learning during their formative years. In other words, the subconscious mind controls the normal person - not the other way around. If you're not in control of your own mind, surely that's a definition of madness!

There's more - societal norms tell us that we must work hard to be a success, that there are many outstanding things in life that only outstanding people can achieve - not normal people. Research proves that normal people only see what they expect to see, only perceive what they expect to perceive. In other words, normal people wander through life with their eyes closed, their senses dimmed, their life confined to the box created for them by their key influences during their childhood years and by a society that needs normal people to conform - whether that's a society driven by organised religion, the nation state or global corporate interests is a debate for some other day).

Back to my point - normal people want you to be normal. A client emailed me a couple of days ago saying that he had no problem opening, clearing and focusing his mind each morning - in preparation for the opportunities that every day holds for all of us. But, then, he'd get into work and be assaulted by normal people. People wanting to gossip (one of the greatest draws on our precious mental energy), people looking for a fight ("I deserve promotion", "Someone's getting involved where they shouldn't be", etc.) - and then he arrives home and is confronted by his teenage children - and, having three teenagers myself, it can often be difficult to remain calm, focused and effective!! All these everyday scenarios drag the calmest of minds into the dirt so that we end up reacting automatically all over again - and when did reacting make anything better!?!

You need to stop being normal - and, if you've started on the path towards being abnormal, you need to protect yourself against all those normal people who, unwittingly granted, was to drag you into their little dramas - want more of your attention, want you to make them feel important or better.

Why take the path that leads towards abnormality? Well, for starters, given my albeit very brief description of the normal mental state, do you really want to be normal? But, more to the point, you need to realise certain truths borne out by all the research that I've already mentioned. Anyone - and that includes you - can achieve the extra-ordinary and the exceptional. Anyone - and that, again, includes you, can achieve effortless happiness and success. You do not need to work hard to be a success. You need commitment, vision and belief - if you've got those, no work is difficult, no effort a strain.

The commitment you need is to your own state of mind. You need to cultivate and develop a clear, present and focused state of mind - a state of mind that is completely at odds with the normal cluttered, distracted mindlessness of normality. You need to commit to developing your ability to pay attention - not to your goals and dreams, but to the only time and place we have - the here and now. That means you pay more than 1% attention - that means you're already exceptional.

You need to believe. Believing is not wishing, hoping or wanting. Believing is seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting the success you want, as if you already have it. Those five senses that you rarely pay attention to are the very tools by which you can enable yourself believe and, more importantly, the only tools you have at your disposal to pay attention to the here and now - to be present, to be "all there", rather than "all over the place".

Don't want what normal people want - believe in the extra-ordinary.