There are references to the concept of personality all over this website - and that is all your personality is... a concept. Sure, you may well be very attached to the idea of who you think you are, your self-image, but that is all it is, imagery or imaginary.

There are times in our ordinary everyday life when we are aware of the fact that we are wearing a mask: how we behave in the boardroom is different from how we behave in the supermarket; who we are on a night out with the girls or lads is not who we are in the shop or office - we wear masks for others, to manipulate others, to negotiate our way through life. What we're not aware of is that we wear a mask that, in fact, manipulates us, ourselves: we con ourselves into thinking that we're good at this, bad at that - we have an image of ourselves with which we're rarely completely at peace.

This self-image often arises in conversation with clients: "I'm suffering from low self-esteem" or "I lack self-confidence". Or, very often, I hear phrases like: "I keep telling myself that I can't" or "I'm always questioning myself". The real question is: how many of you are there? Who is telling whom? Who is questioning who?

There are two of you - there's the real you and the imaginary you. The imaginary you is the personality that you learned during your formative years - it feels real because it's the one that dictates your automated behaviour. You may find this idea a little odd but, in evolutionary times, when our goal was to make it through the day, we developed a way of operating whereby our automated self-concept managed our routines for us - it enabled us stay alert to the possibility of the proverbial man-eating (or woman-eating!) tiger.

Today, making it through the day isn't good enough - but it's still how your mind operates. As a result, it is your personality - the imaginary you - that you're most aware of, that you're most familiar with. In fact, you're so familiar with it that you actually think it's you. But it's not - not only is it not you, it's keeping you from you, it's the barrier to you achieving all your dealy held hopes and dreams. Your automated mind doesn't just idle in neutral, enabling you make it through the day - your automated mind is working against you.

And, until you take back control of the mental levers of power from that automated mind of yours, your hopes and dreams will remain just that... hopes and dreams. To those who take control of their minds, hopes and dreams become effortlessly achievable goals and objectives. Not only does modern neuroscience confirm that we can control our own minds - it also confirms that, when we do, we use less mental energy to perform our current tasks that those whose minds are struggling against the "autopilot".

Meditation enables you take control of the levers of power. Only a fool would not wish to take hold of those levers and then, levers in hand, direct their lives to where they dearly want them to go... effortlessly.

OK - back to a little nonsense about normal crazy people... after all, there's a lot of it about!! I spent a couple of days in beautiful Zurich last week and, I have to say, in reality, it's just as crazy as anywhere else - never mind the fact that the Swiss have a law for everything: from what time you can pee standing up, to what days of the week you can wash your clothes, to a ten o'clock curfew on partying at home!!!

But that's not what today's little snippet is about. Today, we are marvelling at Swiss manhood or, should I say, how the Swiss male goes about impressing and wooing the female of the species.

As we sat enjoying a coffee last Tuesday afternoon, we were struck by the tall, blonde guy - with the superhero body - that sat next to us with his girlfriend. He stripped down to a t-shirt that was a couple of sizes too small for him and started explaining the the poor unfortunate girl how he had developed his muscles, what his different routines were for the different muscle groups in his body. It was compelling stuff - the kind of rivetting conversation that was making his girlfried yawn!

Tuesday evening we ate in an Italian restaurant next to another Romeo... I say "close to" but it wasn't that close, it just sounded that way because, on this occasion, the gent in question was explaining, at the top of his voice, the technical details of his new Bentley. He showed her photos on an iPad - she ooohed and awed at the appropriate moments but I couldn't help noticing that she was suffering from a fit of the yawns too... perhaps there's just something in the lakeside air!