Today's video is entitled Understanding the Life You Want. However, wants are dangerous things. First of all, they are completely unrelated to our needs which, in reality, are actually very few. But, we don't get out of bed each morning to meet a need - it's something that early humans might have done but, surely, we have evolved. Certainly, 21st century life is markedly different to the days when we were hunter-gatherers but, whilst our wants may have evolved, our brains have not. I won't bore you with the details - there is, already, enough evidence all over this website alone in relation to how the modern mind simply cannot get to grips with what we need to do to get what we want. If it could, we would all have what we want! However, the modern mind cannot even get to grips with what we want - hence my grappling with the issue of how best to "set our minds" to achieve our objectives.

The ordinary mind can only have an ordinary perspective. Wants are conceptualised in context with other ordinary minds, within the herd, if you will. We define success according to norms and tend to get swept along by those norms. Often, when we achieve the success we believe we want, we are left wanting more or left with the realization that that is not what we really wanted at all. Again, all to often, the effort to achieve our perceptions of success takes its toll in diverse aspects of our lives - if this were not the case, nobody would complain about stress, work-related or otherwise, or work/life balance. In short, we are not best advised to listen to how our ordinary mind encourages to strive for ordinarily-perceived wants. We should want something more.

At this point, I would like to discard the word "want" - we should want for nothing but expect what isbest for us. This is what today's video is attempting to address. Again, it is worth reiterating that the pivotal problem is the subconscious mind's penchant for pictures - on autopilot, it dictates our behaviour by reference to pictures (snapshots from our formative years); it constructs our ideas of success (by seeing what other successful people look like and have); it will redefine your behaviour should you provide it with some new and exciting picture of what you want. And herein lies our problem... what picture should you provide to your all too willing and able subconscious mind?

The picture of the life you would have - how it would look, feel, sound, even smell and taste - if all your priorities were effortlessly looked after and you were enjoying complete balance in your life. Is this too vague for the subconscious? I'm not really sure - but it sets it on a course towards achieving what is best for you, rather than what your ordinary mind thinks you want.

Tuesday February 24th, 2015 - Dublin

I recollect laughing out loud when, many years ago, I heard that the then world-leading consulting firm, Arthur Andersen, was making a fortune teaching Wall Street suits how to use a knife and fork... their workshops on social behaviour skills were booked out for months in advance - guys who wrestled each other on the Stock Exchange floor or sat at monitors shouting down 'phones for a living, didn't know how to behave outside that environment - seriously.

No doubt, we're on the verge of another rash of "How to Behave Yourself" workshops - and, if we're not, we should be. Over the last week, the CEO at Barclays joined the growing chorus of CEOs who are voicing the concern that graduate recruitees have no concept of how to interact with other human beings - whilst I'm speaking at the AC's Symposium in April on engagement, there is a growing clamour about how graduates don't even know how to look someone in the eye.

We live in an age where, increasingly, people are in a relationship with their smart phone or tablet, where social media passes for social interaction. And, perhaps, the biggest issue of all is that the graduates who are currently getting such bad press will become the leaders of tomorrow. God help us!