I broke up with my girlfriend of some 18 months a couple of weekends ago. To say she took  it hard would be a huge understatement. I guess it would have come as a bolt out of the blue for her as she was looking to gallop off into the sunset with  me. To be fair we did get along amazingly well. You could say we were the perfect couple so why did it have to end?

Now in answering that question I’m  obviously going to ruffle more than a few feathers. I have visions of the hernia the postman is going to have struggling down the garden to my letter box to deliver the hundreds of ice-cream cartons of female human poo!!! I will probably appear very self-centred. I know this because I will be talking mainly about me and what I felt and not really about her. In all fairness though how can I be so presumptuous to speak for her anyway?

Going Back in Time.
I’m a firm believer that if you want to get to an idea of a problem then you have go back to the beginning. As an example I read an article about breaking up only today (what timing, I’m getting it from all sides). In this article it explained basically why we feel so rotten when we get dumped and they put it down to our origins as tribal being. Basically being accepted and living within the tribe was good, getting rejected and kick out the tribe to fend for yourself, bad. Reason for that is that few people had what it took to survive in the wild, totally alone so rejection basically meant death.

Sounds Reasonable
Whether we still feel like dying I’m not sure. I know the last time I got the phone call to say “It’s not working, it’s not you it’s me…” I was like “cool, get well soon, good thing you caught me before I went for my run”. I was of the mind that obviously she had gone through a lot of pain and had managed to find a solution which would for her lead to less pain i.e. to break up and sort herself out. So I really wished her all the best.

Just good friends
I guess the challenge in today’s society is the perceived perfect stereo-typical model. The happy couple together forever etc. There is that jelly mould that society wants us all to be formed by. You see it every day. Posters, TV adverts and friends and family even sitcoms and movies. Everyone is on the hunt for “The ONE”! The truth is there has never ever been just the ONE. There are hundreds or possibly thousands of the ONEs out there. To be honest this is the biggest secret to conspiracy theory proportions.

The Big Secret
There are laws of nature and we all subconsciously know it that are as definitive and real as the law of gravity. One such law is the Law of Attraction. It works in whatever way you want to apply it. This law at its heart says that whatever you centre your mind on will expand in your belief and manifest itself to you.

Basically whatever you think about and focus on you’ll get more of. I can see some of you thinking Colin has gone nuts and wo-woo! I can prove it though. Remember I said that it works ever way you want to apply it. In other words it can either work for you or against you. Here’s proof. Have you or any of your friends ever said the famous line “Oh, I can’t get a boy/girlfriend all the good ones are gone” or I can’t get a boy/girlfriend because I’m too…(old/young/fat/skinny/poor/rich/busy/stupid/clever etc..etc)? I bet you have and what happens at that point the mind focuses on the “Can’t” and reinforces it with the reason at the end of the sentence. That becomes the focus and that becomes the reality. We also know people that are the complete opposite. Who either say nothing at all about what they can’t do or appear to say what they want and they just get it. Guys (or girls) are literally falling over themselves to be with them. Why? It’s the law of attraction of course. Whatever you centre your mind on expands into your reality. 

Now the fun thing is that the law works with everything, not just relationships.

Enough about me let’s talk about you….what do you think of me?!
No, I’m not quite that vain. I’m also not a demon either. I’m just someone feeling his way in world. The challenge is I am thinking a lot wider. I’m thinking, what is the bottom, bottom line according to me, because at the end of the day regardless what happens and who you decide to end up with you have to be at peace with YOU. You are the most important person you’re ever likely to know. There is only one YOU! Not only that, but there has to be the understanding that only you can control you. Yes, it is true you can attract things to you. But they will only be attracted by what you do or think. What you think and believe sows the seed, but in today’s society we can very often we sow the seed of “lack”. In other words we concentrate the fact that we are starving for love, for a man, for a woman for money. That lack is the seed not the thing we want. I am lonely, I am unhappy. You left me and made me sad. When you were in my life you made me happy. 

Did they really or did you chose to feel that way by yourself? 

At the end of the day most of the emotions that we initially believe were caused by someone else were in fact allowed by ourselves. We actually choose to be happy, or sad in the most part. I know in the past when I felt “Oh crap, my life sucks” and then waking up the next day and everything has appeared to change to “wow, I feel I can kick the shit out of this problem, I’m a warrior”. I was still in the same situation both times, nothing had changed and yet the next day I allowed myself to feel dynamic as opposed to the day before to feel like crap and my life sucked. I chose… it was my choice!

All this doesn’t exactly help with her broken heart of course, but hopefully something here will say it’s all for the best and we are not merely passengers. We do have control over our life experiences. Not saying it will be easy to do but like anywhere we want to get to we have to first work out which direction we want to go and then do whatever we can to move ourselves there.

If anyone has any opinions on this subject or even experiences to share please do. There are people that need to hear your words. Thank you

Earlier this year I was lucky to be able to attend the T.Harv Eker Warrior Training. I have to confess I wasn’t that enthusiastic about going. I’d a few weeks earlier returned from my business team event in Chicago and had fallen in that trap of “what more can I learn from another event?” syndrome.camp out in Spain.



Well as soon as I arrived my attitude changed. First thing was the breath taking scenery and secondly the people there and of course the training. I met people from all walks of life and also from many different countries.

The one thing that they made us promise and that was to play full-out and help our team to play full-out too. I took this on board so whatever I did I did at 100%  and worked to help others also achieve 100%. This simple formula worked magic.

Why?

Here’s why. I regard myself as a fit and healthy guy and so anything physical like running, jumping, is my domain . I have huge amounts of energy and always have done. A lot of people on the camp were certainly not all that way inclined. As I said, they came from very different backgrounds, but mostly ambitious business owners and looking for to improve themselves. I saw many overcome huge obstacles, not just physical ones but more often mental ones and there was always me and others right, there right behind them every step to help them. I had nothing to prove. I wasn’t competing with anyone but my own ability to do my 100% and help others do theirs.

A revelation too was the fact that my 100% was often very different to others but I got more enjoyment and sense of achievement from watching other achieve on my team than I did from my own individual performances and that gave me even more energy to continue working on.

When I returned this concept stayed with me and I decided to apply it to as many aspects of my life as I could. It works in all of them. It has helped me achieve more, help more. Cliched as it is but it also makes me happy to know that I have helped other succeed in getting more out of life. That has featured greatly especially in my business where it is virtually written into philosophy to where we work with people with little or no experience, (the same as I when I started) succeed with the help of my team and mentors to grow a life and income. I said I was  lucky to attend the camp, because in order for me to get to go there a whole chain of events had to take place first.

1. I got emailed notification by my brother, Ian, that Tony Robbins was attending a function that normally would have been anything up to near $150 but if I responded to the email it would be free. 
   
2. I responded to the email, I didn’t know if anything would come of it but I did it anyhow and received a reply to say that I had been reserved 1 ticket plus 1 for my guest. 
   
3. My new girlfriend at the time wanted go, which meant that now I had to go as I couldn't let her go on her own anyway (ah..young love!!).
   

The end result of this was that I got to book great discounted tickets for us to also attend the full 4 day Tony Robbins UPW event including firewalk, 3 day Millionaire Mindset Intensive Course which lead to the Warrior Camp, which led to lots of great experiences and lots of new friends and contacts around the world. That on top of the excellent training that has helped my business and life no end.

Great things happen when you take a step and do things differently. After all as Einstein said, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity…

Making a new decisions with good intentions bring results that will change your life.

View original article here

Just got off from a very cool skype call with a very influential success coach who you probably seen and heard about. Claudia Braier is a top coach and one of the many topics we covered was obligation. What I’m going to do is to briefly cover one of the things that clearly stops us doing what we should in order to progress in life.

I have time and time again run into women that have confessed whole heartedly that they had either stayed too long in a relationships or spent too long pursuing someone for a relationship. In fact I have to put my hand up to both those situations. Here is a brief list why we did this:

1. Fear
2. Obligations
3. Pain and Pleasure

Fear
There may be other reasons but the as far as I can see most of them would ultimately fall into at least one of these two categories. An example of fear might be; I can't leave this relationship because I fear having to tell everyone I couldn't make the relationship work and I'll feel like a failure or I fear living on my own etc. That’s fear and everyone can straight away understand that one. But what you might not be aware of is that there is a grand fear which is what all fear is based on and that is the fear that whatever it is you're about to face is too big and we won't be able to handle it. 

I will cover this in more depth another time more of how our minds work in this regard but in short, our minds have built in mechanism that’s programmed to keep everything safe for us. That system is designed to keep the status quo, keeping everything the safe and the same. But in order to overcome fear and move on we have to do the thing we fear there is actually no way to skirt round it as more times than not the thing we fear never happens or if it doesn't is over quicker and has left effect than first thought

Obligation
The other reason, “Obligation” is not something we often hear about, it is in effect a fear too but it goes something like this; “We've been together for 2 years and I think it would hurt her feelings if I told her I think we should spit even though staying together is killing both of us”. In other words we feel obligated to do or not do things because of someone else’s feelings, and can happen with regards a relationship or a job or a business, a friendship etc. But you can and should if you want to grow and change your life.

Pain and Pleasure
Whether we do something or not is really a balancing act between pain and pleasure. We will tend to stay or do what we do based upon the amount of pain we can avoid or pleasure we believe we’ll gain. So what you do differently in life will only occur if the amount pain of not doing it is great enough or the about pleasure out ways it.
The trick is of course to re-wire our minds to link more pain to not doing what we need, than staying stuck. There are various systems 

Feeling Good
Let’s face it, that’s what we ultimately want and need in our lives. We want to feel GOOD… and why not? You deserve to feel good. There is nothing that states you have to choose a life misery but that’s where self-esteem comes in too. Sometime we can feel like we don’t deserve to feel good but the truth is we all deserve to be happy. It often seems normal to think that the reality is to be miserable and that joy and happiness is mumbo-jumbo, when in the real reality the opposite is truth. To see that there is even one person in the world that is truly happy and feels good, then for me the question would always come up, then why not you?

Things you should take a strong look into and to help you take a step are NLP. Neuro Linguistic Programming. Created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Around circa 1997 Bandler has claimed, "NLP™ [sic] is based on finding out what works and formalizing it. ¨

EFT

Have you often wondered (usually after the event) why or how you managed to get into that silly argument you had with you partner, parent, child, boss etc? Well you’re now in luck because I have the answer. Wow, Really??? Yes, really I do. Here is the secret. Take notes.

LSMFT

These 4 letters will safe your life and keep you out of trouble for the rest of your life. Oh really Colin how’s that then?

Well the letters actually is one of those acronym things and stands for ‘Low Self-Esteem Means Friction and Trouble’. Isn't that exciting? 

Erm…?

Well you never guess how these words have save my life when I remembered them and done the opposite when I forget them. I actually came across it from a book that I read a while back "How to have Confidence and Power when Dealing with People" by Les Giblin. Here’s how it works and if the analogy is a bit weird, bear with me. The way it was explained to me is that having low self-esteem was like being hungry. Often when we are hungry or have the feeling of serious lack of food in our stomach all our thoughts go to that hunger. That hunger becomes an all-consuming thought. You mind is filled with the pain that being hungry gives you. You can't entertain another thought for anything else. You don't have time for niceties or pleasantries. You might even be downright rude or angry. Contrast that with after a decent meal or have sufficient food inside you. Very different feeling, yes? Now you are content and the world is wonderful again. Now you have time to talk and give out nice words to loved ones and are a together a much nicer guy.

Think for a moment about that. What actually changed? Now there is no one answer especially if you go down to the deeper stuff but my understanding is that once the feeling of lack or hunger is fixed your mind is able to take its focus off the problem with lack of food and so you become open again. You are more willing to share the biscuits or cookies.
How that works with reference to LSMFT is that when you self-esteem is low you become territorial for what you have. All you can think about is what you don’t have. You are irritable. Small things set you off. Arguments are more likely to flair as people’s opinions or ideas different to your own are like they’re taking food off your plate and you're like no you don't I'm bloody hungry mate Grrrrowl.

Arguments
Many moons ago just days after finishing school I moved out of the parents’ home in Suffolk, England and shared a house with my oldest brother in South London. Now, I was a just a pup. I was really very like a fish out of water at the time. Here I was in a huge city after moving from a tiny village. I was feeling very insignificant indeed. So here I am feeling like a nobody sharing a house with my older brother. He had a job, a nice motorcycle and more importantly he was my older brother. I had no proper job, I had a crappy 50cc moped, no friends, nothing.

We would have arguments about absolute crap. How to cook boil in the bag rice, who’s turn to put the bins out, who should make the decisions. I remember once we had an argument about something or other and I had a pair of scissors and we where fighting like something from a movie where I was bearing down on him with these scissors in my hand and (thankfully) he was stronger than I was holding it away me burying it in his head. The only thing that stopped it was a double glazing salesman ringing the front doorbell!!!!

Awareness is the key
To cut a long story short after every “ding-dong” which actually were rarely that physical, it was usually me shouting louder than my brother, I would go back to my room, think about what happened realized that I didn’t need to argue like that. I could have at some point stopped myself and controlled myself. Quite clever from a 16 year old I think. I would often come out of my room find my brother and apologies and say sorry about that I was weak, I could see it happening but I was too weak to stop myself.
 
What this actually did was it actually boosted my self-esteem as it wasn't easy to admit you were wrong but after I was able to rationalize what happened I could figure out what it meant and what I could do. 

So really, to start with remember LSMFT. Keep that in mind if you can. Think is this an act of high self-esteem or am I looking for this battle to protect my feeling of lack. Think back to when your self-esteem was good, would this thing I’m about to get steamed up about seem that important then?

They say that when your self-esteem is smaller than you problem you go trouble but when your self-esteem is bigger than your problem you only have challenges that you can overcome, see over or step straight over. You also become a better listener too because you’re not trying to talk over people with your opinion which believe is right in an attempt to get your ego/self-esteem fed. You can choose which things you need to comment on based on their importance. i.e. if I tell this person my opinion is it to try and boost my ego or is this really important. In other words if this person's opinion going to cause a serious life ending disaster or is just an opinion that’s different to your own? If it’s the latter then you can feel there really esteem boost in that you were able to hold your tongue and let the baby have its bottle, as they say. You'll also find that nodding your head and going “Hmmm…that’s interesting” will score you brownie points as he or she has for once been able to express their opinion for a change. Conversely if it is life ending serious than feel free to stop him and correct him before he there is a major disaster. 

So there you have it. Be aware of where you are and what those next sentence in a possible sentence says about you and what could happen next.

Do feel free to comment or if you want to give any examples of similar situations.

Know thy Self

One of the biggest challenges is knowing who you are and what you’re worth. First things first, regardless of where you are right now you need to understand your worth. It’s often we know when things aren't quite right when things appear to being going wrong. When a problem happens how do we react? Do we crash and burn, ending up crumpled in a heap for weeks or is it just a flick on the nose that stings but doesn't knock us over?

You can gage how you feel from instances that have occurred in your past. Like when you were so dialled in and riding high those things, that had they happened at another time would have floored you. Instead you just picked them off one by one and got through it all beautifully.

Having said that it is often women that I speak to with regard dating and relationships I have a guy friend, who I’ll refer to as Ashram, who recently had a girlfriend dump him saying she wasn't ready for a relationship. This dude was the real deal and a truly great guy, the thing that tipped him over the edge was that days later she was seen in an intimate embrace with another dude. This was the straw that broke the donkey’s back and he was in a bad way. I guess this opened up the age old question, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?”

He felt rather like he had been pushed out of a plane with a dodge parachute. All seemed good, the view of sweet planet earth was wonderful until someone came along and cut the strings. Now he found himself plummeting. Fortunately rather than land with a splat on the ground he ended up landing in a large tree but still falling and tumbling through its branches. In his panic he had the presence of mind to stick his hands out to try to grab a branch or something to stop him hitting the ground hard. I'm happy to say that quickly what his hand grabbed was me in the way of a phone call. He wasn't in good state, sounding like Eeyore’s Widow. I always say though, that if you’re still able to speak about you problem then it could be worse. He spilled the beans and I listened.

You are worthy

I let him finish and for a brief moment there was total silence. Slowly but surely spoke to him and told him in several different ways with multiple examples something that is for sure the undeniable truth. There was no talk of how bad she was, or what he should have said to her to get his own back, I simply explained and instilled to him how much value he had as a person as my friend and what he’d achieved with what he had. You see his relationship problem wasn't the issue at all. It was just a symptom appeared larger than his self-esteem which made it more than he could handle. The fact he had the presence of mind to call me for support meant he had. So all I inadvertently did was to nurture that seed of hope. That point then grew into a tree much larger than the issue that would take a lot more than a dodgy relationship to shake it.

A week later I got a call from Ashram to say that he was totally over her and life was good again and thanked me for my support. Of course there was no way I would understand fully what it meant from his point of view but I believe it was quite a lot, simply by the sincerity of the way he thanked me. He even explained that his work colleagues had noticed that he had even more of a spring in his step too, likely because, as he said, that he now had stronger belief of his own worthiness. 

And How about you?

I challenge you. Look at yourself and say do I know my own worthiness? In fact do yourself a favour and repeat to yourself: 

“I am worthy. I am of immense value!” 

Sounds daft I know, but if you are feeling anything less than love for yourself, you got to get hold of you. You got to fall head over heels in love with you! 

Why? 

Cos’ imagine this, if you don’t love who you are, why would anyone else? 

Some may say yeah but someone will just love me for who I am. Yep, there are Good Samaritans that would look after any old stray that came along. 

But what’s going to happen when you then recover and get into your own personal power? 

There is likelihood that they’re mission in life is to look after strays and will then feel that you’re not the stray puppy you
used to be and therefore unless he changes  relationship breakup  anyway.

Always remember love and look after yourself, because you are THE  most important person you’re ever likely to meet on this
planet.

Hi there, I hope you liked the last piece (which essentially was
my first).

Good!

Well here is something that is fundamental to how you experience your world and how it has been for you. Once again it’s can all be taken with a pinch of salt as with everything I write or say, as it is only and can only be based on my truth, my story or experiences. Does that make sense? We learn from experience but the question is who’s experiences will it be is? Read on and learn to unlearn.

For quite a while I have been interested in the world of self-help, self or personal development, hypnotism and changing my life. Not that my life was particularly bad back then but at the time it always seemed that I wasn't like other guys. I guess it felt like I had the capability or capacity to do good things but I felt I couldn’t learn things like other people. I seemed to lack, what appears be a very rare commodity called “common sense”. What I mean by this is, things and ways of working just never entered my mind at all when it seemed so easy for others. So I would felt a bit stupid when colleagues would jump in get things done, right there in front of me and I would be standing beside them thinking “that was clever, wish I was like that”. A bit like watching my house burn down and someone running over getting a hose or calling the fire brigade while I was merrily marvelling at the pretty colours of the flames and how they danced!

So anyway I searched and no for answers and not on Google, this was back in the late 80’s. But I did come across a couple of books on Self-hypnosis (one of which by a very young dude by the name of “Paul McKenna”) and tried it but didn’t really do much. I now know that I was basically several rungs up the ladder in my thirst but was trying to build my house from the ceiling upwards and not from the foundations upwards. Cool thing is though, is that the understanding and experiences do stay with you and simply get incorporated into the structure as you building and grow once you build some foundations. So for all those that feel that they are now where I was back then chill, it’s all good. Of course this also highlights the need to often go back to the source or get down to the basics first. One of the things that has been interesting too is the fact that the really good personal development books are the vintage ones. You know, “Success, Through a Positive Mental Attitude”, “Think and Grow Rich”, “Grow Rich While you Sleep”, “Magic of Thinking Big”, “Stop Worrying and Start Living” “The Bible” and many more. Maybe it’s just my habit of going back to the source or the origins of things (see Own it. What’s in a Name?), as it peels away the crud and fluff that can be built up over time.

Clarity is Power
When you were a kid and you came to understand the concept of Christmas your mind was open to all manner of possibilities as to what to ask Santa. The list what you want, write it down and assume having it. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Who can remember dreaming of something you desired as a kid while sleeping and the dream was so convincing that you’re sure that when you woke up that you already were in possession of it? More times than not eventually we ended up having that dream come true. I now know why that is. I didn’t care why that was when I was a kid I just wanted what I wanted. Now after years of disappointment I understand where I went right and where I went wrong and why. The truth is (my truth) that what we want is out there and we receive it every day. But now you’re going to come back to me and say “wait a minute… I didn’t want this problem. I never asked for this.” Yep, you did or maybe not but did you actually ask for what you wanted or did you focus on why you wanted what you wanted?

What the hell does that mean?

Well, you might say I want to get to work on time cos’ I need to get a project underway and/or the bosses going to give me the evil eye when I’m late and I hate that. So, you set about going to work. Now if you focused on getting into work early the most of the time that is what happens, things snap into place and you get into work. Consequently, you might spend all you time focusing on why you need to be getting into work, you see the bosses face you see you’re project not starting on time, you running out of time at the end of the day, chasing around to get things finished etc. You would prefer to have the good things happen of what happens by coming into work on time but instead you focusing on the consequences or what happens if you don’t. What you’re now doing is embracing the idea of not getting into work on time. It now becomes the expanding possibility in your world. You’re possible truth and guess what, what you focus on expands or becomes you target. So in effect that’s what you wanted.

So you see everything you want is all around you and you’re either tuned into receiving them or you looking in the wrong direction and receiving the other thing you want, if you know what I mean, which puts a throttle on getting what you really wanted. Ultimately we choose.

Please feel free to relay you’re questions or experiences of life below in the comments box and I will reply I promptly…

Right at last, you must be thinking this cat is finally going to come up with the meaning of life and how to get through it?

Well, Yes, and No!

What?

Well Yes, cos’ this is how I managed how to get to this point in my life without going to prison or dying. But you should maybe take it all with a pinch of salt… why? 

Cos’ it’s all based on being a crazy Puma like me and not a dead sensible person like you. So sit back and take notes or just chuck it out completely or watch, read and place your hand on your chin and repeat after me, “Hmmm… that’s interesting!”


Your Embarrassing Middle Name

Do you have a middle name you think is absolutely awful? I did…

"Did" you say, you changed your name Mr Puma?

Nope… I just did something I do when I come across something that doesn’t quite sit right with me. I went back to the beginning and started from there and worked my way forward with a new perspect.

How does that work Mr. Puma?

Well, lets see if I can put it into words. My middle name is “Jeffrey”. Some of you will chuckle and may even laugh. I smile, but that’s as amusing as it gets, because I stepped back saw it's origins in a new way and now I OWN that name and I'm very proud. Jeffrey is dad actually my Dad's first name. Like many kids when I was at school and started to realise and write my name I would never use Jeffrey as kids would laugh so I buried it. Never used it even when it came to fill out official forms which asked for my full name I would not put that name down. Now I take great delight in writing it.

Before I go into how here's something that might make you think a bit deeper. Spring of this year I attended a training camp called the "Enlightened Warrior Training Camp" out in sunny Spain. I won't go into the deep stuff but at one point I was called up on stage to demonstrate a little experiment. That experiment you've probably heard of or maybe had the chance to do yourself. It's where you have to put your arm out at a right angle from you body and someone has to push it down again to your side. You first state the affirmation "I'm weak, I'm weak several times and then without fail the 'girl' on stage could so easily push my arm down, no matter how hard I tried. Then you do it again after saying I'm strong several times and she couldn't budge my my arm. "Hmmm...thats interesting!", I said! What you are going to find more interesting is that the same experiment works with your name..."What do you mean?" It means that instead of saying I'm weak you instead say a false name over and over. The same thing happens your arm gets easily bent down to your side. Give your real name and you're again strong. Now who would like to guess what could happen if you instead called out you embarrassing middle name...?

Hmmm... That's interesting, isn't it? So on that note here's how to own your middle name an perhaps increase your power.

Here’s what what I did. I decided imagine in my mind my parents together 47 odd years ago. Mum in the hospital bed cradling her little puma cub, me, both looking at me in sheer love and wonder. At some point, perhaps before I was born, they’d been talking and wondering about a name. They want to give me a name that places some of them with some of me with all the love they have for each other and me. So they agree on Colin and then mum agrees that for me it would be so special taking on her husbands name as a middle name, Jeffrey and there they are so proud. (Oops, I’m starting to cry).

So there you have it… Colin “Jeffrey” Robertson (or if you're trying to find me on Facebook Colin J Robertson, feel free to like my page).

Recently I was honoured to have been befriended on Facebook by a really bright Warrior Princess from India. She remarked about the use of the J in my name and said she would probably do the same as her name was a bit embarrassing and she wasn’t keen about it. Funnily enough the initial of her middle name was also J - Now you’re on the hunt for me Facebook and my friends list to find out who it was aren’t you? I blooming hope so!

I told her similar to the above paragraph about her parent when they were young after having her and proudly naming her with this J name. She went off and obviously thought about it and today I got a personal message back thanking me for inspiring her to look differently at her name. Here’s is part of her reply, “It really made me appreciate my parents and i just kept feeling the love they had for me when I was born. I had this feeling with me for the whole of Friday…”

(I can’t tell you how having her come back and telling me that made me feel Amazing.) 

So there you have it. Own you're name and utilize your full power. 2 people could where the same hat and they could be totally different as one would wear it pride and that other hide underneath it. Which would you like to be?

Trivial it maybe, but this could well be the mental block you're looking to . Your name in a lot of ways is you. If you’re not happy and proud of you, this could be the very thing holding you back.

As they say at the Enlightened Warrior Camp, anyone with an issue with me it simply says more about them. As I can only tell them who I am and say if you don’t like it F#¤K YOU… AHO!

This is the first of them and is about a previous chapter when life was so much simpler ;)

Here goes….

Bounty Hunters

London had been my playground and my office. Here I was looking over my people from the side of the road at Chelsea by the side of the river Thames, like some super hero, I could simply be here in London and marvel at its beauty.”…millions of people, just living out there lives”*. They had their heads down and their tail ends up (but most of them, tails between their legs). They worked in offices, shops and were chained to the everyday activities of their existence. So much so, that they may have even have despise me for my freedoms. Like a seagull gliding by alongside the ferries and ships I'd observed in Norway years later. I felt I had a deft of touch just the same. The merest, subtlest tip or tilt of my wings allowed for perfect adjustment of my trajectory and I was away an off into the horizon. For me this was the ultimate profession. Doing what you like to do but being paid well to do it. For our breed we were like bounty hunters, treading stories of lost acquaintances and and deadly missions, looking for the most profitable and successful voyages and the various crusades around town. For now when I look back on my life at that juncture I could see that it had taken more than 5 years later, working in the as one of the “battery chicken” before my income would eclipse what I had earned at that point at the beginning of the 90’s. Like the line from the film which asks the question, “who am I?” with the answer “I’m Batman”! My answer was “I’m a Motorcycle Courier”!!!

Yes, believe it or not, I was just that. Due to a bold step after another after a particularly low point in my book of life I had joined the ranks of one of the most hated by other road users and at one time listed as the most stressful careers in the country. 

Why's that you ask? 

1. We spent hundreds of hours a week criss-crossing the old smoke (London) and surrounds and in my case the whole nation, so we were able to hone our art to the spiritual proportions. We were in “flow” states as we rode. It had all become second nature as we sensed everything around us with jedi reflexes and Spider senses. Near misses were what we aimed for as that gave us the advantage we were looking for. Because it didn't matter how dangerous it was it was, misses were still only that, misses. It's the hits that could be the end of you. Near misses were forgotten quickly forgotten regardless how close we came to death it was just par for the course! 

2. Cos’ life expectancy was about 3-4 months at best. The chances of having a serious accident increased with every breath you took while balancing life and limb on 2 wheels. For the onlookers I may as well have been a sea pirate. In fact I did cast a somewhat “Jack Sparrow” like silhouette and existence on the the world around me.

This particular chapter was in the sunset of my career though. The glory days of spring and through to the summer of having my own steed to ride and not only that but also the pride of owning a second bike too, which I loaned to my older brother to ride into battle too. Now it was twilight and by now they had both blown away like the prettiest petals in a chilling autumn breeze. 

Looking back to those earlier days London was truly my playground. Back then after making my mark by being the man that seemed to be able to turn impossible to the possible. I was the loveable rogue with the upbeat persona, that always displayed a different view or the world. The friendly face of the bounty hunter. As well as the dude that was ever ready to take on missions at the drop of a hat throughout the length and breadth of England and Wales. For whatever crusade was laid before me, I could squeeze out success from the more possible failure and my name and sight became well known. 

That rare sight of the Honda CX500 TC (TC = Turbo Charged), was a site to behold. Built in the days of a better now vanished time, when the word recession hadn’t yet appeared in the news and “5 star” petrol was still available and unleaded was only optional, these were the flagship models to Honda’s armoury. The lower capacity of 500cc meant that the insurance was based on a 500cc bike, even with the high pressure turbo. Performance was similar to my previous 900 Honda machine. It also carried significant weight, for it was built for a balance of speed and comfort. A “Sports Tourer” you might say. I was often able to prove it's pedigree and recall on one occasion when flying up the M1 on OB2 (Obi was the affectionate name I'd given my to bikes and got there names from the word OBRUT displayed below windshield on at the front in bright orange space-aged lettering. OBRUT being TURBO in mirror writing. This was fun as it told cars that a Turbo was fast approaching when they looked in their mirrors. In fact as the bike was big and white they often pulled aside thinking I was Police bike!!! OB2 was my second machine my brother rode OB1). On this mission I ended up cruising beside a 125 intercity train that was running at near full speed on the track beside the motorway. I wasn’t even going all out, but instead sitting and comfortably cruising. I looked down at the turbo gage and the speedo. Speed 120mph. Hmmm, I guess we both still had a bit in reserve still…

But that was then. Since then the winter nights had closed in. The Turbo days had now gone. A series of freak happenings one after the other had caused the chance of future chapters with my non-aspirated friends to be torn out violently. The first was memorable. It was in fact the day before the evening that I was to have my first date with the girl that was later to become my wife. The mission that day, I was again out of London in battle theatre down on the south coast. It was to move south down to Hastings and the continue east on the Nationwide Anglia battle run. A series of events took place that in the end changed many things. First I was stopped by the police. I think it was for speeding. I was heading out of city on the A217 when I was directed to “pull over” by a policeman, at the head of a police check area. I pulled in but after what seemed like several minutes, I still wasn’t attended to. So what did I do? I quietly slipped the Turbo into gear and glided away again. I checked my mirrors and even took a look back but there was no enemy flack coming my way.

Strike 1

I won’t be going into the finer details here. But something caused me to be behind schedule and I foolishly tried to make that time back on the road. Stoking the fires of the OB2 and deploying healthy servings of turbo boost, I was using all the brevity to use the Turbo power to maximum advantage. I was heading towards Littlehampton from Hastings using the southern motorway. I passed a policeman on his small motorcycle that was trying to paddle through some slow moving traffic. I wasn't speeding but at the same time I wasn’t slouching either. My thoughts were on reaching Brighton and that young Jamaican girl I was booked to have a date with that evening. 

I reached a large round about and swept round the inside clipping the apexes like a GP pro only to find that the car on my right decide his indicators were for show and he was lucky to have got his drivers license from the inside of the box of cornflakes he'd had that morning. He continued round the roundabout instead of existing as he'd indicated and where I was aiming for. This resulted in him disturbing my exit as the right-hand corner of his vehicle nudged the rear of the bike. I was now directed towards to a piece of road furniture, an exit sign consisting of two upright posts with the sign in-between. As is often the case, reflexes and supercomputer like calculations take place and which made me run a quick status check. There was no way out of a collision it was concluded from the data, but I can still make a decision on what was involved in the collision. I pick a point and aim towards it. I aim to miss a head on collision with one of the posts of the sign, leaning over to avoid. The mental air brakes then came off from my thoughts and calculations, and life flicks to real time. There is huge crunch and it’s done. I’m alive the sign and the bike are badly bent. Shit! Look at OB2… What a mess, but I could be dead and I wasn’t. The car driver is out of his car. He’d switched his indicator now to reinforce his argument. Don’t you just love it in situation like this? Some dude has near killed you but they’d argue their point over your bleeding remains of your dead body if they had to rather than admit their blame…!

Not for the first time I was heading to some hospital in the back of an Ambulance. My armour and split second decision had kept me alive. No serious damage done. The RAC had collected my craft and I was soon back in Croydon though for the life of me I don’t know how I got there!

I had just about enough had enough time to go and meet my date and in fact arrived still dressed in my battle stained armour. I felt a hero that I’d once again avoided death in the field like some fighter pilot of the past I got shot down but survived, she would later revealed that she thought the opposite that I was some vagabond or street urchin or clown. Looking back maybe that explains much…she is no longer my wife this day.

...to be continued