Posts

Think before you speak?

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“I am only responsible for what I say, not what you hear” I have been seeing this saying doing the rounds for the past few months and cannot help myself but comment on its validity. At first I thought that the saying was ingenious because it makes clear that I am only responsible for my “meaning” as per my words deliver and not any one else’s perception of my words. Great, what a liberating feeling. I deliver my words and now it’s your problem to figure out what to do with the information. Nothing could be further from the truth! While speaking I am the one trying to get across an idea and in order to do so I need to choose my words and delivery thereof carefully, so that I have the best chance of helping you understand what I am trying to communicate. I have since found the aforementioned saying to be a lazy excuse for poor communication skills. To be fair, I know that feelings have a large impact on the saying as it does not purely relate to straightforward communicatio
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Happy new year!

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Happy new year to one and all. May this year be your best yet. Set ridiculously large goals and attempt to achieve them through solid planning and action. Do your best! Best wishes Benjamin W Fourie
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Get more out of your day, live your dreams.

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Getting more out of your day should be easy, but see there is that thing called habit. As I previously mentioned in one of my articles, the human brain is designed to find the easiest or least painful way of doing something. You might think "well great, that i exactly what I need". Unfortunately in today's, day and age we can no longer afford to take the easy way out. The easy way normally leads us nowhere in a hurry. We procrastinate, get depressed and anxious about the dreams we have. Unfortunately we are doing this to ourselves by over thinking. The best advice I can give anyone here is not to see your imagined future as a fact. It has not happened yet, so how do you know? I am not referring to future outcomes you have experienced as part of a certain chain of actions resulting from habit. This is pretty much set in stone if you don't take the decisive action to change the habits giving you less than desirable outcomes. Let's look at your dreams. The dr
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My feeling is "Spoilt Brat" what's yours?

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Moments after my shift ended I could feel the "lazy" coming on strong. I sat back in my chair and started wasting time on all manner of distractions. This while knowing that I need to be productive, - working on my personal life -  But there is a time where you need to be laid back and take some weight off. You need to track yourself as you will know when you really need it or, when you are just being lazy. So i devised the "Spoilt Brat" method. It's quite simple. Here's what you need to do. When you reach the end of a working day or certain activities and your attention starts drifting off you will notice an uncomfortable feeling. This feeling has many descriptions and it's up to you what you call it but for the sake of this exercise give it a name. This is a fun activity and you can get as creative as you like.  Think of someone or something that you perceive as lazy. Now give your "Lazy" a name. Mine is Spoilt Brat... Now for the
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Minding your mood

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Minding your mood. Today I found myself thinking of death and losing someone. All this while busy with a quotation at work. I was focused on the task at hand but before I knew it, I was drifting off. Filled with sadness, thinking about loss in my family. I paused for a second as I did not understand my sudden change of heart. My day started off great, what happened? I lifted my head to notice all the input I had around me. A song was playing in the background. You guessed it, the song was about losing a family member. We tend to forget that we are influenced by all manner of input during the day. Whether you consciously notice it or not. In my case it was sound. The brain continuously process information as a survival mechanism.  Example: A smell related to an experience you had, instantly changing your mood. A facial expression reminding you of a person you dislike, even though the current expression is from the kindest person you know. Whenever your mood changes for no reason
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How to human and where did you start.

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By all means be a unique person That quirky thing you do that makes you, you. Being who you truly are can be defined best by an Eastern philosophy I have come to believe in. It might seems that an outsider is making a judgement call but before we get there consider the following when next you look in the mirror. In Japanese culture, they say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to close friends and family. The third face, you show to no one. The third face is also the person you truly are. Taking this philosophy into consideration, you cant really show your third face to anyone. Your second face to some and your third face to all. The only thing we can really do is to better understand ourselves first, before sharing with everyone else. What you need to remember before you start "being yourself" is that you are above all a human first. Contrary to popular belief we are all flawed. As a species we are at the dawn off g
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Creatures of Habit

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It takes an average of 2 months to form lasting habits. The better the habit, the longer it takes to become an automatic daily action. This rule applies to good habits. "Good" meaning something that you know you should be doing but is too much of a discomfort to do. Bad habits take around 2 weeks to become an automatic daily action. "Why?" you might ask. Because it is something that fits right into comfort zone. You know you should not be doing it as it has no positive lasting effects on your life. Our habits form us and have control over our lives. Your habits lead to certain friends circles or even business partners.  But habits have a far greater effect on your life then you might think. It has the power to change your brain physically. This in turn means that your perception of the world changes along with it. Where other see opportunity you might see an obstacle. Similar the difference between a fleeting thought and life changing epiphany. How you see thes
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