What kind of child were you?

What and whom did you love?

What hurt you the most?

What brought you joy?

What did you want to do and be when you grew up?

Travel to your childhood.

Meet yourself as a child.

You might be surprised to find that the very history of you as a child conceals a lot of the answers to the questions you have now.

Most anxieties will be unlocked by travelling back.

Depressions will fade when you meet yourself, truly.

Meeting yourself as a child will mean quitting the safety of your adult armour.

Meeting yourself as a child will mean opening up your heart so fully that it might actually hurt.

Meeting yourself as a child will mean assessing whether you are living up to your fullest potential or just wasting your days.

Meeting yourself as a child will mean forgiving your father, forgiving your mother, forgiving yourself.

Meeting yourself as a child will mean healing and maturing into a complete version of yourself.

Meeting yourself as a child will mean an end...

See your life as a script that you are writing and creating every day.

In film, most scripts fail because of two reasons:

1. The protagonist isn’t active.

That is, if the protagonist isn’t pursuing a clear goal and his story doesn’t have a linear overall arc.

2. The protagonist doesn’t change.

That is, if the protagonist remains the same throughout the film and, at the end of the film, he is left unchanged.

Life’s script doesn’t fail when you have many failures or setbacks along the way, pursuing your life’s goal - in fact, it’s often the opposite.

It starts failing when there’s a lack of mission, purpose or a greater goal in your story, which usually translates as the driving force that moves your life forward.

It also fails, however, if you go through life with little changing in you or your environment, in your worldview or your thinking.

There are many variables, of course, but at the core lie the following questions:...

I fly a lot.

Almost every month.

But there’s a problem.

I became ‘a nervous flyer’.

I freak out when turbulence strikes.

In fact, while  writing these words, I am on the plane going from Bali to Doha.

I have ordered my third whisky to tame my nerves.

I have done a bunch of meditations and visualisations already.

I have ended up listening to yoga as my last resort of peace.

(Seriously? … I know right)

1. QUESTIONING

In the past year, flying has become a contemplation of life… and well… death…

Besides giving mecramps in my stomach, trembling hands and a pumping heart, these moments of turbulence really get me thinking about the way I lead my life:

Am I living it to the fullest?

Whom do I love the most?

Have I wasted much time on meaningless activities?

Have I come to express my talents and skills to their maximum potential?

Have I allowed myself to LIVE: be crazy, love, work, create, travel…?

Have I allowed myself to...

Recently, I spoke at an investing conference.

I'm not an investor and know very little about it.

I was asked to speak about something I believe in.

I couldn't speak about investing in Boeing in China or the geopolitical situation in Ukraine and how that affects investment.

I couldn't speak about investing in art,nor could I say anything about designing and planning urban spaces.

So, by the time my turn came to speak, I had realised that I was invited to the conference, for much the same reason that one adds spices to soup.

I wasn't the soup, but  an exotic ingredient.

And there were two choices.

Well, really, only one.

Just to pull myself together and speak about what I wanted to speak about.

‘How to cultivate excellence in your emotional life’.

But this wasn't the real topic.

It was a coded topic.

The real topic behind the code was:

How to live from the space of the heart and not the mind. (I sat in the rice fields and made a video on this as well).  

I won't...

Movement is the basis of everything.

Every film, every book, every play is driven by movement, taking the hero through a variety of situations.

Challenging him.

Testing him.

Awarding him.

Changing him.

If there were no movement, we wouldn't watch the film or read the book. It'd be dull.

Look around in nature.

There's movement - constantly.

Rivers flow.

Leaves either fall or grow.

Clouds drift.

It's never still. It’s always in process.

Your life, too, is driven by movement.

The greater the movement, the more significant the change.

The lesser the movement, the more meagre the change.

You wouldn't watch a film without much movement.

Why would you live a life without much movement?

Movement is the basis of transformation.

Transformation equals growth.

Become aware of the movement in your life, and its intensity.

Where is the movement taking you to?

What sort of changes is the movement guiding you towards?

Are you resisting the movement or going with it?

P.S. You can't control...

"The reason you're suffering is you're focused on yourself." - Tony Robbins.

Suffering derives from the core of ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘mine’.

Even if you say that you’re suffering because of your child, you’re still making it about yourself.

It’s just a more complex way of doing it - through association with another person.

If you are truly suffering, stop focusing on yourself.

Help others. Focus on others. Their needs and their suffering. At least for a day.

And you’ll be at least temporarily relieved of your own suffering.

We are so busy spinning the ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘mine’ story, making it the most important story, but it isn’t.

Once you understand that, it gets easier.

And if you wish to take it to the next level, and see that there isn’t ‘your story’, ‘his story’ and ‘their stories’, but rather ‘our story’, it can even become  kind of...

Imagine your life as a TV.

You’re flicking through the channels.

Work channel: struggles, goals, striving for good pay, planning holidays.

Love channel: highs and lows of love, relationship hurdles and successes.

Relationship channel: parents don’t understand, children are losing their way, lack of self-esteem.

Meaning channel: what is it all about, you buy a book or two, attend a seminar - how does the universe work?

There are also addiction channels - if you turn on one of those, it’s easy watching.

Until you wake up and have to go back to one of the above channels - then, it’s hang-over time.

But the remote control is in your hands -  always.

It’s up to you which channel to watch. Also, there is a  limitless amount of channels.

If you’re watching a boring programme - that’s your choice.

If you’re watching a complex relationship drama -  that’s your choice.

If you’re watching ER or some kind of an ‘I...

Whatever you do, do it with excellence.

Perfection is for amateurs.

Excellence is for masters.

You only master something by learning when to take action and then to allow it.

Mastery never reeks of struggle.

That’s perfection.

Mastery is a gently controlled flow of particular area in life, which is tamed with joy.

You can pick whether to be a perfectionist or master.

You can learn more about the difference between the two here.