How to eliminate the shield of excuses from your life

Our defense system is complete, in psychological terms. One of the most useful "inner gears" we have is a shield that protects us from most things we don't want, can't do or simply don't know how to do it. We make excuses.

If we take a macro example, the main difference between a developed country like Japan and another in development like Colombia, is the amount of excuses given in Colombia to not make the right thing: for instance, to not follow strictly laws.

I know it is not only that, but it is a fact if we remove our own excuses, face reality and dare to change our lives, it is quite possible some change will happen.

Question is: how to do it? This shield helps us feeling good, guiltless and at peace with ourselves. I have seen the effects of removing these shields and it is not so nice at a first stage, when all fears come out. This is a little step-by-step on how to do it.

1. Take all your I can't in account.
2. Chose one of these affirmations and start to work on that.
3. Before daring to change anything in your life, understand the reason behind. Also, create a firm inner space for yourself, for instance by starting to meditate or by telling your best friend about it and making him or her available, in case you need to talk.
4. Dare. Just do it, without postponing, delaying or making up something to avoid it. Dare to do it.
5. If you feel fear or insecurity, just remember your own unique power, the power of your personal inner space and use it. Don't fear your fears; just enjoy the experience as an adventure.
6. Experience the greatness of a change in your life. When you break a shield, you open yourself for many new possibilities and opportunities.
7. Check your experience and its balance: positive and negative. Imbibe the positive and consider the negative as a positive learning experience.
8. Wait for a while and go to another item, another shield of excuses.

Leaders without followers

I have the fortune to know many leaders who help in different ways within their communities, families or serve as example to others, creating an impact in others' lives. But one thing I have been noticing: a few of them have followers. As one person of those few put it very clear to me that, "he never asked for it".

The image of a leader is forever connected with that of followers at such an extent that when leadership is failing, some people started to blame their followers. However, in the last two decades, leaders and followers became different concepts.

The main reason is because the real leadership today is a form or another of self-leadership, a type of leadership without followers. For me it is very clear that the traditional macho leadership cannot serve today and female leadership, which can be its replacement, is still in the oven. By being absent, leaders have given us a unique chance of being our own leaders.

Whatever we do is because we really want to do and we are convinced this will be good, as it is by reading this blog... Yes, others can tell us something and we may accept that, but it is us who have the power to decide on it. And if besides being our own leaders, we are able to generate impact that leadership will be of a different flavor.

Today leaders are more authentic and their words and deeds are example for a so many people who want to improve their lives completely, without following them necessarily but feeling they tune into those people, those leaders' ideas.

We may copy them, follow some of their advice and read about their lives, trying our best to apply that into our own life. But if anyone asks me if I am so-and-so's follower, I will immediately say NO.

One big issue of this stage the world is going through in terms of leadership is that these leaders, who are examples, rotate too much and their leadership life-span is very short. Many times as they are not replaced in people's hearts, these people, who are not their followers, start to live from their leaders' past, following their example by proxy. And that is not good, because the main strength of today leaders is their authenticity, which is something you can only take benefit in the present. To solve that, if you are one of these "leaders without followers", invest more of your time in your own self-leadership. By mastering it, you will be an example in all stages of your lives, giving benefit to millions.

If you are not, learn more on self-leadership and use other leaders' lives as examples not by following it blindly but by understanding their reality and applying whatever you feel you should, into your own life.

Caring about yourself and others

When President Obama went for his Obamacare, he was not only doing something political and probably fulfilling an ideal from his heart. And it does not matter if you believed him, agreed with him or even hated him. He was doing one of the most natural instincts we have as humans. He was caring.

Whether it is a crucial business advantage, manifested via Customer Service, or something that glued together a family or a friend, caring is part of being human. However, the way caring happens have been changing along the years.

Although many people still try to care for others, time and the pace of life creates situations where the physical presence is simply not possible. So, it is time to understand caring beyond the physical: that important and powerful energy release when one person thinks well of another is also caring. That implies caring of others start with caring of the self.

Many years ago, I had the honor to translate an authority in spirituality. BK Jayanti is an Indian citizen resident in London. Since she was a child, she has been exposed to spirituality in many ways and at the same time, she was educated in a very Western country. That blend makes BK Jayanti's words have a different taste as she does not speak only from one point of view.

In Medellin, she gave a lecture to a group of people; among them, many kidnapped people's families were present. Her words were powerful and simple, full of knowledge and very gentle. Basically, what she said was that those people (the victims) were dependable on the attendees' feelings. If they cared about them, then they should change their mindset and experience peace so that those people will experience the same.

Does it sound strange? What about this: didn't you ever experience something someone else was feeling?

Care about yourself, being careful about what you think and feel. Then, think in the same way in relation to others,  creating a huge chain of powerful thoughts and feelings, wait and see the results.

Time and success

Recently, a few lists have emerged of young people who got to be successful. By reading it, I just wondered how many are really prepared...

First of all, most of the successful people were such due to some financial attainments. Success is however a feature where harmony, happiness and peace, among other qualities, are experienced in a constant way; what about their state of mind or their family relationships? That was not taken in account.

In reality, success needs time to come to our lives, just like a fruit from a tree. In Hindi, the words have something to do with each other: success is safalta, and fruit is fal...

Yes, to reach that point of success - total, global, true success - you do need to seed right seeds. You also need to take care of the soil, sun and water, and lots of patience because even when the fruit is emerging, you still need that fruit to reach maturity. If the tree is fruitful, not only one fruit will emerge and many other people can benefit from it. Then, you sow it again...

That success as soon as you start to experience becomes an unending cycle and that is another sign of success: you don't experience it once. Maybe you can have your "peaks and valleys", but when you reach the real success your life turns into an ascending line.

How to do it? How to reach to that point of success when you feel you are on eternal holydays and yet, producing in an effective way? A few tips:

• Understand the real meaning of success. This will help you to identify it.
• Whenever you go through a "peak", that is, you feel success in some task or activity; reinvest that energy into your life. For instance, if you get a promotion in your work, use that money for more training instead of buying that new cellular phone you want, and share your experience with other people so that 
• Whenever you go through a "valley", that is, you fail in something, use that as a step towards success. For instance, check what happened and train yourself so you don't repeat the failure.
• Be honest with yourself and don't let yourself to be deceived by limited successful events.
• Meditation is very useful. It will help you to develop honesty, patience and perseverance, without which you cannot reach success.
• Value your time by making it worthwhile.
• Balance your life and especially provide yourself some reflection time.

I wish you an excellent journey on your way towards success.

Mercy, compassion and pity, and the art of serving

Our feelings for others matter. They have been the material with which we build bridges and are able to communicate with other people, creating this extremely powerful and yet fragile thing called society.

If we look into the past, we can't find terms like "customer service"... There was no customer service two centuries ago because there were no real customers. There were people, and the service was given to people.

Nowadays, when we see an organization that treats others as people, with respect and consideration, intelligence and gentleness, this is the result of a powerful feeling: mercy.

Yes, customer service is based on mercy. A company with mercy for a client whose luggage were damaged in a flight, who missed a flight because the company decided to depart early or simply a client with bad luck who lost their wallet somewhere, this organization is not simply fulfilling an offered product or making publicity; this company has mercy on people.

Because no matter how big we are, we serve people. Whether we sell fruits in a corner or we are part of a huge multinational, still we serve people. And mercy is a feeling of respect for others, for all their energy used to buy our products or to use whatever we offer them to use.

Mercy is not compassion. Compassion means going there and healing the person and that is not everyone's task. Those whose task needs compassion - doctors, nurses, mothers - cannot forget compassion is the basis of their lives and it can never be missing there.

But a few people would accept pity from others. No matter how bad is their shape, pity is not an option as it is depleted of respect.

Perhaps our brothers and sisters of the world are in a real bad shape and sometimes, we have to extend our hands and give something extra. Still, we don't need pity to do that. We can do out of compassion, a deep sense of compassion, going beyond mercy and with the clear knowledge that person is capable and soon will be walking by themselves. It is a feeling like a doctor or nurse has, who knows their patient one day will be out there, healed.

Next time you have to serve someone, open your heart and just let those feelings emerge, and watch for the outcome.

Finding the truth

I can't say I have been looking for the truth, but since I was a child, I was looking for something that was not present in my life. I have dedicated myself to read and learn as much as possible, but with no clear aim in my mind, except to understand my context. Unknowingly, I have been looking for the truth since I was a child.

One of the Hinduism ideas is that we are all living a big illusion... That is not far from the fact our society is more and more into things that provide us satisfaction, even though it is an illusion. A proof of that is the fact we give much more importance to industry than to agriculture; salaries, status, comments in the media, all show it. However, we can live without industry, but nobody can live without food. The reflection of that illusion in our economy is so big that a country is known as developed according to its own industries.

Similarly, we have surrounded ourselves - and I, as an individual, have surrounded myself - of things that give me the sense of comfort, satisfaction and happiness. But, in reality, most of it is an illusion. How to be free from it? By finding the truth about yourself and your life, about others and the world in general.

Looking for the truth is not something you can do using Google, nor even going to a library. It takes time, but, yes, you have to start somewhere, and Google and your local library is a nice beginning. Here are a few questions that can help you in that research.

• Who am I? Beyond my known identity, what are my main characteristics?
• Who is God? If you don't believe in God, what is your Higher Source of energy, power and love?
• What is really happening in the world? Rather than a superficial analysis, how everything is connected?
• What are my aims in life at the moment? Beyond my job and other responsibilities, what do I really expect from myself?
• Which help do I need to accomplish whatever I want to accomplish?

I wish you success in this necessary and beautiful quest.

How to get success ALL THE TIME

I know... this is a world that pushes you, pulls you and it seems you are forced to be successful. ALWAYS.

I have been working on this for a long time now initially for the sensation of being a total loser - no success on my path. Later, I started to experience success here and there. And I have been observing my own personal process.

Sometimes my success is short-lived, like winning a Solitaire game or getting that job I was really wanting. Listen to me: the feeling is almost identical. And for that reason, I have become more and more detached from this type of success. Spirituality has helped me a lot. Of course, I am human and I still celebrate when his type of success knows at my door (not the Solitaire game anymore...).

There is another type of success, the long-life one. You know, it is that act of success that changed your whole life. I have felt that many times and it is a wonderful feeling. The greatest I remember happened when I traveled abroad first time. The feeling of freedom has never left me and every time I travel, I still feel as that first time. Long-life success goes with you and it becomes part of your life, forever.

And then there is that success you feel you are going to get it. It is not expectation, which creates confusion and anxiety, but it is like when sow a seed and start to see it growing... You know the fruit will come eventually and the time it takes, is a time to invest in other things and situations. That is the kind of feeling I am having more and more, and it is wonderful as it motivates me to perform even better in whatever I do. In fact, it stimulates me to BE better.

The last type of success is specifically for spiritual people and those who work on affirmations and it is when success comes disguised as failure. In fact, ask any successful person if they have had failures in their lives and the answer will always be YES. What you and I do with failure, which is something different... You can turn failure into a step of success. Failure can become learning or a chance for progress. Failure can be a sign on the road of life indicating you shouldn't be doing that. Failure is a very powerful tool for those who only think in terms of success.

In reality, thinking this way will make you feel you are successful, no matter what happens in your life. Try it, you will enjoy!