Hi! It’s enthusiasm time again.
Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog here.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
I’m a big fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of such books as Antifragile, The Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness). Here’s a Taleb quote that’s resonating with me this week:
“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behaviour, not because they won or lost.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or in the comments below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
This quote from the wonderful author Philip K Dick never gets old for me:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
2. Something I’m blown away by (Wonderland X)
I met Kate E. Stokes about 18 months ago when she was early in her exploration of the principles behind clarity. She told me about a vision she had for using Virtual Reality films to give people a rich, 3D experience of the inside-out nature of life.
Later Kate told me about some stories she was working on, based on Alice In Wonderland, but adapted to give people a glimpse of the principles behind our experience.
I said it sounded amazing.
Fast forward a few months, and she’d received funding from YouTube to make the films, and they launched a few weeks ago. The result is “Wonderland X”. If you’ve got VR goggles, put them on, but you can also watch them on a regular screen. As Kate puts it…
Follow the White Rabbit… Join Alice in Wonderland as she explores the nature of human experience. Fall down the rabbit hole of how reality is really created and return to your own Wonderland with a greater understanding of where Insight, resilience and clarity come from. Fall blissfully out of your thinking…
You can watch the films on YouTub here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLqVUdImljtynd-8lyhehN1iNjX_iDwq6
3. This week’s glimpse of the future
Alibaba’s warehouse can process 18,000 parcels an hour by using sorting robots. This is a mind-blowing glimpse of the future that’s already with us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShMJoRYDgPM&feature=youtu.be
4. Something that’s close to my heartAs you may know, our mission as a company is to inspire and educate a generation to experience lives of clarity, resilience and wellbeing. One of the realisations we’ve had is that to do that, we need to have a lot more people who are comfortable and effective at sharing the principles behind clarity.
As a next step towards that, I’ve just been creating a new video series called, “The Step-By-Step Guide to Sharing the Principles Like a Pro”
Whatever you call it… whether you’ve had insights into the 3 principles, had a realisation about your true nature, been resonating with the inside-out understanding or been touched by what I call ‘subtractive psychology’…
If you want to share this understanding in a way that feels natural and comfortable – in a way that has the people around you having their own life-changing insights – then this concise free video-series is designed for you.
(Of course, if you’re already sharing the principles professionally, feel free to go have a look and see how what I’m saying squares with your experience).
We’re releasing the videos this week. Here are the titles of the seven videos:
I guarantee that just going through this video series will have an impact on your ability to share what you’ve realised in a way that feels natural and has people wanting to hear more – stuff that you can put into action and see real-world results immediately – as long as you watch each video and answer the questions I put to you while you’re watching them (and you can relax – they’re questions you’re going to realise you know the answers to).
By the way – we’re taking the series down at the end of April, so let’s get moving!
Would you like to watch the videos? You can get free access to the whole series here.
(If you’ve been feeling uncomfortable or nervous about sharing what you’ve learned, I’ve got some good news for you: The fact that you’ve been touched by this understanding means that you have the capacity to share it with others, in a way that fits perfectly with who you really are.)
5. This week’s 3 minute miracle
I’ve recently become aware of Akira the Don, a DJ and musician who’s creating a new music genre he calls ‘meaningwave’. He takes clips of inspirational speakers and mixes them into lofi hiphop soundscapes. Sounds dreadful, right? WRONG! It’s brilliant. Here’s a taste of his Alan Watts piece called, “Ordinary Everyday Consciousness. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhWo3jNtG6c&list=PLQUliLxVLcV51RQlrLmJ2e8vEQVxB_kL-&index=4&t=0s
That’s it for this week!
Jamie
Jamie Smart, Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PS We’ve only got ONE place left… Of the 12 places on this year’s Clarity Life Transformation Retreat which I’m leading with my dear friends and mentors, Jan and Chip Chipman, 11 of the places have been taken.The information about the retreat is here: https://www.jamiesmart.com/clarity-retreat/
The dates are 12-18 May, and it’s a significant financial investment (£5,495), but if you think you could be the right person for that last spot, hit reply to this email, change the subject line to RETREAT and tell me a little bit about yourself. We can jump on a call and find out if it’s good fit for you and vice-versa. Jamie
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
The subject of free speech is one that’s incredibly important, and appears to be increasingly under threat. While Noam Chomsky is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, he’s very on-point in this statement about the importance of free speech:
“Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
In a recent ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on his podcast, Sam Harris was answering a question about what careers he would advise. He talked (of course) about the advance of technology, and avoiding jobs likely to be automated soon. He also said that the careers which would likely be the last to be automated were those involving human creativity, taste and insight. This is a point I made in-depth in my book RESULTS. Here’s what Harris said about the importance of relationships:
“I think lawyers and accountants and many other white-collar jobs will be automated away before seemingly more menial jobs will be. Obviously we will want to remain in relationship to other people, so careers that give primacy to relationships – being a psychotherapist, or a coach – seems to me to give much more primacy to the relationship than being an oncologist does.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
In my 2013 book CLARITY, I made the point that “just as factory workers need to keep their machines clean and well oiled, knowledge workers, creatives, managers and leaders need to take similar care of their minds.” I pointed out that individuals and businesses are paying the price as time-scarcity, attention- poverty and information-saturation clog the “mental machinery” we rely on. I just read an article in the Financial Times saying that the Global Risks Report has just arrived at a similar conclusion. Here’s what it said:
“In many ways, the mental health issues we face are similar to the physical health and safety challenges of the 19th century as industrialisation changed the nature of work. In the 21st century, mental health and safety rules could play a similar role in our increasingly knowledge-based economy, according to the Global Risks Report.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
One of the things I do from time to time is transcribe recordings by people who have something interesting to say. The person whose recordings I’ve transcribed the most is Sydney Banks, and I learn a huge amount every time I do it. The one I’ve done most recently is a talk called “The Oneness of Life” from his series, “The Hawaii Lectures”. Here’s a line from it that’s resonating with me and the promise I see these principles holding for humanity:
“Right now, you’re all sitting enlightened… and you don’t know it… you know that saying, ‘I am what I seek’?… that’s the oneness of life… and the oneness of life… is the greatest thing in the world that you can realise… and I hope someday, that everybody in this world can realise that… that’d be a marvellous thing…”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
I came across a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestley written in 1780. While humanity has now gone far beyond what Franklin imagined when it comes to the physical sciences, it seems to me that we’re just on the threshold of what he hoped for in the domain he calls ‘moral science’:
“The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my Regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried in a 1000 Years the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity & give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labour & double its Produce. All Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a Way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
This week saw 8 years since the death of the magnificent Christopher Hitchens. He was a passionate defender of free speech; a voice we need now more than ever. This week’s quote is from one of his influences, John Stuart Mill:
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
Ray Kurzweil is one of the most accurate futurists of all time. In the 1990s he made over 140 predictions about what life would be like today. 86% of them were accurate and timely. One of the things that informs his predictions as a futurist is his understanding of the exponential nature of technology:
“Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.”
It’s enthusiasm time again. Let me know what you think via twitter at @JamieSmartCom, on my Facebook page, or on my blog below.
1. A quote I’m resonating with this week
I’ve been listening to an old Syd Banks recording (one I’ve heard many times) but these sentences leapt out at me today. Of course, Banks would be the first to say that you can’t actually get rid of the ego, but the thing that struck me here was this: that phrase, “Oh God, I want nothing to do with it.” I suddenly heard the ‘aversion’ to the ego; the instinctive sense that while it may always be with us, it isn’t worth paying attention to.
“You gotta destroy the ego… throw it away, oh God I want nothing to do with it… really, this is where freedom is…”