Archive for July, 2009

By Seamus Anthony

“Business is a good game, lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money.” Bill Gates

The above quote moved me when I first read it because as a wanna-be entrepreneur of many years, I always struggled with bringing my ideas out and into the marketplace successfully – purely (I now know) because my definition of success was fuzzy.

You see, for me, money is not a great motivator. It is abstract and boring. You want to know what I think when I look at my bank account balance?

“Oh … some numbers … “

There are other currencies that I find way more exciting. For example – applause.

Sad, I know, but once you have stood on stage in front a crowd that’s wildly applauding and cheering what you just did – well, sorry to say, “some numbers” just doesn’t compare.

This is why I have always rolled my eyes when people say (about an aging, wealthy performer) “Oh he’s only in it for the money these days”. I bet that’s not the reason at all. Once you have a lot of money, it is pretty easy to stay rich by investing your money sensibly.

They do it for the buzz.

How I Motivate Myself To Earn Money

Of course, applause is all very well. But the fact is that unless you are getting a LOT of claps, you ain’t getting much money, and no money means a pain in the backside and then some.

So of course, like most people, I have to get up each day and earn my keep.

So I use the Bill Gates quote above to motivate me. I view business as a game and the score as money. I am not a businessman – I am a key player in the internationally televised…

World Series MoneyBall Grand Slam

This gets me way more excited and motivated because, as my friends will tell you, I am very competitive when it comes to games. Personally, while I keep it all in the spirit of fun, I can’t see the point of participating in a game without trying to win. Whether it’s a ball game in the backyard or a board game, you can be sure that if I am going to bother play at all – I play to win.

And yes, I get a bit pissed when I lose. It’s just how I’m wired up.

The Point Is To Get Points On The Board

I know that sounds horribly shallow. I know I should probably say: the point is to make the world a better place by helping others – and actually that is my other main motivational drive, but it is hard to think about the problems of the world all day. So instead I just focus on business being a game, and money being the points on the board.

In fact I do this quite literally: I have a whiteboard and on that I write up the name of the current month and a sales goal and then I write up each buck as it hits the bank – but ONLY when it hits the bank.

Because you haven’t scored a goal until the ball travels between the posts, you know what I mean? All money is speculative until it is in your hands.

One in the hand is worth two in the bush, dudes.

I don’t know why this motivates me to make money, but for some reason it does. I do have other motivations: things I want to buy or do which cost money – and most important of all – the welfare of my wife and child. Working from home is great because if the game isn’t going very well at any point, I can take a coffee break, walk into the house, clap eyes on my lovely ladies, and suddenly I am instantly amped to get back out on the field and score some quick-fire goals.

By the way, I am totally not (and never have been) a jock, so I have no idea why this whole game analogy works for me, but then Bill Gates wasn’t a jock either.

What fires you up to make money? Or do you just find the whole thing repulsive?

For more motivational goodness check out The Essential Motivation Handbook

By Seamus Anthony

What follows is the massively-inspired, half-drunk process of me trying to finally define what “Rebel Zen” means in a slogan …

Rebel Zen: It’s not about being perfect – it’s about being alive.

or

Exploring what it means to be alive…

or maybe

Exploring what it means to be human…

or

… and the Glorious Art of Being Imperfect

Yes! That’s it!

Rebel Zen and the Glorious Art of Being Imperfect!

‘Cos to me that is the point – it is about what it means to be a human – warts and all.

What it feels like to be alive; the search for meaning, for authenticity, what it feels like.

The very thing artists strive to express – musicians, poets, madmen.

Forsaking fantasies of perfection – Zen as in “being here now”, whether that feels good or not.

What it feels like to be a human being, with all the inherent imperfection and beauty and baggage that comes part-and-parcel with it it.

What IT means.

THIS.

What THIS all means.

Meaning – and the absence of meaning.

The glorious, never-ending, futile, wonderful search for meaning and our compulsion to look forward when it, this, the answers are here now.

But they aren’t here now at all. They are elusive, or we would find already and stop searching.

The continual paradox of apparent meaninglessness coupled with our insatiable desire for meaning.

The Yin and Yang play-off of ‘Meaningless Life’ and ‘Awareness’.

What THIS feels like – and the validity of this experience.

This is what Rebel Zen means to me – if it must be defined – that we live, impermanently, meaninglessly, and that – surely – THIS is okay…

…but somehow it’s not,

….but somehow it is,

…and on and on without resolution …

Without resolution but with an aching wonder, a beauty, a Love…

… a dream.

…. a dream framed by razors and barbed wire

… and then framed again with clouds of forgiveness and Love …

… and on and on and on without resolution.

Until … ?

Yes … I bloody LOVE it … Rebel Zen … is

The Glorious Art of Being Imperfect

By Seamus Anthony

If you are anything like me then you are sometimes a messy blob of anxiety, stress and over-imaginative worry.

Between you and me, I think we should get over ourselves already and get on with enjoying our lives while we still have the chance. Easier said than done? Here are some unconventional ways to help you live a little:

Take Some Time Out To Really Imagine The Worst

There’s a lot of advice out there about setting aside some time to visualize all the good things that you’d like to come into your life – you know – the whole Law of Attraction thing.

Have you ever actually watched The Secret?

I mean – pluh-eeez … as IF!

I think far better advice is to throw out your superstitious hokey-pokey and get real. Spend some time conjuring up all the worst things that could happen. I do this sometimes and I find that by naming my fears I somehow strip them of their power.

I think ‘what if “that” happened?’ And ‘what if ‘THAT” happened’. After a little while of doing this I just get fear-fatigue and I realize there is nothing to do except A) take all reasonable precautions, B) hope for the best and C) relax and get on with enjoying the moment as best I can.

Oh yeah – and in case you are worried that by focussing on the worst you will magically attract the very scenarios you want to avoid – put that out of your mind – it’s woo-woo nonsense.

Seriously – that’s like worrying that airline safety teams are in fact inviting distaster by going over all the possible malfunctions that might beset an aircraft. If those guys didn’t do exactly that there is NO WAY I would get in a plane!

Just Do Things When and If You Feel Like It

One day you’ll be dead – and will it matter that you did or did not have the self-discipline to power through all those boring to-do list items that really sucked? Probably not.

Go Out and Get Pissed

Or go bungy jumping or whatever. My point is, you gotta just let it all hang out and be a hairy beast for a while every now and then.

I was at this (very nice) guy’s house the other day and he was proudly telling me how he never drinks very much and how he has a nice new white carpet and a nice new beige car . And I kid you not – his trousers were beige too.

Lovely guy mind you, I really like him – but for God’s sake – do you want to be like that? Are you already? ‘Cos being boring is fine some of the time – even most of the time – but for the love of Pete you gotta have some fun sometimes!

So get amongst it, I say. Hang out with the hairy people for a night. Live a little.

And beware of becoming one of the beige people, take it from Billy Connolly.

Dwell In The Angst

This is similar to focussing on the worst that can happen but this is more about focussing on the bad feelings that are messing with you.

I accidently came across this liberating technique way back when I was first experimenting with meditation. I was trying to establish a routine of meditating every day whether I felt like it or not. Well, on one particular day I certainly did not feel like it: I was so depressed and anxious that I could barely think (I was partying very hard at the time, even for me, and this was leaving me strapped out).

Nevertheless, I sat down to try and meditate anyway but I couldn’t get into it because I was squirming with an angst that was so acute it was manifesting itself physically: I literally felt like I was crawling out of my skin.

I felt like giving up and lighting a joint. Even though I knew that this wouldn’t really help much, I was just about to get up and do that when a “voice” said to me “Stay and dwell in the angst”.

Listen To The Voices In Your Head

Now I don’t know about you, but when I hear “voices” I listen up good. Maybe they lose their impact if they never stop, but thankfully my voices keep to themselves most of the time, so I just went with it and tried to “dwell in the angst”.

At first it was horrible. I focussed all my attention on how horribly stressed and anxious I felt, and for a few minutes it was almost more than I could bear. I  was in tears (and I usually find it very hard to cry properly).

But then all of a sudden the angst just lifted. It was gone and I felt quite calm and relaxed – quite fine.

Somehow by listening to the voices in my head and dwelling in the angst like I was told, I worked through the stress and anxiety that was knocking me around. Instead of pushing it down with more drugs or distraction, I acknowledged and paid attention to how I felt. To my surprise, that was pretty much all that was actually required to quell the bad feelings.

So there you have it – no doubt the sanest advice you’ve ever read: Imagine the worst, get pissed, be irresponsible, listen to voices in your head and meditate on feeling really crap. Regulation stuff really.

Photo by StuartPilbrow

By Seamus Anthony

One of the most liberating things you can realize in life is that there are no rules.

People will try to tell you there are – but it’s not true.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there are no consequences for your actions. There most certainly are, but my point stands – you can choose to find happiness and success your way and without buying into somebody else’s self-serving nonsense.

And even better, there are so many people (ordinary, non-guru people) online and off, just waiting to help you make up your own mind by chipping in their own angle on “Life, the Universe and Everything”.

We Don’t Need No Guru – We ARE the Guru!

In fact, in this Age of Connectivity, and on the heels of the Information Age, we can not only find enough information to make up our minds, to find our own ways to worldly and/or spiritual success, but we can very easily find many people online willing to help, whether directly by conversing with you, or indirectly by publishing their own helpful content.

This is what I mean by “we are all the Guru”.

We, the collective voice, the millions of tiny voices, are the Collective Guru.

We don’t need no Guru – we ARE the Guru!

One of the reasons I ever came up with the idea of a blog called “Rebel Zen” was because I was sick of reading self-serving clap-trap by self-help and spiritual gurus that set themselves up as being “holier than thou” and practically perfect in all respects. These Gurus of Shame pretend that it is their job to make you feel better but in fact what they do is subtly make you feel ashamed about yourself and your all-too-human failings.

The Business of Reinforcing ‘Perceived Lack’

These bleach-toothed, shoulder-padded monsters parade a (probably semi-fictitious) image of themselves through different types of media, and rabbit on in their books and conferences about how they are so incredibly disciplined that they never put on any weight, or feel distant from God, or struggle to find a satisfying, life-affirming way to make money.

And why? To create a “perceived lack”, that’s why.

By setting themselves up as almost perfect, they create a tension between where your (real) life is right now and where your (fantasy) life is.

You might not want to hear this about your favorite self-help guru, but they are trying to pull the same trick on you as those entities we commonly perceive as “soulless” and “evil” do.

Take for example the giant cosmetic companies; their ads pretend to help you, but first they set-up a perceived problem. A problem that usually only exists if you believe it does – like wrinkles.

Wrinkles are only a problem if you think they are – otherwise they are just lines on your face, nothing more or less than that.

But the big cosmetic brands make ads that tell you that wrinkles are a problem, and then they sell you a solution. The greatest irony is that (as far as I know) most wrinkle creams don’t even do what they claim!

Well that’s what self-help gurus do. They create (or more likely, reinforce) a perceived lack or problem in your mind (you are too unsuccessful, you aren’t living your dreams, you aren’t fit and fabulous, you aren’t happy, you aren’t enlightened) then they tell you that they have the answers you need. So you buy the book or go to the workshop or buy the 7 CD set.

And then guess what? Their answers don’t work for you as quickly and easily as you’d hoped. And they don’t want them too? Why? Because if their answers work just like that every time, they’d soon run out of customers!

The Guru is Dead! Long Live The Guru!

Now don’t get me wrong, a quick squizz around this blog and you will find plenty of examples of top-down guru-like rants and preaching. Or you might anyway, I’m not sure. I guess I am just covering my own arse, as the charming saying goes.

But whether you do or don’t feel like this is the case, the truth of the matter is you are not a voiceless, passive audience member here. If you ever disagree (or agree for that matter) with anything written here you can leave a comment and within reason we will publish it. Debate is a good thing!

And of course you are free to publish your own blog – and in fact this is probably a good time to remind our readers that we are more than happy to consider guest posts here at Rebel Zen. We can’t pay anything just now, but if we dig your vibe we will publish you and link back to your blog or whatever, so by all means, add your voice to the Collective Guru and send us any articles you think are Rebel Zen in flavor to info@rebelzen.com

Photo by BotheredByBees

By Seamus Anthony

How do you motivate yourself? Do you struggle with motivation? I sure do and it really is a bummer when you have great ideas but can’t seem to get on with it and make them work.

Well folks, roll up, roll up! I have the solution to your problem and then some – read on!

How I Get Off My Lazy Butt And Get Things Done

You see I love to dream but to act is another matter. I am just not a huge fan of ‘hard’ work (I am sure many of you can relate). But still I manage to get a lot done. I put this down to two factors.

1. If ‘work’ is ‘hard’ then I find it very, very difficult to get going on it. However (and I am aware this is not a revolutionary concept) if I find the ‘work’ fun, then I love doing it and things get done.
2. However even when you are working on a project that is fun to large extent, there are still usually moments when the Big Fun Project requires some not-so-fun hard work. For example when I was in a band, the concerts were so much fun as to be almost unbelievable, but the hanging around all day, sick in the stomach with nerves, grinding through another boring sound-check? That was just a hard slog. But it had to be done …

And here’s the Greatest Motivational Secret In The World (Hey, it made a good headline, OK?)…

FEAR IS A GREAT MOTIVATOR

Put a gun to my head and I will do pretty much anything you ask.

Plonk me in a strange land with three kids to feed and I will work like a dog to make it in my new country of residence.

Tell me that 500 tickets have sold for the next show and I will rehearse all week and stick through the sound-check until everything sounds perfect.

Why?

Fear – that’s why.

Fear of a bullet in the head. Fear of starvation. Fear of public humiliation.

Fear of whatever – it’s a kick up the pants every time for sure.

How I Got Out Of Cubicle Hell By Burning My Boats

Last year I was at the point where I just couldn’t handle it anymore – working for the man that is.

But the trouble was even though I was forever coming up with truly excellent business ideas, plans and even launches, I never seemed to make enough money to be able to let my depressing full or part time employment go.

Until I realized that I wasn’t making my own entrepreneurial exploits profitable because I just wasn’t concerned about money. I have reasonably low living expenses, and even with the family to support I could just work half or three-quarter time and scrape by comfortably enough. Therefore I would work on the 1% of business ideas, the creative, inspirational aspects of them, until it was time to crack into the 99% hard work part of the game, then I would just let it slide and move on to a new idea because I had enough money to get by on.

I am just not that motivated by money; I need stimulation. But the flip-side to this was the work-a-day jobs were eating away at my soul. I needed to do something to force the change…

Introducing – the Fear Factor

So what I did was I burned the boats – I quit my job and told myself that it was sink or swim time.

This scared the shit out of me because while I don’t care about money much I sure as hell can’t live without it – and I have a wife and daughter to support!

Well, now our business, SquareEyes, (which I run with Steve who also manages this blog with me) is starting to do really well and I put this down to the Fear Factor.

Every morning I sit down at my desk and I know that if I don’t hustle then there’s no money coming in next week. That makes me scared – and that fear motivates me.

There Are Many Ways To Motivate Yourself

The trick is finding which motivational technique works for you.

The reason I got to typing about this topic this morning is because I just got a copy of The Essential Motivation Handbook by Leo Babauta, of ZenHabits fame and my online mate, Eric Hamm of the excellent and popular Motivate Thyself blog.

I haven’t finished the book yet, as of writing, but it’s not the kind of book that you read straight through because after you read a page or two you get all revved up and ready to rock.

By this I mean this book is sure to make you want to get on with it; it will you motivate you to get out there and achieve your dreams and then some.

I know it certainly got me going this morning. It got me thinking about what inspires me to act; what gets me off my lazy butt and into top gear. It inspired me to write this post.

And hey – you may not agree with all of their techniques but some of them are sure to work for you.

For example Leo says that he likes to use public accountability to motivate himself, but for me this doesn’t work so well.

Don’t get me wrong – in my endeavors I find that a certain level of indirect public accountability comes into play: when you quit your job it suddenly becomes everybody’s business (I wouldn’t be surprised if my friends and family are secretly taking bets on whether or not SquareEyes succeeds or fails). But for the most part I have found that publicly announcing “I am going to do THIS” just leads to failure. I am not sure why but my guess is that I am just too secure in myself (and too used to public failure!) that I don’t really care what people think of me beyond being seen as a good-hearted, constructive and law-abiding father, partner, friend, relative and member of society.

What I am saying is I have an ego with skin as thick as a rhino! If I fail, I fail. So what? I won’t stay up at night caring what any one else thinks of that. It just doesn’t concern me.

So there you go – try out the Fear Factor – see if it works for you. And I heartily recommend you click our affiliate link and buy this awesome new eBook The Essential Motivation Handbook – it is sure to get you off your couch and pushing on towards success, especially on those days where you just. can’t. be. bothered.

In case you need further convincing here is a list of the chapters. I think you’ll find this fine tome is choc-a-block full of motivational goodness:

1. How To Motivate Yourself
2. The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need
3. A Guide to Beating the Fears That Are Holding You Back
4. Task Ninja: Form the Action Habit
5. Top 20 Motivation Hacks
6. The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal
7. Progress, Progress, Progress! 5 Tips To Keep You Moving Forward
8. 7 Steps to Turn Your Self-Improvement Desires Into Reality
9. 25 Killer Actions to Boost Your Self-Confidence
10. 6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline
11. 16 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You’re in a Slump
12. 5 Tips For Motivational Recovery
13. The Magical Power of Focus
14. 10 Ways to Beat the “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Syndrome
15. 30 Incredible Places to Turn When You Need Inspiration
16. How To Deal With Negative Feedback
17. How to Doggedly Pursue Your Dreams in the Face of Naysayers
18. Achieve Your Dreams Despite Pressures of Work and Family
19. Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes
20. How to Actually Execute Your To-do List
21. The Yin And Yang Of Persistence
22. Enduring the Valley to Get to Success
23. How To Relax And Why It’s So Important
24. The Simple Guide To Single-Tasking Success
25. Stop Reading About It and Do It

Click here to view more details