Walking The Talk

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it!


Walking The Talk. Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it! Photograph of an expedition leader leads his team up a snowy mountain.


The purpose of this article is to launch a new series of articles on the general subject of Walking The Talk.

I believe that those us who put ourselves out there with blogs and sites on various aspects of personal development have a duty of care to our readers to be open and to share our personal experiences of the topics covered.

The walking the talk articles that I am posting in this series are all based directly or indirectly on my personal experiences.

Life is short, time is precious, and I have reached and age and stage in life where I have little interest in shooting the breeze, sounding off, and offering opinion pieces for readers' entertainment.

My purpose with this website, and very specifically in this series of articles, is to attempt to offer insights, practical tips and resources that have benefited me and that readers may find helpful.

By way of introduction, I would like to share the following thoughts.








Walking The Talk Or Fleecing The Flock?

Fleecing the flock

The world of self-improvement, self-help and personal development is full of people making money out of their websites and blogs, it is a multi-billion dollar business.

Whilst on the one hand I can understand why people will charge for training course and associated services and I support this - to a point. All too often this can become exploitative.

Why?

Because of 4 inter-connected reasons which are well known to, and skillfully exploited by, the purveyors of self-help material:


[1] The Sun Tan Effect

You spend your money and go on these courses, attend the events, and watch the videos and in the short-term it seems to make a difference and you feel energized and motivated to change.

But after 10-15 days it all starts to wear off and after a month or less you are back to where you started - with no lasting change.

In the self help industry this is known as the "The Sun Tan Effect". This suits the sellers of self-help material because they know that another factor will now kick in.


[2] If Only I Could Find The Missing Piece...?

The up-sell in so much of the self-help industry is deliberately designed to exploit this innate and increasingly desperate desire to find the missing piece, and of course this involves spending more money so like the lady in the song you're buying your stairway to heaven...

Except there's one unstated and under-recognised factor at play which is that you can't change because at a very fundamental and unconscious level you don't really want to change.


[3] Immunity To Change

Your immunity to change is an unconscious resistance that  can be defined as a "hidden commitment" with an underlying root cause, that competes and conflicts with a stated commitment to change.

So, your failure to achieve a personal change goal isn’t the result of a lack of will-power, it’s your "emotional immune system" trying to protect you.

This is why you find it hard to impossible to stick to New Year resolutions, why you don't do those things you know you should do, and why you will likely stay stuck and trapped in the thought processes and behaviours that you are trying to change - because despite your best intentions you fundamentally don't want to change.

[4] Instant Success

You can achieve a very quick relief to stress symptoms and you can make powerful changes to how you think and behave but lasting change take time, hard work and the formation and application of the right habits.

Contrary to what so many of the self-help gurus tell you there is no instant success.

They tell you what you want to hear and they over-promise what they can not deliver, and they stop walking the talk.

Success in most areas of life is the result of persistence and consistence in taking the series of small daily steps that will deliver your goals.

This is known as the long game.


Shout Out!

Big respect to popular blogger Mark Manson who  has just announced that after 13 years he is stopping writing about personal development:

"...it's time for me to move on from the self-help world... the point is to stop."



    In the competitive world of self-help "smoke and mirrors" always watch the other guy's feet to see his true intentions.

    When there is a disconnect between someone's words and actions, always pay close attention to their actions.









Walking The Talk And Shepherding The Flock

The Good Shepherds Take Care Of Their Flock



    "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me." [Bible: John 10.14]


The good shepherd

In my view, if you have something to offer people who are having a hard time the very least you can do is to provide a level of free, quality teaching, advice and support - sufficient to help them on their way.

The reference point on all this is the Buddha, Jesus Christ and Mahatma Ghandi and not Esther Hicks, Rhonda Byrne and Tony Robbins.

Good shepherds are walking the talk, and they lead their flock in the right direction, and do their best to take care of them. Good shepherds  don't charge for the privilege of providing basic care.









    Just because someone looks the part doesn't mean they are...















Walking The Talk Freestyle

Freestyle

This is a website and not a blog. As you know, a blog presents pages in reverse chronological order, so newest content appears first whereas a website is static in nature and pages are indexed in a hierarchical structure.

The easiest way of thinking about this is to view a blog as a published journal and a website as a book with an index and chapters.

Another key feature of a website is SEO.

95% of the articles on this site are search engine optimized [SEO]. This means that these articles are written in a style and format that will be attractive to search engines, who will in turn present this site's content to their users as the best solution to their search enquiry.

A core component of SEO is the use of carefully selected in-demand keywords and optimising them on the posted pages.

Whilst there is a strong discipline in this approach in that it leads to very focused and "on subject" material, it is also constraining.

For example, if I choose to write about a subject, then to meet SEO criteria I have to find the exact in-demand keywords and use them in a carefully prescribed content-format and page-structure.

Whereas a blog style of writing offers a much more freestyle approach, and I would not give any thought or consideration to keywords and SEO.


Freestyle

All of the upcoming articles I am going to write and link to this page are going to be freestyle articles, that is to say, blog style articles presented in a website structure.

All walking the talk articles will be fully indexed to this page and cross referenced to relevant material on this site or third party resources.

The focus of these articles is about living with, and applying, the extensive materials and resources that are already on this site.

Most of the pages on this site are very content rich, and this is deliberate. I try to cover as much ground as possible in each article paying attention to the complexities of the subject matter whilst attempting to present the material in an easy to read format.

In these walking the talk articles I am attempting to adopt a more informal, relaxed and conversational tone with a narrower focus to each article and with a key point takeaway at the end of each piece.

Comments and feedback  are always welcome







Walking The Talk Articles

Dec 24

Master The Art Of Drawing The Bow - Focus On Process Not Outcome

And So This Is Christmas...

Nov 24

Curiosity Skilled The Cat - Optimize For Interesting

Let Stillness Speak - Living Within A Complex System

Sept 24

Understanding Complex Systems Thinking - It's Not Complicated

Stay On The Bus - When To Keep On Going

Zen Thoughts Email Series - Conversations With A Friend

Aug 24

How to Get What You Value by Changing What You Measure

July 24

How to Become A Master At Overcoming Hard Moments

Drop The Story - Deal With Your Demons and Transform Your Experience

June 24

Standing In The Gap Between No Longer And Not Yet

Preparing The Ground - For Things You Can Not See

May 24

Easing The Weight Of Expectation

April 24

Coram Deo - Living In Consciousness

The Power Of Patience - Why You Need The World's Toughest Quality

Mar 24

Demonizing The Other and Personal Acts Of Compassion

Feb 24

Amazing Grace - The Majesty And The Mercy of Freedom From Your Pain

Jan 24

Are You Aligned With Reality? Or Do You See What You Believe?

The Law Of Response And Outcome - A New Approach To A New Life

Dec 23

One Love - The Universal Language of Unity and Compassion

Clear Thinking- Turning Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Results

Oct 23

The Greatest Love - The Most Important Relationship You Will Ever Have

Sept 23

Everything Is Connected And Why You Don't Feel It

Aug 23

Who Is In Charge Of Your Brain - How Not To Be Stupid

July 23

How To Be A Winner - The Incredible Benefits Of Selective Attention

The Metagame Approach To Life - How To Achieve Your Biggest Objectives

Shantideva - The Way Of The Bodhisattva

June 23

Reframing History - Deconstruction And Discussion Not Destruction

April 23

What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?

Mar 23

The Failure Of Cancel Culture - It's Suppression Not Engagement

Feb 23

Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent

Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks

Jan 23

How To Influence without Authority - 6 Key Tips

Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes

Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life

Dec 22

Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line

The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!

Nov 22

The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining BuyIn

The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win

Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed

Oct 22

The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And Vice Versa

5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life

Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating

Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival

Dealing With Imposter Syndrome

How To Benefit From The Unseen Margins - 5 Key Tips For Success


Sept 22

The Art Of Thinking Clearly - How To Do More Than Just Survive And Reproduce

Algorithms to Live By - 5 Useful Rules Of Thumb

Finding Signal In The Noise - How To Avoid The Noise Bottleneck

Aug 22

The Checklist Manifesto - Your Personal Safety Net

How Not To Be Stupid - 3 Key Tips

Beginners Mind And The Voice Of Experience

The Art Of Being Alone Is A Skill - Let's Make Today A Good Day

Intuition & Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Calling Here?

Like A Prayer - Life Is A Mystery

Fear Of Missing Out - "I'll Have What She's Having!"

Finish What You Start - Action Will Destroy Your Procrastination

July 22

Going The Extra Mile - The Power Of One More

Tao Te Ching - How To Be Lived By The Tao

Dying To Self - Everything Does Not Revolve Around Me

The Confident Mind - 4 Keys To Peak Performance

8 Principles For Success

The Loving Father - A Love That Will Not Let You Go

June 22

Your Ebenezer Stone Of Help

Going With The Flow - The Balance Of Being And Doing

The Stockdale Paradox - How To Deal With The Attrition Factor

Embrace Your Fear Of Failure And Uncertainty

Your Relationship With Failure Is Critical To Your Success

Boredom - Your Greatest Threat to Results

May 22

The Luck Factor - 4 Principles

The Wilderness Years - 3 Keys To An Exit

Lost Stuck & Going Round In Circles?

Seeing Is Believing Or Is It?

What Difference Did You Make?

Compassion Is Selfish And You Need It

This Is What Will Happen After You Take The Red Pill

April 22

Transformational Life Hacks

This Too Shall Pass

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Mar 22

Who Do You Trust?

How Positive Asymmetry Can Transform Your Life

Growth Mindset - How To Be There When Preparation Meets Opportunity

Lost For Words? Experience Truth

Belief - A Terrible Tyrant Or An Empowering Servant

Feb 22

Herd Mentality And How To Avoid It

Are You Trying To Teach A Cat To Bark?

The Value Of Slack

6 Tips To Help You Stop Trying Too Hard

How To Build Your Self Confidence

Your Secret For Success

Where Is Your Point Of Focus

How To Overcome Fear And Perform Powerfully

Jan 22

Dance Into The Light And Stop Chasing Your Tail

Change Your Language To Change How You Feel

How To Live In A Participatory Universe

4 Keys To Working With The Energy Of Life

How To Deal With The Challenges Of Playing The Long Game


Dec 21

If You Don't Take Care Of You, Who Will?

Pay Attention To What Bothers Other People About You

Be The Light At The End Of Someone Else's Tunnel

Asking The Right Questions

Learn How To Benefit From The Fat Tail Fractal Factor

Dunbar's Number, More In Common And The Narcissism of Minor Differences


Nov 21

Give Thanks In Everything

Recognising Limbo As A Stage Of Transition

On Becoming The Ferryman

Things Of The Spirit

Mind Games & How To Free Yourself From Them

Just Do It - A Call To Action And Getting Started

Self Dialogue - Dealing With Your Many Selves

The Transformative Power of Acceptance

Can You Stop Thinking? Discover The Joy Of A Quiet Mind

Are You Waiting For Change?

4th November 2021











Walking The Talk - Resources



All of these resources are tools, processes and techniques that I have used. These are powerful tools and I recommend them to you. [I have no commercial interest.]








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LATEST ARTICLES

  1. Curiosity Skilled The Cat - Optimize For Interesting

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  2. Let Stillness Speak - Living Within A Complex System

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  5. Zen Thoughts Email Series

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  8. Drop The Story - Deal With Your Demons and Transform Your Experience

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