What is your Philosophy?

Philosophy. I've been reading Jim Rohn recently. If you're interested in listening to some nitty gritty profound thinking and ideas which will inspire you to do all you can do and become all you can become then I strongly encourage to seek him out and read and listen to him. He deals with reality, not wishful thinking.

Here's a few things that I've jotted down. Influence is very powerful, especially the influence of others. It's important to ask:

1. With whom do I spend time?
2. What are they doing to me?
3. Is this association okay with me?

Ponder these questions. If you're not sure, ask:

• What have they got me doing?
• What have they got me listening to?
• What have they got me reading?
• Where have they got me going?
• What have they got me thinking?
• How have they got me talking?
• How have they got me feeling?
• What have they got me saying?

And lastly, after you have pondered these, ask, "Are my associations helping me grow in the direction I have chosen through goal setting?". Do they hurt me or help me?
If you're not sure, it may be time to evaluate some of your key associations in your life. Influence can happen little by little, a nudge here and a nudge there over time which you may not notice, until one day you say, "Hey, how did I get all the way over here?!" So, this matters. Everything matters. It might be necessary to disassociate entirely with people who find a great deal of pleasure holding you back, pecking away at your goals and dreams: you need to move away from that influence. Life can be less simple especially if it's family members or business associates with whom you need to spend some amount of time. In that case, try limited association - perhaps spend less time; or relaxed, relatively unimportant time with them if they derive pleasure in pecking away at you! Don't squander major time on minor things. Or do minor things in major time.
Here's another thought...where we end up is not determined so much by the winds of our circumstances but by the set of our sail. The same wind blows on us all. If the wind changes, we can reset our sail to get to where we plan to go; change our plans - get a new sail. Have you ever thought about this? Is your sail even raised? What's your plan?
This is one to ponder: is becoming a millionaire important? £1,000,000? To some it's "yes - what a lot of money!?" To some it's "no", because money is not that important. Both these focus on the money part. How about a different philosophy? What if having a £1,000,000 is not the issue, so much as who you'd have to become to achieve that goal? If it's something that you can do, should you? Could you? Will you? Ask, "What kind of person would I have to become to achieve that? Who would I need to know? What do I need to ask? What skills would I need to learn - interpersonal skills, business skills, financial skills? How do I need to see my time? What plans would I need to create? What would I need to learn to plan my day, my week, my month before they are finished? How would I need to grow and learn from changes in my circumstances - setting and re-setting my sail?" What does my philosophy need to be? Imagine what you will become as a result of that journey!
One last thought from Jim Rohn: "be happy with what you have while pursuing what you want. And beware...beware of what you become while pursuing what you want". Don't sacrifice your values, your integrity, important things and relationships. You don't need to pay that kind of price to do what you can and become all you can become. These are part of the ingredients - nuture these.

Tax 'un-avoidance'?

Sorry no Blagdon pictures or stories of wasps today. It seems that tax experts are looking to the HM Revenue and Customs to earn a few quid since being made redundant from the tax departments of banks and multinational companies. By employing these experts, the tax department, HMRC, believes it will help them work out how tax lawyers and accountants find loopholes in the legislation and how they can be closed so that the Treasury can maximise the tax revenue they can receive in these times of lower tax revenues and large public debt. Hmmm...

"There's no such thing as can't"

Last Wednesday, the question came up on the Community Soul group on Linked In about who was the most influential person in our lives. Well, I mentioned Jesus Christ, of course, although while being 100% Man, Christians accept him also as 100% God. So, I also added John Laing the builder. His biography is fantastic; he's a man very high on integrity and his life and how he lived it is inspiring.

Closer to home, and by no means least, the other people are my parents - high on integrity; always did what they said they would do and I realise always put the whole family i.e. me, my brother and them as a whole, above their interests. They gave us time. There may not have been a lot of money about, but they sacrificed to take an interest in us, give us time and we did things as a family when we were growing up. In that respect, we were very fortunate indeed.

Then also my grandad...he was a Royal Marine during WW2; joined up at the start in 1939 and managed to get shot up with a large calibre machine gun which also blew up a mine in front of him just 2 weeks before the war was over in 1945. As a result, he lost one and a half lungs and a leg while he spent the next 48 hours alone behind enemy lines in Holland applying his own morphine and tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Although he suffered badly from his wounds throughout the rest of his 52 years after the war, he always said that he was more fortunate than many of his mates; he just ploughed on and got on with it stubbornly refusing to let it stop him being active. Whenever I said I could not do something he always said, "No such thing as can't". That exhortation is very simple and it has always stuck with me.