What was the first thing you thought this morning when you woke up? I want you to think very hard about this because it’s what I believe to be one of the key factors in determining whether or not you are experiencing a good day, week, month, year…… life!

This morning I found myself cursing at my alarm clock. This is important to mention… I found myself cursing. I was cursing before I was even fully awake and didn’t fully realize the importance of such a thing until about half-way through today, when I decided to write this post. I then began to see the evidence of my unconscious, automatic behaviour at work determining my day’s mood.

I thought I was being clever this morning. Having the awareness that I was in a bad mood. I started telling myself that I wasn’t being very present and that the reason for this was because I didn’t get much sleep and I had to attend my shift at work instead of doing what I really wanted, which was to continue work on my latest musical project, but later, as I sat at work pondering the mornings passing’s, I realized that it all came down to that point when I awoke. On an unconscious level I chose to be grouchy today, no matter what, how or why! I had therefore configured my outlook to focus on all the things that I didn’t want today and as we all know, focusing on what you don’t want is a non-starter if you like feeling good about life…

There is no logical, rational reason for my tetchiness today. Any explanation for any feeling is simply laying blame to external causes of which there are none. To take responsibility I can say that I chose to be negative before I woke up and had already cemented that intention before I was awake enough to realize what I had done. Of course, I could so easily have not realized it at all and continued to find outside excuses for my feelings, meaning I would have been attaching false meanings to everyone and everything around me. For that realization I am truly grateful!

Do you realize what this means? Most of us, most of the time are doing our world a terrible injustice in not acknowledging the truth, instead projecting our own version of it back onto the world. That’s a lot of different truths by the way, no wonder there is conflict a lot of the time!

I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with this, its just that if you can spot it, like I did today and accept it then you have taken a big step in your own personal growth. It will make a difference when you know you can choose to have a great day; not necessarily blissful and happy and smiley every day, but great in that you are present to all that life has to give you, both supportive & challenging and you can make a difference.

Sometimes I sit down and just write. I’ll write anything and everything that pops into my head. Sometimes so many thinks are queued up waiting for my writing hand to catch up that some thoughts that come out disappear and get forgotten before I can write them down.

I have been trying lately to do this as often as possible. In fact I think it will serve me well to practice this every day as I think anyone who wishes to grow should do. This very post is a result of such activity today, edited of course into a context of some sort, but it looks as if this will become the foundation of my writing approach from now on. Leave The Office is already documenting my personal growth whether I intended it to or not, but now it is much more of a conscious process and therefore I can use it to achieve the life of my dreams.

So, on the subject of dreams and what dreams are made of. It may be better even to ask the question what are dreams made of? The idea of this question is to envoke some deep thinking into what really light you up inside. Everybody has different dreams to each other, but I am not asking about the content of your dream, but the fabric of it.

Our dreams are what drive us to do certain things when we are present to them and aware that our actions, determined by our thinking create what we experience in our lives. Everything in your life starts with you. The more you are in touch with your dreams and what it is you wish to become and experience in your life, the more likely you are to realize that dream. The details become as real as anything in the physical world, right now and by having such defined and refined details to focus on you will be aware enough to notice and act upon any opportunity that comes your way that will move you towards your dream.

What does this mean? Well if you are dreaming about being rich or successful, but have not put any details in that mental image then what is there to focus on? Most likely the point of focus will be that you are not rich or successful and any event or opportunity that arises that could help you toward your true dream will go unnoticed, or at best seen as an unimportant or even undesirable event.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I sat in front of my log stove, feeling the warmth and watching the flames dancing around with total abandon, without a care about who was watching them and after a while there was nothing between myself and the fire. I felt it’s energy and understood it. I was the fire. It’s very difficult to put into words without sounding all new-age and spirtiual, but I know how firmly I have my feet on the ground and I don’t feel strange conveying that experience. It felt like I was in a world where I was already living the life of my dreams. If the voices of doubt about your dream from outside or even your own "outside" negative voice is loud enough it will stop you dead in your tracks and your dream takes a sucker punch. Those flames did not have that problem. They have no ears to any judgements and people that don’t express themselves just as those flames and live exceptional lives, no matter what they do for a living.

I now strongly believe my dream is possible, which is progress from a number of months ago, but whilst I believe it is possible, I need to work on weakening the belief that it is difficult.

Leave The Office is about breaking out of the "I don’t want" or the "I can’t" way of thinking into the "How can I" and "I will".

Leave The Office was one year old on November 12th 2007. I only realized today and I was quite amazed at how quickly that time has passed. It seems fitting then that a tweak in the site layout has been done in order to tidy it up a bit.

So this post is really just recording a landmark. I read through some of my articles to reflect on where I’ve been going over the last year and I have covered a lot of ground. I also noticed that I have slipped back into a few automatic, habitual ways, which have slowed progress in a few areas alittle bit, which is fine because I am able to notice, which I probably wouldn’t have done a year ago.

There is much to be said for writing, even if it is only in a private diary that nobody else sees. It cements intentions you have, refines visions you may have of what you want to do in life and it helps you become more present, so as to naturally be able to witness yourself more rather than be at the mercy of the "victim of life" in you.

It’s funny because over the summer the traffic on this website was growing and growing and now it seems that I have far less visitors than I used to, which is something that would have made me feel like giving up a year ago. I am far less attached to who visits these days. As I have stated already. If I have something interesting to say then I’ll say it and if I happen to say something truly great then word will get around eventually.

Peaace.

This post is something I wrote down in my notebook a few days ago when I was feeling a little sad about returning to the UK from Thailand.

What I realize today is that I have been aimlessly looking for something or somebody to provide me with a solution for "having it all", being happy etc… This is not what I am truly searching for. I felt something today which, from now on I will always refer to as The Feeling.

What I am really searching for, deep down is the power, strength, confidence, however you want to describe it to embark on the path of what I truly want to do. I have known for sure for about a year what I want to do with my life and now I realize that I have known this for about 17 years although never getting close enough to know it to the point of realizing it, if that makes any sense at all.

The first step or rather in reality, the next step I need to take is more tangible to me than I have ever felt before and thus the decision to take it is that much easier. What’s enlightening about this is that fact that it only seems closer now than it ever was, but in truth it was always as close as this. The difference now is that I, inside am closer to it.

The decision to live and work in a far-off land, doing something new with a huge drop in salary along with all the uncertainties that come with it will never be any less easy or difficult to take no matter how long I wait. There is no such thing as "The right time", not really. Who is ever ready for a life changing experience when we almost always spend all of our time trying to keep our lives as familiar as they already are?

The fact is that I will have to be somebody who I don’t recognize exactly as "Rob". That’s the scariest part of all, but the paradox is that it is the biggest illusion of them all. In actuality I am a different "Rob" everyday of my life, if I were to really wake up to myself.

It doesn’t matter how much more time I spend saving money before I "dive in". I can see it is a stalling tactic, run by my natural impulse to stay in the safety zone. How much money is enough before I set off to create the life I want? The truth is that even if I had ten times the amount of money saved as I do right now I would still have to go through the process of taking on a new career and having to adapt to my new surroundings, fall down, pick myself up. I don’t need an abundance of money or a lack of it to do that. In fact I have to do that no matter what the parameters.

This is how today I got "The Feeling". It has never been any more or less easy or difficult since I first decided I wanted to live somewhere else, except of course as I get older my mind gets more and more adept at creating the illusion that it’s more difficult to do.

So, I urge anyone who has any "big" decision to make or who has a grand idea for themselves. Don’t think too long and hard about making the decision. Not because life’s too short, which it is, but because it will never get any easier to make that decision. You can only make a decision now, not in the future and statistically speaking, the most successful people are those that make decisions quickly and change their minds slowly and seldomly.

I’m ready.

Where is the line between having a burning desire that you never lose sight of, always stay focused on and go through whatever you have to go through to get it and an unhealthy obsession that consumes your life, leaving you looking back over the years wishing you had actually experienced life?

I don’t know the answer exactly, which is why I ask this question. I have a few ideas about how it could be viewed, but I think this is a critical question because so many people ask everyday. "Am I on the right path in life?".

I suppose you could say that an unhealthy obsession is something that you allow to become so. For example if you had a desire to be or do something that took years of pursuit and so much of your energy, which you then decided to give up on you could say that it became an unhealthy waste of energy the moment you decided to give up. Therefore until that point it was still a burning desire and a clear vision, which as we all know is the main ingredient to achieving your desires. The result of such a situation could then cause you to spend the rest of your life regretting the time you spent trying and wondering what could have been if you had not given up. That I can see would definitely be an unhealthy obsession and a waste of energy.

I’d be interested to hear opinions on this, especially from the many great writers out there who feature on the Personal Development List.

Wow… Evolution is an incredible thing! There is just no way of knowing where an idea will lead you. Even if you have a very clear vision of the end result, you still cannot predict exactly the twists and turns required to get there, no matter how much your own thoughts create your reality.

Just looking at this website today I have realized that it is a far cry from what it was when it began, which is great. Change indicates growth. So it’s official I’m growing! I know that Leave The Office is growing because I am attracting many more visitors than I was just a couple of months ago, but something is missing. There’s a bit of a fog ahead in that I don’t really know where to take this right now.

I’m not really worried about that. I know it is a reflection of where I’m at. I feel like I am about to emerge from a cocoon, transformed into a butterfly of opportunity and success. In fact, my blog over at PowerBook Studio looks like it is taking on the direction of my intitial idea for Leave The Office, which is leaving my regular job behind in search of a life in paradise.

So whilst PowerBook Studio will include updates on my personal progress in my business and career goals, Leave The Office is currently looking at the atlas and deciding where it wants to go next. Maybe a short hop overland or a long haul accross oceans and above mountains… What the hell am I talking about? I don’t know really, but what I think I’m trying to say is that Leave The Office may be saying good bye to Rob. At least from the perspective of the subject matter. What matters is my readers here. If I am to help inspire people to follow their dreams, which I want to do then I feel it is time to stop simply concentrating on personal updates and the story of how my life is going. Until I actually leave the office that story could get a little boring. It was my intention to leave the office life by now and it was almost realized, but due to a few financial commitments it has been put back. I am taking an extended trip back "home" to spend 5 weeks with my wonderful lady where I’ll also be finalizing some interesting plans and forging new business relationships. I promise that before very long I will provide the evidence necessary to convince readers that achieving the life of my dreams really is my intention. I wish to lead by example anyone who visits here searching for inspiration.

Here’s to the vivid beauty of the blank canvas of life!

I attended a wonderful event on Sunday 5th August called AKASHA 2007 in London.

Four truly great speakers who shared their wisdom and insight with us all day at the Palladium Theatre made the day one to remember for so many different reasons, mainly due to the fact that they all had very different energy to each other, making the event a very complete experience from spirituality to entrepreneurialism to reinforcing the message that we must all follow our dreams.

We were all treated to some great inspiration from the following speakers:

• Bob Proctor, who features in "The Secret"
• Dr. John DeMartini, who also features in "The Secret"
• Roger Hamilton, who redefines the term entrepreneur in his way of teaching.
• Getrude Matsche, who is so inspiring that I am going to devote a whole post to her. She deserves that much.

I will describe a little more about the event later, but right now I am not really able to find the right words to do it justice. In the meantime there is the opportunity to download the entire 2 hour presentation of Dr. John Demartini in audio format for free. It was certainly one of the highlights and it is only available for a limited amount of time and I want anyone who is reading now to have the opportunity to hear it. He is one of the best thinkers and teachers of our time, truly and it is a priviledge to have access to such information.

You can download the recordings here… so enjoy!

If anybody reads this post and subsequently downloads Dr. Demartini’s speech, then please consider leaving a donation here by way of thanks, although it is not necessary.

My writing style seems to be getting a little harder edged these days. I’m finding myself more intent on getting a message into readers minds rather than hoping they’ll like me. This seems to be a far more effetive way of writing because I can feel a difference when I write an article or a post.

I feel more satisfied that I may have written something that will provoke a reaction in my readers. I think I picked this up from Steve Pavlina (Many thanks to him), who writes some great articles. There is no point in writing anything if it doesn’t have some sort of vibration to it. It must have an energy, so that it can resonate with the reader in a certain way. Yes it’s good to get people to think about what I say, not necessarily to agree with it. It gets boring when everything is too agreeable anyway. Dynamic is the way to go. Shaking things up a bit and provoking feedback from readers. Of course there’s no point in trying to cause a reaction for the sake of it. That’s really boring. I’ll still be writing from the heart.

This more direct form of writing will be reflected in forthcoming articles. I’m still looking for authors here at Leave The Office, so if you want to balance out my new "Tiger" approach that’ll be good. Writers who don’t mind a bit of banter with their co-authors would be interesting, liven the place up a bit and provide some entertainment here too, so come on!

I’ve just been reminded of a lesson of how important it is to back up data!
I just upgraded Wordpress and mistakenly worte over my home page, which I had painstakingly structured to be different from the blog.

So when I went to my backup folder to get the original data I realised that I hadn’t made a copy!

Now I’ll have to write the whole page again from scratch! I’ve decided to take a positive outlook on this and say that my words on the last homepage obviously weren’t the right ones and this is a sign to write something really great!

Tip for the day: DON’T FORGET TO BACKUP YOUR BACKUPS!!!!!!

Now that I have had time to assess the changes I have implemented on this website, which I hope gives it a new lease of life I am preparing to apply something similar to myself.

It is time to dig deep and commit to life in a way that I have never quite had the courage to do. Time to re-program my thinking and my automatic, habitual behaviour that limits my potential. I am no longer prepared to tolerate the limits that are subconsciously controlled by my self-imposed comfort zone.

Now I have a clearer idea of what Leave The Office is I can now separate a stuctured, prepared style of writing from a more freeform and personal one. The latter being the blog, which continues as the unfolding story of my journey to absolute financial freedom doing what I am most pasionate about in the place that I am most pasionate about with the person I feel the most passionately about. (more on that later).

I want to express the grattitude for everything I have experienced in the last few of years for it is these experiences that have steered me to the place I am in now and have provided me with the education I need to live the life I truly know I deserve and desire. Clarity is still my biggest mantra at the moment and one which I will be writing about alot. I want to get it into people’s minds that being clear about what you truly desire, what is truly your passion in life, not just in your head, but in your bones, is the first step and once that is known to you, you have the power to reach any height. Once you are clear, you will know if it just an interest or a passion to do whatever it takes. It is impossible for any outside force to stop you from succeeding. No exceptions. The only thing that can ever stop you is you. Yes we have all heard it before, so much that it is a cliché. It is that cynicism that is the by-product of all of us keeping ourselves caged in our comfort zones and rationalizing why we do the things we know will not take us to where we want to go and why we do not do the things we know we need to do to get there.

You know what I’m talking about.