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.

This post is an explanation of the following post.

The next post will be a statement of intent. I will published it here to simply make public my intention, so as to bring some accountability to myself.

By stating it to the world, well anyone who passes by this blog, I feel more of a responsibility to carry it through. Also there is a tendancy sometimes to forget things. A good idea that gets forgotten that may have been "The" big idea or sometihng that you know is good for you, but somehow just gets lost in all the clutter that is your everyday life. Most often these things that get forgotten or left are fundamental to changing and I’ll be bold enough to suggest for the better or even in the very direction that you long for. Yes we ourselves are responsible for lost opportunities, let downs and all the other disappointments we may experience, but instead of using them as a sign of our less than perfect judgement or conduct and learning the lesson they contain we find an outside entity to blame. Either a person, a thing or a situation. I am just as guilty of that as anyone else, so that is why Leave The Office will include, as and when one arises an intention of mine, a promise if you like to honour myself and my duty as a person who has dreams of inspiring others as I have been inspired myself. If the intention is not realised then I won’t beat myself, or anyone else up about it, but I will accept the lessons the experience or failure teaches me about myself.

I invite readers to state their intentions, however big or small (they all count) in the comments of each INTENTION post. I’ll make this a feature of this blog. The good thing is that if I have nothing else to write I can make a statement of intent and be accountable for it.

I would also like to say thanks to a reader of this blog, who just when it looks like nobody is reading, he posts a comment, which often puts me back on track.

Thank you Digital Nomad.

I have to say that my interest in agloco has somewhat dropped to almost zero, which is why I have taken the link off this site. It felt out of place here for me for a while anyway. I think they may have difficulty being taken seriously when the launch date remains unconfirmed and seemingly forever in the future.

I do like carrots, but they lose their flavour when they are dangled on a stick in front of you for too long if you get my drift.

Anyway, good luck to those who stick with the scheme. I think I’ll do better coming up with my own big idea, which is what I am doing.

Here is another sunset picture, for a change! This is my favourite one so far.

What does the phrase "Leave The Office" say to you when you read it?

Do you think of getting away on holiday… or vacation?
Do you think, as I do about leaving the 9 to 5 behind and living a life of relative freedom?
Do you have a more abstract idea of what it could mean, like the concept of developing such a joyous relationship with work that the office is no longer experienced as "The Office"?

Comments please……

OK,
Leave The Office is evolving. I have no control over this as I am making an effort to feel my way through the development process rather than try and anticipate what people want to read or write what I think I should in order to keep the subject matter on track with my initial idea.

I am being drawn into a direction of writing, which I am not comfortable defining. I don’t see myself as a motivational expert or teacher in any way, but with the experience of learning that I seem to be having at the moment compells me to write along these lines. Some days I sit in front of the laptop with no idea what to write, but knowing that I feel stuck, dis-organised, not knowing where I am heading with anything and full of confusion about whether my ideas and indeed my goals have any substance to them.

By sitting down and just writing I end up with what becomes the latest post and sometimes I read it and it feels like reading something motivating like it’s advice or help or understanding being given to me by somebody else. That feeling is enough for me to know that at that moment at least it’s where this blog needs to be. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that this blog is mainly some kind of personal development log, but some messages I have received form people do make me realise that it is not only relavent material for me. I do hope my posts provide people with something worthwhile to read because that is a huge bonus to why I initially started a blog.

Let me make one thing very clear. I am a very new blogger. I have no idea what I’m doing or what I’m writing about. This isn’t hours of planning for each post and making sure that the writing is of a good enough standard (maybe I should be doing that), but I feel this way, which is the only way I know all my stumbling, mistakes and occasional successes will be documented, so I can see something about myself. If I have a message today then it is this: Don’t be afraid to write anything. Sometimes a post will be boring, sometimes you may write for hours and be really pleased with your masterpiece of writing and nobody cares or gets it or thinks it’ rubbish! Sometimes you’ll just chuck a few lines down and people will be contacting you from all over the world thanking you for your contribution to their lives or for making them laugh.

This is one such post that is basically a random rambling and me not really knowing what I am doing.

I am working on a new website! It will be a bridge between the subject matter of this blog and the big goal that I am working towards, which is music based.

Since recently having such a moment of clarity about what I want to do with my life (finally!), working on the new site should provide a good way for me to make the transition from just blogging to a very real business, which will have a website as the main entrance to my company.

Oh I have big dreams. Sometimes this scares me a little when I have those niggling doubts, but the feeling I get when I actually concentrate on what it is I’m going to acheive is that of such intense and real joy I know it’s the one.

I can’t fail because I already know how it feels. It’s very hard to put into words and make sense of it really.

Plus the fact that I have a very strong woman with me every step of the way and it is her that has made the difference. Not simply by giving me words of encouragement, but it’s just her energy. Even 6,000 miles away it’s there with me. There is a definite feeling for me that 6,000 miles is just a man-made thing and not a concrete reality.

I urge everyone reading this post now to look at something you want to acheive, really know it in your bones that it is absolutely your thing and state it, live it, be it, NOW. Don’t put it off, put it into action now, like you’ve already acheived it, so don’t worry about how you will acheive it. If it really is the truth for you then in a very real sense, it will transform your life and it will make the world a better place, just by stating it as your intent.

I PROMISE!

I have come to realise that there are no permanent loose ends in life. Whilst tying up any current loose ends always helps gain progress and clarity, recent experience has shown me that faith in the infinite process of life always results in those loose ends resolving themselves.

Since writing my post on The Law Of Attraction I have had a profound shift in my awareness of my everyday life and my way of being;- areas where I hold myself back and those where I progress with ease are becoming more obvious to me and gradually providing me with the tools to acheive the lifestyle I want.

I’ll give you a working example, which has unfolded over the last week. You may have read about my Apple Mac Powerbook "dying" on me, which has left my recording studio crippled. Well, not to be dis-heartened I simply decided to just get back up and running and not worry about the fact that I have a problem to sort out. In the same day that my studio came crashing down around me I had a request for my studio-mixing services for payment, which I haven’t had for a long time. What I was starting to see was that it was no coincidence my studio had suffered a setback. It was like I was being told that I need to view it in a different way. You see my Mac is not just something I use for fun. It is a part of who I am and what I do. It’s an asset. A very big one and I realise now that I have to make contingency plans for when my assets falter, so I can still be functioning fully in my creativity, which is the ultimate way I am to make a living. It may be old and out of date compared to what you can get now, but when you hear the quality of what comes out of it you would know what I’m talking about. My music and studio based business is obviously a fundamental part of what I should be doing with my life. The thing I am best at is composing, recording, playing and mixing music. I have always liked the idea of being a producer and I finally realise that I am!

So back on track….. What was I talking about?…. Oh yes loose ends.

So now that I have a concrete idea of what my life and my future looks like, things just start happening. Or rather I am noticing things that are probably always there, but I’m just too switched-off most of the time. So a couple of days later and I receive a cheque for a music track that I had published with a Library music company nearly four years ago. I always forget about this and I always get reminded when a cheque comes nearly twice a year. This is just one peice of music I created without much thought and it’s still making me money now, being played on Radio and TV in the UK, USA, Canada, France, Spain & Hong Kong. So the thought for the day is this:-

"I have been doing what I always wanted to do all this time, only I was too busy wanting to do what I always wanted, to see it."

That is the most profound realisation I have had in recent memory. You see it is all too common for us to not realise we are living the dream already because we have painted a picture in our mind’s eye of what it should look like.

What with me reading my horoscope today, which I don’t really take too much notice of normally telling me exactly what I should be doing and what it’s telling me is totally in line with my study of the Law of Attraction and the development of my life’s wealth I can see that there have been some significant loose ends tied up over the course of the last week.

I have even seen some more movement in the earning potential of this blog and built on my AGLOCO referals too. Thanks to all those who have signed up through my network. It’s great to know we all stand to do really well out of it. Just keep em coming!

OK,

From the original idea of leaving the 9 to 5 behind, Leave The Office has taken quite a winding road to the point at which it finds itself now. A little lost perhaps, not sure of what it is or what service it is to provide to it’s readers. Not that I am too concerned by that, but how do the people who land here view it?

I would like to know. I don’t know whether I want this to be more focused on travel, enlightenment, inspiration or all of the above. I will gladly accept any comments on the matter. What with me getting excited about my trip to Asia, which is getting closer I suppose I’ll be happy for it to be a travel orientated blog whilst I am actually travelling.

Whilst the subject of this blog is Leave The Office I don’t really want to make it just about escaping the world because that sounds to me like I would be negating the lifestyles of many good people and besides, I don’t resent the corporate world or whatever word you want to use to label it. I suppose my thoughts on leaving the office have grown from a natural desire to pursue a lifestyle, which happens to be away from working in an office, not because of the office at all, but because I know what I want to do with my time.

Oh as a digression, by the way, it is only recently that I got crystal clear about what my heart’s desire is in life. The irony is that on further reflection I had known this about 15 years ago and I had even started to pursue the career and lifestyle that I felt I was destined to do. It didn’t work out the way I planned and it was like I had forgotten all about it and believed I was destined for something that doesn’t really inspire me. How crazy is that?

Anyway it is the relationship we have with our work which determines how we value our everyday and if you don’t consider your work life and your “personal” life to be totally separate from each other then I suppose it is fair to say that in some way you have succeeding in leaving the office because you don’t have the outlook of spending half your life living in a situation you don’t want to live in, or said another way only living half a life. In this regard I believe I have left the office myself already, which is probably why I have a smile on my face when I am travelling to work most of the time.

Yesterday was a day that I cannot really do justice by describing just in words. I had conciously not got myself worked up or angry about the breakdown of my Powerbook, which is something I would normally do. I have been known to just flip about things like that, but this time I was very concious of the fact that any such reaction would be futile. It won’t fix my computer and it won’t change my life from the way I don’t want it to be to the way I do. Simple as that.

I spent my day off (yes another one. I have more days off than days in the office!) reading some great material regarding the Law of Attraction and working through some useful exercises getting clear about what I want out of life. I sat down to write a list of all the things I want with some detail elaborating on the feelings and emotions that having those things evoke in me and what happened was breathtaking. Instead of making a long list, like a wish list, I ended up writing a detailed description of just one thing and I knew as I was writing it that this was truly the thing I wanted. I have never had such clarity defining what I want. Never this focused.

The "thing" I described was a lifestyle. I detailed where that would be, what it entaled and who was a part of that lifestyle. As I wrote the details I could feel myself smiling as if from inside myself, from my core and when I read it back to myself it made me cry with joy. The kind of feeling I believe I would have if that desired lifestyle, that wish had just been confirmed and granted to me.

Later on I called my girlfriend and I told her all about it. I explained what I had done and what it was all about. I read to her what I had written on the page and her response couldn’t have been more perfect. She told me that what I had just read made her feel really happy and she could hear that the words were straight from my heart. She believes that I am on the right path. Needless to say that she is a prominent feature in what I wrote.

I told her also about my faulty computer and she said that she will wish that it can be repaired easily and that my recording studio can be up and running in the least expensive way. About 2 minutes after the end of our conversation I went to switch on my computer just for the hell of it. It worked…… This is the absolute truth I swear.

OK, so the computer still intermittently refuses to boot up as I discovered later, but at least I know it is not a serious problem. Just one which needs to be attended to. At least it’s not a complete rebuild or replacement job!