May 7
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Weight loss and Fitness

Do you want to make changes to the way you look? Are you fed up with being overweight and deep down inside worried about people really think about you? (Even though they may not be thinking anything but in your mind they are.) Are you fed up with getting to the top of the stairs and being exhausted? Are you tired of not feeling attractive to the opposite sex?

A while back I mentioned that I wanted to started posting a series based on weight loss, fitness training, exercise for overweight people who weren’t sure how to being the process of changing their physical state and for anyone else who wanted to begin a new chapter with their physical condition.

When I began my journey just over three years ago I was in terrible shape, and that is putting it mildly, however I know that there are people in much worse shape than I was. Starting a new regime is easy and sticking to it is only the beginning of the challenge. Initially the weight drop will be fast and easy but then that will slow and plateau. Then there will be motivation issues and other temptations to contend with.

Everyone once in a while feels the surge of energy to act and make changes but that doesn’t last long if preparations aren’t made to maintain the enthusiasm for undertaking a new personal project. There are ways to combat this and I’ll share more of those a little later on. Then there things that pop up out of the blue that will also hinder your progress such as injuries and they can at times be soul destroying as you’re making such good progress it is very often at those times that injuries occur, almost as a test to your resolve.

There are many methods of weight loss and I have friends who tried varied weight loss systems that involve eating bars and shakes for breakfast lunch and dinner. Some have had success and some have had temporary success and some have had no success because sticking to those programs involves enormous amounts of will power and resistance.

I’m going to be offering you my suggestions and principles that should hopefully make the slimming down fun, easy, and gradual. If you expect massive losses consistently you’re kidding yourself. This process can take months and sometimes even years however time will become irrelevant because you’ll be enjoying what you’re doing so it will become part of your overall lifestyle rather than just something you do for a few months and then eventually give up.

The keys here are variety, enjoyment sustainability and pleasure. If you incorporate these four keys slimming down does become a breeze; something that you don’t have to even think about and something that doesn’t make you feel guilty just because you happen to miss a day!

To begin with:

1) Most people would say start by creating a goal. I say forget that for now and just make a start. The more specific goal setting can come later but for now just make your goal to start exercising whilst having some fun!

2) Find something energetic that you ENJOY doing! It can be a sport, going to the gym, walking, swimming, running etc pretty much anything you like that you like! ;-) Start doing it on a regular basis!

3) However, here is something that is extremely important and it’s a mistake most people make when undertaking a new program like this. Many people exercise until they get tired and end up having that achy feeling for the next few days. When that happens they feel reluctant to continue exercising because they’ve anchored that feeling into their body. It doesn’t last but if that happens for the first few sessions it’s what beginners remember the most and it’s that feeling which then puts them off maintaining that program.

Here’s the key: Exercise to the point where you are enjoying the exercise and stop well before the point of feeling tired! Do this for the first few months! Yes, you heard me right, the first few months especially if right now you’re classed as being ‘overweight’. This has a few objectives: i) It Anchors the feeling of enjoying exercise. ii) It gives your body the time to get used to the exercise especially for your joints. iii) You won’t be put off the exercise because you won’t have the exhausted feeling that can come from vigorous exercise.

I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to find something you enjoy doing. Enjoyment is the best motivation tool there is. It doesn’t matter what else you try and use as leverage on yourself; whether that be money, becoming more desirable to the opposite sex, or just to look good, nothing will beat sheer enjoyment. Let me explain what I’m talking about. When it comes to exercise badminton is my passion. If my body could allow me to play more then I would probably play 24 hours a day 7 days a week. If I had the choice between a hot date and badminton, badminton would win hands down every time! :lol:

That brings me onto my final point. Plenty of people come up to me and tell me: “Amit, I need to lose weight for the summer so I’m going to join the gym!” At this point, I debate about whether to roll around on the floor laughing for the next 15 minutes or whether to explain to them direct. The former never goes down that well so let me go ahead and explain the latter.

As I mentioned earlier, the greatest motivational force is pure enjoyment. When you enjoy something you never have to even think about getting up to do it, you just, do it! Thinking that the fact that £50 is coming out of your bank account is going to be enough of a motivator to get you to go to the gym then you’re deluding yourself. Here’s the rub: Get into the habit of exercising now without a gym. If you can do that for 3 months, then fine, go ahead and join the gym and go use the variety of equipment and classes. Until that point though firmly establish your good habits first and then decide on longer term commitments later. If you absolutely feel the need to join the gym then ask them gym if they do a trial membership for a month or so before they tie you into long contracts which you later cannot get out of.

These are the first few steps to take. Make a start now and do what I said and you’ll find that you enjoy the process of exercising and losing weight rather than feeling like it is a chore of necessity.

Part two coming soon! ;-)

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Apr 8

Why wait until new years, start planning your new years resolutions now! :lol: No, no, seriously I’m not joking! Why wait till new year? Start now thinking about what you want to achieve next year…maybe even as far as 5 years into the future! Setting goals and aspirations never hurts so anytime you’ve got a few minutes free, grab some paper and start scribbling!

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Apr 7

It’s a great feeling to have my blog back up and running again! It was a bit scary there at one point as I thought I’d lost everything and I also noticed that my site was no longer being indexed by Google. In fact it was because of that I noticed that something was wrong.

I first noticed that the number of hits on my site had gone down considerably. So I decided to search for my site on Google and noticed I could not see it. I asked a few friends what my be wrong with my site and why that might happen? No one seemed too sure but they had some ideas and one of my friends spotted that I had and immense amount of spam code embedded within my blog. It was hardly surprising considering that I was still running version 1.5 of wordpress. I did attempt to upgrade my blog a few months ago and was unsuccessful. When I asked for help through wordpress no one responded to my messages on the forum so I decided to leave it again until I had more time.

This though though the situation was incredibly desperate. So I backed up everything and deleted my blog directory on my server and decided to start from scratch. This time I enlisted the help of a friend who was a lot more web savvy than I and he did the upgrade for me but it still didn’t work. Finally, thanks to his suggestion I got a setting rectified by my web host. That was supposed to fix it but for some reason it still wasn’t working! After nearly working on my site for 24 hours straight I finally managed to fix it and get it all running. I looked around for a nice theme and found the one you see before you now. I will be making minor changes at some point but for now this is a nice clean design with some good features.

My site is still not showing up on Google search however I think that for some reason Google had a cached version of a robots.txt file that was set to disallow crawling. I manually changed that and now I believe that will get my site indexed once again…fingers crossed!

I learned a very important lesson that if I’m going to continue to maintain my own blog then to keep the software up to date and change the passwords regularly. If, like me, you’re not so web savvy, then a good plugin to get is the Wordpress Automatic Update Plugin which pretty much does the upgrades to wordpress for you with the simple click of a button. My gratitude goes out to the creator of that plugin as I know it’s going to make the maintenance of this blog that much easier!

This experience has been a great lesson in personal development and the power of choice because, ultimately, I know that these problems occurred through the choices I made. It wasn’t a bad or a good thing specifically but I learned valuable lessons and web skills through it so I see the good that’s come out of this whilst also knowing that it wasn’t the best approach. However it’s done now so I’ll remember the lessons and try my best to implement them into the future.

Now comes the easy bit of writing blog posts! :lol:

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Apr 1

Every day I’m grateful to the people who piss me off because they’re the ones who help me with my personal development the most! :-D

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Mar 15

Be afraid!

To put yourself into a position of fear is actually a good thing. Doing so on a regular basis is even better. Putting yourself in stressful situations is not and there is a very distinct difference!

The fear factor is wonderful! It’s the mechanism that tells us that we’re experiencing something new and something that is challenging us on every level. I had extreme fear the first time I went up to do the ‘Firewalk’ and I can in all honesty that it wasn’t the kind you associate with stress. It was a very different kind of feeling, I was very excited but scared at the same time.

That kind of fear is good for us; it’s when you do the thing that was giving you fear in the first place that you experience growth!

Stress based fear is very different and more often that not comes from being unprepared. You cannot be prepared for everything but you can prepare for most things that you know are coming your way and hence eliminate the majority, if not all, the forthcoming stress. Being prepared is probably the main key to the this and planning ahead also plays a big role.

You can also change your mindset and covert the stress into the healthy kind of fear by simply remembering that it is a challenge that is going to make you grow. It can be for anything too; like buying your first house or going for a job interview.

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Feb 14

Results Vs Process Driven.

The title of this topic might be a tad bit misleading so straight away let me clarify what I mean by results Vs proccess driven. When I refer to results I’m referring to people who do focus on the end result only and their mind stays focussed on solely that throughout the entire task. The one who is process driven is focussed solely on exactly that, the proccess, which ultimately meanders away from the result and it is they who end up being the ones who experience lethargy and entropy. It’s not always the case but from what I understand of the way the mind works more often than not it is.

When you focus on the result or outcome, your vision and purpose remain clear. You keep, in the forefront of your mind, the reason why you undertook the task at hand. When you remember the purpose or the “why” and you remain focussed on that, you eliminate any trace of burden, of worrying about the specific tasks that you need to do to attain the result you desire. You’re fully aware and still get on with them, but you no longer get caught up in, shall we say, the menial stuff.

When you focus on the process, more often than not, you lose your drive because you can often forget why you’re doing the task your doing and thats when you start to feel the resistance and the drag co-efficient of your lack of purpose. It’s happened to me and I’ve seen it happen to many people. We create a grand idea, dream or vision and then during the process the dream is forgotten about and then suddenly, unconsciously it’s all become about the process and you’ve forgotten the the very thing that was driving you in the first place.

Get back to the result. Make it grand and lucid. Write it out in big bold letters on a huge sheet of A3 and put it somewhere you see it every single day! Remind yourself of it every single day! Keep a small notepad with you wherever you go and regularly write down and remind yourself of the vision and the purpose that initially got you jump started and into gear.

Ready? Tomorrow I’ll talk about how to enjoy the process! ;-)

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Feb 13

Here’s a small idea for you especially if this is something that you have never done before.

Find a young person and offer to take them under your wing. Offer to become a mentor to them. There are plenty of organisations out there that run such schemes. All you have to do is step forward and offer your time.

It easy to put yourself forward and it only takes a hour or two of your time every week. I’ve seen first hand and been someone who’s made a difference, in a young persons life, just by taking an interest and offering them not only the time, but also just being someone that listens to them. You don’t have to offer experience, advice or guidance. Just being there is enough and if you feel confident enough, then you can offer more in the ways of wisdom and leadership.

I’ve always said and I continue to maintain that this world would be an extremely different and a much better place if we just offered our time to the younger generation. You may think that they’re not ready to listen but you’ll be surprised by how much you can enhance the quality of a teenagers life by working with them on a one to one basis.

I’ve also always said that every single child on this planet is my child and I have a responsibility to them. I can’t necessarily reach all of them but even if I reach a few, a handfull, it will make all the difference to them in the world and to the world.

Mentoring is a gift. It gives the person you’re mentoring a sense of belonging, of being respected and acknowledged. They want to be listened to and they appreciate the time that is given to them. Not only does it give them something but the amount you get back is immeasurable. You’ll also feel a deep sense of personal empowerment which you will then be able to carry to over to other areas of your life. You’ll need to make a plan though. When you meet your mentee for the first couple of times find out where is it exactly that they need personal expansion. Use lots of open questions that being with: How, what, who, where or when to get them to talk and fully express themselves.

I was recently interviewing a young girl, she was only 15 and I was doing a mock interview with her as she was getting ready to go off and search for work experience. I didn’t know this beforehand but apparently this young lady had a phobia of school and yet she managed to draw the power from somewhere to turn up for that particular day. I interviewed her as if I was interviewing her for a real job. She did extremely well and at the end I gave her lots of encouragement but balanced with some useful constructive feedback. I only found out afterwards but apparently what I said to her really made an impact and she left the room beaming and went to her teachers elated as she felt like she’d done so well! All I did was spend five minutes at the end offering encouragment and advice and who knows how much of a difference those few short moments have made in that young girls life.

So what are you waiting for? Go now and find out if your local council runs an EBP (Education Business Partnership) or some other kind of mentoring scheme where you can give something back to others.

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Jan 22

This post was inspired through the recent work I’ve been doing on the radio and some of the articles I’ve been reading in the tabloids regarding certain celebrities. Now, I don’t always believe what I read, especially from the tabloids, but I do know that celebrities will face challenges, in a very different way, to you or I on a daily basis.

What separates them from us? In reality, nothing, but we’ve designed a culture where they’re treated so differently which often stems from one of two poor perceptual constructs: 1) The way they look. 2) How much money they have. What happens then is that a celebrity will often need to meet the high levels of expectations which are created for them. There are many other factors but these two, more often than not, shape our attitudes towards these unique individuals who are fulfilling their dreams and doing the thing that they love most!

They will often be judged in various ways but a common theme that I hear often is: “They have so much money, how can they have anything to be worried about or complain about anything or lack anything or not be happy?” That suggests to me that there are still people out there that believe that money will bring them all the happiness they desire when the reality is that money is only part of the equation; a very small part to boot! Only WITH the right mindset can money serve you as a tool for not only enhancing your life but enhancing the life of others.

Money and wealth are two totally separate things. Money is currency for exchanging goods and services but true wealth is an abundance in of everything in every area of your life. The thing that people often don’t realise about wealth is that you can be wealthy right now. The way to be wealthy is to firstly being grateful and secondly to share that energy with others. When you start to experience true wealth through gratitude money will follow naturally.

Some celebrities have an abundance of money but become lost in their way and then squander their money for things like: cosmetic surgery, alcohol and drugs; all the types of things that cause damage and destruction; rather than towards things that create, expand, grow and help others! Why does that happen? How can someone with the means to obtain or do anything they like choose to take that kind of path?

My best friend recently got back from India and was telling me about how far just a small sum like 7,000 rupees (or£80 approx) can go for an orphanage and yet for us it’s not uncommon to spend £80 just on a haircut which can go wrong and in turn we can feel sad, down, angry or depressed? Why?

A celebrity is someone who is, where they are, because they not only love what they do, but they also enjoy giving happiness to other people and they enjoy receiving that love and admiration back. They enter a world where they all eyes now focus upon them and for some people they can do no wrong but then suddenly, they might do something that, between everyday folk like us, is something perfectly normal, but because they’re in the limelight whatever it is they have done is completely taken out of context and then often the media come along and crucify them. How would that make you feel? To just make one small mistake and have that plastered across the newspapers the next day? In my mind it would take someone incredibly strong minded to overlook that kind of attention and only focus on the the good they do.

If we allow the countless number of voices on the outside and try and absorb the input it’s no surprise that we might end up getting dazed and overwhelmed! Have you ever been in a position where someone has said something about you that has set you off or got you angry or upset? Right, now multiply that a thousandfold If you were a celebrity, and a paper printed something about you that wasn’t necessarily true, or was taken way out of context? Most people read an article in a paper and they often within a week or two it’s forgotten about but for the celebrity the sting of it can potentially last a life time! Even just a few small bashings can permanently change their mindset if they listen to all those stories!

So what can the celebrity do to minimize or even totally negate the effects of the public humiliations, stories, or mistakes? Here are my suggestions and ideas so feel free to try them out, experient and remember these ideas aren’t just for celebrities, they apply to anyone and everyone no matter who you are and what you do!

1) Do more for others, especially children, maybe even anonymously! - It’s naturaly with your lifestyle that you’ll work hard and also play hard. In amongst all your activities set time aside every month for charitable work; something hands on and something you can personally get stuck into! Even just a few hours every month doing something that you enjoy and also helps others. Find something that you feel passionate about and do lots of that. There was one celebrity who recently go into looking after mis-treated horses and said that helped to turn her life around.

2) Make the voice inside stronger than all the voices on the outside - I remember recently reading an article about Kylie where she consults her inner voice before making any big decision. Some might say she’s crazy, I say she’s the smartest one of all! Everyone has an inner voice and you can choose to change that voice at will depending on what you need it for. If your inner voice is pounding your for making a silly mistake, turn it into a forgiving voice and then change it into a voice that helps you either change or turn it into something positive. There is also more you can do in terms of adjusting your mental imagery to enhance your performance too. Sports people do this all the time as they know that doing so will absolutely enhance their performance.

3) Become a mentor for upcoming celebrities. - If you spot talent offer to take them under your wing and share the experiences that you’ve gone through so it might better prepare them. They might get thrust into the limelight incredibly quickly and might not have had the time to adjust to the sudden change in their profile or status. Initially it will be exciting for them but after time the steam from the pressure can build and they can get to boiling point! Offer them your help and guidance which will be priceless to them; something that money cannot buy.

4) You can’t always do everything right and please everyone so don’t try! - If you do you’ll constantly be second guessing yourself and then you’ll start to feel even more lost. People will always think what they want to think and trying to shift their opinion of you and that is just going to exhaust you! The only thing you’ll ever have conscious control over is where you choose to focus your mental energy. If you always focus on the things that are bothering you then you’ll slowly but gradually start to experience inertia. If you focus on what you can do next and all the outcomes that you want to achieve you’ll begin to gain more momentum and start feeling more energised.

5) Take onboard my 5-a-day rule. - I’ve always said that to experience a more fulfilled and enjoyable existense there are 5 things that you need to incorporate into your routine every single day. These are things which are very simple and easy and including them takes very liittle time or effort. The five things are: i) Meditate, ii) Smile, iii) Laugh, iv) Give, v) Appreciate. So simple and yet so effective. Make time for these 5 things watch it transform your life for the better.

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Jan 14

Once again, last year, I decided to enter for the London Marathon through the ballot system but I found out in December that I didn’t get a place. I wanted to make sure I didn’t loose the momentum of challenging myself every year whilst making each challenge more difficult so, just last week, I decided to enter the Adidas half Marathon at Silverstone on the 9th of March.

The half Marathon equates to 21km or 13miles approximately. That’s more than twice the distance I’ve ever run before! Last year I did the BUPA 10K run and I managed to finish that in 79 minutes but since then I had not kept up the running.

Yesterday I wanted to make sure that I began my program of running in preparation for the half Marathon so I decided to stretch myself early on and to see if I could run 5K even though I hadn’t done any running since last July. I’m quite happy to say that I managed to complete it very comfortably in 40 minutes and I felt like I could’ve easily have gone on to do 7 - 8K.

Now for those of you who are new to my blog you might think that’s nothing special. It’s true, it’s probably not but just so you’re aware, I’m 19 stone in weight or nearly 270lbs. 3 years ago I used to be 22stone and I could barely walk up one flight of stairs without being in incredible pain and out of breath! I even had trouble walking down stairs because my knees would hurt too much! :lol:

After the run I had tons of energy and even though I was a bit achy, I wasn’t feeling tired; if anything I was more energised! I was a little surprised that I managed the 5K so easily and I wondered how I’d managed to maintain my fitness even though I hadn’t done any running. I do play badminton regularly (at least 3 times a week) but that’s not really a sport that increases stamina. Badminton is a great fat burner and helps you to accelerate your reaction times, especially if you play doubles, but other than that it doesn’t do much in terms of fitness.

I realised that one small lifestyle change I had made recently has been making a huge difference to my fitness overall. It’s something very small and very easy and something that anybody can do; it just requires a firm commitment to yourself. Last August I made a solid choice that I would stop using the lifts at work and that I would only use the stairs; unless I was carrying heavy equipment. Since then I can say that I’ve only used the lift 3 times, for transporting heavy equipment only, other than that, it’s been the stairs all the way. I only work on the second floor of my building but I usually enter from a back door which is in the basement to in reality I’m climbing 3 floors and I do that usually 3 - 4 times a day.

This little change has made all the difference in assisting me in maintaining my levels of fitness, and in addition to that, what it has done is also strengthen my knees and developed and conditioned all the muscles in my legs.

The simple lesson is this: For you to make large inroads into whatever changes you wish to make to your life all you need employ is a very simple strategy; one that is easy to maintain. As with my example, I didn’t need to go join an expensive gym or totally overhaul my diet, all I needed to do was to commit to using the stairs.

I’ll be updating you on my progress and following up this article with some motivational and training tips for people who are overweight and want to take up a new challenge for 2008.

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SOS (Simple Obvious Strategies)

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Jan 3

It’s a new year and for many a new hope. Reliance on the feelings of new year are very short lived and so what you must do is change the way you approach your idea of the renewal of your life. My bet is that there are already people out there who’ve either dismissed their resolutions completely or have, in their mind, failed and are already thinking about retaking up that resolution next year. Not a wise move!

Where people often fail is focussing too heavily on the destination rather than engrossing themselves into the journey. The destination is never what it seems, the journey is far more real. Focus your attention on the journey, enjoy the moment, appreciate those feelings of excitement and anticipation. When you do this you’ll notice something very significant happen, your perception of time will slow!

Time appears to travel faster as you get older. After all, how often have you heard someone say “hasn’t the year gone so fast!” Or “where did the year go?” No, it’s gone at exactly the same speed but your perception has shifted. Your paradigm has changed and so ultimately has your perception of time has skewed. The only way to change you perception is to shift your patterns of repetitive thinking and learning that you, no matter your age or where you are in life, whatever you truly want to do, is possible for you!

I totally confess I haven’t even finished writing and deciding what my resolutions are for 2008 but they are a work in progress. I aim to finish them by Sunday and discuss them with my Life Coach so that together we can work on them, plan and prioritise. I can quite happily say that with the exception of one or two small things I not only achieved but surpassed many of my goals in 2007 and some of my dreams came true e.g. becoming a radio presenter!

Take the time now, sit with a friend and ask them to question you on what you would truly like to accomplish or achieve over the next 6 months to a year? It’s a simple process and maybe you can even do the same for your friend. Help them also get closer to their goals and dreams! :-)

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Dec 18

Yesterday I did my first ever Stand-up comedy event which was for the charity: Children Walking Tall, which helps homeless children in India. I’m not quite sure exactly how much we raised but I do know that it was in the region of about £800.

I love stand-up comedy and it did cross my mind a few years ago to give it a try but I never gave it a second thought. I was coaching my friend Hyde who said he had always dreamed of doing stand-up and so I encouraged him to do an event! One day he asked me if I wanted to do a short set as part of a comedy night that he was arranging for charity. I jumped at the chance without actually thinking it through! Little did I realise how much work it was going to take! :-)

Last night was the big night, I was as nervous as I’d ever been about anything in my life and yet I was really excited too. I couldn’t wait to get up and do my set! I had butterflies like you can’t imagine but the crowd were amazing, really lively!

I was actually offered a 15 minute slot, so as I was planning and preparing my set, it gradually got longer and longer! By the time I had finished it, and polished it off, it was 25 minutes long, which included pauses for laughter. Even though that is bad practise it actually ended up being a good thing. One of the acts didn’t make it on time and had to be taken off the running so my extra 10 minutes filled up the time of the comedian who was missing.

As John Kinde over at Humor Power said to me, 15 minutes is a huge challenge for a first time gig but to just “learn from doing!”

So, I got up on stage managed to keep my voice steady, something I’ve always had trouble doing in front of large crowds, and deliver my opening gag with power….it totally worked! I had them rolling in the isles and got a huge applause for that gag and because I did, I totally relaxed and the rest came naturally!

As I mentioned in my previous article, I opted to include plenty of blue humour and it was the blue humour that got the most laughs although my opening line was a clean gag. There were gags in my set which people didn’t laugh at and also times where people laughed where I wasn’t expecting any. Toilet humour always gets good laughs and if you find a good niche with regards to toilet humour then you’re sure to get plenty of laughs. My toilet gag was about four minutes long in total and it got laughs the whole way through! If you’re doing club comedy and you have some good toilet humour, then use it! It’s sure to get laughs! A lot of the humour I incorporated was about me being fat and it got some great laughs and it even got some “awwwww’s” too. One person did say to me not to make so much fun of myself but to be honest, I don’t take myself or the humour that seriously, it was just there to make people laugh and not a true reflection of my opinion of myself.

In the future I do want to work on more clean humour but as John said to me, “it’s a much greater challenge”, and he ain’t lying! :-O

I did miss one or two of my main gags and on two occasions, I did need to pull out my keywords sheet of paper and have a quick glance but I did it in such a way that it got laughs too. I think people were forgiving for two reason: 1) Because it was for charity and 2) We told people in the beginning that we were amateurs and totally new to stand-up comedy!

I was totally overwhelmed with the feedback and the response at the end, I got so many compliments and most people just couldn’t believe that it was my first time as they said I looked like I’d been doing it for long while!

In the build up to the event, I was quite stressed as it took an immense amount of preparation and practise. I had spent a good 40 hours over the last 3 weeks rehearsing, re-writing, practising and watching dvd’s of other stand up comics (but that was an enjoyable part) studying their technique and humour. In particular my favourites are Jack Dee, Lee Evans, Russell Peters, Jimmy Carr, and Chris Rock. It was a huge time commitment. During that time I was telling myself that I would probably make this the only time I would do stand-up, but now that I’ve done it, I’ve caught the bug and I’m definitely going to do it again! The charity contacted me and definitely want our help to raise more money again by holding a similar event and I may even look into doing some paid gigs. My friend Hyde was approached last week and is doing more stand-up tonight as a warm up for a major comedian from Canada.

I’ve learned so much through this whole process and I wanted to share a few of those things that were not included in any of the books or websites I had read about doing stand-up. So if you feel like delving into the world of stand-up comedy and undertaking the monumental challenge that it is then here are my tips:

1) The more you practise and rehearse your routine, the more boring it becomes to you! After a while your jokes no longer seem funny to you and you start to question whether your material is any good. That isn’t a bad thing! When you lower your expections, naturally the chances of the opposite happening are higher. It’s like when you pick a card, you pick the 3 of hearts, and you’re asked to guess whether the next card is higher or lower than a 3, the chances are that it’s going to be higher…so when you don’t expect much, the return is always greater!

The temptation will be there to start re-writing your material…DON’T DO IT! If it was funny to you in the beginning, it’s still funny now, it’s just that you’ve become immune to them! There’s another bonus to that too in that you’re less likely to laugh at your own jokes on stage…and believe me, that’s a good thing! You can join in with the laughter once the audience start laughing…but laugh when they’re not and you’re in trouble!

2) One of the main challenges of doing a routine is memorising the wording, order and syntax of your gags. Mine was about 5 pages of A4 and I still had not remembered it with only 5 days to go! Here’s a good technique you can use to help remember your routine. Break down your routine into paragraphs, one gag per paragraph. Assign a key word to each paragraph, something that will trigger the gag in your head, keep a list of those words separately to your written material and as you start to remember your routine more and more from your script, keep the script out of site and just use the sheet with your keywords. Once you can do it with just your key words, try applying the pegging technique without the numbers but use the words and connect them with a story!

3) Don’t ask too many people about what they think of your gags. I asked one of my work colleagues what he thought of my opening gag and he wasn’t too impressed. It put doubts into my head and I nearly ended up taking that one out but I’m so glad I didn’t! Like I said it had them rolling in the isles! If it was funny in your head when you came up with it, chances are, a good portion of your audience are going to laugh at it! A better way to gauge your act is hold a rehearsal night and invite people around that are unlikely to be at the event and then do a full practise then. That is more likely to give you a clear indicator of what jokes are good and what are not.

I’m no expert, I just wanted to offer some of my learnings just incase you decide you want to give stand-up a go! :-)

A word of caution though…if, like me, you’re slow at getting jokes….then get faster broadband!! :lol: (One of the clean gags from my set!) ;)

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Dec 11

For the last 6 weeks I’ve spent much of my free time planning and writing material for a charity stand-up comedy event that I’m appearing in this coming Sunday. (16th December)

This is my first attempt and when I first accepted the challenge of doing stand-up initially I jumped at the chance! I thought the challenge would be great as a character building exercise and for learning some other new skills. All those are true but never did I for one second realise how much hard work goes into writing even a short 15 minute stand-up set.

Firstly you have to brainstorm ideas, come up with material and transform that material into humour. That in itself is a challenge! I alway find that the best ideas come to me while I’m driving or in the shower or doing something else and where there is no paper or pen to hand! Secondly you have to then re-write, practise, re-write, practise, re-write practise etc. I know, I ended there with 3 repetitions but trust me, that process is never ending! The practising part takes so much work! You don’t always know how you’re going to come across to the audience; are the jokes funny? Is the audience going to understand them? How shall I deliver the punchline?

I can quite easily say that over the last 3 weeks I put in at least 20-30 hours of work into creating and polishing my routine!

We had our first rehersal about 5 weeks ago and I wasn’t prepared at all. In fact I wrote most of my material about 2 hours before the event and I was still writing as I got my friends house. When it came to my time to perform, I was nomiated (forced) to go first I did my bit and all I got was one laugh from about 6 minutes of material. Needless to say I was completely devastated and embarrased! But, it was a great lesson and I made the headline act look incredibly good! :lol:

So I went away and I decided that the next time would be very different! I ordered two books off Amazon, one was called: “Getting the joke” and the other is called: “A step by step guide to stand-up comedy”. The first book so far hasn’t been of much use but the step by step guide has been incredibly useful! It’s written by Greg Dean and the foreword is by Steve Allen. I’m glad that this was the first book I decided to start reading. Like myself, Greg is a student of NLP and you can tell by the way that the book is written that he puts it to good use.

Before I even picked up the book I had no idea the mechanics in constructing a joke or even telling a joke. I’m quite good at impromptu humour when I’m in a face to face situation with one person but when I’m crowds I’ve always struggled to be “the funny one!”

The book starts off by giving the readers an introduction into the mechanics of creating a joke and smashing all the assumptions the audience creates in their minds, from the setup, with the punchline!

So I read this book through a few times and started re-writing my material. Initially my aim was to create clean routine with no blue humour, but I struggled, so I caved and decided to include plenty of swearing and jokes involving sex! I realised that this will probably work better anyway because the majority of the target audience is going to be young asian professionals from the age of 21 - 31 and so I realised that blue humour was probably a safer bet in securing laughs rather than going for a purley clean routine. It’s about a 50/50 split between clean and blue!

With only 5 days to go before the big day, I’m quite confident with the material I’ve written but have yet to still memorise everything. I decided today to put keywords next to each main segment and use that as my memory trigger points. Lets see if I can remember 5 pages of text in 5 days! ;-)

Wish me luck! I will report back on how it all goes along with my personal tips to you if you ever decide that you want to give stand-up comedy a go! :-D

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Nov 1

How to tell a friend you love them…How to ease your heartbreak.

For many Love = Friendship. So being in love with a very close friend leads to the next logical step of forming an intimate relationship.

I would love to be able to address this article at everyone but I think given the nature of the topic I think it would be difficult to do so although that doesn’t mean that not everyone can learn something from it. This is probably one of the most challenging and long articles I’ve ever decided to write simply because of the nature of the topic and the undefined way in which situations like this can be handled.

So firstly guys, my question to you: Have you ever been in love with or fallen in love with a friend only for them to turn around and reject you? Their answers might range from, “I see you just as a friend” or “I don’t feel that way about you.”

For many young men events like this can be both heartbreaking and soul destroying. I have been in that situation many times and even recently was in that same situation. I’ve heard so many stories where one party loves the other but the feelings weren’t returned. The truth is that situations like that are common and the first challenge is whether or not to act on your feelings. That in itself is a big challenge! For most guys, at the best of times, the decision of whether or not to go ahead and speak to a girl about their feelings is tough enough as it is. Firstly, you’re friends with this woman and it’s something you might value deeply. With that in mind you become faced with difficult choice: 1) Tell her and it could go either way. She will either feel the same about your or not and in which case the decision to tell her may permanently harm the friendship. 2) Don’t tell her and never find out how she felt about you. The element of regret can leave a lasting sting.

As I said earlier I can’t really speak from the perspective of what it must be like on the flip side for the woman in both ways, i.e. being on the receiving end but also being in the same situation and being in love with a friend! I’ve been in that situation more than once and a number of people have said to me that I fall in love to easily, it’s probably true, but I have a very loving nature towards all my closest friends and I do get attached quite easily. But in response to that attraction is such a natural thing and should never be frowned upon. I’m fortunate to have many close female friends who are have amazingly loving and good natured personalities as well as being beautiful. So naturally if I feel that the girl and I have a great friendship and in addition to that I find her attractive it seems like only natural to me that the next step would be to be honest with her and find out how she feels too. I know, I know, I make it sound easy I know but it’s where the rocky road begins.

Before I go any further guys, I don’t have all the answers, my sole intention with this article it to make that challenge just that little bit easier to handle. There is no dichotomy of a right or wrong way to handle this. You do however have to make a choice while taking into the consideration the feelings of the person you wish to tell and be understanding towards them. I’ve seen some guys totally undermine the womans feelings because they allowed their own hurt to saturate them and become totally oblivious to the females needs and end up leaving them hurt, lost, and a feeling that they’ve been abandoned by a friend.

So lets begin…

1) First and foremost, it’s time for me to be a bit brutal! Guys, don’t be such babies! This woman who you’re in love with isn’t the only woman you’re ever gonna love and if she doesn’t love you back it truly isn’t the end of the world! I know I’ve started off harshly but you have to accept this fact if you’re to stand a chance in making this thing work. React aggressively or childishly to her or her answer and you will end up blowing it for good! So first and foremost, before you do anything, give yourself a pep talk, if you’re too distracted get a friend you can confide in, tell them the situation and get them to give you a pep talk! Keep on telling yourself that no matter how this ends up, the most important thing is her, be understanding and compassionate towards her!

2) Make sure you plan a time and place to tell her properley! A time when you’re both alone, absolutely no distractions, just you and her, somewhere quiet where you can talk in your normal voice and can have good eye contact! Avoid doing it in a restaurant, at a club or anything like that, do it if you’re having a quiet meal at home and or watching a movie. Turn off the movie, finish your food and begin. Make sure you have nothing in your teeth though! :lol: For heavens sake, don’t do this over email, phone or text messages! If you do any slight misunderstanding could screw things up for good! It’s vitally important that she sees your body language and that you see hers!

3) When you get to that stage when you’re ready to tell her, don’t blurt out what you want to say, it might be a good idea to reassure her how much she means to you; that you will always be there for her and that you value your friendship highly! Once you’ve reassured her and made her feel at ease, it’s time tell her! Be honest and straight forward. Don’t try and tell her in a way which is indirect, it doesn’t serve you and you may not end up getting a straight answer which might leave you more confused then when you initially began down this path!

I can’t tell you what to tell her, that’s got to come from your own heart and soul, all I can do is put you in a better mental state in preparation for this big event!

4) Once you told her reassure her again! This is vitally important! Explain to her how much she means to you and that nomatter what she says that you will be there for her. If she feels the same way, then you need not read further! :-D If however she does not feel the same way about you it’s time to offer her some time. At this point, make you sure you gather yourself, this is a time where you might waffle something you didn’t mean to. Take a moment! Ask her if she would prefer it if you were to give her some room for a set period of time, e.g. a couple of weeks. Listen to her, acknowledge what she says, and respect her wishes!

5) Don’t run away because you’re upset!! Let the evening come to a close naturally and when it’s your time to go make sure you leave with a smile, again reassuring her! Once you’ve left, the heartache will really kick in! That being the case it would be worth having your pep talk friend on standby! Get them to accompany you somewhere! Go for some drinks, make sure you have someone there you can talk too! Despite what any macho guys might be thinking right about now, nope, strip joints and lap dancers aren’t going to ease your pain! Feel free to go do it if you want but it really won’t help or change the way you feel!

6) As tough as it might be for you to be around her, stick with her! If it gets to the point where your health is suffering then be honest with her. Don’t blame her, but do tell her honestly that you’re finding it tough. She will more than likely be understanding and compassionate towards you. Maybe explain to her that you need a bit of time away again reassuring her how much her friendship means to you! Take your time out but keep in touch with her, let her know that you’re thinking about her and are not just wrapped up in your own feelings. Do whatever you need to do during that time, but keep yourself occupied, don’t close yourself off from people, it’s people who will help you get through this challenging time!

Trust me guys, I’ve been there before, many a times! It’s even been a case where me and a friend have been in love with the same woman, in which case I’ve always yielded and in fact, I will do whatever I can to make help and support them getting together. It’s not easy but it’s because their friendship and my love for them has and will always be of paramount importance to me! If I had the choice of my happiness over my friend then my friend would win everytime hands down!

If you don’t have someone to talk to, you have me! You can get in touch with me if you wish. Whatever happens don’t bottle it up and even though times like this can be scary and painful there are other people out there who’ve been through it too and can help you. I hope in some way I’ve been of help in giving you chance in telling the person you love how you feel, whilst at the same time, keeping a close friend!

I wish you success with your friend, your potential future lover, I sincerely hope it goes well! :-)

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Sep 13

Have you ever been in the situation where you got that feeling where you were coming down with a cold or ‘flu bug? It doesn’t feel great and before you know it you’re at the stage where you can’t do much except and wait for it to pass.

Ask any doctor and they will tell you that generally if you are in a happy state and stress free, you are less likely to get ill and your immune system will be much stronger. It doesn’t take a degree in medicine to know something as simple as this to be true. If you’re someone who suffers colds and ‘flu often then I’m willing to hazard a guess that you go through a lot of stress. Please feel free to tell me if you think differently of if your experience doesn’t concur with what I’ve said.

Naturally, if you do often get ill, one of the first things you should do is consult your doctor as there maybe something more deep routed. After getting a clean bill of health it’s worth looking at a few area’s of your life so that you stay healthy for much longer and the times when you do get ill are very few and far between!

I’m sure many bloggers have posted about what you can do nutritionally to boost your immune system and so I’m not going to talk about that here. What I am going to talk about is how you can boost your immunity, with a few simple adjustments in your psychology, that will make you more immune to minor virus’s and who knows, maybe even more serious illnesses too! One thing is for sure is that trying these things can only do you good so why not give them a try and see for yourself!

The tricky bit here, is changing years of habitual thinking. New habits are easy to form, changing old ones are not so my advice to you is to focus on creating a new habit, rather than eliminating an old one.

Think of a time most recently where you felt yourself in the initial stages of getting a virus. Now can you remember the exact moment that you first felt it coming on? In that moment what was your first reaction? If it was worrying and hoping that it doesn’t turn into a bad cold or ‘flu, then, I’m sure you can see for yourself, why it gets worse quite quickly! As soon as you start worrying or you get annoyed or stressed, about that fact that you’re coming down with something, immediately you’ve weakened your immune system considerably. Again the trick here is to form a new habit. Next time you find yourself feeling a little run down and you feel the onset of a cold or flu the first thing you have to do is put yourself into a better frame of mind. You can use any technique for this. Here’s a few suggestions:

1) At that instant that you catch yourself feeling worried about the onset of the virus, first change your physical state by sitting up right and keeping your head and eyes up. As you do that you can much more easily visualise something positive or constructive. It can be anything of your choosing. It can be turning your focus towards an exciting upcoming project. It could be just looking forward to the plans you have for the weekend….it can be absolutely anything you choose as long as it puts you into a happy frame of mind!

2) If available to you, put on your favorite comedy shows or movie, or, put on your favorite uplifting music!

3) Do anything that makes you feel good. Get a massage or go have a round of golf! If it’s a minor virus, i.e., it isn’t the kind that’s making you feel exhausted, then playing a light sport or mild exercise will do you good both mentally and physically. If it’s a strong virus, the kind that makes you ache all over, then I’d suggest to stick to point 1, 2 or 4

4) Try some self hypnosis. Hypnosis is very simple and there are plenty of resources on the internet to explain to you how you can do this. Hypnosis, in many ways, is synonymous to some forms of meditation. The processes are very similar, they will differ slightly in some areas but ultimately the outcome will be the same in that you will be more relaxed and more focused. A good technique for getting yourself into a “trance”, something which everyone on the planet can do, is find something that you find easy to focus on in a relaxed way. A simple example is imagining yourself on a beach and imagining the tide going in and out. It’s very simple, people go into trance’s several times a day and so find out what makes you go into trance very quickly and use that!

Even a few minutes of any of the above will be extremely beneficial to you. The longer you do it and the more you practice it that stronger your immune system will become and the faster the virus or illness will be eliminated from your body.

There reason there is no cure for the common cold or few is because there are so many varieties and neither is this a cure but what this one method will do is allow the for the virus to be eliminated from your system much quicker because your immune system is in better shape and functioning properly.

The reason I decided to write this article was because at the beginning of the year I was getting a cold or flu at least once a month and it was getting so frustrating! Using the methods I’ve described, I have cold and flu free for the past 7 months and in the last couple of weeks I felt the onset of a cold but using the methods I’ve described above I can quite happily say that it passed without it becoming “bad” so to speak or without it disrupting my life in any way.

Naturally, what I’ve written above is an additional technique you can apply for maintaining your good health! For even better results make sure you take a good look at what you’re eating that that you’re incorporating plenty of water, fresh fruit and veg into you diet!

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, or results on this so please let me know what you’ve got to say! :-)

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Aug 7

Post 300!

Yes this is my 300th post on this blog and it seems like not so long ago that it was my 200th!

In every pursuit it’s easy to hit a plateau. Lets say for example you decide that you no longer want to use the lifts at your office and you decide you want to use the stairs from now on! You work on the 5th floor and so every day you walk up the stairs. Now what will happen is that you’ll expect yourself to get used to the stair climbing pretty quickly!

However, it doesn’t quite work like that. For the first week or two you may even find yourself getting more tired and more puffed out by the time you reach the top and then you’ll hit a point where you get so tired where you feel like you want to stop doing it! That is exactly the point at which you must continue!

If you give in at that point, you’ll enter the world fruitless repetition where you may try again in about 6 months but the same thing will happen again! It’s at that point where you get the most tired that you must choose to continue because it’s when you push yourself when you least feel like doing it is the time that you will grow the most and when you will overcome the plateau!

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Jun 29

Virtually anything can become a spiritual act or a meditation when you embed 3 things into your consciousness. It could be singing, dancing, rapping, climbing, golf, tennis, painting, writing, driving, playing, sex, bathing, yes, absolutely anything at all!! All you have to do is practise these 3 mantras converting them into an inner dialogue or script that gives you some fire in your belly! They are:

1) Remember that you have a wonderful gift, a body through which to experience and perform action through so that may experience emotion and action. You were given the gift of your 5 senses so that you could process, colour, contrast, smells, tastes, make tactile contact, make love or scream according to whatever emotion you choose to experience!

2) Whatever it is that you’re doing, when done in a powerful frame of mind, can enhance not only your experience, but your result too. The stronger and more focused your level of thinking will assist in giving you the greatest result. I was reminded recently of a strength test you can do whilst varying your state of mind. You will always find that you will be stronger while in a positive state than when you’re stressed or feeling low.

3) No matter the activity, think of it as “my time to grow”. It’s important to have fun but the fun expires quickly unless you’re learning and growing. So consciously tell the unconscious that through this activity you will now get better and have fun whilst learning. This act is spiritual because it is contributing to my spirit becoming immersed in the experience of now. It is in the now that truly pleasure lies.

Remember to try different things too. There is never any harm in trying something new and more than likely you going to make new friends and discover something about yourself that you never knew! ;)

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Jun 26

Hi Everyone, it feels good to be back and I must say I had an magnificent time at UPW. I’ll be posting my stories up a little later on.
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I want you to take a good look at yourself and your thoughts and ask yourself to what degree are you a self critic and to what degree are you self constructive? If you spend much of your engaged in self critical inner chat then it’s unlikely you will ever be able to get the results in life you truly want. Whereas if you were to engage in a more healthy inner dialogue of constructive evaluation and then ask yourself “what can I change to do things better?” Then you will begin to automatically make changes to your actions without even realising it. You will begin to become more proactive and take the necessary steps towards your goals. Its a form of self coaching whereby you are not too soft on yourself and neither are you too harsh on yourself but you find the balance in getting the right kind of self talk to enhance the quality of your life.

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Jun 18

Focus on one thing per day!

On a typical day you might be tempted to focus your energy and attention on several aspects of your life and personal development. But what might happen is that you may end up putting a strain on your mental resources because of you’ll shift from one area like your health, then suddenly move to your finances, then jump to your studies etc. This can be truly exhausting.

When you wake up in the morning, make a firm decision about what area you would like to focus on. Lets say that you choose to focus on your health, then stick to that and that only. Choose your affirmations or meditations accordingly and when you’re filling your moments of quiet time while riding the bus, you almost have a mini plan and hence your thinking will be much clearer.

Vary it from day to day, spending too long on one area will eventually make you bored. It’s like exercising, you change your activity to get some variety. Do the same for your internal training and you’ll find that clarity will and focus will reach new highs.

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