Living inspired gets you above the mayhem that most people bathe in. Living inspired changes your life and the lives of those around you. Living inspired on purpose attracts support. Brought to you today by the universal law of nature number 2, the principle of evolution. All things evolve, including you and the universe and nature, at the border of chaos and order.
Try as we might there is no avoiding the chaos of life. You can close every door button down every hatch, refused to leave the building, take a very safe job and find a very safe partner and have a very safe family and make sure that nothing ever goes wrong and you will have order and chaos equally balanced no matter what you do to try to avoid it.
Chaos is a part of life and a part of inspiration. On purpose chaos becomes guiding posts to growth and evolution. Not on purpose chaos becomes trauma and cause for worrying, anxiety, mental health problems, eating disorders, alcohol ism, violence and all the rest of the things society hates so very much.
In some cultures chaos is the devil. In other hippie environments it is big business. In other environments it is air-pollution or overconsumption. When there is a conference on mining chaos is, to the alternative generation, the smooth proceeding of that conference without crazy intervention. Chaos for a helicopter pilot is the wind blowing out of control. But for every chaos there is a solution and an opportunity sitting right in our hands. Worry can be reconciled, overconsumption can be seen differently, big business doesn’t have to be the devil, and strong winds do not have to be life-threatening. When we take what is generating fear or guilt in our life and use it as a joyful fodder for our own evolution along the path of a purpose greater than ourselves, we have found the miracle of happiness.
The average punter in the world is seeking to avoid chaos. And therefore this chaos comes in large chunks rather than small bites. If a day at work is an opportunity to deal with the things that are making you feel disrupted in a positive healthy way then you have begun to master chaos. If the things you do at work are done in order to eliminate the amount of chaos you are facing then the chaos will definitely come to your health or your Homelife. Do not be confused about the definition of chaos. Chaos is stressful. Chaos is uncomfortable. Chaos is the unknown. Chaos triggers fear. Chaos brings up guilt in you. Do not describe chaos as a comfortable challenge. Controlled challenge is a different thing.
Chaos often comes from other people’s behaviour. Sometimes people do not do what we want how we want it or when we want it. And then we start accusing them of being wrong. This is an extreme example of avoidance of the health of chaos. Compassion is sometimes forgiveness for people for being what we call wrong. But that is not real compassion. Real compassion is handling the chaos of dealing with somebody we definitely do not agree with, feel comfortable about, or who does not comply with our expectations. This is conspicuous especially when people have a boss they do not connect with or a team member they feel is not pulling their weight. But it is even more radical and opportunistic when it is with a child who is not behaving the way we want.
Because there are seven levels of the mind, the Innerwealth consciousness cone is inserted below to remind you of those seven levels. The bottom level of the mind is bipolar. We all have that bipolar level of mind otherwise the rest of the mind couldn’t work. We need to be bipolar when it comes to emergencies, life-threatening threats, kicking a goal at soccer, and many other examples where the production of adrenaline is absolutely essential.
We also need to aggregate in tribes or communities and that is why we have the second level of the mind. The second level of the mind is 100% engaged in creating tribes. This level of the mind is extremely comfortable when it finds like-minded people. And so this level of the mind is really important for the survival of the species. And for the production of endorphins which are critical for happiness. The next level of the mind is self-awareness and this is responsible for emotion. In ancient Greek times this was called the soul. Understandably so because when your emotions feel fantastic you feel like you are in heaven. This is one reason why this part of the body is called the solar plexus. The next level of the mind is what we refer to as the human heart. There is no real connection to the actual human heart but the zone of the body where this mind feels most powerful is at the level of the human heart. It is the fourth level. At this level we are in our superpower. If we function from this level of the body mind, we will do incredibly great socially conscious things and be very generous and therefore we will end up with great success but no accumulated wealth from it. We then go to the top three layers which is the most powerful part of a human being however Maslow never considered these three levels in his analysis. Level three, level two, level one. These three levels cannot be articulated in psychological or mechanistic ways. And these three levels are responsible for dealing with chaos.
When the top three levels of the mind cannot deal with chaos, the bottom three levels of the mind take over and do their thing. Therefore, if we are able to engage the top three levels of the mind in handling chaos we can live on purpose. If we cannot live with the top three levels of the mind we must engage the bottom three levels. Either way, we deal with chaos Isa bye some form of exclusion, the bottom three levels, or evolution and growth which we called in some language compassion and love, the top three levels.
Not wanting to be too harsh here, dealing with chaos is essential because chaos is extremely challenging and stressful, but, for the vast majority of people dealing with chaos habitually requires the use of the bottom three levels of the mind. The bottom level, the bipolar level, deals with chaos by either attacking it with rules and regulations such as many parents try to put in place for their children, or by absenteeism which means getting as far away from the problem as possible. A divorce is a good example.
So this bipolar treatment of chaos is very important in the military. There is not much chance in a military intervention to operate with compassion or love. I watched a Four Corners documentary yesterday about Myanmar and the incredible human rights violation that is taking place in that country and the courage of the rebellion who are being massacred. It is a perfect example of the use of the bottom bipolar aspect of human nature. Probably about the level of a gorilla but I suspect the gorilla has more compassion. But business life can be led by this level of bipolar thinking also. Many bipolar thinkers are promoted to senior positions because from the old school they are adept at putting in rules and regulations that bind people in compliance. They also make pay increases conditional on compliance while at the same time advocating the benefits of diversity and inclusion. Bipolar thinking is more common than you think. It is essential in some environments such as life and death situations but it is really a corruption on the human condition in a home or a workplace where we are trying to engage people at their best.
But how can we treat others better than we treat ourselves? That is absolutely impossible. If we treat ourselves as a bipolar thinker then we must think everybody else thinks like we think. If we Govan our life with strict rules and regulations, if we punish ourselves for non-compliance to an expectation of rigid bipolar regulations, then we are treating ourselves with the same mindset, level of mind as we will treat others. So it is not difficult to work out whether people are operating in the higher levels of the mind or the lower levels of the mind, we simply observe them. A perfect example of this is our daily routine.
I notice in Bondi there are people to go training on the beach every single day without fail. They are all different shapes and sizes, but the biggest difference is whether they are there because they love to be or whether they are there because they have an extreme punishment on themselves if they don’t be disciplined. Both levels of the mind motivate people but one is external, extrinsic, bipolar, and the other is intrinsic, internal and with love and compassion. They are both exercising, they are both getting the benefit of the early morning sunrise on the beach, they are both becoming more fit, but one is getting sick from getting well and the other is getting inspired. Can you tell the difference?
Bondi also Office an amazing opportunity to witness the difference between high-minded thinking and the second level of mind which is social, tribal and like-minded. For the community at Bondi there are social engagement rules that are presented as optional but are not. Bondi locals care about plastic on the beach, Wales, sharks and many other environmental matters that also are optional for an individual, become part of a unspoken culture of compliance. If you disobey one of these regulations at Bondi you will be verbally and emotionally attacked and excluded from the tribe. Now all this is very invisible. But the socialisation aspect of Bondi culture is a very important one for those of us who make this our home. It also makes visitors either in the club or out depending on their compliance. And given the number of backpackers that make Bondi their target destination on a world fun tour, there is plenty of antagonism to the culture. People are either included in the tribe or excluded even if they are temporary.
Bondi is also home for and incredibly disproportionate number of alcohol consumption joints, pubs and bars and all sorts of places where people go to drink as much as possible for as little as possible. There are also a huge number of cheap food joints, ice cream shops and sexy fashion bikini shops. The beach culture attracts those who love the third level of mind, remember we described this as the solar plexus in Greek language, but the third layer of mind in the consciousness comb. And so people work hard on their abs, people spend a fortune looking great on the beach wearing as little as possible, people love basking in the water and the sun, and I love drinking lots of pleasure driving alcohol. They’re all operating in the third level of mind and this emotional level is both a joyful place for people to function and it is also the root of much metal health struggle. You could say that the vast majority of those people are not necessarily focused on a purpose in life greater than satisfaction of their emotional needs. There are also a disproportionate number of yoga schools and gyms in Bondi. Again the yoga schools are very different to another suburb of Sydney where pleasure or bliss would not be the primary focus of the class, nor would great abs be the target. So even the service provision adjusts to the mindset of its community, clients. If it didn’t it would fail.
So although a lot of people blame big business for the corruption of the world, you can see from the above description the big business is actually not causing the corruption but servicing it and if one business doesn’t do that the culture will shift to another business who does. And so it is really important in your business to work out what level of the mind your business is delivering service at. When I first started speaking to audiences as I travelled around the world with my weekend program real spirit, I attracted people who were suffering significantly in their personal life. Very few people came to those seminars from a business angle. The program was highly successful around the world because it fixed people who were struggling in the bottom four levels of the mind and gave them access to the top 3 to solve those problems that have probably been plaguing them most of their life because they were using the bottom three levels to solve problems in their life caused by the bottom three levels. Getting access to the top three levels of the mind requires a sense of mission in life greater than what is delivered by the bottom three levels. In other words moving from motivation in life to inspiration in life as a driving force for decisions, thinking, loving and being. Suffering, in the lower three levels of the mind drives people to seek low hanging fruit solutions at first and then for reconciliation of their own inner world eventually. The only question for most is how long and persistent will lay utilise low hanging fruit to solve a problem that needs something a little higher on the consciousness cone.
Low hanging fruit in suffering resolution, dealing with chaos, come in the form primarily of advice from a spouse. It can also be through podcast and blogs where education is primary and motivation is clear, and where there is a sense of resolution by listening. But disorganised knowledge leads to confusion, and confusion ultimately is one of the ultimate forms of human suffering. And so, as my work has morphed in the direction of more business associated human development there are less and less people who are at that level of bipolar suffering and more and more people looking to make good of the opportunities they have to deal with chaos and make a better difference in the world and the businesses they run. I but we are all still evolving at the border of chaos in order. And so as, even a business person who is not suffering, evolves into the future and starts to build a better business and a better world they arrive back where they started from a mental point of you facing chaos. The tools and techniques to handle chaos also evolve as we evolve because they become more time considered.
So it is important to recognise that we are not failing when we achieve a level of chaos in our life we have simply evolved. Evolved is a critical component of living on purpose. So when you walk around the office and you see people struggling with their work day and struggling with their life that person has arrived at an evolution point of chaos in their life and they may either try to use the bottom three levels of making everybody around them compliant to eliminate that chaos, just like a parent getting angry at a child for being angry, or they can aspire to evolve as a consequence and find new skills to move through it. Those skills are an asset. Staying on purpose is an asset. Staying on purpose builds more purpose. The action of resolving chaos through the top three levels of the mind builds and inspiration that people want to be around, and not only people want to be around but you want to be around you because you feel totally committed to the future you are building. That is not a bipolar state of mind. So people on purpose attract resources because they do not plummet into the lower states of thinking when the essential chaos of life arrives.
A quick story. Many moons ago I took my daughter to Nepal on one of my commercial tracks. She was so excited to get away and explore the mountains with me. My daughter is an extremely social person and everybody in the group loved sharing time with her. My daughter was also very overweight and as a result struggled with the track itself. Because of the struggle and her ways she developed a wound that would not heal. At about 4000 m of altitude my daughter had dropped into the lowest level of mind, bipolar. I could see on her face a grim determination to get the job done and deal with the chaos which was her suffering and pain, and I had to make a decision which I now call coach them up or coach them out. The decision is to whether I can bring that person mentally to a higher level of function in a circumstance or whether they were in so much limitation due to their physical or emotional state that they would be pulled back down into the bipolar state of mind no matter what I did. In this situation I made the assessment that she would not rise to any other level of mind thinking because this particular wound would continue to cause her pain and suffering that she would use her greatest strength, her bipolar mind, to resolve. I had to send her home. But the most interesting part of the story is that the whole group of 12 people who had spent a fortune in time and money to arrive at this 4000 meter altitude, just three days short of summiting the peak that we were tracking towards, all volunteered to go home to in order to make my daughter feel better about her situation. This is one of the great demonstrations of how somebody in a corporate culture operating at a bipolar level can attract other people to operate at lower levels of thought. But we always drop to one level above the level of the person we are trying to support. For example my daughter was in the lowest level the bipolar level, and everybody in the group dropped to the social level, to build and include her in a tribe. Now this tribal thing is really important part of human nature but in a team heading towards a mountain top it is a totally inappropriate level of thought. However, when people often talk about what they’re going to do to help their kids, to help their friends, to make colleagues at work feel better they drop to the level just one step above the problem. And that drop is called failure. It’s a wonderful thing that a group of people would sacrifice their ambition in order to make somebody feel that they were still part of a tribe, the team, but it is also an incredible witness in the aim of living on purpose. It will also result in enormous backlash. Because in the short-term dropping into that space feels fantastic and appropriate but in the long term sitting back at home a year later wondering why they didn’t do what they said they would do in their lives, they will remember my daughter as being their excuse. That will not necessarily leave them with a great taste in their mouth.
coming self-sufficient in life does not mean living alone or providing your own necessarily income. Self-sufficiency means a commitment to a certain way of thinking and a way of living that is independent of the desire and compassion that helps you build communities, families and teams. Must understand that everybody does not think at the same level and so although you may belong to a community at one level, a tribe, you must not consider this to be your true self expressed. When you find purpose and live in resolution to chaos at the top three levels of the mind you are finding your true nature. At this level you will attract resources, get paid more, get a bigger responsibility in the world and have a far greater long-term impact that if you continually gravitate down to the level of thinking of those people you wish to be a tribe with. It is true compassion to say that somebody is operating in a low level of thinking and you can respect their space because we’ve all been there but we do not necessarily do the world a big service by dropping into that level of mind informing the tribe with the in some deluded idea that this helps anybody. Stay inspired, stay on purpose, follow your routine because you love it and keep growing your process for dealing with ever-increasing chaos, it is a sign of your growth.
that is the end of this episode.
with spirit
Chris
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