Apart from between the covers of comic books, Superheroes are a species that is practically extinct.  Men and women throughout history - Superheroes - have been changing the world in whatever way they can.  Even until quite recently, the world was still giving birth to new Superheroes.  Think of Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi.  Remember Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.  These people were humans.  They didn’t jump tall buildings in a single bound or rescue princesses from dragons.  All they did was change history for the better.  They captured the situation they were in and moved people forward.  They solved a problem or pursued a mission that continues to improve things for humans around the world.

However, today it would seem that we just aren’t making any more Superheroes.  It is like we have broken the mold, if there ever was one.  Who, from today’s generation, will be remembered by the world for their lasting contributions to mankind?  Sure we have heroes, and perhaps more than ever before, but we have a serious lack of Superheroes to make a massive difference. 

Today, most of our heroes are business people, sportspeople, actors, musicians and mediocre politicians.  There is nothing wrong with being a hero for these reasons.  But how many of them will be remembered 20 years from now for their broad contribution to the world?  Many will make their mark on one area of culture or another, but who will be able to say that they really helped mankind?  How many of our current batch of heroes could we really call Superheroes?  I think the breed is dead.

What would it take to re-establish the breed of Superheroes?  A Superhero is simply someone who publicly solves a large problem.  A Superhero finds out what is wrong in the world and makes it right.  They needn’t where stretchy pants or live in a shroud of secrecy.  They don’t need to be super-human or immortal.  All they need is to put themselves in the right place so that they can serve men by solving an important problem. 

Today, most people have given up on this quest because they don’t believe it is possible.  Our problems are too big and complex or we are too small and underpowered.  This sort of thinking ultimately kills off the Superhero spirit that might otherwise come out in us.  We have to consciously resuscitate it, if we want to solve the big problems that humans face.

What does this world really need?  Apart from a fresh start, we need a tribe of people dedicated to solving our biggest problems.  We need people who can commit themselves to discovering serious solutions to our most pressing issues.  Who will step up to the mark and distribute the first world’s excess food capacity to the third world?  Who will dare to offer the same level of health care around the world regardless of race?  Who will design a system so that even the thirstiest people on earth can finally have safe drinking water?  Who will empower the people of the world to play their own part in stopping war? 

These things are being pursued in the quietness of active organisations all over the world as we speak.  People are trying to solve these problems, but for some reason their solutions aren’t working in a sustainably way.  Don’t take me as an expert here, because I don’t have solutions to these big problems.  But you can see where I am coming from, can’t you?  If our world can cultivate heroes who can attract millions to a concert to hear their music ; if our world supplies us with almost 1000 billionaires ; if even ordinary people can climb mount Everest today if they have enough pesos, then surely as a species we can find some people who are able to solve our more pressing problems.

How would someone step out on this path?  If someone decided to become the next in the line of Superheroes, their first port of call would have to be inside their heart.  True heroes aren’t motivated by personal gain.  They are searching for solutions that help all people.  These people would have to develop a serious and consistent compassion for our species.  An aspiring Superhero may be well advised to base their ambition on their love for people rather than on fame or fortune.  Maybe even ignoring themselves in their attempts to serve the rest of the world.  In fact any Superhero could do well to take on the attitude of serving others and seeing where this lead them.

An aspiring Superhero could well expect to be misunderstood, and underestimated until they make a breakthrough.  They could expect to make enemies of people who don’t believe in solutions.  They could expect a life of serving others to not be particularly comfortable or easy.  They could expect that their mission would be hard and honest work as well as being exhausting and close to impossible.  On the whole, the life of a Superhero is not for the lazy, selfish, insecure or greedy.

Is the role of Superhero too much to ask of a normal person?  Perhaps so.  Perhaps this is why there are relatively few people alive who may be competent as a Superhero.  It is one of those out of fashion occupations that only appeal to a small number of people anyway.  Out of that small number, only very few would have what it takes, and then only at great personal expense. 

Does the job seem appealing to you?  Do you think you have what it takes?  Are you willing to give it a shot?  If you are serious about solving some of our bigger problems, then maybe you should step up to the challenge.  Rather than signing on for a conventional life in a big company, consider a direction that could take you towards becoming a Superhero.  Take a step in the right direction, and see how it feels.  Can you imagine yourself solving one of our biggest problems?  Take another step and watch what happens.  Are you drawn closer to a particular issue in our world? 

Nobody is asking anyone to save the world by themselves.  What the world needs is leaders.  Superheroes who can engineer the rest of our efforts into productive solutions.  People who will motivate action and who inspire excellence.  They will become the Superheros of tomorrow as they start to build a better today.

Does this sound like you?  I hope so.

Thanks

Tom  

The good news in most of these situations, is that for someone who is reaching out way beyond their comfort zone, they will still have made progress.  The very fact that you are over extended, means that you may well be performing at a high level, despite not meeting your goal. 

Here is a little example from my life.  As I have written about previously, I aim to get out of bed to start writing at 5:00 every week day.  This is an excellent time for me and often it is no problem for me to make it.  However when I don’t make it up at 5:00, I find it very easy to get up at 6:00 to go running and before I know it I am out the door.  This hasn’t always been so easy.  On and off throughout my life I have struggled with getting up at 6:00.  Over time, I gradually ease it back to 6:10, or hug the pillow for an extra 20 minutes.  Sometimes it gets to the stage that I miss my workout because I am too late.  When my aim is to get up at 6:00, I don’t always make it.

When my aim is to get up at 5:00, 6:00 seems so easy.  It is like a nice relaxing sleep in and so when I roll out of bed, I feel ready for whatever comes.  6:00 has not changed, it is just that I have changed my attitude, and as long as I aim to get up at 5:00 then my attitude to 6:00 will be luxurious.

This principle can be applied to any area of your life.  Rather than being an excuse for under performance, I see it as a form of compensation for missing a goal.  I half remember a cliche about reaching for the sun and ending up in the stars, but I can’t recollect how it goes.  The point is that if we reach out way past our current level, we can rest assured that even if we don’t meet our goal, then at least we will still record a great performance.  We will still end up ahead of where we would have if we hadn’t been so bold.

So don’t mourn if you miss a goal.  Instead, focus on what you did achieve and then try again.  Nobody meets every goal all of the time.  You are no exception.

Thanks

Tom

Last night, and again this morning, I went out in wind and rain amid the flying debris and storm to pursue my goals.  I had scheduled an 11km run for last night and then another for this morning, and since my training program is set for all weather conditions, I kept it going.

It started out quite dismal as I ran out into the dark storm last night but very quickly I fell into a rhythm and began to enjoy myself.  I watched people scampering from cars to buildings like crabs escaping from a wave.  I marvelled as rubbish bins tumbled down the road and birds flew backwards.  I felt the sting of the rain on my cheeks and the wind in my eyes.  Then after less than an hour I returned home, tired, satisfied, and unharmed. 

Along the way I developed a mental image of being interviewed after a successful race somewhere in the future.  The reporter asked me what my secret was and I told him that the secret to my success was Typhoon Training.  Of course this is not the whole story.  The truth is that I train in whatever weather I meet.  This past year I have trained in snow, rain, extreme humidity, baking temperatures, wind, and of course perfect days.  I aim for consistent, predictable, progressive training and so I can’t let anything, even a typhoon, get in the way.

This sort of commitment is uncommon in the world, but so is real success.  Anyone can be committed when things are perfect, but it takes that bit extra to persist when the situation deteriorates.  This extra bit can make all of the difference:

1. It provides the extra training oportunity that others miss by bailing out.
2. It provides extreme training, which hardens your ability to perform in more moderate conditions
3. It provides experience of all conditions which is necessary because sometimes we have to perform in all sorts of adverse conditions
4. It boosts your self esteem and capability as you become more aware of what you can actually do.

This Typhoon Training concept is not limitted to slightly crazed running plans.  It is also applicable to most other pursuits.  Whenever you find yourself pursuing a goal, there is a chance that conditions may deteriorate and you find yourself in a less than desirable situation.  If you are able to stick to your plan and persist no matter what you face, you stand a good chance of experiencing the same sort of benefits that I described. 

Typhoon Training is not reckless thrill seeking.  It is not foolishly endangering yourself and others.  It is about calculating risks and if at all possible, sticking to your plan, come what may.  Typhoon Training can put us ahead of those who wait out the storms.  And if nothing else, it can be a whole lot of fun.

What sort of situations have you found yourself in, that require Typhoon training, to keep you going forward?

Thanks

Tom

The most efficient form of motion is constant velocity.  If you are driving a car, walking, riding a bike or swimming, you get more distance for the energy you burn by going at a steady speed.  This is exactly the same when we are heading towards a Life Goal.  Constant progress will get us there in a more efficient way than sporadic fits and starts of effort.  However there are times when a little Hyperdrive motivation will do wonders for our progress. (more…)

It is not a problem that I am even contemplating.  Just the thought of plodding through these characters one by one, memorizing them by repetition and sweat, just drives me cold.  Most people who eventually gain a useful mastery of Kanji, say it took them years to get to the stage where they could read a newspaper.  The average foreigner will never get to this stage simply because of the sheer quantity of intellectual work required.  Many try but most give up, claiming it is impossible.

I am not interested in these sort of intellectual heroics, so I am taking an alternate route to most.  I am learning how to read the primary meaning of 2042 kanji in approximately one month of extremely part time study. 

I am doing this with the help of a classic text called Remembering the Kanji 1 by James Heisig.  In this text he explains and lays out a technique for using what he calls imaginative memory which is simply an interlinking of the kanji that you wish to learn with a vivid image.  I am not doing this system justice with my brief review, however you may grasp the importance of this approach if you understand that he claims that most people, if they study full time, could memorize the reading of all of the 2042 kanji that he presents in just 4-6 weeks.  This is surely remarkable because most students would find it difficult to learn that many in several years of study, let alone so few weeks. 

This prompted me to push the boundary of this progress even further and see how fast I could make it work.  I did a short time trial and discovered that with uncommon preparation and focus I could study and memorize one kanji in under one minute.  I then decided that I could realistically devote one hour a day to this study (in 2 half hour blocks)for a relatively short period of time.  This gave me  little over 60 Kanji in a day.  From this I quickly decided that I would try and master all 2042 in a month, working very part time at it.  In 31 days I will emerge from this challenge with the ability to read the primary meaning of 2042 Kanji, and this memory will be permanently fixed into my mind.

So far I am at day 5 so I have managed 300 Kanji which I think is impressive enough by itself.  In another 26 days I will have completed the lot and will have done so in about 31 hours total.  From this it could be assumed that the course could be taken over a much shorter time still, but I can’t vouch for the long term health consequences of such rapid progress.

The main point in me writing this article is to help you understand that what many people will tell you is impossible is often just difficult.  Learning Kanji may not be your thing, but next time you are standing before a daunting goal, look closely at it before you begin and you just may find that by using your mind creatively, you are able to slash hours, days, or even months off the time it will take you to reach success.  All of this will help you to stay on track and motivated because instead of grinding away for years at a goal, you can reach success in just weeks.  I am not talking about cheat your way to success, merely taking the shortest, most direct route to your goal and doing it much faster than anyone else will tell you is possible.

What does this mean to you?  What goal can you bring closer by some careful and creative treatment?

Thanks

Tom

More often than not, the ability to entertain these dreams is knocked out of us somewhere in school.  Sure, we continue to day dream about all of the things that we would like to do, but we don`t actually picture the dreams as reality.  We become much too mature and practical to trust in dreams.  This, and the lack of tools to realise our dreams, means that most dreams are quickly abandoned.  They slip down behind a bookshelf somewhere until one day we dig them out and realise that they have turned into regrets.

How about we change things around.  What if, instead of losing our ability to dream as we get older, we set about improving our skills?  What if we we actively pursued dreaming?  What difference would it make?

Dreams are the start of progress.  Today`s reality tells us everything about how things are now, but it tells us very little about how things could be.  It is only when we can dream of what might be, that we are able to deliberately build a new future that is not possible yet.  The dream becomes as valuable as money in the bank or hours in the day because it is a tool that can drive us forward. 

The only thing that matters when you are dreaming is discovering what you think is a valuable use of your life.  What are you willing to exchange the rest of your life for?  At the end of your life, what will you be proud to say that you pursued with everything you had to offer?  This is the sort of dream that we are talking about.

The most powerful dreams come from within us.  If, when you are dreaming, you see an image of a fast car, an attractive partner and a winding road beside the sea, be suspicious.  This could well be a dream planted in you by marketers.  Effective dreams are your own.  A powerful dream is not necessarily going to impress or even be recognised by others.  It often won`t refer to possessions or money.  We may never fully share these dreams with an other person because they are a product of our individual desires and they come from within us. 

I will let you in on a little of my own private dream here, to give you a taste of the sort of thing that I am writing about.  Quite some time ago, I realised that I wasn’t cut out for a standard 9-5 job.  I just hate being chained to my work.  I love work, but I hate having to work on someone elses terms.  My dream became setting up my work life in a way that I was totally in control.  I dreamed of closing my construction business, saying goodbye to staff, clients and suppliers and forming a new way to work.  I dreamed of being able to create value for people without being chained to someone elses timetable and idea of quality.  This is the dream I am currently pursuing (a part of this is Life Goal Action) and it is a tremendously motivating dream.  It doesn’t appeal to you?  That doesn’t worry me in the least because it is my dream, for my life.

The most effective dreamers aren`t scared or ashamed to pursue their dreams.  They understand that nobody else will pursue their dreams without them, so they go for it.  They don`t have their heads in the clouds.  Although they have massive dreams they are well connected to reality and so they can combine the two to create a new reality.  They have developed ways to collect, and store their dreams.  They look beneath the dreams to see the underlying principles and see what really excites them.  Then they put their lives to work in achieving these underlying principles.  Their dreams focus their actions via their goal setting process.

You can do the same.  Forget your inhibitions for a while and set aside some time to simply dream.  Get comfortable, physically and emotionally and then look at your life.  What is your dream?  In other words, what do you think is a good exchange for your life?  When you have your dream, ask yourself “Is the dream telling the full story or is there an underlying principle that I need to look at?”.  Imagine your dream is to walk on the moon.  When you look a little deeper, you discover that you hate the idea of travelling long distances, so what is the underlying principle?  You discover that the thing that attracts you to the dream of walking on the moon is the idea that you are doing something totally, outrageously out of your comfort zone.  You discover that your true dream is to extend the boundaries of your life way beyond what you currently experience.  This is your true dream, the image of walking on the moon just carried the dream for you.

When you have a dream established in your mind, try it on for a while.  Walk around with your dream for a week or so and see how it fits.  Think about the consequences of realising your dream.  Ask “What would I be doing right now if my dream is realised?”.  Think about the positive and negative differences that your dream would make to your life.  Do the numbers still look good?  Are you more sure or less sure that you have found the right dream?  Now is the time to try again if you like, but sooner or later you have to settle down with a dream that you own and make it work.

The rest of Life Goal Action will help you from now on, as you strive to realise your dream.  The dreaming is the big part that makes your journey unique.  Achieving the dream is all about persistently using the best tools and creativity that you can muster to steadily approach your dream.

This is why I believe that goal setting without a dream will get you somewhere, but it is only when you start with a dream that you can really expect to end up where you want to be.

Have you found your own dream yet?  How did you find it?   

Thanks

Tom O’Leary

Imagine if that record still stood today.  In reality, we have seen this first record broken and re-broken until it has now fallen to around 9.77 seconds.  I will guarantee that the people who broke the record at any of these times didn’t think like most people do today.

Somehow most people have come to believe that records, top performances and other people’s achievements are goals that they should try to meet.  They know that they want to perform well, and so they set their sites on a record set by someone else. 

“This year I am going to sell as many Vacuum cleaners as Bill did back in 2005″

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