Kevin Young 28/10/2021 Kevin Young 28/10/2021

Truth and Responsibility

Inspired by my Compassionate Inquiry colleagues I wrote a few words..

Truth & Responsibility

Let the world touch my skin

Feel the truth, the reality I’m in.

This is old, this is young,

In my head I hear the song I’ve always sung.

Bang the drum, bang the drum

Do the things you’ve always done.

There is another way to see,

Can you take responsibility?

Who am I right now in this,

What about me does my awareness miss?

If I unveiled the real truth in me

Who and how would I really be?

For Pamela, Gabriella, Mary, Varduhi, Dimitra, Rati & Christina

Kevin Young 28/10/2021 Kevin Young 28/10/2021

Home

I wrote a poem ..

Who are you and where have you been

Are you ready to remember all the things that you’ve seen

Are you ready to realise what it is that you need

Are you the oak tree or are you the seed

Are you the villain on the stage of your life

Are you the ceremony, the groom or the wife

Do you know if you’re opening or closing, or both

Are you dead or dying, apparition or ghost

Are you real, or are you just a thought

Are you what’s been traded, stolen or bought

Will you follow your path

Do you trust in yourself

Are you given to living

In sickness and health

Does your spirit belong to all that you know

You forgot to forget, you’ve forgotten to grow

You’ve been drinking the poison from the most ancient of glasses

You’ve fell into the story, drank the drug of the masses

And now I see that you’re seeing

I can see than you’ve seen

As you begin to remember where you’ve actually been

You’ve struggled to see through your own blinding veil

Your boats been untethered, are you ready to sail

Each wave as it rises believes it’s all it can be

But each wave is complete as it returns to the sea

Over and over and over again

You’re mind’s been expanding you can’t be the same

So give up your grip, let go and let be

Release all the pressures and set yourself free

I know that you sense it, you’ve got the taste in your mouth

Don’t let him trick you and fill you with doubt

He thinks he’s your saviour

He thinks he’s your guide

He doesn’t know it, he’s done nothing but lied

All that he wanted, all that he craved

Was to guide you undiscovered from cradle to grave

Now your’s is the glory, in presence and truth

Wise and unfolding, an ancient soul in your youth

Let them scramble

Let each come to their light

Every life is a message, each to unravel their plight

Each life an experience and must run its course

Each to extend, expand and and return to their source

You are the knower and you are the known

You are the guest and you are the home

You are the warmth emanating from fire

You’re what’s desired you are the desirer

You are the beloved and you are the love

You are the inside, the outside, you are all that’s below, all that’s above

For you are me and I am you

We are That which knows us

the riddle, the clue

We are the question that sleeps in your mind

We are the wind we are the tide

We are the closeness, the distance, the in and the out

We are certainty, we are doubt

We cannot be answered

Or solved, nor figured out

We are creator, destroyer, destination and scout

We are child, birth, man, woman and womb

We are infinity encased in our tomb

We are together arriving alone

We are nothing

Now we are home.

Kevin Young 28/10/2021 Kevin Young 28/10/2021

Am I a fraud?

I pose this as a hypothetical question..

Intellectually, in my thoughts, in my knowledge, I know that I am not.

Over the last few weeks in particular I have witnessed a mountain of information to ‘prove’ I am the real deal; a genuine, altruistic, well received, articulate and effective spiritual and emotional mentor.

“We have been so different. It’s like you hit a reset button. I honestly can’t praise you enough for what you have done for us’ I received this message from a client I spoke with last week. Amazing feedback and all I can think is ‘fooled her then!’

“I spoke with 3 therapists who are listed on Bupa and none of them bring to the table what you bring to the table '' Again, beautiful to receive...fooled him too!

“I’m in a really good place now Kev, I really feel like you showed me how to work with my demons rather than fighting against them” Yip, you guessed it, fooled him too!

“Have a great weekend Kev, thanks to you I am really starting to know my worth” There’s another sucker I’ve fooled!

I am currently at the certification stage of being awarded the status of Professional Practitioner of Compassionate Inquiry and several of my colleagues have said things like “You are the go to guy when I am struggling with my practice” and “you are a natural at this and I always feel very safe in your presence and under your direction”. Another colleague said “I’m really looking forward to the time when I am as comfortable as you during my compassionate inquiry sessions” Seems to me that I have all these people fooled too.

Recently I was asked by a great friend of mine Damian Campbell to speak to JP and Sean from Core Concept. JP and Sean are both really cool, intelligent guys who help organisations develop their ‘organisational culture’. I love their work and can see that they are at the top of their game. We met for coffee and chatted for 3 hours. We talked about their business aspirations, their path to where they are at right now. We talked about the difficulties of entrepreneurship and self employment. Then as we got comfortable with each other we started talking about spirituality and our spiritual practice, Brahan, The Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism, meditation, emotions and emotional triggers, Gabor Mate, Simon Sinek, Peter Levine and other authors. I was in my element, loving every minute of their company and conversation and I am well enough versed in the areas of body language, breathing and eye contact etc to see that, they too, were enthralled by me and what I had to say. Still, there it was, the voice inside my head and that feeling in my gut..”You’ve these boys fooled too, one of these days, one of these people are going to suss you out and reveal you as an impostor”

Then just yesterday I was out for tea and conversation with two guys I hold in very high regard; James Perry and Martin Gilchrist. Again, the conversation was magical. They both said that they loved hearing my thoughts on the things we were chatting about. If I’m not mistaken James said that I was the only person he would seek out to have emotional and spiritual conversations with. When I explained to them how I was feeling over the last few weeks and revealed my inner vulnerabilities they were surprised to say the least. I had them fooled too, said the voice in my head..

I have a beautiful wife; intelligent, talented, creative, a great homemaker, decision taker and mother. I have, and I say this modestly, two of the most beautiful young girls I have ever met as my children; they do exceptionally well at school, they are musically talented, sporty, caring, generous and fantastic company. I hope you get the chance to meet my family one day - everyone should, they are amazing and I know they love me but sometimes I’m not so sure that they even like me.

Thank you, you’ve read this far, you must be interested in the content of the writing and, I suppose, to some degree, in me.

Why, why the bloody hell am I telling you all this? Where am I even going? Well, firstly I wanted to reveal myself and to share that experience, the experience of being me with anyone who may take some resolve from it. It’s not always easy being yourself..so many demons, so many triggers..

I’ve read, searched, researched, felt and listened enough to know that as I move to really being me, really showing who I am that it scares the absolute life out of me! I have spoken with my Buddhist teacher, Chitta, the residing Buddhist nun at the Kadampa Buddhist Centre in Belfast and talked to her about standing so close to the edge of my own realisation that I was petrified..What if I did become myself, what if I did allow myself to be all the things I know I am. What if I just let go and know that I Am, what if I surrender to that, what if I drop the mask and reveal that I am just ‘That’? Once I’ve done that, I can’t go back. Have you ever tried to put toothpaste back in the tube after you’ve squeezed too much out? It’s pretty much impossible and that voice I’m hearing is my ego holding on to the last drop of security it has. That voice I hear, that fear of being exposed, is just a manifestation of my ego frantically trying to keep the top on the toothpaste tube as my true essence looks to squeeze itself out into the world.

Through these words, I am making a statement to myself and that statement is that I am. All I am is ‘I am’ and by only being what I am I can hopefully use my skills, qualities and presence to help others to be what they are.

I’ve done the work, I know where this fear comes from and where it originates - If I see you ask me, but be careful because I’ll tell you and in that discovery you may well come into contact with your own fear and get a glimpse of what you are or, maybe, what you ought to be. Exhilarating as that is, it is also a very frightening experience because once it’s seen, you can’t unsee it and not overcoming your vulnerability and revealing what you’ve seen can drive a person to despair.

Maybe in the future as I receive those lovely words the voice in my head will just be still and know that I am.

Maybe now, or soon, I can learn the power of emptiness and to simply love and be loved.

If you are interested in having a conversation about what it is that is standing in your way and how it got to be there you’ll find a way to me. I’ll be waiting for you.

Thank you for the space in your day.

Kev.

Kevin Young 28/10/2021 Kevin Young 28/10/2021

Bridging the gulf between isolation and intimacy

Belonging

I am a huge fan of John O’ Donohue. I was introduced to O’ Donohue’s work by my father many years ago and have made a point to search out and study his writing, poetry, prayers and spiritual guidance ever since. The work of O’ Donohue has influenced and guided my own thinking, spilling over into my work and, more importantly, how I see the world I am part of.

John O'Donohue was born in 1956, into a native Gaelic speaking family, on the farm inhabited by previous generations in the Burren Region of County Clare, Ireland. As the oldest of four children, he learned to work alongside his parents and uncle, developing a close kinship with the wild landscape, framed by an ethereal view of a limestone valley and the beckoning waters of Galway Bay. This valley was the shell of John's soul, forging a deep and powerful connection with the elements shaping him. He was educated at the local primary school, alternating his studies with the farm chores of tending livestock, raising crops and carving peat for fuel, in his youth. John later described the profound influence of his childhood home as, "A huge wild invitation to extend your imagination…an ancient conversation between the land and sea."

Although not his most famous work - that title would probably go to his first published work of prose, Anum Cara (1997), I am particularly interested in his second published book Eternal Echoes; Exploring our Hunger to Belong (1998). I do not consider myself skilled enough in the art of literature to even begin to describe how wonderful O’ Donohue’s command of words and vocabulary are. I would simply gently encourage you to discover his work for yourself. You will not be disappointed. I can assure you that.

I am fairly certain that I have ‘properly’ read Eternal Echoes half a dozen times and I regularly pick the book up and spend a few moments in it’s company whilst drinking a coffee or taking a break from the tasks and chores of the day. The book, for me, is a literary version of one of those wire head massagers, the ones that make you buckle at the knee and make gentle purring sounds at the same time. Eternal Echoes does this for my soul.

Today I decided that I would start again, right from the beginning, making sure to read every word: the acknowledgments, the table of contents and the opening poem. In his opening poem O’ Donohue writes;

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the World,

In the name of Stillness

Home of Belonging,

In the name of Solitude

Of the Soul and of the Earth

I aspire to arise like this, I aspire to write like this, but for now I am grateful just to be able to read this. It is beautiful, is it not?

Today though my spirit was captivated by another short passage that I am familiar with. It is on the second page of the prologue, before the book has even begun in earnest. You can understand why it takes me such a long time to read the book, my heart and mind are captured by most sentences, most paragraphs and most pages. I often have to stop and reread a passage several times just to allow myself to savour and embody O’ Donohues words. This is the passage;

“Our hunger to belong is the longing to bridge the gulf that exists between isolation and intimacy. Distance awakens longing; closeness is belonging. Everyone longs for intimacy and dreams of a nest of belonging in which one is embraced, seen and loved. Something within each of us cries out for belonging . We can have all that the world has to offer in terms of status, achievement and possessions, yet without a true sense of belonging, our lives feel empty and pointless.”

Again, I’m sure you will agree, such an understanding of prose and literary beauty. Maybe my attraction to O’ Donohue is that he seems to speak directly to my spirit, my essence, my soul. His writings seem to bypass the intellectual part of me and travel, with such grace, straight to my heart centre. Maybe it is his ability to speak of, and articulate so poignantly, the very essence of the human condition that gently embraces me and draws me in.

As I reread the passage above I noticed a subtle change in how I was understanding it. On previous reads I had read it from the position of me being the person who “is longing to bridge the gulf that exists between isolation and intimacy” that is, I was the person in isolation, and that the intimacy that O'Donohue speaks of lies somewhere else - in some other person or place. This time of reading though I was aware that I am both the person in isolation and that the intimacy I hunger for is also me.

Viewed from this perspective I can see that my task is to be intimate with myself; my anger, my sadness, my fear. From this new vantage point I can see that there is a part of me that hungers to belong to me. I hunger to be embraced, seen and loved by myself. I invite you to go back and reread the passage above from this new perspective. Do you hunger to belong? Are you longing for your own intimacy? Are you dreaming of a nest where you can rest and belong to yourself?

This new perspective may seem a little spiritually high falutin, it does take a while to ‘be with’ this new perspective, but ultimately it makes the task of finding that intimacy much easier. The responsibility lies within. There is no journey, there is only the removal of ignorance, my own ignorance.

This new perspective removes the responsibility that I have given to the other. It also removes the resentment that I may develop towards the other because, ultimately, the other can never create that “nest of belonging where one is embraced”. This new perspective makes life so much easier. The responsibility and therefore the power lies with me, within me. I am the nest of belonging, I am the belonging, I am the bridge that connects my isolation to my intimacy. So are you.

Kevin Young 21/04/2020 Kevin Young 21/04/2020

Isolation, maybe you've always been isolated?

I’ve just read the most beautiful piece of writing. It was written by a very close friend, Vinty Firth, who with his wife and young family, has been living through the toughest of times. Not the tough times we all find ourselves in right now, but his and his families very personal toughest of times. Life and death experiences, or, no doubt as Vinty would put it, life and life experiences. His writing has inspired and encouraged me to tap at my own keyboard and share, or maybe process, my own thoughts.

I am privileged to work with people. I am privileged to be permitted to be an abiding witness to many people's fears, trauma’s, doubts and innermost thoughts as they walk themselves back from the brink to a place of peace, love and compassion - primarily for themselves, but ultimately, for those closest to them.

I get to be present to see people physically change in front of my eyes. I have witnessed men and women grow 5 or 10 years younger in 2 hours. How do they do this? They simply open their hearts to themselves and welcome everything that they have been hiding from most of their lives.

As my good friend Vinty wrote, ‘What I have come to know is that it’s our resistance to what is that creates suffering. And the acceptance and surrender leads to a more beautiful place.’ I believe he is right.

Childhood for many of us was traumatic. Not because our parents were cruel, although, quite often this was the case. Not because we have been abused, sexually, physically or emotionally, although, quite often, this wasn’t the case. Certainly not because our parents didn’t love us, they nearly always do. It was traumatic for us because sometimes our parents could only love us as much as they had been loved. There is no one to blame here, no place to lay responsibility. It simply was as it was because that’s all it could ever be.

As we move through our lives we learn to protect ourselves from pain. Who wouldn’t want to be protected from pain? The problem occurs when we believe, or at least the part of us that wants to protect us believes, that we need to be protected from everything. Until we begin to discover that these parts of us even exist we act in ways that destroy relationships, create addictions, stifle creativity and leave a wake of destruction wherever we go.

We tend not to like these parts of us, in fact, we tend to hate, berate, criticise, judge and vilify these parts of us. We sedate, intoxicate and distract ourselves so that we don’t have to accept these parts of us. They are too painful, too shameful, too guilt ridden to look at. Who here wants to accept and feel their own pain, shame and guilt? It’s easier to drink, smoke, inject, surf, complain, eat or binge watch than to feel this pain. Is it any wonder we are an addicted society.

Then a pandemic comes along and we are all locked away with ourselves. The majority of our distractions have been taken from us. We find it much more difficult to run away from ourselves when we have nowhere to run to. There aren’t so many places to hide from ourselves when we can’t leave the house and that, in my humble opinion, is the trauma facing many, many people right now. The trauma of being with their own pain.

What to do then? How do we escape this pain? How do we get to a place where we can be at peace with ourselves and our loved ones. Well, in the words of Michael Brown, author of The Presence Process, ‘the only way out is in, and the only way in is through’.

What we actually can do is do nothing at all. We can sit with ourselves. We can feel our pain. We can acknowledge our darkness, our anger, our grief, our fear, our shame and our guilt and, with open arms and an open heart say to these parts of us ‘I love you, I am delighted you are here and you are most welcome’. We can enter into a relationship with all of these parts of us. An unconditional, non judgemental, compassionate and loving acceptance of all that we are. Feeling is healing.

I am reminded of a poem by the great Sufi poet Rumi who writes in his poem The Guest House;

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Maybe the isolation that has been forced upon us by a virus and, our understandable desire to protect the vulnerable in our society, has really shown us that we have always been isolated. We have always, through no fault of our own, isolated ourselves from ourselves. The situation we find ourselves in now is forcing us to break that isolation and to be with ourselves. This for many, many people is extremely difficult. I have had several conversations this week alone with people who are feeling the pain that has been buried deep inside themselves rising up to the surface.

Maybe we can stop the self isolation by distraction, maybe we can stop trying to fix ourselves, change ourselves, run from ourselves, improve ourselves. Maybe we can stop trying to be skinnier, or bigger or richer or smarter and we can face the very reason that many are trying to get, have, achieve, own, do or be and just be. Maybe we can use this isolation to just accept all of us there is to accept and just be.

I’ve been bombarded with posts, tweets, emails and promotions telling me than now is the time to market myself, to sell myself, to step up my game, to turn this negative into a positive, flip, twist, push on, drive forward, be at my best, lose weight, get fit, up skill, upgrade, upsize, expand and promote myself. Have you noticed how our fears of being accepting of ourselves are being used even now to sell us stuff to keep us from realising ourselves, from taking a few days to fully open our hearts and say ‘I accept me for all that I am, I am happy to be with me, I am content just to be.

If you are feeling anxious, stressed or out of your depth maybe, just maybe, you are the person that can save you and all you have to do is be. Just be.

I want to leave you with another quote from the piece of writing that inspired me to write to you…’Just for now, breathe, become present with the life giving force of your breath, slow down to the pace of life and be present.

And with a final poem from poet Jeff Foster

Stop trying to heal yourself, fix yourself, even awaken yourself.

Let go of letting go.

Stop trying to fast-forward the movie of your life, chasing futures that never seem to arrive.

Instead, bow deeply to yourself as you actually are.

Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your deepest longing, your fearful thoughts...are not mistakes, and they aren't asking to be healed. They are asking to be held.

Here, now, lightly, in the loving arms of present awareness.

Kevin Young 13/03/2020 Kevin Young 13/03/2020

Where is love?

Take a moment and breathe.

Just now, concern yourself with yourself, bring your focus inside and notice your breath.

I work with and in everyday life engage with people who find this simple exercise extremely difficult. It’s not their fault though.

The more I study trauma, emotion, behaviour and essentially myself, the more I realise that we are a tribe of people who live in a state of trauma, a constant state of trauma.

I am not offering a political opinion here when I say ‘we’ I mean Northern Ireland and the UK – The news on my TV, Radio and social media is mostly UK based and influenced.

Now back to the trauma that I believe we are suffering from and dealing with. Peter Levine in his book ‘Waking the Tiger’ describes the first symptoms of trauma to develop and the core of traumatic reaction as;

1. Hyperarousal

2. Constriction

3. Disassociation

4. Feelings of helplessness

There are, he goes on to say, many other symptoms that show up including but not limited to hypervigilance, intrusive memory, exaggerated emotional and startle responses, mood swings, temper tantrums, feelings of shame, reduce ability to deal with stress and difficulty sleeping. These are the symptoms or traits I see being played out throughout our society today.

We see, and are reminded often, of people panic buying, hoarding and generally looking out for themselves. This is completely understandable. This is how you behave when trauma is present in your body. The really frightening thing about trauma is that it also hides itself. It’s very difficult to realise that it’s present until it’s recognised and pointed out to you by someone outside yourself and then it often offers anger, or another adaptive behaviour, to protect itself.

Trauma believes its job is to protect you. It wants to be hypervigilant. It wants to be on the lookout for perceived danger. So when we try to dismantle the trauma it sees this as a danger to the organism it is protecting, that is why we can receive an angry reaction from our friends, family or colleagues when we ask for calm.

If we consider our society, province or country to be that organism, then its trauma will behave in exactly the same way. We will see a whole society in a state of trauma and we don’t have to cast our minds back so far to get to the source of recent trauma in Norther Ireland, and in the lack of our recent history being dealt with, the re-traumatising of our society. Is it any wonder when a danger like Corona virus comes along we are so easy to startle and frighten and manipulate and control.

I had a really great friend of mine message me yesterday to tell me ‘they could feel their fear build’. I had another friend call me today to ask for my advice on ‘how to stop the panic they felt around Corona virus’.

My answer to them both was the same. Be in your body, be present, be aware and be here now. Yes, I agree these are difficult and unusual times. Have you stopped to check in with yourself today? How does your body feel? Can you recognise and name the body sensations you are having as you watch the news or scroll down through your social media feed?

Can you recognise and name the emotions associated with these body sensations? Be careful too of labelling your emotions as perceptions we often say or hear others say; I feel anxious, paranoid, panicked, pessimistic, or alarmed but these are not feelings, these are perceptions. There is no such feeling of anxiety, what you’re actually feeling is fear that you perceive to be anxiety.

So first of let’s call the feeling what it is – you are feeling fear and when we are feeling fear we live outside our bodies.

Think of the people we have been chatting to over the last few days, the quickened speech, darting eyes, jiggling knees, anxious questions and feelings of helplessness. These people are feeling fear.

Now if you knew someone was feeling fear how would you treat them? You would be kind and compassionate and understanding and helpful. You would offer reassurance that things will be OK, things will be good in time. You would offer support, encouragement and comfort but most of us don’t do that. Most of us berate, condescend and mock these people and that is certainly not doing to help. In fact, that is the very thing that is going to push them towards more fear and the perception of paranoia and panic.

I’m reaching out to anyone who reads this and asking the question, where is the love? Can we as families, friend groups, communities and ultimately as a society be kind to one and other? Of course we can! Do we need to be told by a higher authority when to or how to do this? Of course we don’t!

If you are able to offer a comforting word to a friend or family member who is feeling fear and reacting from it offer them a kind word of assurance, of comfort. Connect with them and tell them we are here for each other. It’s going to be OK.

If you would like to join me over the next few days I am holding a morning meditation session, on line, each morning at 8am. It’s free, it’s inclusive and non-denominational, and it’s a compassionate space where you can come to just chill out and listen or ask a question. You can ‘bring’ a friend or just come along with a cup of tea and see what happens for you in your body. I promise there will be no fear. There will be only love.

You can access the morning sessions via this link.

Please, please be kind to each other and know that when people are frightened they are capable of a whole raft of things they wouldn’t normally do. It’s not personal don’t fight fire with fire you just get a bigger fire.

Best thing you can do for you right now is breathe, slow down, be present in your own body and be here now.

Kevin Young 21/02/2020 Kevin Young 21/02/2020

Authenticity?

Authenticity..What even is it?

I recently wrote a piece in which I talked openly about entering into a relationship with our inner demons, you can read that piece here. I talked about how at times of success my inner doubt would raise it’s head and voice its objection to me accepting compliments and praise from clients.

Now, of course, there is a place for humility; I’ll speak a bit more about that later, but the voice in my head wasn’t one promoting humility it was one promoting criticism. When I looked deeper into this criticism using Compassionate Inquiry techniques I discovered that this criticism was acting as a protection for my true authentic self. This criticism was a behavior I had learned to keep myself protected from the judgement of others, or rather should I say, this criticism was something I had been taught as a child happened when I tried to express my needs. So now when I wanted to express my needs my behavioural modus operandi was to criticise and judge myself.

This piece of writing seemed to trigger a lot of emotion for a lot of people. I received several messages, comments and posts telling me so. I’m really interested in why this piece of writing in particular sparked such interest. I could say it was the quality of the writing, maybe, I could argue that readers enjoyed the glimpse into my psyche, maybe, or I think what was more likely was that the words I used and the emotions I described gave the reader a glimpse into their own psyche. So it was really about how the words made the reader feel and how that feeling generated a reaction inside themselves which in turn caused the reader to take action. And this, in a nutshell, is life.

Your authenticity isn’t about how you present yourself to the outside world. It’s not about how open you are to your colleagues, friends, family or business connections. It’s not about you speaking your truth to the world via your LinkedIn videos or Facebook Live broadcasts. Your authenticity is about how you present yourself to you. Your authenticity is about how good you can be at attuning to yourself, listening to what your emotional body has to say to you and doing the right thing by you. If you want to be really authentic the best thing you can learn is how to keep one eye on yourself and your reactions to any given experience and, on eye on the experience itself.

As I was preparing for a networking event in James Street South in Belfast yesterday I could sense some tension in my lower gut and a great phrase I have learned recently through my studies with Gabor Mate is ‘tension needs attention’. So why the tension?

I inquired into the feeling in my gut. It was deep in my gut, not like the sense of anxiety one might get in their solar plexus when nervous about meeting new people, but a deeper, lower, heavier feeling. With further compassionate inquiry I realised that this feeling was one of sadness. I felt sad about going to a networking event? When I authentically asked the feeling ‘Why are you sad?’ the answer that came back was ‘I don’t want to be left alone’.

So there I had it, my authentic self was feeling sad that it was being brought along to an event where the other Kevin, the networking Kevin would appear and take over and my real self would be left alone. Thank God we have physical sensations that, if listened to, tell us how we really feel. How often do we have feelings and rather than listen to them we ignore them or worse use some form of behaviour or substance to distract us from them. That pattern of behaviour or substance use is known as addiction. Who amongst us is prepared to say they are addicted?

I made a commitment to myself that I would not click into ‘networking mode’ and leave the real me behind. I made a commitment that I would keep some of my attention on me and the rest on the room and the experience itself, and in doing so I ensured that I really enjoyed myself.

By attuning to myself I recognised that I had no need to feel nervous at any point. I hadn’t prepared anything to say - in fact i hadn’t realised that I would be expected to take two minutes to introduce myself - but I did and I felt that I did that authentically.

By attuning to myself I was able to experience the full range of emotions that the event evoked in me. All of the participants spoke passionately about their businesses and even more interesting was that most of the participants spoke authentically about themselves. Some spoke of a deep love of a departed parent, some spoke of the joy of physical connections in a digital world whilst others spoke of humility, honesty, diversity and truth. Some sounded a little nervous, some used notes, some winged it, but all gave some of themselves.

What I learned from the event was that if you go out into the outside world, whilst keeping one eye on your inside world, you will find people with whom you can be authentic - the group of people that I know, the ones who put this event together and delivered it so well, have worked hard at creating that authenticity. If you find yourself in a room where you are being forced to choose between your own authenticity and attachment to the people or relationships in the room, you're in the wrong room. I’d suggest you plan your exit strategy.

Your emotional body will tell what's going on for you, just listen to it. If you find yourself leaning heavily towards a behaviour; fawning, people pleasing, gossiping, self deprecating or towards a substance; cocaine, alcohol, food then maybe it’s time to do a little work on your addictions.

So in summary, and in my experience, which is just that, one experience of living in a sometimes complicated and busy world, I’ll leave you with a question..Are you being authentic with you?

Kevin Young 17/02/2020 Kevin Young 17/02/2020

Revealed?

An honest conversation with me..

Am I a fraud?

I pose this as a hypothetical question..

Intellectually, in my thoughts, in my knowledge, I know that I am not.

“I spoke with 3 therapists who are listed on Bupa and none of them bring to the table what you bring to the table '' Again, beautiful to receive...fooled him too!

“I’m in a really good place now Kev, I really feel like you showed me how to work with my demons rather than fighting against them” Yip, you guessed it, fooled him too!

“Have a great weekend Kev, thanks to you I am really starting to know my worth” There’s another sucker I’ve fooled!

Recently I was asked by a great friend of mine Damian Campell to speak to JP and Sean from Core Concept. JP and Sean are both really cool, intelligent guys who help organisations develop their ‘organisational culture’. I love their work and can see that they are at the top of their game. We met for coffee and chatted for 3 hours. We talked about their business aspirations, their path to where they are at right now. We talked about the difficulties of entrepreneurship and self employment. Then as we got comfortable with each other we started talking about spirituality and our spiritual practice, Brahman, The Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism, meditation, emotions and emotional triggers, Gabor Mate, Simon Sinek, Peter Levine and other authors. I was in my element, loving every minute of their company and conversation and I am well enough versed in the areas of body language, breathing and eye contact etc to see that, they too, were enthralled by me and what I had to say. Still, there it was, the voice inside my head and that feeling in my gut..”You’ve these boys fooled too, one of these days, one of these people are going to suss you out and reveal you as an impostor”

Thank you, you’ve read this far, you must be interested in the content of the writing and, I suppose, to some degree, in me.

I’ve read, searched, researched, felt and listened enough to know that as I move to really being me, really showing who I am that it scares the absolute fuck out of me! I spoke with my Buddhist teacher, Chitta, the residing Buddhist nun at the Kadampa Buddhist Centre in Belfast and talked to her about standing so close to the edge of my own realisation that I was petrified..What if I did become myself, what if I did allow myself to be all the things I know I am. What if I just let go and know that I am, what if I surrender to that, what if I drop the mask and reveal that I am just ‘that’? Once I’ve done that, I can’t go back. Have you ever tried to put toothpaste back in the tube after you’ve squeezed too much out? It’s pretty much impossible and that voice I’m hearing is my ego holding on to the last drop of security it has. That voice I hear, that fear of being exposed is just a manifestation of my ego frantically trying to keep the top on the toothpaste tube as my true essence looks to squeeze itself out into the world.

I’ve done the work, I know where this fear comes from and where it originates - If I see you ask me, but be careful because I’ll tell you and in that discovery you may well come into contact with your own fear and get a glimpse of what you are or, maybe, what you ought to be. Exhilarating as that is it is also a very frightening experience because once it’s seen, you can’t unsee it and not overcoming your vulnerability and revealing what you’ve seen can drive a person to despair.

Maybe in the future as I receive those lovely words the voice in my head will just be still and know that I am.

Maybe now, or soon, I can learn the power of emptiness and to simply love and be loved.

If you are interested in having a conversation about what it is that is standing in your way and how it got to be there you’ll find a way to me. I’ll be waiting for you.

Thank you for the space in your day.

Kev.

Kevin Young 24/12/2019 Kevin Young 24/12/2019

Love and be Loved

The greatest gift you can give yourself is to allow yourself to love and be loved in return..

Hello there

I trust this blog finds you well..

I had said that I would write honestly, openly and authentically to you with some things that I had found valuable.

Today’s email is one of those things. It has been something that, I myself, have worked hard at to integrate into my own life. To love and be loved.

I was discussing this concept with a client today and I find myself covering this idea with many of my clients, in relation to many areas of life; Relationships, business, self-acceptance and self-concept.

The majority of my clients, like you I’m sure, find the first part of the statement ‘To love and be loved’ easy. They say that it is easy to love their partners, children, colleagues and friends etc. To be clear I’m speaking of a love that allows you extend gratitude to or to support and encourage or to be compassionate to another.

When asked ‘Can you allow yourself to be loved?’ I can see the discomfort on the faces of my clients – many of us struggle to allow ourselves to ‘be loved’. How often have you heard yourself deflect a compliment or felt yourself squirm when a friend or colleague has offered some kind words?

‘I love your new handbag, its lovely!’
‘Awk, this, it’s from TK Maxx, it was only a tenner!’

Or ‘You are so kind and thoughtful, thank you for doing that for me’
‘Ah, you should see me on my off days, you couldn’t look at me!

When we deflect these kind words we are doing two things, firstly we are judging ourselves as not worthy of the gesture and this has, more than likely, got to do with how we were conditioned to deal with displays of affection when we were much younger and have adapted our behaviour to suit. The more we do this, the more we reinforce the idea that we are not worthy – it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And secondly, we are not permitting the other person to freely witness their own expression of love. I’m sure you can bring to mind someone who lives in a ‘victim mind-set’ and cannot accept praise or compliment.
When we don’t allow ourselves to accept this ‘gift’ of love from another we immediately kill off that positive energy that was intended in the gesture. The other person feels a bit awkward and stupid and often tries to convince you of your worth to them.

The easy way to teach yourself to accept this offering of love is to simply say ‘Thank you’ that’s it, just ‘Thank you’

‘I love your new handbag, its lovely!’
‘Thank you’
Or ‘You are so kind and thoughtful, thank you for doing that for me’
‘Thank you’

When we are mindful enough to be present in the moment and stop ourselves from batting away the kind words and instead saying ‘thank you’ it becomes a beautiful moment, a shared moment, you can literally feel the energy exchange in the moment.
Why don’t you try it over the next few days and see what changes for you and notice how the other person reacts too, rest assured they will enjoy the giving more! You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I’d love to hear how you get on with this, feel free to drop me a line.
Love and be loved.

Kev.

PS I’ve written a little blog about our Haven retreat in the Spring where we will be learning more about how to love and be loved. You can read the blog here

Kevin Young 21/12/2019 Kevin Young 21/12/2019

Resolution time again...

No doubt, you like me, will have a bunch of unachieved resolutions from last year, grandiose ideas and desires, that now hang around your shoulders like a cloak of shame and guilt. These old resolutions are usually voiced, in my head, in a judgemental and non-compassionate super ego, or if not voiced in such a strong manner they definitely leave me feeling a little deflated by my underachievement yet again..

So you didn’t achieve your New Year resolutions, again…

This time of year, for me at least, is a time of reflection and assessment of myself in the year gone by and a time to look to the new year just about to start.

So why don’t we achieve what we set out to achieve? Why do we torture ourselves so? Why do we continue to lambast our underachieving selves and why do we think this year will be any different?

There are many, many people out there; coaches, mentors and guru’s who will gladly sign you up at this time of year promising you that they can ensure you can ‘make 2020 be your best year yet’. This might be in business, finance, physique, love or whatever that thing is that you so desire. You’ll be set off on a mission to take on the world and distance yourself from the ‘old you’. For me though there is a missing link..

The first stage of transforming anything is accepting, without judgement, victimisation or malice, the reality of the situation as is. There is a reason why you are who you are and where you are. Ok, you might be 3 stones overweight, you may not have applied yourself as fully as you resolved to in your business, you may not have stopped smoking..

Before making those strong resolutions to banish those parts of yourself you don’t like can you be compassionate enough to the parts to ask why they are how they are? Why is it that you are 3 stones overweight? Probably because you are eating too much. Why is it that you are eating too much? That’s a really deep question. Why is it that you are eating too much? What are you gaining, apart from the weight, by eating too much? Eating, I would guess, is giving you comfort, control, distraction from other parts of life. Eating may be protecting you from a painful emotional thought pattern.

Who doesn’t want to be comforted, to be in control, to be distracted from painful emotional thought patterns? These are perfectly acceptable things to want in life. So now we could reframe the question, why am I eating too much? To why don’t I have comfort and control in my life and what painful emotional thought patterns am I distracting myself from?

If you can make a resolution to yourself to identify the parts of you that actually need your help, support and compassion you’ll be on a much better footing to heal the parts of you that are suffering and healing the real problem you have rather that healing what you are using as the solution to your problem..Overeating isn’t actually the problem, it’s the solution to a deeper problem.

This is why, certainly in the weight arena, we see so many people fluctuate from crisis to crisis. They haven’t really done the emotional work required and this work can be much more difficult to do than going to the gym 3 nights each week.

If you would like to support yourself to make some changes in your life this New Year here are a few questions to answer;

Q1. What is happening for me right now as I consider the changes I want to make? What are the physical sensations I can feel right now? No need to explain to yourself why you’re feeling what you're feeling..Maybe your shoulders are tight or you feel a knot in your stomach..Just feel it without applying a story to it. Sit with this felt sense for as long as you can and notice how it changes, moves, increases or decreases.

Q2. What emotion would I associate with this felt sensation? Again be wary of applying a story here..’I’m feeling this because’..Simply identify the emotion; sadness, anger, fear, rage..

Q3. If that emotion could speak and ask you for something what would it be? I know this sounds like a really weird question, but try this and be prepared to listen to the things that come up for you. You’ll be surprised.

Q4. How do I commit to this part of me that I can give it what it has asked for? This is really important and the answer here will be exactly the same as the thing you are missing in your outside world. If you wish to follow this process through it is essential to listen and respond to yourself here. Failing to do that will just reaffirm to those hurt parts of yourself that they are not worth listening to and you will be encouraging yourself to continue and even increase the very behavior you wish to stop.

My experience is that when you ask the above questions and follow through with your promises to yourself you’ll find that your desire to eat, smoke, procrastinate or binge watch TV decrease naturally and you will be in a much better position to be your full true authentic self. Of course you may well need to take some action to repair the damage already done, you may need to go to the gym, or study some more but you’ll be much more likely to maintain your efforts and achieve what it is that you’d like to achieve.

Good luck to one and all in 2020, I do hope it is your best year ever and I hope that you take the time to be compassionate enough to ask yourself what it is that you really need from yourself.

Kevin.

Kevin Young 13/12/2019 Kevin Young 13/12/2019

Compassion is all we have..

Last night as the votes were counted in our most recent election I was reminded about an interview I watched recently with Mairead McGuinness who is the vice president of the European Parliament. She spoke at length about how she saw one of the main differences between the UK and the rest of Europe being our inability to reach out to each other after an election or referendum to heal the scars of such an event. This got me thinking about compassion. Compassion for ‘the others’.

Compassion is all we’ve got..

This is an interesting time. Everywhere I look I see separation, polarisation, duality, difference, debate, argument, dislike, suspicion and fear of ‘the other’.

I see many of my friends and connections on social media making statements such as ‘If you voted for X, Y or Z then you can unfriend me now’

I see and hear people making choices out of fear. Fear that ‘they’ are going to perish. Fear that ‘we’ are outnumbered.

Last night I made what I consider to now be a huge mistake. I watched as the election result rolled in whilst simultaneously reading The Body keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. I can highly recommend this book – maybe though, don’t read it at time of heightened emotion!

The book is a recommended reading item on a professional qualification course, called Compassionate Inquiry by Dr Gabor Mate (www.drgabormate) I am just about to complete. In the book the author cites the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) report form 1990. In this report people were asked about their experiences of certain childhood traumas such as, did you ever experience violence as a child? Did you ever see your mother being hit? Was your mother or father and alcoholic or addicted? Did any adult or person 5 years older than you touch you in a sexual way? Each ACE was given a one point score and the maximum score was 10 i.e. you witnessed 10 pretty horrendous things as a child. I’d like to share some of the statistics and data from this report. From the population questioned;

66% of women and 35% of men had an ACE score of 4 or more.

Suicide attempts are 5000% (that’s not a typo) more likely in a person with an ACE score of 6 or more.

With an ACE score of 4 or more you are 7 times more likely to consider yourself an alcoholic.

An ACE score of 6 or more and your chances of injecting drugs rise by 4600% (again, not a typo)

Women who score 4 or more ACE’s are 33% more likely to be raped in adulthood.

ACE scores of 4 or more are twice as likely to suffer from cancer and 4 times as likely to have emphysema.

These are just a snap shot of some of the findings of this report, if you can please go read it yourself and encourage the people of authority in your community to do the same.

Why am I writing about this you might rightly ask and it’s a great question. I can only assume that if you are reading this then you are from Northern Ireland. The same Northern Ireland that has had approx. 100 years of conflict and certainly had serious conflict and trauma over the last 50 years. We, as a society have witnessed many ACE’s. We have seen our friends and neighbours being killed, maimed, mutilated and tortured. We have witnessed great poverty, lack of funding, sectarianism, religious cleansing and political oppression and I’m not suggesting for one second that any of ‘us’ have more of a right to own these trauma’s than any of ‘them’…You can read a version of The ACE report for Northern Ireland here

As I have said already, we have had it particularly rough in Northern Ireland for quite some time. Our suicide rates, prescription drug use, alcohol abuse, unemployment rates, state benefit rate, poverty rates, food bank usage and other measures will support this statement. We have and do live in a state of fear. We live in state of hyper-arousal and we are easily convinced that it must be ‘them’ we are afraid of. We are told by our inactive government, our political class, and our media that our situation – be that the state of our schools, hospitals, roads, economy, public services is because there are Syrian families living here or that we have too many people ‘signing on’ or other such fallacies..

We have a political class that has yet to address the trauma of the last 50 years and has set out to hide this fact from us by blaming, complaining and making excuses and I wonder is it time for us all, in the day that it is, to bypass the peddlers of problems and polarity and look for solutions in unity..

As ‘we’ are lambasting ‘them’ for how they voted maybe we could take some time to ask why they voted how they voted and, if we wanted to go even deeper, what fear in ‘them’ do ‘they’ believe has been addressed by this vote? And what trauma, what ACE has planted that fear in them?

Maybe, just maybe if we all can do this for a little while then our compassion will arise and we will, all of us, be able to reach across a divide. As I write this I am asking myself ‘When is the last time I reached across a divide?

A religious divide? A national divide? A class divide? A racial divide? A gender divide? A sexual orientation divide? A political persuasion divide? Some of these divides, right now, seem Grand Canyonesque in size and then I remembered the words of the Indian sage when asked ‘how should I treat others?’ he answered ’There are no others’ and indeed there are no divides, it’s an illusion that is created by the absence of love and compassion and the propagation of fear and difference.

If we can all reach out with love and compassion and make an effort to understand the pain and suffering of each other then maybe, just maybe we can heal and prosper.

If we can talk and listen to each other, and I mean really listen, not just wait for our turn to talk then maybe we will hear the fear and hurt in each other and learn to help each other because as we help another we help ourselves. When we hurt another we hurt ourselves. When we help each other we teach our children that they are safe and can trust us and trust others, they will prosper and flourish morally, emotionally, spiritually and materially.

So today I am full of hope, not fear, that we can begin to recognise that there are many amongst us, irrespective of class, religion, finances, colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political persuasion and that we need each other...compassion, real strong, courageous compassion is all we need, and I am 100% confident that each of us has been bestowed with that compassion, we just need to create a little space for it to show itself.

Kevin Young 05/12/2019 Kevin Young 05/12/2019

Whats your shraddha?

What’s your ‘shraddha’?

Over recent years I found reading to be a great aid in my personal exploration. Having read a great number of books by different authors from many parts of the world and from different times I now see the common themes running through them all..

One of the most important things to do when reading from a multitude of different sources is to translate these texts into our our language. As an example Thich Nhat Hanh the great Buddhist monk, when talking about resolving marital problems, writes In Anger; Buddhist Wisdom for Cooling the Flames..

" My darling wife, I see that you suffer and because you suffer I also suffer. It may be wise for you and I to talk together about our suffering"

Now I don't know about your partner but, if I was to say that to my wife I can only imagine the strange look I would get. If I translate this into my own language though it might read something like

" Listen love, I can see that your head is done in and because your head is done in that is doing my head in. Do you want to talk about that?"

The concept that I want to talk to you today about is 'Shraddha'. It's a concept from The Bhagavad Gita which is an ancient text on Indian Spirituality. Literally translated it is as such "that which is placed in the heart": all the beliefs we hold so deeply that we never think to question them. It is the set of axioms, prejudices, and prepossessions that colours or perception, governs our thinking and shapes our lives.

The Gita goes on to say our "Shraddha is our very substance" and "A person is what their Shraddha is"

There is nothing passive about shraddha. It is full of potency, for it prompts action, conditions behaviour, and determines how we see and therefore respond to the world around us.

Our shraddha is the power to heal or harm that is inherent in our ideas of ourselves.

This is all well and good but where does our shraddha come from? Well, my work has led me to now understand that our shraddha, or our beliefs about ourselves, are in fact learned through our environment i.e. how we were taught to adapt our authenticity to maintain attachment to our relationships that were important for survival.

So when we look at our early relationships - the ones that helped us survive as children, usually our family of origin, we can see how our shraddha was developed. Were we taught to be shy, or to people please, to say 'yes' so as not to offend, to retreat instead of expressing ourselves?

These adaptive behaviours then become our personality and follow us in to our adult lives and, when before they helped us survive; now they prevent us from engaging fully in the world.

Have you thought about you shraddha? Have you ever heard yourself say 'This is just the way I am?' Is 'the way you are' serving you right now? Would you like to understand
your shraddha a bit more?

I ask you these questions because I have found asking these questions of great use. They can be painful to ask in the short term and very liberating to understand in the long term.

If you are interested in your own personal exploration please drop me an email - I'd love to share some book titles with you. In my experience coming to 'know thyself' is a wonderful way to get so much more from the world we live in.

Here is to you and I would very much love to hear your thoughts on anything I write.

much love

Kev

Kevin Young 26/11/2019 Kevin Young 26/11/2019

Our Haven retreat..designed around you..

You can book retreat tickets here

Do you often say yes when you want to say no? Do you often put other people's needs before your own and feel aggrieved that others haven’t done the same for you? Do you take on far too much work and feel resentful towards other people who haven’t done the same? Do you feel that you never have any time for yourself because you are always at the beck and call of other people? Do you believe that you haven’t been seen or heard in a family or work environment? Do you believe that your problems are petty in comparison to others? Do you see repeated, unhealthy patterns of behaviour in your life? Eating too much or too little? Drinking too much? Too much or not enough Netflix or gym time. Feelings of impostor syndrome? Are you not able to open up or trust easily?

All of the above could be seen as adaptive behaviours from childhood. Importantly, at the time that these behaviours were developed they were essential for your survival. They were essential for you to maintain attachment to an important relationship, they may well have kept you alive. Now that you are an adult these very same adaptive behaviours could be stifling and hindering your engagement in and enjoyment of the life you so desperately want to be living.

Given that you are reading this then I think it is a fair assumption that you, like me, are interested in personal exploration and a desire to understand yourself. What makes us be who we are? Is this expression of ourselves fixed and if not how do we go about entering into a relationship with all the parts of us that we have developed over our lifetime?

The Buddha said, ``With our mind we create the world” which is the underlying message in every single book relating to understanding the self that I have ever read, from The Bhagavad Gita written c1000 BC through to Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ from 1997 and Gabor Mate’s ‘In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts’ from 2008. What we now know to be true through modern research and discoveries in psychology, medicine and spirituality is that before we produce our world with our mind, the world produces our mind. That is, that our environment has a huge part to play in who we actually are, how we project ourselves onto it and perceive ourselves to ‘be’ from it.

My intention for our retreat is to help you understand how your early environments and experiences moulded your behaviours, which we then adopted as personality and came to think ‘this is just how I am’ when in fact this is not just how you are, this is how you have adapted yourself to maintain attachments to your relationships, which can often be at the detriment to your own authenticity.

Understanding ourselves and those emotional behavioural patterns is the key to living presently. I know this is a term we often hear ‘to live presently’ or ‘to be in the present moment’ but do we really understand what it means? To live presently is to understand and be able to answer the question ‘What is going on for me right now?’ How is my body reacting to the present moment? Am I being triggered by a sight, sound,smell or emotion that is recreating an incident from my past. Maybe your colleague didn’t actually hear you and isn’t in fact ignoring you. Maybe your partner is late for a perfectly good reason and hasn’t abandoned you. Maybe you are able to express yourself in work and not need to worry about losing attachment to an important relationship.

Our Haven retreat at The Clandeboye Hotel will take place over two nights, from Friday till Sunday afternoon. I will demonstrate to you how to become aware of your repeated patterns of behaviour and thought and how to recognise if these patterns are helping or hindering you. I will encourage you to reconnect with the felt-sense through a variety of exercises and mini workshops. I will lead you through several guided meditations that will lead you into your body and allow you to be fully aware of what is happening for you right now. We will have an early morning yoga session from Debbie Wilson, one of my favourite yoga teachers and BodyTalk specialists. Debbie will lead us deep into the felt-sense, enabling us to reconnect with bodies and to be present.

We will also have a personal exploration and creative writing workshop led by Gillian Colhoun. Gillian is one of the founding members of Dark Angels who are an internationally acclaimed collective of authors. Gillian will guide you to a place of deep personal understanding through the use of reflection questioning and writing.

The theme over the whole two days will be Compassionate Inquiry.

“Compassionate Inquiry is a psycho-therapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Maté that reveals what lies beneath the appearance we present to the world.

Using Compassionate Inquiry, we can unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories and body states that form the real message that words both express and conceal.

Through Compassionate Inquiry, the client can recognise the unconscious dynamics that run their lives and how to liberate themselves from them”.

Once we have identified the unconscious and made it conscious we can then start to really engage in the life we want to live. We can begin to plan without the fear of losing attachment. We can begin to express ourselves. We can begin to enter into a relationship with and be compassionate to the parts of us that are struggling to be seen and heard. We can begin to love all parts of us and not just the parts of us that we find desirable.

You will leave our Haven retreat with a renewed sense of who you actually are. You will know what you really love to do. You will leave with a renewed confidence in yourself and your ability to express your needs.

You will leave with greater insight and compassion for yourself and those close to you. You will be looking at the world through clear eyes.

You will leave with the ability to communicate in a non-combative, non-aggressive way enabling you to find resolution rather than conflict in your everyday interactions.

The retreat is full board in beautiful surroundings and you will be taken care of to the highest standards.

The all inclusive price of our Haven retreat is £695. Our earlybird price of £595 is open until the 31st December. You can avail of the earlybird price by paying a deposit of £195 before the end of December and then completing payment by the end of February.

We at inmynd are really looking forward to welcoming you to our Haven retreat and are happy to answer any questions you might have. You can get in touch here and you can find out a little more about our retreat here

Tickets are available from here

Here is to your every success!

Kevin and The Inmynd Team.

Kevin Young 10/12/2018 Kevin Young 10/12/2018

Attentions Vs Intentions

It’s Christmas!

The time of year has arrived again where most of us take stock. We have, through various forms of conditioning, convinced ourselves that some part of our life is ending and another is about to being.

We spend much of our time in the last few weeks of any year berating ourselves for perceived ‘failures’ and speculating about all the great things we are going to achieve in the next year.

What is it that you desire?

Some of us will have desires based around our health; I am going to lose weight, I am going to get fit, I am going to eat healthier, I am going to run a marathon.

Some of us will have desires around our relationship(s); I am going to find the guy/girl for me, I am going treat myself better and do lots more things that I love, I will spend more time with my family and the people I love.

Some of us will also be planning to build and develop our businesses; I will increase turnover by X, I will grow my customer base, I will increase profitability by Y.

I love (effective) goal setting.

Now, I am definitely someone who recognises the value in goal setting. I teach how to do this. Where goals come from and how to emotionally attach ourselves to the outcomes we desire. I teach about the importance of understanding your motives and staying focused, being accountable and flexible. All of these are great things.

Here is the connection between the universal laws, spirituality, intellect and the physical word. If I can have you agree that everything that exists in the universe, including the universe itself is energy - you can do your own research on that statement and let me know if you would like to offer a counter argument - Many of our greatest prophets, scientists, sages, philosophers and leaders agree that ‘everything is energy’ and one of the greatest discoveries in relation to energy is that ‘energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change form’.

Everything is Energy.

So, stay with me here, I know we are getting deep. All those things that you are thinking about creating next year, all those goals and targets that you are setting yourself. That fine trim and toned body, that business growth or that love that you are ready to accept into your life. They already exist!

Remember that we have just agreed that ‘everything is energy’ and that ‘energy can neither be created or destroyed’ then we can only conclude that that thing you are desiring or wanting to create already exists, maybe not in the ‘form’ that you desire, nonetheless, it is already there and it only requires you to allow the conditions for it to take the form you desire.

And this is where you come in - this is where you can co-create all that you desire by working in conjunction with your intentions and the energy that the universe has to offer.

This is where you must review and assess are you giving your attention to your intentions?

Think about this..

That’s a question that is worth thinking about for a minute, or a day, or a lifetime. It doesn’t matter whether you are a car salesman, an entrepreneur, a global organisation owner, stay at home mum or dad or an athlete.

Our intentions will be getting set for the New Year, all the great things we are going to do next year, definitely next year, absolutely definitely next year…but the way to create the conditions for these desires to take on the form that we desire is to give our attention to our intentions.

So, I’ll ask you again…

Are you prepared to give your attention to your intentions? Or are you going to do the same as last year and give your attention to all the other things in your life - usually the things that you don’t want to happen - because it’s only by giving your attention to your intentions that you begin to create the conditions for that energy to come together and appear in your physical world.

So when you come to setting your new year’s resolutions or intentions just ask yourself…

Am I prepared to give these intentions my attention?

If the answer is no, then you are setting the wrong goals and are certainly not creating the conditions that will allow your chosen goals to find you.

Here is to your every success friends!

Merry Christmas and a bloody marvellous new year!

Kev.

Kevin Young 12/09/2018 Kevin Young 12/09/2018

Networking..This is not for me!

This is not for me…

Allow me to create a vision in your mind. It was a beautiful morning at The National Stadium in Belfast or, Windsor Park in old money. I was sat at a large conference table in The George Best Suite looking out over a magnificent looking stadium. The room itself, as you can imagine, was dedicated to the footballing legend George Best. His image adorned the walls and doors. Words associated with the great man were printed in large letters by his image; ‘Legend’, ‘Champion’ and ‘Greatest’ to name but a few. I had been warmly greeted coming into the room by Damian Campbell, a new but already close friend of mine. I had been served beautiful coffee and a croissant and looking back all should have been well. I had just taken a leap of faith from one business to another and I had found myself in great company in a great venue drinking great coffee and the only thing I could think was “this is not for me, I’m in the wrong room”

I’m not one for small talk…

That’s the truth. I don’t really like small talk. I don’t care for it, never have. In fact I see small talk as the opposite of personal connection. It bores me. In contrast people fascinate me. I love to learn about people, how they feel, why they do what they do. What excites them, fires them up, gets them out of bed in the morning. I don’t really care that Barra Best has said that “it might rain later in the evening” or that “it’s to break by the weekend” Even writing those two phrases sticks in my throat!

I was here to support a friend…

The reason I was here was to support a friend. I’d been studying alongside Damian and found him to be intelligent, funny, self deprecating and most of all honest. Honest in his conversations, open about his struggles, open about his family, his desires, his goals and aspirations and open about some of the things he wanted to achieve, one of which was to set up a new type of networking event and this was it - Knowledge Network. So, in my mind, I was doing Damian a favour, I was giving up my time to help him, I was the person being generous and Damian was the recipient of that generosity.

Everyday is a school day you see…

So I took my place at the large conference table, tried to ‘fit in’ and look like I was meant to be there. I was fortunate enough to be sat beside Philip Miley, founder of Fleet Financial who my aforementioned friend was a senior manager with. Immediately Philip and I struck up conversation. In no time we were chatting about Philips’ family, his past successes and setbacks. Real conversation and I found Philip to be a humble, funny and hugely interesting character with an relaxed personality that would but any man at ease. In that first conversation I immediately realised that my aul chum Damian had done me the good turn, not the other way around. Everyday is a school day Kev!

The speakers…

Our first speaker was a young lady called Suzanna Hall. Suzanna was a Brand Marketer. She spoke passionately about herself, her business and how she could help others. She was hugely knowledgeable yet down to earth. We’ve since been in contact and her advice has been invaluable to me.

Next to be introduced by Ross Moffett, our MC for the morning, was Martin Gilchrist. Martin gave a 15/20 minute talk, which I have to say, blew me away. He spoke directly to my heart. He talked about supporting each other, he talked about connections, he talked about people. I’ve since went on to help organise and present at another event with Martin that was a huge success...I’ll talk a little bit more about that later.

More coffee and food…

After listening to our two speakers I had the opportunity over more coffee and some great food to ‘network’. This would normally be the part of the event that I didn’t enjoy - the small talk. On the contrary, I chatted to a diverse mix of ladies and gents who were fascinating and humble in equal measure. Ross Moffett and I shared a massive interest in the NI music scene and I am still in contact with him about doing some work in that area. Ross was also the MC and helped with the organising of the #mm3 with Martin Gilchrist.

I met Gavin Wall, another interesting character and head of the Wall Group. Gavin is passionate about bringing opportunity to north Belfast where he has several retail outlets.

I met solicitors from Newry, accountants from Belfast, senior managers from Fleet Financial and others that I would be happy to lift the phone and call for their thoughts or help.

The reason I am telling you about these connections, and that’s what they were - they were not just business cards that now live in a dark cupboard somewhere - is because I feel that the way in which this event was marketed, how participants were encouraged to attend, how the venue was selected and how the day was hosted all went to making this event special and what ensured that I made the connections. Do you know what, now that I think of it, I didn’t make connections, I made friends. People who I feel will support, encourage and help me, as I will them, as we go about the business of doing business.

Kevin Young 12/09/2018 Kevin Young 12/09/2018

Wouldn't you love to see more bottom line profits from your restaurant, cafe or coffee shop?

I've spent pretty much my entire life in retail and hospitality, and when I say 'my entire life' I mean just that - I was born in to a family of hospitality entrepreneurs and spent my formative years 'helping out' in busy kitchens and busy front-of-house areas.

After spending some years living abroad then working with other hospitality entrepreneurs and for a large telecoms company I opened and ran my own hospitality business successfully for almost a decade. I have been responsible for performance managing large teams and ensuring that together we delivered exceptional customer delight results, profitability and business growth.

I get a great pleasure (I know, it is a little strange!) out of witnessing really sharp hospitality teams deliver - and this is in all areas of the business from a fantastic customer greeting right through to efficient supplier relationships that work for you.

Are you ready to deliver against your potential?

Are you prepared to make small, simple changes in order to create more personal cash in your business?

Are you serious about moving your business forward now?

Here is to your every success,

Kevin

Kevin Young 12/09/2018 Kevin Young 12/09/2018

Customer Delight...or not?

Those that know me know that I am a man who enjoys a cup of coffee (or two) and I suppose that doesn't really differentiate me from the rest of population of Western Europe...but what you may not know about me is my (infuriating, according to Mrs Inmynd) desire to assess every coffee shop I'm in!

Recently Mrs Inmynd made a booking for us to go out for dinner to a pretty high end restaurant. This restaurant had been critiqued favourably by some of the UK's leading Sunday papers and we were both really looking forward to the experience, note I say 'experience' because I believe strongly that this kind of meal should be a complete experience and not just a quick bite and out again, which also has it's place.

Mrs Inmynd had made an early evening booking as we were heading on to a gig, so when we arrived there was only 1 other couple in, what looked like, an 80 seater restaurant. Safe to say the staff were not under any pressure. Lets set the scene..

We entered the restaurant by the front door and pulled back a heavy velvet curtain to be stood in the main dining area, a couple of team members were down the back doing, to my beady eye, not a hell of a lot. One other lady stood behind a little bar counter about 4 meters away…she saw and heard us enter, lifted her head, looked at us and then back down at her, obviously, more important work. Here was the opportunity to flash a quick smile and mouth 'I'll just a minute'…

The sort of personal interaction which says; I know you're there, you know that I know you are there, every one can relax for a minute or two. Opportunity missed!

Why were we not greeted with a smile? - even the briefest glimpses of recognition and a smile are a million times better than none at all - but I see this happen so often and it's not just limited to our great array of coffee shops, our higher end restaurants could learn this simple technique too...

My wife and I stood at the door for a couple of minutes, it felt like 10 or 15 minutes due to the awkwardness of the situation. Do we move on in and approach this lady? Do we wait to be greeted? Do we just help ourselves to a seat?

After a while, minutes probably, which felt like longer, the lady came from behind the counter and said 'Hello, can I help you?' Seriously? Can I help you? Could she not have checked the booking sheet, used some powers of deduction and observation that might be associated with a front of house team member, and thought 'I bet this is Mr and Mrs Young' ...given they had no other customers, we had a 6pm booking, for 2 people and they probably didn't have another 6pm booking for 2 people, she could have been forgiven for having a sneaky bet with herself that 'we' were 'it'.

'Ah, yes, we have a 6 pm booking for 2 people under the name Young' 'Oh, OK, let me just check that' and off she walks back to the counter...Now, several things were going through my head here..Had my wife forgotten to make the booking and not said? I doubt it! Why hadn't the lady not had a quick look at the booking sheet before approaching us? Why hadn't she brought the booking sheet with her to save her a double journey? So you can see that now there is a slight bit of tension associated with the initial greeting and entry in to the establishment.

She returned. 'Yes, you do have a booking' she informed us...Like we might have been the sort to lie our way in to a restaurant at 6pm when there was no one else around. 'Your table is that one over there'. She pointed to a table about 4 tables away. She didn't bring us to the table, didn't do any of the pulling out of chairs or putting napkins on your lap or asking 'can I take your coats?'. She might as well have said 'that's yours there love' in a broad Northern Irish accent, which incidentally, I love when in the appropriate venue.

We sat down and immediately (I know, I know, this is not normal behaviour!) I noticed that the table was missing 1 wine glass and 1 fork. I always like to let this sort of thing play out until its natural ending...'Would you like a drink folks' we were asked politely. We ordered wine, which was brought and corked at the table 'Would sir like to try the wine?' 'Yes please'..Queue the attempt to pour wine in to a glass that didn't exist. 'Ah, you have no wine glass sir'. Indeed!

We moved on and ordered our starters and when they arrived had to ask for a fork. Hey, no big deal really, it’s just when all these little things layer on top of one another they add up to disappointing experience. The food itself was amazing, fresh, local and cooked to perfection. A beautiful starter.

The main courses arrived. One small problem, the starter plates hadn't been cleared! I could sense the panic in our young waiter...Doh, ah, ok, I'll just set these plates of food down behind me, lift the starter plates, put them on another table and then lift the plates of food back off the second table and on to our table...it’s food solitaire!!

Again, the food was first class! Easy to see why this place had been receiving rave reviews for the food...Geez the service though, shambolic to say the least...

So we finished up and left with little or no further interaction, at least pleasant interaction, with the front of house team. My wife and I both decided that for the cost of the 'experience' it was fair to expect top notch food AND service. We agreed that we were not being unreasonable in our expectation of being delighted by staff and the food. We also agreed that we could have this sort of amazing experience, probably cheaper, elsewhere and that it would take a whole lot to win us over as customers again...an old boss of mine used to say 'Kevin, a customer walks in, a customer for life walks out!' I think this restaurant had just lost a customer for life.

So why am I telling you this now? Well, if you are a hospitality entrepreneur, either experienced or aspiring, my top tip to you is invest in your team. Spend a few hours and a few pounds and train them right. Train them how to DELIGHT your customers not just service them...cars get serviced, mares get serviced, customers should be delighted!

I'd be more than happy to hear your opinion on this story.

Here is to your every success...and remember, its customer delight that you should be measuring not customer service.

Kevin

Kevin Young 12/09/2018 Kevin Young 12/09/2018

Why do we always consider the exotic so erotic?

As I sit down to write this piece I am so mindful that I just might annoy, nay insult so many people that I hold dear, close friends, colleagues and people who have, up till now, been nothing but supportive and encouraging to me - I can assure you all this is as far from my intention as can be imagined and I will endeavour to do my best not to let this happen. The fear that I have is that many of you know where I live, have been to my home and that some evening under the dark of night someone of you (or a collective of you!) organised for ‘the heavies’ to pay me a wee visit!

So I promise that, as much as I want to freely speak my mind, I will tread as gently as possible and that should I upset anyone you will forgive me over coffee. I do hold on to the thought that those who know me well enough know that my intentions are good and my heart is in the right place.

First of all, I am from here. County Down. Northern Ireland or The North Of Ireland. I am a proud Northern Irish, Irish, European - there you go, I’ve done it already, someone will be upset. Really though, these are all just words and can do nothing to anyone unless you decide to let them. We are meaning making machines. One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned and taught in recent years is this; Event - Thoughts - Emotions - Actions - Results, but that’s a whole other post.

You see, to be honest, I couldn’t really give a damn for the politics, or even the geography, it is the people that fascinate and inspire me. I am a results coach. If you imagine 2 circles drawn on a page beside one and other, one labeled ‘current state’ and the other labeled ‘desired state’ I work in the ‘gap’ in the middle. I help people to bridge the gap between ‘current’ and ‘desired’ states. In my role, which I love dearly, I have been lucky enough to work with and mentor some of the most amazing people. Ladies and gents at the top of their respective fields ; psychologists, physiotherapists, exam coaches, authors, athletes, entrepreneurs, translators, property developers, filmmakers, life coaches and the list goes on and on and gets more and more diverse.

The people I work with never cease to amaze me with their abilities, their intellect, their talents, their humour and generosity, their resilience and determination, their ingenuity and creativity…this is another list which could take up a whole piece of its own but why am I telling you all this?

Well, just this week a colleague of mine invited two fantastic young men here to Belfast. The guys in question were Australian and happened to be in Scotland for an amazing endurance event later this week. Tofe Evans and Luke Wharton ferried over from Scotland for the day and they were just the best. They were met by Martin and Michelle Gilchrist (Gilchrist & Co Chartered Accountants) and shown a little of Belfast. Then James Perry (James Perry Exam Coaching) and myself brought the lads around some of the ancient sites of County Down; Loughinisland, Inch Abbey, Downpatrick Cathedral, Struel Wells and Saul Chapel and we had, I’m sure the other 3 lads would agree, a wonderful few hours together. We then were lucky enough to listen to Tofe in conversation with Matthew Thompson (Best of Belfast) where both guys discussed their respective books and chatted about mindset, resilience and mental well being - a very engaging conversation indeed.

These guys had never met us before, had no idea what they were getting in to, came with open hearts and open minds and we loved having them, so much so that we are already making plans to catch up again in a few weeks time. So Tofe and Luke, should you read this please know we really did love having you and will welcome you back with open arms next time.

But this isn’t about Tofe and Luke, this is about us. We as a collective of people on a rock on the western edges of Europe are blessed/spoilt/overrun with arguably the world's greatest concentration of thought leaders, artists, musicians, business leaders, poets, writers, spiritualists, engineers, builders, chefs, farmers and food producers, teachers and educationalist, sports men and women, actors and actresses. For our population I would offer the suggestion that we are punching massively above our weight. This list of talented Irish/Northern Irish men and women must get offered up as another list that could easily have it’s own piece written and still not be exhausted. Yet still we get star struck at the exotic (apologies, I am aware that Australia isn’t that exotic). Why is that?

Now, before you all start sending voodoo darts my way, we, as a nation, are also renowned for our welcome, which is something that I would also argue we are amazing at. I wouldn’t have a great knowledge of, or a love for religious scripture but it didn’t go unnoticed by me that as we entered the grand doors of The Down Cathedral there stood a huge rock with the scripture ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me in’. I have seen this scripture (and this rock) many many times before and I love the sentiment of the words. I have travelled to many places, been feed by many people and returned that favour many times over for many other people. Xenophobic I am not, in fact if there is an opposite word to xenophobic I’d like to classify myself as that!

My point is this. Is it something in our national (whatever you consider that to be) psyche that leads us (and I include myself in that ‘us’) to overlook the absolute abundance of brilliance we have on our rock? Are we yet to learn about and accept our national self-concept? Do we still have some sort of nation inferiority complex?

Forgive me for paraphrasing but Nelson Mandela said ‘you are a child of the world, you do nobody any good by hiding your fire under a bushel’ I for one, believe it is time we did realise our own collective brilliance and started to show the world how brilliant we are. First though, we must show ourselves. We must see, feel and believe that we are just about as good as anyone anywhere on this planet.

Why not bring great guys like Tofe and Luke here to listen to us talk. Why not let guys like that bring our inspirational people to places like Australia to talk. The people on this rock, in their many forms, shapes, sizes, colours and creeds have the ability and talent to stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone, anywhere and I am now making it my business in whatever small part I can, to making that happen.

Kevin

Kevin Young 25/01/2018 Kevin Young 25/01/2018

Support, encouragement and accountability - the beauty of MasterMind.

Foot to the floor but not moving forward?

by Kevin Young

We have many Northern Irish idioms to describe a ‘busy fool’; I’m flat to the mat, I’m flat out, I’m up to my eyes, I’m just trying to keep my head above water, I’ve a lot on my plate, I’m snowed under, to name just a few and I’m sure you could add to the list. Here’s a frightening thought though...How often do you hear yourself using any of these idioms to describe your own situation?

Are you working in or on your business?

I’ve been there you see, I’ve been the busy fool and I can recognise it in others. I can hear it in the language you use and in your actions. How often do you change your own plans for the day, be they work related or social because of some dilemma or other in your business?

Sure, this can happen to any of us, occasionally, but does occasionally turn in to often and does often turn into ‘my whole life revolves around my business’?

You see if you can’t plan to be away from your business for any period of time for fear of it falling apart then how are you ever going to find the time to grow your business?

The busy fool often gets caught in the trap of being so busy working in their business that they can never find time to work on their business.

The busy fool often falls into the trap of thinking that ‘being flat to the mat’ is a good thing and it is to a point, but when do you find the time to develop your business, to improve your team or product and more importantly to create more business?

All you can expect from ‘busy fool’ behaviour is slow growth, marginal gains and exhaustion.

No business, big or small, will ever develop further than the vision of its leader!

Extraordinary growth comes from developing a vision and strategy for your business and implementing a plan to make it happen. But most business owners pride themselves on being too busy to take the time to consider their vision and devise their strategy, they are too busy working in, to devote any time to working on their business. This type of business owner/leader certainly has their foot to the floor but they are just not moving forward.

There is a solution…

My close friend and colleague, Stevey McGeown and I have devised the XG Mastermind concept for business owners who want to see extraordinary growth and who are prepared to devote the time and energy and come to the table open to collaboration, sharing ideas and supporting others in order to get the results they desire.

These Mastermind groups are designed to gather like-minded business owners from various business types together to help and support each other focus on their goals.

We will be creating groups that have several years of collective experience amongst them. I personally have managed sales’ teams in corporate and retail environments for a large telecoms company for almost 10 years and opened and run my own cafe/bistro for 8 years. I've travelled to the Caribbean on the back of sales’ competitions and been recognised for my business acumen and for training people.

Stevey McGeown is an entrepreneur who at the age of 25 set up 13 health clubs nationwide and in 2003 was awarded as international franchisee out of 5000 businesses globally. He has travelled to the 4 corners of the world to train and work with the leading forces in the results’ industry and is recognised as one of Ireland’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness.

So rest assured you will be in safe hands.

The beauty of Mastermind.

The beauty of this Mastermind group is that it will last for 1 year and take you through a battle tested process that will deliver the results you desire. I will create an environment that is supportive, encouraging, open and honest whilst still holding you accountable for taking actions that ensure you reach your stated goals.

I will encourage the group to help and support each other throughout the month, not just during the meeting.

Napoleon Hill, who created the concept wrote about the mastermind group principle as: “The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony”.

How much better do you think you could be?

I was fortunate enough to spend a weekend with Ciaran Power and his wife Jamie at Stevey’s retreat last year.

Ciaran has set up and runs his own physiotherapy clinic and when I asked him why he has been a member of a Mastermind group for the past 4 years said this "I'd say my business has grown by as much as 10 times. Mastermind helps you create that vision for where you want to go and then gives you the tools and skills to get you there"

So how much better do you think your business could perform with the support, expertise and encouragement of a Mastermind group, 30%, 50%, 150%?

quote-the-master-mind-principle-two-or-more-people-actively-engaged-in-the-pursuit-of-a-definite-napoleon-hill-90-63-71.jpg

If you think our Mastermind would help you deliver, step up now!

I want to ensure the group demographic is right. This group is for:

Business owners who want and are prepared to work for extraordinary growth.

Entrepreneurs who have a burning desire to achieve more in business and life.

Business owners who understand that the life you want, the family you want, the wealth you want, the future you desire, depends on the business you build.

Entrepreneurs whose development has plateaued and who are struggling to find the next level.

Business owners who are completely tied up in the day-to-day running with no time to plan or strategise the next move. You especially need this Mastermind group.

So now you know what our Mastermind group is and what it can do for you, are you ready to take action?

Kevin Young 19/01/2018 Kevin Young 19/01/2018

Are you living your dream? I wish I'd known what the dream was and how to find it 20 years ago!

Why, when asked, do so many of us feel that we are not on our ‘true path’, or we are not living our dream and doing that one thing that we should be doing? A few years ago I began considering my own path and challenged myself to discover what ‘it’ was for me

What should I be doing to make my living and more importantly, who should I be doing it for?

After many, many hours of research, reading, questions and meditations I’ve come up with the following five questions to help you find what you’re looking for and what you should be doing to earn your living..

So I, like you decided I was going to do ‘it’! Now that you’ve began to read this article we can agree that you’ve decided to chase your passion and live your dream. You’re pissed off waiting for it to happen and you’ve decided you’re going to make it happen! You’ve read the books; you know the ones that have told you that you’ll be amazing at it and that when you finally start doing it that everyone will notice the change in you.

They’ll notice how fresh you look. They’ll notice your eyes, your complexion, and your posture. They’ll notice that you move differently now that you’re doing it. They’ll notice that your clothes sit better on your body now that you’ve found it and are living it. They’ll notice how inspiring you are when you communicate about it and how passionately you approach every day just to make sure you get better at it...Just one problem...you’re not too sure what it is!

I am going to ask you to answer five simple questions that will allow you to discover your it.

The thing that you should be doing, pursuing, perfecting and making your living at. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not trying to sell you some golden goose that’s going to allow you to breeze through the rest of your life banking a six figure sum every month with little or no effort – not this time sweetie, that’s a different read and if you can find a way to do that I’ll be the first in line to buy a copy of that book.

What I intend to set out to do here is to help you find the thing that you can give your all to, the thing that you can apply all the mind-set, time management, mental focus, determination and endurance skills that you know you have and know you could you use amazing well, if, you could only work out what the thing was, your thing, that thing you know that could really set your world on fire.

Man, if you could just find your thing, you’d definitely be the man to be brilliant at it!

The thing is I believe that you already have an inkling as to what it is. I’m going to suggest that you have already been thinking about it and that maybe you’ve been hiding from it. Rather than searching for it you’ve been ducking away from it as it searched you out. It’s actually been looking for you rather than you looking for it and every time it reveals itself to you, in your quiet moments or, when you see someone else doing it you deny it. “I couldn’t do it”, “I couldn’t afford to do it”, “I wouldn’t have the time to do it”, “I’ve got a mortgage to pay”, “I’ve got bills to pay”, “They’d all think I was crazy if I said I was going to do it” Let me offer you an out right now. If you are happy doing what you’re doing, that’s amazing! I don’t mean if you’re happy enough to put up with what you’re doing right now because it pays the bills, feeds the cats and gets you a few beers at the weekend. I mean if you are genuinely happy at what you’re at, really at ease with the love and motivation you have for your current it, that’s brilliant, keep doing that then, you sir or madam can return to whatever you were doing 5 minutes ago. I’m going to put my neck on the line again though and say you’re not. You’re not happy with where you’re at right now. Whatever it is right now, it’s not it. It’s not your it. It’s somebody else’s it and you’re getting paid to do it for them so that they can do more of whatever it is they want to be doing. No sir, you’ve followed the link, you’ve committed enough time to read the first 4 paragraphs and you want to know what it is.

So 5 questions, that’s all and they are easy questions, real easy. The first question is like being able to write your name on the exam paper, in fact, the first question is your name on the exam paper..

Question 1. Who are you?

Really, who are you? That’s it, it’s that easy. I am Kevin Young, father to my two beautiful daughters Rosa and Christa, husband to my beautiful wife Sharon. I am a brother, a son, an uncle, a friend. That’s it, that’s the first question answered and if you got that one right you are twenty percent of the way to finding your it. I told you finding it was going to be easy, well, what I actually told you was that you were hiding from it rather than looking for it and here is your second chance of an out, if you answer the next four questions honestly, and, it’s your own honesty you are dealing with here you will know your it and once you know your it it’s soul destroying not to do it. So, if you don’t want to know your it, or you don’t want to be brave enough to follow it, I’d say duck out now, it’ll be a lot less pain in the long run.

Question 2. What is it that you (love to) do?

Another easy question for you I’m sure you will agree although this question does require a few disclaimers. When I ask What is it that you love to do? I should really open brackets and ask And think there is a chance of making money at? then close brackets. So we all love sitting on our back sides drinking coffee and chatting to friends and I have one friend who loves to collect beer mats but I’m not so sure either of these ‘loves’ can earn you any money. I mean what do you love to do that you feel can add value to someone else’s life? We have all have skills and talents that we think couldn’t be of value to anyone else..I used to own a café and would sell catering packs of salads, coleslaws, pasta, soup and stew for customers to take home for parties and BBQ’s. I would often get asked to make enough coleslaw for twenty people. Now, with a good food processor, a cabbage, 3 carrots and some mayonnaise I could make the coleslaw in about 2 minutes for £3, I sold it for £20 and that was cheap by supermarket prices! Initially I couldn’t fathom why people wouldn’t just make the coleslaw at home, shit it wasn’t hard. Then I realised it wasn’t hard to me. I also had a joiner come to my house to hang a door for me, he kind of chuckled and said ‘would you not do it yourself, it’s really easy?’. Same thing, really easy to him, not to me, so I was more than happy to pay the £50 to get the job done properly. My point is do not immediately dismiss the thing you love to do as being of no use to anyone else (unless of course it is!). What is the thing that you can do for people that they value and you say ‘it’s nothing, don’t worry about it’. What’s your coleslaw, so to speak? You know the thing I’m talking about...Maybe it’s not a ‘something’, maybe it’s a ‘somewhere’ or a ‘someone’. With whom to you like to spend your time? Who do you admire? Where is this? Pay attention to these things because chances are this is where your it is. Be on the lookout for this ‘something’, ‘someone’ or ‘somewhere’.This is your product or service, this is what you are going to charge for, and this is what’s going to make you money. Making money with a smile on your face too. I love to help my clients get from where they are to where they want to be. That’s my answer to question 2. Easy, right? So what do you love to do? Do you love to build and understand websites? Do you love to design rooms and interiors? Do you love to cook and share recipes? Maybe it’s keeping fit or gardening? I’d say you already know what it is, go on, be brave, admit it. It’s been vying for your attention for a long time now.

Question 3. Who do you love to do this for?

And the answer here isn’t ‘everyone’ that’s BS. Seriously, who do you love to do this for? Is it for people who have asked you for help? Is it for people less fortunate than you? Is It for people who run real great businesses but struggle with the bookkeeping side of things, or the e-commerce side of things or the staff management side of things? Is it for people who love dogs or collect shoes? Seriously think about this, this is an important question, easy to answer and vitally important to know. This is your target market. This is your tribe. These people will be your ambassadors and your advocates. They will market and advertise your business for you. They will recommend you to their peer groups and business colleagues, if you’re good enough, and we already know that you are going to be good enough because this is your thing and these are your people. You are going to look for more of these people and you’ll find them too because, when you can recognise the ones that are in your life already you’ll start to see them everywhere. They will be walking around will flashing neon arrows above their heads that says ‘help me too’ For me, I love to do this for people who want to develop themselves or their businesses and to be honest a business will never exceed the development of the person leading it so the real answer is that I love to help people who want to develop. So we’re almost there, just two questions to answer that will allow you to discover your it, the thing you should be doing to bring you most happiness in life. That thing that you can do to help others overcome a challenge. That thing that others will be delighted to pay you for because you are so good at it. The fourth and fifth questions are questions designed to help you set the standards that you will achieve. They are questions that suggests to others how you will be known. More importantly, how people feel about you..

Question 4 What can the people you’re doing your thing for expect from you?

This is not a question to think too deeply about. It really is as easy a question as it sounds, its not a trick question or one designed to trip you up. So, what can the people you are dealing with expect from you? They may rightly expect that you know what you are talking about, so get the knowledge required or, at least know where to go to get the answers to question that may arise. They may rightly expect that you have the appropriate equipment to do what it is you’ve said you are going to do or provide. Are you going to take family pictures? Do you have a camera, lights and a studio to take photos in? Do the people that you are providing a service for have a fair expectation that you will be pleasant to work with? That you will be respectful of their beliefs, culture, home or business? Is it fair to say that people can expect that you will keep promises and deadlines, be punctual and open and honest about any concerns or delays? For me in my business I can answer that question as follows. I believe it is reasonable for people to expect that I give my absolute best in every interaction I have with them. That I should display a high level of integrity, honesty, confidentiality and that I have a burning desire to help them achieve the results they want. Can you see that there is a picture forming in your mind as to what you should be doing and who you should be doing it for. There is a picture forming of how, you believe, others expect to be treated and how they will feel about you. I trust that you will agree that these five simple questions give a great insight into who you are, what you should be doing and who you should be doing it for. So our fifth and final question is a question that deals in emotion. Emotion is why people will market your business for you, it’s why people will recommend you to their family, social and business groups its why they will enjoy their interactions with you...or at least it should be!

Question 5. How will people feel when you have done this thing for them?

Now I suppose this is an assumptive question in that we are assuming that people will feel how you would like them to feel but, arguably, if you have an idea how you would like them to feel and an understanding that they will feel something then you are in a better place to help them actually have this feeling. Maybe you are a masseur and you want people to feel relaxed after you have provided your services or, maybe you want people to feel confident that you have planned their event exactly how they wanted. Maybe you want people to feel that they had been really listened to and understood. You might, and arguably should, want people to feel that they have had good value, remembering that value and cost are two completely different subjects. Cost is an amount, a number. There is no emotion associated to cost only to value. A service, product, idea or piece of advice will only cost too much if its associated value is not high enough. So, lets answer the question. How will people feel when you have done this thing for them? For me I want my clients to feel happy, enlightened, confident, calm and fun loving. I want them to feel high levels of self compassion and able to love and accept themselves exactly as they are right now.

AND HERE IS THE TRICK TO ANSWERING YOURSELF OR SOMEONE ELSE WHEN ASKED 'WHAT DO YOU DO?'

So there you have it, five simple questions answered. Here’s the trick, when you are asked by anyone you meet ‘What do you do?’ just answer that question with your answers above backwards from question 5 to question 1 and when asking yourself ‘what should I be doing?’ just answer from question 5 to question 1... ‘Hi Kevin, what do you do?’ ‘I help people feel happy, enlightened, confident, calm and to have fun. I help people feel high levels of self compassion and to be able to love and accept themselves exactly as they are’ ‘My goodness, how do you do that?’ ‘By making sure that my clients know that I will give my absolute best in every interaction I have with them. That I will act with integrity, honesty and confidentiality and that I have a burning desire to help them achieve the results that they want to achieve’. ‘I love to do this for people who want to develop themselves in their personal, business or financial life. I do this by helping people get from where they are to where they want to be. And I am delighted to be a father of two beautiful girls, a husband to a terrific wife and have a great extended family and social network.

So conventional wisdom contained in the many books you’ve read, classes and seminars you’ve attended, deep state meditations and one to one mentoring sessions that you’ve invested your time and money have conditioned you to think that your ‘it’ was a difficult one to find whereas I am happy to look you in the eye and state that if you can answer these five questions honestly and be prepared to use the answers with yourself, and with others you meet, you will have a great chance of leading yourself towards your it, and having a great chance of ensuring that others value your it too. You will have noticed that only two of these questions are internalised. Questions 1 and 2 ask about you, the remaining three questions ask about others, that’s not an accident. It is only by applying our specialised skills to helping others that we can make a success of that idea and as Napoleon Hill said in his book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ ‘All achievement, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea! If you are ready for your it, you already possess one half of it, therefore, you will readily recognise the other half the moment it reaches your mind. In farewell I’d like to bid you Good Luck! Go do your thing and you will make yourself and everyone who comes in to contact with you very happy indeed! Kevin.