Tag: mindfulness

  • Why I sign off with You’re The Job

    Why I sign off with You’re The Job

    It only just occurred to me why I sign off this newsletter and marketing pieces with:

    I love you,

    Jacques

    or

    You’re the Job

    Jacques

    Even though it is a courtesy to you, and I really do mean it (that I love you), every time I sign off it’s a reminder to me.

    It is a reminder to me to love myself, that I’m the job, that I’m a masterwork creating a masterpiece, that I’m extraordinary, that I’m worthy and that I’m lovable.

    I’ve started listening to how I speak to myself as a conscious exercise in mindfulness.

    F%3k me … if I spoke to anyone else how I spoke to myself (with disdain, loathing, frustration and doubt), I’d have no friends.

    If I cannot even treat myself with the respect and love I deserve, how am I going to treat my friends and my clients?

    So, I’m stopping this nonsense and I’m going to speak to myself like I’d speak to my creator … with love, respect, awe and gratitude.

    I hope you’ll join me on this quest.

    You’re the job, I love you!

    Jacques

  • Move it up

    Move it up

    Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and have a small panic attack because you feel as if you’re running out of road and running out of time?

    I do. I have plans for my life, but these might not be the plans that are destined for me, and I might be called back to Eden before I can manifest them.

    I’ve decided to move things up and get as much out of this experience as I can. I’m not going to wait for ‘when the time is right’ or for ‘when I’m ready’. I’m doing shit now. I’m starting my new books, now. I’m loving myself, now. I’m taking those trips, now. I’m telling the woman in my life, “I love you”, now. I’m taking my sister for lunch, now. I’m telling you who are reading this how much I appreciate you, now.

    Maybe you want to join me and move things up. Don’t kid yourself, there’s never going to be a perfect moment to do this. Well, there is … and, it’s now.

    Remember, you have everything that is needed for this extravagant journey that is your life. When you were born, you were born full, not empty. There’s no reason to strive for things to fill you. You’re overfull of potential, love and grace. Strive for things because it is pleasurable and because it pleases your creator. Your creator is always pleased when you are pleased, when you are pure potential, when you manifest the light in you, when you hold your power, when you’re YOU.

    Go now, after you’ve read this piece, go and make that connection, give that hug, tell someone who needs to hear it that you love them (and, whilst you’re about it, tell yourself that you love you).

    Go now!

  • Great artists crave appreciation

    Great artists crave appreciation

    There’s one thing artists crave more than food. And, that’s appreciation.

    All humankind craves appreciation.

    The thing is that we were created to be appreciative by the great artist.

    When he spoke his first words, “Let there be light”, he got the ball rolling. He called light, day and separated it from dark, night.

    He was pleased. And, this was only day one.

    Like all artists, God wanted someone to appreciate and be in awe of his great work.

    So he created humankind in his own image to be in awe of his creation.

    He saw the world through each one of their eyes and he was pleased.

    Humankind appreciates little

    But, soon he must have realised that humankind appreciated little.

    So, he manufactured the original sin. Humankind fell from grace and was separated from Eden. And from him.

    He brought darkness and separation to humankind.

    It was only when humankind was disconnected from God that they realised what they’d lost.

    And, ever since then, humankind has been trying to get back to their source and reconnect with it. That’s our real journey, today.

    • If there’s not darkness, there cannot be light.
    • If we don’t struggle and suffer, how do we know what happiness is?
    • If we don’t struggle and suffer how do we appreciate it when the struggle and suffering ends?
    • How can we be grateful?
    • How can we be in awe?

    Our greatest sin

    Our greatest sin is ingratitude. We were given the perfect home and the perfect life. All that was required of humankind was to be in awe and gratitude for the great work of art we live in.

    Humankind and its self-indulgent, entitled nature stuffed that up good and solid.

    As instruction, let’s take a tiny event in time. The impending ‘Day Zero’ in Cape Town is almost upon us. The day the taps run dry, darkness will descend upon South African humankind.

    Nobody appreciated the Eden we were in. Nobody appreciated the water supply. There was no awe and gratitude for this great blessing. Judging by the way we’re destroying God’s masterpiece, the darkness is only going to get worse.

    Oh, you thought you were his masterpiece?

    Maybe.

    But, perhaps you and I are just meant to be the witnessers of his masterpiece.

    And, if you believe we are his masterpiece, then we’re stuffing that up as well. Our smoking, drinking, drugs, avarice, selfishness and carelessness is destroying humankind.

    Can you imagine how aggrieved we’d be if someone defaced Leonardo da Vinci’s, Mona Lisa? The world would be in uproar. We would find it hard to believe that a right-thinking human could commit such a terrible thing. Why, it could only be psychopathic degenerate who could do such a revolting deed, couldn’t it?

    By that logic, then it can only be a degenerate who would stuff up his or her own body and the planet that houses it, couldn’t it?

    It’s sad that we would be more upset by the destruction of a Mona Lisa than the destruction of our own bodies and planet.

    HumankindThus, we were created to bear witness to God’s great masterpiece. He sees every nook and cranny of his art through our eyes.

    He painted this picture and gave us this story to enchant and entertain us. All he wants in return is appreciation. He doesn’t get that enough (or at all) so he gives us his great gift, the gift of suffering. It is only when we don’t have that we appreciate what we do have.

    For there to be light, there has to be darkness. It is the way of things.

    The trick for us is to appreciate every moment we have left on this plane. Let’s be in awe and gratitude for this great gift that we have right now.

    God’s an artist. You’re an artist. Let’s celebrate and appreciate this.

    Jacques de Villiers helps organisations, professional speakers, authors and entrepreneurs triumph through: sales training, motivational speaking and consulting.

  • Mindfulness

    Mindfulness

    Mindfulness: Why do you play so small?

    Mindfulness. This is a weekly newsletter I send out called Find a Path With Heart.

    Here are the statistics:

    Date: 30 November 2017 – 17h05
    Sent: 653
    Opens: 409 (62,83%)
    Clicks: 73 (11,21%)

    Hey Friend,

    In today’s mindfulness article I’ll be short and sweet. Strangely enough.

    Why Do You Play Small?

    I wrote Why Do You Play Small? to try and make sense of my self-loathing issues
    (don’t judge, I’m not the only one) ;-).

    Weirdly, this stems from coming from an intellectually brilliant family.

    A brilliant mind, a world-renowned surgeon and a mule breeder
    (who also happened to run a little company called the KWV) caused all
    the kak in my mind.

    If you’re trying to fill big shoes and have small feet, maybe this
    blog post will resonate with you.

    Size Does Count

    Help me out, please. My girlfriend, Celia really thinks that size
    does count and I’m coming up short on that score.

    She thinks that I have a big …

    database. Yes, the one you’re on now. She thinks I have 15 000 peeps on it.

    Shame, poor woman. There’s only 700 on this list. Only 30% actually open my stuff.
    And, less than 1% click through.
    If you’re in database marketing, you know how depressing this is.

    But anyway, she sells teepees for children. Who even knew that it was a thing?
    But, she makes more money than me, so that’s cool thing.
    Except she wants to make more money and has been nagging me to send a
    marketing mailer out to you.

    “But, darling, they’re not interested in teepees for their children.
    This is a serious business-minded lot.” I said.

    So, now I’m on the couch. So, please, just go and look at her offer, you’ll be doing
    me a favour. Evidently, she has some teepees on a special offer sale.
    One of these Black Friday or Cyber Monday things. Just go and have a
    look please. Oh, and consider buying one so that I can get off this couch. Go here.

    How I Got My Ass Handed To Me

    Because I’m so arrogant, I think I can do anything. So, I tried my hand at designing
    a book cover for one of my author clients, Colleen O’ Donnell. Well my friend,
    Deborah du Plooy from Skoobs Theatre of Books, said it was k#k.

    She got me in touch with a book jacket designer called Gregg Davies.
    Based on his work, I’ve decided to stick to my knitting.
    He really showed me what a pro can do.
    Go have a look at my effort and his effort. You make the call. Look here.

    If You’re a Successful Motivational Speaker, Don’t Read The Next Article (working 10 days or more)

    Most professional speakers battle to get found for keyword terms like “motivational speaker”,
    “business speaker” and the like on Google.

    I help solve this so that they can be found. Check out how being #6 in Google equals R70 000
    per month in speaking and training gigs. Oh, there’s an offer you can’t refuse.
    But it ends Friday night at midnight (tomorrow night). Then I switch the landing page off. Go here.

    LinkedIn and Dux-Soup Experiment

    I’m going to get the paid for version of Dux-Soup so that I can visit up to 1000 LinkedIn profiles a day.
    On the free version I can only visit 100 profiles.
    Supposedly, 7% of those connections I visit will come and visit my profile page. That’s 70.
    If only 10% connect, that’s 7 extra connections a day. I can live with that.
    So, let’s see if it works out. I’ll keep you in the loop. Speaking about LinkedIn,
    check out my profile page – I’m experimenting with problem-promise-solution copy.
    It’s been quite successful as I’m getting 10 new connections a day.
    I’ve also had more than 3000 post views in November.
    It may work for you too. Go here.

    Find a path with heart,

    Talk soon,

    Jacques
    082 906 3693

    Subscribe to more mindfulness articles here.

    Mindfulness

    Whilst we’re on the subject of mindfulness, let’s figure out what it is.

    Join our mindfulness Facebook Group.

    Here’s a Wiki definition: Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training.

    Mindfulness and meditationI think that more and more people are practicing mindfulness because their outer lives are a shambles.

    This striving for status and money is a futile exercise to achieve happiness.

    We are all striving for some kind of security, power, fulfilment and harmony.

    We tend to focus more on the security/power aspect than on the fulfilment/harmony aspect.

    As Etsko Schuitema said, “No amount of zeros on your pay cheque will fill that hole in your chest called insecurity.”

    And, this is true. Striving for an having possessions never leads to happiness, does it. I’m not denying that ‘things’ make one’s life easier.

    We all want food, a roof over our head and someone to love and be loved by. But the car, the house, the shoes and the like are like Will-o’-the-wisps (foolish fires) that are normally found in bogs and swamps. They lead the traveller off the safe path. As soon as we think we’ve caught up with the wisp, it moves on. As soon as we get the new car, that amazing ‘new car’ feeling moves on. Now we want another, better car. We want a better house. We want better shoes. We want a better wife. We want a better husband. And so on …

    The trick to it all is to go inside and find inner happiness.

    In my opinion, this can only be done through prayer, meditation and journaling (and maybe yoga ;-))

    These 4 elements are an essential part of mindfulness.