The recent global financial crisis, which originated in the United, caused a lot of discussion worldwide. There are a variety of topics, which can be discussed, but one that I think deserves the most attention is the law.

Law defines what is legal and what is illegal. It tells us the boundaries within which the firms and individuals can operate. Law sets up the rules, which we must follow or face consequences otherwise. Consequences are of course a matter of enforcement of the law by the government. Government has the role of an utmost importance: it has to create the laws, interpret the laws and subsequently enforce them.

I am sure what you just read above is nothing new. But have you really thought about the implications of it? Anything that is not defined as being illegal, by default is legal. If the law does not cover it, then you are free to act on it. Furthermore, even if you are acting within the bounds of law, does not make it alright. As Aristotle famously said: “Law is reason free from passion”.

When you look back at the event that took place before, during and after the unfolding of the crisis you will not find many people going to jail. The select few where the ones that committed fraud such Bernard Madoff and a couple of others. Everybody else operated with the bounds of law, yet their unethical and almost immoral behavior brought down the global world economy. The only problem is that, for the most part, being and unethical and immoral is not illegal or against the law. There are only select few cases where unethical behavior can be considered illegal.

By everybody, I mean all of the players in the global financial crisis such as: the mortgage originators, the mortgage brokers, the real estate agents, the servicing firms, the insurance companies, the investment banks, the banks, certain regulators who failed to do their job properly and even the media who had a part in feeding the real estate bubble. Nobody did anything that was illegal per say, and not many people went to jail for bringing down the global economy, but they armies of people played a part in the crisis.

The question is, shouldn’t it be a crime to cripple a global economy? I am not the one to answer that question, but the issues becomes obvious. Behavior that occurs with the bounds of law, is not always moral behavior and might eve have more adverse consequences than certain illegal behavior. For example, it is at banks discretion who it gives out the loans to and there is nothing illegal when you give a loan to somebody that is asking for it. But there is a problem, when you charge that person fees and then turn around and sell the mortgage to be securitized, receive the cash back from the principal and lend out again. None of the above behavior, was illegal, but it put undue risk towards the rest of the society.

But then the question becomes, do we classify immoral or an ethical behavior as illegal? If so, how doe we prove that something is immoral or unethical? Of course there are other ways to discourage immoral or unethical behavior such as setting up incentives against such behavior, but then the ball goes to the governments court. Government, like I mentioned before is the sole player who sets up, interprets and enforces the laws and creates a playing field for the society.

So, then the question becomes, is it the governments fault for setting up faulty rules, which allow personal interests to be put above the society’s interests?  I think it might be the case. It is a huge responsibility, but it is the only player that has the power and the resources to create a fair playing field for all of the players. Like, I mentioned before, judging which behavior is ethical or immoral can too close of a call, but creating incentives against behavior, which puts the whole society at risk, is something the government should take complete responsibility over.

I understand, that is work in progress and it will a long time before we have perfect system set, if that is going to happen ever at all. In the mean while, I believe it falls on the shoulders of ordinary citizens like you and I, to remember that just because it is legal does not always make it alright and that the true moral compass does not lie within the law, but it lies with our hearts and our consciousness.

We, human beings, like predictability and we resist to change. Predictability eliminates uncertainty, which in turn makes our lives comfortable and easy. Change, on the other hand, creates uncertainty and fear. Naturally, predictability and change has their own trade offs. Predictability costs us growth and change creates growth. Nothing in life is free.

The nature of life however is change and uncertainty.

Already, there is a conflict. We like predictable, life gives us uncertainty. So, we try to predict life and we try to predict and anticipate change. Throughout human history, we tried to come up with theories, which would predict the ever changing reality. In my opinion, we did not do such a good job at it.

In particular, I am going to discuss economics and finance. Each of those sciences are crucial to the development and prosperity of human life on earth. They both deal with resource allocation, distribution and use. More so, they both try to predict the future and eliminate uncertainty and risk as much possible from our lives. And that is great. However, there flaws, of which the costs are unknown.

Predictability requires structure. Reality is not structured. Yet, both economics and finance repeatedly provide us with theories that are very structured and rigid. They are not dynamic. One reason for that is because they rely on mathematics to prove their theories and observations. Mathematics is, for the most part, the structured and rigid science. That in itself, limits the kinds of assumptions the economists and financiers can make about the reality and resources around us.

That almost forces them to use theories that rely on unrealistic assumptions, which have no basis in reality. For example, the assumption that individuals are rational; or the assumption that we all behave in a uniform fashion. The list could go on. It almost seams that the most brilliant minds try to squeeze a dynamic reality in a structured theory and just come up with various assumptions to make their theories work and fit their mathematical models. And that is all fine, however, the problems begin when policies and laws are put into place, which rely on those unrealistic theories.

And that is a huge problem. If you base policies for a dynamic and ever changing life based on rigid and mathematically based theories, you are headed for a disaster.

The most recent financial crisis has showed us the true effect of that. Are markets self-regulating? Are humans rational? Do we all work in our own interest? Do we make the best decisions for us? Those are just some of the questions that economics and finance try to answer and come with theories to explain.

The worlds brightest minds make mistakes in the pursuit of predictability. But you don’t have to do that. Ultimately it comes down to thinking on your own and just looking around your own reality and deciding if the theories that you have come up with match what is going on.

It is alright to make assumptions, which simply things with a reasonable amount of error, however, beware of making assumptions, which not just simplify, but distort the very phenomenon you are trying to explain. Maybe, if we all just accepted that life is complex and dynamic and not predictable, but ever changing and in flux, we would be living in much different, better world.

In essence this article is about the power of words. To be more specific it is about branding.

It seems that branding is the new kid on the block that everybody talks about. It really is worth our attention for that exact reason.

Brands can be used for positive or negative purposes. On the positive side, brands help us make  better decisions and save us time and money in the long run. On the negative side, it can lead us to making bad decisions and costing us time and money. It can have positive impact for both producers and consumers of the image.

I am going to examine the following four scenarios using real life examples:

• a brand having a positive impact on a producer of a brand
• a brand having a positive impact on a consumer of a brand
• a brand having a negative impact on a producer of a brand
• a brand having a negative impact on a consumer of a brand

I am going to look at the case of Mac vs. PC as it seems illustrate the positive and negative effects of branding on both consumer and producers the best. Also, everybody should be very familiar with the ongoing battle between a Mac and a PC :)

Microsoft vs. Apple

For years, Microsoft has dominated the software market with Windows. Because of the dominance, it was able to monopolize the market and reap substantial profits. When it came to making a choice, you probably did not even think about it twice and just bought Windows. The name of Microsoft on the software made the decision easy.

On the other hand, for years Apple was suffering because of a bad reputation it had. Buying a Mac did not even cross anybody’s mind when choosing an operating system. Apple was clearly experiencing the negative effects of branding.

In the mean while, consumers were at the whim of Microsoft. When it made a good version of Windows, everybody was happy. Companies were saving money and time, consumers were happy with the product and the decision that they made. However, at times Microsoft would make products such as Windows Millennium or Windows Vista, which made the businesses and consumers want to just drop Microsoft products and never look at them again.

Yet, we were the ones making a decision on buying the products because of the established brand.

Then, Apple made a turnaround. Someway, somehow it made it’s way back to consumer’s minds and Microsoft finally had some serious competition to the Windows OS. Because of the brand image that the Apple started building, many people switched to Macs. They started thinking twice before just buying a PC with Windows on it. And so, Apple was doing great for last couple of years. It introduced products such as iPod, iPhone and so on. People were buying them like hot pancakes, not thinking about it twice. In this case, the Apple was winning big.

It seemed like consumer would just buy anything that Apple made. A very similar story to Microsoft’s. Regardless of how much benefit the product actually had, people just bought it.

For that exact reason, Microsoft and Apple became comfortable with their brands and started producing half baked products, which hurt many consumers financially. If you are thinking Microsoft, think Vista; if you are thinking Apple think iPad and countless versions of iPod.

Lessons Learned

When we benefited it was because of branding. When we were hurt it was because of branding. There is an important lesson to be learned here.

Companies and the products that they produce change. Yet, the image the we have of that brand usually lags behind. Sometimes, it never really changes.

That is even more of a reason to be aware of changes not only in our own preferences and needs, but to be aware of how companies/entities that stand behind the branding change. Many times, the image the company originally established does not live up to it’s current status. That is the difference between reality and perceived reality.

Are you looking beyond brands, piercing the image that the companies want you to see? Do you check if it is congruent? Is what you see, what you get?

It really goes far beyond just firms and their products. The same exact concept applies to individuals, governments, countries, social groups, television companies, friends, families and schools. So, become aware of brands that are currently in your mind and ask: “Is this image congruent with what the company/firm/friend/country/social group really stands for at this moment?”

Remember: people change and so are the entities that they represent.

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Image: paperocks a.k.a evalinda

After a while, I just get bored of some things. I do.

I get bored hearing about the same old issues and problems and people never doing anything about them. If I had a TV show and I had a segment called “What Grinds My Gears”, people with never ending same old issues would be on that segment. No doubt!

What grinds my gears even more is the excuse that the same people use: “Well, you know…my life just kind of got in the way! You know how it is!” And then they would go on babbling about work, family, kids, homework, “rough” weekends and so on. Yea, I understood it. I understood a while ago. But then I stopped understanding because the same people would end up talking to me again, telling me how the life got in the way.

Yuk.

I used to be one of those people. I know – GROSS!

Thankfully, I stopped. I got tired of hearing myself complain about the same old things, trying to resolve issues or achieve new goals, but then end up seeing “life getting in the way”! So I did three things: 1) I shut my mouth 2)took responsibility away from “life” onto myself 3)looked for ways to create a life which would help me solve my issues. Matter of fact, to this I try not ever to share any negative news with other people. I just deal with them on my own. If I do reach out, it is just to ask for advice, but not to whine to them about my problems.

So, what about you? Does your life get in the way? Do you want to:

• get a new job
• lose weight
• go on a vacation
• wake up early
• start working out
• start saving money
• read a book
• learn something new
• go live in a new country
• go skydiving
• learn to dance
• start dating

Well, do you? Have you tried achieving any of those things, but then life just got in the way?I am sorry, but I have no pity for you.

Life just does not get in the way, you let it.

How? Simple; you probably make dumb decisions and instead of taking the responsibility on your own shoulders, you just blame life for getting in the way.

Let’s take a look at somebody who wants to start working out. He makes it his New Year’s resolution: “I am going to go to the gym four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.” Right on! The first week goes by, he is still at it. The second week gets tougher, but he still pushes on. Then, the third week comes around. Not so good. He started missing his workouts and before he knew it, he stopped working out all together.

Friends: ” What happened, man?”

Him: “You know. Life just kind of got in the way.”

Friends: “What do you mean?”

Him: “You know. The work started to kick in. I have to work late and then after work I don’t want to do anything. My brain is fried!”

Friends: “Right…”

Him: “Yea! I just couldn’t keep up. You know how hard it is, right?

Friends: “Yea!”

Him: “Then I have to watch my favorite shows and then I have to go out with my friends, socialize, etc. And then, I have to run all of these errands! So, I just said screw this! I want to have a normal life, so I stopped. Maybe next year I won’t be as busy with life.”

Friends: “Yea, man. You will have your chance!”

Just writing that, brought back unpleasant memories.

If life gets in the way, then it is all your fault, because you have created the life that you have. Furthermore, if you let life get in the way, then you probably do not want to solve an issue or achieve a goal bad enough.

That is all there is to it.

Just admit that to yourself. Admit it! If it is something that REALLY is bothering you, then do something about it in way that won’t let your life get in the way. Oh, I almost forgot. Here is how:

• Shut up. Stop complaining to others about how hard you try and how life just gets in the way. Nobody cares. You just waste your own time and others. Instead, if you are going to talk to somebody about your issues, be precise. State the issue and ask for advice of how to accomplish it. Consider the advice and try putting it into action. If it doesn’t work, move onto something different.

• Take responsibility. Life is never at fault. You are responsible for your life. You make the decisions that get you were you are right now. This might be a really hard thing to do. Taking responsibility is never easy, but this will put the control back into your hands. Life will not, randomly, get in your way. You will be able to look at yourself and look for the best ways to solve this problem. So, empower yourself by taking responsibility.

• Reorganize your life. If you have done the above steps, then you will realize that much work needs to be done. It might be simply summed up in the following: eliminate what you do not like and start doing what you like. It will have something to do with eliminating negative habits, people, environments, or things that “prevent” you from doing what you want. It will be hard, but you can do it. After that, you will have all of this free time to fill with things that you want to do. Just make sure, they are the things that you really want to do. This process will be pointless if you will have no real reasons for doing any of the things you said you wanted to do. Simple fact is that some people are just too comfortable with their lives to change anything about them.

So next time you hear yourself or your friends saying that life got in their way, just smack them on the head and tell them to take the responsibility to their own hands! Or just send them to this blog for some verbal head-smacking. Do whichever you are more comfortable with.

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Image: remuz [Jack The Ripper]

Have you ever set out to accomplish a fairly vague goal such as becoming better at something. That something could be speaking, writing, socializing, networking, basketball, programming and so on. Since better is a very vague word, it is inherently hard to measure our progress or know how we are doing.

For example, I set out into the blogging world. I just wanted to share my thoughts with the rest of the world, help a couple of people. Nothing big. Then I started getting into it, as I realized vast opportunities that blogging presents. And then, I realized that if I want to make anything out of my blog, I have to improve my writing.

A tool of communication with the rest of the world! Sounds pretty important doesn’t it?

Well, as I progressed through my journey, I felt that I was getting better at it, but I was not sure. So I decided to ask for feedback. It’s one of the best choices I have made.

It does not matter what you are trying to get better at; you NEED to know how you are doing. Are you running a project and want to know if the customer is pleased? Are you working on speech and you want to know if it is coming along well? If so, then the best way to get better at something is to ask for feedback. Period.

Here is why.

• It will show others that you care. What better way to show others that you care about what you do than by earnestly asking for genuine feedback? Even if it is something that you are doing for yourself (such as blogging, public speaking, project management, programming, etc), by asking others for feedback you will get them thinking about you. Your friends, co-workers, or family will become more aware of what you are doing and often will help you improve faster by providing  you with additional tools, advice or just general support.

• You will know your own progress. You will be able to understand if the actions that you are taking are helping you or hurting you. Feedback will help you figure out if you are moving too fast, too slow, putting enough, too much or too little effort in achieving your goals. Often times, we will have an idea of how we are doing, but feedback can work as a “reality check” for us to maintain awareness of our actions.

• You will push yourself out of your comfort zone. Naturally, you will have to put yourself out there when asking for feedback. You might have to force yourself to talk to your boss, your spouse, your children, your coworkers, strangers and friends in order to get feedback about the topic that concerns you. How is that pushing myself out of my comfort zone you might ask? Well, if you are asking for feedback be prepared to hear the good, the bad and the ugly. Especially the bad and the ugly. But that is exactly why feedback is important. If everybody just told you the good stuff while hiding the bad, what good would it do to you? NOTHING. So expect and learn how to deal with criticism and remember that a failure just points to an area for improvement.

• You will push others out of their comfort zone. This is a tough one. Believe or not people are very nice. Most of  us will do the most we can to avoid any sort of conflict. That is exactly what you are doing when you are asking for feedback, HONEST feedback. I am going to say it again: ask for HONEST feedback. That means others will have to tell you the bad and the ugly as well as the good stuff. That in itself is a recipe for conflict. People are worried about hurting others feelings by telling them the truth EVEN when they ask for it! Be sure to emphasize honesty because if they will try to play a nice person and hold things back from you, then you  and the other person will lose on the opportunities for growth by putting yourselves into a conflict situation.

• It will open up channels of communication. Naturally, this will force you to communicate and even talk openly to people which you would generally not even say “Hi” to.  This can be a great conversation starter and a catalyst for new friendships. You might discover new friends along the way who will help you excel even further by being honest and resourceful.

I personally experienced all of the above effects of feedback by asking my friend and fellow blogger Oleg Mokhov to provide me with honest feedback on my writing. It’s great and one of the more overlooked resources for growth. Because of this important information that I am receiving from Oleg, I am able to write better and better growing my blog and attracting more readers and hopefully helping them improve their lives!

You can do it too! All you have to do is ASK.

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Image: Don Moyer

What do you do over the weekends?

Are you one of those people who cannot wait for Friday to come around? Do you hate Mondays? Do you actually relax during the weekend?

Many people do not think twice about what to do over the weekends. It’s Friday. That means happy hour right after work, then going out with friends, spending tons of money during the night at the bars, then waking up in the morning feeling like crap trying to get better throughout the rest of the weekend. And so it repeats itself over and over again. And it is the norm to most of the population.

For the most part it starts in college and it never really stops after that. I used to be one of these drunk faces on Friday or Saturday nights, wasting my money and life away. I am glad I stopped before it was too late.

Time is precious and we ought to spend it wisely.

Many people lead lives they do not like, having jobs that they hate and the weekend seems like the perfect escape into the drunken illusion with friends where the pain and the worries seem to fade away. Yet, in the long run it accomplishes nothing. Well it accomplishes couple of things: it ruins your health, ruins your finances and it gets you nowhere. Sure, it is fun to hang out with friends and catch up. Yet, for most people it becomes a destructive habit, a routine, a fake escape from unwanted life.

Well, for better or worse I have spend a large portion of my college career just like that. Matter of fact, my weekends would start on Thursday nights and end up on Saturday nights. Every weekend. I did not think twice of it. It seemed fine. I was sucked in and stuck. Yet, I found myself more and more doing it because everybody else was doing it. It sucked. I had to stop and think. Something was wrong. Is this all there is to do over the weekends? Is his all I am here to do on this earth?

The answer was no. The life has so much more to offer and it is a waste of time to be engaged in such activities! This made me reconsider my priorities and my goals in life. I realized I did not have any and that was part of the reason why I was going through college days so blindly – I lacked purpose. Now, I have purpose, I have things that I want to do and accomplish. All of those things take time and money to accomplish, so I’d rather focus my energy on doing things that take me somewhere as opposed to those that keep me stuck in a destructive routine.

If you find yourself in this lifestyle, then there are many things that you should consider. Am I happy with my life? Am I happy with my job? Am I happy with where I am going? Am I working towards fulfilling my life purpose? Chances are that you will find yourself answering now to most of those questions. That is why exactly those are the reasons why you are engaging in destructive weekends.

I am not saying that you should never do this or that you should eliminate hanging out with friends or having some fun once in a while. No. What I am saying is to become mindful of what you are doing. Every action has an opportunity cost to it. So think about what you are missing out by spending those weekends going out, playing beer pong, watching football  and spending money while developing a drinking habit?

I can think of at least a couple of things that you can do with that time and money. You could save the money for an awesome trip, a car, a house, a book or you could simply invest it towards your retirement. You could spend that money on theaters, plays, performances, martial art lessons, great food, a romantic dinner with a date, learning how to scuba dive, picking up a yoga class and so on! You could spend the time on meditation, on developing yourself, finding for a better job, developing or finding a passion of yours, changing your life and rediscovering your life purpose!

Are you sleeping? I want you to wake up and smell the roses and find your own purpose in life and lead others to finding theirs! Think about it. Just think about it.

Drop The Victim Mentality

People love to complain, feel helpless and just live in the victim mentality. It puts responsibility out of your own hands and leaves the world at fault. It is easy because you can go on telling yourself that there is nothing you can do about the situation. It is the easy way out. It is also addicting. If you are stuck in that mode of thinking for long enough, you will find yourself depressed with your life spiraling out of control.

It is understandable. Somewhat. Yea, the economy is tough, people do not have jobs, everybody is sad and depressed without any money. What is there to be happy about you ask?

EVERYTHING.

Here’s why! Right now is the best opportunity to appreciate everything that you have and give. Yes! Give! Give when you think that you do not have anything to give. However, understand that you always have something to give. Always! No matter what is going on, no matter how bad the economy is, you can always give something. You can always give your time and your energy to others! That’s right, your time and your energy.

Forget about giving money,things, or food – give yourself. It is the best kind of gift that you can give. You can accomplish that by volunteering!

I was siting at home and complaining that I cannot get a job and how I do not have anything to do and how my life sucks right now. Then, suddenly I realized:

• I do not have a job
• I have nothing to do
• I need experience
• I want to interact and meet others

Go Volunteer

There was only one option left for me. I had to go volunteer! Yes! It all of the sudden made so much sense! And I think that everybody who is unemployed, not sure what to do in life should get up and go volunteer! It is the best thing to do! When times are tough and gloomy go help others by giving yourself for free . There are so many benefits to volunteering:

• you get to help others
• you meet new people
• you gain experience
• you get involved
• you expose yourself to something new
• you spend time with purpose instead of wasting it at home

It is a bit selfish, but sometimes doing things for wrong reasons can lead to do things for the right reasons! So to all the people who sit at home and complain that they can do nothing about their lives, I have answer – go help others! This way you shift your focus from scarcity to abundance. Even when you think you have nothing else to give, give yourself! If you are serious and want to get started there are a couple of great places to do that:

• http://www.idealist.org/
• http://www.volunteermatch.org/

There are opportunities for a variety of individuals with different sets of skills. Are you a recent college graduate, a high school graduate? Are an expert in finance, accounting, marketing, etc? There are opportunities for you.

For example, I am interested in financial planning. I went to those sites listed above and there are plenty of opportunities for financial planners. This way, I will not be wasting my time sitting at home, I will be able to go out and meet new people, I will gain experience in financial planning, I will do something to help others, I will make new connections. I choose life of abundance and leave the life of victim behind me.

There are reasons to only go out and volunteer TODAY! What are you waiting for? What is your excuse? Go out there and help others especially in such a time of need for everybody!

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Image: Flickr

Have you ever given advice? Have you had people thank you for your help? However, have you ever followed your own advice that you have given to others? Have you caught yourself doing the exact opposite of what you told your friends? Have people called you a hypocrite? Unfortunately, I have to answer “yes” to all of the above questions. What about you? Answer them honestly before you proceed with the article.

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, I have great news for you – you have wisdom stored within you that you might not be even aware of. Let us examine why that is the case.

There are couple of important things going on here that we need to explore to understand this completely:

• outside perspective
• oneness
• awareness
• congruency

Outside Perspective. When we give advice to another person, we provide them with an outside perspective on their situation. Outside perspective is usually very valuable and can help the other person deal with their issues effectively. Let us examine why that is. When people are faced with tough life situations, they lack clarity and direction. They seem stuck. The routine takes over people’s lives and they do not know how to get out of it. Then they turn to friends, like yourself, for help. You have the unique ability to look at your friends issues and give them a clear perspective and advice. You seem to immediately understand the action that should be taken. I believe it is because we do not have the emotional connections to the events in other people’s lives, more importantly most of the time we are looking at the situation for the first time and are able to determine the right solution right away. The value of the outside perspective is invaluable.

Oneness. Another piece of the puzzle is oneness. It is my understanding that we are all connected. I believe that all humans are connected because of our experiences in our lives. We all cry, laugh, love, hate, fear, get excited, sad, angry, disappointed, etc. Because of that we are able to connect and understand each other. Therefore when our friends ask us for help, it is likely that their issues and problems is something that we have already experienced or are yet to experience. In a sense, we are giving advice to ourselves! Yet, we have the benefit of added clarity and emotional disconnect to offer the right solution. That is great news because instead of just helping your friend, you are also helping yourself! The only thing we have to do to get the benefit of our own wisdom is to become aware of it.

Awareness. Often times when we give advice, it comes to us naturally. We do not even have to think about it twice. We just seem to know what the other person should do. It does not even matter if we have been in a similar situation before or not. However, we rarely take note of that advice ourselves and next time we get into the situation that our friend was in, we are lost just like they were! How do we solve this dilemma? I, personally, stared writing things down. I bought a journal where I keep solutions to various tough and routine life situations. Whenever, I notice a useful advice that I gave to somebody, I write it down in my journal. Writing things down accomplished a couple of important tasks. First, it helps you store the information for future use. Second, it helps you absorb and remember the information much better. I just recently started doing this and my plan is to have a journal full of ready to use solutions for common and unique life situations. This way I will be always ready to act when I am faced with life.

Congruency. The last piece of the puzzle is congruency. It means following your own advice. If you give advice to your friends and then do not follow it yourself, you will lose credibility. Even though it might have been a proper solution, you not following your own advice will discredit you. This way you might lose a great way to teach yourself and others a great way to handle difficult situations. Moreover, even if you write down your own advice and keep a journal of it, but do not follow what you said you would do, you will just have wasted your time and prolonged your learning process. Help yourself. Follow your own advice. You will be able to build credibility amongst your peers, you will solve your problems quickly and efficiently and you will be able to find any flaws that your advice might have had.

In short, all of us have wisdom of the world contained in us; it is up to us to recognize and use to help others and ourselves. Just trust yourself.

Have you ever had such a bad experience that you never ever wanted to remember it again in your life? Yet, no matter how hard you tried to forget it, it kept coming back and torturing you? Maybe it was because you did or didn’t do something that hurt other people. Maybe it was because somebody hurt you. Either way, the past seemed to always be there with you never letting go and reminding you of that bad action what you made.

If you experienced any of the above, I have news for you – you are a human being. Yet, in order to even being to understand answering the question of how to let go of the past, we have to examine time first.

What is Time?

Why we are going to examine time – because understanding the past is not enough. It is impossible to understand the past without talking about the past, the present, and the future together. Combining the above mentioned elements together gives us time as we understand it. I understand the there are many ways to look at time. Therefore, we are going to leave the quantum mechanics and physics aside. Instead we are going to focus  on time from a psychological perspective.

In that sense, time does not really exist. What exists is the experience. Nothing else. There is no past or the future. There has always been and there will always be only the present. Our brains take those experiences and store them in our brain as memories, which we label the past. Those memories are stored in our brain as collection of neurons. The brain then uses those connections to form our habits and behaviors. In addition, our brains forms possible future outcomes based on our past experiences. Those simulations try to protect us from making bad decisions, which would end up hurting us. They also encourage making decisions, which in our head, should produce a favorable outcome.

However, sometimes we experience really strong negative emotions which form an extremely strong neuron connection in our brain. Most of the time, those connections cannot be easily broken. Yet, we do not have to break them. All we need to do is change the way we understand that experience in order to change the way that emotion makes us feel. So how do we do what?

How to Let Go of The Past?

Most people try to forget negative experiences. Yet, the act of trying to forget something naturally reactivates and strengthens the chemical reaction associated with that emotion and experience. Here is what I found what works for me:

1. Understand that past does not exist. It is all in your head. It is a collection of memories, which your brain chose to save for the future use. The event itself has passed as if it never happened.
2. Understand that you are not in the present if you are thinking about the past. It has some serious implications. Living in your head, might cause you to lose focus and cost you opportunities to advance your life towards a direction that you want to do. Ask yourself if suffering about the past is worth sacrificing the present?
3. Understand that you cannot control that past. This is the biggest stepping stone in letting go of the past. I’ll say it once again: Understand that you cannot control that past. What done is done. The only result you have is the experience that you carry with you; nothing else.
4. Accept that you cannot control the past. This might be harder than you think, but  try to truly understand that you truly cannot control anything that has already happened and that trying to do so will cause you to relive the whole experience over and over again.
5. Forgive yourself and take responsibility for your actions by speaking the truth to yourself and others. Do this even if you do not think you did anything wrong.
6. Forgive others for hurting you.
7. Learn the lesson that you had to learn from the experience. That is why it happened. A negative experience is nothing more than a way for the universe to tell you that you were doing something wrong and that you need to learn what ever needs to be learned.
8. Be grateful for that negative experience because of the value and depth that it has brought into your life.
9. Live NOW!

All of these steps require courage, time and dedication. They are not easy, but the rewards are fulfilling and lead to a greater and more rewarding life. Let go of your past – NOW!

My Experience

I am not a fan of competition. I never liked it. Ever since I was a young child, I had bad experiences with competition. Every time I engaged in some competitive activity,I instantly felt alienated and unwelcome among my peers. It seemed that everybody was trying to get to the top at my expense.

For example, when I played basketball, the other basketball players would try to put me down and belittle me.  They achieved their goals. Their negative words and attitudes would get into my head. My performance would suffer. Moreover, my spirits would go down and I would feel unmotivated to play basketball. It was hard and unpleasant for me to even walk into the locker room. I started becoming afraid of my teammates and even the game itself. Naturally, any competitive act caused me to feel negative emotions and would instantly paralyze me.

These emotions are still with me today. They are not nearly as strong or as powerful as they used to be, but they are there. I have learned to deal with them. Yet, for a long time my confidence suffered. My overall view of self-worth went down and it was hard to bring it back up.

Change

Yet, I knew it was up to me to change. I had to change my perspective and take responsibility for my actions. I realized that other people will not change. It was not worth my effort or being upset over it. I had to change the way I responded to and treated people around me.

Let us go through my experiences with basketball. The first thing I tried to do to bring my confidence up was to lift harder and work harder every day in practice. It worked. I was becoming stronger and more athletic. I was able to compete with others and even gain their respect. However, I started loosing respect for other basketball players myself. I felt like it was the time for me to pay back for all of my bad experiences in basketball. I became overly aggressive, angry and pushy. Naturally, nobody liked it. It caused resentment and people did not want to play with me. Team basketball suffered and I felt hurt again.

At that time, I did not recognize exactly what was going on. All I knew was that people were not fond of playing basketball on the same team with me. I realized that I was treating others just like how I was being treated myself for a largo portion of my life. I needed to evolve. The change came. I was not aware of it until recently. The change came because I changed my perspective. Instead of looking through the glasses of competition, I started using the glasses of competitive collaboration.

Competitive Collaboration

Competitive collaboration is all about growing while helping others grow. It is about engaging yourself in “win win” situations. The first “win” stands for your own “win”. The second one stand for helping others “win”. My experience with basketball illustrates that. Early in my basketball career I was engaging myself in “lose win” situations: I would lose; others would win. Later on, it changed to: “win lose”. I would win, while others would lose. Only recently it started evolving into “win win” situations.

Competitive collaboration is about creating a friendly and supportive environment where you are striving forward by helping others become better at the same time. It is not all about you. It is about respecting other persons. It is about pushing yourself to reach new goals and pushing the other individuals to achieve new heights as well. See, if you surround yourself with positive people who you show respect for and help them grow, you will naturally foster and an environment of support and respect for yourself.

Key element of competitive collaboration is sharing of information. It is beneficial on many levels. You get to test your ideas with others and see how they react. Your “competitors” might provide you with feedback and ways to improve on your ideas. They might offer you support in implementing them. They might also share their ideas and you could learn from each other.

Notice, however, that sharing information is beneficial for both parties involved. You would be naturally forced to keep innovating, keep thinking of better ideas to keep growing. Sharing of information opens up doors to opportunities that would not have otherwise existed.  It also shows that you are confident and mature person who is constantly pushing oneself to new heights.

Let us see how this applies to my experiences with basketball. I noticed that if I stared respecting others and recognizing people for doing a good job, I would get more respect back. I would get the ball more often. In playing pickup games, people would be more likely to pick me up. There was no resentment and no anger while playing; that reduced the chance of injury or even a fight. It made the experience of basketball much more enjoyable and fun.

Engage Yourself in Competitive Collaboration

In short, if you want to stop competing, but want to start competitively collaborating do the following:

1. Show respect towards others.
2. Show appreciation of others.
3. Push others to grow.
4. Support others when they are down.
5. Share your knowledge and ideas with others.

So, stop being a competitor and become a competitive collaborator. It will change your life.