A female colleague of mine recently asked me to share my business plan with a group of high-level coaches she had gathered together, experts in every conceivable field of personal development from all over the world. It had been a memorable seminar during which I’d met and exchanged ideas and information with many of the prominent life-style gurus attending. I told my friend I’d be happy to share my business plan but as I walked up to the stage I was struck by a sudden realization.
I don’t have a business plan.
That was the old me. That was the guy who was starring in a movie of his own creation, and investing that movie with ‘special effects’ from his consciousness that made it all seem real. Without a sound business plan that guy barely existed. Nowadays I have no plan to share. Instead I share the revelation that we are all spiritual manifestations of the three principles of Universal Mind, Universal Consciousness and Universal Thought.
Syd Banks’ revelation about the nature of life itself lasted a mere two seconds, but that experience was deep and wide enough to set him off on his odyssey to help people by persuading them that the way they see themselves and their place in the world is nothing more than an illusion. The truth is that we are all at play in a universal game that we have created for ourselves. All our problems are self-generated because we invest our thoughts with too many debilitating emotions. Is it possible to live without doubting ourselves, without having our minds poisoned by our own thinking? Is it possible, in effect, to be free?
Ask a child. There is far more thinking going on in my office than in my daughter’s playroom. If you’ve ever known toddlers or had the pleasure of observing them at play you’ll be familiar with dad’s frustration on Christmas morning as he watches his beloved little boy turn his back on the expensive toy he’s been bought to sit in the box it came in and pretend it is a fire engine, spaceship or racing car. How else can we explain the worldwide phenomenon that is ‘Lego’, except through understanding that a child finds joy in inventing his or her own world? Faced with a doll or toy soldier stuffed with microchips that walks and talks and performs tricks most very young children will be unimpressed, sensing that the fun part, the invention, has already been enjoyed by the adult who made the toy. (That person, at least, was having a good time).
In an increasingly pressurized, technology-based environment we are encouraged from an early age to put away the toys and try to ‘make something of ourselves’. When I was a young man my lack of formal qualifications instilled in me the need to plan, the need to win at all costs. This was ‘my life’ after all, and if I didn’t take it 100% seriously, it was pretty obvious to me that no one else would. Financial security, a roof over my head and a million-pound business meant happiness, and all of it depended on hard work and sound planning. But I found over time that the real cost of this way of thinking is losing the joy of life, losing what my kids have without trying. Without thinking.
‘So if it’s all just a game, what’s the point of doing anything?’ you say. To me it’s all about investment versus involvement. Nowadays I’m involved but not invested in the things that I do. I no longer feel that unless I achieve X, Y and Z I will be unhappy. I know that my life is worth incalculably more than any business venture I dream up. Yes, what I’m doing today is a good business game to play, but it is still just a game. Cooking and fishing will not stop if it doesn’t work out. And I can reinvent the game any time I like.
Syd Banks, when he’d shared his insight to his clients, told them just to go home, forget the three principles and live their lives. Syd knew that we are all living at different levels of consciousness, and that the only real purpose of life was to get to a higher level. That is what our happiness depends on, and we do not need to plan for it. We simply need to wake up to that amazing fact.
What are you planning right now?