The Journey Ahead

You're stepping out on a journey to make amazing changes in your life. You're going to experience new things, meet new people and encounter new ideas. Part of preparing for the journey ahead is to make sure that you are fit to do it. And the benefits of fitness for your mind and your physical wellbeing are massive.

With fitness you get focus; with the right foods nourishing your brain and your body you get better results. With better blood supply to you brain, endorphins in your body, your mood will be buoyed, you will be doing different things and thinking in new ways. This change in itself is a start for getting rid of old habits.

So, this section is going to ask the basic questions about you and your life.

The Questions to ask yourself:

How can I become better?

What food should I eat?

Should I eat less?

Should I try fasting?

What exercise should I do?

Have I even been or felt fit?

How did it feel?

Have I given up?

You do understand how eating the wrong food, abusing alcohol or sugary drinks can kill you or substantially reduce your lifespan, don't you?

I'm going to make some suggestions and ask some questions. And I want you to answer them honestly.

The Question: Are you as fit as you would like to be?

Make an assessment of your body and mind.

Do you feel tired in the morning when you wake up?

Do feel like you carry too much weight?

Do you feel your movement is restricted due to lack of exercise?

Can you imagine how much better you would feel were you to exercise and eat better?

Do you want to try new things in food and exercise?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, then it's time to consider what to do about your fitness. Now!

* * *

1. Exercise—The First Step.

When you're fitter and stronger, it's not just your body that works better. Your mind works better, your mental health improves and your ability to focus, to think and make decisions gets better, too. If exercise is already part of your life, great. Ask yourself—is it enough? How could I take my fitness to the next level? Are there other things I would like to try? What do I get from exercise? For example, a run or a workout can energise, while yoga can calm and focus. Try new things to see how they add to your level of fitness and the tools you have for being you.

That said, if you're not someone who exercises much and you are looking for a start on the journey to the best you, it's time to step out, literally.

The following is a recommendation for people who've let exercise go and are starting from a base of very little experience with exercise. The principles, however, are the same for everyone at any level.

We're constantly advised to exercise more, yet many find squeezing it into busy schedules a chore. For others, gym membership or keeping fitness equipment doesn't fit their lifestyle. So what's to be done to get that fitness level raised, the heart beating faster and wellbeing flooding through mind and body—in a fun, enjoyable experience?

To start with, let's look at the benefits of something that's as easy to do as putting one foot in front of the other. No excuses, please!

Walking can be a fascinating and enjoyable way of getting to know the place you live, of enjoying the countryside, of exploring any new area and meeting people. Simply getting out into daylight and raising the heart rate can have hugely beneficial effects. In a recent study, the British Heart Foundation discovered that people who walk briskly for half an hour a day can reduce the risk of heart attack by up to 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, another study showed that coming into contact with nature, as you do on a country walk, powerfully reduces stress levels. The secret ingredient, scientists say, is the greenery around you. There's even a name for not coming into contact with nature enough—‘nature deficit disorder’.

But that's not all. The steady rhythm of walking can also have a powerful positive effect on the mind. Many people talk about needing to go for a walk to clear their heads, and there is much to it.

The effect of regular rhythm on the mind can be extremely useful for people wishing to marshal their thoughts. None other than the great poet William Wordsworth found it a powerful tonic to help him compose poems. His walks through his native Lakeland countryside as a boy are well recorded, as is his 2000‐mile walk through Europe during the French Revolution.

Throughout his life, Wordsworth continued to pace to help him to write, finding that the rhythm of his stride repeated itself in the rhythm of his poems. It has been estimated that Wordsworth must have walked 180,000 miles in his life—and it did him good, living as he did to the grand old age of 80.

The focusing and calming effect of walking has been taken to its extreme in the meditations of Buddhists, who use the steady rhythm to slow the mind and disentangle it from the ‘veil of illusion’ they see as the cause of human suffering. Walking meditation is used by many Buddhists to get to mindfulness—a calm and relaxed awareness that is detached from deep emotions.

Whether you walk for fitness, for enjoyment or sociability, for nature appreciation—or to write that masterpiece—the great advantage of walking is that you just have to get outside your door. Of course, it is wonderful to walk in the countryside, but a decent pair of shoes and the appropriate clothes mean you can enjoy this health‐giving pastime wherever you are.

Or if you are working at a desk, like Wordsworth in his later years, you might just want to pace your room, controlling and directing your thoughts as easily as you direct your feet.

So, the next time you consider jumping in the car to take that short five‐minute journey, think again.

And now I'm going to use one of those personal development clichés we hear everywhere, but is still useful:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

(But several thousand steps are better!)

* * *

2. Mind and Body

Focusing on mind and body together will also pay off in different ways. Many people find that stress in their lives is relieved by exercises like yoga and t'ai chi. The steady concentration on slow movements, breath control and stretching can encourage a sense of wellbeing that is highly effective. Pilates is another favourite; chi kung, or for something completely different, climbing, can also have extraordinarily positive effects on concentration as well as physical strength and poise.

For fun, juggling and circus skills might be the thing for you. There is a whole world of physicality out there for you to explore, and with it will come a new way of thinking about the world, as well as noticeable differences in your mental wellbeing.

There are plenty of resources for you to look up.

The Questions to ask yourself:

What stops you? How do you get beyond any blocks to what is good for you?

3. Eating Right

There's an old saying that you are what you eat. And of course, it is literally true. Let me be blunt: the size of your mouth is a lot bigger than your arsehole! Remember, you have to burn what you eat, you have to sweat, speed up your metabolism and kick‐start it into burning off calories!!

The food you eat is taken into your body to make you who you are. If you eat things cooked with lots of oil, fried, or with lots of sugar and salt, and you eat more than you burn, well you know what's going to happen. It isn't rocket science.

Don't care right now? You know you will at some point!

Is failing to look after yourself and failing to ensure your body is well and fit something you want to regret later?

It's not worth it. My advice is: take action, now!

This section is not a detailed look at nutrition, but it is worth discussing several different approaches to eating, and what you put in your body.

The first thing to note is that most people eat too much and have too much sugar.

I think one of the problems with the way the West has come to regard food is that it falls into two main conceptual categories. It is either seen as fuel, or it is seen as a drug that acts as a substitute for the things that are really missing from your life.

And while it is true that food is what fuels us, it's not true to say that it's only a fuel. Over thousands of years, food has become as much a social and spiritual entity as it is something to put into your body. Over millennia, different cultures have made food central to human identity. From the pride of lions eating gathered round a fresh kill on the African savannah, through to the great apes who sit in groups, eating food they have picked or caught (because yes, some apes are carnivores) and removing fleas and ticks from the hair and skin of other community members, to the celebration of food in religious rituals, which recognise the social importance of food, food has always had a strong social element.

The Holy Sacrament is one such ritual that has its social side overlooked, and yet the supper that it celebrates is the mythical presentation of a coming together of friends before great changes were to take place. Throughout history, food is used as a symbol that says that people are spiritually united through the food they eat. This is just one example of the way food has a wider significance than simply being fuel.

To this day in rural parts of France, towns and villages close down for two hours so that people can take the time to eat together. Food is an integral part of society and social wellbeing—it is good for the spirit because it draws people together and they share each other's company. During such times, happiness‐creating chemicals are released in people's brains—not just by the food, but by the company they keep. Coming together to eat is a social good, far beyond food itself.

When such attitudes are undermined, that is when food becomes a drug. An unhappy individual, divorced from the everyday connections of the world, seeks to find ways to fill the void, to recreate the missing feelings of wellbeing no longer provided by social interaction. Bingeing on foods—especially fats and sugars—gives a quick hit to the nervous system that takes away the pain for a while. But the emptiness of such a use of food feeds on itself—leaving a lonely person more lonely and, because they're piling on weight, more unhappy than before.

Food, then, isn't just something to use in different ways, either as a fuel or as a drug. It is part of the shape of your life. It shapes you, in more ways than one. And that's why, although losing weight and a well‐balanced diet are both good things, they are nowhere near as good as getting a well‐balanced life in which food plays its part.

This is the problem with the countless diets and fads on the market at the moment. And not only with the diets, but also with that one question many people have in relation to food: ‘How do I lose weight?’

Late in my life I have started fasting. My son Lucci and some friends of mine started looking into the Keto diet, which mainly consists of fasting for long hours, cutting down to two meals and not eating a lot of carbs, and I have to say I haven't felt better in my life. The level of energy I have, and even more the mental clarity I have, is like I have never experienced before.

Yes, losing weight is important for your wellbeing and health, but it is only part of your direction of travel. That, I hope, will be to find a happy and fulfilling life, which means you don't think of food merely as a mechanical need or as a drug, but as something that is part of your whole, happy, successful life.

1. Honesty—The Roots of the Tree

Is honesty a rare commodity now? In an age of fake news and secrecy, sometimes it can feel that way. It seems people struggle to be honest and don't even value the idea of honesty.

Do you ever think that honesty can be an empty word?

Do you think sometimes it can be paradoxical?

In the West we tend to struggle to be totally, authentically honest. We prefer to use white lies instead of upsetting someone with the truth.

In my experience, people often say they are looking for honesty but can't seem to deal with it when they get it. People often ask for my opinion, but before I answer I normally make sure they really want honest feedback. I like being straightforward. I say things how I see them. That can cause problems.

A friend of mine summed up the outcome of my approach with the famous hashtag—#SorryNotSorry. She was right. Because though I may be sorry if I upset someone (and it is never my intention to do so), I'm also not sorry, because good friends are honest with each other. Good friends say things that need to be said.

Honesty is the root to the tree, the water for the plant, the sun for the earth. It's how we learn, grow and change.

For people who really want change in their lives, honesty with yourself is absolutely the most important thing to have, before anything else. To be honest with others, first be honest with yourself.

When you use evasion, avoidance and misdirection to protect yourself from hard questions and even harder answers, you're letting your ego get in the way. Ask yourself, why are you scared of being honest? How can you use honesty to make positive change in your life?

Dishonesty isn't always deliberate. Maybe you aren't even aware of how dishonest you are with yourself. When you look at yourself in the mirror and you are not happy with what you see, what do you do?

Do you change the subject and think of something else?

Or do you ask yourself a set of questions:

* * *

* * *

The Questions above are useful for all sorts of problems. If you have not been happy for a while, use them to get to the next stage—which is making happiness happen. They will help you change what is going on now!

With this kind of implacable self‐questioning you cannot hide from yourself any more. You can't protect your fragile ego from awkward facts. We will be going in a bit deeper into the ego next, but for now, once you've asked yourself these questions and got honest answers, you know it's time to act.

‘But,’ you might object. ‘what if I don't have the answers?’

Sure, you could think like that. Let's be clear. You can see questions as a test that you either pass or fail, like you used to see them at school, or you can see them as tools to check where you have knowledge that is useful, and where you need to find knowledge—which is what those questions at school were originally asked for.

The questions to yourself above are the starting points for finding answers.

Without them, you have nothing to motivate you because you don't even know what you're looking for.

With them, you've got a launchpad for finding the answers. So start looking.

* * *

* * *

* * *

Now give yourself time to ask what you want to change in your life. Take some time out. Ask yourself the hard questions. And then commit, in your head, to me and to you that from now on you'll always be straight with yourself and deal with the answers you seek, passionately and unflinchingly being true to yourself!

And remember—though asking the right questions is a starting point, answering your questions positively is the only way to go.

The answer to ‘What do I want?’ is not ‘I want to stop… /I don't want to…’

You need an answer that sets a positive direction. Something you can do, not something you can ‘not do’.

With these first answers, there will be more questions. Honesty is your resource to face the exciting changes and challenges ahead. Use it.

* * *

2. Ego

We hear a lot about the word Ego. ‘He's got such a big ego… he's an egomaniac’. We think about artists and actors having egos that are out of control. But everyone has an ego, and it can be a tough cookie to deal with, because—

your ego is your identity. It's who you think you are.

Different theories exist about whether the ego exists and what the ego is for. Some say the ego has a negative role to play in your life and you should try to get rid of it to go toward a spiritual goal. On the other hand, some scientists say it is vital to maintain for mental health.

In old‐fashioned psychology, the ego is often presented as the conscious, reality‐driven part of yourself that appears to be logical and realistic, but is actually responding to deep instinctual and emotional drives.

Eastern philosophy has its own way of looking at ego. Buddhism, for example, has a similar concept, which it terms Anatta—and just like in the West, it really means ‘the illusion of the self’.

Why an illusion? Because it is only what you think your ‘self’ is. It's conscious, it's rational and seems to put you in control of what you do. Yet that's where the illusion begins, because you don't recognise you are driven by a whole matrix of drives, history, instincts and half‐recognised impulses. And it means you are heavily defined by your surroundings and your past.

The philosopher Nietzsche once wrote, ‘What a person IS begins to betray itself when his talent decreases—when he ceases to show what he can DO.’

Just so with you. Whatever your talents and skills, they are not who you are. The shopkeeper with no shop is not a shopkeeper and the singer who loses his voice is not a singer. Yet we wrap ourselves in identities that are not who we are.

The habits you have learned from childhood and been conditioned into are exactly that—habits you have picked up. They are not you.

That's why it's vital to go below your conditioning—all the stuff your ego has picked up along the way—to find out who the real you is. The goal is to become your true self, to get beyond false consciousness to who you really are.

Doing so frees so much energy. It makes you joyful and alive in the moment. Being in contact with your real self brings energy, lightness and contentment. You are creative and constructive when you inner self is being expressed freely without being suppressed by expectations you've learned from the world around you. The good, the kind, the great and the generous are born from it.

My own view is we should not try to eradicate the ego. Instead, we perform a balancing act. After all, the ego is also the part of you that thinks, acts, discriminates and decides. The skill, then, is in managing your ego, using it for your purposes, while at the same time being connected to the deeper levels of yourself. That way you can act and think with all the wise information of deeper parts of yourself to guide you.

You want your ego to be strong AND to be flexible. Not to run out of control, but to be able to respond to needs without perceiving a threat or dogmatically refusing to consider new ideas because ‘this is not who I am’. It's having a light touch and a wise way of thinking that you are seeking.

Some of that can be achieved by taking time out to meditate or de‐stress in some way; to stop the narratives and stories that are shaping your life from taking over. There are ways to do that—and one of them is to watch your breathing, quietly sitting and relaxing. Try it for 20 minutes a day. It's tough at first—but it can have a fantastic effect on helping you detach from the stories you have been telling yourself. Yoga and other meditative exercise have similar effects.

So in my opinion your ego is necessary. It tries to protect us, but it's only by understanding and being conscious of our thoughts—what we truly are and what we are not—that we can find inner peace and the true self.

Control your ego, do not let it control you!

3. Your Breathing

When you focus on your breathing in the style of the Buddhists, sitting comfortably and maintaining a gentle meditative state, it can have powerful psychological and physiological effects.

Scientists have recently discovered the reasons for this, and note how it helps yogis and masters to attain peace and clear thinking. They discovered that breathing through the nose causes stimulation in the brain, and that the steady focus on the rhythm of breathing can help you achieve different levels of brainwave activity.

Slowing your breathing can slow your thinking and allow you to access different states of mind. Breathing from a deeper place in your stomach, rather than chest breathing, can change the way your brain responds.

It's something I've also noticed in NLP when I'm altering my state to get more in touch with my creative side. Being in a relaxed state and breathing right help me when I'm making decisions and considering my future.

So, take some time out to meditate, or just sit quietly and focus your mind gently and quietly on your breathing. It can make a huge difference to your life and the way you operate.

Mastering meditation, like so many worthwhile things in life, takes time and practice. But study after study proves meditation is able to improve your life in many ways, including reducing stress and improving your ability to concentrate. The following meditation exercise is an excellent introduction; try doing it first thing in the morning before breakfast.