AN OPEN LETTER – To all the Chops, Dipsticks and Bee-ya-ches

This may not be for you but I’m sure you know these people or run into them on a daily basis. It’s just to assure you that you are not strange. These people are not normal and they also irritate others!

So you’ve got the car with no roof; the designer, wrap-around, cover your whole face, Jackie Kennedy (look her up) chick sunglasses; you have the True Religion (those prices will make you call out to G*d) designer jeans; the massive, help me lift my arm, Police watch; the solid gold, chain link fence, bracelet; pinky ring; a Maori arm tattoo to make you look tough; pink shirt to soften the tat; with your pointy toe shoes and gelled hair; sitting at Tasha’s …. Alone!

…… Or maybe you’re with your little clone buddies without a woman in sight apart from the ones sniggering at you from across the restaurant over their lattes. You just can’t help wondering to yourself, “How come? I’ve got all the “trappings” but I’m still single and alone?”Maybe, just maybe, it’s because you’re an A-hole.

Ladies, you have the fake hair extensions, the fake hair colour, fake eyebrows, fake eyelashes, contact lenses, you trowel on foundation and blusher to fake your complexion and lack of health. Your lipstick is painted on bigger than your tiny lips for the “Angelina Jolie” – I can suck a bowling ball through a hose pipe – full lip look, it looks however like you put it on while there were amphetamines and alcohol present. Your teeth are whitened, the braces have just come off; you have a fake tan; fake nails; a fake smile while ordering your favorite fake drink. You have fake boobs or wish you had, so you just wear a fake-the-size bra to make the two snow-white dwarfs bigger and firmer. You may even wear a compass bra – to fake their real direction. They’re heading South and you just want to see them up North again! You have spanks for a fake smooth body contour (or Mr. Price cycling shorts) under the fake designer label. The high heels fake your height and slenderness; the stockings hide the spider vein legs. The Mini or the Beetle parked within view fakes your fun personality or the fact that that’s all you can afford on repayments every month.

……. And all you want, you declare is: “a real man; for a real relationship; to love me for who I really am! But I only attract creeps like those at that table or the ones in the gym”.

Maybe, just maybe, you are a fake bee-ya-ach and no amount of external enhancements will fix and fulfil you. I pity the poor sap that fell for your deception and has been trying unsuccessfully to fix and plug all your insecurities that not even George Clooney could.

You cannot fix that which is not there!

To the folically challenged, short, tattooed, protein shake drinking, muscle bound, weight dropping (never pack them away), Virgin Active (still a funny concept) gym idiot who screams, “One more rep, one more rep, you can do it Boet!” to his equally obnoxious training buddy, who wonders all the time why they are single, divorced or only attract bee-ya-aches with more issues then National Geographic. Maybe, just maybe, you’re just a thug, alpha male wannabe who attracts empty, shallow women.

Or are you the sales consultant who has been sent on every sales course or seminar there is, with an in-demand product and a database of gold. You still however can’t make target and you blame the country, the economy, the stock and the blue fairies. Maybe, just maybe, you’re an arrogant, know it all who no one likes! You know the type. It takes just 30 seconds for you to decide that this dipstick is irritating and you just wanna give him a high-five. In the face. With a ball peen hammer.

Here’s the thing! We all seem to blame the world and play the “poor me” card. We spend all of our time, effort and money on working and changing the outside of us, our appearance and image, and absolutely nothing on the inside. If we spent half the time, money and effort working on our inside we would not only be a happier bunch but we’d attract quality people and live fulfilled lives of meaning and purpose.

We spend billions every year as a species on cosmetics, clothing labels, luxury goods and cars, but what do we invest in our personal development and character growth? Billions are spent in the hairdressing industry every year. In fact we spend more on the outside of our head than on the inside and then get upset when someone calls us stupid!

Here’s another shocker; we spend more money every month on toilet paper than on improving our minds! We spend more money on our “bottom” than our brain and we complain that life is S41T. And that’s the bottom line.

I have been blessed to speak to tens of thousands of people all over the world (for over two decades now) with rave reviews, feedback and requests to return. The praise and feedback are always wonderful and appreciated but there is something more important. Instead of, or with the praise, I wish they would just tell me what they’re going to do with the new ideas and information.

I used to take books, Dvd’s and workbooks to gigs with me. I even employed people to assist with them at the back of rooms so that people could action the ideas long after I had left. I don’t do that anymore because unless the company has bought the products for their delegates, all I ended up doing was lugging tonnes of items around, paying shipping, storage and production costs.

We cancel more workshops than we run because people and companies can’t see the value in personal development. If the company pays, they come; if not, they have thousands of excuses why they can’t. To your face they wax lyrical, their written feedback is amazing, cards, letters, e-mails, but ask them to invest and the excuses begin.

Ask someone to join a gym or sign up for a movie club, subscribe to a social media site and they’re on it like a flash. Offer them clothing accounts, specials on phones, brands and gadgets and they shell out their cash. People spend 4, 5, 6, 700 Rand or more on a single dinner, night out or rock concert but they will not pay one cent to improve their character, life or business skills.

Knowledge, growth, and personal enlightenment will never leave you, unlike that curry that will leave you later the same night.

THERE HAS TO BE A SHIFT!

We have to start working on our insides. Working on our judgments, prejudices, issues and understandings of how this world really works, and how to navigate it successfully.

• How to read a person from a distance without saying a word
• How to create a great first impression
• How to find true love
• How to find self-love so you can love and be loved
• How to be (and attract) a person of character
• How to be happy most of the time
• What matters, what doesn’t, and how to matter – do you matter?
• How to be kind
• How to care
• How to see

I believe that corporates should be investing in character building skills and creating happy people. They should focus on soft skills rather than on management programs or spending more on the bar bill at a conference than the content of the learning event. Less bar/pie graphs and spread sheets, and more life skills content!

We have to teach people to SEE. To see is to notice and to understand. If you are just able to see, you will know, and then the knowing will change it all.

If you see you will care.

If you care you will do.

SEE; CARE; DO! It’s really that simple.

All I try to do is to help people SEE, so that they may CARE, and then they might just DO something about it.

Now … back to my dysfunctional friends in the beginning of this rant. Externally focused people attract externally focused people; who live externally focused, shallow, meaningless, lives.

Put down the dumbbell and/or the mascara, and pick up a book or take a class. See a psychologist, find a mentor and start working from, and on, the inside-out.

No one is perfect (except perhaps my wife), but for the rest of us, it’s an exciting discovery and mending of who we are. It’s remembering how to love and be loved; how to be happy and to create happiness. Do the hard yards and change the only thing that counts. The only thing that will give you true love, happiness, and a successful, meaningful life is doing the inner work. Character and self-esteem will reward more than massive biceps or designer nails.

Well I’m off to the gym now in my “7”

Have a great month!

Big G