LUKE: I don't believe it! YODA: That is why you fail.  Cast your mind back to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. In this film, a young warrior is sent to a wise master in order to develop his skills so that he can fulfil his destiny. The most important lesson that the master (Yoda) teaches his apprentice (Luke) concerns The Power of Belief. He wants him to learn that life isn't governed by t...

The Matrix is real! I knew it when I walked out of the cinema over 14 years ago and my subsequent experiences only confirmed my initial suspicion.  Not that I believe we're human batteries plugged into a computer mainframe, but the metaphor is very real. A whole planet fed a false version of reality built on the lie that we're limited, unable to govern our lives and that the material is more i...

Is your life dull? Are you weighed down by the day to day stresses of paying the bills, commuting to work and dealing with people you dislike?  Do you sometimes wish you could be another person?  If your answer to any of these questions is 'yes' then we've got the solution for you. Or more accurately, Tyler Durden does. His ingenious life philosophy is the antidote to modern living. In fac...

My grandma is 96 years old and she's still deeply concerned by the cost of a loaf of bread. Despite being a danger to herself and other road users, she's only just stopped driving because she didn't want to pay a nominal taxi fee for the 5 minute journey into town for her weekly grocery shop. She treble checks bills, worries about the hot water being left on too long and nags my mum over insign...

Our outlooks are all skewed. We live in a system where the amount of money we earn and the status we attain is prized more highly than our levels of happiness and the good we do. It may sound crazy, but you'll be held in higher regard if you're the CEO of a colossal company, making decisions that wreck the lives of thousands and cause untold damage to the environment, than if you're a char...

I'm no fan of '30 things you must do before you reach 30' type lists. The idea that there is some universal standard of achievement and experience is too conformist for me.  So, I've come up with an alternative. It's not based on visiting a country on every continent of the world, learning to play a musical instrument or any number of equally interesting yet useless (unless you need a topic ...

"You might have a chemical imbalance."    "Perhaps you should go and see a doctor. They'll give you something for it."    These were the words of advice offered to me by my parents. Although spoken with loving intention, they represented a surface level solution for a much deeper malaise. I wasn't depressed. I was just totally uninspired by life and the options the system presented for my...

 'Often people just don't see what I see. They have too much doubt. You can't do your best when you're doubting yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, who will?' - Michael Jackson, Moonwalk Living a life free from self-doubt could be described as one of the holy grails of personal development. As much as people are drawn to the genre by promises of riches and success, many also seek sola...

I set out on a journey to live my dreams* 10 years ago. Aghast that my life could just pass me by without any great adventure or calling, I was certain that there was more to this existence than making money to survive and walking the well-worn path that most people seem to follow. However, the only foundation I had to build this new life upon was a vision. While pondering my future post unive...

If your salary was $160,000/£100,000 per year would you consider yourself poor? Probably not, but Felix Dennis, publisher and owner of Dennis Publishing (Maxim, The Week) would certainly think so. He is also an author, and it’s in his book, How to Get Rich, that he outlines exactly how much money you need to be rich. Before you dismiss his claims as yet another multi-millionaire looking down on...