Carl Massy

I thought I would do something slightly different today and do a sort of “book review”, where I choose the biggest takeaways from a great book I recently read.

The book is called ‘Journey‘ by Beth Martens and the subtitle is: “A map of archetypes to find lost purpose in a sea of meaninglessness.”

An intriguing subtitle, which definitely pulled me in.

I have read about Archetypes before, and in one my online programs – Become a Natural Superhuman – I draw on the archetypes of the Leader, Warrior and Sage.

The exploration of Archetypes was probably popularized by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist and psychotherapist, who was around at the time of Sigmund Freud.

The work on Archetypes has been expanded since then (the mid 1900’s) and has been approached from many different angles.

Did you try and guess what the 2 words are?

Or are you happy to show up and see what I have to offer.

What are these 2 “POWERFUL” words????

Actually these two words shape the course and trajectory of our destinies. 

They can make life easy or harder. 

They can save energy or they can drain it. 

They can also create conflict (internally and externally). 

And they most definitely can change the course of your life. 

The magical, mythical, all-powerful words are…

…drum roll please…

You guessed it. 

“YES” & “NO”. 

Do I start with the mountain climbing tips or the AI?

Let’s start with the AI thing.

I had been avoiding it (AI) for awhile as I didn’t know much about it, and gave it limited attention as I focused on other things I did know a better.

But recently I decided that I needed to pull my big boy socks up, and have a look into what AI is and isn’t, and how it will affect me personally, and my clients.

Because it aint going away any time soon.

Today’s tip comes from a very unexpected place.  

The kitchen.  

To be more precise the Australian MasterChef kitchen.  

Compliments of ‘Pezza’ (aka: Josh Perry).  

Thanks Pezza!

Pezza was the recent runner-up in the 2024 Australian MasterChef series.  

He won AU$40,000 for his efforts and learned a whole bunch along the way.  

I was trying to find the right phrase, to sum up (cross-culturally) what it means when things go to sh#t, without me using a swear word. 

Now the reason I refrain from swear words in my writing is so my emails don’t get flagged as bad, or naughty, or non-politically-correct. 

After 14 years in the Army, I can swear with the best of them.

But I digress. 

I think we all know what I am talking about when I say ‘things go sideways‘. 

Essentially we have this great idea, plan and course of action happening, and then all of a sudden (or maybe not suddenly) it all “seems” to turn to poop. 

Things come off the rails and you are left thinking “WTF do I do now?“

We have all been there. 

Today I want to jump straight in. 

First with this statement: Words Matter. 

A lot.

I think that we all know that there are some statements, words, phrases, and reframes, that bring a whole lot of energy with them.

Some create negative energy (e.g. “I am stupid.”), and then there are some that light up the sky (and our minds) with passion and possibility. 

It is the ‘light up the sky‘ and ‘moving mountains‘ kind we will be focusing on today. 

What follows are three of my favourite one-liners to help you get better results in life.

They raise the level of our potential, when they are breathed into life. 

I was uncertain about what I was going to write about today.

As I was thinking about a topic, and reviewing ideas I have had over the last few weeks, I was interrupted by a woman talking outside our house VERY loudly.

..to people who were 100cm (3ft) away from her.

And suddenly I felt my heckles go up.

The reason is that this woman is also the woman who likes to dump a plastic bag (full of scraps) into the small creek 30m from our house.

This is the person who I said could tip her organic scraps into the creek (the lesser evil) and then put the plastic bag in a bin we have provided outside our house that has a sign on it – in Indonesian – to put your rubbish in the bin rather than throw it on the land next door (I also pay for the bin to be emptied). 

Nup. 

Too hard.

Have you ever thought it would be great to have ‘ZERO’ stress in your life? 

I know I have. 

There are times I am cranky because I am getting stressed-out over something or other.

Or other times where I am just feeling a mild level of stress in my body. 

At these times I wonder what it would be like to have ZERO stress, all the time.

As if that were the ideal target. 

And maybe it is. 

Maybe that is what ‘enlightenment’ is all about. 

Or maybe it isn’t. 

I have no doubts that every luminary person we can think of – who we consider as enlightened or self-actualized – also had their fair share of stress, and in most cases (if not all) had high levels of high stress experiences throughout their life. 

The first thing I think is relevant to this conversation is that I am not even sure that ZERO stress is attainable, or even the penultimate achievement in life.

No stress might actually be the bit just before we take our last breath. 

So today I am going to talk about how ‘zero’ stress may not a worthwhile target. 

Let’s now look at the reasons why.

I was trying to think today about how to best serve you.

What could be most useful for you?

And most relevant?

The thought that came to mind is what to do if you are going along swimmingly and then all of a sudden DOUBT starts to bubble up. 

Sadly, if left unaddressed, doubt can start to fester, leading to a downward spiral – generally speeding up as it goes – and then spinning into other parts of your life that you thought you were on top of.

What do you? 

THAT is what we will continue to explore today. 

You can thank Emma for this article. 

She suggested she would like to have me focus on ‘How to become more VITAL‘.

And just so we understand what we are talking about when we use the word ‘vital’, other words we could use include:

Spunk, buzz, jazzed up, on a high, light of spirit, energized, unstoppable, vibrant, radiant, expansive, thriving, and plugged into life. 

Feel free to add a few of your own. 😉

It is pretty much the opposite of anxious, fearful, worried, flat, fatigued, apathetic, disconnected, etc..

The less fun stuff.

I think the most basic way to figure out how to create the most vitality, for the majority of the time, is to do a good old fashioned “Audit”. 

It is a great place to start.

We are essentially going to come up with what RAISES our Vitality and what LOWERS our Vitality.

That’s the mission for today.

Bringing AWARENESS to you in relationship to your Vitality choices.

Giving you the insight to make better choices.

And yes, you would have heard a bunch of these from me before.

But as they say: repetition is the mother of learning.

Let’s start with what lowers vitality…