Jann and I were on Skype call together.

Jann has almost finished a year deep-diving into the ATSuccess makeover for teachers who join our community. I was asking her how her experience now compared with the period of her post-graduate teacher training in 2010.

Back then, she said…

‘’I literally had to break down my concept of who I was and what I was, and start again. And I am feeling that same thing now. It’s like I am falling apart, I don’t know which way to go. I know what, but I don’t know how to get there.”

Once at breakfast, I remember being interrupted by a girlfriend pleading with me in an exasperated voice:

“What’s wrong with you this morning?”

I was genuinely surprised (and a little irritated).

“Nothing.” I lifted my eyebrows.

“Fine”, she re-joined “have it your way.”

I was fed up with this.

“What are you talking about!?”

Senses are reliable.
Senses are unreliable.

Depending on how you think – both are true, and neither are right.

It’s a bit like light as particles or light as waves. Whichever conceptual approach you take, you find irrefutable evidence to support your concept. That is, until you think differently.

Isn’t all life like that?

When you wake up in the morning – what is your first thought?

What do you usually feel – excitement, sleepiness, dread?

We are literally creatures of habit – fully 99% of our functioning runs on automatic. Neuro-scientists have yet to find a distinct part of the brain that runs our “will power” – it’s still a mystery how that works...

All our systems interact and rely on each other to know what to do: all based on the learning of our past. Our past throws us into our future, and it operates with an unerring consistency.

What is your kind of holiday?

Here I am in Melbourne, early morning at David’s place, my teenage daughters still sleeping with a cup of tea at hand. Relaxing. Or am I?

What is ‘relaxing’ - what research has been done into this?

One study I can think of was completed by Dan Buettner (you can watch his Ted talk at this link). Dan’s team collected information on the behaviours of 5 communities that have a statistically abnormal number of centenarians in their midst.

When your biz goes AWOL, when there’s no money to pay your rent, when your inbox has another email from an unhappy student, when you’re partner keeps asking you when are you going to get a real job? When all that is happening, when you are in despair, lost, depressed, confused – this is hell.

Or is it?

Let’s look at pain from the point of view of neuroscience – yes, let’s get off the spiritual train for a minute and jump down into little contested facts about the physiology of movement.

What is the function of pain? Is it friendly or unfriendly?

When was the last time you asked anybody this question:

“What do you know about me that I don’t?”

I tried that question last Sunday with a bunch of trusted biz owners – guys and gals all working in ways similar to me to build their businesses. We were 9 people and as I sat silently listening, I felt my ego being silently ripped out of my guts and spilt all over the floor.

When you do it, be sure you are already secure in your love for your Self.

Ramachandran is the neuro-anatomist who successfully amputated a non-existent arm by using nothing more than a $2 cardboard box and a vertical mirror. I’ve written about him previously here. Not only is he wonderfully inventive, he is a harbinger for a new breed of scientist which gives me hope of a path forward to validate Alexander's discovery.

In January 2016 I am coming to London with a team of teachers to answer the question this blog is posing. We've even set up a free online course at this link to warm you up! I also endeavour to answer this question below...

Alexander’s discoveries are my passion; they have been my life and work since the age of 20, and I intend to be living and teaching them up to my last breath.

“Mad Major” John Boyd, quoted above*, is an undeclared American hero. 

Personally I am not a fan - war is not a arena that engages my respect – and I am not fool enough to ignore valuable insights into human behaviour from whence ever they arise.

Boyd declared this idea to his phenomenally successful American fighter pilots, and the idea is also a central premise within Alexander’s evolutionary theory. It’s all carefully laid out in by F.M. in his laboriously written first section of CCCI, but it’s way more interesting to consider Boyd’s take on the subject.