A Minx's Chronicle

Welcome back, my apologies for the delayed uploads, I do my best to explain in the episode. In this edition of AMC, we speak about how to maintain changes, a highly recurring yet essential theme of the podcast. Enjoy. AMC Website Oliver's Instagram  Welcome back; this week is a continuation of the previous week’s entry; briefly, we touched on how and why to pay attention to the nudges of your subconscious. Please read the entry found here. We have all been there, we made a slew of changes to our lives, be it in the form of a rearranged living room or a rearranged mindset towards your interactions with yourself and others, but that niggling sensation at the back of your mind saying that you will not be able to stick to the changes you have made can become difficult to ignore. In this entry, you will learn three ways to ensure that the beneficial changes you make stick to your core and carry you forward into the future. Do Not Overburden Yourself This is difficult to gauge because how can one understand their limitations without testing the waters? The dangers of overburdening yourself are apparent and obvious; you run the risk of multiple negative possibilities, the most likely of which is failing to maintain the plethora of changes you have instituted; another possibility is negatively affecting your health and/or your relationships. The best way to ascertain whether or not you have overburdened yourself is to proceed and observe to see if the changes you made stick or not; if you find that maintaining the new habits is difficult, then consider reducing its difficulty/demand. Another way is to consult your parents, asking them to give you their opinion, they will be clear and straightforward (sometimes brutally so) and they will inform you that either the changes you wish to make will overburden you or that you can easily maintain them. It is important to consult those who are older than we are in matters such as these as they have most likely experienced the emotions you will feel on this journey. The best method is to keep it simple; the entries on this website mention this point numerous times; keep changes small and then incrementally build upon that; you will never run the risk of overburdening yourself if you stick to implementing incremental changes in your micro habits.

This week is about practising discomfort and how doing so will make you fall in love with who you are. Oliver's Instagram This week we delve into the strata of our minds; we will look at why we ignore specific thoughts and the beneficial reasons behind paying attention to particular nudges. What is the Subconscious Mind?  Firstly, we need to understand the role of the subconscious; it acts as a guide for our values and beliefs and often our actions. Assuming a birdseye view of the subconscious mind, we would be mistaken in thinking that the subconscious mind is our consciousness; on the contrary, the role of this component is significantly more potent than that. If we look at the subconscious mind from the side, we will see that it runs deep, and its tendrils present themselves in our actions and inactions.  Why do we Ignore the Subconscious Mind?  The best example to illustrate our proclivity to ignore the subconscious has been mentioned in AMC numerous times; cast your mind to this morning, or any morning for that matter, did you wake up on time? You did, ok, well did you get out of bed? No, you knew that you needed to get out of bed, but you chose not to. The fact that you know that you need to get out of bed is your subconscious mind attempting to exert its influence on the physical realm, but it slammed into your conscious mind and your desire, a deadly duo, your conscious mind overpowered your subconscious desire to get out of bed and you remained in your prone state.  So, why do we ignore the subconscious?  Because it is easy. Usually, the subconscious prods us towards actions associated with discomfort and the vast majority of the time, we suppress these prods and urges despite knowing that the end net result is beneficial. How to Listen to Your Subconscious You will quickly recognise your intense desire to distance yourself from discomfort; this is an issue because the subconscious leans us towards discomfort. Discomfort in this context refers to anything you do not want to do; imagine you have arrived home from a long day at work, knowing that you need to go to the gym, prepare dinner, and clean; it is too much. Instead, you would prefer to peel your clothes off, land on the couch, and order some food. To listen to the subconscious, you need to practice acclimatising yourself to discomfort as often as possible. For example, in the classic stair vs escalator scenario, take that escalator every opportunity you get, walk to the milk bar or drive? You use those feet, and you walk, few dishes in the sink, into the dishwasher or wash them then and there? See, you get the drift. The idea is simple; life presents us with a plethora of crossroads, the easy or the slightly inconvenient; you will find that your subconscious will gently prod you towards the discomfort, so lean into it.

This episode is more of a rant/discussion/musings. I speak about the importance of being prepared and what to do when you feel overwhelmed.  Oliver's Instagram  AMC Website My final semester begins next week, so I am not sure how to juggle AMC and the other responsibilities of my life. Still, I sit here thinking about a straightforward concept: preparation. How do I prepare myself for the final step of this particular journey? My extensive hospitality career has taught me many things; arguably, the most critical lesson is preparing yourself and the shop for service. We need to make sure that we have enough of everything so that we may serve the people who come to us, we need to ensure that machines are working so that we do not lose valuable revenue and customers; I can speak on this for hours, and the point is that if the shop and the staff are not prepared for every single shift, every single day, we will not survive. In life, possessing an inherent urge to be prepared is a crucial ingredient to success. The famous saying "failing to plan is planning to fail" comes to mind, and it is true from every angle. The problem is that when we sit to think about an upcoming milestone or project, we can not help but feel inadequate in our current state; this is to be expected and embraced, for we may never know what tomorrow holds or even if it will come at all. The trick to maintaining internal composure in the face of life's tumbles and turns is two-fold: the first is to remain prepared for any situation. In my example, I know that a full-time study load demands a significant commitment of time, and to prepare for this, I ensured that my work commitments do not interfere with my studies. Sometimes being prepared means making sacrifices, and I choose to sacrifice a little financial security because my studies are higher on my priorities. The second thing to keep in mind is your priorities. What do you value? What is important to you? Family, friends, your significant other? Understand that each choice you make will ripple through space and time and result in consequences that you may or may not have seen. As long as you remain true to your internal compass, life will continue to mould you into a more resilient person. The most important thing to remember is that you are human, and life is the most excellent teacher, so feeling overwhelmed is a natural response. As long as you keep on swimming, everything will more than fine.

A four-step framework on how to repair damaged relationships. Oliver's Instagram AMC Website  Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers and then there is you, the link between them all. How is that link? Are you happy with it? If yes, find another entry and read that because this one is for us, everyday folks. Familial ties and bonds need to be nurtured like any other relationship; AMC argues that familial bonds are the most beautiful of all relationships because we are powerless in choosing our family. Therefore this entry focuses on repairing damaged bonds between yourself and your family. Step  1: Forgiveness Forgive yourself first, this means that you when you think about a particular scenario that hurt the relationship you might see yourself as the 'bad guy', or you might have done something that left a bad taste in your mouth, the first step is to forgive yourself, you are human, and we make mistakes. It is ok to feel like you screwed up, but you will not move forward in life if you never learn to forgive yourself. Now you need to forgive the second person; they do not need to know that you have forgiven them, because if you genuinely forgive someone, they can tell from your body language when you are around them. If you have trouble with this, it helps to think about the other person's positive qualities as it will soften your anger. Step 2: Gentle Approach Picture a timid kitten; you need to approach your family member with the same mentality. Take it easy, come with food, and be calm when you are in their presence. The kitten will run away if they are spooked. Your next chance might be in a few hours or a few days or even a few weeks. If you remain patient and steadfast with the pure intention of repairing this relationship, the other person will eventually reciprocate. Step 3: Again & Again A familial bond is precious and must be cherished, so you must continue to reach out throughout your life, the right conditions for reconciliation could be around the corner, so think about the kitten, swallow your pride and restart your approach. This is family. Step 4: Joy or Sadness Your persistent efforts will result in a climax of some kind, after six months of continuous effort on your part, you will know if this family member is worthy of your further attention. However,  as long as there is no detriment to your mental/emotional health, your duty to repair damaged bonds remains. You can not quit trying to repair the relationship if your only excuse is that they are too stubborn and hard-headed. You need to show them that the relationship you could have is stronger than the damaged one you hold, so keep going because a certain answer is there if and when you find it. Eventually, you can either weep tears of joy for your regained family or tears of sadness for losing a loved one.

This episode will provide you with three practical and straightforward tips that will ease your climb back to the top because discipline is exhausting.  AMC Website  Oliver's Instagram  Discipline is Exhausting. Welcome back. I hope you have all been well. I have experienced a significant drop in discipline; for the first time in over 24 weeks, I have purposefully forgotten to write the Snip for last week. What does this mean? Have I lost my motivational edge? Is this the first red flag that will signal my return to being lazy and lackadaisical? I suppose only time will tell; I caught myself, though, now I need to make sure it does not happen again. There are other little things that I have not been doing that I was very diligent with; I need to climb back on the horse. Discipline is draining; you continually check yourself and ensure that your ingrained habits do not sneak up on you and overpower you because they will. As an example, I have been incredibly strict on myself for over ten months; I had believed I had vanquished the negative habits of my past, alas they have been lurking in the shadows, patiently waiting to strike the moment my guard slips. The good news is that I have been noticing that my laziness was rearing its ugly head in my rearview mirror, so the rest of the entry will show you what to do when bad habits show themselves in your life once more because they will. (Bad habits in this scenario refer to sleeping in, lousy eating, skipping exercise, skipping beneficial routines like skincare or mediation). Timers Timers will trick you into doing anything that you do not want to do. If you set a 3-minute timer to do as many dishes as you can, you will clean the entire kitchen. The trick is to select a simple goal and a low time, use common sense, do not give yourself an hour timer to clean the house if your laziness is powerful; start with the bathroom on a 6-minute timer, and take it easy do not overwhelm yourself. Others Placing others' needs before your own is a beauty of life; it is also an intoxicating propellant to get out of bed in the morning. If you plan a coffee date at 8 AM on a Sunday at your local cafe with a close friend,  not only are you guaranteed a table, but you also have unclocked at least four more hours of the weekend. In that example, your desire to respect your friends time prevents you from snoozing; there are many more ways to leverage your willingness to help others against your hunger to lounge. Use your imagination. Switch-Ups One of my favourite tricks to jump back on the horse is switching things up. I ran every morning for five months straight; eventually, I became bored with running, and I would skip a day, then that day would turn into three. I knew that the habit was going to slip away, so I switched things up; I started to swim as often as I could, my zeal allowed me to swim daily for two weeks, my steam slowed down, and commitments resulted in me swimming three times a week at the minimum. So, when any positive habit becomes cumbersome, do something else that is equally positive; this will prevent boredom and stave off laziness.

Understanding when to take a break is half the battle; this episode will give you two signs that you need to watch out for. Subscribe to the website and podcast to stay looped.  AMC Website  Oliver's Instagram  We work, some harder than others, but we all work. Interestingly some of us are born to work while some live to recline; both are sup-optimum for a satisfying and fulfilling life. Hence the saying "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", this ancient adage (the 1600s) tells us to introduce balance into our life. The perfect way to live is dependant on the individual and their individualised desires; however, there are tiny nuggets of wisdom that we may extract from the chemistry of our physiology to live a meaningful life. Exercise is the best example for this topic because hitting our ceiling is evident from either pain or exhaustion, usually accompanied by breathlessness. Our body will give us similar cues when we are close to overworking. The first clue is struggling to sleep due to overthinking; this will pose severe consequences to your work quality the following day, translating to more overthinking before sleeping the next night. The trick for this scenario is two-fold: A short break from your work (1-3 days) and keeping a journal so that you have a place to brain dump your thoughts. Emptying your mind will allow for a restful sleep which can never be underestimated. The second clue is neglecting to eat throughout your workday. This does not pose a severe problem if it happens once or twice a month but finding yourself in a position where you forget to feed yourself because you are too preoccupied with your work is a situation that must be rectified. There is little in this world worth harming yourself for and multiple days of missed meals are harsher than it sounds. A solution would be to take a short break from your work to recalibrate your mind with your body, take the time to do nothing. This weeks entry wants you to increase the care you have for yourself. It would help if you were incredibly attuned to the ebb and flows of your mind and body; this will allow you to take it easy, especially when you do not know you need a break. So take it easy, and look after yourself.

In this 6 minute episode, AMC covers three ways that will allow you to control your anger and minimize those pesky outbursts from ruining your day. The Michael Caine example was found in his book called "Blowing the Bloody Doors Off". Below is the entry from the AMC website, the link is below. Anger. A dangerous yet useful emotion, anger is one reason for individual civil liberties, but there is a time and place for a delicate emotion like anger. This week, AMC will tackle the split second before your composure cracks. Think Before You Speak A pause before speaking must become a habit for us all, especially in delicate and high-risk situations. We unconsciously pause when contemplating a tricky question, but interestingly this pause vanishes when we are in the car as a driver cuts off the path in front of us. The first exercise is to practice patience in the car while driving. The roads invariably introduce a maniacal driver into our lives at least once a week; this particular driver is your opportunity to pause and think. Instead of blurting obscenities and yelling, pause and tighten your grip on the steering wheel and exhale through your mouth. The car has now become your gym, and in a few months, you will grow into an individual with more composure and brevity. Physical Excercise AMC advocates physical exercise because it allows us to step away from our 'monkey mind' and focus on our body and breathing: this is crucial for those who struggle with overthinking or experience any form of anxiety. The next time we find ourselves in a situation where anger seems to be lurking around the corner, it is essential to switch our physical position. For example, if we find ourselves becoming agitated while standing, we must sit down, and vice versa. The idea is that physical activity is the only thing that will overwhelm the train of anger running through your mind.  We can also quell anger with a splash of cold water on our face. The goal is to move instantly when we feel anger threatening to break through the surface, we move away from the situation or move our body. As long as the mind is focused on one other thing, then the chance of your anger causing regret is minimized. To conclude, anger is natural and necessary; however, anger is risky because an angry person dismisses logic and reason. The split second before anger erupts is what we must become attuned to. To increase our sensitivity to this split second, pause to think before you speak more often and move your body in situations where you become angry. Oliver's Instagram AMC Website 

Welcome back to the only podcast recorded in the car. Don't fact check me on that.  In this episode, we touch on scientific and logical reasons why multitasking is the bane of our existence and why you need to stop!  Please follow on socials and subscribe to the site to stay looped. Links are below. Oliver's Instagram AMC Website  Stop Multitasking. It is good to be back; I hope you have all had a relaxing break. Let us get back to work. You have already gleaned from the title of this entry that multitasking is not right. This week's entry will dissuade you against this supposed 'skill' and present you with a better way of conducting yourself and your activities. Multitasking reduces your efficiency and effectiveness. Our brains can not focus on multiple things simultaneously, one of those things will suffer, have you tried writing a serious email while on the phone to someone? You can not do it. Some of us picture the woman in the kitchen speaking on the phone as she cradles it between her shoulder and ear, while at the same time rinsing a cup in the sink and stirring a pot of soup and disciplining her unruly child. One of those things will suffer, if not all, the soup will not be as tasty as it could be, and the cup will be inadequately rinsed; In other words, stop multitasking. Multitasking lowers your IQ. The reason is that those who are frequent multitaskers exhibit a low density of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, which correlates to poor cognitive performance. In other words, stop multitasking. Multitasking will impair your ability to progress further in your career. Given that multitasking reduces the density of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex frequent multitaskers will see a decrease in their emotional intelligence, a skill which is critical to success in the workplace and life. Also, who likes it when you want to have a conversation with someone, and this person can not seem to peel their eyes away from their phone? No one does. In other words, stop multitasking. Steering away from the science and jargon, the AMC reason for quitting multitasking is the following saying: "How you do one thing is how you do everything", this fantastic adage is telling you to respect and care for your activities because the way you make your bed in the morning is the way you prepare your coffee. If routines and activities are rushed and hasty because attention is split and divided, effectiveness will decline, and life satisfaction will decrease. In other words, slow down and pay even more attention to the tasks before you, respect the blanket so you can appreciate the keyboard, respect the butter knife so you may admire the car keys, stop multitasking.

This is a see you soon, not a goodbye. Make sure you're subscribed to the website so you stay abreast of all developments.  AMC Website Oliver's Instagram

What makes a friend a friend? When do I distance myself from a toxic friendship?  These important questions answered and more with MK from the Imbalanced Podcast.  AMC Website Oliver's Instagram Imbalanced Podcast MK's Instagram Life is funny sometimes. For example, why is it that those who are closest to us hurt us the most? Why does it need to be the person who I have known for 15 years? Why can it not be Liam from down the street? Another funny thing about life is that we refuse advice from those closest to us and pay greater heed to the words spoken from the mouth of someone whom we have never met. Funny. We go through life with a handful of friends, the day ones, the real ones. Some drop off through the years, but you will find that the core always remains the same. I have had the same group of friends for close to 10 years. I have known most of them for over 18. That is just how it is sometimes. Those childhood friends either become those whom you grow old with or they become strangers by your 25th birthday. The point is this when we have a 'real one' or an incredibly close friend, we hold onto them for decades. That is why when they wrong us, it hurts, and it hurts deep. Now here is the rub, how do we know who is a real one? This question is tricky, but we all know the answer; and that answer usually is: If they wrong me I axe them. The objective of this entry is to prevent anyone from wronging you or even coming close to it. Below are three things that will help you identify if someone in your life who you have labelled as a 'close friend' or a 'real one' is deserving of that lofty title. Run that person through the test below and let us see if they stand up to the questions. Question 1. When something amazing happens in your life, what is their response? Do they slap you on the back, do they lift you and hug you until you can not breathe? Do they scream and yell with joy? They probably do all the above with varying degrees of intensity, but read closely for the telltale signs of someone who does not want what is best for you. They tell you to be careful almost immediately after hearing the news, they warn you of the potential dangers. Those people rain on your parade without a seconds thought for how it might make you feel. This is not good. A caring and loyal friend will hug and kiss you and slap you on the back lovingly; a true friend will ride that high with you until you both calm down. Then, if there are any qualms on their end, they will bring them up at the appropriate time. That is a true friend. Question 2. How do they react when you tell them bad news? A person who celebrates terrible news or laughs at your genuine unhappiness is not a friend; we know this. Here are the more subtle ways that will allow you to identify a bad friend. They immediately try and 'one-up' you after having listened to your story. That person's inability to process your negative news is because of their lack of emotional intelligence. Their EQ is so low that they are incapable of sitting within the moment with you and comforting you emotionally and then offering practical support to your dilemma. This is not someone whom you can rely on in your times of need because their self-centric character will get in the way of your friendship. Rest on the website. 

To-do lists are great, but there are more important things.  AMC Website Oliver's Instagram Ultra/Super/Hyper/Productive There is a growing ultra/hyper-productive culture; people are doing more with more; it can be overwhelming. There are pros and cons to this rapidly growing subculture. This week's entry aims to elucidate the matter for those considering a lifestyle shift or are curious about society's obsession with productivity. Hyper-productive individuals will continue to be praised and respected in today's modern society. The very fabric of our culture respects progress and growth; without growth, there would be stagnation. Productivity is not a bad thing, but it can become convoluted and misdefined and therein lies the problem. Hyper-productivity presents itself as a crutch to those lacking a more in-depth personality.  For example, person A is plagued with fitting in more tasks in his/her day; thus, they barely sit down with themselves to ask themselves what they want. They have not allowed themselves time to understand themselves, let alone master themselves. The other side of the coin is Person B, someone concerned with 1 or 2 essential tasks for the day; therefore, having more time for themself to reflect even momentarily on their thoughts and mood. This self-reflection is essential as a lack of self-reflection results in a weakened character. After all, the 'character' is what type of person you are, and if you have not spent the time asking yourself this pertinent question, how can you expect to be a strong person. To return to the 'clutch' that is hyper-productivity, beware those who appear to be doing a million things simultaneously, for they are not as secure as they might seem and ticking more things off the list will not give your life gravity. The goal is to go to sleep satisfied with the meaning derived from the day. Determining if a day possessed meaning or not is simple, firstly a person needs to understand what values are dear to their life: honesty, love, and respect? Then they must ask themselves if the day's actions satisfied their core values, have they acted in a way that was worthy of love, deserving of respect and honesty? That is infinitely more important than fitting more items into a day.

Two simple tips that will dramatically improve your small talk.  AMC Website  Oliver's Instagram  IMPROVE YOUR SMALL-TALK SKILL I am uniquely qualified to write on this topic, I have been in and out of the hospitality industry for close to ten years, if there is one thing I know how to do, it is how to make small talk. The below can apply to any setting, a cafe, workplace, park; it does not matter. STEP ONE The basics are always first: you must ask how someone is, then ask for their name. Sometimes you will forget to ask for their name, but this is important because using someone's name semi-frequently (at least in the initial encounter) will make them like you, it will also make you significantly more memorable. Saying their name twice in a three-minute conversation is plenty. The idea is once you receive their name, you repeat it, comment on it, (similar to a business card), then use the name shortly after; for example: "You know what Jordan, that is an incredible idea, where were you three years ago?" STEP TWO The most important step is this one. You must actively listen to what the other person is saying. There are terabytes of information on active listening. Still, to overly simplify it, active listening is when you pull yourself out of your thoughts and listen intently and consciously to what the other person is saying. While you are listening intently, you are also thinking of open-ended questions that will quickly drive the conversation to deeper levels. You might decide against taking a discussion more in-depth, but actively listening to the person you are speaking with will allow you to understand not only why they are saying what they are saying, but how they are saying it as well. Active listening should be your go-to when you do not know what to say in a conversation. Ask an open-ended question, then actively listen to see where you can learn more about the person to which you are speaking. To recap: work on closing your thoughts off from the present and focus intently on the person in front of you, small talk does not need to be tedious; small talk can be an avenue to new relationships, either professional or personal. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason, try and listen more, and the quality of those small-talk conversations will improve.

To become resilient, we must come to rely on internal motivation. An exciting announcement at the end of the episode.  AMC Website Oliver's Instagram Do You Even Deserve it? What a question. We instantly know if we deserve something or not. A straightforward example would be someone on a diet which has a cheat day once a week, and this person rewards themself after a workout with some chocolate on a non-cheat day. They know they do not deserve that; in fact, they are breaking their promise to themselves! Let us dive into this concept of 'deserve.' To truly deserve something, we need to have expended effort intending to secure what we desire. Let us say you see man/woman whom you find attractive, so you go out of your way to make yourself presentable and introduce yourself, in your mind, you deserve a chance. You put in the requisite effort; you put yourself out there, you deserve a response. True? Well, not so fast. I want to propose a slightly radical idea, so fair warning in advance: Do things with no expectation of reward or recognition. i.e. divorce the concept of 'I deserve.' The reason is when you do something in the hopes of a reward— which is a powerfully motivating force— you become accustomed to the reward and hence reliant on the reward. David Goggins, an ultramarathon athlete, was asked if he listens to anything while running and he responds saying that he doesn't listen to anything because he needs his mind to fuel him and nothing external to him. The concept I am positing is similar to what Goggins speaks about. If you can divorce the link between action, reward & deserve you become a stronger person. The expectation of anything creates hopes and hopes have a proclivity to let us down, the last thing I am telling you to do is to abandon all hope, no. I am saying that you should abandon your attachment to the idea of hope. There is a difference. You should always hope, dream, strive and fight, but the outcome of all these things can be beyond your control, you need security within yourself to truly succeed. The point of this week's entry is the following: do more demanding things and stop rewarding yourself so much. It will make you stronger.

4 things you can start doing today to improve the quality of your night routine. AMC Website Oliver's Instagram The Night & The Morning The quality of every morning of your life is crucially reliant on the quality of the previous night. You will not wake up feeling refreshed and rested if you go to sleep at four in the morning. You will struggle to wake up early if you do not plan to wake up early the previous night. You must think ahead and prepare to wake up early, meaning that you must begin your night routine significantly sooner than you usually do. For example, if you normally begin to brush your teeth around 10:30 PM, try brushing at 10 PM, you do not need to commit to doing this every single day, see how you go. A crucial aspect of repairing your sleep schedule is understanding the relationship your morning has with your nights. In other words, if you spend effort on improving the quality of your night routine, then you will see improvements in the quality of your mornings. You will wake up easier and more refreshed. Below are a few things you can start doing to improve the quality of your night. Buy a fan to cool your room. Make sure your mattress is in great condition. Try listening to rain sounds on Spotify to help you drift away. A quick 15-second stretch before you climb into bed. Scrolling & Bedtime Most of us have a scrolling issue when we are in bed. I personally think that there is nothing wrong with it as long as the phone is out of my hand after a certain point. If you feel the same way but have trouble putting your phone down, or you lose track of time (happened to me many times) try this: Go to bed earlier with the intention of scrolling on your phone. So now your sleeping routine will not suffer because you are scrolling past your bedtime. After all, you have planned for the eventuality that is scrolling. The main takeaway from this week's entry is that you need to begin linking the quality of your mornings to the quality of your evenings; it is all one big circle. Look after your nights so that you can look after your mornings and as a result,  improve your life.

This is the first instalment in a short series of episodes on the importance of cultivating the correct relationships/friendships. This episode is important because friends can be sources of inspiration or a source of bitterness and negativity.   AMC Website  Oliver's Instagram Togetherness Updated: Jan 19 Spend a few minutes and picture the people whom you respect and appreciate. You might respect someone in your field who had paved the way for your ethnic background or an artist who had encapsulated the way you felt when you were depressed. Or, a character in a book or film who overcame adversity and emerged from the ashes, reborn, a success. These people (fictional or otherwise) share a commonality: each of them needed the support of other people to help them reach their summit. That needs repetition: No one in this world can attain their success without the help of other people. Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of humans still desperately relies on a measure of human contact, if not human connection then human-made constructs/ products. The truth is that if you wanted to extricate yourself from civilization, you would need the help of other humans to help you realize your goal.  No matter what you want or do not want out of your life, you will need the assistance or products of other people. Please think carefully about the following questions: Who surrounds you? To whom do you listen? Who do you respect and admire? Who is your role model? Whom do you love? Who do you agree/disagree with? I can offer two sayings that will illustrate the importance of the connections you hold with the people you associate with or respect. The first is: "You are the average of the five people around you." This saying is powerful because the five people around you do not necessarily need to mean those who physically surround you; it can also mean those whom you listen to or read. The second saying I believe is anchored in the Islamic tradition: "One who works in an abattoir will smell like an abattoir, one who works in a perfumery will smell like perfume." This saying is immaculate because it is true. I urge the reader to consciously expend more effort and time in cultivating the correct relationships. I also recommend that the reader removes the toxic relationships that they are entertaining. I also firmly believe that we all recognize a negative relationship, but we often delay action until the damage inflicted has reached a critical mass. Here is one final saying to ponder, and one of my personal favourites: "If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, go together."

The first episode of 2021 is about incremental implementation & micro habits. These two concepts are important if you want to maintain or implement changes in your life.  Oliver's Instagram  AMC Website Mastery of anything takes practice, patience, and time. Force yourself every single day to go through the motions that you want to inculcate in your life while being careful to not overload your body or mind by taking on too much. After maintaining a specific micro-habit for an extended period, you can pile on another. Given that the mind accustoms itself to one particular micro-habit, you can then begin to implement another if and when you find that the original micro-habit is performed daily with little to no effort. To repeat this, do not overload yourself with more than what you can realistically manage; you must be honest with yourself. If you decide to carry a load that it is more substantial than what you can take, you will drop it. Weightlifters do not begin their careers with a 200KG bench-press, start at 5kg, then 10kg; this will make controlling your mind much more manageable. This leads us perfectly to today’s topic: Incremental Implementation. ‘Incremental’ defined is a slight change in a system, either positive or negative. Both are important for our purposes. For example, you want to begin drinking more water in your day. You start by drinking an extra glass in the morning; this is a definite gradual increase. You are a smoker, and you want to quit, you can stop ‘cold turkey’ ( I do not know why they call it that), but another method that is easier to maintain and has a higher likelihood of success is incrementally/gradually, decreasing the amount you smoke in a day. Instead of five cigarettes a day, you smoke four, then three, then two. The concept of incrementation is easy to comprehend and internalize because performing any incremental change is simple in its execution, and it is for this reason that successful people are successful. They incrementally implement manageable changes within their lives and continually improve upon them. You have no idea how efficient these people become. You must start somewhere. The very nature of incremental implementation of a change within your life is the reason it becomes easy to maintain. Once you retain a minor modification, you create a positive feedback loop within your mind. You perform ‘x’ then reward yourself with ‘y’ then because you received ‘y’ you perform ‘x’ again. This fact is powerfully understated. The reward is the serotonin & dopamine you receive from yourself in addition to whatever reward you have stipulated before implementation. Think about where you will be in a few years if you decide to grab life with both hands. You are built for adversity; you are strong, you are capable.

To bid farewell to the year, we learn about how to induce a sea change.  AMC Website  Oliver's Instagram Where Should You Begin? How do you even begin to make changes in your life if you feel completely overwhelmed by the number of things that you want to change? This question is difficult for a few reasons; the main reason would be: “Where do you start?”, do you start by organizing your debts? Do you start by fixing your car? Do you start by renovating your room? Another reason why this question is problematic is that how do you know which task is the most important task to tackle? Allow me to simplify this for you: Start with the easiest and most straightforward thing you can do. Clean your room. If your room is clean already, then spend 30 minutes organizing to simplify your life. For example, have your T-shirts/Blouses held in such a way that you do not need to look through your closet for 15 minutes to find one. Have them all in one neat and orderly folded pile. So, you have cleaned or organized your room, what now? Do you make your bed every morning? If you do, then well done. If you do not, then making your bed is the perfect example of a micro-habit that has an immense impact on the quality of your life. Making your bed consistently every morning puts you in the mindset of success. Why? Well, when you are making your bed you are not merely draping your blanket over the top of the mattress and walking away (although that is better than nothing), instead, you are expending effort trying to perfect the bed. You are paying attention to the corners and the ripples in the top cover and smoothing out the crinkles so that you are looking at a smooth and orderly surface. Then you place your pillows in a tidy and organized manner—perfection (your version of it). When you return to your bed that night, two things will greet you: your oriented and handsome bed and your sense of accomplishment and pride with yourself. This sense will drive you to perform the same actions the following morning. Making your bed every morning and maintaining a clean-living space will cause other things in your life to change. The orderliness of your room juxtaposed against the chaos of your life will allow you to know precisely what and how to tackle any given task. In other words, because you spent your time doing something productive instead of lounging about you are 2% better for it, this 2% improvement will translate to a significant improvement the longer you maintain a habit, and the more beneficial practices you chain together, the better you become. Therefore, I say: start by starting; however, I would amend my original statement to the following: “Start by starting small”.

Failure is a prevailing undertone in life's major choices. This episode presents you with a better way of looking at this pervasive concept.  AMC Website  Oliver's Instagram Fail Successfully Life offers us a set of choices every single day and when you 'zoom out' you will begin to see that life is nothing but a series of decisions and the quality of your life depends intrinsically on the outcome of those choices. We can either get out of bed when we wake up, or stay in bed for a little while longer, we can tell the person we are interested in that we are interested in them or not, we can clean our home now, or we can put it off. These are all examples of basic everyday choices that everyone on this planet considers, intelligence and status have little 'say' in the quality of your life. (I am in no way saying that intelligence and status do not play a role in the quality of your life, I am merely highlighting the importance of the seemingly unimportant factors that play a role in our day to day life). I want you to imagine something—picture two people. The first person was born into an ultra-high class family and was afforded the best in life: World-class education, world-class health care, world-class amenities and the luxuries that most of us can only dream of— now, imagine yourself. (This exercise is purely for reflective purposes, never compare yourself to someone else. Compare yourself to the person you were yesterday). You are content with what you have, somethings in your home are in disrepair, but you have a roof over your head, a pillow to lay that head every night and food in the pantry and the fridge. Now, this affluent individual whom you have captured in your mind's eye is lazy, demotivated, and nihilistic. Their approach to life is dejection and contempt; he/she wants things to come to him/her because that is how it has always been. Now, imagine yourself. Average intellect/IQ, average grades, average socioeconomic status. Average life. The only difference is this: You wake up in the morning intending to tackle every single option/choice facing you with determination and enthusiasm. Your 'mere' attitude will yield success. You will form healthier relationships with your mind, body, family, spirituality and friends and even the people you come into contact with daily, all because you chose to do so. Everything happens up there (mind) before it manifests itself in the world around you. The fear of failure that you will experience after having exerted the effort needed to perform a task is irrational. The only way failure is guaranteed is not to try—question your rationality. 'Failure' has negative connotations in that no one wants to fail, but; you should never look at failure as a negative in the first place. Failure is always an opportunity for growth. Choose to shift your perspective from one of negativity to positivity. Two 'negatives' will always equal a negative—Algebra ting. The most exceptional people in the world continually harp on about 'failure'. Why? They understand the fear that we all contend with, and they are telling you that it is ok to 'fail'. There is nothing wrong with failure! Try and fail every day, so the next day you succeed! You cannot expect to go through life not having failed anything, can you? Fail so that you may succeed.

ATTN: The audio quality significantly improves after the two (2) minute mark.  This episode is a little out of the left-field because of its lack of structure, use it a general reminder, hopefully, you find Oliver's ambitions as amusing as he did.   AMC Website.  Oliver's Instagram  Note: This was written in March 2020. When you are consistent with a new habit, you must reward yourself. Imagine you are the boss of yourself. Order yourself to go to the kitchen and do a few dishes and then tell yourself that if you do this, you will reward yourself with a few minutes on Tiktok or YouTube; you get the idea. When you interview for a new role at a corporation, you are expected to negotiate a salary, apply the same logic to your day. This way, the relationship becomes a 'give and take'. When I have busy days, I allot time for myself throughout the day to maintain my productivity. In other words, after I work on something for an hour or so, I will get up and have a chat with my grandmother or whatever. Not everyone can sit down for prolonged periods without respite. Use common sense. Be strict and when you perform, reward yourself. You deserve it. Recreation is important. The word 'recreation' means to 're', 'create', when you reward yourself you are also 're' 'creating' yourself, you will find that when you force yourself to do a task that you do not want to do and then relax, that relaxation becomes so much sweeter because you earnt it. The ultimate goal is reaching the point where your perspective for tasks you did not want to tackle in the past shifts. You will notice that cumbersome tasks become less so, and the mental warmup that you used to undergo disappears. You will become the master of yourself. You shifted the paradigm, an employee, to a boss. To encourage you, I want to give you a personal example. I have been enrolled in university for over seven years (intermittently). There was nothing in this world that could make me sit down and study. Nothing. I even changed my degree to something that I enjoyed, and when that did not work, I changed my university! That did not work either. Please find the rest of the entry on the website. 

A logical& candid breakdown on how to remain steadfast on your path and sticking to your promises.  AMC Website Oliver's Instagram Firstly, you must have the self-awareness to understand and realize when you are performing a bad habit. You cannot begin to fix something that you do not know is broken. This self-awareness is incredibly powerful if you can develop it to the point where you catch your thought process before you perform a bad habit. Some examples of bad habits are staying in bed after you wake up for a prolonged period for no good reason, binging a show when you have urgent and important tasks to tend to, putting off your responsibilities and chores because you are not in the mood to do them. You get the idea. Unpleasant habits typically revolve around gratification— placating your desire immediately. Secondly, you must come to understand the reasoning behind your unpleasant habits. Tackle one at a time and start with the simplest one. Let us say you do not drink enough water in the day. This one is incredibly common and the easiest to fix and has enormous benefits. After all, water composes the majority of our body. One reason you might not be drinking enough water is forgetfulness. You do not remember to drink water throughout the day. This forgetfulness is incredibly easy to remedy. Open your phone, go to your calendar, and create an event titled “Drink water, you minx.” Now, go into the options and do two things. Set the event to occur every single day and set it to become an all-day event. Now, whenever you open your phone, you should see “Drink water, you minx”. Nice. Whenever you see that, do your best to sip water. Try and think of other positive habits that you want to do and pop them into your calendar. (For more on scheduling see "The Schedule") See the link above for the rest of the entry.