A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL – EVOLUTION
Have you ever wanted to experience life on a whole other level? Perhaps you were, or are, afraid of what that might look like? Concerned that it will require too much effort, that things will change and right now you seem quite comfortable. But the truth is, the only thing that is constant is change. And as the saying goes, we either ‘let go or be dragged’, right?
Do you feel it? Have you felt it – that intrinsic desire calling you higher?
That’s personal evolution, development or growth. It’s the path to a greater understanding of ourselves, others and our world and is a huge contributor to being able to move through resistance with ease.
Part of breaking through resistance is constantly evolving, not allowing yourself to stay static or step back into the patterns that kept you hostage. It’s consistently putting yourself on the path that nourishes your own personal evolution – whether through writing, books, programs, travel or the people you surround yourself with.
Personal evolution is a key to radical authenticity and a catalyst to a happier life. The more we know about ourselves, the more knowledge and confidence we have to act with true conviction in every area of our lives. From our relationships to our work. If we prescribe to live our life in a bubble, or at a standstill, perhaps never really growing from that character we played in high school, then our experiences will keep showing up the same – somewhat of a Groundhog Day situation. Do you know that movie? If not, basically what happens is the same experience repeating over and over again.
I’ve experienced this in my relationships with people. And it’s been challenging for me because I am a person whose intent is always to use my experiences to grow and evolve more. Whether it’s through political points of difference or a difference in belief or perception, I always want to grow through it, and what I find the most effective tool is to be a good listener.
If we’re not willing to grow, we’re probably most likely not a good listener. But I can tell you from my experiences that not being a good listener, and not being open to growth, will stop you dead in your tracks and create an immense amount of suffering in your life, your relationships and your work.
Speaking of ‘tracks’, the whole ‘peaked in high school or college’ example comes to mind. I’ve been a part of so many friend and work circles of people who, like I’ve mentioned, still seem stuck at that time in their lives. They still have all the same friends, act in the same way and have never really pushed themselves outside their comfort zone. Perhaps they’ve changed locations – from school to college, from college to work – but nothing else changes, including them. They still seem to be wrapped up in a world where winning the 100-metre race, being on the soccer team, getting the house captain badge and having the right trainers (now the right house or car) and being looked at by the outside world as ‘successful’ are the driving force. Not their own personal evolution.
But they – we – have not chosen to evolve because of the resistance to what that looks like. We’re afraid of change. We’re fearful of our life not being as it’s been for the last however many years and, most importantly, we are afraid of being seen as different – or worse, a failure.
There are so many examples of this in our current media, in films and television. Most recently I watched the controversial series on Netflix titled 13 Reasons Why – a series about 13 tapes that a young high school girl, who took her own life, left for each person who’d affected her.
The series was eye-opening in so many ways. But most poignantly, at least for me personally, was the amplification of our fear to evolve for fear of how others will perceive us, ostracize us or even expel us from the group – our ‘tribe’. So many of the characters struggled as they began to mirror who they really were, and yet they resisted their evolution through fear.
Each character was given the opportunity, through their own awareness, to evolve both personally and collectively, and to take action on that in a meaningful way. Some did, some didn’t. However, what I found created the resistance for both those that did and the ones that didn’t was the impact they felt it would have on them socially. They were all so focused on the collective thought that they didn’t give merit to their own awareness and opportunity to evolve into who they really were.
Take a moment to take inventory of your life, both past and current, and ask yourself: where are you resisting your own evolution? Who is it? What is it? What experience or collective group of experiences has held you hostage from taking the reins to your own evolution and steering closer to who you really are?
In 13 Reasons Why it was a fear of being ostracized or even worse. And in my own life there have been similar reasons – in school, college and throughout my career. I’ve felt the calling, I’ve heard the whispers several times in my life. But what held me back, what kept me from evolving, was always the voices of others which I’d allowed to become my own.
And it only takes one comment, one thought, to pose that resistance and to keep us static in a life that’s not our own. It takes courage to stand up and become the person you were born to be. It takes courage to stand out from the crowd with the possibility of not being accepted. It takes immense courage to begin the path of personal evolution, because what lies ahead is unknown and uncomfortable. However, the only way to find yourself is to have the courage to challenge yourself, to plunge into the unknown, be comfortable with that and have the tenacity to stay the course through the trials and tribulations that will lead to the triumph of a radically authentic life.
My Story: I Only Had to Pay Attention
There I was, around 23 years old, sitting on the floor with print-outs of job postings from St John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia – about a 7,500 km distance apart. I had finished college and completed a two-year course in Entertainment Administration, during which I’d had the opportunity to work with some pretty amazing people and companies producing events, concerts and working on world-class marketing and promotional efforts. One took me on a journey to Japan – my first trip ever – a 20-hour plane ride to Tokyo.
I seemed to be living the life. However, I still struggled with whether this was the life I was born to live, or one that I felt I needed to. After all, I didn’t seem to be feeling or seeing any growth, personally or professionally. It seemed I spent most of my time doing admin work, and in my spare time working on pitching projects to my superiors that would hopefully take me to the next level.
The next level meant the corporate job, with the office, the view, the salary and lifestyle to match. I was searching for anything, any path that would lead me to that place, because, from what I had been educated to believe, that was where my happiness was.
But for the entire time I had an intrinsic desire to go out on my own and to build my own business, but I still wasn’t sure what that was. I remember the day I applied for college. Browsing through my final choices, I filled out the application for both Entertainment Administration and Human Services Counsellor. There was a huge contrast between the paths I was drawn to take at the time – to work in the entertainment industry or to help people one-on-one as a counsellor.
I’ve always been drawn to helping people, even from some of my early memories. I remember at one of my very first dances (I was about ten), I just went up to the bar all proud to buy my own cherry coke. On my way back into the dance I saw a girl sitting on the stage crying. I sat down with her, gave her my cherry coke and spent the rest of the evening speaking to her about what was in her heart.
I also had a desire to work in entertainment, but never quite knew where. I loved theatre and musicals and acting, but remember being told at an early age by my drama teacher that it would be extremely difficult to get a job in the entertainment industry, despite the fact that I had already landed roles in theatre and was doing really well in class. That drama teacher also failed me.
Contrast and conflict had been creating a storm within me from as far as I can remember. As a child I listened a lot to adult conversations, and perhaps I shouldn’t have, or wasn’t quite ready. What I heard from them was that everything was hard: it was hard to get a job, it was hard to make a living, and it was an even harder road if you chose to go out on your own.
There’s where the conditioning that created the resistance I would be up against later began. And it would only be fed by further interaction with adults, teachers, guidance counsellors, aunts, uncles and parents’ friends. Perhaps it wasn’t their intention to squash my dreams and make me afraid to grow up, but they did.
And as I looked at each job posting on the floor around me that day, all of their voices began to sound in my head, along with the ideas about success I had adopted along the way. At school it seemed to be drilled into our heads that without going to university we wouldn’t have a chance, and that the most desirable careers were to be a doctor, lawyer or teacher. At one point I remember thinking they were my only options. Which is probably what led to me applying for college to become a counsellor.
And all this came flashing back to me many years later as I stood in a circle at a bush school near a village in South Africa where I was volunteering. It was the end of the week and each child that we had worked with was to state what they wanted to be. And there they were again, it seemed every young teenage voice said the same three choices that I experienced to be my only options at their age: doctor, lawyer, teacher. However, one brave little girl shouted out ‘artist’, and I was like ‘Yeeesss, girl – yeeesss.’ Just to hear that little girl shout out ‘artist’ in a group of people who had all chosen the same path felt like freedom to me.
She reminded me of myself at that age, but I had lacked the courage to break through the resistance I was surrounded by and shout it out. I wanted to be a producer, a director, a writer, an artist. I wanted to travel the world, and I wanted to use each of those skills to inspire people in whatever way I could.
But I swallowed those options deep within and opted to chase the ideal of success that had been dictated to me. After all, I was terrified to be ostracized, terrified to fail. And so instead of choosing to create my own path I decided it was safer to choose a path that had already been beaten.
And each posting that I looked at that day was a ‘safe’ option. And I was willing to go wherever that led me, just to get the corporate job – with the office, the view, and the salary and lifestyle to match. All the while fighting the screaming gypsy voice within to break free. To scream out, like that little girl in South Africa, ‘I want to be an artist.’ But I applied for the corporate jobs anyway. At that point in my life I didn’t have the strength or courage to break free. It took all I could just to tread water, as I was dealing with a whole lot of baggage that I’d collected along the way.
Tears streamed down my face as I applied for each job that day. Not a moment went by that I didn’t think about ripping up every last job posting, saying ‘Fuck it’, and setting out on my own journey – whatever that looked like.
But one by one I sent off the applications and awaited responses. Where would I end up? Who would hire me? There wasn’t much time because I currently didn’t have a job and was staying with my in-laws. So whatever came back, at that time, it was in my best interest to take.
The first company that responded to my application was a call centre in Kingston, Ontario about two hours east of where I was living. I jumped on it. The second answer was from a local newspaper in the same town. I jumped on that too. I didn’t want either job. But money, and the traditional idea of success, were pulling my strings.
Both of those jobs would lead me to complete exhaustion, make me feel socially isolated as I lived hours from my family, and brought me to my knees with depression. I ended up leaving Kingston, but I took yet another corporate job, this time in sales. And I moved up quickly, from Sales to Director of Business Development.
Wow, oh wow! I was there! And everything unfolded as I was always told it would. I got the corporate job, the office, the money, the car … Everything started to look exactly as it was described, and for a while I felt I had arrived. Look at me, I thought – the kid from the ghetto, still a young man and successful.
But I still didn’t feel happy. I felt an inner desire for more. I thought it was more success, more money, a bigger office and a more expensive car, but it was really my inner voice screaming for fulfillment from within. The voice that already knew what it wanted, the voice I heard the little girl in South Africa so confidently shout from. That voice.
But I couldn’t let this go now. I had built a lifestyle around it. And when I stopped feeling fulfilled by my job, I started using the money to fulfill myself with other things. I started to throw party after party, supplying everything for everyone – food, alcohol, drugs. I was the ‘It’ guy. Everyone would come to my loft apartment, until it all started to spiral out of control and I went deeper and deeper into debt. All the while this voice was screaming to me, ‘This is not your life!’ Inside was a powerful desire to do good; however, outside I was doing damage. Damage that would end up costing me a lot of money, and almost myself in the end.
At this same time, my husband decided to take the leap and do what he had wanted to do his entire life: to open his own salon. Every day I would stop by his salon before work, during breaks, and after work. The excitement that filled the air as he stepped into his dream was contagious and a catalyst to me doing the same.
It was in that very place, as I sat behind the desk one day, that one of his clients handed a book to me called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and said, ‘This book will change your life.’ As I read each word, sometimes over and over again, I felt an awakening happening, a state of awareness and peace I had never felt before. The words in that book spoke directly to my heart and, word by word, chapter by chapter, I began to remember what it was all about. I began to remember the path I had wanted to take versus the one that was laid out for me. But I also gained a deep compassion for those who had laid it. As they were asleep as well.
It wasn’t long after I read that book that I gained the courage to break through the resistance that held me. I handed in my resignation, claimed bankruptcy and began my own journey, off the beaten path.
One thing led to another. I started writing publicly about my journey, and at that time Facebook had just started and many others were resonating, so many that I ended up starting VividLife Radio, an online radio network to further my inquiries via conversations with authors and industry leaders. And from there, sponsored events and created a platform that reached millions – VividLife.me became a resource for written words and videos. Having hosted the likes of Arianna Huffington, Jane Fonda, Alanis Morissette, Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn, Edgar Mitchell (the sixth person to walk on the moon), Peter Max (a 60s pop culture icon), as well as everyone who was anyone in the world of personal development.
I even attracted the attention of the biggest personal development guru and media mogul in history, Oprah Winfrey, who followed me on twitter. Wow, again I had worked my way from nothing to the top of an industry. Event organizers were asking me to speak and publishers were offering me book deals, but again there was that feeling. None of it seemed ‘me’.
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I had set out on a journey to find myself, only to return to the same role that was familiar to me. I thought I had set myself free but I was really still a slave to the conditioning of what success looked like, and still tied to the chains of resistance. I thought I had gained an awareness, but I was slowly returning to the trance of a life pulled by the strings of the collective. But this time there was no one really pulling the strings but myself, my own mind.
And what I began to realize, through a series of events, workshops, books, films and group discussions, was as Ram Dass says: ‘we’re all just walking each other home’. Every experience, every personal development event, workshop, book, inspirational film and group discussion was part of my personal evolution, providing me with the practical tools and wisdom to do the work.
And what I was resisting was that work. I was afraid of the work it took for the real transformation, afraid to use the tools and wisdom I had acquired for my own life, instead of producing the content to help others to find them. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I had the power all along – I just had to realize it.
Daily Routine
One of the most influential practices in my own personal development has been a daily routine, more specifically getting up at the same time every day, opening the curtains to let the sunshine in, getting a glass of lemon water and scrolling through articles customized to my interests on an app called Flipboard, and, when I’m not struggling with laziness and procrastination, doing Yoga, Meditation and a walk in nature.
When I am consistent with this daily routine, I feel as if I am on fire. My mind is sharp, my body feels great and spiritually I feel I can take on anything. I’m more myself, quick-witted, and more apt to step out of my comfort zone to do things that help me grow.
I make lists, and goals that are in alignment with who I am, and am realistic in what I know I can accomplish. I work in baby steps. Baby steps to big dreams, as I like to say. But if I don’t have it all mapped out, and haven’t been on point with my daily routine, resistance rears its ugly head and has me lethargic and flat-out on the couch aimlessly flipping through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, looking at how fabulous (fabulously calculated and staged) everyone else’s life is, and then I can spiral into days of endless resistance.
So it’s of utmost importance for my growth (not that we don’t grow in our downtime) that I do my best to stick to a daily routine, with a manageable to-do list, with broken-down steps to reach the larger goals I’ve set for myself.
Here is a sample day:
6:00 AM: Wake up, open the curtains, do a neti pot (for nasal cleansing – I have really bad allergies and this helps clear my sinuses) and get a glass of lemon water (half a lemon squeezed in about a cup of water). I then sit in silence until I am finished drinking my lemon water.
6:30 AM: Scroll through Flipboard, stopping at and reading articles of interest; mostly on personal development, wellbeing, travel and, of course, food!
7:30 AM: If I’m a good boy and want to feel amazing in my body: Yoga. Since I took Yoga teacher training I usually design myself a sequence in alignment with what I feel I most need. Lately it is Yoga for sitting, because I have been sitting around way too much. And after Yoga I meditate for about 15 minutes, witnessing my thoughts and allowing them to vanish into a peaceful bliss, unless of course Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra are running a Meditation Experience.
8:30 AM: I have tea with my husband until he leaves for work around 10 AM.
10:00 AM: Post on my social media pages, write reflections and blog distributed via my newsletter and website.
12:00 PM: Lunch, usually consisting of a smoothie, or avocado toast. Feed my dogs Mr Anderson and Mr Oliver and go for a walk (sometimes includes a stop at the beach).
1:00 PM: Depending if I’ve done Yoga and haven’t binge eaten a box of cookies, I write, and/or work on business development.
3:00 PM: Tea time, or if I’m starving, I throw in a thin-crust pizza
4:00 PM: Complete any unfinished tasks. Clean up.
6:00 PM: Feed and take the dogs for a walk along the trail.
7:00 PM: Wind-down time: I usually watch a documentary or period film with a strong female lead on Netflix.
9:00 PM: Bed. I’m early to bed, early to rise. That is of course unless someone wants to invite me out for food or dancing, both trump sleep.
However, whatever it is that I/we do in a day, a routine that encompasses wholeness, a manageable to-do list and goals is of utmost importance to our personal development, mind, body and spirit.
Only you can know the essentials that form your best day, best routines, best needs, and part of creating your own routine will help you to understand and accept more of what you need in order to support yourself with care and respect.
Movement
Taking care of our physical body is also crucial to our personal development. When we’re physically active and eating the right foods, our body is vibrating high. And that most definitely creates a ripple effect in mind and spirit, making us feel optimistic to take on and grow from whatever life brings us. I remember when my brother passed away suddenly that the effects of grief had such an enormous impact on my body. I felt like I could barely move, I was in constant pain, consistently having heart palpitations, and watched my blood pressure sky rocket to dangerous levels.
It’s proof that our body speaks our mind. And so I returned to the Yoga mat, putting together a custom Yoga sequence for grief, anxiety and high blood pressure. If you are as emotionally sensitive as I am, and have ever lost someone really close to you, especially unexpectedly, you will know the physical effects on our body that we most often don’t hear about. And if it hadn’t been for a daily Yoga practice and getting out in nature, I am not sure I would have survived it.
Physical activity is so important to our wellbeing, wholeness, and most importantly to our own personal evolution. The more physically sound we are, the more prepared we are to take on challenges, and the more tenacity we have to make it to the finish line (and then start again).
There is no personal development without feeding our minds. The world is full of so much wisdom, from those that have walked the path before us, from those still walking the path, from scientists, researchers, wanderlusters, entrepreneurs and industry experts, and with the internet being the biggest library in the world we don’t even need to spend a dime (well, besides your internet bill), and if you don’t have the internet (hey, don’t laugh – it seems to be a trend in off-gridders to even get rid of the internet) you can head on down to your local library. And if you do have the budget and resources, Amazon is full of reading and now video material.
However, if sitting at home reading, whether a book or browsing the internet, isn’t really your thing, and you have the budget, there are plenty of talks and workshops you can attend – from local talks at your book store, chamber of commerce or local networking groups, to larger conferences in big cities. I have been to many workshops, and taken lots of notes; however, I never really look back at them. I seem to retain what I need. But we’re all different, right? Radically authentic, that is … So whatever works for you.
I also really enjoy browsing YouTube for inspirational and motivational videos, mostly from the late great Alan Watts and Osho, they speak on a level that captivates me. Check them out, and if they don’t captivate you then keep searching for teachers who do. My husband really loves podcasts. Personally I don’t have the attention span, I like short under ten-minute videos, but he loves to listen to Joe Rogan which fills his cup with the daily dose of intellectual wisdom he desires.
But like everything in life, and every practice, you get to choose what works for you, whether it’s books, podcasts or videos, you choose what stimulated you the most.
This is a practice that often gets ignored. As a child I remember everyone going to church for their weekly spiritual fulfillment; however, it seems to be less and less as religion and spirituality have become private, political and more diverse in the West. Many of the Eastern teachings have made their way into and have influence in the West.
However, since I was a small child I have been captivated by spirituality and religion and they have been key in my personal development, and in the personal development of almost everyone I know. Whether you’re Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan or any other of the plethora of spiritual paths, spirituality and spiritual practices amplify growth. From my experience, all religions and spirituality practices seem to lead to the same place, kind of like the yellow brick road. So whether we’re talking to God, Archangel Michael, Krishna, Allah or Govinda, we are really calling forth the highest vision and version of ourselves.
Community Connection
This one is so powerful as it’s difficult to grow when you’re in solitude all the time. We do require some solitude for self-reflection and inquiry; however, we are designed for and crave the connection of community, and what an incredible place to grow. There are so many people, so many groups from diverse backgrounds. It a virtual playground of opportunities to grow.
One of my personal favourites and one that I’ve written about my experience in in this book is group sharing circles. I have had so many profound shifts and transformations through these types of groups. I wouldn’t be where and who I am today without them. They have also become a crucial part of my VividLife Group Journeys around the globe. As we sat around the fire in South Africa I listened to each group member share what was on their hearts, and sat back on occasion to watch how each group member shared, held space for and provided the wisdom that was the catalyst for almost every member of the group’s realizations, growth and transformations. Their lives were shifting in higher perspective right in front of our eyes.
Another powerful community growth practice is mastermind groups: finding a group of topic-related people that get together frequently to share ideas and feedback. As each person shares a different background and perspective we get to learn things that we perhaps wouldn’t or couldn’t have learned through other personal growth modalities. And oftentimes our peers have had experiences that could in fact save us from a road of destruction, or amplify us on our paths.
One-on-one mentorship is also an excellent tool for personal development, both to hire an expert mentor and to be a mentor yourself; everyone is an expert at something and so why not teach what you know best and ask for assistance where you don’t. If financially it’s not an option to hire a mentor, which has been the case for me, utilize your skills with old-fashioned barter.
Like my mother always said, at least I think it was my mother, ‘If there’s a will, there’s a way.’ And community is a fast-track way to catapult our personal development. Creating just the right tribe is of utmost importance. As the great Jim Rohn once said, ‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’ So if you’re not growing, look around, contemplate, and shuffle.
Reflection: Take a Deeper Look
Personal evolution doesn’t need to look like attending a workshop or reading a book … however, they are good places to start. Personal evolution is really about paying attention, about listening and about using those tools and experiences to take a deeper look at yourself, to chip away at the conditioning and break through the resistance to being yourself.
Whether it’s through our daily routine, movement, feeding our mind, spiritual fulfillment, community or a combination of all. What’s most important is that we keep learning, keep growing and evolving into the highest version of ourselves, and to be in the awareness that the more we’re moving and growing the less resistance we have, and the closer we are to being a living example of radical authenticity.