This site is the website of motivational speaker Craig Harper. A constantly updated, one-stop information, inspiration, education and motivation station. Unlike many similar sites, it is a totally free resource for anyone who is serious about moving from mediocre to amazing in any area of their personal or professional life. With hundreds of articles covering a wide range of subject matter, great interviews with cool people and inspirational video posts, there's more than enough brain-food to keep you busy for hours. Okay, days!! Enjoy.
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Fattitude
- Craig Harper
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Craig Harper is Australia's leading
motivational speaker
and educator (according to Google Australia). He is a highly
sought-after corporate coach and is considered to be
a leader and pioneer in the areas of personal and
professional development.
Working with hundreds of
teams, companies and a wide variety of organisations
on numerous continents over the last twenty years
has given Craig a unique insight into, and
understanding of, human performance and all its
variables. Craig has an ability to educate, inspire,
challenge and make people laugh all at the same
time!
Before we get into today's light topic, I want to thank all of you who contributed to Friday's group discussion about the key lessons and truths that we might teach our kids as they grow up. Your thoughts were truly enlightening for me and I'm sure plenty of you learned a little something as well. And to Hellen, Peta and Damian, if you can email Johnny your postal address, I will see that he sends you each a gift for your thoughtful contributions. Today's chat is quite deep, provocative and philosophical, so if you're after a "quick motivational fix", today ain't that day. However, it is a subject that will resonate with many of you and is relevant for all of us - when we're ready. On with the show. Er, lesson.
Me and My Body
Growing up as a fat kid, I identified very strongly with my body. In fact, I'm sure there were times when I thought that I was my body. "Me" and "it" were one and the same; especially when my physical dimensions became my name. Being called "Jumbo" for the majority of my school life gave me a pretty clear picture of who I was; a fat kid. In other people's eyes anyway. I remember being thirteen years old and turning up to play football for the first game of the season. I walked up to the blackboard (yep, it was that long ago) - where the coach would write the team for the day - to see if and where I would be playing. And there Jumbo was; playing on the half back line. Seeing my name up there on the board kind of confirmed who I was - made it official somehow. Amazingly, there was no malice or offense intended by the coach; he was merely calling me what everyone else did.
Fortunately for me, by my late teens I began to realise that I was more than a body, more than a label and more than someone else's opinion of me. Although it's fair to say that my unhealthy relationship with exercise and food continued into my early twenties.
"I'm not a body, it's just where I live"
Tall, Dark, Handsome and Pigeon-Holed
How often have you asked yourself the "who am I" question? Often? Occasionally? Never? What answer did you come up with? Are you still trying to figure it out? Does it matter to you? Are you your body? Your face? Your age? Your career? Your bank balance? Your reputation? Your marital status? You address? Your religious beliefs? Your academic achievements? Your IQ? Your thoughts? Your possessions? Your title? "Er... hello, Dr. Harper, what a handsome, young, clever, creative, wealthy, medium-height, delusional, white male with a shaved head and too many issues to mention you are..."
Thanks for that.
Perhaps we are the sum of those things. Or perhaps we're none of them. Perhaps those things only have the meaning, power and significance that we give them. Perhaps they are distractions that mislead, distract and seduce us further and further away from finding our true selves. Or maybe not.
Group Thinking
You and I live in a culture which likes to define us (tells us who we are) by what we look like, what we own and what we do. Think about it; when you're in a social setting and you meet a person for the first time, what's (often) the first question you're asked? "So Sam, what do you do; where do you work"? Why are you asked this? Because your job tells them who you are. It also tells them how much money you earn, which tells them even more about who they are talking to. Or so they believe. And perhaps it's this group thinking and this propensity that we (the collective we) have for identifying with "things" (things that keep the ego fed by the way) which keeps us at a distance from (1) moving towards enlightenment (2) a shift in consciousness and (3) connecting with our authentic selves. That is, discovering who we are beyond the noise of humanity, the expectations of those around us, the chaos of our mind, the programming of our past and the incessant chatter of our very demanding ego.
Same Story, Different Labels
These days in my world "Jumbo" has been replaced by terms like... "that single forty-something bloke". Clearly not a desirable label (for most people anyway). Strangely, I don't mind it. Apparently being single and in your forties infers a level of dysfunction and inadequacy. Weirdness even. Again, I'm okay with that too. Is it bad that I'll happily admit to a little dysfunction, inadequacy and weirdness? Oh well. And then there's me the Blogger. Me the Fitness Expert. Me the Writer. Me the Speaker. Me the business owner. Me the student of philosophy. Me the spiritual seeker. Me the teacher. Me the motorcyclist. Me the ex-bodybuilder... and the list goes on. But do these labels speak of who I am or simply, what I do? Perhaps they are not me but indicators of what drives me. Which begs the question, is what drives me.... me? The answer is no, but we're getting closer.
A Terrestrial Pit Stop
Perhaps you and I are eternal beings having a temporary pit stop down here on the big blue ball; spiritual beings enjoying a momentary physical experience. That's what most of the major religions teach anyway. Perhaps in the context of eternity - which is timeless - the thing we refer to as our "life" is a mere heartbeat of our on-going journey. Or perhaps our eighty years (or so) on planet Earth is it; the whole deal. When asked, most people will say that they believe we don't just die and turn into worm food. "There's gotta be more than this" is the common refrain. Maybe we say that because on some level we just know that there's more. It doesn't make sense logically or scientifically but somehow we just know. Or we believe we do anyway. Or perhaps we say it because the idea of this (physical) life being "all there is", is just too uncomfortable and terrifying for us to consider.
Life After Life?
When it comes to the age-old debate of what happens after our physical death down here on Terra Firma, we can speculate, theorise, hypothesize, philosophise, rationalise and argue till the cows come home (when is that by the way?) but we can't actually know. If we had absolute, indisputable, irrefutable knowledge then we wouldn't need faith because as we all know (or we're about to know), faith is believing in something that we can't prove. Yes, we can know what we think, we can know what we believe, and we can know what we expect but we can't know with absolute certainty what happens once we die because unless there's some important fact that I'm over-looking, at this point in time neither you or I have experienced physical death. Okay, I have digressed from today's topic a little with this paragraph... but hey, what's new?
I'll finish part one of this little exploration with some wisdom from one of my faves...
"The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am" Eckhart Tolle
Now that we've (kind of) established who we aren't, next time we'll see if we can discover who we are. If your head hasn't exploded, I would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Just click on the comment link and spill yer guts. Enjoy your Monday.
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