Mind Pilot - Take Self Control

A few thoughts from Tony Robbins

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:29:59 +0000

Whenever I find myself veering off course, Tony Robbins books are often a good way to get back on track, and as someone who doesn’t normally like wading through chunky volumes of text, I’d have to recommend ‘Giant Steps’, which breaks everything down into simple postcard sized notes, designed to have once each day of the year. Of course, I’ll never find myself sticking to such a precise daily routine, but I think he makes a very good point about the need to read something positive for half an hour each day in order to stay mentally sharp.

The concept of ‘mood food’ is something I have been well aware of for while, but haven’t always indulged in, but the key point being that the mind needs nourishment just as much as the body. I’ve already got my work pretty well cut out over the next few weeks, so to fit in half an hour of reading would initially seem like a luxury, until it is broken down into three quick chunks of 10 minutes at the start of each day, over lunch and in the evening.

But even if you don’t like reading, good music can elevate the mood even quicker than text, and any music has to be better than the constant stream of bad news which so many news stations like to broadcast.

Taking a short train ride – just for the hell of it

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:11:34 +0000

Today, I walked to the market to get some lunch. It is about a 15 minute walk, but on the way back, I just couldn’t be bothered. There are a couple of small variations in the route I can take between my house and Coventry city centre, but let’s face it, it’s not like walking down the Champs Elysees!

So I decided I’d head towards the station, and catch the train one stop to Canley. If you are a ‘normal’ walker just wanting to get from A to B, then nothing could be more pointless! Aside from ‘wasting’ money on a train ticket (well, actually not much more than jumping on the bus), and waiting for the train (a big five minutes, I wouldn’t have bothered if one wasn’t due), the train doesn’t actually get you any closer to my house. I live roughly the same distance from Coventry and Canley stations.

So why take the train at all? Shouldn’t I just go to London, and take the District Line to Barking? Well actually, no. To my mindset, this seemingly pointless journey made perfect sense. Firstly, it gave me somewhere to finish my lunch – I didn’t want to walk with it, and as someone who spends hours in front of a computer, I like to get out when I can. But more important than that (and no Tom-Tom, dick or Harry will ever tell you this), it is quite simply a much nicer walk. So instead of 15 minutes of boredom, I had 15 minutes of walking through the park.

Not to mention the fact that I am a total anorak for trains, but I still didn’t get my question answered about the ‘Class 351/2’s’ – that’s for another blog at another time – and it really isn’t that geeky, there is a genuine reason for wanting to know. I’m sure you can’t wait to find out!

Now back to work.

Using this blog to stay with it

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:48:21 +0000

Right, it has been a few months of chaos, and to be honest, a pretty lousy fortnight preceeding this one. But I’m hoping I can kick-start this blog and get back to the original reason for setting it up. The original idea for ‘Mind Pilot’ is probably around 3 years old, but I have always tried to find ways of managing my weekly fluctuations in mood and concentration levels.

The analogy with flying comes from the fact that I run an aviation related travel website, so there was a simple analogy for dividing the day up into 7 different phases, based around preparing for a flight, taking off, crusing and then landing safely at the end. This was all nice in theory, but let’s just say there’s been some turbulence in the meantime, some of it being far more severe than I was ever expecting.

But now, things are starting to head back on an even keel (sorry, should be sticking to flying rather than nautical metaphors, but sod it, this is a blog not a novel), and I want to really even it all out and try and cruise as smoothly as possible. Yet just as things seem to get back in place, something breaks, and I’m back to the start – or at least I am undoing a lot of the progress.

So the main idea of having this blog has to be to create some form of online interaction, where I can stay motivated enough to keep a focus. One way of doing this is to post open comments about the feelings I go through, and to invite other people to share their experiences. I hope to get enough of a following to give me something to log back into each day, so please stick around.

Sorry, but this blog has nothing to do with flying or pilots

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:50:16 +0000

Sorry to any social networkers or ad clickers who are looking for a website to do with aviation, or learning how to be an airline pilot. I’m afraid that’s just not what this site is about, but the search robots which govern the internet just don’t seem to be smart enough yet to work that one out.

What this site IS about is learning, or at least trying to control, a much tougher beast – the human mind. If that is of interest, I hope you can stick around. If not, have a good one.

Mind Pilot is back – at last

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:19:46 +0000

Wow, has it really been that long? I last posted back in March, then was trying to upgrade the blog template, and bang! Something went wrong with the site design, then I hit a bit more mental ‘turbulence’, and here I am, winter is coming, and I need to get my mojo back!

So I hope to do a bit of tidying up, and then get back into the swing of things over the next few weeks. Watch this space!

I’m sorry that this site design sucks!

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:18:05 +0000

Please bear with me, I’ve just brought Mind Pilot back online, and it is going tot ake me a few more weeks to do some tidying up, make this site look half decent, and get back moving again.

I promise it will be worth the wait!

How many computer windows do you have open?

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:42:42 +0000

I have been concentrating a lot lately on the bipolar aspect of my mind, but I should never forget the ADHD aspect, especially as I am starting to return to my old ‘normal’ levels of business.

So, how many windows do you have open at any time when you are running your computer. Do you use two or more screens – I have two widescreen monitors, which are generally great for increasing productivity, but this can sometimes just mean that you have more windows open and more chaos.

Right now, I am in chaos mode, but at some stage, I will call time, say enough is enough, and detach that modem. In the meantime, here’s my count – 8 Internet Explorer Windows, which might include several sub windows, Outlook, Dragon Naturally Speaking (Voice Recognition, but when I am in un-disiplined mode like now, I switch to conventional typing), 3 Excel spreadsheets, Flash, SQL Datatabase server, Dreamweaver, one Sykpe conversation – thankfully not active! Enough! I’m not even going to begin to count.

I think I have reached the point where I need to start closing down some windows and pulling out some plugs! Is this way of working productive – well, yes, stuff is getting done, but there is no routine to it, everything is happening in a random and chaotic manner. Sometimes that can be nice, but it is generally just totally frustrating as nothing seems to ever get done.

The solution? Switch off that modem, and set out some clear tasks. Get back to taking clear breaks, and bring the week back to making a decent start in the morning, so I can be finished by this time on a Friday evening!

Have a great weekend!

Over and out,

The Mind Pilot!

The Pyramid of possibilities

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:15:18 +0000

So you have a problem to solve, or you are in a creative mood — how do you imagine the best possible outcome? I have always tried to work downwards, starting at the top by asking ‘ what is the best possible outcome, regardless of any known natural or human laws?’ I then ask what the best possible outcome might be considering the limitations of physics and nature, but making use of maximum human potential, and then after that I would consider the realistic best possible outcome considering the actual availability of the key resources of time, money, people and materials.

Thinking like this is a bit of a double-edged sword — of course, it can create some fantastic ideas, but it can also result in coming up with hundreds of different ideas and solutions to a problem, when only one workable answer is necessary. Having said that, I still have a number of business and personal problems I’m trying to work through the moment, and I haven’t yet formally taken them through this exercise. I think it is about time I did.

[ drawing to follow -- top of the pyramid -- one best answer, without limitations; base of the pyramid -- lots of answers, each with their own pros and cons]

How much do I want to talk about dreaming?

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:15:03 +0000

It’s a bit of a late start, but I was late to bed last night, and over the last week or so I haven’t really been that bothered about specifically getting up at nine. I’d rather get up and stay awake, which I didn’t do yesterday. Still, having said that, it’s a really bright day outside, so maybe it would be nice to have got up a bit earlier and got out straight on my bike. I’m not quite feeling motivated to do that yet, but that might well change a bit later on. Today is going to be a short day work wise, as I have a concert in London later to go to, but I am not going to let that restrict me to just writing text.

I had another dream last night — hold on, do I really want to talk about this? I feel that there are certain boundaries that I am not so confident crossing, and talking about dreaming is one of them. I feel the same way about having people listening in where I am dictating content using voice recognition — even if most of the posts I publish here are taking pretty much verbatim from what I dictate, I still have the option to go back and correct or delete anything I don’t like. I know this website is all about dealing with mental challenges, and this will often be explaining how I think, and how this relates to the symptoms of the conditions this website is here to help people manage, but do I really want to feel as if I can just let anyone come in and drill through my head to see what I’m thinking? But the reality is that we all have dreams, and that most independent thinkers are extensive daydreamers, or should that be Daydream Believers, as well. Without dreams, there is nothing to aspire to, and life becomes strictly functional. Human nature just won’t accept that, so I think I will have to at least make some reference to what I’ve been dreaming about from time to time, just as much as I have already made frequent references to how I think. So the dream was actually quite a common one — I was at university — was that back at university, or had I enrolled on a new course? I was trying to catch up with the other students — that was always the case anyway when I was at university, but I think this time it was to do with trying to integrate being a student with running my business, and there was a study trip, which involved being given lectures on a train somewhere, either going to Hungary or Paris — you know how you can never quite recall all the details! I think there was a clear point though, and that was just a simple reminder of my long-held desire to build something ‘ real’ as opposed to websites, which I still sometimes just feel are a collection of pixels, text and code.

So is this ambition helpful? It is certainly something I’m trying to resolve within myself, and I still haven’t quite found the best way of doing so. I think there’s another few posts which could come off this particular thread of thought, back later.

Post 50

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:28:17 +0000

Wednesday to Thursday 1 AM

As I bring up the ‘ half-century’ on Mind Pilot, I am opening myself up more and more to the concept of social networking on the Internet, but still wondering to what extent it will actually increase the number of useful visitors to my main website, and whether any social contacts made online will actually really amount to anything. I know that there are many other people out there who use the Internet to help them cope with a wide variety of medical challenges, but do I want to use the Internet to find more business, to find friends, or just to find people with whom I can share similar experiences? To be honest, I don’t really know, but I have recently found that a website like twitter is even more addictive than Facebook used to be when I first signed up to that. But I’m still trying to work out what it is overall point is — yes, it is a very quick way of sharing information about all kinds of different topics, but there is no focus to it, and it seems to be another way of just blurting out about anything to anyone. You know what they say about empty vessels making the most noise.

I still think I’ve got plenty of things that are worth saying, and I just have to go around finding the right place to say them. Perhaps it is a simple case of splitting my online time into three different areas — myself as an individual, which I managed through my own personal blog, my travel website and accompanying blog which is my main professional activity, and this Mind Pilot blog, where I hope I can share thoughts my about the different mood variations I’m going through.

There is also a fourth dimension that I want to move into, and that is my interest in architecture, and also in doing maps and drawings which relate to various different buildings. Some of this can be due to be added as content on my travel website, but I think there is a difference between travelling as a tourist, having an academic interest in architecture, and then ultimately putting buildings and other structures together, an ambition I have never lost sight of. In the meantime, my colleague has just told me that this month should see a slight revenue increase over February, which is a better sign than the fall in traffic that I had seen earlier in the week, so for now, I will carry back on with constructing my presence in cyberspace. Who knows where this will take me next.