Doctapaul
Retired: Business & Personal Performance Coach, Author, Researcher, Speaker, Energy Healer and Singer.
Homepage: http://paulcburr.com
About Courage
Posted in Healing, Soundbytes of Wisdom, Uncategorized on October 10, 2011
“ The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found those dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. ”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
Dutch painter
Image of Starry Night over the Rhone sourced by SheBomb
“But I should have told you Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.” from Vincent by Don McLean. One of my favourite closing lines to a song, ever.
Shine on…!
/|\
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Steve Jobs
Posted in Business, Coaching, Leadership, Quirky Ideas, Soundbytes of Wisdom, Training & Development on October 6, 2011
Image sourced from realmagic.com
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”
Steve Jobs
Image sourced from
Shine on…!
/|\
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Replace Forgiveness with Accountability
Posted in Astrology, Healing, Life's Changes, Love, Personal, Pitfalls I've Fallen Into, Quirky Ideas, Relationships, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom on October 3, 2011
“Forgiveness is an illusion of the mind. It appeases our false ego. Instead, we are wiser to erase the data that attracted whom, or that which, we resent or feel guilty about. I speak not of erasing an unpleasant memory or the learning there-from. I speak of erasure of the negative emotions we attach to that memory. The same negative emotions or darkness by which we attracted the person or event, that we allowed to offend us, in the first place.
The sun shines on us all, regardless. The Heart Chakra, your 4th chakra, is the domain of Helios, the Sun King. The heart doesn’t judge. Tis all in the mind.”
Image from American Mathematical Society
Shine on…!
/|\
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Do your Maths, before you speak your mind.
Posted in Leadership, Relationships, Soundbytes of Wisdom on October 1, 2011
Being right is one thing.
Being helpful is another.
Make 1+1=3.
Image from Dave Tutin’s site. Dave writes important stuff about USA’s Poltical-Social System as well as many other subjects, close to his heart.
Shine on…!
/|\
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Hold a grudge, do you?
Posted in Fun and Laughs, Healing, Life's Changes, Love, Personal, Quirky Ideas, Relationships, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom on September 28, 2011
Sourced from Johnny Hughes on Facebook
Fearless versus “Fearlessness” – the difference between courage and wisdom
Posted in Coaching, Healing, Leadership, Life's Changes, Love, Personal, Relationships, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom, Training & Development on September 27, 2011
Should we ignore, or remain in denial about adverse situations or issues, we learn little if anything at all. The situations fester and pester more and more. We feel more pain or hurt. Should we continue to isolate ourselves from our feelings of hurt about what’s going on, we isolate ourselves from love, joy and fulfillment as well. This might need some explanation.
Image sourced from The Hero Construction Company
We can’t learn if something is wet or not if we don’t know what not-wet, i.e. dry, is. Likewise, we are unable to be selective when we detach ourselves from negative emotions. Should we detach ourselves from sadness, we detach ourselves from not sadness, i.e. joy.
I recall when a relationship, I was in, broke up, not too long ago. I took myself to the pub at night, to inebriate myself from the fear and sadness of spending lonely evenings on my own. It took me 9 months before I readied myself to acknowledge the sadness, fear and start to move on life.
So here’s the curious dichotomy: when we ignore or deny fear, we deny not-fear – i.e. courage.
And it takes courage to deal with inner issues. In fact, all issues are inner issues. (When the relationship ended we both had issues to resolve but they were different issues.She had hers. I had mine. They were both proprietary.) The more courage we demonstrate to ourselves to deal with our inner issues the more we learn about them.
And when we learn more about a subject, we become wiser, we become expert and eventually we become a master. Not only are we a master at what’s going on, we become a master over our fears. We don’t hide from, or deny, them. We manage our fears. We control them. We become warriors. We become heroes. To some people, this ends the journey (“Hail, the all conquering hero!”). It does not. It ends a significant part of the journey and starts the next.
When we acknowledge our fear and gain mastery over it – we start to experience the stillness or void from which we base our actions. We start to realise that the issue, we faced, was attracted by and to our fear. We brought the issue, perhaps unknowingly and albeit unwantedly, on ourselves. The issue brought the fear to the surface so that we can erase that fear and evolve to the good.This is a fundamental rule to the game of life. (It might even be the only rule. I’m still working that one out.)
When the fear is fully out in the open in front of us, noone else,we see through it. We wise up to the habits and patterns inside of us that manifest that fear. We realise that those habits and patterns are only habits and patterns – and nothing more. They are not reality but responses we took on, usually in our early childhood, to adverse situations. And when we see their illusory nature, they disappear and so does the fear.
We begin to realise we had nothing to fear in the first place. At this stage we are not fearless, instead we experience fearlessness. We have transmuted our fearless state of mind into fearlessness.
The warrior or hero does not ignore or deny, but manages and controls, their fear. The master or magician, through the wisdom from insight, dissolves fear. Magicians are not brave. They have no need to be. They know fear for what it is – a very real-like illusion.
Fearlessness is a symptom of having achieved a spiritual step on our road to enlightenment. Only two types of people experience fearlessness – masters and fools.
When we become a master at one stage of our journey we instantly become a fool (or totally uninitiated) in the next stage. We become both master and fool at the same time.
We experience the two purposes of fearlessness:
- It tells us we’ve achieved mastery at one level
- It gives us the encouragement to tackle the next stage in our development.
Such is the computer game called “Life” – until we take the last step, of course.
/|\
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Posted in Soundbytes of Wisdom on September 16, 2011
Classic line from classic movie…
It isn’t faith that makes good science Mr Klatu. It’s curiosity.
Prof. Barnard
Happy Friday
Posted in Fun and Laughs, Visions and Dreams on September 16, 2011
What did the inflatable school teacher say to the inflatable schoolboy, who brought a drawing pin into the inflatable school?
Image courtesy of BBC
“You let me down. You let the school down. But worst of all, you let yourself down.”
Have a great weekend! 🙂
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
The Role of the Seer
Posted in Life's Changes, Personal, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom, Visions and Dreams on September 8, 2011
For most of us. life’s journey is a long and winding path.
Maybe you don’t see the way and feel lost. Maybe you only see a few steps in front of you. Maybe you see many. You see all the possibilities in life open to you.
You become visionary, a see-er, a seer.
Image from Sacred Gates Art Shop.
A seer doesn’t see the future. A seer sees within. They can see inside themselves and see the steps they need to take, for their own life’s journey. They see the consequences of inaction. They see the consequences of inappropriate or unhelpful action. They see the best course of action and take it.
The more accomplished a seer becomes in mapping and taking their own journey, the more they can help and the more others they can help too.
A seer teaches us to see for ourselves. A seer helps us to see the choices (and consequences) we give ourselves. Seers help us to become seers for ourselves.
They don’t need to be perfect. They don’t need to have grandiose qualifications. They just need to be higher or better at it than the people who come to them for help.
The seer’s role is to lead others to be as good, if not better, than they are at Love. Once they’ve accomplished this feat, their job is done.
Supernova – visible in northern sky for 9 nights!
Posted in Astrology, Current Affairs & The Economy, Visions and Dreams on September 7, 2011
This June 9, 2005 NASA false-color picture shows the supernova remnant of Cassiopeia A
The recently discovered supernova in M101 (the Pinwheel Galaxy, in the Plough constellation) should be visible through binoculars over the next 9 days.
When it’s cloudless, look to the northern sky. Go to a local spot with low surrounding light pollution. Look for the Plough Constellation. Follow Star 3 to Star 2 and keep going. There you should find an exploding dwarf star that sucked the energy out of a neighbouring big star, too much too quickly, and “burst” – 21 million years ago.
Shine on!
@paulburr
This June 9, 2005 NASA false-color picture shows the supernova remnant of Cassiopeia A.
Someone on Facebook asked me for my “spiritual opinion on Monogamy”
Posted in Love, Personal, Relationships on September 3, 2011
My Opinion ref: Question
Most couples I know don’t discuss monogamy up front. They don’t chose to abide by its principles consciously together. Sometimes they wish for it. Sometimes they assume it. Sometimes they treat it as a taboo topic and stick their head in the sand. Why?
Image from Lovemore.com
I haven’t been saintly always. Like many people I’ve entered into a sexual relationship knowing that the other person had stronger feelings for me than I, they. The joy of sexual pleasure, to fufill my Desire Body’s wants, was stronger than my Inner Self’s demand to live and share my truth. When the relationship ended, I’d have some rationale (e.g. “All blokes are like this.”) to keep my false ego intact – until the next time.
(I’ve been on the receiving end of this same behaviour too. Synchronicity: as I write this very sentence Joe Simon’s, Drowning in the Sea of Love, pops up on my Ipod shuffle-play.)
I hope I’ve never been demonic (I’ve enough karma, thanks) – maybe that’s not my call. But I can think of many times when I’ve lacked courage to speak my truth.
In years gone by, I’ve started open relationships which were fine and dandy until one of us steps over a line that the other doesn’t want to step over. I’ve started relationships that I wanted to become serious – and I’d end my other ongoing “open” relationships immediately. Fair enough?
Relationships start and evolve in a dance. But whom do we attract to dance? We attract what we project.
For example(s), I found that if I went into a bar with my “sex specs” on, I’d attract women who get their self esteem from being sexually attractive to others. Repeatedly I’d start a relationship with someone that wouldn’t last. Regardless of whether we had sex or not, the relationship often ended soon because one or both of us had gotten what we wanted out of it quickly. It took me many many years to figure out what my pattern was, at a vibrational level.
All the longer term relationships I’ve enjoyed, started through a “calling” I felt for and with the other person. If I’ve learnt one thing, this “calling” needs to include me. It’s not a one way deal.
I’ve come to realise that fidelity is as much about intention as behaviour. How clear, and how willing, are we to declare our intentions (especially before the music starts)?
Let’s go back to the dance – when two people start up together. If one gets ahead too far of the other, the couple come apart. If one pushes too hard and trods on the others toes – that also can lead to a stumble and fall. I’ve experienced both, both ways.
If one partner starts talking about a medium or long term purpose (that includes monogamy) for the relationship before the other is ready to commit, then the dance can come to an end. Better to stay quiet? Not forever. Better to wait until a better time? Perhaps.
My advice is thus….
1. When you start a relationship, start as friends. Be clear about your own intentions and feelings. Above all, “be true to thyself” –as the Bard says..
2. Wait a while before you introduce sex into the relationship
I once fell in love with someone out of the blue. I’d been acquainted with her for a while. We’d become friends. We spent a lovely day walking together. We arrived home. We kissed. It was a case of “love at first kiss” for me. We both wanted to make love. So I asked her a question….
“Is this sex or is it something more.”
“It’s something far more.” She replied.
“In which case, we can wait.”….
She agreed and so we did. At that point in time, we both felt our relationship had a much higher purpose. And we both had tasks to complete before we could start the relationship properly.
3. When the time feels right for both of you, discuss what the purpose of your relationship is (plug 🙂 there’s much more in my book about this):
- Physically – your environment, home, work, children, hobbies, passions and so on. (If you’re obsessed over a football team like me, this is important!)What you’ll be doing and what you won’t be doing
- Emotionally – how will you stay tuned into one another? Are you compatible intellectually or is that unimportant? How will you feel secure (or better still know) that the relationship’s purpose can be achieved?
- Spiritually – Each of you answer separately: if you were to know….
- What qualities, or wisdom about yourself, do you wish to develop through the relationship?
- What do you want to shed?
- And with what do you want to fill the void created by that which you have shed?
- What will make you truly happy in, compassionate with, and have love for , yourself – NOT the relationship or other person. (For at a spiritual level, what’s good for you is good for both. This is the bit that many of us don’t think/feel through.)
Share the answers you each come up with and create a joint purpose that is different from, but congruent with, your individual purposes.
Above all….
- Find, become and express your “true self”.
- Find your “purpose in life”.
- Find, open and take the steps needed to fulfil your “contract for this lifetime”
When you do the above, who and what you want to attract to help you, will come your way.
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
About loneliness….
Posted in book, Healing, Life's Changes, Love, Personal, Relationships, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom on August 26, 2011
Loneliness is something we feel when we are not happy with our own company.
Image by Said, Delta Papyrus Centre
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
ps Focus on the image of the Pharoah Ankh-n-aton.
- Do you notice. like me, how the image seems to switch from left to right?
- Do you notice that image is looking at you? Cool huh?
Happy Friday!
Posted in Fun and Laughs on August 26, 2011
Lieutenant Uhura says to Mr Spock “Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6!”
(Image from comicmix)
A short time later Spock comes back with 6 cartons of milk.
Uhura asks him, “Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?”
Spock replied, “They had eggs.”
I had to think about it. 🙂
A New “Business-Consciousness” Model for the World
Posted in Astrology, Business, Current Affairs & The Economy, Leadership, Life's Changes, Quirky Ideas, Visions and Dreams on August 25, 2011
I started advertising my Facebook page, Beowulf, earlier this week, at only 1p/click-through. It’s aimed at sharing wisdom and research into business, leadership and consciousness – and hopefully attracting some business for me too :).
(Image from Just Give Me Peace who share/sell great art and poetry.)
It accumulated more than 660 followers in 24 hours. It now has over 1000. I expected take-up to be a slow burner, maybe 30-60 people in the first week. Instead, take-up has blown me away. I still don’t know why so many started following it. Will those of you, already signed up, please send me or share your reasons for following Beowulf and your interests? Thank you.
In return I shall write about what you are interested in, best I can.
I would like to discuss something that I’ve been working through in my mind for a couple of years. I haven’t thought it all through. Therefore I write of idealism – which you can, should the more clever than me of you want to, rip to shreds.
We live in a world where land, property and wealth is won through forfeiture. Some kill in the name of a religion or a God, egged on by clerics who say “you shall become martyrs”. Forget it. That is a religion based on brain washing, protectionism and Middle -Age theocracy that preys on the fears of man. The Sun shines on everyman regardless of race, colour, religion or creed. Whether you believe in God or not – can we not all accept the principle? “We are all equal in honour not privilege.”
We see industrial giants, under the guise of “democracy”, scrambling for oil rights in Libya, pipelines across Afghanistan and trade in the Middle East. We spend billions on war, space travel and litigation. We see 1 billion people in the world without adequate food, shelter and clean water. We see violent uprisings (now in London, where next?) where people on the street say “Enough!”
There is a quickening of change. I don’t yet know what shape it will take. Those who attempt to hold on to that which serves only themselves will meet their “come up-pance”. And the “me too” or “me first now” attitude of the developing economies (after centuries of exploitation, want their “rightful share”) will only replace one capitalist empire with another.
Let’s work together to create an abundant business world where wisdom is created and shared. So that those who work hard but do not share the success of those at the top, can learn and raise the value they bring to the market.
If we all focus on helping those who need wisdom most, we raise the wisdom of the whole business planet. At the same time, if we isolate/patent wisdom to line our own pockets, then we transgress the laws of nature.
I speak not of communism versus capitalism but of freedom of wisdom and a change in mindset, so that we sign up to conduct business for the benefit of all. This, I am told, is the essence of the Aquarian Age.
An age based on raised:
- inner experience + scientific reasoning = wisdom + knowledge
- …………………………………………….. = consciousness(to replace out-dated faiths and beliefs)
Raising the world’s consciousness is no easy task. But we can make a start – with ourselves.
I would like your input and feedback please.
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Passion + Detachment = Key
Posted in Healing, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom on August 24, 2011
“ A burning passion coupled with absolute detachment is the key to all success. ”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
Image courtesy of Dolls of India
Tip for the day: Complain or Inspire, we choose.
Posted in Healing, Poetry, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom on August 23, 2011
When I complain a lot I tend to attract even more things to complain about.
The secret? Park all complaints. The Heart never judges. Focus, instead, on what you’re passionate about; that which inspires creativity.
“The Lodges all shall know that I am he.
Who searches loins and hearts to oversee,
All works creative and all works that find,
Treasures of knowledge in the Cosmic Mind.”
– from The Message to the Hierarchy of Helios, The Sun Regent, on the awakening of the Heart Chakra.
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Words of Wisdom
Posted in Healing, Life's Changes, Love, Personal, Poetry, Self Development, Soundbytes of Wisdom on August 22, 2011
“As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.
Today, I know, this is ‘AUTHENTICITY’.”
…..from Charlie Chaplin’s, Words of Wisdom.
Image from Allposters
Fear Attracts Fear – Case Study
Posted in Business, Coaching, Healing, Personal, Self Development, Selling, Training & Development on August 19, 2011
I coached an experienced salesperson who had fallen on hard times. Sales were down.
Like all good salespeople, he worked extra hard, and made as many sales calls as he could. He crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s in abundant call reports, to demonstrate his commitment and loyalty to his bosses. Alas, all to no avail.
Image from How Stuff Works
Like most of us (I include myself) it was easy to blame the economy………………
I asked what was driving him. Back came the response “Well I’m behind in my numbers and I want to catch up. I don’t want to lose my job!”
I asked a series of questions:
Q: “So fear drives your actions?”
A:“Yeh, I’ve got a wife and kids to support” came the answer.
Q: “To what extent do your friends and colleagues share your fear?”
A:“Quite a few, it’s time like this you find out who your friends are.”
Q: “To what extent do your existing customers share in your fear?”
A: “Yeh, a few have intimated that I’m trying too hard and come across as more pushy than usual. They are a bit apprehensive about me.”
Q: “And what of new customers and prospects?”
A: “Yes again, everybody I meet seems fearful to do anything right now, even when the business case is clear cut.”
So what’s going on here? I’ve coached many people in this predicament. Here’s what I’ve seen, time and again.
What drives us, we attract. Fear attracts fear.
So in the above client’s case, the coaching focused on tools to switch out fear and replace it with what the client wanted instead: “creative confidence”.
Within weeks, despite an ailing economy, the client’s sales figures went from poor, to fair, to good, to very good. He got back on track.
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
More Sales from Less Waste.
Posted in Business, Leadership, Marketing, Selling, Training & Development on August 19, 2011
I saw a definition of the word creativity recently. It went something like “linking two things together for the first time”.
I got a message from Edward de Bono. He encouraged me, to think of creativity as more than selling new things, into a new market, incurring risk (against the grain of the current economic climate). But better still to use creativity to perhaps minimise risk and cut costs. This got me thinking.
“How might we minimise risk, cut costs and increase sales?”
I proceeded to think about the role the various functions or departments play in large corporations. What is it that Marketing, Training and Development, Sales Operations (sometimes called Sales Enablement) do? What do they all try to achieve?
A simple answer could be to get a decision-making customer (the information they need) to make a favourable decision.
Each department looks out from their pigeonhole and does their bit in getting the customer’s favourable decision. The more enlightened departments work in harmony to achieve the same end. Alas, this is a rarity…..
….. because most people still look at the function of their work inside-out….. “What outputs do I create, in accord with my job specification?” For example: a flyer, a campaign, a training event. What they often don’t do is measure the ultimate goal: favourable customer decisions. Instead of looking outside-in, they look inside-out. So the sum of the parts is never the whole.
So how would it be if we merged departments: Sales Training and Development, Marketing and Sales Operations/Enablement?
How about if we created a single department called: “Getting Favourable Decisions”.
(Or something less obvious, like “Customer Enablement” for those organisations whose culture has not yet migrated to the Aquarian Age of meaningful information.)
There is an old phrase: “50% of our marketing is valuable and 50% is waste. The trouble is, which 50% is which?”
Luckily for me, I got to analyse a vast amount of data. The utilisation data of a large global IT company’s marketing materials, deposited into a single digital repository. It tracks which materials are used, by whom, where, when, and for how long. The statement “50% waste” proved to be an understatement. The data revealed it was 85%, i.e. only 15% of the material was read by anybody outside marketing i.e. sales and customers.
Likewise I’ve spoken to many sales trainers about knowledge retention. They typically reckon that when people walk away from a training course, they retain 15% of the knowledge and wisdom imparted. That’s about the going rate.
So curiously enough this number 85% crops up again. 85% of the marketing material isn’t being used, 85% of the wisdom imparted is not being retained.
So how about creating a “zero-retention” application? An application that provides on-the-job information, wisdom, knowledge, learning, call it what you will. It gives you what you want, where you want it, when you want it. It’s concise, understandable, and is already customer ready. (No more time consuming training courses, no more pedantry e-learning.)
We merge, into one repository, all the materials we need, to give customers the right information, in the right sequence, to make a favourable decision. We provide this through one single department. We merge Sales Training & Development, Marketing and Sales Operations/Enablement into one. We reduce management overheads, courses and waste (by 85%?).
Your customers and salespeople engage using (the same) articulate materials, media, dialogues, analyses, questions and messages. They all sing from the same song sheet.
Sales go up. Selling cycles shorten. More sales from less waste.
p.s. Now you know what to do. Should you want to know more on how? Get in touch :).
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
“White Space” – The Customers’ Problems We Don’t Know About
Posted in Business, Leadership, Marketing, Quirky Ideas, Selling on August 19, 2011
I pondered about the conundrum of “White Space”. The problems and wants (leading to opportunities for you, me, us) that (non-existing and existing) customers have that we don’t know about.
One morning, something came to me in my waking conscious about “The unheard voice of the customer.”
Here’s what popped up first…
The outside is sent as a mirror to what’s inside.
To find White Space, that problem you don’t yet know that customers have. To start, look for the problem in yourself that you don’t know yet.
So how about finding answers to the following questions:
- What problems/opportunities exist in the organisation that the Board doesn’t know about?
- What problems/opportunities do the Board have that the rest of the organisation doesn’t know about?
- What problems exist that customers don’t know about?
Use this data to inform a customer research programme to find the unheard voice of the customer….….
- What met or unmet expectations do customers have that we don’t know about? (How do we stack up?)
- What problems do customers have that we/competition don’t know about (especially those we/competition contribute to)?
- What would happen if these problems and expectations were met (even surpassed)?
- What new opportunities might we help customers create for themselves (value creation)?
- So how can we get ahead of the wave to create new value?
Mmmm this could be some project…. What thinks you?
Ω
Shine on…!
Paul C Burr
Follow @paulburr
Share this page
How to Be a Friend of the Devil Within
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide VII – A Top-notch, Sales-Relationships, Account Management Template
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide VI – How to Sell Coaching
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
For The Love of Lilith & How to Put Love into Practice (and Non-attach Yourself to It)
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide V – How to Apply Mindfulness to Business Relationships
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
The Mystique to the Game of Life (and Unrequited Love)
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide IV – A Scorecard that Accounts for Mindfulness in Business
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide III – How to Bridge the Pillars of Successful Business Relationships
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide II: How to Spot, Mimic and Become a Top Salesperson
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Quick Guide: How Top Salespeople Sell
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Defrag your Soul
2012: a twist in the tail
Available from Amazon and major bookstores:
Learn to Love and Be Loved in Return
Available in USA and UK, in paperback and Kindle format
, 
, 
& 
& 
,
&
also
, 
also
,
also
, 
Paul C Burr 