Think Create - Leon Grey's Blog

Is there something that you always complain about but do nothing to fix it?  Do you have friends who say

• I wish I could lose some weight
• I wish I could earn more money
• Why dont I have a steady relationship

In this great life of ours, most of us have something to complain about, but strangely enough don’t do anything about it.  We complain so much that our friends say, why don’t you just do something about it then?  But we don’t.

This is where the Dog and the Nail story comes in.  My old boss told me this story a couple of times when I was complaining about why I wasnt getting the money I wanted and why I wasnt succeeding in certain aspects of my life.  The story has stuck with me ever since.

Now I don’t remember this story word for word, but I will retell it to you as best I can.

A man had been driving through the country on an old dusty road and was looking for somewhere to rest and stretch his legs.  He had been driving for some hours and had not passed any places where he could rest and recharge.

As the sun started its decent into the afternoon the man saw in the distance a small farmhouse.  As he drove closer he could see an old farmer sitting on a chair looking out into his fields.

The man, who was in need of a break decided he would pull up to the farm and see if he could rest a while.  The man pulled up on the roadside and walked up the well worn driveway.  When he approached the old farmer he asked if he could sit next to him and rest a while.  The farmer looked up with a piece of straw in his mouth, smiled and nodded at the man. 

As the man walked to take his seat next to the old farmer he noticed an old working dog lying beside the farmers legs.

Giving the dog a quick pat the man sat himself on the next chair and closed his eyes to give them a well deserved rest.

As time went by the man noticed that the dog sitting next to the farmer would suddenly howl and winge in great pain then suddenly stop.

The dog did this 3 to 4 times in the hour he had been sitting there and finally the man looked over at the old farmer and asked, ‘why does your dog howl and winge every now and then?’

The farmer looked down at the dog, shook his head and looked up at the man, the old farmer replied, “you see son this old dog here is lying on a nail, but its only hurts enough to winge about”.

The man looked at the dog and wondered to himself how many things in his life hurt only enough to complain about, but not enough to do something about.

This story is ingrained in my mind and helps me put into perspective anything that I complain about.  I hope this story propels you into action so you dont end up being the, ‘old dog’.

A special thankyou to my old boss and mentor Philip Langley for telling me this story and guiding me back to the path of success.

I wish you less pain and more action!

Leon Grey

Last night I was having a discussion with my wife as to the question, what is love?  Interestingly enough we both had the same sort of definition.

Love is unconditional, with lots of hugs and kisses and most importantly individual respect for each other. Love is the feeling of wanting to please your partner and love is everything pure and beautiful.

After agreeing on this, I asked my wife what does it mean to be loved?  Her answer was very interesting. She said that she feels love when I touch her face and kiss her.  I was interested in this, because to me, touching my face while kissing me wasnt love.  I felt love when I got big and long hugs from her.

Then it dawned on me, I had been giving my wife love the way I thought love was supposed to be given. Instead what she was getting was big hugs from me and even though it was nice for her, she wasnt feeling the love.  This was the same with her, when she would lovingly touch my face and kiss me, I didnt feel the love she was giving because love to me was big hugs.

With this understanding I realised everyone in this world has a different perspective on what certain things mean to them.  Next time you have a chance ask your partner or spouse what makes them feel love and you might get a surprise.  Instead of those lovely dinners you make it might be something simple like making them a cup of tea in the morning.

So now the question to ask yourself is this, what does love mean to you, how do you know you are loved?

Lovingly Leon

I have two words for you, “thank you”.  When is the last time you said these words and meant it, I mean REALLY meant it? Thank you.

I learned last year in 2006, why I was not moving forward on my path to financial abundance.  My mentor pointed it out to me blatantly one day when he said, “Leon you are not grateful for what you have now, how can you expect more good things to come to you”.

When I was growing up as a young boy when ever I achieved something or got an A in a school report, my mother would say, ” thats good Leon, but wheres the A+?”  Now 20+ years later on I have realised that I had been conditioned by my mother not to be grateful for all the fantastic experiences and material things I have now. 

The one thing that I am truely grateful for is my ability to look at myself and understand why I feel and do the things I do.  It’s called self awareness, everyone has this ability but a good majority choose not to do anything with it.

I am now so grateful for everything that I have in my life.

• I love my partner even more, she is my rock and she keeps me in grounded when I get over passionate
• I am grateful for my mother, who cares so much for me, and I realise I dont say, ” I love you” or give her enough hugs and kisses.
• I am grateful for all my different mentors, who have guided me to where I am today
• I am incredibly grateful for my friends who have kept me focused on my path to abundance
• I am grateful for living in this great country of Australia, where food and water and employment is abundant and we have a government that is true to the people.  We are truely the lucky country

There is so much more I am grateful about, but I think you get the message.

Another part of being grateful is to give back.  Since my talk with my mentor I have sponsored two Peruvian children through World Vision, I dontate to charities that “shake the tin”, and most importantly I give my time to charities that need help distributing food etc.

When you give back through charity you are telling the universe that you have more than enough and the universe will answer and in turn it will give you more than enough.  Gratitude is the true path to abundance in all forms includng wealth, health and spirituality.

Today is the 1st of January 2008. I ask you to think about last year and what moments in 2007 that you are grateful for and what you are going to do this year to show your gratitude.

To all my readers I wish you abundance for 2008

 Leon Grey

Ever wonder why you don’t do things you say you should do? Do you think that you’re just lazy or maybe lost motivation? It could be a bit of both, but one thing I know is that the language that you use on yourself has a dramatic effect on whether you complete what you need to do or not. Most people in this great world of ours use the word “should” too often. Here are some examples

• I should clean the house today
• I should go to the gym tonight
• I should buy my wifes present today

Have you notice that things you should do can be pushed to the next day, funny thing is the next day isnt the next day anymore, the next day is. I hope you catch my drift.

Your brain computes the word should as something that has to be done but not urgently, so it can be put off. As my mentor Anthony Robbins says “You say should, should, should so much that you end up shoulding all over yourself?

Try replacing the word “should” with a more powerful word like “must”. your brain computes this as something you must do without fail. Ill replace should with must in the afore examples

• I must clean the house today
• I must go to the gym tonight
• I must buy my wifes present today

Read them out aloud and you can feel the importance of doing these tasks now.

Dictionary.com defines the word “must” as a couple of things

1. to be compelled to in order to fulfill some need or achieve an aim: We must hurry if we’re to arrive on time.
2. to be or feel urged to; ought to: I must buy that book.

So next time you say the word “should”, stop yourself short and repeat the sentence with the word “must”. Try it and see the changes in your ability to complete tasks.

Another word on the list is “try”, as my ex boss and mentor Philip Langley drilled into me, “there is no such thing as try, either you do or don’t” A classic example:

What is trying to sit down? – Standing up
What is trying to stand up? – Sitting down

So next time you say, “I will try to, fill in the blank”, just make a decision to do it or not. It will make your life a lot more easier.

Now clean off all that should on yourself and get going.

Success and Abundance

Leon

This is a quote from the movie, “Six Degrees of Separation”. Personally I have never seen the movie myself but I like the quote. My motivation to write this is because of what happened last night. I was on facebook and I found an old primary school friend, actually, we may not have been friends but I suppose we may have spoken once in a while. Here is the interesting thing, 20+ years has gone by and I see this person and quickly jump into a conversation like we had been best friends for years, yet during school we may have spoken to each other a total of 1 hour.

Where am I getting at with all this? Well, I would like to have a chat with you about friendships, people and your network. I must say all my close school friendships are still there, but because of the stages of our lives we don’t speak much. On the other hand I make great friends regularly who are great people with different backgrounds and personalities. For some years now I was quite lonely, my old school friends and I were slowly drifting apart and I found it difficult to make new ones, my refuge was the Internet. At the age of 28 I joined a property investing group and suddenly found the true power of networking! These people had the same interests as me and I was finally making new friends!

TIP: If you are looking to make new friends/build your network, then join groups which have similar interests to you.

Here’s a question for you. How many of you really know about your existing friends? I mean really know about them? I’m aiming more at the guys with this one because we tend not to open up our feelings to anyone. I used to do it, but it was hard because my mates aren’t the open up type of blokes, but it is always good to try know your friends at a deeper level.

All these new people I meet, have a totally different history with different experiences in life and they are like the quote says, “a new door to a different world”. It interests me incredibly to hear about the experiences and life of another person, especially when I am walking the same path.

TIP: If you want to make new friends and want to build your the social skills, then read this book. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Success and Happiness!