TO TRAIN OR NOT TO TRAIN? THAT IS THE QUESTION.

On Sunday I completed the City to Surf Fun Run, a 12 kilometre (7.2 mile) run from Perth to City Beach in Western Australia. I had run it a number of times before, the first time being when I was 14. It's meant to go something like this; about 12 weeks out from the Fun Run, I start to train with short runs increasing in distance, tempo, and intensity over the next 12 weeks to condition myself to run. I watch what I eat and coming into the last few days before the actual run, I load up on good carbohydrates to ensure I have a good store of energy when I run. During this time, I also stretch to ensure my muscles have enough elasticity to minimise the chance of injury while I run.

When I was younger, I did little, if any of this, because I was active, flexible, lean and able to recover quickly afterwards. As I aged, in my head I still felt the same and even though I am older I am still in better condition than most, so my actual training was almost non-existent although I watched what I was eating as I already do. In fact most of my training consisted of walking around our property looking after the horses, including the big hill that conquers most people. My excuse was the one most people use. I was really busy and couldn't find time to train.

On race day, I arrived, did a few cursory stretches, did a little jogging and bounced a little to warm up. The race was on. I tried to keep my ego out of it, and keep a steady pace. I spotted an older chap, probably around 60, who looked like he ran regularly, and had a wonderful steady even tempo, so I used him as a pacer. I lost him once, but found him a kilometre later. My lungs were working beautifully, I wasn't puffed. My legs moved smoothly, I took regular sips of water and doused my head to keep cool. The only thing that was offering me problems was my calves. They were struggling. Despite my lack of training, I only walked about 300 metres of the course, and maintained a reasonable pace throughout.

My goal was to beat my time that I had set in 1983 of 59 minutes when I was 15. Considering that I am nearly three times that age now, I came in at around an hour and ten minutes. It was a bit hard to tell exactly, because I accidentally stopped my stop watch mid-race. I struggled a bit toward the end as my calves were really hurting, but I was still running. I was quite proud of myself and am pretty happy with my time.

As I sit here writing this, I have spent the last two days, walking like I am 93 years old with two dodgy hips. It made me realise that I should have trained. Next year I will do exactly that and train properly, because I really want to break my best time. Next year will be the one! It also gave me a bit of an epiphany. In life, like running and any fitness plan, we do little training, little preparation, little forward projection, then wonder why we end up with sore calves, torn tendons, sore feet, and any number of pains. If I had sat down, worked out a plan, scheduled in time to train by prioritising the various areas of my life to ensure that I was ready, the result would have been vastly different, I would more than likely have broken my record by a considerable amount. My life has been much the same. If I had taken the time to plan and prepare, I could have avoided a lot of pain.

Do you have times when you were posed the question, 'To train or not to train? That is the question', and decided not to and then wondered why you ended up with pain. Sometimes we don't even know we have to train. Sometimes we don't even know what the training is. If only we took the time. I certainly wish I had taken some time at least to train. What about you? What do you choose?

Wayne Brown is a facilitator and promoter for life change. Contact him at

the7bigquestions@yahoo.com or www.the7bigquestions.com

or listen to his podcasts at www.the7bigquestions.podomatic.com

WHAT'S IN YOU?                                                                        Sat 18/08/2012

It's hard to believe that a whole week has passed and I haven't had time to write a blog, record a podcast or anything but it has been a great week full of learning, revelations, interactions with my past and reinforcement of the foundations of The 7 Big Questions.

On top of my full-time job, I have been refreshing my first aid knowledge. Very important. I actually encourage everyone to at least have a very basic knowledge of first aid. A personal experience from many years ago. In my late teens, I had qualified for my bronze medallion in both public swimming pools and at the beach, as I was a volunteer life saver at the time. I was driving when I was 20 with two young ladies in the car, at night. Suddenly one of the ladies had a massive asthma attack and stopped breathing. I quickly pulled the car over, pulled her out of the car, lay her down and commenced mouth-to-mouth. She stopped breathing six times over the next 20 minutes. Each time I had to revive her again. I had sent the other lass to get an ambulance. It was only later that I pondered what would have happened had I not known how to give first aid. It's funny how a choice we make now can impact not just our lives but someone else's years later. There are now a mother and two daughters walking around on this earth because of a choice I made. Yes, she went on to have twin daughters.

I've also been trying to finalise my previous marriage that was ended by me three years ago and it's still not finished. It was a reminder of how important it is to pick wisely the person you choose to formalise a relationship with. With the amount of divorces that take place in the modern world today, it is said to be more than 2 in 3, it's clear that people don't think very much about this. It is such a major decision and the fact that you 'love each other' is not enough in my book. There are so many facets that need to be looked at and explored before that choice is made to get married. I wish I had chosen better but it's always easy to say that after the fact. The challenge is asking yourself before the fact, and that is only possible through awareness.

I've also been preparing myself for The City to Surf Fun Run in a week. I've prepared a little physically, but most has been mental as I know the ego will be tempted to go for it and I'll either burn out quickly or injure myself. I need to conquer my inner environment to ensure that I start slow and build up speed as I warm up and make sure I don't go above a certain level to make sure that I can finish safely and hopefully better the time I set back in 1983. 1983!!! My God, is it that long ago!!!! I was actually on track 5 years ago to beat it but my feet cramped with a kilometre and a half to go. I'll do it a little more intelligently this time. Get the internals right first and the externals will take care of themselves. I'll let you know how I go.

I've also been creating this next chapter of my life with my lady. It's all very exciting as numerous opportunities present themselves. Actually, they're not presenting themselves, I'm noticing them. Looking back on my life, I realise that I've had many opportunities present themselves, I just haven't noticed or didn't take them. The price I pay for not having awareness. I'm so glad I have it now and can show it to others that are interested. Are you interested? Are you going to find out? What are you going to choose now that will affect your life and the life of others years from now? What are you going to choose?

Wayne Brown is a facilitator and promoter for life change. Contact him at

the7bigquestions@yahoo.com or www.the7bigquestions.com

or listen to his podcasts at www.the7bigquestions.podomatic.com

COMFORT ZONE              

A few years ago, I met a lady that has allowed me to re-discover myself as I had buried my dreams and myself under a lot of garbage. It was a little scary, re-discovering my emotions, my dreams, my wants and needs. As men, we aren't really taught how to handle our emotions, how to decipher them and feel the subtle nuances within each of the basic emotions of anger, fear, shame, happiness and sadness. I know for myself that a few were definitely cut off and I hadn't felt the emotions, let alone the subtle variations for a long time. As I started to become open to them I felt a little uncomfortable and had to really stretch myself to know what they were at first. As I explored them and found out more about them, I became comfortable.

As I was doing all this discovery work internally, my external world was stretching into areas that were uncomfortable. I moved from comfortable suburbia in a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house on a little block to renting a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house on 50 acres, surrounded by horses with a slightly more than doubling of rent. More financial pressure, more responsibility pressure, and on top of that I changed jobs a couple of times to find something that fitted in with my journey. To say I was a little tense was a bit of an understatement. After a few months I became comfortable with the situation and was a little less tense. Since then, I've been slowly pushing the boundaries outward and getting more and more comfortable. The funny thing is that as you push the boundaries, you realise that you aren't going to die and life goes on, before you know it your life is nothing like it used to be.

This is where most people struggle, they decide to get fitter, lose weight, save money, whatever they choose to change, they make these massive plans and after a few weeks fall flat. The key to change though is that people only change when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same. This means for example that they generally have to have a divorce, a major health scare, a redundancy etc before they address the areas of their life that need improvement.There are many things going on behind the scenes that affect this but it all comes down to small steps planned a little way into the future. I'll use losing weight as an example, as most people seem to struggle with this.

If people started with a small incremental change in a number of areas, it would be far less overwhelming and more likely to work. This is based on the idea that any habit becomes permanent after 30 days. If you said, 'for the first week I'm going to eat one less donut, one more apple every second day, I'm going to walk 200 metres every second day and read one chapter of a reputable eating plan each night', then that is a series of small achievable steps. As they become easier, and a habit, add to the different areas until after 6 months, you aren't eating donuts, except occasionally, you're eating more fruit and vegetables, you're walking 5 kilometres per day and reading a book a week on increasing your health and fitness. It should never be massive steps but small steps. A god analogy is if you are driving at night, a great distance, you can only see as far as your headlights reach. That is all you need to do, is see as far as your headlights reach, move into that lit area, then you see further and before you know it, you've driven across the country. It's what I'm doing and seems to be working great. Get your plan, chunk it down, and just regularly apply yourself. Make it a series of small choices and you'll be fine, because after all, it is just small choices. Your choices, so what do you choose?

Wayne Brown is a facilitator for life change. Contact him at

the7bigquestions@yahoo.com or

www.the7bigquestions.com

or listen to his podcasts at www.the7bigquestions.podomatic.com

MY SINGLE CHOICE 

I was thinking today about the choices that we make every single day and how they affect our lives, and remembered a talk I did at Toastmasters a number of years ago. For those of you that don't know, Toastmasters helps people learn to do public speaking. I delivered a talk that was about Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and myself. In all of their lives and mine, their lives were turned in a dramatic direction because of a single choice that they had made in a certain circumstance.

For Gandhi, it was when he was thrown from a train in South Africa, because of this event, he stayed for a number of years in South Africa and also a number of years in India to help fight racism and prejudice against Indian people and the control the British Empire had in India. For Martin Luther King Jr, it was standing up for Rosa Parks when she was arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus and moving to the back with the other black people. For me, it was honouring an agreement I had with a friend and going out on Christmas Eve, two and a half years ago and meeting my lady.

All of our lives, every day are filled with choices, what books and magazines we read, the food we eat, the music, conversations and radio we listen to, the television and internet we watch, who we talk to, learn from, interact with. All of these things have effects on our lives and where they are going. They may only be a small effect but compounded over a number of years, that negative friend will drag you down, that regular meal of fast food will give you health challenges, that trashy TV show will dull your senses.

A number of years ago, I started to become more conscious of these choices and how they impacted on my life and more specifically today how they tie in with The 7 Big Questions. I now am very conscious of how I think, who I talk to, what I read, watch and listen to. All of these things impact my life and I want to be in control of what influences me these days.

I remember years ago reading a story on Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and someone had asked Holmes why he knew nothing about a particular subject.  He retorted 'Why should I clutter my mind with subjects that will only take up space and for which I have no use.'  This is how we have to be, conscious of what we fill our minds and our lives with.

If you want to get a better life, become conscious of your choices. Really think about the effect your world around you has on you. At the end of the day, you are responsible for what influences you and your life. Choice wisely, because only you have the choice. What is your choice?

Wayne Brown is a facilitator for life change. Contact him at

his email address: the7bigquestions@yahoo.com 

or his website   www.the7bigquestions.com

or listen to his podcasts at www.the7bigquestions.podomatic.com

MY HEAD HURTS                                                                                          Monday 06/08/2012

It's a funny thing about my journey, there have been many twists and turns, some of which have taught me lessons, others where I hadn't learnt the lessons and had to repeat the experience until I had. I believe I will never stop learning and don't want to. If I push against my comfort zone so I am a little uncomfortable, get used to that spot, then push again, I have to grow.

This weekend I finished a boot camp teaching about real estate. It has filled my head right up with some very full-on information and it is quite full. There was a lot of information in this three day bootcamp to get my head around and some of it went in and some I am going to have to re-read / watch / listen to, to get it to go in. It was stressful at times, as we had very little spare time and my lady and I got a little stressed and antsy with each other but we got past that like every other time. We are a bit shagged at the moment but we'll get there. This boot-camp like everything in my life, I may have to work hard to drive the lessons home.

I am glad that I am taking myself past my comfort zone as I have had enough of my life the way it was and now want more control and better results and a better quality of life. My life is currently like this on the quality-o-meter;

          Adulthood

Birth             First marriage

                           Second marriage                    My life NOW                                                                                 Where I want it

|_____|___|_|___________________|______________________________________________|

Low                                                                                                                                           High

Of course this journey is going to be challenging, scary, exciting, enlightening and should make me an even better version of who I am now. There is a saying that “People only change when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same”. I have had the pain of poor relationships, career, finances, health and I have had enough. There is too much pain there. I have started to change and realise that the pain form the change is not that scary so I'm giving the change a go. Of course, I've had times when I've had the lesson but didn't learn it, or ignored it, but I feel I've finally woken up. Bring on the roller-coaster.   I'll keep you posted on how I'm going. I'm looking forward to what comes.

You also have to decide if you are comfortable pushing your comfort zone and growing. How much pain are you willing to tolerate to create the life you say you want? What do you decide? What is your choice?

Wayne Brown is a facilitator for life change. Contact him at

the7bigquestions@yahoo.com or www.the7bigquestions.com

or listen to his podcasts at www.the7bigquestions.podomatic.com

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED

Why is it that so many of us are born with fully functioning bodies, operational senses, more than adequate brains, are so many of us fall well short of what we are capable of achieving.

I know for myself, I look back on my life and see that I have had no excuse. I have always been pretty healthy, fit and functioning. I have never really struggled financially (I have managed to stay above the poverty line), I live in one of the most prosperous and privileged countries in the world, I have everything going in my favour. What has stopped me? I'll tell you what has stopped me...ME!!! I've let fear, fear of judgement, fear of failure, fear of success, the influence of other people's negative beliefs, my belief of being smaller than I am, all of it, I let all of it, influence my journey. I shouldn't have. I have a great big symphony playing on my heart and it is my duty, my obligation to get it out into the world to affect as many people as possible, for the better.

I'm tracking my journey through these blogs, my website, facebook, my products to try and use myself as a template for people to help them take the little daily steps, that will lead to ultimate success. I've been doing this with The 7 Big Questions and I heartily encourage you to send an e-mail and reserve your copy of my e-book series and the accompanying workbook to answer your 7 Big Questions and create your life, free of the opinion of others.

As usual, I leave it in your hands because no-one can make the choice for you. You, and only you can get off your butt and create your life the way you want it to be. What are you going to choose. What is your choice.

Wayne Brown is a facilitator for life change. Contact him at

the7bigquestions@yahoo.com or 

www.the7bigquestions.com

or listen to his podcasts at www.the7bigquestions.podomatic.com