Welcome: Stories to wake up to!
International options for eBook and paperback:
Listen to the radio interview
About the book
Read the Sample Chapters
Buy the book
Listen to the radio interview
LISTEN to the radio interview for WELCOME: /wp-content/uploads/2015/03/20150304-Twin-Cities-Alan-Welcome.mp3
About the book…
It started small, just a short email one Monday morning. It grew to become a weekly message to kick-start the week for readers around the world. It’s what they wanted. It has become an extended welcome, an invitation to explore life and to continue the conversation.
Sometimes we all need a reminder of how incredible life really is in every moment. That means being open to the world unfolding every day. It means making time to remember, to feel grateful, and to look at your life from a new perspective.
This book is your reminder that you are welcome here.
Open the book.
Open your mind.
Open your self.
Welcome.
Contents…
Introduction
Good morning
Your own place
The tower of Hercules
Just a little further
Single daily action
Roots of gold
You are amazing
Choosing your self
Hearing your self
Standing for more
A guiding hand
Changing perspective
No boring bits
Direction
Time flies
Not caring
The worst they can say is No
Running around in ecstasy
Begin it now
Seeing clearly
Moving on
Passion needs purpose
The accelerator of excellence
True compassion
Childlike wonder
Release and continue on your way
You are so powerful
Setting your GPS
Real self care
Eureka!
Commitment begins with commit
Choose your own adventure
Being alive
Your language is your world
Inspired building
Being vs doing
Giving love
Play slowly
Bringing you to life
Loved and powerful
Playing down
Inspirational dissatisfaction
The past has passed (or thoughts on thought)
Today’s news
All about you
Manuela the tortoise
Frictionless inspiration
Default attitudes
Stuckness
Complete satisfaction
Everything’s alright
Press on
Permission
Big projects
Tailored to suit
The tiny fish
Will you allow it?
Space
Afterword
Techniques
Acknowledgments
About the author
Sample Chapter: Single Daily Action
“The question is: What will I water today? I begin each day with reminding myself that we are living in a miracle. This day is precious. I am alive and breathing. Everything is interconnected. Everything we do makes a difference.”
—Bill Cumming (American coach)
I remember a time when I ran a coaching workshop for a group of high-achievers and entrepreneurs. After the workshop, one of the younger attendees approached me for a chat. He had a pronounced stutter, and he had been moving forward confidently to help fix it. As part of improving his speaking, his speech supervisor had assigned him the task of talking to 100 people a day. That’s a lot of people!
This kind of commitment to a new habit, sometimes called the “single daily action”, is a certainty in the lives of successful people. They all do it. It is one action repeated every day to move you closer to your goal. Some examples of single daily actions that clients have set for themselves during our coaching sessions include: sending five applications, asking two girls out for coffee, calling five potential employers, and writing 10 customised quotes (proposals). Every day!
Concrete goals should definitely take precedence over “filler” activities like checking email, cleaning the house, or running errands (unless those are your single daily actions). Small but consistent actions help move you forward a little bit every day, making a huge difference in achieving your goals. Getting where you need to go is just a matter of performing this single daily action over time.
You don’t need to jump straight in and try to accomplish it all at once. There’s a lot of time to get where you want to go. What’s your single daily action for getting where you want to go next? Is it big enough for you?
Sample Chapter: Good Morning
“We are here to tell you that the world is getting better and better, and better… it’s no wonder that the Universe is expanding in this marvellous way and that life is getting better, in every day—and in this moment—for everyone who insists on focusing there.”
—Esther Hicks (American speaker)
This morning I woke up as the sun rose, to the sound of Australian birds (magpies, honeyeaters, and mudlarks) singing their morning songs. It’s a special way to wake up to the world; there are not many places that this happens quite like here.
Life continues to grow and evolve, inside and outside your door. Today, the weather brings an entirely new combination of wind, light, heat or cold, never before seen in the history of the world.
Amazingly, and just like almost every other day for you so far, you woke up in a safe and beautiful sanctuary. Your bed is comfortable and warm. Your home was designed by experts. The foundations are solid, there are clever doors and windows, and it holds personal significance to you. Each brick and piece of timber was shaped and put in place by an artisan who spent years honing their craft. Elsewhere, the hundreds of people involved in putting together the other elements of your home are also going about their day.
Dedicated enterprises devote 24 hours each and every day to ensuring that a plethora of futuristic services are provided to you seamlessly. Many of these were only invented after your birth… you’ve picked a great time to be alive!
If the sun or birds didn’t wake you this morning, you may have been woken by a small device invented by geniuses in California or Seoul, a product of millions of years of planetary evolution and human innovation. A skilful professional built this particular gadget by hand, and thousands of people were involved in supplying it to you.
Your gadgets, and much of your home, get their power from an outrageous discovery: electricity, provided direct to you in a safe and secure way. Your bathroom and kitchen bring you clean water, at the temperature you request. Your devices are connected to a massive global network of other devices, allowing free-form communication and access to essentially any resource you can imagine.
Your body has continued to perform its own upgrade while you’ve been unconscious overnight. Refreshing and rejuvenating itself mentally and physically, your body has been ensuring that you’re “topped up” to begin the rest of your life this morning. Your breathing has continued at about 15 breaths per minute, and your heart has pumped five litres of blood around your body every minute. Cells continue to be manufactured, your digestion is ready and waiting, and many other processes are always functioning inside you without your intervention.
You have access to more new thought, through more new technology, than at any other time in world history. You can choose what to read, what to watch, who to speak to, which pictures to look at, and which kind of music to listen to, all from a wide variety of media.
You’re already awake.
What do you feel like doing next?
Buy the book
Welcome: Stories to wake up to!