On a recent Friday morning I meet a young man loading the supermarket shelves. I reached for a block of butter and we bumped into each other. “Excuse me” he said politely. He was so polite I wanted to give him something.  I heard myself asking him “Have you got a long range goal for your life?”
“I don’t know what that is” he said shyly.”
“O.k. where do you see your life in a few years time?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’d like to give you a gift”, I  suggested.  I had his attention. “I’m going to give you my life-mantra.  It’s a positive cluster of words that I’ve been saying over and over for about twenty years, and it’s all come true. It’s all come into my life.” Now I really had his interest.
He was silent, waiting for his “gift”.

Here it is, it goes like this… it’s a mantra: “I’m happy, healthy, wise and wealthy. That’s it.” He looked at me. “I could say the “happy and healthy bit but the wise and wealthy… I don’t know.”
“You say it, and it will all come to you”.
“Oh, I’ve heard that before,” he said smiling.
“Well let me tell you it’s true. It’s worked for me, that’s for sure.”

My mantra has made me the man I am today. It’s my brand. I am happy, healthy, wise and wealthy. That’s me and I share those values with as many people as I can.

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Today I have  begun a new project. I'm calling it "A Catalogue of Compliments". The idea was born out of two experiences I've had so many times. The first is that I would guess more than half the people I compliment, say nothing in response. They are silent. They don't know what to say. They inadvertently block it.

​And the other experience is that I notice so many people simply do not know how to compliment another. The just don't have the words. The world needs to read my Compliment Catalogue! (It will be published on www.clivelittin.com very soon!)

My father used to say this often. He would get tired of people jumping to hasty conclusions - people thinking they know the story when they've only heard a bit of it. I think this little text was the beginning of my interest in learning to listen.

​I have Diabetes. The Doc says I need to increase  my level of exercise. (I thought I  had!) Anyway   I want to step up to the challenge so I've bought myself a "Fitbit" watch. Among other things it counts the number of steps I take each day. Very clever. Well, it's working. When I bought it last week I was doing about 2000 steps. Now already I'm up to 6000. My goal is 10,000 steps a day. (That  includes 30 minutes on the bouncer) And my sugar level is pleasantly dropping. Hurray! (BTW it only cost me NZ$14.00 - a good investment!)

​I'm thirsty. I need some water. I'll find a glass. Turn on the tap. Sip some water - ah, that does the trick!
Now what did I just do? Several miracles. When my body alerted me to the pangs of thirst I set my brain in motion. My brain sent a cluster of commands to my hands to perform some very simple actions.
A thought is an impulse of energy and information. Magnificent. With a few silent and invisible thoughts I created some  physical reality. Hey! I can create my reality just by thinking! Too good to be true?

Our culture is changing. When I was a kid we were taught to roll with the punches. These days it's more  like "Now who's gonna offend me today"  We have become too damn precious. Too PC. Have a look at your news today. I bet you'll find someone is suing someone else for something quite trivial in the scheme of things.