Everything is connected, everything physical, mental and spiritual. How you think, what you think, what you say, what you do, what you don’t do – all of this impacts your life and changes everything, every second of every day.

SOMEBODY MIGHT GET THE PRIZE BUT WE CAN ALL WIN. OK so sometimes you don’t get the deal / medal / eBay item / job / girl / boy / etc. But everything is an opportunity for success. You didn’t win; your success is only my failure if I don’t congratulate you, as well as work out why you beat me and take action on what I need to do in future to win. Our relationship has become a learning one. All failures and mistakes, as well as a major event such as an illness can make you stronger if you learn the lesson.

But, more than competing every day; think win:win. Stephen Covey’s 4th habit. Get out of your win/lose attitude and look for a solution in which everyone benefits. The best deals are always those when both walk away from the table satisfied; long-term the results are always worth more than any short-term gain. Even though times are tough, don’t have a scarcity mentality; don’t be stupid but there is usually enough to go around. People remember when you support them, and support you in your times of need.

FEEDBACK is essential to personal and professional success and development. If those around you trust you and know they can speak their mind without nasty repercussions, then your relationships, perspective on life, delivery and success will be enhanced every day.

YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL ON YOUR OWN. No matter how good you are. Successful individuals build strong teams around them: whether that’s a partner and friends they confide in and go to for support, or a team at work who are all passionate about delivering for each other. Powerful relationships in your personal life and work mean that you share: advice, affirmation, ideas, lessons, perspective, and changes in direction or tactics when needed. Having a good team around you supports you in the tough times and helps you celebrate in the good.

IF I WAS TO GIVE ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO MYSELF if I was to start my career again it would be to remember and keep in touch with everyone I met at work and socially: friend them on Facebook, drop them an email asking how their day is. As my great friend Horace said the other day “later in life it’s not about WHAT you know but WHO you know.”

EVERYTHING IS IN EVERYTHING. Fundamental to our understanding of the importance of relationships is the knowledge, derived from modern physics but always known in ancient wisdom, that everything is enfolded in everything – everything is all part of one unbroken whole, all and always connected.

According to the physicist) David Bohm all of existence is enfolded within each “fragment” of time and space – whether it is an object, a thought, or an event. Everything affects everything else because they are all parts of the same whole. Basically when the Universe started everything came from the same place, and we have never lost that connection. A blade of grass, you, your mum, and your friend’s car – if you go back far, far enough we all started in the same place. As Bohm says, “The entire past is enfolded in each one of us in a very subtle way. If you reach deeply into yourself, you are reaching into the very essence of mankind. When you do this, you will be led into the generating depth of consciousness that is common to the whole of mankind and that has the whole of mankind enfolded in it. The individual’s ability to be sensitive to that becomes the key to the change of mankind. We are all connected. If this could be taught, and if people could understand it, we would have a different consciousness.”

Mach’s principle states “The whole is necessary to the understanding of its parts, as the parts are necessary to the understanding of the whole.” The ancients also described this “As above, so below.” The Chinese proverb says “If you cut a blade of grass, you shake the Universe.” Local events have an influence, no matter how small, on the universe as a whole; particularly when there are many of them. Throw trash on the ground and it doesn’t look good; but if everyone does it people might think “why should I care about this neighbourhood?”, and who knows what they might then go on to do? An overseas businessman visits and notes that people in that area don’t seem to care about where they live: “why should we locate our factory there – the workers are going to be trouble”.

Relationship is the organising principle of everything; create a positive relationship at home, at work, on your travels throughout the day and that positivity ripples out to have affects well beyond where you could imagine because we are all part of the same whole, all connected.

“Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms – up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested – probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.”
Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”

Everything is in everything and we are all made of stars.