what world do you live in?

First World citizen: a lovely fellow, though a tad greedy, arrogant and strangely nervous, a resource depleter with optional guilt- need a flush toilet or you’ll die holding it in.

Second World citizen: more resourceful and cheerful than a first worlder, though still trying to be one- by the creative method of simply making more things and more pollution. Able to use a squat loo but envy those with a flusher.

Third World Citizen: Wonderful folk mired in traditional practices while the elite steal from everyone. At home with the miraculous. At least able to take a shit in the bush.

Fourth World Citizen: Have no national allegiances, can originate anywhere but see yourself on a permanent journey, usually a few hang-ups about not fitting in; determined to show no guilt, capable of living in a mud hut or a penthouse suite, an eye out for the miraculous, can shit anywhere; usually hard-up, but can be rich in experiences and skills.

three life rules

Turn up: you're already 50% there.

Turn up cheerful: you're 75% there.

Turn up cheerful and don't keep making the same mistakes repeatedly: you're 100% there.

be a travel genius

Life isn't always fun but travel is, or can be. Bringing the 'travelling mentality' back into your everyday life can be a way to lighten things up, get some much needed perspective. Being a travel genius is about revelling in the act of travel, opening up to it. Inspiration is always out there- all you have to do is let it in.

Some people travel well- taking little goodies from home just to lighten things up when the going gets tough...er.

The key time is the first 48 hours of a travel experience. That's when you're wide open, learning all the time.

high energy v. wrong energy

People talk as if there are only high energy and low energy people, events, encounters. In fact there are many different kinds as only a few moment's reflection will reveal. Many so called hi-energy encounters are in fact simply 'wrong energy', with people displaying an excess of nervousness or even hostility. This is the basic dichotomy known to sports performance coaches: high and low 'positive energy' and high and low 'negative energy'. High positive is the ideal state- it is playful energy. High negative is aggressive energy, that can turn hostile with ease, and is far more common and though effective in some measure in some circumstances, does not 'transmit' as high-positive energy does. Low positive is mellow calmness while low negative is the least attractive- depressed and pessimistic. 

Positive energy 'transmits', people around the high positive person get an energy boost and generally feel better about life. Really positive energy kind of blasts open a person's defences - whatever state they are in, but lower states require a 'key encounter'. By this I mean both people meeting need to find, for want of a better word, a 'wavelength' to communicate on. When they do positive energy can manifest in the encounter. Even though each person wasn't feeling that positive before hand.

Knowing this, though, one can slip into becoming an energy vampire or energy pirate. Energy vampires know that you can catch energy from people but due to a chronic lack of attention they mistake attention getting behaviour with getting on to a similar wavelength. Pirates are more cavalier- basically they cruise around seeking to increase their energy by downing on yours, or stealing yours by various forms of squelching your enthusiasm. Pirates love to get into competitive bouts because the attention they get (and give to themselves) from winning is translated into an energy boost.

Perhaps positive energy can be characterised as energy states where the attention needs of the individual are under control- having been met as a part of their everyday life. When we seek attention we often screw it up, far better to identify situations that are guaranteed to deliver attention and schedule a few of those each day into your life. Attention is a key source of holistic (ie. covering mind and body) energy, just as food is a key source of physical energy. When people are not seeking attention their energy can bubble away and transmit to others. When they are seeking attention randomly, just like a person searching a half-empty fridge for inspiration, their energy cannot be transmitted as its directed at getting nutrition, albeit in a pretty inefficient way. 

Wrong energy, then, is usually either hostile or negative attention getting and giving- still attention of a sort though- and in a world where people are desperate for attention this will do. I recall once feeling really low and depressed while cycling round a roundabout in London. Then a car swerved in front of me and I banged on its side and gave the driver a stream of angry invective. I got attention! And felt a lot better for it. When I spent time in the US, where people give less attention to others than the UK unless that attention is 'demanded' in some way I quickly learnt to be more 'in your face' and direct than I am in Britain. I had to adjust my attention getting mechanisms. I think one reason why some people dislike travel is their habitual ways of getting attention don't work abroad, and then there are the travel junkies- who find they get more attention abroad than at home.

The world runs on positive energy. It's what we pay for when we see a singer we like or a movie star. It's why we read a vital, badly written, book every time over a lifeless well written one. It's why successful entrepeneurs are often playfully energetic types. Luckily it's everywhere- we are just good at getting in its way. Positive energy - more than you need - is flowing through any living creature - all you have to do is identify what is distorting its flow. For it is 'living on top of the flow' that characterises the feeling of 'having positive energy'. You don't have to feel it to live it though. Finding ways to get rid of those obstructions to positive energy flow can start with getting good physical energy reserves- food and exercise- and good holistic energy reserves- a reliable attention supply.

don't manage time, manage energy

What separates top tennis players? Their power, skill, talent? Nope. How they manage their downtime, the time between, games, sets and matches. Those that chill, relax and refocus always beat the one stamping and pacing and berating himself between points.

In a world of unpredictability time is something you can never manage perfectly. You're always going to be late or early, or have your time 'wasted', or be trying 'to do too much'. Time management is always a kind of fantasy. Even when people only do so much per time slot, never over running, they are in fact managing energy not time.

I know from writing if I allow a two hour slot only, I'll get more done than an open ended 'do as much as I can' set up. The time constraint makes me focus my energies. But if I then get greedy to do more I find the next day I can't get anything like as much done. By finding the optimum energy concentration slot I maximise my output.

A good soldier always sleeps whenever he can- he never knows when he won't be able to.

You can a manage your energies very precisely. It is entirely within your own control how much you bring to the party, or how you choose to relax. By focusing on managing your energies you regain a sense of control over your own destiny.

Time can't be owned with anything like the same precision. And if you are normal you will want to 'give time' to others. Well that can't be budgeted in so you either accept your timetable is shot or be ungenerous to others.

The function in Zen Buddhism of a very precise timetable is not to lock the monk in. On the contrary if anything important comes up a monk is free to depart from his set routine of work and meditation. The timetable is there for when there ISN'T anything 'important'. It's there so that you always know what you should be doing, you're never at a loose end dribbling away your energies.

Energy needs a focus or framework to be maintained. Think of a pipeline with loads of holes in it- only a fraction of the water pumped in arrives. That is what happens when you start with energy and no focus, no framework. The energy doesn't build. But if you have a time constraint or a very specific achievable target you have a pipe with no holes. Energy is maintained as momentum- that carries you on to the next thing you want to do that day.

We can be tyranised by a timetable instead of using it as an aid to energy maximisation. Use the timetable to construct slots that allow for maximum output. Don't try and 'get as much done as possible' treating yourself like a knackered horse pulling a cart, instead plan the day so your energy builds and does not wane. Think of those formula one drivers who have to ration their fuel so as not take badly planned pit stops.

A hi-energy encounter can be a 1000% more successful than a low energy one, or a wrong energy one. Use your time to manage such energy.

secrets of the Persian carpet seller #3

More business wisdom from Fat Frank the Persian carpet dealer: this time- how to laugh with others on the way to the bank.

"It is important to establish the spirit of co-oporation with a new supplier or a party you want to do business with. Call it win-win. The question is, sometimes you have to train people to go from screw-you to win-win.

There are those who want to make money from you and there are those who make money with you. Someone might give you merchandise to sell. The chances are that that person already is fully aware of the retail market for that merchandise- he knows how hard or easy it is to sell. If the guy is smiling at you (because you are buying it expensively) than he is most certainly laughing at you.

When I started out the Afghan’s I dealt with brought me very saleable goods- at a price- $1200 a piece. I made money, but over time I knew this was too much to pay. I went to Peshawer and did not call their bluff or make them defensive. I merely said, " You had your laugh at me and I am grateful because you gave me a chance to check the market."

They invoiced me the same goods for $480. To which I answered, "Now we can laugh together."

The early high price of Afghan stock gave me a great chance to market the goods expensively. I had to be creative- but it worked. If I’d got them dirt cheap I might have just let them go for very little and not seen the great HIDDEN value within them. Remember price is not value. A businessman doesn’t trade in prices he trades in values. He finds the value in an object and then gets a good price for it.

I had to laugh when I read of a US company that is devoted to providing high quality cotton waste rags… but with a full back-up service of washing and delivery. They were very profitable. The money in a waste rag is almost zero, but add a good service to it and it becomes full of value.

The Afghan experience enabled me to find the hidden value, make money, then, when they gave me a better supply price I could discount my carpets and make even more money by shifting even more rugs. Ever since they have been laughing with me.

Where’s the catch? Only this- they knew that sooner or later I would find out the real price and if they didn’t cut it I would eventually get another supplier.

Fortunately there is never a monopoly in rug supplies.

I have a rule for a new supplier. At any one time I have 12 suppliers. The first supplier is the one who is most keen to laugh with me. The 12th supplier is the one who has only just learnt to start laughing with me. The punishment for laughing at me is that if you are the 12th supplier you are likely to drop out and be replaced.

Someone who doesn’t understand shared laughter is taught through the threat of pain not the promise of pleasure. Remember he has already turned that down when he started laughing at me. He might have his goods returned and the account terminated for the time being. With the middle-eastern market people don’t leave on good terms. There has to be some symbolic rage and discontent. The 12th  or the 11th supplier from our point of view has the least loyalty. So I might turn nasty on him if he shows no sign of learning how to laugh with me.

I know that I am not very good at turning on people and I don’t pretend I am (I am a good businessmen, I employ people better than myself) so I have employed a man who can really bark and I just approve of the barking.

People learn that they cannot get our first or second account without having earned that position with a lot of shared laughter."

playful energy v. obsessional energy

People see that having energy and being energetic are attractive qualities. They find that that having energy is a good feeling. So they work out ways to get more- drugs, exercise, being up beat and positive, working hard. Some stumble on the fact that there is apparently unlimited energy available to the fundementalist religious type, the mega productive artist and writer, the workaholic, the fitness fanatic. In other words- obsession. If you straitjacket your mind into obsessional mode you can crank up the energy levels, a bit like a turbo booster on an engine allows you to dial up whatever horsepower you want. But like an engine, where the more power you extract the more fragile the engine becomes, so too, obsessional energy comes with a price tag. Which is; it doesn’t have wings.

What I mean is that obsessional energy doesn't energise others. Oh, it might get some people moving, but it invites as much opposition as anything else. Playful energy- and I don't mean playing, or the image of children running and shrieking around 'letting off steam', I mean a kind of light and delicate flexibility in the way any interaction is handled- one example is the way the character 'Cosmo' is played in Singing in the Rain. A lightness of being. Which allows us to float above our earthbound obsessions and problems. Inventive, careless but precise, not heavy footed and slow- lively and cheerful but not hectoring and bullying. The Japanese have a word 'genki' which describes playful energy very well.

Obsessional energy is earthbound, to some extent. It is not like playful energy which is ethereal and attractive to all because it is not owned, is somehow of another realm. Obsessional energy is gritty and earthbound, humourless sometimes. Playful energy is saved from degenerating into the surreal and absurd by its rootedness in humour.

Why do so many people say such things as, “hope for the world lies with children and artists.” Because children (and some artists) often exemplify this playful energy. They don’t yet have obsessional energy. They play, that’s what they do.

Playful energy has wings. It can be transmitted to others. I do not mean jocular or back slapping humour, I mean rather a kind of light heartedness and light footedness almost a detachment from the world except descending all the time like a non-swimmer crossing a pool by touching the bottom every now and then.

Playful energy can have no aim or end. It doesn’t get you anywhere. But it is vital nutrition none the less.