Arnold Beekes

You ran competitively throughout your youth, always wearing a straitjacket like everyone else. Running became boring, until at 25 years old, you were beaten by someone who didn't wear a straitjacket. (S)he outperformed you in speed, skill, and endurance, and had fun doing it. You were shocked and wondered how it was possible to run without a straitjacket and enjoy it. You can dismantle the straitjackets. www.brainathletes.club

  There is a lot of dissatisfaction and lack of wellbeing in the world and in the world of work.   These are not exceptions to the rule. No, the rule itself is under pressure. What is the rule as it relates to work? In many organizations the rule is that you have to put work at the top of your priorities. Work is supposed to be more important than your life, your family, and your health & wellbeing. Wellbeing is something that you need to pursue outside of work.   Today’s workers are no longer accepting this rule. Work is part of life, not life itself. Workers are responding to this gap (the gap between the view of employees as resources versus the view of employees as human beings) in different ways.     Quiet quitting When someone is quiet quitting, they are actually not leaving their job. Instead, they are choosing to stay in their role, but saying goodbye to the unnecessary stress that has been added to their lives from consistently going above and beyon...

  Or swimming in ice hockey gear? You think that is ridiculous. Still, that is what we all do most of the time.   We let beliefs limit us.  We believe that we are not good enough (as been told by parents, teachers and bosses). We believe that we cannot change or grow. We believe everything that mass-media tells us.   Most of the time, fear is driving our behavior. And fear definitely makes us risk-averse. When I ask people whether they are using their full potential, they look at me in a sad way. They immediately feel the pain of not living up to their own capabilities.   Here in The Netherlands there is a  waitlist of 80.000  people for getting admitted to the mental health system. Those are people who suffer mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially and/or environmentally. Their pain adds to our collective pain.   Part of that suffering is caused by the straitjackets that others want us to wear. There are straitjackets targeting y...

  Generally speaking, life sucks. Life is boring, stupid, unfair, and lonely. Full of fear and conditioning.  You can make life bearable in a healthy (learning, creating, caring) as well as in an unhealthy way (addiction).   Learning and creating are constructive distractions. Caring gives context to your own suffering. Most of the time you see that you are better off than the people you care for.  The goal of addiction is to numb you down. Trying to escape from the uncomfortable reality. In this unhealthy way, you give away your control and your power.  Choose wisely. Don't be a machine.

  Do you know what your default settings are in the way you operate? Do the test here : https://bit.ly/3ni9DuX

  Leaders want you to be chicken. That makes it easier to control you. Un-conditioning is a must for both your health and wellbeing. A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would trash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.  Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s the eagle, the king of birds,” his neighbor said. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth-we’re chickens.” So, the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was. ~ Anthony de Mello