Fish, Sat-Nav's and the Commodores
by Martin Jones

You know how it goes. You say 'some stuff' to Sue … and those eyebrows do their thing, and already you know it's easy to know what's coming …

'How about you write an article about 'that stuff' - for the newsletter ?'

.. and having spent an amazing week at Sue's in France on the 'Intensif' (about stepping effortlessly and inevitably into "ones" potential!) … guess what the reply is! You've been there.

So you see my pal, and fellow NLP journeyman David Fraser, had prompted me by saying 'most people have a book in them. It's usually a book about what they're working-on in life. What would yours be called ? '. I didn't know that I knew without hesitation - it's called "Pssst ! has anyone told you life's supposed to be easy ?".

Sue had been driving me, on that Sunday morning, to the beautiful French town of Bergerac where I was due on the Ryanair flight home much later that day.

So I settle down on a grassy bank listening to the early morning crickets and the lapping of the stunning wide river as it winds beneath the picture-postcard, stone-and-wood town of Bergerac … and I'm thinking … 'Easy' …Ok …How hard can that be ?. Oops#1. I wonder how good other people's articles are. Oops#2.

I start my dis-ease.

Then my gaze is drawn to an unusual fish in the cool, clear water of the river. It's a stunning blue-green fish just hovering effortlessly in a gap in the weeds - attentive and elegant, waiting to catch its breakfast. Maybe it hadn't considered the modal operator of necessity. I think it should. So I do that bit for it …I paddle out … I decide to help it get breakfast … Or so I thought.

And you notice the dis-ease paradigms that we're immersed in…. we are 'as Neo' as he starts to waken from the matrix.

Morpheus is saying 'You can feel it. It is this feeling that has brought you to me

Like everyone else, you were born into bondage

At school I notice my seven year old son Matthew had got B's and C's for effort - no marks for the elegance of getting his A's for achievement - without effort !

A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is.

In my first job as an engineer - the managers would take a dim view of staff if they didn't have a grimace on their face with sweat running down their brow - grinding out results.

Born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch.

In my early career I remember I was once very nearly fired for talking with a colleague 'in a jovial manner' as we were kicking around some really easy ways to do the daft job we were doing.

You have to see it for yourself.

Businesses are making tough decisions, painful cuts, agonising over their finances … only the strong survive … sink or swim …execs need to take the hard line …

(and Morpheus holds a blue pill and red pill). You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in that bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

I read that 92% of all stories on corporate news channels are about pain. That one too.

(Neo reaches for the red pill). You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland.

Remember … all I am offering is a truth, nothing more.

Struggling with the 'Easy story' (Doh!). I arrive back in East Midlands in the UK and set off on the 2 hour, Sat-Nav-assisted drive to Manchester.

The traffic winds off to infinity; roads are blocked solid; weather is grumbling with thunder. I can feel my dis-ease grow as I re-route time and again to avoid all the snarl -ups. I'm getting myself irritated and sweaty. I begin to imagine the Tom-Tom is working overtime, it's getting fed up with me taking diversions, it's probably swearing in machine-code, overheating, at having to re-think the route every few minutes. It all seems a long way from the joys of 'Trainer Training' in the Dordogne.

Woah ! … Martin ! … you're writing a story about 'Ease' … Relax, time for a re-frame … let the Sat-Nav be all it can be …

Like the unconscious mind - the Sat-Nav delights in effortless real-time insights and adjustments - that's what it does - with consummate ease. It feels only the simple pleasure of knowing what to do in any one moment - this very definition of intelligence.- when the would-be 'driver' is getting stressed and doesn't know what to do.

Your Sat-Nav has an entire, and fully-functioning model, not just of East Midlands, of your whole universe. Just as the fish in the river - had all the resources it needed. Without me.

I decide to guide some of the tiny small-fry near the bank towards my blue-green friend… to help it feed. It looks unimpressed - uncertain … and as I stand there I realise that I'm cramping its style - it's become conscious of my presence - breakfast is just not happening like this.

I step back from the bank, from the stiff posture stooped over the river, settle back in the gentle morning sun, on the dewy grass, breathing deeply of the clear summer air. Ahhhh h h h h h h.

Within a minute the fish has its breakfast.

And two minutes later my story is written.

'Cos when you think about a song that you know …. one about 'Easy …'

There it is.

You do know. … just like that.

It's easy.

Like a Sunday morning.