G. Michael Vasey's Blog: The Wacky World of Dr. Vasey, page 84

It’s All About Marketing

As I cycled on the bike that doesn’t go anywhere this morning like a rat in a cage trying to keep down the middle age spread (can I say that at my age?), it struck me that almost everything I do these days requires marketing. It’s not longer good enough just to do something but now you have to find a way to tell people about it too. Ok, probably, it’s always been that way to some degree but now with social media and the way the world is, it seems that the louder and more effectively you sing your own praises, the more success you enjoy.

But is it really that simple?

On the one hand, it is. You must confidently and unflinchingly go forth and use every opportunity to tell the world about whatever it is you are doing if you want success. It doesn’t matter if this is the software business, an investment opportunity, a book, a movie or whatever. People need to know – they always did – but now, there are so many other people shouting you have to find a way to shout louder or more effectively simply to rise above the noise. The playing field has been leveled people – anyone can get visibility and everyone now has a shot at 30 seconds of fame – if you just know how to sell yourself.

On the other hand it isn’t. Shouting confidently may attract peoples attention but you won’t keep it long if you don’t deliver. It’s not JUST about marketing but about delivering too.

I have done a lot of brand work and strategic marketing with my clients and what I just wrote above really translates into the following;

1. You must have a brand – a brand is an ‘image’ if you will that can be experienced by an audience.

2. The brand must resonate with the intended audience and it should be attractive and have brand promise – it promises to deliver something the market wants.

3. Finally, people’s experience of the brand must be true to the brand promise and leave them wanting more – the experience of the brand must build brand loyalty.

It’s part 3 that a lot of people forget. Shouting and appealing to people to come and visit your blog for example, isn’t going to build a following unless you actually write on that blog and write compelling articles that reinforces your brand promise and brings people back for more.

So, we can all shout and shout loud. We can be effective at reaching a market but if we don’t deliver what we promised, it is all for naught.

Knowing all of this, I have often likened people to brands. In fact, people are complex as they actually develop multiple brands – father, brother, son, professional, drinking buddy etc. These are all brands and we promise things to our friends and family through them. But if we act differently to what we say about ourselves, people quickly see through the act and instead of building good, solid relationships, people see you as false, untrustworthy and an actor on life’s stage.

Anyway, I am trying to build a brand as an author. I am shouting and I hope I am delivering the what I shout about too. So, here is one shout – please go along to my new author Facebook page and like it – maybe even share it. Help my shout out reach a wide audience please. If you could do that for me then its up to me to do the rest and deliver what I promise….

Thanks a lot.

Tagged: Failure and success

Painting with Words

Before me

A blank piece of paper

I paint with words

Swirling deep vowel hues

Pictures emerge

With every word I choose

It’s a thrill

To slap those words around

Messy fun with letters

Alliterations

Descriptive nouns

Verbal variations

Masterpiece

Letters joined together

Similar sounding sounds

Discordant vibes

A mixed vocal pallet used by

Artistic scribes

A Childlike Reality

Children often bring a smile to our lips. Their worldview unfettered by outside influence and devoid of any political pressure often provides us with laughter and sometimes remarkably powerful but simple insights into our complex world.

I have played more than my part in terms of aiding this phenomenom having fathered four children to date and each and everyone of them has taught me something valuable or brought a smile to my face in terms of what they did or said. All kids are different too right from the very beginning. Having watched my twin boys grow up I can say that… different from the very first second of life outside the womb. Obviously, it is my youngest child that now alone has this childlike ability to point out glitches in the matrix as my three sons are now all grown and have lost their childlike innocence.

Just the day before yesterday, as we drove to the store, I was moaning about the lack of sales for my books and explaining that I would really like to have one of my books (if not all) sell in the thousands or tens of thousands and not just the hundreds. Deni told me that I should write about something different like Lions or Tigers and if not that then about my life. I explained that my life really isn’t of much interest to other people and that I doubted that book would sell. Deni’s response – “it will if you put pictures of me in it!”

This childlike confidence might not seem like very much but if you think about it, if thoughts have the power to create reality, then why do we not get what we want? The answer to that question is because no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that we are thinking positively and believing completely, we also know that we are not. As adults, we have been told so many times that we can’t or we shouldn’t that it has become an inbuilt mechanism to ensure our failure and the failure of the becoming reality of our thoughts. I start out all positive and confident that my thoughts are of best selling books or a vacation in Mexico. I am sure that this will happen if I just keep picturing it, believing in it and seeing it. a couple of hours later though, it starts. “Don’t be bloody daft,” says that initial passing doubting thought. To be followed by internal bickering no doubt and ultimately failure. The child though has yet to be programed for failure. The child still knows how to believe without self-doubt. The child ought to be able to really create their own reality. It’s a shame Deni can’t help me create mine.

I hear resonance of this when I think of the words by Jesus about entering heaven. He says that whoever wants to enter heaven must first convert and then become as little children. I would see heaven as the state that Humans should aspire to and conversion would be to understand this. To become as little children would restore our inner confidence and ability to believe.

To become childlike has a meaning to me that involves cutting away the baggage that has been placed upon me and being truly what I was meant to be. A similar analogy is the Fool and to be foolish. In essence being childlike and being foolish share some key characteristics in that our ego is as yet under developed and our outlook unfettered by the jaundiced views of life’s experience. To the point where, many years ago, one of my sons walked out of the bathroom and across the house past numerous assembled visitors with his trousers round his ankles to ask Dad “Can you wipe my bum please?”

Tagged: Aging, Failure and success, Reality

Try Looking Up!

If reality is so massive that our brain has to continually decide what parts of that reality to present to our consciousness (and it does!), then what are we missing? A lot it would seem. For a start, we look for what we recognize and have an interest in and we ignore what we do not recognize nor have an interest in. We walk our way through life barely seeing a thing apparently. We sleep.

Most of us commute to work each day and we settle into our routines. Perhaps we catch the train and armed with our favorite newspaper we seek out our usual seat and then relax reading the paper. Perhaps we walk to work staring at the pavement ahead of us while all of the time thinking of the day ahead. Perhaps we drive to work and therefore spend our time observing the road ahead, listening to the nonsense on the radio and thinking about the night before?

The fact of the matter is we simply are not living!

I once wrote an article about living in Prague and going to work – I would link to it but I can’t find it! I recounted how each morning, I watched the pavement ahead of me while deep in thought. Then, one morning, for some reason, I looked up. I stopped walking in total amazement to take in the architecture, the blue sky, the beauty of a city in central Europe. In that moment, it hit me how lucky I was to live in such a place and I wondered to myself how was it possible that every day I did not notice nor even see this beauty? I realized that I slept to work.

So people. Look up. Look around you and open your eyes and heart to the beauty of the world around you. See, look, observe. Give thanks.

Start looking no… start searching in life for the reality you want and deserve. It is there but you must actually look for it.

Take a look at how I see reality through my new collection of poetry – Moon Whispers – or through my exciting action-packed novel – The Last Observer.

Tagged: Reality

Reality Really is Weird

I am reading a book about the nature of reality. It has an interesting way of working its theme as it has you conduct experiments. This last two days, I was doing one of the experiments where you simply look everywhere and expect to see something. In my instance, I decided on a pink car. Don’t ask me why. It just seemed like something fairly rare….

I actually finished reading the instructions on my Kindle riding a bus to pick up my car from service on Friday. I decided, pink car and looked up. As my eyes refocused on the view through the back window of the bus I noticed another bus. It was white but…. it had huge pink stripes on it. I thought to myself “OK, thats not a car nor is it totally pink, but that is pretty bloody weird!” I got off the bus and had to walk back about half a kilometer and I was looking at all of the cars – parked, in motion – all of them. I realized that some reds had now began to look pinkish to me and then I saw it… yes, a dark pink car went sailing past. In 24 hours, I saw two dark pink cars like that and one clearly pretty little girl pink. Not only that but everything pink, I began to notice. As I looked across a scene, pink items would jump up out of all the reality ‘noise’ in front of me. I saw pink writing, pink on billboards, pink houses, pink clothing, pink hair, pink ribbons…. lots and lots of pink.

Now, let me tell you something. I have never ever seen a pink car in Brno before. Never.

The second 24 hours you had to change it to something else… something living perhaps…. yes, an elephant. That’s what I decided…. an elephant. That was last night in front of the TV and almost immediately as I looked up, yes, there was an elephant in a commercial as if right on cue. Later, watching a youtube reel of funny cat videos (yep – you caught me doing that!), one had two baby elephants in it too. Obviously, I didn’t see a lot of elephants but I did see some. Normally, I would not have done.

So, what does this prove?

Well that reality really is bloody weird.

It doesn’t at this stage matter if by focusing on pink cars or elephants, I brought them into my reality or that by focusing and actively looking for something, I saw it. Both are stark results when it comes to reality. In the first, I really do create my reality by manifesting what I concentrate on and in the latter I manifest something that was already there but previously unnoticed by my consciousness. In the latter case, we receive so much data at any point in time, we must filter almost all of it out so that we only see what we are focused on seeing. If by focusing on something else, we now see this in the noise then this proves something powerful too. I mean, what are we not seeing because we DON’T know how to look for it?

I would say that in the above paragraph, if we create our own reality that is magic but if by shifting our focus and noticing something that was always there but remained unseen, then that is magic too.

You see, in magical training, much time and effort is dedicated to knowing ourselves. As we learn about ourselves we become aware of aspects of ourselves we did not know about, we become focused on something we never saw before and we begin to try to change ourselves – to be more deliberate and less automated. As we do our magical training, some people may experience an increase in psychism for example. Is this actually that person changing their outlook and changing what they chose to notice and now seeing something that was always there but they never actually saw before?

I think so. Think about that for a minute will you?

By the way, that book is called E Squared.

My book about reality, set as an exciting novel about magic is called The Last Observer.

Tagged: Consciousness, dreaming, imagination, The Last Observer

Dear parents, you are being lied to.

G. M. Vasey:

I am reblogging this because;

1. It’s critically important

2. It’s written by someone who ACTUALLY knows what they are talking about, and

3. It’s really important….

Originally posted on Violent metaphors:

In light of recent outbreaks of measles and other vaccine preventable illnesses, and the refusal of anti-vaccination advocates to acknowledge the problem, I thought it was past time for this post.

Dear parents,

You are being lied to. The people who claim to be acting in the best interests of your children are putting their health and even lives at risk.

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Review City

I just popped over to the official The Last Observer page at Roundfire Books and it struck me that it has been reviewed by a hell of lot of people. Fortunately, the vast majority of those reviews have been very good. I will say that the book has been a success on many levels and was well accepted. I am still pushing sales and readers of course…… Read the reviews here.

Thanks to everyone that has purchased it or reviewed it – it is much appreciated but please do tell others to give it a spin too please!

Meanwhile, I have another book out – Moon Whispers – a new collection of 30 poems. I really think these are my strongest and most vibrant poems and I wrote them listening to music by Blackfield!

Why not give this book a spin – its only 99p or 99 cents on Kindle….

Meanwhile, I am working on The Lord of the Elements – the prequel to The Last Observer…. hopefully, it will be finished before the end of the year.

Long Leggety Beasties by Alienora Taylor

G. M. Vasey:

A super review of a really funny and excellent book…

Originally posted on Rosie Amber:

Long leggety beasties by alienora taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Miss Geraldine Dolan is a probationary teacher in her first job. She’s been accepted as an English teacher at St.Thelma’s school in Cornwall. It’s the 1980′s, the school is in a castle near the village of Port Tossack, there are keeps and dungeons, a great hall and that’s where any thoughts of a resemblance to Hogworts should leave you immediately.

This is adult British humour at it’s driest, full of classic clichés, innuendos and mirth. There are a great many characters to love; The Archers, teachers who meet on the battlements with bow and arrows, Zoe, a plain teacher who looks in love and bets are taken as to who has captured her heart. Rogue is an Aussie supply teacher who brings an Antipodean artistic flair to the story and a set of dinner ladies to rival no…

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My Short Acting Career

Many many years ago, when I was about 13 I think, I was persuaded to appear in the school play. The play, and I will never forget it, was The Snow Queen. I managed to land the part of the Story Teller which, looking back, was a bit contrived but I guess was meant to be a parody of Hans Christian Anderson or similar. I played no role in the action but introduced the story and then popped in and out to explain what was going on, help the characters make key decisions and harass the audience. I can still recall part of the introduction where I was engaged in dancing a little dance while reciting a poem….

Snip, snap, snooper

Pooper bazalooper

Snip snap snooper

It went. Did I feel daft singing that? Yes, I did. Pooper bazalooper indeed! It sounds like something you do in a bathroom.

Having looked up the play on the internet, I am reminded the last part of my introduction went as follows;

Crippety! Crappity — Ugh! {As he fails to get

the right step.)

{He snaps his fingers and begins again.)

Snip! Snap! Snooper!

Pooper, bazalooper. {Quickening.)

Snip-snap-snooper —

Crippetycrappity — BOOM! {He succeeds with

his feet.)

{He hears the audience and slowly turns.)

No comment but the analogy definitely works doesn’t it?

Anyway, I recall learning these and other silly lines and rehearsing and rehearsing and…. The big day arrived and it seemed to go quite well but then how would you know. An audience of parents isn’t he most critical of theatre goers now is it?

Apparently, I did so well that I was invited back for the next school play – Time and The Conways by JB Priestley. I recall none of the lines from this one but I do recall that I played Earnest Beevers – a nice man! This one I found difficult. Ask a 14-year old to act the part of a young man then transition into a middle aged self-made man and then go back to a shy young man again…. I didn’t have much fun. I did like the play though with its messages about the nature of time and reality.

And this is the rub.

There are still nights when I wake up drenched in sweat and experiencing palpitations because I dreamed that I forgot my lines. Forty-years afterwards I still dream about my fear of it all going wrong. That pregnant pause and rising embarrassment as you realize the poor kid can’t recall what to say next…..You know, I don’t think I forgot my lines. To be honest, I recall very little of it now at all in normal consciousness but somewhere, deep down inside my psyche, I am still there, frozen in time, petrified that I would forget my lines.

Tagged: Childhood memories, Hull

The Last Observer’s First Chapter

G. M. Vasey:

If you haven’t read my novel I am presenting the short first chapter again to see if I can whet your appetite and convince you to go ahead and buy it…. Murder, mayhem, love, magic, quantum physics, car chases, and a whole lot more in this fast moving adventure about reality.

Originally posted on The Wacky World of Dr. Vasey:

It is short but it sets the scene…..

Chapter 1

A Dead Psychic

There was something remarkable about Michael Kent. His

crystal-clear and deep-set blue eyes, sunken into a pale and

haggard face, seemed to penetrate into the depths of your very

soul. He appeared to be capable of reaching inside of you so that

he could search through your entire contents without first having

had the courtesy to ask. Michael was a well-known psychic in

those parts. Locally famed, and at the same time loathed, for his

apparent ability to help the local constabulary solve unsolvable

crimes. Yet now he was an unsolvable crime himself.

Kent had been found dead just outside of his favorite pub, the

Rose and Crown. The back of his head caved in like a boiled egg,

and the contents of his larger-than-normal skull splattered about
the pavement. No one had seen how he had…

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