K.F. Nicholson's Blog

TUPPERWARE DAYS

TUPPERWARE DAYS.

TUPPERWARE DAYS

Because I crashed my car…

Driving too fast,  too far…

Well, I was ‘driven’ as well as driving.

Gotta get there on time, so I can leave on time so I can get back home to see my babies before bed.

Gotta do this job that I hate because I need the money …. that I spend on .. childcare… so someone else can look after my babies? .. That I spend on fuel for the car to take me to the job that I hate??

HANG ON A MINUTE!!       This is madness.

What if I could work less time, hours to suit, have time with the children, take them to school, fetch them home, go to school plays, sports days, special assemblies and still have the same expendable income as I have now?

Unrealistic? Absolutely not.

Back then Direct Sales was about Party Plan and I was already doing a few Tupperware parties as well as the job, and loving it. I worked out that if I did 2 or 3 parties a week, just 2 or 3 nights out plus some telephone time at home, I would make as much as I was benefiting from my salary after the travel and child care expenses. No Brainer, really.

When I told my boss at the DHSS that I was resigning to sell Tupperware she was appalled. “You’re leaving a Civil Service career to sell Tupperware!!!”

“Yup.”

Best decision I ever made.

I got myself back. My husband got his wife back. My children got their mother back. But more than that I found that when it comes to work, ‘There Is Another Way.’

Up til then I had been a student, a school teacher, an administrator for a national charity and a lower level Civil Servant and I had found that on the whole in the work place you only got noticed when you did something wrong. So work was all about negative feedback. Not something to inspire you really. What it actually did for me was to make me feel that I was a total failure at life.

On the other hand, when I started doing Tupperware parties and I attended my first weekly meeting having done my first party it was all about this thing called ‘Recognition’.

First I was welcomed as a newcomer when I arrived and assigned a ‘friend’ to show me the ropes.

Second I was given a raffle ticket just for being there at all and later I won a Tupperware canister with it. (I kept that canister for many, many years)

Third we had this thing called a ‘Spelldown’ where we all stood up if we had worked the previous week and they called out numbers, when they reached the amount you had sold you sat down. Last one standing was the winner and got a prize. I sat down fairly early, my first party had been very average, but when I sat down they said to me “thank you”.  You see they recognised that every small sale added to their total and was valuable.

And that was my Light Bulb Moment – in Direct Sales you only get successful when you help others become successful.  In Direct Sales you get help to get it right and get rewarded and praised for any effort. What a refreshing change!

( Reminds me of horse training methods… reward the ‘try’. )

The result of this was that I spent the next 15 years working in Party Plan, while my babies grew into teenagers. I only stopped when the Party Plan model began to be less effective and the Tupperware company had more or less closed in UK. I had a company car, a team of Demonstrators working for me and a lifestyle I loved. Not huge financial rewards but enough to live on. However I was able to enjoy my children’s childhood. I was there when they needed me to be and I fit my work into the hours they were at playgroup or school and a couple of evenings when their dad was home anyway. He would arrive home from work about 6, we’d have tea together then I would go out about 7.

It led to a life in sales of one sort or another and the attitudes and techniques I learned in Tupperware have stood me in good stead in many aspects of my life. When I began to learn about Law of Attraction I found a lot of the ideas were exactly what I had learned from Tupperware…

your attitude creates your results – how to be positive – how to handle rejection – don’t take ‘no’ personally.

These days Direct Sales is Network Marketing, although  many companies still use parties to sell their products. Nowadays there are personal company websites and social media so you can gather customers from all over the country or world. Nowadays there are huge resources to help you build a direct marketing business. And with Network Marketing you can go much further than making a living, you can make a fortune! As Eric Worre  (  http://networkmarketingpro.com/  )    says, ” Network Marketing may not be perfect but it is the best model to run your own business, because it is a stone cold fact, we do have a better way.” .

BARGY HORSES

Bargy Horses

Horses do not naturally come equipped with an understanding of how they should behave around humans. Actually, a lot of humans do not come equipped with an understanding of how they should behave around horses, but if they are interested they can learn. Horses have to be taught by humans who know.

Left to their own devices a group of horses  play ‘leader-follower’ games. There isn’t a fixed herd hierarchy. One horse may be dominant in one situation, like the water trough, and another in having the pick of the best shelter. In addition horses always re evaluate each other. They re test the boundaries. The dominant mare may be feeling off-colour and today the younger gelding may get the better of her, tomorrow he may not. Horses only know how to behave as horses so unless we teach them different manners they will try their dominance behaviours with us, and get labelled ‘bargy’.  Now in truth most horses are looking for a leader, to take the responsibility of looking after them. The lead mare shows the herd where to go for best food and water, she guides and looks after them. Some horses will accept any leadership, a lot will only accept leadership from a horse or person they believe they can trust.   If they don’t trust their human they will take on the responsibility of caring for themselves. This can result in spooking, shying, bolting home, and bullying the person.

Our first duty to any horse we are in contact with is to show the horse we are a fit person to be in charge of it. This is not the same as ‘showing it who’s boss’! The first step on this road is to ask the horse to respect our space and not come too close uninvited – not be bargy.

There are some simple steps to achieve this.  Remember we’re dealing with bargy horses here, the ones that push you, try to bite you. There are different methods to gain the trust of nervous horses.

 Be aware of your own body language. Do you appear confident, or do you appear frightened of the horse? Or do you appear to be threatening & aggressive? How do you stand? Shoulders back & straight, or hunched? Do you make eye contact with the horse? Do you step back when the horse approaches, stand still or step forward?
Horses are very sensitive to energy and intent. If you feel angry & aggressive, he will know, if you feel scared, he will know and wonder what there is to be scared of. If you are quiet and calm he will respond in kind.
Approach the horse in a calm confident manner. Avoid direct eye contact and keep arms close to the body. If the horse comes too close make yourself bigger, move your arms away from your sides, palms up towards the horse, have eye contact. If this makes the horse pause drop your energy (arms ;eyes)  and praise the horse. If the horse still comes forward move your arms, maybe stamp a foot, put energy out towards him.  When he is standing praise him and put his halter on. It is a step-by-step approach, do as little as is necessary, stop as soon as the horse complies and praise him to show he has done right.
Once you have a halter on the horse ask him to back up. There are several methods and it is easier with a Monty Roberts Dually Halter or a Western style tied rope halter as they apply pressure that is released when the horse moves in the desired direction. It is also better to work with a 12 ft line (4 metres) than a standard lead rope.


Back up method #1 : apply pressure to the lead rope under his chin in a backwards way (you can add voice commands if you wish to teach them) , just push-release-push-release until the horse takes a step – or even a lift of the foot – backwards. Instantly drop all pressure on the rope, praise, wait a moment for the horse to process what has happened and repeat. You may also need to have the assertive body language to do this,  or you may need to add it in as you work if the horse does not get the ‘back up’ message.
Back up method #2 : for this you will need the 12 ft line attached to the halter. Stand a few feet in front of the horse facing him, assertive body language but calm and quiet. Send ‘energy’ down the rope. ie a little shake or snake movement of the rope. You are asking for a step backwards. You can increase the intensity and vigour of the rope shaking as required but be careful not to make it so much the metal parts of the clip hit the horse or frighten him.  Treat this as a game, don’t be attached to the outcome. It is fun for you and the horse. Again as soon as the horse shows the slightest movement backwards drop the rope so it touches the ground (keep hold of the end) and drop your eye contact. That is his reward. Repeat. Work for 5 or 10 minutes at a time but every day.

5.  Be consistent.  Work on his backing up until you can make him move away by just eye contact and body language. Work on backing him up on the 12 ft line until he can go back all 12 ft in a straight line, and come towards you when you ask by softening your posture and giving a little tug on the line, then stopping when ever you put your hand up. This is Pat Parelli’s YoYo game.

So why do I not advise hitting the horse with a stick or your hand? Why should you avoid anything violent? Because violence begets violence. using a stick or hitting the horse will either make him frightened or make him cross, or both. If he is cross with you he is more likely to fight back and become dangerous. What started out as a lack of manners becomes true aggression. If he fears you he may still fight you, as all aggression comes from fear. Or he may just not come near you and be difficult to ride.

You cannot beat a horse into submission and expect to have a good relationship with him.

Get your rope halters & 12 ft lines here http://www.dragon-equine.co.uk

More about Unique Abilities.

Do you know what your Unique Abilities are?

How many of us go through life without really understanding or appreciating what we are really good at? We have a talent, but unless that talent is directly related to something we do to earn a living do we actually rate it, or is it just a hobby?

Someone who is good at Maths might use that ability to be and enjoy being an accountant. That’s a worthy career; but only a few people who are good at playing a musical instrument have a career as a musician. Being a musician is seen as a risky career choice. There are not many ‘jobs’ as a musician, usually you have to be a self-employed artist. When you see the careers teacher at school and say you want to be a rock guitarist they will tell you to tone down your ideas and look at the local supermarket or bank for a job. So your talent and your passion becomes just a hobby, not something of any importance.

So if your Unique Ability is something that fits in with the average types of employment you may well have a career that fires and excites you. If your ability is less ‘employable’ you will have to be more determined, and maybe make your own way as a self-employed creative person. That is a course of action you are likely to be discouraged from by well-meaning parents and teachers.

However – if you can make a living from doing something that you are good at and enthusiastic about then making a living is no longer work.

So, do you know what your unique abilities are?

Make a list of your ten best habits. It may include things like

I am good at calculations, I understand how things work, I am methodical and conscientious

or

I can always empathise with people, I find ways to help friend with their problems, I have a positive outlook.

Make your list and see what type of person emerges. Then you will have an idea what your strengths are and that is what you can work on and work with. The other stuff, the things you are not good at, don’t get a job doing those things, and whenever possible delegate or hire another person to do them.

Namaste.

Everyone has Unique Abilities.

What are your Unique Abilities?

and do you use them?

We talk about it, “Everyone is unique”, and then our schools and workplaces do their best to make everyone conform to the same mould. Children are made to work hard at school to  improve on their weak subjects, but not so often praised for things they have a natural talent for.

What this leads to is a person who perceives themselves as being a failure. They think about all the things they are no good at, but dismiss the things that they are good at as worthless, because that skill is easy for them and they have not had to work at it.  It’s that old ‘work ethic’ thing. If you didn’t work hard to achieve something then it isn’t really an achievement.

But if the whole point of life, the point of us being here on Earth as incarnated beings, is for each of us to have fun and be happy (as many spiritual leaders say) then surely that is why we have things that come easily to us? Surely we are supposed to live our lives doing the things that we are good at and which we find easy.

Life was not meant to be a struggle.

There are enough people around with so many different talents and interests that there will always be people who like to do the things that we ourselves dislike. Then all eventualities are covered.

So work on your strengths and talents, and delegate the stuff you are weak at. This does not mean you have to employ a cleaner if you hate cleaning, there is probably someone in your family who doesn’t mind housework, and you may be the cook, or the baker, or the income earner…. The possibilities are endless.

Be proud of your Unique Abilities.

It took me a long time to be comfortable with the fact that I am pretty good at doing a couple of specific things, and pretty rubbish at anything connected with Maths, even down to basic arithmetic. One of my ‘talents’ is public speaking. I can stand up in front of an audience of 100s and quite happily talk with few notes if I know the subject well, and can give a talk from a written speech as well. But at school my maths was a problem. No-one mentioned the fact I was good at reciting poetry in front of the class, or being in the school play. Because, of course, to get a good job or University place you have to have maths O level (GCSE to you younger ones) . Somehow I managed to get into Teacher Training College with a grade F in Maths! However the public speaking ability was key to being a good teacher. Later I was in a job when I regularly had to give sales talks to colleagues and I was always praised for how well I did them, but I shrugged the praise off, ‘Oh, I don’t have to work at it, I’m just naturally good at it so it’s no big deal for me; I’m rubbish at maths though.’

You see, instead of letting my strengths shine out and working to the best of them I played them down and focussed on my lack of arithmetical ability.

Nowadays I do what I am good at. Writing, talking, teaching; and I use a calculator!

Namaste.

Horse Harness Work – equipment

In order for your horse to pull something on the ground you will need some sort of long traces, these are usually chains, and something to attach them to and keep them horse-width apart.  The latter is usually a swingletree. Sometimes you may see this written as ‘single tree’ which is incorrect and a result of people hearing the word not seeing it written, so ‘singletree’ has become almost an accepted alternate word.

Basically a Swingletree is a piece of metal or wood that is around 2’6″ – 3′ long, long enough to be more than the width of the  horses’ back feet when standing square. It has a ring at either end on one side and a ring in the centre on the other side.

This is our swingletree. It was made by a local blacksmith. He had no idea what he was making, we just gave him a drawing and measurements and he made it.  He also made the S-hooks.  I think we had 4 or 5 hooks made as inevitably you will mislay one, plus an extra hook is always useful. Most of the S-hooks in the shops are not strong enough for this type of work.  I think he charged us around £30 to make it. You can buy swingletrees from some internet sites, but they do tend to be ridiculously expensive.

Next you need chains. Chain can be bought from a decent hardware store, I find the bigger branches of B&Q have a good selection of chain and rope, and of fixings. There is a company called   Eliza Tinsley   who supply all sorts and a lot of their products are on sale at B&Q. The chain needs to be medium weight, strong enough to do the job but not too heavy and  have fairly open links. Mine is galvanised steel with oval links around 1 1/4 inches long.   Measure your horse / pony from the point on the collar where the chains will attach, to the end of his bottom, then add about 3 / 4 feet. (less for a smaller pony, more for a bigger horse.) You will need this length twice. Add a carbinner clip for each end of each chain so you can attach the chain to the collar and to the S hooks on the swingletree. At the collar end carbinner clips the same size as the chain links are fine, as you can pass the chain through the buckles on the breast collar or over the hooks on the hames of a collar and fasten it back on itself. At the ground end you need bigger clips to go over your S hooks.

 Here is the swingletree attached to the harrow.

And here is Red pulling, so you can see the outfit in traction. Notice how the chains are keptaway from his hind feet by the loops in the breeching straps, and the swingletree raises off the ground when in work.

When we stop we ask Red to take one step back, so that the tension is taken off the chains.

I hope you have found this useful.

Namaste.

Training a horse for harness

 

Lots of people have asked me how we trained our cob, Red, to work in harness and pull a harrow. For some time I have wanted to put information on a blog that will be easily accessible to people who are interested, so although Empower Network is about making money, it will also be my platform for the horse training stuff.

In the picture you can see Red being long-lined wearing his collar & chains and using rope ‘lines’. This was taken at a demo we did which we titled ‘Driving for Dummies’. It was an introduction to how anyone could take their ordinary riding horse, especially if it was a cob type, as a lot of riding horses in the UK are, and get it to do other useful things around the yard and field.

The most common reason why people are interested in this, as opposed to carriage driving, is so that they can harrow their field or arena. Horses make a mess of the ground. In winter large areas of their fields can get very muddy and churned up. Harrowing levels the soil again to allow the spring grass to come through. Also many people prefer to rotate fields and harrow in the droppings in rather than do daily poo-picking. This can be a much better solution if there are more than 3 horses in a field as 4 or more horses create a lot of poo! Small harrows, about 4 ft square , are available for towing behind a quad bike or car. If you have a quad then it is probably easier to use that, but a lot of people don’t have one. Also there is the fuel issue, and after all, if you have  a horse why not use it? I firmly believe that horses want to be of use and each one has things it prefers to do and things it does not like to do. Very often these cobby horses like to work in harness, after all, that is what they were bred to do!

Issues to consider when training a horse for harness.

There are two main issues to consider: the horse and the harness. My view is that if you understand horses and can train one for riding then you can train a horse to do anything.  As with all horse training it is about taking incremental steps, making sure the horse understands what is required at each step before moving on. The thing that stumps most people is the harness. All those straps and buckles. What goes where? How does it fit together? How does it fit on the horse? You can find pictures and diagrams of harness in books but when I started I found they only helped so far. Ideally you need some hands-on help, but failing that video will be better. Later in this series I will post video of harness and fitting. There are also significant differences between carriage driving harness and working harness. It is easy to buy carriage driving harness but much more difficult to get hold of work harness. It can also be a lot more expensive or very old and cracked.

It really upsets me to see good old horse harness nailed on the wall of a country pub! It should be in use!

Where do you start with training a horse for harness?

First teach your horse to long-line. If the horse is already a riding horse s/he will already be used to rein aids. When you ride start using voice aids. You need a word for ‘turn right’ and a word for ‘turn left’ as well as ‘walk on’ and ‘whoa’. People who work with harness horses have special words, a bit like the sheep-dog ‘come bye’, but I find ‘come round’ with a feel on the  appropriate rein is adequate. So long as both you and the horse understand that is fine.

You can long-line using your riding tack. Use two lunge-lines or buy rope from a hardware store. If you buy rope each line needs to be about 5ft longer than the length of the horse from his bit to his butt! Get spring clips and fix them to one end of each line so you can clip the lines to the bit. If you do not have 2 lunge lines then rope is probably going to cost a lot less. Pass the lines from the bit through the stirrups or the stirrup leathers. You can use baler twine or any strap to attach the stirrups together under the horse’s belly so they don’t flap around.

This is just a brief introduction. I will be posting more with pictures & videos as time goes on. I am on Facebook and have a page about horsey matters, called Synergy Equine

See you soon.

Namaste.

 

Carrots, Eggs & Coffee.

Stolen from Facebook, I’m afraid. It says author unknown.

Grandmother Says…

Carrots, Eggs, or Coffee; “Which are you?”

A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, “Tell me what do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they got soft.She then asked her to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma. The granddaughter then asked. “What’s the point,grandmother?”

Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity–boiling water–but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her granddaughter.

“When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Why we don’t get what we want.

Why don’t we get the things we are asking The Universe for?

We’ve read all about The Law of Attraction, we understand about  positive affirmations, and gratitude and so on, so why does the big break-through not happen?

Or more importantly why does something happen to take away what we get just as it is getting good? Isn’t that more often the case?

We get that job, that relationship, that unexpected cheque (check) for £1000 ($1500) but after a while it goes wrong. We’re still broke despite the income, the relationship goes off,  the car breaks down or something in the house goes wrong and we need £800 to fix it.

It seems like the Universe gives with one hand and takes away with the other. So what is going on?

Blocks, that’s what it is. We think you have worked out all those self-limiting beliefs, and we probably have, on a mental and even an emotional level. But there is more, deeper down.

Things that happen early in our childhood, that as a child we are unable to understand or rationalise, teach us things like ‘I’m not worthy of notice’ , ‘I need to take care of others before I look to my own needs’, or the trade-off one; ‘I must do this in order to get that, I must give up this to have that.’ This one often leads to people having some parts of the perfect life but not all 3. Relationships & health good, money bad, plenty of money but poor relationships or poor health, good relationship, plenty of money but suffer from long term illness. You get the idea. We think we can’t have it all.

But why not?

A child can feel quite hurt by a remark or action by an adult because they do not realise the adult ‘didn’t really mean it’ or was speaking from their own frustrations. So an injustice is done. Something simple like not being believed in a dispute between siblings. But the seed is set and the hurt remains, lost and forgotten, but gnawing away at the psyche. That is your block.

If you do not believe you deserve the thing you want then even if it comes it will not stay.

 

Our work:- think about  early childhood. Think about the type of thing or remark that makes us wince because it hits a nerve. Think where in our body we feel it. Chances are it will be in the pit of our stomach or the solar plexus. Second or third chakra issues. Then use a healing modality to work at the block.

It may be Ho’opnopono  - see http://www.zerolimits.info/ or Reiki, or prayer or EFT or something else.

This is work, it won’t happen overnight. But once the problem is known the remedy can begin.

Namaste.

On Writing

I want to make money as a novelist. Someone has recently made a fortune from a series of grey novels that went global, but they were actually not very good novels. They appealed to a certain market. Writing to a formula, writing in a genre, seems to be the way to be published and popular.

I can’t do that. My creativity is mine. My book is what I want it to be, tells the story I want to tell and says what I want to say. It’s original. This means it is difficult to categorise and not attractive to publishers who want romantic fiction or the latest Vampire love story.

 

When I was at school I had a wonderful English teacher who encouraged us to be critical. His favourite saying was: ” The majority is always wrong.” He meant that if something was very popular it was probably not very good.

This does not always hold true. One of the best books ever written  was voted the country’s most popular book around 5 years ago. However when I was at school in the 60s and I was talking about The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien most people had never heard of it. None of my school friends had read it. My English teacher had not read it. When I left school and went to college I found other people who had read and loved it and in 1973 the first Tolkien calendar was produced.

(I had one, I still have it, and several subsequent ones.)

It took a while for TLOTR to become an overnight success.

My novel, The Frankincense Statuette, has been self published. This is now so easy to do with Amazon, print to order & Kindle. It is an action adventure. It is a fantasy set in modern real places. The main protagonists are a pair of young men, friends from University days, who find themselves on a mission that they don’t quite believe in. It seems that a statue they have found is really an angelic being who has been trapped for 3000 years. They need to set her free. On their journey they discuss whether there is anything more than the material world we see, and they have experiences that prove that there is much more to life than the material. At the same time they are being followed by someone whose aim is to prevent them releasing the spirit from the statue, someone who is also much more than he seems.

Has this whetted your appetite? Pop along to Amazon.The book is available as a paperback or a Kindle download.

 

The Frankincense Statuette: Book One – Yemen