I must admit that this blog post may get some people a little riled up…..but that’s OK as long as it provokes you to do some serious thinking. Over the last decade I’ve found the world has largely gone mad as it increasingly focuses on notion of equality of outcome no matter what. What do I mean by this?

For a start, I’m absolutely for equality of opportunity. I don’t care what gender you are, the colour of your skin or what ethnic background you hail from. Everyone should have equal opportunity and it is up to the individual to decide whether they will avail themselves of the opportunities before them.

Now let’s look at equal outcome. Equal outcome is driven by saying things such as, “We want 50% of all politicians to be women.” or “If you are from a particular ethnic race then you get a bump in your educational score.” These sound like worthwhile goals until you unpack them.

Let’s imagine you are going to the doctor and find they are of the race that gets a bump in their education score. Does this mean they are qualified, or did they get a passing grade because their race? I would imagine you don’t want any of those thoughts going through your mind as you discuss your upcoming medical condition with them. What you want is the best qualified doctor giving potentially life and death advice.

Likewise, you’re about to jump on a plane and a women’s voice comes over the PA announcing she is the captain. Should we be worried that she is potentially under qualified and was awarded the position because of her gender?

I find these two scenarios unbelievably insulting to all those doctors that happened to be also from “bumped up score race”. It’s also insulting to all those women who work so incredibly hard to achieve a life-time dream. To my way of thinking it’s just wrong.

As soon as you mandate an outcome you’re no longer part of a meritocracy where your individual skills are what allow you to gain your goal. In some circumstances a philosophy of “equal outcome” can be very dangerous and as I said above it’s incredibly insulting to all those hard-working individuals that just happen to belong to a societal group that is “blessed” with a leg up.

We can even push this further. Let’s imagine we have a society where 75% of the health workers are women…..should we then mandate that this should be 50% to reflect the gender properly?  Should we then get rid of a whole lot of female doctors and nurses and replace them with men who either don’t want to do the job or are not qualified to do it?

When President Trump unveiled his presidential campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again” I was a little confused. Being from Australia and a frequent traveller to the USA I can unequivocally say that America has always been great and is still great.

After flying for fourteen hours from Melbourne in an A380 it’s a welcome relief to step off the plane in Los Angeles. You know what the first thing I notice is? No, it’s not the security guards, the chaos of immigration or the queue for the taxis. It’s opportunity.

Sadly, some Americans have become so used to the opportunities around them that they can’t see them anymore. As a foreigner let me tell you right now that America was not just a land of opportunity for the early settlers, but it is very much still a land of opportunity right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Australia but in terms of opportunities when I’m at a conference in the USA I feel like I’ve come from the desert and entered a tropical paradise. Every conversation has bigger numbers in it, people are willing to give something a go and even failure is seen as just one of life’s many lessons.

Just over ten years ago I took my family to the USA for a six-month road trip. It was an amazing experience where we travelled the length and breadth of the nation in a Dodge Grand Caravan. During our trip the thing that impacted us the most was the openness and hospitality of the American people.

I’ve really been wrestling with what to write about today for Saturday Musings. I love writing and normally I find that it just flows onto the page but today is different. I thought that I would take you on my journey for the past week and invite you to share about how you have tackled challenges in your life.

After returning from vacation I was immediately faced with a major personal issue to contend with in my extended family and this culminated in a family meeting. Typically, these issues would really drain me, and I would be struggling for several weeks while I emotionally and mentally came to grips with what was going on. This time was different.

As many readers know, for many years I’ve been sharing openly about my own personal life journey. In many respects, Saturday Musings has become a form of therapy as I write down my thoughts in at least a semi-coherent manner.

I’ve tried to share openly so that you can learn from my quest to becoming a better, more well-rounded individual; physically, mentally and spiritually. To me, life isn’t being the one to finish with the most money or toys.

Life is a journey of self-discovery about who you are and how you can constantly improve. Afterall, the most difficult thing you can do in the world is change yourself…..as you have absolutely no power whatsoever to change anyone else.

This is the second part of the series on "Dealing With Stress". The first can be view by clicking here.

I woke up on day two feeling much better and like a load was off my shoulders. My mind was in a position where I could begin thinking about how to better manage circumstances moving forward.
In all my pondering I had two words resonating in my head, “Be Deliberate.”

What do I mean by this? Be deliberate where I put my time, be deliberate which relationships to invest in, be deliberate about what opportunities to pursue, be deliberate about what tasks I pick up, be deliberate about everything in life.

It was like a lightbulb going off inside my head. If I could just be deliberate, then many of the issues that I was wrestling with would come into line.

Upon reflection, the vast majority of my stress was because I let other people push me into the passenger seat of my life’s car. I was jumping from one issue to another because someone demanded that I respond immediately…..in computer terminology this is called thrashing. Nothing is finished and everything half completed.

By being deliberate I had settled once again into the driver’s seat and it felt good. After another day’s contemplation I put some things into place that have transformed who I am and made my life so much better.

What I’m going to suggest may be obvious for some readers but for me it was revolutionary. The first thing I did when I returned home was apologise to the family for my “silent treatment”. Nothing like a good serving of humble pie to start you off in the right direction.

People often describe their hectic lives of racing around for other people, having too much to do in too short a time or dealing with difficult relationships as stressful. They would be exactly right. Earlier this year I found myself maxed out by stress and it wasn’t a good place to be.

I’ve experienced quite a number of stressful times in my life with varying levels of intensity. For example, many years ago, when I was told that a $1.5 million payment was not coming, I found myself under a lot of stress. What was really strange was the stress I recently experienced far exceeded that event and yet, it didn’t involve any money at all.

The crazy thing is that when you’re going through a lot of stress, you’ll convince yourself that your decision making is spot on and your behaviour towards others is perfect. Nothings changed right? Wrong!

What was I doing? I hadn’t been walking around the house in a rage, or yelling at the kids….I’d done something almost worse than that, I’d retreated into silence. I may as well not have been at the meal table each night as I silently ate dinner while my mind raced through all the myriad of things I was juggling. What I realise now is that it was terrible for the rest of the family to watch me as I closed off towards them.