Have you ever come home from work and the lights are off? Ever noticed how a friend, colleague or spouse has increased in negativity towards you? Here are seven signs of a failing relationship and steps you can take towards wholeness.

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A problem can be defined as a mismatch between what we expect and what actually happens in our lives. As we come to identify problems we find that our problems are often linked to an expectation we have imposed on our surroundings. To take this definition further a problem is better thought of as being an expectation that we have that does not match what we presently experience. This means our present experience is defined by our expectations. Reality, is often not what we would like it to be.

Expectations: What are they?

An often easy out for us to say something like: just don’t have any expectations. Unfortunately this is not possible. An expectation is a desire for something you want to come to pass in your own life. That desire, is as much you, as you are you. Most of the time you don’t even realise that expectation is there until the heat of the day (circumstances) reveals it. Expectations are deep down desires that I think need to be cultivated, not ignored. In some circumstances, your expectations need to shift or be changed because some of them are poisonous. Ultimately, the problem you perceive is tied to some kind of expectation you have in your life. Now, we can take our definition of what a problem is even further. A problem is an expectation or desire that has does not match what we expect reality to be. The problem does not lie in reality as such, it lies in causal structures we have mapped over reality. Here’s an example.

The man and the flat tyre parable

There was as man who was driving home from work on a rainy afternoon when suddenly his tyre blew out. Angry at the situation the man slowly edges over to the curb and gets out to assess his problem. He studies his problem and doesn’t see the 18 wheeler approaching from behind. He is hit and killed. Now his problem no longer exists. Why? Because he is dead. Problems are perspectives on events that are tied to deep rooted expectations of what we take things to be. Here is another one.

The stock market problem

The CEO of SuperCompany Inc. (sorry burned out at the moment couldn’t think of a snazzier name), walks into his office one morning to a frantic Chief Financial Officer. He says to the lady, ‘My God Chloe, wants the matter, you look like crap?’ The CFO hands the CEO a piece of paper with a media report that the company is going bankrupt due to bad investments in Australian wheat. The CEO takes one look at the piece of paper and throws it in the bin. The CFO is amazed. ‘Why did you do that,’ she asks. He looks back at her and says, ‘That’s not my problem,’ he says, ‘my problem is that we are going bankrupt and you had to tell me via a media report!’

In this example we can see that neither the CEO or CFO were aware of the problem until it was created for them to believe. These are boundary judgments. Those ideas which we create that form rules and expectations of what we think is the case. In this case the company didn’t think it was going bankrupt. How much of what you hear is ‘actually’ the case? There is a reality and you can be sure it will impact on you but it’s a reality of intersecting ideas and thoughts some of which cause great problems (like the internet bubble burst) and some of which cause smaller ones.

Three ways of exploring a problem by changing your mind

There are three ways I know of problem solving by changing your mind. Here we go:

Doing nothing

When we absolve a problem we actually do nothing. There are times when a ‘wait and see’ approach is called for. Say you are building an adwords campaign to boost traffic to your website. You select a bunch of keywords and wait. They come back with a little bit more traffic everyday than the amount you had before. A bit more, a bit more and a bit more. Imagine if you grew impatient? You then start to muck about with keywords and ruin the campaign. In this case you should do nothing, observe and then take action if required.

Invoke dialectical processes

When you begin to examine life from many angles you begin to see just how limiting your point of view is. If you are facing a problem you can’t solve. Begin to play the devil’s advocate. Take the heart of the contradiction and expose it for what it really is. I recommend using at least four contradictory ideas to analyse the situation. Let’s go back to our stockbroker example above. What if he said the CFO, ‘I don’t believe the report because I trust your judgement… are we going bankrupt?’ He could have also taken the dreamers approach, ‘Now that I have read this report, I believe it will turn out for our good.’ In turn he could have taken a mathematical approach, ‘Show the numbers is this true?’ Then again he could have taken the view of a seasoned old veteran, ‘Listen to me, there is no crisis, people invent nonsense like this all the time. Put out a statement saying we are not going bankrupt and quote some numbers. People will believe that over some half-cocked media report.’ In short, take what you think the problem is and look at it’s enemy. By teasing out the enemy you will be able to see the faults in your own thinking.

Creative problem solving

Creative problem solving is the hardest and least likely to succeed in a problem solving intervention. This is when you take a brand new idea that hasn’t been tried which removes the old one completely. In this version you solve the problem by changing the expectation on which it’s framed. What? I mean you take the initial expectation of the problem, the idea that the problem is a problem and you begin to move into a new way of thinking that gets rid of the problem. In essence you change the rules of the expectation by shifting the ideas it’s built upon to a new solution that removes the need for the old one to exist. For example, our friend with the tyre problem had a death problem which is a nasty creative solution to his tyre problem. The tyre is the least of his worries.

When people create a problem it’s built on expectations and perceptions. Problems often revolve around what we think is the case. I know managers who will not make decisions because of fear. Fear stops creativity because it blocks the flow of anything opposed to it. You need to begin to create rather than do what you think you should. A creative solution is a new idea that moves the old out of the way. If a market problem emerges it’s because of perceptions. If there is a climate crisis, we have found that through our man-made data, analysis and conversations. If we find there isn’t… it’s exactly the same process.

When we change our mind about something new solutions begin to emerge.  As we learn to shift the perspectives that hold us back we will change our mind and new more creative solutions will spring up.

In recent times there has been many a discussion on the emerging rental crisis in Brisbane.  We have heard of renters being forced to bid for properties, owners upping rents in mid contract and houses being rented that are somewhat in need of repair.  With vacancy rates hitting the 1% mark I really think we need to discuss this and look for viable alternatives to what is being offered.   The situation had become so bad that people were camping out on the Caboolture show grounds.   What I want to share with you is my story in the Brisbane rental market over the last few years and what I think needs to change.

Arriving in Brisbane in 2002

I first came to Brisbane in 2002 and rented a place in The Gap in the western suburbs of Brisbane.  It was right on the edge of the end of Brisbane State Forest Park and I thought well this is a pretty cool place to live… although it regularly took me 35 minutes to get to work at the university.  We lived there happily for quite a time until problems started to emerge.  The house we lived in was old and was in the process of being renovated when we moved in.  I thought to myself, ok I can live with this.  They put in a new kitchen for us (which I thought was nice) and we were happy.  One day my wife noticed that the vinyl coating on the new kitchen bench had folded up in the edges.  Considering the kitchen was new we thought we should do the right thing and contact the property manager at the real estate.  Her inspection lead to the conclusion that we had done the damage.  I was horrified they were going to slug us with a huge bill to fix it!

My wife swung into action and called a friend of hers who was a Cabinet Maker.  He took one look (remember one) and showed me where the sealant was not applied to the bench top properly.  We knew that we had not done anything wrong despite the real estate lady insisting it was us.  The owner contacted us personally and came round to our house to discuss with us the issue because by this stage we had independent evidence that we were being taken for a ride.  She took one look and agreed with us and the people who installed it had to pay for it to be fixed.   By this time, we thought that was that.  Until we got noticed from the real estate that same year that we had to be out by the end of December/Early January.   The owner had told the real estate she was giving the house to her son (half his luck!) and we would have to move.   We were given three weeks notice.

Moving out 2003

I rushed around like an idiot trying to find a new place to live and finally settled on place in the same suburb that I thought would do the trick.  It had no yard at all and some damage (a collapsing retaining wall which to this day still hasn’t been fixed).  It was a bomb but it was close and I had run out of time.  After I signed the new lease, I got a phone call from the owner saying that she had instructed the property manager to tell us that we could stay as long as we like so long as we were actively looking for the right place.  I think, out of spite, the property manager screwed us out of the deal because we had made her look stupid.   Nevertheless, we settled for it because I had already signed a lease which in this country is a binding legal arrangement; so I had no choice.

The new place 2004

As I had suspected the new place was problematic.  The roof leaked downed the walls near electric sockets and it was filled with Asbestos.  With my daughter being an Asthmatic I inquired about the roof asking the property manager what I thought should be done about it.  I was looking for a patch job because I didn’t want Asbestos leaking into my daughters room where she could have a coughing fit and inhale the stuff.  When it came to the crunch after me bothering her for months and months she finally said the owner is going to replace the roof.  I thought at the time she would rehouse (at least temporarily) us and that would be that but I was wrong.  They were going to remove the Asbestos roof with us going on our regular lives, charging us rent, all the while exploiting genuine tenants.  I had to break lease and get out of there.

The new place was great but the old property manager held on to our bond (minus the re-letting fee) for almost a month.  Fed up and in debt I rang her and said if you don’t give us the cheque I am going to take you the rental authority.  The next day it turned up.   What a surprise she had it all the time, hoping (I’m sure) that I wouldn’t collect.  I also remember a strip of grass at the front of the house was a little bit longer and she told me she was taking $20 out of bond.  I told her that I going over to mow it as it would cost me less in petrol and time to mow it.  It took me two minutes to mow the strip of grass which technically wasn’t even part of the property.

Stafford Heights 2004/05

This was a great place and we lived their for two years until time to move came along.  I was paying $280 a fortnight rent for a home that I knew to worth much more.  When the lease came up I was told the new terms would be $330 a fortnight.  I was utterly shocked.  The real estate lied to me by saying, ‘oh well that’s what the owner wants?’  I really don’t have time for people who say one thing and do another.  You cannot tell me that the property manager doesn’t take her 8% seriously.  Wouldn’t you negotiate up with the owner? I would!  The way I see it the investor wants an advocate that will drive a property’s rent value up to the maximum because they get something out of it.  This is collusion of the worse kind and towards the end of this article I am going to suggest an alternative.  I negotiated (as always) with the real estate for the rise and was told to move out!  That I did to a small, run down shack of a house in the same area.

The Shack 2006/07

I have never lived in a place where I felt one strong gust of wind and I am toast.  I mean this house was very close to being demolishable.   This was very much a ‘renovate or detonate’ affair.  When I went to sign the lease there were about 10 people who had contracts.  Here’s something I have learned from business, always follow up.  I rang on the following Monday after putting the contract in on Saturday and got the place ahead of ten others.  I had learned about faith by this time so I claimed it.   I have to say, I was suckered in here.  Be careful what you ask for, if you have a clear cut objective, and a picture of it, you will get it!  Even if it’s bad for you.   I had also added a sweetener into the deal by telling the real estate that we would renovate the gardens for the owner.  That was attractive to them because the gardens were overgrown with Singapore Daisy.  It took us about two weeks to remove that plant from the garden and I have to tell you if you are planning on using it, for the love of God DON’T!  I had made an arrangement with the owner to pick up the plant clippings and he reneged on the deal.  Leaving us with a pile of clippings in the front yard the size of a small mountain.  The owner went back on his word so I complained to the property manager and she did absolutely nothing about it.  No wait she did, the owner decided to sell the house.

Notice to evict 2007

Things were going along smoothly until we were asked to leave with two months notice.  I really appreciated that because I was in the middle of semester and I had just started this blog.  I had two months to get my act together.  We found a cute little place in the same area and have settled there.  Sure, it has a broken light, mosquito plague, an open sewer pipe, a broken sink, a black stained bath, no fence, a wasp plague, no front or rear screens, no garage, no carport, pets outside (which makes my pet loving wife very happy) oh and the drains have been clogged.   I am happy with it though because I have no choice and I cannot afford to live anywhere else now that my daughter is going to the local state school.

What’s the difference between then and now?

The house I had in 2002 was a very sturdy full fenced rental.  It was well maintained.  The house which I am playing almost $90 a week more for now is totally run down.  When we moved in it was so dirty I couldn’t believe it.   Now, I would say that house we rented back there would easily get $330-$350 a week in this market.   I find myself looking again at outward opportunities and working weekends to get there for a house which averages in my neighbourhood for a little under $380,000.  Who the hell can afford that on one income?

What’s wrong with the system

There is the investor (which I will be one day), the real estate and the tenant.  Then there’s the toothless tiger of the RTA.  All three of these would not exist without the investor.  Now that Australian house affordability is at an all time low and is most likely the lowest in the world, rent will continue to increase and the quality of the offerings will decrease.   15,000 people were evicted from their homes because of mortgage defaults last year, no wonder people kicked out John Howard.

Towards a solution

Personally I think a good solution is to move property managers into government funded positions or some other arrangement where they don’t get their income from the property they are renting.  How can this be?  They need to be an independent voice that gets money from other sources.   The reason we have bidding on rental properties is because property managers get more money out of rental if they can drive the price up.  Why do they always stall on doing repairs?  Because, they are getting more money by stretching it out.  I have never once had a property manager say to me, ‘you know what Luke, we are going to leave it as it is.’ Not once!  Why is that? Because they have a vested interest in maintaining a system that rips off tenants and puts money into their own pockets as well as into the hands of the owners.  If you removed the stake they have in the property and reward their job performance on how well they balance the needs of the tenant and the owner then I think a fairer less rort-filled rental environment can emerge. At the moment, at least where I live the scales are very much in favour of the investor and the real estate.  Yes, I know bad tenants are as common and that’s where investors can lose a lot of money.  Way more than a bond covers.  For me however I have never ripped anyone off and I still get lied too, cheated and so on.  The system doesn’t work.  How can it when those that are doing what’s right constantly wind up on the wrong end of a very short stick.

I know of a place that was being rented where 10 people had stayed there when one was signed on the lease.  I have also seen people abusing landlords and so on.  What I am saying here is that in an investor driven market those least fortunate always miss out.  This is very much the case here in Brisbane.  Families are missing out.  People who are honest, hard working people are missing out.  What will Australia look like if this phenomena continues and there is no third party revamp of a failing rental system?  Housing commission increases, emerging poverty and most importantly less investment in property development.  Why would you sink money into a system that has no i?  I wouldn’t!

The insiders view

This is really just the tip of the iceberg here in Brisbane.  I love this city.   I don’t want to leave and take my kids to another place but I am so close to doing it because I am fed up.  Would it make any difference if I did.  I doubt it.  If you read this and you have had a similar experience to mine.  Let me know.  If you know someone who has, let them know and tell them to visit here and I will post a list of experiences just like so we can start talking about these things.  I would also welcome investors to tell me their side of the story because quite often they are getting ripped off as much as tenants (as per my earlier story).  If you are really keen then visit my forum and post a new thread there.  Thanks for reading!

Many years ago I found out about Chuck Norris humour on the web and thought… there’s a fire and forget project. Man was I wrong. I got the email today as imagine most people have at least some time in their existence. So here we go the Chuck Norris School of problem solving:

• In Pamplona, Spain, the people may be running from the bulls, but the bulls are running from Chuck Norris. (New!)
• Chuck Norris uses pepper spray to spice up his steaks. (New!)
• Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.
• Crop circles are Chuck Norris’ way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie down.
• Chuck Norris is ten feet tall, weighs two-tons, breathes fire, and could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing.
• The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.
• Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris, not the box jellyfish of northern Australia, is the most venomous creature on earth. Within 3 minutes of being bitten, a human being experiences the following symptoms: fever, blurred vision, beard rash, tightness of the jeans, and the feeling of being repeatedly kicked through a car windshield.
• Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chuck Norris has 72… and they’re all poisonous.
• If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, “Two seconds ’til.” After you ask, “Two seconds ’til what?” he roundhouse kicks you in the face.
• Chuck Norris drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
• When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.
• The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’ fist.
• Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken’s famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear.
• CNN was originally created as the “Chuck Norris Network” to update Americans with on-the-spot ass kicking in real-time.
• Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.
• There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
• Chuck Norris once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.
• What was going through the minds of all of Chuck Norris’ victims before they died? His shoe.
• Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
• Police label anyone attacking Chuck Norris as a Code 45-11…. a suicide.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t churn butter. He roundhouse kicks the cows and the butter comes straight out.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t wash his clothes, he disembowels them.
• A Handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
• Chuck Norris will attain statehood in 2009. His state flower will be the Magnolia.
• Someone once videotaped Chuck Norris getting pissed off. It was called Walker: Texas Chain Saw Masacre.
• If you spell Chuck Norris in Scrabble, you win. Forever.
• Chuck Norris originally appeared in the “Street Fighter II” video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this “glitch,” Norris replied, “That’s no glitch.”
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool Chuck Norris once and he will roundhouse you in the face.
• The opening scene of the movie “Saving Private Ryan” is loosely based on games of dodgeball Chuck Norris played in second grade.
• Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”
• Chuck Norris once bet NASA he could survive re-entry without a spacesuit. On July 19th, 1999, a naked Chuck Norris re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, streaking over 14 states and reaching a temperature of 3000 degrees. An embarrassed NASA publically claimed it was a meteor, and still owes him a beer.
• Chuck Norris has two speeds: Walk and Kill.
• Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren’t the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.
• Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is based on a true story: Chuck Norris once swallowed a turtle whole, and when he crapped it out, the turtle was six feet tall and had learned karate.
• Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse… horses are hung like Chuck Norris.
• Faster than a speeding bullet … more powerful than a locomotive … able to leap tall buildings in a single bound… yes, these are some of Chuck Norris’s warm-up exercises.
• Chuck Norris is the only human being to display the Heisenberg uncertainty principle — you can never know both exactly where and how quickly he will roundhouse-kick you in the face.
• In the Bible, Jesus turned water into wine. But then Chuck Norris turned that wine into beer.
• Chuck Norris can hit you so hard that he can actually alter your DNA. Decades from now your descendants will occasionally clutch their heads and yell “What The Hell was That?”
• Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris discovered a new theory of relativity involving multiple universes in which Chuck Norris is even more badass than in this one. When it was discovered by Albert Einstein and made public, Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked him in the face. We know Albert Einstein today as Stephen Hawking.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t shower, he only takes blood baths.
• The Chuck Norris military unit was not used in the game Civilization 4, because a single Chuck Norris could defeat the entire combined nations of the world in one turn.
• In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.
• According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Native American “Trail of Tears” has been redefined as anywhere that Chuck Norris walks.
• Chuck Norris does not teabag the ladies. He potato-sacks them.
• Pluto is actually an orbiting group of British soldiers from the American Revolution who entered space after the Chuck gave them a roundhouse kick to the face.
• When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.
• There are no steroids in baseball. Just players Chuck Norris has breathed on.
• Chuck Norris once challenged Lance Armstrong in a “Who has more testicles?” contest. Chuck Norris won by 5.
• Chuck Norris was the fourth wise man, who gave baby Jesus the gift of beard, which he carried with him until he died. The other three wise men were enraged by the preference that Jesus showed to Chuck’s gift, and arranged to have him written out of the bible. All three died soon after of mysterious roundhouse-kick related injuries.
• Chuck Norris sheds his skin twice a year.

I just found out that in America at the moment it’s Thanksgiving. I want to write to you today about the spirit of thanksgiving. How odd that here is Australia it’s election day.   Talk about worlds apart.  As I was thinking about what to write and realising most of my American readers are probably going to be spending the weekend with friends and family I thought I would write a short post on what it means to be thankful.

Being Thankful

I am not one of those people who believe you should be thankful for everything.  I do believe that you can be thankful for what you have.  Jesus said that he who is faithful in little is faithful in much.  I would also say, he who is thankful in little is thankful in much.   Say you got up this morning and went off to work.  Along the way several bad things happened to you.  Such as: the car wouldn’t start.  How do you handle a situation like that without going nuclear?  Here’s how I do it.  You need to learn to focus on what’s going right than what’s going wrong.

Thankfulness and perceptions

A pastor I once heard said that he would see people on a daily basis who didn’t have enough money.  Now that’s a real problem.   He would often ask, ‘how’s the kidney’s going?’ to which they would respond, ‘fine’.  So be thankful that you aren’t having kidney problems and so on.  I find that when things go wrong I almost always reach a negative conclusion before a positive one.  In such cases I will frame everything as a disaster instead of looking at it as an opportunity to be thankful for something else.  I have tried this and it really has made a difference to my life.  Especially when you begin to speak it out loud.  Make sure people aren’t standing around when you say it of course!

How can I be less grumpy 

Thankfulness is tied to an emotion.  As you begin to say and think thankfulness you will feel the emotions attached to it.  I am yet to write on this but will do shortly.  The underlying emotions you have are largely governed by your inner thoughts.  If you begin to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness for what’s going right, what’s going wrong won’t seem like such a big deal.  As you cultivate these attitudes (I am still working on it) you will find like I have that it will transform the way you see life.  You will begin to see opportunities you never knew existed.  Why?  Because you have began to be thankful for what you have and tied to that is the idea that something good is always going on in your life.   Things are never as bad as they appear.  Sure, you may be bankrupt, out of a job, going through a messy divorce but that’s just a problem.  There is something good going on in your life right now.  Focus on that and I promise you things will get better over time.

What you need to take from this post is a sense that in some area of your life you are not being thankful.  Remember, emotions are tied to thoughts.  You don’t just get frustrated and grumpy.  You begin to look at some problem and become grumpy at it’s implications.  Don’t let these negative emotions rule your heart.  Take authority over them and begin to cultivate a thankful attitude.  You will find at first, that you will struggle to focus on what’s going right.  But, if you stick with it, two to three times a day and speak it out loud, you will begin to see just how many good things you have in your life and what you have going for you.   Try it… I did and it’s helped me get through some terrible times.

I was reading this via What would you do and began to wonder what would I do if I had terminal cancer.  What I accept it and prepare for my death or would I fight.  What surprised me about this survey was the amount of people who opted out of knowing right away.  A very close friend of mine has bowel cancer at the moment and he is going in for surgery this weekend.   So my short sharp question to you is this:  what is your life worth to you?