I come from a background of do-it-yourselfers. It's like there's a badge of honor in my familial history of, "You can do it. You can do it yourself. You don't need anyone else to help you. Be independent. Be self-reliant." There's a saying in New Zealand where I hail from as a reference to number eight gauge wire. In other words, everything can be fixed with a bit of number eight wire. Some nations like the U.S. and Australia have sayings like anything can be fixed with duct tape.

It's like no matter what, you can do it. You are an individual. You can patch it up, you can fix it.

A common definition of environment is 'everything around us'. I take exception to that and I wanted to explain why.

Have you got an idea or a service or a product or something that you know can really help people and are you frustrated about the fact that people just don't seem to get it?

Is it that people don't seem to be willing to even entertain that what you have is something that could help them?

I think, there's a wealth index at play. I don't have the evidence of it at all, but it just seems like there's a relationship between wealth and the fullness of one's garage.

Let's have a look at that today.

It was Archimedes who said, "Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth." That's in somewhat a truism. I mean obviously it's a matter of scale, but the point is, is that with enough leverage we can get incredible things done.

So today let's just dive into what it is to have leverage.

When we talk about structure, I mean, really everything has structure, but we often think of it as the sort of mechanical things like houses, and bridges, and roads, and cars, and stuff like that, but I consider that even jellyfish have structure.

Let's dive into this one for a few minutes to look at the intriguing essence of structure.

Have you ever noticed that little voice inside of you that... that thing that just keeps going and going, talking, talking? It mightn't be your voice, it could be other people's voices, it could be your mum, your dad or your school teacher?

That's that internal static, it's the internal noise. Let's have a look at this both where it serves and where it does not serve.

Awareness.

We're neurological driven beings. We are one with all that's around us by virtue of our neurology. We are beings that have a network of communication that calibrates what's going on in our world. We're constantly feeding out to and receiving from our environment.

And that is the process of awareness. It's a process of noticing what is going on. And we need this. It's a survival mechanism for a human being. And if we cut it down, if we slow it, if we get ignorant, if we lack knowledge or we are unaware of our environment or what's going on around us we are less educated. This creates a downward spiral. We devolve and that's not a useful state.

Awareness is the opposite. Awareness is growing. It is evolving, it is looking at possibilities and developing oneself. The more aware, the more responsible we can be. By responsible I mean that we are able to respond to the environment around us. Respond in a way that's appropriate for that environment.

So let's explore what it is that drives awareness relative to the in8model®.

We're in an age where the pace of life and the rate of change are rapidly accelerating. We're immersed in sensory input, that for me is boarding on overload. Just keeping up with the constant flow of news through the media or emails or Facebook conversations consume vital space, time and energy. We tend to be eager to get on with the next new thing and tend to see things in small units of time that are hinged right around this very moment without regard for the long term.

It's an age of expediency and it can be very costly. The state of immediate gratification, of instant results, of feeling good right now can be a block to long term sustainability in success, in our life, our business, and indeed our planet.

Identify the transformative opportunities. Some may refer to them as problems, stress or undesirable issues that are going on in your life.

Are you stressed out just thinking about them?

Being in control is a fallacy. The only thing you have control over is how you act towards transformative change, so change is the only constant.

Once you've grasped this fact, flashes of insight emerge, and life becomes easier.