Idealization. This is something I want you to grasp, and have grasped immediately. I’m only going to say this once. Well, maybe twice. Idealization is an exercise that you can use to improve almost every area of your life. I say that rather emphatically because I know it works. It works for me.
If you take my videos, for example, I applied the idealization exercise to these videos. I said, “I want to shoot videos which have good audio, which have good video, which have good lighting.” And as a result, I had to do a lot of research and I discovered something called three-point lighting. There are some videos on YouTube, you can check them out.
I also said to myself, “Do I want to go on camera all the time in a different suit, with different ties? Do I want it to just be the top half of me, the bottom half of me? What would be my ideal type of video?”
I said, “You know what? When I look back in a few years’ time, I don’t want to be looking back in 5, 10, 20 years’ time” — I’ll assume YouTube is still around, it probably will be — “and see myself kitted out in some confined couture that have gone past their sell-by date. Not really.”
I don’t want to look back and think, “Oh, that was the fashion back then.” I am a bit of a timeless gentleman in that sense of dress. I like to dress in a classic style. As a result, I do my shopping on places or High Streets like Savile Row. This is where I get my white shirts from. I like the button-down collars, 100 percent cotton. I like them to be very, very nice-fitting and I like to wear these in this video.
I like to have a white background. Now, contrary to what you may think, this is not actually wallpaper. This is not my wall, which is white. It’s actually a pull-up projector screen, because that’s the whitest background that I could find. It is something that I’ve obviously applied, and which, I’d like to think, does a reasonable job.
I also said to myself, “Ideally I would have a fresh trim when I come on here. I’d be looking pretty sharp in terms of the haircut which I’m flaunting.”
Also, I said to myself, I’d have a bit of a tan, ideally, but things here in the U.K. are not really too good in terms of daylight, because it’s a rather cloudy, dull country. It’s just a damp island, I was going to say, so there’s not really much in terms, here, of UV rays which I can attract, so I had to give that one a miss. See, that’s the idealization exercise. I used it to apply — now, you can apply this anywhere in your life.
You could apply this to your website. You say, “Ideally, on my website, I would like to have an ‘About Us’ page, a ‘My Story’ page. I’d like to have some articles, some products, some services, some video testimonials. I’d like to have some written testimonials as well. I’d like to have massive amounts of traffic.”
See, that’s just me applying it to online. You could apply it offline. You could say, “Ideally, what would my spouse be like? What would my girlfriend, my boyfriend, what characteristics would they have, ideally?” You can filter down to exactly what you’re most attracted to.
You could apply it to where you’d like to live. I know this is something that I’ve done. Idealization has, for me, revealed I like to be in a warm climate, somewhere between about 16 and 26 degrees. If it goes above 30, it gets a little bit too hot for my liking, so I like a little bit below that.
I also like to be around good, quality people. People that have class and are not peasants. That was another factor I took into my consideration. I also, I like to be around people that can speak English, because I’m not really one for learning too many languages. But I could be wrong, I do know a few languages, but I don’t really like to put in the necessary time and effort to learn a completely new dialect.
English speaking was a factor for me and I managed to filter these criteria down to a few places. California, San Diego specifically, and Cyprus, Limassol specifically. Also on the agenda was, possibly, Australia but I decided against this because it’s on the other side of the world. But then I had another thought which was, what would I actually be coming back here for? I may stay and settle over there.
Anyway, I’ve been to Cyprus. I’ve very much enjoyed my time there — very, very nice place, nice people. All around good place. California’s probably next on my world tour. But I would only have discovered such places having done the idealization exercise. This is something I would encourage you to do. Apply it to places or things in your life that are important to you.
It may be your next job, your next career. Ideally, where would you work? Would it be a big office or a small office? Would it be for a ball-breaking employer, someone who’s going to give you wrinkles? Or is it going to be for somebody who is going to give you flexibility and freedom? Someone who understands that less control is more control? I don’t know. This is something for you to figure out. Take a pen and a paper and do the idealization exercise.
