Hello, I'm Charles Coviss, Australasias passion provocateur.
Welcome to the first episode for 2023 of the Charles Coviss show episode 136 since we started
on this journey in 2020 and a happy new year to you. We welcome you whether you're watching
on YouTube or on rumble or listening via podcast. It's great to have you here. Great to have
you for another year of weekly ideas, opportunities for learning, for growing, for self-awareness,
for passion. So for the first episode of the year, having had three weeks off, seems a long time
ago that I was speaking to you. My big idea this week is to welcome you to 2023 and I set out for
you seven choices that will make your 2023 a very happy one indeed. These choices are clear and
simple, but they are not easy. Making these choices consciously gives you great personal
power and power is your ability to create your life in 2023 according to your terms. I want you
to live a successful life and to have a successful year. These seven choices you make will ensure you
achieve such a year. I urge you to make these choices and then live your life according to
these choices. Our format for the show continues this year in the same as last year. I share with
you the big idea. I share with you six resources to help you implement the big idea. I'll review
some key happenings of the last period since the previous show, in this case the last three weeks,
and then finally the foundational principles for this show and more details about my background
are contained at the end of the show so that regular viewers and listeners don't have to
keep seeing the same stuff. But for new viewers and listeners you will find it most helpful.
So let's get into today's big idea and before we get into the big idea let me get into my coffee.
Those of you regular viewers listeners know
how I love coffee, how passionate I am about coffee. So it's a new year. How do we have a
happy new year? That's the wish isn't it? I hope you have a happy new year. Well I do hope you have
a happy new year and I'm giving you seven choices that will indeed make your 2023 very happy.
We all make choices all the time but many times they are made unconsciously. Making these seven
choices that I'm about to share with you consciously are crucially relevant to your life and how 2023
unfolds for you. So let's get into these seven choices. Number one, choose to be responsible.
Don't be a victim. Don't be a martyr. Choose responsibility.
Taking responsibility for your life means you are in control of your life.
Taking responsibility for your life means you don't blame anybody for what happens to you.
Responsibility is such a powerful, powerful idea. I say you are responsible for the future of the
country in which you live regardless of where you're listening. I'm responsible for the future
of Australia. I'm responsible for the future of the planet. I'm responsible for my life. When I
make such a choice everything changes. When I blame other people for my life experience
I've become a victim. I'm no longer in charge.
This is such a powerful liberating concept. Choosing responsibility puts you in charge.
Number two, choose your top 12 friends. Who are the 12 friends most important to you in your life?
Who are the 12 friends that love you the most and that you love? Consciously choosing these 12
will ensure that you invest the necessary time in those 12 relationships. You know how complicated
one relationship is. If you consciously choose the 12 you will continue to build this wonderful
resource that you presently have of 12 friends and that they don't unconsciously disappear or
dissipate. Your most loving and loved friends are an amazingly powerful resource for you.
Choice number three, choose your worthy ideal for your life. In previous episodes you've heard me
share my favourite definition of success. Success is the progressive realisation by you of your
worthy ideal. What is your worthy ideal for your life? What do you think your life is about?
If you don't clearly know then part of your job this year is to say what is the worthy ideal of
my life. I've shared with you previously my worthy ideal and why I do what I do is to learn and grow.
A subtext of that is that I'm a freedom warrior. You'll hear that in the background
of the foundational principles of this show of how freedom plays such a crucial part in my life.
But as I am a freedom warrior I'm also learning and growing whilst pursuing the fight for freedom
in a range of five areas including freedom to pursue your passion,
hemp and its ability to keep people free, freedom of speech particularly as chairman of the
Institute of Comedy, freedom from government overreach which I do as a legal strategist
and then freedom that arises from being healthy because if you're in a hospital bed like my son
is in hospital you're hardly free. Great health liberates you, frees you.
That leads to choice number four. Choose to be healthier.
Choose, make this choice at the start of the year I choose to become healthier and my definition of
health is that it is and most people don't have a definition of health they think they're healthy
and most people don't have a definition of health they think they're healthy
but they haven't they say what do you mean by health well I'm not sick that's not a
definition that's not health not being sick discernibly sick is not health here's my
definition that you may wish to use I urge you to embrace it if you don't have one it's the best
one I found I've I've crafted it but it comes about from from 50 plus years of involvement 60
plus years of involvement in health and it's this health is the unique optimum balance for you of
mental physical and spiritual elements health is the unique optimum balance for you of mental
physical and spiritual elements so choice number four choose to be healthier choice number five
choose to embrace your problems and not resist them everybody's got problems if you resist them
you are wasting your energy pushing back creating unnecessary stress in your life embrace your
problems because the fact is you deserve them you the choices that you have previously made have led
to the problems you have today and as you've heard me saying other episodes as a human being
your reward for solving your problems is not peace happiness joy success blah blah blah
your major reward for solving your problems is bigger problems if you are alive it means you
have problems to solve and if you resist them it's a waste of your time energy don't do that
embrace your problems and then go okay what am I going to learn how am I going to grow by handling
this problem don't say to yourself I'm not good enough because I've got these problems if you
didn't have problems you would create them so embrace the problems solve them and knowing
that you're going to get bigger problems isn't that exciting so you don't beat yourself up
because you've got problems which is what many people do choice number six
choose your tribe I was going to say choose your gang but you know you can think of it as a gang
but choose your tribe for mutual support encouragement and learning to handle global
challenges and trust me we are facing a range of global challenges we are facing challenges
challenges from the who we are facing challenges from the world economic forum and davos we are
facing challenges from the desire to take away national sovereignty if you join groups I can
help you find such tribes or groups or gangs you create a mutual support mechanism so that when
the shit really hits the fan you have got a group ready willing and able to get into action
regardless of what happens and then being part of such a group and I'm a member of a number of these
groups it liberates you from from unnecessary fear being part of a tribe coalesced around a
particular goal is a very powerful resource for you and lastly the last choice the seventh choice
a very powerful choice I left this to last it's just four words it is the secret to happiness
and I said I would guarantee for you a happy 2023 well if you make this choice you will
indeed be happy and the choice is four words choose to be happy
sounds simple doesn't it not easy choose to be happy these four words are of crucial importance
to you you see most people in my experience I have a lot of experience most people are unhappy
because they've got problems but I've already said to you you're going to have problems for
the rest of your life if you're waiting for the absence of problems to be happy you won't be happy
and I promise you you can be happy in the midst of problems how do I know I've got plenty of
problems and I'm happy this is a powerful liberating idea Julie lives her life by this way
I live my life this way my dad taught me this I promise you it works the Dalai Lama also says
that stop waiting for some state of nirvana before you're happy choose to be happy
when you are happy your ability to handle all the stuff you need to handle is is is enhanced
is empowered is enlarged it's a it's a wonderful way to live your life
and it's a conscious choice for the previous six choices I gave you if you make your conscious
choices amongst these seven you will indeed have a wonderful successful spectacular happy
2023 I promise you so let me give you the resources to then help you
live life in this way according to these conscious choices you make
my quote is by John C. Maxwell a prolific author expert on leadership
he says this life is a matter of choices and every choice you make makes you
how about that you can make yourself totally new this year by making these seven choices
consciously life is a matter of choices and every choice you make makes you my book this week is by
John C. Maxwell it's called how successful people grow and I picked this book out of his many books
because I've said to you before my worthy ideal is to learn and grow that's what my life is about
the meaning of my life is to be here to learn and grow to embrace this experience of life well how
do you grow well John Maxwell's book could be the one that you need my song this week
is by James Brown and the idea of this song is to make you happy
and it's oh I feel good I knew that I would now I feel good and the reason why I also picked
this song is it is a happy song but also because this was the theme song that we chose in our team
in 1993 when I went to business school in Hawaii with Robert Kiyosaki and we had a team of 11 of
us and it's a pretty powerful team and this was our theme song when we were doing hard exercise
we are I feel good I feel fine and we'd be running walking up the hill so songs are powerful
songs music is the language of the soul pick a song that revives your spirits
my health tip this week I'm getting a lot of information from the various sources that you
know that I have access to of the power of vitamin d3 now I've been increasing my intake of vitamin d3
and I had a test and I was shocked despite all my exercise on my bike to find how low my vitamin d
levels were get your vitamin d levels tested vitamin d has a crucial element in many in the
functioning of many parts of your body's system my spiritual tip is to meditate on who your 12 top
friends are you see being friends are your friends are those that you care about you love
is a spiritual element of your life it's one of the 10 spiritual elements starting with it the
letter f your friends but who are your top 12 that you are going to nurture throughout 2023
who love you the most who you love the most you can have thousands of facebook friends but they're
not your friends these are the top 12 friends and many of you will have many more friends you can
go gosh how do I limit this to the top 12 and then lastly on the issue of choices we have a spot
of humor and it's a it's a small story about a small shop owner and it's it's relevant because
when it's now it's summer in in Australia in Melbourne here in Victoria and I used to be
president of the lawn surf life-saving club and yesterday was the peer to pub swim at lawn
I didn't get a chance to go and do that because I had too much work on
um but lawn over summer like many seaside resorts is busy busy busy busy but then in winter it gets
quieter well this is a story about a small shop owner who has a store on a beach needs to hire
some help and the job's of course a seasonal so he found two he found two he couldn't decide which
one but he thought oh well you know uh they've got to go back to school at the end of the holidays
so after interviews he chose a young man named Jack who'll do most of the heavy lifting
and a young pretty girl named Melanie to work the till and do some light sails they work out
extremely well the summer is busy but as it starts to come to an end and the weather turns cool
sales go down and there's a lack of tourists so he needs to alleviate the lack of income
and he knows he has to get rid of one of his new employees but he likes them both
and he's reluctant to make a choice Melanie is moving some boxes so he decides to pose the
dilemma to her maybe one of them wants to go willingly Melanie he says I have a bit of an
issue that I need your help to decide which way to go I either have to lay you or jack off
she continues to move the box in the hand and replies could you check off I have a headache
I know it's a bit rude but hello it's a new year and uh Julie's shocked that I would have that
joke no she's not she knows what I'm like so I hope today's big idea and the choices I've inspired
of provoking you to make will help you to make this an amazing year will help you to raise your
self-awareness will help you to live your life with passion to embrace this amazing gift that
we have of life I invite you to subscribe to this youtube channel or the rumble channel
or to the podcast to share it with your family and friends and your work colleagues
discover more about our corporate and public programs at covest.com and for the self-awareness
and passion quest visit charlescovesse.com you can access my first two books passionate people
produce and passionate performance at both of those websites now let's review some key happenings
over the last three weeks it's hard to imagine that three weeks has gone just like that the
previous show I recorded on the 18th of December and now I'm recording this on the 8th of January
wow so three weeks goes by we had Christmas celebrations new year celebrations some of you
will notice that my beard has got a bit lighter well a week ago I had to cut off my beard because
we had to dress up for a new year's eve party which we do every year and I had to go as a woman so I
decided I wouldn't go as a bearded woman I went unshaven so it's coming back you can see so I'm
pleased to see that in about two weeks time it won't be any different my beard goes very quickly
I must say it was surprising how many people that I'm close to did not notice that I had lost my
beard and it was a salutary lesson again that you will stop worrying about what people think
of you when you realize how little time they spend thinking of you close family members
did not notice my beard was missing the global meetings that I moderate three each week continues
so there have been nine meetings of importance relevance including the medical doctors for ethics
that I've told you about and then the foam meetings and the important matters and ideas have come up
out of that that you will get the benefit of from these weekly shows so stick around because there
are some major challenges that humanity is facing and coming up in this month is the World Economic
Forum meeting in Davos I consider the weft to be a grossly evil organization and I urge you to
question everything it says I also consider the United Nations to be bad of bad intent and the
the smart cities campaign that it's promoting must be resisted and there's this nonsense of the 20
minute rule 15 minute rule please make yourself aware of it it is such a threat to your freedom
and my freedom I am implacably opposed to it and lastly over the last three weeks you'll be pleased
to know that Julie and I have maintained our health have done the things that help us to be
healthy have done the exercise I've continued to train almost every day and I urge you to do the
same it's one of the choices that you make choose to be healthier what I assure you with all the
things I've got on my plate I never I never have the idea I can't afford to exercise every hour
of exercise increases your capability gives you two hours of productivity so you're one hour ahead
so if you're new to the show stick around now for the last part which is the background about me in
some detail but the foundational principles of the show there's some good ideas to share in it thank
you for watching thank you for listening thank you for subscribing thank you for sharing amongst
your family and friends and work colleagues I again wish for you a successful 2023 I urge you
to make these seven conscious choices that I've brought to your attention I hope your week is full
of passion of challenge of love of friendship and anticipation for next week's episode of the
Charles Coves show thanks for being here bye for now
and now for viewers and listeners who want to know more about my background and what else I
do with my life as well as the foundational principles of the show here we are since 1993
when I left my legal career a career that I love to become Australasias passion provocateur
I have inspired and provoked and educated and motivated people all over the world to discover
and pursue their passion I have helped people via the books that I've written via speeches at
conferences via in-depth team building programs workshops over one two or three days or over three
months six months and I've coached people of all ages one on one from small medium and large
enterprises government enterprises helping them to identify the often tiny changes that can make a
massive difference one of my core principles is that freedom is what makes us truly human
that's why one of the greatest threats that government imposes on you to force you to observe
its laws is the threat of imprisonment the loss of your freedom just think about that
government says if you don't behave yourself we're going to put you in jail no no don't go to jail I
don't want to lose my freedom that's a reminder to you of why freedom is so important without
freedom you and I are not much different to animals if you are locked up in a cage for the
rest of your life how how different would you be to an animal this commitment to fighting for
freedoms for all people is carried out by me primarily through five channels number one
preserving the freedom to pursue your passion number two inspiring you to be able to be free
through excellent health number three helping preserve freedom throughout the world through
the expansion of industrial hemp a magnificent agricultural crop an almost miraculous crop
that enables every community to thrive independently of government in this way the power of government
to take away freedom is minimized number four fighting for freedom through legal strategies
so I do work as a legal strategy consultant as an interface between clients and their lawyers
and number five as chairman of the Australian Institute of Comedy and as a board member of the
Australian Cartoon Museum fighting for the freedom of thought and speech through uncensored
comedy and humor through avoiding political correctness in the comedic space when you block
freedom of speech freedom of thought that's the beginning of the end of your freedoms
the foundational principles for the Charles Covass show are founded on the formula
SA plus P equals S your self-awareness added to your passion will guarantee that you are
successful and the best definition of success I have found in life is that success is the
progressive realization of your worthy ideals the progressive realization of your worthy ideals
this show is also guided by Socrates famous principle and quote the unexamined life is not
worth living you can see I'm wearing my red jacket I wear my red jacket for all my shows red is the
color of passion so that when you see me on the YouTube version it reminds you that when you see
red in your life you ask yourself the question am I pursuing my passion what am I passionate about
am I still passionate about that what might I newly be passionate about each week I explore one big
idea that can change your life and it's just one big idea because there's a chance you will remember
if I give you too many ideas then we we get confused and we don't do anything
clarity leads to power confusion kills passion each week I share simple and practical resources
that you've heard me describe in the earlier part of the show a spiritual tip a health tip
lyrics of a song a book a quote and of course humor this show is not politically correct I have
no intention of being politically correct and I love certain addictions including my addiction
to great coffee my addiction to exercise my addiction to reading and my addiction to certain
other unmentionable in public type behaviors who would know what they are this show definitely
subscribes to the view that we have a spiritual life so if you don't like discussion of spirituality
this show is not for you I promise you that I don't include anything in this show that I
don't consider to be true and that I have not found to be useful in the work that I've done
over the past 28 years but also over the past 50 years in business as a lawyer as a consultant
advisor I only want to share stuff with you that is of value to you finally if you have any
questions or suggestions please feel free to contact me at Charles at Covess.com again
thanks for watching and listening to my show bye