Spark Your Golden Age

Joe Viglione of the Somerville News Weekly, a Boston newspaper, has given a review of my book How to Spark Your Own Golden Age: Tips for Success

Viglione’s column is called “Hit the Underground

“Rex Apollo’s first book is making waves in the world of Twitter and his How to Spark Your Own Golden Age is a novel approach to the world of inspirational books. Novel in that Apollo feels he had a “golden age” he was content with, lost it, and is building it back. And he feels that his “tips for success” that come from his own experiences in life (he’s traveled to many, many countries) can help you find what you are looking for. The author took the photograph on the front cover himself and it certainly draws you in, the glowing star, our own sun, over the waters strikes a balance proving a picture really is worth a thousand words. But where most books in the self-help genre cleverly repeat the instructions in different ways from page to page, it is Rex’s personal path and his adventures that give you a look into what it’s like in the “real world,” inspiration for those of us embracing or trying to figure out “the human condition” Find him on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Rex-Apollo/e/B07SZ27PPZ/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 “

Author Julie Kusma on my book How to Spark Your Own Golden Age: Tips For Success

Follow Julie Kusma on Twitter @juliekusma and check out her website www.juliekusma.com

By Rex Apollo

While teaching in the Middle East, I was served coffee every day on a silver platter. As a private tutor, my employer treated me very well. I had my own servant and often went out to restaurants in the gleaming new buildings built over the desert.

For many, experiencing such opulence would be the ideal situation, yet partaking in such luxury made me sluggish and lazy. I lost my drive to do more. I only worked when my student requested lessons and spent countless hours on videogames since I knew no one in the country. Over the course of my employment as a private tutor, I gained significant amounts of weight and was even told by someone that I looked like I never hit the gym.

Most people hope for such an existence even if it is out of reach. They believe the ideal life is one of luxury requiring no effort. This is the silver platter syndrome.  Everyone wants everything in their life served to them on a silver platter. They believe in comfort over challenge.

Yet making the most of our lives requires us to overcome our inkling for such luxury. Even people in the wealthiest families know that a lack of motivation can destroy one’s soul. In my case, the silver platter began to negatively affect my health because I had no reason to aspire for higher. I lacked purpose in my life other than to live off the comforts of others.

When we aspire for the silver platter, we have no mission in life. We do not possess any drive or goals. Even if we are lucky enough to have a servant with silver platter, we must not let it weaken us. We must have a goal or purpose in mind.

No matter your station in life, beware of silver platter syndrome.    

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

By Rex Apollo

There are only types of people in this world: builders and maintainers. The builders create the world and the maintainers do the upkeep. A builder is a pioneer for she or he builds something, creates something or invents something. The builder is thus an influencer. They leave a mark upon the world that may even endure the great test of time. They will be remembered for generations to come. They engage in creation for it is the greatest act there is. They change the world and build their own city on a hill: their own legacy worthy of remembrance.

In contrast, the maintainer only keeps the world in its current state. He or she serves the builder, for they lack a will of their own. The maintainer is thus a slave to the will of a builder. Most people are maintainers because they never truly know themselves enough to become builders.  While the builder resides within all of us, most are content to be maintainers.  For them, good is good enough and they never endeavor to be great.

The family we are born to has practically nothing to do with our status as builders or maintainers. In wealthy families, the builder creates the family fortune while their children might be content as maintainers. They are content to maintain the family’s wealth rather attempt to build something more with it. Whereas the poor man or woman in the ghetto be might possess the hunger the rich kid lacks. They know the world shall do them no favors and endeavor to leave a mark upon the world.  They decide to build their own legacy.

The builder knows that they are doing the great work of our creator. It does not matter the type of creation they engage in.  The creation can be a family, a business, a book, an invention or countless other things. The creator smiles upon their soul.

So now to you, my reader, are you a builder or maintainer? Decide today and spark your own Golden Age of Opportunity.

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

by Rex Apollo

The day the scandal hit took everyone by surprise. A language institute which had existed for over 40 years would close. It was no mere language institute, but a bastian of culture and community for many throughout the city. Over twenty employees, including many language teachers would lose their jobs and livelihoods as a result. While the company had filed for bankruptcy protection, none of the employees had fully understood the gravity of the situation. They believed that everything would work out.

What the language teachers and others who worked for the institute failed to understand was they were living someone else’s dream. They worked for a company that belonged to someone else. No matter how hard they worked, the company would never be theirs. It had been the life’s work of the owner to build up the institute. It was his vision and his city on the hill.

As humans we have two choices, we either build our own city on the hill or we will live in that built by someone else. We can either be a slave or a master. On the surface, it seems far easier to live in the realities of others rather than creating our own. However, there are costs to subverting our will to those of others as the language institute employees found out the hard way.  

As humans we are called to be builders by our creator. We are the happiest when we are building something whether it be a house, a business, a family or even a whole civilization. People once they have made it look back fondly at the days when they struggled while making their dream a reality. Building something gave them a purpose in life. We are all called to create our own reality and build our city own city on hill.

What is your city on the hill? What action are you taking to build it today?

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

by Rex Apollo

I desired the “normal American life.” After five years of living in the land of wine and cheese, the land of kimchi, and the land siestas and fiestas, I returned to the States. Wandering the world, meeting interesting people and having adventures was just supposed to be something to get out of my system. I was going to act like a “real adult,” find a nice girl, get married, get a “normal job,” and buy a house in the suburbs like everyone else.  That’s how you define normal, right?

My question is what is normal?  Who gets to decide what normal is? Are we letting other people choose what is normal for us? 

In my book, normal leads nowhere because it means we don’t have our own dreams or aspire to them. We are letting other people set our aspirations for us. We are demonstrating that we lack the will to decide on own “normal”.  When we let others make decisions for us without having a will of our own, we cannot ever be truly happy.

Normal people spend two hours of their day driving back and forth to work. Does that sound fun to you? They sit in front of computers in cubicles so that they can make someone else richer. They care more about what their neighbors, family, and coworkers think than what they think. If you want to be normal, then hats off to you. I wish you all the best, but I’m done with normal.

So don’t aim for average anymore, endeavor for extraordinary!

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

by Rex Apollo

“I could never do that,” is a phrase I often hear when I tell people in the US about my decision to move to Vietnam.  Why not? Many people have lived in a foreign country. In Hanoi, there is a whole part of the city where one would think that they lived in the US, the UK, Australia, or South Africa due to the high number of English-speaking expats. All those individuals found a way to live in Vietnam, so maybe you can too. The only thing preventing you is a failure of imagination.

People often spend more time searching for reasons why they can’t do something rather than contemplating the reasons why they can do something. For some things in life, nature prevents us from doing from them.  For example, if you are 45 years old, it is highly unlikely that you are going to become the next Michael Phelps in swimming. However, people often use these extreme cases as excuses for why they cannot become better at something.

For the majority of things in life, there is no reason why we cannot succeed. The reasons we give are mental blocks that we create.  Rather than building these walls, we should tear them down. We need to tell ourselves, “there is no reason why I cannot succeed.  There is no reason why I cannot have more success.  There is no reason why I cannot make more money.”  So, stop with your limiting beliefs today and tell yourself, “There is no reason why my life cannot be better tomorrow than it is today.”

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

by Rex Apollo

Reading the news article made me angry. My favored candidate for president got insulted by some party bigwig. In the US, we have the option of phoning members of Congress.  Since the aforementioned jerk happened to be a Congressman, I decided that I would call them up. Surely my opinion mattered if opportunities existed for people like me to voice their discontent.  

I dialed the number of the Congressman’s office and was not shy in the slightest in expressing my opinion to their staffer. How could such an idiot even work for such a scumbag politician? Giving them a piece of my mind was sure to change theirs and that of their boss.

Much to my chagrin, my phone call did very little to change anyone’s mind. In fact, the party bigwig’s candidate went on to become the nominee of their party and I wasted all that mental energy and time on something I had so little control over.

Imagine if I had spent that time differently. I could have started the Rex Apollo blog on www.sparkgoldenage.com far earlier, gone to the gym or spent time learning a foreign language. Any of those things would have benefited me far more than wasting time and headspace on an angry phone call.

In spending the time on a rant, I focused on things I could not control. While we can try to persuade other people, we cannot control their actions or the decisions they make. The internet gives us the illusion we have far more influence on others than is the case. Modern technology brings knowledge of events that we would never have heard of if we lived 100 years ago and it somehow makes us think that we can influence them. However, the opposite rings true.

The only thing that you have full control over is yourself and the actions that you take.  My former co-worker at a private school once told me, “Focus on what you can control and ignore everything else.” While he was referring to school discipline policies, I believe his advice can be applied to every area of our lives, so focus on improving your life and take action today.

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!   

By Rex Apollo

“I will do that when I retire,” I often hear people say. They believe that there is going to be some mythical retirement in which they will have a ton of money and time to do whatever they want. They become so focused on the future that they cannot see what is right in front of their face. What they fail to see is that today is an incredible day and we should make the most of it.

It is our Golden Age of Opportunity. The world is an absolutely incredible place and it is our solemn duty to take advantage of our time here.There is a ton of money to be made and a ton of success to be had. All we have to do is find a way to make it happen. Money is made of paper and it is a renewable resource. There are virtually limitless ways in which we could be successful. They are tons of people to meet. While you may not have what you are seeking right now, remember the world is a place of abundance, the only thing that truly limits our possibility is our time and our limiting beliefs.

So rise, go forth and take advantage of all the incredible opportunities out there today. Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!

Rex Apollo is the author of How to Spark Your Golden Age: Tips for Success sold on Amazon.

Did you like reading my article?  Then Like the Rex Apollo Facebook page and follow me on Twitter @sparkgoldenage. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Just as great civilizations can have Golden Ages, so can you!