First, I must apologize for the lack of posts over the last month or so.  I’ve changed jobs, gone from the corporate world into my own business and that has taken up a great deal of my time.  I’ve created 2 other blogsites for this business and getting them up to speed has been time consuming, great, but time consuming.  I will be posting more going forward as I’m beginning to be inspired by conversations which inevitably spur me to author another post.  Such is the case now.

I got an email from a dear friend of mine, Beth, which resulted in a phone call be me, as it often does. (I love talking with her)  Beth and I have a kinship of some kind, have always been able to relate to each other no matter the time between our conversations.  She is married to an Army buddy of mine whom I respect immensely.

During our conversation we began talking about spirituality, a topic we both study often, and that turned to a touch on religion.  Beth has more of a religious background that I do but she isn’t attached to it.  She is interested about what works to bring her peace.  I’ve always respected this about her.

Somewhere along the line in our past conversations I gave her the impression that I didn’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth had ever lived.  Must have been a book we exchanged or one that I showed her, “The Jesus Mysteries” I think, and she mentioned that although non religious spiritual teachings interested her she still liked the thought of miracles and of Jesus Christ. (I draw a distinction for myself between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ)  I mentioned this distinction to her as being true for me.

Miracles

Sometime ago, I read something somewhere that talked about the miracles that Jesus performed.  The piece that I read spoke of it being a matter of faith of the blind man that he regained his sight when Jesus touched him and that had the blind man had no faith that Jesus could restore his sight that it wouldn’t have been restored.  Such was the description of the miracles that were performed by this most holy of men.

I think miracles are merely events that our minds have not the capacity, due to our perception, to understand.  They are events that we can’t explain in simple terms.  Is this not the way of true faith and belief?  Faith and belief cannot be seen or understood but they both seem to move mountains and seemingly insurmountable obstacles from ones path.  Without faith and belief in oneself what can be accomplished?  Even faith and belief in things exterior to oneself can create enormous results as with the faith in Jesus as the Christ.

There was something about Jesus that caused others to have faith in his power.  What can be holier than that?  I believe we all have this power within us.

The Placebo Effect

In clinical studies, doctors have proved time and time again the effectiveness of sugar pills.  Patients repeatedly show improvement in their medical conditions when told that the medicine will help them yet, it’s just a sugar pill or placebo.  What causes this?  Why do people respond so well to fake medication?

It’s funny really.  I chuckle to myself when I think about it.  Sweet Tarts cure headaches!  I love Sweet Tarts and have known this for years!

The simple answer, if there are any, is that faith and belief cause a reaction in the mind/body connection that allows self healing.  The medical profession hasn’t given this much credibility yet prove over again through their own studies that it’s true.

If someone intensely believes in something, that makes it true for them regardless of evidence to the contrary.  The physical body responds to this immediately.

What implications does this have for you?  What are you trying to acheive that has not happened because your faith and belief in your ability to do the thing isn’t there either consciously or subconsciously?

When you believe, the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between a real physical experience and one that is imagined.  What we don’t know about how our minds can limit our ability to achieve.

I’m reading, and listening to, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  This is an incredible work as is his next book, A New Earth.

The interesting thing to me is the discussion about resistance to the present moment by focusing so much on the past or future that you neglect the now.  He says to take glancing looks at the past and future but live in the now rather than living in the past and future and taking glancing looks at the now.  Release the resistance to now, this present moment.

This immediately confused me as I focus intently upon what I’m intending to create in the future but on the other hand made complete sense. If you’re not satisfied with now, you’re not feeling abundant about now..how can you ever be abundant in the future?  Focusing on the future implies that now isn’t good enough but now is all we ever have.  In the world of spirit, there is no past or future there is only now.

Spirit, which is the essence of who we are, is permanent.  The world of form is impermanent in every regard.  Nothing really exists outside our core of being.  It’s all transient, changing from one form to another.  Focus on the inside and the outside will take care of itself.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again……hmmmmmmmm.

I’ve manifested things in my life that I’ve focused upon without strain or effort.  In fact, I would say that I’m far more successful in manifesting when I focus on it intensely then let it go.  I may come back to it briefly from time to time but I don’t let it occupy my every thought.  I go about my day as I do with my to do list checking things off as they are accomplished and the thing I have previously focused on either shows up or an idea occurs to me to phone someone; it always seems to work that way.

Every attention must be given to the now if you are to achieve any goal.  Thinking intently about the future so much that you neglect to act in the now will only result in your not achieving your goal.

Matthew 6:34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself…..

One day at a time?  I am not a religious person but this quote, if interpreted with a clear head, points to this.  Take no thought for the morrow…

I highly recommend Eckhart’s books.  They speak to me very deeply.  There is an inherent truth, a universal truth, in them that I know is true for me.  They feel as if they are the back bone of every other teaching I’ve studied over the years.  The world has waited a long time for the teaching of these truths in this way.  I personally endorse his work.

This is so interesting, isn’t it?

I had an experience recently that spoke to me and I just have to share it.  The lesson here is invaluable.

The Reunion

My wife’s family gets together every year for a family vacation in Lake Tahoe.  There is lots of food, lots of fun and I look forward to it every year.  This year, I was delayed in getting to the family reunion due to business and I caught up with them on Saturday night, they all arrived on Friday.

My 3 years old son, Ryan, is always the hit of the party no matter where he goes.  He’s just an incredible child. Of course my opinion is biased.  However, he is mildly spirited and has a strong will.  He is swayed only be distraction, it seems, and we’ve learned how to adapt to that.  My brother in law, however, hasn’t.  He sees Ryan twice a year at best, he is a  Professor of Psychology in England and comes home for the reunion and the holidays.  He doesn’t have any children of his own.

Trust

My brother in law was playing with my son and they had a bucket of ice out of the freezer.  He let Ryan alone with it briefly and told Ryan not to spill the ice all over the floor.  Well, being a 3 year old, he promptly spilled all over the floor all the while looking his uncle directly in the eye and giving him that all too familiar sneer that we’ve grown to know and love.  His uncle became very upset, angry even, saying that he had trusted Ryan to not do what he did and he knowingly did it anyway.

Let me repeat that for it’s full effect:  “I trusted him not to spill the bucket of ice and he knowingly did it anyway. He knew what he was doing was wrong yet he did it anyway.  He betrayed my trust.”

(Long pause for an enormous deep breath)

Later, I asked him what he meant by that Ryan had betrayed his trust.  He repeated what he had said earlier and then added that nothing would change his feeling on the matter.  The first mistake is trusting a 3 year old.

So I asked, “is it accurate to say that you trusted Ryan to do what you expected him to do?”  He said, “yes, I did and he didn’t do it.” “So you expected that he would do what you wanted him to do?” I repeated.  He said, “yes, I did.”

“The basis of your trust in him is, in this case, that he do what you wanted him to do, correct?” I asked.  He said, “yes, I guess it was.”

Trusting

I don’t know about you but my basis of trust with everyone on the planet is that they would make the choices that are right for them, not right for me.  I trust them to do and expect them to do what is right for them.  I trust only myself to do what is right for me.  Because of this distinction, I trust everyone, even those I’ve never met.  I don’t mistrust.  I don’t even see, with this distinction, how mistrust is possible in everyday situations.

With a 3 year old, this distinction is even more important than with an adult.

Generally, I think we put too much emphasis on trusting others.  We are all different people and interpret situations and events differently.  How can we ever trust that someone else will act in accordance with our values, wants or desires in total?  With this mindset, its like we want to be disappointed!

Ok, so do you like disappointment?

When we have the expectation that someone will act in accordance with our wants, we are setting ourselves up for a let down.  Begin to recognize that our trust is best placed with ourselves, our own expectations guiding our own actions, not with the expectation that others will act as we would like them to.

This distinction allows us to have control over our emotions.  We begin to expect less from others because we have freed them, in our own minds, to act in their own best interest.  We are let down less by others or, rather, let down less by our own expectations of others, and have healthier relationships.

You will be continually let you down if you have the expectation that others will do what you perceive to be the right thing to do.  When you expect others to do what you feel is best for you, you’re projecting yourself onto other people.  The truth is that no one will act in accordance with your expectations all the time, nor should they.

Free yourself from expecting others to behave as you’d like them to and trust yourself to behave in a manner that is right for you.

Oh, my brother in law did end up getting the gist of this.  He’s an aware guy and a pretty darn good uncle too.

This is a quote I received today from Bob Proctors’ “Insights of the Day”.  It’s a great one.  Enjoy!

Believe and Succeed

You will agree, I am sure, that all thinking people have a sincere desire to succeed.

You want to win; I want to win. No one sets out to deliberately destroy themselves - although I must admit, at times it certainly appears as if some people do.

If everyone wants to win - why don’t they? There are probably many answers to that question. After talking with hundreds of people who do not seem to be able to make it happen, I have come to the conclusion that the answer to success is locked up in a seven letter word - “Believe.”

Losers do not believe they can win. Why don’t they believe? I think there is an answer to that question and I’ll get to it in a moment. If you are having difficulty making something big happen in your life, listen closely.

All the great religious leaders, philosophers and self-help gurus have told us to believe and succeed. “All things are possible for those who believe.”

William James said, “Believe and your belief will create the fact.”

I have found that our belief system is based on our evaluation of something. Frequently when we re-evaluate a situation our belief about that situation will change.

Half of my life was wasted. I never even tried to accomplish anything of any importance because I did not believe in myself. The truth was I knew very little about me. Many years ago I was encouraged to begin studying myself, re-evaluate myself. I began to gain an understanding of my marvelous mind. Everyday I learned a little more and I suddenly began to believe in myself.

Today I have a number of companies around the world earning millions of dollars. We have a very successful year long coaching program… We teach people the laws of their mind. Long before the year’s program is over we see marvelous things happen from more money to great loving relationships.

Re-evaluate yourself. There is a sleeping giant in you. Release it.

Believe in yourself.

Bob Proctor

“The Secret” is one of the largest, if not the largest, “new age”/”new thought” publications ever released.  While there is a great portion of this information that I agree with,  I think, in substance, it leaves something on the table to the point of almost being a disservice.

When I began studying the law of attraction, it seemed so enigmatic and ethereal that I had difficulty grasping the concept of it.  My thought was “so all I have to do is write something out that I want, review it several times per day, meditate on it and it will come to me out of nowhere to the now here?”  Something about this just didn’t make any sense.  What I took from it was that all I had to do was watch for the signs and when I saw one, act on that and my desire would manifest before my eyes.

Hmmm…

Some things, sure, others, well, no

While in Bob Proctors’ coaching program, he said many times over that when he first started using the process, he didn’t believe it would work and yet, for him, it did.  I believe this to be true.

Many, many millions of people have benefited greatly from this process.  There is something to be said for having a desire and working toward that. I have absolute faith in a life force that operates for us to our greatest and higher good.  Everyone has access to this.  For me, though, there was something missing.

I worked on this process for quite a while and still use it.  I haven’t seen anything manifest in front of me that I didn’t justly earn.  While I can say, without any hesitation, that there have been times when this process has worked for me.  The example of the visualizing and believing that there would be parking spot where I wanted it when I needed it to be there has worked for me year after year.  (this works for me to the point of being almost startling) However, there seems, with me, to be a limit on what I can attract.  There have been wants and desires that I’ve had that haven’t manifested at all nor did I see any signs that would lead me to believe that something was on the way. (in all fairness, signs that I recognized)  I began to search for the missing elements that would make this work for me in every way rather than just in some ways.

What I’ve Learned

Thoughts, as I’ve said in the majority of my articles, that have either been conditioned into us from outside sources or from ourselves control what comes to us.  To attract what we want, our thoughts must be in alignment with what we are focusing on.  If we focus on something that we subconsciously don’t believe can come to us, no amount of wanting it will allow it to come.

When you’re not manifesting your desires your thoughts and the conditioning of yourself must turn from the circumference of your being to the core of your being.

What I mean is that your thoughts have to switch from the object of your desire which may be exterior to you or the circumference of being to the interior of you or your the core of your being.

Simply, from what you want to who you are.

What you are wanting is not coming to you because, I feel, you’re not ready to receive it and therefore it is not being allowed to manifest.  This made total sense to me.

It begins as simply as changing your opinions and becoming somewhat indifferent to what occurs around you.  When I’ve done this, changes happened and opportunities manifested seemingly out of nowhere and almost instantaneously.  There was effort involved but it was minimal and WHAM! there it was.

When I opened myself up to possibilities ( “I suppose this could happen” ) and began to ask myself the right questions the whole world seemed to open up in front of me.

When the core of your being changes about what you want to manifest, the signs of the things you are wanting to create will become clear and visible.  You cannot see that which you don’t believe in your heart of hearts you can create.

When what you’re wanting is not coming you’ve got to look inside for the resistance to what you want.  It is there.  You’ll find this resistance from asking yourself questions that will reveal to you how you FEEL about the question at hand.  This feeling will let you know immediately why it’s not coming then from there you’ll be able to open yourself up to the possibilities and creating your life as you want it to be.

I belong to a wonderful site called “Powerful Intentions: The Law of Attraction Community”.  While there today, I came across a post from a fellow member titled “Why Did God Allow This To Happen?” The opening quote:

“Hi,

I was reading about guys and gals that have been born into richness and have everything they want from fame to looks to whoever they desire.

Do you think it is really fair that a select few “have it all” and others are born to failure. poverty, etc…? …..”

The new me was shocked to see this article from an obviously distressed person attempting to figure out the ages old question:  Why do some appear to have everything they want easily and effortlessly while I have to struggle for everything?  The old me felt that pang of familiarity in the post.

Our Potential

Everyone is born with the essentially the same tools, the same potential.  Even those who appear to be handicapped, history has proven, achieve amazing things.  No one is born with anything more than anyone else in so far as potential is concerned.  People are born into situations that may be more favorable than others on the surface.  Helen Keller and Dr. Stephen Hawking to two examples just off the top of my head that appeared to be completely disadvantaged yet achieved greatness.  And there are many, many more.

Born To Be Successful?

There is no genetic predisposition to success.  Walt Disney’s father failed at 5 businesses, one a Florida motel and Picasso’s father was a mediocre artist at best*.  The list of people who have succeeded and seemed to have everything they wanted in life but came from either economically, socially, physically disadvantaged backgrounds is very, very long.

What do we have so far?  1) Everyone is born with essentially the same tools and 2) it has been proven time and time again that there is no genetic predisposition to success and that anyone can succeed regardless of heredity.

What’s God’s Part?

So where does God come in?  God, the source, the creator or whatever you call the “all that is” blessed us with all the tools we need to succeed so that we may “glorify the father” in living.  We are experiential beings.  Unlike animals, God gave us the gifts of imagination, will, perception, intuition, reason, memory and the tool to use them, the conscious mind.  We have the ability to rise above just basic survival instinct to become whatever we want to become.  In the popular vernacular, we’ve got mad skillz!

It is not up to God to create our individual worlds as God experiences through us.

“Don’t expect God to do for you what God can only do through you.”

(I can’t remember where I read that!)

God has provided us with the tools and the environment to succeed.  We are naturally goal striving beings.  All we’ve got to do is learn how to use the marvelous gifts we’ve been given and we too can achieve great things.  The tools we been given allow us to “program” our “software” causing our “hardware” to act out our desires to the attainment of any goal.  (Are you doing this consciously or unconsciously?)

This being the case, I have an important question:  What are you feeding your “computer”?  Are you feeding it the “everyone has everything except me” thoughts and images for your “computer” to act out or are you feeding it “others have succeeded and I KNOW and BELIEVE it’s possible for me, too!”  thoughts and images?  Which do you think would help you achieve the most?  The answer is obvious.

Don’t Resist Your Potential

Feeling that others have everything and you have nothing is resistance to getting what you want in life.  These thoughts do not let the Law of Allowing to work for you.  Let others encourage you by their example not discourage you.  If you’re becoming discouraged by the examples of others, your thoughts are dwelling in the circumference of your existence and not the core of your existence.

Focus on the core of your being, improve you and learn to use the tools you’ve been given.  Then let others wonder at the seemingly effortless success you attract.  The choice is yours.

*The New Psycho Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, edited by Dan Kennedy

I received this recently from Insights of the Day by Bob Proctor.  It’s a wonderful piece, please enjoy it.

Will Rogers’ Secret

A magic way to win more friendships that no one can resist; even hardened criminals can be won over this way.

“I never met a man I did not like,” said Will Rogers. Many people thought this was just another funny Rogers’ remark, but one time when I met him with Amon Carter, of Fort Worth, I asked him, “Surely you can’t like everybody?”

I knew he must meet bores, cheats, fourflushers just like the rest of us do. How can he possibly like even them?

Will was famous as a funnyman; but he was also a wise philosopher and he could be most serious when he wanted.

“Of course I don’t approve of all the things that people do,” he said, “but there is some goodness and some cussedness in all of us.”

He continued, “If you know a man well enough you can always find something good in him and you can always find something interesting about him. It is just a matter of what you are looking for!”

“But what about the narrow-minded people? What about gossips? The people who do petty, mean little things? Do you like them, too?” I persisted.

“I once read somewhere,” he said, “where someone asked Abe Lincoln that same question - why he refused to get mad at the people who abused him, ridiculed him and tried to discredit him.”

“Lincoln replied that people’s actions spring from their character and that many factors beyond their control went into making up their character - where they were born, the people they had associated with, and a lot of other things.”

“Therefore,’ said Lincoln, ‘you shouldn’t become angry with a person who blocks your path any more than you would with a tree which the wind blew across the road.’”

Will Rogers had no more reason for hating a person who happened to have been unfortunate enough to have acquired a habit of gossip than he did for hating a person who was foolish enough to neglect his teeth.

He didn’t like gossip. Few people do; and he didn’t like pettiness. He looked upon them as foolish behavior rather than evil behavior.

I am convinced that Will Rogers really did like every person he ever met.

There is an interesting thing about liking people, and that is they in turn like you. If you must start a rumor about somebody start it by saying, “I sure like that person.”

This gets back to them and they say, “Well, I always liked him, too.”

Another funny thing about gossip is that if they tell you things about others, you can just bet they will tell others things about you.

While there is always a temptation to listen to gossip, just remember while you are on the listening end this time with this gossiper, the next time you will be on the receiving end when the gossiper gets elsewhere.

Beware of the Gossip!

Avoid the company of the gossip. Don’t give them a chance to be with you, find something out about you, then carry that story into another circle.

I am convinced that this trait of his character was largely responsible for Will Rogers being the most universally liked person I have ever heard about.

Will Rogers liked everybody and everybody liked Will Rogers!

Elmer Wheeler
From How to Sell Yourself to Others

“Man is made or unmade by himself, in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy, strength and peace.”

Your thoughts create your reality.  It’s that simple.  Especially your opinions, the thoughts you hold onto, cherish or revere and repeat to yourself over and over again create your life before you.  Some of your ideas were conditioned into you by authority figures in your life and other thoughts are a result of our life experiences, successes and failures. Our reactions flow forth from a source, for the most part, unfamiliar to us and while most will defend them to the end, others look in the mirror as if to ask, “what was I thinking?”

A friend once told me that if I didn’t get down off my fence, straddling and stand for something that I essentially stood for nothing.  I’d agree.  When you stand for nothing, anything is possible.   When you stand for something, it can get in the way of everything.  How do you stand?

We don’t have opinions, opinions have us.

Does that mean we don’t have values? No it doesn’t.  Values are important and help guide us if properly utilized.  Values aren’t what were talking about, it’s everything else we carry around that hinders our ability to achieve.  Can some opinions be mislabeled as values?  I know I’ve done it and failed as a result.  Values seem to be basic life fundamentals and are few while opinions are distractions to life fundamentals and are many.

Sound familiar?

Your mind will work either way for you.  Toward success or toward failure, it’s your choice and two sides of the same coin.  Many don’t understand why events happen in their lives as they do.  I didn’t but now I understand it well.  With that understanding comes faith in whatever happens being for the highest good.

You don’t get that which you want, you get that which you are.  Your opinions make up who you are.  What are yours?  Do your opinions of the world around you promote your cause or defeat your cause?  You’ve got your results as the barometer, how’s it reading at the moment?  Are you all that you want to be?  Only you can know.  Be honest, assess yourself and change is possible.

That’s my opinion, what’s yours?

James Allen wrote “As A Man Thinketh”, his second book, in or around 1903.  It’s a small book that’s easy to read and packed with wisdom.  I’ve read this book dozens of times and it never gets old.  There is so much value in it that, if studied regularly, will help you to understand how your thoughts affect who you are.  While I consider this book to be a bit on the mystical side, common for the era it was written, there is practical information here that is timeless.

One quote from “Thought and Circumstances” has stayed with me since I first read it and spurred me to study other works to try and understand it.  It eventually changed the direction of my life.  It reads:

“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”

At the time, I was studying the Law of Attraction and was focusing quite intently on what I wanted.  Guess what?  It wasn’t working.  I was in denial in a big way about this sentence.  I didn’t want to accept that I had to change to get what I wanted.  How many people think just this way?  There was a gnawing feeling that I got when I read it as if something deep inside me was saying..”HEY, pay attention to this, you need to learn this”.  I didn’t get it at the time but I’m glad I stuck with it.

Pay attention to it I did.  I was on a quest to find out what it meant and to additional information that lead to more successful living.  Incidentally, that was what I wanted in the first place.

What I found out is that it isn’t enough to want something, you have to be ready to receive it.  You can’t get that which is out of alignment with who you are.  If what you want doesn’t coincide with your image of self, you won’t be successful at “attracting” what you’re focusing on.

I was dealing with a business failure that left me in dire straits, my self confidence was shattered and all I could think about was being a failure rather than that I had failed.  I took my failure personally.  The truth was,  I failed but this failure wasn’t who I was it’s what happened.  Having failed was a fact, that is what happened but thinking that I was a failure was a subjective opinion, not fact. When I accepted that and began to focus on the success in my life, everything changed.  (by the way, the failure turned out to be, as it always does, one of the best things that could have happened to me)

Thinking that I was a failure repelled everything that remotely appeared to be successful.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  If you’re thinking failure and hoping for success, how likely is it that you will succeed?  I know what the answer was for me and as James Allen so aptly put it..you don’t attract what you want; you attract what you are.

All the answers are inside.  Become aware of the inside, change it and everything else will follow by the law of cause and effect.

“As the plant springs from and could not be without the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought and could not have appeared without them.”

James Allen, As A Man Thinketh, Thought and Character

Act In the Direction of Your Goal

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”

(please pardon the “he” references) Henry David Thoreau

When an image is created in the mind, focused on, repeatedly reinforced and steadfastly believed in, it sets in motion forces unknown to us.  It’s as if there is something out there or around us that responds to what we truly believe we can achieve once a firm decision is made.  People and circumstances show up, ideas come to act on and it feels as if achieving that goal is a certainty.   We see a way to do it.

There hasn’t been anyone of achievement who knew how there were going to achieve their goal.  There is a story about John F. Kennedy asking Dr. Werner Von Braun , the preeminent rocket scientist of the 20th century, what it would take to reach the moon before the Soviet Union in the early 1960’s.  Dr. Von Braun’s answer was very simple.

“The will to do it.” 

Thomas Edison was the same way.  He had only a vague idea of how to create a lightbulb.  However, he had a very clear goal of creating one.  If he knew what he was doing, it would have taken slightly less than 10,000 attempts to create it.

These men didn’t know how they would do it but they did know that if a goal was set and believed in, a way would be found.  All that was needed was the will, a mental faculty that we all possess, to do it.

This is true for you, me and everyone who has a mind to think and, more importantly, an imagination.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

 Albert Einstein

If a goal is set and believed in, I mean really believed in, it will be achieved.  Building belief to achieve something that has never been done takes will and mental toughness. This is not for the faint of heart.  You must have faith that you can achieve whatever goal you set out to achieve.  Your faith cannot waiver.  You must absolutely, without doubt, believe you can do it or

don’t even try.

If you begin to work on achieving a goal that you don’t feel you can accomplish, you have failed before you have begun.  You have planned to fail by not beleiving that you can accomplish the goal.  Why start something without a successful outcome in mind?   Worry, doubt and fear will not help you to reach your goal.  Your subconscious mind will work for you toward failure or success depending on what it’s fed from the conscious mind because it doesn’t judge the outcome, it just gives you who you are not what you want.  Whatever goal you choose, believe it and you will achieve it.

Be Present to and in Alignment with the Moment

When you have your belief and you’re reinforcing it to yourself many times a day, be alert for ideas from any source.   If you are alert, you will recieve “signs”, so to speak, of the direction you’ll need to go to accomplish your goal. It may not make sense at the time, it may even seem to take you away from where you want to go.  It’s like a detour in the road.

Imagine you’re on a trip to San Francisco from Sacramento.  You’ve got the route planned, you know how to reach your destination.  Then, an hour ahead of you, a truck carrying 40 tons of dried kiwi fruit and banana chips tips over closing the route you’ve chosen.  What do you do?

Adjust.

Being the alert TTL blog reader that you are, you’ve got the AM radio on, hear about the accident and adjust  your route to meet the circumstances you’re faced with.  Reaching your goals is just the same.  If you are alert and present to the circumstances around around you, you’ll be able to change course and get to your goal when you plan to do so.

Building Belief

Some years ago, I learned a technique that has helped me to create unshakable belief in what I wanted to create in my life.  It’s called the “Mirror Technique”, or at least that’s how I remember it.  The name isn’t as important as the effect it has on the mind.

After you’ve discovered your goal, created a clear mental image of it through writing, reviewing and rewriting, condense it down to a few words on a small card that helps to trigger that image in your mind when it’s read.  Once you’ve done this, read the card several times a day taking time to imagine yourself achieving your goal.

Then, look yourself in a mirror, look directly into your eyes and repeat your goal affirmation to yourself.  Say it with intensity.  Reinforce it to yourself that you’re the sort of person who accomplishes goals, you are a doer and you get things done.  Build yourself up by remembering your past success and then be present for the opportunity to make it happen!

When you see the way, do not hesitate, act now on the ideas that come from nowhere to now here.  They will come, they always do.

Whew!  That was fun…

Success and failure can be traced back to the individuals personality. “Attitude is everything”, is timeless advice. The positive attitude combined with a very clearly defined image of the goal is a winning combination.

One characteristic of people who succeed is that they don’t blame outside circumstances, conditions or others for their failures. They accept the responsibility for their circumstance without beating themselves up for it. They recognize it as fact that they failed, this time, and move on to even greater success in the next endeavor. When you take a failure personally, you doom yourself to repeat history.  When the failure is replayed over and over in the creative imagination it becomes self defeating.  While successful people do fail, they never quit in the pursuit of success. To them, failure is a temporary, transient event, not to be taken personally but to be learned from and used toward future success.

In fact, some degree of failure helps to guide us toward the goal and learn what not to do.

Success and failure just don’t happen out of no where, there is no such thing as luck. Sure, being at the right place at the right time is helpful but even that isn’t entirely necessary as there are opportunities in every environment.

The current real estate market is an excellent example where many people in that industry are failing yet not everyone is. The foreclosure market is providing a very good income for those who have taken advantage of that opportunity while the majority who haven’t or have choosen not to are struggling. One agent I know struggled when the market was booming and, now that the “air is being let out of the bag”, tells me that “money is falling from the sky!” While I inherently see the flaw in his approach, you’ve got to respect someone who finds a way to succeed while the majority, at least, are struggling. Opportunity is everywhere and if one pays attention to the direction of the wind, adjustments can be made to a least minimize losses. That’s the power of attitude, seeing the “glass half full” as it were.

 Being aware of the attributes of the failure personality, as Dr. Maltz describes it, will help you to become aware of these feelings and help you to make adjustments to your thinking and feelings when they arise about any situation.

 They are:

F - Frustration

A - Aggressiveness

I - Insecurity

L - Loneliness

U - Uncertainty

R - Resentment

E - Emptiness

All of these feeling distract one from being focused in the moment and present to what is occurring now.  These feelings can be paralyzing and inhibit the actions necessary for successful completion of any goal.

The way to rid yourself of these feelings is not to try and block them out but to replace them with other feelings, success personality attributes for example.  Thoughts are going to come up, that’s how we’re wired. While I’m a firm believer that we can create more space around our thoughts or in between our thoughts, it does not seem possible to completely block out all thoughts for a prolonged period.  Rather, if we replace these thoughts with thoughts of success rather than thoughts of failure we change our results.

Be on the lookout for these feelings when they come up.  They can be very destructive toward achieving your goals, happiness and peace.  All events are transient and what looks monumental in the moment is often part a larger plan that we can’t possibly be aware of or, at a minimum, will mean very little to us in a short time going forward.

This week, we saw an example of mental toughness that will be recorded as one of the greatest wins in the annuls of golf history. Tiger Woods, through grit and determination, blocking out all other options, save winning the 2008 US Open, does so with an injury that most players would probably not compete with. It was an amazing display. A lot can be learned from listening to Tiger’s interviews vs. Rocco Mediate’s interviews.

For me, when I think of the term “mental toughness”, I get impressions from my past that are ego related or ego dominated, more accurately. The “fighting through all obstacles to get to the goal type” mindset. This brought up an aggressiveness in me that I immediately recognized as having caused failure in my past. This aggressiveness is inappropriate for most situations and often resulted in my pushing away the very thing that I was trying to manifest in my life. It meant that I didn’t see the goal as an already existing fact and that I was trying to push to get what I wanted rather than being calmly assertive toward what was already in existence or what I considered to be an already existing fact. This aggressiveness actually created resistance to the goal itself. What an odd paradox.

I was working strictly from outer purpose without employing inner purpose. Inner purpose is a far greater power in aiding us toward our goals than outer purpose alone.

Understanding this distinction is the difference between success and failure in anything. The process is a) know what you want then b) create an image of what that looks like in your mind then c) accept that as an already existing fact and d) act in that direction being completely present to what is and in alignment with the present moment. The opportunity will then be recognized and the goal achieved.

Knowing What You Want

This is the first step in the manifestation of anything. Getting a very clearly defined image of what you want is essential to achieving. This mental image provides a road map, of sorts, to guide you along your way to the goal. How you’re going to get there isn’t important, it’s that you get there. The path may take you to places you didn’t know you’d go but eventually will lead you to the end result. Focusing on the path or “the how” could prolong the time it takes to reach your goal or have you missing the opportunities you need to realize it altogether. Focus on the end result with clarity and confidence. Get lost in the process, get better at your execution and the path will appear.

Accept Your Goal as Existing For You Now

The fact is that somewhere, someone else has already achieved the same goal or a similar goal as you are trying to achieve. It’s already been done and is already in existence. Someone else has done it, so can you.

In my more ego based past, I saw this concept as being delusional. “How can I think this is already in existence when it hasn’t happened to me yet?” As I mentioned in part 1 of “Who You Are” we’ve been blessed with a creative imagination that allows us to experience in our minds that which we’d like to see in our outer experience. When these ideas or images are created as already existing facts in our imagination and accepted by the conscious mind they are then passed along to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn’t know if this is an imagined experience and a physical experience. The subconscious mind can’t differentiate between the two!

Every accomplishment, every achievement has had it’s birth in thought.

This being the case, when your goal is viewed as being an already existing fact you begin to “act as if” it’s already occurred. Resistance, attachment and judgment dissipate and you develop a resolute presence that will allow opportunity to be recognized and action will result to realize your goal. You’ll begin acting in the now without pressing and forcing what hasn’t occurred yet. You allow what is to come into your experience calmly and deliberately, not through force.

The next two articles will be from a book that has helped me to alter my self image and brought me closer to all of my goals. In fact, this website came about as a result of studying this book. It has changed my life dramatically and it will help you too if you make the effort and are committed to becoming better at whatever you do or whoever you are.

The book is called “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. I was lead to it by a program from Bob Proctor on self image called “The Winner’s Image”. As I’ve said before, I recommend all of Bob’s material.

Everything Seemed Out of Reach

I was struggling to reach my goals and I couldn’t figure out why. I was trying but it wasn’t happening. Due to the experiences I had in my life, I was promoting my “failure mechanism” by thoughts about myself I had accepted as true (conscious mind process). Once accepted as true, those thoughts were passed along to my subconscious mind. These thoughts then became integrated into my image of self. Once passed onto my subconscious mind, I began to act on this image automatically.

The subconscious mind controls the functions of the body from a “program” so to speak. You’re born with a success program built in. One side of it operates the system, the bodily functions, and another side of it serves to help us adapt to our external environment. All beings are wired this way. It’s our creative imagination and our ability to choose what environment we want to adapt to that separates humans from all other animals. Our interpretation of the external environment comes from our life experiences also called “conditioning”.

It takes NO effort on your part to get the results you’re currently getting in your life. You are acting on what your self image identifies with. Change the self image and your results begin to change automatically and without effort. That is not to say that one will sit back while the world falls at his/her feet. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

When your self images changes, different thoughts will be attracted to you and from those thoughts and ideas, new actions will develop and your results must change. It’s universal law.

The Success Type Personality

Dr. Maltz uses the word “success” as an acronym describing the qualities of successful people. They are:

S = Sense of Direction

U= Understanding

C = Courage

C = Charity

E = Esteem

S = Self Confidence

S = Self Acceptance

The purpose of this acronym is to give you something from which your creative imagination can create an image of the success personality. There can be barriers to accepting this image of yourself. Harsh self criticism, believing that you are less than you really are, a feeling of unworthiness. Develop the feeling that these qualities are possible for you. See yourself as someone who fits this description. “I am the kind of person who”…. and fill in the blanks. Imagine yourself to be this sort of person - now.

Dr. Maltz writes, “Accept yourself. Be yourself. You cannot realize the potentialities and possibilities inherent in that unique and special something which is “YOU” if you keep turning back upon it, feeling ashamed of it, refusing to recognize it.”

The next article will be the attributes of the failure type personality. Stay tuned!

You Are Not Your Past

For me, the only service the past can do is to create a mindset of successful living. I used to be different. I used to beat myself up for the mistakes that I made, the people I hurt or, at a minimum, played the “if I knew then what I know now..” game. None of this was productive.

When I think of the past, I think of past success and recall the feelings that I had, that “winning feeling”. The funny thing is, when I think of my past success, they are virtually the same events as those I used to beat myself up for. That’s not to say that I was proud of myself for the negative results of my actions but rather, I began to focus on the successful aspects of those events. An “every cloud has a silver lining” outlook.

The difference wasn’t the events themselves but my perception of those events. I could choose to focus on the negative or the positive aspects. They are both there within all events. Now I’m grateful for it all. Beyond that, dwelling on what has been leaves no room for the only time you have and that is now. The past has made you who you are and prepared you for now. Live now and “leave the dead to bury their own dead”.

You Are Not The Opinion of Others

Everyone you meet will have a different opinion of who you are. It is important to remember that people are seeing you, as we see them, through their own “filters”. They will see you in a manner that fits into their self image. What they see is their opinion, not fact. You see them the same way.

Some time ago, my wife Andi and I were looking at a computer generated figurine that was spinning. If you looked at this figurine long enough, it would suddenly change directions and appear to spin in the opposite way. The interesting thing was that I was seeing it spin one direction and Andi was seeing it spin the other direction at exactly the same moment. We were looking at the same thing at the same time and we both saw something different.

One person can perceive you one way and another sees you completely differently. This is out of your control and is simply opinion. Whether it’s positive or negative, it’s just an opinion. As you know, everyone has one of those and they are all different. Don’t take them seriously and don’t be someone else’s opinion of you. Be unique, be yourself.

Helpful Affirmations

I like affirmations of self as they remind me of who I imagine myself being now. The following is my list that I read and meditate on everyday. I write them out regularly, this helps me to create an image of self. The image helps create feelings, feelings cause actions and actions create results.

I am ok with what happens. Events are transient and I am ok with what happens.

I am present to the task at hand with no self distraction

I don’t take myself too seriously

I live in acceptance of what is with no resistance

I create and focus on my goals by I am not my results. I am a spiritual being having a physical experience.

Create your own image and reinforce it to yourself daily. Take just a few minutes everyday in silence and become one with yourself. This has been the practice of the most balanced and successful people in history.

Balance comes from within.

I came across this quote today sent to me by Bob Proctor in his “Insights of the Day” series. Go here to sign up. They come daily through email with an inspirational “Friday Story”.

Lately, I’ve found that being present has opened up doors for me that had been previously..well, ajar! Not totally closed but not totally open either. This quote is an awesome reminder of how to stay in the present moment. There is power in now.

“How to Increase Your Inner Peace”

I want to give you a tested technique for gradually and surely increasing your inner peace. It works for you regardless of the noise and confusion that may surround your day.

You will detach yourself as a mental participant in these noisy events. You will observe them, be aware of them, but you will not involve yourself mentally or emotionally. Perhaps you ask, “But can this really be done? It sounds impossible to separate myself from the constant clatter around me.” I assure you that it can be done by you.

You see, your True Self is detached from everything on the outside. It has awareness of exterior conditions but does not get emotionally upset by them. You have a True Self at this very moment. At the very instant of reading these lines, you are capable of mental detachment from all exterior problems.

Be a calm beholder of life. Mentally detach yourself. Stand back and quietly observe everything that happens to and around you. Do not resist it; merely observe. Do not try to change, improve or destroy it, merely be aware. See yourself as someone apart, which, in truth, you are.

You need not fear that this detachment loses your control of things. It does not harm your daily tasks. They will go on as before. It may surprise you to find them proceeding as before, even improved. Mental detachment is, in fact, a higher form of control.

This kind of detachment is not retreat from reality; it is healthy perception of it.

Stand apart and behold your life. It detaches you from trouble. You don’t suffer from that ill-tempered person; you don’t get depressed over that tragic event; you don’t pay the price for that form of mankind’s madness. You are free.

Vernon Howard, From “Psycho-Pictography”

There is true power in awareness and detachment of the events surrounding you. Our attachments are what bind us. Let go and align yourself with the present moment no matter what is going on around you; no agenda just be “the observer”. When you feel this, you will be feeling, not thinking, the real you.

RS

In conjunction with understanding who you are, it is also equally valuable to know who you are not.

The ego is a collection of ideas that has been passed onto us by the authority figures in our lives and through our own life experiences. Through these experiences, we have created an image of who we are. This is known as a the self image. This self image controls everything in our lives; how much we earn, who we are attracted to, what type of work we will do, what we are passionate about, what we like and don’t like, etc. The self image is a collection of beliefs about who we are. The self image operates in the background of our minds beyond the reaches of our conscious awareness. This is the tough part.

The good news? Beliefs can be changed. When you change your self image, you open yourself up to a new beginning to become whatever you choose. Before this can happen effectively, it is important to accept and believe the truth about who you are. The following is who you are not:

You Are Not Your Failures

You are not a failure. You have failed, as everyone has, but you are not a failure. It’s important to differentiate fact from opinion and understand this distinction. The fact is that you failed. The opinion is that you’re a failure. One is real the other is not. People fail and that’s how were learn what not to do to in order to reach our goals. This makes failure a necessity to success in anything.

As soon as a failure is recognized, glean what constructive lessons were learned and move on. Focusing on failures and past transgressions will create negative feelings which, if accepted by the conscious mind, will be passed along to the subconscious mind. This will become part of your mindset and be reflected in your results. Living in the past doesn’t allow you to be present in the only moment you have - now.

Focus On Your Successes

Take out a notepad and write down every success you can ever remember having. This exercise changed my feelings about me and changed my life. No matter how small, WRITE IT DOWN! What this will help you to do is recall the FEELING of being successful. Once you have that feeling, relive it over and over then begin to call upon it when you’re striving to accomplish a goal or when the situation calls for it. The “Winning Feeling” is what you’re looking for. Dwell in that, meditate on it and accept that this is who you are. With this feeling, your actions change causing your results to change. This must happen as it is in keeping with the universal law of cause and effect.

You Are Not Inferior

A high percentage of people in our society have feelings of inferiority. These feelings often stem from unfair comparisons to others. Anytime you compare yourself to others you are setting yourself up for negative feelings of being less than you are.

We are all unique. No one is inferior to anyone else. All my life, I have been a good golfer. I have played with people from all walks of life. While I may have been superior to them on the golf course they were certainly more superior to me in other aspects of their lives. Everyone has something to offer that makes them unique. Unfairly judging yourself against the standards of someone else always ends up with you getting the short end of the stick or at best, feeling negative about yourself.

You are not inferior, you are not superior, you are who you are; a child of the source of creation.

Compare yourself to your own standard only, against your own measure of who you are and what talents you possess. Develop your passions and share them with the world.

The enemy of courage is not cowardice but conformity. Be the uniqueness that you are.

Part 2 

 ”Living consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the moment”

Sidney Poitier, Actor and Author of “The Measure of A Man”

Being in the moment, without interference from the ego, has helped me to overcome many obstacles in my path in many different situations. Relax and be in alignment with the moment.

Being in the moment can mean that you become in total alignment with what’s happening in the only “time” you have and that is right now in this moment. There is no other place other than right now in this moment.

I’ve noticed when I’m not interfering with myself, I speak from a higher level of consciousness. I spontaneously respond from a higher place, totally focused and with clarity. When one interacts in this manner, it reaches that part of the other person beyond their own ego and allows the ultimate respect to be paid to another, that of complete attention without agenda.

That is, in my opinion, a most powerful place.

RS

Acceptance

I feel one of the keys of self improvement is the acceptance of being someone greater than you are. The acceptance of the great potential within you can help you to accomplish all that you wish to accomplish. It is within your reach, ready to help you on your way.

It’s not easy sometimes to separate ourselves from the events and circumstances of our lives. Do this, go there, be this and so on it goes. Often, we go for days, weeks and months without focusing on who we truly are, we get down, negativity seems to abound. It need not be that way, doesn’t have to be that way and you can be different now. You can be happy now no matter what seems to be tearing you away from that inner peace that feeds your soul. At a minimum, you can be happier. It may all seem larger than life to you but, still, while it’s going on, whatever it is, you can be happy now. There is so much promise within you, it doesn’t matter who you think yourself to be or where you are in your life. It’s there just let it out.

The Success Instinct

You have the ability to achieve. You were born with the tools, everyone who has a healthy mind was. Consider this:

Animals are provided with a “success” instinct. They know to gather food and store it for the winter months when food is, at best, scarce even if they were born the spring before!

Birds know which direction to fly for the winter months without aid of the “Weather Channel”or a compass, having never done it before. They just “know” what to do and where to go. These are survival type instincts. These animals are “programmed” for successfully navigating their environment.

We, too, have the same instincts. Human beings have been programmed with their own success instincts that a) goes beyond basic survival and b) helps us to navigate our environment. Our ability to choose gives us the power to move in different directions, more advanced than any other animal on the planet. We can create a plan (goals) and move in that direction, any direction we choose. This is how we are wired, it’s 100% natural! We are goal seeking beings.

The Bible says that God made man in his own image, a little lower than the Angels and gave him dominion over “the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”* So what did that leave out?

God did not give us dominion over everything here then say “but you won’t succeed in the process just so you know!” Doesn’t this description also imply that we’d have dominion over ourselves as well? God, or whatever you call the all that is, the creator, created us in it’s own image, doesn’t that make us creators, too? Yes it does. To pull it off, we were blessed with a creative imagination. Funny, no other animal on the planet has this mental faculty. I don’t mean to be flippant but what else is needed for you to feel blessed and worthy of achievement?

The Facts

Your life, RIGHT NOW, is a result of the images that your creative imagination passed along to that side of your mind that runs the show, your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind operates all of your bodily functions. Your conscious mind (the operator) feeds the subconscious mind (the computer) and it responds unemotionally and without regard to the results. Whatever the conscious mind accepts is passed along to the subconscious mind; whatever is rejected is not. The subconscious doesn’t know if the pictures it is fed are really happening or are just imagined. It can’t know, it just responds to what your conscious mind is habitually turning over to it.

“Ask and ye shall receive” could this have had multiple meanings? What if the “father” also means that whatever you ask of your subconscious mind and believe you will have is created by your actions? What if it’s not all just fate or luck? What if there is no favoritism from the creator and it’s ALL UP TO YOU AND WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT YOURSELF? What else would a father do in his love for his children but give them, on a golden plate, the ability to become all that they ever wanted to become? Would any father knowingly set his children up for automatic failure, for any reason? Does this make sense? Not to me.

This information is nothing new but perhaps you’re reading it for the first time. Study, study, study. Whatever you accept and believe becomes your outside circumstance. Go inside, find out what’s there and change it. Accept this and you can make lasting and permanent changes in your life.

*Genesis 1:26, KJV