Category Archives: Appreciation

I’d Like to Change My Order

I was having dinner with a friend the other night. I was in a pretty good mood (as I usually am,) but he seemed to be out of sorts. I could tell because he usually orders a mixed cocktail (he has a really strange system based on the day of the week and the general weather pattern to choose his drink. Either that or he’s been pulling my leg all this time,) but that night, he ordered a beer. Not just any beer, well actually, yea, he just told the waitress “whatever’s on tap is ok.”

I asked him what was wrong. He said that he was having second thoughts about going forward with his business that he’s been planning on starting. “What changed?” I asked.

He said that he’d been talking with another guy that his advisor had put him in touch with, that had successfully started a business in the same general line of work. He said that he had worked 7 days a week, about 12 hours a day for the first two years. He had a supportive family, and finally after two years, his business was successful enough that he could hire other people to manage it for him.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. He said he wasn’t really prepared to put in 12  hours a day for a year before he saw a profit. He seemed to think that all businesses need that level of commitment to get off the ground and become profitable.

I told him about this book I read (I forgot the title) about a kind of study they did on successful entrepreneurs. Now that I think of it, I think it might have been a tape program, and I’m pretty sure I got it from Nightingale Conant. If you’ve never had a look, I recommend it. They got some good stuff there. If you find something you like, you might check ebay first, because lots of times people buy stuff, listen and get great benefit, and then sell it at a pretty cheap price.

So what this program said was that there was a huge range of variables that went into successful business creation. Some people were successful right from the start, some had to work at it over several years, others had all kinds of loans and help from family. It really didn’t matter. The term ‘work’ is really a relative concept. What might seem like ‘work’ to some, may be totally enjoyable to somebody else. Some people might consider putting two weeks of effort to get a ton of money a huge burden, but others might consider three or four years total enjoyment, even if you don’t make a lot. So long as you enjoy what you do.

I asked my friend if he enjoyed doing what he thought he was getting himself into. He thought about, an decided that he really did enjoy it. Then I asked him if he would enjoy doing what the other guy did for two years, 12 hours a day for, and he said no way. Then he confessed that the other guy said the only reason he quit after two years, well not really quit but hired other people to take over, was because his wife had their second baby and really needed his help around the house. So it turned out my friend was imagining himself doing what the other guy was doing and imagining not enjoying it, while in reality the other guy was enjoying it so much it took a second baby and his wife’s demands that he ease off a bit.

When he put it into that perspective, it made total sense to him. Although the waitress was pretty confused when he sent back his beer and asked for a Vernal Equinox.

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Submitted For Your Approval

I was sitting in a local coffee shop yesterday, as I like to do. And I ran into some this guy that I sort of know, but haven’t had the chance to really put in the “friend” category in my brain. You know what I’m talking about, right? Anyways, this guy tells me about his roommate. And his roommate is the kind of guy that is always trying to learn new things, he’s always going to some seminar, or reading a new book on this subject or another.

And he was telling me how is roommate went to this really interesting seminar in some kind of esoteric philosophy, kind of like metaphysics, I guess. And there was a guest speaker at the seminar, and he really didn’t do much speaking, because for most of his allotted time he had them watch a video tape with this Indian guru. Which is strange in and of itself, because nowadays, most people simply use DVDs to watch videos, instead of tapes.

So anyways, this guy said that the secret to being able to get what you want in life is related to how well you can give yourself approval. He was saying that behind most desires are a hidden need to receive approval from other people.  He said that it relates somehow to growing up, and internalizing some of those messages that we received from our parents. Kind of like the guy with the anchor, sometimes something is good to hold onto, and sometimes you should just let go.

Now I’m not going to tell you to automatically believe this stuff about releasing the need for approval from others, because I think it’s important for you to discover that on your own. And while some people tell me that they think the need for approval is based on genetic programming rather than conditioning, I think it’s clear that people who have been able to operate independently from the need for approval from others will tell you differently.

And you are probably already aware of the fact that when you remember those times when you did things without waiting for permission or approval from others, you were able to feel more freedom to experience the situation. Like sometimes when you were able to detach from the outcome, whatever it was, and just focus on the experience, you can remember having a great time.

And this might not be entirely relevant to you, but when you do release any need for approval from others, you might find that you get more approval than you’d ever hoped to receieve had that been your outcome in the first place.

But it did sound like an interesting seminar that he went to, and I never did find out if he got a copy of the tape that they watched, as he left before I got a chance to ask him. Seems he was in a hurry to meet somebody about something, and he was just stopping by to pick up a latte for the road.

You are probably already aware of the fact that many people have decided that the more they expose themselves to mind expanding ideas, like articles on this site, the easier it is for them to find new ways to get what they want out of life.

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Going Deeper, Even Still

I got it in my head once that I wanted to run a marathon. And of course, instead of starting to train slow, two miles a day for a week, and then three miles a day for a week, I decided to jump right in and run 7 miles for my first training run. Let’s just say that walking the next day was a little bit less than pleasant.

My coworker, being the incredibly nice guy that he is, would walk up and pretend he was going to punch me in the leg. Naturally I involuntarily contracted my thigh muscles, causing an unbelievable amount of pain. He did that all day long. I grimaced, he laughed. Even when I saw him coming, and knew what he was up to, I still couldn’t help but to contract my muscles when he wound up on me. Kind of when the doctor hits your knee with that little hammer that he has. Except that is kind of cool. This was rather painful.

I’ve heard from psychologists that stress effects the mind the same way. Something happens in the world, and no matter how much we are expecting it, or see it coming, our mind contracts, causing unneeded and unresourceful mental anxiety. So what’s the answer?  One way to train your mind to relax is through meditation. There are many medically proven benefits to a daily meditation practice. Lower blood pressure, better sleep, more energy during the day, better clarity of thought. When you think about it, all these benefits can easily be explained by a mind that has been trained to be relaxed when you want it to.

And just like when you relax your body by not moving your muscles, you relax your mind by not moving your thoughts. One way to still your mind is to count your breaths. One, breath in. Breath out slow. Two, breath in, breath out slow. Focus only on the numbers. Release all other thoughts. If other thoughts drift into your mind, just allow them to continue drifting, until they float all the way past and fall off the edge of your consciousness. It doesn’t really matter if you sit in a chair, or on the floor, or even lie on your bed when you do this. Breath in, one. Breath out. Breath in, two, breath out. A good goal to aim for is to get to three without noticing any other thoughts. When you can get up to three, shoot for five, and then ten. Slow. In. Out. And it doesn’t matter how long you do it, a few minutes is really all you need.

As you continue to improve your skills, you will notice that because you are able to release thoughts easier and easier, those old ideas that used to cause you anxiety can’t do so as much any more. And sooner or later, you will come to the liberating realization that it wasn’t those ideas at all that was doing it, it was your mind’s reaction to them. And the more you train your mind, the more it seems you can shape your reality.

While you walk through the world with your less reactive mind, you will naturally start to see opportunities that you didn’t see before, so much so you will wonder why you didn’t realize you could do this earlier.

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Develop Powerful Appreciation

There is a scene in the incredible movie Taxi Driver where the main character is holding his hand above the open fire of his stove, in order to strengthen himself, or perhaps to prove to himself how tough he is. The power of this scene is that the character, who is completely psycho, holds his hand above the stove without flinching. Stone faced. The reason this is such a powerful scene is the audience can’t help but to imagine how incredibly painful that must feel.

Psychological experts know that the only two fears humans are born with are heights and loud noises. The rest we have to learn. How long do you think it took you to realize that fire was dangerous? A second? Less? Have you ever drank too much of a certain liquor (for me it was Tequila) and then later just couldn’t even stand the smell of it? How long do you think it took your brain to learn that liquor is poison, and you should stay away from it? (Or at least too much of it.) Probably not very long.  How long did it take to learn that speaking in public could be a dangerous thing? Probably not very long. Probably all it took was once in second or third grade when you spoke out in class and the results weren’t quite what you expected.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones that can feel really comfortable whenever you stand up and speak persuasively with confidence and charisma as if you were Cicero speaking to the Roman Senate. If you are that confident, I’ll be sure to vote for you when you run for congress. The rest of us will have to continue hiding behind our 3×5 cards. 

The reason we learn so fast to be afraid of things is naturally because it is matter of safety.  If you’ve read the article on memory, you know that pain, or potential pain is one of the key elements of forming a strong neural connection.

But what about learning skills that are enhancing? How cool would it be if we were able to learn new habits as quickly as we learned our fears?  What if we could unlearn false fears, and replace them with feelings of safety as easily as we learned real, physical fears?

In order to do that, we need to charge our neural pathways with the same strong emotions that we charged them when we learned it was dangerous to stick our fingers in a light socket. (It only took me once to learn that was a bad idea.)

Let’s take exercise as an example. You get up in the morning. Look at the clock. Ugh. It’s cold outside. If you didn’t get out of bed and go for a walk like you were hoping to, you’d get an extra hour of sleep. You could always starting walking tomorrow, right? But if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could train your brain to automatically feel motivated when your alarm went off? What if the idea of going for a walk made you feel as good as the prospect of polishing off a bucket of ice cream?

The emotion to use when training your brain for good habits is appreciation. We humans like to worry. Whenever something good happens, some of us have a voice in the back of our heads saying “I don’t know, this might not last very long.” I’m sure that’s happened to you at least once, right? The key to increasing appreciating for something, is to quiet those voices that silently nag you. And the way to do that is through simple practice. The more you focus on your appreciation, for anything, the more it grows. It’s just like exercise for your brain. It doesn’t take long. Take a deep breath, and really feel appreciation for the air as it comes in your lungs. Feel appreciationthat you can use the internet to read email from your friends, read cool articles, and learn fascinating stuff.  Feel appreciation for anything. The more you practice this, the more you will naturally notice that it gets easier and easier. 

Experiment with this for the next week. Pick a color. Lets say red. Everytime you see the color red, appreciate something. Anything. Only for a few moments. The more you practice, the stronger it gets. And when you develop the natural ability to feel appreciation, you will realize something amazing. I’ll leave to you to find out exactly what that amazing discovery is.

You can relax, and feel comfortable, because I’ll be posting many more articles on exactly how to use your new versatile skills of appreciation in the near future.

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The Greatest Gift

I remember being a kid on christmas morning. Waking up early. Actually getting out of bed early after having not been able to sleep all night. You know how when you lay there all night, maybe it wasn’t christmas eve, but you just couldn’t help to expect somethig wonderful?  Like you couldn’t wait to leap out of bed because you knew you were going to receive something fantastic?

Gifts are cool that way. When you take a normal, everyday thing, like a book, or a CD, and as you wrap it up in a nice package, it takes on an almost mysterious quality.  When you receive it, you don’t know what is inside. Your mind begins to wonder what it is. And because it is carefully wrapped, maybe with a ribbon, you start to assume good things about it. This is something wonderful, you think. This is something really special, you hope.  You are sure that this is something you are going to really enjoy.

Like when you see something, and you are not sure what’s inside. Sometimes people give those gifts that are wrapped up in box after box after until the gift is nestled nicely and safely deep inside, where it was waiting for you to discover it. And you do realize that opening the gift is half the fun, don’t you? And when somebody puts all that time and effort into something, knowing you will enjoy the discovery, that in and of itself is really fantastic, isn’t it?

Imagine, now, if you will, the best gift you ever recieved. The coolest present somebody ever gave you. The most wonderfully wrapped package that you ever had the pleasure of being able to discover what is inside. You might have gotten a bike, or a car, or even a stack of money. What was the coolest gift you were able to ever give yourself to somebody else?  What was the most fun you had hiding something you knew somebody else would be able to discover this?

Do you know what the greatest gift is? The greatest gift that be a source of joy and and wonder and support for as many people as you can imagine? The greatest gift that can help people through tough times, and let people know that anything is achievable if you set your mind, right? The gift that can convince people that no matter how bad things are, you can always overcome them? That no matter what other people think or say or do, you always have yourself, and your choices? Do you really know what the greatest gift ever is?

You.

But you already knew that, didn’t you?

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OH BABY!

I was sitting in a coffee shop yesterday, minding my own business, when a young, happily beeming woman walked in carrying a very recent addition to the human race. Tightly bundled in a comfortable looking baby sling, his head poked out and his eyes looked around, ceaselessly amazed at the colors and lights and sounds and activity. Imprinting his fresh young brain with stimuli to later categorize into learnings and beliefs and ideas about who is he and how he fits into all this amazing unfolding of stuff that is always presenting itself to us.

I tried to think back to when I learned something, really able to truly discover something and give it meaning. Through some slippery power of thought, connect cause to effect. When I first noticed that when you turn that round thing on the door, that other part that looks like it’s the same material goes in and out of the side of the door.  Or when you are holding those sort of round white things, and you open your hands, they fall and crack open on the ground into a yellow gooey mess. Or those squiggly lines that my first grade teacher wrote on the board, and made us copy over and over, that had no meaning at the time, but later, through some voodoo magic that I am still trying to wrap my mind around, became letters with which I could build words and sentences and express complicated ideas and desires and plans that were inside my head, waiting for me to give them life.

But then I realized that something happens to us as we grow old. For some reason, we stop being able to see the world as an exciting unfolding of learning and discovery.  We somehow learn, or believe, or pretend, that once we get to a certain level of knowledge, the learning stops.  We trick ourselves into thinking that instead of being people who always find new and exciting things to learn about, we slip into the comfortable habit of doing, instead of becoming. Does it have to be that way? Do we have to give up any idea that we are able to continuously learn and grow and change? And if we do change and learn, does it have to be to satisfy some external requirements by society? Can we not set our own course of our lives so that we can not merely serve others, but to serve others in a way that can benefit us both?

As the young woman sat down to join her friends, they all took turns holding young child. A child who has a long journey ahead of him. Clearly enjoying the support of the caring adults around him. Well equiped by nature to pull from his environment all the resources he will need to survive and thrive. In his young mind the few, yet to be voiced thoughts soon to be joined by many others. The thoughts we all too soon let go of. The thoughts we should never forget, as they can help us to master our reality in any stage of our life.

What is this?

What does it mean?

How can I use it? How can I share it?

I like it! How can I get more?

 

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Good Job!

“I don’t know man, I just seem like I’m, I dunno, stuck or something.”

“What do you mean stuck?”

“I mean everything I try, it just seems like I’m in the same place. Like I keep running and running and I’m not going forward or anything. Like if I stop, I’ll fall behind or something. It sucks.”

“So what would you like it to be like?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what would you like it to be like. If you could snap your fingers, and magically make everything the way you want it, with regard to this thing, what would you see or feel or hear that would be different than it is now?”

“Well, for one, my boss could tell me I”m doing a good job.”

“Are you doing a good job?”

“Of course.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know what my job is, and I know when I’m doing it right, and when I’m doing it wrong. I’ve been there for over five years, you know.”

“I know. I know. So when you do a good job, and you know you’re doing a good job, how does it get better when your boss says something to you?  Do you think that he doesn’t know you are doing a good job?”

“No, if I wasn’t doing a good job, he would know, and he would ask me what was wrong.”

“He wouldn’t just yell at you? Tell you to do it better?”

“No, he knows I know what I’m doing. So if I started slacking off, he’d think maybe something was wrong, something at home or something.”

“Wow, sounds like a pretty good boss. I wish my boss was like that sometimes.”

“Yea.”

“So maybe he doesn’t say ‘good job,’ because he knows that you know, and that would mean that he really respects your opinion of yourself. Do you know how rare that is today? For somebody to know you well enough, and know and respect your own opinion of yourself?”

“Yea, I guess that is pretty cool.”

“So maybe you should tell him, ‘good job,’ huh?”

“Hmm. Maybe I will. Maybe I will.”

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It Matches Your Eyes You Filthy Sinner!

“Filthy Sinner!” She shouted at me, completely out of the blue. “You! Filthy! Sinner!” She glared at me, not breaking eye contact, not giving any reason why I’d been chosen to receive the sudden flinging of her focused and mysterious fury. I was dumbfounded. What had I done? Sure, I’m a sinner, but a filthy one? I looked around, surely there were filthier and worse sinners in the area. And if I was indeed a dirty filthy sinner, how did she know?

Like just last week, I was shopping for a new shirt. A dress shirt. Not to wear with a tie or anything, but just a shirt to wear with maybe jeans, or perhaps a nice pair of slacks. I wasn’t sure what color I wanted, so I was just browsing. I was in a pretty good men’s store near my old apartment, and they had some really good deals.

Although I’ll be honest. I really have no clue what a good deal is when I’m shopping for clothes. I have no real clue about anything when I’m shopping for clothes. All I really know is if it fits or not. And even then I’m not sure.

It’s funny when you do stuff like that. Even you’re not sure, you go ahead and do it anyways. Not really concerned with how it comes out, because you kind of have a feeling that tells you that things will turn out ok. And sometimes, when you feel really good, like you are in some kind of a zone or something, and you just know, really know, that everything is going to work out.

And the sales clerk that came over knew. She knew I was choosing between the blue shirt and the light gray one. I don’t know how she knew, but when she said “You should definitely pick the blue one because it matches your eyes,” I knew she knew. Matching clothes to eye color. I had no idea that was even possible. I guess people like that sales clerk develop a kind of second sense for what people are thinking. She was definitely good at it.

Unlike that poor woman in the park. Turns out her husband left her a while back for another woman. And she kind of lost it. Maybe I reminded her of him in some way. So all she does now is sit on the bench and get angry about things that happened long ago. And yell at people who remind her of the past. It’s a terrible shame that some people can’t let go of things, so they can focus their energies on being able to create a better future. Being able to let go so you can free your mind to take advantage of what’s really in front of you is an important skill, isn’t it?

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Program Your Brain for Automatic Success

I read a news story a while back about some rich sheik from an oil rich country that visited the United States. He bought a motor home, and noticed that the motor home had a cruise control feature. He set the cruise control, and proceeded to go in the back to take a nap, thinking that motor home would drive by itself. I guess money can’t buy everything.

While they are starting to build cars that can parallel park themselves, I think we’re still a long way off from having cars will automatically drive us to our destinations.

But what if you were to discover a way to easily drive you to your destination? Almost as if by magic? How would you like to be able to program you brain to naturally find things so it would automatically make it easy for you to get what you want out of life? It’s a lot simpler than you might imagine. Are you ready to learn how?

The Chinese refer to it as ‘Future Memory.’ Ben Franklin (you rememeber him, right?) referred to it as a ‘Daily Review.’ It’s easy to do, and a lot more powerful that it appears.

First you need to establish a list of strengths, things you like about yourself, and another list things that you would like to get rid of. Bad habits, thoughts, beliefs. Make both lists as long or as short as you want, but make sure you have at least three on each list.

Now make a list of things you want to achieve. Make them good things, but not too far out there. For example, to lose 10 pounds would be ok, or lower your golf score by 5 points would be fine.  While you should always feel comfortable to set big goals, for this particular exericise, choose something small. After you easily prove to yourself that it works, you can naturally move on to bigger and better things.

So now you have three short lists, right? Here’s how it works. After you finish your day, sometime shortly before you go to sleep, review your lists. You can do this by hand or on the computer, either way is fine, as long as you write it down.  On on page, you should have your three lists. On each page after that make three columns, labeled stregths, weaknesses, and goals. Have a separte sheet or document for each. Under each column, write what ever you did that day to:

1) Decrease your weaknesses
2) Increase your strengths
3) Move toward your goals

The important thing is to remember any thing, any small thing that is a step in the right direction, no matter how small you think it is. For example, if your goal is to lose ten pounds, and you normally eat a whole pint of ice cream while watching TV at night, and on that particular day, you ate the whole pint MINUS a thimblefull, that is fantastic. Write it down. Feel proud. Feel gratitude. Thank yourself. Likewise with your strengths or weakenss. ANYTHING is fine.

The key here is to build momentum. The more you do this, the easier and more natural it will get. And you will likely see yourself changing in fantastic ways as if by magic. But because you are likely to start small, it’s best to keep this list a secret until you are comfortable enough to brag about your fantastic accomlishments to your friends. If you make sure to spend just a few minutes every night, you will slowly build momentum until your strengths far outweigh your weaknesses, and your goals will begin to appear almost automatically. And your friends will naturally wonder why you have suddenly become so successful.

And please remember to check back often, as I will be updating this site regularly. And while it’s good to keep the above technique a secret, feel free to share this site with your friends, because it really feels good to help people out.

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Use Your Dreams to Beat Stress and Say Goodbye To Anxiety

This article is first in a series on dream interpretation.  If you haven’t yet, please consider reading the article on how to remember your dreams so you can easily maximize your benefits from this article.

The first, and most common type of dream is referred to as ‘Release’ dreams. These are dreams where you are drifting through them and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to what is going on. These are the most important, and can be the most helpful kind of dream. As you go through the day, you worry about this, stress about that, and create all kinds of emotional worry that doesn’t really offer you much benefit. When you sleep, your brain scans through you recent memory and decides what’s important, and what isn’t. According to Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, the reason these kind of dreams can seem so chaotic is due to the physical matrix structure of the brain. You might have a memory about your neighbors dog which happens to be physically right next door to a memory of something your third grade teacher said. Your brain will decide that both those memories might be taking up valuable space in your brain, so they might get fired off at the same time. As a result, you have a dream about being in third grade, and your neighbors dog is yelling at you for not understand long division.

Because these are the most common, they are naturally the most useful. Simply because your brain is telling you what not to worry about. If you brain has decided you don’t need to worry about something, why should you, right?

One good way to handle these dreams is to pay attention to the images that you remember upon awakening. What do they remind you of?  How do those things make you feel? And what do those things remind you of? It’s important to ask yourselves these questions when you are still in the groggy waking up state while you are still blinking the sleep out of your eyes. It might not be natural at first, but as you practice this, you will get better.  The key here is to accept whatever images come up in those first few moments. These are the things that your brain has decided are not important enough to worry about. So whatever images and feelings associated with those images come up, simply choose to release them.  And if you happen to think about them later in the day, just remind yourself that your brain already decided that you don’t need to worry about those things any more, because they have already been taken care of. You can choose to free up your thoughts to think about better things that will help you to get what you want out of life.

And when you decide to release your anxiety about things that are no longer important, you will notice that you will naturally decrease your stress. And when you do that you will start to notice less and less anxiety, which will lead to you not only to improve your physical health but to improve your mental health as well.

And all it will cost you is a few minutes of focused releasing every moring. You can do that, right?

Please be sure to check back often, because as most people are starting to realize, the more you improve yourself everyday, the happier you will become.  And one good way to do that is to share this with others.

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