Category Archives: Beliefs

Plant the Right Seeds in Your Mind to Claim the Fruits of Life

I was watching my neighbor the other day work in her field. She has a small field that has a couple rows of cabbages, and some kind of long white turnip that only grows around here. She was spending a lot of time preparing the ground for the spring planting. She needed to start mixing this stuff into the soil, and then she goes out to add this other stuff. She explained it all to me, but it sounded really involved. I always thought that you just planted some seeds, and hopefully remembered to water them, and then like a month later you’d have an apple tree or an orange bush or a bunch of tomatoes or something. I guess growing stuff is kind of complicated. I’m sure glad some people know to do it, because I would get pretty hungry otherwise.

Which kind of reminded me of that old commercial for Carl’s Junior. It showed a guy in the supermarket looking for food, and he was wondering how to cook it. And then the tag line of the ad said “If it wasn’t for Carl’s, people would go hungry,” or something like that. I thought it was clever tag line, pretty funny. It’s amazing what ideas people can come up with to grab your attention. When you think about it, they have  really tough job. You’re sitting there, watching TV, and then the show stops, and you know a commercial is coming, so you automatically fire up your anti commercial defense shield. And every commercial you see is mixed in with every other commercial. These marketing guys know there stuff, because they can come up with something entertaining and capable of blasting through your anti commercial defense shield, all in thirty seconds for less. I don’t know if that is a wonder of modern advertising, or a result of the modern day short attention span.

I was hanging out at this yoga class a friend had talked me into going to. (Of course I was supposed to meet her there, and she didn’t show up, but that’s another story,) and he started talking about how important it was to cultivate your thoughts. He said underneath your everyday thoughts are base thoughts. These base thought contain your beliefs, values, how you think about yourself compared to the rest of the world. He was saying that these base thoughts are very powerful and can make life exceptionally easy and rewarding, or exceptionally difficult, depending on the quality of the base thought. The problem is that not only is your base thought difficult to change, but most people don’t even know that it’s there. He said the clearest indication of the quality of your base thought is the quality of your life. And like a gigantic ship, it takes a while to turn. And most people just don’t have the discipline to keep feeding your base thoughts consistent surface thoughts on a regular basis. He said these surface thoughts are like giving water to a plant. You have to feed your base thoughts with consistent surface thoughts in the direction you want your life to move. The problem is most people get this, and try to do this, but they give up after only a couple of weeks. He said it would be like planting a seed and then digging it up every couple of weeks to see if it had sprouted yet. You need to be patient, and most importantly, you need to be consistent with your surface thoughts that you feed your deeper self with positive ideas about your future that is coming true for you, now.

I especially like watching the Superbowl, specifically because they have such great commercials. And one of my favorite things to do when I’m bored, is look up good commercials on Youtube. You can see my current favorite if you go there and type in “Nike let your game speak.” I find that one especially inspiring.

And my neighbor was telling me that although now is the busy time, getting the soil ready, getting the seedlings ready, getting ready for the spring planting festival, the best part is the waiting. Because once they plant the right seeds in the right soil, it is inevitable that the right fruit will come up.

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Propel Yourself Forward with Self Praise

If you’ve ever taught kids you probably already know that one of the best ways to improve learning is through the consistent application of honest praise. I remember once I was teaching my friends kid how to answer riddles correctly, that is remember the goofy answer that she could use to then go and tell her friends. I decided to do a little experiment. While I read her the riddle, I would completely ignore the incorrect answers as much as possible. I wouldn’t say “no,” nor would I make any facial expressions that indicated her answer was unacceptable. Completely neutral. Whenever she gave the “correct” answer, I made sure to smile, say “good job!” and give her a good feeling. I noticed when I did this, she learned rather quickly.

Then later that afternoon, I tried the same experiment with another kid. He was about the same age, and belonged to another extended family member. It was my friends’ grandmothers eightieth birthday, so there were lots of extended families there that weekend. Anyways, when I taught the other kid the same set of riddles, I altered my ‘experiment’ just a little bit. I gave slightly less enthusiastic praise when he gave the ‘correct’ answer, and just as strong negative reinforcement when he gave the incorrect answer. It seemed to take him much longer to learn the same set of simple riddles.

Now I have no idea what kind of child psychological things were going on, or if this proves that girls are smarter than boys, or perhaps even that girl really liked riddles and the boy thought they were really lame. Personally, what I believe it shows is that positive reinforcement can much more power over negative reinforcement.

It was Napoleon who said that “Men will die for ribbons.”  Meaning that even in battle, men will risk their lives to be given the most positive praise imaginable (for some anyways.) Praise in front of their peers, in the form of medals in reward for bravery on the battlefield. If you’re a guy, it’s hard to imagine anything more fantastic than being given public praise for bravery in fighting down an enemy. (Other than an unlimited supply of money and string free sex, but that’s another blog post.) 

One thing though, that I’ve surprised that I haven’t read more of it, is the power of self praise. I mean honest, direct, self appreciation. If you have something you want to do, and it’s a bit of a struggle, why not tell yourself, “good job?”  You don’t have to look at yourself in the mirror, and give yourself a thumbs up and shout “Good Job!” although that would probably feel pretty good if you could get over the weirdness of it. But what happens when you do something really nice for yourself, and when you enjoy it, tell yourself you are rewarding yourself for a job well done?

And furthermore, what happens if, whenever you get a wrong answer, instead of beating yourself up, just ignore the mistake and keep plugging away?

You might just be surprised at how much more effective you become at getting the things you want in life.

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Go First

One of the simplest ways to improve your relationships with other people is to go first. And when I say ‘go first,’ I mean in every aspect. Although it is the simplest, it is not the easiest, not by a long shot. But once you understand this concept, it can give you such incredibly wonderful results that you can’t help but to find a way to share this with others.

I remember the first time I went skydiving. I was terrified. I had decided to go with a couple of friends on a whim. It sounded cool at the time. One the ground. But the closer and closer we got, the more and more nervous I got. I was almost hoping to get into an accident on the way to the skydiving place so we wouldn’t be able to jump. I was actually debating with myself how much of an injury I’d accept to get out of skydiving. When we got suited up and prepped, it only got worse. We had to watch a video, and sign a piece of paper basically saying that if we died or were horribly maimed, it wasn’t the operations fault, and we couldn’t sue anybody. And going up in the plane only made it worse. The higher we got, the more sure I was that I would pass out from fear and hopefully wake up safely in the hospital.

It’s weird what happens when you just let go and jump. You can really appreciate the beauty of the sky, the beauty that is always above and around you.  The most surprising thing to me about the experience was how quickly that wall of fear that seemed so big simply disappeared, and yielded to absolute exhilaration. It was something I’d never experienced before, and likely will never experience again. When you start to realize what is on the other side of your fears, you will be amazed at how much you can achieve greater potential. You can see things for what they really are. You can feel things the way their were meant to be felt, not the fearful way that people often imagine things.

And after we landed, and packed our chutes, the buzz kind of wore off, but the memories never will. And we paid extra to get a cool video of us, because their was another guy that jumped with us. And it’s a really great experience when you can watch yourself do something wonderful.

Of course in everyday life, the payoff is sometimes not as immediate and breathtaking as skydiving, but when you lead, people are bound to follow. And the best way to test out a relationship is to share your feelings first, and see what happens. The biggest tragedy in life is to wait around for somebody to give you permission or tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. When you realize that your life only belongs to you, and you lead it the way you want, you’ll find that the people that follow you will be your strongest supporters.

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The Blue Birds of Happiness

Once upon a time there was a little bird. He was blue, but he wasn’t a bluebird. He was one of those birds that you didn’t exactly know what category to put him in. His name was Charlie. One day he was hanging out with his bird friends. They had already found all the worms that they had planned to eat for the day, and it wasn’t mating or nesting season, so they really didn’t have to do much except just kind of hang out and chirp about this and that. There were six in all, they were all starting to get bored. They were past adolescence, but they still had sufficient energy so that they weren’t content just to sit and do nothing.

Kind of like when you have a particular busy week at work, and you are looking forward to the weekend. Then the weekend comes, and after the relief of having no more work for the time being wears off, you kind of get bored. That happened to me once. I decided to go to the movies, like I do, but when I got there I realized there wasn’t anything playing that I wanted to see. I don’t do that very often, it’s just that on that particular afternoon I was fairly bored. So deep down, i sort of realized that just the drive to the movie theater was better than wasting a fine Saturday afternoon happy that I didn’t have to work. I could be happy I didn’t have to work anyplace, no reason to stay at home right.

I think it’s fascinating the way your mind works like that. Like when you make a decision, you think that consider all the options. Then something happens and throws a monkey wrench into your plans. Then you find out that you made a mistake in planning that somehow took into account the sudden appearance of Mr. Murphy. Like your mind was able to look into the future and plan for all possibilities without you even knowing it. Sometimes I think your unconscious is a lot smarter than you realize. And when you allow yourself to really trust your unconscious, and allow it to help yourself do things, you will be amazed when you find out how incredibly powerful it is. Sometimes I’ll be wandering around my house muttering to myself “I can’t find my keys, I can’t find my keys, I can’t find my keys,” and I’m sure you realize that never works. It’s only when I switch (unconsciously of course) to muttering “where are my keys? where are my keys?” do they suddenly appear, as if by magic.  Other times I just lose my place, and forget things.

So when I realized there was nothing playing at the movie theater I wanted to see, I started wandering around. I happened into bookstore, and I saw a book I had been looking for. Of course I bought it, and enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s like my brain was telling me to go buy this book, but it was tricking me into thinking I was going to see a movie. Like my unconscious knows how to keep me motivated. Otherwise I’d forget what I was after.

So the birds decided to head on over to the new neighbors house. They had just build a gorgeous birdbath. And the birds had just suddenly remembered that they had forgotten it was there. And everybody lived happily ever after.

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The Ancient Power of Idle Gossip

One of the things that I find really fascinating about talking to as many people as I do on a daily basis is that despite how anxious or chaotic their lives are, or how many things they have on their plates, they can always find time to talk about seemingly inconsequential things. I say seemingly inconsequential only because it appears that way on the surface. If you didn’t know any better, you might think that peoples day to day lives, as reflected in their conversations are rather mundane. The more you think about this, the more you can’t help but realize that language itself is one of the most least understood yet most fascinating things that you can begin to understand.

I was reading this book on evolutionary psychology. Some of it was kind of out there. Because of course, despite the commonly held belief that evolution is a scientific fact, it is still largely an unproven theory that people mistakenly believe as fact simply because it is accepted as such. It’s amazing when you study the history of scientific belief.  There are wild things that people believed that seem foolish in retrospect, but when you consider that it really wasn’t too long ago that most scientists believed the world was flat, you can’t help but to take currently held ‘truths’ with a grain of salt.

The purpose of language, for example, is a hotly contested topic among evolutionary biologists. Some believe that the same forces that drove spoken language in humans are the of the same reason that chimps groom each other. Both are thought to server the purpose of a way to determine where people are with respect to the current social hierarchy. According to that theory, the purpose of language is for gossip, to determine who is doing what with who and for what reason. While that may not be the specific reason, it is no stretch to look around and see that idle gossip is strongly compelling to most people.

One of the questions I get emailed to me the most often from people who read this blog on a regular basis is where I get all my ideas from. Although I admit that some people claim that I make this up as I go along, if you read some of my earlier posts, you’ll find that I have been interested in human development and maximizing my own achievement for quite some time now. When you think about it, communicating is a lot more complicated that just idle gossip, even if the surface structure of the conversation only seems to be concerned with daily events and relationships. Your individual history, your beliefs about the world, and your outlook on your own future all play a huge, unconscious role in shaping the language that you use. When you decide let go and release any fears that you may have, you can really begin to communicate more congruently. And when you do that, you can’t help but to be breath of fresh air to all who you come in contact with. One of the ways to become fully human is to stop looking for somebody that has the answers, and simply be that person that can help others find their own answers within.

Of course, there are many other theories of the origins of language. God made us the way we are, complete with our language ability. Or God had hand in guiding our evolution, so he was there helping us out along the way. Or if you don’t believe in God, there are other, more scientifically believable theories. Ancient tribes needed to communicate with each other so they could collectively remember where the dangerous animals lived. They had to communicate in order to organize effective hunting parties. They had to communicate well to plan for the coming winter.

It’s amazing the different theories that they come up with over time. Which is really fascinating. The more they begin to develop ways and machines that can peak inside our brains to see exactly how they work, they will begin to come up with even more abstract and wonderful ideas. And coming up with abstract and wonderful ideas is a fantastic sign of our humanity, which is alwasy driven to learn new things. 

I’m not saying you should keep all this in mind next time your are talking about who is dating who, or who is thinking of breaking up with who. I think a better idea would just be to become aware that there is a level of complexity that is just below the surface of the everyday sentences and nouns and verbs that people throw at each other without much thought, and to let these ideas come up whenever you are ready to think about them.

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Dropping Frogs Can Lead to Changing Beliefs

I was reading an article in the paper the other day about a small town in the midwest that experienced a very strange phenomenon. One fine during the summer, or perhaps the spring, it started raining frogs. It happened in the fifties, and it was a small town, so there is absolutely no evidence that this actually took place. Some say it was a hoax. Others think it was due to an extremely unlikely confluence of meteorological events pulled the frogs out of a lake them through some strange quirk of air pressure and deposited them on the unsuspecting town inhabitants. Others claim that it was mass hypnosis. Mass hypnosis is a strange thing when you think about it, because there have been many documented accounts of mass hypnosis. Some of them easy to understand, some unexplainable like the falling frogs.

I was reminded of this story when I recently saw a movie where a guy fell in love with a prosthetic doll. At first people thought he was completely nuts, but then slowly, as they realized he had deeper problems, decided that the best course of action would be to help the poor guy. At first he was the but of jokes behind his back. I’m sure you can imagine the jokes that would circulate should you show up at a party with a fake person and in all seriousness claim her as your girlfriend. One of the most fascinating things about the movie was how the townspeople slowly started to get sucked into his reality. Because he believed so completely that this rubber doll was a real person that he had real conversations, (and even a couple of arguments with,) the townspeople slowly started becoming involved in his obvious break from reality.

This is an example of when you have a really strong, congruent frame of reality. If you walk through life holding a strong set of beliefs in your head, others will believe them as well if the beliefs held tightly enough. It matters not if they are true or not. The key is when you choose a belief, to make sure to choose helpful ones, and act one hundred percent that they are actually true. When you do that, people will only follow your lead. Imagine some people in the world that have really strong beliefs, and act on them. Suppose you could have a strong belief that you are incredibly attractive to the opposite sex? Suppose that you held a belief that money is easy to come by? Suppose you were to hold a belief that you were able to learn new things easily and quickly? How easy would your life be then? What other beliefs can you come up with that once you believe them, others will as well? How easily can you imagine your life when you switch out old beliefs, and switch in new ones that support you and what you want to create better things in life?

So as the movie went on, the main character decided, most likely subconsciously, that he learned what he needed from his relationship with girlfriend, and imagined a deadly disease for her. So she could die, and clear the way for him to start to build relationships with real people. I think there are several important lessons in this movie, not the least of which is how powerful your mind is to create the life that you want, by almost any means necessary. Even enlisting the help of the entire town in some incredible group self induced hypnosis. That is pretty powerful stuff.

And as far as group hypnosis, sometimes called ‘mass hysteria,’ there are different kinds. Their are the organic kinds, like the raining frogs, and certain episodes of dancing hysteria, and laughing hysteria. Then there is created mass hysteria, although the creation of mass hysteria is not always the intent, as what happened in the famous Orson Wells “War of The Worlds” incident, where everybody thought we were under attack by Martians. Personally, I’d prefer some falling frogs. Unless of course they were Martians disguised as falling frogs.

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Tap The Power of Realistic Expectations for Incredibly Happy Relationships

Today in my neighborhood, the weather is unseasonably warm. Which is nice, because it’s still winter (or at least it was when I wrote this, now.) It’s nice to have a warm day every now and then when you don’t expect it. It breaks up the monotony of the coldness that I’m used to when I wake up in the morning. And since I try to wake up early every day, I enjoy having the sun just a little bit warmer than I expect it to be.

It’s like when I go to the movies. I am pretty easy to impress and entertain. Sometimes I read the reviews of movies I want to see, sometimes I don’t. An interesting thing that I’ve found was that when I read a particularly unflattering review of a movie, it allows me to enjoy this more, because I go in with less expectations. Like when you really expect to enjoy something, you sometimes can have an unconsciously higher standard that is harder for something to live up to.

I guess that is why on the stock market they always wait and see if earnings beat the markets expectations. Even ones that don’t make a lot of money, if they make more than the analysts have expected, then the stock will go up on that particular day. I remember a company I used to work for had a stock that performed tremendously well. The company had earnings in excess of one dollar per share, which is a lot. One particular day, when the earnings came out, they were only 99 cents a share instead of a dollar a share. Any company that earns 99 cents a share is a very financially stable company, so imagine the surprise when the stock went down almost 4 percent that day because it “didn’t meet the analysts expectations.”

It reminds me of a book I read on self improvement. If I remember correctly, it was a relationships book. And they key to having a happy relationship was having accurate expectations on what to get out of the relationship. Because when you are with somebody, and you find this person interesting, you have to make sure that you like this person because of real reasons, and not imaginary ones. Because when you start to expect reality to behave based on your imagination, and not an accurate assessment of what is out there, you can run into trouble. The book went on to say that one of the best ways to have a really good, solid relationship with somebody was to establish solid expectations based on communication, and your own observations of each other’s behavior in certain circumstances.

My friend, who is married with three kids told me about this. As soon as he learned to plan ahead for his family taking almost an hour sometimes to get ready to leave the house, he was able to make plans, carry out these plans, without having the added stress of expecting his family to meet unrealistic expectations. He said that in the beginning, when it was only him and his wife, he could kind of push for her to be ready earlier, but the more people they added to the family, the more impossible this got. So he naturally realized that the best way to reduce stress, when other people are involved, is to stand back, and watch their behavior, and plan your activities based on reality rather than fantasy.

Which I have gotten down to a science. I used to rush to the movies, buy my large popcorn and coke, then rush to the theater to sit down. It took me about three months of willpower to not eat all my popcorn before the trailers finished showing. Now I usually get to my seat just as the real movie is starting. I’ve learned to ignore the stated start times in the newspaper, and use my experience as a guide. I find that is much easier, because I’d rather enjoy my popcorn while watching the movie I came to see, rather than the movies I’ll most likely come to see in the future.

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Grow and Improve with New Ideas About Yourself

I was sitting in a meeting the other day, and there was one guy that was droning on and on about something. I don’t remember exactly what it was, perhaps a commentary on the life of fruit flies or something else as equally boring.  I started drifting, like you do when you are in middle of something that you can’t exactly escape from, but it just wouldn’t be right to lay your head down and take a nap.

I was reminded of a place I used to work a long time ago, where we were having some product development problems. It was one particular product that the company had been working on for quite some time, and it just wasn’t quite working out. It as a kind of medical device that wasn’t supposed to be a great application that doctors could use during surgery. It was designed, at least in theory, to help the doctors perform the surgery quicker with more efficiency, and to make it easier for the patient to recover after the surgery. Because the patient would recover quicker, it would result in a reduced stay in the hospital, which would mean less money spent by the patients insurance company. All in all a win win win situation. A win for the doctor, a win for the patient, and a win for my company that was developing this product.

The problem was the product itself. it was a great idea, on paper. The problem was finding the right materials to put together in the right proportions to make it work in real life just as well as it worked on paper. No matter what we tried, nothing seemed to work. Hence the meeting. We were talking about another thing to try and see if we could make this work.

Like sometimes when you are in a relationship with somebody, and when you start to see this person, you start to have all these good feelings. Like everything is going to work out ok, and all the problems in your life have disappeared. It’s amazing when that happens. Every time you think of this person, you can’t help but to feel those fantastic feelings. But then sometimes, something happens. Those feelings start to fade, and maybe you realize that you were not really in love with the person, but in love with the idea of being in love. And you are faced with the difficulty of breaking it off with that person, and feeling the respect enough for yourself to say that it’s time to move on, and find somebody that is truly compatible.

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. That’s what can happen you don’t realize that it might be time to move on and try something new. It’s like some people have this huge fear of being able to make a decision. Some people just can’t choose to do this, whatever it is. Because when you really understand something, and choose to do this, you can begin to realize that there is a whole world out there waiting to be discovered.

Which is why I think we stayed with that particular medical device longer than we should have. Nobody wanted to admit that it really was a great idea, but only on paper. When the manager of the research department finally made the decision to scrap the project. Most of us were relieved that he’d made that decision. Because once we freed up our energies to create new ideas, and make new things, we were able to sell many more products and great ways to keep people healthy.

And personally, I’m always amazed when I come across couples that are no longer couples, but remain great friends. Because they were smart enough to realize that one of the best ways to respect yourself, is to really get to know the person you are with, not for who you wish they were, but for who they are. That is where true respect and appreciation can come from. And they can free up your energies to find people and ideas you can really grow and improve with.

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Swing Free of Fear

Once upon a time, not too long ago, maybe even yesterday, there lived a monkey. He lived with his fellow monkey troops in their monkey village. His name was Larry. He was a young monkey that still kind of followed the grownup monkeys around, as he wasn’t sure how to be a complete monkey all on his own yet. He could do a lot of monkey stuff, like swing from branch’s, and peel bananas, and even find the best trees to hide in when the tigers came.

The tigers lived in the next jungle over. They were friendly tigers, at least when they didn’t want to eat you. But when they were hungry, they dropped all pretence and went after anything and everything that looked like it might be chewable and digestible. And if you ever had the opportunity to examine the digestive track of tigers, you’ll surely find that they can eat pretty much anything. Like that shark in jaws (not the bad shark, the other one) that ate that license plate and all that other junk.

Humans on the other hand, can’t eat everything, but this story isn’t about humans, so never mind that.

So there Larry was, sitting on his haunches one day, when his older brother, Bill, said “Larry, it’s time you need to find your own food. You can’t follow me around all the time. I need to find a lady monkey and make a monkey family. You need to figure out things for yourself. You need to find your own way. You have to become independent.” Larry understood. He had realized for quite some time that it’s better to be independent than to have to depend on others.

But there was one problem. One big problem. One giant, scary, terrifyingly seemingly unsurmountable problem. The monkeys had this ritual. Before being accepted as a grown up monkey by the rest of the troop, you had to perform a task. Kind of like a ritual, if you will.

You had to cross many jungles, through many dangerous areas, filled with tigers and elephants and sharks and piranhas and go to the cave of the mighty boar. And in this cave was a special tree. A special banana tree. They looked like bananas, except they were supposed to be a lot smaller than all the other bananas. At least that’s what all Larry’s friends said. They always talked about this banana tree, and the boar that guarded it. They all knew that someday, they would have to pass the rite of initiation into adult monkeyhood, and go steal a tiny banana from this gigantic and horrible boar, that liked to eat monkeys for breakfast. And lunch, and dinner.

The more the young adolescent monkeys talked to each other about this horrible creature, the more they became afraid of being his next breakfast or lunch. Or even his dinner.

Finally, the day came. Larry had to set off, all alone, to go face the evil boar, and steal one of the magic bananas. None of the adults gave him any advice. The adolescent monkeys were to afraid to talk to him. The baby monkeys were too busy playing with their ABC blocks.

So off Larry went. For days he swung through the jungle, branch to branch, vine to vine. Sleeping in trees, hoping they would keep him safe from the tigers and the leopards and the kangaroos.  With every passing night, the horrible boar transformed himself more and more into a unfathomable creature in poor Larry’s mind, and the banana’s became smaller, and less yellow, and less tasty.

Finally, the day arrived. The cave was in sight. Larry crept slowly to the cave. Trembling in fear. He knew now why they adult monkeys didn’t talk to him before he left. He knew now why the adolescent monkeys shunned him before his departure. He was not expected to live. Perhaps it was a big joke, a lie, a ruse. Perhaps there was some hideous monkey god living in the cave that demanded regularly sacrificed young monkeys to keep from bringing his wrath to the monkey jungle.

Larry crept closer to the cave opening. Slowly, carefully, almost devoid of any remaining hope that he would return alive to his happy monkey jungle.

He peeked into the cave.

There it was!

It wasn’t a lie. The tree was right there, in front of him. Filled with bananas. Hundreds of bananas. Huge bananas, rich in color, and even from where he was he could smell the delicious aroma wafting across the cool floor of the cave. Surely he could run, grab a banana, and return without being spotted by the evil boar.

Where was the evil boar, anyway?

Larry crept closer, slowly, slowly. He stopped, ever so quietly, and reached up and quickly snatched the lowest hanging branch. No boar in sight. He grabbed another banana, and another, and another.

“Please don’t eat too many,” said a voice from behind him.

Larry turned, and to his horror, was the hideously large boar, readying to pounce and devour him where he stood. Sort of. Actually, not at all. The boar was not even a boar. He was just a tiny field mouse.

“But…” Larry began.

“You thought I was a hideous boar did you?”

“Well, yea. What happened? Why did you change?”

The tiny field mouse rose up on his hind legs to his full height.

It is you that changed. It is you chose to see things differently than before. Something happened to you on the way here. You were able to make a decision. You were able to forget those thoughts that you had before, and see for yourself what was really in here. Because when you choose to approach your fears, with caution, as you did, you will realize that which you are afraid of is seldom as big and scary as you think it is. And that which you hope to achieve by facing your fears is a far greater reward that you will allow yourself to imagine. That is nature’s way of making sure you walk into situations with caution. You see Larry, fear is your friend. Fear helps to warn you of possible danger, and those feelings you feel are really just the extra energy which allows you to see better, to hear better, to think more quickly and more accurately. Fear is the juice of life. Fear is your friend, your guide, your helper, letting you know that you are on the verge of glory.You are never truly an adult unless you can accept and embrace your fears.

“But why the stories, why the lies?”

“No monkey can be an adult unless they face their fears. Today you are an adult Lawrence. Today you shall swing free.”

Larry turned and walked away. His arms full of the sweet bananas from the magic banana tree. They were the sweetest bananas he’d ever eaten.

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Use The Right Angle for Lasting Results

The other day a friend of mine was complaining to me about this recent diet she was on. She has been struggling with weight for a better part of her adult life, and tried diet after diet after diet. She lost quite a bit of weight on the low carb diet, but whenever she started to really see results, she got an unbelievably strong craving for chocolate. Rollo’s to be specific. Personally I find rollo’s to be pretty tasty, but I’d be hard pressed to eat more than a couple.

She was telling me that she has a tremendous amount of willpower at the beginning, and she is able to maintain this willpower, but for some reason it begins to fade after a couple weeks. She says it’s like a contest in her mind between the positive idea of seeing herself in the mirror a little bit slimmer, and the intense physical cravings that start to grow out of control when she has gone a couple weeks of really sticking to her diet.

Diets are an amazing thing, when you think about it. If you walk into any major bookstore in the United States, you’ll a huge section of diet books. Low carb, low fat, the Hollywood diet, the popcorn diet. You name it, and somebody has written a book on how get thin when you try their diet. Most Doctors (and most people) realize the simple truth that if you limit your food intake, you will lose weight. Many have noticed that all these fad diets are merely a tricky way of limiting your intake.

One of the things I think they miss out on is how you should pace yourself, whenever you start a new lifestyle change, which any certified dietician will tell you that is exactly what a diet is, a lifestyle change. But the problem most people run into is they start off too quick. Like when you go to the gym, and you haven’t worked out in a long time. If you try really hard the first day, you are going to be sore. So naturally, most coaches, and fitness trainers will tell you that it is important to start slow.
People really want to get in shape, and that’s fantastic. If they use this desire to train too hard, too early, they will become sore, and stop training. So their strong desire can have the paradoxical effect of thwarting their progress. I was overhearing a personal trainer coaching a new client at a gym once, and I heard her say:

“You need to start slow. The most import thing is to do something, anything. Don’t make the mistake of going for too much, too soon. That is what people that get stuck in that yo yo effect do. If you start slow, and increase your activity slowly over time, you will build up an incredible amount of momentum that will slowly but surely become part of your lifestyle so much, that you will feel completely lost if you don’t do something physical every day.”

I could tell this girl was a fantastic trainer, because she was incredibly fit herself, and her new client was exclaiming how excited he was because the trainer had such a long waiting list. She must have discovered some secret someplace that kept her in so much demand.

I guess it’s kind of like when I was in high school physics, and I learned that to get the maximum distance from a projectile, you need to launch it at a forty five degree angle. If you throw it steep, it will go high, but won’t go very far. If you throw it too shallow, like a baseball pitch, you will get a lot of speed, but it will fall to the earth rather quickly, and you won’t get much distance either. The secret is to throw it at just the right angle, to maximize the distance. If you don’t take the right angle, you will put in too much effort at the beginning, and it will fizzle out too quickly, and not give you the distance that you need. Balance is key.

So I suggested to my friend that she set her sights a little bit lower, instead of trying to lose 10 pounds in two weeks. When I suggested that she lose ten pounds in six months, she looked at me as if I was crazy. When I asked her to imagine herself two years from now, and what her life was like after she’d made it a habit to live so losing ten pounds every six months was a piece of cake, she smiled.

“I’d be in pretty good shape, for life!”

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