Category Archives: Beliefs

Model of The World

“Really, you know you can do it. Just take a deep breath.”
“No, dude, I really can’t. I swear, it’s impossible.”

 
“Impossible? Why is it impossible?”
“It just is. If I drive over that bridge, I’ll die. I’ll have a panic attack or something. My heart will freeze up or something.”

 
“Ok, let me get this straight. If you drive over that bridge, you will die. But if I drive, you won’t drive.”
“Yea.”

 
“So it’s not actually the water that will kill you, it’s the combination of the water and the steering wheel? The brake pedal? The accelerator? How exactly does that work? How do you know that will happen?”
“What do you mean how will I know? I just know.”

 
“What if you could run through your thinking in slow slow motion. Like if they made a clone of somebody that was exactly like you, but they forgot to put in that piece of information about dying while driving over a bridge, how would you tell that clone to program that into his brain? What or how would he have to think for that to happen?”
“Well, first, wait! Why am I supposed to give this to somebody else? I don’t want it, why should he want it?”

 
“Just pretend, ok? So what would you tell him?”
“Well first, you see the water, and then you feel the car moving, and then, you get this, I dunno, tightness, and then you just know. You will die.”

 
“Ok, water, car moving, tightness, you’re gonna die. Got it.”
“Are we done yet?”

 
“No, well yea, well almost. Where did you learn this?”
“What do you mean?”

 
“This model of the world, it’s very interesting. Where or who from did you learn this model of the world?”
“I’m not sure, man.”

 
“I mean was there a time where water plus driving plus tightness meant something else? And for some reason you decided to make them equal death, that is when you mix them together right? Where exactly did you learn this model of the world? Did you see it on TV or something?”
“Wow, I never thought of it that way. I guess that time I was a kid. When I heard that that kid drowned.”

 
“Wow, sounds terrible. What happened?”
“These kids were jumping off a bridge, and their mom wasn’t paying attention, and one of them hit his head, and then died.”

 
“Were you there?”
“No, but I think my mom told me about it. To make me be careful and not jump off bridges, I guess.”

 
“Do you trust your mom?”
“Of course.”

 
“Did you ever jump off a bridge after that?”
“Um, nope, never.”

 
“So your mom’s story worked, right?”
“Yep.”

 
“You’re safe, right?”
“Yep.”

 
“Did she say anything about driving over bridges? Or only jumping.”
“Dude I was only six.”

 
“So you made up the driving part yourself. Did you understand driving at the time, how it works, how to go to the DMV and get a license and all that?”
“Dude, I was only six.”

 
“So maybe the driving part was a mistake?”
“Yea, I guess so.”

 
“Are you read to go?”
“Yea.”

 
“You want me to drive?”
“No, man, I got it.”

 
“Good.”

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Four Power Sources for Success

In all the interactions that you’ve ever had, all the interactions you ever will have, there are only four things that are in your control. Luckily, these four sources of power are all you will ever need to achieve any dream, manifest any goal, and create any situation that you desire in life. These are not something you need to go out and get. You cannot buy these, you cannot steal these. You need do absolutely nothing to attain these, for you already have them.

These are your thoughts, your emotions, your words, and your actions.

Everything you see around you was created with these. All things tangible and intangible. From the great Sphinx to the very computer screen you are now reading, all were created with only these four powers.

Lets see how you can tap them now.

Thought

Those ideas you have floating around in your head. The result of billions neural synapses firing to create mental images. Created by evolution or God, to assist you in moving through the world to plan, learn and conquer. Have a look on the article regarding focus to get an idea how you can begin to control your thoughts, so that they don’t control you.

Emotions

Emotions arise in our minds when we use our thoughts to give meaning to events. Suppose you sit next a cute girl (or a cute guy, depending on your gender or tastes) at a coffee shop. As soon you sit, you notice that she inhales, and then turns her body slightly away from you. What just happened? If you assume that she finds you repulsive, and turned so she wouldn’t have to face you, what emotion would that cause? If you assume she finds you irresistibly attractive, and suddenly became very shy, what emotion would that cause? The secret here? Any meaning you give to a situation is perfect. The important thing is not whether it’s accurate or not, because we never really know why other people do what they do, but what emotions we create in ourselves by giving certain meanings to things.  When you start to pay attention to how you interpret the world around you, you can start to play around with giving different meanings to give yourself better emotions. This takes time and effort, and I will be writing several future articles to that end, so stay tuned.

Words

Words can be powerful. Words can be eloquent. Speeches throughout history have moved people to great heights of goodness and love, and to evil, horrible depths of destruction. A kind string of words can convince somebody not to kill themself. A kindly said “hello” can change a persons complete outlook. The Jurassic 5’s The Verbal Herman Munster said “..word power can plow through acres of cornfields, paragraphs cut like warm steel..” When you begin to pay attention to the words that you use, you can become incredibly powerful. It’s no coincidence that the ‘spell’ which describes the correct order of letters in a word is the same ‘spell’ that describes the correct order of words in a magic incantation.

Actions

The vehicle that carries the sum of our power is our actions. What we do. How we do it. Not just large physical movements. Body language, facial expressions, smiles, frowns. Our actions and words can synchronize together to either display a congruence so powerful that we can become kings, or with such chaotic psychosis that people steer wide to avoid us altogether.

Our reality is indeed a reflection of how we manage, control and use our four powers to our advantage. By releasing the childishly dependent strategy of hoping for free gifts from others, you can realize that when you harness your four powers for great achievements, you will receive more abundance than you ever imagined possible.

Good thoughts lead to good feelings, which naturally spawn congruent words and actions which lead to success. If reality is not how you like you need only go to your source of power. Change your thoughts, change your world.

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Shadow Acting

Have you ever stopped to realize that something in your experience wasn’t exactly quite what you thought it was? An event or a situation that you interpreted one way, but as you look back, it takes on a new light?

For example, think of something in your past, something that happened, say five or ten years ago. And imagine as you were, just before that situation took place. And now imagine yourself as you were going through that situation. How does that feel? What do you see? What do you hear?

What meanings do you choose to give the events unfolding around you, now, as you remember what happened to you in your past? What was the one element of that experience that you chose to define it for you? Was it the way something appeared, or what somebody said, or something about the way somebody looked at you? Perhaps it was the way you felt afterwards?

For example, once I saw a guy talking into a mirror at the gym. He was standing really close, and he was really animated.  Talking with fluidly changing and almost chaotic facial expressions, arms flailing around. The meaning that I chose to give to that situation was that the guy was crazy. I could have given another meaning, since I really didn’t know what was going on, but that was my best, my quickest guess.

Now what happens if you take your earlier situation, and then move forward in time  a couple of years, or even right up until recently. Can you find another similarly structured situation, but with a completely different meaning that you decided to give it? What was different? Why was the second situation, which was similar to the first, different in the meaning that you gave it? Were there different, more familiar people involved? Was the setting more comfortable? Had the weather changed for the better?

In my situation, I saw another guy talking to himself in the mirror. I didn’t know him, but I surmised he was practicing for a performance, because he was standing outside of a theater that I go to sometimes. I saw two different guys, that I’d never met before doing the same thing, but I gave them two different meanings. One guy was loony, and one guy was a professional actor practicing his craft.

What was different for you?

One of the more interesting things about this, is that as you increase your understanding of your experience, and naturally apply different realizations, it follows that you can vastly increase your potential for flexibility in your perception. And when you can apply this flexibility in real-time, so you discover different choices for the meanings that you used to give automatically, your world will astoundingly open up.

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Return to Source

Once upon time there was a large body of water. Freshwater. Up high in the mountains, surrounded by pristine trees and unspoiled landscapes of many colors. Every summer the water would evaporate itself and mix with his friend the sky, and they would hang out together for a while. When it was time, the evaporated water would then turn into frozen water and would snow down on the mountaintops. He was always worried, however. Sometimes he didn’t think the animals below would have enough time to fatten their bellies enough to make it through the winter. The other animals usually moved to nicer neighborhoods when the time came. It always worked out, though.

Frozenwater would sit on the mountaintop, relaxing, waiting for his other friend the sun to come and thaw him out. When it came time to thaw out, he would run down the mountains, and separate himself out into many streams, and rivers. Eventually he would go back and rejoin himself in the lakes that spotted the various high mountain plains. Every year they had a long discussion, actually a discussion with himself, about which part would go up into the sky, and become air, and then become snow, and which part would stay behind and freeze itself under it’s own skin.

Of course, the part of himself that had the most fun was the small part that every year got to flow all the way down to the ocean. It was kind of like a cultural exchange of sorts, set up long ago by who knows what or who. The freshwater would allow a small part of himself to flow all the way out to the ocean, where he would see different fish, and animals and creatures that he would never see up on in the lake or the sky or the mountaintop.

And every summer, the large ocean would send a small part of himself, up into the air, and would make it up to the mountain, and then back down into the lake. Where he could play with new friends that he hadn’t seen in a while that belonged to his other self, which of course was all part of the same self.

This continued, season after season, year after year, millenia after millenia. Until one day, the part of freshwater that was chosen (usually with a couple rounds of rock scissor paper) to go down to meet with it’s other self, the saltwater self, couldn’t. Almost couldn’t. There was some kind of a giant wall that was keeping the freshwater self from meeting his saltwater self. So he had to go back, but when he turned around to go back, he was already back. There was a giant lake, a new lake, where there wasn’t one before. The freshwater looked around. The trees looked different. The sky looked different. He stuck his finger up into the air and checked the temperature, and decided that he wouldn’t be able to freeze that year. Oh well, he decided to make the best of it.

A few hundred years passed. No freezing. No mountaintops, no splitting into stream and river and many small lakes. It was no big deal to freshwater, because he was still together with himself. Freshwater laughed. It wasn’t like he would ever be apart from himself, despite wherever this weird wall came from.

It’s like when you have one of those days, and you can just see yourself in all other people. For some strange reason, you just feel connected. Like when you see somebody, you kind of have a feeling, that you know this person. Even though you’ve never met, you just feel something. And despite how much you feel wonderful when you notice this feeling, it never is able to stay long.

Then one spring, when the snow part of itself was melting, and flowing into the new lake part of itself, (although by this time the new lake was rather old,)
the strange wall had dissappeared. So the freshwater just kept right on flowing. Down. Down. And a lot of the other freshwater selves wanted to join itself on the way down, since there was so much of it.

And then a funny thing happened. Because the freshwater had been apart from itself for such a long time, he kind of forgot that he was a small sliver of the larger saltwater part of himself. So when the freshwater self greeted his saltwater self, for a moment, it seemed as if he were a small child meeting with an old grandparent. Of course the feeling lasted only a flash, as whenever freshwater reunites with the saltwater, you can remember who you are. All is well. Because water never really is separate from itself, as any scientist will tell you. Always flowing, never static. And despite having the allusion of being separated, you are always together.

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Eruption

Once upon a time there were two rabbits.  Rupert and Rectangle. They were hanging out, doing rabbit stuff. Looking for carrots, finding turtles to race, and resting from making more rabbits, as it was their day off. Rupert, the younger rabbit, decided he wanted to make a model volcano. Kind of like Peter Brady, only without the electricity. Most rabbit experts will tell you that rabbits generally don’t use electricity.

So this young rabbit was building this volcano, but he couldn’t quite get it to work right. He didn’t have the lava mix quite down. I think he was using a combination of egg whites and mulch, or perhaps some kind of gelatin derivative.  He kept getting really frustrated, and he was about to give up. The wise older rabbit, Rectangle, said “Don’t give up yet, Rupert!” But Rupert just threw down his volcano making tools in dismay.

“Nothing is going right. I want to do this, and instead it does that. I want to make it lean right, and it wants to lean left.”

“Relax, Rupert relax. Go with the flow. Don’t fight against the natural order of things. It will come in time. It always does. Just remember to do things one step at a time. If it doesn’t go the way you want it, change what you are doing. Step back, take a bigger look, and figure out what to try next. It’s only practice, after all.”

Poor ruper was following along, but he didn’t quite understand the last part. “Practice? Practice for what?”

“Why tomorrow, of course. Everything you do today, is just practice for tomorrow. Because if you allow yourself to release your expectations, and let things be just the way they are, you’ll be fine. As long as you learn from what happens, you can do it better next time. Especially because you always have tomorrow to look forward to, right?”

“I guess so,” Rupert replied, “But how will I ever finish, if I only practice?”

“Take a look around you young sir, take a look at everything. Does everything look finished to you? Are all your friends not still growing? Are all the trees not still getting bigger? Does father not upgrade and improve your rabbit hole every winter? Do you not need to learn new things in school every year? Does your Uncle, the carrot farmer, not have to learn new carrot planting methods every year? Practice. It’s all just practice.”

 “Practice for tomorrow. I got it,” Rupert said, getting back to work on his volcano.

“And one of the best parts about realizing that everything is practice for tomorrow, is that no matter how bad you mess up or how well you do, you can always look forward to being able to get better.”

And Rupert proceeded to make the best volcano ever.

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Once I Caught One This Big!

I was talking with my friend this morning, and he was telling me about his golf game. He said that he needs a new full set of woods, and perhaps even a new set of irons. I asked him how long he’s had his current set of golf clubs, and he said only about six months. I asked him if his game had improved enough to warrant buying a new set, and he said it didn’t really matter, that his game was ready.  I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked him. He said it had something to do with being on the cusp, or the apex or something else that sounded like an excuse to buy a new set of clubs. Sometimes I think he likes to argue just for the sake of arguing.

Like this other friend of mine that I go fishing with sometimes. He has a gigantic tackle box with about eighteen million different lures. Once when the fish weren’t biting, he gave me the entire history and theory behind each type of lure. All I I know is I usually lose two lures for every fish that I catch. He was telling me that he has this system. He can tell what kind of fish are in the area, and he uses a specific type of lure and other set up (I’m not sure of the proper fishing lingo,) based on the type of fish and their current temperament. I, on the other hand, usually grab the first lure I see, which naturally is the closest. He kept telling that I didn’t know what I was doing. And although I agreed, I suggested a wager to see who would catch more fish.

I am of the philosophy that you can take whatever you have, throw it out there, and then let whatever fish that happen to like that kind of lure come and get it.  Maybe I’m lazy, but I don’t see any reason to change whatever you are doing to try and match the environment you’re in. I think it’s easier just to throw out what you got, and see how much you can attract. 

It’s like an old friend of mine that used to be in door to door sales. He swore by using the exact same sales pitch to every single person that opened the door. Others in his company would try to vary their pitch based on the gender, age, ethnicity, color shirt (I kid you not,) and all kinds of other stuff.  He said it was a lot easier to memorize only one pitch, and then just throw the same pitch time after time. He was able to be more successful than anybody else for quite a while.

So we each fished for two hours with our respective lure methods. And we each caught the same amount of fish. While that sounds like a tie, when my friend was fished with his method, he was studying the lures and prepping his next strategy. When I fished using my method, I read Moby Dick.

And I convinced my friend to only allow himself a new set of clubs after he’d managed to consistently improve his score to lower than a hundred.

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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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Towards Pleasure and Away From Pain

As I write this article, it is a time of year where many people around the globe resolve to do certain things, or stop doing certain things. While this article can help in that regard, you can easily use it to create new goals, or get rid of bad habits any time of the year.

If you’ve read my articles on goal setting, or creating a compelling future, this one will blend right in. If you haven’t had the chance yet, you might consider it so that you can receive maximum benefit.

In this article, you will learn an easy to learn and simple to implement technique to motivate yourself to put into action a plan that you’d like to begin, but for some reason, haven’t yet (until now) been able to find the motivation.

It’s based on the idea that all humans are generally motivated by two broad categories. Toward pleasure, and away from pain. And this procedure makes use of those two tendencies to supercharge your brain to naturally move you in the direction you want to go.

Step One

Think of something you’d like to do more of, or something you’d like to do less of. For example, lets say exercise more. So the thing you want to do more of is exercise more.

Step Two

Brainstorm all the great things that will happen on three different levels, if you exercise more. On three different levels, I mean three different levels of cause/effect. For example, if I exercise more, I’ll sleep better at night. If I sleep better at night, I’ll be able to do better at my job everyday. If I do better at my job everyday, the chances I’ll get promoted will increase. See how that works? Keep in mind your main goal is to start to exercise more, and the second and third things are simply the carrot to keep pulling you in that direction. Once exercising more is a firm habit (in this example,) you can move on to other things.

Step Three

Brainstorm all the negative, things, along with the three levels of cause/effect of the bad things that will happen if you don’t start your program. For example, if I don’t start to exercise, then I’ll gain weight, and if I gain weight, then I’ll have to buy more clothes, and if I buy more clothes, I won’t have as much money, and so on and so on. Remember, these are to keep you focusing on negative aspects of life, but to give you impetus to move away from the things you don’t want to happen.

Now if you picked something you wanted to stop doing, like biting your nails, the process is the same. Brainstorm all the good things that will happen if you stop, and all the bad things that will happen if you don’t.

If you spend a few minutes to do this every night, you will soon find that you almost automatically start to move in the direction you want to go. And before you know it, you will be keeping a journal filled with all your easy successes in life.

If you enjoyed this article, remember to check back often for more, as I update this site daily. And be sure to share or link this site, because when you help others, you are really helping yourself.

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You Want Fries With That?

“Dude why does this always happen to me?”
“Why does what always happen to you?”
“This!”
“What?”
“They always mess up my order.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I ordered the chicken burger with mashed potatoes, and they gave me the chicken burger with fries. I can’t eat fries, my doctor said so.”
“What does your doctor have to do with this?”
“He told me not to eat too much fried food.”
“I see. So is that why your order always gets messed up, because your doctor told you to stop eating so much fried food?”
“No, I’m just saying. They always mess up my order.”
“They?”
“Waiters, waitresses.”
“Both waiters AND waitresses?”
“Mostly waitresses.”
“So then they don’t ALWAYS mess up your order, only waitresses?”
“Yea. Yea, that’s it. Waitresses always mess up my order.”
“All waitresses?”
“Well, now that you mention it, usually only cute ones do.”
“Hmm. I see. Do they know they are cute?”
“Huh?”
“The cute ones that mess up your order, do they know they are cute?”
“Dude, what?”
“You said most cute waitresses mess up your order. How do they know that they’re cute? Is there some internationally agreed upon scale of cuteness that they have to check themselves against every day to see if they can qualify to mess up your order?”
“Huh? Dude, what are you talking about? Of course not. There’s no standard.”
“You’re not saying that cuteness is subjective, are you?”
“Of course it’s subjective!”
“So they’re psychic then, right?”
“WHAT?”
“Since there isn’t any international standard for cuteness, and cuteness is subjective, they can only mess up your order if they can read your mind and decide that you think they are cute. Right?”
“Um, I think I’ll just eat my fries…”
“No, no, this is getting interesting. Maybe, they read your mind, and because they realize you think they are cute, it makes them nervous and that’s why they are all messing up your order. Or maybe, they all hoping that because you think they are cute, you might want to ask them out, so they mess up your order on purpose so they’ll have a chance to apologize, and give you a chance to ask them out? Whatta you think?”
“I really just… dude, you wanna fry?”
“Do you have any other explanation?”
“Can we just drop it?”
“No, no, I’d like to get to the bottom of this. Perhaps there is another explanation. Maybe YOU are the one that is messing up your order. Maybe you actually said ‘fries’ when you meant to say ‘mashed potatoes.’ Did you ever think of that?”
“Seriously, these fries are pretty good, you should try one. They have like garlic or something on them…”
“What is cute, anyways? How exactly do you know that a girl is cute? I mean, say look over…there! Is she cute?”
“Dude, you really are starting to embarrass me.”
“Have you ever had a cute waitress that DIDN’T mess up your order? Or did you ever have a waitress that was really uncute, and HE messed up your order? I mean, that’s not really a cute thing to say, you know. Cute people have feelings too. I suppose I could order you to just be thankful you have some pota….dude, what happened to your fries?”
“I finished them while you were rambling on about whatever you were rambling on about.”
“How were they?”
“Great, I think I’ll order them again next time.”

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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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