Category Archives: Beliefs

Give Me Victory, and Give Me Sex!

The other day I was watching this football game on TV. They were kicking the ball around, running up and down the field. I’ve heard that football players, or soccer players a they’re called in some parts of the world, are the best-conditioned athletes there are. I had an acquaintance once that I worked with that was a semi-pro soccer player. He asked me casually to participate in an upcoming marathon with him. Being a dumb high school kid at the time, I readily agreed. I thought it would be fun. He, being the semi-pro soccer player, was in fairly good shape, so running a marathon wasn’t a problem for him. Me, on the other hand, despite being a dumb high school kid, wasn’t quite as prepared, as I should have been.

Personally, I like the story behind the marathon. Some Greek guy ran 40 kilometers after the Greeks, led by the Athenians, defeated the Persians at the battle of Marathon around 500 BC. He ran from the city of Marathon to Athens to tell the Athenians that they were victorious. This wasn’t just a celebratory run. Had the Greeks lost at Marathon, the Persians would have marched straight to Athens and sacked the city, burned the temples, killed the men and raped the women. That was what happened back in those days. So the Greek guy who ran the 40K to tell the city was doing them a great favor. He was telling them they weren’t going to be killed and raped and then all their property destroyed. It would be a terrible thing to be sitting around hoping that a foreign army is going to come marching on your city in a couple days to make your last moments of life a new experience in suffering and pain.

The story goes that when this Greek guy reached Athens, he said the word “Victory!” and then fell dead. And of course, “Victory” in Greek is “Nike”, which is where the brand name comes from. Maybe if the poor guy had been wearing a pair of shoes, he wouldn’t have fallen dead. But I’m not so sure if that was the whole story, or the motivation for this Greek guy was merely to let the poor Athenians they were saved. You’ve heard the old saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger,” right? Well that saying is around because they actually did used to shoot the messenger. If somebody arrived with bad news, they generally were so angry that they killed the guy. I’m sure you seen or heard about the famous scene where the guy shouts “This is Sparta!” and then proceeds to kill the messenger and all his co-messengers by kicking them down that long well.

When the messenger arrived with good news, they did the opposite. He was treated like a rock star. Food, women, anything he wanted for a couple of days. This wasn’t really an official procedure of the city; this is just the way it worked out. Some guy would return from a big battle, and let the city know their men had succeeded, which meant that the other cities army wasn’t going to come and destroy everybody. Naturally, everybody was ecstatically happy, and the center of all this happiness was the lucky messenger. So of course, he got invited to parties, and orgies and whatever other celebratory customs were around.

So I don’t know if that Greek guy, who gave birth to both a very traditional Olympic sport and a world famous brand of athletic wear, had anything on his mind other than all the insane partying he was going to do for the next two or three days. Of course that version is not the most romantic version, but a funny things happen to stories over time. They get repeated and changed and take on whatever the current belief system that rests in the cultural consciousness. Because current western culture is still very steeped in traditional religious beliefs and sexual taboos, that part of the story is kind of only snickered at or not taken very seriously. Because, like it or not, a large part of the western culture is firmly rooted in the Church, namely because the Church was the major governing power until only recently. Stories from other cultures are either rejected, or filtered through the societies collective consciousness to mold to whatever messages we’d like to read into a story of historical event.

True power and choice comes when you can choose your own set of beliefs and filters through which you can see the world. If you can take a true objective view of the current values and priorities of the society you live, and only choose to take on those beliefs and values that serve you and the choices you’ve made for what you want your life to become, then you’re a step ahead of most other people. The sad fact about living in modern society is that most people are content to let others do their thinking for them, and dictate to them what is important and what isn’t. When you can truly learn to think for yourself, and decide your own direction in life, you will as victorious as the Greeks were at Marathon.

My friend finished the Marathon in around three and a half hours. I finished in barely under five. It took a huge amount of focus to keep going and not throw in the towel. I realized at about mile ten that I was in way over my head, so I had a tough choice to make, and both choices would have it’s own set of consequences. The next 16 miles proved to be a horrible. One of the things that greatly helped me to finish was all the people standing along the course cheering the runners on. It is one experience that I will never, ever forget.

Beware of Dangerous Ideas – Or Why You Shouldn’t Drop a Grilled Cheese

Last weekend I went to this really interesting seminar. It was vaguely marketed as a personal development seminar, and a friend of mine who went a few years ago had been raving about it for so long that I finally gave in and signed up. I don’t usually sign up for things like this only by a friend’s recommendation, I usually like to do research from several different sources to find out about what I think I might get involved in. Usually seminars like this turn out to be pretty good. I’ve had other friends try and recruit me to sign up for their seminars, or seminars that they have attended and feel some kind of a strange desire to tell people about. Kind of like the idea behind the seminar gets into their head somehow and they feel a need to spread it, like a virus or something.

Like this book I was reading recently about these things called “memes.” Memes are something that was invented by Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist. Actually he didn’t invent them, he coined the term, or thought up the idea, or made it up while he was sitting in his Jacuzzi. The concept behind the idea is that there are these things that are “units of cultural information” that get passed on from person to person. Like the specific directions of how to fold an origami, or how to make a sloe gin fizz. As these units spread from person to person, they become more popular, and pretty soon everybody is folding Japanese paper and drinking English gin. Some of these “units of information” are really popular, and others are not so popular. For example, I think everybody knows about or knows somebody who knows something about the idea of breaking a mirror equals bad luck. Some place in history, you could break a mirror and it wasn’t considered unlucky. Maybe dangerous, if there were a bunch of people walking around barefoot, but not unlucky. Then one day, somebody came up with the idea of breaking a mirror is unlucky. Maybe somebody broke a mirror right before they lost a big bet on a horserace, or somebody was shaving, and slipped and banged their forehead into the mirror just as the giant earthquake hit that reversed the course of the Mississippi River. Whatever it was, somebody (perhaps the mirror breaker himself) assumed the mirror caused the bad luck, he went and told all his friends, and the meme was born.

Some memes of course, never make it past puberty. Like maybe somebody was eating a grilled cheese, and he dropped it on the floor, and then it started to hail unexpectedly. So he went and told all his friends that if you dropped your grilled cheese it will start to hail, and all his friends laughed and said he was crazy, and that particular meme died then and there. Or maybe they all believed him, and then rushed home and dropped grilled cheeses on purpose only to find that it didn’t hail. Or maybe something completely different.

So my friend went to this really crazy seminar, and he seemed to be trying really hard to convince me to go. Like the particular meme of that seminar had a really strong reproductive urge built into it. My friend was a little bit overzealous, as I kept asking him for specific reasons why the seminar was so great, and he just giving me vague reasons. He didn’t become suddenly rich, or lose a bunch of weight, or learn any Jedi magic skills or anything. Maybe they brainwashed him or something. But he did everything else normally, but whenever the topic of that particular seminar came up, he just got this crazy glazed look on his eyes, like those pod people from that old black and white movie, and started telling me I should join. He even said that when you join, you get an advisor, and you are supposed to tell people about the wonderful truth. What really turned me off was when he said that the more seminars you go to, the more you want to go to and recruit more people. I didn’t really hang out with him very much after that, and for a while I kept checking for large pods under my bed at night.

But the recent seminar was different. My friend that convinced me to go didn’t seem to have anything particular invested in me going. She kept saying it was a good seminar, and gave me a bunch of websites for me to check out so I could make my own decision. She was confident that if I did my own research, I would come to the same conclusion that she did. Of course when I Googled the name of the seminar, I found a few sites dedicated to saying it was scam and all that, but there were a lot more of other websites where people were saying that they had achieved good results.

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy learning new things and finding ways to make life easier and more rewarding. And it’s really good when you find something like this that can do that. You want to share it with your friends not because you feel some kind of a brainwashed obligation, but because you can really see the value and think your friends might as well. And the best part is that you can trust your friends to make up their own minds, knowing that the best way to maintain a friendship is to share mutual trust and respect.

How to Achieve Anything

As you sit there, reading this post, feeling the feelings in your chair, you might begin to recall a time when you thought about something that you wanted in life. Perhaps it was a new car, or a relationship, or a box of chocolate flavored marshmallows. If you’ve ever had the experience of wishing for something that didn’t come true, then this article is for you. In this you will learn the exact steps to take that will turn those “wishes” into strong desires that will in turn manifest into reality.

I’m not sure if this works because there is some underlying metaphysical principle that governs our lives, or if it is because of the unique nature of our brains due to the complex process of evolution. Either way, this simple process has brought untold riches and happiness to many people. Unfortunately, throughout time, some of these truths were twisted and misinterpreted, either on purpose or accidentally, to achieve social control and power. If you’ve heard about the controversy of Napoleon Hill’s original “Think and Grow Rich,” manuscript, with respect to organized religions, you’ll understand the power of these techniques.

The process is simple, but it does require some diligence, and some patience. It is quite a shame that the vast majority of people throughout time have lived lives of “quiet desperation,” when there is this simple method that can get you exactly what you want.

The first step is to create an absolutely clear goal of what it is that you want. You have to make sure that you truly want it, and you haven’t been brainwashed by society or church or your family into thinking that you want this. This may take some time, so be patient. Dig through your desires until you find one that you can really accept if it comes true without reservation.

The second step is to put it in present tense writing. Clear, concise, accurate writing. I own a red convertible, 1967 corvette. I have six pack abs that I can see in the mirror every morning when I wake up. I have a golf handicap of 10.

The third step is to come up with at least three or four mind pictures of what your goal looks, smells, tastes, sounds and feels like. Take your time and come up with as many rich representations as you can.

The fourth step is to get in the habit of repeating your goal to yourself several times a day, while picturing the various images of it in your mind. It’s very important to feel a strong emotional appreciation for your choice. At first this may seem fruitless, as you will feel weird imagining that you have something that you don’t. Be patient. This is the part where most people fail. They try this a few times, and after a week without a sack of money magically appearing on their doorstep, they give up. If you don’t feel a strong emotion at first, keep doing this. You will be building actual neurological pathways in your brain every time you visualize this. The more you do this, the easier it will be to do, and the more real it will seem and the easier it will to really feel that sense of appreciation for what you are creating. It’s important to feel the appreciation in the present, as if you already have this.

You should do this visualization step several times a day, for five minutes or so each time, and as you fall asleep every night. Again, this crucial step is the reason so many people don’t achieve what they want in life. We are too distracted by TV, news, swine flu, anything else that keeps us from quiet reflection. Don’t give to the giving up your thoughts to brain candy.

The best way to get started with this is choose something easy; to make sure that this really works. Simple personal habits good for this, like smiling and saying hi to strangers as part of your personality. Or waking up naturally at a certain time every morning. When you easily achieve this, you can move on to bigger and better things.

For resources, I recommend the following books:

Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
Dr. Maxwell Maltz, Psycho Cybernetics
Dr. Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

There is nothing that you cannot achieve with the right use of your mind.

Tap Your Eternal Bliss

There is one powerful force in the universe that is so omnipotent it may very well precede all that exists. It underlies all matter and energy, and all thought. It is a verb, a noun and an adjective and a feeling all at once. Those who have been able to tap this source of energy have realized the incredible creative power that it has given them in their lives. Known about since before man could speak, this eternal energy has manifested itself in every facet of creation.

Appreciation.

To appreciate is to increase. To grow. To make bigger. To expand. Since the dawn of creation, the big bang, before there was anything at all, there was appreciation. Before the magical source that is, was and will be the entire universe split itself into matter and energy, all that was was appreciation. Some philosophers have argued that the whole purpose of the existence of the universe was this for this source energy to fractionate itself into so many seemingly separate entities was so that it could appreciate itself on many different levels.

What is the quickest way to make somebody happy? Let them know you appreciate them. There happiness will surely grow.

What is the quickest way to share and grow love? Appreciate it.

Do you appreciate money? Is money increasing in your life? If it is not, do you really feel an appreciation for money, or do you have some deep, unconscious belief on some level that money is bad, or evil, or you need to be bad and evil to get it? Get rid of whatever blocks you have, truly appreciate money, and it will grow.

Do you appreciate health? Is your health and body shape what you desire? What happens if you spend five or ten minutes a day, just sitting with yourself? Feeling your physical feelings, and appreciating your body, exactly the way it is. What effects do you think that will have on your health and well being?

Do you appreciate your relationships? Are they exactly how you like them to be? What would happen if you just sat with the significant people in your life and simply appreciated each other, exactly as you were? What effects would that have on your relationships?

Do you appreciate your sex life? Is it exactly how you want it to be? What would happen if during sex, you slowed down, and just appreciated the sexuality of your partner, exactly as they were? How much would that improve the quality of your intimacy?

How many other things can you appreciate, exactly as they are, and sit back and watch as the quality of your life vastly improves?

What happens when you realize that the ultimate source of love, power, and wealth, the magnificent foundation that precedes all, is you?

Bliss is only a thought away.

Create Internal Coalitions to Unlock Your Potential

The other day I was talking to an acquaintance of mine. She is a woman I met recently, and we have an occasion to bump into each other once in a while. I had asked her how her recent weekend was, and she explained that she had finally broken up with her boyfriend of many years. She seemed to exhibit an extreme feeling of lightness and relief when she described the breakup. Normally when you hear people talking about a breakup, they are sad, angry, frustrated, victimized. But not this lady. She was ecstatic, because the relationship had gone on much longer than she’d wanted to. I’m sure you know somebody that is in a relationship that, on one level, they realize it’s not very healthy, but on another level they don’t really have the courage to extract themselves from it. Such is the nature of human problems. They never are straightforward, or easy.

Despite the fact that she spent the last weekend happily removing any remembrance of him from her house, she was going to celebrate by going out drinking with her friends. She then explained that was the one thing that she and her ex boyfriend had in common, an affinity for alcohol. Then went on to explain some other lingering problems in her life, and was explicit in her reasons for drinking. It allows her to forget the stresses and worries of the day. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a big fan of forgetting the stresses and worries of the day. Too much focus on what’s ailing you (and believe me, all of us have something ailing us) will generally only make things seem much worse than they are. And I also fully appreciate the fantastic effects a few drinks can have on your mood. I’m a scotch on the rocks man myself.

But when she continued describing her plans to go out until the wee hours of the morning, she started seemed to lose her happiness. As she described how she usually dreaded the day after, as once she starts, she can’t really control herself, it became apparent that this might not be the best strategy for stress relief, at least not for her. All doubts disappeared when she voiced one of the biggest killers to human happiness:

“I want to quit, but I can’t.”

That short sentence sums up the vast horrors of personal emotional suffering. I want to….but I can’t….or I need to…. But I can’t… Or perhaps the most insidious, I have to….but I can’t….

Why are certain problems so difficult to get around? Some have called these paradoxical problems because as much as we want to get rid of them we are receiving some kind of benefit from perpetuating them, no matter how ludicrous or illogical it may seem.

One way to get to the heart of this is a mind experiment called “Parts Integration.” What this technique does is dig down beneath the reasons for holding on to behaviors that don’t seem to be helpful, and finding out the hidden benefit in them. Once you figure out the hidden benefit, you can find other ways to fulfill it. When can find better ways to do this, the unwanted behavior has no reason to stick around, and vanishes.

This kind of procedure can be best done with somebody else guiding you, but it’s not necessary. Here are the basic steps. (Be forewarned, it’s kind of goofy and requires liberal use of your imagination, such as having a two-way conversation with different parts of yourself.)

Ask the “part” of you that is responsible for the behavior to come out. Hold it in your right hand.

Ask the “part” of you that wants to stop the behavior to come out. Hold it in your left hand.

Keep asking the two parts their underlying reasons for doing what they are doing. Ask these “parts” questions like “Why is that important, what is important about that?” It’s important to be open for whatever answers present themselves, and to be accepting that grateful for the answers that do come. You will usually find that the part in your right hand is likely using a very old strategy to keep you safe and protected.
For example, you overeat because you feel good, you feel good so you won’t have to express yourself, and you don’t want to express yourself because you might get rejected. So in this case, overeating s (the bad behavior in this example) serves to protect you from getting rejected.

The part in your left hand wants you to stop eating because it’s not healthy. Being unhealthy will make you unattractive, and being unattractive will cause you to be shunned by others, and this will cause you your rejection.

In the above (way oversimplified) example, you find a place where both “parts” want the same thing, but they are each going about different ways to achieve it. Once “they” realize this, you can ask them to work together, and figure out a way that is both healthy, and will keep you safe and free from rejection. You ask the two “parts” to work together, and then bring them both to your chest. You then breathe in deeply and feel gratitude for this new relationship between the parts.

You may have to try this a few times before it “sticks,” but you’ll be amazed how freeing this exercise can be. Having patience pays off in this case. You find subtle shifts in the motivations that drive your behavior over time. Behaviors that you’ve had for a while can take some time to fully release, but it is absolutely possible to change your life around completely with this “procedure.”  There are many videos and resources available to help you get through this. This is but one of the many tools that are available to you that will allow you to unlock your potential.

Once you decide to make it a habit to always explore ways to improve yourself and your world, you’ll be light years ahead of where you used to be.

Don’t Stop, Go!

Last night I was walking home from the movies. I had to walk through a bunch of rice fields. Because each rice field belongs to a different house, the road kinds of curves around. Not being very familiar with the area, I had to kind of guess where I was going. I knew the general direction I wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure if the path I had chosen would take me directly there, or through some roundabout way.

When came around a turn, I noticed a car that had passed me only a few moments before going the other direction. Hmm. Maybe he forgot something. When I turned the corner. I saw the reason he turned around. There was a big flashing sign saying that the road was under construction. When I approached the sign, sure enough, there was a large piece of road construction equipment parked there, and the asphalt portion of the road ended. On the other side of the fence was a rather ‘in progress’ looking surface. What to do. I checked me watch. The train station I was heading for was perhaps fifty meters in front of me. If I turned back, I would have to walk through the rice fields again, and go all the way around. Which would be about an extra kilometer or two. Which would mean I would miss the next train which was due in about ten minutes, and would have wait for the next one. Which meant that I would miss my connection train at the main station. If was only  an extra kilometer of two of walking, it would be a no brainer, since I love walking through rice fields. But when you factor in all the added delays I would experience, it was also a no brainer.

I jumped over the “Do Not Enter Sign” and negotiated my way over the ‘in progress’ road they were building. I had to hop over a couple holes, but I finally made it to a walkway, and to the station in time.

Sometimes when we go through life, we come up against what we think are stop signs. Many times we see the stop sign, and turn around, go all the way back around and take extra time. But are they really stop signs? The one I saw above was. It was real. But what happens when you come up against a stop sign in your imagination? If you ask out a girl, and she says, “no,” is that really a stop sign, or an invitation to try something different.

If you are working on a project, and you come up to some problems, are they really stop signs? Or just an invitation to use your ingenuity to jump over the imaginary fence and go around?

The car that was ahead of me had no choice, because the road beyond the stop sign wouldn’t support the weight of his car. But because I was walking, I assumed the stop sign was only for cars, not for pedestrians. What happens when you encounter imaginary stop signs, but you assume they are only for other people, and not for you?

Bad economy? No problem. They aren’t talking about you. You can jump over the fence and think of another way. Limited budget at work? Not for you. They mean somebody else. You can think of other ways to get the project done. You have to run thirty minutes a day and eat only oatmeal to lose weight? Nope, that’s for those other guys that are really overweight. You can think of a better, easier way to get in shape.

When you think about it, the only real stop signs that are the ones that are shaped like an octagon and pained red with the word STOP on it. And you know as well as I do that it’s really only a suggestion, anyways. For those other guys.

Permalink

Reincarnation

The other day I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about reincarnation. Actually it wasn’t specifically reincarnation per se, but more along the lines of past lives. My friend was adamant that it is a complete hallucination and that all stories of past lives are made up either consciously for attention, or unconsciously to be able to deal with past experiences in this life that are too painful to face.

While I”m not a full fledged card carrying member of any official past lives network (If they indeed exist), I do believe their is something valuable at least in the concept of past lives. There is just too much about the mind and the whole concept of reality that we all share to be really sure of anything.

Of course, if you are a religious person, you can take solace in your beliefs, whatever they may be. Personally, I used to be a deep believer in the Catholic Church. There was even a time when I went to daily mass. But the more I read different texts on different subjects from different cultures, the more I realized that there has got to be a more inclusive explanation for everything. But I digress.

My friend was telling me about different case studies where they’ve hypnotized people and have done what they call “pass life regressions.” Under hypnosis, they slowly take the person back through several lives and the person describes things as they are being regressed. Supposedly a researcher in this field has done with thousands of people and has come to some startling conclusions. Certain people who claimed to have lived before in ancient China, for example, all accurately described the clothing that was worn at the time. This is either a strange coincidence, a extremely well planned hoax, or something else entirely.

My friend claims that this study only shows that the hypnotist is only cleverly using hypnotic techniques to plant memories into people. If that were the case, then of course you would expect most people to come up with the same answers about people living in ancient China.

I’m not so sure. Perhaps we do go through this life several times. Perhaps these people weren’t regressing to previous lives at all, perhaps they were merely tapping into the superconscious. The giant storehouse of all information ever known or to be known by all sentient entities that have lived or ever will live. Or maybe it is just gigantic shared hallucination.

In the end, my friend and I agreed to disagree. He thinks everything is explainable by current biological science. While I agree that ultimately science must explain everything, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a whole lot of science that we have discovered yet, or are even capable of understanding.  The general belief among cultural anthropologists is that any yet to be discovered technology, when shown to a more primitive society, will be treated by them as magic. Perhaps all of this is some kind of magic, on some level.

Permalink

Share the most Wonderful Gift – You

Do you remember what it was like when you were a kid, and and you got a new toy? It was a cool thing, you couldn’t wait to go and run to your friends so that you could share this with them? You might have even brought it to school for a few days until your teacher told you it would be best left at home?
What about when you saw a really good movie? And and you couldn’t wait to tell all your friends about this? Word of mouth advertising has always been an integral part of many products on many levels.

Imagine what you felt like when you had a friend that brought something to you. They were happy and excited, and wanted to share a new toy or idea with you. How did that make you feel? If you are like most people. you were moved to excitement more by your friends enthusiasm than the actual toy or comic book he wanted to show you.

That’s one of great things that you naturally are skilled at. Being able to share an emotion with somebody and have them reflect that emotion back to you without any conscious thought. If you present and share that emotion congruently, they almost can’t help to reflect it back to you. This holds true for all emotions. Imagine a time when somebody shared a sad emotion with you. Did you feel sad as well, at a little bit? I’m not talking about those people that are always complaining, looking for fake sympathy from others. I’m talking about somebody who is suffering from real emotional pain. When you hear them describe their experience, you can’t help being moved as well.

That is one of the reasons we like movies and stories so much. There is nothing like a good tear jerker or inspirational drama to capture and lead your emotions around. This idea has been around for a long time. The Greeks realized this with their many plays, and their word for it, catharsis, is still used today to describe an emotional experience achieved by hearing or watching somebody else’s, usually through drama or sometimes music.

What emotions are you sharing with others, and what emotions are you picking up from others? Sadness? Happiness? Gratitude. When you keep in mind that others can reflect your own emotions back to you, a good idea is to reflect an appreciation. But not just your garden variety appreciation for the birds and the wind and the money in your pocket. That will get you a reflection for more appreciation for the birds and the wind and the money in your pocket, which is great, but what happens if you, as Emeril Lagasse says “kick it up a notch?”

What if you walk through life radiating a deep and honest appreciation for yourself? What if you could share a love for yourself like you shared that new toy when you were a kid? What if you had an honest gratitude for who you are, and ran around saying “Hey everybody, look at this! Isn’t this cool?” Just like everybody wanted to run over and play with your new toy, what if everybody came running today, and wanted to experience with the new you that you find so cool?

This is not a overfilled ego demanding attention. This is the expression of the deep, honest, appreciation that you will undoubtedly feel for yourself when you really examine the miracle that is you. You owe the world that much.

Permalink

He with the Most Choice—WINS

One of the greatest things about being a human is flexibility. It affords you to easily discover the strategy to apply to any particular problem that you may encounter in life. I’m sure you’ve heard the adage “In every problem lies the seed of the solution.” What that presupposes is that you have the flexibility of thought to find the solution. And you can use flexibility to think of new ways around problems, or you can use flexibility to solve new problems in old ways. Either choice will give you fantastic results.

Many evolutionary biologists agree that humans arrived on top of the evolutionary ladder not due to any single advantage. We became the kings of the jungle not because we have the sharpest teeth or the brightest feathers or the boldest silver stripe down our backs. We became rulers of the earth because we were flexible enough to live in any environment, under any circumstances, and could thrive with any set of resources. Humans have lived in trees, caves, grasslands, forests, deserts, and frozen tundras. This would not have been possible had we not the flexibility to adapt to the ever changing landscape of life.

Just as our species rose to the top due it’s inherent gift of flexibility, so can you. Those that come up with creative and new solutions have always been rewarded with fame, riches, and a plethora of, ahem, mating opportunities. It wasn’t the strongest, or the fastest, or the tallest. It was he with dexterity of mind and thought that became king. It has been argued that the driving force of our ever increasing brain size was competition among ourselves to come up with new and better ideas to find shelter, get food, and woo women. This has wonderfully expressed itself in our time with the incredibly huge amount of art, poetry and pure beauty that this once monkey brain has produced.

How about in your life? How many ways can you realize that by improving your flexibility of thought you will reap rewards of a king? Flexibility is not only about success, it is about personal pleasure and happiness. Who is happier, somebody that can only be satisfied with one specific set of circumstances, or one who can create happiness for yourself anywhere, anytime? Should you not understand the power of flexibility, just look to the great inventors of our time, and notice how many wonderful inventions have come to pass because of their boldness of new thought.

As the economy continues to crumble, and the old model of doing the same thing for the same result passes away into the new paradigm, it becomes clear that he who is most flexible will come out ahead. And when you change your mindset into this kind of thinking, you will naturally become aware of the untapped opportunities that are all around you, now, waiting for you to profit from.

How many ways can you imagine doing that?

Permalink

Attract Sex and Money Like Magic

Have you ever noticed that the richest guys are the ones that seem to attract the most money? The guy that doesn’t care whether or not he gets the girl is the one they are all flocking around? Has the opposite every happened to you? The more you need money, the harder it seems to come by? The more you like a girl or a guy, the less they seem to want to have anything to do with you? Is there any reason behind this? Well, believe it or not, there is.

While it is important to set clear goals and know what it is you want in life, it’s also important to detach from results at the same time. If that sounds a little bit too esoteric, let me explain. When I say detach from results, I mean be excessively needy. Think about somebody that you know is needy, or clingy. Are they a pleasure to be around? Do you enjoy their company? Have you ever been on a date with somebody, and their whole world seemed to depend on your approval, so much that they even became a little bit angry when you didn’t constantly tell them how much you cared for them? If you have, then you know what I’m talking about. 

The same goes true for money. Imagine you are the hiring manager. Somebody comes in for an interview. Instead of giving you their qualifications, they spend the whole interview telling you how much they really need the job. Their car is in danger of being repossessed, they are behind on their mortgage payments, their world is in shambles. Would you rather hire this person, or hire the other guy who has several other companies that are interested in hiring him?

While it is extremely helpful to cultivate a burning desire, if you focus that desire on one specific thing, it can lead to trouble, and will shun people and opportunities rather than attract them. The secret is to create a general burning desire, but with a sort of vague hole for the specific thing itself. Allow me to explain.

Let’s say you have a burning desire to start a business. You really want it. You visualize it every night. You meditate on it every morning. You think, live and breath business. You read business ideas. Then an opportunity comes along. If you shift all of your desire on to this particular opportunity too quickly, you will lose sight of your overall objective. You need to have a clear objective, so that you can measure each opportunity against your objective to see if it matches up. Instead of thinking “this is it! This is my dream!” it might be better to be thinking “Let’s see if this matches up, if not, I’ll move on.” It is essential to develop a belief that you will succeed no matter what, so that you can objectively evaluate each opportunity.

The same goes for creating a new relationship. If you have a fairly good idea of the kind of person you’d like to get together with, combined with a solid belief of being successful in the long run, you’ll be unstoppable. Instead of having the “I hope she’s the one” attitude that so many people unfortunately have, you can have the “Let’s see if she is the one” attitude, knowing full well that if she isn’t you can easily move on to somebody else.

The key is to have a burning desire for the condition that you want, be it a solid business, a healthy relationship, or anything else you’d like to create in your life. Then you combine that with a laid back, let’s see approach to each individual “candidate” for the position, and you will easily achieve what you want in life.

Permalink