Category Archives: Goals

How to Shut Off the Voices from Your Past

I knew this guy that had bought a new car recently. For him it was a big deal, because all of the cars he’s ever driven have been used. And when he bought them used, they were at least several years old. He is a very successful businessman, and I always wondered why he didn’t want to spend a lot of money on cars, because I was sure he could afford it. He had expensive clothes, and he lived in a nice area of town, in a very upscale apartment building, so I wasn’t really sure why he insisted on buying used cars all the time.

But whatever the reason, he apparently got over it, as he bought a brand new, state of the art, top of the line SUV. I think it was made in Germany because the quality was incredible. One thing though, he didn’t like at all. It had this navigation system that would always talk to him while he was driving. None of his other cars had navigation systems, and he had always prided himself on being able to find his way around, even when he drove to strange cities that he’d never been to before. He said he could “sniff” where he wanted to go. When he was going to a meeting or something important to his business, he would only get the major cross streets, look at a map briefly before he left, and then go only by memory or by instinct. So when he got this talking car that told him what was what every time he turned a corner, I could understand why he was so frustrated with it. Especially since it was always telling him some potential danger up ahead.

He said it was like having a voice in your head that is always telling about something bad that will happen. Like when you want to get up and give a speech or ask out a pretty girl, there’s always this voice saying, “be careful, you might get hurt or embarrassed.” Most people hear that voice and then obey it completely, like it is a voice from God himself or something. Others don’t even hear it at all, they just get a funny uncomfortable feeling, and when they decide not to do what they were thinking of doing, the voice shuts up and the feeling goes away.

One interesting thing my friend did was figure out how to reprogram his navigation system. What he did was program his goal, or destination into the system, and then put in the time he needed to be there. Then whenever it talked to him, it only told him things specific to his goal. When he realized that the voice he kept hearing were only suggestions, and because it was some mechanical robot voice making them, he didn’t have to take them into consideration if he didn’t want to. He could always listen to them, and then decide what to do based on what they said. Most of the time he just ignored the voice, although sometimes he paid attention just to see what happened. And the time that he did that, although it saved him a few minutes, he decided that it wasn’t that much fun paying attention to some robot voice. So eventually he took his car to the dealership and had the thing dismantled.

And when I finally asked him about why he always drove around used cars, it was because when he was a kid, his dad was a used car salesman. And his dad had told him that since used car salesman always have a bad reputation, he would try really hard to give people an honest deal. So when my friend would buy a different car, he would specifically buy them from used car lot out of respect for his dad. When he figured he’d respected his dad enough, he decided that it was time to move on, and generate some of his own respect. Which is one of the reasons, I think, he became so successful.

Altering Behavior Can Lead to Tremendous Results

I was waiting at the station the other day, waiting for a train, and I happened to be sitting next to a guy that was working on some very complicated math problems, or problem. I wasn’t sure if it was a bunch of different problems or if it was on big problem that was somehow interconnected to all the rest. Because he had them written on several different pieces of paper. He would write a bunch of equations, pause, and stare off into the distance, and then write some more. There were many people walking around, and it is summertime, so there are a lot of distractions that can steal your attention from a math problem, if you catch my drift.

Sometimes you can only focus on a problem for a certain amount of time before you need to give your brain a break. It’s kind of like lifting weights. You can only do so many sets before you need to set the weight down and give your muscles a chance to repair themselves. That’s how you get bigger muscles. When you lift weights, you are actually breaking down the muscle fiber, and then if you give yourself enough rest in between the exercise with proper nutrition, your muscles will rebuild themselves better, stronger, faster, just like Steve Austin.

Sometimes working on a mental problem is the same way. You need to give your brain a rest. I don’t know if there are brain fibers that break down and grow bigger, although it certainly can seem that way if you’ve ever done a lot of math homework. Einstein said that you could never solve a problem at the same level where it was created. So maybe staring off into the distance every so often gives your brain to look at things in different perspective.

Finally after the guy seemed to stare off into the distance longer than normal, I asked him what he was doing. I didn’t think I was disturbing his thought process. His body language seemed to indicate that he was taking a longer than usual rest. He told me he was working on some thermodynamics applications for his business. He is a chemical engineer at a local beer distillery, and he was working on some equations that are related to the process before fermentation. He was that they result that they were getting was adequate, but if they could streamline it a little bit, without giving up any quality, they would be able to increase their profit margin.

He said it’s all a matter of results and behavior. He said the problem is when you focus on only one side of the equation. The results, in this case, were the end product. The different brands of beer that his company produces. There are specific ways to measure results in his particular case. He explained that it’s important to stay away from measuring results subjectively, because obviously different people will have different opinions. It’s important to have an objective way to measure the results you get, so you can reproduce them or even improve on them. Specific gravity, alkalinity, color refraction index are different ways to measure the exact results. The other side of the equation is behavior. In this case the behavior is how the chemicals interact with each other in the fermenting tank. Time, temperature, sugar levels, ingredients of the initial mix are all things they can vary. The trick is to vary the behavior and see what the easiest and quickest ways are to get the results that you want. If you can find a relatively easy behavior that will give you the results you want, you’ve got a winner. Then you can go about varying your behavior and see if you can even improve on your results, which is even better.

I wish I would have gotten his name, or business card though. Going on a tour of a local brewery would be a pretty cool experience. I never thought that brewing beer was such an involved, scientific process. Go figure.

Sail Your Way To Pleasure

I have a friend that has just been promoted at work. He works for a large, multinational company that designs, makes and sells many different kinds of consumer products. The company has been around for over a hundred years, and is pretty much a household name. My friend was just promoted to the regional distribution manager for the entire western United States. He is in charge of making sure that there is a clear connection and communication between the designers, the needs of the marketplace, the manufacturing centers around the world, and the end points of sales in various cities in the United States. He frequently flies all around the world in many capacities, and is well known in the industry as an authority in his field. Needless to say, he makes a ton of money, and gets a great deal of respect from those that he works with and even competitors in his field

It wasn’t always like this. I didn’t know this guy before he became successful, I only met him afterwards. We actually me at a seminar that taught different aspects of communication not taught in any business school. There was a huge range of people at this seminar. One of the great things about being able to meet so many people is that you get so many different ideas and viewpoints on the same things. And it really expands your mind to the idea that there are really many ways to look at one situation. Sometimes I think I learned more that seminar from the other participants than I did from the actual instructors. It wasn’t uncommon for several us to sit up until the early hours of the morning in our hotel lobby just talking different aspects of why we were there and how many different ways there were to accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish something.

This guy mentioned that he used to be unhappy. Although he had a pretty decent job, with decent pay, something was missing. He seemed to be just going along without any real purpose. When he was in college, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do, and he just kind of fell into his job, and slowly moved up the ranks without really paying attention to where he wanted to go.

Then one day he was in a bookstore, and for some reason he ventured into the area of the bookstore that he didn’t usually go into. I don’t know if you’ve ever actually counted the different sections in the bookstore, but there is a lot. He got a book on sailing. He had never sailed before, but for some reason he thought that sailing would be an interesting thing to learn. The book talked about how important it was to be able to read maps, and be able to use a compass, and how to properly steer the boat in the right direction. The book said that one of the biggest dangers was just kind of going in a direction that seemed to be ok, but after you’ve been traveling for a while, you realize that you are in the middle of nowhere. And if you end up in the middle of nowhere without any supplies, it can be pretty dangerous. So the book recommended that you choose a direction, and take your time choosing. And you make sure you know how to get there, and realize that you are likely to get blown off course, so make sure you have extra time planned on your journey to where you are going.

After he studied sailing for a couple of years, he really started to discover his passion. He went and talked to an HR manager at his company, and asked him about a possible career path. The HR manager told him that it was a big company, and there are many opportunities. You can choose whatever path you want, and if you do the proper training and build your skills, there is no reason why you can’t choose your own success. They both discussed what he needed to do in order to succeed, and where he needed to learn more skill and improve on the skills you already have.

That conversation took place about a year before I met him at that seminar, and he told us the story of how he was able to create his own success, simply by taking the time to choose a direction, a destination, and the proper tools that would get him there.

Focus on Actions, and Results are Automatic

So the other day I was out walking, like I do every morning. It was kind of cloudy. I’d been frustrated because I have this goal I’d been meditating on, and for some reason I had a funny feeling. Not really a funny feeling, kind of a disconnected feeling. Like when you shift a car into gear, and you shove the gear shift where it is supposed to go, and it feels like the proper pieces of machinery have engaged, but when you apply the gas, all you get is strange, unhealthy sounding complaint from the engine. So you have to stop, yank the gearshift back, and then put it back, only slightly different. Slightly different in position, and slightly different in results. This time the gear slides smoothly into place, and when you slowly release the clutch your car takes off smooth as silk.

I had formulated this goal several weeks ago, and had been meditating on in regularly, with positive intentions, proper visualizations in several different representation systems. But something switched, and I hadn’t noticed it. I had been visualizing the overall completion of the goal, which is about two or three months out, but I came to a significant milestone last week with regards to the short term completion of it. Something that placed the realization of my goal less in my hands, and more in the hands of others. Before last week, the realization of the goal was completely in my hands. When I achieved the milestone last week, I neglected to change the wording of my goal. Since last week, I was still phrasing my goal the same way, but was expecting others to do the work. Once I realized this while walking, I suddenly released all the frustration I’d been carrying around, and suddenly felt a surge of motivation.

The purpose behind visualizing and meditating on your goals is to give your unconscious mind a clear direction of where you want to go. So long as the result that you want is under your control, your unconscious mind will have absolutely no problem figuring out a way to get you there. For example, if you want to lose weight, and you visualize yourself slim and healthy, with sufficient motivation, you will get there, because your weight is completely under your control.

However, the mistake that many people make, especially when applying “The Law of Attraction,” is somehow expecting others to magically fill in the gaps where you have no control. For example, if you have a business, and want your sales to double in three months, you can approach in two different ways. You could focus on doubling your sales by other people magically discovering your business and making calls to you to buy your product. This puts the ball completely in their court, and you have no power over the outcome. By focusing on passively receiving an increase in sales orders, you aren’t giving your unconscious much to work with. This will increase your frustration and anxiety, which may cause you to give up trying to increase your business. On the other hand, if you focus on changing your behaviors so that an increase in business is a natural result, then you’ll have a much easier time. Your unconscious will then be able to feed your conscious mind ideas in the form of insight and intuition on what you can do specifically to increase your sales.

It’s fairly straightforward to do this. Simply choose an outcome that you want, and then focus on what behaviors will create this outcome. If you are not sure what to do exactly, look around and find people that have done what you want to do, and just copy them. The great part about this is once you focus on your own behaviors, it doesn’t really matter if you get it right the first time. As long as you stay focused on the outcome that you want in terms of your own behavior, you can easily adjust your behavior along the way. If you try something and works a little, try something a little bit different and see what different results you get.

It’s like playing golf if you aren’t very good. Sometimes you hit the ball, and it goes too far to the left. You observe where the ball went, and adjust your next shot accordingly. You keep adjusting your swing and aim until the ball is in the whole. The cool thing about setting goals is that you don’t need to keep score. Just keep adjusting your behavior slightly until you get where you want to go. Then simply move on to the next thing you want to create.

Beware of believing in magic. It seems like a great idea to be able to create something simply by wishing for it, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. When you realize that a strong desire of an outcome, coupled with an intense drive to get there solely on your own behavior, you will be able to achieve anything. Focus on the action, and the results will be automatic.

Whose Thoughts are in YOUR Monkey Brain?

The other day I was sitting at a coffee shop. It is kind of a mix between a coffee shop and a bagel shop. Because I was only drinking coffee, in my mind I was at a coffee shop. Of course had I been eating bagels, I would have remembered it as a bagel shop. Interesting how the mind works like that. You can remember something, and based on slight change of angular memory, the past can take on a whole new meaning. Meaning is a fairly slippery thing. Many people don’t realize just how slippery it is. I guess that’s why so many people get into arguments about things that happened before. They aren’t really arguing about the events per se, rather the meaning each individual gave to the meanings that they each subjectively applied to the past. Because they each applied a different subjective meaning, or interpretation to the past, they actually stored the memory differently in their brain, from a neuro-chemical standpoint, which gives the illusion that they are remembering different things.

I was listening to a lecture once about this subject. The professor who was speaking was exploring how we code and store events have a large effect on how we remember them. She went on to explain that when some people say they have a “memory problem,” that is not entirely accurate. What they really lack is a storage problem. And because most people don’t consciously choose to store their memories in a certain way, when they go and try to recall them, they not only can’t remember where they put them, but they don’t remember what kind of box they put them in. Which makes looking for old memories a problem when you don’t know what color the box is.

So anyways, I was sitting there, drinking my coffee, waiting for the movie to start. It was one of those international blockbusters that has been heavily marketed, with signs everywhere, and trailers before every movie. I was looking forward to it, because I read the book, and I enjoyed it. I actually read the book twice, by accident. And when I say by accident, I don’t mean that I fell down a flight of stairs and read the book on the way down. I read it, and forgot that I read it. Then a couple years later I read another book by the same author, which I really enjoyed. Then I went to the bookstore to find other books by the same author. That’s how I generally read books, by the way. I’ll read one author, and if I like them, I’ll go to the bookstore or the library and read all their other books. So I went to the bookstore, found another book by the same author of the second book, and picked out the first book, which I’d read before and didn’t remember. Then about halfway through it, I realized, “Hey! This seems familiar, I think I read this before!” Of course I kept on reading, because I wanted to see if it turned out differently than before. Because I didn’t remember how it turned out from before, I wasn’t sure if it was the same ending. Which of course, made sense when I saw the movie, because then, everything fell into place, even though they changed some parts from the book.

So my friend walks in this coffee shop, and has this really confused look on his face. Like he was just finished reading this really confusing article on the Internet or something. I asked him what happened, and he told me that he just got back form a lecture. It turns out some really cute girl gave him a flyer for a lecture that some metaphysicist was giving. He doesn’t normally go into metaphysical lectures, but because this girl was really cute he decided to go. I asked him what the lecture was about, and he tried his best to describe it to me. There were several different lectures, and they kept finishing up where each other started. There was one guy that had this really long beard, and another guy that had some really strange sandals.

He said that most people are walking around in a cloud of ambiguity. Because we are so conditioned to get other people to think for us, when there is nobody there to make a decision, you just kind of walk around with a vague sense of waiting to be told what to do. Which normally isn’t a problem. It makes sense to be this way at work for example. It wouldn’t really be very productive to have a bunch of people at work just doing their own thing, or arguing with the boss whenever she gave you an instruction. I don’t know if this is a leftover from evolution, or if it is something that is just hardwired into us, but the brain will always look for shortcuts in thinking. Kind of like when you are driving on the freeway, and you get a traffic report of an accident up ahead, you can imagine ways to go around the problem, so you don’t be late for your appointment. The brain will always find the easiest path to get to a decision. Which worked pretty good when we were cavemen running around chasing our food, or running away from dinosaurs that thought we were food. But in today’s society, when there are about a billion things coming at you at once, it’s hard sometimes for our monkey brains to make a good decision. So modern man has learned to kind of have this vague cloud of ambiguity floating around, waiting for clear instructions. He said that the two biggest forms of guidance come in the form of social proof, and authority. Social proof, of course, is when you go along with the crowd. Everybody has experienced this. You do something, because everybody else is doing it. Of course, this isn’t what you tell yourself, we always have some other reason why we think we are doing something.

The other shortcut is authority. When a police officer, or a doctor tells you to do something, you rarely question them. Unless you are a criminal of course. So in the absence of these two elements, he explained, it can be hard to figure out what to do.

I asked him if he explained how to get around this, and he said he did. I asked him what it was, and he told me.

The best way to get around this is to have clear, strong, powerful goals. That way you will start to see everything in relation to your goals, and your automatic monkey response will decrease, and your evolved human response will become stronger and stronger, and you turn your mind/body system into a goal-seeking missile, instead of an automatic monkey responder.

And he concluded his speech by saying that the choice is up to you. You can let other people choose your goals for you, and walk around in an ambiguous monkey daze, bouncing from one mental shortcut to the other, or you can choose your own goals, and let your goal seeking mechanism do all work to create the life that you want. Then you can eat bagels, AND drink coffee at the same time.

How To Choose a Good Role Model

The other day a friend was telling me about his superhero collection. He doesn’t have actual superheroes, only those action figures that you used to play with when you were kids. Or maybe you didn’t. Or maybe you still play with them. Or maybe you know somebody that either played with them then, or still plays with them now. Either way I’m sure you can understand this.

They are small plastic representations of large representations of our collective imagination’s metaphorical representation of somebody who will defend us against even more metaphorical evils. Which is a lot of metaphorical levels of representation, if you ask me.

I recently read a book on metaphors by a guy named George Lakoff, titled Metaphors We Live By. If you happen to be getting over an addiction to hallucinogenic drugs, and you need a fix, I’d recommend this book. This will spin your mind in directions you didn’t think possible. He explains how our whole model of communication is based on metaphors, as we cannot adequately describe our reality, simply because our body/mind systems can only see such a small sliver of reality. Our words themselves are only metaphorical representations of thoughts, mostly abstract, though some can concrete and discrete.

I asked my friend which was his favorite superhero, and said Spiderman, without any hesitation. I asked him why, and he said Spiderman isn’t like all the other superheroes, at least not the most popular ones. Spiderman is an ordinary, average guy, that has ordinary average struggles. Girls, money, work, boss. Things that you can relate to. Things that make you identify with him. So when Spiderman takes on some hugely evil criminal with all kinds of magical evil powers, he is taking him on as an ordinary average guy, and not some guy that came here when he was baby in a spaceship.

I think it’s important to have good role models at any stage in life. In fact, I think the term “role model” is kind of a misnomer. It’s generally thought of as somebody that kids can look up to. A solid father or mother figure that can live by example and show you how to make the right decisions. How to realize that you can learn to do anything. The best way to overcome life’s struggles and slowly but surely become a better person as you move on.

I read another book (that was a while ago, so unfortunately I can’t remember the name or the title) that recommended ALWAYS having a role model. Some people recommend having role models as children, and then mentors as adults. The problem with looking for a mentor, is that you actually have to be in contact in some way with the person who is mentoring. The great thing about role models is you can watch them on TV, or read about them in the newspaper or a book, and still benefit from their guidance. You don’t even have to be alive at the same time. Many people choose religious figures from history as role models.

This book went on to describe that is important to choose role model that is not so far out of reach that you can’t see yourself as this person, but not so close to you that it’s not a stretch. And the book recommended having different models in different areas of life. For example, you can use Bill Gates as your role model if you are starting a business, and you can use Tiger Woods as your role model if you want to improve your golf. Another great thing about choosing role models is that you can choose them for any behavior at all, regardless of whether or not that is their most widely acknowledged skill. For example, most would people would model President Obama for his public speaking abilities, or charisma, or skills of negotiation. But what about his posture, or his fashion sense? You could even by a dyed in the wool Republican and still benefit from modeling him for certain behaviors that you would find beneficial in your own life.

When you begin to get creative with the people you choose to model, you’ll realize that anybody, from anywhere, anytime can be modeled for you to take on some of their characteristics. You don’t even have to speak their language. The world is filled with billions of people that have untold resources of behaviors that you can tap to vastly improve your life. All you need is some imagination.

The best way to do this, is to simply watch them, or imagine that you are watching them perform the behavior you’d like to take on. Watch them a few times, and then substitute an image of yourself in their place. Then watch yourself a few times. Then float into yourself, and feel yourself doing the same action. This might seem strange at first, but you can quickly get the hang of it. The more you do this, you sooner you’ll realize yourself starting to take on characteristics of your model.

But, yea, I agree that Spiderman is a great role model for a number of reasons. Courage, commitment, justice, just to name a few.

Ignore Their Fears and Follow Your Dreams

So I had just finished lunch yesterday. A friend and I went to this new bagel shop in town. It is underneath a movie theater I like to go to, next to a game center. The game center has a small place outside where people can sit and smoke, because there is not smoking allowed inside. The problem is that most of the people that go to the game center are Junior High School students, so I think they take the outside smoking area as an invitation to light up. As a result, whenever we leave the bagel shop to go upstairs to the movie theater, we have to pass through a gang of chain smoking 14 year olds, trying their hardest to look dangerous.

One thing I like about the bagel shop is that they make a wide variety of bagel sandwiches, and even stuff that isn’t on the menu, they will make as a special order. Some places only know how to make what is on the menu. That is one of the reasons that it’s my favorite bagel shop, is because they are really flexible. They aren’t limited to whatever decision somebody made before on what kind of menu they should have. They have the awesome ability to look at all your resources, and combine them in whatever combination the customer asks. It doesn’t matter if it’s never been done before, or if they think it is strange, or unusual. They have made the decision to be completely open minded, and as a result, their business has been able to consistently make more money, and attract more people to come and eat in their bagel shop.

So as we were leaving, (I had just finished a peanut butter, fried egg and tomato and cheese on toasted onion) we were walking up the steps to the movie theater. I saw this older gentlemen that looked strangely familiar. I’m sure you’ve had this happen before (seeing a familiar face, not eating a peanut butter, fried egg, tomato and cheese bagel), right? Except that I wasn’t quite sure where I’d seen him before, or even if I knew his name.

I once had the embarrassing situation of seeing a girl I was sure I recognized from a social situation, so I walked up and starting talking to her as if we were long time friends. She looked a little taken aback. I didn’t realize until about halfway through the conversation that I actually recognized her from where I take my shirts to be cleaned, and I’d never exchanged any words with her before. Turns out that she owns the shop with her husband, and she was wondering why one of her many customers was talking to her like she was an old friend. That is an awkward situation to be in, as once realized my social blunder, I had quickly and painlessly extricate myself from the conversation, the whole time trying to look l knew what I was doing. It was a while before I felt comfortable enough to go back to her dry cleaners. She must think I’m some kind of kook or something.

So as I was mentally scratching my head, he was looking at me with the same look of half realization and half “who are you?” when he got a sudden burst of realization in his eyes. I was relieved, as he was going to be the one to explain how we knew each other, so I wouldn’t make a fool of myself again.

“You!” he said.
“Yep, me.” I smiled.
“It really is you!” He said again.
I smiled again.

“How’ve you been?” He asked, clapping me on the shoulder. He was alone.
“Pretty good. Pretty good. Yourself?” I responded. Waiting for some information.
“Oh, same as usual. Before we left last time, there was something I wanted to tell you.”
“Oh?” I asked. This ought to be interesting.

What I wanted to tell you was about that thing you are thinking of doing. I know you aren’t sure if it will work out or not, or if you will be completely successful, but don’t let that stand in your way. You need to really focus on your dreams, and not let others stand in your way. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Many people will tell you not to go ahead with what you want to do, but the reality of the situation is that they are really afraid. And although most people will try and tell you that they are trying to look out for your best interests, don’t listen to them. They are really just imaging themselves in your shoes, trying to do what it is that you are going to do, and it scares them. Most people want an easy, comfortable life, where they don’t have to risk anything. And here you come along, telling them of all your dreams and plans, and it makes them nervous. So they tell you their own fears and anxieties, but they dress them up to make it sound like they are really concerned about you. Don’t let yourself be influenced by others fears. The sum of most people’s lives is just an obedience to their fears. Don’t listen. Just smile, nod your head, say thank you and go on your way.

I was shocked. I don’t remember ever telling anybody my secret plans, but here this stranger (I still don’t know who he was) was telling me exactly what I needed to hear.

It’s cool when something like this comes out of nowhere to inspire you.

Release and Be Free

I remember when I was a kid we were studying anthropology in school. It wasn’t actually anthropology, because it was only third or fourth grade. I don’t think we actually studied anthropology until maybe high school. I guess it was called science, or maybe nature. Weird how that is. When you grow up and learn new things, things you experienced before take on a completely different light. Certain filters are removed from your experience, and certain filters are added. Things just don’t look the way they did back then. Which is kind of cool, when you think about. All I knew back then was this thing called “science.” Now I know about all different kinds of science and different ways to study and different fields. It’s truly amazing that the more you learn, the more there is to learn. It’s like each new thing you learn or experience has the possibility of branching into about a million other things. This is one of the reasons I think it’s important for people to always continue learning.

So our teacher recommended a movie that we watch. It was about animals and different tribes in Africa. There was on famous scene that stands out. I’ve heard this particular scene brought up in several different conversations related to several different things, so it’s likely that you’ve seen it or have at least heard about it.

It goes like this. These tribesmen knew a troupe of monkeys had a secret water stash someplace. But the monkeys were smart, and they never hit up their secret stash when they knew they were being followed. So the tribesman had to figure out a way to outsmart the monkeys. They found a small hole that went into a rock. It was maybe a few inches deep, and then opened up into a much large hole after an inch or so. They sat next to this hole until the a monkey happened by. Then they carefully, and obviously took some pieces of something out of a pouch, and then put them one by one into the hole, making sure the monkey would watch. Then they left. The monkey, being a curious little monkey, wanted to know what was in the hole. So he went over and stuck his hand in to grab the small mystery items. He could barely fit his monkey hand in the hole, but once he felt around and picked up all the mystery items, he couldn’t retract his hand, because when he clutched his fist to hold the items, it couldn’t come out of the hole.

Later on the tribesmen came back. They monkey was still stuck. They started feeding the monkey very salty snacks. The monkey kept eating, but his hand was still voluntarily stuck in the hole. All he had to do was release the mystery items, and he would be free. But his curiosity demanded that he hold the items. His monkey brain also demanded that he eat the free snacks. As time went by, he became thirstier and thirstier until he couldn’t bare it any more. He finally released the mystery items, and ran to his secret water source. He was so thirsty that he forgot to practice monkey stealth, and lead the tribesman directly to the secret monkey water source.

Now think about this poor monkey. He had set up a system where he had a resource, which he took pains to protect. Then he suddenly came across something that he became really interested in. Something he had to have. Like he said to himself “You really have to get this.” Or maybe he said to himself “You really need this here.” I don’t know. But he had a system set up, and he was derailed by his curiosity over something that might or might not have been an additional resource. Something he hadn’t set out looking for, something he hadn’t decided beforehand was important. He saw something, wanted it, and without any thought or planning wasted a lot of his effort chasing something that he didn’t even know the value of.

To make matters worse, when he had what he thought might be important in his grip, it became severely restricting. He couldn’t move. That which he had convinced himself was important had power over even his physical movement. To make matters worse, while he was in the clutches of this unknown, perhaps worthless item (most likely a handful of useless pebbles), he gave in more to his greed and gobbled up the free food that was given to him, which further reduced his power and choice.

Pretty soon the poor monkey was so desperate to overcome his sudden problems he decided the best course of action would be to reveal his secret resource to all who wanted it, perhaps diminishing its value completely. To chase something that might turn out to be completely worthless, the monkey gave up everything. Of course he was only a monkey. He didn’t know that the best way was to never be dependent on free stuff. To take your time to investigate things that falls out of the sky. And had he not been a monkey, he might have learned the most powerful lesson of all. When you find yourself in times of trouble, the best course of action might be to just release, and take a step back, instead of holding on tightly to something that is causing you all kinds of trouble.

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How to Create a Powerful Burning Desire

If you’ve ever read any books on goal achievement, or read any articles on the subject, I’m sure that you’ve heard the oft repeated phrase of “burning desire” or “white hot desire” or some other description. The idea being that you need to make sure that when you create a goal, it’s not some half baked wish that you kind of sort of hope might maybe come true someday, if everything goes ok, and as long as you don’t get in trouble. You need to charge your visualized picture of your realized goal with such strength of desire your brain will work on making it come true, even when you are not paying attention.

The problem is, few people have the discipline and the willpower to even create a visualization of a realized goal, let alone charge it several times a day with white hot burning desire. There are several reasons for this that I’d like to explore, and to come up with ways to help you create a goal, and charge it with sufficient desire in order to make it a reality, instead of some pie in the sky wish.

Imagine what it was like back in the old days. No, I don’t mean the old days before the Internet, I mean the really old days before agriculture. Many scientists believe that mankind lived in our present physical and mental state under the conditions prior to agriculture for at least a hundred thousand years. Living in groups of fifty to two hundred, life was tough. There wasn’t a consistent source of food, so we had to wander, and follow whatever we could to eat. Because humans are generally considered omnivores, meaning that we can eat pretty much anything, we generally took whatever we could find. Plants, animals, roots, each other.

In each group of hunter-gatherers, there was generally one “Alpha” male. Several studies done on chimps show that the alpha male gets most of the food, and most of the sex. The rest of us hacks had to fight for ours. Imagine what it was like living in this state. Always hungry. Living with desire as a constant companion, reminding us to always search and creatively think of ways to get our basic needs met.

Fast forward to today. When we’re hungry, we just stumble over to the fridge and shove food in our mouths. When we are thirsty, we drink. When we want sex, well, there’s always the Internet, if you catch my drift. We have come to think of any desire as a temporary inconvenience that needs to be quickly gotten rid of in the quickest way possible.
Is it any wonder so many people today are overweight, and underpaid? It is any wonder that so many of us drift through a life of mediocrity, never summoning the courage to demand from life what we really want?

The first step then, is to make friends with desire. Focus on the feeling of desire itself, instead of any frustration that comes up when it can’t be immediately pacified. Learn to live with desire. Hunger is your friend. It keeps you motivated to shun short-term sugary fixes, and focus your energies and creativity on more worthy, long-term goals.

The first step, of course, is to follow any good procedure to create well-formed goals. You can google “well formed goals” or search this site for ways to do this. When you have a well formed goal, the next step is to create three or four rich visualizations of what you will see, hear, feel, smell and taste when the goal is realized. Driving your new car, enjoying your new house, seeing and feeling the new paycheck. Choose three or four rich, descriptive, fully associated pictures of your goal. Once you have a few pictures, you need to charge them.

Whenever you feel a desire, pause for a few moments before rushing to fulfill it. Breathe in the desire and experience the feelings in the now. Let go of any thoughts about the future, or imaginations about the past. Fully feel your desire. Now while you are still feeling the emotional now feeling of your desire, focus on one of your visualizations. Focus on your visualization until the physical/emotional feeling of the desire subsides.

Experiment with putting off the short-term satisfaction of your desires. If you desire is for food, wait a few moments before eating. Realize that your feeling of hunger can be tapped to power your desire of your goal. If your desire is for water, pause, and imagine the desire as your goal. When you eat or drink, imagine your desire as being fulfilled. Practice as well with your breath. Exhale completely, and wait until you feel a real desire to breath. Before inhaling, experience your visualization. As you inhale and feel the sweet breath fill your lungs, see your goal being achieved as well. There’s a reason those who have achieved greatness describe their success and “eating drinking and breathing their goal.”

If you want to really turbo charge your desires, experiment with your sexual desires. Feel the sexual desire, release any imaginations and feel only the physical feeling. Then while feeling and appreciating that feeling and desire, visualize your goals. The more often you can do this, and the longer you can charge your goals each time, the better. Napoleon Hill devoted a whole chapter to this in “Think and Grow Rich.” You an google this as well and read the entire chapter, or even the book, online for free. I would recommend keeping your own copy handy to refer to when you are waiting in the dentists office or at Starbucks.

Desire can be a source of fantastic power, or daily frustration, all depending on how you use it in conjunction with your mind and imagination. Many people throughout history have known this, but few have been able to truly tap this power for incredible success. There is no reason why you can’t start now to create the life of your dreams.

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What’s the Plan?

I was having a drink with a couple of friends the other night. We went to a pretty popular bar downtown. It’s kind of a small “warm up” bar that you go to on the way to someplace else. Or sometimes you just go there and hang out for the whole night, because you can get involved in some pretty decent conversations. It is pretty small, and many nights it fills up, so if you are planning on going to a place like this for the night, it’s best to get there a bit early, otherwise you’ll have to find an interesting experience somewhere else. Which isn’t really hard to do, since you can create an interesting experience pretty much anywhere you go. But this particular evening, we were lucky enough to get a table to sit all three of us. We had planned only to have a maximum of two drinks, as we each had other plans we had to be getting to.

Plans are an interesting thing. You never really know if you are in charge of your plans, or if your plans are in charge of you. And when you involve other people, everyone’s plans can merge together into one super plan that is bigger than everyone. And before you know it, you are all collectively submitting yourselves to some nefarious “plan” that has overtaken all your conscious reason. You begin to make sacrifices in the name of the “plan.” It’s like you voluntarily give up your capacity to think for yourself, and choose your own direction. And even when there isn’t a “plan” to submit your higher intelligence to as an offering in exchange for imagined safety, you pretend there is one anyways.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience. You are with a few friends, sitting there, on a Friday or Saturday evening, or whatever evening is your night to relax. You sit around looking at each other, and keep asking yourselves “So, what’s the plan?” Your lack of a plan keeps you from making the most of your time so that you can enjoy yourself. Sometimes you’ll go out and have a fantastic night, all planned by somebody else. Or sometimes not planned by somebody else. Sometimes events are just random strings of overlapping coincidence, which when strung together seem to serendipitously give you a night of fortuitousness enjoyment. What is the difference between luck and chance?

Of course, when you do make a plan, and it comes off without any major hitches, you feel really good. Because you have given yourself a strong message. You can plan and choose your reality. You can choose to live your life however you want. And if you are really bold, you can ask yourself after your plans have flawlessly come out, “Aw, geeze, why didn’t I plan something even better?” I’m sure you know what that is like, right?

So we sat there in the bar, hanging on to our self imposed two-drink minimum. The place filled rather soon after we luckily got our favorite table. So naturally, we were reluctant to leave our seats. If so many people wanted to sit where we were sitting, our seats must be pretty important right? More important than anything else we could do by going out and creating something new, right? Or maybe not. Maybe we were just fooled that because other people wanted what we had, we thought it must be important. And here we were thinking that we were following our own plans. Funny when that happens.

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