I just finished reading this fascinating book by Steven Pinker called “The Blank Slate.” In it he challenges the popular notion that people are blank slates when we are born, and are easily shaped by our environment, parent, religious upbringing and childhood. It’s a fairly controversial idea, as many people think that the idea of people coming into the world with some kind of pre set nature will lead to discrimination, or something like eugenics, (or worse, nazism) which was all the rage at the beginning of the last century.

He touched on several hot button topics in the book, ranging from politics to race to feminism. Most of his points were well argued, and he had plenty of data to back up his claims.

One hot button topic he spoke about at length was the influencing factors that contribute to an individual’s behavior. There’s always been the old “nurture vs. nature” debate. Are we the way we are because of our genes, or because of our environment? The answer, according to a growing number of social scientists is both, which makes sense. Our collection of behaviors as adults is due more or less to fifty percent genetics, and fifty percent environment. Of course some behaviors will be influenced much more than others than environment, so not every individual behavior is fifty-fifty. But taken collectively, our general behaviors, beliefs, ideas, and personalities all mashed into who we are (or who we think we are) is roughly fifty percent from our genes, and fifty percent from our environment.

But the shocking part (for some) is the particular environment that we are shaped from. When they say fifty percent of our behaviors are due to our environment, they are referring to our non-family environment. That means our behavior is determined much more by our peers than our parents. Who we are has nothing to do with how we were raised, by how we related to our friends and our peer groups growing up. What roles we played in the group, whether they were a positive influence, or a negative influence.

Study after study after study, involving twins raised together, twins raised apart, adopted kids raised in the same family, non twin siblings raised together, and raised apart bear this out.

This makes sense when you consider the social influence factors described by Cialdini in “Influence, Science and Practice.” Two of the biggest factors of influence are authority, and social proof. Authority is pretty much anybody who knows what they’re talking about, and is generally respected as such by those that he or she is talking to. Social proof is simply going along with the crowd. Of course, these two can powerfully work together, as authority of any one person can be greatly enhanced by social proof.

Anyone who studies covert language and hypnosis for sales or seduction knows one of the key skills to have is to gain rapport with your target before persuading them. By gaining rapport, you show that you are one of them. You are part of their social group. But gaining rapport is only the beginning. You’ve got to not only pace, but eventually you’ve got to start to lead if you want them buying your product. You’ve got to convince them that you are an authority in their world enough so they’ll feel comfortable buying your product, or doing whatever else it is you want them to do.

And if you’re a kid growing up, who do you have the most rapport with? Your parents? Your teachers? Or your friends? And who them, has the most authority in your world? You may fear punishment by your parents or teachers, or you may crave the rewards, both emotional and otherwise, from your parents and teachers, but he “leaders” in your peer group have the most juice when it comes to real authority. If you’re a parent, you how seemingly impossible to fight peer pressure. Often times a threat of severe punishment is the only way to persuade. And if you’re in sales, using a threat of punishment in order to persuade somebody usually doesn’t work so well.

In NLP, there are a lot of procedures to change behaviors based on re engineering your past. There’s even a procedure called “Perfect Parents.” It’s a popular notion that if you are “messed up” as an adult it’s due in large part to your parents not doing such a great job bringing you up. But what if the most influence your parents had on you was by giving you their genes? What if those that influenced you the most were the kids you hung out with while growing up?

All those procedures in NLP to change the way your parents brought you up may actually be barking up the wrong tree. It may be helpful to reengineer your historical peer group, or our place in your peer group next time you try on a different history to see how it affects you present.

When trying to learn a new skill, it can help to remember times in your past where you exhibited some aspect of that skill while you were with your friends, and there weren’t any adults around.

These ideas may turn out to be completely full of holes, but at least you’ll gain some flexibility when looking into your past to understand your behaviors and beliefs in the present. And as a general rule, the more flexible you are, the easier it will be to come up to a solution to any problem that may come up, and a way to conquer whatever obstacles you may be dealing with.

It’s a sad truth that many adults carry around a deep resentment for something their parents did to them, or didn’t do to them when they were kids. But it may turn out that whatever they did, or didn’t do, has no impact whatsoever on your life today. Anyone harboring any deep-seated resentment for their parents would do well to remember the words of Nelson Mandela:

“If you hold a grudge, it’s like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.”

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It’s no secret that several best selling books have been written on the subject, and perhaps you may have even read a few of them. Sometimes it can seem like they are talking about “somebody else” in those books. It can be easy reading about all those wonderful things happening to “other people” in the examples presented in those books, and somehow feel they don’t apply to you.

A quick way to banish this erroneous thought is to simply find experiences where you have been well served by your unconscious. Anytime you’ve acted on intuition, or what you may have called a gut instinct has been due to your unconscious.

Or anytime you were trying to think of something, a name of somebody, or a name of a band or dessert, and it was “just on the tip of your tongue,” and then you forgot about it, only to have it magically pop into your mind when you least expected it. That was your unconscious mind presenting you with the information you were requesting earlier.

One useful way to think of your subconscious is like a giant computer that contains all the information you’ve ever experienced. And when I say experienced, I mean stuff you’ve read, things you’ve seen, emotions you’ve felt, or anything else that has been filtered from the outside world, through any one of you five senses, and into your brain.

But wait, there’s more.

The unconscious is not merely a gigantic billion gigabyte hard drive in you brain. It is also jillion-gigahertz multi-parallel processor as well. It takes all the raw data, in the form of pictures, emotions, tastes, snippets of old conversations, and runs them through several algorithms so complicated it would make the best programmers at Google look like cavemen just learning to paint on their cave walls.

And the great thing about your unconscious is that it never stops working. It is always sorting through your data to present you with the best possible information to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.

If you don’t program your brain with a specific direction, it will default to it’s factory installed programming, which is to point you in the direction of safety, being well fed, and sexually satisfaction. The order in which these appear is based on whatever threat might be present at the moment. Many times, there is perceived threats which interfere with your ability to achieve on or all of the above.

For example. You see a really attractive member of the opposite sex, and you’d really like to stroll on over and copulate, but something holds you back. What is holding you back of course, is fear. Fear is the big stopper of action.

Fear is a good thing though, it has kept mankind safe for hundreds of thousands of years, and will likely keep you from getting slapped if you walk over to that girl or guy and suggest some copulation over in the corner.

But I digress.

The big power of the subconscious is when you give it programming in additional to it’s factory installed programming. When you choose a specific goal, and charge that goal with enough energy so that your unconscious starts to find ways to make it happen.

Example.

Let’s say you are really hungry. A base need for humans. Everybody knows it is a horrible idea to go shopping at the grocery store when you are hungry. You have this strong desire for food, and everything looks good. Because of your strong desire, your unconscious is sorting through the environment and finding all those things that will satisfy this deep craving.

You ignore the sexy blond standing next to you, you ignore the sale they are having in Wii’s, you pretty much only see the food.

Another example. (The old new car stand by example.)

You buy a new car. It is very important to you. Suddenly you see the same car everywhere. You swear they weren’t there before. But because you have given your brain the temporary message that a purple Toyota Corolla (or whatever car you want for this example) is super important, you see them everywhere.

When you take something that you really want, like money, or a relationship, or a new house, and charge it strong enough, your unconscious will start to point out all kinds of things to you that will help you make it happen.

And the way to charge your subconscious is with pictures, feelings, sounds, tastes, and smells of what your desire will be like when you get it. When you make as many as you want, and charge them with powerful emotions on a daily basis, you’ll start to see all kinds of opportunities pop up.

It seems like magic, and to hear some of the people from “The Secret,” it sounds like magic. But I reality, all those opportunities were there before, just like all those purple Corolla’s were there before, it’s just that you didn’t notice them.

And the thing about opportunities is that they can be a double-edged sword. They are a little bit more complicated to spot that a purple Toyota. You might need to see a couple things, and thing of a creative way to combine to create something useful. Like maybe you’ll run into two different people within a week, and think of a creative way to combine everybody’s skills to create a really cool product that will make you millions.

If you hadn’t’ charged your brain to look for opportunities, you might have missed out. But when you program your brain through regular practice, and emotional visualizations, you’ll start to see opportunities of a lifetime on a regular basis.

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My roommate and I used to play frequently, at least a couple times a week. Normally in racquetball, the games are played to fifteen, and you usually play best of three, or five, or sometimes seven if you have the time and the energy.

My friend and I would play one game to one hundred and one. No breaks, no rests, just keep playing until one of us (usually my friend) made it to 101. They usually lasted a couple of hours, and more often than not I had a serious elbow problem that evening. I would usually get a very large icepack and strap it to my elbow with an ace bandage and leave it there when I went to sleep.

Usually, being young and able to bounce back from things like that, when I woke up the next morning the pain was gone, and forgotten (except for the puddle from the melted ice).

Being older now, I really appreciate how much abuse I gave my body when I was younger. I’ve had several cases of achilles tendonitis, and several knee problems. Nothing serious, nothing that I handful of Advils won’t take care of (or at least make bearable) but sometimes I long for the days when I could bounce back from a seriously over worked joint or tendon with only an ice pack.

I thought that I would have to pretty much accept that my body wouldn’t ever bounce back as much as it used to, and that living with joint pain (albeit tolerable) was going to be a normal part of life.

Then, through a chiropractor friend of mine, I found this really good book. It is completely filled with all kinds of stretches and strengthening exercises to rehabilitate (on your own) almost any kind of physical problem.

There is even as section in there in carpal tunnel syndrome. I once had a really severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome, and because at the time I didn’t have any insurance, I wasn’t sure what to do. A friend once had carpal tunnel and went to the doctor, and right off the bat (right off the bat after they checked to make sure she had enough insurance to pay) they schedule her for two surgeries, one for each hand.

In my case, however, I turned to this book, that had a section on several exercises, gripping exercises, hand-flexing exercises, that virtually made my symptoms vanish within a couple weeks. Granted I had to spend about twenty minutes a day on these exercises, but I would much rather do that than have two surgeries, one on each hand.

One of the exercises was to crumple up newspapers. Depending on your strength level, start with a whole newspaper page, or a half, or a quarter, and then grab the corner, and with only one hand, crumple the page into a ball.

Do this ten times a day with each hand. Yes, your hands will get dirty, and yes you’ll end up with a pile of crumpled up newspapers, but you’ll be surprised how much it can get rid of wrist pain and carpal tunnel syndrome rather quickly.

Another fantastic way I’ve found to remove pain without the need for drugs or surgery is finding a really good acupuncturist. Unfortunately, this can be hard to do depending on where you live. I found an acupuncturist who had a really good reputation, and he helped me several times with tendonitis, and even blood pressure.

When you can step back and avoid the automatic reaction to “see a doctor” you’ll be surprised how many natural remedies you can find. And especially in today’s raging debate about health care, with everybody trying to stay profitable, it can be easy to find these things.

Of course, if you have a serious medical problem, you should always see your doctor first. There is a place for western style medicine, and even surgery, if you really need it.

I’ve had my appendix taken out, and if I thought I could relieve my appendicitis by exercise or acupuncture, I might not be here today. But for joint pain, tendonitis pain, ligament pain, there is a lot more available to you that doctors, drugs, and surgery.

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I know of a method, that I recalled for some reason this morning while I was out on my daily walk, which is a near guaranteed method to make money at the racetrack. I say near guaranteed because if you don’t actually make money, you won’t actually lose that much.

But the best part, for me at least, is that with this method you will be in almost every single race. Meaning that you will have a shot at winning right down to the wire in seven or eight out of ten races. Which makes going to the races really exciting. If you are kind of person that likes to study the Daily Racing From, and base your predictions on the past history of each horse and jockey combination, or whatever other handicapping system you use, then this method is definitely not for you.

However, if only occasionally go to the track, or are going to Vegas or anywhere else that has a sports book, and would like to dabble a little bit, and have a lot of fun doing so, then this system is for you.

It works like this. First you must understand the basics of betting the races. The simplest bests are to win, to place, or to show. Win is first place (duh) place is second and show is third. You’ll win more money, and less frequently if you bet to win than to place or show, but betting to place or show you’ll win more often, but win less each time.

Most people only bet to win, which is fine. You pick a horse, say number three, and you say “number three to win in the seventh,” which means you are betting on horse number three to come in first place in the seventh race.

You can spend all day choosing horses based on their names, the color of their outfit, (or whatever you call it that horses wear) and how they at you. Many do this and have plenty of fun. Unfortunately, you usually lose, and what’s even worse, watching the race isn’t much fun because your horse usually is way behind before the race is halfway over.

This method I’m about to show you is a highly systemized way to pick horses, so that you’ll be in the race all the way to the finish.

First, you need to understand what an exacta is. An exacta is when you choose two horses, and choose one to win, and the other to place, or you pick one horse to come in first, and the other horse to come in second. This is much more difficult, and it pays out much more money that just a win.

If you choose to horses at random every race, you will almost never choose correctly beaus there are simply so many different combinations you could choose from.

What you could do is bet what’s called an “exacta box” which means you choose two or three horses, and then bet every combination possible of them coming in first and second. For example, if you chose an exacta box on three horses, numbers, 2, 4, and 6, you would betting all of the following combinations (1st,2nd):

2,4
4,2
2,6,
6,2
4,6
6,4

Or six different combinations for three horses. For two horses, there would of course only be two combinations, and for four horses, there would be twelve combinations.

Even though it’s one bet, (exacta box) you have to pay for each combination. So an exacta box for horses, 2,4,6 would cost you six times whatever amount you wanted to bet. So a two-dollar exacta box on 2,4,6 would cost you twelve dollars.

So how do you pick your three horses? Easy. Get a sports page, or buy a racing form. There should be a page where they have three “experts” whose job it is to study all the relevant statistics and make an educated guess on which horse will win each particular race. Usually they have three “experts” give their opinion for each race.

All you do is choose those three horses, one from each “expert” for you exacta box for each race.

That way, in almost every single race you will have a solid chance of winning your bet, making for an exciting day at the races.

Keep in mind, that these “experts” usually pick the favorites. Meaning that everybody else is betting on them to win, so if they do win, you won’t win much. (Kind of like in “Bruce Almighty” when everybody won the lotto, they each got three dollars or something).

So what might happen is you’ll bet a two dollar exacta box on three horses, pay twelve dollars, and you might only win ten. Sometimes you’ll win a bit more, sometimes you’ll get lucky and one of the “experts” will pick semi-long shot.

The most I ever made betting this system in one day, while betting only two-dollar exactas, was around three hundred dollars. I hit eight exactas that day.

Most of the time, you’ll break even, or make enough to pay for your hot dogs and beers that you drink while your at the track. It’s a great way to make good bets without putting too much thought into them, freeing you to enjoy those hot dogs and beer and your friends, while astounding them with your secret knowledge of how to beat the track.

Remember, racing form, (or sports page) three experts, three horses per race, and one exacta box on those three horses.

If you want to get tricky, you can increase your bet if you win a bunch in a row, going from two dollars to three dollars to four dollars, etc (remember each race cost six times your bet for a three horse exacta box). Just be sure to lower your bet down to two or even one dollar if you go a couple races without winning anything.

Have fun, and let us know how it worked out for you.

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I remember watching a surfing competition once, and there was a big pier in the middle of the contest. While it certainly wasn’t required, for insurance and legal purposes, to “shoot the pier,” that is to catch a wave on one side of the pier and ride it through the pier, without crashing into the pier itself, surfers who would venture through this would ooh and ahh the crowd. Of course, the judges weren’t’ allowed to give any extra points for this, because they might be held liable for any body that injured themselves. Sometimes it’s important to make sure the recognition you want to receive from something is the kind of recognition that wants you. It’s important to balance the recognition that pays your rent, and bread and butter that inspires you to greater things.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been surfing, but it’s an interesting study in how to harness a naturally occurring phenomenon. Waves have been around long before mankind ever showed up on earth, and will likely be around long after mankind has left. The waves don’t care if you are in a good mood, or if you just got fired from your job. They just keep coming in regardless, based solely on a few basic laws of physics and gravity.

It’s interesting the different ways that humans have used to harness naturally occurring phenomenon. Wind energy, solar energy, and recently ocean currents have been, and continue to be a valuable source for electricity. And no matter how many billions of people live on Earth, the wind and solar and ocean currents will remain unchanged. It’s amazing the things that have been around for millions of years, before humans were a gleam in a single cell bacteria’s eye, and will likely be here long after out demise, will continue to consistently behave in a predictable way. And when you consider how ancient people used these same resources, compared to how we use them today, you can only imagine the creative ways humans will be using them a few thousand years from now.

After the new kids and I went to the park a few times, we realized that the densely wooded hill would be a perfect place for playing wargames, like capture the flag, and laser tag, and paintball. Before, I had never considered doing something like that. Maybe it was because our first instinct was to throw rocks at each other, but using that area for much different kind of games proved to be a great way to create lasting friendships, and build teamwork skills. We spent many summers trying to think of creative ways to run around those woods trying to pretend to kill and sneak attack each other. It’s really amazing what you can do when you figure out how to use the resources that have been around you since before you took the time to notice them, now.

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They were telling me how their daughter was just learning to walk. She just turned two. She is at the age where you just become really curious about everything. You see something new, and you want to discover what this is. The only requirements are that you haven’t seen this before. You spend your whole existence, exploring, and walking around. Touching things, smelling things, tasting things. Many neuroscientists think this is the greatest resource of humanity, the power of curiosity. To seek new things. To search and discover simply for the sake of searching and discovering. You will never know when you will find this useful and interesting.

It’s like sometimes as adults, we can just let go of any expectation, and just let our curiosity lead us. We are old enough to stay away from danger, and to know this is a resource when we see something we like. Many of the great discoveries that we still use today came from when people were just able to let go of expectations and ask “What if?” Life can seem dreary and repetitive when we forget to do this on a regular basis. Let your curiosity lead the way.

They were telling me their happiest times (so far!) of being parents was to watch their kid find something she thought was exciting, and just feel good for discovering this. Like you can really feel a sense of accomplishment when your curiosity has led you to something cool like this. She was telling me that she likes to follow her kid around in bookstores, just like the one we were sitting in, and watch her daughter go through the joys of being able to learn something new.

Which is why he was telling me that although they were a bit nervous about leaving their comfortable small town, with the same people and the same shops and the same restaurants, they were really excited about moving to the huge metropolis where they were going. He said that he jumped on the opportunity when it presented itself. I’m sure they will do fantastic in their new life.

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When you do the ancient Chinese exercise Qi Kong, pronounced Chi Gong, you are moving Chi. The Ki in the Japanese “genki” meaning vigor literally means original, or source energy. Increased levels of chi can increase your charisma, increase your sexual attractiveness to the opposite sex, and has been know to attract financial abundance. 

Luckily, you aren’t stuck with the Chi that you have. You can naturally and effectively increase it with these five simple ways:

One:  Focused Breathing

There are many ways to practice focused breathing. The most important part is to breath slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Keep the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth while doing so, and keep a smile on your face. Close your eyes if it is convenient. Try for at least nine slow, deep, relaxed breaths. When you breath in, visualize the white energy of the universe entering into your heart. Then hold the breath, and breath out all blocks of chi. If you don’t know how to visualize chi blockages, whatever your mind comes up with is fine. Focus all your mental energy on the breath.

Two: Proper Sleep

Yes, this is important. Don’t eat too close to bedtime. Try not to drink too much alcohol or coffee late in the day. Most importantly, it’s a good idea to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. Even if you aren’t tired, at lay down in bed and do some chi breathing, this should help you fall asleep.

Three: Slow to Judgment

This is difficult, I know. But when you judge others, you are really hurting yourself. Remember that everybody is at different stages in life, and trying the best they can based on their own condition and experience. Release any judgments or bad feelings you might be harboring for other people. Remember what Nelson Mandela said: “When you hold a grudge, it is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.”

Four: Stretch your Muscles

Yoga is the best for this, and there are many styles to choose from. If you don’t have the time for an ‘official’ yoga class, google some poses, or at the very least stretch your major muscle groups in the morning. Just like breathing, make sure you use long, slow meditative stretches.

Five: Lemon Juice

Yep. Lemon juice has only been recently accepted in the west as a source of health benefits. I was first turned onto it by my acupuncturist I mentioned above. It increases your Chi and lowers blood pressure as well. And it has vitamin C, to help you keep colds at bay. I usually pour a couple shots into a two liter bottle of tap water. Tastes delicious.

There you have it. Five simple ways to improve your chi, and improve your life. When you practice the above suggestions, you will not only  notice a marked increase in your physical and metal health, but your friends and family will as well.

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If you are like most normal people, you might start to imagine all kinds of things that will happen. And I’m sure if you take the time to think back, now, about those times before when you used to imagine things that might come to pass, you might realize that they never did. Like if you had a big golf game or something with your boss’s boss, you might have imagined accidental hooking the ball into his head or something. Ok, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.

And I’m pretty sure that you’ve heard the old saying “Most of the bad stuff that you imagine never happens.” Well, even if you understand that basic principle about the human mind, it doesn’t really help when you are laying in bed and are unable to sleep due the horrific images your brain keeps delivering to you against your consent.

But I was listening to this internet radio show the other day, and there were these two guys talking about the human mind and how it works. Unfortunately I didn’t remember which internet radio station I was listening to, as I was aimlessly surfing like I sometimes do.  Like when you are surfing around the web and find this really cool blog, and you think, wow you really need to read this everyday, but then you can’t remember where it is, so you can’t come back and read it everyday like you’d like to.

So anyway this guy was saying that when people imagine all those horrible things that might happen in the future, it’s really an evolutionary manifestation of a brain early warning system. It’s thinking about all the possible things that might happen, and just kind of giving you a heads up, so you can prepare for the worst. Then he said that if you pay attention to the messages that your brain is giving you, you can kind of imagine how you’d handle whatever situation that you were afraid might come up. As soon as you imagine handling it from a few different angles, it satisfies the brains warning system, and your brain will settle down.

And the other guy was commenting that is evidence of the other old saying: ”If you can imagine it, you can create it.” Because why in the world would your brain imagine up something that wasn’t possible to come true? And that simply means, that you can use your anxiety as a starting point to create whatever future reality that you’d like. Just use your imagination to take care of whatever your brain is warning you about, and then just imagine the best possible outcome by preventing it from happening by doing the opposite.

For example, if you imagine your boss yelling at you for being late on a project or something, simply come up some really good reasons why the project is late, and then come up with a few benefits for the project being late, and then hit your boss with these benefits before he gets a chance to even remember that it’s late in the first place. He’ll not only see you as being proactive, which is highly valued in today’s economy, but he’ll think of you as somebody that he can depend on when things get rough.

And it all starts with  having a solid respect for the images that your brain delivers to you, all the time. Once you can tap BOTH the positive and the negative images, which you will start to realize aren’t so negative after all when you use this technique, your world will really open up.

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The second thing I discovered about having so many supermarkets around is being able to discover what kinds of unique style each market has. Of course they all have the main ingredients, milk, eggs, peanuts. But different markets have different kinds of vegetables, and fish, and different kinds and cuts of meat. And I find it really easy to become curious about what this has, and what that has.

Like when you buy a new computer that has all kinds of pre loaded software. You can find it easy to develop a desire to want to know more. And the more you discover, the more it makes you realize how much there really is here. I bought a laptop a couple of years ago, and was in the unfortunate situation of having to be in the hospital for a few days. It wasn’t any big deal, I didn’t need surgery or anything, but being in the hospital sure is boring. And a friend brought my laptop for me to play with. And even though that at the time I had already been using it for almost a year, I was still able to get really curious about what I could find to help me have fun while I was laying in the hospital. And I found several games that I didn’t even know that I had, and they really helped me to pass the time.

It’s funny when that happens. You see something that you’ve seen before, and you think you already know everything there is to know about this. But the more you keep reading, the more you can really start to want to discover more and more. Like when you have a friend for a long time, and you discover something about them that you hadn’t know for a long time. I had a friend once, and we’d know each other for years before I realized she had a thing for Japanese Anime. Personally, I don’t really see the draw, but to each his own, right?

Of course because of all this, I’m going to need to go grocery shopping soon. I can’t wait to see how much I will become curious to see what I can discover something new, but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that that was something you knew already.

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How about in your family? Have you ever sat down as a family and discussed what was important to you as a group? Or maybe your Mom or Dad ‘laid down the law’ so to speak. What was important then? Kids doing their homework? Coming home before curfew? A good education?

What about at work? I’m sure you’ve heard or read about or have been involved with creating a ‘mission statement’ for a company at one time or another.

“Our company shall strive to provide real time solutions to emerging problems in a timely manner with respect for the environment and the community.”

“Company XYZ envisions a future where everybody uses XYZ products for the enlightenment of man and the realization of life’s purpose.”

How about this one: “McDonald’s vision is to be the world’s best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” No kidding.

What about the mission statement for the leaders of your country?

What do you think the three most important values of the entire human race are? Well, let’s have a look, shall we?

One way to look at what’s important is what are the most widely spoken languages in the world today. Perhaps they can give us a clue.

The most spoken language today is Mandarin Chinese, with about a billion speakers. That’s a lot of people. How’d they get so numerous? Well, most of them live in China, so they didn’t invade surrounding countries to spread their language. So one conclusion is that they got to be number one in terms of language spoken by sheer reproductive success and effectiveness. So the most spoken language in the world is spoken by the people that made the most people.

How about the second most spoken language in the world? English. And how did English get to be so popular? Maybe it might have something to do with the fact that up until a couple hundred years ago, “the sun never set on the English empire.” So English, then, was spread around the world because the English themselves spread it around the world. For what purpose? Namely trade. Business. So the second most spoken language in the world was spread because of worldwide interest in commerce.

How about the third most spoken language in the world? Spanish. And who spread the Spanish language? Spain of course. And what was the underlying motivation for Spanish people in the old days roaming the planet and spreading their language? Religion. Generally speaking, first the priests would come, and then the conquistadors.

So there you have it. A quick study in how different languages were spread around the world yields a quick and dirty look into the three most important things that have generally been important to the human race over the last thousand years or so.

Sex.

Money.

God. 

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What do you do?

You have a job you truly enjoy that offers incredible personal satisfaction, and you know you are really making a difference, but you only earn minimum wage. You receive a letter in the mail saying you’ve been accepted in that MBA program you applied for only half seriously a few months ago. Do you give up your rewarding minimum wage job in the pursuit of financial success? Or do you stay in your low paying job, content in the knowledge that making a difference is what truly matters?

What do you do?

It’s Friday night. You’ve decided to order a pizza. You are not sure if you want pepperoni, or anchovies. You love them both. But if you eat them at the same time, they will mix and create a gastric disaster.

What do you do?

There are two ways to make a decision. Rational, logical, like Mr. Spock, or the other way. The old fashioned way. The way that the Samurai’s of ancient Japan referred to when they said that “every life changing decision must be made within seven breaths.” Trust your instinct. Your intuition. Your gut.

But how do you know? Unless your gut talks to you, (and if you think it does, maybe you should see a doctor,) how do you know exactly what your gut is telling you?

There are two ways to look at this. According to the laws of known science, and according to the esoteric laws of metaphysics.

According to the laws of metaphysics, your intuition can be thought of as a connection to ‘infinite knowledge, or infinite intelligence.” Many have spoken about this. Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Wallace Wattles. According to these sages, who incidentally based their information on the sages that came generations before them, say that there is some ’source’ of information that everyone can access. This ‘source’ has infinite knowledge of all that is, all that was, and all that will ever be. We might not have the capacity to understand all of this knowledge, but you can get general advice if you quiet your mind enough, so that you can listen carefully.

According to the rules, or understandings of science, biology and neurophysiology, the brain is an incredibly powerful computer. Able to take in literally billions of bits of information at time, sort and categorize, and then decide which to make consciously available, and which to store unconsciously, for later use. According to this model, when you ask yourself a life changing question, the brain sorts through all of your life experiences, compares them to the experience you are contemplating, and then comes up with an answer. Sounds wonderful and helpful, until you realize that this ‘answer’ usually comes in the form of a vague feeling. If we could only get our brains to make us feel hungry for yes, or thirsty for no, it might be easier.

One really cool way to tap your unconscious is to use a pendulum. Any pendulum will do, a chain with a weight on the end, like a necklace. Or a piece of string with a paper clip, anything that can swing back and forth.

What you need to do first is to calibrate it. Get a flat surface to swing your pendulum over, something that you can write on. A piece of paper on a table or desk will work fine. It’s important to keep the paper from moving, you’ll understand why in a second.

Hold the pendulum so that it hangs over the center of the paper. Now ask yourself a question where you know the answer will be yes. For example “Am I male (or female)?” Then just relax, and watch which way the pendulum swings. Ask another “yes” question. Watch the pendulum swing. Wherever the pendulum swings most over the paper for your ’yes’ questions, is your yes ‘quadrant’ of your paper. After you have determined your ‘yes quadrant,’ make sure your don’t turn the paper. That will mess up your results. I usually tape it on the table or desk before I begin.

Next, you do the same thing, only this time use several ’no’ questions. Questions you know that you’ll get a ‘no’ answer to. This will determine your ‘no quadrant.’

Now you need to ask your real question, phrased in a yes or no question. (Just like the magic eight ball.)  If you are getting fuzzy results, that is, if the answers are neither clearly yes or no, keep rephrasing the question. Pretty soon you should get a clear answer. You’ll be amazed at how well this works, and how well you can use this to unlock the wisdom of your own subconscious mind to help you get what you want out of life.

One thing to keep in mind, is that you will have to re-calibrate every time you do this. You’ll need to check and see where the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ quadrants are, because they will change based on your mood, tiredness, hunger, emotional state and other factors. It only takes a few minutes, and this can be a valuable tool that you can use in your quest to make decisions that support your goals in life.

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If you do hear those voices, or sense that they are there, don’t worry. Most people have them. How they got there is not really important. What’s important is how to get rid of them. Most of us go through carrying judgments of ourselves that didn’t even come from us. Maybe when you were six, your teacher said something, that she thought might’ve been helpful at the time, but turned out to be a limiting statement like “you can’t do that!” when you trying to do something that you weren’t supposed to. I remember once in kindergarten I was having a ball painting blue paint all over everything. How was I supposed to know you were supposed to keep it on the paper?

Other times an adult will say something out of anger, when they are not really angry at us, but it seems that way at the time. So we carry that judgment with us, almost without knowing.

These judgments and opinions that others have given us over the years build up and mix with our own opinions of ourselves. Even if we have great ideas and plans, it’s hard to achieve them if we have those old tapes playing over and over in our heads.

A great way to help yourself to easily achieve what you want in life is to choose to release others’ judgments of you, release those old voices. Choose to listen to yourself, and yourself only. Let the others go. They aren’t important any more. The more you work on releasing their influence, the easier it will be to achieve greater success in your life.

One of the things that I’ve found that works fantastically well for this is a product I’ve been using for at least ten years. It’s only about thirty dollars, and it’s amazing to listen to. It uses a kind of hypnosis called a dual voice induction. You can hear a different voice in each ear. Each one telling a beautifully crafted metaphor, which are specially designed to guide your brain into more resourceful thinking. The particular one I’m talking about is called the Self Esteem Supercharger. Even though I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, I’m still not completely sure what’s on it, because I zone out completely every time. It doesn’t use any subliminals or any other secret technology, so there are no hidden messages. It’s a completely relaxing experience that can free you to feel more resourceful and less dependent upon the opinions of others. The name of the company is called Learning Strategies. I’ve bought and used several different products from them, and I can confidently say that they are one of the best companies out there if you are interested in self improvement. And trust me, I’m a self development junkie.

In the future I’ll be posting more reviews of their products, as they are incredibly helpful in making it almost automatic for you achieve whatever you want in life.

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How about the odds of hitting the random button on wikipedia and hoping to get an article on the Klingon language? About one in a million?
What about the odds of winning the California state lotto? About one in 13 million.

Of all the billions of people that have lived in the world, are living in the world, and will live in the world, what are the odds that you happened to have been born in an age of unprecedented communication technology which allows you to read blogs like this one? A billion to one? More?

Of all the of planets that exist in the universe, how many can support life? How many of those can support human life?

Starting from just before the big bang, when all there was was a pure concentrated focus of pure consciousness, what were the odds that it would explode and trigger  billions upon billions years of interstellar and planetary evolution to create that which sits and reads these words? They are to staggering to even begin to try to comprehend.

The miracle of the universe is not the unlockable secrets of physics that make it all simple to understand and predict. It is not the incredibly improbable events after improbable events that led to life on this rock we call earth. It is not the connection of machines spanning the world that can send messages between citizens of different countries at the speed of life. It is not even the message itself.

The miracle is you.

Of all the possible outcomes that could have resulted from all the interstellar and biological activity since the dawn of time, here you sit. Reading these words. Having thoughts in your head. Thoughts that can create wonder if only you direct them in the right way.

You are constantly on the cusp of eternity. Reality is continuously being created before your eyes. You have two choices. Watch it unfold, or make it unfold.

Which do you choose?

All it takes is to just project your thought out, just only a little bit. Go into every situation and imagine the outcome just a few seconds ahead of where you are.

For example, you are walking down the street. You see a cute girl or guy. Instead of wondering if you should smile, or hoping that they smile first, all you need to do is hold a powerful image of them smiling. Only just a second before you would normally smile. This will naturally make you smile, which will naturally make them smile to match the image you created. If you create a strong enough image, it will become reality.

Try it. You will be amazed at the results you’ve easily created.

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How about that episode of Seinfeld, where George went the movie theater and that guy was shining a laser pointer at the screen? Because everyone thought it was so funny, George decided he would try the same thing, only he got different results.

Or how about those books that have all those satellite pictures from space? When you look down at small towns in sparsely populated areas, you can barely see a dot of light. Yet in that dot of light are hundreds if not thousands of people, all with thoughts, dreams, fears, hopes, and memories of wonderful pleasure.

Your brain is like that. The thoughts that you are thinking now are the proverbial tip of the iceberg, because there are literally millions of thoughts that are going on in your mind that you aren’t aware of. And the difference between the thoughts that you know about, and the thoughts you don’t know about, are a lot different than the 90/10 ratio in that iceberg. George’s laser is a little bit closer, with the dot being the thoughts you are conscious of, and the whole screen being your other than conscious thoughts. 

For example, what are you thinking right now? What were you thinking before you thought that? What are you thinking now, as you read these words, and remember to feel your left foot? How about as you feel your left foot and begin to wonder what is going to happen exactly one week from now? And when you think about that, can you remember your birthday when you turned seven years old? How about your first kiss? How about the first amount of money that you truly earned? How about the first time you were alone with that someone special? How about the night you were so scared, you didn’t think you were going to make it? (But thankfully you did!) How about that time you were so happy you cried, and then wondered if anybody noticed?

One of the most fantastic thing about the brain being set up like this is that there are literally millions of thoughts in your mind that you can harness to support you. While the magnificent potential is always there, sometimes our thoughts aren’t as cooperative with each other as you’d like. It’s when you give your brain a clear, strong, direction, infused with good emotions, that these thoughts start to sychronize.

A great way to do this is to think of something you want to accomplish or attain. Imagine how it will look when you accomplish it. What will you see, what will you feel, what will you hear that will show you, without a doubt, that you were able to accomplish this? Make another picture, filled with other pieces of evidence of your accomplishment. 

For example, imagine that you want to earn a certain amount of money. Decide on the exact amount. How many things can you picture that show evidence that you have your goal, already achieved? What do you hear people saying to you about your achievement? How do you feel? Can you feel the paper? Is it a bank statement? Are you opening an envelope? Can you feel the weight of the actual cash in your hands?

Once you have a picture in your mind of what you want, close your eyes and sit with it for a few minutes, and really feel gratitude for having it. Really feel thankful for yourself, already achieving it. Feel thankful for all the people that have helped you achieve this goal.

Do this at least twice a day, every day. This will powerfully align the thoughts in your brain to be more cooperative so you can achieve what you want.

And if you think that this is encouraging, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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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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Unfortunately if you allow that to happen, which all too many people do, you place yourself under the control of a infinitely complex feedback loop to which you have no option other than follow blindly, and hope everything works out.  You know too well that it rarely does.

And the worse part is that those times when it doesn’t work out, although it seems like the responsibility lies outside your wonderfully developed mind-body biological system, in truth, the responsibility lies with you. And only you. I believe it was Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin that said it best.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. God, Mother Nature, the wonderfully random process of Darwinian Natural Selection, whoever or whatever it was that created you, didn’t create such a magnificent collection of cells and bones and muscles, and your fantastically powerful brain to just wander aimlessly through life.

You were created for a purpose, a reason, a destination. You are a missile with a highly sophisticated guidance system that scientiests are just now starting to understand. And known to only a few people, and put into practice by even fewer, is one of the easiest ways to harness the awesome power of your mind. To develop the power of concentration.

Remember when you were a kid, and you or some of your friends would play with a magnifying glass? You could take a very inexpensive magnifying glass, even one made of cheap plastic, and use it to focus the passive rays of the sun into incredible power. Power to burn, power to start fires. That power was harnessed by taking only a minuscule sliver of the suns total power and focusing it. The sun is a giant ball of fire, much bigger than the Earth fueled by the process of nuclear fusion, changing hydrogen atoms into helium atoms. One substance, one process, and enough energy to power an entire planet through eon after eon.

Your brain is infinitely more complex and intricate than that. Infinitely more rich. Infinitely more resourceful. The sun produces heat, and fire, and radiation. Your brain can produce ideas, which can turn into cities, art, cathedrals, poems, songs, equations. Whatever you can imagine, you can create. And you have the power to focus yourself.  Strengthen your mind so you focus your thoughts only on what supports and enlightens you. Focus your thoughts only on ideas that can increase happiness and abundance for you and those you love.

How to do that? How to gain that elusive power that through simple practice will give you an edge almost unheard of in today’s world?

Consistent practice. Opposite of the practice of meditation, in which you practice the emptying of your mind. To practice focus, think of an object. An apple. A bright red apple. Hold the thought in your mind of only an apple. Hold it for as long as you can. If you can hold it for five seconds, you’re doing pretty good. Practice whenever you get a chance. Red lights. In the bathroom. On the elevator. Decide to choose a thought, and hold only that thought for as long as you can.

When you can hold a simple thought, of a simple picture, move on to more complicated pictures. Ones containing a small amount of motion. A hummingbird floating next to a feeder. A clown juggling three bowling balls. A seal with a phone book balanced on its nose.

When you get good at that, you can move on to the next step. You’ll need to prepare yourself with five fantastic memories. If you ever notice your thoughts drifting to unhappy imaginations about the future, you can pull up your five happy memories, and force out the bad guys.

Start by remembering a happy memory from childhood. Really get into it. Close your eyes and easily allow yourself to float back into that memory. Really relive it. Relive it several times. Every time you relive this, put the memory into your left thumb. That’s right, put that wonderful memory into your left thumb. Use what you learned about pegging in the articles on memory and associate that memory with your left thumb.

Do the same with your forefinger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky. Take your time. They don’t have to be childhood memories. Any good memory will do. Make sure it’s a strong, powerful memory. Sex, money, sports, anything that causes you to automatically remember good feelings will work.

You might need to practice a few times before it really sets. But after you take the time to really attach those good memories to your left hand, you will have a powerful source to instantly and powerfully re direct your brain should you ever find yourself thinking less than supportive thoughts. Just open your left hand, and take a moment with your thumb and your fingers recalling all those good memories you’ve programmed in. Once you cycle through all five, make a fist and hold it up to sybolically chase the bad thoughts that have crept into your brain.

After you do this consciously a few times you won’t even have to recall the memories. By training your brain in this manner, simply by clenching your left hand into a fist will immediately flood your brain with good thoughts.

In future articles, I will teach you how install resources, goals, and other skills so you can automatically direct your brain, giving you the power to accomplish great things in your life.

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There is an often talked about skill whose power is realized by few, and practiced by even fewer. If you take the time to not only read and understand this article, but to put these techniques into practice, you will be light years ahead of anyone else.

The skill I’m talking about is visualization. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. If you haven’t that’s ok. Visualization is when you practice something in your mind before you actually do it, so when it comes time to take care of business, you’ve already pre-built success into your neurology.

One of the frustrations when you do this is that few sources tell you exactly what to do, so it can be tough to learn to visualize properly.

In this article I will tell you the very basics, so you can start to practice right away. When you become proficient, you can check back often, because I will be writing other articles about additional skills, so that when you add them on top of your powerful visualization skills, you will be a potent force in the world.

There are two types of visualization. Associated and disassociated. Associated is when you visualize something as you normally see it. Through your own eyes. Disassociated is when you watch yourself performing a task, as if you were watching yourself on video tape. You will need to develop both of these skills, so that when you learn additional skills you can easily incorporate them together in such a way that  you will be absolutely amazed by how incredibly powerful you can use them to change your life.

Try it and see. Close your eyes, and see something you did recently in an associated perspective. Is it easy? Difficult? If you have trouble, don’t worry. The brain responds quickly when you practice with focus.

Try the other way. Close your eyes, and this time watch a recent memory, but this time watch yourself as if you are somehow floating off to the side.  If this seems a bit more difficult, you can relax because the more you practice, the easier it will get.

After you develop these two powerful skills, you will be amazed in how many different ways you can use them to train your brain for all kinds of new and wonderful automatic behaviors that you might not be able to imagine doing now.

And be sure to check back often because the more new skills you learn, the easier it will be create your life exactly the way you want it.

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“What’s it about?”

“Some guy that does some crazy stuff.”

“Oh, wait dude, look, that one is here!”

There were three of us. At the new multiplex. Thirty screens. 6 new releases, and two blockbusters (after only one weekend) all starting within 40 minutes of each other.  If we had another two hours, maybe we could come to a decision. Too many choices. We hadn’t even gotten in line yet. I had a pretty good idea, what I’d though we’d all enjoy, but…

Kind of like when me and two of my other buddies were backpacking. We had a four day trip planned, and we were on our second day in. We had three possible routes to take, all big loops, depending on the weather and the fishing. The only problem was, we’d only agreed that those two things would determine our choices. We didn’t take the time to consider how they would affect our choices.

“If we go left, we can fish some more.”

“Dude, I only caught three small ones, I’m done fishing.”

“Yea, but look at the map, these lakes are bigger, there’s bound to be bigger fish here.”

“Yea, but if we go this way, we can go over Blackrock pass. It says it’s the highest in the area. Think of the views, man!”

I didn’t really care either way. I only know that I didn’t beg and plead for two extra days off over the holiday weekend so I could listen to these two fools argue.

“Just make up your minds for pete’s sake!” I exhorted.

They reminded me of a buddy I used to have in law school.  He told me that once he was in a lecture, given by this professor that was famous for never losing an argument with his students. I mean never.  And this guy was going on and on, and my friend was certain that he’d made a logical mistake in his arguement. Not a big one mind you, but a small and noticeable one that might have a big impact the outcome of his arguement. Kind of like how Amelia Earhart is widely thought to have gotten lost by a mere fraction of a degree mistake, which added up.  Amazing what happens when you can make a small change and then just stand back and watch it grow. But the funny thing is, my friend, who is normally kind of shy, and doesn’t speak out much in class, somehow was able to tap into some magical source of confidence, like when you really know exactly what it is that you want, and you know exactly how you are going to get it. How many times have you been able to experience that knowing?  So anyways, my friend waited until just the right moment when he was able to exploit the advantage, and needless to say, the class was shocked. The professor was dumbstruck. He stood there for what my friend said was almost 5 minutes, which is a long time for a law professor to stand there and not say anything. A mime, yea, but not a law professor. Then someting funny happened. When my friend spoke, up, he didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. He was able to just say it, and allow for whatever result. After the five minutes (which in reality was probably more like thirty seconds), the professor started to clap. And then so did the rest of the class. The professor said it was a pleasure and a wonderful surprise to be so skillfully out argued by an undergraduate. It does feel really good to out argue somebody, when you really know your stuff, doesn’t it?

So I made up my mind, and took the trail to the left. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t give any reason. I just made my choice. If they followed me, great. If they didn’t, well, I drove so I had the car keys.  Funny thing was, we took the path to the pass, which did have some fantastically spectacular views, AND on the other wise were some great lakes, which had some pretty decent sized trout.

And as far as which movie we picked, we decided to decide over a couple of drinks, and we met some people, and, well, that’s another story.

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Then my friend starts telling about this guy that he knows. It seems he really likes this girl, but he just can’t get up the nerve to go and talk to her.  He said that whenever he sees her, he can think of good things that he wants to say, but when he gets close, he starts to imagine all the bad things that might happen, and those overpower the good things. In his mind, at least. So I say, “Well, next time you see this guy, why don’t you..” and then my friend interrupts me, and says that he hasn’t seen this guy in like two months. And I say “Oh, so he’s one of THOSE kinds of friends.” And my friend nods and says “Yea. Low maintenance.”

Like the kind of person that you can go for three or four years with out seeing this person, and then next time you happen to bump into them, you are able to instantly remember good times, like you just got off the phone, chatting and talking about remembering good experiences. And then when you see them, you can just pick up where you left off, and everything is cool. And my friend said, “yea, just like that.”  So I asked him if he knew or had met the girl, and he said he did, and I said “so is she cool?” And he said “Yea, she’s totally cool.” “So it’s all in his head?” “Yea, it’s all in his head.” And I suggested that maybe he should just relax. Because I’m sure you know that good things happen when you stay out of your own way.

So anyways, the guy takes off on the wave, and it instantly becomes clear that not only does the guy know what he’s doing, because he expertly barrel rolled himself out just at the right moment, but it turned out he was the guy we’d been talking about. And right after a great ride, he came up to his spot on the beach where his girlfriend, apparantly, was waiting. “Is that her?” “Wow, yea it is,” he said with a chuckle. He waved, she waved, then I waved. Then we went and got some tacos, which is another story.

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Kind of like I step out for my walk every morning. I usually walk a kind of a loop that looks like a figure eight. On the top part of the figure eight I stop at a convenience store and buy a a small shot of yogurt drink. Good for the digestion, you see. The digestive track is something that you don’t really pay attention to until there is something wrong.  Like a couple time’s I’ve had the unfortunate (and uncomfortable) experience of having to pay attention to my digestive track, if you can see what I’m saying. So I make it a point every morning before I actually step out, to grab enough change from my change bowl, next to my front door, so I’ll be able to have the money to pay the girl at the convenience store for my yogurt drink.

Funny thing is that when I was a kid, I hated yogurt. And when I think back to why I did, I conclude that it was only because adults told me it was good for me, and therefore I should drink it. Becuase of course I’m sure you’ve realized many times before that it is good to do what is good for you, right? Of course I later discovered that sometimes it’s not always a good strategy to reject ideas simply because they don’t belong to you. Naturally the opposite is true. I don’t think you should accept new ideas automatically. You probably already know that it’s good idea is to check them to make sure that they are good for you, first. Good for you like yogurt. And delicious too. Which is why I make it a habit to remember to grab my change before I leave, so I can pay for the yogurt when I get to the convenience store. Because no money, no yogurt. (Or honey, if you’re into that as a morning drink).

Which is why, in retrospect, I guess it was good that my heart started pounding before I walked on stage. Because as soon as I walked out there, and realized why I was there, the nervousness was somehow able to magically change into excitement.  Obviously I enjoyed my small part (the introduction), the kids enjoyed their singing (It was for a kindergarden performance) and everbody was able to relax and be happy. And thankfully my body was smart enough to automatically grab the resources  it needed before I stepped out.

It’s amazing what happens when you trust yourself enough to come up with whatever you need whenever you need to perform well, isn’t it?

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