Changing your life - 40 coached days at a time.

Here's a man-oriented book to change your life.
Yes, it's a book by men for men. And it tells how connecting to God will give you a lot of answers to what you are going through.

Why this attracted me is that there is a commonly held presence you can get into, which many people call the Zone. But it's common in Zen Buddhism, and many other philosophies and religions. So whatever you hold as this Entity (God, the Universe, Allah, etc.), it's still the same point (IMHO) that all these texts are covering.

Now, a key point I liked was something that could have come straight out of Haanel or Troward or the Gospels. How this book's authors put it:

"Be quiet, be still, and let God speak to you."

You'd also see this in "the Secret". So it's nothing particularly new or unusual. The point is to just let your spiritual side have a chance to talk to you. Of course, this book is written from a definite Protestant Christian view. And we then see a lot of personalizations of this Force through out the book. That's all well and good.

The key point is that someone has taken the time to help another minority - Christian males - to deal with the various uncertainties of life through developing their own faith and connection with a Source larger than their individual personalities.

Because the book is written with sports figures as examples, and every lesson plan has subdivisions titled in sports language (Coach's Corner, The Game Plan, Playmakers, etc.), this is a natural way to communicate that every male should also tend to his spiritual side and live a much greater life because of it.

And that is exactly what appealed to me in all this - that you can be greater than you are, that you can aspire to and attain higher goals, that the world around you can be helped to achieve a higher degree of perfection.

All as  you simply devote some time to connecting with the Divine on a regular basis. The 40-day plan is simply a very workable approach to help you through the changes which will occur as you do so.

My suggestion is to do all this program and then start over. Keep doing it until you have your life oriented the way you want it.

Noticing your own life - from a different perspective

One of these great "mystery" stories where an unknown person is able to make changes in another's life simply through noticing and commenting.

But the key point here is that our mysterious "Jones" helps his chosen subject to notice thing for themselves.

A first lesson: "whatever you focus upon, increases."

Too easy to say - and of course this flies right up their with self-help books and "The Secret" DVD. Any of us could figure this was coming. But it goes beyond simply noticing that the world around you depends on what you concentrate on. It's the point that you aren't the effect of the environment you are in, or came from, or how rich your family is.

Andrews points out a very, very civil point before the first 20 pages are over: if you just let your thoughts run willy-nilly around and become negative from all the negative news and politics and general tabloid atmosphere around us - then all you are focusing on is bad stuff. So the world around you is going to get worse.

Perspective is the point that this fictional character is telling his subject. Perspective is what you view life through.

The book continues through Jones teaching various principles of living life. Some of them new, all of them familiar when you read them.

Andrews tells these principles in an engaging form - through the lives of the people Jones helps. Each of them are near-riveting with the insight into human nature and interaction. But below them all are the simple basic principles which anyone can use to improve their life, their relationships, and the world around them.

Now, to be sure, reading fiction isn't your usual approach to getting self-help data into your life. But that doesn't mean it's not an effective one. With only 177 pages, this book gives a good shot in the arm, while edited for a fast and easy read - perfect for all the rushing around we do today.

Because in all that rush, we can easily lose our perspective - which "Jones" held as one of the most important qualities we can have, or share.

So I'd say if you get a chance to get a copy, do so. Anyone could use some nice principled fantasy in their lives. Could help. Couldn't hurt.

Thinking like a Christ - easier than you consider

It's just too easy to think like Jesus did. Really, we work too hard at keeping ourselves from doing just that.

Dr. Augusto Cury, a leading psychiatrist and author, did a complete psychological study of Jesus and turned as a result from an acknowledged atheist into a believer.  He tells about his progress and what he found in this 215 page book.

What he was fascinated with the impact a healthy mind can have on emotions and life. After many years of research and founding The Intelligence Institute, he concluded:

• Every person is a genius because everyone has the power to think.
• Harnessing "mind power" has been scientifically proven to enhance a person's physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
• The human act of thinking is the greatest wonder of the universe.

This book is simply an approach to enable people to discover for themselves though Cury's 12-point program  exactly how they can get the benefits of a healthy mind into their own lives.

He uses Jesus as an example frequently throughout the book, as the mental profile he completed gave true insight into not just the Son of Man, but every person who walks or lives on this planet.

My own interest was in how he described the method where Jesus taught people how to think. (This starts up on about page 33, part of Principle 2 chapter.) Jesus taught by example. Where he was broke all the time, having no house or immediate support, he was rich in spirit and so was constantly supported by all who met him. But it goes beyond charisma.

Cury points out,

"His mind was so admirable that he transformed his quality of life into a garden even though his world was falling down around him and he was surrounded by downpours of discrimination....

"The young Galileans who followed him, although unsophisticated, anxious, and lacking power and self-control, learned lessons that kings, politicians, and intellectuals didn't learn. He taught them to recognize their limits, to not be afraid of their failures, and to control their thoughts."

That is an admirable skill few have today - or have had in the recent centuries. Too often we are lead by people who are too human, regardless of how they are promoted in their election process. They cannot even routinely inspire people, let alone allow them to change their thinking process and evolve their life to one of fullness.

While several modern self-help books, CD's and DVDs come closer to this reality - it is perhaps the reason that we need to listen to these over and over to really get their points. Because we don't have a singular and dramatic persona in our life where we can take this example.

Cury gives us a start with his 12-point program that anyone can follow in their own lives - with nothing more than this book. But he also gives us intimate knowledge of how one of the greatest philsophers to ever walk this earth might confront and resolve the various situations we each face in life.

I recommend this right up there with all the greats of self-help. And along with any Scripture studies you might be doing or considering.

We cannot do less than we already are. So any opportunity to let our own light shine is one we should grasp with both hands and start running with it toward our own goalposts.

The answers you get depend on the questions you ask

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This is an old, old way of looking at things.

I never understood the Huna method of teaching - that the kahuna wouldn't tell the student an answer until they asked a question. Now, the kahuna might put the student into a learning situation or offer them a gift which could prompt questions - but that's a little different.

Not much, though.

In all cases, it was the student's responsibility to originate and pose the question based on their own background and understanding.

This is the way life itself works - how the Universe that surrounds us responds. 

If you are constantly seeking to learn, to find out - then all sorts of answers are available to you. And on many, many levels.

The story of Dr. Gates, which Napoleon Hill mentions in his Think and Grow Rich, is classic:

Dr. Gates had a room which could be made totally dark, with no external distractions. In that room he would sit with a pad of paper and his hand on the light switch, concentrating on the details of the Problem he was working to solve. He would sit there and concentrate until inspiration would hit - and then write down everything he was getting as fast as he could. 

This technique often brought about new approaches to working in materials and in theories of application - so much so that he was known for his body of patents. Needless to say, he was in great demand as a consultant.

Your own life goes this route, doesn't it? When you devote your energies to finding out something, only then do you get your answer. Sure, sometimes you have to relax and take your mind "off" of something in order to suddenly get an inspiration - and perhaps this is because you aren't living a relaxed life all the time...

But try this. Figure out what you really want and study all the details that you know about that thing or job or person you want to bring into your life. Really concentrate on every facet of that. Do it in a relazed frame of mind - like an easy chair in a room where you can be undisturbed - or at your desk with the phone on mute and the computer screen turned off.

See what comes into your mind as you do. Write all this down when you get that hint, that flash - and see what you have when you finish writing everything out.

Could be we just opened a door to your own fortunes, the ones that have been eluding you for some time...

Good Hunting! 

Free Will and Universe - where inspiration is born and thrives.

Let's tackle this head on - 

• The Universe contains all knowledge, a repository for all data.
  
• Free Will puts order into that data.
  
• This is where genius and inspiration comes from
  

Genius is native and usual. Stupidity has to be worked at.

There is no teacher and student. In that scenario, the teacher is the stupid one. 

There is only teacher AND student. Both share roles. 

Goes back to the Huna: "There are no limits." We are all interconnected. (Which explains the Golden Rule.)

And the best way to learn (that I've found so far) is 

1. Find the data you need
   
2. Tell someone else about it who wants to get that data
   
3. Write it out as a text or tutorial that someone who has never met you could understand.
   

Of course, you can see in this the old phrase, "Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, write textbooks."  Which is a cutative to the original idea - that you learn best when you pass it forward. 

Again, back to the Golden Rule - that you get as good as you give. So in order to recieve good data, you much be constantly teaching others - or passing good data along.

See, the Universe isn't coherent. It does run in established patterns, but by habit is chaotic. At least by our standards. Our Internet is a way of getting all this massive knowledge into use, making it available. 

I've been working with Internet scammers recently and they really don't know these rules and how they work. 

You see, in this Universe, every single person is an "Emperor has no clothes." 

When a company delivers truly shoddy merchandize, complaint boards will start aggregating data from that community. With the current setup on Google, new data always trumps - at least for awhile - old data. Social media then, is a continual flow and so ebbs and rises as tides. If you use social media to market your goods, then you have to constantly keep at it.

The difference between scammers and decent companies on these complaint boards is that good companies run slightly over 50% favorable on these boards. Scams run about 5% favorable (shills) and 95% unfavorable.

But a company can't really get on these complaint boards and boost their own rankings - simply because the more posts you put on a non-complimentary thread - the more this simply pushes that thread up. 

Any scam's real solution is to reform. Quick. 

But the community of complainers won't go away. Because they are a community of complainers. People will join and leave, yes. But the basic reason they are there is to contribute to the complaining community. 

If you want fewer complaints - give good products on a routine basis. And offer them at a value which is less than what they would be able to get that product for anywhere else. 

But figure that complaints are like the fact that heroes have fleas and no beauty queen is perfect. 

The downfall of a scammer is that they routinely rip people off. And so, as they are connected to everyone else, this then haunts them until they shut down. Doesn't matter what PR they have. 

I was working recently with some aggregators to collect up this data and then republish it on a manual basis through several outlets. Turns out this drove them nuts. Because I was able to find the dozen or more salient data already posted on the Net and match this up with the people and their contact data - then post this in a dozen original ways, so taking over top areas of the Google real estate. And of course, I then got attacked by these guys in defense.  And told them simply to give me my refund - which is mostly what I was after.

But you see, they were teaching me as well as I was teaching them.

Today, they'll come to work and fire up their searches to see what I posted over the weekend. I've just told them that their efforts to shut me up with bluster about their trademarks didn't work. And I taught them there how to improve their own stance on trademarks - as well as anyone else out there in how to shut them completely down. Completely.

That book I linked in the title (http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/genius---how-to-be-one-how-to-live-with-it/1716492) "Genius" - actually lays out exactly how to tap into this continuous flow of solutions to any problem you run into in life. 

And the test of it with these Scammers has proved it once again. But it's actually based on some very old writings - which are mostly ignored today. It's just that the Internet has brought them back into play. 

I can say clearly and confidently that Internet scammers are doomed. Like the poor, they will always be with us, as an ever-changing set of personalities. And, like the poor, they only have to change their decisions in order to move into being outrageously profitable and honestly helping the rest of humankind succeed and evolve.

Their choice.

Sure, I'm not going to be blogging about scammers forever. Once they pay me off, I'll be able to move onto other areas which are far more fascinating and rewarding. But this was an action I had to take - because intuition told me to. And I've learned more in a shorter period of time about myself and the way the world works than I could have through any study of books or classroom.

And I must have been teaching as I went (the reason I blog, no doubt) as I continued to get good data coming into me - that I could learn from. 

Those people I've met through this line have affected me as I've affected them. We've taught each other.  Scammers and Saints alike.

I figured I owed it to you to tell you how this scene works and why. 

Good Hunting!

Competition is another lie designed to distract.

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(I hope one in blue wins...)

Came to me that competition is a false term. In modern school sports, it's a great thing to have pretty equally-matched teams on a clean, nicely marked, mostly level (crowned slightly for run-off) playing field. Both start with clean uniforms that are mostly the same except for colors. And they have a set of rules to keep the playing fair.

Horrible training for life. Because nothing on this planet works like that. While members of the same species are "dressed" alike, that's more for mating purposes than to compete with other species.

Humankind, for instance, is a horrible competitor to the other species. If we don't hunt them to extinction, we generally plague them with our exhaust fumes, or cement highways, and metal vehicles which either smash them flat or cripple them in any collision.

But competition in itself is a lie.

Species do not compete with other species - they eat each other to survive. Humankind does the same with others of their own - eating them in a corporate sense, not (except rarely) a physical one.

Look at Microsoft's rise and dominance. Apple had a much better interface (which they copied from SPARC) and then Windows copied theirs. There were much better Disc Operating Systems (or Digital, whatever you prefer) than what Gates bought from a programmer to license to IBM.

But Gates knew how to play cutthroat poker and got the IBM Operating System license for their new line of Personal Computers. Sheer bluff. Didn't actually have the OS. Bought it later for $50K. A fortune at the time for those struggling programmers they bought it from.

I was going along with all my research on Internet scams and realized that trying to "compete" with them was a fool's errand. They were getting all this money by ripping people off with their false promises. When enough people complained, they simply packed up shop, declared bankruptcy so they didn't have to pay the rest of them, then started a new LLC or corporation with the same line of work, the same people, the same scams - just called something slightly different.

So it was a constantly moving target which mostly stayed in the shadows or moved back into them whenever the light shone on them. Paid off politicians to look the other way - everything like the racketeers they are. Almost as bad as the credit card companies...

But competition is never on a level playing field. Someone gets a product out there first and usually keeps the lead. Others whittle away at their flanks, but never take the big prize. And if they start getting close, the leader usually makes them a deal and buys out the management, folding that competitor into their side.

Sure, there are laws against this, but that practically doesn't matter. If the Feds don't approve it, you can always see that later, one "suddenly" goes bankrupt and then is bought up at fire sale prices by the market leader. There used to be two satellite radio services... And how did GM get so big? It's not just the Pontiac brand which bit the dust...

And how is Ford not being part of this bail-out? They have better ideas - like seeing this coming and re-negotiating their loans far ahead of this economic collapse. And as well, already shifting their production lines to be able to shift from trucks to cars in the same plant within a few weeks. Never done before in this industry. And they just reported they are probably going to be profitable next year.

How do they do this?

Not compete - it's create. You have to way out-think those people who are competing with you. But more than think - it's create. You have to pull great new ideas into your space and utilize them to build great new worlds.

Where do ideas come from? Well they don't grow on trees -- they grow within them.

Huh?

Look, all inspiration comes from the Universal. Check out your Bible, New Testament, especially. All these New Thought guys, these "Secret" teachers, the ancient Vedic and Huna teachings. There's a river runs through this for everyone.

Around a year ago, I edited and compiled a book called Genius. Here, I searched for every article I could find which defined how a person became and harnessed their own native power of genius.

Turns out anyone could become one, and/or learn to live with that extreme talent.

The secret is that it all comes from within - and without, for that matter.

Same place your creativeness comes from. Mostly your application of Free Will with that great repository of all knowledge called the Universe.

And those who know this "secret" are way ahead of everyone else. The simplest explanation of those sentences above are in "The Secret" DVD, but also in Earl Nightingale's "The Strangest Secret" and also in Robert Collier's "Secret of the Ages".

No surprise that they all have the word "secret" in them - but the funniest thing is, as Nightingale says, it's no secret at all and writers have been talking about this since ancient times up to the present.

But back to our competition. If you really want to be outrageously successful, have fantastic wealth - don't try to compete with someone or some corporation. Simply create a better solution. And be more creative in marketing that solution.

And better than that fabled mousetrap - the Universe will flood you everything you could possibly want.

Try it and see.

How's your River of Life Running?

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Earl Nightingale had a great recording, I think it was out of his "Lead the Field".

He talks about "River People" and "Goal People". The latter work incessantly toward a fixed goal, and the former swim in a river of interest.

Nightingale gave several examples of each.

It came to me gradually over the course of several days, that you really need to be working at what you like to do best - what turns your crank, what makes you happy, your passion, your purpose for your life.

For when you do that, you are just completely involved and no task is to onerous or too involved.

Some are incredible at merchandizing. Sam Walton of Wal-Mart, as well as the original J.C. Penney - where Walton got his earliest training in the field. Others are incredible at manufacturing, like Henry Ford. Some have logistics (UPS, Fed-Ex) as their bent - others work at computer programming (Microsoft, Apple). Some simply write entertaining and educational or enlightening stories.

But they have their "rivers" of interest which are ever flowing, never stopping currents which keep them fascinated all the time. I'm reading a story right now where a psychologist is fascinated with the mental ease with which Jesus met life - the human side of him was constantly intrigued with how people around him met life and how he could help them achieve their own peace by no more than talking with them.

In every life, there are the eddys and tidal washes, the still pools at the edge where a snag has slowed the current. When we seem to get into one of these scenarios, a person starts to question their life's purpose. Did they go wrong somewhere, is the way they are traveling still the right path for them?

In all cases, the action is still to reaffirm the river you are swimming in and then get back out into the faster current. As you do, you'll find your interest in life picks up and everything becomes far more enjoyable. Sure, there's lots of work, but it isn't a drugery, onerous, or taxing. You simply fly through your work, staying up late and then rising early - inspired by yet another idea.

For me, when I'm in that river, it's the point of constant inspiration - so much that I often mis-prepare breakfast (still edible, but oops...) or tend to space out in the middle of a TV program with some riveting notion turning in my head while I scratch notes onto a handy yellow pad. Yes, I was trying to catch the weather so I knew what I should be planning for over the next few days of farm work, but - oops...

Life in those times is fascinatingly smooth, cheerful, full of expectant ideas and solutions which appear just a moment after you get the question just right.

And as I write this, I'm bringing myself out of some sort of back-water eddy I had slipped into. Sure, I knew that this was an exploration when I started - but I didn't know that it was going to show me so much about my own interests and what I knew I really should be doing.

So - ask yourself these questions:

1. If you didn't have to work for a living, what would you be doing all day?
   
   
2. What activitie(s) bring you the most joy in your life?
   
   
3. What situations have you been in where you found yourself remarkably calm, assured, content?

Answer these honestly for yourself. Take a few days or weeks or months to actually answer them if you have to.

Once you have those answers, cross-compare them to isolate what your true "river of interest" is. And then plan carefully to wrap up whatever you are currently doing, getting your replacement grooved in, and this new (or current) occupation really streamlined and financed and set up so you can devote yourself utterly to it from here on out. (Of course, you don't neglect your family and friends - but you'll find that they bring you part of this calming internal peace, don't they?)

For some this river is a series of goals achieved, one after the other, a new one starting as the last one is finished. But a river, nonetheless.

- - - -

And you can always leave me a message here or on one of my other blogs about how you've found your river and how to swim in it.

Or you can have your own blog - and post calmly, serenely, and actively. Posting all the things, ideas, activities which you find fascinating.

Good Hunting!