HOW TO DEAL WITH ANGER? WORK ON BEING AT PEACE

Good day,

A few weeks ago we discussed how mistakes provide learning experiences for you and how you should not criticize yourself when you make mistakes. This week I want to cover the subject of Anger. Specially for our male readers, this is a topic that requires much self-control.  Women have a better way of dealing with their anger for some reason.  If you are a long time reader of this blog you are familiar with how The Law of Attraction works. If not please take a look at some of the links on the lower left side of the page for past blogs posts on The Law of Attraction.  Knowing about The Law of Attraction should warn us about getting angry. Anger is a powerful emotion and the vibrations that are sent out when we are angry contain significant amount of power. So why is it so difficult to control this emotion?

That is a question that I have been struggling with all my life.  Now that I have a 3 years old the question comes up more and more.  I think one of the reasons it is so hard to control anger is that it is in essence the reverse of trying to work our way into positive. Anger response is normally a gradual progression of disappointment, frustration, hopelessness, which then culminate into an anger response. By the time we are at the anger point allot has been building momentum and it is difficult to turn that momentum around in a split second.

We know that a negative thought pattern is not as strong as a positive thought pattern, but a steady, continual buildup of negative thought patterns and emotions will eventually manifest themselves in our reality.

Since this is a blog on success and the use of The Law of Attraction it bears to mention that anger is extremely detrimental to your success. Unless you are an enforcer for a NHL hockey team anger usually signals lack of control and confidence and will undermine your success more often than not.  In today’s business, or even personal world, anger is rarely the solution.  In fact the only time I can think of anger being a positive is in life or death altercation when anger can summon extra endorphins. Even then all of my martial arts training has taught me that the combatant who uses anger usually is succumbed by the calm and collected opponent.

So the way to manage and control this beast is to monitor the emotions that lead to it and cut them off before they spiral out of control. When a situation is starting to frustrate you or go counterproductively recognize and either take actions to rethink your actions and emotions, or take a break and re-center your thoughts. Each of us has to work with this and recognize when pushing through the barrier is the best course of action and when it is time to regroup? At the time it seems like taking a break or giving way is the last thing you must do, but that is where practice of recognizing your emotional build up will come in handy. Start to monitor your thoughts just prior to an episode when you got angry. Analyze them afterward and see where you could have modified your response.

Let me give you an example from my life. Dealing with a 9 moth old and a 3 years old can test ones patience. When my 3 years old keeps on wanting to play with something that does not belong to her normally I can discuss the reasons why and she usually will understand. But let say the 9 months old suddenly is crying and I am going through the checklist of what could be wrong and I go to change her but she is squirming and moving all about, when suddenly my 3 years old now goes after what she is not supposed to be playing with. Out of the frustration that has reached a peak over not being able to calm my 9 month old, I slip into anger and put her in time out with a loud voice instead of a neutral calm voice.

It is difficult to really see where I could have recognized the events getting out of my control. May be I could have delegated dealing with the 3 years old to my wife as I was struggling to change the little one. May be I could have ignored the 3 years old until I was done changing the little one and then after calming down I could deal with her. May be recognizing the fact that the 3 years old is interested in the object I could have put the object out of her reach. All of these are dealing with the physical reality of the matter. The more masterful and advanced way of doing things would be to deal with the thought process as I am going through them. When I was getting frustrated during the time that the baby is crying I can start to work on my feelings in the moment and reach for better feeling ones. Perhaps understanding that all baby’s go through tantrums. She is teething so of course it is understandable. My 3 years old is usually a very good girl, and may be today she is just trying to see how far she can push her boundaries. I did that as a child. She is doing the same. All these thoughts take me from frustration to an area of understanding and a feeling of logical neutrality so when the 3 years old goes for the wrong object I can handle the situation with a neutral and objective tone even if I have to put her in time out.

It is sometimes helpful to write down your own analysis. There is something about writing that makes things clear and the time it takes to put thoughts on paper helps you to calm down.  It is hard to make time to write things down specially when it comes to analyzing your anger, but that is why you have to do it. It is a skill just like learning to shoot a basketball or throwing a football. It takes work and practice and it will pay off in the end. Maybe try writing a journal or a blog. That is a great thing in  itself regardless of whether you are analyzing your anger or just putting down your thoughts about the day. It also has an amazing power to concentrate your visualization.

It  takes lots of practice and lots of analysis after getting angry for you to start recognizing the feelings that  lead up to the anger. Small progressions will yield big gains though when it comes to controlling your anger. Lastly let not forget the goal is not to “work on NOT getting angry”. By The Law of Attraction that only leads to situations that make you angry. The goal is to be at peace or to enhance your calm.

Good luck and best wishes for your success.

MEANT TO BE? ACCORDING TO WHO?

Good day,

Have you ever heard people say “it was meant to be?” This is a slippery subject. I do not wish to offend anyone, rather I want to explore solutions to help with your success and dispel illusions that hold you back. It is in this respect that I discuss this topic on this post.

Weather this is a subject of spirituality or of science I start with the question that” is it conceivable that man is so helpless?” Because the statement “it is meant to be” implies lack of power to influence the outcome. Theologically speaking man is made in the image of God. Not a tool, not a subject but made in the image of God and that God is perfect and all powerful so that cannot mean that man is powerless. Scientifically speaking man is the top of the food chain and the highest form of life on this planet, that also cannot mean that man is helpless.

It does not matter whether you are spiritual, or scientifically minded. Know that you are all powerful when it comes to your reality. You control and are responsible for all that is in your reality.  What is manifesting right now in your life is the result of your past thoughts. Start by taking responsibility for your life and your thoughts and then change what you don’t like by changing your thoughts.  Read previous posts on how to use The Law of Attraction and how it works if this is the first time you have heard this.

Thinking that you do not have control over your life will keep you going by default. You will concentrate your thoughts and your emotions on whatever happens to be going on in your reality right now,  and more of that will come to you.  If things are good that is well, but if you happen to chance upon negativity, which inundates our daily life, going on be default is a scary thought.  That is going about things in a backwards way. Your thoughts create your reality, not the other way around.  News flash: You are all powerful when it comes to YOUR reality. Do not be concerned with others. Do not be concern with competition. Do not let feeling of guilt rule you.  Be proud, and thankful.

There is nothing wrong with being spiritual or to rely on a logical mind like a scientist. No matter what path pleases you, you can find evidence of The Law of Attraction in its teachings if you but search a little. You can be both. You can be none. Whatever the path you choose,  you have control over your reality. When you realize and accept that, then you have opened up a new world of possibilities for yourself.

You need not be afraid because there is no scarcity in the world according to the universal and theological laws. Unless that is what you choose to believe. It is like The Law of Gravity. Whether you are a scientist or a spiritual guru if you walk off the top of a building you will fall.  Gravity cares not if you are good or bad, and neither does The Law of Attraction. It is a built in law older than time itself. You can use it or you can be used by default. The choice is yours.

I hope this discussion makes you think. That is all that I can hope. Once you reach for thoughts, and be open to other possibilities answers will come to you when you are ready to accept them. In either case you are right. I hope you enjoy and benefit from this discussion.

To your success until the next time. As always feel free to share this with anyone who can benefit from it.

DO WE HAVE TO MAKE MISTAKES?

Good day all,

I am sitting here in the backyard with my 7 month old and once again an inspiration came to me for a blog post. Picture this. The baby is on her back with a milk bottle in her mouth. She is holding the bottle with one hand and with the other hand she is trying to pull a toy (a rather large toy) towards her. The challenge is that as she is pulling the toy with her hand she is pushing it away with her feet. The whole time she is not letting go of the milk bottle.

Being a father, I figure I would help her, so I move the toy closer to her hands so her feet are no longer working against her. A few minutes go by and she is repositioning herself, and once again she starts pulling the toy with her hand and pushing it away with her feet. Once again I go and help her out. This happened one more time. This time however, I just sat back and watched. She pushed and pull, and pushed and pull. Never did I see her get frustrated. Never did she stop trying. She just pushed and pull and suddenly it all made sense. She let go with her feet and pulled the toy to her with her hands.

So what is the moral of the story? Here is how I see it as it applies to my life and maybe you can see some similarities. In my life I have made mistakes. Allot of them and some I have made more than once. Looking back at them makes me realize that I have learned something from each and every one of them. There has been times when I know for certain if someone had bailed me out, I may have made the same mistake along the way and it would have cost me allot more. So I think all the mistakes that I have made in life have come along as learning lessons. I needed to make them and learn from them and in the process they have contributed to my successes.

How does that relate to The Law of Attraction? Let me see if I can talk my way through this as this is something I just thought about. I attract everything in my life. Good or bad I am responsible for them all by the vibrations I sent out. So how do mistakes come into the picture? If for example I am sending out the vibration of becoming  a successful real-estate investor, opportunities come about but at the same time there are also opportunities for me to learn. Lessons learned now will hurt, but they will save me in the future when the stakes are much greater. So everything is in order. The successes that I am looking for and sending out my vibration for, rarely come about the way I think they may. That is the whole point. Figuring out the how is not my part. If I try to force the how, that is also another way that mistakes happen and sooner or later I will learn to just let it go and follow the opportunities to where they take me and wait for the next door to open.

So do not look at mistakes as a way to beat yourself up. I know that I am my worst critic. I have had to work really hard to treat myself at least as nice as I treat my students. Most people are the same way. Your tendency is to take it easy on others while you treat yourself as though you are a machine and you  should never make a mistake. Well how is that working? Not well in my case. Remember that is also the essence of The Law of Attraction. If you do not have love and tolerance for yourself, then that vibration just sends out the message that no one should have love and tolerance for you. Mistakes are good. They help you learn lessons that you could not learn any other way. They hurt but be comforted in the knowledge that they are setting you up for a success of greater kind. As I am writing this the quote by Napoleon Hill is making more sense to me: “Every setback, every mistake, every heartache brings with it the seeds of equivalent or greater success”.  Thomas Edison said “I am not discouraged, for every failed attempt discarded is another step closer to success”.  So if Napoleon Hill and Thomas Edison handled their mistakes with positive attitude and as lessons to be carried to future successes who am I to expect perfection and be ticked off with myself? That is the question I want you to ask yourself the next time you make a mistake and start to beat yourself up.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I welcome your comment and please feel free to share this.

Rest in Peace WARRIORS as you have given us Peace for so long

This is a special post on a special day. You have all see the news yesterday about an aircraft carrying 30 plus members of the United States Navy SeALs was shot down.
This is a tribute to them. To be a Navy Seal is universally known as being the best of the best that the special warfare community has to offer.  When the Trident is pinned to their chest they know that they are something special. They know they are the best. It is speculated that of those elite men about 1% are asked and are accepted into the Seal Team 6. To loose so many men in one single episode is a tragedy that I cannot even imagine. They and their families have made the ultimate sacrifice so we can be FREE.
But the world and those who have committed this act should know that Americans are also a special breed of people. We do not run when tragedy strikes. We do not put our heads down and cry. We come together. We gain strength from mutual pain and sorrow and we take that strength and fight back. We fight with everything we have, for our beliefs, and our way of life. And we prevail. That is our way. That is what it means to be an AMERICAN.  To be free, and to be the voice of the oppressed when no one else will do anything.
I am filled with sorrow, but at the same time I have great pride and gratitude for all the members of our armed forces who on a daily bases fight for our way of life.
I hope and pray for strength for the families of the men who were lost yesterday. They know how much we as a people love and cherrish the memories of their loved ones. They will NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
GOD BLESS AMERICA.

A CASE OF DON’T WANTISM

Good day,

Today’s post like many of my posts is based on lessons I learned watching my little kids. The other day I was watching my 3 years old playing with her 7 month old sister. Normally she is good at sharing but this time when the little one went after a toy train,  she gently but firmly removed the train and put it aside.  I proceeded to get a drum and put it in front of the little one, and my 3 years old started to play with her on the drum. All the time the train was just sitting in corner. When my youngest went around to get the train again my 3 years old took the train and put it aside.

I asked her why she was not sharing her train, and she did not say anything. This made me think about how often as adults, people have this feeling about others. It is not that we want something, it is just we don’t want them to have it. I hope the readers of this blog do not have this feeling, but just in case sometimes this feeling  comes up I wanted to explore the vibrations that we are sending out so may be by understanding we can overcome.

We have discussed how The Law of Attraction works. The best indicator of if we are on the right vibration is our feelings. So let’s use that and see how this what I call “don’t wantism”  fairs on the feeling scale.  Let’s use the example of our neighbor suddenly driving home in a brand new car. It may not even be a car we like but suddenly there is this feeling of envy. The feeling is not a want, you see. It is not coming from the stand point of “I want a car like that”, or “I want a new car”, it is a feeling of “I don’t want him to have that car”. So let’s see where this is taking our feelings. If we were saying “I want a new car” that can bring up many feelings within us from a feeling of LACK, and SCARCITY, to the other end of spectrum of EXCITEMENT, and a GOAL of achieving. On the other hand the feelings that come about when we say “I don’t want him to have …”can only be coming from SCARCITY. I cannot find a positive in this feeling. Just writing about it here from a detached observing position is making me feel uncomfortable. I am sure most people feel this way. That should give you a warning sign. If you have not read my post on paying attention to your bad feelings check it out here: blog post on bad feelings

The warning is very real. The fact that we are not feeling good about this should send warning bells all around saying you need to change your vibration. That feeling of lack and that bad vibration of not wanting something for others is seen by the universe as wanting lack for YOU. That is what you have to understand. The Law of Attraction is perfect. It is not biased, or vindictive. It is simple in its design like any natural law. When you send out the vibration of abundance for yourself, you should also want the same for your neighbor.  When you try to bring a bad thing to someone else The Law of Attraction only sees that you want to be in the presence of that bad thing. We cannot live for someone else. We cannot wish for someone else, and by the perfect design of this universe we cannot want bad things for other people without effecting our own vibration for the worst, and brining bad things into our own reality. I guess that is what is referred to by many as KARMA.

So that is why GRATITUDE is so powerful. That is why when people are genuinely happy for other people’s successes they are also endowed with success and prosperity. So next time someone you know comes into some good fortune be happy for them. Genuinely be happy for them because with that feeling of happiness you are saying to the universe I want to be involved with more of such situations and those blessing and situations will become yours. It is the law. It is perfect. You know it and you can use it to design your life and know that there is only abundance out there. Just because someone wins that does not mean you have to loose, unless that is what you are concentrating on and that is what you make yourself believe.

I hope this makes you think and is helpful. Enjoy your week and share this with anyone you think can benefit and don’t forget I welcome comments on my blog. Counterpoints are always welcome, as long as they are not just for the sake of negativity.

HOW TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE AND CHALLENGING SITUATIONS:

Good day.

When I work with people to help them succeed, I often have to discuss their relationships to the people they have to deal with. No one lives in a vacuum, and we all have to develop skills to deal with people. There are many sales training programs that can help with this. I am not a sales trainer but I have used the skills I have learned from many of the sales training programs I have been involved with in sales, in everyday human relationships, in my home life with my wife, with my children, and with my parents. This is why a section of my book ROAD MAP TO LIFE: A Real World Lesson  is devoted in instructing young people to take on jobs for the skill that they can learn and not for the paycheck. I stressed the need for sales skills early in life as it is critical to being a well-rounded and successful person no matter what you intend to do professionally.  Here I want to go over 2 techniques that I use often to help with my dealings with people. One utilizes The Law of Attraction and one is a skill I learned from a mentor program I was involved with.

It is always more difficult to stop a moving object. Momentum is a good thing when it is going in your favor and it is a challenge when you need to overcome it. So the best “medicine, as they say is prevention”.  Since your daily life is a combination of the vibrations you and those you deal with send out in the world, it is much easier to put yourself in a favorable situation than to try to change a challenging situation to your favor. I hope this is clear.

If you have been working with the Law of Attraction you also should realize that you have an advantage. You cannot change what other people do, but since most people are REACTING to their external environment most of the time, and you by using the concepts of The Law of Attraction are more aware of what you are sending out in your reality, the advantage is yours.

By now many of you can anticipate where I am going with this, especially if you are a regular reader of this blog. What I am teaching you here is to create each interaction you will face in advance. This will take some effort at first because even in the business world few people plan their days, so to expect regular folks to assimilate this concept is a big endeavor. But the benefits are worth it.

I am saying that when you are going to have an interaction with someone, you visualize exactly how you want that encounter to ensue before you meet them. Again I warn you to use as many of your senses as possible. Feel the feeling of the encounter and obviously it should stir in you good feelings. Visualize how you react. Visualize how the other person will react, and how both of you will win in the situation.  Remember you can never take advantage of a person, because if you try you are sending that vibration out which in turn will bring with it situations where people will take advantage of you.  Realize that because you are DELIBERATE creating the encounter, and most likely your subject is REACTING to their reality your vibration will dominate. Don’t be surprised to see that situations where you thought would cause you stress, or challenge suddenly go smoothly. As you see the positive effects of your efforts, you will gain confidence and will want to do this all time with different parts of your daily life and not just with interactions with people. Don’t be surprised that a drive to the store suddenly is filled with green lights, and available parking spaces. Isn’t this worth your effort? I can’t wait to hear how this works for you.

The 2^nd technique is something that is trade marked by the MENTOR MANAGEMENT PROGRAM as the “whole message model”. I am going to tell you how I use it in my daily life to avert confrontation, rather than the way I learned to use it in sales. The concept is that if you try to confront someone they will get defensive and the situation goes downhill. The skill hear is to be clear, and communicate and in the bulk of the situations just those actions will resolve the situation for the better.

There are 4 simple steps in the whole message model. When there is a situation that you are not happy with as a direct result of the action of someone you have to deal with you follow these 4 steps:

1. State the situation as it has ensued from your perspective. What happened? How you see the situation?
2. State how that situation and actions that caused that situation MAKES YOU FEEL? It is critical here that you only state what the actions mean to you. Avoid generalities. Be specific.
3. Ask for clarification on the situation and also find out if the intent of the actions was to get the feelings that were caused in you, by the person performing the actions.
4. State clearly what you want the situation to be from here on.

For example let’s say my daughter is supposed to do her homework before she can go outside and play on her swing.  I find this not to be the case:

1. Sweetie, I see that you have not done your homework yet, but you playing in the back yard, is an example of what I would say to my daughter.
2. You know we had agreed that you would finish your homework before you play, and when you don’t do that it makes daddy feel sad because I think you don’t really mean what you say to me.
3. Is that how you want to make me feel? Now even my daughter who is still young rarely is crass enough to say “yes daddy I want to make you feel like crap”.  I rarely find people to be rude, or mean in business to actually admit to you that they did something to harm you, or your business, so the answer you are looking for here is a NO, and an understanding between the two of you.
4. Well then honey, I want you to go inside and finish your homework then we can play together, how is that?

The example above is simple but with some preparation and practice you will be proficient in using this technique with rude sales clerks at the mall, contractors working on projects, etc.

I hope these two techniques are fruitful for you and as always please share this blog with people who can benefit from it.