ALL A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

Good day. An interesting thing happened to me as I was traveling in Boston this week.  As I was leaving the airport in the middle of the rush hour, I was pleased that the drivers were very courteous and let me in and I did the same in return, until I noticed a particularly aggressive driver going in and out of traffic and the vehicle in front of me would not allow the car in front of him. So in turn the guy would have to brake, and accelerate and try to maneuver around the card in front of me and to my surprise the car in front of me started to almost race the other car. Not wanting to be around for what might happen as well as allow these two yahoos to get the attention of the State Police, I just eased off the accelerator and fell behind a ways.

As I approached the state of Maine there  were a few times where I really had no idea what lane I was supposed to be in and once again I was very fortunate that the drivers were very patient with me and I found my way to my hotel easily and without any undue increase in my blood pressure.

Just before going to my hotel I pulled into a Starbucks to get some tea, and I witnessed something interesting once again. As I was just sitting I noticed a mass inflow of customers. Here again there was so much courtesy displayed as people were allowing and offering spaces to each other until a seamless and smooth flow ensued to the cash register.

Driving back to the hotel I started to wonder what is it about driving a car that when someone wants to pull in front of you, causes a fierce competitive instinct  to rear its ugly head. Why would someone let people go ahead of them in line at a supermarket or Starbucks, but not allow the same to thing happen in the automobile. Maybe it is because we cannot really see the people in the cars ahead of us. After all I have a hard time believing that we would exhibit road rage to a little old grandma if we saw them in the car ahead of us trying to merge into our lane.  So maybe the car makes the interaction impersonal. Is that a good excuse though?

Who decides the extent of our interactions? I remember personally when I was going to school in Los Angeles, I was a much more aggressive driver than when I moved to San Diego. I was of course about 5  or so years older when I moved to San Diego so maybe I was more mature. I can’t really say scientifically weather the environment affected my driving behavior or not, but I know for a fact a decade later when I started studying the Law of Attraction, my driving habits has definitely changed regardless of where I am.

How you ask? Well I was raised to respect my elders. If I am on a seat on a bus or train and an elderly person or a lady is standing, I of course like many people will give them my seat. I use the same perspective on the road. No matter who is driving in front of me, I try to imagine that they are older or in an urgent need to get in front of me and I just take it as an act of courtesy to let them in. That prevents me from getting pissed off that someone cut me off, or increase my blood pressure.

The interesting thing though is that since I have been reacting this way in my vehicle, I have not had any incidences where people are not allowing me to get to the other lane when I need to, even when I am late, or unfamiliar with the area and have to take drastic maneuvers.  Coincidence? I think not.

I wonder how many other things in life can be viewed through rose colored glasses to prevent undue stress on ourselves? But no matter what, the fact is that we have a complete choice and control over how we decide to interpret an incidence and how to react to it. It just takes a bit of practice and keeping in mind that nothing matters more than we feel happy. So what is it worth to you to get pissed off the next time someone pulls in front of you or cuts in line at the cafeteria, or Starbucks, or you are watching CNN and see the news about the economy etc.?

I hope this makes sense to you and is beneficial to you. Please feel free to share this with anyone who may benefit. As always too your success till next week.

WHY BE AWARE OF THE LAW OF ATTRACTION: A MARTIAL ARTS EXPLANATION

Good day. This post addresses the need for anyone who is interested in success to at the very least understand how the Law of Attraction works. I am going to approach this from a point of view that is very comfortable to me and I think it will make a rather complicated subject really simple. I am going to explain how your desire to succeed requires knowledge of the Law of Attraction using martial arts analogies. Because I have been involved in martial arts in one way or another for over 27 years, I find it easy to explain this situation and I think it will bring a new perspective and support for at least considering a general understanding  of the Law of Attraction if not becoming  a student of it.

Let’s assume that in order to succeed I have to overcome some challenges. Let’s also assume that my challenges take a form of a wrestler. If I am also wrestling, we are both confined by the rules of a wrestling competition. So as we pummel and jockey for position, there are certain amount of techniques that either one of us can apply to get the upper hand.  We can try a single or a double leg. We can try to move and maneuver to see if we can off balance each other and hope one of us will make a mistake.

Now let’s say I have open to me the tools of a mixed martial artists, however my challenge is still confined by the rules of wrestling. Imagine the expansions of possibilities that I can use now to deal with my challenge. For example as we are in a clinch, I can now have at my disposal knees, elbows, and sometimes I can even choose to disengage and use strikes.  That gives me more tools to deal with my challenge than when I was confined to a small box of using a strict set of rules of wrestling.

Now let’s take it one more step out of the box. I am now a street-fighter and I am in a fight for my life. At this point I will use whatever I have to in order to survive. My challenge is still a wrestler. Now there is an infinite number of possibilities for me to use. Let’s even say the wrestler takes me down and takes a side mount position which is very advantages if this was a wrestling or jiu jitsu match, however, there is very little available to him as I take a nasty bite out of his sides and latisimus dorsi muscles.  I can now do eye pokes , groin kicks and even head-butts.  All of these tools were not even conceivable when I was confined to only useing the tools of wrestling.

That is what the Law of Attraction does for you. If you are trying to succeed in any endeavor, you have to realize that there are infinite number of possibilities open to you at any particular time, if and only if you are open to them and you are not confining yourself by negativities, and by a set of constant preconceived ideas, and notions that you think you should adhere to.  By at least understanding and being open to the Law of Attraction more opportunities and more tools will come your way. Then you can choose to either use them or ignore them, but at least you are not in the worst case position of not knowing what you don’t know. It opens you up to an unlimited amount of resources to get to your goal.

I hope this short explanation and metaphor of martial arts helps you to understand that at least a cursory look at the Law of Attraction will benefit you in achieving success and your dreams. Please feel free to share this with anyone who may benefit from it.

As always to your success till the next time.

Stuff that helped me understand

Good day,
From time to time I like to share the products and people that have helped me grasp the concept of the Law of attraction and make use of it successfully. I gain no monetary benefit from this, but I do believe it is important to share this information so more and more people can reach this information:

WHY IS CHANGE DIFFICULT

Good day, this post is about the reasons you have to exert tremendous amount of effort and energy to change habits and beliefs.  Our understanding is that it takes approximately 27-90 days for a habit to be ingrained depending on who you ask.  We also understand that whatever has been imprinted on our subconscious mind becomes our belief and our comfort zone.  Anything that goes contrary to our subconscious beliefs and our habits takes tremendous conscious  effort to work and manifest.

In order for habits, goals, and visualizations to reach the subconscious and actually become beliefs and paradigms, repetition is critical, because most of us have a gatekeeper that filters out thoughts and impressions that are coming from our conscious to subconscious mind. The gatekeepers job is to keep things “as is”,  to maintain the status quo, and to prevent the expansion of our comfort zones.

If you want to improve your life and increase your successes, you know that you have to expand your comfort zone.  To do that you either have to fight against the beliefs and the paradigms imprinted on your subconscious mind which will take lots of energy and conscious effort and as soon as you let your conscious effort laps you tend to return to the old habits. Or the second way of doing things is to first  imprint new habits and new paradigms on your subconscious mind and allow those paradigms to dictate the actions and see the results. To do that unless you are a child and believe with absolute faith, you need to use repetition, visualizations filled with feelings of how you want things to be,  over and over until those are passed to your subconscious mind. Then the rest is easy.

It may seem at first that this is the harder way of doing things, but if you look at any one who for example has tried to lose weight, you can see that they can for a short period of time sustain conscious effort , but as soon as that becomes difficult, and as soon they take their conscious effort off of the diet or losing weight when something else comes up or another stress comes into their life they just  bounce back to the imprinted comfort zones that are in their subconscious. Those being the bad eating habits, bad exercise habits, etc. If you put the effort in the beginning and visualize the body type that you want, life style, and eating habits that you want and envision it,  and  BE it from the beginning you have already expanded   your comfort zones and the actions will start to match those new paradigms.

I hope this post is helpful and as always feel free to comment and share this with anyone who may benefit from it.

SUCCESS LESSONS FROM FOOD

Good day. This blog is a little off the wall, but if you stick with me I will make a point.

In the last chapter of my book Road Map to Life: A real world lesson I have a section dedicated to some basic healthy practices when it comes to food and eating. Things like taking small bites, chewing the food very well to allow the digestive process to begin to work in your mouth, not eating food when it is too hot or too cold so the lining of your stomach is not irritated, etc.  Well having eaten all over the world due to the work that I do, I have noticed Westerners and in North America in particular, we love huge portions. We love our burgers stacked high. We love humongous sandwiches, super-sized fries and we want it fast.  It seems like even when we are at home we are in a rush to finish the food on our plate and go on to the next thing. While I was eating my dinner at Red Robbins, I  felt a bit awkward because my chicken sandwich was so big that I really could not fit it in my mouth without looking like an alligator trying to devour a wildebeest.  I actually had to use a knife and fork. Then it occurred to me that in Europe, the meals are spread out over a longer time range so your dinner may take  2 to 3 hours, and the food is brought to you in very small portions.  That is not just in restaurants, many families start with wine and cheese, then a small salad, then the main course, some desert, and of course coffee or espresso. It is a culture of savoring meal time in many European countries.  You may have 4 or 5 courses of food but the portions are very small and spread out so you can take manageable bites, and have the time to savor and enjoy the food between courses.

What does all this have to do with success? Well goals and steps in achieving and succeeding in your goals are the same way.  The healthy way of achieving success is by taking small steps towards your goals. Not taking unnecessary and undue risks and not sand bagging and underestimating your potential either. You don’t want humongous steps towards goals because they  become overwhelming and demotivate you if you fail which usually happens when you, pardon the pun, bite more than you can chew.  You want to set yourself up for success by taking small steps. Small consistent and persistent steps towards succeeding in those goals. The analogy of hot or cold comes in for example, by not taking those “hot” investment tips on extremely risky issues in the stock market and then wondering why things went awry. You need to do your due diligence and homework and then take conservative risks that have a good return on investment. That goes for any step towards your goals and not just for investing. Succeeding in your goals is taking successful steps towards your goal. If you make every step successful, then you cannot help but succeed.  At the same time you don’t want to take the approach to your goals, like having cold food. You don’t want to make things too easy for yourself because that is not stretching your comfort zone and that is not building your confidence.

I hope this makes sense to you and I hope this is a different way of helping you set goals and take small steps towards achieving them. Remember no matter what, “ the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step”,  and you have to keep on taking steps after steps to reach that destination. As always feel free to comment and share this with anyone that may benefit from it and to your success till next week.