SHOPPING CARTS IN THE MIDDLE

Good day I hope you are having a great day.  The other day I was at Costco and even though I have seen this scene many times before in many places, it prompted me to write this post.  The question that I have is Why do people leave their shopping carts all over the place when it only takes a few steps to put it back into the return carts area? I thought about and brainstormed many possible reasons. Is it laziness? Is it people are not looking for the return area? Is it that nobody will know? Is it, it’s good enough if I just leave it here? Is it the thought that somebody else will take care of it? What is the reason that some people just leave their carts right there without returning them?

I am not talking about people who are handicapped. I am not talking about the elderly or people with some physical handicap that prevents them from walking that few steps. I am also not talking about those places that you have no idea where to put the carts or the ones which only have one on the other side of the parking lot.  I am talking about young, vibrant individuals that for one reason or another just don’t want to do this simple task even when the conveniences are readily available.  How does this relate to success or The law of Attraction you may ask? What is the point of this post?

Well when it comes to success principles as well as using The Law of Attraction (LOA), all the reasons / excuses, I stated above for not returning the carts,  are stumbling blocks to achieving greatness. All the reasons, like: nobody is looking, it’s good enough, somebody else will do it, why should I, I’m lazy, when trying to use The LOA to succeed or following any success principles are stumbling blocks in the way of your success.  Dave Ramsey said “how you do anything is how you do everything”.   It may seem to be a small little thing here that “hey I’m not going to take that extra 2 to five minutes to take that cart back to where it belongs, what’s the big deal?”, but if you take short cuts like this in little things, imagine what you do when things matter or when you are faced with bigger challenges.  If you can’t do the right thing when it comes to the easy stuff, what makes you believe you can do the right thing when things become harder?  In fact it is much more difficult. What you are doing here is you are training yourself to get used to a pattern of “taking the easy way out”.  It is a behavior pattern.

Visualization, one of the greatest tools of manifesting is thought by many people to be easy, but concentrating  and making your mind do what you want it to do is one of the hardest tasks that any person can accomplish on a consistent bases.  Success requires persistence,  and doing little things properly over and over.  If you cannot return a shopping cart to its proper place, you will definitely  not be able to succeed in amassing wealth or building a great relationship.  You may not agree. You may say but A.J. it is just a little shopping cart. I will do the right thing when things matter. Really? Only you can answer that. Actually I take it back. You have fooled yourself into believing that is the case. I am calling your bluff and I am saying you are full of S#@%.   I am pushing you here today and challenging you to prove to yourself you can do the right thing every time, and all the time.  You don’t have to prove it to me. Who gives a crap right? You have to prove this to yourself.  Success begins here.  Success begins with the little things. Success does not accept compromise.  Anything worth doing, is worth doing right is not a cliché of my grandfather’s generation.

Keep these things in mind. The LOA  is a very simple principles but it is by no means easy.  It requires you to do little things properly every time, all the time.  The principles of success are very straight forwards, but again they require you to do the little things the right way all the time, every time. So the next time you see shopping cars all over the parking lot, let it be a neuro-linguistic  anchor for you.  A reminder to ask yourself  “are you doing the little things the right way all the time, every time or are you taking a shortcut”?

I hope this post was productive and made you think.  Please feel free to share this with anyone who may benefit from it. I look forwards to your views and comments on this point on my Facebook Page and Twitter feed. Please click on the appropriate blue link and leave me comments or your thoughts. Till next week to your success. 

DO YOU WANT TO BE RIGHT OR DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY?

Good day and I hope you are doing well this week.  Today I want to explore the saying that “you can either be right or be happy” from the standpoint of the Law of Attraction.  Does there have to be a choice? Where is the line when it comes to your loved ones, your friends, your colleagues? How can you tell what to do? What is better? What if something is really important to you? Do you have to compromise?

You can probably see where I am going to go with this if you are a regular reader of this blog or if you have had experience with The Law of Attraction (LOA).  From The Law of Attraction perspective there is nothing more important than feeling good. There are times in my experiences, specially dealing with my children, that I feel my ego jumps in the way of my happiness and that prevents me from manifesting what I want.

Let’s get into the meat of the matter with a personal example.  If I only concentrate on being right when it comes to dealing with my children, the feelings that are generated are not usually very positive or productive.  Sometimes I justify this because of fear of a physical harm coming to them. At other instances I can’t even tell why I did what I did. I was not present in the moment.  The emotions took over and ran away and I was going by default reacting and letting my “so called reality” dictate my emotional vibration.  When most people are disciplining someone they rarely feel good about the process.  Looking at that from The LOA point of view we can see that when we start to feel negative thoughts, we will start to attract more and more opportunities to keep feeling negative thoughts. The next time you start to feel like you have to make a decision between being right or be happy, explore options to see if you can be happy and bring the other party to see your point of views  by positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement.  It will be difficult at first because we are so used to reacting in times like this. It will take a conscious decision to look outside of the box.  Don’t beat yourself up if you do not recognize the situation at first. Keep on trying and you will get better at it. 

When it comes to disciplining or mentoring, the old cliché that “you can attract more bees with honey than vinegar” is very apt.  Studies have shown that negative reinforcement, even though successful immediately, rarely change behavior long term.  Whereas positive reinforcement very easily, and more effectively  changes long term behavior.  When you are using positive reinforcement you are also feeling good not only about the situation at hand, but also about the fact that you can control your own behavior  and reaction in a situation that normally would evoke emotions that would lead you to spiral into a negative reactionary mood which would emanate negative vibration from you.  That is a big win. So it is extremely important for you to monitor your feelings when you are faced with situations that elicit your ego’s response to being right.  Try to plan ahead if you can anticipate situations that will be bringing to light this dichotomy.  When I take my children to the park or to a restaurant, I have to keep myself ready for times where they may not be acting properly, and when I plan for it, it is much easier to act appropriately as opposed to react to the situation.

When you succeed in working with this concept and practice with this principle you will very quickly realize that you can be both happy and right, however lead with your feelings rather than your thoughts.  Let you heart lead instead of your head.  This is especially difficult if you happen to be in a position of authority and your go to trigger is your mental faculties. It takes some rewiring of your responses.  In the long run it will be more productive and healthier for you and for those you love and work with. 

I hope this blog post was helpful to you.  Please do not forget to leave me comments and share your thoughts on the Facebook Page and / or my Twitter feed so we can benefit from different points of view. As always share this with your friends, and anyone who can benefit from it. Till next week to your success.  

CART BLANCH FOR FAILURE??? I THINK NOT

Good day and I hope you are having a wonderful day. Today I want to go over a topic that was pointed out on the TV series Shark Tank.  This is a lesson that most self-made successful business people learn the hard way. It is a lesson mentors try to drill into the heads of their protégés. Unfortunately like many success principles there seems to be a need for learning through mistakes the hard way.

The point is, one should never mistake persistence, with beating your head on the wall doing the same thing and expecting a different result.  Persistence is a fantastic characteristic. Napoleon Hill said that “persistence is to the character of man what carbon is to steel”,  so there cannot be enough said about persistence.  When you are in an entrepreneurial venture however, and trying to get off the ground, with excitement in your product, you tend to fall in love with your product. Especially if you are really passionate about the product you are involved with. When you make mistakes, that love of your product will prevent you from seeing the forest for the trees.

You have to listen to what the market is telling you. Rely on those cold hard numbers. If you have been selling  and putting money in a product for 2 or more years and the numbers are not showing you a success, or you are spending more money into the business than you are taking out, you need to take a good objective look at your business and decide if you need to change something before moving on, or cut your losses and move on to the next venture, because the market it telling you that it is not in love with your product.  Here the advice of good skilled professional advisers is worth its weight in gold. There is something to be said about marketing.   Marketing is a great skill set that is imperative to any business. I have heard it said a good marketer and a good salesman can sell ice to an Eskimo. Do you want to be in that type of a business though? Numbers  do not lie.  It is a mistake to lose everything you and your supporters have in pursuit of what you “think” is a hot product. The market is what determines the success of your product.  You should always keep your perspective open.

A great advice I have had from many mentors is to get a product I am working on, out into the market as quick as possible, and deal with improvement and fine tuning of the product only when the market proves to me that I am on the right track. That is a hard lesson to learn. I want to put out the best I can possibly make. Perfection however is a life long journey. It is also a good excuse for not taking action.  I can always improve my products, but if I am concentrating on a product that no one is interested in, it does not matter how perfect that product is. I will go broke.  I have made this mistake in real-estate a few times. I was so engaged in the deal that I did not want to admit I made a mistake so I kept on pouring more and more money trying to avoid the fact that I was wrong.  Instead of cutting my losses and moving on to another deal that was truly a winner,  I was stuck in trying and “hoping” to make the deal work.

The other side of the story is that while I may be putting all my energies, and capital  into a losing product, I cannot be concentrating on something else that may be more beneficial to the market as well as to myself.  When my concentration is focused on a losing product, I am blocking the inspiration and flow of the ideas that can become wining products.

Remember that the fourth step of goal setting  as I described in my book Road Map to Life: A real world lesson is coming up with a plan to get what you want. That step may be very vague when you start, but as you take action and receive feedback you need to listen to the feedback and modify your plans accordingly.  Do not give up if you see solutions that can be integrated into your plan of achieving your goal, but at the same time do not keep on doing the same thing over and over if you are not seeing a positive result.  There is something much better waiting for you if your feedback is such.  

It is  a very subtle distinction that we have been discussing here.  Many may feel this is a cart blanch card for GIVING UP. It is not. You know in your heart if you are just giving up or going after something that is not meant for you.  You will learn by practice which is true if you have not experienced it yet. It is a lesson well worth learning early in life. So set goals, and plans. Set them high, and go for it. Learn from mistakes and modify your plans until you succeed. If you are hitting a wall go towards your goals from a completely different stand point. Ask for advice from trusted advisers that have your best interest at heart. You can be what you will to be.

I hope you enjoyed this post. As always I urge you to comment and share your thoughts on my Facebook Page under this blogs thread so we can all learn from each other. Send me a Tweet at my Twitter feed, and share your thoughts. Till next week, to your success. 

THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS

Good day and I hope you are having a great week. Today I want to explore the commonly used cliché that “The end justifies the mean”. The end in NO WAY, justifies the means. This is something most of us have heard at one time or another. I don’t know what the reason is?  I was reading the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and he used a very good example that Communism killed 50 Million people for the concept of a future heaven at the expense of a real present  hell.  From a Law of Attraction (LOA) stand point this insanity makes perfect sense. Living in the present is very important when it comes to using The Law of Attraction (LOA). If your future desires, are dependent on feelings of despair and destruction in the current moment you will never reach your desires. The 2 concepts are so vibrationally apart, that one cannot match the other. When you are in misery and pain or, you are  causing misery and pain, the only thing you will attract into your present is more  misery and pain. There is no reality as I will go through pain and misery now and I will reach a heaven tomorrow.

This is a fallacy that has been touted as truth. This applies to the concept of The end justifies the means as well as many simpler concepts that you may not have even thought about.  For example have you ever been taught that you have to work hard to be successful. No pain no gain. Those things at the time, if used to motivate us and bring on the feeling of pride and achievement are great, however if we are taking them literally the only thing we will be attracting are more hard work and more pain. When an athlete goes through the pain, and suffering to become better at their sport, they are feeling  the exhilaration of working towards success and achieving their goals. They do not concentrating on the pain, otherwise they would not reach their goal. 

So your feeling at the time is extremely important in deciding your future success or failure. The same is true with your finances.  If you think you will be putting yourself in misery by saving now, you will never achieve that financial wealth in the future. You have to change your mindset. You have to keep the mental image of “I am taking control of my finances by budgeting, savings, and then enjoying the wealth. Not “I am going through hardship SO I can enjoy the wealth”.  It extremely important to keep track of your feelings when you are setting goals, setting objectives, and visualizing.

Along with this comes some tools to keep you grounded when stuff pops up. Again I refer to Elkhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now here. He says, “when you are in the Now, THERE IS NO PAIN. There is only situations to  be dealt with or accepted”.  We only by our concepts of past or future,  associate pain or joy to any circumstance.  But if you are in the Now you either do the task and deal with it or accept it. It is your reaction to those situation that determines what you will be attracting more of in your reality. 

I hope this made sense and you enjoyed it. Please feel free to share this with anyone who can benefit from it and do not forget to share your thoughts and comments with me and other readers on my Facebook page and Twitter feed. Till next week as always to your success.