Have a wonderful day!
How To Be A Cause and Not An Effect
Are you a ‘cause’ or an ‘effect’? The more control over your life you have, the more empowered you are. The more empowered you are, the happier and more fulfilled you will be. Therefore, there’s a good reason for discovering how to always operate as a person of “cause” and not one of “effect”.
What I mean by ‘cause’ is a person who realizes that they are in charge of their lives. They take full responsibility for their lives no matter if their results are good or bad. A person in control of their lives has this reflected in their mindset, their thinking and their language.
What I mean by ‘effect’ is a person who claims to be a victim and operates under the illusion of not being in control of their lives. They set up others as the controllers in their lives and give their personal power away unnecessarily.
One of the greatest revelations I’ve had is that when my life wasn’t working, I went in front of the bathroom mirror and said to myself, “Gee, my life sucks right now. But you know what? I made it suck. And because I made it suck, I can make it great again.” By acknowledging that I was in complete control, even when I made my life less than great, it gave me incredible perspective.
Look around you. What’s working in your life? What’s not working yet? Everything is a result of what we thought and did yesterday. Tomorrow will be a result of our thoughts and actions today. What specifically can you do right now to improve an area of your life you’d like to? Write it down and then do it.
Here is a specific example of language and how to detect whether you’re acting as a ‘cause’ in your life or simply an ‘effect’. How do you use cause and effect language? Listen carefully to your language.
Example of someone who is an effect:
“That person makes me feel bad when they look at me like that.”
Yikes! The person speaking the sentence has now painted themselves as a victim by being at the mercy of whoever looks at them. They’ve given up all their control of how to feel to the other person. Now, with a simple look, the other ‘all powerful’ person can make the speaker feel rotten. That’s no good.
Here’s how to rephrase that sentence for the person to acknowledge they are in control:
“When that person looks at me, I choose to feel bad inside.”
The speaker now acknowledges that they are choosing to feel bad. And you know what? When you can choose one way, it means you can choose another way. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Next, the speaker can choose to feel good or at least neutral after recognizing they have a choice. Who in their right mind would decide to feel crummy if they knew they had a choice?
Here’s are a few more ‘effect’ sentences for you to rephrase:
“Whenever he comes home late, he makes me angry at him.”
“Whenever she looks away during our conversation, she frustrates me.”
“When my spouse goes out with their friends without telling me where they’re going, he worries me.”
Ok, you’re job is to rephrase these. If you are using these ‘effect’ phrases in your language, detect them and stop. Listen to others as they speak. Their language gives them away whether they view themselves as in control or as victims. Applying just this one tip has the power to change your life.
Finding Your True Purpose In Life
When you’re on purpose, you’re following your path. Things come to you, you’re in “the flow” of things, and good things happen. If you’re stuck doing something you don’t like, you’re not on purpose. It’s spiritually depressing to be stuck in a rut of a job that taxes you daily.
We weren’t put here on Earth to just slog away at some job we hate until we retire at 65 with the gold watch and die shortly thereafter. When we’re on purpose, we’re fired up and going for it. We jump out of bed and get to go do what we love. Therefore, you can easily see why it’s important to find your true purpose in life and follow it.
Here’s how. Go back to your past. Find what kind of experiences lent themselves to you losing track of time and getting lost in pure bliss. Now, when you can figure out how to make money at that, you’re really onto something. In fact, you’re well on your way to living your dream lifestyle.
Avoid asking yourself immediately how you can make money doing what you love. That may be too difficult a question right now. Instead, ask yourself how you can add value to others’ lives while you do what you love? Go ahead and do this now. How specifically can you add value to other people’s lives while doing what you love? Write the answer down that pops into your mind.
Can you demonstrate it to others for entertainment?
Can you teach it to others to empower their lives?
Can you sell the fruits of your labor by putting it into a product?
Can you consult with others who would willingly pay for your expertise?
Suppose you love to travel. How can you add value to others’ lives while traveling? The key here to keep in mind is that by adding value to others’ lives, you’ll be compensated. Back to the travel example.
You could travel and then create value for others as a result of your travels:
• Write a travel book
• Create a travel review website
• Market a budget travel newsletter
Or you could get a job where a side benefit of your job is to travel.
• Become a roadie for a worldwide concert tour
• Become a pilot or airline attendant
• Work as a buyer for an import/export business
My point is that you can create a lifestyle around your passion and your true purpose. Let me submit myself as an example. My personal mission statement at this time in my life is, “Live my dreams and give back to others in a win/win way.” Pretty straightforward. I asked myself what I could do that was consistent with my personal mission.
And I came to where I’m at now. I create and market information products that serve people and empower their lives. After reading hundreds of books, going to countless seminars, and performing who-knows-how-many exercises on myself, I decided I wanted to help others in the same way. That’s when I founded my business.
My friend relayed to me the story of a guy who just loved to sleep. That’s it. He had nothing that truly fired him up, where his heart burned with passion and eyes glistened with positive emotion. He just loved to sleep. So if he loved to sleep, how could you go fashion a livelihood out of this? In other words, how can this guy serve others by sleeping?
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
• He could create a book on how to get a good night’s rest (Who wouldn’t want to sleep soundly and wake up rested?)
• He could create an audio program to help people sleep easily
• He could find sleep research institutes and volunteer to be a subject for their sleep-related experiments
• He could give talks and radio interviews on how to “powernap” for 20 minutes for an immediate boost in mental clarity and energy
• He could create his own sleep laboratory where he tests different ways of sleeping to find what gives the most restful sleep and then publish the results in a scientific journal
This is just sleep and it’s admittedly a harder subject than others. Your passion is going to be easier to turn into what you do for a living. Recall times in the past when you were happiest. During your day-to-day life now, note when you’re feeling awesome. How can you turn that into what you do?
Mark Twain said, “Happiness is making your vacation your vocation.” I wholeheartedly agree!
Killing Procrastination Instantly
Have you ever had a great idea but did not act upon it? And then later you saw that product or service out in the marketplace, perhaps earning the founder/inventor millions of dollars? Fortunes are lost due to procrastination but that’s not the only reason to kill off procrastination instantly.
Many people procrastinate for a number of reasons: fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, etc. The idea that it’s easier to put something off tomorrow than doing it today is a lazy way of thinking that does not help whoever holds that belief.
Let me first tackle fear of failure. Many people put things off, believing that if they do it later they’ll do it better. Or if they do it later, they won’t fail. But usually the ‘procrastination’ route just leads to not doing it at all. Let me let you in on a little secret that, if you understand it, will change your life. This secret can transform your life if you truly grasp the depth of the simple sentence.
Here goes nothing: There’s no such thing as failure. That’s a million dollars worth of insight right there. (I’ll take a check please…hehehe) The only way to fail is to not even go for it. The people who succeed the most have failed their way to success. The thing to keep in mind is that after each time something doesn’t work to learn from it and adjust accordingly. And then plod on. And keep doing it until you win.
Many people fear success and fear the unknown. I’ll combine the two into one because fear of success is partly based on fear of the unknown. Everybody’s got a comfort zone. That’s a given. And what’s outside our comfort zone is unknown to us. People are habitual creatures and generally don’t want to step outside to the unknown unless they make a conscious, concerted effort. That’s why a lot of people procrastinate.
I’ve told you about procrastination and what it stems from. Friend, I’m not going to leave you hanging without giving you a real, workable solution in how to instantly end procrastination forever.
But first, let me tell you about a dangerous side effect of procrastination. I call it ‘psychic weight’. ‘Psychic weight’ is the weight you feel on your psyche for having a whole lot of things left unfinished that you need to do but are procrastinating on.
An example is prudent here because it will crystallize your understanding of what I’m saying. Suppose you want to go watch a movie with your significant other but you’ve got some household chores left unfinished such as mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, and doing the laundry. While at the movie, it may be harder for you to enjoy the movie if your mind is wandering because you may be thinking about all your unfinished chores back at the house. This is doubly bad. Why? It’s doubly bad because instead of enjoying the movie, you were distracted by the ‘psychic weight’ of your mind gravitating toward your unfinished chores AND when you arrive back at home, you still have to do those same chores that lessened your movie experience!
Now, after you’ve killed the procrastination habit, imagine yourself mowing the lawn immediately, doing the dishes, and finishing up the laundry. You automatically feel a good sense of accomplishment. You joyfully invite your significant other to a movie with the peace of mind that you’re free to enjoy the movie fully. Much better, isn’t it?
If you go to procrastinate, ask yourself, “What’s the ‘psychic wait’ of me putting off this action? What can I gain by immediately doing it right now? How much of a sense of accomplishment will I feel by getting this done right now?” Asking yourself these questions will put you in the mood to ‘Do-It-Now!’
I used to procrastinate, especially when I began working for myself. Instead of doing what was important, I surfed the internet, incessantly read and wrote email, etc. It was junk food for my mind for me when I didn’t discipline myself to do what mattered. Sure, it felt good at the time, like the yummy taste of junk food, but it caught up to me later. Things that I needed to do weren’t getting done.
So how did I kick the procrastination habit? I made a list of things I needed to do for the day and ranked them in order of importance. Then, I did the first thing on the list and stuck with it until complete. Then I moved to the next thing. This alone doubled my productivity. If I didn’t accomplish the first thing on the list, I would just keep going with it as long as it took.
Slow and steady smokes somebody who is a short-term sprinter all day long. Remember that as you run for your goals, you’re in a marathon and not a sprint. Just keep going every day. Remember the Energizer bunny? It just keeps going and going, right? Well, you and I can do the same thing. Just keep plugging away.
Adopt this belief as your own: “Action is always better than no action”. When you take action, the best case scenario is that you get your result immediately and you are very satisfied. The worst case scenario is that you don’t get your result but you do learn something for the next time. The problem with ‘no action’ is that you don’t learn anything if you haven’t done anything.
Creating An Attitude of Gratitude
Gratitude is important in our lives because when we are grateful for what we have, we’ll attract more abundance in our lives. Furthermore, we’ll feel more fulfilled and happy with our lives when we are grateful for what we have.
Meanwhile, someone who is ungrateful will perceive a lack. There will be a void in their lives. To lead a truly rich life, each of us needs a sense of gratitude. You get my point.
One way I’ve discovered to be more grateful and in turn create a more fulfilling life for myself is by “counting my blessings”. Basically, this means that as I begin each day, I mentally go through a list of things I’m grateful for. They range from my relationships to my personality characteristics to my career to my material goods. I just go down the list and go into a state of utter appreciation for each positive thing going on in my life.
As you can see, this is easy to do. And it really works. Having an attitude of gratitude will enrich your life in more ways than you can imagine. Don’t take my word for it, though. Prove it to yourself by taking a week and practicing the technique every day as you get up. As you do this, it will become easier. Another neat benefit you’ll receive is that you’ll find more and more things to be grateful for and your sense of appreciation will increase.
Another method for creating gratitude is to volunteer your time for others. Help those out who are less fortunate than you. It will make you feel good and you’ll get a sense of how much you really do have which you may or may not notice through your day to day life.
On occasion, though not as often as I’d like, I go downtown and find some homeless people standing outside the shelters and offer to buy them a simple fast food dinner. I take a small group of them to the local fast food restaurant and buy them some burgers. When I chat with them, it’s interesting to understand their points of view and get acquainted with them. They get a free meal and I get a sense of gratitude for all I have as well as a feeling that I helped someone else out a little bit.
So the next free moment you get, you might stop and ask yourself what you’re thankful for. It’ll serve you well.
Getting Whatever You Want
In this article, you’ll discover how to get whatever you want. I’m going to give you specific principles that, when applied, cause near miraculous results in your life. After you become very clear in what you want, you can go after it in an all-out manner.
For whatever you want, it’s going to come from someone or someplace else. Think about that right now. You want more money? It’s going to come from your company, your customers, your clients, or whomever. You want more love? It’s going to come from your parents, your significant other, your kids, etc. You want more appreciation? It’s going to come from your co-workers, your boss, your significant other, your peers, etc. No matter what you want, it’s going to come from someone or someplace else.
Since whatever you want originates elsewhere, first figure out how to give it first. Here’s one of my top rules:
“You go first!”
If you want love, give it first. Friendship? Give it first. Money? Give it first. There are two principles at work that guarantee that you’ll receive whatever you want back. They are the rules of reciprocity and of equality.
The first rule of reciprocity is why two friends will fight over who “gets” to pay the bill after their mutual lunch together. If all people are dialed into the radio station WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?), then it doesn’t make sense that a person would voluntarily want to pay for lunch. The reason the two friends fight over who pays for lunch is because of a deeper principle at work: the one of reciprocity.
Reciprocity at work is simply the rule “Do not take without giving back. Always give back for what you take.” We’ve had this rule ingrained in us since we were little kids.
Now how can you use reciprocity to get whatever you want? Find someone that you want something from. Then genuinely serve them by giving to them freely. Help them out however they need help.
Let’s say I want to increase my business and I want to partner with Alex who is doing a lot more business than me. I could go to Alex and say, “Hey, would you mind selling my product? It will make you some money.” Alex likely has no interest in promoting my product as a result of WIIFM. Consequently, what I can do is first ask myself, “In what way can I help Alex and increase his business?”
I take the answer to that question and go do it. I help Alex out and increase his business. He likes it and I’ve made a favorable impression on him. Now, if I were to pop the question of asking him to help me out promoting my products, he’ll be MUCH more likely. Reciprocity is why. He received and now he’s going to give back.
The second rule of why “going first” to get whatever you want works is equality. To me, the universe balances everything out. If someone consistently gives and gives some more, then they’ll receive. If they give out of their hearts without expectation, the universe goes to work to assure they receive equivalent or greater benefit in the future. I invite you to adopt the belief that you’re a giver and that you’re receiving is a result of your practice of giving.
Another way to get whatever you want is to practice “risk-reversal”. In marketing, this is offering a guarantee on the products so that you can overcome a prospect’s innate aversion to “taking a risk” and buying the product. People don’t want to be burned so they are cautious. With a guarantee, the risk is no longer on the buyer. The guarantee permits the customer to send the product back if the product does not meet their needs. The risk has shifted from the customer to the vendor. The vendor takes all the risk. The customer does not have any.
By reversing this risk, more sales are made and the customer and vendor are both satisfied. How can you apply “risk-reversal” in your life to get whatever you want? Let me demonstrate by the example of Napoleon Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich”.
Napoleon Hill chose his future employer right out of college although his future employer didn’t know that. Napoleon Hill just decided to work where he wanted. Here’s how he got the job. He went to the employer and essentially said, “Let me work for you for two weeks and I’ll pay you for the opportunity. Let what I pay you be drawn against my future earnings. At the end of two weeks, if you don’t like me, I’ll leave. If you like me, you hire me at the rate I’m paying you for the opportunity to show myself.”
Lo and behold, the employer jumped at this idea. Two weeks later, Napoleon Hill had the job he had set out to get. Why did this work? It worked because Napoleon Hill overcame the employer’s reluctance to hire a new, unproven kid right out of college. View it from the employer’s perspective. He had a risk-free offer. He either got a super employee after two weeks or he got a kid to pay him two weeks of wages and two weeks of FREE labor. For him, it was totally “Risk-FREE”. How can you apply “risk-reversal” in your life to get more of what you want?
Here’s in a nutshell what to do to get whatever you want:
1. You Go First
2. Use Reciprocity
3. Reverse the Risk
The Lost Art of Planning
“Failing to plan is like planning to fail”. I’m not sure who said it and yet it’s a great quote. Many people plan their vacations more than they plan the lifestyles they’re living. A lot of people have a mixture of influences from friends, relatives, and others who shape their lifestyles. They end up leading what I term “accidental lifestyles” or “lifestyles by default.”
What if we could plan our dream lives? Friend, I’ve got good news for you. We can! There are no rules in this lifetime. None. You can live your life on your own terms. How to get there is by planning. Planning and then taking massive, immediate, repeated action until you get what you want. See the article on “Mastering the action habit” for the bit about taking action.
This article we’re going to focus on planning using the E.V.A. formula. I’m going to give you a step by step procedure. A few of you will take this information and apply it and thus put yourself on the fast track to your dream lifestyle. Unfortunately, statistics say that many of you who read this article won’t apply it. I personally hope you’re one of the few that does!
Onward. The first step for making your plan is to decide what you want. This is your “End Result.” How do you want to live? Where do you want to vacation? What’s your dream house look like? Imagine yourself driving your dream car. What kind is it? Keep going and vividly make this real in your mind. After you decide what you want, you have to have a vehicle to get there. This is the second part of the E.V.A. planning formula.
Your vehicle is what specifically is going to allow you to get your dream lifestyle. This could be your career, your job, your part-time business, or your own full time business. Know where you’re at now too. This is point A. You’ve already established where you want to be, point B. Your vehicle is the mechanism that will drive you from point A (now) to point B (your dream lifestyle).
So figure out the specific vehicle you’re going to use to get you where you want. Ideally, it will be something that you enjoy doing. You could travel from where you live across the United States in a used Yugo or a brand new Mercedes Benz. Both will get you there. It’s up to you to decide how much you want to enjoy the ride.
After you have decided on what specific vehicle you’ll use to get you to your dream lifestyle, go 1000% all out firing on all cylinders going into hyper-speed warp drive after what you want. Avoid hesitating. If what you do is getting you where you want to go, good. If not, adjust. Back up. Make new plans. Take even more action. Of course, this is the third part of the E.V.A. formula: action. The more of it you take, the sooner you’ll get what you want.
Another thing about designing your own life is to go through and write down what you value and what you don’t. Rank your values, in order of their respective importance in your life. Write out your own personal code of conduct and your mission statement. Then stick to it. If things change, change things on what you’ve written. Writing things down forces you to get clear and specific about who you are and what you’re about. It further affirms to your unconscious mind to behave in the manner that you desire.
Here’s a recap of the E.V.A. formula:
End Result
Vehicle
Action
Go for it! Nothing’s stopping you!
The Two Most Important Words To Your Development
In this article, I’m going to explain to you the two most important words to your development. Your development means achieving your goals and developing yourself in all areas of your life. You will benefit from these words by integrating them into your vocabulary and applying them.
The first word is “start”. To reach the end, you have to have a beginning. Start things up. Let me tell you something you probably already know but maybe hadn’t thought about really consciously until now. There is no perfect time to start something. So why wait? There’s no reason. Many people describe their goals as “When I…X” or “When X happens” where “X” is the condition they’re waiting on and will continue to wait on.
Just get up and running. If you want to do something well, it’s worth doing badly at first. It’s the way we all learn. My philosophy is to just start up and go for it. When I take one step, the next step will be revealed to me. Sure, I may not know what the heck I’m doing and yet I believe in myself enough to figure it out. If I don’t know what to do, I have the second most important word to lean on, which I’ll describe later in this article. Just take one step. Promise yourself to take one small action every day.
Again, there won’t be any perfect time. Shoot, I can wait years for the stars to align, for the ocean tide to be high, for my astrological sign to be aligned with the moons of Jupiter and so on and so forth until I get the right “sign” to begin. But meanwhile, I’m burning up my most precious commodity; my time.
When you burn up your time, it’s like you’re taking the present that the Universe/God/The Great Spirit is giving you and slapping it away. And you can never get it back. My point is to just start doing something. Do it badly if you must and just say, “Hey, I’m going to find out some of the ways this won’t work and when I run out of ways it won’t work, I’m going to succeed.” It’s true. Run out of ways NOT to succeed and you’re bound for success.
Think about something you do incredibly well now. This could be at your job, at home, with your hobby, with your family, or in sports. At some point in your past, you probably weren’t as good as you are now, are you? You may have even been downright rotten. What happened? You kept at it and you got better and now you’re successful at it. See friend, this part of the article is not groundbreaking. I’m just reminding you, “Hey, remember when you didn’t do something well but now you do? Well, anything you want to do well now but aren’t so red hot at is just the same experience repeated.”
You’ve got all the resources in you to do it. This is undeniably true. You’ve been less-than-excellent in the past and now you are excellent at something. You learned one skill which means you can do it again, now. And I do mean right now! Not tomorrow, not the next day. Now, now, now, now. You get the drift of what I’m saying, don’t you?
So after you get up and running, you may run into snags. Snags are obstacles you meet on your journey to success. Still, I commend you for using the first word “start” to get rolling.
Ask for help early and often. For whatever you want to do, achieve, or solve, there is someone or something out there who not only knows how to help you but who WANTS to help you too! They may have already handled this challenge you’re facing. Stubborn pride cost me a lot because I wouldn’t ask for help from others in the past. I thought I had to do it all alone. Meanwhile, I wasted time fumbling around while another person could have immediately helped me.
Any worthwhile pursuit will have snags along the way. So get help when you find them. Defeat the snag and move on to bigger and better things. And when you get help, pass along your expertise too to others so that everyone benefits.
There you go. ‘Start’ and ‘help’ are the two words that will put you on the path to achieving your every goal and living the life of your dreams. Congratulations. As you imagine leading your dream lifestyle, you can picture it now so clearly, and tell yourself inside how great a job you did, as you feel wonderful with this powerful sense of achievement…you can remind yourself that you did it because you got started and you asked for help along the way.
BANABU!!!!!!!
Fran
