It was J.B. Matthews who wrote, “Unless a person has trained him or herself for their chance, the chance will only make them look ridiculous.  A great occasion is worth to a person exactly what their preparation enables them to make of it.”

Any winner will be quick to tell you that preparation is the key to success in any endeavor.  You should make up your mind to become so good, so competent at what you are doing you will actually force opportunities to come your way.

Take a serious look at your industry and ask yourself where you think your industry will be insofar as growth is concerned over the next ten years.  If you can see no limit to the growth of your industry, then it is only reasonable to say there is no limit to your own opportunity for growth within your industry in the same time frame.

There are people in your industry that can write their own ticket. They have developed something inside that expressed itself through their behavior.  It is called confidence.  They are affecting life in their industry rather than just being affected by it.  They take thirty minutes or so every day to think of how they can put more into their job, how to be more creative, to provide a greater service.  Rather than just giving their time, they give all they’ve got.

In a period of five years or less, you can become an acknowledged expert in your particular industry.  Surveys indicate that the great majority of people look at their job as being as far as they will go.  They should realize that an expanding, dynamic industry not only needs but seeks the uncommon person to share in its growth and will richly reward the person of vision and action.

Give everything you’ve got for the next ninety days.  Your industry will give you everything you want for the rest of your life.

Will Smith has such a dedication to creating his own reality, it really is an inspiration. His clarity of mind and purpose seem to create their own mini universe of reality and possibility. Take a listen as Will talks about life, parenting and his son’s latest move “The Karate Kid” starring Jayden Smith and Jackie Chan (also a fan of his too).

Listen to the definitiveness of his voice and mind about his world. A mind like that HAS to achieve.

In the 2nd video there’s discussion around Rich Dad, Poor Dad and mindset.

In the final video, my favorite part of the video, listen to the discussion on intent at the end.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

I know everyone says small things make a big difference, but how big? Brian Tracy says if we improve 1% a day, we will be 1000% better in a year! Everyone is looking for a magic bullet to change their life. It doesn’t work that way. It’s the little things that add up. I got this email from a friend and thought I should share it.

I used to be a banker/notary for (a bank), and we had the TV permanently set on CNN (or one of those news chanels…dunno which one.)  The TVs were located next to the line for the teller windows…kinda used as a distraction so people wouldn’t be dwelling on how long they sometimes had to wait.  There were no TVs in the lobby where people waited for bankers.  I noticed that the customer survey scores for the tellers didn’t match the scores of the bankers.  They were considerably lower.  From my desk, I could see the TV, and sometimes found myself watching it while waiting for my computer to load things.  I was watching the news and reading the subtitles.  It was showing pics of some disastor, showing dead bodies, and generally not making America seem like a very good place to live.  It showed one bad thing after another.  And then, just in case we had missed what it said earlier, it repeated it.  Again, and again, and again.  I had enough.  I went upstairs and changed the chanel to the Food Network!  (Figured there wouldn’t be any cussing or anything, and would be acceptable for all ages.)  Guess what!!  The customer survey scores drastically changed.  In a very positive way!!  And instead of customers talking in line about how “crappy” our world is, they were bringing an extra deposit slip with them to write down recipes on the back.

Isn’t it amazing what our minds absorb?  And our reaction to different things?

I gave up TV over 10 years ago. Its not that I don’t watch it. Its just not a habit every day. I just choose WHAT I WATCH and WHEN I WATCH IT. I record everything and maybe once every other week watch for 30 minutes. I skip the advertisements and in general, only watch comedies. After a year my friends all noticed how much happier I seemed. I also got more done because I wasn’t in front of the TV.

What small thing could you do to change your life?

I can clearly remember when APECO, American Photo Copy Equipment Company dominated the photocopy market.  APECO was a giant; they were successfully selling their photocopiers in 152 countries.  In fact, they were the first to bring a photocopier into the office environment.  A piece of equipment which, today, is almost a necessity in every office.

Meanwhile a gentleman from Rochester, New York was looking for a way to make a piece of equipment that would turn out a better copy.  Since that is what Chester Carelson was looking for, that is exactly what he found.  Today, everyone around the world recognizes Xerox and hardly anyone remembers APECO, because they have vanished.

The marketplace is very fickle.  When you present a better or more efficient product, the people go with it.  That’s progress.

The poet Braely penned this:

For the best verse hasn’t been rhymed yet.

The best house hasn’t been planned.

The highest peak hasn’t been climbed yet.

The mightiest rivers aren’t spanned.

Don’t worry and fret, faint hearted.

The chances have just begun.

For the best jobs haven’t been started.

The best work hasn’t been done.

Invest a few minutes today and every day thinking of ways to do whatever you are doing better.  You could be doing your job well, you might even be the best, but I can assure you there is always a Chester Carelson lurking in the wings.  Keep doing what you did to win.  Keep improving what you are doing.

I quote, “Every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity”.
How can you apply his advice in a practical manner to today?

Every bondman
- what does he mean?  Every person who feels they are in bondage in any way … who feels trapped by circumstances … who seems bound to failure, poverty, sickness … who seems held back from what would make their life complete and good.

Every bondman bears in his own hand
- that is he possesses, he has within himself the power to
cancel
or get rid of his captivity, his seeming bondage.

You can be free.  You have the power within you to remove the shackles, which bind you.

Paul Carus wrote in The Gospel of Buddha, People are in bondage, because they have not removed the idea of ‘I’.

Leland Val Van De Wall wrote, “Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness”.

The only power our problems can have over us is the power we give to them.  As Emerson wrote, “The only thing that can grow is the thing we give energy to”.

If you are in bondage, held captive by problems, you have the power in your own hands to set yourself free.  You are the only one who can set you free.

Shakespeare said it, I believe it and that settles it … for me.

Quite a few of you asked why my face looked different this week, as if I was more relaxed.

I have been meditating daily for about 10 years now and have done many types of meditation. Some have worked better than others. I just found one recently that is more powerful than any other I have found. It feels like I can “connect” far quicker and deeper. Maybe because there is a science behind it. Maybe because it is the most holistic method I have found. Either way, it has had a profound impact on me in only 3-4 days!

I would love to try this meditation in a group.

You should really check it out
http://bit.ly/coreenergymeditation

I’m not saying all science is necessarily wrong but I’m always exploring new research that just might prove that some of the things we take for granted my not be right. I get excited by the possibility that there are new ways to look at things. It is only when we challenge the old that we can up come with something completely new.

This video is about understanding that some of the things science assumes are false may actually be true. If that is the case, the possibility for all sorts of new ideas and inventions could be just around the corner.

Here is a frank discussion with Bob Proctor from The Secret. He is talking about going Beyond The Secret. If you only have part of the puzzle, you can’t get the whole picture. Bob explains more….

See my previous post on Beyond The Secret

Don’t forget that our children are the foundation of our future and a VERY easily influenced by TV, Movies, Heroes and peers. So it makes sense to have a show that is both educational and entertaining. I have had the privelidge to hear some of the preliminary work and this is THE BEST mindset training I have seen for kids. Check it out…..

http://www.supernuffs.com/

http://karing4u.blogspot.com/2008/09/freeing-yourself-from-your-mind.html

Excerpt from The Power of Now – By Eckhart Tolle

Watching the Thinker
When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my head,” he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues.

You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or “mental movies.” Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.

The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by “watching the thinker,” which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.

When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You’ll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence – your deeper self – behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream – a gap of “no-mind.” At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a certain stillness and peace inside you. This is the beginning of your natural state of felt oneness with Being, which is usually obscured by the mind. With practice, the sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. You will also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being.

It is not a trancelike state. Not at all. There is no loss of consciousness here. The opposite is the case. If the price of peace were a lowering of your consciousness, and the price of stillness a lack of vitality and alertness, then they would not be worth having. In this state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake than in the mind-identified state. You are fully present. It also raises the vibrational frequency of the energy field that gives life to the physical body.

As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, as it is sometimes called in the East, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as “your self.” That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you. What I am trying to convey here may sound paradoxical or even contradictory, but there is no other way that I can express it.

Instead of “watching the thinker,” you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash your hands, pay attention to all the sense perceptions associated with the activity: the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap, and so on. Or when you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.