Passion vs. Aggression

Passion and aggression are not the same. People who blaze trails in a particular field are called “rainmakers” – the idea being that they have some special dispensation to deliver extraordinary results upon command and especially under pressure. We assume it is their aggression that produces the consistent results we see. But, the discerning eye reveals that what appears to be aggression is actually passion – or a deep, abiding love for their craft. Aggression seeks to force a thing into being; that type of creation cannot last. But, passion loves a thing into being; that type of creation stands forever.

Take a moment to reflect on your dreams. What is your approach toward your deepest desires? Are you attempting to force them into being? Or, are you loving them into existence? There is a difference. That which you love into existence has unshakable staying power.

Spiritual Treatment: I inject everything I do with a spirit of passion and love.

Spiritual Treatment: Works Like an Antibiotic

The word treatment is a perfect word because spiritual treatments work like an antibiotic. Just as you have medicine for the physical body, there is medicine for the mental body (or the mind). And, that medicine is the spiritual treatment.

You use spiritual treatment in the same way that you use antibiotics. When an infection first occurs, you begin taking an antibiotic. As the infection retreats, you continue taking the antibiotic. Any doctor will tell you that you should continue taking the antibiotic even after the physical symptoms of an infection have disappeared. In other words, you must finish your course of antibiotics even if the physical symptoms have disappeared. And the reasoning: you want to prevent a recurrence. 

The same principle applies to the use of a spiritual treatment. If you are treating for financial lack, you do not stop the treatment once the outward signs of financial lack have disappeared. Instead, you continue the spiritual treatment until it roots itself in your mind. The time it takes for a spiritual treatment to root itself within your mind varies from person to person. In general, your spiritual treatment has run its course when it ceases to evoke an emotional response from you.

Most doctors will give you a set of conditions or rules for taking your antibiotic: three times a day with food or drink a full glass of water after taking the pill or do not take after 9:00pm. You want to be just as regimented when applying your spiritual treatment. 1) Choose a time and space that you can commit to on a daily basis, and during which you will not be interrupted. I prefer to apply my spiritual treatment when I first wake up and before I go to sleep. 2) Be disciplined in your approach. If you are likely to forget to apply your mental medicine, develop reminders for yourself that you will adhere to. 3) Make no excuses. Only you can apply this mental medicine to your mind. No one else can do it for.

A colleague once taught me the valuable lesson of creating non-negotiables in my life. One morning, I was hiking down a hill when I bumped into her running up the same hill. She was many years older than I am. So, I was amazed that she was running uphill, while I was huffing and puffing walking downhill. I asked her how she did it. She told me that running for her was a non-negotiable. Before she did anything in her day, she put on her running shoes and workout clothes and she headed for the mountain that we were on that day. Exercising for her was just like brushing her teeth – it was a non-negotiable. She’d never think of leaving the house without brushing her teeth and she’d never think of starting her day without doing her run uphill.

I walked away from that experience changed. Now, when I want to do a thing in my life, I turn it into a non-negotiable. I encourage you to make spiritual treatments a non-negotiable in your life. You have virtual treasure in your mind. Spiritual treatments can unlock that treasure for you.

Go ahead. Give it shot and hit me back to let me know how it worked for you.

Affirmations 101: Focus On Thinking

Affirmations and denials DO NOT change conditions; they change your thoughts about conditions.

Focus on Your Thinking

If you have a new product to launch, but your product has not yet found its audience. What you say – good or bad – about your lack of sales does not change the fact that you do not have sales. You may affirm, “I have plenty of sales! I have more sales than I can imagine possible! Everyone wants to purchase my product now!” Or you may openly express your frustration: “No one is paying attention to my efforts. I will never get this product adopted by a big enough market to earn me any money.”

Neither of these statements changes the fact that you do not have sales. But, these statements DO influence what you think about your lack of sales. And what you think about your lack of sales determines the ultimate outcome. Your words – positive or negative – DO NOT change your experience; rather, they change what you think about your experience.

This distinction in the application of affirmations and denials may seem nitpicky but understanding the mechanics of how change happens is key to living and creating deliberately.

Our lives unfold from the inside out. The words you speak change your life only to the degree that those words influence your thinking. Positive words spoken to a negative condition only work when there is a corresponding change in your mind.

No change in mind = No change in experience

Nearly everyone can site one experience wherein they made an affirmation and immediately saw a result. But the permanency of that result depended upon whether the underlying thinking was adjusted. Our affirmations and denials produce temporary results when we merely work it on the outside, rather than where it really counts on the inside.

A change in mind = A change in thinking

Thoughts are things and they occupy “space” in the mind. When properly applied, affirmations and denials remove old, weak, inefficient thoughts and replace them with new and better thoughts. A mental house cleaning is even more necessary than a physical one, for the outer is always a reflection of the inner.

The most important element to grasp about affirmations and denials is that, first and foremost, they are mental processes. Because our lives are so outwardly oriented, our first instinct is to focus upon outer behavior. We develop rules – “if you speak your affirmations for 21 days, you create a new habit.” When that does not work, we say, “well, what you really needed to do was speak it 21 times per day for 21 days.” Someone else will come along and say, “No, you have to write and speak them 21 times per day for 21 days.” Yet another will say, “21 is not enough, you need 40 days because 40 is the number of spiritual completion.” And, so it goes.

It matters not whether you speak them, hum them, sing them or dance them. Words spoken without the corresponding mental attitude produce no results. Outward behavior is always secondary to inner thinking. Adjust your mental attitude first.

A change in thinking = A change in experience

Now, it is your turn. Can you see a usefulness to focusing your affirmations and denials on your thinking rather than on your outward experience? Do you think this adjustment will make the difference in how you are using affirmations and denials? What other distinctions have you observed that make the difference between affirmations and denials that work and those that do not work?

Affirmations 101: Denials – Your Mental Stain Remover

Your mind is the starting point for change. Change your mind – change your life.

In Part I of Affirmations 101, we said that before you affirm what you do want, you must deny what you do not want. Affirmations and denials are tools for deliberately building your mind. Denials prep your mind for affirmations. They dissolve negative beliefs, thereby creating room in your mind for positive affirmations of abundance.

Before we explore what denials are, let us get clear on what denials are not.

• Denials are not a way of focusing on what you do not want. Using denials will not interfere with you attracting what you want. The essence of a denial is its dissolving power. Its very nature will not allow you to hold onto any condition that you do not want. Instead of focusing you upon a specific form, denials withdraw your attention from the belief behind any undesired form.

• Denials are not your excuse to live in denial. They are not a sophisticated form of sticking your head in the sand about the undesired problems in your life. To the casual observer, it may appear that denials are a way of “pretending” that a bad condition does not exist. But the skilled thinker knows that as long as you live in mental contact with any undesirable condition, you recognize its place and therefore give it license to be in your experience. Denials sever mental contact.

• Denials are not applied to physical conditions. All causes are mental. Denials are your opportunity to speak the truth to the false beliefs that stand under the experiences you no longer want. True denial targets negative beliefs, not negative things. Always deny the mental cause.

This is NOT how denials work!

I Am Unlimited!

One of my favorite authors is Emmet Fox. If you have not read Fox yet, I highly suggest picking up any one of his books. If you are looking for a recommendation, I strongly advise reading “The Mental Equivalent.” It is unparalleled in its ability to motivate you to action. And, it is short!

That said, let me share with you a quote from another Fox book, “Inconsistencies Made Clear” that I just ran across. Fox writes “Those who are perplexed by the difficulties and seeming inconsistencies of life should remember that at the present time we get only a partial view of things; and that a partial view of anything never shows the thing as it really is.”

This quote stood out for me because I have a few areas in my life that I am not 100% happy with. Fox’s words remind me that the things I see in my life right now are but a picture. More importantly, it is a picture that can and will change. No matter what my life looks like right now, it is only a picture of the ideas I have held most fervently in mind. If I change the ideas I hold steadily in mind, the picture must change.

At any rate, that passage motivated me to write a few affirmations to post on the walls in my bedroom and bathroom. As I was posting them, it occurred to me that you might find them helpful as well. So, I am posting them below for you to use as you see fit. Enjoy!

• I am unlimited in my power and I have increasing health, strength, life, love, wisdom, boldness, freedom, charity and meekness now and forever.

• I am unlimited in my power. Whatever I can accomplish today is but a small reflection of what I am truly able to accomplish. There is no end to my ability – no end to my capacity to do whatever I will to do.

• I adjust my thinking to reflect the unlimited nature of my power.

• Daily, I expand my understanding of what is possible for me. I throw off old beliefs that hold me back; and, I willingly embrace new beliefs that agree with my unlimited power. The result: my world continually gets better and better.

Now, it is your turn. Will you share affirmations that work for you? How do you remind yourself that you are unlimited?

From Good to Great

There is a difference between being just good and being really great.

Think about the things you are good at. Now, take that image of what you do well and imagine yourself as the ABSOLUTE BEST at it. When people speak of you, they use words like “legendary,” “once-in-a-lifetime,” and “transcendent” to describe your talent. You become the benchmark for excellence. And, when others enter the same field, they study your style, your technique, your choices. They want to understand how it is that you do what you do.

Do you know the real difference between just being good and being really great? Enthusiasm. The real difference between good and great is enthusiasm. Seems simple, right? Genius – or greatness – is the accumulated enthusiasm of the individual in some chosen field. The difference between you now and you as the greatest at what you do is the amount of accumulated enthusiasm you have for what you do.

Consider two football teams playing for a title. Perhaps they came to the Super Bowl with the same number of wins in the regular season. Or, perhaps both were undefeated. However they match up, only one will win the title, Super Bowl Champion.

Talent gets you a shot at the title. But, enthusiasm determines whether you take home the Super Bowl ring.

Another word for enthusiasm is heart.

Talent is not the determining factor for success. Many predicted that the Indianapolis Colts would win yesterday’s game. Talent only tells you where success can happen. Enthusiasm – or heart – determines whether success will happen. Heart determines whether you go home the winner or the runner-up. The New Orleans Saints proved that.

Heart determines whether you will be merely good or the absolute best.

What do you have the heart to be the absolute best at? Post a comment below to let everyone know where you are ready to marry heart + talent.

The Urge Toward Wealth

Wouldn’t it be great to instill in myself the urge toward wealth? What if I instinctually made choices every day that propelled me toward a complete and total wealth experience?

Take your choice

There are many things that I instinctually do. I instinctually brush my teeth everyday. I instinctually bathe and clothe myself everyday. I instinctually eat healthy food everyday.

These are all very good habits. But, what about those habits that are not so good? Hmmm…let’s see…one of my favorite indulgences is Diet Dr. Pepper. Recently, I realized that when I get in my car, I instinctually feel the urge to stop by a convenience store and buy a Diet Dr. Pepper. It doesn’t matter how far I’m going or where I’m going. Whenever I get in the car, I feel that urge and I often act on it.

I first noticed this compulsion (and that’s the best way I know how to describe it: a compulsion) after I followed David Bach’s advice and identified my latte factor. To avoid embarrassment, I won’t reveal the size of my latte factor. But, let’s just say, my latte factor gives me more than enough cash to play the stock market daily.

Where did I pick up this habit? How long have I been compulsively buying Diet Dr. Peppers whenever I get in my car?

As a child, we didn’t keep unhealthy snacks in the house. My mom was adamant about only keeping fruit and other healthy items in the house. But, as a treat, she would stop by the local convenience store and allow us to buy a soda or other treat on our way home from school.

Twenty+ years later, I instinctually buy “a treat” from the local convenience store. I don’t keep snacks in the house but every time I get in my car, I allow myself “a treat.” Over the years, the “treat” has changed. It’s gone from a bag of M&Ms to chips to granola bars to sodas to diet sodas. But, while the treats are healthier, I still get “a treat” every time.

Excuse me, but can you push me out of my own way?

The other day, I had the good fortune to connect with a dear friend that I had not spoken with in a while. I always feel so good when I spend time with my friends. I am convinced that our best moments in life are spent in the company of people that we love.

We chatted lightly for a while about many things – men, family, children, politics, career – you know, the usual girl stuff. Before we got off the phone, my friend shared with me some distress she was feeling about an area of her life that just wasn’t working out the way she wanted. She felt “absolutely disgusted” with her health. The sound of her voice communicated just how frustrated she had become toward her years-long effort to lose weight. I had been there with her through several failed diet attempts, so I knew first-hand the personal dissatisfaction she felt. One more time her personal effort failed to yield a desirable result. Getting a handle on this area of her life seemed to fall just beyond her grasp. As she relayed her unhappiness, the sense of despair oozed from her voice.

I felt compassion for her. I wished that I could do something to make this challenge go away. What I would not give to be Elizabeth Montgomery from “Bewitched” at that moment?! With a twitch of my nose, I could make any problem go away. (Okay, I’m telling my age…how about Alyssa Milano from “Charmed?”)

Anyway, I encouraged her to stay persistent. “Don’t give up,” I told her. “Your past disappointments are no predictor of your future successes.” But, I knew she wanted solutions. Positive words only reminded her that her personal goal had not yet been attained. Eventually, we ended the conversation. I am not sure I said anything that made a difference, but I remained cheerful and upbeat.

Later that night, I thought about my friend. I know that level of exasperation. I have faced recurrent challenges in my own life where no solution seemed forthcoming. Have you felt this kind of disappointment? Have you ever worked at a stubborn problem for so long that a breakthrough seemed highly unlikely? You hoped for a change but nothing you have tried so far has worked and you have become discouraged.

Is this ever going to yield results I want?