"I think the difference between first and second place is clear intention. Intention is the magical word. When you go to a golf tournament you need to ask yourself, 'What is my intention? Why am I here? Am I here to have a good time, am I here to play a level of golf never seen before, am I here to make the cut, am I here to make some money to pay the bills?' You need to tune that intention to a level that is just slightly out of your reach. That's the secret of really being great. If you lengthen your stride and you even hurt a little bit once in awhile because you're striving for one more level of excellence, your eyes will be opened and you'll gain more intelligence and you'll gain more understanding The players who do that, who become great, are the ones who are willing to take a gamble on a shot where everybody thinks, 'You shouldn't take that gamble. It's safer to go over here.' Then everybody plays safe or they choke into the water. But the player who wins tournaments is the one who's willing to say, 'My intention here is not to play smart, not to play safe, but to win.' My intention is to do what others are not willing to do, and sometimes that equates to a tough shot over water to a tight pin. You can do it. It's in your repertoire, and if you can pull off those shots, that's what makes you win tournaments. A lot of people accidentally win tournaments on the tour. The great champion wins tournaments. He clearly goes out and wins the tournament. People don't say, 'Well, he was lucky. He got a good break. He double-bogied the last hole, and backed in.' You just go out and you win because you have the formula."
~Johnny Miller
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Imagine you were a child, and your parents wanted you to get busy advancing your life along. Move it or lose it! Come on, lazy bones, up and at 'em! School day!
And you wanted something more than a linear life lived along a horizontal plane inching, inching along like an inchworm
Draw a line on a piece of paper. On the left end of your line put a big B for birth. Then at the right end of the line put a big D for death. Then find where you are. How much life is there left? It's scary to live this linear way. It's scary for a human to live like a worm on the horizontal ground crawling on its belly trying to live up to other people's expectations.
Living in a linear way means that life is just one damn thing after another. Soon the wheels start coming off the bus. You are now worming your way across the horizon into old age with a host of new-found fears and worries. Grumpy old man (or woman) is soon the best front you can put up.
But this is the true story of you?
This is life when you buy into the flat-lining linear story. You're born. Things happen. And you die. Tragically. In an untimely way. Because linear life leads to untimely death. How could it be timely? Who would ever say it was really timely?
Living life as a story is not easy. In fact it's somewhat terrifying. So your parents want you to get started quickly. Just hold your nose and jump in. They give you a name. They make it up. It means nothing. But to you it will soon mean everything.
In fact, in one of the motivational seminars on salesmanship I took once the instructor told us that if our sales prospect ever seemed to lose interest in what we were saying, we were to use his name.
"So, Dave, what do you think? Is this a car you would like to be seen in, Dave? Can you picture your family, Dave, watching you drive up and yelling, 'Oh my Goodness---look at what Dave's driving!'"
That is the proven alarm clock for someone hypnotized into their story.
But you can be bigger and better than all that. Have a higher purpose. Have a huge spiritual intention that infuses every little moment. But you've got to mindshift out of the story.
Or as Byron Katie puts it, "If we don't survive our reality on one level, we go to a different level always available to us within ... and we are served always."
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So here's part of an interview I did for an online book review magazine:
Rebecca: When we're children we're all good artists yet once we're grown-ups, we're not! What happens to us?
Steve Chandler: We have talked ourselves into being artless. We have decided that we are no longer powerful and extraordinary and so we have quit. However, with most of us, quitting is eventually too painful to live with. So we find a way to wake up and live again, and create again, and write again, and love again, and paint and sing and dance again and life improves quite beautifully. Life always begins again. Every moment is a fresh moment.
Rebecca: What do you encourage us to do when someone bald-facedly (isn't that a strange phrase!) disagrees with us? When someone gets something wrong, say they've forgotten to fax my Rx to the pharmacy and I really need the medication now, instead of blowing my stack what do you suggest?
Steve Chandler: I suggest you use that occasion to appreciate how much pain that person is living in. Incompetent people are living in a lot of pain. Nasty and irresponsible people are not at all happy with themselves, and they don't know how to fix it. Help them. The more you practice helping them, the more your emotions will be under your control instead of under the control of people who are hurting. Why let your emotions be upset by other people's internal dysfunction? You are not the target. You are never the target.
Rebecca: What on earth is the "Intention Deficit Disorder" you write about and how do I know I've got it and how can I cure myself?
Steve Chandler: It is a lack of direction. It is a lack of purpose. The best thing you can do to cure yourself is to constantly ask yourself, "What is my intention?" Before you go meet with someone, ask yourself what you intend. What would you really like to have the relationship be like?
Rebecca: You suggest that giving comes from someplace other than the heart, where and why?
Steve Chandler: Giving comes from a combination of the mind and spirit. That's why we call our favorite gifts, "thoughtful." We always say, when we are most touched, "That was so thoughtful of you." We never say, "that was so emotional of you." You don't have to wait until you feel like giving to give. That is a crippling superstition brought to you by people who want to sell you your feelings as the primary energy centers of your world. They simply are not. And thinking that they are will lead you to a messed up life. Use your mind and spirit.
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The Coaching Prosperity School that begins in October is starting to fill up...a little early.... they usually fill up in the last month prior to the school when coaches and consultants start to realize they really COULD be making a lot more money if they could get a clue about how others do it. I know some coaches who make five times more than others who are as good as they are. Why? If you want to attend this school and find out, email me at 100Ways@compuserve.com, and I'll send you the two free CDs I have on coaching prosperity.
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