iMindShift with Steve Chandler

Why not live to be 113?

I am fascinated by this guy. In the upcoming newsletter I write for club members called WHO IS FEARLESS IN THIS WORLD? I include this man, Walter Breuning. He is 113!
 
    There was a time when I only wanted to live to be 100. I planned all the books I could write between now and then. It was a great picture. Now I read about this guy and I start thinking about what I could do with those extra 13 years!
 
    For example, I have committed to a contract to do 12 Robert Chance mysteries. The second one in the series is coming out in June, and I'll be doing one every six months thereafter. If I had an extra 13 years I could use that time to do a 26-book series! (And I do have a concept for it. A ninety year old martial artist who becomes champion of the world by learning secrets of Zen combat from her 120-year-old coach in China ((a character based on myself!)). She'll be an amazing heroine.)

 Anyway. Walter Breuning!
 
    "Life begins each morning, no matter whether we have succeeded or failed, or just muddled along," he said. Breuning said evidence of God can be seen everywhere, playing with children, in the clouds or flowers, or waving his hands in trees.
 
    Breuning urged people in the world to show more fellowship, forgiveness and gentleness. He commented that life is a school, and people should learn from it. Breuning, born in 1896, offered his words in a strong voice that was easy to hear.
 
    The retired railroad clerk said he believes life is intended "for instruction and discipline."
 
    One of the seventeen lies is "I'm too old for that!" There are people in their fifties today who think they are old!
 
    We are exactly as old as we think we are.  Everything is a creation.

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   You are never too old (or too young) to become fearless and make the choice to transform uncertainty into new possibilities. Instead of cowering down to the apparent economy, why not turn up the courage and creativity and instead choose to boldly create a new economy? 

I will speaking LIVE along with Darby Checketts and Stephen McGhee at a public event called Thriving in The New Economy on Saturday, November 14, 2009 in Salt Lake City, UT. It will be a powerful day of empowerment, self reliance and creation.  Even though the event is in Utah, people are flying in from all over the country for this transformational event and rare public appearance. Visit www.ThriveInUtah.com for more details.

Do you want to be a public speaker?

     How do you become a public speaker? You go to Craig Zablocki's boot camp! I met Craig in Denver when I was up there speaking at one of Stephen McGhee's fabulous workshops. Craig is a dynamic public speaker (and a rather effective improvisational blues singer!) 

     I sang with him, laughed with him and connected to his passion and magic. I went to his website and saw clips of him speaking, and he's great. And funny. And always booked solid. His website is www.craigzablocki.com.

     And now he's putting on a boot camp for people who want to become public speakers, and please check it out here: http://www.craigzablocki.com/boot_camp_2009.htm.

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     I was reading a book (and I remember avidly, voraciously) and I was reading a book by Napoleon Hill. And inside it he said, "I wanted to be a public speaker--I didn't know how to start, so I decided to give some free talks, and I had a friend that had a restaurant that was struggling and I said, I will help your restaurant by giving free talks at your restaurant that will attract people in there to hear me."

     The friend said, "Sure what do we have to lose, of course you can do that," and so Napoleon Hill, every Wednesday night (or whenever it was) would come to this little restaurant and would stand up there and give a free talk and people started coming to it, and he had a following and it got bigger and bigger and this restaurant started to thrive. The talk was free. Everybody wins.

     So I thought, well, that sounds great. That would be a way to start, and so I came to a company and said, "You've got this big meeting room here, and it's not being used in the evening, and what if I gave a free talk every Tuesday night? Could I use the meeting room, and could I bring people in here?" And they said, "Well, sure why not". "I'll promote your company, I'll hand out brochures about your company when they come in, and tell them what happens inside this building, so it'll be a win for you." And they thought, "What do we have to lose-we have nothing to lose-so sure you can do that."

     So I began to pass out flyers and let people know-Tuesday night-goal achievement meeting. Bring your goals, we'll talk about how to achieve them. Free-it won't cost you anything. So, the first Tuesday night meeting, two people show up and there I am in front of the room and there are two people. And I'm talking and passing out little sheets that I made, six months later, the place is packed. It's overrun with people.

     The word got out, and I got better, and now people started asking, "What do you charge to come into a company to do this?" And I began to give free talks at Rotary and free talks here… Now that's not the way to do it-there are other ways to do it-there are probably about a thousand different ways to do it, but once I really wanted to and once I had the desire to do it, then I just found that way in the Napoleon Hill book and I did it that way. You can do it any way, once your desire is strong enough.

I've had people say, "I just can't lose weight…I keep trying and I can't". And I know that if I said to them, "What if I gave you a million dollars if you lost the weight you wanted to lose this year? Do you think you could do it?" "Well, yeah, of course I'd do it. A million dollars? Yeah." "Well, what would you do? How do you know you'd lose that weight?" "Well, I'd put a chart up on the wall, I'd have a weight trainer, I'd have a nutritionist that I'd talk to, I'd measure my calories-I'd make sure I lost the weight."

     People don't understand that what I've done when I tell them 'what if I gave you a million dollars to do it', is they change their desire level in their mind when I do that, and they elevate it. The company I told you about earlier in this series, who came to me and said, "We cannot recruit good people, people don't want to work here, it's hard to get good people" and none of that was true, because they were trying to tell me, "we don't know how to bring good people in to work here. We don't know how to do it." And I asked them to show me in their day planner the time they had booked to recruit and do this. "Well, there's no time, we don't know how to do it" and so what was really missing was the want to.

     They didn't really want to create a great team. "Of course, we want to. Why wouldn't we want to?" "Well, you don't want to because you're not doing it-you're not devoting any time to it." So once they really got that, they found all kinds of unorthodox how to's. There's no one right how to in recruiting your great team, do it your way.

     Anytime you want something to happen, and you find yourself telling yourself and other people, "I don't know how to. I don't know how to get clients. I wouldn't know how to do that." That's never true.

     Don't fall for that. Don't allow yourself to be pulled into that pathetic position of telling yourself you would love to do it, but you don't know how. "I'd love to do that but I don't know how. I'd love to have a profitable business, but I don't know how."

     That's never true.

    What's true is you don't want to yet. And it doesn't really reflect badly that you don't want to yet. You can't want everything in life. You've got to decide. What do I really want? In other words people say, "Oh, no, does that mean I don't have a deep down desire to succeed? Does that mean something's wrong with me, if I don't really want to run the business, or if I don't really want to get good clients, or new clients? Does that mean there's something wrong with me?" No. It means you haven't chosen that yet. It's a choice. Your desire level. The level of want to, in any area, is a choice-you're not born with it. It's not a character defect. It's always a conscious choice.

     It's always a conscious choice.

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     Two new reviews on AMAZON for The Woman Who Attracted Money:

       "A suspenseful page turner!

     I could not put this book down! It is a great pager turner with philosophical purpose. A novel with romance and intellect."

     ~By Rohini Ross (Los Angeles, CA) 

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     "Richly Woven Mystery meets Personal Development.

     Steve Chandler has mastered the art of storytelling in this book. Not only does he tell a compelling story, but through the dialogue he delivers stellar coaching that readers can apply in their own life. Choosing an ex-cop turned personal coach as the main character was a brilliant move! The story unfolds with all the suspense of the best mystery novels, told in a conversational style that causes the reader to think of their own life. As a coach myself, I found nuggets in the book that served as training for situations that arise in my practice. The characters are interesting and lovable, and the story has just enough twists to make it difficult to put down. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story and is interested in growing as a person."

     ~Charrise McCrorey

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      If you've wondered how to keep your spirits and creativity up during these times of massive victimization, join the club.

       Click here to find out how to join:

Learn selling by giving

     Brian Whetten was an apprentice of mine a couple years ago and now look at him. He is a huge success. And one of his many specialties is the course he teaches in how to do selling by Giving.
 
     We have a funny reluctance to sell or be sold.  We associate it with all kinds of nervous negative things. Many of us, who have perfectly wonderful services to offer, fail to sell them because of this superstition that selling is somehow a manipulation.
 
     Brian's work has found a way around all that. He has created a system for sales that makes it really fun and easy to communicate with people and let them experience the value of your service. Before you know it, they are selling you on the idea of working together.
 
     Like all great coaches, Brian is a devoted student. When he applied to be my apprentice I remember that the written portion of his application was such a feast for the eyes! His deep learnings at the University of Santa Monica and various other places (Brian is a PhD) were spelled out in his application. He then sent me a stunning book manuscript. He was a writer, too. The other applications did not stand up to his and those were the days when I worked with just one apprentice at a time. Today I work with three, and find even more value gets delivered that way because the three learn from each other, too.
 
      From the first day of our apprenticeship, Brian was amazing. He would attend a seminar of mine, and then meet with me for three hours afterward taking pages and pages of notes. During our year together I taught him everything I knew. I gave him the rights to all my content (as all apprentices receive) to deliver and teach as his own.
 
      Brian stepped up! His business grew faster than my own! My dream of passing my work on to younger generations of coaches and seminar leaders was being realized faster than I ever imagined. This is why I created the apprentice program to begin with. To pass things on. I wanted to make the financial commitment steep (it's $50,000 up front.) So that I'd only get extremely committed people. But I also knew that that fee was not steep when you factor in the use of all my 20 years of content.
 
     Brian now has an extremely prosperous coaching and training practice. He has two really good unpublished books that he is shopping to publishers. And his "selling by giving" course is changing the whole playing field of sales. He's teaching other coaches, consultants, therapists and practioners of all kinds to enjoy "selling" as much as they enjoy healing people. They now see it as the same thing.
 
     Check him out. Brian Whetten www.CoreCoaching.org & www.SellingbyGiving.net 

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     And I'm taking applications now for the last remaining Apprentice opening. Just email me your level of interest and brief bio: stephendchandler@cs.com.

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      You can now get the new murder mystery on Amazon. 

      "Steve Chandler has created a whole new genre of writing with his newest book The Woman Who Attracted Money - it's like a self-help mystery that you can't put down (kept me up til' 2am) and can't help but grow from. The murder mystery gets solved as Steve masterfully unmasks and demonstrates what transformational coaching is. If you are a coach, considering becoming a coach, or wondering what coaching is, this book is a MUST READ!"

~Julie Blake
 
      Of course club fearless members get a copy of The Woman Who Attracted Money mailed to them this week just for being in the club.
 
      So if you want a life focused on courage and creativity, join the club.
 

The Woman Who Attracted Money

 

     The new book is out. It's called The Woman Who Attracted Money, and you can get it here if you want to buy it: rdrpublishers.com

     Or, if you're a member of Club Fearless you'll get the book sent to you free of charge just for being a member. Our club is in over 30 countries now, and it's an absolute joy to communicate with club members, do the webinars, mail out the CDs and reports, diaries and newsletters and feel the synergy of those who wish to rise up. Instead of shrink down. In the face of this temporary financial crisis.

     Members also get a copy of the book Shift Your Mind that I wrote as a sequel to Fearless. Just for being a member. In that book, not yet available to the general public, I open everything with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

     "A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

     Ralph Waldo Emerson
     Self-Reliance

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     Principles! How powerful they can be. And how shameful our politicians look when they don't have any.

     One very principled man is Jim Manton, an author and leadership coach. His book The Secret of Transitions is worth reading. He was one of the early reviewers of The Woman Who Attracted Money, and he said,

     "Steve Chandler has completely reinvented the mystery genre! Finally an author who has the creative courage to write a gripping suspense novel without dragging the reader through endless pages of low life sleaze, gratuitous violence, or an implausible hero with comic book super powers."

     "But wait, there even more. Chandler's protagonist, Robert Chance, is a character you will never forget. An ex-cop turned life coach will rock you with the best coaching dialogue ever written. No other book combines suspense and uncommon wisdom in a way that will at once entertain and elevate you. Without question, The Woman Who Attracted Money is the freshest and most contemporary crime story of the decade."

     Jim Manton, Author of The Secret of Transitions

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      Early reviews in addition to Jim's are coming in:

     "If you're a coach, read this book. If you're a mystery buff, read this book. It you're a romance fan, read this book. If you want a great story filled with wisdom, humor, and intrigue, read this book. Steve Chandler does it again: delights and dazzles us with his generous insight and creativity! Great stuff and highly recommended."

     Robert Tallon, Co-author of Awareness to Action

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     "Chandler has created a character to believe in, a 200 pound Buddha named Chance who can knock off 200 pushups and still admit he learned the hard way that, 'Real power was found in the simplest truth.'

     "A former police investigator and now a 'life coach,' Chance is the well-read Philip Marlowe who loves Emerson and trains in left brain/right brain martial arts with the mysterious Wu Li. Chance's first clue to solving the reported death of one of his clients is not a bloody glove but a grammar error in a suicide note. His final clue comes to him in a dream.

     "The Woman Who Attracted Money is an easily devoured book of fresh locales, delicious plot twists and spicy dialogue, topped with a generous helping of suspense, wisdom and romance."

     Jack Cooper, Author of Across My Silence

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     I love the Kevin Costner movie For The Love of the Game. I love the scene where his girlfriend says to him, "What if my face was all scraped off and I was totally disfigured and had no arms and legs and I was completely paralyzed. Would you still love me?"

     And he replies, "No. But we could still be friends."

     In my seminars and training sessions I used to have the hardest time teaching the value of coming from nothing. Of being neutral. Of not carrying the baggage of the past into a conversation. It always sounded too Eastern. Too Zen. Then came Costner and his Love of the Game baseball movie. In it his character, a pitcher, resurrects his career on the mound by learning to "clear the mechanism" before throwing a pitch. Emptying his mind. When I talk about it that way and cite the movie, people in the workshop start smiling and nodding their heads.

     Gotta love baseball. It's amazing how life imitates baseball.

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     What? Are there any more early reviews? Here's another:

     "The Woman Who Attracted Money is a clever murder-mystery woven with psychological acuity. While highly entertaining, it subtly provides the key to unlocking our own success. Chandler has written yet another masterpiece."

Brenda Lee, Author of Out of the Cocoon: A Young Woman's Courageous Flight from the Grip of a Religious Cult

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Join Club Fearless and get this book right away. Delivered right to your door.
(You'll get lots of other cool stuff, too.)

You must go after inspiration with a club.

"If the sun and moon should ever doubt,
they'd immediately go out."

~William Blake