iMindShift with Steve Chandler

How to silence that voice inside you

      Creating a life is creating the courage to change the things you can, which is all about creating a fearless life.  One of the most creative people of all time was Vincent Van Gogh.  He said.  "If you hear a voice within you saying 'you are not a painter,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

     Let's look at that quote from Van Gogh very carefully.  There's a huge lesson in it..  When you are living in a world that's happening to you, you hear a voice inside you saying "you shouldn't do that…you should be safe...you're not really a painter…  you shouldn't start your own business…you shouldn't do this…be careful…be cautious…don't do that…don't call that person, they don't know who you are…" 

     There's this voice - this inner critic - that all people have. And when you actually listen to it and believe it, it creates your "happening to me" world. What happened was I bought some materials, I bought a canvas, I thought I would start to paint, but what happened was,  I heard a voice and the voice said to me, "Ah…you shouldn't paint…you're not a painter… you don't really have any real talent…what makes you think you are a painter?"  So because I heard the voice I just didn't paint-I was discouraged.  We hear this discouraging voice and we don't do something.   

    The problem with living in that world, and staying in that world, is that we are huddled and safe and riding this train to the end…to the death…and when we are on our deathbeds, we look back and say , "Oh, my gosh, so much happened to me.  But what did I do?"

       Here's an alternative.  Here's what Van Gogh suggests.  Create. Paint.  Bypass the voice. Create the action that alters the reality and the certainty (and the truth) about you. 

     Van Gogh said just paint.  And if you paint, the voice may be happening to you, but the world you're creating is you painting and that voice will go away! Because it's no longer true that you're not a painter. You are now painting.  You know that's it's true that you are a painter.  Look at the paintings being created in your studio.  You are a painter.  The voice disappears.

      The voice says, "Oh, my gosh, this would be so scary, and I dread this and don't do this and don't try that."  It's a voice that tries to keep the organism safe, but it's not really safe to be safe.  It's the opposite of safe.  People trying to stay safe, aren't creating the world that they really want; and they're not learning to be fearless.  They are actually learning to be scared.  Training themselves to accommodate fear. Ongoing fear. Soon they wake up into it. Ever feel that in your stomach when you wake up and think about the day ahead?

     Instead, you can create the action that alters your world. You wake up in a creative artist's inquiry: "What can I create? …what can I do?…what step can I take?…what move can I make?…what action can I do right now?" Soon you're making a difference.  You are creating the world.

 
How to change the world

     I was sitting in a group of people-a group coaching session-and I was facilitating the group, and we were sitting around a big table, and people were reporting about their world.  They were reporting what was happening; and so there was a lot of wishing and hoping and  victim language.  But there's a problem with victim language. When I am thinking and speaking like a victim of circumstances, there's a biological effect on my body and all the bio markers are affected, the internal chemistry of the body is affected, all the energy is affected and I'm literally dis-couraged.  Discouraged means I am dis-couraged.  The courage goes out. The sense of being at the mercy of things keeps deepening and expanding inside my whole system.  It effects my breathing, it effects the way my heart beats, it effects the chemistry in the body, in the blood, it effects my brain; and emotions shut down and I get scared. 

     So, people in the group were just reporting about how things were and they were wishing and hoping. 

     Let's look at the phenomenon of wishing.  If you're wishing for something, you are wishing things were different.  So if you were wishing things were different, the message it sends to your subconscious mind, is "you can't handle the way things are."  So it's like a quarterback going up to the line of scrimmage and seeing the defense out there and wishing it was different.  If he's wishing the defense was different, he's not going to run a very good play.  But, if he says to himself, "What would I like to create given that the defense is set up the way it is (because it's always set up the way it is)?

      I wrote a book called Fearless, and a lot of people thought, "Well, this book is about creativity and it's also about courage, but when they read it a second time and they often see it-it's the same thing.  If you've ever tried to write a book and you've stared at the blank page, you know creativity and courage are the same thing.  If you've ever tried to do a painting and you've stared at the blank canvas, you finally realize creativity and courage are the same thing. 

     So back to my group.  The group is sitting there wishing things were different, talking about the economic system, the global panic and things like that, and wishing it was different than it was.  Wishing we were back five years ago or wishing we were in some better future, but not creating. Because whenever I am wishing I'm not creating. 

     So, victims wish and hope and owners plan and take action.  That's a major distinction between the two.  Victims wish and hope and owners plan and take action. 

     The group was also hoping.  "Oh, I hope this new administration (the new President, the new government) makes the world a better place…I hope the world is better because of that... I hope the world that happens to me will get better." 

     You can see how weak this is.  There's nowhere to go from there.  It's a victimized, reported-on, happening-to-me world.  It's a world that gets reported on but not changed.  How do I change the world?  Well, with a simple question. "What do I want to create?"  Given that the defense is set up the way it is, what play do I want to create?  Given that the market is the way it is, that people are the way they are right now, what do I want to create?

      So when I was working with my group (it was a wonderful mastermind) and I said, "Let's start here. What do you want to create?  What would you, yourself, like to create?  Let's bring it back to your power and your creative ability (which everyone has.) 

     We get it talked out of us.  We get hypnotized and seduced into the happening-to-me world.  "This is happening to me….oh, boy do you know what's happening to me right now…I'm having problems with my daughter…yeah, she's gotten into some trouble…and so I didn't need that to happen to me right at a time when we are downsizing the business….oh, yeah, you know what's happening to our industry….that's happening now…and you know what's happening in our marriage…. well, we're not as….do you know what's happening here….that's happening to me right now…I didn't need that to happen….that's the last thing I needed the first thing this morning was to have her walk out on me."

     So we worked with the group with "what would I like to create" and it returned people to their power and got them thinking.  You could see them rising up on the ladder saying "I'd like to create this…I'd like to create that" and so it became a powerful session; but it required that we move off of this "what's happening to me" and all the wishing and hoping.  "Oh, I hope….I hope that doesn't happen… Oh, I hope the banks…I hope people start saving more and spending less, or some people hope people start spending more to kick the…hope...hope…hope.  You can see how weak that is.  You can see how pathetic it is to walk around filled up with wishing and hoping.  It really ruins a person's life.  It ruins it.  Because that very person could be in action and loving it.  People say, "Is it possible to live a fearless life?"  Well, stop thinking about your life.  Stop thinking about life, and my life and a long, linear thing and a big accumulation of events.  Think of who you are right now in the present moment.  Are you fearless right now in this present moment?  That's all you need to be.  Take action.  Do what you want to do?  Change the world. 

      The question isn't "How do we change the world?"  The question is how do I change my world; because that changes the world. 

    I'm almost in tears to see this mastermind group work the way they are working on creating their own impossible futures.  I was urging them, "Hey, come on make it impossible, don't just do some kind of safe future you are creating based on a past and calculated… well, if I improve by three percent this could and might happen…I hope it does… I wish this would…..No, create something that was formerly in the category of impossible!" And they were actually doing it.  People were actually creating impossible futures.  Now the funny thing is after that meeting, there are people now actually doing what they previously thought was impossible because they dropped that as a barrier; because they got into a world that was now created instead of just happening to them.

      I am looking out on the room, and I'm thinking to myself,  "Oh, my gosh.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if somehow everybody in the world (all these scared people who are hoping this administration will change my life and all that…wishing this would happen.  What if the frightened world -the whole world -were able to come into this room today and sit with us and see how it works; and see what's it's like to create, and see what it's like to live in the inquiry "What would I like to create?"  Given what's happening, what would I like to create?

     So, I began to think about that and I thought well, look at what I'm doing here.  I'm wishing that this could happen!  Now that's weak, it's not creative, it's reactive; and it's a victim mind wishing things were different; so I said to myself, How might I create a way for everyone to be in this room today-and I mean everyone.  People in other countries, people who don't have a lot of money, people who can't afford to pay what this group did (people put down $10,000 to meet once a month for a year.)  Not everybody can do that, or at least not everybody thinks they can do that, so how could I do it in such a way that everyone could afford it and everyone could be in this room today?  What could I create?

      And so I created an impossible project called Club Fearless.  It would be a club. It would be a world mastermind where people would learn to be -not fearless every second of every day -that's a kind of sick perfectionism -but rather to be fearless in this moment now. 

     One of the things that victims do is they immediately say, "Well, how do I now do this all the time and every moment? How can I always be fearless?" But instead of that … how about just now … in this moment doing it -just for the pure fun of it. 

     So I began to imagine what it would take to spread this through the world and I thought Club Fearless, World Mastermind, that's what I'll do.  People who join will receive and exchange distinctions.  I'll have a live component, I'll have things to read for people who love to read, but I'll have a lot of audio, things for people to listen to (if they don't like reading as much as listening) and all sorts of things; and I'll load it up with unexpected things for people as well, so they'll have things they can count on but they'll also receive unexpected little surprises.  And I began to get very excited because that's what happens when you're creating - the excitement comes in. 

    Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great was ever created without enthusiasm."  It's really true. So when you ask "What would I like to create?" the next step is "How do I get excited about it?"

       Now create it!  Make sure that what it is you'd like to create isn't just some safe little incremental betterment because that won't get you enthused -that won't get you excited and if you're not excited, you're not going to create anything really great and the creative juices won't be flowing.  Biologically, excited people are more creative.  More of the brain is lit up.  They can track that on a scanner, and the more of your brain that's lit up, the more innovative and the more intuitive you are.  You start really thinking out of the box and creating surprising things.  You surprise yourself, and you surprise others.

     So, I called the club, Club Fearless.  I decided to base it on what was in the book Fearless because the response to that book has been really rather exciting for me and that's it.  Anybody in the world can join and when they join, they'll be glad they did and that's a promise from me.

Click here to find out more about club fearless

I can't get to you from here

       People today spend hours social networking, getting connected and linked. I had a friend who spent a full year linking people to her network, up to 12 hours a day at her computer weaving her virtual web, and at the end had to declare bankruptcy and move out of her foreclosed-upon home. She never figured out why such successful computerized hooking-up never made her successful.

       "Who is being served?" I would ask her about her "business."

       "How are the people who's names you now have being served?"

        Silence.       

        You see the picture of Don Williams, country superstar singer up there, and you probably wonder what he has to do with my friend and her massive, comprehensive linking.

         Well. I've told this story before so stop me if you've heard it:

         For five years of my life I was a full time songwriter. It was the hardest work I'd ever done.  For me, there was no more difficult way to make a living from writing than to make it from trying to write a hit song.  One had to write everything perfectly.  Everything had to obey rhyme schemes and meter, and one had to have song titles and concepts that stood out above the millions of other songs vying for a recording artist's attention.

      It was that degree of difficulty that made it so tempting to live by a lie.  A lie like, "It's who you know!"

      I worked in the music business with the highly-talented Fred Knipe, and he and I invested a huge amount of our time in it's who you know.  We took trips, wrote letters and made phone calls to expand our network of connections in the music business. We networked and schmoozed. When we were in groups of music executives, we worked the room.  We got to know a lot of key figures on a lot of levels (and if there was ever time left over, we also wrote songs.)

     In the end, though, our biggest financial successes came from people who we did not know. In the end, networking meant nothing at all. The schmoozing was an empty waste of time and ego.  Country singer Don Williams had a number one hit with Fred's "Listen To The Radio" and a popular album cut with Fred's and my "I Can't Get To You From Here."  But we didn't know him or anyone associated with him!  Those songs were recorded because his producer had pulled our envelope out of a huge pile of unsolicited songs and played the songs and fell in love with them.  We didn't know him and he didn't know us.  We didn't even know his address! We sent the songs to Don Williams' label address at Columbia Records. We got the address off of an album cover, something any homeless person in any music store could have done. 

     After all those hours invested in networking and relationship-building and making the right connections, it was what we did (in the writing of those songs) that the great producer Garth Fundis heard and converted into musical success.  It wasn't who we knew; it was what we did.  

 CLICK PLAY on the video below to see and hear Michael Johnson sing the song we wrote, "I Can't Get To You From Here," .....he was but one of many people who eventually recorded and performed this song.

The right side of the wrong bed

     As I look back on my five years in the song-writing business, I realize that it was always the best songs that actually went out there and found places to bloom.  It wasn't who we knew, it was what we did when we wrote them. Knipe and I wrote "The Right Side of the Wrong Bed" with Duncan Stitt, turned it loose and watched it find its own places to bloom. It had nothing to do with our networking and schmoozing.  It landed on a Mickey Gilley album and then, from that success, it seemed to find its own way onto Michael Landon's Highway To Heaven show.

     Telling myself the lie that success depends on WHO YOU KNOW was a deliberate attempt to avoid the real work of writing something extraordinary.  An attempt to justify putting my time into easier, softer pursuits.  Every time we lie to ourselves like this we are trying not to go for it.

       It was this same "it's who you know" lie that also kept me from writing books for many, many years.  I always told myself that if you were an unknown writer and didn't know anybody in publishing, then you wouldn't have much of a chance sending off an unsolicited manuscript somewhere.

         Now that my first books have become fairly successful, it hurts to think back about how close I came to throwing it all away, simply because I had talked myself into thinking I didn't know anybody important enough to get things published for me. . . . . 

     Early one summer I was looking for some computer work for my daughter Stephanie to do.  She wanted to earn money to spend at summer camp, so I finally created a make-work project for her.  I had been giving out a photo-copied hand-out in my seminars called "21 Ways To Motivate Yourself," and because of the good response I always got from people who took the pamphlet home, I began to think that I might have the potential for a book in those 21 ways (especially when I began adding new ways in every course so that the number was rapidly accumulating far beyond 21).

     But every time I thought about publishing a book, I ran up against the self-deceit that had always kept me out of action, it's who you know!  I didn't know anyone in publishing.  I didn't know any literary agents. I barely knew anyone in New York. I didn't have a chance.

     But I had wanted to give some work to Stephanie to do because she wanted to earn pocket money before she went to camp.  So I made a project up.  I bought a book that listed all the publishers of books. It was the kind of book I had always dismissed as being directed at the poor stupid people who didn't know how hard it was to get published. 

    I then went through the book and picked out about sixty publishers who published non-fiction.  I gave the book of publishers to Stephanie and also gave her a letter to write to each publisher about my book-in-progress, 100 Ways To Motivate Yourself.  I gave her the "21 Ways" hand-out to send to publishers along with the letter of proposal, and she went to work on the computer, writing each letter differently and tailoring each one to each particular publisher.

      She worked long and hard and I remember looking in on her as she sat at the computer in my home office late into the night and thinking that it was a little sad that this lovely 14-year old girl was working so hard for nothing.  That this was just make-work.

      Finally Stephanie was finished with her work and 60 large envelopes were perfectly filled and addressed to the prospective publishers. I paid her for her efforts and she went off to her camp saying to me, "Hey Dad that's going to be really neat to have a book out that's written by you!"  I smiled and said yes, that would be neat, but we would now have to see what the level of interest was because there are no guarantees.

     Secretly I was thinking "Poor thing. She doesn't know. She's naive. She doesn't realize that in the vicious dog-eat-dog world of publishing, it's not what you've got, it's who you know."

     So I put the 60 large envelopes in the back of my car and let them sit there on the back seat for many days. I thought about the postage it would take to mail them all and I began to think about simply disposing of them in a trash can.  Stephanie wouldn't know. I'd explain when she got home from camp about how hard it is to get anything published. I came very close to throwing them all away.

Start spreading the news

     I remembered, as a small boy in Michigan, walking along the railroad tracks with my friend Terry Hill and seeing huge bundles of the shopping newspapers down by the tracks.  "What are these?" I asked Terry, and he said that people who had a shopping news paper route would go to the tracks and throw their papers away and then report them as delivered and collect their money.  Back then I was shocked that someone could do that and live with themselves afterward.  Now I realized that I was about to do the same thing. News boys were betraying the paper. I was about to betray myself.

    So I couldn't make myself do it. Not because of my own great character, but because of Stephanie. I could not forget that picture of her sitting there, late at night in her naiveté working so hard to write all those letters. And I couldn't make myself throw the envelopes away.  So I mailed them.  "There goes nothing," I sighed as I drove away from the post office, believing I'd just wasted a lot of time and money.

    And then it happened.

     A little more than three weeks after I mailed the envelopes, the calls started to come in. First one publisher, then another. Some publishers were medium sized, some were very small, but some were large too! Doubleday called. Berkeley called. John Wiley & Sons. Career Press.  They liked the book idea and wanted to talk about publishing it. I was stunned and dumbfounded.  In less than three weeks there were seven credible publishers who wanted the book. I was beside myself with joy.  I thought back on all those years when I walked through bookstores wondering what it would be like to have my own book in a store. Ever since I was a little boy. And now it might really be happening.

    It was hard to realize it was really happening, because it went against my own self-authored truth: it's who you know. As I had gotten older in life, I had begun to convince myself of how impossible my childhood dream of writing books would be. You had to have connections.  Everyone knows that. Everyone tells you that.

     But here were publishers calling.  What was going on? In my joy, I called Stephanie at her camp in Michigan.  She came to the phone out of breath from some game she'd been playing.

    "Stephanie!" I said. "Guess what? You know those letters you worked on and the envelopes you made and all that?"

    "Yes."

    "Well! Guess what? I've got seven publishers interested in the book! Seven publishers who want the book!  They called me, I didn't call them! Can you believe it?"

     There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

     "Stephanie?"

     The silence continued and then she said, "Only seven?"

      I was at a loss for words.  I hurried on to explain to her that even one publisher would be fine with me, and it's hard to get a book published if you. . . . .but then I shut up.  I realized that I was furthering the lie.  I realized that the very reason that the book was going to be published was because Stephanie had never been sold that lie, so I wasn't going to start now. I wished her well and she said good-bye and congratulations and she ran back to her game.  The call was no surprise to her. She knew the book would be published. Because I had forgotten to teach her how impossible that would be.

*     *     *     *     *

 

*     *     *     *     * 

    Many of you have written asking me to elaborate more on the club I have been "teasing" in this blog for many weeks.

   It's called club fearless world mastermind, AND people are starting to sign up....we already have members from:

Canada
England
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Sudan
Sweden
USA

What do you get for your nineteen dollars a month?

      1. Mental energy and fresh monthly motivation for you that can only come from a LIVE teleseminar.  
    
       "People have been asking me for years how they can experience a live seminar version of the books of mine they have read....and this is finally IT."
                
      Being in on the live teleseminar each month will give you a direct experience of why critics call Steve "an insane combination of Jerry Seinfeld and Tony Robbins" with his spontaneity, humor and brave challenges everyday accepted wisdom. On the rare occasion you can't hook in LIVE, don't worry, an audio recording of the event will be sent to you each month for you to enjoy and share with others.

      2.  Fresh ways to reinvent your world by reading Steve's personal success diary; an intimate rough-cut exposure to the breakthroughs in Steve's daily life of coaching and training and growing himself and others.

     You get short, readable bursts of daily epiphanies and practical insights into the thoughts that are changing Steve's life, and the lives of his clients……most people have to wait for a year or two to finally see these breakthroughs in a book, but you get them as they happen.
         
      3. A dependable way for you to start each week by replacing victim thinking with optimism, ownership and inspired creativity: your weekly stimulus via email direct from Steve to you. 
         
      4. A regular tool for rebooting, recharging and refreshing your optimism about the world called Who Is Fearless in This World?
           
     While those around you nurture gloom and pessimism, you'll be ahead of the curve and optimistic from devouring this special report on the good signs and fearless acts of brave innovators in the world.

      5.  New distinctions to alter your whole world each month on audio…to those who have had their outlooks permanently changed by the Owner-Victim Choice, or Expectations versus Agreements,  you'll now receive even higher, greater breakthroughs from Steve each month. The first two are club-fearless-only programs that Steve has called his "clearest, most useful" work ever: "How To Get Everything You Want By Asking for It" and "Personality versus Purpose."

      6.  You, and only you (non-members will NOT receive this life-changing book) will have in your hands Steve's newest and best book ever: SHIFT YOUR MIND  SHIFT THE WORLD. This will not be available in bookstores or on Amazon. Only Club Fearless members will receive this book when it is finished in April.

      7. Other gifts and surprises we can't even talk about yet, but if you know Steve you know that he enjoys doing the unexpected and giving people fresh ways to create wealth and be happy. The club is $19 a month.

      8. A feeling of belonging to a world mastermind of people who, like you, have decided to respond to the world's uncertainty by being bold and creative. If you are tired of being a victim of circumstance join the club.

CLICK ON LOGO TO LEARN HOW TO JOIN

Around the pure loving energy

     When the mind is open, it will shift. 

     When the mind is closed, it won't. 

                                             * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Mastering others is strength.
Mastering yourself makes you fearless."

                               ~Lao Tzu

                                           * * * * * * * * * * * *

     So, first of all, let's picture James Dean's sports car.  Let's say you are just learning how to drive, and you're driving the sports car and James Dean is sitting next to you and you're down there in second gear and the car is kind of whining and complaining because you won't shift----you don't know how to shift---and the James is saying, "Just shift ... please, it's time to shift" because James knows the engine is being over-stressed and the car can only go so far in this gear, and you need to shift right now.

       And that's your life.

       But shifting isn't hard. It's a kind of upward, circular motion--- like a spiral upward--- but people don't know if they've never driven a car what shifting really is and how much it helps. 

     But if you've ever driven a gear shift kind of car, you know that when you shift, it just starts to glide into a new level of speed and glides along the road and things are better.  Then after a while, when you're in that next gear (let's say you are in third gear) and you go along for a while and pretty soon third gear isn't enough, it's not right, it can't hold where the car wants to go, so it's time to shift again. 

     Well, your mind, your soul, your heart, your life, your brain, your whole complex picture is the same way ... and there's a shift box inside the mind that is there for you.

     When I coach people I notice they are stuck somewhere, and a lot of different things keep them stuck, but what's next for them is a shift---a movement of that mental or spiritual arm---that's a kind of gliding spiral, and the arm is metaphorical---it's in the mind---it's an opening.  When the mind is open, it will shift. 

     Now when that happens it's beautiful!  A person then goes up to the next level of consciousness, spirituality, creativity, energy, vibration---whatever you want to call it---there's another level, and you know when you are going there.  You can feel it, because you glide. You feel like an angel.

      In a human being, there are many gears---there are many gears---not just five or six---there are many!  I would say for the sake of the fun of it, there might be a hundred gears. And you're into one of them right now.

      Could you shift without a coach or mentor? Of course! Many people who have worked with the Mind Shift CD series report a multiple series of shifts, just from listening, and then they listen again. When you listen again the CDs may be new, as if you've never heard them, because you are listening from a different level.

    Now a lot of people have asked me if I was going to produce a notebook with this Mind Shift audio stuff, and I originally wanted to, and my first intention was to create a notebook, a workbook, a guidebook and have people follow along and answer questions and fill things out, and I thought that's what a success course does ---that's how it would look like every other course.

    Then I realized why I didn't want to do that. And I'll tell you why.  It goes against the very nature of what I'm talking about to have a success/workbook/guidebook that you fill out.  It would kill the whole thing. It takes a nonlinear opportunity and tries to make it linear.....

     To change your life, you need to go nonlinear.

    
            The best seminar I could ever really give would be to put the people in a room, give them a blank pad, have silence pumped in, and allow them to simply sit and jot ideas down about what they would like to create in future days, and how they might like to bring miracles about and why.

     That would be a wonderful, wonderful eight hours for them, unlike anything they had ever done in their lives ever before---a full day of silence.  Just with their own thoughts, because so many inspired things bubble up.  That's why people say they get their best ideas on vacation, or they get their best ideas in the shower---it's the only time they're away from this frantic, addicted inner mental activity. 
   
     Sometimes I will ask a person to write down the one area in life they would like to get better at.  What talent, skill, ability that if you got better at that, your success would come to you much faster?  And almost everyone can identify that.  So write that down. 

     Now, the second thing I want you to write down is what's your current practice of that?  What do you currently do?  Regularly? How often do you book appointments with yourself to practice that?  And that's where people give me the blank stare. "I don't practice that."  OK.  Game over. 

    If I see myself in my self-concept as a creator, an enthusiastic creator, I'm reminded that the Greek word for enthusiasm is en theos, and en theos means the God within.  So that's my highest self.  When I'm walkin' and talkin' with the Prince of Peace down by the riverside, that's me at my best. However I see that walk and talk---I'm connected to the universe whatever religious or spiritual preference---it doesn't matter.  What matters is my devotion to it, and my ability to see myself as that. 

    And people say "Well, we were created in the image of our creator" and so many different spiritual disciplines will tell you, you were created in the image of your creator.  You are a child of God.  Well, if that's true, and I'm created in the image of my creator, then my business and my life ought to be about creating.  If I'm created in the image of my creator, then I will create.  I will not react. I will create.

                                                 * * * * * * * * * * * *

     "Around the pure loving energy that money is, we have wrapped beliefs such as shortage, obligation, hard work, loss, manipulation, security and survival. We have then wrapped layers of emotional consequences such as fear, frustration, anger and shame."
                                          ~ARNOLD M. PATENT

 

Write your own life movie script

   What is it that when I am doing it, time really is not an issue?  In other words, when I am doing that thing, I can look at the clock and say "Oh, my goodness, where did that hour go?  I can't believe it's 5 o-clock." Because I was so engaged, I left behind the linear world of tick tock, tick tock, time just creeping by, clock watching---that's just agonizing. 

     I'm sure all of us have had some kind of a job, or some kind of class we had to sit through, where we kept looking at the clock and it looked like it was the slowest thing in the world.  We couldn't wait for it to be over.  I remember working in some factories when I was younger and that clock would just go by so slowly.  We would watch the clock, then we would try not to watch the clock, and that's a good sign that that's not my true calling.  That's a very good sign of that. 

    So look back in your life.  Look at your current work.  When are the moments during the day when time's not an issue, because what that really means is that you're no longer trapped in a linear life; but you're in a much more whole, big-picture life where it's got all kinds of holographic, holistic, universal expansion---infinite, really, infinite expansion, and dimension to it. 

     That's where real creativity comes in, that's where unlimited energy comes in.  That's where your second wind is accessed.  In that moment.  In those callings.  So look for times when you feel that way, when there's no real time passing. That's the work you can do all day without getting tired, and that's the work you can just go on and on with and finish it until you are masterful. And you're not looking at the clock and you don't have one foot on the brake, and one foot on the gas. It's just both feet on the gas.  That's the work you'll do best at.  That's the work you'll make the most money at when you find it.

    Look again through your life.  What do you absolutely love to do?  Because for whatever wonderful reason, what you love to do, what you enjoy doing has got the greatest likelihood of making you the most money.  You'll simply give more of yourself to that, you'll be more fearless inside of it, more time will be naturally devoted to it, and therefore you'll make more money at it.  You'll rise to a higher stature within that category, given your devotion and your love of doing it.  So keep moving toward what you love.

     It's not always just one little particular thing that jumps out.  People think they just have to know it from a young age, "I just knew from a child that I wanted to be a rodeo clown, or I wanted to be a ballerina, or I knew I wanted to be a pro basketball player."  Now those are awfully specific.  It doesn't have to be that specific for it to be really fulfilling and gratifying.

        Look at the life of Woody Allen.  Now I go way back in terms of years, and I remember Woody Allen when he was a stand-up comedian and that's all he did, and he would go on stage and he would be nervous and tell these jokes; and he was a great writer of comedy so his jokes were hilarious, and he wasn't great at delivering anything, but he made that a plus by just exaggerating that. Hemming and hawing, and pulling at his sleeve, and coughing, and starting sentences over again. That was part of the fun.  But he truly was uncomfortable, standing up and delivering his comedy in that format.  So, he was close to what he loved, but not all the way there yet.  So then he made a move into writing short stories and little pieces for the New Yorker, then he wrote a play.  The play was put on, it got great reviews and it was fun for him to do, and then he wrote a movie, and then he wrote another movie, and he left stand-up comedy, he left writing plays and he really got into what he loved the most-writing and directing movies-and that became his thing and that became the way he made all the money he made. 

    Life can be that!  You keep moving a little bit here, a few degrees there and you keep evolving into things you love even more. So if you're working inside an organization, and you have a feeling that what you are doing is not your true calling, but it might be close enough that you are doing well, keep your mind open and keep looking because a little move here, a little move there, and you can keep moving closer and closer and closer to it. 

     A lot of people these days change jobs easily, leave their work and start a business at home.  I have a lot of clients who are in one job for a major organization of some kind, but in the back of their mind always wanted to do something else.  Let's say they loved arts and crafts, they love the internet. So in their spare time they would sell arts and crafts on the internet and set up a website and they would do that in the evenings, and have fun with that over the weekend, and then that spare hobby job would become so good and so fruitful that they would be in a position financially to move from their day- job into their home-office job full time.  I've had a lot of my coaching clients do that, and so that's an easy way to transition from job to job these days.  If you want to start something on your own, you don't have to quit your job to do it, you can do a little bit of it here and there and let it grow nicely on the side and once you get the signs that it's up and running and that it can support you, boom ... you're gone and that's what you do. 

    Other friends of mine have left the company they are with, and then sold themselves back to that company as a consultant, so now they only go in one day a week, do their very best thing, get a nice fee for that, and use the other four days for things they love to do even more. 

    So in today's global market, with all the leverage that the internet gives you to reach out to the world instantly, it's much easier to find what you love to do and tap into it than it ever was before.  Much easier.  A lot of people I know now are writing books.  They would never have dreamed of writing books before, because in the past (not too distant past) if you wrote a book, you had to find a publisher.  Otherwise, your book would never be in any bookstores and so people would not have a chance of reading your book.  Shelf space was everything.  How do I get a publisher that would get my book on the shelves in the bookstores so I have a chance of becoming an author who is popular?  Well today you can skip all those steps!  You can publish your own book, and people can buy it off your website.  You can even put it on Amazon, after you have published it yourself and people buy it not knowing, or caring, whether your book has been published by a major publisher or is self-published.  Many of them don't even know.  A lot of authors today who have had books published by major publishers, also self-publish some of their books and their readers don't know which is which, or care.  Who cares?  If a book is good and it looks good enough to read, why do I care where it was published?  Makes no difference. 

    So these, days if you've got something you are good at, something you are good at writing about or expressing,  in any other way, as music, as video, as anything--the internet offers the ability for you to take it right to the world directly, and if it's good, you can make money off of it immediately.  So the prospects for creating wealth are greater than ever before for someone born into this global market, with the access that you have with your computer to the entire market. I know these are "hard times" but that's just a thought that drags you down.

     More than ever before, it's vital and important that you find what your true calling is, that you access that, that you really look back in your life and ask yourself, when, while working or interacting with humans, have I been happiest?  Really answer that question.  It could be that you were taking care of some elderly people once, and doing it as a favor to a family member, and it gave you great job.  Well, you might want to start an elder care center or service where you go into people's homes; but find it in what you love.  There's an old saying:  "Do what you love, and the money will follow." It's really true, the more you can get close to what it is that you love doing, the faster people will want to be with you, will want to access that; because people really love to pay for things that are joyfully created, joyfully delivered in terms of service.  They love paying for that.  They don't like paying for things that are reluctantly delivered, poor work, you can really tell that that person really doesn't like working there.  We've all had that experience--of going into some restaurant, or some store, or some place of business, where we can tell that the people in there were hired because they were teenagers and you didn't have to pay them much, or for some reason other than them loving that work.  And because they don't love that work---it's very obvious---they serve you poorly, they're rude, they don't even look at you when they check you out.  It's completely negative experience.  And the chances of that operation really thriving in the long run are not great.  No love, no money.

     What we really have the ability to do is to link love, service and wealth together.  In the past those three things were not linked.  That was not the key to making money.  Today it is.  We're enlightened enough to see it and the global marketplace is fertile enough to receive it.  Love, service, wealth.  Love, service, wealth.  If I can get that pattern going----get that rhythm----get that mantra in my mind.  What do I love to do for people?  How can I serve more people with it?  And wealth will come as a result of that. 

     In the past, it was different.  In the very near past it was duty, it was obligation, it was you have to figure out a way to earn a living, you have to somehow win a position, somewhere, and it was all a STRUGGLE and it was all about manipulating, and politics and winning people over, and playing the game.  All the old style, hierarchal structures of companies based on the old monarchy systems where there are superior humans and then subservient serfs---and that whole paradigm is being dissolved by powerful individuals who do what they love, then sell it, and make a lot of money, and keep the thing rolling. Fearless.

Do not hide your own light

 
"Life shrinks or expands
in proportion to one's courage"

        - ANAIS NIN

   We have reached a time around this planet that calls on our individual courage and creativity more
than ever before.

    Having some group or government help you make it through the dark night may be a successful political sales pitch, but it will be  Y O U R   O W N   L I G H T  that leads the way for you.

   Many people think that courage is an outdated concept that now only applies to the military or sports or the terminally ill. Others vilify the idea that the individual human being  personally creates success or failure.

   I have decided to form a group of people, a network, or a club, if you will ... a circle of individuals who stand for individual freedom.  Freedom from what? Freedom from self-victimization. Freedom from the inner Velcro of thought clusters that coagulate into belief systems that have that individual use his or her precious mind for nothing but worrying about the anxious future. Freedom from  being a constant victim of circumstance.

    Freedom from fear. Freedom from the fruitless quest to impress others in order to get money and appreciation. Freedom. Freedom to create.

    And then create again and again!

    That's the freedom I want to inspire, so I'm starting a network for it, worldwide. A circle for individual success. I wouldn't mind if it grew to a billion people. A billion fearless people not afraid to reinvent themselves every single morning.

    I wrote the book REINVENTING YOURSELF with this in mind. Am I trying to sell you that book by saying that? No. Email me and I'll give it to you. It's a book about being a victim, and only because I wasted my life as a victim (for more years than most of you reading this have been alive.)

   And to say you are a courageous individual does not mean that we are not all one. Both realities, when harmonized, lift each other to the heavens.

   I want to devote my life to this group of individuals, who take individual responsibility for their success and happiness. And who are willing to, now, finally, after waiting so long, just wake up each day and GO FOR IT.

   In REINVENTING YOURSELF I talk about my experience years ago with my daughter Stephanie.

    In order for us to learn to be owners of the human spirit, it helps if we know what being an owner looks and feels like. It helps to have a picture.

    I remember a few years ago when I gave two of my daughters a picture.

    Margie and Stephanie were both rehearsing for school singing assignments. Margie was in 6th grade singing a school choir solo of a song from Beauty and the Beast, and Stephanie was rehearsing for the junior high school talent show, in which she was singing a Mariah Carey song called "Hero."

     Both girls asked me to listen to their rehearsals, and I did, and I told them that they sounded good enough musically. Both girls had good voices and were hitting the notes, but something was missing: the spirit-the vital principle-the animating force.

     I told them it was okay to let loose a little. To really get into it. I recommended that they start to over-rehearse. To rehearse enough times to reach a state of ownership of the song. To get that feeling that the song was all theirs.  Flowing out of them naturally, powerfully.

    Margie pinned a piece of paper to the wall of her bedroom and made a mark on it every time she sang her song. She sang it over, and over, and over.

    Stephanie also rehearsed more and more, and still her song was coming out tentative and prissy, held way back.

    But they both pushed on.

    Finally, Margie's concert came and she was great. She stood out when her solo came because she sang with fire and force, whereas the other girls and boys that night were like little cautious robots. The extra rehearsals had given Margie ownership.

    Next up was Stephanie's talent show, and things still weren't right with her song. Her rehearsals still weren't taking it anywhere.

    So I got an idea. I went to a video store and found a used copy of a musical documentary of Janis Joplin's life. It contained a concert performance that I had been lucky enough to be present at personally-her performance at Monterey Pop Festival with her band Big Brother and The Holding Company.

    At the time of the concert I was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey in the U.S. Army. I was there that late afternoon sitting by myself in a fourth row seat when Janis blew a hole in the music world with her performance of "Ball and Chain." The moment is also captured in the film Monterey Pop as Mama Cass Elliot is seen in the same audience in a reaction shot to Janis Joplin, her mouth gaping in awe.

    Janis Joplin was on fire that day. I never saw anything like it. None of today's feisty, angry female rockers quite have the exact spirit, because Janis wasn't as angry as she was, well, on fire.

    I put the videotape in for Stephanie and Margie to watch, and I'd cued it up to the performance of "Ball and Chain." We watched together, and as usual, I got goose bumps and tears in my eyes when I watched it.

    I got that same feeling I always get when I see the ownership spirit. I got it when I saw the early, young Elvis. I used to get it watching a lyrically insane football player named Chuck Cecil play football. I've gotten it watching Michael Jordan play basketball with the flu and still outplay the whole court. Or watching Alvin Lee and Ten Years After at Woodstock. I've gotten it watching Pavarotti sing "Nessum Dorma" and almost explode with the joy and volume of the song. I've gotten it watching Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. I've gotten it hearing Buffy Ste. Marie sing "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" from Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. When you're in the presence of an owner of the spirit, you know the feeling.

     Owners of the spirit are beautiful losers. They risk all. They are losers because they have lost all fear of embarrassment. They have lost all inhibition. They have lost all concern for what other people might think.

     Stephanie's eyes grew a little wider as Janis Joplin sang on. The passion and abandon and power in that one small woman was something that only a corpse would be unmoved by. When the song was over, the video showed Mama Cass mouthing the word "wow" just as Stephanie was saying, "Wow."

    While I was putting the tape away, I told Stephanie, "There are times in life when you know you have a chance to really go for it. You are a great singer, so I know you're going to sing your song very well in the show. You have to decide for yourself how much you're going to go for it. You are never who you think you are. You can be anyone you want. When you're singing, you might remember Janis Joplin."

    The night of the talent show was fun and lighthearted. I had all but forgotten about my Janis Joplin lecture with Stephanie, and I was just there to enjoy the show and see her sing.

    After a few acts in which the performers showed varying degrees of talent and self-consciousness, it was Stephanie's turn. She had a compact disc of the background music and background vocals to the song "Hero" and she stepped out on stage in a black dress and began the song as her friends in the audience in the gym cheered and clapped to encourage her.

    Her voice was a little weak and nervous at the start, although right on pitch as she softly sang through the first verse, looking out at the crowd and occasionally smiling with self-consciousness. As her song continued to build, I saw something start to change in Stephanie. She stomped her high-heeled shoe forward as the song took the turn into the last verse and she was no longer smiling. Her voice grew louder and louder and you could tell that the audience no longer existed for her. It was just the song. I began to get tears in my eyes and I could feel my heart race and my throat tighten, and I remember thinking, "She's going for it, she's going for it."

    Stephanie rounded the corner into the last chorus in full possession of the song, sending it through her spirit and out into the auditorium in a way that I'd never heard her sing before. The kids in the audience jumped to their feet and raised their hands and started screaming, but Stephanie's voice soared beyond them, above it all, living only for itself as the song came to an end among the loudest sustained cheers of the evening.

    Even grownups were on their feet at the end, knowing that they had seen a moment they themselves may not have lived in a long while-a moment of the human spirit on fire.

    I turned to my friends and family and said, "Wow." I was inspired. I'd shown Stephanie Janis Joplin, and then Stephanie showed me Stephanie. The trick is to pass it on.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, "Most people go to their graves with their music still in them." He was right, most people do. But that's because they've never heard that music. They simply don't know it's there.

    There was nothing in the CIRCUMSTANCE itself that caused Stephanie to find her spirit. The whole point of watching the Janis Joplin video was to show her that it can be invented.

    You can tap into the spirit in yourself. Any time you want. It's always there. Stephanie doesn't have anything that you don't have. Janis Joplin didn't have anything that Stephanie didn't have.

    The next time you see the spirit in someone else, don't just admire it; think of how to do your own version of it. Don't envy it; duplicate it.

     Talk to yourself. Start thinking about it.  Practice saying, "I can do that!" every time you see someone do something great. Most people say, "Wow, I could never do that."
                                                                                            
        They've built a deep neural pathway with that negative affirmation. By saying, "I could never do that," they deepen the illusion that they are stuck in something mediocre, that they are stuck being someone mediocre.

    You can set yourself free by how you talk to yourself about your capabilities. The greatness you see in others is in you. I promise you that you can find it inside you, no matter who you are.

    No matter who you've invented yourself to be. You can reinvent yourself. And I recommend that you do it daily.

    Stephanie saw herself in Janis. You will see yourself in Stephanie. Someday I will see myself in you. The trick is to pass it on.

Here's the video of Ball and Chain...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mGJynZNr7rk 
   

PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE

 Lee Ann Womack sings:

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances
But they're worth taking
Lovin' might be a mistake
But it's worth making
Don't let some hell bent heart
Leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out
Reconsider
Give the heavens above
More than just a passing glance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance

                                      * * *

     Lee Ann Womack is a star. Julie Blake is not a star, but Julie is fearless. If you don't believe me, click here (http://www.stevechandler.com/Fearless.html) to see the page she has made AND THE HEARTFELT WORDS SHE HAS WRITTEN to you, see the music video she has made, and hear the song she has written and performed.

     Julie tells her story far better than I could. I'm just grateful that of all the passing winds in the world her sail momentarily caught mine and she used my work as inspiration to find the brave passionate music that was inside of her all along.

     Julie is a testament to the concept of not dying with your music still inside you. And I don't mean dying that last death that releases you from the end days of your life, I mean that death TODAY that will spread through my day if I leave my music inside me.

                            *   *   *

     "Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out."

                                                    ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

                                                         *  *  *

     I hope you never settle for the path of least resistance, but rather GO for it. Dance when you have the chance. Sing whenever you can.

     I read so many books about mind body and spirit. Books that tell you to be sure to integrate all three and balance your life. Take care of your body, your mind and your spirit. But what about your music? No one mentions that. Too embarrassing, and too beautiful. Too beautiful to talk about.

     We strive too much. We don't take time to create...time to float, wander and roam, as Dr. B. says.

          Nathaniel Branden has written, "It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float and wander and roam, time for the individual to descend into the depths of his or her psyche, to be available to barely audible signals rustling for attention. Long periods of time may pass in which nothing seems to be happening. But we know that kind of space must be created if the mind is to leap out of its accustomed ruts, to part from the mechanical, the known, the familiar, the standard, and generate a leap into the new."  

                                        ~Nathaniel Branden

                                              * * *
    My friend Fred Knipe was a professional songwriter whose true music was comedy, and later in life he elevated his music to the status of career and became a full-time successful comedian and comic playwright.

     So not only does your music balance and nurture whatever career you are now in, it often later will rise to the top and become your new career. If you keep your commitment to it. Commitment is everything.
  
       So many people, people I've seen in my own family, become so monomaniacally focused on career that they leave no room for their music and when it's time to retire they feel lost and adrift without any music. My father increased his drinking to drown that part of his soul that had not been expressed. Very sad to watch.
 
       Your music is nothing less than your soul's yearning to self-express.  So it's much more than just a little diversion or hobby to keep you entertained.

       Music is heaven. Those who cast it aside in the name of becoming pain-ridden victims of mundane concerns are the "hell-bent hearts" that try to get you down on their level. Victims of circumstance. Expecting so much of others, and asking so little of themselves. (I've been there. A song took me away from there.)

       The universe is a musical, if we could only see it. If we could only hear it, we would dance to it every day.

***************************************
Callin' out around the world
are you ready for a brand new beat?
summer's here and the time is right
for dancin' in the streets................

*****************************************

        And yes I mean that quite literally! Please read this:

     "Who would think that widely scattered groups of children in a school playground could be in sync. Yet this is precisely the case.

     "One of my students selected as a project an exercise in what can be learned from film. Hiding in an abandoned automobile, which he used as a blind, he filmed children in an adjacent school yard during recess. As he viewed the film, his first impression was the obvious one: a film of children playing in different parts of the school playground. Then -- watching the film several times at different speeds, he began to notice one very active little girl who seemed to stand out from the rest. She was all over the place.

     "Concentrating on the girl, my student noticed that whenever she was near a cluster of children the members of that group were in sync not only with each other but with her. Many viewings later, he realized that this girl, with her skipping and dancing and twirling, was actually orchestrating movements of the entire playground! There was something about the pattern of movement which translated into a beat -- like a silent movie of people dancing.

     "Furthermore, the beat of this playground was familiar! There was a rhythm he had encountered before. He went to a friend who was a rock music aficionado, and the two of them began to search for the beat. It wasn't long until the friend reached out to a nearby shelf, took down a cassette and slipped it into a tape deck. That was it! It took a while to synchronize the beginning of the film with the recording -- a piece of contemporary rock music -- but once started, the entire three and a half minutes of the film clip stayed in sync with the taped music! Not a beat or a frame of the film was out of sync!

     "How does one explain something like this? It doesn't fit most people's notions of either playground activity or where music comes from. Discussing composers and where they get their music with a fellow faculty member at Northwestern University, I was not surprised to learn that for him, and for many other musicians, music represents a sort of rhythmic consensus, a consensus of the core culture. It was clear that the children weren't playing and moving in tune to a particular piece of music. They were moving to a basic beat which they shared at the time. They also shared it with the composer, who must have plucked it out of the sea of rhythm in which he too was immersed. He couldn't have composed that piece if he hadn't been in tune with the core culture.

     "Things like this are puzzling and difficult because so little is known technically about human synchrony. However, I have noted similar synchrony in my own films of people in public with no relationship with each other. Yet, they were syncing in subtle ways. The extraordinary thing is that my student was able to identify that beat.

     "When he showed his film to our seminar, however, even though his explanation of what he had done was perfectly lucid, the members of the seminar had difficulty understanding what had actually happened. One school superintendent spoke of the children as "dancing to the music"; another wanted to know if the children were "humming the tune." They were voicing the commonly held belief that music is something that is "made up" by a composer, who then passes on "his creation" to others, who, in turn, diffuse it to the larger society. The children were moving, but as with the symphony orchestra, some participants' parts were at times silent.

     "Eventually all participated and all stayed in sync, but the music was in them. They brought it with them to the playground as a part of shared culture. They had been doing that sort of thing all their lives, beginning with the time they synchronized their movements to their mother's voice even before they were born. . . .

     "Before the Renaissance, God was conceived of as sound or vibration. This is understandable because the rhythm of a people may yet prove to be the most binding of all the forces that hold human beings together. As a matter of fact, I have come to the conclusion that the human species lives in a sea of rhythm, ineffable to some, but quite tangible to others.

     "This explains why some composers really do seem to be able to tap into that sea and express for the people the rhythms that are felt but not yet expressed as music."

From The Dance of Life, The Other Dimension of Time,

by Edward T. Hall, pp. 154-156,

* * *

All we need is music, sweet music

There'll be music everywhere

* * *

PRACTICE YOUR MAGIC

"I dwell in possibility."

~Emily Dickinson

     Today I'm going to see if I can picture what's possible. Instead of picturing what's wrong. That's the whole formula right there.

     When I'm depressed I meditate on one non-transformational mantra: Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. So I might try a change of course. Rather than obsessing about my unique personality and ego, why don't I pick something wonderful to create? Once I decide what that is, then I'll just be who I need to be to get it done.

     Then I might want to step back a little, in prayer or meditation or a good long walk, and observe the patterns of thought that cloud up my brain and see how all those patterns obscure my spirit. And eliminate possibility.

     The body takes each thought and translates it into a feeling, which is a wonderful system if I'm not swept away by cloudy, uncontrollable thoughts. If I can step back like this, I am no longer swept away. Spirit moves into my life when I step back and observe. Spirit moves into the space between the observer and the observed thought.

     The commitment I make to spirit, and its practice, in whatever religious or non religious form it takes, is absolutely vital to the any other commitments being fully experienced and expressed. I have learned this the hard way by denying the reality of this most real aspect of human existence. As Chardin has said "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

    My primary commitment is to always know that and to continuously grow upward into that ultimate reality. By practicing.

     I love the book written by George Leonard and Michael Murphy called The Life We Are Given. We have each been given life. What will we do? What's possible? Will we dwell in possibility, or will we dwell in our own upset feelings? Which of those two practices will we practice?

     Leonard and Murphy say, "When wisely pursued, practices bestow countless blessings. If we do not obsess about their results, they make us vehicles of grace and reveal unexpected treasures. In this, they often seem paradoxical. They require time, for example, but frequently make more time available to us: They can slow time down, and open us to the timeless moment from which we have arisen. They require sacrifice, but they restore us. While demanding the relinquishment of established patterns, they open us to new love, new awareness, new energy; what we lose is replaced by new joy, beauty, and strength. They require effort, but come to be effortless. Demanding commitment, they eventually proceed like second nature. They need a persistent will, but after a while flow unimpeded. Whereas they are typically hard to start, they eventually cannot be stopped."

     They recommend this, as a guide for life:

Practice your physical routine

Practice graceful communication

Practice planning

Practice meditation

Practice extraordinary service to others

Practice your professional magic

CHOOSING BETWEEN HORRIBLE and MISERABLE!

      During my past ten years as a corporate trainer, business coach and life coach I thought fear was a given.  I believed everyone had to live with plenty of fear. All that changed about three years ago when I went through Byron Katie's nine-day school and began working with myself and my clients to eliminate the thinking patterns that create fear.

    What I found in my own life and in my coaching sessions was that fear could be dissolved at the level of thought.  That it was unnecessary to spend each day avoiding fear or suffering through it. This was a tremendous breakthrough for me and my clients and I have captured all the elements of the breakthrough in my new book, FEARLESS.

     In the popular book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway Susan Jeffers asserts that fear will never go away.  That as long as you grow, you will experience fear.  She says, "Every time you take a step into the unknown you experience fear." Is that true?  Jeffers says that "fear is part of the package" and you better get used to it. But whose package is she referring to?  Many children and all adults try new, unknown adventures with no experience of fear whatsoever.  Some people fearlessly embark on projects while others run in the other direction.

      Her position is that you are simply always going to be afraid.  It's part of this scary human package.  So let's learn to overcome, push through and tough it out. Her final philosophy is that "pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the bigger underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness!"

     So these are our choices in life-1) Doing frightening things that scare me to do them or 2) Living with an even bigger underlying fear that comes from feeling helpless. Her choice reminds me of Woody Allen's statement that "Life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable."

     In my years of working with my clients and myself I used to assume that fear was a given part of the package-and our options were about overcoming the fears with actions.  It worked. But then new fears would rise up and again the choice would be between the horrible and the miserable.

     When I began integrating the writings of Ken Wilber and The Work of Byron Katie into my own life and the lives of my clients is when I began to see some new choices.  I began to see that fear was not necessary.  It did not have to be "part of the package."

     So rather than feeling the fear and doing it anyway-how about feeling the fear and looking for the thought that causes it?  It's the thought that is the source of the problem.  It's time to send in the bomb squad, or else that thought (I'm not safe"?) will rise up in other situations throughout your whole life.  Let's defuse.  Not overwhelm.  Let's not fight fire with fire, let's fight fire with water.

     The great Chinese sage Lao-Tzu said, "There is nothing softer and weaker than water.  And yet there is nothing better for engaging hard and strong things."

    It is possible to live in fearless creativity.  In this moment, right now.  And when fear arises, it's not only possible, but proven enjoyable to dismantle and undo the thought that causes the fear . . . so that you return once again to a fearless state.

  I had learned this lesson once before-years ago-in the work of Dr. Martin Seligman.  I learned the lesson but forgot it as I became swept away by egoic pursuits.  Dr. Seligman proved in his research (chronicled in his book Learned Optimism) that pessimism could be disputed-on the spot-by anyone, and optimism could be thoroughly learned and practiced.

     The past couple years have been exciting to walk myself and my clients out of the dark regions of fear (imagining a future) and into the light (present moment opportunity).

    In my book FEARLESS I give you many anecdotal case histories of fear being lifted and fearless creativity being expressed.  The stories in the book add up to one conclusion:  your past history does not have to own you.  You are free.  Yes.  It is possible (and I know because I now see it happen every day) to have this day be fearless.

AND THE NEW COACHING PROSPERITY SCHOOL STARTS OCTOBER 10!

     So email me at 100Ways@compuserve.com for a FREE CD called How To Double Your Income as a Coach.

      "Steve Chandler's coaching school is the most powerful thing I have done for my business in over 10 years. My prior mid six figure income is now skyrocketing and at the same time I am enjoying more peace and calm in my daily business. I actually took off two days last week. This is how I imagined my consulting and coaching practice could be. Chandler’s six month school is both practical and magical. If you are fortunate enough to attend this class…just do it. Don’t let your reasons stop you. It would be like having a winning lottery ticket in your hand and then not scratching off the winning numbers to cash it in. I highly recommend you enroll in this class and move your business to 7 figures."

~STEPHEN McGHEE
Leadership Coach
and author of Learning to Believe the Unbelievable
www.MiracleLeader.com

THE CURSE OF EXPECTATIONS

     I was talking with my friend Fred Knipe (pictured here) about the power of Byron Katie's work, and how beautifully her process called The Work dismantles negative beliefs we hold about ourselves and others and life and death. Once I stop believing those thoughts, my mind clears up and there is no more stress. The story about anxious, frightful life is gone. And I am free to act and create anything I want. Or just relax into quiet bliss.

    Most of my life I have done the opposite. I have scared myself with stressful beliefs about time, death and money. And how people don't "get" me. None of that was ever true. Yet believing it was true made me a negative believer.

    In talking to Fred about all this I whimsically sent him this….something I think I heard Katie say once….or something like this…that would be good words for my tombstone:
                                          Here lies a stressful believer
                                   who created hell on earth for himself
                               and others out of his unquestioned system

     Fred wrote back that that could be on everyone's tombstone, and that they could just start making generic tombstones with those words on it. And then Fred said something profound and strange (and very beautiful):  "The coyote has no tombstone. Because the coyote never has a bad day. Neither does the coyote have a good day. Hungry all day is not a bad day.  Napping all day full of rabbit is not a good day.  Because the coyote has no judgment. He does not evaluate. No "good for me, bad for me". He avoids harm and seeks benefit without evaluation, so for him there is neither time nor eternity.  People are the only ones who evaluate, and they never stop. It may seem a curse, this process of deciding everything, of pushing all experience through a buzz saw which divides into good and bad, but the curse finally lifts when the evaluation machinery is turned back on itself.  When the experience of evaluation becomes the subject of evaluation, it becomes clear that without judgment we would become like the coyote.  Our capacity to enjoy would be shrunk along with our capacity to worry.  How endlessly engaging and thrilling and glorious it is to let things matter when we have finally judged that they truly don't."

     What does Fred know about the coyote? Are you kidding me? He is a four-time Emmy-award winning writer for PBS's show, The Desert Speaks. He has written about all the desert flora and fauna. But never quite this deeply.

     Fred also writes songs and performs comedy for a living, and if you EVER need a good laugh to pick you up, go to his website and click on one of the many hilarious little routines he does there as his comic alter-ego Dr. Ludiker. Go here: www.fredknipe.com.

                                   *   *   *   *

    Stories get in the way of real life experience.  When I teach leadership courses in organizations I contrast two types of leadership:  1) Managing agreements versus 2) Managing expectations.

    Expectations are stories we believe about how others should behave.  The more expectations I have the more I set myself up for disappointment in life.

    But with no expectations, there can be no disappointment, only loving life as it is.

    "I expect you to clean your room!"

    Imagine yourself hearing those words.  A knot forms in your stomach.  Your throat tightens a little.  Your chest feels like someone is pushing on it.  You begin to explore the consequences of rebellion.  Because people rebel against expectation.

    That's why creating agreements is so much more effective.  No expectations, just agreements.  Two people co-author the agreement in the same way that John Lennon and Paul McCartney would co-author a song.

    Parents live in a constant state of anger and anxiety when they expect so much from their children.  I know a woman I will call Courtney who walks around all day riddled with expectations for her children.  She has even more expectations for her husband.  So she is miserable.  And if she died tomorrow her tombstone would say, "DISAPPOINTED."  Because that would sum up her life.

    Take, though, the example of a different wife and mother I know named Alexandra.  Alex has no expectations.  All human behavior is an amusing surprise to her.  And her son's room is clean.  How is that possible?  Because she has an agreement with her son about the room.  She and her son respect each other.  They also like keeping their word with each other.  It's easier to live with confidence and happiness that way.

    Her son's favorite action heroes keep their word, too.  It's a matter of honor and grace.

    The stories we have in our mind about how other people should be keep us from loving them and being amused by them.  Our stories become expectations that convert thoughts to bad feelings and soon the whole body is riddled with expectations like a body riddled with cancer.

    No expectations means no stories and no disappointment.  It keeps the mind clear and open.  The mind that is open will shift, and keep shifting upward in a spiral toward ever higher levels of spirituality and amusement.

    The great novelist Vladimir Nabokov was the first person I know of to point out that a spiral is a liberated circle.  A mind riddled with expectations is nothing more than a vicious circle.  Stories about how others don't appreciate me swirl within this vicious circle.  Soon my mind is stuck and grinding and whining like a sports car stuck in first gear crying out to be shifted.

    My own mind cries out to be shifted when I'm in some vicious circle story about how you should be acting.  SHIFT and the circle is liberated.  It is now a spiral . . . opening languorously upward, in a heavenly swirl and there is no upper limit.

    In the courses I teach on mindshifting I use Nabokov's observation that a spiral is a liberated circle.  I draw the vicious circle of an unshifted mind on the white board.  Then I draw a spiral.  Up from fear and anger and worry and resentment.  Up toward creativity, compassion and spirit.  There is a gold mine up there at the top and beyond the gold mine there is even more . . . things too wonderful to even talk about in linear language, and sentences that have beginnings and endings.

SCREW FEAR...LET'S RIDE

    The first part of our School for Coaches is over, after two intensive  days of learning how to build an excellent coaching practice. The ultimate coach Steve Hardison and his wife Amy joined us for an hour and gave us one of the most glorious reality-checks we've ever experienced.

     Being authentic and real is hard for so many people. They leave beautiful reality behind chasing status and appreciation from other frightened egos who are chasing the same thing. Byron Katie has said, "Personalities don't love --- they want something."

     Or, as Robert Godwin has written, "If you look at the Bible, or the Upanishads, or the Tao Te Ching, there is only one diagnosis, which is that human beings live in falsehood, alienated from the Real. They habitually confuse what  is ephemeral and valueless with what is transcendent and of eternal value. With  his consciousness either compacted and ‘frozen’ or exteriorized and  dissipated, the spiritually untutored man is hypnotized by appearances and wanders from sensation to sensation until falling into the abyss at the end of his daze, wishes to ashes, lust to dust."

                                               ********************

     The bright and valuable marketing consultant and coach Scott Young brought a Harley Davidson ad from a newspaper to our coaching school that we pinned to the wall. Our theme was fearless coaching and the ad said it all: WE DON'T DO FEAR.

     It also said this… “Over the last 105 years in the saddle, we’ve seen wars, conflicts, depression, recession, resistance, and revolutions. We’ve watched a thousand hand-wringing pundits disappear in our rear view mirror. But every time this country has come out stronger than before….If 105 years have proved one thing, it’s that fear sucks and it doesn’t last long.”

     And down below on the page next to the HD logo it says, "So screw it. Let's ride."

     Yes. That's just exactly the mind shift we are looking for. And it is true, fear does not last long. Because nothing (that you can describe with language) does.

                                            **************************

    And let's finish with these wonderful words (sent to me in a recent email) from the marketing genius Jay Abraham who knows the economic scene better than anyone:

    "The current economic downturn is creating a business building bonanza for a few lucky business owners. Seriously, it's a ‘mother lode,’ profit-yielding, income multiplying, wealth-building Grand Slam Home Run for you!”

     You just need to know what steps to take to claim your monster-sized financial reward. Today's "beaten down" competitor marketplace is the perfect time to get fantastic growth from whatever business you're in. The possibilities available to you right now are no less than "wonderful."

     Think about it. After several years of prosperity -- where almost anybody could make a living in just about any business venture -- now a handful of people like YOU can have all the competitive advantage.

     You may have felt like an underdog in the past - because you were small, or you didn't have a bundle of capital to spend on marketing, promotions, sales force, etc.

     Well, guess what? Your smallness becomes a huge advantage in a business climate like today's. Why? Because you can move fast. You're not shackled with huge overhead, payroll or employees that can kill you financially.

     You can shift gears, repositioning all your efforts and energies, almost instantly...and harvest the "treasure chest" of profits the market is eager to reward you with."

       Can we hear him?

YOU CAN SHIFT GEARS. YOU CAN SHIFT GEARS.