iMindShift with Steve Chandler

Demotivational speakers goin nowhere

I saw three "motivational" speakers this past month who were humorless, gruesome, fraudulent, reptilian IQ-challenged low lifes groveling for money and just as serious and stentorian as any minister howling for the death of witches back in Salem.

What set them apart from real people was their absolute lack of humor or joy or fun. They preached about passion and power and authentic journeys to a place called success and fulfillment, but you could tell that it was not a very happy place. I mean, not if they themselves were living there. Because the "humor" they tried to impose on the audience was grotesque and forced, and had no lightness of spirit in it.

Yet people were taking notes nodding to each other saying they were on a journey too. What fakes we all are.

  There is only one journey.

  And here it is:

This journey is the only one I can believe: Just a small town girl livin in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin anywhere.

Here I am with my dog Jim:

You can see how I love him. But for almost all my life I could not be in the same room with a dog. Ever since I was two years old I had a phobia/psychosis/mania/allergy whatever. But that was cured for me by my friend Michael Neill who is a miracle worker but sometimes pretends he's not. I flew to his home where he performed a stunning ritual of hypnotic neuromancing reprogramming and the next thing you knew I was cuddling up with his retriever and his rottweiler. Not long after that I invited the amazing dog Jim into our lives.

Being brave is different than being fearless. Being brave is a kind of forced suppression of fear. Being fearless is nothing like that. When you are fearless you are just free. You float like a dream through life, ....it's like sharing a pillow with Jim.

Take me out to the ballgame!

Now ready for preorder on AMAZON is Two Guys Read the Box Scores, the new book by Terrence Hill and me. It's about baseball. Mostly. It's about one amazing season of baseball. Followed by two guys. Terry and me. It's what we love doing.

In the picture above, he and I are about to settle in to enjoy a game between the two worst teams in baseball. Turned out to be one of the most enjoyable days of our lives. He and I have been doing this kind of thing together since 1955.

And here it is. The book itself:

And if you are a member of club fearless you will be sent this book without having to actually buy it. Just one of the many things people enjoy the club for...the many free goodies that keep getting sent to them...the two audio downloads per month...the webinars....the daily life-changing, mind-shifting, soul-shattering emails designed to DETOXIFY our members from the media-poisoning they are subject to living in this land of angry victims.

And speaking of writing the book you love to write and forming the club you love to form, PLEASE watch this talk by Apple's Steve Jobs...if you haven't already...many people are sending it around to friends....many people have sent it to me. How to live when you know you're going to die. How to follow your heart instead of what other people want you to do. Just two of the themes. My favorite part? "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

Watch it here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

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Hallucination: Money as oxygen

Notice how people can play board games like Monopoly for hours on end. They play with great spirit and inventiveness. Video and computer games even more so. A pick-up game of basketball in the park after a long hard day at work can wake a person up like nothing else!

It's the joy of just playing. Kids want to stay up and play all night. There is no fatigue when you're playing.

Contrast that to "working."

Working grinds you down. It hits you even before you do it. Just the thought of it. Just the thought of your work day can fill you with dread and anxiety. You're weary before you begin.

Wealth happens to us fastest when we can play it into existence.

But it's hard, given our history, to associate play with money. Money is often just terrifying to people. Far from seeing it as a game, people see it as survival. Money is like oxygen to them. Not to be fooled around with. Serious business. You can die from lack of it!

And that very belief system is what takes all the fun out of making it. All the joy. All the creativity.

The richest man in America, Bill Gates, has always said, "We only have one product here at Microsoft: human imagination."

But how can you fire up your imagination when you are fighting to survive? Gasping for air? Drowning in debt? Those are all just thoughts. But they are thoughts that shut off the flow of life and wealth. Wealth comes from imagination. From playful thoughts and tireless energy.

WHY DON'T WE HAVE A SEMINAR THAT TEACHES THAT?

We do and it's here: http://www.stevechandler.com/financially_fearless.html

And it's taught by me and Michael Neill....who says this quote....a quote that I repeat a lot because it is so worth repeating:

"Some people have learned to live by keeping themselves under the constant threat of poverty, abandonment, and self-hatred if they don't perform up to whatever standard they have decided upon. The problem with this motivational strategy is simple: If you keep putting a gun to your head, at some point you're going to want to pull the trigger."

Michael and I have been working hard at becoming the best duo ever. Here is a photo of us recently rehearsing our scary-good workshop:

There's no fear like money fear

 

Let's say you grew up in a family that, for whatever reason, imparted a lot of money fears on to you.

Maybe your parents never had much, or maybe you felt their fear that the rent wasn't going to get paid, or the utilities were going to get turned off, or all they talked about was not having enough money, and how frightening it was, or all the things they had to do just to get by; and you picked up on that. In addition to that, everything that was said to you--"money doesn't grow on trees you know"--all those things that were said to you, pounded it deeper in. So this generated a great deal of fear in you as a child.

Now as you grow up, you have a little mastery over that, just from growth alone, and so it now becomes anger. Now most people who are just flat out angry at wealthy people. Or angry that someone has made money on some idea, and angry about the whole concept of figuring out a way to make money. And so the fear has now been converted to anger, resentment--a kind of slow burn on the subject.

But that, too, is profoundly dysfunctional. It won't lead you to success to indulge all of that. Success comes from the lighter touch, from being much higher on the ladder, so that money is just simply numbers that come and go, and there's a feeling of flow to it. Money doesn't make you happy. It's the opposite. Happiness makes you money.

Money flows in very easily when I am joyfully serving people, and it flows out nicely to good causes. There is a sense of flow, instead of a sense of hoarding and clinging and grabbing. The grim clench. It comes from a childhood fear that permeates adult life.

I want to see all the positive aspects of converting my talent into prosperity. How many people it really helps, including me and my family, and how much it makes me more creative, and gives me more options, than if I'm angry, and fearful, and just clinging to the very little bit I have, and resentful, and mad at the government, and wondering which program is going to be there to take care of me, and how come my health care and mortgage can't be free, and how come this, and how come that. It's just a mass of worry and resentment around everything that has to do with money. And none of it is necessary.

So step one in succeeding financially is to lose the fear. To reflect back on my childhood and notice where the fear came from so I can laugh it away. What was my original belief system around money? How big a deal did I make it in my mind? And how can I free myself from all those fears and those terrifying belief systems that have been built up over the years?

I want absolute freedom. Financial fearlessness. I want to create wealth from a beautiful present moment awareness of grateful living. So I can just create it through inventive, imaginative service of people.

So step one is to address the fears, to de-program them, and then re-program them into courage and creativity, the watchwords of an upcoming mastermind experience. It will border on the surreal.

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Financially Fearless

A 6 Month Money Mastermind with Steve Chandler and Michael Neill

Has anyone told you there’s a recession on? Did you think it was important to know that?

Join supercoaches Steve Chandler and Michael Neill for this extraordinary opportunity to:

- Reduce your financial anxiety by 75% or more.

- Master the money game as a game — from creating to accumulating to managing to using your money to create even more of what you want in your life.

- Get past — and move beyond — every single fear and superstition you may have around money, regardless of how deeply engrained they may seem to be. Financially Fearless is a six-month mastermind experience specially designed by supercoaches Steve Chandler and Michael Neill to take you beyond your current limitations and fears around money to bring your best self to bear in any aspect of life that is currently undermined by money worry and money "problems."

Here's how Financially Fearless works:

The program begins with our intensive three-day Financial Independence weekend, from July 9 through 11, 2010. This fun, scary, and transformational weekend is designed to assist you in breaking through ALL your money fears and re-creating your financial life from the inside-out, and will cover a variety of topics, including:

· Creating the impossible

· Owner/Victim applied to your prosperity

· How to ask for what you want in life

· The four masteries of money

· How to create wealth, wherever you are and starting from nothing

· Becoming financially fearless

· The art of the bold proposal

· Coaching yourself to ongoing financial success

· The secrets of the happy millionaires

Does this man have a problem?

 

You notice in our society we reserve the word "problem" for the worst, most troubling kind of thing.  It's like somebody walks home and they have been listening to the radio and they say, "Hey, have you heard about Tiger Woods?" 

"What?" 

"He's got real problems." 

"Oh, my gosh." 

"His life is threatened by real problems now." 

And so "problem" is the word we use when people encounter the most dire, horrible circumstances.

So no wonder I feel tightness in my chest whenever my mind believes it has a PROBLEM. 

Notice how, in our society, we call the worst things "problems."  "How is the government?"  "It has integrity problems." "How is John Edwards?"  "He's got problems."  "How is your brother?" "He's got problems, I don't know if he'll ever survive them." 

I don't want to think that way. 

Because the truth about problems is that problems are actually good for us. 

Let's say your child is in math class and you go in at the start of the year for its open house and the parents are meeting the teacher and the teacher says to you, "We're going to give your boy more problems this year to solve than last year's class had.  We've got it set up so that this year's children will be working a lot more math problems and solving twice as many problems before the year is over than last year's math class solved.  We're able to do this because of the computer system we now have and some new teaching methods so your child will emerge as being much better (more masterful) than last year's or any previous class because of this new problems-enhanced program we have."

Now if you are a parent you are thinking "Hey, that's terrific.  I love that.  That sounds great.  Did you hear that, Hon?  Our kid's going to work more problems by the end of the semester." 

So when our child has "problems" to solve at school -we think it's great because we know from a distance that problems are good for people. 

Problems actually build skill levels up.  We know that. They make us strong! Self-reliant!

Problem-solving turns us into more self-confident people. 

So perhaps replacing the word "problem" is a really important step toward building a fearless and creative life.  Problems are good for us but we don't really know that anymore because of the emotional baggage we've attached to the word "problem."

So we want to quickly take that negative emotional charge out of the word and redefine the situation as a project. 

Staring at my PROBLEM I am depressed. Working on my PROJECT I am excited.

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

When my songwriting partner Fred Knipe and I wrote a song called "I Can't Get To You From Here" we, of course, never knew if anyone outside of our families would ever hear it. We created the song anyway. We didn't think about the approval of others, we could not afford to, because that would have stopped the creation of the song.

Now more than 46,000 people have watched the YouTube version of the song which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzrljQ0Euto

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

On April 10, 2010 I will be giving a LIVE seminar on CREATING YOUR FUTURE in Phoenix at the Airport Hilton....Club Fearless members get in free and because it only takes a monthly payment of $19 to be in Club Fearless some folks have figured out that it is smarter to join the club than to pay $300 at the door. Some people have done the math.

My seminar will identify the two kinds of people in the world, creators and reactors. Creators create their day based on a compelling, irresistible future. Reactors are reacting to the opinions of others all day.

Creators are always to be found in the middle of another bold creative move while reactors are on the phone reporting another travesty or injustice they have just suffered.

Creators create their futures by what they do today. Reactors are obsessed with talking about the immediate unfortunate past. The best future a reactor ever produced was simply a bandaged-up version of the past.

Fearlessness and creativity are the same thing. Children are all creative. Then society convinces them to have a life based on worry and fear and doubt. They are taught to cultivate an absolutely huge obsession with other people's opinion of them and other people's treatment of them. They spend their precious time trying to win the approval of others. They are the reactors. For them, the future is never created.

For them the future is something they dread.

They dread what might happen. That's how their precious, divine minds are used: they are biocomputers used to dread with.

I was one. A reactor. Big time. I was sick, ruined, bankrupt, addicted to drugs and alcohol, lying to everyone I knew, especially the ones closest to me. A life of fear and more fear. The best I could ever feel, on my best day, was just worried. I was okay with being worried. It was better than being flat-out terrified. But the terror would always return. And the honeymoon of constant worry never lasted.

My life was saved by a recovery program.

Then, from there, I had the stunning privilege of learning to live free. I never knew how before. I found teachers. I found books. I found friends who were learning the same thing. I found a mentor.

I found creativity.

I work with people now who are learning to create their own futures. I coach them. People call it life coaching, and that's just a handy term. Who knows what really happens when two people work with each other to create a future?

Now my work is also to take my subscription Club Fearless to the whole world so that the whole world can learn to form stunning, compelling visions and then start creating. Which is to say they start acting courageously, because it's the same thing ...  this thing we know as courage and this thing we call creativity.

If I was born in the image of my Creator then I know what my job is, it is to create. It's that simple.

If, on the other hand, I was born in the image of my destroyer, then my job is to react. To figure out how to please people and react to everything they say to me. To worry constantly about how to win their approval.

(Until the worrying finally, totally, destroys me.)

That's when I want to talk to my Destroyer. "Why," I ask him desperately, “are you leading me down this path of constant people-pleasing? Why am I on this quest for total approval? Because the more approval I win the worse I feel."

What I got in my spiritual recovery was that winning the approval of other people is a descent into cowardice as a man. It's the act of going pathetic in the face of circumstance. Surrendering my own power to the judgment of my superiors, who would be just about everybody. Such activity had me despising myself and hating others. So how can it be the good thing everybody recommends so strongly? I can't tell you how many well-meaning people tried to get me to read books on how to win friends and influence people.

If you look at me today I will be doing one of two things the moment you look at me. I'll either be creating my future or reacting to my past. One activity leads to strength and happiness and the other leads to worry.

But I'm so lucky now to see that choice. I am so lucky that God granted me the courage to change the things I can.

What if your mind shifts?

My new book is now available for the first time on Amazon and in book stores, and this is a book that Club Fearless members already have received a copy of because it is the sequel to FEARLESS.

Once you can grasp being fearless, you can start shifting your mind and the new book has over 100 mindshifts you can make.

I know what you're thinking. You'd rather just win the lottery. Right? Well, no, hold on. That's the whole reason our country is in debt. And that's the thoroughly corrupted thought inside the head of our favor-buying, morally bankrupt politicians.

 Winning the lottery would do you more harm than good.

(I know, you are saying, "Let me be the judge of that! I want to find out for myself!")

However, I think it's important to see this.

A recent news story about a person named Abraham Shakespeare is instructive. Winning $30 million in the Florida Lottery should have been the best thing that ever happened to him. Would you agree? (Actually, I hope not.)

Because with Abraham's newfound wealth came a string of bad choices and hangers-on who constantly hit him up for money. Nine months ago, he vanished. Friends and family hoped he was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.

On Friday, detectives confirmed that a body buried under a concrete slab in a rural backyard was his.

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

When you really study The Seventeen Lies we tell ourselves to maintain our stories in life, you see that Lie Number Eleven may be the most fascinating of all the lies:

Winning the lottery would solve everything

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

The whole concept of the lottery is based on what Gandhi insisted was one of life's true evils: unearned money.  The concept that ruins more businesses and individuals than any other: something for nothing. A bubble-leveraged greed grab for instant financial payoff.

When people begin to tell themselves that money itself is what's missing in their lives, the lying has begun. Because money is not what's missing.  What's missing is the ability to make it and save it. The personal effectiveness is what is missing. The inner strength.

Action builds that strength, and we lie to ourselves to stay out of action.

In his book about lottery winners in the state of Michigan, Money For Nothing, Jerry Dennis documents many sad stories of people who won millions only to have their lives become much more difficult. One couple won a fortune, only to face tax complications that prompted them to quit their jobs and invest in a small resort. The main resort house began falling apart as soon as they moved in, and the whole thing turned into a nightmarish money pit.  The people started treating them differently. Even the grocer who used to smile and give them a nice deal on vegetables or throw in an extra orange, never did that any more.  People regarded them coldly.

Lottery winners often have to move to another state and start over. Go somewhere where people don't know how they got their money.  Because people treat lottery winners much differently than they treat people who have earned their wealth. Distant relatives call and ask for financial help.

"Come on! It's for my daughter's medical bills. It's not as if you earned that money. You ought to be willing to share some of it! I can't believe the selfishness and greed you're showing. After all, it's just by pure chance that you have that money. I could have won as easily as you. It's pure luck. You didn't do anything at all to deserve what you got. And now you won't even share a small percentage of it! I know people who work hard for their money who are more generous than you. Boy, that lottery really brought out the worst in you. At least we know who you really are now. At least the rest of the family knows your true selfish uncaring unsharing character."

A wealthy person who has earned the money is usually treated with respect. I was watching TV and I saw a show on which Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, both multi-billionaires, went to the University of Washington to share the stage and speak to students about their businesses and life experiences.  When the two men arrived in the auditorium, they were greeted with a standing ovation.

People who become millionaires in the lottery are often treated with jealousy and a kind of contempt. (The universe has a great deal of fun unmasking these lies that we tell, like the lie about the money solving everything.) Most people who win money quit their jobs and try to spend their way to happiness and fulfillment only to find themselves growing less and less happy.  Many realize that they were not even being truthful with themselves every morning when they said, "I hate this job."

Joe Mullich, writing in Business First, recounts the horrible misadventures of lottery winner Buddy Post who won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania State Lottery.

When Buddy Post won his sixteen million dollars he was a cook and a carnival worker, working for every cent he had, and treating his money as if he had earned it (which he had.)

After winning the lottery, Post began a life of pure trouble.  He started up a bar and a used-car lot with his siblings, but those businesses went under.  Post's landlord then claimed that Post owed her half the lottery money, and Post was restricted from taking any more of his winnings. Eventually she got a third of it.  Around the same time Post's brother, Jeffrey, was plotting to kill Post and his wife.  He was trying to get the rest of the lottery money for himself. The brother was eventually convicted of his murder plot in 1993. Post then declared bankruptcy with debts of $500,000, not counting money owed for taxes and to lawyers. 

Mullich concludes his story about Buddy Post, "Today? Post lives in a mansion, but the gas was shut off when he couldn't pay the bill.  Post now says he feels lucky his phone and electricity weren't shut off too. Post has been trying to auction off his future lottery payments but the Pennsylvania Lottery is trying to block the auction. Post says he will devote the remainder of his days to filing lawsuits against lawyers and others who have conspired to take his money."

The reason lottery winners are blindsided by the unexpected horrors of winning is that they have tried to equate their discipline problems with money problems. They tell themselves money is the answer, when it's not.  The answer was action. How to develop a reliable course of action that would provide more than enough money. The lie is used to avoid this action.

In Money For Nothing, Jerry Dennis concludes that "many lottery winners have been disappointed to find that, instead of a free ride on a gravy train, they've only been given a new pair of shoes for the same old dusty road, or, as one winner put it, 'the same problems, just with bigger numbers.' "

In a shocking study done by Dan Coates, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman and Philip Brickman the well-being of lottery winners was compared to those who had suffered accidents resulting in quadriplegia (loss of the use of arms and legs) and paraplegia (loss of legs).  They wanted to find out whether people who won the lottery would have huge increases in happiness, and whether people who suffered such devastating physical traumas would have huge decreases in happiness.

Neither thing happened!  The increases didn't occur, and the decreases didn't occur.  People kept their happiness quotients, on the average, at the same level no matter whether they lost their legs or won eight million dollars. The two groups reported nearly identical levels of happiness.

So, people could win the lottery. Or they could lose their legs.  The two events would have the same effect on their happiness in life.  I think that proves that happiness is a separate thing. It's totally separate from outside events, good or bad. It's an internal adventure, and it's based on our ability to grow a sense of purpose that we can fulfill every day. Every day.

To continue to tell myself that I'd be happy if I won the lottery is to continue to lie to myself about where happiness comes from.

Meanwhile, friends and family puzzled Friday over Abraham Shakespeare’s rapid rise and fall. They said their friend lived a humble life, and just before he bought the winning ticket, he joined a church and was baptized.

At that moment, he was perfect just the way he was.

Then he won the lottery.

The same one we all want to win.

His unearned riches drew all the wrong people into his life with all the wrong motives. He started telling people he wished he had never won. Soon after that he wished he had never been born.

Build. Your. Strength.

Like friendship caught on fire

  

           "Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”

~BRUCE LEE

     I have been re-reading my favorite book on relationships, The Relationship Handbook by the subtle genius George Pransky.

     This book is truly amazing, and I've given away many copies over the years to friends and clients struggling in their relationships. People who struggle are trapped in their personalities. As you know by now. As Byron Katie says, "Personalities can't love. They want something."

*     *     *     *     *

     I did an interview yesterday and the interviewer asked a number of interesting questions. I'll share a couple of them:

     Q: You don't do blogs like everyone says one is supposed to. You post erratically, and you often promote your own programs. Why is that? Won't you lose credibility?

     SC: You are right. I don't do it like one is supposed to. I have a couple rules I  follow. 1) Always have every word be authentic and helpful, and don't post till you're ready to do that and 2) Don't worry about what anyone thinks.

     Q: For example, you posted the ASK program you are doing twice, in two straight blogs. Was that a mistake?

     SC: No. It was intentional. This program is the culmination of everything that has WORKED to free people up from their frozen position financially. It's simple. They don't ask. They are so hung up on what others are thinking of them, they don't ask for what they want. I want people to know it's available. I don't care what others think.

     Q: But isn't the program rather expensive? Ten thousand dollars for six months.

     SC:  Club Fearless members get a thousand dollar discount. For one thing. For another, it would only be expensive if you attended and didn't do the process. The process will get you your course fee back right away. The process will then have you learning how to make many many times the course fee. So how can that be expensive? I'll tell you what is expensive, fear is. Fear is our most expensive indulgence. Because it keeps us from entering the conversations that would give us everything.

     Q:  Why do we fear conversation?

     SC: Old myths and beliefs from childhood about never being selfish, never being pushy, never doing anything other than PLEASING the grown ups....they carry on. We get scared and drop into the child self ... the childhood beliefs ... none of which apply to adulthood. At all. But we live as scared children looking for new parents always. Maybe the government will be my new parent! There's a video circulating on the internet of a woman who is jumping for joy after President Obama was elected saying that she would no longer have to worry now about her car payment or home payment!

     Q: So we have to re-learn asking?

     SC: Learn it really for the first time. For the first time ever. And then practice it. Practice is everything. People who look courageous to us are not ... they are just PRACTICED.  Even my own amazing coach, Steve Hardison, who is better at enrollment and persuasion and conversation-that-leads-to-results than anyone on this whole planet ... even he insists in all honesty that he has no special talent for it at all..... it's just that he does it. And if you do something long enough you start to relax into it and become good at it, then you become better than good and it becomes a source of self-esteem, and soon you are looking forward to doing it. It becomes mastery, and at that stage you are loving it. Absolutely loving it. Can't wait to wake up and do it.

*     *      *      *      *

    For those of you not in the geographical area to get into the ASK program, which ideally would be the Phoenix area (although we have a California member signed up who will make that trip) since you'll be meeting with me for three hours two evenings a month, here's something I recommend:

      My dear friend Stephen McGhee is a graduate of my own coaching school and mastermind program. Even prior to attending those programs, he was one of America's most sought-after leadership coaches and speakers.

    He has a prosperity school going on that you'll want to check out:

    Stephen has two or three more seats available in his Life Prosperity School and Club Fearless members can now get in at a $500 discount and pay only $2,000 instead of the usual $2,500. Go here for details:

http://www.miracleleader.com/life_prosperity.html

Or contact Stephen by email at:

[email protected]

Use whatever reality gives

“Hurricane Katrina led a path of destruction through my home. However, she would not destroy my faith in God and my love of music and my fans.”
~Fats Domino

     In SHIFT YOUR MIND I wrote a lot about how freeing and exciting it is to drop your personality and just let your soul express itself...like going on a moonlight swim. I wrote about this, too:

     When I live based on my personality, my whole world is about hurt feelings. That's really it. That's my life.

     My daughter hurt my feelings when she didn't call me on my birthday. You hurt my feelings when you didn't answer my e-mail. I swing like a monkey from hurt to hurt because it's all about my personality that I'm trying to hold together. This thing I think is "me" that can be hurt and can be bothered and disrespected -unappreciated.

     When people live from this personality and not from their purpose, no longer is life creative and no longer is life fun. When they live from purpose, everything simplifies. Soon you can be like Fats Domino simply walking to New Orleans. (I remember when I was a teenager listening to him rocking and rolling and singing "I'm walkin' to New Orleans" and I just thought about how simple his life had become! That's all he was doing-he was walking to New Orleans. That was it. That was how it worked.)

     The other side of that (the dark side, the flip side) is my complex personality. The thoughts and beliefs that drive me crazy. Soon my mission on this flip side is to change other people so they won't hurt my feelings so much.

     But if I pay attention I can allow experience to show me that wanting other people to change is insane.

     Wanting myself to change is the ultimate in mental health.

    But why would I want to change? Well, maybe I'm up to something. Maybe the way I'm behaving or the way I'm spending my precious imagination and mental energy is not taking me there. So what can I change in me? I'll sit down with myself. Or maybe I'll even sit down with a mentor, or my coach, and I'll say, "Here's what I'm up to, and here's where I'm stuck."

     He says, "Are you willing to change and practice something that you're not used to practicing?"

     "Yes."

     "Practice it until it becomes second nature to you?" "Yeah, sure, because I'm up to something big." "OK, let's work on that."

     So now I'll practice something.

     Recently I saw on the sidelines of a pro football game one of the players screaming at his coach. He was just losing it. Yelling at his coach and the coach was telling him to "knock it off," and yelling back at him. Pure public tantrum.

     "You hurt my feelings when you don't put me in! I'm being disrespected! How do I look on national television when I sit out two plays that are important to the team? How am I coming across?"

     There was another player on the same team who for almost the whole season wasn't put in. He used that situation for his higher purpose.

      He took what reality gave him and said to himself, "I will rest. I will save my strength. I will learn. I will train. I will work out. I will be so fresh and ready when they do put me in that my purpose will be fulfilled."

      And so it was. In the playoffs he was stronger than ever.

* * * * *

“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.”

~Walt Disney

* * * * *

     Are you ready to fearlessly create the impossible?

     Join my friend and Club Fearless member Michael Neill in the launch of his new interactive coaching program on Creating the Impossible.

     July 1st to July 30th

     A 30 day project challenging YOU to CREATE THE IMPOSSIBLE in your life and in the world!

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”
~Christopher Reeve

      All you need to do to get started is to choose an “impossible” project to take on this July - anything from writing your first novel to losing 30 pounds to earning $50,000!

     Here are the only prerequisites for your project:

     1. You must believe you have a less than 50% chance for success in the 30 days of the program.

     2. You must be so passionate about what it is you want to create that you will be glad of any time you spend invested in creating it, regardless of how things turn out!

     Michael's “impossible goal” is to enroll 1000 people onto this program, and he is offering members of Club Fearless an unprecedented 100% discount on the program!!!! (If you are not a member of Club Fearlessor Michael’s Solutions Cafe, you can sign up for the Creating The Impossible program for $99 by clicking here.)

     By joining this program you will receive:

     - A downloadable jumpstart workbook on the 1st of July.

     - Audio messages each day throughout the program that will encourage and guide you towards the creation of your “impossible” project.

     - Each week, there will be special “action days” where you can go online or phone into a tele-bridge and use the energy of the group to get yourself into action and build momentum towards making your dream a reality. - You will be allowed access to a private online forum throughout the month, in which Michael will be an active member of helping to answer any questions you have and unstick your stuckness if you find yourself struggling to move forward! To save $99 and begin creating the impossible, join us in Club Fearless today!

Closer to the next home run!

 
"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."
-Babe Ruth

    I love Babe Ruth's quote and I love baseball and I will be there opening day to see the first pitch thrown out in Phoenix next week and I'll have a little notebook in hand this time because I am writing a book about baseball right now with my entertaining friend and coauthor Terrence N. Hill. It will be the 4th in our two guys series....books not about personal growth or self-help, but just about the joys of being alive.

    Self-help is made fun of by intellectuals in the New York Times, but it saved my life. However, I realize that I tend to take it too far. Not everyone wants to keep hearing about the latest program for enlightenment and motivation.
 
    My own dear wife Kathy keeps me honest. When she catches me dispensing a little too much wisdom about the power of positive thinking at a family gathering, she will roll her eyes and say something funny about me.  Which reminds me of a joke:

    A woman is told by her doctor she has six months to live. "Is there anything I can do?" she asks.
 
   "Yes there is," the doctor replies. "You could marry a motivational speaker."
 
   "How will that help my illness?" the woman asks.

    "Oh, it won't help your illness," says the doctor, "but it will make six months seem like an eternity."    

*     *     *     *     *

     Here's a short letter I wrote to Terry Hill while we were writing TWO GUYS READ JANE AUSTEN (a book that has sold way beyond our expectations… something that has, I believe, more to do with the popularity of Jane herself than it does with us...). This was written right after Heath Ledger's overdose death hit the news.

     Dear Terry,  

     When you and I were 20 years old a movie came out called "The Pleasure Seekers" with a dream cast of Ann-Margret, Tony Franciosa and Gardner McKay. Do you remember it? It was warning us. Where does such shallow pleasure-seeking lead? Yesterday the news was that the young actor Heath Ledger was dead. Empty pill bottles all over his apartment. Sleeping pills.

    But sleep won't come. The whole night through. Your cheating heart. Will tell on you.

    Because it's cheating to want inner peace to be so immediate and easy.

    This I have to remind myself every day. Just like your own disciplines of writing and walking and journaling do. I use something I call The Stravinsky Code to remind me of where real joy (versus shallow gratification) comes from. It's a quote from the composer Igor Stravinsky. He said, (and I've read this a thousand times by now striving to have it sink in really deep), "My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit."

     Here's to obstacles,    s.

*     *     *     *     *

     And here's a cool poem just sent to me by a talented young woman who is a member of that club I write so much about:

REINVENTING MYSELF

After much circumspection, I am reinventing myself
Sick to death of recalling the drama on the back shelf
It's a fruitless effort to live in the past
Cuz the present is flying by too fast!!

Though it's always what I've been accustomed to
There's no point in letting shit brew
Best thing to do is just let it all out
Rather than allowing myself to brood and pout

Letting go is the greatest feeling ever
Now all binds from the past I can completely sever
Time to start fresh and anew
Have no clue what the future will lead to

Fear of the unknown is what's really exciting
Garnering brand new material, which I'll be reciting
Ah yes, that's where I am at home, on stage
No longer will my doubts keep me in a cage

Time to live abundantly, distributing my humor and wealth
Which I will do, now that I am reinventing myself

*     *     *     *     *     *

It takes a coward to be courageous

       These are the words of my friend, the leadership coach and author Stephen McGhee:

       It takes a coward to be courageous.

     My heart skipped a beat as she walked into the room. I could not take my eyes off of her. There seemed to be a knowing that went beyond words.

     My heart opened and the feeling that began to move through my body was warm and wonderful. I want to meet her. It felt as if I had known her from before and yet I knew we had never met. What should I do, I wondered? My stomach was feeling like I was swaying on turbulent ocean waves. Should I get up and walk over to meet her?

     Then, like an ice storm the fear came. What if she says no? What if I offend her? She may not find me attractive? I might be embarrassed. I will look like a fool if she already is in a relationship. The other people in the coffee shop might laugh at me?

     How many of you can relate to the following experience? Some of you may have felt that way before in other scenarios. The fearful feeling tends to sneak up on us. It can show up in many different scenarios.

     Perhaps you are in a meeting and you know the solution to the problem. Nobody else can see the solution because they are stuck in stinking thinking and trying to be right about the “way it is”. As life and business leaders we must learn to abate the sinking “icey” feeling and speak our truth. If we don’t speak our truth or reach out our hand to life…it can pass us by quickly and decisively. Then, we can look back on our years of life with a sense of complacency.

     Consider that in most of those situations, the moment will never be the same again. Those moments come and go and it requires courage to “stand” up for our beliefs or to say yes to an intuitive feeling. Many times feeling like a coward can help? What you say? Most people think cowardice is a bad thing. No not really, because most people pretend to have it all together. They are just cowards in disguise. Those people are just as afraid as the next person. The difference is they don’t want to look bad, because they are so invested in looking good. This requires tremendous false energy. It is a waste of creativity.

     The person that is cowardly…like the lion in the Wizard of Oz isn’t worried about looking good and will tend to try more things than the person holding on to some false identity. Think about it? Kids are great at speaking out…or trying new things. They are not generally worried about doing it right. They learn that latter from us the adults.

     I promise you the courage will come forward for you. As a coach, I am constantly inviting (pushing) my clients to go to the edge with their courage. We grow from these moments. We grow from the experience regardless of the outcome. We grow if we are willing to take the step. You don’t need to know the sequence of steps; only the very first one.

     I have heard it said that “spirit meets us at the point of action.” I believe that to be true. It makes sense. Spirit is not stupid and why would spirit move for me while I sit on my butt.

     So, I took a deep breath. I stood up and walked over to the table. I knew not what to say. I reached out my hand and spoke: “When you walked in this coffee shop, my heart opened and I saw you as the most beautiful woman I have ever seen”. My voice was steady. Suddenly, I felt light hearted and clear. I said, “I could not leave here today without at least meeting you.” She smiled and we began a conversation. It’s a good thing I was a coward on that day. If not for my cowardly lion I would not have met Leslie and we would not be engaged to be married.

     This concept applies everywhere with everything we do. It applies with our kids, our business, our relationships, our money, our health, our sense of adventure. Courage is needed everywhere. Fear sucks and courage rocks.

*     *     *     *     *

     If you live near Mesa, Arizona, this is good news:

     Julia Gresham is leading a meet-up group to discuss the bold issues thus far presented in Club Fearless. The event is coming up Friday, March 27th in Mesa, AZ:

http://www.meetup.com/Club-Fearless-Steve-Chandler-Meetup-Group/

*     *     *     *     *

     What will you do the next time you need to find your courage?

     For a lifetime of courage, go to www.clubfearless.net and join members from 17 other countries.

        

Don't take the path to the dark side

      My friend Keith Johns, who runs the Myriad Music School in San Mateo, California, told me he was "Listening to a mind shift lesson this morning and being 37 years old with a 6 year old son, Star Wars is never far from the brain. Some of your teachings are very similar to that of Yoda, the Jedi master. I once heard an interview of Joseph Campbell talking about George Lucas. Lucas talked frequently with Campbell about the universalities of religion and spirit when developing his theme of the Force and Yoda’s teaching. I thought I would share a few of his best quotes. Perhaps you could use them when addressing a crowd of 30-somethings. Thanks again for all you do!"

     Keith then gave me a number of Yoda's quotes and the one I choose to use today is this marvelous one:

     “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

*     *     *     *     *

ESCAPE THE RAT RACE?
    

 Jim Thompson sent me this email:

    Steve -

    Have you found any fear that is universal? I mean any one fear that everyone has. I have asked this question and have yet to find one. Makes me realize how much we scare ourselves.

    I read your club fearless emails and wonder how did he know that about me. It scares me because I wonder how you know what is going on in there!

    Keep up the great work, look forward to someday meeting you.

    ~Jim Thompson

I wrote back:

Dear Jim,

    I am told by a wise mentor gifted in NLP that the only fears we seem to be born with are the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises.

    Other than those, we add them as we go based on the thoughts we believe. You are right, we scare ourselves!

    But we don't need to.

    Therefore: club fearless, so that the most possible people at the lowest possible price can see that and begin to unravel all these unnecessary additions to their lives.

   ~Steve

Jim Thompson has allowed me to make this available to readers of this blog:

Get your FREE copy of NY Times Best Selling Author ROBERT KIYOSAKI'S "PERFECT BUSINESS" Audio CD shipped to your door... CLICK HERE

*     *     *     *     *

WILL YOU BE MY APPRENTICE THIS YEAR?

   My first apprentice has just come to the completion of his year with me, and we have had a wonderful time! His coaching and speaking business has grown in leaps and bounds, and he made back his apprentice fee many times over with what he learned to do this past year.

     If you yourself are a coach or speaker and want to be my next apprentice, please know that the fee is $50,000, and there will be an application process that begins by sending me an email telling me about yourself and why you would like to work with me as my apprentice for a year. Then we will talk on the phone to get to know each other. Both of those experiences have been a lot of fun so far for all the people who have applied in the past. I wish I could have accepted you all.

     Once you are accepted, we will design our program together. You will attend as many of my seminars, keynotes and workshops as you wish. You will be certified by the end of the year to teach and present all my seminar material, and you will have the rights to all that content. You'll receive personal life coaching as well as business coaching from me throughout the year. The many other benefits to you will be discussed in our phone conversation. If you are interested in this program, send an email to me at: [email protected] and once I receive it, we will talk. I base my acceptance of an apprentice on his or her potential to become extremely successful in this work.

*     *     *     *     *

   If you are courageously deciding to go against the grain a bit and make some investments, here's a book I highly, no, let me say it this way, I HIGHLY recommend that you purchase immediately:

 

    The author Jack Calhoun is a witty and highly creative investment consultant who told me last week that the early response to his book has been surprisingly enthusiastic.....just when you thought no one was investing anymore!

*     *     *     *     *

 

   In these times it's no longer powerful for a business to spread the spectrum and try to be all things to all people. The more laser-sharp your appeal is, the faster you get business in a down economy. My friend Jeff Youngs is a business consultant and coach who helps his clients create powerful strategies that grow their business and develop brand strategy for their offerings, all while making sure it works in their lives. He’s committed to seeing business people receive the full benefit of their businesses and fulfillment in their work. Small businesses or FORTUNE 500, doesn’t matter. He helps them all. If you want a clear picture of who you are, where you are going, AND how to get there, call Jeff:

v 310.392.2951 | c 310.663.3643  Email: [email protected] http://www.youngscom.com/Home_Page.php

*      *      *      *      *

Click HERE to find out more about this club.

     This club is growing rather rapidly! We now have members in Australia Canada, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, Sudan, Sweden and the USA!

If you are terrified to be seen

  
    "I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some
people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be
seen carrying a MODERN SCREEN magazine.
Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most."

~Bob Dylan

 

*     *     *     *     *

        Terrified of being seen carrying a MODERN SCREEN magazine is a terror I can identify with. I used to carry all sorts of things that I thought would give me a clue to the rich and famous, believing, erroneously, that they had some secret to living.

    I wanted to live larger.

    And actually, there was always a secret. It wasn't in the stars.

    It was this: practice a little more deliberately and creatively and extensively than others do. That was always the secret. But I carried PEOPLE magazine around, and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and so many others to try to find out how to live larger, play bigger, on a bigger stage.

    Most people I meet have this same yearning inside. This nagging feeling that
they are playing life WAY TOO SAFE!

    But what if you saw me with these magazines? Or, worse, with a self help book! What would you think of me? And that was the terror. Afraid of what other people think. Not knowing that people who are admired and respected most in the world, and down through history, figured out long ago that it didn't matter at all.......it didn't matter at all what people thought. Just do your fearless practice and create....and create and create.

*     *     *     *     *

A FOOLISH FEARLESS PROJECT BEGINS!

"Start a huge, foolish project like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you."

~Rumi

    The whirling dervish poet Rumi is onto something here.  I put his quote in a recent book I wrote about living a fearless life.

    So what's my foolish project?  A mastermind group open to the whole world to join.  With a billion members in it.  From all over the world.  Club Fearless.  All in this moment.

  Some people-upon hearing of my foolish project have said (rather loudly), "That's impossible!"

  Perfect.  Then I am on the right path.

  Formula for doing the impossible: creativity and courage!  From my experience with myself and my clients and friends and family we are either creating or we are not creating.  Either or.  One or the other.   No messing with mister in-between.  Mister in-between is the devil himself.

    Is it possible to live a fearless life?

    Let me answer that difficult question this way:  it is possible to be fearless in this moment.  In this moment right now.  Even as you are reading.  Even for me right now as I am writing this.

    And this moment is your life.  Your life is now.

    But we complicate it. We pull a chain of links of worry from our worried minds and throw that chain out into the imaginary dream-up screwed-up frightening FUTURE! We imagine that's our life.  Terrorism, socialism, bankruptcy, divorce, suicide and our favorite show being cancelled.

   The future, when projected from the chained up, worried mind, is fear itself.  But when we CREATE and SERVE people by being in ACTION in this present moment, no future is necessary for peace and happiness.

    What happens when I am not creating?  I am reacting.  When I react (emotionally, all reactions become emotional, and not in a pleasant way) . . . when I react I offer up all my precious God-given power to others.  I let them intimidate me.  I am no longer creative, because I am no longer creating the life I want; the love I want.

*     *     *     *     *

  "We waste time looking for the perfect lover,
instead of creating the perfect love.”

~Tom Robbins

*     *     *     *     *

    Whatever happens during my day I always have two choices: 1) I can react emotionally to what happens, or 2) I can ask myself,  WHAT DO I WANT TO CREATE? 

    I might get a nasty email.  I get those now and then.  I am tempted to react with anger and send something even nastier back.  (It's war!  I must win!)

   Or, I can create, I can create the relationship I want to have with this person given what I am up to in life.

  Ask yourself this:  What, exactly, am I up to?  This gets thrilling, when practiced, because when you have a purpose, an impossible wonderful dream (a billion members?  Are you kidding me?) it is then possible NOT TO REACT but, instead, to create.  So I create a response to the nasty email.  That has me love the sender of that email.  And have him be a member of my most beloved club.  My heart begins to melt.  I read his email again.  Oh by gosh, I agree with him?  Oh my goodness, he's right?  I tell him so.

*     *     *     *     *

    So many of you have thanked me for recommending MAN ON WIRE, the movie about fearless creativity and what life can be when one laughs at death.  Laughs in the face of death.  And creates art instead of indulging fear and playing life safe.  Please see it if you haven't.  God grant me the courage.

 *     *     *     *     *

*     *     *     *     *

 

"Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear."

~Cheri Huber

    I have always enjoyed and admired Cheri Huber, her writings and profoundly insightful, fearless and peaceful books. One of her many wonderful observations is this: "Egocentricity is that constant concern with how I feel, what I think, what I'm doing, what I want - looking at what is and seeing it as inadequate."

  Cheri Huber also says,

" It does no good to search frantically for
peace, to seek anxiously after love, joy or freedom.
If you want joy, be joyful. If you want peace, be peaceful."

   Light in every word. And this is where we are headed when we are fearless in this moment.

*     *     *     *     *

 CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE!