IN THIS ISSUE:
1. LIFE SKILL FOR BUSINESS!
Are you a "peaceful" warrior?
2. BUSINESS SKILL FOR LIFE!
Living with the Paradox of Perfection!
3. QUESTIONS/COMMENTS STIMULATE OUR THINKING!
What's the difference between fish and people?
4. TV, RADIO, SEMINARS, AND LIVE EVENTS!
FREE Business Skills for Life tele-training...
5. SPECIAL ANNOUCEMENT!
One week extension for personal coaching
and mastermind!
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1. LIFE SKILL FOR BUSINESS
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Are you a peaceful warrior?
"Great masters always respect their teachers. A master also
understands that a student can perform better than he."
It's a natural evolution: student becomes teacher, teacher evolves into master, master becomes student, again. The finest teachers I know are great students, and the great masters are willing apprentices. As a teacher, it is a high honor to see a student perform better than I can.
One of the best perks of being a speaker is getting to listen to other speakers. Sunday, I had the good fortune to speak after Dan Millman, author of many books including the one that put him on the map nearly 20 years ago, "Way of the Peaceful Warrior." I met Dan in 1997 at the Maui Writer's Conference.
John F. Kennedy once said that if your colleagues, friends and family really want to support you, don't give them your book for free. Ask them to buy a copy. I believe in buying other authors' books. Sunday, I bought Dan's book "Living on Purpose" (this is my fourth Dan Millman book). I highly recommend you have at least one Dan Millman book in your library.
I made it a point to attend Dan's session, because he is a joy to listen to.
Here are 10 key points Dan shared, with my comments in (parentheses).
1. There is so much illusion in the world,
you must become really good at distinguishing illusion from truth.
(I call this illusion, Success B.S.™ and I'm writing a book
to be published in 2002. I'm sure you can figure out what the
B.S. stands for. I bet you could write your own chapter, if not
your own book. Much more on this in issues to come).
2. Distinction: knowledge, ideas and concepts vs. use of them.
(We are on information overload. Success in life is not only about
stuffing our heads with more information and knowledge, but using
what we learn in the real world to better our lives. We already
know more than we can use in 10 lifetimes. Everyone who is overweight
knows what to do to lose weight. It's not the knowing that loses
the weight; it's the doing).
3. Take ONE DEEP BREATH every waking hour.
4. Choice means giving up something you want for something you
want more. For more on the distinction between choice and decision-making,
read my special report, "10
Tips for Making Good Decisions Without Stressing Out!"
5. Distinguish between the "real" world and the "ideal"
world. We strive to live ideally but that's an unrealistic and
virtually impossible standard to attain in the real world. Ideally,
many of us would choose to eliminate all the guns and weapons
of mass destruction in the world. This is not reality. (Many people
try to live an "ideal" or perfect life. See more about
this in the next section, the paradox of perfection).
6. There are two levels of "reality" in the world: conventional
and transcendental. Each "reality" has a different set
of "truths." Conventional reality is physical, emotional,
and mental, which we can see, feel, touch, taste and smell. We
are born, we live and we die. We are all separate beings. If I
stub my toe, do you feel the pain? These are conventional truths.
In the transcendental world we are spiritual beings, connected
as one with the universe. (Rather than battling over which view
of "reality" is right or true, we are better served
to make the distinction and recognize there is truth in both worlds,
and that they can co-exist).
7. Dan suggests there are four purposes to life:
1) Earth is a school, and life is our daily classroom.
2) Our work or job IS our form of service to the planet.
3) Life is about overcoming challenges, problems and hurdles,
as well as finding and fulfilling our talent.
4) Making moment-to-moment choices means we NEVER have no purpose.
Our purpose is the next choice.
8. If we don't learn the easy lessons, life will continue to present
them in harder ways until we "get" it.
9. Distinguish between influence and control. Influence is exerting
effort in a desired direction with NO guarantee of results. Control
is the ability to will it, intend it and, MAKE it happen. We are
responsible ONLY for those things we can control. GET THIS: we
CANNOT control our thoughts or emotions, therefore we are not
responsible for our thoughts and emotions.
This was a powerful and potentially, controversial distinction, one that truly explodes some of the myths we accept as truths. We are taught to believe we can and should control our thoughts and emotions. We spend a lot of time, energy and life force trying to control the things that are uncontrollable. "Control your thoughts, and you control your life" is a popular notion. The truth is, we can't stop a thought from happening. Try to stop a thought from entering your mind before it happens. Can't do it. You might be able to influence, push away or distract yourself after a thought appears, but you CANNOT STOP A THOUGHT FROM ENTERING YOUR MIND. Thoughts happen without our conscious control. We are NOT responsible for our thoughts.
Can we really control our emotions? Let's test it out. Right now, TRY to feel terrified; now, depressed; now, surprised; now, anxious; now, sad. Here's a really tough one for some people: feel happy. Really TRY to feel these. Dan says emotions are like the weather patterns of the body. They pass. We are NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR EMOTIONS. You have NO control over your emotions. Trying to control things you have no control over is a misuse of vital life force and energy. If we can't control thoughts and emotions, what can we control?
WE CONTROL WHAT WE SAY. WE CONTROL HOW WE
ACT AND BEHAVE.
WE HAVE CONTROL OVER WHAT WE DO.
Spend time and energy controlling that which you have control over.
10. Spiritual maturity includes three things:
1) Accept feelings and thoughts as natural.
2) Know your purpose.
3) Do what needs to be done.
Thanks Dan for an uplifting and stimulating
experience.
For more on Dan Millman's work, visit
his website.
This week's Life Skill for Business:
Be a peaceful warrior.
Live life on purpose.
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2. BUSINESS SKILL FOR LIFE
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Living with the Paradox of Perfection
There's a story about a bridge in Florida that actor Slyvester Stallone blew up in one of his movies. Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and tens of thousands of human hours of labor went boom in a few seconds of movie footage.
Building a bridge is tricky business. You start at both ends, and must meet in the middle. This requires precise design, and an exact construction approach that fulfills the specifications of the design. It seems the engineers or the builders of this bridge were one degree off in their specs. When they reached the middle of the bridge, well, you can figure out the rest. What was a coup for Sly, turned out to be a boondoggle for the taxpayers of Florida.
If an airplane gets just one degree off its flight plan, continues on that path and doesn't correct its course, it cannot end up in where it's intending to go. Off course for a good part of the journey, it's been said our Apollo rockets "failed" their way to the Moon. Even NASA is not perfect.
For bridges, tunnels, or buildings, "perfection" is a desirable standard. Would you feel comfortable taking an elevator to the top of the Empire State Building if the elevator shaft were one degree off?
But unlike bridges, building a life is not a perfect science. Life is NOT perfect. WE are not perfect. Yet, research into human values and value judgments yields a remarkable finding: most of us are trying to live life as if it were supposed to be perfect. We strive to live up to perfect ideals and standards, and we can get upset and disappointed when things don't work out perfectly.
The problem with "perfection" is that it is very unforgiving. Just ask the engineers, architects, bridge-builders and taxpayers in Florida. Perfection is a standard that has only two dimensions: it either is, or it isn't. As in all two-dimensional either/or values like right/wrong, good/bad, legal/illegal, black/white, succeed/fail, win/lose, if something is not perfect, then by definition it is IMPERFECT.
There lies the paradox of perfection.
We strive to make things perfect, and build the "perfect" life, livelihood and living. But if you measure life in only two dimensions, anything short of perfect is simply not good enough.
One of the hottest topics today is finding your life purpose. We search as if there is ONE MAGICAL PURPOSE waiting to be discovered. Some people spend their entire lives searching for their "perfect" purpose, waiting until they find it to actually live their lives. Many never do.
Just what if the real purpose of life was to live simply, and simply live? To BE.
In my session on Sunday I talked about, "Unlocking the Secrets of the Mind Harnessing the Most Powerful Force in the Universe!" The essence of the message was that life is NOT one-dimensional or two-dimensional, but three-dimensional.
I call this the Power of Threes.™ Read more about Power of Threes.
Dr. Robert Hartman, a Nobel Prize nominee in 1973, pioneered the science of Axiology, the study of values and value judgments. He identified (and mathematically proved) that three distinct dimensions of value exist in the world. He called these intrinsic value (the unique and infinitely dimensional world of people, feelings; the SELF); extrinsic value (the multi-dimensional world of doing, the real, tangible and concrete; the SOCIAL); and systemic value (the two-dimensional world of thinking, beliefs, ideas, concepts, rules, laws; the SYSTEM).
He proved that intrinsic value is richer than extrinsic value, and both are more valuable than systemic value. In other words, it is better to love than to serve, and better to serve than to obey. A rich life includes balance in all three dimensions, but intrinsic is more valuable than extrinsic or systemic.
The idea of "perfection" is a systemic value, because it is only two-dimensional. In the conceptual world of thinking, something is either perfect or imperfect. There is no in between, no middle ground.
Here is the trap. If we value things, people and ourselves systemically, we only value these to the degree they are perfect. Anything less than perfect is not good enough. This is a virtually impossible standard to attain, because as human beings we are and never will be perfect.
Yet research shows 80% of people are striving to make things in life perfect (including self, work, relationships, purpose, etc.). Seeking the "perfect" purpose is an exercise in futility, yet many of us are on that path. It's as if we believe our lives have only one major definite purpose, and the purpose of life is to find our "perfect" purpose. This is why so many of us are stuck on the treadmill of life. We are trying to live up to a standard that simply doesn't exist in the real world, but only exists in the "ideal" or perfect world of our minds.
We often confuse purpose (a systemic value that, like beliefs and notions, can and does change over the course of life), with BEING (an intrinsic value, our spirit, the essence of who we are that "essentially" doesn't change). Purpose is NOT an intrinsic value. You are NOT your purpose. You have many purposes, missions, visions, goals, directions, paths to choose; but you are ONLY ONE BEING (spirit, essence, SELF). Who you are is not what you do, what you have, or where you are going. If we associate who we are with what we do, what we have, or where we go, if we are not doing, having or going where we think we should be, where is our value?
I call it a "values inversion" when we make our extrinsic values (work, social acceptance, doing-ness), or our systemic values (purpose, mission, vision, goals, going-ness) more important than our intrinsic value (empathy, compassion, intuition, self-esteem, self-worth, LOVE, BEING-ness).
During my talk, I asked people what's more valuable to you:
A baby, or a car? They all
said a baby.
You, or your money? They all responded ME.
Being right or being happy?
This one was tougher. Intellectually, they all knew being happy was more valuable than being right. But many of us are attached to being right. Being right is another version of being perfect (two-dimensional systemic values, right/wrong, perfect/imperfect). For some, being right is so important they give up being happy in favor of being right.
What's more valuable, your family or your work? Every one of them answered my family.
Then I asked, "Do you know people who work so much, so long and so hard to achieve "success" in the world, that they have little time for their families?"
This question got them to sit up and take notice. We can all relate to this, because everyone faces the challenge of balancing the three dimensions of life, livelihood and living.
The paradox of perfection is that we think there is some perfect answer out there to life's challenges, problems and hurdles. We believe there is a perfect life, a perfect job, a perfect purpose.
Our choices and decisions are often ruled by the drive for perfection (rules are another two-dimensional systemic value, you either obey them or you break them). We have a hard time distinguishing between living in the real world and the fantasy of the ideal world. We try to live a perfect life, and for many of us, anything short of perfect is simply not good enough. For some people, anything that is NOT total success is FAILURE.
I asked them, "If you got nine 'A's' and one 'C' on a report card, what would get your attention?" They all smiled. They didn't need to answer that question. They knew that most of them would focus on improving the C rather than celebrating the A's.
If you're building a bridge, a tunnel or a skyscraper, aim for perfection. But in building a life, livelihood and living, the drive for perfection becomes a hari-kiri sword we fall on.
There is no perfect job, perfect work, perfect business, perfect location, perfect product or service, perfect employer (employee), perfect customers, perfect house, perfect investment, perfect purpose, perfect body or perfect diet. There are NO perfect parents, perfect children or perfect spouses. Perfection is one of life's biggest illusions.
IF there IS "perfection" it's at the spirit level. Intrinsically, there is nothing to become. You already are all you are. BEING and spirit exist in the intrinsic world, perfectly. In the systemic world, we can strive to become "more" or "better" or "perfect" but for most of us, we will never "become" all we think we can become in this lifetime. We are bounded by time, the limits of our physical bodies, and the multitude of desires we have. No matter how many affirmations or mantras I chant I will never dunk a basketball.
That said, aspiring toward high ideals, having a valued mission, and living on purpose are all worthy of our time and vital to a life well lived. One of the purposes of life is to live more fully intrinsically, extrinsically and systemically.
As we begin to pay more attention to our intrinsic value (who we are as human beings), our lives are enriched and our livelihoods are enlivened. We might even earn a more prosperous living. We BE happy, we don't do or have happy. Happiness is a place we come from, not a place we go to. Understanding and living with the paradox of perfection, we can be happy when things are less than perfect. In fact, we can be happy even when things are far from perfect.
A great question to ask yourself is, "What will I choose (do), NEXT?"
This takes the pressure off making the perfect decision or choice. If what you choose next doesn't work out, you can make another choice. When we're not seeking the "perfect" answer to life's challenges and opportunities, life can be an adventure to be lived, not a concept to be perfected. After all, we are not concepts; we are beings.
This week's Business Skill for Life:
Live comfortably
with the paradox of perfection, and be more conscious of how you
strive for perfection. Ask yourself...
"What will I choose (do), NEXT?"
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3. QUESTIONS, COMMENTS
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What's the difference between fish and people?
Dan T. called me last week and made a very observant distinction. He said there was one big difference between fish and people. Unlike most fish, people will eat even when they're not hungry. Many will eat long after they are stuffed and ready to barf. It's called greed, also known as gluttony.
Greed is one of the uniquely human qualities. I'm not aware of any other species that acts or behaves based on this motivation. My bulldog Bruiser and my cats Puddy and Felix are not greedy, even though on occasion, Bruiser will hog the treats. But when Bruiser is full, he loses interest in eating more just for the sake of eating more. I can't say that about a lot of humans I know.
One of the great direct marketers of all time, Gary Halbert was the first person I heard use the term "greed glands" as if he were describing a real human organ. I checked with medical doctors to see if they could tell me where to locate the greed glands, but none could give me any anatomical insight. Maybe I should ask neurologists or psychologists; the greed glands seem to be located somewhere in the head.
Dan was right on about this distinction. Fish eat when they're hungry, but people can be motivated by greed to eat long after they are full. Flaring greed glands set us up for smugglers to take advantage of us. The stories are legion.
Greed contributed to the dramatic stock market drop the last year. Why would someone buy the stock of a company that loses money every year? Would the people who jumped on Amazon when it was soaring over $100 per share invest in their own business if it had zero profits, and little chance of ever having profits? Only in America could a company lose a BILLION dollars and have its founder named Time Magazine's "Man of the Year."
I was a financial planner for 10 years. I cautioned people about the "greater fool theory" of investing. Many investors wait for a "greater fool" to come along and pay more than something is worth. Over the past few years people paid outrageously high prices for stocks of companies that had no hope of ever making money, thinking a greater fool would come along and pay a higher price.
When making your next important decision, check your greed glands to see if they are flaring up. If they are, delay your decision. It is possible you will do things you might not ordinarily do if you were to think through the choice with the greed glands in check. Balance quality with quantity. More is not necessarily better.
Do you have question or comment to share? Submit
it to us.
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4. TV, RADIO, LIVE EVENTS
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FREE Business Skills for Life Tele-training...
Dave Landry says, "My business has taken off more in the last month than in the past six months combined. I attribute it all to the weekly tele-conferences. They are fantastic."
Would you like to get a sample of how our Business Skills for Life training can make a difference in your work and your life? IF you are ready to work more effectively, productively and profitably, I invite you to join our FREE call every Wednesday evening, 9pm eastern, 6pm pacific.
We'll talk about how you can produce more in less time, get your energy levels up, gain greater clarity in your thinking, and be healthy enough to enjoy the fruits of your labor. We'll share business skills for life (including the Disney principles by the man who build EPCOT Center and Disney Tokyo).
It's FREE, but you need reservations and the private phone number.
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Are you really ready to boost your performance and jump your personal income? If you are committed to having a personal and professional breakthrough, and are willing to put forth an effort, I commit to you achieving it. ONE MORE WEEK to join us.
Until next time...
Be a peaceful warrior.
Pay attention to the paradox of perfection!
Ask yourself, "What will I do, NEXT?"
Mitch
Axelrod Learning
14 Seaman Road - West Orange, NJ - 07052
Voice: 973-736-1304
Fax: 973-736-3930
Email Mitch
Axelrod
Learning Center
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