If the opportunity to step into the success you crave came along: would you be able to take advantage of it?
I was listening to an audio that talks about being prepared for opportunity.
Now, please listen up, I intend to teach you a spiritual practice. So if you listen ‘about’, in a gossipy way, you won’t get anything, and that would be a pity.
The audio says: be so good that they can’t ignore you.
But: you can’t just be ‘so good’ from out of the blue. It is a point on a journey of a thousand steps.
The problem for most people is: what should be the first step?
This is a question on the Tree of Knowledge. The place where you won’t do anything unless you are sure it will get you what you want. It comes from the culture of ‘instant success.’ The media bias that hides that it takes years and a lot of steps to get anywhere worth getting to.
‘But how do you choose the first step?’ I hear you there whining. I feel for you. You are cut off from yourself, and the outside wants you to do the one step that will get you where you want to go.
There is no ‘one step’.
You need to take a lot of steps, learn a lot of skills, build a knowledge base for life.
One of my students wants to succeed in the sales profession, but he is afraid. He bought a course on sales. But he is afraid.
Wrong first step. It probably a good step when you have already taken 10 steps. Go to Toastmasters and get good at it. Go to improv classes and get good at it. Be the MC at weddings or parties and get good at it. Make videos for youtube and get good at it. Then the sales course will be able to teach you techniques, because you’ll be no more afraid. Got it?
So to be so good that they can’t ignore you, you need to do what is difficult when it’s easy.
- Like dig a well when it’s easy, because you are not already thirsty.
- Get well when it’s easy, not when you are already sick.
- Read books, learn techniques, learn skills when you have time, not when you need them.
When you are ready the teaching will be there… Until then all the teaching won’t help you: you’ll see only what you have always seen, and nothing new. No teaching.
So, now that I have a 67-step to ponder, I am looking at everything through that distinction. This means: only the aspects of things that have something to do with preparation to get excellent when the time comes will show up, regardless what is the topic, what anyone talks about.
I am really facile with this, because I have been looking at the world this way for 30 years, but for you this is brand new.
The preparation, the learning the mechanics or this method is the famous color exercise that tells me exactly where you are at on the evolutionary scale.
So, it’s Tuesday and it’s exercise class day.
I am sore, I have a temperature, but I have built enough forgiveness to my body in the past year, that I’ll be OK to go to class, even though the going there and the coming home is murder… But I’ll be well.
When I got there I found out that the TV crew that visited the class the week before used mostly me in their report, singled me out from about 20 participants.
I knew they would.
Why? Because I am so good you can’t ignore me.
I am free, I am expressed, I go strong, and I am fully present. I am not self-conscious: there is no significance to me whether I am seen by one or thousands. I actually don’t care. I can take it or leave it.
But it’s a good example to show the preparation bit.
I have been giving this exercise class all I got, whether there is a TV crew or not.
And that is very attractive… very photogenic… sells the class, which is free for people over 60. Training us to be safe and secure on our feet.
Now, I am not saying I am athletic, or pretty, or anything like that. I am old. Decrepit. Have crazy hair like Einstein.
But it’s my attitude, my beingness, that cannot be ignored.
I am free to be myself.
It looks to everyone that this is how I have always been. But this is difficult… it’s taken me 30 years practice, day in and day out.
I just make it look easy… because I practiced it. I did what is difficult when it was relatively easy…
Actually, it was never easy for me, and for many many many years I was obnoxious, overbearing, self-righteous, domineering, and was thrown out of every and any group I wanted to be in.
So no, I didn’t always have attractive energy. Not in the least.
But I worked at it, one virtue at a time, one thing at a time.
And without this class I would not even know that I have changed this much. I actually expected them to throw me out. Because you are the last person to see who you are… good or bad.
So, returning to what I wanted to teach you: to grab a distinction, rule, law, principle, and find it everywhere.
You are bad at it, so don’t be surprised if you won’t… But the fact that you are bad should not stop you.
Remember, the other thing I picked yesterday to find is ‘I don’t know how’…
And it fits right in here. You don’t know how. But that doesn’t mean you can’t attempt to do it.
If you are a student of mine (you know you are a student because you are paying me like clockwork, just coming to a free webinar doesn’t make you a student.) so if you are a student of mine, I nudge you, I teach you, i correct you.
Because, remember, 90-95% of everything is mechanics… You can’t do it faster if you are smart. Mechanics takes a long time for everyone. If you feel smart, you are probably not doing the mechanics.
You need to feel stupid.
Clumsy. Uncoordinated. Foggy. Slow. Confused. Lost. And on the other side of all those emotions is what you’ll find once you get the hang of the mechanics.
Like starting a car uphill, if you are driving a stick-shift.
Feelin g the right amount of gas and the right amount of clutch… as they work in opposite directions. It is not something to understand, it is something to practice until it is muscle memory.
Mechanics works with muscle memory.
Anything that requires muscle memory is only dependent on your physiology: you cannot smart it out.
The more of those you have, the more you become someone they can’t ignore.
Everything has the 90-95% mechanics… no exception.
And if you ignore that, you’ll be a dunce, forever.
You need to be willing, nay, you need to love the mechanics. Without mechanics you are stuck… forever.
