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Alexander the Great supposedly said:
Through every generation of the human race there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them.
Now, looking at it from the viewpoint of the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset you can see that the fixed mindset promises you to keep you safe.
The fixed mindset promises you to keep you safe
In the fixed mindset nothing is supposed to change: if you are great you’ll be celebrated, if you are stupid… well, the stupid should die… this was MY life principle for many decades… even when, often, the stupid was me.
But the problem with this mindset is that this mindset isn’t in harmony with how the world is, how life is. With reality.
People can and do change, change, in fact, everything about themselves. The brain is plastic, and people who were born blind can see through their arm pit, their chest… or with their hearing as the Marvel comic shows.
You can get smarter, but you can also get dumber, and people do. Do get dumber… in the fixed mindset you will get dumber.
But what about fear? Well, life doesn’t care what is your mindset, it only ‘cares’ if you are a match to life, if you are a match to what is confronting you.
In the fixed mindset you are always on the defensive.
Retreating. Losing on every front. Even if you manage to marry well, inherit, surround yourself with yes-sayers, you live in a world of impending doom.
Fear is normal. And yet, if I look from yet another vantage point, the soul correction, I see that every soul correction is about fear. How you behave in the face of your fear.
I look fearless to most people, but I know fear, and I have strategies to deal with fear.
One strategy, the key to my raising my vibration, the key to raise my TLB score is something I learned in a Landmark Education Seminar: creativity: living at risk.
The sentence I learned to obey is this:
Move towards the fear, call it excitement.
Now, I have never managed to call fear excitement, probably because I don’t like excitement.
But I have managed move towards the fear and beyond. And I have found that where that leads me is surprising results, surprising successes.
The avoiding fear move
The other strategy I have to deal with fear is the opposite: move away from fear. Quitting, not doing what there is to do, waiting for the fear to subside.
I know you don’t know about those… tongue in cheek. 91% of humanity is avoidance strategy based in their lives.
I avoid about 20% of the time.
One of my areas of development is to strategically reduce that number. Slowly, gradually, not expecting any instant results, not expecting miracles.
It is a lot like learning to do the split: the ligaments and the joints need to learn to flex.
There is no safety in the world. There is no certainty, there is no sure thing.
Safety is a myth. Having arrived is a myth.
Most human inventions, most human institutions are to strengthen this myth of safety and certainty.
- Just ask people whose spouse have left them if there is any safety and certainty in marriage.
- Just ask people who were laid off… if there is any safety and certainty in working at a job; any job.
- Or the people who now can’t make a living because the people who used to buy their services can’t spare the money
The reason for thriving of the species with the most willingness and ability to adapt to changing environment, inner or outer, is that species that are unwilling or unable to adapt die off…
Humanity is heading in that direction.
There is a quote I really like:
If you are faithful with a little, you’ll be faithful with a lot
‘Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
The way to grow is to be faithful with a very little… and be that consistently. Day in and day out. Not just for a few days… like you are likely to do.
If You Want More, You Must be Faithful in Little
Many are on a career path, but few seem to be on a character path. All too frequently who we are is discarded upon the altar of ambition.
So how do I do it?
I have a whole list of ‘little’ practices I have, where the natural inclination, including fear, is the only enemy.
In eating. For sleeping. In exercise. For brain development. In business development.
How many, you ask? Tens. I have been doing this for a long time.
In 1987 my fear won 70% of the time.By 2000 my fear won only 50% of the time. In 2011 my fear won 40% of the time.
Today (2017) my fear wins only 20% of the time. You see the gradual improvement between me and the fear… I am winning more of the time.
The secret was the tiny but regular practices.
Deliberate practices.
Deliberate has two components: conscious and the exactness of the move I practice. I don’t TRY to do things differently… it is not exact. I am attempting, each time, to do a certain thing in a certain exact way.
Turn away, let go, move towards the fear, say ‘it ain’t necessarily so‘, say ‘there is nothing wrong here. not with me, not with them, not with it‘, say ‘there is never any hurry in the creative plane‘, look around and increase your cone of vision, slow down, etc.
I told you it is tens of practices.
These are like spinning plates, the many plates I spin. Each small, each matter, but no tragedy if one slips unless I drop it permanently.
Some practices are new, based on the insights I get working with you, the 67 steps, and reading books, and putting myself in new situations. Insights on what is trying to keep me stuck, what is trying to make me do stupid things.
I call those insights ‘upsights’ because I turn them into practices. Not rules, but practices.
Some upsights turn out to be not so valuable. Some upsights turn out to be actually not true.
I observe them. I consider all my practices experiments.
The only failed experiment is an experiment ran too long…
A failed experiment, an experiment ran too long is the result of a rule you made. A result that you decided that that is the truth… without looking at the results.
I don’t make this mistake any more… I have increased my awareness so this mistake isn’t happening any more, or not that often.
Little by little.
You can do it too. And between you and me, the more practices I have, with full awareness, the more enjoyable life becomes.
My life is not busy, far from it.
Busy is a term from the competitive plane. It has the stench of hurry.
I am NEVER in a hurry. I do one thing at a time. And I have time for everything. Because most of the experiments are done while I am doing something else… write an article, read something, learn something, walk, listen to something, etc.
My practices, 90% of them are of a ‘how’ nature, not a what.
The focus on ‘What’ is the source of hurry, the focus on ‘what’ is the source of pressure, tension. The focus on ‘What’ is the source of people waiting for the weekend, or want more money!
But life and what is pleasant in life is all caused by the focus on ‘how’.
On money. On ‘love’. And on ‘success’.
You mess up the how, and all the joy is gone.
Practice ‘how’ and watch your life turn around.
PS: This is also an article from 2017 originally.
We have done a lot of work with the racket since…
and now it is becoming clearer that ever that most everything you do, most everything you feel is because of your unrecognized, unmanaged racket.
So why wouldn’t you recognize, or manage the machine you live inside of? Probably you don’t believe me. Probably you think what you feel is a better indicator of what is going on, than what the ‘scientist’ tells you.
So you set the cause and effect relationship of feelings and racket in reverse… and, of course, you have no power in that setup.
Just another telling sign that you have a fixed mindset…
And the bad news: unless you can free your mindset from that yoke and allow reality and all its invisible aspects to be true, you can’t grow, you won’t grow, and for some of you that is a real tragedy… because you are a true underachiever.
Can you change your mindset by participating in the Racket workshop? Not, unless you manage to bring a listening to it that says: ‘this my saving grace… If I can get this, truly get this, then life can start to change for the better.‘
Don’t think you can do that? Then don’t buy The Racket…
Learn your machine so you can manage it
