…In everything.
There is a very educational tale in the 67 steps that few consider life altering. I do.
An airplane makes an emergency landing in the jungle. The plane carried a group of engineers to a meeting.
The engineers developed a superior way to cut the branches and trees at a precise 45 degrees, and they were cutting a path with good speed.
A non-engineer passenger, in the meantime, climbed a tall tree and looked around He saw habitation from there… the path cut by the efficient engineers ran in the wrong direction…
If you look at what’s going on at this time in the world, you can see, you can picture it as the ultimate obstacle course… An obstacle course that tests ideas, tests your direction, tests your skill level, tests your emotional maturity, and tests more things I can think of right now.
- People who are in my Playground program are more flexible in this regard, they can look at things more ways than just the one: this is horrible… or poor me… or with fear.
- They have more emotional maturity, more distinctions, after all they have been practicing this every week in their partner calls.
- They more readily self-correct.
I am like a proud mom…
In fact, the last dream I had before I woke up this morning was with a dog and her puppies… and how well the dog t00k correction from little old me… I felt very very rewarded.
And then came the morning, and came the same experience from some of my students… each managing to step over their own shadow. At times like this I see that I have made a difference. It is not always obvious.
- But when the compulsively giving person graciously accepts my gift of help , without having to pay me
- When the compulsively about-me person can, even just for a moment, see generosity and patience…
- When the ‘living in the bull’s ear’ person suddenly realizes that their agenda won’t be pleasing and a gift to others, unless it is not about him
- When the ‘compulsively moping’ person allows himself to be uplifted and acknowledges me and my kind as the source of that
I break down and weep. Half pain, half joy.
But that is not what I really want to write about today… it just ‘hijacked’ this article… lol.
OK, about the quote:
Your direction is more important than your speed…
…combined with the well digging: it is too late to dig a well, when you are thirsty.
The story, Acres of Diamonds, is very misleading: implying that wherever you dig, you’ll find diamond… or drinkable water.
Not true.
In the skill building efforts of some of my students: they didn’t dig a well where there would be drinkable water. And yet…
Complacency, the idea that life will remain the same and you’ll be able to make a living, make a life without having to change, having to learn new things, having to apply yourself differently, is the enemy.
One of the turning points for me was, back in 1988, when I finally surrendered and read the book: What Color Is Your Parachute. Not the whole book, mind you, the book is about 90% crap, but the section called ‘Skill Finder” with its 7 exercise stories and the skill inventory. In my not so humble opinion that is the only part of the book that is worth having.
It has lead me to a life I can love, and a life I can live powerfully. Using my strengths, now that I know what my strengths are.
Of course some of those strengths need to be used differently nowadays, given the changing of times, whether this change is permanent or temporary.
My hunch is: this current epidemic will be a dividing line in the history, your history, the world’s history. It is not clear yet which direction the world will go, but my hunch is: it won’t go in the ‘better’ direction.
There are three “Chinese” curses, they are not Chinese, but who cares:
- May you live in interesting times.
- May you come to the attention of those in authority.
- May you find what you are looking for.
We are living in interesting times… and they are just getting more interesting.
Who will live and who will die…
Yeah… the direction is more important that the speed.
Direction as in:
- is this about me, or this about all of us? that is a direction. Trump feels it is all about him and his money.
- Some others feel: it is all about America… f… the rest of the world.
- How do YOU live? What is your personal direction? Is this all about you?
When the tide recedes, we’ll see who was swimming naked.
- Another direction is: will you be greedy, live in fear and scarcity, or allow the energy to flow through you, and nurture others.
One of my students is excellent at generating ideas… per the ‘become an idea machine‘ the practice that lifted James Altucher out of whining and depression… and can do the same for you. I am lousy at it… by the way. Lousy at generating ideas on demand.
So I sent an email to that student encouraging him to pick up the practice again, and gift it to his clients: he is a CPA with small business clients.
But knowing that giving is easy, but receiving is difficult, especially if the giver makes it all about themselves, I wrote another email asking him to set the context so the clients know that they are not obligated to even appreciate the ideas, that by graciously receiving his gift they are serving his interest of keeping his mind sharp and his spirits high only. So they can choose to accept or not. To appreciate the ideas or not. The key to all communication is granting the other the right to veto… as per my favorite negotiator Jim Camp.
A gift hammered down someone’s throat is not a gift… Unless people have the freedom to veto, all communication dies.
I have been on the receiving end of forced gifts… and I can tell you, I hate it and the horse that it rode on as well.
I don’t do well with any ‘nose to the grindstone’ activity, myopic, too close, locked in, locked out.
I do best when I allow my attention go where it wants to go, roam the fields like a grazing horse: it always comes back with something uplifting, nurturing, worthwhile…
Even when I am working on something that seems to be the ‘right thing to do’, I keep my eyes fuzzy, instead of locked into the view of ‘this is the right thing to do’.
In architecture school I trained myself to be able to change my view to fuzzy, diffuse in the language of the ‘learning to learn‘ course…
In the fuzzy view you can see your options long enough to choose a direction, a direction that is more likely to succeed than not.
I listen/watch sales videos that sell stuff that sound too good to be true.
I consider it a spiritual practice. I know they are selling something. On the surface they are educating you, but the agenda is to take you to the sales button.
I refrain from resisting. I refrain from having an opinion. I keep myself open and receptive.
How can I do it? I have trained myself to be able to be with uncertainty. BE, not react, while uncertainty is going on.
Most people react to uncertainty with tightening the rein. They want certainty and want it quick.
But as I said: direction is more important than speed. Jumping the gun because you don’t like uncertainty is betting on a loser.
Doctors do that… you do that… countries, governments do that…
Don’t. Make it your spiritual practice to raise your tolerance to uncertainty… to keep your eyes fuzzy, and resist picking a direction before you see clearly what is a winner what is not.
This is the perfect time for that… really. And the good news: it is not a capacity that needs to be activated. It is a skill that can be practiced by anyone.
Most people, about 80% of my buyers, are quick to make decisions: yay or nay…
- The nay decision means: you decide, before you see the whole thing, that what you bought was worthless.
- The yay decision means: you hang in with me, and hang tight.
And how you do anything is how you do everything: you do that with everything… and you think you are right… but you are wrong.
This is not about me wanting to prove that my stuff works. You buy the same way everywhere… and your life is full of unopened unused undiscovered diamonds while you are onto buying the next stuff.
Don’t be that person. Either don’t buy, or allow what you bought to start working for you.
I have learned most of my skills on stuff that in the end didn’t work for me… but the learning to use it gave me invaluable skills.
- I studied architecture, and practiced it for 17 years. (1971-1988). I wouldn’t be able to do what I do now without the skills I learned in those 22 years (5 years university study included).
The direction was wrong, for me, but the skills I learned could not have been learned anywhere else.
- After I had my second massive brain damage in 1989, I started to give massages to make ends meet. The direction was ‘wrong’ but the skills I learned have been invaluable at growing my communication skills, and at feeling out people, before and during interaction. I learned to hear the cheaters, the liars, the deceivers, the duds, the ones that were going to harm me.
- I trained with Landmark Education for 26 years. While the direction was a dud, I learned all the things I needed to learn to be able to think for myself and create a system that is unique and has a high truth value.
- I studied Kabbalah with a ‘teacher’ for five years. While the direction was a direction I didn’t want to go: religious thinking, believing in a Creator, I learned principles, a worldview that has been life altering, and not the least: I learned that Source is always there, ready for you to connect… so I did. And have been connected ever since.
- I studied remote energy work with the Omega Shakti Systems people (not the Omega Institute in Upstate NY) and while the direction was not to my liking, I developed trust and confidence in my ability to work with energies and have a way to see that they reach the desired result ‘over there’ where the client is.
So you see, you can build skills with activities that go in the wrong direction. It is a lot like taking a lot of trains to get to where you want to go, meeting people, getting information on every train, that will make the arriving worth it… because during the journey you got what you needed.
So is with the idea-machine practice, or seeing sideways, or attempting to curb your all-about-me nature.
So, what do I have for sale in this article?
I think I am going to recommend that you buy my Self Healing Course… again.
Why? Because many of you will need to grow yourself to actually benefit from it, like my student who has the bloated belly and the nausea. She needs to surrender, let go of her need to control everything… and that is more valuable than the whole course… because without that she will always make the wrong decisions really fast.
Go to step 2If you are the 80%, please don’t buy. I can’t prevent you… but would if I could.
