The biggest differentiator between a successful, happy, balanced, unbroken person, and someone with a life not worth writing home about is their relationship to failures. 1
Yes. Plural.
Wanting only successes is like wanting to walk but never take a step with your left leg… Unnatural and … and why would you want that?
Everything in life has a rhythm, sex, breathing, eating and elimination… everything.
On Days of Power, when I climb the “pole” to get to the place where i can channel the light of the Days of Power… up and down… hands and then legs… or maybe legs and then hands? lol.
There are more talented, smart people in the graveyards of failures than you can imagine, and unless you learn the most important skill, the skill that separates the 1% from the 99%, you are heading there too.
Now, just so you know, you are born with a certain amount of grit, and a certain amount of resilience… it is your starting point… Depends, surprisingly, more on your Soul Correction than on your ancestry, or family… why? I have NO CLUE… so far.
But you need to know your soul correction, intimately, so when the weaknesses show up, you can greet them as friends.
You also need to know your “case”, your default sentence, or whatever name you give it, your linchpin issue… so you can keep an eye on it, even though it is a tough little shape-shifter.
I talk about those in different courses, different articles, and maybe even in some of my free webinar workshops. So I won’t do it here… it is only valuable when you get help to find out your own… knowing, in general, doesn’t do you much good.
I was given an opportunity to go deep and see what mine was… back in the fall of 1987. I was invited to be in a program “Potential Forum Leader Candidates Program” to train to become the very select few: Forum Leaders.
I was excited… I prepared a short presentation on my pluses and my minuses, all around the predictable: I will start strong, I will charm you, I will raise high hopes, only to disappoint you.
Until that point that was the story of my life… and I knew, that if nothing changes, that story won’t change either… I’ll be a disappointment… and never become a Forum Leader…
And, of course, that is exactly what happened, and the first real obstacle I buckled and lost my drive.
I went to my “favorite place” I always went when I failed… “I should be dead” or some version of that.
You can see that my soul correction has this weakness, my default sentence (I will be thrown out) was running my life, and to some degree they still do. The only difference is: nowadays I catch them faster, before they bring the whole “ship” down.
Consistency is king… but the only thing you have been consistent, thus far, is allowing your sentence to bring you down.
Kabbalah calls this your Opponent… the opposing force that is personal to you.
The amount of Light you create in your life and in the world is the amount of force you apply against the Opponent.
The Opponent, some cultures call it Satan, or the Devil, is the sweet talking snake of the Garden of Eden. The reasonable voice that says: you have done enough. The voice that says: I deserve some fun. The voice that says: you’ll never be good enough…
One of my favorite sentences flies in the face of political correctness: to know good, you must become an expert at evil.
The opposite, the politically correct bromine that 90% of humanity subscribes to can be best expressed by this Helen Keller quote: “Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.” 2 What most people use as foundation for the popular and deadly cult: positive thinking, or more precisely: Avoid Negativity.
You are a member of that cult? You are on cool aid… better leave now, I don’t cater for mentally feeble specimens of the human race.
But even if you are not part of that cult, you have drank some of the cool aid… and believe that life should be all success, all joy, all good…
So what does that cool aid do to you and your dreams?
It will make you reject any slip-up, any weakness, any semblance of failure… and suggest that you make your game smaller, so you can avoid the negative.
I suggest that there are no winners and losers in this game. All players die in the end, and there is no reincarnation, no heaven, no hell… you die and it’s over for you.
And while there are no winners and no losers, there is a difference in life experience.
Some people enjoy their lives, and others don’t.
If your goal is survival, I guarantee that you don’t enjoy your life. But surprisingly: if your goal is success… I also guarantee that you don’t enjoy your life… or not much.
I have a favorite Jewish joke (actually I have many, lol)
The guy goes to the rabbi and asks him to give him advice on how to live a long life.
The rabbi says: Simple. Every morning, when you get up, kiss your wife, have breakfast, go to work, after work go home, have dinner, kiss your wife… and do this every day.
The guy asks: And rabbi… if I do this, will I have a long life?
The rabbi answers: I don’t know. But I can guarantee that it will FEEL long.
What makes life enjoyable is the challenges you set and overcome.
Your body hums, when you challenge it physically every chance you have. A sedentary lifestyle results in a body that stops humming. And it takes work, it takes initiative, it takes willingness to challenge the body… I didn’t do that for too long, and I am suffering for it.
The same is true to your brain, to your lungs, to your psyche…
No challenge, no humming.
And guess what the Opponent ALWAYS suggests you do? If you guessed, that IT says: make your game smaller… take it easy… give up… have fun instead… you guessed right.
Unless you KNOW that it is the EVIL that suggests that, you’ll go with it.
And you may live a long life, but it will not be humming.
I am a member of this Community Center in my neighborhood, that caters to seniors. When I look at people, I see people who have lived long… but I hear no humming. But what is interesting: no humming from the staff either.
Humanity is not humming… 60% dead while alive…
PS: With many of my unhappy students, the cause of unhappiness is this: they look for reasons outside of themselves for growing. Trying to be nice… trying to be liked… trying to fit other people’s expectations of how they should be.
The growth, the growing person, is interested in growing for their own sake. At least 50% of their motivation is Self-serving. Self, with a capital S.
And only the remaining 50% is interested in success, rewards, acknowledgment, or anything from the outside.
If you don’t have 50% inner motivation (the ambition number in the Starting Point measurements, your first job is to increase that number! by resetting your context.
- Or you could say: challenges… Said in another way, the biggest differentiator if their activities are chosen to make them grow, or make them survive. The more someone chooses to grow, the happier that person becomes. Why? Because the purpose of life is to become all you can become… That is the game… Each game has its own rules what is winning and what is losing. In golf putting the little white ball into the little cup is a winning move. In basketball… into the basket. In black jack: getting as close to 21 as possible… etc. Life: the rule is grow as much as you can. Become all you can become. If you are not happy, here is your main reason…
- The stupid Helen Keller quote
