Become all you can become by raising yourself higher on the Tree of Life

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I woke up at 3 am with a start from a deep dream about principles spinning so hard that I could only follow them with full concentration…

I stared into the dark for a few minutes still seeing the images of the principles, and I got the words that go with the images:

Principles are like oncoming trains. you can’t fight them unless you want to crash your life.

I talk a lot about connecting the dots. and most don’t know what I am talking about. Connecting the dots is a highly intellectual activity based on SEEING. Seeing that things are connected by more than just similarity: by invisible cords…

Most of Tai Lopez’s talks, especially the 67 Steps coaching, are about deserving, Earning, Being, becoming an initiate into the secrets of the Universe.

Interestingly, he only gets a tiny corner of the idea, the concept, about 3% of it. And that is enough for him to teach it… hm… interesting. No wonder that not many of his students get it…

The secrets of the Universe, the principles WANT to hide. They don’t want to reveal themselves to the unworthy. But, I say, they should not worry, the unworthy cannot see them.

When you SEE the principles, when you SEE how it is, you SEE the working of the world.

And you get that A is A, and nothing is wrong, it is the way it is… And when you see that, you can be at peace, and you can enjoy life.

You don’t complain…

You don’t complain about the Kaleidoscope changing its colors. and won’t stick with that pretty blue you so love.
And you don’t complain about the weather: the weather is doing what the weather must do.
And you don’t complain about your case or about your Silver Bullet or about your soul correction. They are there for a reason, they are there to sharpen your wits, build your character through them.

Now, what does it take to earn/deserve becoming an initiate? An insider? Someone who sees?

There is a very important distinction that I need to repeat till your nose bleeds: truth when you repeat it is a lie.

This is true about any truth. When you repeat anything, it means you didn’t see it, you are saying the words. All mind. Chatter, worthless.

ONLY when you see it for yourself that something is so. i.e. is true, that you can say a truth and it is a truth when you say it.

I know very few people who can do it. because most cannot see, or don’t even bother to look, only parrot.

The problem with being someone who sees is that other people will repeat what you said, and when they say it: it becomes a lie.

Sometimes I can hear a hint of slavishness in your voice…

but the truth, the whole truth comes out when your actions are not consistent with having seen the truth you so diligently repeat…

One example of this is when you get offended by what I say. What I say to you… about you.

If you were an ‘initiate’… you would not get personally offended, You would not run away, hide, curse me, hate me. I am just pointing out your true nature you are here to correct.

I have a tendency to gossip, talk about people. Never before I came to the USA… interestingly. Hm…

It must have to do something with the energy of this country. it sneaked up on me, imperceptibly. I only noticed when it was already full blown. Like an addiction. By talking about other people, I gained some temporary power…

I was lucky: I had some coaches who loved me enough to point it out to me.

So I looked at it deeply. On one hand, my gossiping was damaging other people’s reputation. On the other hand, it was weakening me. It was taking someone’s power away and using it to lift myself up.

Interestingly, gossiping takes two… like tango. The speaker and the listener.

The lower the listener’s vibration, the more gossip they hear. because everything bad or unfavorable about another person makes them feel better about themselves. If the other person hears gossip… then I am still gossiping. So I haven’t beaten it yet. because I do talk about other people, whether they are students or other teachers.

If you compare yourself with others, and you feel you come out on top: that is a good indicator that your vibration is low…

There is nothing rare about you hearing gossip when no gossip was meant, where you hear judgment, where no judgment was meant.

You don’t see the world the way the world is, you see the world the way you are. and that is why your world is so… what… empty? bleak? boring? hopeless?

If you keep on expecting life to work the way it “should”, you are doing it everywhere in life. Expecting rain when it is dry, cool weather when it is hot. and altogether you expect life to make an exception for you. It won’t… and now you are angry. You may want to get off your life and start another one.

But no matter where you go, you take yourself with you…

…and your unwillingness to see that the world is the way the world is, your resistance to it is like fighting a train for the right of way at a railway crossing: you can only lose.

Now, what can you do?

One of the secrets of life is this:

Reading, hearing something will not cause any learning.

Learning is a specific process where you become an owner by doing.

You need to find doing to anchor the ideas. Spiritual Practices are the doing of learning.

I watched a great TED talk yesterday. A TED talk on how to learn anything on a rudimentary level in 20 hours. and suddenly I have two ideas, two things I have been procrastinating about, because they didn’t seem to be learnable for me…

But the TED talk reminded me of the old adage: how you eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

If you can chunk it, you can learn it. If you can learn it, you can make real headway in just 20 hours of doing.

So, I am of the mind to suggest that we create a learning community, where we support ourselves and each other in doing 20 hour stints of learning… learning to do stuff. Skill building.

Some of my students are already doing it, but could do it more systematically, so they should also join.

You need to register to participate.

The Bumbling Idiot’s way to earn a life worth living

If I look closely, the number one reason why people never amount to much is this: they expect that a winning plan can be made and if you follow it it will take you to success.

But that is not the nature of reality and not the nature of success.

Incidentally, 99% of humanity think that, and 99.4% of the unsuccessful people.

Even people who had a vision for their success, like Arnold Schwarzenegger could not have an exact plan. Why? because things are not always visible ahead of time, they can only be seen clearly in hindsight.

So why does this phenomenon cause people to be unsuccessful?

Because they wait for a plan to materialize. And they plan to follow it.

The plan will be myopic, if it ever comes. And will not include building the necessary character, the necessary toughness, the necessary skills.

So with every step you are trying to build success on thin air… And, of course, it won’t work.

One of the “skills” you need to acquire if you want to live a life of success, is the skill or learning, and learning fast.

Here is the amazing TED talk to tell you how to do that…

Summary: Just 20 hours is enough to become “reasonably good” at any skill.

1. Deconstruct the skill

Break the skill down into its most basic parts. Which parts are necessary for hitting the goal you have? (i.e. if your goal is to sing a song in Korean, you can primarily focus on pronunciation, not learning a bunch of vocabulary)

2. Learn enough to self correct

Learn enough to realize when you’re making mistakes.

3. Remove barriers to practice

Turn off your phone, unplug the TV. Put your guitar, piano, language book in the middle of your room, not behind your stack of dirty laundry.

4. Practice for at least 20 hours

Commit to 20 hours from the start. You’re going to be frustrated at times, so committing beforehand will help you push through the frustration.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY

I have learned all the skills I have, trades, and more with this exact technique… even though I wasn’t conscious of that fact until I watched Josh Kaufman’s TED talk…

Learning skills opens you up to see what you like, what is a good fit, which things you want to learn next.

It also helps you get to an acceptable level with the skills I teach.

Warning: watching my videos won’t count into the 20 hours: you actually need to practice.

If you practice a grand total of five minutes a day, even if you do it deliberately, you’ll never get there.

The learning needs to be deliberate, and intense enough to count.

I don’t know anyone who learned an instrument, a language, driving a car in five minute increments… do you? And yet that is what passes for practice in your world… oh, and watching videos… reading.

You need to organize your life to have a chunk of time daily, or five days a week. and you’ll get the hang of it…

You won’t become an expert, unless you’ll see that that is what you want, and then you’ll continue past the 20 hours…

Register for the challenge.

We’ll have a webinar to help you find a useful skill to learn. or learn a fun skill. or learn anything worth learning, worth playing with, worth experimenting with.

If you don’t register, I won’t invite you to the webinar.

I myself have two things in mind. for myself. Shaking in my boots… lol. Scary as hell… but also exciting.