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

I assume that the Bible is talking about strait and narrow spiritually.

And then there are sermons, and teachings, and mimes about it, because it’s not working. people don’t know what to do with it.

But strait and narrow is a very potent medicine. It could heal a lot of the ills that anyone can experience.

So what are the ills of people, what are the ills of society that strait and narrow, and its brother strait and deep could reverse?

Inversion is a great tool to start with.

We are going to look what activities, what kind of thinking, what kind of behavior, what kind of attitudes would prevent you from achieving what every living thing wants: fulfilling on your potential. You physical, cognitive (intellectual) and spiritual potential.

Every single such item you find when you look at your own life, meaning the activities, the thinking, the behavior, the attitude that fit this list are what the strait and narrow is talking about chucking.

And for most people that is almost everything they do, think.

So instead of asking: what is useful, the inversion makes you ask: what is taking you to not getting what you want.

Many of the ways you are, the ways you are most proud of, are almost always part of that list…

When I look at the people I know intimately, my clients, I know what keeps them from living a successful life. It is first and foremost the behaviors they invented for themselves to win.

The activities, behaviors to make them look bigger, more important, smarter than they are.

If B. didn’t have to look important and already smart, maybe he could actually DO something with his life. But as long as he has to look important, he cannot risk anything that has a downside of failing, or being a beginner.
If H. didn’t have to look so darn smart, and special, maybe she could actually DO something with her life. But as long as she needs to maintain her mystique of smart and special, she can’t. And she won’t.
If B. a different B. didn’t have to only use her guile to seduce people, maybe she could sit her ass down and get things done. But no, she can’t. She has to play do the seductive bit.
If A. didn’t have to pretend that she is smart, didn’t have to pretend that she is good, then maybe, just maybe she could go deeper than just the surface. Maybe she could actually do something longer than a few minutes before she would claim: I am done! Yaaay!
If J. didn’t have to pretend that she is a crackerjack. A go-getter, an ‘I can handle it’ person, maybe she could actually become a person who gets done what she gets done. And it would be done, for once. She is getting it…

So J. is getting it, but how?

Because between you and me, seeing all the ways you invented to be, behave in life is rarely visible to you. You don’t want to see your lying, cheating, less than honorable self, do you?

But unless you are willing to see it AND own it, you are going to be CHAINED to where you are. Chained no matter what you add, or what other behaviors you change or chuck.

The most important thing about those behaviors is to understand that originally they had a purpose, even if they never quite worked as you hoped they would.

I, for example, invented to be independent. But it devolved me into being a lone ranger. I have been paying the price for that forever. No one can reach their real potential working alone.

I also invented to be smart. But it turns out that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And being smart and caring are mutually exclusive futures. You’ll have to choose. And as long as I chose to be smart, many decades, I remained poor…

So J. spent a few really painful months working with me to find out that everything she thought had worked for her really worked against what she wanted to get from me: the mindset, the attitude, the skills, the tools to live a life she loves, a life she lives powerfully.

Whatever you invented to get to where you are at will not be able to take you further.

Perhaps one small flaw – a behavior you barely even recognize – is the only thing keeping you from where you want to be

The behavior/attitude is hidden from your view. You are hiding it from yourself.

Some people are unwilling to own it. Own it as the CAUSE, the instigator of their no success, no joy, no fulfillment, no happiness. These are the ones who spent YEARS on supposedly growing themselves and their lives. But, and this is the essence of the STRAIT AND NARROW, unless you pull the plug in the bath tub, you won’t be able to change the water…

Bath tub? Plug? Yeah.

Your life is like the stale water in a bath tub. It’s not hot enough to enjoy. It may already be cold.

That water is your life. so you add hot water, but it’s not hot enough to heat up the whole tub full of cold water. and you can’t afford to add too much water, so much water that the tub would overflow.

So you, at some point, should pull the plug. but you are afraid to lose what you have…

And that is where my unsuccessful students/clients are. Afraid to pull the plug.

So instead on the strait and narrow path, they are still on the path of adding stuff…

In the ‘From inflated self-image to humbling self‘ workshop we attempted to bring the issue to the forefront. The self-image you so fervently insist on continuing.

Except for J.

J said: OK, I can see that I am hasty. And I see that I jump in with two feet without fully understanding, without preparation. I can see that it doesn’t serve me.

This is the stage where she is at. She is now seeing it everywhere, in every area of her life.

The next step will be to eliminate it. To pull the plug.

I have, in my long life, found seven behaviors, seven attitudes, that were like a plug, preventing me from getting where I wanted to go. I’ve pulled those plugs.

If I had more time, I would probably have some more plugs to pull. but my time on this Earth is limited.

As I said in my last article: it is almost impossible to have the energy to face the tiger. To face the plug you need to pull, if your cell-hydration is low.

I just measured people’s cell-hydration. Every person I measured, except J. had their cells in survival mode. So much so, that their cell-hydration clocked in at 1%.

And just so you appreciate that ‘circumstance’ even more, J. has just recently wrestled her cell hydration up after having pretended to drink the water but didn’t.

What is in your way even in your well being, your intelligence, your hydration is the exact same thing that doesn’t allow you to grow. The same thing that doesn’t allow you to do what you could to do to get what you want.

Because life is a b.i.t.c.h. and you need to deserve what you want.

Ain’t that a bitch?

I’d love to tell you that the technology I teach is omnipotent. I’d love to tell you that you can participate with me and you’ll get to the Promised Land.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you, that unless you own all the unproductive attitudes that you have had, and unless you start pulling the plug on some of them, you’ll stay where you are, no matter how intensive your participation is with me.

I cannot change for you. You have to. I can only pull the energy of the plug. but I can’t change for you.

If you look at the numbers, chances that you’ll do that are very slim. After all among the eight billion people who currently live on the planet, only about one thousand have done it.

The easiest for me to know and track is Alex Hormozi. In his video, 14 lessons he had learned, every single one of those lessons is about an unproductive behavior or attitude that he managed to first recognize, then own, then maybe chuck…

Muscletest says he hasn’t chucked them all but is on his way to completely chuck them.

And that is the way. The TAO. And The Path.

THE Strait and Narrow.

A more modern way to say strait and narrow comes from Leo Tolstoy: ‘Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way‘

All the plugs you can pull

PS: Yesterday I read a book written by one of my favorite thriller writers, Tim Tigner.

He writes the horror story of his marriage and his life falling apart.

He obviously doesn’t know what I taught you in this article, or the damage his ‘Evil Russian’ wife could have caused would have been much less. He doesn’t know it was his attitudes, his behaviors, his strengths, that caused more damage even than the wife’s evil intent.

So as you see, this is everyone. everyone living on Planet Earth that could do what I teach and start living a bigger, better, happier, more productive life.

Shit happens.

Your wife of 18 years, mother of your children will want to leave you, and leave you with nothing, like in the case of the novelist.
Your husband cheats on you.
The company fires you or goes under.
The stock market crashes.
Suddenly no one wants to buy what you sell.
You find that you have destroyed your liver, ovaries, or pancreas.
The profession you learned suddenly isn’t a marketable.

You see, what got you here, probably won’t take you there. Won’t take you out of the ‘well’ of the smart donkey, unless, of course, you have made room for the new by pulling the plug on what got you here…

But for that you need to start identifying what plugs to pull. What you invented as a strategy to survive.

I have had a string of webinars I called What’s the Truth About You? that can help you identify one or many of the unproductive attitudes, unproductive behaviors, worldview that got to where you are but won’t be able to take you where you’d rather be.