One of my students gave me a kindle book for my birthday.
It’s a book about practicing, for teachers. 1
The gift book came right on the heels of an insight I haven’t shared with you.
I finished my third reading Ayn Rand’s 1500 page philosophical novel. I still don’t have my own words to say what she says.
I have one sentence, that is now mine, that I own, and the sentence is “A is A. If you wish it to be something else, then you are delusional.” This is the cornerstone of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, objectivism.
I am able to own one distinction. From the 1500 pages of dense philosophy.
I am OK with that. It’s a process.
In my last article about distinctions, I talked about the level of ownership of a distinction.
- The first level is understanding.
- The second one is seeing it everywhere, and recognizing it.
- The third one is living being informed and guided by the distinction. Generate from the distinction… life, work, articles, speeches…
- And the fourth, the highest is: being able to say the distinction as your own. Generate the distinction as your own.
It often takes years. I know. I have gotten to level four with 10 distinctions. To level three: 50 distinctions. To level two: 70 distinctions. Level one is the booby prize, so I hope I am not there with a lot… lol.
Your gurus, I think, don’t even get to base one… They repeat the words, but there is no understanding, and there is no spark of recognition in their eyes. So, obviously, there is also a level zero.
You can look at preachers… I see the same thing. You can look at physics or math teachers: no conviction, no spark. Level zero.
My teaching, including the 67 steps, is built on distinctions. Also good books are built on distinctions.
Malcolm Gladwell, for example, is really good at distinctions. Level two.
Repeating, parroting those distinctions, principles, pieces of knowledge is on the same level as trivia: external knowledge. It isn’t quite understood. It isn’t quite seen everywhere, It doesn’t inform your being. They are just words. Repeated. Second hand.
If you knew that you are on level zero to one, if you knew that there are levels above where you are, where wisdom could guide you, you would consider putting some effort into it.
You listen “about”… you don’t listen “it”.
You are looking to get through, instead of getting it. And this way of listening means to you: you miss what is said fully.
The interesting thing is: given the spiritual bent of what I teach, you supposedly know that there are things beyond the visible, beyond what YOU can see.
But you read, you listen, as if there were nothing beyond what you can see with your current level of understanding, your current level of “map of reality”.
This is where humility comes in. Not pretend humility (I don’t know much… blah blah) but real humility where you know, to your bones, that there are things on heaven and earth that you know nothing about, and even if you saw them, you would not know what to do with them.
Almost everything I write about, everything I intend to teach you is like that.
Unless, of course, your accurate vocabulary number is above 2,500. You have stuff to teach me that I’ll have a hard time seeing, but you do.
Ayn Rand and her book has been like that for me.
But I know that reading it makes no difference. Of all the people that read it all, only a mighty few got to even level one with what she teaches.
I know that parroting the words won’t make a difference. I know that I am seeing the distinctions now everywhere, but I am not on the level to generate my life from the distinctions she teaches. There is still a huge disconnect.
I am attempting it, and it is not working yet. No connection, no bridge… yet.
So I am on level 2-ish…
Now, why am I talking about Ayn Rand, you may ask. After all there are only 10 people on this same level where I am… so it is really hard. Why talk about it?
Because me going through the same difficult process that you would be going through if you were working on the distinctions I teach (or Tai teaches), your life would be never the same… you would get access to the kind of knowledge that is life transforming through transforming your being.
Supposedly this is why you are here… to learn to live the good life. Which is, by the way, the same as raising your vibration.
Now, here is the interesting thing: Tai Lopez is on level 2-3 and occasionally on level 4 with the distinctions, principles, guidelines, teachings he conveys in his 67 steps.
He’s paid the price.
You are not going to get the benefits through listening to his talks without much work.
Those of you who protest that you are not here to learn business principles… you are not even on level zero if you say that.
There are no business principles, health principles, love principles. All principles work everywhere, all distinctions work everywhere. In every area of life.
You can’t see it. I got it. You don’t want to see it? I don’t get that… Then why are you pretending that you want to live the good life?
Oh, you want it handed to you?
No free lunch in the universe. You have to work for it… especially in the area of knowledge.
You have that big brain of yours. Now use it for more than just thinking about things, mostly of yourself.
And if you are on the level of parroting the distinctions; congratulations. That is already a sign that you are doing the work.
Honestly, it is not an easy level to get to… and it is level one.
They say that to start walking, you have to get on the treadmill… You are there. Now walk. I am here to help.
PS: I was looking for some quotes yesterday and found this:
It is always necessary that the substance or essence of a person be good before there can be any good works and that good works follow and proceed from a person who is already good. Christ says in Matthew 7:18: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” … The fruit does not make the tree good or bad but the tree itself is what determines the nature of the fruit. In the same way, a person first must be good or bad before doing a good or bad work.
It’s from Martin Luther from the 16th Century…
Now, this is a distinction, or a principle.
If it holds water, then it is universal. Let’s test it:
It is always necessary that the substance or essence of a person be good before there can be any good works and that good works follow and proceed from a person who is already good.
Let’s replace the word “the substance or essence of a person be good” with what I just taught you: the you need to be able to generate a distinction/principle as your own, before you can live from it…
It is always necessary that you be able to generate a distinction/principle as your own before there can be any good works and that good works follow and proceed from a person who is already able to generate a distinction/principle as their own.
It fits seamlessly. That is the nature of principles. That they are fundamental laws governing every area of existence.
If you compartmentalize life, you’ll be fragmented, alienated, and miserable… Oh, you already are? Now you know why.
PPS: Yesterday I had a call with my marketing client/student. We saw that it takes a lot of work and a lot of luck to start making money.
I asked him: “are you OK with that?”
He answered, with some hesitation “yes, but I wish I were already making money“.
This is what Ayn Rand talks about when she says: A is A… if you wish it were not, you are delusional.
Unless you are perfectly OK being where you are, without wishing you were somewhere else, you are denying existence, you are denying the existence of an objective reality, and thus you are delusional.
And what is the result of being delusional? Delusional actions… and a lot of wishing, wanting, yearning, hoping… and no productive results. Misery. Desire trap.
If you don’t recognize yourself, you haven’t gotten to level zero yet.
- This, practicing to actually know what you are talking about, is the area of massive inauthenticity.
Teachers, gurus, anyone teaching anything, health, wealth, happiness, fulfillment… They are all guilty of inauthenticity… the main source of the impostor syndrome.
When was it the last time that a guru said to you: I am teaching this because I need to actually get it, learn it, and make it work for me. Never, you say? I tend to agree.
But if you look around in gurudom, this is the general state of knowledge: no one actually knows things on the highest level, where they can own it. The can pretend to own it. But that is not the same as owning it.
Feeling that you own it doesn’t mean you do.
If you look, closely, the gurus don’t live from what they teach. Can’t see it? Then just take my word for it, I have been observing it for decades. But until now I didn’t know why… I saw it was true, but the cause was eluding me…
The inauthenticy number I measure in the starting point measurements tells the whole story. Even my hero, my own teacher, Werner Erhard is at 70% of inauthenticity. Nancy Zapolsky, also from Landmark Education, is, interestingly, at 50%. In comparison: Tai Lopez: 90%. Vishen Lakhiani: 95%, Bill Harris (Holosync) 99% inauthentic.
Inauthentic means that they lie. Their life is a lie. They are split to an inside and an outside that are disconnected.
Specifically about owning a knowledge: people are spouting undigested Tree of Knowledge, pretending that it is actual knowledge. And you, my friend, buy it. Repeat it. Hope to benefit from it. And you are surprised that you don’t.
