Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Bad news. On my way home, climbing the long stairway off Euclid Avenue, I was listening to Step 21 of the 67 Steps. It’s about the superpower of being able to get into a relationship with people. Get into a relationship because you can see how their machine works. and because you see it, therefore you can speak their language.
Everything comes to you through people… and…
…you cannot get more abundance than what your people skills allow you to have.
I have been resigned about my ability to get better at dealing with people.
Resigned means: I have a fixed mindset about it, that says: it may be possible for you, but it’s impossible for me.
But being resigned doesn’t mean I have given up. I haven’t. But every time I read someone’s stuff, or watch someone’s stuff who is good at it, and maybe that is their superpower, I resent them. I do. Not nice, I know, but it is how it is.
It goes hand in glove with resignation.
And the third R is not that far: regret. (Resignation, resentment, regret, the three Rs)
When I consider that with a little more work, a little more insight, and especially with a little more humility I could get more out of life…
The interesting thing is this: this has been the tenth time I listened to this step.
And in the past 21 days I have taken on connecting to people.
I am giving free strategy sessions. I am bringing more compassion to my interactions. And I have even asked for help three times in these 21 days.
Which means: I am not where I was in the past nine rounds of that step in the 67 steps: I have already moved up a couple of millimeters.
Probably this is why I was able to see that I have been resigned, that this step was important to me, and that I can…
I can choose to be on my side, on my life’s side, and become more of who I was meant to be. With the secret method…
The secret method of ‘Start Starting’.
An object in motion can be redirected easier than an object that is not in motion.. So says one of Isaac Newton’s laws, and it seems to be a real law.
I began with looking at my life as an experiment.
Everyone’s life has at least four ‘dimensions’,
- physical,
- emotional,
- intellectual, and
- spiritual.
Spiritual in this context is maybe allowing Life to win, instead of having your life be all about you, all about your self-concerns.
This is the biggest issue people deal with. An issue that I can call a spiritual issue.
This 21-day period began with me reading a book with an idea that knocked me conscious.
The author said that if you succeeded in improving one percent every day in all four dimensions of life, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual, you’d become 37 times (3700%) better in one year. If you got 1% better a week, you’d still get 67 percent better.
The difficult part is to sustain the previous growth and build on that!
But… what the heck does it look like, what could you do to get better in the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions?
Once you manage to ask a relevant question, to answer it you need to ponder, you need to look, instead of having a knee-jerk, ready answer..
You are taken out of the same old same old, and you are taken into growth mode…
I don’t even think you can avoid it. I have not intended, I have not decided to do it yet, and yet my life has already altered. Just by considering it.
Can you do this if you are interested in only one area. if it is all about you? Probably not.
I have doubts that you can grow your earnings without growing your health, growing your emotional health, your intellectual aptitudes, and your spiritual attitudes.
Unless you, the whole of you, opens up, you remain closed, and wanting only what you want is going to block you from actually getting what you want.
Yeah, reality is a bitch…
The Universe is not a cash-machine that gives you money that you haven’t already deposited.
In reality, ‘To get what you want, you have to earn what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.’
And if you look at yourself, you’ve gotten exactly what you have already earned.
For most people Starting Starting is what’s missing.
Do what’s difficult while it is easy. Start starting… Wherever, whichever dimension you start, you’ll be in movement, and when you ask the question: what could I do now to increase myself in the physical dimension, in the emotional dimension, the intellectual dimension, and the spiritual dimension? you’ll see some options.
Did you think that just because you are so X (fill in the blanks for yourself, pretty, smart, good, special, etc.) you’ll be able to jump from zero to 50 in one fell swoop?
Everything is built brick by brick. And with the brick remaining in existence, so you can put the next brick ON it. not on thin air.
One conversation at a time, one choice to move your body or eat right, to say no, to read a book… one thing at a time.
And they all started out as an idea. Really. All of them.
But your idea muscle has either never developed, or has atrophied from non-use.
One of my clients is doing a practice of coming up with ten new ideas every day.
Creativity is a result of a well-toned, well-honed idea muscle.
The Three R’s signal a dead idea muscle…
And it seems that it all starts with a new view of life…
Inside that new view you see different and new things to do… for example that you can start starting, without being sure where you are heading. That you can start without knowing how to do it. Just start.
All deserving begins like that… by starting starting.
A week ago today I bought a home study course to write better articles.
Doing the whole course feels like a ball of wax. It felt that until I learn to write articles the new way, I am doomed…
But back in 2000 I was in a Landmark Education training program that was overwhelming to say the least. Long hours of assisting, classes, practice, and sales results to be successful in the program.
So one afternoon I went to the office of the center manager and shared how I felt. I felt overwhelmed. I felt that I was not a match to the program, not adequate.
The Center Manager said that the reason I felt that way because I looked at the program like a ball of wax. Instead I should look at it as a ball of yarn.
If you put a ball of wax in the drain hole of a sink, unless you melt the whole ball, the sink won’t empty. But if you put a ball of yarn in the drain hole, you can snip away at the ball. and eventually the ball of yarn will be cushy enough to allow the water to flow through.
It’s a principle.
The same is with almost everything in life. if you can look at every learning project, every doing project, including writing, including designing a course, including training people, including my podcasts. when I can detect a loose thread I can snip off and handle it. Eventually all projects become doable and done.
So I picked a ‘loose yarn’ of my article writing course, and I have already done a little work with it. and I think it is going to be my favorite aspect of writing an article: the first 50 words…
I kept that in mind in yesterday’s podcast, and of course I was lousy at it… lol. Being lousy at something is wonderful. Why? Because I can now see that I can improve it. One percent every day. and in a year that can be, remember? 37 times better. That is Pulitzer Prize level of writing the first 50 words…
I’ll worry about the rest of the article once I see that this aspect is going reasonably well.
But regardless, in yesterday’s podcast I ‘delivered’ a way to re-contextualize and rethink ‘needs’ and teach the method. Methods like I teach in my Elevator mini-course. Will it be all the ways you can ‘disappear’ neediness? Not at all.
I am using the ball of yarn method in that too.
It will unstuck the participants. Enough to allow their life-hindering behavior to slowly alter their scarcity mindset to stop being fully stuck. and to allow them to finally start moving towards an abundant mindset.
Yeah, glad you asked: neediness is on of the main components of scarcity mindset, so when it gets ‘cushy’, you can turn your mindset around.
The mini-course was a webinar workshop.
It’s just $20… and was two hours and 13 minutes long.
Learn to lift yourself from needinessI bet that is going to be just as effective, maybe even more, than having a hundred friends could ever be.
