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If you are discouraged, read how I got myself out of the rut and see the rainbow again
I just read Roy H. Williams’ Monday Morning Memo.
It was just the thing for me to read… it was a mixture of feeling shamed and encouraged at the same time… Whaat? Yeah.
I woke up depressed. Not new, I have been depressed to some degree all my life.
I felt, also not new, that people don’t want me, don’t want to hear what I have to say, don’t want my gifts. Depressing feeling.
Depression
Depression is not a pregnant/not pregnant thing: Depression has degrees. If If had to define depression it is how much or how little the future inspires you or not. And the word ‘inspire’ gives its essence away: it is about the spirit… the human spirit. It is about how alive the spirit is in you when you look into the future.
The children’s rhyme says: 
but it is a lie. Positive thinking. The spirit is hurt, the spirit is broken by words. And we all got those words. Sometimes it was the words spoken, more often how we translated it in our heads… but either way, the human condition is such, that we live in a world we created based on those words. And you’ll see that your racket aims to bring the reality, the actuality of those words about.
So it’s not an accident that back in 1985 I singled out a quote from a 3-hour long event… and remember it clearly even after how many? 38 years? Yeah, it’s not an accident.
The quote was: If I don’t manage to fly someone else will. The spirit wants only that there be flying. As for who happens to do it, in that he has only a passing interest. And my words that are always more important than what triggered them: Please god, let it be me who is going to fly.
Yeah, what you say is more determinant of what will happen to you than the words someone else says. Always.
My parents said: ‘stupid‘. But I said: ‘unlovable. worthless. doesn’t deserve to live.‘
You said what you said. And you have been fighting it all your life, while unwittingly bringing it about… Yeah.
Hope
In common parlance the state of empowered is called hope. That is all you can get… reality is uncertain, but can change dramatically, around the next turn in darkness you may see the light in the distance… giving you HOPE that the darkness is not permanent.
I’ve been getting up before dawn every day for a while… and occasionally I even see it… I start working as soon as I get up, and the dawn happens ‘behind’ my PC…
But of all mornings, today I needed to watch it more than I needed to work…
Depression always has a core. An essential part of the future looks impossible, rigid, unchangeable. For me: people don’t want what I have for them. I will never be able to make a difference.
Is that true?
All future is a seeming. Because the future is in reality and reality is changeable, therefore all futures are seemings… and not truth.
But because of the way the human brain works, you tend to bring about what you think about… And even when you don’t, that is all you can see… the future you walk into… the wind.
And reality rarely changes people’s opinion.
Here is an example: let’s say you haven’t made a living for a decade. You busted your ass and got yourself a degree. Then went to one job interview, and got hired. You have three weeks before you start working. But you are now not excited about the job, about working. You dread it. It is long hours. It is learning a new thing… again. So you are depressed… again. The hopelessness returned.
Your hopelessness has a theme: mine is ‘I am not normal. I am not like other people‘. And a sprinkling of ‘I am alone‘ and ‘I am not lovable‘.
I have been helping people identify that short sentence for decades, but mine needed a special environment, a special circumstance to become clear. This darn course creators course.
It seems that I am spending all that money to spend seven months with excited, twittering, obviously normal people.
Seemings
The seeming is: everyone in the course will succeed but me. They all have something that people want to learn… I am the only one who is trying to teach people what they don’t want to learn… judging from my dwindling readership.
Of course if you understand how it works, you can see that I am creating it as I am moving into the future.
I haven’t done any advertising… And unless people know I exist, they won’t come, now, will they?
Diagnosis
As I have said before, diagnosis is 70-90 percent of the solution of any issue. Any issue.
So now that I have diagnosed MY issue, seeing that I have been creating what I’ve been afraid of, I can look at actions I can take to create what I’d like. (By the way, this pattern has been most visible in the area of health… I have had all the diseases I have been afraid of… So it is everywhere… it is probably a principle… not just a good idea… or bad idea if you wish.)
The actions to create what you want instead
In my case the actions are: getting the word out… Asking people to share. Invite some people to my free seminar series. The seminar series called ‘What’s Missing‘ that is starting on Friday the 9th… And maybe start advertising?
I don’t need crowds. I hate crowds. Hell, I need only two new people a week… should be doable.
Now, how can this ‘technology’ work for you?
Similarly to how it works for me.
In my classes, in my coaching, even in my challenges, the core issue comes up pretty fast. In a few weeks.
Depending on our relationship, depending on how insistent and rigid you are about how you do things, I either offer more help, or I won’t.
It is a matter of liking, unfortunately. Obviously I need to like you. And you need to like me… or you won’t trust me. And at this point trust is important. Because I will ask you to do things that are counter to your core issue…
Pretending to like me won’t help. It is not me who needs you to like me. You need to like me for yourself. Or you won’t want to do what I ask you to do.
And if you don’t do what I ask you to do, your future will be exactly what you have been creating. Dim, dark, and predictable.
I’ll now split myself to become two people: the coach and the client.
The coach says: you need to get the word out.
If the client is hesitant, resistant, they say ‘I have done it before and it didn’t work!‘ add the tone of voice: not pretty.
If there is trust, the client instead asks: ‘how would I do that?‘ and now we can have a conversation, brainstorm, and start moving, inch by inch, towards the light.
Without liking, without trust the answer to any coaching is ‘no’, or a ‘pretense yes’ which is even worse than a ‘no’.
And once we establish what actions will pull you out of the predicament, we need to stay in touch, so you don’t imperceptibly pull yourself back into the same old same old…
… by pretending to having misunderstood the instructions.
Pretending to having misunderstood the instructions
Why would you do that? Because humans are a machine… We call that machine a racket.
And the racket has one goal and one goal only: to make sure you end up with that future you don’t want.
- So the dude wants a marketable skill is pretending to learn how to quickly write stories that sell. What he is doing, instead, is a grand opus of literary work… not three-four short stories a day that would develop the skill that is marketable.
- So the woman who is pretending to become someone who is the driver of her life is trying to do too many things to prove how superior she is… while doing nothing to actually drive her life.
- Or the woman who is pretending to make her business profitable by working on her business instead of in it, is doing the exact opposite after a week or so…
Is that a conscious defiance? I don’t think so.
No. The main requirement for the racket to be a racket is that you don’t recognize its pull… you think it is you.
If that didn’t make sense, don’t worry, I have never met anyone who understood it… that is why people need a coach, or a mentor. Someone who will ask them to do what the racket doesn’t want…
The ‘no’ and the misdirection comes from the racket pretending to be you.
Because the racket is a shape-shifter…
What do I want in a client, so I can successfully guide them?
Now that is an important thing: for me to be able to have more influence on their actions than their racket, they need to want a future more than the comfort of how it is.
Because how it is is relatively comfortable…
The best clients, I say, HATE how it is, because they can see how it could be.
Hating how it is is not enough, you need to at least see a direction where you could go.
Wanting only the best clients if a fool’s game… So I’ll settle for people who want the future more than the comfort of how it is.
That will give them enough energy to take steps the racket doesn’t approve of. Long enough, often enough to matter.
The best way to start
The best way to start is in the challenge. My low intensity, low cost challenges are the best way to get the highest mileage out of your investment, both in time and money.
In the challenge you commit to easy daily actions. I get your report every day. It takes you 2-3 minutes a day… but it gives me a picture. I give feedback, adjustments, corrections, that either alter how you do the challenge or do not.
After about two weeks I see if I see myself capable of guiding you successfully. If not, I’ll take you out of the challenge. If yes, I’ll continue guiding you with gentle nudges…
That is the methodology. The easy one. For you.
Coaching is a wrestling match between your racket and me…
You may want to decide that betting on me winning is a good policy. Most people do the opposite. They encourage the racket to win.
They are no longer clients.
So what now?
Sign up to one of my challenges. I recommend the Reality Challenge, by the way
In the worst case after spending 15 dollars and approximately half an hour, you’ll find out that I don’t want you as a client.
The best case is that you get guided to a place where you can start to turn the corner where you start seeing the light… And then the spirit will help both of us… and you’ll start to win.
Sign up for the Reality ChallengePS: I am having two free liver cleansing sessions today. One at noon and the other at 5 pm EST. New York time. Come if you can… even if you don’t think there is any need for it.
I’ll make it short, unless there are many questions…
