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

The price you pay for being casual and democratic

I have been telling you, telling my students, telling my clients, that you hear what I say… approximately. You follow instructions… approximately. You read… approximately. You keep your diet… approximately. You live… approximately.

You only got up this morning because you didn’t die the night before.

I am re-reading The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. 2600 pages… What can I say, I like long books. lol.

I have started to check every word in the kindle’s built in dictionary some time ago. Maybe a year ago, maybe two. I originally read the Baroque Cycle four years ago.

The book has plenty of words I needed to check. And to my dismay, I found that the first time around I only understood what happened… approximately.

Approximately is missing 90% plus of what you read, and you are left with the inconsequential 10%. The stuff you already knew. The gossipy stuff. The mundane stuff. The stuff that allows you to remain the same, your worldview to remain the same.

Continue reading “The price you pay for being casual and democratic”

The Producers, The Takers, The Waiters, The Hopers, The Wanters… Which One Are You?

In this article that i started seven years ago, I looked at what it is that separates from Producers from Hunters and gatherers

I had a conversation with my friend, Nancy F., yesterday. The topic of the conversation, after some wild twists and turns, settled on what is the secret of Jewish people’s success.

Nancy F. has always wanted what Jews had, without having to be a Jew or doing what a Jew does… lol.

Much like my next door neighbor.

She want to be an Israelite without becoming an Israelite.

Here is an example: I look out the window between our houses. I mostly look to see if the mailman has been here so I don’t have to go downstairs and climb back a few times a day. Our mail comes at unpredictable times. Continue reading “The Producers, The Takers, The Waiters, The Hopers, The Wanters… Which One Are You?”

Life is counter-intuitive for your reptilian brain

Life is counter-intuitive if your source of intuition is your mind

Most of what you call intuition, isn’t. It is, in fact, reaction. Mostly it is the reaction of your reptilian brain.

The reptilian brain seems to have retained the memories and the learned behaviors of our reptilian ancestors.

You hold your breath when there is danger. Make yourself unnoticeable and blend into your environment. That, unless you are ready for a confrontation. Then attack first ask questions later. these are all from the reptilian brain. Continue reading “Life is counter-intuitive for your reptilian brain”

Looking at things from a burka… can you take off the burka and yet see the same?

I read. I read a lot. I read and re-read books that I like.

So now I am re-reading Neal Stephenson’s historical fiction of the 17th-18th century… ¹

One of the characters in the book is Eliza who in her very young years was a slave, harem girl. She is about 45 at the time of the book.

She is in a carriage, that reminds her of the time of her harem-girl time, when she and other girls were taken to outings dressed in a burka… the point of similarity between the two times.

Seeing the world through a slit or the small opening of a burka. Continue reading “Looking at things from a burka… can you take off the burka and yet see the same?”

Bridging… how to inch your way to your dreams

As a rule, I don’t have many marker feelings in a day.

A marker feeling is a feeling associated with a set of words… like “you are stupid” and then you feel bad.
Or “you are making a mistake” and you feel fear.

This morning I wanted to work on my presentation on tomorrow’s webinar: the remarkable system of getting to a life worth living… or whatever i called it in the email…

So, as it is totally normal, not a single cell of mine wants to do that work. It’s normal.

Doing something new, doing something public, upsets the ess… it’s not comfortable… it is not what I normally do day in and day out.

Now, if the work were to write an article… none of this would happen. But the webinar format is different… I cannot pause and think between sentences like when I write an article. It has to flow… and there is a fear… A fear of mucking it up. A fear of losing some subscribers. A fear of losing face. A fear of looking bad.

Normal. Not pleasant. Continue reading “Bridging… how to inch your way to your dreams”

Do you get discouraged? Bored? Leave stuff unfinished?

If you buy stuff, start stuff because you see where it can take you, but shortly after you run out of steam, and drop it, because suddenly it doesn’t feel important, or doesn’t inspire you, you may want to attend my free Talk To Me webinar on Wednesday, February 28. 4 pm…

I will teach you a new way to look at where you are, what you are accomplishing, so you can maintain a high enough enthusiasm so you can take a project to its culmination, to a place where you actually benefit from it.

I’ll teach you what about how you view a project, a goal, a dream disempowers you and fills you with self-doubt, and maybe even despair.

Or maybe fear?

Continue reading “Do you get discouraged? Bored? Leave stuff unfinished?”

I grew up hating America

I grew up hating America. I cringed when I heard the actors speak in movies.

Today, in the “rabbit hole” of the Monday Morning Memo, I was lead to Paul Harvey, a famous radio broadcaster. I listened to a couple of his audios, and that searing, deep hate came back.

So I am sitting here and contemplating.

The hate reaction was instantaneous, but what to think… that needs to be cogitated, contemplated, in silence, without taking sides.

I look if it is the content and yes and no… so it is not the content. It is the audio.

The radio style copied by many, including Roy Williams of the Monday Morning Memo. Continue reading “I grew up hating America”

Why can’t you be deliberate? Deliberate practice. mastery

Deliberate… the opposite of sloppy, floppy, mindless way you now operate

We are all big on what to do… what to eat, what to read, what this and what that… and no one is teaching us how… I don’t necessarily mean the moves… that is not how, that is still what.

The how is somewhat invisible.

Easy… that is a how.
Sloppy, floppy, mindless… these are all hows.
And you guessed right: deliberately… is a how that very few people even begin to know.

So when you watch a youtube video, or an Olympic athlete, you see easy, grace, but you don’t see deliberate.

I am old, and finally I decided to live to the end of my life expectancy, which, obviously requires of me some different things. Eat differently, move differently, think differently.

So as part of this new plan, I watched a core strengthening exercises video on youtube. It was just uploaded two days ago. Continue reading “Why can’t you be deliberate? Deliberate practice. mastery”

The allure of fast… fast money, fast success, fast reading

I write about what is not obvious…

I have said before, that when you feel envy, when you feel a pang of envy looking at someone’s result, accomplishments, you feel THE guidance.

You want what they have, and it points to an area of growth, an area of training where you have enough energy to get to the same level, or maybe even beyond.

A year or so ago I was still a blob… Overweight. I saw it mostly on Tuesdays, when I looked at myself in the big wall covering mirror in during the exercise class.

One of the women, long white hair, was my opposite: shapely. She even had a waist… lol. I didn’t. Not at the time.

I looked at her, and said to her: I want what you have.

Continue reading “The allure of fast… fast money, fast success, fast reading”

The fear of finding out… the fear of being found out

We have the real self and the false self, there’s nothing wrong with them, and everyone has both of them.

Given the two selves everyone has, being afraid to be found out is normal.

And being afraid to upset the apple cart aka ess (evolutionary stable strategy) is even more obvious. ²

In playing Freecell, one of the things I am experimenting with is moving stuff around, so the covered cards can be revealed.

It’s not a hasty, scrambling type of move… it is methodical, and scary.

Human tendency is to hold onto your gains. The ess. Every time I experience the resistance, I bring in the “upsetting the apple cart” and then I experience the breakthrough.

If it is a principle that all the power is tied up in the hidden dimension, what is hidden from your view…

Continue reading “The fear of finding out… the fear of being found out”