Category Archives: Failure

The Meaning Of The Pictures

How To Play The Long Game

I read this interesting article about how corporations take over governments.

It’s a highly complex process that involves a lot of parts.

And a lot of entities that are controlled by the corporations.

For example, they’ll have a research subsidiary, and a public relations subsidiary.

Both appear to be independent companies, but if you do some digging you’ll see the connections.

Over the course of 7-10 years, they do research (where they know ahead of time what the results will be) and then use their public relations subsidiary to carefully publicize the “shocking” results.

Once the general public see it as a problem, then they’ll have their contacts quietly contact members of congress.

A year or so later, congress creates a law that “solves” the problem.

A law that coincidentally benefits the corporation, who started the process.

The reason they can do this is they can think in long term time-lines.

Long game.

Politicians, on the other hand, must think in terms of short game.

Since they always need to worry about their approval levels.

Media are also worried about the short game.

Very short game.

Since they have to worry about eyeballs and ad clicks.

In any given system, whoever can make and maintain the longest game plan usually wins out in the end.

This goes for us as individuals as well.

Imagine if you could only see two feet in front of you as you walked.

You had some bubble around you keeping you from seeing further out.

If you got to a wall, you would have to just keep walking along the wall, hoping for an opening.

Sadly, this is how most people live.

They can only “see” a few days ahead.

When asked questions about one year or five year plans, they kind of shrug their shoulders.

On the other hand, image being able to see miles all around.

Walls would never be a problem.

You would see them far enough ahead of time so you would just make one small shift.

The further out you are from the wall, the smaller the shift you need to make to avoid it.

But with only two-foot vision, you might not EVER get around it.

How do you develop long range vision, so you can overcome huge obstacles with small shifts?

There are plenty of easy things that done daily, will slowly open your vision FAR into the future.

So all you’ll ever need to do is make small shifts.

Life is easy when you play the long game.

The short game, not so much.

Learn More:

Seven Disciplines

Avoid The Two Tragedies of Life

Don't Get Between These Two

They Both Suck

​One thing your brain is good at is categorizing things.

Scientists have discovered that primitive cultures have an inherent knowledge of different plant species.

They intuitively know which plants, even when they see them the first time, whether they’ll be good for medicine, or eating, or clothing.

Surprisingly, these instinctive categories match up pretty closely with scientific categories.

One of the Meta Programs, those semi-permanent filters we carry around with us, is to sort by similarity, or sort by differences.

Like if you looked at a bunch of shapes, you might automatically see how they were similar to each other, or different from each other.

Knowing how you do this can help. Sometimes sorting by similarity is helpful, sometimes sorting by difference is helpful.

If you always choose “bad” relationship partners, for example, you might be sorting for something similar when you should be sorting for something different.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

One way to get out of any rut is to make a pretty big change. Nothing HUGE, like moving to new city, but rearranging all your furniture, or changing your schedule around.

This can kind of shake up the way you look at things, so you’ll see things a bit differently. Start noticing things that are helpful, and suddenly not notice those things that aren’t helpful.

Often times we think we want something, but only part of us does. Or we want only part of what we think we want.

Whenever we’re attempting to manifest something, we often overlook two crucial areas.

One is what we’ll have to give up if we get it. The other is what we’ll have to accept if we get it.

They say there are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.

Why is this?

Well, if you never get what you want, or never even try, that clearly sucks.

But if you DO get what you want, what then? Sit around and watch TV? Hang out down at the bar and watch TV there?

The truth is that the pursuit of goals is where you’re most happy. When you’re taking action, measuring your results, and getting closer and closer.

Think about this. You’ve got this HUGE goal out there. You figure it may take a couple of years. So you start taking action. Then you start getting closer. Then you come to a FANTASTIC realization.

That original goal is simply to big enough. The closer you get, the bigger you make it, and the further you push it out there.

If you haven’t chosen something BIG, or haven’t started moving toward it, you should.

It’s pretty exciting when you do.

These will help:

How To Manifest Faster

Double Your Failure Rate

Double Your Failure Rate

A common question people have is how to manifest things faster.

They’ve got a goal, they’ve created a visualization, and they’ve been doing all the meditations and the affirmations, yet nothing seems to be working.

I’m sure you’ve heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, right?

I had a boss once that use to get under our skin. He would ask us to call a vendor, and try to get some information about certain supplies we needed. We’d call, they’d give us the information, but the boss didn’t like it.

So he’d tell us to call again, and ask again. Same question. I guess he figured maybe the first time the guy who answered the phone didn’t feel like telling us the whole story.

Once I was driving somewhere with my girlfriend, and we’d taken a wrong turn. This was back before GPS, so all we had were the AAA maps. Clearly marked, with big yellow lines. There was no question where we were, she was just upset that we were behind schedule.

She wanted to pull over and ask for directions, even though the map showed where we were. “Do you want me to ask them if the map is correct?” She laughed and we kept driving, finally getting to where we were going.

The CEO of Sony once said that if you want to double your success rate, all you’ve got to do is double your failure rate.

This is the missing piece of the puzzle when creating any kind of success.

Failure, or getting what you didn’t expect, is JUST as important as success.

Think of a guided missile. It rarely goes straight to its target. It’s got built in sensors and auto correct functions because the engineers EXPECT it to always be going off course.

If they just aimed it and shot it like a big bullet, it would always miss.

Any outcome is the same. Before you get there, you have to EXPECT to go off course.

Then you’ve got to pay attention to feedback, both good and bad, to keep refining the right path.

How can you manifest faster?

Try more things. Get more feedback. Every piece of feedback you get will make it happen faster.

If you don’t like the feedback you ARE getting, doing something different will get you different feedback.

The more feedback you get, the quicker you’ll get there.

How Many Limitations Have You Accepted?

Don't Accept Limitations

Don’t Let Them Tell What You Can’t Do!

One thing that can really motivate us is when somebody tells us we can’t do it.

When I was in high school, I’d decided to run a marathon. A friend of mine (who happened to be a semi-pro soccer player, and therefore in MUCH better shape than me) had seen me out jogging.

He suggested we run the upcoming marathon (about a week away). And like a dumb high school kid, I said “Sure!”

I told a close friend of mine and he told me with absolute sincerity that I shouldn’t run, because I’d never finish, and I might injure myself. While he was only trying to help, he gave me a surprising dose of motivation.

After about ten miles, I started to REALLY feel like I’d had enough. But I kept focusing on his voice, telling me I couldn’t do it.

I imagined finishing, and telling him so. That was pretty much the ONLY thing keeping me going. And believe me, it was very hard. I never been (before or since) as tired as I’d been from about mile 15 onward.

And for a couple of weeks afterwards, my legs were on fire every time I even stood up.

But I finished.

Now, as a high school kid, this was purely a matter of pride. I didn’t get any medals or money or any extra affection from my girlfriend.

But is sure felt good.

The truth is that ALL of us have heads that have been filled in with all kinds of ideas, statements and beliefs by well-meaning adults. They were trying to protect us, like my friend was.

But since they’ve told us about our supposed “limitations” over and over, and during a time when we were VERY dependent on their approval, we were much more likely to accept their “limitations” on what we can do as fact.

But they are not. Not even close.

What’s more, maybe they WERE right. But that was when you were a kid. Ten years old, or younger.

You’re not a kid any more. And those things aren’t true any more.

Isn’t it time you rejected them, once and for all?

When you do, you’ll be flabbergasted by what you can REALLY do.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

Why Failure Is Fantastic

Embrace Failure

How To Double Your Success Rate

One of the hardest things to do is accept negative feedback.

Now, most people will refer to this as “failure.” If you’re a normal person, who’s been through normal school, then it’s been drilled into your brain that failure is bad, and should be avoided at all costs.

Or maybe you played sports and got yelled at when you made a mistake.

One of my favorite commercials of all time is with Michael Jordan. Now like him or hate him, he and Nike (and whatever marketing company they used) made some pretty good ones.

The one I’m talking about is when he slowly talked about all his “failures.”

Like taking the last shot at the buzzer, and missing.

Like all the games he’s lost.

Like all the times he choked during the playoffs when his teammates were depending on him. Then he listed all the shots he missed (in the thousands) all the games he’s lost (at least in the hundreds).

Then he said, “I’ve failed again, and again and again and again.”

Then he looked at the camera and said:

“That, is why I succeed.”

The CEO of Sony, who took their company from when “made in Japan” meant junk to a global leader in electronics was asked, “How do we double our success rate?”

“That’s easy,” he responded.

“Double your failure rate.”

Even Babe Ruth struck out more than most people realize.

What is failure, anyway? It’s the natural feedback mechanism that’s built deep into your brain.

It’s what helped you walk, talk, read, write, and everything else you know to do.

If failure didn’t happen, learning would be impossible.

If learning was impossible, we’d all be monkeys throwing poo at each other!

So why is “failure” so scary?

Maybe because we associated it somehow with negative social pressure. Maybe we forgot that there’s ALWAYS a next time.

To be sure, if something really important is on the line, like a job promotion, or a championship game, not getting what you want really, really sucks.

But what’s the alternative? Not play? Not try? That sucks even more!

Your entire life is the sum total of your day to day behaviors and accomplishments. Your day to day behaviors and accomplishments are based on how you view the world, and how you view yourself.

Change one, and you’ll change the other.

Change the cause, and you’ll necessarily change the effect.

YOU are the cause. Your world is the effect.

When you embrace ALL feedback, both good and “bad,” then you’ll know the real secret of achieving anything.

That ANYTHING is possible.

This course will teach you how. Step by step.

Fear Killing Mind Tricks

Don't Constrain Yourself With Time

Detach From Time

Most of our fears never come true.

Of course, this nifty truism doesn’t keep those imaginary fears from keeping us stuck!

One thing that can help is some mental “timeline” tricks.

For example, it’s pretty easy to get stuck in the “here and now” when thinking about most stuff.

But as humans, (and not instinct-driven animals) it’s our job to use our brains to our highest capacity.

One way to do that is look at things from different viewpoints, from a time perspective.

For example, it can help to think beyond a time in the future when something particularly nerve wracking is coming up. If you’ve got an important meeting Friday afternoon, for example, you can lessen the anxiety by focusing on what kind of delicious meal you’ll be eating Saturday night.

If you don’t have enough juice left to do ten more sit-ups, you might imagine yourself a month or two in the future when all the sexy people are admiring your six pack.

If you just can’t study for one more second, imagining the good feeling when you ace your exams may give you the extra push you need.

Another way to lessen the effect of our “imaginary” fears is to simply embrace them. Close your eyes, and imagine the worst possible thing that you can imagine. Then fully accept it. Embrace it. Feel all those feelings that would happen, and the energy underneath them.

Then imagine what you’d do next, and then after that, and after that.

If you do this enough, you can lessen any inhibitions that the fear creates.

While this is pretty good for specific fears, like asking for a raise, or asking for a phone number, here’s a way to “go meta.”

Do this when you’ve got some alone time, to sit and contemplate.

Take a deep breath, and close your eyes.

Then imagine the most horrible thing you can, from the perspective of where you are in your life. Your boss fires you, you become homeless, your true love leaves you, whatever.

Don’t worry, this is just a quick mind experiment!

Then fully embrace that situation. 

Then take a step back, and instead of looking at things a couple years down the road, look at things from the perspective of your highest, most eternal self.

That self that exists beyond time, beyond space, beyond the physical body you’re currently occupying.

See this “horrible disaster” as one small speck of experience in a sea of infinite possibility. Of infinite expanding and knowing.

Kind of weird (and potentially scary) the first couple of times, but if you practice a few times a week, for only a couple minutes each time, you may notice some pretty cool changes in your life.

More peace, less fear, more emotional openness.

Give it a try.

This can help:

Kundalini Activator

Are You Selling Out Or Starving?

The Food Truck Of Love

Find The Magic Middle

I watched a pretty good movie on Netflix the other night.

It was a good metaphor for the difference between “selling out” and “following your dreams.”

Many people abhor the idea of “selling out,” meaning ONLY doing something to make a buck.

Anyhow, the main character in the movie was a chef (also the name of the movie.)

He had a job in a pretty popular, high-end restaurant. But he felt he was “selling out” as the owner wouldn’t allow him to “experiment” with different dishes. They had a fight, he quit, and bought a food truck.

Even though he was selling stuff on the side of the road for 4 or 5 dollars a pop, they were HIS creations, and he didn’t have a boss telling him to only follow the money.

Naturally, since it was a movie, everything worked out. He made a ton of cash, got his gorgeous ex-wife back, and reconnected with his kid.

Life, however, is far from a movie. If you follow your dreams, there’s a chance you won’t make a lot of money. (Starving artist.) At least at first.

On the other hand, if you ONLY “follow the money” you might get rich, but you’ll feel empty inside.

Are these the only two options?

Luckily, whenever we’re presented with two complete opposite scenarios, they are really extremes on either side of a continuum.

Which means if you put some effort into it, you’ll find a some good middle ground.

Where you can follow your dreams, AND make a ton of money in the process.

Problem is many people aren’t so patient. It’s easy to “sell out” and get a job you hate, and figure “that’s the way it is.”

It’s also pretty easy to just give up and become a “starving artist” with the attitude that the world just doesn’t “get it.”

It takes real effort to take your passions, and cultivate them into real skills that people will pay real money for.

It’s not easy, which is why you’ll find most people in the “starving artist” category or the “sell-out” category.

You look up the personal history of ANYBODY who made it big, in ANY field, and you’ll find that it didn’t come easy.

In fact, many great creators went through plenty of struggle, in the beginning.

You might consider that to be the very purpose of your life.

To first identify your passions, and then do whatever it takes to cultivate them into something magnificent.

Something people will appreciate.

And something that will generate real wealth.

Get Started:

Prosperity Generator

What Would Your Ideal Job Be?

Fresh Popcorn!

What Does Follow Your Bliss Mean?

What is your passion?

One of the greatest gifts in life is being able to share your passion with others in a way they truly appreciate it.

Not just accept it, or acknowledge it, but appreciate it in their own way.

A great way to do this is by expressing it through your business somehow.

Now, in some cases this pretty easy and straightforward. If you love programming and you get paid lots of cash for programming, then you’re work IS your passion.

Other times the connection is a bit more subtle, but it’s still there. For example, you might love speaking persuasively and convincingly in front of groups, so you make a decent living selling products and services that you may not use yourself, but you know serve a real need.

It can certainly feel empty when you feel zero passion for your job. Like you’re just going through the motions in order to collect a paycheck.

To be sure, a passion filled job is NOT the norm for most people, but it is certainly a goal.

That’s why KNOWING what your passions are is a very important first step.

Next is to find any way possible you can express them on the job.

For example, when I was in high school, I worked at a movie theater. I did a lot of jobs, usher, taking tickets, selling tickets, selling popcorn.

Working behind the snack counter was my favorite. It was busy, we had to do quick calculations in our heads (our boss thought cash registers would slow us down) and we got to interact with a huge cross section of the population.

It was nice seeing people who were happy, as they were about to see a good movie, while enjoying some junk food.

I’ve had plenty other jobs that made a LOT more money, but were incredibly boring, tedious and sometimes stressful.

The key is to take whatever you’re doing NOW, and find SOMETHING about it you like, or at least don’t hate so much.

Since most humans need money to survive, we generally need to have some kind of occupation most of our lives.

The ideal progression is to keep finding better and higher paying jobs that allow for a more direct expression of our passions.

Until you get to that magic sweet spot where your fully passionate, absolutely LOVE your work (whether you’re working on your own or for a huge company) AND getting paid a TON.

If you keep focusing on that ideal future, while always looking for ways to improve, you simply WILL NOT fail.

Get Started:

Prosperity Generator

Do You Have Guiding Principles?

What Does Ben Franklin Know About Money

Both Positive and Negative

What is the prime directive of your life?

I used to be (still am) a HUGE fan of Star Trek. The old ones, new ones, pretty much all of them.

When they would visit a primitive planet, they had to follow the “Prime Directive,” their most important rule.

Since they were explorers, always going new places, they needed a rule to guide them. And this rule was to observe, but never interfere. Meaning if they found a bunch of cavemen running around throwing rocks at each other, they couldn’t beam down and give them all advanced weapons.

Having rules to live by can make it pretty simple, especially when we get into tough situations.

However, most of the time the “rules” are really pretty flexible, meaning that they can be broken, and often times should be broken.

Of course, some rules are pretty universal, like don’t kill, don’t steal, etc. These show up in all cultures.

But these are rules that are society wide, and apply to everybody. Certainly there are special cases.

On an individual level, having rules is also helpful.

Many movie characters have personal rules they live by. These are usually based on experience.

Many people also have personal rules. Never kiss on the first date. Never give out my phone number to strangers. Never buy something more than $100 on impulse, etc.

Most rules are meant to protect us. To keep us from stepping over the line, or getting in over our heads.

But what about rules that help us? To make sure we take opportunities when they are presented?

One famous “rule” is by Ben Franklin, that old school kite flying guy who ended up on the $100 bill.

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

Not exactly a rule, more like a guideline.

But what the heck does waking up early have to do with becoming wealthy?

Does it give you more hours of labor? Does going to bed early give you better sleep so you’ll be more efficient on the job?

Maybe, but I don’t think that’s what he was getting at.

I think what he meant was that it’s better to plan your life with your conscious mind, and not live according to your instincts.

For example, if we ONLY did what we “felt” like doing, we’d sleep in every day, and stay up until dawn.

By CHOOSING to go to sleep early, and CHOOSING to wake up early, we are showing dedication to creating something.

Now, I’m not saying that going to bed early or waking up early is the magic cure for everything.

But from a big picture view, the more you can choose and plan your life consciously, the more money you’ll make, and the smarter you’ll become.

Live awake and on purpose, and get rich.

Live asleep and unconscious, and get just enough to scrape by.

Which do you prefer?

Your Personal Road To Riches

Can You Paint By Numbers To Riches?

Is Step By Step Success Possible?

Most people would love a “paint by the numbers” system of success.

It doesn’t really matter what field. Relationships, business, health.

It seems us humans are hard wired to look for shortcuts. So when some savvy marketer comes along and gives us some secret formula that he discovered while hiking through some hidden cave in Tibet, we start salivating.

While that seems compelling from the inside out, let’s take a look from the outside in.

To be sure, doing anything mechanical WILL have a proven, step by step system. One that leaves no room for error, or mistakes.

Like rebuilding an engine, or baking a cake, or traveling from point A to point B. All you need is a simple, step by step system to follow, and so long follow the steps in order, you’ll be OK.

But whenever we do ANYTHING that involves other people, there’s really no simple method that works for everybody.

The “secret method” can ONLY be vague, at best.

Humans are a HUGE collecting of continuously changing variables, so if you want to create ANYTHING that’s based on the cooperation of others, there IS going to be a LARGE amount of winging it.

And this means doing stuff that won’t work, doing stuff that may have the opposite effect, and doing stuff that will work a million times better than we’d hoped.

To make it even more confusing, we’ll never know until AFTER we try.

To make even MORE confusing-er, we humans tend to look back at things that worked out and “rewrite” history, to make ourselves look like super heroes.

We say things like, “See, I KNEW that was going to happen!”

Or, “I had a feeling he’d say that!”

Now, most people are pretty uncomfortable doing things when they have no idea how it’s going to come up.

Hence our repeated tendency (since pretty much the dawn of time) to try or buy “secret solutions.”

But the bottom line is that unless you’re willing to take risks, accept and learn from ALL feedback, you won’t get very far.

The GOOD news is that changing your mindset, and doing some consistent mental practice, you can learn to actually HAVE FUN doing things when the outcome is uncertain.

Once you start to EXPECT and look forward to any feedback, (rather than pin you hopes on ONLY good feedback) life really becomes an incredibly fun journey.

Filled with learning, growing, success in all areas, and plenty other ideas to be discovered.