Transcription
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Welcome to day six, or day eight, depending upon how you've chosen to go through this program. If you've been going for five straight days and then you did two days of subliminals, then obviously today is day eight for you. And I'm going to assume that's true for this program. Welcome back again. I want to congratulate you for your continuing commitment to do whatever it takes to consistently feed your mind and challenge yourself to make those simple daily additional changes, additional distinctions that can change the quality of your life right away. And let's get right to it.
Today's whole program is based on the power of focus. We, if you recall, in our last session, we're talking about how to really direct our states of mind and emotion. We said that everything that we really want in our lives, no matter what it is, whether it be family or friends, or relationship, or money, or business success, or acknowledgement, all those things, the only reason we want them is what we think we'll get out of them, which is a state change, a certain level of feeling within ourselves. We also found out in our last tape that all emotions, every feeling we have, is the result of how we use our body. That emotions literally are nothing but physiological storms in our brains, if you will. And that we learned that by using our bodies in certain ways, by using our voice, our gestures, our breathing, our facial expressions, we could radically change our states. And we also talked about the idea, if you recall, of measuring our states. Where are we on a scale from zero to ten? Ten being absolutely empowered, unstoppable, passionate. Zero being dead. And noticing, are we at the appropriate level for what we want to accomplish? And that for most cases, not all, in life, but most, wouldn't it be nice to live at level eight, nine, or ten, or above, on a consistent basis? How much more juice would you have?
And so you developed some exercises in discovering how to move your body, not like me, not like somebody else, but like you do when you really are feeling absolutely excellent. Today, what we want to do is take on the second way we can manage our states. And the second way to change your state at any moment in time, as quickly as you can think it, is to control and direct the focus of your mind. What do I mean by that? Well, think about this. The only experience that you have of life comes in two forms. What you're physically feeling because of the condition and use of your body at that moment. In other words, if you've got physical pain, that's obviously going to affect your state. There's some kind of tension, for example. Or if you haven't had any sleep, that's certainly going to affect your state as well. Or if you've eaten something that's blown your blood sugar sky high, then obviously that's going to affect your emotional states as well. The only other thing that really controls your state is what are you paying attention to right now, at this moment?
I mean, let's take an example. Have you ever had a headache? Maybe even a massive headache that you thought there was no way you would ever go away. You were in really deep pain. Now, what do you do? Well, most people go get an aspirin. What if instead, have you ever had it happen where somebody asked you a question, or something needed to be done, or something acquired your total focus somewhere else outside of yourself, and wham! Immediately the pain disappeared. In fact, you forgot about it. And later on, when you thought about it, you noticed your headache was gone. Haven't had that happen at least once or twice in your life? Now, how did you do that? See, my whole life has been studying what makes people successful. If someone's able to do something, if they're able to get rapport with somebody else, if they're able to create the results they want physically in their life, that is, lose weight, feel energized, if they're able to create the relationships that they really desire, if they're able to feel as good as they ever wanted to feel, I want to know how do they do that?
And so I began to study how could somebody get rid of a headache that quickly, so we wouldn't be dependent on some drug like aspirin or Tylenol or anything else. And I began to realize that what it was is we changed our mental focus. And that whatever we're experiencing in our body really comes from what we're paying attention to. That's what really determines how you feel. And of course, how you feel determines usually how you're going to behave. Doesn't that make sense? When you're feeling really lousy, you don't usually do really well. Now, I know there are exceptions, but those exceptions are because you control your focus. You don't focus on feeling lousy. You focus on what's got to be done. There is tremendous power in controlling the focus of your mind.
Now, what do I mean by this specifically? Well, there are two things we can control in terms of focus. We can control what we're focusing on. That is, what we're picturing in our mind, what we're saying to ourselves, what we're paying attention to in our physical body. Or we can control how we're focusing. How we're focusing means, let's say, the dimension of the pictures in our mind, the brightness of the colors in our head, the volume of our sounds. If we change how we're paying attention to things, not just what, it radically changes our state as well.
Let me give an example. Pretend for a moment that your brain is a camera. And you go to a party. How are you going to feel at that party? Well, the only thing you're going to have feelings about are the things you focus on. I mean, in that room, literally, there are almost unlimited number of activities and probably emotions and conversations and things that are going on. But your experience of that party is based on what that camera focuses on. Now, if it focuses on two people that are fighting, and that's what it focuses on for the entire party, you would leave that party saying, "Oh, that party was really intense. I mean, people are really upset with each other." If your focus was on two people in love who are maybe kissing passionately, you'd say, "Wow, that party was really moving. I mean, those people are really connected." If your focus was on some people that were really boring or bored, it's out. Nobody really enjoyed that party.
Here's the problem. The problem is your camera, that is, the focus you have, does not usually take in everything simultaneously. Your conscious mind can't. There are only so many things you can consciously focus on. I mean, think about how many things right now you are not paying attention to that are happening at this moment. There's the blood pulsating through your right ear. You may not even pay attention to it. I mentioned it, now you might focus on it. There's the beat of your heart. Were you even noticing that until I mentioned it? There's the feel of maybe some air coming from an air conditioning, maybe if you're nearby. Or there's the heat on your skin. Or there's the blinking of your eyes. There are unlimited number of things that are happening right now.
But see, here's the thing about human beings. Since we can't focus on everything and consciously perceive it all, what most of us do is we become what I call deletion creatures. What do I mean? I mean that most of the time, most of us delete, that is, we fail to pay attention to or we ignore most of what's going on around us at any moment in time. So, what's the price of all this deletion? Well, the price is we walk around believing, or hallucinating might be a better word, that our experience of the world is real. Now, would you think that if you were looking through a camera that was focused on one little portion of the party, that that was truly the party? That wouldn't be very intelligent, would it? In fact, you know what else is a problem? That camera may even create close-ups where it makes things bigger than they actually are, where they look bigger and brighter, or worse than they were. Is that possible too? Do you think your brain does that as well? You better believe it does.
So, the key is, if you want your life to be a party that you're happy with, and not a party that you're upset with, you've got to realize that at any moment in time, there's enough going on in the party of your life that you could find something to be upset about. All you got to do is focus on it. All you got to do is now look around that party, find out areas that don't match your expectations, make them big and bright and close, and you'll be upset. And you know what? Most people are good at this. They've done it over and over and over again. The other thing that's equally true is that virtually any party, at any moment in time, there's somebody having a good time. And if you were to focus on some area of your life at that moment in time, you can make yourself feel absolutely great. Or you could take some little thing, something that just kind of nice, but make it bigger and brighter, and immediately you can feel better about it as well.
So, here's my point. My point is, if you want to look at the quality of your life and know what it is, it's the quality of the states that you live in day to day. I mean, isn't that really true? Isn't it how you feel day to day that determines how you treat yourself, how you treat other people, and how great you feel or how poor you feel about your life? What determines it? One, how you use your body, so you want to develop some new habits. And two, what and how you focus on things.
Now, that's the only way we can explain how people have come from unbelievably painful experiences and turn them around. W. Mitchell's secret is he's controlled his physical body, specifically the way he uses his face. This man has learned with what's left of his body to smile and move his face in ways that makes him feel incredible. And the second thing is he focuses continuously on what he wants, what he's got, what he's grateful for. And as a result, he feels incredible. Now, nobody would blame him for looking around and saying he has no legs and he has no fingers. He's got the toes there instead. And he's in a situation where he's in physical pain a lot of the time. Nobody would blame him for feeling sorry for himself. But see, he doesn't focus on that. He loves life because he focuses on the part of the party that's the best part for him. Don't you deserve to give yourself the same gift?
Now, take a look at John Belushi's example we used earlier. Also, how could a guy like Belushi, or Presley, or take somebody like Elizabeth Taylor? Here's a lady that would have everything going forward by most people's standards. She's an incredibly intelligent woman. She's absolutely beautiful. She's a great actress. She has thousands and thousands, probably millions of fans, to be more accurate, who absolutely love her. She has as much money as most people could ever imagine needing or wanting. She has a lifestyle that's absolutely phenomenal. She has family and friends that care about her, would do anything for her. And yet, what happens with this lady? She has not learned to manage her state, and she pays the price. As great as she is, great on the stage, but in her personal life, over and over again, she has to turn to food or to drugs to try and take care of the challenges within herself. See how could someone have it all and still be unhappy? Because no matter how good it is, you can always focus on something that isn't perfect or doesn't match your expectations. And that is called ultimate failure in life.
You want to know what I believe success is? Success is creating consistent pleasure in your life and causing yourself to grow. Failure is being able to find pain no matter how good it is. That's failure. The bottom line is you have that power, and you can change it right now by understanding that you make decisions about what to focus on. Now, it may be true that you've got some bad habits. It may be true that right now you look at what's worse, or you look at what's wrong, or you see what's not working in your life, and it's habitual, so you don't think about it consciously. But you still make the decisions. You can turn off the automatic pilot and take control. And when you do, you can instantly change the quality of your life.
The lady I married, my wife Becky, one of the things I love about her more than anything in the world, the reason I married her, probably more than anything else, is this woman is so incredible in her ability at any moment in time to focus on what is great in a situation, what is beautiful. The most little things. She and I share that power where we can be in the middle of anything, in the middle of turmoil and upsets and frustrations. In a heartbeat, we can stop and we say, "Hey, look, notice that flower. Notice that sunset." Or look in each other's eyes and say, "How do I get so lucky to get you?" We have that ability. We share. We reinforce it in each other, and it gives power to our relationship and to our lives. You have that control. All you have to do is exercise it.
So, in time, so the first thing questions do is they change our focus, and therefore our state, immediately. The second thing that questions do is they change what we're deleting. Now, remember, in order to feel unhappy, you have to focus on the things that would make you unhappy, and you have to delete all the great things that are happening in your life. Isn't that true? In other words, every one of us right now could get depressed. Piece of cake. All we have to do is focus on all the tragedy that's happening in the world right now, even little pieces of it. Children are dying right now. Starvation. We can make pictures in our head of those bloated stomachs, hearing the cries of babies just as they pass off into death, seeing flies eating their flesh. How's that for graphic?
At the same time, every one of us could be in absolute total pleasure. Interrupt that pattern of the picture you're looking at and think of something that could create total pleasure. And you know what? There are a zillion things. But to do that, you have to stop focusing. You have to delete all the negativity in the world and focus on things that make you feel great. So you could focus on a relationship you have. You could focus on how much you've already learned in the last six or seven or eight days. You could focus on the people that love you. You could focus on your ability as a human being to change your life at any moment in time. You could focus on what learning means to you. You could focus on the sun. You could focus on breathing fresh air. You could focus on the fact you live in a free country. You could focus on the fact that you have a connection with your creator. You could focus on anything and feel incredible. You could focus on new babies being born this moment that have a greater opportunity in life than any time in our history. There's so much we could focus on and feel good about.
The challenge is this: you must control it through questions. Questions change what we delete. We're always deleting. Human beings, we're not going to stop deleting things. As long as we're going to delete things, why not delete things that disempower you and focus on the things that empower you? Does that make sense?
The third thing that questions do is they help you to get access to resources within yourself. I'm a big believer that anything you've ever wanted to accomplish, you've already got the resources inside of you to make it happen. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go out and learn from somebody else or model the success of others. I'm just saying the things you need to succeed are already in your core. The resources are there. You just need to get access to them by asking better questions. I'll give an example. If I ask myself questions like, "Gosh, can I really do this?" That creates a feeling of doubt. Do you hear how that does that? And that feeling of doubt will keep me in a state where I'm not going to get the most out of myself. But if instead I ask myself a question like, "How can I make this thing happen right now more powerfully than I ever dreamed of and have fun doing it?" If I keep asking that question, my brain will get access to more of my ability. Because whatever I ask for, my brain will give me. But if you ask your brain, "Can I really do this?" and you do it with a tone of voice of doubt, you are going to get access to the resources called doubt. Does that make sense?
If you think about it, the greatest communicators, the greatest teachers of all time, were not people that so much taught us as they did ask us. They shared things with us, but they got us to use our own resources. They asked questions. All the great speakers have done this. Hey, Martin Luther King asked questions about a dream. John F. Kennedy asked, "Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." He wanted you to take the resources out of yourself and contribute and expand our country. You must learn to ask habitual questions that empower you.
I want you to know that I believe the success in my life has all come down to one basic skill: state management on a consistent basis. I've learned how to manage my state, and therefore I've been able to get myself to break through and take action when very few people around me were able to do the same. They were able to. That's probably not the best description. They weren't using their power because they didn't have access to all of it. And I've done that by every day doing things that would increase my physical ability, flexibility, power, energy, by the way I'm moving, the way I breathe. And also by consistently and daily conditioning myself to ask the kinds of questions to create the kinds of focus that moves me towards larger levels of contribution and joy and fun and success and passion, instead of the things that would pull me down, that would pull me to areas of frustration and anger and giving up.
Listen, there is no capability difference between you and someone you consider to be an ultimate role model of success. The only difference is they've learned to use their mind and body with more power on a consistent basis. They've learned to manage their state. They've learned to use their body effectively. Whether they know it or not consciously doesn't matter. A lot of people do things without being aware of how they do it. And they've learned to control their mental focus. Remember, whatever we concentrate our focus on consistently and strive to learn from and make new distinctions about, we will get great at. I don't care what it is. If you focus on it daily and you strive to be better, you're going to make little distinctions that'll make you more and more effective every single day. So you better decide what you want to focus on in your life and what you want to experience on a daily basis, because that's where your power is going to come from. That's where your power is going to emit from. That's the genesis of your power.
I want you to know that many things that you think are impossible or difficult are only difficult or impossible because of the way you're focusing on things. You're focusing on how it can't be done, and you've got to remember, whatever you focus on is what you get. So if you focus on how it can't be done, you are absolutely right, and no one's going to prove you wrong. So why not focus on what's possible and create that? I mean, that's how I created things like the firewalk seminar. All I did was hold a new level of possibility. Instead of focusing on how it couldn't be done, or how it was a terrible thing or something like that, I focused on, "Hey, this is an incredible example of possibility. And if other people can do it, my focus and my question is, if they can do it, then how can we do it? How can I share it with other people? How could it be used as an empowering experience that's a lot of fun?" I did the same thing with teaching people wood breaking. You know, I teach people how to break wood karate style, not in two years, but in about 20 minutes. Again, not to make them this powerful person, but to show them that by simply changing their mental focus, by controlling their physical emotional state, and by modeling someone's success, that they can get results in 30 minutes it takes most people two years. And they have what we call a breakthrough, literally.
I want you to know that you have every right at any moment in time to feel lousy, to feel bad, to feel sorry, to feel hurt. I am not saying by this tape program that you should never be disappointed or frustrated or angry or anything else, because all of those emotions have their place in their proper proportion. Hey, some of my greatest frustrations or angers or upsets are what have driven some of my greatest successes, because it's made me search for more. But see, what's interesting is the pain drove me. But what changed me from other people who just gave up is I asked better questions. I found a way to say, "What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? How can I expand from this? What can I take from this experience that'll empower me? What can I learn from this so I never have to experience it again?" And by asking empowering questions, "How can I take advantage of this? What's the actual benefit in this situation that I probably hadn't noticed?" I began to find benefits, whereas other people said, "Why did this happen to me? Why does this always happen to me? Why did you do this to me, Lord? How come I'm not smart enough to pull this off? Why do I keep self-sabotaging?" See, that's the difference between success and failure.
So, I want you to know I'm not saying you can't feel bad. I'm just saying when you're done feeling bad, here's how to change. And you may not want to spend quite so much time feeling bad in the future, because feeling bad is based on focus. If you change your focus, you can feel good instantly, right now, at this moment. Now, so let me ask you a few questions. And what I'd like you to do for your homework is design some questions. Every morning in my life, I wake up and I ask myself questions. Now, the truth is, you already do this too. The only problem is you're not doing it consciously. Think about it. When you're shaving, are you thinking and talking to yourself? No. That process of thinking is nothing but asking and answering questions. You're doing it constantly. That's where your thoughts come from. Think about it. Now, you might say, "Well, no, that's not true," or "Yes, it is true." If you said, "No, it's true," or "Yes, it is," it's because you asked yourself the question, "Is that true?" or something like it. See, some of the questions you ask are subconscious. Your brain is deciding all the time, "If I get in this car, if I turn here, what's going to happen? Is that car coming too close or too far?" You're asking questions constantly subconsciously. But you're also doing it consciously. When you're shaving or putting on your makeup or shampooing, you're asking questions. But it might be questions like, "God, why do I always have to do this? Why do I have to go to work today?" Think about the kind of states that those questions create. And what would be some more empowering questions? Like, "What could I do today that will make today more fun than ever before? What can I do today that would create a breakthrough in my business? What could I do today to connect more with my family members? I wonder what's going to happen today that will make me feel total pleasure for no reason? I wonder what I'll see today that I haven't seen before?" See, those kinds of questions will empower you. If you're bored, it's because you ask lousy questions. Probably ask questions like, "Why do I have to do this? Why do we do this all the time? Why do we always do these things?" versus looking around saying, "God, what can I notice today that I haven't noticed before?" See, "What can I see that they haven't seen before? What could I smell today I haven't smelled before?" See, it's called directing your computer.
So here are some questions you might want to answer right now in your own mind and notice how they make you feel.
Question one: What are you really most happy about in your life right now? What's one of the things you're most happy about in your life right now? To answer that question in your own head. What are you most happy about in your life right now? Or if your brain goes, "Nothing," what could you be happy about if you wanted to be? If you ever ask a question yourself and somebody says, "Well, I don't feel that way," or "I don't think that way," say, "I know you don't, but if you did, or if you could, what could you feel happy about right now?" Think about it. Have you thought of something? Well, good. Let me ask you a question. What about that makes you happy? Third question: How does that make you feel? Really allow yourself to feel it. Don't just go, "Well, it makes me feel happy." Feel the feelings. What else are you really happy about in your life right now? Think of a second thing. What else are you really happy about in your life right now? What about that makes you feel happy? How does that make you feel?
Here's the second question for you: What are you really excited about in your life right now? What are you really excited about in your life right now? Answer the question in your mind. Think about it. Or what could you be excited about if you wanted to be excited about something? Think about it. Oh, come on, you got more things to be excited about. Think. What about that makes you excited? Why does that make you excited? How does it make you feel? What else are you excited about in your life right now? Come on, what else? What else are you really excited about in your life right now? Or could you be excited about if you wanted to? How does that make you feel?
Here's a third question for you: What are you really grateful for in your life right now? What are you really grateful for in your life right now? What are some of the things you're grateful for? Or what could you be grateful for if you wanted to be? Answer the question honestly. How does that make you feel? I want you to notice, do you feel state change as you answer these questions from where you were a few moments before? That's it. So you can change your state instantly, and you can make yourself feel great. There's so much to feel grateful for. Hey, if you want my formula for wealth, it's real simple. Live every day in an attitude of gratitude. See, the more you feel like you have, the more you'll experience in your life, and the more you'll be willing to give. See, make sure that you're always trying to give more than you take back, and feel grateful for everything you have, and you will be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. But you got to control your focus.
Let me ask you another one: What are you really proud of in your life right now? What are you really proud about in your life right now? Or what could you be proud about in your life so far? What are some of the things? What about those things makes you feel proud? How does that make you feel? What else are you really proud of in your life right now? How does that make you feel?
Here's a final question for you: Who do you really love most in your life, and who loves you? Think about it. And don't just go, "Oh, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister." Get some feeling. Step into those experiences and feel what it feels like. Think about who loves you and how that makes you feel. Who do you love and how does that make you feel to love that person so much?
I had a question for you: What if every morning you started out asking yourself a series of questions that put you in this kind of state? There's some real power because see, the state you're in affects the way you look at your whole world, doesn't it? It affects the way you breathe, the way you feel, the way you treat other people, and your level of success. See, a lot of people teaching life do a bunch of affirmations. Go on, "Happy, memphian, memphian, memphian, I'm happy." And then your brain goes, "BS." Right now, if you do affirmations long enough, they may work because your brain may get bored and say, "Well, why am I happy?" At which time it'll search your brain for an answer, and then all of a sudden you'll feel happy. That's what happens when you do affirmations. Or if you go, "I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy," and you really create the physiology of happiness, you know what I mean by that? By using your voice that way, then what you've done is the affirmation didn't do it so much. It's putting your body in that state. So affirmations are great, but what I want you to know is questions are even more powerful because now you have a reason to be happy. You're not just jumping yourself up and running around with what I call a "perma-grin" where people go, "Why are you happy?" You go, "I don't know, but it feels good." It's better to have all these reasons.
So every morning, you stack more reasons to be happy. You come up with more reasons that you're proud, more reasons to be grateful, more reasons to feel excited about life, more feelings of love. If you stack those every day, you literally anchor them in your nervous system. This is part of what I call destiny technologies: controlling your state through asking yourself effective questions. This is the power of focus.
And here's your exercise. Pull out your success journal and right now, I want you to write down five questions. After you've designed these five questions, what I'd like you to ask yourself to do is this. First of all, let me ask you this: If every single morning you got up and asked yourself five custom-designed questions that put you in peak states and it gave you lots of reasons to feel phenomenal, so you weren't just some guy out there again just babbling about how excited you are without any reasons for it. I'm not talking about being somebody just all pumped up for no reason. But if every day you came up with lots of reasons and felt these powerful emotions, what would that do to the quality of your life? What would that do to your days? Would it be worth developing some new habits?
If your answer to these questions is yes, then I'd like to challenge you to do something. I'd like you to develop a new habit, a one that will literally condition your nervous system to associate powerful emotions with waking up in the morning. Wouldn't that be nice? Here's what I want you to do. If you're willing to take on the challenge, for the rest of this program, approximately, what, 22 more days, each morning I want you to answer those five questions. And every time you answer them, you gotta create some feelings. So if one of your questions was, "What am I most excited about in my life?" you gotta come up with at least two different answers. And you gotta think about why you're excited, how great that makes you feel, and you gotta actually feel the answer of the question. Two answers to each of your five questions each morning. Again, this is not added work. You're already asking questions. You just may be asking questions like, "Oh gosh, why do I have to get up at this hour?" That may not be the best question to ask when the alarm goes off. Maybe you want to install a new one that empowers you. Would you be willing to do that for the rest of this 30-day program? Now, I don't want you to do this for the rest of your life because you might get addicted to feeling excellent for the rest of your life, and gosh only knows what would happen to you then. So don't go any longer than these 30 days, for sure. But at least for the 30 days, would you be willing to try it? Okay, then go for it.
So, you know your assignment: design five questions that'll get resources out of you and make you feel phenomenal each day. That'll make you get access to your real powered ability every single day. Also, I want to say to you, please use your success journal to write down each day a little bit about what's happening to you. What are you noticing? Have you already begun to notice that your attitude has changed? Obviously. But also, if you notice that maybe you're willing to take some chances, you're being more decisive, you're taking some actions, you've been maybe more powerful in some of your communication. Have you decided maybe to take some actions like lose weight or stop smoking, and you're like, day three or four of that? Or are you just feeling better about the possibilities of your future? In other words, each day you might want to just keep a journal, jot down a couple of key ideas about what you learned that day or what you're experiencing in your daily life. Besides this program, I've kept journals for years because I believe that if my life is worth living, it's worth recording. And for me, what journals are is a way to go back and notice my growth because otherwise, what happens for a lot of us is we get caught up. But if you have a journal, you can look and see how you've grown in your development and your ability and where you are in your life. In addition, your journals are things that you can give later on to your children someday. They can look back and learn from the lessons you've learned in your life. So they're invaluable. I hope you'll decide to keep a success journal on an ongoing basis after this program. But see if you can get yourself in the habit right now for the next 30 days.
When you come back tomorrow, we're going to work on the ultimate secret to lifelong success. We're going to study values and beliefs. They truly are the source of success or failure in life. I'll see you tomorrow. Live with passion.
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