Dark Energy and You

by David

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It was just a few days ago that I heard about it on the nightly news.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that the universe is not expanding at a steady rate after all. It’s speeding up.

In a way that’s bad news. It’s bad news because eventually, some day far off in the future, when we look up into the night sky we will perhaps see our moon but that’s about it.

Like you needed more bad news eh?

Sorry about that.

The only reason I mention it is because of why these brainy guys and gals are reporting this phenomena. They’re calling it dark energy. It doesn’t mean that they’ve figured out what exactly it is of course. Far from it. When they don’t know what something is they always call it “dark” – whatever.

They not only have a name like “dark energy” but one called “dark matter” too. What they do know is that, whatever it is, there is a heck of a lot of it out there and it’s the reason why the universe is expanding faster that they once thought.

To me that’s quite interesting because, as I have been talking notes about itfor my book the last two weeks or so. Like those scientists I think there is a lot of dark stuff right here on terra firma and it’s inside of every human who lives here.

The universe is obviously a hostile place. That dark energy will eventually tear the place apart (in a billion years or so). But if it’s hostile “out there” in the inverse it’s quite the opposite inside of us.

Take the good old gut feeling for example. In my theory of Mindset Immunity I describe this unknown energy that we can feel from time to time as “friendly”. If you’ve ever made a decision based on how something feels rather than how it looks then you’ve probably seen a benefit – if not immediately then at some time later.

My point is that this dark energy, which by the way, has enough weight to it to enervate our very sensitive nerve endings located in our gut brain also must be intelligent and somewhat caring about our personal welfare.

Now I can’t prove any of this stuff myself, since I’m not a scientist, but I can read books and reports about the human body. It is a fact that the individual neurons that make up our nervous systems don’t actually touch each other. There is a gap between them called the “synapse”. They actually sort of float in a very thin clear watery substance. These tiny long string-like cells, science says, then send chemical messages to each other through the synapse.

Since I found out about that I wondered: “What is in the empty dark spaces between the nerve cells?” If there is that much of it then it must be an important constituent in our makeup. And what if the “dark energy” is lurking in all that seemingly empty space?

If I’m right then whatever you want to call it be it “dark” or not it could be worth investigating. That’s exactly what I plan to do in subsequent posts on this blog and in future webinars.

Why not join me in my new project on Facebook and see how I’m doing it?

More power to you.

External Vs Internal – A classic motivational struggle

by David

Interesting post on Seth’s blog a while back.

He’s commenting on one of my key themes: External motivation versus internal motivation. He doesn’t go into the topic at length of course, that’s not his blogging style. He likes short and pithy and he is the best in the world at it.

He just ends the post with this and it struck me.

“The nature of our new economic system, that one that doesn’t support predictable factory work, is that external motivation is far less useful. If you’re looking for a big payday, you won’t find it right away. If you’re depending on cheers and thank yous from your Twitter followers, you’re looking at a very bumpy ride.
In fact, the world is more and more aligned in favor of those who find motivation inside, who would do what they do even if it wasn’t their job. As jobs turn into projects, the leaders we need are those that relish the project, that jump at the chance to push themselves harder than any coach ever could.”

In isolation this is about work. It’s about industry. He doesn’t actually say it (it’s really not his department anyway) but I don’t think he knows how to exactly engender internal motivation that overcomes the external. How to make the gut strength motivation deeper and more pervasive than that which comes from the brain topside.

He’s not alone. Most every coach, counselor, or guru who’s trying to do it is on the wrong track. Often they fail to see that the motivation they’re supplying to their client is just yet another external motivating factor. Like a bird chirping on a tree branch or the sound of a wave hitting the beach. It’s still from the outside. It’s external.

Not surprising that they don’t see it for what it is though.

Internal motivating ques are very subtle and personal. Who gathers around the water cooler to talk about their gut feeling? Almost no one.

Too bad though. That one phenomenon is the basis of the new immunity that I’ve been writing about for some time now. The point I always make is simple but, as the old saying goes “still waters run deep” and this is no exception. It’s taken me years to give this voice so that I can explain it to people.

I think the era of the great motivator standing up on stage getting everyone going is now just about over. I don’t think people will go on paying big money for that same stuff for too much longer. Same with the calm-talk of the “spiritual teacher” sitting there answering questions while attendees hang on his/her every word. It’s more personal now. It’s got to be. There’s just too much to contend with already.

All they’ve got is mostly just more words. Words that form ideas that motivate people. That’s how it’s been done for centuries. It’s about as old hart as it get’s

But now that model is in real trouble as our difficulties with a changing world catch up with us. Seth is smart enough to notice this new trend. So, how about you?

[Would you like to hear more about what I’ve got to say on this topic? Sign-up here and get a free limited release MP3 download of my 90 minute conversation with copy guy extraordinaire Donnie Bryant. I hold nothing back and this call is jam-packed with information about my H.E.R.O. project that I haven’t ever released on this blog before.

More power to you.

Quotius #9 Circular Vs Reciprocal

by David

Each week I intend to dispatch my pent-up creativity by creating a new version of something I call a “quotius”. (Learn about the genesis of it here.)

Circular Thinking: Works on fear – Makes you gutless
Reciprocal Thinking: Works on guts – Makes you fearless

This quotius is not actually a quote like most of the others I do here. That’s because it’s not a quote from somebody else. This time it’s my own idea which I made up in an attempt to vividly illustrate the striking differences between two distinct types of thinking: circular and reciprocal.

If you’ve seen more than one of my Quotius videos you may have noticed that I have little regard for the circular type of thinking pattern. I personally believe that thinking that has a pattern like this has been the sole cause of the stuckiness that many people experience in their own lives.

I don’t like it in myself and I don’t like it in others.

That’s why in each one of these little productions I end up destroying the circular band that represents circular thinking. This often happens in a rather extreme way. It’s intentionally violent and final. Like a deadly virus I don’t want it ever coming back.

Circular thinking causes you to make decisions that are hard to reach. They are long coming (if they get made at all) and they are usually the result of over-analyzing things. They are what I refer to as head-based decision making. All you do is go around and around and around burning up time and energy to finally reaching a flimsy compromised path.

If you tend toward this type of thinking it’s probably because it seems like the safe thing to do. But it’s not. It’s just time-wasting. Real opportunities aren’t often found in the safe area of life. They are found in the deep end of the pool and it takes some guts to swim out there to claim them for yourself.

Reciprocal thinking, on the other hand, is thinking that works in partnership with the two sets of independent brain systems found in all humans. The head brain and the gut brain.

You’re no doubt aware of the head brain and what it does. But for some the knowing about the gut brain is still be a bit of a mystery. So let me give you a brief rundown of what I think was one of the top biological discoveries of the last fifty years.

The gut brain, known technically as the “enteric nervous system”, was a discovery that was first made public in North America in an article in the New York Times in 1996. The subject of the article was an announcement by cell biologist Dr. Michael Gershon. His area of interest had been the digestive system and that is how he literally tripped over the evidence of this (abdominal) brain.

He conducted tests and found some startling facts such as:
• The gut brain can, and does, act alone without instructions from topside
• The area of the gut brain is rich in “feel good” chemicals
• The gut brain is very sensitive to touch employing the same neurons found in the head

The brain in the gut was not entirely unknown however. A British doctor by the name of Langley had written about it about 100 years prior to Dr. Gershon’s work, but it had been overshadowed by the discovery of neuro-transmitters (chemicals said to help transmit nerve signals between each neuron).

Now that we know we have two distinct brains in the body why not use both of them in concert when considering critical choices? You can have the thought considerations from the head brain while being made more aware of invaluable signals about good or bad from the gut brain. Base your finial decision on that.

It is said that two brains are better than one. But what’s even better is when both reside in the same body and can agree on the same direction to go in.

More power to you.

Music Credit: The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)

Syncing in self-belief

by David

I was born with two brains.

Let me be clear though. I’m not claiming that I was somehow favored with an exceptionally large heaping helping of neurological goodies far beyond the norm. To my knowledge my particular gene pool wasn’t necessarily Olympic-sized and overpopulated with excess ganglion. It hasn’t allowed me to be a lot smarter than you or anyone else for that matter. See, I simply can’t claim that for myself. I’d like to but… I can’t.

Know why?

Turns out that my birth attributes weren’t all that special at all. At least when it comes to a tally in the brain department. The fact of the matter is, you have two separate sets of brains in your body too. So does the rest of the human population. All seven billion of us.

Seven billion problems

With all these brains there arises a problem though that needs to be addressed. None of us came with an owner’s manual. Having two sets of brains living in one body can be difficult to get a handle on at least from street level.

It doesn’t help that one brain set is in the head and the other one is in the gut. Or that the latter feels but doesn’t think while the former thinks (like gangbusters) but can’t feel a heck of a lot – if anything.

Out of sync

You’d think, given such a different set of skills, that each brain would seek out the other to form some sort of a coalition. That would work well if they actually knew each other existed by more than a passing glance. But as they mature they don’t seem to. Like the group of metronomes in the video posted here these two brain sets just seem out of synchronization most of the time. There is some communication between them but mostly they’re left to do their own thing.

For example, the head-brain can deliver to us a complex cognizance of our world. It can sometimes be seen as a romantic view and what all that means and then… other times? It could be a negative black hole.

The gut brain handles the smelly [definitely unromantic] task of digestion. This sort of disconnect allows the head-brain room to get into some turbulent thought territory. When that happens is it produces a lot of “noise” for our intellect to deal with. Often that noise is expressed as stress which tends to drown out all chances for optimal productivity in the thinking-straight department.

So, why is that?

Just take a look at your computer. All sensitive systems need some sort of buffer from external factors that might be damaging to its integrity. Of course we don’t call them buffers we call them “firewalls” and “anti-virus programs” but the effect they have on the system is similar. It would be foolish if you were to turn off those services and go out surfing all over the web wouldn’t it? You’d be asking for trouble and it wouldn’t take very long to find it.

So you can imagine what it’s like for the beleaguered head-brain. Every day it steps out into the world and – sooner or later – it will fall into some crappy thought-company.

It desperately needs a buffer too.

In the video we see how that was accomplished. The metronomes finally got a buffering platform that allowed them to communicate with each other. That little bit of connection quickly turned around the chaos and made it into an organized mass of oneness. Like those metronomes we too could pull these brains into sync with a new platform. One that can cause a unique unbroken communication of energy between both sets of brains creating harmony from randomness.

It could become more of what was intended: a symphony of ideas coupled with the motivation to put them into action. That platform is the ocean of potential that comes as a standard factory installed capability within each of us. The only reason we don’t think we have ready access to it is because it’s too huge a pattern to fit into the confines of our head- brain.

The ugly-duckling gut brain though has a unique advantage. It doesn’t think it feels. That potentiality is energy-based. Easy for the super sensitive gut brain to know if it’s there or not. It can feel it.

That dynamic informs us of who we are: a feeling/thinking being capable of amazing things. Let’s hear it for a solid self-belief built on inner-togetherness.

More power to you.

Don’t Take a bath

by David

rubber duck takes a bath — If you payed for head-based self-motivation you could end up taking a bath

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” -Zig Ziglar

Welcome to this edition of “Quotivations” for December 17, 2010.

Usually every Friday I choose quotes that I think are motivating or inspiring. But today I’m doing something a little different.

Rather than being motivating I found this quote, from one of the original key figures of modern day Self-help, to be a less then a subtle complaint about one of the biggest faults of his positive motivational product.

It doesn’t last.

Never has and never will.

Poor old Zig. He’s been at this self-help game since before the earth was done cooling. A defensive quote like this one appears to bring out the curmudgeon in him.

It’s total spin though.

But there is something I’ve got to give him credit for. He’s always been good at adding a touch poetry to make his message more memorable. Remember the famous line “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude”. Clever stuff like that sells well and it sure did for multi-millionaire Zig Ziglar.

But I still don’t buy it.

Want poetry? How about this: “Disable the fable about motivational spinners making you able”.

Ok, maybe it’s not as good as Zig can do it but, hey, I’m still working on it.

I believe that the real reason why motivation appears not to last very long is because of the type of motivation that’s being delivered.

What doesn’t last is the typical self-motivation injected toward your head-brain by clever artful dodgers like Zig.

Now, don’t get me wrong here, anyone who’s been at for over forty years, like Zig has, deserves some respect. I’m sure he’s helped some people along the path.

But we need some hard truth here.

The problem is that Zig, like all of his compadres today, did not and has not been able to recognize that there is another overriding motivational force that comes from the gut and powers through all the head-brain muddle causing a desired goal to be achieved despite all the great motivational sayings.

That energy, we refer to it sometimes as persistence and determination, cannot and does not originate in the head brain. It’s strictly a property of the gut brain (scientifically known as the enteric nervous system).

The problem with trying to change thoughts from negative to positive is that as humans we have a slight negativity bias to start with and the head-brain, which is always open to messages from the eyes and ears, can’t avoid reverting to and taking on the polarity of whatever has the greater amount.

In other words, there is a lot of negatively charged media fighting for attention with the positive stuff (poetry notwithstanding). It usually swings back to the negative side because that is often the default setting. Negative is also the polarity a lot of our perceptions happen to have about how our existence is treating us.

For example, you could be studying one of Zig’s great books and feeling very positive about your day. That’s until some jerk cuts you off in traffic or you get a flat tire on your way to work and suddenly bamm! just like that you’re back to where you started. You need to bathe your brain again in more positive juice.

The fundamental Problem…

It’s taken me a lot of years but I can now describe the fundamental problem with just three words: lack of immunity.

See the mindset is constantly under attack by our negative perceptions of our situation. But the body’s physical immune system is primarily a buffer against the attacks of pathogens and most of the time it works quite well.

But mindset immunity is another animal all together. It’s not physical it’s ethereal because thoughts are ethereal. The problem with it is that it’s too weak and too slow acting in most people to act like much of a buffer. But, here’s the good news:

I’ve found a way to fix that with this.

Not one of the best head-based motivators working today has ever thought of this approach before. If they did they’d have to change their whole business model to include one where they only deliver the result just once and it sticks.

Like I do.

They wouldn’t want to ever do that though. If they did their business could end up taking a bath… daily.

That’s it for today, consider yourself “quotivated”.

More power to you.

Circular Thinking: Works on fear – Makes you gutless Reciprocal Thinking: Works on guts – Makes you fearless

I was born with two brains.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” -Zig Ziglar

Circular Thinking: Works on fear – Makes you gutless
Reciprocal Thinking: Works on guts – Makes you fearless