Well here it is the start of another work week.  It’s now fall and the it’s cooler now. The leaves are falling off the trees and stuff looks like it’s all dying.

Geez. I used to hate this time of year. Summer’s over and school is well under way. You know what happens then? You start feeling crappy.

Are you having one of those days when you’re feeling beat down, run down, turned down, turned off or used up?

A lot of us are feeling that way lately and no wonder. The economy has tanked, things like houses – if you still have one – (remember those big square things with roofs?) are loosing more and more of their value while at the same time our food costs are rising.

Yikes!  How much can we take.

But hey, take some comfort, it could be worse. You could have been the brains behind the Yodeling Meter. First introduced in 1925 this clever but seemingly useless device was put together especially to measure the pitch of the human yodel. Maybe I’m just thinking like a marketer but I suppose it could have been a real scream during those summer weekend-long parties over at uncle Joe’s place.  Especially after a few of his bootlegged beers.

I don’t know how many of these were sold but I’d doubt if it covered the cost of the prototype, this professional promo photo, and the two lovely models.

Seriously though, if you really are feeling a little less than you’d like to, you should see this.

More power to you.

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Freud: Happy? "No, just less miserable."

For a long time now, particularly ever since I discovered the phenomenon of mindset immunity, I've been very interested in human happiness. Or should I say lac of it. (See I suspect that there might be a happiness deficit in the world today.) I had a hunch that there might be tons of people just like myself who are interested in happiness and how to make it stick around longer.

As I researched the topic of happiness I, naturally, ran into many references to the field of psychology. One in particular was Sigmund Freud. He was known widely as the founder of psychoanalytic school of psychiatry, a branch of medicine where it's practitioners try to make their patients better through analyzing things like dreams but Freud, as it turns out, was quite a pronounced pessimist and I'm guessing not that very happy a guy himself.

Flooded with clients who had lost their joy of life I think in time he must have caught what ever unhappiness bug it was that they had. Whatever the case it must have resulted in a man who eventually concluded that happiness and hope might be close in the dictionary listings but that's about as close as they got. Check out what he had to say about happiness:

• "It's a doomed craft. It's propelled by infantile aspects of the individual that can never be met in reality."
• "One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of creation."

Whoa! And he was a doctor!

I think that old Sig should have forgotten his head and had is gut examined instead. If he had perhaps he'd now be listed among today's innovative researchers like Dr. Michael Gershon. Dr. Gershon you see is a professor as well as chairman of the Anatomy and Cell Biology department at Columbia University Hospital in New York City.  He's the guy who noticed that the human gut contains large amounts of feel-good chemistry and brain cells exactly like the one's found in the head.

GUT BRAIN

Not only that though. According to Dr. Gershon the millions of neurons in the gut qualifies them to be recognized as a brain all by themselves.  He even wrote a book on it called "The Second Brain" in which he describes in detail the disorders and the mysteries of what he calls the enteric nervous system.

The moment back in 1996 when I first heard about his discovery made that a red-letter day for me. I was looking for something concrete to put into context the incredible results I was seeing with attendees at my seminars who had just used my H.E.R.O. search tool.  They all reported a strong feeling of happiness and solidness eminating from an area just below the rib cage. Thanks to Dr. Gershon I now I know how to frame an explaination for it. One that I will be using extensively in my soon-to-be-released DVD entitled "Immune To Failure".

I happen to believe that happiness is a part of our birthright. After all don't we normally all start out that way?  Only taking on sadness and despair usually much later in life? Now, when I talk about happiness I'm not talking about the showy over-the-top jovial Santa-type happy but a steady ability to weather the storms that existence sometimes throws at us. Happiness has to be authentic. The smile on a used car salesman's face is for example quite different than that which comes to us from a new mom who sees her baby for the first time.

No contest right?

Here's an interesting video on happiness from a TED seminar by the famed luminary of positive psychology Mihaly Czikszentmihaly.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs[/youtube]

A Poll:

One day I was wondering about how happiness was being prioritized by business people on the web. I wondered how it effected their mindset so I wanted to ask a multiple-choice question.

I'm a member of the popular Warrior Forum so I posted a new thread and asked. Here's the results I got after the thread had been going for just under 200 days: The title of the thread was " Which of these is your top priority?" In this poll I asked people to weigh in on a short list of things:

My number one priority in life would be: (Please choose one)

1) More happiness

2) More time

3) More money

4) Other (please note a short description)

Results are In!

Here are the details for the poll as to the end of February 2010: a total of 196 days. Total views: 1,822 Total Responded: 123 Here's the choices they made:

More Happiness: 58

More Time ——- 9

More Money —- 21

Other ————- 20

Not clearly selected: 14

It was obvious early on that happiness was going to trump all other choices. Interestingly, those who choose "More money" felt that they had to explain themselves even if in a very brief sort of apologetic way.

Those who chose happiness more often than not just made the one brief statement: "I choose happiness".  No apologetic reason ever seemed to be needed although some did make statements concerning the state of the world.

Seems the exercise did reveal quite a bit about the state of some people's mindset wouldn't you agree?

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Thinking is something all of us do plenty of every day.

The question is: How does our thinking effect how we “are”?  (Such as our state of health for example)

Generally speaking thinking comes in just two sizes: positive and negative.

Let’s take a quick look at positive thinking first.

According to author Deepack Chopra “thoughts become biology”. If this is true then it follows that if you’re consistently thinking negatively your body will be expressing this attitude in its own state of health. Indeed patients who have a poor outlook about their recovery seem to impede the healing process taking place within them

But positive thinking patients don’t always automatically do well just because they think good thoughts.

For example, after radical bone cancer treatment, one-legged cross-Canada runner Terry Fox, had to interrupt his “Marathon Of Hope” and was again back in hospital after cancer was found in his lungs. Publicly he always said that he would soon return to finish the run but, sadly, never did. He died soon afterwards at the age of just 23.

So, does how we “think” soon become how we “are” physically?

The jury is still out and the debate rages on.

Want my two cents?

I think it’s not just thought that can appear to affect our biology but the state of our nature. A positive nature is not quite the same domain as a mind that only works to positive think on demand.

Having a positive nature is way more organic. It is a state that is established more from what you ‘feel’ inside of you than what your head can think up. Compare the two and thinking just doesn’t cut it at all.

The old maxim I often quote here is the famous mantra “Be, Do, Have”. A state of “being” is a powerful thing not subject to the rapid changes often found in our thoughts or in the attitudes formed by them. Interestingly, a positive nature is something that as very young children we almost all possess.

In my H.E.R.O. workshops conducted over the last thirty years or so, I have witnessed many participants who have declared that they felt more youthful and indeed went on to become better at being themselves.  It seems that when we’re closer to a state of joy we are naturally more open to maintaining a healthy, more youthful body too.

Till next time, more power to you all.

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Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Lemon Tree – Lyrics by Peter, Paul, and Mary (Popular folk-singing group of the 1960′s)

If you lived, like I did in the era of the 60′s, you would quickly recognize these lyrics as belonging to the popular folk-singing group Peter, Paul, and Mary.

I came across this song on YouTube recently and I thought how relevant it is – in a reverse sort of way – to failure.

We all know only too well that unlike the lemon tree failure is not so pretty.

In fact it really sucks.

It hurts our heads and ruins our day and yet… and yet, I’ve come to understand that its “fruit” is so masterfully designed as a portal to higher learning that it’s now become, and in reality has always been, essential if any of us are to reach any success in our lives at all.

Mickey Rooney, the acclaimed actor whose career spans over 75 years, said: “You always pass failure on the way to success”.

I feel like I’ve passed a lot of failure in my life. So perhaps I, like a lot of folks, have a love/hate relationship with failure. I’ve come to know it well. Thirty years of trying and falling short in my efforts to bring my radical theories about human motivation and empowerment to you and have left me with no choice but to press on every day and learn to do it better.

It’s a matter of mindset.

Hasn’t your life been like this? Hasn’t it been like this for almost everyone you know?

Take a close look at it. You’ve had successes. But every one of them has undoubtedly been preceded by a failure. Some big some small but a foundation of failure is what lies beneath all achievement.

Like the roots of a fruit tree.

More power to you all.

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“How the heck are you doing?”

I asked an acquaintance whom I hadn’t seen in a while.

He appeared outwardly optimistic but in a fatalist kind of way. Further discussion revealed that he was indeed somewhat worried about his job security with the local newspaper.

“They say it’s the worst economic downturn this generation has ever seen” he said, confirming my impression that he was preoccupied about something.

But this reaction was the exception. Often times if I meet someone and I introduce the subject of the current economic troubles they tend to clam up. It becomes obvious that they’d rather talk about something else.

Anything else. It’s making it difficult to get a good grasp on how people are coping.

Last week GM in Oshawa Ontario permanently closed its truck plant after 60 continuous years of operation. 2,500 workers
lost their jobs. Chrysler is set to axe a raft of dealerships in the US and GM will soon follow that action here in Canada.

GM was the largest company on the planet for a long time.

I can’t bring back GM or Chrysler but I think I can help those folks who need it most.

That’s why I’m offering the one-time use of my H.E.R.O. Personal Success Discovery Machine for free to a few of the many who may have recently been laid off and are feeling “uncertain” about their future. I will be screening candidates and selecting those who I feel could benefit the most.

But first I’d like to know what’s happening out there and how you’re feeling about your future.

Please take this poll:

Results will be posted here in my blog.

Please participate. It’ll only take a minute.

Thanks for your help

n

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This morning I was reading a post in Seth Godin’s blog. He titled it: “Infinity–they keep making more of it.”

He was writing on the pursuit of the “more” mindset. Instead of getting better, he warns, were all too focused on getting bigger. (I touched on this theme in an earlier post)

It’s true that we all want to grow a business that’s bigger than it is now.  The profit motive has a lot to do with that. A small tree naturally grows into a big tree. A bigger tree should give more fruit.

But the fruit isn’t necessarily better or bigger. There’s just more of it.

I couldn’t help but notice that part of the message in Seth’s post speaks right to the core of my own work as the developer of the H.E.R.O. eMachine. In an oblique way it even references the spirit of what I found when I first used it myself.

After a lot of years struggling with it, a couple of months ago I finally realized what it was I really wanted to say to the world about what I had discovered.

It’s simply this: If you want to live a long, happy, and fulfilling life stop chasing after success. Even if you haven’t had any of it yet and especially if you have. Better instead to become immune to failure itself.  For one thing, if you’re moving forward at all, there’s always going to be lot more of it around.

I know we all hate failing.

Failure makes us look bad. But it’s the undisputed price of success and it’s hands down the greatest teacher there is.

If you want to prosper in these uncertain times you’d better grow big in the immunity department.

More power to you.

…David

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