Mobius Monday Minute – June 27 , 2011

Sports figures, entrepreneurs, politicians, and you and I. This is only a partial list of those who succeeded because of just one thing: they had just enough belief to try.

I’m talking about self-belief of course. That’s the kind of belief that infuses the confidence of our mindset and opens a portal to our potential that allows it to flood into our every attempt to succeed at something new.

But there is a problem with this. Two problems actually.

The first is the worrisome fear that our self-belief might be groundless and superficial. That it was applied, like a thin coat of cheap paint, from the time when we read something inspirational in a book or listened to a motivational talk from a skilled presenter.

The second problem is that our potential, if we even think we have any, cannot be seen. Its invisibility becomes a burden even though we’re told by others, who are trying their best to encourage us, that we have lots of it. So we stubbornly use that as reinforcement to our argument for why we can’t do something. If we can’t see it, we reason, then how do we know it’s really there?

There is one main reason why these two problems exist. It’s the lack of actual proof. The problem of your potential’s invisibility is do to the fact that you are human. You can’t see your own potential because it’s simply too darned big a pattern to fit into your human brain.

Yes, the fact is that you can’t possibly comprehend something who’s boarders you can’t see. For example, imagine that you’ve been shipwrecked and found yourself alone in the middle of the vastness of the ocean. You look around but all that you can see is open water in every direction. How could you not feel completely lost?

That ocean is like your potential. It’s a pattern and the pattern is huge. It may have an edge somewhere but since you can’t see it you’re unable to have a frame of reference between you and it. Without that frame of reference there can be no understanding of the pattern you’re looking at.

If you need some kind of proof you need to have it in a form that is solidly understandable. A huge ocean like this is a great metaphor for the size of your own personal potential but to get your head around it you need a something smaller. You need a sample. You need a cup.

A cup of that ocean’s water is an amazing game changer. Small enough so that its boarders can easily be comprehended yet chock full of truth because its contents are exactly the same as the water that’s in that ocean.

There is a word for this type of sample. It’s called a “fractal”.

Fractal images are usually rendered by computer and were first developed and named by the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot in the 1970’s. They are more closely related to geometry, rather than samplings of personal belief patterns, but they fit my purpose beautifully so I use them.

My point is this: If you had just two types of fractals
• a set sequence of true-life examples of your individual past accomplishments
• a set sequence of the exact same gut exhilaration you experienced when you first performed each of the successful activities you had examined above

I have discovered that if those two things are brought together in a tight time- frame of a few short hours then an interesting reaction happens inside anyone who does it. An authentic body feeling will present itself as irrefutable proof that you have had success in the past, and therefore, have enormous potential for attaining it in the future.

To overcome the problem of believing in something that is far too large to comprehend has been my life’s work up to this point. I now have turned the theory into reality and only need a few of you to test it.

Please leave a comment below if you’re willing to give it a try.

More power to you.

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Mobius Monday Minute – May 9 , 2011

I subscribe to a design blog and they send me updates like a lot of blogs do. The latest one contained a quote someone sent in from broadcaster Ira Glass. Ira won the much coveted Edward R. Murrow Award in 2009. He’s a very accomplished writer and radio personality. Been doing it since he was just nineteen years old.

Know what he said about his beginnings in radio? He said that he took the longest time to reach a level of mastery in doing interviews and stories on radio then anyone he knows. He says that getting through the beginning time can take years of working through the frustration with your own crappy output. It tries to be good but it’s just not. He says that’s where most loose it. They quit because they are convinced that they will never ever see success.

I know what he’s talking about.

I’ve just had another birthday blow by and I’m still trying to refine my message about mindset immunity and the fact that I have the tool that can allow anyone, in 24 hours or less, to see and feel the huge ocean of potential that exists within them. And when they use this tool they can create amazing levels of self-belief.

When attempting to do something new it becomes a creative work no matter what field you work in. There is a lot of failure to contend with.

In another email I got this week Ishita Gupta was interviewing Steven Pressfield on his new book “Do The Work“. In it Pressfield related a story about Picasso:

“There’s a famous story of Picasso after he had finished about 24 paintings for his next show. He invited his agent or his manager to his studio to look at the paintings and as Picasso was looking at them with his manager, he started to hate them. He grabbed a painting knife and started slashing the paintings. The manager absolutely freaked out and said, “NO, NO, NO!” but Picasso kept slashing until they were all ruined. Then he went back to the drawing board.”

That’s the kind of craziness that happens with our own self-assessment. It’s punishing to be a creative or a leader of any kind.

If I was going to quit I should have done it 20 years ago. But I didn’t and now I can’t. There is just too much at stake. Too many lives to help make better, richer, more fulfilling.

Besides, it worked for Ira so it’ll work for me.

It’ll work for you too. Hang in there.

More power to you.

PS; Let me know what you think about the challenge of trying to put together something brand new. Leave me your thoughts in the comment area below. If you’d like to get alerted on new blog posts  you can subscribe by clicking here.

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Famous Quotivations # 14 – February 18 , 2011

The most important thing you can have is an unbridled belief in yourself. This one thing will fuel your personal vision of the future like nothing else can. It will be a vision that is so real that it is not a question of weather or not it is going to come to fruition but only when.

But, given this truth, there is one fly in the ointment. Belief, any belief, is established in one of two ways: through argument or through hard evidence. If you go out and attempt to build self-belief by investing in the argument method only it might not be sticky enough to pull you up the life’s incline.

Better you should seek an authentic burning eternally-fired energy-backed belief based on the hard evidence that you’ve been successful before.

The key can be found in your success history. Locate that and you at least stand a fair chance no matter what the current circumstances look like.

Charlie was a child performer and had lots of ups and downs.

But he must have been keenly aware that those times when he persevered would create memories of real victories that he could draw on later.

Must have worked because he did go on to gain many honors. Playwright George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin “the only genius to come out of the movie industry.”

It’s Friday. Consider yourself “Quotivated”!

PS: If self belief is something you’d like to have in abundance then check out my free webinar on Tuesday night at 6PM Pacific. To get a notification go here.

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Famous Quotivations # 9 – Jan 28 , 2011

“I couldn’t wait for success so I went ahead without it.” -Jonathan Winters

Do you have a wait problem?

Know what I’ve noticed over the years?

A lot of us have wait problems.

No, I’m not talking about the heavy kind of weight. To be sure, obesity is certainly reaching critical mass here in Canada and in the US, but what I’m talking about is a problem that has gripped almost all of us no matter what the size label says.

The wait problem I’m talking about is metered by the pendulum not the tape measure and it’s probably more virulent than you would think. In fact the number one reason for highway deaths each year is speeding in an attempt to beat the clock.

So, why are we going so fast? We can’t wait to get to where we’re going.

See the wait problem?

We can’t stand to wait for anything so we surround ourselves with things that deliver quickly. Microwave ovens, email, rapid transit, TV and internet with high-speed cable, and, of course, pizza.

Clearly, we hate waiting. We want stuff and we want it now.

Instant gratification has become the new normal. Too bad our immune system, the one that looks after our thinking not the one that takes care of our body, hasn’t kept up to this speed increase. It’s been a mindset immunity massacre.

As a result all the old methods of personal development, the ones that were authored way back in the 30′s and 40′s, don’t work near as well as they once did.

One of the most devastating effects of this bias for all things instant is when it comes to success.  When a new entrepreneur doesn’t see their dream unfolding quick enough it tends to kill their motivation to carry on. They loose the ability to muster enough passion and persistence to keep running the business efficiently and learn from their mistakes over the long haul.

Studies show that, on average, fifty percent of all start-ups fail during the all-important first five years of being in business. Same for relationships (What’s that? You refuse to make me happy every single day? I’m outta here!)

Sure, you shouldn’t wait for success to happen but don’t quit trying new things to make it happen. Consistently working every day toward the end goal is key to getting through the dreaded timeline of the learning curve.

It could well be that success in anything is always going to be further than you think. But what if the reward of knowing that you could do it on your own is worth the wait?

It’s Friday. Consider your self quotivated.

PS: Is this about you?  Do you have a wait problem? Is success running away from you? Maybe you should check out my new “Mindset Immunity Explained webinar happening every Tuesday at 6PM pacific. You can learn more by going to www.Mobiusman.com/webinar

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Tying a knot when you're at the end of it might be key to hanging on

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”  -Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Quotivation Day #3  November 26, 2010

Today’s quotivation  is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30,  1882 – April 12, 1945 also known by his initials, FDR) was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war

His message re-iterates the long standing dictum that all motivators promote: Don’t you quit!

The one thing that get’s people to a place where they make the decision to give up is, not really so much about how tough it is, but the length of time that must be endured between the starting point and the successful finish point.

The sad truth is none of us like unending pain. We’ll do anything to avoid it. In fact, one thing that researchers know about humans is that we are not all that rational when it comes to what discomforts us.  We actually hate to lose more than we like to gain and that is a factor that kills a lot of new entrepreneurs from continuing to pursue their dream of financial and  time independence as well as personal autonomy.

Of course the entire personal development industry is dedicated to correcting this problem. But they are just about out of rope themselves. That’s because over the last 100 years the message “don’t you give up” has been so over-repeated that it’s lost most of its ardor.

As usual the old 80/20 rule applies. Only 20 percent can ever get to the point where they overcome enough to actually call it a real success the other 80 percent are left hanging.

But I like working with the end-of-the-ropers. For one thing they have usually come to the point where they have rejected a lot of the extraneous BS that is so common in the personal development industry.

All I have to do then is deliver real truth for a change. Not some wordy truth but a gut-based strength type truth that they can both feel and see as well. A truth that’s tied firmly to the one single enduring attribute that guarantees that we finish what we start every time: PERSISTENCE.

So… if you’re nearing the end of your rope here’s how you can tie a big knot in it and find the key to surviving over time.

More power to you my friend.

PS: If you’d like to learn more about how to make your mindset more resilient to difficulties that lay ahead check this out these free videos.

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The Mobius Monday Minute - This is the first of a new series of posts that will appear every Monday about motivation, personal development, and mindset immunity.

Photo: Morguefile.com

Today I want to talk about one of the biggest mindset stumbling blocks many of us will ever encounter. It’s all embodied in one little three-letter question: HOW?

This question may look tiny on a page but in real life it can pack a wallop of intimidation. Everything from a small crack to a huge canyon.

The difference in dimension is determined by the addition of the kinds of words we use after the word “how …?”.

Example: How can I …? (fill in the problem)  How do I …? (Fill in the area of missing information) How could you …? (Fill in the situation)

The thing is with a three letter question like “How?” is that it looks benign but in fact can be wonderful or it can be woeful.

On a good day it can force inquiry by badgering us for answers.  That’s great exercise in the short term but often none of those answers will be available immediately and the search can quickly escalate into a pile of hard work to satisfy that need to know.

And that takes motivation and drive that sometimes must be sustained for years on end.  All the while that “HOW?” questing keeps eating on us chewing up our motivation and nullifying our drive. It’s that kind of demand for dedicated effort that weeds out a lot of us from ever feasting at the table of success.

The only reason it didn’t stop me cold was because I had made a discovery that, through its very nature, forced me to keep going. It had an astounding effect on my resilience and determination.  I knew absolutely that I had to find a way to cogently describe its cause. I felt that the world needed to know.

That has kept me very future oriented even when small victories seemed far off.

Of course not everyone is going to be able to maintain their motivation over the long haul that’s a given. Success rates in anything are always consistently low.

That’s because this little question with the three letters in it can morph into an excuse to stop altogether.  “I didn’t do it because… I didn’t know how; “… to get the funding; “…to find the tools I needed” “… to talk with the right people.” – just fill in the blanks with your particular situation.

I’ve personally used at least one of those a time or two and, believe me, it is a road to nowhere.

When I first became familiar with the how? question years ago it was when I started to talk about human motivation in the context of explaining the workings of the human thought process.

I’d been using a three-step model that began with the word “thought” and ended with the word “action”.  In between those words was that little question but you wouldn’t recognize it because in this case it was using an alias.

Here it’s called the “analysis”.  It’s an appropriate word though because the word “analysis” means “breaking down” or” taking apart” and that is precisely what it does to our self- motivation.

It is the embodiment of the dangers of the “How?”  We don’t just get stuck in it we get stopped by it.

In my model I use the three stages of an idea as it progresses through the thought process: Thought – Analysis – Action. Can you guess where the most stress comes from?

If you said right in the middle you’d be right on. That is the most toxic of any of the three stages. It’s the ingredient of the destructive force of the three-letter question: “How?”

So, if you find yourself wandering in the land of the “How?” take your exit as soon as you can or use it to push yourself to new discoveries about yourself. Get into some action – any action – and you’ll soon meet with abundant satisfaction and contentment just from learning by doing.

Hey, even if you’re answers are wrong you’ll be better off then stuck in the mire of the three-letter question.

Then, if you want,  you can become a teacher and show others the right path by asking them: – “Anyone here need to know how?”

More power to you my friend.

PS: Have you noticed that a lot of personal development methods no longer pack the punch they once did? Could be the times. I went ahead and invented this simple little brain tweak that makes a huge difference in leveraging your efforts for creating a better version of yourself. Want more? Check out my FREE webinar here.

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