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What Do You Want?

by David

“The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” – Ben Stein

To truly know what you want is not an easy question to answer correctly. Henry Ford once said that, in the beginning, if he had ever asked his prospects what they wanted they would have said “a faster horse”.

To know what you truly want is often tricky but it’s worth the effort to seek out an answer because it can reveal what you’re truly passionate about. That can set the path for how your entire life unfolds.

In my own experience my dad comes to mind. While just a teenager he saw a family member greatly relieved from excruciating pain by an osteopathic physician and he immediately knew what he wanted to do with his life from then on. After a successful 35-plus year career helping thousands of his patients get relief from pain he retired as doctor of osteopathy. Only one of two in our entire city.

He was one of the lucky ones.

Many wander through time “sheep-walking” as business blogger Seth Godin calls it, and never making the decision to end the cycle of getting a job, staying at it for a while, growing tired of it, then landing another, and then repeating. All the while never quite hitting that high note. Only to one day get past the point of no return. Always missing that point of critical realization and now too late to make a difference. Too late to ever know the answer to “What do I want?”.

I think that, like my dad, in a way I was one of the lucky ones too. I knew I wanted to become an entrepreneur. But I wanted to find something new and then offer it to the world. I did actually find something but, of course, I just never knew that it would take me to the age of retirement before I could finally see it being accomplished in any real degree of scale.

But now that it’s coming to fruition it’s my passion and my hope that it helps deliver many people to a place where a new self belief can thrive so that the great question is finally answered for them before too much time has passed.

That’s why I’m soon launching my next new project. I’m calling it “Human Potential 2.0”. It’s being positioned to re-tool what has become known as traditional self-help or personal growth. The original model, which began 100 years ago, was to help us realize our own human potential. But over the years it has lost it’s power to effect useful and lasting change that matters.

I intend to fix that by reassigning our focus to more authentic intrinsic elements. To foster a fundamental change that I’m convinced must come about in order to make better choices in how we view ourselves.

For example the fantastic but widely under-reported bio-medical discovery, now almost 20 years ago, that confirmed the fact that humans are dual-brained – one in the head which can think but not feel and a lesser known one in the gut that doesn’t think but feels everything.

With this project we’ll begin with another great quote, this time from Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Most of this instruction is not too difficult to grasp. The “Do what you can… where you are” parts are no great mystery. Most of us know how to work hard and most should know who they are. The tough part begs another great question…

What is it that you really have?

Answering that is in essence what Human Potential 2.0 is all about. Because if we can answer that question in a way that resonates with our own thinking/feeling dual-brained personage then that will lead us to refine what it means to know what our passion is. And knowing your true passion leads to a tremendous sense of hope for the future.

Watch this space for my upcoming posts on this subject and the accompanying video series that follows.

More power to you.

Getting down on the up-stuff fluff.

by David

Man standing on directional arrows pointing in three different ways — Has self-help lost it’s way?

It’s starting to show up.

The problem with people trying to help you with your mindset issues (other than giving the vaguest advice possible), is they fill your head with “one-liners”… things like…

“Repetition is the mother of skill!” — Tony Robbins

“Fall down 7 times, get up 8 times!” — Ancient Chinese proverb

“80% of life is just showing up!” — Woody Allen
And those things are helpful once or twice, but I know way too many people who have all the sayings
memorized, but they don’t follow them…

– Quote from a major internet marketer’s recent email.

I’ve waited a long time hoping to see it burst to the surface but now maybe it’s beginning to. Is traditional self-help loosing some of it’s footing?

For as long as I can recall, over the last three decades, no more than a handful have confided their true doubts in the lasting benefits offered by the self-helpers. I’ve been looking for people for years who might be open to admitting that, for the most part, they’re fed up with those who market personal development that costs a bundle but goes nowhere. Maybe now, because the stresses are so high, some brave and even well-known marketers (like the one I quoted above) are starting to call a spade a spade.

Napoleon Hill, for example, in all of his writings, talks about the importance of persistence and determination as being critical for success. But he never nailed it. Never actually told anyone what or where or how to locate these critical energy drives that are known to cause success in almost anything.

I’ve departed from the motivational conversations long ago. I don’t even see it as “motivational” any more since that is such a head-based thing. But these are not “head-based” energies. Persistence and determination are “gut-based” energies. I see it as much more advantageous to be more “immune-full” rather than “mindful”.

That’s because I’ve discovered something that I call “mindset immunity” and I believe it’s more descriptive of what we need now than what more advice and lame feel-good sayings might deliver. It’s a system of healing from failure the degree of which mirrors what the physical immune system does for the body. Timely and automatically.

It’s not naturally quick though. Fact is, in most people, mindset immunity it’s so slow and subtle you’d think it’s not even there at all. That’s why so few get to be hugely successful, at least financially, then the other 98% of us. Yet most do recover from defeat and a host of other emotionally-charged life events all by themselves without any outside help.

The time-worn methods of self help, personal development, positive thinking, (whatever you want to call it) is finally beginning to hit the glass wall. Not everyone can be fooled all of the time now and they’re beginning to put a voice to that thorn in their side.

I knew it would happen but didn’t think it would be so long coming. Of course I see that we have some super-critical types out there. Nego-commentators in this field are a rarity and I sometimes see them as good for entertainment value but not much else. They typically provide arguments that wildly spear the credibility of the famous – and some not-so-famous – self-help leaders but fail to provide workable alternatives to what’s being offered. I find them interesting but overly-radical although they do have a point when it comes to telling it like it is concerning all the hype coming of the numerous self-help promotional machines.

I recognize that people everywhere are in trouble. They are looking for something real. I myself have in conversations not been kind to the self-helpers – that’s true. I’ll admit to that. But at least I do usually finish up by explaining what it is exactly that’s wrong with their approach (hint: what they’re offering is almost always a “cocktail” mix of already old worn-out head-brain methods that they spin together so they can then call it their own… but don’t get me started on that now okay?)

I always try to turn it around and offer something to replace the broken methodologies that they’re desperately trying to work into their hapless lives. I tell them that the biggest problem is that they’re placing the cart-before-the-horse. The energy of natural motivation comes from something bursting out from the gut area that then causes a success to happen. Not getting all hyped-up on someone’s story of achievement and then tying to duplicate that same success for yourself.

Sorry. It’s not attractive but it’s true. You need to fail and sometimes often before you’ll ever see success. And the timeline can be long. That’s just the way it is.

I was not one of those early achievers myself and good thing I wasn’t. Without as much failure as I’ve had over the years I don’t think I would have discovered anything as significant a game-changer as an immune system that takes care of failure effects if I’d been in the class with the high-rollers. I needed something myself so I was forced to examine the unexplainable. It was critical in order to continue down a difficult, seemingly endless road. It’s a road that I’d not recommend to anyone without a tolerance for frustration or a lac of endurance to be sure.

That’s why I ended up building something that’s natural, organic, and is a part of what people are already truly made of. Persistence and determination are very personal. I have mine and you have yours.

All my new innovation does is help you to root out the core source of it so that it’s more manifest, more visceral, and even more visible. It re-defines us by making us aware of a strength we didn’t think we had. Thus re-making our own self-belief more real, more believable, and absolutely non-negotiable.

It re-aligns the shape of the new self-belief you could soon have in yourself. I’m just hoping that more and more strangely self-confident people with immune-powered mindsets soon break to the surface.

We need more like that to help us move on.

More power to you my friend.

PS: I’m still looking for more people who may be starting to feel that their personal development journey is not as good as advertised. If you’re one of those I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment in the box below or connect with me on Skype: “DavidtheMobiusman”. Make sure you mention this post or I won’t recognize you.

Skill Of The Creative

by David

The simple paperclip can be a doorway to a creative moment

The ultimate skill of the truly creative person is their ability to survive change no matter how varied it may be.

Acquiring and then expertly utilizing already structured knowledge is the attribute of the very learned.

The creative person is uniquely interested in newness.

That, coupled with a passion for what they do, fires a gut-drive infused with persistence that sustains a vision that never changes.

It’s different than a dream.

It makes the timeline from start to finish, even if it’s very long (and it often is), seem more bearable.

Even when it looks like failure is following failure yet again this drive wins out because it won’t let them give up easily.

Another word for a creative person like that is “entrepreneur”.

In the 1920’s, and for many years after, Napoleon Hill interviewed one hundred and twenty-five of the most financially successful men of his day.

Know what he discovered? The top two attributes for their success was their persistence and determination. Not intelligence or connections. Too bad Hill himself never nailed down exactly what the nature of persistence and determination was and how to get more of it into your life. He instead got wrapped up in laws and lists of principals. More head brain work for you to do.

All that is a far cry from finally finding out what exactly it is that allows some to survive long periods of discomfort and to maintain a motivation through it all. For creatives who want to ‘make it’ on their own terms it’s as essential as air.

More power to you.

Quotius #10

by David

There’s a thing I often like to point out about belief. It’s the fact that it can only be developed two ways:

1) Through blind faith, which is usually based on a compelling argument, or

2) Based on some sort of tactile hard evidence.

This forms the basis of an observation.

There are two types of people in the world: There are those who can believe in something without actually seeing it and there are those who need hard evidence of its existence before the investment of their belief is forced out of them.

As today’s world shifts more and more towards the cynical belief in anything not proven with absoluteness seems increasingly rare. Yet it still exists. It exists for one reason. People require some semblance of hope just to carry on. They seek it everywhere. It’s as essential as the air we breathe.

As a student of entrepreneurship I know that things must be created and shipped even though they may not be perfected. Tweaks can be made latter. “Run it up the flag pole and see who salutes it” as the great copywriter Gary Halbert once said. That kind of productivity is scary. It can lead to many failures. But it can also lead to successes too. You just need to have the gumption to proceed.

Consider the mobius and how it elegantly demonstrates the duality principal yet again.

Belief, in its usual form, looks a lot like just another’s personal perspective and indeed it is. But, on the other hand, if you can get some sort of hard evidence then consider that a bonus.

It can disperse the strength of resistance and make the road forward more attainable.

More power to you.

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

Quotius # 11

by David

Science without art is sterile. Art without science is absurd. – Leonardo DaVinci.

I like this quote because, as an artist, I’m a realist too. But my self-confidence became a bit battered in my high school days since science proved not to be my long suit.

Same with math.

I found that stuff just a bit too “scientific”. That’s probably why, after my second attempt at passing grade nine, I dumped the regular courses for a stint at a school that taught the basics of a trades-type career. Besides, they bribed me to go there offering me passage into grade ten if I took them up on it. It was an all boys school and I didn’t fancy that. But, I grit my teeth and went ahead with it anyway.

Turns out I was pretty good at working with my hands and my confidence went up a notch or two. Although that wasn’t saying much.

It was an interesting experiment but, truth be told, it still didn’t push that many of my buttons. I didn’t see myself becoming a professional welder, an electrician, or a machinist. (Although later in life I could have used those skills a time or two.)

I preferred the Leonardo model.

That special blend of artistic invention with scientific grounding was way more appealing. Too bad I was about 500 years too late to learn from him personally but, then again, my languages teacher was French not Italian. I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Eventually I got through high school by opting into a special art course. It was an important move and the timing was right. It was my second attempt at grade ten. (They made me yet another a deal I couldn’t refuse.)

It was also a return to a co-ed school and that I believed was necessary given the importance of feminine sensitivity into the whole artistic thing. I much enjoyed my time there. Leonardo would have made the same choice I think. A school of all boys and great art/science doesn’t even sound possible to me personnaly.

Besides, my teenage biological clock was ticking. I didn’t want to be in my mid-twenties and still be working my way through grade 12 high school classes.

Of course I did eventually graduate and went on to a design school in a new start-up community college about five hours driving time from my home. I chose that one because I loved the idea of designing shape and form then making it useful in a commercial world.

It was my kind of thing. I love newness especially when the newness is my idea. Or so I thought. But alas, I’ve since come to understand that most “new” ideas are simply some sort of modification of another’s brilliance. That was another confidence killer right there.

But eventually I discovered there is such a thing as pure newness. In my own nomenclature here atop this website I’m not borrowing on Leonardo but from an obscure mathematician who lived some 150 years ago. His name was August Ferdinand Mobius

He was the one credited with the invention of the Mobius Strip, which in my humble opinion was totally new, and is the greatest metaphor for duality/singularity I have ever seen. I use it often to demonstrate how my own invention can save anyone’s self-confidence from going too far down the pipe. It’s what I used to save my own confidence from disappearing.

It also fits the essence of what I’m trying to demo with these little videos too. It shows how a literary device like the palindrome can work with the art of shape.

It’s a two-for-one offer of insight goodness. Who could refuse that?

More power to you.