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.

Shooting the Head Negs

by David

Does replacing negative thoughts work? Check out my new web shows and find out. — Does shooting the negative thoughts then replacing them with positive ones work as well as we’re told?

Lot’s of important stuff happens in our brain that screams for attention. But what tops them all is pain and misery. Could another brain help fix negativity?

For years I’ve been watching how those who claim to assist and train others in being better and to become more successful and I’ve noticed something. There’s one main thing that they all love to suggest to everyone: They always advise us to shoot the negative thoughts and replace them with more positive ones.

While I can’t disagree with the main core of that approach entirely I do have trouble with the methodology.

It is true that negative thoughts might cause us to under-perform so I’m not against doing something to eradicate them. But the coaches, motivational speakers, and psychologists all sing in the choir of the method known as “thought replacement”.

It works like this: You identify your negative thoughts and then replace those thoughts with positive ones. Now, on the surface that sounds pretty simple. Something anyone can do. But wait, there is a problem and here’s what it is: It’s a ton of impossible work.

Research has shown that the average human processes thousands of thoughts per day. That’s a lot of thoughts. Not only that but the experts estimate that of those thoughts about 70 percent of them, on average, are considered negative.

Hmmm.

So let’s see then. Let’s say have about 50,000 thoughts per day and 70 percent of them are negative then that’s a boatload of effort to replace all that. Not to mention the fact that as you are busy replacing those thoughts new thoughts are constantly being formed and 70 percent of those are quite possibly going to be negative as well.

If looking at it this way begins to give you negative thoughts about this article then I can’t blame you one bit. But read on, because I’ve got a workaround for this dilemma.

Seeing as the task of trading in all those negative thoughts for positive ones is virtually a never-ending one, at least the way that the great personal development gurus are teaching it, I think it’s time for something completely different.

To give this a new shocking perspective I’m going to have to introduce something that many of you have not heard of before.

First though I have to make one key observation. All of the advice that pertains to thought replacement is what I call bead-based. What I mean by that is that the focus is on the brain that’s in the head.

Of course, I do understand why they place such a lot of interest there. Thoughts, either positive or negative ones, appear to be made in the head so it makes sense to make this brain the prime site of repair. It’s well understood that the good old head brain is what people are thinking of when they talk about brains in general anyway. But what if it you were shown that your head brain has a partner brain you’ve not been made aware of yet?

Sounds like a weird thing to say, I know, but the fact of the matter is… it’s true, you have a second brain in your body.

In 1996 a cell biologist Dr Michael Gershon announced to the world through an article in the New York Times that he had found evidence that there is a crude brain in the gut of every human and it can, and does, act on its own.

For you this should be big news. It sure was to me since I had been using a new system of my own design to boost a person’s potential and to buffer the effects of negative thinking automatically since the 1990’s. Until I learned of this breakthrough discovery I didn’t know myself exactly why I was getting the results I was seeing. This system, what I playfully call ‘Brain Balming‘, I now realize depends on the release of the hidden steady energy available in the gut brain that soothes the upper-brain creating an elegant dual relationship between the two. (In fact, I’m working on a new book about this right now so stay tuned.)

There’s just one more thing you need to know. This strange gut energy that’s sending it’s steadying power northward to the head brain is not a physical thing it’s ethereal. But even so it’s powerful enough to render results that last and it’s all natural.

So why waste time trying to do the impossible (and the un-natural)? Just learn to use your gut brain as a buffer to your head brain’s suffering.

More power to you

ROI Shift

by David

ROI sign

Seth Godin’s post on his blog this morning talks about how Kraft Singles has “the normal … the regular kind” market in it’s particular field sewed up.

“That slot is taken” he says.

Anyone trying to break into that market is going to fail unless it can make what it offers so compelling that it moves the entire market center toward itself and away from the previous “normal”.

In looking at this it made me see that he is probably right even in a market that includes personal development (PD) products that are aimed at developing the positive aspects of thinking. In fact I’ve long felt that this industry (PD) is ready for a big shakeup. The “normal” kind of stuff that’s being offered has become so ubiquitous that its effects are now wearing thin.

It’s become too normal to work against the kinds of problems facing so many of us these days.

With my launch of the Mobius Effect the focus will be away from head-based “therapies”. It’s going to be a shift. I’m not going to be offering the usual staple that this industry is so known for: forced acquiring of repetitive old-hat information and head-brain stuffing.

Instead, we’re going to move the center of gravity towards the most natural thing in the world – something I call Mindset Immunity. The delivery of a fractal of a pattern of potential in you that is so large it wouldn’t otherwise fit into your head-brain alone. Need to draw in the gut brain too.

The effect will be an instantaneous recurring and generous ROI – Return On Immunity. This will give those in the market for personal betterment a clear choice for the first time in a long time. ROI: Return On Information-stuffing or ROI: Return On Immunity.

One jams you up the other offers freeness.

More Power to you.

Taking Care of Your rent

by David

Mobius Monday Minute

# 12 – Feb 14 , 2011 [display_podcast]

A rent is another word for a tear or rip in a fabric — Photo: Morgufile

Are you taking care of your rent?

No, not the stuff you’re compelled to fork out every month to your money-grubbing landlord. Not that rent.

I’m talking about the “tear” in your motivational fabric every time you have one of those events we all call a ‘failure’.

Of course I’m playing with words here because, in case you didn’t get the mildly insane insinuation, a “rent” is another word for “tear”. But this is not meant to be a lesson in etymology.

No, not at all. It’s a comment about what happens to our mindset after we experience something that we tried and that didn’t quite make the grade. The “f” word is of course almost always a reflection of how we judge our past actions that didn’t render the result we had in mind. It’s really nothing else.

Upon closer inspection we can even get some good learning juice out of it if we dare to look for it. He wasn’t alone in this but a guy by the name of (all things) Samuel Smiles the author of the classic 1882 book SELF HELP once said:

“It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.”

Now, those 33 words alone may not help you completely recover from the battering you gave yourself after the fact, but at least you should feel a little bit better knowing that many others have ventured down this dark road before you.

I suppose that there is one thing I should add to this tidbit of information here. It’s this: The hurt you feel when bad things happen is like a bruise on an apple. Except being in the thinking it’s not a physical bruise like one in the meat. It’s an emotional or an ethereal one. These typically take way more time to mend. Maybe that’s why your mother may have advised: Sleep on it. It’ll look better in the morning.

Sure mom.

I don’t know about you but after a day of blowing it big time I never could sleep it off. It wasn’t till years later when I came upon the concept of mindset immunity something that took me down another interesting rabbit-hole, the understanding of which, has since become a huge part of my life’s work. Once I realized that there appears to be another immune system that does for the thinking what the other one does for the body I was hooked.

Makes a nice bookend for the fact that humans have two sets of brains – one that thinks but doesn’t feel, and one that feels but is not designed to think much at all.

This is sort the kind of things I like talking about on this blog. So if you have any questions or comments I’d love to see them. Just put whatever you’d like to say in the box below.

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.