For those of you who have read my posts you probably know that I’m all about expanding the awareness of something I call “mindset immunity”. It may sound like a radical idea. Too strange even. Like the words don’t belong together. For me though, the term describes an essential process that explains a lot of things about what happens when humans create and use thoughts and that’s why I invented it.
motivation
The Physics of Motivation
It’s worth over seven billion dollars a year. Millions of us engage in its use every day.
But, for many of us it’s an unrealized waste of time.
I’m talking about the burgeoning self-help or self-development, or self-improvement industry. Whatever you call it that’s the one that’s got some of the biggest most recognizable names making huge profits from it.
Names like Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, Dr. Grey and let’s not forget Tony Robbins.
But there’s a serious flaw here and it boils down to simple physics: heat rises.
What’s that got to do with your practice of self-development techniques?
Plenty.
Belief in you
“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.” – Henry Ford
Belief is a powerful thing. It can define a life in either direction be it good or bad.
But belief is established two ways: via argument or hard evidence.
A really good argument could be made about the finding that fire burns. All sorts of facts could be brought to bear to reinforce the argument that if you put your finger near a lit match you’ll be burned by its heat.
Failure: Like the lemon tree.
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.
POll: How are you feeling today?
“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.