Viral Happiness

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Neither the woman or the old man were at all impressed with the fact that he was a shepherd. They were solitary individuals who no longer believed in things, and didn’t understand that shepherds become attached to their sheep. He knew everything about each member of his flock: he knew which ones were lame, which one was to give birth two months from now, and which were the laziest. He knew how to shear them and how to slaughter them. If he ever decided to leave them, they would suffer…

…Here I am, between my flock and my treasure, the boy thought. He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have.

from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

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Change  is hard.

The anticipation of change – a new job, a new home, a new challenge – can be exciting. Dreaming about it and planning for it can be fun. But the actual act of making that change is difficult.

In The Alchemist, Santiago has to choose between “something he had grown accustomed to and something that he wanted to have.” And, in order to grow, we have to do the same.

We are always thwarted by apparent comfort. For instance, when we are in a job that we dislike, at least it is a known entity. We may dislike the boss or the pay or the monotony, but at least it is a boss and pay and monotony we know.

I once knew a banker who had grown weary with banking. He was still a young man, so I asked him why he didn’t go ahead and make a change. He said that he was caught in golden handcuffs. He was very comfortable with the money, the position, and the prestige, and these ‘golden’ aspects of the job kept him ‘handcuffed’ to a profession that brought him little personal fulfillment.

He was trading the possibility of passion for the certainty of comfort.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Being comfortable is not a bad thing. The fact is, once you step out and commit to pursuing your passion, you will find a place that is more ‘comfortable’ than you could have imagined. The problem comes when we trade the possibility of true fulfillment for the assurance of easy sameness.

Pursuing this passion takes effort, and that’s where most people fail. They long for change; they dream of change. But they never do anything to change.

What do you want to be, do, or have?

What can you do to move closer to a life of passion?

What is the thing you are here to do, that thing that Coelho calls “your personal legend?”

In your heart, you know what gets you excited. You know what it is that you were meant to do.

Find that thing and vow to take a few small steps each day in the direction of your dreams.

Like Santiago, dare to look away from your “flock” and to move toward your “treasure.”

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it? A child’s question. And we should be well past such things.

But I am not past it. Here at the ripe middle age of 53, I’m still wondering.

So I ask myself, “Buz, what do you want to be when you grow up”

And the honest answer comes to me: “I’m still not quite sure.”

You see, I’m no guru. I’m a searcher, just like you. I’m on a quest…a lifelong quest.

Reading Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist, I have fallen in love with his phrase for it.

He calls it (what you want to be) your Personal Legend. I’ve been given glimpses into my Personal Legend. My quest has led me to work on Viral Happiness. It’s led to my writing two ebooks and filling notebooks with reams and reams of unpublished material.

But I long for my Legend to break forth into my psyche like a bright, guiding star. I want a beacon in my life. I long for clarity. Maybe you do, too.

One of the ways that I intend to encourage that breakthrough is to blog more and write more and (selectively) read more. Maybe you would like to join me.

You could start by reading The Alchemist. Offer a comment here or by email about your own personal journey. Let’s start a dialogue that may lead to a deeper realization of our Personal Legends.

Answering that question – What do you want to be when you grow up – is important business. Let’s start fresh giving it the time and effort it deserves.

We are imminently worth it.

It’s a New Year, and people are determined to change their lives.

They are convinced that 2010 will finally be the year that real and lasting change happens.

Many will try to change their diets or their activity levels or their work habits or their approach to relationships, and some will succeed in these new endeavors.

But the vast majority will fail.

Why?

Why will so many invest so much initial effort but never keep the pace that leads to real success?

The reason is simple and profound.

Those who fail try to change their actions without changing their thinking.

Everything in your life, for good or for ill, begins as a thought. If you want to be healthier, wealthier, wiser, and more loving in 2010, you need to change how you think. All of the physical activity and positive intentions will ultimately fail unless you first change your thoughts.

Would you like some help to get started with real change? Get a free copy of As A Man Thinketh: The Study Guide by filling in the form to the right of this post.  That’s a great way to start changing your thinking.

If you want a little something more, check out 7 Days Away From Powerfully Positive Living (a quick and simple jump-start to a better life) or Mastering Your Power of Release (an expanded version of my approach to changing your life with lots of extra information from ten other personal transformation teachers). Or do a little web research and find something else that will help you change the way you think.

Just know that real change begins in your thinking.

If you ignore that fact, you will fail.

When you embrace that fact, your success is inevitable.

I follow several Gurus just like you probably do.

Some are great, some are good, some are so-so.

I read their emails and watch their videos. Often,
I buy their products.

Lately, however, I’ve been feeling Guru overload.

It’s nothing serious, but I am trying to decide exactly
what to do about it.

I’m getting slightly bored with the ‘latest release,’
the ‘information I can’t live without,’ the ‘new
best thing.’

I’m not saying that these methods don’t work. Some do
and some don’t. Some have made huge differences in my life,
and some were throw-aways. But so much of it seems like the
same old stuff rehashed over and over and over.

Here are 3 questions for you.

1) Do you ever experience Guru Overload?

2) If you do, how do you handle it?

3) What kind of information do you most need that
you are not currently getting from Gurus?

I’d love to hear your answers.

Please share your thoughts in a comment below.

I am very interested in your answers. I want to gather and
share information that will really help us all, so please
share your ideas with me.

Thanks!
Buz

Sometimes, my life feels splintered.

Can you identify with that at all?

One travels through life, making progress upon progress, and then life pulls you in several directions at once. Family needs, business needs, community needs, personal needs – your singular vision falters and scatters into myriad directions.

And, instead of feeling whole, you feel splintered.

That’s the way I’ve been feeling for the past few days. Too many objects demanding my focus. And a focus splintered is weak focus.

You don’t make progress with weak focus.

“An organism at war with itself is doomed” Carl Sagan

When your focus is divided, it is almost as if you are at war with yourself. Your forces, instead of being gathered and pressing onward, are rushing in different directions, losing their momentum. Your progress is doomed.

So, we have identified the problem. What, then, is the solution?

Thought. Genuine, purposeful thought.

Whenever I begin to feel this type of mental weakness, I know that I have been ignoring my thinking time. And this case is no different.

I am making time for all sorts of activities, but not purposeful thought, prayer, and meditation.

I am serving others while ignoring myself. And, if that condition persists, I will soon have nothing to offer others.

Even though I blog and write ebooks and practice self development, I am not immune to forgetting that, as Steven Covey teaches in The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, I must “sharpen the saw.” It will not stay sharp with neglect.

Like beautiful orchids, we all need careful tending and feeding.

I need to feel whole.

I believe I’ll start thinking right now.

Tomorrow is 9-9-09. The symmetry & alliteration offer a moment of significance, a clear touchstone for planning and action.

And that special date offers you an opportunity to begin something special, something of real & lasting significance in your own life.

What have you been putting off?

What wonderful accomplishments are you planning when you say, “I’ll get around to it…someday.”

Well, friend, 9-9-09 could very well be that day.

I am using that particular date as my own personal touchstone, my own personal reference for some wonderful goals.

I have set specific goals to be reached in 2 months, in 6 months, in 8 months, & in 12 months…all dated from 9-9-09.

You may be thinking that this is nothing more than a gimmick…you may be saying that 9-9-09 holds no more significance than any other date. After all, they’re all just numbers on a calendar.

And, you know what? You would be absolutely correct.

There is nothing special about any date or any moment unless we make it so.

Allow me to repeat that, “…unless we make it so.”

There is nothing magic about a specific date. The key is in what we do. Success is always about what we do.

But couldn’t you use a little magic?

Why not conjure some now by using this unique date to start building something special in your life.

Use it as a springboard to greatness!

And when you have succeeded, when you have built that castle you know you deserve, when you have forged a golden link in the chain that is your life, when you are basking in the joy of your accomplishments, then you
can look back and say, “This seed of greatness was planted on 9-9-09.”

If you don’t do it now, when are you ever going to get around to it?

Today, I watched clouds.

I sat for an hour in my backyard, and stared up into the sky.

The clouds, full and white, drifted like majestic, shape-shifting islands across the deep blue of sky.

It was magnificent.

When I was young, I watched clouds. And I watched them again when my children were young. But I had not watched them with awareness in a long, long time – until today.

And that, I think, was the biggest gift…the gift of being aware.

We spend our time rushing through life, barely skimming the surface. We are caught up in a very narrow slice of this existence. We act as though so much of what we experience is ordinary, when, in actuality, our lives are miraculous.

Our perspective is mundane, not our journey.

We allow inanity to preoccupy our thinking: “Why is that jerk talking so loud on his cellphone? Is our landscaping as pretty as the neighbor’s? Why doesn’t my boss appreciate  me?” While underneath that surface, underneath everything we experience, there is a continuing miracle.

Try this. The next time you go shopping, make eye contact with the person at the checkout. See them as someone real, someone with the same hopes and dreams and feelings as you. Try understanding your coworkers. Spend time with your loved ones. Be open and loving and available. Don’t be guarded. Refuse to feel hurt. Let other people be themselves. Don’t judge them. Just be aware of them. Be aware of their hearts. Be aware of their souls. Don’t presuppose. Take heed of emotional needs. Give yourself away.

In your heart, you know you have an important part to play. The time has come for you to play it. Don’t be afraid. You are strong and wise, even when you feel weak and stupid. Be aware of your strength. Be aware of your wisdom. Be aware of the real you.

Just be aware.

Be aware that this creation is much more wonderful and complex than we can imagine. Be aware  of your own immensity. Be aware of the voice of God.

Turn off your TV, go outside, and watch the the clouds.

I know the exact moment that my mid-life crisis ended.

It ended when I realized that I wasn’t being the me that I really am. It ended when I realized that the weak, worried, struggling soul that I had seemingly become was not really me. So I simply decided to assume my true identity.

I had been improving for months, but that moment of perfect clarity and change happened in an instant. I became who I really am, a person I had been before, although now, this version was improved – this version was wiser.

I’ll tell you exactly what happened to spur my decision to finally say…”No More!”

It happened because of a bill.

Some company sent me a bill that, at first, made me say, “Crap! Another bill to pay. When will I ever get through paying these bills.” But, even as I stood looking at the bill and lamenting my fate, there came another thought…the thought that changed me and brought me back to my true identity. And it started with one word.

“NO!”

I had finally had enough of my personal victimhood. I had had enough of feeling like a loser. I had had enough of embracing a personae that was foreign to my true nature. And that’s when I began to win at life again, the minute I said “No” to a way of being that was not serving me.

All it took was a real decision to “be” who I wanted to be. When you change your “being,” your thinking must follow. When you change your thinking and resolve to take action, those actions are now the actions of the real you. They are positive, strong, loving, success actions.

If you make the decision to be a positive, strong, loving, and successful person, then those same actions and attitudes must follow.

Think about it this way: what makes a person loving? Loving thoughts and loving actions. So the way to be a loving person is to think and act with love. If you decide that you are a loving person, that love is a part of your true identity, then it must affect the way you think and act.

This may sound like circular reasoning, but it is the only way I know that works. Decide who you really are and then think and act in a way that is consistent with the kind of person you long to be and then you are that person.

That’s why I can boldly claim (as I did in my last blog post) that you are already the person you long to be because, if you long to be a certain way, that is proof that that is the real you. And the way you release the real you is to act and think in a way that is consistent with the real you.

If you want lasting change, the last few paragraphs are worth rereading and also worth your thoughtful contemplation.

If you need further insight, leave a comment or send an email, and I will  get back in touch with you.

Once I made the decision (and I will blog about decisions soon…you haven’t really made one if you don’t take action) to be who I really am, things began to change for me. Business improved and continues to improve. I ran for office and won. I feel more like myself than I ever have before.

I am convinced that when you make a conscious committed decision to take your proper place in the Universe, you flip a cosmic switch and your life begins to immediately change for the better.Consider this quote from Johann Wolfgang van Goethe.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

It’s time for you to cast of any hesitancy, weakness, and fear.

It’s time for you to make a committed decision to be who you really are.

(Please note:  this blog post is a continuation of my previous post, and this one will lead to another. If you haven’t read the past couple of posts, it might help to go back and read them. You can get good information from this post without doing so, but it will help you to know where I’ve come from and how I turned things around.)

Who are you?

We are so often stumped by that puzzling question. I know it stumped me, and I didn’t even realize that it WAS stumping me. I didn’t realize that I didn’t know who I really was.

So,  ask yourself…

Who is the REAL you?

In my last blog post, I told you that I changed my life by changing my thinking, and that is absolutely true. But, without delving a bit deeper, we just might miss the beginning point. We just might miss the true ground zero for change. We just might miss the center that creates the life changing thoughts.

And, to show you how to change your life at the speed of thought, we need to explore the very important question that begins this blog post.

Who are you?

Sadly enough, many never grasp the answer to this question. For many, it just seems so darned elusive.

But it’s not elusive when you know where to look.

And the place you look is in your heart.

Search your heart and tell me who you long to be. Search your dreams, your desires, your wishes. Who are you in your perfect daydream? Who are you in your secret, longing heart?

Here is the trick, but please read carefully, because it seems so simple; and I don’t want you to miss it.

Who you long to be is who you really are.

Stay with me for a minute; this concept may take just a moment to make sense.

Who you really want to be…that ‘fantasy you’ of your wildest dreams…that is who you really are.

During my mid-life crisis, I was indecisive…hesitant…worried, and I thought that was who I had become. I was not expecting the best. I had accepted a struggling lifestyle, and I was expecting hardship after hardship. But one day I realized that the way I was acting was not the real me. The real me was who I was in my dreams, that person who I aspired to be.

Does that make sense?

You are not some weak person struggling through life. That is not the real you. The you that you want to change is the you that years of improper instruction and erroneous influence has helped create. But that is NOT the person that you were born to be. That’s not who you really are.

You are longing to become something that you already are.

So the first step is to determine who you really are. I would suggest that you write a detailed description of the you that you long to be. Give specific details about your wishes and desires, what you long to do and where you’d love to live and what your life’s work should be. Detail desired  specifics about your relationships and list the qualities that  make up your dream personality.

Take a long look at the person you have described because that is the REAL you.

Once you determine who you really are, make decisions, take actions, and, most importantly, think thoughts consistent with that person.

That is where the change in thinking takes place. It begins with a change in being.

Just be who you really are.

(In my next post, the saga continues.)

It’s funny what gets to you sometimes.

I had just moved my family into a smaller home. My son’s girlfriend was visiting, and we were going to sit and watch TV. I had sold our sofa and could not afford to replace it. I had a couple of matching old armless easy chairs pushed together so it would seem kind of like  a sofa. There was one more (very uncomfortable) chair in the room. When we gathered in the den and she innocently asked, “Where do we all sit?” – I felt an empty pit in my stomach.

We didn’t have enough places to sit because I was a failure.

That was a few years ago, but it still hurts to remember.

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I’ve been putting off publishing this post.

I’ve written and rewritten it for three weeks, wondering exactly what to share with you.

Recalling this part of my story is difficult. But it’s an important part of my personal development, and, if you ever have to deal with some of these same issues,  this information may help.

So, even though I’m somewhat  hesitant to spill my guts, here goes…

Approximately six years ago, I had what I now lovingly call my mid-life crisis.

And, as I consider it now, I find that this ‘crisis’ boils down to two issues… actually these issues are opposite sides of the same coin: abundance and lack.

And it’s not just about money. This is much more involved than money…even though money plays a part.

But it is definitely about more than just my economic condition because I’ve learned that our perspective of either abundance or lack  colors everything in our experience. Every challenge is an exercise in what we seem to lack.

My mid-life challenge was no different.

This type of challenge can be sneaky, because, even as the crisis was occurring, I was fervently studying self development. So, if you are pursuing your own self development, and if you continue to be confronted by difficult challenges, trust me,  you are not alone.

I had to downsize a retail business that had grown steadily for years. I had assumed that it would continue to grow and expand, but it began to slow and contract. This was not only devastating to my bottom line; it was also devastating to my sense of self-worth.

At the risk of sounding sexist, men are often judged by how well they provide for their families, and my provision began to falter.

As I was being forced to downsize my business, I also sold our family  home of 15 years and moved to a smaller house. The economic pressure was substantial, and I was navigating foreign waters.

I had to borrow money. I had to confront difficult situations. I had to continue going through the motions.

During that time, it seemed that my days consisted of shifting from crisis to crisis, and, for a while, there was very little relief. There never seemed to be enough…enough money, enough opportunity, enough time.

I felt stuck.

And that’s where the true sense of lack occurs. When you feel as though you face a dearth of choices – when you decide that you simply have no choice, that’s when you find yourself drowning in a deep perspective of lack. It’s acutely painful.

Have you ever felt trapped like that?

Have you ever felt like there is no good choice available to you?

Have you ever felt defeated?

If you have, you’ve come to the right place, because that is exactly how I felt.

I simply did not know what to do next. And that. for me, was the crux of the crisis.

But one day, everything changed.

It changed because I finally remembered a simple technique that I had used in the past when I faced other challenges. It’s the same technique I used when my doctor suggested that I might be suffering from depression (I relate that story fully in Mastering Your Power of Release).

It’s the ONLY tool I know of that works every time, and I’m not  sure why I allowed myself to get to a very low point before I used it in this situation. Maybe I had not thought about using it during my crisis because it just seems so darned simple. And when I share it with you now, you may be tempted to say, “Wait a minute…that’s it?”

But I promise, if you will master this technique, you will be on your way to conquering any challenge quickly and easily.

I simply changed my thinking.

That’s the most concise way of putting it. I  changed my thoughts. I refused to entertain any thoughts of defeat. I began thinking winning thoughts. I recaptured success in my mind.

And it worked.

I believe that’s enough to share at this time. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but admitting my shortcomings in such a public forum has not been easy for me. I’m a private person, and I share this part of my story now in hopes that something I say may be of help to you.

In my next blog entry, which will be posted much quicker than this one was, I will tell you exactly how I did it, and exactly how that change in my thinking eventually led to my thinking sabbatical and to my 28 day transformation experiment and how this  all ties in to my recent election victory and my business turnaround.

That’s a lot to relate, and it may take a couple of posts to get it all in. But this is good stuff. And, if you need some success suggestions in your own life, this may help you.

And, hey, it’s free information. All you have to do is come by and read it and see if it somehow relates to your own experience.

If it does relate, great! If it doesn’t relate, all it’s cost you is a little time.

I’ll offer my next entry very soon.