A short story for you guys, from Timothy Ferris’s “The Four-Hour Work Week”:

An American business man took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boar were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of the fish.

“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.

“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and “I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.

“But… What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing , and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you bould buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, the distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will all this take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years. 25 tops.”

“But what then, senor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fisihing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Hey everybody,

Along with my passion for hypnosis, another thing I have been getting into lately is Affiliate Marketing. I really love business and working for myself (I don’t have a dayjob) so this is another outlet for me to be able to combine my interests and make things happen in a real way.

Now recently I have realized what I really love about the affiliate marketing space, and it’s that they have High Expectations for results. When you listen to interviews that are done of successful affiliate marketers, they don’t start off by telling you how they made their first few dollars. Instead they tell how they went from zero to $10,000 a month, and what it took to get there. 10k a month is not even a big amount in that industry. You’re still just a regular player at that stage.

And they always measure their income in PER MONTH, or PER DAY. Most people who I talk to, if I asked them what their income is, they’d tell me, “I earn $xx,xxx per year”  and it’s usually a fixed amount and they can’t get any more than that… but the high-level affiliate marketers think in terms of the month, the week, or the day. That’s the level at which their business is growing, because they might double their income in the next month and that is perfectly normal for them.

It seems like new guys are emerging all the time who have gotten past the initial hurdles and who, only a couple months into it, are earning a 6-figure or 7-figure income. One of my friends talks about how he went from being miles-high in debt to earning 100k in just under a year. And he works for himself, at home.

So as you can imagine, I’m very inspired by all of this, and I’ve been taking a lot of action to make it happen for myself because I really enjoy almost everything about the industry. In fact after my seminar in Hawaii from Oct 16th-20th, the next thing is I’m going up to New York in November (the 4th-6th) for Ad:Tech if anyone wants to meet up. It’s an affiliate marketing convention which is going to be a lot of fun.

Anyway, getting to the point, I just read a great post by a guy who set his mind on a goal and ended up manifesting a Mac Book Pro out of it by winning an affiliate contest. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because most of the people I talk to about Law of Attraction think that it’s all about “positive thinking” and just wishing something will happen and then it does.  But that’s not it.  What he emphasizes in this post is that you have to Take Massive Action to get where you want to be, and that’s what I really love about it.

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because as an entrepreneur, I know very well the connection between IDEAS being transformed into REALITY.  Not too long ago, Josh Houghton and myself decided we were going to start releasing hypnosis products. We started out with just an idea, but slowly and surely we put it together and made it happen. Now we have a GREAT $300 course that we’re both very proud of, because we took action and we did what was necessary to manifest this idea into the world.

Does that sound like something you would like to do?  Read this post, by Paul Piotrowski:

How I Manifested A Mac Book Pro For Free

I now have… count ‘em… SIX white boards mounted in my house.

Two big 3′x4′ white boards, one medium one, and 3 small ones.

Frankly, I’m running out of things to write on them.

I have a white board for “to get” things (groceries, etc)… I have a white board for my action items, I have a white board for planning, I have a white board for calendar dates…

The two big ones have various things on them at different times.

It’s a regular activity for me to erase them regularly – generally I’ll brainstorm a LOT, and after the board gets filled, I’ll either write or type the contents of the whiteboard, or I’ll take a picture of any diagrams that I can then have on my computer.

In addition, I have right now about 4-5 different notepads on my desk, along with a wire-mesh container holding about 20 pencils and pens, scissors and highlighters. I also have a container for paperclips.

More than that, I have 2 different files (an expandable file, and a hangable folder file), and a comprehensive set of binders.

I have 5 different “desk trays” in two different rooms.

To say I have put in a lot of time into being organized is an understatement.

The thing is, I really like being organized. It improves my productivity a LOT. But, I am not by personality an organized type of person. I’m just trying really hard

What have you done in your life to become more organized?

Time Boxing by pokerwithoutcards

Time boxing is the act of sectioning off a particular amount of time for an activity.

One way it can be used is to stop procrastination and move into action.

In other words if you tell yourself, “I am only going to spend 30 minutes on this project,” you might spend more than 30, but the promise that you have permission from yourself to quit after that time is very reassuring. It gets you to take action.

The other way it can be used is to control how your working. I forgot what the “law” is called, but essentially there’s a doctrine that states that a task inflates itself to the amount of time allocated to it.

That means if you act as if you have unlimited time for a particular task, you will spend a long time on details that perhaps does not impact the final result that much if at all.

If, instead, you allocate a certain amount of time, you will do ONLY those things that are necessary to move it into completion.

Example:

“I want to clean up my house”

Problems: Too big chunk, unspecified, looks/sounds/feels like a big task.

Solutions:

a) Chunk down. “I will clean off this desk, that desk, and this other thing.”

GET SPECIFIC. Get as specific as you need to be. If it appears overwhelming, keep chunking down and do a few steps at a time.

You can solve any goal by simply taking it a few steps at a time. The biggest challenge in anything that you have to do is to GET STARTED and take action. Make a plan, and then LAUNCH immediately.

b) Time box. “I will spend only an hour today cleaning up the kitchen. If I get the kitchen clean before then, I get to stop. If I’m still working in the kitchen after an hour has passed, I get to stop.”

By setting up rules for how you will do it, you actually DO something towards the task, and you relieve yourself from any guilt.

Use these things in your life, and you will be successful.

Taking Action by Exiled

Hey Everyone,

When most people think of personal development we think about self help tapes, Tony Robbins, motivational speakers and so on. The reason is most of those things mentioned all have something to do with the field of personal development.

We spend thousands of dollars and invest our time into changing our lives for the better. We got to these events and reads the books learning new techniques, new ways of thinking and taking notice of how we are feeling.

The Personal Development field is one of the biggest money makers in the world. Millions of tapes, books and speakers are providing their message. The truth is most of these people are successful and have followed certain blueprints that lead to them being successful.

Other times the person is only successful because he is a really good con artist, but hey the con artist was smart enough to think of the idea in the first place.

Okay, back to the meat of this post.

We go to these events and we get pumped up and ready for massive change. In other cases, we ready the books and listen to the tapes and reflect upon our lives while listening. Once we finish we know things are going to be different. We know our lives can never be the same.

Then when we fast forward a few months into the future these same people are in the same place they were before or worst. Why? Why spend the amount of time, energy and money for these products yet some people never even finish the tape set. Why?

Why would people spend so much money and time and then not change anything about their lives. These people have received great information, but how come most people never become successful or become rich?

Is it because this information doesn’t work or is it because you got ripped off. One could say these things but I tend to think thats not the problem at all. Remember, knowledge and information isn’t power. Someone once said Knowledge and information is nothing more then unorganized information.

For some reason people tend to think all you have to do is gain some new information and success is bound. Well thinking positive may be better than thinking negative, but if you just sit on your butt and hope you may never see success.

So what is the difference between those who make the information work and those who don’t. Its really quite simple and its how I’ve done pretty well for myself. Its nothing more than two simple words, which are “Taking Action”.

I know some of you are like I already know that, well if you do how come your not where you want to be. Gaining information is just the first step, the second step is to act upon this information and take action. You must take action every single day to reach your goals.

Some people tend to think you must make massive amounts of action and that’s not the case. Just a little step each day in the right direction and you will get there. Some people tend to take action for a few days and then stop when life starts to get hard.

The real winners are the ones who take small steps in the right direction with each step getting you closure and closure. Some people who want to get in better shape try to make it a habit to get on the treadmill everyday for 30 min when they never stepped on one in their life.

So instead of doing 30 min every day why not just get on for 5 to 10 min and get your body and mind used to the idea.

In realitiy, nothing can get done without taking action. It all starts with a idea, but without action a idea is nothing more then just a idea. So gather information, know what you want and just take action.

Now this doesn’t mean everything will be perfect in your life, but how can you get down the road if you don’t leave the house. Personally it is the people who move toward what they want and take action that seem to be the ones who can say this self improvement tape worked for me or Tony Robbins changed my life.

We can’t blame them for supplying the information and then when it doesn’t work blame them because we didn’t take action. So once again TAKE ACTION and move toward change. Once again this is just my opinion and we all know there are many ways that lead to the same road.

REPLY by pokerwithoutcards:

It took me probably 20 times hearing my good friends say this to me before I got it. They kept saying, “Take action, bro, you need to stop thinking and do things.”

And now I understand the value of it. Most people only contemplate and they do a bunch of future predicting about how it’s going to turn out.

Felix Dennis says in his book “How to Get Rich” (he is a multi-millionaire) that ideas hardly even matter if the follow-through is good. In other words you could have a shitty idea with great follow-through and make it work, but..

EVEN THE BEST IDEA IN THE WORLD WILL NOT WORK IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW THROUGH ON IT.

Oscar and I had an idea for a coaching program. Are we at the “ideal” place in our business? Of course not – we always want to be bigger and better.

Are we MUCH farther ahead and better off for taking action and LAUNCHING? Yes. And we’ve had a TON of fun in the process and we’ve met a lot of great people.

If you read, listen to, or watch enough self improvement stuff, you will hear this point over and over again. You MUST take action and -do- something.

Yes, it won’t be perfect at first. It’s just bound to happen.

Now I can stand up in front of a room and, with true authority tell people what works and what doesn’t. Theory-based knowledge is great for mental stimulation, but useless in the real world.

Thanks for the post, Josh. Great topic.

From what I have seen, most people do personal development or self-improvement only when it’s convenient. They do it only when they’re “on the money” and then when they aren’t feeling like it, they slip back into their own habits.

“Adults seem to want to learn everything at once. This approach will not work.” – Milton H. Erickson

It is said that we all teach what we most need to learn, and for this one, I need to learn it too. It’s a continual lesson for me. My guess is it’s a lesson for all of you too – can you stick to your goals when you are tired, cold, hungry,  and sick?

I think to myself, what would some elite military guy like a Navy SEAL do in this situation? They don’t know failure. They literally don’t consider stopping. They just keep going until they’re dead.

When I was doing martial arts hardcore, this is one of the lessons I learned – you don’t stop until it’s time to stop. Maybe you’re doing pushups and you can’t do another pushup – that’s fine but you need to keep working at that next one until you get it.

If you’re like most people, you don’t stop to think about why you are here and what you’re doing. You just go through your life, a mysterious combination of motivations and loyalties and drives and desires.

We’re all here on this planet (RIP Pluto) and we all have these things we want to achieve. What are your top 3 goals? For most people it’s a health goal, a wealth goal, and a relationships goal. In order to achieve these goals we have to do certain things and we have to do them consistently.

What stops us all from having our goals? Chiefly among them is our desire for consistency and comfort within ourselves; if we change then we might become inconsistent and we certainly will experience some (temporary) discomfort.

As a hypnotist I’m taught that the reason people don’t stick to their goals longterm is that they rely on “willpower” which is kind of like mental adrenaline – it gives you a burst in the moment but doesn’t last over time. To truly change our goals, I’m taught, we need to change the underlying subconscious programming that is there.

Is this accurate? I don’t know. It’s certainly just a model and all models have their limitations. I’m beginning to doubt it. Because this “habit change” process is a HUGE part of solving people’s problems. If we can get people to change a habit, then we are very much on the way to success.

Thoughts? I know I haven’t spelled out the answer to this one, but I’m still figuring it out myself. Maybe that’s the best place to be in the cycle

Here are some things I do to ensure I stick to my goals:

1. Think about your goals all of the time. Wake up and think about them. Think about them drinking your coffee. Think about them driving. Print out your goals on a piece of paper and take them with you wherever you go. Whenever you have a spare minute, review them and mentally imagine them being successfully completed. Dream up just how good you want it to be and then follow through.
2. Make lists. One of the things I fill out every night is a plan for the next day which has blocks available for scheduling activities and contacts, along with the major objectives that I want to achieve.  By filling it out the night before, it both clarifies the goal and programs your brain to think about it while you are sleeping.  Once you wake up you will be ready to get into action immediately. This is a very helpful practice.
3. Journaling. Start to use a journal on a daily basis. And have specific things that you journal about, make it structured. Most people journal like “Well I had a good day today and X Y and Z happened.” It’s better to journal in terms of your goals. Have a structure and stick to it. Ask yourself how well you’re doing on your goals, every day. Where in your time line to get your goal are you?
4. Routines. Get in a routine of doing personal development every day. It’s the most important part of your day. Personally I prefer very early in the morning (like 6am) but some people work also well at night. If you can do it at night and stick to it, then fine. Otherwise schedule it when you know you’ll follow through.
5. Map out your goal completely and continue to map it out as you go. Review the goal constantly and update it. This is easy for guys who for example have a weight training schedule, you’re always moving up in how much you can handle. It’s continuous. Do that with all of your goals.
6. Time trials. Steve Pavlina recommends doing 30-day trials in which you adopt a behavior pattern for only 30 days. This is a great approach that represents chunking down and time blocking.
7. Organize as much as you can. It’s possible that it’s just me, but I feel much more motivated when I know exactly where everything is and what is going to happen. To give you an idea, right now I have a stackable inbox in my office on 4 different shelves; I have a filing cabinet and an expandable folder. I use Appigo’s ToDo app for my iPhone to schedule everything I need to do (”next action items”) and I have a calendar on there of what I expect to have happen.

   I also have a tickler file, a bunch of virtual documents, and different notebooks filled with information and things to remember about the most important subjects. My organizational system has developed over years of practice, so you don’t have to start like I am all at once. Gradually build it up and get a workable system. That’s what you want to develop.

8. Think long-term. Have a running list of the things you want to accomplish this week, this month, and this year. Most people only do daily planners, but how can you possibly make a plan for your day without knowing what you ultimately want to achieve? Make long-term goals and review them. Review your monthly goals once a week, and your weekly goals once a day. Make a routine out of it and you will be solid.
9. Clean off your desk constantly and consistently. I don’t know about you but my desk is clean for about 30 minutes. Develop the habit of continuing to clean it. Before you leave the office or go to bed, clean off your tables and desks. When you return you’ll be more inclined for productivity because you can work easier.
10. Put reminders of your goal everywhere. If you work at a computer, put a note on your computer monitor. If you have a bathroom, put your goals right where you can look at them when you have nothing else to do. Hold a copy of your goals with you at all times.
11. Use time blocking. If you hesitate even slightly about starting on a new project, give yourself only five minutes to start it. When you know that you will only have to work for five minutes in order to make some progress, it becomes much more likely that you will follow through. It’s important to train yourself to just get started on whatever it is. Ask the question, “What is the very next physical or mental action that needs to happen on this for me to get completion?”
12. Take action. Your subconscious mind only believes what you put into action. Conscious mind chatter is going on all the time and while you might think that your thoughts are important, there is a part of you that only believes what you actually do.  When you put your ideas into action, you make it much more likely that you will stick to them. There’s a big difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. If you aren’t in action, you don’t know it. You might understand it, but you don’t know it.

In summary, use what works for you. I’ve found that sticking to your goals requires some discipline and stiff upper lip, but it also requires flexibility.

The main thing to remember is to persist through your hurdles and keep going even when you think it’s not working and you are getting no external rewards. Most people quit when they are right of the doorstep of achieving their goals. Persistence in the face of adversity is the sign of a master. Being persistent yet flexible is not easy but it will teach you life lessons that are as important as the goal itself. If you follow my suggestions, you’ll find that your goals are getting met faster and with more clarity.

I have a friend who is very interested in hypnosis but she doesn’t know where to begin. She says she doesn’t have enough information and nobody to practice on.What is the problem here? I seem to have almost too much information. I have many books that I haven’t read, and every time I go out is an opportunity to practice. As a result, I have become one of the best hypnotists in my area.

But most people don’t know how to get there. They have no idea where to start, and they aren’t aware of how to conquer their initial anxiety.

Here are some ideas:

1. Read as many hypnosis and NLP blogs and mailing lists as possible. This will keep you up to date. Did you know that Steve Andreas has a mailing list? Go find out who else’s mailing list you can get on. A lot of times these things are free and have incredible amounts of information in them.
2. Go buy books on hypnosis. “Trancework” by Yapko, “Uncommon Therapy” by Jay Haley, “My Voice Will Go With You” by Sidney Rosen., “Mind Lines” by Michael Hall and “Sleight of Mouth” by Robert Dilts. I’m just reciting these off the top of my head, if you don’t know these titles then you aren’t in the game.
3. Practice self-hypnosis. It is important that you learn what the hypnotic state feels like. Here is a secret: All good hypnotists go into trance when they are hypnotizing someone. Personally I go into a very focused, concentrated and powerful state.
4. Once you have a routine that you can go through to hypnotize someone like the Tranced Out Modified Elman Induction, go out and practice. Hypnotize your roommate’s girlfriend. She’ll love you for it, he’ll be pissed but will be nice to you because he thinks that’s what she wants. It’s a win/win.
5. Practice your language patterns EVERY DAY. Go get a couple decks of the Salad Ltd Hypnosis Cards. While you remember to remember what hasn’t happened with your awareness of your feet inside the shoe, you can forget to notice what could not have happened with the lint between your toes? And if you haven’t yet noticed or won’t become aware of yet the breathing pattern slowing, until I want you to, then you might not be aware of just how deep of a trance you’re developing, are you not?
6. Become a master of influence. Pretend it so real that it becomes true for you. Open your mind to being able to practice these things effectively.
7. Join practice groups like the Sleepwalkers organization. See if there is already a practice group in your area, and if there isn’t, start one. Find friends in your area who are interested in topics like social dynamics or hypnosis or nlp. Women tend to be more interested in hypnosis than men, so befriend one of them and she will let you practice your skills.

Have fun.

When you are imagining/visualizing your goals, most people make the mistake of seeing an image as if it were on a movie screen, so you are looking at it.

While that’s great for fantasy type stuff and it can perhaps be an intermediate step in adding in new resources, I believe it is most powerful when a person is fully associated into an experience. You should imagine it as if you are in the picture now.

When you are looking at it as if it were a movie, you have “gone meta” to the experience. Basically you are dissociated.

One of the keys is that we want to drive people back to the primary experiences. We want them to have real life experience, not to analyze real life inside of their own heads. The thought process is great for problem solving and analysis but it’s better to be able to shut it off.

Look down, there’s some change in your pocket!
 
I’m listening to a song called “Liquid Sovereignty” by Eyedea and Abilities. I suggest that you listen to it and understand the message.

 
The chorus is:

“Everyone wants to get out of the rain
Wants to be free, wants to see no more pain
We’re guaranteed that the seasons will change
‘Till then, I’m keeping sunshine on my brain”
 
… It’s almost metaphorical.
 

Our space in time here — our lives are made up of polarities. The polarity between the successful, motivated, grounded, and energized individual who drives life to the edge, and the person who never seems to get anything done despite a backdrop of tremendous opportunity.
 
These are the polarities between confidence and self-loathing; between acceptance and denial… and the sharp contrast between striving to be successful at everything, and automatically being successful at nothing, through stagnation and apathetic thought.

 
Where do -you- want to go?

 
And as you carry that around with you,
 
I wonder how quickly you could find yourself able to
 

Really decide RIGHT NOW whether you want to be average or extraordinary.

 
It is this type of decision that will shape your unconscious into the person that you are destined to be, so that you get all of the results and the rewards, and the intensity of life that you’ve been waiting for starts immediately.
 
I am painting you a clear picture so that you know that if you’re “sort of on the line kind of not really there,” you’re not gonna get it. Be pro-active and have your life turn out the way you want it to!
 
I know that some of you have clocks on the wall, things that tell time. Some of these clocks have these little second hands and if you’re like most people, YOU CAN IMAGINE NOW that with every tick of that clock,
 
that’s another second in which you’ve spent time contemplating what to do instead of taking massive action. Before you know it, that’ll be YET ANOTHER minute that you have probably spent wishing and hoping and wanting but not -getting- …
 
What do you truly want?

 
Lots of motivated people have had this feeling that ANY day now there will suddenly be a big explosion of creativity and genius and insight… And it’s true that eventually you will have that time where you decide to be bigger, better, greater…
 
But how many seconds or minutes, days or… YEARS will pass by before you realize that it’s time NOW?
 

Keep that clock in mind and do what it takes. You’ve but one life to give … to yourself, and to everyone who will be benefited from enjoying this new and improved you.
 
Take care of all of both of you,

Both the polarity who knows you can succeed,

And the energy to get there.