To Change Or Not To Change?

To know the answer all you have to do is look for changes in you. Has there been a change in your thinking; in your life style? If yes, then you have grown and if not, then you have been stagnant!

Amazingly everyone seems to be averse to change. However there is no progress without change and no change without progress. Everywhere you look in nature, change seems to be fueling the circle of life. Some changes are natural, some acquired; some are desirable while others are not.

In humans, change and progress are the result of ‘Learning’. No, learning does not stop with school and as someone rightly said, ‘Life is the biggest school and we are all students”! It is this education that we should all be concerned about.

Biggest & Most Valuable Lesson

What has been the greatest or most valuable lesson you have learned in life? Some may say, “Never trust anyone” because they may have been hurt in the past. Others may say, “Money is the most important thing in life; if you have money you have everything”. Each one of us will have different answers as a result of different experiences.

However, these are not lessons but are our response to things that happened to us. The biggest and most valuable lesson that we need to learn is:

“You reap what you sow”

· You sow ‘charity’ you reap a life of abundance and satisfaction.

· You sow ‘happiness’ you reap a life full of joy.

· You sow ‘peace’ you reap a life surrounded by friends and well wishers.

If one can learn this Lesson and put it to practice, he or she can chart the course of their life just as they wish.

There are a number of popular “Self Help” books out there that deal with “personality types”. They list a number of categories and state that everyone fits neatly into one of them. People seem to eat this stuff up. They look through the descriptions and find one that seems to fit them perfectly. “Wow,” they’ll say, “that’s describes me exactly!” The book will usually say that by knowing your type, you’ll understand why you think and react the way you do.

This may help some people to a certain point. For instance, someone may know that they often have extreme or inappropriate reactions, but don’t understand why. When they’re told that this behavior is typical of their “type”, they feel some sense of relief. Instead of believing they’re just a weak or bad person, they see that it’s not their fault. They also see that they’re not alone, which brings some comfort.

Feeling negative about yourself is never a good thing, so if this helps to move you from a place of self-loathing it can be helpful. But there some real risks involved with this kind of thinking.

First of all, it can provide an excuse for not making positive changes. I’ve heard people say, “I can’t help thinking or reacting this way – I’m a such-and-such type, so I have no choice.” They believe that because they are a “type”, their thoughts and feelings are out of their control. They make the decision that they have no choice but to “go along for the ride”. By the way, this goes for zodiacs as well.

Additionally, in line with the law of attraction, when you focus on ‘being a certain way’ you’ll attract the situations that bring about you ‘being a certain way’. A good friend of mine used to always curse people out and say, “Well, that’s the Aries in me…I can’t help it…” So, guess what, she’d always attract people that did things to get cursed out. (Though there really isn’t anything that serious that you “need” to curse someone out…but you get my point)

Turning control of your life over to other forces or people can sometimes feel comforting. You might feel relief from the pressure involved in making decisions and accepting responsibility. This can feel like freedom, but it’s a very superficial freedom. It’s really more like deciding to put yourself in prison.

Your power as a human being comes from being able to create yourself and your reality. You should desire to become the person you ideally want to be, not the person that the universe “determined” you must be. The universe wants you to expand your horizons and use your full potential, not limit yourself. The universe is created by you imagining what you desire and then acting to make that desire a reality. Your potential for growth has no limits, except for the limits you impose on yourself.

The personality “type” that you are now is a result of past beliefs. You may say, “But when I look at my past, I can see that I have always been this way. This is obviously who I really am.” That pattern of thought may have been there for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t change. It remains a pattern because you reinforce it and give it power.

Maybe this has been your life story so far, but you have the power to tell a different story. You can’t change the past, but you can determine everything that will happen from this point on. Decide what you want to be like in the future – which starts NOW! Start telling that story to yourself. Focus all of your attention on the next chapter of your life. The universe will always support your desires.

Practical Application

Just because you’re a “ESTJ” or a “Libra” or a “Red” or a “Bear” – you can ALWAYS choose to be the person you want to be. Use the knowledge of your “personality type” as an empowerment tool, not a crutch

He has a full time job and wanted to quit, but didn’t want to give up the income.

The company he works for was going through some changes and he was about to be temporarily laid-off and would possibly be re-hired after the company’s restructuring.

A couple days ago, his boss gave him rather strange proposal. They would lay him off at 50% salary for 3 months or work in another department at 75% of his current salary.

He was outraged.

So much so that he got into a shouting match with is boss…getting promptly fired and sent home.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

So now he’s unemployed and has NO income versus 50% of his income.

So, what happened here?

His desire of wanting to start his business showed up as an opportunity to get 50% of his income, staying at home building his new business.

But in his frustration, he missed a great opportunity.

On a side note (there is no real “missed” opportunity…things can come anyway possible) Of course he can still do anything he wants.

My point?

Here’s a ‘golden’ opportunity, 3 months to start a business with income to live on and support the business – exactly what he “asked” for, but was “missed” because he wasn’t listening (allowing) what he asked for.

This is really easy to do when we have our own conversations going on in our heads.

It’s important to quiet ourselves to ‘hear’ the answers to the things we ask for.

Practical Application

Listen for the ‘answers’ you’re asking for. Spend some ‘quiet time’ everyday to listen. This helps you ‘put up your radar’ and see the opportunities that may support your desires.

I remember my father teaching me a very important lesson about driving. He said “It’s good to be right, it does you no good to be dead right.” He made this comment explaining to me the importance of recognizing and managing other people’s ignorance for the sake of your well-being.

An illustration of this would be the seemingly “confusing” nature of a four-way stop. The law in most states dictates that when two or more people arrive at a 4-way stop simultaneously, the person to the right has the right-of-way to go first.

However, in our hasty world, (and due to raw and unadulterated ignorance) some people don’t adhere to this. What ends up happening is, the person who’s in the most hurry usually goes first.

Now, imagine you’re the person to the right and you know that you have the right of way. However, you notice the guy with the music playing loud or the woman blabbing on her cell phone is not paying attention and they decide to go.

You have one or two choices.

You could go anyway (knowing you have the right of way) and potentially have an accident or wait.

Because you had the right-of-way, you would not be penalized if an incident occurred…but now you have the frustration of having your car repaired, going to court, proving your innocence, etc.

Instead, you recognize (and manage) other people’s ignorance by allowing them to go first and crash into each other. This is an example of choosing not being “dead right”.

My father was telling me to never put your life in jeopardy for the sake of someone else’s ignorance.

Today, I ran across a scenario that, in my opinion, takes campaigning for mediocrity to a whole other level…almost just choosing to be stupid.

I was on the way home from a meting and I stopped by a gas station. I noticed a car stopped in the turning lane, next to the entrance to a 55 MPH highway. My initial thought was this person has to be having car trouble (because no one in their right minds would park in entrance lane to a highway…I ran over to help.

As I started getting closer to the car, I noticed they didn’t have the hazard lights on and saw an older gentleman in the car fidgeting around with something on the seat. So in order to not startle him, I approached from the front of the car, just kind of tapped on the hood, and I asked the guy was he okay? He said ‘Yes’ and was looking at me like I was crazy.

Initially, I was going to let it go, but I noticed that there was a young child in the back seat, so, I said to him, “It may not be safe for you to be parked right here, in the entrance lane to the highway.”

He looks at me and says “Well, I’m not bothering anyone, so the big deal? ….besides, people should be able to see me sitting here.”

I said “Well, yes, but you’re parked on a highway, and this may not be the safest place to park…”

So the gentleman looks at me, looks in is rear view mirror, then physically turns his body around and says “Well, they should be able to clearly see me and go around me.”

I stood there in amazement that someone would park their car in the street, (with no hazard lights on) and when someone considerate enough to attempt to help them in this situation, go to the point of almost making me wrong for trying to help out.

Geez

So, before I could get back to my car, I hear a horn blowing, and a crash.

In the 15 seconds that it took me to walk back to my car, someone sideswipes the guy, ripping off his driver’s side mirror.

I can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. I can’t force my opinion on anyone else. But, things like this just push me to the point of just saying “screw it”.

He chose to be “dead right”. Instead of just moving to a safer place, he chose to argue with me about why he thinks it’s safe to park and gets his mirror ripped off. Thank goodness it was only the mirror…it could have been a lot worse.

Practical Application
As in the Campaigning For Mediocrity post, this is an opportunity for us to stop as ask, “What I’m I holding on (and fighting for) that isn’t serving me.

Choose to do something different.

Geez,

Having experienced the things I have in the past, gunfire outside your window was never a good thing.

Oh…silly me.

It’s New Years eve. A day where it’s apparently “okay” to shoot guns into the air. (It’s still illegal, but no one gets arrested for it)

2 questions:

1. Are people THAT excited about New Year’s that they get the urge to shoot guns? I’m imagining this conversation, “5,4,3,2…1 … HAPPY NEW YEAR’S!! Hey, I think I want to shoot a gun.”

2. Where do the bullets go? I’m imagining that based on this “wild ‘n wacky” concept called the Law Of Gravity (ya know…what goes up, must come down?), the bullets have to come down somewhere.

Does anyone think about stuff like this?

Hmmm.

Oh well… for what it’s worth…Happy New Year’s.

BANG BANG

Apparently this hotel doesn’t allow smoking and a woman who made reservations didn’t know this.

So as she was checking in, she asked for a smoking room and the woman behind the desk informed her that they didn’t have smoking rooms.

The woman says the following,

“Are you f-ing kidding me?!? What’s wrong with you people?!? I can’t smoke anywhere in this God forsaken state!”

The woman behind the desk replies, (very courteously) “Georgia has banned smoking in restaurants, but individual hotels have the option of offering smoking rooms, we’ve chosen not to…I’m sorry about that ma’am.”

The customer asks the woman, “Are all hotels this dumb?” Then goes into this tirade about how preposterous it is that she can’t smoke where she pleases and how she’s ‘outraged’ and will go to another hotel… bla, bla, bla.

WOW

This scene would have been funny other than the fact that I realized what this woman was actually doing – fighting for the right to kill herself.

If you’ve wanted another example of people Campaigning For Mediocrity… here it is.

I could understand if the hotel didn’t allow kids or something…but smoking? Is smoking (slowly killing yourself) that important to you?

I’ve never been a smoker and never will be… so I’ll never understand this addiction. But to cuss-out an innocent person and storm out of the hotel the way the woman did, you’d think she was addicted to crack.

I don’t get it

After she left, the people standing around the front desk were dumbfounded. I threw in my 2 cents… “Well, another alternative is to just stop smoking!”

Exit…stage left…gut busting laughter.

So, I admit…I’m an addict.

I’m addicted to what I do for a living…speaking, coaching, business and marketing.

I just ran across a file I use to store all my domain information.

I own over 300 websites.

A couple of years ago I had over 500, but in 2006 I decided to “cut back” to 200…but now, within a year’s time, I’m up 100 again…to over 300 now.

Why do I have so many domains?

I’m addicted to the ideas behind buying them.

For example, I was sitting here one day I had an idea about how to calculate how much a person would need to earn per hour to make their target income for a year…based on the number of hours they wanted to work… (http://www.howmuchperhour.com)

I grabbed a domain name, put the site up in about an hour and told 4 friends about it…three weeks later the site was getting 5-10 visitors per day. That’s not “a lot” of traffic, but it’s a whole lot for doing NO promotion at all. The site is making me about $50 per month with no work, so it ‘seems like it’s worth it’.

The only problem is that making money from the site is feeding the addiction.

A couple weeks ago, I went to shoot some pool… no harm there right?

Well, I noticed the pool tables were a little dirty and my mind instantly went into developing the idea of creating self-cleaning cue balls. I went in to thinking about what the balls would have to be coated with to clean the table but also keep the integrity of a standard cue ball to not negatively impact play of the game. I even started thinking of the marketing slogans and how to sell the cue balls. I thought a good name would be “Clean Shoot” or “Clean Play”… or something like that.

Now, before you ask, “Antonio… so, what’s the problem?” I’m not implying that there is any problem per se. However, based on the definition of addict, it appears I am addicted to coming up with (and acting on) business ideas.

On the surface this could be a great thing, but I can’t seem to turn it off. As the definition says, I feel I’m psychologically dependent on this activity.

I don’t label this as a “bad” thing…and I don’t compare myself to an alcoholic or drug addict. However, I do feel it can lead to life disruption.
For instance: alcohol by itself isn’t a “bad thing…neither is marijuana…it’s the addiction to these things that causes problems in most people’s lives.

So, what I’m doing now is determining what impact this addiction is having on my life to see what adjustments I may need to make.

Yes, it’s very fortunate that my ‘addiction’ makes me money instead of causing me to spend it…but addiction to ANYTHING needs to be monitored.

A client of mine discovered that she’s addicted to pain (emotional). She causes hurt for herself in almost every way possible…men choices, job choices, etc… so now she’s able to see that she is the cause of her suffering, not the people and things around her.

I asked her if she could do anything she wanted to do all day, what would it be? After a lot of cajoling and wrestling, she finally admitted that she likes sewing, traveling, creating things with her hands and a few other (personal) things that I won’t mention here.

I asked her why she was working in the profession she was and she said, “I thought that I was supposed to be doing this”. She went on to say that she thought work was supposed to hard, boring, burdensome, etc… If she was having too much fun, then she was ‘doing something bad’.

WOW

We discovered that the ‘addiction’ to pain and suffering was ‘taught’ to her by her mother. Her mom drilled into her head that “life isn’t easy” and “if you’re not working hard (and suffering) then you’re lazy and “not worthy” of anything.

So, she believed that and over the years, she became addicted to pain to the point that she (subconsciously, but purposefully) found pain to inflict on herself. She took jobs she KNEW she would hate, she dated guys she KNEW were horrible… but she couldn’t figure out why she was doing that until now.

What addictions do you have in your life?

They may be obvious…or you may have to dig deep to find them.

Find out how they’re impacting your life and decide if you want to continue with the addiction or make the change in your life. Though we sometimes don’t feel like it is…but addiction IS a choice. We choose that thing to give our power to.

If you don’t want it to have power over you anymore, CHOOSE THAT

Practical Application

Things to ask yourself about potential ‘addictions’ in your life:

Why am I doing this? (In my case I have to ask: Is this inspired action or addicted behavior?)

Do I want to be doing this or do I feel like I have to

Is this getting me closer to my life goals?

These few questions will let you know if you’re dealing with some type of addiction or not. Then you can CHOOSE what you want for your life.

Helpful tip: Find a friend you can count on to help you in your process.

Note: This post is not intended to substitute professional medical help. If you’re suffering from an addiction, please consider an addiction hotline or other professional help.

Well, I’m here to tell you that the “truth” NEVER hurts…the truth only heals.

There are only two circumstances where the truth “appears” to hurt:

1) Not accepting of the truth for what it is.

2) Your conversation about the truth.

Here’s an example of when the truth can seem to hurt by not accepting it for what it is:

You’re in a loving relationship…you’ve found the person you want to be with more than anyone you’ve ever been with. The relationship is going great, then the person tells you that they want to be with someone else.

Can that hurt? Possibly…

On the surface level, it doesn’t feel good. However, when take a step back and look at it from a broader perspective. Is it better to know that the person you’re with wants to be with someone else or would you rather them go out and be with someone else (without you knowing)?

When you know the truth about something, you can deal with the situation for what it is. In this instance, you can make adjustments in your relationship or decide to end it if you feel that’s the best option.

Another scenario when the truth seems to hurt is when we make up dis-empowering conversations about the truth. For example, using the same relationship scenario:

Your mate says: “I want to be with someone else”

Your conversation about it:

“I’m not good enough
“I’m such a loser”
“I’m not pretty enough”
“I’ll never be happy”
“I should have never gotten that close to someone”
“What’s wrong with me”
This totally thwarts your ability to deal with the ‘truth’ from a rational place.

I’m not suggesting that you become a robot and not experience emotions. I’m suggesting that you look for the ‘truth’ in situations to deal with them more powerfully.

Knowing the truth in a situation is ALWAYS better than not. [tag]Accepting the truth[/tag] for what it is may not feel great at the time, but the understanding allows you to make decisions on what it so… not what you don’t know about.

But then hours…sometimes DAYS go by and it hits me like a Mac Truck.

A few weeks ago, I read a really interesting post by Catherine Franz about how to see “want” isn’t true. Initially, I thought the blog title was misspelled, so I overlooked it and didn’t “get it”.

But, I was driving down the street the other day and the it really hit me.

I can’t really can’t explain the point here…because you won’t be able to “get it”. Like I did. Take a look at it and let me know your thoughts…it should only take you about 5 mins to read… and no, you don’t have to read 300 words per minute

I’m just left Philly, doing a business mastermind session and I was told on a couple of occasions that, I was acting “uncharacteristically aggressive”.

One person even went as far as saying, “If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t know you weren’t from Philly.

Hmm…uncharacteristically aggressive… in other words: “mean”.

That was funny to me…because a few days prior, I was caught saying, “The people here are really mean…even wen they’re being nice to each other, they’re being mean.”

I said this as a result of an incident I had in Philly:

I was in a car where the driver was letting a person cross the street…the driver told the guy to cross, then the guy told the driver to go…eventually, they got into a shouting match about who should pass first. Geez

The very same day, I was in a funeral procession and the person in the car with me nearly got into a fist fight with another driver because they almost cut us off (reminder: this was during a funeral)

Of course “people in Philly” aren’t mean… that was just my limited perception at the time.

However, it made me think about a conversation I had a few weeks ago about how people from the North East (New York, Jersey, Philly, etc) seem to be more “aggressive” that people in the South.

Disclaimer: If you’re from the NE, please don’t get mad at me…because the conversation was actually started by a guy from NY who said, “Why are people in Georgia so nice? It’s really weird, and freaking me out.” Go figure, “nice” freaks someone out.

So, in the conversation we were talking about what factors impact the makeup of a city, a community and ultimately the individual. We talked about the weather, the politics, the income per capita, etc. Even one woman talked about the energy of the Earth in those areas.

Whatever the reason, the one common theme is that people allow themselves to be influenced. (going back to my favorite word – choice).

They’re choosing to be influenced.

This is one of the reasons why most smokers’ children are smokers; abusers’ children are abusers, etc.

No one HAS to act like their parents, no one HAS to behave like their neighbors… it’s a choice.

Though sometimes we have to adjust ourselves to ‘fit into’ situations…meaning: you probably don’t talk to your friends like you talk to your mother …and vice-versa… we can still choose to be who we are.

After recognizing how ‘aggressive’ I was being, I chose not to continue acting that way because it wasn’t serving me.

Practical Application

Take some time to identify what areas you’re allowing your environment to influence you.

Ask yourself why you’re doing it. Is this how you “really” want to act? Is this getting you closer to your life goals?

CHOOSE to be YOU…not your parents or neighbors